All Roll Calls
Yes: 129 • No: 23
UtahS.B. 2842026 General SessionSenateWALLET
Local Land and Water Modifications
Sponsored By: Lincoln Fillmore (Republican)
Signed by Governor
CountiesEnvironmentLand UseWorkforce ServicesWater RightsMunicipalitiesPolitical Subdivisions (Local Issues)County and Municipal FinanceIncorporationLocal Taxation and FeesPermitsPlanning and ZoningWater
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Bill Overview
Analyzed Economic Effects
39 provisions identified: 18 benefits, 5 costs, 16 mixed.
More backyard home options for homeowners
Beginning October 1, 2026, covered cities must allow a detached second home on lots of at least 11,000 square feet. The lot must contain a permitted single-family home; cities can also allow smaller lots. Cities must provide a process to convert legally built accessory structures, and building, health, and fire codes still apply. In primarily residential zones, cities cannot require conditional-use approval. Required parking cannot exceed two spaces for units at least 650 square feet, or one for smaller units. Only one accessory home is allowed per lot, rentals under 90 days are banned, and cities can require owner occupancy. Development agreements signed on or before May 6, 2026, can still restrict these homes.
County permits advance despite unfinished improvements
Beginning May 6, 2026, counties generally cannot deny permits or occupancy because assured improvements remain unfinished or private landscaping is missing. Building permits can still require operable hydrants and a properly compacted temporary road base, but not a permanent or paved temporary road. Occupancy can require fire-code-compliant access and infrastructure needed for health, life, and safety. Posted sidewalk assurance prevents specified construction, plat, and acceptance delays; counties must allow separate sidewalk assurance and cannot redeem it for 18 months. However, counties can withhold occupancy for single-family homes, two-family homes, and townhomes until the immediately adjacent sidewalk is complete and accepted.
Applicants gain protection against changing rules
Beginning May 6, 2026, complete, fee-paid applications receive review under the rules in effect when complete, and approval when compliant. Exceptions include written findings of compelling public interest and prohibiting ordinance changes formally started before submission. A 180-day processing rule addresses unenacted bans and applications impaired by temporary land-use rules during the preceding 12 months. Requirements must appear in applicable laws or approvals, and applicants must proceed with reasonable diligence to keep approvals valid. After issuing a building permit, cities cannot change its requirements unless the holder requests it or state building code compliance requires it. Cities cannot revoke or effectively revoke the permit, though it can have an expiration date.
Applicants get published rules and checklists
Beginning May 6, 2026, cities and counties must publish land-use rules and fee schedules, including development-review and impact fees. When using a separate or third-party website, they must submit updates within six months after adoption. Beginning October 1, 2026, they must also publish checklists listing every plan and document needed for each application type. Cities without an active website must provide these materials for inspection during normal business hours. These requirements do not change fee amounts.
Builders receive interest on cash deposits
Effective May 6, 2026, the law covers new cash completion-assurance deposits posted beginning May 7, 2025. Counties accepting an applicant's chosen cash deposit must place it in an interest-bearing account. They must return earned interest with the deposit under applicable state law and local rules. The law sets no interest rate.
City permits face fewer added barriers
Beginning May 6, 2026, cities cannot deny building permits over assured improvements when building and fire code requirements are satisfied. Cities can require private landscaping plans before installation, but not with permit applications or as a condition of permits or occupancy. Cities generally cannot withhold occupancy or improvement acceptance for requirements absent from applicable laws, ordinances, or approval documents. They also cannot unreasonably withhold occupancy when essential health, safety, and welfare requirements are met. Existing exceptions remain for written agreements, missing required financial assurance, and the infrastructure-financing-district lien requirement for final inspection.
Original owners get property return offers
Before disposing of covered property held for less than 15 years, counties must first offer it back to its original grantor. Beginning May 6, 2026, special districts must do the same before selling surplus real estate acquired through development exactions. The original grantor owes no additional payment and has 90 days to accept or reject the offer. After rejection, the property can be offered for sale. The county rule excludes property acquired by exaction by community development or urban renewal agencies.
