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Council adopts ADU and zoning updates, pulls stucco change for separate review
Summary
Council adopted changes to ADU triggers, design standards and administrative code (ordinance 2025-19 and 2025-20) but accepted an amendment to remove the proposed downtown stucco/EIFS change for separate consideration after debate about historic preservation and material durability.
City staff presented two code amendments: revisions to Title 070 governing accessory dwelling units (ADUs), residential design and use definitions, and a Title 030 administrative cleanup. Staff said the ADU amendment would exempt certain small ADUs from triggering full-lot landscape code requirements intended to encourage water-efficient yards, and that the proposed design changes would allow stucco and EIFS as primary materials outside the downtown core while maintaining limits inside the downtown core and clarifying allowable colors.
Historic preservation commissioners and several councilors raised concerns about broad downtown boundaries and whether allowing stucco as a primary material could undermine preservation goals or encourage inappropriate re-siding of older wood structures. After extended debate, the council accepted a friendly amendment to pull the stucco/EIFS primary-material change out of the ordinance package for further review by planning and zoning/historic-preservation channels and then voted to approve ordinance 2025-19 (with stucco removed) and ordinance 2025-20 (administrative errata) unanimously.
Staff said the ADU landscaping exemption is intended to lower cost barriers to building ADUs by avoiding large-lot landscaping upgrades in many cases, and noted that ADUs that trigger other thresholds (for example large additions or major remodels) may still trigger landscape requirements.
