In their regular session on Wednesday, the major item for the Summit County Council will be possibly deciding an appeal against the Commons at Newpark project.
Meanwhile, county manager Tom Fisher said another appeal has been filed against one of his decisions—this time related to a project in Promontory—and will be headed to the council soon.
Earlier this year, Fisher gave an approval for the Commons project—a four-story building with seven townhomes just west of the Newpark Plaza. An appeal to the council was heard a couple of weeks ago. Council members are meeting at the Richins Services Building. But they will begin Wednesday with a field trip to the Commons site at 1:00 pm.
“I think they’re just trying to get context to what both the original applicant, the Crandall’s, and the appellants are seeing in their statements.” Fisher said, “Sometimes being on the ground provides better context than sitting in the board room and looking at the paper.”
He said the developers, the Crandalls, can do some minor grading work on the site before the appeal is decided, but have to post a bond for any restoration that might be needed.
The council will take up the appeal again at about 5:00 pm. We asked if any further arguments will be heard from the opposing parties.
“Council member Clyde had to leave early after making some comments and hearing some of the testimony. So there might be questions around that as well as some further statements from the appellants or the applicants.” Fisher explained, “But the chair runs that show so she will take the council through that deliberation. There have been supplemental statements that have been added to the record since the last time this was heard. Those are in the packet, that will be amended. That stuff will be considered, but other than that the record as it stood last time is pretty much the arguments.”
The staff report this week does include an affidavit from Senior Planner Peter Barnes, on the Town Center principles in Newpark.
“I think the council asked for Peter to provide something in this manner of how he looks at the town center.” Fisher continued, “Just as another data point in their deliberation so that’s what he’s produced with the help of the attorney’s office.”
Fisher added that another appeal is headed to council soon. Recently, he approved a plan for expansion of the Nicklaus clubhouse in Promontory, but the county manager added that the development has to meet an obligation on affordable housing.
“I don’t want to speak to the specifics of their appeal because I’m not totally familiar with it, but my decision was to approve the club house with the conditions that they provide that affordable housing plan to the county’s satisfaction.” Fisher said, “I believe that’s the part that they’re appealing. We have statutory time limits that we have to meet it’s probably going to be within the next 30 days that it’ll be scheduled with the council.”