Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

SALT LAKE CITY — Sufficient affordable housing stock continues to be one of the great challenges of the day for the state of Utah along with many states across the country.

With efforts underway to build 35,000 new starter homes statewide in the next four years, dozens of mayors and city officials from across the state attended the “Built Here: Housing Summit” at the governor’s mansion on Thursday to discuss progress and next steps.

“I’ve had an incredible day today meeting with 48 mayors from across the state and members of their teams,” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said during a press conference at the governor’s mansion following the event. “The reason we’re here is that these are the people on the frontlines when it comes to housing and building housing in our state. These are the people who understand how to get it done. They know their cities better than anyone else — where people live, where they work, where they play; they know why this is so important.”

He said the conference was meant to discuss how to make housing attainable for more Utah families within state and local partnerships.

“The American Dream of home ownership is slowly but surely slipping away from far too many, out of reach of our children and grandchildren,” he said. “Reversing that trend requires collaboration. It requires courage and action from all levels of government.”

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

Cox said the state is making progress on its 35,000 starter home goal, but more effort is needed.

“Since announcing this goal, we’ve seen 5,100 starter homes built or underway across Utah,” he said. “We know that’s not enough. We’re on our way, but we desperately need to do more. With Utah’s growing population, we need to do more and we need to move faster.”

During the press briefing, he announced the launch of of a statewide housing dashboard that allows residents and city planners to track progress on the state’s housing goals.

Thursday’s press conference also included statements from a selection of Wasatch Front mayors, including Clearfield Mayor Mark Shepherd.

“It is rough to talk housing,” he said. “It is rough to look at a situation that you know is a problem and know it needs to be addressed and figure out a way to solve it.”

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

He said Clearfield is taking several steps of its own to help alleviate the shortage of housing options in the city, but outside factors continue to make that difficult.

“When I took office as mayor and when I joined the City Council, I was told we were built out and that we pretty much had nothing else to develop,” he said. “Yet, over the last five years, Clearfield has entitled, permitted or built over 4,000 housing units. But yet, as the governor mentioned, we’ve got an HTRZ (Housing and Transit Reinvestment Zone) station area that is still trying to go vertical. The cost of development is skyrocketing. It’s not just land; it’s not just things cities can do. We’ve got to address this from every angle.”

Spanish Fork Mayor Mike Mendenhall noted that each city is unique in its needs and operation.

“People choose where they want to live for a lot of different reasons up and down the Wasatch Front from Salt Lake to Ogden and down to St. George,” he said.

Mendenhall said there’s one key factor to overcoming the current housing issue.

“If we can find a way for this problem not to be political but be practical, I’m confident that we can solve these problems for home ownership in our state,” he said. “We can continue the success that we’ve had in our communities, in our cities and in the state of Utah.”

Herriman Mayor Lorin Palmer said his city is a great example of Utah’s rapid growth.

“We have tripled in size in 10 years and we still have 13,000 entitled units to go,” he said. “One thing I’ve taken today from the governor’s message … is it’s one thing to entitle units, but it’s another thing to get people into those homes, get people who can afford those homes, to get them to a price point where they can afford to be there.”

Cox likened the community-by-community housing approaches to “250 experiments.”

“This is about, instead of the scarcity attack mindset, it’s about a collaboration mindset,” he said. “Let’s learn from each other and see if we can’t unlock the potential for significant housing gains over the next four years.”

To view the new state housing dashboard, visit https://tinyurl.com/2kkzbyx5.