Report a Comment

The current situation with accessory apartments in MoCo has become so knotted, it will take time and focused effort to untangle and resolve. It remains to be seen if Ike and the County Council will dedicate resources to figuring out a safe, fair and complete set of rules. Yes, accessory apartments are great for generating income from one's property for whatever reason.

Most accessory apartments will work out fine. But the County has to protect against the "worst case" scenarios which most communities won't see but some communities are inundated with. These include all the illegal, unsafe and maybe discriminatory behavior of homeowners toward tenants (see Aspen Hill comments in WashPost Real Estate article a few weeks ago).

If homeowners think the current process through Board of Appeals is long and cumbersome, how will the County guarantee that a process led by understaffed DHCA will be any better? One of the major impediments to declaring an accessory apartment is the cost of building to code. It's the $thousands in renovation costs (20 minute doors, windows that allow someone to escape from a basement during a fire, bedrooms of a certain size per inhabitant, wiring, etc) that deter compliance. How will the County deal with the continued code enforcement problem?

A 2004 report by Planning Staff reviewed 7 regions that had eased accessory apartment rules. There was no difference in license applications with eased rules.

The County needs to spend a little more time figuring out what exactly is wrong with all aspects of the accessory apartments problem before tossing this hot potato from Bd of Appeals to DHCA.

by jmc on Jun 27, 2012 9:20 pm • link • report