Tony Gill

Maybe it’s because the pandemic has shut down nearly all forms of indoor recreation. Maybe it’s because the Salt Lake Valley is at its hottest this time of year. Maybe it’s because hiking, mountain biking and running on trails is fun, and those activities are becoming increasingly popular. Whatever the reason, trailheads in Park City have been extremely popular this summer, and overflow parking has spilled into residential areas. Once again, the natives are getting restless, and county officials are pledging to do something about it.

Summit County had deemed it necessary to ramp up enforcement of parking restrictions at busy trailheads after increased signage and attempts at education have failed to curtail problems ranging from serious—illegal parking blocking emergency access routes—to less severe—neighbors complaining about mountain bikers tailgating in neighborhoods. Enforcement, which will progress from education to ticketing and towing, is scheduled to begin on July 29 after the necessary code changes were implemented.

The trailheads where overcrowding has been acutely felt are in Summit Park at the top of Parley’s Canyon and at Rob’s Trailhead near the Utah Olympic Park. These trailheads are popular with multiple user groups, and they’re easily accessible for people coming up from Salt Lake for some quick recreation after work. Many observers, as noted by a litany of editorials in local media, have pointed to trail users who live outside of Summit County as the primary culprits, and even some county officials have echoed that sentiment. One proposed solution that seems to be gaining traction is for out of county trail users—who do not pay for trail construction and maintenance through property taxes—to pay an access fee, such as for a parking permit.

To quote Jon Snow, “It’s a bad plan.” The trail system in Park City has become the centerpiece of the area’s economy during non-skiing months. Exact figures are disputed, but out-ot-town trail users bring a lot of revenue to local restaurants, shops and bars in Old Town, in Snyderville Basin and throughout the County. Local business alone never before has and is a long way from being able to sustain the economy up here. Trails are what attract people to the area. Adding an obstacle to access isn’t going to fix the problem, but it will create others.

Chaotic trailhead parking is far from a new topic, as evinced by this article in the Park Record from MORE THAN EIGHT YEARS AGO bemoaning the very same issues. Color me shocked it hasn’t been resolved and Park City residents are bemoaning the inconvenience while resisting any infrastructure that could help alleviate the problem. I’ve lived in Park City for over a decade, which makes me either a rotten local curmudgeon or an insurgent new arrival depending on who you ask. Whichever you’d like to peg me as is fine, but I’ve been around long enough to see locals engage in NIMBYism when convenient and decry it at other times.

I also happen to live in one of the “afflicted” areas in Summit Park. There are real problems; certainly blocked emergency access isn’t good. But as far as revelry near the trailheads are concerned, I consider that a collateral issue that comes with the privilege of living within shouting distance from a desirable trailhead. Sorry. Things are even trickier during a pandemic. Everyone is driving solo to the trailheads, and public transit use is way down. That’s going to be an issue for a while longer, but it won’t last forever. I hope.

Increased enforcement is inevitable and probably a good thing, but elitist attitudes and access fees to use public land that are the primary draw to a resort town aren’t going to solve anything. It’s no different than us Summit County residents driving over to ski powder in the Cottonwood Canyons. We can’t have it both ways, so let’s all take a deep breath.

Read more of our community coverage here.

Something fishy is happening on the eastern edge of the Jordanelle Reservoir. The town council of Hideout—a town in Wasatch County of roughly 1,000 residents—unanimously voted on measures allowing them to annex land in neighboring Summit County near Quinn’s Junction and Richardson Flat. With some observers characterizing the surprise move as brazen heist of undeveloped land, officials in Summit County and Park City are seeking recourse.

Just to clarify, a municipality is attempting to annex unincorporated land across a county line without that county’s approval. If this sounds like madness, that’s because it is. However, it seems the move is legal, at least for the time being. During the Utah Legislature’s recent special session, Sen. Kirk Cullimore introduced a substitute bill to H.B. 359 that contained what he characterized as technical changes. In reality, the substitutions appear to have been custom tailored to allow Hideout to annex and develop a tract of land in Summit County that had been set aside for open space and recreation.

The appearance of impropriety is enhanced once you learn the developers behind the move are Nate Brockbank and Josh Romney, the son of current U.S. Sen., former Republican Presidential Candidate, and recent resistance participant Mitt Romney. Brockbank and Romney had previously requested a zoning change to allow for mixed-use development on the land, which Park City opposed. Thanks to the legislative changes snuck through during a special session, that opposition may be rendered moot. It would be charitably described as naïve to overlook how political connections could help guide the direction of backroom dealings.

Hideout’s annexation and development plan are part of the town’s new General Plan, which passed in February 2019. The General Plan’s goals couldn’t be met in the town’s existing limits or under the approved Annexation Area, so they went back to the drawing board with developers to rewrite Utah state law to suit their needs. They succeeded. Conveniently for Hideout, the sprawling Superfund site with contaminated soil from the area’s mining past that is adjacent to the proposed annexation was carved out of the plans and will remain in Summit County’s hands.

The area’s two representatives in the statehouse, Rep. Tim Quinn, R-Heber and Sen. Ron Winterton, R-Roosevelt both voted against H.B. 359. Sen. Cullimore, who introduced the changes to the bill is a republican representing Sandy. Perhaps recognizing his role in a growing controversy, Sen. Cullimore said in an interview he was looking into whether the broad consensus of support behind the bill’s changes had been misrepresented to him. If other senators feel the same as Cullimore suggests he may, the Utah Legislature could repeal the law. Discussions about the possibility of repealing H.B. 359 during a special session in August have already begun.

