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Show Employee housing project gains revenue bond approval by Christopher Smart The Park City Council voted April 5 to grant tax exempt status for a revenue bond to fund a housing project to be built by Doilney Construction. Councilman Jim Doilney abstained from the otherwise unanimous vote to approve the procedure that will finance Doilney' s Fireside employee housing project, the Park City Housing Authority had approved bonding the project before the measure went before the City Council, according to City Attorney Tom Clyde. Clyde said that while the city is lending its tax exempt status to the project it won't be financially responsible. Many other projects in Park City have been funded by the low-interest bonds, he said. Doilney, however, was the first to make a request for a housing project. The Fireside project, said Doilney, will be comprised of 48 units. Of those 24 will be financed by the bond. He said a federal statute allows tax exempt bonding for low to moderate-income housing projects. The second half of the project, he said, will be financed through the Utah Housing Financing Agency by a tax exempt loan fixed at 11 percent interest, Doilney said. This project, Doilney said, is part of an agreement between the municipality and Deer Valley which calls for Deer Valley to provide employee housing. As part of - the development negotiations negotia-tions with the city, Deer Valley promised it would construct 211 units for employee housing. The agreement, known as the Deer Valley special exception permit, allows a maximum of 84 apartments outside Deer Valley. The Fireside project will be located outside of Deer Valley, near the intersection of Iron Horse Drive and Bonanza Drive. Deer Valley provided the land for the project. Another City Councilman who developed employee housing, Bob Wells, said he gave up trying to finance the Parkside Apartments by revenue rev-enue bonding because the "red tape is too consuming." He further argued that no impropriety existed with Doilney's request for bonding bond-ing and the fact that he sits on the council. Everyone who asks for cooperation from the city on revenue bond financing receives it if he qualifies, he said. Doilney agreed with Wells that this type of financing is extremely complex. He said, however, that the net effect would be to reduce the cost by 20 to 30 percent, which would result in housing available to low to moderate income groups. He said the half of the project funded by the bond would probably be rentals while the other half could be purchased. The Fireside project will bring to 220 the number of employee-type units in Park City, Doilney said. |