Kelsay recommends county consider ‘Accessory Dwelling Units’ as possible answer to affordable housing shortage

By Zach Jensen,

Housing isn’t getting cheaper, and rental vacancies are hard to come by in Winneshiek County. These are just a couple reasons why District 5 Supervisor Steve Kelsay recommended to the County Board of Supervisors Oct. 16 that they consider the option of rezoning some rural areas to accommodate adult dwelling units (ADU), as described by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP).

According to AARP information, “As small houses or apartments that exist on the same property lot as a single-family residence, accessory dwelling units … play a major role in serving a national housing need. Since ADU’s make use of the existing infrastructure and housing stock, they’re also environmentally friendly and respectful of a neighborhood’s pace and style. An increasing number of towns, cities, counties and entire states have been adapting their zoning or housing laws to make it easier for homeowners to create ADU’s.”

“There’s a trend … as a method to help relieve some of the issue of affordable housing,” Kelsay said. “Des Moines has instituted this, as a city, and there are a number of places in the state that have done so. Let’s say you have a large family … you’d have the ability to build a place for them to live, if you have a grandparent or whichever. We can do that in our current ordinances, because you’d have a dwelling unit for a family member or a farm worker on your farm.”

“Farm worker, yes. Family member of the farm only,” replied Winneshiek County Planning and Zoning Director Tony Phillips. “That’s under Iowa State Code. The average citizen living in the county? No, you do not get an extra residence.”

Supervisor Kelsay said he’d been researching the ADU option for the last six months, and he thinks it’s a good option to help meet the need for affordable housing in Winneshiek County. 

“It’s very difficult to find a rental unit right now,” Kelsay said. “I don’t know of anything available, and I think that’s true of most places. Sometime in the past, I did a rental survey here, and downtown, in the historic district of Decorah, there were 100 units and zero (vacancies).”

But, Phillips cautioned the board that there’s a lot more to consider when thinking about rezoning to accommodate ADU’s. 

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