Acting as the Park City Housing Authority, the Park City Council debated how much affordable housing should be required as part of Deer Valley’s plan to develop the parking lots at the Snow Park base area Thursday night.
Deer Valley hopes to turn the current parking lots into residential units, hotels, and commercial space. Parking would be moved underground.
Council discussion centered around how many affordable units the city should push for.
In calculating how much affordable housing should be built, Deer Valley and city staff determined how many employees would be needed at the base area’s hotels and restaurants, and then assumed a certain number of those employees per housing unit. Based on that number, they said the number of units required to meet Deer Valley’s minimum affordable housing obligation is 61.
Councilors pointed out that given the fact that Deer Valley prides itself on an exceptional level of service, there is a good chance the businesses that do get built at the new base area will require more staff than other hotels and restaurants.
Councilor Max Doilney advocated for as many on-site units as possible.
“I’d rather start out with a real high bar," said Doilney. "Let’s start there. On-site [housing] is paramount, I think, in this particular instance. I cannot see us coming off of that, really. I’m not coming off of that. I think on-site is critical in this situation, and I think more is better. I want to ask for as much as possible within reason so that we can maintain our good partnerships too.”
Councilors were united in pushing for as many affordable units as they can get in that project.
Snow Park project manager Rich Wagner said Deer Valley wants to be a part of the solution to Park City’s housing crisis, but was blunt in his assessment of affordable housing being located at the base area.
“To put 61 [affordable units] on our site right now is impossible without modifying," he said. "We’d have to go eight stories [high] and we’d have to start modifying and asking for variances and all that kind of stuff. It’s almost a project killer … For us to start throwing more affordable housing into this project on site is literally impossible at this point in time to still make the project work, otherwise the whole project becomes an affordable housing project.”
Thursday’s work session was only to give direction to city staff and Deer Valley on how to move forward. Final approval of the Snow Park project and its affordable housing component could come later this year.
