Rexburg’s town-and-gown housing zoning

The most unique zoning in Idaho may be that of Rexburg. While the city’s new comprehensive plan may make its zoning closer to land use practices in the rest of the state, Rexburg will retain its most atypical zoning classification for student housing for those enrolled at Brigham Young University–Idaho (BYU–Idaho).

Not all is happy in Rexburg with student housing, most of which is privately owned, as a slow trickle of these properties have recently sought to rezone themselves as condos in the face of what property owners label unfavorable vacancy rates.

A unique Rexburg land use

Unlike most post-secondary institutions, BYU–Idaho only owns one single-student dormitory complex with two women’s dorms and one men’s dorm, and one apartment complex for students who are married. All other student housing is privately owned. In addition to conforming to Rexburg’s land use ordinances for high-density housing, single-student housing must also comply with the university’s rules for student living.

As explained in Rexburg’s current comprehensive plan: “The housing market in Rexburg is also affected by the unique requirements for single BYU–Idaho student living. BYU–Idaho is a religious institution affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The university has a strict set of housing requirements for single students. Single students must live at home with their family or in approved housing, which includes on-campus housing (owned and operated by BYU–Idaho) and off-campus housing that has received approval from the university. Landlords of off-campus housing units must agree to assist in enforcing a set of living standards that cover curfew, visitation by members of the opposite sex and approved television cable stations.”

The housing market for students in Rexburg is huge. According to city planning documents, 75% of the city’s tenants are BYU–Idaho students. That’s not too surprising since Rexburg’s biggest employer is the university.

The city doesn’t have a unique zone for student housing. Instead, the private-venture dormitory land use falls under Rexburg’s two zones for high-density residential (HDR1 and HDR2). What distinguishes student housing from other land uses are the city’s ordinances about parking.

It’s all about parking

BYU–Idaho grew out of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Ricks College, a junior college that started as a church academy in 1888. The church decided to convert Ricks into the third BYU campus in 2001. The expansion converted Rexburg from an agricultural community to a college town in less than two decades and was responsible for making Madison County the fastest growing county in the state between 2010 and 2020. During this period, the county grew 41%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

“The city and university tried to develop a walking campus,” explained Alan Parkinson, Rexburg’s city planner. As the university grew, parking became a problem in Rexburg, “The city worked closely with (BYU–Idaho) housing to find ways to alleviate this.”

The walking campus concept was the driving force behind the creation of the city’s Pedestrian Emphasis District (PED), which wraps around the BYU–Idaho campus. The student housing use is not by right unless the land use is within the PED, which wraps around the BYU-Idaho campus. A use by right is a land use that does not require any sort of variance or conditional use permit within the zone where it is permitted by ordinance.

Inside the PED, the dormitory land use is by right but only if a property creates a plan to reduce parking by 75% compared to other residential zoning. All other student housing must obtain a conditional use permit (CUP) that allows the land use, but only with reduced parking of 60%. In comparison, in the HDR1 and HDR2 zones, condos and apartments must provide 1.5 parking stalls for each one-bedroom unit and two parking stalls for two- and three-bedroom units.

“What happened,” Parkinson remarked, “is that students show up to school in the fall without a car and walk. Then the winter weather comes and many students return after Christmas with a car.” That’s a problem for the city because single-student housing has restricted parking and “we don’t allow cars to park in the street in winter.”

Condos and vacancy

The first sign of discontent appeared early this year when Brigham’s Mill Apartments, a single-student housing complex, applied for a replat as condos from the Rexburg City Council in April. In a letter from to the BYU–Idaho Off-Campus Housing Association (BYUIOSHA) submitted to the city in support of replat requests, the association’s president Rachel Whoolery wrote: “BYU–I has been building to and increasing enrollment for each fall semester. They have continually requested and approved additional developments in the past decade without any restraint. Today, developers and investors have stopped building because the market has become toxic. A main contributor to our low performing market is that we have a closed system and can only rent to BYU–I single students who are under the age of 26…When there are only 71.1% students enrolled, there are no other options to fill our beds. The beds must sit empty for five months.”

As the owner of Brigham’s Mill told the city council: “Why are we doing this? It was correctly pointed out there are 16,000 university-approved beds. But right now, for the spring semester, 5,000 of those are sitting empty.” As every landlord knows, vacancy means constant overhead but diminished revenue.

The vacancy complaints from student housing owners have been repeated at Planning and Zoning (P&Z) meetings, city council meetings and in the press. Ironically, the commentary about controlling parking and preserving the PED and single-student housing repeat at every 2022 P&Z and city council meeting, as documented by the city’s live meeting recordings.

For example, at the June 1 city council meeting, council member Bryanna Johnson stated: “I’ve had some residents contact me…wondering why we’re allowing our real estate right by campus to change, but our legal counsel has reminded us that we can’t discriminate based on who’s occupying the rentals…We don’t have a zone that’s a single-student housing zone, so our hands are kind of tied.”

Johnson’s remark reflects that the city council and P&Z member comments inevitably gave way to reminders by either Parkinson, city attorney Stephen Zollinger or P&Z commission attorney Jason Rammell that it is the role of the city’s officials to uphold the city’s ordinances, not to regulate the market or insure there’s enough student housing to meet the university’s needs. As Parkinson remarked, that when a property owner has “met all the requirements for the building code…we had no reason to really deny” a condo replat request for a student-housing complex.

The Brigham Mill request was followed in June by a second condo replat request approved by the city council for the University View complex in Rexburg. Parkinson told the Idaho Business Review (IBR) that no one has filed any further requests since then.

Despite this, one student housing property called The Roost has advertised apartments for rent and condos for sale on its website: “All units listed are either for sale or for rent! We are unable to rent to single BYU–Idaho students as we will no longer be approved housing.” The Roost did not respond to an IBR request for information. The IBR asked Parkinson regarding the status of this complex, who replied: “There is not filed paperwork…Nobody has talked to us about it.”

The housing numbers

It is unknown if the student housing to condo conversions will continue as enrollment rebounds from the lows introduced by the pandemic. The IBR examined the student housing numbers for BYU–Idaho, where most single students under age 26 must reside according to the school’s rules. The adverse vacancy may be exacerbated by the addition of 2000 beds on the market since 2017. Regardless, for the years immediately before the COVID-19 pandemic, occupancy during fall and winters were always above 90%, with fall term close to 100% in 2017 to 2019. The problem is the spring term, which has averaged less than 75% for the last decade — and that is what some of the more vocal student complex owners have been complaining about.