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Basin General Plan has hearing

Aaron Osowski, The Park Record

Preserving natural open space and vistas, preventing suburban sprawl and promoting our mountain resort community — that’s the mission of this year’s update of the Snyderville Basin General Plan.

The plan, which had a public hearing at Wednesday’s Summit County Council meeting, in Phase I right now, acts in an advisory as opposed to a regulatory fashion in relation to the development code and how growth is managed.

Snyderville Basin’s current General Plan was adopted in 2004, and since it is typical to update it every five years the process to amend the plan began in 2009, with an extensive public review process.

Phase I reflects the community’s input and needs, Phase II will address future land use, sustainability and other issues prompted by the community, according to Summit County planner Jennifer Strader, who spoke at the meeting.

"We make sure the mission statement is consistent with the community’s vision of the future," Strader said. "Each chapter was developed using the mission statement as a starting point."

Phase I’s chapters address the following issues:

  • Vision and Background
  • Land Use (existing)
  • Housing
  • Cultural and Natural Resources
  • Open Space
  • Recreation
  • Services and Facilities
  • Transportation
  • Neighborhood Plans

    The goal of one chapter that received particular attention, Open Space, states: "Preserve open space in the Snyderville Basin that contains environmentally critical and sensitive lands, and recreational, cultural, and scenic spaces, to the extent possible." The chapter categorizes certain types of open spaces. They include pristine (i.e. Swaner Preserve), managed-recreational (Quarry Mountain), active (Trailside Park) and internal (Newpark plaza) open spaces.

    Chris Hague, a resident of Park City who came to the meeting to address certain issues with the General Plan, gave his thoughts on how the general plan should relate to the development code.

    "The two are supposed to work in concert with each other," Hague said. "The Development Code is supposed to respect what is stated in the General Plan, even though the General Plan isn’t statutory—it isn’t law as such."

    Hague took issue with the Open Space chapter having to do with a policy that states that " it may be appropriate to allow limited open space to be incorporated into individual lots, provided that the open space is outside of fenced areas and is contiguous to pristine or managed-recreational open space."

    Hague took this to mean that an individual’s private yard may be considered as open space, which he strongly disagreed with.

    "That’s private property, and people can keep the public from trespassing on their private property whether it’s fenced in or not," Hague said. "They should not be included in any requirement for open space."

    The council will take the issues that Hague and others brought up into consideration before making amendments to the plan. The next public hearing, Wednesday, July 17, at 6 p.m. at the Summit County Courthouse at 60 N. Main Street in Coalville, will address amendments to the Neighborhood Plans identified in the General Plan.

    The hearing will be specific to the following neighborhoods: West Mountain, Canyons, Olympic Park, Jeremy Ranch/Pinebrook, the Summit, Central Basin and North Mountain.

    When Phase I is complete, the council will move on to Phase II. Summit County Community Development Director Patrick Putt described the purpose of Phase II.

    "One of our goals of Phase II is to marry that desired future land use map with smart implementation and timing of the infrastructure, that’s sewer, water, broadband," Putt said. "To create and finance that infrastructure and time it in an appropriate manner has a lot to do with how and where we’re going to grow and how fast that’s going to occur."

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