Garage-Apartment Change Wins Final OK

Homeowners won — and absentee landlords lost — when a zoning reform passed into law Monday night.

The zoning reform is designed to make it easier for homeowners to build basement, attic and garage apartments. The Board of Alders passed it during a meeting in City Hall — after a debate about whether or not the newly loosened zoning law is still too tight. And whether it should affect just owner-occupied buildings.

Alders voted unanimously in support of a two-pronged zoning code rewrite that makes accessory dwelling units (ADUs) for owner-occupants as of right in residential districts across the city. The update also reduces the minimum lot size in residential zones citywide to 4,000 square feet.

The ADU portion of the ordinance amendment means that New Haveners who live in single-family, two-family, or three-family buildings that they own can convert existing attic, basement, or garage space into a legal apartment without first having to go through the city’s Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA), and without having to add an additional on-site parking space.

Those new apartments must still comply with city building, health and safety codes, as well as with other existing zoning requirements around such issues as height, floor area, and setbacks.

East Rock Alder and Legislation Committee Chair Charles Decker described Monday’s zoning reform vote as the board’s ​“best opportunity yet” to act on some of the recommendations included in the Affordable Housing Task Force report that came out back in January 2019.

“If we adopt these changes, we can remove barriers to small-scale housing development and strike a blow against exclusionary zoning policies that have constricted the development of affordable housing for too long,” he said.

ADU and minimum lot size changes do not mandate the development of affordable housing, he noted. They do encourage it by clearing away previously existing zoning impediments.

“We will never solve the city’s affordable housing crisis if the only new units that are being built are in luxury high rise developments downtown or luxury condos in East Rock,” Decker said.

City Plan Department Aicha Woods agreed. Over the past four months of public hearings and debate about the ADU ordinance amendment, Woods has consistently described the zoning rewrite as modest — as unlikely to spur a sudden glut of new housing construction across the city.

After Monday night’s vote, Woods said that the impact will be most pronounced for those have a little too much space in their house but still want to stay put. The new income stream available through an attic, basement or garage apartment should help with exactly that.

“It helps to preserve homeownership, and it also keeps local dollars being invested in local properties,” Woods said.

She noted that easing the rules around ADUs provides work opportunities for small contractors. In California, she said, there’s ​“a whole cottage industry” geared specifically to helping people build out ADUs.

The local law comes five months after the passage of a state law that permits ADUs as of right in most towns and cities across Connecticut.

It’s also one of two recently introduced local zoning updates designed to promote the creation of more affordable housing in town. The second, a proposed ​“inclusionary zoning” law, will next be heard by the Legislation Committee before heading to the full Board of Alders for a final vote.

Owner-Occupancy Limit Too Tight?

Before Monday night’s unanimous vote, Downtown/Yale Alder Eli Sabin pushed back on the final version of the ADU bill. He argued it didn’t go far enough in making it easy for more people to build attic, basement and garage apartments.

What sparked the brief legislative debate was an amendment introduced by Decker that limited as-of-right ADU conversions to owner-occupants only.

The original version of the bill had made the easier ADU conversion process available to a ​“property owner or a member of his/her extended family [who] lives on the property.” The final version scrapped the extended family member provision.

Sabin urged his colleagues to leave in the allowance for streamlined ADUs at a property where an owner’s family member lives.

The original language casts a broader net for new ADUs, he said, while still ensuring that ​“megalandlords” are not taking advantage of the zoning update’s perks.

The Affordable Housing Task Force report said that the city needs 25,000 new housing units, he said, including 11,000 for people making under 30 percent of the area median income (AMI) and 6,000 for those making between 30 and 50 percent AMI.

He also said that roughly 12,200 properties would be eligible for the easier ADU process if it remained opened to property owner relatives — and only around 8,000 would be eligible if limited to owner-occupants only.

“I think, given those numbers, we should be doing everything we can to build more housing for folks in our city.”

Sabin failed to persuade any of his colleagues against voting for the owner-occupant amendment, however. The other alders who spoke up consistently said that they wanted to make sure that homeowners — and not large-scale landlords working through limited liability companies (LLCs) — reaped the benefits of this update.

The law change ​“is creating a clear pathway for those who live in their homes to be able to apply for ADUs without having to go through the excessive measures of BZA and City Plan,” Board of Alders Majority Leader and Amity/Westville Alder Richard Furlow said.

Westville Alder Adam Marchand agreed. The owner-occupancy limit will limit the benefit of the ordinance change ​“to ordinary working people, not LLCs.”

“I am in favor,” Newhallville Alder Kimberly Edwards said. ​“I think it’s a great ordinance. We need this ordinance. And while we’d like to believe the megalandlords, the slumlords, and these LLCs won’t slip something in, I fear they will. Things slip through the cracks.” A strict owner-occupancy limit makes that less likely.