The bills tackle different aspects of the controversial western Kimball Junction development.
More discussion is expected at the Wednesday, Feb. 26, Summit County Council meeting.
Senate Bill 26
First there’s Senate Bill 26, sponsored by GOP Sen. Wayne Harper of West Jordan.
It amends his housing and transit reinvestment zone law, which created a funding mechanism for housing near facilities like the Kimball Junction Transit Center.
In 2022 and 2023, bills amending the HTRZ law included language pertaining specifically to Dakota Pacific’s project, and according to Deputy County Manager Janna Young, that kind of language got inserted again.
Young believes SB26 may be aimed at locking in the public-private partnership between Summit County and Dakota Pacific Real Estate, to ensure the proposed project gets built.
But whereas the parties' development agreement is 63 pages, the relevant code is about 50 lines. Still, there are guardrails on the "mixed-use development" it would allow, including that a third of its residential units must be "affordable."
SB26 also states, "A county action to approve or implement the development of a mixed-use development as described in this Subsection (8) shall constitute an administrative action taken by the county and does not require county legislative action."
The partnership is half of a wider controversial development agreement the council approved in December.
Some opponents of the project have started a referendum petition to put the agreement on the ballot in November.
They’re concerned about the development generating traffic, and have criticized how the agreement caps Dakota Pacific’s contribution to some elements of the partnership at $4 million.
The other half of the development agreement is a 725-unit neighborhood, with nearly half the homes for the workforce.
That’s the half that the other proposed law, House Bill 540, addresses.
House Bill 540
Dakota Pacific applied to form a town on its land in January, so it could get the land use authority to build the neighborhood, potentially circumventing the referendum.
HB540, sponsored by Wasatch Back Republican Rep. Mike Kohler, repeals the law allowing developers to form towns but grandfathers in incorporations already underway.
The bill would not block any incorporations initiated prior to Feb. 1, including Dakota Pacific’s.
Utah communities with those kinds of incorporations underway have expressed worries that if the towns dissolve or fail then county taxpayers would be on the hook to provide services or clean up the mess.
Kohler’s bill would require companies like Dakota Pacific to promise to pay for “damages to county property or infrastructure resulting from development.” It isn’t clear what falls under the definition of “damages.”
HB540 also addresses the question of land use authority. Dakota Pacific’s town would initially be controlled by a self-appointed board that could build more market rate and less affordable housing than Summit County approved.
But Kohler’s bill says the town would need “to comply with terms, conditions, or restrictions that were established in a development agreement between the initial landowners and the county.”
Dakota Pacific has yet to sign the the development agreement the council approved in December. The original one only allows tech offices, similar to Skullcandy, on the 50 or so undeveloped acres at the Park City Tech Center.
Where are the bills?
HB540 is brand new, and it was waiting to pass out of the House Rules Committee as of Feb. 25.
SB26 already passed the Senate and is scheduled for a second hearing before the House Political Subdivisions Committee Feb. 26. Because the bill has been revised, it still needs to pass both legislative chambers before it can cross the governor’s desk.
The legislative session ends Friday, March 7.
