The ‘Buzz’ about Utah housing

Few people outside of Utah’s boundaries have any idea why we here behind the Zion curtain chose “The Beehive State” as our motto. The good folks at the Salt Lake City Zoning Commission have no idea either and they want to make sure that their ignorance doesn’t stand in the way of a good thing.
The normally sluggish and uncooperative zoning commission has cut through a lot of red tape this year in order to reestablish Utah as the reigning home of the beehive. They’ve teamed up with California’s Cal-Earth with big plans to completely redesign Salt Lake’s suburbs.

The idea for the residential redesign is credited to zoning planner Nelson Pratt. Pratt recently got around to reviewing a building request that was submitted to him six years ago by a family that eventually got tired of waiting for approval and moved to Idaho. Undeterred by the upset family, Pratt quickly recognized something very familiar in the plans. Quoting Pratt: “I just kept looking at these plans and thinking ‘Man, this is so familiar’ and then BOOM, it hit me. I grabbed the miniature Utah State flag sitting on my desk, and there it was, right smack dab in the middle. These Cal-Earth house plans look exactly like the beehive on the flag! What a trip!”

The striking resemblance between the beehive on the Utah State flag and these remarkably apiary-like homes has set the Utah Homebuilders Association a-buzz. As early as 2010, home buyers will have the option to live in “hive-divisions” such as Bella Vista Hives, or Honeycomb Heights. “These are homes meant for Utah” said Governor John Huntsman Jr. “We will embrace our past as we build for our future.”

The Governor isn’t the only official excited about the new domes. The Utah State Legislature just finished sprucing up their own dome atop the capitol building in order to send the message that “…Utah is a dome friendly state and we support anything that looks like a beehive. Anything.

The designers of these new-fangled dwellings are boastful of their many advantages. Not only do they cost a fraction of the cost of a normal home, they also cut down on heating/cooling bills and for those environmentally conscious home owners, no trees are needed to build a hive. And with that ever-lurking giant earthquake waiting to strike the Wasatch fault, the Cal-Earth homes have been rated safe up to a minimum of 6.1 on the Richter scale.

So how do these Super Adobe "hives" work? Long narrow sacks are filled with earth and coiled around in large circles, one right on top of the last getting ever smaller as you build up and up until, finally, you have a super adobe abode. It’s really not that interesting how the domes are constructed, what’s important is that they look like beehives when they’re done.

There are some concerns, however, about the zoning commission’s push for this new design. Traditional homebuilders such as framers and carpenters are facing the grim reality that they will soon be replaced with hippy earth-packers working without shirts or shoes and listening to reggae music as they build these earth-friendly abodes

There are also concerns from some of the more conservative residents of the state that these dome homes aren’t square enough. As local resident sweet old Mrs. Petingrew said, “People get in trouble when they think outside the box. These homes don’t look anything like boxes. Why just look as the kids these days…no respect. No sir, I don’t like a home that isn't square.”

Whatever your stance is, one thing is for sure: it looks like Utah will be bolstering its title of Beehive State, and what better way to house the drones that make our great state what it is than with hives.

More Utah news at The Regal Seagull