The Summit County Housing Authority unanimously voted to draft a letter in support of Lincoln View July 20.
The latest designs include 216 total units of housing and a childcare space on 23 acres. Lincoln View’s developer is also the owner of Lincoln Station Apartments, and it would also be in the Kimball Junction area.
Housing authority board member Rich Sonntag praised the project’s location on Rasmussen Road between Summit Self Storage and the Park City RV Resort.
“This is where it ought to be. I mean, that is the location for this kind of density,” he said at the housing authority meeting. “Without this kind of density, we're not going to achieve what we're achieving here.”
The housing authority’s mission is to promote housing affordability, and developer Vincent Criscione says he’s proposing more affordable housing than Summit County legally requires.
He would build 60 affordable, for-sale condos on the west half of the property first. The second phase includes affordable apartments on the east. Phase 3 will bring some market-rate condos on the east.
About half of the units would be restricted for local workers earning 80% or less of the median income in Summit County.
The county has reduced workforce housing requirements for developers who build the affordable portions of their project first.
That’s the order in which Criscione wants to build, but not because he wants to actually build less affordable housing.
“Not that I want to use it; I just want to get credit for it,” Criscione told the housing authority. “Because it's extremely hard and it's a huge risk to take that on, to provide all this [affordable housing] up front, and then something happens with the economy or the market or interest rates go up. And all the profit built in that third phase, I'm sitting on — waiting to claim.”
With the housing authority’s endorsement, Criscione will now seek a rezone through the usual Summit County planning process. That process has a reputation among developers for being lengthy and expensive.
Community Development Director Peter Barnes noted that Criscione wants prospective residents to qualify for Utah’s first-time homebuyer assistance program, which ends next year.
“There was a certain sense of urgency presented [at the housing authority], and I'm not sure — given our current processes and what's involved — how realistic that sense of urgency is going to be,” Barnes said on KPCW’s “Local News Hour” July 7. “But we'll see how that develops.”
Barnes, the county’s top planning official, thinks Criscione is trying to rally support first.
“People have begun to recognize that, rather than put a finished design on the table and fight against your enemies, maybe you bring allies to the table with you when you have a proposal,” he said.
The Summit County Council last rezoned a property in Pinebrook in 2023, allowing affordable townhomes that garnered organized neighborhood opposition.
The council effectively rezoned land in Kimball Junction when it struck a development agreement with Dakota Pacific Real Estate almost two years ago. Councilmembers said they were acting under pressure from state lawmakers.
Now the council has numerous rezone requests, including near the Lincoln View site.
Summit County is negotiating a partnership with a developer next to Jeremy Ranch Elementary School and weighing whether to redevelop the outlet mall across Interstate 80 with housing as well.
Criscione will need to go through a public hearing at the Snyderville Basin Planning Commission before the council decides on a rezone.
Summit County is a financial supporter of KPCW.
