As the Silicon Valley's housing costs continue to be driven up, leaders in the Bay are counting on ACUs to save the region from the housing crisis. So what is an ADU?
What is an ADU?
An accessory dwelling unit (ADU) is a secondary housing unit. They tend to be on a single family residential lot. Although there are many various forms of ADUs that have varying structual forms, ADUs tend to share common traits and face common designing/development challenges. Some distinctions between ADUs and regular housing are that:
- ADUs are accessory and adjacent to a primary housing unit.
- ADUs are/tend to be smallest than an average house (United States).
- ADUs tend to be developed asynchronously from the primary house by developers.
Ultimately, many people believe that ADUs will be the solution to the housing crisis in California. This is due to their lower cost than a traditional home as well as the fact that ADUs tend to be fairly small and take up less land. This results in more ADUs and housing for seperate families. In turn, ADUs are seen to be a fair investment as they are relatively cheap and affordable. Renting out an ADU could prove to be very feasible within large cities in the Silicon Valley where housing demands are high.
