We are still awaiting the promised substitutes for a couple of the major land use bills for this session, HB406 – LUDMA Modifications and SB174 – Local Land Use and Development Revisions. The other major bill, HB364 – Housing Affordability Amendments, has another substitute version out that has not yet been adopted. This substitute makes more changes to the moderate income housing plan and reporting requirements and to the housing trust fund provisions. The two house bills are circled on the House 3rd Reading calendar, meaning they will wait there until the sponsor or leadership feels like they are ready to go, which likely will not happen until the changes under discussion are agreed to and offered as substitute bills. The Senate bill, however, has been passed by the Senate in its current form and has been introduced in the House. Changes can still be made there, as is likely (we certainly recommend that!)
On other fronts, SB158 – Water Exaction Amendments, was heard in committee yesterday. A substitute version was adopted and recommended favorably by the committee and the bill is now on the full Senate 2nd Reading calendar. A good explanation of what the bill now does can be found in this story in the DesNews this morning. The bill addresses how much water local governments must plan for and can exact for new developments and how this is to be determined. I recall that for years, there has been an on-going debate (dispute?) between cities and the state over the standard amount of water that cities are required to provide for each residential unit. Most cities have said the state standard is too high and not based on the realities of more current use patterns, but the state has refused to budge. This bill helps to address that by allowing:
Cities, counties and districts that provide culinary water for new subdivisions — be it high-density, multihousing units or single-family homes — to take historical flow data and make adjustments, according to Ivan Flint (former general manager of the Weber Basin Water Conservancy District), while still keeping in line with state drinking water requirements for culinary supplies.
“So the idea here is that first they would consider the minimum system wide sizing standards that are issued by rule and by code from the Division of Drinking Water, and then that they would in the next section (of the bill) distinguish between types of developments that are going on in the city and exact accordingly, as opposed to just doing an overall exaction for every type of development the same way,” Flint said.
He pointed out that retail water providers may have become so efficient at saving water through conservation programs, their demand for culinary water may be much less.
Lastly, a new bill on short-term rentals popped out yesterday – HB496 – Short-Term Rental Enforcement Revisions. The bill is rather different from the bigger STR bill already in the hopper – HB291 – Short-Term Rental Amendments. HB496 would require municipalities and counties that allow short-term rentals to adopt short-term rental ordinances and regulations. It would also require an owner of a short-term rental to obtain a permit to operate the short-term rental, and establishes safety requirements for short-term rentals. HB291 is slowly working its way through the legislative process. It was substituted and passed out favorably in committee yesterday. The substitute bill now includes an STR Pilot Program for counties as well as for cities.
There are two weeks left in the legislative session. As you can see, there is lots left to do and very little time left to get it done. This is always the most hectic time in the legislature, what makes everybody associated with it want to take a long vacation to Hawaii when it finally ends.