After four years, the seemingly endless discussions of the Mammoth General Plan may have actually ended. At their meeting Wednesday night, the Council signed off on the general plan.

Those who hashed the document out with the Planning Commission had urged the Council to adopt the plan weeks ago, but Council members poured through general plan checking the work and making small changes to the wording.

The one issue that threatened to sink the new Mammoth General Plan up until the last minute was the Bell-Shaped parcel. After much arguing, the Planning Commission voted to zone this chunk of land on Minaret as Open Space, but at the council level there was talk about selling the reportedly high-value land, building a central park there, as well as talk of a conservation easement.

With town citizens putting the pressure on the Council to leave the Bell-Shaped parcel as open space, Mayor Skip Harvey reports that council members Niel McCarroll and Wendy Sugimura worked hard to find a solution that would take into account the community desires for open space as well as the financial responsibilities of the Council.

Their plan calls the controversial parcel a spatial study area. Harvey explained that this study area does not zone the land as open space, but leaves open the possibilities for a park with restrooms, transportation hub, or a nature preserve. The possibility for a conservation easement, where the town gets paid not to develop, is left in as well.

While every other sticking point including density reached consensus, the Council had to vote on the Bell-Shaped parcel portion of the General Plan. The vote was 3-1-1 on the spatial study area. Kirk Stapp abstained from the vote and John Eastman was the sole dissenter.

With that vote the Council was able to approve the General Plan. Now its time for Council members to cross their fingers and hope that no one will legally challenge the newly-approved document.