Salt Lake City: Official Development News Thread - Part 5

[Reachforthesky]

How can this newly founded suburb, Millcreek (incorporated in 2017) think they have the right to forcefully steal land from the Capital City? The Brickyard area has been a part of Salt Lake City since 1979! When SLC installed utilities to service the area. Not only is Millcreek looking to take Brickyard, but they are looking to take land all the way up to 27th South! Annexing Brickyard, Tanner Park, Parleys Historic Nature Park, a roundabout at 2300 East near 2700 South and a host of residential properties — all of which are legally within Salt Lake City’s boundaries today.

Under these plans, Salt Lake City's own city council member, Amy Fowler, a resident of the neighborhood, would be cut out of Salt Lake City! WTF!

Talk about an egregious plan from Millcreek!!

Millcreek pushes state proposal that could force a ‘hostile takeover’ of Salt Lake City’s Brickyard Plaza shopping center

https://www.sltrib.com/news/2019/02/06/millcreek-pushes-state/

[Stenar]

SLC should have annexed Millcreek when it had the chance.

Originally Posted by Reachforthesky

How can this newly founded suburb, Millcreek (incorporated in 2017) think they have the right to forcefully steal land from the Capital City? The Brickyard area has been a part of Salt Lake City since 1979! When SLC installed utilities to service the area. Not only is Millcreek looking to take Brickyard, but they are looking to take land all the way up to 27th South! Annexing Brickyard, Tanner Park, Parleys Historic Nature Park, a roundabout at 2300 East near 2700 South and a host of residential properties — all of which are legally within Salt Lake City’s boundaries today.

Under these plans, Salt Lake City's own city council member, Amy Fowler, a resident of the neighborhood, would be cut out of Salt Lake City! WTF!

Talk about an egregious plan from Millcreek!!

Millcreek pushes state proposal that could force a ‘hostile takeover’ of Salt Lake City’s Brickyard Plaza shopping center

https://www.sltrib.com/news/2019/02/06/millcreek-pushes-state/

[Reachforthesky]

Originally Posted by Stenar

SLC should have annexed Millcreek when it had the chance.

Could not agree more!! Said it for years! Now it's come back to bite us. And Murray apparently. They too are on Millcreek's list for land grabs.


It's like SLC has this 2 year old baby brother that says "Hey, Big Brother I want a bigger bedroom, and some of your toys, knock your wall down and give me part of your bedroom."

And then the Big Brother (SLC) comes back and says "Im sorry little one, but this is my bedroom, these are my toys (which I purchased legally) and this part of the house is mine, has been for over 4 Decades." Sorry but no!

Then when the 2 year old baby brother (Millcreek) doesn't get its way it turns to your parents (Utah Legislature) and throws a fit and tries to get them to FORCE you to give part of your room and some of your toys to your 2 year old little brother. Absolutely ridiculous.

Im sorry but no Millcreek, this is not how things are done. You don't go throwing a fit like a child when you don't get your way. And you don't forcefully take something that's not yours! Know your place. You are a newly formed, 2 year old SUBURB trying to steal land from the nearly 200 year old Capital city!

Who do you think you are?! What weight do you think you hold around here?
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[Stenar]

Originally Posted by Reachforthesky

Who do you think you are?! What weight do you think you hold around here?
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Unfortunately, because the legislature hates SLC, they'll probably give it to them.

[taboubak]

Originally Posted by Stenar

SLC should have annexed Millcreek when it had the chance.

This is a horrible story to read. One of the reasons Salt Lake City has a hard time stacking up to other cities on paper, is because it appears much smaller than it actually is when looking at population data. Salt Lake City proper only has 200,000 people which is smaller than Boise. However in reality if alot of these needless surrounding communities were annexed (Millcreek, South Salt Lake, North Salt Lake, Murray), we could increase the population of Salt Lake City and make it look better to investors and outsiders on paper. THE LAST thing we need is to reduce the population of Salt Lake City, it is horrible to both our city and our state. We need to keep Salt Lake as our main flagship city and not undermine it at any cost possible. Shame on Millcreek for pushing a proposal that does nothing but hurt our community. While we are on the subject of looking better on paper we also need to push for our Metropolitan area to include the entire Wastach Front instead of just the Salt Lake Valley. The entire region is interconnected and the population and development does not stop from Ogden to Payson. It is nonsensical to argue otherwise the entire front is one continuous metro. If these two things happen all of the sudden people would look at Salt Lake and see a city of around 400,000 and a metro around 2.5 million. This would make us look a lot more like a regional hub without the population of the area actually changing at all.

[Makid]

I would like to see a counter bill that would allow SLC to annex existing cities to grow to at least 300K but no more than 500K. Maybe even force this growth by adding Magna (26.5K), SSL (23.5K), NSL (16.3K), Millcreek (60.2K), Holladay (26.5), and Cottonwood Heights (33.5K) to new boundaries for SLC.

