Residents rank transportation, air quality as top concerns for Point of the Mountain growth

SALT LAKE CITY — Solving transportation problems and addressing the state's most pressing quality of life issue — horrendous air quality — top residents' priorities according to data gathered in a state-led effort to guide the explosive growth projected at Point of the Mountain.

Envision Utah coordinated a multifaceted outreach and study on behalf of the state Legislature's Point of the Mountain Development Commission. The commission was created by legislation adopted during the 2016 legislative session.

Envision Utah President and CEO Robert Grow on Wednesday presented findings of the recently completed first phase of the project, intended to define a future vision for the area surrounding the border between Salt Lake and Utah counties.

Grow said the project — which is looking at the best functional and economic outcomes for some 22,000 acres of undeveloped property in the area, including the current state prison site in Draper — has been a popular topic.

"No process has engendered this much interest in the state of Utah," he said.

Residents who made their opinions known via public meetings, online comments and surveys identified congestion as the No. 1 challenge facing further development at Point of the Mountain.

Many called for additional transit infrastructure, including extending Utah Transit Authority TRAX lines farther south — particularly the Blue Line, which currently terminates in Draper.

Stakeholder participants, including industry and government leaders, landowners and other parties from both Utah and Salt Lake counties, concurred with residents, identifying transportation/congestion problems as their top priority.

Projections in the report indicate that Point of the Mountain will likely be at the center of both residential and commercial growth along the Wasatch Front over the next 30 years, with estimates suggesting that more than 150,000 housing units — including single-family, townhouse and multifamily units — and almost 40 million square feet of commercial space will be developed in the area.

Those volumes constitute about 25 percent of all expected growth in the same time period for the four counties that make up the Wasatch Front.

Rep. Brad Wilson, R-Kaysville, said he was reminded by a recent visit to California of how a high-functioning economy and sustained growth cycle can come with a steep downside.

"I was down in Orange County a couple of weeks ago, and it's one of the most prosperous areas in the country," said Wilson, a commission member. "The average townhouse is selling for $800,000 to $1 million, and single-family homes are probably twice that.

"The day for reckoning is close for the Wasatch Front. We're going to be very unaffordable soon if we don't address these issues."

Analysis offered by consultants noted that multifamily housing developments, particularly in areas close to I-15, will be key to both helping address air quality issues and keeping housing prices affordable.

But Draper Mayor Troy Walker, also a commission member, said based on what he's heard from constituents, multifamily development plans could face some backlash.

"You don't find a lot of people advocating for multifamily development right now," Walker said. "Elected officials get pressure on those issues."

While transportation and quality of life concerns associated with continued growth figured largely in the report, residents also weighed in on their aspirational visions.

Residents rated open space and walkable communities as their top two "big ideas" for the future of Point of the Mountain. The ideas holding down the next two spots, however, were a little more out of the box. Residents ranked a "major sports arena/complex" as their third best big idea, with a "theme park" a close fourth.

Stakeholders were dreaming dreams of a different ilk, ranking a "high-tech university/national-scale lab" and "green space" in their top two spots, with "mixed-use development" and "innovative transportation" rounding out the top four.

At the heart of the effort, and a mandate outlined in the legislation from which the commission was born, is the goal of finding the perfect balance of sustaining job and economic growth in an area rife with tech/innovation businesses, while protecting and/or improving quality of life, keeping housing rates affordable, and traffic and transit flowing smoothly.

Half of the new jobs created statewide over the past decade have come from the innovation sector, according to the report.

While this first phase of the report, which was completed in about five months at a cost of $315,000, provides a basis of data to work from, phase two, expected to be finished late this year, will create a slate of scenarios that meet the criteria expressed by residents and stakeholders.

Following that, lawmakers on the commission said they expect to get started sometime after the first of the year on what may be the most difficult part of the process: determining costs and funding options.

Those numbers could be significant as the costs of infrastructure needs associated with Point of the Mountain development — new roads, utilities access and transit expansion — would likely fall on the backs of government entities and ultimately taxpayers.

Steve Meyer, UTA's director of capital projects, said extending the TRAX Blue Line from its current terminus in Draper to near the Adobe headquarters in Lehi could take 72 months and cost around $1.1 billion if constructed in the 2035-40 timeframe.

For Wilson, who sponsored the bill that created the commission, the worst-case scenario is doing nothing at all.

"If we want our kids to be able to afford to live here, we're going to have to think differently about how this area is developed," he said. "But it can be done in a very well-planned, very thought out, very high quality of life way."

More information on the Point of the Mountain development effort can be found at www.envisionutah.org/projects/point-of-the-mountain.

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