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New Summit Council Member Ponders Dakota Project, Transit Changes To Kimball Junction

Malena Stevens

Summit County Council Member Malena Stevens is in an unusual position.   She voted on the Dakota Pacific proposal at Kimball Junction this fall, as a member of the Snyderville Planning Commission.

Now, as a newly-installed Council Member, she will vote as part of   a final decision on the proposal.    Stevens and other Council Members are taking under advisement the comments they heard at Wednesday’s public hearing.

Stevens told KPCW that the people she heard this week, and their concerns, are similar to what she heard last summer.   But some new information did come out of the meeting.   Stevens said she’d like to get additional public outreach on the project.

She said that all along, the affordable housing in the project has been important to her.       

“And I stated this on Planning Commission as well, I think it’s critical that we have affordable housing in different housing types.  And so the rental component and ensuring that we have additional rentals, to me is very intriguing because it’s a product type that we don’t have a lot of within the Basin or just the Park City area in general.  So many of those have been taken up by nightly rentals that were long-term leases previously.    And so having something that is, and stays rental, I think would also be a community benefit, because if those people had to stay there as a primary residence, I think that could really improve some of our ability to house workers at all levels.”

One question out of the public hearing was if Dakota will truly be creating a community for families.     

“Because if it’s going to be just a loud, busy area that’s not really creating a sense of place and a sense of community, that’s not having community benefits broadly, as well as for those that are living in the neighborhood, then it’s not likely to be something that we need to have within the community.  I think that right now we do have people on both sides of the fence as far as this is concerned—those that believe it would have community benefits, those that believe it would not.  I think that we have some ways to go.”

Dakota’s application would amend the original approval given to the Boyer Tech Park in 2008.   However, Council Member Roger Armstrong suggested opening up the Development Agreement.   Stevens said that could be helpful.        

“I heard from other members of the Council that that would be something they’d find interesting—that we need to make sure that the Development Agreement itself is consistent.  And so we don’t have any holes that allow for unintended consequences.  I think we want to be as intentional as possible.   I know initially there was a lot of intention behind the Tech Park agreement.  And I think if there is to be a change to the agreement that we need to be just as intentional now, with what we are trying to accomplish and what this community is envisioning.”

On a related topic, the Council got a presentation from UDOT on a Kimball Junction Area Plan, and saw four alternatives for changes or upgrades to the area along Interstate-80.     We asked Stevens if any of the revisions interested her.       

“There’s a couple of alternatives that made some improvements to the intersections at Ute Boulevard and Olympic Parkway.  And I found those very intriguing because those are some choke points right now that we have that are not working effectively currently.  So I would like to see an option that either incorporates some changes to those intersections or changes those intersections so that we can have an easier flow of traffic in and out of 224, not just kind of the freeway on and off-ramp.”

Summit County Council Member Malena Stevens.

Known for getting all the facts right, as well as his distinctive sign-off, Rick covered Summit County meetings and issues for 35 years on KPCW. He now heads the Friday Film Review team.
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