The Brief

For years, Bob Hughes had been eyeing a corner lot just down the street from his San José office, where he runs a building firm.

The single-family property at Lantz and Foxworthy avenues — shrouded by trees and sitting on just under 12,000 square feet in a quiet residential neighborhood near Cambrian Park — seemed ripe for development. So when he got the opportunity to purchase it, Hughes immediately began thinking about how to split the lot.

“The original house here was just covered with foliage all across the front — large trees and plants,” he said. “You couldn’t even see the house.”

Now, nearly three years later, Hughes is a few weeks away from becoming the second developer in the state to successfully take advantage of a new law that allows homeowners to sell ADUs as condos.

The first, on Josefa Street near San José’s downtown by developer AlphaX RE Capital, got its official certification from the city in a public ceremony on Thursday. Standing in front of a white backyard cottage with a sloping roof, Mayor Matt Mahan said the home represented “history in the making.”

“ADUs are affordable by design and growing in popularity across the state. And now, they can offer the most accessible form of homeownership, as well,” he said. “We are offering a proof of concept for California and hope that other cities follow San José’s lead.”

The law, AB 1033 by former San Francisco Assemblymember Phil Ting, went into effect in 2024 and allows cities to opt into the new rules. San José became the first city last year to adopt them. Since then, at least a handful of other cities have followed, including Santa Monica, Santa Cruz, San Francisco and San Diego. Berkeley planning officials expect to put forward an ordinance in September to allow condo sales.

Robert Hughes, a long-time developer from the South Bay, stands outside of a condominium for sale in San José on Aug. 13, 2025.

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The goal, supporters say, is to encourage more affordable ownership opportunities in a state where just 15% of households could reasonably afford to purchase the median-priced single-family home, according to the California Association of Realtors.

Rafael Perez, board chair of the Casita Coalition, which championed the law, lauded California for making significant strides in permitting new ADUs — with over 30,000 permitted last year, representing a quarter of California’s projected housing stock.

But early iterations of the law had prohibited selling them as condos, with some exceptions. Two surveys, from UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation and the South Bay Cities Council of Government, found that about 65% of ADUs are offered as long-term rentals, either on the private market or to family and friends for free.

“ADUs weren’t moving the needle on homeownership as much as we would like,” Perez said. “ADU condos open up that door of possibility.”

But so far, city officials in Santa Monica and Santa Cruz, which adopted their versions of the law in October and January, respectively, said they had not yet received any applications. In San José, just two developers have filed applications to convert ADUs to condos — though, on Thursday, AlphaX committed to completing dozens more.

The paucity of enthusiasm — either from other cities looking to implement it or other property owners hoping to take advantage of it — isn’t entirely surprising, several observers said.

For owners with mortgages, the conversion not only requires securing lenders’ approval but also potentially devaluing the existing home, since condos are typically valued less, said Martina Davis, a planning division manager for the city of San José.

“If you have a big mortgage, your bank might not be OK with that,” Davis said. “Or you may look at it and say, ‘Wait, hold on, I need to retain the full value of the house.’”

Anecdotally, Davis said most of the interest in converting ADUs to condos in San José has come from developers for whom those obstacles may not apply. Though Hughes said the newness of the law, along with some of its provisions, has presented its own challenges.

The kitchen at 2985 Lantz Ave. in San José on Aug. 13, 2025.

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Unlike traditional condos, the law requires the ADU to receive a certificate of occupancy before undergoing condominium mapping — a process that’s taken Hughes about six months of precious time sitting on two vacant homes. And after San José officials certify the units as condos, they’ll need approval from the county, as well.

“I’ve got a lot of money tied up here,” he said. “I want to hurry this along.”

For AlphaX, the decision to use the law was more of an experiment to test whether it could work. The company had already purchased the lot and had renters living in both the main home and ADU.

“We are not afraid to be the pioneer,” said Jia Li, the company’s chief asset manager. “If you solve this problem, or we explore the options, then there’s all these other opportunities that could come.”

But Jane Lin, chief investment officer for AlphaX, said it’s a model they think has promise. “At the end of the day, it’s just providing more housing. It’s one possible solution to help create more housing.”

Her company on Thursday said it hoped to complete another 85 ADU condos over the next year, which could be built for existing homeowners on lots they already own, or on lots the company purchases. Once it secures the land, Lin said, “ADUs go up fast.”

In Seattle, about 60% of all ADUs were sold as condos in 2024, according to a city dashboard. Nick Welch, a senior planner at Seattle’s Office of Planning and Community Development, said those figures may be even higher this year because the share of ADU condos has been rising, indicating strong demand for more affordable homeownership options.

According to a city report analyzing data from 2023, the median ADU sold at about 60% of the price of the associated main home and about half as much as a new, detached home.

“Plenty of people want to buy homes and are priced out of the market,” Welch said. “ADUs — just by virtue of being smaller and having a smaller lot area — are obviously sold for less than a new 4,000 square-foot single-family home. And so there’s plenty of demand for that type of ownership housing.”

