One of these things is not like the other -- second kitchens, two unrelated people, nonprofit housekeeping units and foreign exchange students.

Give upfi The first three are all factors that were part of Provo's definition of a family and that, under the ordinance amendment discussed at the Municipal Council meeting Tuesday night, would no longer be a part of it.

The amendment, on which the council took action after the Daily Herald's deadline, would allow families in R-1 and RC zones, both single-family residential, to have a second kitchen but not unrelated people living in the residence. It would also create a low-occupancy overlay in the two zones, which regulates the number of occupants a rental home could have -- two inside the overlay, three outside.

Provo law now says families can have up to two unrelated people living with them, but not a second kitchen.

The item that caught the public's fancy, and took up much of the discussion time, turned out to be the unrelated people clause. The old law was enacted decades ago to fulfill a need for student housing. The need is no longer there, but many still want the option, even if they never avail themselves of it.

"I think that to take away completely that option, I really have problems with that," said Terry Kemp, assistant neighborhood chairman for Rock Canyon neighborhood, adding people in his neighborhood didn't really see a need for it because so few people actually had boarders.

He used his own home as an example of why that part of the law should remain the same; a friend of his son, who couldn't afford to get his own apartment after high school, moved in with Kemp's family for a time until he left on an LDS mission. Plus, Kemp said, his son and the friend are already considering moving in with his family, and maybe having another friend move in as well. They wouldn't have their own apartment, and they wouldn't be paying rent.

"I think you can still live with something like that," he said.

That was the same for Ray Christensen, chairman of the Wasatch neighborhood. At his neighborhood meeting, surrounded simultaneously by people "who think zoning is an affront to God" to people "who haven't met a zoning ordinance they didn't like," only two supported not allowing two unrelated people to be considered part of a family.

"It's more of a philosophical objection," he admitted, adding most didn't anticipate ever using the law, but if an adult child had an adult friend who needed some living space, they wanted the option to be open.

"Most of us are not really interested in inviting people to come live with us," he said.

Municipal Councilwoman Cindy Richards pointed out that she has had unrelated adults living in her home from time to time, but always for just a few months. She also occasionally had people doing nanny work for her, but they were not permanent residents of the home, nor were they tenants.

"In other words, they're not paying rent," she said. "They're doing me a service."

Council Chairman George Stewart, who actually raised the question earlier this year when he was elected, said he recognized families sometimes had situations in which they helped friends out or in which a variance to the proposed rule was needed, and when those situations arose they could be dealt with individually. To apply that across the city and get rid of the second kitchen law, he said, was just asking for zoning violations.

"Too often it would morph into illegal apartments, and there's no need for that," he said.

The issue of caregivers for older or disabled couples, which had been the subject of numerous debates throughout the process, wasn't part of Tuesday's discussion. The council decided to address that issue in a separate law, a discussion they anticipate beginning as soon as details of this law are ironed out.

Oh, and for anyone who's interested, foreign exchange students are still allowed. No worries.

Heidi Toth can be reached at 344-2543 or htoth@heraldextra.com.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page D1.