City guide
Building a backyard home in Plano
Plano calls them Backyard Cottages — and thousands of lots qualify.
What Plano allows
- Lot size
- Minimum 6,000 sq ft lot.
- Cottage size
- 400–1,100 sq ft, or 50% of the main home's habitable floor area — whichever is MORE restrictive — and not to exceed your zoning district's lot-coverage cap.
- Sale restriction
- The cottage cannot be sold separately from the main home — but there's no owner-occupancy requirement. The city's own fact sheet lists renting out the cottage, or living in it and renting the main house, as a benefit.
- Parking
- One additional off-street parking space is required.
- Placement
- Behind the main dwelling; height may not exceed the main home; architectural compatibility required; max one per lot.
The catch most people miss
Lot coverage can be the real limit, not the 1,100 sq ft formula: your house, garage, and every backyard building together are capped at a percentage of the lot that varies by zoning district (commonly 45%) — on a small lot with a one-story house, that can leave less room than the size formula alone suggests.
What it costs
The unit price you see advertised — the number on an online listing for the structure itself — is only part of the real cost: site work, utilities, permits, and delivery/crane are the rest. Check your property for a rule-based upper bound, then request help and we'll connect you with independent local professionals who can price the real number for your address.
Rules verified 2026-08-04 from City of Plano Backyard Cottage Fact Sheet. General guidance, not a determination for a specific property — zoning overlays, planned developments, and HOA/deed restrictions are address-specific.