Riverton Welcomes New Development, Herriman Hesitates
Mar 10, 2016 10:09AM ● By Bryan Scott
By Hope Zitting | [email protected]
Recently, there has been a major increase in population within the South Valley area. As a response, more businesses yearn to accommodate and thrive off of the residential boom.
Riverton City has just approved a Master Development Agreement of 543 acres. The City purchased the land for commercial and residential development from the Suburban Land Reserve, which is owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The location of this new development will be located at 13400 South between Bangerter Highway and Mountain View Corridor. This area is close to both the borders of Riverton and Herriman and is beginning to cause some concern for residents in the area.
A few of these expressed concerns include traffic congestion, even more of an exponential population growth and the disturbance of peace.
“They also need to think about the people living here and there. And there’s definitely, on our end, I think there’s pros and cons. Out here there’s not a lot. And it is a pain traveling to all the different places – to have to travel so far to go shopping. So to be able to not travel so far will be great. But at the same time, we came out here knowing that there’s not much out here and there’s peace and quiet. We’ll just have to see. I think traffic-wise it’s going to be pretty huge. 134th does seem like a nice sized road. But I don’t know, I think it’s going to cause a lot of congestion,” Alyson Jenkins, a Herriman City resident said.
“That’s why some people moved out here. It’s peaceful, it’s quiet, we wanted to get away from all that development. When are they going to stop?” Jenkins said.
Riverton City Mayor Bill Applegarth voiced that this would cause a financial advantage for Riverton City, and that he “couldn’t be more excited.”
“I think they’re overdeveloping, but I don’t know. We moved up here. I don’t mind the commute to stores to keep it more quiet and more rural than big cities. It might cause congestion on 134th, but will it give much up here? No. But we’re using that road to get down to the freeway, and I think it may be more crowded. It will be kind of congested,” Chris Jenkins, another Herriman City resident, said.
“The tax base, if you’re a Riverton person, when you get big businesses in places, they go down. The city gets much more revenue off it. Retail, outlet or whatever. The tax base for the actual residents goes down. So for Riverton people, it may be really, really nice to get the tax base down because you’re supplemented so much because of retail stores. I’m pretty sure that’s how it works. It wouldn’t help us because we’re on the Herriman side,” Chris said. “I don’t know if the old-timers feel that way. They probably look at it more of a convenience for them if there were more stores in the area. Everybody’s about money, though. And if somebody’s going to be able to say if they can lower the tax base, everyone will love it.”
In 2010 alone, Herriman lost over $45 million due to sales leakage occurring within the city as a result of businesses locating outside of Herriman.
“To be a sustainable city, we have to increase our sales tax revenue, create new jobs within our community, expand our shopping and eating options so we reduce sales tax leakage to surrounding cities and increase our overall quality of life to both attract new residents and retain our population for generations to come, ideally,” Nicole Martin, a Herriman City Council member, said.
“Smart growth is a concept I feel strongly about so that we obtain the economic engine we need to survive and thrive as a community, without sacrificing the quality of life that brought us all here. The good news is that we truly are a city on the rise, with endless opportunity as long as we are assertive, creative and patient. Make no mistake, economic development is a competitive sport as we see with the announcement of Riverton's regional development on 134th South,” Martin said.
The completion of this development will result in 3,800 residential units and about three million square feet will be utilized for commercial land.
