A final set of recommendations for regulating development in areas at risk for landslides is expected to be adopted next week.

The Geologic Hazards Working Group is scheduled to meet at 9 a.m. Wednesday in Room 112 at the Department of Natural Resources building, 1594 W. North Temple in Salt Lake City. Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. formed the group after landslides damaged houses, including some in Utah County, in 2005 and 2006.

The group released draft recommendations in May. Those have been revised slightly, but the overall direction hasn't changed, said Gary Christenson, geologic manager for the Utah Geological Survey.

"Some of the wording on some of them changed, but the thrust of them and content didn't," he said.

The recommendations include:

Developing a model ordinance on geologic hazards that cities and counties could adopt;

Updating maps of geologic hazards;

Offering expertise to local governments in reviewing reports on things like fault lines and landslide risk before construction is approved; and

Improving enforcement of construction standards in areas at geologic risk.

The recommendations, which will be forwarded to Huntsman for consideration, probably won't be the last word on the subject.

Some developers and a group called the Utah Property Rights Coalition are concerned that putting the requirements at the local level will lead to a patchwork of different regulations across the state.

"One of the concerns is the consistency from one city to the next," Christenson said. For now, though, land use planning is under local government jurisdiction, and trying to change that would have been beyond the working group's scope.

Rep. Mike Morley, R-Spanish Fork, introduced legislation in this year's legislative session that would have set limits on a local jurisdiction's ability to restrict development. That proposal was pulled for further study, but Morley has said he plans to pursue legislation again next year.

The Utah Geological Survey's Web site lists 19 damaging landslides across the state between 2001 and 2006, including several in Utah County.

Debris flowed down on Spring Lake and Santaquin from Dry Mountain following storms in 2002 and 2004.

A 2005 landslide in Cedar Hills damaged a fourplex of townhomes, and that same year a 13-ton rock tumbled 2,600 feet down Y Mountain and destroyed a guest house on north 1550 East in Provo.

The working group is made up of representatives from the Utah Geological Survey, the Utah League of Cities and Towns, the Utah Association of Counties, the Governor's Office of Planning and Budget, the Utah City Engineers Association, the American Planning Association, the Utah Division of Homeland Security, Morgan County, and the cities of Provo, Layton and Alpine.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page D4.