Jay Evensen
  • Front Page
  • Opinions
  • Second Thoughts
  • Portfolio
  • Awards
  • About

State may put an end to SLC's dreams for vacant land

2/28/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
You might say Salt Lake City had its chance.

Developing the city’s northwest quadrant, an area west of the international airport, has been a long-time dream of city leaders trying to deal with a housing affordability problem.

The city is hemmed in on three sides by mountains and boundaries. Homes in its wealthier neighborhoods keep appreciating, while middle-income families choose to buy in the suburbs and commute. The northwest quadrant, raw desert land, has sat for decades like a veritable Oz on the horizon, shining with promise.

“This,” former Mayor Palmer DePaulis said in 1988, pointing west of the airport, “is where we believe the future of Salt Lake City will be.”

But in the intervening 30 years, the city did nothing to make that future happen. It lacked the resources 
to bring the sewer lines, water, electricity and other infrastructure to make development possible — that is, until the state decided to move the prison there.

Then the focused changed to industry and commerce. But now?

If SB234 becomes law, a new Utah Inland Port Authority would have power to develop an inland port in the northwest quadrant — something that could end up swallowing much of it, including about 3,000 acres the city has been actively planning. Salt Lake City would have three seats on that nine-member board. The state would have four. Salt Lake County and the Permanent Community Impact Fund Board each would get one.

The mayor is furious. She says the bill would take away the city’s control over land-use decisions in the area. Having a minority stake in a governing authority simply isn’t enough.

But the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Jerry Stevenson, R-Layton, counters by saying the concept of an inland port “is much larger than any of us, and it’s going to take a lot of cooperation to get this done.”

Politics, to a large extent, is an exercise in predicting the future. Office holders constantly make decisions with an eye toward short-term gains, getting them a step closer to re-election. If they really care about public service, they also keep an eye on long-term results.

As someone who sat through meetings 30 years ago when Utah lawmakers gambled state money on cold fusion, I know those long-term predictions can be imperfect, at best. All these years later, it turns out Utah isn’t the global capital of an endless and powerful futuristic energy source, after all.

But now we try to peer into the future and imagine whether, 30 years from now, the Wasatch Front will be a major inland port — a distribution center that not only embodies the 21st century shop-online economy but also is riding a burgeoning wave toward prosperity.

Your guess is as good as mine, but it would be hard to imagine a better location for such a port.

If you’re unsure on the subject, an inland port, like a traditional one along a seaboard, is a collection of warehouses and companies that accept goods from manufacturers and distribute them through various shipping lanes. Several of them are springing up nationwide, driven by demand.

The northwest quadrant is an ideal location because it contains a major international airport, rail lines and an interstate highway that connects the east and west coasts.

History teaches we ought to take the boundless optimism of proponents and ratchet it down a couple of notches, just as we should discount the dire warnings of opponents by a step or two. The port sounds like a good idea, but state lawmakers ought to make a better effort to assuage some of the city’s concerns.

Conservative lawmakers can’t completely ignore their long-held philosophy that enshrines the pre-eminent value of empowering governments closest to the people.

The state undoubtedly will use tax incentives to lure companies to the port, a tactic studies have shown needs to be carefully monitored to ensure taxpayers actually benefit.

But it’s safe to say DePaulis’ dream, reiterated in various forms by the mayors who followed him, will be lost to a prison and a port.
​
Time will tell whether that’s a good thing.
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    Search this site


    Like what you read here?

      Please subscribe below, and we'll let you know when there is a new opinion.

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

    Picture

    The author

    Jay Evensen is the Senior Editorial Columnist of the Deseret News. He has nearly 40 years experience as a reporter, editor and editorial writer in Oklahoma, New York City, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. He also has been an adjunct journalism professor at Brigham Young and Weber State universities.

    Archives

    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012

    Categories

    All
    Campaign 2012
    Congress
    Crime
    Culture
    Iran
    Oil And Gas
    Poverty
    Steroids
    Taxes
    Utah
    Washington
    World Events
    World Events

    Links

    Deseret News
    Newslink
    Marianne Evensen's blog

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.