Blueprint in the works for the Bear Lake Valley

GARDEN CITY, Rich County — A widow would like to feel safe among the unfamiliar tourists renting houses and hotel rooms near her home. The mayor wishes a call center would open and provide jobs for the area. And a local taxidermist and part-time farmer resents development, preferring that land revert to agriculture and wildlife.

But their competing visions for the Bear Lake region are on hold because of the economic downturn.

Folks here in Rich County, Utah, and Bear Lake County, Idaho, are using the lull to consider the past and what they want to become in the future.

They have hired growth and planning consultant group Envision Utah to host community meetings, gauge public opinion and create a plan to balance development with agricultural land and open space. Environmentalists want to protect the lake. Community leaders would also like to see a plan for economic development.

The planning process is being called the Bear Lake Valley Blueprint.

It's easy to bifurcate the region into competing camps: Utah versus Idaho. Year-round residents versus seasonal. Longtimers versus newbies. Upper middle class versus lower middle class. Farmers versus recreationalists. Environmentalists versus business owners.

Envision Utah will host a series of meetings over the next year, during which planners will record the visions of residents. The hope is that people from all camps will give input, and their varying visions will be married into a comprehensive plan for growth and development in the future.

"The heritage is small-town, laid back," said Lori Haddock, a deputy Bear Lake County assessor and co-chairwoman of the Bear Lake Valley Blueprint's steering committee. "People want to maintain that."

Vacation destination

On a sunny day, Bear Lake is deep blue against the green and brown mountains dotted with mostly new and huge log-and-stone houses.

At Ideal Beach Resort, there is a golf course, tennis courts, two pools and manicured lawns next to the white sands of the lake shore.

Lauren Crowther's family stays at the resort each year as part of a weeklong family reunion.

"We usually let the children play at the beach," said Crowther, a Salt Lake area native who now lives in Idaho with her husband and children. "We go to the park. We play on the lawn. We make crafts."

Members of the Crowther family were among some 65,000 people staying in the region that night — an estimate that considers people in homes and hotels, as well as vacationers who have pitched their tents on the beach.