Attached ADUs in Los Gatos

An attached ADU is a new dwelling built onto the existing house, sharing at least one wall. In Los Gatos it earns its place for a reason that has nothing to do with fashion: on hillside parcels and on tight lots near downtown, there frequently is not a good place to put a separate building.

Building off the house solves that. You use the flat, already developed part of the site instead of carving a new pad out of a slope, and you avoid a second foundation, a second full roof structure, and a long utility trench. On a sloped parcel those three items are where a detached unit's budget goes.

A shared wall is the advantage and it is also the thing that has to be built correctly. The items that separate a real second home from a converted back room are consistent on every attached unit we build.

• Fire separation between the unit and the primary residence, which is required by code
• Sound assemblies in the shared wall, because noise transfer is the fastest route to regretting the project
• A separate exterior entrance that does not route anyone through your living space
• Independent heating and cooling so the unit is not tied to your thermostat
• Electrical capacity for a second dwelling, which usually means a panel upgrade
• A roofline and exterior that reads as original rather than tacked on

On the older homes near downtown Los Gatos, that last item is most of the design work. A craftsman or period home with an addition that ignores its eaves, window proportions, and materials looks wrong from the street, and it costs you at resale.

State ADU law requires ministerial review, so a compliant attached unit is approved without a discretionary hearing. The process runs through the Town of Los Gatos Community Development Department, which handles its own submittals, plan check, and inspections. Hillside development standards apply above the flats, and older neighborhoods can carry additional design expectations.

We manage the drawings, the submittal, the plan check corrections, and the inspection sequence as one continuous scope, because the same team designs and builds the unit. Our design build services page explains how those phases fit together, and why the corrections come to us rather than to you.

Whether an attached unit is the right answer depends on your slope, your setbacks, and how the house sits on the parcel. Get in touch with our team and we will walk it with you and give you a straight assessment.