in Development
Live Blog of Tonight’s Summit County Council Meeting
Tonight I am covering the County Council Meeting regarding the General Plan. I’ll try to cover it blow by blow:
Forget Dogs… In Jeremy Ranch It’s Speed That Kills
As many of you know, I live in Jeremy Ranch. It’s an interesting place. It’s where trails, Salt Lake, and Park City meet. While to the greater Park City community, dogs have dominated the headlines. In Jeremy Ranch, it’s far different. Enemy #1 is the speeder.
While I have read three to four editorials in the Park Record about bad dogs owners, the number of people complaining about speeders on a local Jeremy website has reached almost forty. According to reports, the issue started with a local, favorite fox being run over and has expanded to a dog being hit while it was “playing hide and seek with the kids.”
People are taping posters to their garbage cans telling people to slow down. Signs are being placed in yards. The Sheriff has even been called in. It reminds me of the old west.
I would somewhat scoff at the idea of a dog getting hit while playing “hide and seek” with the kids in the road but it is Park City and I did see a Porsche doing at least 50 up the main drag.
I guess there are problems everywhere (some might call them first world problems) but I don’t seem to remember these type of issues when I was growing up. I’m not sure if it’s worse or people just “care” more. May we live in interesting times.
in Schools
Is Park City School Board The Most Important Elected Office in Park City and Summit County?
Last night the Park City School Board held a public hearing and voted to approve the 2015/2016 Budget. The school district will spend $60 million next year. How many members of the public attended the 6PM hearing? Zero.
Was there anything controversial to discuss? I suppose it depends on your view. Two things stand out:
- Your taxes are going up next year.
- The School district is projected to spend more than it takes in through 2020.
Of course, there are reasons for those both to occur. Taxes are increasing due to state legislature decisions and the school district’s business administrator said that the deficits are due to front loading some of the costs of the new teacher contracts.
Still, no one showed. After following the school board closely for about a year, that’s the norm. Unlike the City and County Councils, where people will show up to provide their two cents on almost any issue, the school board members are left to go it alone with little public input. Given that, the public is placing their ultimate trust in those five board members — relying on them to make the right decisions.
So, with a budget bigger than Summit County, the responsibility for educating our children, and little community input, is it the most important elected position in our community? It sure seems like it.
in Schools
A Crowd Showed Up At the School Board To Plea for the School District To Reconsider Renewing Park City Baseball Coach’s Contract
Tonight 30 baseball players and 20 parents poured into the School District office to protest the district not renewing the contract of Park City high School Baseball Coach Lou Green.
Seven parents, coaches, and former players got up to speak in defense of Coach Green and to plead for the district to reconsider their stance. These people noted that Coach Green changed their lives, “was an amazing role model”, and grew youth baseball in Park City. Mike Stokes, who was a Park City Baseball coach last year, credits the the coach with changing the program. He said that until Coach Green arrived Park City players were often called “jerks” and acted poorly in many cases. He says that has all changed due to Coach Green.
The school board repeatedly stated that they were not responsible for employee matters. One member of the public said they are being told that the school board is ultimately responsible. The citizen said that supporters of Green want to know who they can talk to get the coach rehired.
In the only official response during the meeting, School Board Superintendent Dr Ember Conley commented that it is an adult matter and she “can’t get into it here.” She said that ultimately Administrative decisions are on her shoulders. She says that personnel decisions are private by law, so she can’t get into details of issues.
After the meeting I got the chance to speak to a few supporters of Coach Green. I asked their opinions on why the Coach Green’s contract was not being renewed. The supporters said that was the problem; they said no one, not even the coach, knew why he was not able to continue coaching at Park City High. One person noted that they were told there was something in Coach Green’s file that prevented the coach from being rehired but that the coach provided his file to parents of players and they saw nothing definitive.
Right now there seem to be a number of questions but a whole bunch of people who wish to see Coach Green back in the dugout. Hopefully the School District and Mr. Green can come to an agreement about what can be shared so the public can understand what has actually happened and decide what actions they should take based on the facts.
in Schools
Initial Cost Estimates for Park City School District Remodel
I am sitting in today’s school district board meeting and presentation was made by the Sean Morgan, one of the chairmen of the school’s Master Planning Committee. This was the first I’ve seen of estimated costs associated with rebuilding the Kerns campus and moving Treasure Mountain Junior High School.
Mr. Morgan said that they had received costs from 4 contractors on Phase 1 of the project. The contractors worked together to determine the costs. Mr. Morgan presented what he called the “high end estimates” for the initial phase of development. These include:
- Demolishing Treasure Mountain Junior High: $525,000
- Expanding Park City High School: $19,500,000
- Relocating Dozier Field: $3,200,000
- New 5th/6th grade school: $26,200,000
The total cost of these items are near $50 million.
