Residents along Canyon Cove Drive - a steep, winding road that accesses 180 hillside homes east of Wasatch Boulevard - have asked the city to dead-end the street at its highest point.

At that point, the road stops at the dividing line between Holladay and Cottonwood Heights.

But last year, a developer pushed beyond that endpoint onto adjoining property, to build another road farther south and higher up on the mountain.

Resident Chris Allison worries that if Canyon Cove Drive is someday permanently extended, it will bring traffic.

Traffic combined with the road's 16 percent grade makes for a bad mix, especially during the winter, residents say.

Allison said he's witnessed many a snowstorm where his neighbors park at the bottom and walk home to avoid unfortunate fender-benders.

"I think it's a shame that Salt Lake County allowed such a road to be designed and built," Allison said. "We now have a child with special needs who walks up and down that hill. We've instructed him where to walk to have the least amount of danger."

Holladay Mayor Dennis Webb is also convinced that "we have a very serious safety issue for our residents."

Out of this concern, Allison urged the City Council earlier this month to "put an end to this thing."

An open roadway could become a thoroughfare to the south, a situation not without precedent.

In fall 2005, Doug Shelby, who owns the adjacent Holladay Gun Club and some gravel-pit land in Cottonwood Heights, permitted developer Terry Diehl to drive over unpaved dirt from the upper end of Canyon Cove Drive to connect with Shelby's even steeper Gun Club Road.

Diehl used the Canyon Cove Drive extension to haul loads of cement to build still another road that would access his soon-to-be-built 43-lot Cottonwood Canyon Estates.

Shelby and others want Canyon Cove Drive to remain open to allow access to future development to the south.

But they know the residents want the road closed.

If it is, litigation will likely arise.

Webb is also concerned that permanent closing of the road would invite litigation, and that future decisions would be made by a judge.

He hopes that a meaningful dialogue with all the stakeholders can hasten a solution.

Doug Shelby agrees. "I know there are options where everyone could benefit," he told the council.

They are joined in that wish by Cottonwood Heights Mayor Kelvyn Cullimore, who wants the road kept open.

"We feel that any time you close a road that's a potential connector to another city, it's a pretty definitive action," Cullimore said.

cmckitrick@sltrib.com