Planning Commission Regular Meeting/Work Session

James FeatherIt's been moved and seconded to initiate these changes. Any further discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Passes unanimously. Thank you. Next order of business is items requiring a public hearing. hearing this evening so we'll recess our regular meeting and go into our work session we have two items this evening the first is a discussion on potential zoning text amendments regarding detached accessory dwelling units we welcome mr foreman back well

Eric Formanstaffthank you very much so tonight we are talking about potential zoning text amendments that would permit detached accessory dwelling units or ADUs in Fairfax City. We've held a few meetings on the topic of ADUs with various amounts of detail. Last year, we held work sessions with Planning Commission and with City Council where we discussed accessory dwelling units in general. And also where we focused on the topic of detached accessory dwelling units. At the conclusion of a City Council work session in the fall, Council asks staff to draft potential amendments to modify our existing ADU standards in order to permit detached units in the city. And that's what we're focusing on tonight, focusing specifically on potential amendment details for detached accessory dwelling units.

so that we're discussing that draft tonight you have the full amendment draft in your packets now accessory dwelling units didn't just pop up out of last year's work sessions the comprehensive plan references adus as a potential way to as it says to support a wide range of of housing types. And it recommends, like it says here, to research expanding ADUs, and this last phrase is important, while ensuring that they do not negatively impact the surrounding neighborhood. And again, that's an action from the comprehensive plan. And when reviewing options at those earlier work sessions, Both Planning Commission and City Council recognize the importance of guardrails to reduce these negative impacts to surrounding properties,

and particularly regarding height, regarding setbacks, and regarding parking. And like I mentioned, Council asked staff to bring back a draft ordinance with details that would put this all in motion. Now, as you may know, accessory dwelling units are currently allowed in the city under certain circumstances. Now, we won't go through them all in detail tonight, but it's helpful to look at some of the more significant standards, and this one at the top here is the big one. Accessory dwelling units currently need to be attached or within the home itself, so attached rather than detached, rather than standalone units. So there are also size standards, and in addition to that, there's some operational standards for accessory dwelling units in the zoning ordinance,

and standards that apply to all properties or to all accessory structures, so things like lot coverage and building coverage. And there's also a parking standard that you see down here, and we'll talk about that in a little bit more detail later tonight. and before we get into some of the details on things like height or measurements I think it's helpful just to have some quick visual examples of detached ad use and I know we've been over this before but I think it's helpful just to keep in mind what these kinds of structures can actually look like so most accessory dwelling units are a few hundred square feet now beyond be a great deal of variety so just looking at these examples here we see that some of them

But there are actually separate provisions for affordable dwelling units. And you see this here on the right. So this section was added as part of the Affordable Dwelling Unit Ordinance back in 2020. And as you can see here, these affordable dwelling provisions provide for slightly reduced setbacks. And the rationale here is to provide some extra flexibility, but still without overly impacting the surrounding neighborhood. And the reason I'm showing this here is that for this accessory dwelling unit draft, what staff recommends here is using setbacks that correspond to these affordable dwelling unit provisions. And really for the same reason. It's that balancing. It's a way to balance that flexibility to give some preference to accessory dwelling units,

draft recommendation for detached accessory dwelling units for adus and again this mirrors the existing standard in the ordinance for affordable dwelling unit setbacks for single And again, this recognizes that accessory dwelling units have similar levels of intensity as other dwellings. It's a dwelling. Somebody lives there. Somebody occupies it during the night and so on. But it provides more flexibility by permitting these structures to be closer to the lot line than the main house. So trying to balance that, trying to balance a little bit extra flexibility with, again, preserving the neighborhood character. So we can see what that means when it comes to ADU placements. We can see it in these kind of charts again.

This is the same sample house. So in this hypothetical scenario, so based on the draft setbacks that we had just talked about, an accessory dwelling unit could go anywhere within this unshaded area. So it could go here or here or here or a bunch of other locations as long as it's within this unshaded area, that setback zone that's in green here. This little box here, this indicates a 450 square foot ADU. That's not an uncommon size for an accessory dwelling unit. And like it says at the bottom here, the intent here, again, is balance. It's to balance that balance between property owner flexibility and neighborhood impact. At the fall work session, City Council had mentioned that detached accessory dwelling units,

Right. We have looked at other jurisdictions. jurisdictions, so you all have an Excel sheet of, I think, five other jurisdictions in the Washington area that compares them. The two jurisdictions around here that have had detached ADUs for the longest are Arlington and Alexandria, and I have looked at all of the permitted detached units from those jurisdictions. Really, the thing that jumped out at me with those the most is the proportion of new housing units that are built with accessory dwelling units. And that gets to that issue of whether we want to maximize, like I said, maximize that new house footprint plus an ADU or not. So that is a real issue and that's one of the reasons for the 20-foot rear setback.

