Hundreds sign petition to challenge controversial Dakota Pacific development in Summit County

PARK CITY, Utah – The Market at Park City was busier than usual Tuesday morning as hundreds of people filed through the doors to add their name to a petition that would make it possible for Summit County voters to decide the fate of the controversial Dakota Pacific project.

The proposed development by Dakota Pacific Real Estate was approved by the Summit County Council on December 18 amid widespread public opposition. The 4-1 vote gave a green light for the project, which includes 890 housing units, a transit center and a pedestrian bridge on the west side of Kimball Junction.

Councilmember Roger Armstrong, the lone dissenting vote, enabled the referendum process under state law.

Former three-term mayor of Park City, Dana Williams, and his son Ryan Williams were among the organizers collecting signatures Tuesday morning. Just after 11 a.m. so many people had showed up that they ran out of forms. As people continued to arrive and wait for more forms to be brought in, they shared their thoughts about the project and talked about other current events in Park City as the store became a lively community gathering place.

“We’ve gone through two binders of forms today alone,” Dana Williams said.

By the end of the morning he estimated they had collected three and a half binders full of signatures in total. To place the referendum on the ballot, sponsors must gather signatures from 16% of registered voters in three of the county’s four voting regions within 45 days of the opinion being issued, County Manager Shayne Scott said. That translates to nearly 5,000 signatures across the county’s 30,000 voters.

The elephant in the room however, is the news that Dakota Pacific developers have taken initial steps to establish their own town by leveraging a new piece of state legislation, which would circumvent local authority over the project. If the Lt. Governor’s office were to approve their application and they pursued that path, the appeal of the County ordinance would be largely symbolic.

Still, citizens showed up to voice their opposition.

“Our state legislature has the gall to come into Park City and say, ‘You don’t want our project? Then we’ll just make it a town.’ Whoever heard of that? Ever?” Lynn Fey, a Park City resident said. “When that little bill slipped through in ’23, we didn’t realize they could do that.”

Fey recalled how the county fought the passage of SB-84, which allowed DPRE to amend the Development Agreement initially entered by the Boyer Company in 2008 to fundamentally change the project from a 1.3 million square-foot tech/research park into a high-density mixed-use project focused primarily on market-rate residential uses.

“We won the lawsuit, so we thought it was kind of over,” Fey said. “Then they want to have a public-private partnership where we’re supposed to pay them for the new transit center, tearing down the library, putting in retail stores and things we don’t even want.”

Kay Hislop, who lives in Park Meadows said she is primarily worried about density, added population and the strain on the schools.

“Don’t buy it if you don’t want to abide by the zoning,” Hislop said.

CJ Johnson and her daughter Nicole, both realtors in Park City also voiced concern about the project. CJ echoed Hislop’s concerns.

“I think we can’t get to the junction right now. If they think they’re going build a whole other city up on that hillside, how are you going to get in and out of Park City?” Johnson said.

“I just have an icky feeling about them annexing and creating their own little town and going around us, circumventing the democracy,” Nicole Johnson said.

Despite DPRE potentially being able to circumvent local county authority, Johnson said being able to sign the referendum petition gives people a sense of hope that what citizens of Summit County have to say could make a difference.

“It makes me feel hopeful that the local community is banding together to push back against a lot of the things that we’ve seen the developers do. Enough is enough. We’ve really got to strike a balance, I think, between the quality of life of those that live here and have lived here for 40-50, years or more. We just need to kind of maintain some sort of a small town, that’s why we all moved here and  what we love,” Johnson said.

How to sign the petition

Where to sign this week:

Tuesday, Jan. 21:
The Market at Park City, 9am-12 p.m.
Kimball Junction Post Office 3-5 p.m.

Wednesday, Jan. 22:
Kimball Junction Petco, 10-11 a.m.

Thursday, Jan. 23:
Locations TBD