Dallas Answers Granny Flats Before Asking The Right Questions

Back in 2018, Dallas enabled Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs), also known as Granny Flats – essentially a second unit on the same lot as a single family home (but not a duplex, heavens no, not that!). At the time, I thought it was a great step to undo 80 years where such units were banned from being rented for a variety of unpleasant, often racial, reasons.

Adoption has been abysmal with just two individual ADUs approved since – both in District 3 in January 2020 (who D3 council member Casey Thomas had no idea existed during a February council meeting). No neighborhood has applied for an overlay.

In order to juice the adoption of ADUs, District 1 council member Chad West, chair of the Housing and Homelessness Solutions Committee, suggests making changes to the existing ordinances. The original ordinance said that individuals and neighborhoods needed to apply and be approved by the Board of Adjustment (BOD) – opting-in. The funny thing is that when the city staff issued a survey between June 25 and July 10 that was answered by 2,314 residents from all districts (unevenly), 38 percent said they knew of ADUs in their neighborhood (those two approved must have a lot of friends – hang on to that incongruity).

Are You Opt-in Or Opt-Out?

The big change being recommended is to make the entire city ADU-enabled with residents/neighborhoods having to opt-out.

I’m OK with this. It’s weaker, but not dissimilar to what Minneapolis did allowing three units per single-family lot (a triplex). Density must happen. And density that’s better at retaining the flavor of single-family district without their being overrun with the ugly apartment buildings Dallas developers love so much. I don’t agree that there should be an ability for neighborhoods to opt-out (hang on to that, too).

Another question in the city’s survey was whether ADUs should be allowed in all Dallas neighborhoods. Two-thirds said “yes” and 30 percent said “no”. Wouldn’t you love to see the district breakdown of those answers – because I’m pretty sure we all have a gut feeling where the “no” votes live.

Tenants And Owner Occupants

There are two big bugaboos in all this that have been asked, but not adequately addressed. Namely, who’s the prospective tenant and will the homeowner be home? 

In order to generate the income needed to pay for the ADU’s construction, short-term rentals are the way to generate the most money – not yearly leaseholders. That could be a problem for peaceful neighborhoods who don’t want the clickity-clack of suitcases rolling over sidewalk joints at all hours.

Adding to the potential for noise and neighborhood wrath is whether the owner would be required to reside on the property at all. That turns a scheme for providing affordable housing throughout the city into one that creates investment-class neighborhoods.

While Dallas is no Hawaii, Honolulu Magazine reported in September that 93 percent of the state’s short-term rentals were whole-house rentals – meaning they weren’t helping someone pay their homestead mortgage or property taxes. These were investment properties. This was backed up by their ownership hidden behind various LLCs. Should Dallas go down the route of not requiring owner-occupancy, neighborhoods will suffer. Affordability will suffer.

If There Are So Many ADUs Already, Why Aren’t They On The Books?

District 9’s Paula Blackmon pointed out a giant plothole to city council in the February council meeting. At that point, the city had done no research into why there were only two applications for ADUs. Is it the application fee?  Poor advertising? Owners are already getting away with it illegally and see no reason (enforcement) to fly right? This is the city again playing Jeopardy – reading out the answer expecting someone else to provide the question to back them up.

There’s even the basic economics of this. Unless you have one already built on an older house, can a newly constructed ADU be cost effective? Remember, the original ordinance says that newly-constructed ADUs have to be stylistically in keeping with the main house. You also need a unit with a kitchen, bathroom and living area in units generally between 200 and 700 square feet. So is the rent on an at best one-bedroom enough to turn a profit given construction costs and increased property taxes?  No one knows – although two applications may be a hint.

And while Austin’s success was mentioned (hundreds of applications) there was no detail on whether those were simply registrations of existing units (through enforcement) or if a significant number were new builds. That’s another key piece of missing information. Meanwhile other municipalities reported-on had very limited success overall with most having a lot less than 100 applications/licenses even years after adoption – Boston had 12 permits issued on 55 applications over two years.

So again, how can you decide on a fix without understanding why you’re currently failing?  Seems very bass-ackwards. It’s like if your child was getting poor grades so you hire a tutor – meanwhile the kid just needs glasses to see the blackboard.

As I said, I like the idea of ADUs, but if no one uses them and the city can’t manage them, they’re not the answer. They’re just a lot of useless pot-stirring that only makes us feel good.

Enforcement? Who?

Remember those two ideas I told you to remember? You don’t soooo – despite only two legal ADUs in the city, 38 percent of survey respondents knew of one in their neighborhood and my not believing neighborhoods should be able to opt out.

Considering there are apparently only two legal ADUs in the city and that code enforcement has equally apparently not uncovered any illegal ones, how will Dallas manage this? It won’t. It can’t. It never has.

The August 20 Zoning Ordinance Advisory Committee briefing included changes to the original assumptions that will further tax woefully understaffed city departments (meaning it won’t be done).

Were the city to adopt the default opted-in/by-right option, it would constitute a zoning change which would require residents within the proposed area and within 500 feet of its edges to be mailed notices (as in any zoning case). This would lead to numerous community meetings (run by city staff) before winding its way through the City Plan Commission and eventually City Council – for every neighborhood in the city – damn near simultaneously. So it will either fail immediately or fail by being rubber-stamped – so why bother?

Have you ever seen the hundreds of pages contained in the typical CPC or council meeting agenda packet? And now there will be how many more cases and pages added that are at best skimmed over before votes taken? What will happen is that the council member whose district the case is in will tell the others how to vote – making the whole process pointless.

Build. More. Housing.

Coincidentally, I was watching a program on the huge development (and resulting gentrification) of Manchester, UK. The new leader of the government housing program is a developer. He’s a bit weepy about wanting to do his part so his kids can be proud when they walk by homeless people in the street – everything, that is, except built affordable housing.

It’s a sentiment echoed by District 4 representative Carolyn King Arnold who told council they should just build more housing in neighborhoods where tumbleweeds get lost from all the open land. Now I realize this is tricky as Dallas was caught by the Feds building low-income housing only in poorer areas, so they’d have to actually do it right, but it’s possible.

Of course, this is Dallas. After YEARS of waffling and pontificating, the city still has no affordable housing statute for developers to even follow. Developers need a Ouija board to guess the fickleness of the Plan Commission and Council on the day they present a case.  

This time we have recommended changes for ADU ordinances with no proper research to prove what they’re proposing is even right.

But hey, the city sure appears like its doing something to ease our affordability crisis. And isn’t that what matters?