Council approves housing authority to tackle local affordability crisis

Summit County Council meeting 12-11-2024. Photo: Summit County

COALVILLE, Utah — The Summit County Council voted Wednesday to establish a new housing authority, marking a significant shift in how the county will address its affordable housing challenges.

The proposal, which was first introduced by the Economic Development and Housing Department in June 2024, outlines four main goals: tracking housing market trends and data, studying utility costs to ensure affordability, creating financial incentives to build affordable housing in Eastern Summit County, and working with local employers to develop housing programs that could help their workers live locally.

The authority’s independence from political influence emerged as a central theme in the council’s deliberations. Council member Canice Hart highlighted this as a crucial advantage, noting that keeping the authority “free of the politics or the ebb and flood of different opinions and experience levels within politicians as they come in and out of various councils. We’d do well to seat an independent housing authority, but obviously we’d be working with them.”

The new structure will include a board of five to seven commissioners, to be appointed by the County Council beginning in January 2025, with one council member potentially serving as liaison to maintain communication while preserving the authority’s autonomy.

Next steps include drafting the implementing ordinance, which will detail powers, appointment terms, quorum requirements, and eligibility standards for the new authority. The council expects to begin commissioner interviews in January 2025, marking the first concrete steps toward establishing what could become a transformative force in Summit County’s housing landscape.