Cedar City councilors, developers debate who should pay for 12‑inch waterline to loop 3900 West

Cedar City Council heard a detailed briefing Feb. 19 on the need to install a 12‑inch waterline along 3900 West to loop a single feed that currently serves Magnolia Fields, Iron Crest and other developments, and to restore fire flow to a state standard the city uses for fire protection.

The presentation by Tim Watson of Watson Engineering said his client, Scott Faylor, is pursuing Magnolia Fields phases 2 and 3 and that modelling by city engineers indicates the southern tie is required for redundancy and fire protection. Watson gave an engineer’s estimate that boring under the railroad and Highway 56 and installing roughly two‑thirds of a mile of waterline could cost on the order of several hundred thousand dollars; he said the crossing alone previously cost about $130,000 in a different project and that the line installation segment is also substantial (figures cited in the meeting were preliminary and provided by Watson as ballpark estimates).

The council’s engineering staff and city consultants described the problem as regional: a single feed at Lund Highway and Highway 56 currently supplies multiple subdivisions, and city hydraulic modelling shows fire flow in that area has fallen below the city’s design target at some test times. Kent Fugle (city staff) said, “we just can't just keep building homes in there off that single feed. We need to get the second feed in there.”

Why it matters: the council and staff said the line is needed both for day‑to‑day operations (avoiding the outages that occur when a single feed leaks or is taken offline) and to meet fire‑flow targets used when approving subdivision phases.

Discussion and options: developers argued it is unfair to require Magnolia Fields’ developer to shoulder the entire cost because several other subdivisions that benefitted from the same connection have been built in recent years. Watson and council members discussed three funding paths: 1) a reimbursement agreement in which properties that front the improvement later pay a proportionate share, 2) using impact fees if the needed improvement is listed in the city’s impact fee facility plan, or 3) pursuing a regional solution such as an interconnect with the Water Conservancy District to the northwest that would avoid highway/railroad boring but require longer pipe runs.

City staff said reimbursement agreements typically reimburse only property that directly fronts the new improvement, so they would probably cover only Iron Crest and the immediately adjacent frontage if the line were built from Highway 56. That limitation led the council to discuss whether to set a larger reimbursement boundary to capture the broader Lund Highway area; staff cautioned that enlarging the boundary reduces each parcel’s share and may produce little reimbursement.

Staff asked the council whether it wanted to consider using impact fees for the work. The city’s impact fee facility plan is being updated; staff said the line is likely not currently included in the plan and that adding it would require budgeting and time. Fugle said an impact fee solution would need to be budgeted in the coming year if the council wanted to pursue it.

Other technical options discussed included: connecting to a Water Conservancy District line northwest of the development (no railroad or state highway boring required but a longer alignment), looping via 1600 North or 1600 North/Coal Creek corridors, and upsize‑only credits (the city would pay the incremental cost to upsize 8‑inch to 12‑inch where required).

Council direction and next steps: the council and staff agreed to continue discussion and requested staff confirm whether the 3900 West alignment or the required work is already part of the draft impact fee facility plan. Council members asked staff and the developer to return with options, including a potential regional reimbursement boundary, estimates for an interconnect with the conservancy district, and timing implications for developers who want to proceed with phases. The item was scheduled for follow‑up at the next council meeting.

What remains unresolved: no formal decision or funding appropriation was made at the meeting; the council did not approve a specific financing method. City staff and the developer asked the council to consider whether the city should participate beyond standard reimbursement policy when an improvement primarily benefits multiple preexisting county subdivisions that are not in city limits.

Ending: staff said engineering modelling will continue and that the city will prepare options for council consideration, including a check of the current impact‑fee facility plan and a potential regional reimbursement boundary if the council wants to spread costs among multiple future beneficiaries.