Kol Peterson
The ADU Hour w/guest Alexis Stephens

Alexis Stephens is the cofounder of Tiny House Expedition, a DIY tiny house dweller and advocate. Along with her partner, Christian Parsons, they inspire others to rethink housing through thought-provoking storytelling, educational events, and resource sharing. Their work includes the acclaimed educational documentary-series, Living Tiny Legally. Featured on Washington Post, NPR, Business Insider, Parade Magazine, Curbed, and TreeHugger.

Alexis serves as the Tiny Home Industry Association Communications & Membership Director.

Additionally, she manages TinyHousePlans.com, offering a curated directory of plans, and TinyHouseBuild.com, with DIY tiny house building workshops and guides.

The ADU Hour w/guest Alexis Stephens

The ADU Hour w/guest Ethan Stuckmayer

The ADU Hour w/guest Ethan Stuckmayer

Ethan Stuckmayer is the Senior Planner of Housing Programs at Oregon’s Department of Land Conservation and Development. In his role, Ethan leads the statewide implementation of two landmark housing bills passed in the 2019 Oregon Legislature – House Bill 2001 and House Bill 2003. Ethan’s background working as both a current and long range land use planner in Oregon allows him to bring a unique perspective to this housing work at the state level. Prior to joining DLCD, Ethan worked in affordable housing policy at Oregon Housing and Community Services and as a project planner at an Architecture and Engineering firm in Portland. Ethan holds a Master’s in Community and Regional Planning from the University of Oregon.

The ADU Hour w/guest Michael Andersen

The ADU Hour w/guest Michael Andersen

Michael Andersen writes about housing and transportation policy as a senior researcher for Sightline Institute, the Pacific Northwest's sustainability think tank. He lives with his family in Portland, Oregon, where he’s also active as a volunteer and co-founder of the grassroots advocacy group Portland: Neighbors Welcome. From 2016 to 2020 his family lived in an 800-square-foot ADU; where he now lives in a 1,000-square-foot triplex unit in a 23-home co-housing community.

The ADU Hour w/guest Tracy Morgan

The ADU Hour w/guest Tracy Morgan

Morgan, a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners, has been actively involved in Oregon land use planning in both long range planning projects and development review for the past 25 years. He has worked for the cities of West Linn, Lake Oswego, Tigard, and has been with the City of Portland for the past 15 years in both the Bureau of Development Services and the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability (BPS). Currently he is the staff project manager for Portland’s Residential Infill Project, which seeks to increase the range of permitted housing types while lowering housing costs in single dwelling neighborhoods.

The ADU Hour w/guest Alexis Stephens

The ADU Hour w/guest Alexis Stephens

Alexis Stephens is the cofounder of Tiny House Expedition, a DIY tiny house dweller and advocate. Along with her partner, Christian Parsons, they inspire others to rethink housing through thought-provoking storytelling, educational events, and resource sharing. Their work includes the acclaimed educational documentary-series, Living Tiny Legally. Featured on Washington Post, NPR, Business Insider, Parade Magazine, Curbed, and TreeHugger.

Alexis serves as the Tiny Home Industry Association Communications & Membership Director.

Additionally, she manages TinyHousePlans.com, offering a curated directory of plans, and TinyHouseBuild.com, with DIY tiny house building workshops and guides.

The ADU Hour w/guest Willie Dean

The ADU Hour w/guest Willie Dean

Willie Dean founded Ground Up Design Works in 2013. He focuses on residential projects with creative and sustainable designs. Willie specializes in ADU design with extensive experience in new construction, as well as garage and basement conversion. With 38 (and counting) built ADUs Willie has experience with a diverse array of people’s housing journeys and is excited to share what he knows about helping them build their backyard dreams.

The ADU Hour w/guest Ashley Salvador

The ADU Hour w/guest Ashley Salvador

Ashley is the founder and president of YEGarden Suites and Calgary Backyard Suites - Alberta’s only education and advocacy-based non-profits dedicated to informing citizens on the benefits, challenges, and regulations surrounding backyard housing. She is also the CEO of Municipaction Inc., a consulting firm that supports Edmontonians in their city-building endeavours. She has experience working across sectors on projects related to affordable housing, climate change, social isolation and inclusion, infill policy, seniors housing, and demographic change. Born and raised in Edmonton, Ashley holds a BA Honours in Sustainability and Sociology from Dalhousie University, and an MA Planning degree from the University of Waterloo.

