David Hinckley loved his ranch in the northernmost reaches of Salt Lake County, his family members say, so much so that he ran cattle on it until his death in 2014, even as farming in the rapidly growing valley grew precarious.
The ranch — one of the region’s last sizable chunks of farmland — is poised to be folded into the boundaries of Utah’s capital city.
Two of Hinckley’s children, Dalon Hinckley and Heather Limon, own and operate the beloved Cross E Ranch these days as a sort of agricultural destination, a place where families on the Wasatch Front can go experience a slice of farm life — or one of their famous apple cider doughnuts.
“He loved the romance of it,” son Dalon Hinckley said of his father. “To him, it was a special thing to be one of the last ranches, to be this bastion of this life that existed. So I think it was almost a point of pride for him to persist.”
That past is ever tenuous on the state’s latest growth trajectory. Cross E Ranch and its neighbors fall within the Northpoint area, a small, traditionally agricultural hamlet squeezed among Interstate 215, Legacy Parkway, Salt Lake City International Airport and the Great Salt Lake.
(Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune)
The neighborhood holds some of the last working farm acreages in the Salt Lake Valley, but the same things that kept them seemingly hidden for so long — the airport and the highways — are now attracting commercial developers itching to build new distribution and manufacturing facilities as farming in the area declines due to rising costs.
Those pressures, and other goals at City Hall, have made annexing more of the Northpoint area a high priority.
Annexing a changing place
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Salt Lake City Council is considering annexing land in Salt Lake County’s Northpoint area, which would include the Cross E Ranch, into the municipality, pictured Wednesday, May 28, 2025.
The annexation area lies mostly along 2200 West north of the Salt Lake City Mosquito Abatement District headquarters up to Cross E Ranch at the corner of 2200 West and Cudahy Lane.
Most of the affected parcels sit in a peninsula of unincorporated county land surrounded by existing city boundaries.
A vote Tuesday approving the annexation was the culmination of a yearslong process to study, plan and annex the agricultural area as commercial development pressures are quickly altering its character. City officials say they aim to manage development in the area responsibly and reduce residents’ headaches.
A lot rides on how the annexation proceeds. Right now, the historic hamlet can be divided into three parts.
The southern entrance to the neighborhood features large distribution and manufacturing facilities. The northern reaches offer a glimpse into the valley’s agrarian past. The middle section commingles commercial development across the street from single-family homes.
The area’s biggest draw right now — Cross E Ranch and its seasonal festivals — sits across the Jordan River from Davis County and North Salt Lake.
Several parcels in the total of about 797 annexed acres are also home to wetlands and other open spaces.
Commercial development pressures don’t seem to be easing up, though, and multiple landowners in Northpoint are considering building new facilities on their lots. State and city officials also recently hosted a community meeting informing residents that it could be the site of Utah’s planned 1,200-bed homeless services campus as well.
Why Northpoint?
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Salt Lake City Council is considering annexing land in Salt Lake County’s Northpoint area into the municipality, pictured Wednesday, May 28, 2025.
Angela Taylor moved to the area in 2018 to be closer to a speciality school for her autistic son and to give him a quieter place to grow up. She also loves the rural feel and open spaces of Northpoint.
“I wish it would’ve stayed that way,” Taylor said. “But it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen and I’ll accept that, I guess.
“I’ll stay as long as I possibly can,” she added, “[but] as soon as it gets to be too much and I don’t feel safe and I feel like everything is building around me and I’m becoming the ‘Up’ house, then we’ll look at moving.”
Taylor said she also worries that, if it’s placed in Northpoint, the proposed homeless shelter won’t be successful, given its distance to jobs in other parts of the city and the lack of transit options in the neighborhood.
City officials offer several reasons for annexing portions of the Northpoint area — but have not thus far publicly included a homeless campus location among them.
First, they say they hope to get more power over commercial development in the neighborhood and reduce its negative effects on residents.
City Council members approved an entirely new flavor of light industrial zoning solely for for the area, one that bars additional distribution centers, sets standards for tree planting at commercial sites and limits building sizes.
Officials are also trying to thread the needle of allowing landowners in the area who want to build the opportunity to do so alongside protecting the quality of life for residents such as Taylor, who want to stay for other reasons.
The city also is seeking to shape a unified, mostly contiguous boundary along its fringe with Davis County and North Salt Lake — as well as shore up new property tax revenues. The annexation includes 200 acres directly north of the airport’s eastern runway.
“This annexation functions on a couple different levels that support really important city priorities,” council member Victoria Petro, who would represent the area, said at a May 2024 meeting on the plan, “that will eventually inure to the benefit of our constituents and the environment.”
What’s next?
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Salt Lake City Council is considering annexing land in Salt Lake County’s Northpoint area into the municipality, pictured Wednesday, May 28, 2025.
The city has been studying what to do with the Northpoint area since at least 2021 and council members signed off on a planning document for the neighborhood in November 2023.
Members seemed poised to complete the annexation in May 2024, but city staffers discovered that the border between Salt Lake and Davis counties wasn’t correct in their files, due to the ever-changing flows of the Jordan River.
Residents pushed the city to complete its zoning designations for parcels and follow through on promises to protect buffer areas along the Jordan River and other waterways before signing off on the annexation.
Hinckley and other farmers also asked City Hall to allow them to continue agricultural operations in the neighborhood. For Cross E Ranch and residents, moving under the city’s purview should bring more services, such as police and fire protection. Plans to extend sewer lines and other municipal utilities have yet to be finalized.
Council members unanimously approved the annexation at Tuesday’s regular meeting, without comment. The city will have 60 days to register the boundary change with the lieutenant governor’s office.
Hinckley said he has received thousands of offers to buy the land that makes up Cross E Ranch, but few, if any, have been sincere. He acknowledged some uncertainty in the economics of selling the acreage once the annexation goes through, however, as there could be less financial risk for developers if the parcels in that area are eligible for some city services.
“We’re going to run a fall festival this fall,” Hinckley said, “and who knows what in the hell is next?”
Note to readers • This story has been updated to include the council’s approval of the annexation.
