California’s first ADU condo sale offers another path to homeownership

Backdoor Revolution: The Definitive Guide to ADU Development

I have been interested in ADUs for years ("DC and accessory dwelling units," "There are plenty of lots capable of accessory dwelling units in Upper Northwest," "Will carriage houses destroy city life as we know it?."  

And for a time did alley tours in Greater Capitol Hill.

Article from the Orange County Register.  From the article:

San Jose is home to the first accessory dwelling unit sold as a separately owned condo in California, city officials said, setting a potential template for a more affordable path to homeownership. But a lengthy rollout raises questions about whether the model can become a scalable solution to the state’s housing crisis — the sale comes more than two years after the state made such transactions possible.

The 749-square-foot, two-bedroom ADU on Josefina Street near downtown closed last month for $530,000. That’s about a quarter of Santa Clara County’s eye-popping $2.1 million median single-family home price in May, according to the California Association of Realtors. Real estate brokerage Redfin last month listed San Jose among the 10 most expensive U.S. housing markets, based on the share of median income needed to afford to buy a home.

ADUs, also known as in-law units or granny flats, typically have up to 1,200 square feet of living space and must include a kitchen sink, cooking appliance and separate bathroom.

The sale was made possible by a state law passed in 2023, Assembly Bill 1033, which allows homeowners to convert ADUs into condos and sell them separately from the main property, rather than just renting them out. Under the law, ADU condos come with their own property tax bills, but require an HOA agreement with the primary homeowner for common elements, such as roofs or driveways.

Historicity.  I have been intrigued by alleys, historic carriage houses, and ADUs for a long time.  First in terms of historicity.   

• DC Historic Alleys Building Survey, DC Historic Preservation Office
• "The American Alley, Part 1: A Hidden Resource," "The American Alley, Part 2: Origins of the American Alley," "The American Alley, Part 3: The End of the American Alley," "The American Alley, Part 4: Rediscovering the Forgotten Human Scale," Strong Towns/Resilience
• "History: Capitol Hill Alley Dwellings," Hill Rag

• and how on some properties there are historic carriage buildings that have been converted from horse stables to houses.  These are on regular house lots.  
• There are also some carriage houses on their own lots separate from a street facing lot, developed when the interior of large blocks were "programmed" with buildings separate from the street--often for "industrial uses" like stables, machining, storage, drayage, etc., 
• I learned from a guy I talked to once on a rear alley off of H Street NE who said that at the time (before DC liberalized ADU laws) it was legal for these buildings to have a "caretaker" apartment
• Interior blocks often were developed with housing to use up the space, make it profitable, and  sometimes as a way to provide mixed income housing--for servants, lower income people, etc.  
• (Later, instead of dealing with interior blocks, developers created intervening streets, such as Acker Place, Lexington Place, Morris Place, Morton Place, and Orleans Place between 6th and 7th Streets NE, Parker Street NE by Union Station, or blocks of rowhouses west of 5th Street NW in Manor Park like Quackenbos Street NW and Quintana Place NW)
• President's wife Ellen Wilson's claim to DC fame was her work to rid blocks of this interior  housing, probably because often the people settled there were African-Americans.

• Although some sections remained, like Millers Court NE and Brown's Court SE or on Capitol Hill and became models for building similar housing later 
• And because in upper NW, such as the lots east of 4th Street in Manor Park, the deep lots often have free standing garages or nothing, and could accommodate an ADU.  Our lot could, which I'd like to take advantage of some time.
• Transit access is key.  But I think it's best to focus ADU development within walking distance to a Metrorail station, to reduce the demand for driving.  Our house in Manor Park is about three quarters of a mile from Takoma Metrorail Station.

Affordable Housing.  Second in terms of the idea of adding "missing middle housing" and affordable housing. Missing middle housing is smaller types of housing vis a vis "normal sized" single family attached and detached houses.  In DC, it's not missing, it's just very expensive because all housing in DC is expensive.  And because there isn't a lot of it.  As noted above, it's mostly on interiors of blocks, and as a product of its time, pre-1900.

A very small house on Millers Court NE rents for $4,500 per month.  Middle housing indeed!

But the people who can afford to build an ADU might not necessarily want to provide AH.  According to a study in Greater Los Angeles ("The dark side of California’s backyard ADU boom: How much do they ease the housing shortage," LA Times):

He found that “ADU prevalence correlates with lower-income, renter-occupied, and younger households, denser populations, and areas with higher concentrations of non-white residents and registered Democrats.”

This type of housing is a form of what's being called "missing middle housing."  

In some weak markets like a neighborhood in Austin, Texas, ADUs are promoted to support multi-generational living and wealth generation through improving the value of a property by adding a unit, or to have a second income stream from the property to pay the mortgage ("Alley Flat Initiative fits small, green homes into unexpected places," CultureMap Austin, Alley Flat Initiative, Guadalupe Neighborhood Development Corporation). 

Some photos.

Parker Street NE -- the houses are narrow but still expensive because of the location.

Quintana Place NW -- the houses are more colonial, Tudor and not contiguous but in units of two because the National Capital Planning Commission ruled  sometime in the 1920s that rowhouses couldn't be contiguous (seen as an anti-African American policy decision)

Lexington Place NE -- the Queen Anne rowhouse style typified by the houses on Parker Street NE started to be succeeded by a more Craftsman form, often called Wardman style after the developer.  This transition started around 1907. ("What's in a Wardman? A Short Overview of DC's Most Prevalent Architecural Style," DC Urban Turf).

