Speaker 14: Hey, Jerry, can you hear us?
Speaker 16: You’re muted. How about now?
Jerry Klaes: I can hear perfectly.
Jerry Klaes: All right, thanks. I’ll go back on mute.
Speaker 14: Thanks for the help earlier today, Dana.
Jerry Klaes: Appreciate it.
Speaker 14: My pleasure.
Speaker 14: Sorry that it was kind of a cluster, but hopefully it worked out.
Speaker 14: Yeah, it worked out okay.
Speaker 14: I mean, like I said, it’s recording now.
Speaker 14:
Speaker 14:
Speaker 14:
Speaker 14:
Speaker 14:
Speaker 14:
Speaker 18: Cool. I’m gonna go check the YouTube, I’ll let you know if it’s a problem.
Speaker 16: It’s a problem.
Mary Hofhine: Well, the waiting was in a weird spot.
Sean Yates: We have folks joining online here, as well as in person.
Mary Hofhine: Have you, did you turn it on?
Mary Hofhine: Because Dana was gonna go check to make sure YouTube was working. Can everybody hear us? Can everybody hear us?
Mary Hofhine: But it’s not on mute. Jerry’s mute is on. Can you turn it off mute?
Mary Hofhine: Oh, I know what this is. I think it’s on, because it’s green now.
Sean Yates: Yeah, they gave us the thumbs up. Jerry gave us the thumbs up. I can hear perfectly.
Mary Hofhine: Okay, then we can hear you. It’s a great day for life planning.
Jerry Klaes: Yeah, I had it muted on my side.
Mary Hofhine: Oh, is there anybody else in the room? Barry, can you hear us? Can you talk?
Speaker 20: Yes, I can hear you.
Mary Hofhine: Oh, I can hear you.
Speaker 16: Tell me if it’s working. It’s working great. It’s really so good.
Mary Hofhine: He told, let’s mute somebody. And then you go, oh, yeah.
Speaker 16: That’s good.
Speaker 11: So, I’ll go.
Mary Hofhine: All right, I’m gonna call this meeting as ordered. 4.30, exactly.
Mary Hofhine: And do we have any citizens to be heard? Do we have ex parte communications and disclosures?
Mary Hofhine: My last, I don’t have her anymore. Did we get minutes from last time?
Mary Hofhine: I didn’t see any minutes.
Mary Hofhine: I think we’re missing the previous meeting.
Jerry Klaes: I think we’re two minutes, or two meetings behind at this point. I don’t think we did in the last one.
Mary Hofhine: Okay, I’m ready for presentations.
Speaker 9: Judy, can we start in?
Speaker 9: Okay, so.
Mary Hofhine: Do you want it, Michelle? Can you put it on mute again? I bet you can’t hear me.
Mary Hofhine: Oh, okay. Okay. Okay.
Mary Hofhine: I know, I’m gonna go behind that. Sorry.
Andrew Jackson: So, there are two things, maybe, on this first one.
Andrew Jackson: One is the landscape, draft landscape ordinance, which is needed in order to have different property owners in the community be able to have a solid buyback program, which is what’s included in the agenda packet.
Andrew Jackson: There’s also, I started, I started the ground water preservation.
Andrew Jackson: It sent that out, and I don’t think it got out to anybody yet.
Andrew Jackson: So, I did that with draft.
Andrew Jackson: Oh, a lot further.
Andrew Jackson: Some draft stuff on there that I think we can talk about under this public information without it being legitimized, because we’re not taking any action.
Andrew Jackson: This is a revision item.
Andrew Jackson: But I would need to have this to be put up on the screen.
Andrew Jackson: But we’ll just go to, in the meantime, we’ll just go to the water use and preservation.
Andrew Jackson: It’s actually, no, it’s just the landscape, the amendments to the landscape ordinance.
Andrew Jackson: And it’s only dealing with this section that’s identified on the second page of that.
Andrew Jackson: It’s under E, water conservation.
Andrew Jackson: And these are just four things that the state Department of Water Resources has requested that communities enact into their landscaping ordinance for the solid buyback program for people to be eligible for the solid buyback program.
Andrew Jackson: One of the big things for the state is this number four there that deals with new commercial, industrial, and institutional multi-family developments, reducing the amount of landscaping that’s permitted there.
Andrew Jackson: So, it’s basically the same ordinance that you have now, which is these four items listed in E, and then we’re re-numbering after, we’re re-lettering after E, to bring it just into consistency with the existing code.
Andrew Jackson: And this is, I think this is at least my third time that this has been brought before me.
Andrew Jackson: It was here a couple of weeks ago.
Andrew Jackson: And I think this may, should have been put on maybe as a public hearing, but maybe didn’t meet that deadline.
Andrew Jackson: But I know it was here a couple of weeks ago.
Andrew Jackson: We talked about it.
Andrew Jackson: I think everybody wrote a paper on it.
Andrew Jackson: So, I don’t know if you have any questions on that, or if, I think it has to go to probably as a public hearing here.
Andrew Jackson: So, we’ll have to just post that.
Mary Hofhine: I was just wondering if all of the plants that are currently in our land use code are still considered water-wise.
Andrew Jackson: I don’t know that. And we’ll get into that more when we get into more in-depth landscape ordinance.
Andrew Jackson: And I know some of the planning commissioners had some questions on a few other things that are in here, such as requiring the landscaping to be here before you can release, or before you can get a certificate of occupancy, that we talked about last time.
Andrew Jackson: All those things will be changed when we do the full adoption of the new landscape ordinance.
Andrew Jackson: So, this is just putting in those four things.
Andrew Jackson: That’s all that’s underlined there.
Mary Hofhine: There’s a section on this ordinance currently, and you left it in, that we can, depending on time of the year, the landscaping can go in once it’s five years of the land.
Mary Hofhine: So, I don’t know if that’s important to you.
Mary Hofhine: It’s in there.
Andrew Jackson: Yeah, it’s currently in there. So, we’re not touching any of that. We’re just touching section E.
Andrew Jackson: That section on buyback. Yeah. Water conservation will be eligible for the buyback program.
Brian Martinez: I have a question. What’s the time constraint to have a public hearing, for example?
Andrew Jackson: It’ll be two weeks, but that’s going to take us, I think it’s going to be a three week.
Sean Yates: Dana just mentioned like it’s 10 days prior to the meeting that we have to give notice for a public hearing. Got it. So, 10 days prior to the 13th, October 13th meeting, we’ll need to be posted.
Mary Hofhine: And then a public hearing. Yeah. And the same.
Speaker 12: And probably should just get back.
Andrew Jackson: So, the commission hasn’t already posted 10 days prior to. So, wait for it.
Speaker 12: Just because our last meeting, the planning commission approved this.
Brian Martinez: I thought, yeah. Cause I thought. It was hard.
Brian Martinez: Yeah. Yeah.
Brian Martinez: Yeah. It’s my understanding that this was supposed to go on for a public hearing.
Speaker 12: Yeah. I think that’s what it was supposed to be, but I’m not sure that.
Speaker 12: got posted. All things got posted.
Jerry Klaes: Hey, hey, Mary.
Mary Hofhine: Hey, Mary.
Jerry Klaes: Just one other comment about, yeah, just one other comment about that section of the code. I sent in, I don’t know, probably a half a dozen comments about it.
Jerry Klaes: One of them Andrew touched on, which was for residential requiring that landscaping be in before you get a CO. That’s in code today.
Jerry Klaes: It’s not being followed.
Jerry Klaes: And I’d like to see those updates made too.
Jerry Klaes: But in our discussion in the last meeting, I said I was okay with holding off on those changes until we do the major land use code updates, just so we can get these things in so people can get state refunds.
Andrew Jackson: And I haven’t seen those, Jerry. Your comments, I haven’t seen those.
Andrew Jackson: Just what you brought up at the last meeting. So I’ll try and make sure that we can connect so that I can get those.
Jerry Klaes: And I think I’ll forward them on to you, Andrew. I think at this point though, it’s kind of a mute point because I don’t know that anybody’s objecting to moving ahead with just support.
Jerry Klaes: I guess that’s really what we ought to discuss today.
Mary Hofhine: Anybody else have anything to say?
Jerry Klaes: So Mary, do we actually have to have a motion to proceed with a hearing on this at the next meeting?
Mary Hofhine: It needs to have a public hearing and we’re not the public hearing stage right now.
Jerry Klaes: Okay. So then I guess, are we going to have the minutes reflect that we’re going to move this on to a public hearing in the next meeting?
Andrew Jackson: Yes. Yes.
Andrew Jackson: And I think there was some confusion because I had some PowerPoints on the water preservation element of the general plan. And I think maybe there was some confusion about this and that getting put into place, but I do have a very brief information item only on kind of where we’re going with that.
Andrew Jackson: I’m not sure how to get it onto the projector.
Andrew Jackson: I can email it to somebody or you should have gotten it on Friday.
Andrew Jackson: I should have sent that to you on Friday.
Sean Yates: You did post this from Civic Plus as an attachment. Although if I try to minimize this window here, I’m not able to.
Andrew Jackson: Yeah, I don’t think it’s in Civic Plus.
Sean Yates: We’ve got the ordinance in there, but I don’t think the PowerPoint was in there, Andrew.
Sean Yates:
Jerry Klaes: I downloaded it over a week ago. It just disappeared today for whatever reason.
Andrew Jackson: Okay. So there was a PowerPoint on Friday that I sent just to Sean, I think David, dealing with water preservation.
Andrew Jackson: Yeah.
Andrew Jackson: It came late on Friday and I don’t know if that got forwarded over.
Andrew Jackson: So it would have been like at 4.56 on Friday.
Mary Hofhine: They were having some problems with the computer.
Jerry Klaes: Is that the para-urban interface?
Andrew Jackson: That’s the next one, but it’s like, I don’t know if we can.
Sean Yates: We may be able to add an account here.
Andrew Jackson: Can you look up to your email there?
Sean Yates: We’ve said, yeah, we’ll do this.
Mary Hofhine: So now it won’t even, it won’t even download it here.
Mary Hofhine: But I saw earlier, it’s on my computer earlier.
Sean Yates: You can do that here and see.
Mary Hofhine: Hey, Sean, could you be able to turn up that volume?
Sean Yates: Yeah, I should be able to do that.
Speaker 18: Yeah, I can try to hop on the Zoom.
Sean Yates: So this would be, this was last week, right?
Andrew Jackson: Yeah, it was later on Friday. This is a backup material.
Sean Yates: I can include quite a few of these.
Speaker 9: So it would have been like at 4 something, 4.56, I think.
Sean Yates: That was September 19. Is this the PowerPoint I’m talking about?
Sean Yates: Okay, yeah, that’s the PDF of it.
Andrew Jackson: Yeah, so I don’t know if you can pull that up. Can you pull that up?
Sean Yates: It’s the PDF. Will that be sufficient?
Andrew Jackson: That’s fine, yeah, as long as people can see it.
Andrew Jackson: Yeah, I don’t know if you can expand that so it’s a little bigger to see. And I don’t know if people online can see it.
Sean Yates: I don’t think people online can see it. Unless I share my screen. Well, yeah.
Andrew Jackson: So I can just talk briefly about this. It’s just a discussion item.
Andrew Jackson: And I’ll follow up with getting this out to everybody. But I know we’re under the gun for the water preservation element.
Andrew Jackson: And we’ve been working on that. And I know there’s been some things moving and in place.
Andrew Jackson: But I just wanted to go ahead and move forward with some of the data portion of this. It hasn’t gone out to the various water groups or anything like that.
Andrew Jackson: This is just, I wanted to just give you an idea of what we’re kind of looking at. And if you could go to the next one.
Andrew Jackson: So it’s just what’s SB 110. You have to have a water preservation element in your general plan by the end of this year.
Andrew Jackson: You have to address the impact of new development on the demand of your water infrastructure. Strategies that you can reduce current demand and demand for with future development, waste water, waste reduction practices, and then an approach to linking water availability and development approval.
Andrew Jackson: So making sure that you’re not going out just approving a whole bunch of developments without any water. If you can go to the next thing.
Andrew Jackson: And so what the state has done is the state’s developed back a couple years ago different regions, water regions. And so we have just the upper Colorado.
Andrew Jackson: Yeah. And it includes Carbon, Emery, Grand, and San Juan.
