Help save Great Salt Lake wetlands & prevent more pollution in our communities - stop the Salt Lake City Council from turning Northpoint into a warehouse district
Tell the Salt Lake City Council NOT to approve another warehouse district
Let the SLC Council you don't support the Northpoint Small Area Masterplan - which as written will greenlight millions of square feet of new warehouse space on mostly undeveloped lands adjacent to Great Salt Lake
Tuesday, Sept 5
7 pm
Let the Salt Lake City Council know you don’t support adoption of the Northpoint Small Area Master Plan. Provide public comment during general public comment at their formal meeting at 7 pm on Tuesday night. Everyone will get 2 minutes to speak.
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You can comment by showing up in person at 451 South State Street, Room 326
Or you can participate virtually
If you aren’t able to attend you can submit a written comment here.
The issue:
Warehouse developers eager for profits are racing to turn undeveloped land in Salt Lake City’s Northpoint community (east and slightly north of the airport) into another sea of polluting warehouses, similar to the inland port warehouse development occurring west of the airport.
What’s happening right now:
The Salt Lake City Council will be discussing the Northpoint Small Area Master Plan on Tuesday, Sept. 5 during their work session. This means that there are likely to vote on the issue soon. As written the master plan green lights warehouse use throughout the area. Currently Scannell Properties, owning property that was upzoned to: “Business Park'' in the early 2000’s during Mayor Anderson’s administration has started building an 800 thousand and million square foot warehouse, destroying quality of life for the residents of the Northpoint Community and wildlife habitat. If the Northpoint Small Area Master Plan is approved as its currently written, the entire area will be opened to warehouse developers.
We should not further degrade our air quality with polluting warehouse development, when dust from the drying Great Salt Lake is increasingly threatening to human health. Take a look at what’s happening now in front of people's houses in these recent photos:
This area, containing 60 homes, is adjacent to some of the highest functioning wetlands on Great Salt Lake. The last thing we should be doing at a time when the Great Salt Lake is facing ecological collapse is destroying wildlife habitat which may be the last refuge for hundreds of bird species. The drying lake is also making our air quality worse. More warehouses and more pollution make that situation worse.
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What YOU can do to help stop another warehouse district in Salt Lake City:
Show up at City Hall on Tuesday, September 5 at 7 pm to speak during public comment and let the SLC City Council know you don't support the Northpoint Small Area Master Plan
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The city has produced a draft master plan which has NOT yet been adopted by the City Council, and in response to community concerns Mayor Mendenhall and her staff are trying to improve it.
We need to let the City Council know we do NOT support another warehouse district and this master plan should not be adopted as written. Salt Lake City doesn't need another warehouse district - currently over 17,000 acres of SLC are zoned for light manufacturing (M1).
In a letter asking the city council not to approve the small area master plan as written with no restrictions on warehouses, Mayor Mendenhall writes that M1 zoning currently "...is the largest zoning district in the city in terms of acreage, while also one of the least restrictive in permitted and conditional land uses."
The Utah Inland Port jurisdictional area already allows for 152 million square feet of new warehouse development. Is it in the public interest to enable even MORE warehouse development? Is dedicating over 22% or more of the land within our city to warehouse development while we are facing the acute impact of the climate emergency and the dying Great Salt Lake in the public interest? Tell the SLC City Council to say NO.