Russ Watts has sought a development agreement with Heber City for his affordable housing community for three years. Now, it will finally be drafted after overcoming a parking problem he said could have destroyed the project’s viability.

Watts, who lives in Midway, came up with the idea in 2022 after realizing just how many of his employees at Watts Enterprises commute to Wasatch County because they cannot afford to live there. 

The community will be called Celebration Housing, in part because securing housing for the county’s essential employees will be well worth celebrating.

“We respect and appreciate all the different entities that provide services for our community,” Watts said. “So, I think our No. 1 celebration will be (that) we now can say that we can accommodate housing for anyone who wants to live in the valley, work here and enjoy the social community here.”

Celebration Housing will include 148 one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments on 8.75 acres next to Wasatch High School. Watts hopes to add more units in the future, but the details have not been worked out, and Heber City has only approved the first phase.

The 148 apartments will be affordable to tenants making 40 to 80% of the area median income, which is between $54,000 and $109,000 for a family of four in Wasatch County. 

Half of the units will be affordable to residents earning 80% AMI; 59 units will be affordable to those at 65% AMI; and 15 units will be affordable to those at 40% AMI. 

Mountainlands Community Housing Trust will deed-restrict the units to ensure they remain affordable in perpetuity. 

Celebration Housing will not include any market rate units, as was originally planned, because of loan requirements by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The first 148 apartments will cost $43 million. Watts Enterprises expects a return on investment of around 6%.

In addition to Watts’ company, the project has several financial contributors, including the Hicken family, who donated 4.25 acres for the first phase; the Wasatch County Housing Authority, which is investing $750,000; and Heber City, which agreed in December to defer Celebration Housing’s $3.2 million in impact fees for up to 12 years. 

Impact fees are one-time fees on new development. Watts will pay back these impact fees at 4% interest. The details of the deferment will be finalized in his development agreement with Heber City.

The development agreement can now be drafted because the City Council has agreed to apply a less stringent parking code to the development. 

City code typically requires multi-family dwellings to have two parking spaces per unit, or 296 parking spaces in Celebration Housing’s case. The City Council on July 7 agreed to apply its downtown parking code, which instead determines the required number of parking spaces based on the number of bedrooms. That means Watts needs 266 parking spaces for the first phase of the project.

Finding room for parking without reducing the number of units has been one of the greatest challenges of the development, Watts said, especially when factoring in future phases.

City community development director Tony Kohler proposed reducing parking for Celebration Housing because the plan can always be tweaked in future phases if there’s a need.

He added that the development is close to potential employers like the high school, Heber Valley Hospital and Walmart, meaning some tenants may choose to walk, bike or use High Valley Transit instead of driving every day.

Watts hopes to partner with the Wasatch County School District to add the required parking for an eventual full buildout of Celebration Housing.

In a March school board meeting, he pitched the idea of installing nearly 180 parking spaces on school district property and splitting their use between the school district and the affordable housing community,

The school board declined to take the matter to a vote. Board members had concerns about mixing public money with private industry and raised questions about whether employees would settle for renting instead of owning.

Watts is still hopeful he can convince the school board to partner on parking in the future, potentially by adding owner-occupied housing in future phases.

The City Council will formally approve or deny the Celebration Housing development agreement after it is finalized within the next 90 days.

After that, Watts will secure loans with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. But first, the economy will have to go “back to normality,” as he put it. He said interest rates would be over 6% if he took out his loans today; he needs them to be closer to 5% for Celebration Housing to be fiscally feasible.

Watts hopes to begin construction on the first phase of Celebration Housing in the spring of 2028.

The post Heber City affordable housing community now on track for 2028 construction appeared first on Park Record.

Developers of The Highlands asked the Heber City Council on June 16 for the authority to impose a special property tax on homeowners, requiring them to cover more than half of the $40 million tab to install public infrastructure, like roads, water, sewer and electrical.

The Highlands is a community of 811 homes, townhomes and apartments near the Utah Valley University Wasatch campus, which broke ground in September 2024 and is estimated to be completed by spring 2028. 

The developer, D.R. Horton, is turning to homeowners for funding because there are no nearby governmental entities, including Heber City, that “consider it desirable, feasible or practical to undertake the planning, design, acquisition, construction, installation, relocation, redevelopment and financing” of the public infrastructure, according to the meeting agenda materials.

Mayor Heidi Franco said that’s because of the area’s unique engineering requirements.

“We have sensitive lands. They’re sloped. They have other needs. Our drainage system, gravity, hydrology, it’s all factoring into extra costs for developing in these areas,” she said.

The Highlands developers are seeking to finance the community’s public infrastructure by creating three public infrastructure districts, also called PIDs. 

PIDs were introduced in Utah in 2019 and allow developers to impose taxes on homeowners within a defined district to fund public infrastructure in the area, rather than having all taxpayers in a municipality pay for it.

