Summit County community members will have a chance to weigh in on the future of the 910 Cattle Ranch before officials close on the county’s largest-ever open space purchase this spring.“Ultimately, it’s a [Summit] County Council decision, but what we’d like to do is collect as much information from the public and analyze that with the best practices and practitioner information that we’ve gathered and come up with the best medium that we can,” said Jess Kirby, the county’s director of lands and natural resources.The 910 Ranch is a plot of 8,500 acres in the Jeremy Ranch area. The county optioned the land in August 2023, using $15 million from the voter-approved general obligation bond passed in 2021 to preserve open space as a down payment for the $55 million purchase.The U.S. Forest Service then awarded a $40 million grant to Summit County in the summer of 2024 through its Forest Legacy Program, allowing the county to raise the rest of the funds to close on the property. Kirby said the county expects to officially close on the deal this spring.“We received that award in June last year and are in the process of doing the due diligence to close on the property, which includes everything from generating a baseline assessment of the property, which documents the current conditions on the property, and then writing the conservation easement, which will be placed on the property at closing,” Kirby said. “We’re working through that. It’s a slow process with the federal government, but we do hope to be able to close early 2025.”Sunset falls across an autumn meadow with the 910 Cattle Ranch extending across all of the hillsides in the distance. Credit: Park Record file photo by David JacksonSummit County has not made any decisions yet regarding how much of the land will be open to the public, but community members have already voiced concerns about balancing recreation opportunities with conservation of the untouched open space.“We’ve continued to hear from the public that this one’s different, that we want to take it slow, that we want to do some really solid planning to make sure that we’re not ‘loving it to death,’” Kirby explained. “I think people are really concerned with its location being so close to Salt Lake and the great amount of population that’s down in the valley that could overrun it.”To get a better idea of the public’s hopes for the property, the county has opened an online survey about the future of the 910 Ranch. The survey is available on the Summit County website and will be advertised on the county’s social media pages until it closes on Jan. 31.Kirby said that 550 participants had already responded to the survey as of Friday morning.“We’re looking at different kinds of recreation, everything from mountain biking, e-bikes, Nordic skiing, equestrian use, hiking, different activities like wildlife watching, and gauging where [people] sit on the scale of support,” Kirby said. “And then we’re asking questions about how much activity would you like to see out there on a scale from a lot to a little? How many trails? Do you want a lot of trails? Do you want a small amount of trails? We’re gauging people’s perception of use and activity that will be allowed out there.”The county also plans to host three open houses on Jan. 21, Jan. 30 and March 18, at the Richins Building from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.“Those [in January] will be similar in the fact that we’ll bring preliminary data from the survey, have some discussion boards, collect information and answer questions,” Kirby said. “The March open house will have the finalized data from the survey analyzed and have drafts of a management plan that can be distributed for discussion. Ultimately, what we take out of all the open houses will be put together and taken to a County Council meeting for a work session. We will then work through finalizing the management plan for adoption.”There are many aspen groves throughout the 910 Cattle Ranch property. Credit: Park Record file photo by David JacksonKirby said the presentation to the County Council is a “moving target,” but the county hopes to close on the property by the date of the March open house. Depending on how long the process with the U.S. Forest Service takes, however, the closing date could be pushed back to summer or fall.“We’re at the mercy of someone else’s timeline right now,” Kirby said. “We will keep the process going. With collecting all this information early in the year, we don’t want to have a big silent period where we don’t present again, so I feel like even if we weren’t closed after that third session [in March] that we could still have the opportunity of having that work session. We just might not finalize things until later.”In the meantime, Kirby wanted to remind people that 910 Ranch is still privately owned and not open to the public. She also asked for patience as the county works through the process, saying that Summit County wants to take it slow to ensure it creates the best plan for the property.“I feel like much of our community is very much aligned with the sentiment that we’ve been talking about already, which is that it’s been a ‘wilderness’ for many, many years, it’s not been publicly accessed, and there’s wildlife out there that the community wants to be preserved,” Kirby said. “I don’t see that that’s going to change with the information we collect through this process.”The post Summit County requests community input on 910 Ranch appeared first on Park Record.