Gov. Cox creates new council to help prepare Utah for a bright future

Yahoo

4 days ago

As the state of Utah continues to grow rapidly, a new coordinating council will bring together various state agencies and other entities to coordinate and communicate plans for the future in order to keep quality of life in the state from decreasing.
On Wednesday, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed an executive order to create the BUILD coordinating council. BUILD stands for: Blueprint for Utah's Infrastructure, Land, and Development.
The council will coordinate efforts between multiple agencies for long-term planning in the state and will be chaired by state planning coordinator and senior adviser to the governor Laura Hanson.
Hanson said the creation of this council comes as Utah is at a pivotal point where the state is growing rapidly. When this growth first started, many Utahns were excited about it, Hanson said.
'But we've hit a point where Utahns are starting to feel a little anxious about the growth and a little bit of concern, worry that the Utah of the future may not be as high quality as the Utah of today,' Hanson said.
The council will include people from various state agencies such as the Department of Public Safety, the Department of Transportation and the Department of Environmental Quality. Other associations represented on the council include the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce, Janet Quinney Lawson Institute for Land, Water, and Air, and the Utah Association of Counties.
'As Utah evolves, everything from water use to transportation is affected,' said Cox, according to a press release. 'This council will help us combine efforts and make better decisions to maintain the quality of life that makes Utah exceptional.'
'The goal of this coordinating council is to bring together decision makers and thought leaders and researchers in a whole variety of different policy areas, from transportation, air quality, economic development, housing, water, homelessness and public safety, the Olympics, but also local governments and private sector partners through the chamber to come together and have a conversation about what is the kind of Utah that we want for the future,' Hanson said.
The council will meet to discuss the various planning efforts of the different groups and how to coordinate those efforts.
Hanson said the goal is to 'ensure that we are moving toward the shared goals that we have as Utahns, and make sure that the future is just as great as it is today, and that we don't lose all the things that make Utah special, even as we bring in a larger population.'
Different state agencies and other groups are developing their own long-range plans and goals within their areas, and this new council will provide a way for these efforts and different entities within the state to be aligned and coordinated.
The creation of this council builds on HCR11, which was passed by the state Legislature in 2024 and focused on cross-issue impacts.
'Even if a policy area doesn't directly touch another policy area, there are indirect connections between these things like transportation and our air quality, like our housing and development patterns and our water consumption or preservation of agricultural land and open space. There are all these connections between these various different topics,' Hanson said.
She added that, many times, policymakers and state agencies are focused on specific, individual issues, but regular Utahns are concerned about quality of life as a whole, and this council will be able to align many different issues in order to make sure Utah as a whole continues to improve.
Specific areas that the council will be looking into include water, transportation, housing, air quality and recreation.
'It is very broad, which I think, is a challenge, but it's also an opportunity for us to think really holistically about where we want Utah to be in the future,' Hanson said.
The coordinating council will meet together four times a year, with Hanson as the chair. Two yet-to-be-named co-chairs who will work with Hanson. One will be an executive branch co-chair and the other will be an external stakeholder co-chair.
Hanson added that some sort of executive committee might also be formed within the council that can do work in between the quarterly meetings.
The council's first meeting will be on July 22 at 9:30 a.m. at the Capitol. This meeting will be open to the public.
At the first meeting, the group will start identifying what stakeholders want Utah to look like in the future and set statewide goals based on public input from the past. The different state agencies and entities involved will also be able to share their goals and plans for the future and how those can affect other areas and groups.
'So now we're building those connections, and it's really all about coordination. It's about talking together more. It's about being intentional about the future that we want.'
The council will also develop an annual report that will be given to the governor and Legislature. This report will discuss changes that are happening in the state, constraints on natural resources and infrastructure, and will outline a list of high priority areas that need to be focused on as a state.
'We have limited resources, but we have tons of needs, and so this is an opportunity for us to come together and say, OK, with our limited resources, which focus areas are going to get us the biggest bang for the buck, what are the most critical things that can make or break quality of life in Utah,' Hanson said.