Greetings! I’m back! I’ve been away for some time due to a variety of factors, mainly the end of summer activities, and the heavy workload I got myself into getting sessions lined up for the APA Utah conference, working with the ULUI to get the first Growth Workshops set up, and then holding them in Davis and Weber Counties. And then getting to work on subsequent workshops, which we are modifying because of the feedback from the first two. This all kept me busy enough that I really didn’t feel like I wanted to spend any more time on worklike stuff. But enough excuses.
What I really need to do is get back to doing my job as the APA Utah Legislative Chair and update the membership on what’s happening on the legislative and political front, and suffice it to say, there is a lot going on! I called this year’s legislative session “the year of the planner” because of all the planning- and land use-related legislation that was passed, and all the programs and funding that were approved as well. Well, I think the next legislative session will continue to see a pretty hefty emphasis on our beloved profession as well. There is a lot of churn going on behind the scenes in discussions by such groups as the Land Use Task Force, the Unified Economic Opportunity Commission (UEOC), and the Commission on Housing Affordability (CHA, which is now no longer a free-standing body but is instead a working subcommittee of the UEOC).
The Land Use Task Force has been meeting and discussing a number of things over the summer, including some of the ideas that have been generated in subcommittees of the CHA. I’ve been in most of these meetings, and must say it has been really remarkable the variety and scale of things considered. In keeping with the nature of the LUTF, which is for the group to hash things out collectively first, then bring them out for public view and consideration, I have not been able to write about them and update you all, and that’s still somewhat the case. However, some of the items have been generally discussed just recently in a public meeting, and while I still cannot give details (they’re still being worked on), I can summarize what has been brought forth in the public meetings to give you all a sampling of the tone and content.
The meeting I’m referring to was this last Tuesday’s meeting of the Commission on Housing Affordability. Most of the agenda consisted of reports from it’s subcommittees on the various areas they have been working on, such as rural housing, and low income housing , with recommendations for future legislative and administrative actions. Another of the subcommittees is on “attainable housing,” chaired by CHA member Chris Gamvroulas of Ivory Homes. Chris is also a participant in the land use task force, and his subcommittee is where many of the most interesting planning and land use topics have been explored. As I noted, many of the subcommittee’s topics have been extensively discussed by the LUTF, and at Tuesday’s meeting, Chris gave a report on these topics.
The first concept Chris reported to the CHA committee yesterday was to consider a requirement that Moderate Income Housing (MIH) plans be adopted by ordinance by local governments, and that they must be adhered to in subsequent land use decisions (in the planning profession’s parlance, this is called a consistency requirement; that is, local land use actions and decisions must be consistent with an adopted plan). Part of the idea behind this is not just to try and make local jurisdictions take MIH planning more seriously and to actually implement it, but also that by making the adoption of the MIH plan the main policy and legislative action, any subsequent action by the local government, including rezoning, becomes administrative (implementing the adopted policy) and thus not subject to referendum. (side note – referenda are being increasingly seen as a major problem for land use actions, as evidenced by what goes on in California and increasingly in Utah, and there should be actions taken to deal with this threat. Another example – the recent Affordable Housing Task Force exercise in Cache County identified referenda as one of the three major problems contributing to the housing crisis. More on this a little later in this report).
Next Chris indicated that there should be more disincentives in place for those actors who do not comply with or take seriously the MIH planning and implementation requirements. He noted the stipulation put in place by last legislative session’s HB462, which says that if the state Division of Housing and Community Development determines that a jurisdiction’s plans or implementation actions are not in compliance with the requirements of HB462, that jurisdictions can be disqualified from receiving state Transportation Infrastructure Funds or Transit TIF funds. Chris suggested that a more impactful consequence would be the withholding of B&C road funds, for one. He also noted the idea of amending the law to allow for those suing local governments not in compliance with state land use requirements, to be able to recover attorneys’ fees.
Chris then talked about building on last session’s bill which would require local incentives for retail development to also plan and provide for affordable housing, be extended to all economic development incentive programs.
