Raleigh looks to ADUs as way to address affordable housing, now tracks permits, construction
As the City of Raleigh works to create more opportunities and options for affordable housing, the City's Planning Department has rolled out a new dashboard tracking Accessory Dwelling Unit Permit Data.
"I think the intention here is that the Council directed us to make ADUs easier to build and that that came about in the summer of 2020," explained Keegan McDonald, Planning Supervisor with the City of Raleigh Planning and Development Department.
"And so now we're about a little under 3 years out from when those more significant policy changes were made. And I think the Council and Staff view this data as very important for us to be able to tell a story about how effective the policy has been. And, I think, eventually sort of benchmark against you know what our expectations are, and I would say just based on the data that we have available, I think we are certainly meeting expectations."
The city hopes the new tool along with its ADU Fast Track program will only help make the building process easier leading to more ADU construction.
"We have almost 150 permits at some point in the process. I think it's been sort of a trial run for us, and how we can better communicate the effectiveness of policy to residents and the policymakers themselves, and we do hope to eventually migrate more data and information about other types of development," McDonald added.
Dexter Tillett, Co-Owner of Tiny Homes Raleigh says he is using the dashboard several times a week for his business and believes residents will benefit from having the data easily available.
"It's great for transparency for the city," Tillett said. "It's great to see how many ADUs are being permitted, where they're being permitted, and what process they're being permitted, whether it be issued in review or done. So, there's a lot of good information and it's great to see, you know, what, friends or family or neighbors are doing to see what's going on. And also just to check that the program is actually working," Tillett said.
The data updates weekly on the dashboard. Other cities including Santa Barbara and Seattle have similar dashboards to track ADU construction.
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