WILMINGTON — Wilmington’s Land Development Code has been called the DNA of the city: it is what guides future development and sets the tone of the city. Now, changes to the code could play a role in the city’s affordable housing crisis.
For the past few years, the need for affordable housing has been a major talking point for residents and city leaders. With previous rules and regulations in place, along with the rising price of land, affordable housing has been more and more scarce. One possible solution to the affordable housing problem that Planning Director Glen Harbeck has advocated for is the use of accessory dwelling units.
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.”
These are often called ‘mother-in-law flats’ or carriage houses, but essentially, they are apartments detached from the main dwelling unit. While these do offer a solution to allow more mixed neighborhoods as well as gives residents a chance to make some additional income renting the unit out, building them in Wilmington has been somewhat difficult.
Related: Accessory dwelling units, a solution for affordable housing in your own backyard?
According to a presentation from 2019, “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 a maximum of 800-square-feet.”
With updates to the LDC, city planning staff is looking to make it a little easier to encourage ADUs.
Some of the suggested changes would include:
- Reduce the minimum required lot area
- Increase maximum size of ADU to 900 sq. ft., regardless of the size of the principal structure.
- Require ADU to meet standard accessory building setbacks
- Clarify that, if an ADU is used as a homestay, the host must reside in the principal residence
These units would be permitted in all of the residential districts as well as those zoned Urban Mixed-Use, Historic Districts, Multi-family, and more according to the LDC update.
Previous development ordinances required a lot size must be 50% larger than the minimum lot size for a district before an ADU would be permitted, a tall order in many of the city’s compacted neighborhoods, with this change it would be easier to build an ADU.
While ADUs do have support from city staff, some residents and even councilmembers have voiced concern for the units. Mayor Pro Tem Margret Haynes had reservations as to the use of ADUs. For Haynes the concern was the fact that there was no promise that people would rent these units out long-term, instead, choosing to use them as 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 in February of 2019 during another discussion on ADUs.
