Wasatch towns popping up

HEBER CITY — Utah's next towns will likely all have the same birthplace: Wasatch County.

Since October, county officials have received three petitions for town incorporation in this mostly rural county nestled in the mountains.

It seems to be a function of popularity and the subsequent population growth the county has experienced since the 2002 Winter Olympic Games that towns would spring up where none previously existed.

The names of those proposed towns?

Introducing, in filing order, Independence, Aspen and Hideout.

Independence, which filed for incorporation Oct. 12, was denied by county officials Oct. 24 for an incomplete survey. The contact sponsor for the petition, Mel McQuarrie, couldn't be reached for comment Monday or Tuesday regarding his plans.

Independence was proposed to be east of U.S. 40 in the Daniels Canyon area. The town would be very near the proposed Aspen, Utah. The man pushing the Aspen incorporation, with dreams of being a world-class town and accompanying ski resort, filed for incorporation Nov. 8 but was denied Nov. 21 because the proposed town's future residents have petitioned to annex into the nearby town of Daniel.

The Daniel Town Council will hear the petition at its next meeting on Monday.

Developer Dean Sellers, who owns most of the land in the proposed boundaries, says he's confident the annexation will fail and plans to forge ahead to create Aspen, Utah.

That leaves the prospect for having your own hideout in Hideout, Utah, if the Wasatch County Council approves Richard Sprung's Nov. 21 petition to create a town in Hideout Canyon.

Sprung, a real estate agent who lives in the canyon, located on the northeast side of Jordanelle Reservoir, said the area to be incorporated includes about 1,200 acres and has the potential for more than 700 homes and some commercial developments.

Currently, 16 homes in the luxury Hideout Canyon development have been built and property owners are under contract on 24 other lots. But Sprung says there are enough residents in the area to meet the 100-resident minimum requirement for incorporation.

"We did not go into this lightly," Sprung said Tuesday. "We want to make sure we're committed and make sure we have the resources to do it."