South Park · NR · 3,560 sq ft lot
(South Park, NR): a backyard cottage is blocked at financial plausibility — modeled income does not cover modeled debt service.
Where the screen stops
Stages are evaluated in a fixed order. A later constraint is only named as the reason once every earlier stage has resolved, so an unknown never gets reported as a failure.
- 1. legal capacityPasses
The verified NR rule set permits a detached accessory dwelling unit.
- 2. physical fitPasses
The citywide screen found the lot geometry sufficient for a detached backyard cottage, subject to field verification. Lot on record: 3,560 sqft, regular, no alley access.
- 3. financial plausibilityBlocked
Under screening rule gap-dadu-financial@v1, modeled income does not cover modeled debt service at the favorable end of the assumed cost range.
- 4. affordable-program applicabilityPasses
Public programs whose site conditions are met here: king-county-home-improvement-exemption, seattle-pre-approved-dadu-plans.
- 5. verification readinessUnknown
2 screening inputs still need evidence before this parcel's result can be relied on.
What blocks it: Modeled income does not cover modeled debt service
Under the published screening rule, modeled net operating income does not cover modeled debt service even at the favorable end of the cost range. Modeled coverage ratio at the low end of the cost range: 0.9191. HUD SAFMR fiscal year on record: 2026.
- What would resolve this
- Obtain parcel-specific contractor pricing and financing terms; subsidy, equity, or a lower-cost plan would change this result.
- Capability this needs
- affordability
Open evidence gaps (2)
These are questions this screen cannot answer from the data on file. They are not findings against the parcel.
- Critical-area severity unreviewed
Request an SDCI critical-area determination for this parcel.
- Sewer capacity unreviewed
Pull the side sewer card and confirm capacity with SPU.
Limitations of this screen
- Public-data screen only. It includes no site visit, survey, title review, or permit determination.
- Legal capacity comes from joined zone rules; physical fit comes from the citywide parcel screen. A parcel can pass one and not the other.
- The citywide physical screen covers the NR, RSL, LR, MR, HR, and legacy SF residential zone families. Outside them physical fit is reported as unknown, never as a physical failure.
- Current SMC 23.42.022 (Ord. 127375/127376, 2025) allows accessory dwelling units as a housing use in every zone where housing uses are allowed. The former 2023 lowrise principal-unit-type gate and 650-square-foot cap no longer apply; the current cap is 1,000 square feet.
- Detached ADUs are prohibited by the Shoreline Master Program. A parcel is blocked when any portion intersects the official Seattle Shoreline Environments overlay; mapped boundaries still require parcel-level confirmation with SDCI.
- Financial plausibility applies a published screening rule to explicit planning assumptions and a HUD SAFMR rent basis. It is not a bid, quote, appraisal, or forecast, and no Seattle cost calibration supports it.
- The financial stage varies only by ZIP-level one-bedroom HUD SAFMR. All parcels in the same SAFMR geography receive the same result under the citywide cost assumptions; this is not parcel-specific financial evidence.
- Financial geography patterns are rent-basis patterns, not observed construction-cost or project-outcome patterns. They must not be used to deprioritize investment in the neighborhoods they name.
- Public program applicability describes whether a listed program reaches this site. Household eligibility — income, ownership, occupancy, disability, financing — is never collected or inferred.
- The first detected blocker is the first blocking condition under the published stage and within-stage detection order, and attribution is withheld when an earlier stage is unknown. It is not a claim that other constraints matter less.
- Stages are evaluated independently wherever their inputs allow, so a later-stage blocker does not imply that earlier stages passed.
Provenance and reuse
Screen gap-dadu-v1.6 under plan family Backyard cottage / DADU screen, read from the warehouse on . Unlike a published gap brief, this page tracks the warehouse and will change when the underlying evaluation does — cite the screen version and date above alongside the URL.
This is a screen, not a permit determination, and no part of it has been reviewed by the City of Seattle. You are welcome to use it without asking us, and to disagree with it. The full citywide artifact and the methodology carry the rules, sources, and exclusions behind every statement here.