OCR Text |
Show Viewpoints The A-17 Park Record. Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues, April 13-16, 2019 editorial Slow down, take a breath and get reacquainted with your town T guest editorial Park City affordable housing project needs to be scaled back DOUG LEE Park City I am writing to follow up Jay Hamburger’s article from April 1 entitled “Planning panel hears split testimony on Park City housing project.” As Jay noted in the article, my family has owned the home at 1356 Empire Ave. (immediately to the north of the project) since the early 1980s. We have watched the resort (and the traffic) grow exponentially since those days. I want to state upfront that I am very supportive of the city’s efforts to create more affordable housing. However, in developing that housing, I believe the city needs to act in a prudent and responsible way and to be a good neighbor. The basis of my complaint is that the city and planning staff are using their leverage as both developer and regulator to adopt aggressive interpretations of the Park City Land Management Code (“LMC”) and the Master Planned Development (“MPD”) regulations without regard to the impact on the immediate neighbors and other stakeholders. For example, in the interest of maximizing density on the site, the planning staff and designers have proposed harmful variations of the lot coverage (43% proposed vs. 50-60% The Park Record Staff PUBLISHER ....................... Andy Bernhard Editor ................................... Bubba Brown Staff Writers ......................Jay Hamburger Scott Iwasaki Angelique McNaughton Ben Ramsey Carolyn Webber Alder Contributing ............................. Tom Clyde Writers Jay Meehan Teri Orr Amy Roberts Tom Kelly Joe Lair Copy Editor ............................ James Hoyt Engagement Editor..Christopher Samuels Photographer .........................Tanzi Propst Circulation Manager ............. Lacy Brundy Accounting Manager ......... Jennifer Snow ADVERTISING Advertising Director ........... Valerie Spung Advertising Sales ................... Jodi Hecker Erin Donnelly Lindsay Lane Sharon Bush Events Manager ................. Julie Bernhard Production Director ..................Ben Olson Production ........................Chelsea Babbitt required), setback (10-20 feet proposed vs. 25 feet required), and parking (72 spaces proposed vs. 90 spaces required for affordable housing) requirements. For projects in the Recreation Commercial (“RC”) zone, the only “by right” residential uses are single family, duplex or triplex homes; larger multifamily projects (i.e. anything over three units) are considered “conditional” uses and require special Planning Commission approval. Given the above, I would expect a large-scale, 58 unit development built by a public entity to be held to a higher standard and to improve the built environment for all stakeholders, not just the potential affordable housing residents. With regards to life safety issues, local residents will recall from the Treasure Hill/THINC debate that traffic on Empire Avenue has reached dangerous levels on the best of days and is even worse on snow and/or event days when things turn to crisis levels. For example, during one afternoon in February, I was returning to my home and I witnessed an ambulance which was unable to reach the PCMR resort center due to standstill traffic in both directions on Empire. Additionally, nearly every winter day, I witness the travails of weary families frustratingly attempting to walk between the resort center and their residences on Empire, Woodside, Norfolk or Park. They are forced to trudge along the actual Empire Avenue roadbed, braving the traffic, because of the non-existence or inaccessibility of sidewalks on Empire. Accordingly, large scale multifamily development with access to Empire must be minimized given such narrow roadways and lack of sidewalks. Far from being “green,” this project will force even more cars onto already overloaded local streets and will funnel increased foot traffic onto Empire, increasing danger to pedestrians. Lastly, I wanted to highlight the proposed treatment of the historically significant home at 1302 Norfolk Ave. Slamming the new development up against the historic building and disregarding the historical lot lines, setbacks, landscaping and grading is inconsistent with the historic preservation guidelines of Park City and the City Council. In summary, given the excessive size of the project, the potential life safety risks (from inadequate parking and incremental traffic generation) and the insensitive treatment of an historic structure on the site, I believe that the project needs to be scaled back to mitigate its detrimental impact on the neighborhood. I hope the city will consider reducing the scale of the Project to address these concerns. For the record hough the temperature may suggest otherwise — not to mention that white stuff that keeps falling from the sky — spring has arrived in Park City. For Parkites, that means relative peace and quiet for the next couple months. We’ll be able to get from Old Town to Kimball Junction at 5 p.m. without encountering gridlock on S.R. 224 and won’t have to weave through throngs of frenetic shoppers at the grocery store. Finding a place to park will be much less painful. There aren’t many of us who don’t need — and, frankly, deserve — the respite after what was one of the most hectic winters in recent memory. If you spent it hunkered down at home trying to survive the mayhem — when you weren’t on the mountain, of course — the spring shoulder season is a perfect time to reacquaint yourself with your town. Spend a few hours at your favorite coffee shop without having to jockey for a place to sit. Take a trip to Old Town and stroll up and down Main Street, where plenty of local businesses rely on the patronage of Parkites this time of year. Wander into a restaurant without fretting about not having a reservation. Many of them close for the shoulder season to give their staffs a much-needed break, but several other establishments remain open for business. And most of those offer two-for-ones and other enticing deals to draw in locals. More than anything, it’s a time to slow down and remind ourselves how fortunate we are to live in such a wonderful place. Momentarily losing sight of that is easy amid the