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Nate Eppley, of Salem, rides his bike at the Payson Forebay Area Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025.

Jacob Nielson, Daily Herald

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The Payson Forebay Area is pictured Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025.

Jacob Nielson, Daily Herald

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The Payson Forebay Area is pictured Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025.

Jacob Nielson, Daily Herald

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The Payson Forebay Area is pictured Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025.

Jacob Nielson, Daily Herald

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Payson City is considering placing a deed of conservation easement upon the 480-acre Forebay Area at the mouth of Payson Canyon. 

If approved by the Payson City Council, the easement would protect the city-owned recreational land, and the hiking, mountain biking, snow shoeing and horse riding activities it offers, in perpetuity.

“We’ve seen in a lot of other areas, especially around Park City, where people want to live in the mountains. So preserving this means everybody can enjoy it, not just people with a lot of money to buy a big piece of real estate,” said Kevin Crook, vice-chair of the Forebay Committee.

The Payson Forebay Committee serves as an advisory board to the Payson City Council and has worked closely with the city to put the easement together. The committee will present the plan to the community at an open house at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the city center for public input. 

“The Forebay Committee has spent many years getting it to this point,” Payson Parks and Recreation Director Karl Teemant said.

As part of the process, the City Council will consider allowing another entity — potentially Lehi City — to be the easement holder of the land, while Payson remains the landowner. 

The purpose of an outside easement holder is to create additional oversight — or a checks-and-balance system — to better protect the future land, said Adam Cowie, the Forebay Committee secretary. 

Payson would be allowed to make its own decisions on the land that are in conformance with the easement rules, but if it were to make changes outside of the rules, it would need permission from the easement holder to do so, according to Cowie. 

“The Payson City Council in 20 years can’t say ‘You know what? We want to sell 50 acres,'” Cowie said. “To do that they would have to go to the Lehi City Council and say ‘This is why we think this is needed and how it meets the conservation easement.’ And the council might say, ‘I don’t think that meets the intent of that easement. Sorry, you can’t do it.'” 

This practice has been seen with other land easements in Utah County in recent years. In 2024, Lehi preserved 900 acres of land in Traverse Mountain through an easement held by Draper. Last June, Lehi returned the favor by holding the easement for 255 acres of open space in Draper. 

Provo City is also considering placing an easement at Bunnell’s Fork, which would be held by Utah Open Lands. 

Payson has big plans for the Forebay Area, as laid out in a management plan for the land published in 2020, including a new bike park, which was approved by the Payson City Council in July, granting the city the ability to pursue funding options for the project. 

Cowie said the plans are all in accordance with the proposed easement, which in its contract allows for the construction of restroom facilities, picnic tables, event-related temporary structures and other recreational-oriented facilities. 

There are also provisions that allow for utilities to improve water resources in the area. 

“There’s a retention pond up there that captures some of the water out of the canyon so future use for water uses for the city, such as a water tank or a reservoir. … Those things are still permitted through the easement,” Cowie said.

Teemant said the potential easement aligns well with the city’s new branding, “Payson, home to adventure,” and sees it as an outdoor adventure place the community can enjoy.

“Rather than just internally protecting the land, this puts another layer of protection on it,” Teemant said. “It makes it so development would be off limits, and then we would be able to able to use it for our conservation values that we have: education, recreation, open space.”