However, Perez sees scenarios where existing homeowners could also benefit from converting their home and backyard cottage into condominiums. The law makes it possible to access their home’s equity, without taking on additional debt, he said. “They can sell off the ADU and with the proceeds, pay off what was left of that mortgage and be mortgage-free, right?”

The main home property associated with the condominium for sale at 2985 Lantz Ave., in San José, on Aug. 13, 2025.

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Or, they can sell to a family member. “For families that are seeing displacement, the ability to create an entry point in the backyard that’s more affordable than the homes they can’t afford is also a way that people are able to stay in the state.”

Hughes said he already has a buyer for the ADU he built in San José. The three-bedroom, two-bath, nearly 1,200 square-foot home will go for just under $1.6 million, as soon as the condominium map is approved.

The primary home, with five bedrooms, three bathrooms and nearly 2,900 square feet, is listed for more than $3 million.

While certainly not cheap, Hughes said, “No place in San José is, though. I mean, realistically, they are not.”

Hughes had the advantage of starting with a relatively big lot, which allowed him to build two units with separate entrances and utilities, making them more akin to single-family homes than condos.

“It’s unique because it’s on the corner, and the lot was big enough that I could build a 1,200 square-foot ADU,” Hughes said, noting that most lots will be smaller and have shared utilities. “It’s going to be down in a lower price range just by the size. So, therefore, it is creating that affordable home for somebody to go in there.”

More typical is the lot on Josefa Street, where AlphaX is recording the city’s first ADU-condominium-conversion map. The main home takes over most of the lot, with the ADU at the rear of the property. The two homes share a long driveway.

Lin said she wasn’t sure whether the company would ultimately sell the units as condos or continue to rent them out.

“It’s just the beginning,” she said. “So that’s why we’re all very happy and very excited to try.”

Among the sweeping victories by Democrats on Tuesday were wins in several congressional districts that Republicans had redrawn explicitly to boost their party ahead of the midterms.

Republicans were bracing for some losses this election cycle, so last year President Donald Trump urged his party to take the extraordinary step of engaging in mid-decade redistricting efforts.

As of Tuesday night, many of those efforts had failed.

That included in Florida, where multiple Democrats — Kathy Castor, Pia Dandiya and Jared Moskowitz — won in redrawn districts, according to race calls by the Associated Press.

In North Carolina, Democratic Rep. Don Davis held on to his 1st District seat, even though Republicans in the state redrew it to be more competitive for the GOP. Trump would have won the redrawn 1st by nearly 12 percentage points, according to the Downballot.

Trump would have won by even more in Alabama's redrawn 2nd Congressional District, which Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures held on to, according to the AP race call.

Republicans in Alabama redid the state's congressional map after the U.S. Supreme Court further weakened the Voting Rights Act earlier this year.

And in Texas, which was the first state to redistrict at Trump's urging, a few of the redrawn districts had gone to Democrats.

Republicans redrew their maps with the expectation that the coalition of voters Trump won over in 2024 would support them this cycle. In Texas, Republicans were banking on gains made with Latino voters in new maps.

But many of those voters shifted their support to Democrats this year.
Copyright 2026 NPR

Nationwide election results came at a relentless pace Tuesday night, each more of a Democratic upset than the last. But you may not have known if you were attending the California Republican Party's election night event in Garden Grove.

In the dimly lit Hyatt ballroom where gubernatorial longshot Steve Hilton and his supporters gathered, the news channels were off, the music was turned up and “Don’t Stop Believin’” blasted throughout.

Minutes after the polls closed at 8 p.m., the Associated Press called the governor’s race for Democratic favorite Xavier Becerra.

Around the room, the occasional person glanced at their phone to sneak a peek at the growing GOP carnage. More of the crowd instead looked at each other or toward the empty stage, where a lectern stood in front of a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge at sunset.

Not long after, Hilton took the stage to concede the race — which had always been heavily favored against him in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-to-1.

“Maybe this isn’t the best year to be running for office as a Republican,” Hilton told his supporters, alluding to the election results that would soon lead the Democratic Party to win so big in the House and the Senate that many dubbed it a blue tsunami. “We see what’s going on around the country.”

Hilton knew the odds were long. He’d tried a number of tactics to win over California, including a suggestive advertisement suggesting voters should “Just Try” voting for him. He’d done his best to separate himself from President Donald Trump, who backed his campaign. He also attacked Becerra for staying largely out of the limelight since making it out on top of a chaotic primary.

None of Hilton’s appeals made a significant mark on the result, which trailed at around 36% of the vote as of Wednesday afternoon.

Standing outside the ballroom, Matt Shupe, a spokesperson for the California GOP, conceded it was challenging terrain for Republicans this year across the country — and always in California.

“It’s pretty typical that the party that's not in power gains some seats, so I think that was pretty expected for the most part,” he said. “We'll plan on bringing the fight more intensely than ever in 2028.”

By 9:30 p.m., people were headed to their cars to go home.

Voters in the city of Los Angeles are poised to pass all eight ballot measures put before them this year — six related directly to charter reform and two that are tied to the aftermath of the Palisades Fire in January 2025.

Proponents of city reform welcomed the results.

