The Santa Ana City Council on Tuesday unanimously directed staff to update the city’s Second Dwelling Unit Ordinance, which only allows modest-sized granny flats – between 300 square feet and 750 square feet or 30 percent of the size of the primary dwelling on the parcel, whichever is less, according to the O.C. Register.
What this means is that zoning regulations will be revised and residents may be allowed to build much larger add-ons that might include amenities like bathrooms and kitchens.
But is this a good idea? Dramatically increasing housing density at a time that crie is out of control doesn’t make much sense to us.
Many Santa Ana homes are already overcrowded – and turning garages into living spaces means that more cars will end up parked on our already crowded streets.
And how does it make sense to bring in thousands of additional residents when water and electricity are already in short supply?
Many homes in Santa Ana are already illegally renting questionable living spaces and the City appears to be unable to do anything about this.
It strikes us that this issue such requires much more that the standard “notice to the public” by the City. There should be extensive outreach by the City & public meetings held specific to this issue.
Of primary concern is the safety of such add-ons. They need to be held to the existing standards of electrical and plumbing codes, plus set-backs should be enforced. Overcrowding a lot causes problems for access in case of fire. The current council may be too young to remember when the city council in the 70’s allowed rampant unrestricted “redevelopment” leading to crowded lots with no parking and slum-like apartments. We are still living with the results of those actions.
I say if the lot provides sufficient space and there are already existing pluming and electrical in place then it is not a bad idea. You have sober living facilities being utilized by a lot of these old homes and the effect sometimes is all too similar to the homeless on our street corners and yet these sober living facilities increase the financial power for slum lords in sense who just want to collect the cash and not maintain up keep on homes the way they should be.
you have 10 cars to a house and they take up the parking. So really there is no way around it and the parking issue is just an excuse because everyone wants their own transportation to be safer then public transportation since crime has escalated within the last two years.
I’m all for it.
Hell no!
Are developers pushing this? Are they somehow relieved of some portion of their burden to provide low income housing within their developments by this?
The city okays the permits, so they can also limit how many they issue in a given area, thus limiting more need for extra parking. If someone wants to do it the right way, permitted, inspected and legally done, making a garage into a living space would be much better than the alternative and the city would be able to control it better. What if it were your loved relative that needed a place to live and you needed more living space to make it work. As long as the city controls the conversions it will be good.