Kathleen Schatzberg
ADUs will not solve all our housing problems, but they move us in the right direction.
ADUs – Accessory Dwelling Units, and zoning bylaws that allow them – have become important in debates about housing on Cape Cod. This is a housing strategy that was once known as a “mother-in-law apartment.” Families would remodel a portion of their home, add a small kitchen and perhaps a separate entrance, so that a parent, now widowed, could live in the apartment in their children’s subdivided home, with multi-generational benefits to all.
Eight Cape Cod towns have already adopted zoning bylaws to allow ADUs, often with very specific restrictions, as a strategy for increasing our stock of affordable housing. They offer numerous other benefits as well. But first, some background.
Kathleen Schatzberg
August 8th, 1974. I was in Nova Scotia with my husband and two big dogs. We sat in our Toyota Landcruiser, gazing out at the Bay of Fundy, tuned into Canadian radio for Richard Nixon’s announcement of his resignation from the presidency. We were jubilant!
The next day at the White House, Vice President Gerald Ford took his oath of office as President and in remarks afterward said, “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over . Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws…. Here the people rule.”
These same words reverberated in my mind as I watched Joseph Biden take his oath of office last week. Indeed, for me the last four years have seemed at times to be one long national nightmare. Nearly every morning for four years, I turned on my radio to learn what new outrage, what new absurdity, what new lies, what new insults, what new corruption, what new alarming Tweets and twisted logic Mr. Trump had visited on the natio