Kol Peterson is an ADU expert based in Portland, Oregon, who has helped catalyze the exponential growth of ADUs in Portland over the last decade through ADU advocacy, education, consulting, policy work, and entrepreneurship. He is the author of Backdoor Revolution-The Definitive Guide to ADU Development.
Kelcy King: Kol Peterson is an ADU expert based in Portland, Oregon. He has helped catalyze the exponential growth of ADUs in Portland over the last decade through ADU advocacy, education, consulting, policy work and entrepreneurship. He is the author Backdoor Revolution, The Definitive Guide to ADU Development, and also happens to be the host of this podcast.
For this episode of the ADU [00:02:00] Hour, we decided to shake it up a little bit, and I take on the role of the interviewer. So Kol, what were some of your takeaways from listening to this episode?
Kol Peterson: In this episode, we talked about building coalitions. Now that ADUs being folded into broader policy conversations about middle housing, more generally. A conversation that has really taken off in a big way in the last year.
I think that this idea of coalition building and meeting regularly with that coalition has even more salience. The power of a disparate group with diverse expertise, but with a common mission of getting more ADUs built cannot be overstated. Groups like this can definitely, help change regulations, change laws, impact financing opportunities, raise awareness about ADUs and much more.
Kelcy, what were some of your takeaways?
Kelcy King: Well, I will second that your interview offers some great nuggets in regard to forming coalitions in an effort to advocate for ADUs as a piece of the puzzle for building greener, resilient cities, and as affordable housing, you've also built quite a few ADUs on your properties and you offer a few [00:03:00] design tricks that you've used offer highly enjoyable living spaces in a small structure.
Let's get to our interview with you.
A quick heads up to our listeners. My audio in this episode is subpar. So sorry about that. We also had some technical issues during the original recording and lost the introduction. So we'll start here with the second question I asked Kol.
For those looking to advocate at their local municipal level. Where would one start to address ordinances that only allow ADUs in certain zones within a city? For example, some residential zones, but not other residential zones.
Kelcy, just to be clear here. So the question is if you're aware of the best practices, as far as what regulation should be, how should you go about making those changes?
Correct, yes.
Kol Peterson: So, this ties into a later point that we'll get into, but I think there's so many different things that need to be changed in local regulations to make the regulations for ADUs good. It's not as though, if you are able to [00:04:00] address, say off street parking requirements that you will have a good ADU code.
Rather, there's like 20 or 30 different little things that will all significantly impact whether or not a code is good. So let me just pick on one example, California has an incredibly good state code. However, they have one element of their state code that says by right you can build a 16 foot ADU. Well, that is a big poison pill, in my opinion, that isn't a good policy. They have this incredibly good ADU regulations statewide, except they have this one thing that makes a whole lot of ADUs is not possible, which is you can only build a one story ADU. Which is a killer, that doesn't work. ADUs will not pencil if you have that in place.
And that's a minor thing, but that's very major in a lot of ways, like sure. A lot of people will still want to build ADUs in California and some jurisdictions will have liberalized height standards, but statewide, most jurisdictions will not. And therefore they're killing [00:05:00] 20% of their market without one bad regulation.
Having visited several hundred ADUs in Portland, where that isn't in place, most of the ADUs that are built, the majority of them are two story detached ADUs. Why, because they're being built on small lots because they want more square footage in those ADUs.
And so if you're requiring people to build an 800 square foot, one story ADU, they're not, they're going to lose their backyard and that isn't going to work for a lot of people. That one little example, it doesn't doesn't really matter that much, but I guess the point is there's so many different things that need to be worked on that.
I think there's a need for a group of people to be working collectively. Slowly improve their regulations over time.
Kelcy King: Is there a certain place where you would start? Like, would you start with zoning? Would you start with owner occupancy or is it just chisel away as you can?
