Westport Opted Out of the State's ADU Rules. The State Rewrote Them Anyway.

If you're pricing a Westport property with an eye toward adding rental income or an in-law suite, which rulebook are you actually building against? The town's own zoning code says one thing. A 2024 state law says another. And a bill introduced this year in Hartford would have thrown both out and started over. None of this is hypothetical or settled history. It's the live, current state of a set of regulations that has changed four times since 2021 and is still moving.

Most guides to accessory dwelling units treat the local ordinance as the finish line. In Westport, it's closer to a moving target that the town keeps adjusting on one axis while the state adjusts it on another, often at the same time.

A Town That Wrote Its Own Rules Before the State Could

In 2021, Connecticut passed a law requiring towns to allow accessory dwelling units unless they formally opted out. Westport didn't wait to see how that shook out. The town adopted its own ADU ordinance that same year through Text Amendment #791, setting its own size caps, height limits, and an owner-occupancy requirement, then followed up by opting out of the state mandate entirely. The Planning and Zoning Commission voted to opt out in March 2022, and the Representative Town Meeting confirmed it that June.

The logic was straightforward at the time. Rather than operate under a state template, Westport would keep its own rules on the books and control the pace and shape of ADU construction going forward.

For a few years, that worked. Since 2021, the town has issued roughly 45 permits for detached accessory dwelling units, according to figures Planning and Zoning Director Michelle Perillie shared with the Westport Journal in mid-2025, on top of an existing stock of about 200 accessory apartments built inside primary houses under an older, more limited rule that had allowed partial in-home units since 1972. That is a meaningful and growing category of housing stock, not a rounding error, and it's exactly the kind of inventory a buyer evaluating rental income or multigenerational living needs to understand correctly.

The Rule Hartford Took Back Anyway

Here is where the opt-out stopped mattering as much as the town assumed it would. In 2024, the state legislature passed the CT Affordable Homes Act. Section 7 of that law redefines accessory dwelling units at the state level and removes a municipality's authority to enforce owner-occupancy requirements, regardless of whether that town opted out of the earlier 2021 mandate. Section 8, effective in February 2025, goes further and requires that a town allow at least one ADU by right on any single-family lot.

Westport's own Zoning Board acknowledged this directly. In an August 2024 discussion, board members confirmed that the town could no longer legally require an owner to live in either the main house or the ADU, despite that requirement having been part of Westport's ordinance since 2021 and despite the town having opted out of state control just two years earlier.

That is the core of the mechanism worth understanding before you price anything: opting out of one state law did not protect the town from being overridden by a later one. The rule that mattered most to owner-investors, whether a landlord had to live on site, was never fully within local control to begin with. It just took three years for that to become visible.

What the Town Still Controls, and Where It's Tightening

While the state took owner-occupancy off the table, Westport has kept tightening the parts of the ordinance it still governs, and the direction has consistently been toward more restriction, not less.

The amendment history reads like a town narrowing its own program even as participation grows:

1. Text Amendment #791 (2021) established Westport's original ADU rules, including size caps and the owner-occupancy requirement that state law would later strip of enforceability.
2. Text Amendment #825 increased the maximum ADU building area from 650 to 850 square feet on lots under 1.5 acres and clarified roof height rules, giving owners slightly more room to build.
3. Text Amendment #853, adopted June 30, 2025, introduced a mandatory 10-foot separation between an ADU and the main house. Perillie described the change as a way to reduce visual bulk and preserve neighborhood scale.
4. Text Amendment #865, proposed in February 2026 with a public hearing held March 30, 2026, would remove the 350-square-foot coverage exemption currently available on lots up to 1.5 acres, which would prevent new ADU construction on the smaller end of that range entirely.

Here is how that leaves the rulebook as of this fall, broken down by who actually controls each piece:

Notice the pattern. On the one rule the state took away, the town has no recourse. On everything else it still controls, Westport has moved toward tighter footprints and stricter spacing, not looser ones. A property that would have cleared the ordinance easily in 2022 may not clear it as cleanly in 2026, even though the state has simultaneously made owner-occupancy irrelevant.

