The 1,000-acre Cedar Crest Village project, a new town proposed near Hoytsville, is on hold as developers hope to annex a third of the property into Coalville’s city limits.
Brad Holmes, president of Larry H. Miller Real Estate, approached the Coalville City Council regarding annexation in December, but city councilors were hesitant to engage in further discussions because developers were unable to provide specifics about the project’s density and traffic impacts. Now that the application with Summit County has expired, the developer was influenced to downsize the proposal and explore annexation into the East Side.
Coalville councilors also pointed out the non-contiguous layout of the property, which would make it difficult for the city to easily annex, as well as the developers’ previous attempts to push the project through at the county level.
The City Council meeting in December was exploratory, but Larry H. Miller Real Estate recently filed a petition formally requesting Coalville consider annexing 316 acres into the city — a more than 100% decrease from the original proposal. In the meantime, the rest of the mixed-use project has temporarily gone on hold while developers work through the annexation process.
Developers are calling the downsized proposal Hidden Meadow Village, and Larry H. Miller Real Estate is working on an economic study regarding the viability of the much smaller project.
Kelsey Berg, vice president of government relations for Larry H. Miller Real Estate, said the developers plan to conduct three other studies, focusing largely on water, utilities and impact fees, to present to the city by the end of the year.
“This helps us to be able to understand the impacts that our development can have based on conversations that we’ve had in the past of what is the sewer capacity? What is the water capacity? What are the impact fees? How will this impact future residents going forward?” Berg said at a City Council meeting last week.
Councilors still questioned the decision to pivot the project from Summit County to Coalville, but Berg said the answer was simple: The Cedar Crest proposal became too unruly.
“It was a big lift, so as we scaled back internally and said, ‘OK, what are the community development principles that we believe in? What’s the best way to move forward in that?” Berg said. “[The application with Summit County] did not expire because time just ran out. We chose to let it expire and to not proceed with that path forward.”
Larry H. Miller Real Estate Chief Visioning Officer Stephen James added Cedar Crest started to feel like it was a project competing with Coalville.
“We would rather help Coalville become more sustainable in the long term as it relates to investment, infrastructure, commercial growth than start something completely new from scratch,” James said. “Since we actually are adjacent to existing Coalville property, what if we, rather than thinking of the large-scale vision, think about a small, incremental approach that could scale in the long term?”
James said developers are also considering opening a portion of the land to the public and installing hiking and walking trails to contribute to the Coalville community and retain the rural values of the area.
He added that all three landowners currently living on parcels within the 316 acres want to be annexed into Coalville.
City Councilor Louise Willoughby said she was in favor of the idea, but she had concerns about the viability of the project and attracting families to the property, which would largely be agricultural plots for small farms.
“This is all sounding really beautiful, and it sounds really amazing. It just sounds way too good to be practical,” Willoughby said.
City Councilor Lynn Wood also said it sounded like a great idea that would economically benefit the city, but she said there was too much internal strife at the municipal level to make such a large project feasible right now. Specifically, Wood was referring to an hours-long public hearing earlier the same meeting that sparked debate over whether the City Council or mayor should be in charge of the city attorney position in what upset residents called an attempted “power grab.”
“Maybe we get farms, maybe not, but what does Coalville and the Coalville citizens get? What is your best product you can bring in that is affordable?” Wood added. “Is there anything less than $400,000? Is there anything less than $1.5 million? … I know that’s what our community wants. They’re asking, ‘Where is the affordable housing?’ We haven’t given them an answer as a City Council.”
The City Council ultimately decided to delay further discussions on the annexation until their June 23 meeting with the understanding that Larry H. Miller Real Estate staff will schedule and hold a public forum to receive more community feedback. The council will then also hold its own public hearing before making a final decision.
Willoughby was the only councilor who voted against tabling the annexation petition, saying she was ready to deny the request based on public input she’s received so far in addition to her concerns about the development’s housing prices and lack of affordable units.