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Planning Commission Urges: Pass Cottage Legislation

News   September 4, 2009 at 4:54 pm Erica C. Barnett

Nearly six months after Mayor Greg Nickels first proposed allowing backyard cottages throughout the city—and six years after the commission first started pushing the council to allow backyard cottages—backyard cottages are still verboten in most of the city. (Under a pilot project, 17 cottages have been built in Southeast Seattle).

The debate, like so many about development in Seattle, is more or less intractable. One side believes that cottage housing will modestly expand affordable-housing options without wrecking single-family neighborhoods. The other believes that backyard apartments will be The End of Single-Family Zoning and Civilization As We Know It.

Today, the city’s 16-member planning commission weighed in with a letter to the city council, urging them to move forward on the long-delayed proposal (and to ditch the annual limit of 50 new cottages in the current legislation). Cottages, the commissioners noted, provide “lower cost rental housing options, an opportunity for homeowners to offset the cost of their homeownership, and housing for extended family members.” They also offered to help homeowners design cottages that fit in with their neighborhoods—an attempt to defray some residents’ fears that they’ll be overrun by new neighbors.

Next Wednesday, September 9, the council’s land use committee will get a briefing on backyard cottages from the city’s planning department, and the public will get its say at a hearing at 5:30 on September 15.


  • Sarah

    What’s being ignored in the debate about backyard cottages is the fact that many, many houses in Seattle neighborhoods already have “cottages” — they just happen to be in the basements of houses. Yes, some years ago Attached Accessory Dwelling Units were legalized but the requirements to legalize one are draconian and have remained so with little change. To even start the process, you need to pay a fee, and if you already have one in place (and most houses do)and it doesn’t pass inspection and you can’t afford to modify it, you must remove the key elements (locking door, kitchen elements, etc.) and you get fined until you do. If you already have someone living there, you are fined $150 A DAY until they move out. When the ordinance first came out, the City was amazed that not many people applied. At that time there was a ridiculous parking requirement; I believe that’s gone. But still everything in the unit must be up to code — not just safe for habitation, but completely up to code. How many houses in Seattle are up to code?

    Who knows how many newly-available low-income units there might be if the ordinance was redone? Certainly more than there will be by legalizing backyard cottages. How many people can afford to build them, to begin with? How many people can see the advantage to building them if their neighbors hate them and they lose their backyard?

    What a silly idea.

  • Sarah

    What’s being ignored in the debate about backyard cottages is the fact that many, many houses in Seattle neighborhoods already have “cottages” — they just happen to be in the basements of houses. Yes, some years ago Attached Accessory Dwelling Units were legalized but the requirements to legalize one are draconian and have remained so with little change. To even start the process, you need to pay a fee, and if you already have one in place (and most houses do)and it doesn’t pass inspection and you can’t afford to modify it, you must remove the key elements (locking door, kitchen elements, etc.) and you get fined until you do. If you already have someone living there, you are fined $150 A DAY until they move out. When the ordinance first came out, the City was amazed that not many people applied. At that time there was a ridiculous parking requirement; I believe that’s gone. But still everything in the unit must be up to code — not just safe for habitation, but completely up to code. How many houses in Seattle are up to code?

    Who knows how many newly-available low-income units there might be if the ordinance was redone? Certainly more than there will be by legalizing backyard cottages. How many people can afford to build them, to begin with? How many people can see the advantage to building them if their neighbors hate them and they lose their backyard?

    What a silly idea.

  • Kathryn

    Worrying about too many people is kind of weird when one considers that the Single Family Neighborhoods of Seattle used to contain fairly large households within those houses. Now, it’s likely a single, couple or less than two child family.

  • Kathryn

    Worrying about too many people is kind of weird when one considers that the Single Family Neighborhoods of Seattle used to contain fairly large households within those houses. Now, it’s likely a single, couple or less than two child family.

  • hmmmm

    One side believes that cottage housing will modestly expand affordable-housing options without wrecking single-family neighborhoods. The other believes that backyard apartments will be The End of Single-Family Zoning and Civilization As We Know It.

    Hence, “us vs. them”, a widely used form in propaganda. If only the world was as simple as ECB vs. Crosscut.

  • ktstine

    @Kathryn, that is a very very good point. Seattle has the second smallest household size in the Country, behind San Fran – lots of singles and child-less couples in the City.

