Housing in Plain Sight: City Helps Homeowners Turn Empty Spaces Into Homes
Neighbors gather in Berkeley, California, for a backyard cottage open house. (Original photo: Greenbelt Alliance, Flickr.)
When Bakari Grant’s grandmother suffered a stroke, she was referred to a facility where she died less than a year later. Her final months are remembered alongside long drives, strange smells, and what Bakari viewed as inadequate care. When his father, Robert, had a stroke soon after, Bakari and his four siblings knew they needed an alternative. They wanted their father close to home and in a place they could afford. So, they built a backyard cottage.
It sits in Bisa Grant’s backyard in Dublin, California, where everyone can enjoy a bit of privacy but also rest easy knowing that family is just a knock away. In fact, the arrangement worked out so well that it inspired the siblings to start their own company building prefabricated backyard units for others in similar situations.
Robert with his granddaughter inside his backyard home, 2023. (Photo by Ruth Dusseault for Bay City News.)
Similar stories are behind many backyard cottages, casitas, converted basements, granny flats, and — as they’re more formally known — accessory dwelling units (ADUs) across California. That’s why it’s no surprise that west of Dublin, in the city of Berkeley, ADUs are booming. In addition to filling a real, human need, these modest residences have the potential to provide more affordable housing options in a city where home values hover around $1.3 million and rents average at $2,600 per month, according to Zillow.
Yet, many of these units sit vacant. That’s because in Berkeley, many of them are considered illegal.
“There are a lot of horror stories out there,” former Berkeley City Councilmember Susan Wengraf told the San Francisco Chronicle. She’d heard about Berkeley homeowners deliberately leaving secondary housing units, like the one the Grant family built, empty for years. Many of the homeowners — largely older, single women, according to Wengraf — built these intending to rent them out to make ends meet or use them to age in place, so the vacancies weren’t the result of preference. They were the consequence of permits.
Some of the ADUs predated existing Berkeley codes. Others didn’t conform for one reason or another. This didn’t necessarily make the units dangerous, but it did mean they were illegal. If a tenant were to make this discovery, the homeowners could face serious legal repercussions. And so, they left them empty.
This untapped housing supply inspired Wengraf to collaborate with Berkeley city planners on an amnesty program that gives single-family homeowners a path to legalizing their accessory units.
“Berkeley homeowners can approach city planners about getting unpermitted accessory units inspected for safety, and legalized, while being assured that the process will be confidential and no penalties will be assessed on the previously undocumented apartment,” the Chronicle reported. In other words, the city will work with homeowners to bring their existing units up to code and into the official housing market.
Jordan Klein, Berkeley’s director of planning and development, emphasized the city's intent to make the process as straightforward as possible, allowing homeowners to "come out of the shadows."
“People need to have the confidence that they aren’t going to get cited or reprimanded or something horrible is going to happen to them if they come forward and say, ‘Hey I have this unpermitted unit. I need your help. What do I have to do to bring it up to health and safety standards?’” Wengraf added.
This pilot program, which will run through 2028, follows in the footsteps of similar initiatives that found success in Los Angeles and Santa Cruz. While its champions don’t expect every homeowner to come forward, the benefits are still apparent. “The potential to put 4,000 units back on the market and create safe housing is amazing,” Wengraf told the Chronicle. “We will see if it’s worth it to them to come forward.”
It also sends a clear message that the city is here to help, not hinder — that it’s willing to work with homeowners rather than against them. “We are trying to make it easy,” Klein said. “We are ready to adapt. We have a team of staff members ready to work with all applicants that come forward.”
The Backdoor Revolution
In 2023, one in every five homes built in California was an accessory dwelling unit. The “backdoor revolution,” as some have called it, is gaining more momentum than its crusaders could’ve ever imagined.
The appetite for ADUs has perhaps been most visible in Los Angeles, where over 19,700 such units were constructed between 2017 and 2021. This success illustrates how state and local laws can lower barriers to housing in cities that are resistant to development. After all, it’s the passage of bills that eased parking requirements, reduced fees, loosened size restrictions, and overrode owner-occupancy requirements that let the Grant siblings house their recovering father in their backyard, rather than in a nursing home dozens of miles away. And it’s amnesty pilot programs like Berkeley’s that will let supply meet demand.
These kinds of policies help California cities combat the housing crisis. They help California cities become Housing-Ready Cities. Ready to say yes to the kinds of housing they already want but their laws don't quite allow. Ready to say yes to new neighbors as well as returning neighborhood veterans. Ready to say yes to different types of living arrangements, because not everybody needs (or can afford) a six-car garage and a pool.
In California, much of the conversation about ADUs exists at the state level, but top-down intervention isn’t the only way for your city to become housing ready. In fact, many of the most impactful policy changes happen at the local level. In some cases, it may not even require changing anything. Instead, it can look like quietly allowing a 65-year-old ordinance restricting lot sizes to expire.
Want to see what it takes to get your city housing ready? Get a sneak peek at the Housing-Ready City toolkit before it's released on Thursday, February 27. Become a member to join the launch livestream with housing experts Alli Thurmond Quinlan and Eric Kronberg at 3 p.m. EST.
Asia (pronounced “ah-sha”) Mieleszko serves as a Staff Writer for Strong Towns. A dilettante urbanist since adolescence, she's excited to convert a lifetime of ad-hoc volunteerism into a career. Her unconventional background includes directing a Ukrainian folk choir, pioneering synaesthetic performances, photographing festivals, designing websites, teaching, and ghostwriting. She can be found wherever Wi-Fi is reliable, typically along Amtrak's Northeast Corridor.