Kol Peterson: Yeah. So I think that depends on what level you're working on. Right? If you're working at the state level, really, if you're working at any level, I think the [00:06:00] way to go about this is understanding from an advocacy point of view. This is a hard one for people to swallow, but your code needs to be A-plus bomber for people to actually want to build an ADU. So if you have the 16 foot poison pill in your regs, it's not good enough. It needs to be much better. And that, and like that doesn't, that means that everywhere in the country has bad codes except for Portland, Seattle, and a few jurisdictions in California.
So there's a lot of room for improvement. And then you can get to these kinds of like next level ADU codes that are like two ADUs and allowing two detached ADUs. My vantage on this is you have to aim really high, and hopefully they'll get most of that because if you incrementally chip away at these regulations over time, it's going to take a long time.
For example, the entire east coast of the United States doesn't have a single city with what I would classify as a halfway decent set of ADU regulations. I would not build an ADU in any city on the entire east coast.
So, a city [00:07:00] could work on chipping away at those regulations over time, but it's really challenging. It takes decades to pass good code. Rip off the band-aid and pass a really good code once. That's the approach that I'm in favor of.
And as a result of kind of working on this for the last decade is advocacy changing regulations, because I've now come around to thinking, you know what? This is too painful at the jurisdictional level there's too much nimbyism too many, too much local politics to deal with. We have to do this at the state level because it's taking too long and we don't have the time to wait, this is not a tenable approach to improving your ADU regulations, bit by bit at the local level, across 128,000 jurisdictions and not at the pace at which we really need this form of housing to actually take hold.
Kelcy King: So this is a great segue because I'm moving into the state regulations here.
So in order to advocate at the state level and have that be the most effective, first, who are the target legislators and representatives you would target?
Kol Peterson: I don't know the political scene [00:08:00] necessarily at any state let alone every state, but I would say what I've seen, what did a little bit knowledge I have about this as what I've seen as lobbyists, so to speak whether that's the Home Builders Association or AARP or an affordable housing group working with an elected state legislator, House or Senate, putting forward a proposal and then working that through the sausage making process. There's been a couple examples of statewide legislation now in Oregon, in California, in New Hampshire in I'm sure a few other places. A lot of these have not been particularly effective in the sense that they are not getting rid of any of the poison pills, they're simply enabling ADUs to be built.
That's what happened in California prior to the latest two years of legislation. That's what had happened in Oregon. That's what had happened elsewhere. you might as well not allow you to use if you're not going to have really good ADU regulations, it's the same thing.
So just saying we allow ADUs, that's pointless. Don't even bother. Go do something else. [00:09:00] If you're going to get serious about enabling ADUs, you have to have excellent ADU regulations. So. Getting back to this idea of work with the state legislator, who's going to be open to pushing the envelope really far, making people uncomfortable.
And hopefully you'll be able to build a coalition of stakeholders that really support that policy measure. And that's what it's going to take to actually set environment where hopefully at that point, maybe we'll start to see some ADUs built, don't count on that. Even if you have the best ADU regulations, it doesn't make it easy to build an ADU at scale. They're not going to just take off overnight. You will get a pathetic, pitiful number, ADUs being built, even in the best conditions. Like what we'll see in California, we'll see many more times ADUs being built, but it's still a very small number of ADUs overall.
So I think that's kind of the good and the bad side of this stuff is it's going to take a long time for ADUs to make a substantive dent and the kind of housing crisis that we have. But we can only start to get there if we have really good ADU regulations.
I would say working [00:10:00] on approaching it really aggressive ask using a lot of data that I point out in the book and that's available elsewhere. As far as going for the gold standard kind of default model zoning code for your whole state is the way to go. And if you can't get that, work on it on the, at the local level.
The most controversial things to work on are owner-occupancy and off-street parking. I'd say those are the ones that, if anything, I would work on those at the state level, because locally it's really politically challenging to get rid of those two poison pills.
Kelcy King: How do you show up as an advocate? You personally, are you showing up in person? Who are you showing up to see? And are you, are you like writing letters, gathering signatures on petition? How do you show up?
