Agenda Date: 10/22/2024
Subject:
Title
Neighborhood Housing Opportunities - Missing Middle Housing Unified Land Use Code Amendment
Body
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From: |
James L. Becklenberg, City Manager |
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Prepared by: |
Zareen Tasneem, Senior Planner |
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Presentations: |
Jerad Chipman, Planning Manager |
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Zareen Tasneem, Senior Planner |
PURPOSE:
Joint City Council and Planning Commission study session to review and discuss proposed changes to Title 10 of the City Code, known as the Unified Land Use Code (ULUC), related to the topic of “missing middle housing.” Staff prepared the draft code amendment based on results of a community survey, a technical stakeholder group meeting, and background research.
LONG-TERM OUTCOME(S) SERVED:
Robust & Resilient Economy; High-Quality Governance
DISCUSSION:
When the Unified Land Use Code (ULUC) was adopted on October 18, 2021, it included several land use categories that fall under the missing middle housing types. Generally, this term covers the transect of housing types that fall in between single-family detached houses and mid-rise apartment buildings. Examples include duplexes, accessory dwelling units (ADUs), cottage court communities, and multiplexes. These land use categories often have restrictive standards associated with them in the ULUC that make them difficult to build. As a result, the city has only received a handful of building permits and site plans proposing to construct these types of uses.
Staff established several goals with the neighborhood housing opportunities project that the proposed changes then categorically fall under:
• Clarify zoning code regulations
• Incorporate requirements of recently passed state legislation regarding ADUs
• Reduce existing zoning code barriers
• Expand land use types as permitted in more zone districts
Staff is seeking feedback from City Council and Planning Commission on the draft code amendments prior to the public hearing of the c ordinance.
BACKGROUND:
Envision Littleton, the city’s comprehensive plan, names housing diversity as one of its goals. To align with this goal, staff made incremental changes to the ULUC’s ADUs regulations last year as part of a larger code amendment. During that process, both Littleton’s Planning Commission and City Council expressed interest in taking a more comprehensive look at the ADU regulations in 2024. During a joint study session with the Planning Commission and Housing Task Force on December 11, 2023, interest was expressed to also look at other “missing middle housing” types that could be built in the Neighborhood (NB) zone districts. Staff decided to term these categorically as “neighborhood housing opportunities.”
During the January 23, 2024 council study session, staff presented a thematic approachto code amendments this year and was given direction to review the City’s land use code relating to neighborhood housing opportunities. At the June 4, 2024, council study session, Council gave specific direction to staff explore allowing all missing middle housing types in all the NB zone districts.
Community Survey
Following the June study session, staff created a survey on this topic to understand the community’s sentiments (see attached for survey questions and responses). The survey was open from August 19 - September 9, 2024, and staff received a total of 150 responses. It was advertised on the City’s social media accounts, Littleton Report Online, community spaces, community newsletters, and to other City boards/commissions (note: staff presented this project to the Next Generation Advisory Board on October 3, 2024.
Overall, about 65% of the responses were supportive. When the data was mapped for those that chose to provide their address (about half of the respondents), support was spread throughout the city. Of the 15% that were categorized as “unclear,” while some gave responses unrelated to the topic, most expressed some support of the topic, with some conflicting results. For example, some people were supportive of ADUs and duplexes, but unsupportive of 3-4-unit products, or there was support of needing more diverse and affordable housing products but also wanting them to be high-end products. While most people stated that they currently live in a single-family detached house, 22% stated they had considered a duplex while looking for housing, about 20% a condo, and 36% a townhome.
About 55% of the respondents expressed that they or someone they knew experienced difficulty finding suitable housing in Littleton, with antidotes provided in the open-ended responses. This information is corroborated by the recent 2024 Resident Survey Report: 38% of the 636 respondents said affordable housing is one of the most pressing issues facing the city. In 2012, 20% of respondents had expressed housing and rental rates being affordable as one of the reasons they choose to live in Littleton. Over the last 10 years, this share has dropped, with only 8% choosing housing diversity as the reason they live in Littleton. Please find attached a chart generated from DRCOG’s Housing Needs Dashboards that depicts residential housing permitting trends for about the last 20 years.
