City of Sacramento offers free architecture designs to increase housing across the city
SACRAMENTO — There is new housing help in Sacramento with the city now offering free architectural designs, permit-approved, to build on your property.
You can download the plans straight from the city website. The aim is to increase housing across the city.
"These are free blueprints to build a house. Well, a small house, an accessory dwelling unit, you know, formerly known as a granny flat," Jeff Harris said.
Harris is one of the architects of the plan to offer free architecture designs for accessory dwelling units, or ADUs to everyone in Sacramento. He is a former Sacramento city councilmember and contractor in the process of building his own ADU.
The city's free ADU plans now come in three versions: a studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom unit. The free designs create savings of thousands of dollars.
Garret Norman is a senior planner with the City of Sacramento.
"The idea with the permit-ready plan is to save costs so you don't have to hire a designer, and also expedite those plans because you will not have to go through the normal review process," he said.
Building more ADUs is a key part of the city's goal to create 45,000 new housing units in the next seven years.
These free blueprints to help solve Sacramento's housing crisis are, for property owners, an incentive to build and offer more options for people who need a home.
"It could be housing your aging parents or it could be a rental for students," Harris said.
The City of Sacramento is currently not meeting state guidelines which require more than 5,600 new homes to be built each year.