The Avalon City Council introduced an ordinance updating the Municipal code for low and moderate housing and accessory dwelling units.
The vote was unanimous.
The resolution adopting the ordinance will return to the council at a future meeting for adoption.
Discussion
Contract Planner Kelly Ribuffo presented the staff report. (Due to space limits, the following is not a transcript but highlights from the meeting.)
She said Avalon’s current Housing Element, adopted in 2022, contains 26 programs to implement the goals of the Housing Element. (A Housing Element is a state-mandated city-planning document. Housing Element updates often require updates to city codes.)
“Tonight we are working with program 14, which is accessory dwelling units, and program 15, adequate sites for lower income households on non-vacant and vacant sites previously identified,” Ribuffo said.
“The ordinance before you provides updates to address all of the new ADU regulations that were adopted in 2024,” she said.
Ribuffo said most of the updates were administrative items related to code references, clarifying definitions, and providing specific ways to measure the height of an ADU.
According to Ribuffo, the idea is to make the rules less burdensome.
Proposed changes included streamlining water allocations and high density housing projects.
“Program #15 of the Housing Element is intended to provide streamlined review of high-density housing projects on the Tremont Street property which include affordable housing units,” Ribuffo wrote in her staff report.
Ribuffo said Temont Street may be processed without additional discretionary review such as Planning Commission review, when at least 20% or more of the units are reserved for low and very low income households and the project has a density of 30 dwelling units per acre.
Ribuffo also said the Planning Commission recommended that access to the Avalon Coast transit system should be considered public transit for the purpose of applying exemption criteria from providing off-street parking for ADUs.
“In this case, there are already state law exemptions from providing off-street parking if you’re near a public transit system. However, public transit in the Government Code is defined in a way that Coast does not qualify,” Ribuffo said.
“The state always likes to see you removing parking requirements rather than adding them,” Ribuffo said.
Mayor Anni Marshal asked if she wasn’t planning for parking for every one of those apartments?”
City Manager David Maistros said: “No, we’re not going to have unit parking.”
According to Maistros, unit parking might have been in one of the original iterations of that, but there would be either off-street or street parking there.
Marshall said 22 parking units would take up lot of parking.
“The conflict in our current code is that, I believe, we require off street parking but prohibit a vehicle for any resident that is living in an ADU,” Maistros said.
Ribuffo turned to the Planning Commission’s second recommendation.
“If a property owner did want to get an autoette vehicle permit, then in this case they should provide an off-street parking space in order to have the vehicle,” Ribuffo said.
Councilmember Mary Schickling said: “We have an abundance of parking issues in this town in that there’s nowhere to park. So if the current code is saying that we require DUs to provide parking, why do we deny them? What’s the rationale of denying them a permit for residential golf cart?”
Maistros said he couldn’t speak to why that was part of the code.
He said it was done “a while ago”, but the code said an ADU can’t have an autoette attached to it.
“That doesn’t make any sense to me,” Schickling said.
Councilmember Lisa Lavelle said the city trying to clean up the code because they are not going to be required to have parking space because they are not allowed to have a vehicle. “If they choose to get a vehicle, then they would have to get an off-street parking space,” Lavelle said.
According to Contract Planner Kelly Ribuffo, the parking rules were ADU specific.
Maistros confirmed for Schickling that the Tremont Street project would include parking.
“I think if anybody develops uh a multi-unit dwelling that parking should be required,” Schickling said.
Regarding curb parking, Lavelle proposed amending that provision to say an appropriate parking space.
Maistros suggested making that proposal citywide.
“Curb cuts should be a last resort,” Maistros said.
The council members verbally indicated that they agreed with that.
Ribuffo suggested having staff bring back the amendment to the off street parking requirements, but specifically prioritizing the placement of off-street parking spaces. According to Ribuffo, the council could add that without having staff bring back the ordinance.