Yeah, and that's really the question for a planning commission right now, is, you know, whether that variable setback, you know, would really be in the best interest. You know, the reason we're recommending that is there seems Commission and among city council for going forward with these detached accessory dwelling units and for really promoting them as an alternative. But really recognizing that those guardrails are important. So we are giving a little bit more flexibility to this, but not extremely so. So another factor is that the height regulations do stipulate that accessory dwelling units cannot be, in these draft regulations, cannot be as tall as houses typically are. So it might be a little bit closer to the lot line, but

there would not be the possibility of a full two story or a three story detached accessory dwelling unit. where there would be the possibility of a two or three-story addition to a house. So that's another justification for having a slightly different setback for accessory dwelling units as opposed to the main house.

not short-term rentals because short-term rentals are not permitted in the city. But as far as who the and short-term rentals being like airbnbs for instance but as far as who it is who is actually living in detached accessory dwelling units whether the people who are interested in it in the city or elsewhere in the region we just don't know you know you hear a lot about having family members live in there you know whether an elderly relative or an elderly person's adult children or whatever out these units as additional income for the homeowner. We have no way of knowing where the chips fall as far as what ends up being the most popular tenancy.

Okay. Moving on to height. Height is really the other very significant physical standard. So there was a good amount of discussion on height standards at the work sessions, both the Planning Commission and City Council. That Greenbrier example, of course, comes up. The main issue really being the implication for neighboring properties, and specifically regarding privacy, regarding looming. There seemed to be a sensitivity at the work sessions, both from the Commission and from City Council, regarding tall structures. Again, some examples from the city, some examples from nearby. Without any specific standards in the ADU ordinance, detached accessory dwelling units could be as tall as the zoning district allows.

So were you thinking of no subterranean living spaces for detached accessory dwelling units?

There are a few other things that kind of go into the measurements of trying to keep accessory dwelling units accessory to the main house, which means much smaller than the main house. So there's the footprint regulation. There's the square footage standard, where the square footage can't exceed 35% of the house's square footage, and there's a maximum of two bedrooms. so all of those things combined try to keep that as accessory as as possible

this is what helps prevent accessory structures from overwhelming the lot or overwhelming the main house. So we do have standards regarding the size of ADUs right now. And keep in mind that we do permit attached accessory dwelling units. So that's what these standards refer to. So that's the 35% that I had mentioned a little bit earlier that an ADU must say under 35% of the house's square footage. And again, that's to maintain that accessory nature of accessory dwellings. Same thing can be applied to detached accessory dwelling units. So the example on the right, and I do realize that in this example that the ADU seems a little bit taller than the house. But again, this is like that early image without a driveway.

coverage the combined footprint of these structures can't exceed 30% of the combined area of that green overlay so that that is that that's what that means and a visual representation. The reason for this is to help maintain, again, that neighborhood character of having backyards that are largely open and unobstructed, like it says in the zoning ordinance. There are also general building coverage and lot coverage standards. You see these down here on the chart in the bottom. So these apply to all properties, not just with accessory dwelling units, not just with accessory structures. tell these again are all interrelated each addresses a specific issue this draft ordinance proposes keeping all of these standards intact so we can move on

okay parking so it parking tends to be a visible issue in communities with accessory dwelling units neighbors tend to be concerned about without excess parking loads from ADUs. And if you recall from our work session, our zoning ordinance does have a current standard for accessory dwelling unit parking, and you see it here. It says that an ADU, the foreign ADU, no more than two vehicles used by those residents are allowed. The way this is written, I mean, this is challenging to enforce, and that's being generous. I mean, this is unenforceable, really. write a parking standard. In our work sessions, the planning commission and city council were interested in exploring a different approach to ADU parking.

but still to guard against parking shortfalls where they could be problematic. So you can think of that image we showed earlier where we have a house that does not have any off-street parking. of house were to have an accessory dwelling unit then that house would have to be brought up to to standards so um not and and i i should mention that this is not requiring dedicated adu spaces this is just parking spaces in general so one more detailed issue here and we had talked about this at our last work session about how to potentially deal with the conversion of existing structures to accessory dwelling units and particularly existing structures that do not meet whatever standards are in place for adus

or the same bedrooms or the same kind of arrangement if it was just attached to the house as opposed to being detached. So, again, just trying to thread the needle there, come up with a way to take care of some of the concerns as far as parking, but not to trigger something that might be onerous to the point of discouraging detached accessory dwelling units in favor of something else just to evade a parking requirement.

Right. No, I mean, you know, we'd love to get more feedback, more guidance. I mean, that's the reason for holding this work session. So we do have a work session scheduled with city council next month, and obviously if planning commission, if city council are interested in pursuing amendments, about detached accessory dwelling units there'll be additional meetings as we go along as well so glad to take I don't I don't mean to wrap it up early I'm glad to take more more guidance and more discussion and we can go back to any of these slides as well so

From a detached accessory dwelling unit standpoint, this is as enforceable as it could be. And really the issue is any new structure that's built will need a building permit. But converting an existing structure, it's the utilities. As you know, that's the big issue, but that's usually not something that can be done that a homeowner could do themselves. So very few people are going to add water and sewer to a shed without the city knowing. So from a detached standpoint, this is enforceable. the attached ADUs a little bit less so because that's those are changes that can always happen within a house and undoubtedly our city has a whole lot of attached accessory dwelling units that are not known for that exact reason the