Residents turned out en masse Tuesday night to stop an "anti-horse" ordinance in its tracks.
More than 100 people piled inside the City Council's cramped, hot chambers while dozens more who couldn't get in milled outside a hearing on a proposed law that would have drastically limited horse ownership in Draper.No one spoke in support of the ordinance.
The council opted to table the measure until November, when it will be revised committee-style with input from horse owners, who said it threatened their lifestyles as well as the local economy.
Draper, home to about 5,200 people and some 2,000 horses, has long been an equestrian town where residents raise the local animal of choice on small parcels of land. The proposal, which City Manager David C. Campbell said was revised at the council's request, would have required horse owners to have at least an acre of land. And it would have limited horse ownership to one per one-acre lot, two if the landowner had a stable. It would have allowed one more animal for each additional half acre of ground.
Critics were suspicious of the proposed ordinance's origin, wondering whether it was a move by developers to turn the rural town into a community of subdivisions.
And some ridiculed its vague language. Others questioned the penalties that accompanied the proposal, subjecting offenders to a fine of up to $1,000, up to six months in jail and the loss of the right to own a horse.
Mayoral candidate Elaine Redd said the change would destroy property values because much of Draper's attraction is its bucolic nature. One local real estate agent who said the price of one-acre lots in the area ranges now from $63,000 to $75,000 said requiring horse owners to have at least an acre of ground would gentrify Draper beyond the means of most people.
Redd noted that the proposal was more limiting than laws in Sandy and Riverton, where four horses per acre are allowed.
Landowner Ellen Thorpe said she and her husband bought two acres in Draper with the understanding that it came with a conditional-use permit for 12 horses.
"That's why we bought the place," she said. "If this is going to affect so many people, it deserves to be put to a general referendum."