Publication Date: Friday, February 04, 2005
A granny unit on every lot?
A granny unit on every lot?
(February 04, 2005) Zoning changes aim to ease housing crunch but stir fears too
by Jocelyn Dong
When Whitclem Drive resident Don Marquardt looks into a crystal ball, he sees -- much to his consternation -- a crowded future.
The reason for his vision? The city could adopt a regulation in March to allow nearly 80 percent of Palo Alto's single-family properties to potentially build second dwellings or granny units in their back yards. More units will bring more neighbors, traffic and noise, some opponents to the change feel.
"It would be a zoo," said Marquardt, who lives on a corner lot. "There's no way they could put a granny unit in any of these lots. Where are the cars going to park?"
Whitclem has rental homes now, and, he contended, "every (rental) house has eight cars in front of them."
Currently, about 20 percent of single-family property owners in Palo Alto have the option to add on. The new regulation, in theory, could allow four out of five homes on Whitclem to build a small second home.
The neighbors of Whitclem are particularly sensitive about the issue -- they sent two dozen letters to the City Council about it in December -- for understandable reasons. The street in Charleston Meadows has been fighting for years with the next-door Hyatt Rickeys, and more recently the Elks Lodge, over their building plans and how it could affect the neighborhood.
The city, however, has a seemingly intractable housing crunch. Sky-high housing costs have led to teachers, police officers and service workers being priced out. Rents and rental occupancies have also remained high.
The addition of granny units - which could be up to 450 square feet each -- is aimed at easing that problem. The city has adopted a housing policy to encourage more living quarters, which reflects a state directive.
Already, Palo Alto is three-quarters residential, according to John Lusardi, a planning manager for the City of Palo Alto, with some 14,100 lots designated for single-family residences.
There are actually two different proposals the city will consider on March 14 -- one stricter and one more permissive.
The more restrictive zoning would allow granny units in lots of 7,000 square feet or more, and would affect neighborhoods like Evergreen Park, parts of Old Palo Alto, some areas of Crescent Park and Community Center, sections of Midtown south of Louis Road and also those near Alma Street, and some parts of Barron Park. Additional 7,000-square-foot properties scattered throughout the city would also be affected.
The more permissive proposal would give the privilege to landowners with smaller lots -- 6,000 square feet or larger -- which includes most of Whitclem, along with nearly 8,000 other single-family homeowners.
But the new zoning might not be as big of a problem as people think. Fears that granny units will pop up like mushrooms all over town are not founded, Lusardi said. History backs that up.
Since 2002, an average of three granny cottages a year have been built. With the more permissive zoning, Lusardi estimated Palo Altans would construct only eight more units a year.
Part of the reason for that, he explained, is that the units still have to meet strict city standards, such as not encroaching on neighbors by being placed too close to property lines or blocking neighbors' daylight, among other things. There are also limits on how much can be built on a lot.
"That's one reason we don't think there will be a tsunami of second units," Lusardi said.
The issue of granny units is one of several zoning changes the city is considering. In November and December, hundreds of residents turned out for community meetings at which the planning department explained the proposed changes. The majority of attendees had never been to a city-planning meeting before, Lusardi said.
For information on the issue, see www.cityofpaloalto.org/zoning.
Senior Staff Writer Jocelyn Dong can be reached at jdong@paweekly.com.
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