A Walk Through San Diego's ADU Code

Okay, so this is the first section of the ADU regulations San Diego Municipal Code updated August 2025 and this is section 141.0302. Accessory dwelling units and junior accessory dwelling units. Accessory dwelling units and junior accessory dwelling units are permitted as a limited use decided in accordance with process one indicated with an L in the use regulations table in chapter 13 article 1 base zones subject to the following regulations. So let me just break this down real quick. First thing you need to understand is process one right here that is your easiest permit process. So unless you're in the coastal zone in an appealable area of the coastal zone, if you're looking to do like a detached ADU over there, then you're going to be beyond the process one probably a process two coastal development permit process.

Although they've kind of streamlined things, but with if you're not in the coastal zone, basically all these ADUs are going to be a process one, which is what you're looking for. This still means it's going to be 6 to 8 months of permitting, but it's the least headache of all of the five permit processes we have here in San Diego. So, that's the first thing I want to mention. The other thing I want to mention here is what they're doing is they're directing you to the use table in chapter 13 for your base zone. So, if you have an obscure zoning, anything that's not a residential zoning, you're going to want to go to chapter 13. You're going to want to find your use table and reference your base zone and see if ADUs are permitted. Okay, so if you're in any residential zone, that's going to be a non-issue, but if you're not in a residential zone, you're going to want to check that. Okay, so let's move on here. These are some general regulations for ADUs and JADUs. And the first thing you'll notice is they actually talk about guest quarters, which is not an ADU or a JDU. So this seems to be a strange place to put this, but here it is. So it says guest quarters, guest quarters and non-habitable accessory structures shall be permitted in addition to ADUs and JADUs if permitted by the base zone. Okay, so once again, you're going to want to go to this use regulation table in chapter 13 and see if you can build a guest quarters.

Generally, these are going to be permitted in single family zones, but they're not permitted in every residential multif family zone. So, you want to be careful if you're in an RM zone, but if you're in an RS zone, you probably can permit this. I also want to give some tips here as to how I would use these regulations to develop things for myself. So, a guest quarters is going to give you some opportunities that an ADU could not give you. So, while the guest quarters are pro probably going to be more restrictive because they would have to match your base zone setbacks, that's the front yard, sideyards, and rear yard setbacks, while an ADU doesn't. The guest quarters can actually give you another unit, which you wouldn't be able to rent out to a stranger, but you could have your family stay there. You could also use this guest quarters to design something like a dog trot which is a old school typology where you have half the house on one side and then half the house on the other side connected by the roof. So you have a covered breezeway. So you could use a guest quarters to design this type of structure. You could also use a guest quarters to build a home office that would be detached. You could use it to build a home gym. You could do a bunch of things, but the important part of this code section is they're saying that you could build the guest quarters in addition to any ADUs and JADUs that you would be permitted to build. So, it's just one more thing you can build to build out a compound on your property and make it fit the way your lifestyle is. That's the whole point of this thing. Okay, let's move on to number two here. Development impact fees. Development impact fees for ADUs and JADUs shall be paid in accordance with this section here. And we'll have to reference that to see when they're going to be paid. But in general, any buy right ADUs are not going to be subject to development impact fees, also referred to as DIS.

This is important because these can be very expensive. In fact, before the advent of ADUs, diffs were the thing that prevented people from building the previous typology, which was called the companion unit. So, your development impact fees in some communities could be as high as $15,000 or more per ADU. So, it doesn't matter if you're trying to build the smallest ADU possible. These are flat fees. But as I said already, if it's a buy rate ADU, which generally is going to be the first two ADUs on your lot, you are not going to be subject to those development impact fees. And you don't have the city to thank for this. You have the state to thank for this because the state identified impact fees as one of the prime barriers of building more housing. And it is true. So this is key. We always want to keep this one in our back pocket because we want to avoid as many fees as possible. No ADU ever got better from paying more fees. And your ADU should pay as little as little fees as possible. Okay, moving on to number three here. Multiple dwelling unit and urban lot split regulations. An ADU or JADU shall not be permitted to be constructed on any premises that has utilized the provisions of chapter 14 article 3 division 13 multi-dwelling unit and urban lots split regulations for single family zones except as provided in this section right here.

Okay. So, if your project includes some sort of lots split, there's all different types of lot splits available right now, but you have to be very careful to follow these regulations because if you do subdivide your lot, you could disqualify you disqualify yourself from being able to build an ADU. That said, if you're just looking to do an ADU or two ADUs in your backyard, this is probably a complete non-issue. You don't really have to look into this unless you're proposing a lot split. Number four, previously conforming. Construction of an ADU or JADU shall not require correction of previously conforming conditions on the premises. This one is a challenging one to understand and to be completely honest, I don't think anybody really understands what this means. Previously conforming would mean something was already permitted under a previous code and now it no longer complies with the existing code. So the code continues to change over the last hundred years. The cho the code has changed quite a bit. So there could be a scenario where you have let's say a garage which was built to the code at the time when it was constructed and permitted but now you couldn't build a garage in that same place because there's a new setback or something. So that would be considered a previously conforming condition. Now here's where you get into some challenges here which it would be great if it was itemized here in this code section but it's just not. What happens if you have a previously conforming condition, but there are no permits on record? Or maybe we have a scenario where we have a previously conforming condition, but the structure was never permitted. I don't think the city of San Diego is going to allow that to become a previously conforming condition. To be 100% square, if you Google the definition of previously conforming conditions, which is in chapter 11 of San Diego's M municipal code, I believe it says it has to be permitted. However, any permits before like 1975 are extremely rare to come by and the city has not done a great job of maintaining their permit library. So a lot of projects could fall into the problem where you believe the project the structure was permitted and it is previously conforming. But if you cannot prove this to the development services department then maybe you cannot base your project on that previously conforming condition. So what would I do in this scenario? Number one, get your building record from the assessor's office. That's going to be the most proof you're probably going to be able to find. and you can go down to the records department at this development service department, see if they have anything. That's probably your second best option. Aside from that, previously conforming is really going to depend on whether it was permanent or not, and that can be very hard to prove. Okay.

Number five, conversion. An ADU or JADU that is converted from an existing dwelling unit or accessory structure or is constructed at in the same location and within the same building envelope as an existing dwelling unit or accessory structure may continue to observe the same setbacks as the existing dwelling unit or accessory structure. And they shall not be subject to the setback requirements in this code section right here. And that's going to be a code section we're going to look at as part of this video. by the way. So, first off, let's just take this sentence by sentence. What is a conversion? A conversion is something you really need to know about if you're proposing more than one ADU on a property. Because when you have an existing single family home, the second or first, depending how you look at it, to get two ADUs, when you have an existing single family dwelling unit on the property, one of those ADUs is going to have to be some sort of conversion. I'm not 100% sure why the city of San Diego leaves this in there because essentially what it does for a motivated builder is it's just going to make them get two permits. You would first permit a garage and then you would get a second permit and you would convert that garage into an ADU. But basically going back to the sentence here, so the conversion is something that was not an ADU that is now going to become an ADU. And here the second sentence says an ADU or JADU that is converted from an existing dwelling unit or accessory structure or is converted in the same location and within the same building envelope as an existing dwelling unit or accessing accessory structure. So let's stop it right here. Let's break this down. I think my definition was correct here. A conversion is when you have an existing structure that's not permanent as an ADU, that then becomes an ADU. So, if you have an existing dwelling unit and you're going to make half of that dwelling unit without adding any square footage into an ADU, that would be considered a conversion according to this because we're going to convert from an existing dwelling unit. Now, an accessory structure is going to be like a garage, maybe a workshop. Now, I'm not sure if a shed would count. You can build a shed up to 100 square feet without a permit, but I'm not certain that would count as an accessory structure. If you read this word for word, it would count. When you go to submit your plans at the city, I suspect they would not allow that. So, that's a big area of that's a lot of gray area here. So, I would avoid a conversion if it is just a shed. So, I think you're going to want something that has a permit before you convert it. I I don't think there's any loopholes there.

Although I would bet it depends on who gets the project in as part of your plan check downtown. I would take the more conservative route on this and make sure that the thing you're converting has a permit. Now here, this next sentence is actually very interesting. Or is constructed in the same location and within the same building envelope as an existing dwelling unit or accessory structure. So this is the most important thing to understand about a conversion. A lot of people say, "Oh, here's a garage." it's not in great shape. I don't think I can convert this into an ADU. You do not have to actually take the existing structure and work with that. All you have to do is take the existing footprint. You can tear everything down. You can tear out your foundation. As long as you have a survey that documents the existing location of that accessory structure, then you can build the same accessory structure right back in the same place. So, it doesn't really matter what condition the accessory structure is, you can still get a conversion out of it. Now, of course, you know, it's much easier to convert something that's in good condition than in bad condition. So, if you're buying a property with the idea of converting converting an accessory structure into an ADU, you do want to be concerned about the condition. But here is our allowance to basically rebuild in the same location.

Okay. Okay. Then it says it may continue to observe the same setbacks as the existing dwelling unit or accessory structure, which is basically a repeat of what they say in number four. So if you have a let's say a garage that has a 1 foot setback and you wanted to build that ADU, the ADU can be built in the same location. Generally, if you're under 16 ft or one story, that's a non-issue. So, let's see if we could find an example where this may be a bigger issue. Let's say for some reason you had a two-story accessory structure and you were converting that into an ADU and there was a 1-T setback. You could now make a twotory ADU structure with a one foot setback. So, that's how that works. Number six, fire sprinklers. An ADU or JADU shall not be required to provide automatic fire sprinklers if they are not required for the primary dwelling unit. So, the city of San Diego has very rigid fire sprinkler code. One of the deputy directors has a background in fire safety and she has put a lot of those requirements into the local municipal code. Here's one that she was not able to touch because this again comes from the state level and the state said, "Hey, if the existing home does not have fire sprinklers, then we don't need fire sprinklers in our accessory dwelling units." And that is really the ideal scenario for somebody looking to save money as they're building an ADU.

So I'll read it one more time. The ADU or JADU, by the way, shall not be required to provide automatic fire sprinklers if they are not required for the primary dwelling. Now, let me break this down one more level here. Every new dwelling unit requires fire sprinklers under California building code. So, the only scenario where this works is if you have an existing dwelling unit that does not have fire sprinklers. Now, what if you're proposing like a larger scheme development on the property? Well, if you're proposing a new dwelling unit and a new ADU, since that new dwelling unit is going to need fire sprinklers, that new ADU is also going to need fire sprinklers. So you just want to watch like you know sometimes you get the ball rolling on these things and you just it just keeps rolling and you end up doing more and more things beyond what you thought you needed to do on the project.

So possibly a more proactive way to handle a project like that if you have the luxury of time is you could first permit the ADU if the ex if there was an existing dwelling unit that did not have fire sprinklers and then if it made sense you can come back with a second permit and permit the second dwelling unit and then you could basically build these new units without fire sprinklers in the ADU. You may lose some efficiency of scale when you do that. So sometimes you may just want to bite the bullet and just install fire sprinklers in both the new dwelling and the new ADU. Something to think about though. Okay, let's move on to the next page here. So here we have section B and it says, "An ADU or JADU shall be required to provide an automatic fire sprinkler system when located on a premises where the primary dwelling unit is protected with an automatic fire sprinkler system in accordance with California building code standards." So that's exactly what I said. If there's an existing dwelling unit with a fire sprinkler system, any ADU you propose would have to have a fire sprinkler system. And it's not explicitly listed here, but I believe that would include a conversion.

