Opinion
Letters to the Editor: Growth Concerns
Dear Editor,
Apparently I have been laboring under a false assumption that the primary job of city government, including the Planning and Zoning Commission, was to serve the best interests of the citizens, not the best interests of developers.
It seems after each City Council meeting, we are given the shocking news that the city has approved more and more new homes. What doesn’t the city understand when it comes to being responsible and serving the best interests of the citizens? Then to top it off, they want to bond us for more parks.
Continuing to give developers anything and everything they want, while we are struggling with so many problems from lack of water to lack enough schools, to traffic and environmental questions seems grossly irresponsible. More growth will mean more crime, additional school problems, and a decline in the quality of life and other related problems.
Is there some part of “no” that the city leaders don’t comprehend, as they listen to slick developers giving all their arguments why thousands of new homes would be such a wonderful benefit to Lehi and magically enhance our quality of life? By making Lehi bigger, it will destroy the very reason why so many want to move here in the first place, because they’ve had a belly full of big city life and all the problems, even though many end up complaining about how terrible Happy Valley is and the old timers who are just “hicks.”
It seems to be the old time residents are totally ignored in the whole process, but will be expected to bear the burden, while their normal way of life will be destroyed. Regarding water, the city officials say “not to worry, because the developers are required to give the city so many shares of water for each development.” When I last checked, a share of nothing is still nothing, and if the growth continues, we will eventually be totally out of water.
We barely squeaked by this year for water, as we had a fairly good snow pack and the reservoirs were nearly full. But what will happen when the snow pack is low and we have thousands of new homes? For me, I don’t see very many positives in all this growth. Years ago, when Lehi was really small, I think we had a far better quality of life.
Sincerely,
Julian Mercer
Lehi, UT
