Council Candidates in District 5 | Question of the Week Seven | Aug. 16
Each week through the Primary, The Breeze will ask the candidates for Cape Coral City Council an issue-related question. In the interest of fairness, each candidate is limited to the same amount of words, about 100, for their response.
This week’s question:
What are your views on “accessory dwelling units?”
District 5 candidates’ answers:
Jason Conzelman
YouTube.com/@Conzelman4Councilman
I believe that accessory dwelling units, ADUs, are a great way for citizens to find cheaper housing, and for people on a fixed income, to easily receive an extra source of income.
For people with extra rooms or other places that can be made into an ACU, I think it’s great for the community to have places where people can pay less rent, save money, keep our city from having to build affordable housing that could lower prices of the surrounding houses.
ACUs need to be easy to get access for a permit because they help our city.
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Joseph Kilraine
Accessory dwelling unit (ADU) ordinances are encouraged by the Florida Legislature. ADUs present a number of challenges as to defining scope, code development, enforcement, city services & cost delineation, etc. Pros include live-in generational support, affordability, incremental income, etc. Cons include affect on neighboring property, increased city services consumption, existing ADUs without standards, higher population density & traffic impacts, etc. ADU governance also has property rights considerations. On the flip side from affordability, high-end construction often includes live-in service personnel options. My bias is to not impose additional land-use/ordinance standards & allow existing code on property to control on those parameters already defined.
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Charlie Pease
We need to start thinking creatively about housing that’s affordable for working-class residents and multi-generational families in Cape Coral. Currently, you can’t have two kitchens in a single-family home (or a “dwelling unit”). As a believer in private property rights, I would argue that residents should be able to add a permitted second kitchen to a residential home to create, for example, a true mother-in-law suite. However, the requirement to have a garage in Cape Coral should not go away (that is, garages should not be eligible for conversion to ADUs). More Council discussion and debate is worth having.
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Robert Welsh (Incumbent)
Accessory dwelling units can be a great source for affordable housing in Cape Coral, however I do not see this being how they will be used. I think they will just become illegal vacation rentals or non-permitted converted garages. I do not think we have the capability to enforce the current codes on vacation rentals properly and do not want to expose the city to additional enforcement issues.