Let’s consider two Salt Lake City elementary schools threatened with closure: Mary W. Jackson in Fairpark and Wasatch in the Avenues. Now consider the biggest housing development under construction in each neighborhood. In Fairpark, it’s the enormous Solis at Jackson Station. All of its 397 units will be affordable at 60% AMI, and most of them will be big enough for families. That means lots of new elementary school students. In the Avenues, the biggest new thing is a row of six luxury townhomes. Maybe one of them will have a kid in public school.
With all the high-density, low-priced housing going up in Fairpark, the neighborhood will likely retain a stable base of families with school-aged children. In the Avenues, with the median home north of $700K and near zero new supply in the pipeline, that’s harder to picture. If, as it should, the school board prioritizes each neighborhood’s housing trends above its concentration of lawn signs, Wasatch will be in jeopardy.
I’d feel sorrier for Avenues residents if their plight weren’t so directly self-inflicted. But I suspect many of the concerned homeowners who now have “Save Wasatch Elementary” signs had “No Ivory Homes Rezone” signs not long ago. Like many affluent areas, the neighborhood has fought tooth and nail against new housing for years, pricing existing young families out and stopping new ones from moving in, and now the bill is coming due.
If the city explicitly tied schools’ fates to neighborhoods’ affordable housing construction, maybe the NIMBYs would change their tune. Maybe Avenues residents would channel their trademark civic engagement to advocate for dense, lower-income housing, like on the huge site the LDS Hospital is vacating. But I bet they would sooner see their school close, and then act like they had nothing to do with it.
Thomas King, Salt Lake City