The city recently hired former Salt Lake City Planner, Bill Wright, to go toe-to-toe with SLC Mayor Rocky Anderson, in the hopes he can facilitate a quick resolution to a simple "disconnect" that is stretching into months.
North Salt Lake owns a 100-acre parcel on the southeast end of the city limits. Eighty of the 100 acres lie in Salt Lake City's boundaries making it necessary for NSL to work with its own city council and planners as well as SLC's.
NSL has been working to get the 80-acre parcel in SLC "disconnected" from that city, so that the parcel could be annexed into NSL.
"Salt Lake City has already said there is no way it can provide municipal services to the area," said Mayor Kay Briggs. "There is no south access to the property."
The project has been temporarily tabled by Mayor Rocky Anderson for at least eight-weeks while the proposal is reviewed by the SLC Open Space Committee and Planning Commission.
"We've gotten some of the (SLC) city council members and some of the planning commission members to come up on the hill to survey the situation," said NSL city planner Collin Wood. "We thought we were close to an agreement, but then Salt Lake City started looking at the prospect of buying the property. It'd be nice if we could get everything lined up and quit stalling."
That's not the only land issue city administrators are dealing with.
NSL city council members and the mayor also spent more than an hour going back and forth between two separate maps of the city with a trio of developers, as they tried to work out details for a proposed property swap with Eagle Point Development.
Problems arose during discussion on trading "value for value" regarding 70-plus acres on the southeast side of the city.
Property values were thought to be of greater worth the higher the property sat on the mountain, said one council member.
But that was quickly countered by other council members who believed accessibility to development and steepness of the terrain made the property less valuable.
Developers were anxious to complete the transaction which would give them more buildable lots, while the city would increase its trails and open space areas.
The deal will also impact the proposed building of a third elementary school within city limits. Developers will draft a new proposal to be presented at the next planning commission meeting.
A third project, the mega recreation complex under development by SLC, would put all the baseball diamonds and lighted soccer fields from SLC's new mega-plex into North Salt Lake's city limits.
While neither the cemetery project nor the recreation projects have direct impact on the other, separate negotiations between the two cities and developers could continue for months.
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