Nearly 20 years ago, Nichole Coombs and Stacey Gill moved with their families into the Oquirrh Highlands neighborhood, a swatch of land not part of any of the surrounding cities but a part of unincorporated Salt Lake County. 

During those years, they battled to annex into West Jordan City on several occasions but ran into road block after road block. When House Bill 330 passed in 2024, there was finally a way through those roadblocks.

In those beginning months in the neighborhood, the two neighbors became fast friends and after only six months living in the area had begun creating a strong sense of community that would eventually be the uniting factor in annexing into the city with which they already felt a kinship.

“I feel like we all moved into the neighborhood the same time,” Gill said. “Nichole and I were [some] of the very first people up in this area to move in. So it’s kind of like her and I started the friendship right away, and then lots of other people were a part of that. We were all moving in and having kids around the same time, it was a huge sense of community around here.”

In those first six months, the community began to realize the downfalls of not belonging to any city. The neighborhoods’ addresses have always had a West Jordan zip code, Coombs said. The unincorporated area was bordered by West Valley on the north side and West Jordan on the south.

Since the land was a new development, it was nearly impossible to get streetlights in the area to scare away animals like the mountain lions that roamed at night. It also spooked the neighbors how easily a nearby plot of land also not part of a city was annexed into West Valley City and a Walmart was constructed.

These initial circumstances sparked a fire to incorporate into West Jordan officially — along with the busing to three different elementary schools, lack of political representation, long wait times for emergency responders and snow removal, and more, basically resulting in a “logistic nightmare” on multiple fronts.

When the neighborhood started the first initial process of annexing into the city by petitioning, they hit roadblock after roadblock before “it all came to a crashing halt.”

“There was no money in West Jordan City’s funds to pay for that [and] there was no legislation that required cities to pay for that,” Coombs said. “So that balance was left to us as residents. And if I remember correctly, at the time, it was about $80,000 which … was just an exorbitant amount of money. And so it died.”

However, she said, that didn’t keep the community from being actively involved in the larger West Jordan community, participating in city events like the Western Stampede for the Fourth of July. “We just don’t identify as being anything else,” she said.

In the 19 years since those initial attempts at annexation, the neighborhood raised funds to build Falcon Ridge Elementary where community events are regularly held.

“When we say we built it, none of us did any hammering, none of us painted a wall, but we initiated it as a community,” Coombs said. “We got it to the top of the priority list. We were able to name it, which is really fun as a neighborhood. That’s why it has the name Falcon Ridge, because we have so many Falcons here.”

In 2024, the game changed with the passing of HB 330 that had the purpose to save Salt Lake County money by reducing fees associated with unincorporated areas within the county. 

Coombs worked closely with Aimee Winder Newton, Salt Lake County Councilwoman for District 3, to move the neighborhood residents forward with their incorporation efforts.

“When I was in my early twenties, I lived in an area of unincorporated Salt Lake County and was part of the incorporation effort to become the City of Taylorsville,” Winder Newton said. “I understand the desire to control your own destiny.”

But one part of HB 330 left a bit of a “hiccup” in moving forward — since West Valley City has a larger population than West Jordan, the neighborhood would’ve been absorbed by the larger city per the bill if they did nothing.

It took both Coombs and Gill one final big push to make sure this didn’t happen.

Petitioning started throughout the neighborhood in 2024, close to Halloween, and the duo collected hundreds of signatures, even tracking down homeowners who lived out of the country. The required amount was collected just before Thanksgiving.

The request to annex into West Jordan was approved by the West Jordan City Council a few months later in January, making it the farthest the neighborhood had come to annexing.

“West Jordan isn’t just a city, it’s our home,” Coombs said at the West Jordan City Council meeting when the council voted to annex the neighborhood. “You aren’t just getting more houses, more roads, you’re getting invested residents.”

“I’ve been so impressed with those who have championed the annexation into West Jordan,” Winder Newton said. “They have worked tirelessly to go through the process and educate their neighbors. While Salt Lake County has loved serving this neighborhood, we support their desires and wish them all the best as they officially become West Jordan residents.”

The win for the neighborhood was a victory Coombs had waited and worked on for 20 years.

“This is a huge, big deal for me right now,” Coombs said. “Government is really big and really loud and really opinionated, and it’s important that my children and my community and other people in my sphere recognize that grassroots government still exists in the United States.

“I cannot fix a lot of things in the government, but in my little part of the world — the way the Constitution was set up, the way the state government set up, the way the county and now this city is set up — me, Nicole Coombs, who is not a lawyer, not an elected official, I was able to make a change.”

The Oquirrh Highlands Neighborhood will officially become part of West Jordan City on July 1. λ