Technical Stakeholder Group
Staff reached out to industry professionals that have experience with the missing middle housing types to be a part of a technical stakeholder group discussion, while also trying to keep affordability in mind. Therefore, this group included architects that worked on missing middle housing type projects in the City of Littleton under the ULUC, a representative from Planning Commission, a representative from Habitat for Humanity, and a couple of board members from South Metro Housing Options.
The stakeholder group meeting was held in-person August 22, 2024 at Littleton Center (see attached for meeting summary notes). The goal for the meeting was part education and part work session: a common orientation of current zoning code regulations was established and feedback was sought on what zoning code changes are needed to make these product types more feasible to build in the City of Littleton. Staff received some insightful feedback from this group, particularly on some items that were not initially under staff’s consideration. For example, the definition of “height” in the zoning code does not align with the building codes (it is more restrictive), and thus has implications on what can realistically be built.
Overall, the stakeholder group was supportive of this topic and felt the fewer the regulations, the better, i.e. permit them everywhere without many specific design standards. More regulations equate to a higher cost downstream for the end user. For example, requiring a site plan land use application approval prior to building permit review means hiring and paying consultant(s) for their time and services for two City processes (vs. just one building permit process).
Other Research
Staff performed GIS analysis of the current parcel data for the City to better understand dimensional standards in the zoning code versus existing conditions. For the NB zone districts, the calculations of greatest interest were average lot area and average lot width. Unfortunately, calculating the average lot width requires manually determining individual lot widths for all the parcels in the city first, which is a complex process that would take a long time. Staff was able to calculate the average lot areas and discovered a discrepancy with the average lot area and the minimum lot area in the code for the ACR zone district: the minimum lot area requirement was almost an acre more than actual average lot area.
On the community survey, many respondents anticipated infrastructure to be a potential challenge or drawback from increasing missing middle housing in Littleton. Public Works staff calculated the following sanitary and traffic projection data:
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Summary of Additional Infrastructure Demand |
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Percent of Ex. SF Lots Redeveloped |
Net New Units |
Sanitary |
Traffic |
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Peak Sanitary Flow (cfs) |
Pipe Equivalent (Inches) |
AM Peak Hour |
PM Peak Hour |
Daily Trips |
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1% |
353 |
0.32 |
6" |
123 |
137 |
2146 |
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3% |
1037 |
0.79 |
10" |
322 |
363 |
6230 |
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5% |
1722 |
1.21 |
12" |
522 |
591 |
10323 |
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10% |
3444 |
2.16 |
15" |
1026 |
1164 |
20620 |
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20% |
6888 |
3.87 |
21" |
2035 |
2311 |
41215 |
General Note
1) Calculations assume an equal number of ADU, duplex, triplex, and quadplex buildings.
Sanitary Notes
1) Cfs = cubic feet per second. It’s a volume-based flow rate used for water, stormwater, and sanitary.
2) City and County of Denver Sanitary Planning Criteria
3) New units assume 2.1 People per Unit
4) Existing single-family units assume 3.1 People per Unit
5) Assumed 90 Gallons per day per person
6) "Pipe Equivalent" is the pipe diameter that would accommodate new flows on their own, assuming minimum slope. Does not include existing flows.
