A protest broke out last week at a Salt Lake City, Utah, City Council meeting after members approved a controversial zoning change to allow for modest affordable homes to be replaced by high-density apartments.
Right after the vote took place a group of about 50 members of Wasatch Tenants United, which advocates for renters and the homeless, starting chanting “Micro-units, no bueno!” and “Block by block, street by street.”
The council voted unanimously in favor of the zoning change and altering the city’s master plan, which will allow developers to construct higher-density housing on ten residential properties.
The Salt Lake City Tribune reported:
The Bueno Avenue project would wipe out a six-unit apartment building and seven single-family homes, reportedly in poor condition, according to city staffers. In their place, Colorado-based Four Square Holdings wants to construct a building of 65 units of what the city is calling shared housing: bedrooms leased individually with a private bathroom along with shared kitchens and living spaces.
The controversial proposal has been under review for nearly a year, including a vote opposing the change from the city’s planning commission. Few projects in the capital city’s recent construction boom have framed the challenges of its ongoing housing crisis more starkly.
Opponents have argued at several public hearings that the project threatens to cheapen living standards for tenants across the city and evict current residents when replacement housing is all but impossible to find.
“We continue to discourage the displacement of existing neighbors who depend on moderately priced homes they are currently renting,” Melinda Main, co-chair of the city’s East Central Community Council, said at one hearing. “We oppose the continued destruction of the fabric of our neighborhoods by classifying existing workforce housing as worthless and beyond repair.”
But supporters said more affordable housing is needed in the city.
“This innovative project is going to provide some attainably priced housing that is otherwise nonexistent in Salt Lake,” resident Reed Synderman said in the Tribune report.
Protesters said the rezoning should be rejected because construction of micro-units would lower standards of living throughout the city, partly by allowing developers “to force working people into sharing kitchens.”
“Basic human decency requires that people have their own bathroom and kitchen in their apartment unit,” resident Alex Poulton told the council after the vote.
Jen Colby, who opposes the project, said:
This is speculative real estate investment. It’s worth a gamble for developers to bet high on contracts for lower zoned properties, file applications for a minimum fee, and then take a chance the city might grant an upzone and gift them a few hundred thousand dollars or more in inflated land values.
Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall said the city is already developing new approaches to mitigate housing loss as part of an ongoing study on gentrification.
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