That makes a lot of sense to me. I'm pretty sure there has been some cutoff like that for as long as their have been utilities.

I don't know exactly how many yards the breakeven point is. However, from what I've seen it is almost always monetarily cheaper to create your own services when possible - unless a neighbor has paid for services to get really close. It might make sense for neighbors to pool money for pulling services out. It all depends on the specifics, right?