Why We Offer Free Property Assessments and What To Expect
The foundation to all successful projects is planning - and there is no exception when it comes to building an accessory dwelling unit for your backyard. Planning an ADU in your backyard takes careful considerations from several perspectives - space planning, regulatory/zoning planning, and budget planning. In this post, we’ll discuss what we cover in our property assessment and why it’s a critical first step for our Solo ADUs or any ADU.
Bay Modular Free Property Assessment: Defined
Our goal with the Solo ADU Series is to take all of that planning off your hands and make our building system do the heavy lifting. With the Solo 2, 3, and 4 ADU models, we’ve streamlined our construction process and materials procurement process so that we can ensure the unit cost of each accessory dwelling unit. This early upfront planning and learning allows us to mitigate any major budget issues and sizing issues.
In addition to engineering a system with standard sizes and components, our team of planning and zoning experts will work directly with local planning and building departments to identify any outliers to State ADU mandates as reflected in local ordinances. This is a process that we provide for free to you.
After you’ve submitted your physical property address and location details, we begin a process that includes:
Reviewing satellite imagery to get rough measurements of your property and potential access routes
Identifying available backyard area for construction and highlighting buildable vs. non-buildable areas
Referencing local jurisdictional ordinances for the particular address (i.e. checking out residential zoning, reviewing setback requirements, building requirements, and other CC&Rs)
What Can You Do To Help?
You can help make this process simpler by helping us understand your space. Due to COVID-19, we are limited to phone calls in lieu of site visits. However, even though we are sheltering-in-place, it’s always easier for us to understand each project specifically with more information.
During our call or even in your form, providing detailed information about your backyard will help us understand things like access and space. These details can look like this:
is there a tree or other structure in your backyard?
is there a slope, drop, or retaining wall in your backyard that we can’t see?
is there a power line or telephone pole in front of your house?
is there a way to access your backyard through a long driveway? how wide is this driveway?
which way do you plan to face your ADU? how much space would you like between your house and the ADU?
how much space is there between your house and your rear fence?
how much space is there between your side fences?
is there an easement around your property?
where is the closest waste cleanout to your backyard?
what size is your electrical panel?
Details like this help us streamline the assessment process and will make our planning efforts faster and more accurate.
Why Is It Free — Our Mission for Housing
Our mission is to simplify construction projects for the homeowner and knowledge is the first step to that. We so firmly believe that our ADU is the most affordable, dependable, backyard home product that we provide you this information knowing your decision will be based on a combination of things that our Solo ADUs excel at.
But we don’t want to tie you to a product that you’re not interested in. Building space in your backyard is an extremely personal task - this is a building that you will be spending time in and seeing daily. We want the ADU to be a reflection of our collaboration with you and we want to make that process seamless.
Lastly, it is our hope that Bay Modular ADUs will continue to spur the growth of infill housing in dense areas. With more young families and individuals moving from the suburbs and into dense metropolitan areas, it’s never been more critical that we create a seamless and pain-free option for homeowners to create space.
So, whether your ADU is a space for your parents, your children, you, or even renters, we want to help you see it through to the end.