  • ktstine

    @Kathryn, that is a very very good point. Seattle has the second smallest household size in the Country, behind San Fran – lots of singles and child-less couples in the City.

  • Kathryn

    @kstine Why allowing simple subdivision into SF sized duplex should also be in the mix. Ownership, but the amount of building on the lot remains the same. More energy efficient than two stand alone structures.

    Anyway, as noted above, these types of living arrangements ARE the reality on the ground, especially in areas that have been historically had multi-generational extended family homes. Imposing draconian restrictions drives me insane.

  • Kathryn

    @kstine Why allowing simple subdivision into SF sized duplex should also be in the mix. Ownership, but the amount of building on the lot remains the same. More energy efficient than two stand alone structures.

    Anyway, as noted above, these types of living arrangements ARE the reality on the ground, especially in areas that have been historically had multi-generational extended family homes. Imposing draconian restrictions drives me insane.

  • hram

    More seattle process that we can look forward to over the next 5 years

  • hram

    More seattle process that we can look forward to over the next 5 years

  • eddiew

    the Mayor’s proposal, as usual, needs to be made less timid by the Council. there is no need for an annual limit. DADU are advantageous for all. the householder gets rental income and perhaps help with yard work; the renter gets affordable housiing; the neighbhorhood gets more eyes on the street and feet on the sidewalk. the supposed negative externalities are scarce or imagined: more traffic could be generated by a single family house; a single family house is zoned to 35 feet and could over shadow a backkyard, with or without an DADU.
    Council: please legalize!

  • eddiew

    the Mayor’s proposal, as usual, needs to be made less timid by the Council. there is no need for an annual limit. DADU are advantageous for all. the householder gets rental income and perhaps help with yard work; the renter gets affordable housiing; the neighbhorhood gets more eyes on the street and feet on the sidewalk. the supposed negative externalities are scarce or imagined: more traffic could be generated by a single family house; a single family house is zoned to 35 feet and could over shadow a backkyard, with or without an DADU.
    Council: please legalize!

  • Zoner

    Pretty good article in Crosscut on the 28th or so explaining the legal side of all of this. Go for it, Council.

  • Zoner

    Pretty good article in Crosscut on the 28th or so explaining the legal side of all of this. Go for it, Council.

  • what happended to Sally?

    It will be interesting to watch Sally Clark on this issue. Word on the street is that the the business community and greens are fed up with Sally Clark and her crazy-angry-Crosscut-loving-single-family-forever-NIMBY pampering. It will be interesting to watch Sally maneuver through this issue since it is a lightening rod for the more out there “neighborhood” activists. I doubt she can do so gracefully.

  • what happended to Sally?

    It will be interesting to watch Sally Clark on this issue. Word on the street is that the the business community and greens are fed up with Sally Clark and her crazy-angry-Crosscut-loving-single-family-forever-NIMBY pampering. It will be interesting to watch Sally maneuver through this issue since it is a lightening rod for the more out there “neighborhood” activists. I doubt she can do so gracefully.

  • Urban Planner

    Excellent! Good job Planning Commission. There is no reason not to do this and I agree the annual cap is silly.

  • Urban Planner

    Excellent! Good job Planning Commission. There is no reason not to do this and I agree the annual cap is silly.

  • matt

    This is a good idea.

    At the city’s hearing last night, citizens, affordable housing folks, architects, rental housing advocates, the planning commission, the ecobuilding guild, and realtors were for it in large proportion (24-6 by the time I left near the end).

    I too think that the 50 unit limit is gratuitous. Since you need money, a suitable lot, and the desire to make it happen, I don’t think we’ll see anywhere near that number (granted there is some pent up demand).

  • matt

    This is a good idea.

    At the city’s hearing last night, citizens, affordable housing folks, architects, rental housing advocates, the planning commission, the ecobuilding guild, and realtors were for it in large proportion (24-6 by the time I left near the end).

    I too think that the 50 unit limit is gratuitous. Since you need money, a suitable lot, and the desire to make it happen, I don’t think we’ll see anywhere near that number (granted there is some pent up demand).

  • hmmmm

    One side believes that cottage housing will modestly expand affordable-housing options without wrecking single-family neighborhoods. The other believes that backyard apartments will be The End of Single-Family Zoning and Civilization As We Know It.

    Hence, “us vs. them”, a widely used form in propaganda. If only the world was as simple as ECB vs. Crosscut.