This estimates excludes other phases that include possibilities like:
- Expand McPolin Elementary
- New field house
- New soccer fields
- New District Office
- New Learning Center
- Expand Ecker Pool
- District Warehouse
Estimates on later phases are less concrete. Mr Morgan estimates a total cost of the entire rebuilding (if everything was done) would be in the $80-$90 million range (does not include warehouse). These numbers will surely change as we get closer to a decision by the board.
in Development
The County Council’s Change to Section 2.3 of the General Plan is Disappointing
On Wednesday, the Summit County Council will hold a public hearing to discuss the Snyderville Basin General Plan. The General Plan defines what our community wants to see from development in our area. In the original General Plan there was a section 2.3 that simply said:
“Do not approve any new entitlements beyond base zoning until such time that existing entitlements are significantly exhausted.”
The intent behind this was that the Community Development Department and Planning Commission felt there too many existing entitlements in the Basin that were unbuilt. It appeared they wanted to ensure that we didn’t exacerbate our current problems like meeting transportation needs and over building the wrong things.
When the plan was sent to the County Council for review they tore this section apart. Comments were made about “unintended consequences” and what if’s, like what if we wanted to build affordable housing or what if we wanted to solve our transportation problems, were brought up.
Hence, section 2.3 has now been stripped of any meaning. It now reads:
“Do not approve any new entitlements beyond base zoning without first studying, analyzing, and determining whether or not:
- a compelling community need or public interest exists to justify a proposed change to existing development entitlement(s) or rezone.
- the potential community impacts of any proposal to increase existing entitlement(s) or rezone can be mitigated.
- any proposal to increase existing entitlement(s) is consistent with the Snyderville Basin General Plan’s Future Land Use Maps.”
Section 2.3’s original language seemed to say something… let’s limit new development until we get a hold on what’s been promised but not built. The new language seems to provide a concrete path toward upzoning property.
Let me provide an example of property near Bitner Road that’s currently zoned Rural Residential. This location is at the east end and across I-80 from the Swaner nature preserve. Rural residential zoning generally means that you can have 1 home per 20 acres. Now, let’s say I wanted to to put in a Chiles, a bank, and a gas station there. How would I do it via language in 2.3.
- I would work with the Community Development Department to make a plan. As they do with anything submitted, they would study it.
- In and of itself, my plan already provides a community benefit, which is increased tax dollars to the people of Summit County. I might even throw in a few acres of open space.
- There would be traffic issues, but like with every development in the area, I would pay to mitigate them.
- I would check the land use maps and see that the future land use for this area says Mixed Use – Neighborhood commercial. Neighborhood commercial has a plethora of commercial opportunities like the ones mentioned above.
That plan took me almost 3 minutes to come up with. Perhaps the Bitner Rd property is under some other legal agreement and if so you could interchange Bitner Rd with many other places in the Basin. What could a professional developer do with this type of opportunity? Now, to be fair, this plan would have to go through the Planning Commission and maybe the County Council, so it’s not a rubber stamp. That said, we can’t always count on the same type of individuals we have now in places of power to think logically and act in our best interests. We shouldn’t have to depend on people. We should be able to depend on laws.
Contrast that with the original section 2.3. This upzone would not take place for a while (maybe never). The only path to upzoning would be to try and get the County to go against it’s people’s wishes expressed in the General Plan. It’s far less likely it would happen.
That’s why I wish the essence of section 2.3 had been kept as envisioned by the Planning Commission. Sure, it needed some tweaking but it didn’t need its heart ripped out.
If the new 2.3 is the only alternative, perhaps we just need to scrap it.
in Housing
Can We Make Developers Actually Build Affordable Housing?
This weekend I wrote an article entitled What I Don’t Get About Affordable Housing. I wrote that locations like Kamas and Oakley are already “affordable” without us jumping through hoops to try and figure out how we put the horse back in the barn. A community member responded saying that “outsourcing our affordable housing only exacerbates the problem” with regard to issues like transportation. She also mentioned that she likes the diversity that comes with neighbors from all walks of life.
She makes good points. There are benefits to having a diverse community — one not made up of only second home owners. Yet, members of community have been beating this drum for years and nothing really changes. So, if we really do want affordable housing, what can we do about?
I’ll throw out one suggestion. If affordable housing is a component of a development project, make them build it, ALWAYS. One of the core concepts of both Park City and Summit County’s development code is a concept called fee in lieu. What this means is that instead of building affordable housing the developer can pay the local government money instead. What if that possibility was taken off the table. If the developer, who wants to build the new Whole Foods, wants to go forward, make them actually build affordable housing on-site or somewhere else within 5 miles of the location. Don’t let them pay money instead. If a developer wants to rebuild the old Kimball Arts Center building on Main Street, make sure that agreement includes real affordable housing at or near the building.
