Affordable Housing

Affordable Housing Plan

Read the 2017 Affordable Housing Plan (PDF)

About the Affordable Housing Plan:

Statutory Authority for an affordable housing plan comes from the Legislature. Specifically, HB 295, Providing Affordable Housing, passed in 1996, mandated that all communities and counties include a housing element as part of their General Plans. The City of Moab and Grand County realized that the issue of affordable housing for full time residents such as teachers, police officers and nurses had existed for a while and would continue to worsen if nothing was done. So in 2006, an Interlocal Agreement was approved by the City of Moab, the Housing Authority of Southeastern Utah (HASU), and Grand County to jointly fund the creation of an Affordable Housing Plan and give support to an Interlocal Housing Task Force. Partners in the Interlocal Housing Task Force include the City of Moab, Grand County, the Housing Authority of Southeastern Utah, and contracted consultant, Rural Community Assistance Corporation (RCAC).

In August of 2007, RCAC facilitated public workshops to gather anecdotal information from stakeholder groups regarding affordable housing problems and to gauge community perception. In the same month, an Initial housing market assessment was created by James Woods, Director of the Bureau of Economic and Business Research, David Eccles School of Business, University of Utah to investigate the need of affordable housing in our community. In February, 2008, RCAC and the Interlocal Housing Task Force developed the Needs Assessment that showed the affordable housing gap in different income and housing type categories.

In March of 2008, RCAC facilitated a Draft Affordable Housing Needs Report and public workshops where participants had a chance to express their opinions on a variety of possible approaches and completed surveys about the different tools explained in the workshops. Subsequently, on November 12, 2008 the Interlocal Housing Task Force presented the Draft FIVE -YEAR ACTION PLAN for public input.

On September 24, 2009, the City Planning Commission adopted Planning Resolution Number 10-2009 recommended the Plan to Council as an addendum to the General Plan. On October 13, 2009, the City Council approved Resolution Number 15-2009 adopting the Grand County and City of Moab Housing Study and Affordable Housing Plan ("Affordable Housing Plan") as an addendum to the Moab City General Plan

The Affordable Housing Plan mandates that both Moab City and Grand County must identify barriers to affordable housing that appear in the respective development codes. The code barriers that were identified by the city Planning Commission included:

  • Lot size
  • Lot width
  • Density
  • Densities in Planned Unit Development
  • Densities in Master Planned Development
  • Minimum home size
  • Open space requirements for apartments
  • Secondary dwelling regulations
  • Excessive street widths
  • Setbacks
  • Height restrictions
  • Inflexible sidewalk standards
  • Value to community to have mixed economic levels in neighborhoods (lack of inclusionary zoning)

Several ordinances intended to address these barriers were referred to the city council by the planning commission and subsequently adopted by the city council. These ordinances addressed:

  1. Lot size, setbacks, and densities in the multi-family zones;
  2. Minimum home sizes;
  3. Secondary dwelling regulations;
  4. Allowing employee housing on the ground floor in the Commercial zones of C-3 and C-4;
  5. Height limits; and
  6. Inflexible sidewalk standards.

Affordable Housing Task Force

The city has supported construction of housing options including Community Rebuilds, the Self Help construction program administered by HASU, and the construction of Cinema Court, a sixty-unit multi-family housing development.

Several city staff members currently serve on the Housing Task Force and are actively involved in subcommittees and updating the gap analysis data of the plan.