Park City leaders are preparing to possibly permanently protect from development a large swath of city-owned land near Quinn’s Junction, a conservation effort notable for a development dispute unfolding on adjacent acreage and with talks ongoing about the prospects of creating an aerial transit system in that area.
Mayor Nann Worel and the Park City Council on Thursday are scheduled to consider placing a conservation easement on most of the 344 acres making up Clark Ranch. The municipal government would retain ownership of the land under a conservation easement, but development rights would be stripped and only certain activities would be allowed. A third party — Utah Open Lands — would hold and enforce a conservation easement.
Fifteen of the acres would be kept out of a conservation easement, following a recommendation of a citizen advisory committee in 2016. The 15 acres are next to Park City Heights and where a significant workforce or otherwise restricted affordable housing concept involving City Hall is under consideration.
The Clark Ranch housing concept has stirred controversy and became an issue in the municipal election. Undeveloped land within the 15 acres, if there is any, could be set aside as open space, according to a city staff report drafted in anticipation of the meeting Thursday.
The efforts to protect Clark Ranch with a conservation easement also are of consequence to the discussions in the community about aerial transit. There are talks about creating an aerial transit system in the Park City area as a traffic-fighting measure. The S.R. 248 corridor is seen as having potential, but decisions have not been made about eventual routes.
The proposed conservation easement presented to the elected officials includes a section addressing aerial transportation, identifying that category of transit as something that would be allowed on the Clark Ranch acreage under certain circumstances.
The passage reads: “An aerial transportation corridor for use specific to public recreational and alternative transportation for adjacent park and ride facilities, provided impacts to the scenic and wildlife habitat values are minimized to the extent possible is permitted.”
Wendy Fisher, the executive director of Utah Open Lands, said in an interview the organization would have the authority to review a proposal for aerial transit against the language of the conservation easement, if a route involved the Clark Ranch acreage that would be protected. Fisher said city staffers suggested the inclusion of aerial transit in the conservation easement with, as she understands the discussions, the possibility of a route involving a small portion of the land.
Fisher described issues like the visuals of aerial transit and the impact on wildlife of the aerial towers would need to be studied as a system is reviewed for compliance with a conservation easement. She acknowledged that an aerial transit system would be “very localized” on the acreage.