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Show 6 - HARRIED TIMES - SEPTEMBER 15, 1995 LOOKING AH EAD, cont. involved in a water inventory that direction. More and more people who own multiple lots are selling off their extras. Undoubtedly, a number of multiple lot owners will retain their extra lots, but there is still a lot of development coming. How will this additional growth (called a water budget) with the affect our roads, our water, our sewage? Will we have schools out here again? What will happen to the huge blocks of State Trust ‘ lands both inside and outside Town boundaries? How do we begin looking ahead and planning ahead for what is obviously about to happen? Again, we can’t, and most of us really don’t want to, halt the Utah Division of Water Rights and the State Geologic Survey to determine how much water actually is available in the drainage system of Castle Valley. The study is evaluating water quality and quantitiy from 6 wells located in different sections of the valley. Our water comes from snow melt in Miner’s Basin, Bachelor’s Basin, and possibly the mesas on either side of us. The study’s object is to tell us how much development is possible before we begin running out of water. Since the Town holds some of the more secure (senior) water rights in the growth that approaches us. Each basin, thanks in part to the work of lot owner has the right to build one house on each lot. But do we really want to subdivide our lots again? Do we want less than our present 5-acre minimum lot size? Do we want to go from 400 houses to 800 houses by letting everyone build second dwellings on each lot-the guest houses, the servants quarters, the home for ‘ aging parents? These choices will have great bearing on what kind of community we will have in ten John Groo, we may be able to influence any development threatening to our water supplies. The Town Council is currently working on a watershed protection ordinance that is intended to help protect the quality and quantity of our aquifers. What about the quality of our water? Everything that goes down a drain or toilet in our entire water shed will eventually reach our aquifers (due to the geologic nature of our underground). Human waste is not nearly as serious a threat as are all the years. Much of the growth within the overall valley will occur outside Town boundaries. Not only is there much private land along the Loop Road, but there are more than 5,000 acres of State Trust Lands, all of which are intended for sale and development. What cumulative impact will all this development have on our water? Our quality of life? All of these areas can presently be developed much more intensively than can the Town of Castle Valley. Do we want to abandon our Zoning Ordinance and join in the development craze? Or do we want to keep growth to the 300% increase guaranteed by our current Zoning Ordinance? LONG-TERM WATER SUPPLY: How much water is available? The Town is currently detergents, draino, and other common household chemicals we so casually pour down the drain. Of course, there are deeper aquifers beneath us, on which we might rely, but this means we could have 500’ wells instead of the 100 to 200’- at present. It’s very likely that the Town of Castle Valley will need a municipal water supply as the shallower aquifers become polluted. A culinary water supply is much cheaper to build than a sewer system, so we will probably keep our septic systems but develop a Town water supply. Continuing growth and development in and above our community will necessitate this sooner rather than later. ROADS: We are currently spending most of our community finances on our roads. When the other 200 to 300 families have moved in, how will we fund the necessary increased maintenance costs? Wash-boarding occurs on both dirt and gravelled roads, particularly with increased traffic. Three times more traffic will require much more road work, with the possiblity of paving some of the side roads in the future. W: still have the problem of roads that deviate from their legally platted easements, like upper Keogh and Holyoak. Most of the platted cul—de—sacs were never put in by the developer but are required by State law. Financing the installment of these cul-de-sacs has become more costly and cumbersome due to recent controversies surrounding encroaching fences. CV ZONING AND LAWS: The Town of Castle Valley presently has a zoning ordinance and an ordinance regulating outdoor lights. The zoning ordinance provides some basic guidelines for how growth and development will occur: how many and what kind of buildings we want in this valley. POA COVENANTS WOULD ALLOW A SUPER 8 MOTEL TO BE BUILT HERE. Without our zoning ordinance, we would be entirely vulnerable to any project anyone might dream up. Our zoning ordinance should work for the community. It should allow us to do the things we want to do as a community, while protecting us from developments we decide are detrimental to our quality of life. If the zoning ordinance doesn’t work for us, we have the power to change it. PROPERTY OWNERS ASSOCIATION (POA): The POA is legally in force until the end of 1998. After that it could be either discontinued, the covenants changed, or reinstated ‘as is’ for ten—year intervals, dependent on majority vote. Until 1998, the covenants are binding though most have not been enforced. |