LAYTON -- UTOPIA will soon be expanding in Layton.

During its Tuesday night meeting, the planning commission approved the sites for six huts that will soon make the fiber-optic network more available to residents and businesses.

"We're excited they're moving forward in a fairly aggressive fashion," said City Planner Peter Matson.

The Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency, more commonly known as UTOPIA, is a group of 16 Utah cities that teamed up to form a state-of-the-art fiber-optic network.

The city already has one hut -- at Gordon Avenue and Fort Lane -- that provides a service area in the central section of town, north of Gordon Avenue, west of Fort Lane and east of Hill Field Road. The service area also goes south along Antelope Road.

That hut was constructed in 2007. At that time, UTOPIA was planning to build in all of the participating cities at the same time.

"But partway through UTOPIA's existence, we entered an agreement with the federal government to take in a loan," said Layton City Manager Alex Jensen. "One of the conditions of that loan was that the money had to be spent in rural areas. Layton is not a rural area."

Jensen said Layton stepped back and let those resources be spent in Centerville, Lindon and Brigham City, cities that met the rural city requirements.

In 2010, UTOPIA announced it received $16.1 million in federal stimulus money, with $4.8 million going to Layton. That money has provided the means to move UTOPIA along.

Layton city has pledged a potion of its sales tax revenue to the service.

According to a Standard-Examiner article on June 21, 2010, City Finance Director Steve Ashby said the city's yearly pledge to the network for the 2011 fiscal year has a monetary ceiling of just more than $2 million. The maximum sales tax revenue pledge the city has committed to UTOPIA does increase 2 percent annually through the year 2040, Ashby said.

The six new huts will be constructed on city-owned land, which Matson said works out well for the city.

Those sites include:

SBlt the intersection of Layton Parkway and Flint Street.

SBlt 1925 N. Fort Lane (Layton City Public Works shop property).

SBlt 1650 N. Main (Vae View Park).

SBlt 1200 W. Hill Field Road (detention site).

SBlt 1900 N. 700 West (future fire station).

SBlt 199 N. Fort Lane (Fire Station No. 53).

"The basic theory is, with these six huts, UTOPIA can begin to establish this loop system that starts off in the central core of the city and then will start to break out from there with other sites," Matson said.

Each of the huts needs to receive a final site-plan and building permit from the city. Once those steps are completed, UTOPIA will order the huts from the manufacturer.

Matson said the huts will be delivered to UTOPIA in 60 to 90 days, and then UTOPIA will erect the huts on the sites.

Matson said UTOPIA plans to put 18 huts total around town, and the final 12 will come in two waves. UTOPIA plans to submit the proposed sites for the next six huts to the city today.

Source: standard.net