Larry H. Miller Real Estate, which owns more than a thousand acres of Hoytsville land, is courting Coalville after years of planning with Summit County stalled.
Not so fast, Bill Wilde, a Hoytsville-area resident who sits on the Eastern Summit County Planning Commission, said during a Jan. 13 Coalville City Council meeting.
“I'm not for or against it. I know they've got to do something with that ground. That's a given,” Wilde told the council. “What I think we need to do is be smart about it.”
Wilde has some of the same concerns that ground the planning process to a halt at the planning commission last summer, including housing affordability, timeline, traffic and density. So too, do a handful of other Hoytsville residents who spoke during public comment.
If Coalville does take on Cedar Crest, Wilde said it should hold the developer to a decades-long buildout.
Wilde added there must be a plan to add a Hoytsville exit to Interstate 80; otherwise, traffic will go through Coalville or Wanship.
Under the proposal made to the county, Cedar Crest could have between 2,000 to 4,000 homes, plus businesses. The Miller real estate team has not yet made a formal proposal to Coalville, nor has it formally started the annexation process.
Some on the Coalville City Council question whether the city has the staffing to process the application, if it’s filed.
Since Hoytsville landowners first considered developing their land in 2019, most of the planning work has occurred in the county’s planning department.
“If we can actually lend our skill sets and services to COVID as a city, we'd be happy to do so,” said Summit County Community Development Director and Coalville resident Peter Barnes on KPCW’s “Local News Hour” Jan. 8.
“We're interested in what's for the benefit of the residents themselves, not for the financial wherewithal of either the county or the city. But we'd always prefer higher density projects to be within municipal boundaries where services and taxes can be collected accordingly and services provided.”
Hoytsville has previously voted against incorporating as a town.
Barnes expects any Coalville discussions to mirror those had by the eastside planning commission.
One issue that’s already come up is the sewer. The city has its own sewer system Cedar Crest could connect to instead of building its own.
Mike Brown, one of the Hoytsville landowners who sold his land after deciding he couldn’t make a living farming in the area anymore, previously told KPCW the annexation proposal doesn’t surprise him.
Before the landowners went to the county, they asked Coalville for annexation. Brown said “it makes more sense.”
Barnes told KPCW his office hasn’t received formal communications from Larry H. Miller Real Estate in months.
After a certain amount of time without communication, the application before the county expires. Barnes doesn’t expect that to happen because it would be “fairly catastrophic from either side” to start planning from scratch.
