The Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute at the University of Utah recently conducted an affordable housing analysis for Park City.
Senior Research Fellow Dejan Eskic said 44% of the city’s housing stock consists of short-term rentals like Airbnbs and VRBOs. While that creates challenges for housing workers, he said it’s vital for tourism.
“I look at short-term rentals as a Catch 22,” Eskic said. “Imagine if they all go away, what happens to the local economy? They serve a big purpose in attracting a lot of visitors.”
Eskic said renter-occupied households in Park City on average have more people living in them compared to owner-occupied homes.
“This is actually contrary to what we typically see,” he said. “In Park City, we’re just shy of four people per rental unit… this especially highlights just the need for workforce housing.”
He said building new housing units is important as Park City’s population is expected to grow faster than the rest of Summit County. That’s in addition to a future Winter Olympics looming.
Park City’s economy is predominantly made up of jobs in the services, entertainment, recreation, and retail sectors. On average, those employees are making around $3,500 per month, far below the median income of Park City renters, which is over $6,600 per month.
That dynamic leaves much of Park City’s workforce to commute from out of town. According to the report’s findings, 12% of the Park City’s workforce has housing in town, a decrease that pushes it below city hall’s goal of 15%.
About 50% commute from elsewhere in Summit County or up Parleys Canyon from Salt Lake County. Around 18% commute from Wasatch County.
Eskic said developers that recently finished projects in the Park City area cited several difficulties with building, most importantly cost.
“Part of it is labor,” he said. “It’s difficult to get labor to commute to the Wasatch Back from the Wasatch Front. There’s plenty of work down in the valley, so you have over incentivize the labor pools to travel.”
Eskic said other challenges include transportation and design standards.
They concluded that Park City needs to specifically create deeply-affordable living for workers, with rental rates affordable for people making less than Summit County’s area median income.
