Utah’s population is the nation’s fastest-growing. The state faces critical shortages of both affordable and market-rate housing and its capital city is confronting a crisis over homelessness.
Against that backdrop, a House-passed tax reform bill and a second one in the Senate would, in varying degrees, gut decades-old tax incentives that promote affordable housing development, neighborhood revitalization and adaptive reuse of historic buildings.
At immediate risk in Salt Lake City alone, in the worst of the scenarios, are 650 units of affordable housing expected to be developed through 2019. Statewide, the 5,000 affordable units developed in the last three years, and the $800 million and 14,000 jobs derived from that development, could slow by half going forward.