WILMINGTON — Affordable housing — it’s a buzzword that can be heard at most governmental meetings in New Hanover County but yet little has been actually done to ensure residents can afford to live in the area.
With rising real estate costs, smaller homes might be more affordable to buy, but the profit might not be there for developers, but what would happen if you could cut down on costs and construct units on property already filled with a single family home? Then you would have accessory dwelling units (ADU) — and while they are already permitted in some fashion in Wilmington, City Council heard from planning staff on how ADUs could help solve part of the affordable housing crisis.
According to the American Planning Association, “An accessory dwelling unit (ADU) is a smaller, independent residential dwelling unit located on the same lot as a stand-alone (i.e., detached) single-family home.”
On Monday, City Council heard a presentation followed by a discussion on the benefits of ADUs and what the city could gain from them.
“Accessory dwelling units were identified by the affordable housing task force for the city and the county as an opportunity to expand our affordable housing stock,” Director of Planning Glenn Harbeck said.
In order to consider housing affordable, a tenant or homeowner needs to spend no more than 30-percent of their income on the home.
In Wilmington, this is a struggle, in part because in Wilmington rents are higher than the average in North Carolina, but wages are lower.
Why accessory housing?
“Before WWII, accessory housing units were as common as an automobile, a bicycle, anything else … they were extremely common items in the United States. It wasn’t until after WWII for some reason we tried to homogenize our residential areas into exclusive single-family residential areas,” Harbeck said.
Thanks to this mindset of development, it has become increasingly difficult for anyone to construct ADUs due to zoning regulations. This has to change is the city wants to utilize ADUs, he said.
According to a case study by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, “Suburbs continued to be a prevalent form of housing development throughout the 1950s and 1960s. The rapid growth of suburbs reinforced the high demand for lower-density development, and ultimately led most local jurisdictions to prohibit ADU construction. In spite of zoning restrictions, illegal construction of ADUs continued in communities where the existing housing stock was not meeting demand; San Francisco was one such community.”
For those still unsure of what exactly an ADU is, Harbeck said they go by plenty of other names including:
- Granny flats
- MED cottages
- Garage apartments/Carriage house
- Mother-in-law suites
- Backyard cottages
Some of the advantages of ADUs include:
- No land cost
- For the renter, lower rent
- For the owner, income to offset mortgage
- Graceful density, no big intrusive projects, and no big traffic
- Avoids fierce neighborhood resistance to big projects
- Promotes economic diversity
- Disperses rather than concentrates affordable housing
Urban Designer Chase Anderson explained to City Council what exactly the City’s Comprehensive Plan says about ADUs.
According to presentation, current standards for ADUs in Wilmington, if attached to the home, are allowed in the R-7 through R-20 districts (that is, in most residential-only areas). Only one ADU per lot is permitted and the entrance must be screened from the street — the size can only be at maximum 800 square feet.
If detached from the home ADUs are permitted in all residential districts. Lot sizes must be 50 percent or 5,000 square feet bigger the minimum lot size for the area; also, the ADU may not be larger than 1,200-square-feet. Setbacks vary from 5-feet to 15-feet and the ADU cannot be taller than the home.
Council members voiced their concerns with the potential of changing zoning regulations to allow for bigger ADUs and how members of the community would react to renters taking over a garage or other detached unit on neighboring properties.
It would be difficult to talk about ADUs without addressing the current debate on short-term rentals. Harbeck said that it would be important for the planning department to examine the regulations and ensure no unforeseen consequences came from allowing ADUs.
Mayor Pro Tem Margaret Haynes voiced her concern with ADUs and short-term rentals.
“I am going to be really curious to figure out how you are going to ensure that because it seems to me that you have no way to guarantee that it will increase affordable housing in any way. There’s nothing to say that 80-percent of them aren’t going to be homestays,” Haynes said.
City Council did not take any official action on the units but as the discussion on affordable housing continues, it will likely be brought back to council in the future.
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