There will be a joint meeting of the Planning Commission and the City Commission on July 16th at 11:30am - 1:30pm in the City Commission Chambers to discuss the adoption of the new Master Plan. The 👉agenda item for this meeting👈 contains the proposed adoption schedule.
UPDATE 2024-11-05: Updated to include the applicability of table 5.2.08.G.1 related to maximum ADU size.
UPDATE 2024-04-23: On 2024-04-23 the City Commission adopted a collection of zoning reforms which included significant changes to Accessory Dwelling Units. All documents and commentary prior to this date should be disregarded.
Disclaimer & Purpose
This is not an official document; this document is not endorsed by the Grand Rapids Planning Commission, nor are its authors qualified to present legal opinions.
The purpose of this document is to provide an introduction to the regulations related to Accessory Dwelling Units in the city of Grand Rapids, MI as of late May, 2024. Within the Zoning the topic of Accessory Dwelling Units are directly addressed in section [5.9.03]. Other sections of the code may still impact the development of ADUs so we have attempted to cross-reference the most relevant sections.
In response to the currently proposed zoning reforms the city has assembled 👉an extensive FAQ👈; I used data from that document as the basis for the 👉"The Myth Of The Out-Of-State Housing Hoover"👈 post. That post lays out the data making it clear that the phenomenon of out-of-state developers collecting housing en masse has not happened here. Beyond laying that NIMBY trope to rest this document contains some particularly interesting nuggets which are worth calling out.
On the fourth Tuesday of this month (2024-04-23) the City Commission will be voting on the suite of zoning reforms which have been in development since the joint meeting of the Planning Commission and the City Commission in July of last year (2023).
A key result so far from the process is that the citizens of Grand Rapids understand the need for housing, and are ready for it. In many ways the citizens of this city are out ahead of their leadership, by a considerable distance.
