Blasting at the massive Panorama development just outside Herriman has been temporarily halted after a nearby resident said rocks and debris landed in her backyard, on her roof and even moved toward her window during an explosion. Joeanne Bolnick, who lives in a neighborhood next to the site, said the blasts came from within a few hundred feet of her home.
Fieldstone, the developer behind Panorama, has paused the blasting while it considers next steps, according to KSL News. The outlet reports that some blasting has been necessary to break up a large rocky mound on the site, and that Herriman city said resident concerns had reached Fieldstone before the pause. Fieldstone had not returned KSL's request for comment as of publication.
Resident Describes Debris Near Her Home
Bolnick said a blast sent debris toward her home, leaving rocks on her roof and in her backyard; she said a neighbor's yard was also hit. “I was really frightened,” she told the station.
Bolnick said her household found numerous rocks in the backyard and considered the situation dangerous. She also questioned the timing of notifications, saying residents were not given a narrow enough window to know when a detonation would occur and were sometimes surprised by a large blast.
Herriman Says Blasting Falls Outside Its Jurisdiction
Herriman city said blasting connected to a development like Panorama is typically outside the city's jurisdiction, even as it acknowledged that resident complaints had made their way to Fieldstone. That jurisdictional gap echoes disputes elsewhere in Utah, where cities have said they have limited authority over blasting tied to private development.
In Hurricane, Mayor Nannette Billings told the city council that most blasting there occurs on private property, meaning the city doesn't oversee it, as reported by St. George News. Residents near Hurricane's Dixie Springs subdivision told the council that blasting notifications had been vague or missing entirely, with one resident, Cynthia Charlton-Matejka, saying the blasts felt like seismic earthquakes and had damaged homes.
A Pattern of Blast Complaints in Fast-Growing Utah Suburbs
Similar complaints have surfaced in Hurricane over the past couple of years as developers there cleared ground near existing neighborhoods. Resident Valerie Douglas told KUTV that blasting near the Mesa Cove development occurred four times, including one blast extremely close to her house, with the closest coming approximately 150 feet from her back wall. She said residents got only a few minutes' warning before the first blast, and later blasts were announced within a four-day window without a specific time.
A Hurricane Fire Department official, Tyler Ames, told the station that the International Fire Code requires at least 24 hours' notice, third-party seismograph monitoring, and a fire marshal on site when a blast occurs within 600 feet of a home. The Hurricane Valley Fire District has separately said its role includes confirming that a blasting contractor has provided a site safety plan, seismic monitoring protocols and third-party oversight.
What Panorama Is Meant to Become
Panorama is planned as a more than 640-acre community in Herriman with commercial, residential and open-space components, according to the Herriman Journal. Land entitlements already covered 457 of those acres as of the Journal's reporting, with roughly 185 acres still unentitled. Fieldstone Homes describes the project on its own site as bringing another new community to the Herriman area.
What State Law and Project Records Establish
Herriman City’s Panorama master development agreement sets a maximum of 1,717 residential dwelling units for the project. That project limit, by itself, does not answer whether the agreement sets site-specific conditions for blasting or complaint handling, according to the Panorama Master Development Agreement.
The Herriman Planning Commission unanimously recommended the Panorama master development agreement, along with related general-plan and zoning amendments, to the City Council on Oct. 2, per Citizen Portal. It remains unclear when or whether blasting at the site will resume, and Fieldstone had not detailed its next steps as of the KSL report.
