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03/24/2009: "If You Don’t Have A House, You Don’t Get Anything"

San Juan Island contractor Tom Nolan told the Council on Tuesday that he is no longer able to obtain permits to construct buildings that will be an accessory to a main house, unless he also has, or applies for, a main house.

After Nolan’s comments Community Development and Planning Director Ron Henrickson acknowledged to the County Council that his department will not permit any further construction on property of unattached buildings, unless there is already a house on the property, or is in conjunction with a permit for a main house.

This departure from past policy seemed to perplex Councilman Bob Myhr, who asked Henrickson if this means, for example, if someone wants to build a garage on vacant land, are you saying they cannot do it?


(L to R Ron Hendrickson and Rene Beliveau before the County Council)

Hendrickson said that is correct, no house, no accessory building. At this point County Administrator Pete Rose suggested one could apply for, and build a barn, and park the car in it. But Henrickson quickly disagreed, stating they would only allow agricultural use of a barn. CD&P has ruled in the past that a tractor or a farm truck can be parked in a barn, but not a car.

Councilman Rosenfeld expressed concern that CD&P was changing what had been allowed in the past, but Henrickson said he had asked a longtime planner in his department, who said the regulations had not changed from what they had always been.

Councilman Lovel Pratt said the question is not “have the regulations changed, but that the interpretation and the policy had changed.”

Henrickson reasoned that buildings defined as an “accessory” building, must be accessory to a primary structure, and “without a primary, hard to prove it.”

Mr. Nolan had contacted former County Commissioner John Evans, a 12 year veteran of setting policy for the CD&PD, and asked if what Nolan was being told was correct. Evans responded by email that “’Accessory’ simply means a classification of a wide variety of buildings not intended for residential use. The term does not describe a relationship between buildings.”

Under persistent questioning by the Council, Henrickson said the code states an accessory building is “accessory to a primary residence. I think it is presumptively legal that you have to have a primary residence” prior to having an accessory structure.

Even a casual reading of the old 2003, or the new 2006, International building code seems to square with Commissioner Evan’s reading: Section R202 Definitions: ACCESSORY STRUCTURE. A structure not greater than 3,000 square feet in floor area, and not over two stories in height, the use of which is customarily accessory to and incidental to [emphasis added] that of the dwelling(s) and which is located on the same lot.

Another basis for the CD&PD interpretation of their policy resulted when the Hearing Examiner ruled back in the guest house wars on a case involving a question of, when is a guest house an accessory building vs. a “dwelling”; that is, can a guest house be a guest house if there is no “dwelling”, which CD&P calls a “primary residence”.

But that case had to do with a guest house, and is in a different context than the one Mr. Nolan cited to the County Council as “several issues of concern with the CD&P dept. One issue I would like to bring to the councils attention concerns accessory structures e.g.: garages, barns, boat houses ( water dependent equipment storage) etc. or any building not used for habitation.”

Nolan told the Council that: “After reading the San Juan County UDC I could not find anywhere that it states a property owner must build a "main residence" before he or she is allowed to build any other structures. Yet it is the policy of the director of the CD&P dept. to deny permitting and approval of this type of building."

He ended his presentation by asking “the council to review this current policy and either explain to me and my fellow property owners the public benefit of this policy or advise the director of the CD&P dept. to accept and approve qualified applications.”

The Council agreed to take up the matter for a full discussion with the County Administrator on April 6th.