Planning magazine — February 1982

Why Granny Flats Are a Good Idea

Following the lead of the Amish — and the Australians — U.S. planners are showing interest in housing for extended families.

By Patrick H. Hare

There is a Hebrew saying, "One mother can take care of 10 children, but 10 children can't take care of one mother." To which advocates for the elderly may add, "because of zoning."

Single-family zoning almost universally prohibits granny flats, the Australian adaptation of extended family living that fits suburban single-family development patterns. Granny flats are small, self-contained, removable dwelling units designed for installation in the backyard of an existing single-family home. They permit adult children to take care of aging parents who need some measure of support and companionship.

Removable echo housing can take any number of forms, from panel construction to mobile homes. The issue is not so much the physical form as it is the changes in public policy that would open up single-family neighborhoods to new social patterns.

Leo Baldwin, housing coordinator for the American Association of Retired Persons, has fully committed his organization to the concept, though not the name. Older men generally find the term "granny flats" insulting. In an effort to sidestep debate over the name, Baldwin came up with "echo housing," for "elder cottage housing opportunities."

Family benefits

The benefits of echo housing appear to be substantial. Frederick County, Maryland, permits echo units as special exceptions in certain districts, and people there who have taken advantage of the program are eloquent spokesmen for the concept.

A widow who moved into an echo unit behind her daughter's house says her new home allows her to make ends meet on a limited income. Her daughter adds, "All of us were worried about her being by herself. With not having to keep up her big house, she's free to do things she has never been able to do before."

A daughter in another family says that echo housing provides a way to support older people while leaving them their independence: "It gives them freedom when they need it, when they have company. You're not in their way. They're not in your way."

There is also mutual support between households. An elderly mother talks about how she and her daughter help each other: "There are a lot of things I can do that are not physically detrimental to me. I do for her, and, of course, she does for me."

Others talked about the close relationship between grandparents and grandchildren; about the time saved by not having to travel to visit elderly parents; about the guilt spared because the parents are taken care of; and about being able to keep parents out of nursing homes, a place one out of five of us will spend some time in, according to current projections.

Better than nursing homes

A recent public television program, "No Place Like Home," suggested that nursing homes may be good places to avoid. It reported that even though 78 percent of the $5 billion spent annually on the elderly through Medicaid goes into nursing homes, 90 percent of the direct care is given by untrained aides, whose annual turnover rate exceeds 75 percent.

The program also pointed out that experts estimate that as many as one-third of the people now in nursing homes would not need to be there if alternative means of providing for the frail elderly at home were available.

Amish concept

Peter Dys, executive director of the Office of Aging in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, heard of the granny flat concept five years ago and saw its potential as an alternative to the high cost and lack of independence of nursing homes. He also appreciates the potential reduction in heating costs. A well-insulated echo unit could be heated for under $200 a year, even in a northern state. Many elderly people pay more than that each month to heat big houses.

Dys's enthusiasm stems in part from the fact that Lancaster County is the home of the Amish, who have great reverence for their elderly and seldom use public services to care for them. The Amish have long lived in "Grossmutter" and "Grossdawdy" houses, clearly intended for extended family living.

Dys encouraged a local housing manufacturer, Ed Guion, of Coastal Colony Corporation, to develop an "elder cottage/' His idea was to have a fleet of factory-built cottages to rent for installation as needed, much as the Ministry of Housing in Victoria, Australia, rents granny flats to adult children who want to take in older parents.

Dys never got funding for the project, but that did not stop Guion, who saw a clear need for the product and found an investor to back him. More than 5,000 people, including the governor of Pennsylvania, went through Guion's model unit when it was on display in Lancaster.

Zoning

But all that interest does not mean market acceptance. No matter how much an individual family may want an echo house, zoning may not permit it. Very few towns do. However, as of this writing, Guion has received temporary permission to install the first unit near Whitehorse, Pennsylvania. He also has discussed the idea with the zoning boards of five neighboring jurisdictions, which have been generally receptive, indicating that they would grant approval so long as the units were removable. In Australia, the law requires granny flat units to be removable so they cause no permanent visual change in the neighborhood.

Mobile homes

One issue that surfaces immediately when zone changes are proposed is mobile homes, with their reputation for poor aesthetics and poor quality. Removable echo housing seems ready-made for mobile home manufacturers, particularly where there is enough distance between houses to allow access to backyards, or, of course, in parts of the country where alleys are common. The Frederick, Maryland, ordinance, referred to earlier, specifically permits a "temporary mobile home." It does not mention other housing types.

Ordinances can be developed to ensure aesthetic compatibility regardless of means of manufacture. Quality may be a harder nut to crack, and it is one aspect that Baldwin and others, such as Paul Sheppard of the University of Maryland's Senior Center Institute, insist on.

The cost of providing echo housing is another important issue. Guion's unit, which Dys believes is well-built, costs about $18,000 installed. HAUS, a West Coast group based in Santa Maria, California, is developing a unit that it expects to be very similar in price. In contrast, HUD estimates that the current cost of a conventional unit of elderly housing, allowing for regional variations, is about $48,000.

Thus, echo units make it possible to provide affordable housing for the elderly. The savings to the public sector should be significant. So should the improvements in many people's lives, whether they're elderly people in need of support, adult children, or grandchildren.

Patrick H. Hare is a planning consultant in Washington, D.C., who specializes in innovative living arrangements. C. Fay Lewis and Elissa Rozov helped with the research for this article.