{"id":185,"date":"2026-09-08T17:28:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T17:28:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/innovationscdc.org\/blog\/?p=185"},"modified":"2026-09-08T17:28:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T17:28:18","slug":"this-utah-development-wants-to-be-a-solution-for-affordable-housing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/innovationscdc.org\/blog\/2026\/09\/08\/this-utah-development-wants-to-be-a-solution-for-affordable-housing\/","title":{"rendered":"This Utah development wants to be a solution for affordable housing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"The<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0\"https:\/\/author-service-images-prod-us-east-1.publishing.aws.arc.pub\/sltrib\/825f0e7f-9f97-4eef-823a-4d886e706601.jpg\"\u00a0Megan Banta<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 | Sep. 6, 2026, 7:00 a.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The builder acknowledges it \u2018might be a little hard to replicate\u2019 \u2014 but still hopes the philanthropic model can serve as a model for other affordable housing efforts.<\/strong><\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Innovation Park in Lehi, an Ivory Homes development funded entirely through foundation philanthropy money, is pictured on Thursday, July 23, 2026.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

An affordable housing development in Lehi hopes to be a case study for how builders and philanthropists can scale a solution to Utah\u2019s housing crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Innovation Park at Holbrook Farms<\/a> combines philanthropic funding, donated land, private development and city cooperation to create workforce townhomes in one of the state\u2019s fastest-growing communities. The project also includes a literacy center, bringing together two community needs that often are addressed separately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This approach is known as place-based philanthropy \u2014 focusing charitable resources on the needs of a particular community and bringing together the partners and capital needed to address them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s an approach backed by the National Housing Crisis Task Force<\/a>, which Gov. Spencer Cox co-chairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lehi development might be \u201ca little bit hard to replicate,\u201d said Clark Ivory, CEO of Ivory Homes and co-founder of Ivory Innovations<\/a>, which partnered with Call to Action Foundation<\/a> to fund the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But its backers still hope it can be a model for other projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No government funding<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Innovation Park in Lehi, an Ivory Homes development funded entirely through foundation philanthropy money, is pictured on Thursday, July 23, 2026.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Innovation Park has 200 townhomes \u2014 with 39 more under construction \u2014 that cater to nurses, teachers and first responders being priced out of the communities they serve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rents range from $1,231 to $1,979, and many of the townhomes are set aside for people earning well below the typical income for the area, Ivory said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the development didn\u2019t use any government funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ivory Homes donated the land for the affordable townhomes, which sit in a broader development that includes luxury homes. The rest of the funding came from Ivory Innovations and Call to Action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The development also has a higher density than other for-sale projects at 22 units per acre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not quite apartment density, but the density itself helps so you can still do a townhome and keep it pretty competitively priced,\u201d Ivory said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They also didn\u2019t put in additional amenities, like a pool or tennis courts, that have ongoing operational costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A combination of those and other factors, Ivory said, made it so they \u201cbasically built these townhomes for similar prices to what it\u2019s costing to construct an apartment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018What people really need\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Innovation Park in Lehi, an Ivory Homes development funded entirely through foundation philanthropy money, is pictured on Thursday, July 23, 2026.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While kids in the community might not have a place to splash around in the summer, the developers\u2019 place-based philanthropy<\/a> led to build another amenity \u2014 a location for free tutoring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to think about what people really need,\u201d said Christine Ivory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of a pool, the two groups and the Clark and Christine Ivory Foundation built a satellite location of the Rippy Literacy Center on the grounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s meeting two needs, both Ivorys said, by providing affordable housing and helping address a growing problem as literacy rates decline<\/a> among Utah kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it\u2019s the whole point of place-based philanthropy, which concentrates resources in a particular community, bringing together partners from different sectors and coordinating them around local needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A new way?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Francis Mayor Jeremie Forman, left, and Clark Ivory, CEO of Ivory Homes, cut a ribbon during the grand opening ceremony for Innovation Park at Francis Commons, a housing development with townhomes priced 40% below market rate, in Francis on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Though homebuilders have helped in times of need<\/a>, especially after natural disasters, Innovation Park represents a different use of that money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ivories hope the development can serve as an example, though they\u2019ve gotten more interest from other cities about the model than from builders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s key, though, because it \u201creally takes a public-private partnership to pull this off,\u201d Clark Ivory said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lehi didn\u2019t give government funds, he said, but did work with them throughout the process, including on amenity requirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of things cities can do that don\u2019t cost money,\u201d Clark Ivory said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of builders\u2019 problems and challenges, he said, come from friction in the approval process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That needs to change for there to be more affordable housing, he said \u2013 Utah \u201ccan\u2019t just keep doing it the way we always have.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0\u00a0Megan Banta  | Sep. 6, 2026, 7:00 a.m. The builder acknowledges it \u2018might be a little hard to replicate\u2019 \u2014 but still hopes the philanthropic model can serve as a model for other affordable housing efforts. An affordable housing development in Lehi hopes to be a case study for how builders and philanthropists can scale […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":188,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovationscdc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovationscdc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovationscdc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationscdc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationscdc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/innovationscdc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":191,"href":"https:\/\/innovationscdc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions\/191"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationscdc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovationscdc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationscdc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationscdc.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}