At the first meeting of the League’s Legislative Policy Committee Wednesday, League Executive Director Cameron Diehl kicked off the discussion about housing and land use issues with a couple of recent news stories from other states (I’ll get to them in a bit) about how zoning and land use reform in those states isn’t going so great because the locals are not bought in to the edicts coming from the state level.  This has been a consistent theme I’ve sounded in posts on this blog for some time.  While Utah hasn’t made the flashy and attention-getting moves that other states have on this topic (I would argue that there are plenty of laudable moves that have been made), because the effort has been more of a collaborative one between state and local governments, it has been better received and more likely to be implemented.

But a couple of things are starting to threaten this approach.  One is the slow pace of progress to achieve visible and measurable results in housing supply and affordability.  Unfortunately, this is the nature of the beast, that these needed changes don’t happen quickly.  It’s rather like turning a big fully loaded oil supertanker – it takes a lot of time and a lot of room.  And as the statistics on housing affordability continue to show lack of progress, patience is wearing thin.  That wearing out of patience is showing up in statements from some state leaders, cited in previous postings, that maybe the time has come to take a stronger top-down approach, much as has been done in other states.  In Thursday’s initial 2025 meeting of the Land Use Task Force, state housing czar (sorry, Steve!) Steve Waldrip cited a litany of measures that have been taken in other states that are being closely looked at by state-level leaders.  Property Rights Coalition spokesperson Chris Gamvroulas of Ivory Development doubled down by telling the group that non-profit Ivory Innovations had just announced their 2025 winners of the Ivory Prize for Housing Innovation, and in the category of Policy and Regulatory Reform, the winner was Florida’s 2023 Live Local Act, which was a mix of financing and regulatory measures, including stipulations for qualifying projects to be able to override local land use regulations (the bill, however, had the support of the Florida Municipal League, so its implementation may be positive).

Reason magazine’s Christian Britschi authored a piece this week that sought to demonstrate the hazards of putting in place state-level legislation and mandates without local collaboration – the result often is, implementation suffers.  Britschi wrote:

Colorado’s state-level zoning preemptions are predicated on the idea that local governments have powerful incentives to oppose additional housing construction, to the detriment of statewide housing affordability. Localities therefore need to be told by the state to lift some of their restrictions.

The difficulty in implementing such laws is that the state, even with a mandate, is still practically relying on local elected officials to amend local laws they, and many of their voters, didn’t want to change in the first place.

Witness California’s local governments constantly finding new and creative ways to flout or undermine state laws prodding them to permit more housing.

Local intransigence to comply with state mandates, or to even deal with the issue on their own initiative, is the third reason why the collaborative approach may find itself struggling.  How to deal with local foot-dragging (even if it is only by a few)?  Britschi enumerates measure undertaken in some other states:

Fiscal incentives, both positive and negative, are a slightly more direct way to motivate compliance on the part of localities.

An even more direct method might be to pair state preemption with state entitlements. That is, let developers bypass scofflaw jurisdictions and apply directly to the state for permission to build state-permitted housing (recall what happened here when the legislature in effect gave the Dakota Pacific project the go-ahead in 2023 and again in the 2025 session, over the authority of the county government).

In her abortive 2023 Housing Compact, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul proposed creating a state body to approve housing projects in jurisdictions that were undershooting state-set housing production targets.

Another option would be giving private property owners more general rights to sue over zoning restrictions.

A bill considered (and rejected) by the Montana Legislature this year would have enabled private property owners to challenge effectively any land use restriction in court. Local governments would have the burden of showing that their restriction was a necessary and narrowly tailored means of protecting health and safety or eliminating nuisances.

There are plenty of instances where local governments drag their feet, actively oppose, or outright refuse to implement state land use mandates.

In Colorado:

Leaders of a growing number of Colorado cities are indicating they don’t intend to comply with recently passed state laws that will pre-empt local governments’ control of parking, housing density and other land use issues.

Local governments in Colorado and across the U.S. have historically had domain over the rules that shape their growth. State legislators took a swipe at that last year, passing a suite of bills aimed at increasing the state’s housing supply and boosting transit use by requiring some cities to allow more accessory dwelling units, apartments, townhomes, duplexes, and other multi-family dwellings, and less parking in certain areas.

… local governments are pushing back. Officials in Westminster, Arvada, Colorado Springs, and Northglenn have at least suggested, and in some cases explicitly said, that they won’t follow some of the laws. They cite varied issues like inadequate infrastructure, unreliable transit service, and the loss of neighborhood character.

There’s one common objection, too: the loss of local control.

