The city of Malibu is taking a family to the state supreme court to stop them from building a tiny home in their backyard for their elderly parent

An accessory dwelling unit in Los Angeles in 2021.

Allison Zaucha/Getty Images

• California has helped lead the charge to boost ADUs, which are increasingly popular across the US.
• But a Malibu couple's struggle to build an ADU shows how local governments are standing in the way.
• The city has appealed the couple's lawsuit to California's supreme court.

California policymakers have done a lot to make building a backyard tiny-home easier than ever before. That's because accessory dwelling units — smaller, extra homes on existing lots, also known as "granny flats" — are a good way to add density to residential neighborhoods full of single-family homes.

But not all local governments and communities are as open to ADUs — and some are willing to go to extreme measures to block them. A Malibu couple is learning that the hard way. Jason and Elizabeth Riddick have been trying to build an ADU in their backyard in the pricey coastal enclave since July 2020.

The couple wants Elizabeth's aging mother to be able to live independently, but close enough that they can care for her. "Her moving in here and having her own space is a very urgent issue," Elizabeth told Business Insider.

So they applied for a permit from the city to build a small ADU and a minor addition to their existing house. Almost a year later, the city planning commission denied the Riddicks' request, arguing the project was too big and too close to the street, the Malibu Times reported. While the ADU met the state's standards, the commission insisted that it needed a coastal development permit, which it didn't qualify for.

The Riddicks, represented by the libertarian Pacific Legal Foundation, appealed the commission's decision and a few months later the commission denied their appeal. So the couple submitted modified plans to the city that didn't include an addition to the house. Again, the commission rejected it. So the Riddicks sued the city and in July 2022, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge sided with the couple.

The Riddicks say they've spent more than $50,000 on the permitting and design process for the ADU, and that not a single neighbor has expressed concern with their plans. In fact, several of their neighbors have built unpermitted ADUs on their own property, Elizabeth said. "No one cares," Jason added.

But the city wouldn't stop there. It appealed the court's decision to an appellate court, which affirmed the lower court's ruling and found the Riddicks didn't need a coastal development permit to build their ADU. Again, the city appealed the decision, this time to the state supreme court this month. The Riddicks are preparing to file their reply, David Deerson, a Pacific Legal Foundation property rights attorney representing the Riddicks pro bono, told Business Insider.

A representative for the city's planning commission did not immediately respond to BI's request for comment.

If the state supreme court declines to take up the case, which Deerson thinks is likely, the appellate court's ruling will stand and the Riddicks should be granted a permit by the city.

The Riddicks' case points to a broader issue of local governments finding ways to get around looser state regulations. And Malibu is finding ways to block housing construction without having passed its own ADU ordinance, which would allow it to much more heavily restrict development.

"Instead of going through the hard work of actually legislating and amending the law that they say they don't like, they've gone to kind of incredible lengths to stop an 85-year-old disabled woman from living in a modest 463-square-foot ADU," Deerson said.

Deerson and the Riddicks believe they're caught up in the city's broader fight to keep zoning and land-use policy under local control.

The pricey coastal enclave is "not interested in supporting any type of additional housing," Elizabeth said, "no matter how badly it's needed by the people who live here, by the community here, by the teachers, by the workers, by the single moms, by people who cannot afford what it costs to have a house here."

Jason added that ADUs are "the most viable way" to add new, moderately-priced housing to the community.

But even as many communities push back, cities and states across the country are jumping on the ADU bandwagon. ADUs have become a particularly popular way to boost the housing supply in part because they allow homeowners more flexibility to do what they want with their property, including for income generation by renting the home out.

Boosting the supply of all kinds of housing helps bring costs down and is a key part of addressing the housing affordability crisis.

California has helped lead the charge to loosen regulations on ADUs. In 2022, the state said yes to the construction of more than 23,000 ADUs, up from fewer than 5,000 in 2017. In LA County, ADUs make up almost a quarter of newly built housing, BI reported last year.

New York City announced last year that it would pay 15 lucky homeowners up to $395,000 each to build an extra home in their garage or basement.

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