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🏡 A Niceville family installed a permitted accessory dwelling unit (ADU) to support multigenerational care, but faced criticism from neighbors and scrutiny at a city council meeting.
🏛️ Councilmembers debated future ADU restrictions amid concerns about neighborhood aesthetics and property values, despite recent actions supporting affordable housing.
💡 Families with children with special needs view ADUs as one of the few viable long-term housing options due to limited alternatives and lengthy care facility waitlists.
Previous Niceville Good Neighbor of the Month Dr. Kristi Cabiao knew there might be trouble when she logged onto social media and saw the comments.
Her neighborhood Facebook page featured several neighbors’ complaints about the Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) she and her husband placed on the property in the first week of May.
A tractor-trailer rolled into the neighborhood to drop off the self-contained housing unit. Workers temporarily knocked down a part of Cabiao’s fence to bring it into the large backyard, which convinced them to make the brick house on Galway their forever home just last year. The ADU now sits, temporarily without a skirt, up on a slight incline that’s too small to call a hill – right next to their pool.
Kristi and her husband, a recently retired Air Force Officer, Mario, decided to move to Niceville for the warm climate and the excellent services provided to children with special needs at the Emerald Coast Autism Center. Their oldest son has autism, so when Mario retired, they decided to move to Niceville.
“But [their son’s] therapy and how he would progress throughout his life, not just as a child – but even beyond – was a huge factor in why we picked Niceville,” Mario Cabiao remembered.
When Kristi’s father died, the pair moved up their plans to place an accessory dwelling unit on their land in the Rocky Bayou Estates neighborhood behind Niceville’s Publix grocery store. Kristi and her brother talked their mother into moving in with Kristi so the Cabiaos could help her with daily tasks. They decided to purchase a 500-ish square feet unit – something they planned on doing for their son in a couple of years anyway.
“Have you heard of the term ‘sandwich caregiver?'” Kristi Cabiao asked in an interview with me at their home, “We’re caregivers for two generations – my parents and also [our son]. I think we are a demographic that is growing over time because the Baby Boomers are aging, and the incidence of autism is rising.”
The Cabiaos did everything by the book. They went through Niceville’s permitting process and got approved. They checked to ensure the neighborhood covenants expired, set up expensive water and sewer lines to the home, hooked up electricity, and made the house livable.
So when I told them their new manufactured home was the topic of conversation at city council – they weren’t suprised it had come up – but they were a little disheartened.
They have plans to put up trees and other foliage to block views of the ADU from the street. But the principle of the matter – that they feel like they are outcasts for buying a forever home on their land for a child with disabilities – It doesn’t sit well with them.
“There’s always pros and cons to [modular housing units]. And I get it, for city governments or even the county – you’ve got to weigh some of those things,” Mario Cabiao added, “People worry, rightfully so, about property prices. But there’s a human element, too. And so, we look at it through [the lens] of a family with a [member who is] profoundly special needs. If [the ADU option] didn’t exist, where would that leave us? I think [to remove the option] is a little bit limiting.”
Niceville Councilman Bill Schaetzle, a resident of the same neighborhood as the Cabiaos, brought up the ADU in his councilman’s comments section of May’s council meeting.
“I would like to have [Deputy City Manager} Kristen [Shell] explain how this might have been approved and then, so that this doesn’t happen haphazardly over the city, what do we need to do to make sure our codes are followed. I’m not saying this one wasn’t [following Niceville City Code], but what do we need to do to ensure that Niceville remains nice?” Schaetzle asked.
Deputy City Manager Shell explained to the council that the Cabiaos had followed city code and every regulation set in front of them.
“Homeowners can install an accessory dwelling unit,” Shell explained, “We have a number of them in the city. There’s been several built, I know, just in the year that I’ve been here. So it’s something that we’ve allowed for a long time. It can be a small unit for a mother-in-law, child, or even for rent. [There was] a big affordable housing [push] at the state level to allow these back about nine months ago. We amended our accessory dwelling unit ordinance to install a size limitation, which we previously did not have. That size limitation is 900 square feet right now, and that could be changed.”
