The voting districts of people living on the ridgeline between Utah and Salt Lake counties might come down to a matter of inches.

The Legislature could consider as many as three bills to deal with the problem of subdivisions that straddle county lines, such as the SunCrest project in Draper. Among the possible bills is a temporary solution for determining voting districts; a ban on building homes directly on a county line; and one that would require developers to alert a county if they build within a half-mile of a county line.

The bills have come as a response to the high-end housing project above Draper, which sits primarily in Utah County. Already, there have been reports of homes sitting directly on the county line, and the counties have struggled with who will provide services to the subdivision.

While SunCrest has given the myriad issues an urgency, it is not the only housing development that is planned to cross county lines. Similar projects are planned on the borders of Davis and Weber counties, Wasatch and Summit counties, and Grand and San Juan counties. Additionally, there is a possible annexation from Juab County into Santaquin, in Utah County.

The most immediate problem is determining where the people living directly on the county line will vote, with the simplest solution being putting them into the county where their homes have the greatest amount of square footage, Keith Woodwell, committee attorney, said. The solution does have drawbacks, however, including dividing neighborhoods into different counties.

Other possible solutions — and some that have been used before — include allowing people to choose their county, although that would be problematic because it could potentially allow people to change their residency without moving. Court cases, mostly dated from the 1890s, have even determined a person's county of residence by where the master bedroom is located.

"This could be a hard thing to determine," he said. "People could change their residency simply by rearranging their house."

The other two proposed bills received more attention during the two-hour discussion Wednesday, especially about forcing builders to avoid putting a home on a county boundary. Because of the topography of Utah, which has many counties divided by mountains, homeowners on the tops of those mountains are often forced to build on the flat ground on the ridge.

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Instead of preventing developers from dividing homes, or even neighborhoods, Sen. Carlene Walker, R-Sandy, suggested the committee propose that a developer can build along the lines only if absolutely necessary.

"With this legislation, we would be discouraging developers from dividing neighborhoods or subdivisions," she said. "We're making it difficult, but not impossible if the terrain forces them to do it."

The committee will decide which of the bills to send to the special session during its September meeting.


E-MAIL: jloftin@desnews.com

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