The West Bench Project was a proposed development on the western side of Salt Lake County, Utah, seeking to create a series of transit-oriented new towns on a 75,000 acre development site. In total, the development program included 200,000 dwelling units to accommodate 500,000 residents, and 59 million square feet of commercial/industrial space to be spread among six new communities. Kennecott Land Corporation was seeking entitlement to develop this program without the use of conventional, site-based master plans.
A team of consultants, led by Camiros, was hired to determine if the broad development program requested by the developer was: 1) realistic, 2) in the long-term interests of Salt Lake County, and 3) could be developed in conformance with the broad principles of the draft West Bench General Plan.
The project involved translating a broad vision for large-scale transit-oriented development into an actual program that could be rationally evaluated. The Camiros team included specialists in development economics, fiscal analysis, public finance, public transit and transportation. Detailed analyses of fiscal, financial, transportation, and land use implications were produced as a tool to assess whether development of the West Bench site would result in the kind of communities identified in the General Plan, and what the impacts might be on Salt Lake County and the quality of life in the region. The Camiros team also prepared a toolkit of analysis programs to help the County track impacts, improvement needs and performance indicators over the course of time.
