Was Santaquin's mountainside disappearing act a sign of things to come along the Wasatch Front? When the fire-ravaged hillside started to move after a recent rainstorm, taking 20,000 cubic yards of mud and several houses with it, was this just a precursor to the fate that awaits many more homes hugging hills in Utah, Salt Lake, Davis and Weber counties?
The experts think so, according to a story in this newspaper last week. Draper's planning director went so far as to call it "inevitable."
Really now, does this surprise anyone?
No matter which side of the political fence you choose to park your lawn chair, you ought to acknowledge that this is a game with no perceivable end in sight. If developers and landowners could find a way to build on air, they would do it. And then they would demand the county build a road to it.
In fact, that nearly happened seven years ago. Developers found a level piece of land about 100 feet up and 450 feet back from the nearest road in Olympus Cove. It wasn't really air, but a lot of air separated it from the rest of the world. They called the place Eagle's Nest and wanted to build five luxury homes that would sit there like medieval fortresses, impenetrable to attacks from the valley below.
Residents were to get to their homes by means of a tram or a cable car that would scale the mountainside. Either that, of they could fly a helicopter — a helipad was sketched in to the project. Emergency workers would get there the same way.
It was a breathtaking plan — the kind that could make even veteran planning commissioners gasp. No one had written an ordinance covering such a thing. No one had even imagined it.
The county rejected Eagle's Nest but not without a lot of hand-wringing. It shouldn't have been so hard, really. But then, the developer had said, "I think it's only right we are allowed to develop our own land."
That's a loaded phrase. It has made many a planning commissioner quake. Counties and cities have grappled with ordinances that would restrict hillside growth, but in the end, they are faced with landowners who, in the Western frontier sense of the word, want the right to homestead and make improvements, just as people always have in these parts.
It can be a compelling argument. Landowners ought to be able to do as they please, so long as they don't infringe on anyone else's rights. But what happens when one person's land begins to infringe on somebody's else's? What do you do when your terra no longer is very firma and you can visit the neighbors without going outside? Unless you agree to put your house on skis and build a ramp so that it flies clear of the houses below during the next mudslide, earthquake or other natural catastrophe, should you be allowed to build?
Unfortunately, it may be too late to answer. The SunCrest subdivision already sits atop the divide between Salt Lake and Utah counties like the winner of a high-stakes game of king of the hill. To some, the mountains of the Wasatch Front are like a tote board. The higher you go, the higher the dollar amount. But if the mountains get tired of this game and shake the pretenders off like some irritated sleeping giant, a lot of folks will be wondering how we let things get so out of hand.
The answer is we let it get out of hand by degrees, one project at a time. Nothing really is new in local government. That goes for this issue, as well. Ten years ago, Salt Lake County was holding hearings on an ordinance it eventually passed, putting a limit on new housing at a 30 percent slope or less. At the time, this newspaper did a comprehensive report of communities up and down the Wasatch Front. Most of them prohibited development beyond a certain slope. Some had no restrictions at all.
None, however, simply drew a line on the mountain and said, "Nothing goes above here."
We have been framing the argument wrong. As long as the issue is money and the right to develop one's land, the houses will find ways to keep creeping up the hillside. Yes, this is a safety issue. Yes, it has to do with providing public services to remote locations. But it also is a matter of preserving beauty. It is a matter of deciding whether the view is better from the top of the mountains looking down, or from the valley looking up. It is a matter of deciding whether the Point of the Mountain looked better before or after houses covered it.
Perhaps we can't stop what is inevitable, but we can resolve to not make matters worse. In the end, this is a question of what we value most — and whether we're prepared to weather a few lawsuits to finally tell people no.
Jay Evensen is editor of the Deseret News editorial board. E-mail: even@desnews.com