Kol Peterson: Yeah, I do all the above. I write letters when there's draft proposed regulations at local jurisdictions.
I write letters to state level policymaking efforts. And it's surprising, these letters are actually meaningful. I think, you know, [00:11:00] little, one sentence letters that say I support this bill are fine, but I, at least as, as a subject matter expert, I weigh in with specific critiques and criticisms and suggestions of how to improve policies.
And that is actually surprisingly meaningful. I think those things do get adopted. So that's, that's really helpful. I guess the other thing to note, is at least in my experience, With trying to inform policy using data is far more powerful than just using your opinion. A lot of people will use their opinion in rule making and it doesn't, at least in my experience in the different advocacy work I've done, that hasn't held as much sway as providing evidence.
Kelcy King: How do you find out this has just been a challenge, but I've found and have read all over, but how do you find out the information who is meeting when and how to meet them? So as far as policy makers, [00:12:00] like when policy makers are meeting and how to show up for that?
Kol Peterson: That's a great question. I wish I had a better answer for you. It's a little bit opaque, isn't it?
I think if this is again where having a coalition is helpful.
Kelcy King: You are a part of a number of advocacy groups and teams. So could you explain what those different teams are, how they got formed and advice for attendees who are interested in forming their own?
Kol Peterson: Yeah. There is several coalitions now that I'm aware of happening in different jurisdictions and at the state level in California, there's coalitions. And having been a part of these different coalitions at the local level now for a decade, I'm convinced that they are critical and a best practice for improving ADU regulations.
So if we go back to this question you had posed about how do you find out about an upcoming meeting that pertains to ADUs you don't because websites for government stink and I used to be a government web manager and it's terrible.
So, sure. You find out about one thing, [00:13:00] but you don't find out about another meeting and you don't find out about the state level meaning. So the state level website is even worse than the local level website. So That's a problem, but the way that you address that is to get a coalition of people who have their boots on the ground and are working in these different organizations or associations or entities that have some knowledge about what's going on with regulations, et cetera.
So in terms of that best practice concept, I say that people, the entities that are important to include in a coalition and ADU coalition, so to speak would be, these are just some examples, AARP, a local university that has say an architecture department. The municipality itself I'd say is maybe the most key stakeholder, because that's where you'd start to get tips about what things are coming up in from a regulatory point of view. State level environmental or land planning agencies. Utility providers, affordable housing [00:14:00] advocates, green builders, architects, urban planners, tiny house advocates, realtors, all those different stakeholder could be part of a coalition and should be part of a coalition, ideally that meets on a regular basis, maybe once a month for an hour or two forever, basically.
And that's I think what needs to happen to actually enable the type of change that is meaningful from getting to this gold standard model policy level, but also doing the non-regulatory things that I've been heavily involved with. And I tapped into that coalition to help do so for example, classes, or ADU tours all those kinds of events that involve getting the word out.
So this huge group of homeowners. It's hard to reach homeowners when you're doing marketing. And that's your market audiences like homeowners, you might want to build an ADU. How do you find them? It's not easy. So I think having a coalition that can reach out to their own constituencies using their own email list is a good good technique.
Anyway, [00:15:00] I think there's a lot of different ways that an ongoing coalition can support. Improving the environment for ADUs, if they meet on a regular basis and work on these issues together. It doesn't have to be a super formal structure, but just checking in regularly to hear what's going on.
And and then strategically working on things on a case-by-case basis as needed.
Kelcy King: So I'm gonna move into a couple of questions that were from previous interviews. So this one was from Karen bank. When we were talking to Robert Liberty, What are the best ways to educate elected decision makers on ADU policies that are working in other places? They're busy. They often don't watch webinars like this. What did you do that was successful?
