435 Podcast: Southern Utah
Explore the heartbeat of Southern Utah with the 435 Podcast, your go-to source for all things local in Washington County. Stay ahead of the curve with our in-depth coverage, expert analysis, and captivating interviews. Whether you're a resident or visitor, our podcast is your key to unlocking the latest happenings and trends in St. George and the surrounding areas. Tune in now to stay informed and connected with our thriving community!
435 Podcast: Southern Utah
Empowering Communities: Housing, Growth, and Public Participation
Are we ignoring the critical needs of renters amidst our focus on first-time home buyers? Join us for an eye-opening conversation with Joshua Aikens from Zonos as we explore this essential question ahead of the Housing Action Coalition Forum on October 30th. Joshua brings a wealth of experience from the tech industry and shares his nuanced perspective on the often-overlooked requirements of renters in Washington County. Together, we discuss why diversifying our housing focus is crucial for a thriving community, especially as renters make up a significant portion of the local workforce.
We then shift to the intricate challenges of growth and development in St. George, Utah. The episode reveals the complexities behind talent acquisition and housing shortages, shedding light on the impact of vocal minority groups and public opinion on development projects. We introduce the concept of the "heckler's veto" and underscore the pressing need for educating the community to make informed decisions. This discussion is vital for understanding both the frustrations of elected officials and the power of collective community action.
Lastly, we redefine the concept of retirement and its implications for urban planning. Featuring insights from Sharon Gillespie and local mayors, we examine how newer generations are reshaping retirement and the subsequent need for affordable housing. The importance of strategic urban planning and collaborative efforts is highlighted, alongside a call to action for public participation in shaping the future of housing and economic growth. Don't miss this compelling episode and the chance to engage in the transformative Housing Action Coalition event.
Contact with Joshua Aikens on his website at https://zonos.com/
or on IG: https://www.instagram.com/joshuaaikens/
Find admission to HAC 3rd Annual Attainable Housing Forum here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/hac-3rd-...
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[00:00:00] Intro.
[00:03:23] Community Engagement for Sustainable Growth.
[00:16:55] Rethinking Strategies for Urban Development.
[00:29:57] Retirement Communities and Urban Development.
[00:40:43] Community Leadership in Urban Development.
[00:50:42] Planning Sustainable Growth for St. George.
He's got a really good perspective and he's going to come to talk specifically. He wants to make sure that we understand the needs of the renter. Because we've really skewed the governor has skewed the conversation towards first time home buyers because that's an easier argument to win than rooftops period, Because rooftops scare people into thinking it's just about growth.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean even the panel name, rewriting the rules to change the game. People are wait a minute, you're changing the game. Don't change the game. We're all playing it right now. I don't want to change the game. Well, how?
Speaker 1:about tweak the game? I don't know. We'll just introduce other needs.
Speaker 2:Shift the landscape.
Speaker 1:Other needs and constituencies, because renters are a huge part of our workforce. Yeah, it's true, in Washington County, and they're going to become even more so, hey, everybody.
Speaker 2:Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the 435 podcast. Today I have Joshua Akins with Zonos. He's here to talk about the Housing Action Coalition Forum happening October 30th. We've teased about it a little bit You've seen it in some of the other episodes but we're going to get into the agenda so you can see what to expect at the forum, get people excited about it, get the conversation going and make sure you sign up. The link's going to be below Um, it's a great conversation. I had an enjoyable time. Hope you get something out of it. We'll see you out there. Guys, you're my super friend of the pod. I appreciate you sitting down here. I was going to say first time or long time listener, first time guest, first time guest. I appreciate it and you always give me good feedback and I really appreciate that. It's helpful, especially when you're trying to build something that's a little bit unique but completely outside of my wheelhouse, because you know we're making this up as we go. Well, if we're all honest with ourselves.
Speaker 1:Well, if we're entrepreneurs, nobody's done it before. That's true. That's entrepreneurship, that's true Create, creating something.
Speaker 2:So you're the chief of staff, is that right?
Speaker 1:I am not called that anymore.
Speaker 2:Okay, what is your title?
Speaker 1:Well, I have two titles. I do community relations that's kind of my most main one for this and then I also I'm on the retention team, okay, so I do customer retention, customer retention, yeah, okay, nice. I've worn a lot of hats at Zonos over the years, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Nice. I've worn a lot of hats at Zonos over the years. Yeah, yeah, so are you one of the early members? Early, I'm here about nine years.
Speaker 1:Nine years, we're a 15 plus year old company, yeah, but I've been there for nine, so Nice and you love it, oh, my goodness, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And you live on the West side with us.
Speaker 1:I'm in Santa Clara, the west side yeah.
Speaker 2:So I wanted to have you on get your perspective on what we're going to be doing in October. So the Housing Action Coalition. We're having an annual forum and you've been actively involved with the coalition for a long time. Maybe help me understand why do you find this so important?
Speaker 1:I'm glad you asked that because I, in my role for representing the community for Zonos and maybe more broadly, tech Ridge, tech in general which is something I've done pre-Zonos I've been involved in like tech meetups and that kind of growth in Southern Utah for about 15 years. Okay, in Southern Utah for about 15 years. So, wearing that hat for Zonos, I'd say a couple of years, maybe three or four years ago, we started to look around and see that there's a few things that were going to be important or critical for our own success and growth. And I'm talking about Zonos, but I'm also talking about Tech Ridge, I'm talking about higher paying jobs.
Speaker 2:I'm talking about this- A little bit macro project, or yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, call it what we can talk about, scale STG, but that's what it's kind of morphed into. But but looking at that and saying, well, there's a few critical factors and one of them is is talent. We have to build the talent pipeline with, with the youth. And another key factor is is housing. And we could see that it was going to become a problem because we were hiring tons and tons of people at Zonos and it was like the the housing market became more and more anemic and less ability to bring talented people in to to work for us at Zonos and every other company in St George, not just us. So that's when that came on the radar.
Speaker 1:So I showed up at some events and started listening to our elected officials and listening to um people talk about the issue and I went in there just like anybody else would, thinking, oh, they don't want these people don't want growth. I, I, you know the they're. They're the stop, they're the sticking point, they're the thing that's holding things up. It's the people. So it's the elected officials, it's the it's the elected, they're the sticking point, they're the thing that's holding things up, it's the people. So it's the elected officials, it's the it's the elected officials.
