Single-family zones next target in push for affordable housing

The council advanced a plan to alter dimensional standards, eliminate garage requirements and allow for accessory dwelling units in single-family zones. The goal is smaller, more affordable housing.

The Laramie City Council unanimously advanced a motion seeking to allow and encourage more affordable housing development in certain zones of the city.

The new ordinance would decrease the minimum lot area, minimum lot width, and setback requirements for residential units in single-family zones throughout the city — essentially shrinking the required size of residential units.

City councilors hope the changes will let developers build smaller and more affordable houses.

“This is just another code change that our council and our staff have brought forward as part of our multi-pronged and ongoing effort on housing and affordability and how that relates to our economic development,” Mayor Paul Weaver said. “It’s worth noting that this is fitting into that larger umbrella of those topics and concerns.”

Two months ago, the council approved similar changes to multi-family zoning — including lot sizes and width requirements. The new ordinance seeks to make single-family zones less restrictive and more attractive to developers — all with the stated goal of cutting down Laramie’s housing shortage.

To the same end, the ordinance would also eliminate the current requirement that all houses in single-family zones have garages. Councilor Erin O’Doherty said that developers would then have the option to either build a garage or to use that space to construct more housing. It’s about giving developers more options, she said.

The ordinance also inserts language into the city code defining and regulating accessory dwelling units. ADUs are secondary residential units and can be either attached or detached from the main house.

Allowing more of them could also address affordable housing issues, O’Doherty said, by giving those with too much housing the opportunity to rent out part of their property.

“We have an aging population,” O’Doherty said. “I heard from Councilor Shuster that his house is bigger than he might need right now and it gives people an option to have an apartment and have younger people living in their too-big baby boomer house.”

Councilors were unanimous in their support for the ordinance and for the changes to single-family zoning. But not everyone was so happy.

Local landlord Brett Glass said the proposed changes would harm Laramie.

“If we want Laramie to be a desirable place to live, we have to preserve the residential quality of our city and that means not pulling the rug out from under homeowners by destroying the character of their neighborhoods,” Glass said. “We don’t want to eliminate the requirement for garages because that would lead to junk in yards, vehicles on lawns and along streets.”

Councilor O’Doherty pushed back on this last point while making the case against the garage requirement.

“It’s more important to house humans than cars,” O’Doherty said.

Developer Michael Sisneros, the only other resident to make a public comment on the zoning changes, supported the ordinance. Sisneros said the changes would open up more lots for new development.

“We need to be able to provide some affordable housing,” he said. “I understand this is probably not right for every neighborhood … but there’s a lot of small developments that can happen. There are lots in West Laramie, there are lots on the west side of town that were previously too small to build on. These types of things will allow for building to be able to happen in these locations.”

The city’s principal planner, Philipp Gabathuler, said the zoning changes proposed in the ordinance will mostly impact new developments, rather than existing neighborhoods.

“We have a lot of developable area,” he said. “You haven’t seen a whole lot of razing of houses and building new multi-family in areas where that is permitted. You just don’t see that because there is a lot of developable space still available.”

The ordinance will return for a second reading in April.