Kol Peterson: Yeah. I think that the policy makers, elected officials , I think they're going to be open to hearing ideas from people who are on this webinar. Like I think people who are aware of what's going on and clued in and understand what the best practices are and are strategic about getting those changes [00:16:00] made can make a difference. Every single person on this webinar can make a difference in their local jurisdiction by being smart and strategic.
Your influence in your capacity to write a good email to the right people. So that's what I would say. They don't have to watch these webinars, but you do, and you can be smart about how you utilize the information that you get from here. You can pull quotes from my book. So pull quotes from my book and send them. Then you have quotes from "the book about ADUs, the definitive guide". I mean, I use that title strategically, right? So it's like, this is from the definitive guide about ADU development, it says our regulations suck. Here's what we should do differently according to the definitive guide about ADU development, do that.
Kelcy King: What is an example of something that policymakers have asked you to bring to the table when searching for ways to work together?
Kol Peterson: Oh yeah. So this gets back to the data question. I think To the extent that you're able to supply evidence, as opposed to just your visceral instinctual [00:17:00] reaction to questions, I think that's far more powerful.
Examples of the types of advocacy that I've done that have been successful, have been fighting a taxation debacle that occurred Multnomah county in 2016, where I provided evidence of how much the tax increase had been for all subsequent years for ADUs. Analyze that data, showed what the new taxation bump increased was and said, "Hey, you've doubled, or tripled, or quadrupled the taxation impact of ADUs in the last year, here's evidence of that, here's some quotes from homeowners who've been adversely impacted. So that's an example of taxation. I've worked on the SDC waiver extension, providing information about how many permanent ADUS there were prior to the SDC waiver, then after the ADU waiver. That's a pretty easy data set to get, but I had to work with the city planning staff to get the number, to get the data set of permitted ADUs. I've been involved with state-level rulemaking and been successful in putting changes into the state level rule making process for house bill 2001, by talking about [00:18:00] off-street parking requirements and giving some evidence about the cost impacts associated with that.
So as a result of a state model code that will allow for missing middle housing statewide, will not require off-street parking in the model code because of that advocacy.
California had owner occupancy requirements, that's a tough one to give evidence for, but I provided some documentation from banks to state level legislators.
The bank documents said, "I will not carry this mortgage for this homeowner if they put an ADU on their property, because that would put a deed restriction on their property. And we, as the mortgage holders of that note, do not wish to give a mortgage for that property." And that that's kind of powerful evidence for a state level legislator.
Kelcy King: I'm switching gears a little bit. It's still an advocacy. How do you personally address neighbors or neighborhood associations about an ADU that's being developed in their neighborhood?
Kol Peterson: So even if ADU regulations are good and you can build ADUs, sometimes [00:19:00] neighbors don't like, well, oftentimes neighbors, don't like new housing development going up near them.
And so on, let's say 10% of ADUs that I've heard about, neighbors have issues with the people building in ADU, and that's just the nature of development. By becoming a developer, which you are, if you're building an ADU, you are all of a sudden taking on the bogeyman hat of developer, even though it's at a a really small level.
And and then you get to start to sympathize and experience what it's like to be a developer where everybody doesn't like change, doesn't want more housing, doesn't want more parking issues near them. And so this comes up again and again and again, and I don't have any really good advice for you other than thank goodness you can do it by right.
And if you can't do it by right, that's a problem, right? Because then you have to go through the permission process of getting a conditional land use review permit. And that's the case in a lot of east coast jurisdictions, where you can only build an ADU if you get permission from the city. And that requires a [00:20:00] public notification where all the neighbors will inevitably say, we don't want more housing near us, we want the sanctity of our single family, residential neighborhood. We don't want a parking problem. We don't want a slum in our neighborhood. You hear the same stuff everywhere.
Kelcy King: This is, this is pretty Portland specific, but Kevin asked this when we were talking to Joe Robertson, Kevin Johnson, sorry. Given your experience that about half the ADUs have family in them at various points, do you think the limitation that Portland sets on the short-term rental and SDC fees limits new ADU?
