Rohnert Park, CA Accessory Structures: ADU Owner Occupancy (2026)

040 ties owner-occupancy specifically to shared sanitary facilities: owner occupancy shall be required for each JADU that has shared sanitary facilities with the primary dwelling, and the owner may satisfy the rule by living in either the primary dwelling or the newly created JADU, not necessarily the JADU itself. The exemption is narrow: owner-occupancy is waived only when the owner is a governmental agency, land trust or housing organization, not for an individual owner who simply prefers not to live on site. The requirement is enforced through subsection (F)(6), which requires every JADU to carry a recorded deed restriction, approved by the city and recorded before the certificate of occupancy issues, restating that shared-facility JADUs require owner occupancy of either the primary dwelling or the JADU, restricting the JADU to the size and attributes the city approved, and prohibiting sale of the JADU separate from the primary dwelling with notice to future buyers about enforcement of the restriction.

A companion restriction in subsection (F) requires any subsequent buyer of the property to either remove the JADU, including obtaining all necessary permits, or demonstrate compliance with the owner-occupancy requirement, again with the same exemption for governmental agencies, land trusts and housing organizations. Because the JADU rules sit inside the same section as the city's general ADU standards, a JADU with fully separate, non-shared bathroom and kitchen facilities is not automatically subject to this particular owner-occupancy condition, since the trigger is specifically the sharing of sanitary facilities with the primary unit.