The Park City Business Park at the southern end of Old Highway 40 has a number of shell buildings being sold like condominiums.
One company, Altitude Lofts, advertises its spaces as live, work and play: “perfect for car collectors, hobbyists, businesses owners [sic] or a residential crash pad in Park City.” There are two of 11 units left for sale, according to its website.
Purchasers need to get a permit for the residential “crash pad” part on their own. That’s what one such condo owner secured at the Snyderville Basin Planning Commission May 13.
“Since so many of these are coming up, to me, it has sort of seemed like this organic evolution of the area,” Commission Vice Chair Makena Hawley said.
The trend is at odds with the area’s zoning. The Park City Business Park — which is technically in unincorporated Summit County — is the county’s only “service commercial” zone.
It’s the county’s way of reserving the area for light industrial development. For example, Geneva Rock construction maintains a location there, as does Burt Brothers. Offset Bier has announced plans to move its brewery there.
Planning commissioners have resisted allowing housing in that zone. Allowing it in the business park would mean allowing it anywhere else that might be rezoned “service commercial.”
An application to relocate The Mine climbing gym to the business park stalled two years ago in part because the owner asked to include worker housing in the building.
But “service commercial” zoning does allow for what’s called an “accessory dwelling unit,” or a secondary apartment within a larger building. That’s what the loft owner applied for May 13.
The condos are marketed as “flex spaces.” During the climbing gym discussion, Realtor Grady Kohler said they’re currently used, in practice, as million-dollar “man caves.”
“Residential uses, mixed-use developments are essential. They're how towns, cities, communities of any kind actually work: living over the store was actually a normal means and method of residing in a town,” Community Development Director Peter Barnes said May 13. “Because we have limited commercial zones, we'd like to protect those commercial zones and make them viable. What we don't want to see is residential uses, because they are potentially more profitable displacing otherwise viable commercial businesses.”
Accessory dwelling units have previously been allowed across the board in every Summit County zone.
In recent years, ADUs were redesignated as conditional uses in the Park City Business Park. That requires a public hearing at the planning commission, which is why planners have taken notice.
Summit County is a financial supporter of KPCW. For a full list, click here.
