Support grows for Saugus housing bylaw

SAUGUS – In her mind, Janet Leuci feels this is the perfect time to pass a bylaw allowing in-law apartments and it appears she might have the public on her side.There were no harsh critics among the nearly two dozen residents who turned out for the Affordable Housing Committee’s (AHC) public hearing on its proposed Accessory Dwelling Unit bylaw.Metropolitan Area Planning Council Chief Planner Jennifer Raitt, who has worked closely with the AHC, walked residents through the bylaw. Essentially, approval would mean residents could legally add in-law apartments to their homes providing they follow a host of conditions.Some of those conditions include enforcing zoning and limiting additions to homes in residentially-zoned areas that have a 10,000 square foot lot. The additions must contain a kitchen and bathroom and not be larger than 33 percent of the total primary dwelling. It also can’t have more than two bedrooms or more than three people living there.”It can’t be a pullout couch in the basement,” Raitt said.There are also penalties for residents who don’t comply. Leuci said the building inspector would have to approve each unit and residents who are found to have units without a permit would be subject to penalties and fines.Leuci thinks the timing is perfect for this kind of bylaw, largely due to the economy. Allowing residents to add an in-law apartment would allow children to move back home or parents to move in with children.The town has roughly 4,693 residents over the age of 65 and such a bylaw, Leuci noted, could help them stay in their homes, which in turn adds to the stability of neighborhoods.Raitt said the bylaw would also benefit the town through increased tax revenues and it would maximize the existing infrastructure while minimizing subsidies required for affordable units.The bylaw would also go a long way toward helping the town realize its 10 percent mark for affordable housing stock. Every community across the commonwealth must be able to count at least 10 percent of its housing stock as affordable. Saugus, at 7.3 percent, needs roughly 300 more units to hit its mark.Rick LeClair asked if the town would stop handing out permits for the accessory dwellings when it did hit the 10 percent mark, but Leuci said no. The 10 percent quota, she explained, is a minimum, not a maximum.Leuci said the concerns she has heard about the plan focus mainly on the idea that passing such a bylaw would open the floodgates and ruin the character of single family neighborhoods.However, in its research, the AHC found that Lexington passed a similar bylaw under the same cloud and it in fact ended up loosening some of its tightly wound restrictions because the plan went so well.”Not everyone wants or needs an accessory dwelling unit,” Leuci pointed out.Town Moderator Robert Long gave Leuci a laundry list of changes or additions he’d like to see included in the bylaw, but admitted he didn’t expect everything to make it in.Leuci said the committee will meet next week to consider all the feedback it’s gotten and work to have a final proposal ready for the annual Town Meeting, which opens May 4.Leuci said she was happy with the forum and the turnout.”I thought I was going to get shoes thrown at me,” she said with a laugh.