“Tonight is a night that can go down, literally, in the history of Wasatch County,” Heber City Mayor Heidi Franko said at a Wasatch County Council meeting Wednesday. She’s excitedly referring to the two agenda items that would utilize open space bond funds for conservation easements on two properties in the Heber Valley.
Both items passed unanimously by the council, and both properties have been in consideration for conservation easements via open space bond funds since 2024. Utah Open Lands, led by Wendy Fisher, have been working with both Cathleen White and George Holmes on their conservation easement proposals.
“What you will find with all of these landowners … is that these landowners that love their land and that are interested in seeing their land protected are doing so with a great deal of patience,” Fisher said. “They have other options. There is no question about it.”
White’s property, Pear Tree Llamas Ranch, brings 39.56 acres and about 25 shares of water rights to the table. That application includes the issuances of up to $750,000 of Wasatch Open Space Bond Funds. The total easement value totals $6,525,000.
For White, it’s about protecting her land. Her family acquired their Midway property in 1962, and the space has been in agricultural use for decades. Today, White’s land is home to more than her husband and herself. About 50 heads of cattle wander over from the Kohler Dairy Farm to graze, Sandhill Cranes stop by during migration, deer enjoy the sagebrush, red fox make their den in the space and White’s herd of llama wander around, too.
“Maybe you didn’t think that llamas were part of the agricultural heritage of this valley, but they are,” Franco said.
Franco said that this specific easement would leverage bond funds by 8.7%. That’s higher than the 6.59% leverage of bond money that’s averaged across nine projects since 2021.
The Pear Tree Llamas Ranch is in Wasatch County’s RA-1 zoning, which means that the White family would have had the option to sell land to developers looking to build residential developments. White said she was never interested in that path. Instead, she wanted to preserve as much of her land as possible.
“We are two old people running a ranch, and two old people with a bunch of llamas that will run it as long as we can with your help,” White said.
The Holmes family, similarly, has owned their land since 1946. Homes’ easement application includes 52 acres of land near Heber City and requested $1 million of Wasatch Open Space Bond Funds. The conservation value sits at $7,350,000.
By turning the land into conservation easement, Holmes Dairy will be able to continue agricultural use, including grazing for more than 100 cattle. Like the White’s property, Holmes’ land is zoned RA-1, but he said he was never interested in development.
“Remember our first project on the open space bond money was the Kohler Dairy Farm?” Franco said. “Now, here at the end of that $10 million, we are proposing another dairy farm to be saved.”
Since 2021, more than 623 acres have been preserved or are proposed to be preserved through open space bond funding. That’s across nine projects including 102 acres from the Kohler Dairy Farm, 46 acres from the Mountain Spa easement and 165 acres from the Gertsch farm.
All in all, there’s an average cost of $16,137.20 per acre of open space bond funds spent to preserve those 623-plus acres of land in Heber Valley.
“When you think about protecting agricultural land in this valley, you have to think about the agricultural economy … having these farm fields that are utilized by various farmers for grazing, that ensures that the agricultural economy will continue to move forward,” Fisher said.
“The fact that there are other lands protected in this area makes it really, really vital,” she added. “It protects those viewsheds, it preserves wildlife habitat and it also allows for more of that pastoral agricultural value.”