Accessory dwelling units: Affordable apartments, helping people who have low income and people who are aging in single family housing

This dissertation focuses on accessory dwelling units, affordable apartments built into single-family houses in the town of Mercer Island, located near Seattle in Washington State. This is an early suburb of Seattle, and the citizens are older than those people in surrounding towns. The study examines the policy, which has allowed these apartments to be built inside homes since 1995. The methodology used includes mailed surveys, personal interviews, and analysis of existing records.;The problem is, the policy has not been as popular with the citizens as had been originally expected.;The dissertation attempts to answer the following questions in 4 areas: (1) Homeowners. (a) What hindering factors must homeowners overcome in order to build an accessory dwelling unit on their property? (b) What facilitating factors enable homeowners to overcome these hindrances? (2) How do homeowners and tenants perceive their relationship to one another? (3) People who remodel their homes, but do not add ADUs. (a) How do people who remodel their homes, but do not add ADUs differ from ADU homeowners? (b) What lessons can be learned about why people do not add ADUs when remodeling? (4) Professionals. (a) What is the role of relevant professionals in the community in enabling the construction of accessory housing? (b) What more could these professionals be doing to facilitate the creation of accessory housing? (c) How could they better coordinate their actions with other professionals in order to increase homeowner access to accessory housing policy initiatives?;The findings are reported and analyzed, then the conclusions are discussed. This study finds the demand for affordable accessory housing to be high, and the potential supply to be large. People who are older tend to make use of accessory housing opportunities more frequently than do younger citizens. The dissertation highlights areas where changes could be made in order to increase public acceptance, remove stigma, make the policy more functional, and to ease the task of the homeowner and builder, in creating more of these apartments, which, are beneficial in helping older citizens to remain in their homes as they age, and in helping to provide affordable apartments for the people who work within our communities.