Southern California ADU (SB-13) granny flat

[Robert Geiser]

Hello, any southern Californian real estate investors building ADUs now that SB-13 was signed by governor Newsom? I own a property that I’m trying to get an adu (granny flat) permitted but my local city is being very difficult to work with. They have not adopted all from SB-13 as the effectivity date is 1/1/20. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

[Matthew Forrest]

@Robert Geiser

Hey! ADUs can be a solid investment as long as the numbers work out! I finished an ADU earlier this month and am looking forward to building more ADUs in 2020!

Working with the city can be difficult, but aligning yourself with someone who knows their way around the code is very helpful. I’d would recommend getting with an architect that has built ADUs to get started.

[Derek Smith]

@Robert Geiser

Hi Robert, in the spring/summer of 2018, my wife and i worked with a contractor to turn our existing garage in LA (south central area) to an ADU. The process took months and ultimately we were denied by Dept of Water and Power. The issue was the fact that these homes have been here since the ‘40s and have above ground power lines that run parallel to our rear property line. DWP denied the conversion due to a dwelling (ADU) being directly beneath the power line. The concern is if a line fell, it would likely fall on the newly create residence and start a fire.

Just this week, I read that Gov. Newsom signed something to make the process easier but i haven't had time yet to see if it would now allow our conversion. I did notice a house on my block that is currently gutted and being renovated also has what I'm 99% sure is a new ADU going up in place of the garage. I haven't caught the contractor yet to ask if the restrictions have been removed but the same line that runs over my garage, runs over that property.

[Tim G.]

I'm also in the process of understanding the new legislation. Which seems to be aimed at stopping certain cities from creating barriers to building ADU's.

Ultimately waiting until the law is effective is likely going to be your only option, thankfully that is not too far away. 

I'm no expert on the topic, but what I am doing to get a better idea of things is the following. 

Drive your neighborhood, if you see a completed or active construction of an ADU go introduce yourself and ask as many questions as you can. Process, cost, time frame etc. Most folks are really eager to share about the experience, you can also find subs/contractors by doing this.

Look up to see if your city is doing any events on the topic, my city is doing a forum at city hall to help residents understand the process. Its likely many cities are scrambling to comply with the new laws and they are certainly in our favor to speed up the process and reduce our costs. 

Be ready to deal with stupid rules that apply to us for reasons that don't always make sense. Accept it and find a way to make it work. Taking the path to least resistance when it comes to building departments and focusing on the end goal (a cash flowing unit) over it having a specific size or design that we wanted. 

I'm really excited to continue discussions, I can't stress how helpful visiting other ADU projects is. I found plans sitting at one and obtained the owners number from it, called them and now we're sharing ideas and resources. Don't be shy, get creative in finding them and asking questions.

[Boris Suchkov]

@Derek Smith From what I understand, Water & Power cares mostly about the distance between the top of the structure and the power line. In essence, if someone stands on the roof of the ADU, would they be able to reach and touch the power line? I agree it would be a good idea to talk to whoever is building the ADU in your neighborhood and ask how they dealt with W&P.

[Orlando Perez]

@Matthew Forrest

Hi how long did it take to get your floor plans approved? Structural engineering approved? Build time from breaking ground to completion? Reason being, we just got our floor plans approved on Oct 21st. However, we submitted plans in early May. Only minor revisions occurred which our Architect had 48 hour turnaround time. Is this typical?

[Matthew Forrest]

@Orlando Perez

My project was a conversion of an existing space so the structure was there, but there was a significant amount of work and I did it as an owner builder with some sub-contractors so the time from issuing the permit to completion was about 3 months.

It took me 8 months to get the plans approved, but my architect went as long as 3 months between revisions so I lost a lot of time there. I didn’t know any better at the time, but definitely a lesson learned that the wait time for revisions was unacceptable. In general I think 2-3 months is a typical time period to get plans approved from when you contract an architect to draw them up.

[Orlando Perez]

@Matthew Forrest

Thanks for that info. Yes, plenty of lessons learned in these projects. What was the sq.ft addition for your ADU? How did you subcontract out? Our biggest constraint right now, is that my wife and I are both educators. We kind of need someone or a team to manage the project with our budget and build time. You said you did owner builder? How does that work? What was your initial investment in the build?

Our project is a 1200 sq.ft 3 BD 2 BA simple floor plan. Nothing major with the design. Since it is a rental property investment, we just want basic everything.

[John A Murray]

Hi Derek,

My understanding is that the only way to get this done is that you can pay LADWP to move the power lines. They are a grand bureaucracy; very slow and very expensive. I heard about $9,000 and get in line.

Don't forget solar power required after 12/31/19.

Kind of crazy as SoCal Edison isn't making this an issue. Years back they moved our power line to run directly over the pool, so I had them out and they said "no big deal" if there is a pool or a structure under power lines. Go figure.

One of the new laws addresses turnaround time for approvals, but don't know if/how that applies to revisions.

Tim G. gives great advice: "Be ready to deal with stupid rules that apply to us for reasons that don't always make sense. Accept it and find a way to make it work. Taking the path to least resistance when it comes to building departments and focusing on the end goal (a cash flowing unit) over it having a specific size or design that we wanted".

[Derek Smith]

@Boris Suchkov the structure isn’t tall. I’m not sure the actual height but it’s what I’d suspect to be a standard height for a detached garage. I’m not

looking to build an ADU on top of the garage. I'm going to stop by DWP and look into this further and as suggested i will stop by and try to talk with the contractor working on the one on my block. I'm curious if it's being constructed with permits or not.