Posted To: MND NewsWireOne of the trends in attempts to provide more affordable housing is the growth of accessory dwelling units (ADUs) such as granny flats, garage apartments, or in-law suites. These aren’t a new thing, Freddie Mac points out, in a research paper on the subject, that Fonzie occupied an above-garage apartment at the Cunningham home, but they have been somewhat invisible, and often illegal. The invisibility was often linked to their illegality. Zoning laws passed during the postwar rise of suburbs often limited construction of high-density housing and because so many ADUs were built against city ordinances, without required permits, little research literature was published. Freddie Mac could account for only three or four papers in the 1980s and 1990s and they were mostly small in scale and based…(read more)Forward this article via email:  Send a copy of this story to someone you know that may want to read it.