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- A measure to a 2024 law that lets landowners create cities, bypassing local scrutiny, fizzled during the 2025 session.
- But a Kane County comissioner, who backed the failed proposal, hopes the issue gets attention during the interim legislative session.
- Developers behind plans in Grand, Summit, Kane and Morgan counties seek creation of new cities under SB258's parameters.
KANAB — Moves to reverse a bill approved by Utah lawmakers in 2024 that created a new mechanism to create cities may have fizzled, but foes of the measure plan to keep fighting.
"We're not giving up," said Kane County Commissioner Celeste Meyeres.
Willow in Kane County is one of four proposed "preliminary" municipalities across Utah that emerged out of SB258, approved by lawmakers in 2024. But Meyeres worries the new mechanism gives landowners a means of skirting local scrutiny in pursuing development initiatives on unincorporated land by converting their projects into new cities.
"We're not stakeholders. ... The county and the neighbors are completely left out," she said.
Worries about SB258, also a point of scrutiny in Summit and Grand counties, led to a proposal during the recently concluded 2025 legislative session, HB540, which, as originally proposed, would have halted authority to create new "preliminary" municipalities going forward. The measure, introduced a month into the session and sponsored by Rep. Mike Kohler, R-Midway, passed in the House. But it never got a vote in the Senate and died as the session came to an end on March 7.
The four new locales proposed under the parameters of SB258 are Williow, Park City Tech north of Park City in Summit County, Nine Springs in Morgan County and Kane Creek near Moab in Grand County. The incorporation process for each of the four proposed cities, overseen by the Utah Lieutenant Governor's Office, continues.
When the Nine Springs incorporation proposal emerged last year, Morgan County Commissioner Mike Newton said the move appeared to be "an end-run around the county" given county officials' role in prior talks as development plans were taking shape.
"I suspect that's because we have pushed back a fair amount," Newton told KSL.com last September. The development, as proposed in the initial request for incorporation, calls for 2,200 or more houses and other housing units on 2,317 acres of unincorporated land between Mountain Green and the Snowbasin ski resort in Weber County.
Summit County Manager Shayne Scott said the Park City Tech plans, which emerged last January, would curtail county authority. If the new city is allowed, he told TownLift, a Park City news outlet, "it would remove Summit County's ability to maintain local control over the land. The new municipality could operate independently of the county."
The Kane Creek proposal prompted a strong showing of opposition at a hearing last week in Moab, according to the Times-Independent, the Moab newspaper. The opposition stemmed in part from skepticism about a state study finding the proposed city is financially feasible.
"Residents criticized the report for not fully accounting for flood risks, infrastructure challenges and the feasibility of selling high-end homes in a local market struggling with affordability," the newspaper reported. Meeting participants displayed a large banner reading "Repeal SB258."
In the case of Willow, Meyeres said Kane County officials had been working with project developers for two-plus years before they applied under SB258's parameters to incorporate instead. The traditional incorporation process requires a petition effort from those living in the area of a place to be turned into a city and a public vote. SB258, by contrast, gives landowners authority to seek incorporation of a city, at least on a preliminary basis, if the impacted zone is owned by no more than three people and they all agree on incorporation, among other requirements.
"We've been working with them 2½ years. That's all been completely thrown out," Meyeres said.
Whereas working with the county, she said, created a measure of control since developers would have had to comply with county zoning guidelines, incorporating gives the developers more leeway to set their own standards and avoid the local planning process. The Willow proposal, as described in the incorporation request, calls for phased development of more than 1,000 homes and other housing units, commercial space and vacation rentals on 596.59 acres of land that's currently unincorporated.
In approving SB258 last year, backers characterized the measure as a means of jumpstarting housing development in Utah's more rural counties. It doesn't apply in the most populated Utah counties — Salt Lake, Utah, Davis, Weber, Cache or Washington counties.
Utah Rep. Jim Dunnigan, R-Taylorsville, said during last year's debate over SB258 that it "addresses a major need in rural Utah for additional housing." The property owners who pursue incorporation under SB258's parameters can't levy taxes, though they would set zoning standards and serve as leaders of their locales, at least until the populations of their communities reached 100, when elections would be held.
"This just lets them get started, put in some housing, go ahead with the zoning, go ahead with the development," Dunnigan said.
Kohler, the HB540 sponsor, didn't immediately respond to queries seeking comment. Meyeres, though, says debate on the measure helped "highlight this dilemma." She hopes the issue gets attention during the interim legislative session later this year.
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