Pre-Approved ADU Plans in the Sacramento Region: A 2026 City-by-City Comparison

Six Cities, Six Different Answers

Ask six homeowners in six different Sacramento-region cities the same question, “can I just grab a free ADU plan and start building,” and you'll get six different answers. That's the actual state of things right now, and most of the guidance floating around online just picks one city and calls it a day.

We work across this whole region, so we get the comparison question constantly. A homeowner in Woodland reads about Davis's free plans and asks why their city doesn't have the same thing. A homeowner in Elk Grove assumes every city charges full architectural fees because that's what their neighbor in Sacramento paid three years ago, before the shelf-ready program existed. Nobody's laid out all six side by side with real numbers, so that's what this is.

One note before the comparison: program status changes. We pulled every figure below from each city's own building or planning division site. If you're reading this more than a few months after publication, confirm current status with the building counter before you design around it.

Want a ballpark for your specific lot while you're comparing cities? SafewayQuickQuote.com gives you a working range in about two minutes, no site visit required.

Why AB 1332 Created This Patchwork

None of this happened by accident, and it's not really about which city cares more about housing. California's AB 1332 took effect January 1, 2025. It's a state law that requires every local jurisdiction to build a program that accepts ADU plan submissions from architects and designers, reviews them for code compliance, and posts approved plans on the city's website with the designer's contact information. Once a homeowner uses a posted plan, the jurisdiction has to ministerially approve the application within 30 days of a complete submittal, faster than the standard 60-day cap that applies to custom designs.

The law set a floor, not a finished product. It told every city to build the machine. It didn't hand anyone a working catalog on day one, and it didn't require every city to fund a fast-tracked in-house design team the way Davis and Sacramento did.

That's why status differs so much by city size and by how much staff time a planning department could throw at it. Sacramento and Davis both had existing momentum around ADU policy before AB 1332 passed, so they moved fast. Elk Grove built its own catalog and paired it with an over-the-counter permit path. Dixon opened its doors to any designer who wants to submit a plan and started posting approvals as they come in, which is a genuinely active program even without a small fixed menu of sizes. Woodland and West Sacramento are further behind on the public-facing side of the requirement, which doesn't mean they're not building an ADU, it just means the plan-shopping shortcut isn't available yet.

The Comparison Table

Three cities, Davis, Sacramento, and Elk Grove, landed on the same basic formula: a studio, a one-bedroom, and a two-bedroom tier, free to use, with the city handling the design lift up front. Dixon took a more open-marketplace approach, letting any qualified designer add to the list over time, so its available sizes keep expanding rather than sitting at three fixed tiers.

Need the full permit walkthrough for your specific city? We've written a dedicated guide for each one: Davis, Sacramento, Elk Grove, Dixon, Woodland, and West Sacramento.

What Pre-Approved Actually Saves You

This is the half of the story every city's own webpage tells you.

• Architectural design fees. A custom ADU design in this region typically runs $5,000-$15,000. A pre-approved plan skips most or all of that because a licensed designer already did the work and the city already reviewed it.
• Most of the structural plan check. The building's structural design has already cleared review. You're not waiting on an engineer to catch corrections on a design that's already been through the process.
• Weeks off the permit timeline. Since the structural review is done, the remaining review is narrower, mostly about how the building fits your specific lot. That typically shaves several weeks to a couple of months compared to a fully custom submittal.
• Fewer correction cycles. A design that's already cleared plan check once has fewer surprises the second time through, since the code compliance questions were resolved during the original approval.

What Pre-Approved Never Saves You

This is the half almost nobody spells out, and it's the part that catches homeowners off guard.

• Site-specific engineering. Every lot has its own soil, drainage, and foundation conditions. A pre-approved plan doesn't know anything about your lot until you submit a site plan showing how the structure sits on it.
• Soils testing, where required. If your lot has known problem soil or your building division requires it, a geotechnical report is a separate cost regardless of which plan you're using.
• Title 24 energy compliance for your address. Every ADU needs site-specific Title 24 documentation. The pre-approved plan's energy design was modeled generically, not for your exact orientation and shading.
• Utility connections and any panel upgrade. Water, sewer, and electrical hookups depend entirely on what's already at your property. A panel upgrade, commonly $2,500-$8,500 depending on the home and the utility, is one of the most common budget surprises on any ADU project in this region, pre-approved or not.
• Impact and connection fees. These are set by ordinance based on unit size, not by which plan you used. A 750-square-foot cutoff for reduced or waived fees applies the same whether you're building custom or off a pre-approved sheet.
• The site plan itself. Someone still has to draw where the unit sits on your parcel, confirm setbacks, and show drainage. That's a real design cost even with a free building design.
• A licensed contractor. The plan is paper. Somebody still has to build it, pull the permit, coordinate inspections, and manage the subs.