7) Existing single-family demand was deducted from future duplex, triplex, and quadplex redevelopment
Traffic Notes
1) ITE Trip Generation Manual, 11th Edition
2) Trip Generation Rates for ADUs are not available
3) ITE Code 220 - "Multi-Family Housing (Low-Rise)" used for ADU, and quadplex
4) ITE Code 215 - Single-Family Attached used for duplex, and triplex
5) Transit proximity reductions were not applied (1/2 mile from rail transit station needed)
6) Existing single-family demand was deducted from future duplex, triplex, and quadplex redevelopment
7) Reference Littleton TMP, Figure 8 for existing daily traffic map
Finally, staff conducted a survey of relevant code regulations in the surrounding municipalities and found results to be inconclusive in terms of how permissible others were. For example:
• Much of the density in Douglas County is concentrated in Highlands Ranch, which is regulated by a series of planned development documents and not the regular zoning code.
• Greenwood Village’s zoning code is more restrictive; Englewood’s is more permissive.
• Centennial was in the process of doing its own code amendment related to residential neighborhood zoning and Denver also recently did a major update to its ADU regulations.
Draft Code Amendments
As a result of the community survey, stakeholder group meeting, and background research staff conducted the following changes:(this list is not all-inclusive):
§ Simplified, consistent definitions and use types:
§ Duplex - only one category to refer to two primary dwelling units in one building, all other categories deleted.
§ Multiplex - now means a 3-4 unit building that does not meet the townhome definition, e.g. a stacked triplex,
§ Townhome - a 3+-unit single-family attached product.
§ ADU categories
§ Attached - shares a common wall with the primary dwelling unit.
§ Detached - does not share a common wall.
§ Height - definition aligns with building code definition.
§ Cottage Court Communities
§ Clarified housing types permitted and established maximum square foot limits.
§ Increased maximum parking permitted to 2 spaces/unit.
§ Removed adjacency requirement.
§ Reduced minimum site area requirement to a quarter acre.
§ Incorporated requirements of recently passed State legislation regarding ADUs
§ Removed alley access requirement for detached ADUs.
§ Allowing detached ADUs in all NB zone districts.
§ Increased gross floor area allowed for detached ADUs.
§ Permitted in areas that have single-family only planned development regulations.
§ Maximum height increased to be equal to height allowed for a single-family detached house in the same zone district.
§ Removed minimum parking requirement.
§ Duplexes
§ Removed conditional use permit requirement for duplexes in SLR.
§ Remove site plan process requirement for duplexes.
§ Permit duplexes in SLR south of W. Caley Avenue.
§ Changed ACR minimum lot area to better align with existing average lot area data.
§ Added standards for existing single-family detached houses in MFR.
§ Allowing duplexes and cottage court communities in all NB zone districts.
§ Allowing multiplexes and 3-4-unit townhomes in MLR and SLR.
Prior Actions or Discussions
• At the January 23, 2024, City Council study session, council gave staff direction to pursue work on this code amendment topic this year.
• At the June 4, 2024 City Council study session, council gave staff direction on the scope of the code amendments, which included exploring allowing all missing middle housing types in all the Neighborhood zone districts.
FISCAL IMPACTS:
If new missing middle housing types are built, the city would collect fees during the land use application and/or building permit process.
STAFF RECOMMENDATION:
Study sessions are for discussion purposes only. No official decisions are made, nor actions taken at a study session.
ALTERNATIVES
N/A
REFERENCES:
ULUC Proposed Changes:
https://online.encodeplus.com/regs/littleton-co-cc/rfc.aspx?secid=3002#secid-3002 <https://online.encodeplus.com/regs/littleton-co-cc/rfc.aspx?secid=3002>
2024 Resident Survey Report
<https://www.littletonco.gov/Government/Notices-Reports-Records/Resident-and-Business-Surveys/2024-Resident-Survey>
www.littletonco.gov/files/sharedassets/public/v/1/business/documents/surveys/littleton-resident-survey-report-2024.pdf <http://www.littletonco.gov/files/sharedassets/public/v/1/business/documents/surveys/littleton-resident-survey-report-2024.pdf>
DRCOG Housing Needs Dashboard
https://drcog.shinyapps.io/denver_regional_housing_need/
House Bill 24-1152 (Signed State Legislation on ADUs)
https://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/2024a_1152_signed.pdf