Luxury housing development on Webb Hill could reroute Kentucky Lucky Chicken trail – The Spectrum

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Known mainly for its mountain bike trailsand crown of communications towers, Webb Hill in St. George could soon playhost to a luxury housing development.

But the developer for that project known formally as Summit Estates says it's hoping to take a much more "sensitive" approach to placing houses on the71-acre plot of land, which is situated on the east side of the hill above the neighborhoods along Bloomington Hills Drive.

"We're really trying to not make this intrusive, so we're taking every effort possible to make sure that it's not just a big ugly development," said Skylar Stewart, project manager with Superior Development, Inc. "We want this to look really nice and be something the city can be proud of."

Among those efforts include a commitment to preserving and improving access to popular recreation sites on the hill, including the locally-famous Kentucky Lucky Chicken trail, and a proposed plan that calls for a lighter-handedapproach to constructionthat avoids mass grading of the hillside.

Eventually, Stewart said, plans call for 42 custom homes on the hillside on lots ranging from a half-acre to over three acres.

The east side of Webb Hill is already approved for development, just not the type of development the owners of that property want to build.

The hill itself is split into two plots. The largest of them, at roughly 234 acres, is owned by the city and contains most (not all) of the Kentucky Lucky Chicken trail and much of the open space Webb Hill is known for.

The second, at about 71 acres, is privately owned and was originally a piece of a larger master planned community approved for the area in 2001.

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Some of that original master plan was developed into the existing Sienna Canyon neighborhood, but a 71-acre portion was broken off and sold in 2015.

The new owners of that plot thought the already-approved development plan, which called for the hillside to be mass graded to make way for 50 homes, was "heavy handed," according to Ben Willits, project manager with Horrocks Construction.

A side-by-side image of the type of mass grading development currently approved for the east side of Webb Hill, versus the less intrusive plan the developer is seeking approval for.(Photo: Provided by Superior Development, Inc.)

They are now asking the city to approve a zoning amendment that wouldreduce the number of homes to 42 and allow the developer to grade just the precise footprint of each home, a plan they saywould preserve much more of the hillside's open space and natural character.

"They wanted to come in with a much softer touch and have it be not so intrusive into the existing hillside," said Willits, whose firm isis contracted to design Summit Estates.

The new plan would preserve about 45 percent of the property as open space and, though the houses are custom, each home will be required to meet strict design and landscaping standards.

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The homes will be high end, Stewart said, taking cues from other upscale developments in the county such as Kayenta in Ivins.

Thedirt road up Webb Hill, which is city-owned and would remain public,would be paved and the new plans propose a 10-foot wide paved public trail leading from the entrance of the development to the Kentucky Lucky Chicken trailhead.

This new plan was approved by the St. George Planning Commission on Oct. 13, but will need one more thumbs up from city council before it's fully approved

But while both the city and the developer have confirmed the Kentucky Lucky Chicken trail will remain, it's not likely to make it through the development totallyunscathed.

A preliminary plat showing the proposed layout of the Summit Estates luxury housing development and a tentative reroute for the eastern end of the Kentucky Lucky Chicken mountain bike trail(Photo: Provided by Horrocks Engineers)

A short portion of the trail, including its trailhead, was erroneously built on the private property now destined to become Summit Estates. That short bit of trail will likely be rerouted and the trailhead relocated.

No formal agreement has been made on how that trail reroute and trailhead relocation would work, but Willits said whatever the solution is will be done hand-in-hand with the city.

"It's the city's call exactly how it gets rerouted," Stewart said. "But we're working with them to make sure it does."

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The goal is to get that reroute completed before any sections of the trail on private land are closed off for construction, he added.

If all goes to plan, the project will likely break ground early next year starting with improvements to the dirt road leading up Webb Hill.

Access to the Kentucky Lucky Chicken trail and other open space on Webb Hill will remain unimpeded as much as possibleas the constructionmoves forward.

Sam Gross covers the outdoors and development in Southern Utah for The St. George Spectrum & Daily News.Support his work by subscribing to TheSpectrum.com.

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Luxury housing development on Webb Hill could reroute Kentucky Lucky Chicken trail - The Spectrum