winter frenzy. It can sometimes seem like it’s becoming harder than ever to hang onto our small-town spirit. The opportunity to reset our perspective, as any longtime Parkite knows, won’t last for long. In a few months, the snow will have melted and the mud will have dried, and the summer tourism season will be here. It’s hard to picture now, amid wet and cold weather, but it will happen quicker than we anticipate. We embrace the responsibility of sharing our town with visitors several months out of the year. Park City, we understand, couldn’t thrive without them. But having our town to ourselves for a while is an appealing change of pace and one Parkites should soak up as much as they can in the coming weeks. guest editorial Notion that collective action won’t curb climate change doesn’t stand up to facts RYAN ANDERSON Summit Community Power Works and Utah Clean Energy I’ve heard some people try to make the case that the collective actions we all take to address climate change don’t really add up. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The community-wide results of our individual actions are substantial. For example, let’s say your neighbor switched out the lights in their home to LEDs. She just prevented roughly 300 pounds of CO2 a year. Then there is the carpool crew at your work. A few coworkers carpooling 100 miles per week saves 87 gallons of gas annually, which adds up to 1,740 pounds of CO2. And how about the guy down the street with solar panels on his roof? It turns out that for every kilowatt installed, he saves roughly 2,500 pounds of CO2 annually, which averages to over 12,000 pounds of CO2 for the average five-KW system. The three actions listed above amount to thousands of pounds of emissions NOT polluting our air and climate. And these are only three examples of relatively easy, straightforward actions to reduce your personal carbon footprint. Now compound that when we work together as a community. Here is a fun fact: According to an article published by the Utah Geological Survey, since 2013, electricity sales in Utah decreased and then flatlined. This is despite the fact that Utah’s population and economy are booming. So why hasn’t our electricity usage continued to climb? You guessed it, our collective actions to reduce energy waste (aka increase energy efficiency) and install rooftop solar have put the brakes on increased demand for electricity across the state. Individual actions at home and work do make a positive impact on the health of our climate. But there is more we can and must do to turn the tide on climate change. Local leaders have set forth bold and ambitious climate goals aiming to reach 100% renewable electricity by 2030 (Park City) and cut greenhouse gases by 80% by 2050 (Summit County). Another way to help meet these goals to reduce emissions is to use electric heat pumps for space and water heating at home. As our electric grid transitions to 100% clean energy, these types of heating systems are needed to achieve zero-emission homes since they cut direct emissions from natural gas combustion. Even as our local governments adopt visionary goals and policies, we can’t make it without bold action from each of us. That means you. And you. And you! We need the whole community — businesses and residents — to step up and commit to reducing your footprint. It can be hard to know where to start. This is where the SCPW Challenge comes in. The challenge is a callto-action for Park City and Summit County residents to reduce CO2 emissions and save money by conserving energy and water, using alternative transportation and other methods. The interactive online platform provides a way for the community to work together in reducing overall carbon emissions through actions ranging from “easy” to “challenging” with local resources to complete each action, and includes any available incentives and rebates. It’s also easy to create teams from your neighborhood, school, faith group or workplace and enter a friendly competition to cut CO2 emissions. Rally your friends, neighbors and colleagues, create a team and act! Even though we’ve only just started the SCPW Challenge, our community already has reduced its carbon footprint by 9,000 pounds of CO2! Can we make that 100,000? We call upon all Park City and Summit County residents to take the SCPW Challenge and participate in a community-wide effort to address climate change. Together, we can make a difference. Ryan Anderson is the community program coordinator for Summit Community Power Works and Utah Clean Energy. Photos by Christopher Samuels Asked at Kimball Junction What changes would you make to Kimball Junction? Eric Meyers Silver Springs “A solution for the traffic. That’s probably the biggest thing, is trying to get the flow of the traffic but all you’re doing is just pushing it somewhere else. If you make it easier to get here, you’re pushing it down there. So I don’t know if there’s an answer but that’s probably the biggest (issue).” Heather Long Jeremy Ranch “As I was born and raised in Summit Park, the big thing I am concerned with is the growth, and I wish we could curtail the growth.” Jay Bartlett Jeremy Ranch “I don’t really have any complaints about how it is right now. If I were to change things it would be better restaurants. I don’t really care about the traffic flow, there just needs to be better food in Park City.” Phillip Smith Cottonwood Heights “Add another lane (on S.R. 224). I get here at 6 a.m. and leave at 6 p.m. and I have to sit (in traffic) for 20 minutes for three miles each way. I don’t have enough money to live up here so it’s not really my problem, but it’d be nice to get out of here. And get the lights timed better.” Steve Brof Jeremy Ranch “My magic wand would be to increase affordable housing and increase the funding of the Swaner Nature Preserve, it should be part of it. Otherwise, I like Kimball, everything else works out pretty well.” Tim Laros Pinebrook “The main intersection (of S.R. 224) needs to have a flyover or something. We also don’t really know if the tech center is going to be a tech center or if it should be expanded to include retail. It’d be nice if it would continue to be a tech center but I don’t know if that’s what’s going to happen.” See these photos and more by following The Park Record on Facebook.com/parkrecord and Instagram.com/parkrecord |