The Zoning Line That Decides What Your Pinedale Property Can Earn as a Rental

Two homes list for the same price, sit a few blocks apart, and look nearly identical from the street. One of them can be permitted to run two separate short-term rental units. The other can legally run exactly one, and only if the owner lives there. The difference has nothing to do with square footage, lot size, or condition. It comes down to a zoning line on the Town of Pinedale's map, and it is the first thing anyone buying with rental income in mind should check before falling for a listing photo.

Ordinance 682 splits the town into two very different rental economies

Pinedale's short-term rental rules live in Article XLI of Chapter 475 of the town code, created by Ordinance 682. The Town Council passed it on a 3-2 vote at third and final reading in the spring of 2021, and enforcement began that October, at which point every existing rental in town was technically out of compliance until it secured a permit. The version of the ordinance in the town code today carries an effective date of October 2024, so what follows reflects the current rules, not the original 2021 draft.

The ordinance does not treat Pinedale as one rental market. It splits the town into three tiers by zoning district, and the tier a property sits in sets a hard ceiling on what it can ever earn as a rental, independent of price.

In the commercial zones, C-1 and C-2, both hosted and non-hosted short-term rentals are allowed, and a single deeded lot can carry up to two STR permits. Try to run a third unit on that lot and the town treats it as a hotel or motel, subject to an entirely different set of zoning requirements.

In the residential zones, A, R-S, R-1, R-2, and R-2A, only hosted rentals are allowed, meaning the owner has to actually live in the home. Each owner is limited to one permit. A second permit is possible, but only if the parcel is two acres or larger, and even then it requires staff review rather than automatic approval. Multifamily buildings inside these residential zones cannot run STRs at all.

A third group of zones, I-1, I-2, UT, R-4, and MH, doesn't allow short-term rentals under any circumstance.

So the two homes from the opening are easy to explain once you know this. One sits in C-2. It qualifies for two permits on the same lot. The other sits in R-1. It qualifies for exactly one, tied to the owner's own residency, unless the lot happens to clear two acres.

The rule was written to protect licensed lodging as much as neighborhoods

The residential-versus-commercial split wasn't just a planning convenience. It came out of a real fight over who gets to compete for overnight guests and on what terms.

At a December 2023 town council meeting, Mayor Matt Murdock told residents the planning and zoning committee was still working through how to handle unhosted rentals in residential neighborhoods. Ann Chambers Noble, who owns the Chambers House Bed and Breakfast, spoke at that meeting about what she called the unexpected consequences of unregulated short-term rentals undercutting businesses that already carry the cost of commercial licensing.

"Because I am commercially zoned, my property taxes are higher than residential."

That line is the whole tension in one sentence. A licensed bed and breakfast pays commercial tax rates and absorbs the permitting and inspection load that comes with it. An unregulated rental in a residential zone pays none of that. The zoning split in Ordinance 682 is the town's answer: commercial-zoned properties get more rental capacity because they're already carrying more of the regulatory and tax weight, and residential-zoned properties get less because the point of a residential zone is still to house residents first.

For a buyer, the practical read is that the zoning line isn't arbitrary. It reflects a policy choice about who bears the higher operating cost, and it isn't likely to loosen without reopening that same argument.

What the permit itself requires, before it gets to income

Even inside a zone that allows STRs, getting to the point of legal income takes more than a signed deed.

Owners in residential zones have to mail written notice to adjacent neighbors before their permit is approved, including the STR's address and the owner's contact information, and they have to submit proof of that mailing, such as a copy of the mailing receipt, with their application. There's no way around the paper trail.

Once a permit is issued, the rules follow the property into every listing. Any online advertisement or description of the rental has to display the permit number or an image of the permit itself. A property can't legally advertise as a short-term rental without that number attached, which means the permit isn't just a formality that happens after the fact. It's a prerequisite to marketing the unit at all. The ordinance also requires the home to outwardly appear as an ordinary residential dwelling, so exterior signage advertising the rental isn't allowed, and permits themselves are not transferable to a new owner or a different address if the property sells.

None of this is unusual for a resort-adjacent town balancing tourism against residential character. What matters for a buyer is that the permit process, the neighbor notice, and the zone cap all have to line up before a property can generate the rental income a listing sheet might imply.

Why this matters more than the median price

One short-term rental analytics platform estimates the typical Pinedale host earns somewhere around $22,000 a year, with occupancy near 64 percent. Numbers like that get used constantly to pencil out whether a property is worth buying as an income play. But that figure describes a single hosted unit. A residential-zoned property can only ever run one of those, tied to the owner living there. A commercial-zoned lot can run two units under the same ordinance, which changes the entire revenue ceiling before a single guest ever books a night.

There's a second wrinkle worth flagging directly. Ordinance 682 only applies inside the Town of Pinedale's actual municipal limits. Properties in unincorporated Sublette County, including plenty of land that gets marketed loosely as "Pinedale," fall outside this ordinance entirely and follow separate county rules. Anyone comparing a lot inside town limits against acreage just outside them needs to confirm which set of rules actually applies, because the zoning categories in this piece don't travel past the town boundary.

The practical order of operations for anyone buying with rental income as part of the plan: confirm the parcel is inside town limits, confirm the zoning district, and only then start running the revenue math. Skipping that first step means building a financial plan on a permit ceiling that may not exist on the property in question.

A few common questions

Does any of this apply if the property is just outside Pinedale's town limits? No. Ordinance 682 governs zoning districts within Town of Pinedale limits only. Land in unincorporated Sublette County operates under separate county rules that buyers should verify independently.

Can I add an accessory dwelling unit to get around the one-permit limit? Only if the lot is two acres or larger, and a second permit still requires staff review rather than automatic approval. It isn't a guaranteed path.

What happens if I start renting before the permit comes through? The property can't legally be advertised as a short-term rental without displaying the permit number in the listing itself, so operating without one isn't just a compliance risk, it blocks legal marketing from the start.

Buying in Pinedale with rental income in the plan means treating the zoning map as the first document to check, not the last. If you're weighing a property against this exact question, Julie Kannier and the RE/MAX Elite team can help you confirm what a specific parcel is actually zoned for before you write an offer. Get in touch to talk through what a property in Pinedale can and can't do.