LOGAN — Cache County got one step closer to a major destination resort Tuesday as the County Council voted 6-1 in favor of a zone change for 3,500 acres at Powder Mountain.
Although Powder Mountain is already a ski area straddling the Cache and Weber county lines, developers hope to turn the area into a major resort.
Powder Mountain developer, Brent Ferrin Associates, of Park City, intend to construct golf courses, hotels, restaurants, commercial shops, condominiums and homes in the mountains near Eden, just 20 minutes from Ogden.
The land is the first to be zoned under the new Resort Recreation designation.
The council's approval didn't come without a fight.
Protesters gathered outside the chambers, filling the windows with their homemade posters, because the council doesn't allow signs inside.
Before the council's vote, a public hearing concerning a minor change to the original resort zoning ordinance took place. Protesters in the crowd used the hearing to question the motives of council members for favoring Powder Mountain development and criticized them for not listening to public opinion. Chairman C. Larry Anhder ordered the protesters to sit down.
"Up to this point we have talked about an ordinance, and not any specific development," he said. "That's the next step in the process of what will be allowed to be developed."
Of the seven council members, John Hansen, who represents residents in southern Cache Valley, including Powder Mountain, was the only one to vote against the rezone.
"I will side with my constituents; people who have come to the meetings and made themselves heard," said Hansen. "That's my obligation as an elected official."
Previously zoned as Forest Recreation-40 (FR-40) and allowing only one structure per 40 acre parcel, Cache County had no jurisdiction over what could be built on Powder Mountain. Without the rezone, Ferrin could have built 80 percent of the resort by clustering the structures together as long as an average of one structure per 40 acres remained.
Under the resort zone, the county must approve the master plan and oversee the projects development, including the implementation of services like water, sewer and fire stations. The FR-40 zone doesn't allow for those controls.
As development plans move forward, the protesters don't plan to stop.
"Far bigger monsters than Brent Ferrin have been slain," said Jim Steitz, president of the Ecological Coalition of Students. "The issue won't end here."
Ferrin now must persuade Weber County officials to allow a zone change for its 4,500 acres there. Most of the Weber land is zoned Forest-40 (F-40), similar to Cache's FR-40.
Weber County Commissioners will decide on its rezoning of Powder Mountain on Nov. 12.
E-MAIL: loganreporter@attbi.com