Speaker 2:It's the elected officials. Oh yeah, it's them.
Speaker 1:It's the, it's the people that are on the planning commission. You know they're shutting all this stuff down.
Speaker 2:I went to my first meeting and I was that was your, your perspective going into it was that oh yeah, you know they don't want growth, and what are we going to do with our kids?
Speaker 1:And you know, I just didn't know Right, but I knew it was going to be a problem. I was becoming a problem and I showed up and I was flabbergasted at the political will of the people within our own community to do the right thing. But they have this giant impediment which is, I think, uh, uh Sean calls it the heckler's vote right you, which is I think Sean calls it the heckler's vote right you can show up at any meeting and you can shut anything down on the corner next to you or the one down the street. You know what I mean. And that was the heckler's veto, that's what it's called, and that was how they were perceived, that's how they were being ruled.
Speaker 1:Basically and you know this, you've talked to every politician, I've listened to all of the podcasts. If they were to come out, say, pro development or pro density, they're toast right and and they're elected officials who are supposed to be representing their constituents. I understand that, and it's not about being elected, it's about representing your constituents. So, of course, many of them were like no, because my constituents don't want X, y or Z, and they're the ones that put me here. So no, and at the same time, they're seeing the train wreck coming and they know it and they have to figure out. I mean, they're powerless in a way. I found them to be frustrated and powerless and I thought well, I think I can see what the solution is, and I'm not the only one. It's public opinion, it's telling the story, it's helping people understand and make the right decision.
Speaker 2:I want to back you up just a minute because the idea I completely agree with you on the heckler's veto, and there's moments in time where the hecklers have a different opinion, time where the hecklers, uh, have a different opinion, it's the heckler of any, any you know if it's anti-growth or if it's pro-growth, cause I think for a long time it was we have to grow, do something about it now, because we can't continue to farm. We're not going to make a living, right, we have to evolve. And that's where we get, you know, the golf course and all the sports and the tourism, right. So they, they took that trajectory.
Speaker 2:There was a heckler vote because there was a huge percentage of the County that did not want to go to the tourism route. They did not want to grow from the wide spot in the road, right, and so who's the loudest heckling group is always something important to just kind of keep in mind. So, um, but the other thing I would just feel like I need more the train wreck you talked about the planning commission, the city council, they can see the train wreck coming. What do you mean by train wreck?
Speaker 1:Okay, well, let's talk about it let's talk about Because I don't know if it's a train wreck. Okay, well, I guess what I meant by a train wreck is they could see that an uninformed electorate was going to choose to make decisions against their own best interest in the long run, for short-term gains or out of fear damaging their property values. They were afraid of it creating too much congestion. They were afraid of density because of antiquated ideas about Detroit style projects that would be built in their community and destroy the nature of their community. Well, those are all like misinformation. They would cause you to make a choice that you think is the best choice for you, for your family, for your future, your community, when you would get the exact opposite that would be. Your outcome would be not what you were shooting for, because you would end up, like you guys talked about in the previous podcast gutting your own middle class. Yeah, I.
Speaker 2:I think that makes more sense because it's it's not necessarily like this moment of time where it's like like a train, uh, a car crash.
Speaker 1:I should have called it a slow motion train wreck it's like they were watching this, things coming together and banging into each other and and after a while it could become a disaster. Yeah, if it's not arrested and if we don't make better decisions, it can it, can I don't.
Speaker 2:I also would take the opinion that uh active members in a community are going to uh drive towards making their community better if they care about their community Right, and so avoiding, like the ability for them to change course is actually a lot easier than I think most people give it credit for. But if, if they don't have all of the information right, so cause all those things I heard you list. Those were actually true outcomes and reasonable to assume that you'd be afraid of that. You'd be. Of course you'd be afraid of property values going down, because if one thing happens and the economy as a whole, property values go down, and you're next to an apartment complex and that turns into a slum complex, maybe the property values do come down. However, it's also that kind of a fear is how big is that tree or rock in the problem set versus what they imagine it to be right? Because a lot of those things are fair and valid and possibly true.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I don't want to. Yeah, it's inappropriate to discount those. Yeah, right, okay, but it's also appropriate to put them in their place, Right?
Speaker 2:exactly In all the rocks right, Exactly so that no one is-. Prioritize these rocks. You've got to prioritize these rocks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have to. They belong in a place, and I guess that's what I was getting to was. We're at a point I guess you're preaching what I was going to say which is I don't think we can't change, I don't think that this bus can't move. That's why I raised my hand and said you know what? I want to be involved.
Speaker 2:There's solutions out there.
Speaker 1:I will get involved in the changing of the public opinion team. Yeah, right, I'll get on that team and we'll tell the stories. Yes, we'll do the things that help people to understand that they can get to the outcome that they want to. I I'm a huge believer in this community's ability to do the right thing, but they have to know, they have to have all the information, yeah, and if they don't, then then they might make mistakes.
Speaker 2:And then I think it's it's interesting because it's it's so analogous to technology and technology companies.
Speaker 2:Because when you think about um, you know if I'm a somebody that understands and I know very little about this so I might get out of my wheelhouse a little bit but when you look like you're setting up a software as a service type uh program, there's complexity and then there's simplicity, but there's dynamic and then there's static, right.
Speaker 2:And so when you look at housing as a whole, if you're looking at it as like this is a program that we're trying to, you know, grow and operate without bugs and without errors in code, you know being able to simplify the code but make it more dynamic is what the goal should be. And when you, when you lay that over the top of housing it, it starts to create a transformational you know echo effect into it where, if we stay static, the status quo, if we, if we don't do anything out of the fear for you know the small rocks that might, you know that are scary but also not the priority If we're staying focused, it just it comes down to educating people and understanding that complexity of that system. And that's where you, we have to say it, and say it, and say it, and say it, and say it and keep, keep preaching it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. If you went to your marketing classes back in the day it was, you know. You got to say it like seven times before someone actually recognizes what you're saying. And then you got to say it you know another 17 more times and then they start to it starts to sink in. But I I want to be sure that we don't come at this conversation as if there's some sort of agenda for some portion of this community that's driving the conversation. Does that make sense? I don't want this housing action coalition or to be perceived as driving some agenda other than that which is best for the community at large and all the decision makers, even if we have a group of people that can't come to meetings because they are working two jobs or and have lots of things going on at night with their children and things like that. Like, like. I guess we don't want to come across as pro growth or pro builder or pro anything except for pro community.
