Wasatch County is in the midst of its first general plan update since 2001. The plan is a guiding document that includes information about land use, development plans, economic growth and more.
More than two decades after the document’s last version, the county has seen some major changes: its population has more than doubled, and it’s projected to double again by 2060, according to a staff report.
At a Wasatch County Planning Commission meeting Thursday, July 10, county staff shared a draft of the introduction to the new general plan and asked for feedback.
County management analyst Richard Breitenbeker said the general plan should tell the story of the community’s past. He highlighted the stories of early settlers from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who he says were driven by faith and determination and shaped by the landscape itself.
“They believed in providence, they believed in each other, they believed in living good lives,” he said. “The values they lived, together with this land, laid a foundational character for our communities that has been transmitted through generations.”
Breitenbeker said longtime county residents care about preserving those pioneer values even as the community rapidly transforms.
He asked the planning commissioners to share their vision for the future of Wasatch County.
“Those questions were ideally to get you out of the normal hats you wear… and to become, for a moment, a cowboy poet, someone who can speak the values of the community,” he said. “What would you say?”
Some planning commissioners said they’d like to see the general plan be a guiding document for the whole county’s values.
The general plan only applies to the unincorporated county, not cities or towns. But in surveys and community outreach, assistant planning director Austin Corry said residents often talk about Heber City and Wasatch County as synonymous.
“Some of that is because of the history,” he said. “The Heber Valley is what Wasatch County was 30, 40 years ago – that’s all the population was. And so, we’re trying to break that cycle and recognize that the county has changed.”
Planning commissioner Daniel Lyman said he thought it would be uphill work to help residents understand the general plan won’t have any bearing on Heber City’s land use decisions.
“I’m still struck by the fact that Heber City has just been a malignant cancer lately, stealing all this land. Honestly!” he said. “I just – I think this is fantastic for our purposes, but I don’t think the general population in this valley understands that it doesn’t affect them directly, because we’re only unincorporated county.”
Corry said educating people about what’s included in the county is part of the general plan process.
He estimated around 17,000 people live in Heber, 18,000 live in the unincorporated county and about 5,000 total live in smaller municipalities including Midway, Hideout and Wallsburg.
Planning commissioners alluded to some locals’ resistance to rapid growth in the valley. Corry said planning staff have tried to take a glass-half-full approach in response to those concerns.
“Stupid Californians,” someone muttered, to chuckles from the group.
“In some ways, that’s why the theme – if you’ve noticed the theme of the general plan that we’ve selected – is cultivating communities,” Austin Corry said.
About 500 people filled out a survey this spring to help guide the general plan update. Corry said residents most commonly shared that the community is the most important thing about the county.
“Everything we’re doing is to try to bring people together to improve connections and relationships with one another,” he said.
The planning department will share a new draft with the commission at a future meeting, although no date has been set yet.
The county council will also give feedback on what’s been written so far at its meeting Wednesday, July 16.
