As we’ve reported, members of the Hideout Town Planning Commission Thursday night heard details from developer Nate Brockbank on the Town Center he hopes to create in a possible annexation by Hideout.
During the discussion, Brockbank said Summit County wasn’t always opposed to his plans.
They also heard one of their Council members explain why they’re considering annexation again—in spite of recent actions by the Utah Legislature.
Brockbank’s plan for a Town Center—as an annexation by the town of Hideout into Summit County—has brought legal challenges from Summit.
But he said that previously, he brought the plan to Summit County.
“I had several meetings with Pat Putt, who is their Planner. We actually hired their engineer, that he recommended, not their engineer, but they recommended we use Eric Langvardt. You’re reading a lot of stuff in the paper. But what we’re doing is exactly what they wanted us to do. He really liked our plan. Now he said he hates it in the media now. But when we were working with him, he really liked this plan. And so we’ve hired the engineer that they’ve hired to do their stuff behind Home Depot, that they’re developing. And so, yeah, we don’t feel like we’re doing something that no one wants us to do. We met with them several times, and this is what they liked.”
Meanwhile, Council Member Jerry Dwinell told the Planning Commission why they’re still interested in an annexation to accommodate a Town Center.
One, Hideout residents want to have services and amenities nearby. Right now, they have to drive into Park City or over to Kimball Junction.
Second, they need a school site, rather than have their children travel an hour away to classes in Heber.
And finally, Dwinell said, the town will struggle for revenue if it only has residential development.
Hideout’s first attempt at annexation, in July, was possible because a bill passed in last winter’s Legislature had a controversial provision inserted that allowed a city to annex into a neighboring county without that county’s permission.
In a recent special session, legislators repealed the bill, but their action won’t take effect until the end of October.
Dwinell said they’ve tried to find out why the Legislature left that window of time open. He said that according to their representatives—State Senator Ron Winterton and House Representative Tim Quinn—there was no particular motive.
“And those legislators claimed that there was no intent to leave a window open for anybody that had something in process to continue that process. They couldn’t imagine that anyone would want to move forward. Since that call, several of us on the Council received phone calls from other legislators, both from the State Senate and from the House. We got a different view that was expressed to us, in that there was no intent to disadvantage either the county or the municipality. And that’s why the 60-day window was left open, cause if they had closed it immediately, that would have advantaged the county. There was more that they had to say on that as well, so there was a feeling on the majority of the Council that we are still within a legal window to proceed.”
Brockbank told Planning Commissioners he’s creating a neighborhood where residents can live, work and play. In fact, he said, they don’t have to leave if they don’t want to.
And he said it makes planning sense.
“That’s what I’ve been taught my whole life, is that counties are kind of holding areas for cities. And so what we’re doing, I just don’t think it’s as bad as the media made it out to be. We had a few hundred homes in the area and some commercial that’s really, really needed for this area.”
Developer Nate Brockbank.
