Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY — Housing industry representatives and advocates for low-income Utahns alike spoke favorably of a legislative proposal intended to create more affordable housing options in Utah by expanding low-income tax credits for developers and offering new incentives for property managers.
Draft legislation, the product of a task force convened by Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox, was presented Wednesday to the Utah Legislature's Economic Development and Workforce Services Interim Committee.
"Affordable housing … is a growing crisis in our state," said Rep. Becky Edwards, R-North Salt Lake, who presented the proposal to the committee.
The issue intersects with other major initiatives the Utah Legislature has worked on in recent years, including the Justice Reinvestment Initiative and efforts to reduce homelessness statewide, she said.
"In addition to those, we have a growing concern with the lack of units that are affordable," meaning housing that does not require more than 30 percent of a household's income, Edwards said.
The draft presented Wednesday aims to increase the availability of affordable housing by boosting the value of tax credits for developers, and funding incentives that may encourage property managers and owners to rent to people who customarily have difficulty finding housing because of criminal records, poor credit histories or previous evictions.
Jonathan Hardy, director of the state Division of Community and Housing, said there is a need statewide for some 43,000 units of affordable housing.
"The bottom line is we have a lot of households paying too much for housing," Hardy said.
Steve Erickson, of Crossroads Urban Center, which advocates for low-income Utahns, said there's a lot of work ahead to create more options for people who need affordable housing, but the proposal is a good start.
"We've got a good bill before us. We hope we can move this forward," Erickson said.
Mike Ostermiller, chief executive officer of the Northern Wasatch Association of Realtors, said the housing industry finds many proposals intended to increase access to affordable housing unworkable because of requirements such as impact fees or surcharges.
"Those are things we could never support. It's never made sense to us to increase the cost of housing in order to create more affordable housing, Ostermiller said.
"What we love about this solution is a couple of things: There's nothing like that here; there's nothing that will artificially increase the cost of housing. This is a great public-private partnership type of solution," he said.
One new component in the 22-page draft legislation is an Economic Revitalization and Investment Fund, which would dedicate new funding for developing more low-income housing opportunities at 30 percent of the area median income or below.
Another component would devote more state funding into transit-oriented development, with a $1 million funding request.
Another part of initiative would invest state money in an "indemnity fund" that would provide incentives for landlords to rent to people who have the greatest difficult securing housing because of poor credit histories, criminal records or previous evictions.
The fund would cover excessive damages to rental units, but "we're optimistic $1 million would last a long time and not be depleted very quickly," Hardy said.
The proposal is still being refined, he said.
