Daybreak: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Daybreak is the most expansive and most socially responsible suburban residential development to grace Utah’s montane landscape since World War II. I say suburban development because it fits comfortably into the ubiquitous sprawling development model. Although Daybreak differs from the suburban model in many distinct and important ways, it still remains a greenfield development dependent on the automobile for its economic function. Suburb literally means ‘under the city’ deriving from the Latin suburbium,which described a general demographic division in which the upper classes tended to inhabit areas within the city wall on one of the Seven hills of Rome, while the lower classes lived outside of the walls and at the foot of the hills. The term ‘suburban’ in American culture has assumed a pejorative inference as any resident of Detroit will attest. Suburbia is a veritable wasteland, a non-place, a “geography of nowhere.”
The suburban development at Daybreak, sited at the foot of the Oquirrh Mountains, within the boundaries of South Jordan, was made possible by the large tracts of surplus acreage under the control of Kennecott Land, the real estate arm of Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation, which is itself a subsidiary of the multi-national mining magnate, Rio Tinto based in London. The development at Daybreak is but a fraction of the overall estimated 30 to 50 year build-out of the West Bench Development, which in the end will comprise “162,800 houses in neighborhoods mixing the wealthy and wage earners in shared communities of gardens, pocket parks and surrounding open space.” This mass of land, roughly 93,000 acres in all, is nestled between the rugged landscape of the Oquirrh Mountains to the west and the medium metropolis of Salt Lake City to the east, and is estimated to house a half a million new residents.

Daybreak, initially conceived as Sunrise, will occupy 4,200 acres when fully built-out and was intended from the outset to include a variety of housing types placed within proximate location, (i.e., walkable distances) to retail and commercial centers, all of which is surrounded by open space. These design elements define the difference between Daybreak and the traditional American suburb. A key component of the Daybreak development plan calls for construction of a mid-Jordan TRAX spur to parallel the development. Referred to as Transit Oriented Development, a term coined by Berkeley New-Urbanite planner and architect Peter Calthorpe and author of Daybreak’s master plan, Daybreak neighborhoods would be oriented around a transit hub to ostensibly convey residents to their jobs or other activities throughout Salt Lake Valley. Currently the TRAX extension is under construction and is expected to be completed in 2012. In the meanwhile, the Utah Transit Authority has met the burgeoning demand for multiple transit options at Daybreak by providing express bus routes for commuters heading downtown.

A visit to Daybreak’s website creates some lasting warm and fuzzies. However, there is a darker side to all of this. West Jordan and the surrounding communities have been burdened by costs for transit infrastructure development which are not being borne by UTA alone. Murray, Midvale, West Jordan and South Jordan, with help from Kennecott Land, agreed to give UTA $1.5 million to cover roughly half of the $3.2 million environmental impact study needed just to qualify for federal funding for the new TRAX line. The 10.5 mile line will cost in excess of 450 million dollars. The local community (i.e., Salt Lake County) will bear half the cost of the new line with proceeds from a sales tax hike that voters approved last year. In addition, lest one think that this community and the larger West Bench development can subsist on public transit alone, the Utah Department of Transportation has joined in. Believing multi-faceted transit options refers to multi-laned freeways systems UDOT is planning and constructing the Mountain View Corridor, a parallel freeway sited roughly 10 miles west of the commuter behemoth, Interstate-15, in response. The cost of constructing the new freeway system is currently estimated at $730 million dollars was allocated by the Utah State Legislature in the 2009 Legislative Session as part of a bonding package for start of construction in Salt Lake County. Costs to maintain and expand the new freeway system in the future will continue to burden the taxpayers and the tax payers children and their children. Does all of this sound familiar? While it may be a TOD in Peter Calthorpe’s eyes, it is also just another auto-dependent suburb with New Urban amenities. As well, clustered like fleas on a healthy dog at the entrance to Daybreak off of the auto-centric Bangerter Highway is “The District at South Jordan.” Comprising 120 acres, The District is anchored by big box commercial chains including Target, JC Penney and Larry H. Miller's 20-Screen Mega-Plex Theater, to name a few. The District offers approximately 1,200,000 square feet of retail space. The District is primarily marketed for its adjacency to the “Fastest Growing Residential Area in the Wasatch.” Civilization close at hand just in case the New Urbanite might need to hop in the automobile hidden in the rear alley and drive the 1.2 miles to Target for baby wipes. It’s like camping with a trailer, it just can’t be done, one excludes the other. There exists a hefty dose of subterfuge amidst the clean Disneyland appearance. It’s difficult to imagine why residents of Daybreak would forgo the use of the two or three automobiles they can easily afford to ride TRAX.

