Do you all remember the term “phony war” from the beginning of World War II? After Germany’s blitzkrieg invasion of Poland and the declaration of war against Germany by France and the UK, for about eight months nothing much happened, before all hell broke loose. That period was called the “phony war.” We may be in just such a time right now at the legislature regarding land use measures.
Since all the flurry of new bills popping out every day just before and shortly after the start of the legislative session, things have gotten disturbingly quiet, at least on the surface. No new bills to speak of since the last update, but methinks there’s a lot going on behind the scenes. A solid piece of evidence of that is the update League Executive Director Cam Diehl gave at Monday’s Legislative Policy Committee meeting on H.B. 306 Residential Housing Amendments, the bill which would establish base minimum lot sizes (density) in most urban communities throughout the state.
Cam and team have been meeting with HB306 sponsor Rep. Ray Ward, and he seems to be sticking to his guns about the language of the bill, at least for now. What Cam said they have also learned is that this is likely not the only bill that will be coming that will attempt something similar. Sensing that there may be appetite in the legislature to pass something along these lines, Cam asked the attendees at Monday’s meeting to respond to a poll about what alternatives to base minimum densities they might be willing to accept, hoping to maybe tie such moves into the starter homes initiative by Gov. Cox and make it more acceptable to local government officials.
As I’ve noted in previous posts, HB306 is more similar to top-down zoning reform efforts that have been attempted in some other states, with mixed results. Where such efforts were undertaken after discussion and negotiation with local officials, or directly by local communities (Minneapolis, Seattle, Arlington, etc.), implementation measures have gone fairly well. Where it’s just been a state-level mandate, not so much. There may well be ways to get these efforts accepted and implemented.
Discussion of acceptable alternatives got me thinking about how in some states and cities, zoning reform has taken the character of allowing for more and varied housing on existing residential lots. This is often characterized as the end of exclusive single-family zoning. Rather than setting minimum lot sizes or densities, some of these new measures have stipulated that any existing residential lot can have duplexes, triplexes, or sometimes even more, so long as minimum yard requirements can be met. This to me seems like an alternative worth considering. I grew up a half-block north of Liberty Park in Salt Lake City, in a single-family house on a small lot. Most of the dwellings in our neighborhood were like ours, but mixed in there were also some duplexes, triplexes, and at the end of our street a 4-unit two story apartment building. It all worked just fine. The neighborhood environment did not suffer – in fact, it was even better in lots of ways. Maybe, rather than mandating minimum lot sizes, requiring that some percentage of communities’ residential zones must allow for such a mixture of housing types (missing middle housing, actually) would be a way to go. Just sayin’. The League, by the way, has taken a position of opposing HB306, primarily because it overrides local land use control.
Okay, there has been some action on a few of the bills we are following, so to bring things up to date:
H.B. 256 Military Compatible Land Use Amendments has been substituted to say that instead of the State Department of Veteran and Military Affairs having essentially a veto power over newly proposed land use applications within 5,000 feet of a military facility, it now says that the local government must consider the joint compatible use plan in reviewing and approving the application, unless the application has an established a vested right, in which case it can be approved as proposed. The bill was voted out favorably by committee with this change.
Other bills that have had substantial language changes are H.B. 11 Water Efficient Landscaping Requirements, and H.B. 65 Active Transportation and Canal Trail Amendments. Take a look at the links if you have interest in these bills.
Also, H.B. 188 Building Permit Requirements, H.B. 258 Airport Land Use Amendments, and S.B. 13 Education Entity Amendments have been passed out of committee pretty much as is or with minor amendments, and await votes in their respective chambers.