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After a final round of discussion on the occupancy limits in the proposed ordinance on accessory dwelling units, Lexington City Council last Thursday approved the ordinance with the amendments proposed from the Jan. 17 work session, setting the maximum occupancy for ADUs at two people.
Following discussion at Council’s Feb. 1 meeting, Council member Nicholas Betts provided proposed language prior to last Thursday’s meeting which would set occupancy for an attached ADU at two persons and occupancy for a detached ADU at “two adults and two minor children in any ADU-detached with two or more bedrooms.”
The goal of the amendment to the language would be to allow small families to live in detached accessory dwellings.
Council member Leslie Straughan, who serves as Council’s liaison to the Planning Commission, spoke to the intent of the ordinance and the reason occupancy was set at two people.
“Planning Commission allowed for more lenient or reduced setbacks, because an ADU is supposed to be a less intensive use than a primary residence,” she said. “As noted in the definition, an ADU is supposed to be ‘incidental and subordinate to the primary structure,’ and that’s meant in both size and activity.”
She also raised several concerns about potentially allowing more than two people in ADUs, including concerns over parking (the ordinance allows for one parking space per ADU, but an ADU with four people could house up to four drivers) and the fact that the city’s R-2 zoning districts do not allow two family dwellings, which would create “an inconsistency and potential loophole with our current zoning.” She also argued that allowing four people in an ADU would create “a major hurdle for nonconforming structures to become ADUs” since non-conforming structures, while still requiring a conditional use permit, are not required to meet the same setback, size, or height requirements as newly built ADUs under the ordinance.
Straughan also cited housing data collected for the city’s comprehensive plan in 2016, which found that the average household size in Lexington is 1.9 people and that nearly half of the households in the city consist of one person. The data also showed that 6.5 percent of households consisted of four or more people and 13.4 percent of households included children.
“Our situation is that more than half of our population might be in a position where they would like to downsize, so let’s provide an option to free up oversized housing so a family can have a suitable space without disrupting single-family neighborhoods,” she said. “If City Council wants to move forward with allowing families to live in ADUs, then the setbacks should be greater than that for a single-family residence, and ADUs should be prohibited in R-2 [zoning districts]. Also, the requirements for non-conforming structures should be reevaluated.
“While we made ADUs permissible through conditional use permits, I think most of Planning Commission, if not all, hope that they would become by-right uses after a test period. I don’t think we’ll ever get there if we allow four people to live in a neighbor’s backyard,” she added.
Betts replied to Straughan’s comments, noting that, while the Planning Commission did spend nearly a year drafting the ordinance, they only discussed occupancy at a few meetings. He also argued that ADUs could serve as a potential housing for families coming to the area, which would not be allowed under the current ordinance. He also pointed out that, nationally, the average household consisted of 2.5 people and the average family was 3.1 people. Given that data, Betts said, he would be willing to compromise and use the language that Planning Commission proposed, but with the occupancy set at three people.
“My understanding is that there are other cities where [the occupancy limit is] three people, so it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary to have three people,” he said. “My understanding is that Planning Commission even started by talking about three people and that was later changed. I would be willing to go away from the language that I proposed and go with three people. I cannot vote for this with only two people.”
Vice Mayor Marilyn Alexander pointed out that ADUs are just one of many potential housing opportunities that the city is looking to add in the near future.
“This is just part of the solution that we need for housing,” she said. “This is one of three or four different types of housing, so this is not the solution for all the problems that we have. There are going to be problems for a while, because housing is expensive to build and it’s going to take a while for it to be built. This just solves one part of the big scheme of problems we have in regards to elderly folks wanting to downsize. So we need to make a decision, stick with it, [and] spend a year figuring out if what we have decided to do works, then go back and tweak it in a year or two.
“I don’t think we’ll be inundated with ADUs,” she continued. “We might have two or three. So we probably just need to calm down a little bit and see how this current plan is going to work and then go back to the drawing board and make changes down the road if this isn’t working the way we intended.”
Council member Chuck Smith noted that in the Jan. 17 work session he felt that the consensus of Council was to “approve something more on the conservative side” and see how it worked going forward.
Council member David Sigler agreed that Council should pass an ordinance for ADUs to “accomplish what was in the comprehensive plan, and then reassess in a year or two.”
He then made a motion to approve the ordinance with the amendments discussed at the Jan. 17 work session, and the maximum occupancy set at two people. Straughan provided the second.
The motion passed 4-2, with Alexander, Sigler, Smith and Straughan voting in favor. Council member Charles Aligood joined Betts in voting against the motion.
