Today is the first day of the regular session of 2023 Utah State Legislature. No new bills out yet related to land use beyond what I’ve already noted, but I’m sure things will get warmed up soon.
I’ve been debating with myself as to whether I should keep piling up statements and stories indicating that this will be a year to be reckoned with on land use. It’s quite likely that after all the hype – nothing! Or maybe just a much more muted legislative session, not the “apocalypse” that is hinted at. Yes – no – yes – no. Oh, well, here goes, here’s another “hint.”
A story in the DesNews Friday with the provocative title Is Utah too developer friendly? No, Gov. Cox says. ‘We need development. There is no other way’. The subtitle says, “Housing market needs more supply to solve affordability crisis, so Utah leaders looking to break down barriers for development.” Hint, hint?
Here’s some quotes from the story. Gov. Cox:
“…government is skewing the market. The market is telling us we need more housing, but what’s holding that back, or was at least until we saw significant rate increases, is … local governments.”
“Government plays a big role in that piece, in that we tend to make it harder. Every regulation that we put on building housing adds to the cost of housing,” whether it’s fees or drawn-out approval processes, he said. “And at any stage in the process, those can be derailed.”
Sen. Lincoln Fillmore about his bill that’s in the works:
It’s still being drafted, but Fillmore said the bill seeks to enact “big, bold policy solutions” aimed at increasing housing supply.
The bill, Fillmore said, would “streamline” city approval processes for subdivision plans by requiring only one public hearing at the beginning of the approval process. It would also seek to sharpen Utah’s teeth when it comes to punishing cities that haven’t included moderate income housing in their plans by withholding state money for road improvements known as Class B and C funds.
Governor Cox again:
Not-in-my-backyard attitudes span across all political parties, and it’s something Utahns need to reckon with if they truly want housing to become more available and more affordable for not only themselves, but their kids and grandkids, Cox said.
“I have stories from the Avenues, and I have stories from Draper — I have stories on the right and the left — when it comes to NIMBYism. It is definitely a bipartisan problem,” Cox said. “But my message to people is, look, do you want your kids and grandkids to live here? And as we ask that question, the overwhelming majority of Utahns say yes. And the overwhelming majority of Utahns understand that means we’re going to have to build more housing.”
In another related piece, Anthony Flint of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy wrote in the December 23 issue of Land Lines a story titled The State of Local Zoning: Reforming a Century-Old Approach to Land Use, and Utah gets some shout-outs in it. The story is about the status of zoning reform in states around the country. Several states such as California and Connecticut are deep into state-mandated changes and even complete reforms of local land use controls. Flint says:
Not only blue states along the coasts, but others regarded as red, such as Utah, are engaged in some type of zoning reform.
The biggest driver of reform has been the lack of affordable housing, which is wreaking havoc with local economies, … said M. Nolan Gray, author of Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It. Whether in California or Utah, Gray said, residents are confronting similar “housing affordability issues that are affecting the middle class—and they’re looking for solutions.”
What are those reforms in Utah? According to Flint, in his A State-by-State Guide to Zoning Reform, published by the Lincoln Institute on the same day, he got it sort of right:
Utah. A measure passed in 2022 leverages state funding for local zoning reform that makes it easier to build middle-income housing and transit-oriented development. In late 2022, the state legislature was also considering withholding state funds for communities that lack a housing master plan, and overriding local zoning and hearings processes to allow landowners to build affordable housing.
Much of Flint’s piece, though, talks about how state-level zoning and other land use reforms are frequently resisted by local governments.
Still, the effort to apply new standards statewide is facing fierce political opposition at the local level, where land use decisions have historically been made, and where the right to set zoning has been heavily guarded since higher levels of government granted that power a century ago. The resistance warns against “imperialistic rezoning from state capitals,” in the words of one critic, framing the mandates aimed at increasing housing supply as inappropriate state preemption.
Is this the case in Utah? I would say there has been some measure of resistance, or rather I would say push-back to the specifics of the proposed changes, from local officials, not so much because they oppose any changes to land use policies, but rather to allow a more co-operative approach. Flint says later in the piece,
If the key to any public policy reform lies in implementation, that may be especially true with something as entrenched as local control over land use. States intent on reform must convince localities that changing zoning in targeted ways is achievable and will be beneficial.
The success of statewide zoning reform in the future may well hinge on the promise of that kind of state-local collaboration.
That is what I see in the efforts of the League and other local officials to achieve – some kind of collaboration on how to best accomplish the outcomes that are desired. There are, of course, some who just plain don’t want any state meddling in local affairs, but that is not a realistic outcome, either.
Flint’s piece is definitely worth a read. He has been one of my favorite commenters on land use issues for many years. He wraps up his piece with this insightful comment from Sara Bronin of Cornell University:
Bronin agrees that modifying rules established long ago can lead to big-picture payoffs—even as that is a complicated message to convey, since zoning has for such a long time remained unseen in the background.
“Zoning is the most significant regulatory power of local government,” she said. “It not only governs where we can put housing and factories and parks and shops—it actually has significant impacts on the economy, and even, I think, the very structure of our society.”
Here’s wishing us well in the outcomes of our 2023 legislative session!