Lehi is growing.

Resolution approval was just the first step in the annexation process.

"We'll want to do an area plan and zoning will come into play at the same time down the road, so we're looking at five to six months before its final," Councilman Stephen Holbrook said.

Lehi measures 14,799 acres from Utah Lake to the Point of the Mountain, from American Fork and Highland's west boundary to the Jordan River except to the south where Saratoga Springs has a toe hold east along Utah Lake and north to nearly 700 South in Lehi.

The council's move to annex complies with the city's annexation declaration plan filed with the state in 2003 according to Lehi Planner Kim Struthers.

It is an annexation plan in conflict with the City of Saratoga Springs' annexation declaration plan which overlaps boundaries with Lehi's and claims any property west of the Jordan River. The move to annex comes from the landowners not Lehi City.

"This was not politically motivated at all," Councilman Mark Johnson said during a phone interview. "This is something the property owners, the future developer and the city had been discussing for months."

The proposed Lehi annexation includes all property west of the river and the majority east of Redwood Road, north of Saratoga Springs's Harvest Hills and south of Camp Williams.

"This is a matter we have been working on for some time," said City Administrator Jamie Davidson. "This is like any other annexation that we've done, except larger."

Councilman Holbrook owns one third of the property in the annexation. He signed and submitted a disclosure statement about his vested interest to the city before voting on the resolution Tuesday.

"You didn't abstain so I could have the pleasure of voting for it," Mayor Howard Johnson said. Two of the council members were absent for the vote, and abstaining would have given the vote less than a quorum.

Several property owners within the annexation boundaries, including Holbrook, have entered into a contractual agreement with Anderson Development for a planned community.

Davidson said the city included a number of properties within the annexation resolution whose property owners have not specifically requested to be annexed "simply to comply with state law" which prohibits county islands surrounded by land within city boundaries.

"There was an effort to contact each of these property owners to advise them of this annexation," Davidson said. "The city also had an open house and invited land owners to answer questions ... a public hearing to consider potential objections."

An annexation by resolution was done instead of by petition of the property owners because it streamlined the process said Davidson.

"It is easier for one thing," he said. "It is a procedure that is designed to accommodate for one thing that you are filling in what is in this case a large peninsula."

The property cited for annexation is also the site of UDOT's proposed Mountain View Corridor and its preferred 2100 North freeway, cutting in half the proposed Anderson Development.

"I think that is one of the real good things that we have done in the last year or two and I think that it will be an asset to the city," the mayor said of the annexation.