Deadline: Monday, February 10
— from San Juan County Communications —
San Juan County Department of Community Development (DCD) is now accepting eligibility applications for detached ADU permits proposed outside of urban growth areas and activity centers. ADU eligibility applications must be received no later than 4:30 pm February 10, 2020. In 2020, six eligibility slots are allowed for the construction of new ADUs and one is available for the conversion of existing accessory structures, legally in existence for five years. DCD will hold a lottery if the number of eligibility applications exceeds the number of ADUs allowed in 2020.
DCD’s ADU eligibility application form must be completed and submitted to DCD along with the fee of $245. This form is available online at www.sanjuanco.com/dcd, or through the online permit center at co-sanjuan-wa.smartgovcommunity.com, or at 135 Rhone St, Friday Harbor.
Complete applications including the fee must be received by DCD in person at DCD’s office at 135 Rhone Street, Friday Harbor, Washington, submitted timely online, or by mail to P.O. Box 947, Friday Harbor, WA 98250 by 4:30 pm on February 10, 2020.
If needed, a lottery will take place for one or both categories on March 2, 2020, at 11:30 am, at the front counter in the DCD office at 135 Rhone St, Friday Harbor, WA. Applications received after February 10 are ineligible, but will be added to a waitlist.
Questions? Yancey Bagby (360) 370-7581 or yanceyb@sanjuanco.com.
If you own a large enough piece of property, and if you’d like to do some good for the community, you might consider adding an ADU as comparatively inexpensive housing for a working family.
The working people to whom you might rent your ADU are not only necessary to our island’s economy, but also they could add to your own by supervising and maintaining your property as part of their rent.
Think about this idea, and then apply for a permit to have an ADU on your land.
I never understood why former council members made an ordinance prohibiting detached guest homes outside of UGAs – that really hurt our UGA and turned it into a high-cost prime real estate vacation rental district which pushed out the workers who have no housing or can’t afford it at UGA jacked-up prices. This whole UGA thing has severely degraded the most important and functional wetland system on Orcas Island; I don’t know how it’s impacted Lopez and FH UGAs, but they’re all on the water, so I can assume the impacts there were felt by the working class and the ecosystems too.
But really; 6 slots outside of UGAS for the entire county?! We’re still left holding the bag in UGAs, and all the costs of living in a UGA on the workers’ backs – water, sewer, stormwater, all-electric heat, etc. Many of these economic burdens fall on those LEAST able to afford them; land-trust residents and renters where the landlords pass these costs down to the renters. Yet everyone uses the UGAs, since all our infrastructure is there. (a whole Guest Ed can be written about the idiocy of making Eastsound Watershed forested wetland – with soils that liquefy, at sea level in the midst of runaway climate change – a UGA with all the island’s infrastructure here, including emergency services!)
We need housing for workers, not just in UGAs – at rents they can afford without giving their whole paycheck to rent. Unfortunately, until we define “long term housing” as residency that’s longer than 31 days, we encourage only vacation rentals rather than helping working people; hence the concerns of many of us, and why we want the county to take a pause in VRBO new permits and listen to us! Working people are desperate for housing. We can’t give lip service to “community” without making provisions for our workers and their families.