The Olive Town Board voted unanimously June 9 to fix a gap in its zoning code that had prevented residents from building accessory apartments between 400 and 600 square feet.
The change allows accessory apartments, commonly known as accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, to range from 400 to 1,000 square feet. The law defines them as apartments accessory to a principal residential building and says they are intended to “expand affordable housing opportunities” in Olive.
ADUs are small, independent living units built on the same property as a primary home. They can be added inside a house, attached to it or built as a separate structure, and typically include their own kitchen, sleeping area, and bathroom, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Vickie Starr, founder and chair of the Catskill Alliance for Housing Preservation, said ADUs are an effective way to add affordable housing in watershed towns like Olive. Those towns often face limits on housing development because of wastewater regulations intended to protect the Ashokan Reservoir, which supplies New York City with about 40% of its drinking water in nondrought periods.
“ADUs are a great option for incremental development and gentle density by allowing new, small housing units to be sprinkled across multiple properties,” Starr said in an email to The Overlook.
Only property owners who have the wastewater capacity for a second dwelling, or can pay to expand that capacity, can build ADUs, she said.
Previously, Olive’s code allowed accessory apartments of up to 1,000 square feet, while also allowing tiny houses of 400 square feet or less in all districts. But it did not clearly allow dwellings between 400 and 600 square feet, creating a gap for residents who wanted to build smaller accessory apartments.
The town’s code says accessory apartments are permitted in all districts, considered “as of right,” and do not require site plan approval by the Planning Board, though the code enforcement officer may refer applications to the board if a site presents difficult design issues.
“There was a hole in our code. Between 400 and 600 square feet there was no allowed use for dwelling,” Olive Supervisor Jim Sofranko said.
Sofranko said the town had already planned to update that section of the code, but moved the change forward after an Olive resident sought to build a 500-square-foot accessory dwelling and was unable to proceed under the existing rules.
“The town has evolved over time to think about ways to increase affordable housing and we found that we wanted to make ADUs from 400 to 1,000 square feet,” Sofranko said. “We did that to increase the housing supply.”
The new local law sets the minimum usable floor area for an accessory apartment at 400 square feet and the maximum at 1,000 square feet. The unit must be smaller than the principal dwelling on the same lot and may have no more than two bedrooms, according to the law.
The change does not remove other requirements for accessory apartments. The town code still requires the property owner to live in either the primary residence or the accessory apartment, limits properties to one accessory apartment, and requires approval for water and sewer service before a building permit is issued. The code also requires at least one additional off-street parking space for the apartment.
Kyle Bredberg is an intern and contributing reporter. You can reach him at reporting@theoverlooknews.com.
