It is incredibly expensive to build inside the boundaries of Park City. There are smaller infill projects that make sense and redevelopment of existing housing like Holiday Village may also work. There are a few exceptional opportunities that we need to pursue that allow a developer to have offsetting profits to support below-market-rate housing.
First would be the resort parking lot developments, which are large and have high profit margins with market rate condominiums. The housing could be built onsite or we could demand investment in other projects such as Holiday Village that may provide upwards of 190 affordable units on land already owned and dedicated to this purpose.
I am not privy to what discussions have taken place and there is little information that anyone seems willing to offer. What seems clear is that Deer Valley appears to have gotten off pretty easy with their parking lot development approval and nothing seems to be moving at either site. Why? Where is the commitment to affordable housing?
The second opportunity is Richardson Flats. Governing responsibility is divided by acreage between Hideout Canyon and Park City. Larry H. Miller Real Estate owns ,1000 acres here and is currently developing on the eastern portion. The 350-acre Silver Meadows project includes 600 housing units with 120 of them affordable, at no cost to Hideout, plus commercial development including a grocery store and restaurants. It is inside the Park City School district so we can stop fretting about our schools being depopulated.
The developer has offered to build affordable units on the western acreage controlled by Park City. There have been a myriad of excuses thrown up against this, none of which hold up to scrutiny. For instance, “the property is currently preserved under an older deed restriction.” This can be amended, as many deed restrictions have been.
“The property is polluted with toxic mine waste.” For a large enough project, this financial and permitting issue can be resolved. Larry H. Miller is moving soil right now. It is being placed in an EPA-approved repository right on site that significantly lowers remediation costs.
“There is no good transportation, and it is not walkable.” There is currently a parking lot with existing bus service into Park City. The Clark Ranch project, also being developed by Park City, is not walkable into town and neither is Park City Heights.
With the commercial development going in at Richardson Flats, housing developed on Park City’s land will be far more walkable to amenities than these developments. There is no reason not to aggressively pursue this huge opportunity in light of a potential labor crisis.
It is my understanding that a former elected official of Park City, who I have great admiration for, is working aggressively behind the scenes to stop any consideration of developing Richardson Flats. If true, they need to come forward publicly so we can have an open debate. Anyone who honestly supports the need for affordable housing would not cut off serious consideration of this opportunity to meet so many of our goals.
Third, we cannot create a successful housing strategy without considering transportation and our relationship with Summit County. Summit County, just including the area within the school district boundaries, currently has 1,134 affordable deed-restricted units.
An additional 500 are to be constructed at Dakota Pacific and 172 at Cline Dahle for a total of 1,806. There are 1,007 dormitory beds for seasonal workers at Slopeside Village that also includes 169 units for full-time workers (the Canyons buildings).
This compares to 829 affordable units claimed by Park City. Summit County was able to achieve these numbers even though they have half our revenue. For some reason we do not have very good data, but many of these units are occupied by people working in Park City.
The Bobsled Express should efficiently connect Kimball Junction all the way into the Old Town transit center and most of the Summit County affordable units are right on this corridor. Summit County is working to develop another 1,500 affordable units. We do have funding resources.
If there are economically reasonable projects in Summit County we should cooperate and deed restrict some to Park City if agreement can be reached. But some mix of arrogance and bad history seems to make this impossible to the great detriment of affordable housing.
It is all particularly ironic because our own deed-restriction rules in Resolution 12-2025 specifically allow employment anywhere within the school district. This undermines our policy of not counting Park City workers living in affordable housing within the school district boundaries as well as claims that only Park City-located housing, and particularly the 5-acre site, will reduce traffic. Additionally, only one unit tenant needs to work in the school district, allowing spouses and roommates to commute anywhere.
Do we believe tenants will not be traveling to the Kimball Junction area for shopping, entertainment and other needs? The entire traffic-reduction justification just doesn’t hold up. Adding close-in commuting options just makes sense when we have this large of an issue.
While the Bobsled Express captures workers for Park City from the S.R. 224 corridor and some potentially from Salt Lake commuters parking at the Kimball transit center, it does not fully address capturing outlying workers commuting in. The thousands who commute from Salt Lake and Wasatch will have the choice to take U.S. 40 directly to Deer Valley East Village.
Additional satellite parking is needed to capture these commuters along with efficient bus service into town. The Gordo parking proposal fails at this. It does not solve the last-mile problem into a congested Park City, making Deer Valley East Village a more attractive commuting option.
Buses entering S.R. 248 directly from Richarson Flats Road will be orders of magnitude less disruptive than a thousand cars from a Gordo parking location. Greatly expanding the existing parking at Richardson Flats and working with the state’s proposal to add access directly from S.R. 248 and U.S. 40 is the only solution that makes sense. It captures both workers and tourists if efficient bus service and perhaps gondola options are provided.
Making this our priority is a far better allocation of capital to retain workers for Park City. Unfortunately, this discussion has been falsely framed by saying Gordo is permitted and ready to go. This framing diverts from the real discussion of whether it is the best option to solve our problems. In fact, as a fourth option, using Richardson Flats for expanded parking opens up Gordo to affordable housing. Why isn’t this on the table?
If retention of our labor supply is our primary goal, then further thinking out of the box may be required. For example, providing a deeply subsidized lease of a self-driving car that we provide with free dedicated charging at satellite parking may be enough to retain distant commuting workers at far lower cost than a subsidized unit while also keeping traffic congestion off our roads.
Supervised self-driving is already here. True full self-driving, which may be here in a very few years, changes the whole nature of commuting. To just illustrate the comparative economics, 1,000 Teslas could be purchased for that same $40 million.
Peter Yogman
Park City