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The post Sustainable Magazine appeared first on Park Record.

Hall’s environmental sustainability manager sees plenty of reason for optimism

How does a rapidly growing community where natural resources impact the local economy find balance between responsible sustainability and economic growth? You take it one day at a time.

Providing a clean, sustainable quality of life for Parkites has been the focus of Luke Cartin, environmental sustainability manager for City Hall, as he helps guide Park City toward the ambitious climate goals of a net-zero carbon footprint and to use 100% renewable electricity communitywide by 2030. 

The Park Record spoke with Cartin about the unique challenges Park City and other mountain resort towns face due to growth, labor shortages, the pandemic and more as they confront climate change. He discussed the “bold actions” City Hall is prepared to take to ensure Park City remains a leader in environmental innovation and economic sustainability.  

Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

The Park Record: Tell us about the progress Park City has made with the solar farm project in Tooele County that will provide renewable energy for the Park City area. 

Luke Cartin: That is done in partnership with the Summit County government, Salt Lake City government, Park City Mountain Resort, Deer Valley and Utah Valley University. We all got together and ended up selecting an 80 megawatt solar farm on the western side of the Great Salt Lake. It’s being built right now. So that’s a huge win for government operations.  

Also in 2019, I helped author and also pass H.B. 0411, the Utah Community Renewable Energy Act, which created the Utah Community Renewable Energy Agency to administer the Utah Community Renewable Energy program. There are 15 jurisdictions that are currently all working towards 100% renewable electricity by 2030, including big players like Salt Lake City and Ogden to small towns like Alta and Springdale.  

We’re working on a program that we’re going to jointly submit with Rocky Mountain Power to the Public Service Commission. If successful, people will be automatically enrolled into the 100% Renewable by 2030 Program, and you have the option opt out if you want. 

TPR: How do you define sustainability as you move forward with these strategies? 

LC: Sustainability is something to thrive with. The thought is, how can we use this to not only lessen our impacts but actually use it to help our communities thrive? 

Right now, we’re trying to figure out how to get the entire historic downtown to being a zero-waste destination in the next few years. We think we can pull that off. We’re trying to figure out how we can make it better to move around this community. Also, I work with trails and the open space team to discuss how can we not only just have the lands with a couple of mountain biking trails, but how can we make them more resilient, so when a wildfire hits, it won’t decimate our town. 

We are steering our economy from the traditional way to a more sustainable and truly regenerative way. That’s why we work with ranchers in water quality and soil sequestration, for example. And I get to work with other mountain communities on best practices because we’ve decided we’re going to step up and start trying to figure this out. As communities, we can figure out these problems better than waiting for federal legislation. We have a lot of different tools that haven’t been tapped on this, so let’s figure out how to bring them into the fray.

When you look at the electric buses in our transit system, for example, we’ve hosted everyone from, and including, the Department of Energy to major cities that have come to look. These things aren’t just a theoretical thing. Instead, other visiting cities see these ideas are in action in our cold, hilly climate.  

There’s a lot of things ongoing here. We believe Park City can be the testbed to show how to do new things effectively, truthfully and cost effectively, as well. It includes just trying things out to understand what works for our small community in Utah — the second most conservative state in the country — to see how we can help affect national and international sustainability.

TPR: You work closely with local nonprofits like Recycle Utah and the Park City Community Foundation, but do you ever collaborate with other cities?

I co-founded something called Mountain Towns 2030, and the goal is simple. Mountain communities like ours share similar experiences and challenges. When you consider the Breckenridges, Aspens, Jacksons and Laramies of the world, between all these collective communities, we probably have the brainpower to figure out ideas and solutions faster than anyone else. For instance, there are other communities that are already trying new things like microtransit. We have it happening in Summit County. Well, it’s also happening in Jackson. Let’s talk about it. 

There’s a food waste residential compost pilot program going on in Durango and Vail. Let’s go learn about it. We have access to someone who’s likely a subject matter expert, so we can talk to other mountain communities to figure out how they’ve solved issues. 

Let’s use private jets, as an example. Park City doesn’t own an airport. But imagine if Aspen, Crested Butte, Telluride, Jackson and Bozeman all got together because they want to start figuring out how to electrify more things. By sharing ideas with thought experts, they can start setting up airport operations to draw in more of these electric jets, or whatever it is. 

So that’s the other thing is sharing these ideas outside of our community, as well. Not only just say, hey, look how great we are, but literally learn from everyone else.  

Also, within the community we have some big allies in both resorts that have environmental staff who are there to help solve stainability issues. 

TPR: It sounds like you have many different roles when exploring ways to improve environmental sustainability in this community.

LC: I focus on everything from playing full-blown defense, to talking to legislators about bills that potentially could not only impact us but also benefit the greater movement, and I work with other cities in Utah and learn what they’ve done, then share what we’ve done. Just this morning, I was talking to another Utah community about our plastic bag ban. 

It’s not just focusing what’s going on within your boundaries and how can you keep things going. It’s more like, how can we learn from others outside of our boundaries? How can we bring the best ideas here and then share our ideas? 

