WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — West Lafayette’s City Council decided Monday night to postpone a decision until March on whether to allow “granny flats” on city residential lots.
But that didn’t stop nearly a dozen passionate speakers in the standing-room-only crowd from making their allotted three-minute arguments to council members at the end of the meeting anyway.
The ordinance would allow additions or outbuildings called accessory dwelling units, also once known as carriage houses, coach houses, granny flats or servants’ quarters.
Council members Iris Bellisario and Kathy Parker suggested delaying the vote until the council’s March meeting to allow more “community conversation” on the topic. The delay was passed, with President Larry Leverenz giving a nod to the reason for the large meeting attendance.
But only a few left early.
“This is an outrageous idea. This is an unconscionable idea,” Cheryl Kirkpatrick of West Lafayette told the council, pointing her finger and raising her voice as she accused the council of responding to a lack of housing for Purdue students.
She wasn’t the only speaker who suspected the extra residences would wind up attracting homeless students.
Colby Bartlett, a historic preservation commissioner who called himself a fourth-generation West Lafayette resident and Purdue graduate, also said the ordinance would create “clandestine … units that will be occupied by Purdue students because that is what the demand is in our community. Meanwhile, Purdue has not planned appropriately for its needs.
“We need to insist that Purdue play a role in solving its own problems,” he said to applause.
Zachary Baiel, a New Chauncey neighborhood spokesman, referred to an earlier neighborhood strategic development plan in his comments to the council.
“Why are we creating another bureaucratic system to address a problem we already have a remedy for: the traditional ABZA process where a property owner petitions for a variance?” he asked in his comments. “The spirit of this ordinance … is not the spirit of the neighborhoods we purchased housing in. Our neighborhoods appear to be sacrificial in the currently proclaimed strides of developmental progress train we’re on.”
Liz O’Neil of Dehart Street said she is more concerned about proving who owns and lives in the new units when code enforcement officers are already overloaded.
“Who is going to enforce this?” she asked the council. “I’ve lived here for 40 years, and I just think this is poorly organized and poorly planned.”
What are ADUs?
The city of West Lafayette had requested the Area Plan Commission craft an ordinance amendment, APC staffer Nathan McBurnett said in December, to provide a legal zoning pathway for development. To meet the definition of an ADU, it must include a working kitchen and bathroom, with the plumbing connecting to the main building, but can be either connected to an existing home or freestanding.
ADUs must include separate entranceways and meet certain space requirements. If they’re added to an existing house, the outside modifications must be minor. ADUs must conform to existing historic preservation district requirements.
Current permitting in West Lafayette allows no more than one single-family dwelling on a property, but the new ordinance amendment would allow for the construction of a singular ADU on property in R1, R1A, R1B, R1U, R2 and R2U zones within the corporate boundaries of West Lafayette.
After several questions from APC members, the zoning ordinance amendment was approved 11-2 on Dec. 18 before it was sent to the West Lafayette council.
Opposition has been building to the ordinance in the last several days, including a formal letter from the city’s Historic Preservation Commission and a petition of more than 75 Chauncey neighborhood residents against the plan.
Some support the idea
Other speakers pointed out Monday night that housing is expensive and scarce for everyone — and not just for college students.
“Less and less working-class folks, all the way to Purdue professors, are not able to live in our community,” Wabash Township Trustee Angel Valentin told the council. “It has become harder for folks to buy and live in our community.”
Valentin said he sees ADUs as a solution.
“Parking is a concern we face and we will always need to face,” he said. “It’s not for every homeowner. It’s a step in the right direction.”
Alex Beers, a recent Purdue grad who joined the university’s fire department this fall, presented the council with numbers related to the costs of assisted living versus renovating existing housing as “an economical and dignified way to save” for families.
“I actually think an ADU ordinance is an appropriate thing to have in this day and age. We do need more housing,” resident Patti O’Calloghan said. “The thing we do need to be careful about is where the density is, and it does need to be managed. We do still need those protections.”
More people need housing in the whole area than just Purdue students, though, she said.
“Sometimes West Lafayette,” she said, “has to be the one to go first with those progressive ideas.”
Reach Virginia Black at vblack@gannett.com.
Reporter Jillian Ellison also contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: West Lafayette officials delay controversial vote on ‘granny flats’