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Originally Posted by jubguy3
I agree with what you say most of the time, but yikes, this is incredibly tone deaf. The Hogle Zoo is an amazing zoo for SLC, and is one of 10% of zoos in the USA associated with the AZA that places strict requirements on animal health, breeding / genetic diversity, types of exhibits, environments, etc. Long story short, Hogle Zoo is held to an incredibly high standard and I don't think that moving the zoo would help.
I'm not sure if you knew this, but since the zoo is tax funded, every exhibit at the zoo has to be approved by voters. I think a lot of people like the current location and wouldn't want to move it to a "family unfriendly" part of downtown.
Can I just ask what you meant by saying that human health is more important than animal health? How is keeping the zoo by the mouth of the canyon unhealthy for people? Is it because they can't ride the bus to the zoo the one time they go each year? Is keeping animals next to a noisy, tree-less, blighted environment somehow healthier for humans either? This makes absolutely no sense to me. We aren't prioritizing the health of the animals over "people", but its not like the Hogle Zoo is a superfund site. + I don't think many people would want to go to a zoo full of sick animals and no old growth vegetation.
Lastly, I don't think you considered that the zoo would have to be quartered by 7th south and 5th west. I'm opposed to removing streets, and I can't imagine what a nightmare it would be for Hogle Zoo to manage pedestrian safety / ticketing, especially if each part of the zoo has to be blocked off. You could do roads like the kind that crisscross Balboa Park in San Diego, but even then, everything there is undivided by the roads - there aren't continuous institutions that are bisected by roads, only the park itself.
I'm sorry, but this doesn't make any sense. This is a horrible idea. The Hogle Zoo is a great zoo in an (environmentally) amazing location. The fact that you want to move it to what is essentially prime development for the granary district in order to put in "east bench housing"... makes me sad.
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What I meant is that we have no problem with people living near our highways. Why should we put such a high value on the longterm health of animals but not people?
I meant remove 500 w and 700 South within it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jubguy3
Sure, 2%. Golf is an example of a sport that requires a lot of money to invest in equipment, fees, etc. - like Polo, Sailing, car racing, etc. - this alone leads many people to shy away from golfing. Its very much a "1%" sport.
I would be okay with large swaths of land being used up for golf, but the problem is that
1. we can't afford to water golf courses
2. if 170 acres of land in the east bench are accessible only to people who are there to pay to play golf, then I'm not okay with it. Its open space, but its not being preserved as a natural gem or a park. Therefore, it isn't really public land, and that's why I'm not okay with the large amount of land golf has swallowed up in SLC - especially when SLC has a lower area of parks per capita than other large cities. You shouldn't have to pay to get into a park. Golfing is entirely suited to suburban settings, not the east bench.
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Actually it is public land if I recall correctly they pay a payment in lieu of taxes. Is Zion's National Park not public land because you have to pay to get in? How about American Fork Canyon? Or the Hogle zoo? Further that course in particular I do know is used in the winter time by people who enjoy cross country skiing. As well as increasingly rare Valley habitat that again gets used in the winter time for terrestrial creatures and during the spring for birds.
As far as being 1% that's not true of public courses. It's true of country clubs but not public courses. My father and my younger brother both golf, I do not. They golf at public courses that they can afford because one is on Social Security and the other is a high-school teacher.
Green fees fund the course. This is something that you don't get at a park. The truth is the city can't afford to turn all of these lands into parks. Salt Lake City has some courses that aren't pulling their weight anymore because fewer people are golfing and those will need to be sold.
The Glendale Golf Course that they were considering removing would have cost the city ten years of the entire budget for golf courses just to repurpose it. That doesn't include having to maintain and police that land with zero income.