Yesterday, Gov. Spencer Cox signed a raft of growth, housing and transportation bills in a ceremony set in Herriman. The signings included three of the significant land use bills – HB364: Housing affordability amendments; HB406: Land use, development and management act; and SB174: Local land use and development revisions.
Dozens of current and former lawmakers, local leaders, transportation officials, housing advocates and more accompanied the governor, speaking briefly to the bevy of bills that Cox said are aimed at “managing growth and growing in the right way.”
Cox told reporters that Herriman, and other parts of southwest Salt Lake County, exemplify that sentiment, pointing to the “density that we’re seeing in different places. I talk about Daybreak a lot. One of the things I really like about Daybreak is you have different types of housing all in the same neighborhoods. You have multi-family housing, which is cheaper, and rentals, then you have starter homes and middle income homes and higher income homes all in the same neighborhood,” Cox said.
Referring to the bills passed by the legislature this session that he was signing at the ceremony, Cox also said,
“We understand that if we’re going to maintain our high quality of life, and we’re going to make use of a place where our kids and grandkids can live, we really must focus on providing more housing opportunities. We need to build more trails and recreation opportunities and invest more in strategic infrastructure.”
“…we really must focus on providing more housing opportunities.” No doubt, we have not seen the end of further efforts to “reform,” or at least modify, land use rules and processes. The Unified Economic Opportunity Commission at its meeting last week charged its working groups, including subcommittees (one of which is the former Commission on Housing Affordability) to report back next month with their work plans for the coming year. The Land Use Task Force will be gearing up sometime soon, and will surely address a number of land use areas. And the Legislative Management Committee last week also set forth its list of interim study items, which include a number of land use and growth issues (more on this in an upcoming post).
Actions in other states also points to the fact that this issue of land use or zoning reform is, in the words of a Monty Python sketch, “not dead yet!” A recent story by Atlantic writer Jerusalem Demsas (who, as I’ve noted previously, is rapidly becoming one of my favorite writers) notes that many states have become like California (even when they say they don’t want to be) in adopting restrictive housing regulations, and now some are again behaving like California as they try to unwind those policies through top-down mandates.
How did so many American municipalities end up with “California-style” policies? As the economist William Fischel writes, zoning was not “the product of circumstances in one particular place” but a response to “popular demand, … (as homeowners,) terrified that their residential communities would be overrun with “noxious” uses, …began demanding zoning regulations that would protect them from people and buildings that they thought would reduce the value of their homes. ”
As a side note here, Utah again gets a mention in a Demsas piece, in how we are similar to California:
Population growth spurred California’s economic growth. But as people flocked to the state, cities and suburbs refused to change the built environment to accommodate these newcomers. From 2010 to 2020, the state permitted (not built—just permitted) one home for every 2.54 jobs it added. In this, it did lead the country. Utah had the next-worst ratio: It permitted one home for every 1.57 jobs.
The purported solution in California, and now in an increasing number of other states, is top-down, state-mandated land use and zoning “reform.” I’ve written about this a number of times previously, and noted that in Utah we have had at least moderate success in using a more collaborative approach between state and local leaders. In fact, in last week’s UEOC meeting, statements were made about this, and a call was made to find ways to be even more collaborative. This is important if we are to succeed in the goal of establishing more affordable housing. Demsas throws out a number of examples where the top-down approach is having a rough time:
In North Carolina, a 2021 bill to legalize small multifamily buildings in certain communities buckled under opposition from town leaders. In Maine, a similar effort to legalize denser housing types was watered down after opposition from municipal leaders. And in Virginia, an attempt to legalize duplexes in more of the state didn’t even make it past committee, as legislators balked at challenging local control.
Yet, if housing affordability is to improve, things have got to change, and local leaders have to be part of that. More on this topic coming up.