Speaker 2:And that's. I think that's good Good point. And then being in it's a coalition is you don't have to be, there's no like you have to meet this criteria to be part of the coalition. Right, which and we have members that are from all walks of life, doing all kinds of things, and that's the whole purpose. Right Is that as a, if housing is a is a function of society that is ever evolving, so we don't get to a destination, it's it's going along in the journey.
Speaker 2:If that's the case, we need as much input from as many different angles of the community as possible and that way, when you have active um active and interested engagement from the community at large right that coalition, they can then share that message with the decision makers. Right, it's representative democracy and it's like best format. Right, it's like if you're in the community and you care about housing and you have an opinion on it, like, come and join the coalition, get involved in it. There's lots of places and things that we could use and need. And we do a lot of education. We talk a lot about education on a general basis, but the more refined that group can get, the more representative it can be of the community the message is going to be more dynamic and allow the you know, city council members and planning commission members to be like the housing action coalition feels this way and they're clearly an active, engaged action coalition feels this way and they're clearly an active, engaged, informed portion of the community that isn't scared by these small rocks. So we can trust that.
Speaker 2:That is, that is a direction that we need to consider. Right, it's just, it's a singular voice that, but it has to build over time, has to build, you know, influence and respect and authority. Right, people have to trust that it can do that. So so the agenda really is just, how do we manage the housing problem that if it's not one problem, it's going to be another problem, but right now, how do we influence that in the best way possible? And we want to explore all of those different angles. Yes, right, so we have the forum is on October 30th. We have the schedule posted right here. The link's going to be in the description for everybody listening in. What are you thinking about? Like the schedule, because we haven't really talked about this. How would you summarize kind of what the purpose? Or like what does each individual thing kind of build off of itself, or what's the flow of the schedule from your opinion?
Speaker 1:I would say, uh, we've learned each year we this is the third year right so so we've learned, um, how to better get the setup right when, especially because we uh, we think we'll have a lot of the, the usual suspects in the room, but we think we'll also have a lot of new people right that we need to introduce. So I think we've laid it out in such a way that that Wendy was going to kind of come in and and start to set the stage, and then each one of these people has has demonstrated, either in the past or through working with us, that they've got something, a piece of that puzzle, to to lay out. And then, and then I guess, as the day goes on, we get a little bit, we try to get a little more meaty, we try to, and then also we try to be a little innovative, right like like, try some something new.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, do new, that's that's, that's one of the zonos, core values. Oh, cool is do something new. Because, um, this is, uh, we. We need some innovation on this, on this whole discussion, and we feel like we've got the right people in the room to be exposing new ideas, new opportunities and sometimes pains, sometimes issues, like we can expose issues and pains in this room where everyone can hear them and then propagate those stories. Because, back to our discussion about the housing coalition, the people that might be overly influenced by fear we're really talking about, and the hecklers let's take the smaller group of more loud people right what we're really talking about is the middle. We're talking about the undecided voter, so to speak. That's kind of in the middle.
Speaker 1:That kind of doesn't really come out for this particular issue unless it touches them directly in either a positive or a negative way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it seems like mostly they get touched in a negative way. They get, they get a notification that there's going to be a public hearing about some terrible thing in their neighborhood and they all need to show up. You know what I mean. But they don't get some notification about some opportunity for a mixed use housing proposal that will allow school teachers and firefighters to live in their community again, because that's what we're trying to do, that's what we need Shout that notification out so that the same people that care about this also we know they care about this, but they don't even know so. So how do we inform them? To the point where it's more of a melting pot than just just a few loud voices, that is kind of ruling the um, the landscape, yeah, yeah, the, the landscape. These are the voters, right, yeah, and they will choose their representatives, Right, and those representatives will then be empowered to enact policy behind what they want as a group.
Speaker 2:And that's where the informed minority, the informed minority, I think, a lot of the political commentators, they keep calling them normies. Have you heard that before the term normie Sure?
Speaker 1:I mean, but it's kind of a derogatory term, right, I know but it's been more and more accepted.
Speaker 2:I've heard, like multiple political commentators use that term more and more, which I think is really odd, because it's like there's probably somebody that isn't super informed but they're trying to be informed and you just call them a normie because they don't understand your like inside lingo. But the, the, the uninformed middle, a lot of times defaults to the informed minority and say well, what do you think? Cause I got this in the city council elections too. It's like who do you think I should vote for? Like you're paying attention, I'm not sure. Like who would you vote for and why?
Speaker 2:Right, and instead of them going and doing their own research, they default to somebody they trust, which is which is totally natural, but that's why we're a representative democracy, not a direct democracy, right, and so understanding that is, we have this uh portion that we need to make sure is informed. It's both the minority and the, the majority uninformed, and so when we look at this macro scale, we take the trying something new. You were talking about that. What are we trying new from that perspective? What's new about that approach?
Speaker 1:Um, I guess what I mean by that is we're trying to expose innovative new ideas that are not maybe something that anybody has thought of or come up with recently. It's not. The common fixes for said problem is by bringing to the fore some innovative like.
Speaker 2:If there's no rules on the table, right, right, let's think of the most ridiculous idea. Well, that's what? Yeah, let's lay them out there. He's talking about the sandbox, right yeah?
Speaker 1:You create the sandbox and you don't have to go back to the drawing board and redraw everything to do with zoning and land use and planning and all that kind of stuff, right, but you throw a bunch of stuff on the table and then carve out some safe space for some of that stuff to exist.
Speaker 2:And give it a little bit of time to work.
Speaker 1:Things to be tried, right yeah, in a smaller, microcosmic scale, kind of like the prototype that you just showed me. Right yeah, prototype something, see if it works, yeah, and then go with it Be able to move forward. I don't think we're. I just don't think we're ever going to. We're not going to run out of time, like like. Time is our ally.
