The Summit County Council on Wednesday gave a couple of important approvals to the Lincoln Station project on the Bitner Frontage Road.
Council member Roger Armstrong said that, for several reasons, it’s a really good project for the basin.
The applicant for Lincoln Station, Vince Criscione, holds a four-acre parcel near the Burns Fire Station, and is allowed one unit under the current zoning.
The Council on Wednesday approved a rezone for the parcel to Community Commercial. They also okayed a Development Agreement for the project’s planned 76 residential units and up to 5,300 square feet of commercial.
Armstrong said he feels the project passes Provision 2.3 of the Snydervile Code, which says a new entitlement has to show a compelling public benefit.
“We’ve got 52 units of affordable housing and a portion of that affordable housing is for people at the 50% AMI,” Armstrong continued. “Another significant portion is for people with 80% AMI and then another portion of that is for people at 120%. We have a dearth of housing in Summit County for people in those three categories. They’re also all rental units which is something that we don’t have nearly enough of, so it ticks all of those affordable housing boxes.”
He said it also benefits the county in Transit and Sustainability.
“They’re also going to pay $25,000 toward the Summit County e-bike share program,” Armstrong explained. “They’re going to allow a transit stop on site. They’ve agreed that all of the units will satisfy energy star 3.0 energy standards. They’ve agreed to put heat pumps as the primary heat source and cooling source in all of those which is a renewable energy source and low impact to help push us towards our energy goals. This ticks so many boxes. It’s in a great location where there’s already density located and it just kind of lined up. It’s going to be very difficult for other projects to come along to actually satisfy as many of our criteria as this one does.”
With these approvals, though, the project will go back to the Snyderville Planning Commission, where the group will consider an amended Conditional Use Permit.
“When it first came up to us the planning commission approved it for 32 affordable units,” Armstrong said. “When we started looking at it and conversations with the developer, we did not believe that number of units was sufficient to get us back to section 2.3. So, the developer was responsible enough to add almost double the number of affordable units in the project from 31 or 32 to 52 and that kind of put it over the top. It’s got to go back to the planning commission for them to amend the CUP to conform with the changes that we made, we can’t do that.”
We asked him, though, what would happen if Planning Commissioners said No.
“We’ve made a legislative decision based on their initial recommendation,” Armstrong continued. “So, they’re bound by that legislative decision, but the control of the CUP is up to them. We just don’t have a legal means of adjusting it so its up to them to make it conform.”
