Michael Black oversees a number of departments within the city
Michael Black started in his position as the city of Moab’s community development director in August. His position oversees all community development efforts within the city: he works with the sustainability, housing, planning, engineering, building, and communications departments, ensuring that departments are working together and also working toward the city’s strategic plan.
Black has a master’s degree in urban planning from the University of Utah, and has worked as a director of parks and community development in Grants Pass, Oregon, and as a community development director for Cottonwood Heights near Salt Lake City.
The Moab Sun News chatted with Black about the new position and what he hopes to achieve.
Moab Sun News: What does your day to day look like?
Black: There are always multiple projects going on: right now, there are a lot of talks about housing and Walnut Lane. It’s a very active project that we’re working on and discussing with the city council.
There are a lot of grants in the works too—grant funds have multiplied city funds by about 500% [Editor’s note: The city currently has 10 grant projects in the works; the total award amount is $19 million, the total match amount is $3.6 million.] There’s quite a bit of money coming in, and it’s going towards projects like the downtown dispersed parking.
I coordinate a lot with the county and with their economic development advisory board, which I sit on: we’re working to identify projects that will improve the economic diversity of Moab and Grand County.
We’re also looking at a full code update of the zoning chapter of the Moab Municipal Code. Zoning ordinances aren’t going to change substantially, but we’re trying to organize them better, to make sure we’re complying with state codes and we’re consistent throughout the chapter. The way zones are put together, a lot of the time they’re put together one at a time based on a need at the time, so they might conflict with other sections.
MSN: What are your goals in this position?
Black: ore than a decade ago, I took a new job, and one of the elected officials asked me, what are your goals? And I thought, well, that’s an odd question to ask, because I want to serve the public. My goals are whatever the community’s goals are.
So my goals in this community would be to help further the city’s strategic plan. A lot of that work will have to do with housing. It’s very clear that the city has been proactive, and reactive in some situations, in looking at affordable and active employee housing. I want to help the community find solutions for housing needs. I put it that way because that’s really what I do, is help facilitate solutions: I don’t have all the answers, but I do have the ability to help plan and go through processes where hopefully we can find the answers that are correct for Moab.
MSN: What are your perceived challenges?
Black: Housing is a big one. That’s probably what I get asked about the most when I tell people about what I’m doing here—they go directly to, ‘Are you going to do something about housing?’
To answer that question directly, probably not. But we might do something about the housing, we might be able to work together and find solutions that we can put into city codes and policies. And with Walnut Lane, we have the opportunity to help develop housing. We’re looking forward to moving that hopefully to the next stages, which will include continued negotiations with the developer.
I want to make it clear that we’re not ready to start building anything at Walnut Lane—it’s a long-term project, and we’re definitely doing our homework, making sure we’re heading down the right path to meet the goals that our community has for housing.
MSN: Is there anything else you want to add?
Black: I think the thing I want to get across is that I’m here to help the community develop in the way it envisions. I think the city council has a pretty good grasp on that: they’re elected to represent the public, and they’ve been doing strategic planning, and I know I’ll be involved in strategic planning in the coming year as we get ready to budget again.
I look forward to a lot of the projects we’ll be working on with the community—we’ll be talking about the downtown, housing, employment, potential zoning update, the general plan update, lots of different things. I want to help the community identify its vision, then help implement it.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
