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Show A-2 Wed/Thurs/Fri, December 4-6, 2019 The Park Record Continued from A-1 The Park Record. Serving Summit County since 1880 The Park Record, Park City’s No. 1 source for local news, opinion and advertising, is available for home delivery in Summit, Wasatch, Salt Lake, Davis and Utah counties. Single copies are also available at 116 locations throughout Park City, Heber City, Summit County and Salt Lake City. SUBSCRIPTION RATES In Summit County (home delivery): $56 per year (includes Sunday editions of The Salt Lake Tribune) Outside Summit County (home delivery available in Wasatch, Salt Lake, Davis, Weber and Utah counties; all other addresses will be mailed via the U.S. Postal Service): $80 per year To subscribe please call 435–649– 9014 or visit www.parkrecord.com and click the Subscribe link in the Reader Tools section of the toolbar at the bottom of the page. To report a missing paper, please call 801–204–6100. Same-day redelivery is possible if you call during the following hours: * Weekdays: 6:30–8 a.m. * Saturday: 7–8 a.m. * Sunday: 7–10:30 a.m. To request a vacation hold or change of address, please call 435–649–9014 or email: circulation@parkrecord.com Water firms adjust prices ter we produce. It leads to increased stress on our system,” Morrison said in an interview earlier this month. “Mountain Regional owns all the operational risk for delivering water for anything that might go wrong. Summit (Water) just pays the bill and gets the water at the connection.” He added that the current rate it charges Summit Water doesn’t appropriately reflect the district’s expenses. The increase is about equity for Mountain Regional’s customers, Morrison said. “Mountain Regional does not want to subsidize Summit’s customers,” he said. The Summit Water Distribution Company serves between 2,500-3,000 ratepayers, Garland said. Its service area ranges from Parleys Summit to the Trailside neighborhood and customers include properties in Canyons Village, residents of Jeremy Ranch and the Utah Olympic Park, according to its website. Mountain Regional has about 4,300 connections, Morrison said, and includes Promontory, Summit Park, Silver Springs, The Colony and the Old Ranch Road neighborhood. In 2019, Summit Water received Continued from A-1 THE NEWSROOM To contact the newsroom, please call 435–649–9014 or email editor@parkrecord.com For display advertising, please call a sales representative at 435–649– 9014 or email val@parkrecord.com To place a classified ad, please call 435–649–9014 or email classads@parkrecord.com For questions about your bill, please call 435–649–9014 or email accounts@parkrecord.com The Park Record online is available at www.parkrecord.com and contains all of the news and feature stories in the latest edition plus breaking news updates. The Record’s website also hosts interactive entertainment, restaurant and lodging listings and multimedia features. Contents of The Park Record are Copyrighted 2015, Wasatch Mountain News Media Co. All rights reserved. No portion may be reproduced in any form without written consent of the managing editor or publisher. The Park Record (USPS 378-730) (ISSN 0745-9483) is published twice weekly by Wasatch Mountain News Media Co., 1670 Bonanza Drive, Park City, UT 84060. Periodicals postage paid at Salt Lake City, Utah, 84199-9655 and at additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to The Park Record, P.O. Box 3688, Park City, UT84060. Entered as second-class matter, May 25, 1977, at the Post Office in Park City, Utah, 84060 under the Act of March 3, 1897. Subscription rates are: $56 within Summit county, $80 outside of Summit County, Utah. Subscriptions are transferable: $5 cancellation fee. Phone: 435–649–9014 Fax: 435–649–4942 Email: circulation@parkrecord.com Housing sought also be kept on file for future projects. “No, not at all,” Jason Glidden, the housing development manager at City Hall, said on Monday when asked whether he was surprised by the response. “We’ve known there’s huge demand.” He said the majority of the applications received by early in the week were filed shortly after the window opened in the middle of November. There would be 12.5 applications per unit available if the number of people vying for a unit was 100. It was expected City Hall would receive broad interest in the first phase of Woodside Park, which is under construction on the 1300 blocks of Park Avenue and Woodside Avenue. The units are priced well below the market in surrounding Old Town and the project occupies a sought-after location close to Main Street and Park City Mountain Resort. There are three houses and four townhouses available in the first phase of Woodside Park through the selection process. The three houses range in price from $205,000 to $565,000 while the townhouses are set at $359,000. The house sizes run from 671 square feet to 1,612 square feet. The townhouses run in the range Continued from A-1 Fest could be free Published every Wednesday and Saturday Direct Importer of the World’s Finest Rugs A t t h e H i s t o r i c Vi l l a T h e a t r e 3092 So. Highland Dr., Salt Lake City (801)484-6364 888.445.RUGS (7847) Mon.