Public hearing over new Park City Mountain lifts to be held Tuesday

Skiers and riders wait for opening at the base of the Eagle Lift in March. Photo: TownLift

PARK CITY, Utah — A public hearing will be held next week over the administrative conditional use permit (CUP) application Vail Resorts submitted in January over the upgrades of two Park City Mountain lifts.

The Silverlode Lift will be upgraded to an 8-chair detachable lift, and the Eagle Lift will be replaced with a single, 6-chair detachable longer lift under the proposal.

The improvements are part of a $320 million capital plan at 14 of Vail’s resorts.

Normally, ski lifts are a conditional use that requires planning commission approval. However, the 1998 development agreement for Park City Mountain includes an approved Mountain Upgrade Plan — it states that “development of ski facilities (including new/different lifts) is subject to administrative review only,” under certain conditions, which Vail has met.

In 2008, upgrades for King Con and Motherlode were reviewed as an administrative CUP under the agreement. In 2015, the Crescent Lift and new Quicksilver Gondola were processed as standard CUPs, because they were not a part of the upgrade plan.

Tuesday’s public hearing will be held at noon on Tuesday in the Planning Department Conference Room at City Hall. It will also be held on Zoom.

In a statement to TownLift, Deb Rentfrow, the co-founder of the Responsible Resort Area Development Coalition (RRAD) said:

Vail submitted their application for the new lifts under an Admin CUP protocol seemingly in an effort to avoid Planning Commission review and public scrutiny. Hopefully, our Planning Department and Director will require the obligations of the ’98 DA which is the governing document be met before approving any application. The 23 affordable/employee housing units and a functional and effective parking mitigation plan are both required components of the ’98 DA Exhibit L . Where are they?