South Salt Lake weighs up to $30 million in RDA bonds and a new downtown zone to speed housing

South Salt Lake city staff asked the City Council to consider authorizing the issuance of up to $30,000,000 in tax-increment bonds to support multiple downtown housing projects and outlined a parallel plan to create a new downtown zoning district tailored to a large Blazer development and similar sites.

In a high-level presentation, Jonathan Weidenhammer, community and economic development director, said the bond package is intended to “get our vertical going in the downtown” and to help move about 2,000 housing units currently planned for construction. He said the city would issue the debt in June and that the funds would likely be available in late June, with individual participation agreements for each project returning to council for approval.

The proposed financing would be a package of tools that includes tax-increment bonds, re-pledging some excise tax revenue to provide additional coverage for the bonds, and use of the city housing fund balance and general fund dollars. Cody Dieter, the municipal financial adviser and RDA strategy and tool adviser, was present for questions about rates and structure.

Councilmember Greg asked how soon construction would start after bond issuance; Weidenhammer said the Blazer project expects to break ground in the first weeks of July, other projects such as the Times Square blocks aim for late summer, and the Utopia Apartments had a building permit and could mobilize this summer pending final financing. Weidenhammer reiterated that individual participation agreements would preserve council discretion over awarding funds.

Senior planner Spencer Cawley described a separate but related step: creating a new downtown zone specific to the large Blazer project. Cawley said the new zone would encapsulate project-specific deviations from the existing downtown code — for example, adjusting minimum height rules to use an average height metric appropriate for a larger project, addressing parking structure requirements to ensure adequate parking for all site uses, specifying façade materials, glazing, and building massing standards, and allowing ground-floor residential where the current downtown zone does not.

Cawley said the city intends to take a flushed-out version of the new code to the Planning Commission and to return to council in June with a recommendation, alongside the development agreement and participation agreement for the Blazer project. He said the new downtown zone is being developed as a template for other large sites (over five acres), including the Times Square blocks project.

No formal action or vote on bond issuance or the new zone was recorded in the work meeting; staff described these as items for forthcoming meetings. Staff emphasized that the council would receive and consider individual participation agreements and retain final authority over awards.

The presentations linked the RDA financing work and the zoning effort as coordinated steps to accelerate multiple housing projects in the downtown area.

Ending: Staff said they would return to the council with participation agreements and formal zoning and development items in June. The council may consider the bond resolution and related code changes at those future meetings.