Millers Court SE is super well situated.  A block from the Supreme Court.  Two blocks from the Capitol.

Third, I've wanted to put one on our lot.  But ADUs aren't as cheap to build as people say.

1.  everyone says "oh, they're cheaper because you don't have to buy the land."
2. That's a little true, but the cost of permitting and new construction and financing is still high, over $250/s.f.
3. Plus the cost of installing electricity and water/sewage (and maybe gas).
4. They are hard to finance, although you can do it through a home equity loan I suppose.  And then the rents can't be super cheap because you have to pay off the cost of construction plus the various annual costs.

This is a garage on the rear of a lot on the 4400 block of River Road NW in DC.  It's a similar configuration to our lot in Manor Park.

The amounts of money cities offer to encourage ADU construction aren't very much and usually require renting out at less than market rates.

To facilitate this "the city" or nonprofit should create an ADU clearinghouse working with property owners to finance and build, and then with property owners and renters to facilitate rentals in a systematic way.

CDCs to build and finance at scale.  Gosh a good 12+ years ago I suggested the creation of a community development corporation that would operate city wide doing this.  Ideally, on our block you could build as many as 32 ADUs, they could go in on a block, with a city incentive too, and try to get multiple property owners to do it at the same time, to cut costs.

A number of firms do this now in the Midwest, such as ADU America, and in the Pacific Northwest and California (ADU Resource Center).

Pattern Books to make building ADUs easier.  Some cities have also created ADU pattern books to facilitate permitting and lower cost construction.  Often they include more modern buildings which don't appeal to me.  I prefer that ADUs match the prevailing neighborhood architectural style be it Queen Anne or Craftsman rowhouse, Colonial, etc.

-- ADU D.C. Homeowner’s Manual, Coalition for Smarter Growth

-- Philadelphia Rowhouse Manual (not on ADUs, but historic rowhouses, providing indirect guidance for how to do pre 1914 style ADUs)

-- A Pattern Book for Founders’ Place Neighborhood, Muscogee, Oklahoma, Oklahoma University-Tulsa Urban Design Studio

-- Del Ray Neighborhood Residential Pattern Book, Alexandria, Virginia

-- Accessory Dwelling Unit Guidebook, Boston Planning Department

-- A Pattern Book for Neighborly Houses, Habitat for Humanity, (I like the points about context sensitive development, it's not so much about ADUs)

-- ADU Pattern Book for Mid-Century Homes, Family Housing Fund

-- Building an ADU, Salt Lake City

-- ADU Pattern Book, MB Architecture

-- Changing Lanes: Laneway Suites in Toronto

Problems:  Some people don't want to share.  Granny flats/Yay or Nay.  Originally, were called "granny flats," with the idea that downsizing parents would relocate to an ancillary dwelling on their children's property

But some people don't want to share their lots.  "An Honest Conversation About Toronto Laneway Houses," Toronto Realty Blog.  From the article:

But why do people disagree on laneway housing? And what issues are at the forefront of the discussions? “An honest conversation,” i.s what I called this in today’s blog title, and that’s what I’m aiming for because I feel like the discussion about laneway housing in Toronto is merely getting started. 

 A client of mine remarked last weekend, “I have no problem if somebody else wants to build a laneway home on our street. But I don’t think I’d take one if it were free. I don’t want somebody living in my backyard with a window that looks out to where my kids play, and I don’t want to park my car under their living room.”

The LA Times has a series of articles on ADUs, and many involve multi-generational families, so sharing the lot isn't an issue.  And sometimes it's not for granny, but for the adult children. ("She couldn’t afford L.A. rent after law school. Her parents’ ADU came to the rescue").  

There are many in the Belmont Heights neighborhood of Long Beach.  We stayed in one as an airbnb.  A less than one mile walk to the beach...

For others, it's an ancillary studio not to be rented out ("Thanks to a tiny ADU, an L.A. home transforms into a stunning art gallery and studio," "Surprising ADU with tricked-out garage, rooftop deck matches family’s playfulness").  This is a big issue now with work from home.

But for unrelated people, if they aren't into the idea of having renters, an ADU may not be appealing.

Problems:  Financing.  It's still difficult to get traditional financing.  And adding an ADU if you have a mortgage, you have to notify the lender. ("Should I take a bridge loan to build an ADU?," LA Times); 

Problems:  Parking.  DC requires that building an ADU doesn't reduce parking on the lot.  In an area like Manor Park, this is dumb because there is plenty of street parking.  Less so in rowhouse neighborhoods in the core.  Basically, people can create "parking pads" that double as patios. Also see "A Koreatown parking protest: Tenants stage sit-in to protest loss of parking to make way for ADUs," LA Times.

Green Alley initiatives.  Separately, a number of cities are pursuing "green alley" initiatives where they are focusing on plantings, stormwater capture, and sometimes placemaking (" In Miles of Alleys, Chicago Finds Its Next Environmental Frontier," New York Times, "To Battle Floods, Cities Revive Their Long-Forgotten Alleyways,"JSTOR, "Cities Give Alleys New Life," Governing).  

-- Chicago Green Alley Handbook

In the early 2000s I read an article in (I think) Southern Living about Calder Loth, then State Architectural Historian for Virginia, and his initiative planting flowers in his alley in the Fan District ("The Self-Taught Gardener: Division Street," Berkshire Edge).

Alley repaving.  DC had a green alleys program but it never did much.  

Separately the Department of Transportation created a program still in operation that actively repaves alleys, many of which were in disrepair, with a polyglot of materials, using brick or asphalt block where it had been in use.  

