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Zoning Ordinance Amendment Regarding Accessory Dwelling Unit Regulation Updates - Citywide. A proposed amendment to the Alameda Municipal Code to revise sections relating to the Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) ordinance in Alameda Municipal Code Sections 30-5.18 Accessory Dwelling Units to update references to state law, to authorize the conversion of ADUs into condominiums, to establish standards and processes for such conversions, to clarify the development standards applied to ADUs, and to reformat the sections of the ordinance for ease of use. The proposal is exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) pursuant to Public Resource Code section 21080.17 which exempts ordinances implementing State ADU law and CEQA Guidelines Section 15061(b)(3), the common sense exemption where it can be seen with certainty that the proposed zoning text amendment has no possibility of having a significant effect on the environment.
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To: Honorable President and Members of the Planning Board
From: Steven Buckley, Planning Services Manager and Secretary to the Board
SUMMARY
The Alameda Municipal Code (AMC) provides for accessory dwelling unit (ADU) development standards and processes for creation of accessory homes to provide housing that meets the City’s varied housing needs, and to comply with State law. The AMC also provides for regulations and procedures for conversion of residential units into condominiums to allow the property owners with multiple existing or proposed units to sell those units separately as condominiums. These sections do not currently interact, but with the recent passage of AB 1033, the City may adopt amendments to facilitate ADU condominium conversion within the framework of our existing ADU regulations. While condominium conversions in general are not common in Alameda, allowing conversion of ADUs into condominiums may incentivize property owners to construct ADUs that wouldn’t otherwise be feasible. In addition, an ADU condominium may theoretically provide a more affordable pathway to detached single-family homeownership because they’re typically smaller and simpler in design than other single-family homes in the City, thus diversifying the stock of available housing types. Conversely, the rampant conversion of existing and proposed ADUs into condominiums could hypothetically threaten the relative stock of rental units, which can drive up costs for residents.
In addition, feedback received during the Planning Board’s study session regarding the development standards applied to ADUs has informed minor amendments throughout the existing ordinance. The changes are intended to address updates to State law since the last ordinance amendment in 2022, while maintaining flexibility in development standards in excess of what is required by State law, which has been a hallmark of the City’s ADU policies.
The proposed amendments are intended to update references and provisions that are required under State law, to authorize the City to allow condominium conversion of existing and proposed ADUs and establish a permitting process to facilitate such conversions, to clarify existing expectations with greater detail, and to provide more robust development standards that are straightforward and simple for home owners to comply with.
BACKGROUND
General History. The City’s existing zoning code includes a section regarding accessory dwelling units that was originally adopted in July of 2017. This section has since been amended in 2020, 2021, and 2022, as the State legislature provided new statutory ADU law for a number of consecutive years. The ordinance has primarily been amended to comply with State law, although in addition Alameda’s ADU standards have historically been more lenient than the minimum requirements enforced under State law.
ADU Policy Questions. The current ADU ordinance is intended to increase access to housing by codifying streamlined processes and relaxed development standards for the creation of easy-to-build residential units. The proposed amendments are intended to continue this strategy of removing barriers for homeowners to pursue ADU development.
To this end, the proposed changes broadly fall into two categories; updates to facilitate condominium conversion of ADUs, and updates to the development standards. These amendments are derived from the direction received from the Planning Board during the study session conducted on May 11, 2026, during which staff was given direction to preserve the ordinance’s flexibility, provide clarity and predictability around development standards and to continue to implement strategies to encourage production of ADUs.
ANALYSIS
Housing, Economic and Historic Analysis. The City’s 2040 General Plan Land Use Element Policy LU-15 calls on the City to prioritize the use of limited land in Alameda for residential purposes by optimizing the number of housing units allowed on each acre of residentially zoned land. In addition, the City’s 2023 Housing Element Update included Program 5, a commitment to promote and facilitate ADU construction through a number of specific actions including annual monitoring and waiving development impact fees among other strategies.
During the regularly scheduled public hearing on May 11, 2026, the Planning Board considered various amendments to the ADU ordinance and provided feedback to staff on how to navigate these policy issues. The analysis by staff supports the assertion that the direction given by the Planning Board will further the City’s commitment to promote the construction of ADUs. The following summarizes the discussion around each of the edits and describes the resulting ordinance amendment.