And then here we have subsection C. The construction of a detached ADU shall not trigger a requirement for automatic fire sprinklers to be installed in the existing primary dwelling unit or multiple dwelling unit unless required in accordance with California building standards code. So let's say you have a duplex existing duplex two dwelling units connected. So you got a duplex of two dwelling units. Now you want to build a detached ADU behind it somewhere in the backyard. It is explicit here that because the existing duplex does not have fire sprinklers, that means that the ADU does not have fire sprinklers. And then according to subsection C here, when we build that ADU, we do not need to go back and fire sprinkler our dwelling unit. I guess you could also extrapolate this to say if I was building a new ADU in this scenario and I elected to install fire sprinklers, I still should not be required to go back and install fire sprinklers in my duplex of dwelling units. The last sentence here where it says unless required in accordance with California Building Standards Code, what this is referring to, it's the elephant in the room here. It's not mentioned anywhere in this ADU code, but it's the difference of an R3 occupancy and an R2 occupancy. R3 occupancies are small projects that include single family homes, duplex structures, and town homes. And R2 occupancies are covered by California building code. And those projects always require fire sprinklers.

So duplex and smaller, that's the simple R3 occupancy code covered by California residential code. R2 occupancy and greater that's covered by California building code and those are going to require fire sprinklers. So in this scenario where I have an existing duplex and I'm proposing a detached ADU, both of those structures are considered R3 occupancy and do not require fire sprinklers according to this. But if I take that detached ADU and I connect it to my duplex dwelling unit, I have just made an R2 occupancy project and the whole thing is going to need to be fire sprinklered. So let's break this down real quick. I have a couple models I've made here and I'm going to go through this here. Okay, so here's the situation. Maybe I have a duplex here. Let me just copy this over.

Okay, so I have an existing duplex of dwelling units and I want to add an ADU somewhere back here. That's fine. I will not trigger fire sprinklers if there's no fire sprinklers here. However, as I mentioned, if I attach this here, I've just made a triplex that is going to require fire sprinkers throughout the entire structure. So that's what they're referring to here very subtly with this last sentence. Be careful of that. It's going to increase your project cost significantly. So my recommendation generally is keep everything to a series of duplexes. So it would be very easy to design this lot in a way where everybody has plenty of space and they're detached from each other. So for example, that would be three duplexes. That does not trigger California building code or two occupancy. Okay, let's move on to subsection 7 within the coastal zone.

So, anything here within the coastal zone inherently is going to be a much bigger project. There's going to be a lot more required and oftentimes it's going to be a lot more expensive. The city charges a lot of money for coastal development permits. So, we avoid them whenever possible because our focus at 1070 architecture is always to reduce regulation and streamline the permitting process with as little fees as possible for our clients. So here, this whole section seven is going to be talking about within the coastal zone. If you're not in the coastal zone, skip this part of this video. So here's subsection A. An existing structure may only be converted or reconstructed as an ADU or JADU if the structure conforms to all the following regulations.

So you have to conform with wetland regulations, sensitive coastal bluff regulations, coastal beach regulations, and the supplemental regulations of the coastal overlay zone. And here's the code section that they reference. So if you are in the codes, if you are in the over coastal overlay zone, here's four four things you need to read up on to make sure your project would go through easily. The first three of these are probably only going to be projects that are like right on the beach or within a block from the beach, but subsection four here is probably going to have a whole bunch of stuff that you need to know about. So go through this. Also, if you're in the coastal zone, this is actually not the code you use for ADU development. There's something called the strikethrough code because coastal zone municipal code lags about eight or nine months behind everything else. So, you actually got to go and find this whole other coastal section.

So, I'd have to make a whole another video about how to develop in the coastal zone. Let's keep going. Okay, so now we're still in the coastal zone. Subsection B here, ADUs or JADUs constructed within areas of future sea level rise shall comply with these regulations. So, there's another there's a fifth thing you need to read if you're in the coastal zone. And subsection C here, ADUs or JADUs shall comply with the following regulations. So, this is just going to be repetitive of the previous ones. We need to make sure we meet the reg wetland regulations. We need to make sure we meet the sensitive coastal bluff regulations. We need to make sure that we meet the coastal beach regulations. And as I mentioned earlier, probably one of the most important ones is we need to double check the supplemental regulations. I don't know why they wrote this like this where basically I guess here it's saying converted or reconstructed and here it's saying if it's a brand new one. Okay, that's just something you got to watch out for.

Let's go to the next one here. Okay, so we got one more subsection within the coastal zone and it says an ADU shall not be used for rental terms of less than 31 consecutive days and JADUs are not subject to rental term limitations. Okay, now that only applies in the coastal zone because we're still Actually, I take that back. We're no longer under the coastal zone subsection. So here it says an ADU shall not be used for a rental term of less than 31 consecutive days and Jadus are not subject to rental term limitations. Okay, so let me rephrase what this is about. Back about 3 or four years ago, the city got really frustrated with the cost of housing. They thought it was due to short-term rentals. So once that was generally adopted as the reason why housing is so expensive, city council passed some regulations on Airbnb and other short-term rentals that are 30 days or less. And this made it into the code. You need basically a license to rent these ADUs out. I'm still sure I'm still pretty sure that you can get a license to rent ADUs out and override this code section, but don't quote me on that. I do not do short-term rentals. I used to do short-term rentals with the dwelling unit. We do not do short-term rentals anymore. Okay. So, now I'm moving into subsection B here. And this is where they're going to begin the general ADU development regulations.

Okay. So, number one, on a premises with an existing or proposed single dwelling unit, the following is permitted. And I want to mention there's basically four criteria you can have that will tell you exactly how to build how many ADUs you can build. So here we're going to explore the first two. Okay. So on a premises with an existing or proposed single dwelling unit, the following is permitted. You could build one ADU that is within an existing or proposed single dwelling unit or within an existing accessory structure subject to the following. Okay. So, we'll get into this later, but I want to go I want to explain this a little bit more. So, we have an existing or proposed single dwelling unit. That's your starting point.

So, here's a scenario where we have an existing or proposed single dwelling unit. So for this scenario, let's say this is an existing house, dwelling unit, and this is an existing garage. So what could we do here? We could take this existing home and leave it alone and we could convert the garage into an ADU. So I've just moved this existing garage, which used to be charcoal color, and now it's pink. So that is a garage conversion. And because there's an existing single family dwelling unit on the lot, I can do that. Now, let's say it was a vacant lot, I could propose to build a single family dwelling unit. And by doing that, oh actually, sorry, I would have to do it this way. I would have to first I would have to first propose this as a garage. Okay. So let's take this lot here, vacant lot. And now I'm going to propose a new dwelling unit and I'm also going to propose a garage. Then what I can do later on is I can convert the garage. So that's one way to look at it.

Now they give us a couple other things that we have to do here for these conversions or we don't have to but we can do. So, Roman numeral 1, construction of an ADU may expand the gross floor area of an existing accessory structure up to 150 square ft to allow for ingress and egress. So, what that means is let's say this is an existing that was a garage and in this scenario that's my before and now I want to convert that garage but I also want to add a little addition here and that's going to be like right there. Okay. So, I'm allowed to add this addition as long as it's under 150 feet or 150 feet or less. And I have to be using this as ingress. It says ingress or egress. They do not allow you to use this as egress.

We've done this before and they have told us it does not it does not meet the requirement of the code. I completely disagree. Egress is a well-defined term in in the code. It's something that architects are very familiar with. The city of San Diego does not look at this as 150 square feet to allow for egress. It only looks at it as 150 square feet to allow for ingress. Basically, what this means is build this addition as an entry to your home and you can get permitted. If you try to make it as a bedroom with an egress window, that will get shot down. And I'm just telling you that from experience. I know it says otherwise right here, but the people who review your plans do not understand this code. and they do not look at the what the letters of this code say before they make their decisions and you don't want to end up with an argument. It's just going to increase the time of your permit by months and you may have to go back to redesign and re-engineering the whole thing. So, you don't want to do that if you don't have to. Okay, the next one here, Roman numeral number two, the ADU shall have a separate exterior entry from the single dwelling unit.

Okay, so that would be like this scenario here where let's take this. We start here with an existing single family home and in this scenario we are going to take half of that existing single family home. So I guess we can look at this as before and we look at this after. So we split half of it into an ADU to create a duplex. Well, we need to have a separate exterior entry from the single dwelling unit. So we can have the single dwelling unit's main front door here and we can have the ADU's front door here. That should work perfectly fine. So that's what they're asking you for in this code section. Okay, now that's the first scenario. When you have an existing or proposed single dwelling unit, you can always do one conversion. In addition to that, when you have an existing or proposed single dwelling unit, you can also do one attached or detached ADU. Okay? So, you can do both of these things. Keep that in mind. So, you have an existing or proposed single dwelling unit. You now can build a detached ADU and you can leave the single dwelling unit there. You could also take advantage of both of these code sections and you can do a conversion and you can do a detached ADU. And that detached ADU can be up to,200 ft. So I'm showing it a little bit smaller here than what it actually could be, but this is basically your best options for developing a lot that has an existing or proposed single dwelling unit. That's the key. Existing or proposed single dwelling unit. You're going to see in a second if we have a multiple dwelling unit, that's going to change the dynamic of this completely.

But I think most properties in the city of San Diego fall into these this category, which gives you these two options. Let's see if there's any other scenarios that I want to mention here. Okay. If you had an existing single family dwelling unit, you could also propose an ADU and a garage. You can also propose an ADU and a guest quarters provided at met the setbacks. You could also if you have an existing single family home and you wanted to do an attached ADU, you would also be able to do something like that. But what you really want to avoid is the scenario where you have three units connected because that's going to be an R2 occupancy. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but you we want to avoid triplexes and greater to keep cost down. So that's my number one strategy.

If you take anything away from this video, if you're trying to develop an ADU or two, do not make them into triplexes. So hopefully that explains a lot of this. Now, here's the criteria number three. Remember I told you there's four criteria you have to understand. We just went through the first two. Now this is the third one. The maximum number of ADUs on a premises, which just means property basically, with a proposed multiple dwelling unit structure shall not exceed two detached ADUs. Okay, so here's the situation. We start with vacant lot. We propose a multiple dwelling unit structure. So these are new. This is not an existing multiple dwelling unit structure in this scenario. This is a proposed multiple dwelling unit structure.

If we propose two dwelling units in a multiple dwelling unit structure, we can now build two ADUs. We could also if we can propose a multiple dwelling unit structure, we could also build one ADU. So you don't have to build the max. You can build less than that. Okay, so let's read this one more time and make sure we're understanding correctly. The maximum number of ADUs on a premises with a proposed multiple dwelling unit structure shall not exceed two detached ADUs. Okay, so nothing on the lot here. Proposed multiple dwelling unit structure and we can do two ADUs. Now this those can be attached, they can be detached. We can have both of those things here. We could also do something like separate them. That would be acceptable as well. But like I mentioned earlier, you do not want to be doing that or you do not want to be doing that.

