Heber Valley’s North Fields may become their own town: River View.Early this month, a group of landowners in the area sent a request to the Lieutenant Governor’s Office for a feasibility study on a large area to the north and west of Heber City.Mark Wilson, the petition’s main sponsor, declined to comment on his request to the state, saying he’s unsure of the process’s timeline and doesn’t want to speak about it until his incorporation is approved. But according to several co-sponsors of the petition, the effort largely comes out of the desire for local landowners to control the future of their own community and parcels. Much of the land within the potential boundaries of River View is used for farming and livestock purposes. Wilson and many of the co-sponsors are also directors of North Field Irrigation Company, or at least they were when it was last updated in 2013 on the Utah Division of Water Rights website.Ed Clyde, one of the petition for feasibility’s five co-sponsors and a property owner in the North Fields, shared his reasoning for being involved in the effort, though he clarified that he was speaking as only one of the several landowners.“We just want to make sure that we can control our water and we can control our own destiny there in the North Fields. Everybody wants a piece of the North Field, and we’d like to keep it ourselves,” he said. “We may as well make a town out of it and control our own destiny.”In summer 2022, when the Utah Department of Transportation initially released possible routes for a bypass through Heber Valley that could ease traffic from Heber City’s Main Street, they identified two possible routes that would cut through the North Fields. Though updated traffic studies sent them back to exploring the feasibility of different route options, many in the public were upset with the idea of a roadway running through the area.Clyde said that for him, the effort to incorporate isn’t about those concerns, but has more to do directly with water and local control over infrastructure.“We sometimes have to beg to get our roads done, and we just feel like it’s time. We’ve got enough residents in there and it will just help,” he said. He also is concerned about what could happen to water rights in the area if the land was annexed into an already-existing municipality.“We don’t want that,” he said. “We want to stay just like we are. If we’re a town, we can control our own destiny.”The push for incorporation comes amid some property owners in the area working to annex into Heber City. According to Heber City Manager Matt Brower, city staff are researching the effects the incorporation application and will present their findings to the City Council on Oct. 1.The post Wasatch County North Fields owners take first step in incorporation process appeared first on Park Record.