JAMES ISLAND — As housing only gets more expensive throughout the Charleston space, the city is working so as to add accent dwelling items as further housing inventory.
An adjunct dwelling unit is a smaller, separate living space on the identical property as a single-family dwelling. It should embrace a toilet and kitchen. At the moment, there may be nothing within the city’s code relating to ADU regulation, in response to city planner Kristen Crane, however members of City Council and Mayor Brook Lyon mentioned language for an ordinance at a March 26 ADU workshop.
City Council’s plan will work in phases. The primary section, which council directed workers to draft into an ordinance, will enable residents who constructed ADUs earlier than 2012 to use to have their further housing grandfathered in in the event that they meet flooding and constructing codes so the unit will legally turn into a part of the house owner’s property.
Relying on the progress of the primary section, the city may then begin the second section that enables residents with ADUs constructed between 2012 and 2025 to do the identical.
After these two phases, City Councilman Lewis Dodson informed The Submit and Courier that the Council would then want to determine further standards for future ADUs, like density, short-term rental laws and whether or not hire management ought to be imposed.
The workshop particularly centered on language for an ordinance on accent dwelling items, however City Council acknowledged the potential for short-term leases and inexpensive housing alternatives.
“I do not assume any of our cops or sheriffs dwell on James Island, aside from possibly certainly one of them who we’ve got on island patrol,” Lyon stated on the assembly. “It is turn into fairly unaffordable for lots of us.”
Dodson informed The Submit and Courier ADUs are additionally a good way so as to add stock to housing inventory on the island with out constructing house complexes or clearing extra land.
“We are able to higher our island and make it the best way that folks need it, but in addition hold its character,” he stated.
James Island is not the primary municipality to contemplate ADU ordinances to assist add to the realm’s housing inventory. North Charleston recently approved an modification in January to permit for added dwellings to be constructed throughout town in residential areas. However Metropolis Councilman Brandon Hudson stated North Charleston will not impose hire management on the ADUs as a result of creating extra housing ought to trigger home costs to naturally come down.
The method of drafting and approving the ordinance will take just a few months, Dodson stated. As soon as workers completes drafting the regulation, it should go earlier than the city’s planning fee for approval earlier than going via two readings and a public listening to earlier than City Council.
