Second Powder Mountain Road detailed

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HYRUM -- Powder Mountain developers tried to allay fears of Cache County residents that a secondary access road to facilitate a massive expansion of the resort would disrupt the rural valley.

Currently, one small two-lane road through the Ogden Valley accesses the resort on the other side of the mountains, raising traffic and safety concerns.

Ogden Valley residents are irked to be bearing all the impact and have asked Powder Mountain to pursue a secondary road heading north through Cache Valley.

However, Brooke Hontz, project manager for Powder Mountain, assured Cache residents that the best site for an emergency access road would be on the east side of the resort running down to Huntsville in Weber County.

"Right now, a road heading east is the best option," she said. "The road will most likely go east."

Powder Mountain covers about 8,000 acres -- 4,500 acres in Weber County and 3,500 acres in Cache County. Expansion plans include 805 single-family homes, 2,090 multiple-family units, 500 hotel rooms, 11 corporate retreats, a 60,000-square-foot recreation center, a 40,000-square-foot equestrian center, a 40,000-square-foot air station, three lodges, two 18-hole golf courses and a fire station.

Nearly 100 residents showed up Thursday night at Mountain Crest High School to examine the plans, listen to a presentation, and question developers about the impact of the large-scale four-season resort. A different developer proposed a similar expansion in 2001, but lacked the funding to proceed.

"From the last resort that was proposed we learned quite a bit, and we've studied quite a bit and we know that it will impact us," said Sherry Lowery, an Avon resident. "You will get some opposition from us."

Hontz fielded questions about light pollution, inflated property values, impact to schools and waste water, but the main topic was the road.

Lyle Hillyard, a state senator from Logan and a lobbyist for Powder Mountain, stepped in at one point to assure the group that the state would not spend any money to build roads to the resort in Cache Valley. He said he did not want a road from the valley either and it was one of his stipulations before signing on to the project.

Still, some were not convinced.

"If you have the land and you have the money, you can put a road anywhere you want to," said Jim Parrish, an Avon resident. "I'm a little skeptical of all this myself."

The Cache County side is already zoned as a resort area, but developers ran into a snag trying to rezone the Weber County side to fit their plans.

In December, the Ogden Valley Planning Commission approved the rezone application, but with nearly 20 conditions requiring improved access and placing a cap on density levels.

One condition was to build a secondary emergency access road before beginning construction. Another required a permanent secondary road once the development reached a certain level.

If a permanent road went to the east, it would run through a private nature conservation area where development is prohibited.

But Hontz said that a road going north, through Cache County, is even more problematic because of negative public opinion, topographical problems, and land-ownership issues. But, she added, the situation isn't a stalemate, yet.

Sometime after February, the Weber County Commission will vote on the project. Hontz said the Powder Mountain developers will ask the county commission to disregard the planning commission's conditions on roads and density.

"They just pulled those numbers out of a hat," she said. "We never had a chance to explain why we wanted as much density as we were asking for."

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