In the last week , we in Summit County have been witnessing an unprecedented attempt to usurp local control from our County Council. Several members of the Utah Legislature, including Casey Snider and Wayne Harper, have written a bill to attempt to punish Summit County because in their view, the county failed to respond to requirements from H.B. 462, which asked for a plan for a Housing and Transit Reinvestment Zone (HRTZ) by the end of 2022.
Dakota Pacific has submitted an application to the county to build an entire neighborhood in the middle of Kimball Junction. Their plan includes market rate townhomes, condos, retail, commercial space, and several hundred units of affordable housing.
The Summit County community does not want, nor need, this outrageous project and on Dec. 1, 2021, nearly 1,000 citizens came to a County Council public comment meeting to let the councilors know that Dakota Pacific is not welcome in our community. This project would create more traffic chaos in Kimball Junction and stress our infrastructure behind its capacity for years to come.
Dakota Pacific, after hearing from the community devised a new strategy which was to use its influence and power with the Utah State Legislature to force Summit County to accept an unwanted and deplorable new neighborhood in Kimball Junction. The State Legislature was managed by its leadership in the House and Senate to pass a new bill that bypasses local control to overturn a development agreement from 2008 that entitles owners of the property to build in accordance with a Tech Park plan with no residential housing.
It’s unprecedented that the Legislature would pass this legislation without even reading the bill. It was introduced five minutes before the vote. The members of the Legislature, acting under the direction of the leadership, passed this bill without knowledge of the situation in Kimball Junction or consideration of the residents of Summit County.
What are we to think about their allegiance to a corporation like Dakota Pacific that could not show any community benefit and gain the acceptance of their monstrosity of a project to the good people of Summit County? I would call it arrogant incompetence or outright corruption. We the people of Utah expect more of our Legislature but we have seen no evidence it will act in the best interest of its citizens.
Gary Peacock
Snyderville Basin