Coby Lefkowitz of Backyard | Nile Street in San Diego | Accessory Dwelling Units
Courtesy of Backyard
Accessory Dwelling Units
Coby Lefkowitz, the co-founder of Backyard, a real estate development company focusing on infill development in Southern California, joins us to discuss the topic of Accessory Dwelling Units — also known as ADUs. These relatively inexpensive homes can be used to help ease the burden of the current housing market by providing more affordable options. Coby shares with us some of his thoughts on underlying ADU legislation and smaller infill development projects.
In today’s episode, we also discuss Coby’s 3322 Nile Street project in San Diego. Located in the heart of Altadena, the neighborhood features mostly cozy homes with Spanish influence. It is a four-unit property with a contemporary design. We also discuss how projects similar to this one can be an answer to our country's challenge of producing housing that all Americans can afford.
Join us on this week’s episode of American Building as we discuss the importance of ADUs in addressing the current housing crisis, including some of the challenges and benefits of building smaller detached housing units.
“I’m an urbanist. I’m an urban planner by training. How buildings meet the street and interact with broader communities and how you marry that within the development paradigm. That’s where the opportunity for Backyard first arose going back to this notion of ADU’s. Backyard’s a real estate development firm, infill development that I co-founded with my now partner, Roy Gold. We do focus on ADUs but other tools to promote and create strong and high quality infill development, primarily in mixed use walkable and vibrant neighborhoods.”
Courtesy of Backyard
About Coby Lefkowitz
Coby Lefkowitz is the co-founder of Backyard, a real estate development company focusing on infill development in Southern California. Previously, he worked with ASH NYC, Washington REIT, and the Runyon Group. Coby was raised in Westchester County, New York, and graduated from the University of Virginia Architecture School with a Bachelor of Urban and Environmental Planning.
Courtesy of Backyard
Courtesy of Backyard
Episode Timestamps
2:15 – What are your impressions of Charlottesville and how did your time there influence your career path?
7:10 – What did you learn from each of the firms that you’ve previously worked for and how did you know that it was time to start your own?
18:17 – Let's talk about 3322 Nile Street in the Altadena neighborhood in San Diego. Tell us about the site.
19:46 – What specific challenges and opportunities have you encountered during this development?
22:39 – Let's talk about the approach for entitlements for this unique type of residential product. What is your approach?
24:33 – You have a designer on this project, that's JSP Design Studio, and they specialize in remodels, additions. and accessory units. How did you find them and what is their design process like?
26:42 – Walk our listeners through the project as it will look when it’s completed.
31:30 – With the ever-growing prices of wealth, concentration, and consequently home affordability in America, what does affordability mean to you?
38:02 – Help us understand what an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) is in comparison to things like companion units, granny units, tiny homes, and other concepts that are related to that.
39:51 – How are ADUs related to affordable housing?
45:23 – Help us understand how there could be ties and overlaps between the work that you're doing with things like prefabrication, smart home devices, rent-to-buy, and short-term leasing.
Courtesy of Backyard
About your host:
Atif Qadir is the Founder & CEO of Commonplace, a technology company making it easy for commercial real estate professionals to find and use the $100B of real estate incentives given out every year in the US.
His work has been covered by Technology Review, The Real Deal, Commercial Observer, and Propmodo. He’s also a frequent speaker on the future of buildings and cities on popular industry podcasts and at conferences, including this past year at the Commercial Observer National DEI Conference, Yale AREA Conference, Columbia Real Estate Symposium, Open Data Week NYC and Austin Design Week.
About Commonplace
Commonplace is a founding sponsor of American Building. It is a 100% minority-owned, real estate technology company founded in 2020 to make financing social impact development projects across the US easier. It is funded by venture capital investors Hometeam Ventures, Park West Asset Management, New York Ventures and Shadow Ventures.
About Michael Graves
The world-famous design firm Michael Graves is also a founding sponsor of American Building. Its namesake, the iconoclastic designer Michael Graves, FAIA was a fierce advocate for people-centric design. His work defines a generation of American architecture and includes the Portland Building, the Humana Building and the Denver Public Library. The 1st season of American Building was filmed live at The Warehouse, his historic home in Princeton, New Jersey:
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