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.

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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.

Heber City grew by an estimated 697 new residents in 2025. That 3.5% increase to 20,811 people made it the fourth fastest-growing city in Utah with a population between 20,000 and 49,999, and seventh overall.

Park City had the fifth fastest decline for a city with 5,000 to 19,999 residents when its population dropped by 56 to 8,284, a 0.7% decrease.

Those figures are part of a report released Tuesday by the University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute on population change from July 1, 2024, to July 1, 2025, for Utah’s 255 incorporated cities and towns and 29 unincorporated county areas. 

“These estimates strengthen local and state decision-making by revealing where growth is concentrated and where population is declining, providing leaders with a foundation for better regional planning and investment,” Natalie Gochnour, the Gardner Policy Institute director, said.

The report says 172 communities had population increases, 100 communities had declines and 12 stayed the same. Utah added 44,351 residents, a 1.3% increase that bumped up the population to an estimated 3,551,150 as of July 1, 2025.

As of July 1, 2025, unincorporated Summit County had added 73 residents, which brought the population to 27,484, a 0.3% increase. Unincorporated Wasatch County saw a 1.0% rise to 9,496, with 92 new community members.

The top three cities with the largest absolute growth were Saratoga Springs, which added 4,682 residents; Eagle Mountain, with 4,169 new residents; and Salt Lake City, with 3,303 new residents. Saratoga Springs, population 60,351, and Eagle Mountain, population 65,409, also had the two highest percentage increases, 8.4% and 6.8%, respectively. 

Salt Lake City’s population went up 1.5% to 221,118 residents. The report notes the capital city continues to grow while many older, well-established cities both in Utah and the United States experience declines.

Other findings include that for the first time, more than half of Utah’s population lived in cities with a population of 50,000 or more. Approximately 27% lived in communities of 20,000 to 49,999; 17% in communities of 5,000 to 19,999; 4% in communities of 1,000 to 4,999; and about 1% in communities with populations under 1,000.

The institute says it provides a comprehensive set of estimates by applying the housing unit method. The model starts with a base count of the household population from the decennial census and updates it based on the number of new housing units and Census tract-level persons per housing unit. Then, household growth is adjusted to align with county totals and combined with estimates of the group quarters population to produce an annual total population estimate.

For a complete list of cities, towns and unincorporated areas and their estimated populations, visit tinyurl.com/33mthpwx.

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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.

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.”

The post The Slope goes forward in Planning Commission appeared first on Park Record.

Heber City’s population is expected to double over the next 20 years. To address that growth, the city is raising impact fees on new developments to help pay for infrastructure and maintain the city’s level of service. 

The Heber City Council approved an updated Facilities Master Plan for 2025 to 2045 with these changes on Nov. 18. This version of the plan has been in the works for over a year and was created by city officials and Horrocks Engineers.

Heber City’s current population is estimated to be 22,156. By 2045, that number will be 44,419. These calculations are from city staff and incorporate tweaks to data provided by the Mountainland Association of Governments, which was found to be “under-forecasting” growth in the North Village area, explained Horrocks Engineers principal engineer Willa Motley.

The total cost of improvements to streets and the water, sewer, storm drain, pressurized irrigation and parks and trails systems over the next 20 years is expected to be $215 million. Of that, 49%, or $105.4 million, will be paid through impact fees on new developments.

City operating funds and grants will cover a portion of the remaining costs. About $18.5 million of the $215 million price tag will come from city operating funds.

But Heber City engineer Russ Funk emphasized that the majority of contributions will come from developers, both through impact fees and voluntary contributions.

“People talk about cities building cities,” explained Funk. “In large part, developers are who build the cities.”

The culinary water, sanitary sewer, pressurized irrigation, parks and trails and streets impact fees are all increasing, as well as the monthly storm drain utility fee. Notably, the City Council voted to continue the 45% subsidy of the streets impact fee for non-residential developments. 

To Funk’s knowledge, that subsidy is paid for by the city’s transportation fund. The amount paid by the city over the next 20 years is expected to be $10.3 million, and is not included in the estimated $18.5 million coming from city operating funds to pay for the next 20 years of infrastructure improvements.

“The idea is that it would be an incentive to try to get more business that then provides more of a tax base,” Funk explained.

