Prepared by John Bennion, CUV Director of Research
August 18, 2026
Open Letter to Provo City Council and Mayor Concerning the Vesper Project Development Agreement
In the August 11 work meeting of the Provo City Council, Bryan Bayles gave convincing evidence that Vesper can control traffic, limiting it to an 8-minute slowdown. Conserve Utah Valley’s (CUV) main concern with the Vesper proposal has been traffic which would prevent current users from accessing the canyon at peak hours. Mr. Bayles has previously argued that light and sound can similarly be controlled. It may be that the city council will approve the rezoning, but we urge Provo City, the Council, and Vesper to use more precise language about upper limits to traffic, light, sound, and other areas in the Development Agreement (DA). We also urge that you make a more complete exploration of how the conservation easement (CE) might work.
We at CUV still oppose the Vesper Project. No matter how much Vesper ameliorates traffic, sound, light, and other matters, the presence of the amphitheater will affect the experience of current users of the lower canyon, especially Canyon View Park. This is also true during construction. On the plus side, most of the land which is now a city utilities property will be restored and put in a conservation easement; the current open space property owned by Provo City will have trails installed and people will have easier and safer access to other trails, including the Bonneville Shoreline Trail; and the gravel pit will be replaced with something useful to citizens of Utah Valley and beyond. On the minus side, weekday concerts probably will overlap with peak use of the parks and trail. Citizens of Provo/Orem (and beyond) of all economic levels, including under-served populations, now can drive minutes from their home and have a walk or a picnic under trees next to a beautiful river that flows below spectacular mountains. They still will be able to do that if the amphitheater is constructed, but it may take double the driving time in the late afternoon. If the expectation of bad traffic discourages these users, then the Vesper project replaces, at least in part, a wide demographic of users with a narrow demographic—those who can spend hundreds of dollars for concert tickets. Taking from people without much money to serve those with more money may be a widespread practice, but we don’t have to do that in Provo.
If the city council approves the zone change, all the stakeholders need the development agreement to be inclusive and precise. The current draft provides generally good protections of the canyon and both human users and wildlife. But in some sections the language is imprecise or flexible when it doesn’t need to be. The guardrails that rely on established city codes, ordinances, and the master plan have clear standards that Vesper must meet. For example, they must analyze geology and consider the nearby fault line. Even height of the venue is specified, allowing for an exception. We encourage the city (administration and council) to establish precise standards or guardrails in other areas, which are now not defined in specific terms: traffic, sound, light, and storm water. The concept plan and the purchase agreement may do some of the work that we’re suggesting the Development agreement do, but we haven’t seen those documents.
Traffic: In the work meeting, Mr. Bayles showed that Vesper can keep slowdown to about eight minutes, but the development agreement doesn’t set a limit. How about no more than 10-minutes? If that limit is reached in the UDOT predictions, then Vesper must increase the other traffic control methods Mr. Bayles described—shuttles, another underground parking level, and/or a second above-ground parking level. The document assumes that Vesper will spend money to lower traffic slowdown times but doesn’t define the limits to this guardrail. What use is a guardrail that moves when you push on it?
Sound: City ordinances currently establish decibel levels that could apply to Vesper. Currently the DA says that sound will be limited “to the extent reasonably practical.” If Vesper must “incorporate current and evolving sound-attenuation and noise mitigation technologies,” why shouldn’t the DA be precise about acceptable upper limits? It may be that there can be exceptions to decibel level, duration of sound peaks, and interruptions, but those should be laid out. Again, just as with traffic, there is no set limit for sound.
Light: The DA says that “Project lighting must be designed to be Dark Sky compliant to the extent reasonably possible.” Dark Sky is not a single standard but a gradient, so the DA could set an upper limit of allowable lumens. The DA should identify what the City wants in terms of upper limits or provide for setting those limits in the future. It seems better to set them now, so that everyone knows what we’re working toward.
Construction
The DA doesn’t specify that limits to traffic, sound, and other disturbances apply during construction, which could, according to the DA, last four years or longer. We think that adding guardrails that apply to construction will protect the canyon users during this transitional time.
Why specify these limits? What if the developer could save money by skipping the geotechnical study or by having a higher composition of gravel and sand in the cement mix? City inspectors wouldn’t allow it. Traffic, sound, or light are different in that if they exceed a certain limit they don’t become an immediate and drastic safety hazard. But they absolutely will affect the experience of other users of the canyon. Vesper seems to be a solid company, one with a clear aesthetic and economic vision for the concert venue, but that doesn’t mean that upper limits shouldn’t be specific in these areas of concern. What if Vesper sells the project in the future? The DA includes language that applies the guardrails to any future owner, so that makes it even more important to make the DA as precise as it can be. An amphitheater that has been used as a comparison to Vesper is USANA (now Utah First Credit Union Amphitheater). That venue was built by United Concerts, but now Live Nation owns it. This could happen to Vesper. Live Nation owns Ticket Master, operates more than half the amphitheaters in the US, and controls dozens of global music festivals (Live Nation Annual Report 2022). Live Nation manages user fees so that they keep a high percentage of the total ticket cost (Clyde Lawrence “Taylor Swift’s Live Nation Debacle Is Just the Beginning,” NY Times). They are one of the main reasons concert tickets are so expensive. If they can increase sound, light, traffic, as they pack their amphitheaters more days in a year, why wouldn’t they do it unless the DA and other city documents restrain them?
