Developers focus on mass transit

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Today's suburban "McMansions" will give way to tomorrow's densely stacked urban flats as the Utah family's ideal, developers say - if local officials will just get out of the way.

Metropolitan Salt Lake is the envy of western U.S. cities for its extensive and growing mass transit system, developers said Monday at a transit-oriented development conference sponsored by the Utah Transit Authority. But some jurisdictions that are gaining the convenience of rail commutes are mired in last century's car mentality and won't allow more tightly packed housing with fewer parking stalls.

"You need to be slapped around," Wasatch Property Management President Dell Loy Hansen said, targeting suburban planners who won't embrace transit.

Hansen has developed high-rises and clustered town homes near and among commercial stores around the West, and said families will prefer them in the new, energy-restricted economy.

"It won't be the large McMansions that have been the fad in Utah over the last eight to 10 years," Hansen said. "We're staking our company on it."

After almost a decade of TRAX light rail, Utah has been slow to sprout major nodes of new, walkable commercial and residential centers around stations. Monday's conference was at Grand America Hotel, a downtown Salt Lake City corner that has a TRAX station but almost no retail in sight, and many parking stalls.

Developers and officials alike are excited, though, about plans for Murray, South Salt Lake and other commuter hubs.

Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker said cities must boost housing density to fit Utah's continued population growth and encourage people to ride readily accessible trains and buses. Those who instinctively recoil at the word "density" should consider his historic neighborhood with tiny lots, he said.

"People love it. People are committed to the Avenues and Capitol Hill," he said. "They're committed to community and [downtown] access."

Tom Warner of West Coast builder Holland Development said cities that are serious about growing their transit cores throw out the old rules that mandated a couple of parking spaces per unit and separations of commercial and residential districts.