They heard updates on new regional housing and transportation plans and observed a demonstration of software that will allow cities to share modeling for the future, hold discussions on how to change zoning laws to allow new kinds of higher density development and exchange updates on expected demographic changes.
The group is using a $5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to help local communities work together to implement a regional vision for the future that was developed by them through Envision Utah over the past decade.
"We are a state that is 90 percent urban that is living on 1.1 percent of the land. … What a responsibility to plan carefully," University of Utah research economist Pam Perlich told the group. That population density, plus an expected 67 percent growth in 30 years, has the group envisioning a different-looking Utah by 2040.
Instead of expanding suburban sprawl with single-family homes, the consortium hopes that maybe a third of the population would start to cluster in new town centers built around mass-transit stations that replace old, rundown areas.
Many would live in buildings that have businesses on the first floor, offices on the second and residences above that. Town centers would be designed to allow people to live, work and play in the same area, so they would drive less and walk or bike more. Transit options would expand so that most of the population would live close to major transit centers. Salt Lake Tribune