“Last night was a phenomenal Election Day for charter reform,” said Diego Andrades, who served as a Charter Reform commissioner. Andrades said he wasn’t surprised the amendments passed, tying voter support to the substantial public input in the process long before Election Day.

For example, Andrades said Measure PRK, which doubles the parks department budget, was “purely recommended by the public.”

“That was something we weren't even looking at,” Andrades said. “Everything that we recommended to the City Council was driven by who we were serving.”

Zev Yaroslavsky, the director of the Los Angeles Initiative at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, noted that none of the measures saw much coordinated opposition.

The six measures involving amendments to the city charter (the document that functions as the city’s constitution) originated from the Los Angeles Charter Reform Commission’s recommendations to the City Council.

There is likely more to come. City Council members voted in June to leave some of the commission’s more controversial recommendations, including proposals to expand the City Council and implement ranked-choice voting, off the November ballots.

Yaroslavsky, a former L.A. County Supervisor and L.A. City Council member, called the amendments on the road to passing “non-controversial, but important.”

Yaroslavsky pointed to the Charter Amendment LA, which, among other changes, allows the City Council to eliminate or change the Department of Public Works, something Yaroslavsky said the City Council tried to do when he was a member more than 30 years ago. Other amendments, such as giving the ethics commission more authority and expanding the parks department budget, are also welcome changes, Yaroslavsky said.

“They were not ideological charter amendments; they were administrative charter amendments," he said, “but they allow the city to do things that they haven't done before.”

Andrades said the success of the charter amendments builds momentum for the City Council to further some of the other recommendations from the charter commission in future elections.

“The charter amendment process is not finished,” Andrades said. “We will see these reforms on the ballot, and when they are ready, I think we will see voters pass them.”

Two other ballot initiatives stem from the 2025 fires. Measures FD and TE, respectively, seek to expand the Fire Department Budget and cancel the so-called “mansion tax” for victims of the Palisades Fire who sell their residential property until 2030.

Like the charter amendments, these proposals didn’t see much pushback, Yaroslavsky said. As ballots continue to be tallied, here’s a look at how Angelenos voted on each measure:

Note: AP estimates about 67% of the vote was in as of Wednesday evening.

Measure EE

What's at stake

In addition to reducing the number of City Council meetings from three per week to one, Charter Amendment EE makes changes to the Los Angeles City Charter that supporters say will help hold city government accountable. Those changes include increasing the penalty for campaign finance violations, increasing the authority of police and fire department oversight offices, increasing the number of signatures required for ballot referendums and barring ethics commissioners from running for local office for five years following their terms.

Measure LA

What’s at stake

At its heart, this wonky amendment changes how the city manages its budget and oversees infrastructure projects. Charter Amendment LA moves the city from a one-year to a two-year budget cycle, allows City Council to eliminate or change the Board of Public Works while giving the director of Public Works more power, and removes restrictions prohibiting the city from engaging in certain commercial activities. The hope is these changes will make it easier for the city to plan for and execute infrastructure projects.

Measure PL

What’s at stake

Charter Amendment PL consolidates Los Angeles’ seven Area Planning Commissions into a single Neighborhood Appeals Commission and streamlines the city’s planning process. In addition to reducing annual costs for commission staffing and other resources, the changes are meant to simplify the process and shrink the timeline for proposed developments.

Measure PRK

What’s at stake

Charter Amendment PRK doubles the L.A. parks department’s minimum budget over the next 10 years. A city-commissioned study last year found that the department’s budget has grown at a slower pace than other city agencies and that department staffing has shrunk while responsible for more park space and facilities.

Measure PRT

What’s at stake

Charter Amendment PRT adds new members to the Board of Airport Commissioners who live in communities near LAX and Van Nuys Airport, updates the rules around leases for the Airports Department, Department of Water and Power and Harbor Department and adds transparency requirements to Harbor Department leases. Supporters say the changes will increase community influence over major infrastructure and help the city attract more investment around airports and the waterfront.

Measure SC

What’s at stake

Los Angeles Unified school board elections follow much of the same campaign finance rules as mayoral elections, but those rules are spelled out in different parts of the city charter and municipal code. Charter Amendment SC removes much of the language specific to LAUSD elections and applies the same rules as those governing mayoral candidates, with a few exceptions. Supporters say the amendment doesn’t substantively change the election rules, but removes duplicative language in the city charter.

Measure FD

What’s at stake

The L.A. firefighters’ union supported this measure to increase the citywide sales tax by 0.5%. The increase will add an estimated $345 million to a new dedicated special fund that must be spent on Fire Department staffing, facilities, equipment and other “core functions.” Measure FD’s supporters say the department has been underfunded and needs thousands more firefighters to keep up with growing call volume.

Measure TE

What’s at stake

Proposition TE cancels the city’s "mansion tax" for victims of the Palisades Fire who decide to sell their residential property in the wake of the disaster. The mansion tax was created by Measure ULA in 2022, supporters of Proposition TE say voters passed that measure to raise money for affordable housing and homelessness prevention programs, not to punish disaster survivors who sell their homes. The exemption applies to properties owned as of Jan. 7, 2025, and sold until Jan. 6, 2030.

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