Did the 2025 Legislature do enough for housing affordability in Utah?

Yahoo

08-03-2025

The chairman of the powerful Senate Rules Committee, Sen. Lincoln Fillmore, R-South Jordan, clearly hasn't been pleased with the progress made on affordable housing at the 2025 Legislature.
When asked at a Senate media availability in the final weeks of the session if enough action has been taken this session given Utah voters put housing as their top priority in a new Sutherland Institute survey, Fillmore didn't hold back.
'The Legislature has done a lot over the last couple of years,' Fillmore said, including creating a $50 million first-time homebuyer program in 2023. Sponsored by Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, the program provides up to $20,000 in loans to eligible buyers.
And last year, Gov. Spencer Cox helped push through novel legislation authorizing the state treasurer's office to make roughly $300 million in public investment funds available for three years for low-interest loans to developers building affordable homes.
In January, the governor stressed in his State of the State address that he remains committed to getting 35,000 starter homes, defined as single family units under $400,000, built over the next few years.
But Fillmore told reporters the shortage of starter homes in the state hasn't been adequately addressed this session.
'As long as Utah is a fantastic place to live, we're going to have demand for homes. We need to find ways to increase the supply of homes, particularly homes at the bottom rung, the first rung, of the home ownership ladder,' he said. 'That's really what we're missing.'
Attempts to boost supply this session have not been successful, Fillmore said.
'I do confess to this year being a little bit disappointed in what I felt like we were able to get done,' he said. 'We're getting some good policy in, but a lot of the proposals that really would have made a big difference in increasing supply have not passed.'
He cited efforts by Rep. Ray Ward, R-Bountiful, to mandate increased housing density in urban municipalities, including allowing single-family homes to be built on lots as small as 6,000 square feet.
That bill, HB90, was held in committee. Fillmore was its Senate sponsor.
'Cities very jealously guard their ability to restrict the supply of housing,' Fillmore said. 'That is a challenge for people who want to build homes, for people who want to buy homes and for people like us that are really interested in increasing the supply of housing.'
The senator quickly added that he wasn't talking about all local governments and made a point of praising Salt Lake City, South Jordan and other cities for the 'really great work' being done on housing there.
But, he said, 'it's been a little bit frustrating this year that really meaningful policies that would make a big difference in increasing the supply of first homes just have not been able to move because of the roadblocks created by local government.'
Adams tempered that sentiment before moving on to another topic.
'That's a high priority and we're going to keep working on it,' the Senate president said.
Cameron Diehl, executive director of the Utah League of Cities and Towns, said plenty did happen on housing this year.
'I actually think there have been some important bills this year that will make a difference in the land-use process space, and will make a difference in the housing affordability space,' Diehl told the Deseret News.
Among the legislation on his list is a Fillmore bill easing garage requirements for some new homes. The bill, SB181, was part of a consensus package of bills backed by the state Coalition on Housing Affordability that's co-chaired by Fillmore and Rep. Stephen Whyte, R-Mapleton.
When that bill was heard by a House committee, Fillmore referred to it as affordable housing legislation focused on parking by offering 'this really, novel, new way to think about parking, which is a two-car garage counts as two parking spaces.'
What that means is housing defined by a municipality as affordable and deed-restricted to owner occupancy doesn't need a garage but could be required to have on-site parking. Coming up with that compromise took some nine months of negotiations.
He used the word 'disappointing' again in committee when agreeing that local governments still have the power to mandate garages be built for other homes and described the bill as a 'good incremental step' towards affordable housing that 'nobody loves.'
Diehl sees the bill as ensuring the financial benefit from a city not requiring a garage goes to the homeowner, since those properties would have to be built as affordable, owner-occupied housing.
What the league opposes, he said, is any state presumption over land use planning.
'Everyone acknowledges the challenges around finding a place to live. City leaders recognize that, which is why we've spent a lot of time over the last few years looking to improve our land use processes and making efforts in what we can do,' Diehl said.
Utah communities, which have oversight responsibilities for new construction, have 'planned for many housing units that have not yet been built for market forces that are outside of our control,' Diehl said. 'So we get the frustration.'
For Tara Rollins, executive director of the Utah Housing Coalition, the biggest frustration this session was the failure of a bill she and other advocates saw as key to helping the state's low-income renters, HB286.
The bill would have diverted a share of state liquor sales to the Olene Walker Housing Loan Fund but was held by a House committee after a member, House Majority Leader Jefferson Moss, R-Saratoga Springs, suggested avoiding 'trying to find piecemeal ways to get around things.'
Backers joined the bill's sponsor, Rep. Carol Spackman Moss, D-Holladay, at a news conference at the Capitol called to revive interest in the idea, which could have added $28 million to the fund named for Utah's first woman governor. It didn't work.
'That's what we worked the hardest on,' Rollins said, noting the loan fund has helped with a lot of development over the years. She said the Legislature hasn't done enough this session to make housing more affordable, for either renters or buyers.
Gov. Spencer Cox's housing adviser, Steve Waldrip, said that and other issues left on the table this session will likely be hashed out as work continues on a new statewide housing plan set to be completed this fall.
The second phase of putting together the plan will be 'where the rubber meets the road,' Waldrip said. A balance will need to be found on issues like housing density, he said, where reductions in lot sizes will be weighed against preserving neighborhoods and quality of life.
But that doesn't mean there weren't significant efforts to make housing more affordable, Waldrip said. However, he said unlike with past programs, what's been accomplished just hasn't attracted a lot of attention.
'What we have done has kind of flown under the radar,' Waldrip said, pointing to changes made by HB360 that expand how the $300 million made available by the 2024 Legislature for the governor's starter homes initiative can be used.
Only about $30 million has been loaned out so far, Waldrip said, but the bill that passed in the final hours of the session earmarks money for programs that ready older houses that are currently being rented in Salt Lake City and Ogden to be sold as starter homes.
The bulk of the remaining dollars available for loans can now go towards building 'starter condos,' Waldrip said. The units, which he said could include conversions of existing apartments, would need to be 'truly affordable,' priced as much as $75,000 below market.
He anticipates there will be a mix of single-family homes and condominiums built. Construction on new condos could start as soon as this fall and going a long way towards meeting Cox's starter home goal, Waldrip said.
'That will probably have the most impact on the creation of starter units of anything that we do this session,' he said. 'There's a lot to go. We're fighting an uphill battle. We're growing faster than we're building.'
What's tricky, Waldrip said, has been figuring out the best way to unleash private markets to help solve a shortage of affordable housing that is way too big for government to try to 'subsidize out of existence.'
Allowing the state loan funds to be used to build condominiums may end up making a bigger impact on that shortage 'than anything else that we've done in the last 10 years,' he said, even though 'it's not as sexy or as flashy as some of the other things.'
Contributing: Brigham Tomco