No one gets more development rights in the Snyderville Basin unless there’s a “countervailing public interest,” or in other words, community benefit.
That’s what Salt Lake-based Dakota Pacific Real Estate says it’s bringing to the table, with housing — a third affordable — and a new town square for Kimball Junction.
Read more about what the developer is proposing, and what the public-private partnership is
There’ve been multiple public hearings and countless discussions about the developer’s proposal for 50 acres around Skullcandy in recent years. Thursday, Nov. 7, saw the first public comment on a potential Summit County-Dakota Pacific partnership.
“Entering into a public-private partnership was never on the table up until the proposal from the council [in April], and we took a step back and said, ‘OK, does this make sense? How can we lean into this and try to make it work?’” CEO Marc Stanworth said at the hearing. “We understood the potential for the benefits to the community.”
And some in the community agree, such as former Summit County Councilmember Glenn Wright. He was for previous versions of the plan and said he’s impressed with the new town center idea.
During the past year of negotiations, the project has split in two: a neighborhood west of Skullcandy’s headquarters and a mixed-use civic and expanded transit area on the east, along state Route 224.
Park City resident Suzanne Rosenberg also sees the benefit in the civic area and partnership for Dakota Pacific’s real estate. So unlike Wright, she's against it.
“I'm going to be contributing to your income and to your profits,” she told the developer and council. “And frankly, I really don't understand why I need to help pay for that, when we, as the council and as a county, have a say on what actually happens … with that land.”
The underlying resident concern has always been traffic from the 917 total proposed units. Rozenberg said she was late to the public hearing in Kimball Junction because of existing traffic.
Dakota Pacific argues new development will help make unclogging the area a priority for state leaders. Critics say those state leaders will implement traffic-reducing measures before the 2034 Winter Olympics anyway.
But the same state leaders have signaled they want development at Kimball Junction regardless, and Utah lawmakers passed bills in 2022 and 2023 to try to make it happen.
They didn’t write another bill in 2024; instead, they asked Summit County and Dakota Pacific to pause a lawsuit caused by the previous year’s bill and reach an agreement.
The fact that something is going to happen on that land — it’s not protected open space — informed Pinebrook resident Bob Jacko’s perspective.
“No, it's not exactly what I want… Unfortunately, that's not what it's about. It's not, ‘What do I want?’ It's not about what each one of us wants out of this. I think it's got a lot of good options, a lot of good benefits for the community,” he said during the meeting. “I would change a lot of it, absolutely. But I can live with it.”
Jacko was one of only a few supporters. About 100 people attended the Nov. 7 hearing in person, with more online. The majority were there to express frustration and disapproval.
The council has said it’s going to parse through the public feedback and return to the table with Dakota Pacific.
Instead of a same-day vote, the council scheduled the public hearing midway through negotiations, allowing time for changes, if necessary.
But its goal is to take that vote before the end of the year.