Except that originally they only used red brick, and some alleys originally had yellow brick or other treatments.  I know I called for a change in this to be more historically accurate and they did change, according to this Instagram post.

This image shows yellow brick on the alley, and red brick fronting the sidewalk/apron to the street.

There is an alley off North Capitol SE, where one of the abutting property owners put in (or maintains) historically accurate cobblestones, with a brick track for "carriage wheels."  

Although, if you walk on cobbles, like some streets in Georgetown, it's not comfortable.

Placemaking and retail laneways initiatives.  ("Hidden in Plain Sight: Activating Urban Alleys," MRSC)

-- Living Alleys Toolkit, Austin

For at least 15 years, Melbourne has been reactivating alleys as retail spots.  In the US, larger real estate projects are often using the laneway concept as a way to activate interior spaces and add a fun element to the development.

Sydney, Austrailia

Retail laneways initiatives.   

-- Melbourne's Revitalized Laneways, Gehl Architects

-- Pocket Book of Melbourne Laneways

-- "Australia’s laneways investment is breathing new life into its cities," Monocle

-- Pioneer Square Alleys Design Manual

A treeless expanse of 1700 South on Salt Lake City's west side | We need "Safe Routes to Parks" and "Nice Routes to Parks" initiatives

For her first term, Mayor Mendenhall ran on a platform including planting lots of trees, especially on the West Side of the city where the population is a preponderance of people of color, and there is the belief that the area was systematically disinvested (I happen to think it's more complicated than that, but that's another conversation-blog entry).  

The city aims to address this disparity by making the area preferred for new public investments in infrastructure.

The unexpected agenda imposed by real time and ever changing conditions like a massive windstorm, earthquake, and covid pushed that aside.  

But a street like this shows the need is still present.

The street is now the main route to a new regional park in West Side's Glendale neighborhood.

We don't plan for this because all government agencies tend to plan only for elements that it controls directly and the roads outside of a park are a transportation department's responsibility.  But as I said when I worked for a County, if we don't tell other agencies what we want, think, or have learned wrt intergovernmental matters, they won't ever know what we want.

Being out and about a couple weeks ago I realized a particular street is a main route in and out of Sugar House Park, especially for bicycles, but without a "Safe Routes to Parks" and a "Nice Routes to Parks" program we don't think about it enough.  And Departments of Transportation rarely think about it--although in Salt Lake the City has built nice enhanced bike lanes next to two parks.   But.... they don't think much about further enhancing decent enough crosswalks.

900 South next to Liberty Park.

900 East next to Fairmont Park.

Crosswalk on 900 West connecting to Three Creeks Confluence Parks.

Enhanced crosswalk for bicyclists and pedestrians on the Indianapolis Cultural Trail.

WRT Sugar House Park I do have plans to try to recapture elements of the eastbound side of 2100 South with a similar lane to Liberty Park, but with big additions of median plantings, plant-themed bus shelters, and a public art treatment of the main intersection into the Park.  

Top:  Median and main intersection into Sugar House Park

Middle:  Median plantings near Red Butte Gardens, Salt Lake

Bottom: Crosswalk in San Isidro, Lima (Perú) 2018 by Carlos Cruz-Diez, Venezuelan artist

It would be complemented by a new entry into the Park with dynamic signage.

1700 South to and from the new Glendale Regional Park deserves a similar treatment.

ESPECIALLY, because it abuts the Jordan River Parkway, which is the trail alongside the River (Blueprint Jordan River Action Plan).  

It's a multicounty trail that goes from Provo in Utah County, through Salt Lake County, and ending in Davis County for a total of 48 miles.  But it connects to the Legacy Trail which then connects to the Denver and Rio Grade Trail ("Denver and Rio Grande Rail Trail in Davis County, Utah: a great foundation, full of (missed) opportunity"), adding an additional 35 miles.  How cool is it that you can move over 80 miles from Provo to Ogden mostly on protected trails!.

Right now there is no integration between the two parks, but that seems to be slated for a later phase. I still have to read the Glendale Regional Park Master Plan ("Pool? Pickleball? Skating? Basketball? Here’s what SLC’s big new park will have," Salt Lake Tribune).  

There is the Exchange Club Marina for launching canoes and kayaks but it seems decrepit and unused.  It could be replaced and enhanced with equipment for rent, even paddle boats.

And there could be a nature center of some sort like the one by Tracy Aviary at 3900 South and the River in the City of South Salt Lake (Vision).

I guess there are plans to revive the decrepit marina, offer kayak rentals and such.  At that point, the River is wide enough.

On Saturday I took this photo there, on the Jordan River section.  

There was also a feral but cute black cat on the west bank, but I wasn't fast enough to photograph it before it snuck away through the plantings.

Dog poop powered lights at dog parks

I am working on a design brief for a new playground for Sugar House Park, for a grant due next Friday.

So yesterday I went to 11 playgrounds, a separate pocket park, and a dog park.  

Tomorrow I want to double check a couple I went to, including ours at the Park so I can lay out a separate but equal facility program with additional features to differentiate the replacement for our failing playground from the relatively newer and still in great shape playground.  One my camera died.  

Plus, a recheck of another park I saw a couple years ago, and one new to me.

It wasn't until I saw these discarded bags of dog poop at the South Salt Lake City Dog Park that I realized there were no trash cans there.  However, there was a single bicycle rack.

