ROY — After approving changes to guidelines for development along busy 1900 West with an eye to spurring business growth, Roy officials have hired a new staffer to lead economic development efforts.

The 2023 city budget, approved last month, contained a $160,000 funding allocation to cover salary and benefits for an economic development official. The Roy City Council last week appointed the new employee — Brody Flint. Flint had been an assistant prosecutor in Roy Justice Court, which handles misdemeanors and infractions, and now he’ll serve as community economic development director and assistant city manager.

“He’s been with the city quite some time and kind of knows the strings here,” City Manager Matt Andrews said at the Roy City Council’s Sept. 6 meeting, when Flint was sworn in to the post. Andrews also noted that Flint’s legal background will help him in navigating the legalese of economic development.

Twenty people in all applied for the post.

A consultant had been handling economic development efforts in Roy, more or less on a part-time basis. But city officials have put a big emphasis on luring new businesses to Roy, pushed by Mayor Bob Dandoy, which precipitated Flint’s hiring.

Dandoy noted that Roy is the second-largest city in Weber County after Ogden and that smaller cities, like Riverdale, have dedicated economic development directors. Furthermore, he noted the potential loss of 13 businesses on and around 5600 South due to Utah Department of Transportation plans to widen the roadway, which entail taking some of the real estate abutting the street.

The city needs someone who can “champion” the cause of aiding those impacted businesses, Dandoy said. “We’d certainly like to keep those businesses in Roy,” he said.

Moreover, the city last year updated the zoning guidelines along 1900 West and around the busy commercial strip, in part to spur business and residential development.

Broadly, the changes — meant to keep pace with evolving development trends — open the way to development with both commercial and residential aspects, not just one or the other. The new guidelines also allow for taller buildings, in some cases.

In addition to that, the Roy City Council last year approved new development guidelines around the city’s FrontRunner station on some 50 acres of largely undeveloped land, some of it privately held and around 18 acres owned by the Utah Transit Authority. A big focus of those changes is to allow higher-density development over the long haul.

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