In short, CUV urges the City and Vesper to specify upper limits to these elements which have a direct impact on current users of the canyon.
Thoughts about Zone Changes, Land Transfer, and Conservation Easement
As the city council discussed the conservation easement, members were concerned about the cost of the easement itself, the future owner of the property, the potential holder of the easement, and other factors. Provo City, Utah Open Lands, and CUV have worked together on two conservation easements—Bunnell’s Fork and Slate Canyon. The main lesson we at CUV have learned through that process is that we must rely on the expertise and resources of Utah Open Lands. It may be the thought of the council that the time to bring in a land trust expert like Wendy Fisher is when we’re ready to design the easement. But getting advice now is crucial so that the nature of the land swap and other elements of the agreement don’t unduly complicate the CE. Concerning the rezoning and land transfer, we envision a couple of ways forward.
Assumptions/Assertions
- Canyon users and concert attendees would both benefit by having the amphitheater surrounded and contained by land restricted in use by a conservation easement (CE).
- Who owns the property that is put into a conservation easement is less pertinent than the specific restrictions guaranteed by the easement definitions. “The most important part of the protection is ensuring that a qualified, accredited entity is holding the conservation easement and has the requisite resources as per conservation easement law to sustain the Conservation Easement and enforce the terms” (Wendy Fisher). Most of the stakeholders want to contain the amphitheater, prohibit commercial and residential development in the area around Vesper, and provide funds to improve and manage the trails and open space.
- The three parcels are now zoned according to their current use (open, agricultural, and public facilities), which should be considered when deciding their future zoning.
- Most stakeholders would be happy to see the gravel pit and the Provo City utility buildings gone.
Option 1 (current DA): Provo City rezones all the parcels into commercial (SC3). The DA specifies that at least 50% of these two parcels will be rezoned as open space. Bryan Bayles has repeatedly asserted that the predicted footprint of the amphitheater matches the area zoned agricultural (the gravel pit). Because no geologic study has been done to predict the best location for the amphitheater and for other reasons, the area needed for the auditorium may spread into the land now owned by Provo City. Some of the public anxiety over the DA has to do with this possible spread. It could end up that the conservation easement surrounding and containing Vesper is only about thirty acres. One advantage to Provo City not owning the land is that they are not responsible for any of the expenses of establishing the conservation easement nor for restoration, trail building, and upkeep.
Option 2: Provo retains the south parcel, currently designated open space, and puts it into a CE. This avoids the circuitous route of changing zoning twice on this parcel. This parcel is mostly undisturbed, so improvement and trail construction might not cost much. Because Provo owns the land, putting a CE on it won’t be expensive, similar to Bunnell’s Fork and Slate Canyon. Conserve Utah Valley can raise money for the stewardship fees that a land trust requires. Under this plan, the east and north parcels (public facilities and agricultural) would be rezoned as commercial. Vesper would use the gravel pit and whatever it needs from the east parcel for the venue. Then it would restore land it doesn’t need and put a conservation easement on that portion. If it proves necessary in the future for Vesper to use a slice of the public facilities parcel, this could happen later in a process that involves division of the parcel, rezoning, and land sale for the slice Vesper needs. If this makes Vesper nervous, this future rezoning could be guaranteed in the DA.
We at CUV favor Option 2 because it:
- involves fewer zone changes and helps with a critical public that already mistrusts both developers and city officials and is wary of transferring open-space land into commercial;
- requires Provo City to pay a minimal amount for improvement, upkeep, and CE stewardship fees; and
- meets the needs of Vesper to be flexible in its footprint in response to a geologic study.
The DA ensures that if Vesper defaults on the contract, the land will return to its original zoning. However, nothing requires that the ownership of the land will revert to Provo. This option ensures that Provo keeps control of the open-space land in the case of default.
Much of the public outcry comes from the belief that the Vesper amphitheater will irreversibly damage the canyon for current users. The current draft of the DA does much to address those concerns, but it leaves key limits open to possibility instead of requiring Vesper and a future owner to toe the line. Also, it’s in the interest of all the stakeholders for the DA to outline a clear pathway to a conservation easement that will surround Vesper.
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