CAST architecture recently participated in a Seattle City Council discussion regarding backyard cottages. The meeting began with a presentation of backyard cottage statistics that were gathered during the first year of the city wide backyard cottage ordinance. Following the presentation participants discussed working with the ordinance in practice and suggested potential improvements that could be made to the ordinance. You can view a video of the entire discussion at seattlechannel.org: Backyard Cottages: 1 Year Later

There is also a backyard cottage annual report available to download from the DPD's website: Backyard Cottages Annual Report - April 2011

Of particular interest was the number of cottages permitted in the first year (57) and their relatively even distribution throughout the city. One of the primary concerns opponents had expressed in opposition to the ordinance was a fear that dense concentrations of cottages would "take over" single family neighborhoods causing widespread parking and privacy issues. The fear was so potent and adamantly expressed that at one point during the development of the ordinance city council members considered placing limits on the number of permits per year (50) and limits on the number of cottages allowed in any given area. Thankfully, neither limit was written into the code and the fears have been proven to be unjustified thus far.

A few other interesting issues that came to the surface during the discussion were:

1. The relatively high costs of constructing a backyard cottage makes it difficult for home owners to see a return on their investment if they hope to use a cottage to generate rental income. In general it was felt that backyard cottages were an important new housing typology for the city and that the cottages are a valuable addition to the city's rental stock. It was proposed that the city should consider incentives that would help lower the cost of constructing a cottage and help encourage their creation. A reduced permit fee and property tax credits are two areas I think the city should review.
2. The feeling that the off street parking requirements (2 spaces) was in most cases unnecessary and to the detriment of green space and usable yards. One idea put forth was to loosen the parking requirements by making it easier to obtain a parking waiver on streets where parking is not an issue.
3. The base height limit was thought to be a bit too low and creates unreasonable difficulties for the construction of two story structures. During the public comment portion of the meeting architect Jim Burton suggested changing the datum to which the base height could be measured (top of plate) to add a bit to the base height limit and encourage homeowners to exceed minimum requirements for insulating roofs and ceilings. The overall height limit was thought to be adequate with the exception of the following issue:
4. The current ordinance sets the height limit to 15' above an existing home. This was thought to be problematic and unfair in the case where the property owner's lot has a significant slope up behind the existing home.
5. The current ordinance does not allow for a backyard cottage to be built on a through lot (a lot with a street on both the front and rear lot lines of a property). This was generally thought to be a mistake in the writing of the ordinance and that the ordinance should be revised to allow cottages on through lots.

All in all it was a fun and informative meeting. Kudos to the city employees key in the development of the ordinance and to Sally Clarke and the city council for passing the ordinance unanimously. After the first year of real world testing the ordinance has proven to be a resounding success.

The Widner Cottage is going to be open to the public twice this summer for tours:

First, the Phinney Neighborhood Association's Home and Garden Tour will roll through on June 12th, from 11-4 pm (see link).

Second, the Cottage will be featured as the AIA Seattle's Open House on July 17th from noon to 3 pm.  More information here.  As part of the tour, the house will be published in Seattle Magazine, in the Northwest Home section in July.

I'm trying to organize a tour of recently completed backyard cottages in the month of June.  If you have one that you'd like to have considered for the tour, please contact me!

Matt@CASTarchitecture.com

The cottage in Phinney Ridge is taking shape--it is all dried in and the drywall is up.  One of the owners is pictured above savoring being on the cutting edge of increased density in Seattle's single family zoning!

The Widner's cottage is starting to take shape!

Kate and Ric have begun construction on their backyard cottage... They have been working hard the last few weeks and have enlisted the help of a few friends and colleagues along the way. A few key players have been helping guide us through the process:

• Rusty Borromeo of Borromeo Construction LLC is providing his general contractor and construction expertise
• James Jenkins of O'Brien & Company is contributing his green building knowledge and will be our Built Green Verifier  - we are aiming for 5 star Built Green certification
• Cory Fraser of LFD Structural Engineering LLC provided the calculations and engineering for our plan set

Ric has been doing a wonderful job of photographing the process and has put together a few galleries of the construction process thus far (all images in this post are © 2010 Ric Cochrane). He has also agreed to write up a blog post on the experience thus far - so stay tuned for that!

DECONSTRUCTION GALLERY An existing shed (that was a bit worse for wear) was painstakingly deconstructed and all reusable and recyclable materials were sorted and stacked

LABOR OF LOVE - THE FOUNDATION Digging in the dirt and other fun activities - the true definition of 'sweat equity!'

LUMBER FROM THE BONE-YARD Salvaged beams, columns and decking are being purchased from Bruce Borjesson of Pacific Resources

We have been working with a couple who are planning on moving out of the original house, and into a new backyard cottage.  We're pushing the limits within the ordinance--almost exactly 800 square feet--in order to build a 2 bed room, bath and a half cottage. Although the house is small, the spaces inside feel just right.  And we'll be able to include a lot of high finish touches and crisp details because we aren't spending money on lots of square footage. Having a finite perimeter and volume really focuses the mind on the priorities of the design.

The character of the house the client's wanted is very craftsman and the scale and roofline fits right in with the neighborhood in general--certainly not the scary developer vision that opponents of the ordinance summoned during the public hearings.  It reinforces that these projects are for people with a vested interest in both their property and their neighborhood and are very sensitive to the impact on their neighbors.

Here is another view which shows off the walkout patio off the dining space, the entry mudroom and the band of windows that wrap the living room, dining and kitchen:

We are also going to integrate a rain water harvesting system, radiant floors on a super efficient combination boiler, vaulted ceiling upstairs, and a extra height crawlspace with a rat slab to make up for some of the storage space lost in the downsizing.  For floor plans, follow the jump below:

First floor plan:

Second floor plan:

We've completed the second round of design on our CAST architecture case study backyard cottage.

The plan has been fine tuned to optimize it for advanced framing. We adjusted the spaces to work better with Kate and Ric's needs and have started looking at potential materials and finishes.

We've also started talking about systems - at this point everything is on the table, solar hot water, energy efficient boiler, hydronic floor heating systems, rainwater cistern for flushing the toilets and watering the yard, super insulated walls...

I suspect that our choices will narrow as the reality of our budget forces us to separate the wheat from the chaff. Right now however, the possibilities seem limitless!

The Seattle channel recently interviewed myself and CAST clients Kate Lichtanstein and Ric Cochrane regarding the backyard cottage we are currently working on together. They included our project in a broader story that profiles an owner of a recently completed backyard cottage and gives a basic outline of the new Seattle backyard cottage ordinance.

Seattle Channel Video can be played in Flash Player 9 and up

UPDATED AUG. 8th 2019

Now that the new legislation is in place we’ve updated Quickstart Guide for 2019. Please keep in mind that this information is intended as a high level primer for the code that governs backyard cottages in Seattle… It should only be used as a basic starting point for planning. If you would like to move forward with the design and permitting of a backyard cottage for your home we recommend careful scrutiny of the entire ordinance and the assistance of an architect or design professional.

Download guide as a printable pdf