The Other Side Village continues to move forward! The proposed site on Indiana Avenue in Salt Lake City is gaining momentum, and we are thrilled to see the headway the Village has made. Take a look at what is coming next!
4 Big Picture To Dos
Creating a master-planned, community-led neighborhood is a detailed project with so many facets we couldn’t possibly cover them all here. Instead, let’s zoom out and look at 4 things that need to happen before breaking ground on the Village.
- The rezoning amendment needs to be approved. In a future City Council meeting, the Salt Lake City Council will review the recommendations from the city’s planning commission and planning department and then vote on the rezoning.
- The lease terms must be set. After the rezoning is approved, the Village needs to iron out the details for the property’s lease, which then needs to be approved by the City Council. With the help of a third party report, our representatives will have the opportunity to show the tremendous community benefit that will come from the Village, which we hope will secure a favorable rate.
- The environmental report and remediation need to be completed. Safety comes above anything else, so we are following all local, state, and federal guidelines to ensure the environmental safety of our site.
- The permits need to be approved. And there is no shortage of permits required. We’ll need permits for the master plan, house plans, and the community building plans, to name a few. Tim Stay, CEO of The Other Side, is hopeful that the permit process can coincide with the environmental remediation to ensure no time is wasted.
We wish we could make a plan for every scenario and possibility, but that’s impossible. These are our goals and projections, acknowledging that things may change slightly or drastically.
Welcome Neighborhood
Put simply, building the Village will take some time, but we are eager to start finding residents and changing lives.
Enter: The Welcome Neighborhood
We are in partnership discussions with Valley Cares, a respected mental and behavioral health organization in Salt Lake City. We are exploring using a portion of one of their permanent housing units to begin the Welcome Neighborhood. There, new residents will access services to help them get stabilized and both learn and practice some of the customs of Village life.
The Welcome Neighborhood will be a unique experience as it is a chance to learn to live in a peer-based community with strong social norms, abundant opportunities for self-improvement, and the chance to participate in a social enterprise. New residents will start many of the Village rituals, things like problem solving and group decision making, before the structure of the Village is complete. The community foundation will be laid in the Welcome Neighborhood.
What Is Coming Up
For now, the plan is to start building homes and some of the community buildings in conjunction with each other. Ideally, we will start by building a “pilot” neighborhood complete with homes, social enterprises, and a multipurpose space for community meetings and activities all at the same time. This will get the community started while building toward the master plan.
Other than that, the next big challenge is engineering the process of creating the Village. How does it operate? How do we infuse the community culture? What are the guidelines? How is it staffed? We have initial plans for each of these topics but will learn much as we proceed, just as we did with The Other Side Academy.
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