LEHI, Utah – Officials with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints say it is putting its plans on hold to demolish a Thanksgiving Point driving range and put two large office buildings in its place.
The LDS church was to present its plans with VCBO Architecture at a Lehi City planning meeting July 30 however, the church has withdrawn its request for the hearing.
Last week, developers met with residents face-to-face for the first time.
Residents voiced their opposition to the LDS church’s plans and have asked the church to find another place to put its office buildings.
Kim Struthers, Lehi city community development director, spoke with the developer Tuesday.
“They said they wanted time to evaluate some of the feedback and comments that they had received from last Thursday. They had a meeting with neighbors,” Struthers said.
Homeowners like Bill Conley is relieved developers are finally paying attention.
Conley claims the conceptual plan is flawed, and is in violation of city development codes.
His biggest concerns are parking and traffic in the heavily congested area.
“Those 800 cars, I estimate several thousands of trips on these residential neighborhoods with people traveling at high rates of speed, we`re just very concerned about the safety of their children,” Conley said.
City planners say their engineers are conducting a traffic study where they’ll look at the impact it will have on that area and any other mitigating factors. If anything major turns up, they’ll address it with developers, which could alter their plans.
Lehi residents who oppose the church’s plans said they are hopeful the LDS church takes this time to find alternate plans for the offices so that people can continue to utilize the existing driving range.
“This is really about keeping green space. As you know, we lost three golf courses to large corporate developers in the Salt Lake area and we just hate seeing that happen,” Conley said.
Officials said the church has not requested a future date for a hearing at this time.
