Tony Gill

Controversy is brewing on the Park City ridgeline. Park City Mountain is planning to construct more than 200 avalanches fences above the Daybreak chairlift on the Canyons side of the resort. The structure is an effort to protect an access road leading to two homes in the Colony and the on-mountain restaurant Cloud Dine. The fences were approved in June 2020 under a low-impact permit from Summit County, which meant a building permit could be issued in March 2021 without any public input. Some county residents are rankled at what they consider a closed-door decision-making process that they claim will permanently and unnecessarily alter the area’s natural landscape.

The Colony, a gated community on the slopes of Park City Mountain, is home to some of the most expensive real estate in Park City. As development in the community has risen higher up the mountainside, it has gotten closer to natural avalanche paths outside of the boundary of the ski resort. In this case, the road the avalanche fencing intends to protect is essentially a shared driveway for two homes within The Colony. Current avalanche mitigation work throughout the winter season produces regular small avalanches, preventing a larger slide that would imperil the road. The caveat is the roadway must be closed when mitigation work is ongoing. The fences would eliminate the need for explosive avalanche control, meaning the road is always open.

Detractors insist the plan is unnecessarily intrusive and an example of entitlement for wealthy residents at the cost of the community. 215 avalanche fences ranging between three and four meters in height would be bolted to the ground near the top of the slide paths where avalanches initiate. The fences cause turbulence in airflow resulting in snowdrifts that aren’t prone to avalanches. Avalanche fencing is common in Europe above alpine towns in the Alps and along essential roadways threatened by avalanche risk. Far less common is protecting a roadway for two private homes and a resort restaurant with extensive fencing infrastructure.

The maze of fencing will likely be visible year-round from Snyderville Basin, would be potentially hazardous to wildlife in the area, and would spoil a natural area enjoyed by backcountry skiers and snowboarders. Further, avalanche professionals have expressed doubts about the merits of the plan. A ski patroller who works in snow safety at Park City Mountain, who provided insight on condition of anonymity, suggested avalanches are unlikely to impact the future road. “Once every decade or so the road might get hit. Fences are an absurd way to protect what’s essentially a driveway. Limiting access for a handful of people on rare occasions when control work is going on is far more reasonable than covering the mountains in fencing,” the patroller said.

Public concern has swelled as details about the fence plan spread, but little recourse is available. Low impact permits can be appealed within 10 days of being issued, but in this case, it’s been nearly a year. Further, a previous agreement between the landowners and Vail Resorts is already in place, and Vail has valid permits. There’s no formal code violation or anything else that would require Vail Resorts to reconsider unless the concerns of the community compel them to do so.

For those who wish to register opposition to the plan, Save Our Canyons has started a petition asking Summit County to reconsider the low-impact permit. Click here to view the petition.  

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“One if they come from land-locked America, two if they’ve come from the sea! The out of towners are coming! It’s the Texans and the Californians! It’s not just for vacation this time! The proof’s in the license plate, you see,” says the Park City NIMBY.

For the sake of journalistic integrity, I’ll clarify I’ve paraphrased rather than directly quoted the sentiment I’m hearing around town. The bias, however, is very real. A particular strain of anti-new arrival anxiety is spreading, and like most things grounded in some form of originalism, it’s full of arguments made in bad faith. Park City, you see, is home to many born and bred Parkites, but it’s more and more populated by transplants who came in search of snow and mountains. The true OGs have a valid axe to grind—I moved here 14 years ago and am still considered a precocious new arrival by some—but most of us sound frighteningly hypocritical for calling out people doing exactly what we did.

Is it even happening, though? Has the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent work-from-home revolution enabled scores of people to move to Park City in the name of a better lifestyle? Surely, taking a look at school enrollment and real estate trends could shed some light on the situation.

October school enrollment data from Park City showed there were 61 fewer students enrolled district wide than in 2019. Of the 4,840 students, 137 were new enrollees, not counting kindergarteners enrolling for the first time.

