MOAB, Utah — Cody Priano said it breaks his heart seeing Kane Creek bulldozed by development.
“It's one that is going to have dramatic impact on an area that most people that live here care about and find value in — just the natural beauty that the area presents,” said Priano. “The community rallied pretty hard behind a number of issues that have happened, and this one is probably like, the biggest and most egregious.”
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In a hearing Tuesday evening, Doug Fix showed Grand County commissioners that in 1992, the previous property owner only asked for a small piece of the land to be rezoned for development, which is what the commission approved at the time.
“Zoning in Utah is supposed to be subject to public input, and they discovered a record that showed but for 10 acres, there has been no public input,” he said.
However, the ordinance the county has on record states that 117 acres could be developed.
“That application was submitted to the county, and it included the entirety of their property,” said the Zoning Administrator’s counsel. “It's unreasonable to think, and there's no evidence in front of you, other than speculation, that that family did not want to rezone the entirety of their property.”
This ordinance matches zoning maps from the last 20 years, according to Bruce Baird, an attorney for Kane Creek Preservation and Development.
“Under state law of Utah, random people can't go challenging somebody else's decision, and by doing that, putting the entire tax base of this county and all of the zillions of dollars at risk,” he said.
Baird said it wouldn’t make sense to rezone the property, since the developers have already invested so much.
“If you go against your staff on this one, you are exposing yourself and the citizens of Grand County to massive damages,” he said to commissioners. “This would amount to a reason and a rezone would amount to a wiping out of vested rights, which would equal potentially hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Priano says this is a matter of doing the right thing to preserve and protect one of Moab’s gems.
“Kane Creek to me is a space that once you enter, you can connect with solitude, to connect with the feeling that you have left the city, left the town, left development," he said.
The county will make a decision on the zoning of the 117-acre piece of land and ultimately whether it can be developed or not. They have not set a date, but it will be sometime in 2025 after the new commission members come in.
