What Highland's Water Bill Isn't Telling You Yet

If you're comparing a 0.75-acre lot in Highland to a smaller lot in Lehi or Saratoga Springs, what does the extra land actually cost you to keep alive every July?

Right now, the honest answer is: nobody can tell you, including the city. Highland finished the hardware side of a $10 million project to put a meter on every pressurized irrigation connection in town, funded by $7 million in state and federal grants plus $3 million the city pulled from its own irrigation reserves. Installation started in the northwest part of the city and the Viewpoint subdivision back in the summer of 2023. What hasn't happened yet is the part that actually changes your bill: the switch from a flat irrigation fee to a rate that charges by usage. And the timeline for that switch has already moved twice.

The Flat Fee Is a Placeholder, Not a Promise

Highland's own city page on Pressurized Irrigation states plainly that water rates will not change until every meter in the system is installed, and that metered billing isn't anticipated to begin until 2027. That's the current official word. But it isn't the only word the city has given. A 2024 city newsletter described a different plan: the city intended to use pressurized water usage data collected over the summer of 2025 to set tiered rates that would take effect in 2026.

Neither of those dates has held. A more recent city newsletter, published this spring, shows Highland is still in the design phase. Staff are analyzing what typical irrigation usage looks like for Highland homes before bringing a tiered rate proposal to the City Council for public feedback. The mayor's own framing in that newsletter is that the new pressurized irrigation rate will likely resemble the culinary water rate: a base charge plus tiers that scale with how much you use.

None of this is a criticism of Highland's process. Municipal rate-setting is slow by design, and the city is doing the modeling work before locking in a number. But for anyone evaluating a Highland listing today, it means the flat PI fee quoted in a current utility statement is not a permanent number. It's a placeholder that exists only because the meters are installed and the rate structure isn't finished yet.

What the Transition Looks Like Once It's Done

Highland isn't guessing at what this transition looks like from nothing. Two neighboring cities have already walked this exact path, and both give a concrete preview of where a lot-size-weighted, usage-based system lands.

American Fork, right next door, is in the middle of moving from a flat PI rate to a tiered one built on both lot size and consumption. The city's own FAQ says most bills are expected to go up under the new structure, though residents who use their irrigation minimally and cut back on overwatering should see little to no increase. American Fork also rolled out a usage-and-billing comparison tool through its Yoppify utility platform, letting residents see which rate tier and lot-size group they fall into and compare their bill under the new rates. That tool became available to residents in January 2026.

Saratoga Springs has already finished the transition, and its published formula shows exactly how lot size drives the math. Single-family residential customers pay a base fee of $16.25 per quarter acre, and each property gets a monthly water allotment calculated by multiplying gross lot acreage by roughly 108.79 (in thousands of gallons). A quarter-acre lot gets an allotment of about 27,200 gallons a month. Use more than your allotment and the per-gallon rate climbs from there.

Lay those three side by side and a pattern shows up that a single city's page won't reveal on its own: everywhere this transition has actually happened in Utah County, the bill has been built to scale with the size of the lot, not just how green you keep it. That's the mechanism a big-lot Highland buyer needs to hold in mind, because it isn't reflected anywhere in the flat fee currently showing up on a Highland utility statement.

Why This Falls Hardest on Highland's Biggest Lots

Highland's identity in the current market is built on land. Subdivisions like Sloane Estates (lots running roughly .69 to .91 acres, with only a handful of the original seven homesites still available), Hawks Landing, Williams View (a .59-acre offering), Aberlour Estates (.74 acres), and neighborhoods like The Hollows and Horseshoe Bend are selling estate-sized parcels, often with mountain and valley views, specifically to buyers who want more ground than a standard suburban lot. That land comes at a premium, and it's a real one: Highland's home values run well above nearby cities with smaller typical lots.

That premium is priced in the sale. What isn't priced in, yet, is the ongoing cost of watering all that extra ground once the meter that's already sitting on the property starts driving a tiered bill instead of a flat one. A quarter-acre lot in a formula like Saratoga Springs' gets an allotment scaled to a quarter acre. A three-quarter-acre or full-acre Highland lot, under a similar structure, would carry a proportionally larger allotment and, if usage runs past it, a proportionally larger bill for the overage. Whether Highland's eventual rate mirrors that formula exactly is still an open question the city hasn't answered. But the direction is consistent everywhere the transition has already happened nearby: bigger lot, bigger allotment, bigger bill if you water past it.

If you're weighing a big Highland lot against a smaller one somewhere else in Utah Valley, the comparison worth running isn't just the purchase price. It's what a landscape budget for that lot looks like once it's billed the way American Fork and Saratoga Springs already bill theirs, not the way Highland bills today.

What to Actually Do With This Before You Buy

You can't get a final number from Highland yet, and no one honestly can. But you can ask better questions while you're touring, and you can build in a margin instead of assuming today's flat fee holds.

Ask the seller or listing agent whether the property's PI meter has been read, whether the seller has kept records of irrigation usage over a full season, and how large the irrigated area actually is versus the lot's total acreage. Two lots of the same size can carry very different future bills if one is mostly xeriscaped and the other is turf from the house to the property line. If you're set on an estate lot in Highland, it's worth checking the city's Pressurized Irrigation Department page directly before closing, since the rate proposal is expected to move through public hearings before it's finalized.

A Few Questions Worth Asking

Does the state mandate mean Highland has to charge by usage no matter what? Yes, on the metering side. Utah Code 73-10-34 (originating from HB 242 in 2022 and SB 251 in 2023) requires every secondary water supplier in the state to have metered connections by January 1, 2030, with escalating penalties for cities that miss that deadline. How each city structures its rates once metered is still a local decision, but Highland's meters are already in the ground.

Is secondary irrigation water the same as my drinking water? No. Highland's pressurized irrigation system delivers non-potable water for outdoor use only, and the system runs seasonally, generally from April 15 through October 15.

Will my bill definitely go up? Highland hasn't finalized a rate, so there's no confirmed answer for Highland specifically. In American Fork's comparable transition, the city has said most bills are expected to rise, while residents who use less than their allotment should see minimal change.

Buying land in Highland is still buying into one of the more distinct lifestyle draws in Utah Valley, the mountain views, the space, the sense of room to breathe that smaller lots elsewhere don't offer. Understanding how the ongoing cost of that space is about to change just means you're buying it with your eyes open instead of budgeting off a number that's already scheduled to move.

If you're comparing a big lot in Highland against a smaller one somewhere else in Utah Valley or Salt Lake Valley, I'd rather walk you through the real tradeoffs before you write an offer than have you find them out afterward. Naomi McClure — Let's Connect.