Last week, the Park City Council indicated it did not want to move forward to explore an ambitious, innovative housing project creating hundreds of workforce-available units on city-owned property near Old Town. While this proposal was not perfect and the council’s concerns about the Mine Bench project’s impact on neighbors and sensitive lands and open space are valid, the Servitas proposal was compelling for many reasons — and the first of its kind I have seen.
It’s been four years since the city began to explore the potential for building workforce housing on the Marsac Avenue property known as the Mine Bench.
Servitas’ 300-unit, 660-bed development seemed a transformative solution. With 80 percent of the units affordable to people making 70 percent or less of the area median income, the development could have diminished some traffic from employees commuting to Park City and boosted public transit ridership, a double win.
In addition, Mine Bench offered the prospect of hundreds of existing units currently rented by employers for their workers becoming available as much-needed long-term rentals.
Our business community understands the urgency of the housing shortage and its impact on our economic future. Unaffordable housing is a primary factor in employee turnover, a problem that will worsen as regional developments arrive and intensify the competition for scarce labor.
The Servitas model offered powerful inducements benefiting the city, including no-cost options to cancel the proposal after a public input phase.
Other eye openers: deep levels of affordability, more than 600 beds, high annual lease payments to the city ($19.5 million over 20 years), and lower per-unit costs — $11,277 vs. $85,000 for the recent Engine House project.
According to staff presenters, the city’s annual revenue would range from $6.6 million to $47.6 million for 30 years, and total revenue would reach $915.3 million in that time. In addition, the city would automatically take ownership of this $88 million asset in 20 years.
While the City Council sidestepped this project, it’s our hope that elected officials continue to explore options to partner on housing that is within reach of the people we count on to support our public safety, restaurants, hotels, resorts, service businesses and education.
In declining to further explore this project, the council faces a double task: If not this location, then where? If not this project and terms, then what will be acceptable?
The Servitas proposal represented a crucial step in the right direction. We hope that the city has other sites and other projects in mind.
While the outcome was disappointing, I hope the chamber and our business community made clear we support housing solutions that are innovative, generate revenue for taxpayers and celebrate public private partnerships.
Jennifer Wesselhoff is the president and CEO of the Park City Chamber of Commerce & Visitors Bureau.
Clarification: The City Council was asked to contribute $484,000 to the first phase to continue with the project in the early stages.