“We’re right within that normal sort of standard,” said Superintendent Jill Gildea at a Board of Education Meeting in November. “We didn’t balloon to the size that everybody in the community has been kind of nervous about.”

What about exploding real estate prices? Home prices are indeed continuing to skyrocket in Park City, with the average condo price in Snyderville Basin increasing over the past year by 40%. Meanwhile, inventory has evaporated. I checked with several real estate agents, however, and received anecdotal shrugs instead of concrete trends. The starkest increase in demand is attributed to buyers of “luxury properties,” which likely would have a lesser effect on overcrowding than less expensive properties.

So, are the Californians and Texans really flocking here to take over? People are moving to Park City, but the trend was established long before the pandemic struck. While it’s likely some have seized the opportunity to move, the evidence doesn’t indicate a massive surge of new residents. Park City is an idyllic mountain community a short drive from an urban center with a growing economy. What did we expect? Anxiety about growth is a cottage industry in Park City. Be nice to the new Parkites. You were probably once one of them.

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Another patch of open space in Park City, another battlefield over development. This particular parcel, a 40-acre spot near the intersection of US-40 and I-80, is the potential future home of a development called Highland Flats, which like all potential new development has spurred heated debate in Park City. There are signs about it visible along Old Ranch Road, highlighting the displeasure of certain local factions just as there were with regarding the ongoing Hideout saga.  The proposed development is for 410 residential units, a third of which would be designated as affordable housing for primary residents making between 30-80% of the average medium income.

On Feb. 23, the Summit County Planning Commission held a public hearing on the topic, which featured withering criticism from residents of nearby Highland Estates. Following a presentation with legal representatives for the developers on March 9, commissioners voted unanimously against the residential rezoning required for the project. Nevertheless, the commissioners acknowledged the dire need for affordable housing in the Park City area and praised the project’s goals, if not its planned execution. The next step for developers is to make their case to the Summit County Council while making a push to rally more public support.

“We are pleased the planning commission will continue its evaluation of our important proposal. Our vision has always been to provide a safe, high-quality, and most importantly an economically attainable housing product to workforce residents within the boundaries of the Summit County. In every data- driven exercise conducted by the County, we have witnessed a very significant, and even compelling, public interest to provide this type of living,” says Lance Bullen of Colmena Group, a partner in the development via a press release. “If not at this location, which provides preferable I-40 access, public transit assets, contiguous developable property with favorable topography, then where? It would be a travesty if the voices of a few drown out the need articulated by so many.”  

The very real and concerning issue of affordable housing often gets caught up in the debate regarding the endless churn of development in Park City. Keeping track of it all is difficult enough with euphemistic development names and byzantine zoning requirements muddling the issue. Most people don’t have the time or inclination to sort through it all, so development gets painted with a broad brush. Throw in a dose of NIMBYism, and reasonable discussion becomes difficult. Few would make a good faith argument against the need for affordable housing in the Park City area, but put new affordable housing anywhere in their proximity, and suddenly everyone wants to shut the door behind them.

The continual rise in Park City housing prices along with an increased need for workers in town has created unsustainable stalemates. How do you address the housing crisis without increasing development? How do you decrease traffic congestion without eliminating the daily need for some of the 16,000 workers to commute to Park City? How do you fill open employment positions without anywhere for people to live or a convenient commute? You can’t.

As such, many local employers support affordable housing initiatives, including the Sundance Institute, PC Tots, DBR Joints (operators of No Name Saloon, the Bonyeard and more) and the Montage. In contrast, many residents—through comment sections social media posts—have noted employers are doing little to address the workforce shortage themselves whether by helping provide housing or raising wages that make commuting more palatable. Easy answers aren’t easy to come by. In the meantime, developers have vowed to follow through on their efforts to provide affordable housing units at Highland Flats—albeit while turning a nice profit—while city and county officials keep looking for solutions to address housing woes. Debate is certain to be fierce as factions advocate for their interests, and we’ll provide updates as the proposal progresses.

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