Project owners can cancel challenged approvals
Beginning May 6, 2026, an affected project owner can cancel a land-use approval after a timely referendum challenge. The owner must notify the local clerk in writing within seven days after the referendum petition is found sufficient. The approval and any land-use rule enacted specifically for it are then canceled.
Farm crop choices gain city protection
Beginning May 6, 2026, cities cannot restrict crop types on land zoned agricultural or assessed under the Farmland Assessment Act. The ban covers land-use rules, development agreements, and land-use decisions. Land needs to meet either condition, not both.
Businesses gain paths for unlisted uses
Beginning May 6, 2026, cities and counties must offer appeals of classifications for proposed business uses not listed in their ordinances. Applicants classified as new or unlisted can ask lawmakers to allow the use as permitted or conditional. Lawmakers must decide within locally set deadlines when applicants timely answer information requests and attend required hearings. Local governments cannot require planning commission review and must give written reasons and appeal instructions for denials or disputed classifications. City approval also requires designation of appropriate zones; approval is not guaranteed.
Land-use parties gain neutral advice options
Beginning May 6, 2026, eligible requesters can seek neutral written advisory opinions on additional land-use compliance questions. The added coverage includes Utah Code Sections 10-20-912 and 17-79-813. Local governments, private entities, and potentially aggrieved people must follow the required request procedures. Requests must precede the applicable final decision, court-appeal deadline, or impact-fee enactment under the advisory-opinion timing rules.
Approved lodging projects gain story-count protection
Beginning May 6, 2026, authorities cannot limit above-ground habitable stories in qualifying commercial lodging projects approved by September 1, 2025. The protection applies when story-count and overall-height rules conflict, and the building stays within its approved overall height. On July 1, 2027, the law repeals two city and county structure-height provisions. The supplied material does not describe those repealed limits or establish the resulting height rules.
Builders avoid school service paperwork requirements
Beginning May 6, 2026, cities cannot condition land-use approval on documents about a school district's ability to serve development. This includes documents about the district's willingness or capacity to provide service. The law does not require school districts to add services or capacity.
Builders can install approved public improvements
Beginning May 6, 2026, cities and counties cannot block required public improvements after approving final civil engineering plans. Adopted inspection standards still apply. Cities cannot demand documents that conflict with state law to accept assurance or issue building permits. Separate assurances and warranties must remain independent, subject to the law's acceptance exception. A failure under one generally cannot block acceptance or warranty work under another.
Builders get clear improvement inspection standards
Beginning May 6, 2026, land-use authorities must set objective inspection standards for accepting required public landscaping and infrastructure. These standards give applicants a defined basis for having completed improvements accepted.
Builders get subdivision review deadlines
Beginning May 6, 2026, cities must finish initial ordinance review of qualifying home subdivisions within 15 business days when population exceeds 5,000; otherwise, within 30. Improvement-plan review takes 20 or 40 business days, respectively, when submitted with a complete application. These rules cover single-family homes, two-family homes, and townhomes, but exclude identified geological hazard areas. Deadlines apply at the preliminary or final stage, depending on when the city requires the improvement plan; cities must publish completeness requirements. After no response within 20 business days on the fourth or final review, an owner can request action. The city then has 10 business days to assemble a plan-dispute appeal panel or provide written ordinance-review deficiencies and appeal rights.
City water charges face stronger limits
Beginning May 6, 2026, cities must base water-interest charges on projected needs, state system-wide minimum sizing standards, and development-specific residential-equivalent connections. A lower connection-based charge requires at least five years of local usage data for similar land uses. Cities can reduce charges further for good cause, must publish their methods, and must allow applicants to request calculation details and legislative review. Cities cannot impose these charges when available water exceeds reasonable future needs or the city or water authority lacks the required written plan. Culinary or secondary water providers committing service through a land-use application must follow the same municipal water-charge requirements.
