They filed a petition Friday to incorporate Powder Mountain as a town with its own planning commission, city council and mayor.

The petition took Weber commissioners and planners by surprise.

"Nobody tipped me off to it," said Commissioner Ken Bischoff, who had a visit from Powder Mountain owners Friday morning.

Under a state law passed last year - it could be reversed this legislative session - the county has no option but to approve the incorporation - as long as the petitioners properly filed it.

The investors who own Powder Mountain - at the north end of the Ogden Valley, east of Ogden in northern Utah - want to transform it from a mom-and-pop ski hill into a year-round resort. On the drawing board are plans for thousands of homes, hotel rooms, shops, restaurants and two golf courses.

The sprawling town's boundaries would include parts of Eden, as well as the 6,000 acres of Powder Mountain that are in Weber County. Altogether, the new town would have 17,300 acres, or 27 square miles.

Scott Doughman, one of the owners, said Friday that the incorporation plan is not in reaction to the reception that expansion plans got in Weber County.

But he acknowledged that played a role. "The process has been clunky," he said.

Last month, the Ogden Valley Township Planning Commission recommended the Weber County Commission approve Powder's request to rezone 4,400 acres - as long as Powder Mountain met 15 conditions, some of which the developer viewed as onerous.

Chief among the conditions: The resort must build a second access road in addition to the narrow, steep state highway that is the only paved road in and out of the resort.

Consultants had been looking at incorporation for months, Doughman said. But Powder Mountain didn't get serious about that option "until we felt frustration with the process and it taking it as long as it was and the contingencies. We thought there is probably a better way to do this."

Incorporating would allow local decision-making and control and would allow Powder Mountain to have more say in its own future, he said.

Doughman said the resort drew the boundaries so it could meet the Utah law's new-town threshold - it has to have at least 100 residents.

Two of those future residents, Terri and Rick Stearman, own the last house before the road climbs to Powder Mountain. They signed the petition.

"We're really excited about the local control rather than letting Weber County make all the decisions," said Terri Stearman, who works in the resort's ticket department.

Other Ogden Valley residents are not so happy.

"They will bypass any input from the people who would be most affected," said Larry Zini, chairman of a group opposed to the vast mountaintop expansion.

William Siegel, a member of the Ogden Valley Township Planning Commission, had insisted on the second access road.

"We'll basically end being the downhill cesspool for everything up there," he said.

County Planning Commission Chairman Louis Cooper said he hopes the owners have the "vision" to make it world-class resort. "I hope they are successful because it will impact all of Ogden Valley."

kmoulton@sltrib.com