How do San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose diverge on ADU review?
San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose each run their own ADU counter, and the rules change at the city line. San Francisco’s Planning Department runs two tracks. Its citywide program opened in 2016, and the state’s 2020 laws widened eligibility again. An owner picks one program, never both. The State program is ministerial, exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act, and carries a 60-day review timeframe from a complete application, with appeals barred for applications filed on or after January 1, 2024. The Local program allows waivers from parts of the Planning Code, with strings attached.
Those strings matter when pricing. Under the Local program a Costa-Hawkins Regulatory Agreement may be required, placing the unit under rent control, and no ADU can go on a lot whose building had an owner move-in eviction in the past five years or another no-fault eviction in the past ten. Unit math is the same on both tracks: four or fewer legal dwellings on the lot allows one ADU plus one detached ADU, and five or more allows unlimited ADUs plus one detached. A junior ADU of up to 500 square feet fits inside a single-family structure, with owner occupancy required when sanitation is shared.
Planning staff join the Department of Building Inspection’s pre-application meetings voluntarily, and the page calls that feedback advisory, not an approval. ADUs are ineligible for the short-term rental program. On a San Francisco ADU call, ask which program the owner expects and whether the building has an eviction history, because those answers set the review path before a drawing exists.
San Francisco Planning, Accessory Dwelling UnitsWhat does Oakland’s ADU path look like from across the bay?
Oakland sorts ADUs by category instead of program. On a single-family lot the City names three. A junior ADU converts existing space inside the home into a unit of at most 500 square feet with the owner living on site. A Category One ADU converts or rebuilds an existing space such as a garage or basement, with no expansion beyond an entrance of up to 150 square feet. A Category Two ADU is a new attached or detached structure. Multifamily buildings get their own three categories, and Category Three, one new unit converted from or attached to the main building, rules out any other ADU on the lot.
The City describes the path as two main steps: zoning approval, which checks location, size, and height, then building review, which verifies the unit meets the Building Codes. Oakland also publishes pre-approved plans for studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom dwellings, and warns that restrictions apply in high-fire risk areas and commercial zones, so the address decides whether that shortcut is open. A finished ADU may be rented only for stays of 30 days or longer, with a Business License.
The most useful line for an estimator is that the City posts its own cost ranges per square foot: $200 to $300 to convert existing living space, $300 to $650 to convert an existing accessory structure, $250 to $400 to add onto the home, and $300 to $500 for a new detached or prefabricated unit. An Oakland homeowner who read that page arrives with a number in mind, so confirm the category before pricing against it.
City of Oakland, Secondary Units (ADUs)What is the SF Bay Area planning to build through 2031?
The Association of Bay Area Governments, ABAG, sets the housing target every Bay Area city and county must plan for. For the 2023 to 2031 cycle, the state housing department’s determination handed the region 441,176 housing units, which ABAG split among nine counties and 101 cities and towns. The ABAG Executive Board adopted the final allocation on December 16, 2021, the state approved it on January 12, 2022, and each local government then had until January 31, 2023 to update the housing element of its general plan and its zoning to show where the units could go.
The income mix is the part contractors should read. Of the total, 114,442 units, or 25.9 percent, are for very low income households, 65,892 for low income, 72,712 for moderate income, and 188,130 units, 42.6 percent, for above moderate income. That last band is the market-rate housing that single-family lots, additions, and ADUs feed. The allocation has to square with Plan Bay Area 2050+, the region’s long-range plan, and only one subregion formed, in Solano County, which adopted its own allocations on November 18, 2021.
The appeals show how fixed the numbers are. ABAG received 28 appeals, and its Administrative Committee denied every one except Contra Costa County’s, which moved 35 units to the City of Pittsburg. The page was last updated February 21, 2024, and it describes a planning target rather than a count of homes built, so read it as the direction of pressure on the Peninsula, the East Bay, and the South Bay, not as demand in your inbox this week.
ABAG, Regional Housing Needs Allocation 2023–2031