Build Small, Live Large- Portland’s Accessory Dwelling Unit Tour- Sunday, June 1st, 2014

Update 5/28/14: There's been a huge amount of interest in attending this tour, which is fantastic. Over 800 people have registered to attend. 

To allow for ample access to the ADUs for attendees, we have decided to cap the ticket sales.  Tickets sales have now ended. We really wanted to sell more, but feel that this cap is in the best interest of the tour registrants and the ADU hosts. 

This blog focuses on the design/build process for my ADU. Occasionally, however, I make other ADU related announcements that will be of interest to readers. In this case, I'm very excited to announce Build Small, Live Large- Portland’s Accessory Dwelling Unit Tour. This will be the first tour of its kind, and promises to be a fantastic event.

This ADU, ten other finished ADUs, and one under construction, will be featured on the tour. Homeowner, architects, and builders for the ADUs will be available to answer questions. There will also be a series of expert presentations held throughout the day. Additionally, attendees will be able to see eight tiny houses on wheels.

The day will jam packed with small and tiny houses, networking opportunities, and access to ADU professionals and experts. If you're planning to build an ADU, this tour (and the ongoing ADU classes I offer) are the best ways to learn from others about the ADU designing, permitting, and building process.

Here's the press release from Caravan- The Tiny House Hotel, about the tour.

Caravan- The Tiny House Hotel, in partnership with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, the City of Portland, and Metro, is hosting Portland’s first citywide tour of Accessory Dwelling Units on Sunday, June 1st, 2014 from 10am-6pm. ADUs are secondary living units on single-family lots.  Modeled after the City of Portland’s Build It Green Tour, Build Small, Live Large: Portland’s Accessory Dwelling Unit Tour offers attendees the rare opportunity to see the interiors of eleven ADUs in a variety of locations across the eastside of Portland. The self-guided tour gives attendees access to the homeowners, builders and designers of the ADUs, and to comprehensive, educational case studies about the building process of each ADU. There will also be workshops throughout the day presented by local and national experts about a range of topics related to ADUs, from permitting and financing, to designing and building.

Portland has seen a six-fold rise in the number of ADUs built since 2010.  This dramatic increase is the result of a 2010 City of Portland waiver of System Development Charges, which reduced the cost of building permits for an ADU by up to $11,000.  Before the 2010 waiver, approximately 30 ADUs were built in Portland annually, but in 2013 alone, there were almost 200 ADU permits applications.  The waiver’s popularity caused the Portland City Council to extend the waiver until July, 2016, spurring local ADU leaders to develop Portland’s first ADU tour.

Throughout the day, attendees will also have the opportunity to tour four custom-built tiny houses on wheels at Caravan- The Tiny House Hotel. Caravan has received national media attention for being the first tiny house hotel in the United States. Caravan will host a late afternoon networking event from 4-6pm where attendees can meet local advocates, designers, builders and leaders of both the ADU and the tiny house movement. Real estate professionals can earn up to 6 CE credits. Attendees will have the opportunity to earn a special $25 discount to stay at Caravan, as well as enter a raffle for a free stay at Caravan.

Early bird registration is only $25. Learn more and register at http://accessorydwellings.org/adu_tour/

...or 

Common Forms of Living Smaller

Much residential "green building" attention has been placed on material selection, alternative power sources, and mechanical efficiencies. These choices all play a role in building "green", but arguably, none of these charismatic green features are as important as the energy efficiency gains achieved through building and living in smaller spaces. 

Smaller houses can take many forms, and the three common forms that I'll mention in this post, all achieve notable reductions in terms of their environmental lifecycle impact reductions: Multi-family, ADU, and "Tiny Houses" 

Let's begin with the recent EPA-sponsored report about the energy impacts of residential housing choices. As stated on the introductory page, 

"Buildings and transportation together account for about 70 percent of energy use in the United States and are responsible for about 62 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions"

The findings in this report illustrate that certifiably green buildings are not as significant in reducing that energy as where you build (Conventional Suburban Development or Transit Oriented Development) and the housing type (Single Family Detached, Single Family Attached, and Multi-Family). The report findings are summarized well in this rich graphic.

For me, I’m beholden to my innate desire to design and build something on my own terms. There are strong correlations between the size of average Single Family Detached, Single Family Attached, and Multi-Family homes. However, the impact of housing size perhaps has a more direct correlation to energy use than those building type descriptions.


From 1950, to 2008, the average sq ft per person has increased from 259 ft to 961 ft, a 372% increase. 

ADU’s are an accessible way for urban homeowners to make a big stand on issues that span community building, environmentalism, urbanism, and climate change. Done well, ADU’s present a compelling personal financial opportunity for individuals to create a regenerative, personal financial portfolio. I plan to discuss the economics of my ADU and ADUs at large in future posts. 



I have extracted some graphics from a presentation about the findings from the Oregon DEQ report, "Life Cycle Approach to Prioritizing Methods of Preventing Waste from the Residential Construction Sector in the State of Oregon". I anticipate this this groundbreaking report will prove to be pivotal in the green building movement and will help to instigate a shift toward an emphasis on living smaller. 

I believe ADU’s will naturally become more and more popular where there is sufficient housing demand and where they are allowed by zoning laws. With a few exceptions in the US, ADU’s are not legal.

The first ten minutes of this video is of Jay Shafer of Tumbleweed Tiny Houses addressing code barriers to small housing. Jay Shafer is the person who has popularized the notion of building tiny houses on wheels- which, as he explains, is simply a tactical exploitation of a common municipal zoning loophole to legitimize what would otherwise be illegally constructed tiny houses.