In the latest effort to overhaul its housing code, the Salt Lake City Council is nearing a vote on whether to change two of the city’s missing middle zones.
On Tuesday, the council received the latest briefing on the city’s efforts to tweak the RMF-35 and -45 zones, and council members seemed generally supportive of an ordinance to make a number of alterations to the two zones.
The council signaled its support for a handful of changes to the existing ordinance via a straw poll Tuesday, which was approved in a unanimous vote. The council opted to remove the ordinance’s 100-foot front facade length maximum, while keeping the lot width maximum of 110 feet. Existing lots wider than 110 feet could still be allowed to construct longer buildings, according to the straw poll.
The council also bumped up the number of dwelling units that could be allowed in the RMF-45 zone, as the maximum would increase to 50 units.
The two RMF zones are considered to be a type of gentle density approach toward adding more housing units in Salt Lake City. City planning staff have been working on these changes since 2024, trying to address issues that have plagued the RMF-35 and -45 zones since they were first created in 1995.
Since the zones were created, only around 4% of lots that are zoned RMF-35 or RMF-45 have been developed.
The zones’ current minimum lot size requirement of 5,000 feet has effectively blocked multifamily development in the two RMF zones, as nearly half of the lots with the zoning don’t meet that mark, according to the staff report. As a result, those lots would only be eligible for single-family homes. The minimum lot width requirement of 50 feet is another issue in the two RMF zones, as around two-thirds of lots don’t meet that mark, effectively blocking development.
Parking minimums are another issue. The zones currently require one or two parking spots per unit, depending on the unit type or number of bedrooms, though the vast majority of RMF-35 and RMF-45 lots — 96% — are within a quarter mile of a transit stop, the staff report says.
The current proposal before the City Council would address all three of those issues, as lot width minimums would be eliminated and minimum lot sizes would be reduced dramatically. For example, the zones’ 5,000 square foot minimum lot size for a single family home would be reduced to 1,500 square feet for one or two units. For multifamily buildings, the zones’ minimum lot size of 9,000 square feet for three units would be reduced to only needing 750 square feet per unit with a minimum of three units.
Under the current proposal, the RMF-35 and -45 parking requirements would be reduced to just one parking space per unit, regardless of the unit’s size.
During the Tuesday meeting, Council Member Chris Wharton questioned if the ordinance should bump up the zones’ setbacks from four feet to five, as four feet was the suggested size from planning staff. However, after hearing explanations from Nick Norris, the city’s planning director, and from fellow Council Member Darin Mano, who is an architect, the setback sizes were not changed.
“(For) a larger building, 4 feet versus 5 feet is maybe not a big impact,” Mano said. “But for smaller buildings — and if you’re doing townhouses or a duplex or something, which are allowed in these zones and might be the most dense you can do on some of these really small lots — that could make a bigger difference in those cases.”
City planning officials initially considered merging the RMF-35 and -45 zones and allowing additional height, though that effort was ultimately scrapped after the notion received pushback from the Salt Lake City Planning Commission. The planning commission ultimately approved the RMF ordinance changes during a meeting in May after making changes.
With the city council’s straw poll vote Tuesday, the RMF changes could be voted on as early as the council’s next meeting, which is slated to take place next week.
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