Why Salt Lake City is exploring a change to its housing definition of ‘family’

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah’s capital city currently allows any number of related people to live in a household, but city planners say other elements of its household size requirements may factor in the rising cost of housing that residents are facing.

That’s why city leaders are leaning toward rewriting the code by essentially reverting to the way it was written nearly a century ago. Members of the Salt Lake City Council called on the city’s planning and civil enforcement divisions to work toward crafting an ordinance that could allow any number of people living together in a single household unit.

“We already have a lot of places now where there’s probably a large number of people living in small places because they can’t afford anything else, so I think it’s already happening here across the board,” said Salt Lake City Councilman Dan Dugan, before the unanimous informal vote.

A ‘family’ dilemma

Salt Lake City currently defines family as either any number of related people living in a household, two unrelated people and their children or up to three unrelated people living together. The code technically doesn’t allow any mix of those three options from living in the same household, said Salt Lake City planning director Nick Norris.

“So if you are a related household, you actually can’t have any unrelated people living with you under our code,” Norris said. “It’s really kind of — in this day and age — an absurd regulation.”

There are some exceptions, such as group homes, residential support dwellings, lodges or fraternity/sorority houses, but the code wasn’t always this complex. The City Council requested a review of its definition of “family” in a zoning context earlier this year as part of a flurry of potential zoning changes seeking to improve housing affordability.

Salt Lake City’s family definition requirements originated in 1927, when the city essentially allowed any number of people to live in a single household unit. It was refined in 1955 to require “some domestic bond,” but it was still fairly vague, Norris explained.

It wasn’t until 1978 that the city narrowed the code to define families as a relationship bound by “blood, marriage or adoption.” There have been some tweaks to the code since then, but it’s mostly remained that way ever since.

That’s created a mess nearly a half-century later. It might prevent people from carrying out shared housing arrangements, especially people looking to share housing costs, like college students or young professionals. Those examples have become more common as housing prices have soared over the past decade.

City civil enforcement officials point out that it’s also difficult to enforce the law because it’s nearly impossible to prove if someone is related without requiring documentation.

Salt Lake City’s current requirements are similar to many other large cities in the state, but some Utah cities and other Western cities have ditched them because of the same enforcement and mounting housing affordability challenges that Utah’s capital city is facing.

“A lot of cities are looking at it as those same challenges that we have … (in) housing is so expensive, it’s hard to obtain. Why are we limiting it based on these definitions?” Norris said.