The City Council will have to wait a little longer to vote on a new accessory dwelling unit ordinance.

The Zoning and Planning Committee had voted 5 to 1 (with two abstentions) to approve a new ordinance that complies with a new state housing law and goes beyond that to make more allowances in Newton, where ADUs have been permitted since the 1980s. That ordinance proposal includes amendments proposed by Councilor Susan Albright that increase by-right size allowances for ADUs as well as more flexibility with converting carriage houses into ADUs.

The committee also approved (unanimously) an option that only follows state law and doesn’t go any further, just in case the Council wanted to go that route.

But on Monday, neither item saw a vote because Councilor John Oliver had the enhanced amended version held until the Council’s next meeting (also called “chartering” an item, because it’s a move allowed by the City Charter), and Albright did the same for the other version.

The version that includes Albright’s amendments:

• allows new internal ADUs of up to 1,000 square feet by-right and existing converted ADUs of up to 1,200 square feet by-right.
• allows new detached ADUs of up to 1,000 square feet by-right and existing converted ADUs of up to 1,200 square feet by-right.
• allows detached ADUs of up to 1,500 square feet of floor space with a special permit.
• has no screening requirement, but a need for screening can be determined by special permit.
• has no owner occupancy requirements for existing converted ADUs.
• has no owner occupancy requirements for internal ADUs or detached ADUs with less than 1,000 square feet of floor space and allows the permitting authority to impose owner occupancy requirements on larger ADUs if deemed appropriate.
• allows historic carriage house conversions and removes the 15-foot buffer that used to be imposed with them.

The ordinance proposal that included Albright’s amendments was pretty popular among councilors, who praised the committee’s months-long endeavor.

“They really thoroughly went through this, and I think they hit the right tone with this,” Councilor Alison Leary said. “We have a lot of people with needs for housing—families and extended families—and we received a lot of letters asking us to include the amendments that Councilor Albright brought forth.”

But Councilor John Oliver, who voted in committee to approve the ordinance proposal, expressed concerns Monday night about the size of ADUs allowed and the fact that owner occupancy isn’t required and said a lot of questions have come up since the committee approved the item—between the city’s Planning Department, the Law Department, and the Zoning and Planning Committee—adding to the confusion.

“I received a handful of questions from people in this room as well as other constituents,” Oliver said before motioning to have the item sent back to the Zoning and Planning Committee. “Because, I couldn’t answer the questions that I was receiving.”

The idea of sending the ADU issue back to where it’s been for months hit a sour note with many in the room.

“We have cooked this, folks,” Councilor Vicki Danberg, who also serves on the Zoning and Planning Committee, said. “We’ve had eight meetings on this. This is done. We’re ready to stick a fork in it.”

Councilor Rick Lipof concurred and talked about complaints he hears about both the lack of affordable housing and the city’s red tape when it comes to creating more housing in general.

“To do anything in this city takes too long,” Lipof said.

Councilor Tarik Lucas, however, said that with the amount of time spent on the ADU question already, another few weeks shouldn’t matter.

“I have no doubt that this is going to pass if we send this back to committee and this [same ordinance] comes back here,” Lucas said. “It’s going to pass. It’s just a couple more weeks, another month or so, that’s it. I don’t see what the big deal is.”

And Councilor Rena Getz, also a committee member who voted to approve the proposal, said she didn’t think enough analysis had been done about putting the new ordinance in place and that the committee should address any possible loopholes before the vote.

“We spent a considerable amount of time on this, and I appreciate everybody’s suggestion that it’s fully baked, but it’s not,” Getz said, suggesting the Council vote for the option that only satisfies state law now and then come back to the option with Albright’s amendments later.

Oliver then removed the Albright-amended option from the equation for the moment.

“If we don’t want to send it back to committee, there’s only one other thing I can do here,” Oliver said before dropping the c-word. “I’ll charter the item and get the questions answered myself.”

Worried the state-compliance-only ordinance would make it through and her amended one wouldn’t see the light of day, Albright then stood up and did the same, chartering that option as well.

“We will take both items up at our next regularly scheduled meeting of the City Council,” Council President Marc Laredo said.

You can watch the entire debate online.