Andrew Jackson: And I know that folks with Moab City as well as Dana had submitted comments when they did this original plan. It said, look, we have a tourist economy in Grand County.
Andrew Jackson: So it’s a different demand on water resources than you would have in some of these rural areas without that. Because in some instances, you’ve got to provide water for three times your population.
Andrew Jackson: But this is what we had to deal with. So this is what they did.
Andrew Jackson: And they continued on even though there were recommendations to do something differently.
Andrew Jackson: Let me go to the next one.
Andrew Jackson: And so this is also out of the state’s water conservation plan.
Andrew Jackson: It identifies a baseline for the gallons per day per capita.
Andrew Jackson: Okay.
Andrew Jackson: So you’ve got gallons per, gallons per capita per day.
Andrew Jackson: And you can see what the baseline was in 2015.
Andrew Jackson: If you go down, there’s 333 gallons per day per capita.
Andrew Jackson: And then as we move on to future projections of 2030, 2040, and 2065, I will have a reduction in that into the future.
Andrew Jackson: If you want to go to the next slide.
Andrew Jackson: That’s the slide here.
Andrew Jackson: Yep.
Andrew Jackson: So we’re going from the 333 to the 248 over time per capita.
Speaker 19: So we want to reduce our usage from 333 to 248.
Andrew Jackson: Yep. Yeah, that’s the goal that the state has set for this area.
Andrew Jackson: 25% reduction.
Andrew Jackson: And then this is population projections from the Kempsey Gardner Institute.
Andrew Jackson: It shows population projections for Grand County in a low, mid, and high.
Andrew Jackson: And you can see that in some instances, there’s a dip between 2020, 2025, 2030 in low projections.
Andrew Jackson: And then you’ll see an increase in the high, but you can see they’re projecting a little bit of a down dip in population into the near future, and then it’ll pick up.
Andrew Jackson: But it’s not going to grow as fast as the state as a whole, just because you’ve got limited resources, limited private land to grow on.
Andrew Jackson: Then you go to the next one.
Andrew Jackson: And so this is just showing what we have if you maintain at that 333 gallons per day, just a straight line, of course.
Andrew Jackson: But then what we’re looking at doing with a reduction in the gallons per day per capita, it really doesn’t tell you much other than you can see there’s going to be some drop there, and it’s not a huge percentage drop.
Andrew Jackson: But then the next one, we match it up to the actual population if you want to go to the next page.
Andrew Jackson: And so this shows what the future is.
Andrew Jackson: The blue line is a future without any conservation.
Andrew Jackson: And then that orange line shows future usage with conservation, with preservation, reducing the demand on the system, etc.
Andrew Jackson: And so you can see that we’re just increasing a little bit above and beyond what we currently have.
Andrew Jackson: There’s still going to be some increase because everybody doesn’t have half-acre lots that are all in turf here.
Andrew Jackson: So there’s the…
Andrew Jackson: I’m trying to think what they call it, but there’s a reduction ceiling.
Andrew Jackson: So some places you can reduce a whole bunch because they’re using a whole bunch, but other places you already have…
Andrew Jackson: you realize there’s limited resources here, so you’re not going to be able to reduce as a percentage as much as other areas throughout the state.
Mary Hofhine: There’s residential schools added to that too, but we don’t have a lot of those.
Andrew Jackson: Well, so it’s… tourism is not included in it.
Andrew Jackson: This is just residential, and then there’s also municipal and industrial. So commercial, industrial, and residential.
Andrew Jackson: So that would be captured in there. I don’t know how people are here with their pools, but when you put the water in and then if you cover it, you don’t see as much evaporation.
Andrew Jackson: And so there’s less that you have to fill in there. There’s still some if it’s leaks and things, but this doesn’t cover any agriculture.
Andrew Jackson: If I could just make a statement statewide, and this is… you can find this in the Tribune.
Andrew Jackson: So residential or municipal and industrial M&I water usage is about 15 percent of all water usage in the state of Utah. The remainder is in agriculture.
Andrew Jackson: And I love farmers and my family farmed in Illinois for about 150 years. Most of the water in state is agriculture, and you can find this in the Tribune.
Andrew Jackson: Most of that water is used for alfalfa.
Andrew Jackson: We’ll continue to find this in the Tribune that three quarters of that alfalfa is shipped to Chardon.
Andrew Jackson: So I’ll just leave it there.
Andrew Jackson: You can read those articles and things.
Andrew Jackson: But we are, as a state, we’re trying to get…
Andrew Jackson: we’re trying to make a big difference with 15 percent of the water usage.
Andrew Jackson: And it may be something that some folks in the future may want to look at other ways to reduce that.
Andrew Jackson: But all we are charged with with this section of state code is to look at the municipal and industrial portion of that, which represents about 15 percent of the entire usage.
Andrew Jackson: And it just talks about the next steps that we’re working on.
Andrew Jackson: We’re working on that.
Andrew Jackson: So anyway, just an information item, just to let you know that we’re working on that.
Andrew Jackson: We’re getting these things pushed forward.
Andrew Jackson: It’s something like that that we’ll be working with as we move forward to meet with the water districts.
Andrew Jackson: We’re going to meet with each of the water districts here?
Andrew Jackson: Yeah, we’ll meet with the department.
Andrew Jackson: But I just want to kind of give you, everybody here, an idea of what we’re looking at with future population, demand reduction, and also knowing that there’s only a certain amount that you can really reduce.
Andrew Jackson: Yep, exactly.
Andrew Jackson: People still have to use some water, still going to be drinking water, things like that.
Aaron Lindberg: I got just a question for you.
Andrew Jackson: Sure.
Aaron Lindberg: So, you know, I don’t know. Are you looking…
Aaron Lindberg: are you just presenting this? Are you wanting any feedback on this?
Andrew Jackson: Yeah, it’s not listed as a discussion item. Oh, okay.
Andrew Jackson: So we’re just doing it as information, and then we can bring it back at the next meeting as an actual discussion item. I’m sure I can answer questions and things like that you may have, but it’s not for anything other than just information of here’s the work that we’ve been doing and where we’re going into the future.
Andrew Jackson: And let us know if we’re going in the wrong direction, but we’ll be making an actual presentation for comment at the next Planning Commission meeting.
Andrew Jackson: Gotcha.
Andrew Jackson: And I’ll just make sure that everybody gets this presentation in case you didn’t have it.
Andrew Jackson: And then I’m good to go over to the urban, if you like.
Speaker 17: Okay, I’ll see if I can pull that one up as well. We have a PDF on that as well.
Speaker 13: Yeah, I think it was actually, it’s included in the agenda packet.
Speaker 15: So this one should just be in the agenda packet that you sent out.
Speaker 17: Okay, do you want it up on the screen?
Andrew Jackson: Yeah, yeah. And I can just see the PDF or PowerPoint either way. I can just present from there.
Mary Hofhine: If you want to use my copy, I can look up a few things.
Andrew Jackson: I’m good with it.
Jerry Klaes: Andrew, are we going on to slide nine now?
Andrew Jackson: We’re going on to the para-urban.
Jerry Klaes: Is that about slide nine in the handout then? Aaron, in case you have that.
Speaker 13: Yeah, yes.
Speaker 13: Okay, yeah, if you want to just expand that a little bit.
Speaker 13:
Andrew Jackson: Okay, so I know that one of the things that we’ve been talking about is ag protection.
Andrew Jackson: In order to be able to understand ag protection and what we’re talking about with ag protection, we have to come up with or identify some different terms.
Andrew Jackson: Who here remembers the Beverly Hillilies?
Trish Hedin: I said it every day.
Andrew Jackson: And what did Bailey call the pool?
Speaker 16: Cement pond.
Andrew Jackson: What’s the problem there?
Andrew Jackson: There’s a difference between cement and concrete.
Andrew Jackson: So cement, the concrete is the same as flour is the cake.
Andrew Jackson: So you can’t have a cement pond the same as you can’t just have a cake that’s only flour, it’s got to have other things in it.
Andrew Jackson: So we just want to make sure that we’re using the right terms.
Andrew Jackson: People use cement and concrete interchangeably, but sometimes we have to define those out that they are different.
Andrew Jackson: And so one of the things that we’ve looked at with this is with the urban and rural and the rural agricultural would identify that what’s called a para-urban interface.
Andrew Jackson: And if you can go into the next slide, and there’s some definitions about urban that was good with the downtown core area.
Andrew Jackson: Suburban is the residential with maybe some offices, etc.
Andrew Jackson: And then you’ve got the para-urban, which is mostly low-density residential with some what’s called truck farming.
Andrew Jackson: But it’s not like you put vegetables in the truck.
Andrew Jackson: It’s from the French word truc farming, which means you put vegetables in a truck.
Andrew Jackson: And think of the market, either you’re selling them at the farmer’s market, you’re selling them to local restaurants or local grocery stores, etc.
Andrew Jackson: That you’re selling these out.
Andrew Jackson: So they’re not made to be shipped across the country.
Andrew Jackson: It’s just used locally.
Andrew Jackson: And then we’ve got ex-urban development, which is very low density.
Andrew Jackson: And there’s no, in the community, there’d be no residential, no commercial uses, no industrial uses.
Andrew Jackson: It’s just residential and people leave every day to get their goods and services or work and then come back.
Andrew Jackson: And then rural, where there’s agriculture with some farm housing.
Andrew Jackson: So you may have some ranches or large farms associated with that.
Andrew Jackson: And then frontier in agriculture.
Andrew Jackson: And a lot of places in Utah, they talk about being on that frontier where you’ve got large acreages for grazing, etc.
Andrew Jackson: So I want to make sure when we’re doing the ag protection, we’re talking about ag protection.
Andrew Jackson: Are we talking about current urban and truck farms that we’re trying to protect from development?
Andrew Jackson: Or are we trying to protect large scale agriculture?
Andrew Jackson: And it’s fine either way.
Andrew Jackson: We just want to make sure when we talk about ag protection, we identify one or the other or both that we’re looking to protect.
Andrew Jackson: We’ll go to the next one.
Andrew Jackson: If you have some time, you should watch these YouTube.
Andrew Jackson: So this one, you can watch it about 15 minutes.
Andrew Jackson: And they have four or five of these that were done by, I think it’s Oregon State University that talks about how these farms and how they work with the local communities.
Andrew Jackson: You know, it’s gardening you do with a hoe, farming you do with a plow.
Andrew Jackson: But again, it’s still small scale, it’s organic.
Andrew Jackson: But you may have these things where you’ve got a pumpkin patch.
Andrew Jackson: So it’s not just a pumpkin patch, but the kids get to go out there and go through the corn maze and get some apple cider and all of that.
Andrew Jackson: And these small farms rely on some urban development, which could be the scale of Moab and Grand Canyon and Spanish Valley here.
Andrew Jackson: They rely on that because that’s where most of the product goes to.
Andrew Jackson: Like again, like I say, the farmer’s markets, the restaurants where they can do some organic produce for restaurants.
Andrew Jackson: So it’s really that close.
Andrew Jackson: They’re not shipping it across the country and going to the next one.
Andrew Jackson: But anyway, I put that one there, but there’s a whole series.
Andrew Jackson: And it’s just fascinating about that.
Andrew Jackson: And we’ve got challenges with this agricultural protection.
Andrew Jackson: It’s a worldwide concern and it’s an ancient concern.
Andrew Jackson: It’s been around for a long time.
Andrew Jackson: In Utah, 90% of the population lives on 1% of the land.
Andrew Jackson: And then the rest of the land is either in some type of federal or state holding or it’s large operation agriculture, whether they have rights being on there or if it’s actually their historically owned property.
Andrew Jackson: The issues that we also have, we’ve got chemical, chemicals that may run off, agricultural runoff, concerns where you have farmers that may have to work through the night in order to get their crops out before the dew gets on it.
Andrew Jackson: There’s also a nuisance, which is a nuisance is defined as anything that crosses someone’s property lines.
Andrew Jackson: So if I’m in my basement at my house and I’m blaring out the Hawaiian music, which is a real term, it’s a Hawaiian reggae music that I like to listen to.
Andrew Jackson: If I’m in my basement, nobody can hear it.
Andrew Jackson: It’s not a nuisance.
Andrew Jackson: If I go out and start cleaning out my car and I’ve got a blaring and my car is shaking and everybody in the neighborhood can hear it, it becomes a nuisance.
