Lost in the Bonanza 5-acre debate is a larger issue: The Park City government is advancing growth project by project without ever demonstrating that its broader policies will deliver the outcomes they are intended to achieve. While private development proposals may originate with the market, the city shapes how growth occurs through its land-use policies, parking policies, transportation investments, and the use of public land. Yet those communitywide policies are being applied through individual development applications without demonstrating that they will produce the citywide results being relied upon to justify them. Will it be easier or harder to get to work, school, the grocery store, or home at the end of the day? Will parking become a competition among residents, employees, and visitors for fewer available spaces? Will the views, scale and small-town character that residents cherish gradually give way to something more urban? These are reasonable questions. The Bonanza application doesn’t answer them. This isn’t an argument against growth, redevelopment, better transit or affordable housing. It’s an argument for good government. Government exists to serve the public, which means asking not just what a project will add, but also what it may diminish or make more difficult — and answering those questions before asking residents to accept the tradeoffs. City leaders shouldn’t expect trust simply because they have a plan. They earn trust by explaining the assumptions behind their decisions, acknowledging the impacts and tradeoffs those decisions create for existing residents, and demonstrating with credible evidence that the expected benefits justify those tradeoffs. That’s the standard our government should set for itself. Not because the law requires it, but because that’s what public service demands. Clive Bush Old Town The post What’s the bigger plan? appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less