Interesting twist in the Powder Mountain development/town incorporation brouhaha, with Friday's Marshall Thompson story, reporting that a Powder Mountain development project manager had held a meeting with the Cache County planning commission on Thursday:
LOGAN — If the proposed town of Powder Mountain incorporates in Weber County, it could annex the nearly 3,500 acres of the ski resort that lies in Cache County, a county planner said Thursday.So although people from the planning commission ostensibly got together to work out details regarding "service agreements," (with an emphasis on water issues) affecting Cache County, clearly there appeared an elephant in the room -- and other more important concerns were plainly on the minds of Cache County officials, regarding the PM developer's town incorporation plans:
Brooke Hontz, a project manager for Powder Mountain, asked to speak to the Cache County Planning Commission to explain how the petition to incorporate as an independent municipality in Weber County will affect service agreements in Cache Valley.
“It will not affect the process in Cache County,” Hontz said. “It really is the same situation.”
But planning commissioners asked if Powder Mountain resort turns into Powder Mountain Town, could it expand across the county line to include land in Cache County.If you're thinking Cache County planners may be a mite nervous about the bull-in-a-china-shop developer from Weber County encroaching upon the planning authority of Cache County, you're probably right. Although the Powder Mountain developer has handled Cache County officials with kid gloves so far, you'd better believe those officials are painfully aware that the same pushy folks who are riding roughshod over the citizens of Ogden Valley (and Weber County) are also casting a covetous eye toward the 3,486 acres of Cache County mountain acreage which are described in their project master plan. If they succeed in obtaining town status under the provisions of the flawed HB-466, annexation of the Cache County land could likely be a relatively easy slam-dunk, we believe.
“They could, in theory, incorporate the Town of Powder Mountain in Weber and then annex the portions that are in Cache,” said Josh Runhaar, county planner.
If that happens, he added, the county would no longer have any land use authority for the area, and the town would create its own zoning regulations.
“They would even set their own road standards,” Runhaar said.
It's in that connection that we once again issue a dunning reminder to all residents of any county which might be remotely affected by the Powder Mountain town incorporation action, to beat feet over to the Ogden Valley Forum blogsite to sign the petition.
Time's a'wasting, gentle readers. As set forth in Friday's Std-Ex article, the PM developers are optimistic that town status could be achieved in as little as "two or three weeks."
And if the foregoing isn't enough to get you all riled up, read today's Deja Mitchell letter to the editor.
The petition is available for your electronic signature here. Don't forget to provide your zip code, which helps with signature verification, and lets individual legislators know they're hearing from their own constituents.
The floor is now open for reader comments. Surely at least a few of our readers will have something to say about this.
