Februrary 3, 2023 – Council of Governments Meeting Recap, Dakota Pacific’s Revised Proposal, Get Involved in the County’s Community Visioning Process



Hey everyone! Welcome back to another week of news here on Summit in 6. 

We’ll kick things off with a recap of this week’s Council of Governments meeting. Then, we’ll cover Dakota Pacific’s revised proposal for the Tech Center in Kimball Junction. Finally, we’ll finish up with ways you can get involved in the county’s community visioning process. 

Ok…let’s get into the news.  

Council of Governments 

On Tuesday, January 31 the Council of Governments, or COG, met for the first time in 2023! The first order of business was to introduce Summit County’s new County Manager, Shayne Scott, as well as our new Council Members, Canice Harte and Tonja Hanson, and the new Francis City Mayor, Jeremie Forman. 

Also at the meeting, the County’s Community Development Director, Pat Putt, gave an update on the master planning process for Emergency Medical Services across the county. 

So far, Safe Tech Solutions, the entity the County contracted to conduct the study, has analyzed data including things like ambulance activity, call volumes for emergency, non-emergency and interfacility transports, and financial data. They’ve also conducted a series of interviews with stakeholders from Summit County, Park City / Snyderville Basin, North Summit and South Summit.

From here, Safe Tech will present a possible EMS system to key Summit County Stakeholders in the coming weeks. After that meeting, they will take stakeholder feedback to modify and adjust a possible EMS system plan by the end of April. Finally, they’ll schedule and conduct three in-person community presentations of the possible EMS system in late April, early May. 

This is an important step in ensuring the County’s EMS system is reliable, viable, and sustainable for all residents and visitors now and into the future. Stay tuned for more over the next couple of months on this topic as we get closer to a final solution option. 

Dakota Pacific 

Dakota Pacific was back in front of the Council this week to present an amended development proposal. 

To refresh our listeners on the Dakota Pacific Development Agreement, in late 2021 the developers presented an original development proposal for the Summit Research Park or Park City Tech Center located in Kimball Junction to the Council. 

Following their presentation, they received significant feedback from the community. The feedback took them back to the drawing board to come up with a revised proposal and update their traffic impact study. It was also agreed at that time that the impact study must be peer-reviewed before moving forward.

How the “Plan C” proposal from the developers differs from past proposals:

  • 30 percent of residential units we were decreased
  • Eliminated some of the overall density
  • Eliminated the full-service hotel which improved the net affordable housing benefit
  • Reduced the tallest building of the development by 10 feet
  • Increased the ratio of affordable and workforce housing by a small margin
  • Increased the ratio of privately-owned residences by almost double
  • Added a “Central Park” 2 acre community amenity and retail opportunity
  • Added age restricted apaprtments for our senior citizens
  • Added 75,000 sq. feet of commercial space to promote economic diversity

In terms of what happens from here, the County Community Development staff have received the Traffic Impact Study peer review, which we mentioned earlier, was completed by the Wall Consulting Group. They are currently reviewing the report and a separate work session on the Traffic Impact Study is scheduled for NEXT WEEK at the Council’s regularly scheduled meeting on  Wednesday, February 8.

Also at that meeting, the Council plans to work with the developers to outline clear-cut next steps in terms of reaching a final decision.

Our Summit Kick-Off Event 

Summit County is undertaking a community visioning plan to establish a roadmap for the future of our County! There’s still one more kick-off event taking place from 6 – 8 PM on Tuesday, February 7 at the Kamas Branch of the Summit County Library. We hope to see you there to learn more about the visioning process and how you can get involved. 

Community members also have the opportunity to take the “Summit County Talks” survey now through March 31. It’s an important opportunity to share how you view Summit County as it is now, what you love about our community, and what opportunities you see for it in the next 10-20 years. The survey is available at oursummitcounty.com 

Outro 

Alright, that’s all the news we have for this week, tune in next week for more on Summit in 6.