Downtown's Rising, So is the Rent

May 02, 2008 by Elizabeth Ziegler

Affordable Housing Options Vanishing Downtown

(KCPW News) Downtown Rising is invigorating development in the heart of Salt Lake City. But it is also elevating the cost of living downtown. Utah Association of Realtors President David Mansell says most of the units currently under construction will be pricey.

"Downtown is going to become a wonderful place to be. And I think you'll see a movement to downtown," Mansell says. "The unfortunate part of most of that is that what is being built is going to be pricey. And so you won't get a lot of first-time home-buyers downtown."

While living in the heart of Salt Lake City has always been more expensive than the suburbs, Mansell says the relatively high cost of buying downtown will make some consider moving into surrounding communities. Since these suburbs are beginning to develop their own urban centers, Mansell says more people are finding good homes and jobs outside of the capital city. In the meantime, affordable housing options downtown are vanishing, says Housing Policy Analyst Shawn Teigen of the Utah Community Action Partnership Association.

"Housing that would have been considered affordable that were downtown in the past, a number of those are being condo-ized," Teigen says. "It's interesting to see like what the city has decided to go after and what people have decided to do with downtown Salt Lake and turn it into more of an upscale, metropolitan area, which unfortunately is at the expense of a lot of affordable housing."

Teigen says some developers are constructing new affordable housing units downtown. But more are needed to ensure there's an adequate supply. This, Teigen says, strengthens the entire community; reduces commute times, smog and traffic; more equitably distributes the cost of social services between municipalities; and it keeps social services typically found downtown close to the residents who need them.

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