Last night, Kennecott held an open house to unveil its plans for the vacant area between the North end of Topcrest Drive and Daybreak View Parkway. The area, which is approximately 1.5 acres, will be home to not one but TWO new condo buildings. Each will be FOUR STORIES tall (just over 45 feet) and have 36 units. My house is the tallest on Topcrest Drive and will be more than 20 feet shorter than these buildings!

The front of the building will face Daybreak View Parkway. However, the only access to the parking lot will be via the alley behind Topcrest Drive. The current plan is to widen the alley so that it can accommodate two-way traffic (basically making it into a street) going into and out of the condo development. The buildings will have an underground parking lot with ~72 spaces and a surface lot between the buildings and the alley. There are no plans to add any additional buffer between the alley/street and the existing homes’ backyards, although there will be a fence between the alley and the condo parking lot.

Needless to say, I can hardly wait to have a four-story building looming directly over my backyard and having what is now a relatively quiet alley turned into a major thoroughfare for 72 new condo units. As I lay awake last night, I was trying to think of any other four-story buildings in South Jordan. Unless you count the LDS temples, none come to mind and I certainly can't think of any that are within 50 feet of a single-family home's backyard. I can only imagine how many of these units they are planning on the South end of Topcrest. But, as the Kennecott representatives kept telling me over and over and over: “we could have made things much worse; you should be really happy.” Oddly, I’m not feeling particularly grateful this morning.