Bulletin - Jackson, WY News Today
The zoning amendment tightens the 33% limit drafted by town staff and heads to the Town Council on November 16 with a downtown ground-floor ban on lodging and residential uses
Jackson, Wyoming Planning Commission Backs 25% Short-Term Rental Cap for New Buildings
The zoning amendment tightens the 33% limit drafted by town staff and heads to the Town Council on November 16 with a downtown ground-floor ban on lodging and residential uses
Photo by Cora Leach on Unsplash
Jackson’s Planning Commission unanimously recommended on October 21 that floor area used for short-term rentals be capped at 25% of any individual building, lowering the 33% limit drafted by town staff. The cap is one of six proposed amendments to the town’s land development regulations and would mainly shape new condo and mixed-use projects in the lodging overlay, the only part of town where short-term rentals can operate year-round.
How the Cap Would Work
The staff report for the meeting would add a subsection to Section 6.1.5.C of the regulations so that floor area dedicated to short-term rental use cannot exceed a set share of a building’s total habitable floor area. The Town Council backed a 33% limit on August 17 which staff described as essentially one floor of a three-story building while rejecting an outright ban on short-term rentals in the lodging overlay.
Commissioners supported the approach but lowered the figure to 25%. Planning Director Paul Anthony told the commission that many legally rentable downtown units are high-end condos bought as investments that often sit empty, noting that “most people don’t need to rent to make their mortgages.”
Ground-Floor Ban Reaches Lodging
A second amendment would prohibit residential and lodging uses within 30 feet of any street-facing first-story facade in the Downtown Design Overlay which covers the TS-1, TS-2 and DC-1 zones.
Lobbies would still be allowed and projects with at least 80% deed-restricted housing would be exempt while existing buildings with ground-floor residential or lodging space would not be treated as nonconforming.
Current Rules and the Rest of the Package
The town limits year-round short-term renting to the lodging overlay and Snow King Resort District where operators need an annual business license and a one-time basic use permit, and Ordinance 1402 already caps each unit at 1,500 square feet under rules the council adopted on November 18, 2024.
The remaining amendments would hide downtown third stories from view across the street, count habitable basements toward the town’s 40,000 and 50,000 square foot building size limits, set maximum sizes for deed-restricted bonus units and remove the 2-for-1 housing bonus from downtown.
⦾ Status: Proposed (file PM26-011); unanimously recommended by the Planning Commission on October 21, 2026, and not yet adopted
⦾ Proposed cap: Short-term rental floor area limited to 25% of a building’s total habitable floor area (staff draft and August Council direction: 33%)
⦾ Code section: New subsection j to Land Development Regulations Sec. 6.1.5.C
⦾ Ground floor: Residential and lodging uses barred within 30 feet of street-facing first-story facades in the Downtown Design Overlay; lobbies allowed; projects with 80% or more deed-restricted housing exempt
⦾ Current overlay rules: Annual business license, one-time basic use permit and a 1,500-square-foot maximum per short-term rental unit (Ordinance 1402)
⦾ Current rules outside the overlay: Three stays and 60 nights per year with an annual permit and neighbor notice
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