Andrew Jackson: So it’s crossed property lines.
Andrew Jackson: So you can have that where you may have, for instance, where a dry cleaner and a barbecue place goes in next door to the dry cleaner and all the clothes that come on the dry cleaner smell like Texas barbecue.
Andrew Jackson: So that could be a nuisance.
Andrew Jackson: And there’s attractive nuisance where you may have like a pond at a golf course or you’ve got an old barn that’s falling apart and early teen boys just love to climb around in there and maybe they’re going to get hurt or whatever.
Andrew Jackson: So it’s a nuisance, but it attracts people to it.
Andrew Jackson: And so sometimes you’ll have that also with farms where there’ll be some attractive nuisances with the agriculturalists being put in there.
Andrew Jackson: And then there’s greenbelt taxes and developed property tax.
Andrew Jackson: So the farming, if they have a size, a large enough property, they can be in greenbelt taxes or in very low taxation.
Andrew Jackson: But then once it’s developed, they have to go back five years and pay the back taxes as it’s been developed.
Andrew Jackson: Then to go on to the next slide.
Andrew Jackson: So challenges, like I said, farmer needs to harvest their crop quickly because it’s bad weather or whatever and they need to get out there and do things.
Andrew Jackson: Homeowner says it’s an issue because they’re kept awake by the noise or bites of the equipment.
Andrew Jackson: Farmer needs to prepare the land for planting, but that may cause dust to blow.
Andrew Jackson: New homeowners bring with them better roads, security, lighting, other improvements that may not be conducive to agricultural operations.
Andrew Jackson: Long-term residents dislike, so longer-term residents in the agricultural area dislike the faster traffic and car accidents, but then they also need to rely on the closeness to development in order to get their small-scale truck farming crops to market.
Andrew Jackson: And then this is what happened to my family.
Andrew Jackson: The farmer’s family doesn’t live near the farm.
Andrew Jackson: It has no desire for the farm, so sometimes there’s a, we need to keep this and preserve it as a farm.
Andrew Jackson: But in my family, for instance, it was about 50 years that nobody in the family actually farmed the property and nobody wanted to.
Andrew Jackson: They said to go through a few series before they could sell it off.
Andrew Jackson: Just because where it is, certainly in Illinois, there’s not really much else besides soybean and corn there.
Andrew Jackson: But oftentimes, the farmer may want to sell their property and we may try to protect their property from being sold, even though it’s not in the best interest of the farmer and their family.
Andrew Jackson: So, importance to environmental, stormwater, there’s heat islands, so that’s where you have development that occurs or because there’s so much paved surface that can increase the heat in the community because it’s reflecting off of the pavement.
Andrew Jackson: Groundwater recharge, and so you have water that flows through there.
Andrew Jackson: We talked a little bit about that and the amount of the percentage of the state water that goes to agriculture and some of that, of course, is in ditches.
Andrew Jackson: But that also works as needed to recharge the water system.
Andrew Jackson: And I don’t know if any of you ever get up to the Provo area, but they’re redoing the old Provo Temple up there above the MTC and you’ll see this big hole and things that are working on just in front of that temple area and people thought maybe that was part of the temple project.
Andrew Jackson: It’s not.
Andrew Jackson: It’s Provo City and they’re doing a recharge.
Andrew Jackson: So, they’re taking water that was coming down Rock Canyon and they’re recharging it back into the aquifer at that location.
Andrew Jackson: It just happened that both construction occurred about the same time, so people thought they’re connected.
Andrew Jackson: Need to be some fire breaks.
Andrew Jackson: Is it a holding zone?
Andrew Jackson: So, we’re doing agriculture there, but expecting that in the near future it may change to residential.
Andrew Jackson: Looking at the wildlife corridors and then one of the things that surprisingly, as a kid growing up in Illinois, you walked beans and you hoed the weeds that were there or you pulled the weeds out, etc., by hand and then they developed these soybeans that were actually tolerant to Roundup.
Andrew Jackson: So, you should spray the soybeans with Roundup and it wouldn’t affect the soybeans, at least that we know, but it would kill the weeds.
Andrew Jackson: Well, now because of the high demand for organic soybeans and non-GMO, that allows that higher price that those vegetables can sell for, the produce can sell for, actually allows it to go back to where you can start walking beans again in Illinois and Iowa.
Andrew Jackson: Economy selling at the wholesale market usually means that 10 to 20 percent of the retail price direct to consumers.
Andrew Jackson: So, if you’ve got a little stand on a farmer’s plot there and they’re selling tomatoes or whatever that’s grown on that, they actually get 100 percent.
Andrew Jackson: So, where they’re wholesaling it to someone else, they’re only getting about 10 or 20 percent of the retail price.
Andrew Jackson: But as a direct consumer, they can often charge 100 percent of that.
Andrew Jackson: Conventional farm may return somewhere between $120 and $1,200 per acre, and I think this is more like in the Northwest area that some of this information came from.
Andrew Jackson: An efficient market garden, so the truck farms, they can produce between $8,000 and $1,000 per acre, depending on what they’re selling, if it’s flowers or whatever produce that they’ve got there.
Andrew Jackson: Go to the next one.
Andrew Jackson: So, we work towards solutions so that we can maintain that farm if that’s what they want to do and what some of those issues are.
Andrew Jackson: And then go to the next one as well.
Andrew Jackson: The sub-conclusion, a lot of it has to be education and voluntary action.
Andrew Jackson: And sometimes people may or may not want to sell their land, and the neighbors may or may not want them to sell their land.
Andrew Jackson: But we have personal property rights, and so people have to be aware of the rights that individuals have.
Andrew Jackson: One of the things that probably came out of all this that we’ve looked at with agri-protection is the best way to do it is there’s going to be conflicts as farms get subdivided.
Andrew Jackson: There’s going to be conflicts with development occurring.
Andrew Jackson: And the thing is, they’ve had the most success in Nebraska and up in Washington and Oregon is to actually have a county extension officer who then mediates.
Andrew Jackson: So, you have some farmers, and you’ve got some people who are developing and listing and that thing, and the county extension officer becomes a mediator on that, and that’s when they’ve had the most success.
Andrew Jackson: And if you watch those videos, that’s what the end point of those videos are, that the farmers and developers all agreed that the best way to go is not just a cookie-cutter thing, but it’s really working with that county extension office on the case-by-case basis, but also providing tools for that protection.
Andrew Jackson: So, resident engagement and farmer engagement.
Andrew Jackson: So, I just wanted to say, you know, we want to make sure that we’re talking about large scale agriculture, not small scale.
Andrew Jackson:
Andrew Jackson:
Andrew Jackson:
Andrew Jackson:
Andrew Jackson:
Andrew Jackson:
Andrew Jackson:
Andrew Jackson:
Trish Hedin: Mary, do you mind if I come up for a second and just kind of, because I was the one who brought this forward a while ago. So, this came through the Conservation District.
Trish Hedin: Jay Olson, through UDAF, Utah Department of Ag and Food, came to speak to one, the SB, I can’t remember what it was, the water protection that has to go through, and he also spoke to this. And so, it’s called an Ag Protection Area.
Trish Hedin: This is a voluntary program that landowners can engage in, but in order for them to engage in, just like the landscape ordinance, there has to be an ordinance in place at a local level. So, the big things are, you know, what it can protect small or larger scale ag from are things like nuisance lawsuits, as you mentioned.
Trish Hedin: It gives some stability to zoning. It protects from things such as imminent domain, such things like that.
Trish Hedin: So, in order to do this, and I’ll send you, Jay did send me numerous ordinances from the state, so I’ll get those to you, and I’ll also send you this flyer that I carry around. But the big things, I think, for the Planning Commission are to look at things like minimum acreage, right?
Trish Hedin: And so, here, it might be smaller scale. If you think about something like EZB that does produce quite a bit of food for a very small, or for our community, they’re very small.
Trish Hedin: I think they’re just a couple of acres.
Trish Hedin: So, I think we want to look at acreage.
Trish Hedin: We want to make sure that they are agricultural producers, right?
Trish Hedin: So, we’ll have to make sure that that’s defined in code.
Trish Hedin: And then the zoning compatibility.
Trish Hedin: So, is it range and grazing, emerald residential?
Trish Hedin: Whatever you guys think is going to be deemed appropriate to get that through.
Trish Hedin: But it just allows, once we have the ordinance passed, it allows landowners that are interested in voluntarily becoming a part of this program to be a part of it.
Trish Hedin: So, it’s all voluntary.
Trish Hedin: Nobody’s forcing them into it.
Trish Hedin: We’re not solidifying ag protections, but they can opt into it, and it protects them into perpetuity.
Andrew Jackson: And some of the small-scale farmers may be on the urban fringe, and they may understand that in 10 years, they’re going to sell their property and then relocate just a little bit further out and be able to continue on.
Andrew Jackson: So, it’s not necessarily that they have to stay in that same spot forever.
Trish Hedin: So, I don’t think we have much to talk about today. I’ll make sure I get stuff to Andrew, and we have a working draft.
Andrew Jackson: I just want to make sure that everybody understood what we’re talking about, the parent urban, or are we talking about the large-scale ag protections?
Trish Hedin: Right, we do both. I mean, we do have larger-scale producers that are on the fringes, and both lives out on both sides of the pump that would apply to large and small-scale.
Andrew Jackson: And this is presented as an information item, but because it was on the agenda, I think it’s open to that there could be questions if people would like, if they have questions on things.
Andrew Jackson: I may not know all the answers, but if I don’t, then I’ll get them to you next time.
Andrew Jackson: But I think it was on the agenda properly that it could be discussed if you so chose.
Mary Hofhine: What’s that presentation? Is there anybody that wants to have a question? I think we’re bringing Beth back.
Speaker 15: Good. Especially if we get the relationship. Yeah.
Trish Hedin: Yeah. Get it drafted together.
Trish Hedin: Perfect. And then you guys can just add some parts out.
Sean Yates: Yeah, sounds good.
Mary Hofhine: All right. Is there anybody on Zoom on the flat? Is there anything to say about what we just listened to?
Mary Hofhine: I worked for Extension for a while, so I kind of observed a bit of all that. Okay.
Trish Hedin: So from our meeting on the 16th, and there was quite a bit, we had a public hearing of the major utility overlay that City of Moab came and did quite a long presentation. And we did have a couple citizens speak against that.
Trish Hedin: And there was a public hearing for the Novak Rezone, and there were just, I just wrote down my notes, there were 12 people that spoke against that. We had a CUP for Ride Moab Industries, and that passed unanimously.
Trish Hedin: We had a CUP for Randy’s Metal, and that passed 4-3 with Hadler, Hedin, and McGann in opposition.
Trish Hedin: I do want to make a, this is, I don’t think it’s an opinion.
Trish Hedin: I think it’s a fact.
Trish Hedin: This was a rezone, a unilateral rezone being an administrative process not allowed under Code 17-27A-506.
Trish Hedin: You cannot issue a CUP that are not allowed in that zone.
Trish Hedin: In our land use table, large lot residential, which that was, and extending land use, which was residential.
Trish Hedin: Under that 3.4.10, there is no C in that land use table under light industrial, which is what Randy’s Metals is.
Trish Hedin: So, that decision can be appealed.
Trish Hedin: Do you want to add anything to that, Mary?
Trish Hedin: Because you have quite a bit of knowledge of that, and I’m just kind of, I dove into it a little bit, but I don’t, you know.
Mary Hofhine: When I heard it on the agenda, I was very surprised. Right.
Mary Hofhine: Because in the past, for a lot of years, we had, and this is also on budget, we may not have gotten that far if we had had more input.
Trish Hedin: Right.
Mary Hofhine: I agree with that. And I saw where you were, the section, it wasn’t in the code. Right.
Mary Hofhine: When I saw it, I just panicked. I was like, all of a sudden, they can do it.
Trish Hedin: It’s not in the code.
Mary Hofhine: I was surprised it was on the agenda. It should have not even been put on.
Mary Hofhine: I think it should. Yeah.
Andrew Jackson: So, people have their day in court with a day before the Planning Commission or the County Commission. I think staff has to take that role of, look, this doesn’t fit in here.
