Alpine is reopening the math behind what it charges new construction to hook into the city's water and sewer systems. The City Council will hold a public hearing Tuesday, Nov. 10, at 6 p.m. on amending the impact fee facilities plan and impact fee analysis for culinary water, pressurized irrigation and sewer service inside city limits, according to a notice posted Oct. 29 on the state's public meeting site (via Utah Public Notice Website).
The hearing happens during the regular council meeting in the council chambers at Alpine City Hall, 20 N. Main St. A second hearing that night covers amendments to the city's fiscal 2027 budget.
The notice cites Utah Code 11-36a-502, the part of the state Impact Fees Act that governs how a city announces it's preparing or changing an impact fee facilities plan, often shortened to IFFP, and the impact fee analysis, or IFA. Put simply, the IFFP lays out what water, irrigation and sewer infrastructure growth will require, and the IFA turns that into a per-connection charge. Rewrite those documents and the fee a builder pays at permit time can move, up or down.
What isn't public yet is the number. Neither the notice nor the one-page attachment lists proposed fee amounts. The city says supporting documents will go up on alpineut.gov shortly before the hearing, and that they can also be requested from City Recorder DeAnn Parry at 801-756-6347, ext. 3. The notice also invites people to submit information the city should consider while it amends the documents, with public comment taken at the hearing itself.
For a sense of where things stand now, Alpine's consolidated fee schedule, dated January 2026, lists separate impact fee lines for sewer, culinary water (split by whether a property also has pressurized irrigation service) and pressurized irrigation, which is tiered by lot size from a quarter acre up to an acre, with larger, commercial, religious and educational lots calculated separately. A footnote ties the pressurized irrigation fees to a 2021 analysis. The posted version of the schedule doesn't render cleanly enough to pull reliable dollar figures for each line, so builders should check current amounts with the city directly.
Impact fees have come up at the council table recently in a different context. In Sept. 8 minutes on a proposed detached accessory dwelling unit ordinance, staff noted that the state once barred cities from charging extra impact fees for internal ADUs, said the question for detached units still needed research and said any impact fee decisions would have to be written into the ordinance. The same discussion noted that the city's sewer system is currently adequate but that ADUs could tip the balance, and that 24-inch sewer lines are very expensive to install or replace.
The hearing also lands as impact fees are getting a closer look on Capitol Hill. The Legislative Audit Subcommittee's Oct. 20 agenda listed a performance audit titled "Utah Impact Fees: A Performance Audit of Current Practices and Policy Considerations" (Report 2026-33). Hello Contractor wasn't able to access the full report, so its findings aren't summarized here.
Under the state's framework, impact fees are one-time charges cities, counties and special districts use to cover the infrastructure load from new development, according to the state's Office of the Property Rights Ombudsman. The office says the money can only be spent on the type of facility the fee was collected for, and that fees are supposed to be based on existing service levels unless other funding covers an upgrade.
Why it matters for Contractors
If you build or plan to build in Alpine, this hearing is about your cost per lot. Water, irrigation and sewer fees are charged on new connections, and on a small spec job they can be the difference between thin margin and none.
Watch alpineut.gov in the days before Nov. 10 for the draft IFFP and IFA, or call the recorder's office and ask for them now. Look at the proposed per-connection amounts, how the lot-size tiers change, and what projects the plan says the fees will pay for. If something looks off, the hearing is the place to say so on the record, and showing up beats complaining after the fee schedule is adopted.
For questions about whether a fee is calculated properly, the state's Property Rights Ombudsman (801-530-6391) takes calls from builders and property owners and can issue advisory opinions on specific fees. It's worth knowing about before you write a check you think is wrong.