I was fortunate to recently attend the annual “Park City Follies.” This year it was an Agatha Christie theme, but Fakota Pacific made cameos (after being featured in 2023) with cast members even taking some liberty with the word “Fakota.”
The Follies reminded me how long this dispute with Dakota has existed and the community’s feelings. In January, I read that Dakota and the Summit County paused their legal dispute and committed to serious “negotiations,” but the net result seemed underwhelming. (Dakota reduced a minimal number of units, but asked the county for $2.5 million for affordable housing.)
In April, the council shook up negotiations by proposing a more expansive land swap and KJ development plan. Tori Barnhart reported that Dakota and the council would work through these plans.
While I’m always supportive of negotiations, there are a couple key points:
- The community is completely against converting the land from tech commercial to high density residential. This has been repeatedly demonstrated at public hearings, surveys (>90% against), editorials, petitions, letters, and signs. The view I hear is Summit County already has significant zoned “market rate” residential housing. Why would you convert limited commercial tech with no residential offsets?
- Dakota lacks community trust as a development partner. Over the past few years, Dakota referred to the residents as NIMBYs, elitists and made unfilled statements about wanting community input. The most egregious act was Dakota’s dealings with the state legislation that led to the lawsuit.
As a private company, Dakota deserves to pursue a profit, but given the community’s resilience, I wonder why their LPs don’t push to sell the land, take a profit and move on.
In the end, the council and Dakota must ensure any Tech Center development truly delivers overwhelming community benefit. If you have to really sell it to the community, you likely haven’t met the threshold.
Phillip Wright
Park City