The hope is that people who come to Park City understand what we’re trying to do. We can’t solve all the problems at once, but we’re going to continue learning, and we’re going to try.

For more information about Park City’s commitment to environmental sustainability, visit parkcity.org. 

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Chamber/Bureau aims to help community reach balance between tourism and livability

Summit County was in the early months of the coronavirus pandemic when Jennifer Wesselhoff arrived to take the helm of the Park City Chamber/Bureau. 

She had been hired, in part, she knew, to usher the organization into a new era where its role expanded beyond marketing Park City as an international tourism destination to also helping the community manage the impacts of visitors once they’re here. But she saw implementing that shift, and initiating a community conversation about the concept of sustainable tourism — in essence, striking a balance between the tourism industry’s economic benefits and its impacts on quality of life for residents — as a longer-range project, especially given the uncertainty the pandemic had created.  

“I didn’t want the business community and the nonprofits and the event organizers and employees who were all really suffering with the uncertainty of the pandemic to think I was tone deaf,” said Wesselhoff, the Chamber/Bureau’s president and CEO. “Like, ‘Who’s this new lady coming and talking about sustainable tourism when we can barely keep our doors open.’”

What Wesselhoff discovered instead is that Parkites — including business owners whose livelihoods depend on a thriving tourism industry — were clamoring for solutions to the negative impacts, from the ever-worsening traffic congestion to the dearth of affordable housing, that stem from inviting people from all over the globe to enjoy Park City’s world-class recreational offerings. 

Fast forward a year and a half, and the Chamber/Bureau is amid a significant push to address the issue. To begin with, the organization enlisted the help of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council, which evaluates communities on criteria related to sustainable tourism, and planned to share the results with the public in February. The Chamber/Bureau also launched an online survey this winter to elicit feedback from residents about their ideal balance between tourism and livability. As of late January, approximately 3,000 people had taken the survey. 

“You know that people are really engaged and really interested in the topic if we have that level of participation,” Wesselhoff said. 

The results from both the Global Sustainable Tourism Council evaluation and the online survey will shape Park City’s first-ever sustainable tourism plan, which will outline how the community can continue to reap the benefits of tourism while mitigating its downsides. And the document may be ready sooner rather than later: The Chamber/Bureau aims to have a first draft ready shortly and for its board, as well as the Park City Council and Summit County Council, to adopt a final version this summer. 

While the specifics of the plan remain to be seen, steps taken in other destinations that have pursued sustainable tourism include implementing car-free zones, requiring permits to access trails, encouraging visitors to engage in volunteerism and focusing marketing efforts on drawing a demographic of tourists who demonstrate respect for the communities they visit in ways such as being good stewards of outdoor spaces and patronizing local businesses.  

The end goal is preserving what is special about Park City, from its authenticity to its cultural heritage, for decades to come while continuing to share it with visitors. 

“My hope is that it’s a community-wide plan and that it’s not just the Chamber plan or a city plan or county plan,” Wesselhoff said. “… We’ll be leading it and facilitating it, but ultimately there are going to be a lot of tactics in there that we don’t control.”

As optimistic as Wesselhoff is, however, she understands there are significant challenges to overcome in order to draft a plan the majority of the community can get behind. One of the most significant hurdles is the reality that not everyone agrees on what the proper balance is for Park City. A business owner, for instance, may want more visitors to flock to town than a second-homeowner does. And the second-homeowner almost certainly has a different vision than someone who was born and raised here. 

But what concerns Wesselhoff most is the possibility that some Parkites may see the process as a failure unless the result is Park City transforming back into the place it was five, 10 or even 30 years ago — an outcome that isn’t realistic given how much the town has changed and how much change certainly still awaits regardless of efforts to retain Park City’s unique characteristics. 

“(Some people) want to stop development, they want to stop tourism,” she said. “… They don’t want things to change. And this sustainable tourism plan is not that. I don’t think there’s a way for the Chamber to stop (those things). I think it’s important to balance all the issues.”

Even if the Chamber/Bureau and other community leaders accomplish their goals for the sustainable tourism effort, it doesn’t mean that problems like traffic congestion would disappear. Parkites would notice significant improvement throughout the year but would not be free of tourism’s impacts, particularly during peak periods.  

“There are going to be some days where we’re out of whack,” she said. “There’s no question. I think Christmas week and New Year’s week, just given the ski industry and the type of town we are, will always be busy. But (the goal is to be) not like that every day or every week of the year … and most of the time finding the sweet spot.”

Wesselhoff also acknowledges that some residents may be skeptical of the Chamber/Bureau itself given its traditional role of promoting tourism to Park City. Some, she said, believe all the organization cares about is “more, more, more.” But she is quick to dispute that notion. 

She led a similar sustainable tourism effort in her prior role as the leader of the chamber of commerce in Sedona, Arizona, and said that experience taught her that an organization like the Chamber/Bureau has a responsibility to be a catalyst for positive action — especially when so many residents are clamoring for change. 

