With the amount of information and disinformation circulating about the Heber Valley Temple, Wasatch County residents following the issue are bound to play a few rounds of fact or fiction — the big white religious building edition.
The Wasatch County Planning Commission will take up the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ project plans Wednesday. Details were released in the agenda packet earlier this week.
The staff report for the legislative agreement — Ordinance 23-16 — goes into detail about the subdivision plat and the site plan. It suggests the commission propose several conditions before issuing any recommendations of approval for the temple plans.
“The site is zoned RA-1. The temple, which is classified the same as a church, is allowed by code in the RA-1 zone as a conditional use,” the report reads. “However, it is typically not what would be anticipated in the RA-1 zone or frankly in any zone in the County due to the fact that temples are so unusual.”
The report also specifies that though the temple plans as currently presented meet the county’s recently updated dark skies codes, legal counsel representing Save Wasatch Back Dark Skies has “filed a Petition for Review regarding the recently enacted lighting Ordinance.”
It’s stated the Wasatch County attorney has warned that discussions surrounding the temple project can be used “against the County in the pending lawsuit, or in another lawsuit.”
The report also identifies four areas of concern to be explored, which closely mirror several of the concerns held by community members — size, lighting, traffic and dewatering.
“The purpose and intent of this staff report is not to provide justification for the proposal but to provide the necessary information in as concise and clear manner as possible,” the document states. “The review and approval or denial of all the applications is a legislative decision.”
Size
According to the documents, the highest point of the temple — the top of the structure’s west steeple — is planned at 210 feet above the site’s existing natural grade, which would have 10 feet of fill added over it. The height of the main building is planned at just over 81 feet, and the shorter steeple to the east is planned at almost 142 feet from the natural grade. The building itself is to be 87,626 square feet, and the site 18.17 acres. A fence or wall roughly 8 feet tall would surround the property.
“The code does not specifically place a height limit on churches and church steeples but allows them to be considered as part of the conditional use which may require greater setbacks,” the report says. “The legislative development agreement gives the county legislative body the discretion to allow or require the height they believe is a benefit to the health, safety, and welfare of the community.”
Though the building height limit with the area’s zoning code is normally 35 feet, the report recognizes the large setbacks the plan has in place from the property’s edge to the edge of the temple itself. Additional setbacks are sometimes required in the assertion of a conditional use permit for a structure that stands taller than zoning codes would normally allow, the document states.
The size of the building has long been a hotly contested issue among Wasatch County locals and one of the main concerns voiced by members of SWBDS. In a public document circulated by the committee Oct. 6, the organization stated its concern that the main building would be 112 feet rather than 88 feet, a claim the recently released packet disproves.
Lighting
Another widely discussed topic is the temple’s lighting plans, the issue that gave SWBDS its name after community members grew worried the church’s recommended amendments to the county’s dark skies code would jeopardize the area’s night views.
In its Oct. 6 document, the organization claimed the Federal Aviation Administration would require the temple to be adorned with 24/7 steady and flashing red lights. The plans indicate this isn’t correct, and that the tallest spire would be adorned with “a red static beacon.”
The building’s other lights, according to the staff report, follow the county’s updated lighting code if the legislative agreement is signed despite the outcome of the SWBDS lawsuit.
Even with the new standards, the packet states that the first lighting plan the church presented was scrutinized by lighting design and engineering firm Canton and Associates and was found to be noncompliant. A revised plan was resubmitted and OK’d by the firm.
Though many have voiced concerns over unshielded uplighting, the packet indicates that though there are plans to light the temple from below, the light would be angled in a way that does not shine past the top of the structure.
“As a condition of approval all lighting will be required to be field verified to ensure lighting levels are compliant with the approved plan and code and that the adjustable up lighting has full cutoff as required,” the packet states. “The lighting plan submitted, reviewed, vetted in public hearings and approved by the legislative body should be the final plan used in the field.”
With the exception of the FAA-required steady red light on the temple’s west steeple, the agreement would require all of the building’s lights to be shut off at 11 p.m. The report also specifies that because the church has pursued a legislative agreement with the county, the height of the western steeple can potentially be negotiated to where it will not need its red top.
Traffic
A recent community survey shared by SWBDS Wednesday poses three traffic related questions: “Are you aware that currently it is believed that the Temple will bring an additional 2,000 cars daily to the area”; “Do you believe Heber area traffic is already detrimental and dangerous on the collector streets”; and “Are you aware that the Heber City Council approved a Memorandum of Understanding regarding the traffic and did not require a full DOT approved traffic impact study?”
What the survey omits is that though the Utah Department of Transportation did not conduct a traffic impact study, the church commissioned one performed by Fehr and Peers, an engineering firm involved in traffic engineering for almost 40 years, and reviewed by Horrocks Engineers, another company that works on similar projects.
The staff report includes a statement from the Heber City engineer determining that “the TIS appears to meet or exceed industry standards for these types of studies and is considered acceptable by Heber City.”
Heber City council member and civil engineer Mike Johnston said he has read the firms’ work and found it to be “a very solid study, based on well-known actual traffic data for temples in Utah.”
As part of the church’s agreement with Heber City, it is also paying for and constructing a roundabout next to the temple site to help ease traffic concerns.
Dewatering
SWBDS’ Oct. 6 document stated that because of the temple’s position above an aquifer, “the building would need to de-wate the site by up to 800 gallons per minute.”
According to the temple plans, groundwater at the site sits about 15 feet below the surface, and the site would need to be excavated to 41.25 feet for a basement. This would require removing 600-800 gallons per minute for about a month, after which closer to 200-300 gallons per minute would be removed.
After the building is constructed, a powered pump would no longer be used and a gravity drain would remove 50-80 gallons per minute from the site.
On Sep. 25, the church released a letter to Wasatch County residents asserting that because the aquifer doesn’t take in water unless it’s at least 150 feet below the ground, the project shouldn’t affect any wells in the area.
Johnston added that draining water from construction sites is nothing new, as homes in the area around the temple site have and continue to drain water from their properties.
“The development right next to where the temple’s been proposed — Triple Crown — almost every single one of those homes has a sump pump pumping water out of their subfloor, their basement constantly year round,” Heber City council member Scott Phillips said in a September meeting. “The temple’s not going to be treated differently than those homes. We know there’s water there. We’ve known that for years. It’s not a new issue.”
SWBDS has encouraged its members to study the available Oct. 25 meeting information, voice their thoughts to county officials and attend. If the Planning Commission sends the plans to the council, the council will consider approval Nov. 8 meeting, when there would be a public hearing.