Town panel explores increasing housing options

The La Conner Planning Commission is looking to help lay a new foundation to solve recurring local housing shortage concerns.

More than a half-century ago, Puget Sound Mail editor Pat O’Leary urged La Conner homeowners to make available their spare driveways and lot spaces for workers to park trailers while employed here.

Fast forward to 2020 when town planning commissioners are considering more long-term housing solutions.

Based on input received last year, the advisory panel is studying whether to recommend accessory dwelling units be designated an allowed use in town residential areas and their restrictions in commercial zones be significantly eased.

“We have started to flesh out those two areas in particular,” Town Planner Marianne Manville-Ailles told the Weekly News last week, “because of the direction that came from the annual joint Town Council Planning Commission meeting.

“That direction,” she said, “was to look at ways that we could increase housing opportunities in La Conner.”

An accessory dwelling unit (ADU), sometimes referred to as a mother-in-law apartment or secondary suite, is generally a self-contained unit either attached to an owner-occupied single-family home or a separate structure on the same property.

A Conditional Use Permit is now required in La Conner for those wanting to develop an ADU on their property.

A less restrictive ADU code would reflect recommendations favorable to in-fill housing on La Conner lots made by a University of Washington study group in the early 1990s.

“It is the intent that if we have more opportunities for in-fill housing, which is typically smaller and more efficient to construct, since utilities are usually already in place,” said Manville-Ailles, “it will naturally result in more affordable options for people looking to live in La Conner.”

Manville-Ailles said the planning commission’s charge is to explore more permanent housing as opposed to Air BnB or nightly rentals. Rented ADUs, under proposals now being weighed, would require a minimum 30-day stay, she said.

That’s not all.

“The code revisions,” said Manville-Ailles, “would include allowing ADUs as an outright allowed use in the residential zone instead of the administrative conditional use permit that is currently required.”

Manville-Ailles said the planning commission is also considering changes to the ADU residency requirement.

“Currently,” she said, “we require the owner to live in either the primary dwelling or the ADU. The revisions would change that requirement to allow anyone living within the corporate limits of the town to have an ADU on any lot they own in town.”

There are more options on the table as well – among them the potential increase in allowed floor area from 700 to 900 or 1,000 square feet.

“We’ve also had a suggestion to look at allowing the top floor or basement of an existing building to be an ADU regardless of size and we are considering that as well,” said Manville-Ailles.

In La Conner’s commercial zone, the Town now allows just less than half of the footprint of buildings on each lot to be residential with a conditional use permit, Manville-Ailles noted.

“We’re looking at changing that,” she said, “to allow 49 per cent of the ground floor to be residential and not limit the square footage of units located above ground. The intent of the restriction is to encourage walk-out commercial uses in the commercial zone so the residential accesses would need to be in the back or side of the buildings.

“Of course,” said Manville-Ailles, “there is a limit on total floor area ratio in the commercial district of two times the property area so that would be the ultimate limit on how much could be built on each lot.”

The planning commission will continue discussing possible code amendments at its upcoming meetings, she said.

“When the commission gets to the point where members are comfortable with some portion or all of the amendments,” said Manville-Ailles, “we will schedule a public hearing, where the exact language will be available for review and we will take public comment and make a recommendation to the Town Council, where the final decision will be made.”

In the meantime, she said, Commissioners will proceed with the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) process, which also features a public comment component, and will forward all pertinent data and information to State agencies in Olympia.

In related notes:

• Manville-Ailles said planning commission meetings in November and December were initial sessions on a host of code clean-up and modification topics.

  “The things we are looking at,” she said, “range from general housekeeping – who signs things, who receives permits, removal of references to codes that don’t exist – to fence height, parking code updates for the First Street Historical District, a new industrial zoning district for the Port, ADUs, and residential allowances in the commercial zone.

  We’re looking at a whole bunch of different things and it will take us several months to get through the preliminary review just to capture all of the planning commission’s thoughts on all of it.”