Friends & Neighbors,
This has been quite the summer of city projects and development. Heber is growing quickly, and we are working hard to continue to develop infrastructure that meets the needs of our current and future residents. Our goal is always to keep Heber an amazing place to live for our residents, and an excellent place to visit for the thousands of visitors we have every year.
Overview & General Updates
Throughout the summer, we’ve had many meetings where we’ve highlighted and discussed:
The Red, White and Blue Festival & 4th of July Celebration
Deed restrictions
Downtown redevelopment
The town’s road & general construction projects
The Stage at City Park
The Central Heber Water, Sewer and Pressurized Irrigation Project
It’s been a busy summer and has been a lot to take care of - to say the least! I want to be sure we have the opportunity to discuss each briefly and give you status and updates.
The Red, White and Blue Festival & 4th of July Celebration
I want to give a huge thanks to the Heber City staff, the Heber Valley Rotary, the Wasatch Fire District, and the Heber Valley Chamber and Visitors Bureau for a wonderful 2nd Annual Red, White and Blue Festival. This is a growing event to celebrate the 4th of July in the Heber Valley. Together, we served over 1,000 pancake breakfasts and hundreds of hot dogs. We had entertainment and games all through the day and into the evening at the City Park. This event was not only well planned, but well executed, and I can’t thank our staff and volunteers enough!
Deed Restrictions
Heber is not unique in having somewhat of a housing crisis - many of the people who currently live and work here would not be able to afford their home again if they were moving here today. Real estate values have increased over the last several years, and moving to the valley could be prohibitive for some of our essential workers. This includes:
City and county employees
Police officers (many of which live in the valley)
School district employees
and many more
We are grateful for programs like Self-Help Homes that have allowed several families the opportunity to afford to build and buy a home in the valley. Our focus now has turned to deed restrictions on work force housing so that homes are not just affordable for the first family to move in, but the families that follow. Deed restrictions limit the amount a home can increase in value over time, keeping it affordable in perpetuity. We have over 600 workforce housing units coming online with the development of the North Village - we want to make sure they are managed correctly and the deed restrictions stay in place for the long term. This topic is ongoing and not completely settled yet, but we are working on it, and taking ideas from other communities that have similar concerns. We’re determined to make a system work that is beneficial to the workforce.
Downtown Redevelopment
Downtown redevelopment is still a focus for the city as we await the recommendations from UDOT on the Western Bypass Environmental Impact Study. Heber City, Charleston, Midway, Wasatch County, and Wasatch School District have been working on a unified letter to send to UDOT with 5 points upon which our communities can agree:
Preservation of open space in the North Fields, to the greatest extent possible, is a priority for our community and a defining attribute of our valley.
The Corridor alignment should maximize quality of life (i.e. preservation of air shed over Heber Valley, reduced commute times and reduction of traffic congestion) and improved safety for citizens.
The Corridor should emphasize movement of traffic through the Valley by limiting access points.
The Heber Valley Corridor alignment should consider Heber City’s downtown and its Envision Central Heber goals of transitioning the downtown into an economically vibrant destination location for Wasatch County citizens and visitors.
Corridor design should maintain beauty of Heber Valley and minimize environmental impacts, by incorporating landscaping, trees, berms, and other proven means to screen.
We are still waiting for the approval of Midway and Wasatch County to move forward and send this letter to UDOT, showing unity in our community that the necessity of a bypass road is crucial to the future of Heber City Main Street.
The Town’s Road & General Construction Projects
Construction has been a little bit of a pain for all of us this summer, but luckily this year’s projects are nearing their end. The 500 N section of the central Heber water, sewer and PI replacement has been the biggest disrupter of the summer, causing hundreds of people to take detours just to get to or leave their homes. Luckily, Section A of the new Heritage Farms Parkway was opened earlier this summer, along with the new Smith’s Marketplace and both are getting extraordinary use! The original plan was to have the 500 N project completed and completely reopened before the start of the school year - unfortunately, that did not happen due to weather delays and other general construction factors. The plan now is to have the full road paved shortly. As a city, we try our best to plan and get these things completed as quickly as possible, but we also need them completed correctly and with quality so we don’t have to dig up the roads again for another 40 years. We are also wrapping up the Chip ‘n Seal citywide project that has spanned over the course of 2 years - we should not have to revisit this again for another 5 years. Chip ‘n Seal may seem like a pain for a moment, but it does extend the life of our roads and helps to keep us moving for the long-term at a much lower cost than replacing roads more frequently. We are doing our best to keep Heber well maintained and moving!
The Stage at City Park
The Stage at City Park project is moving along nicely and we should have a grand opening and ribbon cutting sometime in October! This is the first major project and infrastructure in our downtown revitalization. The goal is to have a walkable alley from the City Park and The Stage at City Park all the way to City Hall 2 blocks to the north. This will bring us an area with outdoor dining, boutique shops and storefronts, housing, and an area where we can build a downtown community of people who live near where they work. In meetings, we’ve sometimes referred to this vision as the community living room, built for locals and a great place for people to get away for a moment. We have been discussing what this area should be called - my suggestion is C Street. Heber City was named after a leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints named Heber C. Kimball and many of the first settlers in the valley were converts from England that Heber had met on his mission there. C Street is a nod to that history, but it can also mean community. It also, admittedly, just sounds like a place I would like to go: C Street! This is not the final name, as we will be discussing the naming of this area in future meetings as the vision continues to take shape and come to fruition. I cannot say enough about Matt Brower, our city manager, or the city staff and all the work they have done in setting this transformation in motion and having the vision and motivation to see it through!
We are so blessed to be a part of this community and this city! Thank you to everyone who makes it a great place to live and work. Happy end of Summer to all of my friends & neighbors.
Sincerely,
D. Scott Phillips
Heber City Council
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