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Show Saturday, July 15, 2000 The Par Record A-5 Count air Promontory is scrutinized East Side, Basin Planning Commissions attend joint site visit to talk over differences by Tim Westby OF THE RECORD STAFF Members of the Snydersille Basin Planning Commission hme once again laid out their concerns over the proposed Promontory project to their counterparts on the East Side. Only this time (hey did so while overlooking the she. Members of both the Basin and Eastern Summit County Planning Commissions took a tour of the fOU) acres east of Park City that an Arizona developer wants to turn into a high-end second home and resort development. Ihe joint meeting and site visit was arranged two weeks ago at the request of the EaM Side. It was that commissions first site visit. In April, the Bjsin Planning Commission gave the project a negative recommendation largely because of concerns ov er v sewshed impacts. B'it the East Side Commission has the ultimate responsibility for forwarding a recommendation rec-ommendation on to the Summit County Commission, The Commissioners spent several sev-eral hours looking at the site from various vantages along I'.S. 40 and the Brown's Canyon road Wednesday evening. The proposed development would consist of up to l.tvit homes and two resoits in an area that is roughly bordered by Interstate SI I. I'.S. 4i) and Brown's Canyon. The area of greatest concern to the Basin Commission is the ndge-hne ndge-hne that parallels I'.S. 40 behind the Silver Creek Commerce Locals push Consulting group seeks support for free market TDR plan from state lawmakers by Tim Westby OF THE RECORD STAFF A local consulting group is trying to sell .state law makers on the idea of a free market swern for transferring transfer-ring development rights (TDRsl. Two members of the Ideaphona Consultant Group addressed two committees of the interim Legislative session Wednesday. The croup's pitch was to convince lawmakers law-makers that property owners should be allow J to separate out devekp-ment devekp-ment rights the same as mineral or water rights. I nder Ideaphona s plan, a property prop-erty owner could sell the number of development units his or her land is zoned for to meone who wants to develop another piece of property at greater density than is currently allowed. Park Citv attorney Bruce Margolius said the concept could be especially appealing to farmers and ranchers. "Farms and ranches are often owned by people who Jo not want to devekp. but want to continue to farm or ranch." vuJ Margolius. I Marglius gives the example of Iwo farms in a hypothetical "Happy alley " One farm is experiencing greater development pressure than the other. i If the farmer that has the more I'evelopable land wants to devekp. he can buy development units from Ihe other farmer to increase density. Moon Lake Custom Furniture, LLC Check out our X cbsitc: www.ubunet.com-mlfurniturc (43M 454-3"l A woman should have her own life 1 he prpe t ffmr kno About the pkjil nreHt o' f workinf vrman Artd Ihow ho dvpvnl on incomv, A pnliry )crm liimpa 4 r. Kuimnirf fhl your IovkI im are pfoicctKi. no nvjttet ua rruy Happen c you And lht w or V, cll me toriay lor mort tnlormAtion Hrui Mr, ao nd rrwft trteod-. trteod-. fry irivm (ADtem tmjvfinl 3Jt IT-1I IM1 COUNTY EDITOfcTim Westby 649 90 r 4 ext. 1 1 2 Center. The Basin Commission showed the developer and the East Side Commission on computer generated maps where along that ridge development would be acceptable and where it isnl. said Donna VanBuren. chair of the Basin Commission. Much of the development on the East Side, she added, would be hidden in an area know n as Middle Valley. VanBuren also said the developer. devel-oper. Pivotal Group, agreed to give exact numbers of just how many homes could spill over the ridge-line. ridge-line. A constant source of frustration frustra-tion for several Basin Commissioners is that they never knew exactly how many homes there would be on the Basin side. Greg Voth. a Basin Planning Commissioner and outspoken critic crit-ic of the project, said the Basin is willing to accept substantial devel opment on its side. "We accepted that. We just want to reicn in the sprawl." said Voth. He also wants to make sure the East Side understands that the Basin wants to maintain its resort atmosphere and doesn't turn into a " suburb of Salt Lake." "We want to make it very, very clear to the East Side what our stand is." said Voth. it s up to us to stand up to our principals " At the same time. Voth thinks the East Side should simply incorporate incor-porate the Basin's negative recommendation recom-mendation