Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) go by several names, granny flats, backyard cottages, mother-in-law apartments, the list goes on. ADUs are one of the most controversial topics Raleigh’s City Council is dealing with. It’s also an issue the Council has been dealing with the longest. You can learn about the previous debates and discussions around ADUs on the excellent website Raliegh Back Yard Dwellings. The website goes into detail on why ADUs created so many issues for City Council as they worked to implement the UDO, the discussions on ADUs in the Comprehensive Planning Committee, and the opinions of Council members on the issue.

As part of this blog post, I reached out to all members of City Council to get their opinions on ADUs. I will continue to update this article as those opinions come in. This post will lengthy, and will be broken up into three main parts. Facts & background, Council Members (CMs) opinions, and finally I’ll share my own opinion.

This article will be updated by 2 PM Thursday, May 24th with more details, as well as the result of the May 23rd Growth and Natural Resources committee vote. 

What is an Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU), and what’s the controversy?

The simplest definition for an ADU is basically a second miniature house that is detached from the larger main house on a lot. For something to be considered a habitable dwelling it must have a space to sleep (bedroom), a space to use the bathroom, and a place to prepare and eat food (kitchen). This means it must be a fully enclosed, water sealed space, with electricity, water, and sewer hookups. ADUs range in size from several hundred square feet, to around a maximum of 800-900 square feet (depending on city regulations). The buildings are always smaller than the main house on the lot, and by definition must be detached from the main home as well. Below are some examples of cities similar to Raleigh that do allow ADUs taken from a City of Raleigh report linked by Raleigh Back Yard Dwellings.

ADUs were outlawed by the City of Raleigh in the 1970s. The commonly pointed to the reason for ADUs being banned were issues with absentee landlords. ADUs were located at the time in neighborhoods near downtown Raleigh such as Boylan Heights, Cameron Park, and others. This was also a time where housing near downtown was typically occupied by renters with very little income. With housing near downtown bringing in little rental income, and housing values also low, funds were not readily available by homeowners to properly maintain their dwellings. Thus a new movement arose to advocate for City Council to ban construction of additional ADUs. The ban passed, and building new ADUs in Raleigh has been illegal ever since.

Controversy

The current board docs agenda has a detailed memo from planning on what GNR is considering for its recommendation on ADUs. It’s not a long document and you’re encouraged to browse through it. The memo outlines proposed guidelines in several areas. Below is an excerpt from the linked memo detailing setbacks, height restrictions, vehicular access, ADU size restrictions, and restrictions on the number of people living in the unit.

The memo also places two other restrictions on ADUs in Raleigh. First, you may one have ONE ADU per lot, regardless of the underlying zoning density. The BIGGEST ISSUE HOWEVER IS THE REQUIREMENT FOR AN ADOD OR ACCESSORY DWELLING OVERLAY DISTRICT.

Accessory Dwelling Overlay District (-ADOD)

For ADU’s the main political football is the requirement for an overlay district before a property owner could obtain the necessary permits to build an ADU. The way overlay districts typically work in Raleigh is a neighborhood petitions City Council to establish an overlay covering a specific purpose for their neighborhood. Signatures are gathered in the area for the overlay to see if residents support the overlay or not. If 51% of property owners sign the petition in favor, it goes to City Council for approval and then through the rezoning process. There are mainly two types of overlays. The historic preservation overlays that are handled by Raleigh’s Historic Development Commission (RHDC) are referred to as HOD-G or HOD-S (General or Street Side). The other main type is handled by the general planning department and called Neighborhood Conversation Overlay Districts or NCODs for short. NCODs focus on things like lot sizes, and setbacks.

There are a few things that are tricky about the Accessory Dwelling Overlay District (-ADOD). The first problem is it’s very unclear how the ADOD would work. The memo outlines the following for the ADOD.

1. The minimum area for establishing an ADOD would be 15 contiguous acres.

That’s it, that’s all we really know for sure about the ADOD. We can assume that within the area being considered for the overlay that someone will have to go to property owners in the neighborhood to collect signatures and that the majority (51%) of the neighborhood must indicate they are FOR the ADOD overlay before City Council will accept the petition. There has been chatter from some Council Members (CMs) that instead of following the NCOD or HOD process which requires a full rezoning to go through, the ADOD would instead follow rules similar to the sidewalk petition. However, even those rules seem up in the air. To complicate matters, even the staff recommendations in the memo are not entirely up-to-date as CM Mendell notified me on Facebook the other week.

Council Member’s Opinions

Last week, Raleighite reached out to all members of City Council to get their opinions on both the water-rate increase and the ADU overlay requirement. I’ll link to each CM’s response in the next update, but to keep this article well formatted I’ve simplified the responses to a table. The article will be updated by Thursday 2 PM May 24th with the exact responses, and the action the Growth and Natural Resources Committee took. To avoid confusion I’m only focusing on the ADU overlay requirement response for this story. The water-rate increase will be for a future post (although you can get that information from the full responses once they’re posted).

* CM Cox responded he would post his view on his blog, which is what the link for his row points to. 

CM David Cox has been polling people online about their thoughts around the ADU overlay. From the initial poll CM Cox posted, the far majority opposed requiring an ADU overlay as part of the solution for allowing ADUs to be built.  CM Cox then took a second poll online to see if citizens would support an overlay option that allowed neighborhoods to opt-out of having ADUs in their area. This second poll split the vote. I’ll go into detail on my reason for my votes in the next section.

Opinion

In my opinion, I do not believe an ADU overlay should be part of the solution for allowing this type of housing in Raleigh. The reasons for the 1970s ban of ADUs in Raleigh were mainly caused by depressed property values around the downtown Raleigh area. Since that time we’ve seen property values near Raleigh’s center go up dramatically, and the only types of new housing constructed near downtown have been expensive townhouses, and high rise condos and apartments.

The Affordable Housing report released by the Wake County Commissioners highlights ADUs are one of many tools recommended to addresses the affordable housing issue. There is no silver bullet solution to Raleigh’s affordable housing problem, but we should be utilizing all tools that can help chip away at the issue. ADUs represent one of those tools.

By using an ADU overlay we would be adding another layer of complexity to making this housing available. That is unacceptable to me for a City Council that nearly all ran last year on a platform of ensuring affordable housing be available to citizens. If City Council members want to stick to the promises that got them into office, they need to make sure they’re using these options that show promise at tackling our city’s issue of generating additional housing inventory.

I’ve heard several CMs express doubts that ADUs will address affordable housing in a meaningful way, to them I ask, “How do you see ADUs driving up the cost of housing then?”. Sure, an ADU will increase property value and thus drive up taxes for the property owner. However, that ADU also provides a potential income resource so the property owner can make ends meet on their mortgage to make it more affordable. Someone living in an ADU in a desirable area would pay more to live there, true. However, it also prevents someone from spreading out to cheaper areas when they can’t find housing at their price point where they’d like. An ADU provides an opportunity for housing at multiple price points.

Now, why did I vote in CM Cox’s poll to allow for an “opt-out” overlay for neighborhoods? The reason is simple. This would give us a good picture where residents are not interested in making affordable housing solutions available. That could be because those areas are already overcrowded, or it could be the residents are simply not interested in seeing new residents move to their area. Regardless, I think an opt-out overlay would provide a way to satisfy nay-sayers of providing more housing in Raleigh, and place the burden on them as well. Afterall, shouldn’t those who are keeping a tool that could help give more people a place to live be the ones to have to do the work?