ADU rules in Broken Arrow

A detached ADU is a permitted (by-right) accessory use in the AG district, every residential district (RS, RS-C, RS-P, RMD, RMF, RMH) and DROD Areas 1 to 5 under the zoning ordinance adopted by Ord. 3877 (effective 7-1-2025). It must sit with its front wall behind the rear wall of the house, at least 10 feet from the house, meet the corner setback, share the house's address and take access from the street or an alley. Only one ADU is allowed per lot, and a manufactured home cannot serve as an ADU except in the RMH district.

Attached ADUs are expressly permitted on the same terms, and the definition covers a living space 'incorporated within the primary unit', so internal conversions qualify. An attached ADU must share water, sewer and electric utilities with the house, use a separate entrance that adds no new doorway or stairway to upper floors on the front of the house and is not visible from the public realm, and be designed to look architecturally compatible with the house.

An ADU may not exceed 50 percent of the square footage of the primary structure or 1,200 square feet of gross floor area, whichever is less. The ADU does not count toward the separate cap on accessory buildings (1,200 sq ft combined on residential lots of two acres or less, 5,000 sq ft above two acres). A detached ADU must be lower than the principal building or two stories, whichever is less; in the Downtown Residential Overlay (DROD Areas 1 to 5) the design table caps ADU height at one story and 15 feet and requires the ADU roof form to match the primary structure.

The ADU standards contain no owner-occupancy requirement, and a quoted Municode search for 'owner occup' returns no hits anywhere in the code. The general accessory-use rules do require the principal use and the accessory use to stay under the same ownership, which bars selling the ADU separately but does not require the owner to live there. An owner-on-premise rule applies only if the property is run as a Type 1 short-term rental.

The off-street parking schedule lists the ADU with 'No parking requirement other than base residential use requirement', and a single-family detached home requires 2 spaces per dwelling unit. The ADU section itself only cross-references Section 4-2-3. Off-street parking is not required at all in the DM district, and short-term rentals carry their own parking rule (one space per sleeping area plus one for the host).

The land use matrix marks the ADU 'P' in every district where it is allowed, and 'P' means the use 'is allowed by right, without special conditions other than those imposed upon other uses by right in the district'. Approval is administrative through zoning clearance and building permits under Section 6-3-3; no Board of Adjustment special exception or planning commission hearing is required. Sites under a PUD follow the PUD's approved development plan.

Nothing in the ADU standards limits long-term renting, but the ADU cannot be sold apart from the house because accessory and principal uses must stay under the same ownership. Short-term rentals need an annual city license under Chapter 7, Article XVII (rewritten by Ord. 3905 of 2-17-2026): a Type 1 STR (up to two guest bedrooms, stays up to 30 days) requires the owner to reside on premise in the primary structure and is permitted in AG, RS, RMD, RMF (only a single-family detached home or its ADU), DROD Areas 1 to 5 and DF; a Type 2 STR (up to four guest bedrooms) has no owner-on-premise rule. In single-family districts outside the DROD a new license is refused within 300 feet of another STR, no person may hold more than four STR licenses in residential districts, and an ADU is exempt from the no-cooking-in-guestroom rule when the guestroom is not separate from the kitchen.