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Richard Piatt ReportingA Salt Lake City neighborhood is fighting to keep a field, a field. But a private school has plans to expand on a piece of property that has now become the subject of a big fight.
It's one of the few pieces of open space left within Salt Lake City, owned by Mount Olivet Cemetery and wanted by Rowland Hall Saint Mark's school. This week the future of the property is hanging in the balance.
It is a plot of land that's the subject of a familiar fight, whether or not to develop it. But it's one of the few large pieces of open space left in the city. It's a field just north of Sunnyside, just south of Mount Olivet Cemetery, and it's getting primed for sale. Specifically, to the private school Rowland Hall Saint Mark's, which is primed to expand.
Bob Steiner, Rowland Hall Board of Trustees: "If we don't put our playing fields there, with a school at the back, it's going to be used for something else. And about this much of it would be soccer fields, and our school would go back here."
For Yalecrest community council president Jim Webster, and a lot of his neighbors, the idea just isn't a good one.
Jim Webster, Yalecrest Community Council: "I feel it should be maintained as open space, the way it's zoned. I think it's a situation where it's not broken and doesn't mandate a change."
The exact value of this property is not being disclosed, but city officials say it is several million dollars. Mount Olivet Cemetery, operating in a deficit for years, would sell the property in order to pay off debt and make improvements.
In addition, the sale would have to be approved by Congress. But Congress won't act until the Salt Lake City council wrestles with the competing interests first.
Dave Buhler, Salt Lake City Council: "If this were being proposed as some kind of intense commercial use, I'm sure it would be very easy to say no to."
But this is an intense neighborhood fight. Tomorrow, that neighborhood fight goes to city hall for a public hearing, scheduled for seven o'clock.