Andrew Jackson: And even if it’s attempted as a home occupation, it would be an accessory use, but you have to have a primary use. And the primary use has to be the primary use, not a small portion that may or may not even be used for that as a home occupation.
Andrew Jackson: And so, as an accessory, that’s how it is.
Andrew Jackson: You can say that several times to them.
Andrew Jackson: If somebody pays their fee, they can move on.
Andrew Jackson: But I think it has to be made clear that it’s not a staff recommendation.
Trish Hedin: So, I’m learning a lot.
Mary Hofhine: And the little house that’s on the property, I don’t think he lives there.
Mary Hofhine: Right. His grandma’s or something. And something like that.
Mary Hofhine: Yeah. And in the past, they have more than two employees.
Speaker 20: Right.
Mary Hofhine: So, and it’s actually the building that they’re using. It’s not a permitted building. It’s never given a good.
Trish Hedin: Right. So, yeah.
Trish Hedin: And I guess for me, one thing that I pointed out during the County Commission that I’ve learned, I think there’s this misconception that CUPs kind of are applied to a business because I now have two CUPs on my little street that are businesses. But the reality is, it’s applied to the property.
Trish Hedin: And so, and it overlays that property and stays with that property. So, I think we just have to be very careful with CUPs.
Trish Hedin: And hopefully, within that land use code update, the Planning Commission will look with VRV at them and where they’re appropriate and where they’re not.
Trish Hedin: And hopefully, we can make appropriate decisions.
Trish Hedin: But this is a one-off because it should have never even been.
Andrew Jackson: And within a zone, you have bid uses, uses by right, you have sometimes uses that are listed as not permitted. However, that’s less in the U.S.
Andrew Jackson: and more in like Australia and New Zealand where you can do anything unless it’s prohibited. Okay.
Andrew Jackson: So, you have some uses that are not permitted.
Andrew Jackson: And then, you have uses that are permitted with conditions that make them compatible.
Andrew Jackson: So, you may have a church in the residential zone, churches in the residence, but with certain specific conditions on it, it may be able to deal with those conditions.
Trish Hedin: Okay. And then the last thing that I have is there was the rezone for the walking course and that passed unanimously, I believe. I couldn’t remember, Brian, but I thought it was unanimous.
Trish Hedin: Yeah. Okay. So, that’s what I have for the census.
Brian Martinez: And then, just to go back, there was actually a little bit more on that because under that use right there that Trish was just talking about, allowed is small-scale manufacturing, which is what the commission and the people who voted on the board believe that this use was. So, yeah.
Brian Martinez: Under that, it does apply for CD.
Brian Martinez: So, there is an interpretation that’s listed right here on findings of factors.
Trish Hedin: I couldn’t find small-scale manufacturing in the land use table when I looked at it. So, well, I’ll look again.
Mary Hofhine: But it would have been in the commercial zone.
Trish Hedin: Right. I couldn’t find it in, yeah.
Mary Hofhine: I expect to get it because it’s in the land industrial area. Right.
Mary Hofhine: And if you’ve got findings on that, send them over.
Brian Martinez: Yeah, it’s the findings of that right there.
Andrew Jackson: There were staff’s recommendation that was, I think, and I didn’t write the staff report, but I think it was for denial.
Andrew Jackson: But if it was approved, then these will be the conditions that are based upon the details and probably not forced for that staff report.
Mary Hofhine: I couldn’t find anything under that. I don’t think it should have ever been on the agenda.
Laura Long: Which documents are you looking at to find it?
Mary Hofhine: In the land use code, it’s section three.
Laura Long: Section three of the land use code?
Mary Hofhine: Yeah, there’s, yeah. Actually, there’s a couple of places that when you look up anything for any use, it’s not just one page. You have to go back and forth to the end.
Mary Hofhine: You’re aware of that. And it just never showed up. They were right to do it.
Andrew Jackson: That’s one of the things that I recommend to go back is some of the ordinances that have been approved in the last couple of years, but they haven’t been in the code.
Andrew Jackson: And so, yeah, we just need to move those forward so that we know that something, oh, well, I’ll have to adopt that.
Andrew Jackson: I don’t know if I’ll have the ability to adopt that.
Mary Hofhine: And it looks like there’s something, Andrew, that was just discretion, that the state was going to not allow conditional uses. Did I hear that?
Andrew Jackson: I didn’t hear that. There’s a lot, like I say, schools.
Andrew Jackson: Well, schools, if it’s a private school, but if it’s a public school, then the city of New York County doesn’t have any jurisdiction over them. But there’s a lot of things that are still, by conditions, they’re accepted.
Mary Hofhine: I just heard that somewhere, and I thought, oh, you have to adopt it.
Andrew Jackson: I hadn’t heard that.
Mary Hofhine: Did you say you had something to talk about, Brian?
Brian Martinez: No, that was it right there. I think Trish nailed them all.
Mary Hofhine: All right. We have no public hearings, right?
Mary Hofhine: Now we have discussion and consideration of the MFR. No, we don’t have any discussion for approval.
Mary Hofhine: It’s just discussion of the MFR 45.
Brian Martinez: So yeah, I mean, I can start off with that. You guys have questions to start.
Brian Martinez: I’d like, I thought you had discussed that we would have the workshop at this meeting, but there was a little bit of miscommunication. Anyways, I’ve been talking with the Utah Housing Corporation, and they’re willing to send a couple of folks over, or at least Zoom in, so that we can have a better discussion.
Brian Martinez: And I thought it might be better if we did that discussion when we have a full commission.
Andrew Jackson: I talked with the folks today from the Housing Trust here locally, and they’re willing to help as well.
Andrew Jackson: We’ve got some different programs that they have, the criminal program.
Brian Martinez: If you guys want to have some general discussions right now, that’s great. If not, you guys want to maybe schedule this for a workshop at the next meeting, or another meeting.
Brian Martinez: Just let me know so that I can let the Utah Housing Corporation know when they can come on.
Mary Hofhine: Actually, Sean should probably do that. That’s his job. So we need to have, and it would be a great idea to have that.
Sean Yates: So it’s been suggested that since this group here, the commissioners volunteer that that the workshop would work around your personal schedules.
Sean Yates: And I don’t know if you’d prefer to do that for the next meeting, or now, I’m not sure.
Sean Yates: That apparently works for this meeting for you all.
Mary Hofhine: I think the sooner we can schedule one, the better. And we’re still going to have to go through all of the motions once we do vote on something.
Mary Hofhine: So if we can have it for the next one, would that give you guys enough time to…
Andrew Jackson: So the 13th?
Andrew Jackson: I won’t be here on the 13th, but I can call you in. But the folks that you’ve got coming, local MOAB folks or state folks, it’ll be…
Andrew Jackson: And they’re going to be able to describe everything well with what they’ve worked with.
Mary Hofhine: And I agree, we need more people here so that everybody understands.
Speaker 15: There’ll be more people in the commission.
Mary Hofhine: And I just have, when I was going, when I saw this as a workshop, I used to… Hey, I used to be in the planning office, of course, everybody knows that. And when the application would come in, I would take this stuff and go through it.
Mary Hofhine: And without a good land use code, everything contradicts itself so bad. I have this many little tabs of all the contradictions on this. It’s not written well enough to be linked to public hearing.
Mary Hofhine: And I wanted to let it go, but because it needs more work, it doesn’t. [Sean Yates] (59:37 – 1:00:11) Yeah. So anyway.
Mary Hofhine: So Chris and I sat down with Gabe this past week to work through the budget. And Trish is there for the budget review board. There’s been $90,000 budget set aside, at least in the draft budget, $90,000 for a rewrite of this.
Mary Hofhine: That would include a couple of different public outreach meetings. And we feel, yeah, based on what Trish was saying, that $85,000 was budgeted here. So I feel that should be sufficient to…
Mary Hofhine: Are they going to go for an RFP? [Mary Hofhine] (1:00:12 – 1:01:04) Are we going to go out for an RFP? I think one has been in the development stages, but I’ll have to coordinate with that.
Mary Hofhine: Sooner the better. And I watched the last commission council meeting. And I really felt hurt that the council would give $700,000 to the airport for private hangars and had such a hard time providing something that’s so needed.
Mary Hofhine: And the airport has essentially the largest cost they’re going to look at. So anyway, it’s my two cents worth. Yeah.
Mary Hofhine: That’s my complaint for today. [Sean Yates] (1:01:04 – 1:01:15) And as you know, I’m sure as you know, working in the planning office for so many years, it really takes someone to champion it and dig down in the weeds and really tune everything else out to do it. [Mary Hofhine] (1:01:15 – 1:01:21) Oh, I definitely think it would be a technical writer.
Mary Hofhine: A technical writer. [Andrew Jackson] (1:01:21 – 1:01:32) I think it’s common knowledge that I have applied for the planning position here. So I’m going to just stay quiet before we have this discussion.
Mary Hofhine: [Mary Hofhine] (1:01:32 – 1:01:34) Well, then you know how bad… [Andrew Jackson] (1:01:34 – 1:01:35) I don’t want to have any confusion. [Mary Hofhine] (1:01:35 – 1:01:39) Very best provided for two cents.
Mary Hofhine: I wouldn’t want it. [Andrew Jackson] (1:01:39 – 1:01:41) I’ll keep my two cents and my five-year claim. [Mary Hofhine] (1:01:42 – 1:02:11) Anyway.
Mary Hofhine: Yeah, I think we do need a land use code and as soon as possible. There are… Chrissy said it a lot when she was not working.
Mary Hofhine: It’s totally broken. And it’s not any one person’s fault. It’s just that when you keep changing it, changing it, changing it, you don’t go back and look at it, it gets worse.
Mary Hofhine: So there are things in this land use code that if somebody wanted to build something, they could build it. [Speaker 20] (1:02:11 – 1:02:11) Yeah. [Mary Hofhine] (1:02:12 – 1:02:14) Because it’s not…
Mary Hofhine: It might not be a good thing. [Andrew Jackson] (1:02:15 – 1:02:40) And you do have the e-code folks. And I think you have a subscription to them or paying them a fee.
Mary Hofhine: And they have attorneys on staff. So you send them the ordinances. They will go through that and put things on to the online code.
Mary Hofhine: But they’ll also let you know where there’s problems with other areas. And so I think there’s maybe been some of that that’s… [Mary Hofhine] (1:02:40 – 1:03:02) Well, part of it is we don’t even have a land use map.
Mary Hofhine: I was calling the office and asked me to ask where it is. And I said, oh, it’s on the bottom of my back of my office. I don’t know what happened to it.
Mary Hofhine: We do not have an official land use map right now. [Andrew Jackson] (1:03:02 – 1:03:04) The general plan map or the… [Mary Hofhine] (1:03:04 – 1:03:12) Yeah, but the general plan map is not an official map.
Mary Hofhine: The general plan map is a brushstroke that here’s what we want to see in our map. [Andrew Jackson] (1:03:13 – 1:03:13) You’re talking zoning? [Mary Hofhine] (1:03:14 – 1:03:23) I’m talking about the zoning map.
Mary Hofhine: The first thing that would happen is once we got our land use code written, that would happen. And we would have it. [Jerry Klaes] (1:03:26 – 1:03:36) From an agenda standpoint, Mary, just to wrap up the MFR 45, did I hear right that we’re going to have more detailed discussion in our meeting on the 13th?
Mary Hofhine: [Laura Long] (1:03:36 – 1:03:45) We are. Are we going to do that before? Or is it going to be part of our planning commission meeting?
Mary Hofhine: I think it’d be best to have that before. [Mary Hofhine] (1:03:48 – 1:04:18) The last time we did a workshop, I think we did it at 3.30. We did it an hour before.
Mary Hofhine: I wasn’t part of it. I’m pretty sure we did it. We started at 3.30.
Mary Hofhine: I think that’s right. And we had the county commissioners with us. And then we started our regular meeting at 4.30.
Mary Hofhine: Or if we don’t have anything that’s pending, we could actually work that right into our meeting time too. [Andrew Jackson] (1:04:18 – 1:04:22) I think we’ve got to get to that’s going to make the people go home. [Laura Long] (1:04:24 – 1:04:37) What are the preferences?
Mary Hofhine: I think we should do it an hour before. 3.30 on the 13th. It’s a workshop.
