Eagle Mountain residents divided over rec center funding

EAGLE MOUNTAIN — Some 70 percent of residents say they want a recreation center, according to a recent city survey, but only about half the respondents would support paying for it with a monthly fee based on their home value.

The likelihood of getting residents to agree to the assessment — about $30 a month on a $200,000 home — was split along gender lines with men more likely to reject it, city management analyst Jason Walker said. Most respondents who favor the recreation center are women ages 26 to 35, he said.

The survey was included in residents' utility bills. Some 5,200 were sent out and 1,042 were returned, about a 20 percent response.

"That's a fairly good representation," he said.

Support grows for the center if the assessment drops to $6 to $10 a month. About 40 percent of respondents said they would support an aquatic center over a recreation center, the survey showed.

The survey also attempted to gather income levels of respondents, but that information failed to match figures from the Internal Revenue Service.

"Either the people are making more than when the IRS data was collected or they inflated their income," Walker said.

Some 60 percent of residents who returned a survey live in The Ranches, the northernmost collection of subdivisions in Eagle Mountain, with the rest living in the city center to the south or elsewhere. Overall, residents favor a recreation center, but are divided over how to pay for it, Walker said. Folks in The Ranches are more generally opposed, he said.

A recreation center is anticipated to cost more than $1 million. However, the city collects only about $800,000 in property taxes. If funding for a recreation center were put on a ballot the people would likely not vote for it in the current economic climate, Walker said.

The first of three survey open houses for residents begins in January.

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