NORTH SALT LAKE — Within the week, city attorney Mike Nielsen said he plans to file suit against Salt Lake City for control of 80 acres of open space.

The land is owned by North Salt Lake, but within Salt Lake City's boundaries. Because of actions by Salt Lake officials to deny repeated petitions for control of the land, North Salt Lake has no choice but to file suit, Nielsen said during Tuesday's City Council meeting.

"We have to," he said. "We need to, and the filing will be this week."

The filing is in direct response to a May 31 decision by the Salt Lake City Council to deny a petition to disconnect the land from its city boundaries — an action that would have allowed the land to be annexed into North Salt Lake. If North Salt Lake didn't file suit within 30 days of that decision, it would lose the right to protest via court.

Because of North Salt Lake's decision to file suit, resident Juan Arce-Laretta said he would begin the process for a city initiative to ask North Salt Lakers if they want all 80 acres preserved. The city has hopes of putting housing on 20 of the acres and wants to use another 10 acres for a cemetery.

Also, Arce-Laretta said city officials lost an opportunity to forever preserve the 80 acres as open space. The city and Wendy Fisher with Utah Open Lands have filed competing requests for money from the state's LeRay McAllister Critical Land Conservation Fund — dollars that can't be used if the two groups can't agree how to use it.

The money would have been used in combination with dollars from Salt Lake County and perhaps Salt Lake City to preserve the land, said Arce-Laretta. July 13 is the deadline for final applications to the fund.

"We're really facing a time crunch where we're going to lose funding from the LeRay McAllister fund," Arce-Laretta said during an hour-long presentation to the council.

He had hoped to convince the city to agree with plans to preserve all 80 acres. The city requested dollars to preserve only 50 acres.

Nielsen said the fault lies with Salt Lake City.

"Salt Lake City has wrapped North Salt Lake into a corner," he said. "This city has not been the one that has forced litigation on everyone. It was the city council and mayor of Salt Lake."

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