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r¡ A~2.0 Michael B. Bursak Attorney al Law P.O. Box 418 Redwood City CA 94064 Phooe: (650) 368-ZO23 Pax: 368-2024 E-mail: m.iJursaIcOpIcbdl.DCt April 5, 2000 Tom Passanisi REDWOOD CITY PLANNING & REDEVELOPMENT 1017 Middletield Road Redwood Ci~y, CA 94063 Via Pax to: "80-0128 Dear Tom: I noticed that the City Council may discuss garage conversions as part of its discussion ot accessory dwellings on 2/28/00. I would like to have my comments as expressed herein be brought to the at tention ot the Council. I consider garage conversions to be a special class of accessory dwelling. Special, in that the basic structure already exists and, after some. mostly non-structural modifications only a change ot its use is proposed. This is a very different situation than might be the case it a homeo~er had elected to build an accessory building from the ground up. It has been my experience that a two car garage generally will have a footprint of about 20 feet by 20 feet, 400 square feet. It there is a full sized, convertible second floor space, the total, already existing potential dwelling space will then be about 800 square feet. I believe tha~ any ordinance concerning conversion of garages to.dwelling spaces should allow for full use ot any such existing space. To further put this into perspective, a two car garage measuring only 18x18 has a 324 square foot footprint and will probably be considered in substantial compliance with a. 640 square foot limit after conversion, even if there is a second floor to it which will double the available dwelling space (to 648 square feet). Thus, the difference between garag~8 of 640 square feet and 800 square teet only comes down to one being 2 feet lonqer than the other on each wall's length. At the planning commission/housing and human concerns committee joint hearing on t~is topic, a maximum size for acces8ory dwelling units was discussed and, as I now recall, voted on by only the planning commission. The result of the vote was to accept 640 square teet as the maximum size allowable for an accessory dwelling unit. Good reasons were put forth for ~his limitation. And, in general, I agree with them all. However, in the case of the conversion ot an existing garage, such reasons should be secondary to allowing the homeowner to fully utilize the existing Structure (if all other requirements are met), even if the 640 foot maximum is, within reasonable limits, exceeded. At last night's planning commission meeting, several members of the housing and human concerns conmittee expressed their feeling that they had not been listened to at our joint meeting. At the time ot. our joint meeting, I thought they were relegated to a very secondary role and prevented trom contributing fully, so I was not surprised when I heard of