Sun Valley Co. General Manager Wally Huffman and Sun Valley City Council members this week geared up for a future public hearing by discussing potential development of the former Sun Valley Gun Club site.
Rebecca Zimmerman, an owner and president of the international planning firm Design Workshop, on Monday, Jan. 14, presented a plan that showed building envelopes for 30 residential lots that could be created at the 324-acre site northeast of Sun Valley Village. The site, on the west side of Trail Creek Road, includes the new Gun Club 9 golf course.
In addition, 24 of those acres would be used to create five multi-family parcels, on which could be built 210 multi-family residential units, the density limit for the area established by the city's comprehensive plan.
As well, there would be three streets to access the development, named Sun Peak Drive, Diamond Back Road and Monarch Lane.
For that development to become a reality, the city would need to take three actions that Sun Valley Community Development Director Mark Hofman said would be contingent upon each other.
First, it would have to amend its zoning map to change the property in question, currently zoned for outdoor recreation and single-family residential units, to include open space, recreation, rural estate and ranch, and multiple-family residential districts.
Second, the city would have to approve a conditional-use permit for a planned-unit development for the area, which also includes two parcels for the Gun Club 9 golf course.
Third, a preliminary plat would have to be approved for Sun Valley Co. to subdivide the property.
In October, the Sun Valley Planning and Zoning Commission recommended that the city take those three steps. During the P&Z's deliberations, then-interim City Administrator Robert Van Nort said estimated annual tax revenues would pay for new costs incurred by the city to extend fire, police and street services to the new subdivision.
While Huffman made it clear that no firm timeline was in place, he said it would be possible to sell the single-family lots by the end of the year if the council gave the green light to the project. Overall, he said, the project would have four phases and possibly take eight years to complete.
In October, he said Sun Valley Co. will sell lots for development as homes, while it would build the multi-family units.
Hofman said there will be a public hearing, likely in February, in which the council will begin its deliberations on the issue.
