MAGNA — With their populations expected to leap by 40 percent in the next few decades, Utah communities such as this one must map out where to put all those people. They would also like their children and grandchildren to have a high quality of life.
To that end, about 70 residents of this western suburb gathered this past week to play a "chip game," with guidance from Envision Utah, a nonprofit planning organization, and Salt Lake County. In fact, it wasn't a game at all, since the players were trying to figure out where housing, businesses and open space will be located in their community in the near future.
Using paper chips, Magna residents and township officials had to find space for the 13,000 people projected to join their community by 2030. Magna is now at 23,000, and like so many Utah towns, it must grapple with the state's high birthrate and the often conflicting ideas of developers, longtime residents and newcomers looking for affordable housing.
The "chip map" process is the opposite of the old method of land-use planning that involved hiring consultants and having officials decide what's best for the common people, said Envision Utah's Russell Fox.
The public is invited to meetings like the one held at the Magna Fitness Center: They lean over maps on round tables, placing chips where they want low-, medium- and compact-density development. They pick places for parks, trails and transit. If they want a walkable development like, say, Riverwoods in Provo, they must find the right spot.
Just as other cities have been transformed, Magna can be remade, Fox said. "If there's enough drive, it can happen."
Envision Utah plans to guide Brigham City, Kearns and other communities through the grass-roots process. Fox said cities in Texas, Colorado and California are beginning to look to Utah as a model.
Organizer Lisa Henrie was delighted with the variety of people who attended the Envision Utah workshop.
"We have home-business owners, mothers, single professional women and men," she said. "We're on the cusp of some futuristic ideas. We're not just that place out by the Kennecott smokestacks."
"Magna is a good community. It has a small-town atmosphere," said resident Jared Winder. Main Street is the center of the puzzle: People want to keep its historic feel while hoping for more family-oriented places to go and more employment opportunities.
Magna's residents "want their kids to have light rail, or their kids' kids to have it," added county long-range planner David White.
There's also hope for a network of trails to eventually connect with the Jordan River Parkway. At the very least, White said, residents want a baseball park so they don't have to go to West Valley City to play.
The surprising thing about Envision Utah workshops, the county planners said, is that the six or eight tables full of people come up with similar ideas by the end of the evening. "It's amazing," said county planning division chief Jeff Daugherty. "At my table I had an environmentalist and a developer," and they managed to agree on where to build and where not to.
Envision Utah, the Magna township planning commission and county planners will shape the workshop's ideas into a master plan. That, Daugherty said, will go to the County Council for adoption next spring.
E-mail: durbani@desnews.com