Speaker 2:So and then and there's a slippery slope too of like, well, we're just testing out in this little, this little small space, I can see there's going to be fears cropping up around, like, oh, you're just testing it, huh, yeah, sure that that that doesn't make me feel better.
Speaker 1:Right, you're just testing this idea.
Speaker 2:That doesn't make me feel better. Once a building's there, a building's there, and so we have to think. We got to think about strategies in ways, and I think that's what the point of the forum is. Let's flush out what does that mean? So your panel specifically rewriting the rules to change the game. So you have Tim Anderson with Curt McConkie, tim's a longtime resident.
Speaker 1:He outstrips all of us. He's a longtime resident, like he outstrips all of us.
Speaker 2:He's a finance guy, right? Well, is that right. He's a lawyer.
Speaker 1:He's a lawyer Okay, yeah, that represents multiple constituencies, but he has been here since the one stoplight days, so he's got a really good perspective and he's going to come to talk specifically. He wants to make sure that we understand the needs of the renter, because we've really skewed the governor has skewed the conversation towards first time home buyers because that's an easier argument to win than rooftops period, because rooftops scare people into thinking it's just about growth.
Speaker 2:But Well, I mean even the panel name, rewriting the rules to change the game. People are wait a minute, you're changing the game. Don't change the game. We're all playing it right now. I don't want to change the game.
Speaker 1:Well, how about tweak the game? I don't know, we'll just introduce other needs.
Speaker 2:Shift the landscape.
Speaker 1:Other needs and constituencies, because renters are a huge part of our workforce. Yeah, it's true, in Washington County, and they're going to become even more so.
Speaker 2:I like this word. I've been thinking more and more about it, but it's reconstruction, like when we think about different areas, eras of time, different economic conditions of different civilizations, right. So this is like really macro. You go back in time, you look at all these different empires, economic markets and how big shifts have happened, and a lot of times we talk about the reconstruction of things when it goes wrong, right, and I think we're shifting into an era of needing to go into a reconstruction era, because what we've built up to this point isn't going to sustain us in the future. Does that make sense? I like that metaphor. It's a reconstruction, right. So it's like rewriting the rules to change the game. It's like, no, no, we're still playing the same game, but we have to rebuild some fundamental things that have gotten off track, at least from my perspective.
Speaker 1:Well, what got us here won't get us there, exactly Right, and what's gotten us here has been fantastic up to this point.
Speaker 2:We've done a great job. I was doing a review on the last 10, 15 years of Southern Utah just St George and then the county as a whole. Man, we've had some really great wins that get overlooked, right?
Speaker 1:Yes, well, it makes me sad when the surveys come out and they say well, we love our place, but they're not doing a good job, and I'm like that's a little counterintuitive. We love St George, it doesn't suck so why, are we so down on? Our officials or the government or whoever doing a bad job. To be honest, if they were doing such a bad job, we wouldn't have such a great play.
Speaker 2:True, and I'm self-identified skeptic and kind of pessimistic, right. So like that combo isn't the best combo, I wish I was more optimistic. I can be skeptical and optimistic, that'd be great, which I try to focus on. That because I think being skeptical is good.
Speaker 1:That's a powerful combo actually that you got to get that optimism in there.
Speaker 2:I got to get the optimism in there. I need Jeff to help me with it. So, finding people in your life you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with, so getting that optimistic viewpoint is important and skeptical, and so I got off on a tangent. So, coming back to yeah, well, let's.
Speaker 1:So we have Tim Anderson. We're definitely going to have some rental discussion, right. We're going to talk about the plight of rooftops in general and how renters are affected, right? So he's going to bring that to the table.
Speaker 2:Patrick, obviously is. Managing partner Reef Capital Black Desert Resort Right.
Speaker 1:He'll be our host at the event and he is one of our largest future employers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he recognizes the role that he's taken on with this project I think he's very well aware of, like, hey, listen, I know we're stretching the rubber band pretty tight and in a lot of ways I think that's good. And then, in a lot of ways also, growth is painful, right, growing pains is painful. Everybody remembers back to being a kid and having your legs hurt, right. But he's actively engaged. Yeah, that's the best part Committed to it.
Speaker 1:He's committed to doing it and doing it the right way. If you listen to him, he talks a lot about doing it the right way and it's not about making the most money, it's not about um making the best deal. It's about doing things the right way the.
Speaker 2:The obvious, like the elephant in the room with patrick is that, of of course, he wants his thing to be successful and he has agenda and he wants to make a lot of money right, so he has like this incentive to to do the right thing. There's some things, though, that he does that there's just no real reason for it, other than you can tell that he cares about the community, he cares about what the neighbors think, he's on next door all the time, like he's always engaging in the community, which it's not pretty typical of developers.
Speaker 1:Well, he's playing the long game. He is Because to be successful long term with the approach of this amazing resort that he's making, it's not the turn and burn, it's not the pop this thing up and sell it off to a private equity firm, who then pops it up and sells it off to the public markets and pops up no, that's not what, that's not the game he's playing. He's playing this long game for the long-term viability of his entire community and this jewel within his community can become an engine and a driver that can make things great for everyone. It's done right. It's done right, yeah, yeah. And that's what I mean by doing the right thing. I mean, I think, making the right choices for the community actually will turn out to make the most money and the most value.
Speaker 2:So, greg Robison, tell me about Greg Greg's, the CEO of Ramble. Oh yeah, he did one of the speeches at Rise, right? Yes, he talked about of the? Um speeches at rise, right? Yes, he talked about the pain, do you?
Speaker 1:know him all that well. I've known Greg for a few years now and and he he's part of the reason that the hack exists. A couple of years ago oh cool, right around that time I went to that first meeting. Greg was already seen, because he has lots of employees right and he has, and he has um.
Speaker 2:So, if you don't know, he's executive chief CEO of Ram Ram company Right.
