NORTH SALT LAKE -- The city council plans to hear ideas Tuesday from the Trust for Public Land, a group which hopes to offer solutions for the disconnection dispute between NSL and SLC. In May 2003, the national nonprofit group was successful in preserving a 200-acre parcel along the Bonneville Shoreline Trail in Lindon.

The group believes the trail is a premier recreation feature along the increasingly crowded Wasatch Front.

Jenny Parks, Utah State Director for the Trust for Public Land is scheduled to meet with the NSL council during a work session Tuesday.

NSL Mayor Kay Briggs says he's met recently with SLC Mayor Rocky Anderson in an ongoing attempt to reach agreement on the 80-acre property, which runs along the shoreline of ancient Lake Bonneville, east of Beck Street.

The conflict erupted because the land is within SLC boundaries and is zoned as open space. But NSL owns the parcel, and officials there want to see housing and a cemetery on part of it.

Despite NSL's standing request for disconnection, SLC officials have held fast to the zoning to prevent any development. The SLC planning commission recommended last month that its city council seek to buy the property from NSL. Efforts by the Trust for Public Land may be part of SLC's strategy for just such a purchase.

Anderson's open space advisory committee considers the land a "geo-antiquity" that should be preserved at all costs.

But as time passes, NSL officials feel they may "throw in the towel" and sell the entire property to developers, who would then battle the capital city for disconnection.

Briggs believes his city's plan would at least protect 47 acres as open space, whereas developers would likely seek to put houses on most of it.

Although SLC may find funds to purchase the property, there are high doubts as to whether the two parties can agree on the land's price-tag.

According to Briggs, the SLC council has scheduled a public hearing on the disputed property Tuesday, Dec. 14, at the Salt Lake City and County Building.