We all know there’s insufficient housing in Mariposa County. This is driven by a challenging building environment, high interest rates on home construction loans, natural disasters, single-family homes converted to short-term rentals, high insurance premiums, and a difficult-to-navigate county structure.
Everyone sees the same thing. For the first time in the county’s history, we don’t have a lumber yard. Other construction-related businesses are consolidating services, closing, or moving elsewhere. We need to reverse that trend.
I want to support housing builds at every level. Let’s put tradespeople back to work by encouraging new housing whether it be a small ADU, remodel, single-family home, multi-family, multigenerational housing– anything that helps increase the inventory of housing. Every local business struggles to attract talent, not because they don’t want to live here, not because they can’t afford to live here, but because they can’t find a suitable place to live.
Let’s hear every creative idea. And let’s support the American Dream of home ownership.
Policy Proposal 1 – 25 Waivers Per Year to Build 25 New Rentable Units Per Year
To incentivize the construction of long-term rentable housing, let’s create a program that allows for 25 Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) per year, 5 for each district, to be built without paying permitting fees. These units would be fully permitted and inspected just like any other ADU. Residents would submit proposals ensuring that the project could be completed within the budget year. A lottery would be conducted to pick winners from each district.
Future taxes on the addition of the ADU would pay for the permitting within 3-4 years. This policy would, at a minimum, create 5 new housing units per year in each voting district or 25 units countywide starting as soon as 2027.
Program cost – About $125,000 per year of staff time within Development Services. Once a certificate of occupancy is issued the ADUs would be assessed property taxes just like any other new building in the county, which would recoup the approximate $5000 cost of fees and permits waived in 3-4 years. After that, this would increase property taxes collected going forward into the future while also adding more housing inventory. A win-win!
Shovel ready – This proposal would take advantage of work that’s already been done. The General Plan already allows a large portion of the county’s residential zoning to add an ADU or second residence. Applicants would not need to do a protracted planning process as their existing zoning already allows for for an ADU. Plus, 25 new ADUs spread out across the county would have a very low impact on communities while slowly building up rentable housing inventory. Likewise, state and local laws/ordinances encourage this type of building, the county already has pre-approved building plans to save additional money and make this happen.
Depending on the layout of the property it may be possible to use some existing infrastructure on a property, such as driveways or even a well.
Would this work everywhere across the county? No, this wouldn’t work for everyone. Area planning groups already have provided input on whether or not it would work in their specified areas in the General Plan update.
Are you talking about tiny homes? A tiny home might be included in this but for the most part an ADU is a stick built structure. An ADU can be up to 1,200 square feet or up to 50% of the current home’s square footage already on that property. 1,200 square feet home would average 2-3 bedrooms and 1-2 bathrooms, depending on configuration. There are many manufactured home models that would fit this affordably but could also include traditional framed homes, container homes, and things like that.
Is this incentive enough to move the needle? Only one way to find out. We’ll know how popular it may or may not be once we start it. If no one takes advantage of it there would be no cost. Residents would need to prove in their application for this program that they have financing and could complete the project within the budget year. While some people may chose to build out an ADU at market rate, meaning the $5000 would be trivial in comparison to the cost, there are other building options available within the new Low Density, Rural Development ordinance that would bring this into range for more people.
It’s about building housing and getting tradespeople back to work! Housing is a huge priority in the county. Every new rentable home makes a difference, that’s one more family that can live here, work locally, and contribute to our community. But it’s also about getting contractors back to work! This creates jobs and housing at the same time within an existing framework.
Who would this be for? There’s a wide variety of scenarios this could work for. Let’s say you’re a retired couple and you want to create a long-term rental on your property to create additional retirement income, this would be for you. Or let’s say you want to build a small home for your adult children to live on your property and the share costs of owners, this would be for you. Or consider that about 16% of all housing in Mariposa is a second home, this program could work for a second homeowner who would like to add a tenant on their property to act as a caretaker or create additional housing.
Who wouldn’t this be for? Current county ordinances do not allow ADUs or homes built under the LDRD ordinance to be used as short-term rentals. This program would help solve the housing crisis, not contribute to it.
Policy Proposal 2 – Development Services Navigators
Understanding that for most people building a home or ADU in Mariposa County is the first time they’ve gone through this challenging process, let’s add a position within the Development Services or add responsibilities to existing Development Services staff to act as a Development Services Navigator. This role would help guide and educate the public to speed the permitting including being more hands on, helping onboard new would-be owner builders with Tyler Technologies. We should prioritize anything we can do to encourage and make it easier for new builds, remodels, and getting existing unpermitted housing into compliance.