Okay, so this is a good play here. Now, what if we had this scenario here? What if we had an existing single family home, but for some reason the zoning allows us to build more than one? Well, we can demolish this, propose these two, and then also as part of that permit, we can just permit all of these at the same time. You do need a multiple family property or some sort of previously conforming condition to build a multiple dwelling unit structure because in most cases, a single family zone is not going to allow you to do this. Now there's one major major this is the biggest gray area in the entire ADU regulations and this happens a lot in my neighborhood of Logan Heights and Bario Logan. What happens when you have two detached single family dwelling units?

Would you follow this code section or would you follow this code section? And that is unclear because if you go if you check the definition of multiple dwelling unit structure, the term structure requires them to be connected. However, in my conversations with the building department, they're telling me that this counts as a multiple dwelling unit structure. So, if that's the case, you have to proceed with extreme caution because it's very likely you submit a project like this and the city says, "Wait a second, that's not a multiple dwelling unit structure." And you could also submit the same project and a different plan checker will get it and they'll say, "Oh, I understand. We are considering this a multiple dwelling unit structure." But if you go by the written word, this here is not a multiple dwelling unit structure. This is a multiple dwelling unit structure.

So it depends on how conservative you want to be with your approach. Keep in mind, by the time you submit this project, you've already gotten design and engineering completed. So, if you have to back out of that, that's going to be very expensive and it can be challenging to get the development services department to give you a straight answer before you submit a project without using a preliminary submitt, which are now priced at a point where it does not make sense to get a preliminary submitt. They start at $1,500, they go up to $12,000. Okay, so let's move on. Now, here's the fourth criteria. On a premises with an existing multiple dwelling unit structure. Okay. Now, here's the situation where we have an existing multiple dwelling unit structure. Completely different than a proposed multiple dwelling unit structure. Here we have an existing multiple dwelling unit structure. The maximum number of ADUs that may be permitted within the existing non-livable space of an existing multiple dwelling unit structure shall not exceed 25% of the total number of multiple dwelling units in the structure. The minimum number of ADUs that may be permitted within the non-livable space of an existing structure is one. For example, non-livable space includes but is not limited to storage rooms, boiler rooms, passageways, atticss, basements, or garages.

Okay, so A and B are the most poorly written code section in the entire municipal code in San Diego. The person who wrote this code section should no longer be employed because they clearly are struggling with the English language. They have set up a riddle here that is impossible to solve and this is going to create a barrier to getting housing actually built. So what I would do is I would defer to the state code to see how the state code wrote A and B because there is basically no way to understand what this means. I'm going to do my best to break it down and when I finish you'll understand why this makes no sense. So for one, we are starting with a premises with an existing multiple dwelling unit structure. So that would mean we'll use this as an example here. We have a forplex that's existing. This is all dwelling units.

ADUs do not count into this calculation for an existing multiple dwelling unit structure. And in this scenario, we have a garage. Okay. So the maximum number of ADUs that may be permitted within the existing non-livable space of an existing multiple dwelling unit structure shall not exceed 25% of the total number of let's pretend this says dwelling units in the structure. Okay. So in this scenario I think this would be a risky venture. We have an existing multiple dwelling unit structure and here we have a garage which would be considered non-livable space but since it's not attached it is unclear if this is part of the multiple dwelling unit structure. So it depends on the interpretation.

Probably a better way to look at this would be if this was not a dwelling unit here and maybe that is a boiler room or mechanical space or basement or something like this. Let's use that as an example here. Okay, so here we have a existing multiple dwelling unit structure. There's three units and there's a large non-livable space. And what we can do is we can convert that one into an ADU. Now let's read this one more time. We shall not exceed 25% of the total number of multiple dwelling units. So let's say this was a situation where we had eight units. Well, we could probably make that into two ADUs. But let's say we're in this situation here where you only have two dwelling units. Even though 25% of two is 0.5, in no scenarios are we a does it ever drop below one.

So it says that here the minimum number of ADUs is one. So that's basically how that works. Now here's why this makes no sense. It says here, "The maximum number of ads that may be permitted within the existing non-livable space of an existing multiple dwelling unit structure shall not exceed 25% of the total number of multiple dwelling units in the structure." So in this scenario here where I have a forplex, that's considered a multiple dwelling unit structure. How many multiple dwelling units do I have in this multiple dwelling unit structure? Is impossible to answer. So this code section does not make any sense. Anybody who understands English knows that this does not make sense and it's a damn shame that the city of San Diego cannot organize their own code in a way that the public can understand. Okay, so I'm going to stop there on that one. Let's take a look at the one more scenario here. A maximum of eight detached ADUs may be permitted on the premises provided that the number of detached ADUs shall not exceed the number of existing multiple dwelling units in the multiple dwelling unit structure. Again, a code that does not make any sense in the English language.

But what this is basically saying is if you have a situation where you have a multiple dwelling unit structure up to eight units, you can then build that many ADUs. So if this was four, as it as I'm showing here, we could build four ADUs. If this was eight, we could build eight ADUs if you have the room for it. If you had 200 dwelling units here, we could only build eight ADUs. it's capped. So, this is going to work a lot better on a larger lot than it will on a smaller lot. But there's one interesting thing to show you here. When I take a look at code section two and three, which are basically the third and fourth criteria of developing these ADUs, both of them are geared towards multiple dwelling unit structures. And then these first two up here are geared to single when you have an existing or proposed single dwelling unit. So basically if we're proposing a multiple dwelling unit structure, we could build two detached ADUs. But if there's an existing multiple dwelling unit structure, you can build up to eight depending on how many multiple dwelling units you have.

So what does this mean? Let's take a situation like maybe this one here. Okay. So, I'm going to start this one. Okay. So, let's say there's nothing on the lot. And I want to propose to build a forplex. Okay. Well, now that I've proposed to build the forplex, I can go ahead and build this. And then once I build that, it's now existing, which would allow me to do this. So, if I propose to build this, I can only build two ADUs because that's a proposed multiple dwelling unit structure. But once it's an existing multiple dwelling structure, I can match the amount of dwelling units up to eight. So, I don't know why we need two permits to do everything. I mean, the permit process is so long and convoluted and the development service department is always complaining how busy they are.

So, they could really easily just make these one permit processes for us and that removes a lot of cost and risk and frustration. But, they don't. So, they want us to do more permitting, I suppose. Okay, so let's move on. That is the most important page of this entire code section. So if you only learn one page, learn this one right here, page three. Okay. So subsection four here. In accordance with government code section 66321B3, one attached or detached ADU with a gross floor area of 800 ft or less may be permitted in accordance with section 141.0302A12A3, 0302 A12 A3. Provided that the development results in no more than one attached or detached ADU on a premises, the ADU shall not be subject to maximum lock coverage, maximum floor area ratio, a front yard setback, and minimum open space requirements of the underlying base zone. Okay, so this is huge.

This makes every small lot and every canyon lot in the city of San Diego immediately more viable for ADU development. And essentially when I talked to the DSD about this code section, the goal here is to create equity so that everybody can have at least one ADU. Now, as it's mentioned in here, you cannot do this if you're proposing two ADUs. This only works if you're proposing one ADU. Now, what's unclear here is if this was your first ADU, does that prevent you from doing like a garage conversion? Because that doesn't affect your floor area ratio. You're not adding a structure. So, it is a little unclear how this section works with other ADU regulations. But, let's talk about some of the huge advantages you have here. So the first thing is if you have a canyon lot like single family home on a canyon lot developing the backyard is always a challenge because you run into steep hillside regulations environmentally sensitive land higher construction cost more difficult construction feasibility etc etc but now according to this you can actually develop an ADU up to 800 ft in the front yard so you don't need a front yard setback anymore to develop this small ADU I've actually submitted a pulary submitt to the city to determine what you can do here. And because there's a lot of different types of encroachments that are not allowed in the front yard setback that now may need to be incorporated into this ADU code and there probably should be a whole bunch of encroachments that are permitted or not permitted here based on this, but it's kind of unclear. So, there's a bunch of unknowns to this. But what's important is you can build right in that front yard setback. If you're already maxed out on your floor area ratio, it doesn't matter. you now have an 800 square foot opportunity to build beyond your F. Also, lot coverage. In certain single family zones, lot coverage is a thing. You can only cover a certain amount of lot.

That no longer applies as long as your ADU is under 800 square ft. And if you have some sort of minimum open space requirement, also common in single family zones, that also no longer applies here. Okay, so let's move on to lot size. A minimum lot size is not required for the construction of an ADU. Okay, so there are standardsiz lots in the city of San Diego and over the years some of these have been chopped down or pieced together. Basically, all this is saying is it doesn't matter how big your lot is, you can always build an ADU as long as you have the motivation to do it. I suppose the lot will not prevent you from doing this. Okay, subsection six here. ADUs are not subject to the density limitations of the base zone for the premises. Okay, so let me break this down. If you have a single family zoned lot, this is not an issue because your maximum density is always going to be one single family home. If you have a multiple family zoning, then your density is going to be a factor of which zone you're in and the lot size. However, once you do that calculation and you find out, okay, I could build two dwelling units or I could build 20 dwelling units here. The ADUs are completely independent calculation from that. So that's all this is saying there. They do not share the same density requirements from the base.

Okay. So moving on to subsection seven, gross floor area. So here we're going to be able to understand what the minimum and maximum size for an ADU in most scenarios are. So these first two lines A and B, the gross floor area of an ADU shall not be less than 150 ft² and the gross floor area of an attached or detached ADU shall not exceed 1,200 square ft. Now I don't even know why they bothered to mention attached or detached here and they didn't mention it here. seems like they don't need it in either scenario. But basically, you're shooting for between 150 and 1,200 square feet. It's my understanding that there's some new state regulations. I'm recording this mid-March of 2026. And it's my understanding there's new regulations that allow us to calculate the 1,200 square f feet as the net instead of the gross floor area, which would mean you're calculating the space in between the walls instead of the space including from the exterior of the framing to exterior framing, which is a gross floor area calculation. I don't know what that means for subsection A here because if you calculate it with net, you're going to get less than if you calculate it with gross. So, in some scenarios, if you're trying to really build the smallest ADU possible, you may be better off calculating it for GFA or gross floor area.

Now, there are going to be scenarios where we can break past the 1,200 f feet. And I'll explain those in a second. Okay, so moving on to subsection C here. An ADU constructed within an existing or proposed single dwelling unit shall not have a maximum gross floor area requirement. Okay, this is exactly that scenario. Let's say we have a 5,000 ft single family dwelling unit. Well, we could make that into two 25 2,500 ft units. One would be the dwelling unit. One would be the ADU. We could still add 150 ft onto that ADU. As long as we as long as that addition is used for ingress and that would still all be totally allowed here. That's one scenario. So now here's another scenario where we could break past the,200 ft². An ADU constructed within an existing accessory structure on a single dwelling unit lot shall not have a maximum gross floor area requirements and may construct an additional 150 ft to allow for ingress or egress. Okay, so they are giving us some more specific criteria here. So, let's say you had a 2,000 foot garage on a single dwelling unit lot, which I suppose would mean a lot with an existing single dwelling unit, or maybe it could mean a lot with a proposed single dwelling unit. You could convert that 2,000 foot accessory structure into a 2,000 ft ADU and still reserve your ability to add 150 square feet as long as that's for ingress only. They should remove egress from this code section.