“I came in with eyes wide open, knowing that the community has been talking about these issues for a long time,” she said. “I knew that sustainable tourism was one of the pillars of the city’s visioning process, and I knew that the community was grappling with these questions of how much is too much.”

The business community more broadly, she said, is also supportive of taking steps to combat overtourism. There is a perception among some Parkites that business owners are only concerned with their bottom line, but the truth is that they also want to see Park City remain a community that residents still recognize a decade or two from now. 

“Our businesspeople are locals too,” she said. “… They live here, they care about Park City, they’re involved in schools and nonprofits and organizations that are ultimately making Park City a better place to live, work and play.”

The post ‘Finding the sweet spot’ appeared first on Park Record.

 Mayor Nann Worel, an ‘eternal optimist,’ hopes to make progress on community’s pressing issues

The problems confronting Park City stretch back years, if not decades. Traffic congestion, for instance, is not a recent phenomenon, while the origins of the affordable housing crisis predate even the 2002 Winter Olympics. 

But while the issues the community is grappling with are old, the institution that shoulders more responsibility than any other to address them — City Hall — is entering a new era under the leadership of Nann Worel, who captured the mayor’s office in November and was sworn in early this year. 

Worel, who served on the Park City Council for six years before rising to the Marsac Building’s top post, said she’s not naive about the challenges her administration will face over the next four years. She knows Parkites are frustrated with the amount of change the community has experienced and understands why they worry about the future given the pressures Park City faces from forces such as development, growth and tourism. 

“People are praying for a balance between our local way of life, our local population and our residents, and the visitors,” she said. “(I heard) somebody put it really well when they said the balance between the lifestyle residents want and what our tourists are demanding. And I think that is a real challenge for us to come up with some innovative ways to make sure that we do maintain our sense of community. And that’s getting more and more difficult.”

Yet, as a self-described “eternal optimist,” Worel insists it’s not too late for the community to chart a course where the things that drew many Parkites here in the first place — or kept them here — are still present decades into the future. 

“We’re all trying to say, ‘What is the city? What is it going to be going forward?’” she said. “And how do we preserve what’s really special about Park City, what makes us all love to get up every day and say, ‘Gosh, I’m glad I live here.’ That’s the challenge.”

As Worel and her administration embark on confronting that challenge, one of her first priorities will be looking outward — as in engaging with Park City’s neighboring communities. She said the growth in the places surrounding Park City, such as the Snyderville Basin and Jordanelle area, means the town does not control its fate by itself. 

Worel campaigned on the promise of ushering in a new approach to regional collaboration and said City Hall must find common cause with the County Courthouse and the municipalities along the Wasatch Back in order to make progress on the key issues. 

“You start by sitting down with all of our regional partners and talking about ‘How do we work together on this? How do we mitigate what you’re doing?’” she said. “I’ve had two municipalities reach out to me since I’ve been elected wanting to collaborate, wanting to sit down at the table. I’m looking forward to those conversations with our partners. We’ve got to start there. We can’t do it in a vacuum.”

Worel also hopes to harness the power of Parkites themselves. She said there is a tremendous amount of untapped “human capital” in Park City — people with work experience related to the community’s issues who have moved here in recent years. She’s betting many of those people are eager to be part of the local conversation. 

She pointed to affordable housing as one example. City Hall in 2016 set an ambitious goal of adding 800 affordable units to the housing stock by 2026 but has significant ground to cover over the next four years to meet that mark. According to the City Hall website, 133 units have been completed and 372 units are “upcoming,” leaving a shortfall of nearly 300 units that have not been identified or funded. 

“Let’s pull in people who’ve had careers in affordable housing in other parts of the country and involve them,” she said. “‘What’s new and creative, what have you seen happen in whatever part of the country you were in that was effective there? What can we learn from that and how can we use that?’”

Aiding Worel as she attempts to move the ball forward will be an eager group of elected officials by her side. Three of the five members of the Park City Council are new to their roles — Jeremy Rubell and Tana Toly were elected in November, while Ryan Dickey was appointed in January to fill the seat vacated by Worel — while another, Max Doilney, is in the middle of his first term. Only Becca Gerber, who was first elected in 2015, has served for longer than two years. 

For her part, Worel said she’s invigorated by the fresh perspectives the newcomers have brought to the Marsac Building and encouraged by some of the ideas the five city councilors have already offered. 

At the same time, she understands the pressure is on. Amid the rapid changes the community has endured, Parkites are looking to City Hall for answers and are growing increasingly impatient with the status quo. And the responsibility of ensuring the municipal government is successful as it attempts to preserve the community’s authenticity and the Park City way of life falls largely on her shoulders. 

It’s what she signed up for when she mounted a mayoral campaign and, later, took the oath of office. 

“I think people feel like the can has been kicked down the road,” she said, “and they’re ready to see some solutions.”

The post A new era dawns at City Hall appeared first on Park Record.

Higher wages aren’t a silver bullet

Do you hear that?

