Talk to county planner about building granny flat on ‘small’ parcel

Q: My grandmother owns some property north of Vacaville. The parcel is 5.3 acres and it has been in our family for something like 80 years. My grand mother lives alone and needs someone to help take care of her on a part-time basis. I am single and going to Solano College, so the idea of living near Grandma has a lot of appeal to both of us since it would be cheap and I could help take care of her. My parents have offered to pay to cut her property in two pieces and build a second, smaller house on the second property. When we approached the county build ing department about our plans they told us we couldn’t do it. The guy at the counter talked about zoning ordinances and minimum parcel sizes, but frankly we didn’t really understand what he was saying. Grandma’s parcel is really in the woods, not near a subdivision or anything so I don’t think there’s anybody around who would care. How do we go about cutting the parcel into two pieces and building another house?

A: In answering your question I’m forced to make a few reasonable assumptions about the facts, since your email is all I have to go on.

Every property in the county is subject to minimum parcel size zoning restrictions. Municipalities have great latitude, legally speaking, to decide how someone’s property is used and the minimum size you can subdivide down to.

In your case, it’s reasonable to believe that the minimum parcel size in the area you’re talking about is much higher than the 5.3 acres your grandmother owns. Most of the parcels in that area now have a 20-acre, or larger, minimum size. Many of the smaller parcels in the area were already subdivided when the new, larger minimum size standards were adopted, so they were grandfathered in.

In other words, I’d bet your grandmother’s parcel is already below the minimum, thereby making it impossible to subdi-

However, you can probably build a second home on the existing parcel, though likely under certain very strict limitations.

Small second homes, or “granny flats” as they’ve come to be known, have been encouraged in many locations before but recent changes in state laws have given most homeowners the absolute right to build them.

If you approach the county with building plans, be prepared for them to limit the overall square footage, including the number of bedrooms and the size of the kitchen.

The new state laws governing granny flats, otherwise known as accessory dwelling units, which go by the acronym ADUs, have many state-mandated restrictions.

The other possibility is to get a conditional use permit that would allow you to park something like a mobile home

See Jones, Page 12