Permits Are Ministerial, With A 60 Day Clock.
Los Gatos approves ADUs ministerially: no public hearings, no discretionary review board. Once your application is complete, the town must act on it within 60 days, and most permits are in hand within three to four months. The town keeps its requirements posted on its ADU information page.
There is also no minimum lot size. If your property is zoned for single-family or multifamily residential use and has an existing or planned primary home, an ADU is on the table. Wondering whether your yard works? Check your lot and we'll map it for you.
Size, Height, And Setbacks.
A detached ADU can reach 1,200 square feet. The base height limit is 16 feet, rising to 18 feet within half a mile of a major transit stop or on a multifamily lot, and up to 20 feet where the ADU matches the primary home's roof pitch. Detached units need 4 foot side and rear setbacks and 5 feet of separation from other structures on the lot.
Attached ADUs are capped at 1,200 square feet or 50 percent of the main home's floor area, whichever is less, and can rise to 25 feet or the zoning height limit, whichever is lower. Junior ADUs must sit entirely inside the existing or proposed house. Setbacks do not apply when you convert or rebuild an existing structure, and flood zones may require extra height for elevation.
Design Rules Shape What You Can Build.
Los Gatos wants ADUs to read as part of the neighborhood. Expect to use the same exterior wall materials, roofing, trim, and window frames as the main house, skip balconies, rooftop terraces, and second-story decks, and avoid exterior stairs that face the street. ADUs are generally limited to one story, and a front porch, if you add one, must be at least 6 feet deep and span a quarter of the front elevation. The full standards live in the town's municipal code.
Placement matters too: ADUs cannot sit in front of the main home except on Hillside Residential or Resource Conservation lots, where sloped terrain earns extra flexibility. One off-street parking space is typically required, but it is waived near transit, in historic districts, near car-share locations, on permit-parking streets, or when the ADU uses an existing structure. Converting a garage? No replacement parking is needed, and JADUs never require parking.
How Many Units You Can Add.
On a single-family lot you can build one detached or attached ADU plus one JADU inside the existing home. On multifamily lots with an existing building, state law under Government Code section 65852.2 allows up to eight detached ADUs, capped at the number of existing units, plus interior conversion ADUs totaling up to 25 percent of the unit count. Buildings still under construction can add two detached ADUs during development. If you own multifamily property, see how Abodu deploys ADUs at scale.
What It Actually Costs.
The rules are only half the story. Custom site-built ADUs in California routinely exceed $250,000 before change orders start stacking up, and the real number often arrives months into construction.
Abodu takes the opposite approach: transparent published pricing: homes from $234,800 plus a published installation price, an expected all-in from $298,800 that covers design, permits, factory build, delivery, and installation. See how the process works, or hear from homeowners who have already done it.