The Highlands PIDs would impose annual property taxes on the 576 homes and townhomes within them for 31 years, the estimated time for the bonds to install the infrastructure to be paid off. The 235 apartments would not be included in the PIDs.

These homeowners would pay about $500 in taxes for every $100,000 of their home value annually. In other words, a homeowner with a home valued at $600,000 would pay $3,000 annually, or $93,000 over 31 years, in addition to their other property taxes.

Curtis Leavitt Horton, senior land acquisition manager with D.R. Horton, estimated homes to be priced between $550,000 and $600,000, though exact numbers won’t be determined until August at the earliest. If the PIDs are not approved, developers would instead add $40,000 to each home’s purchase price.

Heber City would retain 5 to 10% of proceeds generated by the tax, as required by the city’s PID policy. The City Council could use the proceeds however it wished.

Max Martin, a development manager with Forestar Group, a subsidiary of the developer, suggested the funds be used on improving infrastructure near The Highlands. 

His ideas included upgrades to the public park within the development or connecting the asphalt trail alongside U.S. 40 between College Way and the Wasatch Commons apartments. Franco also suggested using funding for the Heber Valley Arts Center planned near the development. 

Heber City currently has two PIDs for developments: The Slope and Jordanelle Ridge. Both have the same tax rate as The Highlands and have dedicated 5 and 10% of proceeds to the city, respectively.

City Councilor Sid Ostergaard supported The Highlands PIDs because it would allow the development to be built more quickly. He was especially eager to get The Highlands’ 67 affordable housing units built. 

Eleven of these units would be priced at $218,000 to be affordable to those making 60% of the area median income, which is $81,720 for a family of four. Forty-four units would be priced at $338,000 to be affordable to those making 80% of the area median income, which is $108,960 for a family of four.

City Councilor Yvonne Barney was more skeptical than Ostergaard. She was concerned about the PID’s potential to inundate “penny-pinching” homeowners with extra costs.

Franco agreed.

“It is going to be very expensive for median range income, or even our affordable units that you’re talking about, to be able to pay those property taxes,” she said. 

Barney also referred to a cautionary memo about PIDs that State Auditor Tina M. Cannon released in March, after Wohali, a resort in Coalville with a PID, declared bankruptcy last August. 

Cannon cautioned governments to consider whether they were financially accountable for PIDs. This would mean governments would be responsible for the transparency of PID finances, such as by including PIDs in their financial statements.

That does not mean Heber City, for example, would be liable to pay The Highlands’ bonds for public infrastructure if the development did not go as planned. That would be the responsibility of property owners within the PIDs.

Creation of The Highlands PIDs would require a public hearing and a resolution by the City Council before developers submitted documentation creating the PIDs to the Lt. Governor’s Office.

But those first steps are not yet on track to be completed. 

The developers’ first stumbling block was their lack of defined numbers to compare a homeowner’s property taxes with or without the PIDs.

As previously mentioned, the home prices are not yet finalized. Additionally, the municipal property tax rates the developers referenced when comparing homeowners’ estimated taxes were outdated rates from 2024 and may change again in August, when the City Council will vote on a 5% property tax rate increase.

“I don’t understand why (these PIDs are) needed. The idea of cutting down the cost on the homes does make sense, hypothetically, but the numbers are not real,” Cheatwood said. “Understanding that, over the course of a mortgage, you might actually save money? That’s actually easy to prove and see. So let’s just prove it and see it with real numbers.”

The City Council will discuss the Highlands PIDs further on July 7.

The post Heber City developers want to impose extra property tax within housing project appeared first on Park Record.

Heber City is rethinking an update to its stormwater master plan for the North Village area after discovering planned embankments may pose a risk to human life during a severe and improbable flood.

The North Village Overlay Zone constitutes several developments north of downtown. These include the 8,000-acre community Jordanelle Ridge on the east side of U.S. 40 and The Slope on the west side. The latter, 39-acre development broke ground in April in the North Fields, a freshwater wetland area that has been used as agricultural land for generations.

The stormwater master plan exists in part to protect these developments, which are in the path of stormwater runoff, from debris flows, also called mudslides.

An update to the plan would have included several embankments designed to hold stormwater runoff. 

City engineer Russ Funk said Utah Division of Water Resources representatives indicated that the largest of these embankments, planned for near Coyote Canyon Parkway, would likely be classified as a high hazard dam, and several other embankments would also likely be classified as high hazard — meaning it poses a risk to human life if the dam fails. 

Funk had anticipated the embankments being classified as moderate or low hazard.

High-hazard dams must be engineered to endure the maximum probable flood, the largest flood that could physically occur in the area. Maximum probable floods are astronomically unlikely.

In the North Village, the maximum probable flood would have a discharge of 1,200 cubic feet of water per second.

The embankment near Coyote Canyon Parkway is designed to handle a 100-year flood, a flood with a 1% chance of being equaled or exceeded in a given year. That means the embankment can handle a flood with a discharge of 160 cubic feet of water per second.

