It’s no surprise to see bulldozers clearing ground around fast-growing St. George.
But when Supe Lillywhite saw the machines leveling part of a local trail recently, it stopped him in his tracks.
“It just kind of made me feel sick,” the St. George resident said. “These are places where I have hiked, I've mountain biked, I've taken my dog, I've taken my kids. And to know that that never happens again is really sad.”
Ultimately, he worries it could be a preview of things to come in the southwest Utah community.
Growth has already eaten up plenty of open space around St. George as its population has doubled since 2000. Lillywhite, manager of outdoor gear store The Desert Rat, and other residents are concerned that continued development could erase the easy access to outdoor recreation that makes the city special.
“If we build on top of all of that, we're changing the nature of the community forever,” he said. “And there's no going back from that.”
Those concerns escalated recently because of the project he saw bulldozing part of the Zen Trail mountain biking network on the city’s southwest side. The Divario development on private land will eventually become low-density, quarter-acre home lots — up to 388 of them, including adjacent parcels.
The development is also directly next to a piece of public land known as Zone 6.
Those 6,813 acres are intertwined with the ongoing saga of the Northern Corridor Highway, a proposed four-lane, 4.5-mile road through the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area.
Zone 6, which includes most of the Zen Trail as well as the Moe’s Valley rock climbing area and the Bear Claw Poppy Trail, gained protection in 2021 as part of an agreement to build the highway north of downtown. Two years later, federal agencies put the highway plan on hold. That reopened the hot button issue and allowed the state to begin fielding offers to develop Zone 6.
“We understand that a lot of people are really concerned about that right now,” said Mayor Michele Randall. “When you see bulldozers up there working, it makes them really nervous. And I empathize with that.”
As far as she knows, however, the state has no plans to develop its land within Zone 6 and hopes the proposed Northern Corridor Highway happens so it can sell an alternative piece of land near the road. That’s what city leaders would like to see, too.
“We don't want to see Zone 6 developed — ever,” Randall said. “We hope that it stays open space.”
The city plans to reroute the Zen Trail sections that have been cleared, she said. That would create a new trail next to the future homes that connects with the rest of the trail in Zone 6.
The Divario development has also set aside land for a new city park near the existing trailhead. The city confirmed it plans to proceed with building a park there and said it will incorporate trailheads for both the Zen Trail and the Green Valley Gap rock climbing area.
Advocates, however, would like to see St. George leaders do more to preserve outdoor recreation areas and open spaces as the area expands into the future. Projections from the University of Utah say Washington County’s population could double to more than 400,000 by 2050.
Lillywhite and other residents urged the city council at a Sept. 4 meeting to create a committee tasked with identifying open spaces within St. George and advising development decisions that would impact those lands. So if a builder wants to create homes in a recreation area, he said, the committee could have a plan for maintaining access to trails or building new trails to offset what’s lost.
Randall likes the idea. She plans to talk with city staff about setting up such a committee. But she also said it’s important for residents to understand how much power the city has over what happens on private, state or federal lands.
“There's some things that are just out of our control,” Randall said. “If we were to say to these [Divario] developers, ‘Sorry, you can't develop,’ then we're in a lawsuit tomorrow.”
That development agreement, she said, happened decades ago, before she and other current city council members held office.
Lillywhite acknowledged that city leaders may be limited in what they can do, but he said St. George also has the most to lose if popular recreation areas go away.
Beyond enhancing quality of life, he also sees recreation’s economic impact for St. George when visitors come to his store from around the globe to buy gear before enjoying places like the Zen Trail.
So, he hopes local leaders do everything they can to keep it that way.
“Whether they want this to be the issue that they face as a city council or not, it is theirs,” Lillywhite said. “If they want to save St. George and have it be the place that it's been known as forever — as an amazing recreational hub — they have to fight.”
Produced with assistance from the Public Media Journalists Association Editor Corps, funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.
