Please don't.

That was the tenor of a Tuesday public hearing in which dozens of property owners urged the Salt Lake County Council to reject changes to building standards that would shrink the size of new development in Millcreek.

The council will decide next week whether to bridle, through new building rules, the proliferation of so-called "monster homes" in Millcreek Township -- a vote that could put an end to a hard-fought debate within the unincorporated east-side burb about when an owner's right to build collides with a neighbor's right to enjoy his or her property.

"Since there doesn't seem to be a good-neighbor law," Kathy Swift, a resident of East Millcreek, told the council, "we are turning to you."

But like-minded residents were few and far between Tuesday.

Instead, the council heard testimony after testimony from homeowners such as Travis Healey, who recently replaced his 1,900-square-foot brick rambler in Canyon Rim with a 5,400-square-foot home that better suits his five children.

Because of his home's height, Healey says it probably wouldn't fit under the proposed ordinance. He fears that parents with young children, just like him, will move elsewhere if the building standards pass.

"We are losing families that are actually going to have children to Draper and Sandy and Herriman," he said. "I don't want to be the only guy on the block with kids."

Warning calls continued -- a Salt Lake

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Home Builders Association executive argued that a "functionally obsolete" housing stock won't lure young families, the East Millcreek Community Council chairwoman said it "really is not OK" to impose one person's vision of compatibility on another, and a prospective homebuyer suggested that the council is "trying to shoot a fly with a bullet."

Yet a problem persists in this township of about 65,000 people, where mini-mansions have sprouted in neighborhoods of single-story homes. They have crowded up to property lines, eliminated vistas and left longtime residents wondering whether laws can be written to keep new homes "compatible" with their surrounding neighborhoods.

During Tuesday's hearing, 22 residents stood when asked how many people supported building standards that would downsize new development and impose criteria for compatibility. But 36 others rose for a less-restrictive approach.

Canyon Rim resident George Odell called the proposed ordinance a reasonable compromise between the two factions. He would favor even stricter standards, but would settle for those now before the council.

"I'll take it," he said. "It's much better than what is out there."

jstettler@sltrib.com