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Lexington City Council last Thursday continued its public hearing and discussion of an ordinance that would allow detached accessory dwelling units to be built within the city, with discussion primarily focused on raising the maximum occupancy requirements to allow small families to live in these accessory dwellings.
Council member Nicholas Betts first raised the issue in a work session on Jan. 17, advocating for the maximum occupancy for both attached and detached ADUs to be raised from two people – as recommended by the Planning Commission – to four. The ordinance as drafted, he said, was “antifamily” in his opinion.
At the Council meeting last Thursday, he cited several sections of the Virginia State Code regarding discriminatory housing practices.
, page B12 Virginia Code section 36-96.3, section C includes familial status, which the code defines as “one or more individuals who have not attained the age of 18 years being domiciled with a parent or other person having legal custody of such individual or individuals or the designee of such parent or other person having custody with the written permission of such parent or other person” as a criterion upon which it is unlawful to discriminate for housing standards.
He also noted that, according to the Virginia Fair Housing Office’s website, complaints about discrimination based on familial status “continue to rise.”
The ordinance as presented, he argued, was “problematic” by setting a maximum occupancy at two people. Under the ordinance, a couple with children couldn’t live in the accessory dwelling and rent out the main dwelling, while a couple or single individual could.
“This is a concern because a family who owned a residence would not have the same property rights as a single individual or couple who owned the property with both a main structure and an ADU,” he said.
Betts also noted that the city’s standards for short-term rentals set the maximum occupancy of a potential rental at two per bedroom, meaning that, since the ADU ordinance largely defers to the standards of the short-term rental ordinance for standards, a detached ADU with two bedrooms could hold up to four people for 45 days per year, but only two if rented out long-term.
“This is problematic because this does not, in my opinion, have a reasonable or rational basis in terms of density outside of the unit and/or living space per person within the unit on any given day,” he said. “If the space in an ADU and/or surrounding the unit allows for short-term rental to a family, then the space in the ADU would also be reasonably expected to be enough, in my opinion, for a long-term rental. It would not be reasonable to exclude a family from a space for 365 days or more if the same space could be rented to them for a total of 45 days without issue.”
Betts proposed amending the language to base the occupancy on the number of bedrooms.
Council member Leslie Straughan asked if the language would include distinctions for related individuals versus unrelated individuals and noted that the Planning Commission’s discussions regarding occupancy focused on setting the number at either two or three people. Planning Commission ultimately set the occupancy at two people, she said, because “these are supposed to be subordinate structure. It’s not really intended for a family to live in both structures. That would change the character of the neighborhood and that was becoming more dense than what Planning Commission was intending with this code.”
Betts cited minutes from the Planning Commission’s discussions, noting that there were members of the Commission who had argued in favor of three people, specifically a young couple with a child. He also said that none of the citizens he’d spoken to had raised any opposition to families being able to rent accessory dwellings on a longterm basis.
“I understand that it might change things, but it’s going to change things if people are doing it on a short-term basis too,” he said. “If you have a new family coming in every weekend, or you have a different group of people, those people are not going to be as tied to our community as a family living there. I think if we can allow people who are not tied to our community to come in, why not give people the right to rent to people who would like to be part of our community?
“My point is, the character of neighborhoods changes all the time, and so I don’t want to exclude or potentially discriminate against families just because it changes the character of the neighborhood because neighborhood character changes every single year,” he added.
Betts made a motion to amend the occupancy standards of the ordinance, which Council member Charles Aligood seconded. Following the discussion, Mayor Frank Friedman instructed Betts to work with city staff to draft language regarding the occupancy that could be presented to council at a future meeting. Betts agreed and withdrew the motion. - Prior to the Council’s discussion, a public hearing was held on the ordinance.
Samuel Collins, of 24 Edmondson Ave., spoke to Council, saying that, while he was in favor of auxiliary housing, he wanted to “be sure that this is not a solution looking for a problem.”
Collins said that he lives across from a property that does short-term rentals and that “at times it’s a bit like living across from Motel 6” with people coming in late at night or leaving early in the morning.
“I’m not opposed to shortterm residents, but there needs to be an infrastructure for accountability,” he said. “And if you’re providing the rules and the regulations, you also need to provide the means to enforce them – and they shouldn’t be passive.
“If we want to make progress – and clearly Lexington is a good place for that, and we should be for that, along with keeping the character of what everybody loves about Lexington – we really need to provide for the underbelly of infrastructure to be sure that there’s balance,” he added.
