Here is my second post about Rize Capital’s to rezone 113-acres of SITLA land just east of Puerto Drive and south of Mesa Vista Drive to “Resort Mixed Use” (RMU) to build about 550 homes, townhomes, etc., with almost all of them being able to operate as short-term-rentals. The public hearing scheduled for August 18th has been cancelled, but I expect it will be rescheduled.
We need to follow rules that are clearly written in our Code, without fudging interpretations. When they are not clearly written we need to eliminate them or re-write them so people can understand them. We shouldn’t have to argue about or interpret what the words mean in our code.
At our last City Council meeting I pointed out that the City’s Code will not, in my opinion, allow the developer to build short-term-rentals in the RMU zone. That doesn’t mean they can’t do it at all. They just can’t do it this way. We have to follow rules. And if our Code allows them to do it under different zoning, that still doesn’t mean they should.
The RMU Zone Does Not Allow What the Developer Wants
Our Code for Resort Mixed Use (RMU) (Chapter 17, 16.17.101) requires: (a) If any structure containing a residential use is two or more stories, there will be no residential on the ground floor, and (b) at least 50% of the commercial structures must have a residential component and represent between 40% and 60% of the total building square footage.
Are short-term-rentals “residential” or “commercial” uses? If “residential” then the Code says that if a building is more than 1-story it cannot have residential on the ground floor. So, a 2-story single-family home is not permitted, whether it is used as an owner-occupied home or as a short-term-rental because those are both residential uses which are not permitted on the ground floor.
If short-term-rentals are commercial uses, then a 2-story single-family home used as a short-term-rental meets the ground floor commercial requirement. However, for half of the buildings in the development, it does not meet the other requirement that between 40% and 60% of the total building square footage needs to be residential.
Although the Table of Uses (16.33.102: Table 33-2) permits single-family and multifamily housing in the RMU zone, the table specifies that these uses are subject to these Chapter 17 requirements.
There are three ways the developer can build short-term-rentals in the RMU zone. The simplest would be to build 500+ homes, but make all of them one-story homes, not two-story. The second option would be to build everything as multi-story “flats” buildings, meaning one occupant on the ground floor and another occupant on upper floors. like normal apartments or condos. This way, the ground floor space would be commercial, and the upper floor(s) would be residential. The third option is a combination of the first two options. I don’t think the developer wants to do any of these three options.
There is a Zone for Short-Term-Rentals
Our Code, 16.07.804 says short-term-rentals “shall only be permitted on those areas identified on the Ivins Land Use map as Recreational Resort-Short-term-rental Overlay and located within the residential zones including multiple residential (RM).”
Or, maybe, the Code will let the developer do short-term-rentals in the Resort Commercial zone if you take a lenient interpretation of the “uses” allowed in that zone. But it would be awkward, since 16.07.804 seems clear that short-term-rentals can only be in residential zones.
I gave some reasons in my last post why I do not support allowing short-term-rentals on this site, but if the Council does, then the first step is to change the land use map as required by Code to a use that will work for short-term-rentals, then change the zoning, and apply the short-term-rental overlay.
Reasonably Debatable
If you disagree with my reading of the Code, I think you will agree that my reading is, at least, reasonably debatable. That means fairly arguable in the minds of ordinary laypeople. If it is reasonably debatable, we should not approve a zone change to RMU for the purpose this developer has in mind. We should not make decisions when we can’t agree on what the Code is telling us.
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