A Backyard Condo Is Not a Dream — It’s a Nightmare Waiting to Happen

By: Wendy Liu

Supervisor Joel Engardio’s latest blog post https://engardio.com/blog/adu pitching backyard ADU condos in the Sunset is deeply concerning. In his eagerness to increase density, he glosses over essential issues like emergency access, insurance complications, and the disruption backyard construction will cause for families, seniors, and neighbors alike.

Let’s be clear: this isn’t about helping families or preserving communities. It’s about selling a fantasy. Engardio positions ADU condos as the easy, low-conflict solution to our housing woes — a way to “unlock generational wealth” and help aging homeowners stay put. But in reality, he’s promoting a speculative land play dressed up as benevolent policy. It’s all carrot, no stick — and none of the hard truths are discussed.

Let’s start with safety. Backyard ADUs, especially ones fully detached and tucked behind existing homes — particularly *attached* homes — introduce serious challenges for emergency responders. Picture this: It's 2 a.m. A fire breaks out in the backyard unit. The tenant inside is coughing, disoriented, and trapped. But the main house is locked, the owners are out of town, and the home is ATTACHED. What do first responders do? How do they get in fast enough to save a life?

Then there’s the insurance dilemma. Adding an ADU to your property doesn’t just raise your property taxes — it can complicate your coverage in ways most homeowners aren’t prepared for. Whether your unit is attached, detached, or rented to a non-relative, the insurance implications vary, and in some cases may require an entirely separate policy. Insurers may also require inspections before offering or continuing coverage. And if the unit is rented out, especially to a non-family member, liability issues can multiply — particularly in high-risk zones or where emergency access is limited. Are homeowners being fully briefed on these nuances before committing? It’s doubtful — and that’s a serious problem. I even tried to get quotes from several brokers recently and couldn’t get a single one to tell me their estimate.

And while Engardio paints a breezy picture of building wealth, let’s talk about what construction actually looks like. Your peaceful home life will vanish. There will be a **parade of inspections** — electrical, plumbing, fire safety, zoning compliance — and every little hiccup will send you back to the drawing board. **I know this firsthand.** My own home addition took 10 years. Ten. Years. Not due to incompetence, but due to the slow, grinding machinery of permits, red tape, contractor delays, and scheduling around inspectors’ whims. During that time, vacations? Forget about them. Your life revolves around the contractor’s schedule now.

And let’s rid ourselves of the HGTV fantasy that these backyard units are going to be “affordable.” The idea that you can build a stylish, self-contained condo in your backyard for cheap is a myth. From concrete pours to utility hookups to finishings and inspections — costs pile up fast.

        Excavation & foundation: $90,000+

        Sewer & electrical hookups: $75,000–$100,000

        Prefab unit (if applicable): $600,000+

        Permits & inspections: $80,000+
    Misc taxes, fees, cost overruns: $75,000 - $90,000

        Total : easily $960,000+ (nearly a MILLION dollars)

This isn’t some $20K Home Depot shed. It’s a mini-house at full San Francisco price. Add in unexpected surprises (and there will be surprises), and you’re looking at serious debt or cost overruns, not passive income. This is San Francisco, after all — we literally have public bathrooms that cost a million dollars.

Even more damning is the infrastructure reality. These units need their own foundations, sewage and water lines, electrical wiring — ideally with separate meters and breaker boxes. And unless you’re breaking into your existing home’s concrete flooring and rerouting all systems, the setup becomes nightmarishly expensive and legally murky. Who handles maintenance if something goes wrong? And what happens when lines servicing both units fail? This is not a setup cash-strapped elderly homeowners can afford or navigate.

This idea sounds less like thoughtful housing policy and more like a dream cooked up by real estate agents and professional flippers. These are people who buy dilapidated properties, throw in as many backyard units as possible using their own labor, and then flip for profit — while choosing to live in places like Millbrae or Burlingame themselves. They don’t care what mess they leave behind.

Worse still, Engardio pitches this scheme as a solution for aging relatives — but the reality is, by the time these units are actually built, those relatives may not even be alive to move in. Building anything in San Francisco takes years. If your goal is to provide immediate housing for a parent or grandparent, this isn’t it. It’s a cruel bait-and-switch dressed up as compassion. And even if the unit somehow gets built in time, what about accessibility? How is a frail, wheelchair-bound elder supposed to safely navigate a narrow side alley or a shared garage cluttered with parked cars and trash bins just to reach their so-called “accessible” new home?