Mary Hofhine: [Andrew Jackson] (1:04:38 – 1:04:40) Well, we will have the one on the latest. [Speaker 15] (1:04:40 – 1:04:40) Right. [Andrew Jackson] (1:04:40 – 1:04:43) But we figured it out at the 4th.
Mary Hofhine: [Mary Hofhine] (1:04:43 – 1:04:50) Oh, the one on the next. Yeah. Sorry.
Mary Hofhine: Anyway. [Aaron Lindberg] (1:04:59 – 1:05:01) Can I put a couple of comments in here? [Mary Hofhine] (1:05:03 – 1:05:03) Sure.
Mary Hofhine: [Aaron Lindberg] (1:05:03 – 1:05:06) Hello. Can you guys hear me? All right.
Mary Hofhine: [Mary Hofhine] (1:05:07 – 1:05:07) We can. [Aaron Lindberg] (1:05:08 – 1:08:57) Okay. So, you know, Brian, I looked over your MFR 45 relay.
Mary Hofhine: And so just I can see I would just like to frame some things for us. You know, I understand your concern, Mary, that, you know, we’re looking at needing a total code overhaul before we can start. But, you know, in your world, it would be better to revise the entire code.
Mary Hofhine: I kind of see it as like, I would like these ideas in the chamber, you know, kind of ready to shoot when we have that. We have some of these discussions and frames by the time we have that. And I think something this big is something maybe we can kind of kind of start thinking about have little mini discussions, I guess, in that spirit.
Mary Hofhine: There was a couple of comments I wanted to tell Brian about in the last meeting. I presented a kind of a code thing as an and I was concurring to Brian’s thing that he published. And so I saw differences between mine and his.
Mary Hofhine: I saw made like some differences where it was like mine was an overlay. And I think that will be discussions that we have to have. Mine had also commercial aspects to it.
Mary Hofhine: And I’ve been reading a really interesting book by Brian Goldstone called “There is no place for us.” And it’s talking about the current housing crisis that Atlanta is facing. And it talks about how, you know, people are going into these basically weekly hotel hotels. That’s like the solution that’s been given and how these are like economic centers.
Mary Hofhine: And it’s like if they were just pushed a little bit towards some had some commercial spaces to them, it could be a major help to people that are living in high density, high density housing. So if you read my version of an MFR 45, it gave substitutions for commercial in these high density housing units. And I also had I had also local ownership requirements.
Mary Hofhine: Not requirements. There were some differences in that. I think that this community would probably like to have that hashed out and have us think about.
Mary Hofhine: And then, you know, what was my other point here? I had. Yeah, local ownership, local landlords like tech.
Mary Hofhine: So basically, my thing is, is like, I appreciate, Brian, you’re publishing that because I think, you know, we can kind of start, you know, looking at some of these ideas that are floating around for something that’s MFR 45. And I just would like to have you guys, you know, start thinking about those things of ideas that we that we have going around. Thank you.
Mary Hofhine: [Brian Martinez] (1:08:59 – 1:09:34) Yeah, just to kind of comment on what you said there, I think you have some great ideas right there on bringing in commercial and bringing in local ownership. But I just want to make sure that everybody understands that the point of the MFR 45 that I was hoping for is actually for two specific programs. And the one of them is the light tech program.
Mary Hofhine: And then the other one, which we don’t know too much about, is the Utah. Was it the Utah housing grant? I believe that’s being run by Governor Cox right now.
Mary Hofhine: And so it’s kind of flying by the seat of its pants right now. Nobody really knows what’s happening with it. It’s being developed as things are going on.
Mary Hofhine: [Mary Hofhine] (1:09:34 – 1:09:35) Just like our land use code! [Brian Martinez] (1:09:37 – 1:09:45) But I do like Aaron’s idea that we get these ideas out on the table so that when it is time, when it is time that we can go ahead and start talking. [Laura Long] (1:09:45 – 1:10:06) And I just want to do a little plug here too.
Mary Hofhine: There’s this book called An Introduction to the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program, Affordable Housing Development, written by Bill Knowlton. And if anybody has access to getting this, it would probably be good to read through it a little bit before our workshop. It’s been pretty helpful.
Mary Hofhine: I’m borrowing Tricia’s copy. [Mary Hofhine] (1:10:06 – 1:10:08) Things that used to happen in the planning. [Andrew Jackson] (1:10:11 – 1:11:05) Also, within the last couple of years, the state legislature has added some extra tools for local communities.
Mary Hofhine: One of the things that we’ve had as a problem in Vineyard is you have a bunch of townhouses that were developed and proposed and built that were based off of, these would be for single-family homeowners, et cetera. But then what happens is you’d have an investor come in and buy the whole block of those. And so, the bill, the state legislature allows you to come up with a zone that has to be either owner-occupied or it can be by the housing authority or something like that.
Mary Hofhine: So, it’s not investors coming up and buying all the housing and then turning it into expensive rental properties. [Laura Long] (1:11:06 – 1:11:08) It’s like deed-restricted. [Andrew Jackson] (1:11:09 – 1:11:26) Sort of, except you can identify a zone and say, this area here can only be these individually-owned, not major investor-owned property.
Mary Hofhine: That’s the issue they’re having up there and I don’t know if it’s an issue here. [Mary Hofhine] (1:11:27 – 1:11:38) Cool. We don’t know.
Mary Hofhine: We haven’t got that far yet. So, who’s presenting the status of the recently approved high-density ordinance? [Sean Yates] (1:11:38 – 1:12:03) Yeah, I can just give a update on that.
Mary Hofhine: I believe there’s a copy out there floating around where the ordinance has been written. It’s just a waiting signature. Oh, HPHO.
Mary Hofhine: So, we’re still trying to track that down. I think I spoke with Dana about that. It’s just a matter of…
Mary Hofhine: [Mary Hofhine] (1:12:03 – 1:12:06) Oh, and they haven’t signed it. It’s not been… [Sean Yates] (1:12:06 – 1:12:44) Yeah, it was on as a fact because the 15 days have passed.
Mary Hofhine: According to Dana, it’s just a matter of getting a signature on that. And then, in association with that, there’s going to be a need, and of course, this isn’t really necessarily a policy writing group here, but that’s something that needs to be done in-house to complement, to be a companion with the new HPHO ordinance. A policy?
Mary Hofhine: A policy or a procedure that gives the guidelines and direction on how to implement the new policy. [Andrew Jackson] (1:12:45 – 1:12:56) What are the steps for someone who’s applying for that? What those steps are?
Mary Hofhine: If it’s a meeting before the Planning Commission will sit in, County Commission will order. [Trish Hedin] (1:12:57 – 1:12:59) It would be best for the Attorney’s Office to do that. [Speaker 11] (1:12:59 – 1:13:01) Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mary Hofhine: [Sean Yates] (1:13:02 – 1:13:06) Anyways, that was brought up by Dana. I’ll just bring it up here. [Mary Hofhine] (1:13:07 – 1:13:14) Can I kind of give…
Mary Hofhine: We already talked a little bit about this one. The land use code updates. Yeah.
Mary Hofhine: We’ll never quit talking about it. [Sean Yates] (1:13:14 – 1:13:34) It would be nice that… I don’t know if we’d have a professional facilitator there.
Mary Hofhine: A third party that could perhaps help kick it off, start off the brainstorming session, get a lot of folks’ input into it, and then kind of mind map it with some yellow sticky notes, and then go back and kind of synthesize it. [Laura Long] (1:13:35 – 1:13:45) Kind of like the future trails map. Were you at that meeting?
Mary Hofhine: Yeah. Future trails master plan. I like that.
Mary Hofhine: That seems to be effective. [Mary Hofhine] (1:13:46 – 1:13:50) Would that be… You want that at a meeting, or you want that as planning commission to do that?
Mary Hofhine: [Sean Yates] (1:13:51 – 1:13:55) I was thinking that maybe perhaps you were part of that workshop. [Mary Hofhine] (1:13:56 – 1:13:57) Other ones coming up? [Sean Yates] (1:13:57 – 1:13:58) Yeah, yeah.
Mary Hofhine: [Brian Martinez] (1:13:59 – 1:14:37) Kick it off on the land use code. To have both? That might be a little bit much.
Mary Hofhine: Probably, yeah. That’s true. Because you’re going to have so much.
Mary Hofhine: On this note with the land use code update right here, I have a talk with Dave about the possibility of single source for this right here. And the logic behind that would be that since CDZ has done the work on the future land use map, right, they would be in a unique position to where they wouldn’t have to go through and do as much research in writing that land use code. So there’s conversations about using CDZ again.
Mary Hofhine: [Mary Hofhine] (1:14:37 – 1:14:41) And they write general. I mean, they write land use code technical. [Brian Martinez] (1:14:41 – 1:14:43) So it’s just looking into that.
Mary Hofhine: [Mary Hofhine] (1:14:43 – 1:14:51) But I still think it means the county requires that Pat go to request for proposals because you’re spending more than $5,000. [Andrew Jackson] (1:14:52 – 1:14:54) It looks like they’re trying to do the sole source. [Speaker 12] (1:14:54 – 1:14:55) Yeah, it’s the sole source.
Mary Hofhine: [Laura Long] (1:14:56 – 1:14:58) And I’m like, what is that? What does that mean? [Sean Yates] (1:14:58 – 1:15:43) So anything under $50,000 to be done without competitive bidding according to just typical procurement policy.
Mary Hofhine: It’s thought, I suppose, in some individuals’ minds, it said CDZ did the land use map as part of a general plan update that a continuation of that could occur by the same vendor to carry on that thing that was adopted back in December, 2004 as the land use code update. I’m like, yeah, that’s what you’re talking about. [Mary Hofhine] (1:15:43 – 1:16:22) So this would happen in a little bit quicker time.
Mary Hofhine: I mean, that would be my only reason for it. I don’t know that. I think they need to come to the Planning Commission and explain how they can work that out.
Mary Hofhine: I was going to say, in an effort to work smarter and not harder on this, if especially if we already have a plan in place, I think we should let the experts do their job and tell us what input we should be prioritizing, providing first, and then use that workshop time to provide them the material they need to get the ball rolling. [Brian Martinez] (1:16:22 – 1:16:33) And then rather than us just… So the question’s out right now to stocks.
Mary Hofhine: And so kind of waiting back to hear what the county attorney has. But we are working on it. [Trish Hedin] (1:16:34 – 1:16:52) Well, and I think there’s an extensive list of…
Mary Hofhine: Elisa, I know, had a list going of items that she felt were priorities when we made that land use code update. So it exists somewhere. I’m like, this is it, this is it.
Mary Hofhine: You know, it’s there. [Speaker 11] (1:16:52 – 1:16:55) Yeah, I can imagine over the years there’s… Yeah, yeah.
Mary Hofhine: [Mary Hofhine] (1:16:56 – 1:17:13) And they do that group that takes on and just go and reuse it. Yeah, and we had co-publishing that I worked with, and they were really good about making sure that we followed through with those. I don’t know why that’s not being followed through.
Mary Hofhine: [Speaker 9] (1:17:14 – 1:17:18) I don’t know, it’s been a couple of years. In some cases, it’s been five years. [Mary Hofhine] (1:17:18 – 1:17:24) Well, part of it could be that we had so many people jumping through the…
Mary Hofhine: [Andrew Jackson] (1:17:24 – 1:18:10) Yeah, so when I talked to them on the phone, I said, hey, I’m working with the county, whatever. And they were like, well, we’ve got this person, this person, this person, this person. None of those have worked there.
Mary Hofhine: Some of them I’ve never even heard of. We’ve been going back a couple of years. So you’re right, it was people that moved on, but that was something that got dropped.
Mary Hofhine: And so they were waiting, expecting that there would be some of those. In fact, I think they sent out an email and said, hey, we haven’t heard anything from you, but it’s certainly the time. And it was because all the people that they had on there, no one worked for the county at all.
Mary Hofhine: [Mary Hofhine] (1:18:11 – 1:18:14) And it seemed to me that there always was at least two. [Jerry Klaes] (1:18:18 – 1:18:35) Hey, Mary, I’d like to make a suggestion. And that is that we just leave, that we keep an act or a status update line item on the agenda for land use code in the next few future meetings so that we can keep track on this.
Mary Hofhine: [Mary Hofhine] (1:18:37 – 1:18:43) Perfect. I love that, Jerry. I mean, I would ask her meeting anyway.
