Ordinary Homes of the United States

Time period: Late 19th and early 20th century, revived in 21st century. Location: Used to be everywhere.  Today: Seattle and New York City. A mid-rise building with a couple apartments on each floor.   In most cities, you'll find two types of mid-rise apartment buildings in the 4-7 story range. First, there'll be some small historic buildings downtown, side by side like books on a shelf. These are the original point access blocks. Then, there are the big modern buildings taking up a whole block and with long, windowless hallways inside. These are double loaded corridor buildings. Floorplan of a point access block.   Note that apartments have windows facing the front and back of the building.     In contrast, except for the corner units, apartments in a double loaded corridor only have windows facing one direction. Both the point access block and the double loaded corridor were designed to be the most efficient floorplan given the building codes of th...

  Time period: 20th century to present day Location: Suburbs In places that allow them, Accessory Dwelling Units are a way to have more than one home on a lot that is zoned only for one regular full-size home. ADUs are a second, smaller home (typically studio, 1-bedroom, or 2-bedroom) on the same property as a full size house. They're also called accessory apartments, secondary units, in-law suites, and granny flats. Hawaii calls them Ohana dwellings. In zoning and building codes, accessory uses are minor uses that are allowed as part of a larger project, even if the zoning or occupancy type does not normally allow it. An example of an accessory use is the manager's office of an apartment building, which is allowed in a residential zone even though it's an office use. ADU's are a similar regulatory reform to allow two homes on a single family lot, without changing it to duplex zoning. Examples of types of ADUs. Each type of ADU has advantages and disadvantages. Detach...

  Time period: 2020s and onwards Location: California California state law allows a single-family home to become three homes: 1. The main house, which can be whatever size allowed by zoning 2.  An attached or detached Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU). Can be any size, cities must allow at least 800 square feet (enough for a 2-bedroom, 3 if you squeeze it) 3. An attached Junior Accessory Dwelling Unit (JADU), of up to 500 square feet. Example of a house with a Junior ADU and a regular ADU on a 5,000 square foot, 50'x100' lot.  Total of 3,800 square feet of living space with 3 homes with a total of 7 bedrooms (4 in house, 2 in ADU, 1 in Junior ADU). While California state law as of 2022 also allows up to 4 homes ( double duplex ) using Senate Bill 9, the ADU+JADU route is currently more popular, for two reasons: First, fees and code requirements are lower for ADUs. Second, many cities have put up barriers to using SB9 - this is in the process of being corrected by cleanup ...