3 cities plan a future for pocket of land

SYRACUSE — Three cities in northern Davis County are in the early stages of planning how a large pocket of farmland within their borders could be used if the land is eventually sold.

Syracuse, West Point and Clearfield have formed the Davis Economic Development Cooperative as a planning entity for the roughly 1,000 acres of farmland where the three cities meet.

"This is one of the last bastions of open property in Davis County," said West Point city manager Rick Davis. "What we determine to do is going to determine what this city is going to be like for the next 150 years."

The three cities will jointly plan for and share tax revenue from a future mix of residential, retail, industrial and professional uses on that land, although no formal agreements have yet been made.

What they're doing doesn't happen very often, said Michael Flynn, vice president of public development for the Economic Development Corporation of Utah, a public-private nonprofit that seeks to recruit business to Utah.

"It's pretty remarkable for three cities to get together and have discussions like the ones they're having," he said. "It's the right way to do economic development."

About half of the land is owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The rest is owned by a few dozen or so other farmers.

Officials in the three cities know that as farmers get out of the farming business and sell their land, development on that land will eventually be composed of homes, and not much more, unless cities have a plan.

Some cities have chosen to master-plan so that homes predominate, Davis said. "They want to minimize the intrusion of commercial development." But services cost money, and often much more money than what cities get from charging property tax.

The cooperative came about when West Point's Davis and Syracuse city administrator Rodger Worthen were talking one day about the agricultural land in their cities and how it would likely become subdivisions if they didn't plan carefully. They invited Clearfield city manager Chris Hillman on board.

The cooperative's executive committee plans to meet this week with economic-development officials from Davis County, the Governor's Office of Economic Development and the Economic Development Corporation of Utah, as well as commercial developers and Realtors, to get a sense of market conditions.

The cooperative's officials want to see how the land could be developed if it became available today. But the city managers of the three cities are quick to reassure landowners within the 1,000 acres that plans to develop their land are purely hypothetical now.