In response to the area’s housing crunch, Clark County is moving forward with changes to its building codes that it hopes will spur the development of previously underutilized types of housing.
“We have a systemic problem,” said Colete Anderson, a member of the county’s planning staff, to the roughly 50 residents who gathered in the Bud Van Cleve Community Room at the Luke Jensen Sports Park on Wednesday evening. “And we are trying to come up with ways to encourage different types of housing.”
She explained that the code changes are specifically intended to encourage the development of cottage-style housing as well as accessory dwelling units, small residences that come in the form of a converted basement, an addition to an existing home or a new backyard building.
Cottage houses are houses on shared or individual lots that have a common green space. They are denser developments, and other communities in the state have looked to them as an affordable-housing option. Although the county has allowed cottage houses since 2012, Anderson said none have been developed in Clark County.
She said that every city in the county has its own code governing ADUs. She said Vancouver, which recently revised its code, has 65 ADUs. Clark County has allowed for ADUs since 1993, but the county has documented only 22 ADUs in the unincorporated Vancouver urban growth area, according to a fact sheet provided at the meeting.
“That’s not a very good track record,” Anderson said of the county.
The proposed changes would remove the current one-bedroom limitation on ADUs. They would allow basement ADUs to match the square footage of the main floor and allow manufactured or modular homes to be used. The minimum square footage for ADUs would be reduced to 150.
The current county code doesn’t contain language concerning ADUs in rural areas. The closest thing it recognizes are guest houses, which don’t contain kitchens. The code changes would create “urban” and “rural” classifications for ADUs. Because of a requirement in the state’s land-use laws, rural ADUs would need to be attached to the primary dwelling.
Anderson said that the Clark County Planning Commission will be holding a hearing on the proposed changes where the public can offer further input. The changes will be considered by the county council, which is expected to take action early next year.
Under the code changes, transportation and park impact fees for urban ADUs would be reduced by 75 percent. Rural ADUs would have their transportation impact fees reduced by 75 percent. The code language would still require the owners to be living on the property, and parking requirements will be retained.
Under the code changes, the minimum square footage for cottage housing would be reduced from 500 to 150 square feet. The maximum square footage would be increased from 1,200 gross floor area to 1,600 gross floor area. The main floor maximum square footage will increase from 800 to 1,200 square feet.
The proposed code change would also add “tiny house” to the county code and define it as “a detached single-family dwelling unit” that’s not less than 150 square feet that’s constructed on mounted on a foundation connected to utilities. The proposed code change makes a point of stating that a small dwelling unit built on a chassis is a recreational vehicle.
Anderson, and other county staff at the meeting, heard from residents who raised concerns that more ADUs will change the character of neighborhoods and contribute to congestion. Short-term rental companies, such as Airbnb, have been criticized for cutting into affordable-housing stock. A woman asked what sort of regulations the county has on these companies and how it would interface with the new code.
“So in solving the problem of affordable housing, you are just degrading everyone’s quality of life,” said Nick Platt, a resident of Hazel Dell. He asked if there would be a limitation on how many ADUs any neighborhood could have.
Del Meliza, a member of the county’s Developmental Disabilities Advisory Board, spoke approvingly of the idea. He said that more ADUs could be helpful for parents who want to give a disabled child more independence.
“It could be a real boost to the community and people who are on hard times,” he said.