District water charges require demand evidence
Beginning May 6, 2026, special districts must calculate water-interest charges using projected needs, state sizing standards, and development-specific residential-equivalent connections. Charges must be lower when at least five years of district usage data for similar land uses supports lower demand. Districts can lower charges further for good cause, must publish their methods, and must allow calculation appeals and requests for details. Charges are barred when available water exceeds reasonable future needs or the district or water authority lacks the required written plan. Beginning January 1, 2028, districts must use the specified written plan to determine needed water interests. County water-interest charges move to a separate governing section, which also covers water providers committing service through county land-use applications.
Public agencies lock in development fees
Beginning May 6, 2026, specified public agencies lock in city development rules and fees when submitting a qualifying plan and schedule. Covered requirements include land-use and zoning maps, hookup fees, impact fees, other development fees, and land-use rules. The plan and schedule must comply with Utah Code Section 10-20-304(8).
District home assessments block final inspections
Beginning May 6, 2026, cities cannot conduct final inspections for homes within infrastructure financing districts until assessment liens are cleared. Applicants must show that the unit's assessment was paid in full and its lien released. This inspection is required before a certificate of occupancy can be issued.
Fewer guaranteed speaking rights at hearings
Beginning May 6, 2026, cities no longer must protect each participant's right to speak at every contested land-use hearing. Applicants and adversely affected parties keep their rights to formal consideration. They also keep the right to appeal to a separate appeal authority.
Residents face limits on hearing participation
Beginning May 6, 2026, only appellants, land-use applicants, and city representatives, or their representatives, may speak at municipal land-use appeal hearings. Other community members cannot speak under this rule. Counties also no longer must protect every participant's right to speak at every contested land-use application hearing under the changed section. Applicants and adversely affected parties retain their rights to require formal consideration and appeal decisions.
Residents face thirty-day land challenge deadline
Beginning May 6, 2026, district-court challenges to enactment of covered city land-use rules or general plans have a 30-day deadline. The deadline runs from enactment and applies when the city has complied with Utah Code Section 10-20-205.
Builders must answer every review comment
Beginning May 6, 2026, subdivision improvement-plan applicants must answer every city review comment in writing. Revised plans must identify changes and explain decisions not to make requested changes, with citations and an index. A review cycle remains incomplete until every comment is addressed.
Conflicting descriptions of open house protections
The supplied descriptions conflict about city rules for open houses beginning May 6, 2026. One removes protection against treating open houses differently from residential uses; another expressly bars that different treatment for qualifying events. The latter protects homeowner events showcasing a home, including outdoor landscaping. It also protects model homes promoting another single-family home or another unit in the same multifamily building. The supplied material does not resolve this conflict.
Land disputes gain remedies and limits
Beginning May 6, 2026, applicants can bring legal actions to stop or remove unlawful buildings, uses, or acts. Applicants and adversely affected parties must challenge decisions promptly and specifically under local rules before court review; cities cannot require successive administrative appeals. A qualifying affected owner in the referendum process must have a single project, a timely sponsor challenge, and a legally referable approval. Beginning July 1, 2026, covered city councils cannot hear new land-use appeals. They can finish appeals filed by June 30, 2026, when an ordinance designated them as appeal authority at filing.
Incorporation sponsors get revised filing timelines
Incorporation feasibility requests filed before May 3, 2023, generally keep the rules in effect when originally filed. Modified requests filed on or after May 6, 2026, instead follow the process and filing rules in effect on their filing date. For modified requests, the county clerk's mailed notice starts the exclusion-request period for specified landowners. The lieutenant governor must estimate supplemental study costs within 10 days after that period ends, or within 10 days of filing when no land is added. When land is added, the study cannot be commissioned until the exclusion deadline passes and all exclusion requests receive final decisions.
City planning oversight and decision shortcuts
Beginning May 6, 2026, cities required to have planning commissions must set membership, appointment, vacancy, removal, and recusal rules. Removal causes must include political misuse of public funds, ethics violations, and specified bias. Discussing pending applications with staff, elected officials, or applicants is not, by itself, grounds for removal. Beginning September 15, 2026, councils can adopt or reject land-use rules without a commission recommendation after a specified applicant request. They can also act when they decide the commission has had enough time.