The full list of increased impact fees can be found in the online agenda for the Nov. 18 City Council meeting under section “Ordinance 2025-28 Adopting a Facilities Master Plan.”

According to a staff report compiled by Funk, a developer typically pays $13,688 in impact fees per residential unit built. With the new impact fees, that number will increase to $19,305.

A public hearing was held before the vote, but no one made public comment. The changes were approved unanimously by the City Council. 

“It’s tough for me to just keep these prices high, and I know it’s painful,” said City Councilor Mike Johnston. “But that’s the inflationary world we live in, and that’s the level of service we live in.”

The new Facilities Master Plan goes into effect Feb. 16.

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Ordinance No. 987 — the Summit County Council’s 4 to 1 approval of Dakota Pacific’s mixed-use project in Kimball Junction — has formally been repealed. The development will still be built, though, much to the ire of many residents.

Summit County residents launched a referendum effort to rescind the ordinance, but a Third District Court ruling effectively deemed the proposed ballot initiative moot. Judge Richard Mrazik last week determined that state law supersedes the county’s legislative authority regarding the Tech Center property, and that a referendum would not change “the practical reality” of what’s been approved under Senate Bill 26.

The law, passed by the Utah Legislature earlier this year, forced Summit County to approve the development as an administrative act rather than a legislative one, rendering Ordinance No. 987 ineffective. 

S.B. 26 provided the same use and zoning changes as the amended development agreement adopting the mixed-use development. Summit County was also limited in its ability to stop Dakota Pacific’s approval under S.B. 26. Summit County Manager Shayne Scott approved an administrative development agreement with Dakota Pacific on July 28, which closely mirrors what the County Council approved in December.

The County Council was asked to repeal the ordinance on Aug. 20. However, councilors declined to do so because they wanted to wait until the Third District Court ruling.

County Councilors Roger Armstrong and Canice Harte explained on Wednesday that they had hoped to receive clarity on the rules of the referendum process, which was called into question by a group of residents who sued the Summit County Clerk’s Office for rejecting dozens of signature packets.

County Councilor Megan McKenna was the lone vote in favor of the repeal then, saying she hoped to save taxpayers money from drawing out legal proceedings.

Mrazik’s ruling did not address the signature collection issue. 

“I think we were hoping that maybe the court would sidestep mootness and maybe make a determination as to what’s required under the current law as it relates to referendum. That did not happen,” Armstrong said.

Summit County Clerk Eve Furse invalidated 30 packets for “improper circulation” and declared the referendum insufficient earlier this year after sponsors did not meet the minimum signature count.

Protect Summit County, the group organizing the referendum, argued Furse overstepped her duties. If she had counted and verified the signatures in the rejected packets, the referendum would have met the requirements to put it up for a vote in the general election.

The mootness ruling, as well as repealing the ordinance, means there’s nothing for voters to decide on, so it will not appear on the ballot.

The group said it planned on appealing the mootness ruling to “fight to get Ordinance 987 on the ballot as quickly as possible” if the County Council did not repeal the ordinance.

“Summit County could have resolved this matter weeks ago when we asked them to stipulate Ordinance 987 has no force and effect. This would’ve saved both sides over $150K,” the group previously said in a statement.

While Dakota Pacific withdrew its application under Ordinance No. 987 and requested the County Council repeal it because of the new administrative development agreement, the development firm could have technically come back and submitted an application again if it still existed. 

The County Council unanimously voted to repeal the ordinance, saying it is obsolete since it’s no longer tied to an active application.

Harte was also critical of community members who used the disagreement about the rules of the referendum process as an opportunity to make “personal attacks” against Furse. County Councilor Chair Tonja Hanson agreed.

“I think we as a people in the county value the right to a referendum. (The state doesn’t) make it easy on us, that’s for sure. It certainly would have been nice to get some clarity on that, but that doesn’t mean it’s OK to malign a person, and so I’m sorry that that happened to you, Eve,” Harte said.

Attorneys representing the Clerk’s Office asked Mrazik to dismiss the case on Aug. 29 because of the mootness ruling. A decision had not been made as of Friday morning.

Under S.B. 26, Dakota Pacific is approved to build a 725-unit development on nearly 50 acres in Kimball Junction as well as 160 county-owned affordable housing units — for a total of 885 units. There would also be a senior living facility, public plaza, new transit center, structured parking and a pedestrian bridge developed through a public-private partnership.

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