Salt Lake City Council members start hearing from the public Tuesday on a zoning change that would let owners build up to four homes on many lots now limited to a single house. The first public hearing on the Expanding Housing Options text amendment is set for the council's 7 p.m. formal meeting Nov. 10 in Room 315 of the City and County Building, 451 S. State St., with a second hearing date of Nov. 17 (via Salt Lake City Council).
The proposal covers the city's R-1/5,000, R-1/7,000 and R-1/12,000 districts, along with SR-1, SR-1A and R-2, according to the Planning Division staff report. It doesn't rezone any property. Instead it rewrites the rules inside those zones.
The centerpiece is a new permitted use called a small lot dwelling. Under the draft, a lot could hold small single-family homes, duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes or townhomes, with no more than four units in a building and at least 2,000 square feet of lot area per unit. Each unit would be capped at 1,200 square feet of floor area. Building footprints would top out at 1,000 square feet for a single-family home and 850 square feet per unit for the other types.
Other changes in the staff report reach past the small-lot option. Minimum lot widths, now 50 to 100 feet depending on the district, would go away. Maximum height for pitched roofs would rise to 30 feet from 28, and flat roofs to 24 feet from 20, with SR-1A getting smaller bumps. Building coverage would go up to 50%. The minimum lot for a two-family home or twin home in SR-1 and R-2 would drop from 8,000 to 5,000 square feet, and the rule limiting how many duplexes can sit side by side on a block face would be dropped.
Flag lots get a rewrite too. They'd no longer need a conditional use hearing, the access strip would shrink from 24 feet to 20, and the lot-area requirement would fall from 150% of the district minimum to 100%, not counting the strip.
Planners estimate about 35% of the 37,291 properties in the affected zones meet the 2,000-square-foot minimum. They don't expect a flood. The report models a scenario where 1% of properties use the new rules over five years, and compares it to ADU rules that have been used on about 0.22% of properties. Staff also wrote that the proposal doesn't set affordability levels, arguing that smaller homes on less land will be cheaper on their own. The report cites a $615,000 median single-family price in the city.
The Planning Commission reviewed the proposal in September and forwarded a recommendation to approve to the council on Sept. 23, according to the commission's summary of actions. Staff had recommended approval as proposed. The council makes the final call.
The idea has been in front of the council for a while. Minutes from a Feb. 17 work session show council members raising concerns about investors using the rules without improving affordability, the proposed lot coverage and how setbacks would affect existing nonconforming homes.
Residents can comment through the council's online form, by phone at 801-535-7654, or by registering to speak in person or on Zoom; online registration opens 24 hours before each meeting. Agendas post at least a day ahead on the city's meeting portal. The project's planning contact is Senior Planner Andy Hulka at housingoptions@slc.gov.
Why it matters for Contractors
If this passes, it opens a new kind of infill job across a big share of the city: two to four small units on lots that used to take one house, with no requirement that they be sold rather than rented. That's work sized for small builders, not production crews. The numbers that will shape your pro formas are the 2,000 square feet of land per unit, the 1,200-square-foot floor-area cap, the 850-square-foot per-unit footprint and the higher roof heights. Flag-lot projects also get easier without a conditional use hearing. Details can still change, so if you build in Salt Lake City, it's worth watching the Nov. 10 and Nov. 17 hearings or sending comments on the parts that affect what you build.