Housing and Affordability

Housing

In the last 15 years, Utah has gone from one of the most affordable and attractive states to live in, to one of the least. Many of Utah's young families are finding themselves priced out of living where they grew up. Near family. Near their work.

It has become more difficult than ever for a hard working Utahn to buy a home.

Our Utah legislature has not addressed the major issues: zoning, lot sizes, and permitting time.

Permits take an egregious amount of time to be issued. We need to reduce that.

Minimum Lot Sizes make home construction on smaller parcels difficult for first time home buyers.

Zoning for higher density housing. Nimby-ism makes homeownership for a growing population impossible.

Affordability

Wages are not keeping up with costs. This is evident in our day to day life. Gas prices are rising which drives food prices up, which, in turn, means that the most vulnerable portions of our population now become less and less able to access necessary nutrition and housing.

These populations include:

Children: Those who are dependent on their parents to provide a home and food. They did not ask to be born into this situation and yet we punish them the most with rising costs.

The Elderly: Those who have paid into a system that promised to take care of them when they got to be this age. But yet, the system is failing them. Many of these are on a fixed income and are not able to meet the demands the economy places on them. This includes a large number of veterans.

What I'm going to do about it:

Address permitting and zoning issues. Look at common sense ways to work with cities and counties to streamline efficient development, zoning and permitting.

Address minimum wage issues. Too many people are working for federal minimum wage. The argument being, "That's a great level of pay for a high school student." Well, many of these people are not high school students. They are adults, trying to live in an increasingly unaffordable world.

Incentivize new building allow commuting lanes. Access to transportation is key to making sure people are able to have a reasonable commute so that they can have lives as well.

Remember, we work to live, not live to work.