As development encroaches on Salt Lake City’s foothills, residents ask, did we need a new parking lot?

As about 100,000 people ascend Salt Lake City’s foothills this week to visit the annual Christkindlmarkt at This Is the Place Heritage Park, they will have 215 extra spaces to park.

The new parking lot was developed in part because Christkindlmarkt shoppers each year spill into nearby Sunnyside East, packing into parallel spots along the neighborhood’s narrow streets, the state park’s executive director, Ellis Ivory, said. One year, mail couldn’t be delivered to homes for two days, and neighbors have worried about how an ambulance would get through in an emergency.

So the park tilled up more than an acre of grassland earlier this fall and laid down extra pavement. But over the years, neighbor Rachel Taylor and others have grown increasingly concerned as they watch the park’s open space — home to deer, birds and butterflies — dwindle to accommodate more cars.

In 2013, the park began renting seldom-used parking lots on its east end to Hogle Zoo. Money from that agreement went toward improving parking closer to the park’s core, The Salt Lake Tribune reported at the time.

Seven years later, the park built lots to rent to BioFire Diagnostics, a biomedical company in Research Park. Then came the new stalls this year, which are also being rented out to construction crews working on the new Utah Mental Health Translational Research Building.

All that paving doesn’t sit right with Taylor or other members of the Sunnyside East Association, and it appears to misalign with the Bureau of Land Management’s 1969 land conveyance agreement that set aside land for the park, she said.

That agreement stated the land’s “principal use will be for the development of a complete Pioneer Village for which a suitable area is now not available.”

“Clearing natural park open space for asphalt parking lot rental income is not ‘the creation of a Pioneer Village’ or an appropriate use of the space,” Taylor argued.

Parking lots are a revenue source, director says

That’s why Taylor submitted a complaint to the Department of Interior, which the agency on Nov. 3 forwarded to the Bureau of Land Management “for review and action deemed appropriate.” The Bureau of Land Management did not respond to The Tribune’s request for comment as of Thursday afternoon.

Ivory told The Tribune that building these lots is one way he’s trying to keep the park alive. When lawmakers divvy out appropriations, state parks aren’t their highest priority, he said. So Ivory and other park officials work to create independent revenue streams to help fill budget gaps.

That looks like 3D archery ranges at Fred Hayes State Park at Starvation, or the yurts at Goblin Valley. At This Is the Place Heritage Park, parking lot rentals bring in about $300,000 a year, Ivory said.

The latest lot cost taxpayers about $590,000, but renting it out to construction crews should bring in about $175,000 to $200,000, Utah Division of Facilities and Construction Management director Jim Russell said.

Private events like business conferences and weddings are also big money makers, Ivory said. So is the Christkindlmarkt. And big events call for adequate parking.

So does the area’s rapid development, Ivory said. The surrounding University of Utah foothills saw some of Salt Lake City’s largest growth rates between 2010 and 2020, according to census data analyzed by the U.’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute.

In the next decade, the university also wants to add thousands of new student-housing beds (which would take a literal act of Congress to achieve — and Sens. Mitt Romney and Mike Lee have submitted a bill file to try). And the park plans to host even more large events.

“They’ve been in this little beautiful, idyllic nook. It’s a beautiful place,” said Tresha Kramer, the park’s public relations director, of the park’s neighbors. “It’s hard for people to really grasp change in Salt Lake. You think about Utah, everywhere — the infrastructure has been just absolutely to its limits with Utah’s growth.”

‘There are better options’

Taylor and other members of the Sunnyside East Association tried to stop the new lot from being built. About 20 sent Ivory emails, he said, and others sought help from lawmakers and public officials.

Conserving open space should be priority, they argued. Paving over grasslands will impact plants and animals and could contribute to the urban heat island effect, making it hotter. But crews continued the work, and when the Christkindlmarkt opened Wednesday, cars began parking in the fresh spaces.

“We insist on more transparency and oversight of their use of Utah State Park lands (especially paved parking lots),” read an October message that the association sent fellow neighbors, “and how their plans for the future impact traffic and the environment as a whole.”

Ivory said no more parking lots are currently planned. He added that the park started contracting with Salt Lake City police a few years back to help direct traffic. They’re trying to guide patrons through the north entrance to lessen neighborhood congestion, and the market is hosting fewer vendors this year.

“They’re to the point, too, where they respect the limitations,” he said.

Taylor doesn’t want to be seen as a “whiny” neighbor who’s upset about parking and traffic “for one weekend a year.” She and others aren’t against the park hosting “right-size events” and “celebrating Utah’s heritage,” the October message stated.

But why must most solutions accommodate cars, they argue. Why not expand Utah Transit Authority service to the park? During the summer, a bus runs there, according to the state park’s website, but not during the market.

”We’re all paying for this,” Taylor said, “and there are better options.”

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