At a meeting Monday night, Feb. 12, the board recommended using $3 million in open space bond funds to put a large swath of the North Fields under conservation easements.
The North Fields are agricultural lands north of Heber City and east of Midway. Now, the Open Lands Board is working to protect over 200 acres of those fields, including 170 acres west of U.S. 40 and 37 acres along River Road.
This comes as the Utah Department of Transportation plans a bypass road that could potentially go through a portion of the North Fields.
But Utah Open Lands Executive Director Wendy Fisher said preservation plans have been in the works for a long time.
“Everybody I talked to – they think of the North Fields when they think of the Heber Valley,” she said.
Heber City Mayor Heidi Franco, the chair of the open lands board, agreed.
“Heber is beautiful for what’s around Heber City and what’s in our valley, and to me, it’s a priceless legacy,” she said. “And now this open space bond money can show that.”
The board planned to commit $2.25 million for the larger parcel and $750,000 for the smaller one. They plan to pay for part of the land easements with state and federal funding as well.
Later this year, UDOT will announce where they’ll construct a bypass route to pull traffic away from Heber City’s Main Street. Two options for the road cut through the North Fields.
“We met with UDOT to discuss the agricultural protection area, and UDOT felt like the agricultural protection area was not an insurmountable obstacle to them putting the road on those parcels,” Wasatch County manager Dustin Grabau said.
He said UDOT’s pending decision is a concern to the county council as they consider plans for the fields.
The Wasatch Open Land Board’s recommendations will go to the county council next for a hearing on March 6. At that point, the council will decide whether to use bond funds for the easements.