The Lundin family has farmed in Midway for four generations. Their 119-acre property near Wasatch Mountain State Park is visible from all over the Heber Valley.
The family has been working with Utah Open Lands since 2019 to put the land under a conservation easement, which will prevent it from being developed.
Midway approved $1 million in funding for the farmland back in June 2023. But without the city council’s action Tuesday night, that work could have been for nothing.
The original deadline to finalize the purchase agreement was Dec. 15. But with a handful of details still to work out, the council voted to push it to Dec. 31.
The executive director of Utah Open Lands, Wendy Fisher, explained if the clock had run out, the land could have been sold to developers instead.
“The family agreement that was reached in May of this year stipulated that they had until Dec. 15 to bring in the funds from Wasatch County and Midway,” she said.
The Lundin siblings were entangled in a lawsuit over the land’s future. One of the brothers would have preferred to sell the land, but the family reached a settlement last spring that set the Dec. 15 deadline to conserve the land.
At Tuesday’s council meeting, Nora Lundin urged the city to act to preserve the valley’s viewshed – and imagined the fate of the land if her family had to sell.
“The big picture is, do we want to save 120 acres that’s in the viewshed of the whole county? Or do we want to see – has anybody driven past the new hotel on Deer Valley East [Village] at night?” she asked, to sympathetic laughs from locals at the meeting. “What has Wasatch County been doing lately? What’s going to stop them from putting Deer Valley East right there? It breaks my heart to even think about, but that’s what’s going to happen.”
With the city’s decision Tuesday, her fears were allayed.
Yet to be decided is a plan for an emergency access road that will use some of the Lundin property.
Some Midway homes near the farm can only be reached by a single route, Swiss Alpine Road. In case of fire, the city wants to construct an additional road, but its exact location and width have not been determined.
As soon as all the details of the purchase agreement are finalized, Midway Mayor Celeste Johnson can disburse the open space funds to the Lundins.
Johnson said Tuesday the vote was the culmination of years of hard work.
“We know how much we have put into this, how much we care about this, how much we want this to happen,” she said.
And Fisher said it was an honor for Utah Open Lands to reach this point in the journey toward the easement.
“This is about a love for community, and this is about a love for the land, and it really doesn’t get better than that,” she said.
Midway’s $1 million pledge joins a $2 million commitment by Wasatch County. Fisher has said Utah Open Lands will apply for matching grants as well. The total value of the easement hasn't yet been set.
The land value has been estimated to be around $12 million if it were sold for development today.
Once the Lundin easement is completed, Wasatch County will have around 350 acres total of protected open space. Utah Open Lands is also working to secure funding for another 200 acres of open space across the county.
