Supes reject staff’s proposed ADU ordinance changes
Vote to carry conversation to later date passes without Manu Koenig
A discussion on updating the County of Santa Cruz’s policies around accessory dwelling units (ADUs) will continue after supervisors rejected staff’s recommendation Tuesday afternoon.
County Senior Planner Daisy Allen came to the Board with an endorsement from its Planning Commission, as more than two months before the body unanimously adopted the ordinance that would modify the county code.
Allen explained that the changes were suggested with three goals in mind: bringing the code to compliance with the January 2020 California Department of Housing and Community Development ADU Handbook, tidying up the wording to clear any confusion for applicants and staff and adding protections for residents who found themselves in special circumstances such as the CZU Lightning Complex fire survivors.
Proposed ideas that would bring the code up to date with the handbook included calculating ADU square footage on habitable square footage and removing the stipulation of public improvements — such as previous requirements to fix sidewalks or carry out frontage improvements as a condition of approval — among others, Allen explained.
After a discussion about those who suffered homelessness and had to rebuild after the fire last year, Allen highlighted changes that would allow the county to offer even more than the state minimum such as allowing a second driveway to access an ADU without a Department of Public Works special review. When it came to fire survivors specifically, the ordinance as drafted permits landowners to build an ADU before rebuilding their primary dwelling.
‘Striking a balance’
However, after Allen’s presentation, supervisors offered their concerns around the proposed language. Supervisor Manu Koenig said that he had heard from constituents about the idea of allowing multiple ADUs on large parcels and two-story ADUs. Generally, he was supportive of the ordinance as he felt it would help incentivize property owners to
build desperately needed ADUs and JADUs, or junior ADUs.
“All of this will really liberalize the code and allow for a lot more construction,” Koenig said, listing the now state-required concept of eliminating discretionary review when it comes to ADUs and JADUs as one example.
Supervisors Ryan Coonerty and Zach Friend, however, requested staff come back with clarity around the proposals to eliminate owner-occupancy requirements, authorize residents to build conversion ADUs with the same footprint and forbid subjective design standards.
Coonerty feared that not requiring the property owner to live either in the primary residence or the ADU would turn homes into duplexes, eroding public support for ADUs through absentee landlords or investors and lower the chances of ownership for first-time homebuyers who would then be competing with investors.
“It may create some additional rental stock but it does put burdens on firsttime home buyers,” he said.
On the contrary, Koenig added, the local home market is already far out of reach for most first-time buyers.
“The benefit is in creating more rental housing in some of these units even if that does mean they become investor-owned,” he said. “There is no creating affordable first-time home buyer options by preventing investors from buying units.”
Friend asked Allen to come back with language that stated conversion ADUs would need to be built with the same building envelope; in other words, the building would have the same footprint but could not increase by more than 150 square feet. Additionally, he was all for alleviating requirements around design to bring more prefabricated or similar ADUs into the region. However, having no design standards at all does not strike the desired balance between adding more units to the county’s housing stock and maintaining aesthetics.
“What I’m trying to get is to a policy place where this doesn’t hold up projects but we also don’t end up with something where an entire neighborhood is up in arms and a neighborhood has to deal with that because they built something that doesn’t look anything like it would normally belong in that neighborhood,” the supervisor said.
Allen said the board has the option to create a set of objective standards that staff members in the Building Division reviewing ADU plans can just check off one by one.
“It has to be seen or not seen on the building plans very clearly,” she said. “Something requiring an extra meeting with development review staff or a consultation (of sorts) starts to, perhaps, not be in alignment with state law. It also adds to the (timeline) of the project.”
Koenig voiced the sole dissenting vote against staff coming back with points of clarity or changed language in regard to his colleagues’ worries that will be reflected on a clean copy of the draft. The item was continued to a date uncertain.