As plans currently stand, the Jordanelle Ridge developer intends to place the land in northern Heber under an easement held jointly by the Heber City and Wasatch County governments.
Local leaders and conservation experts are divided over whether that approach will provide certain, long-term protection and public access.
Typically, conservation easements in the Heber Valley go through a third-party land trust.
Cheryl Fox is the CEO of Summit Land Conservancy. She said one of her main concerns about the proposed agreement is specificity.
“The agreement that they have crafted does not list what they’re trying to protect,” she said on KPCW’s “Local News Hour” Nov. 4. “It says, here’s a bunch of things you can do. But it doesn’t say, you know, we’re trying to protect viewshed or public access.”
She said that’s a problem because in a few decades, if anyone wants to propose changes to the agreement, it could be hard to see the original intent of the easement.
The agreement also doesn’t yet include a timeframe for how long it will be binding, according to Fox.
“That is actually required by state statute for conservation easements,” she said. “So, we had asked that they add a term, like, how long is it supposed to last?”
Fox also said she worries about the Jordanelle Ridge homeowners’ association taking charge of enforcing the easement’s terms.
“It’s not a great idea to have the landowner enforcing the conservation easement either, right?” she said. “Because that’s the fox guarding the henhouse.”
Elected leaders and the Jordanelle Ridge developer debated the terms of the easement at a Wasatch County Council meeting last month, and it’s slated to return to the agenda Nov. 19.
Meanwhile, leaders are talking about possible revisions. Those could include baseline documentation requirements and annual monitoring of the land’s condition.
Summit Land Conservancy is a financial supporter of KPCW. For a full list, click here.
