The real kicker about Eagle Mountain and Saratoga Springs? Neither city existed a decade ago. Their climb to the top of the state's population growth chart was as unforeseen as it is prolific. And it has put planners, city officials and educators to the test.
"I didn't see this coming either," says Saratoga Springs Mayor Timothy Parker. "If somebody told me a city of 70,000 would grow up on Utah Lake, I would have laughed. But that's what is happening."
Parker overstates it a bit, but he certainly is in the ballpark. Population estimates based on the 2000 census and building-permit data show that 9,584 people now call Eagle Mountain home; another 6,377 live in Saratoga Springs. By 2030, the Governor's Office of Planning and Budget projects that a combined 56,000 people will reside in the two cities.
To recap: That's about 16,000 people now, and nearly 60,000 in the next 2 1/2 decades. All after Eagle Mountain and Saratoga Springs incorporated with about 250 residents each in 1996 and 1997, respectively.
As a result, planners have not only fallen behind the curve - they have had to scramble just to keep it in sight.
"It's quite astonishing. There was nothing out there. Now it's like mushrooms sprouting," says Pamela Perlich, a senior economist with the University of Utah's Bureau of Economic and Business Research.
With its youthful demographic and large families, Utah County has been a growth hotbed for the past two decades. But regional planners spent the 1980s and 1990s simply trying to keep up with expanding populations in the county's historic corridor - American Fork, Pleasant Grove, Orem, Provo and Springville. The notion that a new one might take hold at the north end of the county didn't occur to them at the time.
"It was like a developer's pipe dream. Early proposals showed a belt route out there and a couple of causeways across the lake," recalls Shawn Eliot, a demographic analyst with the Mountainland Association of Governments. "But while they were making these plans, we were putting out other fires. It was hard to envision, at that point, that anything was going to happen out there."
What did happen was affordable housing. With home prices skyrocketing along the Wasatch Front during the mid-1990s, residential developers staked out northwest Utah County as an area that was a reasonable commute to Provo (25 miles) and Salt Lake City (45 miles) and economically inviting to build in. Even today, billboards along I-15 in Utah County trumpet Eagle Mountain "starter" homes in the $80,000 range. The city average is around $125,000.
''The baby boom peaked in the '80s, and now all of those people are in the housing market,'' says U. of U. economist Perlich. "These are folks in their mid-20s who are just forming households, and they can't afford to live in the city. They're also looking for quality of life. People want a house with a yard, and there just aren't many starter homes in the urban areas."
With its Utah Lake views, Saratoga Springs developers at least initially pursued more affluent home buyers, according to Parker.
But the combined result was a population and housing boom that has overwhelmed the area's transportation network and put a strain on the Alpine School District.
Tracy Conti, Region 3 director for the Utah Department of Transportation, acknowledges that his agency has been hard-pressed to keep up with the ever-increasing traffic. And it is another city that's bearing the brunt of it.
"They're all going through Lehi's main street to get to I-15, and it takes a long time to get through there," says Conti. "A study we've completed for the northwest part of Utah County shows that three five-lane roads are needed [between] Redwood Road and I-15. Right now, there's one two-lane road.
"Obviously, we are a little behind. We know what needs to be done, but we need funds to do it."
Alpine School District officials also are under the gun - an extra 120 students showed up on the doorstep of Saratoga Shores and Eagle View elementary schools last week. But spokeswoman Jerri Mortensen says the growth will be accommodated, thanks to a $200 million education bond district residents approved in 2000. Seven new schools have been built; three more are in the pipeline - and all of them could end up on the west side of the district.
"We don't build a school until the students are there," she said. "But we are prepared, for the simple reason that four years ago, we looked forward and planned around the [population] projections."
Neither city has attracted much of a commercial base yet, meaning residents must commute to get to work and to shop. But retail shopping and jobs may not be far behind.
Eagle Mountain planner Shawn Warnke says the city, which issued 500 housing permits in its peak years of 2000-2001, already is over the 400 mark in 2004 - meaning things aren't slowing down much.
"It's all been pretty amazing, but I see it continuing into the foreseeable future," he says. "Over the next three to five years, we're going to continue to grow at a pretty healthy rate."
jbaird@sltrib.com
