Tuscan 'villagers' upset with auto-mall plan

OREM — For dozens of residents in Orem's Tuscan Villas, a car lot just isn't synonymous with the "village" feel they believe they were promised by developers.

Which is why they're against a proposed zone change that would allow an auto mall to move in as their next-door neighbor along 800 North.

"The fact is, something else was committed to us," said Tyler Rasmussen, who lives in Tuscan Villas. "We bought according to a different plan, and quite frankly ... nothing in there fits with a car lot."

The Orem City Council mulled over the zone change Tuesday night — as requested by Northgate developers Paul Washburn and Bill Fairbanks — but after two hours of discussion and public comment, decided there were too many unanswerable questions to make a same-night decision.

The council promised to revisit the issue next week, by which time they'll know if the ordinance needs a complete revision or minor adjustments.

"In any decision like this, it's the rights of people we're talking about — (the rights of) property owners who bought, rights of property owners who own the development," said Mayor Jerry Washburn. "We think it's to everyone's benefit that we have these things clarified."

The 65-acre project with prime visual traffic exposure has three different zones, A, B and C, all of which require different percentages of sales-tax generating retail on the ground level — for a total of nearly 300,000 square feet of retail.

"We're trying to develop the property in a way to meet this baseline requirement," said Paul Washburn, who is not an immediate relative of the mayor. "There's a number of reasons that we haven't been as successful (as we'd like)."

He explained that The Meadows shopping complex in American Fork has lured many businesses farther north, and it doesn't make financial sense to relocate successful businesses already in Orem.

But right now, there's a Maverick gas station under construction, a financed Marriott Hotel that will be built starting in June and several planned strip malls, Paul Washburn said.

He's hoping to add a car lot along 800 North.

Or, if the city doesn't want a car lot, developers could bring in a Wal-Mart and solve the whole sales-tax problem, Paul Washburn said. But that's definitely not the Tuscan look.