Yesterday’s UEOC meeting endorsed a number of other planning-related measures beyond those listed in the Oct. 16 blog post, which it would be good to be aware of.

First, there were a number of housing affordability funding measures that were recommended.  Rather than re-list them all here, you can see them in the slides that were presented during the meeting.  The housing funding proposals can be found on slides 19 and 20.  The policy recommendations are on slides 21-22.

There was another working group that addressed a number of growth-related issues – the Working Group on Growth & Transportation.  Slide 48 shows the emphasis this group placed on intermodal transportation.  This group also made some recommendations for coordination for infrastructure funding (mainly transportation) and local planning and land use – this is essentially what Smart Growth was all about in the 90’s, Utah has finally gotten there!  Interestingly enough, the link calls for more local emphasis to be placed on these housing goals, in order to qualify for enhanced transportation funding:

Owner-occupied; “Missing middle;” Affordable; Smaller lots (< 5000-7000 square feet) and/or townhome; Coordinated with transportation and other infrastructure

More “advanced” goals are outline on slide 50.  The commission also endorsed additional money to be allocated for the Guiding our Growth program, being led by Laura Hanson’s team, to publicize the results of the Guiding our Growth survey and explaining how the goals can be implemented (see slide 51).  Slides 52-54 show some other recommended measures.

Lastly, I guess I can drop another bit of a “bomb” to all this talk of how to manage our growth.  The reactions I’ve gotten from local officials and staff to the comments made by Gov. Cox and the Senators in the meeting, which I posted in the previous entry, have been rather, uh, exceptional.  Not real positive from local officials, who’s feelings generally seem to be, “we’re already trying to do a bunch of stuff, some of which the legislature is requiring of us, and some of which we’re doing on our own.  Really?  You don’t think we’re doing much?”  So, while presenting some of the growth-related transportation measures, Rep. Calvin Musselman said this:

“Yes, we agree on principle that we need to let the policies play out, that is a recommendation from us as well.  But, that being said, there can’t be circumstances where local land use authorities ignore the policies in place.  If that occurs, or continues to occur, either by completely ignoring it or trying to skirt around it, we can recommend not interfering all we want, but it won’t work.  There has to be application of what’s already in place and not kicking it down the road.”

A ”friendly” warning, perhaps?

There’s more to talk about legislatively, watch this space!