New homes are going up all over Utah, but one town in the south of the state requires people to ... [+]
Right now, Chrissy Rochford lives in an RV with her dog Riley. While she has financing for a home of her own, her tiny Utah town of Big Water is refusing to let her make that dream reality. Chrissy’s plans are for a 1,600 square foot home that would leave enough space on the lot for her horse, Sundance. But the town demands that her home as to be at least 2,000 square feet, no exceptions.
That restriction exists in most of the town, even though there are plenty of open lots, where the population is just shy of 600 people, and the median income is only $30,000. What’s the point of the regulation? To keep existing home values artificially high.
When Chrissy asked the town’s Planning and Zoning Board to change the law, she was told that the town had promised Utah’s state lands administration that the town will maintain the square footage minimum “to keep the property value up.”
For now, Chrissy is stuck since the handful of lots that would allow her to build a more modest sized home wouldn’t accommodate Sundance and she can’t afford a bigger home. Ironically, the streets of Big Water are a smattering of patriotic references: Freedom Way, Independence Drive, and Patrick Henry Court.
While Big Water’s requirement may be among the highest in the U.S., it is far from the only place in America to require home builders to meet minimum square footage requirements. Highland Lake, Alabama requires all newly built homes to be 1,800 square feet. When the Cooley family lost their old home to a fire, the requirement made it impossible for them to rebuild.
Their old Highland Lake home was 1,250 square feet and had been built long before the new requirements were imposed. While they proposed to build a bigger home, the town wouldn’t meet them halfway. After living out of a hotel for months, the Cooleys gave up on rebuilding and decided to move out of town.
In Calhoun, Georgia, nonprofit Tiny House Hand Up’s plans for an affordable tiny home village are on hold since the town has an 1,150 square foot minimum. The plans meet the building requirements in every other way, but the town refuses to consider reducing the minimum. Some neighbors have worried that the development could reduce home values but, interestingly, the property could be used for a truck terminal, warehouse, or even scrap metal processor without any zoning modifications.
Minimum square footage requirements are a relatively new innovation and have nothing to do with health and safety. In fact, as recently as the mid-1980s the median square footage for American homes was 1,600 square feet. The Cooleys are not likely to be the only family in America who simply won’t be able to rebuild on property they have owned for years.
Those requirements have grown even as building a home becomes more expensive. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, construction costs shot up 17.5% from 2020 to 2021, the largest spike in 50 years. With inflation continuing its rapid pace and supply chain problems adding to those woes, it’s possible that 2022 will see an even bigger increase.
The Institute for Justice wrote letters to the town councils in Big Water and Highland Lake noting that their requirements may not be constitutional, under either the U.S. or their respective state constitutions. Laws restricting how Americans use their private property have to be reasonable and serve legitimate government interests. Courts have struck down square footage minimums in Connecticut and Pennsylvania, finding that they had no connection to public safety or welfare.
Big Water should look at its street signs and think hard about whether their housing requirement reflects the values for which Americans like Patrick Henry fought. How did we get from “Give me liberty or give me death!” to “Your home must be this big and must make your neighbors’ property values go up”? Hopefully the town council will come to its senses and let Chrissy, Riley, and Sundance live in peace.