Shell noted that the council has three options when it comes to ADUs:
Schaetzle and the council directed staff to find a way to restrict ADUs like the ones the Cabiaos have by city ordinance and bring back suggestions next month.
Councilman Doug Tolbert, the former planning and zoning board chair for the city of Niceville before his election, noted that the council had announced its advocacy for more affordable housing for the area – and a restriction on ADUs would make it more difficult to create affordable housing in the city. He pointed out to the rest of the council that less than two hours before, they had unanimously passed an item in a public hearing that reformed the city’s comprehensive plan to prioritize affordable, attainable and workforce housing.
“This council has been saying, ‘we want options for affordable housing,’ Tolbert explained, “but now, we’re saying, ‘it’s across the street from me. I dont want that option for affordable housing.'”
Tolbert also noted that state law prevents cities and counties from discriminating against manufactured housing in their code.
One member of the public, Ron Taylor, focused on property values in his comments concerning the installation of the structure. “With all due respect to the Florida Legislature, I wish that every one of their neighbors would put a yellow single-wide in their backyards, because that’s what we have now. I am certainly aware of the restrictions for the manufactured homes and how they’re trying to protect that homeowner. We’re worried about our property values, how that will affect and so while you may not be able to go after the manufactured home side, is there anything you could put in place with regard to esthetics that would certainly help, because the fear is, soon as someone does it, more people are going to do it, and all of a sudden, our the area that we live in, it’s going to look like a trailer park. That’s our fear right now.”
Schaetzle responded that he agreed with Taylor and pointed out manufactued homes decrease in value over time. “Not only did [the Cabiaos] not do a great cost analysis, if it’s costing $12,000 to hook up sewer plus the cost of his [manufactured home] that is going to be depreciating probably everyone else’s property in the vicinity.”
Regardless of what the council decides in their June or subsequent meetings, the Cabiaos will be able to keep their home.
Editor’s Note: I drove the entire neighborhood and counted at least three other outbuildings in the neighborhood around the Cabiaos’ home.
No matter what happens at the June meeting, the Cabiaos can keep their ADU on their property for their son’s future home.
But the Cabiaos worry about the knock-on effects that could take place for restrictions on ADUs for the special needs community in the area. Many parents of children with special needs have, in their experience, taken note of what they have done and decided it is more than likely the only realistic option for their children, too.
“That’s a shame, because people are so proud of the ECAC community here,” Mario Cabio explained. He believes additional restrictions on ADUs and a thriving special needs community don’t work. “I would think the community would want to take advantage of ECAC and those follow-on services that are available to young adults.”
Currently, according to the Cabiaos, the wait list to get their son into a long term care facility could be as long as twenty years. After all, once people with special needs are in a long-term care facility like the Arc of the Emerald Coast or something similar, they don’t relinquish it until their death.
Other alternatives, like The Ground Up Project, are not fully realized yet – and when they are could be prohibitively expensive for most families with special needs kids.
That means that the most affordable realistic solution for the families, at least at this time, is a $99,000, 481 square foot structure from a place like Affordable Homes of Crestview that’s delivered and installed.
Special needs or not, there is not a lot of affordable housing inventory in the Niceville area according to the experts.
By way of example, Apartments.com lists the average rent in Niceville at about $1550 per month for a one-bedroom apartment. The site says that the salary one would need to ‘live comfortably’ in Niceville is rouhgfly $63,120 per year.
Okaloosa County’s first-year teachers bring in a little under $50,000.
Other public servants like firefighters and police officers also don’t make enough on their own to afford the average one-bedroom in Niceville.
Reporting from last year we did about an affordable housing summit (that Councilman Doug Tolbert referenced in his discussion) talked about the investment of private funds into the housing economy with certain incentives provided by federal, state and local governments to ensure developers got their money back.
Pro Communi Bono
