City Hall will not ask voters on Election Day to finance a conservation deal for all or part of the Sweeney family’s Treasure acreage, acknowledging that the negotiations between the two sides have not yet made enough advances to put a ballot measure to Parkites in November.
Park City officials outlined the decision not to pursue a ballot measure in a prepared statement released on Thursday. They were facing a fast-approaching deadline to prepare one. State law would have required the decision to put a ballot measure to voters in November be made by Aug. 25. The deadline left little time for the two sides to craft ballot language for what likely would have been a polarizing request to voters to approve conservation bonds, perhaps totaling nearly $50 million, to fund a deal.
Negotiating teams from City Hall and the Sweeney family have spent more than a year trying to craft some sort of conservation deal that would encompass all or part of the prized Treasure land, situated on a hillside overlooking Old Town close to the route of the Town Lift.
The sides recently outlined two conservation options, one pegged at $48 million and the other priced at $15 million. The more expensive option would buy out all of the family’s development rights on the Treasure land. The $15 million option would buy out some of the rights while also shifting some of the other development rights to a location uphill from the Park City Mountain Resort base area. The option also envisions some development on the Treasure land itself.
The price tags have not been finalized. Either option, though, would have split Parkites voting in November. The supporters would have argued that a conservation deal would reduce Treasure-related traffic and keep development off the high-profile hillside. The opponents likely would have painted Treasure as a neighborhood dispute and argued that a property-tax increase related to the bonds would have been ill timed.
The next chance City Hall has to put a Treasure ballot measure to voters is in June.
“It’s not disappointing at all. I feel we believe this is a big decision . . . It needs to be done properly,” said City Councilwoman Liza Simpson, one of City Hall’s negotiators.
In Thursday’s prepared statement, City Hall said the two sides would consider a ballot measure sometime in 2012. Simpson said that vote could be set for June.
A Treasure ballot measure probably would have overshadowed the three City Council spots that will be decided on Election Day. The campaign thus far has lacked drama, and there has been little apparent interest in the community during the early weeks of Election 2011.
In the meantime, City Hall and the Sweeney family in September will consider an agreement to continue the negotiations through the end of November, with the possibility of more extensions at that point.
The Sweeneys hold development rights at the site dating from the 1980s. The family spent years in talks about Treasure with the Park City Planning Commission with little progress. The development, as proposed to the Planning Commission, totaled approximately 1 million square feet of residential and commercial space.
The conservation negotiations have been ongoing for more than a year, exclusively in closed-door sessions. The two conservation options, which were recently made public, have been the most noteworthy advances in the negotiations.
Simpson said the negotiating teams want to better explain the two options before they are possibly put on a ballot. She said Parkites want the higher-priced option detailed better and want a clearer explanation of the amount of square footage that could be built under the lower-priced option.
“We’re not ready to take this to the voters,” Simpson said.
Mike Sweeney, one of the family’s negotiators, said the discussions are “a lot more complex than people understand.” He said, though, the two sides continue make progress in the talks.
“I’m very positive we’re moving in a positive direction,” Sweeney said.