Mayor Dana Williams and Park City Councilwoman Liza Simpson — a onetime high-ranking homeseller and a store manager on Main Street — were tapped Thursday night to lead City Hall’s upcoming Treasure negotiations with the Sweeney family, pivotal assignments that thrust the two into what will be closely watched talks with, potentially, tens of millions of dollars at stake.
Their positions on City Hall’s negotiating team will be formalized later, and City Councilman Alex Butwinski was named the alternate. The City Councilors briefly discussed the two positions before agreeing to put the mayor and Simpson on the City Hall team. They will work closely with City Manager Tom Bakaly and Mark Harrington, the city attorney, during the talks with the Sweeneys.
Williams is in his third term as the mayor and was a real estate agent before being forced to relinquish a high-level position in a brokerage during the housing downturn. Simpson is a first-term City Councilwoman who works on Main Street.
“I don’t know about confident. I’m hopeful” that the talks with the Sweeneys result in some sort of conservation deal for the Treasure land, the mayor said in an interview afterward, calling the upcoming negotiations “one of the biggest undertakings I’ve had since taking office.”
Williams said he hopes the talks with the Sweeneys commence as early as the beginning of May. He said time must be spent reviewing the family’s 1980s overall development approval for the Treasure land, situated on a hillside overlooking Old Town on the slopes of Park City Mountain Resort.
The mayor said he wants to talk about City Hall purchasing the Treasure land in a conservation deal or reaching an accord with the Sweeneys to transfer the rights to development on the Treasure land to ground elsewhere. Both scenarios would almost certainly include a significant cash payment, probably well into the eight digits, from City Hall to the Sweeneys. If that sort of deal is struck, Williams and the City Council would be expected to put a ballot measure to voters to raise the money needed for the deal.
Mike Sweeney, one of the three brothers leading the family’s Treasure efforts, listened to the short proceedings on Thursday, saying in an interview afterward he plans a meeting with Bakaly next week to review the upcoming process. Sweeney said Williams and Simpson are “fine” choices to represent City Hall. The mayor “definitely needs to be involved,” Sweeney said.
Thursday night’s meeting followed one week after the City Council made a procedural change to the way some appeals of development-related matters are heard. The City Council is typically the body that hears appeals of Planning Commission decisions, but the procedural change allows the elected officials to appoint a three-person panel to hear an appeal instead.
doing so, the City Councilors free themselves and the mayor to enter negotiations with a landowner about a conservation agreement or major changes to a development application with the idea of protecting all or parts of the land. Before, City Hall attorneys cautioned the elected officials not to intervene in development matters under Planning Commission review since they could jeopardize their ability to impartially hear an appeal later.
The Sweeneys and the Planning Commission have effectively reached an impasse in the Treasure talks, and the procedural change came about as a means to make a Treasure breakthrough.
The City Councilors on Thursday also voted to refer a Treasure appeal, should one be filed someday, to the three-person panel. The panel would be appointed at the time of an appeal. The tally was 4-1, with Candy Erickson casting the dissenting vote. Erickson said referring a Treasure appeal to the panel is probably the preferred alternative, but she said it is difficult for her to relinquish her vote if an appeal is brought to the City Council.
It has long been anticipated that a Planning Commission decision on Treasure would be put before the mayor and City Council, most likely through an appeal. If the Planning Commission casts a ‘Yea’ vote, opponents would be expected to file an appeal to the elected officials. The Sweeneys would be expected to submit one if the Planning Commission votes Treasure down.
It was not immediately clear what effects the upcoming negotiations between the City Hall team and the Sweeneys will have on the Planning Commission talks about Treasure. The Sweeneys probably would not want the Planning Commission process suspended, but there could be wholesale changes to the Treasure blueprints or a withdrawal of the application if an agreement is reached.
The Treasure land occupies a highly visible hillside close to streets like Empire Avenue and Lowell Avenue. The Sweeneys are seeking an approval for approximately 1 million square feet of development, with residential and commercial space spread through the project.
People who live close to the site say the Treasure buildings would loom over the neighborhood and the streets cannot handle the traffic heading to and from the project, among other concerns.