| OCR Text |
Show Prospector owners protest downzoning The Park City Planning Commission Commis-sion last week approved a map of the city's Comprehensive Plan, though landowners from Prospector Square said the plan unfairly restricts them from developing visitor housing and commercial. Prospector Square has developed in recent years as a visitor area, but the Comprehensive Plan lays the groundwork for it to be downzoned, argued Kathy McKenna of the Prospector Square Property Owners Association. But Park City Planning Director Bill Iigety said the plan is a guide that doesn't set down final zoning or details of city planning. The comprehensive map was approved 5-1. Dissenting Commissioner Commis-sioner Ray Robinson said of the Prospector owners, "They've made some valid arguments." In a prepared statement, McKenna Mc-Kenna said the Comprehensive Plan and its support documents have three features that could lead to restricting commercial in Prospector: 1) General Commercial (the current zoning for Prospector) has been redefined to be more restrictive. restric-tive. She cited new language that says the area is intended primarily for retail use. The Plan also discourages nightly rental in the area, arguing that visitor accommodations accom-modations should be closer to amenities such as ski lifts and golf courses. The plan encourages employee housing for Prospector, McKenna said. 2) The plan proposes a community commercial zone for Prospector. This serves the same function as general commercial, but isn't as bad. she said, since it would allow nightly rental use above retail space. Iigety said that in the current comprehensive map, community commercial combines the Prospector and Holiday Village commercial areas. This was done, he said, because public discussions supported support-ed the idea the two areas are similar, 3) The Plan proposes a Service Commercial area of light manufacturing, manufac-turing, offices and research parks. McKenna said it is possible that borderline areas of Prospector could be developed in this way and this would compromise the integrity of the Square. (Iigety said the zone is proposed for the Anderson Lumber Compark Plaza areas fronting on Kearns Boulevard.) The owners argued that Prospector Prospec-tor is viable as an area for visitors. MrKenna saiH while it is not close to golf courses or ski areas, "it is within walking distance to two major conventionhotels and five major nightly rental projects." Ligety responded that the comprehensive comp-rehensive Plan is a guide for long-range decision-making and its map is not a zoning map. Hearings in the future will decide zones for neighborhoods, he said. (On the map, the colored sections do not have firm borders, in order to show they are not zones. ) But McKenna said the map is a very strong suggestion to change the zoning of Prospector. Her letter said Prospector should be-re-zoned HO (Hands Off). It should be taken out of the Comprehensive Plan and owners should be allowed to develop as they see fit, she said. |
