Your Utah Your Future Awards Luncheon 2019
In the past, Envision Utah’s Governor’s Quality Growth Awards recognized exemplary projects and communities that keep Utah beautiful, prosperous and neighborly for future generations. Having rebranded the awards as the Your Utah Your Future Awards, Envision Utah, the Governor’s Office, and the Quality Growth Commission are again looking to recognize projects that have made significant impacts on key topic areas in Utah, contributing to livability across the state.
The Your Utah Your Future Awards honor plans, developments, and other projects that support the implementation of the Your Utah, Your Future vision. By building attractive, lively, and safe environments, award-winning projects add value to our communities and support a Utah that is safe, secure, and resilient; prosperous; neighborly, fair and caring; and healthy, beautiful, and clean.
YOUR UTAH YOUR FUTURE 2019 AWARD WINNER
Cornerstone One: A Network of Quality Communities
West Valley City Fairbourne Station
In 2004, one of Envision Utah’s earliest local projects was to plan a downtown for West Valley City. Fifteen years later, that vision is becoming a reality. The West Valley Fairbourne Station is a 40-acre mixed use development in the heart of Utah’s second largest city that combines retail and office space, residential living space, an upscale hotel, and a new business park. It is a vibrant destination for anyone, located just 10 minutes from downtown Salt Lake City and the airport. Centered around a TRAX station, it’s the hub of an intermodal transportation network. The increase in consumer shopping, job availability, and housing options have stimulated the economy significantly and better connected the community.
Holladay Village Center
What was once an area in need of renewal has been redeveloped into a thriving area of business, dining, and shopping. The Holladay Village development is anchored by a local Harmon’s grocery store and several restaurants that boost the city’s economy by encouraging residents to spend money within Holladay’s boundaries. By providing a series of amenities such as a barbershop, hardware store, and pharmacy, residents can run multiple errands in one place. The Village Center’s emphasis on pedestrian accessibility and residential connections has helped bring destinations closer to people which improves air quality, reduces overall traffic, and fosters a sense of community.
Cornerstone Two: Homes, Buildings, Landscaping and Cars of the Future
Localscapes
Localscapes is a 5-step landscape method that retains the look of a traditional yard while requiring 60% less water than the typical yard of today. It was introduced to the public in 2016 by the Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District. There are in-person and online classes, support materials, example projects, government funding and model landscapes to help people implement water wise landscaping.
Mark Miller Toyota: Smog Rating Window Sticker
Mark Miller Toyota is making it easier to buy a clean car and demystifying the smog rating system found on federal window stickers with a simple, easy to understand window sticker that indicates how clean the vehicle is and its impact on Utah’s air quality.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Disaster Resilience
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been running 20-plus years of seismic, and energy efficiency upgrades to chapels, temples, and other facilities including the historic Salt Lake Tabernacle. With every major renovation of aging buildings, they are brought up to code for life safety, implementing the Church’s priority of getting people out of a building safely in the case of an emergency, such as an earthquake or fire. The renovations also follow the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, certification process with upgrades to energy efficiency and air quality systems.
Cornerstone Three: A Thriving Rural Utah
Grand County High Density Housing Overlay Ordinance
Like many desirable and growing tourist destinations around the country, the Moab area is experiencing a shortage of affordable and workforce housing as local residents are priced out. Grand County’s High Density Housing (HDH) Overlay seeks to address part of the market shortage by incentivizing the production of new residential development. In exchange for significantly higher densities and additional development flexibility, the HDH Overlay requires that eighty percent (80%) of housing units created are deed restricted to primary residential households that are actively employed in Grand County. The increased density will catalyze new residential development by stabilizing land and construction costs. The Overlay allows developers to make their own decisions on unit type, mix, and price, while also ensuring their development is financially accessible to local workers, rather than retirees, second-home owners, or overnight rental operators.
Cornerstone Four: People Prepared for the Future
Salt Lake City School District Peer Assistance Review Program
Salt Lake City School District’s Peer Assistance and Review program, commonly known as PAR, is a collaboration with the Salt Lake Education Association specifically designed to improve teacher quality by having experienced teachers’ mentor and evaluate their peers. The goal of the program is to support great instruction and retain effective teachers in our schools. PAR works by having a team of expert teachers’ mentor and provide intensive support to both new teachers and struggling veterans. These “Consulting Teachers” help to launch the careers of new teachers, renew the work of veteran teachers, and make employment recommendations with the aim of retaining high quality teachers in every classroom. Over the last 6 years, the PAR program has worked with nearly 300 new educators and shown a return to the district by improving new teacher retention by 22% over the state average.
Lifetime Achievement Award
Wilf Sommerkorn
Wilf has been involved in state, regional, and local planning matters all his career. He was involved in the founding of Envision Utah and has participated in various ways throughout the organization’s 22-year history. He was an early participant in the Utah Quality Growth Commission leading to the development of the quality growth principles for the state