IVINS — In a give-and-take between Ivins’ leaders and its citizens at a town hall concerning the future of housing and growth in the city, the lack of affordable housing in Ivins brought one expert to tears.
Shirlayne Quayle, the housing and economic development director for St. George, pointed out how those who work to help the residents at the Southern Utah Veterans Home in Ivins can’t actually live in Ivins.
“Our veterans’ home is a treasure. This is an example of a place that cannot hire enough nurses, janitors and staff to take care of our veterans because they can’t live here,” Quayle said, holding back tears. “I don’t want to be in that kind of community.”
Quayle was among nine panelists who were part of a town hall at Rocky Vista University last Wednesday concerning the future of housing in Ivins. It was the second in a series of so-called “Talkabout” events created in the wake of a citywide survey of residents.
The first Talkabout, on the city’s water future, took place in February. While this Talkabout didn’t take up every seat in the university’s auditorium like the last, it was still a much bigger crowd than could have been accommodated in Ivins City Hall’s council chambers.
Exchanges included those between residents who wanted no short-term rentals in the city and officials who say they are inevitable but should be managed. Experts said there is an unfounded fear of high-density housing with low-square-footage homes as a possible solution to making housing affordable. And city officials say they legally can’t stop planners from developing land but added they can use regulation to stem it.
On the subject of short-term rentals, local state Rep. Neil Walter, R, said while it can be a rallying cry to create laws against having short-term rentals or vacation rentals like Airbnb and Vrbo in the city, such laws wouldn’t stop such uses of housing from happening. Instead, he argued it would drive such short-term rentals underground where there would be less control over their proliferation.
Walter, who also is CEO of local commercial real estate developer NAI Excel, began by saying, “If we did not build any short-term rentals” and was interrupted by applause. But he continued:
“What is the solution? What happens here? Well, it would increase the number of hotel units, it would increase the number of people trying to figure out how to rent their home without letting people know.
“We have a lot of people who want to come here and honestly they don’t want to stay in Cedar City or Las Vegas. They want to stay here. That demand created a hospitality solution.”
Walter then said the better solution is for municipalities to designate certain areas for short-term rentals.
“In Washington County, our leaders have thought, whether we like it or not, it’s becoming a resort community, but I applaud what municipalities have tried to do,” Walter added. “Instead of having them everywhere, we’re trying to give some land use regulations. We can’t say none or nowhere. We can’t say they can all go to Hurricane.”
Quayle acknowledged there are no easy solutions as far as short-term rentals are concerned but warned about the dangers of them breaking up the continuity of a neighborhood.
“The challenge with short-term rentals is that it’s a long-term rental taken off the market,” Quayle said. “Downtown St. George is an example. Fifty percent of downtown is housing. Next door is a short-term rental and you have to wonder what that does to a neighborhood.”
A group calling itself Defenders of Greater Ivins has an ongoing court case to overturn an Ivins City Council decision allowing a developer to turn 113 acres of Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA) land in southeast Ivins into The Retreat commercial-residential resort to include short-term rentals.
Quayle said the leaders of SITLA are more open to alternatives beyond short-term housing developments including affordable housing projects. But Quayle said when SITLA – which works to gain revenue from trust land for schools – receives solutions from developers and complaints from residents, it’s more likely to listen to the developers.
“If you reach out to representatives with SITLA, instead of just sharing complaints, share solutions,” Quayle said. “We need to be able to come together, otherwise we’ll be stuck in the pain.”
‘We can’t be afraid of density’
Talkabout panelist and architect Richard Kohler, founder of Kohler Architecture and past president of the Washington County Historical Society, noted that just about all of the homes in the recent Parade of Homes were those that most who attended had no chance to actually buy.
“These were the most expensive homes,” Kohler said. “It was a $2.6 million median price in the Parade of Homes.”
Responding to a resident who asked why developers don’t sacrifice more, Kohler said developers can’t be blamed when cities zone for large square footage, which he says is leaving homebuilders with an obvious choice as far as profitability. He said while cities such as Ivins appear to be encouraging more open spaces by keeping the minimum size of lots on the high side, they are only encouraging more high-cost mansions without room for housing people can afford.