Let’s also talk about the financing myth. Even seniors lucky enough to own their homes outright are rarely sitting on piles of liquid cash. The average Social Security check in San Francisco — even for someone who worked a solid, middle-class job — might be \$2,500 a month, if that. What bank is handing out six-figure construction loans to an 82-year-old living on fixed income? It’s absurd. And even if a senior could somehow scrape together the funds, wouldn’t it make more sense — and cost less — to simply retrofit their existing home for accessibility and comfort, rather than endure a decade of dust, stress, and financial instability for a speculative backyard condo they may not live long enough to use?

Again, sure — many seniors may be living in homes that are paid off, but what is Engardio really alluding to? Is he quietly encouraging them to sell the main house and dump their savings into a glorified shed in the backyard? That’s not housing stability — it’s bait for real estate vultures. And what’s the actual endgame? Even if a senior homeowner sells the main house for top dollar and pours their life savings into a backyard condo, they’ve traded control of their lifelong home — the place they raised children, built memories, and maintained for decades — for a glorified shed with a front-row view of what used to be theirs. It’s a downgrade in every sense: emotionally, logistically, financially. These folks already bought homes once, back when they were young. The solution at this stage of life isn’t to start over. It’s to live with family, hire in-home help, maybe build a small addition to house in-home help — or transition into assisted living. An ADU is like buying a home all over again, with all the financial, physical, and emotional strain that implies.

I’m 48 years old, and my husband — now retired — is in his 60s. My mom and dad, who live in San Mateo, are 76 and 89 respectively. My mom has Parkinson’s and my dad is her primary caregiver. They’re still managing for now, but when the time comes that they need more help, my plan is to hire licensed in-home care or transition them into an assisted living facility. Under no circumstance does it make sense — logistically, financially, or emotionally — to pour hundreds of thousands into a backyard ADU that takes years to build.

And if Engardio’s answer is that current families should install ADUs now for *future* generations of elderly residents? That’s even more ludicrous. These are not theoretical spaces — they involve real money, real land, and real sacrifice. To ask today’s families to shoulder the financial and logistical burden of a backyard condo in the hopes that some future family might use it decades from now shows just how disconnected he is from how normal people live and budget.

I was a first-time homebuyer once. Personally, the thought of living in a cramped backyard unit repulses me. I wanted — and deserved — a real home: three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a garage just steps away from the kitchen. That picture on Engardio’s blog? That’s a glorified studio — not a dream home by my standards. Maybe some can make that work — but let’s not pretend that’s the universal dream.

Let’s also explode the myth that ADUs are easier, cheaper, and less contentious than multifamily apartments. Engardio leans heavily on the idea that pre-fabricated construction is some kind of magical shortcut — as if you can just drop a condo in your backyard like a piece of IKEA furniture. I’ve watched how these prefab units are actually assembled. They require massive wall panels, delivered on flatbeds, hoisted by industrial cranes. In the dense layout of Sunset homes — with narrow alleys, fences, gardens, and zero clearance between properties — it’s physically *impossible* to bring in these materials without tearing down fences, trampling neighbors’ yards, and blocking entire streets. Does he plan to hand out gift cards as apology to the 10 neighbors whose gardens get crushed during installation?

And what about the “less contentious” claim? Tell that to the person whose bedroom window now looks directly into the back wall of a condo ten feet away. Or the neighbor who just lost all backyard privacy and light because someone decided to jam a new structure behind a row of homes. Sunset lots weren’t designed for two households. Forcing density into backyards — especially on parcels with shared walls or minimal side access — guarantees *more* contention, not less. Not to mention noise, dust, blocked driveways, and a constant stream of construction vehicles for months, if not years.

Engardio’s claim that this process is less disruptive than multifamily housing is laughable. At least apartment projects are concentrated on major corridors and subject to extensive public review. Backyard ADUs, by contrast, go up behind your fence with almost no notice — and once they’re there, they’re permanent. This isn’t gentle density. It’s stealth disruption, and it’s coming for your backyard whether you’re ready or not.

