Over 7,500 people have taken the Valley Visioning survey—add your voice to the vision!
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Since Envision Utah released the Valley Visioning survey in early October, over 7,500 residents have shared their vision for land use, transportation, air quality, water, education, and more. And the survey is still open, which means
you
still have the chance to take it!
After working with a wide range of experts, stakeholders, and the public, we developed five different scenarios for growth in Utah Valley. Check out those scenarios below and take the survey to share your voice on how you think Utah Valley should grow.
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Scenario C | Westward Growth
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Scenario D | Southward Growth
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Scenario E | Urban Infill
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Developing disaster resiliency in Utah
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The Wasatch Front has a 47% chance of experiencing a magnitude 6.75+ earthquake within the next 50 years. Casualty estimates show that an earthquake of that magnitude would rank as one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history.
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In 2015, we worked with Utah residents, stakeholders, and experts to create a statewide vision for 2050, called Your Utah, Your Future. In the vision, Utahns made it clear what they want most for the future: a place to live that is safe, secure, and resilient; prosperous; neighborly, fair, and caring; and healthy, beautiful, and clean.
That's why we're gearing up for a disaster resiliency project in 2020. We face significant risk by living along the Wasatch Fault, but there are things we can all do to ensure we live in communities that are safe, secure, and resilient. In our project, we'll identify key strategies for improving resiliency and mobilize outreach efforts to educate the public.
Formal kick-off for this project is scheduled for early 2020, so keep an eye out for next year's announcements!
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What’s happening with the teacher vision?
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We’ve been asked by many people how the special session on tax reform will affect the Vision for Teacher Excellence (
click here to view the vision
) we released this fall, so we thought we’d try to answer that here. Please keep in mind, that Envision Utah does not take positions for or against specific bills.
Some Background
During the recent special session, legislators voted for an income tax decrease. A big part of education funding comes through that tax, so that means education funding will be cut by $226 million this year—after accounting for shifting money between funds. It’s unclear what this will mean for future years. But because of a strong economy, we still have new money to put towards education ($214 million more than last year, even after the $226 million cut). These numbers could change during the upcoming general legislative session, and much of that money will likely be put towards growth, inflation, and other important education priorities. It’s worth noting that legislators are also discussing opening ways for school districts to generate more revenue from property taxes.
What does that mean for the Vision for Teacher Excellence?
Our Vision for Teacher Excellence is not a bill or a specific policy proposal. The purpose of the vision is to give all of us a guide for a critically important aspect of improving education—teacher compensation. We’re still a long way off from getting to the $600 million per year (beyond growth and inflation) that the vision recommends. But we have already seen the vision start to influence decisions at state and local levels, and we hope that will continue.
Feel free to reach out to Jason Brown, our VP of Communications, at
jbrown@envisionutah.org
if you’d like to have a more robust discussion about this.
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Happy Holidays from Envision Utah!
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From all of us at Envision Utah, we want to sincerely thank you for your support this year. From creating a
vision for teacher compensation
to helping Utah Valley create a
vision for the future
, it's support from visionary Utahns like you that make our work possible. With your help we can work together to make Utah a great place to live—now and in the future.
Thank you for making 2019 such an amazing year. We're looking forward to making 2020 even better!
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We greatly appreciate all of our contributors for enabling us to carry out these efforts. Please consider a donation to support Envision Utah today!
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Utah’s teacher shortage has serious implications. Envision Utah has taken this crisis head on as part of its mission to establish a community-supported vision for growth in our state.
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Our CEO, Robert Grow describes Envision Utah’s role in Utah's growth and how our visioning process is helping Utah remain an affordable and great state to call home.
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Envision Utah is in Phase Three of the Valley Visioning Process, with results so far leaning toward the growth scenarios that provide denser and more walkable development.
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