“Builders are making a rational choice. When the land gets zoned by municipalities, they make choices,” Kohler said. “Developers build the most expensive unit they can. They’ll make more profit on the larger house.”
Instead of concentrating on the number of lots on each property, Kohler said cities should look more at the square footage of homes they approve for zoning. Looking to the recent growth of so-called “tiny homes,” he said rather than approving zoning that encourages a 15,000-square-foot home in a 15,000-square-foot lot, the same footprint could house multifamily units that on the exterior look similar but actually house several more families affordably.
On the screens above the panelists, he showed an example from Springdale of a dwelling featuring six households that looked less like the identical townhome concept and more like a large farmhouse. He said it was able to house more people affordably while not harming the landscape.
But Kohler said the challenge there is it would take a political will that favors affordability over developer profit.
“There’s the resort syndrome,” Kohler said. “Limiting growth is not necessarily legal but there are options that do less damage to the environment that can occur. In our housing shortage, what we need when we talk about older people, younger people who need smaller houses is to make smaller unit sizes.”
Walter applauded Kohler’s comments, saying there is a way to have high-density housing while maintaining an uncluttered neighborhood.
“Richard talking about innovative ways to increase density is a great idea, but we also have a fear of density,” Walter said. “There’s not a correlation between the quality of the neighborhood and density. We can’t be afraid of density.”
There’s another fear that Quayle said is holding back more affordable housing in places like Ivins: The “not in my backyard” or “NIMBY” fear. Quayle was responding to a question from a resident about why there were not more prefabricated “tiny homes,” about 400 square feet in size, in the city. Such homes have less space and could cost a younger or older couple less than $50,000 to own, Kohler said.
“We face NIMBYism a lot,” Quayle said. “Residents will say we don’t want a Boxabl-type home in our neighborhood. That affects the ability for the council to make decisions in the best interest of the community.”
While Ivins is now mainly a place of upper-class homes and resorts, Ivins Council member Jenny Johnson told the hall as a lifelong resident she remembers when the city was a town with low-income housing and trailer homes.
But Ivins Planning Commission member Pam Gardiol said there’s no going back for Ivins. But that doesn’t mean anyone needs to be left behind either.
“I wish we could go back to what we looked like in the 1950s, but that’s not going to happen,” Gardiol said. “We need to deal with the reality of how we need to think differently. We need to create an environment where people feel like they belong here.”
Photo Gallery
Ivins residents speak out at "Talkabout" town hall on housing at Rocky Vista University, Ivins, Utah, March 22, 2023 | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News The auditorium at Rocky Vista University for the Ivins "Talkabout" concerning housing, Ivins, Utah, March 22, 2023 | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News Ivins residents speak out at "Talkabout" town hall on housing at Rocky Vista University, Ivins, Utah, March 22, 2023 | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News Utah Rep. Neil Walter at "Talkabout" town hall on housing at Rocky Vista University, Ivins, Utah, March 22, 2023 | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News Ivins Council member Jenny Johnson at "Talkabout" town hall on housing at Rocky Vista University, Ivins, Utah, March 22, 2023 | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News Architect and historian Richard Kohler at "Talkabout" town hall on housing at Rocky Vista University, Ivins, Utah, March 22, 2023 | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News St. George Housing and Economic Development Director Shirlayne Quayle at "Talkabout" town hall on housing at Rocky Vista University, Ivins, Utah, March 22, 2023 | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News Ivins residents speak out at "Talkabout" town hall on housing at Rocky Vista University, Ivins, Utah, March 22, 2023 | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News Picture shown on the large screen in the Rocky Vista University auditorium showing an example of a smaller-square-foot, multifamily dwelling, Ivins, Utah, March 22, 2023 | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News Experts, as well as city and county leaders, participate in a "Talkabout" at Rocky Vista University concerning housing, Ivins, Utah, March 22, 2023 | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News
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