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.

EXCLUSIVE: An illegal immigrant from Colombia killed a motorist in Southern California last month during a police chase, authorities said. 

Darwin Felipe Bahamon Martinez, 21, was caught entering the United States near San Diego in 2023 and released by the Biden administration, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said. 

“Bahamon Martinez illegally entered the U.S. near Chula Vista, California, in August 2023,” a statement from ICE Los Angeles field office leadership said. 

“He was released into the U.S. under the Biden administration’s so-called ‘catch-and-release’ policies, but if that hadn’t happened, the innocent 59-year-old driver he allegedly killed may still be alive today.”

DHS HONORS ILLINOIS WOMAN WHOSE CORPSE WAS ALLEGEDLY ABUSED BY ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT FREED UNDER SANCTUARY LAWS

Martinez was driving a Jeep Gladiator in Anaheim Jan. 21 when police officers initiated a traffic stop for reckless driving. When the officers approached the Jeep on foot, Martinez sped away, authorities said. 

A brief chase ensued before the Jeep collided with a Honda driven by a 59-year-old man in the neighboring city of Placentia. 

The driver was pronounced dead at the crash site. 

Another driver, an 83-year-old woman, was taken to a hospital and treated for minor injuries. 

MAJOR COUNTY SHERIFF REJECTS ICE DETAINER ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT WHO KILLED YOUNG BOY IN HIT-AND-RUN

Bahamon Martinez is being held in the Orange County Jail while awaiting criminal proceedings on his homicide charge. ICE lodged an immigration detainer against him Jan. 22.

However, because of California’s sanctuary state laws, local authorities are not compelled to cooperate with ICE to transfer illegal immigrants charged or convicted of crimes into federal custody. 

“If local officials in Gavin Newsom’s sanctuary California choose to release Bahamon Martinez into the community, they will put ALL Californians at risk,” ICE said in a news release. “California must honor our immigration detainer. Otherwise, ICE will be forced to re-arrest this criminal illegal alien at-large.”

In jurisdictions with sanctuary laws, ICE officers typically have to go into communities to look for illegal immigrants targeted for deportation. The agency has called for greater cooperation with local authorities amid confrontations between federal officers and agitators in Minnesota, where local officials have accused ICE of terrorizing neighborhoods. 

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Critics of sanctuary laws say such laws are responsible for releasing dangerous criminals back onto the street.