September 28, 2026
Hon. Krystal Oriadha, Chair, Prince George’s County Council
Wayne K. Curry Administration Building, 1301 McCormick Drive, Largo, MD 20774
RE: Support with amendments CB 074-2026, allow Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs)
Dear Chair Oriadha and members of the Council:
Please accept this testimony on behalf of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. CSG advocates for walkable, bikeable, inclusive, transit-oriented communities as the most sustainable and equitable way for the Washington, DC region to grow and provide opportunities for all. We also support and work closely with RISE Prince George’s, a group of county residents and allies advocating for policies and practices that build shared, sustainable prosperity in Prince George’s County by creating safe, walkable, inclusive and transit-oriented communities.
CSG supports CB 74, to permit accessory dwelling units (ADUs) as a matter of right on lots with single family detached homes. ADUs offer an innovative, smaller housing type that helps residents meet their housing needs. While this bill is required to conform to state law, ADUs have been supported as a helpful housing type in many Prince George’s policies and documents. We are excited to finally be getting to implementation.
We urge the council to support this bill, without onerous restrictions that make it that much harder to build an accessory living unit. The high cost of building an ADU remains a challenge, even with the lowering of regulatory barriers. Adding costly and complicated requirements will have a major impact on the ability of a resident to build an ADU.
ADUs offer many benefits
ADUs offer many benefits to individual families and to the community. ADUs help meet a variety of needs, and often help provide new types of housing close to in-demand locations like Metro stations and downtowns. Benefits include providing smaller, less costly housing in an existing neighborhood already served by existing infrastructure. These new, smaller homes help fulfill housing needs such as: caregiver housing for an aging homeowner or for an adult child with a disability. A separate living unit on the same lot with a single family home gives a family member independence while also simultaneously providing proximity. An ADU can also help a young family afford to have a larger home by allowing them to rent out the unit until they are ready to use the expanded living space for themselves.
Avoid overregulating ADUs
The bill provides a number of reasonable restrictions to ensure that an accessory unit is subordinate to the principal dwelling. However, we recommend the following amendments to avoid unnecessary regulations that discourage the creation of ADUs:
- Remove or modify owner occupancy requirement: The owner occupancy requirement discourages ADU construction by creating additional bureaucratic process and uncertainty about changing needs over time for the homeowner. A legal covenant also dampens sales of the property. If the owner occupancy requirement remains, we recommend using the State Department of Assessment and Taxation (SDAT) database to identify owner occupied properties rather than a covenant.
- Avoid a new definition for lot occupancy: the bill lumps associated walkways, patios, or other impervious surfaces with the lot coverage limit of 900 square feet. We recommend not redefining lot coverage but instead regulate impervious areas through existing regulations for imperviousness.
We advise against overregulating ADUs because they are already costly and challenging to build. Each restriction must be considered carefully so as not render the right to build moot by restrictions that make it effectively impossible. Across the country, as local jurisdictions have lowered restrictions on ADUs, we’ve seen them built. However, other jurisdictions continue to impose too many requirements which are holding back the potential for these smaller homes, and all the benefits that come with them.
We urge the council to adopt the bill with our proposed amendments. Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Cheryl Cort, DC and Prince George’s Policy Director