Carson City resident wins appeal of Planning Commission decision disallowing ability to rent out guest home
The Carson City Board of Supervisors sided with a home-owner’s appeal of a Planning Commission’s determination that he would not be allowed to rent out a secondary residence on his property.
The property, located on Kings Canyon, is zoned single-family 6,000, and is not zoned for either two-family dwelling or multi-family dwelling. However, the property was built sometime in the late 1800s, and according to the property owner and neighbors, the building, referred to as a secondary residence, a barn, and a warehouse in various assessor records, has been rented on and off for at least half a century.
Under city code, a guest building is allowed as a conditional use with a Special Use Permit that is issued by the Planning Commission. The Planning Commission, according to staff, had no recourse other than to enforce that the building could not be used as a rental property under Title 18 Municipal Code ordinance.
“You might like the rules, you might not like the rules, but the Planning Commission has no choice but to enforce these rules — that’s their job,” said Hope Sullivan, Carson City’s Community Development Director.
Within the Title 18 code, guest buildings are prohibited from being rented as secondary dwelling units.
In 2019, the applicant had submitted plans to change the building by adding a great room, a master bedroom, and a garage. A building permit was originally issued to the applicant in error.
In 2022, the applicant re-submitted for a building permit to change those original plans to include two stories, a full kitchen, four bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, the attached garage and a washer/dryer area within the garage, only to have his request denied.
Sullivan reiterated that staff does not have the ability to approve anything past accessory buildings, and only the Planning Commission has the jurisdiction over guest houses or additional primary residences.
After staff issued the building permit to the applicant in error, the building permit expired, and when the applicant resubmitted in 2022, staff came to the conclusion they did not have the authority to approve the building permit, and sent it to the Planning Commission.
While the Planning Commission then did approve the building permit for the building, it was with a condition that the building could not be rented out, but could only be used for family members and their non-paying guests, which is written in the code, at which point the applicant appealed the decision.
The applicant is appealing based on the fact that assessors have referred to the building, on and off, as a separate home “since at least 1950,” according to the applicant’s appeal.
He is asking that the second residence be “grandfathered” in, and has stated that he has evidence to support the fact that the second residence has been used as such, as opposed to a “barn.”
“When I purchased the property, I did so because I believed it had two properties on it, and one could be rented out,” said the applicant.
A neighbor gave public comment, stating that over the past 50 years that he has lived next door, it has been a rental, and has had 4 or 5 different tenants over the years.
The Board discussed the issue at hand, and determined that the applicant should be able to continue using the property as it has historically been used, as a rental property.
Several public commenters spoke in favor of the applicant, claiming that not only is it unfair to the applicant, but it does not make sense on a city level to refuse to allow residents to rent out buildings on their properties.
“A person can buy, rent a house, and have as many people as they can fit in that house, and as many cars as they can fit on their property,” said one commenter. “But we have a restriction on adding an additional building that limits people to only having family members live there with no rent, and it just doesn’t make sense to me on a land use perspective.”
While the Board upheld the appeal, they did so in a way that did not interfere with current code, by stating that the applicant would be allowed to continue using his property in a “non-conforming manner.”
Supervisor Stan Jones voted against, but the motion carried.