Conversion of ADUs to Condominiums. The primary question here, whether to allow ADUs to be converted into condominiums, begs the question, why or why not? The argument in favor of allowing ADU condominium conversion is rooted in the belief that it will incentivize new ADU construction and will diversify the type of ownership units available on the market within the City. The argument against allowing ADU condominium conversion argues that those benefits are marginal and outweighed by the possibility of losing some amount of existing rental housing stock to ADU condominium conversion. While both sides have valid points, each assertion is worthy of additional scrutiny.
Regarding the argument in favor, the basic premise is that ADU construction helps to alleviate the housing crisis by creating new housing units that are inherently more affordable, and therefore policies that incentivize ADU construction are desirable. By allowing newly constructed ADUs to be sold separately from the primary dwelling, the City would be encouraging a given property owner to construct an ADU that they wouldn’t have a compelling reason to construct otherwise, because of the additional value captured by the sale of the new unit. However, this assumes that the difference in value to the property owner between a rental ADU and an ownership ADU must be substantial enough to cover the costs associated with completing the condominium conversion process. Conversion of ADUs also provides another pathway for affordable home ownership, a longstanding City goal.
The argument against is predicated on the notion that by allowing ADU conversion to condominiums, the City must accept the possible outcome where most or many eligible property owners pursue such conversions, to the extent that it depletes or diminishes the overall stock of rental housing in the City. This assertion assumes both a high level of eligibility as well as a high level of adoption by residents.
For context, the City of Alameda has been issuing permits for ADUs since the State law changed in 2016. While those first few years did not see today’s levels of ADU development, on average, the City has approved approximately 50 ADUs each year between 2017 and 2025. Meaning that there are at least 450 existing ADUs in the City, projected to continue to increase at a steady rate for at least the next few years. That being said, the total number of rental units in the City is currently approximately 16,500, meaning that even if every existing ADU converted to a condominium, it would still represent less than 3% of all rental housing stock in the City. While ADUs may increase their share of the rental stock over time, only a fraction of those ADUs would realistically convert to condominiums, supporting the argument that ADU condominium conversion will not have negative impacts on the availability of rental units to any meaningful degree.
Feedback from the Planning Board study session informed staff’s decision to draft the regulations regarding condominium conversion of ADUs as a new subsection, reformatting the existing ordinance layout. This ensures that ADU condominium conversions will be processed in a manner that both streamlines the condominium conversation process outlined elsewhere in the municipal code, while also providing robust renter protections and management requirements to preempt concerns regarding displacement and mismanagement.
Changes to Development Standards. The following specific changes to the development standards are not required by State law, but are allowed under State law if the City chooses to apply them:
Front yard setback - Currently, the ADU ordinance does not contain any front yard setback standards applied specifically to ADUs. The requirement of a front yard setback applied to non- state-mandated units would allow the City to discourage development patterns that create substantial impacts to the relationship between the front of a home and the street. While the City generally wants to facilitate ADU creation, it also does not want to support ADUs that come at the expense of the character of the neighborhood, or its architectural identity. Given that a typical residential lot in Alameda has ample rear yard area to accommodate ADUs, the requirement to maintain a front yard setback should not substantially reduce the number of ADUs constructed on typical residential lots, as supported by the lack of front yard ADUs applied for since adoption of the ADU ordinance.
The draft provision establishes a standard 20’ front yard setback, which is reduced for lots less than 100’ deep. A separate setback applied to ADUs in a mixed-use site was omitted in the interest of keeping the regulation simple and easily understandable.
Number and type allowed - Currently, the City’s ordinance allows a greater number of ADUs allowed to be converted from within portions of the exiting building on a multifamily lot than what is strictly required under State law. Specifically, in addition to the two detached ADUs permitted on a multifamily lot, any number of ADUs are permitted within portions of an existing building, as compared to the State law, which permits only a number of converted ADUs equal to the number of existing units up to eight. The uncapped number of permitted ADUs has resulted in applications for projects that exceed eight units on a multifamily site.
The draft ordinance maintains this uncapped number of converted units, informed by the Planning Board’s comments regarding the intent to avoid over regulating ADUs in general.
Additions to legal nonconforming accessory structures - Currently, additions to a legal nonconforming accessory structure are allowed up to 150 square feet, however these additions must comply with the setback and height standards applicable to the rest of the ADU. These standards applied to ADUs are already generally reduced as compared to the standards applied to primary residences, and therefore allowing expansion of existing non-conformities is not necessary to accommodate an ADU in most circumstances.
The draft ordinance clarifies that additions to legal nonconforming accessory structures must, themselves, be conforming to the development standards applied to ADUs.
