Hi All!
I’m back!
I know, I know, I was a little negligent sending out my newsletters last year. There were just sooo many things I had to take care in my life, both personally and professionally. It’s been good to be busy.
So what’s new under the sun?
The winds are changing with regards to California housing. Government officials are rewriting the old housing laws that haven’t been changed for decades, bringing new opportunities into the housing market.
Governor Gavin Newsom, who ran on the platform of creating 3.5 million new units by 2025, is really going at it. He signed a new land use law, called AB 68, which will change the way we build homes moving forward.
AB 68, which was approved almost verbatim by the City of Los Angeles on Dec 19, 2019 by Ordinance #186 481, eliminates R-1 zoning as we know it. To provide a bit more background information, R-1 zoning previously pertained to single family dwellings and made up about 2/3 of the residential housing area in California.
This new law is a huge deal, and here’s why; now landlords and homeowners can add 2 more units – an Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) and a Junior Accessory Dwelling Unit (JADU) – on any residential lot, including single family properties. This means you can now legally create a triplex on every single lot in California. What’s more, AB 68 allows you to do so without requiring additional parking if your property is less than 1/2 of a mile from a public transportation.
Is that it, you ask? The answer, my friends, is no; AB 68 does so much more.
The earth-shattering change is that additional units can now be added to existing multifamily buildings like apartment complexes. How? You can convert any non-habitable rooms, like attics, basements, garages, etc. into legal additional units.
Garages? You can convert existing garages of apartment buildings into legal units?
Yes!
What about the parking? As I said, this new law doesn’t require you to replace the lost parking spaces if your property is less than 1/2 of a mile from a public transportation line or bus stop. This is 95% of all apartment buildings in California.
AB 68 came into effect Jan 1, 2020, and the response from apartment building owners and management companies has overwhelmingly been to start converting their unused spaces to new units.
We’ve been there to help engineer these newly converted apartments.
Working with property owners on these new apartments, we’ve determined that converted units cost less than 25% of the market value of the existing units to build and add tremendous value from the extra monthly income paid by new tenants. We’ve also managed to provide other parking options for current tenants by repurposing or redesigning existing driveways, aisles and turning radiuses in most of the cases we’ve worked on so far.
It looks like 2020 will be another banner year for design and construction, and we’re ready for it. Tell your friends and associates about these new opportunities. We have the expertise to make your property more valuable and profitable!
The only drawback? Look out for more cars parked on already crowded streets.
Happy and prosperous 2020 for all of you!
Best,
Peter Erdelyi