Draper declines to fund the Dimple Dell road study, and Sandy will not vote on its $157,000 share

SANDY — A study of extending Highland Drive through Dimple Dell Regional Park has lost both of the cities that would have paid for it. Draper will not fund its share, Council Member Tasha Lowery said in a Facebook statement on Nov. 10, and Sandy City leaders will not vote to allow the study at all, FOX 13 reported on Friday, Nov. 13 16.

Lowery's statement was not a council vote. The Draper City Council's Nov. 10 agenda carried no item on the study or on a funding decision; its consent list covered meeting minutes, the appointment of an interim fire chief and a crossing agreement with the Utah Transit Authority, and its single public hearing concerned a 7.71-acre zoning map amendment at approximately 267 West 11915 South 3.

"The bottom line: Draper is NOT pursuing this road extension, has no plans to fund it, and does not consider it a priority," Lowery wrote 1. She said Draper had previously withdrawn funding for even a preliminary environmental study on the extension, and that its position has not changed. She said regional planners or the state could revisit the project someday, but that it would require substantial funding, planning and years of additional review, and that neither city has the resources to fund a road project of that scale 1.

FOX 13's account was that the decision came after days of pushback over the resolution that would have funded the city's $157,000 portion, and it quoted a written statement from Council Chair Marci Houseman: "Our job as Council members is to represent Sandy residents in the laws we make and the way we allocate city resources, and when people make their voices and their priorities heard, we can be more effective" 6.

**The Nov. 10 meeting**

The pushback came at the council's Nov. 10 meeting, where residents packed the chambers to argue against the study, FOX 13 reported 6. The question before the council was whether to fund an environmental impact study of the Highland Drive corridor, including what it would take to connect the roadway through Dimple Dell Regional Park and Hidden Valley Country Club 7.

Not everyone who spoke opposed it. Council Member Kris Nicholl, who brought the proposal, told the room the point was information rather than construction. "I'm not doing this because I think a bridge is necessary over Dimple Dell Park," Nicholl said. "In fact, I want to find out it's not necessary. And that's what the (environmental impact study) can do" 7. She said an environmental review would give the city options it does not have: "as we are having traffic issues, we can't ignore those, but we need a plan" 7.

Mayor Monica Zoltanski was against the study before the meeting and said so to both stations. She told KSL she was "staunchly opposed," that the city has other ways to address congestion on 1300 East and Wasatch Boulevard, and that building Highland Drive over Dimple Dell "will just create an artificial demand that will serve the residents of Utah County, Highland, Alpine very well, but it will not serve Sandy residents well" 7. She added: "I would like to keep that $157,000 in play for priority public safety and roads projects in the city" 7. To FOX 13 she put the trade the other way: "I'm not saying there wouldn't be a benefit to ease commute times for Sandy residents, and I know there's people who would like the convenience and so would I, but what we would lose, the cost is far too high" 6.

**The money's route through the agenda**

KSL reported on Nov. 11 that the council had scheduled a public hearing on the study for Nov. 17 7. The final agenda Sandy published on Nov. 13 does not carry one. Its single budget hearing that evening is item 26-508, "the annual budget carryover process and proposed fee adjustments for FY27," at 5:15 p.m.; the agenda also carries a water district appointment hearing, the redevelopment agency's carryover, the election canvass and a code-update session with the planning commission 8. The $157,000 was to come from that carryover pool — money budgeted but not spent — rather than from a new appropriation, the Draper Herald reported 1.

No figure for Draper's share has ever been published. This paper reported on Nov. 10 that the study could not start until Draper funded its own portion, that no Draper number had been made public, and that the Draper council's Nov. 10 agenda carried no item on the question 4.

The city's own notice for the Nov. 17 hearing gives the same 5:15 p.m. start, states that residents may attend at Sandy City Hall or by Zoom webinar, and directs written comment to CitizenComment@sandy.utah.gov, with questions to the Budget Services Director at 801-568-7128 5.

**A corridor on the regional plans since 1967**

What the study would have decided is still unresolved on the record. Sandy's own fact brief on the corridor states that the Wasatch Front Regional Council first mapped Highland Drive as a master-planned regional arterial in 1967, and that the road today runs five lanes from Creek Road to 9400 South, narrows to three lanes between 9400 South and 9800 South, and south of 9800 South exists only as open space and a utility corridor before resuming at Sandy's southern border and running through Draper to I-15 at 14600 South 2.

Two obstacles sit in the corridor's path: Dimple Dell Regional Park and Hidden Valley Country Club. The brief states that the study would identify the most feasible way to cross both while minimizing impact, and would settle whether the full corridor is needed 2. If it is, Sandy would seek federal funding to build from 9400 South to the Sandy-Draper border; if not, the brief lists alternatives including a linear park with a three-lane road between Sego Lily Drive and 9800 South 2. A decision not to build would likely require widening Wasatch Boulevard to five lanes and 1300 E. to seven, the brief states, and construction could not begin before 2030 under either scenario 2.

The federal review is not new. A 1996 Major Investment Study was started and never completed, and Sandy has been buying and preserving the right of way since 2. In 2016 the regional council approved $4.36 million in Surface Transportation Plan funding for an environmental impact statement, a joint application by Sandy and Draper, with each city splitting the required 6.7% match — $146,000 per city, to be requested as a capital line item in the fiscal year 2022 budget 2. The number before Sandy this month was $157,000 1.

The corridor also carries the POMA aqueduct, a 69-inch pressurized waterline, along with other utilities, a constraint the brief cites as limiting what else the land could be used for 2.

**What remains**

The study required both cities' matches to proceed, ABC4 reported, as the Draper Herald recorded 1. No vote on the study is on either city's published agenda: Draper's council agenda for Nov. 10 carried no such item 3, and Sandy's final Nov. 17 agenda carries none 8. A $157,000 line, if it exists in the carryover resolutions, would have no partner under the position Draper stated on Nov. 10 1.

Regional planners or the state could still revive the corridor, Lowery said, but she said that would require substantial funding, planning and years of additional review 1.