What does a garage apartment look like in Ann Arbor? Here’s a tour inside 2

ANN ARBOR, MI – From the attic bedroom of an apartment at the back of a home’s garage on Northwood Avenue, east-facing windows offer a stunning view of Ann Arbor’s Fritz Park.

On the 730-square-foot ground floor are a full kitchen, living room, bathroom, washer and dryer, and even an exercise bike area next to the backyard door. Natural light streams in from multiple skylights.

From the street, passers-by may not realize that there is an apartment hidden behind the garage.

Known as an accessory dwelling unit, or ADU, it’s a type of density sweetener that officials in Ann Arbor hope to see expand into neighborhoods across the city to help increase the supply of housing to meet demand and ease market pressures.

Homeowners Eli Abrons and Adam Fiore, both architects, took on their ADU project in 2018. After a pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they completed the project in 2021, working with Maker Design Build.

While the cost was about $260,000, with the way they were able to finance it through a home equity loan and refinancing their mortgage, their monthly costs as homeowners actually decreased by about $1,000, accounting for about $2,000 of the monthly income they now receive from renting the home. ADU, Fiore said.

“That’s when it makes the most sense,” he said.

Their ADU was one of two attached garage apartments featured as part of the Ann Arbor House Party tour on Sunday, September 17.

The other was on Second Street, where homeowner Max Sievers said he devoted about four months this year to converting his entertainment room above his garage into an ADU at a cost of about $60,000, serving as his general contractor.

Instead of renting it out, he and his wife, Abby, are using it as a family residence for now.

“We had a baby a month ago, so my in-laws stay here a lot,” he said.

City Planner Chris Cheng, who went on a tour Sunday, said the city has not yet seen the hundreds of ADUs that city officials had hoped to see with easing restrictions in recent years, but there have been dozens and that’s a good start.

Ann Arbor is opening the door to more attached apartments in neighborhoods

While the city changed regulations more than two years ago, about a dozen homeowners have applied to add ADUs on their properties under an ordinance the city adopted in 2016. There are now about 50, Cheng said.

Fure and Abrons designed their ADU to maximize sound while adhering to setback requirements. They also used the opportunity to experiment with different building materials and techniques, including an insulated foundation system using foam and concrete, with floors with radiant heat.

“That takes care of most of the heating,” Fiore said of warm floors that have hot water pipes fed by a gas heater.

An air source heat pump on the side of the ADU provides upstairs cooling and supplemental heat, while insulated structural wall panels increase energy efficiency.

A young professional is renting the space now, and before that a couple rented it for a year and a half.

One cost of an ADU is higher property taxes, but “it’s not a ton,” Fiore said, adding that it still makes a lot of sense.

However, Abrons, the city planning commissioner, admits they were lucky to get the funding.

“We did this at a time when interest rates were falling,” she said. “So, we were able to refinance and consolidate our mortgage on the house with the loan on the ADU at a lower interest rate. Obviously, if you were doing that now with interest rates that high, it would be a lot more difficult.”

While the rent they charge for their ADU isn’t exactly cheap, the Abrons said they are still working toward the goal of housing affordability in Ann Arbor by expanding the housing supply.

“In general, part of affordability is just increasing supply, so more units,” she said.

ADUs can also be a relatively less expensive option for neighborhood living, Abrons said.

“So, if you don’t need all the square footage of a single-family home to buy or rent, or you can’t afford it, this will give you another option,” she said.

ADUs can also be a great option for seniors who want to stay in their homes and age in place, said Planning Commissioner Lisa Soff, who helped organize Sunday’s tour.

“Because it allows you, if you live in a larger home, to be able to subdivide your home a little more, and rent out part of it as a rental unit,” she said.

Sievers, who recently began his work as an anesthesiologist resident at Michigan Medicine, said he can see using his ADU to generate rental income in the future, which is why he designed it with a washer and dryer and the possibility of adding an oven.

It is an open studio with a small kitchen, a wood counter bar, a bed, a storage nook and a bathroom, all on the second floor, and a small laundry room in the first floor hallway where there is a staircase leading up.

The bathroom has electric radiant heat floors, while a small split system provides additional heating and cooling. Sievers also added a natural gas heater in the basement to keep the garage warm in the winter to prevent the plumbing from freezing.

The ADU’s sewer pipes lead to a grinder pump in the garage that feeds the house.

“The biggest cost was the plumbing,” Sievers said, explaining that there was no plumbing in the garage before and it took about a week or so using excavators to do it.

Sievers coordinated with various contractors throughout the project and obtained assistance from others.

“The biggest obstacle was not knowing anything about project management or planning, like finding someone who could help me with the architectural planning and drafting process, and then learning along the way,” he said.

It took a few rounds of reviews over the course of months to get the plans approved, he said, adding that city staff were helpful along the way and answered all of his questions.

After working on the project almost every day from February to June, it was finally completed a few months ago, he said.

Even now, standing at the end of his home’s driveway and his neighbors’ driveway, both of which lead to similar garages located behind the houses, it’s hard to tell which has an ADU and which doesn’t. But both may eventually be the same.

“He’s thinking about the possibility of doing something like this,” Sievers said of conversations he’s had with his neighbor about his project.

To read more about the high cost of living in Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County, click here.

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