The substitute for the housing bill is now out, HB462 – Utah Housing Affordability Amendments, 1st substitute which has the station area plans requirements included. There is a lot here to be digested, and I have to admit I haven’t had the time to look it over completely and ascertain all the changes and things that are in this bill, but I’ll try. To help with this, here’s a summary of the bill as it now exists prepared jointly by the League and the Wasatch Front Regional Council.
A couple of things that I have picked up from looking this bill over. The Station Area Plans (SAP) requirements are included, as are the Moderate Income Housing (MIH) provisions, in the general plan section of LUDMA. The provisions for the SAPs are quite detailed and involved, much more so than for any of the previously included elements for the general plan. So I’ll just repeat my comments about that from earlier, this is all great a good, but in the end general plans are advisory only under state code. Many of the provisions for SAPs and MIHs being put into this section of LUDMA are rather mandatory as to what is to be considered and how it is to be done, but in the end, all this for a plan that is only advisory? And it isn’t really just “advisory” anymore, because these new amendments provide that if they are not complied with, certain types of state funding can be withheld from the offending communities. MIH provisions require detailed reporting to a state agency, and can be the basis for withholding of other types of funds. And SAPs, under this proposal, must be reviewed and certified by the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO). Also, there are requirements in the SAP stuff that say that if a land use application is submitted before a community has had a chance to complete the SAP element, it must be completed within a 12 month period. Also if it includes residential development, the application must then be processed on a first priority basis. All this doesn’t sound very “advisory only” to me anymore. I’m not disagreeing with these provisions necessarily, I think there’s a lot of benefit that will come from them (if nothing else, they are certainly full-employment measures for planners! 😊). We just need to have a bigger discussion about the advisory-only nature of general plans and if that should be reconsidered and modified in light of the expectations that are being put on this document by these new provisions being added.
Another interesting provision included in this bill with regard to SAPs is this: “a proposed referendum is not legally referable to voters for a transit area land use law, as defined in Section 20A-7-6, if the transit area land use law was passed by a two-thirds vote of the local legislative body.” Now it is clear that the adoption of a general plan or any part of it is a legislative act and it has been my understanding that legislative acts by any elected body are subject to the referendum process by the citizens. However, better legal minds than mine have pointed out that the state constitution provides an exception for the state legislative actions that are adopted by a two-thirds majority. The theory here is that that same provision can be applied to local legislative actions as well. Okay. We shall see.
The bill is rolling along. It was passed late yesterday afternoon by the House and has been sent over to the Senate. The other big land use bill, HB303 – Local Land Use Amendments, is awaiting a vote on the Senate floor, after which it will be sent back to the House for their concurrence, so it’s close to being done as well.
Send in your cards and letters, folks, as you read these bills and spot something of interest to you. But as noted, there’s not much time left!
I haven’t talked much about the funding aspects of the housing provisions of these bills. Here’s a good story that will help you get a better sense of what’s going on with all that.
Okay, now that the biggies are somewhat handled, I’ll try to do some descriptions of the other more “minor” bills that are still hanging fire out there in an upcoming post.