Emily and Phillip Ross have lived in Heber City for three years. Already, they’re certain they want to spend the rest of their lives there. 

“Heber is just perfect. All the parks, the access to the lakes, the camping, hunting, golf, especially, and all the things we have going on in the city center area and city park is just phenomenal,” Phillip said. “We just love it.”

The couple lived in Provo but dreamed of moving to Heber City. They were able to move into an apartment but thought they would be “forever renters,” given the local home prices. 

The Rosses recently put themselves on a track to homeownership through Utah Housing Corporation’s Credits to Own, or CROWN, program. 

CROWN allows qualifying tenants to rent units owned by Utah Housing Corporation for 15 years. After that period, the tenants can buy the home for less than market rate. 

The Utah Housing Corporation on Tuesday celebrated the ribbon-cutting of six new four-bedroom, two-bathroom CROWN townhomes in Heber City. 

Emily and Phillip will pay a little under $1,800 per month. Most of the townhomes of a similar size they had looked at in Heber City were around $2,500 per month.

“You’re not home, poor. You’re able to still live and function because, when you have to pay those astronomical rents or mortgages, you’re eating ramen noodles every day,” Emily said. “Plus, it gives you 15 years to really focus on your credit and your budgeting.”

The tenants of these six townhomes will be able to purchase their home in 2041 for around $300,000, according to CROWN program manager Scott Harmon.

“(When) you think how prices keep going up, $300,000 would be affordable today, but it would be really affordable in 15 years,” he said.

CROWN is available to tenants making 55% of the area median income, which is about $75,000 for a family of four in Wasatch County. 

Much of the funding for these townhomes came from Bank of Utah, which purchased federal low-income housing tax credits from Utah Housing Corporation for about $2.1 million to cover most of the construction costs, Harmon explained. The rest will be repaid by the tenant’s rent.

Utah Housing Corporation has run CROWN since 1993 and built over 500 homes in the program throughout the state. About 75% of tenants purchase their homes after 15 years, according to Harmon. 

As program manager, Harmon has heard plenty of success stories from tenants. For example, a woman was living in her car before renting and eventually bought her home through the CROWN program.

“That’s what it’s all about,” Harmon said. “This is an opportunity for the missing middle, for the people who can’t afford to purchase a home any other way.”

Utah Housing Corporation hopes to build another six CROWN townhomes in Heber City in a few years, Harmon said. The first CROWN homes in Wasatch County were the six Wheeler Park townhomes near the Heber Valley Airport. Those hit the 15-year mark about two years ago, and all six tenants bought their homes for around $110,000, according to Emily, who was the property manager.

She’s also the property manager for three other affordable housing communities in Heber City: Elmbridge Apartments and the Prestige I and II senior apartments.

“What we need here in Heber is more affordable housing, especially for senior citizens, in my opinion, because my wait lists are quite long. Two years long,” she said. 

That’s why Mountainlands Community Housing Trust donated the six lots for the CROWN townhomes to Utah Housing Corporation. They’re part of the 49-lot Parkview Place subdivision that Mountainlands Community Housing Trust established in 2017. There are now 18 lots left.

Executive Director Jason Glidden said Mountainlands Community Housing Trust’s vision for the subdivision was a variety of affordable housing types to meet Heber City residents’ diverse needs.

Other lots have been donated to Self-Help Homes, which allows residents to build their own homes for a lower purchase price, and to the Wasatch County School District to continue its student-run homebuilding program, which houses school district employees.

“Having housing for the local workforce is such an important piece of the community. It helps to build the community, sustain the community, not only just by having folks here long-term and full-time, but also economically,” Glidden said. “I think that the more and more we can continue to provide these opportunities, the better off we’re going to be.”

The post New rent-to-own homes unveiled in Heber City appeared first on Park Record.

Park City is currently engaged in two disputes regarding potential workforce or otherwise income-restricted housing developments involving the municipal government.

One of them would be on land owned by the municipal government in Bonanza Park while the other would be built on other municipal acreage close to the S.R. 248 entryway known as Clark Ranch.

