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SARATOGA SPRINGS — Saratoga Springs is pausing approval of new plats for subdivisions in the city's south end until a sewer system upgrade is completed.
"We are not accepting any new plats south of Grandview Boulevard," said city spokeswoman AnnElise Harrison.
Any housing already platted will be able to continue with the construction process, Harrison said.
The city recognized years ago that this sewer capacity problem was coming, Harrison explained, and that the south portion of the city would need an additional sewer main pipeline and lift station.
"This was an issue we saw years ago, and we've been working on to solve, so I would actually say this is us being proactive," she said.
Harrison said the sewer main is a year away from completion and that the pump station could take longer. Until then, the city won't record any new subdivisions or additional phases to existing subdivisions.
"Those phases and those new subdivisions aren't going to be able to move forward with platting until we fix that sewage issue," Harrison said.
But Harrison said there will still be plenty of housing construction going on in Saratoga Springs because the city has already greenlighted more than 12,500 lots, and an additional 24,000 housing units are in the planning process and not impacted by the sewer capacity issue.
The city, incorporated in 1997, has seen rapid growth along with the rest of Utah County.
"It kind of started exploding in the early 2000s," Harrison said.
Utah County had the country's tenth-largest numeric population increase in 2021, adding 21,843 new residents, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates released in March.
The city is spending about $15 million to build the sewer pipeline, with $2 million of that coming from American Rescue Plan Act funding, Harrison said. Developers will pay for the wastewater lift station.
"Some developers will be working together to build the lift station that will be needed to work in conjunction with that pipeline," Harrison said.
