HomeMy WebLinkAbout1/21/2020 Item 13, Weddle
Wilbanks, Megan
From:Shane Weddle <sweddle@gmail.com>
Sent:Wednesday,
To:E-mail Council Website
Subject:Proposed ADU changes.
City Council Members of San Luis Obispo,
The state has passed ADU laws with the intention of creating more affordable housing in a denser and
more sustainable way and the City of SLO’s proposed changes seem to directly oppose that goal. As a
concerned citizen of SLO and would like to address some of the proposed ADU changes. ADU's tend to
be smaller units (mostly one-bedroom and studio units). The changing of the states verbiage will
directly affect small households that rent smaller units and homeowners like us that use rental income
as a supplemental income in order to afford to own. As you know, the city has a legal obligation to
provide more housing and these changes would prevent that happening for many individual
homeowners and small developers. These are the people that live, work, and spend money in San Luis
Obispo. Leaving growth solely up to large developments will result in sprawl and money leaving San Luis
Obispo in the hands of large developers that don’t reside here. I ask that you do not allow this to
happen to our city. The healthy growth of SLO is made possible by supporting and promoting infill
projects via ADU’s. Some of the items that concern me being proposed by the planning staff are:
The number of bedrooms in ADU's have a max limit of 2 (currently no bedroom count restriction)
Limiting size of detached ADU's from 1200 to 1000 (this is a reduction from what we had in place before
and a reduction from state language)
Making it possible for detached ADU's greater than 750 sq ft to be required to have a new utility
connection and impact fees to apply. This one is HUGE as there are a couple of areas in SLO that require
you to replace a neighbor’s lateral if you are adding a lateral on your property. So in the case of my lot it
would be a connection for the proposed main, a connection for the proposed ADU, and 2 neighbor
replacements! A huge portion of my budget as we self perform! 80k in laterals! Many homeowners
would not build because of this particular restriction as it is extremely cost-prohibitive. Section 1.5 of
assembly bill 881 states that, “The ordinance shall not be considered in the application of any local
ordinance, policy, or program to limit residential growth.” Allowing this verbiage to remain at the
planning level gives utility the ability to make this very aggressive move twice on some
properties. Removing the language would protect homeowners from the double penalty and only allow
utility to require one additional lateral per residence (excluding ADU’s). This particular issue left
unchanged would definitely limit growth and needs to be removed.
In addition to the stated items above, I am concerned that we as a city are not utilizing item g. of the
current ADU law which allows cities to be more liberal than the minimum requirements put forth by the
state. We should be pushing past the state’s minimums and proposed maximums as a leader in
affordable and sustainable housing.
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Your consideration and time is appreciated.
Shane Weddle
408-688-6638
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