Wasatch County solidified its stance against preliminary municipalities and state law. The move comes with massive citizen support following a tense meeting between county and state representatives.
Wasatch County’s call to repeal Senate Bill 258 comes after an indirect threat from the Governor’s Office to withhold state funding. That happened when local officials pushed back on development in the Wasatch Back in partnership with Summit County and opposed preliminary municipalities.
S.B. 258, passed in 2024, created a pilot program allowing preliminary municipalities — which would become new towns without local governments’ approval — to be considered for incorporation in “rural” counties. A preliminary municipality allows up to three landowners in unincorporated areas to develop the town without existing residents as long as it meets the state requirements. These entities control zoning and land use, but not taxation.
Gov. Spencer Cox’s senior adviser for housing strategy, Steve Waldrip, delivered the threat to the Heber City Council on Aug. 18 rather than to the Wasatch County Council.
Since then, the County Council has seen an outpouring of support from the community. Many residents, like Carly Givens, encouraged county officials to stand strong in their stance against preliminary municipalities.
Ahead of Wednesday’s County Council meeting, Givens circulated an online forum with her “grassroots” organization, Utah Citizens for Local Control. More than 300 individuals pledged to support the county in its opposition to the law.
Givens said the signatures represent families, neighbors, business owners and residents throughout the county. The goal of garnering support was to show the county that residents support it, Givens said.
She added that threats from the Governor’s Office were alarming.
“We needed to show them that the people want them to stand up for us,” Givens said.
Givens, from Wallsburg, said residents have been excited to show their support for the County Council. Wallsburg residents are outwardly opposed to preliminary municipalities as well. In July, residents began mobilizing community efforts to oppose preliminary municipalities and S.B. 258.
Midway resident Steve Phillips also showed his support for the County Council’s resolution opposing S.B. 258 at the Wednesday meeting. He encouraged the county to stand up against threats coming from the Capitol.
“The state should work with Wasatch County and our cities, not pressure them through threats or leverage,” Phillips said.
Phillips emphasized the importance of local control, something County Council Chair Erik Rowland echoed.
The threat to withhold funding and the nature of S.B. 258, Rowland said, show a certain level of “overreach” by the state.
“We have a type of government which supports checks and balances, and I think right now there is a swing where it does feel like the state is overreaching on that power and trying to take more and more local,” he said.
Rowland added that the county’s resolution is the council’s opportunity to push back against state actions he and his fellow council members disagree with.
“This is our attempt to start that conversation,” Rowland said.
The County Council on Wednesday unanimously approved a new resolution outlining what it considers the five fatal flaws of S.B. 258, calling for the state to repeal it.
The county argued that regional infrastructure is not a statutory consideration, that the law worsens affordability, that “perverse” incentives cloud regulatory oversight, that feasibility studies cannot test the plans they approve and that the law creates “self-entitlement.”
Two preliminary municipality applications can be considered each year per state law. Wasatch Highlands is one proposed preliminary municipality adjacent to the Red Ledges neighborhood in Wasatch County undergoing a feasibility study to determine whether the town’s proposed boundaries could support itself economically as ordered by the Lieutenant Governor’s Office.
S.B. 258 is “fundamentally flawed,” according to Wasatch County Manager Dustin Grabau. If the goal of the law is to encourage affordable housing, he said, it’s missing the mark.
For example, Grabau said the law doesn’t require preliminary municipalities to include 10% affordable units as stipulated for new developments under county code. Information the county reviewed also shows the proposed units in Wasatch Highlands priced from $1.5 to $10 million, plus commercial and hospitality space.
Philo Development, which heads the Wasatch Highlands incorporation petition, has pledged that at least 10% of housing provided will be affordable. The initial feasibility study request does not specify how much affordable housing, specifically, there will be or how much that housing will cost.
The county also asserts that the program doesn’t take regional infrastructure into consideration. Some of the program’s proposals even conflict with the county’s own planning. For instance, one issue the county foresees is that the program suggests preliminary municipalities use existing water and septic systems for parcels smaller than the 5-acre minimum Wasatch County established in a groundwater study.
Wasatch County officials are also concerned about who would govern the preliminary municipality.
“The people, the property owners who form this preliminary municipality, end up on a board that then gets to pick who regulates them and their compliance with state law,” Grabau said. “We think that is a problematic precedent.”
While the County Council passed its own resolution on Wednesday, further conversation will be had with other counties to gauge interest in joining efforts to oppose S.B. 258. In its resolution, Wasatch County recommended that the Legislature repeal S.B. 258 and convene a stakeholder process to design a framework that meets a “higher standard” for current and future property owners.