It’s the sound of Park City renters holding their breath as their lease expires. As the affordable housing worsens, the rental community will wait to see if they can afford to stay in the community or face the dilemma of moving to Salt Lake City or the Heber Valley, requiring them to either commute into Park City or find employment closer to where they live.  

As of January, the average rent for a 690-square-foot Park City apartment totals $1,473, according to rentcafe.com, with some properties requiring well above $2,000 per month in rent. Around 30% of Park City residents are paying rent to live here. The question is, how long can they afford to stay? 

And for business owners, there’s a pressing follow-up question: What impact will the lack of affordable housing have on the local labor force? The issue is especially urgent given many employers are already suffering from an acute labor shortage.

One business that has found a way to thrive amid the challenges is Red Rock Brewery in Redstone. Sergio Morales, the manager said it’s partly a result of bumping up wages.

“We’ve increased our pay for employees, and we’ve given them employee discounts. Employees are very happy here,” he said, adding that daily sales are up, too.  

Raising employee wages is a common response to the area’s labor shortage, and it’s a strategic move to reduce the risk of turnover. The potential downside, however, is that a higher wage sometimes requires businesses to pass those extra expenses onto their customers. That, in turn, starts a vicious cycle, increasing the cost of living and requiring the need for even higher wages. 

Jeffrey Jones, economic development and housing director for Summit County, warns that this process of waging prices to absorb higher employee wages is going to cut into everyone’s button line. 

“Hopefully consumers are willing to pay those costs,” he said. 

John Kenworthy, owner of Flanagan’s on Main in Park City, believes Park City has the right leaders in place to start encouraging change and help businesses in the area overcome the challenges they face.

“I am optimistic that we have the ability to fix the major issues we face. Our new governance is in a position to move the needle, and I want to support them fully,” Kenworthy said. “We now have a very skilled chief executive in Mayor Nann Worel. She is not going to run from difficult tasks. Most importantly she believes that we can solve our critical issues.” 

For many, the lack of housing and its impact on the workforce which supports small businesses would be first on the list of critical issues. But the new mayor and City Council — in addition to Summit County officials — face monolith-sized issues and only have limited power over the market forces that are causing the labor shortage. 

“I personally think the demographic forces we see are going to be with us for a while,” Jones said. “I don’t think they’re going to be resolved in just a year.”

The post Labor crunch is on appeared first on Park Record.

Population growth could exacerbate issue in coming decades

”If you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it.”

J.P. Morgan could very well have been talking about the current housing situation across the country, particularly in Summit County. 

It’s no secret that this hot housing market is leaving some homebuyers steamed. A shortage in affordable homes is something Utah has grappled with since the recession in 2008. “During the 2007-2008 recession period, developers were hesitant to reenter the market, and so we fell behind on housing production,” said Jeffrey Jones, economic development and housing director for Summit County. 

But the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on supply chains over this past year, combined with significant net migration, brought a housing crisis of supersized proportions to Utah’s front doorstep. 

“An aberration, anomaly or outlier? I’m not sure. But this last year, in my work on housing over many years, we’ve never seen anything like this,” said James Wood, the Ivory-Boyer senior fellow at the University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute. 

So where does Park City and Summit County fit into this growth? 

The Institute recently published a report outlining Utah’s long-term planning projections. According to their data, Summit County’s population is projected to increase by over 40.6% from 2020 to 2060. Estimates for the number of households Summit County will add reach almost 80% (12,390 new households) by 2060. 

The study attributes this growth to two factors: natural increase, which hovers around 12 to 15% for Summit County, and net migration. That’s where Utah is feeling the squeeze. Data shows the projected net migration for Summit County exceeds 80%, and Wasatch County is among the nine counties that will depend entirely on net migration for growth. 

For a community that is already dealing with an affordable housing crisis that has made it increasingly difficult for workers to live in the area, the projections are grim — and complicate the effort among local leaders to make significant progress on the issue.  

“We have an annual demand for affordable workforce housing,” Jones said. “Somewhere around 400 units per year. And that’s based on our natural increase and net migration numbers.” But the term “affordable,” particularly in a highly sought-after mountain resort town, is subjective. 

Based on 2021 fourth-quarter stats published by the Park City Board of Realtors, the median price of a single-family home across Park City rose 32% to $3.3 million. 

School teachers and ski patrol staff, take a number.  

The conversation about affordable and equitable housing hasn’t gone unnoticed by local government leaders. But what level of support is there for affordable housing among residents who live in Park City? It’s a mixed bag. Although listed as one of the three key challenges facing Park City over the next decade, barely over half (58%) of people surveyed in City Hall’s Vision 2020 process said they supported living next door to affordable housing. Yet 45% of those surveyed said they would support paying $250 annually in additional property taxes to build affordable housing. 

That level of support is something Jones has seen before. “When you have a project that you’re building, it’s often your largest investment. And so people, a lot of times, don’t react in a positive way,” he said. 

Both Summit County and Park City have inclusionary zoning codes that require new developments to allot a certain percentage of their development to housing for families earning less than 80% of the area’s median income. And City Hall has set a goal to build 800 affordable units by 2026 and has completed or begun planning for nearly 500 of the units. 

