3/24/26 Lincoln City Council Meeting

The latest Lincoln City Council meeting dealt with many impactful issues. They discussed lower-impact topics, such as liquor licenses, and they also discussed topics that will more directly affect the community, like changes in regulations to ADUs.

Let’s first go over the issues that have less impact on the community, starting with liquor license approval. Show Stoppers Family Dining and Entertainment proposed a liquor license and management application. The owner of Show Stoppers provided a wonderful musical number for the board, and he was also commended for his impressive past with liquor licenses in his other businesses. The vote was unanimously approved, bringing Show Stoppers to Lincoln! On the flip side, there was also a hearing to discuss the cancellation of two liquor licenses for The Office and Playmakers Sports Bar and Grill. The two businesses are owned by the same person, so they were treated like one issue. Attention was brought to these businesses after a double homicide that resulted in an investigation where they found multiple violations of the owner's liquor license. The board voted on these issues and voted unanimously to recommend the cancellation of these licenses. Another issue that was briefly talked about, but has major impacts on the city, is approval for Centerpoint to expand and repurpose a building that was once a juvenile detention center, and turn it into a voluntary attendance alcohol and substance abuse center. This center will be able to hold up to 30 people at a time. This was not yet voted on.

One of the biggest topics that was discussed was Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs). ADUs are secondary housing units on a property, separate from the main housing. There are 8 requirements a property needs to meet to be able to have an ADU. The proposal that was brought to the board was to make ADUs easier to establish. ADUs provide much more affordable housing for people of all ages. In a college town like Lincoln, young people are always looking for affordable housing. Right now, only 24% of properties in Lincoln qualify for an ADU. If the changes that were proposed are passed, up to 80% of properties can qualify, providing much more housing.

There are 8 specific regulations for ADUs right now, and a few were brought to the board. Changes in lot area, setback flexibility, height limit, floor area, and short-term rental regulations were proposed. The first change was to only require enough land to fit a single-family dwelling, as opposed to the current rule, which is that the property must fit a two-family dwelling. Setback flexibility is important for making ADUs easier to establish.

Currently, there are pretty strict rules about how far a separate ADU can be from the main house. The change proposed will make these rules much more flexible, opening up more opportunities for ADUs. The height limit on ADUs will hopefully be removed from the regulations, which currently says that the main house must be taller than the ADU. The ADU will now need to follow the height rules of the district. ADUs will also hopefully be exempt from the total floor area for the lot. There is a cap on how much floor area can be on a lot, and currently, having an ADU can make it difficult to have a shed or even a garage on your property. There are concerns from some of the people in Lincoln about having too many short-term rentals, so the new plan is to allow one short-term rental on a property with a main unit. Both may be long-term rentals, but only one can be short-term. The rest of the regulations will stay the same, and you can find more information about Lincoln’s ADU on the Lincoln City website

Some important topics were planned, but did not make it into this meeting. Updates for the Lincoln City Council meeting will be available here, and short summaries will be available on our Instagram and TikTok pages every Wednesday!