Utah has had its share of “authorities.”
There’s the Inland Port Authority, designed to give the state a role in development near the Salt Lake City International Airport. The Point Authority to develop the old state prison property. Authorities were created to bring hockey and baseball to Salt Lake City. And the Military Installation Development Authority, originally created to bolster an aerospace industry around Hill Air Force Base, now builds ski resorts and other projects.
This week, Republican lawmakers took the next step, unveiling what would become the one authority to rule them all.
The Beehive Development Agency, as it is envisioned under SB337, sponsored by Sen. Kirk Cullimore, R-Cottonwood Heights, but being driven largely by Gov. Spencer Cox, would have the power to designate up to three “significant community impact” projects a year in any city or county in the state.
Cullimore said the aim is to make sure that there is coordination between the various entities that can provide economic incentives to maximize development in the state.
“There’s a lot of new stuff happening in Utah,” Cullimore, the Senate majority leader, said Wednesday. “We’ve got various authorities, we’ve got various incentives for housing … we’ve got a lot of tools in our toolkit to help with economic growth, but we don’t really have anybody coordinating all of that and making sure everybody’s talking to each other.”
In doing so, the bill, which emerged with just days left in the session, creates a new entity with sweeping power, taking state involvement in local development to a level that has not been seen in Utah.
“This gives the state … the ability to coordinate and target high-level economic development opportunities, and work with other economic development authorities and engines throughout the state,” a spokesperson for Cox said. “This will be focused on narrow, significant, statewide economic development projects.”
But Deeda Seed, the Utah representative for the Center for Biological Diversity, a group that has fought against the Inland Port Authority, said the bill gives sweeping power to the Beehive board without any buy-in from local governments.
“Every Utah taxpayer should be alarmed by this bill which represents massive government overreach,” she said. “This bill could result in authorization of massive projects regardless of what the local communities think or the harm to the public interest. This bill is a five-alarm fire for Utahns.”
As it is currently written, the local counties or cities would not have to request — or even consent to — the state’s involvement. But after the proposed Beehive Agency designates the project, the local governments “shall cooperate with the agency to the fullest extent possible” in providing support to help the agency fulfill its duties.
That could include roads, sewer, police and fire coverage, schools or power that the county or city government would have to supply, whether the local governments support the project or not.
It bill doesn’t define what the “fullest extent” of cooperation entails or specify what happens if the local government cooperation is considered inadequate.
The bill empowers a five-member board— headed by the CEO of the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity, a new position created within the office. Cox would appoint two other members to the board, while the House speaker and Senate president would appoint one each, assigned with identifying “a major economic project involving job creation, housing, energy or capital investment goals.”
The Beehive Development Agency board could then designate a project area and collect up to 75% of the property tax and sales tax generated by the project and use the money to help pay for infrastructure and other development related to the project.
There are no limits on the size of the area where the agency could put its project. It could be a city block or endless acres.
Local government representatives are troubled by the sweeping power given to the board and the lack of input given to municipalities.
The Utah League of Cities and Towns and the Utah Association of Counties are both opposing the bill as it currently stands.
Cameron Diehl, executive director for the league, said the organization’s members — mayors, council members and other city officials — ”raised concerns about having a state authority approve a project within a city without a meaningful partnership with the city about how to pay for all of the costs related to infrastructure and public services.”
“The dialogue is still going,” he said.
UAC executive director Brandy Grace said that the “battle between local, state and federal authority in all policy development will always be a difficult one” and SB337 isn’t the first or last to highlight the tension.
“We believe that most decisions are better off when handled locally,” she said, “however, there are plenty of examples of successful state economic programs and agencies that are exceptional partners with counties.”
UAC is planning to work with the governor’s office to ensure the bill “will not take from our counties’ ability to serve its citizens and businesses, but enhance our efforts.”
Cullimore acknowledges there is work to be done to bring local government officials on board.
“Yeah, so the local control portion is subject to a lot of negotiation,” he said Wednesday.