But at the root of these efforts is a complex need to expand accessibility to everyone who wants (and needs) to live here while also taking ownership of protecting the features we love about living in Park City. 

Is there more the community can do? 

“The future of this housing market is hard to predict,” said Jayme Angell, general manager, Summit Sotheby’s International Realty. “Let’s just do this responsibly. We want to move forward, but we don’t want to lose sight of what were the selling points to begin with. Things like open spaces, community, opportunity, and unblemished natural surroundings are some of the reasons why people love being here, and it’s those things that are most at stake.”

The post Pricey market, complex issue appeared first on Park Record.

Rise of nightly rentals make addressing affordable housing shortage more challenging

Park City is one of the most popular vacation destinations among western mountain towns, bringing an influx of tourists and second-homeowners and reshaping what it means to be a part of the community.

Nightly and short-term rentals have been on the rise for years, particularly since 2016, as visitorship increases. With the shift in housing stock, many residents living here — and the workers needed to keep businesses running — are the ones left struggling to find suitable accommodations.

During the economic downturn of 2008, many people bought homes in Park City and converted them to secondary residences. Jason Glidden, housing development manager at City Hall, said that today, only 30% of the homes in Park City are considered primary residences.

Vacation rental company Airbnb, which started the same year, became an instant hit because it opened towns to larger crowds. Services like Airbnb allow homeowners to independently manage their properties — and earn additional income by renting them out on a short-term basis. Short-term rentals are often much more lucrative for property owners than renting out their units on six- or 12-month leases.  

The number of short-term rentals, which are units where guests stay no more than 30 consecutive days, have increased significantly over the last several years. There are currently 2,400 licensed nightly rentals in the Park City limits, but Glidden estimates there are an additional 1,200 units that are unlicensed. Licensed units are required to undergo health and safety inspections to ensure they’re up to code. 

With the rise in nightly lodgings and short-term rentals, seasonal workers are struggling as long-term accommodation is hard to come by. 

Pat Matheson, executive director of the nonprofit Mountainlands Community Housing Trust, which helps people find affordable housing around Summit County, said that 99% of available long-term units are consistently occupied — leaving workers coming into town with few options.

Only 15% of Park City’s workforce lives in the city limits, Glidden said, and the low inventory of housing makes available rentals harder to track. But as the price of real estate continues to rise without similar wage increases, the disparities will only continue to grow.

To mitigate the difference, area employers, including the Park City government, try to secure affordable housing for employees as a recruitment method.

“If you can’t attract employees, you can’t provide services. That’s detrimental to the economic future,” Glidden said.

Old Town, in particular, has become a hot spot for short-term rentals. For residents living there full time, it’s challenging to build relationships with neighbors if people are constantly coming and going. And that’s something officials say puts the community’s vibrancy at risk. 

Until the last 15 or 20 years, the majority of homes in Park City were primary residences, but now neighborhoods are littered with homes that sit vacant much of the year, or where short-term renters come and go. When the homes are in use, year-round residents can be bothered by visitors who are often noisier or produce more trash than long-term renters. 

Both Glidden and Matheson agree that a sense of lost community and a workforce that doesn’t live in town impacts the overall social equity and diversity of Park City.

City officials face several obstacles when it comes to addressing the problems associated with nightly rentals, but the biggest hurdle is incentivizing owners to offer long-term leases instead of chasing bigger profits.

Glidden said they’re looking to other resort cities for ideas. For instance, in Big Sky, Montana, a new program offers landlords money to convert short-term rentals to long-term housing. The program helps make up for the difference in income so property owners still receive a return on their investments. 

If long-term rentals are considered primary residences rather than secondary, property owners will also see tax breaks. 

The city is looking at offering deed restrictions that would increase the number of people living in the city similar to a program in Vail, Colorado. The program could be utilized as down payment assistance to help increase long-term housing options for those who might not be able to afford it. Property owners would be paid cash to live in the homes or for offering six-month rentals.

Another possibility could be the adoption of ordinances that restrict nightly rentals in certain zones within Park City, but state law currently prohibits local governments from stopping rental operators from listing properties on websites or banning them in.

In 2016, the city set a goal of creating 800 new affordable units by 2026, or nearly 80 units a year, to maintain the community’s anticipated growth. Glidden said as they continue working toward the objective, they look to sponsor projects or work with private developers who are obligated to make 20% of units affordable. 

Officials are also considering changes to development codes, such as a proposal that would allow businesses to build accessory dwelling units to house employees, for solutions.

But the biggest challenge is balancing the need for affordable housing with locals’ perspectives on density and the desire for open space. Glidden said that to achieve the city’s goals, there needs to be a community conversation about development in areas where it’s appropriate.

Matheson agreed that there are technical solutions to the problem, such as building and financing, but there are growing pains associated with development. 

“How do we grow in a way that’s both sustainable and addresses affordable housing issues?” Matheson said. “I think that we can work together. I think that the best outcome for our community is one where we acknowledge (conservancy and development) and say we can do both.

