FLY IT

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In a “Who’s winning this design battle”? the state of Utah has a finalist for it’s new state flag.  If you haven’t noticed, Salt Lake City got a new flag two years ago, made up of two horizontal bars of blue on the top and white on the bottom with a sego lily flower in the upper left side (canton/corner). We don’t see many sego lily flowers in the capitol city, but there is a giant concrete representation of one in Sugar House park that you can sit on if you walk in the south end of the park. The first city flag was created in 1963 and designed by J. Rulon Hales, the winner of a contest run by the Deseret News. The first version of it was made by Highland High students and it was officially put into use in 1969. It included seagulls, pioneers, a covered wagon, and the sun rising over the Wasatch. In the center was the beehive, our symbol of industry related to the founding of the city and its Mormon heritage. It was a busy flag and not a simple, ideal design in the world of flags.

In 2006 the second design of the city flag was adopted by the City Council after Mayor Rocky Anderson sponsored a design contest a few years earlier. Anderson, who’s announced he’s running for Salt Lake mayor again felt that “the old flag was too exclusive and focused entirely on the city’s Mormon heritage.”  This flag had a green horizontal bar on top, blue on the bottom, and a modern graphic rendition of the Salt Lake City skyline with snowcapped mountains in the background as a center oval. Not to be outdone, Mayor Mendenhall decided she wanted a  new flag and so the city government in 2020 opened a contest with a $3,000 prize for the winning entry. Six hundred people sent in their ideas and the final design was adopted by the city council October of the same year.

A commission met last month to advance their choice for a new Utah state flag, with three horizonal lines-the top a navy blue sky, the middle a representation of snowy mountains, a red bottom line to represent the red rock of southern Utah, with a beehive in the middle and a star underneath it (to represent the state’s Native American tribes). Over 44,000 citizens chimed in on designed ideas after state leaders criticized the current flag as “boring” and called it a “state seal on a blue bedsheet”. The Utah State Legislature in January 2023 will have to approve the new design.

One critic of the new flag told me the new flag design seemed appropriate: ‘Blue at the top of the state, red at the bottom, and white in the middle’ to represent the political factions within our borders. It was in 2011 that the current flag was adopted with the state seal over a navy blue background.

Park It!

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Hopefully you voted in the mid-term elections? Salt Lake City folk passed a $85 mil bond to fund more parks and trail projects which will cost the average homeowner @$54 per year for 20 years beginning in 2024.

The biggest project to be funded will be the Glendale Regional Park which will convert the former 1700 South Raging Waters Park into a new 17-acre park-the first for the City’s forgotten west side. The attraction of a giant wave pool and water slides (at times called Wild Wave and Seven Peaks) fell into disrepair and shut down in 2018. The new plan includes community gathering spaces, trails, an overlook, playgrounds, and sport courts; addition of unique elements of surrounding neighborhoods’ identities and histories, increasing elements of placemaking based on community input and desires, and adding multilingual identity and wayfinding signage. Salt Lake City itself could have used some of those funds to update the wayfinding signs from the Olympics that are outdated and faded around downtown.

Other items the bond will fund include completion of the Folsom Trail where there is one section from 1000 West to the Jordan River Parkway, a new park in Granary District , plantings along the Jordan River Corridor to help improve air and water quality, improvements to parks in all City Council districts, replacement of the well-worn but actively used ‘Rotary Playground’ area of the Northwest area of Liberty Park, improvements to Fairmont Park including enhanced public access and hopefully new uses of the Boy’s and Girls Club tennis courts, and landscape and preservation improvements to historic Allen Park across from Westminster College.

The City has surveyed residents about public lands and found that residents were using parks more because of Covid-19, and with the anticipated growth we’ll be seeing it’s important to always include greenspace in the overall development of the City. I sat on a  charrette about our parks several years ago when I served as a volunteer Planning and Zoning Commissioner for the City. One expert who came in to lead the discussion mentioned that he really didn’t think the capitol city or the valley needed more parks because you could be in the mountains here in 15-30 minutes. Currently there are 103 parks and numerous trails throughout the Salt Lake Valley.