Speaker 1:So he hires a lot, of, a lot of people and he was seeing this problem two and a half years ago and wanted to have a meeting with whoever would show up at the meeting and start discussing how are we going to address this problem. His role on on this panel one of the things that we're going to talk about is he is an economic driver for our community who is who can point directly to the housing problem as a problem in his business. It's causing him to not be able to generate the revenues and growth that is on the table for him because of the housing issue. And if we let those revenues and those jobs and that manufacturing, which is something that we do here locally, if he has to, let it go.
Speaker 2:Or move somewhere else, which they do all the time. Yes, it goes away and we can't necessarily recapture that once ramen, or it's not quick, it's not like you just like crop up another you know 500 employee company that creates a lot of well-paying jobs. Good job Right.
Speaker 1:And so. So that's really. He gets to speak from that and I mean, that's that's kind of where I'm at and in the whole tech sector. Part of interest in this is we have these great jobs common and we have this great pipeline of our own children going to fill in there, of our own children going to fill in there. But if we, if they have to leave because they cannot find a place to live or they couldn't put a roof over their own heads, we're going to squeeze that.
Speaker 2:And if we continue to appeal to the demographic that's driven us to this point, if we continue to appeal just to that demographic, it's ultimately there is kind of a cliff at the end of the road, because you know certain, you know baby boomers, millennials. Retirement isn't going to be the same for millennials as it is baby boomers. So what, what is St George going to look like when millennials retire? Do you think they're really going to go to Sun River?
Speaker 1:Do you think they would go like if?
Speaker 2:as a millennial myself, I would be curious your opinion. Do you think a bunch of millennials are going to retire in a community like sun river? Do you think that's possible?
Speaker 1:I hadn't really thought about that, I don't.
Speaker 2:I don't think that that's what they'll find so, like this is the hard thing is like when we think about what does 50 years look like? Right, I'm 37, but 40 years, what? What is? What does my retirement look like? And right now, our, the retirement community is 50% of the population, right, people that have roots here. When you think of-.
Speaker 1:Did you just say over 50? That's not the retirement community.
Speaker 2:It's like 47% is 50 and over Okay, 47% of the community is 50 years old or older. Okay, so it's the borderline of the retirement.
Speaker 1:I'm 50 and older, so am I in the retirement community.
Speaker 2:So 55 and older is going to fit into that retirement, echelon, is it not? Yeah, you're five years out, man. It's close. It's close. Okay, 50 is the new 30. Is that what they say? I hope so. I hope so too.
Speaker 2:But even even all that to be said, like, what is retirement look like? There's, there's a kid that's like 25. I met the other day and he acts like he's retired because he's made a bunch of money in software sales and he literally plays video games 90% of his days, right, and he makes money elsewhere and he's pretty much retired. So what does retirement look like in 30 years, right? What does it look like in 25 years? Is our community mix, is the appeal of the housing inventory what that next generation is going to be? And I don't think that's true. So, just drawing back to this idea that we have to replace, we have to think outside of what our current dynamic is and what is it going to evolve to, so that we can kind of be making that roadmap, that direction, right? So I think coming up with some of those thoughts and what that generation is going to want on a retirement might be part of the conversation, but that we got to sidetrack. Okay, no, no problem there.
Speaker 2:And then sharon, you know. And then sharon gillespie yep, a friend of the pod she's been on. We lost the video, it's just audio. I was like I need you back in here so we can get an actual video. But yeah, sharon gillespie, so city council of ivans, so thinking about rewriting the the rules to change the game, sharon, I think, would point out that rewriting the rules to change the game, sharon, I think, would point out that rewriting the rules, she's like I don't want to change the game. I bet you that would be something Sharon might say. But, um, have you talked to her at all about kind of what the conversation is going to be like? Yeah, yes, yes, you know, sharon is uh, sort of leading.
Speaker 1:She's leading the charge in your Ivans. That has made it pretty clear that they don't want to have anything but those giant. You know acre lot home, you know fancy houses, yeah, and she's the elected official there who's leading the charge toward building affordable housing. So like she's, she's threading a needle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she's, she's doesn't have an easy task, right? 76% of the community in the survey that we got, 76% of the community does not want to add a single rooftop, if they can get away with it. They don't want a single business, they don't want anything. And so she's like well, I got to represent that community, right, that's what I got elected to do but what she's doing is she's educating that community. Now she's yeah.
Speaker 1:So now that's going back to that educated majority is what is it that we're actually voting for when we take this approach Right, which I think is brilliant, perfect. So she's the perfect person on that panel because she is representing her constituents Like she's not going outside of what they want, but she's also trying to help them understand what the long-term prospects are for her own community and success.
Speaker 2:Hey Mal, can you scroll down a little bit?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we got to get to your panel now.
Speaker 2:I know my panel's next. Scroll down a little bit. Yeah, we got to get to your panel now I know my panel's next. So I'm going to be uh interviewing mayor Hart, uh, mayor Rosenberg, both of which you know if you think of, uh, santa Clara and Ivans, the mayors of those cities. They're executives. They don't really have a voting uh role in a tie. They have a voting role but their, their main job is to just facilitate and make sure the city councils are educated and take that leadership role.
Speaker 2:So and they've been doing it a long time, so, having both of their perspectives, they're rooted here in Southern Utah. They're not the new guy in town. They're going to come to the window of the conversation, which is what if we do what is right? So, when you think of, like, is this right or is this wrong? If we make the right decisions, what does that look for? What does that look like? What does it look like when we get it right? What does it look like when we get it wrong? Right? And so I think they're going to have some great examples of what they've seen within their own city in the timeframe that they've been there, saying we got it right when this thing did and we might've got it wrong when we did this thing. We're not dwelling on the wrong, we're not trying to point fingers, which is a delicate balance, but we also just need to, you know, take a spotlight and we have to look at ourselves in the mirror Right so and I think Chris uh, mayor Hart and Mayor Rosenberg are going to do a great job helping us through that Jed Nielsen uh Nielsen Homes.
Speaker 2:He's a developer from up North, so he's out of the community who's under, understands ADUs and some of the the other creative construction side of things. Um, to come from that perspective is like when we do the right thing, when we make the right subdivision and it looks like this, this is the result, like, this is what we see, so that'll be good. And then Sean Christensen, president of the chamber of commerce. I think he gets a good macro. Look at it. He's the outsider too, coming in from out of the area, and he's like I'm just representing the business community and this is what I see, so he can kind of give a black and white. Uh, hopefully he'll do some finger pointing without he's pretty good at not. He's, he's pretty good at the politics side.
