Up to 24,300 acres of federal land that would be sold under the proposed Washington County Growth and Conservation Act could indirectly help provide middle- and low-income housing, Sen. Bob Bennett says.
The Republican senator and Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, the measure's sponsors in the Senate and House, defended the bill during a meeting Monday with Deseret Morning News editors and reporters.
Bennett and Matheson said the bill would designate more than 200,000 acres as wilderness, including some land in Zion National Park and some that is not now in wilderness study areas. But wilderness advocates have opposed it.
During the session, Bennett lashed out, saying some may oppose it because "if the wilderness issue were resolved, fund-raising opportunities might go away."
"I've probably said more than I should have about agendas," he added.
Bennett said he is troubled by housing cost pressures in places like Park City and Jackson, Wyo.
The same thing is happening in Washington County, with its fast growth, he said. "We've got schoolteachers who can't afford their contract because they can't afford to live in St. George," he said. The city may subsidize contracts or change residency requirements, he added.
There are many social problems because many expensive homes are built on a small land base, he said.
If too little land is available for building, prices go up. But if more than 20,000 acres are made available, that may leverage prices lower in some areas, according to Bennett.
"When you increase the supply, you're going to lower the price," he said.
"We know that Washington County keeps growing, faster than anyplace in the country by some measures," Matheson said. "What this bill does is it creates a framework in which it's going to accommodate growth in a more planned way."
It would create a more rational way to deal with growth and not create "unchecked sprawl," the representative added.
"We've really tried to go the extra mile to make this a consensus effort," Matheson said.
Designation of 165 miles of waterway as wild and scenic is "a pretty big deal. In a lot of rural Utah, wild and scenic river designation is not a popular item to discuss."
Why the opposition by wilderness groups?
"There are those, for whatever reason, who do not want the issue resolved," Bennett said. "They would much rather have the issue available to them for political purposes, or fund-raising purposes" on the long haul, he said.
The bill was released in draft form in March. Since then, it has undergone changes designed to make it more palatable to conservationists, such as the Wild and Scenic River designation along the Virgin River and its tributaries.
About 85 percent of proceeds from the land sales would go to fund conservation projects.
With the bill's passage, Matheson said, Washington County residents would have a better quality of life.
If the bill doesn't pass, "there'll be conservation projects that won't get funded, with all of the competition for money in this state," Bennett said.
"The local folk can't come up with the money. This provides a funding stream" for projects. The bill's provisions would result in less degradation "on the conservation side.
"But if your sole purpose in life is wilderness," Bennett added, "you don't care about those things."
E-mail: bau@desnews.com