Utah could be more than 200,000 homes short of demand in 30 years unless policymakers and lawmakers address a “labyrinth” of state housing and development policy.
“This is not prescriptive,” said Kamron Dalton, the managing director of operations at the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity. “It is where we are headed if we do not change anything.”
Dalton, along with Jason Brown, the CEO of Envision Utah, presented a new housing report to an interim legislative committee on Wednesday. The GOEO and Envision Utah authored the report.
In some ways, knowing the state is on track to only build about 72% of the 842,000 or so homes the report projects will be needed between now and 2055 is “really good news,” Brown said.
“When we understand our trajectory, we can treat that as a baseline scenario,” he said.
The study suggests policy changes that legislators can make in collaboration with local decision makers to create alternative outcomes, Brown and Dalton said.
Legislators are prepared to continue down that road, likely starting with a complete reorganization of responsibility for dozens of housing programs.
Currently, more than 40 housing programs and policies are scattered across four state agencies, the Utah Housing Corporation and the Wasatch Front Regional Council.
That fragmentation creates a “labyrinth” and makes it “really difficult for policymakers to get their arms around what exactly is happening in the housing space,” said State Rep. Cal Roberts, a Republican from Draper who serves as the co-chair of the Utah Commission on Housing Affordability.
Roberts and fellow co-chair Sen. Lincoln Fillmore, R-South Jordan, proposed a plan Wednesday to streamline and consolidate most of those programs under the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity and create a new position within that agency – deputy director of housing – to oversee programs and policy implementation.
Homelessness and federal programs will remain under the purview of the Utah Department of Workforce Services, they said.
Fillmore said the hope in consolidating the programs related to housing supply, land use and state policy is to let legislators be more nimble in making new policies.
Based on the report about housing capacity, there are several barriers that the state will need to address with policy changes.
The biggest constraint in undeveloped areas, Brown said, is a lack of infrastructure like water and sewer treatment and difficulty funding new infrastructure amid rapid growth.
Utah needs to build around 318,000 new units in undeveloped areas in the next thirty years, he said – the equivalent of 11 Daybreaks in a decade.
“These are massive developments that would need to happen,” Brown said. “So we would need infrastructure to support massive developments.”
The report suggests policy levers in six areas, with possible changes ranging from higher density allowances to water-efficient landscaping.
Dalton stressed the report is purely informational.
“This is trying to take an overarching view of where we’re falling short of what market demand will be,” Brown said. “It’s going to have to come down to a lot of local decisions of how we actually meet market demand.”
Megan Banta is The Salt Lake Tribune’s data enterprise reporter, a philanthropically supported position. The Tribune retains control over all editorial decisions.