Proposed development gets lukewarm county commission response
Sep 17, 2024 11:31AM ● By Linda Petersen
Developers hope to turn a former Morgan County cattle ranch into a major resort. Courtesy images/Morgan County
Developers of 9 Springs Mountain Resort are giving county officials a closer look at their plans for 2,327 acres near Snow Basin Ski Resort. At an Aug. 6 work session, they gave Morgan County Commission members more detail about their ambitious 20-year projections. Initial reactions from commissioners appeared at least hesitant as they considered the impacts such a development which would double the county’s population over that time would have.
The project is debt-free and will be developed based on demand, project representative Brock Nelson said. “There is zero debt on this project so that we can weather any storms that come. We don’t want to be the developer that loses their project and so we've structured it debt free.”
Project owners envision a master planned resort and residential community of 2,740 mixed use residential units along with two to three hotels and a commercial district, the majority of which would be clustered around what they’re calling a resort core village. Units would range from condos and town homes to single-family homes and estate lots.
The development’s focus would be outdoor recreational opportunities for its residents and Morgan County residents and would include alpine slides, mountain coasters, seasonal ice skating, hiking, mountain biking and sledding, Nelson said.
“We’ve tried to design this project like we have because we want to create more public open space, more amenities for the community to enjoy and recreate on,” he said. “A couple years ago there was a survey that was sent out by Morgan County, and some of the asks or wants that came back in that survey were more access to public trails, some kind of a community, more gathering places, food and entertainment. So, we’ve really tried to take this project and create and add all of those aspects into what it is now.”
About 1,500 acres of the property would be left undeveloped, and most of it would be open to the public in the form of trails and “perpetual open space.” Half of that property would be turned over to the county while still being maintained by the development, Nelson said.
However, commissioners said they would not be supportive of that idea if that maintenance would be funded by a public infrastructure district.
“We don't like PIDs as a county,” Commission Chair Mike Newton said. “We feel like we’ve been burned by them; our residents don’t love them. Those who have purchased within PIDs are not real pleased with them. So that’s something that you ought to consider that is definitely a deciding factor in my mind… I think what it does is ultimately it saddles the end homeowner with the cost of development.”
It’s anticipated 9 Springs would be developed in nine phases over the next 15 to 20 years based on market demand.
Although Nelson spoke of the tax benefits 9 Springs would bring to Morgan County and the Morgan County School District ($700 million over 20 years) commissioners seemed more concerned about the costs.
“I noticed that you guys put in there the benefits of taxes to us,” Commissioner Matt McConnell said. “I didn’t see anything in the proposal that says anything about the negative impacts which I’d like to know because we will have to have new schools and new things because it obviously does impact us.”
Commissioners said they have no interest in any roads in the development being designated as public roads, requiring Morgan County to maintain them.
“Frankly I don’t want any more public roads,” Newton said. “The BNC tax funds, they don’t cover the roads that we have now. So, I personally would rather them be private roads and maintained privately. …We need to understand exactly what we’re committing to here because that’s a big drain on the county. One of the big financial drains on this county is our infrastructure, our roadways and bridges. We’ve spent 10s of millions of dollars over the last several years on roads and bridges and we bring in $600,000 a year in BNC Road funds. So, the only way we’ve been able to do that has been through federal grants.”
At the end commissioners seemed open to working through a development agreement with 9 Springs while expressing the sentiment that the proposed densities would be a tough sell.
“I'll tell you right now, the number of units in my opinion is far too high, far, far too high and that’s been the public comment that we’ve received,” Newton said. “That’s going to be a big sticking point.”
The approval process for the development agreement is expected to take at least several months. It will involve at least two public hearings before the planning commission and the county commission. It remains to be seen if the developer and those bodies will be able to come up with a compromise on densities that will allow the project to move forward. λ