Granny flats

[pinkytoe]

Our city is in the middle of "discussing" how to accommodate a burgeoning desire for ADUs - Accessory dwelling units aka granny flats in single family resident backyards. I love the concept and we even considered it but the property tax additions make it unfeasible for us. I see all sorts of potential issues like parking, transient neighbors, lack of privacy in one's adjoining backyard...I think the majority of them going in are for short term rental use even though the owners swear they are for grannies or to offer affordable housing options. The irony is it is primarily the usual suspects adding them to their investment properties -investors, flippers and developers. Do you have these where you live? Pros? Cons?

[freshstart]

we can't get zoned for them in my town. We were thinking of that sort of set-up when we decided to combine resources, nothing doing, even when explained they are for low income housing for the elderly. I think re-sale is part of the problem, they don't want non-grannies renting them from the main home owner. IDK, we're not very progressive here and fear of bringing down property values is a big deal

[iris lilies]

I can only touch on this.

In my Victorian neighborhood and in the other Victorian neighborhoods around here, carriage houses are common. A carriage house is usually a garage with modest living quarters above.

so yeah, they exist in the architectural fabric here, and new ones could be built that use the specifications of an existing structure. It's just that these new structures would be very expensive since they have to be made of brick and can't exceed the boundaries of the dominate structure, so no one is building them.

[SteveinMN]

In our city, there are some converted carriage houses (as il mentioned); IME they rarely see grannies or mothers-in-law; rather, it's usually people somehow related to the property owners. The zoning folks seem to be okay with converting carriage houses to housing as long as thery don't get bigger in the process and you don't exceed residential parking regulations. I also recently saw a company that converts "toy hauler" trailers (the kind that can carry ATVs, motorcycles, etc.) as accessory housing, primarily for people of limited mobility (huge bathroom, wide aisles, etc.); the unit legally is considered a recreational vehicle, which may be parked off the street and occupied. Every other discussion of non-standard clustered housing or subdividing city lots has gone pretty much nowhere.

[freshstart]

We only have one apt building for low to lower-middles class seniors, rent is on a sliding scale. As the waiting list shows, this is not nearly enough and we don't seem to care very much. We keep getting more and more of the glitzy senior transitional cottage, to apt, to assisted living, to nursing home places with sky high costs. Curious how this will play out as boomers age, know about how to put assets in trust, leaving just enough to buy a few years of nursing home care in a nice place before Medicaid kicks in and foots the bill. That will not work if you plan to do transitioning at these fancy places. They seem geared to the wealthiest only.

Small backyard dwellings make sense. The McMansions get to have their pool/guest houses. But I'm sure those raise property values.

[lmerullo]

I don't know about granny flats in particular, but can comment on the rv living. Where I am, there is no hoa and no deed restrictions. We have a travel trailer we park on our driveway and it had never been a problem. My husband's uncle was recovering from surgery and stayed in the travel trailer in our front yard. We got a notice from code enforcement that it was not allowed. We simply had uncle live inside to comply. (I do know they came back out and tried to fine us again, but he was in the spare bedroom. Initially they also tried to say we couldn't leave the electric plugged in all the time. Hello - we live in Florida, mold capital of the world.)