by Geoff Fox
Maryland legislature has required all counties and municipalities with planning and zoning authority to adopt a local ordinance authorizing Accessory Dwelling Unites, or ADUs, on single-family detached lots.
This was to be completed by October 1, 2026.
At the state level, the effort is meant to address to need for more housing.
“With the bill’s passage, it is the policy of the state of Maryland to promote and encourage ADU development on land with a primary single-family detached dwelling unit to help meet the state’s housing needs,” says the Maryland Department of Planning.
The Town of Hancock discussed the need for the ordinance during the September town meeting, but it wasn’t until the October 13 town meeting they had a public hearing for and eventual passage of the ordinance.
The ordinance would be passed during the regular town meeting as an emergency ordinance.
Town Attorney Edward Kuczynski described the units as something like a cottage home for like in-laws or if a grown kid doesn’t move out.
He added there’s a limit on the size of these dwellings as being not being greater than 75% of the square footage of the primary dwelling unit and be in the back or side yard of the main dwelling. It cannot be in the front yard.
“The side yard and back yard clearances are the same as any other accessory structure, so a garage, carport, shed,” Kuczynski said.
The dwellings wouldn’t be permitted if the only access from an alley, but if there’s access from the front or side street, it would be permitted.
“If you have alley access, you can use that alley, but you can’t get accessory dwelling unit permitted if the only access is an alley,” Kuczynski said.
He added the dwellings would be independent living units with the property owner living in the main dwelling or accessory dwelling.
This is set up so these accessory dwelling can’t be used as short-term dwellings like an Airbnb.
Requiring the owner to be living on the property is so a landlord can’t put one at every property they own.
Kuczynski added the utilities for the accessory dwellings must have their own independent connections.
“You can’t just create like a living area, I’ll say, in a shed you finish off. There does have to at least a minimum of a bathroom and cooking facilities, so there has to be water, sewer, and some form of cooking facilities in the unit,” he said.
The connections would also require the payment of a connection fee, regardless of if they connect to the plumbing of the primary unit or its own line to the structure.
“They don’t get credit because they’re already connected,” Kuczynski said.
Councilman David Kerns said at the state level, there’s an issue with calling the ADU a dwelling, it must have sprinklers installed per the amended code of Washington County.
“I don’t care if it’s an addition or not,” Kerns said, “even if the original house doesn’t have it, once you call it a dwelling unit, you have to sprinkler it.”
Kuczynski said, per Washington County Director of Permits and Inspections Greg Cartrette, if done within the primary unit they put on an addition, and it creates an accessory dwelling, and the property wasn’t required to be have the sprinkler system installed, then the addition or accessory dwelling wouldn’t either.
Kerns said once the state understood once it’s called a dwelling unit, “then all bets are off.”
If anything changes, Kuczynski said it will change when someone builds an ADU in Hancock.
The town passed the ordinance as an emergency ordinance because the state imposed a deadline of October 1, and it was already past the deadline.
“It’s nobody’s fault,” Kuczynski said. “We’ll blame it on the state. They just weren’t very proactive in getting the small towns the information.”
Kuczynski did say Washington County passed the ordinance last year.
He added no one notified the towns and it was discovered by another town in the county Kuczynski represents, so everyone has been scrambling the last month.
“I’m pretty comfortable with what we have drafted,” he said.
