We need to address Utah's housing crisis
Home prices went up nearly 25% in recent years and they keep climbing. Rent is far too expensive, Utah has the 8th most expensive rent in the country. Statewide, 3 in 10 low-income people are homeless or pay more than half their income for rent. Owning a home is one of the best ways for families to gain financial security, but first-time home buyers are being priced out of the market. And it is becoming harder and harder for our kids to afford living in the towns where they grew up. Why is this happening? There are many contributing factors, but ultimately it comes down to poorly managed growth. It doesn't have to be this way. We can do much better.
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As a member of the Utah legislature I will work to
1. Simplify and harmonize our zoning codes. This would provide more consistency and flexibility in our housing supply, decrease construction costs, and encourage more competition in the building and remodeling sectors.
2. Provide support for first-time and low-income home buyers. Home ownership is one of the most important ways we can provide financial stability for Utah families. Utah's existing programs need to be expanded and made more accessible.
3. Empower people to make better use of the existing home inventory. Building new homes is slow and costly and continues to consume valuable open space. We need to make it easier for individuals to rent out part of their home and to develop public/private partnerships for affordable housing.
4. Rejuvenate our neighborhoods. Nearly all of the support provided in recent years has been for construction of new homes. But we can't just build our way out of this housing crisis. Utah has many older neighborhoods and homes that have not been well maintained. Let's invest in improving our existing home inventory, improve our neighborhoods, and make the most of what we already have.
5. Track and publish each city's progress towards meeting housing goals. Cities need to be clear and transparent about how they are working to address our housing crisis and we need to give citizens the tools to hold them accountable.
6. Provide greater incentives for energy efficiency in new construction and renovations so we can keep energy demand and costs down in the long-term.
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There are plenty of other opinions on how to fix our housing situation and I'm always open to hearing other solutions. What do bad solutions to our housing crisis look like? Generally, bad solutions have a strong political agenda and/or they are schemes that make developers a lot of money and leave homeowners or renters with long-term problems. For example, I would oppose efforts to sell off federal land to support suburban sprawl...that just sets us up for bigger problems down the road. Having enough land is not the problem. I would also oppose the $6 billion boondoggle to hand over Utah Lake to private developers to dredge the lake and build housing on artificial islands. Clearly there are better, and much more affordable and effective ways to increase the housing supply.