Thread by @PatrickSiegman

Thanks to California’s new accessory dwelling unit (#ADU) laws, homeowners can help solve our housing shortage. It’s legal now.

But wait, there's more! In cities like #Pasadena, these same laws are making it easier and cheaper to build an addition.😃🧵
pasadenanow.com/main/council-c…

Under #Pasadena’s current code, “any addition to an existing residence…of over 150 square feet triggers a requirement to provide two covered spaces within a garage or carport.”

Left: addition legal!
Right: no asphalt, no addition...😢

Instead of managing the curb parking actually owned by the city, #Pasadena planners found it easier to force every homeowner spend tens of thousands of dollars pouring concrete & building garages.

Has this added to Pasadena’s historic charm?

California’s state #ADU law now “exempts #ADUs from the requirement to build covered parking altogether, and allows the use of driveways to satisfy off-street parking requirements.”

So, if #Pasadena left its code unchanged, “a homeowner would be able to build an #ADU of up to 1,200 square feet without any enclosed parking”, but “a 200 square-foot addition…would..need to provide two covered parking spaces at significant additional cost”

To their credit, #Pasadena city staff have “initiated a zoning code amendment ‘to eliminate the requirement for providing two covered parking spaces when constructing any addition, regardless of size, to an existing single family dwelling.’”

Every time we pass a state law that limits planners’ authority to impose costly minimum parking mandates on millions of individual homeowners, we help the planning profession grow.

#California planners are learning to manage curb parking now. That’s a good thing!