Okay, moving on to subsection E. Adus constructed within an existing multiple dwelling unit structure shall not have a maximum gross floor area requirement. This is just giving us the same provision for an existing multiple dwelling unit structure. So I mean this is where the code gets really confusing because this is saying the same thing. One is for or this one. One is for a single dwelling unit structure, one is for an accessory structure, and one is for a multiple dwelling unit structure. But they've added this extra section here for some reason. And they didn't put that extra 150 square foot criteria here or here. So I don't know why they write the code this way because this that we may construct an additional 150 square feet to allow for ingress and egress. in the code section above. We don't need it here again. But by putting it here again, it makes me think that I can't do it here and I can't do it here. But if I can't do it here or here, that means the code section above is not valid. So they should clean this up a little bit.

Okay. So subsection F, the gross floor area of an ADU shall be included in the floor area ratio of the premises. Okay. So this means when you figure out what your maximum floor area ratio, also called F for the lot, the the ADU has to fit within that unless you're falling into this category where it's only one ADU with a gross floor area of 800 square feet or less. And in that case, you're still going to calculate your F. You're just going to have a higher F calculation because ADUs count towards gross floor area. Also, this question comes up a lot. Garages also count towards gross floor area. There are exceptions in certain zones, particularly some single family residential zones where you can subtract subtract certain amounts of square footage from garage spaces and that would allow you to dial your F down lower. So, you're just going to want to really like calc everything at once.

Make sure that the garage is calculated accordingly. Also in a lot of the RM zones you do get a density bonus for more dwelling units and in that code dwelling units in includes ADUs. You'll find that the term dwelling unit is used interchangeably. Sometimes it's an actual dwelling unit which is like a house and other times dwelling unit means the house or the ADU. It's just used interchangeably. I guess that's how the city keeps us on our toes as professionals. Okay, so the last one, eight, subsection 8, on lots that permit single dwelling unit developments but not multiple dwelling unit developments, also known as single family zoning, detached ADU structures shall not exceed two stories.

Okay, so now keep in mind this is not a height limit. This is a story limit. So, there's nothing stopping you from doing two 15- foot tall stories. I'm also wondering because of the way this is written here on lots that permit single dwelling unit development but not multiple dwelling unit development. So, this could catch certain RM zones like an RM11 zone on an atypically small lot that would still only allow one dwelling even though it's multiple zoned. I'm not sure if that's supposed to be included in here, but the way they've worded this is really weird. On lots that permit single dwelling unit development, like why not just say on single family zone lots or on RSRXRT zone lots? So, I don't know why they put it this way. They also say detached ADUs shall not exceed. So let's go down a little and see if there's anything about attached ADUs.

Okay, so this is all under the height subsection on lots that permit single dwelling unit developments but not multiple dwelling unit developments. So same criteria, ADUs attached to an existing accessory structure shall not exceed two stories. Okay. So, let's see. Both of these scenarios are single dwelling unit on both of these scenarios are on lots that permit single dwelling unit development. And one of them says a detached ADU shall not be over two stories. And the other one says ADUs attached to an existing accessory structure shall not exceed two stories. What about the scenario where you have a ADU attached to a single dwelling unit? Because they have not covered that. You think that would be what subsection C was, but it's not. So, in that scenario, I would assume, although you better check this if you're going this direction, I would assume that we can do more than two stories. If it's a on a lot that permits a single dwelling unit development where you have an attached ADU and the ADU is attached to the single dwelling unit that seems to be able to break the twotory restriction here. I'm not clear on that. That's the problem with the code is it leaves all this gray area where you think somebody would have proof read this and say, "Well, what about this scenario you're leaving out?"

But it seems like nobody has. Okay. Subsection C here. ADUs shall comply with the overall maximum structure height of the underlying base zone and overlay zone. Okay, so all this is saying is you got to check the base zone height. It's generally going to be 30 feet. Sometimes it can be 40 feet or more, but the lower density that your lot allows, the lower that height limit is going to be. And the ADUs basically comply with the same height regulation. Now, there is something I want to mention here because it's not written anywhere in the municipal code. If you look up the base zone height, you're going to find something that's called an angled plane restriction. Basically, it takes from the setback, you go up a certain amount, generally 24 or 27 ft, and then you angle up at a 60 or 45 degree angle. And a dwelling unit cannot break past this envelope with the exception of certain things like dormers and bay windows and things like that, chimneys. But an ADU does not have to respect this at all. The reason for that is because the state said there's too many regulations. San Diego has too many regulations. We don't want the ADU to be subject to all these unnecessary AD regulations. All we want is for people to build easy homes as simple as possible. The state has said that the that ADUs do not have to comply with the angled plane restrictions. The city of San Diego refuses to put this in the municipal code. They've known about it for 5 years. They refuse to put in the municipal code. So that's part of the secret code and I'm sharing that detail with you right now.

Okay. Now we're going to get into setbacks here. The front yard setback of an ADU shall be consistent with the base zone. Of course, unless you have a single ADU, 800 ft² or less, then you do not have to use the front yard setback. So, you can go you can rewind the video and see where that where I talked about that code section. But otherwise, the front yard setback of an ADU is going to be the same setback for your ADU as the dwelling unit. Now, subsection B, the minimum street side yard setback of an ADU shall be 4 feet or the minimum street side yard setback of the base zone, whichever is less. Okay, so most properties only have a a front yard setback, but if you have a corner lot, you actually have a front yard setback and you have a street side setback. The front yard is the more narrow width of the lot. And you can go into chapter 11 of the municipal code. There's a section called rules for calculations and measurement and it explains how to figure out which which side of the property is the front yard, the street sideyard, sideyard, rear yard, but I'll give you the cliff notes here.

The more narrow side is the front yard, and then if it's a corner lot, the other side is going to be the street sideyard. Now, this is kind of a newer setback requirement. I believe this was first published all the way back in August of 2025 and the ADU code has not been updated since, but basically it says that your ADUs can use a 4ft minimum street sideyard setback, which is awesome. It also clarifies that if the base zone allows for less, then you can go less than 4T. So that's a good opportunity because if you have a corner lot, you have a very viable way to have two direct approaches, one to the dwelling unit and one to the ADU. So it's very easy to have these two units operate completely independent with maximum privacy for the residents.

Okay. Now, if you don't have a corner lot, you're going to have an interior sideyard. And this section is also going to cover our rear yards. and building in the rear yard is probably going to be something that's very common for ADU regulations unless you have an alley. So, subsection C, interior sideyard and rear yard setbacks for ADU structures with the structure height of 16 ft or less shall be provided as follows. Okay, so there's two numbers here, Roman numeral one and Roman numeral 2. These are going to apply for interior sideyards. That's when you do not have a corner lot. You're going to have two two sideyards and rear yards. And every lot is going to have a rear yard. Now, if the structure is 16 feet or less, it says for ADU structures located on a premises outside of a high or very high fire hazard severity zone, there is no minimum interior sideyard and rear yard setback except that the fire code official may require a greater setback to ensure compliance with the California fire code. California Code of Regulations, etc., etc., etc. Okay, I'm going to read the next one as well. For ADU structures located on a premises with in high or very high fire hazard severity zone, the minimum interior sideyard and rear yard setbacks shall be 4 ft to provide defensible space between all structures on a premises and contiguous area of native or naturalized vegetation except that the fire code official may require a greater setback to ensure compliance etc etc. Okay, so we have two different conditions here.

One is when we're outside of a high or very high fire hazard severity zone and one when we're inside a high or very high fire hazard severity zone. So if we if we are within this fire zone then we need a 4ft side and rear setback. And if we're not in this fire zone then we can basically go down to a zero setback. In both of these scenarios we're under 16 ft in height. Now I do want to talk about this setback thing. The purpose of setbacks are to prevent spread of fire from one structure to another structure or from neighbor to neighbor. And the other purpose of setbacks is to allow more daylight onto a property. If you're going to build all the way up to the property line, that presents its own set of challenges. Number one, your neighbor may not be happy with your contractor accessing their property. It's actually kind of a liability for them. So, you may have to design a wall that can be completely built from one side. A block wall works really well for this. Maybe your neighbor is fine with it and then you can you can build whatever type of wall you want. But the second thing you have to consider is how you maintain that wall. So if you build a block wall, there's very low maintenance. If you build a stucco or siding wall, you may have to do some maintenance on that wall and you may have to have access from your neighbor's side of the property line to do that. So just a couple things to think about. Also, one more thing, in general, you're never building right on the property line. You're generally building at least two to four to six inches off the property line because buildings sway a little and you're not allowed to have the building sway over the property line. I think in general you're looking at about one inch per story for how much you can expect a building to sway and your structural engineer will be the one who determines that. Okay, so here we're under setbacks again. So now we have interior side and rear yard setbacks for ADU structures with the proposed height exceeding 16 ft. And here's what it's going to say. So remember this is just side and rear setbacks when we're over 16 ft for ADU structures located on a premises outside of a very high or high fire hazard seity zone. There's no minimum interior sideyard and rear yard setback except that the fire code official may require greater setback. So they keep throwing this little contingency in here. However, if the side or rear property line abuts another premises that is residentially zoned or developed with exclusively residential use, the minimum interior sideyard and rear yard setback shall be 4 feet or the minimum setback of the applicable base zone, whichever is less except and here's that contingency they're throwing back in there. Okay. Okay. And then here we have the same thing for ADU structures located within the very high fire hazard severity zone or in the high fire hazard severity zone. The minimum interior sideyards and rear setbacks should be 4 feet to provide defensible space etc etc.

Okay. So basically if we are in this high or very high fire zone we're going to need a 4ft setback at the rear and the side. But if we're not in the high or very high fire hazard severity zone, there are scenarios where we can reduce the setback below 4 feet. And it seems like those scenarios are going to be when you do not have exclusively residential use. So that could be like a commercial use next door, an industrial use, maybe a mixeduse development where you have residential and commercial. That would not be exclusively residential. So that would be fine. Maybe you have a vacant lot that is zoned for something other than residential. That seems to be a good opportunity here as well. So you could push it a little closer to the property line. One more thing I want to mention about building close to the property line. Once you go less than 3 ft to your property line, you can no longer put any doors and windows on that wall. And often times that's kind of a dealbreaker. So it's important to understand that before you start to push things closer to the property line.

Okay. So, let's get into parking. This used to be a pretty boring subject, but I guess these days parking in San Diego is pretty controversial. Different types of parking anyway because every time I post something about parking, it gets a lot of hits on my YouTube channel. Okay, so here's what it says about parking. I think you're going to see in summary, most ADUs do not need any parking, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't provide parking. Okay, so scenario A, no on street parking spaces or off- streetet parking spaces are required for ADUs except as specified in this section B right below. Okay, so basically from a starting point, you do not have to provide any off- streetet parking spots. Those are parking spots on your site and you also don't have to provide any on street parking spaces. So they felt the need to clarify that for some reason, but basically no parking unless you get caught up in something over here. So let's read through these code sections.

