One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. The same is true for coding allowing high density in the Heber Valley.

Last Wednesday’s discussion between Heber City councilors and Wasatch County councilors ran into several unanticipated snags, the majority of which fall back to the Utah Department of Transportation not following its previously established deadline to release a preferred route for the Heber Valley Bypass in an Environmental Impact Statement.

The lack of a solid date — or even a range of dates — helped form the discussion into something that felt like less of a deliberation about a surefire bypass project and more like a hypothetical conversation as the county officials considered and eventually voted to fund a conservation easement on a plot of land where all of UDOT’s potential bypass routes pass through.

The night before they made their decision, UDOT Project Manager Craig Hancock explained the reasoning for what he called UDOT’s “holding pattern” regarding the bypass plan.

“We were getting close to releasing the draft purpose and need last year, and we were running through a sensitivity analysis,” he explained. 

Then, the Mountainlands Association of Governments released an updated travel demand model, changing the basis for all of the assumptions UDOT had made in their plans.

The reasoning behind the changes in that model, though scantly discussed, became a factor in at least one county councilor’s mind when he considered Heber City officials’ pleas to work with UDOT before undergoing the process to conserve land that could further delay the bypass.

According to Wasatch County Councilor Kendall Crittenden, Heber City’s annexing and zoning of North Village was part of why the traffic models UDOT had used for their now-outdated alternatives had become outdated.

“Some of those properties have got three, four, five times more density than they would have had if they had developed in the county,” Crittenden said. “It’s that increased density that Heber City’s allowed that’s creating the traffic problem that UDOT’s struggling with.”

Had the area stayed under county jurisdiction, he argued, UDOT’s routes would have been implementable.

The night prior to Crittenden’s statements, Heber City Councilor Mike Johnston had asked Hancock more about why the traffic models had differed so much since UDOT began planning bypass options.

He asked if the increased traffic demand came from the state’s Military Installation Development Authority (MIDA) project next to the Jordanelle.

“Was that a part of your study and analysis?” he asked.

“I think it’s a factor of several things,” Hancock responded. “I think part of it is the MIDA and all the growth that’s happening there in that segment. It’s also some of the development that’s happening within the city in the North 40 on the east side, some of that new development. We saw in the new model that they had moved a lot of the population into that zone that wasn’t in the previous model.”

He didn’t limit the factors to only MIDA and the city’s north annexation, but he did say he believed both developments “played into it.”

The community conversation about density has long been a divisive one throughout Heber Valley, with different community leaders and leadership bodies seeming to take opposing stances.

Though they are far from the only two elected officials to weigh in on the topic, Johnston and Crittenden have both stated their views, which fall on opposing sides of the same coin — Johnston looking toward townhomes and density as a way forward for Heber City and the community through affordable options, and Crittenden remaining unconvinced it will help.

Crittenden — who’s currently running as an incumbent for the seat he’s held for just shy of two decades — discussed his views in a current campaign interview. 

While he said state officials are encouraging county and municipal governments to allow denser zoning — even as they passed legislation that no longer allows these governments to require developers to build a certain number of affordable houses within their projects — he said he doesn’t see affordability in townhomes or apartments.

“There’s a lot of those south of town,” he said. “We’ve got the density, and they’re still not coming down and affordable. They’re not lowering the cost.”

And while he acknowledged the work of nonprofit groups and the United States Department of Agriculture’s self-help program in providing affordable housing to people who struggle to get by in Wasatch County — teachers, public servants, service-industry workers — Crittenden said he wasn’t sure what the county can do to help its housing crisis.

Johnston has expressed different views. After being reelected to his position last year, he talked about how while many people in Heber Valley like to talk about “responsible growth.” They aren’t willing to see that responsible growth won’t come in the way of single-family houses on spacious lots. 

“It’s urban growth. It’s putting 100 families on a piece of road rather than 10 families on a piece of road,” he said.

Johnston explained that such an arrangement leads to lower property taxes and emphasized that, while he doesn’t plan to force people to live closer, the option will be there.

“That is not Heber the last 100 years, but it definitely is going to be the Heber the next 100 years. Everything’s going to have to change,” he said. “We’ve done such a terrible job in the United States the last 50 years of sprawl, and the opposite of sprawl is density.”

While he, like Crittenden, also mentioned how nonprofits and affordable housing programs can help some receive affordable housing, he said he believed dense housing is the solid way to a future where Heber Valley is more than just a haven for the wealthy.

Already, more areas in Heber City — namely the upper Jordanelle area and North Village — have been zoned in a way that will allow 6,000 homes that Johnston predicts will be built over the next 30 or 40 years.

Whether they will lend to Johnston’s hopes or Crittenden’s concerns is yet to be seen.

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