The Snyderville Planning Commission, meeting on July 14 last week, approved a new home for the nonprofit Summit County Clubhouse and also gave a thumbs-up to a power line upgrade in the Basin.
The Planning Commission approved a conditional use permit for the Clubhouse, a nonprofit program for adults recovering from mental illness that provides them with educational, health and social wellness skills.
The program applied to go into an established single-family house on Highland Drive in Highland Estates.
A public hearing brought out both supporters and associates of the Clubhouse, and critics who had gathered petition signatures.
Snyderville Commissioner Canice Harte said the critics had two primary objections.
“One, people were either afraid of the service, and not looking to have it near their house or their neighborhood. And then the other one was the idea it was going to be used during business hours and not as a house or a residence, and that they felt they had a lot of that in their neighborhood,” Harte said. “And this might be like, maybe one more was too much.”
Harte said he and his colleagues raised the question of how often residential houses in a neighborhood could transition to a commercial use. But a number of uses are allowed in that rural residential zone.
“Once something is a listed use, really it’s already been decided that that’s allowed,” he said. “So the question that was asked to the County Attorney’s office is, well, how many of those could be in the neighborhood. And there is no limit to it. So it’s hard to say in some neighborhoods how many day-care facilities, or piano teachers or, in this case, clubhouses would exist, cause they look like homes, and they kind of blend in. But the answer is no limit.”
Next, the Planning Commission approved a power-line upgrade for Rocky Mountain Power. Their project, which also includes a stretch under the East Side Code, addresses a power line running along the Highway 40 corridor, then down Interstate 80 on the north side, to Kimball Junction.
Wildfire safety standards are prompting the upgrade.
“So what we’re going to see, as citizens, is just poles coming down, new poles going up, and lines being replaced,” Harte said. “In the Snyderville Basin, the power system kind of forms a triangle around us and has these three substations. So we’re not going to see any power outages. There are a few residents that live up in the hills over there, near the Glenwild area. They’ll be working with Rocky Mountain Power directly, cause they pull power off those lines. So some residents will have some effect. But the vast majority of us will never know.”
Harte explained what the Snyderville Commissioners were looking at.
“Were the poles going to get bigger. Were they going to become like large towers, from small wooden poles now. We were inquiring about that,” he said. “We started to look at, really, the revegetation, and see some sensitive areas there along the creek and works with Swaner. So, making sure it’s revegetated properly, and then working with the right entities to get that done.”
