The San Jose City Council unanimously approved a proposal to draft guidelines for a secondary-unit ordinance. But what those parameters will be will take some time to hammer out.

San Jose Director of Housing Leslye Corsiglia said that the Housing and Planning departments believe the city's old 1984 ban on secondary units is no longer valid. She said that 20 years ago, city officials envisioned 26,000 secondary units being created, but other cities that have adopted ordinances are only seeing 10­12 units being built a year.

At the April 6 city council meeting, several council members raised concerns that the recommended guidelines and timetable may need adjusting before they would approve the ordinance.

However, the council unanimously approved moving the proposal to the drafting stage after council members suggested considering grandfathering existing units, creating an amnesty period for units that are not up to code, identifying the parcels per district, clarifying a way to enforce owner occupancy and holding more than one community meeting in each district.

Under the approved draft, owners with 6,000-square-foot lots could build a 650-square-foot, 16-foot-tall unit with electrical, water and sewer by receiving permits that do not require a public hearing.

Corsiglia said that city staff was planning to gather community input after drafting a proposal and do public outreach from May until August 2004.

District 6 Councilman Ken Yeager asked if each district could hold at least two community meetings for feedback, a practice that might extend public outreach beyond August.

Yeager also asked Corsiglia how the minimum 6,000-square-foot lot size was determined. Corsiglia said that the lot size was selected in order to make it easier for people to build "granny units" on smaller parcels of land.

Parking problems also concerned council members, although the ordinance would require one parking space off the street per secondary unit.

Yeager expressed concern that tenants would not use driveway parking. District 5 Councilwoman Nora Campos echoed Yeager's concern about overimpacted parking and said that the city can't regulate the number of people living in a secondary unit.

"With four adults [in a secondary unit], there could be two to four more cars," she said.

District 7 Councilman Terry Gregory suggested that the city survey how many properties would be affected in each district so that residents could better understand potential impacts.

"We should give community members as much information as we have," San Jose Vice Mayor Pat Dando said.

During the public hearing, Almaden Valley resident Mary Ellen Heising said that allowing people to build secondary units would not save the city money on affordable housing, but would increase the cost of code enforcement.

"If the purpose is to provide low-income or affordable housing, there are better ways to do it," Heising said. As a solution, she suggested adding high-density housing around light-rail areas.

Brian Chapman said that the council needs to deal with existing secondary units because they are not regulated, saying that on his street, three illegal units burned down.

"We've been real fortunate in San Jose that we haven't had a lot of tragedies associated with these properties, but I think we've been lucky," said code enforcement deputy director Mike Hannon.

Jim Peterson, however, was glad to hear the ban was lifted. He would like to built a secondary unit on his property as a home for his aging parents.

But others like Rose Garden resident Yolanda Reynolds were concerned that neighborhood infill would negatively impact the environment.