In the 3/16-19/2024 edition of the Park Record, a front-page article entitled “Park City opts against housing near Old Town”, it was reported that a majority of the Park City council in their March 14 meeting decided not to support a proposal for a 300-unit, 660-bed workforce housing development (the Mine Bench project) on a city-owned parcel between Old Town and Deer Valley. This proposal by Servitas, a developer specializing in workforce and student housing began four years ago. One of the inducements offered by the developer to the city was a no-cost option to cancel the proposal after a public input phase. Apparently that public input phase ended with the denial by the Park City council. The article characterized the proposal as pitting the neighborhood against business interests in Deer Valley. People in Old Town cited traffic concerns and impact on trails in an area described as “sacred to the community”. The inducements offered by Servitas with support from the business community were not listed in the article but included high annual lease payments to the city ($19.5 million over 20 years), total revenue of an estimated $915 million (ranging from $6.6 million to $47.6 million annually over 30 years). In addition the city would automatically take ownership of the $88 million asset in 20 years. 80 percent of the units would be affordable to people making 70 percent or less of the area median income (roughly $80,000 a year) and 60 of the 300 units were to be available at market rates.
The Park Record article cited concerns from city officials that the testimony they heard from the residents was a likely preview of future debate had this project progressed through the entitlement process. That was probably an accurate prediction based on years of acrimony concerning the Dakota Pacific proposal at KImball Junction just outside the city. So much for affordable housing as a top priority.
In a letter to the Park Record in the 3/27-29/edition, Jennifer Wesselhoff, the president and CEO of the Park City Chamber of Commerce & Visitors Bureau submitted an article entitled “Council passes on compelling housing proposal on Mine Bench” .In her article she outlined the financial benefits for the city and the employers who are suffering from a lack of employees. Other benefits mentioned were traffic benefits from reducing commuter traffic generated by employees and freeing up existing properties currently rented by employers for their workers to become available for much-needed long-term rentals. Jennifer Wesselhoff ended her article with a good question: If not this location, then where? If not this project and terms, then what will be acceptable?
The process of attempting to gain community acceptance of large affordable/workforce housing projects is expensive, time consuming and failing to produce results in many locations suffering from an affordable housing crisis. As reported in the 4/1/2024 update,on 3/26/2024 the proposed 2,200 unit Brown Ranch development in Steamboat Springs, Colorado went down to defeat in an election whose history reads much like the Park City Mine Bench story. As discussed in the book, tech giants like Facebook encountered disappointing results in its Willow Village project near Meta’s headquarters in Menlo Park.Similar Google projects in Silicon Valley achieved similar results. Why are so many well-intentioned, financially sound, affordable housing projects going down to defeat after expensive and time consuming fights between housing’s haves and have-nots? The solution offered in “A Solution To Affordable Housing” is gaining credibility from the actual results emerging from battles coming to conclusion after the book went to press in late 2023. Stay tuned for an ongoing comparison between the employer/employee partnership concept and results from major government/developer projects.