Problems with the city and classification of house

[Jeremy Moore]

Hey all,

We are currently dealing with the City of Phoenix about the classification of a property that we purchased as a single family home with an attached casita. The City is insisting that it is a multi-family dwelling and is charging us double for trash services and 4x - 7x sewer services. We know that it was appraised with a Specific Zoning Classification: R1-6 - "Zoning Description: Single Family Residence (Density Range of 5 To 5.5 or 6.5 w/Bonus)" and that the County Assessor recognizes it as such.
Public Works has sent out 5 different inspectors who have given different reasons why it is multi-family (e.g. the casita has an exterior door; the casita has a sink; we could feasibly rent it out and the renter would need their own trash service [we have only one large trash bin in the alley shared by multiple residences]). We do not think any of these are valid. They have offered to charge us for a single trash service if we will sign a document stating that the dwelling is multi-family. We believe this would be a very unwise move on our part.
This has become exceedingly frustrating and we are reaching out to you both as industry professionals for help. I think that the next step might be to either contact our Councilman (Sal DiCiccio) or pursue legal counsel.
Anyone have any resources to which you can point us to help resolve this issue? We would be very grateful for any information you all can offer.

[Matt Devincenzo]

My two suggestions would be to 1) pull your original building records with the City 2) pull the County assessor/tax collector record card.

With the building plans you're looking for a note or a discussion of what was built e.g. 'single family home with detached accessory structure'. With the County record card you're looking for a similar classification on the structures associated with the property. 

The other option after that would be look up the City municipal codes, specifically for the regulation authorizing a casita on a SFR parcel. You want to find what references describe what the casita is (I assume an accessory to the primary SFR use) and then find other accessory to a primary use such as a detached garage or pool etc. The case you want to tie together is a casita and a detached garage are both accessory to the primary and you would not charge the parcel as a MFR for the garage so why would the casita?

If I had a client come to me here in SD for something like this that's how I would pursue a resolution.