Heber City Utah – Following countless hours of careful consideration, Heber City Council unanimously approved the petition for annexation of the Sorenson Property. Meaning Heber City’s boundaries will expand to include the 8,288 acres previously managed by Wasatch County.
The entitlements to build 5,700 units on the 8,288 acres were granted approximately twenty years ago by a previous Wasatch County Council. Therefore, even without the annexation agreement with Heber City, the property would have had the same number of units as part of unincorporated Wasatch County.
Corresponding with the Envision Heber 2050 public input process, the developers are required to comply with the new Heber City General Plan. Compliance with the plan includes creating clustered village centers, commercial opportunities, and open spaces wherever possible. Up to sixty acres of improved park space will be dedicated to the city for public use; regional parks will remain open to the public and encompass the existing trails as well as future trails. Trailheads will include improvements such as restrooms, gathering spaces, and paved parking. Commitments have been made to allocate ten acres of land for future city service buildings.
The overall project will include 5,122 acres of open space, 3,166 developable acres, and is slated to be built out in multiple phases over the course of the next forty years. The developer will be required to include 577 affordable housing units and invest $20 million into a new water and sewer system for the project.
In order to protect existing Heber City residents from shouldering additional tax burdens related to the new development, City Council required provisions to be included in the Master Development Agreement (MDA) so that if unforeseen costs should arise in the future, the burden would be placed solely on those that are directly contributing to them.
Heber City Council is both optimistic and confident that the public input generated through the Envision Heber 2050 process has been appropriately represented in the MDA and will be reflected in the future development of the annexed acreage.