Dakota Pacific faces tougher demands from Summit County Council on housing density

The land for the Dakota Pacific development project sits to the west and south of the Skullcandy building. Photo: Dakota Pacific

"I understand the ask to try to continue to de-densify, but we are squeezing water out of a rock at this point. We don’t have the luxury to just say, ‘let’s chop 100 units out’ and still make sense. It will not make economic sense for us." - Dakota Pacific's CEO Mark Stanworth

SUMMIT COUNTY, Utah — Summit County Council will hold another public work session today, November 20, to continue discussions about the Dakota Pacific Real Estate public-private partnership. The session, which is open to the public, is scheduled for 1:45 p.m. and can be viewed live on the Summit County Facebook page.

At a work session on November 13, several county council members expressed reluctance to approve DPRE’s proposed changes to the Development Agreement. Council member Chris Robinson emphasized the need for DPRE to significantly reduce the project’s density before gaining approval. Specifically, they suggested lowering the number of market-rate units (restricted against nightly rentals and fractional ownership) from 500 to 400. Additionally, they called for a substantial, though unspecified, portion of these units to be designated for lease rather than sale.

Robinson also outlined other open issues of concern, including the current percentage of allocation of costs for the construction of the pedestrian bridge and other public components of the project that Dakota Pacific would have a stake in paying for may be far too low.

“I think we heard clearly from the public that for the public to pay for all of those benefits and for the density to be granted didn’t feel like a fair trade overall in this scenario,” Roger Armstrong said.

The council also said they needed more time to digest the public comments made during a community hearing on November 7 and that the county wants to roll back the development fee for the 165 affordable housing units to 25%.

Robinson also brought up the possibility of needing to redistribute water shares for the development from the purchase of the 910 Ranch, which the county entered into an agreement to purchase in 2023.

Dakota Pacific’s CEO Mark Stanworth said reducing the market-rate units to 400 will make the project unviable.

“I understand the ask to try to continue to de-densify, but we are squeezing water out of a rock at this point. We don’t have the luxury to just say, ‘let’s chop 100 units out’ and still make sense. It will not make economic sense for us,” Stanworth said.