County receives Housing Study report

by David Boyle News Director Members of the San Juan County Commission heard the results of a recent housing study, approved a new deputy county attorney and approved election canvass results at their latest meeting.

At their November 19 meeting members of the San Juan County commission heard the results of a housing needs study in the county from Points Consulting.

The 140 page report is broken into two halves, with the first half focused on the overall needs and data on the county as a whole. Sections in the latter half are for specific communities within San Juan County.

Speaking to the commission, Brian Points explained a housing assessment measures supply and demand in a community. “If we want to know what’s the demand for ultimately that's one of the big research questions we had to answer is how many units, what type of units, where should they go? “To answer that type of question, you have to look at all the job trends, the demographic trends, the location trends, the multiple listing service data, the housing permits data, all that stuff.

Read the report at
https://mccmeetings.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/sanjuancut-pubu/MEET-Pac...

So, that's functionally what went into this.” While it’s well known that there is a housing shortage in the county, Points shared their report is also aimed at addressing the issue. “What we aim to do is actually provide quality market research so something can be done. It stretches across a spectrum of regular property owners who may not know what the demand is. They may not know that demand is actually out there for a property owner.

“There's no market research out there. There's no database where you can buy this data. We created that so people in the private sector can do something about it. We also created that so the public sector can understand what forms of land use rules and zoning rules might be either facilitating or harming the ability for supply to meet demand.” Points noted a key takeaway from the assessment is that without addressing housing needs, the county could see a population decline to less than 12,000 by 2044.

The snowballing effects, with increased vacancies, can lead to potential property blights and disinvestment in communities. Points provided an optimistic outlook with investments in housing and economic development to possibly reverse trends.

Opportunities identified include using state legislative actions to facilitate private sector housing development. Another opportunity would be to optimize zoning to increase the supply of attainable housing options, including duplexes and accessory dwelling units.

Other opportunities include adaptive reuse of underutilized hotels or converting mobile home communities into higher-density detached housing clusters. These options would capatilize on existing infrastructure.

Points notes that strengthening communication and collaboration to allow nonprofit and other organizations to address housing on the Navajo Nation is another opportunity. Mick Thorton, a Fellow with Economic Recovery Corps assigned to San Juan County, added his thanks to Points for his work. Thorton notes that he applied community input as part of the study, adding, “Nobody in the central part of San Juan County wants to become Moab South and that's really important.

“I thought Brian and his team did a phenomenal job of understanding the value of community preservation in this conversation and really gearing this report in a way that is that is designed to help the communities in San County become what they want to be not some outside imported version.”

Thornton added an area the county will need to improve on is communication with regional partners.

He especially noted the importance of recognizing that while the county can have direct impacts on housing in most of the county, they will be working as a partnership to aid tribal nations where possible on tribal lands in the county. Members of the commission also approved 2024 General Election Canvas Results at the meeting. County Clerk/Auditor Lyman Duncan presented the final canvass to the commission. Duncan reports 6,441 residents of San Juan County voted, just under 85 percent of the 7,618 registered voters.

While that percentage is quite high, it was noted that turnout was slightly lower than the 2020 Presidential election, which saw turnout in the mid 90 percentile.

Duncan addressed a social media rumor about a voting machine malfunction at the Blanding Library, emphasizing that all affected voters were provided provisional ballots and their votes were ultimately counted. Commissioners thanked Duncan and other county poll workers for their efforts before certifying the final canvas.

Members of the commission also approved a contract with Craig Halls to serve as the county’s deputy attorney with terms running immediately through the end of 2025.

Halls will serve under county attorney Mitch Maughan. Staff added that the county attorney’s office has a heavy workload and a deputy attorney is necessary to manage the volume of cases.

Members of the commission also heard a presentation from County Roads Superintendent TJ Adair. Adair said the county is working on new signage to enhance public safety by providing clearer road identification to reduce instances of people becoming lost or stuck on county roads.

Commissioners also approved an interlocal agreement between San Juan Public Health and Utah Navajo Health Systems to collaborate on diabetes and hypertension prevention programs.

The county will act as a pass-through for $6,000 to go towards programs improve acceptability and quality of care for populations with diabetes, and enroll high risk people in a national prevention program.