It Came from the Backyard - Page 3

"Housing needs are great," says Mark Neely, who heads the architectural review committee in the Eichler tract of Upper Lucas Valley in Marin. Some of the homeowner association rules will have to change due to new state mandates, he says, adding, "It's just finding a way of balancing how we provide housing and how we maintain neighbors' privacy and design.

"We don't want to be labeled that we are shutting down housing," he says. "How can we achieve both goals while keeping people's lots feeling private?"

Joyce Yin, an architect who lives in a Mountain View Eichler, says that Eichler was building for an 'American dream' that is no longer sustainable.

"At the time when Eichler was building there were a lot fewer people. You could spread out," she says. "You could have your own private oasis and your cute home." She adds: "It seems to a lot of people that if we keep building that way, we're being wasteful and we're ignoring future generations."

Impact on Eichler tracts

Some observers argue that, even with laws making it easier to build ADUs and allowing lot splits and multi-family housing to replace single-family homes, the impact on Eichler and other single-family neighborhoods will be limited due to space constraints and to homeowners' desires to preserve their neighborhoods.

"The majority of our lots are relatively tight," Mark Neely says of Upper Lucas Valley. "Most homes in the community wouldn't have enough space [for an ADU], and it wouldn't feel appropriate."

"We have to examine it going forward and come up with a balanced approach," he says. "I'm not opposed to ADUs. We need to have standards."

"What's challenging about ADUs is that people will be living there daily," Neely says. "If you put one on an uphill lot, they could be looking in on their neighbors [and seeing into glass-walled living rooms and bedrooms]."

"A lot of people who are buying these [Eichler] homes now, they don't want to put an ADU in their backyard to rent out," says Kevin Swartz, a South Bay realtor of the Erdal Swartz Team with a focus on Eichlers, adding, "I think people want more space for their own selves."

"There could be space to build the ADU," Swartz says, "but I don't see a huge demand for it." He does say, however, that some buyers might want to put up an ADU for a family member.

And while many Eichler lots, at 6,000 to 7,000 square feet, seem large enough to accommodate more units, the home itself takes up so much of the front of the lot, he says. And side yards and setbacks are such that "it would be hard to put in additional units."

"Typically, the Eichler home is going to have six feet of side yard, and the home itself takes up most of the lot, with a backyard. So unless you tear the house down and rebuild with smaller units, it's not going to work," he says.