In the early 80s, after returning from a trip to Aspen Colorado, I wrote a letter to the Park Record editor. I recall lamenting over what changes I had witnessed there in less than a decade. Development had already changed a beautiful, quaint western mining town into something it no longer was. My letter warned local government to be wary of developers, realtors and retailers who are likely to twist their arms looking to remake Park City into Aspen’s image. I suggested it was time to rezone, develop conservation easements, open space initiatives, strengthen building codes, charge hefty impact fees and limit building and sewer connection permits. The Record never published the letter.
Some say “all are welcome” and it’s not fair to limit growth for people who want to live here. I am with the old-timers who feel their dream of living in an eclectic old west ski town has been replaced by the nightmare of Californicated urban sprawl because the county didn’t act when it could have made a difference.
Since then, it’s been more about growth for dollars than making things better for people. Then, It was more about incremental, natural growth than what became a concerted effort to expand the wealth of a few at the lifestyle expense of our town’s residents. Were the motives behind the 2002 Olympics only about embracing the spirit of the Games or was it about demonstrating that the event’s pageantry and state’s beauty would overcome the perception that “peculiar people live there” and it’s safe to live in Park City? Many came but attempts at planned growth in Park City were overwhelmed by politics, money and too little too late.
When James Earl Jones in “Field of Dreams” said, “Build it they will come,” he implied that an attraction to the good old baseball days was something to cherish — but then the fans went home. They didn’t cut down the corn fields to build massive homes to live in a few months out of the year, make mountain bike, pedestrian, dog contested trails, make taxpayers obligated to pay for expanded recreational and high end school athletic facilities (more pickleball courts, really?!), add another grocery store to the existing five, leash your dog at the point of a gun, provide free, fossil fuel-burning transportation and allow ever so many building code variances for developers and home builders.
Another private golf course benefiting a Tiger and a few golfers OK with millions of gallons of water being spilled for their entertainment. Fractional ownership, parked cars blocking driveways, reservations to ski, and soon for a parking space at Smiths? Epic and IKon ski passes making the experience unrecognizable for locals. Light pollution robs us of seeing the stars. Waiting 30 minutes to turn onto S.R. 248 to get to the hospital with no access for emergency vehicles on either side of the road.
And now the elites are begging for another Winter Olympics to open the door to more development as fixed income residents struggle to pay their ever increasing tax burden.
I often think about the courageous University of Utah student who chained himself to a bulldozer trying to stop Kmart from breaking ground at Kimball Junction and the ensuing community boycott of the store. I think of Dakota Pacific’s bulldozers. I think of Hayduk’s ghost. I think of the Utah Legislature’s deceit and corruption supported by the governor and the due diligence failure of Summit County’s representatives.