The top staffer at the Park City Chamber/Bureau, a figure with wide influence on the tourism industry that drives the local economy, has crafted an impassioned argument in support of workforce or otherwise income-restricted housing, outlining her assessment in a submittal to City Hall regarding a development matter.
Jennifer Wesselhoff, the president and CEO of the organization, sent the two-page statement to the Park City Planning Commission amid the talks about a development known as Studio Crossing in the area of Quinn’s Junction. The Park City Council in mid-December approved Studio Crossing, which is designed to include an outsized proportion of workforce housing.
The statement submitted by Wesselhoff, though, is broad in nature rather than exclusively addressing the specifics of the Studio Crossing project itself. The statement is especially notable with Wesselhoff holding such a crucial post in the tourism industry at a time of magnified concerns about housing for the workforce. Wesselhoff in the statement describes affordable housing as a “dire community need.”
“The high price of Park City housing is woven into every aspect of our lives to harmful effect, pricing out service workers and up-and-coming Parkites, and our seniors, whose options have been drastically reduced,” Wesselhoff says in the submittal, which was written on Chamber/Bureau letterhead.
Wesselhoff says she hears from Chamber/Bureau members of “the urgent need, verging on desperation, many employers feel about the need for action.”
“Businesses’ ability to hire and retain employees is increasingly negatively impacted by the lack of affordable housing,” she says, adding that workers in Park City “often have no choice but to commute long distances to find housing.”
That, she says, “contributes to local traffic congestion while adding commuting costs, wasted time and increased stress to workers’ lives, often affecting their job commitment. It is a major factor in employee turnover and difficulty in hiring.”
The statement comes amid what many see as a moment of extreme difficulty in the housing market for the workforce. A boom in the tourism industry that started shortly after the pandemic-forced shutdowns in the spring of 2020 led to an increase in the need for rank-and-file workers even amid dwindling housing options for wage-earners in the important resort, lodging, restaurant and transportation sectors.
Park City’s resort-driven real estate market has long been the state’s most expensive. In the third quarter of 2022, the median price of a house in Park City was $3.9 million, according to the Park City Board of Realtors.
Wesselhoff addresses the prices in her input to the Planning Commission, citing a median price topping $2.5 million. That figure, she says, “excludes virtually the entire US population from our housing market.”
“Park City’s commitment to equity and inclusion means we must create a mix of housing options that allows people of varying income levels to live here, paying a reasonable percentage of their income for housing costs. Failure to meet this challenge will discourage all but the wealthy from residing in Park City. That’s not who we are – or who we want to become,” she says.
Two other noteworthy points in the Wesselhoff statement:
• “Without a housing scheme that permits middle to upper-middle-class earners to live here – firefighters, accountants, nurses and small business owners – we risk excluding from our civic and cultural life the very people without whom Park City cannot exist. Every healthy, engaged civic environment needs the participation and the buy-in of people who live – as well as work and play – in that community.”
• “Economically, people who live where they work spend their wages in that community – boosting sales, increasing municipal tax revenue, and making employment more secure for everyone. Yet, today, Park City ‘exports’ locally generated dollars because of a housing market that forces workers to leave town at the end of the day, shopping and recreating where they live, not where they earn. As a result, in addition to losing their civic commitment and participation, we pay a financial price.”
City Hall has for years prioritized workforce or otherwise restricted affordable housing and considers itself as currently pursuing an aggressive program. The supporters of the program argue the housing reduces commuter traffic, helps the environment and adds to the socioeconomic fabric of Park City.