Subsection B here. When an ADU is proposed on a premises located both within the beach impact area of the parking impact overlay zone and outside of the transit priority area, the TPA, one off- streetet parking space is located consistent with this code section and shall be required per ADU unless any of the following should apply. Okay, so let's stop here and break this down. So, we're in this strange scenario here where we're in the beach impact area of the parking impact overlay zone, but we're also not in the TPA area because sometimes you're in both. But in this scenario, we're not in the TPA area and we're also in the beach impact area. So, we need to provide now one parking space per ADU unless that ADU is 500 square feet or less.

The premise is located within a historical district that is a designated historical resource. The ADU is attached to the proposed or existing primary dwelling unit or accessory structure. The premise is located within a residential permit parking district or there's a car share vehicle located within one block of the premises. Okay, so let's break this down. Let's say you're in this rare scenario. You want to build an ADU. You don't have the space for parking. Let's just say like there's no chance you can get any space for parking for some reason and you happen to fall into the beach impact area and not in the TTPA area. Okay. So, we could build this ADU at 500 ft. No parking required.

We could also just attach this ADU to a proposed or existing primary dwelling unit or accessory structure. And then I suppose we could just build a 1,200 foot AD with no parking. Or maybe we're in a location where there's a residential parking district, residential permit parking district. I don't know what areas have that, but if you find yourself there, go for it. You could just build a,200 foot ADU. So those are the those are some scenarios you should be aware about. At the end of this section, I do want to speak on whether or not we should be doing parking and the reason for that. So just bear with me here. I'm going to go through the rest of this real quick. Okay. When a garage, carport, or covered parking structure is demolished in conjunction with the construction of an ADU or converted to an ADU, replacement of those off- streetet parking spaces is not required unless the premises is located within the beach impact area.

Okay. So, this is the same scenario that I itemized in the in subsection B here. Okay. So, here's a situation. Let's say existing single family home. There's a garage. Garage has two cars in it. You decide you want to demolish the garage for whatever reason and build an ADU and maybe you're going to demolish the garage here so that you can access this part of the lot. I guess for some reason you don't have to replace the two parking spaces in this garage. It's pretty explicit about that. This also includes a carport or any other covered parking structure. If you're demolishing those things in conjunction, which I would take to mean that you're going to do this on the same permit, you don't have to replace those parking spaces. So, that's a I don't know why you'd want to do that, but there is an avenue to do that here. And the other scenario, which I think comes up more often, is okay, well, what about the situation where I have an existing single family home, an existing garage, I want to convert that garage. Well, that's one that we see a lot more often. And you do not have to replace the parking spaces here. Doesn't mean you should. It just means you don't have to. Okay, so let's move on here.

Subsection C. That's the one we just did. Now we're going to go through subsection D. When an uncovered parking space is demolished in conjunction with the construction of an ADU or converted to an ADU, replacement of those off- streetet parking is not required. Okay, so this one is a little weird. Let's see here. Okay, I'm going to grab this guy. Okay, so let's say I have two park two parking spaces here. Okay, so I have two parking spaces in my backyard. I determine that I want to build an ADU and for some reason I want to build that ADU right here. So what the city is saying is if I'm building an ADU in place of existing parking, replacement of those off street parking spaces is not required. Now, I would say this would be a really bad idea to build an ADU here if you have that parking. Like I would just build it here. I think that makes a much more functional like site design. But I suppose there could be some rare scenarios where you want to build it right there. Now, this code is hard to implement and I'm going to explain why. Let's say you have an existing single family home here. And most single family homes require two off- streetet parking spaces. Although since, you know, homes were built for probably 150 years in San Diego or more, parking regulations have changed. And if this is where my permitted parking spaces are, I mean, who's to say like, well, maybe they're right here. I mean, this guy's not going to be able to find a permit that shows where these two off street parking spaces are. So, does that mean that the the permit applicant gets to decide where these parking spots are? I mean, you're not going to find this on a records in a in the city records. So, I don't really understand why how they're planning for us to implement this, but that's a whole another story. Okay, let's move on here.

Subsection E. If off- streetet parking spaces are required in accordance with section 141.0302B10B or 1410302B10 C. So, these are these code sections right above here. or the applicant chooses to provide off- streetet parking spaces for ADUs located on the premises, the following applies. One, off- streetet parking spaces may be located within the setback areas and may include tandem spaces or mechanical lifts. And two, off- streetet parking spaces shall be located within the heartscape area and shall comply with the minimum standard and guideline to provide safe efficient means of vehicular access to the lot. Off street parking spaces may not encroach into the public rightway. Okay, so let's break this down. Okay, so this applies if you're required to provide parking or if you elect to provide parking voluntarily.

So we'll cover number one here. Off- streetet parking spaces may be located within the setback areas may include tandm space or mechanical lifts. Okay, so first thing, we can park in the sideyard setback. That's now totally kosher if we're building an ADU. We also can park in the front yard setback. The municipal code does not let you park a car in the front yard setback. However, if you build an ADU, you now can park in the front yard setback. And we are we're always allowed to park in the rear setback. So that's how this works. You could also include tandem spaces. So a tandem space would be this type of parking space. Okay? So those are two tandem spaces right now. And that would constitute two parking spaces. You basically never want to do this for two different units, but it is fair. You know, in this scenario here, like, let me move this back here. If we had an ADU here and a dwelling unit here, it would be totally acceptable to have these two parking spaces as part of the parking for this and this one as parking for this. And that would totally be that would totally be acceptable. You could also do mechanical lifts. That's going to be a pretty slim scenario, but if you're working on a large project in a scenario where you absolutely need to provide the parking, maybe the code requires it, or maybe you think your future tenants really are going to demand this, you could provide a lift.

Okay. Number two, off streetet parking spaces shall be located within hardscape areas and shall comply with the minimum standards and guidelines to provide safe and efficient means for vehicular access to the lot. Off street parking spaces shall not encroach into the public right away. Okay. So, a couple things that this is saying. So, first off, you have to meet the required dimensions for parking spaces. Typically, this is going to be found in chapter 14 in the parking regulations. A typical parking space is 8 foot wide by 18 ft long. If you are proposing to park next to a fence or other physical barrier, you need to add 1 foot in width. So, that would be 9 ft. If you are parking in a garage, you need to add 1 foot in length. So that would be 19 ft. If you park next to two barriers, like directly in the middle of two posts, you need 9 foot 6 in clearance. So the first thing this code's saying is you have to meet those requirements. The next thing this is saying is you cannot park in the rightway. So a lot of times I'll go for a walk with my dog and you see a car parked in a driveway and it's like this.

That doesn't People park like this. Yes, it's not cool to park like this. It's kind of an ADA issue to be honest. somebody in a wheelchair would have to then enter the street if you park like this. So, it's not a really a great thing. You do see it a lot. The city will not accept that as a parking space if you propose that. Okay. And then let's see if there's anything else. Then they also say within hardscape area. I mean, I park on 3/4 gravel at my house. It's perfectly acceptable. It's super cheap. I don't think hardscape includes 3/4 gravel. So there's one more code section and then I want to get into kind of the some strategies for parking here. Okay. So let's cover this one. Subsection F. Not withstanding the previous section, if the construction of an ADU causes an existing driveway curb cut to no longer comply with the minimum off- streetet parking spaces. Dimensions required. And they give you a table here. The driveway shall be closed to the satisfaction of the city engineer. Okay. So this one is very important.

If you have an existing driveway, you need to maintain, let's just pretend there's a driveway here, you need to maintain at least one legal parking space in that driveway. If you don't do that, the city is going to say you need to close up your driveway. And if you do, that's going to cost you like $40 to $50,000. It's going to be a right-of-way permit, and it's just going to be a lot of extra work you don't want to do because you want to keep the driveway. That's the whole point here. So, if you build an ADU, you're now allowed to front. You're now allowed to park in this front yard setback. So, all you got to do is show how one car can hook in and park at a 90 degree angle to that driveway or pull directly in and just park right here like I had shown previously here. And if you show that, you can keep your driveway. And you want to keep the driveway, especially if you have alley access, because if you get rid of that driveway, under the new code, you're no longer allowed to have a driveway if you have alley access. And to make these lots work the best, you get the most efficiency off your alley parking, but you get the most privacy when you have one resident approaching from the alley and one resident approaching from the driveway. So, the holy grail parking scenario is an existing driveway that does not have to be removed and an alley parking. That is your best parking opportunity. So, let's go back. How do we keep this driveway? Number one, if you're proposing an ADU, you need to make sure you have one regulation space that driveway is used for. Number two, and this is kind of in addition to all the ADU regulations, the more you modify this dwelling unit, the closer you're going to come to the city having you modify this driveway or closing up the driveway. The reason for that is because dwelling units are going to trigger public improvements.

And an alteration of a single family dwelling unit does not trigger public improvements. But the definition of alteration is in debate by the engineering department, the department who's responsible for implementing this code. They could say a kitchen remodel in an existing single family home is considered an alteration of an existing or is considered not an alteration. They could say an addition is not an alteration. So, if you trigger public improvements by modifying this in a way that the engineering department believes you're triggering public improvements, the first thing they're going to have you do if you have alley access is close up this driveway. It's very expensive. You need a rightaway permit. It's going to be about 5,000 bucks for the permit. It's about 5,000 bucks for the drawing. And closing up a driveway is going to be like 30 grand. You don't want to do that if you don't have to do that. Okay. So, in general, let's talk a little bit more specifically about parking. Parking is the lowest cost option to provide a resident with a better experience. Like I said, all I do is throw down 3/4 gravel here and now you can have six parking spots c park across a 50 foot wide lot or three parking spots across a 25 foot wide lot. It almost costs nothing to do. And the market rate in my neighborhood of Logan Heights for a parking space is about $130 bucks for a month. You're getting $130 a month for each parking space inherent in the rent.

And yeah, it's just very easy to do. So if you have alley, always leave 20 ft minimum here for parking. The other thing you have to be concerned about is you need 21 foot backup distance. So most alleys are only going to be 20 feet. So if a parking spot is 18 ft here, we still need to give oursel at least one more foot so that we have enough space for the 18t parking space. Oops, 18 foot. And then we have 21 ft backup distance to the other side of the alley. So that's what we're looking for. Okay, now here's the trick. The parking regulations in the city of San Diego is so restricted. I mean, what sense does it make to close up a drive a driveway here if we could fit three cars in a driveway? The width of the curb cut is going to be less than the width of a parallel parking spot. So, we should be encouraging driveways, especially if they have two or more cars in it. But, you have to play by the rules. And unfortunately, the parking regulations are incredibly restrictive. So, what happens more often than not is we show the parking in the way that's going to meet the city requirements. But in real life, people park the way the property owner allows them to park. That could mean a whole bunch of different things.