“A community is built on people, and people who are committed to each other can find solutions to these other things.”

The post Short-term stays ignite a long-term problem appeared first on Park Record.

Efforts to conserve land focus on ensuring access to a healthy environment

One of the first major parcels of open land Park City-bound visitors see after taking the Kimball Junction exit off Interstate 80 onto S.R. 224 is the 1,200-acre Swaner Preserve.

The preserve, which serves as a seasonal and permanent habitat for an array of wildlife, includes 800 acres of wetlands and streams and nearly 10 miles of trails for hiking, biking and snowshoeing.

As visitors continue along S.R. 224 they will also pass the iconic McPolin Farm located on the outskirts of Park City proper.

This historic farm sits on 115 acres of more open space that is a favorite destination for hikers, bikers and cross-country skiers. The wetlands located near the highway is also the seasonal home for redwing blackbirds and sandhill cranes. 

Conserving these types of areas are what keeps Summit Land Conservancy and Utah Open Lands busy. The two nonprofits work tirelessly to preserve open spaces for recreation, habitat and community health.

These natural and working lands can sequester up to 37% of the carbon that we’re putting into the environment every year, said Cheryl Fox, Summit Land Conservancy’s executive director.

“I think we really do need to recognize that all people need to have access to a healthy environment,” she said. “We’ve done a poor job over the past couple hundred years of ensuring that everyone has access. So my feeling is that our role is to save as much as can be saved, while we as society collectively figure out how to decarbonize ourselves and how to live with a little more reverence for the nonhuman.”

Utah Open Lands Executive Director Wendy Fisher agrees with Fox’s assessment.

“There is a huge value that really is an investment in the long-term economic and physical health and sustainability of the community,” she said. “When I look at the past three decades there is no question in my mind what we have done in preserving open space is to preserve possibilities — possibilities for cleaner air, possibilities for clean water, possibilities for carbon sequestration, possibilities for local food and possibilities for recreation. The list goes on.”

Over the past decade, the mission to save open lands has become more difficult, as well as more important, Fox said.

“I think as prices become more and more expensive for land, conservation becomes harder and harder,” she said. “When the values are so high, it’s hard to come up with the money that is needed. And on the other hand, it makes our work all the more critical.”

Some of the big issues these nonprofits face is population growth and development, Fisher said.

“The top two reasons why people come to Utah to live here, work here and play here is because of its scenic beauty and recreational opportunities,” she said. “That’s where the conundrum lies. Because it’s an incredible place to live, there is a need to have more development in order for people to move in. It’s one of those catch-22s, a never-ending cycle.”
The trick is to find balance, but sometimes it’s too easy to tip the scales with money and machines, Fox said. 

“Our country’s banking and real estate systems, planning and zoning departments know how to do development and know how to do that really well,” she said. “We also have what I call in this countr, industrialized development, and like any highly industrialized process and project, it ends up being good for a few people, but bad for the environment and bad for communities. So what happens when we overly mechanize some process is we get out of balance.”

Still, Fox isn’t against building homes.

“We need homes, but we also need to know the human habitat is not just concrete and computer screens,” she said. “Sometimes we confuse this mindset as human nature that can’t be stopped. But it’s not human nature. Plenty of cultures have survived for tens of thousands of years without managing to destroy their habitat. And since we’re really on the verge of that on a global scale, I think it’s time to think about the way we live on this planet a little differently.”

A change of people’s perception regarding conservation is something Utah Open Lands is working on, according to Fisher.

“I really feel that one of the key elements as we move forward is what we have made our mantra — ‘Leave It Loved,’” she said. “We need to do more than just protect these properties. We need to do more than leave no trace. We need to leave these places better, and that is calling upon all of us to have a higher level of stewardship.”

Increasing the stewardship levels include gaining a better understanding regarding the balance of recreation and protection, Fisher said.

“I think we always talk about the value of protecting these properties for the land’s sake, itself, and that is key,” she said. “There are some places that should just be left for wildlife to have a refuge, because those areas are getting smaller and smaller all the time.” 

One of the first projects Utah Open Lands took on in the early 1990s was Willow Ranch Reserve, located on the entry corridor to Park City on S.R. 224.

“When we first protected the property 30 years ago there were no beavers, but working with Park City we planted some trees, and beavers have come back to the area,” Fisher said. 

Back in 1992 there were no sandhill cranes, but now, there are sandhill cranes that nest on the property, and the amount of songbirds has increased, she said.

“When you see things like that, we realize if we turn our gaze to how we can be the best stewards of these places, we can open the possibility to long-term sustainability and health for our community,” Fisher said. “If you look at history, communities have been driven in terms of successes and failures to a great extent with respect to the natural resources in their area. The health of the environment around us serves as a barometer for our own health.”

For information about Summit Land Conservancy and its work, visit wesaveland.org. For information about Utah Open Lands and its work, visit utahopenlands.org.

The post Preserving possibilities appeared first on Park Record.