The first park here was Liberty Park, established in 1882. It is second in size to Sugar House Park. That park came as a result of the state Legislature passing a statue in 1947 setting aside the old state prison site as a state park. That one wasn’t necessarily targeted for any major renovations, but I would have suggested recognizing the fact that when we have snow we have a great sledding hill there but no formal infrastructure to assist sledders like a railing/stairs to use when climbing back up the hill, an ice rink or pickleball courts. I personally think we need a year round area in one of our city parks for roller derby in the summer and hockey in the winter.

Beer River

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You’ve driven by the Fisher Mansion a million times if you’ve taken the freeway to the Airport from the east side heading north. It’s at 1206 West 200 South and if you’re the passenger in a car you can look to your immediate right as you weave from 1-15 to the west. It was designed by Richard Kletting, an influential architect from Utah who also designed the original Salt Palace, Saltair resort pavilion, the Utah State Capitol, the Territorial Insane Asylum, Lehi Tabernacle and many other buildings. It’s been sitting vacant for decades.

The two story, twelve-room mansion was constructed in the Victorian Eclectic style in a sparsely populated neighborhood near the banks of the Jordan River. Albert Fisher had immigrated to Utah from Germany and built this home near his place of work-the A. Fisher Brewing Company. The family beer business in Utah was brewing 75,000 barrels a year of suds with around 50 employees,  and provided the beverage to bars and taverns in Salt Lake County-many of which Fisher owned. His mansion showed off his success, and interestingly enough was the only beer brewery to re-open after the repeal of Prohibition. It closed in 1957. The mansion later was leased out to the Catholic Church for missionary sisters and then in 1970 became an alcohol and drug abuse treatment facility. It was later purchased by Salt Lake City in 2006.

The home sat vacant for several years as input from citizens was gathered as to the potential use of the building, as it’s got great bones with wonderful craftmanship. In 2020 the 5.7 earthquake damaged the building and all three chimneys, so in September of that year the City switched from attempts to update the mansion to focus on the carriage house there. Sadly, in the middle of the night that spring, someone stole most of the bronze metal fence surrounding the property that was most likely part of Kletting’s original design. The carriage house is now complete, with offices and a small public meeting room.

What’s great about all of this is the new boat ramp by the mansion that gives access to kayakers who want to explore the Jordan River in that area. Users say it’s the best boat ramp yet to be built along the trail. The other two ramps close by are located near the Utah State Fairpark at the Gadsby trailhead and one at 1800 North. Getting into the river now is much easier for people to access and there are more ramps planned for the future. The Jordan River flows from Utah Lake in Utah County to the Great Salt Lake and state, county and city planners and volunteers have been working for years to develop not just the Parkway along the river but the boat ramps. It’s really a great experience to boat during the fall, to leaf peep along the waterway and see nature first hand rather than through your car window. For more info on ramps: slc.gov/parks/Jordan-river-boat-access.

SUNSHINE

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With the cost of utilities rising more homeowners are considering converting to solar to get free energy from the sun and even store some for emergencies. There are a bazillion companies out there looking to get your hard earned dollar to install their brand of solar products, some better than others.

Solar energy collection isn’t new to Utah. At 3 MW, the Buckhorn Solar Plant in Paragona is one of the newest solar installations in Utah. It has the capability to power more than 589 homes.  The Utah Red Hills Renewable Energy Park was completed in 2016. This photovoltaic project has the capacity to generate enough power to feed over 20,419 homes. Best of all, several large retailers have gone solar, including IKEA, Patagonia and Uinta Brewing Company. Our neighbor, California, has by far the greatest installed capacity of solar photovoltaic power in the U.S.

The big news for our state is that a Utah company is partnering with PacifiCorp to build the state’s biggest solar ‘farm’ with a battery storage facility smack dab in the middle of coal country! Utah’s largest farm will sit on about 3,200 acres by the tiny city of Moore in Emery County-just south of Castle Dale and Huntington. What will be known as ‘The Green River Energy Center’, the project will generate 400 megawatts from the farm and 200 megawatts from the battery storage facility. The area was chosen mainly because it’s by major transmission lines from the coal /power plants nearby and the amount of sunshine the area gets.

