A three-member panel on Tuesday will consider the appeal by the closest neighbor to a home overlooking Old Town for Matthew and Tatiana Prince that the Park City Planning Commission approved in February.
The Appeal Panel — made up of Adam Strachan, Esteban Nunez, and Matthew Day — will review the elements of the decision raised in the appeal and whether the Planning Commission applied the correct standards in its approval. Strachan is an attorney who once served on the Planning Commission, Nunez is a real estate agent, and Day manages a private equity firm.
The hearing at 5 p.m. will include presentations by attorneys for the appellants and the homeowners, along with city planners and then time for public comment before the panel members ask questions and discuss the appeal with a decision likely that evening, though they could continue the hearing.
Eric and Susan Hermann, and eight others who joined their appeal, argue that the Planning Commission erred in approving conditional use permits by two 4-3 votes and amending specific property notes 4-2 for 220 King Road. The Princes aim to tear down two existing houses and replace them with a home that the Hermanns and other critics argue is too large for the historic district.
At stake is whether the Sweeney Master Planning District encompassing six other large homes in addition to 43 acres of open space supersedes the historic district and city’s land management code, as the Planning Commission found, or the other way around.
The key questions in the appeal deal with the exterior height, interior height, the building footprint and whether the new home intrudes on sensitive lands, in addition to arguing that the city’s land management code should be the defining document guiding new construction in the Sweeney MPD.
Among a long list of conditions, the Planning Commission decided:
- To allow 33 feet for a section of the otherwise compliant 30-foot-high roof line from grade to break up the long look. The higher section takes up 24 feet of the 117-foot-long roof.
- To use the measurement from the lowest finished floor to conform with the interior height limit of 35 feet, leaving the bottom two floors unfinished beneath the grade.
- That the property is not subject to sensitive land zone restrictions.
- That the building footprint of 3,500 square feet would not include the driveway, parking area and turnaround wide enough for firetrucks, or a separate home office built below grade. The building footprint including all of this is 11,300 square feet.
Driveways and parking areas were excluded from the building footprints of other homes in the Sweeney MPD, and several exceed the historic district’s interior building height limits. The living space approved by the Planning Commission, 7,500 finished square feet, is the second lowest in the district of large homes above Old Town. The unfinished space is nearly 6,000 square feet. Under the commission’s conditions of approval, the Princes would need to return to the commission for permission to finish that space.
Part of the appeal argues that the Planning Commission mistook “finish” space for “finished,” and references long discussions among the commission in 2012 and 2013 about how to measure stories in homes with split levels. The commission back then ultimately abandoned number of floors for the 35-foot height limit as measured in all but one zoning district from lowest “finish plane.”
The appeal also takes issue with the Princes’ plan to improve the part of the driveway easement to the proposed home that runs through property owned by the Hermanns.
The Hermanns’ complex of connected homes off Sampson Avenue would remain larger than what the Princes were approved to build next door on King Road.
The current homes at 220 King Road, built in the late 1990s and early 2000s, themselves exceed historic district standards, including for height, and have a slightly higher profile and more square footage of living space than the proposed home would.
The appeal argues:
- “The Planning Commission’s decision relied on the incorrect assertion by the applicant that only the restrictions in the MPD and subdivision plat, rather than the land management code, apply to this property.”
- “The proposed structure does not meet the express requirements of the Park City Land Management Code as expressly required by the Sweeney MPD and the restrictive covenants.”
The appeal asks that the Appeals Panel reverse the Planning Commission’s approval “to ensure the LMC is properly enforced and the appropriate review process is followed.”
Planning commissioners Henry Sigg and Laura Suesser spoke out against the Planning Commission’s process and said they felt rushed to make a decision with a 45-day limit about to elapse Feb. 14, when the commission approved the proposal after more than four hours of deliberation. The two voted against the plat note amendments and the conditional use permits.
Commissioner Bill Johnson voted for the plat note amendments and against the conditional use permits.
Commissioners John Frontero, Rick Shand and Christin Van Dine voted for the plat note amendments and the conditional use permits.
Chair Sarah Hall broke the ties in favor of the conditional use permits.
Matthew Prince is frequently criticized for going to the state Legislature unsuccessfully in 2023 to supersede local control over his plans for the property. Critics this year expressed concern he might try again.
The Princes own The Park Record.
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