After attending the Olympia Hills meeting at Copper Mountain Middle School in Herriman with hundreds of residents and elected officials from the surrounding communities, I wonder why the Salt Lake County Council is considering recommending the Olympia Hills development to get started instead of putting it on hold for further study.
There are a number of factors that would seem to cause a pause for development, including requiring the Mountain View Corridor freeway be completed by 2027 (currently unfunded), a doubling of schools needed to support the new residents; a housing density that is above the Master Development Plan approved by the Council (6.8 according to the developer with the plan stating from 3-5); not waiting for the Southwest County Vision Study (SWCVS) to be completed (late 2020) and using the recommendations for this development; and many infrastructure needs to include water, sewer, power, and roads.
But the biggest item that I realized last night was that the council is not requiring the developer to fund all of the costs needed inside and outside of this development. Why should we, as residents and taxpayers who do not want this development in its current form, pay extra taxes to fund it? And why is the council not supporting the will of the people in this endeavor for whom they are supposed to represent? Is this something that we should push into a referendum to be added to the election ballot?
Steve Slessinger, Herriman