Granny Flats Building Momentum Entering 2021

By Robert Davis

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Four days before Christmas, Denver City Council unanimously approved a rezoning request from a single father in North Park Hill that allows him to build an accessory dwelling unit (ADU)—or “granny flat”—in his backyard.

Jesse Gross, 45, never thought he’d lose his wife, Bit Vo, much less during a global pandemic. But after she passed away from a traumatic brain stem bleed during the summer, Gross was forced to juggle two full-time jobs: practicing nursing in National Jewish Hospital’s oncology wing and raising his seven-year-old daughter, Zibby.  

Without any family in Colorado, Gross quickly found himself overworked. Hiring a live-in nanny seemed a financial fantasy as well. So, he asked his mom for help. She obliged and is selling her home in Kansas City, MO to move in with Jesse and Zibby. Gross says the ADU is space for her to call her own while helping raise her granddaughter.

“Lots of times, life seems unfair. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t things to be thankful for, and that’s something I want my daughter to take away from this,” Gross told the Denver VOICE in an interview.

Flexible housing professionals like Jeff Baker, CEO of ADU4U, a Denver-based property solutions company, point to similar cases as prime examples of why ADUs are gaining in popularity in Denver.

“All over the country, we’re seeing ADU popularity grow. It comes naturally when people learn about what they are and what they can offer,” Baker told the VOICE in an interview.

Opportunities Abound

According to Baker, three things need to happen for an ADU boom to occur, all of which are currently true in Denver. There needs to be political support, an affordable housing crisis, and the City needs to have predominantly single-family zoning.

In 2010, Denver reintroduced ADUs to its zoning code, though it restricted the number of neighborhoods in which they could be built. Ten years later, Blueprint Denver accelerated discussions about ADUs in Denver by advising city leaders to allow ADUs—while being sensitive to height, surrounding character, and building mass—in all residential areas. 

Baker says the “gentle density” of ADUs provide multiple options to help address the City’s dual crises of housing affordability and homelessness, which COVID-19 has only exacerbated. For example, an ADU can be turned into a short- or long-term rental that helps a family offset the cost of increasing property taxes resulting from Denver’s constant development.

Recognizing this opportunity, Denver City Council recently voted to fine online short-term rental companies if they help unauthorized landlords rent units in the city. The fines start at $1,000 per day for each day a unit remains on the market by a landlord who is not licensed with the City.

At the family level, ADUs provide an opportunity to cut down on long-term care costs and allow children to grow up in multi-generational households.

A recent survey by Genworth Financial found COVID-19 caused the cost of long-term care in Colorado to increase much faster than the national average. Assisted living costs increased by 11.9 percent while homemaker and home health aide services each increased 7.69 percent.

Gross said he is excited about giving Zibby the opportunity to grow up in a multi-generational home, something he experienced as a child, too.

For the City, ADUs provide access to currently underused parcels of land such as alleyways that will become more valuable as land becomes scarcer. Currently, ADUs are only allowed on approximately 25 percent of the City’s land, predominantly in its Northwestern neighborhoods.

In November, City Council approved a blanket rezoning request to allow ADUs in the Chaffee Park neighborhood, a move championed by Councilwoman Amanda Sandoval. Similar proposals are being discussed in the Sloan’s Lake and East Colfax area.

ADU Impact on Homelessness

Instead of encampments or overrun shelters, ADUs can provide a more civilized way of providing short-term housing for people experiencing homelessness.

Housing advocates have been pushing Denver officials to provide alternatives to the City’s shelter system since 2000, when they submitted the first Tent City proposal. The plan essentially asked city officials to provide dorms rather than warehouses for people experiencing homelessness.

In this sense, ADUs can be used to provide the beginning stages of housing, thereby offering someone the opportunity to build up toward stable housing. A 2018 study by Denver University Sturm College of Law’s Homeless Advocacy Policy Project, in partnership with Seattle University’s school of law, identified this method as an effective way cities can use ADUs to address homelessness at a policy level.

While ADUs present a useful tool to address homelessness, Baker says it’s important for city leaders to remember they are not a functional solution because they can’t be built fast enough.

“I think ADUs provide a viable part of the solution to homelessness, but certainly not the entire solution,” Baker said.

In 2018, the Los Angeles County Mayor’s office began funding a program that pairs people experiencing homelessness with property owners that have ADUs in an effort to incentivize using the buildings to address the county’s housing shortage. The results of the program will be published sometime in 2021.

Here in Denver, Baker worries homeowners are either uninformed or misinformed about ADUs. There is still plenty of pushback from residents in wealthier, southern Denver neighborhoods who object to ADUs because they believe the structure will either lower property values, change the character of the neighborhood, or both.

To combat this, Baker and ADU4U plan to launch a national ADU information portal, where users can select a locality and instantly access local rules and regulations about ADUs. Baker expects the portal to be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2021.

 “What people often don’t realize is that some people who are currently housed are struggling to stay there for one reason or another. For them, an ADU can be a stepping stone to stable housing,” Baker said.