A 2025 housing bill quietly rewrote the exact statute that governs how few people it takes to found a new Utah town — right before landowners started using a fast-track incorporation law that depends on it.
Rep. James Dunnigan's H.B. 37 was framed, and covered, as a housing-supply bill: density bonuses, moderate-income-housing reporting, a new state housing plan. Buried in Section 1, though, is a rewrite of the incorporation-qualifications statute that decides how small a piece of land can become its own town — the identical statute the "preliminary municipality" fast-track law leans on. Senate floor sponsor Sen. Lincoln Fillmore is also one of the senators this Hive has already documented taking an Ivory Homes campaign contribution and sitting out the 2026 vote to add county oversight to that same fast-track process.
H.B. 37, "Utah Housing Amendments," 2025 General Session. Chief Sponsor Rep. James A. Dunnigan; Senate/Floor Sponsor Sen. Lincoln Fillmore, who also carried the final substitute. The Political Subdivisions Interim Committee recommended the bill going into session. It went through five substitutes, passed, was signed March 26, 2025, and took effect May 7, 2025.
Section 1 rewrites §10-2a-201.5, "Qualifications for incorporation" — the statute that sets the population and density floor an area must clear to become a town or city. Among the changes: the minimum population to incorporate as a town dropped from 100 people to 75.
This is the identical statute S.B. 258 (2024) leans on to decide whether a landowner's "preliminary municipality" petition qualifies to become a town. Confirmed directly from the Legislature's own tracked-changes comparison document for the bill (HB0037S04 compared with HB0037S05): the redline shows "[100] 75" — the old number struck, the new one inserted, exactly where the bill's own summary said it would land.
H.B. 37 didn't create the preliminary-municipality fast track — S.B. 258 (2024) did that. But it amended the same statute that fast track depends on to decide eligibility, more than a year before the 2026 filing wave this Hive has already documented. Two officials show up on both ends of this timeline: Sen. Fillmore, who sponsored the 2025 statute rewrite and then sat out the 2026 vote to add county checks on it, and Steve Waldrip, who pushed the same bill through committee in 2025 and was still defending the broader growth agenda it serves in 2026. Neither connection has been reported anywhere else.
Committee votes: House Political Subdivisions Committee recommended the first substitute and passed it favorably 6–0–4 (2/13/25). Senate Government Operations and Political Subdivisions Committee recommended a further substitute 5–0–2 and passed it favorably 4–0–3 (2/27/25). The bill's final substitute (S5) was adopted on the Senate floor by voice vote the night of 3/7/25, skipping two intermediate drafts (S3, S4) that were distributed but never adopted.
Signed by the Governor March 26, 2025. Effective May 7, 2025. Individual named roll-call rosters (who specifically voted no, and whether any Weber-area legislators did) not yet pulled — the official record gives tallies, not names, for floor votes.