If you live in Salt Lake City, the Legislature’s 2025 general session felt kinda personal. Lawmakers passed multiple bills calling out Salt Lake City by name (or coyly as “a city of the first class in a county of the first class with an international airport in its boundaries” 🙄). Now that the session is over, let’s look at some of the measures taking aim at the capital city.
Note: None of these bills were sponsored by Salt Lake City-based legislators.
- What it’s about: homelessness and public safety
- What it does: This bill requires Salt Lake City to contract with the state to hold the city accountable for improving public safety. It also allows the state to use eminent domain (where the government takes control of private land) to cite a homeless campus in SLC.
- How it could impact SLC: The big takeaway here is it may pave a path for putting the state’s 1,200-bed homeless campus in Salt Lake City, specifically on a piece of land that is currently undeveloped under a conservation easement.
- What it’s about: the downtown SLC sports, entertainment, culture and convention district
- What it does: This bill creates a method for financing the reconstruction of the Salt Palace Convention Center as part of the district. It also puts guardrails on how the funding can be used.
- How it could impact SLC: Basically, this is the next step in moving the sports and entertainment district forward. One nice thing for SLC is it requires the taxes generated by the downtown sports district to be reinvested into the area.
- What it’s about: traffic-slowing projects
- What it does: This bill requires the Utah Dept. of Transportation to study the impacts of SLC street projects that decrease the number of cars on certain roads per hour (think narrowing/reducing traffic lanes). The city has to create a “mobility plan” to pursue these types of projects.
- How it could impact SLC: Salt Lake City has big goals to slow down traffic and make streets safer for everyone. Projects like the Green Loop will have to be studied by the state. It’s unclear if the state will be able to nix ideas that slow traffic.
- What it’s about: the MLB Stadium development on SLC’s Westside
- What it does: This bill allows the Fairpark/Power/MLB stadium district to grow its project area. It also lets money be used for the clean up and security of the Jordan River.
- How it could impact SLC: It forces the Salt Lake City Council to approve the expansion of the Westside stadium district, if the property owner wants to add more land to it. If they don’t, an unelected board gets control of the land.
