Monday, May 31, 2010

Standard-Examiner: Divided Opinions on Plans for Powder Mountain

Tomorrow's Weber County Commission public hearing could well turn out to be the most important County Commission session in the history of Ogden Valley; and we trust that all meeting attendees will be well prepared

We'll let this morning's Di Lewis story serve as a reminder of tomorrow's Weber County Commission public hearing, which could well turn out to be the most important County Commission session in the history of Ogden Valley. Here's Ms. Lewis's lede, which nicely frames the issues which have recently split the Ogden Valley citizenry down the middle:
OGDEN -- As a public hearing with the potential to resolve the incorporation issue and development of Powder Mountain approaches, opinions are divided about the proposal between the Weber County Commission and resort developers.
Although many residents are hopeful that the memorandum of understanding could take the town incorporation out of the running, others feel that does not outweigh concerns about traffic, pollution and resource allocation.
Being privy to private communications, we are unhappy to observe that the formerly united Ogden Valley citizens, who've together fought a valiant fight over the past four years, are now literally at each others' throats, as the prospective "Powdervillians" look for a quick and relatively painless way out of the prospectively expensive Township mess, while the balance of Ogden Valley activists lobby the Commission to stick to the General Plan and preserve the Valley's rural atmosphere.

Sadly, it appears that the seeds of division which were planted in Ogden Valley by a rabidly real estate development-partisan Utah legislature will inevitably yield a decidedly sour fruit, which will no doubt continue to rot in Ogden Valley for many years, regardless of how the MOU issue finally shakes out.

Concerning tomorrow's Council hearing, we'll also note an important new development on the technical front. According to new information posted on the County website, the original proposed MOU has now been revised:
Revised Memorandum of Understanding
Significantly, among other things, this revised document addresses the "impossiblity of performance" problem with the 1.5% transfer fee provision which we mentioned in our 5/24/10 article on the subject, and adds a provision establishing a "trust or other mechanism" in the event that the prohibitive terms of S.B. 161 cannot be avoided by corrective legislation.

Also, the revised document both strikes out references to the "Eden Heights" parcel and also removes an "escape clause" tied to the proposed inclusion of that parcel in the original MOU.

For those planning to attend tomorrow night's meeting, we urge you to download and carefully study the new proposed MOU. In many respects it drastically differs from the original.

And for those who'd like to fully "bone up" in advance of tomorrow's meeting, we've taken a little time this morning to assemble on our archives storage site a broad array of the most significant comments and documents which have been featured in various articles on the subject over the past few weeks:
June 1, 1010 Weber County Commission Meeting Cribsheet
Read up, Gentle Readers! Tomorrow's Weber County Commission public hearing could well turn out to be the most important County Commission session in the history of Ogden Valley; and we trust that all meeting attendees will be well prepared.

And now... who will be the first to comment?

Update 5/31/10 10:54 a.m.: Our friends at Ogden Valley Forum have also opined on this latest Std-Ex story and issues related thereto:
Divided opinions on plans for Powder Mountain
And while you're visting the OVF site, don't forget to vote in their new "straw poll," which is planted in their right sidebar.

3 comments:

Valley said...

Thanks for all of the research Rudi. I am not sure 'Divided' is the correct term for Ms Lewis' article. Maybe 'one-sided' would be more appropriate.

Based on the letters to the editor of the Ogden Valley news, residents are against the MOU on a 10-1 margin.

Those letters are now posted on the Ogden Valley Forum.

Bob Becker said...

The entire Powder Mountain town incorporation mess is a painful example of why all of us ought to be concerned about the Utah Realtors Association having forked over a cool hundred thousand dollars to Gov. Herbert's re-election fund. The Developers Dream Bill which allowed the Powder Mountain developers to create a company town against the wishes of its residents, and to govern the town for two years with officials [mayor, town council] appointed by the developers, is a good example of the kind of legislation the real estate lobby's money can buy.

And so now the people of Ogden's Hole --- that's what the trappers called it, though the realtors prefer Upper Ogden Valley --- are trapped: it seems the Weber County Commission is telling them they either must acquiesce to some of their citizens submitting to a government they didn't elect, with the power to tax them, and to the development of thousands more homes and condos on the mountain than the area's general plan would have permitted, or to get out of the box the legislature's being a wholly owned and operated subsidiary of the Utah Realtor's Association put them in, they must consent to special exemptions that allow these particular developers special development rights that other valley residents do not have, and they must abandon the density provisions of the valley's general plan that was put in place, by the public, not too long ago.

And the Utah realtors lobby has given the Governor $100K, and god knows how much more to individual legislators to continue to do whatever the realtor's want done --- the rights of citizens to vote, and to be taxed only by elected representatives on a town council, and to make zoning rules for the good of the community by public consent be damned.

Whose town, whose valley, whose community will the legislators sell out next to make sure their realtor's lobby paymasters keep writing checks?

Biker Babe said...

I do not like this, Sam I Am ...
I do not like this one little bit!
The MOU is garbage, Sam I Am ...
A rose by any other name is really IT!

had to restrain m'self there, sorry -- you know what to put to make the rhyme FIT

js,

BB

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