Since the 1980's, a cloud has hung over Park City in the form of development rights granted to the Sweeney family to develop a large commercial project on 120 acres overlooking Old Town. Back in the 80's when the prosperity of today was only a hope for the future, the idea was to create a bed base that would fill main street businesses with customers. As time went by, residents realized the mass and scale of the Treasure Development did not fit into the overall community development that moved forward in unexpected ways. As visitor traffic increased and the bed base materialized in a variety of locations, the impact of 1,000,000 SF of lodging and commercial space including 200 hotel rooms, 100 condos plus conference space, with some buildings 100 feet high, was eventually recognized as a toxic mix of construction chaos, traffic congestion and unneeded capacity and competition for a prospering Old Town. Owners of restored miners homes imagined being in the shadow of tall hotel structures after years of intense construction activity and a traffic nightmare on narrow Old Town roads. All or those issues and the growing resident alarm resulted in what seemed like endless and very contentious planning commission meetings focusing on the project components and impact issues. By 2010, the Planning Commission and the Treasure partnership had reached an impasse and an attempt was made to buy out or produce a smaller reworked project. After a $93,000,000 buyout proposal from the Treasure partnership was rejected by the City, discussion on the original development plan continued with ever increasing intensity and community angst, with a deadline for a final planning commission decision at the end of 2017. At the 11th hour (as in last week), closed-door discussions between all parties have produced a possible buyout of 50% of the Treasure Partnership (the total interest of the Sweeney family) for $30,000,000 and a reduced project scope to include 18 single family homes and a small boutique hotel for the remaining partner - a firm called Park City II, LLC. That solution would be contingent on residents passing a $24,000,000 ballot measure in November of 2018 and an immediate $6,000,000 payment from the City to the Sweeney family. It is estimated that a $24,000,000 bond would cost the owner of a primary home with a taxable value of $1,000,000 approximately $90.75/yr for 15 years. The owner of a vacation home or commercial property with the same taxable value would pay $165/yr for 15 years. In hindsight it's easy to say that Park City should have stepped up years ago and purchased 100% of the development rights for less money, but even if that was possible, it didn't happen and residents should see this as the last chance to avert a true disaster. The cost of the bond and the probable suspension of plans to build Main Street Plaza and the possible re-evaluation of other conservation purchases are a small price to avoid the effects of allowing the original Treasure development to go forward or to deny project approval, enter into costly and doomed litigation only to see the project go forward eventually.