California ADU law after the 2024 recodification, why you no longer have to replace the parking, and what to do with the garage door opening.
Codes are amended locally. Where a city adopts an amendment that changes the answer, the section below says so — and the permit counter, not this page, is the final word.
California ADU law used to live at Government Code §65852.2. SB 477 recodified it into a new chapter at §§66310–66342, operative 25 March 2024. The substance carried over largely intact, but any advice, permit form or blog post still citing §65852.2 is citing a repealed section, and that matters when you are quoting the law at a planning counter.
This is the provision that made garage conversions viable statewide. Under §66314(d)(11) a local agency may not require replacement off-street parking when a garage, carport or covered parking structure is demolished or converted in connection with an ADU. Before that rule, cities routinely killed conversions by demanding two new spaces on a lot that had nowhere to put them.
Three real options. Infill the opening and frame in a window or a door, which reads as a house and usually appraises best. Keep the door as a non-operable façade element over an insulated wall behind it, which preserves the street elevation and satisfies some HOAs. Or keep a working door in a partial conversion where part of the footprint stays as storage. The choice drives the whole permit set, so make it before you draw anything.
An attached garage is normally unconditioned space, which is why garage doors sit outside the envelope insulation requirements of the Energy Code. Convert that garage to living space and it becomes conditioned: the walls, floor, ceiling and any remaining openings come under the current Energy Code and CALGreen, both in their 2025 editions effective 1 January 2026. That is a substantially different scope of work from hanging a new door.
§R302.5.1's self-closing, self-latching door requirement exists because a garage is a garage. Convert the space fully to habitable use and the separation requirement changes with it; convert it partly and you may still need the assembly at the new boundary. This is the detail most DIY conversion plans get wrong at inspection.
AB 1033, now codified at §66342, lets a local agency adopt an ordinance permitting an ADU to be sold or conveyed separately as a condominium. It is permissive, not mandatory — the city has to have adopted it. Worth checking before anyone builds a financial plan on it.
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