The Wasatch County and Heber City councils are working to prevent future development in the North Fields wetlands, which have primarily been used for agriculture for generations. The collaboration is a response to the Utah Department of Transportation’s plans to build a new highway in the area to divert through traffic off of Main Street. The councils are seeking to strengthen a 2019 memorandum stating that zone changes, municipal annexation and extension of urban services into the North Fields “should be avoided” to preserve the wetland area for agricultural use. “I think ‘avoided’ is not a strong enough word,” said County Councilor Luke Searle at a joint meeting in February. Since then, officials have added other strategies to preserve the North Fields to the memorandum. The updated language would create more stringent protections by restricting Heber City from expanding into the North Fields, particularly past 900 North on the west side of U.S. 40. The current draft asks the county to zone the North Fields only for agricultural purposes, allowing only one residential unit per 20 acres.  Additionally, the memorandum reaffirms Heber City’s commitment to preserving the land by purchasing land and conservation easements in the North Fields.  These will be funded from the North Fields preservation fee, a one-time charge of $2,500 per unit paid by developers building in the North Village Overlay Zone.  The zone encompasses about 95 acres at the intersection of River Road and U.S. 40, which were annexed into Heber City in December 2024. The zone and the North Fields preservation fee were established in January 2025, when the City Council approved development agreements for The Crossings and The Slope developments, the latter of which broke ground last week.  The councils have not yet decided what portion of the North Fields to preserve. An initial map by the County Council targeted almost the entire North Fields. The City Council is more interested in preserving a slice of land between existing U.S. 40 and the bypass route, north of 900 North and south of College Way. “I don’t intend our preservation to be little plots of land in the middle of nowhere,” City Councilor Aaron Cheatwood said during Tuesday’s meeting. “I’m really worried about everything that comes next to the highway. … I’m trying to have a developer mindset and saying, ‘If there’s a brand new road, there’s a lot of incentive to build something.’” Cheatwood compared the conservation plan to the establishment of Central Park in New York City in that it gets ahead of future population growth and development.  But Mayor Heidi Franco pointed out that purchasing land and establishing conservation easements in the North Fields would be a “ginormous project.”  She estimated the land between the existing U.S. 40 and the bypass route would be valued at close to $100 million.  “Conservation easements are usually half the value of that,” she said, pulling from her experience on the Wasatch Open Lands Board. “Of course, there’s a lot of existing residences there, too, where it could increase the costs for any conservation easements.” The high cost of the project is why the City Council wants financial participation from the county and possibly other municipalities like Midway, Daniel and Charleston. “If we’re going to commit in a contract, ‘This is where we’re putting our preservation fees,’ I would like the rest of the county to also participate,” said City Councilor Mike Johnston. “Of course, the county is half of Heber City, so we’re really going to give three-quarters of this.” In recent discussions, many elected officials have questioned whether updating the memorandum will serve its intended purpose. During the County Council’s discussion on April 1, resident Pam Patrick commented that a memorandum of understanding “does not mean a whole lot” unless it has “teeth.” County Councilor Mark Nelson reassured her that “the county and Heber City have never been more aligned or worked more closely together.” But as Heber City Attorney Jeremy Cook pointed out, it could be difficult to force future elected officials to honor the memorandum. “Certainly, there are issues that we agree to, development agreements, where we do bind future city councils. But that gets very questionable with binding future city councils to policy decisions, such as, ‘We will never annex this,’” he said.  Cook continued, “I think there are certain things that we could have in a binding agreement, like, ‘We agree that we’ll put our money in here if you guys will match it.’ And if we didn’t, then that agreement would just terminate. But we’re going to have to think seriously about whether or not we have certain language in here that binds future city councils indefinitely to a policy decision.” Franco suggested that preventing Heber City’s annexation into the North Fields may be most effective if it is officially implemented in the city’s annexation policy.  “(Memorandums of understanding) are like pie crust promises,” she said. “They can easily be broken.” The memorandum of understanding will continue to be negotiated by the county and city before adoption at a later date. The post Wasatch County, Heber City negotiate North Fields protections ahead of bypass construction appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less