Unfortunately Emery County’s Lila Canyon coal mine caught fire on Sept. 20th, 2022 and experts say the flames could smolder indefinitely, which would close the mine forever. The owners will try and drill and flood the mine with water and foam because the Fed’s won’t let anyone go down into the mine while it’s on fire. This sucks for Rocky Mountain Power, as the two largest power plants in Emery County have now lost access to one of their biggest coal suppliers. The high quality of Utah’s coal is highly desirable not just in Utah but is shipped around the world. The best quality coal is found in Wyoming-the nation’s leading coal producer since 1986. Our neighbors provide @40% of the country’s coal through the top 10 mines in the cowboy country of Powder River Basin. They too are developing solar alternatives, as Wyoming now has it’s first solar project, “Sweetwater”, in Green Giver, Wyoming. It’s expected to generate enough clean energy to power 12,000 homes per year.

If you want to get more information on solar company/providers: https://www.energysage.com/local-data/solar-companies/ut/?rc=seia

This website is a gem of information, from the history of solar policies in Utah to state government energy programs, energy-saving strategies, the State Solar Policy, solar installers and solar companies, energy statistics, solar incentives and rebates and up-to-date pricing information. You can actually search other states in the same website. Do be careful in researching solar options-there are unfortunately many scammer’s greedy for your money!

 

Data: nsenergybusiness.com

 

3RD QUARTER STATS

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Third quarter real estate stats are out for Salt Lake County and frankly, they are a bit odd. The median sold price in the Q3 here was $600,000, which is down almost 6% over Q2 of this year. BUT if we look at stats from last year, we see a growth pattern in sales of 9%. Interest rates on 30 year mortgages are now up to 7% or more and less buyers are coming into the market right now, so predictions for this final quarter aren’t looking too great. The Fed is definitely going to keep raising interest rates until inflation cools and we’re seeing massive price reductions of homes on the market. Nationally, new listings in September fell 22% over the previous month, and 17% of listings under contract/sale pending failed to close. Sales are down 20% over 2021. In the County, Q3 sales were down 18.8% compared to Q2 and down 30% compared to the same time in 2021.

‘Run, don’t walk to the nearest exit’ is starting to be the war cry for some sellers, as ‘days on market’ in Q3 moved to 22 days, VS six days on the market until recently. If you love house porn you’ll notice on many listings that sellers are willing to ‘help pay buyers closing costs’ or are offering incentives like new carpeting. This is the time of year when people begin to seriously nest-cold weather, holidays. And given those vibes it’s when the market generally slows down. Although we’ve seen only smoking statistics for the last few years here, we will experience a slow down as predictors are saying that the housing market needs this kind of correction to balance out housing supply and demand.

I can’t stress enough that if you can qualify for a loan, there are options to get better rates. The ‘two-one’ buy down is a great product, wherein if rates are at 7, you loan starts at 5% for a year, then 6% for another year, and then fixes at 7% for the rest of the loan. You can refinance if rates go down and the initial discount will hopefully allow for you to get raises at work to afford that 7% rate down the road. PLUS buyers are starting to get great deals as the market softens. There’s no better time in Utah to shop for homes than during the colder months. Why? It’s nice to know how that potential house fares in winter! When you walk into an empty house, does it feel drafty although the heat is on? How’s the insulation in the attic, around the doors and windows, and under the floors? Does the furnace growl like your stomach in the morning? Since it’s cool to cold here about half of the year, a well-built home with good insulation is a must. And if seller’s are willing to chip in to the deal to make you more comfortable by giving you a credit towards closing costs or added insulation…well, it doesn’t cost a dime to make an offer!

SCARY CHANGES

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To many, change is scary.  And big changes are coming to Salt Lake neighborhoods since the City Council has voted to loosen zoning laws and easing ordinances. After a few years of debate, grumblings and public input citizens will find that Boarding Houses will become a thing again, the Tiny Home Village has been approved, builders will not be required to carve out as much parking for their projects as in the past, and the Ballpark area will get getting zoning changes.

The Ballpark area has been a mess of development without long range planning which has caused a weird pattern of more car than foot traffic with big box stores (Walmart, Lowes) and large apartment buildings taking up land. The changes will in effect create a ‘Ballpark Station Area Transit Station Area zone’ which the city is calling ‘Heart of the Neighborhood’ that will reportedly reconfigure the Ballpark TRAX station to improve access from the west, make it easier for pedestrians on 1300 South with new and improved crossings and adding green space around the stadium. Mind you, no one is sure the stadium will be there in a few years, but for now, it’s still a landmark to build around to improve the neighborhood experience.