I came up with a circumstance where we had a 25 foot wide lot, so half the width of this, and we proposed three parking spaces, and the city was not going to allow that. So, what we ended up doing is we just show the city two parking spaces. Now, in real life, this guy has a 7 and 1/2 foot wide parking space. It's very difficult to park in that. It's like parking at at the Mission Valley Mall. Those parking spots are very narrow, but you're better off having a substandard parking space than no parking space. Any way you break this down, you're better off having a smaller parking space than no parking space. I have a Fiat. I can fit it in a small parking space. Some people have motorcycles. That's perfect for a small parking space. Maybe you don't use the car every day, so you can leave it parked. So, a lot of times there's a little bit of games being played here because we have to show that we're meeting the city standard. And in reality, we're going to have a completely different strategy to park on our designs. And unfortunately, that's just the way we have to play the game.

So, last thing to say about this, even though there's a lot of opportunities to not provide any parking, you should always provide parking when possible. And the first 20 ft off your alley is the most valuable area of your property to do that. And it's the most efficient way to park because when we park off the alley, we are using the alley for our backup distance. when we park off the driveway, we actually have to back out, which creates a little bit of an unsafe scenario. So, alley parking is huge. Okay, so add parking to your properties. Okay, now we're on number 11 here. The record owner is not required to live on the same premises of an ADU. Okay, this one is super important. It doesn't really matter at all for the design of this, but it's very important for the use of the ADU because this is what allows us to rent the ADU to somebody who doesn't live on the pre or when the owner does not live on the premises.

It's all well and good if you're going to live in the home and rent the ADU. But what happens if you're buying a property or you have a second property, you don't want to live there. According to the subsection 11, you can still rent that ADU. So, that's super important. In fact, I think maybe we'll get into this here, but I believe that the owner still needs to live on the premises for a JADU, at least according to the written language in this code. That's why a JDU is not a great typology for developers. But speaking of JDUs, we're going to get into the junior accessory dwelling unit regulations right now. Okay. So, number one, a premises with an existing or proposed single dwelling unit, one JADU is permitted subject to the following. So, first off, we need the existing or proposed single dwelling unit. Otherwise, there's no opportunity for a JAD. The JADU shall be within an existing or proposed single dwelling unit or attached garage. Okay, so what does this mean?

The term within is strange here and it should really be rewritten to help clarify this. A JADU is not technically a second unit. If you have an existing dwelling unit and you make half of that a JADU, you still only have one dwelling unit from the perspective of the building code. If you live in the dwelling unit, you could rent the JADU. So from that angle, it's functioning kind of like a duplex, but like from the code perspective, it's still a single family home. And I'll explain this. Here's a better way to explain this. If you have a forced air heating and cooling system, like duct work, the JADU does not need its own. You can control the JADU's temperature from a single thermostat, which means you're actually sharing air with the JADU. If you were to do a duplex design with a true duplex, you can't share that error, but a JADU is allowed. So that's the difference here. So the way they're writing it here, the JADU is always inside of the single dwelling unit. And also they're allowing it to be it looks like inside an attached garage. U emphasis on attached.

Okay. So the construction of the JADU may expand the floor area of the existing single dwelling unit up to 150 square feet only allowed for ingress. I'm exe I'm not going to say egress because that's not true. So basically the JDU is like a conversion and whenever possible build your ADU before the JDU because the ADU is more valuable both in terms of if you ever were to get your home reappraised it's a true second unit. Also, if you ever move out, you could rent it. So, there's more flexibility. And ADU can do everything a JDU can do, but a JADU can't do everything an ADU can do. So, build your ADUs first. Subsection C here says the JADU shall have a separate exterior entry from the existing or proposed single dwelling unit. That looks very familiar than the ADU regulations we saw earlier. So, it's the exact same thing.

The JADU show may not be sold or conveyed separately from the primary dwelling unit. That would be expected. the record owner of the primary dwelling unit shall reside in the single dwelling unit or JADU. Okay, so this is a code that should change because this makes a JDU not a viable option for somebody who doesn't live on the property. Like what happens if you live in your home, you build a JDU, then you move out of your home? Does this mean the JDU can no longer be rented? It just has to stay vacant. It doesn't make any sense. I don't know why they're creating this threshold between ADUs and JDUs. It should just all be the same thing. Before a building permit may be issued for a JDU, the record owner shall enter into an agreement with the city in a form that is approved by the city attorney that includes the following provisions. The JADU may not be sold or conveyed separately from the primary dwelling unit. The purchase agreement may be enforced against future purchasers. The record owner shall reside on the premises. See, that's the one that's kind of a deal stopper. The agreement shall be recorded and the agreement shall run with the land for the life of the JDU. So, basically, you got to sign this agreement. City's doing this more and more, having you sign agreements when you get permits. It's getting a little outrageous to be honest. There are some exemptions here from the ADU, from the sorry, the JAD regulations. So, if you're interested in that, if you're a government agency, a land trust, or qualified housing organization, you may want to read into that. Otherwise, I'm just going to skip this.

Okay. At the end of this, I'm going to go into some more of the JADU secret code, too, because there's some stuff that's not mentioned here. Lot size. So, JDUs are not subject to the minimum lot size. Same as the ADUs. Also here, same as ADUs, JDUs are not subject to density limitations for the premises. You, the gross floor area of a JDU shall not be included in the floor area ratio for the premises. Okay, so here's one that's interesting, and this is a new addition to this code. The gross floor area of a JADU shall not be included in the floor area ratio for the premises. Okay, that's really interesting. But because of the way the Jedus work, we can't just propose a 500 ft addition. So let's think about this a little bit.

Let's say we're maxed out on our F. We could convert some into a JDU and we can add an addition of about 150 square feet, but we can't just propose a 500 foot addition as the J8U. Is that true? Because the JADU has to be made out of converted space. So, what you could do is you could designate, let's say you have a 2500 foot dwelling unit. You're maxed out of F. into small lot. We could say, okay, now we're going to make 500 square feet of that JADU of that dwelling unit into a JADU. And now that makes our dwelling unit 2,000 square ft. And that'll throttle down our F. And then we should be able to do a 500 square foot addition considering that would bring us back up to the max F in this scenario. So, there's a little bit of a I don't know if you can do that in one permit or two permits, but there's a little bit of like wiggle room here to do some interesting things if you need. And then, of course, you have that section here where it says a JADU shall not be less than 150 ft and shall not exceed 500 ft within an existing or proposed single dwelling unit. Okay. Exterior entry. A Jedu shall have a separate exterior entry from the primary dwelling unit. I think they mentioned that earlier in the code, but here it is again.

Kitchen of a Jedu shall include the following. A cooking facility with appliances, a food preparation counter of a reasonable size in relation to the size of the Jedu, and storage cabinets that are of reasonable size in relation to the size of the JADU. Okay, so let me pull back the blinders on this section of the code and explain exactly what this means. At a minimum, a kitchen for a JDU can essentially be a wet bar. So, there's three cooking appliances that are required to meet the minimum code in city of San Diego for a kitchen. You need a refrigerator, which could be a mini fridge, like under the counter. You need a sink, which basically can be just a small bar sink. There's no limitations on the size of the sink. And you need a cooktop. And a cooktop can be a portable electric cooktop which you can purchase on Amazon. They're very small. That constitutes all of the cooking facility appliances you need here. Now, if you did only want to use this as a wet bar, like you have no need for the kitchen, you can return the electric cooktop after final inspection. Nobody checks that. So, you can do that. Now, B and C are very subjective and the ADU code is not supposed to be subjective. So, I do not know why the city added these, but you need a food preparation counter of a reasonable size in relationship to the size of the Jedu. So, in my scenario of a of a wet bar, I think you could have a twoft countertop, maybe a three-foot countertop, and that's going to give you about a wet bar anywhere from three feet in width to four or five feet in width. So that's going to be probably your smallest size kitchen you can design here. And then storage cabinets that are of reasonable size in relationship to the size of the JDU. I mean, this is so stupid. I don't understand why we don't let the market dictate these things. If an a Jedu is going to be attempted to be rented without a without any cabinets, like people that don't want to rent that will just not rent it. But instead, this is going to go through some sort of plan check, some sort of subjectivity, and then just to bring it all back, close the loop here once we get into inspections, the inspector is not even going to care about the cabinets. So, it's something that they're going to be really they're really going to care about in plan check and then it goes into inspection and when you're really building the thing. And the inspector has no idea how many cabinets you need to build and they'll give you final inspection before you even install install these cabinets. So, BNC should just be eliminated from this. It's like just a big overreach.

Okay. And here we have parking. Now, there's going to be parking for Jadus. So, here we have no on street parking spaces or off- streetet parking spaces are required for a JDU. When an AD when a attached garage is converted to a JDU, replacement of those off- streetet parking spaces is not required unless the premises is located within the beach impact area of the parking impact overlay zone and outside of the TPA area which in case parking shall be replaced in a location consistent with the other section. And then here C. If off- streetet parking spaces are required in accordance with this section here or the applicant chooses to provide off- streetet parking spaces for JDUs located on the premises, the following applies. Off- streetet parking spaces may be located within the setbacks. It may be tandem or mechanical lifts. And this is probably going to be the same thing as earlier. They may be located in hardcape area. Need to comply with the minimum standards, etc., etc. And then here's that section. This is the biggest cautionary tail here. Do not eliminate your curb cut. Make sure you only have one parking space. But I noticed one conflict here, which is strange. Okay, so it says here that there is a scenario where you could be required to have parking if you're in the beach impact area and not in the TPA area. But if it's an ADU, 500 ft² or less does not require a parking space.

Now, if it's a Jedu, you're limited to only 500 ft² max. But it seems like there's some scenarios where an ADU 500 a JDU 500 ft² or less would require parking where the same design with an ADU does not require parking. So there there you go. Okay. So, now we're going to get into the ADU bonus program, which has been renamed to the ADU home density bonus. Okay. So, everything we've talked about so far has been by. But now we're going to get into stuff that is not by. The byite code comes from the state of California. Everything beyond that is written by the city of San Diego. And we have some very liberal ADU regulations in the city of San Diego, which is good, but they've been walking them back every year for the past five years. So, this is a moving target. And the other thing is the byright adus, the state has said no impact fees keep the code simple. But with these ADUs that are not byright, we have to defer to the city. So, they've, and you'll see as I explain this, they found a way to add fees back into this.

City of San Diego loves to collect their fees. Okay, so first off, to qualify for this program, there's certain location requirements. So, let's go through them. I think you're going to find that most lots will qualify at least to use this program to some level, but there's different ways we can use the program. So, subsection A here. The portion of the premises proposed for development may not be within the following base zones. RS11, one 12, 1 3, 1, 1, 1 9, 110, or 111, unless the following apply. The premises is an area identified as a high or highest California tax credit allocation committee opportunity area when the development application is deemed complete. So, I'm not really sure what that means, but I guess if you own the property, you'd probably know that.

or the premises is identified as residential in a land use plan. Premises identified in a land use plan. H, that's an interesting one. I don't actually know what that means. So, basically, in these zones, you're not going to be able to use this ADU home density bonus program, but you can still do the buy ADUs and J8s we talked about earlier. Just rewind the video if you want more if you want to go back to that. Now, what's interestingly, what's interesting enough here is they have not eliminated the RS17, which is the most common single family zone in San Diego. So, you can still do this in most single family zones. It's just a random ones you can't do it with. Okay. Now, on a premises within the sustainable development area, this is the SDA overlay zone, one additional bonus ADU shall be permitted for every additional affordable ADU. And then I'm just going to contrast that with subsection C here.