Chris then wrapped up his report by noting ideas to look at ways to speed up the review and approval of development applications, and to develop uniform requirements for development engineering standards for public facilities like streets, sewer and water lines, etc.
Cameron Diehl, executive director of the Utah League of Cities and Towns, was then asked to respond to the items outlined by Chris in his report. Chris and Cam both noted that these ideas have been subjects of discussion for several weeks now by the Land Use Task Force, which includes representatives from both local governments and the development community, and there had been quite a bit of back-and-forth on them.
On the MIH plan consistency idea, Cam stated that the concept was still under discussion, that no agreement had been reached. As to the idea of imposing additional “penalties” for non-compliance with MIH requirements, Cam suggested that the penalties put in place by HB462 haven’t had time to take effect yet, and it might be wise to wait and see how that played out first, that it might be enough to achieve the compliance desired. The idea of additional requirements for including housing provisions for economic development incentives, he said, was one worthy of consideration but no agreement had yet been reached.
On uniform residential development public facilities standards, Cam pointed out that a working group comprised of local government and private engineers and public works builders was on-going and it appeared that some type of agreement looked likely to be reached soon.
In responding to the speeding up for development applications, Cam reiterated the “ripcord” provision currently in LUDMA. He also brought up the issue of administrative actions on land use applications. Many such applications, for things like conditional use permits, subdivisions, site plans, and others are put through a process similar to that for rezones and general plan amendments. The state code is currently silent on how such applications are to be treated, and Cam noted that there appears to be agreement among the League membership that perhaps this process should be looked at for further definition on how public input should be handled and how the process should work. This may then benefit housing affordability by making review of applications for housing developments more streamlined.
CHA co-chair Sen. Lincoln Fillmore expressed his hope that the subcommittee would soon come to agreement on actions to be considered, as he is due to report the CHA’s recommendations on what to do to the full UEOC, which is chaired by Governor Cox and includes House Speaker Brad Wilson and Senate President Stuart Adams, in November. He then asked Cam if he felt it was true that cities and towns were much quicker to approve commercial development applications than ones for residential development. Cam wisely answered that it all depended on the scale and type of the development. But the question Sen. Fillmore was asking had to do with the incentives given to local governments by the rules the legislature had put in place over the years which provides more tax benefit to communities for commercial uses than for residential. He then asked Cam if he could come up with data that might display this disparity in development approval timeframes.
Finally, the chair of the low income housing subcommittee, UTA Trustee Beth Holbrook, spoke up and indicated that if the desire was to make something actually happen legislatively that would better facilitate affordable housing, the issue of referenda should be looked at (I told you we’d get back to this!). She mentioned that a large part of HB462 was devoted to the requirement for communities and UTA to develop station area plans around fixed-rail transit stations. Part of this section of code includes a provision that if the plan is approved by a 2/3 majority of the governing body of the community, it is not subject to the referendum process (this is based on a provision in the state constitution that applies explicitly to the state legislature, but not so clearly to other legislative bodies). Beth suggested that this provision should perhaps be considered to also be applied to the requirements for MIH plans and implementation.
Whew! That is one long summary of what happened in this week’s CHA meeting. If this is of interest to you, I’d suggest you take a listen to the discussions in the meeting itself, at this link https://www.utah.gov/pmn/files/890251.m4a. The discussion I just report on starts at about 1 hour 12 minutes into the meeting.
Now, just an additional note – the LUTF has also discussed changes to the state annexation code. There is an immediate fix that is being considered, for the definition of rural real property (which has been an issue in several recent annexation proposals). Everyone has also generally agreed for years now that the annexation code is a mess because of frequent amendments and inconsistent policies and approaches. A complete rewrite of the annexation chapter of the state code was agreed to (without any major policy changes, just a reordering and cleaning up of the code), which is being worked on now. This may not be ready to go for the upcoming legislative session, but at least it is in process. Whew!
Okay, that’s the major news. There’s still plenty of other things going on, like water issues, short-term rental issues, etc. As I learn more about these, I’ll pass them along as well. I’ve gone on long enough for this entry. See you again soon!