How will we develop? Northpoint residents are worried.
Some Salt Lake City residents have serious cause for concern about legislators and developers intentions for their neighborhoods. The city’s planning commission recently voted to recommend the City Council approve the Northpoint Small Area Plan.
Residents have rallied against the plan due to fears it prioritizes industrial development, risking their quality of life, and property values. The area already hosts the international airport, and the threat of the inland port’s sea of warehouses.
“One of the weaknesses of the plan is that it takes a silo approach. It looks at Northpoint, which is a really small area, and talks about the need for the city to have this warehouse district without acknowledging the inland port, which is all dedicated to warehousing and trucking logistics,” resident Dorothy Owen said for the Salt Lake Tribune.
District 1 City Council member Victoria Petro-Eschler, who represents the area understands residents concerns, and was quoted in the Tribune article as well, “We need to start pushing towards jobs that actually pay you tons and that keep our economy thriving,” she said, “if we’re going to undertake a development this massive.” The inland port has provided no clear plan to do so.
The location selected for building an inland port is crucial to any chance of it serving as a solution, rather than becoming a new problem. Some 16,000 acres, much of this along the fragile shores of Great Salt Lake, are proposed for Utah’s inland port development, considered the worst possible location for the health of humans and the ecosystem. In addition, the ongoing expansion of the Salt Lake International Airport may be further expanded and annexed by the port in order to accommodate its capacity to handle an exponential increase in air-cargo.
Please spread word about the plan to any residents you know who may be affected, and please express your opinions to your City Council Member.
Find your City Council Member here.