Agenda Packet 2-20-19 Work Session

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Eugene Housing Tools & Strategies Evaluation 29 Minimum lot size requirements preclude approximately 17 percent of residential lots with single-family homes throughout Eugene from adding ADUs. Single-family lots in most residential areas must be larger than 6,100 square feet to be eligible for an ADU. Approximately 15 percent of lots with single- family homes are smaller than the minimum and would be ineligible for ADUs under current regulations. In the Amazon, Fairmount, and South University neighborhoods lots must be at minimum 7,500 square feet.30 In these three neighborhoods, ADUs are currently prohibited on one-half of single-family lots. The requirement that owners must occupy either the primary or accessory unit precludes up to one- fourth of owners of single-family homes in Eugene from adding ADUs. Census data estimates that of the 37,400 “1-unit detached” units in Eugene, approximately 9,100 are renter-occupied.31 In other words, 24 percent of single-family detached units are not occupied by the property owner, and therefore those property owners would be ineligible to add ADUs to their lots unless they intended to occupy one of the units. Multiple property owners and developers interviewed for this study viewed this requirement as arbitrary and discriminatory against renter households, which make up over half of all households in Eugene. Site design requirements are highly prescriptive to a point of being potentially capricious. Both developers and city staff mentioned that site design requirements do not allow for variations in topography, or flexible standards for attached ADUs in existing buildings. For example, most existing homes do not meet the building standards that the City of Eugene established for ADUs in 2014. Therefore, many proposals for attached ADU units incorporated into existing homes are deemed ineligible, according to city staff, because the existing homes themselves are incompatible with the requirements. In addition, height standards for ADUs are inflexible on sloped lots. According to city staff, ADU proposals on sloped lots typically do not move forward because applicants have difficulty meeting the standards. Eugene requires adjustment review for ADU proposals requesting variances from these standards, which opens the project up to public review and delays the project’s timeline, which further adds to project cost. The minimum off-street parking requirement for ADUs adds to site development cost and constrains site design possibilities. Current regulations require that single-family homes with ADUs have a minimum of two off-street parking spaces, or one space per unit. Developers and city staff said this requirement can be challenging to meet from both a site design and financial feasibility perspective for certain lots. Eliminating this regulation would likely have minimal impact on on-street parking supply since developers satisfying this regulation may need to widen or add curb cuts, which reduces parking supply. Most SDC rates that apply to newly constructed single-family homes and duplexes also apply to ADUs. While the Stormwater SDC rate is lower for buildings under 1,000 square feet, the other SDCs apply at the same rate regardless of unit size or bedroom count. In effect, Eugene’s current SDC policies disincentivize the development of both ADUs and of small footprint housing more generally. The City of Eugene also currently restricts the number of bedrooms and square footage of ADUs, the only housing type regulated in this manner. ADUs may be up to 800 square feet and can have two bedrooms or fewer. The maximum square footage policy, on its own, helps ensure that ADUs have low environmental impact, and offer “affordable-by-design” units in Eugene. However, a homeowner’s 30 Flag lots must be at minimum 12,500 square feet, excluding the “pole” portion of the lot. Flag lots were not considered in the minimum lot size requirement geospatial analysis, due to the complex nature of identifying flag lots in the city’s parcel data. 31 American Community Survey, 5-year estimates, 2012-2016. February 20, 2019, Work Session – Item 1