State considers limiting local authority over housing, zoning and development

As a state panel eyes limiting local governments’ authority to regulate development, two mayors are calling on the Legislature to address housing shortages and affordability by instead giving municipalities more tools.

The Legislature’s Regulatory Reduction Task Force is set to meet in Cheyenne on Thursday to consider six draft bills aimed, in part, at addressing the high cost of housing. Three of the measures would curtail town and county zoning and building authority.

Other bills would make it more difficult for residents to protest development proposals, require speedy responses to building permit applications and make public land available for housing development.

Formed by the Legislature in 2023, the task force was charged with examining “rules, regulations, statutes, and processes affecting the mining, agricultural, and construction industries.” Landowners, developers and some affordable housing advocates last year urged the task force to also focus on local authority over development permits, fees and zoning regulations that are now top agenda items.

The mayors of housing-crunched Jackson and Pinedale, however, say they need more, not fewer tools to address the housing problems and challenges they face.

“There is no silver bullet, especially not a one-size-fits-all approach mandated by the state [L]egislature,” Jackson Mayor Hailey Morton Levinson and Pinedale Mayor Matt Murdock wrote in a July 3 op-ed in the Jackson Hole News&Guide. “Instead, we urge the Wyoming Legislature to provide towns and cities the tools to address our unique challenges.”

Six bills

The mayors’ call comes as the Legislature’s Regulatory Reduction Task Force meets Thursday to consider a basketful of draft bills.

One Property development exactions , would limit fees that bear “no reasonable relationship” to the costs of providing services or to offsetting any negative impacts of a development. The bill also would exempt single family homes smaller than 4,000 square feet from any such fees at all.

The draft bill City, town and county regulations would prohibit charging fees “that exceed the reasonably anticipated administrative costs to issue a building permit.” The bill also would prevent local governments from prohibiting the use of natural gas in developments, an issue that became a political hot button after some entities outside Wyoming prohibited new buildings from using gas because of the effects on the climate.

Another measure, Residential rental properties-applicability , would prohibit towns, cities or other entities from charging a fee for registering rental properties rented for six months or longer.

Not on the agenda for Thursday’s meeting is a bill that would have made accessory residential units a right in many single family neighborhoods. The task force considered that measure last year but never introduced it in the Legislature.

The agenda includes three other bills addressing zoning, permits and the use of state land for housing.

Zoning protest petition-amendments would change the percentage of neighboring property owners required to protest a change to zoning, development restrictions or boundaries. Set at 20% today, it could be changed to an unspecified number that the task force would recommend.

The Building permit notice requirements would require a permitting agency to set a schedule for review of applications and to notify applicants of progress being made on their plans. Failure to adhere to the schedule could result in automatic approval of plans.

The bill to promote land exchanges, Housing on government lands , would add leasing for residential purposes to the list of uses of state lands. It also would allow the state to consider exchanging state lands for federal property that could then be leased for affordable housing.

The draft bills contain other measures and will be scrutinized and potentially changed by the task force before it votes whether to forward them for consideration by the Legislature early next year.

Complex laws

The task force agenda includes materials outlining town and county Constitutional powers — documents and commentary that suggest the network of laws are complicated and entangled. Legislative staffers pointed to rules for single-family residences as an example.

“The county planning and zoning statutes are complex and may require closer examination and consideration,” a note from the Legislative Service Office states in one of the bills.

County planning and zoning exists “to promote the public health, safety, morals and general welfare of the county,” County Commissioners Association Executive Director Jerimiah Rieman wrote the task force in a memo. Laws allow counties to regulate and restrict the location and the use of buildings and structures, among other things, the memo states.

The two mayors say in their op-ed titled “Towns need tools, not state mandates,” that their governments are the best ones to make decisions in municipalities.

“We called on our state officials to trust locally elected leaders and our local communities, which operate within the frameworks of regular election cycles, open meetings and frequent conversations in grocery stores and neighborhoods,” the mayors wrote in their op-ed. “Each community in Wyoming is unique and may not reflect the preferences of officials from other parts of the state governing in Cheyenne.”

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