New granny flat rules clear first hurdle in Fountain Valley

It could be getting easier to build a granny flat in Fountain Valley.

The City Council agreed on a 4-1 vote Tuesday to the first reading of an ordinance that would update local rules for the secondary units. This comes in line with a new state law intended to make accessory units, an affordable-by-design housing type, easier to build.

Granny flats, also known by city planners as accessory dwelling units, can be attached, unattached or within a larger home, and can include backyard cottages or apartments built in basements or above garages.

Under the new ordinance, units built within a half-mile of the city’s busiest bus lines — routes along Euclid Street, Edinger Avenue and Harbor Boulevard, where buses stop at 15-minute intervals or shorter during the peak commute times — will be exempted from having dedicated parking. All other units must have one parking space per unit, or per bedroom, whichever is less.

City planner Steve Ayers told the council that’s a loosening of the city’s earlier rules for secondary units. Previous city ordinances required one enclosed parking space per bedroom of a secondary unit, then one space for every bedroom in the unit.

The relaxed parking requirements triggered Councilman Mark McCurdy to cast the dissenting vote.

“It seems almost car-hostile to me,” he said. “It seems like an increasing war on our vehicles and our autonomy and our independence.”

The ordinance needs a final reading, at a future council meeting, to go into effect.

Also under the new rules, either the main or accessory unit must be owner-occupied and the accessory unit cannot be sold separately or offered for short-term rental. The accessory unit’s square footage cannot exceed half of the main unit’s, or 1,200 square feet, and the lot size must be at least 7,200 square feet to have a secondary unit.

The new state law allows cities continued discretion on zoning, lot and unit size and aesthetics. Provided the units meet the basic standards, they could be approved without a public hearing.

Councilman Steve Nagel voted for the changes, but said he did so reluctantly.

“This has been handed down by the state, and we are mandated to do this. We don’t want to do it,” he said. “It has taken our local control from us. This is one of the reasons why we try to be part of the California League of Cities and the ACC-OC [Assn. of California Cities-Orange County], is that we work real hard to try to fight the state on this and even with all the cities involved with it this what we ended up with.”

Newport Beach passed a granny-flats ordinance earlier this year. Costa Mesa’s version has cleared the city planning commission and will go before the City Council next. Laguna Beach is working on an ordinance to present to its planning commission in December.

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