A developer who wants to build a subdivision near Kamas has gone back to the drawing board after an application was rejected by the Eastern Summit County Planning Commission.

The builder recently appealed the denial to County Manager Bob Jasper. Jasper remanded the development application back to planning.

“They came in and they said they want to make substantial changes to the development,” Jasper said. “I can’t hear that as an appeal because it’s a new matter if they’re going to substantially change it. So I said, fine, go back to the Planning Commission and show them what you’ve got.”

The developer, Summit Hollow LLC, has proposed building about 86 lots on roughly 230 acres along Democrat Alley west of Kamas.

The Planning Commission was mostly concerned with the number of lots, Summit County planner Jennifer Strader said.

“The Planning Commission, throughout their meetings, they indicated that if they came back with somewhere between 25 and 50 lots they would feel more comfortable with that,” Strader said. “But we don’t have a specific number. They need to come in with a plan that decreases the density and maybe clusters the lots a little bit more.”

She said she met with the developer last week.

“They submitted a plan and the community development director didn’t feel that the changes were substantial. The number of lots stayed the same,” Strader said. “We essentially told them to go back. In order for it to be substantial change it probably has to be a decrease in the density.”

The project’s critics said the subdivision would detract from the rural lifestyle in the Kamas Valley, which is about 15 miles east of Park City.

A much smaller subdivision proposed on the land in the late 1990s had about 37 lots.

The new proposal submitted last week was more a hamlet-style project, Summit County Community Development Director Don Sargent explained.

“They came back with a different development concept with some community gardens and new-urbanism,” Sargent said. “Their whole premise was off the hamlet-style design that you see on the East Coast.”

But the resubmitted application did not change much “with respect to density, general layout of the road circulation pattern, development areas and overall configurations,” he said.

“The development areas were still pretty much the same as the former plan and that’s where we had a little difficulty trying to see the change,” Sargent said.

Changes did include removing one access point off Democrat Alley. The new plan has only one access onto the narrow country road.

Still, planning commissioners on the East Side said the number of homes would need to decrease before they would support the project.

“On the East Side the focus is around rural, small town character,” Sargent explained. “I realize that the number of units can be the lifeblood of any project from the developer’s perspective. But at the same time there are other factors that come into play that have to be taken into consideration to derive the right number that is acceptable.”

The developer currently may be addressing feedback from planning staff.

“They wanted to consider our input and comment and possibly submit yet another revised plan,” Sargent said. “We just tried to be as upfront and direct as we could. Whatever plan they submit we will take to the Planning Commission and start with a work session and discuss it at that level.”

Kamas Mayor Lew Marchant said he is concerned about the impact the new subdivision might have on Democrat Alley.

“That road is just an accident waiting to happen now,” Marchant said.

Students are transported in school buses along Democrat Alley.

“It’s difficult to have even two regular vehicles pass on that road now,” Marchant said. “I think it’s prudent that the county require whatever needs to be done to have the Democrat Alley road fixed You add even one more house on Democrat Alley and that road is just not set up to handle the traffic over there.”