Landowner Slows Kaysville Road Improvement Plans

KAYSVILLE, Utah – Plans to improve sidewalk safety on Sunset Drive in Kaysville before students return to school hit a major holdup after one property owner said he will not give up his right-of-way.

Decades of progress has brought more cars and more people to the road in west Kaysville.

“It’s a major (traffic) collector road here in town,” said city public works director and engineer Josh Belnap.    

The north portion of the Sunset Drive project was completed last year.

“We’re finishing the second half of this. Trying to get curb and sidewalk on both sides of the road as well,” Belnap said.

These improvements will cost $1.3 million.

Land deeds in the area are unusual because some property lines go to the middle of the street. 

All but one landowner has agreed to donate the right-of-way in exchange for getting the improvements at no cost.

“We have a property where we’ve had a lot of back and forth,” Belnap said.

Brad Walters owns a family farm here. He said it hasn’t made money in the past and he doesn’t want to put it further down the hole by giving up the land.

He said the plans would also complicate flood irrigation issues here.

Work will continue anyway. Crews will build a bottleneck around the Walters farm with no curb, sidewalk or gutter.

“It is a safety concern,” Belnap said. “We want people to be able to move whether they’re pedestrians or vehicles or bicycles.”

He said it ultimately impacts foot traffic to three schools in the area, but the city doesn’t want to push eminent domain.

Instead, the city will wait.

“Typically, what’s more likely or more common, is development of properties that are either currently underdeveloped or going to be developed,” Belnap said.

Belnap added signage will be put in place for the remaining bottleneck and alerts will also get posted on the city’s website.