“Year after year, it just never improves.”
Best Friends Animal Society in Kanab is building affordable duplexes for its workers, but more Utah businesses may have to up their game to recruit and retain employees.
Echoing old company towns in Utah’s early mining history — places like Magna, Bingham and Copperton — the Best Friends animal sanctuary is building 12 duplexes for 24 dwellings in Kanab with private yards, garages and appliances just a 15-minute drive away, with the first units to open sometime in 2023.said, as affordable housing for incoming recruits and existing staffers.
Built with bank financing and without drawing on donor funds, the homes eventually will be managed by a third party and will charge rent, Castle said, while also letting Best Friends keep the units “very affordable to our staff.”When she first landed in Kanab and went to work for Best Friends 26 years ago, Castle said, she lived in a van for a time and showered at an area gym. She eventually found roommates and hoped the community’s growth would gradually make things better.
In Kanab and other gateway recreational and resort enclaves, there’s an added share of Airbnb and similar rentals in the housing stock earning higher dollars from tourists, meaning a bigger slice of homes are out of reach for workers seeking extended leases. “People should not only have a livable wage,” Castle said, “but they should also have a safe and nice place to call home. ... This is just part of doing the right thing.”
To his growing family, it’s a three-bedroom town home with a two-car garage and an unfinished basement in a small development called, where homes are subsidized for purchase by public workers such as police officers, firefighters and teachers. Utah’s Top Workplaces list a robust array of benefits for employees, but few have housing-related incentives on their lists.
Turndown service at the Stein Eriksen Lodge in Park City on Thursday Dec. 20, 2018. The Forbes Travel Guide recently named Utah's Stein Eriksen Lodge as one of the most "Luxurious Hotels in the World." The American Flag leads the way from down Main Street, during the Parade in Park City's Miner's Day Celebration, Monday, Sept. 5, 2022.Unlike other Utah cities, Park City also gets to use inclusionary zoning to tie new development to adding residential units, letting it require that homebuilders make up to 20% of dwellings in a project affordable — but also make commercial developers build housing in proportion to the jobs they generate in the community.
The state’s traditional all-out approach to recruiting new job-generating employers and enticing expansions are increasingly running up against record low unemployment and the reality of housing affordability problems. Remote work, which allows some companies to leave employees in place until they can find new homes, only helps in certain sectors.
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