My wife and I own a 20-unit affordable housing project in Salt Lake City. All 20 units are reserved for people making less than 60% of the area median income. The units are new, nice and very small. Rents are in the $800 range.

With today’s high cost of everything, it is really hard to make affordable housing pencil out. Last year our project lost $10,000 despite strong occupancy. In 2024, it made $9,800. In other words: When it comes to affordable housing, margins are tight and it isn’t exactly lucrative.

With that in mind, our recent water bill hit like a gut punch. The total bill was up 2.5x, from $539 in July to $1,325 in August.

My initial reaction was: “Crap, I have a leak.” But after spending a minute digging into the bill, I found that my water usage had stayed, literally, exactly the same. The sole difference was that Salt Lake City Public Utilities’ rates had gone through the roof.

It turns out that all the rates charged by Public Utilities are up — way, way up — across the board. Our price for water rose 22%. Storm water went up 20%. Our charge for street lights increased by 50%. Most shockingly, our sewer charge jumped from $296 to $979. That’s a 3.3x increase basically overnight.

We live in a desert, and we’re in the midst of a generation-long drought. So if these rate increases were aimed at increasing water conservation, that would be one thing. But that clearly isn’t the case. Storm water and street lights have nothing to do with water consumption. And the new dramatically higher sewer rates for multifamily buildings are structured as a flat fee per unit, so there is absolutely no way to reduce the charges through reduced usage.

(Not that it’s easy to reduce sewer usage, anyway. I mean, you can only hold it for so long.)

Having marinated on all this for a few weeks, I can’t help but conclude that Salt Lake City hid the ball during the most recent budgeting process. Yes, Public Utilities disclosed that rate increases were coming, somewhat mutedly. They did not clearly explain the magnitude of the increases or provide projections illustrating the financial impacts. No one said that costs, at least for multi-family properties, would be doubling or tripling. That would have gotten people’s attention. Salt Lake City residents deserve better communication and a lot more candor.

Frankly, all of our elected officials’ statements about how concerned they are about affordability are ringing pretty hollow right now. I do not plan to pass the cost increases through to my tenants. I’m just going to take the hit. But most landlords will. If you’re a renter, get ready. Your costs will be going up.

This is incredibly frustrating in the context of affordable multifamily housing. For people with low-paying jobs, an increase of $50 or $100 a month is an absolutely enormous issue. I don’t know how else to say it.

People. Cannot. Afford. It.

Salt Lake City leaders have not established why rate increases of this magnitude are necessary. They haven’t established why the increases need to happen right now, in the midst of a universally recognized housing crisis. They haven’t explained why multifamily projects are being singled out for astronomically higher sewer rates. And they haven’t explained why the higher rates should be imposed on affordable housing projects.

Salt Lake City should be working overtime to make affordable housing more obtainable, not less.

My feeling is that we need a moratorium on rate increases. This would allow Salt Lake City to go back to the drawing board with their public engagement process, reconsider whether the timing is right for major rate increases and perhaps evaluate a phased-in approach with more modest increases. At a minimum, I would hope Salt Lake City would revisit whether rate increases are appropriate for affordable housing projects at all.

Until they do, it’s fair to question how serious Salt Lake City and its leadership really are about improving housing affordability.

Paul Svendsen is a real estate agent and investor who lives in Salt Lake City.

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