In parks planning, dog poop is a total pain in the ass.  (1) Technically it's hazardous waste.  (2) If uncollected it is a vector in pollution of our local creeks and the river into which they flow, the Jordan River, and ultimately into the Great Salt Lake.  (3) It's better than leaving it but putting it in a can makes it smell, and (4) if put in cans it's not supposed be put in, like a recycling bin, the whole load is discarded because it's contaminated.

If you don't see recycling cans in your park--and the parks in Salt Lake City and the County Parks too, as well as Sugar House Park don't have them--it's because of rampant contamination, eg. trash in recycle bins, recycling in trash bins.  It's no longer worth it.  

Ideally, people would follow the "take it in, take it out" guidelines, but most people think if they throw something in a can, even if it is recyclable or compostable.

The Park Spark project in Pacific Street Park, Cambrige, Massachusetts was created as an art project.  Photo by Matthew Mazzotta.

Possibly the best solution is to create dog poop digester stations in parks, especially dog parks.  It creates methane used to power a street light ("Coming to a park near you: dog poo-powered lamps," The Observers, "Dog poop has bright side: Powering Mass. park lamp," Seattle Times).

The Park Spark project did this in Cambridge, Massachusetts almost 20 years ago, but in terms of scaling it up nothing came of it because the artist who conceived it wanted to prove it was doable, not to try to build a business out of it and scale it up and outward across the country.  It also turns out the process of "turning it on" is complicated ("Artist's Poo-For-Fuel Project Gets Messy," WBUR/NPR).

But it's deserving of a new effort, not so much to power lights, but to divert dog poop at a bigger and better scale from the waste stream, make the environment nicer, to reduce contamination of land and water, and do something useful with it.  Imagine if when leaving a park, people could just put their bag in and the digester would go to work.

After all, now there are services that will pick up the poop in your yard, for people who are too gross to not do it at all--I knew a household like that, or because they don't want to do it.

For parks that don't have a formal dog park, they could still have a digester and use the power somewhere else.  For example a number of parks in the Salt Lake Valley serve as collection points for glass for people who don't want to pay a monthly fee for pick up (that's what we do).

Or we could use a poop digester to help power lights at the basketball courts.  Or along the bicycle path, etc.

A culture of waste versus a culture of waste reduction (zero waste).  Oh the things I saw in DC, like stopping at a sewer grate to throw away fast food containers, cars with Fraternal Order of Police license plates tossing litter--don't they get paid by the city to take good care of it?  A can rolling on the floor of a subway car.  A little kid said something to me, I said we had a responsibility to keep places clean.  His mother then said the opposite, etc.    Salt Lake City still has litter but so little compared to DC, even in comparatively nice areas.

It would be hard to build a culture where people would collect their dog poop and take it on occasion to these digesters, the same way our household saves up glass bottles to put in the dedicated glass recycling stations here (you can also pay to get it picked up).  

It happens that there is an insulation company in the region spinning fiber from discarded glass, so it's economically feasible to recycle glass.  But the company estimates only 10% of glass is recycled.

(Salt Lake City, followed by Salt Lake County, is a leader in putting pro environmental messaging on its trucks.  But Momentum Recycling, which collects the glass [and also does biodigestion] doesn't.  They have beautiful trucks, but they don't have messages to tell people to recycle glass.)

 

Trash trucks should be seen as rolling billboards for environmental messaging.

We haven't built the culture in the US to support an "in your bones" understanding of and responsibility for waste reduction.  

Plenty of people think throwing something away so it's not litter is the extent of their responsibility.  While it isn't litter, maybe it is recyclable or compostable.

When I take "disposable" recyclables or compostable with me, or buy them while I'm out, I bring them home to properly dispose of (but not on vacations, except if possible I will bring recyclables home even still).

 

As a bicyclist often I would pick up bottles and cans and put them in recycle cans.  Virtually every time I would stop for glass, and depending on the circumstances pick up broken glass, because that punctures bicycle tires.

As a pedestrian I pick up litter and separate it out between trash, recyclables and compostables.  As I walk if I spy the right cans and they are close enough to the sidewalk so I don't feel like I'm trespassing, I'll toss them in respectively.  Otherwise I bring it home and separate it. 

As a driver, in parking lots and parking on the street, and sometimes when I see a preponderance of recyclables on and around the street and curb, I will stop and pick it up and take it home.

I wish more people would do the same.

Daylighting creeks in Salt Lake City: Creating the Three Confluences Park

Last Saturday was the Celebrate at the Confluence event sponsored by Seven Canyons Trust, held at Three Confluences Park on Salt Lake City's West Side.

Seven Canyons Trust worked with the city to create the park by daylight the confluence of Red Butte Creek, Emigration Creek, and Parley's Creek at 900 West  ("Salt Lake City’s newest park is now open — see where three creeks meet on the west side," Salt Lake Tribune).  It opened in 2021.

The Trust grew out of a University of Utah planning design studio, which focused on the concept of daylighting creeks throughout Salt Lake Canyon.

The Wasatch Front is full of canyons and creeks.  The creeks, fed by snowmelt and rain, empty into the Jordan River which in turn flows into the Great Salt Lake.  Area communities capture this for the bulk of their water consumption.  (Once they are past the canyon, rain and stormwater, plus water releases from the canyons, make up the water flow.)

An 1800s citizen movement to protect the watershed.  Because of citizen concerns in the late 1800s about the quality of water supplies because the creeks and rivers were mostly used for dumping waste including dead animals, and the denuding of canyon forests for wood, they advocated for the creation of national forests as a way to protect the water supply.

