Ivins • It may be an island in a sea of expensive homes, but affordable housing could be coming to one of Washington County’s more upscale areas.
Impelled by Gov. Spencer Cox’s push to ease the state’s housing crunch, the Utah Trust Lands Administration (TLA) is working with a development group to potentially build 254 starter homes on 40 acres of unincorporated land situated next to pricey real estate near Ivins.
But whether those homes actually get built remains to be seen. Ivins officials have raised several concerns and say the proposed site, which is part of the city’s future annexation plans, poses issues for homebuilding due to its geology.
“It may be an uphill battle,” Tj Griffiths, chief operating officer with Royal T Enterprises, said about the proposed Anasazi Ridge development. “The frustrating part of this is that everybody from the City Council to the Planning Commission tells us that they want to help us make attainable housing somewhere, but then say, ‘Hey, make it somewhere else.’”
With the TLA’s blessing, Royal T. Enterprises has teamed up with Wall2Wall Construction and Vital Lands to form the Anasazi Ridge Group to build the small single-family homes on the parcel on the south side of Highway 91 next to the Indigo Trails subdivision.
The homes would be situated on 3,000- to 4,000-square-foot lots, range in size from 1,000 to 1,400 square feet and cost between $350,000 to $400,000. That’s less than half of the $820,000 price tag of the median home listing in the Ivins area, according to Realtor.com.
“We haven’t sold the land yet, but we have been approved to work with this development partner and to negotiate with the city of Ivins to see what we can do here,” said Gregg McArthur, TLA’s economic development and project manager.
(Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune)
To align with Cox’s goal to build 35,000 new starter homes by 2028, the TLA put out a request for proposal in September 2024 and fielded developers’ bids to build affordable housing on the land until last April.
Last month, with the TLA’s board of trustees’ approval, the Anasazi Ridge Group emerged as the winner. The group proposes to buy the land for more than $6.5 million and provide the state with a 20% share of the project’s profits, estimated to total about $1.86 million. If completed, the project is expected to contribute just under $8.4 million to state funds for Utah schools.
Getting locals on board
Even though the development would be on unincorporated land, the TLA is still trying to get buy-in from Ivins because of its annexation plans and the likelihood that Anasazi Ridge would require connection to municipal utilities.
“We would have to do some serious research to make sure we could accommodate the project that they are proposing,” Ivins Mayor Chris Hart said. “We don’t have ordinances in place now that [allow the smaller] size lots that they are looking at. And they would be putting that volume of homes without any open space dedicated for a park … where people and kids could recreate.”
Many of the homes would lack garages, but the developers assured city officials that parking would not be an issue because most households would only have one car. Ivins City Council member Mike Scott questioned the claim, saying that most of the buyers would likely be working couples who need two vehicles.
Aside from the need to change city code to accommodate the development, city officials also have reservations about the land itself, much of which is situated on blue clay soil, which expands significantly when wet and can cause home foundations to crack and damage roads and sidewalks, resulting in costly repairs.
Scott said between 10 and 15% of the site is on steep “sensitive lands” that can’t be developed. Rather than build fewer homes on that land, he and other city officials say there is another 40-acre parcel of private land located within west Ivins that is flat, poses no issues and could accommodate even more affordable homes. They have suggested that a possible land swap between the state and the owner might be feasible.
McArthur said the state is open to possible land exchanges.
“But it would need to be value for value,” he said. “We would need to get the same amount of density and homes [on the land], and it would need to have the same amount of value for the trust.”
Whether city residents are open to affordable housing is an open question. In a December 2022 survey, 70% of Ivins residents said they were opposed to more high-density housing. But the state’s dire housing woes since then have some city officials openly embracing the need for more modestly-priced homes.
Jordan Wall, owner of Wall2Wall Construction, pointed out that the state, not developers, selected the land for the development. He stressed the urgent need for more affordable housing, noting the difficulty his employees have in securing places to live. He said one of his employees commutes two hours daily from Paragonah to work in Washington County.
That said, Wall said he knows there will always be some opposition.
“This isn’t my first rodeo,” he said. “You run into NIMBYism everywhere you go. Everyone wants [attainable housing], they just want it somewhere else.”