A couple of weeks ago I saw an intriguing letter to the editor in the newspaper written by Jeremy Hafen, CEO of the Clyde Companies (large-scale construction), about the challenges of growth in Utah. “It is no secret why Utah has been one of the fastest-growing states,” he says. He then posits, “Can we just say “NO” to growth?” His conclusion is that we really can’t. What is needed is good planning and growth management.
“No growth” is not an option. There are many great minds and capable people tackling this front. I applaud communities who use the tools of “Wasatch Choice Vision” and hope Envision Utah’s state-funded project on growth constraints unveils real solutions and unlocks meaningful resources for better growth.
Over the span of my career as a planner, and now as I sit as a member of my community’s planning commission, I have often heard the plea from residents as new development projects come forward for review, “Don’t approve it. We don’t want it. We don’t want things to change, we want our community just as it is.” I admit to feeling that way sometimes myself. But that’s not realistic, nor is it wise, to basically take the “head in the sand” approach. Growth is happening, whether we want it or not.
Just yesterday, it was reported that Utah is one of the 10 hottest housing markets in the country. What does that mean?
Zillow looked at the housing market in the nation’s top 50 metropolitan areas by population to come up with this year’s rankings, analyzing forecasted home value growth, how quickly homes are selling, and projected growth in jobs, housing construction and home ownership.
We have been phenomenally successful at developing the economy in our state, to the point where we re one of the main attractors of new residents, and we continue to have lots of our own kids (though not as many as in the past!). So growth is happening, and more is coming. What happens when we don’t anticipate and plan for all those new folks? Our roads, our parks, our ski areas, our schools even, get more crowded and less pleasant to use. And are we keeping up with all the new homes that are needed with this growth? Apparently not, as we have been hearing now for several years.
Utah is also ranked as the nation’s third-least affordable state for homebuyers by Tradingpedia. Only Hawaii and California have higher home price to income ratios… . According to the website’s analysis, homes in Utah cost on average more than eight times the state’s annual personal per capita income… .
To my fellow citizens, who say keep things the same, I say if we do, no one will be able to afford to live here, certainly not our own kids. We must think ahead, to what our communities can look like in the future. It’ll be different, no doubt about that. The question is, will it be different in a way we could like, or in a way that no one will like?
So, having spread that good news, let’s get back into the weeds of trying to manage that growth.
Another new bill popped out yesterday to deal with the housing affordability issue. This one, HB149 – Single Family Homes Ownership Amendments, would prohibit the ownership of single-family homes in the state by “institutional investors,” defined in the bill. The idea here is that with the market being as tight and hot as it is, big financial companies who are now seeing an investment opportunity in buying and renting homes (and getting that real-estate appreciation over time as well) can easily outbid families trying to buy homes. That is apparently an issue in some places, but not so much in Utah. In a KSL report on the proposed bill, Dejan Eskic at the Gardner Policy Institute said,
“Institutional investors represent less than 3% of our current single-family rental stock… .” “They are not the issue in our market like they are say, for example, in Atlanta where they represent 25% of the market, or in Jacksonville, Florida where they are about 21% of the market.”
Bill sponsor Rep. Tyler Clancy, however,
…acknowledged the low percentage of Utah homes owned by institutional investors, but he said it’s still time to do something about it.
“If we can get ahead of this issue before it becomes 10%, 12% of the market share, that’s where we’re going to have the best impact,” he said.
There’s also a question of whether government can legally prohibit anyone from owning a free-market home, but that apparently is a question to be settled another day.
More bills to come, without a doubt!