Phillips Arch in the boundaries of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.  Photo: Tim Petersen.

Today Utah is a leader in trying to overturn federal ownership of public lands.  These days that's particularly ironic, because at the State level and the State's representatives in Congress, including the particularly odious Senator Mike Lee, Utah is a leader in trying to get federal public lands given to the state.  And the state (and Senator Lee) want to develop these lands as much as possible ("Thanks to Utah, Americans are about to lose their public lands," Moab Times-Independent).  

For example, the State supports the reduction in size of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument ("Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Under Attack from Utah Members of Congress," Earthjustice).  And it suggested that the federal lands in the Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons--also used by for profit ski resorts in the winter, should be converted to state control.  To what ends...?

The State of Utah funded an ad campaign promoting its preference for federal lands being "returned" to the state.  Note that the State Constitution says federal lands should always be federal ("Here’s how much Utah is spending on a public relations campaign for its lawsuit seeking control of public land," Salt Lake Tribune).

Forest Service changes to increase for profit use of forests at the expense of conservation and public use.  Moving the US Forest Service to Utah ("The Forest Service Is Moving to Utah. Here’s What That Means for Our Public Lands," Outside) and the firing of scientists there ("Forest Service Sheds Research Capacity in Move to Utah," PEER) furthers this agenda.

How the Trump Administration is selling the move: "USDA Prioritizing Common Sense Forest Management, Moves Forest Service."

Undergrounding into pipes creeks and rivers.  But I digress.  In many urban areas, starting in the 1800s, creeks and rivers were covered and diverted into underground pipes.  

In DC, that's happened with Tiber Creek.  Someone who worked in a building abutting the old creek said you could hear it sometimes.  

In my Manor Park neighborhood, a creek at Fort Slocum was undergrounded--but the area still has a high water table and flooding--we had to install two sump pumps as a result of that and increasingly "robust" rain events.

DC still has other streams, even if it doesn't have an active daylighting program.  The Anacostia Watershed Society, Anacostia Riverkeeper, and Washington Parks & People lead efforts to remove litter and improve water quality for creeks that run into the Anacostia River.

Rock Creek Conservancy does the same for the DC and Suburban Maryland sections of the Potomac River Watershed, alongside the Potomac River Conservancy.

RFK Jr. may be willing to swim in it.  I think it's still premature ("Kennedy Swims in Washington Creek That Flows With Sewage and Bacteria," New York Times).  But ever closer, at least for the River, except that it took a major step backwards when a wastewater line burst, flowing into the River for weeks before it was repaired and contained ("A Huge Sewage Spill Is Over, but Contamination Lingers in the Potomac," NYT).

Daylighting.  For 20ish years at least, there has been a movement for daylighting--restoring these creeks and rivers.  Seoul is particularly famous for removing a freeway that had been built on a river.  In 2020, the Catharijnesgel Canal in Utrecht, Netherlands, was restored after being filled in during the 1970s to create a 12-lane freeway.  Etc.  

Before and after, Cheonggyecheon Restoration Project.

I think I first came across the concept in an issue of the Urbanite, a magazine that focused on Baltimore urbanism, which sadly went defunct as a result of the 2008 Great Financial Crisis.  

In "The Urbanite Project 2010" "Architect Gabriel Kroiz and environmental lawyer Eliza Smith Steinmeier proposed daylighting Harford Run, a stream that runs under Central Avenue, and turning it into a lively community recreational space."

 3 Confluences Park today and the site in 2007.

Jordan River.  Separately the Jordan River Commission has been charged with restoring the Jordan River (and Utah River in Utah County) as it flows to the Great Salt Lake.  One thing they did that's really cool is the Jordan River Parkway trail along the River from Utah Lake in Utah County to the Great Salt Lake in Davis County--I've ridden parts of it but then I got sick and couldn't bike ride--over 60 miles.

View of the 3 Confluences from the east bank of the Jordan River/Jordan River Parkway Trail.

Drinking Water Utilities Climate Risk Index

 It's an index that's been calculated, but isn't an online calculator ("Tapping into risk in America’s drinking water" Carnegie Mellon University, "Climate change risk index and municipal bond disclosures of United States drinking water utilities," Nature)

By cross-referencing 1,455 medium and large water utilities across the country with what those utilities reported in their bond disclosures (financial documents that show investors the risks associated with lending money to these utilities), the study finds a gap between the actual climate risk and the risk reported in their disclosures.

Utilities serving 67 million people were rated as high risk, but more than a third of their bonds (36%) do not mention climate change, leaving communities exposed to potentially unsafe drinking water during extreme weather events and investors unaware of hidden financial liabilities. The municipal bonds studied represent $39.3 billion in debt, most of which will mature within the next 20 years. Of that total, $9.2 billion was issued by utilities identified as having high risk to climate change, but with limited evidence of climate risk awareness.

Interestingly, in Utah there is a bill pending in the legislature calling for a tax on water use to fund big new water infrastructure projects, but the projects haven't been vetted in terms of overall water use planning ("Utah bill to address water infrastructure needs advances, but not everyone's happy with it," KSL) and they presume future water supplies which may not come to fruition, given Western drought.   

Utah has amongst the lowest water rates, because they are in part subsidized by property taxes.

‘The Lake, directed by Abby Ellis, details the precipitous decline of the Great Salt Lake.’ Photograph: Courtesy of Sundance Institute

And while not related to drinking water, but to use of water overall and the impact on the shrinking Great Salt Lake ("‘An environmental nuclear bomb’: documentary examines fight to save Great Salt Lake," "Great Salt Lake’s retreat poses a major fear: poisonous dust clouds," Guardian), the state seems to be seeking the federal government out to be the savior.  

