Heber wants to use a tax increment financing model to pay for projects it says will make downtown more vibrant and profitable. It’s looking to the county and the school district for help with its community reinvestment agency (CRA) – but to win their support, the city needs to convince them it’s worth deferring some tax revenue.
At the Heber City Council meeting Tuesday, Aug. 5, City Manager Matt Brower said he envisions 20-year agreements with Wasatch County and the Wasatch County School District.
During that time, for any new property value in the area, 75% of the property taxes would go to Heber City’s CRA, while 25% would go to the taxing entity. The county and school district would keep the same tax dollars they receive now – only new growth would be included in the tax increment.
At the end of 20 years, those entities will go back to receiving 100% of the taxes for the area.
Neither the county nor the school board jumped at the proposal last year. The city has since made the area smaller, with the hope that a more specific plan and a more modest ask might change some minds.
Brower said he estimates $137,000 in new Wasatch County property tax revenue will be generated by the downtown annually over the next five years or so.
“That would be split, so the city would get – the [CRA] would get – about $102,000 at a 75% split, and the county would get 25% of that, about $35,000 of it,” he said.
He said he also expects much more economic development downtown than $137,000 worth of taxes.
“It’s quite likely that it’d be a lot larger number, because there’d be a lot more redevelopment in the downtown, but all we’re doing is projecting what we feel confident in,” he said.
For the school district, which receives a much higher share of the region’s property taxes, the increment would also be larger.
“Based upon what we’ve been able to reasonably project over the next three or four years, about an annual increment of $757,000,” Brower said.
Of that, roughly $550,000 would go toward downtown reinvestment.
If the school district separately raises taxes, those dollars would be exempt from the agreement with Heber City.
Councilmember Scott Phillips compared the reinvestment plan to the Military Installation Development Authority’s presence in northern Wasatch County. The state agency is managing major development projects, in part, through a 40-year tax sharing agreement with Wasatch County.
“This is what MIDA’s doing at Deer Valley East Village. It would be great if the county and the school district could help the residents of Wasatch County and Heber City’s core and do the same.”
The revised CRA boundaries mean that Heber would only get about half of what it originally proposed.
Heber City and the Central Utah Water Conservancy District both already participate in the CRA. For fiscal year 2026, Brower estimates the CRA will have about $250,000 in tax increment to spend on downtown improvements.
Heber’s CRA may also enter a separate agreement with New London, a commercial development slated for construction near Smith’s Marketplace.
Next, Heber City councilmembers will meet with Wasatch County and the school district about the revised CRA plans.
City leaders say they hope both governments will vote on whether to join the tax increment plan before the end of the year.
When Heber last proposed the idea, Wasatch County councilmembers were split 3-3 in November 2024. The school board was unenthusiastic about the plan at an April 2024 meeting and declined to take a formal vote.
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