At the city council’s September 4th meeting, Black Desert Resort (BDR) presented a proposed development agreement for redeveloping the Red Mountain Resort property. The concept was to redevelop the existing resort with up to 500 “visitor lodging” units managed as part of a destination resort, plus related commercial space.
At that meeting I explained that I had 30+ concerns about the draft agreement and offered to share them with the Council and residents for review. A lot has happened in the 40-plus days since then, and the City Council will now be reviewing a revised Development Agreement at our meeting tomorrow night.
After sending my list of concerns to the Council, I posted an article on my website on September 8th (Red Mountain Resort: What’s Next For Ivins?) to gather public input. That led to a meeting with representatives from four nearby neighborhoods to discuss their concerns in more detail.
Based on those conversations and dozens of resident emails, I met with our City Manager and City Attorney to help me prepare my own response to BDR. On September 19th, the I sent a memo to BDR with 15 proposed conditions and 9 technical corrections or clarifications to make the agreement stronger and more beneficial to the community.
My proposed conditions covered things like building height and view protection, access and traffic circulation, intensity of uses and managing impacts, locations for service areas, perimeter screening and landscaping, construction management planning, rooftop use, outdoor dark-sky lighting standards, traffic impact study and mitigation, phasing plans, ground disturbance, and interim maintenance.
BDR responded the following week, agreeing to many of the conditions, asking questions about others, and suggesting some edits. I met with them on October 7th to work through the details, and then again on October 14th with representatives from five surrounding neighborhoods and some City staff. It was a productive meeting, with 17 people in the room, and it helped ensure that the community’s voice is being heard early in the process. I believe we’re now close on nearly every issue.
Other Council members have their own perspectives and priorities, and we’ll see at Thursday’s meeting whether the revised agreement addresses all of those concerns, and whether there are still areas that need tightening, especially considering the resident feedback we’ve received.
I will update this article on Friday, October 17th.
A Few Important Realities
There are limits to what the City can require. Because the property is already zoned for resort use, the City can’t take away development rights that already exist. Doing so would be considered a “taking” under Utah law.
Some concerns, like water supply and drought enforcement, fall under the control of other agencies such as the Washington County Water Conservancy District.
And finally, a Development Agreement is just that, an agreement between the City and the developer. The City can propose conditions, but the developer must voluntarily accept them. If they don’t, they can still build what the zoning already allows. That’s why these negotiations are so important; they’re our best chance to secure stronger, more community-friendly terms than city code alone provides.
My goal is simple: to make sure that whatever happens next at Red Mountain Resort is respectful of its neighbors.