But the federal government has negligible additional powers to act--the state has plenty ("Trump promises to work with Utah to make its salt lake ‘great again’").

From the Guardian:

The lake, often called “America’s Dead Sea” (though it is, in fact, four times larger than its counterpart in the Middle East), hit a record low in 2022, having lost 73% of its water and 60% of its surface area from excess diversion for agriculture and other water use.

The new film [The Lake] warns, in no uncertain terms, that going over the edge would spell catastrophe for the state’s public health, environment and economy.

Toxic dust clouds laden with mercury, arsenic and selenium from the desiccated lakebed would increase pollution for a city whose air quality is already worse than Los Angeles, provoking a respiratory and other cancer-related issues. Birdlife and recreation on the lake, already disappearing with its surface area – now less than 1,000 square miles, down from three times that in the 1980s – would vanish completely. The lake’s disappearance would inflict billions of dollars of economic damage on the region, imperil the lucrative extraction of minerals from the lakebed, and threaten ski conditions at the numerous resorts in the nearby mountains (including the slopes of Park City, looming over the film’s premiere).

Three years ago, Abbott, along with more than 30 other scientists, co-authored a report warning that absent major intervention, the 11,000-year-old Great Salt Lake would disappear within five years.

Does the US need a set of national urban parks? | Revisiting a comment from 2019

I bring this up because reading "backfile" articles about architecture and parks in the Toronto Globe and Mail, there is this year old article, "What Canada’s only national urban park can teach us about accessible, eco-friendly design." 

The Rouge National Urban Park is 30 minutes outside of Toronto, and is transit accessible ("One of the largest urban parks in North America is in Toronto and you can get there for free"), unlike most of the Canadian national parks in rural areas. (Or many US national parks and related federal park-type facilities.)

It's a single park unit, not an amalgamation of sites like an NPS National Recreation Area spanning multiple sites in an area like SF, Boston, Long Island, New York or outside Atlanta.

(WRT access issues and DC area national parks, see "A gap in planning across agencies: Prioritizing park access for pedestrians, bicyclists and transit users compared to motor vehicle access" and "Revisiting: Access to Theodore Roosevelt Island, a national park in Washington, DC.")

Nor is it a National Heritage Area which typically isn't urban-focused specifically, they are focused on a large region and interpreting it thematically, such as the Rivers of Steel NHA for Greater Pittsburgh (although the one in Baltimore is; Boston has a National Historical Park including many different sites), but an area of historic interested spread out in a region of many hundreds of square miles. (In the Detroit area there is even an (inter)national wildlife refuge along both the US and Canadian sides of the Detroit River.

(Separately, I've argued DC should manage itself as a heritage area, whether or not it is federally designated as such.  See "A unified National Park Service Visitor Center for DC (and the region).")

Toronto as seen in the distance from Rouge National Urban Park.

The article makes the point that the Canadian Park Service wants to develop other urban parks.  From the article:

Dubbed the “people’s park,” RNUP is currently Canada’s only national urban park. But not for long. To connect more urban dwellers to nature, the federal government committed $130-million in 2021 to establish more of them across the country – looking at cities such as Windsor, Ont., Edmonton and St. John’s, with the aim of creating six by 2025 and a total of 15 by 2030. Parks Canada believes that creating these parks will improve resident well-being, air and water quality and commemorate Indigenous knowledge and culture. The government also recently announced RNUP’s expansion, scrapping plans for an airport in Pickering in favour of adding to the park’s footprint.

As RNUP expands and new urban national parks take shape, the question of how these spaces should look and function becomes more important. Planners and designers are grappling with how to balance ecological health, accessibility and public use, while also considering the role of beauty and aesthetics.

On the long ago entry, "Defining National Park Service installations in DC as locally or nationally serving" (2019), Ed Drozd made the point that there ought to be a systematic provision of "national" parks throughout the country:

First, in re whether locally serving, thinking about it, I wonder what should be the goal of the National Park Service. Clearly part should be iconic areas. But, I do think selected locally serving areas, whether National Parks or National Historic Parks, might be important as well. Not just as outreach between the NPS and most people, but also to connect people to history and/or environment.

Part first amended: my wife lives near the Cuyahoga Valley National Park (full National Park) between Akron and Cleveland. I've been in it, and have been underwhelmed compared to, say, Acadia or Glacier, but it is truly lovely and can connect people to the environment like few other places in the area can.

But, why there but not places in NJ where I grew up? Granted there are National Historic Parks, but those are tied to history. However, in the grand scheme of things, perhaps it doesn't matter because of the programming.

If we think about this in terms of spreading the wealth of national parks beyond the signature parks, as far as urban parks go, there are a bunch of NPS installations, mostly historic site based, some "national recreation areas" like around Boston, SF, Long Island, etc.  They do have an urban program, or at least they did before Trump.

In a follow up comment I was in agreement, but now I am not so sure.  DC has a lot of national park sites, big and small, but the Park Service hasn't been that great about taking care of them, partially because they have a big portfolio, a backlog of maintenance, and because they aren't set up well to deal with urban parks.

Even though they produced a couple decent reports on how to do it, the Urban Agenda Call to Action Initiative more generally, and wrt DC specifically, the Small Parks Management Strategies document (report).