In near comical fashion, Ivory Homes announced in June of 2008 that it planned to start building homes in the North Shore Village. Apparently, the mighty recession makes even the most irresponsible sprawl developer in Utah desperate enough to stoop to traditional neighborhood design. At the time, Chris Gamvroulas, Ivory’s Development Director arrogantly stated, “We have our way of doing things, and they have their way of doing things. It takes a while to make the plans we designed fit their standards.” In other words, Daybreak may be desperate enough to keep construction progressing in a sluggish economy to make steep concessions to satisfy the whims of the careless developer. Stucco and vinyl siding were outlawed in previous Daybreak developments, yet the romantically labeled home styles in the Ivory repertoire such as Alden, Chadwick, Dearborn, Claybourne, Ivory Stratford, Imperial, and Hartford have somehow donned the contraband Ivory cladding.

Modeled on the Andres Duany’s iconic Seaside in Florida, Daybreak lacks key New Urban amenities. Given its emphasis on walkability, there seems to be little of that going on. A walk through Daybreak does not give the impression of a friendly, open community, with neighbors visiting on the street, but rather of a closed, insular landscape, because it is all a façade. The cars are hidden in the rear alley garage, and because the community is largely car dependent, the back door is where Daybreakers interact with the community at large. As well, Daybreak lacks a diverse demographic based on income level. Overall Utah is not rich in cultural and ethnic diversity and, therefore, those quotas may be unrealistic and unattainable. However, there exists a distinctive lower income and ethnic minority in Utah, both of which are excluded financially from residency in Daybreak. There are few if any janitors, mechanics, factory workers, maintenance workers, cooks, dishwashers, secretaries, firemen, etc., that live and work in Daybreak. Traditional Neighborhood Design calls for above-shop residences, granny-flats, basement apartments, etc., to provide housing alternatives for those with lower income levels to live and work in the immediate community. Daybreak has none of the above; alternative living quarters, with their working class occupants, would blight the clean and sterile environs essential to marketing the Daybreak experience. When a community lacks a representative income demographic, it lacks a local economy. Community in the words of James Howard Kunstler, “ [community] is a living organism based on a web of interdependencies – which is to say, a local economy.”

Perhaps Daybreak simply needs the patina of time to fill its large shoes. For example the tree-lined avenues seem barren given the immaturity of the arbor frame. The full layering of the street is, therefore, incomplete and emits a suburban hum. As well, as retail and commercial amenities fill in over time the community may become less dependent on outside retail and commercial attractions. The commercial and retail node, SoDa Row (for South Daybreak), a 45-acre Village Center is currently under construction and in the end, although it is a bit exclusive, will provide basic amenities for the community. A 185,000 square foot corporate center which will potentially house 700 employees was recently constructed on SoDa Row and the retail center will eventually house 130,000 square feet of mixed use office and retail space. Future retail nodes, such as Rubicon Road on the other side of Oquirrh Lake, will only add to its viability.

Time will tell, but in the meantime Daybreak has certainly embraced a vibrant vision of community and elevates a standard by which future developments will be judged.

© 2010 Steven D. Cornell

Sources
Kunstler, James Howard. “The Geography of Nowhere.”
New York Times, April 7, 2006. “Utah Mining Company Building City”
Salt Lake Tribune, September 30, 2001. “Kennecott Set to Mine Golden Real Estate”
Deseret Morning News. May 9, 2004. “Cities dig deep for TRAX line”
Salt Lake Tribune, October 29, 2007. “UTA poised to build light-rail line to South Jordan.”
http://nrt258.local.cbcworldwide.com/
Salt Lake Tribune. June 3, 2008. “Ivory joins Daybreak”