The freeway-style highway that would run along the west side of the Salt Lake Valley and into northern Utah County, now undergoing environmental studies, had been estimated to cost a total of $1.8 billion, with $300 million needed for the Salt Lake County land alone.
But Sen. Carlene Walker, R-Cottonwood Heights, said during a legislative committee meeting with the Utah Department of Transportation that she has been hearing the state is going to get "killed" when it tries to buy property for the right of way.
"The land is going to be absolutely prohibitively expensive," said Walker, co-chairwoman of the legislative Joint Transportation, Environmental Quality and National Guard Appropriations Subcommittee.
No new land-cost estimate was offered.
UDOT executive director John Njord said the too-conservative estimate is an outdated projection of the right of way cost, based on the assumption UDOT would be buying vacant land.
The land is still vacant, Njord said. But developers who own the property have platted housing lots on paper, thus upping the stakes in purchase negotiations.
The highway agency can't even estimate how many parcels it will have to buy until the environmental impact study is completed this fall. Meanwhile, UDOT real estate officials are trying to nail down deals. But prices have soared substantially, at times tenfold, Njord said.
The state so far has spent about $19.2 million for Mountain View Corridor land. Last week, the state Transportation Commission agreed to spend $100 million from the state's new Critical Highway Needs Fund for Mountain View property, with $70 million set aside for the northern stretch.
Even if the original $450 million estimate held, only 10 percent of that total has been committed to real estate purchases, Njord said.
Rep. Todd Kiser, R-Sandy, complained about developers who buy property when they know a highway could run through it just to make a profit, and asked if lawmakers ought to consider measures to thwart the practice.
But Walker reminded the panel that along with its obligation to the public good, Utah has a strong commitment to individual property rights. "It's a balance," she said.
State law forbids UDOT from invoking eminent domain to take property for corridor preservation prior to the completion of the required environmental work. Njord said that had always been UDOT's practice.
Completion of the environmental work triggers the agency's ability to define exactly where it will build a highway and take land if real-estate negotiations fail. Even then, legal precedent requires the property to be put to transportation use within seven years, Njord said.
The high cost of land was just one bit of bad news among several aired during the meeting.
UDOT is having trouble filling civil engineering jobs because recent college graduates find they can make at least $15,000 more per year in entry-level private-sector jobs. The same goes for UDOT's hands-on workers, who find they can do better in trucking or construction than they can working for the state, despite its good benefits, Njord said. Similarly, real estate and appraisal experts are in nearly nonexistent supply for state jobs, further complicating UDOT's land-purchase task.
On the bright side, lawmakers agreed, are the 82 projects now under way due to massive infusions of General Fund taxes and other state and federal allocations during the past two years.
