Draper weighs opening unsold workforce homes to part-time city staff and school employees

Three workforce housing units Ivory Homes built in Draper have not sold, and the City Council spent part of its Oct. 20 meeting discussing who else might be allowed to buy them, the Draper Herald reported 1. Council members discussed opening the units to part-time city employees who have passed their probationary period, Canyons School District staff and National Guard members; charter school employees were also raised as a possibility 1. No formal vote was taken 1.

The prices under discussion were roughly $429,000 for one unit and $459,000 for two others. The Herald reported that Ivory Homes considers the price points appropriate, but that buyers have shown interest and then backed out. "Well, interest rates are a killer," one council member said during the discussion 1.

The terms behind the program limit the pool. The homes carry a 50-year deed restriction, and the current agreement restricts buyers to households earning between 80 and 120 percent of the area median income; raising the income cap would require action by the Draper Community Reinvestment Agency 1.

The program dates to January 2025. The agency unanimously approved Resolution #CRA 25-01 that month, a partnership between the city and the Clark and Christine Ivory Foundation, with staff member Kellie Challburg presenting the agreement, which aimed to help Draper workers buy homes near their jobs 1. The city's 2025 moderate income housing report to the state describes the same deal: $100,000 in city funding, in exchange for which Ivory Homes agreed to sell seven affordable workforce units to employees of Draper City and the Canyons School District, in two- and three-bedroom plans with a four-bedroom option, deed-restricted for 50 years with annual appreciation capped at 4 percent 2.

That report, which covers Aug. 1, 2024, through July 31, 2025, described the project in two phases. In Phase 1, three units had been claimed by Canyons School District employees, and those households had moved in; in Phase 2, three of the four available units had been reserved by city employees 2. It put prices across the project between $390,000 for a two-bedroom unit and $475,000 for a four-bedroom with a finished basement 2. The council's Oct. 20 discussion concerned three units that had not sold 1.

The city has a second agreement in the same program. On June 17, 2025, it approved the Kimballs Junction development agreement with Edge Homes, which requires at least 30 workforce units for moderate-income city employees, schoolteachers and first responders; the city committed to good-faith efforts to contribute up to $30,000 per unit toward purchase prices, preferably from agency funds 2. The report counts the two agreements together at 37 units 2.

The units are far below Draper's market. The Herald reported that the Draper Journal, citing the Salt Lake Board of Realtors, put the city's median home price at $1 million in December 2025, and that an affordability report from the same board, covered by the Deseret News in August, priced Draper's median single-family home at $925,000 — a figure requiring household income of roughly $259,641 1.

Canyons teachers had already been notified about the units, council members said at the meeting, and a Canyons representative suggested that opening eligibility to part-time employees would bring in bus drivers and lunch workers as well 1.

If no buyers step forward, the agreement allows Ivory Homes to take the units back and sell them to anyone; council members said they would prefer the homes go to employees first 1. The next step they described is to start with part-time employees and potentially invite Ivory Homes sales staff to present to city workers over lunch 1. Any change to the income limits would go before the Community Reinvestment Agency at a future meeting, and no date had been set as of the Oct. 20 discussion 1.