Leaders need to ‘approach the future differently’ to manage development’s impacts

People who have lived in the Park City area for decades — or maybe even just 10 or 15 years — marvel at the amount of development that has sprung up in the post-Olympic era. And in recent years, one question seems to be on the tip of every Parkite’s tongue: Are we at the breaking point?

That’s a question Pat Putt grapples with every day in his job as Summit County’s community development director. Like others, he has witnessed the startling amount of growth transform the community. But having been involved in planning matters since the 1990s — both at City Hall and the County Courthouse — he has a unique perspective on the topic, as well as how the community can maintain its core characteristics despite the ongoing development pressures. 

The bad news first: There’s no way to stop more growth from coming. For one, there are many projects in the Park City area that were approved long ago but have not yet been built. And the reality is that people still want to move here. 

Worse, Parkites can also stop hoping for quick fixes for the issues arising from the growth that is already here. The problem, Putt says, is multifaceted and has been building over the course of nearly a half-century. There’s simply not an ordinance change or a zoning tweak in the Snyderville Basin or Park City proper that will alleviate the challenges development has created. 

“We just didn’t all of a sudden wake up one day and there was a housing problem, or there was a traffic congestion problem,” he said. 

Now the good news: While Putt acknowledges that local officials can’t erect a wall to stop more people from coming, he believes it is possible to manage the growth in a way that preserves community priorities such as open space and connectivity and that prevents issues like traffic congestion from eroding the quality of life. 

But doing it, he said, will require a departure from the strategies that have failed in the past. 

“We are going to have to approach the future differently with our problem solving,” he said. “The reason we have the problems we do today, they are a direct result of decisions that have been made in the past — and made by good people with their hearts in the right spot. But if they resulted in the problems we have today, we need to rethink the solutions in the future.”

Most importantly, Putt believes the various communities within the Wasatch Back must view themselves as part of an interconnected web rather than as distinct hubs. And because what happens in one part of the Wasatch Back affects the other areas, leaders have to put their heads together and plan from a regional perspective.  

“It ain’t going to be with a zoning code amendment (that we fix things),” he said. “It’s going to be with hard work and willingness to collaborate on a level we haven’t done before, and interjurisdictionally like we haven’t done before.”

Fortunately for Putt, his counterpart in Park City, for one, agrees about the need for regional planning. Gretchen Milliken, the planning director at City Hall, said she sees opportunity for collaboration. 

“You don’t get things done by being on different sides of the fence,” she said. “You really need to be working together. And I think we share a lot of the same values between the county and the city, and I think we can work together on a lot of great projects that as a city we’re a little bit too little to do, but as … part of the county, we can help make those happen or help promote those or get involved in those.”

Putt said one of the specific solutions in the Snyderville Basin may be focusing new development in mixed-use neighborhoods where residents can access services such as grocery stores and trails without needing to venture onto, say, S.R. 224.

Milliken said that getting people out of their cars and steering them toward public transit or active modes of transportation will also go a long way toward alleviating growth’s impacts.

“We are a community in which people bike and walk and they’re active. And they’re open to other modes of transportation,” she said. “And so if our streets and our infrastructure, and how we’re getting from A to B, reflects that more, that’s going to be the biggest change for our city — that you don’t have to get into a car … that we have bus-rapid transit, that we have just a really reliable infrastructure that isn’t totally vehicular focused.”

Another part of the equation, Putt said, is engaging residents in order to allow the community to shape the solutions. One of the obstacles is that many Parkites, and particularly newcomers, aren’t familiar with the ins and outs of how the community arrived at the point it is today or the realistic options that are on the table to manage development. 

He also worries about the level of vitriol that has been present in many discussions about the community’s future over the last few years. He often thinks of something former Park City Mayor Dana Williams used to say: Be tough on the issues and easy on the people.

“Long before traffic and congestion and affordability gets us, it will be our inability to work together, to collaborate together, to think together, to debate and argue in a non-personal way,” he said. “We will lose our community because of that sooner than we will all of these other things.”

But even in the face of significant obstacles, Putt remains optimistic that the community will be able to protect its special character for future generations. 

“Being a union-card-carrying planner of hope, I believe in the people in this community that we call Summit County,” he said. “We’ve got incredible talent, we’ve got people who care enough that they want to be here to live their lives and they feel strongly about it.”

The post A growing problem appeared first on Park Record.

Park City industries aim to adapt amid changes

“What do you think of when you hear Park City?”

When asked about Park City, almost any random visitor on the street will probably mention two things: skiing and the Sundance Film Festival. A handful of astute tourists can score bonus points for mentioning the 2002 Winter Olympics, but Park City’s identity is largely defined by its tourism industry and its arts and culture offerings. 

But along with the community itself, the tourist and arts and culture industries face challenges exacerbated by rapid population growth, environmental concerns, housing shortages and, over the last two years, an unpredictable pandemic. 

Both industries must adapt to move forward. But how can they prepare for a changing environment and growing community without losing connection with the residents who love and support them?   

