An ADU contractor’s straight story on building in San Rafael.

Everything runs through the Community & Economic Development Department at 1400 Fifth Avenue — Planning review is folded into the building permit application rather than handled as a separate entitlement. For a conforming ADU there is nothing discretionary about it: no design review board, no public notice, and a 60-day clock on the decision once your application is complete. “Complete” is the operative word — an application missing a Title 24 energy report or a survey gets bounced, and the clock restarts.

Since February 2026, applications and inspection scheduling go through the city’s OpenGov portal — instructions you’ll find elsewhere referencing the old eTRAKiT system are stale.

One thing worth knowing before you read the municipal code yourself: it was last updated in 2022, and the city acknowledges that newer state ADU law supersedes it wherever the two conflict. Staff review against current state standards. This is exactly the kind of gap where an experienced ADU contractor earns their fee — we design to what plan check will actually apply, not to what the code page says.

San Rafael doesn’t publish flat ADU fee amounts. Planning fees are folded into the building permit and calculated from project valuation, with separate flat-rate electrical, plumbing, and mechanical permits on top. The city offers a fee estimator through its Building Division, and we price permits into every proposal so there’s no mystery line item later.

The number that matters most is 750. Below 750 square feet, San Rafael waives impact fees, the general plan maintenance fee, the street maintenance fee, and bedroom taxes. Cross that line and those charges all land. A 749-square-foot ADU and an 800-square-foot ADU are very different projects on paper — it’s one of the first conversations we have with San Rafael homeowners, because the answer shapes the whole design.

Utilities depend on where you are. Southern and central San Rafael is served by the San Rafael Sanitation District; Terra Linda and the north end fall under Las Gallinas Valley Sanitary District — each with its own connection rules and fee schedule. On the water side, Marin Water doesn’t charge a capacity fee for ADUs converted within existing space, but a new detached unit may need its own connection and a capacity charge sized to the ADU. We chase these numbers down per-address during feasibility, because they can swing a budget by thousands.

A large share of San Rafael’s residential land is steep, wooded, or both, and the city’s rules reflect it. If your parcel is in the Wildland-Urban Interface (the Fire Department publishes the map), expect ignition-resistant construction detailing and defensible-space requirements around the new unit — Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority inspectors come through roughly every other year, and the city’s vegetation rules prohibit almost all planting within five feet of any structure. That zone-zero strip is worth designing around from day one rather than fixing after an inspection.

Hillside lots add engineering: earthwork beyond about 50 cubic yards triggers a grading permit with an erosion-control plan, and geotechnical review comes with it. Foundations get more expensive on slope — drilled piers instead of a slab, retaining where the pad needs cutting. None of this is a dealbreaker; most of our Marin ADUs sit on lots like these. It just needs to be in the budget from the first conversation, not discovered in plan check.

It also means the fast paths mostly don’t apply here. San Rafael has a pre-approved ADU plan program on the books, but it excludes hillside, fire-zone, geologic-hazard, and tsunami-zone parcels — which is to say, a big share of the city. For most San Rafael lots, a site-specific design is the realistic route.

Terra Linda’s Eichler–Alliance overlay caps attached ADUs at 17 feet so additions don’t loom over the flat-roof neighborhood — if you own an Eichler, the ADU should be designed to the overlay from the start.

Your height limit also depends on transit: detached ADUs are 16 feet as a baseline but 18 feet within a half-mile walk of a major transit stop, and the city publishes a transit buffer map worth checking before you assume the lower number.

Two more geography notes. Low-lying Canal-area lots sit in a FEMA flood zone, where finished-floor elevation requirements apply — confirm the base flood elevation with the Building Division early. And a few “San Rafael” addresses — Santa Venetia, Los Ranchitos, Country Club — are actually unincorporated Marin County pockets, which means county ADU rules and county reviewers, not the city’s. It’s worth verifying which side of the line you’re on before planning anything.