The half-hour drive from Lewisville to Lake Highlands is demanding for Paula Lane. Her mother, Emma Turner, was diagnosed with a serious heart condition a year ago, and Lane frequently takes her to doctors’ appointments.

“She’s my only child, and she’s trying to look after me,” Turner says.

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The constant commute isn’t maintainable, so they considered other options that wouldn’t force Turner, 75, and her husband, Paul, 82, to move or lose privacy.

The solution: build a front house on their current Stults Road property where Lane and her husband can live. “It’s a reasonable answer to the question,” Turner says.

The construction of granny flats, technically called “Accessory Dwelling Units,” requires special zoning approval from the Board of Adjustment. Like most city-related matters, it’s a tedious process. More than six paperwork-filled months passed before the Turners’ request was approved.

Before June, the Board of Adjustment only allowed ADUs if they were not a money-making venture and didn’t disturb the neighbors. That way, homeowners could care for aging parents — much like the Turner family — without commercializing the neighborhood. Of course, some residents operated them illegally with minimal consequences from the city.

Some city officials worried that ADUs created traffic congestion, sunk property values and placed an additional burden on ever-busy code compliance. But affordable housing is in short supply, and some city council members consider ADUs a solution to that problem. After three years of debate, the Dallas City Council approved an ordinance this past June that allowed them to be built and rented.

If you’re worried that ADUs will overtake the city like, let’s say, Lime Bikes once cluttered White Rock Lake, rest assured that won’t likely happen. The city researched other places, like Austin, to see the impact of the ordinance, City Councilman Philip Kingston said Tuesday at a community meeting. Austin has a population of about 950,000 people, and 200 additional ADUs have been rented or constructed.

Now, neighbors can receive approval for an ADU two ways:

  • Apply to the Board of Adjustment for a special exception.
  • Create an Accessory Dwelling Unit Overlay, where ADUs will be allowed within a specific community. This involves a neighborhood petition process and an authorized hearing with the City Council or City Plan Commission .

Besides benefiting families assisting the elderly or children who “failed to launch,” it also creates diversity and prevents neighborhoods from aging out, Kingston said. People like teachers, firefighters and police “who can’t afford to buy can stay in the neighborhood,” he says.

If you’re so inclined to make a little extra cash, these are the main requirements:

  • The ADU can’t be sold separately, and there must be additional water, sewer and electrical utility service on the lot.
  • At least one off-street parking space is required, unless the property is located within 1,200 feet of a DART bus or transit stop.
  • The ADU must be between 200 square feet (which, for the record, is incredibly tiny) and 700 square feet or 25 percent of the main house’s floor area.
  • The ADU should be similar in color and style to the pre-existing home.
Be forewarned, though, if you’re considering converting a back house to an Airbnb. Kingston suspects regulations to prevent that from happening could be introduced in the next few months.