Pre-Approved vs. Custom: How to Decide

The pre-approved path is the right call for most lots in this region. It's not the right call for every lot.

Use a pre-approved plan if:

• Your lot is flat or has minor grade changes across the ADU footprint
• Your setbacks clearly accommodate one of the standard sizes offered in your city
• Water, sewer, and electrical connections are straightforward and nearby
• You don't have strong opinions about interior layout beyond what the standard plan offers
• Getting to a permit fast and keeping soft costs down matter more than a custom floor plan

Go custom if:

• Your lot slopes more than a couple of feet across the footprint, since the standard foundation design won't transfer
• You're on an older lot with non-standard soil or drainage conditions, common in the historic cores of Woodland, Sacramento's central neighborhoods, and downtown Dixon
• You need an attached unit or a junior ADU conversion within the existing house rather than new detached construction, since none of the pre-approved catalogs above cover those configurations
• You want to match a specific architectural style, like a Streng Bros mid-century home in Davis's University Estates
• You need more square footage than any of the current pre-approved tiers offer, up to the state's 1,200 SF detached maximum

Real 2026 Build Costs By Plan Size

These figures come straight from each city's own published guide. Where a city's exact plan size doesn't have a published bracket of its own, we applied that city's own stated per-square-foot rate to the plan's actual footage, so nothing here is invented; it's each city's own numbers run against each city's own plan sizes.

A couple of things worth noting. Sacramento and Elk Grove's computed ranges for their small studio-sized plans land lower than Davis's published studio bracket, which makes sense since Davis's studio figure includes more line-item detail (permits, utility connections, finishes) baked directly into the range rather than a pure per-square-foot multiplication. Treat the Sacramento and Elk Grove numbers above as construction-cost estimates and add your permit fees, utility connection costs, and any panel upgrade on top, the same way you would for any detached ADU in this region.

Want your own lot run through the numbers instead of a regional estimate? Try the Safeway ADU cost calculator or run a free estimate at SafewayQuickQuote.com.

Utility Accuracy: Who's SMUD, Who's PG&E

This matters because it directly affects your panel upgrade cost and your utility coordination timeline, and it's easy to get wrong when you're comparing six cities at once.

• City of Sacramento: SMUD territory.
• Elk Grove: SMUD territory.
• Davis: PG&E territory.
• Woodland: PG&E territory.
• Dixon: PG&E territory.
• West Sacramento: PG&E territory.

A panel upgrade for an ADU, going from an older 60-100 amp service to 200 amps, typically runs $2,500-$8,500 depending on the home's condition and which utility has to coordinate the service drop. SMUD and PG&E have separate scheduling processes with their own lead times, so confirm which one serves your address before you build a schedule around it. Do not assume Davis, Woodland, Dixon, or West Sacramento are SMUD territory just because they sit near Sacramento; they're not.

Getting the Permit, City by City

Each city runs its own permit counter, and the pre-approved plan doesn't change who you submit to.

• Davis: Building Division, Community Development and Sustainability. (530) 757-5610 or OnlinePermits@cityofdavis.org.
• Sacramento: Community Development Department, 300 Richards Boulevard, 3rd Floor. EZPermit expedited path at EZPermit@cityofsacramento.org.
• Elk Grove: Building Safety, Inspections and Permits, 8401 Laguna Palms Way, (916) 478-2235. Submittals go through the city's Filedrop portal.
• Dixon: Building Division, 600 East A Street, (707) 678-7000, buildingdivision@cityofdixonca.gov. Applications run through the Tyler Technologies portal.
• Woodland: Community Development Department, 300 First Street, (530) 661-5820, cdd-building@cityofwoodland.gov.
• West Sacramento: Community Development Department, Building Division, 1110 W Capitol Avenue, (916) 617-4645, option 1.

Every one of these permit paths, pre-approved plan or custom, is ministerial for a code-compliant ADU. None of these cities can deny a conforming application because a neighbor objects or a planner prefers a different design.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Guides

• Davis Free Pre-Approved ADU Plans: 2026 Build Guide
• Sacramento ADU Guide: Permits, Costs & Rental Income (2026)
• Elk Grove ADU Guide: Permits, Costs & Pre-Approved Plans (2026)
• Dixon ADU Guide: Permits, Costs & Local Rules (2026)
• Woodland ADU Guide: Permits, Costs & Local Rules (2026)
• West Sacramento ADU Guide: Permits, Costs & Local Rules (2026)