Owners of existing accessory dwelling units in Lewes declared victory after mayor and city council voted unanimously to modify a controversial residency requirement contained in the city’s ADU ordinance.
The provision is contained in the ordinance that council approved in September 2024. The requirement means that property owners have to live in either the main house or the secondary structure full time effectively shutting out part-time residents from earning income from their ADUs.
The 2024 ordinance legalized ADUs that had been operating illegally in an effort to create a source of affordable, workforce housing.
Mayor and city council approved a compromise May 19: existing ADU owners, as of Jan. 1, 2027, are exempt from the residency requirement, parking requirement and short-term rental prohibition, as long as they maintain a valid rental license for each calendar year. If the property owner fails to maintain the license for two consecutive calendar years, the exemption is terminated.
All other provisions from the 2024 ordinance remain in place.
ADUs built after Jan.1, 2027, do not receive the exemption. Owners of ADUs built after that date will have to live in one of the structures full time.
The decision puts ADU owners on the clock to beat the deadline and apply for a nonconforming use.
“This is a carve-out to address a city practice where these properties had been approved, but long term, they’re going back into this ordinance,” said Mayor Amy Marasco. “We’re recognizing that’s it’s going to take a little while for all these folks to get in, so the city knows who they are, but it’s not a gold rush to go and build an ADU.”
But, even before the ink was dry, confusion and questions arose as to what the ordinance does and doesn’t contain.
Dede Haas has an ADU on her property since 1998. She was among the residents who thanked council for its decision. But, Haas said more needs to be done.
“Unless we have the conveyance of the ADU exemption for those with legal nonconforming, if we don’t have that codified, we’re going to be right back where we are right now. There is no place in the ordinance that says that it will convey when the property is sold, nothing on the books that says you can do this,” Haas said.
City Solicitor Alex Burns said the ordinance does not reference transferability intentionally. He said other sections of code on conditional uses do not address transferability, and he did not want to create confusion.
Realtor Lee Ann Wilkinson opposed the residency requirement, which impacted some of her clients. She said she was confused as to whether the 2024 ordinance forces property owners to live on site, even if they never intend to rent their ADU.
Burns confirmed the residency requirement of living in one of the buildings will apply after Jan. 1, 2027, whether they are rented or not.
Many of the ADU applications city building official Jon Ward is seeing are for intergenerational living or for visiting family members, not people seeking to rent ADUs, according to Burns.
After the council vote, Bob Heffernan, who chaired the planning commission’s housing subcommittee that spent months crafting the 2024 ordiancne, said council got it wrong.
“Lewes guts affordable housing,” Heffernan said as he left city hall. He did not elaborate further.
Marasco later said that while the ordinance does not gut affordable housing, it won’t have a big impact.
“Our ability to move the needle on affordable housing is limited, because we’re built out,” she said. “This is a small way we can do that. There are people with rental apartments who will be part of this too. It respects a practice that has been licensed and permitted in this city and alerts everybody new that here are the rules.”