Interview with Todd Stamm

Today I interviewed Todd Stamm, a Planning Manager for the Olympia Community and Planning Development Department. I learned a great deal about the zoning regulations required for Accessory Structures, in distinction from Accessory Dwelling Units. As it stand the Accessory Structure coding is very vague. You can read it yourself below, or click on this link, for the full ADU and Accessory Structure zoning code.

ACCESSORY STRUCTURES.

Accessory structures are permitted in all residential districts subject to the following requirements:

1. Time of Establishment. Accessory structures shall not be built prior to commencing construction of the main building on the lot. However, lots may be created which contain an accessory structure (without an associated primary use) constructed prior to submission of the subdivision application.

2. Subordinance to Primary Use. Accessory structures shall be clearly incidental and subordinate to the use of the lot (e.g., structures used for storage of personal property or the pursuit of hobbies) or used for agricultural purposes. In single-family and two-family residential districts each accessory structure shall not exceed eight hundred (800) square feet in size, except for structures accessory to an agricultural use which are located on a parcel one (1) acre or larger in size.

3. Garages. Private garages shall meet the following standards:

a. Garages shall not exceed a total of eight hundred (800) square feet of floor space per dwelling unit.

b. Garages exceeding eight hundred (800) square feet per dwelling unit may be permitted as conditional uses in the districts specified in Table 4.01 provided that they will not be adverse to the public interest and are compatible with the surrounding neighborhood. The Hearing Examiner shall establish a maximum size for garages receiving conditional use approval. See Section 18.04.080.

4. See Section 18.04.060(P)(4) regarding accessory structures in mobile home/manufactured home parks.

This code sparsely mentions dwelling units. The only specification is "Garages exceeding eight hundred (800) square feet per dwelling unit may be permitted as conditional uses..." However, according to Todd Stamm, if an external dwelling unit is 800 square feet or smaller, there is some grey area, and an accessory structure permit can suffice. This grey area is therefore at the digression of the city employees evaluating the permit application. I realize now, in order to complete all of my research I need to cross reference how many of the functional ADUs discovered contain an Accessory Structure building permit as well as an ADU permit. This is an additional step that must be added to the methodology and results chapters. The Accessory Structure zoning regulation existed prior to the ADU regulation that was put in place due to the Growth Management Act (GMA) in the mid 1990's. An ADU is technically a sub-category under the Accessory Structure umbrella regulation.

Another interesting find was that if the accessory structure is 200 square feet or smaller it requires no permit at all, even if it is a dwelling unit. I have never had a city employee explicitly say this, as it is an area that seems to be very context dependent, but Todd Stamm affirmed these permitting practices today in the interview.

The Accessory Structure loop hole was first described to me by Eli Spevak when I asked questions about the Portland, Oregon zoning regulations for detached bedrooms or Detached Accessory Structures (DAS). The Portland Code for Accessory Structures is very similar to Olympia's. Eli reported in an interview that Portland's planning department directs people who are interested in building ADUs to simplify the permitting process with a permitted accessory structure instead of following the strict design standards for an ADU. This makes sense for practicality, however the result is very few dwellings that are actually permitted as ADUs and lots of dwellings are permitted as Accessory Structures, even though the code for Accessory Structures sparsely mentions dwellings. Clarification in the code would be extremely helpful for Portland and Olympia citizens who are navigating this permitting process.