It’s been 20 years since Cottonwood Heights was incorporated and 20 years since the city had an updated General Plan. City leadership began to embark on the daunting task of overhauling the over 200-page General Plan document over two years ago but to no avail. 

The General Plan Update Project was called Cottonwood Heights Tomorrow. Under council direction, planning contractors and architects were to work alongside city planners to draft a more suitable General Plan for the existing neighborhoods of the city. However, when the date on the proposed timeline where the draft was supposed to be reviewed and adopted, the city council was unsatisfied. 

“The current document doesn’t represent the city and it feels a little boiler plate,” said Mayor Mike Weichers. “We aren’t going to start completely over. But almost.”

With a we-can-do-it-ourselves attitude, the city council is in agreement of working through the process of updating the city’s General Plan before July 2026. They invited the Cottonwood Heights Planning Commission to a joint meeting in order to begin the drafting process on Oct. 21. 

“We have picked this up and put it down at a frustratingly slow pace,” said Commissioner Dan Mills. “We are having similar discussions from when the city started and it’s hard in an election cycle.” 

“This document is too important for it to be done in a bubble,” countered Commissioner Lucy Anderson.

Function of a General Plan 

Before jumping into any details, the two governing bodies making up Cottonwood Heights’s leadership needed to get on the same page about the specific function of the General Plan within the city’s operations.  

“This should be a working, living, document with resilience to withstand constant change over time,” said Councilmember Shawn Newell. 

Commissioner Mike Shelton had a similar sentiment, “A general plan should not function like a State of the Union Address….Instead, it telegraphs to the (city) planning staff and land owners what we, as a city, want to see happen.”

In agreement, Councilmember Matthew Holton challenged city leadership to think about how the document can serve in the preservation of existing neighborhoods and protection of a lasting scar in the gravel pit development within a 30-year lifespan. 

“Forecasting a bunch of years out is an almost impossible challenge,” said Commissioner Gary Barnes. “We want to identify measurable and quantifiable objectives with the ability to adapt for the… ‘tomorrow’ we desire.” 

Aligning Community Goals 

Two main objectives were set for the Joint Meeting between the Cottonwood Heights City Council and Planning Commission: finalize the vision/mission statement and settle on guiding community goals. 

Councilmember Suzanne Hyland mentioned how Cottonwood Heights residents have a mountain-suburban lifestyle. “We are a suburban gateway city and acknowledging that, and what we want to do with it, is really important.” 

Councilmember Ellen Birrell referred to the city as being an “urban wildland interface.” 

“The Small Town USA ship has sailed,” Hyland said. “We should take advantage of the visitor economy…we could serve a lot of residents if we do this right.” 

“We are a gateway city and with that comes the responsibility and challenges related to transportation," Birrell said. 

Planning Commissioner Vice Chair Sean Steinman chimed in to intertwine the relevance of these visions to establishing community goals. “Thoughtful development and transportation are the two areas where the city can really begin to grow. We need the economic development with the roads and vice versa.” 

Listening to the conflicting terms for overlapping city visions and community goals, Shelton attempted to reel the conversation back to his main overarching point about function. 

“Does this come together for a better understanding of what the city is to do? That’s the question we should be keeping in mind with every sentence.” He encouraged his fellow city leaders to think about how to explain these ideas in clarifying language that is easily understood in lieu of drafting out good prose. 

“The audience has to be people coming to this document with a fresh pair of eyes like new volunteers and new staff members,” Mills said. 

Towards a Cohesive Vision 

After a two-hour conversation, there seemed to be a loose consensus on the functionality of the General Plan, wording of the mission statement and top community goals to guide the overall city vision. The next step in the process was to begin tackling updating individual chapters of the General Plan document including (but not limited to) Water, Moderate Income Housing, Economic Development, Recreation, Land Use and Transportation.

“I look forward to slowing down the process,” said Commissioner Rusty Lugo. 

The group decided it would be best to divide into subcommittees so each chapter could be fully broken down before coming back together. Individual members of the council and commission mentioned what they would like the group to keep in mind while working through this process of updating the city document over the next few months. 

Birrell asked her fellow city leaders to take on some homework and review all the previously adopted Master Plans (i.e., Fort Union Area Master Plan (2017), Wasatch Boulevard Area Master Plan (2019), Bicycle and Trails Master Plan (2016), Affordable Housing Plan (2019), Interlocal Sustainability Action Plan (2021)) so a more cohesive vision would be incorporated  throughout all planning documents.

“We have different Master Plans that don’t agree with each other,” Mills said. 

“We are figuring out where in the plan there are holes with policy disagreements,” said Community and Economic Development Director Jim Spung. 

Steinman suggested compiling an inventory of those disagreements but also the previous successes between those documents in order to figure out how to keep pushing those forward in the new General Plan updates. In addition, he would like to conduct some informal research to figure out what is actually valued within the city by surveying staff members and residents for comparisons. 

He also emphasized the importance of the city council and planning commission to continue calibrating and reflecting in order to redirect the General Plan as the guiding light of the city. Birrell added to the encouragement of open communication by wanting to talk with surrounding cities for their values and planning documents as well. 

Commissioner Mike Smith asked for the group to have a better understanding of the city’s budgetary constraints. He also requested clarification on the state requirements for municipal planning especially as it pertains to water policy and moderate income housing adaptations. 

“Water may be one of the first things we get started on pretty quickly,” Weichers said and explained how the state is requiring updated water policy plans from local municipalities by the end of the year. 

Because of that, the Cottonwood Heights City Council and Planning Commission are planning to come back together for a consecutive joint meeting on one of the first two Tuesdays in December. 

“We are going to make this a priority from here on out,”  Weichers said. “We want to be really specific about what we want to accomplish.”