Accessory Dwelling Unit

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Thinking about putting an ADU in the backyard as an LTR. Maybe I’m just a glutton for punishment. My target tenant would be a first responder, skilled craftsperson, teacher etc. – someone who works here but cannot readily afford housing.

I’ve already contacted an attorney to sherpa me through the zoning approval process. I’m pretty sure I can plunk a prefab box in the yard that meets all the regs, but what I really want to do is pop the top of my 2 car detached garage and have my architect friend design something really cool. Covering more of my small yard is not an attractive thought, either.

Many issues with that. The garage was built in 1948 and has a nonconforming setback. Bumping up from 1.5 stories (it has a loft) could get a no. Building over a garage could get a no.

Anybody done this and lived to tell about it? Of course regulations vary; ours are pretty restrictive.

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I have never done anything like that but I know of someone that did and were shocked when the township increased their property taxes by three thousand dollars a year.

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There’s that and wait until I tell my homeowners insurer that I need a landlord rider on top of the STR rider they already added to my policy.
Also the property sale value increase is limited here by a requirement that the property with the ADU must be the primary residence of the owner.

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Yes this is done all the time here. My guess is the old foundation of the garage will not meet code to build up. Here, we can not rent the adu and the house to different people, and the owner is supposed to occupy one.

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I’ll need an engineer review, but the garage is literally built, as they say, “like brick s**thouse,” brick and concrete block on a slab, with joists supporting a loft crammed with furniture, equipment and construction materials.

Maybe this is just a backhanded way of getting the garage cleared out . . .

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This is pretty much what I did. We had a very old one-car garage with a side patio that made it the footprint of a two-car, and we tore it down and built a two-story. On top is a one bedroom apartment and a little office for me (separate entrances). The foundation was nowhere near enough to support the new structure, so we installed a new one. I think the cost of that was a drop in the bucket with everything else. In my jurisdiction, a nonconforming setback would have been a dealbreaker, so we just scooted it all over a couple of feet.

I loved every second of the project, other than dealing with the contractor, and it was totally worth it for us.

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I’m an architect in DC and have done a few of those around Capitol Hill, which is EXTRMELY restrictive for both historic and zoning reasons.

Can’t speak to the rental business end of things, but they are really cool little structures! On a monthly basis they’d probably rent for $2500-3k depending on the size. We call them “carriage houses” because that’s what most of them were used for back in the day.

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