Seattle Sun Newspaper - Vol. 8, Issue 7, July 2004
Copyright 2004 Seattle Sun. Please feel free to use the article below in your research. Be sure to cite the Seattle Sun as your source.
POLITICALLY SPEAKING:
Where's DADU? Nickels backs off on backyard houses
By JAMES BUSH
The proposal to allow homeowners to build another house in their backyards has disappeared into the City Hall quicksand.
If anyone's waiting for Mayor Greg Nickels to forward to City Council his proposal to legalize detached accessory dwelling units (DADUs), they'll just have to keep waiting.
"There's no plan immediately for legislation on those," says Nickels spokesperson Marianne Bichsel.
"It's dead in the water right now," reports City Council member Peter Steinbrueck, whose committee would probably review the proposed legislation, if and when it arrives. "It's up to the mayor and the mayor has decided, for whatever reason right now, not to go forward with it."
The City's Department of Planning and Development has studied the issue in detail, prepared a set of fairly complex rules, and submitted its proposed legislation to Nickels.
So what's missing? Try public support.
Time for a quick review: An accessory dwelling unit (more commonly known as mother-in-law apartment) is an apartment contained within a single-family home. Seattle banned them in the 1950s and didn't legalize them until the state Legislature voted in 1993 to require all cities to do so.
Seattle's law includes a requirement that the mother-in-law apartment be contained within the single-family home. The DADU concept, then, would allow the mother-in-law apartment to be built as a separate structure on the same lot.
Why is this controversial? Well, single-family zoning has traditionally meant one house on one lot. A house containing two separate dwelling units is also known as a duplex. A house with a second dwelling structure in the backyard is also known as two houses.
Although Mayor Nickels has made it clear that his preferred use for neighborhood plans is as kindling, the neighborhood planning process did spotlight one point: people like single-family zoning.
Most of the plans protected existing single family-zoned areas and citizen planners citywide passed on proposals that would allow smaller-sized building lots or the construction of two houses on one lot.
But stopping the momentum of the DADU proposal required a little activist work. Credit Wallingford resident Gregory Hill: he not only successfully appealed the City's sadly deficient environmental determination, he went on a speaking tour of neighborhood groups to drive home his criticisms of DADUs. And he got results.
Letters opposing the DADU proposal (and suggesting possible amendments to the legislation) poured in to City Hall, even as planners were putting the finishing touches on the legislation.
Why are the neighbors scared of DADUs? Well, for starters, adding extra housing units could boost parking demand, add impervious surfaces (which increase storm runoff), eliminate many trees and reduce privacy (and increased shading) for adjacent homeowners.
But most importantly, only one substantive regulation makes homes with accessory dwelling units different from duplexes: the City's owner-occupancy requirement for accessory dwelling unit-equipped homes.
Requiring that the homeowner be a resident of a home with an accessory dwelling unit is probably the key to what keeps these units reasonably affordable. As accessory dwelling unit residents are almost as much housemates as renters, these units are often rented to family members and friends. And, as most accessory dwelling units represent a homeowner's single source of rental income, they are eager to keep the renters happy.
Mel Forde, a Wallingford homeowner who has an accessory dwelling unit (and who supports the DADU legislation), says that factor figures heavily in his rental charges. "I keep it low," he says, "because if you keep it low they won't move off."
If the City ever lifts the owner occupancy requirement for accessory dwelling units, these units will certainly become more plentiful, but they will probably become far less affordable. Hill says he requested copies of any correspondence between the mayor's office and the Department of Planning and Development concerning removing the owner-occupancy requirement.
"I was told that material was covered under executive privilege and could not be accessed by a common citizen," Hill says.
We'll worry about that issue later. For now, neighborhood activists should take note of two things: It's more than a year off, but Mayor Nickels has remembered that he has to run for reelection.
Credit Nickels with a smart move and expect the DADU proposal to remain on the back burner until, oh, mid-November of next year, following the election.
Secondly, keep in mind that Nickels has turned every department and City office into a conduit that carries information back to City Hall. Discussing your opposition to the DADU proposal at every neighborhood district council, community council and stewardship group meeting doesn't always get the news out to the general public, but it sure gets the message to the mayor.