How do you currently track planning commission agendas in your markets?

Question

Disclosure up front: I'm an investor exploring whether there's a real workflow problem here before I build anything. Not selling anything in this thread, no link, no DMs solicited. Just trying to learn from people who actually do this every week.

The problem I keep running into: by the time I hear about a zoning change, ADU ordinance amendment, STR rule update, or rezoning hearing in one of my markets, the public comment window is half over and the decision is essentially made. The information was technically public the whole time — buried in a planning commission agenda PDF or a 200-page staff report on a Granicus or Legistar feed nobody reads.

I'm trying to figure out if other investors hit this same wall, and what (if anything) you currently do about it.

Specifically I'd love to hear:

1. How many cities do you actively invest in or watch, and how do you keep tabs on planning items in each one? (City email lists? Local agent? Title rep? Manual checking?)

2. Has there ever been a planning commission item or ordinance change that affected one of your deals — and if so, did you find out in time or after the fact?

3. If you do follow agendas, what are you actually scanning for? Specific keywords (ADU, variance, rezoning, parcel numbers)? Specific committees? Or just hoping something jumps out?

4. What's the most annoying part of the current setup? Is it volume, format (everything is a PDF), language (the agenda title is meaningless until you read the staff report), or timing (you only find out after the meeting)?

5. For folks investing in multiple cities — does each city have totally different vocabulary for the same thing? "ADU" in one place is "secondary suite" or "casita" or "accessory dwelling" in another. Is that actually a pain or am I overthinking it?

Honest answers welcome, including "this isn't a real problem, just check the city email list." That's a valid answer and I'd rather hear it now than after I waste three months on the wrong thing.

Thanks in advance — happy to share back what I learn from the thread once enough people have weighed in.

Dan H. · Answer

A handful of years ago, CA passed legislation protecting safe unpermitted units for 5 years. After the law was passed. Properties with unpermitted units were being comped with sold properties before this protection existed.

A birddog brought me a property with 3 safe unpermitted units.   The value versus comps was still good, but I was thinking the new law was likely to significantly increase the value of safe unpermitted units.   I purchased the property.  In less than 2 years it was worth double what I paid for it in Dec 2020.   Today it is worth ~2.5 times what I paid for it.

When the 5 year exemption was getting close to expiring, CA passed another law granting 5 additional years of exemption.  As long as there is a housing shortage the state does not want to remove safe housing.   Therefore, I expect the protection will get extended for as long as there is a housing shortage which may mean forever.

I refer to leveraging a law or regulation to experience a significant value increase as sophisticated value adds.  I especially like sophisticated value adds that have no effort beyond understanding the likely ramifications of passed legislation.

I am involved as a partner in another sophisticated value add that leverages a San Diego law. My investment currently is not doing great (understatement). The sophisticated value add is doing good, but commercial MF this value add is associated with is doing poorly so my investment is not doing well. if commercial MF had not declined significantly in value in that market, this sophisticated value add could easily have doubled my money. I think I will be lucky to recover my full investment.

Win some, lose some.

For those that are local to my market, something to ponder. A couple years ago the city of San Diego passed legislation that allowed confonizing of ADUs. A month of so ago, the county board of supervisors passed similar law for detached ADUs for unincorporated areas. What do you think these laws are likely to do with the values of detached ADUs? What is the consequences of being incorrect? What is the value increased if you do the work of condoizing? Use your internet search function (I am not providing links as I already have potentially given you the info for a killer, easy, value add).

Many jurisdictions have laws that are unique to that jurisdiction that are likely to impact RE values.  Recognizing the potential impact while analyzing the risks and consequences can be significantly easier value add than the tried and proven (but full of effort and boring) rehab value adds.

Good luck

Landon Reid · Answer

Ava, this thread is gold. You're describing the exact problem I've been obsessing over.

To answer your questions directly:

1. I track 4 markets actively. Honestly? It's a mess. City email lists for 2 of them, manual agenda checks for the others. The vocabulary problem you mentioned in #5 is REAL — one city calls it an ADU, another says "secondary suite," another says "casita." Same thing, different search terms, different departments.

2. Yes. Got burned once when a city quietly changed setback requirements mid-project. Found out from my architect, not from any monitoring system. Cost me 6 weeks of redesign.

3. Keywords I scan for: ADU, accessory dwelling, density bonus, overlay, variance, rezoning, lot split, SB 9 (in CA). But you're right — the agenda titles are often meaningless until you read the staff report.

4. The format problem is the killer. Everything is PDFs. Nothing is structured data. That's actually what pushed me to start building tools that pull zoning and buildability data programmatically instead of manually.

The real answer to your question: nobody has solved this well yet. The investors winning are the ones with relationships at planning departments, not better tech. But that's changing.

Brook Denny · Answer

@Landon Reid Have you actually used any of the softwares on them market for City/County Meetings. I know there are a couple of companies making headway in this space. Hamlet is one. There was another that was recently acquired -- can't remember what it's called. I haven't used them myself yet.

Bradley Buxton · Answer

@Ava Leoncavallo

What I do is get on the email list for the local commission or council meetings agenda. When they send the agenda drop it into chatgpt or AI and prompt it for key words or statements about what you're interested in. There is usually a public comment or a place where you can send in your comment.  You can also search past meetings to see if there are any mentions of things like rent control, ADUs, STRs etc.

Ava Leoncavallo · Answer

Dan — this is exactly the pattern I'm trying to understand. The CA safe-unit law and the SD condo-ization rule are perfect examples: the value was sitting in the legislation months before it showed up in comps.

Question for you (and anyone else reading who runs this playbook): how do you actually find these in the first place? Are you reading planning commission agendas, tracking specific council members, watching state bill trackers, word-of-mouth from a land use attorney, or something else? And once you spot one, what's the lag between "I see this bill" and "I'm comfortable underwriting against it"?

Asking because the people I've talked to who do this well all seem to have a different homemade system, and I'm trying to figure out if there's a common workflow underneath or if it's genuinely just pattern recognition built over years.

How do you currently track planning commission agendas in your markets?

Most Popular Reply