Zion National Park struggling to house workers

SPRINGDALE, Utah (ABC4/ KDXU) – A lot of people go to Springdale for one big reason, Zion National Park, which recently reached record visitation numbers.

“There’s a number of people coming in, and they’re looking for temporary accommodations, but we still need to find ways to house the workers that support all those activities,” says Superintendent Jeff Bradybaugh.

Bradybaugh says there’s housing inside of the park, mainly reserved for emergency staff and seasonal staff, but he says there’s a need, especially for their temporary workers.

“We have added a few housing units in the park recently, but there’s still a need,” he says.

The Mayor of Springdale, Barbara Bruno says the town implemented a ban on certain lodging because of the housing shortage they’re seeing.

“We have been experiencing a loss of long-term rentals because owners have been converting them to short-term rentals, nightly rentals,” she says.

Mayor Bruno says the town has lost retail stores because many places are being converted to nightly rentals.

“On January 12, we passed this 6 month or 180 moratorium, saying that we would not accept any applications to accept nightly rentals during that period, and that got us some time to put a task force in place,” she says.

Bruno says the task force is working to find a new ordinance, to tackle this problem many local leaders are facing.