Renton touts about $40,000 of savings from its Permit Ready Accessory Dwelling Unit (PRADU) program, which city leaders hope diversifies Renton’s housing supply.

Since 2010, the City of Renton has been incentivizing residents to build accessory dwelling units, defined as a structure that provides independent sleeping, kitchen and bathroom facilities, but is located on the same lot as another home.

In 2019, Renton introduced the PRADU program, which is Renton’s offering of an accessory dwelling unit that is already designed, eliminating the need to pay for an architect-designed building plan.

“First, I think to understand what a PRADU is, it’s important to know what an accessory dwelling unit is. An accessory dwelling unit is a smaller unit that is on a property, typically accessory or subordinate to a primary single-family residence,” said Renton Senior Planner Katie Buchl-Morales. “The idea is that there’s a lot of underutilized property in people’s backyards, typically that can be used to build a second, smaller residence. And a lot of folks use these in different ways. It’s an opportunity for someone to bring in their in-laws so they can help with taking care of the kids.”

Additionally, Buchl-Morales said building PRADUs is time-saving and quicker than building a regular ADU because Renton’s engineering plan review team has already reviewed the designs. Buchl-Morales said offering pre-approved building plans incentivizes ADU construction because of the reduced fees. With the incentives, Buchl-Morales said Renton wants to diversify its housing stock because, like many other cities, it has limited options.

“A lot of housing, especially new housing, is built out to the full capacity that the site allows, and that usually means that the house has a bigger footprint,” Buchl-Morales said. “And that’s why we have houses that are 3,500 square feet and more, and that’s not attainable for a lot of people, and a lot of people just don’t want a house that large. So we see this as a way of trying to diversify the housing types that are available to people so that we have a broader range and are meeting the needs of the larger population.”

Renton associate planner Brianna Burroughs said that for Renton citizens, the expansion of housing would allow more Renton residents to stay in Renton.

“I think that this allows individuals within the community that I work to be able to continue to live in the community that they love,” Burroughs said.

City of Renton Engineering Specialist Holly Powers said in addition to removing the costs for an architect, the PRADU program saves residents the cost of fees usually associated with building an ADU. Powers said this fee waiver is available to all who want to build an ADU in Renton, not just those who use Renton pre-designed building plans.But she said using the pre-approved building plans eliminates 10% or 15% of the cost of fees, connection costs, and the design costs.

“So, we estimate that with PRADUs and accessory dwelling units, they save about $40,000 in permit fees. Specifically, with the utilities, the council waived all permit fees for ADUs and the PRADU program,” Powers said. “They pay half of utility connection fees. So what you would pay for the water meter and the sewer permit fees, and the storm, those have been cut in half by the City Council.”

Powers clarified that these permit discounts and waivers only apply to services the City of Renton provides.

In addition to the fee waivers and discounts, all ADUS have to be under 1,000 square feet or 75% of the primary residence, whichever is smaller. Powers said this limitation eliminates the need for frontage improvements because the city code says if the building is under 1,000 square feet, it is not required. So, when building an ADU, a homeowner won’t have to worry about adding a sidewalk or other improvements to the front of their home, Powers said.

Although the program was launched in 2019, Powers said that because of the COVID-19 pandemic, people’s ability to build a PRADU was dampened. She said builders were unavailable, building supply costs were high, and low interest rates made banks less willing to give out loans for ADU-like projects.

Powers said interest in PRADUs has been growing, with 73 total interest meetings since 2021. She said they’ve ramped up meetings from one a week to two a week. So far, two PRADUS have been fully built, and six more are in the review process or in construction.