Kol Peterson: Yeah. So just to summarize this topic a little bit for people, Portland put a system development charge waiver in effect where you didn't have to pay the SDC. The residential impact fee is $10,000 to $20,000 . If you build an ADU But then they changed the policy a couple of years to go to say, if you want to use a property for a short term rental, either the primary house or the ADU, then you do have to pay the SDCs. What this did was [00:21:00] dramatically impact the number of ADUs being built in Portland, number of eighties being permitted this change.
So in a, in a bad way. Meaning the number of ADUs being built up through from 2016 to 2018 was 600 a year. When this new policy went into effect where they said no more short term rentals, unless you pay the SDC. The number of ADUs permitted went down by 50 percent, that's bad, right? Arguable. I don't know if those additional.
50% of ADUs were built if, and only if they could do a short term rental, what are they doing in terms of providing additional housing for the housing stock? Nothing. Right. Does that mean maybe a little bit, but in some cases, for example, a lot of people are building to use with multiple motivations to have additional living space for a visiting family member at points, but then also several months of the year, they use it for short-term rental. And that's good. That's a good use of a short term rental, but if it's going to be a full-time short-term rental, it's not really doing anything, in my mind ,from an economic, or social, or environmental point of view that's [00:22:00] positive. Doing anything negative, really, but it's not doing anything great. So I don't think the city should be necessarily subsidizing that type of development. And I, I agree with that. So though the number went down by roughly 50%, I think it's the right call for the city to have made.
Other jurisdictions have outright banned short term rentals in ADUs, I guess my take on this is as a general matter, is if you, as an advocate can get better ADU regulations in place and throw short-term rentals under the bus as a horse trade, I think that's a worthwhile trade to make.
Whereas if it's just yet another thing that you cannot do with an ADU and you don't get anything out of it from an advocacy point of view, then it's not a great horse trade, but if you're going to be able to eliminate off street parking and owner occupancy, if, and only if ADUs can't be used as short-term rental. Go for it. That's a good trade.
Kelcy King: Okay, great. You approach ADU development from a perspective of how infill can address a city's impact on climate change.
Can you tell us more about how you [00:23:00] use this perspective to advocate and how others might be able to offer this to more areas.
Kol Peterson: Greenhouse gas emissions reduction is my driver. That's like my interest in all this. That's why I'm interested in ADUs, but not everybody is. So in the coalition that I was referring to previously, greenhouse gas emissions reduction was the primary motivation of the people who are most intimately involved in that coalition at initially that included Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, the City of Portland Planning and Sustainability, and Eli Spevak, myself you know, people with a green building kind of orientation, but not everybody cares about that stuff. And I think it's important to be pragmatic about that. I want a lot of ADUs built, but I don't focus on the greenhouse gas emissions aspect of things so much.
For the people who do care about climate change significantly it's very meaningful. And surprisingly, in the California context, greenhouse gas emissions, wasn't part of that conversation in terms of reducing the barriers to ADU development was all about affordable housing. [00:24:00] Wheras in Oregon, it was all about that greenhouse gas emissions stuff, the affordable housing crisis. Wasn't really a factor in the SDC waiver or anything else. So. It's interesting to see how the local motivation, advocacy drivers for improving ADU regulations can vary depending on where you are and what the predisposition of the populous there is.
In California, it's an affordable housing crisis, dammit. Here, it's we want to have the best, you know, greenhouse gas emissions, land use planning, housing development policy out there 'cause we, we really are working on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Portland.
Kelcy King: I'm going to switch gears into ADUs as they relate to affordability. And I'm going to start with Brian O'Connell's question back when we were talking that Eli's Spevak and he asked, "what can we do to help affordable housing non-profits increase the density of the properties they already have that were developed a single family.
And do you have any examples of projects that are working?
