As someone who grew up in the Tooele Valley and has deep roots there (some of my ancestors were among the first settlers of Grantsville) I hate to see the rural atmosphere evaporate as much as anyone. But I think the people in Erda are shooting themselves in the foot with the hard line they are taking on growth in the valley. They immediately seek to vilify anyone who tries to rezone land for development, including the church. If they succeed in their vision they are going to end up with a sea of super-low density development, almost no services (i.e. retail, public works, or transit), and intense traffic issues. Erda residents turned down what would have been a very attractive development with a lot of public amenities because they couldn't stomach the thought of someone wanting to building a townhome.

The church owns plenty of land out there (not that they couldn't buy land), and it sounds like they just annexed a bunch of it into Grantsville. I wouldn't be surprised if the temple site is moved west where they won't have to deal with the politics of unincorporated Tooele County.