Santa Clara is unusual among Silicon Valley cities. It runs its own municipal electric utility rather than being served by the regional provider, which means service connections, meter sets, and panel upgrades for a new accessory dwelling unit go through the city itself. Knowing that changes how we sequence a project here.
It is the kind of detail that does not show up in a generic ADU brochure and costs real time when a contractor learns it mid build. We plan for it from the first site visit.
Which one fits comes down to your lot, not to a preference. Part of our job is telling you which is realistic before you spend anything on drawings.
Our ADU construction page goes deeper on how each type is built.
The postwar tract neighborhoods that make up much of Santa Clara tend toward regular rectangular lots with predictable setbacks, which makes them straightforward to design for. The Old Quad near Santa Clara University is a different problem, with older homes, tighter parcels, mature trees, and neighbors close on both sides. Newer areas around Rivermark come with their own site constraints.
We measure and check the actual parcel rather than assuming a neighborhood pattern holds for your address.
State ADU law caps how much a city can restrict unit size, parking, and owner occupancy, and it requires ministerial review, so a compliant application is approved without a discretionary hearing. That has made these projects far more predictable than they were ten years ago.
Santa Clara handles its own planning and building review through the city permit center. We prepare the drawings, submit them, work through plan check corrections, and coordinate inspections, including the utility side that the city controls here.
The reasons are consistent. Rental income in a market where a well built unit does not sit empty. Housing for parents who want to stay near family without sharing a kitchen. A separate workspace for people who are done working from a spare bedroom. Occasionally all three across a decade, which is why we ask what the unit is for before we lay it out.
A unit built for a renter gets durable finishes and serious sound separation. A unit built for aging parents gets a curbless shower, wider doorways, and a layout that still works in fifteen years. Those are different buildings.
We work design build, so the same team draws the unit, permits it, and builds it. The alternative, where a designer hands off a set and disappears before bidding, is where budgets come apart, because nobody who priced the job was in the room when it was drawn.
Homeowners looking for an ADU general contractor are usually trying to stop coordinating four separate parties. That is exactly what this removes. Our ADU contractor services page covers what each phase includes.
We are a licensed general contracting company based in San Jose, owner operated by Becir Molabecirovic, serving Santa Clara and the surrounding cities. We run a small number of projects at a time because that is what it takes to build the way we want to.
Alongside ADUs we do whole house remodels, additions, kitchens, and baths, with completed work in San Jose, Los Altos, and Portola Valley. An accessory dwelling unit contractor who also builds full remodels brings framing, mechanical, and finish depth that a volume ADU outfit skips. You can see examples in our project gallery.
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