Capitol Hills backs zoning revisions

Members of the Capitol Hills Community Council voted 22-1 in favor of the proposed SR-1 District Overlay Ordinance at their meeting March 15.

The Salt Lake City Council passed a citywide ordinance Dec. 13 to prevent the building of monster homes. The SR-1 District Overlay helps tighten, and in some cases loosen, provisions from the citywide ordinance to help protect vulnerable areas such as the Avenues and Capitol Hills.

The overlay differs from the city ordinance in three ways: the maximum building height is 23 feet while the city ordinance is 28 feet; accessory structures, including garages, can be a maximum of 600 square feet as opposed to the citywide 720 feet; and measurements for the front and side setbacks differ in that the front setback of a home is the block face average excluding the smallest and greatest setback, in contrast to just measuring block face average in the city's ordinance, and side setbacks are done on a sliding scale.

The overlay was developed by members of the Greater Avenues Community Council's Housing Capability Committee, which has been working on the project for almost a year. Residents in the SR-1 District in the Capitol Hills neighborhood were invited to participate in the process. Eric Jergensen, the City Council member over the SR-1 District, said it was the Planning Commission's desire to have the two community councils in the SR-1 District, who will be affected by the overlay, vote on it.

Peter von Sivers, 2006 chairman of the CHCC, said Capitol Hills doesn't have quite the same concerns about monster homes as the Avenues as it hasn't had any built yet, but the threat is still there.

"We are very fortunate in that we didn't have anybody come in and buy property in Capitol Hills and tear down a house and build something new that would even resemble the monster houses the people in the Avenues have been dealing with," he said. "Our neighborhood is changing very rapidly. . . . There are quite a few houses changing at the moment with younger wealthier people moving in who want to refurbish their houses, perhaps to even tear them down and build new ones. We're very anxious to be covered by the overlay ordinance."

Jergensen agrees.

"I think there's been a concern by residents that the same situations that apply in the Avenues apply in Capitol Hills," he said. "There's the same potential for out-of-scale development that could happen in Capitol Hills."

Von Sivers said Capitol Hills has a little bit more protection because the SR-1 District in the neighborhood is part of the historic district, and the Avenues doesn't have much of an historic district.

"We are better protected but not completely," he said. "That's why we also wanted to participate in redrawing the ordinance."

The overlay still has a number of steps to go through before it is passed. It must first be presented to the Planning Department, which will review it and send it on to the Planning Commission for its comments. The proposed ordinance will then be forwarded to the City Council, which will vote to accept or reject the proposal for the SR-1 district in July.

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E-mail: twalquist@desnews.com