Accessory Dewelling Units: What Happens When State Law and HOAs Collide?
3/12/2025 | 2mVideo has Closed Captions
California laws support ADUs, but HOAs are pushing back against homeowners building them.
California has passed laws to encourage accessory dwelling units (ADUs) to ease the housing crisis, but some homeowners’ associations (HOAs) are resisting. A Carlsbad homeowner is taking legal action after his HOA blocked his ADU project, reigniting the debate over property rights.
SoCal Matters is a local public television program presented by PBS SoCal
Accessory Dewelling Units: What Happens When State Law and HOAs Collide?
3/12/2025 | 2mVideo has Closed Captions
California has passed laws to encourage accessory dwelling units (ADUs) to ease the housing crisis, but some homeowners’ associations (HOAs) are resisting. A Carlsbad homeowner is taking legal action after his HOA blocked his ADU project, reigniting the debate over property rights.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipAdam Hardesty is Board Vice President of the Mystic Point Homeowners Association in Carlsbad.
Late last summer, he floated the idea of converting the garage of his three-story condo into a ground-floor apartment to his fellow board members.
Right now, I'm building an ADU.
It's going to be a single-story ADU for the housing crisis to provide for affordable housing, to help solve for that and then also so that I could provide for my family through a rental.
Before moving forward with his plans, he canvassed local architects and engineers, got the approval of the city, and even checked in with the state housing department.
What he didn't count on was opposition from his own homeowners association.
The Department of California, HCD, who's confirmed that my zoning is protected and falls under the civil code.
What followed was months of sternly worded legal missives, deadlocked negotiations, and a heated battle over property rights, pitting neighbor against neighbor across this bucolic hillside subdivision north of San Diego.
The California legislature has been on a decades-long tear trying to make it harder for locals to say no to new housing.
A raft of California laws on accessory dwelling units, ADUs, have been particularly aggressive in stripping locals of their regulatory say-so.
In 2019, the California legislature passed a law to keep HOAs from enforcing certain regulations on accessory dwelling units.
The bill, authored by former Burbank Assembly Member Laura Friedman, voided any association rule that effectively prohibits or unreasonably restricts the construction of ADUs in areas that are zoned for single-family residential use.
According to Marco Gonzalez, Hardesty's homeowner attorney, the Mystic Point HOA argued that because the subdivision's zoning map allows for more than just single-family homes, Hardesty's parcel is not zoned for single-family residential use, and therefore, the law doesn't apply.
What applies instead is the association's ban on using garages for anything other than cars.
Hardesty said he's confident the law is on his side and broke ground in early February.
We can agree to disagree, an opinion is an opinion, and so I've decided to move forward with the project.
For CalMatters, I'm Ben Christopher.
SoCal Matters is a local public television program presented by PBS SoCal