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January 4, 2024
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Riverton City Media Contacts:
Josh Lee, Director of Communications
801-208-3189, pio@rivertonutah.gov
Nate Slack, Public Relations Specialist
801-208-3134, pio@rivertonutah.gov
Reference #: 2024-01
Riverton City Council Rejects Findings and Conclusions of the Utah Legislative Auditor General’s Report No. 2023-16: “A Performance Audit of Utah Housing Policy.”
Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs issued the following statement after the Riverton City Council unanimously passed a resolution condemning the Utah Legislative Auditor General’s Report No. 2023-16:
I am pleased to add Riverton City to the growing list of those who reject the Utah Legislative Auditor General’s Report on state housing policy. Their report tries to blame cities for Utah’s purported 28,000 a year housing deficit, yet it fails to present a single example.
Cities don’t build houses, developers do. Riverton City alone has 2,800 undeveloped parcel units that have been ready to build since 2016, but developers have not submitted any plans. We are not alone in this phenomenon. Cities along the Wasatch Front collectively have nearly 200,000 entitled housing units that developers have chosen not to build on yet.
The state report doesn’t acknowledge this reality and instead recommends that the State Legislature follow California’s failed model of imposing one-size fits all state housing goals. This dangerous proposal dismisses the disappointing efforts of our State Legislature to solve the housing crisis, despite dozens of pieces of legislation over the past six years that have diminished the exercise of municipal land-use authority. Compelling cities to follow the state’s top-down approach, with a legislature focused on high density housing, has only limited single family supply. And according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Utah has fallen from the sixth most affordable state in the nation in 2016 to nearly dead last in 2023. *
I join the Riverton City Council in calling on our state legislators to reject the conclusions and recommendations of this misguided Legislative Auditor Report. Utah’s future is dependent on cities, counties, and state officials working together in continued partnership, not punitive relations.
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*FHFA 2016 (See page 16)
*FHFA 2023 (See page 17)
Riverton City Council Resolution No. 24-01