Park City developing management plan for Bonanza Flat
Apr 2, 2018, 6:57 PM | Updated: Apr 3, 2018, 12:27 am
PARK CITY — The Park City city council is getting closer to developing its management plan for the Bonanza Flat area.
The city purchased the 1,350 acres near Guardsman Pass in 2017. People had used the land for recreation for years, though it was privately owned. When word spread of plans to develop the area, several organizations, private citizens, and the city came together to raise millions of dollars to buy the land. Now, the city council is figuring out how best to manage it.
“How do we manage it for public use without loving it to death or destroying the very reason we protected it in the first place?” asked Wendy Fisher, executive director of Utah Public Lands.
Utah Public Lands has been doing research on the area for the past few months and presented recommendations to the city about how they think the land should be managed.
“It’s in a transition and that’s the question that we’re really asking ourselves, ‘How do we become the best stewards of this particular piece of property?,'” she said.
Utah Public Lands has suggested creating several zones for different levels of use, recommended restricting dogs to certain areas to protect the watershed, and prohibit motorized recreation vehicles like snowmobiles.
“We’re looking at the next hundred years. This is a forever proposition,” she said.
Park City held an open house Monday afternoon to show the recommendations to the public and to get feedback.
“It’s got to be one of the most magnificent places in Utah,” said Mark Fischer.
Fischer lives in Brighton Estates on the land adjacent to Bonanza Flat. To get to his cabin during the winter months, Fischer has to park his car in a lot along Guardsman Pass Road, then ride a snowmobile along a defined route the rest of the way.
“This is a critical artery that cannot be taken away, or people won’t be able to safely get home at night,” Fischer said.
Fischer said he agrees with the recommendations Utah Open Lands made, as long as they allow snowmobile corridors for residents to get to their homes.
“We agree there should be no hunting. There should be no recreational snowmobiling, except on defined corridors that allow people that own property up here to safely get home at night,” he said.
“We have to find a solution and I’m confident we will.”
Wendy Fisher said her organization is not opposed to the idea of snowmobile corridors for residents and they are still gathering information.
The city plans to start taking more steps toward their management plan in May. In the meantime, residents can give their feedback in a survey at https://utahopenlands.org/save-bonanza-flats/.
