Our development choice support services are geared towards existing homeowners and prospective property purchasers.

Land is appraised at the value of its highest and best use. In many residential areas in California, that means you have to be extremely wealthy or you have to commit to buy and develop the next increment of housing on the property.

We help you determine how to develop or zone your property for communal housing. We help you consider these options:

• lot splitting and subdividing,

• building accessory dwelling units (“ADUs”),

• retrofitting residential or commercial properties,

• shared housing buildings,

• group housing, rooming houses, congregate residences,

• guesthouses and guestrooms,

• and the relationship between “functional family” rules and development options.

Why do you need a lawyer for this? Well, if you add an extra bedroom, that might require adding an extra unit. If you add a kitchenette versus a kitchen, that might count as an extra bedroom versus an extra dwelling unit. If you add three bedrooms, that’s a public hearing, but if you only add two, that’s ministerial approval.

Our full scope of core services includes development choice in conversation with arrangement choice, followed by agreement drafting.