Opinion: STRs, ADUs, OAUs, CHUs, and the HAB


Each of the first four acronyms in the headline above identifies some housing “solutions” that have become issues for the lower-density neighborhoods. STRs are “short-term rentals,” where a homeowner rents out part or all of his or her home on a short-term basis. ADUs are “accessory dwelling units,” where a homeowner has built a separate apartment as part of a single-family house, sometimes called a granny flat. OAUs are “owner accessory units,” a completely detached second residential unit, like a garage apartment, on a single-family lot. CHUs are “cooperative housing units,” commonly called co-ops, which may have 12 or more residents in a single-family house.
The HAB is the Housing Advisory Board that the City Council is forming, presumably to provide some citizen oversight to all of the city’s housing efforts. So it’s clear, there are already a number of technical advisory groups working on housing. But what doesn’t exist right now is a board that represents the general citizenry that could try to integrate all of these and other efforts and, perhaps more importantly, could make sure that attempts to ameliorate the “housing crisis” don’t become an excuse to disrupt and destroy what makes Boulder’s neighborhoods so enjoyable to live in.
Up to now, the City Council has dealt with the above “solutions” piecemeal rather than in an integrated fashion, and without adequate policy work on which to base its decisions. For example, last week the council rejected the idea of limiting STR occupancy numbers; this would have restricted the size of groups claiming to be families, and thus prevented turning an ordinary STR into a “party house.” What I discovered later was that there was no good data on how frequently this problem has occurred. But even more interesting was the data I got from the city that said there were 240 ads on Airbnb and 166 on VRBO that appeared to suggest to people that if they were families, they could circumvent the city’s otherwise more strict occupancy limits.
This STR issue also relates to ADUs and OAUs. Under Boulder’s current rules, a person could own a house, live in the ADU or OAU, and rent out the main house as an STR for enough time and money to earn a pretty good living. When the ADU rules were first under consideration, I suggested that the owner be required to live in the main unit and be on-site during any short term rental, which would both limit the number of renters, and also provide the neighbors with real recourse in case things got excessively rowdy. But that rule did not get adopted.
A further issue with ADUs and OAUs is the economics. Assertions keep being made that these will allow current homeowners to stay in their homes by renting out these spaces. But this fails the equity test. Why does the current owner get this freebie, which the previous owner didn’t? And although it might provide a net benefit to the current owner, the next owner will pay for it, making the property much more expensive, and negate the original purpose. Also, the surrounding owners may suffer a loss in value because of increased impacts. My intent here is not to slam ADUs, but to point out that much more unbiased, data-based economic analysis needs to be done.
CHUs present a different set of issues. As I have written about before, other than a very few pre-existing co-ops, the only successful applicant for a new CHU license (as of a few months ago) was not group of friends who wanted to live together, but the Boulder Housing Coalition, an organization that runs what the city defines as “rooming houses.” I’m not criticizing BHC, since their units do provide affordable options for some people who want to live that way in areas that are zoned for this density. But their Ingram Court project has way too many occupants for its low-density neighborhood. And it’s really is no different than BHC’s other units — a place they advertise and then rent to whoever wants to live there that can accept their rules, hardly the co-op model initially envisioned.
Finally, all of these “solutions” are being pushed on the same neighborhoods. And the idea of having all of them on one block, for example, is pretty scary. This is the kind of work that the new Housing Advisory Board should take on — making sure that all these “solutions” fit together in a constructive way that still works for the rest of us.


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