send a private message to UCGAL. She built one and her husbands an architect. Or ask bearishgurl. She knows everything LOL

Did someone mention my name? Lol.

Poway might not be as restrictive as the city of San Diego… so you’ll have to check into this. San Diego has the most restrictive interpretation of the state laws for “companion units”. Here’s the rules for San Diego:

* lot size must be double what the minimum is for your zone. In our hood minimum lot size is 5k SF… so we needed at least 10k lot. In north park, where the lot size can be smaller, the lot only needed to be 7k SF.

* maximum SF of the companion unit is 700 SF. Since we were designing a wheelchair accessible place this limited us to a 1 br in order to have rooms that were big enough to have room for the wheelchair to manouver.

* San Diego required that we sign a deed restriction saying at least one of the houses would be owner occupied. In other words we can only rent one or the other house… not both.

* San Diego has a weird “street wall” rule for the offstreet parking spot for the companion unit. I doubt Poway (or any jurisdiction other than San Diego) has this. It basically requires that there is room in front and to the side of your house for an extra parking spot.

* San Diego requires that the companion unit be on the back part of your lot. For us that pushed us into hillside development, expensive grading, etc.

San Diego rules can be found here:
http://docs.sandiego.gov/municode/MuniCodeChapter14/Ch14Art01Division03.pdf

Here are some other links about the issues:
http://www.sandiegoissues.com/OtherCAcities.htm

exsdgal,

I suppose you have looked at moving?

You might get a much better deal than with building, without the potential pitfalls. Try to compare buying something else with building,if you haven’t. In this market it probably makes as much sense as ever to buy instead of build.

You could buy a bigger house and do a very inexpensive interior bootleg apartment with the option of removing modifications one day.
If you can find it, buying a place with a fully permitted second unit would be more cost effective and no building/contractor nightmares. They just don’t add much to resale prices. I designed and built my own “second dwelling unit”, even with only about 4k in labor, the house with its own garage doesn’t increase equity above cost.

I don’t see much economic value in adding second units in most cases. It won’t pencil out and you lose land. You will lose privacy forever if you ever become dependent on renting it. You likely won’t be able to rent both, as in UcGal’s case and my own.

The rules UCGal posted match up with my understanding as well.

When I built my detatched garage in Clairemont, the inspector was very leery of anything that suggested I might be planning on sneaking a kitchen or bathroom into the garage. So, the city pays close attention to this. I don’t think it is something you could possibly sneak by a planner.

I think that Agricultural-Residential lots allow the second structure even if the the lot size is not 2x the min. I’m not 100% sure about that, though. Still, I would expect the more rural environment of Poway to be less restrictive on this.

Has anyone gathered any additional information about Poway and granny flats?

My husband and I are looking into purchasing a house that has 2 acres that were originally 4 1/2 acre lots. There is one house but would really like to build a granny flat for my father. Trying to decide if this is a feasible plan?

Any input is appreciated.

No kitchen. Hmmmmmm. Can it have a laundry room with lots of counter space and a 240V outlet? For the dryer, naturally.

Thank you for all of this information. This was/is really useful. I’m going to have to take a trip to the City. Of the 4 lots, 1 is zoned for residential, 2 for Misc and 1 for “Call The City.” lol THey are all in RR-A.