Speaker 1:He's like diplomatic. But those two guys, you're the two mayors are lame ducks.
Speaker 2:Maybe I think they could run again if they wanted to I don't know, this was there, this is. They always say that politicians I'm yeah, until the petition, until the little tiny window of time to put the application comes in, then you're ready, all right, all right.
Speaker 1:Well, if they're not running again, it kind of gives them a little bit of possibly a little bit more freedom to say what they've learned from their experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's probably more like it. It's like I might run again, but somebody is going to have to stand up here and run against me and hopefully you win, cause I'd love to lose, maybe, maybe that that option. So so that's, that's my panel. What do we? What does it look like when we do the right thing? Okay, and then we got a breakout. And then Barbara Bruno, the mayor of Springdale man, talk about a community that this is fresh on the heels of. We don't have enough employees to staff the businesses that are needed, based off tourism. She's the perfect micro to our macro right.
Speaker 1:And she's like our. She's like, if we don't want to necessarily become park city, we get to watch what happens in spring because that's in our county and that is that's happening now. Yeah, that's happening right away. What she's dealing with, we are all going to deal with if we don't yeah, do something about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that there's a good cliff, you know, off the cliff type moment there. Now they've managed it pretty well. It's been difficult, they managed it pretty well. So my, my other thought is I'd like to hear what she did right. I, you know, I almost want it'd be interesting to have her on my panel. I was like what'd you do right? Like, because there was a lot of things that they did do right. Um, but it's with the help of the entire community, which goes back to the dixie spirit we talk about this all the time is that the cities help each other, the county is involved, that everybody's in it to win it. There's not this backbiting or this city versus this city, or this person doesn't get along with this person. It doesn't exist here, which is awesome, because I don't think that's true of a lot of areas.
Speaker 1:I meet a lot of people that come from out of the area and that is one of the things that really does impress them, and I will say that it hasn't necessarily always been the case. And I just mean we, we were smaller communities. We were smaller communities that grew into a, a larger cohesive right, and and I I would say the dixie spirit has always been here, like the, the, the acknowledgement that we have to work together even though resources are scarce. And and I'm on this side of the river.
Speaker 2:We cannot, we cannot survive if we don't do this together.
Speaker 1:Exactly, it's like I you know you can't take your water turn too long, but nor can I, like we need each other, right, and I think that that's that has persisted. And I have loved the last, watching, the last maybe 15, 20, 15 years, 10 years seeing all of our different communities coming together in in super fresh, new ways, like like, super fresh. Like like with the university, with the tech college, with the school district, with the city, the county, the chamber. I've just, man, it has been so cool to see everybody come together, because I used to tell people in St Georgeorge if you're going to have a meeting and you don't invite all the partners, no, you're having a meeting with yourself. Yeah, right, when you go to other larger cities or bigger areas, maybe all the industry gets together in a room, or all the public servants get together in a room, or all the university people get together in a room and decide what they're going to do and and they don't really necessarily have to have each other yeah, there's silos built into that.
Speaker 1:Because they can. They can survive, they have enough money, power, work to do. They got enough work to do.
Speaker 2:They can do it in a thing. They got enough work to do, yeah.
Speaker 1:And and but. In St George we've never had each other, and not unlike Cedar City we have a lot of volunteers. I mean, so many good things get done here on the backs of people that are not getting paid to do those things. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It is very fascinating and that's the one thing is there's some things that can divide us up and we've gone through that a little bit. You look at the contentious St George City Council election. It was painful to watch because there was a lot of hurt feelings. There's a lot of, yeah, there's some. It was abrasive. The whole election was abrasive, right For everybody, not just one person over the other, right For everybody. It was abrasive and that's not typical from from what I hear of the past.
Speaker 2:So we can't let certain things divide us up too much, because that's where the whole system starts to kind of the fabric is torn, so to speak. Right, we don't want to tear it because then it's really tough to put back together and it's not always right. So, barbara Bruno, she's going to discuss creative building upon. Yeah, creative building, so coming up with new solutions, right. Greg MacArthur with SITLA. So commercial real estate and school and institute trust, land association. Shirlaine Wild, she's the executive director of Neighborhood Works. She's created the Land Trust, which is a brilliant idea, a great. She's carrying such a functional role that we can, we can, really build upon she's, and the earlier we do it the better.
Speaker 1:She threw the sandbox on the ground a couple years ago right and, and went right after it and it's like this works.
Speaker 2:I know it works. Let's do it.
Speaker 2:It works in other places, we can make it work here, and she's just one of those amazing people that can get stuff done so if you don't uh the land trust and things like that, you'll definitely want to come to the forum and talk to other people about that Cause it's amazing. And then Stacy young, friend of the pod, stacy young, southern Utah home village association. He understands a lot of those different facets. So if you listen to the last episode you already know who Stacy young is. So that's the summary of kind of that forum.
Speaker 1:This is going to be a great panel Like let's not skip over Greg. Greg has been the president of the chamber.
Speaker 2:Oh true, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that.
Speaker 1:He's done economic development for the county. He was a city council member in St George. He's been on the city council. He's the son of the former mayor who we all love. He is brilliant.
Speaker 2:He is brilliant. Sitla has a role to play.
Speaker 1:Well, SITLA has perhaps a very large role to play in the long-term success of all of our, of all of these initiatives, or all of our hopes for this.
Speaker 2:I think it's obvious to everyone. So now in my thought it's like okay, so what do we do next? Okay, we all I think we're all pointing at the same thing, can we? What do we do next? Like what's in the works on that end. So I'm hoping to hear you know what is it? What project is specifically SITLA working on to see if we can solve some of that? Do you have any insight into that?
Speaker 1:all I wanted to say was I'm grateful that I think we're going to bring that Dixie spirit, that not pointing at them, not pointing at SITLA, not pointing at the BLM, not pointing is the, the, the joint will of this group is what can we do together? Right, what can we? What can we bring to the table, each of us and our little pieces, to move the ball forward, which, at the end of the day, is housing. Like, let's not forget, we haven't said the word housing in a minute. Right, like, yeah, housing, what are we going to do? We're going to build more places for people to live yeah, we need.
