After you complete your profile page and add users, you’re ready to build your gallery!
First, edit your gallery intro text #
Navigate to Plans Gallery > Gallery Settings. At this time, the only field on this page is the custom gallery intro section.
Gallery intro section will appear on your Gallery in the top section, under the header How to build an ADU in [your JX name]. This is a great place to alert homeowners to anything they should know early on in the ADU process. Should they contact utilities early? Take special care if they’re in a high fire hazard or coastal zone? This message could also be something simple and friendly encouraging them to build ADUs for your community. This field is limited to 300 characters.
Example:
Note that if you copy and paste into this field, it may bring along formatting and extra characters. To maintain consistent styling, we recommend either:
- Ctrl+Shift+V (PC) or Cmd+Shift+V (Mac) to paste without formatting
- Copy and paste into a plain text editor like Notepad or TextEdit (included in Windows and MacOS, respectively)
- Use an HTML cleaner first or try to strip formatting within the text editor.
Click the Save button to save this content.
Then, add plans #
Read below about the three types of plans you can add to your gallery, and make sure to scroll to the bottom to see our best practices for building a successful gallery.
There are three types of plans you can add to your gallery:
Plan type 1: Locally pre-approved site-built plans #
All pre-approved plans are added to your gallery in the same way – a designer creates the plan listing from their account and adds your jurisdiction as a pre-approved location. Once that plan listing is activated (published) by the designer, you’ll receive a notification to confirm or decline the pre-approval status. That plan then appears as pre-approved in your gallery. See Confirming or declining pre-approved status.
If your jurisdiction already has pre-approved plans (including ones you own), see Adding your existing pre-approved plans to your gallery.
Plan type 2: Pre-designed site-built plans available for use or purchase #
First: What is a pre-designed plan? #
Broadly speaking, a pre-designed plan is a site-built plan (built from scratch on the property) that has already been created by an architect or designer and is ready for site customization and then the permit process. The alternative is hiring a designer to begin a completely custom design from scratch, which has been more typical for ADU development but takes months of time and costs thousands of dollars.
Technically, all pre-approved plans are also pre-designed, which can get confusing. But when we talk about pre-designed plans here, we mean plans available for use or purchase that have not been pre-approved in your location.
A few fun facts about the pre-designed plans in our database:
- The pre-designed plans in our database are all available for homeowners to purchase or use for free.
- All designers in our database have been vetted by our team and/or have a pre-approved plan somewhere in the state.
- Most (if not all) of the pre-designed plans in our database have been previously permitted and likely built at least once.
- When a designer starts an account on our platform, they can decide to make their plan available for sale/use across the state, or only in locations where it’s pre-approved.
You can see all our pre-designed plans in your jurisdiction dashboard, but we also make them available for public browsing/filtering in our Statewide Gallery.
Adding pre-designed plans to your gallery #
See Adding pre-designed plans from the database for full instructions on selecting pre-designed site-built plans for your gallery.
Plan type 3: Prefabricated plans #
Prefabricated ADUs, also called Prefab, Manufactured, Modular, or sometimes Panelized, are built in a factory, then shipped to the site to be assembled or placed on a foundation. We require prefabricated plans to have state or federal certification – which means that any prefab plan added to your gallery will appear as pre-approved, since these plans have been inspected for safety and building code compliance.
Adding prefabricated plans to your gallery #
See Adding prefab plans from the database (all pre-approved) for full instructions on selecting prefab plans for your gallery.
Best practices for building a successful gallery #
You have a lot of options when building your gallery – you may include only pre-approved plans or add pre-designed plans as well. You may have a small number of plans or a large, varied selection. Here are some of our best practices and tips for building your gallery:
- While you can add an unlimited number of pre-designed and prefab plans from our database, we strongly recommend you keep your gallery at a size that won’t be too overwhelming for homeowners.
- Similarly, we know that homeowners value choice and variety when picking a design. Too small of a selection may result in less use of the gallery.
- When selecting pre-designed and prefab plans from our database, you can use the lefthand filters to look for plans of a certain format, size, or feature to help ensure you select a variety. You can also view your own gallery on your dashboard (see Previewing your gallery before you launch) and look at the numbers following each filter option to see how many options you have.
- It can be difficult to ensure variety within all plan characteristics, but we find it important to have a variety of plans across:
- Size/square footage – include both small and larger ADU plans
- Bedroom numbers – this is related to size, but it’s a good idea to make sure you have studio, 1-bedroom, and 2-bedroom options if relevant
- Construction type – if including both prefab and site-built plans, ensure you have small and large options within each construction type
- If your location requires or suggests WUI (wildland urban interface) design, make sure you include some plans that meet those requirements.