Both of them have encountered organized resistance, illustrating how difficult the development of workforce housing can become in Park City. The two efforts are just the most recent examples of strained discussions about housing projects in the city.

As officials begin an exercise designed to review the housing potential for various other tracts of municipal land, there could be lessons to be learned from the past nearly 30 years of housing work inside Park City. Progress was measured in some cases. The challenges in other instances proved to be insurmountable.

Scott Loomis was one of the figures heavily involved in the housing efforts for upward of 20 years. As the executive director of Mountainlands Community Housing Trust, a not-for-profit organization, Loomis aggressively pursued opportunities inside the Park City limits as well as surrounding Summit County. He retired in 2021, returned on a volunteer basis to lead the organization for eight months or so ending in 2024 and then went back to his retirement.

Two projects in Park City during his tenure were especially notable and highlight the complexity of developing workforce housing in the community. One was scrapped amid resistance while the other was ultimately constructed.

“I’ve got mine. We don’t want anything around it,” Loomis said in an interview on Monday as he described the thinking of opponents to housing projects.

A dispute that unfolded in 2002, in the months after the Winter Olympics, centered on land in the area of Chatham Crossing, on the edge of Prospector. That concept included 15 townhomes and lots for two houses on five acres. The townhomes were designed to be income-restricted units, and the lots would have been sold at market rates, with the proceeds to be put toward the construction of the project.

There was bitter opposition, especially from people who lived or had places nearby. Mountainlands Community Housing Trust withdrew the application when it appeared a negative recommendation from the Park City Planning Commission for a necessary change in the underlying zoning on the land was nearly certain. Loomis at the time described some of the public comments as “elitist and racist” as well as “appalling.” Some of the concern from the neighborhood dealt with the possibility of falling property values should the project be built.

“They just equated that with ‘those people,’” Loomis said on Monday about the opposition to the project, recalling that Latino people began arriving in Park City in large numbers in the 1990s.

He said there was a perception that crime rates would rise and insurance premiums would increase as a result of a development.

Loomis, though, also said the anticipated buyers would have been teachers, firefighters and government employees.

But Mountainlands Community Housing Trust just a few years later successfully developed a project inside the Park City limits. The concept for the Line Condominiums on Deer Valley Drive encountered resistance, but the concerns did not influence major changes to the 22-unit project. The construction, though, eventually stretched far longer than anticipated. The delays pushed up the costs and the eventual sale prices, but the project has been occupied for 20 years.

Housing has been one of the overriding issues in Park City since the 1990s, when extraordinary growth created affordability pressures in the real estate and rental markets. Many rank-and-file members of the workforce were priced out of the community, leading to concerns about an increase in commuter traffic and a decrease in socioeconomic diversity. The municipal government itself sought opportunities for projects even as Mountainlands Community Housing Trust was also advancing the work. The concerns have essentially continued without interruption for the past three decades, but the worries seemed to become magnified during a pandemic-driven real estate boom.

The municipal government’s work is some of the highest profile that is underway in the period after the pandemic, as leaders attempt to provide options for the workforce. A Clark Ranch project would place more housing in the area of another significant bloc of income-restricted units in Park City Heights. A Bonanza Park project, stretching inward from the southwest corner of the intersection of Kearns Boulevard and Bonanza Drive, would have housing and other aspects like retailers, restaurants, cafes, art spaces for not-for-profit organizations, a childcare location and park space.

Both of the efforts have spurred organized opposition. Critics of a project at Clark Ranch want the land to be preserved as open space while those worried about a development in Bonanza Park are pressing leaders to instead create a park on the land.

Loomis, now living in Tucson, Arizona, in his comments on Monday offered advice to the municipal government after having experienced the uncertainties of developing housing in Park City.

“They need to keep doing what they’re doing,” he said. “Don’t give up. Do what you know is right.”

The post Park City workforce housing projects have long proven to be difficult endeavors appeared first on Park Record.