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Highland hears presentation on new water element required by SB 110; city staff to tie water budget to land use ahead of Dec. 2025 deadline
Summary
Consultants from Landmark Design briefed the Highland City Council on requirements of SB 110 and the city's ongoing work to add a water element to its general plan, including developing a water budget and conservation policies; no formal council action was recorded.
At a Highland City Council meeting, consultants from Landmark Design presented the city's planned water element for its general plan, explaining a state requirement under SB 110 and a December 2025 deadline for compliance. The presenters said Highland also received grant funding tied to the requirement.
The consultants said SB 110, enacted in 2022, requires municipalities to amend general plans to address how land-use planning affects water use and to develop a water budget that ties water inflows and outflows to current and future land use. "This is a new requirement as of 2022, SB 110. It requires most municipalities in all counties to amend their general plans to address how land use planning impacts water use," Speaker 4, a planner with Landmark Design, told the council.
The requirement, the presentation said, asks cities to estimate a water budget and to evaluate the effect of permitted development or development patterns on water demand and infrastructure. The consultants said the water budget will be tied to population growth and the impact of chosen water conservation strategies.
Landmark Design outlined categories of demand and conservation approaches. The presentation said methods of reducing water demand are typically grouped into indoor measures, outdoor measures and broader policies. The consultants also listed specific plan elements the planning commission will be asked to recommend, including locally determined water conservation policies, landscaping options for park strips that do not require turf, changes to ordinances that promote inefficient water use and low-water-use landscaping standards for non-single-family residential uses.
"They want you to address that. The clarification that was provided with the grant checklist is that this is asking you to develop a water budget," Speaker 4 said, summarizing guidance that the consultants said came with the grant checklist tied to SB 110.
Consultants said the city has begun its outreach and data-gathering. They cited a 2022 survey by Utah State University that showed about eight in 10 Highland residents reported a moderate to major concern about the future of the city's water supply. "From our general plan outreach efforts, we learned that residents are concerned about the future water supply, but it's not really an immediate or visible threat," the presenter said.
Presenters told the council that some specifics depend on future land-use decisions and that those details will be part of upcoming conversations with the planning commission and the public. No motions or formal votes on the water element were recorded in the transcript excerpt provided.
The presentation indicates the city will proceed to develop a water budget, consider indoor and outdoor conservation measures, and prepare ordinance and landscaping recommendations for the planning commission to review before the December 2025 compliance deadline. Further public outreach and future council or planning commission deliberations were presented as the next steps.
