A large, foothill area is now developed but unused. Affordable Housing - Concerns have risen over the possibility of preservation forcing the escalation of land prices. Though a large majority of Marin has been preserved as farmland, the escalation in values cannot be tied as neatly to preservation as the Home Builders Association asserts. Within Utah, Washington and Summit Counties serve as examples of the underlying reasons. In Summit County only 10 percent of the land in the entire county is preserved as National Forest or otherwise protected.
Summit County remains one of the top five fastest growing counties in the nation.
In most cases, in Utah, lack of affordable housing can not be linked to open land preservation, nor will a solution come from funding affordable housing in leui of open space.