To meet with a city planner for a free ADU consultation I need a site plan, which can be as simple as a hand drawn sketch of my residential property. But I want to be as detailed as possible, so I'm looking at free software that will allow me to come up with a detailed site plan.
Now there's plenty of free software available, but what I'm looking for is an application that won't take me a year and a day to learn! I've used Sketchup and AutoCad before but they're not the most user friendly.
I stumbled across a site called Learning Hub that reviewed the best free floor plans software for 2020. They've ranked 11 floor plan software products, here's the list:
SketchUp
AutoCAD Architecture
Civil 3D
AutoCAD LT
SmartDraw
Sweet Home 3D
Draft it
Floorplanner
RoomSketcher
PlanningWiz Floor Planner
Roomle
The web version of SketchUp is free so I'm going to use it to draw my site plan even though it's not as simple as I'd like. It's been a while since I've used it but it was Learning Hub's top pick.
I looked at a number of Learning Hub's other choices and I found them to be either too simplistic or they weren't really free, as in they give you a short trial period and then you have to buy the software, with some requiring a monthly subscription.
So off to get familiar with the web version of SketchUp and hopefully draw my site plan.
FYI here's a link to a sample site plan: https://www.sanjoseca.gov/Home/ShowDocument?id=15655
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