Herriman's affordable-housing test is a floor area, not a price

Herriman does not say no to housing. In the year to July 2025 it rezoned several hundred acres in its southeast corner from large-lot agricultural and single-family zones to small-lot, attached and multi-family, alongside new agreements for South Hills and Panorama 1. It doubled the base density of its A-1-10 agricultural zone from 1.8 units an acre to 4.0 12. On 27 May 2026 its council approved detached accessory dwelling units 5-0, requiring owner occupancy and banning short-term rentals 3. Its 2025 filing counts 15 ADU permits in the year, against two the year before 12.

The city also reports honestly on what that has bought. Its filing says "market forces continue to favor the construction of larger homes on smaller lots, instead of smaller (and more affordable) homes on smaller lots," and that a city cannot require affordability in single- and two-family homes without an incentive or a negotiated deal 1. That candour makes the rest of the filing credible.

The incentive it found is $50 million. On 5 March 2026 the Affordable Housing Infrastructure Grant Board awarded Herriman that sum for three backbone roads, on condition that 2,500 owner-occupied homes in Olympia qualify as affordable 4. Olympia was already entitled for 6,480 units, and the staff report for the amendment the council adopted on 14 October states that the 2,500 are "already included" and "will not increase the total number of allowable units" 5.

What makes them affordable is set out in that amendment. All 2,500 must be sold to owner-occupiers under a recorded five-year owner-occupancy deed restriction; no more than 500 may be rented afterwards, and the council must consent in writing to raise that cap. At least 1,250 must be detached homes on lots of 5,000 square feet or less; of those, 50 may not exceed 1,400 finished square feet and may have no ADU, 450 may not exceed 1,600, and the remainder may not exceed 1,900. Condominiums do not count 5.

Those are real terms. The problem is the one that is absent. Utah's statute defines an affordable housing unit as a dwelling "offered for sale to an owner-occupier at a purchase price that the board determines is affordable for the county," deed restricted for up to five years 6. The program's published requirements are more specific: affordable to a household at or below 120 per cent of area median income 7. Neither the staff report nor the amendment records a price, an income band or a buyer test. The minutes of 23 September describe the goal as "affordability through finished square footage rather than a specified price" 8.

We could not retrieve the board's Resolution 2026-01, which sits in the agreement as an exhibit. In the documents the city publishes, affordability is a floor area, and the minutes name "Olympia and its homeowners association" as the party monitoring the deed restrictions 58.

When Herriman last did the arithmetic, in the plan the council adopted as Ordinance 2022-38, a three-person household at 80 per cent of area median income could afford a purchase price of $229,303, on the plan's 2022 assumptions about mortgage rates and utilities 9. Nothing in the 2026 record connects to that number. A 1,400-square-foot house is a smaller house; whether it is an affordable one is a question of price, and price is the one thing the agreement does not regulate.

The income-restricted inventory makes the stakes plain. The 2025 filing counts one LIHTC project: 288 units, 258 set aside for low-income households, credits allocated in 2011, with the initial 15-year compliance period ending this year and the minimum extended period ending in 2041 1. Herriman permitted 33 residential units in September 2026, against 18 a year earlier, in a city of 66,438 with a 4.1 per cent vacancy rate 8. The pipeline is not the constraint. The price of what comes out of it is.

Our judgement concerns two decisions and one consequence. The Herriman City Council, on 23 September 2026, approved Resolution R43-2026 by 5-0, accepting the grant and its conditions 8. On 14 October it adopted Ordinance 2026-19, writing those conditions into the Olympia agreement and passing responsibility for costs above the $50 million award, $54,416,660 in total, to the developer 5. Public money now buys roads for 2,500 homes whose affordability will be judged by floor area, reported to a state board by the city and to the city by the developer, with the deed restrictions held by a homeowners association.

Four things would change our mind. Publish, for each size band, the purchase price the board has determined is affordable and the household income that buys it 67. Make the city, not the developer, the party that audits compliance, and report a sample to the council each year. Publish the annual report the disbursement agreement already requires by 1 September with sale prices attached, not only "the number of affordable housing units completed or under construction" 5. And say what those 258 restricted units are restricted to after 2026 1.

This page argued the housing records of Riverton and South Jordan earlier this month 10. Herriman's is the strongest of the three. That is why the missing number matters: a city that has rezoned more, reported more candidly and won more state money than its neighbours should be able to say what its affordable homes cost.