Basalt takes step toward loosening ADU restrictions

At their Tuesday meeting, Basalt Town Councilors unanimously passed a first reading of an amendment to town code that opens up more of Basalt to ADU construction.

The town has been eyeing accessory dwelling units as one potential tool to alleviate some of the housing crisis in town limits for a while and chose 2026 as the year to lift broad restrictions on where they can be built. Current regulations only allow for ADUs to be constructed on roughly 7% of the land in Basalt. 

New code updates would permit ADU construction in all residential zone districts, but that doesn’t mean they would be blanket permitted. There are still differing minimum lot size requirements, as well as restrictions on their construction by some homeowners associations in Basalt, something that the town council is not seeking to overturn. 

“There’s a lot of covenants that don’t currently permit or, conversely, they prohibit ADUs,” Basalt Attorney Jeffrey Conklin told councilors on Tuesday evening. “Those are private covenants and we can’t locally overrule those. They’d have to go through the owner approval process to amend their declarations.” 

Basalt staff have prepared draft language for HOAs interested in opening up their ADU policy. 

The changes create a definition for ADUs in the town, defining them as detached or attached units that provide “permanent provisions for living, sleeping, sanitation, cooking, and eating,” meaning they have room for a bed, plumbing, and more. 

The biggest question for the councilors on Tuesday evening was parking requirements for those ADUs. As written, the ADU changes require proposed ADU projects to provide for a minimum of one “off-street” parking location per ADU. 

Off-street refers to a parking spot held entirely within the limits of the property lines, while on-street would refer to parking on roadways. 

Councilor Angele Dupre-Butchart asked whether there could be amendments to that ruling allowing for potential variance since some areas might have enough on-street parking available to enable homeowners not to use their lot for increased parking. She agreed other, denser areas should keep the requirement. 

“It’s just so dependent upon the layout and where you are,” she said. “Look at the Hill District — there’s not a lot of on-street parking there, so it does make sense that you would need to provide a spot for that person. But then, Elk Run, where there is more on-street parking, do they really have to? I think it’s dependent.” 

Basalt Planning Director Michelle Bonfils Thibeault said that there is likely a path forward that has more flexibility. 

“You could have it that it’s preferred to have a parking space per unit versus required,” she said. “We can noodle on this and bring this back for the next reading, too.”