Another obstacle to annexation and development coming to fruition is the negotiated agreement between Park City and the land’s previous owner Talisker Development to not build on the property. Talisker has since gone bankrupt and the land is in pending foreclosure, which means the courts will likely decide whether the previous agreement would apply to the new owners as well.

The developers are planning a Kimball Junction-size development on the annexed land. With large-scale development projects underway or in the pipeline at Mayflower Mountain Resort and the bases of Park City Resort and Deer Valley, the City and County opposed further significant development that would exacerbate traffic issues and add to creeping sprawl in the area. Thus far officials from other jurisdictions including Park City, Summit County and Wasatch County have expressed opposition to the annexation plan and to the rushed and secretive processes under which it was passed.

Whatever the ultimate outcome for the Hideout annexation, it would behoove lawmakers to implement a more transparent process for this and future annexation efforts. Handcuffing local governments while politically connected developers scoop up land stinks of favoritism corruption. I’d like to think Utah is better than this. Let’s see if we are.

Read more of our community coverage here.

The planned development of the lots at the base of Park City Mountain has encountered a procedural snag. The Park City Planning Commission unanimously voted on Wednesday to subject the plans from developer PEG Companies to a complete review, siding with City Hall staff as well as some vocal outside critics. PEG Companies aimed to move forward with the project under an existing 1990’s development agreement for the area, but ultimately the planning commission decided the substantive differences between what was envisioned decades ago and what has been submitted warrant a full review.

At this point, PEG Companies is not required to make any modifications to their proposal, and it may proceed through the master plan development review process as is. The decision does, however, subject the project to a new level of scrutiny regarding several facets of the development including the location of buildings, parking infrastructure and pedestrian routes. Whether the procedural hurdle turns into a major obstacle remains to be seen, but it adds yet another hurdle for developers to clear as they were already confronting some vocal opposition.

The Citizens Allied for Responsible Growth (CARG) levied a withering critique of the developers to the Planning Commission earlier in the week. One of CARG’s founders, Rich Wyman, suggested the plans lack vision befitting a world-class destination. Among Wyman’s objections were substantive issues such as the project’s lack of affordable-housing and traffic solutions as well as some remarks that strayed into ad hominem attacks suggesting PEG Companies wasn’t up to the task. PEG Companies has in the past stated an intention to listen to and adapt to local input, though it appears they’ll have an uphill battle in winning over some factions.

The PCMR Development isn’t the only Park City project in flux. On Thursday the Park City Council met to discuss the future of the Arts and Culture District as the city’s two primary partners, the Kimball Art Center and the Sundance Institute, are experiencing turmoil amid the coronavirus pandemic. The $70 million the city planned to spend on the project seems daunting amid unprecedented budgetary shortfalls, while the Kimball Arts Center and Sundance Institute cope with the loss of major revenue with the cancellation of the Kimball Arts Festival and alterations to the Sundance Film Festival respectively. Both the not-for-profit organizations have recently laid off staff amid the economic downturn.

Despite the setbacks, city officials and representatives from the Sundance Institute and Kimball Art Center remain steadfast in the goal towards seeing the Arts and Culture District come to fruition. Though they admit the timing of the project will likely be altered, it’s seen as an important long-term step in diversifying a local economy that is heavily reliant upon the ski industry.

Read more of our community coverage here.

My phone kept buzzing. “Rudy Gobert just tested positive for coronavirus,” read the text from my friend. It was March 11, and I was hosting a local radio show as a volunteer DJ in Park City. Suddenly my sardonic news breaks in the middle of songs I didn’t feel like playing turned into actual breaking new snippets as Twitter lit up. Within minutes Tom Hanks announced he’d tested positive for COVID-19, the NBA had suspended its season and the president halted travel from Europe. Yet the handful of coronavirus cases in Utah were tied to international travel and life in Park City churned on. Then on March 14, the canary collapsed.

The canary, for the uninitiated, served as a harbinger of danger for miners. The diminutive birds would succumb to dangerous gases like carbon monoxide before people, alerting miners to the presence of a threat. With most of the United States blissfully inattentive to the looming specter of coronavirus, Park City and similar resort communities sounded the alarm with a pronounced thud.

On that fateful Saturday, Park City Mountain opened in a mostly typical manner. The lodges served only grab and go food, but nobody was adhering to the only-ride-chairs-with-your-party mandate, and crowds were queued up for beer at Tombstone BBQ. In the afternoon, word spread: A doorman at a popular Main Street bar had tested positive for coronavirus, the first instance of community spread in Park City. The lifts wouldn’t spin again.

In the days and weeks that followed, the coronavirus case rate in Summit County exploded, ranking seventh nationally in infections per capita. Blaine County, Idaho, home to Sun Valley, and Gunnison County, Colorado, home to Crested Butte, also held the dubious honor of being in the top seven of all 3,142 counties in the country. With relatively low population densities, it seemed counterintuitive these small ski communities would be hit so hard, but each is a hub of nationwide and international travel far exceeding what population statistics would indicate.

As visitors flocked to the slopes in February and early March, coronavirus made an early entrance and silently spread for weeks before the threat emerged. On March 14, five of the eight cases in Summit County were from visitors. By March 27, it was only eight of 135. Strategy shifted rapidly from containment to mitigation. That same day Summit County became the first in Utah to issue a shelter-in-place order. The prompt county response was admirable and spurred action throughout the state. Nobody asks to be the canary, but at least Summit County caught people’s attention.

For more on Park City life, click here.