Cities loath to accept add-on units

Deirdre Newman

City officials are bemoaning the passage of a bill by the state

legislature that that will severely diminish local control over the

construction of secondary residential units.

The final version of the bill, proposed by Assemblyman Darrell

Steinberg (D-Sacramento), was approved by the Assembly Wednesday and

is now headed to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s desk to be signed.

The bill was designed to create more housing opportunities by

making second units allowable in more single-family residential

areas, overriding cities that don’t allow them in those areas.

City officials adamantly opposed the bill because of this

infringement of local control, City Manager Allan Roeder said.

Officials made repeated efforts to convince legislators to vote

against the measure, and Roeder had taken the unique step of asking

for residents’ help in this cause.

Mayor Gary Monahan lamented that state legislators did not heed

cities’ concerns.

“Cities have a better sense of what’s going on in their

neighborhoods, and we need to be able to have decent control over

that,” Monahan said.

Assemblyman John Campbell, who voted for the bill, said he

supported it for two reasons -- private property rights and

increasing the pool of affordable housing.

“An awful lot of young people will not be able to afford a house

in Orange County,” Campbell said. “If you don’t want to live in an

apartment, one way to get a house is having someone else sharing the

rent with you.”

It is currently up to cities to decide how to regulate secondary

units -- also known as “granny flats” because cities often promote

them as senior housing by restricting the age of the occupants.

Costa Mesa has already revised its second-unit law to comply with

a previous bill and will have to change it again if Schwarzenegger

signs Steinberg’s bill. The city’s law currently only allows second

units in the lowest density, single-family residential zones.

If the bill becomes law, it likely means that Costa Mesa will have

to be much more generous in allowing second units on single-family

lots that are big enough to hold them, Roeder said. It would also

limit cities’ authority over the approval of homeowners’ requests for

second units, Roeder added.

“[The bill] moves much more in the direction of making second

units what we could call more of a matter of right than discretion on

the city level,” Roeder said.

Costa Mesa would also have to adopt the bill’s minimum second-unit

size of at least 600 square feet. The city currently does not have a

minimum size for second units.

City officials are hoping they will have better luck opposing

another bill that has been revived in the state legislature that

would give the courts the ability to override city council decisions

on low-income housing -- representing another intrusion into local

control, Roeder said. While the goal of the two bills -- to create

more housing -- is admirable, the means are unpalatable, Roeder said.

“I think what you’re seeing here is, in part, certainly an

understandable reaction to a very, very serious housing situation we

have throughout the state,” Roeder said. “While we don’t agree with

the specific provisions, I think both of them are aimed at trying to

free up opportunities to build more housing. I think the big

disagreement is in terms of how you do that. We feel that preempting

local regulations is not an answer.”