A vendor-independent ADU feasibility consultancy.

Why this exists

There are two problems homeowners run into when they start thinking about an ADU. The first is information. The rules vary by town, by district, sometimes by parcel, and the answers aren't sitting on any one website. You can spend a weekend reading code and still not know whether your lot is buildable.

The second is execution. Once you do have the information, the people who help you build are the same people selling you the build. Architects, builders, and modular companies are good at what they do, but they're also trying to make a sale. That isn't a moral failing. It's the structure. And it means the person guiding your decision usually has an answer ready before they've looked at your site.

Rootd's frame is different. The work is feasibility consulting, not engineering or architectural services. I get paid to look at your parcel and tell you what's possible, not to sell you what comes next. If the answer is "this doesn't work" or "this works but only with these three caveats," that's the answer.

Who's behind this

I'm John Olsson. I live in Kingston, NY. My day job is Project Manager at Turner & Townsend, where I work on AEC project delivery. I have a Master's in engineering management from Clarkson University, and before that I studied architecture at SUNY Delhi (undergraduate, not licensed). I'm a member of the Kingston Housing Task Force.

None of that makes me a licensed engineer or architect. Engineering management is a graduate management discipline taught in engineering schools; it isn't equivalent to a Bachelor's or Master's in a regulated engineering discipline, and it confers no engineering licensure under NY Education Law Article 145. Same for the architecture coursework: coursework is not licensure. When a project needs stamped drawings, those drawings come from a licensed PE or RA, not from me.

What the background does give me is fifteen years inside AEC project delivery, which is most of why Rootd exists in the shape that it does. I've seen what the information gap and the execution gap cost homeowners, and the work here is the version of feasibility that I wished existed when I was helping family and neighbors think through their own projects.

What Rootd is, and what it isn't

Rootd Modular Homes LLC is a feasibility and planning consultancy. The deliverables are the free ADU Feasibility Address Check, which reads the public record for any parcel in Ulster County's 24 municipalities, a free ADU Planning Workshop, a free Scoping Visit (on-site 3D property capture, by invitation), and a $499 Site Feasibility Study built on the Scoping Visit capture, available now by inquiry. The address check is the front door, and everything else follows from what it turns up.

Rootd is not a builder, architect, or engineer. We don't produce stamped drawings, we don't pull permits, we don't perform boundary surveys, and we don't carry liability insurance for construction. Where the work crosses into a regulated scope, we name the right licensed professional and step back rather than pretend the scope is in-house.

The vendor-independent posture is the differentiator, and it means something specific. Rootd is not owned by, exclusive to, or paid differently by any builder, designer or factory. Rootd ranks no firm and scores no firm, and who you hire is always your decision.

Rootd also owns and holds the 3D scan of your property on your behalf rather than a builder's. A builder who sees it gets access for your project only. That is the part that keeps you in the driver's seat: the record of your site is yours to hand to whoever you choose, and no firm controls access to it.

Rootd does sometimes introduce or recommend a builder or design professional. Where that happens, Rootd may be paid a fee by that firm if you go on to hire them. That fee is flat and identical for every firm of the same kind. It does not vary with which firm you pick, or with the size or cost of your project, so it cannot move the advice. You are never obliged to use anyone Rootd puts in front of you, and plenty of people do not. Any such arrangement is disclosed to you before you decide anything.

Where we work

Ulster County, New York, and all 24 of its municipalities. That is the whole service area, deliberately. The free address check reads the adopted code for every one of those municipalities, and Rootd does not take paid work where the check cannot already answer for the parcel. The county comes first, the service area follows it. Requests from outside Ulster are welcome and we'll tell you honestly that we are not there yet.

How to get started

Start with the free address check. It takes about a minute, it reads the zoning law your municipality has actually adopted along with the county records for your parcel, and it gives you five findings with a source behind each one. Most people find it answers more than they expected and leaves two or three things genuinely open. If you would rather talk it through, the workshop is an hour on Google Meet, free, and booked one household at a time so the session is entirely about your parcel. Run the check before we meet: the report it gives you is what we work from. If you already know your parcel, the free Scoping Visit is a 3D capture of your property, by invitation. And when you want the open questions closed and the answer in writing, that is the $499 Site Feasibility Study.