Kol Peterson: Yeah. So I'll start by saying, [00:25:00] this is a topic that a lot of nonprofits are working on is to try to figure out how to build ADUs in general. I think it's a good idea, tactically, for nonprofits to potentially focus on partnering up with CDCs community development corporations that already own rental housing stock in the single family residential zone, and then targeting ADUs to be added to those particular properties. That makes a lot of sense. So I'd say that that is a worthwhile endeavor. I haven't seen a lot of people focus on that.
There's one organization in Portland. That's kind of starting to think about that. Hacienda CDC, and then in Monterey, California, they're the local Habitat for Humanity chapter has been doing that and they've had limited success.
The alley flat initiative has also done some of that in Austin, Texas, but none of these have deployed so to speak a lot of ADUs yet, it's still, we're talking fewer than five ADUs.
Kelcy King: Gabrielle Campana asks again, you're speaking with Eli Spevak. What innovations [00:26:00] are you seeing in the market to lower costs to build ADUs as an affordable housing solution?
Kol Peterson: Great question. Everybody wants to know how do you reduce the cost of ADUS. There isn't really a simple answer to it. The only answers I have to share are, yes, prefab modular does hold promise. I have a little bit of internal bias and skepticism about that industry in that I've seen a lot of companies not work in this space.
But I think there is a potential now that I've seen a few real life successful examples of that. I think that there is a potential for that to become much more broadly used method to reduce the cost of ADUs. So that's one. The other one that I think is just important to always focus on is conversions.
Whether it's conversions of pre-existing habitable space in your house, or convergence of garage or conversions of non habitable space, like your basement or attic, those are the other low hanging pieces of fruit. Aside from that, there is no magic bullet to [00:27:00] reducing costs of ADUs.
I know that there's a lot of ideas and a lot of things that people have banter about predesigned, standardized plan sets, you'd have to pay for architectural fees and so on. I just I'm skeptical because I've seen a lot of ideas. Every novel idea that people have has been thought about before and tried. And so what really works is conversions and what really works, potentially, is prefab modular, for the few companies who have a lot of experience with large scale manufactured housing in factories and know how to do that.
Kelcy King: You're moving into advocacy for tiny houses on wheels being recognized and utilized for alternative housing options in particular as it pertains to affordability. So can you tell us how you're working with policymakers and other interests for adjusting codes to permit these kinds of dwellings?
Kol Peterson: Yeah, tiny house on wheels is something that I have one foot firmly planted in that world with a tiny house hotel. And I have a tiny house on wheels on my residential property for all the same reasons that ADUS are good, tiny house on wheels are good, but I've always kind of put it [00:28:00] in the kind of not invested that much political capital in that idea because it was so not viable not legal anywhere. But I've always been a fan of it. Just kind of put it in the civil disobedience category that is, you know, people who are really willing to become radically downsized or people who are willing to break the law and have an tiny house on wheels on their property. Awesome. Great. For my vantage, it's solving all the same issues at ADU solve.
But now that it's becoming a legal option in a few places, I think that the door has been cracked open to actually start to look at tiny houses as a viable alternative to ADUs. And in fact, that's happened now in five jurisdictions in California.
So we're talking San Luis Obispo, Los Angeles, the second biggest city in the United States now allows tiny houses on wheels to be a form of ADU. That's amazing. And so they have their methodology of how you go about achieving that it can be connected legally to utilities, et cetera, but it's classified as a form of ADU.
That is a big deal. That's a [00:29:00] population 10 million people and tiny houses costs $50,000. Whereas an ADU there might cost $200,000 minimum for detached, a new construction for a garage conversion might cost $80,000 to $100,000. So tiny houses on wheels are going to kill it in terms of the cost.
Now, does everybody want to live in a tiny house on wheels? No, but 5% of people might, 10% of people might. So it can be a substantial and very viable if and when tiny houses become a legal form of ADU or just a legal, acceptable form of living space on a residential property, which is the approach that Portland has taken.
