Tempe is considering a revision of its Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) ordinance to expand where these small backyard homes can be built.
ADUs, known also as “casitas”, are small homes on single-family lots that are subordinate to the main house. ADUs have a small impact on the visual character of a neighborhood, but provide an important avenue for expanding the housing supply for renters and multigenerational families. Tempe and the wider Phoenix metro face a large shortage of housing units, driving up housing costs by forcing renters and buyers to compete for scarce housing units instead of forcing landlords and landowners to compete for renters and buyers.
Tempe’s current ordinance is so restrictive that few properties are currently eligible to build ADUs. Accordingly, less than 10 ADUs have been built since the ordinance was passed 5 years ago.
Tempe has an opportunity to join the other cities and states across the nation that have allowed these modest and affordable homes. But yet again, we see a fear-mongering and unsubstantiated backlash against policies that would make Tempe more affordable and sustainable.
Fears about ADUs are overblown
Opponents claim that casitas will be a neighborhood nuisance, flooding neighborhoods with cars and Airbnbs. Luckily, Tempe would be far from the first city to adopt an expansive ADU ordinance, so we don’t have to wildly speculate about impacts.
First, ADU occupants tend to own fewer cars. Studies from places where ADUs are widely available find that the average occupant owns about half the number of cars as the average household. Of those with cars, only half made use of street parking. ADUs won’t add to parking problems, but parking requirements will add a costly and sometimes insurmountable barrier to the effectiveness of casita expansion.
Second, the evidence on short-term rentals suggests this fear is also overblown. A survey of Los Angeles ADU owners found that a large majority use their ADUs for long-term rentals or a family residence. A separate, larger statewide survey of ADU owners in California found that only 8% of owners use their ADUs as short-term rentals. On top of this, any ADU ordinance passed by Tempe will likely restrict their usage as short-term rentals.
There is nothing to suggest that ADUs would be an overwhelming disruption to neighborhoods. Instead of evidence, much of the opposition appears rooted in a gut dislike of renters, people who are still our neighbors even if they don’t have the means to purchase a home.
Read more than the headline
Opponents have been happy to share the Shelterforce headline “Why ADUs Can’t Solve the Nation’s Housing Crisis.” However, using a rare technique known as “reading the actual article” we can find the piece is about how, while ADUs are a valuable tool, they won’t solve the housing crisis by themselves. The argument instead being made by Tempe ADU opponents is that, because ADUs will not solve the entire housing crisis, we shouldn’t allow them to be built at all.
Consider the premise of this argument. We shouldn’t take any small steps toward dealing with a larger problem if that step alone won’t solve the entire problem? This is a nonsensical approach.
We should also beware of false tradeoffs. Consider this article quote pulled by the NIMBY group leading the charge against casitas:
“A single ADU takes between 12 and 18 months from permitting to completion. A multifamily building with 20-plus units averaged 19.7 months to build (after permitting, a process that varies by location), according to National Association of Home Builders estimates.”
Fortunately, this is not an either/or situation. Tempe needs to build much more multifamily housing, especially near transit and jobs. Casitas are not a substitute for multifamily, but rather an important addition to it. A key advantage of ADUs is their ability to gently add housing stock in existing single-family neighborhoods, where multifamily housing is currently disallowed.
Additionally, a well-designed ADU ordinance would simplify and streamline the process of building one, bringing down costs and the time of getting badly needed new housing online.
It is astounding that many of those currently leading opposition to casitas, citing the fewer units provided compared to multi-family housing, also fought to reduce the amount of multifamily allowed in General Plan 2050.
Two is more than one
On the topic of false choices—the alternative proposal presented by opponents is a bond issue for affordable housing, based on a recently passed $63 million initiative in Phoenix.
A bond issue for affordable housing is a good idea, one we strongly support. What’s bizarre is that this is framed in opposition to ADUs. An affordable housing bond is complementary to allowing more housing options, such as casitas, in Tempe.
Both are important pieces of solving our housing shortage. To suggest otherwise reveals either a profound misunderstanding of the crisis—or worse—suggests this bond suggestion is just a convenient cudgel, pitting a hypothetical proposal against an existing plan currently on the table for discussion.
Moreover, the proposal is wholly inadequate on its own. In a proposal for American Rescue Plan funding, the city of Phoenix put their average building cost at $250,000 per unit.
Using this number as a rough guide: if all of the bond money went to the construction of new affordable housing, it would result in 252 new units. This would be 252 new units of affordable housing that didn’t exist before, but this is a paltry sum compared to what is needed to address the crisis.
We should do a larger affordable housing bond and we should be more ambitious than that. We should streamline the permitting process for affordable housing projects in Tempe and allow them to be built by-right across the city, eliminating a major barrier to affordable housing production and ensuring that we maximize how many affordable units tax dollars and nonprofits can produce.
We need to be more serious than this
For those saying ADUs aren’t enough and that Tempe needs to do way more: welcome to Tempe YIMBY. We hope you’ll join us in fighting for pro-housing policies in Tempe and across the state.
Sadly, instead of talking about how we can craft the best possible ADU ordinance to provide our neighbors with places to live, a select few are flooding the zone with fear-mongering claims that ADUs will upend neighborhoods, something that isn’t substantiated by the evidence.
Tempe has fallen behind cities across the country that are adopting pro-housing reforms to bring down rents and get the housing market back to a healthy place. Now that city council has begun to put forward solutions, our answer cannot be to delay, obstruct, and engage in alarmism about the smallest of steps needed to dig ourselves out of the housing crisis.
This isn’t a serious discussion when our city is short of the housing options people need. We need an all-of-the-above approach to housing because a livable city is one where people have a place to live, not one where a loud group can demand that people be excluded from living in Tempe.
If you want to reach out to City Council and urge them to expand ADUs, you can email [email protected] or call 480-350-8110. You can also find contact information for individual council members here.