Updated Jan. 15
Community Development Director Peter Barnes told KPCW Jan. 15 that his staff have not been notified that anyone is petitioning for a new town near Browns Canyon.
Planner Ray Milliner said at the Jan. 13 Snyderville Basin Planning Commission meeting that a developer had applied for incorporation with the state. Barnes told KPCW that’s not correct.
“There have been prior conversations about the possibility of a larger development in Browns Canyon, and we are expecting that,” Barnes said Jan. 15. “As part of this year's work program, we've been led to believe to expect some form of application sooner rather than later.”
But Barnes’ office hasn’t received any formal notice or paperwork.
Most of that area is zoned for agriculture and one residential unit per 80 acres, so any more development would require approval from the Summit County Council.
Creating a town on the land would grant that town land use authority.
But contrary to what planners said Jan. 13, the unnamed landowner or landowners may not be seeking to incorporate a town after all.
KPCW has filed a public records request to learn more from the lieutenant governor’s office, which handles city and town incorporations in Utah.
KPCW's Jan. 14 report
Summit County planning staff say an unnamed developer has applied to form a town in the Browns Canyon area.
Details are sparse. The lieutenant governor’s office had not posted the application online as of midday Jan. 14.
Summit County senior planner Ray Milliner mentioned the application at the Snyderville Basin Planning Commission Jan. 13, although the town would be within the eastern Summit County planning district.
“A developer has made an application for a township in Browns Canyon with the [lieutenant] governor's office,” he said. “We were notified of that about a week ago. That could be thousands of units. We're not sure what it'll be.”
The Browns Canyon area has seen incorporation attempts before.
Five years ago, a developer solicited resident interest in forming “Garff Ranch City” on 17,000 acres from Browns Canyon to Kamas. It never followed through with a formal incorporation application.
A few years before that, The Park Record reported that Promontory developer Francis Najafi applied to form a town on land owned by his LLC, South Point Utah. South Point pulled its application but still owns that land located between the rail trail and Browns Canyon Road near state Route 248.
The most recent efforts to form towns in Summit County have made it farther along in the process.
That includes Dakota Pacific Real Estate’s pending township in Kimball Junction, which it has framed as a backstop to ensure it can build its controversial mixed-use project there.
Landowners west of Kamas nearly got the would-be town of West Hills on the 2025 ballot, but other landowners blocked it in court.
Now the parties are waiting to argue the case for a second time at the Utah Supreme Court before justices make their final ruling.
Unlike West Hills, the Dakota Pacific town won’t need people within its border to vote to incorporate. That’s because it’s governed under a different part of Utah incorporation law.
It’s not yet clear which type of town the one in Browns Canyon would be.
Arden Cook with the Utah lieutenant governor's office said that next steps differ depending on the type of municipality.
Regular town applications go through the county clerk's office. But Utah also has something called a “preliminary municipality.” That's where single landowners, often developers, can create their own town without needing a vote.
If the Browns Canyon town is a preliminary municipality, Cook says the lieutenant governor's office has 45 days to process the application and post information online. Otherwise it posts the application after receiving it from the county clerk.
Browns Canyon is not densely populated. Nearly all of it is zoned for agriculture and one residential unit per 80 acres.
