The legislative session is about to start (Tuesday!), and bills continue to roll out.  So far, though, we’re not seeing the major land use and housing bills.  They’ll be coming out sometime during the session, which will give us a shorter timeline to review and comment, but we just have to be prepared for that.  There are a couple of out-of-the-mainstream bills that may have some impact on local land use, I’ll outline those in an upcoming post.

All the signals continue to indicate that land use and housing affordability will be a major issue in this year’s session.

For example, on Wednesday I attended a small group conclave for a discussion with Dan Parolek, the guru of missing middle housing and form-based development codes.  The get-together was organized by Dina Blaes’ office at Salt Lake County (full discloser – I spent the last five years of my career in that office), and I thank her for the invite!  Parolek was in town for a speaking engagement at the Utah Association of Realtors annual conference, and Dina’s office was able to snag him while he was here to come for a discussion with about 20 people right before the start of the legislative session.

The session was touted to explore:

• Missing Middle Housing plans and their transformative potential.
• Insights into Shared Regional Missing Middle Zoning Toolkits, including applications to local jurisdictions.
• A discussion of TOD success stories, such as Culdesac and other groundbreaking projects.
• Tailored strategies to address housing affordability and sustainable growth in our region.

While the session was short, it certainly threw out a lot about the latest thinking on these concepts.  Parolek talked about the various places around the country where he’s been advising, and seeing what works.  It has caused him to refine some of his thinking, which he talked about.  He gave some examples from places trying out new concepts, and showing how they’re turning out quite well.

One was a project called Culdesac in Tempe, Arizona.  Dina mentioned that she and some others had gone to see the project (in mid-July!  Hot!), and how impressive it was.  Another Parolek mentioned was Papillon, Nebraska, on the outskirts of Omaha.  While these projects are based on missing-middle concepts, they take things to the next level, which was interesting to see.

All of this is relevant because of things going on here in Utah now.  For example, the Mountainlands Association of Governments (MAG) has a project ongoing now to create a missing middle toolkit.  The state is currently working on a Statewide Housing Plan, and the concepts of missing middle may be part of that plan (Laura Hanson, formerly Utah State Planning Coordinator and now the Governor’s Senior Advisor for Long-Range Planning and a key player in the Housing Plan, was at the gathering). Phase 1 of the plan is due to roll out in a week or two.

State and legislative leaders have been addressing this concept, with talk of money going towards funding development of such a toolkit for Utah communities.  To wit,

Especially along the Wasatch Front, where the vast majority of Utah’s population lives, Waldrip said “we have to recognize that we’re going to have to do some verticality, and we’re going to have to do some missing middle, and we’re going to have to do some things that are historically not done here.”

Waldrip harkened back decades, when homes in Utah were smaller, maybe 1,400 square feet instead of 4,000 square feet — and the kids raised in those types of homes actually turned out OK.

Bottom line, all this has been stuffed into the legislative pipe, will now get smoked, and we’ll see what comes out at the end.  As I always say, it’s going to be an interesting session.

I’ve got more to share, I’ll do a post over the weekend with some stuff Gov. Cox said recently at the Silicon Slopes confab.