Mary Hofhine: [Jerry Klaes] (1:18:44 – 1:18:52) Yeah, no, I think it’s good to keep it on there so that everybody knows coming into it that we’re going to at least do a brief update. [Mary Hofhine] (1:18:54 – 1:19:07) All right. Is there any more discussion on that?
Mary Hofhine: Compact neighborhood zoning discussion that Sean or Andrew doesn’t have a name. [Sean Yates] (1:19:09 – 1:19:19) This is part of the packet here. This is a sample.
Mary Hofhine: This is a sample of a potential compact neighborhood zoning to be completed. [Speaker 11] (1:19:20 – 1:19:27) Thanks. So on the very last page there is an example and what a compact neighborhood could look like.
Mary Hofhine: [Sean Yates] (1:19:29 – 1:19:32) Let’s just have people know about property. [Mary Hofhine] (1:19:45 – 1:19:54) Is that, is this discussion about the compact neighborhood zoning? [Speaker 14] (1:19:58 – 1:19:58) Yeah.
Mary Hofhine: [Mary Hofhine] (1:20:00 – 1:20:33) Because we don’t have a, you know, even in current because we haven’t gotten that far with from here to the land use code. You don’t have that. You don’t have a definition of that.
Mary Hofhine: So that’s the biggest problem I have with how this is all going on. We don’t have a definition for that. And as you know, and it’s just been like a speaking area of it was rushed so good.
Mary Hofhine: And we have, we don’t have anything like that on there. So we don’t have that. [Laura Long] (1:20:36 – 1:20:52) What would you suggest?
Mary Hofhine: Because this keeps coming up. What would you suggest? It happens when we put like a moratorium on this kind of thing to hold until we update the land use code.
Mary Hofhine: I just, I. [Mary Hofhine] (1:20:53 – 1:20:54) That’s a discussion that has to happen at council. [Laura Long] (1:20:54 – 1:20:55) Okay.
Mary Hofhine: [Jerry Klaes] (1:20:57 – 1:21:41) Laura, I’ve got a thought on that and that is compact. All of these land use code changes have to go through the public hearing process, right? We don’t have, like you just said, we don’t have compact neighborhood in land use code.
Mary Hofhine: It doesn’t exist. And so until it does exist, until it goes through the development process and public hearing and it’s adopted in the code, we have to use the code we have. And so, you know, if it doesn’t line, if they’re, what they’re proposing doesn’t line up with something in the existing land use code, then we can’t consider it.
Mary Hofhine: Does anybody disagree with that? [Laura Long] (1:21:43 – 1:21:44) That makes sense to me. [Mary Hofhine] (1:21:45 – 1:21:56) It does.
Mary Hofhine: It’s not in the land use code. It says specifically in the current land use code. If it’s not in there, it doesn’t, it doesn’t exist, right?
Mary Hofhine: Right in the first parts and article three. [Jerry Klaes] (1:21:58 – 1:22:07) So I think that’s our guidance is we have to use what, we have to use the code we have until we have the new one. [Mary Hofhine] (1:22:11 – 1:22:18) Do we have any future considerations in terms of that discussion?
Mary Hofhine: [Mary Hofhine] (1:22:20 – 1:22:34) I was thinking if we can figure out what, what we’re going to do as far as rewriting this land use code, if we’re going to see the thing. [Brian Martinez] (1:22:35 – 1:23:13) I mean, I think the decision has to be, you know, started, you know, urban turtle in the park. Right.
Mary Hofhine: Which way it’s going to go. And then it would have to be a decision on, A, is it, is this something that we can, you know, do a sole source on? And if it is, is it advantageous to do it afterwards?
Mary Hofhine: Right. Like will it be done quicker? Will it be done, or will it be done cheaper?
Mary Hofhine: Because they’ve already done so much research. Well, that’s why I’m. Second, you know, if it’s not that, then it’ll have to be, you know, an RFP and that RFP is going to have to be developed internally.
Mary Hofhine: Right. And then they’ll have to go out to bid. And then after that goes out to bid, then it’ll become that process.
Mary Hofhine: So it’s just finding out where we are. [Mary Hofhine] (1:23:13 – 1:23:34) And that’s what I’m saying. I think if we, if we can get that ball rolling, determine who’s going to do it and then figure out what information they need from us.
Mary Hofhine: So it’s not costing us more for us to be providing material that they don’t necessarily need at that moment and have them waiting on stuff that they do. That question’s getting to the attorney’s office. Brian just mentioned that.
Mary Hofhine: [Brian Martinez] (1:23:34 – 1:23:45) Yeah, I took the lead when I got in here. And I kind of see, is this, is this an option? Is this someplace that we know?
Mary Hofhine: And we’re looking into it right now. [Mary Hofhine] (1:23:45 – 1:23:50) So I think my only consideration is just, yeah, Wendy’s updated. [Jerry Klaes] (1:23:53 – 1:24:07) Brian, to your, to your comment earlier, if legal is looking at it now, we should have an update at our meeting on the 13th.
Mary Hofhine: See where we’re at with that. Perhaps we’ve got the okay to go ahead. Perhaps we don’t.
Mary Hofhine: At least we’ll know at that point. [Brian Martinez] (1:24:08 – 1:24:22) Yeah, I can’t speak for the county attorney’s office right now. Hopefully we would get something back on if this is going to be allowable use and if it is, you know, which, which way we would start going with that.
Mary Hofhine: [Mary Hofhine] (1:24:29 – 1:24:31) So do I have a motion to adjourn? [Jerry Klaes] (1:24:42 – 1:24:44) See you all next time. [Speaker 11] (1:24:55 – 1:24:56) I think that’s good, I think that’s a good end of that.
Speaker 16: You’re muted. How about now?
Jerry Klaes: I can hear perfectly.
Jerry Klaes: All right, thanks. I’ll go back on mute.
Speaker 14: Thanks for the help earlier today, Dana.
Jerry Klaes: Appreciate it.
Speaker 14: My pleasure.
Speaker 14: Sorry that it was kind of a cluster, but hopefully it worked out.
Speaker 14: Yeah, it worked out okay.
Speaker 14: I mean, like I said, it’s recording now.
Speaker 14:
Speaker 14:
Speaker 14:
Speaker 14:
Speaker 14:
Speaker 14:
Speaker 18: Cool. I’m gonna go check the YouTube, I’ll let you know if it’s a problem.
Speaker 16: It’s a problem.
Mary Hofhine: Well, the waiting was in a weird spot.
Sean Yates: We have folks joining online here, as well as in person.
Mary Hofhine: Have you, did you turn it on?
Mary Hofhine: Because Dana was gonna go check to make sure YouTube was working. Can everybody hear us? Can everybody hear us?
Mary Hofhine: But it’s not on mute. Jerry’s mute is on. Can you turn it off mute?
Mary Hofhine: Oh, I know what this is. I think it’s on, because it’s green now.
Sean Yates: Yeah, they gave us the thumbs up. Jerry gave us the thumbs up. I can hear perfectly.
Mary Hofhine: Okay, then we can hear you. It’s a great day for life planning.
Jerry Klaes: Yeah, I had it muted on my side.
Mary Hofhine: Oh, is there anybody else in the room? Barry, can you hear us? Can you talk?
Speaker 20: Yes, I can hear you.
Mary Hofhine: Oh, I can hear you.
Speaker 16: Tell me if it’s working. It’s working great. It’s really so good.
Mary Hofhine: He told, let’s mute somebody. And then you go, oh, yeah.
Speaker 16: That’s good.
Speaker 11: So, I’ll go.
Mary Hofhine: All right, I’m gonna call this meeting as ordered. 4.30, exactly.
Mary Hofhine: And do we have any citizens to be heard? Do we have ex parte communications and disclosures?
Mary Hofhine: My last, I don’t have her anymore. Did we get minutes from last time?
Mary Hofhine: I didn’t see any minutes.
Mary Hofhine: I think we’re missing the previous meeting.
Jerry Klaes: I think we’re two minutes, or two meetings behind at this point. I don’t think we did in the last one.
Mary Hofhine: Okay, I’m ready for presentations.
Speaker 9: Judy, can we start in?
Speaker 9: Okay, so.
Mary Hofhine: Do you want it, Michelle? Can you put it on mute again? I bet you can’t hear me.
Mary Hofhine: Oh, okay. Okay. Okay.
Mary Hofhine: I know, I’m gonna go behind that. Sorry.
Andrew Jackson: So, there are two things, maybe, on this first one.
Andrew Jackson: One is the landscape, draft landscape ordinance, which is needed in order to have different property owners in the community be able to have a solid buyback program, which is what’s included in the agenda packet.
Andrew Jackson: There’s also, I started, I started the ground water preservation.
Andrew Jackson: It sent that out, and I don’t think it got out to anybody yet.
Andrew Jackson: So, I did that with draft.
Andrew Jackson: Oh, a lot further.
Andrew Jackson: Some draft stuff on there that I think we can talk about under this public information without it being legitimized, because we’re not taking any action.
Andrew Jackson: This is a revision item.
Andrew Jackson: But I would need to have this to be put up on the screen.
Andrew Jackson: But we’ll just go to, in the meantime, we’ll just go to the water use and preservation.
Andrew Jackson: It’s actually, no, it’s just the landscape, the amendments to the landscape ordinance.
Andrew Jackson: And it’s only dealing with this section that’s identified on the second page of that.
Andrew Jackson: It’s under E, water conservation.
Andrew Jackson: And these are just four things that the state Department of Water Resources has requested that communities enact into their landscaping ordinance for the solid buyback program for people to be eligible for the solid buyback program.
Andrew Jackson: One of the big things for the state is this number four there that deals with new commercial, industrial, and institutional multi-family developments, reducing the amount of landscaping that’s permitted there.
Andrew Jackson: So, it’s basically the same ordinance that you have now, which is these four items listed in E, and then we’re re-numbering after, we’re re-lettering after E, to bring it just into consistency with the existing code.
Andrew Jackson: And this is, I think this is at least my third time that this has been brought before me.
Andrew Jackson: It was here a couple of weeks ago.
Andrew Jackson: And I think this may, should have been put on maybe as a public hearing, but maybe didn’t meet that deadline.
Andrew Jackson: But I know it was here a couple of weeks ago.
Andrew Jackson: We talked about it.
Andrew Jackson: I think everybody wrote a paper on it.
Andrew Jackson: So, I don’t know if you have any questions on that, or if, I think it has to go to probably as a public hearing here.
Andrew Jackson: So, we’ll have to just post that.
Mary Hofhine: I was just wondering if all of the plants that are currently in our land use code are still considered water-wise.
Andrew Jackson: I don’t know that. And we’ll get into that more when we get into more in-depth landscape ordinance.
Andrew Jackson: And I know some of the planning commissioners had some questions on a few other things that are in here, such as requiring the landscaping to be here before you can release, or before you can get a certificate of occupancy, that we talked about last time.
Andrew Jackson: All those things will be changed when we do the full adoption of the new landscape ordinance.
Andrew Jackson: So, this is just putting in those four things.
Andrew Jackson: That’s all that’s underlined there.
Mary Hofhine: There’s a section on this ordinance currently, and you left it in, that we can, depending on time of the year, the landscaping can go in once it’s five years of the land.
Mary Hofhine: So, I don’t know if that’s important to you.
Mary Hofhine: It’s in there.
Andrew Jackson: Yeah, it’s currently in there. So, we’re not touching any of that. We’re just touching section E.
Andrew Jackson: That section on buyback. Yeah. Water conservation will be eligible for the buyback program.
Brian Martinez: I have a question. What’s the time constraint to have a public hearing, for example?
Andrew Jackson: It’ll be two weeks, but that’s going to take us, I think it’s going to be a three week.
Sean Yates: Dana just mentioned like it’s 10 days prior to the meeting that we have to give notice for a public hearing. Got it. So, 10 days prior to the 13th, October 13th meeting, we’ll need to be posted.
Mary Hofhine: And then a public hearing. Yeah. And the same.
Speaker 12: And probably should just get back.
Andrew Jackson: So, the commission hasn’t already posted 10 days prior to. So, wait for it.
Speaker 12: Just because our last meeting, the planning commission approved this.
Brian Martinez: I thought, yeah. Cause I thought. It was hard.
Brian Martinez: Yeah. Yeah.