“Is (re-engineering and constructing the dam to handle 1,200 cubic feet per second) even feasible without completely cutting out another big, huge section of the mountainside there?” Funk said. “Is there a way to do it? Probably. Is it going to be expensive? More expensive than it would have been if it was moderate.”

North Village developers would build the embankments and be reimbursed by the city, which would own the embankments and be liable if they failed. 

“This is a real risk to the city, putting these dams above the city,” said City Manager Matt Brower. “Santa Clara, Utah, in (2012), had a failure of a dam similar to that. It flooded a third of their historic downtown, causing damage to all those properties within it.”

There is currently no risk to human life in the North Village area because these embankments have not been built.

These embankments were designed in response to public outcry about letting stormwater flow to the North Fields.

Stormwater in the area has historically flowed southwest to the North Fields from higher elevations on hillsides on the east side of U.S. 40. 

“Prior to the valley being developed and farmed … you can see (from) the natural topography (that) when a big storm would come, it would direct water down these natural drainages (and) would make its way through the North Fields to the Provo River,” explained Funk.

The construction of the Timpanogos and Wasatch canals in the late 1800s altered the flow of stormwater runoff, and the construction of U.S. 40 in the next century further changed it. 

That’s why most stormwater runoff does not flow into the North Fields like it once naturally did, Funk explained.

During the two-year process between 2020 and 2022 to develop the first stormwater master plan for the North Village, Funk and city staff pitched the idea of allowing stormwater runoff flow into the North Fields, which received significant public opposition.

That’s because there are two kinds of stormwater runoff, natural and developed, the latter having been polluted by flowing through roads and development. Both types would have been permitted to flow into the North Fields.

The city then devised a plan that separated natural and developed runoff, allowing only natural runoff to flow to the North Fields. 

Both kinds of runoff would first be detained at basins. Developed runoff would be treated and retained. Natural runoff would seep into the ground.

Any natural runoff that did not infiltrate the ground would be released into the North Fields. But that plan also received pushback from the public, Funk said. So, the city came up with the idea to hold the leftover natural runoff in embankments, the high hazard dams in question.

These embankments would be about 25 feet tall and would have significant aesthetic impacts.

The Division of Water Resources has not yet officially classified the hazard levels of the dams. Funk hopes they are ultimately classified as moderate or low hazard. In that case, the city would likely stick with the current plan.

But if any of the dams are high hazard, Funk would like to return to the design that permits leftover natural runoff to flow into the North Fields instead of being retained. 

City councilors did not vote, but all were amenable to the idea because natural runoff has historically flowed to the North Fields, and developed runoff would not be permitted to flow there.

How long it might take to work out the kinks in the North Village stormwater plan is unclear. 

For Franco, the fiasco represented “the cost of doing business” in “sensitive land areas” like the North Fields.

The post Heber City reconsiders stormwater plan in North Village after discovering planned dams may be ‘high-hazard’ appeared first on Park Record.

Nearly 40 residents convinced Heber City officials to move a contested 65-foot-tall cell tower from its proposed location in their neighborhood to a new site just north of the burial grounds in the city cemetery.

City Councilor Aaron Cheatwood called the opposition the best grassroots engagement he’d seen recently.

“The residents that showed up were extremely not only professional, but respectful. They had great comments and questions and insights,” he said.

One of those insights was the potential new location for the cell tower in the city cemetery. Residents concerned about a potential negative impact to their property values — which the applicant, Atlas Tower Group, insisted would not occur — challenged city staff’s initial refusal to consider the site out of respect for the dead during a Heber City Planning Commission public hearing last month. 

The public hearing was to consider a rezone to accommodate the cell tower’s height, as it was placed in a zone that allowed cell towers up to 35 feet tall. At the Planning Commission’s suggestion, the City Council voted on Tuesday against rezoning the city-owned property.

The City Council also unanimously approved a change to its lease with Atlas Tower Group that tentatively places the cell tower near cemetery storage and maintenance facilities, creating a minimum buffer of about 400 feet between the cell tower and existing homes, according to Community Development Director Tony Kohler. The previous site on city-owned property on East Center Street near the Wasatch County Health Department would have had a buffer of about 100 to 150 feet from existing homes, he explained.

With the larger buffer, Atlas has asked to increase the cell tower’s height to 80 feet, which the Planning Commission will consider later.

The previous height of 65 feet was to accommodate three carriers instead of one. Carri Wullner, business development manager with Atlas, said an 80-foot-tall tower could improve service and attract even more carriers, tying into Atlas’ goal to have fewer, taller cell towers across the city instead of a multitude of short ones.

The cell tower may be disguised as a pine tree to blend in with the 50- to 70-foot-tall spruces in the cemetery, Kohler said. Atlas will draw up designs for the City Council and nearby residents to consider.

Mayor Heidi Franco jokingly suggested Atlas design the cell tower like the Washington Monument in honor of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Then, seriously, she thanked Atlas for “not giving up” after nearly two years of searching for a suitable site for the cell tower.

