Some people call them carriage houses. Others say “mother-in-law suite” or “granny flat.” However you want to refer to a smaller, independent unit on the same lot as a bigger house— think of a garage converted into an apartment—a bill working its way through City Hall could make it much easier to build one in the city of St. Louis.
Alderwoman Shameem Clark Hubbard prefers the term “accessory dwelling units”—and a bill she is sponsoring to deal with them cleared an important hurdle last week. It would add accessory dwelling units to the types of “permitted uses” in residential districts, thus removing the requirement to get a zoning variance prior to construction.
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Supporters say that carriage houses are ideal for all sorts of situations. As their nicknames suggest, they allow for a member of the extended family to live close by–but not too close by. Clark Hubbard and others say they’re useful for a college-aged child who wants a little bit of space and seniors who can’t afford or no longer need their house’s full square footage. A carriage house allows them to age in place and potentially earn additional income renting out the main house. Accessory dwelling units are often used for short-term rentals as well.
Clark Hubbard says it’s not a quick fix for the lack of infill housing, but it’s “a quicker fix” in comparison to others.
She adds that she thinks allowing homeowners to build carriage houses is especially important right now in her ward, as many are recovering from the May 16 tornado and should have as much flexibility as possible in how they move forward with reconstruction.
Connor Bryant agrees. He works for Redesign Network, a contractor and developer that deals mostly with distressed properties in North City. “You can get more people in our neighborhoods without doing the kinds of things that freak people out when it comes to the character of the neighborhood,” Bryant says. “You don’t always want to see a five over one going up across the street, for reasons I understand. Something like [ADUs], it plugs the gaps.”
Miriam Keller is a city planning executive for general planning and design for the city. She points out that even though “ADU” is a newer term, these carriage houses have been part of the fabric of the city for centuries. “They were part of how the city was built,” she says. “In a way this [change of regulation] is restoring and modernizing this as another housing option in the city.”
Clark Hubbard previously introduced a version of this bill in 2023, after the AARP brought the issue to her attention. At the time, she didn’t realize that it would have to first pass through the city’s Planning Commission, or that such a review would take a while.
“I am not kidding, I would go to the Planning Commission at least once a month, if not more, talking about, where am I on the list?” she says.
Last week, the Planning Commission gave it a positive recommendation—a crucial step in the bill becoming a law. Clark Hubbard expects the bill to be taken up by the Board of Aldermen soon after they reconvene in September and, hopefully, move along to the mayor’s desk well before the end of the year.
“I can’t imagine any kind of pushback,” she says. “But I’ll be ready. That’s what the legislative process is for.”
After that, of course, it still needs the signature of Mayor Cara Spencer.
That seems likely to happen. The mayor’s designee on the Planning Commission is Rasmus Jorgensen, her deputy director of communications. He was active in the crafting of the bill and even suggested an amendment.
Jorgensen says the Spencer Administration has been working to find ways to tweak the zoning code to allow for more density, looking in particular for changes that don’t get “too tangled into the web of different codes” so that they can be implemented relatively quickly. Clark Hubbard’s bill is exactly that, he says. He cites as another example the recent bill reducing the minimum lot size needed for development.
