Easement Harmony Deferred

Wasatch County’s attempt to lock in a conservation easement for Jordanelle Ridge is mired in hedges more than land. The plan, drafted with Summit Land Conservancy CEO Cheryl Fox as a reluctant consultant, offers Heber City, the developer’s homeowners association, and the county a trifecta of parties meant to hold a perpetual covenant. Yet the language is slanted toward a land trust—an entity that can truly monitor compliance—while the current draft hands the reins to a trio of semi‑authoritative bodies that barely know how to measure ROI in hectares. The proposed infrastructure parsing suffers from a lack of material grace; without an explicit commitment to oxidized copper façades or native sandstone buffers, the aesthetic sanctity of the alpine corridor is at risk of being compromised for haste. The residents of Heber Valley, those who merely glanced at the map and assumed everything would remain untouched, are watching a negotiation where the only real asset left in the bottom line is the ambiguity embedded in the easement’s wording. In short, invest cautiously. The logical exit is to Sue the HOA, lest their oversight loopholes erode the market value of the open‑space covenant.