This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Salt Lake County will go forward with one planning district to oversee land-use issues in most canyons of the central Wasatch Mountains.
As Mayor Ben McAdams had hoped, the County Council signed off Tuesday on the immediate creation of the Mountainous Planning District, designed to provide a holistic approach to what development occurs in the canyons, primarily Little Cottonwood, Big Cottonwood and Mill Creek.
The next step in the process will be to appoint a nine-member planning commission of county residents.
Having that bigger pool to draw from, the mayor has said, should enable the county to assemble a planning commission with expertise in issues related to human habitation in the mountains and to strike a balance between sometimes competing issues of environmental protection, economic development, recreational desires and transportation needs.
The makeup of that commission likely will be of interest to conservationists, private-property owners, ski resorts, canyon residents and members of the existing County Planning Commission, which until now has handled planning and zoning issues in the Cottonwood canyons.
Wilf Sommerkorn, McAdams' point person on this project, said he expected the mayor's office to submit nominees to the County Council within two weeks.
The law specifies only that at least one member of the Mountainous Planning Commission live in the canyons, but Councilwoman Aimee Winder Newton added language to the approval, expressing the council's desire that perhaps three should come from within the district (one from each of the big three canyons) and that the rest of the board represent geographic and ideological diversity.
The council rejected an overture by Millcreek Township resident Jemina Keller, seconded by people affiliated with Log Haven restaurant, to cut Mill Creek Canyon from the district and return it to Millcreek Township.
The subject did not generate much council discussion, but the councilman who represents that area, Sam Granato, voted against the proposal.
The other no in the 7-2 vote came from Max Burdick, whose southeastern district includes Little Cottonwood Canyon. He expressed concern about the Mountainous Planning District having too many outsiders, people "who don't live in the area and who don't feel the day-to-day impact of decisions."
McAdams said he was willing to consider a County Planning Commission recommendation that its members merge into the new Mountainous Planning District to provide continuity and institutional knowledge.