A Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll conducted last month showed that housing affordability is the No. 1 issue Utah voters want the Utah Legislature to address during the current session.

So, what are state lawmakers doing about the affordability of housing?

The state’s objectives for housing are outlined in the Utah Housing Strategic Plan which was developed through the collaborative efforts of the Governor’s Office, the Legislature and other stakeholders.

Steve Waldrip, the governor’s senior adviser for housing strategy and innovation shared that traditionally, government has only been involved in low income and subsidized housing, which involved using public resources to “the least fortunate among us.”

Waldrip said there has been a shift, because now housing prices have increased to the point where the traditional working class can no longer afford a home.

“What we’re facing is having to look at strategies to create affordability for what we didn’t used to have to worry about, which is teachers and firefighters. They can’t afford to buy a home, and that’s a change,” Waldrip said.

Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, agreed Utah is currently in a housing crisis.

The goals and ideas outlined in the plan are guiding the major moves in housing policy that are being made this legislative session.

What is the Utah Housing Strategic Plan?

Last year, the Legislature passed HB37, which directed the governor’s office to make a strategic plan to help solve the housing crisis in the state.

Waldrip said state leaders didn’t want the plan to just come from the governor’s office, or have different groups all make separate plans.

“We tried to do an integrated collaborative process, bringing as many people to the table as we could,” he said. The group worked together to analyze and investigate how the housing problem can be dealt with, he said.

Cameron Diehl, the executive director of the Utah League of Cities and Towns, said his organization was involved in the creation of the plan and gave feedback on the final product. The league represents over 1,400 mayors and city council members and 250 cities and towns across the state.

“It’s been a very collaborative process, it doesn’t mean that we agree with everything in the plan, but it’s been a very collaborative process, and really one of the core principles in the state housing plan is collaboration with all stakeholders,” Diehl said.

The aim of the strategic plan is to “ensure that every resident in Utah has access to safe, affordable and stable housing options.”

The plan has three main goals:

1. Improve housing availability, affordability and stability.
2. Foster community well-being and quality of life.
3. Seek consensus and evidence-based policy and housing support solutions.

The plan outlines over 50 tactics that can help improve the housing situation in the state.

Diehl said that his group is fully supportive of some of the tactics while others give them pause.

“Anytime you have a list of 50 tactics you’re going to like some more than others,” he said.

One of the other objectives of the plan is to achieve the governor’s goal of building 35,000 starter homes by 2028.

The housing affordability issue in Utah

“I believe that if you’re a kid born in Utah, you’re raised here in Utah, you’re educated in Utah, you work hard, you should have the opportunity to afford a starter home,” said Rep. Calvin Roberts, R-Draper, in an interview with the Deseret News.

He added that the younger generations are increasingly getting priced out of the housing market.

The representative shared that over the last 40 years the median home price has risen 5.2% each year, but the median wage has only risen about 3.2% a year.

“You get this massive gap between where home prices are today and where the median wage is,” Roberts said.

Waldrip said the standard used to be that the median home price was three times the median wage. Over the last about eight years, Utah peaked at about 6.2 times the median wage for the median home price. Currently the state is now at about 5.5.

“So we’ve essentially doubled the cost of the median home,” Waldrip said.

Multiple lawmakers and stakeholders emphasized that there is a supply and demand issue; there are just not enough homes available to meet the need in Utah. Because of the demand, the value of the existing homes has gone up.

Waldrip said Utah is currently attracting a lot of growth from outside of the state, making it so people raised in Utah have a harder time buying a home here.

He did acknowledge that the growth is a positive and Utah can continue to grow and “stay great.”

“The goal is always to increase the supply as we’ve been growing fast,” said Sen. Lincoln Fillmore, R-South Jordan, during Thursday’s Senate media availability.

The state government wants to get more people out of renting apartments and into owning homes.

“Our society is built on property ownership and the ability for people to be able to purchase property, create generational wealth, create stability and have that opportunity of what we call the American dream, and that’s what we see slipping away generationally,” Waldrip said.

