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How many parking spaces does your cabin need?
Two codes, two answers — which one governs your lot?
Island Park is two jurisdictions in one caldera. Inside the city limits, the City of Island Park Development Code — effective 12-19-2025 — governs zoning, parking included; in the cabin country around the city, the county’s rule governs, and the county’s parking page carries that version. Not sure which side of the line your lot sits on? The city-code overview explains what changes inside the limits. This page is the city’s parking answer: section 3-6, read end to end, figures and all.
How many spaces does the city’s table require?
The count comes from the code’s own Table 3-2, and for a dwelling the answer is one row long. These are the rows a cabin buyer will actually meet:
| Use, as the table names it | Required off-street spaces |
|---|---|
| Residential | 2 per unit |
| Boarding and rooming houses | .5 per bedroom |
| Dwelling, multi-unit | 1 per bedroom but no more than 2 per unit, plus .25 per dwelling for guest parking |
| Campground / recreational vehicle / cabin park | 2 per campsite, plus 1 per employee on the largest shift |
A single cabin on its own lot lives in the first row: two spaces, on the same lot as the cabin. The table runs on through commercial and institutional uses past these rows, but those are not your problem. One placement rule travels with every count:
“Off-street parking and loading spaces shall be provided with and on the same lot as the use that the parking serves, except as otherwise allowed in this Code.”
— City of Island Park Development Code (effective 12-19-2025), section 3-6. Retrieved 21 October 2026
And the arithmetic rounds against you, not for you: when a calculation “results in a requirement of a fractional space, any fraction of one-half (1/2) or more shall be counted as one (1) required parking space.” Two more rules complete the count:
- Unlisted use? The number is set by the “Zoning Administrator, utilizing comparison of uses that are listed” — a comparison ruling, not a guess.
- Rounding direction: a half-space or more counts up to a full space; the table never rounds your obligation down.
One row this page deliberately leaves unprinted: the table prices parking for transient rentals by occupancy, but whether a city may treat a short-term rental differently from any other dwelling is a question Idaho Code §67-6539 has governed statewide since 1 July 2026 — the rental-cabin page takes that layer from here. For a dwelling you will live in, host in, or both, the number to draw is the residential one.
How big is a legal space?
Two numbers, and both of them are ten and twenty. The residential rule:
“For all residential uses, the off-street parking area required shall be enclosed in a garage or carport, or open parking and yard areas of at least ten feet (10') by twenty feet (20') at a minimum in space.”
— City of Island Park Development Code (effective 12-19-2025), section 3-6. Retrieved 21 October 2026
So the two spaces may live in the garage, under a carport, or on open ground — each a ten-by-twenty-foot patch at minimum. The design standard repeats the geometry for the stall itself: “A parking stall shall be constructed at a size of ten feet (10') wide by twenty feet (20") long.” On a lot that holds snow for months at a stretch, count the width you can actually keep clear — a space you cannot plow is not really two spaces, which is exactly where this code goes next.
The snow rule that reshapes a city lot
Every rule above could belong to any small town. This one is Island Park’s own. Wherever a development creates parking or streets that need snow removal, the site plan must hold ground for the snow itself:
“Snow storage areas shall be not less than thirty three percent (33%) of parking, sidewalk, and driveway areas.”
— City of Island Park Development Code (effective 12-19-2025), section 3-6. Retrieved 21 October 2026
Read that as a second land budget stacked on the first. Parking, sidewalks, and driveway together earn their keep only if a third of their combined area is also drawn on the plan as snow storage. Two placement rules protect that budget:
- No snow storage between a property line and its setback line — that strip is spoken for.
- The snow area may not reduce any required parking or loading area — the two budgets cannot eat each other.
Then the obligation follows the owner, not the paper:
“It shall be the duty of the owner, or representative of the owner or owners, of each parcel or real property within the City to clear off snow, maintain free from snow, sufficient space on such real property as is necessary to meet the off-street parking requirements for such parcels and structures.”
— City of Island Park Development Code (effective 12-19-2025), section 3-6. Retrieved 21 October 2026
Clearing those spaces back out after each storm is a standing duty of whoever owns the parcel — the parking requirement does not hibernate with the season.
Can parking sit on another lot — or shrink later?
Mostly no, with one narrow commercial carve-out that shows how the code thinks. Off-street parking on a separate parcel is contemplated only for commercial uses, and only when the separate lot “is within three hundred feet (300') of the main entrance to a commercial use for which the parking is intended to serve”. The rest of the carve-out’s conditions:
- Same owner on both parcels.
- Both parcels zoned for the use the parking serves.
- A recorded development agreement ties the whole arrangement together in Fremont County.
For a cabin, plan on the spaces living on the cabin’s own lot. Shrinking is harder still. Maintenance of the required parking is “a continuing obligation of the property owner so long as the use requiring such vehicle parking or vehicle loading facilities continues”, and the code makes it unlawful to discontinue or dispense with required parking without providing replacement parking that meets the code. The count can grow, too: “A change of use or occupancy, or the intensification of use of any building shall require additional off-street parking as set forth in this Section.” In the city’s code, parking ratchets. It does not unwind.
Five moves before you draw the site plan
- Confirm the jurisdiction first — inside the city limits this page’s table governs; outside them, the county’s rule does.
- Draw two spaces on the site plan — garage, carport, or open ground at ten by twenty feet each, on the same lot as the cabin.
- Draw the snow budget next to them — a third of the parking, sidewalk, and driveway area, outside the strip between property line and setback line, without shrinking the required spaces.
- Check the arithmetic honestly — two is the dwelling minimum, fractions of one-half or more round up, and any use the table does not name goes to the Zoning Administrator for a comparison ruling.
- Then have the plan read by someone who builds inside the limits — call (208) 656-1438 and we will walk your site plan against section 3-6 before you commit it.
Two spaces and a place to put the winter: that is the whole city rule for most cabins. Draw both on the first draft of the site plan and neither will surprise you at permit time.
Common questions
How many parking spaces does a cabin need inside Island Park city limits?
Two per unit. That is the residential row of the city code's Table 3-2 - the legal minimum a site plan has to show for a dwelling, before any guest or overflow parking you add on your own.
Does a garage count toward the two spaces?
Yes. For residential uses the required parking may be enclosed in a garage or carport, or sit in open parking and yard areas of at least 10 feet by 20 feet. A parking stall itself is built 10 feet wide by 20 feet long.
What is the snow storage requirement for parking?
Not less than thirty-three percent of parking, sidewalk, and driveway areas, set aside on the site for snow and its meltwater. It cannot be designated between any property line and setback line, and it cannot reduce any required parking or loading area.
We are buying a lot inside the city limits. What should we check about parking?
Three things: room for two 10-by-20-foot spaces or a garage on the same lot as the cabin; room for the snow storage area - a third of the parking, sidewalk, and driveway paving - outside the strip between property line and setback line; and whether anything already on the lot was counted as required parking for an earlier use, because that count does not go away.
Does renting the cabin out change the parking requirement?
This page prints the city's residential standard, 2 per unit. Short-term rentals sit under a state statute - Idaho Code 67-6539 - that limits what a city may require of rental operators, so that layer is covered separately on this site's rental-cabin page.
Can required parking be reduced or dropped later?
Not without a compliant replacement. Maintenance of required parking is a continuing obligation of the property owner for as long as the use continues, and a change of use or intensification can require additional spaces - the count ratchets up, not down.