Planning Commission Meeting - August 22, 2024

Meeting Summary

The headline item at the August 22, 2024 Planning Commission meeting was Lehi City's proposed Critical Homeownership Overlay Zone, or CHOZ, a new tool aimed at addressing the city's affordable housing shortage. Staff explained that the concept had been developed over several months in collaboration with multiple city departments. Under the proposal, newly built homes within a CHOZ overlay would be reserved for the first 30 days of sale to critical and essential city workers, current Lehi residents, and first-time homebuyers before being opened to the broader market. All homes within the overlay would be required to be owner-occupied, and a built-in formula would cap the equity an owner could realize during the first ten years of ownership in order to keep resale prices accessible. The proposal drew considerable public attention and pointed questions from commissioners about enforcement, eligibility verification, and the equity-cap mechanism. Commissioner Jackson moved to table the item and recommended that the city hold an additional work session before bringing the overlay back for a recommendation. The motion passed 4 to 1. No other major land use items were finalized at the meeting. The CHOZ proposal is expected to return to the Commission after the requested work session, at which point the Commission could forward a recommendation — positive, negative, or modified — to the City Council, which has the final say on any code amendment.