City Weekly Article

[Chaser]

I only occasionally pick up a copy of the City Weekly as most of the contents typically **** me off, but I couldn't help but notice the article about the LDS church's plans to build a "city within Salt Lake City" out there west of the airport.

I only glanced at the article for a moment as I waited for my food, but it looked as though it would start at the International Center, and go out past the Lee Kay Center and its training grounds, and then as far north as the Goggin Drain. Most of the areas to the far west and north of the proposed "community" would be preserved as either Upland or Wetland wildlife areas, but it seemed to me that the proximity to Lee Kay and the Lake would cause issues with current uses of both areas; ie. waterfowl hunting, dog training, and the shooting ranges.

Has anyone heard anything about any of this? It was news to me, and frankly, I don't like it. In fact I HATE it. There's no need to build in these areas. IMO, the Church should stick to building its City Creek and "Downtown Rising" projects, and stay away from these other areas.

Comments, questions, or opinions please.

PS-Let's try to keep this on subject and civil and not turn it into a Church bashing or religious argument.

[Treehugnhuntr]

Yes, please express your opinion without putting THE church in a bad light.

[Chaser]

That's not what I said Tree, and you know it! What I meant was criticize all you want on THIS topic, and leave out the extraneous BS that always seems to come up anytime the LDS church is mentioned.

I am completely against the building of any cities, subdivisions, or other similar developments in this area. I like it just the way it is. It wouldn't matter who was trying to pull this off, I would oppose it. I guess I'm just disappointed that its my church that's trying to do it. And you can bet I'll be writing letters and signing petitions to keep it from happening.

[Treehugnhuntr]

I know, I was just pokin' ya a bit. Nothing harmful intended.

[Chaser]

I know, I was just pokin' ya a bit. Nothing harmful intended.

Of course!

[Petersen]

Thanks for the link Chaser. I'm not a big fan of City Weekly either, but you made me curious, so I looked it up on their Web site. Here's the link: http://www.cityweekly.net/utah/article- ... ent_page=1

There's a huge chunk of undeveloped space out there, and with the metropolitan area now extending basically from Richmond to Santaquin, and from Grantsville to Heber City, that chunk of undeveloped land sits squarely in the middle of it all. It's probably worth hundreds of millions of dollars, so it doesn't surprise me that people are wanting to develop it.

On the other hand, there's a good, solid reason why that land's never been developed — it hardly even qualifies as land. If you dig a hole, it fills up with water. Every low spot in the area is covered by a shallow pond. When it dries out, there's a thick salt crust that sits on top of everything. If the lake rises again, like it did in the early '80s, all those thousands of proposed houses will be sinking into the mud flats. The bugs and mosquitoes are thick enough to block the sunlight. The area smells like a sewer because of the stagnant water and decaying vegetation. Trees won't grow — the ground's too alkaline and salty, and the water table is too high.

If you think it sounds like a swamp, that's because it is. Or more accurately, I suppose, it's borderline wetland or playa, and as such, counts as habitat for millions of shore birds and waterfowl, which makes it awfully relevant to this forum. And finally, there are big chunks of that property that are somewhat less than healthy places to live given that they used to be waste dumps.

In other words, I likely won't be moving there.

[InvaderZim]

Shoot, just build a dike or levy around it...seems to work out fine elsewhere...

[redleg]

Maybe this will keep some of the development out of the deer and elk winter pastures in the foothills.
Maybe they could also look South of TAD and East of Faust. That area has been closed to anything but tearing around the sagebrush with 4 wheelers. It might as well be a subdivision.

[Petersen]

Not that I'd ever seriously suggest this, but as long as we're talking valuable land that could be developed, the bed under Utah Lake's lake isn't currently getting much use.

Given that the lake is only a few feet deep, digging down the outlet channel by about 15 feet would completely drain the thing. In a year or two, after the mud had dried and the dead carp had fully decomposed, we'd have a 100,000 acres of prime real estate waiting to be chopped up into quarter-acre lots.

For that matter, they could divert the Jordan River to empty into the Great Salt Lake over by Saltair somewhere. That would free up Farmington Bay to be diked off, sealed and fully drained. West Bountiful could then extend all the way over to Antelope Island, where luxury homes could be constructed along the east slopes of the island with picture-perfect views of the Wasatch Range to the east.

Hey, there's big money to be made if people would just sit aside this silly conservationist mentality of preserving lakes, wetlands, parks and wildlife habitat.

[proutdoors]

Maybe this will keep some of the development out of the deer and elk winter pastures in the foothills.
Maybe they could also look South of TAD and East of Faust. That area has been closed to anything but tearing around the sagebrush with 4 wheelers. It might as well be a subdivision.

Not enough water for it.