A project to house 25 chronically homeless disabled individuals in Ogden’s East Central neighborhood will not move forward. The Weber Housing Authority bought the former Aspen Assisted Living building for the project in 2022, but the city will now buy it from the authority.
Ogden City Council, acting as the Redevelopment Agency, voted March 11 to authorize the $2.2 million purchase. The city plans to tear down the building to make room for new homes on the lot, while the authority will search for a new site for its deeply affordable housing project.
Neighbors and service providers, including State Homeless Coordinator Wayne Niederhauser, supported turning the assisted living facility into deeply affordable housing. The city planning commission even approved it in August 2024. Other residents, however, worried it would increase crime and drug use in the neighborhood.
In November, Ogden Mayor Ben Nadolski supported the project “under the condition that this is the last of this type in this kind of area.” He said he was concerned about concentrating poverty in the neighborhood.
Ultimately, the city council has the power to approve or deny projects in Ogden carried out by the countywide housing authority. The council heard public input on Dec. 3, 2024, and Jan. 14, 2025, delaying a final vote each time.
“Once I realized the council wasn't going to approve it, I didn't want the council to just say no and for the housing authority to be left with no options,” Mayor Nadolski said.
At the Jan. 14 city council meeting, Nadolski said a broker had found other property options in the city or in the county that could work.
City councilors stressed the complexity of the issue at their March 11 meeting when they took their vote.
“It’s hard to find winners in this, but I believe this allows the county to move forward,” said city councilor Bart Blair.
Ogden will buy the Aspen building with funds from the Quality Neighborhoods Initiative. The city effort aims to speed up revitalization by increasing rates of owner occupancy and marketing to new buyers, among other things.
The council voted March 4 to move $1 million in Business Depot Ogden lease revenues to the neighborhoods initiative, earlier than planned. These funds were scheduled to be allocated to the initiative for fiscal year 2026, according to a Redevelopment Agency memo.
The Weber Housing Authority loses more than the Aspen site. It will also lose roughly $500,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funding earmarked for the project, which expires at the end of June. Apart from that, Andi Beadles, the authority’s executive director, said the $2.2 million purchase price reflects the money they have put into the project, not accounting for staff time.
“We'll find another location, hopefully provide the same project at another site, but it's just a delay,” she said. “So individuals that would have been housed through the Aspen project will just remain on the streets for longer.”
The building’s design was ideal, with indoor and outdoor common spaces at the center of the facility, she said. Its 1-mile proximity to resources like the Weber Human Services office on 26th Street was a plus for residents who would require therapy appointments or medications administered by a pharmacist.
Nadolski said getting people to services is hard even when those services are close by. He wants a permanent supportive housing project to take shape outside Ogden City, which houses a disproportionate number of the county’s subsidized housing units.
As for a future location for their project, Beadles said the authority hasn’t started looking yet.
“We've just been trying to finalize this project and wind down from the chaos of this project,” she said, noting the city has not provided her with any of the options Nadolski mentioned in January.
The mayor, for his part, said he is committed to the city and housing authority working together but doesn’t plan to share the properties brought forward by the broker.
“I think it'll be in better hands if they're the ones empowered to do that,” he said.
To bypass resistance from the city council, Weber Housing Authority considered transferring the project to Weber Human Services, which could have operated it without city approval. Republican Rep. Ryan Wilcox, who represents the county, introduced a bill this legislative session that sought to make that workaround impossible. That bill did not progress, and Beadles said neither the housing authority nor human services wanted to use that option.
While Beadles is disappointed with the outcome, she said the silver lining is closure.
“I do feel like we were in limbo for too long, and so at least now, we can take steps to find another location and create this project elsewhere.”
The due diligence period for the purchase ends March 20.
Macy Lipkin is a Report for America corps member who reports for KUER in northern Utah.
