This is a big week. A lot is happening at the house.

One update is that the land use adjustment was recommended to be granted. Here is the official letter from the City of Portland.

The adjustment process went fine for me in this case. But, I had to be willing to risk a $4K application fee, and I was fairly confident that it would be granted, and I am highly confident in the ROI of this investment since I've developed an ADU before.

Others aren't so fortunate. Most jurisdiction requires something called a 'conditional use permit' which is equivalent to, and in some cases, more burdensome and costly than this type of adjustment application.

This type of onerous process greatly prohibits from people from considering ADUs.

Today, I also received a reasonable plumbing bid for the plumbing work that needs to start this Friday. This bid came in at $10K. The other plumbing bids came in at $14K and $16K, which I found impossible to swallow. $10K is about what I was expecting. But, if I hadn't known better, I would have accepted one of the first two bids. The $10K bid covers a lot of work.

Today we started to construct the main floor entry landing extension that will hoist the dedicated water heater and a washer/dryer for the upstairs unit. This work is being conducted under an entirely separate permit from the ADU, but is a neccessay step to get the upstairs unit fully independent from the downstairs space. Once this work is complete, I'll be able to independently access the downstairs unit that will be under construction for several months while the upstairs unit is being rented out.

Eventually, this wall will be closed off and the walls will be firerated so that the upstairs unit and the downstairs unit are isolated from one another.