Lawmaker looks toward Utah Inland Port, other development, to ease Utah housing crunch
Feb 14, 2025, 10:00 AM | Updated: 10:32 am
FILE: New single family homes under construction in the South Jordan area of the Salt Lake Valley on Monday, Sept. 11, 2023. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)
(Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)
SALT LAKE CITY — Can the Utah Inland Port project provide one of the answers to Utah’s housing crisis?
At least one Utah lawmaker says it can. Utah Senate Majority leader Kirk Cullimore argues that the problem of too few houses, too many potential buyers, and the skyrocketing cost of homes, are a by-product of supply and demand.
“If we get more supply out there, we’re going to see a leveling off,” he told KSL NewsRadio’s Inside Sources. “But we are way behind on supply right now.”
That’s where, Cullimore said, the Utah Inland Port can come in.
Differential revenue
His bill, SB250, would take differential revenue from certain Utah Inland Port project areas and put the money toward what the bill describes as a non-profit housing fund.
Under the proposed bill, homes would then be built within a 15-mile radius of the project area that generated the money.
“Certain reinvestment areas or inland port areas can use tax infrastructure financing tools to help with the development there,” Cullimore said. “But if you’re going to get the benefit of … increment financing, [the bill says] ‘use a portion of that to go towards housing development.'”
Incentivizing developers
If passed, Cullimore said SB250 would also work to incentivize developers to build more starter homes.
“There might be economic development plans that cities or counties or even the state has interest in. [SB250] suggests using some of those funds that are generated by that economic development to go towards housing development.”
Cullimore said funds from economic development could also be used to build the infrastructure needed to create new housing areas.
Zoning laws, cities, and the state
There’s only so much the state can do to persuade cities to change zoning laws, which is one requirement when thinking about creating more affordable housing across Utah.
It’s cities and other localities that control those laws.
“We struggle with this every year … the push and pull between seeing things at a macro level, at the state level, not wanting to step on local control and local zoning,” Cullimore said.
He said that addressing the Utah housing crisis requires city officials to widen their view. And that new legislation may help do that.
“Decisions that are made in South Jordan, for example, have a direct effect on Riverton and Bluffdale and even out to Draper and West Jordan. We’ve got to implement policies that help local policymakers recognize that our community has changed, and we are really one big urban community right now.
“You can’t make these zoning decisions in a bubble. So [we’re] trying to pass policies that help [cities] recognize the regional significance of some of their seemingly local decisions.”
