Accent Dwelling Items (ADU)—small, self-contained properties constructed as extra items on current heaps—have gotten a go-to template for fast, reasonably priced housing across the nation. This week, New York Metropolis mayor Eric Adams introduced a $4 million grant funding to help an ADU pilot program. One in 5 new properties in California are ADUs, a determine that has doubled since 2020, in line with the California Division of Finance.
It’s clear that ADUs are right here to remain. Throughout the nation, authorities officers have been in search of methods to increase and streamline the development of ADUs. Group Planning Collaborative (CPC), a agency based mostly in Berkeley, California which focuses on housing coverage and ADU sources, has launched a digital database for domestically accredited ADU designs. The platform’s rising database at the moment consists of 30 plans from ten totally different designers.
The California ADU Plans Gallery presents a free public useful resource for householders to browse designs and join immediately with designers to construct an ADU. Moreover, native governments can signal as much as launch the ADU Plans Gallery later this summer season.
“Digital instruments just like the ADU Plans Gallery assist native governments help their residents via the difficult ADU course of and increase housing provide of their current neighborhoods,” principal at CPC, David Driskell, stated in a press release.
As a part of California’s initiative to simplify the ADU allowing course of, beginning January 1, 2025, state regulation will mandate that every one native governments set up a pre-approval course of for ADU plans and an internet technique of connecting householders with designers. CPC’s internet software successfully meets the state’s objectives and streamlines the ADU approval course of.

The web site comprises a number of options: designers can add pre-approved plans to a gallery, jurisdictions can choose prefabricated website plans from CPC’s database, and householders can filter the gallery to search out plans, evaluating ground plans, and estimated prices.
Along with the California ADU Plans Gallery, CPC supplies different ADU-related sources: customized ADU guidebooks for householders, an ADU calculator to estimate native prices, and a mapping software to find out ADU guidelines at sure addresses.