Founded in 1938, the East Hoytsville Range ranching outfit consists of 12 shareholders and their families who’ve raised livestock in northern Summit County for more than a century.
The Summit Land Conservancy announced July 24 it had inked a conservation easement to protect 2,800 contiguous acres of their land.
“We had the initial conversations 20 years ago. They came back to us in probably 2019, and that's when we initially agreed that we would go forward and try to protect this property,” land conservancy CEO Cheryl Fox said. “It took a long time to get it funded.”
Part of that, Fox said, was due to federal government staffing cuts. East Hoytsville Range Company President Kent Pace added that the COVID-19 pandemic threw a wrench in things, not to mention federal government shutdowns.
But shareholders’ decision to preserve their land for agricultural use, not suburban development, was unanimous. They’ll receive substantial tax benefits for foregoing development.
Pace said the company hopes to pursue a water project so their cattle have a new place to drink.
“No one wants to sell this ground. Nobody wants to chop it up,” he told KPCW. “This is a way that we can keep it a ranching operation, but still afford us to do these maintenance operations and do some upgrades on the range that [are] so beneficial.”
Fox said numerous government agencies coordinated to make the East Hoytsville Range easement a reality.
“Our federal partners at the Natural Resources Conservation Service were amazingly supportive and very hardworking, but we also had to get [Rep.] Blake Moore's office involved on this one,” she told KPCW. “It just got stuck, and to try to get it unstuck — it just takes a very long time. Summit County also was a part of this.”
As its name suggests, the East Hoytsville Range is a few miles east of the northern Summit County community of Hoytsville, up Spring Canyon Road.
“We have letters of intent signed with the family to protect an additional 3,900 acres,” Fox said. “And then we have additional neighbors who also want to protect their ranch in there. So if we can get it all done, it'll be a really large contiguous area that will all be protected.”
The nonprofit land trust said in a news release that those potential conservation easements could mean 12,500 total acres east of Hoytsville stay open.
Development pressures have arrived in the area since dairy producers and other landowners along the valley floor sold about 1,000 acres to Salt Lake City-area homebuilders roughly five years ago.
Subsequent plans to create the “Cedar Crest Village” stalled, but developers still own land along Hoytsville Road. Hoytville itself remains unincorporated.
Summit Land Conservancy is a financial supporter of KPCW.
