Agenda - Planning Commission - 12/03/2015

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• The ADU may not be allowed to have its entrance door facing the street. • The part of the lot containing the ADU can- not be carved off and sold as a separate lot. • If the tiny house can meet these require- ments, it may be acceptable as an ADU, even if it would not be approved as a pri- mary home on the same lot. In some cases, however, ordinances that allow detached ADUs limit them to existing structures like carriage houses, garages, or barns, which would prohibit tiny -house ADUs. Finally, it is important to realize that most communities apply the same building, founda- tion, and utility requirements to ADUs that they do to primary structures. So if the question is, "can I park my tiny house in my parents' backyard and live in it without installing a foun- dation or hooking up to utilities?" the answer is probably no. Long-term occupancy of a rec- reational vehicle in a residential zone district (say, for more than 3o days) is usually illegal regardless of whether you have the property owner's consent or you are related to them. So tiny -house owners need to be thoughtful about where they intend to install the unit, and need to read the zoning ordi- nance carefully to ensure it is allowed in the area where they want to live. The good news (for planners) is that it is fairly easy to review the existing zoning code and see whether the code permits tiny houses as primary units or ADUs in those locations where the community wants to allow them. Planners might also want to promote more permissive regulations if the community is ready to remove a poten- tial housing barrier. OTHER POTENTIAL BARRIERS OK. So you have decided that your community wants to allow long-term occupancy of a tiny house, and you have modified the zoning ordi- nance to clarify where they are allowed. There are still three other potential barriers to think about. First, unless you want to install the tiny house in a very rural area, the parcel of land where the tiny house will be located gener- ally needs to be a subdivided lot. Subdivision regulations ensure that each parcel of land that will be developed with something other than open space or agriculture has access to a street and has utilities in place (if utilities are required in that location). This could be an is- sue if the tiny -house owner wants to buy s,000 This tiny house, with a dwelling unit. bathroom Tiny -house owners need to be thoughtful about where they intend to install the unit, and need to read the zoning ordinance carefully to ensure it is allowed in the area where they want to live. square feet of land from a property owner—just enough to accommodate the tiny house and a "livin' small" lifestyle—but the subdivision regulations require a minimum lot size of5,000 square feet. Or it could be an issue if the tiny house must be connected to utilities but the land in question does not yet have utilities in place to connect to. Second, the community should probably advise the tiny -house owner to check that private restrictive covenants attached to the land do not prohibit tiny houses in that area. Again, tiny house will probably not be listed by name, but it is not uncommon to find private covenants that contain minimum house size requirements even if the zoning ordinance does not. While it is generally not the city or steeping loft, serves as an accessory county planner's job to check on the existence of private covenants when issuing a zoning approval or a building/installation permit, and local governments are generally not respon- sible for enforcing those covenants, advising the tiny -house owner to check on this is just good customer service. In the end, the fact that the city or county issues a permit to install a tiny house with a foundation does not protect the owner against a suit from other property owners pointing out that the tiny house does not meet restrictive covenant minimum -size requirements. Third, even if neither the zoning ordi- nance nor private restrictive covenants prohibit the tiny house because of its size, many com- munities have residential occupancy codes to prevent overcrowding. White occupancy codes vary, it is not uncommon to find a requirement that the unit contain 125 square feet of living area per occupant, or that it not contain more than two occupants per bedroom. That could be a problem if the owner intends to house his or her family of four in a qoo-square-foot tiny house, no matter how well they get along. Since occupancy of the unit may change in the future (the owner's out -of -work cousin may move in), it is hard to ensure against overcrowding when the installation permit is issued, but making the owner aware of these requirements is good customer service. WHAT ABOUT ATINY HOUSE COMMUNITY? What about a whole group of folks (or a devel- oper) who want to create an entire neighbor- ZONINGPRACTICE 11.15 AMERICAN PLANNING ASSOCIATION I page 5