Inland port bill irks Mayor Biskupski

By Brice Wallace

A bill creating an authority to oversee the establishment of an inland port in Salt Lake City’s Northwest Quadrant has raised the ire of Mayor Jackie Biskupski.

The text of SB234 was unveiled last week and was criticized by Biskupski as seizing the city’s land-use authority and setting a dangerous precedent for the city and other local jurisdictions.

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Sponsored by Sen. Jerry W. Stevenson, R-Layton, SB234 would create the Utah Inland Port Authority, establish a board to govern the authority, and empower the authority to work to establish an inland port and a foreign trade zone in an area that includes the Northwest Quadrant, an area that city officials had its own plans to develop.

The authority would have “exclusive jurisdiction, responsibility and power to coordinate the efforts of all applicable state and local government entities, property owners and other private parties and other stakeholders” to develop a business plan for the land, which would include an inland port and a foreign trade zone. The board would be empowered to hear and decide appeals and requests related to certain land-use actions. Except for those appeals, the authority would not have powers “relating to the regulation of land uses” on the property.

The board would consist of nine voting members and one nonvoting member. Members would include two appointed by the governor, including one from the Governor’s Office of Economic Development; one each appointed by the House and Senate; two appointed by the Salt Lake City mayor, including one from the Salt Lake Airport Authority; one appointed by the Salt Lake City Council; one appointed by the Salt Lake County mayor; and one appointed by the chair of the Permanent Community Impact Fund Board from the board’s membership. Salt Lake County’s economic development director would be a nonvoting member.

After the bill was posted, Biskupski voiced her opposition to it, and a previously planned discussion in a legislative committee was postponed.

The land specified in the bill has the same boundary on the west and south as does the city’s Northwest Quadrant Master Plan Area, an eastern boundary of Interstate 215, and extending to the city’s northern boundary, excluding the Salt Lake City International Airport.

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