A group of residents meets this week with Utah Power officials to hammer out an issue that has a neighborhood incensed and city officials combing through 10 years of planning documents.
The conflict stems from a dispute about the height and magnitude of a Utah Power substation tower now under construction at 7640 S. 2590 West in the Alida Meadows subdivision.Residents in the neighborhood say that nine years ago, the power company got permission to build a 15-foot tower but is now erecting "an electrical Taj Mahal" - a structure that is between 60 and 70 feet tall. In addition, residents accuse the city of failing to fight Utah Power over apparent breaches to the conditional-use permit issued nearly 10 years ago.
City officials are investigating the issue and want it resolved but say the conflict is between residents and the power company. A Utah Power spokesman said the company will discuss the issue with residents at 8 p.m. Thursday at the company's Midvale office, 72 N. Holden St.
Residents who first bought property in Alida Meadows knew that the wall constructed around a parcel of land just inside the subdivision would someday house a small substation, said William Osborne, who lives two doors from the structure.
But residents were shocked when workers began building the tower section of the substation.
"That's the thing. We don't have a gripe with a small substation, but this is enormous," Osborne said.
"How did this happen? They wanted a bigger substation than they got permission for and the city's too chicken to fight them on it," Mike Fullmer, the neighborhood's spokesman, said.
"We're trying to force the city to force Utah Power to comply with the conditional-use permit," he said.
The history of the conflict can be traced back to 1986 before Alida Meadows was developed.
Even then, 35 people signed petitions against a substation in the area.
"We find it totally unacceptable," the petition stated. "This is a residential area and has been developing as such for 25 years. A substation would be totally out of keeping with the present use of this area."
Minutes from a May 1986 planning and zoning meeting show that a Utah Power representative presented a videotape of the substation project that indicated the towers would be 15 feet high. A design plan shows the towers to be 18 feet 3 inches tall.
Now the residents who've moved into the area are back in front of the City Council trying to get someone to find out why the towers are so tall.
"The thing that really bugs us is that the city doesn't want to hear from us about this," Osborne said.
And residents are pooling their money to retain an attorney to represent their interests because they don't believe the city is.
The substation and tower are 80 percent completed, according to Utah Power spokesman David Eskelsen, who is doubtful the structure can be moved.
The West Jordan City Council has taken an "exhaustive" look at minutes of the planning and council meetings in 1986, City Manager Dan Dahlgren said. He's not sure council members have seen all information pertinent to the issue so he says he is "hedging" a bit, but "it appears that the height that was discussed at the time was considerably lower than what it is now."
Dahlgren, who helped set Thursday's meeting, said the city is working in a facilitator role and strongly encouraging Utah Power to resolve the issue.
But Eskelsen said residents are misperceiving the information to which they attribute promises of a 15-foot maximum height. "The substation hadn't been designed yet," he said. Plans shown to the planning and zoning commission were to illustrate generally how the substation would appear and what the visible impacts would be, Eskelsen said.
But residents don't believe anyone would've signed onto a plan for towers that size.