Park City Council member Tana Toly, who serves as a liaison for the city’s statewide lobbying efforts, says Utah lawmakers are considering several bills that could impact development.
Toly says the pending bills aim to ease zoning requirements, expedite land use approval processes and remove restrictions that hinder the construction of starter homes. No bill proposals had been made public as of Thursday.
Park City Manager Matt Dias says it’s unclear at this time how the potential laws could affect development in town.
“I think at the end of the day, the message is there’s a concerted effort at the legislature to make it easier, faster and even to incentivize development,” Dias said. “They are looking to address the affordability problem that they’re looking at from a state level by making it easier, faster and less expensive to develop units.”
Dias says the city’s worry is any attempt to subvert local land use control. In the past both the city and Summit County have had to fend off attempts from state leaders to bypass local rules.
He says the legislature could consider changes to short-term rental regulations, although it’s unknown how strict that could be.
“There appears to be a growing sentiment that short-term rentals are absolutely contributing to the affordability issues in communities across Utah, particularly in the tourism and maybe the urban centers around arts and cultural entertainment areas,” Dias said. “Initially there was actually not an acknowledgment, and the state was a little bit more free market. Live and let live, let’s get out of this, let’s deregulate the industry.”
Dias says as Utah has grown, state lawmakers' mood around short-term rentals is changing.
“Over the last five or six years, with the inward migration and otherwise and a lot of investment properties, the state is beginning to understand that there isn’t a silver bullet, and this is one of the contributing factors and it is within their control,” he said.
Dias says he doesn’t expect the Legislature to grant local governments the ability to regulate short-term rentals.
The 45-day legislative session is scheduled to begin next year on Jan. 21.
