City Hall has launched a recruitment for the next planning director, a high-profile position at the Marsac Building that is expected to be vacant in the middle of May.
It is not clear what sort of timeline officials envision for filling the post, but recruitments for a senior-level position like the planning director can sometimes take months. It is not known if anyone from within the Planning Department will seek the director position, something that would be expected to shorten the timeline for a start date if they were to be selected.
Park City recently posted the opening on the municipal website with a salary range of between $113,000 and $148,000 per year.
The current planning director, Gretchen Milliken, is slated to leave the Marsac Building on May 12 after a little more than two years in the influential role. She arrived in early 2021 from the municipal government in Louisville, Kentucky. Milliken in a message to municipal staffers announcing her upcoming departure said she wants to seek other opportunities that offer a better balance of life and work as well as a chance to be more creative with her experience and skills.
The assistant planning director, Rebecca Ward, will lead the department during the recruitment with support from Jennifer McGrath, who is the deputy Park City manager for community development.
The planning director is a key post in the municipal ranks and has broad duties in issues related to growth and development. The department processes a wide variety of applications, ranging from proposals on individual lots to large, complex projects like those at the base areas of the mountain resorts. The planning director also is heavily involved in discussions regarding City Hall’s growth and development documents like the overarching General Plan and the Land Management Code, which outlines the detailed rules.
The next planning director will arrive amid the talks about a major development concept at the Snow Park base of Deer Valley Resort and in the months after a Provo developer abandoned its efforts to win approval for a large project at the base of Park City Mountain. The Deer Valley talks are expected to continue into the tenure of the next planning director while it is likely another proposal will eventually emerge at Park City Mountain, but the timing is not known.
There are longstanding rights attached to the land at the Park City Mountain base and the Snow Park base of Deer Valley, but further approvals are needed in each location before a development could proceed. There was widespread concern in the area close to the Park City Mountain base about the Provo developer’s proposal before it was abandoned. There are ongoing questions about the concept at Snow Park.
The two base areas have been, by a wide margin, the most notable recent Planning Department reviews, drawing crowds to Park City Planning Commission meetings and spurring organized opposition in each case.
The department, meanwhile, is also expected to have an important role as City Hall itself presses ahead with the possibility of major development. The municipal government is pursuing an aggressive housing program and is considering the long-term future of City Hall-owned land off the Kearns Boulevard-Bonanza Drive intersection. There are also discussions about the future of Bonanza Park and Snow Creek, with a municipal role unclear.
The posting for the planning director recruitment seeks someone “who balances ‘big picture’ organizational planning principles and the day-to-day administration of the City’s Land Management Code . . . , General Plan, and small business district and neighborhood plans.”
City Hall requires candidates for the post to hold a bachelor’s degree in planning or a field that is related and a minimum of 10 years of experience, with five years or more as a supervisor. The municipal government prefers candidates hold a master’s degree and have a background working in a place where they experienced a “considerable resort and tourism industry.”
The position is open until it is filled and there is no deadline for applications. The posting for the planning director recruitment is available on the City Hall website, www.parkcity.org. The direct link is: https://rb.gy/rowmh.