After 10 months of battling, the opponents of a gravel pit near South Rim are closer to getting an answer from the Tooele County Commission.
The county attorney forwarded his latest legal opinion on the gravel pit to the county comission last week.
“It’s about 50 pages long,” said Tooele County Commission Chairman Wade Bitner. “I haven’t read the opinion yet, so I can’t comment on it. We only want to do what is legal, but I do believe we need to get this issue resolved.”
The county attorney’s legal opinion is a “protected” document under Utah’s Government Records and Access Management Act, which means it’s exempt from public disclosure, according to Tooele County Attorney Scott Broadhead.
As a result of the protected status of the opinion, South Rim residents will not get to see the legal opinion; instead they must wait to hear from the county commission.
In the meantime, Scott Hunter, a South Rim resident, said he has found an attorney who is willing to represent the opponents if the county commissioners decide to allow any type of activity at the pit.
The opponents of the gravel pit have been waiting for a response from the county commission since June 15, when they requested that the county commission enforce a 2001 Development Agreement that called for the gravel pit to be closed after the development was completed.
The opponents’ request came after Jay Harwood, owner of South Side Gravel Pit, withdrew his request to rezone the 176-acres he owns south of Silver Avenue in South Rim from rural residential and multiple use to a zoning designation designed to allow gravel extraction.
Harwood asserted that a May 24 advisory opinion by the Office of the Property Rights Ombudsman, says he can expand his gravel pit, currently on approximately 16 acres, to the boundary of the parcels on which the current pit exists, which is larger than the 176 acres in the rezone request.
The gravel pit in question was originally on a 10-acre parcel that was purchased by Tooele County in 1978.
The Tooele County Planning Commission issued a conditional use permit for the pit in 1996. The county still owned the pit at the time.
South Rim L.C. acquired the pit from Tooele County in Aug. 2001, as part of a development agreement for the South Rim subdivision.
At the request of South Rim, the county redrew parcel boundaries for their property south of Silver Avenue. As a result, the 10-acre gravel pit parcel was included in two new parcels of approximately 88 acres each.
South Rim L.C. sold those two parcels to South Side Gravel in April 2016.
South Side Gravel in turn has leased the gravel pit to Staker Parsons, according to a sign posted at the entrance to the pit.
Organized neighborhood opposition in South Rim to the gravel pit goes back to Aug. 2016.
Heavy machinery operating in the area, a new fence and improvements to the entrance, along with a new sign, caused concern among some South Rim residents.
Josh Maher of South Rim attended a Tooele County Planning Commission meeting during which he asked about the gravel pit expansion. He was told that he would have to take the matter to the county commission, according to the minutes of the meeting.
Originally, Maher and other the South Rim residents sought to have the conditional use permit for the gravel pit revoked.
However, the state property rights ombudsman issued an opinion in Dec. 2016 stating that the gravel pit’s conditional use permit was no longer valid, but gravel extraction could continue as a legal non-conforming use.
The county decided that as a non-conforming use, the current owners of the gravel pit could expand the pit downwards, but not outwards on the property.
South Side Gravel then applied to have the property rezoned so it could apply for a conditional use permit to extract gravel from the full 176 acres.
The planning commission voted unanimously to recommend that the county commission deny the rezone request in Feb. 2017.
The county commission delayed action on the rezone request because Harwood requested a second opinion from the state property rights ombudsman.
In response to Harwood’s request, the ombudsman issued his May 25 opinion. According to that opinion, under a 50-year-old court ruling, if a nonconforming use involves a resource like gravel that diminishes or is consumed in the process of use, the nonconforming use may extend to the boundaries of the parcel at the time the property became nonconforming.
While advisory opinions issued by the ombudsman’s office are not binding, if the same issue is the subject of an advisory opinion, and is litigated on the same facts and circumstances, and is resolved consistent with the advisory opinion, the prevailing party may collect reasonable attorney fees and court costs from the opposing party.