Royal Oak, MI Accessory Structures: ADU Rental Restrictions (2026)

Section 770-71E adds a permanent recording requirement to Royal Oak's senior accessory housing program: the property owner must record, with the Oakland County Register of Deeds, a notice that the property was used under the provisions of § 770-71, Senior accessory housing, as adopted in the City of Royal Oak Zoning Ordinance. That recorded notice carries the ordinance's key restriction forward with the property itself, stating plainly that the property may not be continued as a two-family land use. In practice, this closes off a path some owners might otherwise expect: once a senior accessory unit is approved and later discontinued, whether because the elderly relative moves out, the owner sells, or the special land use permit is revoked under the owner-occupancy standards, the extra unit cannot simply be converted into a rented second dwelling or duplex.

Because the recording runs with the land in the county's deed records, it binds future owners as well as the original applicant, so a buyer inheriting a property with a former senior accessory unit inherits the same restriction against treating it as a two-family use. Community Development can point to the recorded document during any later zoning or permit review to confirm the property's obligations. This subsection works together with the owner-occupancy and biennial review standard in the same section: together they prevent the senior accessory allowance from becoming, in effect, a permanent rental unit or an unauthorized duplex.