9/27/23 - A Few Words About Garages

Garages: can't live with them; can't live without them. Am I right? No? No matter - let's take a live look in at what the currently in-effect zoning code has to say about them...

The following standards apply to all residential garages and carports, with the exception of multifamily dwellings.

(a) General standards.

[1] Garage orientation and access (e.g., attached/front-loaded, attached/side-loaded, detached/street-loaded, or detached/alley-loaded) shall conform with the majority of other existing residential parcels on the same block frontage within 200 feet.

[2] Single-family attached dwellings shall not have street-loaded garages if alternative access can be provided.

[3] Garages shall not be in the style of a Quonset hut or other similarly formed metal or plastic structures designed and/or marketed for industrial or agricultural use.

(b) Attached garage.

[1] The width of front-loaded attached garages shall be limited to 50% of the front setback line or 22 feet, whichever is less.

[2] Attached garages shall be set back a minimum of 10 feet from the front setback line of the principal use or structure.

[1] One detached garage is permitted per lot.

[2] The area above the vehicle parking spaces in a detached garage shall not contain a kitchen or sleeping area.

[3] A detached garage is permitted only in the rear yard.

Well that all seems relatively straight forward. It should also be noted that this is concisely in a single place in the current zoning as well (here in case you're curious). Garages need to be in the rear yard. If you're building a 24' wide house, you can't have more than 12' of it be garage. That garage has to be set back 10' from the front of the house. It wouldn't hurt to allow ADUs above a detached garage, but nothing's perfect.

So starting from this pretty solid block of garage regulation, we're assuming the new code tightened it up by always preferring alley accessed garages where able, legalizing ADUs above garages, and we're done here right? Uh oh - this post wouldn't be here if that were the case, huh...

Garage, Detached

1. Detached garages are permitted in the interior side, corner side, and rear yards. Detached garages are prohibited in the front yard and must be setback a minimum of ten feet from the front façade of the principal building.

2. When accessed from a street, other than an alley, detached garages must be set back a minimum of 20 feet from the lot line parallel to the garage door.

3. When a property is abutting an alley, access to a garage must be from the alley.

From general accessory use regulations:

I. A detached accessory structure may not contain cooking facilities or a full bath. Plumbing fixtures above the first floor are prohibited.

From rules on single family attached and detached homes and 2, 3, and 4 families:

4. Front-loaded attached garages are limited to 30% of the width of the front building line or 22 feet in length, whichever is greater.

5. Front-loaded attached garages and/or attached carports must be located ten feet behind the front building facade of the structure. Garages must be located a minimum of 20 feet from the lot line from which access is taken.

From rules on townhouses:

4. Front-loaded attached garages and/or attached carports must be located ten feet behind the front building facade of the structure. Garages must be located a minimum of 20 feet from the lot line from which access is taken.

That's quite a bit to unpack. What happened here?

Somehow detached garages are now allowed anywhere but the front yard. Including what used to be a front yard on a corner lot, but is now a corner side yard for 'clarity.' There is no reason for this change.

We have given preference to alleys for garage access (YAY!), but because of the way the code is written, garages need to be set 20' off the alley (BOO!). While it can be hard to tell how disparate in the code these rules are, let me tell you the diagram is immediately adjacent to the text describing garage orientation. That didn't stop it from disagreeing with the code, as the house on the right's garage should be to the alley. The 20' rule really breaks corner lots too. As most city lots are 40' wide, it would be nearly impossible to build a garage 20' away from the side lot line, as the garage itself would need to be limited to 20' deep to even stay on the lot. This seems to render nonconforming a significant number of garages in the city with no clear path forward.

We still aren't allowed an ADU above a detached garage (though as in the current code, it's perfectly ok to have one above an attached garage).

Attached garages are now allowed to be 30% of the front of a house or 22', whichever is greater. Wait what? So now, you can build a 24' wide house with a 20' wide garage and a front door, and you're of-right (we don't duplicate it here, but houses have to have an entrance to the street). This cannot possibly be correct, but it's repeated multiple times in the ZAP code. Townhouses don't even have this meager limit, so it seems like you can build 24' wide townhouse that is all garage so long as the garage is inset by 10'. Something like this house in Houston.

There was just no reason for this to happen to garages. The current code is acceptable, and with a few light edits would be great, but instead, the rules on garages are now difficult to parse, too permissive towards size and design (it sure looks like metal quonset hut garages are now allowed), all while still not permitting additional unit density that minimizes additional lot coverage. We won't do this for every single piece of the code we look at, but we'll go out with some example alternative code.