Counties can act without planning advice
Beginning September 15, 2026, county lawmakers can approve or reject proposed land-use rules without a planning commission recommendation. They can act after an applicant's request under Section 17-79-805(2)(b), or after finding the commission had adequate review time. A late commission recommendation can no longer be treated as a negative recommendation.
Counties get targeted ordinance notice rules
Beginning May 6, 2026, counties may use Class A notice for listed routine land-use ordinance changes. These include legal compliance, specified zoning updates, clerical changes, recodification, and defining boundary-adjustment or annexation areas. A proposal containing any unlisted change requires Class B notice. This classification applies only to the notice requirement in Utah Code Section 17-79-205(2)(b).
Land appeals get different proof rules
Beginning May 6, 2026, applicants appealing land-use decisions must prove illegality or a lack of substantial evidence. Other adversely affected parties must prove illegality or clearly erroneous factual findings. When a city has not set its factual review standard by ordinance, the appeal authority must review facts independently. It does not defer to the original authority's factual findings.
Local use reviews focus on harm
Beginning May 6, 2026, city and county conditional-use definitions focus on a use's unique traits or possible harmful effects. Relevant harm includes effects on the local government, neighbors, or nearby land uses. Counties can set conditions to reduce or remove that harm. The definition no longer refers broadly to any potential impact and does not guarantee approval or denial.
Planning commissioners face training and safeguards
Beginning May 6, 2026, covered city and county planning commissioners must complete four training hours yearly: one on duties and three on land use and ethics. City coverage includes first- through fourth-class cities, plus fifth-class cities with at least 5,000 residents in first- through third-class counties. County coverage includes first- through third-class counties with at least 5,000 residents in unincorporated areas. New city commissioners must complete the duties hour before participating in public meetings; attending 12 meetings yearly can replace one other hour. County training includes private case communications and conflicts of interest. Covered county commission ordinances must set appointment, removal, replacement, and recusal rules, addressing political misuse of public funds, ethics violations, and prohibited bias. Discussing pending applications with municipal staff, elected officials, or applicants alone is not grounds for removal.
Builders can challenge wider road requirements
Applicants can appeal a city's requirement for pavement wider than 32 feet on a residential road. They can ask the county to assemble a three-engineer panel for technical issues; members cannot have an interest in the application. Applicants pay 50% of the panel's cost plus the county's published appeal fee. The panel's decision is final, subject to district-court review requested within 30 days.
Builders face capped improvement security requirements
Beginning May 7, 2025, applicants generally must finish required public improvements or provide financial assurance before development or plat recording. Assurance generally covers 100% of required work, or the unfinished or unaccepted portion. Combined assurance is capped at estimated improvement costs plus up to 10% for city administrative costs. Cities must accept at least two assurance forms, allow partial releases, and return interest on qualifying new cash deposits. Beginning May 6, 2026, warranty security is capped at 10% of the lower of the engineer's original estimate or the applicant's reasonable proven cost. Cities cannot require that warranty deposit before written notice that the improvement is complete.
Landscaping bonds narrowed for housing projects
Beginning May 6, 2026, cities cannot demand completion assurance for accepted improvements, separately secured work, private landscaping plans, or qualifying private improvements. Private infrastructure needed for codes, stormwater, access, or essential public safety is not exempt. Work installed at the applicant's risk qualifies only before plat recording, with approved final engineering plans and required inspections. Cities cannot require residential-lot landscaping bonds or dictate who pays; development agreements can still require assurance for nonpublic landscaping. Cities can require bonds for association-maintained shared landscaping only in exchange for added density or another unavailable zoning benefit, documented in a development agreement.
Residential road width requirements face limits
Counties generally cannot require pavement wider than 32 feet for residential roads built as infrastructure improvements. Exceptions cover turnarounds, traffic constraints, planned improvements, utilities, flood routing, fire-code needs, and street parking; narrower roads remain allowed. Applicants appealing pavement requirements above 32 feet pay half the three-engineer panel's costs plus the published appeal fee. The panel's decision is final, subject to district-court review within 30 days.
