As this COVID-ridden year comes to an end, a recent news story reminds me again of the “forgotten” growth and land use issue – annexation and incorporation.  A couple of stories about the on-going incorporation saga of Erda in Tooele County, and associated annexation conflicts, serves to point out all the recent battles of a similar nature that have occurred during this year – Hideout, West Weber County, Brighton, Olympia Hills, and others.

While we follow a lot of growth and land use controversies that sometimes lead to tussling over LUDMA provisions, we also sometimes see these kinds of battles erupt over the annexation/incorporation code sections, as occurred in the 2021 legislative session.  Many, if not all, the disputes over annexation/incorporation involve fights over growth and development – facilitate it (e.g., Hideout) or stymie it (e.g., Erda).

Many years ago, I was involved in the rewriting of the state annexation code, which resulted in essentially a two-track process – one for Salt Lake County (because of controversies with areas that eventually led to the creation of townships and all the headaches that went with that), and one for everybody else in the state.  Neither was particularly well-done, especially the Salt Lake County track.  Since then, there have been a number of amendments to these codes which have only served to confuse things even more.

There is a real need to completely relook these codes and recodify them.  It likely won’t solve all the problems, but it could make things better.