To protect open space and improve trails in Summit County, the Snyderville Basin Special Recreation District last week sold $20 million in bonds.
Some major trail projects are planned on the West Side this summer.
Seven investment-banking firms expressed interest in the bond sale, said Bonnie Park, public affairs manager for the Snyderville Basin Special Recreation District.
Officials awarded the bid to Piper Jaffray, which offered a 4.39 percent interest rate for financing the bonds.
Rena Jordan, director of the Basin Special Recreation District, said she was pleased with the sale.
From the bond proceeds, $8 million will be allocated to trail improvements in the Snyderville Basin. The district will use $12 million for protecting open space.
This year, full-time residents who own homes valued at $652,000 will see their property taxes increase about $61 to service the new debt. Only those in the Snyderville Basin Special Recreation District, generally people living on the West Side of Summit County but outside the Park City limits, will be taxed for the bonds.
For years Basin residents have pined for a trail along Highland Drive. With the sale of the bonds construction of the trail could begin this summer.
“The neighborhood wants kids off that busy Highland Drive,” Park said in a telephone interview.
The proposal is for a trail that would stretch along Highland Drive from the Interstate 80 underpass to Old Ranch Road then continue along Highland to Silver Summit Parkway.
Officials have estimated the cost of the Highland Drive trail at about $1.5 million.
Park said the pathway is key for providing trail users a connection between Kimball Junction and the Round Valley area.
“It really gives bigger opportunities for connectivity and looping into other parts of the trail system,” she added.
Public open houses are scheduled to discuss the Highland Drive trail on March 1 and 2. The meetings are scheduled from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Basin Recreation administration building at 5715 Trailside Drive.
Another trail project scheduled this summer is the building of a pedestrian crossing underneath State Road 224 near Redstone.
“That is something that has been in the planning for quite a while,” Park said.
The non-motorized underpass would allow trail users to cross under the busy highway just south of Olympic Parkway and Newpark Boulevard.
“If you have ever seen people try and cross there at Landmark Drive, it’s suicidal,” Park said. “That’s why it’s important. It just gets people not to have to be faced with traffic and all their shopping bags.”
The total cost for the project is about $1.5 million. But developers have contributed about $898,000 to the underpass, Park explained.
Meanwhile, before land is purchased with proceeds from the bond, the Basin Open Space Advisory Committee will examine parcels on the West Side and make recommendations about property that should be protected.
Snyderville Basin voters approved a $10 million open space bond in 2004. The funding from that initiative was used to purchase hundreds of acres of land at Kimball Junction and along State Road 224.