The Utah Legislature voted last week to funnel $1 million into a fledgling workforce housing nonprofit helmed by Kane Creek developer Craig Weston.
The Moab Valley, looking north from Old City Park, on Feb. 1. Photo by Rick Egan/The Salt Lake Tribune
It’s one of several new housing-related nonprofits associated with Weston. Another, the Utah Workforce Housing Alliance, was founded in 2022 and as of early this year appeared to have almost no public presence except through a donation to a Grand County political party.
Utah Workforce Housing Advocacy, the nonprofit awarded funding, is a three-month-old organization described on the Legislature’s website as a group that “advocates for affordable housing for first-time homebuyers, workforce housing, and housing stock in general for Utahns.”
Weston, one of the three business partners of Kane Creek Preservation and Development and the executive director of the housing nonprofit, originally requested $2.5 million for the group from the Legislature’s Business, Economic Development, and Labor Appropriations Subcommittee on Feb. 2.
When asked for comment later, he described the organization’s goal as “nothing short of a complete overhaul of housing policy in Utah.”
He said the organization has bipartisan support and aims to both shape land use processes and help the public “better understand the underlying issues and challenges.”
“Development and land use remain very complicated matters and result in a lot of passion among a lot of people — understandably,” Weston wrote in an email. “But it is critical that all of us find better ways to balance property rights, local community concerns and market economics.”
Steve Waldrip, a former state legislator named last year as Gov. Spencer Cox’s senior advisor for housing strategy and innovation, said the idea for the group first arose with him and Matt Lusty, the nonprofit’s registered agent and a founding partner at Election Hive, a campaign consulting firm.
Waldrip said he and Lusty envisioned a group focused on “non-political, nonpartisan advocacy for Utah housing” that combats people’s aversion toward growth.
“It’s kind of a ‘win the hearts and minds of the people’ campaign,” Waldrip said. “We need people to refocus on the fact that yes, growth is painful; yes, change is difficult; but the future of our state … depends on our children staying here and not being forced to go look for the American dream in other states.”
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