Home Depot permit may get dumped

The Home Depot needs to do a little home maintenance of its own.

Dead trees and shrubs, an unsecured retention pond, and some large clumps of concrete in a landscaped area outside the Home Depot on 3300 S. Highland Drive could spell the demise of the big-box store there. The Millcreek Township Planning Commission is poised to yank the home-maintenance store's conditional-use permit.

The Millcreek store is in violation of nine provisions of the conditional-use permit approved back in October 2003, county planner Jeff Daugherty said in a letter this week to Home Depot's corporate staff. Violations include an improper storage unit in the west parking lot, failure to install metal deflectors on the west parking-lot lights to mitigate lighting impacts in the adjacent neighborhood, and the dead trees and shrubs.

"If they were that minor, then they should just fix it themselves," said Mark Crockett, a Salt Lake County councilman who represents Millcreek Township. "The infractions seem relatively minor, but it's good for the county to make sure people follow the rules."

The planning commission is expected to discuss the matter in a meeting Sept. 21.

Home Depot officials insist the problems will be fixed and the store will remain open.

"We have satisfied many of these conditions and continue to work with the county on resolution of this matter," spokeswoman Kathryn Gallagher said Friday.

However, it took at least a year of site inspections, notices of violations and correction notices with little compliance to finally prompt the county to initiate proceedings to revoke Home Depot's conditional use permit, Daugherty wrote in his letter to corporate headquarters.

From the beginning, several neighbors fought the big-box store. It took multiple negotiations to make sure the store was neighborhood friendly before a permit was ever granted. The store, at about 90,000 square feet, plus additional space for a garden center, is smaller than the average Home Depot.

Two local women, Julia Tillou and Dina Blaes, appealed the county's decision to grant the conditional-use permit and even took the matter all the way to court in 2003. The lawsuit was settled in 2004.

Both women now serve in county-planning leadership positions: Blaes is on the Millcreek Township Planning Commission, and Tillou is on the Salt Lake County Planning Commission. They declined to comment because of their county posts.

"This development was met with considerable neighborhood and area opposition when first proposed," Daugherty wrote in the letter to Home Depot. "Property owners and residents to the west were particularly concerned. In spite of our assurances to the contrary, their concerns now appear to have been well-founded."

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E-mail: ldethman@desnews.com