Long-awaited spillover from Park City to the south and Ogden to the east has finally started trickling into a school district that has seen little growth lately but is waiting for the tide to arrive.
"It's kind of stagnant right now," conceded Grant Richins, a write-in candidate running to represent most of Henefer and Echo on the North Summit School Board.But Richins took it as a sign of things to come when a group of Henefer building lots sold recently for $40,000 apiece about a year after their owner paid $15,000 for each property.
While this part of Summit County is hardly mushrooming like the neighboring Snyderville Basin and Park City, Richins said indications are that an influx is in the wind.
"People are even moving from Park City to this area just to get away a little bit," said Richins, noting that Henefer and Coalville are not so far removed from Utah's most urban environment. Both are less than an hour from the Wasatch Front.
Richins, a retired schoolteacher who worked 32 years in the district, said North Summit needs to brace now for impending growth.
His opponent agrees.
Self-employed businessman Ralph Jones said the almost 1,000-pupil district has yet to plan in detail for expansion. He said new con-struction is probably inevitable, however.
Two other incumbents from different areas of the district are running unopposed for second terms.
- Steve Jenkins, Summit County's health director and a resident of the Hoytsville area, said one notable development in the area can create overnight havoc for the district.
"If somebody puts a 300-unit subdivision with affordable housing that families can actually move into, you can have trouble," said Jenkins, noting that just such a project is being planned at Star Pointe, within district boundaries just east of the Snyderville Basin.
"The question is, `Will we still be able to educate kids and keep our sense of community?' " said Jenkins, explaining that an overnight boom could well increase local class sizes to unmanageable levels.
- Philip Geary of Coalville, an employee of Associated Foods in Salt Lake City, said a local citizens committee reviews county planning-and-zoning records every three months.
"We have a lot of builders and developers coming in and looking," said Geary. "It's inevitable - it will happen and you can't stop it. But you can plan it."