Accessory Apartments in Single-family Housing

Details:
Martin Gellen introduces the accessory apart-ment, a genuine housing form in its own right, and assesses its potential as an emerging resource for meeting local and national hous-ing needs. Accessory apartments represent a way to adapt single-family housing to an age of altered housing standards and changing family structure. They are—legally and illegally—one of the fastest-growing realities of America. The book evaluates different strategies for the promotion and control of accessory apart-ment conversions. How do we live with them? Control their number? Ensure their sound-ness?—And maintain neighborhood stan-dards? The author discusses some of the physical planning problems of conversions and examines the zoning issues they raise. This includes a realistic appraisal of the pur-poses of density and occupancy controls in exclusive single-family districts. Gellen pro-vides new methods for regulation of density and occupancy which permit more flexible use of single-family housing to meet the hous-ing needs of a more diverse population. Whether in an aging suburb or new tract, the accessory apartment is a current challenge. This book gives the rules and tools of the game.