“If you don’t want state government to make you do it, then figure out how to do it.”

That was Governor Spencer Cox, in his remarks at Wednesday’s Unified Economic Opportunity Commission meeting, referring to local governments around the state and how they should be taking the lead on addressing the housing affordability crisis.

The Wednesday UEOC meeting was the final one before the upcoming legislative session, and was intended to make recommendations to the legislature on a variety of issues for their consideration for action during the session.  One of the areas addressed by the UEOC was housing affordability.  In the post in this blog immediately preceding this one, I listed the recommendations that the Commission on Housing Affordability, a subcommittee of the UEOC, made for the UEOC’s consideration.  The UEOC heard from all their various subcommittees and by and large adopted all the recommendations made to them, including those from the CHA.

What was most notable to me about the meeting, however, were the statements made about the housing crisis by the governor, the Senate chair of the CHA, and the Senate President.  If there was any thought that perhaps state leaders would take a break from further actions on housing and related zoning reform, as the League of Cities and Towns has been advocating (saying, appropriately, that so many changes and programs have been adopted in the last couple of years, there should be a break to allow time to see if those other actions will bear fruit), that was all dashed by the comments of these state leaders.

These statements were so direct and impactful with regard to these leaders’ feelings about the role of local governments, that I have transcribed them and will just lay them out here.  If you have interest, you can listen to them on your own in the recording of the UEOC meeting, starting around minute 33:30.

Here’s the statements:

Governor Cox:

“If I could just underscore, I get asked often what the number one issue in Utah is, what’s my number one issue is.  I will tell you, this is it.  It’s number one, two, and three for me right now.  It’s not just an Utah issue, every state is facing this problem, but it is acute in the Mountain West.  Certainly Utah, Idaho, Colorado, Arizona, we’re seeing this maybe worse than other places in the country.  But this will impact our ability to be prosperous as a society, it will impact our most vulnerable, it will impact the ability of our kids and grandkids to live is this state and be raised near us.  Those of us from rural Utah have for generations understood the pain of having to export our children and grandchildren.  All of Utah is going to start learning what it means to export your children and grandchildren if we are not incredibly serious of increasing significantly the supply of homes.  I can’t underscore this enough.  Every mayor within the sound of my voice, every planning commission, every county commissioner, every city council, this should be your number one issue – what are you going to do, over the next year, to increase the supply of housing in your community, period.  I want to know that.  If you don’t want state government to make you do it, then figure out how to do it.  I know many of you are.  I know I’m going to get yelled at by Mayor Ramsey.  I just want to know.  I know many of you are, but many of you are not. A lot of you are not taking this seriously.  A lot of you think that this is somebody else’s job to do that, that our community is different, our city is unique, our city doesn’t have to act.  Somebody else will do that.  That’s for Vineyard, right? No – no, no, no, no, no.  If you care about your citizens, if you care about this state, if you care about your kids and grandkids, figure out a way to build housing quicker, figure out a way to build housing more cheaply, figure out a way to make decisions faster, figure out a way to streamline everything you want to do.  You can do all of it.  You can do all of it.  You can do it the right way.  You can still do it the right way.  But every day it takes you longer to make a decision, that’s less housing and more expensive housing.  On every added requirement you put on to housing in your community, that’s more expensive housing and less housing.  That’s how this works, all right?  I’m really passionate about this, and you’re not going to like me if we don’t do more of this, I assure you.  Probably not a great thing to say heading into an election year, but I feel very passionate about it.”

Senator Filmore:

“Cities have held local land use authority since time immemorial, but that authority is delegated from the state government, right.  The constitution vests all legislative power up here, and then the legislature wisely delegates that authority to locals, where most decisions ought to be made.  But to the degree that local governments do not address this top statewide issue, they ought to expect that the state government will change the delegated authority that is devolved to local governments.  We need to make sure that local governments are using the authority that they’ve been granted to address this top tier issue.”

Senator Adams:

“Wow, governor, ditto, that’s all I can say.  I appreciate the passion, but I also appreciate the committee for the great work that you’ve done, Senator Filmore and the great, great work.  We’ve got more work to do, but you’re spot on, we believe in local control.  We want the cities to manage their affairs well, but we see this as a partnership, and we see that we can work together, and we see that this is an issue that we have to solve.  Don’t forget the firsttime homebuyer.  We’re losing, in my opinion, the middle class because we don’t have the financial equity or the quality of life.  We need everything from multi-family, first homebuyers, to retirement community homes, to all types of products, so hopefully you’ll take that responsibility in all your communities and try to give that blend of opportunity, to the citizens of the state of Utah.  And do it fast!”

All this indicates that we will certainly see more legislative action on land use, planning and housing in this upcoming session.

In addition to those issues recommended by the UEOC, there are several others that are in play as well, including some from the Land Use Task Force, a recodification of the annexation code, a proposal to require local general plans to include an element on riparian areas, and changes to the recently passed changes to noticing for public meetings and hearings.  More about those in a future posting.