COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS — Salt Lake County is trying to be a good neighbor to this soon-to-be-city.

County Mayor Nancy Workman has decided that, as of the end of this month, the county's Planning and Development Services Division will no longer accept applications for conditional uses, rezones or other large-scale building development proposals for the Cottonwood Heights area.

"We know that the major reason for incorporation is local control of planning and zoning," Workman said. "We also know that no one wants a December planning and zoning surprise before the new city government becomes operational. I'm all for self-determination."

The county will continue to accept the simpler permitted use and building permit applications through Dec. 31.

As a township, Cottonwood Heights already has control over conditional use permits (unless they're appealed), though zoning, master plan and other issues are still decided by the county.

But even when it comes to conditional use permits, county staffers are heavily involved in getting the application into shape through analyzing the proposal and presenting it to the township planning commission, a process that can take months.

And if the township denies an application and it's appealed, the county again becomes involved through the Board of Adjustment (the County Council wearing a different hat).

"This way they can determine their timetable, they can decide how they want to handle it, they can do it themselves," mayoral spokesman Ted Phillips said of Workman's proposal.

Members of the County Council are intrigued with the idea, but they may tinker with the mayor's plan. Some council members aren't so sure that putting things off for four months would be the best thing even if it does, symbolically and substantively, cede control to the new city.

"People have vested rights," Councilman Michael Jensen said. "They want to use their property."

Instead of delaying all conditional use permits, some council members say a better way to go might be to accept those that are relatively straightforward but leave the more controversial ones for the new city officials.

"I do remember us punting some of the more controversial things," in prior incorporations, said Councilman Randy Horiuchi, a former county commissioner.

Chief deputy district attorney Karl Hendrickson said the best way to approach the matter may not even require any special action. Controversial applications tend to be protracted affairs, meaning that anything Cottonwood Heights officials and residents really cared about would take so long that it would wind up in their laps anyway, after Jan. 1.

"It may be self-selecting," he said. In previous incorporation interim periods, "there was just a judicious application of common sense in that some things take longer than others."

The council is researching how previous incorporations have been handled, with an eye to following that same pattern this go-round — perhaps resulting in a modification of Workman's proposal.

---

E-mail: aedwards@desnews.com