Appeal of Prince home fails on every point, Park City planning staff and applicant's attorneys assert - The Park Record

**This is a rendition of what the new home at 220 King Road — the structure highest on the hillside — would look like with a revision to the roof.**
*Courtesy of Matthew Prince*

The Park City Planning Department and attorneys for Matthew and Tatiana Prince declared that the appellants have erred at every turn in their case against the Planning Commission’s approval of plans for a large home overlooking Old Town.

This is according a staff report and other documents filed Friday ahead of the Appeal Panel hearing scheduled for 5 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall.

The hearing is likely to begin with a challenge to the standing of all but one of the appellants to bring a case.

Only Eric and Susan Hermann own property adjoining 220 King Road, where the Princes aim to replace two houses with a new home, and therefore the eight others who joined the appeal are ineligible, argue attorneys for the Princes, citing state law overriding looser local rules governing standing.

Further, Bruce Baird and Wade Budge wrote in a motion to dismiss them, none paid their $500 fee and so have no standing on that basis alone even if the Hermanns wound up paying for them.

From there, the three-member panel will listen to presentations from city planners and attorneys for each side, as well as take public comment, before taking up the case themselves.

The members are Adam Strachan, an attorney who once served on the Planning Commission; Esteban Nunez, a real estate agent; and Matthew Day, who manages a private equity firm.

Their role is to review the elements of the decision raised in the appeal and decide whether the Planning Commission applied the correct standards in its approval.

The staff report at each key point asserts the Planning Commission acted within its proper, legal scope and goes through a long list of what the city views as errors and failed arguments in the appeal, which is broken into two appeals. Both were written by the Hermanns’ attorney, Justin Keys.

The most problematic in terms of asserted facts for the Hermanns concerns the driveway easement. They have misstated the height of the retaining walls, erroneously claimed it goes through a sensitive lands area, overstated the impact on the stretch of driveway through property they owned, and are making an argument that has nothing to do with the Planning Commission, the staff report says. That’s a matter for building permits.

It doesn’t get better in the main appeal, in which they and eight others argue the land management code as expressed through the Old Town historic district largely takes precedence over the Sweeney Master Planning District and plat notes for the 220 King Road property.

Not true, the staff report says over the course of 16 pages refuting the contentions in the appeal, one after the other.

A key point raised by the Princes’ attorneys is that the spirit of the zoning is to mitigate the visual impact of what is built on the property. So, for instance, the lower roof pitch raised as an issue by the appellants actually reduces the visual impact of the structure, ironically, and is not seen in any case from the closest streets or the Main Street area. The Sweeney MPD doesn’t regulate roof pitches, and the historic district didn’t start doing so until 2009, long after the MPD was put in place.

The Hermanns’ complex of homes next door would be larger than what was approved for the 220 King Road, and the houses on the property now have a slightly higher profile as well as more total living space in square footage than the new home would.

While much has been made of the 11,300 square feet of building footprint, it’s mainly below grade and out of sight, the Planning Department and Princes’ team note. Besides, every other home in the Sweeney MPD also does not count parking areas and such in its building footprint. The building footprint, as measured at every home in the Sweeney MPD as wall to wall of the main structure itself, is smaller at under 3,500 square feet than the houses on the property now.

The appeal also argues that “finished” floor is not the same as “finish floor plane” described in the historic district code language concerning interior height and references as an exhibit hundreds of pages of Planning Commission discussion about how to determine stories in homes with split levels.

But the staff report treats the words as the same and notes the applicant agreed to the more restrictive historical district code denoting a 35-foot interior height limit from the lowest finished floor in their conditional use permit than the property notes outline. And Princes’ attorneys point out there is no alternative definition for “finish floor plane” to “finished,” which the appeal does not define, either.

The staff report also says the commission has latitude to make limited changes and stayed within those parameters in approving the plans.

The planning staff is in a position to defend the Planning Commission’s work, as are the Princes’ attorneys, at the hearing. The Appeal Panel has its own independent counsel apart from the city.

Apparently damaging for the appellants is a consulting attorney’s evaluation in 2009 of the Sweeney MPD’s standing, or vesting right, compared to other zoning regulations at the time they are granted. This adds weight to the property precedence over later zoning code changes. In short, her analysis doesn’t appear to support the appellants’ contention that the more modern historic district zoning overrides the MPD or plat notes.

The reports, exhibits and legal briefs run past 1,000 pages in all, not including all the case law and individual cases cited among them.

The onus in the appeal is on the appellants to prove where the Planning Commission made mistakes in applying its authority and the mix of zoning among the land management code, historic district, Swift MPD and the plat notes.

According to the Planning Department and Princes’ attorneys, the appeal doesn’t come close. But they aren’t the ones who will make those determinations, of course.

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