We're not classifying them is ADUs we're just saying you can live in any mobile dwelling on a residential property for the time being during the housing crisis. And that's another regulatory experiment towards legalizing informal dwellings for residential use that address all the same issues as ADUs address that is greenhouse gas emissions reductions, less expensive housing and building a social infrastructure that [00:30:00] infill housing provides.
Kelcy King: Are you working with policy makers on anything for the future?
Kol Peterson: With tiny houses?
Kelcy King: Yeah.
Yeah, I'm hopefully in the city of Portland, there's going to be a rulemaking process for looking at the next iteration of how the tiny houses on wheels will be classified from a residential dwelling perspective and also how they'll be used in like pods and kind of encampments in commercial zones, which is personally of less interest to me than the residential question.
So that's one thing. And then statewide, I think I'm kind of keeping an eye on California to see whether they might actually pass a statewide code. I'm not involved with it though, but I wouldn't be surprised if that does occur, which would be really cool to see that change. And I think that's going to be a huge new, if that happens, that'll be a huge new market for less expensive ADUs than what we have now.
Great. I want to ask you just one last question, because [00:31:00] we are curious just your strategies for how you place and design your personal ADUs what you've done maximize privacy. And then maximizing the lot usage for both to primary and secondary drawing.
Kol Peterson: Okay. Yeah. So in terms of internal design best practices, there's a lot of ideas in the book, but some of the things that I'll just mention that I've done, that I think are really good, that are not talked about too much are trophic variation, so to speak within a dwelling.
So there's a variety of different heights of the ceiling, just makes it more visually interesting to look at. And so two tactics that that can be, you know, if you're doing a two-story ADU using a catwalk to get from say the bedroom to the bathroom or from one bedroom to another allows for there to be a lot of volume from the first story looking up 'cause you're looking past this catwalk and one's it's kind of interesting visually makes the downstairs feel huge, makes the upstairs feel interesting 'cause you can look down. I think that's a really fun little tactic [00:32:00] also that catwalk counts as habitable space, but the space outside that catwalk where it's vaulted does not, at least in Portland's code where you're counting habitable square footage based on the spaces that you can use. You don't count that vaulted volume of air, so I think catwalks are a good trick.
I think exposed wood beams is another good trick in that you can put exposed wood beams in the ceiling, the holdup car decking above and the car deck and serves as the flooring for the bedroom upstairs. Those exposed wood beams are visually interesting, they're beautiful to look at much prettier than say drywall, which is what everybody uses. And then you get above that. You see car decking, which is attractive, visually interesting gives you some trophic variation in the height of the space. And then it's also giving you an additional foot of headroom by having exposed wood beams. Exposed wood beam is where you get this whole shaft of volume here. You'd have dry wall going beneath it typically. And so you're losing a foot of height. So instead of having a [00:33:00] seven foot ceiling, you can have an eight foot ceiling. So I think that's a good little trick that can be used.
Another really big one that I think is a best practice is a covered outdoor space. I think a covered outdoor space pretty much anywhere in the country is going to be valuable and advantageous on an ADU in that it's not counted against you for square footage, but that it can actually add usable square footage anytime of the year. You can even put a heater out there and use it in the winter or in the summer you can make it shaded if you're in a hot climate. So I think having covered out doors space and big, not like a three foot, six foot wide awning, make it like 10 feet wide, make it 10 feet deep, something significant you put a dining table under their chairs, a bench. That's the scale, the size that I'm talking about that actually makes your 800 square footADU 900 square feet without counting against you. And I think everybody should be considering covered outdoor spaces when they're designing ADUs. Whether that covered outdoor space is on a porch or a [00:34:00] deck or leading out to the backyard, that's the best practice I would consider. So I'll leave it at that.
Kelcy King: Okay. Thank you.
So this first one, I'm just going to ask because we can quickly address this, is there a resource for appraisals for properties with ADUs and how are ADU additions impacting the value of homes?
