The City Council will hold a public hearing on a Zone Text amendment to the city code on Monday, Oct. 14, 2024 according to a legal notice published in last week’s Sun. The meeting will start at 7 p.m. The time the hearing starts will depend on the rest of the agenda, which has not yet been posted.
The council will modify standards for so-called accessory dwelling units (“granny flats”) and junior accessory dwelling units. The apparent purpose is to make the city code consistent with state law.
Many California cities are dealing with such updates. The Avalon city attorney on Oct. 1 told his council that state mandated updates to ADU rules would come back to that community’s council.
The state legislature has been updating the mandated rules for several years now. For example, Seal Beach updated the local regulations for ADUs in 2018, 2021, 2022, and 2023.
An accessory dwelling unit (or “granny flat”) must be at least 850 square feet, according to the California Housing and Community Development Department’s ADU Handbook.
“A [junior accessory dwelling unit] shall be a minimum of 150 square feet and a maximum of 500 square feet of gross floor area,” according to the draft of an ordinance that the council approved on Aug. 14, 2023.
According to the legal notice announcing the Oct. 14 hearing, any legal challenges to the proposed ordinance may be limited to issues brought up during the public hearing. For more information about the proposed ordinance, contact Associate Planner Patricia Garcia at pgarcia@sealbeachca.gov.
