AgdaPkt 2000-02-28 - Laserfiche WebLink

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gA-~ note that both the Planning Commission and Housing and Human Concerns Committee believe that the property owner should actually reside on the property. In general, properties that are occupied by their owners tend to be better maintained, have lower occupancy and fewer street parking conflicts. b) Require a conditional use permit Issues: The City currently reviews second units at the time of a building permit application and will approve them as long as they meet all the requirements of the Accessory Dwelling Unit Ordinance. There is no notification of adjoining neighbors. A conditional use permit will require both notification of surrounding property owners within 300 ft. and a public hearing. This will put neighbors on notice that the density and appearance of the single family lot will change due to the second unit. As indicated in the attached survey, most cities require a conditional use permit in order to notify neighbors of the pending application. As required by State law, staff will have to grant the use permit if all the Ordinance requirements are met. c) Allow parking in the driveway of the main housing unit to count toward the required parking for the accessory unit as long as the parking is outside the required yard setbacks. Issues: Currently, three off-street parking spaces are required for properties with second units (two for the main unit and one for the second unit). For those homes originally built with just a one-car garage, only two parking spaces are required (one for the main unit and one for the second unit). Many interested homeowners, who wish to build second units, have been unable to do so because they could not meet the parking requirements. Many have a two-car garage, but cannot find room for the third parking space (no parking spaces are allowed in the required front yard, 15 ft. from the front property line, and the required side yards, usually 6 ft. from the side property lines). Please refer to the attached parking diagrams. One way to meet the three parking space requirement would be to count one parking space in the driveway toward the total parking requirement as long as there is room for another car to get around it and into the garage (assuming a two car garage). In other words, a car could be parked on the driveway partially in front of the garage door. A one-car garage could not meet this requirement. Currently, the City does not recognize parking in the driveway as meeting the parking requirement. A drawback of this change is the car would be visible from the street and would partially block access to the garage. Two of the total three spaces would still have to be covered either within a garage or carport. The Planning Commission and Housing and Human Concerns Committee retained all other portions of the Accessory Dwelling Unit Ordinance, i.e. the maximum size of 640 sq. ft., and conformance to the setbacks for that particular zoning district (e.g. 20 ft. rear yard and 6 ft. side yard). Other Issues There are numerous public policy issues associated with these changes. For example, should the City relax the parking requirements for accessory housing units in order to promote development of additional units? Is the public hearing requirement a disincentive to the .-.-... "~""T'