Rodents killed our hot tub not once, but twice. Plywood isn’t enough to protect it; they like the warmth. In retrospect, we should have wrapped the base in galvanized wire mesh, but the tub came with the house and we were too lazy to hoist it out of the ground for retrofitting. Anyhow, thanks to craigslist, at least it’s gone (the power of “free!”) Now we have 240 volts sitting there plus a hole in our deck. What next?
Density of course! Seattle City Council preaches DADUs, or Detached Accessory Dwelling Units. You can install them if you have the space, they can be up to 800 square feet, they only need setbacks of 5 feet from the property line, and they seem pretty ideal as a place to rent out. Our lot is well set up to not badly impact neighbors, so we had visions of some cute place like you see in Dwell magazine that could be installed in a week and then rented out.
Unfortunately for us, DADUs require structural permitting and architects and an off street parking allowance and electrical and plumbing inspections and heated air and heated water and so forth. I might be wrong, but it looks to me like costs start at well north of 100K. It’s basically no different than building another house from scratch on your lot.
An alternate universe is to finish your basement as an ADU (Accessory Dwelling Unit), then figure out how to get yourself out of your basement by giving yourself more living space in the back yard. The advantage there is that a basement can be heated with central air, plus all the hookups for plumbing and such are much simpler, plus there’s a built-in separate entrance through the garage. There are potential noise issues and smell or whatever else you may find objectionable about condo-style living, but hey, density!
As for building out the back yard, the simplest thing is to pop in a storage shed. Just move stuff that can freeze like your tools or camping gear out there, then use the scratch you just saved to finish rooms in your basement for the ADU. If you stay under 120 square feet of roof space you avoid all the permitting issues, so you skip the soft costs and complications of having an architect in the mix (apologies to Wallingford’s soft cost professionals). Some local companies custom build sheds in your yard, you can get a tuff shed installed, or you can get a sunshed kit like this with do-it-yourself install for only 4K:
The next step up is to plop down a 10 by 12 “studio shed” that acts as a backyard office, which is about as simple as we were dreaming the DADU would be. A studio shed can be done for between 10K and 25K if you go with a prefab solution like little mansions or mighty cabana or studio shed or modern shed:
The studio shed is fully insulated and finished with electrical and drywall and includes shear walls like a real house, but has no plumbing as it’s just meant to be used as a guest room or office. Unfortunately, it’s also another space to clean, maintain, and heat (with electricity, like having that hot tub again). Also, some think modern sheds are just an ugly box with the lid partly opened up:
Scaling up from there, it looks to me like you can get a simple “STFI permit” for storage spaces or ground level additions up to 750 square feet. Those permits don’t require structural plans and there’s no reason you can’t finish them yourself (that I see), but they can’t be rented out like a DADU. They’re in this weird zone where you kind of need an architect and kind of don’t. In theory, you could apply for an STFI yourself, then pop in a giant 16 * 24 Tuff Shed for 12K.
All the options have my head spinning, so I’m abusing this here blog in looking for advice. Anybody with experience adding prefab living space or renting out part of their home? Deep thoughts on who to go with and what to ask for or think about up front?
The off-street parking is such a ridiculous requirement. Many single family houses don’t have that let alone mother-in-law units.
I saw these guys who put in a composting toilet for their airbnb.
https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/6169978
Refinish your basement.
Yeah, build a DADU with one unit and you need to provide a parking place, but build a 45-unit apartment building within 1/4-mile of a bus line and you do not need to provide even one… and tenants can participate in the local RPZ that was established because of a shortage of street parking. That’s our City gov’mnt for ya!
If I remember right, the path to approval of the rules for ADUs in 2009 was a tough one, with a wide range of concerns and(or) objections: use of sewer and other utilities, increased noise, blocking of light, pressure on street parking, unattractive designs or minimal structural requirements, lost privacy, lost trees, etc. Some viewed the approval of ADUs as tantamount to rezoning single-family neighborhoods, others worried about the effect on property value (taxes up, resale value down). All of this likely contributed to the complex rules in place now.
I’m not a homeowner so I don’t know the real-world impacts here, whether for the homeowner who’d like to build an ADU, or the neighbor that doesn’t want one next door. But is it possible that public opinion has shifted somewhat and the regulations could be relaxed to make building these structures a little easier?
Parking rules were written at separate times so they don’t make sense when held up next to each other. The single family parking rules are from the 1950’s it seems. Another stupid thing with parking is that when you remodel you must keep your off street parking, even if it’s just 1 space. A single space is how large a driveway is, so on our street it actually generates no parking spaces at all, it just forces us to keep a garage in the house.
As for the basement, we are likely to have a friend who will pay nominal rent living in the space for a while, so we don’t need to be all formal about filing for an ADU until the city gets it’s act together. The council is pushing to simplify the ADU and DADU permitting process, but nothing will happen before the election. We have that stupid hot tub hole to fill now!
