Two years ago, we launched the ADU Accelerator with a simple idea – help homeowners add housing for our workforce and take the hardest parts off their plate. Now it’s real. The first ADU facilitated through the Tahoe Housing Hub’s ADU Accelerator program is under construction in Truckee and this fall it will become home to a local working family.

Currently under construction in the backyard of an existing home, the unit will be a 3-bedroom, 2-bath ADU, big enough for a family that lives and works right here in our community.

Most people build an ADU exactly once. It’s a specialized undertaking that involves design, engineering, financing, permitting, and knowing which experts to bring in at which time. Our client, Leanna, knew she wanted to add a home for a local family. What she needed was a team that had walked this path many times. That’s where we come in. We worked alongside her from the start, weighing manufactured, modular, and stick-built options to find the right fit, then brought in the right professionals at each phase of design, engineering, planning, permitting, and construction. Now that construction is underway, we are still there and will continue with the project through lease-up of the unit.

Leanna has some advice for anyone interested in building an ADU.  “Without the Tahoe Housing Hub, this ADU might never have been built. I only wish I’d brought them in sooner. If you’re considering a project like this, my advice is get the Hub involved as early as you can. The earlier they’re at the table, the smoother everything goes.”

Building housing in the North Lake Tahoe-Truckee region is complex and can be expensive. It can mean hiring a team of experts, at significant cost, to plan, permit, and build a project. The ADU Accelerator provides that expertise from project inception to completion, all at no cost to the homeowner, thanks to generous grant funding from the North Tahoe Community Alliance’s TOT-TBID Dollars at Work and The Martis Fund.

Each homeowner enrolled receives up to $30,000 in expert services. That relatively small public investment is designed to unlock something much larger. Homeowners finance and build the units themselves, turning up to $30,000 in grant-funded support into a completed home worth many times that, up to a 25-fold return on every grant dollar, reinvested directly into local housing.

This first unit is just the start. We have projects in the planning stages throughout Truckee and North Lake Tahoe, in a range of unit types, sizes, bedroom counts, and levels of affordability. Every unit facilitated through the program will be allocated exclusively to local workforce housing. We’re also working on projects for church sites and other commercial properties designed for employee housing.

ADUs have a small footprint and offer a lower-cost, creative way to add infill workforce housing to our community. And with the ADU Accelerator, you don’t need to be a developer to build one. You can add value to your property, potentially generate passive income, and provide a much-needed home for a local worker, all at the same time.

If you’ve ever thought about it, reach out. Visit our website or send us an email at info@tahoehousinghub.org. We’re excited to talk with you about your project ideas.