Want mom closer to home? Why Louisville wants more people to build 'mother-in-law suites'

Camilo Rebolledo has his mother’s future on his mind.

For the past 16 months, the Highview area resident has been converting a two-car garage in his backyard into a standalone home for his mother.

He wants his mother, a Colombian native who raised Rebolledo in the United States, to not have to worry about a mortgage or other burdens of owning a home.

“She's very healthy, thank the Lord for that, but we know in the future (she) may need our help,” he said. “As people are getting older, you want to guard their sense of dignity and independence while still having them close enough where you can actually be available to help them.”

Some call what Rebolledo is building a "granny flat" or mother-in-law suite. Others might know it as a carriage house or accessory apartment.

All fit under the broad umbrella of the term accessory dwelling units — fully independent living spaces on the same lot as the main home to which they’re associated.

These aren’t new inventions. But the language around them has changed as has Louisville’s embrace of the housing type, seen as a way to diversify housing options amid a housing shortage and affordability concerns.

It’s been two years since the Louisville Metro Council made it easier to build an ADU by allowing them by-right in areas zoned single family, eliminating a multi-month public hearing process (for qualified applicants) in favor of a review by planning staff that takes days.

Since then, the city has received about 60 ADU applications, compared to 36 between 2010 and 2020, according to city data.

While not all of these structures are ultimately built or converted, their embrace puts Louisville in the company of many cities and states that have encouraged their building through more permissive zoning.

Since the regulation change, the city’s Office of Planning & Design Services has secured grant funding to help launch a public education and outreach campaign to which it partially attributes the bump in applications.

Emily Liu, director of the planning office, said while ADUs won’t fix Louisville’s housing shortage, it’s a low-hanging reform effort that can take some pressure off the tight housing market.

“Making it easier to increase the supply of housing always helps,” she said. “ADUs are small, so it’s kind of a naturally occurring affordable housing ... it diversifies the housing types. Those are the things I think ADUs can really help with.”

What is an accessory dwelling unit?

How these structures look and the purpose for which they’re built can vary just as much as what people call them.

Accessory dwelling units might be freestanding or could be attached to the main house. Some are new builds while others are converted garages, attics, or basements.

Grandparents may move into a single-story cottage in the backyard or homeowners may add a second story to a garage and rent it out to help supplement their income.

In Louisville, the 60 or so applications filed with the city using the fast-track process have come from all over the county, though District 8 (which includes many neighborhoods along Bardstown Road, from the Highlands down past Strathmoor Village) does lead the way.

Three-quarters of those applications have been for detached structures. And while a handful of ADU applications are for over 1,000 square feet and are part of much larger estates further out in the county, the vast majority are smaller.

Not all applicants have followed through with building an ADU. A spot check of addresses showed that some never sought building permits. Two homeowners reached by the Courier Journal attributed high construction costs as the culprit behind their paused or canceled project.

Nationally, ADUs tend to be more popular in areas seeing higher housing costs and rising populations, according to mortgage financing company Freddie Mac, with more than half of the country’s ADUs located in California, Florida, Texas and Georgia.

A 2020 study by the company found that between 2009 and 2019, the number of first-time real estate listings mentioning ADUs grew more rapidly than the decade prior — on average nearly 9% year over year.

“We are hearing from our members about housing being out of reach, income-wise and price-wise,” said Tihisha Rawlins, AARP Kentucky associate state director for advocacy and outreach. “So one thing we’re working on as an association is ADUs and working on policy across the nation to allow ADUs to be built in communities.”

AARP Kentucky, along with the Metropolitan Housing Coalition and others were vocal supporters of the 2021 code changes that encouraged more ADUs to be built.

“We definitely see it as a way to help people age in place,” she said.

That’s the goal for Cherokee Triangle residents Carol Besse and her husband. Now in their 70s, the couple have lived in their 115-year-old Victorian home for 40-plus years and are looking to stay in their beloved neighborhood as they age.

But daily trips up and down the stairs remind the couple they’re getting older.

“The whole underlying goal was to get on one story,” she said. “We’re just trying to plan ahead.”

They recently filed paperwork with the city to build and live in a one-story home in the rear of their property while Besse’s daughter, husband and two children move into the larger home.

“We’re all trying to figure out how it’s going to be to be so close and yet in completely separate living quarters,” she said.

The couple first hired an architect and discussed goals and vision. He drew up preliminary plans, refining them as they went. The space needed to be accessible for walkers and wheelchairs. They also wanted an open concept, making it easier to see and hear each other.

They’re now pursuing quotes from contractors, with some early estimates coming in higher than anticipated.

Still, Besse said she’s aiming for a late fall start on their future home and what could be a rental opportunity or a space for the grandkids to live in down the line.

“It’s a help to have a family member right then and there,” she said. “The thought of having them across the yard, it’s a delight for us, and it’s a convenience for them.”

Encouraging more mother-in-law suites with altered regulations

Prior to the 2021 changes to Louisville Metro’s Land Development Code, ADUs were only allowed by-right in Norton Commons and Old Louisville, Liu said.

Otherwise, a property owner generally needed to seek a conditional use permit. This process triggered notification of surrounding homeowners and those neighbors’ neighbors ahead of a public meeting before a city zoning board.

That process took time, generally three months, and put the effort under additional scrutiny and public input.

“It’s very intimidating sometimes,” Liu said. “Removing that process makes it so much more attractive.”

A more relaxed ADU process is part of ongoing reforms to Louisville Metro’s Land Development Code, which governs how land is used and developed. That equity-minded review, launched in July 2020, was followed by months of research and community input and led to a series of recommended reforms.

Pushback in public hearings hit on multiple concerns, including homeowners not wanting a rental next door or increased density in their neighborhood. Other sticking points were an owner occupancy rule and fear of absentee landlords.

The Metro Council ultimately approved a set of requirements that need to be met for an ADU application to qualify for the new fast-track process.

These include height limitations (no taller than the main structure), size constraints (800 square feet or less or 30% of the main building’s floor area) and the requirement that an owner live in one of the structures on site.

The expedited path is also not to be used for short-term rentals, like Airbnb.

Property owners whose ADU plans go beyond the restrictions, such as a taller or larger design, or for those who don’t plan to live on-site or want to use it for a short-term rental, need to go through the longer process involving the public and city boards.

“This is really meant for long-term residents, trying to increase the supply of housing,” Liu said. “So this really just rewards the people who follow the standards.”

In an attempt to take some of the legwork out of the process, the city plans to offer free template building plans for different styles of ADUs. A design competition is currently underway, funded through a grant by AARP, with plans expected to be made available for the public by year's end.

Homeowners say do your ADU homework

Rebolledo, in the Highview area, said he can nearly see the finish line on his ADU endeavor. What was once a garage is starting to look like a little home.

He estimates he’s done 95% of the work himself, though his mother has helped him here and there, handing him tools and cleaning them when he’s finished working for the night.

Rebolledo, on the back end of the process, and Besse, just starting it, both encouraged homeowners to do their homework on ADUs, including pricing out the project before getting too deep into the effort.

“Just think through the purpose for why you want to do the ADU and see if it's worth it,” he said. “For me, I think it is.”

Growth & development reporter Matthew Glowicki can be reached at mglowicki@courier-journal.com, 502-582-4000 or on Twitter @mattglo. 

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Mother-in-law suites see rise in popularity in Louisville. Here's why