The Park City Council is scheduled to spend three hours on Thursday going over every aspect of community housing and will be looking to answer a few key questions on the topic.
According to a staff report, the city’s housing team is asking the council to help figure out where housing projects should be located and whether the current target of housing 15% of the city’s workforce inside city limits is still a realistic goal.
Thursday’s work session continues the housing discussion the council had at last month’s retreat. Councilor Tana Toly told KPCW this week she’d like to see regional collaboration be a bigger part of the housing conversation.
“I think our regional partners need to be a part of this conversation and it also needs to be looking at the public-private partnerships and what does that actually mean and who is this for?" she said. "We have seniors, we have workers, we have affordable housing, attainable housing, and everything in between.”
The council will also spend the last hour of the work session considering what a moratorium on planning applications would look like.
That’s in response to feedback from the council and a sense that Parkites are overwhelmed with how much development has been happening recently.
City staff says a moratorium on applications won’t stop growth. Applications that have already been submitted will still move through the planning process. State laws regarding property rights also make enacting a moratorium a challenge, as the city would have to show a “compelling and countervailing public interest” to put one in place.
City Manager Matt Dias said the conversation will largely be an educational one with city planning and legal staff laying out what a moratorium could look like and what it can and can’t accomplish.
“The conventional wisdom is that something like this is going to solve all of our problems. It won’t," said Dias. "By definition, it’s an emergency measure that you have to use very, very carefully to be respectful of people’s rights.”
Later on the agenda, the council will receive an update on the city’s short range transit plan, which will be used as a guiding document for transit services within Park City for the next five years.
Thursday’s meeting begins at 2pm. A link to the full agenda and details on how to participate can be found here.
