San Diego ADU - Setbacks per Bulletin 400

[Peter Lee]

Looking at building an ADU and in a recent information bulletin the city of San Diego noted -

2. A companion unit may encroach within the interior side and rear yards as follows:

a. A structure, up to a maximum encroachment of 30' in length.

How exactly do I interpret this - typical setbacks are 5' on the sides and 15' in the back. If I "encroached" on the sides and back 100% would be at 25' of encroachment which is how read it but that makes no sense. 

Does anyone know exactly how to interpret this.

[Justin R.]

Originally posted by @Peter Lee:

Looking at building an ADU and in a recent information bulletin the city of San Diego noted -

2. A companion unit may encroach within the interior side and rear yards as follows:

a. A structure, up to a maximum encroachment of 30' in length.

How exactly do I interpret this - typical setbacks are 5' on the sides and 15' in the back. If I "encroached" on the sides and back 100% would be at 25' of encroachment which is how read it but that makes no sense. 

Does anyone know exactly how to interpret this.

If you measure the linear footprint of your ADU, a maximum of 30' of that footprint can encroach into those setbacks. In other words, if you've got a 50'x100' lot, your ADU can, for example, be in the back corner of the lot but can't be a 20'x20' square since that would mean your linear footprint encroaches 20' on the side setback and 20' on the rear setback. If that 20'x20' square was moved so it only encroached on the rear setback, that'd be fine - only 20' of the footprint encroaches.

Almost impossible to succinctly describe this without pictures, so I'll just give up.  :-o