Developer David Brint takes a holistic approach to housing.

“Everything we do centers on affordability,” said Brint, co-founder of Brinshore Development. “We look at housing as an economic engine.

“What we like to do is build housing that also contributes to economic development, which generally means that it should be part of the fabric of a stable community. There have to be institutions in those areas that can grow.”

Brinshore creates homes around HEART, which stands for heart, education, arts, recreation and technology.

“Every one of our projects incorporates one of those components into the development and overlaps into the community to try to contribute something there,” Brint said.

Brint appeared on a panel that discussed housing Wednesday at the Tulsa Regional Chamber’s Intercity Visit in Salt Lake City. The Chamber hosted a delegation of about 125 people at this year’s Intercity Visit, the organization’s 16^th such trip to peer cities to learn about best practices.

Headquartered in Chicago and in business more than 30 years, Brinshore Development has produced more than 12,000 units nationwide.

Two Brinshore projects in Salt Lake City are The Aster, a 190-unit that reimagined a property that had sat empty for years, and SPARK, a 200-unit, below-market project that includes a one-acre park and daycare center. It also sits close to TRAX, the city’s light-rail system.

“So, people who are going to work, a lot of their issues are can I get to my job, and what do I do with my kids?” Brint said. “Having affordable daycare on the site is really a valuable component.”

Also participating in the panel discussion, which was moderated by Jeff Hall, senior program officer of the Zarrow Foundation in Tulsa, was Darin Mano.

A former University of Utah instructor, Mano runs an architecture firm and is a city councilor in Salt Lake City, which lists housing as a top priority.

“Everything from property tax to sales tax to ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funds, a lot of that has gone into housing, not just on the development side but on the tenant side and also on the home ownership side and home repairs,” he said. “…Any time we can carve out a few dollars for housing, we’ve done it.”

SPARK is a good example. To ensure completion of that project, the city’s Community Reinvestment Agency provided $14.5 million in financing, with an additional $1 million coming from the city’s Housing Stability Division.

Brint said the importance of public-private partnerships cannot be understated.

“These projects are hard,” he said. “It takes three years sometimes to put the financing together. It’s 18 or 20 months to build. It’s a long haul.

“If there are impediments put into place along the way in any agency of the city, it makes it difficult for us. The ability for a city to say, ‘We’re committed to this, and we will facilitate processes’ really becomes a critical element.”

To add density, municipal leaders in Salt Lake City are exploring zoning options that would allow for the splitting of large single-family lots, Mano said.

“Single-family homes don’t last forever, so people are going to tear those down and rebuild them,” he said. “If you don’t update your zoning, what we’re seeing is that people are building multi-million-dollar huge homes within those lots.

“If you would allow them to maybe split that into two or three lots, that’s two or three more families that can enjoy living in some of your best neighborhoods or any of your neighbors. And people could do it at a fraction of the cost

“Our zoning ordinances in this country, especially single-family zoning ordinances, are so many decades old. It was at a time when that amount of land made sense for an average middle-class family to be able to own a house. It doesn’t work, anymore.”

This article covered programming from the Tulsa Regional Chamber Intercity Visit to Salt Lake City. Each, fall, the Chamber leads a three-day Intercity Visit during which leaders learn how other regions approach growth and learning challenges. Topics often include development, infrastructure and workforce.

Click here to view takeaways from previous visits.