Subdivision reviews gain limits and deadlines
Beginning May 6, 2026, cities cannot require the same improvement plan with both preliminary and final subdivision applications. Completeness review takes 15 business days in cities over 5,000 people, or 30 in smaller cities; plan review takes 20 or 40. Cities generally get no more than four review cycles and must log specific requests citing applicable requirements. Omitted changes are generally waived, and final-cycle compliance ends further revisions unless applicants materially change plans; safety and legal requirements remain enforceable. Material changes can restart affected review, and identified geological hazard areas are excluded from review-cycle limits. Applicants who miss revision deadlines of 20 business days in larger cities, or 40 in smaller cities, give cities 20 extra business days to respond.
Water suppliers face long-term planning requirements
Beginning May 6, 2026, the state engineer must set written-plan standards for public suppliers claiming the water-right nonuse exemption. Plans must cover 40 years of future public water needs. Standards must address population, drought, possible source loss, conservation, per-person needs, and other relevant factors. Beginning January 1, 2028, each city must complete the written plan identifying water interests needed for reasonable future demand. That plan also supports the law's limits on requiring developers to provide water interests.
Sponsors & Cosponsors
Sponsor
Lincoln Fillmore
Republican • Senate
Cosponsors
Jill Koford
Republican • House
Roll Call Votes
House vote • 3/6/2026
House/ circled
Yes: 0 • No: 0
House vote • 3/6/2026
House/ uncircled
Yes: 0 • No: 0
House vote • 3/6/2026
House/ substituted
Yes: 0 • No: 0
House vote • 3/6/2026
House/ passed 3rd reading
Yes: 61 • No: 7
Senate vote • 3/6/2026
Senate/ concurs with House amendment
Yes: 24 • No: 3
Senate vote • 2/26/2026
Senate/ uncircled
Yes: 0 • No: 0
Senate vote • 2/26/2026
Senate/ passed 3rd reading
Yes: 21 • No: 3
Senate vote • 2/25/2026
Senate/ circled
Yes: 0 • No: 0
Senate vote • 2/24/2026
Senate/ substituted
Yes: 0 • No: 0
Senate vote • 2/24/2026
Senate/ passed 2nd reading
Yes: 19 • No: 10
Senate vote • 2/17/2026
Senate Comm - Favorable Recommendation
Yes: 4 • No: 0
Actions Timeline
Governor Signed
3/18/2026Senate/ to Governor
3/13/2026SenateSenate/ received enrolled bill from Printing
3/13/2026SenateSenate/ enrolled bill to Printing
3/12/2026SenateEnrolled Bill Returned to House or Senate
3/12/2026Draft of Enrolled Bill Prepared
3/11/2026Bill Received from Senate for Enrolling
3/11/2026Senate/ signed by President/ sent for enrolling
3/11/2026SenateSenate/ received from House
3/11/2026SenateHouse/ to Senate
3/7/2026HouseHouse/ signed by Speaker/ returned to Senate
3/7/2026HouseHouse/ received from Senate
3/7/2026HouseSenate/ to House
3/6/2026SenateSenate/ concurs with House amendment
3/6/2026SenateSenate/ placed on Concurrence Calendar
3/6/2026SenateSenate/ received from House
3/6/2026SenateHouse/ to Senate
3/6/2026HouseHouse/ passed 3rd reading
3/6/2026HouseHouse/ substituted
3/6/2026HouseHouse/ uncircled
3/6/2026HouseHouse/ circled
3/6/2026HouseHouse/ 3rd reading
3/6/2026HouseHouse/ 2nd reading
3/5/2026HouseHouse/ Rules to 3rd Reading Calendar
3/5/2026HouseHouse/ comm rpt/ sent to Rules
3/5/2026House
Bill Text
Enrolled
3/12/2026
Substitute #6
3/6/2026
Substitute #7
3/6/2026
Substitute #5
3/5/2026
Substitute #3
3/2/2026
Substitute #4
3/2/2026
Substitute #2
2/28/2026
Substitute #1
2/23/2026
Introduced
2/10/2026