Salt Lake County may decide it won't yield disputed land

The Salt Lake County Council may try to trump an upcoming court decision over 80 acres of open space in the foothills straddling Salt Lake and Davis counties.

The council today is expected to consider a resolution that would declare its intention to hold on to the disputed land — even if the courts take it away from Salt Lake City.

North Salt Lake owns the land, which lies within Salt Lake City's borders. For more than four years, the neighboring cities have fought over the foothill land straddling the border between North Salt Lake and Salt Lake City. The former wants to develop a portion of the land, while the latter wants to leave it as open space — and neither side is willing to budge.

Now the fight is wending its way through the courts, and a trial date is set for Feb. 20.

Although a decision from the court won't come for at least another three months, the County Council may take sides and follow Salt Lake City's lead and zone the land as open space if the courts decide to disconnect the land from the city.

"I think Salt Lake City had it right when they zoned it open space," said Salt Lake County Council Chairman Cort Ashton, who is sponsoring the resolution. "We should maintain that, even though right now we have two cities that are at odds."

If North Salt Lake wins in court and the land is disconnected from Salt Lake City, the land would become part of unincorporated Salt Lake County. North Salt Lake leaders would then ask the Salt Lake County Council to allow the land to be annexed into the Davis County city.

But the proposed resolution says the County Council would plan to say no. Without the county's approval, the land could not be annexed into North Salt Lake.

"To say it's out of the blue is an understatement," said Mike Nielson, city attorney for North Salt Lake. "The city of North Salt Lake does not know why they would suddenly want to involve themselves in interfering with the litigation."

The County Council put off a decision on a similar resolution in late September so that members of the council could go up to the land and "see for themselves," Ashton said. Now the majority has seen it, and it's time to make a decision, he said.

North Salt Lake Mayor Shanna Schaefermeyer said she doesn't want to end up in a court battle with Salt Lake County over the land. "There may be a way to work with the county," Schaefermeyer said. "In my mind, court is the last place you should go. We should see if they will talk reasonably with us before we go down that road."

North Salt Lake wants to put housing on 20 of the acres and use 10 acres for a cemetery. Groomed trails and parks could be built on the remaining acreage, which would be preserved as open space, said Collin Wood, North Salt Lake's city manager.

Salt Lake County could potentially use money from a $48 million open-space bond that voters approved earlier this month to improve the land and trails, Ashton said.

"It's not going to be unanimous, but for those who have had a chance to go up there and see how amazing and incredible that piece of land is, they will want to protect it," Ashton said.

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E-mail: ldethman@desnews.com; nwarburton@desnews.com