The Park City Council and Park City Planning Commission met with developer Alexander Company Tuesday to decide where a development on Clark Ranch can be built.
Clark Ranch is 344 acres of land straddling Highway 40 and the Quinn’s Junction area. The council preserved 329 acres of Clark Ranch through a conservation easement in December, leaving 10 acres for an affordable housing development and five acres as a buffer.
Now the planning commission and council are working together to decide where the 10-acre development should be.
The meeting focused on two site locations: one at the northernmost tip of the non-conserved land and another about 2 acres to the south.
The northernmost location, called option A2 or the “triangle,” reduced impacts to steep slopes and wildlife habitat, as well as clustered the development near Park City Heights. However, the Alexander company said the unusual shape would limit design possibilities.
Option B is called the “open space buffer” as it puts a couple of acres in between the Clark Ranch and Park City Heights developments.
This would allow more flexibility with design but would be on a steeper slope that would make the hillside homes more visible and reduce wildlife habitat.
Councilmember Tana Toly said the majority of the council and planning commission preferred the open space buffer options.
“The reasons for that were: it's lower cost per unit, the building footprints were smaller, there were fewer roads needed, less grading, the storm water management of the retention ponds would be above ground and not below ground, as you can imagine anything below ground would be a lot more expensive,” she said on KPCW’s “Local News Hour” Wednesday.
Toly said the buffer options also had better access roads and were more compatible with the Park City Heights neighborhood.
The developer proposed two suboptions for the open space buffer location. B1 would feature more, smaller buildings, which would break up the visual impact on the hillside. B2 would feature fewer, bigger buildings, allowing for fewer units.
Most councilmembers and planning commissioners also preferred the B2 option, which featured townhomes and multi-unit dwellings with 126 to 154 total units.
“It's more of a townhome style … versus giant buildings with 100 units,” Toly said.
More specifics on building height and unit numbers will be decided later through the planning commission’s process.
Now that the planning commission and council have identified their preferred option, the Alexander Company will finalize a rezone application. Then the Park City planning department and commission will conduct a public hearing and forward a recommendation to the council.
That will be followed by a public hearing before the council and their final vote on the development.
Park City Municipal is a financial supporter of KPCW. For a full list, click here.
