Blueprint Jordan River:  Commercial Centers or Open Space?

Download a still more penetrating edition of this brief summary

In 2008, at a total cost of about $300,000 in public funds, Salt Lake City and 8 of the 15 municipalities along the 55-mile length of the Jordan River jointly funded and conducted a year-long public survey and developed a masterplan for the future of the Jordan River.

During the public comment period nearly 1,300 Salt Lake Valley residents attended dozens of workshops and public meetings or responded to an extensive online survey.  The message from the public was loud and clear.   There was an overwhelming public mandate for maximum preservation not just of open space, not just of  landscaped parks or golf courses, but for maximum preservation of wild nature. 

• Asked to identify their “top concern for the Jordan River”, residents selected either “water quality” or “ecosystem health”, over “Planning and Development”, by a ratio of  5 to 1.
• Asked for their overarching vision for the future of the river, participants  chose “green corridor with wildlife habitat and open space” over “developed corridor of mixed-use areas with shopping, restaurants and housing” by a ratio of 11 to 1.  

• Asked for their “Vision for the Jordan River Trail”, the public identified “regional open space wildlife network” as its highest priority, favoring “wildlife network” over “regional ‘Central Park’” by a margin of 6 to 1.
• Asked to rank the relative importance of various recreational activities, respondents chose “natural areas for viewing wildlife” over “golf courses”, “sports fields”, and “parks” combined, by a margin of over 7 to 1.

• Those saying “habitat restoration along the Jordan River” was important outnumbered those saying it was “not important”, or opposed to habitat restoration, by a ratio of 27 to 1, with 60 percent of all respondents saying habitat restoration is “very important.”
•  Asked what were the “most important issues for management of the Jordan River Corridor”, survey respondents identified “restore river habitat” as the single most important issue, and supported habitat restoration over “business and job growth” by a ratio of 30 to 1.
• Respondents favored “Preserve as natural area” over “provide more shopping” by a ratio of 65 to 1.

 

  Blueprint Jordan River graphic showing what "Mixed Use" looks like

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Artist's conception of a "transit-oriented development hub" at North Temple, from Blueprint Jordan River Report

Consider, for example, the following  prototypical examples of what the developers and our own elected officials have in mind when they talk about "mixed use" facilities along the river:

 Exhibit A:  River Park Corporate Center, South Jordan:

"One Million Square Feet and Counting"!

When local resident Jana Lee Tobias objected to this massive commercial facility consisting of five-story high office buildings, a shopping center and vast reaches of parking lots sprawled across 120 acres of Jordan River flood plain, she was promptly hammered with a $1.2 million "SLAPP" ("Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) suit by the developer.   The developer offered to drop the lawsuit if Jana Lee would stop criticizing the project.  She refused, a decision which ultimately saddled her family over $400,000 in legal bills.    The result of her courageous action?  The South Jordan City Council promptly rezoned the flood plain to allow the entire development to proceed as planned.

 Exhibit B:  The Salt Lake City Sports Complex.

Not to be outdone,Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker is fast-tracking a proposal to build a massive commercial sports complex on public lands purchased with Land and Water Conservation Fund money specifically for the purpose of flood control.  The site was under water for 2 years during Salt Lake City's last big flood event in the mid-1980's--the whole reason it was purchased with federal funds was to PREVENT building in the flood plain.

Originally sold to taxpayers in a 2003 bond measure as a $22.5 million project featuring 30 public scoccer fields, 16 baseball diamonds and parking for 5,000 cars, has mysteriously  morphed into a plan for just 18 soccer fields, 8 baseball diamonds, parking for 1,300 cars and a soccer stadium--but now the much-reduced facility is priced at $39 million, requiring Salt Lake City to pitch in an additional $16 million (hence the addition of the stadium--something you can sell naming rights to...)

Consider the certifiable insanity of this proposal.   It will burn $39 million in taxpayer money--easily enough to buy another 160 to 300 acres of prime Jordan River bottomlands--to build just 18 soccer fields, at an average cost of $2 million per soccer field.

Ignoring existing alternative fallow sites already owned by Salt Lake City or Salt Lake County and already identified as viable in previous studies, it will anihilate nearly 200 acres of prime potential wildlife and wetlands restoration riparian habitat, installing a $39 million facility on lands known to have been flooded by the Great Salt Lake during a wet cycle just two decades ago.   When these lands flood again the developers will naturally declare the entire site a federal disaster area and will demand that more taxpayer dollars be expended to pump out hundreds of millions of gallons of water and rebuild the soccer stadium.

EXHIBIT C:  The Jordan River Marketplace

West Valley City is close behind Salt Lake City in developing its jewel on the river:  an "ethnic" shopping center that will consist of no less than 22 two to three-story buildings jammed onto the last piece of opens space along the river's edge in West Valley City just north of 3300 South.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  The white rectangular shapes are 2 to 3 story high buildings containing stores, offices and apartments.

This is classic "mixed use", as densely spaced as it gets, a massive urban-jungle fortress of asphalt and concrete, with parking for 700 to 1,000 cars, an unknown number of condo units, and buildings jammed together cheek by jowel.   Former wetlands on the site become a pool ringed by buildings.   All that's left of "open space" is a razor-thin "buffer" at river's edge--through which runs a proposed new access road.

Check out the following artists's conception of the massing of the buildings:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Jordan River Marketplace:  artist's conception of massing of mostly 3-story high buildings on the site

And these, sadly are but three of 18 similar floodplain development projects that we know about because they were identified on the planning maps included in the Blueprint Jordan River report.  These 18 projects were extensively discussed and detailed in private meetings of a "Economic Development Subcommittee" of the "Blueprint Jordan River" planning effort.   I know this because I attended several of those meetings myself as a participant in the overall planning effort.   It was not entirely obvious at the time, but in retrospect, after studying the final report, the Blueprint Jordan River planning effort was a  free-for-all for the economic development officers of each city up and down the river.  In meeting after meeting they cued up their pet riverfront commercialization projects to be baptized, annoited and  green-washed by the planners.

The residents of Salt Lake City and Salt Lake Valley now stand at a historic fork in the road.   We have not one "vision" of the future of our most important natural asset, but two.

We still have generous swaths of open, agricultural land--most of it privately owned--along the banks of the Jordan River corridor all the way along its 44-mile length from Utah Lake to the Great Salt Lake.  The river corridor runs straight down the axis of an international flyway for migratory birds, connecting between extensive freshwater marshes along the eastern shorelines of both lakes.   The flyway is Salt Lake Valley's critical piece of the magnificent natural heritage of America.  It connects us to Canada, to the Yukon, to Mexico, to Central and even to South America.

Will we chose to break that chain of life by annihilating the last remaining open space, wetlands and wildlife habitat within our once verdant valley in the mountains? 

Or will we choose to create one of the largest urban riparian preservation and restoration corridors in the world--a showcase of right thought and right action for our city, our state, our country and the world?

The outcome will not ultimately depend only upon the ambitions of developers and elected officials.  It will depend even more upon whether individual citizens choose apathy or action.