So I made it to Pachyderm Friday and I’m trying to listen to Rocky Sehnert’s talk about the zoning rewrite, and the guy behind me passes me a note saying “are you taking notes? There will be a test afterward.” Here I was trying earnestly to listen - zoning is not all as boring as Jason Wiener claims in this week’s Indy story. Seriously! It’s just that people don’t normally get up in arms about it unless something is happening on their block right now. Then it becomes interesting.
With the rude interruption of my rapt attention, I lost a key word or two so I had to get clarification: Why Sehnert considers this “rewrite” to be in reality a wholesale (if not illegal) rezoning. Question: So what the rewrite accomplishes is actually rezoning by change of definitions? Correct. Followup: So that if an ADU is proposed in one of the new overlay districts, the builders will not have to get a variance - they can just do it? Correct again.
This would definitely put crimp into any organized neighborhood protest. But to politicians weary of perennial protests, that’s not a flaw but a feature. What’s not to like? In the Indy piece, Roger Millar of OPG trots out a variation of It’s for the kids: It’s for the seniors.
Millar says ADUs give seniors a useful tool to maintain their standard of living. He says they could rent out ADUs to generate extra cash, or use them to provide a residence for caregivers.
Susan Kohler, head of Missoula Aging Services, says ADUs may help tame what she calls the “silver tsunami” in another way.
“There are a lot of baby boomers right now who have aging parents,” she says. “They would like to have their parents live in the same town, but maintain independence. With an [ADU], they can connect, look after each other, help with yard care, stuff that an older person might not want to do. I think that’s a very positive thing right now.”
Yeah that’s how it always starts. Your sweet little old mother moves into the back house. Just focus on that one static scenario and not the one 15 years hence when the property has been split into flag lots. Now, my neighbor moved her mother’s single-wide out back of their house when the lady started to decline. Trouble is, when they get to that point things happen quickly. The arrangement lasted a couple of months then the mom was moved to a nursing home. The single-wide was removed, not rented out. Mobiles are nice that way - mobile. Can’t have that sort of thing in the city, now can we?
Swanson says no matter where seniors decide to live, there will be less demand for traditional three and four bedroom single-family homes in the future.
“They won’t all [move in with their family], but you have that group looking to downsize,” says Swanson, who works for the Center for the Rocky Mountain West. “Juxtaposed with that is the young adults looking for a starter home. You actually have a potentially growing market for ADUs.”
Wait a minute. The ADU is now on a separate lot, so “young adults looking for a starter home” could buy it separately? That required a little lot splitting or boundary line tweaking, yes? Flag lots, here we come.
After addressing ADUs at their March 25 meeting, the planning board did not make any significant changes to the current rules. The planning board will discuss other overlay districts at its next meeting on April 7 in the City Council chambers. The planning board’s final recommendations should be ready for City Council evaluation sometime this spring.
No matter how the debate ends, Millar doesn’t believe ADUs will cause sweeping changes in Missoula’s neighborhoods either way.
Of course not. Nothing to see here, and there won’t be a test afterward. Only trouble is, when ADUs come to your neighborhood, there won’t be any use getting up in arms about it then, because it’ll be a done deal.
on Apr 5th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
Wait a minute…it’s legal to raise chickens inside the city limits of MIssoula?
on Apr 5th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Oh yeah. Happened in 2007.
http://missoulapolis.blogspot.com/2007/10/unfair.html
It’s all very progressive here.
on Apr 5th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
Well, I’ve posted elsewhere on how wrongheaded ADUs are, especially in college towns. Essentially, they create a duplex. Both units get rented out, and the property becomes an “income property” with two rentals, on bigger, one smaller, on a single family home lot in a single family home neighborhood.
They create problems in these neighborhoods because the lots are not designed with off street parking for multiple rentals per lot.
It’s a duplexification of the neighborhood. Mother in law apartments, after the mother in law is gone, become a second rental, a way to charge a higher price for the property, because you can rent out the ADU. It does NOT result in more “affordable housing”, because the income component allows a higher price for the property.
It’s not the latest and greatest thing. I know the theory behind ADUs; the reality is exactly as feared by the opponents.
Sometimes these structures are called “Garage Mahals” because the turn a one story two car unattached garage into a two story structure that rivals the principal dwelling in size. And the windows and the deck peer into the neighbors yard and take away the neighbors privacy.
It’s a good way to take advantage of your neighbors. Three or four college students, hanging out on the deck, leering into the neighbors back yard and rear windows. Sounds like a great addition to your neighborhood, doesn’t it?
Maybe they’ll toss you a beer.
on Apr 20th, 2009 at 5:44 am
Pasted from the comments section at New West.
By Tuck Miller, 4-19-09
Our town of McCall, Idaho suffered through a rotation of “Roger Millar’s “Strafing of Western Towns.” We went through a very contentious change of building heights and densities in neighborhoods and are trying to undo the damage of Roger Millar’s “minor rezonings.” These taller buildings were jammed down our throats by a past city council of hopelessly incompetent people listening to Rogers glib and smug powerpoint presentations.
Let me tell you what happened to neighborhoods once building heights were increased and densities were increased in our town. 1. Property taxes doubled and tripled in these areas because developers could make more money off property with higher density and more building height. Middle class families left because they could not afford the new taxes 2. The neighborhoods suffered through endless construction, increased traffic, dramatically increased crime and a loss of their neighborhoods. 3. As predicted, the higher density developments went bankrupt and the community is left holding the bag on every agreement in the PUD and CUP. 4. Every developer sued the city to get out of their community housing and improvement clauses in the development agreements and the City of McCall lost in every case. 5. Hundreds of downtown condos are now vacant and turning into foreclosures crushing neighboring property values. But at least the neighbors get to pay the doubled property taxes for the next five years. 6. You will spend your life (or what’s left of it) in city council meetings, P&Z;meetings listening to Rogers glib comments. Trust me on this one, this guy is so much smarter than you ever possibly could be about your own town. 7. Not one of these increased height, increased density, developments paid their way and the few tax paying citizens left in the town are paying for the flotsam left in Roger Millar’s wake.
You will notice that the McMansion Subdivisions and gated communities have none of the high density, tall buildings of the re-zoning recommendations. Roger Millar’s formula will take your family friendly neighborhoods and turn them into vacant lots and your city will lose their most prized possession–committed, hard working families.
Our town has fortunately voted in a responsive, forward thinking city council able to undo many of Roger Millar’s disasters. This has been time consuming and expensive. We have spent hundred of thousands defending developer lawsuits and trying to save our existing neighborhoods–you will pay millions in a town the size of Missoula.
If people want taller buildings and higher density put it into new developments and people will buy into an known commodity. Wake up Missoula or Roger’s overstaffed, overpaid contingent of planners will ruin your community similar to the dozen communities he has strafed over the past decade.
If Roger Millar did such a great job improving his past dozen communities why didn’t he stay there?? Because he was chased out after he rubbled another town. Don’t say you weren’t warned Missoula.