‘Granny flats’: A backyard solution to a residential crisis

Lansing Principal Planner Andy Fedewa and his staff completed an internal review of the city’s zoning policies in May.

Throughout the process, he said they received more than 20 letters of support for allowing accessory dwelling units, or secondary, detached buildings adjacent to existing single-family lots. Colloquially, ADUs are also known as granny flats or mother-in-law suites due to their popularity among people who are responsible for an older relative’s care.

“We have a running list of feedback from residents, developers, architects and even our own code officials. The majority of those comments have been about ADUs, and that’s organic,” Fedewa said.

Fedewa said the “grassroots” interest has come from every ward and “a lot of different neighborhoods.” As his team investigated potential zoning changes, it researched how other Michigan municipalities have codified ADUs. Lansing would be the first in mid-Michigan to do so.

“There’s quite a spectrum to look at, and we picked and pulled ideas from different places, but ours isn’t modeled after any one community. We tried to chart a balanced path towards allowing them, but also made sure they wouldn’t be so restrictive that they don’t even get built,” Fedewa said.

The city’s Planning Commission is set to vote on a proposed ordinance allowing ADUs on Wednesday (Sept. 25). If members approve it, a City Council public hearing could be set as soon as Oct. 28.

As defined by the proposed zoning amendment, ADUs are “a unit detached from and accessory to a principal single-family dwelling.” Often, they’ll come in the form of a second floor added to a detached garage, but they may also be a standalone structure in a backyard.

Fedewa said his office found six existing ADUs in Lansing but declined to identify them in the interest of the occupants’ privacy other than noting that two or three were on the west side.

“It’s really hard to say when they were actually constructed, or if they were legal. There’s not very many of them, but allowing them won’t be such a huge culture change, because they do already exist here,” Fedewa said. 

Under the proposed change, the city would permit one ADU per single-family property, which couldn’t be subdivided to house separate tenants. An ADU could be 400 to 1,000 square feet with up to two bedrooms so long as it isn’t larger than the base-square footage of the primary house.

Once built, the owner could move into it and rent the primary residence. Or granny could move in rent free, but her name would have to go on the property deed. Or the primary home’s owner could rent the ADU to anyone after obtaining a rental license. Regardless, each ADU must also have its own dedicated parking space and meet height requirements.

ADUs could become a source of supplementary income for residents who build them. In Lansing, they could also be used as short-term rental units through services like Airbnb.

“We don’t have separate rental licenses for long term or short term. I don’t think we want to get into the business of dictating how people use their home. That’s more of a discussion for City Council, if that’s something they want to tackle,” Fedewa said.

According to the 2020 U.S. Census, one in six Americans are 65 or older. As that population grows, so too does the need for additional housing. For this reason, the AARP has been a stalwart supporter of ADUs nationwide.

In a 2021 survey of 3,000 respondents, the AARP found that three-quarters of those 50 or older would like to stay in their current homes or communities for as long as possible. The same percentage said they would like to have help from family or paid caregivers in their own home.

The organization cites ADUs as a means through which homeowners could allow an aging relative to live nearby without sacrificing the independence and comfort they may otherwise lose in an assisted living facility. For aging residents who still want to retain their existing home, an ADU could allow them to hire a professional caregiver to live on their property.

Rowan Price, a Spartan Housing Co-op employee and Cherry Hill resident, wrote a letter to the city supporting the move. As a member of the Shared Using Housing Advocacy Network, Price set out to research ADU laws after hearing about Fedewa’s revision efforts.

He identified 21 municipalities in Michigan that allow ADUs, while the City Pulse found a few more. Altogether, the count comprises Ann Arbor, Beulah, Brighton, Charlevoix, Chester Township, Clark Township, Comstock, Dexter, Flint, Ferndale, Grand Rapids, Hamburg Township, Holland, Holland Township, Kalamazoo, Manistee, Mt. Pleasant, Niles, Oscoda, Portage, Royal Oak, Saline, Traverse City and Ypsilanti.

Nationally California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, New York, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming have some form of ADU laws in place. 

“Some people are concerned that ADUs would concentrate poverty quickly and take over the city, but it turns out that these issues are mostly not real,” Price explained.

“Even in the places where they’re the most successful, people don’t seem to build them very rapidly. And where they are allowed, they’re not very common,” he added. “In cities like Ann Arbor, they’ve started off with something that was so restrictive that it was functionally still illegal, and nobody was really doing it.”

In that way, the influx of ADUs is a slow churn. Ann Arbor has since revised its ADU rules. Even then, Price said, residents aren’t even always aware they’re allowed.

“There’s not a very centralized source of information about what ADU laws are, where they’re allowed, or exactly what they look like,” he said.

If Lansing decides to implement them, he said he hopes Fedewa and his staff would reconsider the single-space parking requirement, though he admits most Michigan municipalities that allow ADUs have the same minimum.

“This is a situation where the owner already has all of the information about the parking they’ll need. If grandma can’t live in a garage you retrofitted for her because she can’t park a car that she’s never going to drive, that’s just heartbreaking,” Price said.

He added that he supports allowing owners to use them as short-term rentals, and also considers them viable options for college students on a budget.

“If students could live in an ADU at their parents’ house, they could just take the bus” to Lansing Community College. “That’s a much more affordable way of getting an education than leaving town, taking out loans and being away from your support network,” Price said.

Until now, Price said the idea of ADUs in Lansing has been more or less a pipe dream.

“It’s just something many of us haven’t thought to dream about,” he said. “People aren’t really making those plans because they don’t see it as something they’ll be allowed to do anytime soon.”

If they are approved, ADU owners could benefit from using pre-approved architectural plans, which would eliminate the cost of hiring an architect. Fedewa noted that the city is looking at acquiring some of those designs for residents to utilize.

“We’ve stated that we would accept other communities’ pre-approved plans as long as they meet Michigan building code in our regulations. We’d like to look at that and maybe build a library to help people. But that’s a bit further off,” he said.

Joan Nelson, a longtime housing advocate in Lansing, joined Price, Ingham County Treasurer Alan Fox, the Michigan AARP, the Eastfield Neighborhood Association, the Southwest Lansing Action Group and other groups and residents in expressing support for ADUs.

She echoed many of them in noting that Lansing could benefit from becoming “the only mid-Michigan municipality that allows” ADUs.

“It won’t solve the housing crisis all by itself. That’s going to take multiple approaches,” she said. “But it can make a significant difference.”