The case against Accessory Dwelling Units and other growth tools
The City Planning Department of Los Angeles is currently mulling over the idea of allowing Accessory Dwelling Units (i.e. ADU’s, aka granny flats) to be built in single family residential neighborhoods zoned as R-1′s. ADU’s are living spaces usually built behind the home that homeowners are allowed to rent out.
Accessory Dwelling Units are win-win for states legislators because it helps them meet their housing goals for 30 million more residents statewide and 15 million here in Southern California and thus solve the budget problem. The idea is that if you double the population, you then double the state income tax roll, sales taxes, liquor and tobacco taxes and motor vehicle fees, etc., and that means more money in the state’s general fund.
However ADU’s are a lose-lose idea for local governments and residents. Local governments are funded primarily by property taxes and to a lesser extent sales taxes and increasingly utility fees. Because cities and counties cannot double the number of properties (we are for the most part ‘built out’), local governments are having to service an ever-growing population on fewer per capita tax dollars as long as we continue to follow these insane housing policies coming out of the state capitol.
Even worse are how ADU’s would completely change the nature of our neighborhoods by allowing your neighbors to rent out that freshly built unit behind their house to overlook your backyard and they would not have to provide parking so the “tenant” would end up parking on the street. Now imagine watching the value of your home plummet.
The path towards insolvency
The City of Los Angeles is going broke because is its growth has relied almost entirely on multi-unit housing which has been growing 2-3 times faster than single family residential. Property taxes on multi-unit housing yields 50% to 90% less per residential unit than property taxes on a single family homes. So as we grow there is less to spend per person.
Local governments see their only way out of this mess by creating and raising new taxes and fees on services, utilities, communications, etc., as well as borrowing through bonds but those tools only make things worse. It’s hard to find any reason why they choose to follow the state in lock step on housing.
Accessory Dwelling Units are designed around the same goal that’s behind ‘smart growth’, ‘mixed-use’, ‘high density’, ‘affordable housing’, ‘inclusionary zoning’, and ‘density bonuses’ and that is to generate housing for the states growth goals. R-1’s are seen as single greatest impediment to meeting the states vision to provide housing for 30 million people and that is what AB 1866 was meant to get around.
The bottom line is that while growth helps California pay its bills, it’s also strangling local governments and schools, raising the cost of living for our residents and lowering the quality of life we expect in a modern urban environment.
ADU increase population density so that there can be better public transit. ADU also reduce the wastefulness of large single family lots. If people want a lot of space, move to the boondocks.
There is nothing wasteful about single family lots. In fact they do more to reduce the burden on infrastructure than ADU’s and multi-family housing because there is a limit to the number of parcels that can be developed for single-family housing. There is almost no limit to how many multi-family units that can be squeezed on to a lot to increase their numbers. You only have to add more floors and build them smaller.
The state is projecting 15 million more people thus doubling the population in the five county region of Southern California. They can only do that through high density using various schemes such as ADU’s, mixed use, inclusionary zoning, so-called smart growth, high density zoning, density bonuses, etc.
ADU’s will only further bog down city streets and public transit cannot mitigate that. Worse, ADU’s by the very nature that they are enablers of unchecked growth, will further strain water supply which has been historically capped at < 700,000 AF/Y for Los Angeles and power resources which have forced residents and businesses to go without power at peak summer time periods.