LOGAN – After prolonged discussions during their regular meeting on Oct. 2, the members of the Logan Municipal Council approved far-reaching code amendments that will impact home occupations, accessory dwelling units and short-term rentals within city limits.
Much of the lively discussion focused on limits affecting Short-Term Rentals (STRs), the same topic that derailed previous consideration of code amendments at the council’s meeting of Sept. 17.
Once again, council member Jeannie F. Simmonds pointed out that discussion of changing the city’s codes governing STR’s was moot, unless Logan officials can agree on a way to enforce those changes.
While the city now has 55 licensed short-term rentals, Development Director Mike DeSimone admitted at the Sept. 17 meeting that about 150 STRs are known to be operating throughout Logan.
After council members agreed that an outright ban on STRs in single family residential zones was not their intend, they were finally able to unanimously vote to accept changes proposed by DeSimone outlined in Ordinance 24-18.
Those changes including amending Chapter 17.37.130 of the city’s code to limit STRs by increasing the distance between STRs in residential zones from 500-feet to 750-feet measured from property line to property line; exempting owner-occupied STR’s from that 750-foot limitation with some stipulations; and dropping the total number of STR’s in residential zones from 3 per 1,000 residents to 2 per 1,000 residents.
After the vote, council member Mark Anderson said that, while no one was very excited about agreeing to that compromise, it gave the operators of short-term rentals a window of opportunity to make their enterprises legal under city codes.
Accessory dwelling units are an additional or secondary housing unit located on a residential property and are governed by Chapter 17.37.070 of the city code. They can take the form of an addition to the main home; a basement conversion; a second story over an detached garage; or a separate structure elsewhere on a residential property.
Since its adoption in September of 2021, Logan’s policy regarding accessory dwelling units has been to allow them only as internal additions to existing owner-occupied, detached single family dwellings. City Ordinance 21-14 also bans ADU’s in an exclusion area around Utah State University.
The city staff now proposed that ADU’s be allowed city-wide, including in the previous USU exclusion area; allowing all types of ADU’s (internal, external and detached); modifying parking standards for ADU’s; eliminating the current prohibition against using ADU’s as short-term rentals; among other policy relaxations.
At the insistence of council member Mike Johnson, however, the city code was also amended to set the height limit for external ADUs not to exceed the height of the primary dwelling or 20-feet, whichever is more restrictive; and to remove a minimum 6,000-square-foot lot size restriction for external ADUs.
With regard to home occupations, the council members approved amending Chapter 17.36 of the city code to allow for home occupations with customer traffic in multi-family structures; clarify standards for parking, floor space and storage of associated vehicles and equipment; and expand the allowable volume of customer traffic.
The Logan Municipal Council will meet again on Tuesday, Oct. 15.