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Show Lefts gOcidoi9" EnraaocDciQ CPBducs After years of relative peace in the county, up springs Pine Creek again. The $ issue of zoning this area has been in and out of controversy for about 15 years. Finally, after years of controversy, the Pine Creek or Sulfurdale interchange was zoned for Highway Services a few years ago. Along came a group of individuals that call themselves the Beaver Valley Cham -ber of Commerce and file suit to set aside the previous Commission's decision to zone the property for Hiway Services. The BVCC is George Rich, president; Sumner Murdock, M. L. Patterson, Gordon Hunt, Halbert Lund and Daniel Martin, all Beaver City businessmen. This suit is scheduled for September 19th. To cloud the issue even more, the BVCC has petitioned Beaver County to re-zone re-zone this property, belonging to Deseret Investors Group, Inc. The Planning Commission Com-mission will consider this petition at their meeting in the courthouse on August 31st. Preliminary investigation would indicate indi-cate that no member of the BVCC owns property in the area. The BVCC does not exist in any official capacity, nor is it affiliated with the Chamber of Commerce, from which it takes its name. It was formed for the single purpose to bring suit against the county in this case. By their own admission, they object to the zoning classification because it presents pre-sents a possible source of competition to Beaver City. Pine Creek is twenty miles north of Beaver City. The portion of the interchange which was zoned Hiway Services is on the east side of 1-15 and therefore would service ser-vice primarily traffic which already had passed Beaver City. Therefore, it presents little, if any, competition. It is this same group who led the fight against opening the north and south interchanges inter-changes of Beaver City to Hiway Services. It is only the most stubborn who will not admit that developing the two interchanges is probably the single most important factor in stopping traffic for Beaver City. Therefore, it would seem the fight of the BVCC is one of vindictiveness, rather than economics. They don't care what it costs Beaver County, or Beaver City, if only they can get their way. Pine Creek has been rezoned since 1973. During those hearings, it was plain . that the interchange would not be developed until traffic from 1-70 exceeded the available avail-able services. No development has been done to date. However, building permits have been issued. Planning, architectural and engineering engi-neering studies have been done in preparation prepara-tion for development. Should the county reverse the zoning on the petition of the BVCC, it would certainly be in a vulnerable vulner-able position. But the ramifications of these gentlemen's gentle-men's zoning petition is even more serious than Pine Creek. If a half dozen men can join together to petition for rezoning of property, in which they have no legal or vested interest, where they own no adjoining land, or can show that development of such property will devalue their property or adjoining property, then certainly there is great danger in this petition. peti-tion. To cite the absurd, this would mean that a group from Milford could petition the county to rezone Beaver Canyon. It would be simple to present arguments that further development would cut down the aesthetic values as we travel to Puffers Lake. The old arguments that we can't afford to offer fire, ambulance, police and school bus service doesn't hold water, when the same individuals continue to urge county cooperation in every way with Sulfursoil, the company developing and mining the sulfur deposits in the same area. We are already supplying all of these services, and the company reported at the last commission meeting they expected to double and triple their operation in 30-60 days. Nope, the BVCC doesn't even have a selfish leg to stand on, either in court or before the Planning Commission. We hope the Planning Commission rejects their petition without consideration, and the judge dismisses their suit before they manage to muddy the water of cooperation in the county, which many have worked hard to clear for many years. "Red" |