The 10 principles include recommendations on clean air and water, transportation, protecting landscapes and open spaces and how future development of business and housing should take place and be located.

The committee based the principles on information gathered from meetings with county residents in May and June.

The committee consists of elected officials and residents from Washington County and is working in conjunction with consultants including Envision Utah on the $450,000 project.

Ted Knowlton, with Envision Utah, said Wednesday the next step in the process is put all the information into a map that will be released to the public later, illustrating where the county will grow, which areas will be open and where transportation corridors will be located.

"Now that we have developed a vision, its time to put it to action," said Knowlton.

The principles were garnered from four different scenarios that ranged from doing almost nothing to a plan that offered light rail in St. George.

What committee members found was people prefer to use space within cities where there is already development for new businesses and housing as opposed to sprawling suburbs. People wanted to preserve open space in and outside of the cities.

Lin Alder, a steering committee member and executive director of Citizens for Dixie's Future, said some language changes proposed in the meeting did not reflect what the residents at the dialog meetings wanted. Alder specifically pointed out that in the principle for guarding "signature" scenic landscapes language was included that encouraged multiple use on public lands.

"The public does not support that [multiple use] concept," said Alder. "It suggests county leaders are out of step with what the public wants."

James Eardley, a county commissioner and chairman of the steering committee, said he thought that the committee had the authority to include the multiple-use concept, and the majority of committee members agreed and voted for the change to be included in the principle.

For the most part, Alder said after the meeting, the public is being fairly represented by the principles, but still thinks there will be concerns in the future.

"How the public's participation is being represented is the over-arching question," said Alder. For the most part [the principles] are a fair representation, except the public land issues. That is an attempt to manipulate the public's responses. How it will be manipulated from here on out will be interesting. "

mhavnes@sltrib.com