into us final recommendation. for development rights "it's not giving additional density in the valley, they're iust moving the density from one side (of the valley ) to the other." he explained. In such a scenario, said Margolius. .the farmer lh.it wujits to continue to farm can make some money off his land without having to sell out. In turn, the farmer that wants to develop can do so more effectively. A free market TDR system does not work like a conservation easement, ease-ment, however, which can forbid development forever. Instead, if a property owner sells their development develop-ment rights, a future property owner can buy development nghts from somewhere else if they want to build. But in a free market TDR system, sys-tem, the government plays a very small role, said Margolius. Ideally, he would like to see development nghts bought and sold like futures Tins would make it easier for developers devel-opers to raise money to buy development devel-opment nghts. "If these are as easy to buv and sell as they ought to be. then vcople can speculate in them, said Margolius. Speculation helps create a market, mar-ket, stabilize prices and makes development nghts a liquid asset, said Margolius. In a sense then, a large chunk of a developer's cost become "hard costs" instead of "soft costs." Which means developers can go to 3' af" Z I GosHawlc a l0mpleted Development Private Wahr System Approved by Summit County Building Permits Can Be Obtained "I don't know why we even need to debate it at this point." he said. There will be more meetings between the two Commissions, said the chair of the East Side. But Tom Brown said he also believes the East Side has a firm understanding of Basin's concerns. "I think we understand for the most part." said Brown. While Basin concerns have centered cen-tered around viewshed impacts, affordable housing, public access to the development's five proposed pro-posed golf courses and transit, the East Side has worried about losing such a large chunk of land that is currently used for grazing. The East Side recently finished nearly a year of presentations on the project and is now in the process of hashing out a recommendation. recom-mendation. Brown refused to speculate, however, on when a final recommendation recom-mendation might happen. Rich Sonntag. Promontory's project manager, told The Park Record Friday that the project will do for eastern Summit County what Deer Valley did for the SnyderviHe Basin. He also does not see the need for more meetings meet-ings between the two Commissions. "I think we've been through all the issues." he said. "You can go on with meetings forever, but the fact is we've been meeting for almost two years and it's time to implement this project." Everyone interviewed for this article gave the site visit a positive review. "This was an opportunity to enforce our position." said VanBuren. a bank to raise the money. He lakes issue with Summit County's current TDR scsiem because it is completely controlled by county officials and becomes little lit-tle more a "planning gimmick." I'nder the county's current system, sys-tem, county officials pick a specific piece of property and tell the owners, own-ers, ijicv can, .move development rights to another specific piece of property. But. asks Margolius. why cant all propertv owners have that same right? "The developer getting a benefit ben-efit that others cant. ..It should be allowed for everyone " The first step, however, is tocon-vince tocon-vince lawmakers to separate out development nghts. Margolius said legislatures on the Natural Resources and Political Subdiv lsion committees ktoked favorably on the idea and asked their staffs to research the idea further. In addition, the state Farm Bureau favors a free market system. sys-tem. Ideaphona presented the idea to the Summit County Commission in January. From that presentation. Commissioners wrote a letter of support to state Rep. David I re (R kamas) and state Sen. Beverly Evans (R-Altamontl. I're anil Ev ans then arranged an Ideaphona presentation before the two legislative legisla-tive committees. Besides Margolius. Park City attorney Jodi Hoffman and Dana Williams, director of Citizens Allied for Responsible Growth, make up Ideaphona. if r, Vd2m "rim ' GOSRWK RVNCH BLENDS THE BEST OF TA0 WORLDS, v CHii vo ast now far awjv tom the lor.vtnicnco ff city life. Tut Giyi mtitirana. (hcaten. rcs,n jJ jnrar h.xl st nH- '0 nr.r.uto i iri Sj!( Like Cm k in ev ammutc. And when it s time to relu Vihii body tnd 'ul. an cxpc to th kVHinti i wi one o! tlx i leiru.mg kt urcf; in m.-c tr.m 10 .m. 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