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Show ‘ Summit County Sees he Army Corps of Engineers says Summit County is out of compliance with a federal permit that allowed a large housing pro- ject in Snyderville to be built near federally protected wetlands. To this, present and former - e \ ora’ ee Ee No Evil, Hears A G3 development Inc oo” APRES SKI COFFEE DESSERTS lodged by the Army Corps ARCA AK AR AR AK A i kaka CRC of: Computer timesharing Conference Room Computer Training Word Processing Order-taking service State-of-the-art Phones Local number voice messaging and much, much more... 801-649-7334 EECROROROROMOMCMOROROMOMOMONS 3 1 teh 84060, iby» ae ee 75 1-649-8046sincerely» gitor a asatch Times pall Mout Laks n a recent Wasatch Commissioner Of open space donated by the Ranch Place housing development, 5 miles north or Park City, is in a protective easement and will remain as Open in space. agrees it should perpetuity as be open space,” Moser said. “Most of it is wetlands.” Much of the Snyderville Basin east of Highway 224, between Wolf the Army Corps of Engineers, and therefore is protected under federal law. The same area has recently exploded in housing develpments. Developers must acquire agreement Place 404 to the agreement, Ranch Place and Summit County were to turn over to a third party, a permanent conservation easement on the 106-acre parcel. That would ensure the land remained open indefinitely. That has not happened and Summit County holds both the deed to the land and the protective conservation easement — In an. to be listening or meeting, interview Mountain Sheldon with Times, Moser said The former he, too, was unaware that the Corps was dissatisfied with the status quo. Tom Flinders, who joined the commission in January, said he also is unaware of any problem with the Ranch Place open space. Although Flinders said he realized Wendy Fisher “We negotiated a sizable stewardship with Ranch Place. But we didn’t get the money because we didn’t hold the easement.” spe- cial permits from the Corps, known as 404 permits, before development can proceed near sensitive wetlands. The regulations require developers to mitigate building projects by providing such things as Open space. Since the Snyderville Basin has begun to explode with housing projects, open space has become a big issue there. One of the mitigations in the case of the Ranch Place housing development was the establishment of the 106-acre parcel of open space. According B with the the Ranch But no one at the Summit government center in ber the details of the agreement. He did note, however, that the 106 Mountain ski resort and Kimball Junction, is considered wetlands by pius the advantages permit. County acres “Everyone Offering everything from: » Private office space wi full services » Shared office w/phone and fax to:0: * Basic Receptionist Service compliance outlined in Richins, the only sitting commissioner who was on the board when the Ranch Place agreement was reached, said he was unaware of the complaint from the Corps. maintained DAILY 7AM-5PM TURQUOISE COTTAGE ON THE CORNER OF PARK & MAIN \ PARK CITY land at some future time. The Army Corps of Engineers says Summit County is out of lack of compliance, or a complaint Former County Commissioner Gene Moser says he can’t remem- ® SANDWICHES now Coalville seems even care. recently SOUP the Summit County commissioners shrug their shoulders. No one seems to know about the permit or of Engineers, for that matter. » » « » « ° e » No Evil on Snafu With Army Corps Over Open Space leaving the door open for the county to sell PAGE that Open space and the cost of maintaining it, present a real challenge to Summit County. Summit County now has title to some 1,500 acres of open space. But there seems to be no plan on what to do with various parcels that have been acquired on the promise to keep them from development. And there is no funding to maintain the open space from being overrun by thistles and other noxious weeds. If Ranch Place is any example, Summit County has not put open space planning in a position of priority for planning. And that could cost taxpayers down the road. Wendy Fisher, of the Utah Open Lands Association, said Conservation Summit County may have inadvertently cost the taxpayers the price of maintaining the Park Place open space because officials did not name the organization in conservation easement. The developers of the Park Place development promised to 14 award the Summit Land Trust funding to maintain the 106-acre parcel. The Land Trust is the predecessor organization Conservation to the Association. Lands “We negotiated a sizable stewardship with Ranch Place,” Fisher said. “But we didn’t get (the money) because we didn’t hold the easement.” Fisher said she believes the project simply fell through the cracks at the county government and was not an intentional manipulation. Judging from the shoulder shrugging at the county seat in Coalville, she may be right. “We said, look, it is going to cost a lot of money to take care of this land forever,” Fisher said referring to the Park Place developers. “But that kind of agreement has not been negotiated for other lands the county has accepted.” Fisher is somewhat frustrated, she said, because her organization is recognized statewide as a leader in Open space preservation, yet there seems to be a lack of recognition at the Summit County level that the Open Lands Conservation Association is a legitimate organization. “If we are all, as a community, interested in preserving open land forever, it should be given to an organization that is in that business. The Land Trust is in the business of preserving lands in open space in perpetuity,” Fisher said. | aoe he Fisher said her organization could have been negotiating for stewardship funds on other open space lands in Summit County. But the Open Lands Conservation has been left out of the loop. “If we had been brought in to negotiate easements on those other‘ properties, we would have come from a_ different perspective,” Fisher said. “If we had been included, we could have begun to negotiate those (stewardship) agreements on the other 1,500 acres.” with Fisher says she wants to work Summit County commission- ers to protect and maintain open space. But that will require recognition from the county. “There can be some really wonderful partnerships between public and private entities .. . It shouldn’t have to be the Land Trust against the county,” she said. @ |