There are 45 pages of parking ordinances created in 2019 being updated, to include new minimum and maximum parking spaces required for new construction, electric vehicle parking, more assessable parking (the capitol city is not known for an abundance of handicapped/accessible parking), bike parking, off street loading areas, and drive-throughs. Shared housing was big in the 1800-1900’s as an affordable housing alternative, and boarding houses will now be allowed in all TSA, downtown, Sugarhouse Central Business District and several other zones with a minimum bedroom size of 100 ft per person, 24-hour on-site management, and security cameras except in bathrooms.

Another item that spooks homeowners -changes to RMF-30 zoning (which is traditionally a low density multi-family residential district). This would eliminate the width of a building lot (currently the rule is 80’ ft wide) for multi-family dwellings to allow for potentially more accessory dwelling units and tiny homes to be added to current properties that formerly didn’t have a wide enough lot to put in an addition.  RMF zoning exists mainly on the city’s east side and this change would allow for more density-something NIMBY’S are opposed to as a change in their hood. The downside is that a home could be torn down and replaced with multi-units, meaning potentially more traffic and parking problems. A huge part of the discussion for changes to this zoning is a ‘Housing Loss Mitigation’ -people don’t want homes torn down and replaced with multi-units. This adds to loss of place and gentrification as we see neighborhoods decimated by aggressive developers throughout the city.

Time to take off your masks and rip off the bloody bandages, Salt Lake. Life here and around the state is changing fast and if you don’t pay attention you’ll end up falling into an open grave!

Spooky Times

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It’s October. Fall has officially begun and for many, it’s not just hoodie season, it’s scary season!  What could possibly be scary when buying a home? Or selling one? I could write a few dozen books about what I’ve seen in my almost 40 years as a REALTOR! Since my editor requested something spooky malookie, here’s a few highlights that I personally witnessed:

-My buyers and I found an old wicker wheelchair in the basement of an old bungalow when we were going through a vacant home just before sunset, similar to the one in the Alfred Hitchcock movie, Psycho. Yeah, that was creepy, but what was worse was that it was kinda rocking back and forth when we discovered it. NOPE, we were out of there so fast we were virtually crawling up each other’s back getting up the stairs and out of the place!

-Yes, I have seen a ghost in a property. It was in the heat of summer in a vacant home in Marmalade. My client had just walked from the front door through the living room and entered the kitchen. I was right behind. The home was stifling hot and the summer flys (the big ones) were attempting suicide at the glass windows to get out, making weird banging noises as they flew at top speed into the glass and then ending upside down on the window sill. There were like 100 of them. As he kept going I looked up from the fly graveyard to my right. It was then I saw an adult, white male dressed as an 1800’s miner with a hard hat with a half burned candle on it. He looked at me, not with any malice, and walked directly into the wall and disappeared.

-I’ve had several sellers tell me tales of their haunted houses. Two that I remember are still located  in the 9thand 9th area. One possessed house wouldn’t let the owners put nails in the walls. Anytime they tried to hang a picture, a painting, or curtains the nails would go flying back at them. And yes, the cabinets would bang closed in the middle of the night just like you’ve seen in B-rated horror movies. They ended up calling a witch who came in and read the house and talked to the spirit. I don’t remember what she said but the cabinets settled down and they were able to hang curtains. There were still troubles with the nails, tho. The other home just down the street had voices in the attic. The owners discovered that the owner in the 1930’s was fighting prohibition by making whisky in the home and hiding it up there.

What’s spooky now?  The FED raising interest rates another .75%.  That means interest rates on mortgages are going to go up. Home sales across the nation have slowed during the past 7 months in a row, but prices aren’t dropping. Homes are sitting longer on the market and Utah is among the top states for price reductions. Buyers and sellers are feeling scared in this spooky market, and there’s more adjusting coming.

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The Buzz and the Bees

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It’s almost time for the Boys of Summer to finish their season’s games and the top teams vie to get into the World Series beginning October 28th.  Our local Salt Lake Bees haven’t has a swell season this year and rumor has it we might not be seeing Bees baseball after 2024 when the lease on Smiths Ballpark at the corner of 1300 South and West Temple in Salt Lake City.

