OGDEN — After more than a year and a half of work, the fate of the now controversial Southeast Ogden Community Plan will have to wait another month.

The Ogden City Council was scheduled to vote on the plan Tuesday but ultimately tabled the decision after a large public outcry related to housing provisions in the proposal.

One of 15 planning communities in the city, the Southeast Community generally includes everything in Ogden south of 36th Street and east of Gramercy Avenue. The area includes large employment centers like Weber State University and the McKay-Dee Hospital, and also features a thriving commercial district surrounding those two organizations. The area is also Ogden’s most affluent, dotted with numerous million-dollar homes along the city’s southeast bench.

According to the city’s website, community plans “create a vision” for different sectors of the city, with input taken from residents, political leaders, developers, business owners and others. The plans tackle things like community facilities, neighborhood identities, economic development, environmental issues, housing, land-use and transportation.

The last complete update to the Southeast Ogden Community Plan was finished in 1987, according to the planning department. The city has been working on the new plan since January 2019, holding a series of public meetings along the way.

According to a draft of the plan, the area of the city has some of the “most desirable housing stock (in the city),” but in areas adjacent to the WSU campus, there are heightened concerns about pressure to alter the single-family neighborhoods, due to an increasing need for student housing near the university.

The updated plan seeks to preserve existing single-family housing in the area, develop quality student housing and other high-density living spaces without impacting single-family neighborhoods, encourage development near the university, improve bicycle infrastructure and traffic flow, improve trailheads and make connections between existing open spaces, parks and trails.

Language in the plan related to accessory dwelling units (ADUs), along with an abundance of related public comment, caused the council to pause Tuesday night.

As stipulated in the plan now, the city plans to look at different geographic neighborhoods of the community and set limits that would allow ADUs in each area, but only up to certain threshold. ADUs are typically smaller, independent residential living spaces located on the same lot as a standalone, single-family home.

Ogden Deputy Planning Manager Clint Spencer said the desire for ADUs among those in the Southeast community has been widely split, as the city polled residents in online surveying and tracked sentiment expressed during several public meetings held for the plan.

But most residents who spoke at Tuesday’s council meeting were against setting limits on ADUs.

Jennifer Bodine, a resident of Southeast Ogden, expressed a sentiment that was echoed by many others Tuesday night. Bodine said ADUs will help meet growing population demands and allow for a variety of housing options, which would result in more diverse neighborhoods.

“I have no concern about permitting (ADUs) completely, across the whole neighborhood,” she said. “I’m not in favor of having any thresholds.”

Angel Castillo, a former Ogden City planning commissioner, also spoke out against the ADU limit and was the first to ask the council to table its decision. In addition to limiting affordable housing options, Castillo said the measure also violates individual property rights.

Spencer said actual ADU limitations, with hard numbers and geographical locations, would theoretically be defined and adopted later by ordinance. He noted that the plan is simply a recommendation that the limits eventually be put in place.

“Things can always change,” he said. “All of these things can change over time or as situations change. That’s how the plan is meant to work.”

Council member Rich Hyer said he understood the plan isn’t an ordinance, but also noted that, “It would be a little disingenuous to have it in the plan, but then not follow through with it.”

Hyer said he doesn’t see a good reason why the city should limit ADUs in the area.

Council Deputy Director Glenn Symes said his office would work with the city planning and legal departments to come up with an alternative in regard to the ADU issue and the matter is scheduled to come back to the council for a vote on Aug. 11.