Holiday Hills residents ask Utah County to provide culinary water service

Holiday Hills residents asked the Utah County Board of Commissioners on May 28 to provide culinary water service to their neighborhood, citing aging water lines, frequent breaks and inadequate fire protection.

At a public hearing convened at the Holiday Hills Homeowners Association pavilion, county staff explained the process by which residents petition the county for service and said the county commission will consider the request at its next meeting. "If the county were to agree to do it, then we would start talking about how we're going to bring water up here," a county staff member, Dale, told the gathering.

The request asks the county to supply culinary water rather than the neighborhood forming a special service district. Dale said state law requires a public hearing to determine two things: whether the requested service is needed in the area and whether the county should provide it. He described notice efforts, saying the county posted the hearing at the county building, on the county website and on the Utah public meetings website and mailed letters to area residents.

Several residents described frequent system failures and equipment that they said is decades old. "Our system was initially put in in the sixties. It does not meet the current requirements for fire hydrants," said Bridal Danes. Danes and other speakers said the neighborhood has experienced pressure drops and leaks and that repairs have been paid for out of pocket by the homeowners association.

Harry Hoffman said contractors told the neighborhood the existing pipe is not properly rated for potable water. "From what our contractors were telling us, it is rated for gas lines, not water lines," Hoffman said. He described a recent break beneath a stream during high runoff that left many residents temporarily without water and said similar breaks have occurred in multiple locations over the past several years.

Residents and HOA representatives gave varying counts for the neighborhood size during comments: Krista Hyatt said the neighborhood has "25 residents," Bridal Danes and others described 25–27 lots and roughly 90 total residents in some estimates; speakers acknowledged returned mailings and imperfect address records.

The public hearing was opened by the commission and limited to public comment; commissioners did not engage in a question-and-answer session during the hearing, though county staff said residents may follow up with staff at the office. A motion to open the public hearing was made and seconded and approved by voice vote; after public comment the commission closed the hearing by motion and voice vote. The county commission will take the request up at its next scheduled meeting, at which time it may either agree to provide culinary water service or decline, allowing applicants to pursue creation of a special service district.

No formal commitment, funding source or timeline for construction was announced at the hearing. Residents repeatedly emphasized safety and reliability concerns and asked the county to take on provisioning rather than requiring the community to fund repeated repairs or form a special district.