Residents say Daybreak's construction damaging homes

SOUTH JORDAN — The first time Richard Parkinson felt the shaking, he stumbled, braced himself, then looked around, feeling foolish — and relieved that no one had seen him.

But then he wondered: What was it? A small earthquake? A call to the University of Utah's seismic center told him there had not been any seismic activity.

A few trembles later, and he came to a conclusion: It was the construction going on just behind his backyard fence.

The construction behind his neighborhood, the Oquirrh Park neighborhood just west of 4000 West at about 10600 South, is the second phase of work on Kennecott Land's Daybreak development. Its construction, he and neighbors say, has become more than a noise nuisance. They say it is damaging their homes.

"It's a mess," Parkinson said. "I have 100 people who can tell you these homes have been shaking a lot. It's like an earthquake."

And he has a host of cracks — in his basement, in the stucco on his home, in the mortar holding rocks and bricks and in the foundation itself — to show for it.

He and his neighbors say the cracks appeared only after Daybreak construction began. They say the heavy compacting equipment being used is causing vibrations that are damaging their homes, and they want Kennecott Land to be responsible for the repairs.

"The damage they've had to deal with, it's insane that a company as environmentally safe and family-friendly (as Kennecott Land) would treat them like that," Parkinson said of his neighbors.

But Kennecott Land spokeswoman Vicki Varela said the company is not the culprit.

"We continually self-monitor with vibration testing," she said. "It's done by an external contractor that we just ask to measure the level of vibration that's being caused by all of our earth work. We'll continue to do that. It's a tiny, tiny fraction of the amount of vibration needed to cause that damage."

She said the monitoring has been ongoing over the past year and a half, done regularly at different sites around the construction.

But residents in the nearby Country Crossing neighborhood, which is adjacent to Daybreak's first phase, also say construction has damaged their homes.