Civic Data Works · Plans catalog · County of Santa Barbara
County of Santa Barbara — preapproved ADU plans
County of Santa Barbara ( County) posts 4 preapproved accessory dwelling unit plans on its own website, verified 2026-08-06.
- Agency
- County of Santa Barbara
- County
- Plans posted
- 4
- Verified
- 2026-08-06
What’s posted
Santa Barbara County's ADU page (Pre-Approved Building ADU Plans section) names specific plan sets: 'Plan Set 1 (P1) – 448 SF Studio/One bedroom', 'Plan Set 2 (P2) – 672 SF One bedroom', 'Plan Set 3 (P4) – 768 SF Two/Three bedroom', and a 909 SF Two bedroom plan set, each offered in multiple architectural styles (Mediterranean, Cal Ranch, Farmhouse, Mid Century Modern). Page states: 'Plan sets are available to download for free through the following links.'
Gap from a fully compliant program: The proxied markdown extraction did not render the actual download hyperlinks, so file-level access was not directly confirmed (only the page's own explicit claim that free downloads are available).
Sources: https://www.countyofsb.org/1083/Accessory-Dwelling-Units?contentId=182ef95a-4fa8-4fce-aa2c-8395d93a11bf, https://www.countyofsb.org/pre-approved-accessory-dwelling-unit-adu-building-plans, https://www.countyofsb.org/pl-pre-approved-accessory-dwelling-unit-adu-building-plans
Read via reader proxy; the plain '/pre-approved-accessory-dwelling-unit-adu-building-plans' vanity URL 404s (previously reported empty), but the working URL is the /1083/Accessory-Dwelling-Units page with a contentId query parameter, which returned full named plan-set content. Sizes/styles quoted directly from proxied page text, satisfying the posted bar. Adversarially re-verified 2026-08-06 by an independent re-fetch agent: Fetched countyofsb.org/pl-pre-approved-accessory-dwelling-unit-adu-building-plans (correct URL, not the /2225/ guess). Page confirms 4 plan sets: P1 (Mediterranean/Cal Ranch), P2 (Mediterranean/Cal Ranch), a 909 SF Two Bedroom set (Farmhouse/Mid Century Modern), and P4 (Farmhouse/Mid Century Modern), each free to download; also references 448/672/768 SF size variants within these sets.
Any other agency can adopt these plans
Cal. Gov. Code § 65852.27, added by Stats. 2023, ch. 759, amended by Stats. 2024, ch. 7 (SB 477) (§ 65852.27(a)(5)) lets any California local agency admit into its own program plans “A local agency may also admit the following accessory dwelling unit plans into the program: (A) Plans that have been developed and preapproved by the local agency. (B) Plans that have been preapproved by other agencies within the state.” A city or county without a preapproval program of its own can post County of Santa Barbara’s plans as part of its own program instead of designing new ones — see the full statewide catalog for more options.
We build and maintain the program page, the plan library and the required third-party submission path for agencies that want to stand this up: $1,950 setup + $3,600/year (year one all-in $5,550).
Data from Civic Data Works’ AB 1332 compliance scan. If County of Santa Barbara’s plans have moved or you find an error, write to [email protected] and we will correct this page. Back to the full catalog.