-Sat. 10 am to 6 pm 800 acre-feet of surplus water from Mountain Regional via Weber Basin. Part of the 2013 deal is that the parties have to predict annually how much water they are going to use over the next five years, Garland said. Thinking development in Canyons Village would be further along, Summit Water requested an additional 300 acre-feet of water years ago — water Garland said it does not actually need. Morrison explained that, when the request was made, Mountain Regional was acting as the provider of last resort in the Snyderville Basin; it was the only company capable of adding that surplus water to the system. If it had refused, it could have triggered the costly water importation project. “When Summit Water showed this demand — the additional 300 acrefeet — Mountain Regional saw that as, either we say yes, we believe our system can produce it and ... we avoid water importation cost for the whole community, or we say no and the whole community sees pretty expensive water rates,” Morrison said. Park City Municipal has recently committed to adding surplus water to the system starting next year, allowing Mountain Regional to provide less. Park City will charge customers $8.85 per 1,000 gallons of surplus water. Mountain Regional’s current rate is $4.08 per 1,000 gallons, and it proposes increasing it to $6.40 per 1,000 gallons. Morrison said the water importation project could likely be put off for many years, largely as a result of Park City’s $77 million 3Kings water treatment plant project that is planned to treat mine tunnel water. of 1,400 square feet. The first phase of Woodside Park is an important project for City Hall as it pursues a goal of adding 800 units of restricted housing by 2026. Although the number of units in the first phase of Woodside Park represents a small percentage of the goal of 800, the project is seen as crucial in showcasing at some level the sort of developments the municipal government will pursue in coming years as it continues toward the goal. The municipal government is expected to make the random selections using software provided by an outside firm rather than through a public lottery. The selection process will be weighted, giving people in certain professions a better chance. Some of those who will be given a better chance include full-time emergency responders and community builders, such as municipal workers, people working in the education field, notfor-profit workers and health care professionals. There will also be additional weight given to people who work inside the Park City limits or have been employed in the area for longer than five years. The selection process is anticipated to be completed as soon as early in January followed by closings on the units as early as that month, depending on the buyers finalizing the financing. The pre-applications are available at: tfaforms.com/4773724. More information is available from Rhoda Stauffer, the affordable housing program manager at City Hall, at 6155152 or rhoda.stauffer@parkcity.org. More information is also available at parkcityhousing.org. The Kimball Art Center also says the extension of the artist booths would require an alteration of a festival bus route and traffic restrictions on Swede Alley from Friday until Sunday of the event weekend. The City Council is scheduled to address the proposed changes to the arts festival at a meeting starting at 6 p.m. at the Marsac Building. The agenda indicates public input will be taken. Olympic traffic plans don’t fit film festival Vast resources needed for Games-era strategy during Sundance JAY HAMBURGER The Park Record Park City leaders for now do not intend to pursue a traffic plan for the Sundance Film Festival modeled on the one that was drafted for the 2002 Winter Olympics, indicating the blueprints from the Games era were much more ambitious than those that could be created for the festival. City Hall and Sundance organizers are engaged in discussions about traffic and transportation as concerns about the impacts of the festival, particularly on Old Town, continue to mount over time. The possibility of modeling the plans on those from the Olympics was mentioned in the spring, as Park City officials and festival organizers were reviewing the Sundance operations. The Olympic plan involved constructing large temporary satellite parking lots on the outskirts of Park City and securing the use of a large fleet of temporary buses. Olympic spectators were directed to the satellite lots and then shuttled to the venues, a system that kept lots of the Olympic traffic outside the core of Park City. Access passes