This story is an excerpt from Inno Lab Notes, a bi-weekly newsletter highlighting solutions and ways to make a difference in your community.
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During his State of State speech last week, Gov. Spencer Cox joked “I would love to build a wall around our state — and get California to pay for it — but that is not going to happen.”
Cox went on to talk about more serious solutions, like his proposed Utah First Homes program which aims to build 35,000 starter homes over the next five years. “While we need more of everything, my focus is on affordable, attainable, single-family, owner-occupied, detached housing,” the governor said.
Affordable housing is going to be a big topic this legislative session and lawmakers are considering encouraging modular housing and boosting the funding for a first-time homebuyers program.
In a committee meeting hearing last week, state homelessness coordinator Wayne Niederhauser once again noted that Utah is now the 8th most expensive housing market in the U.S. Building affordable and deeply affordable housing is going to take support from the state
Here are a few of the bills we’ll be keeping an eye on:
HB 151 Public Lands Amendments — This bill would create an inventory of all public land owned by the Bureau of Land Management within municipality boundaries.
HB 141 Olene Walker Housing Loan Fund Amendments — This would require some state liquor sale revenues to go towards the Olene Walker Housing Loan fund, a source for affordable housing project loans, every year.
HB 169 Rental Property Disclosure Requirements would require that an owner put in a written disclosure any defects that “would materially affect a reasonable renter’s decision to enter into a rental agreement with the owner; and a renter could not discover through a reasonable inspection.”
HB 355 Residential Rental Modifications would make landlords give tenants a 60 day notice of a rent increase. Last year GOP lawmakers quickly killed a similar proposal after hearing pushback from eviction attorneys.
