Canyon eyesore | The Salt Lake Tribune

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Have you ever noticed how the apartment towers at the mouth of Emigration Canyon stick out like a sore thumb — an eyesore on the otherwise lightly developed Wasatch foothills? They're hard to miss — and hard to look at.

Thankfully, they don't have much company in the form of high-density, commercial buildings shoved up against our mountains. Last week, the Salt Lake County Planning Commission voted to keep it this way, recommending — unanimously! — that the County Council deny Terry Diehl's request to rezone his proposed Tavaci development to allow an eyesore hotel right at the mouth of Big Cottonwood Canyon ("Planners deny Tavaci's high density zoning request," Tribune June 13).

So, to the County Council: We're all watching you. No one wants this development, except Diehl and his real estate developer buddies, who are drooling over the precedent that would be set by this rezoning and development.

Who will you members of the County Council side with: the planning commission, the public and the county's own regulations — or the real estate developers?

Clay Northrop

Salt Lake City