“Folks, this is insanity,” Westminster Mayor Nancy McNally said during a City Council meeting earlier this month in which she and other members directed city staff to not to comply with three of the new laws.

It’s unclear whether the conflicts will escalate to legal action, though some cities have already discussed the possibility of suing the state over the laws. How the disputes shake out could help determine where development powers rest in Colorado, and how its residents live and move through it in the future.

In Arizona:

As housing affordability continues to dominate political agendas, state legislatures attempting to encourage once-ubiquitous starter homes face stiff resistance from local governments that fear losing control over zoning.

Lawmakers have been trying to neutralize or circumvent zoning rules and regulatory hurdles at the local levels that drive up costs and stall new construction, heeding calls for relief to give first-time homebuyers a fighting chance.

The biggest impediment: Arguments from the League of Arizona Cities and Towns that the legislation would lead investors to buy and rent those homes.

While supporting the need for more affordable housing, the organization, like similar ones around the country, advocates for its 91 member cities and towns to retain total control over their zoning.

State Sen. Mitzi Epstein voted against it because of wording she believes is too broad. She cited the line that:

a property owner’s right to use the property owner’s property, protected from unreasonable abridgment by municipal regulation and enforcement, is a matter of statewide concern and is not subject to further regulation by a municipality.”

In Texas:

The scene was a familiar one at Austin City Hall: The City Council once again was seeking reforms to curb the capital city’s sky-high home prices and rents, and opponents had turned out in force to try to block them.

The central idea behind the reforms: Austin needed a lot more homes and it would have to relax certain city rules to see them built.

On a Thursday in May, more than 150 people signed up to denounce the changes. Among them were homeowners who complained the overhaul would wreck the character of their single-family neighborhoods and anti-gentrification activists who feared it would further displace communities of color.

In North Dallas, neighborhood groups recently sought to recall their City Council member over her support for ongoing plans to replace a low-lying, waning shopping center called Pepper Square with shops, restaurants and almost 1,000 apartments. She later opted not to seek reelection, though she said the development fight didn’t influence her decision.

That points to an obvious outcome, if cities don’t make moves to address housing on their own, or actively resist measures coming from the state legislature so far – increased mandates, less flexibility and less cooperation.  A growing YIMBY movement in Texas points out the ramifications.

That flummoxed Melissa Kingston, a member of a key city panel that voted in August to advance the proposal. If they don’t want more housing in their single-family neighborhoods, Kingston told them at a recent meeting, that housing needs to go somewhere as the region grows.

“What I’ve heard you all say is, ‘We don’t want it in our neighborhood and we don’t want it anywhere near our neighborhood,’” Kingston said. “That’s not reality. Cities change, and they either change for the better or they change for the worse. But they don’t stay the same.”

“If you put your neighborhoods in amber, you’re literally saying ‘people can’t live here,’” said Felicity Maxwell, a board member of the Austin YIMBY group AURA. “We can’t stay like that. There’s no way to make your city freeze. And if you do, there’s a lot of dire economic and social outcomes because of that.”

The bottom line of all this for us here in Utah is, to maintain collaboration and avoid heavy-handed state top-down mandates on land use and zoning, locals need to do something.  Now, many are, but many are not.  It doesn’t help when you see things like what has occurred just recently in our fair state.

The Orem city council, after initial resistance, approved a rezone sought by the owner for an island of agricultural land in the middle of the city.  The reaction of the citizens?

What is now Wilkerson Farm could soon become a residential subdivision – but neighbors aren’t giving up any ground just yet.

“It’s not just about the farm,” said Orem resident James Brown. “This is about representative government.”

Brown is among eight sponsors who’ve applied for a referendum on the rezoning issue.

“We had almost 1,900 signatures on a petition saying don’t do this,” Brown said.

There’s a number of issues in this case, which makes it more nuanced and complicated than it may appear, but examples like this have a way of being cited as local opposition to allowing for more housing, which will be the perception at the legislative level.

Another recent example – the proposed incorporation of Granite in Salt Lake County.  The main reason cited in the news story for the move?

Some residents in Granite — an unincorporated area located in southeast Salt Lake County near the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon — want to preserve the community by becoming a new city. They want to keep the rural and distinct flavor of the area forged by early pioneers mining for the rock to be used in construction of the Salt Lake Temple.

“The community has a real rural feel with animals, large lots, rural streets and a small town feel to it. The residents want to incorporate to maintain the rural nature of their community.”

Remember the quote by the Texas YIMBY activist about communities wanting to encase themselves in amber?  If everyone opts to do this, where’s the new housing to go?  How do you think this will play with certain legislators?

It’s gonna be an interesting year coming up.