This would put SLC at around 390K. If they want to keep the expansion just within SL County, it would be around 375K. At 375K, this would move SLC up to 54th from 116th in terms of city populations. At 390K, SLC would be around 50th.

Doing this won't change the MSA or CSA numbers but it would put SLC in front of more businesses as a top 50 city by population. While many know that the MSA/CSA numbers are the true representation of city size, many people (meaning many businesses) only focus on the city population for business decisions.

The Legislature is still trying to work with the Census Bureau to increase the MSA of SLC because the current MSA population for SLC is less than 1.5 Million. They may not be able to get the Feds to change how things are calculated for SLC but they could change how SLC appears on City Size Population lists with just a bill.

To make it easier, the current city governments would act as community councils to control zoning and issues locally. The SLC Mayor would be the Mayor for the new combined cities. This allows the existing buildings to be continually used. Mayors from these newly combined Cities could act as members of the new City Counsel and the leader of the SLC Counsel would be the SLC Rep on the new City Counsel (Charlie Luke today).

Without fiefdoms to protect, open space could be kept/expanded, densities and zoning wouldn't need to be as extreme form some communities trying to increase their share of the pie, water resources could be protected better, and transit and transportation projects could be coordinated easier under a single (larger) transit/transportation planning package.

Existing bonds could be paid off faster due to the increase in tax revenue for SLC as the new areas would have the .5% sales tax increase added to them. Police coverage would all be put under SLC Police as most have their own police forces this would add the number of precincts to the City while increasing the overall force numbers. Fire would do the same. Snow removal could be a combination of City and County as the current City facility is too small for the new size.

Lastly, this would also equalize the property taxes matching the current SLC tax rates to help force the less dense areas to cover more of their actual costs.

I have already contacted my Legislators and other committee heads on this as a counter proposal to Millcreek's annexation plans. If you like the idea, feel free to sent it as well. Even if it just stops Millcreek's plans it would be a success. I don't like just being against something, I always find another solution and this solution could actually increase company relocations and expansions.

[FullCircle]

I live in (and own the home), in the area of SLC south of 2700 S. that Millcreek is trying to annex. I haven't read the bill, obviously, but I find it hard to imagine that one city could annex part of another in opposition to the will of the residents in the disputed area. And I know several people in the area, and all are very opposed to the idea of being annexed into Millcreek. I don't think it would be hard to get a grass roots opposition organized in the area.

I agree that this issue makes me wonder why SLC didn't annex more of the area surrounding Brickyard in the 40 years between the initial development and now. It is an odd little peninsula. I know some people talk about how SLC didn't want to lose its political leaning by incorporating more area that is likely to lean more conservative; however, I think that was short sighted. Many people in Utah chose SLC to reside in, at least in part, to be in one of the only blue cities in a red state. If they had annexed some area around Brickyard that is now in Millcreek, sure, the current residents likely would have leaned red, but the area, now being in the blue city, would have then attracted more blue folk precisely because it would then be in the blue city. Maybe this never was really an issue and the reason SLC didn't annex county land in what is now Millcreek didn't have anything to do with politics and was more driven by economics, but it does make me wonder. Either way, I still think it was short sighted of SLC to not expand it's borders in the area.

[Stenar]

Originally Posted by Makid

I would like to see a counter bill that would allow SLC to annex existing cities to grow to at least 300K but no more than 500K. Maybe even force this growth by adding Magna (26.5K), SSL (23.5K), NSL (16.3K), Millcreek (60.2K), Holladay (26.5), and Cottonwood Heights (33.5K) to new boundaries for SLC.

I would like to see a bill merging all of Salt Lake County into SLC, or at least the northern half of SLCO.

[Comrade]

Originally Posted by Stenar

I would like to see a bill merging all of Salt Lake County into SLC, or at least the northern half of SLCO.

Yeah, that's a hard no from me. I don't particularly want Millcreek or Holladay in Salt Lake.

[Stenar]

Originally Posted by Comrade

Yeah, that's a hard no from me. I don't particularly want Millcreek or Holladay in Salt Lake.

Why not?

[Reachforthesky]

Originally Posted by Stenar

I would like to see a bill merging all of Salt Lake County into SLC, or at least the northern half of SLCO.

It looks like proposition 1 on a 1978 ballot, was seeking to have Salt Lake City and SL County become one. But it ended up not passing.

Here’s the KUTV news story from 1978. (FFW to 1:10)
https://youtu.be/MqxDfd3tSYA

It’s been 41 years though... it would be interesting to bring it up for a vote again. Although, I’m sure some of the suburbs with ego, (*cough cough, Sandy) wouldn’t want it, especially since they get off on trying to become a “city” with a “downtown” that competes against the REAL city in the metro. Salt Lake City.