Perhaps there is some sort of state law that requires the fee in lieu option, but my guess is that it is included for the ease of developers. What if it was hard to incorporate or too expensive to buy land elsewhere for affordable housing, what would they ever do? Perhaps they would use their creativity to figure something out and deliver a solution many members of the community have wanted for years.
It sounds like the new Silver Creek Village will dedicate about 25% of its 1200 units to affordable housing. There you go! We can debate whether affordable housing is what the community really wants as a whole, but if the answer is yes, then let’s do something really crazy… like scrap fee in lieu and actually build something.
in Schools
No Park City School Board Member Has Voted ‘No’ in a Year?
Last September I penned an article entitled, “By Abstaining, School Board Member Tania Knauer Exemplifies What Is Wrong With Many Park City Leaders.” She had abstained from a tax increase discussion. I said, “I don’t know Ms. Knauer personally but judging from her resume she seems very competent and dedicated to education and our children. In this case, though, Ms. Knauer contributed to the problem. Instead of voting with her convictions, or at least her comments, she took the easy way out.”
Since that time I have gotten to know Ms Knauer a little better. I would say that she definitely does have our childrens’ best interests at heart. However, we are perhaps seeing an even greater problem. I went through all school board decisions in the past year (per the school district’s website) and I could not find a single instance where a school board member voted NAY. In fact, the last Nay appears to be a vote by Ms Knauer in May 2014.
It begs the question of whether anything important or controversial is happening at the school board? Wait, isn’t the school board set to vote on a budget that will increase taxes for the 3rd time in 4 years. Oh, and there is that bond for rebuilding the Kearns campus that will come in between $20 million and $100 million (they aren’t sure yet). Then there is the horrible SAGE test results where about only 50%-60% our students are competent in various disciplines. Oh yeah, there is the fact that this year’s budget projects expenses far outpacing revenues over the next few years. Oops, I almost forgot the issue over “closing” schools where each out of district student costs our district money that can’t be spent on our own students.
So there is a lot going on.
I find it almost impossible to believe that every decision by the School Board in the last 12 months was unanimous. In your life, during the last year, have you said yes to everything? Yet, that’s what the records say of our board.
The cynic would quote H.L. Mencken and say, “The people deserve the government they get, and they deserve to get it good and hard.” The optimist would say it’s a triumph of consensus that benefits the children.
I would say, “I just don’t get it.”
in Housing
What I Don’t Get About Affordable Housing
I was reading Bubba Brown’s article in today’s Park Record about Economic Growth in Summit County. It brought up the need for affordable housing for local workers. Yet this article seemed different because it is in the context of Summit County and not Park City.
For so long I have heard people lament that their children can’t afford to live in Park City. That people working at a local grocery store can’t afford to live in Park City. That ski workers can’t afford to live in Park City. That is all probably true.
Yet what about Summit County as a place for affordable housing — and I’m not talking Old Ranch Road? Kamas is 22 minutes away from Park City. Oakley is 25 minutes away from Park City. Check out what you can get in Kamas for under $250,00. That still may not be cheap enough, but it is at least half (probably 1/3) of what it costs to buy a house here in the Basin.
So what I don’t understand is why talk of affordable housing has to be so uber-local. My first, second, and third jobs out of college were at least 25 minutes from my home. I was willing to drive. Would I have loved to live downtown in the city where the action was? Sure, but I was making $34,000 a year and condos cost $400,000. That’s life.
If you look far enough into the future, and if you believe growth is really coming, then you’d be a fool not to buy in Kamas. If Park City will be what they project, why wouldn’t you want your kid to buy in Kamas at $220,000. That would be the definition of investment.
Folks in Kamas or Oakley, of course, may say that they don’t want these type of residents. That’s a larger issue though. That said, it seems like it makes a lot of sense for us to think outside of Park City and the Basin for affordable housing. It’s just a more straightforward path. These properties are already somewhat affordable.
We don’t have to figure out ways to fit the square peg in the round hole.
Do You Want an 82 Foot Tall Tower in Kimball Junction?
It appears Verizon Wireless is appealing to the Snyderville Basin Planning Commission for an 80+ foot tower behind Walmart. This will be a monopole type tower and will likely look something like this:
That’s a little over two and a half times the allowed upon height of a building in the Basin, but it is narrower, of course. I also suppose that if they allow this use, they should also let all the other major players do the same thing. So, that could eventually be 5 or 6 towers.
If this is something you feel passionately about, you may want to pencil the June 23rd Snyderville Basin Planning Commission Meeting into your calendar. It will be held at 6PM at the Kimball Junction Library building (Richens Building).
Here is the location of the proposed tower on land owned by Chevron:
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