Growth Scenario for Booming Utah

In July 1847, a band of Mormon pioneers knelt on a rocky peak with a sweeping view of the Great Salt Lake and the skyscraping Wasatch Mountains to pray for guidance in mapping out their isolated religious settlement.

Late last month, Geneva Steel President Robert Grow parked his Cadillac near the top of that same peak and surveyed a Western power center bustling with high-rise office towers and hotels, shopping malls and subdivisions--not to mention ethnic restaurants and watering holes that would be at home in Southern California.

“We have our problems,” said Grow, whose great, great, great uncle was one of this city’s first planners. “But our economy is strong, and if we make the right choices, we can preserve the quality of life that still makes this place awfully attractive to folks.”

Yet, he concedes, time is running out.

A tidal wave of construction along the narrow 100-mile Wasatch Front has sparked bitter disputes between environmentalists and bureaucrats over what the future landscape should be in this spot chosen to host the Winter Olympics in February 2002.

If population growth continues at its current pace--twice the national average and 70% of it home grown--urbanized portions of the 10 counties and 76 cities between Brigham City and Nephi will sprawl from 320 square miles to 1,350 square miles.

It took 150 years for this predominantly white, Mormon and conservative Republican state’s population to reach 2 million. But by 2045, there may be 5 million people here. Accommodating them would require $10-billion worth of transportation improvements, massive new water delivery systems and the paving over of half the remaining irrigated farmlands in this so-called “garden in the desert.”

What to do in a state obsessed with local government, minimal taxes and private property rights--and bristling with ranchettes and trophy homes on large lots?

That question is what Envision Utah is supposed to be about. Led by Grow, Utah Jazz owner Larry H. Miller and Gov. Mike Leavitt, the coalition’s 100 business owners, politicians and community leaders expect to spend about $2.5 million and two years developing growth scenarios for the 21st century.

In 1999, the group will present Utah with detailed descriptions of three growth strategies. Residents will then be asked--via massive television and newspaper coverage--to embrace one.

Just as Sacramento, Portland, Ore., and Denver have weighed their options, the goal here is to prevent the Wasatch Front--which is already home to about 80% of Utah’s population--from being transformed into a blur of polluted, crowded, squabbling communities.

“The question is this: Can we create more compact development strategies in a state that believes in wide open spaces and no government intervention?” said state planning and budget director Brad Barber. “We may have to, because with our growth, that’s no longer possible.”

The realities of rapid growth are evident in the fact that even Leavitt is having second thoughts about clinging to “two very important principles: Planning and zoning are best done at the local level, and the market ought to drive most decisions.”

“What I’m finding out is that in housing, the marketplace isn’t working all that well,” he said. “We may get to the point, if local communities don’t respond, where the state Legislature has to start playing a role in apportioning responsibility and providing incentives for them to provide housing in the moderate and multifamily sectors.”

The Wasatch Front’s vibrant economy itself is in great part responsible for the ambitious plans to protect the region.

Utah created 42,000 new jobs--many in biomedical, high-technology and software firms--last year and saw the unemployment rate drop to a mere 2.8%. Wages are climbing. The crime rate is falling. A $1.7-billion overhaul of Interstate 15 is underway. A $312.5-million light rail project will shuttle passengers through Salt Lake City by 2000.

And dozens of new hotels are going up annually in Salt Lake City, which closed the books on fiscal 1997 with its largest fund balance ever.

“We honor those pioneers who laid out plans for what has become a very wonderful place to live,” Grow said. “Now is the right time to launch a new vision. If it works, we’ll be enjoying it with our children.”