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[bob rulz]

All of the cities have egos and most of the people in the valley have pride in their cities. In addition, many places in the valley wouldn't want to be associated with deep blue Salt Lake City. I think if it went on the ballot today it would fail by a margin of like 75-25.

Originally Posted by Stenar

Why not?

I think we had this discussion before, but it would have something to do with people in these suburbs simply not possessing an urban, city-oriented mindset and their incorporation into the city would harm the continuing urbanization of Salt Lake City. Personally I agree with this. The only city in the valley that I think is ideologically similar to SLC is South Salt Lake, but given their attempts to forge a more concrete identity, I doubt they would want to do it either. Holladay seems content with being their own closed-off enclave that keeps out poor people and any kind of modern development. Millcreek has shown their true colors with this annexation attempt. I think Salt Lake City is better off just continuing to do what they're doing.

Originally Posted by FullCircle

I agree that this issue makes me wonder why SLC didn't annex more of the area surrounding Brickyard in the 40 years between the initial development and now. It is an odd little peninsula. I know some people talk about how SLC didn't want to lose its political leaning by incorporating more area that is likely to lean more conservative; however, I think that was short sighted. Many people in Utah chose SLC to reside in, at least in part, to be in one of the only blue cities in a red state. If they had annexed some area around Brickyard that is now in Millcreek, sure, the current residents likely would have leaned red, but the area, now being in the blue city, would have then attracted more blue folk precisely because it would then be in the blue city. Maybe this never was really an issue and the reason SLC didn't annex county land in what is now Millcreek didn't have anything to do with politics and was more driven by economics, but it does make me wonder. Either way, I still think it was short sighted of SLC to not expand it's borders in the area.

Millcreek votes pretty solidly blue these days, though maybe that wasn't the case 30 years ago.

[taboubak]

What about trying to annex West Valley City and Taylorsville? Just with those two cities SLC would nearly double in population, as the first and second largest cities in the state would merge. It seems these cities lack the rigid identity and stubbornness of some of the east side cities mentioned thus far. I personally feel there city governments would have to at least consider the idea. This area is also very diverse and would probably keep SLC fairly blue.

[Liberty Wellsian]

Originally Posted by Stenar

I would like to see a bill merging all of Salt Lake County into SLC, or at least the northern half of SLCO.

Or... Salt Lake County and Summit county become their own state. I know, not possible but think about the policies of that state. My life would surely be more rich.

Btw that state would be larger than Rhode Island and more than twice the population of Wyoming.

[Marvland]

Originally Posted by taboubak

What about trying to annex West Valley City and Taylorsville? Just with those two cities SLC would nearly double in population, as the first and second largest cities in the state would merge. It seems these cities lack the rigid identity and stubbornness of some of the east side cities mentioned thus far. I personally feel there city governments would have to at least consider the idea. This area is also very diverse and would probably keep SLC fairly blue.

THIS. WVC is exploding and really doing a great job on its core and 56th west flank. Its crime levels are dropping and it's a natural ally being a blue town. Here is some of the core work: https://fox13now.com/2019/01/31/west-valley-city-leaders-discuss-plans-to-renovate-and-reimagine-downtown-west-valley-city/

[Marvland]

Missed this somehow. The only rendering I can find of the Brinshore RDA project on State Street. From THIS story.

[FullCircle]

^^^ I like the massing, though maybe not the style so much; but it is obviously a rough draft, so it may turn out relatively nice. Though just about anything is better than what has been there the past few years, so maybe I'm judging based on a pretty low bar.

[Utah_Dave]

I just saw some guys drilling down and taking soil samples at the Held property on the corner of west temple and 400s. Has anyone heard much about this project? It’s been a while since I heard rumors on this project.

[Makid]

Originally Posted by Utah_Dave

I just saw some guys drilling down and taking soil samples at the Held property on the corner of west temple and 400s. Has anyone heard much about this project? It’s been a while since I heard rumors on this project.

I don't think there has been any updates since the 370 Millennium Tower project was announced a few years ago.

As a true mixed use building, I am hopeful that it does happen this year along with the other projects already happening.

This leaves only Patrinely's 650 S Main project that hasn't had any movement so far.

If the Held development starts construction this year, the following 20+ story towers will be under construction by the end of the year:

Tower 8 (Late Q1 to early Q2 start)
Liberty Sky (Late Q1 to early Q2 start)
CCH (Late Q3 to early Q4 start)
370 Millennium Tower (...)

[Orlando]

Originally Posted by Marvland

Missed this somehow. The only rendering I can find of the Brinshore RDA project on State Street. From THIS story.

I like it. Though, I wish they could have attempted to restore the old theater façade.