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COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS -- Robin Bateman has lived in the privacy of her Cottonwood Heights home for nearly 18 years. But now, she's upset about what's going on next door in an office development that would look straight down into her house.
"This is the master bedroom and it directly overlooks the area where the buildings will be built," Bateman said.
Her new neighbors include two big office buildings and a parking garage. One will be a four-story building right behind the home.
Some people in Cottonwood Heights are organizing and laying plans for a battle over the office development, claiming that a developer is not living up to promises made years ago. The Cottonwood Corporate Center, which was built in the 90's is looking to expand and has made plans for Class A office space in a classy commercial area. The two buildings will be four and six stories high. Numerous homes are right alongside the future site of the office space.
"We never, had we known that this would be proposed to be such big buildings, we would never, ever, have bought this home," Bateman said. "We were promised both verbally and in site plans and lots of documents that these buildings would be one and two story. Now they're proposed to be four and six."
Cottonwood Heights' mayor is sympathetic, but doesn't believe the city has the right to stop it. He says the developer has expressed willingness to mitigate the neighbors' concerns.
"They are entitled to build up to 250,000 square feet of space," said Mayor Kelvyn Cullimore. "And they would like to build that amount of space, and that will require some height on the buildings."
He adds that perhaps there is some middle ground upon which both sides can find a compromise.
"I think the developer recognizes the impacts and I think they're willing to try to mitigate those," Cullimore said. "And I think our best bet is to try to work together to try to find those mitigation."
The residents are gathering news reports from the 1990's and other documents to show that there was, in fact a promise. They also have started raising funds for a court battle.
Developer of the Cottonwood Corporate Center John West could not comment.
