Single Family Addition to Create Seperate Unit?

[Tim Kaminski]

Hello,

I have small single family home with detached garage.

Interested in possibly adding addition by turning garage into extra

bedrooms and connecting to main house with "shared laundry room". This

way I could rent out a front house and back house.
Is this too strange to do? Is this illegal?
Curious on thoughts. I looked into ADU but lot size is 500 sqft too small to do. This would be workaround.

[Jeremy Kloter]

You first need to know the zoning. Our MIL home was a house with detached addition, it used to be zone multifamily now it is single family. Without doing anything you should be able to do a bed/bath in the back but not a full kitchen but if you go through zoning variance etc (verify with city) you might be able to do a full unit. At least in Tampa they are technical that a full kitchen means a stove, etc.

Due to the process being a real pain, we are just going to renovate for a full bed/bath without kitchen and maybe do the paperwork process later.

[Luke Rorech]

Quote from @Tim Kaminski:

Hello,

I have small single family home with detached garage.

Interested in possibly adding addition by turning garage into extra

bedrooms and connecting to main house with "shared laundry room". This

way I could rent out a front house and back house.
Is this too strange to do? Is this illegal?
Curious on thoughts. I looked into ADU but lot size is 500 sqft too small to do. This would be workaround.

As Jeremy mentioned, check on zoning first and foremost. You mention St. Pete which recently made changes to allow ADU's. If I were you, I'd reach out to the building and permitting division to ensure you're getting the most accurate and up to date answers to your questions.