Non-Permitted Work, Additions and ADUs - Opportunity or DOOM?!

[Daniel Porter]

hey bp! happy Thursday! 

So i've been walking a few properties, ugly properties, and ive found two that would work for my house hacking strategy. The problem is i've been checking permit records on them, and nothing has been pulled in regards to converting these single family's into multis(or ADUs). on top of that, they're zoned Single Family. 

For the record, i thiiiinnnkkkk dallas has a By-Right ADU policy now (you can build an ADU w/o city permission in a SF zone), but i'm pretty sure you still need to pull permits for plumbing and electrical.

on the other hand, there are BOATLOADS of adus in south dallas, and nothing is permitted. haha. i read a local article saying only 17 ADU applications were submitted in all of 2020-2021. everyone seems to just be doing it anyway. 

so my question is, do i immediately walk away from these properties? has anyone figured out a way to creatively handle these situations, or create some sort of way to legally protect yourself? 

any help would be much appreciated! 

[Aaron F.]

@Daniel Porter

I dove deep into Dallas ADU policies a while ago and from what I remember things are still in flux regulations-wise, but it seems that you can have ADUs for single-family homes, HOWEVER to get a CO for it, it puts a deed restriction on the property that requires it to be owner occupied. I emailed with someone working in dallas city hall about it to clarify because it didn't make sense to me. If you have an ADU, the owner has to live in either the main house OR the ADU, but if you ever move away you essentially couldn't rent out the house (even if you rented the house and the ADU to a single tenant) because of the deed restriction requiring the owner to live in one of the units for the other to be rented. I think that's a crazy policy but that's what it is.

Of course, I imagine people often don’t follow that policy and I would be surprised if someone could give an example of it actually being a problem. I’m super risk averse so I personally wouldn’t do it, but my aversion to risk is also probably why I’m not more successful 😜

Here’s a presentation from the zoning ordinance advisory committee in 10/2020 about it:

https://dallascityhall.com/departments/sustainabledevelopment/planning/DCH%20Documents/ADU/ZOAC_ADU_10.1.2020_FINAL.pdf