01 Finding a Backyard Solution
Accessory dwelling units
Office of the Mayor, City of Los Angeles
Trent Wolbe is standing on freshly broken soil in his backyard in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Highland Park, giving a virtual tour of the structure that will soon stand there—a small two-story, two-bedroom house designed to reflect the neighborhood’s Craftsman aesthetic. “You get to the stairs through here, in the back of the kitchen,” he says, describing the thousand-square-foot layout of the home he plans to occupy with his partner, Grace Lee, and their toddler once the project is finished, a move that will allow them to rent out their existing house in front. They began this effort—to build what city planners commonly refer to as an “accessory dwelling unit” (ADU)—two years ago, and they admit to some weariness. “We’ve been exceedingly patient,” Wolbe says. Every home-construction undertaking is a challenge, but since May 2016, Wolbe and Lee have been pioneers in a real-world test for the City of Los Angeles, which is using their project to design a potential solution to the region’s housing crisis.
The population of Los Angeles, the second-largest city in the U.S., cracked 4 million in 2017, up from 3.7 million in 2000. The metropolitan area is now home to nearly 20 million people, up 2.2 million in less than a decade. The improved postrecession economy has lured companies—and
