Salt Lake revokes remodeling ordinance

After hours of discussion, the Salt Lake City Council narrowly voted Tuesday night to revoke an ordinance that it had passed just last Thursday about residential zoning.

The ordinance, which would have temporarily restricted the amount of space residents could add in home remodels or rebuilding, largely drew condemnation from an indignant crowd of architects, homeowners and builders who said it would unfairly and abruptly quash growth.

Many of those in attendance said that had the council not repealed the ordinance, families would move to suburbs where they could have bigger houses and bigger yards without the hassle of zoning that restricted add-ons.

"You're going to kick all the young people out of Salt Lake," Chandler Bello said. "I might as well go live in Draper because I can't do what I want to do."

Others suggested that perhaps the best place for people who wanted large homes was not neighborhoods known for charming early 19th-century bungalows and cottages.

"If you want a big home, then go to where they have big homes," said Ervin Horrocks, an Avenues resident.

The brief ordinance also had increased the review process for building permits, and in many cases would have forced residents to go through the planning director and then the board of adjustments for approval on remodeling or rebuilding plans.

"Our whole objective in life is to avoid going to the board of adjustments," said Ann Robinson, an architect who specializes in remodeling projects. "Unless we do this very minimal something, then (clients are) going to have to go to a group that arbitrarily may say yes or no."

The council repealed the legislation by a 4-3 vote. Council member Dale Lambert voted to repeal the ordinance, saying that it was too broad and too hasty.

"This is probably one of the most significant zoning rewrites that we have ever been through, and we've done it in less than a week," he said. "I just don't think we can do it justice. This sweeping of an ordinance in this short of a time that applies to every neighborhood in Salt Lake City is asking too much."

Jill Remington Love said the ordinance was flawed but still necessary to curb overbuilt homes on small lots that were rapidly springing up with low interest rates in the summer building season.

"It's not going to be done in a month, but we have some fundamental holes that we have to fix immediately," Love said. "It is full of flaws. It is not perfect. It is arbitrary. We will go back to the drawing board — that is the point of this temporary restriction."