If Town of Brighton officials are going to be expected to navigate the issue of whether to permit Solitude Mountain Resort’s proposal to build a controversial parking lot across the highway from the ski area, they’re going to need a map.
And if they do eventually approve the 593-space lot in what is currently an aspen grove, they might need an exit route.
The Brighton Planning Commission met this week to consider recommending the city make zoning changes that would restrict a ski area’s development to within a resort’s approved boundaries. By the end of Wednesday’s meeting, two things became clear: 1. The amendment enjoys strong and vocal public support, and, 2. No one knows where those boundaries lie.
“It all collapses down to the definition of the resort boundaries,” said commissioner John Carpenter, who joined the discussion but recused himself from voting on the issue because of a familial conflict. “And it doesn’t sound like it’s as simple as the land that Solitude owns or Brighton owns or leases. I think, unfortunately, that’s going to be a heavy lift [to compile those maps], and I’m not sure there’s any way around it at this point.”
After taking into account the more than 120 letters the commissioners said they received, as well as input from some of the 50 or so people who attended the meeting in person or online (Brighton’s population is less than 400), the commissioners unanimously voted to recommend the change. However, they agreed they won’t forward that support onto the town council until after city planners create current and accurate maps that meet the commission’s approval.
The commission ordered the maps drawn with input from the Forest Service and the two Big Cottonwood Canyon resorts, Brighton and Solitude, in time for its next meeting on Oct. 15.
(Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune)
“I think that’s the necessary first step,” said commissioner Donna Conway, who pushed for the group to hash out the boundaries during Wednesday’s meeting. “The council and the resorts and the forest service should agree upon a map.”
The shape of that map will determine if Solitude will be able to build its proposed parking lot within the next couple of seasons. If the 12.58-acre parcel between Old Stage Road and the Forest Glen neighborhood is included in the ski area’s boundaries, Solitude could immediately request a conditional use permit for the lot. If it is excluded, the resort would have to petition the city council to expand the boundary to include that area.
Solitude is seeking the lot as an alternative to roadside parking, a resort representative told The Salt Lake Tribune in May. It is one of the ski area’s few options since a 2002 Forest Service ruling prevents resorts from adding parking on federal land. However, opponents say the lot will just add to the winter congestion already plaguing the canyon, and likely snarl traffic even further with its placement across the highway from the resort.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Solitude Mountain Resort has requested a conditional use permit to build a 593-space parking lot in an aspen grove across SR-190 from the ski area's main village, pictured Tuesday, May 7, 2025.. The planned area, above center, has critics saying the lot will damage Salt Lake City's watershed, further snarl traffic in the canyon and be a visual blight.
Amber Broadaway, Solitude’s general manager, said that with the potential zoning amendment and the new maps, the resorts have more at stake in the proposal than just a parking lot.
“What we’re talking about here, regardless of the parking proposal, is going to have legacy impacts on the two most important economic drivers of this community,” she said Wednesday. “Let’s get it right and try to get as much agreement as possible before we have something in place that could have those unintended consequences.”
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Solitude Mountain Resort has requested a conditional use permit to build a 593-space parking lot in an aspen grove across SR-190 from the ski area's main village, pictured Tuesday, May 7, 2025.. The planned area, center left, has critics saying the lot will damage Salt Lake City's watershed, further snarl traffic in the canyon and be a visual blight.
No representative from Brighton Resort spoke at the meeting.
The confusion over the maps is a remnant of Brighton’s sometimes clunky transition to an incorporated city. Since separating itself from Salt Lake County in 2020, town governors have had to manage incongruities in legal terminology — the commission also defined “Ski Resort Facilities” on Wednesday — and the fallout from hand-me-down land policies.
If it wasn’t already, the need for new maps became painfully clear when a member of the planning department presented no fewer than three different renditions of the boundary lines for both the Solitude and Brighton ski areas. He then told the commissioners he could not recommend they use any of them because all but one were old and outdated.
The sole outlier was a map recently proposed by Solitude representatives. Roughly drawn in red marker, the boundary encircles the entire current footprint of the Alterra Mountain Company-owned resort, including some private parcels. It also stretches across Big Cottonwood Canyon Road to encompass the wooded area where the resort hopes to build a parking lot and the Salt Lake City-owned parcel situated between the proposed lot and Old Stage Road.
“To endorse the maps that I have on file, the last approved maps, is to endorse an outdated map,” said Curtis Woodward, a senior planner for the Town of Brighton. “But I don’t want to, as a staff member, try and choose which of the more recent maps I’m comfortable with. That’s beyond my expertise level.”
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) New Solitude Mountain Resort President/CEO Amber Broadaway greets skiers and snowboarders lined up for opening day of the winter season on Tuesday, Nov. 23, 2021.
Broadaway explained that Solitude officials had hoped to have more of a back-and-forth discussion with planning department staff about the boundary lines before Wednesday’s meeting. She did express appreciation for being consulted, however, unlike when the commission first discussed the ordinance recommendation in July. She said during public comment of that meeting that she hadn’t known that anything affecting her resort would be on the table until the agenda was posted a couple days beforehand.
“We feel this matter is being rushed,” she said in July. “And, quite frankly, at Solitude I feel that this is potentially a retaliatory measure in relation to our parking proposal.”
(Town of Brighton Planning Commission) The area in red shows Solitude Mountain Resort's boundaries as proposed by the ski area's representatives as of Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025. The Town of Brighton's planning department requested the resort's input as it worked to define all ski area boundaries within the town (the yellow line). The area outlined in red on the right is the wooded lot where the resort wants to build a 593-space parking garage.
Opponents to the parking lot have been outspoken, as they were Wednesday night.
“Just like adding more lanes to existing highways never solves traffic problems in the long term, so will clear-cutting a healthy forest for a new massive ski area parking lot not solve [Big Cottonwood Canyon]’s traffic problems in the long run,” Wasatch Backcountry Alliance President Aaron London of Salt Lake City wrote in a letter to the commission. “Protect what we have left in BCC before it’s too late.”