Park Records file photo by David Jackson
It's been 179 days since Summit County and Dakota Pacific Realty agreed to pause their legal battle over land for the Park City Tech Center in Kimball Junction.
Third District Judge Richard Mradzik in December agreed to give the parties until June 8 to resolve their dispute, but no agreement has been reached. So Mradzik gave the developer and county officials another four months to act.
The Summit County Prosecutor's Office on May 30 filed for an extension to suspend legal proceedings until October 8 to give the parties time to work out the details.
Dakota Pacific and the Summit County Council began meeting regularly in January to work out specific details of the development application, including traffic, volume and population density.
But elements of the plan began to change as the County Council placed stricter restrictions on the project, including reducing the number of housing units, making construction contingent on state and federal funding in stages, and forging a public-private partnership.
Officials decided in April to put discussions behind closed doors after years of public debate to work out the complexities of the county's request for amendments. Plan D would designate half of the 600 units as affordable or attainable housing and allow a more flexible construction timeline if the developer also helps improve other land in the area.
County Councilwoman Kanice Hart, who sits on the subcommittee with Councilman Chris Robinson, said public-private partnerships are a focus of the group. Officials want to build a new transportation center, pedestrian trails and other community connectors around the existing Sheldon Richins Building and Transportation Center and the vacant land at the Park City Visitor Center.
The County Council on Wednesday approved up to $30 million in sales tax revenue bonds to purchase the nearby Skullcandy headquarters for municipal purposes, and the 7.38 acres could also be used to support public-private partnerships by creating more land connections.
“We continue to work together,” Hart said. “Discussions are progressing well.”
Dakota Pacific agreed to an extension of the moratorium to allow negotiations to continue. Summit County sued the developer last March over Senate Bill 84, which would have taken land-use control over Kimball Junction away from local governments.
The law could have forced the County Council to approve an earlier proposal for a 727-unit mixed-use development. But Judge Mradzik ruled that the Tech Center was not subject to the law. Dakota Pacific plans to appeal the ruling and filed a countersuit in November.
The stay of the proceedings can be lifted by either party with 14 days' notice, but Hart believes that won't happen unless the parties stop progressing.
Early subcommittee meetings helped establish a framework for how the discussions would proceed. Now, county staff is leading the discussions, with county council members providing additional support, Hart said. Key officials including Transportation Planning Director Carl Miller and High Valley Transportation Authority Executive Director Caroline Rodriguez are also involved in the planning.
Dakota Pacific is represented by CEO Mark Stanworth and Director of Commercial Development Steve Volpe.
The subcommittee is not working on specific designs, but is focusing on project concepts, such as the number of parking spaces needed to accommodate residents and visitors and the economic feasibility of a land swap.
Officials are not keeping up with the timeline they set in January, and a vote on the project may not happen this year. Hart speculated it could take until the October deadline to reach an agreement on a public-private partnership.
He said the goal is to reach a memorandum of understanding, or a nonbinding agreement that outlines how the parties will move forward. The subcommittee does not intend to make any formal decisions. Once that's in place, talks could return to the public eye.
But Hart said some information may come to light at upcoming county council meetings.
“The conversation that the public knows is different,” he said. “Everything is so different than what we know.”
County councillors were optimistic that both parties are now moving in the same direction, with a strong commitment to focusing on the community benefits of a public-private partnership and ensuring all the details are aligned.
Hart said he feels positive about the direction the project is heading.
