Housing Tools
Accessory Units
An additional living unit, including separate kitchen, sleeping, and bathroom facilities, attached or detached from the primary residential unit, on a single-family lot.
Deed Restrictions
Deed Restrictions are a necessity to preserve the existing supply of affordable housing.
Sample ordinance: Deed Restrictions
Density Bonuses
Allows a developer to build more units within a project than would otherwise be permitted under normal density limits. Both zoning and subdivision regulations can be modified to allow density bonuses.
Sample ordinance: Bonus Incentives
Design Issues/Resources
Affordable Housing Design Advisor is a great site for showing the importance of architectural design in building workforce housing. www.designadvisor.org
With input from local planners and architects, DAWHAC has created a set of Design Guidelines to assist in providing better Multi-Family Housing Projects.
Donation of Public Land
Donating land is an effective strategy for reducing the cost of providing workforce housing.
Down Payment Assistance
The following programs are in place to assist qualified individuals with down payment assistance.
The City of St. George offers a loan up to $10,000 toward down payment and closing cost assistance. For more information contact: Vicki Halfacre (435) 627-4462 or Darren Janes (435) 673-3548.
The Five County Association of Governments, an organization serving Beaver, Garfield, Iron, Kane and Washington Counties, offers a grant up to $2,000 for down payment assistance. For more information contact: Danna Alvey (435) 865-0195
Employer-Assisted Housing
Employers can provide workers with a zero interest forgivable loan to help cover down payments and closing costs. A percentage of the loan is forgiven for each year the employee stays at the company.
Expedited Permitting
Municipalities can expedite the building process for projects containing workforce housing. Reducing costs incurred during the development review process makes projects containing workforce housing more attractive. This is both an effective and cost efficient way of reducing developer costs at no-cost to local jurisdictions.
Examples of expedited permitting:
Bend, OR developer’s incentives
San Diego, CA expedite program
Fair Share Allocations
Quantify each local governments responsibility for providing affordable housing to meet local needs.
Green Building
Building green affordable housing impacts families and individuals directly by reducing energy bills and providing a healthier living environment. Affordable housing developers benefit by producing higher quality, more durable, and more efficient buildings.
Click on the links below to learn more about green building:
www.globalgreen.org/greenbuilding/index.html
www.aceee.org/consumerguide/index.htm
www.energystar.gov
Impact Fee Strategies
Impact fees are fees assessed by municipalities on property developers for the expansion of new infrastructure due to new developments. These fees are imposed to compensate for the impact of additional residents and development on the current municipality’s infrastructure and services, such as water and sewer, fire and police protection services, schools and libraries.
Examples of communities that offer fee waivers and reductions:
Fort Collins, CO impact fee delay program
Pima County, AZ impact fee waiver
Napa, CA fee reductions
Inclusionary Zoning
A technique applied to new housing developments in which a certain portion of the units being constructed are set aside to be affordable to low and moderate income home buyers. This may be applied to both rental and owned units and single-or multi-family housing projects.
Examples of local communities that require inclusionary zoning:
Wasatch County, UT inclusionary requirements
Park City, UT affordable housing guidelines
Infill Housing Development
Infill refers to development that takes place on land within built-up urban areas that has been passed over for various reasons during previous development phases and has remained vacant or underutilized.
Linkage Fees
A mitigation or impact-type fee imposed on large, generally lower-wage paying employers based on a finding or correlation that such employers generate an area need for affordable housing. Requires revision to county and/or municipal land development regulations.
Mixed-Income Development
Mixed-income development is the combination of higher income households with lower income households in the same development.
Great example of a local mixed-income development:
www.redhawk.ccchi.net
Mixed-Use Development
This is an example of flexible zoning which allows various types of land uses, including office, commercial, residential, and in some cases, light industrial or manufacturing, to be combined within a single development or district. A major purpose is to allow a balanced mix of office, commercial, and residential uses in close proximity to increase convenience to residents and reduce the number of shopping and/or commuting trips needed.
Examples of local mixed-use developments:
Hurricane, UT Elim Valley
Cedar City, UT Cedar Gateway
South Jordan, UT Daybreak
NIMBY
Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY); the opposition of residents to nearby projects that they consider undesirable even though it may benefit the community as a whole.
Non-Profit Agencies
Color Country Community Housing, Inc.
Housing and Opportunity through Positive Empowerment (HOPE)
Subdivision/Development Standards
Communities can lower the costs of creating workforce housing by re-evaluating their subdivision ordinances and updating or modifying regulations where possible.