And let’s not kid ourselves about rent control. Here’s the catch: San Francisco’s rent control only applies to buildings constructed before 1979. These ADUs? Brand new. No rent caps. No tenant protections. Market-rate from day one. Engardio knows this. So does anyone with a shred of real estate knowledge. Yet he continues to dangle these units as if they’re part of the solution for working-class families or fixed-income seniors. In what universe? The truth is, these are luxury-priced rentals masquerading as housing justice.

And let’s cut the crap about these 82,000 units being some magic fix for homelessness. That’s the line YIMBYs always throw out to shut down debate — but it’s pure fantasy. **None of these new ADUs will be affordable.** Not legally, not practically. These aren’t subsidized units. They’re not subject to rent control. They’re market-rate condos and rentals built by private homeowners or investors looking to make money. Period. There is no mechanism tying these units to our homelessness crisis. It’s a cruel bait-and-switch, exploiting real suffering to justify speculative development.

Let’s also talk about the environmental cost. According to the EPA, replacing green space with hard surfaces can raise local temperatures by up to 7°F — a serious risk in a warming city. Backyards aren’t just empty space — they’re essential green buffers in an increasingly overheated city. A healthy backyard provides drainage, supports local biodiversity, and offers space for gardens, play, relaxation, and community connection. Paving over that for more hardscape and square footage increases runoff, worsens drainage, and contributes to the urban heat island effect. Construction itself brings noise, dust, and carbon emissions. If we’re serious about climate resilience, covering every inch of green space with concrete boxes is exactly the wrong approach.

Let’s face it: Engardio is out of touch. He may be married, but he has no kids to raise and no aging parents to care for. He hasn’t lived in District 4 long — just long enough to qualify for office. Meanwhile, I’ve lived here for nearly 20 years. I’ve had additions built, solar panels installed, and countless home improvement projects completed. I know what it’s like to have real work done on a Sunset home. And let me tell you: building an ADU is not some quick HGTV makeover — it’s a bureaucratic and logistical slog.

People who see ADUs as the newest shiny thing have no clue what they’re getting themselves into. They don’t understand the permitting, the excavation, the setbacks, the engineering studies, the inspections — or the years of disruption that follow. They’re buying a dream and waking up in a nightmare.

Engardio should stop pretending he’s an urban planner. He’s not. Perhaps he’d be better suited returning to journalism, where his flair for storytelling could do less harm. Or maybe game show hosting — somewhere he can play with theoretical stakes instead of real neighborhoods.

To those dreaming of backyard riches, be honest with yourselves: Are you ready for a decade of dust, noise, and financial stress? Ready to alienate neighbors and gamble with your home insurance? Ready for higher property tax bills? Because that’s what’s at stake.

Engardio might have room in *his* backyard — but many of his loudest supporters don’t even live in the Sunset. They’re comfortably perched in places like Miraloma Park, cheering on disruptive legislation they’ll never have to personally endure. Meanwhile, Sunset residents are left to deal with the mess.

To those who call me selfish for opposing Engardio’s backyard condo scheme — that I just want to keep the Sunset “all to myself” — let me be clear: this isn’t about exclusion. It’s about protection. Protection of our safety, our sanity, and our community’s fragile equilibrium. Wanting to preserve a livable neighborhood isn’t selfish. It’s practical. It’s human. And frankly, it’s the responsible thing to do when you’ve spent years — even decades — building a life here.

Yes, I believe in planning for the future. Yes, I believe in sharing space. But I also believe in honesty. Backyard condos are not the answer. They’re not affordable. They’re not accessible. They’re not even realistic for most homeowners. And the idea that we should all grin and bear the dust, debt, and disruption — for someone else’s profit or political résumé — is offensive.

To the YIMBYs who chirp that we should just “move if we don’t like it,” I say this: we were here first. We bought homes, paid taxes, raised families, cared for elders, and built community under increasingly difficult conditions. We don’t owe you silence. And we’re not going anywhere.

If your vision of progress means steamrolling the people who actually live here, then maybe *you’re* the one who doesn’t belong.

The Sunset doesn’t need speculative density. It needs functional infrastructure, honest leadership, and policies rooted in reality — not fantasy. 

Not every desire is a right. And like the Rolling Stones said: *you can’t always get what you want.*