“Everyone’s going to be so happy when they can get (better service), too. I know they will be, and they’ll not realize how much effort it took,” she said. “This will be worth it.”

A few neighbors who had opposed the cell tower’s original location thanked City Councilors for their decision, with resident Brent Burnham complimenting the fact that they aren’t “plopping it in the middle of the grave sites.”

The cell tower may, in fact, become a financial supporter of the cemetery. 

City Manager Matt Brower and Kohler suggested that all money the city makes from the cell tower — nearly $600,000 over a 20-year lease, according to an estimate from Atlas — be dedicated to the cemetery’s perpetual care fund. The City Council has not yet committed to that suggestion.

The post Heber City Council moves cell tower from neighborhood to cemetery appeared first on Park Record.

The Heber City Council is getting schooled on affordable housing in a series of informative presentations that began on May 19. 

The City Council’s professor is Jason Glidden, executive director of Mountainlands Community Housing Trust, who has put together a curriculum including lessons ranging from state legislation to federal funding tools. 

The nine lessons will be taught at City Council meetings about once per month through January 2027 by instructors from the governor’s office, the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, the Utah Housing Corporation, development companies and more.

The City Council established an “Affordable Housing 101” as a top priority for 2026 during its annual retreat in January. The goal of the course is to give the City Council knowledge to facilitate more effective discussions around affordable housing. 

The city will also be completing a housing needs assessment — which might also include Midway and the county — taking stock of population growth, the number of workforce members who are commuting and how many families are cost burdened.

“Add(ing) those three together is really how your needs are going to be determined,” Glidden explained. 

That data will help determine how many affordable housing units the city needs at certain percentages of the area median income, or AMI. The AMI for a family of four in Wasatch County is $136,200. The federal government considers affordable housing to be affordable to a household making 80% AMI or less, Glidden explained.

In general, no more than 30% of a household’s income should be spent on housing, Glidden said.

The final project, so to speak, will be identifying the city’s goals around affordable housing and creating a strategic housing plan detailing ways to reach those goals.

For the City Council’s first lesson, Glidden provided background on Utah’s affordable housing shortage.

He said it all goes back to population growth.

Utah has grown from a population of nearly 2.8 million in 2010 to over 3.5 million in 2025, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The Governor’s Office of Economic Development refers to Utah as the fastest-growing state in the nation “for the past two-plus decades.”

“This was forced by a really healthy job market, obviously, a beautiful place to live, high quality of life, and so we saw a pretty large population growth going all the way back to the early 2000s and even before that,” Glidden said. 

The population growth and increased housing demand drove up housing prices and filled out much of the land left to build, Glidden explained, leading municipalities to become more restrictive around zoning and land use policy.

“Their zoning really restricted the ability to build affordable,” he said. “It promoted a lot of these larger lots and larger homes that were not necessarily affordable and prevented a lot of … density in areas that really needed it.”

Shellie Barrus, executive director of Habitat for Humanity of Summit and Wasatch Counties, said in February that Heber City’s restrictive zoning requirements were a major reason the nonprofit had been unable to build a home in its latter area of service in the past decade. 

Heber City has, however, made strides around zoning and density, the most notable being the adoption of the downtown Central Heber Overlay Zone last September. The zone allows for the development of small lots of underutilized land and allows property owners to build additional residential units on their properties.

Glidden said community members’ concerns about the density of affordable housing developments stonewall many projects.

This could be seen in the City Council’s negotiations with Garbett Homes in late 2025 and early this year. The developer initially proposed a community of 40 townhomes with five units priced at 80% AMI, but the affordable townhomes were eventually removed from the plan as neighbors raised concerns around density and the City Council whittled down the number of units, necessitating the developer to raise the price of each individual unit to cover development costs. 

And those development costs, Glidden said, are an important factor in the equation. He said “everything across the board,” from costs of labor and materials to interest rates, has increased. 

That includes impact fees, one-time fees levied by the city on new developments. Heber City increased its impact fees in February. According to city engineer Russ Funk, a developer now pays over $19,000 in impact fees per residential unit built, while they previously paid under $14,000.

Land, too, has become more expensive as it has become scarcer in Heber City.

“We’ve done an amazing job in this area of protecting open space, which is extremely important and really helps to preserve a lot of the character of this area and provide great recreational opportunities for everybody,” Glidden said. “At the same time, that reduced the amount of buildable space that we actually had.”

The final piece of the puzzle of why Heber City and the Wasatch Back as a whole have a housing shortage is changing demographics.

According to data from Mountainlands Community Housing Trust, Wasatch Back households making $75,000 or less annually have decreased by 17% since 2010, while households making $200,000 or more annually have increased by a whopping 291%.

“Folks that are not making that amount of money get driven out of the area,” Glidden said. 

While total employment in the Wasatch Back has increased 46% since 2010, commuters account for 70% of that growth, Glidden said.