Speaker 2:We need more rooftops and we need to do it in a smart way and we need to make sure that there's continuity in the community. It's not isolated in certain individual spots. We have to understand what are the needs of the people that need this housing versus what would be ideal. Not everybody needs a three bed, two bed half two car garage.
Speaker 1:Not everybody needs that. What are the needs and the desires? Because and the desires, because if you're an antiquated decision maker talking about the needs that you wanted in your picket fence and whatnot, and what are the actual desires of the people that are going to populate these places? They're quite different.
Speaker 2:There's some things that are obvious that I think always people go back to. Rent control doesn't work. It's 50 bazillion examples of what that is. There's some examples of where rent control in small moments in time, right, Just little mini windows of time where it's controlled rent and then they take it off, but rent control as a whole pushes a button. That has second and third unintended consequences. We don't want to do it. Stacked housing, right, the. The ghettos of Baltimore, right. If we think of, like the you know what are the, the blocks that you're trying to design density right, Exactly Design Trump's density that's.
Speaker 1:We know that better design can accommodate Exactly.
Speaker 2:Good density, exactly, and so and at the same time, the funny thing is that if you take the density of Paris, france, which the average, the average building is like three stories, I think it might be four stories. But if you take the density of Paris, france, which the average, uh, the average building is like three stories, I think it might be four stories. But if you take the density of Paris, which there's only one skyscraper in Paris and then there's the Eiffel tower and that skyscraper looks so out of place too, by the way, cause it's like why did they just build one? Out of this entire amazing community in city, there's only one that's really tall. But if you take their density, you could fit in washington county every single resident between dixie rock, the black hill and the river, that triangle. You'd fit our whole county in the same density as paris, france, and not a single buildings over the four, four stories hall.
Speaker 2:Only very few buildings are over four stories tall. And so, like when we think about, like that thought experience do, do we want the density of Paris, france throughout the county? No, but we'd have a lot of open space If everybody lived in that triangle. We'd have a lot of trails and a lot of open space. You know what I mean. We wouldn't need very many cars.
Speaker 1:We wouldn't need very many cars. The whole town would be very walkable.
Speaker 2:It'd be very walkable. We wouldn't need many schools we'd have. We'd have plenty of schools, right, like you'd have maybe two schools. They just have more kids. But all the teachers are right there, right it's. We can live that way. Obviously, we're not going to do that. That's the radical side of things, but there is a middle ground between that and the mistakes that we've made in the past with suburban sprawl. The suburban sprawl experiment is not what it was all chalked up to be in my, in my opinion, right. So we have to rethink. That is what what my thought is. So, uh, what else should we cover about the forum? I think I want to excite people to do it. I don't know, maybe people are falling asleep at this point. Um, you said you had questions for me. I was surprised you didn't ask me anything.
Speaker 1:Well cause you've offered your opinions.
Speaker 2:I do it too fast.
Speaker 1:Well, no, mostly, I just yeah, this was not. This is not an interview, josh, this is. This is what give me your, your number one. Why? For the? For your participation in the housing area coalition.
Speaker 2:I think once I started to understand real estate, and no matter what it is, when you're good at something or understand something in its complexity and its dynamic nature, especially when you enjoy it because I enjoy real estate as a whole Do I love being a real estate agent. Not necessarily I don't get a whole lot of joy out of just like helping people buy and sell homes, but when I look at it and I take a step up the rung and look at housing and city development and community development and see that there's structures that work, the experiment of it isn't necessarily an experiment, right? It's like the past. Growth of cities has a trajectory and we have this really small opportunity to do a really good job. And I love the community so much.
Speaker 2:We moved here from California and this is the first place I felt like home because I grew up in Salt Lake. But at 15, I went to a military school in Roswell, new Mexico, spent five years there, but it's a boarding school, so it's just the school. I don't didn't have a connection to the community as much, uh, for that five-year period. And then I moved to orange County and I don't know, maybe this is just me, but I didn't feel like I could connect into that community as a 20 year old, right Like I didn't care what city I was in or County I was in. I was going from this place to this place and I was going to school and working and the idea of a community was just my friends, right. It kind of it was weird how it shifted. And then you have kids and you plant down roots, that idea that analogy of like planting down roots. You start to really care about the community. You're like man, there's a lot of things here that if we don't have leadership COVID man, I ranted on Instagram this one time. I've never even gone back to like look at it, cause it's, it's still there.
Speaker 2:But I was like where are all? Where's the leadership? Where are all the leaders? Cause this feels like such chaos, right, all businesses closing down and like the unemployment skyrocket, like all this crazy stuff. I was like where are the leaders? Where are the people saying no, no, we, we're going to, can there? This is like a disaster, right Is what it felt like. And I looked around and there's.
Speaker 2:We didn't have very many strong leaders that were willing to stand up or they got beat up by the hecklers and they said I'm out of this, I don't care anymore, right, and at that point, you know, you go through this revolution. I thought I was watching it unfold and I'm, as a 30 year old, I'm like, well, I guess, uh, I guess I'm the adult in the room now, right, there's not really anybody else to. You know, as a kid you're like why don't my parents do something about that thing? Right, I guess I'm. I guess that's where I'm at now.
Speaker 2:So then it came into like educating myself. I still needed to understand a lot of these moving parts and dynamics. But I think leadership's an important thing in the community and it can't always be go sit on city council, right, it's not always run for mayor there's. We need way more leaders than just, you know, the dozen or so at the at the governmental level, right, the businesses have leaders, and a lot of our businesses care about being leaders in the community, not just in their business, and so I it. I think it's important to just fill that role.
Speaker 1:Gotcha, so you're so you're stepping up?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess. Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:I like it In a nutshell Well, I would say my why has evolved as I've become a father of children and raised a family who not unlike me. When I moved here, it was because my dad and my mom lived here and I wanted to have, um, I wanted to raise my family around my parents. Um, that that role is. Now you know that hat's passed over and now my kids are getting older and, uh, where are they going to live? Where are they going to work? Yeah, and not just my kids, all my friends' kids. Yeah, right, Like, like, if, like, if we don't create this opportunity for them to get in on the ground floor and start to build some equity and start to build some value.
