Small-Lot Zoning Updates Take Shape

The city’s bid to promote attic, basement, and garage apartments and to reduce the minimum lot size required for new housing took a step forward, in the form of proposed zoning code amendments newly submitted to the Board of Alders.

Those dual proposed land-use updates were included as communications in the local legislature’s agenda packet this Monday. They now advance to the City Plan Commission and the Affordable Housing Commission before returning to the alders for further discussion and a final vote.

The proposed text amendments come less than a week after City Plan Director Aïcha Woods first broached these two proposed reforms — around accessory dwelling units and minimum lot area — during last month’s City Plan Commission meeting.

They also mark the first proposed local-land use updates to come from the City Plan Department since Woods promised earlier this year that one of her department’s top priorities is to overhaul the city’s decades-old zoning code to promote density, affordable housing, historic preservation, and environmental sustainability, among other goals.

Woods pitched the proposed amendments in an April 30 letter addressed to Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers.

The first amendment would allow accessory dwelling units (ADUs) to be built as of right ​“within the envelope of existing structures” in RM‑1 Low-Middle Density, RM‑2 High-Middle Density, RS‑1 Special Single-Family, and RS‑2 General Single-Family zoning districts. It would also restrict such as-of-right ADUs to properties owned by owner-occupants.

If passed, the amendment would allow owner-occupants to, for example, convert a third floor or basement or garage space into a legal, livable residential unit.

“This will encourage the creation of more affordable housing options in all neighborhoods, while preserving the fabric of our historic neighborhoods and building equity and income streams for owner occupants,” Woods wrote about the zoning amendment proposal.

The proposed ADU update will not come with any parallel increase to a residence’s existing minimum parking requirement, she wrote, ​“further enabling small scale housing production.”

The second proposed zoning amendment included in Woods’s submission would reduce the minimum lot size in all residential zones to 4,000 square feet citywide.

“Minimum Lot sizes have historically … been a structure of inequity in land use and allowing smaller buildable lots would reduce barriers to building new infill housing,” Woods wrote. ​“This update is the first in a series of proposed text amendments to enable the production and preservation [of] affordable housing.”

Woods added that the proposed zoning amendments complement similar statewide provisions included in Raised Senate Bill 1024, which passed out of state legislative committee and is currently under consideration by the full State Senate.

“After this initial text amendment, based on success of the ordinance, further text amendments will come before you to gradually reduce restriction on ADUs, and to incorporate design and setback standards. The City will explore incentives and financing programs for targeting ADUs to deeply affordable tenants and to provide assistance to low income homeowners.

“During this past year, the pandemic laid bare the need for affordable housing and options for housing choices across the City. ADUs provide more opportunities for elderly homeowners to stay in their homes with an additional income stream, small household or single people to have more affordable choices. New Haven already has a long-standing tradition of ADUs in carriage houses and third floors across the city.”

ADU Text Amendment

Click here to read in full the proposed text amendments regarding ADUs.

A few highlights from those proposed changes:

• The new term is defined in the amendment as: ​“A residential living unit that is on the same parcel as a single-family dwelling or a multifamily structure. The ADU provides complete independent living facilities for one or more persons, including space for living, sleeping, cooking, and eating and sanitation.”

• The ​“purpose and intent” of permitting ADUs is described as to ​“create new housing units while respecting the look and scale of neighborhood patterns;” ​“increase affordable housing choices especially for very low-income residents”; ​“support more efficient use of existing housing stock and infrastructure”; ​“offer environmentally friendly housing choices with less average space per person and smaller associated carbon footprints”; among other reasons.

• The amendment would allow only one accessory dwelling unit to be added to a lot in addition to the main single-family or multi-family building. If adding the ADU causes the total number of residential dwelling units on a lot to exceed four, then a special exception is required.

• ADUs must follow the same height limitations and setbacks as apply to the principal dwelling on a property. ​“An existing accessory structure whose height or setback(s) does not meet the requirements for a dwelling in the zone district may be converted into an accessory dwelling unit, but the structure may not be altered in any manner that would increase the degree of non-compliance.”

• ADUs will not be considered a ​“unit of density and therefore are not included in the density calculation for a single-family residential property.”

• An ADU must have a minimum livable area of not less than 400 square feet, and a maximum gross floor area of not more than 1,200 square feet or the size of the principal dwelling, whichever is smaller. An ADU also cannot exceed the existing height of the principal structure. ​“If dormers or roof alteration are required for making an attic space comply with building code, the alterations shall comply with underlying zoning or seek a variance.”

• Prior to constructing an ADU, an owner of a property must file an application that must be approved by the city’s Building Department. The information required on the applications for creating or legalizing an ADU ​“shall be the same information that is required to construct a single-family dwelling unit.”

• ​“Accessory dwelling units shall only be permitted when the property owner or a member of his/her extended family lives on the property, within either the principal dwelling or accessory dwelling unit.” The owner must submit a notarized letter stating that they or their family will occupy one of the dwelling units on the premises before the city will approve the ADU.

• Before pulling a building permit, the property owner must also file with the city clerk’s office a declaration that either the principal or the accessory dwelling will be occupied by the owner or a member of their family, and that the ADU will not be sold separately from the principal dwelling unit.

Minimum Lot Area Amendment

Click here to read in full the proposed minimum lot area amendment to the city zoning code.

The amendment changes the minimum lot area requirement in every residential zone in the city to 4,000 square feet.

That’s down from 7,500 square feet for the RS‑1, RS‑2, RH‑1, and RO zones, 6,000 square feet for the RM‑1 zone, and 5,400 square feet for the RM‑2 and RH‑2 zones.

The proposed amendment also reduces the minimum average lot width requirements in the RS‑1, RS‑2, RH‑1, and RO zones from 60 to 50 feet.