Columbus legalised backyard ADUs by right, and never mentioned covenants
Columbus legalised backyard ADUs by right, and never mentioned covenants
2026-09-15 · Ohio · Regulation
Columbus City Council took final action on Ordinance 2526-2025 on November 26, 2025, allowing accessory dwelling units by right in residential and apartment residential districts across the city. Until then an ADU required a Council variance. The ordinance amends more than thirty sections of Title 33 and enacts new § 3332.355 for residential districts and § 3333.325 for apartment residential districts.1
The recitals state the purpose plainly: “Currently, ADUs must go through an extensive Council variance procedure to be allowed on residential and apartment residential lots. These revisions will allow ADUs 'by right' in residential and apartment residential districts within Chapters 3332 and 3333 subject to specific conditions.”
What the code now permits
The new definition at § 3303.01 is broad: “'Accessory dwelling unit or ADU' means an additional dwelling unit which has a separate and independent means of ingress and egress that is located on the same lot as and is subordinate to a principal dwelling or apartment house.”
Section 3332.355(B)(2) allows “One ADU…to a lot containing a single-unit dwelling in all residential districts within Chapter 3332,” with stated exceptions for the R-2F and R-4 districts. The size rule at (B)(3)(a) is generous:
“An ADU must not exceed 65 percent of the minimum net floor area of the principal dwelling with which it is associated, or 1,000 square feet, whichever is greater, but in no case shall the ADU exceed the size of the principal dwelling.”
Two further provisions remove the frictions that had historically made ADUs impractical. Subsection (B)(8) states that “No additional parking is required for an ADU,” and (B)(4) provides that “An ADU is not subject to area district lot width requirements and area district requirements.” A detached ADU may occupy up to 45 percent of the rear yard, or 55 percent for two detached units.
The ordinance was willing to override public restrictions
This is the detail that makes the silence on covenants a choice rather than an oversight. Section 3332.355(B)(10) preserves limited-overlay development plans under Chapter 3370 — but only in part, carving out “any limitation on the number of dwelling units or minimum dwelling unit size.” The recitals separately note that “Certificates of Appropriateness or Approval will be required in historic and architectural review areas.”
So the drafters knew how to override a competing restriction when they wanted to, and knew how to preserve a review layer when they wanted to. On recorded private restrictions they did neither, because they said nothing at all.
Whether a second dwelling may be built on a lot in a covenanted subdivision is answered by the declaration, not the zoning code. See our Ohio ADUs and modifications page.
The words that do not appear
A full-text search of the 41-page enrolled Exhibit A for “deed restriction,” “covenant,” “restrictive,” “private restriction” and “homeowner” returns nothing. The ordinance does not override recorded deed restrictions, does not address them, and does not mention them.
The consequence for a Columbus association is immediate and asymmetric. In a subdivision with a recorded one-dwelling-per-lot covenant, the city will now issue a permit for a backyard ADU, and the association is the only body that can stop it. The argument — the city approved it — will come, and it is not an answer. Our Ohio ADUs and modifications page covers how Ohio courts read a use restriction against a second dwelling.
The reverse case is the one boards underestimate. An association with no such covenant, or with an ambiguous one, has just had a second dwelling legalised on every lot it governs, with no parking requirement attached and a size allowance of up to 1,000 square feet. Nothing about that required the association's consent or notice.
The follow-on systems an ADU walks into
The purpose clause of § 3332.355(A) pre-commits the unit to two other city regimes: “Short term rental regulations of Chapter 598 apply to any ADU used for that purpose. An ADU may also be subject to a rental registry upon its implementation.”
Both of those are now live facts rather than future ones. Columbus's short-term rental permit chapter has been in force since 2019, and the city's residential rental registry opens for initial registration on October 1, 2026. An owner who builds an ADU and rents it lands in one or both systems — and in a condominium or planned community, in the association's leasing rules as well.
Where a Columbus board stands
Read the actual words of your use restriction. “One single-family dwelling” and “residential purposes only” are not the same clause and do not produce the same answer against a detached 900-square-foot unit with its own entrance. If the declaration speaks to the number of structures rather than the number of dwellings, it may not reach an ADU built inside an existing house at all.
Check your architectural review trigger. An ADU is new construction on the lot. Most Ohio declarations require committee approval for any structure, addition or exterior alteration — which means the association's first and best intervention point is the approval process, not an enforcement action after the slab is poured. A board that lets an ADU reach framing before objecting has made its own remedy expensive.
Decide the parking question before it arrives. The city now requires no additional parking. An association whose common-area streets and visitor spaces were sized for one household per lot has a capacity problem the zoning code has expressly declined to solve. If your documents regulate on-street parking, that rule is doing more work than it was drafted to do.
One sourcing caution. Section 6 of the ordinance provides only that it “shall take effect and be in force from and after the earliest period allowed by law.” Secondary reporting puts the effective date at December 24, 2025. Anyone relying on a precise date should confirm it with the City Clerk rather than a summary.
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