The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
The city of Tucson is going through a process by which it will change the city code to allow Accessory Dwelling Units (ADU) on residential lots.
A residential lot is a piece of real estate with a home on it. An ADU is a small house, or casita, that is added as a sort of accessory to an existing home. It can take the form of a stand alone building, an addition or a converted garage or basement.
Currently, it is legal to add a small structure to function as “sleeping quarters,” but it may not be a functioning extra house or apartment. The defining difference is that a kitchen is not allowed. An ADU would have kitchen facilities, making it a fully functional living space.
So, how is this different from just sticking another house on the lot? ADUs will be subject to all the regulations of the home regarding setbacks, structure heights, lot coverage, etc. There are also additional constraints. For example, detached ADUs may not be built in front of a primary structure. They will also be limited to a maximum size of 1,000 square feet, and they could be smaller. The 1,000-square-foot limit insures that they stay in the realm of “accessory dwelling” to the primary residence.
Financially speaking, building an ADU on one’s property increases the property value while the cost can be recovered through rental fees. In the long term, rental fees would serve to supplement income. The presence of an ADU may make the property more attractive to buyers.
There are other benefits to the financial situation. With an ADU, an aged or disabled homeowner could supply onsite accommodations for a caregiver. A caregiver with a single client could accept living quarters as part of his or her compensation. An individual or couple who no longer needed, or wanted, a large home could move to the ADU and rent the primary residence, or offer its use to a friend or relative. An elderly parent could move in with a child’s family while maintaining some independence in a separate building. There are many options.
For a renter, an ADU provides another option for individuals or couples in that they could trade normal living space for a preferred location.
How would ADUs benefit the community? Nobody likes “sprawl.” People often speak of “infill” as a solution, but what does infill actually look like? It looks fine when it’s an apartment house downtown on some abandoned commercial property, but when it’s in an existing residential neighborhood, your neighborhood for example, not so much.
ADUs might be a way to introduce some infill to neighborhoods that would not change the character of those neighborhoods. I think this might work because the existing residents would be doing it, and they have an interest in maintaining the reason they live there in the first place.
There is always some risk in these sorts of changes. There may be unintended consequences. The best way to minimize the risk is to keep decision making in the hands of those directly affected, without undue interference. In this case, the property owner.
On the other hand, the best way to ruin the project is to allow people who will not suffer the consequences of bad ideas to institute bad ideas.
I found an example of that sort of thing in a recent article in the Arizona Daily Star. In it, a member of Tucson’s Commission on Equitable Housing and Development said, “Some communities have created incentive programs where you get some sort of subsidy or some sort of tax incentive for building an ADU with a commitment to help somebody from Section 8.”
I do not think it appropriate for the government to use this sort of program as a social engineering tool. If the homeowner wishes to rent to Section 8 (federally subsidized) tenants, that is his prerogative. The government should not use tax money to influence him one way or the other.
Our commissioner also stated, “I’m really interested in trying to steer the city to create a program like that where we can really also have as a goal the creation of mixed-income communities.”
I’m not sure what “mixed-income communities” are, other than the plain English understanding of the words. Are they something that actually exists in nature? I only ask because I’ve never seen a sign promoting a housing development that said, “Luxury homes from the $500,000s with many $100,000 starter homes sprinkled among them!”
I don’t know where the idea originated, but I’m confident that it wasn’t among homeowners.
This ADU program provides property owners more freedom to use the property that they theoretically own, with side benefits for the community at large. Let’s not pollute it with social engineering schemes.