On a premises outside of the sustainable development area, a maximum of one bonus ADU and one affordable ADU shall be permitted. Okay, so let's just dive into this a little bit more. First off, you have to find yourself in a zone that is not in one of these zones, which is going to be most of the zoning in San Diego. So now you have like kind of a fork in the road. You're either in the SDA overlay zone or you're not in the SDA overlay zone. And if you're not familiar with this overlay zone, the sustainable development area is one mile walking distance from major mass transit. Not any mass transit, but major mass transit, which at the very least requires two intersecting bus lines. So within one mile walking distance on sidewalks within major mass transit. So that's what the sustainable development area is. And you have to you can't measure this yourself. You have to check to make sure you're in that area. Now, if you're outside of the SDA's area, you can still use this ADU home density bonus program to some capacity, but you cannot use it to its maximum capacity. So, what that means is outside of the SDA area, you can still build two ADUs, one bonus and one affordable. Okay, so let's kind of break down what this means here.

to find a lot that has a lot of area. Okay, let's take let's take this one here. I'm gonna move this back over here. Actually, I'll just delete this one. Okay, so you have an existing single family home and you converted the garage and you built an ADU, but now you want more ADUs. And maybe you do this all at once. I'm not sure. Now, how do you get more ADUs here? Because you've already maxed everything out. Now, we're not talking about JDUs at the moment. We're just talking about how to get more ADUs. So, this would be how you would do it. You would basically start to leverage the ADU home density bonus program. And we'll move these.

Okay. This is a dwelling unit. You can rent that at whatever the market commands. That's your garage conversion. You can rent that at whatever the market demands. This is your second ADU. So these two are buy ADUs. We could rent this at whatever the market wants. Now, if I wanted to do one more ADU, that ADU has to be rented at an affordable rate for between 10 and 15 years depending on which level of affordability you rented at or your tenants are. So, let's just color this one. So, that's our this is our affordable one. Keep that in mind. Now, because I built the affordable one, I'm able to build a bonus one, which is a market rate one. Okay, so this is a good example of how I can get five units on a lot that is outside of the SDA zone. So, basically almost any lot in city of San Diego, you could do a development similar to this for. Now, once you reach five units, you have to be careful because you're going to be upgrading the water meter. You have to plan for all your utilities as part of this and that's the DSD is not doing this for you. So you have to coordinate with STGE. You have to coordinate with the water district. You got to get a right ofway permit because most existing water meters are only going to be able to handle three or four total units if each of those units only have one bathroom.

The other thing you got to be careful of is how this works with your mortgage lender. Because if you're going to get a mortgage on this, there's different thresholds of in basically where your interest rate is going to be based on how many units. At five units, that's going to be a commercial type mortgage. At four units, that's going to be the threshold for a multif family type development. And actually, if we're going to do four units, it would be this one, which would be which would disappear because the way the home density bonus program works is after you do your buy, write, the next one is going to be affordable and then you get a bonus one. Okay, now let's say we're inside the sustainable development area. This is where it gets interesting. And to do this, I'm actually going to copy this lot over because we have to pretend our lot is much wider to explain this.

Okay, so let's say we just have this like really wide lot for some reason and I want to do more ADUs. So if we're inside the sustainable development area, I can basically continue to do this as many times as I want until I reach the maximum floor area ratio. So the way this would work is let me delete these in the proper order. Oops. Okay. So, I have an existing or proposed single dwelling unit. I've converted my garage. I've got my buy right ADU. I now can build an affordable ADU. If I choose to, I now get a market rate ADU, which is considered the bonus ADU. If I want to keep going and I'm in the SDA overlay zone, I can build another affordable one. And then by doing that, I can build another market rate one. And then by doing that, I build another affordable one. and then another market rate one. So that's how the the ADU home density bonus program works. So it's very powerful. Of course, this is why it's created so much controversy because people can take a single family zone lot and add quite a lot more units than just the one that you would expect to be in a single family zone lot. Just as a as an aside here, I will say in California, we have basically no more single family zoning because on any lot that's zoned single family, you can find a way to do one garage conversion into an ADU, one detached ADU, and one JADU. So any single family zone lot in in California could essentially become four units. So there's no more single family zoning in California. Okay. So now let's let's keep going with this thing. Oh, I should mention one more thing. you can use this program in the multifamily context. So this could become, you know, a much bigger building. This could be, if we're doing this in like a high density multif family zoning, like there's no reason why I can't just stack these.

As long as I can make my egress work, I can basically do that. You got egress, fire separation, distance, ADA, utilities, fire sprinklers. There's a lot that goes into that, but you can leverage this program to do that. Okay, so that's a lot about the ADU bonus program. Let's keep going here. So, subsection D. When a premises located in more than one base zone, only the portion of the premises that meets the requirements of this section listed here shall be eligible for bonus ADUs and affordable ADUs. Okay, so sometimes you get this strange scenario where one lot has two different zones. And basically all this is saying is you develop that lot with whatever the allowance of each individual zone is in that specific area where the zone is. Now the city doesn't have like CAD files of all this stuff.

So the actual line of the zoning is subject to the drafter I guess who puts the project together or the designer. So there's probably about 2 feet room for error in both directions if you wanted to play with that. I don't know any way of getting more accuracy on that. I've asked the city and they don't know either. Okay, so here's some lot requirements. Within the high and very high fire hazard severity zone, the applicant shall demonstrate that the front that the lot fronts an improved public street with at least two evacuation routes to the satisfaction of the fire code official. Okay. So if you are in a high or very high fire hazard survivor zone, you cannot do these on culde-sacs anymore. There was a like very popular project that was built with a bunch of these units on a culde-sac and basically the nimbies kind of got into it and eventually they put this section in the code. So you're looking to do this where you have two evacuation routes which means kind of like a through street so that if people are trying to exit they can go left down the street or right down the street. That's the perfect scenario.

Within a high or very high fire hazard severity zone, the lots shall not front culde-sac or be located on premises that has one point of ingress or egress. I mean, these basically say the same thing. I don't know why they need to write it twice, but it's there. So, you got to watch out for that. Okay, let's talk about F here. So, subsection A, within a base zone that permits single dwelling unit developments but not multiple dwelling unit developments, the maximum floor area ratio shall be determined as follows. Okay, so here's how they're going to throttle down your F to basically they're only doing this in single in base zones that permit single dwelling units. So, as I mentioned, people in single family zones were mad about this. So, here is the city trying to appease them by throttling down your F and those zones that permit single dwelling units but not multiple dwelling units. So where the lot contains environmentally sensitive land, the maximum permit floor area ratio shall be determined using only the area of the lot that does not contain environmentally sensitive land. Lots that have that are on a slope have any steep hillside is going to be ESL. It's environmentally sensitive land. So, a lot of these hillside lots have a very small area where you can build and then a very large amount of lot area. What this does is it allows the F to be cranked up higher because of how big the lot is. And what this code section is doing number one here is it's throttling it back down because you have to exclude the ESL area from the F calculation.

In no case shall the maximum permitted floor area ratio be determined using more than 8,000 square feet of lot area. Okay, so here's another one. Let's say you have 12,000 foot lot. Let's say it's perfectly flat, but your lot only permits single dwelling unit developments and not multiple dwelling unit developments. You're going to be capped at 8,000 ft. I don't know why I don't know why they added this, but the important thing is it applies to such a small amount of these lots. It probably doesn't even matter. Okay. For lots for the RS112, 1 3 1 14516 17 base zones, the applicable floor area ratio shall be determined in accordance with table 131 04J using the adjusted lot area as described in this section.

Okay, I think this is this the table that they're referring us to for J. So it's not this table. So if you're in this rare scenario, go figure out what this table is. And if we cover it in this code section, I'll cover it. But other than that, go to table 131.04J. Okay. So moving on here. Subsection B. Within a base zone that permits multiple dwelling unit developments where the lot contains ESL, the maximum permitted floor area ratio shall be determined by using the area of the lot that does not contain ESL. Okay, so basically it's saying the same thing here. Whether your lot permits single dwelling unit or multiple dwelling unit, you are not going to be able to include that ESL as part of the lot area to crank up your F.

And then here we have total maximum number of permitted ADUs and J AUS on single dwelling unit lots. So this only applies to single dwelling unit lots. The maximum the total maximum number of ADUs and JDUs that may be permitted on a lot within a base zone that permits single dwelling unit development but not multiple dwelling unit development. Okay, so that's just the single family zones RS, RX, and RT. we shall be based on the lot area in accordance with this table below. If the lot contains environmentally sensitive land, the lot area shall be determined using the area of the lot that does not contain environmentally sensitive land. Okay, so basically what this is going to do is in single family zoning, it's going to cap the number of ADUs and JADUs per lot based on these lot areas.

And then it says here the maximum number of ADUs and J ADUs is inclusive of the total number of ADUs and JDUs that are permitted in accordance with this section above here which is basically saying these maximum numbers include your byite ADUs and they also include the the ADU home density bonus ADUs. Okay. Now, if we're using the home density bonus program, fire sprinklers, all affordable ADUs and bonus ADUs in the development shall be shall include automatic fire sprinkler system in accordance with California Building Standards Code. Okay. So, let's say you have a development here. We'll use this one. No fire sprinklers here. So, we didn't need fire sprinklers in the conversion. We didn't need fire sprinklers in the other byite ADU. But now, these are part of the ADU home density bonus program. All of those need fire sprinklers. As far as I can tell, these three structures would not require fire sprinklers. If this one is built new, that would require sprinklers.

Okay, so here, let's take two scenarios. If that's an existing dwelling unit, no fire sprinklers. Now we have no fire sprinklers here. Fire sprinkler, fire sprinkler, fire sprinkler, fire sprinkler, fire sprinkler. Now, if this is a proposed dwelling unit, like you start off with a vacant lot, this is going to require fire sprinklers under the California code. So that means everything needs fire sprinklers. Okay. So a little bit of a difference in developing a vacant lot versus developing a lot that is an infill lot with an existing structure. If this existing structure here is ready to fall down, but you renovate it, you don't need fire sprinklers and then you don't need fire sprinklers here and here. So there could be some value in that. Okay. So now we're on to subsection six. Minimum off streetet minimum required off- streetet parking spaces. One off- streetet parking space shall be required for each affordable ADU and bonus ADU located outside of the transit priority area. Okay, that's pretty clear.

Generally, that's what I would design for at a minimum anyway. It can be difficult to get a lot of parking to work if you don't have alley access, but on these big lots, it'd be a little bit easier than on the small lots. Okay, so landscaping requirements here. Two trees shall be provided on the premises for every 5,000 square feet of lot area with a minimum of one tree per premises. If planting of a new tree is required to comply with this section, the tree shall be selected in accordance with the landscape standards of the land development manual and the city's tree street tree selection guide. If the premises is located in the O zone, the lot area used to determine the tree requirement shall be based on allowable development area as described in section 131.0. 0250. If the premises contains environmentally sensitive land, the lot area used to determine the TR tree requirement shall be based on the allowable developments area as described in chapter 14 article 3 division 1.

