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Planning commissioners prepare letter asking trustees to reconsider short‑term rental approach for ADUs
Summary
After Board of Trustees moved to allow short‑term rentals (STRs) in accessory dwelling units and to ease some parking rules, Planning & Zoning commissioners said that diverging from the commission’s workforce‑housing focus risks undermining ADU goals and agreed to draft a joint letter urging reconsideration before the trustees' March 24 meeting.
Commissioners used the March 12 meeting to summarize the Board of Trustees’ initial review of the commission’s ADU recommendations and to formalize a response after trustees took a different direction on several key points.
Staff told the commission the trustees were more cautious about allowing ADUs in duplexes, more permissive about reduced parking for small ADUs (suggesting zero parking for some one‑bedroom ADUs and one parking space for two‑bedroom units in some locations), and did not support a prohibition on short‑term rentals in ADUs. That last point drew particular concern from several commissioners, who said the commission crafted ADU language to encourage long‑term, workforce housing and explicitly to avoid new hotel‑style lodging in residential neighborhoods.
"The intent of revisiting ADUs was to bring more full‑time residents into Carbondale with affordable places to live," one commissioner said. Commissioners worried that permitting STRs by right for ADUs could change neighborhood character and make ADUs less available to local workers and families. They noted the trustees’ cap on non‑owner‑occupied STR licenses (50) was a policy choice without an analytical basis and stressed that caps can be changed at the Board’s discretion.
The commission agreed to prepare a concise, unified letter to the Board of Trustees calling for clearer alignment of ADU rules with workforce‑housing goals and urging the Board to reconsider permitting STRs in ADUs. The chair asked two commissioners to produce a draft by Saturday for internal comment, with a plan to finalize and submit the letter before the trustees’ scheduled discussion on March 24.
The commission also reviewed other ADU implementation items from the trustees’ meeting — including how reviews should be triggered (staff vs. P&Z) and whether ADUs in duplexes should be included — and asked staff to clarify buffer‑zone language in the packet so trustees and the public are not confused about setbacks versus review thresholds.
Next steps: two commissioners will draft the letter; the chair will compile comments and circulate a final draft to commissioners for sign‑off before submission to the Board of Trustees.
