Incursion of new plan not

compatible with Ephraim

8-6-2020

“The new agreeth not with the old.” So said Jesus of putting a new piece onto an old garment, the new piece creating a rent, or tear, in the garment because the new and the old are not compatible.

This wise parable can be applied to the recently announced proposal to bring to Ephraim an incompatible foreign element that will surely not agree with our traditionally rural way of life.

Dick Olson in his letters to the editor last week stated the problem well, and I for one agree and am in a state of shock. What is to become of our town?

We have seen the smaller incursions in the form of random apartments encroaching upon our traditional single-family residential blocks and national chain eateries and other big businesses moving in along Main Street and Hwy 89.

We didn’t want to believe these things could lead to even greater urban-style developments, so we tried not to think about it. Now, we can’t deny any longer that Ephraim is going to change, and in a very big way.

So what can we do in the way of damage control? We can at least make an effort to make the incompatible newcomer less obvious by creating some separation from the older neighborhoods in the form of a wide swath of large shade trees, including some pines, on the outskirts of the large commercial development.

On a smaller scale, we need to plant large shade trees within our traditional blocks to mitigate the objectionable, incompatible appearance of, for example, the Dominion Energy Yard, storage units, intruding apartments and trailers parks.

Trees have the ability to tie together disparate styles of buildings and incompatible elements of the townscape. They soften hard surfaces and camouflage the stark and the ugly.

Why is Manti’s Main Street so much prettier than Ephraim’s? It is mostly their big, beautiful shade trees all the way through town, a refreshing drive.

Ephraim could be a much more beautiful town if more thought were given to aesthetics along with the quest for growth.

Maybe we can’t keep our quiet, peaceful rural aspect, but do we have to sacrifice beauty and orderliness in pursuit of urbanized growth?

By the way, growth is not always a good thing. “The new agreeth not with the old.” Indeed.

Sherron Andreasen

Ephraim