Cracked and broken tiles mar the appearance of Welcome Park, a plaza dedicated to telling the story of William Penn’s vision for the city. Tom Gralish / Philadelphia Inquirer.

And resource deficiencies aren't just a problem in DC, they are especially a problem at Philadelphia's Independence National Historical Park ("Large granite ‘join or die’ sculpture is among Independence Park improvements that still need funding," "Independence Park is ‘woefully behind’ for 2026 and in ‘grave need of resources,’ stakeholders say," "A Much-Needed Makeover: How Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park is getting ready for America’s 250th birthday," "More bikes and pedestrians, fewer cars: A $100M rethink of Philly’s historical district," Philadelphia Inquirer) 

-- Independence National Historical Park: Long-Range Interpretive Plan, National Park Service (2007)

A display describing the lives of enslaved people on the site where one of George Washington's homes once stood in Independence National Historical Park. Tom Gralish / Philadelphia Inquirer.

This is irrespective of the recent problems over historic interpretation ("The slavery exhibits at the President’s House are starting to be restored by the National Park Service," "Trump’s attempts to hide the unpleasant truths about our actual history are the real disparagement," PI) at the President's House and the Trump Administration's desire to whitewash over "minority" elements, especially "hurtful" history, as part of the good and bad of the national story.

What about networking existing urban parks?  Now, and I might be biased because I am on the board of an urban park (granted it's 1/6 the size of Central Park in NYC), and knowing also that there are extensive networks of state parks in addition to the large park inventories typical in major cities, that maybe like how within Montreal, they have a set of parks they refer to as Network of Large Parks, some more urban and sculpted, others more natural, that instead, somehow we think of these park systems as networks, and promote and support them that way.

Parks People, the parks advocacy group in Canada, has created such a network there ("Park People launches first-of-its-kind network for Canada’s large urban parks").  Of course in the US there is the Trust for Public Land, an advocacy and consulting group--with an urban parks unit, and various national and state professional associations.  But judging from what I know about parks in Salt Lake City and County, state parks or natural resources agencies don't work that closely to help local and county park systems in terms of a network.

Still a role for the Park Service (and other federal agencies).  There is still a place for NPS in terms of linking various federally controlled sites through National Recreation Areas, Urban National Heritage Areas, Boston's National Historical Park, historic sites and landmarks, and other resources.  There's talk in Southern California of designating some of the beaches a national par ("Parks service says federal control of local beaches could spur new, protections, conservation efforts and economic activity," Santa Monica Daily Press).

But like as opined in the above-cited blog entry, there needs to be a strong interpretational, historic, and cultural resources framework for determining why such parks and sites should be designated as federal.  

And new systems need to be built that better gather public input on these facilities, especially for places treated as more like public parks--ordinarily the Park Service is pretty distant from local input.

Which is why I recommend that local parks master plans also provide guidance wrt federal, state, and county parks within their boundaries.  Some planners say, we don't have any authority so why bother.  My counter is without guidance from us we guarantee we're not considered ("Federal shutdown as another example of why local jurisdictions should have more robust contingency and master planning processes," 2013).

And, there needs to be money appropriated to deal with additional responsibilities for new federally designated parks, rather than merely add to the current $10+ billion backlog in maintenance.

That doesn't even mention US Forests which may be located on the outskirts of urban areas such as in Los Angeles and the Uintah-Wasatch-Cache National Forest outside of Salt Lake.  The Forest Service has been underbudgeted for years, which has led to mergers of forests covering often disparate areas.

State of Utah Long Term Risks report

I was struck by the book The Fifth Risk, in its discussion about the Energy Department during the Obama Administration, and their emphasis on identifying and managing risk.  From the ReadyRoom blog entry "Risk Management Book Club #2: The Fifth Risk":

The book's title comes from MacWilliams's assessment of the risks faced by the country at the time of this transition: nuclear accidents; nuclear attacks from North Korea and Iran; an attack on the electrical grid; and project management, "the fifth risk." MacWilliams, a professional risk manager, believed the seamless transition of responsibility at DOE was key to its ability to protect the country.

In a post, I argue that a city's elected officials and stakeholders should see themselves as risk managers ("Town-city management: "We are all asset managers now"," "Learning the wrong lessons from risk management: GFC, Boeing (+ deregulation)"), and how like with large settlements because of police department misconduct, that's an indicator of a failure to manage risk ("Killing people is seen as a routine outcome, not as an indicator of the need for change: Orange County Sheriff's Department versus Fullerton Police Department," "Where is the risk management approach to police misconduct and regularized killings of citizens?").

So the fact that the State of Utah Legislature's Auditor General has produced a report on the long term risks faced by the state, High-Risk List" Identifying and Mitigating Critical Vulnerabilities in Utah – 2025, is quite interesting. (The report is modeled after one produced by the Government Accountability Office at the start of each new Congress.) The top ten risks are:

1. Meeting Utah's water needs 
2. Aging water infrastructure 
3. Education pathways to in-demand professions
4. Insufficient behavioral health capacity 
5. Planning effective transportation 
6. Public workforce shortages 
7. Improving housing affordability 
8. Utah's energy policy 
9. Threats to cybersecurity and data privacy 
10. Federal revenue diversification

In fall 2022, the Great Salt Lake hit its lowest water level since record keeping began. The lake’s elevation sank to nearly six meters below the long-term average. Photo: C. Yamane

I'm surprised the possible dissipation of the Great Salt Lake is not listed separately ("‘Last nail in the coffin’: Utah’s Great Salt Lake on verge of collapse," Guardian, "The Great Salt Lake Is Drying. Can Utah Save It?," New York Times, "The Great Salt Lake is shrinking. What can we do to stop it?," Science News).