As the income of the average homebuyer in the Wasatch Back has increased, so has the AMI and the price of homes in the area. The market demand in the Wasatch Back is for luxury housing, not entry-level housing, Glidden said.

“I think the largest reason (Utah has an affordable housing shortage) is that we started to build too big, to be honest with you,” Glidden said. “We got away from building affordable units.”

City Councilor Mike Johnston agreed.

“We sure did. I mean, you look at what your grandparents lived in, and parents, and then me?” he said. “My kids have gone backwards. They live in basement apartments now.” 

The next “Affordable Housing 101” lesson will be about financial modeling, or how a developer makes an affordable housing project pencil. That lesson will be taught by Glidden as well as Ryan Davis, an affordable housing consultant with Wayfinder Strategies, and Tony Tyler from Wasatch Back development company Columbus Pacific. The lesson will likely be during the June 16 City Council meeting.

The post Heber City Council’s ‘Affordable Housing 101’ asks why Utah has a shortage appeared first on Park Record.

Heber City officials will discuss a new site for a 65-foot-tall cell tower on Tuesday after nearly 40 community members expressed their disapproval about the proposed location during a Heber City Planning Commission meeting on May 12.

The original site was located on East Center Street near the Wasatch County Health Department. It would have needed to be rezoned to permit the height of the cell tower, which will accommodate up to three telecommunications carriers, and ultimately result in fewer cell towers throughout the city, explained Helmundt Strumpher, chief operating officer at Atlas Tower Group.

Neighbors expressed a variety of concerns, the foremost being a potential decline in their property values if such a tall cell tower were erected near their homes. Representatives from Atlas Tower Group insisted such impacts would not occur.

A potential solution arose when several public commenters pointed to the agenda materials, which stated the Heber City Cemetery had not been considered as a potential site solely “out of reverence for the deceased.” 

A slew of comments and off-color jokes by residents, public officials and representatives from Atlas Tower Group made it clear that placing the cell tower in the cemetery may be the best location, as it would provide a larger buffer between the tower and surrounding residences.

During the Planning Commission meeting, Community Development Director Tony Kohler confirmed that Atlas Tower Group is now dead set on placing the cell tower in the cemetery. It would likely be a cell tower tree rather than a monopole, he said.

Atlas Tower Group has been looking for an appropriate location for this cell tower for nearly two years. It has attempted nearly 50 sites, 12 of them on city-owned property.

One of those 12 was the city cemetery. While Atlas Tower Group may view it as the perfect site, planning commissioners agreed that it would still garner backlash.

“Someone’s already reached out to me and is very vocal about things about the cemetery,” Planning Commissioner Joshua Knight said. 

Kohler suggested the cemetery may be the final option.

“If the cemetery site doesn’t work, we probably ought to cut off our relationship with Atlas and say, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’” he said.

The deliberation over this specific cell tower has bloomed into a larger discussion about developing a master plan to determine where future cell towers should be placed. This master plan would hopefully prevent drawn-out negotiations like the one currently occurring with Atlas Tower Group.

Resident Eve Christensen, a structural engineer who designed cell phone towers for six months, suggested taking a creative approach to adding the infrastructure.

“There are an infinite variety of ways to put cell phone hardware on things. … Obviously, you see ones that look like trees. There are flag poles that are fatter than normal, church steeples. Everywhere, we’re plastering things,” she said. “Let’s expand the creativity in what’s possible, maintaining the character of our neighborhoods, but also, … I do think the future is here. The future is coming. We need to plan for it.”

The Planning Commission unanimously voted against rezoning the original site on East Center Street and suggested the City Council explore alternative sites. The Planning Commission did not recommend the cemetery specifically, but that is the site the City Council will discuss on Tuesday. There will be opportunities for public comment.

The Planning Commission also requested that city staff explore the possibility of making cell towers a conditional use across all zones, meaning each cell tower would require approval, instead of being automatically permitted.

The post Atlas Tower Group is dead set on placing a 65-foot-tall cell tower in Heber City Cemetery appeared first on Park Record.

In its 25 years of operation, Kentucky-based developer Völker has built over 60 affordable housing communities across 12 states. One of its most recent developments, Blossom Commons in Westminster, Colorado, broke ground this month, offering 50 affordable apartment units to seniors.

Now, Völker is eyeing Heber City for a similar project. 

Managing Director of Development Lauren Schevets approached the Heber City Council on Tuesday with an initial pitch: a community of 25 one-bedroom and 25 two-bedroom apartments for individuals and couples 62 and older. The project would cost $22 million.

“Seniors are facing a gap. It’s too expensive to remain in or downsize within market-rate housing, and there’s limited dedicated senior independent living options locally,” Schevets said. “The combination of rapid growth, high housing costs and an aging population is creating a clear and increased need for attainable senior housing options in both Heber and Wasatch County.”

The apartments would be affordable to those earning between 20% and 80% of the Area Median Income (AMI), which is between $23,600 and $94,400 for an individual in Wasatch County. Schevets said rent would be approximately 30% of the individual or couple’s income and that residents would sign one-year leases.

