Housing – or the lack of it – has been a central issue for the Park City Council for years. With the recent boom in housing prices and nightly rental services becoming more popular with homeowners than ever, options for long-term affordable rentals for the city’s workforce have slowly diminished.
The Park City Council voted to make it easier for homeowners to build accessory apartments on their property. Accessory apartments are defined as units that contain a kitchen, sleeping area, and bathroom and are additions to a single-family home or garage.
Council removed the requirement that the property owner must live on site. And any new accessory apartment must be rented for at least 90 days at a time through a deed restriction, eliminating their use as nightly rentals.
The new units can also be smaller - 280 square feet compared to 400.
And there can be more of them. City Council removed the cap of four units inside a 300-foot radius.
The council vote was 3-1 in favor of the changes, with Councilor Nann Worel as the lone no vote. Worel worried the new regulations would be hard for the city to enforce and argued the council should look for ways to better ensure the units are being rented by people in the city’s workforce before voting yes.
The council also heard public comment from some people who voiced similar concerns. Aerie resident Lou Moreno said the city will have a hard time preventing accessory apartments from hitting the nightly rental market.
“When we talk about enforcement, I might as well buy some Airbnb or VRBO stock or something, because I don’t believe that you’re going to be able to enforce what the homeowners then see as an income resource for them for nightly rentals,” he said.
The rest of the council said there is a way to track the units. Councilor Becca Gerber told KPCW that when a property owner approaches the city and wants to build an accessory apartment, the unit will be listed on a city database and can then be monitored for any violations.
“The nice thing with these ADUs is that when they are built and they go through the permitting process, we will be able to track them," Gerber said. "One of the difficulties that we have with the rest of the nightly rentals in our community is that the state has prohibited us from tracking them based on their online ads. Since we’ll have a list of all of these and where they are, and they will not be able to apply for a nightly rental permit, if there are nightly rentals in it, it will make it easier for us to enforce against them.”
State law passed earlier this year may prevent communities from cracking down on nightly rentals based on online advertisements, but there are ways around the law.
The council also voted to change the zoning for the Hidden Oaks neighborhood in Deer Valley after residents voiced overwhelming support for getting rid of nightly rentals there. The council voted unanimously for that change.
Gerber said eliminating nightly rentals through zone changes and deed restrictions are effective strategies for the city. Enforcement, however, will be up to neighbors reporting violations themselves.
“If there are nightly rentals that are not allowed in an area by zone, they are not allowed in an area by zone and we can enforce against them," she said. "Even in this instance, the neighbors will still have to call and say, ‘hey, it looks like there’s a nightly rental going on next door,’ and then we will send someone up … it’s complaint based. The state allows us to enforce by complaint basis, so that’s why I say if you have a list and you know an area where they are not allowed, it almost makes it easier for us to enforce because we don’t have to say that we’re tracking by the online ads. Providing us this list and some of these guidelines makes it easier for us to enforce in our community.”
In addition to the newly-adopted changes, nightly rental owners in Park City neighborhoods that do allow them must also have a valid business license with the city.