Speaker 1:You'll hear Steve Walter, who doesn't make it to this one, but he'll talk all the time about the average renters. What did he say? Net worth. Net worth of the average renter is about $10,000. And the net worth of the average homeowner over their life is about $300,000, $350,000. It's a massive difference. Yeah, that's how we built this middle class in the United States. And if we, through no fault of anyone's, have this anemic period where all of our next generation miss out on that, how are they going to get that back? What is our community going to look like? Is it going to look like some of the communities in California that 20 or 30 years ago didn't build?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a good point, and and you just hate to see such a beautiful, awesome community change for the worse, right? And so, like, if your kids are anchored here, have those roots here and want to stay here and continue to build up that tree, right? Then, um, we're denying the community that depth of life, right? That kind of comes with those things. So I totally agree, man. I think it's the same thing for me and my boys. My boys probably just want to move away and go adventure the world, like I did when I was a kid, but then maybe they'll come back. They might come back. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:And as an employer in the county, many of our best people, born and raised here, had to go. Because they had to go, or chose to go because they could go away to really good institutions and schools. They could go get work experience and then, when they had a couple of kids, they found their way back.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well that's what we're going to build Tech Ridge out of anyway. I mean the pipeline within and all of the people that want to be in St George, because who to be honest with you? Again back to being grumpy about our community. Yeah, it's such a cool community.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so awesome. Everybody wants to live here, right yeah?
Speaker 1:Why do you think so? Because it's so awesome, right, yeah, but if we created that, the ability, that dynamic for them to come back, our entrepreneurs and maybe I can just finish on this, as we just launched the scale STG, which is a nonprofit, 501 C six, that is basically a uh our goal is to generate, or help to generate, $10 million Uh, I'm sorry, $10 billion in economic value by 2035 through the growth and startup of industries and businesses, and the growth of startup of industries and businesses and the growth of our current companies, scalable growth where they're going out and selling product, selling service, selling anything outside of the United States, anywhere.
Speaker 2:Anywhere outside Out of our boundaries and bringing that money to our community, which is crazy because that's 10 years from now and the GDP of St George in 2023 was 10 billion. So, like when you we're trying to double it, you're going to double it, yeah, by 2035.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well, we feel like we need to, yeah. And so there's the North Star, and we're going to do everything we can to bring capital to support entrepreneurs, to connect them with mentors so that they can be successful, and then hire this pipeline.
Speaker 2:Hire our children. The interesting thing is, what I know people are hearing right now is like there's going to be so many people here You're just scaling. There's going to be so many, it's going to be overrun people here You're just scaling, there's going to be so many, it's going to be overrun You're and you're going to go off the rails on, you know, the communities. Uh, just not going to be the same town anymore, right, when we think about that thing. But I want, I want to just make sure people, if you are thinking that the framework is this it's going to grow to 350,000, no matter what we do we literally do nothing to encourage it it will grow to three, 50,.
Speaker 2:Or we can choose our own strategy and say we want to grow in the best way possible and looking at technology, selling services outside of the County while allowing tourists to come as they will, but generate income outside of the County because, from a total population standpoint, we can't just sell within our own boundaries. We don't have a big Metro city to just, you know, trade with. We're an Island, and so I think some people disconnect that piece is, like you know, provo is spilling into Saratoga Springs, right, like you think of like that type of thing. We're so far away from that. We're so far away from that, but we're going to get to 350 nonetheless. Right, we're already the fifth largest city, st George's fifth largest city in the entire state. So how do we grow in the best way possible? I just, I just feel, because you start that scale sounds so awesome, but I can just hear the people thinking Well, I'm glad you articulated that, because if we can throw our hands off, right and and and, let it happen.
Speaker 1:Watch. One of the things that just popped into my mind is you can watch the gated communities start to coalesce around big walls and big gates and the wealthier people are going to start to protect themselves, right, and it's going to push what's left of, let's call it, the service economy into smaller and smaller, tighter spaces until, like what I'm saying, we got out that middle class. If we got that thing out, you're going to have this and you're going to have that and that's it. And it's going to happen because because this is America and people can come here if they want to. Yeah, but we can also do it a little bit differently. Yeah, plan it a little bit differently and create those spaces for our own people, our own children, to get on the ladder and grow with the community. Yeah, and, and when there's 350 people, it's going to be a different community than the one we're in. But I guess what? I'm not going to be here either.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Right True.
Speaker 1:So, hopefully, what I've done is put the table on their trajectory, for my children and their children, who are going to have a different idea of what Dixie is anyway than I did, or the or my parents or my grandparents did. Yeah, it's going to evolve. Let's make it evolve in the best possible way. Yeah, I think so too.
Speaker 2:Thanks for coming and talking about this man. I'm excited for the forum. Thanks for having me, um, you know. Any final thoughts?
Speaker 1:Oh, that was kind of my, my parting shot was like let's, let's do something that is gonna um, let's play the long game. Let's, let's not get grumpy at any. So grumpy, and I don't mind a little fire, right, I don't mind a few people showing up at a few public meetings and and speaking their mind.
Speaker 2:That's okay, we have that. We need that.
Speaker 1:I don't mind a little fire, but I think we should play the long game and remember that we're all in this together to either a good end or a bad end, so we should stick with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, man. Well, this was a good episode. I'm excited to see everybody there. Housing Action Coalition October 30th. Go to the website in the link Eventbrite sign up. It's free. This is going to be your first blush at the hotel. And I know it's going to be a sweet venue, If anything you get to just check out black desert at a venue and it's, it's free.
Speaker 1:It's free. Yeah, book yourself a little extra time afterwards to roam around. Exactly, check out.
Speaker 2:Check out the sponsors, cause we do have sponsors that are that are helping us put this on, so we want to make a part of it. So, yeah, enjoy this episode, guys. We'll see you guys. Bye, see you out there. Thanks for listening in. If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe. Make sure you're following us on all the social media websites. We love your support. We love the dialogue.
Speaker 1:We want to continue that going. Find us at realestate435.com. We'd love to help you find a house here in town or help you get wherever you're going.