Enough is enough. The City Council has decided the city has plenty of apartments now and has started a trend to deny proposals to rezone land that isn't already designated for multifamily use.
While the vacancy rate for apartments continues to be low - maybe 2 percent for North Davis County - City Manager Jack Bippes said Clearfield has more than provided its share of apartments.He said 34 percent of Clearfield's housing stock is apartments and that's well above what any other city in the area provides.
"We'd prefer more single-family homes," Bippes said. "We've had a real rush on apartments in the last year. . . . There's a real shortage of apartments, but we've provided more than our share of multifamily housing."
At a recent meeting, the City Council denied two different rezone requests on land for apartment status. One was a proposal at 400 N. 1000 West to convert commercial land into a multifamily use zone. The other request involved 20 acres at 1700 E. 1000 South being switched from commercial to an apartment zone.
Clearfield still has 48 vacant acres (24 percent) of its approximate 200 total undeveloped land acreage zoned for apartments, and Bippes said the council believes that's sufficient.
"There's a feeling that it (apartments) requires a disproportionate share of public services," Bippes said, referring to extra police and other services.
Unit-wise, Bippes said there are still some 299 apartment units that have been approved and are under development or will be soon.
In contrast, neighboring Syracuse has a situation opposite of Clearfield with apartments. Syracuse has only about 40 apartment units, compared with more than 1,000 family units.
"We get very few apartments," Assistant City Recorder Kathy Holt said, explaining that part of the reason is the city has little land zoned for apartments.
In Layton, apartments comprise just less than 20 percent of its total housing developments. City planners there have traditionally viewed 18 percent as the optimal percentage.