Snyderville Basin planning commissioners may ask the Summit County Council to require all members of the development review board to live in the Basin.
Commissioner Tyann Mooney raised the issue at planning commission and county council meetings this week.
“We feel that since Park City has their own planning commission and eastern [Summit County] has their own planning commission, all voting members of our planning commission should be from Snyderville Basin,” she told the council Wednesday.
The only other planning commissioner who weighed in at Tuesday’s commission meeting was Parkite Matt Nagie. He had just been voted commission chair.
“I'm not opposed to seeing that idea through,” he said. “It does make sense, like Snyderville Basin Planning Commission could have a commission of people who exclusively live in the actual jurisdiction.”
The county’s top planning staffer, Community Development Director Peter Barnes, explained the history of the policy.
“Park City does not include anything outside the boundary of Park City, so that planning commission has no authority over our jurisdiction. Similarly, we don't have authority and jurisdiction in their district,” Barnes said Tuesday. “But our land use decisions impact what they do.”
Barnes said, previously, the western Summit County population was concentrated in Park City proper. To field enough applicants, the Snyderville Basin development code was written so that even all seven planning commissioners could come from the town.
Now, Basin Rec estimates the area is home to 22,000 people, more than half of Summit County’s total population. And it remains unincorporated.
County Councilmember Canice Harte said he was on the Basin planning commission when the policy allowing applicants from Park City changed.
“And it was something at the time where it was a limiting thing,” he told Mooney Wednesday. “All of them could be from Park City, and then we limited it to two. So it sounds like a conversation worth having.”
The county council ultimately votes on changes to county code.
The code splits Summit County in two. The Snyderville Basin on the west side and rural eastern Summit County each have their own development guidelines and therefore their own planning commissions.
One of the important roles of the two commissions is to make recommendations on development agreements and rezones.
The Snyderville Basin Planning Commission has reviewed projects such as the Dakota Pacific Real Estate development, changes to Utah Olympic Park’s development agreement and the pending rezone and redevelopment of Junction Commons.
Commissioners also process permits for projects already allowed by zoning.
The Summit County Council interviews and appoints members of each planning commission.
As of March 22, Snyderville Basin planning commissioner Tim Jeffrey resigned, so there’s another vacancy. Mooney asked councilmembers to consider replacing him with another resident of the unincorporated county.
There is also a vacancy on the seven-member Eastern Summit County Planning Commission. Only two members can live within one of the towns of Henefer, Coalville, Oakley, Kamas or Francis.
