Orem staff asks council for direction on short‑term rental rules; parking, occupancy and school proximity flagged

City planning staff updated the Orem City Council on proposed regulations for short‑term rentals on Tuesday, asking the council for guidance on parking, occupancy and a possible numerical cap on licenses.

Staff said the discussion reflected two broad groups of input received since the last work session: short‑term rental operators who said limiting occupancy or nights would harm financial feasibility, and nearby residents who blamed some rentals for parking pressure, noise and late‑night check‑ins that they said interfere with quiet enjoyment.

The draft staff presented would require off‑street parking, tie occupancy limits to bedrooms in some options and set a cap of eight unrelated occupants in the baseline proposal. Staff said one common drafting approach under consideration is to tie required parking to bedrooms (for example, one off‑street stall per two bedrooms under a Logan City model) or to use a ratio such as 1.5 occupants per parking space. Staff asked whether the council wanted a more conservative starting point (fewer allowed occupants per parking stall) or a more permissive approach and to direct which comparison models to return with for formal consideration.

Staff described additional enforcement and operations measures included in the draft: a 24/7 local owner‑representative or manager requirement, mandatory property maintenance and snow removal compliance, quiet hours aligned with the city’s disturbing‑the‑peace ordinance, prohibition on using homes as event venues, and optional use of on‑site decibel monitors that alert hosts to sustained high sound levels. Staff also proposed distinct regulatory tracks for owner‑occupied versus non‑owner‑occupied rentals as a way to reduce nuisance events while allowing families to rent a home for reunions.

On the policy of limiting total licenses, staff said the city had previously considered a cap of about 100 licenses (reached by a formula of roughly three licenses per 1,000 households). Staff noted Orem’s housing inventory (31,295 housing units in the 2020 census) and an internet‑scrape estimate of roughly 250 active short‑term rental listings, and asked council members whether a 1% housing‑inventory cap or another threshold was preferable.

Council members pressed staff for practical enforcement detail. Multiple council members said tandem parking is not reliable in practice and preferred measuring required off‑street stalls that are actually usable (garage + driveway spaces counted only when accessible, staff said). Several council members expressed support for tying allowed occupancy to verified off‑street parking rather than an open numeric cap, at least for an initial conservative approach that could be relaxed later.

When the topic of schools was raised, staff presented a draft option to restrict short‑term rentals near elementary and junior high schools. Council members signaled support for a school‑proximity restriction; staff said they would include that restriction in the next draft and return to a future work session.

Staff summarized next steps: return with comparative parking/occupancy models (Logan model, a parking‑ratio model such as 1.5 occupants per stall, and a bedroom‑based approach), a refined proposal distinguishing owner‑occupied and non‑owner‑occupied licenses, a numerical‑cap recommendation informed by current local listings, and a version that includes a proximity restriction to primary schools.

The discussion was advisory; there was no formal vote at the work session.