Make the garage a real,
permitted Citrus Heights ADU.

This is where most Citrus Heights conversions live or die. A garage slab got poured to park a car, not to carry a heated, occupied dwelling. The 60s and 70s tract floors I've walked around Stock Ranch and the Sunrise Mall corridor often sit four inches thick with no rebar, have shallow perimeter footings, and slope an inch toward where the old door was so rain ran back out to the driveway. For habitable use that usually means underpinning the perimeter, cutting in new footings, or pouring a fresh slab over the top. It's the single line item that swings a conversion budget the hardest — sometimes five figures. We core the slab and check the grade on the first visit so the number isn't a guess you pay for later.

Three local things shape a conversion here. First, Citrus Heights incorporated in 1997 and runs its own city, so the permit goes through the City of Citrus Heights counter — its own plan-check queue and fee schedule, with city water and sewer behind it. Second, parking: California dropped the requirement to replace the off-street spaces you lose by converting a garage, so you no longer carve a new pad out of the front yard. That one change made thousands of these pencil. Third, fire walls — a detached garage sitting tight to the property line can trigger one-hour fire-rated wall assemblies on the near side. And the detail people miss: power is SMUD, not PG&E, and the older 60s-70s homes here often run a 100-amp panel that needs an upgrade before a dwelling can be energized.