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Show CASTLE VALLEY TIMES MOWING TIMES Castle Valley, Utah - Volume 6, Number 5 - May 15, 1997 - SHAFER LANE CLOSURE MOW THAT CHEAT GRASS! At the May meeting the Town passed an ordinance closing the stretch Very high fire danger in the valley will be the outcome of the abundant crop of cheat grass from all the rain this spring. The cheat grass is over of Shafer Lane between the Fire Station and the cul—de-sac at the lower end of Shafer Lane. While closed to general traffic, the road will still be open to use by fire trucks and other emergency vehicles and would be available for community use if two feet tall in places. When dry, this grass could easily propagate a ground fire throughout the valley. Not just a danger to the flatter, “grassy” lots, a fire could spread to the High Cheat Grass Fire Danger TEMPORARY DWELLINGS POLICY With adoption of another arnend— ment to the zoning ordinance, the Town Council clarified its policy regarding temporary dwellings. A property owner may use several kinds of “RV” as a temporary home. These include: truck campers, motor junipers on the lots near Porcupine Rim. A bit of wind, and a lot of homes could be lost. homes, and travel, camping and park at the creek crossing. According to Mayor Valli Smouse, the road closure ordinance will not “vacate,” i.e. permanently abandon the road, but will only “close” the road. It was announced at the last Town meeting that Ed Derderian will be mowing along the road easements to This presumably means that another provide larger “fire breaks.” Please must have a self-contained sewage system or be connected to an approved septic system. Inspections will be used to assure that sewage is being disposed Town Council could re-open the road at a future date. The traffic through the end of Shafer Lane has been an irritant for most of the Shafer Lane residents for many years. The owners of the two lots at the end of Shafer have tried for years to get either the POA or the Town to close the road. The Town is the only legal entity with the actual power to close the road. The real test will be whether or not the Town is willing to do the next help by mowing some of yours! of properly. something happened to the main road necessary step, i.e. erect an actual physical barrier to block unwanted traffic. As with other road closures, The Town has hired a new Clerk/records officer to eventually take over the job from Lois Oliver. The new person is HL Weber. She lives on Cliffview Drive, in the white house where the Kulanders used to live. HL has been working on her doctorate in linguistics from Syracuse University and hopes to complete her thesis this summer. Finding someone to do this important work will make the Town more effective. The Town has been struggling for 12 years with (mostly) closed. unpaid volunteers to do this work. It AT LAS U P DAT E hasn’t worked well. Many, many things have been “falling through the cracks,” even with the “best of intentions” from the volunteers. Plans have changed for the Atlas Tailings Pile demonstration. Present plans are to meet at Lions Park on Monday, June 2nd, from 11:30 am to Just a single example: for over a year and a half, it has been impossible to obtain an up—to-date copy of the Town zoning ordinance from the 12:30 pm. Participants will be Town. This is serious as the zoning shuttled to a nearby site for the rally. If you don’t want the tailings pile to be left at its present site, this may ordinance is the primary tool that the Town has to protect the community from unwanted development, whether commercial or residential. This will now become a signifi- be your last chance to help. Please contact Karen Nelson at 259-8820 for more details or to check for last minute changes. This mobile temporary dwelling The Town will issue temporary CLERK/RECORDS OFFICER JOB expect several of these barriers to be torn down. It takes awhile for people to accept that a road has really been -—Jack Campbell trailers under 40’ in length. cant budgetary item for the Town (probably in the neighborhood of $10,000 per year). dwelling permits for two year periods. The permits may be renewed for another two year period at the end of the first two years. There is presently no limit on the number of times that a permit may be renewed. (Karen Nelson (259-8820) will probably be handling permits and related information when the permitting process is worked out.) If a property owner wants to use some kind of structure (such as a garage) as an initial structure to live in, the structure must have a building permit as a dwelling before it may be occupied. If the property owner later wants to build another house on the same lot, a contract must be signed with the Town that provides for the “decommissioning” of the previous dwelling before the second dwelling will be permitted. This will help to prevent “second dwelling” problems. With these two options available, most property owners wishing to live on their lot prior to building a full-on house will still have a viable option to do so. (Recently, most people have lived in some form of recreational vehicle while building their homes.) The Town is still not regulating “camping” on a lot, as long as the people take responsibility for their sewage and dispose of it properly and safely. —Jack Campbell |