Its function can change over the decades. Income-generating rentals for young homeowners can later become a refuge for young returnees, and then become a way for older homeowners to cover housing costs and stay. their neighborhood.
In an aging country, ADUs are of particular significance to those aged 60 and older who do not want to move and will need a caregiver nearby, be it a family member or a domestic helper. to rent. Mr. Silva died at home of pulmonary fibrosis, and in his final weeks and months, his daughter and son-in-law had to walk only a few meters to help care for him.
“They come and do whatever needs to be done,” Ms. da Silva said. With such closeness, “everyone has to respect,” she admits. “But for us, it was amazing.”
As affordable housing becomes increasingly scarce for both young and old, ADU offers a number of advantages. “They create homes that don’t change the look or feel of the community,” said Zoe Baldwin, New Jersey director of the Regional Planning Association, a nonprofit group in the Northeast.
“It’s a way to add capacity within the existing range,” she says, “what a strategist sometimes calls “light density.” ADUs do not require the government to invest heavily in infrastructure and reduce energy consumption and costs.
Accordingly, they are becoming more and more popular. Ten states and the District of Columbia, as well as many municipalities, have passed or amended legislation to encourage the construction of ADUs, reducing barriers such as zoning, parking restrictions, and complex approval processes. .
In California, which has been through a series of the law that allows the use of ADUpermits have grown to nearly 20,000 in 2021 from about 1,200 in 2016, a year before the first law went into effect, the state reported.
