Should new home lots in unincorporated Kane County be at least two acres, to preserve its rural character? Or should the southern Utah county keep lot sizes smaller to allow for more affordable housing?
Attendance was higher than average at the Kane County commission meeting on June 24 to discuss an ordinance that would make minimum residential lot sizes in Kane County two acres, up from a one-acre minimum.
Speakers feared the change would make homeownership unattainable for locals and first time buyers.
“It’s going to limit the availability to grow which is going to drive the prices up higher,” said one speaker, who said he was in real estate. “The prices on [land] right now are just insane when you’re dropping two, three hundred thousand dollars on a lot before you can start doing anything.”
Another citizen added, “There’s two kinds of people that are building: People who aren’t from here … They have money and it does not matter what they have to do. They gotta buy a two-acre lot or a 20-acre lot, they pay cash and they do whatever they want. …
“The other category would be locals. I have a lot of friends in their teens, twenties and thirties. And I have conversations with them all the time … and none of them can afford to live here.”
Commissioner Gwen Brown, who sponsored the ordinance that would have eliminated one-acre residential zones on county land, stated: “I’ve been asked by a lot of people in the unincorporated area … a lot of people were upset because they feel like in unincorporated area there needs to be areas [for] people who want to live a more rural lifestyle. … And the people that have put their lifeblood and their money into their places having a rural area, then all of a sudden next door is half-acre lots or one acre lots. It kind of takes away from what they came here for.”
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