Future residents of a proposed 180-acre subdivision along the city's upper east-side bench would have a spectacular view of the south Salt Lake Valley.
Unfortunately for the project's developers, everyone in the south valley would have an unobstructed view of the steep mountain road needed to reach the proposed development.That, at least, is the contention of some residents and city officials. That concern could doom the proposed third and fourth phases of the Deer Hollow Subdivision.
"You'd see it for miles," Ralph Wadsworth, a longtime resident who owns a Draper-based construction company, said Monday of the 1,700-foot road proposed to access the upper plateau. "It would pretty well scar the hill for the entire length (of the road) up and down, and it would be difficult to fix it."
The City Council, which held a public hearing on the project last month, is scheduled to discuss and possibly vote on the proposed zone change and concept plan Tuesday night. Approval would pave the way for developer Marc Mascaro to start paving the way to 42 luxury home lots.
Mascaro has been working on the proposed subdivision, located at about 2000 East and 12800 South, for nearly three years. He already has approval for 79 lots in phases one and two on the lower bench, but approval of the upper bench was denied last summer over concerns about the steepness and makeup of the terrain. The proposal to be considered Tuesday is a modified version of the original idea - one Mascaro believes the city should sign off on.
"We spent about four months with the planning department and the fire department designing a road from the south slope . . . and met the grade (requested) by the city and the county fire department," Mascaro said. "My point to the City Council was they've allowed South Mountain and Centennial, and every (local government) in this state almost has allowed bench development, and it seems pretty blatantly unfair for them to say no to one piece of property."
Councilman Darrell Smith said there are some key differences between Deer Hollow's bench and the one now under development as part of the 1,700-unit South Mountain project on the city's south side.
"It's just a different terrain up there," said Smith, who toured the site with the rest of the council last week. "I think everybody had their eyes opened a little bit to the steepness and how sensitive the area is. It's a very sandy area."
Smith and Councilman Doug Bedke voted to deny the rezoning two week ago, but three other council members overruled them, asking that the discussion be continued.
Paul Lunt was one of the three.
"I've had more calls on this than anything for a long time," Lunt said.
Lunt said he has concerns about the road being constructed through a 60-percent slope, but is open to alternatives that would allow the land to be developed.
"People have property rights," he noted. "I would cut (the number of lots) down. It's too big a density up there."
The proposed access road would traverse slopes with grades as steep as 30 to 50 percent or more, but the road itself would maintain a grade of about 12 percent. It would be at least 20 feet wide and would include three turnouts, two of them with a grade of 5 percent or less.
"There's a lot of public safety issues I have with the road in addition to the scar it would leave on the hillside, which would be some 1,600 to 2,000" feet in length, Bedke said. "School buses won't go up anything over 10 percent (grade). The road is narrow. The way they've shown it thus far, it's almost impossible to plow the snow off of it."
Mascaro said the project is threatened in part because a handful of horse owners "feel like they should be able to use private property for their own riding."
Wadsworth said 200 residents, most of them longtime residents, signed a petition opposing the project.
"The development would violate the city's hillside ordinance dramatically and probably render it useless," Wadsworth said, adding that developing the area would wipe out a significant deer habitat.