Council delays Lundin easement decision, schedules site visit to review emergency access route

Midway City staff and councilors spent the latter portion of the work meeting reviewing outstanding conditions tied to a proposed conservation easement on the Lundin property and discussing a potential emergency evacuation access across that land.

Katie summarized the background: the council authorized use of open-space bond funds on June 20, 2023, and extended those authorizations on Jan. 16, 2024. The Lundins have since worked with Utah Open Lands on a purchase-and-sale for a conservation easement but asked for additional time to complete remaining conditions. "The extension would be to allow time, so that so that this would actually fall within the conditions that were set by the city council," Katie said, noting most conditions have been satisfied but the purchase-and-sale and conservation-easement filings remain incomplete.

Water-rights and security were a central issue. Staff recounted that initial materials referenced 64 Midway Irrigation Company shares but the Lundins now propose encumbering 40 shares in perpetuity for the 19-acre easement and adding 10 additional shares as temporary security — 50 shares total — to secure city and county contributions until the conservation easement is filed. Katie said the extra 10 shares would revert to the family once the easement is recorded and asked that the temporary security be restricted to the city and county (not other funding sources).

A second focus was emergency-access and wildfire evacuation. The city's master-street plan shows a connector from Bigler to Olympic Drive that could provide an alternate egress for neighborhoods that currently rely on one access. Staff stressed that a feasible route must meet fire-code width and grade standards and comply with sensitive-land protections; "if this land were coming in through an annexation...I have every confidence that the city would require an actual road to be built here to connect Bigler to Swiss Alpine," Katie said, but the easement approach is intended to preserve open space while allowing emergency access.

Several residents and councilors emphasized urgency on safety. Public commenter Nora asked whether fire-code standards differ for an emergency/evacuation road versus a public street; staff agreed to provide the fire-code language at a Thursday site visit. Resident JC Simonson told the council they should prioritize escape routes to prevent families from being trapped in a wildfire.

Councilors agreed no formal decisions would be made at the work meeting and that staff would conduct a site visit with engineering and planning staff to assess whether a west- or east-side alignment is workable. A site visit was scheduled for Thursday (time discussed as 11:30 vs. 12:30), and Katie said she would circulate code excerpts and confirm logistics. "We fully understand that that's what we're going to be looking at," Unidentified Speaker 3 said. Discussion and any motion to extend the easement conditions will return to a future, publicly noticed meeting after the site visit.