Okay. So, if you're going to be doing one of these big ADU bonus programs, you have to plan for these trees. Initially, this was a requirement for any byite ADU, but the state came down on the city of San Diego and said you cannot add these additional requirements. We've already told you stop adding these additional requirements. So, they took it out of the code for the buy ADUs. But if you are doing an ADU bonus program, plan ahead for these trees. Okay. And then here we're going to talk about an agreement that is going to be need needed. So, I'll just read through this one real quick. ADU home density bonus agreements. The affordable ADUs shall be guaranteed through a written agreement and a deed of trust securing the agreements entered into by the applicant and president of chief president and chief executive offer of the San Diego Housing Commission. SDHC is the company you're going to be dealing with for this. By the way, it costs $3,000 per lot to apply for this program. So, it's not free. prior to the issuance of a building permit for the first affordable ADU or bonus ADU, whichever occurs first that meets the following requirements. A rental affordable ADU home density bonus agreement shall utilize the following criteria.

Very lowincome ADU home density bonus. One additional ADU shall be permitted for every affordable ADU on the premises that is set aside as affordable to very lowincome households for a period of not less than 10 years. I'm going to highlight this because I want to compare them at the end of this. Then we're going to say lowincome ADU home density bonus. One additional bonus ADU shall be permitted for every affordable ADU in a premises that is set aside as affordable to lowincome households for a period of not less than 10 years. Moderate income. One additional bonus ADU shall be permitted for every affordable ADU on a premises that is set aside for affordable to moderate income for a period of not less than 15 years. And then very low income, low-inccome and moderate income ads shall be comparable. Okay, so we'll get to that in a second. So, first off, you have to look at this. I'm not sure who writes this thing. It's crazy. You have two categories here. A 10-year contract, which is these first two, and a 15-year contract. Why would anybody select very home, very low income for 10 years when you could select regular low income for 10 years? It wouldn't make any sense.

So they should eliminate this part from the code. I don't understand why anybody would ever use this. Your options basically are you provide to lowincome households for 10 years or you provide to moderate income households for 15 years. Those are basically the two options. Now in addition to this the very low income which you'd never provide the low-inccome and the moderate income affordable ADUs shall be comparable in bedroom mix and amenities to the bonus ADU's development. Now we have been told by San Diego Housing Commission that they are looking for comparable square footages and equal bedroom counts. We've never been told anything about the amenities. When you deal with San Diego Housing Commission, they're going to assess things based on bedroom count. So often times you're better off having smaller bedrooms in. So if you could have the same size unit, a two if you can get two legal bedrooms, legal bedroom size 70 ft, it's better off than one larger bedroom to satisfy this program. And even though it says amenities here, typically if we're short on parking or if we are only giving one parking instead of two parking spaces to the unit, the units that are going to get the least amount of parking are going to be the affordable units. I think that's part of the compromise here. People are able to rent these for cheaper, but maybe they don't get everything that the people who are paying full market rate are paying.

I would say I would extend this also to a washerdryer. You may not be providing washerd dryers if you're capped by your water meter. So something to consider. It does say amenities here, but that has not come up on our San Diego Housing Commission interactions yet. So just just be careful. You want equal bedroom and equivalent or equal square footage. I believe I recall a conversation where they were telling us that they did not that they want equal square footage rather than equivalent square footage. There was a yeah they believe that San Diego Housing Commission sees the word equivalent as the same as the word equal. So that's important for you to understand. Um okay here we have something about violation. I'm not going to get into this because that's not my job as an architect. You should not be violating the contract of course. Okay.

Here's another interesting angle here. And this is the ADU home density bonus program community enhancement fee. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm not into that section yet. This is where they're adding fees. The applicant shall pay an ADU home density bo bonus program community enhancement fee as established by San Diego resolution calculated based on gross floor area of the affordable ADUs and bonus ADUs except that the gross floor area of any affordable ADU that that meet the following shall not be included in the calculation. The affordable ADU is deeed restricted to very lowincome or low-income households. The premises is located in an area identified as high or very high resource California tax credit allocation committee, which I'm not really sure what that means. Okay, so let's see here.

I want to make sure I explain this correctly. So, community enhancement fees are development impact fees. They're the same exact thing. It's just an it's just a name they've changed so that they are not considered development impact fees. If you remember, the buy ADUs are not subject to these fees because they're state-run program. But the ADU home density bonus program is a citywide program. So the city is adding these fees back in. It's a throttled I should say scaled fee. So, if the fee is $10,000 and that's based, you know, it's different communities have different impact fees, but if you're proposing a 600 foot ADU where you have a maximum of,200, you're proposing a 600 foot ADU, that ADU is 50% of the maximum size. So, you're going to pay 50% of the community enhance. You're going to pay 50% of the impact fee. And that's what they're considering the community enhancement fee. But it does seem like here that gross it does seem like we could be exempt if we classify this as a lowincome household.

Let me just read this one more time. Except that the gross floor area r of any affordable ADUs that meet the following shall not be included in the calculation. So yeah, I think if we look at subsection A, if we use the low income, we can be exempt from these community enhancement fees. That's how I'm reading this right now. By the way, always question your invoices from the DSD. They're there's like they're wrong like 75% of the time. And always question the San Diego's Housing Commission because we have gotten some very very strange interpretations from them. So you you have to always question this because they they're not all playing. Not everybody is playing by this code book right here. Okay. So here's an interesting section. I got a little too anxious earlier. I thought we were going into this code section, but this one is interesting.

ADU bonus for accessible ADUs. An accessible ADU is something that could be used by somebody with a disability. So it says for developments utilizing the ADU home density bonus program in accordance with the section above a maximum of one additional accessible ADU shall be permitted if the development includes at least two ADUs that are affordable to very low-income or low-inccome or moderate income households. And then the accessible ADU needs to meet these criteria. Okay, so let's break this down first. So we have to already be using the ADU bonus program and we need at least two ADUs that are rented at an affordable rate. So this is probably the scenario where we are, you know, we have something like this.

So we have two affordable units already and now we can start to leverage this ADU bonus for accessible ADUs. So subsection 2 is going to define what the accessible units need. We need accessibility requirements in chapter 11A of the California building code. This is where they itemize all of the ADA requirements, including at least one accessible bathroom. An accessible bathroom is going to be larger than your standard bathroom. So keep that in mind. An accessible kitchen, which is going to come with some very specific requirements for knee space, toe space, and height of the countertop. and one accessible bedroom. So, it's going to be a slightly larger bedroom. The accessible ADU shall be located on an accessible route. I'll explain that in a second. And the accessible ADU shall be comparable in bedroom mix and amenities to the bonus ADUs. Okay, so let's say we did this here. And then now we want to get our accessible unit. I'll change the color of this one. Okay, so now we have an accessible unit. And I want to make sure I want to make I want to see if we get the bonus ADU here.

Okay, a maximum of one additional accessible ADU shall be permitted if the development includes Okay, so in this circumstance, it looks like it's just giving us one ADU, but we can get a buy right one as long as it's accessible before we have to use another affordable one. So this development actually may look better if we were to propose something like this. Boom. The reason for that is because the accessible unit needs to be on an accessible path of travel which is gen generally going to be a relatively level path from the sidewalk. So this can be very difficult to do on a slope plot as you can imagine.

Okay. So now the next couple pages we're going to get into some really dense language and I'm going to try to break some of it down, but really a lot of this is just some homework you're going to have to do if you want to read this because some of this is new language and I'm not 100% sure how it all breaks out. So subsection F is the most exciting addition to this ADU regulations. So sale or conveyance of ADUs. This would be a huge game changer for California. And right now we're allowed to sell ADUs with certain provisions. So here it says new or existing ADUs may be converted into condominiums and shall be sold or otherwise conveyed separately from the primary residence in accordance with the section or pursuant to this code section 141.03. 0302G and subject to all of the following.

All structures and buildings included as part of a condominium development shall conform to the required requirements applicable to the base zone or plan district in which the development is located. Designation of individual condominium units shall not be deemed to replace or eliminate any of the base zone or plan district requirements applicable to the buildings or structures unless otherwise allowed for ADUs pursuance to section 141.0302B. Okay. The condominium subdivision shall be created pursuant to the Davis Sterling Common Interest Development Act. Now a civil engineer or a lot a survey licensed surveyor would be more familiar with this than an architect would be. The condominium subdivision shall be created in conformance with subdivision map act. So same thing neither a subdivision map nor condominium plan shall be recorded without each leanholders's written consent. The following shall apply to the consent of a leanholder. A lean holder may refuse to give written consent or a lean holder may consent provided that any terms and conditions required by the lean holder are satisfied prior to the recordation of the initial or any subsequent modifications to the condominium plan. Written evidence of the lean holders consistent consents shall be provided to the office of the county recorder of San Diego County along with a signed statement from each lean holder that states the following etc etc. And then lastly, the lean holders written consent shall be included on the condominium plan or attached to the condominium plan that includes the following information. And then you got a bunch of information you need to add to that.

And let's plow through the rest of these. The condominium development shall be subject to the subdivision requirements in this chapter. The condominium development shall be subject to the condominium conversion regulations in this chapter. If any of the ADUs if the development are occupied, if an ADU is established as a condominium, the applicant shall not the applicant shall notify providers of utilities including water, sewer, gas, and electricity of the condominium creation and separate conveyance. Okay, so this is like one of the most confusing parts about selling ADUs like separately from dwelling units. Oftentimes all the utilities are tied together. We may have two meters, but those meters are on one of the structures. They're not. You don't have one meter on one structure, one meter on the other structure. The sewer line is shared. The water line shares the same meter.

You could have indiv individual shut offs or you can have submeters, but you only get one bill, so it's on one meter. And if you have gas, you'd have two gas meters. So, I guess this is a big mystery for me. If I was looking to sell an ADU, I would want to drive down on what this means exactly. Subsection five here, the condominium development shall be located on a single parcel or a lot that was previously mapped, etc., etc., for a minimum period of 30 days from the state. An ADU that is established as a condominium is first listed for sale. The record owner shall offer the ADU through at least two publicly accessible real estate websites or databases with a disclosure stating that the ADU is being offered for at least 30 days to buyers intending to use the ADU as their primary residence. What's the point of this? I mean, it's it's so stupid. Okay. Subsection seven.

ADUs that have received financing or other forms of assistance from San Diego Housing Commission shall not be converted into condominiums and shall not be sold or otherwise conveyed separately from the primary residence during the term specified in the deed restriction agreement. So if you have a affordable restriction for 10 or 15 years that's going to prevent you from doing this. And then over here we have rental ADUs that are rent restricted by law or covenant to persons and families of very low income, low- income or moderate income shall not be converted into condominiums and shall not be sold otherwise conveyed separately from the primary residence for the duration of the deed restriction or affordable affordability covenant terms. Okay, so there's a lot to read in here. Now, the next section is completely related to sale or conveyance of an ADU by a nonprofit profit corporation. And I have never had a client that is a nonprofit corporation. So, I'm going to skip this section. And basically, that marks the end of the ADU code section in the municipal code. So, it's now made it up to 19 pages. I believe when we started, we were at seven or nine pages. So, it's basically tripled in size since 2020.

But in a nutshell, that's a full review of this code section. And feel free to reach out if you have any questions about any of this or if you need help with any of your projects.