Young considers his first term a success on that front, citing the Orem Land Preservation Act and refocusing the State Street Master Plan from high-density housing to fostering business development.

He said he did not plan on remaining mayor but was compelled to seek an additional term because he believed his work to slow development was being threatened.

“I heard that these forces were gathering again and trying to put people in place to essentially continue on where they left off with all this development,” Young said. “I just thought, I can’t do that. I can’t just walk away and let this whole place go back to the mess that it was trying to become.”

The Daily Herald sat down with Young to discuss his bid for reelection, and what he deemed the biggest issues impacting Orem. This is the first of two stories recapping the conversation and focuses on his thoughts on housing and economic development in the city.

Young, who is the founder and CEO of Paragon Wealth Management, believes operating a well-run city requires striking a balance between a strong economic corridor and housing. The latter, he said, has some inherent issues.

He is concerned about the city’s high renter-occupied housing rate, which he said is at 42% to 45%. He attributes that to apartment growth during the 2010s. In addition, Orem is 95% built out, and Young believes the city has “hit a wall” when it comes to growth.

“If you talk to the residents, we want to preserve our neighborhoods, we want to preserve our parks, preserve our open space, keep our community the way it is supposed to be, in the way that we all enjoy and love it,” Young said. “And so to do that, you have to, at some point, say, are we done? Are we going to stop cramming more and more people in here?”

Young believes the city focused on preservation efforts during his first term. He spoke on the Orem Land Preservation Act, which made citywide zoning changes to help protect publicly-owned open spaces or property, including any public schools closed by the Alpine School District, from being sold off for private development.

He also addressed how the City Council worked to reduce a proposal for the Canyon Park development from 350 units down to 80 units.

When asked what progress he would look like in his second term, Young spoke on continuing to harness the economic side of the balance.

He lauded Orem as one of the best economic areas in the state, citing it as the third-highest city in sales tax revenue despite being sixth in population, and its tax rates being among the lowest in Utah County. Young said 3,000 businesses have opened in Orem in the last four years.

“Orem’s economy is vibrant. It’s happening. It’s super successful,” he said. “Going the high-density path takes you down another path. Because what that plan is is to essentially decimate that economic corridor with apartments. And if you do that, you take all that revenue out.”

He also said Orem should focus less on developing new areas and focus its resources on revitalizing older neighborhoods of the city, which was founded in 1919.

Areas he listed in need of improvement included “pockets” of the west side and the neighborhood near Orem Junior High School. Young said previous revitalization efforts, such as on State Street, have incentivized owners to invest more in those areas as well.

“That really does kind of bring that whole area up. And it just increases values all around there,” he said. “And it makes people, instead of just running a place and not really doing anything with it, they’ll start to upgrade and overhaul.”

He said Orem is asking the state for some funds typically reserved to incentivize development to instead go toward revitalization in the city, and that the state said it was open to the idea but hasn’t done it yet. 

“We’ll use some of that to revitalize these areas that we’re talking about,” he said. “Because a lot of times it takes a shot of money from somewhere to really make that happen, to speed up the process.”