Sugar House neighborhood still sour on high-rise development plan.
Hits & Misses
By Katharine Biele @kathybiele
Miss: Sugar Housing
No doubt we don't have enough housing—especially affordable housing—in Salt Lake. But sometimes you have to wonder where and what the plan really is. Take the formerly quaint neighborhood of Sugar House, for instance. Harbor Bay Ventures, an Illinois-based company, rolled in with a unique, if stunning, idea. How about a 305-foot high-rise on the site of the former Wells Fargo drive-through bank? They claim a big, blocky structure made of some kind of innovative sawdust timber will help everything, including traffic. Problem is, that mass transit is still an issue and 1100 East is narrow and crowded. The planning commission wants the City Council to deny a rezone of the property. "This is the first time I've ever seen a developer write their own zone and then ask you to approve it so they could build what they want to build," said Judi Short of the Sugar House Community Council at a recent meeting. It probably won't be the last time.
Miss: Left Behind
We know that the Larry H. Miller Group—minor league baseball owner of the Bees—is abandoning Salt Lake City for greener pastures. That has left the Ballpark neighborhood hanging while the city struggles to give birth to a new plan for the stadium. There have been plenty of community input sessions, but nothing to hold on to. The stadium will be padlocked in October and will likely stand empty for the foreseeable future. The city is focused on big bucks—a massive sports complex downtown, for one. And the Legislature is considering funding a billion-dollar stadium project in Ivins. It's just dizzying to imagine which sports franchises are going in which sports venues and where those venues will be. But Ballpark is not on any funding agenda yet. It's just too small and insignificant.
Hit: Pressing the Issue
Sometimes readers wonder what's happened to journalism. If they can ignore the fake-media harangues, what emerges is a smaller and underfunded industry charged with watchdogging for the public. The Salt Lake Tribune can no longer afford a full stable of reporters and editors, so it's heartening when they can share a reporter with the New York Times to produce investigative stories. "Man vs. trees: How a rancher's bulldozing project cost Utah taxpayers" (Sep. 13) is one. How else would the public know that the state plopped more than $5 million into the lap of a software executive to decimate his 1,200-acre property on the West Tavaputs Plateau for a hunting lodge. He's been ripping down conifers by what he calls a roller-felling process, clear-cutting forests and polluting water. The sad part, as a Weber State professor notes, is that constituents don't seem to care about environmental arguments if money is involved.
About The Author
Katharine Biele
A City Weekly contributor since 1992, Katharine Biele is the informed voice behind our Hits & Misses column. When not writing, you can catch her working to empower voters and defend democracy alongside the League of Women Voters.
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