Lawmakers are implementing the plan through infrastructure investment

One of the biggest housing bills of the session is HB492 which was numbered on Wednesday. Sponsored by Roberts, the bill would help build infrastructure that would unlock thousands of planned houses around the state and allow them to be built.

“So what we’re trying to do is find ways to unlock the building that is ready to occur. We have lots of paper parcels that are ready to build on, but they don’t have the infrastructure they need, so no building is happening,” said Gov. Spencer Cox in an interview with the Deseret News at the start of the session.

This includes regional infrastructure such as sewer lift stations, water treatment facilities, water tanks and big regional roads.

HB492 would allow the state to partner with cities and help invest in the big capacity regional infrastructure, “to support the growth that cities have already planned.”

It would create the State Housing Infrastructure Partnership Fund, which is a revolving loan fund meant to finance these infrastructure projects that support new housing. The funding would come from money that already exists within the state government.

According to numbers from the Utah League of Cities and Towns, eight Utah cities have identified a total of 109,074 entitled units in late 2025, with 12% ready for building and 88% that require infrastructure improvements. Those eight cities are Herriman, West Jordan, South Jordan, Riverton, Bluffdale, Lehi, Saratoga Springs and Eagle Mountain.

Waldrip was told by the mayor of Washington City that there are 2,852 planned lots that are waiting to be built in the city.

“The cities are on board with the state coming in and helping fund these things, because they’re not planning anything, it’s just getting the funds in. That’s that partnership model,” Diehl said.

This infrastructure investment plan is one of the key tactics in the strategic housing plan.

The governor said he thinks this “will have a greater effect than just about anything else that we can do right now.”

Bringing all housing policy together under one roof

Sponsored by Roberts, HB68, would not create any new policy but would rather reorganize and centralize how housing policy is handled by the state.

While presenting to the House Economic Development and Workforce Services Committee on Wednesday, Roberts said: “When I first started as a legislator, I wanted to get involved in housing policy, but it’s a challenge, because right now, over 40 housing policies are scattered across at least four different executive agencies.”

He added that this makes it difficult for both legislators and other Utahns because if someone has questions about housing it’s not clear who they should go and talk to.

HB68 would create the Division of Housing and Community Development, which would sit within the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity. The division would have a director who is confirmed by the Senate.

Waldrip said the bill will “create more streamlined accountability in the governor’s office, in the executive branch, we can then report back to the legislature and say, ‘Hey, here’s what we’re doing. Here’s why we’re doing it.’”

He said it will allow the division to share what they’ve done with their appropriations and what their goals and needs are.

Roberts said this bill will essentially accomplish two things:

1. Legislators who pass housing policy bill will have someone they can hold accountable who has to report back to the lawmakers.
2. This will bring more efficiency and will remove redundancies involved in the housing policy process.

Other things lawmakers are doing

Rep. Stephen Whyte, R-Mapleton, has introduced a resolution, HCR6, to officially recognize the strategic housing plan.

Waldrip said the point of the resolution is to “make sure that we have the legislature and the governor’s office walking in lockstep on this path.”

One of the key tactics of the plan is to see how and where government land can be used for housing.

“We have a lot of government land in Utah and so we’re starting with the lowest hanging fruit of government land, which are parcels that are scattered within our communities,” Waldrip said.

He added that the Utah Department of Transportation has made 15 parcels available for starter homes. The goal is also to make a list of surplus property that will help provide ownership opportunities at a lower cost.

“We have land, let’s make use of land that’s already served by infrastructure,” Waldrip said.

Adams has made a funding request this session for $10 million to go toward the first time homebuyers programs.

The program “allows $20,000 to be used for a person’s down payment, closing costs or to buy down the rate,” the senator said.

He added that program has helped 3,000 families get into their first home.

(Chris Samuels | The Salt Lake Tribune) Members of the Utah Supreme Court attend the State of the Judiciary at the Capitol in Salt Lake City, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026.

