Gravel pit rezoning OK'd

PROVO — For Scott Pettro, owner of Pettro Sand and Gravel Corp., the third time was the charm.

The gravel pit owner received Tuesday approval for a zone-ordinance change that will keep his company open until all of the gravel to be gotten from his land is gone.

The change came with a 2-1 vote, the culmination of nearly a year's deliberation, after Utah County officials twice denied Pettro permission to mine land in a critical-environment zone.

"I'm just glad it's over," Pettro said after the decision was made. "If it went on much longer, I probably would have had to close my doors permanently."

Pettro has been retrieving gravel from his property — including a 13-acre parcel in a critical-environment zone where mining is forbidden — for the last nine years. But last fall, Pettro says Utah County deviated from an unwritten "gentleman's agreement" that allowed him to mine the whole property, regardless of its zoning, and the gravel owner was given a "notice to comply."

As part of his compliance, Pettro asked the county to give him an exemption to keep mining and the request was denied. Subsequently, Pettro appealed to the Utah County Commission for a zone change and the gravel pit operations were shut down, Pettro says. The second request was also denied, and Pettro prepared a lawsuit that he would have filed soon against the county, but for the commission's most recent decision.

On Tuesday, county commissioners Larry Ellertson and Gary Anderson voted to rezone Pettro's property to a mining and grazing area in an attempt to allow Pettro to complete what he had already started in the critical-environment zone.

But County Commissioner Steve White voted against the ordinance because Pettro had already started mining in the critical-environment zone.

"I don't think you reward somebody after the fact for doing an illegal activity in a zone that it wasn't zoned for," White said. "Had (the Pettro company) come to us in advance and asked to rezone it, I would have voted yes today, but they didn't. They mined it for a number of years. What they did was something illegal, contrary to the zoning ordinance."

Anderson said he supports the zone change because the land where Pettro mined is already scarred, and the excavation may as well be completed as part of the reclamation process of the land.

"I think that will help define what was intended to take place on the property," Anderson said of the zone change.