The Summit County Council will return next week to discussing the Dakota Pacific project at Kimball Junction.
Councilor Glenn Wright says it’s a potentially good project, but they’re not quite there yet.
In recent weeks, Wright has been in a sub-group looking at the sustainability features of the project.
“The sustainability issue, in particular, I like a lot,” he said. “They have really jumped on, forcefully, all of our recommendations on sustainability. We have to build that, of course, into the actual Development Agreement. But I like their proposals there. I believe the areas we really have to zero in on now is the amount of affordable housing, the amount of units in total, and the phasing issues with transportation.”
On a related note, he said some good news is that the county can now get funding from the Utah Department of Transportation for environmental studies at Kimball Junction.
Wright also said Dakota has gone back to an earlier iteration of the project that they had presented to the Snyderville Commission. That plan incorporated county properties, like the Richins Building and the Transit Center.
“But when it went to the Planning Commission, the Planning Commission, unable to make that decision, they just put out a proposal that affected the land that they actually owned,” he said. “I think most people that looked at the original proposal thought it was superior. If you go back to transcripts of our first meeting with them, when they came to the council, that was one of my statements. Not only me, but several of the council members said, “Hey, we liked your original proposal better.” So I think that’s what they brought back to the council, since we have the authority to authorize land swaps.”
