04/28/2026
Neighborhood Infill with Pre-Designed ADU Plans: How We Helped a Santa Cruz County Homeowner Unlock Their Property's Potential
When a homeowner in Santa Cruz County came to us looking to add density and long-term value to their property, we knew our pre-designed ADU plans could get them there — faster and more affordably than a fully custom process.
The goal was straightforward: place two new homes on the lot beautifully without full custom architectural design. The challenge, as always, was making sure those homes felt intentional on the site — not like catalog plans dropped onto a map.
Our design team worked closely with the client to select two models from our library of 30+ pre-designed ADU floorplans, then carefully adapted each one to respond to the specific conditions of their lot — orientation, setbacks, access, and the character of the surrounding neighborhood. Pre-designed doesn't mean one-size-fits-all. It means the engineering, code compliance, and core livability questions have already been solved, freeing us to focus on site-specific design decisions that make the project feel like it belongs.
The result: Cohesive site design with two beautiful homes that add meaningful density and value — with a streamlined approval timeline and real savings on design costs.
This is the kind of work we're scaling across California. Our pre-designed plans have been pre-approved in multiple jurisdictions, and we're actively partnering with cities and counties to expand these programs so more homeowners can take advantage of state ADU laws without starting from scratch. In some instances owners can even split a lot using SB9 and create a main home, an ADU and a Junior ADU on both for a total of six homes on two lots!
If you're a homeowner curious about what's possible on your lot, or a jurisdiction interested in bringing a pre-approved ADU catalog to your community, we'd love to talk.
workbenchadu.com | workbenchbuilt.com/projects