Based on Vision 2020 rapid poll results conducted by City Hall, 82% of respondents felt that tourism is essential to Park City’s local economy. But almost half (48%) felt that the balance of tourism in Park City was “already out of kilter,” and 33% felt that Park City was already suffering irrevocable damage from over-tourism.

But with world-class skiing, movie stars and a 50-plus-year-old arts festival firmly entrenched in Park City’s identity, the economic challenges Parkites face are worth solving. 

Since 1976, the Kimball Arts Center has been a cornerstone for a robust Park City arts community. As an ally of the Sundance Institute, KAC’s textured visual arts culture and the Sundance Institute’s creative independent film work carries a starring role in Park City’s economy. 

The Kimball Arts Festival, held annually, is consistently recognized as one of the top festivals in the U.S. for artist’s sales. In 2019, KAC reported the three-day event generated nearly $26.4 million for the local economy, and accounted for more than $1.2 million in artist sales.  

That same year, the pre-pandemic Sundance Film Festival generated over $18.6 million in state and local tax revenue, according to a report commissioned by the Sundance Institute; it supported over 3,000 jobs, which produced $94 million in Utah wages. And Park City played host to more than 122,000 guests from 48 states and 35 foreign countries. To paint a broader picture, the Sundance Film Festival hauled in a five-year cumulative total of $681.5 million, with more than $66.7 million in state and local tax revenue. 

Both organizations hosted two of the most anticipated in-person events in town. That is, until they weren’t. The 2020 Park City Kimball Arts Festival was canceled, while the 2021 and 2022 editions of the Sundance Film Festival were held online. 

“COVID forced a lot of nonprofits to think about the issues surrounding our sustainability. It’s forced us to slow down, be more mission-specific, and really look at our priorities,” said Aldy Milliken, executive director of the Kimball Arts Center. “We need to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. That’s been happening with every nonprofit, especially cultural nonprofits across the country. What is our mission? And then that mission is turned into sustainable programs.” 

For KAC, the next step is to consider scale. “This building (we are in) is about 30% of what I think the true size of a final Kimball Arts Center building should look like,” Milliken said. “It means we can be the creative living room of Park City and offer all of the education programs that we want, and we can host international quality exhibitions for our local population and our tourist population. We can provide an incredible creative opportunity for this community.” 

What is typically exclusive to much larger cities, the Kimball Arts Center and the Sundance Institute offer grassroots access to high-quality creativity, often before it’s “discovered” by the rest of the world. 

“I think that is our (KAC) role here in the visual art world,” Milliken said. “We’re very simpatico in the way we approach creative content. Sundance is exceptional at finding independent filmmakers and storytellers, and then creating avenues for them to further their career. I would say we do very similar things in the art world; that the artists we collaborate with are on a creative journey. By doing so, both of our organizations give access to art and creative content.”

Conquering the uphill battle for downhill skiing industry

In addition to fostering a creative economy, some see steering the economic focus even further away from the ski industry, which is dependent on natural resources like snowfall, as a viable solution for issues like labor shortages in service industries or traffic congestion. 

Can Park City vie for the title of, say, the next new and improved Silicon Slopes? Those who track the industry patterns are a little skeptical. Even the most deeply rooted techie convention-goers from all over the world arrive at the airport with their snowboard. 

“We watched a number of other mountain resort towns pursue the tech industry. But to be honest, it’s inconsistent with who we are,” said Jonathan Weidenhamer, economic director for Park City. “We’ve built this incredible destination tourist experience.”

Straying from that brand is not true to Park City’s roots, he added. But that doesn’t mean the decisions that leaders make can’t place local residents and the community as a priority. Throughout the Vision 2020 process, Parkites expressed concerns about the city catering to visitors rather than residents. 

In response to those concerns, Weidenhamer believes, for instance, that the city can continue to reduce its role in facilitating sporting events, trail races and running races so that residents have better access to facilities that remain in better condition. “I think we’ll continue to do our best to protect our residents and natural resources that surround us,” he said. 

A great example of that commitment is the city’s investment in open spaces.  Most notably the recent $38 million purchase of the 1,350-acres Bonanza Flat land and the $64 million acquisition of the Treasure hillside in 2019. 

“There’s no better statement of our willingness to protect those natural resources than that,” Weidenhamer said. 

Whether Park City addresses practical solutions for a thriving (and profitable) arts and culture district, or explores ways to protect quality of life for residents while balancing a successful tourist/recreational industry, economic sustainability needs vision, open communication, accountability and collaboration among the city, residents, and the area’s major employees to effectively address problems like affordable housing and traffic congestion. 

“I understand a lot about creative placemaking, and I understand about sustainable development and thoughtful development, intelligent development. So when we talk about growth, it’s about looking at the big picture first, and then finding solutions for ways of mitigating those issues that are problematic,” Milliken said. “It’s not about saying no to growth. Instead, it’s about learning how we can do it intelligently and sustainably in ways that will provide offerings for all people.” 

He added, “I think we’re going to find ways to encourage certain types of behavior that complement growth, then I think we’re going to be able to mitigate some of these important issues.” 

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