ADUs: Getting community support

Planning, developing and building an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) on one’s own property can be difficult—especially in these early days of creating small homes for aging.

But what if one’s hometown had one’s back every step of the way—providing information, planning help and financing options, all at the click of a website?

That is very nearly reality in Seattle, Washington, a town that has recently opened the doors to ADU development of all kinds. “We have the most progressive ADU legislation in the country” says Rick Mohler, an associate professor at the University of Washington and a member of the Seattle Planning Commission assigned to explore and encourage ADU development.

One result has been creation of a website called ADUniverse, which is designed to provide all the localized information a homeowner needs to determine the practicality and affordability of building an ADU, whether in the home or detached in the back yard. A visit to the website will enable the homeowner to select a design for the structure, explore local code requirements, review financing options and initiate construction.

Seattle’s approach to ADUs is also unusually flexible, not even requiring the ADU developer to live in the home or provide additional parking, as most such ordinances do.

Not surprisingly, none of this came about painlessly. “It was fought by various neighborhood groups of private homeowners,” says Mohler, “particularly on grounds of environmental and community quality of life. But other groups in the community strongly favored this. It was quite contentious for a year or so.”

What it seemed to come down to, Mohler says, is that “those who have the ready financing don’t favor it, and those who don’t have easy access to capital do.”

So far the “pro” forces have prevailed in Seattle, aided and abetted by strong mayoral support, while efforts to encourage ADUs statewide have persisted since 1993 but are advancing slowly. Seattle families who have pursued ADU development to date have seen the advantages of flexible occupancy—in some cases the homeowners live in the ADU and adult children and their families affordably occupy the family homes, Mohler notes.

Like so much of American society interrupted by Covid-19, the Seattle ADU movement has ground to a temporary halt and the ADUniverse website remains pending, although this could change soon.

For communities contemplating similar initiatives Mohler recommends connecting with the powerfully supportive activities of the AARP, particularly its Livable Communities program (see “AARP Pushes the ADU Solution” and “The ABCs of ADUs,” under this site’s ADU category), and educating and involving the local real estate community. An active real estate sector is, for example, a key ingredient in the ADU pioneering of Portland, Oregon (see “The View from the ADU Point Person” under the Kol Peterson category).

All in all, broadening community support will make exercising the small homes option for senior housing all the easier.