The ADU Hour w/guest Susan Brown

The ADU Hour w/guest Susan Brown

Susan Brown is the senior vice president, Residential Construction and Renovation Loan Production Director with Umpqua Bank, is a seasoned financial services industry professional with 15 years executive leadership experience. Her role in construction loan production allows her to focus on two important initiatives: ADUs and manufactured homes. Susan is a Certified Mortgage Banker and Accredited Mortgage Professional. She has seats on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Advisory Boards, prominent roles on national Industry Panels and influence at the Mortgage Bankers Association.

The ADU Hour w/guest Joe Robertson

The ADU Hour w/guest Joe Robertson

Joe Robertson owns Shelter Solutions, a small efficiently run building company with over 40 years of Homebuilding experience with a massive variety of projects. They started building ADUs in 1998 when the Portland Zoning code was modified to allow for ADUs. Since that time, we have built more high quality ADUs in the Portland Metro area than any other builder.

The ADU Hour w/guest Katherine Einstein

The ADU Hour w/guest Katherine Einstein

Katherine Levine Einstein, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of political science at Boston University, with research and teaching interests that broadly include local politics and policy, racial and ethnic politics, and American public policy. Her most recent book was Neighborhood Defenders: Participatory Politics and America’s Housing Crisis, which explores the politics of housing development.

The ADU Hour w/guest Kurt Lane

The ADU Hour w/guest Kurt Lane

Kurt Lane is the owner of Chroma Property Management in Portland. Prior to starting Chroma in late 2019 he was a rental property owner in Portland and Detroit, Michigan for the better part of a decade. Chroma offers full-service property management for single-family and multi-unit properties as well as a suite of services for ADU owners including tenant screening, application processing, and lease preparation. His area of expertise includes state and local regulations impacting the ADU community.

The ADU Hour w/guest Abdur Abdul-Malik

The ADU Hour w/guest Abdur Abdul-Malik

Abdur is a certified residential, FHA-approved appraiser at A Quality Appraisal. He takes progressive appraisal education seriously to stay abreast of the latest valuation methodologies. Abdur is a Candidate for Designation with the Appraisal Institute, is an associate member of the REAA, and a board member of the local ASA Portland, Oregon chapter. Abdur is currently leading an appraisal research team in an ongoing analysis of the resale value of Portland area properties that have legal ADUs.

The ADU Hour w/guest Ezra Hammer

The ADU Hour w/guest Ezra Hammer

Ezra Hammer came to the Home Builders Association with a strong background in land use and housing policy. He most recently worked as an attorney at one of Los Angeles’ premier land use law firms, where his clients included local, regional, national, and international development companies entitling and building in the Southern California region.

The ADU Hour w/guest Jake Fry

The ADU Hour w/guest Jake Fry

Jake started Smallworks in late 2005 and became a strong advocate for the introduction of laneway housing. He established Smallworks Studios and Laneway Housing Inc. and worked with the City of Vancouver and other municipalities to help develop zoning by-laws based on his experience and interaction with literally hundreds of potential small home clients. Today, Jake focuses on finding new ways to broaden the range of housing types in Vancouver to create affordable options for single-family home ownership.

The ADU Hour Teaser

Kol Peterson interviews experts in the ADU space. And then we take some questions from our live audience. Guests include prolific ADU builders, policymakers, architects, lenders, researchers, academics, appraisers, property managers, and more.

We get into the weeds on all of these topics and explore the edge of what is coming next with ADU trends, including middle housing policy and mobile dwellings. We cover topics from research that informs large-scale policies, valuation of ADU permitting and development costs to more obscure topics like ADU site planning software..

This podcast series consists of episodes that are 30 to 50 minutes long and will be released weekly. We hope that you'll join us for this limited series and that you'll be able to put some of the things we covered to practice in your own community.