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After several months of work, the Lexington Planning Commission has completed a final draft of an ordinance that would allow accessory dwelling units in detached structures within city limits, spending time in their Aug. 24 and Sept. 14 meetings finalizing the details of the ordinance.
The Planning Commission began working on the ordinance back in January, and over the course of more than a dozen regular business meetings worked out details of the ordinance, which will now be advertised for a public hearing at the Commission’s Oct. 12 meeting.
Accessory dwelling units are independent dwellings, complete with their own kitchen and bathrooms and can be either in separate structures from the main building on a property, or within the main building.
The city currently allows interior accessory dwellings – or accessory apartments as they are currently defined within the city code – by right in all of the city’s residential zoning districts and the C-1 commercial zoning district, but does not currently allow such dwellings in buildings that are not attached to the main structure.
The purpose of the ordinance is to “provide additional housing options” for city residents in a variety of ways, as laid out in the ordinance’s purpose statement. They can “benefit households with changing family structures” and “generate supplemental income to homeowners, helping increase housing affordability for renters and owners alike.”
The new ordinance sets design standards for both types of accessory dwellings, which will be defined as “attached” and “detached” accessory dwelling units. Attached units will remain by-right in the districts where they are currently allowed, while detached dwelling units will be permitted only in residential zoning districts with a conditional use permit.
One of the points of discussion at the Aug. 24 Planning Commission meeting was about how many people should be allowed to reside within an accessory dwelling unit, whether attached or detached. In many of the ordinances from other localities that the Commission referenced when drafting the ordinance, if a maximum occupancy was set, it was set at either two or three people. Several members of the Commission advocated for three to allow small families (parents and a young child) or possibly an elderly couple and a live-in health care provider to be able to use an accessory dwelling. Others thought it should be set at two people.
“If you’re getting as many as three people in an accessory dwelling unit, you should subdivide the property and really have two houses rather than doing an ADU,” said Commission member Leslie Straughan. “An ADU is meant for a small unit and I think getting more than two people is not really what we’re looking for in an ADU.”
The Commission ultimately agreed to set the maximum occupancy for both attached and detached accessory dwellings at two people, though the members did acknowledge that they could reconsider that number depending on feedback from the public.
Discussion about setbacks for new structures for detached ADUs in the R-1 and R-2 districts occurred at the Sept. 14 meeting. The setbacks for the side property line in both districts will be the same for accessory dwelling units as for any accessory structure: 10 feet in R-1 and 15 feet in R-2. For the rear property setbacks, accessory dwellings will need to be 15 feet from the property line in R-1 and 20 feet away in R-2. The one exception is if the rear property line borders an alleyway, in which case the rear setback in both districts is 10 feet.
Other general design standards for accessory dwellings include no more than one ADU per parcel, ADUs must comply with all applicable building code regulations, the owner of the primary structure or lot “shall be the occupant of the principal dwelling or of the accessory dwelling unit” and the separate sale of an accessory dwelling is not permitted.
Parking requirements for accessory dwelling units are determined by the number of spaces that exist prior to the issuance of a permit for the dwelling. If no spaces exist prior to the permit being issued, one off-street space shall be created for the unit unless the applicant can demonstrate that “adequate on-street parking exists on the block on which the main dwelling is located.” In that case, a new space may not be required. If one or two spaces already exist, all of them must be maintained and if more than two spaces already exist, at least two of them shall be maintained.
For attached accessory dwellings, the gross floor area may not exceed 50 percent of the floor area of the principal structure in which it is located. If the entrance to the accessory dwelling is above the first floor, exterior stairs to that entrance are not permitted on the side of the lot fronting the street. Such stairs may be allowed on the side of a lot facing an alley, at the zoning administrator’s discretion. For detached units, the gross floor area can’t exceed 60 percent of the gross floor area of the primary dwelling, or more than 1,000 square feet in total. In the case of smaller primary dwellings, the accessory unit can be at least 600 square feet in total and “may be smaller at the property owner’s discretion.” The height of a detached accessory dwelling can’t be more than 25 feet or two stories.
Throughout the process, there was a fair bit of discussion regarding standards for nonconforming structures – structures that don’t meet the city’s current zoning ordinances in some way, but existed prior to those ordinances being put in place – that the property owner may wish to turn into an accessory dwelling.
The first standard is that the nonconformity of the structure cannot be made worse by turning it into an accessory dwelling and that the maximum square footage of the accessory dwelling can’t “exceed that of the main dwelling.”
One of the primary concerns for members of the Commission was nonconforming structures that are nonconforming in regard to setback requirements. Two standards were drafted for those structures, the first being that exterior doors must be” at least five feet from the property line adjacent to an alley or side street” and “at least 10 feet from the property line in all other cases.” The other is that any bay window encroachments or HVAC/ mechanical units must be at least five feet from the property line, unless on the side of a building that faces an alley.
A public hearing on the ordinance will be held at the Planning Commission’s Oct. 12 meeting. After the hearing, the Commission will either make further amendments to the ordinance based on the public’s feedback or vote on whether to send it to the Lexington City Council as written.
