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The North Park development in Spanish Fork has had its share of challenges, and they're not over yet.
The development will bring big box retailers to the city, but residents initially opposed the project because they did not want to lose park space and a trailer park. Many of the issues have been resolved, but any development of the property is still waiting to begin due to the site's wetlands.
Developer Richard Mendenhall, president of Westfield Properties, said the company submitted paperwork to the Army Corps of Engineers more than a year ago in order to follow federal guidelines for the Clean Water Act. Because there are wetlands on the site, the company needed to establish whether or not they are jurisdictional. If they are jurisdictional, developers would need to mitigate the wetlands or change the scope of the project. Non-jurisdictional wetlands are isolated and do not feed into permanent navigable waters.
"We believe that those wetlands are not jurisdictional," he said.
The main stall in the project is determining whether or not the wetlands are jurisdictional, which would put the developers through a permit process with the Army Corps of Engineers.
Terry Johnson, project manager for the Army Corps of Engineers, said wetlands do not often stop a project from moving forward, it just changes what needs to be done on site. Johnson said developers would need to go through a permit process through the corps if the wetlands are jurisdictional, and the wetlands would be mitigated or an alternative plan would need to be shown.
"It's something that would definitely be open to a lot of public comment," he said.
The debate is whether the wetlands feed into a ditch that feeds into Utah Lake. Although the corps decided the wetlands were jurisdictional, engineers for Westfield Properties recently submitted further analysis of site studies. Johnson said engineers are testing to see if the wetlands have a shallow subsurface flow into the ditch, but he has not been able to study the reports yet.
"I need to review that and take it to my office chief and we'll go over it and decide how to proceed," he said.
Mendenhall said he and his engineers are confident the wetlands are non-jurisdictional and the project will proceed, but the developers wanted to follow all the necessary measures on the site. Even if the corps finds the land to be jurisdictional, he said it would just change the way the development is built, not stop it. Mendenhall said the corps has been fair in its research, and officials wanted to have all the information before a final decision is made.
"These guys are public servants doing a job," he said.
Mayor Joe Thomas said the city is expecting to hear a decision on the wetlands in the next few days, and he believes it will be favorable for Spanish Fork.
Thomas said several engineers have studied the site and decided the wetlands were not jurisdictional, and no wetlands should need to be mitigated.
"Absolutely, [the development] will move forward," he said. |
