Senate Bill 84 passed 24-2-3 in the Senate Thursday morning. Senate President Pro Tempore Wayne Harper, the bill’s sponsor, spoke to Summit County’s opposition on the Senate floor before the vote.
“They are out of compliance with their moderate income housing plan. This bill goes through and provides a process for them to come into compliance,” Harper said. “I'm not sure they're comfortable with all those elements. But I think it is a step forward because affordable housing is important.”
County officials are definitely not comfortable with those elements. Language substituted into the bill in the Utah House—five minutes before the House vote—penalizes Summit County because it didn’t apply for what’s called a Housing and Transit Reinvestment Zone in its moderate income housing plan.
The penalty: Dakota Pacific Real Estate gets to build its mixed-use development proposal at the Tech Center in Kimball Junction, without county approval or further revision.
Summit County Councilmember Chris Robinson doubts that Dakota Pacific’s development, which includes both market rate and affordable housing units, meets moderate income housing goals.
“In our county, the market rate housing, whether it's rent or for sale, is extremely expensive. So, the model of just increasing supply won't work,” Robinson said. “But we're viewed as not playing along.”
Robinson and other county officials think Dakota Pacific Real Estate lobbied for the additional language in SB84 due to the last-minute add sounding strikingly similar to the developer’s proposal.
“Dakota Pacific and its lobbyists have been working on this strategy for a very long time, it appears to us,” Robinson said. “This is very specific.”
Dakota Pacific told KPCW in a statement that they support the changes “to encourage compliance by local governments, including Summit County, and to expedite the development of urgently needed affordable housing.”
Summit County’s senators, Sen. John Johnson and Sen. Ron Winterton, were the only to vote against the bill. Johnson told KPCW, “I believe strongly that local authorities should make these zoning decisions.”
Winterton echoed that on the Senate floor.
“This is starting down a path that we currently don't do in the state of Utah, spot zoning,” Winterton said. “And it seems like it's targeted right at them.”
Bills like SB84, which had language substituted after it had been read three times on the floor, don’t get read again.
In the House, which passed SB84 unanimously Wednesday, representatives voted without hearing what was added to the bill.
Two of Summit County’s representatives in the House, District 4 Rep. Kera Birkeland and District 59 Rep. Mike Kohler, told KPCW Thursday that they had voted yes in error because they didn’t know the bill contained a mandate to let Dakota Pacific build without county approval. Both said SB84 caught them off guard because they were working on other things.
Birkeland had previously introduced House Bill 233, which would repeal last year’s targeted HTRZ legislation. She said she will be making some amendments to it now that SB84 has passed.
But until SB84 is a law, work on the Dakota Pacific zoning proposal continues as normally as it can. Summit County Council held a work session Wednesday night all about HTRZs, the funding tool at the center of the standoff.
Brian Baker, the county’s financial advisor, walked the council through how government entities apply for an HTRZ. He’s the Vice President of Zions Bank, which has helped other counties apply for the zones.
The existing law that SB84 seeks to amend requires the county to explore adding an HTRZ as part of its plan to provide housing for middle income residents.
The way the tool works is by awarding developers local tax money or other subsidies to offset costs, including losses the developer takes on by creating below-market rate housing.
Baker said that successful HTRZ applications demonstrate that community benefits justify giving the developer tax breaks and subsidies. But, it would be nearly impossible to apply without a development partner at the table—officials can’t know what the benefits are if there’s no development plan in place.
But what does that mean for Summit County? Coming into compliance on its own terms might require working with Dakota Pacific, unless some other developer wants to build near a transit hub.
If SB84 becomes law, that compliance will be forced.
