Bill that leverages Utah dollars to urge cities to plan for affordable housing heads to House floor

Bill that leverages Utah dollars to urge cities to plan for affordable housing heads to House floor

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SALT LAKE CITY — Although its sponsor was wary of a fight in the House, the bill that would leverage state transportation dollars to encourage more cities to pave the way for affordable housing has cleared its next legislative hurdle without major changes.

The bill, SB34, won a unanimous endorsement from the House Economic Development and Workforce Services Committee on Wednesday, but only after a long and lively debate. It now goes to the House floor.

While some voiced opposition to SB34, concerned about it going too far to force cities to include affordable housing in their master plans, most of the misgivings lawmakers and others shared about the bill was that it didn't go far enough.

"You've watered it down so much," House Majority Leader Francis Gibson, R-Mapleton, told the bill's sponsor, Sen. Jake Anderegg, R-Lehi. "Are we really going to achieve what we want to achieve?"

Or, Gibson wondered, will the state simply "reward mediocrity?"

Anderegg's bill — the product of the state's newly created Commission on Housing Affordability — is the Legislature's biggest attempt this year to address what Utah policy experts call a housing "crisis," a growing statewide shortage of more than 54,000 housing units that's causing a supply and demand crunch and fanning home prices.

The bill dangles a "carrot so big it almost feels like a stick," in Anderegg's words, by requiring most cities to fulfill at least three requirements from a list of options to allow moderate-income housing within their communities, from waiving impact fees to allowing mother-in-law apartments.

That carrot? Eligibility for the state transportation dollars — a fund of more than $700 million that the state controls.

Catching word that some in the House wanted to make "crazy changes" to give the bill more teeth, Anderegg on the Senate floor last week agreed to strengthen it slightly by increasing the required threshold in certain circumstances to "take the bullet out of the House's gun."

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It appears it worked — at least for now, until the bill makes it to the House floor.

Anderegg admitted to Gibson that even to him the bill didn't go far enough, but in bringing all stakeholders together to find a workable version of the bill, he had to "dance that dance."

"I'm the first to say this is not a silver bullet," Anderegg said. "But it's a good first step."

Business organizations including the Salt Lake Chamber and Utah's largest homebuilder, Ivory Homes, have been heavily pushing the bill to encourage more cities to work with developers to zone for affordable and high-density housing.

"We think it does move the needle and it does move it in the right direction," said Chris Gamvroulas, president of Ivory Development. "You can't take two steps until you've taken one. We would like to see it go a lot further."

While no cities have formerly opposed the bill, some local elected officials and residents are wary about the impact it could have on cities already under pressure of the housing crunch, but faced with neighborhoods fighting tooth-and-nail against high-density developments they fear will crowd their communities.

"Our communities are concerned about quality of life," said Herriman City Councilwoman Sherrie Ohrn, noting she was speaking neither in support or against the bill, but "there is no guarantee" that cities will get the state dollars, even if they fulfill all requirements listed in the bill.

"We might not get a dime," Ohrn said.

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Katie McKellar

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