Collaboration- That’s What It’s All About And A Few More Bills

January 22, 2024 by Nicole Masson
State

Wilf Sommerkorn, The Utah Land Use Institute Link

In yesterday’s post, we highlighted the bill that would establish a base minimum lot size for all urban communities – H.B. 306 Residential Housing Amendments – and noted that it resembles more what has been transpiring in other states regarding zoning reform.  Here’s just a recent example, as reported in Governing magazine, from Washington State:  Washington House Passes Bill to Allow Splitting of Residential Lots.

Under the proposal, most large cities could no longer prohibit property owners from splitting lots. There are some restrictions. The new lots would need to be no smaller than 2,000 square feet, at least 40% of the size of the original lot and could not require the demolition or alteration of any affordable housing.

Among the comments I’ve gotten back about the bill is the question of why 5,400 square feet is the “magic” number.  In the Washington bill, the allowance is for lots as small as 2,000 sf, along with some other provisions.  The Washington House passed the bill on a 94-4 vote – pretty remarkable.  The Washington bill did not pass in last year’s legislative session, but did on the first day of this session.  Another story about the state’s housing bills notes that the bill sponsor took the time to work through the issues with local government officials.

This year’s momentum comes after Bateman’s middle housing bill and another piece of legislation to expand accessory dwelling units both stalled last year. After that, Bateman began meeting regularly with the Association of Washington Cities and others to hear their concerns.

May be a lesson there for our own legislators trying to move zoning reform forward.

On another front, here’s an interesting story about the bill giving eminent domain power for the Bonneville Shoreline Trail – H.B. 235 Eminent Domain Amendments.

A quick note about of couple more bills that have come out.

S.B. 118 Water Efficiency Amendments – would establish a program to provide incentives for new developments to incorporate water-wise landscaping.  Not a bad idea.  Not sure how that would be justified if local ordinance would already require such landscaping in new development.

The second bill is, to me, a continuation of the long, long running annexation wars in Salt Lake County.  The bill, H.B. 330 Unincorporated Areas Amendments – applies only to Salt Lake County (site of much of the early days action in the annexation wars), and would automatically annex all unincorporated islands into the most populous adjacent city.  I can’t imagine this is going to go over well with some of the most vocal citizens of places like White City (much of it surrounded by Sandy City).  Here’s a description of the circus in the 1990s that a wrote a while back, that led to the mess of the state annexation code we now have.  It’s in the plan to get the rewrite of that code going in this legislative session.  This bill would just complicate that effort, I’m sure.

I’m getting more comments about how the wildlife planning bill – H.B. 195 Land Use Planning Amendments – would really make it problematic to amend local land use ordinances, because the way the bill is written, it would require any proposed change in the ordinance to conduct a wildlife assessment.  Wow!

Also, what with this bill, and the riparian areas planning bill – H.B. 243 Riparian Amendments – and other recent general plan requirements like the water planning element and the moderate income housing element, and maybe more coming, doing a general plan may become … undoable!  At least pretty long and expensive.

That’s it for now.