NEWS
B Y K E L LY K E N O Y E R
SAY ADIEU TO
FEES FOR ADUS
Springfield encourages construction
of missing middle housing
he city of Springfield has temporarily waived cer-
tain fees it typically charges for the construction
of accessory dwelling units (ADUs), which are
also known as secondary dwelling units and in-
law flats.
These small dwellings are considered by many to be a
key solution to the local housing shortage, as they can pro-
vide missing middle housing — small, affordable housing
ideal for young families and retirees alike — in desirable
neighborhoods.
The goal of the program is to create more housing op-
tions for the citizens of Springfield, according to Spring-
field’s comprehensive planning manager Sandy Belson.
“The rental housing companies have said the vacancy rate
is around 1 percent, which is very low,” Belson says. “A
healthy rate is 5 percent.”
The lack of available housing throughout the Willa-
mette Valley has led to an affordable housing crisis. With
rents rising and low vacancy rates, many in the community
are just one paycheck away from living on the streets.
ADUs are small dwellings added to the same property
as a single-family home, often as a separate backyard cot-
tage, a refurbished garage or an upstairs apartment.
“We hope that they will provide an increase in small
affordable housing units that are available for rent,” Bel-
son says. “They would provide these additional housing
units without using up our limited supply of undeveloped
land. ADUs could provide the property owners with an ad-
ditional form of revenue in the form of rent.”
Rent increases in an area, caused by the lack of housing
supply, is often to blame when families are pushed out of
stable housing and into the streets.
Though Lane County point-in-time counts don’t spec-
ify the number of homeless in Springfield, Belson points
out that 480 students in the Springfield school district were
counted as homeless in the 2015-2016 school year, or 4.35
percent of enrolled students.
Springfield instituted the two-year fee waiver on July
1, and Belson says they haven’t received any applications
since then. She says that’s likely because it takes time to
put an application together.
The waiver could save homeowners $5,000 to $6,000
in fees if they decide to make use of it. In the past eight
years, Belson says the city only received two applications
for ADUs, and she hopes the current waiver will increase
that number.
T
COSTS AND PERMITS
Keith Schneider, owner of Bohemian Cottages, says the
fee waiver is a great gesture on the part of the city. Though
his business builds backyard cottages for homeowners, he
says the vast majority of ADUs are built by the do-it-your-
self (DIY) community.
“There’s a lot of DIYers who don’t go down the permit-
ting path because it’s so intimidating,” Schneider says.
He says he suspects there are many ADUs that the city
doesn’t know about. These dwellings may be constructed
without permits, or could be constructed with accessory
structure permits.
“Accessory structure permits are probably $1,000 to
$1,500” Schneider says, while the fees for ADUs can be
ten times that. “It doesn’t allow you to legally use it as a
dwelling unit but a lot of people will do that anyway.”
Schneider adds, “If you looked at all these kinds of
builds, probably 1 percent are actually permitted at any
level at all.”
These cottages aren’t particularly cheap to build, re-
A N A D U D E S I G N E D A N D B U I LT BY B O H E M I A N C O T TA G E S
gardless of permitting. Schneider says tiny houses have
“all the expensive parts of a house with less of the inexpen-
sive parts. The inexpensive parts are the spaces between
the walls,” adding that “these projects are like $75,000-
$100,000.”
Even DIYers are spending upwards of $30,000 for ma-
terials and engineering costs alone, Schneider says. The fee
waiver is a significant reduction, however. He says permit-
ting “can easily be close to 10 percent of the budget, and
that’s pretty significant to people.”
These constructions may be worth the expense for
many homeowners, however. Eliza Kashinsky of the
Walkable Eugene Citizens Advisory Network says she
plans to build a cottage in her back yard in Eugene in the
next year or so. Her construction in Eugene won’t have
the benefit of the fee waiver, but she applauds Springfield
for its efforts.
Kashinsky points out that there are more difficul-
ties than just the cost when it comes to building ADUs.
“The complexities and limitations in the code are making
it very complex,” she says. She expects to spend $60,000
to $80,000 on her project — “we’re looking at about 600
square feet.”
Fees are one thing, but Kashinsky says code restrictions
are her biggest obstacle. “I wish they would look at the
code restrictions they have put into place regarding sec-
ondary dwelling units and really examine how that’s add-
ing complexity for people who want to add housing for
other members of the community.”
She adds that getting a loan can be a big impediment to
homeowners hoping to start such a project.
FUTURE OF IN-LAW FLATS
Terri Harding, Eugene’s principal planner for metropol-
itan and community planning, says Eugene is considering
a few proposals that would also made ADUs easier to build
(they’re called secondary dwelling units, or SDUs in Eu-
gene). Eugene may adopt a proposal to cut transportation
system development charges in half.
“It would be a $600 reduction,” Harding says. “I think
with regards to this larger conversation about housing and
missing middle housing, there is more and more interest
on the part of our council to see what we can do to support
small housing.”
She adds that requests for SDU permits in Eugene
dropped off in recent years “after the council passed some
amendments to our zoning code in 2013” that accidentally
made such housing more difficult to build, but that council
is interested in bringing more small housing to Eugene.
There were ten applications in 2014 before the code
changes were implemented, but just three in 2015 and
2016 combined.
“We can look at reducing or removing code barriers, we
can look at incentive programs, pilot projects that housing
developers — especially affordable housing developers
— might want to build, and partnering with them to dem-
onstrate what kind of things can be done,” Harding says.
Springfield is ahead of the game when it comes to sup-
porting the construction of ADUs, but a bill that recently
passed the Legislature, Senate Bill 1051, will require that
all cities in Oregon with populations greater than 2,500
“shall allow in areas zoned for detached single-family
dwellings the development of at least one accessory dwell-
ing input for each detached single family dwelling, subject
to reasonable local regulations.”
This means that municipalities will need to create “rea-
sonable local regulations” that allow the vast majority of
lots to contain more than one residence, which could great-
ly increase urban density.
The law will become operative on July 1, 2018. Hard-
ing says Eugene is already looking at making changes to
city codes to comply with the law.
Belson says “we were already expanding the options for
ADUs before the Legislature passed SB 1051,” and adds
that the city is reviewing potential code amendments.
Kashinsky says she is excited about her cottage project
and what it could provide for her community. “Our hope
is to rent it out,” she says. “We really would like to pro-
vide housing to someone who is either trying to downsize
their current living situation, for example a retiree, or to be
someone’s first home, like a young person moving out of
home for the first time,” Kashinsky says.
She says she plans to rent the new unit out for $800 to
$900 a month.
“Our motivation with this is less about making money
and more because we’re comparatively fortunate,” Kash-
insky says. “We own a home with a large backyard that we
hardly use. We have the ability to do this, so we want to
help someone else have a home. And have our backyard be
useful space as opposed to not useful space.” ■
eugeneweekly.com • A ugust 17, 2017
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