Dana Point is one of the latest Orange County cities to tighten development requirements for accessory dwelling units, commonly called granny flats, focusing on specific sections of the city with parking issues.
Cities across the county have flagged concerns regarding granny flats over the past several years as these developments get more popular, bringing more people and cars to already congested areas.
Granny flats — secondary, smaller housing developments typically built on the same lot as a single-family home — have also become more common as cities attempt to keep up with state housing mandates, especially affordable units for low-income residents.
It also comes as cities across California are beginning to file their annual housing reports to state officials, detailing how many homes municipalities have developed.
Dana Point staff identified six areas in the city that have public safety, public nuisance and traffic flow concerns, issues city leaders said could be amplified as more granny flats are constructed.
At the Feb. 4 meeting, the city council voted unanimously to require all granny flat construction in these areas to require a special permit, offering alternate developmental standards and guidelines to be followed.
Editors’ Note: This dispatch is part of the Voice of OC Collegiate News Service, working with student journalists to cover public policy issues across Orange County. If you would like to submit your own student media project related to Orange County civics or if you have any response to this work, contact admin@voiceofoc.org.
The extra requirement will give city staff the ability to review the project for potential safety concerns.
“Adding a site development permit process provides a procedure where city staff can review a proposed ADU (accessory dwelling unit),” Dana Point’s Public Works Director Matt Sinacori said at the council meeting. “Our goal is to approve them whenever possible, but only when its approval does not create or compound public safety concerns.”
Granny flats are often affordable living spaces that can provide a source of income for homeowners who want to share their space with others.
However, their mass appeal has made them problematic in Orange County coastal cities like Dana Point and Huntington Beach.
[Read: ‘Poking the Bear’: Surf City Challenges State Housing Laws and Halts Granny Flats]
Huntington Beach has had several disputes with the state regarding granny flats, which led to a lawsuit directed at the state in March 2023. The lawsuit was slapped down in late 2024.
[Read: California’s Battle With Huntington Beach Over Housing Goals Heads To Court]
Dana Point’s Regional Housing Needs Allocation from the state is 530 units, meaning the city has to zone for this many new housing units by 2029. Of these units, 147 must be allocated for very-low-income residents, and 84 must be allocated for low-income residents — based on the median income for Orange County.
“The SDP (site development permit) process, I really like that, and I’ll tell you why: if there’s not a safety concern, we need to approve certain ADUs,” Dana Point Councilmember Mike Frost said at the Feb. 4 meeting.
Scott Skinner, a San Clemente resident who owns property in Dana Point, said the city is facing an enforcement issue, not a parking issue.
“You guys should be out writing tickets,” Skinner said at the meeting. “You should be out doing what you have to do to get that in order.”
Councilmember Jamey Federico disagreed.
“We’ve done a lot to change the way we manage and enforce parking since I was sitting here. It’s not gonna solve any problems,” Federico said. “Quite frankly, you can enforce all you want, but people are not going to get rid of their cars. They’re gonna find other places to move them around.”
While parking was a significant focus of the discussion, Skinner also claimed the proposed changes violated the state’s housing laws.
“The city’s proposed changes to the ADU ordinance continue to deflect mandated ADU approval to an unlawful discretionary (permitting) process and an unlawful SDP fee,” Skinner said.
For years, there has been a series of exchanges between Dana Point and the State of California attempting to determine whether their rules abide by state law.
In 2021, Dana Point implemented its first ordinance in alignment with the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) to promote the construction of ADUs.
In 2023, the city received a comment letter from the state housing office requesting that it update regulations. These changes were adopted on July 18, 2023.
Then, in June 2024, Dana Point received a second round of HCD comment letters notifying them of non-compliance, but the city denied being in violation.
Nonetheless, the comment letter was directed to the planning commission to determine whether or not the suggestions could be incorporated into the new ordinance.
Statewide changes to ADUs range from updating how cities respond to unpermitted granny flats to explaining how cities need to improve their approval process.
In other coastal cities, officials face various battles with state law on the same matter.
Huntington Beach city officials attempted to limit the number of granny flats or other affordable housing developments, resulting in a two-year lawsuit with the state of California, which the city lost in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals last year.
[Read: Federal Appeals Court Slaps Down Huntington Beach’s Anti-Housing Lawsuit]
Since 2017, Dana Point has approved the construction of 56 ADUs, an average of seven per year.
However, according to Director of Community Development Brenda Wisneski, to comply with the state’s Reduced Housing Act, they must approve 10 annually.
Sincaori said adding more granny flats to areas with preexisting parking issues will cause further concern.
“ For us in Public Works and law enforcement, we believe that permitting ADUs and adding more parked cars in these areas that are mapped where non-conforming parking and driveways exist will negatively impact public safety,” Sinacori said, “potentially creating impediments to response times for police and fire.”