Located in Wasatch County on the North end of the Jordanelle, the town of Hideout is continuing to guide the town as they expect growth in the coming years.
Hideout Mayor Phil Rubin says that after a Truth in Taxation hearing the city property taxes were raised from 0.0004% to 0.0008% which will raise about $50,000 a year for the city.
We’ve been running the town municipal needs—maintaining water, maintaining sewer, maintaining roads, snow plowing, all that kind of stuff—basically with revenues from permits and growth,” Rubin explained. “That’s unsustainable for the long-term. Predictions in the economy is going to be a slowdown and we need to have a revenue source to keep our town running that’s independent of building growth. So, we had to bring that up.”
Rubin says he’s not sure if they’ll have additional tax increases and that it depends on if the citizens want additional services. One additional service that the town is adding is faster internet service. After a year and a half of work from an internet committee the town is likely to choose between internet providers All West and Utopia.
“All West has come forward and aggressively started to service the town,” Rubin continued. “So, we’re not turned on yet but they’re running cable as we speak. So, that’s exciting for us and they also come in with a rate decrease which is also exciting for us. Utopia has also been very good with working with the town and giving us a proposal. The challenge with Utopia for the town was the municipality was going to have to backstop the cost for their investment until we got to a certain level of participants or signups for Utopia. So, it wasn’t a large number we were thinking very seriously about that but with the activity of All West it makes it a much tougher decision now. We have extended the hearing so that the internet committee can do some more research and come back with a recommendation.”
Rubin says they’re hoping to have the deal done by this week if not then he’s hopeful to have the deal finished by their October meeting.
Additionally, Hideout passed their annexation policy plan last month. Rubin says they received input from neighboring communities that they took into consideration.
“Changed the footprint somewhat, taken out the MIDA area, backed away from some Park City space that we were encroaching on,” Rubin said. “Have a—I guess let’s call it—a stake in the sand for the pieces of the property that surround the Jordanelle that are not in the MIDA project. Does that mean we’ll annex them? I don’t know, but in furthering our goals of the general plan where are we going to get public space? Since the space we have is privately held, how do I get public space? Well, through annexation is another potential.”
Rubin says the land in the annexation map includes parcels mostly in Wasatch County but a few in Summit county.
“The interest has been raised by landowners to us,” Rubin explained. “We have landowners that have land in Hideout an in Wasatch and in Summit, same parcel. So they’re looking for a single land use authority to work with. So, it provides potential for us to grow and attain the things we want to do. We did meet with Summit County and Park City I think we found that we’re a lot more aligned then misaligned together. Our goal is to find a way to manage the fact that we are going to grow and getting an environment that we want to look at and be part of as we grow. There’s no coup here as has been potentially written up in some of the things, but we’re not out to do that. We’re simply saying we want a voice, and this is a chance for us to talk about how to do that. Would we love to see it stay green? Hey, come on in Summit Land Conservancy, come on let’s go do that. Barring that how do we manage that growth holistically?”