Anyone who uses the Highland Estates trailhead at Round Valley is familiar with the 56 acres of property the Park City School District purchased this week for $6 million.
While district officials haven’t discussed what they plan to do with the property, the real estate contract says the land could be used for a new school, workforce housing or other education-related services. However, the district did some initial checking with the Summit County planning office to make sure that the land could be used for their future needs.
The property is located at the end of the cul-de-sac on Highland Drive on the west side of U.S. 40.
Summit County Community Development Director Pat Putt says last year, school district officials made some very basic inquiries about the property.
“It’ll go through a process; both a local and the state review process,” Putt said. “Schools are a little bit unique. The building permitting again goes through the state. The planning permitting goes through a conditional use permit process. There are limitations to what the county can review through that CUP process, but it would be going through a public process nonetheless.”
Schools in the rural residential zone, he says, are a conditional use.
“So, there would not be a specific building permit and county building inspections done for a school per se,” he said. “However, we are allowed to have a somewhat limited review through a conditional use permit process for schools. Checking things like height, and setback, and parking, those sorts of things. In terms of offsite improvements, off-site exactions - we are very limited in our ability to bring those about, but this would go through should a school, actually move forward on the site, it would go through a conditional use permit process with the Snyderville Basin planning commission.”
If something other than a school is proposed, he says the starting density on the property is one unit per 20 acres on developable land or one unit per 40 acres on sensitive lands – which is based on a number of things, like slope and wetlands. Workforce housing, however, he says is not a conditional use in this zone.
“I think that's going to be something that we're going to have to take a closer look at,” Putt said. “There are provisions in our code obviously in our, in our workforce housing, to provide that and certainly that's encouraging news from the school district, that they may be considering that as part of their development strategy. I think I'd have to stop short in making a definitive conclusion on that. You know, residentially, there the property with the existing rule residential zoning would only allow for one unit of residential development. I think we're gonna have to step back and take a look at that and probably have some conversations with the school district as we move forward with reviewing their ideas and their plans.”
KPCW will be speaking to Park City School Board President Erin Grady and Business Administrator Todd Hauber on Monday’s Local News Hour.
