A planned townhome development in Grantsville was put on hold by the Grantsville City Council during its meeting Wednesday night.
The conditional use permit for the Ashlynn Meadows development, which would include five single-family homes and 74 townhouses on approximately 8.4 acres, was tabled by the city council to review the project.
Neighbors of the property spoke out against the development, which would be built in a high-density residential zone, during a public hearing.
Dawn Buhlman said she had concerns about the sudden influx of residents to the city if 74 townhouses are built at the development, which is located south of Clark Street and to the west of state Route 138. She said she was worried growth was outpacing services, such as the city’s police department and volunteer fire department.
“We do not have the resources to handle the influx of new people, their families and their pets, to accommodate such an incredibly high growth potential,” Buhlman said.
For Marla Atkinson, who lives adjacent to the proposed development, a primary concern was water pressure. She said other neighbors in her subdivision already suffer from the same problem.
“We have lived there for five years and for five years we have been struggling with our water pressure,” Atkinson said. “We don’t have hardly enough water to wash dishes and I don’t use a dishwasher, I was the old way.”
Dona Wilson said the developer, Josh Adams, held a meeting at her home in which he asked residents to not fight the zone change to higher density housing in exchange for concessions like a park, privacy fencing and preventing construction traffic impact.
Grantsville City Mayor Brent Marshall also pointed out that Adams had not cleared out weeds in a median on Clark Street. Adams said the fencing, clearing out the median and other promises would be met if the project moved ahead.
“Doesn’t matter, you said you’d take care of it and it still hasn’t happened,” Marshall said. “It’s been that way for years. So there you go, promises made, no promises kept and that’s what these people are upset about.”
Adams said without revenue from the project to move forward, he didn’t have the money to pay to weed the median after the project was delayed by the Great Recession.
“The reason I haven’t taken care of the median is because we didn’t move forward with this project,” he said. “The financial crisis happened. I don’t own the median.”
The development would feature a series of private streets between the units, and Councilman Neil Critchlow told Adams they would need to be widened from 25 feet to 33 feet to accommodate the turning radius of the city’s ladder truck.
Councilman Tom Tripp moved to table a decision on the conditional use permit until the city could review the original concept plan submitted in 2009 to ensure it aligned with the current plan. The ordinance passed in 2009 that changed the zoning to high density was conditional on the development being substantially consistent with that original concept plan.
The council approved tabling the decision in a unanimous vote.