Brian Martinez: Yeah. It’s my understanding that this was supposed to go on for a public hearing.
Speaker 12: Yeah. I think that’s what it was supposed to be, but I’m not sure that.
Speaker 12: got posted. All things got posted.
Jerry Klaes: Hey, hey, Mary.
Mary Hofhine: Hey, Mary.
Jerry Klaes: Just one other comment about, yeah, just one other comment about that section of the code. I sent in, I don’t know, probably a half a dozen comments about it.
Jerry Klaes: One of them Andrew touched on, which was for residential requiring that landscaping be in before you get a CO. That’s in code today.
Jerry Klaes: It’s not being followed.
Jerry Klaes: And I’d like to see those updates made too.
Jerry Klaes: But in our discussion in the last meeting, I said I was okay with holding off on those changes until we do the major land use code updates, just so we can get these things in so people can get state refunds.
Andrew Jackson: And I haven’t seen those, Jerry. Your comments, I haven’t seen those.
Andrew Jackson: Just what you brought up at the last meeting. So I’ll try and make sure that we can connect so that I can get those.
Jerry Klaes: And I think I’ll forward them on to you, Andrew. I think at this point though, it’s kind of a mute point because I don’t know that anybody’s objecting to moving ahead with just support.
Jerry Klaes: I guess that’s really what we ought to discuss today.
Mary Hofhine: Anybody else have anything to say?
Jerry Klaes: So Mary, do we actually have to have a motion to proceed with a hearing on this at the next meeting?
Mary Hofhine: It needs to have a public hearing and we’re not the public hearing stage right now.
Jerry Klaes: Okay. So then I guess, are we going to have the minutes reflect that we’re going to move this on to a public hearing in the next meeting?
Andrew Jackson: Yes. Yes.
Andrew Jackson: And I think there was some confusion because I had some PowerPoints on the water preservation element of the general plan. And I think maybe there was some confusion about this and that getting put into place, but I do have a very brief information item only on kind of where we’re going with that.
Andrew Jackson: I’m not sure how to get it onto the projector.
Andrew Jackson: I can email it to somebody or you should have gotten it on Friday.
Andrew Jackson: I should have sent that to you on Friday.
Sean Yates: You did post this from Civic Plus as an attachment. Although if I try to minimize this window here, I’m not able to.
Andrew Jackson: Yeah, I don’t think it’s in Civic Plus.
Sean Yates: We’ve got the ordinance in there, but I don’t think the PowerPoint was in there, Andrew.
Sean Yates:
Jerry Klaes: I downloaded it over a week ago. It just disappeared today for whatever reason.
Andrew Jackson: Okay. So there was a PowerPoint on Friday that I sent just to Sean, I think David, dealing with water preservation.
Andrew Jackson: Yeah.
Andrew Jackson: It came late on Friday and I don’t know if that got forwarded over.
Andrew Jackson: So it would have been like at 4.56 on Friday.
Mary Hofhine: They were having some problems with the computer.
Jerry Klaes: Is that the para-urban interface?
Andrew Jackson: That’s the next one, but it’s like, I don’t know if we can.
Sean Yates: We may be able to add an account here.
Andrew Jackson: Can you look up to your email there?
Sean Yates: We’ve said, yeah, we’ll do this.
Mary Hofhine: So now it won’t even, it won’t even download it here.
Mary Hofhine: But I saw earlier, it’s on my computer earlier.
Sean Yates: You can do that here and see.
Mary Hofhine: Hey, Sean, could you be able to turn up that volume?
Sean Yates: Yeah, I should be able to do that.
Speaker 18: Yeah, I can try to hop on the Zoom.
Sean Yates: So this would be, this was last week, right?
Andrew Jackson: Yeah, it was later on Friday. This is a backup material.
Sean Yates: I can include quite a few of these.
Speaker 9: So it would have been like at 4 something, 4.56, I think.
Sean Yates: That was September 19. Is this the PowerPoint I’m talking about?
Sean Yates: Okay, yeah, that’s the PDF of it.
Andrew Jackson: Yeah, so I don’t know if you can pull that up. Can you pull that up?
Sean Yates: It’s the PDF. Will that be sufficient?
Andrew Jackson: That’s fine, yeah, as long as people can see it.
Andrew Jackson: Yeah, I don’t know if you can expand that so it’s a little bigger to see. And I don’t know if people online can see it.
Sean Yates: I don’t think people online can see it. Unless I share my screen. Well, yeah.
Andrew Jackson: So I can just talk briefly about this. It’s just a discussion item.
Andrew Jackson: And I’ll follow up with getting this out to everybody. But I know we’re under the gun for the water preservation element.
Andrew Jackson: And we’ve been working on that. And I know there’s been some things moving and in place.
Andrew Jackson: But I just wanted to go ahead and move forward with some of the data portion of this. It hasn’t gone out to the various water groups or anything like that.
Andrew Jackson: This is just, I wanted to just give you an idea of what we’re kind of looking at. And if you could go to the next one.
Andrew Jackson: So it’s just what’s SB 110. You have to have a water preservation element in your general plan by the end of this year.
Andrew Jackson: You have to address the impact of new development on the demand of your water infrastructure. Strategies that you can reduce current demand and demand for with future development, waste water, waste reduction practices, and then an approach to linking water availability and development approval.
Andrew Jackson: So making sure that you’re not going out just approving a whole bunch of developments without any water. If you can go to the next thing.
Andrew Jackson: And so what the state has done is the state’s developed back a couple years ago different regions, water regions. And so we have just the upper Colorado.
Andrew Jackson: Yeah. And it includes Carbon, Emery, Grand, and San Juan.
Andrew Jackson: And I know that folks with Moab City as well as Dana had submitted comments when they did this original plan. It said, look, we have a tourist economy in Grand County.
Andrew Jackson: So it’s a different demand on water resources than you would have in some of these rural areas without that. Because in some instances, you’ve got to provide water for three times your population.
Andrew Jackson: But this is what we had to deal with. So this is what they did.
Andrew Jackson: And they continued on even though there were recommendations to do something differently.
Andrew Jackson: Let me go to the next one.
Andrew Jackson: And so this is also out of the state’s water conservation plan.
Andrew Jackson: It identifies a baseline for the gallons per day per capita.
Andrew Jackson: Okay.
Andrew Jackson: So you’ve got gallons per, gallons per capita per day.
Andrew Jackson: And you can see what the baseline was in 2015.
Andrew Jackson: If you go down, there’s 333 gallons per day per capita.
Andrew Jackson: And then as we move on to future projections of 2030, 2040, and 2065, I will have a reduction in that into the future.
Andrew Jackson: If you want to go to the next slide.
Andrew Jackson: That’s the slide here.
Andrew Jackson: Yep.
Andrew Jackson: So we’re going from the 333 to the 248 over time per capita.
Speaker 19: So we want to reduce our usage from 333 to 248.
Andrew Jackson: Yep. Yeah, that’s the goal that the state has set for this area.
Andrew Jackson: 25% reduction.
Andrew Jackson: And then this is population projections from the Kempsey Gardner Institute.
Andrew Jackson: It shows population projections for Grand County in a low, mid, and high.
Andrew Jackson: And you can see that in some instances, there’s a dip between 2020, 2025, 2030 in low projections.
Andrew Jackson: And then you’ll see an increase in the high, but you can see they’re projecting a little bit of a down dip in population into the near future, and then it’ll pick up.
Andrew Jackson: But it’s not going to grow as fast as the state as a whole, just because you’ve got limited resources, limited private land to grow on.
Andrew Jackson: Then you go to the next one.
Andrew Jackson: And so this is just showing what we have if you maintain at that 333 gallons per day, just a straight line, of course.
Andrew Jackson: But then what we’re looking at doing with a reduction in the gallons per day per capita, it really doesn’t tell you much other than you can see there’s going to be some drop there, and it’s not a huge percentage drop.
Andrew Jackson: But then the next one, we match it up to the actual population if you want to go to the next page.
Andrew Jackson: And so this shows what the future is.
Andrew Jackson: The blue line is a future without any conservation.
Andrew Jackson: And then that orange line shows future usage with conservation, with preservation, reducing the demand on the system, etc.
Andrew Jackson: And so you can see that we’re just increasing a little bit above and beyond what we currently have.
Andrew Jackson: There’s still going to be some increase because everybody doesn’t have half-acre lots that are all in turf here.
Andrew Jackson: So there’s the…
Andrew Jackson: I’m trying to think what they call it, but there’s a reduction ceiling.
Andrew Jackson: So some places you can reduce a whole bunch because they’re using a whole bunch, but other places you already have…
Andrew Jackson: you realize there’s limited resources here, so you’re not going to be able to reduce as a percentage as much as other areas throughout the state.
Mary Hofhine: There’s residential schools added to that too, but we don’t have a lot of those.
Andrew Jackson: Well, so it’s… tourism is not included in it.
Andrew Jackson: This is just residential, and then there’s also municipal and industrial. So commercial, industrial, and residential.
Andrew Jackson: So that would be captured in there. I don’t know how people are here with their pools, but when you put the water in and then if you cover it, you don’t see as much evaporation.
Andrew Jackson: And so there’s less that you have to fill in there. There’s still some if it’s leaks and things, but this doesn’t cover any agriculture.
Andrew Jackson: If I could just make a statement statewide, and this is… you can find this in the Tribune.
Andrew Jackson: So residential or municipal and industrial M&I water usage is about 15 percent of all water usage in the state of Utah. The remainder is in agriculture.
Andrew Jackson: And I love farmers and my family farmed in Illinois for about 150 years. Most of the water in state is agriculture, and you can find this in the Tribune.
Andrew Jackson: Most of that water is used for alfalfa.
Andrew Jackson: We’ll continue to find this in the Tribune that three quarters of that alfalfa is shipped to Chardon.
Andrew Jackson: So I’ll just leave it there.
Andrew Jackson: You can read those articles and things.
Andrew Jackson: But we are, as a state, we’re trying to get…
Andrew Jackson: we’re trying to make a big difference with 15 percent of the water usage.
Andrew Jackson: And it may be something that some folks in the future may want to look at other ways to reduce that.
Andrew Jackson: But all we are charged with with this section of state code is to look at the municipal and industrial portion of that, which represents about 15 percent of the entire usage.
Andrew Jackson: And it just talks about the next steps that we’re working on.
Andrew Jackson: We’re working on that.
Andrew Jackson: So anyway, just an information item, just to let you know that we’re working on that.
Andrew Jackson: We’re getting these things pushed forward.
Andrew Jackson: It’s something like that that we’ll be working with as we move forward to meet with the water districts.
Andrew Jackson: We’re going to meet with each of the water districts here?
Andrew Jackson: Yeah, we’ll meet with the department.
Andrew Jackson: But I just want to kind of give you, everybody here, an idea of what we’re looking at with future population, demand reduction, and also knowing that there’s only a certain amount that you can really reduce.
Andrew Jackson: Yep, exactly.
Andrew Jackson: People still have to use some water, still going to be drinking water, things like that.
Aaron Lindberg: I got just a question for you.
Andrew Jackson: Sure.
Aaron Lindberg: So, you know, I don’t know. Are you looking…
Aaron Lindberg: are you just presenting this? Are you wanting any feedback on this?
Andrew Jackson: Yeah, it’s not listed as a discussion item. Oh, okay.
Andrew Jackson: So we’re just doing it as information, and then we can bring it back at the next meeting as an actual discussion item. I’m sure I can answer questions and things like that you may have, but it’s not for anything other than just information of here’s the work that we’ve been doing and where we’re going into the future.
Andrew Jackson: And let us know if we’re going in the wrong direction, but we’ll be making an actual presentation for comment at the next Planning Commission meeting.
Andrew Jackson: Gotcha.
Andrew Jackson: And I’ll just make sure that everybody gets this presentation in case you didn’t have it.
Andrew Jackson: And then I’m good to go over to the urban, if you like.
Speaker 17: Okay, I’ll see if I can pull that one up as well. We have a PDF on that as well.
Speaker 13: Yeah, I think it was actually, it’s included in the agenda packet.
Speaker 15: So this one should just be in the agenda packet that you sent out.
Speaker 17: Okay, do you want it up on the screen?
Andrew Jackson: Yeah, yeah. And I can just see the PDF or PowerPoint either way. I can just present from there.
