Housing in the resort town is getting more expensive, and lucrative short-term rentals are leaving few options for traditional renters.
Housing and rental prices have been forcing out longtime locals and the full-time workers who staff the resort town’s schools, hospitals, bars, restaurants, shops and ski slopes for years. But the problem is only worsening, according to a 2023 report discussed at aSince 2000, the percentage of owner-occupied residences has decreased by 7 percentage points — as median home values skyrocketed from just over $400,000 to $1.5 million, the report states.
Frequent commuters know the ebb and flow of traffic — a relatively smooth drive on Interstate 80 until the Park City exit at Kimball Junction. Then cars crawl along the two southbound lanes until traffic clears a bit past the entrance to Park City Mountain Resort’s Canyons Base Area. At the end of the workday, vehicles clog roads traveling the opposite direction.
But when she got older, finished graduate school and became a teacher herself, that wasn’t the case. Most of her coworkers, McKenna said, were commuting long distances or paying high rents. McKenna herself worked multiple jobs — driving a taxi, serving or bartending — to afford rent. “When I was able to buy an affordable home, I felt a sense of security, and a sense of belonging, in the community that I grew up in,” McKenna said. She left her teaching job to become a housing advocate to help others find homes.
A parking sign indicates the need for a residential parking permit near affordable housing in Park City on Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024. would require thousands of workers, and that addressing the seasonal-worker housing question was “critical.”