ADU rules in Loch Arbour

Loch Arbour has no codified code: its zoning is the Land Development Regulations Ordinance (Ord. No. 156, adopted 1-19-1979) plus separately numbered amendments, and none of them contains an accessory dwelling unit provision. In the R Residential district, which covers nearly the whole village, the only principal permitted uses are a single-family detached dwelling and municipal buildings, facilities, parks and playgrounds (§ 704B), and the accessory uses are a closed list of off-street parking and garages, swimming pools, fences, walls and plantings, and residents' camper or boat trailers in which habitation 'in a permanent or temporary manner is prohibited' (§ 704C). Ord. No. 221 limits every lot to one principal permitted use and one principal building (§ 620), Ord. No. 265 prohibits all uses not expressly permitted (§ 419B), and accessory buildings are capped at one story or 15 ft and 15 percent of the yard they stand in (§ 602D). The Planning Board treats even plumbing in a detached garage as a use question: an owner at 2 Elberon Avenue sought a use variance in 2021 to move a bathroom within a storage garage, withdrew it on 1-19-2022 and stipulated to remove all new plumbing (resolution memorialized 2-9-2022). A backyard cottage or garage apartment can therefore only be reached through a d(1) use variance.

No district permits a second unit inside or attached to a house, and none permits a two-family dwelling. § 302 defines a dwelling unit as 'One or more rooms providing living facilities for one family including equipment for cooking or arrangements for the same' and a one-family detached dwelling as 'A house accommodating but a single family,' so a basement, attic or addition apartment would turn the house into a use the R district does not list, which § 419B prohibits, and an attached accessory building simply becomes part of the principal building (§ 602A). The other districts allow no dwellings at all: C Commercial on Main Street permits offices, banks, churches, a car wash, a tavern, sit-down restaurants and retail (§ 705B as amended 5-9-2018 by Ord. No. 2018-437), the small Office-Professional zone offices only (Ord. No. 196, 1983), and the B Beach zone a cabana, refreshment stand, open beach and parking, with cabanas 'not for residential or other overnight accommodations' and its one accessory structure barred from finished living space (§ 706 as rewritten by Ord. No. 2013-395). § 704F also bars signs announcing a 'rooming house', 'boarding house' or 'guest house'.

Ord. No. 156 recognizes no ADU, so it sets no accessory-unit size cap; the envelope comes from § 602 (accessory buildings one story or 15 ft, at most 15 percent of the yard they occupy, erected in the rear of the lot, 10 ft between buildings on the same lot) and the R-district bulk rules. § 704E7, rewritten by Ord. No. 2014-397 (3-5-2014) and Ord. No. 2015-419 (12-2-2015), lets the principal structure cover 20 percent of the lot and all other buildings and structures another 20 percent, with total lot coverage never above 40 percent, and Ord. No. 2018-444 (11-20-2018) counts garages, sheds, pools, decks, patios, driveways, walkways and all pavers or impervious surfaces as building coverage, while pervious-paver driveways may exceed it by 10 percent of the lot, up to 500 sq ft (§ 704E10, Ord. No. 2018-445). Houses may not exceed 35 ft measured to the highest point of the roof from mean curb level or 2.5 stories, with finished half-story space, decks and balconies included, no larger than 50 percent of the second story's living space (§ 704D and § 302, Ords. No. 2018-446 and 2018-447), and new lots need 7,500 sq ft, 75 ft of width and 100 ft of depth, with side yards the greater of 5 ft or 10 percent of lot width and a 25 ft rear yard (§ 704E, Ord. No. 177 and Ord. No. 2018-443). The Planning Board applied this 20/20/40 coverage scheme and the bulk table in March 2022 (335 Euclid Avenue resolution).

Loch Arbour authorizes no ADU, so there is no accessory-unit owner-occupancy rule, and nothing in Ord. No. 156 conditions a house on its owner living there. The nearest provisions are the definitions of a dwelling as a building 'occupied exclusively for home or residence purposes, either permanently or seasonally' and of a family as persons 'living and cooking together as a single, non-profit housekeeping unit, exclusive of household servants' (§ 302). The certificate of occupancy required at every sale and every new tenancy asks the applicant to list all persons who will occupy the residence and, for a seasonal resident, a permanent address, which tracks occupants rather than requiring owner residence.

§ 704E8, as rewritten by Ord. No. 177 (adopted 6-20-1980), requires 'two (2) spaces per dwelling' and bars parking 'on lawns or on required areas for front, side or rear yards'; § 704E9 bars overnight outdoor parking of commercial vehicles, and § 619F provides that nothing shall prohibit 'driveways for one family dwellings from being considered one off-street parking space.' The state Residential Site Improvement Standards govern residential subdivision, site plan, variance and other residential development approvals and are 'the maximum that may be required in connection with residential development' (N.J.A.C. 5:21-1.5(a), (b)); Table 4.4 sets 'the maximum number of parking spaces planning boards and other local reviewers shall require' (5:21-4.14(c)): 1.5 for a two-bedroom single-family detached house, 2.0 for three, 2.5 for four and 3.0 for five, with each unit of a two-family dwelling at the same values. The local two-space rule therefore exceeds the state maximum only for a two-bedroom house, and the ordinance does not say how the two are reconciled.

No district lists an accessory dwelling, a two-family dwelling or any second unit as a permitted or conditional use, so a second unit is 'a structure or use in a district restricted against such structure or use,' which only a d(1) use variance can allow (§ 404B(d); N.J.S.A. 40:55D-70(d)). Since Ord. No. 227 (adopted 5-29-1990) the nine-member Planning Board holds every Board of Adjustment power under N.J.S.A. 40:55D-25(c), with the Class I and Class III members barred from d relief (§ 418E and F); § 404B(d) still demands 'two thirds of the full authorized membership of the board,' which on a nine-member board is six votes against the five the statute requires of a municipal board. Any interested party may appeal a use variance approval to the Board of Commissioners within 10 days of publication (§ 403, Ord. No. 221), a variance lapses unless a building permit is secured within one year (§ 404F), and Ord. No. 265 (3-1-1995) set the residential use-variance fee at $1,250 per dwelling unit plus a $2,500 escrow (§ 412C and D). Ordinary work starts with a local zoning determination from the Zoning Official ($10 on the village's 2019 form) before a construction permit from the Borough of Deal, and because the whole village is a historic district, new construction, additions and accessory buildings over 40 sq ft or 5 ft also need a Planning Board Certificate of Appropriateness (Ord. No. 2018-450).

Ord. No. 201 (adopted 12-6-1984), which added § 14 to the village's dwelling-fitness Ord. No. 103, bars anyone from occupying, renting, leasing, selling or transferring any dwelling house or dwelling unit until the zoning official issues a certificate of inspection permitting occupancy, at every new letting or change of owner and 'whether said occupancy, rental, lease, sale or transfer of title is temporary, seasonal or permanent, or whether or not for a consideration'; the application must state how many people will occupy the premises and which rooms they will sleep in. The village's application (revised 2-2018, with a notice of the smoke alarm and fire extinguisher rules effective 1-1-2019) offers yearly or seasonal (winter or summer) rental classifications, charges $100 for a rental and $125 for a resale certificate plus the $35 smoke detector certification, lists 'cottage or garage apartment' among residence types, and warns that skipping the inspection for each new tenant or owner is punishable by a fine of up to $200. No short-term rental ban, license, registration or minimum stay appears in any ordinance or governing-body record read (records through 9-12-2023), and the Zoning Official also enforces the International Property Maintenance Code adopted by Ord. No. 296 (6-5-2002).