Off-street parking standards - Currently, for projects that do not include an ADU, if the abandonment or demolition of existing parking space(s) is proposed, and if the remaining driveway will be less than 18’ in length behind the front yard property line, then the curb cut and driveway must be removed as part of the project. This situation is typical of ADU projects, as they are often created by conversion of existing garage spaces. However, because State Law prevents jurisdictions from applying off-street parking requirements for ADUs, there has been some confusion around the applicability of this standard. By more clearly rephrasing this standard within the ADU section, any challenge to its applicability can be avoided.
The draft ordinance has been revised to clearly state the applicability of this standard to ADU garage conversions.
Deck/Raise Design Review Requirement - Currently, projects for ADUs that also include a scope of work that triggers additional entitlements are required to complete those entitlements prior to issuance of a building permit. This has been interpreted in practice to include aspects of projects that are not integral to the ADU, but are attached to it. For example, second story decks or roof decks generally are subject to Design Review, so an ADU with a proposed roof deck would be required to complete the Design Review for the roof deck prior to issuance of an ADU building permit, even though the ADU itself is not subject to Design Review.
The specific provision has been amended to provide examples that better define how the Design Review requirement is applied.
Impact Fees - Currently, the City does not charge any impact fees on ADUs besides those which it does not have the authority to waive (e.g. school impact fees), with the goal of incentivizing the creation of new ADUs by removing hurdles to their construction. Under State law, impact fees cannot be charged on JADUs under 500 square feet, or on ADUs of less than 750 square feet, and for larger ADUs the fees must be proportional to the impact fees applied to the primary dwelling unit.
The policy allowing the City to waive most impact fees for ADUs is established by the current adopted Housing Element, Program 5, which states the City’s continued intent to waive development impact fees for accessory dwelling units. Planning Board’s direction is to continue this practice unchanged, so no modifications were made to the ordinance with respect to the impact fee policy.
Deed restrictions - Currently, JADUs are required to record a deed restriction as part of the permitting process. The ordinance requires three operative aspects to the deed restriction: (1) no separate sale, (2) owner occupancy requirements, and (3) restriction of size and attributes to conform with the development standards for JADUs. The first and third are already restricted by State law, the second has been rendered unenforceable under State law for all JADUs except those which maintain internal connectivity to the primary unit, such as to share sanitation facilities. Due to the diminished ability to apply the owner occupancy requirements for all JADUS, the Planning Board opted to remove this requirement in the interest of applying only those deed restrictions required by State law.
The ordinance has been revised to require only those deed restrictions which are required by State law, removing the optional owner occupancy requirement.
Other Edits. Finally, a few additional edits are proposed throughout the ordinance amendment to:
Remove portions of the existing ordinance that are not enforceable under State law - These are obsolete portions of the code that are generally not applied in practice due to their conflicts with State law, for example, the design requirements to match the external features of the primary unit.
66323 units in their own subsection - Revising the current format where each standard notes the exception for 66323 units and instead creating a unified subsection describing 66323 units and exempting them from the other standards if that definition is met.
Update references to gov. codes - Revising references to specific Government Code sections which have been modified under State law.
New A/B sections for the ordinance to live in - Revising the structure of the Municipal Code sections to remove the ADU ordinance from the “General Provisions” section (30-5) and creating a new section or sections for it.
CEQA Analysis. The proposed amendments are exempt from CEQA pursuant to Public Resource Code section 21080.17 which exempts ordinances implementing State ADU law and section 15061(b)(3), the common sense exemption where it can be seen with certainty that the proposed zoning text amendments have no possibility of having a significant effect on the environment because these amendments do not implicate major physical changes.
Prior Review. The Planning Board conducted a duly noticed Study Session to consider and provide feedback on the proposed ordinance amendments on May 11th, 2026. The study session identified a number of specific revisions, including direction to create a framework for ADU condominium conversion, maintain the existing uncapped number of permitted ADUs on multifamily properties, define front yard setbacks in such a manner that they do not exceed existing setback requirements on primary dwellings, and to apply only require deed restrictions on JADUs as necessary to comply with State law, as well as other revisions to maintain flexibility and ensure the newly created condominium conversion pathways have the intended effect.
RECOMMENDATION
Conduct a Public Hearing to consider the recommended amendments to the Alameda Municipal Code, Section 30-5.18 related to accessory dwelling units, find the project exempt from CEQA and adopt the draft Resolution recommending City Council approve the amendments.
Respectfully Submitted,
Steven Buckley, Planning Services Manager
Exhibits:
1. Draft Amendments - Redline
2. Draft Amendments - Clean
3. Draft Resolution