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December 13, 2023

ADUvocacy: Dwellings & Discourse

Building Forward: Housing for Vulnerable Populations Blog 9 – 2 -3 min. readDecember 13, 2023 | By: Iana Lanceta In respect to housing, vulnerable populations can experience precarious living situations and struggle to find affordable options.  Low-income families, the elderly, individuals with lower levels of education, racialized groups, Indigenous people, and newcomers represent vulnerable populations who may experience inequities in many facets of life. As the weather becomes colder, ensuring vulnerable populations are comfortably and securely housed becomes even more essential. Inflation is one major contributor to the housing issue, and the inflation rate has risen significantly since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Of course, the impact of rising prices is not felt equally among demographic groups, and vulnerable populations in the bottom income bracket spend a higher share of their budgets on necessities (such as food and shelter) compared to higher income individuals.  Social housing projects, like the...
November 15, 2023

ADUvocacy: Dwellings & Discourse

Untangling the Red Tape: The Housing Crisis and Construction Delays Blog 8 – 4-5 min.readNovember 15, 2023 | By: Iana Lanceta In a time of soaring housing costs, there is a hidden culprit that often exacerbates the financial burden on prospective homeowners: red tape. The combination of municipal charges and complicated bureaucratic processes associated with new development create an additional layer of expenses while hindering housing supply. Although increased affordable housing is on the agenda of most governments, existing development regulations prevent political leaders from reaching this goal. This article will look at studies that break down the additional costs that homeowners face.  According to a 2022 Ontario study conducted by Building Industry and Land Development (BILD) and Altus Group, municipal approval timeframes for new housing have significantly increased since 2020. These delays prove to be more than just annoying inconveniences and have added approximately $50,0000 to the cost of...
October 24, 2023

ADUvocacy: Dwellings & Discourse

Yes, in My Backyard : Do ADUs Ruin Neighbourhood Character? Blog 7 – 4-5 min.readOctober 24, 2023 | By: Iana Lanceta One of the biggest apprehensions to ADU development is that it will ruin a neighbourhood’s character. So… does it? Put simply, no. The idea that ADUs destroy an area’s character and decrease its value is based on misconception. In reality, ADUs are designed to preserve character while facilitating multigenerational housing, community connections, and greener living. A good place to start would be to debunk some common myths about ADUs. First, ADUs won’t disrupt the residential aesthetic because bylaws prevent them from being visible from the street. Our research team looked at hundreds of bylaws and found that municipalities only allow ADUs in side or rear yards. Moreover, different building requirements often exist to further limit a unit’s height sizes and facade distances to further restrict street visibility. There’s also...
September 15, 2023

The Foundational Series

What is the National Minimum Regulation? Blog 6 – 4-5 min.readSeptember 15, 2023 | By: Frazier Fathers Across Canada, ADUSearch processed approximately 2.2 million residential lots to determine how many of them could potentially build a detached Additional Dwelling Unit (ADU) based on existing bylaws in that municipality.  Planning for Canadian municipalities is managed by local municipalities within an overarching framework set by their particular province. This leads to a range of different standards in the country where in June 2023, a city like Barrie, Ontario had a 7 meter rear setback requirement compared to 1.2 meters in Windsor, Ontario. For other communities, detached ADUs aren’t even permitted yet. But what if they were? What if there was a national least restrictive standard that let you compare a municipality’s capacity for detached ADUs? That is what the National Minimum Regulation (NMR) allows us to explore.  At a high level, the...
July 19, 2023

The Foundational Series

Are ADUs Affordable to Rent? Blog 5 – 5 min.readJuly 19, 2023 | By: Frazier Fathers “Are ADUs affordable to rent?” This is a complicated question that requires you to understand two key points of view. First, why did the property owner build the additional dwelling unit (ADU), and second, what is affordable to the renter?  The second part is easier to answer. Housing affordability is generally calculated based on taking 30% of one’s pre-tax income on a monthly basis. If the shelter costs are greater than this value, then the home can be statistically presumed as unaffordable. There are some variations on this calculation, and on ADUSearch we actually use after-tax income for our base calculation as we view this value as a “take home” amount that people can spend, compared to a hypothetical pre-tax amount.  From an income perspective, we leverage the after-tax median income adjusted by inflation...
June 15, 2023

The Foundational Series

Are ADUs Affordable to Build? Blog 4 – 5 min.readJune 15, 2023 | By: Frazier Fathers Unlike most other forms of development, ADUs must be financed by an existing property owner. There are currently no mechanisms that would allow a developer, for example, to build ADUs in someone’s backyard and then sell or rent them for profit as they would not own the land the ADU was built on. This leads to the question, can the “average homeowner” afford to build an ADU? One of the biggest barriers is getting financing, and there are two primary thresholds a homeowner needs to reach.  First is whether they have sufficient equity or cash on hand to build an ADU. A property owner will need to refinance their existing property to pay the $150,000+ construction cost of the ADU. An important point is that most financial institutions will only allow up to 80%...
May 18, 2023

The Foundational Series

Can Cities Make Money on ADUs? Blog 3 – 4 min.readMay 18, 2023 | By: Frazier Fathers Denser, more urban cities are not only more environmentally friendly but also more efficient and less expensive to run. As the saying goes – only two things are true in life: death and taxes.  Property owners that have an additional dwelling unit (ADU) do have to pay taxes on that unit. The amount is driven by the assessed value of the ADU. Naturally, this value changes depending on the size, type, quality, and finishings of the ADUs. As some ADUs can reach the size of a small single-family home, the tax impact can be proportional to that scale in many cases.  Our tax revenue models assume a standardized detached ADU (specifically 40 sq. m/431 sq. ft) as the baseline for our tax calculations. The structure is also assumed to be a one bedroom/one...
April 14, 2023

The Foundational Series

What’s Up with ADU Bylaws?  Blog 2 – 5 min.read April 14, 2023 | By: Frazier Fathers Where an additional dwelling unit (ADU) can be built is a complicated matter that is most often driven by local bylaws. Provincial policy provides the foundation for these bylaws based on zoning and building code requirements and regulations but, it’s often up to the specific municipality to determine if ADUs are a possible and viable form of housing in their community.  ADUSearch attempts to determine where detached ADUs can be built at the lot level without significant barrier and restriction (i.e. dark green on our categorization) based on local bylaws. So, we dig into these bylaws and attempt to determine all of the potential paths and gateways that have to be met for a property owner to build a detached ADU. This process was conceptualized in the form of a  flowchart. For some...
March 29, 2023

The Foundational Series

How Does ADUSearch Work? The Core Model  Blog 1 –  2 min. read March 31, 2023 | By: Frazier Fathers ADUSearch aims to help its users discover the potential in their own backyard. In particular, this digital tool uses a variety of spatial data and models based on existing and hypothetical bylaws to assess ADU suitability at a lot-by-lot and neighbourhood level. ADUSearch was originally funded by Stage 1 of the CMHC Housing Supply Challenge and incubated at Family Services Windsor-Essex but continues to grow as a project. The process to create the maps that users see today was two-fold. First, the policy team gathered the bylaw inputs that inform the conditions and restrictions that allow an additional dwelling unit (ADU) to be built. These inputs were organized in a flowchart format and validated both internally and externally. Next, the policy files were sent to the GIS team to be...