The Bigger Override Already Filed

That tension between state loosening and local tightening isn't finished playing out. House Bill 5507, introduced during the legislative session that closed this past May, would have gone considerably further than the Affordable Homes Act already has. It would have required a town to allow at least one ADU on any single-family lot, invalidated any local zone that limits or conditions ADUs, cut parking requirements to a single space per unit, and set a state minimum size of 30 percent of the primary dwelling's floor area or 1,000 square feet, whichever is greater, well above Westport's current 850-square-foot cap.

Paul Lebowitz, chairman of Westport's Planning and Zoning Commission, did not mince words about what that would mean for local control during a subcommittee meeting on the subject this spring. He called it "opening a giant can of worms" and added, "It's almost as if they don't want us to zone."

Whether or not that specific bill passed before the session closed, the pattern it represents already happened once with the Affordable Homes Act. A rule Westport wrote and enforced for three years turned out to be only as durable as the next legislative session. Anyone evaluating ADU potential on a Westport lot right now should assume the current local ordinance describes today's rules, not necessarily next year's.

What This Means If You're Pricing ADU Potential Now

If a rental unit, in-law suite, or accessory apartment is part of why a Westport property appeals to you, a few things are worth confirming before that potential gets baked into an offer or a listing price.

First, check whether the specific lot falls under 1.5 acres. If Text Amendment #865 is adopted, the 350-square-foot coverage exemption that currently makes smaller-lot ADUs feasible will disappear, and a project that pencils out today may not clear zoning by the time you're ready to permit it.

Second, don't rely on town guidance that still lists an owner-occupancy requirement. Westport's own published ADU FAQ document states that the owner must reside in either the principal dwelling or the ADU, a requirement state law has made unenforceable since February 2025. If a rental scenario depends on an absentee owner, confirm the current status directly with the Planning and Zoning office rather than trusting a document that hasn't caught up to the change.

Third, treat the size cap as fixed until it isn't. Westport's current 850-square-foot maximum stands well below the 1,000-square-foot floor that HB 5507 proposed at the state level. If similar legislation returns in a future session and passes, a project sized to today's local maximum could become undersized relative to a new state minimum, which cuts both ways depending on whether you're trying to preserve neighborhood scale or maximize rentable square footage.

None of this makes an ADU project in Westport a bad bet. Demand is evidently real, given the roughly 45 detached units permitted since 2021 layered on top of about 200 existing accessory apartments already in the housing stock. It does mean the rulebook deserves a phone call to the Planning and Zoning Department before it becomes part of your numbers, not after.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I require my ADU tenant to be a family member? Nothing in the current Westport ordinance imposes that restriction, and state law has moved in the direction of fewer owner-side conditions, not more. Confirm any assumption directly with the town rather than relying on general guidance written for other Connecticut municipalities.

Is an ADU approved automatically, or does it need a hearing? If the proposed structure meets the town's current building area and height limits, it can be approved administratively through a standard zoning permit. If it exceeds those limits, or converts an existing oversized structure, it requires a Special Permit and Site Plan approval from the full Planning and Zoning Commission, which adds both time and a public hearing to the process.

Does the pending Text Amendment #865 already apply to my lot? Not until it's formally adopted. As of its most recent status update this spring, it had been heard by the Commission on March 30, 2026 but had not yet been adopted. Given the months that have passed since, confirm its current status with the Planning and Zoning Department before assuming either the old or new coverage rule applies to your specific project.

Zoning rules that change while you're mid-negotiation are exactly the kind of detail that separates a smooth closing from a surprised one. If you're weighing a Westport purchase, sale, or spec project with ADU potential in the mix, Jillian Klaff Homes can walk through what the current rulebook actually allows on your specific lot. Request a personalized market consultation before you build a number into your offer that the ordinance may not support by the time you close.