Affordable housing 'crisis' in Southern Utah pushes officials to make a plan
(KUTV)- The amount of affording housing for people in Southern Utah communities is declining rapidly due to the fast growing population.
According to Washington County, the population is expected to reach 219,019 by the year 2025. With a population of over 150,000 currently in 2017, the county commissioners are preparing for a very big surge in people of all kinds into the community.
Washington County Commissioner, Victor Iverson, said changes with zoning and raising wages in the county are a good direction to take when tackling the affordable housing problem
“A lot of market as far as people buying homes that are 300, 400, 500 thousand dollars,” Iverson said, “Our occupancy rate for apartments is almost 99%...we have one percent vacancy so it really is creating a crisis situation here.”
Right now the housing market is booming in St. George, but for the low income or medium income families there aren’t a whole lot of options. Iverson believes this is causing them to lose a lot of young, fresh contributors to the community by not having the housing available.
“It's impacting not only our young people that are trying to get launched into their careers, start their families and their careers.” Iverson said, and it will take a collaboration between the county and it’s cities to find a way to make a final plan.
“A lot of the zoning that the county itself does is in more of a rural and more incorporated areas where housing is a little bit of a different option.”
A list of suggestions was recently given to the Washington County Commissioners to help find ways of improving the low income housing “crisis” being dealt with in the county in the report below.
According to the Washington County: Affordable Housing Plan has over 900 units for low income families, the county is behind about 3,500 units.
Hear from one family that would benefit from more housing in the story above.
