The Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute hosted its monthly Newsmaker Breakfast last week, an event where panelists highlight important issues impacting Utahns. The meeting opened with a presentation from Moira Dillo, a housing analyst, who provided context for the growing crisis in Utah’s housing market.
Dillo pointed to a sharp rise in construction costs, with prices doubling over the past decade. She explained there had been an even steeper price spike since 2019, with costs increasing by around 30%. As construction prices climbed, so too did home prices, pushing Utah to rank eighth nationwide in median home prices by 2024.
Dillo said renters bear the brunt of this upward trend, with 82% of households priced out of new homes. Despite these challenges, she emphasized that thoughtful design could still foster affordable housing options without sacrificing quality of life or community.
According to Steve Waldrip, Senior Advisor to Governor Cox for housing strategy, traditional housing models need to evolve.
“We've designed and built homes the same way for decades,” he said, “and, looking at where we are today, why are we doing that?”
Waldrip emphasized that while economic forces driving housing prices — such construction costs — are beyond control, design is an area where innovation can make a significant difference.
Jason Wheeler, the executive director of Assist Incorporated, a Community Design Center in Salt Lake City, said designers and architects have to work within a framework of policies that can restrict what they achieve, such as zoning and parking requirements.
“By the time we get to designing a building or even a community, it's almost too late,” Wheeler said.
He explained that having different policies in place beforehand could make his job a lot easier.
“You can have lower setbacks so that homes can be closer to the street,” Wheeler suggested. “And maybe you only require one off-street parking space per home instead of two. And maybe the covered parking isn't a requirement, and this gives opportunities for designers to be more creative and more flexible.”
Maria Sykes, founder and executive director of Epicenter, a design based nonprofit organization in rural Utah, echoed these sentiments while discussing Canal Commons, a project aimed at building smaller, affordable homes in Green River. The project came about through the development of a prototype called the frontier house, which was meant to be a mobile home trailer replacement.
“I think there's this attitude throughout the world that design and architecture is for the elite, it's for the rich,” Sykes said. “Design should be for all of us, and we should be able to apply design to everything that we're doing so that we can benefit society.”