The catch: Heber City’s support of the project. Negotiations about what a partnership could look like have not yet occurred, but it could entail the city assisting Völker in navigating zoning and land entitlements or pitching in financially.

Most immediately, Völker is requesting that Heber City send a non-binding letter of support of the project to the Utah Housing Corporation by the end of May. The following month, Völker will apply for the Utah Housing Corporation’s competitive 9% tax credit, a subsidy awarded annually to select low-income housing developments.

All five members of the City Council were supportive of Völker’s plans to develop an affordable housing community for seniors but agreed that the proposed location was “questionable,” as Councilor Sid Ostergaard put it.

Völker’s plan was to purchase a plot of land at the corner of Heber Parkway and U.S. 40. Schevets pointed out that the site is within walking distance of Heber Valley Hospital and within a mile of several grocery stores and the Wasatch County Senior Center.

But Councilor Mike Johnston pointed out that the hospital would be on the opposite side of U.S. 40 as the housing development, and that U.S. 40 is “impossible” to cross on foot at that intersection because there are no crosswalks or traffic lights.

Councilor Yvonne Barney also criticized the site’s proximity to a busy intersection.

“There’s a lot of safety issues. I’m elderly, so I think I can definitely speak to some of those concerns,” she said.

The City Council declined to write a letter of support for the development but agreed to meet with Schevets next week to discuss alternate sites for the project. Johnston said that he had already found five vacant plots in the surrounding area that may be more suitable.

Schevets acknowledged that identifying a new site and working through conceptual planning before June would be “a challenge,” but she said she was open to work with the City Council.

All members of the City Council hope to come to a consensus with Völker.

“We really need this kind of thing. You’re talking 20% of AMI for an older person. I know those people, and they’re desperate to have a place,” Johnston said. “We absolutely don’t have that, unless someone is kind and lets them stay in their basement apartment for a significantly reduced amount.”

The post Affordable housing development for seniors may come to Heber City appeared first on Park Record.

Neil Goldman of Angstrom Development Group celebrated the groundbreaking of The Slope, a mixed-use community in the North Village in Heber City, on Thursday by recalling his childhood.

“When we were all kids, we built with LEGOs. We played with Barbies. We created a world that we wanted to see in our own minds. And we’re building that right now,” he said.

The project has been in the works for the past three years. It will be constructed in eight- to 10-month phases, with a full buildout anticipated in 2029.

It will feature 100,000 square feet of retail space, including “a hell of a lot of good restaurants,” Goldman said. During an open house in October, he and his development partners had estimated eight to 10 restaurants that would strike a balance between approachable and fine dining. 

One of these restaurants will be situated in a hotel developed by Hyatt Hotels Corporation. The Andaz Heber Valley hotel will have 85 guest rooms and 62 private condominium units.

Hyatt will also develop 140 four-bedroom villas starting at 2,900 square feet as part of the project.

The overall design of Andaz Heber Valley is inspired by the aesthetics of mountain lodges in Japan and Italy, according to designer Piotr Wiśniewski. 

The villas are geared toward wellness and families, said Tina Necrason, global head of Branded Residential at Hyatt. Each features a sauna and hot tub facing Mount Timpanogos. 

“We’re seeing a lot of younger families, I think everything from the generational wealth that’s transferring, to those who are looking for second homes. The market keeps expanding. So, we’re going to see families from everywhere, I think, not just in the U.S., but international,” Necrason said.

Angstrom Development Group previously estimated that 75-80% of the villa owners would use them as second homes. 

Necrason said the prices of the villas, condos and hotel rooms will be announced in the next three to four weeks. The permanent residences will be priced in the millions, if the estimates Angstrom Development Group provided before the Hyatt partnership was announced hold.

Angstrom Development Group estimates that The Slope will generate $4.45 million in tax revenue annually from the Andaz Heber Valley residences and hotel alone.

The group also plans to develop 130 multi-family affordable workforce housing units for employees who work on the development.

The central plaza is designed with event programming in mind for the broader Heber Valley community, not just community members who live in the development. 

And if Goldman’s childhood dreaming wasn’t evident enough, Angstrom Development Group has also planned to build a 200-foot-long tubing hill descending 45 feet from the roof of one of the buildings.

At the snowy groundbreaking, Goldman and his development partners used golden shovels to fling dirt with the help of their young children. Goldman said the five members of his development group are building the project for their children.

“This project started with (Goldman) and I dreaming about building something that we thought would be cool, that we thought we would want to bring our families to and enjoy together,” said developer Andy Dorobek. “And we knew if we did something that we liked, that there would be a lot of other people who would like it, too.”

Of the five developers, one, Ryan Miller, lives in Utah. The other four are from California and Texas, though Goldman has a second home in Utah. Miller has been developing “golf course communities,” hotels and resorts for the past 25 years. He moved to Park City eight years ago. 

