Call your Provo City Council rep or email council@provo.gov to express your concerns.

Attend the City Council meeting on Tuesday, April 8th at 5:30 in person to show your support for this issue. City Council responds when citizens show up on their door!

Spread the word! The Council needs to understand that concern is widespread.

The next section has ideas for solutions you might consider asking for.

• Ask the Council not to rezone the agricultural lot until better protections are in place.

• Ask for larger (150ft) setbacks and binding revegetation requirements for this project.

• Ask for a river overlay, which would standardize building requirements adjacent to the river.

• Ask for trucks to be routed along Lakeview Pkwy rather than Center to reduce traffic and noise, especially overnight.

• Ask the City to encourage low-emission vehicles.

• Implement a no idling policy at loading docks to reduce emissions.

• Keep industrial space 1000+ feet away from residential and recreational areas in future projects.

Diesel truck emissions are pretty nasty, especially because they release NOx and particulate pollution (PM 2.5) which are linked to asthma and other respiratory illness.

For this reason in some states it’s illegal to operate a warehouse so close to residences. Similarly, Salt Lake City has truck idling time limits (15m) in residential areas.

Distance really matters—keeping these concentrated emissions 1000ft away reduces the pollution exposure by 80%.

Impacts include habitat loss, water pollution, air pollution, and noise pollution.

The mature trees along the river bank are habitat for owls and bald eagles. As it stands the project developer would almost certainly remove these along the entire length of the acquired land.

A warehouse facility would include trucks braking and backing frequently. That will cause substantial noise pollution for the wildlife nearby and for residents and visitors recreating on the river.

Building impermeable surfaces like parking lots increases surface runoff, meaning more water from rain and snow flows along the top of the ground instead of down through the soil on its way to the river. Normally, passing through vegetation and soil helps to filter runoff, which is healthier for the river and Utah Lake. This is why adequate setback distances (and in some cases, drainage structures like swales) are so important. Parking lots collect oil, brake dust, tire rubber, and other contaminants over time; we don’t want to flush those straight into the river when it rains.

The proposed project would be built by rezoning several agricultural lots to Airport Industrial (AI).

How does building warehouses for NuSkin support the growth or operations of the airport? We couldn’t tell you.

To our view, it seems like this use doesn’t fit the spirit or the letter of the zoning code or the Provo General Plan. You can read the AI zone‘s purpose and objectives for yourself in City Code 14.17D.010

Definitely not! Fishing platforms and boat launches are planned for construction in the original channel this year (2025) to enhance it as a recreation area.

It’s true that the Provo River Delta Restoration Project has diverted most of the water flow to the original delta area, mainly to support the endangered June sucker fish population.

Technical challenges with the diversion mechanism have caused stagnation in the south channel, but a more robust structure is being built this year that will restore a small but meaningful flow to keep it healthy.

City staff concluded that "the amount of traffic associated with the proposed zone is much lower than it would be if it remained residential".

Strictly speaking, the current zone is A1.10 Agricultural, not residential.

It’s also true that the proposed project includes 700–1,200 parking spaces and would involve heavy trucks making regular deliveries.

There are 4 homes there currently, so we assume the staff meant that the traffic would be “much lower” than a hypothetical high-density housing development. Such a development has not been seriously considered due to airport noise along the flight path.

We imagine a lot of folks would like to preserve the open, green character of that area, but we also recognize that Provo is growing and that property owners need flexibility to make good use of the land.

We’ve been told that this land is right beneath the flight path from the airport, so residential development is not viable.

Under the current city code, many things could be built in an Airport Industrial zone, including restaurants, office space, or even a hotel. Some tasteful food/retail space might be amazing there, especially with a large buffer around the river. Imagine if you could walk a quarter mile and pleasantly transition from walking, boating, or fishing to enjoying an ice cream or a burger with friends and family. Food and retail also makes more sense in the vicinity of an airport as a way to welcome travelers to the city.

Warehouses might even be ok, if the lots were zoned transparently (i.e. only “Airport Industrial” if Airport-related) and thoughtful design constraints were put in place to mitigate air pollution, runoff, noise, traffic, and habitat destruction.

We’re not opposed to development, just opposed to misleading zoning labels and plans that don’t adequately protect our shared natural resources.