Local opposition to a 28-acre storage and maintenance yard for light-rail cars threatens to postpone construction of the state's first commuter train.
"We're not sure what we're going to do now," said John Inglish, assistant general manager of the Utah Transit Authority, who said resistance from Midvale City Hall is frustrating UTA's attempts to get on with the project.Leaders of the centrally situated city want the proposed site on State between about 8100 and 8400 South reserved instead for tax-generating commercial development.
UTA, they say, can locate its car yard two miles west to an old slag site that has little appeal for any other purpose.
"It's absolutely the wrong spot for a maintenance facility," City Manager Mike Siler said. "It's taking 28 acres of excellent, developable commercial property. In effect it will take upwards of $750,000 a year (in potential revenue) from sales tax, property tax and franchise tax away from the city," should Midvale annex all that land and zone it for commercial uses.
"The other concern is that the area is surrounded by residences. We're concerned about the quality of life for those people."
Midvale wields considerable control over the issue. The city owns a water line easement that cuts across the site, and UTA cannot use that swath of land without Midvale's approval. UTA has no condemndation powers and must work in cooperation with local municipalities.
"We have a trump card," Siler admitted. "We can stop it."
UTA says the State Street site is one of the last best parcels available for the light-rail facility. It sits amid a tangle of boundaries where the city limit of Midvale meets the Salt Lake County boundary and an island of Sandy City land.
Inglish said the locale is ideal for a maintenance facility for light rail, which would run 15 miles down the east side of I-15 from the South Towne area of Sandy into downtown Salt Lake. In the current fast-moving real-estate climate of the Wasatch Front, he said UTA has few other options.
"Most of the other possible sites have been bought out from under us," Inglish said. He added that should UTA adopt Midvale's suggestion of locating the facility at the slag dump, the agency would have to spend several million more construction dollars and deal with environmental-impact red tape that would take at least a year.
Midvale officials, anxious to put the EPA Superfund site to good use, say the slag site at 700 West and about 7200 South would be perfect for the maintenance yard. They say UTA already owns a rail spur that connects the site with the light-rail corridor.
Midvale Mayor Donald Poulsen accuses UTA of running a clandestine operation. He said UTA went behind his city's back in acquiring four acres at 8245 S. State, occupied until last fall by Sutherlands lumber. He said the city had contacted several companies about relocating on that site, then found out the property had been sold.
Poulsen said he approached UTA immediately after he took office in 1994 and asked to be informed of any plans that might involve Midvale and was assured the city would be informed. But not until August of last year, he said, did the city find out about the maintenance facility. City Manager Mike Siler was on a UTA-sponsored tour of the light rail corridor when a UTA official pointed out where the maintenance facility would be built. Siler said he was shocked.
"They're not putting on the table what their plans and agenda is, and that's why we object," Poulsen said Wednesday. "They made up their minds before they talked to anybody seriously."
Inglish, however, said the proposal has been well-publicized through a series of public hearings and a weighty environmental impact statement published last year.
"We figured everybody was pretty well informed," he said, adding that UTA proceeded with buying most of the site inside Salt Lake County's borders last year. It added the parcel within Midvale's city limits several weeks ago.
All pieces, said Inglish, are crucial to the facility.
He dismissed criticism that the site might be noisy or disruptive, insisting it would be "quieter than a bus garage," largely shut down at night and no closer than 300 yards or so to the nearest home.
The facility would include a 35,000-square-foot garage and would use the existing 45,000-square-foot Sutherlands building. The bulk of the property would be taken up by numerous open-air tracks on which at two dozen light-rail cars would be parked.
UTA publicist Bill Barnes said Midvale's concern about a loss of tax base ought to be appeased by an offer by UTA to sell all of the site's State Street frontage to a commercial developer.
"All we want is a driveway," said Barnes.