The Slope will be the first development Miller has worked on in Utah. For years, he had been eyeing the nearly 40-acre parcel of land in the North Fields for development. When Goldman and Dorobek entitled the land, Miller introduced himself on LinkedIn, and they became fast friends and business partners. 

The Slope’s positioning in the North Fields has garnered backlash from some residents. The North Fields is a wetland area that has been used primarily for farming for generations. 

The controversial Utah Department of Transportation’s Heber Valley bypass, which will divert traffic off Main Street, is also planned in the area. The Slope will not be affected by its proximity to the bypass.

The foremost concern residents have about development in the North Fields is potential pollution of the pristine aquifer that lies underneath the area and much of Heber City, feeding into the Provo River.

The Heber City Planning Commission’s approval of a preliminary site plan for The Slope in December was delayed nearly two months by one resident’s concerns about the groundwater. 

Dan Simmons, a farmer and landowner neighboring The Slope, and Greg Poole, a civil engineer with Hansen, Allen & Luce, argued the methods used in The Slope’s third-party groundwater study were misleading because groundwater levels had only been measured once in August 2025 instead of being continually evaluated for seasonal fluctuations.

Simmons said he had observed groundwater rise above ground on his own property in particularly wet seasons. 

Heber City engineer Russ Funk hired another third-party engineer to review the groundwater study, who found no issues with how the study was conducted.

The groundwater study is intended to prevent pollution and ensure the development has stable foundations. The findings of the study required Angstrom Development Group to rework the civil engineering of The Slope. During the first phase of construction, the developers will also install a layer of dirt to ensure a minimum of 4 feet of dirt above historic groundwater levels per Heber City code.

Goldman and Dorobek have both called Heber City’s groundwater code more “stringent” than other municipalities. Funk said the same before the Planning Commission approved the preliminary site plan in December.

The developers are well aware of the concerns residents have about The Slope, but insist on an ethos of “conscious capitalism” — putting stakeholders, residents and the land above making a quick buck.

“This land, over 150 years ago, was first inhabited by the Mormon Battalion. … And ever since there, it’s been inhabited, and it’s been looked after, and it’s going to continue to get looked after,” Goldman said during his groundbreaking speech. “We’re going to make sure that we protect the aquifer underneath us. We’re going to make sure we protect the Provo River to our west. We’re going to make sure we protect the North Fields. And we’re going to make sure that each of you has a place where you can go and create memories and come back year after year.”

Dorobek’s response to why Angstrom Development Group had targeted Heber City for The Slope was, “Look at it.” 

“We’re nestled in this valley between all these beautiful mountains with a river right next door to us. We have lakes on both sides of us,” he said. “It’s a phenomenal place in this state, in this country, in the entire planet Earth. It’s beautiful here.”

The post Developers promise North Fields protections as mixed-use development in area breaks ground  appeared first on Park Record.

Russ Watts, president of development company Watts Enterprises, said he hopes to provide workforce housing for essential employees, but can’t afford to do so without a financial investment from Heber City.

The Celebration Workforce Community development is located near the Wasatch County Library and Wasatch High School. The 8.75-acre project would consist of 230 workforce housing units in the form of one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments, townhomes and flats. 

Mountainlands Community Housing Trust would manage the community, guaranteeing the rental units are affordable to those making an average of 60-80% of the area median income, or $81,840 to $109,120 annually for a family of four. 

Watts estimated that the project would require a deferral of more than $3 million in impact fees for up to 12 years to make the $35 million project financially feasible. The developer told the Heber City Council on Tuesday that the impact fees would be paid back with a 4% interest rate after the time period expires.

Impact fees are one-time charges by government entities on new developments. Heber City’s share of impact fees was estimated to be around $2 million. Watts’ estimate also included fees from the community-owned electric utility company, Heber Light & Power, the Wasatch Fire District and the Heber Valley Special Service District. Jason Glidden, executive director of Mountainlands Community Housing, said overcoming impact fees has been a hurdle for affordable housing developments.

“The impact fees are going up tremendously high very quickly, not only on projects like this, but on townhomes. I’ve seen a 50% increase over the last year,” he said.

The City Council also voted to increase impact fees in November, with changes going into effect in February. Heber City engineer Russ Funk said the impact fees per typical residential unit in a development have gone up from $13,688 to $19,305.

Funk said he was “glad” that the impact fees would be deferred instead of waived, but that there was “risk” involved. Funk explained that the city relies on money generated from impact fees as part of its revenue stream. Officials would have to take out a loan, which may have a higher interest rate than the 4% Watts Enterprises agreed to pay back, if Heber City needed the $2 million in impact fees generated by Celebration Housing Community.

Still, city councilors and staff members were supportive of the affordable housing project.

City Councilor Mike Johnston said the project would be helpful for those early in their careers, and co-councilor Aaron Cheatwood added that the deed-restricted units would allow renters to save for future homes.

