It’s been just about a year since hundreds of Summit County residents packed into the Newpark Resort conference center to protest the controversial project proposed at the Tech Center site, prompting the development firm to pause its plans and take a different approach.
Dakota Pacific has since been reworking the project in hopes that the Summit County Council will revisit the application in the coming weeks and that the panel will find it more suitable than previous iterations. The County Council, which delayed voting on the proposal last December after nearly 80 residents spoke in opposition to it, is expected to provide guidance to the Planning Department during its Wednesday meeting – allowing the process to move forward with possible action to be taken in the new year.
Community Development Director Pat Putt is slated to meet with county councilors in the afternoon to provide an update and review the next steps regarding Dakota Pacific’s traffic impact study. The County Council in September opted to hire a third party to peer review the research that shows how the proposed traffic model would work at the development site.
The latest study is an update for the proposed redevelopment of the Summit Research Park/Park City Tech Center in Kimball Junction, along the west side of S.R. 224. Dakota Pacific in October revised its mixed-use development plan to include a 30% reduction in density from the original.
It cuts the number of residential units from 1,100 in the original project, and 895 proposed in May, to 727 units. The decreased density also reduced the units designated as workforce and affordable housing to 237. These will be reserved for people making less than $75,000, or 80% of the area median income. The first plan called for 336 units, according to Putt.
The Planning Department put out a request for proposals, kicking off the bid process, around Thanksgiving. They emphasized that the third party should be outside of Utah with no connections to Dakota Pacific or state legislators, at the request of the County Council.
A staff report indicates the third-party analysis will likely include an independent review of the neighborhood area and the S.R. 224 corridor traffic counts including weekends, peak periods, seasonal and holiday period counts, a comparison of the traffic volumes generated by the existing Tech Center plan, the plan previously reviewed by the County Council in December 2021 and the revised development plan as well as an independent review of the existing build-out and no-build scenarios.
The peer review will also examine concerns about road capacity surrounding the development, and how transit, bicycles and pedestrians would be impacted by more cars. The chosen consultant will also be asked to provide recommendations for traffic mitigation strategies that should be implemented if the Utah Department of Transportation’s proposed improvements are delayed or abandoned as well as suggestions for other enhancements to reduce congestion and increase safety in the neighborhood area.
The Planning Department received two responses and after evaluating each, they recommended the county select the Wall Consulting Group. If the County Council supports a contract, a document will be drafted and the peer review process will begin once it’s signed. Putt estimates the firm will have around 30 days to analyze the traffic impact study.
Staffers are then expected to schedule a work session with the County Council to discuss the findings and how the study has changed. There will likely be several work sessions before a public hearing is scheduled for the community to weigh in on the revised project.
The County Council could also direct Dakota Pacific to go back to the Snyderville Basin Planning Commission for a recommendation if officials feel it has changed significantly.
Either way, the County Council will ultimately determine the fate of the Tech Center proposal with a vote – possibly sometime next year.
“Dakota Pacific is eager to meet again in the coming weeks with the Summit County Council to present our revised plan for the Tech Center site,” Jeff Gochnour, the director of development for Dakota Pacific Real Estate, said in a November statement. “We’ve made significant changes to the plan in response to community feedback that we believe strikes a great balance across the various interests.”