An open letter to the nominating commission and Gov. Cox:

As you consider what two new people to appoint to the Utah Supreme Court, please select attorneys who are as highly qualified as our current justices.

Two went to top-10 law schools (Harvard and Yale), the two University of Utah graduates were in the top 10% of their class, and the BYU graduate was magna cum laude. Four justices clerked for prestigious federal circuit or district courts. Four worked for major law firms, one in New York City. Two served in U.S. attorneys offices, one prosecuted war crimes in the Hague, and one served in the Utah attorney general’s office and a district attorney’s office. Four served either as Utah court of appeals or district court judges before being appointed to the Utah Supreme Court.

If you make the mistake of nominating individuals who are less stellar than the current bench, you will confirm the worst suspicions of the critics — that the expansion of the court was court packing, an attempt to manipulate the outcome of pending cases for political purposes.

Linda F. Smith, Salt Lake City

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ST. GEORGE, Utah (KUTV) — Researchers claim pediatric care capabilities are declining nationwide, with many hospitals not having full equipment or staffing for childcare units.

“If a patient or child is sick, they should go to their nearest emergency department, and they should be confident about the care they’re going to get,” said Dr. Ken Michelson, a researcher working at the Children’s Hospital of Chicago. “The capabilities of hospitals to provide care for children are declining. And it’s unfortunate to see, but over the past two decades, hospitals have either reduced their commitment to pediatrics or have gotten out of the business of pediatrics altogether.”

These limitations are felt in Utah. One family in St. George is celebrating their daughter’s health a year after she nearly lost her life. It was on her birthday last year that the family traveled to three hospitals across the state before receiving adequate care.

MORE | Southern Utah

“It’s just like sheer terror at the thought of losing a child,” said Taryn Bennion, mother of 3-year-old Penelope “Nellie” Bennion.

Last February, Bennion noticed Nellie having trouble breathing. Doctors told her she had RSV and two types of COVID. While she was rushed to the St. George Regional Hospital, just a three-minute drive away, they said they didn’t have the equipment to incubate her.

“It was so frustrating, and it got to the point where you just think, ‘Where am I supposed to go? Where do I take my child?’” Bennion said.

Nellie was then flown to Salt Lake, but Primary Children’s Hospital was full, requiring another transfer to Lehi. Bennion says she was worried whether Nellie would make it in time.

“It makes me rethink because if they don’t have the right equipment, if we don’t have what we need, then what’s the point?” Bennion asked, adding that she had chosen to live in the area due to the close proximity to the hospital. “I think that we need to change how the children are treated in hospitals. They need to get the equipment we need to actually take care of the children because they’re our legacy. They are the ones who are going to be here after we’re gone. They’re the ones who are going to inherit what we leave behind, and we need to take care of the next generation.”

2News reached out to Intermountain Health asking if they have changed or plan to update equipment in St. George and whether they expect pediatric units to be full with this year’s measles and flu outbreaks.

They said the region of Southern Utah has seen major escalations in RSV, flu, and measles cases, which may cause hospital patients to be referred to other areas. They also say they are always looking to address pediatrics in the area, but more severe cases will be referred to larger pediatric units in Salt Lake City, Lehi, or the new children’s hospital groundbreaking in Las Vegas later this year.

“St. George Regional Hospital provides high quality care to all our patients and is one of the leading hospitals in the region,” said St. George Regional Hospital. “As part of an integrated health system, we provide access to specialized care across the region to ensure that area residents have access to the best care possible.”

Nellie is now back to what her mom calls her “sassy self” and says she’s excited to meet Donald Duck at an upcoming birthday trip to Disneyland.

While the family is grateful to have her back, Bennion says they still live nervously, worried they won’t notice or fix a sickness in time.

“If it’s anything respiratory, I get paranoid,” she said. “I always in the back of my mind am wondering if it’s going to happen again. I’m kind of afraid to like leave the house nowadays because of all that that’s breaking out.”

Intermountain Health shared that it is always important to get your children seen if they show signs of fast, hard and sustained breathing.

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