Here is a short summary of my position on housing, growth, and zoning:
Zoning should be governed by the Land-Use Plan, which needs to be updated to reflect contemporary issues. New “affordable” housing should be planned in conjunction with small commercial districts such that it is near local grocery and other stores, public transportation, and parks, requiring more coordination among the City and developers (and SITLA/UTLA) than currently takes place. That planning must take place with considerable input from residents, fully informed of tradeoffs between amenities and cost.
And here is the long version:
This is the single issue that most concerns Ivins residents, yet also divides them. First, it is important to recognize that while zoning describes the current permitted use of the land, it does not provide the plan for future use; planning is accomplished through the land-use plan (usually referencing the land-use map, found at https://ivinsutah.gov/ivins-city-maps/) and revisions can be made to it through open hearings. There are three sets of forces that require balancing in the land-use plan. One involves property rights, another involves funding of infrastructure, and a third attempts to balance growth with quality of life.
Utah is a state that strongly supports individual property rights, providing a force toward very few restrictions on how one uses his or her own land. Living in an organized community or municipality requires attention to the common good and respect for neighbors, tending to produce restrictions on development. The land-use plan provides guidelines for that growth as owners develop their property. A recent example shows how a good compromise can be achieved (and how social media can distort it). A parcel near Old Hwy 91, at approximately 800W, was proposed for duplex housing, following a Kayenta philosophy, on quarter-acre lots. This way, eight residences can be placed on one acre, but with the appearance and impact of four. I supported this proposal (and spoke at the Public Hearing) and continue to think it is a good use of that property. (Because I spoke up, I am now branded by at least one frequent poster on social media as “supporting multi-housing” and not deserving of endorsement.)
Another set of tensions arise from balancing funding against expenses for the city: a home on one acre will require nearly the same level of support for roads and sewer and water lines as eight homes on that same acre, yet provide the city with much less income through property taxes, assuming each home is assessed at more than one-eighth the value of the one-acre homesite. Homeowners might prefer the acre of land, but the city might prefer income from eight homeowners.
And finally, a third set of questions can be summarized in the following: people want to move to homes in Ivins City, whether from other cities or out of their parents’ homes in Ivins, and that creates a need for more housing… yet everyone wants to keep Ivins the simple, natural, outdoorsy place it was when they moved in, whenever that may have been.
The only way to move forward as a community in addressing these issues is to address them in a coherent, structured manner, involving extensive input from residents. Much of that input was obtained in the General Survey conducted recently, but putting good intentions into practice may be difficult, with the devil in the details and associated costs. The next City Council must conduct an update to the land-use map, before any more one-off changes are requested (a recent issue before the City Council dealt with just such a unique case; I addressed it during the public hearing). The current City Council has been exceptional in requesting and listening to resident comments, and I applaud them for this; the next City Council must continue this practice, and I encourage interested residents to become engaged in the discussion.
SITLA/UTLA: Unfortunately, the Utah Trust Lands Administration (formerly SITLA) has bypassed the City processes in two recent instances. One is land being developed as short-term rentals west of Black Desert Resort and adjacent to existing neighborhoods. The other is land proposed for high-density “affordable” development south of Old 91 near the Anasazi trail, far away from the typical amenities expected for family housing. I think that the City missed an opportunity to engage with the UTLA for a possible land-swap or other arrangement that could have placed this sort of development in an area where its success would be more likely. Lance Anderson has recently approached this problem head-on as an interested developer and I applaud him for this. He has proposed to UTLA that he develop under the UTLA guidelines other property that he controls, land which is much better suited for affordable housing, and that the UTLA land under discussion be developed at a lower density, all with a greater profit to UTLA, not a loss, while still meeting their objectives. This is an example of one developer stepping in to achieve something that the residents of Ivins would prefer; we should be looking into additional multi-faceted opportunities between multiple developers, government agencies, and private owners.
Growth and water: Many people are concerned about the present growth and the limited water resources available. This is a valid concern. The Washington County Water Conservancy District (WCWCD) is in charge of determining if there is sufficient water; municipalities are not. They say that there is enough water for the near future, unless drought conditions worsen, in which case some steps need to be taken. The WCWCD is controlled by its Board, which is comprised of representatives from the municipalities, most of which want to continue to develop without restrictions, and they do not agree on what steps, if any, would be needed in an extended drought. While I think that growth can continue as long as the WCWCD moves quickly to develop a fully purified reuse water supply, the timelines presented by the WCWCD seem optimistic in spite of a slow approach to such a water supply, and it would be worthwhile investigating their underlying assumptions in more detail. That way, we can develop our own opinion of water security and be aware of what critical points exist in the timeline.