I don’t currently have an off-street parking spot for my corner 900 square footprint house, built in 1900, in the middle of Wallingford, and my yard has ample square footage for siting a DADU. A DADU could be charmingly sited on my lot. However, if I added a DADU, I would be required to add not just one, but 2 off-street parking spaces in my yard, which would take away much of its charm. Also, since I would need to add a curb cut for the driveway, there would only be a net gain of one on-street parking space from the whole arrangement. There would be increased paved surface created, exacerbating storm runoff and increasing heat creation in summer. There is currently more than ample space for parking on the street around my house. The whole parking ruling situation seems to me to be incoherent. I am unlikely to build a DADU because of the off-street parking requirements.
I did an ADU in the basement (jacked the house up) about 4 years ago. Great decision. We looked at a DADU in the spot the garage sits, but it was prohibitive even though there was already power out there. Be sure to look at Air BnB prices for basements around the area. I rent the apartment out to regular tenants and that seems best. VRBO or ABB would probably take 10 nights/month to get near the rent you could get depending on size. Noise isn’t a huge issue and the permit was not too hard at that time. The City is interested in density. There was no parking requirement – but I have a driveway, so that might have done the trick. All those things said – still not a cheap proposition.
Hot tub time machine. Go back in time and change the parking requirements.
I have more than one friend who is renting a trailer in the backyard of another friend (that is, more than one trailer in more than one yard).
After reading the density stories in the Seattle Times today, the trailer approach certainly adds people without adding height. Now if we can preserve the tree cover…
Great article, Eric! And, you might be interested in this leaked draft of recommendations from Ed Murray’s Housing Affordability and Livability Committee.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2159036/hala-recommendations-draft-8-1.pdf
Eric, I did not know how to send you a private note, so this is public, but that’s OK too. Thank you for this great post and all the posts you have done over the past while. You really take the pulse of the neighborhood and work to say pertinent and upbuilding things. So, thanks!
Thanks Jami and Kara! You can always contact us privately using the “suggest a story” link at the top of Wallyhood, but saying nice things in the comments is awesome. I need to focus on the positive, it can be too easy to focus on the negative, like the oatmeal said in this post:
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/making_things
The Oat meal is hilarious! Thanks
I confess as an emigrant to Seattle (albeit one who has been here 20 years) that while I am all in favor of making the regs more ADU and DADU friendly, I will never understand the seemingly common mindset in Seattle that housing forms like row houses, duplexes, and three flats that are ubiquitous in many wonderful neighborhoods in cities all over the US and the world are the work of the devil, but building shacks and parking live in trailers in residential backyards are fantastic ideas… ~\_(oo)_/~?
Some points to consider:
1. Current zoning is sufficient to increase current housing stock by another 75 percent, over 220,000 new units could be build, no changes needed.
2. Row houses, duplexes or three flats are not evil, but other cities have some consistency of design rather a hodge-podge of styles and types in a random mix.
3. Currently offers for older, affordable mom-and-pop apartments are being bid sky-high by developers and rents doubled. Imagine what will happen to prices in single-family zones when developers can tear down a home and build housing for three. It is insane to think that this will make housing any more affordable as housing gets bid through the roof.
4. The reason areas are zoned for certain types of construction is to provide some consistency of design and to transition between zones.
5. Broken promises – we were promised no change in zoning during the neighborhood planning process. We were also promised amenities such as open space, a community center, pedestrian improvements, better transit, to help mitigate impacts from increased density. It appears we were lied to and our ally, the Dept of Neighborhoods, was destroyed when Nickels took power.
6. Many feel that one feature that makes Seattle such a liveable city is the unique character of our neighborhoods. A transition from business district, to low-rise, to single-family zoning is logical. Random development will serve to destroy neighborhood character.
7. A single, 50-unit apartment building provides the equivalent of at least 8 blocks of converted single-family zoning… but with less impact to existing neighborhood character.
Current city government is the most pro-development I can recall for over 33 years. Property owners are being asked to foot the bill while developers are being let off the hook for the impacts they create. Growth is running rampant already, despite developer moaning. Surely we can afford to assess impact or linkage fees on new construction. Perhaps this would help balance the profit-driven new construction and we could retain some of our older, affordable housing stock while funding much-needed mitigation and amenities.
Please keep this in mind as we move into District elections. We desperately need some help in city government who are interested in thoughtful planning for the unique character of our neighborhoods. Changing zoning without a meaningful public process is not acceptable.
Thanks, Gregf. This is a helpful post. Can you give me the source for the figure 220,000 new units within existing zoning? I have seen that figure elsewhere and think it comes from a capacity study the city did but would like to actually read the data in context. It certainly does beg the question: “Why the give away to developers when capacity currently exists?”
Thanks Gregf . I would like to add emphasis to infrastructure improvements. The city is not keeping up with improvements…..The Growth Act should be implemented until the city can catch up with development.