The SkyRidge golf lodge will stand 75 feet tall and include 64 condo units if the Wasatch County Council votes to approve the plans.
It will be constructed northwest of the Jordanelle alongside a mountain golf course, a driving range and a neighborhood of new homes.
After planning commissioners asked for revisions to the plans in September, developers came back to the Jordanelle Specially Planned Area (JSPA) Planning Committee with a few changes at a meeting earlier this month, Oct. 17.
One commission concern was parking. Even with an off-site parking lot, the original plans showed the lodge would be several dozen spots short of what code requires.
Developers largely solved the problem by rethinking the layout of the hotel. Originally, the lodge would have had 65 condo units, some of which could be locked off into multiple, smaller units. That brought the total number of room keys to 80.
The revised plans reduce the number of condos to 64, with fewer that could be separated. Now the maximum number of units is 67.
With fewer rooms, the hotel’s parking requirement is substantially lower, even though the building itself will be roughly the same size. The number of parking spaces remains the same.
Height was another sticking point: The lodge’s proposed 75-foot height is more than double what county code allows. Developers argue since it’ll be built on a hillside, the slope will hide the building’s size.
But some nearby property owners disagree.
David Ryan, who owns land across the street from the lodge site, said the size is excessive and will bring too much traffic to the residential roads.
“While the developer did make a few changes, they didn’t significantly change the project that much,” he said. “They dropped one very small portion of the building by one story. We were trying to get the whole building not so tall.”
He said property owners didn’t hear anything from Wasatch County or the HOA about the public meetings. He first learned the lodge plans were heading to a vote from KPCW’s coverage.
“We would see that the lodge kept changing in design, and we’d reach out to the developer and say, ‘Hey, what’s going on?’” he said. “And virtually every time, the response back was, ‘We’re still working out the details. We’ll let you know once we have something to share.’ And this went on for a couple years, so I never really found out very much until it was kind of too late.”
He was disappointed again at the JSPA meeting earlier this month, when planning committee members didn’t allow public comment.
At that meeting, Commissioner Mark Hendricks said the process had been transparent and the committee didn’t need to hear any more public input.
“It’s not uncommon that somebody is going to be unhappy with development in the county,” he said. “And people are entitled to be reasonable and have a difference of opinion, but just because somebody doesn’t agree with you doesn’t mean there’s something sinister or something illegal going on.”
And Commissioner Craig Hahn spoke up to defend the use of a legislative development agreement (LDA) for the project. That’s a way for developers to get code exceptions without the county changing the zoning laws.
“If the applicant was trying to build a Costco or a Best Buy here, that would be, to me, an egregious mistake, using the LDA for that,” he said. “But that’s not what they’re trying to do. They’re trying to build a resort amenity, and to me, it will benefit the community as a whole.”
Committee members also pointed to the lodge’s partnership with the Military Installation Development Authority (MIDA), a state agency originally founded to oversee projects to benefit members of the military.
Three additional condo units in the lodge will be set aside for MIDA. Golf and equestrian amenities at SkyRidge will offer unspecified “meaningful discounts” to veterans and military members.
The JSPA Planning Committee recommended the Wasatch County Council approve all the code exceptions the SkyRidge developers requested.
The county council will vote on the plans at its meeting next Wednesday, Nov. 6. It is up to the council’s discretion whether to open the meeting for public comment.