Nor the impact of Climate Change and the Environment--a state that emphasizes outdoor tourism in particular skiing ought to be thinking about the long term effects of less snowfall, especially with the possibility of Utah being the permanent site of the Winter Olympics ("What will it take to save the Great Salt Lake by the 2034 Winter Olympics? It depends on whom you ask.," Salt Lake Tribune). 

And air quality, especially in the winter--I'm amazed that the EPA gives the Salt Lake Valley a pass on this ("Booming Utah’s Weak Link: Surging Air Pollution," "‘We Can’t Let the Kids Go Outdoors’: Our New Reality on the West Coast," NYT).  

I hope "agricultural priorities" is an element of water needs. Air quality ("Booming Utah’s Weak Link: Surging Air Pollution," "‘We Can’t Let the Kids Go Outdoors’: Our New Reality on the West Coast," NYT)  The face is 80% of water use is for agriculture, and half that goes to alfalfa production which is mostly shipped overseas for cattle feeding.  So China basically is getting Utah's water for cheap.  From the NYT:

While climate change has contributed to extensive water shortages in the Southwest, the Great Salt Lake’s decline is mostly human-caused. Agriculture uses 71 percent of the water that would otherwise flow to the lake, and cities use around 17 percent, according to research compiled by the Great Salt Lake Strike Team, a group of climate scientists, policy analysts and state regulators.

Climate change also poses risks to households ("Climate change makes "ordinary living" a lot more risky," "Planning for heat/climate change | Public health," and "Climate change is already here in many US communities | "Heat Officers" versus Climate Change Officers"). Also see "The New American Inequality: The Cooled vs. the Cooked, and "Homeless and Burning in Phoenix, America's Hottest City," New York Times.

I don't see how Utah's energy policy is deserving of a call out and the more general issue of Climate Change and the Environment is not.

Chevron refinery at night.

Utah as a petro state.  I haven't fully read the report, but for a few years I've argued that Utah is a petro state, that the concept of nations as petro states ("The Petro States of America," Bloomberg) can be thought of sub-nationally.  

There are five refineries in Salt Lake and North Salt Lake, refining oil from Utah and Wyoming. Much of it is sold to markets outside the state.  And the state is getting approval for a railroad on federal lands to ship out crude oil for refining overseas.

Except for California, policy in petro states in the US and Canada favors fossil fuels, although Utah is gambling on nuclear energy ("Utah unveils plans to bring nuclear hub to Brigham City," Salt Lake Tribune).  

Another element of a petro state is its place within the automobile economy.  Utah doesn't have any auto manufacturing plants, but two of the ten largest car dealership groups are based in the state, adding their voice too fossil fuel supremacy.  

And road building, more than transit extension, is the top priority of the Utah Department of Transportation.  

The State Legislature even goes to the extent of trying to prevent "traffic calming" initiatives in Salt Lake City ("Bill giving UDOT veto power over some SLC street projects moves to governor’s desk," Salt Lake Tribune).

Technically, Utah is more of an extractive resources economy.  25% of the state budget comes from taxes on copper mining--but the state is second to Minnesota for copper production.  The oil thing is just a chaser.  Coal is an element that's up there too ("Mining is big business in Utah — to the tune of billions of dollars per year," Salt Lake Deseret News).

No takers.  An EV charging station in Moab, Utah.

Yet from the air quality and Olympics angle, were I state leaders, I'd push for the concept of EV only sales of automobiles by 2035 ("US Senate votes to block California 2035 electric vehicle rules," Reuters), the year after the Olympics, as a way to shift away from fossil fuels and to improve air quality and limit the impact of higher temperatures brought on by climate change.

(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) New home construction in Saratoga Springs on Thursday, Dec. 3, 2020.

I'd say sprawl/urban development form--the Salt Lake Valley is the epitome of the sprawl, despite all you read about Utah being ahead of the pack in environmental planning ("The Utah Model: Lessons for Regional Planning," Brookings)--is also a risk in terms of water use, energy use, air quality, climate change and the environment, etc. ("More suburban sprawl won’t fix Utah’s housing affordability problem," "Utah launches all-out push to build thousands of new ‘starter homes’ that you might be able to afford," "Many Utahns ‘stuck’ with hourlong commutes amid housing crisis," Salt Lake Tribune).

I'd also add the risks of continual tax reduction and political homogeneity.  The state prides itself on growth--expecting to add 2 million more residents by 2065.  The legislators constantly cut taxes, saying "we need to share the benefits of growth" when the fact is, growing places need to spend more on creating new infrastructure and replacing aging infrastructure*, not less.  A city and county risk is frequent interference and law preemption by the State Legislature.

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Flickr photo by Steven Vance.  It's a nice park....

* One example is the park I'm on the board of--one building in dire need of replacement is 61 years old.

We have tens of millions of dollars in unfunded capital improvement projects.  One source of funds we'd normally rely on, won't happen until 2029, because it needs to go on next year's ballot, and after a ballot failure last year, the County Mayor is postponing it to the next cycle.

Budget cutbacks mean a bunch of projects we intended to start in 2027 won't be funded, as the County looks to increase property tax by 20%--the first property tax increase in 6 years--and of course, people are up in arms ("Salt Lake County mayor proposes nearly 20% property tax increase," KUTV).  And our park is but one site in an array of hundreds that have serious capital needs.