Our local ballpark opened in 1994 with a seating capacity of 15,411 which is the largest stadium in the Pacific Coast League. The first team to play there was known as the Salt Lake Buzz but then in 2001 the name changed to the Salt Lake Stingers. Joe Buzas (a former baseballer himself) moved the Portland Beavers to Salt Lake as long as the city built a new ballpark where Derks Field was located. Franklin Quest field opened in 1994 and drew almost 800,000 ticket holders in the first year. When Buzas died in 2003 the team was purchased by the Larry H. Miller group. When he died his wife sold the team to Ryan Smith last year, the new owner of the Utah Jazz.

I was sad when the name changed from the Buzz to the Stingers but there was a trademark owned by Georgia Tech.  Since the honeybee is the official state symbol (as of 1959), the official state insect is the honeybee, the name for honeybee in the Book of Mormon is Deseret and our flag has a beehive on it, ‘the Buzz’ seemed like an appropriate name at the time. But now all may be lost as rumors have it that a new ballpark is in the works with a potential MLB team replacing our Bees.

Apparently, our City Council has been looking at ‘improving’ the neighborhood where the Ballpark is located, possibly doing upgrades to make it bigger with a vision of new commercial properties and housing opportunities around it. Right now the area is s a mess of homeless camps and increased crime intermingled with sweet historic homes   The lease on the field expires in 2024 and the Bees will need to be re-licensed with MLB by the end of this decade. Note that the Larry H. Miller group has purchased a s-load of acreage in Daybreak and sold of part of its ownership of the Utah Jazz and Vivent Arena to a sports group so it’s possible we could getting an MLB team down the road. Which is much more likely and less expensive than a MLF league!

My best memories of our Bees were watching Mike Trout play. He was moved up to the home team (we’re the farm for the California Angels) and became the highest paid MLB player in terms of total contract value in baseball. Trout, a three-time AL MVP, signed an extension before the 2019 season that will pay him a total of $426.5 million through 2030. When we root for the Bees we’re rooting for the Angels too-befitting a saintly state, eh?

Just released

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Salt Lake County prices still moving up, but market is slowing with ‘Days on Market’ now 23. BETTER for buyers as sometimes you can actually go back for a second look before making an offer. BUT interest rates are now up to 6.5%

Tax Time

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Property tax notices have been mailed to folks who own land, homes, commercial buildings, condos, etc. During mid-summer we get a notice from the County Tax Assessor where we live that shows what our property taxes were last year and what the Assessor intends to charge for the coming year. Folks are calling me to get comparable sales data from January of last year to show the Assessor how LITTLE their property is worth so they don’t get a major bump in property taxes. In Salt Lake County the average home value rose 28.7% over 2021. The Assessor didn’t raise my taxes by that amount, but it’s looking like I’m going to get an increase of about 20% over the previous year. YET, the value of my home is way under what it would be if we put it on the market today to sell. So, we’re winning the property tax game-for now.
Anyone can protest their property taxes. Do you have a chance battling the big bad gubmint? Actually, yes. I called a friend who used to work for the Assessor and they shared you might be able to get a bit off the proposed tax valuation BUT you must apply by September 15th with an application that has a current appraisal or comparable sales data attached to it. You can simply send it in (there’s a form/envelope included with the notice) or you can go in person to plead your case. IF you lose your protest you can appeal to the Utah State Tax Commission for a hearing, or argue your way all the way to the Utah Supreme Court.
Many people can’t pay their property taxes in one lump sum. You can talk to the Assessor’s office in your county to find out options for payments. They can’t take away your property until you have been delinquent for four years of non-payment. The county can sell your property to pay off the tax bill via a public auction, where the wining bid must equal at least the amount of the overdue taxes, penalties, interests and administrative costs. IF the County accepts the sale terms the winning bidder gets a tax deed as long as they pay the terms of the winning bid within a few days. Property owners can then file a claim to receive any amount paid to the county in excess of the property taxes plus interest.
Where do most of the taxes go, once paid? School districts, city services take up the most of your property tax money. If you are having trouble paying your taxes, there are several programs that can help if you are 65 or older ore getting disability benefits, income /assets less than $35,807, are blind or the unmarried spouse or minor of a deceased blind person, veterans with a service-connected disability or on active duty outside of Utah. For more information: slco.org/treasurer/tax-relief.