An ancient Roman named Crassus invented a pretty good scam. When he’d see a house was on fire, he’d go to the neighboring properties and offer to buy them from their owners for a song. If they capitulated, his men would put out the fire. If the owners didn’t, he’d let the fire keep going. It got so lucrative that many suspected Crassus’ “firefighters” would actually be the ones starting these fires.
Crassus was the richest Roman to ever live.
From this lesson, any student of history learns to distrust the people offering a solution to a problem they started. One can’t help but be reminded of this when seeing our state leaders insist on solutions to Utah’s housing affordability crisis. Given that leadership of our state has been overwhelmed by those in the real estate industry, you’d think that they would have been uniquely positioned to help us with this, but the only people they’ve helped are themselves.
It didn’t use to be this way. In 2016, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) found that Utah had the sixth best Housing Price Index (HPI) in the nation. But by 2023, our HPI had dropped to 51st — the absolute worst in the nation.
Depending on how you slice it, either one-quarter or one-third of our state legislature derives income from the housing industrial complex. How is it that our state doesn’t have enough housing if we’re run by so-called real estate professionals?
To “solve” this, Gov. Spencer Cox wants statewide zoning preemptions to seize local land use authority to jam in more high-density (and high-profit) housing. He describes this approach as “more aggressive,” which it certainly is. Rep. Ray Ward (R-Bountiful) wants legislation that would create a statewide zoning default enabling current city ordinances to be overridden and jam homes on lots that are just one-eighth of an acre.
This will only make the situation worse.
Everywhere we go in the Salt Lake Valley, and increasingly outside of it, we’re overwhelmed by the number of new high-density housing developments. There is no thought for how our local infrastructure — our schools, our roads, our water supply — can possibly handle this concentrated explosion. And when the problems of this development pattern really start to set in, those who profited from this will be long gone.
Letting the real estate interests who dominate the state Legislature seize control of communities from their local leaders is not the solution. But neither is doing nothing. A few key actions can relieve the burden on Utah families almost immediately.
How should we approach Utah’s housing crisis?
First, the state needs to discontinue the hundreds of millions in tax credits to incentivize out-of-state companies to move here. Because Utah culture has created such a desirable place to live and do business, lots of people want to live here — indeed, our state population is expected to “explode.” Growth is good, but our off-the-rails growth of the last 10 years or so has been completely mismanaged. Many people who grew up here, who contributed to that success, are being outbid by those migrating to our state and can no longer afford to live here.
Second, state leaders need to cooperate as fully as possible with federal agencies to deport those here illegally, drawn by the fact that Utah has so many sanctuary state-like policies. However, for some state leaders, the excess of migrants is still not enough. Indeed, the same week that it was reported we’d dropped to the bottom of the pile for housing affordability, Gov. Cox published an op-ed insisting we needed 100,000 more immigrants.
Third, the state must support Sen. Mike Lee’s HOUSES Act to get access to even just a fraction of the two-thirds of our state that is owned by the federal government. While of course no one is suggesting we bulldoze Delicate Arch to put in single-unit family homes, Utah has plenty of developable open spaces near existing cities and infrastructure.
Fourth, the state Legislature must intervene to stop “Wall Street landlords” from buying single-family homes. In recent years, more than 25% of residential home sales in Utah were connected to investors.
Fifth, we need the state to instate a “pre-emption” for the 200,000 housing units already approved along the Wasatch Front. If developers don’t build upon the higher densities granted to them by municipalities (often through legislative threat) within three years of approval, all bets are off and the city no longer has to honor their approved densities.
Much like ancient Rome, our state is run by a housing industrial complex. They haven’t set any buildings on fire, but they’re certainly burning down our quality of life. Utahns must reject state control over local land use.