Provo residents speak out about development plans

PROVO (Daily Herald) -- Allison Bellnap had to talk really fast to say everything she wanted to for the Municipal Council on Tuesday night.

She was one of more than a dozen residents of west Provo to comment on the annexation and rezoning for a proposed development in that area, and her first comments were complaints with not being allowed to speak at last month's Planning Commission and then waiting two hours and only being allowed one minute to talk on Tuesday night. So she talked fast and ignored the beeper, citing concerns of fiscal irresponsibility and environmental concerns, then challenged the city to spend money to revitalize the downtown "from the inside out" instead of letting the city rot from the inside out.

The Villages of Celebration was really the only item on the Provo Municipal Council's action agenda Tuesday night, and people wanted to talk about it. The project is planned to include development of more than 300 acres throughout 15 to 20 years and includes a major connector road, the annexation of land from the county and a couple of ordinance changes that will change the zoning in much of that area and set up a master-planning tool for the development. Developer Dave Gardner has been in some phases of developing the Villages of Celebration for about five years.

The big questions from the city's perspective are ensuring the development is an asset to the city. This concern explains the specific development proposal ordinance, which sets the tenets for development in this area regardless of the developer and the infrastructure capacity. Public Works Director Merril Bingham said the city will have the capacity for about 200 units within the next six months, and that should provide them enough time to fund and build the rest of the infrastructure for the development.

Bingham declined to give his opinion on if the development was good for the city or not, but said the infrastructure can be there on the proposed timeline.

"I'm confident if that's the direction the council chooses to go that we could keep up with that," he said.

Gardner said large development is the best way to develop this kind of area, and that kind of development requires serious capital. He strongly believes his company and this plan are the best way to get this done, and he's been saying that for the last five years.

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