In it’s November meeting, the legislature’s Political Subdivisions Interim Committee discussed a bill that would, if passed, establish a Utah Lake Authority. https://le.utah.gov/MtgMinutes/publicMeetingMinutes.jsp?Com=INTPOL&meetingId=17750
A similar bill was introduced during this year’s general session back in January, but did not advance far because of ongoing discussions about the scope and particulars of the Authority. https://le.utah.gov/~2021/bills/static/HB0364.html
Utah Lake has been the subject of concerns about its state and future status as development has surrounded it. The lake’s environmental condition has been a big problem. Several years ago the legislature created the Utah Lake Commission, an advisory body to study issues surrounding the lake, make recommendations and coordinate among the various entities touching that body of water.
You may recall a proposal a couple of years ago for creation of islands in the lake for development, the profits from which would allow for rehabilitation of the lake environment, all of which has been rather controversial. Here’s a good summary of recent lake issues https://www.deseret.com/utah/2021/10/20/22714414/utah-lake-environment-islands-proposal-farming-ranching-utah-legislature-politics-population-growth
The point of my post today is not so much to talk about the specifics of Utah Lake, but to consider how the state deals with land use and growth issues at the statewide (or regional, multi jurisdictional) level.
Back in the 1990s, broad overall growth issues were of concern in states all around the country. A state-level approach that got the term “smart growth” was coined, and took off in places such as Maryland, Florida and Washington state, among several. In Utah, there was talk about state-level growth policies, but not much appetite for putting them in place, as the sacrosanct nature of leaving growth planning decisions to local communities held primary position. Utah officials kind of bristled at the idea that if they didn’t adopt statewide “smart growth” policies, that meant their approach was therefore considered “dumb growth?”
But state level topics were eventually brought up and implemented in what was called “Quality Growth”. Most all of these policies were, however, advisory only. Was this approach successful? Well, the state Quality Growth Commission still exists, but they meet very infrequently and usually only deal with allocation of money for open space preservation, when there is any. Tony Semerad of the Trib wrote a good retrospective of this effort last year, and makes the case for a shift in focus for transportation funding that grew out of this, but beyond that? Well…. https://www.sltrib.com/news/2020/07/11/over-years-ago-utah/
In actuality, it looks to me like we here in the state of Utah take a case-by-case approach to issues of statewide or regional importance. Like the proposed Utah Lake Authority, we’ve created other entities to deal with such issues, like MIDA (Military Installation Development Authority), the Inland Port Authority, the Point of the Mountain Authority, and so on. These entities are often vested with, among other things, land use powers (the Utah Lake Authority would have that power for all land encompassed by the lake, which would include the potential islands). This issue was the primary topic explored at this year’s Utah Land Use Law conference https://utahlanduse.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/2021Brochure6p12.pdf
Is this a good approach? Could or should this extend to such less location-centered issues like housing affordability? More on this in future posts.