The Summit County Council is working to create a new housing authority by early next year. The housing authority would provide medium to low income residents with resources to find housing within their price range in addition to tracking housing trends throughout the county.“Summit County showed that renters within the county earn an average of $80,000-plus per household, but the median price of a home was $1.4 million,” said Economic Development and Housing Director Jeff Jones on Wednesday. “To afford that house, you’d have to earn an excess of $350,000 a year in order to purchase a home in Summit County.”One of the first steps that the housing authority would take, Jones said, would be the creation of a housing and economic data dashboard. The dashboard would harbor information about where affordable housing units are located, average prices and any other details that an interested renter or buyer would need to know.The housing authority would also create an employer-assisted housing program for county employees.“We had a number of employees that were surveyed [who] said that they would also like to live in Summit County,” Jones said. “This was particularly pronounced amongst our emergency service personnel. Right now, we have about 59% of the county employees that both live and work in the county.”Additionally, the authority would conduct annual studies regarding utility costs because the “maximum rent” calculated for an affordable housing unit includes the cost of necessary utilities, like water, electricity and wastewater, as well as the base rent price. The housing authority would then manage a utility allowance to help residents cover those costs when needed.The fourth and final priority of the housing authority would be incentivizing moderate income housing in eastern Summit County, which would require an amendment to the Eastern Summit County Development Code.“Snyderville Basin, because it has an inclusionary housing code, we have provisions where the county manager can waive building permit fees and planning fees associated with an affordable housing project. That’s written into the inclusionary housing code,” Jones explained. “In eastern Summit County, we don’t have anything like that in place.”To cover those fees, Jones proposed that the County Council establish a $50,000 fund. When fees are waived for an affordable housing project, the Planning Department would receive its expected revenue from the fund, but the developer’s costs would be at least partially covered.“It’s not designed to be 100% cost recovery of those fees,” Jones said. “It’s to get something started and also to grant the county manager the position of authority by creating a zoning code amendment that says he has the ability to waive those fees in eastern Summit County because right now we don’t have that authority as written into the Snyderville Basin code.”According to Jones and Finance Officer Matt Leavitt, a $250,000 placeholder has already been arranged in the budget for the creation of the housing authority; $81,500 of that $250,000 would go toward start-up costs such as the housing and economic data dashboard, the eastern Summit County incentive fund and the utility allowance study. The rest of the money would be held for future costs.County councilors did not officially vote to create the housing authority on Wednesday, but they did unanimously voice their support of the project.“For me, it’s a strong yes,” said County Councilor Canice Harte. “We should do it. We need it, and it’s a mistake we didn’t do it before.”Last year, the County Council and the Park City Council explored the creation of a joint housing authority and allocated $500,000 for the project. Those efforts stalled over the summer, however, and Summit County decided to pursue its own housing authority with a smaller budget.Jones plans on bringing a resolution for final approval to the County Council in the coming weeks. His goal is to establish a housing authority by the end of January.The post Summit County sets up housing authority for as soon as January appeared first on Park Record.