SLC puts another $11.5M into affordable housing. Here’s where the money is going.

It may be acting under a new name these days, but Salt Lake City’s redevelopment arm keeps pushing millions of dollars toward support for affordable housing.

Under the umbrella of its former Redevelopment Agency — now called the Community Reinvestment Agency, or CRA — the city has approved spending more than $11.5 million this year in subsidizing affordable rentals, encouraging new accessory dwellings to be built and boosting homeownership for those at more moderate incomes.

After a series of votes at City Hall on Tuesday, some $5.3 million of that cash will fund low-interest loans to a new round of four affordable apartment projects, promising as many as 482 new dwellings between them.

The spending is part of a program the city has offered since 2018. It’s meant to provide so-called gap funding for certain housing projects that already have significant financing from other sources, in an attempt to improve affordability as Utah’s capital continues to cope with a dire shortage of homes accessible to those making typical wages.

This year, that will include $1 million toward ongoing work by the development arm of the city’s Housing Authority to turn the former Public Safety Building, at 315 E. 200 South, into a multi-building residential and community hub with a total of 244 homes, to be known as The Grove.

That $1 million will fuel a 56-unit piece of The Grove as part of preserving and converting what’s also called the historic Northwest Pipeline Building to new uses. This phase of the project will center on two- and three-bedroom dwellings, city documents indicate, with some of those available for purchase by folks earning between 41% and 80% of the area’s median incomes.

Other affordable projects getting city loans from that $5.3 million are:

• The Gregory, located at 738 W. South Temple. This one is getting $2 million in city funds and will have up to 187 units, with 53 of them having two bedrooms or more.

• The Hive on 11th, at 1116 Richards Street. It will receive $1.54 million, and plans there call for 169 dwellings, 116 of them one-bedroom and the rest two or more.

• 1300 South Apartments, 30 W. 1300 South. That’s getting $750,000 in city money and is planned for 70 units, 46 of them two bedrooms or more.

An additional project, called Flats at Folsom, at 16 S. 800 West, applied for city funds but was denied, partly because its plans only call for studio and one-bedroom units.

The City Council, in its role overseeing the CRA, is also dedicating another $2.9 million of that $11.5 million total to help homeowners finance the construction of new add-on dwellings such as mother-in-law apartments and backyard cottages.

This is a part of wider policy move to incentivize more so-called missing middle housing across the city as stocks of available land in the city dwindle. The hope is to foster infill development in existing neighborhoods with smaller and more affordable home types and designs.

The funds for accessory dwellings, to be overseen by the nonprofit Community Development Corp. of Utah, will be split between two geographic areas, with $1.9 million intended to subsidize add-on homes around portions of the 9 Line Trail, with the rest for similar work within city limits anywhere west of Interstate 15.

Under the Community Development Corp. of Utah’s approved proposal, that program would likely offer subsidized loans of up to $200,000, benefiting between 15 and 20 accessory dwellings.

In the city’s quest to boost construction of more housing suitable for families, officials are putting $3.3 million toward loans for helping construction of affordable homes to be made available for purchase, in hopes of giving some owners with more modest incomes the ability to build wealth over time. For this initiative, the focus is on units with three or more bedrooms.

The funds for wealth-building opportunities are to be split between two nonprofits, according to the council’s latest actions. An arm of the city’s Housing Authority will get $1.25 million for a rent-to-own program that will be part of the Northwest Pipeline Building project.

The other $2 million will go toward a down-payment assistance program, to be run by Community Development Corp. of Utah.