The city council will meet Tuesday, August 6, to discuss ideas for the heart of Heber’s downtown.
The conversation comes after some city leaders visited Caldwell, Idaho, to draw inspiration for their own town.
“What we’re doing is looking at Caldwell and looking at their downtown: how they are using the downtown to manage events and to invite the residents to a centralized space," Heber City councilmember Aaron Cheatwood said. "We’re looking at that as an opportunity to refine our development strategy with the downtown, specifically with how we keep people engaged and coming out to events.”
He said the council will also discuss updates to Envision 2050, the city’s long-term plan including impacts to zoning and development in different neighborhoods around town.
New development is a perennially controversial topic in Heber, especially if a builder wants a code exception. Cheatwood said he invites members of the public to come to meetings to get a better understanding of how plans move through city government.
“Something that’s really important – I wish I had a better voice to tell the public this – when a developer comes forward to us with a change or they want to see something that doesn’t fit with the code, that isn’t the city automatically saying we’re in favor of this change,” he said. “It has to come forward where we can talk about it.”
He said those conversations in public meetings enable city leaders to say no to plans that are against code, to refine developers’ ideas and set a precedent for other plans, and to give the public a chance to weigh in.
“We hear a lot of things on social media, we hear through the grapevine and at the store and whatnot,” he said. “But we just don’t have a whole lot of public attendance to these meetings, and I really wish people would come – either digitally or in person – and just let us know what they’re thinking, let us know what they’re feeling.”
He said councilmembers do their best to make sure new developments match residents’ priorities for Heber, from traffic and parking impacts to utilities and snow removal. But he said they value hearing from citizens at meetings about what they care about most.
Tuesday’s city council meeting begins at 4 p.m. with a work session; the regular session begins at 6 p.m. A full agenda and a link to attend online are available on Heber's website.
