But there are many faces of two-family developments. It is important to understand and recognize the opportunities that they carry. Here are three basic categories:
The Main House and a Carriage House (or ADU – Accessory Dwelling Unit). In this arrangement there are two separate structures on one lot. The Carriage House is a secondary dwelling unit accessed from the alley; often build on top of a two or three-bay garage. The space can serve as home office, studio, guest house or a rental unit. There are tremendous opportunities associated with the ADUs. Imagine being able to invite your aging parents to live with you (close but not too close). Imagine working at home and never having to commute again. Imagine having rental income and being able to afford buying your own home.
Top-and-bottom two-family dwelling – We all know them – a basement apartment used as a rental unit. Sometimes the two units have separate ownership and function as a mini-condo. This type of development has great potential in terms of affordable housing and can provide all the same benefits as mentioned above.
And finally a side-by-side duplex – While covered with stigma of the recent year’s developments the duplex is very common building type in historic neighborhoods. There are examples of very modest single story structures as well as larger multi story buildings. Historically the owner of the house lived in one half and benefited from the rental income from the other half. Nowadays the ownership is typically split along the party wall between the units.
Denver is going through a process of developing the new Zoning Code. The old designations of R1 (Single Family) and R2 (Single Family, Duplexes and Townhouses) are being replaced with new symbols SU (Single Unit) and TU (Two Unit). SU zones will only allow construction of single family houses while TU will allow the three scenarios described above in addition to single family homes. Current drafts of the code propose replacing 70% of residential areas currently zoned R2 with a SU designation. This means that only single family houses will be permitted to be built in the areas that currently allow multiunit developments. The new limitation is supposed to preserve the neighborhoods. However it is important to remember that the D-people can build a single family house that is 5,000 plus square feet, from one setback line to the other, maximizing the lot, shading adjacent gardens and bringing their neighbors to tears when they look at their property tax statement.
The proposed form based code is promised to be context sensitive. Hopefully this new approach to Zoning Codes will result in more respectful developments, regardless from the number of units they house. At the same time it is important to recognize the potential of Two Unit zones. The options that TU allows will benefit our neighborhoods in terms of sustainability, affordable housing and historic preservation. One would hope that in order to maintain the healthy growth of our City all existing R2 zones should be named TU under the new code.
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