Heber City Manager Matt Brower said, “If you were to invest in an affordable housing project, this is probably the one to consider due to its location — being in downtown, close to the transportation, close to the schools, close to the shopping — (and) the fact that you’re getting a 60% (AMI), potentially.”

The City Council voted unanimously to support the project’s deferment of impact fees, with the stipulation that the exact monetary numbers in that agreement would have to be updated with city staff and brought before the council again for final approval.

Watts estimated construction on the Celebration Workforce Community would begin in Spring 2027.

The Celebration Workforce Community was first brought to the City Council in April 2024 and has been in the works since. 

Watts has been in ongoing discussions about the project with various employers, including the Wasatch County School District, the Wasatch Fire District, the Heber City Police Department and Intermountain Healthcare.

Additionally, the Wasatch Housing Authority has agreed to contribute up to $750,000 to the development, and the school district will provide land for shared parking between Wasatch High School and the development. 

Watts Enterprises has operated out of the Heber Valley for 25 years and created developments like Ranch Landing Condos and Prestige Senior Housing. Watts Enterprises has built workforce housing developments in Wyoming and Idaho, but the Celebration Workforce Community will be its first in the Heber Valley. Watts said the idea for the community came about because 35% of the development group’s workforce has to commute.

“We want you to work here. We want you to live here. We want you to be part of this society and community, and we want you to save money,” Watts said.

The post More than $3 million in impact fees would be deferred for Heber City workforce housing development appeared first on Park Record.

After nearly two months’ delay, the Heber City Planning Commission on Tuesday approved a preliminary site plan for The Slope, a mixed-use luxury development featuring retail, housing and a hotel, set alongside the Provo River. Construction on The Slope is expected to begin this spring.

The site plan was initially brought to the Planning Commission for approval on Oct. 14, but was delayed after Dan Simmons, who owns farmland next to The Slope, expressed skepticism around the findings of Angstrom Development Group’s groundwater study. 

In an email to city engineer Russ Funk before the October Planning Commission meeting, Simmons wrote, “As the immediately adjacent landowner, I know that groundwater can be at times only a foot beneath the surface in the areas, and indeed can even sometimes sub up above ground, depending on the water year conditions.”

Groundwater is any water found underneath the Earth’s surface, which can gather in layers called aquifers. A groundwater study not only ensures protection of the water supply, but it is also intended to ensure a development’s foundations are stable and will not cause flooding.

The city requires a minimum of 4 feet of dirt above historic groundwater levels for potential stormwater infiltration.

On Aug. 4, third-party GSH Geotechnical Consultants measured groundwater levels on the 40-acre site by excavating 12 test pits. The study found that groundwater depth ranged from 4.5 to 10.2 feet below the surface that day. 

The consultants also estimated that the maximum historic groundwater depth was 3 to 8.7 feet across the test pits. This was done by studying mottling, rust streaks and spots in the soil that form during fluctuating water conditions. 

The findings around historic groundwater depth led to additional development costs. Angstrom Development Group partner Andy Dorobek said “almost the entire civil engineering” had to be redesigned on the site. Funk added that the development group will have to pay to import “a significant amount of fill” at its expense.

However, Simmons still had concerns, particularly because the groundwater levels were measured only once, on “a date late in the summer of a hot, dry year,” instead being monitored continually to evaluate seasonal fluctuations. 

He also worried about potential groundwater contamination and impacts on the Provo River. The Wasatch County Health Department classified the area where The Slope will be built as highly sensitive to groundwater contamination in its 2020 report on groundwater quality in the county.

Simmons’ concerns were shared by Greg Poole, civil engineer with Hansen, Allen & Luce, who had been hired by Simmons in the past to evaluate groundwater purity on his property, though not the groundwater level. Simmons and Poole’s concerns were based on eyewitness accounts of what they had observed on Simmons’ property.

Funk called Poole a “very reputable hydrologic engineer,” which was why the city chose to look further into the groundwater levels.

“We certainly don’t want to get every layman, neighbor, citizen coming in and thinking they can make an allegation and delay a project,” Funk said during the Oct. 14 meeting. “(But) we certainly can’t just say, ‘No, we’re not gonna listen to that.’ It definitely needs some attention.”

Funk then hired another third party, engineer Patrick R. Emery from Gordon Geotechnical Engineering, Inc., to review GSH Geotechnical Consultants’ groundwater study. 

Emery submitted his review on Dec. 3. He confirmed that soil mottling is “standard practice for determining the maximum historical groundwater depth at a site with the understanding that there are some limitations.” He also wrote that the number of test pit explorations was appropriate given the site’s size. Essentially, Emery found no issue with the methods GSH Geotechnical Consultants had used in its study. 

Since groundwater was the primary remaining concern about the development, the Planning Commission approved the preliminary site plan unanimously during the meeting.

“Heber City’s stormwater design standards are more stringent than most municipalities. … We have done our due diligence … to enforce our code,” Funk said. “There hasn’t been pushback. The developer has come forward and, from my perspective, tried to meet all those requirements without trying to argue against them.”

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