Kol Peterson: Yeah. So there's a presentation that Abdur gave that's available right now. That's the one and only valid research that's being done on this very question. As far as an additional resource, there was a study done back in 2013, you can find that study and the document, the two page best practices document that's for appraisers on AccessoryDwellings.Org, it's called the practitioner's guide to appraising ADUs. It basically is suggesting consider the income-based evaluation method.
In light of the research in what I've learned from Abdur, recently, I can't honestly say that that's necessarily going to be the best practice anymore to use the [00:35:00] income-based valuation method, because I just don't think it's a realistic approach for appraisers. I do think that it's worth reading it and providing it, but understanding that Abdur's presentation about looking at actual sales comps is probably the better approach to looking at how to go about improving the answers to these questions about contributory value, which is still plexing to everybody. Nobody has an answer to this question quite yet, but we're working on it. Abdur is,specifically.
Kelcy King: From NJ Ericsson, is Oregon's new building code allow auxillary housing override neighborhood is CCR Oregon's house bill 2001 doesn't allow new CCNRs to preclude ADUs, but it doesn't override pre-existing CCNRs for HOAs . That's how Oregon's dealing with it.
Kol Peterson: In California, their legislation does override HOA CCNRs. So they're doing it differently. I don't know which way is better. It's new terrain for ADU. [00:36:00] So we'll see what happens.
Kelcy King: From Bernard Matterson. Do you know of any ADU that has been built to the standards of the International Living Futures Institute?
Kol Peterson: I don't I wouldn't be surprised if there has been one. But I, I'm not, not that familiar with that particular standard. So I don't know if any, have been built to that standard.
Kelcy King: Gabrielle Campana, in areas that do not have good city code for ADU, like south Florida. Could a first step, the building accessory dwellings with no kitchen instead.
Kol Peterson: Yeah. I, I totally, I think, I think that's I think right now in a lot of jurisdictions where ADA codes are bad. I mean, this is what I go over in chapter 12 of this book, right?
This is Accessory Dwellings and Civil Disobedience. And my vantage is, if your city has bad codes or your status, bad codes are the entire state of the entire east coast has bad codes and you want to help individually solve all the same problems that ADUs solve, just build an ADU without a kitchen, and you're good to [00:37:00] go.
It's called a detached bedroom or alternatively build an addition to your house or an internal conversion of a portion of your house and just don't put in a legal, full kitchen. You can legally wash dishes in your bathroom sink and you can legally put everything except for the oven and the second sink in any space.
So I think there is interesting workarounds that are totally realistic, viable things that you can do right now, anywhere in the country. You'll run into the same development challenges that you would run into building an ADU in some cases. But I think those are viable things to consider even in Portland there's times where I recommend those options instead of an ADU for one reason or another.
Kelcy King: Okay. Thanks. From Karen, how do I find out about existing coalitions anywhere in her specific areas, LA, but how would you find out about an existing coalition in your local jurisdiction?
Kol Peterson: You know, I know that Southern California has some form of a ADU coalition.
I couldn't tell you the name, but just Google ADU coalition, [00:38:00] California, Southern California, Los Angeles. You'll find it. Just Google. That's it there isn't like, there isn't that many of these out there. And They can happen at the very local level. Like I know Greg is on the call from Berkeley.
There's a coalition in Berkeley that's an example of this. There's statewide coalitions. I'm in a regional coalition. So these can happen at various levels and they're all good. I think they're all, they're all helpful. I'd say maybe one additional point I'll make on the coalition thing is ideally the coalition involves a government person who is convening the meeting because they have some degree of responsibility to enable anybody to attend, perhaps, in a little bit more legitimacy than just an advocate running a group. So that might be one thing to consider. But these coailtions don't necessarily exist everywhere, but you can start one yourself at some small level and try to make this thing a regular occurrence. I think that's a good, good strategy for anybody to be [00:39:00] thinking about it anyway. Like one person can start this or a group of people can start this at a local level to a state level.
So thanks Kelcy, that was fun.