Talk of a development moratorium in the Snyderville Basin has been building for a year.
Last March, the chair of the Basin planning commission suggested one. A few months ago, the county manager’s office endorsed the idea. Last month, a group that formed to oppose the Tech Center development asked the county council to impose one.
And this week, Council Chair Chris Robinson requested an official discussion of the issue in a work session.
Imposing a moratorium pauses development for a certain amount of time. Utah law allows governments to implement moratoriums for up to six months to address specific issues.
Oakley, for instance, imposed a moratorium as it worked to secure another water source.
Councilor Roger Armstrong said the council would have to have a specific reason to stop development.
“There are limitations on what you can declare a moratorium for, and whatever it is that you declare, that's what you have to try to solve during that six-month period,” he said.
Summit County recently imposed a moratorium on accessory buildings, for example, and at the end of the six months passed an ordinance that changed the rules governing those structures.
At its meeting Wednesday, the council did not say it would issue a moratorium. Robinson said the timing might be poor, considering that building season is set to begin in the spring. And he suggested a full-scale embargo might be a bridge too far.
In previous moratorium talks, the pause was seen as a way to give county officials the bandwidth to update the Snyderville Basin general plan and development code without having to simultaneously evaluate new development applications.
The county was pursuing a major overhaul of those foundational legal documents, but backed off that effort in recent months, saying it needed an extensive public outreach campaign to do the work properly. Councilor Doug Clyde on Wednesday said rewriting a general plan could take years.
After Wednesday’s discussion, it appears any potential moratorium would be more narrowly tailored.
Armstrong suggested a few areas that could be addressed in the shorter timeframe, including evaluating the Basin’s existing affordable housing requirement as well as water availability and quality issues.
“I think there's a general narrative cooking around the community — and I had the same perception, by the way, when I got on the council, when I ran for the council — that you could just kind of shut the door and say, ‘Okay, that's enough. No more building now,’” Armstrong said. “You can't do that. And as a tool to stop or limit growth, that doesn't work. But there are probably some, if we think carefully about it, there are some things that we can accomplish.”
No date for the moratorium discussion had been set as of Friday afternoon. Meanwhile, the Park City Council is scheduled to discuss a moratorium within city limits at a work session in May.
