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Housing community in lower Canyons Village concerned with master plan

Hidden Creek HOA objects to plans for administrative building

Angelique McNaughton
The Park Record

Last month, members of the Hidden Creek homeowner’s association, located in the lower Canyons Village at Park City Mountain Resort, drafted a letter to the Snyderville Basin Planning Commission objecting to portions of the Canyons Village Master Plan.

TCFC Finance Co., the development company that owns the land on which Vail Resorts operates its ski area, is attempting to reconfigure 2.3 million square feet of development in the upper and lower village. The Hidden Creek community is situated at the base of the resort, near the Canyons Cabriolet lift and the Waldorf Gondola, adjacent to Hole No. 16 at Canyon Golf.

The reconfiguration shows plans for several more hotels and condominiums, a parking garage and transit hub, skier plaza, aquatic center, 60,000-square-foot conference center, and a Village Walk that will include stores, cafes and bars. Workforce housing units are also slated for the lower village, however, the final number of units has not been determined. A parking structure with 775 spaces is planned for the lower village near the Cabriolet Lift.

Lisa Graveline, a member of the Hidden Creek homeowner’s association board of directors, said the community’s concerns regard the development of a parcel near their neighborhood, identified as EWD-4, the traffic impacts of the plans, and density and heights of the buildings proposed.

Graveline said the narrow strip of land acts as a buffer between their backyards and the golf course.

“One of the main issues that we are raising is that this parcel was always promised to be an open space and buffer zone because it is right behind our buildings,” Graveline said. “In addition, to the parking and traffic issue. There are so many moving parts to this.”

According to the Canyons Master Plan amendment application, the nearly 41,000-square-foot parcel is approved for resort amenity/commercial/retail/support. The application requests approval for construction of a 7,000-square-foot building to be used for check-in facilities for the hotel/lodging units in the Canyons Village. It may also include administrative offices for the Canyons Village Management Association.

In their letter to the planning commission, the board stated concerns with TCFC “making these changes without seeking input from Hidden Creek. The letter also objected to the number of units that may be built as part of the employee housing obligation, the structure’s height and its proximity to their community, in addition to the traffic impacts these proposals will have on their neighborhood.

“TCFC’s plans for Parcel EWD-4 and the employee housing project remain a moving target. In the absence of a concrete proposal, Hidden Creek is not able to provide meaningful input regarding either project,” the letter read. “TCFC’s proposed development would have a drastic impact on our neighborhood.

“Parcel EWD-4 is a classic buffer. It is an extremely small, narrow strip of land between what is now the Canyons Golf Course and the existing homes,” it stated. “Without this buffer, the resort development will literally come up to our back doors. This is neither a good neighbor policy nor reasonable resort development.”

The letter suggests reducing the proposed employee housing facility by 7,000 square feet to include the lodging check-in facility and administrative offices proposed for EWD-4. It also states this would give homeowners assurance that TCFC will “properly maintain and monitor the employee housing.”

The Basin Planning Commission is tentatively scheduled to hold another public hearing about the master plan on Tuesday, July 25. However, an agenda or notice has not been published yet. A work session on the matter was held June 13, where staff recommended the planning commission continue the public hearing to the July 25th meeting and possibly make a recommendation.

Over the last several months, commissioners have raised several issues with the proposed master plan, particularly over the number of employee housing units, the large parking structure and the traffic impacts those facilities will have on the lower village.

To view the Canyons Village Master Plan, go to http://canyonsvillageplan.com/vision/. To view the most recent county staff reports, go to http://summitcounty.org/DocumentCenter/View/5762.

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