were required to drive into Old Town during the Olympics as well as the neighborhoods surrounding Park City Mountain Resort and Deer Valley Resort, which were both competition venues. Main Street under the Olympic plans, meanwhile, was turned into a pedestrian-only celebration zone with corporate Continued from A-1 Goals adopted rental units have now turned into condominiums after developers reported that they couldn’t meet their margins if they offered rentals. “The reality is we have zero rentals there in Silver Creek Village,” Planning Commissioner Thomas Cooke said of the 1,300-unit development that includes 330 affordable housing units. “That’s a challenge — we know how important the rental units are.” Though wages are rising, Jones reported that, when the area’s cost of living is factored in, a Summit County resident’s buying power is significantly lower than residents of neighboring Wasatch and Salt Lake counties and the state and national averages. And wage increases haven’t kept up with the real estate market. “From August 2015 going forward, the upward mobility in (home) price was unbelievable — a 100% increase,” Jones said. “Doesn’t seem to be any end in sight.” He added that from 2010 to 2019, wages have increased 63.5% and that the disparity between the growth of real estate prices and wages creates a host of problems. Council Chair Roger Armstrong commented that this issue isn’t affecting Summit County alone, a point underscored by Jones’ assertion that for the first time in four decades, the state of Utah has a housing shortage, pegged at more than 50,000 units. Armstrong recommended gathering setups, concerts, pin trading and other attractions. The Olympic organizers, though, had the vast resources needed for such an operation. “While staff has looked at the ‘Olympic model’, without the major budget adjustments and satellite parking lots, significant increase in transit fleet and commensurate levels of programming on Main Street, this plan can’t be replicated at the current scale of the Festival,” a City Hall report drafted in anticipation of a Park City Council meeting scheduled on Thursday says. City Hall staffers, though, want Mayor Andy Beerman and the City Council to endorse a series of other measures designed to lessen the traffic impact during Sundance. The changes include turning 4th Street and 5th Street from Park Avenue to Main Street into oneway eastbound roads to stop drivers from turning from Main Street into the Old Town neighborhood, turning Hillside Avenue into a one-way westbound road to reduce traffic and turning Park Avenue between Heber Avenue and Deer Valley Drive into a one-way northbound road, which would eliminate traffic in the direction of Main Street on a key stretch of road. Park City officials also intend to increase the presence of the Park City Police Department at busy intersections. Old Town residents would be allowed to drive in both directions on Hillside Avenue. Two-way traffic on Park Avenue would be allowed for residents, emergency vehicles, the municipal fleet, private businesses on the impacted stretch of street and Sundance venues. The City Council discussion about Sundance on Thursday is scheduled to start at 5:15 p.m. at the Marsac Building a commission of regional players to study the issue, including representatives from the County Council, the Summit County planning commissions, the Mountainland Association of Governments, Habitat for Humanity, the Mountainlands Community Housing Trust and others. He also suggested coordinating with state and national representatives to seek solutions. The plan the council adopted includes a provision to consider starting a Summit County housing authority. Jones pointed to tax credit developments as a possible path to increase the housing supply, a federal program whereby developers receive cash up front from companies that purchase federal tax credits. Councilor Chris Robinson has suggested using the county’s land holdings and ability to borrow money cheaply to build a housing project itself. As the landowner, he pointed out, the county would be able to provide cheaper rent, and it wouldn’t necessarily have to give up ownership to a developer. Councilor Kim Carson suggested there has been recent movement at the state level on regulating nightly rentals like AirBnB, something that is currently prohibited. Jones said nightly rentals likely impact the number of rental units there are on the market when property owners can make more money renting the apartments out on a short-term basis. Jones said it would make financial sense for those who make less than half of the area median income — $38,430 for an individual — to rent. Someone who makes 60% of the average, about $46,000, would have to find a $152,500 home to buy to avoid being financially burdened. “Finding the product to match that is the hard part,” Jones said. “It’s almost impossible.” |