Mary Hofhine: If you want to use my copy, I can look up a few things.
Andrew Jackson: I’m good with it.
Jerry Klaes: Andrew, are we going on to slide nine now?
Andrew Jackson: We’re going on to the para-urban.
Jerry Klaes: Is that about slide nine in the handout then? Aaron, in case you have that.
Speaker 13: Yeah, yes.
Speaker 13: Okay, yeah, if you want to just expand that a little bit.
Speaker 13:
Andrew Jackson: Okay, so I know that one of the things that we’ve been talking about is ag protection.
Andrew Jackson: In order to be able to understand ag protection and what we’re talking about with ag protection, we have to come up with or identify some different terms.
Andrew Jackson: Who here remembers the Beverly Hillilies?
Trish Hedin: I said it every day.
Andrew Jackson: And what did Bailey call the pool?
Speaker 16: Cement pond.
Andrew Jackson: What’s the problem there?
Andrew Jackson: There’s a difference between cement and concrete.
Andrew Jackson: So cement, the concrete is the same as flour is the cake.
Andrew Jackson: So you can’t have a cement pond the same as you can’t just have a cake that’s only flour, it’s got to have other things in it.
Andrew Jackson: So we just want to make sure that we’re using the right terms.
Andrew Jackson: People use cement and concrete interchangeably, but sometimes we have to define those out that they are different.
Andrew Jackson: And so one of the things that we’ve looked at with this is with the urban and rural and the rural agricultural would identify that what’s called a para-urban interface.
Andrew Jackson: And if you can go into the next slide, and there’s some definitions about urban that was good with the downtown core area.
Andrew Jackson: Suburban is the residential with maybe some offices, etc.
Andrew Jackson: And then you’ve got the para-urban, which is mostly low-density residential with some what’s called truck farming.
Andrew Jackson: But it’s not like you put vegetables in the truck.
Andrew Jackson: It’s from the French word truc farming, which means you put vegetables in a truck.
Andrew Jackson: And think of the market, either you’re selling them at the farmer’s market, you’re selling them to local restaurants or local grocery stores, etc.
Andrew Jackson: That you’re selling these out.
Andrew Jackson: So they’re not made to be shipped across the country.
Andrew Jackson: It’s just used locally.
Andrew Jackson: And then we’ve got ex-urban development, which is very low density.
Andrew Jackson: And there’s no, in the community, there’d be no residential, no commercial uses, no industrial uses.
Andrew Jackson: It’s just residential and people leave every day to get their goods and services or work and then come back.
Andrew Jackson: And then rural, where there’s agriculture with some farm housing.
Andrew Jackson: So you may have some ranches or large farms associated with that.
Andrew Jackson: And then frontier in agriculture.
Andrew Jackson: And a lot of places in Utah, they talk about being on that frontier where you’ve got large acreages for grazing, etc.
Andrew Jackson: So I want to make sure when we’re doing the ag protection, we’re talking about ag protection.
Andrew Jackson: Are we talking about current urban and truck farms that we’re trying to protect from development?
Andrew Jackson: Or are we trying to protect large scale agriculture?
Andrew Jackson: And it’s fine either way.
Andrew Jackson: We just want to make sure when we talk about ag protection, we identify one or the other or both that we’re looking to protect.
Andrew Jackson: We’ll go to the next one.
Andrew Jackson: If you have some time, you should watch these YouTube.
Andrew Jackson: So this one, you can watch it about 15 minutes.
Andrew Jackson: And they have four or five of these that were done by, I think it’s Oregon State University that talks about how these farms and how they work with the local communities.
Andrew Jackson: You know, it’s gardening you do with a hoe, farming you do with a plow.
Andrew Jackson: But again, it’s still small scale, it’s organic.
Andrew Jackson: But you may have these things where you’ve got a pumpkin patch.
Andrew Jackson: So it’s not just a pumpkin patch, but the kids get to go out there and go through the corn maze and get some apple cider and all of that.
Andrew Jackson: And these small farms rely on some urban development, which could be the scale of Moab and Grand Canyon and Spanish Valley here.
Andrew Jackson: They rely on that because that’s where most of the product goes to.
Andrew Jackson: Like again, like I say, the farmer’s markets, the restaurants where they can do some organic produce for restaurants.
Andrew Jackson: So it’s really that close.
Andrew Jackson: They’re not shipping it across the country and going to the next one.
Andrew Jackson: But anyway, I put that one there, but there’s a whole series.
Andrew Jackson: And it’s just fascinating about that.
Andrew Jackson: And we’ve got challenges with this agricultural protection.
Andrew Jackson: It’s a worldwide concern and it’s an ancient concern.
Andrew Jackson: It’s been around for a long time.
Andrew Jackson: In Utah, 90% of the population lives on 1% of the land.
Andrew Jackson: And then the rest of the land is either in some type of federal or state holding or it’s large operation agriculture, whether they have rights being on there or if it’s actually their historically owned property.
Andrew Jackson: The issues that we also have, we’ve got chemical, chemicals that may run off, agricultural runoff, concerns where you have farmers that may have to work through the night in order to get their crops out before the dew gets on it.
Andrew Jackson: There’s also a nuisance, which is a nuisance is defined as anything that crosses someone’s property lines.
Andrew Jackson: So if I’m in my basement at my house and I’m blaring out the Hawaiian music, which is a real term, it’s a Hawaiian reggae music that I like to listen to.
Andrew Jackson: If I’m in my basement, nobody can hear it.
Andrew Jackson: It’s not a nuisance.
Andrew Jackson: If I go out and start cleaning out my car and I’ve got a blaring and my car is shaking and everybody in the neighborhood can hear it, it becomes a nuisance.
Andrew Jackson: So it’s crossed property lines.
Andrew Jackson: So you can have that where you may have, for instance, where a dry cleaner and a barbecue place goes in next door to the dry cleaner and all the clothes that come on the dry cleaner smell like Texas barbecue.
Andrew Jackson: So that could be a nuisance.
Andrew Jackson: And there’s attractive nuisance where you may have like a pond at a golf course or you’ve got an old barn that’s falling apart and early teen boys just love to climb around in there and maybe they’re going to get hurt or whatever.
Andrew Jackson: So it’s a nuisance, but it attracts people to it.
Andrew Jackson: And so sometimes you’ll have that also with farms where there’ll be some attractive nuisances with the agriculturalists being put in there.
Andrew Jackson: And then there’s greenbelt taxes and developed property tax.
Andrew Jackson: So the farming, if they have a size, a large enough property, they can be in greenbelt taxes or in very low taxation.
Andrew Jackson: But then once it’s developed, they have to go back five years and pay the back taxes as it’s been developed.
Andrew Jackson: Then to go on to the next slide.
Andrew Jackson: So challenges, like I said, farmer needs to harvest their crop quickly because it’s bad weather or whatever and they need to get out there and do things.
Andrew Jackson: Homeowner says it’s an issue because they’re kept awake by the noise or bites of the equipment.
Andrew Jackson: Farmer needs to prepare the land for planting, but that may cause dust to blow.
Andrew Jackson: New homeowners bring with them better roads, security, lighting, other improvements that may not be conducive to agricultural operations.
Andrew Jackson: Long-term residents dislike, so longer-term residents in the agricultural area dislike the faster traffic and car accidents, but then they also need to rely on the closeness to development in order to get their small-scale truck farming crops to market.
Andrew Jackson: And then this is what happened to my family.
Andrew Jackson: The farmer’s family doesn’t live near the farm.
Andrew Jackson: It has no desire for the farm, so sometimes there’s a, we need to keep this and preserve it as a farm.
Andrew Jackson: But in my family, for instance, it was about 50 years that nobody in the family actually farmed the property and nobody wanted to.
Andrew Jackson: They said to go through a few series before they could sell it off.
Andrew Jackson: Just because where it is, certainly in Illinois, there’s not really much else besides soybean and corn there.
Andrew Jackson: But oftentimes, the farmer may want to sell their property and we may try to protect their property from being sold, even though it’s not in the best interest of the farmer and their family.
Andrew Jackson: So, importance to environmental, stormwater, there’s heat islands, so that’s where you have development that occurs or because there’s so much paved surface that can increase the heat in the community because it’s reflecting off of the pavement.
Andrew Jackson: Groundwater recharge, and so you have water that flows through there.
Andrew Jackson: We talked a little bit about that and the amount of the percentage of the state water that goes to agriculture and some of that, of course, is in ditches.
Andrew Jackson: But that also works as needed to recharge the water system.
Andrew Jackson: And I don’t know if any of you ever get up to the Provo area, but they’re redoing the old Provo Temple up there above the MTC and you’ll see this big hole and things that are working on just in front of that temple area and people thought maybe that was part of the temple project.
Andrew Jackson: It’s not.
Andrew Jackson: It’s Provo City and they’re doing a recharge.
Andrew Jackson: So, they’re taking water that was coming down Rock Canyon and they’re recharging it back into the aquifer at that location.
Andrew Jackson: It just happened that both construction occurred about the same time, so people thought they’re connected.
Andrew Jackson: Need to be some fire breaks.
Andrew Jackson: Is it a holding zone?
Andrew Jackson: So, we’re doing agriculture there, but expecting that in the near future it may change to residential.
Andrew Jackson: Looking at the wildlife corridors and then one of the things that surprisingly, as a kid growing up in Illinois, you walked beans and you hoed the weeds that were there or you pulled the weeds out, etc., by hand and then they developed these soybeans that were actually tolerant to Roundup.
Andrew Jackson: So, you should spray the soybeans with Roundup and it wouldn’t affect the soybeans, at least that we know, but it would kill the weeds.
Andrew Jackson: Well, now because of the high demand for organic soybeans and non-GMO, that allows that higher price that those vegetables can sell for, the produce can sell for, actually allows it to go back to where you can start walking beans again in Illinois and Iowa.
Andrew Jackson: Economy selling at the wholesale market usually means that 10 to 20 percent of the retail price direct to consumers.
Andrew Jackson: So, if you’ve got a little stand on a farmer’s plot there and they’re selling tomatoes or whatever that’s grown on that, they actually get 100 percent.
Andrew Jackson: So, where they’re wholesaling it to someone else, they’re only getting about 10 or 20 percent of the retail price.
Andrew Jackson: But as a direct consumer, they can often charge 100 percent of that.
Andrew Jackson: Conventional farm may return somewhere between $120 and $1,200 per acre, and I think this is more like in the Northwest area that some of this information came from.
Andrew Jackson: An efficient market garden, so the truck farms, they can produce between $8,000 and $1,000 per acre, depending on what they’re selling, if it’s flowers or whatever produce that they’ve got there.
Andrew Jackson: Go to the next one.
Andrew Jackson: So, we work towards solutions so that we can maintain that farm if that’s what they want to do and what some of those issues are.
Andrew Jackson: And then go to the next one as well.
Andrew Jackson: The sub-conclusion, a lot of it has to be education and voluntary action.
Andrew Jackson: And sometimes people may or may not want to sell their land, and the neighbors may or may not want them to sell their land.
Andrew Jackson: But we have personal property rights, and so people have to be aware of the rights that individuals have.
Andrew Jackson: One of the things that probably came out of all this that we’ve looked at with agri-protection is the best way to do it is there’s going to be conflicts as farms get subdivided.
Andrew Jackson: There’s going to be conflicts with development occurring.
Andrew Jackson: And the thing is, they’ve had the most success in Nebraska and up in Washington and Oregon is to actually have a county extension officer who then mediates.
Andrew Jackson: So, you have some farmers, and you’ve got some people who are developing and listing and that thing, and the county extension officer becomes a mediator on that, and that’s when they’ve had the most success.
Andrew Jackson: And if you watch those videos, that’s what the end point of those videos are, that the farmers and developers all agreed that the best way to go is not just a cookie-cutter thing, but it’s really working with that county extension office on the case-by-case basis, but also providing tools for that protection.
Andrew Jackson: So, resident engagement and farmer engagement.
Andrew Jackson: So, I just wanted to say, you know, we want to make sure that we’re talking about large scale agriculture, not small scale.
Andrew Jackson:
Andrew Jackson:
Andrew Jackson:
Andrew Jackson:
Andrew Jackson:
Andrew Jackson:
Andrew Jackson:
Andrew Jackson:
Trish Hedin: Mary, do you mind if I come up for a second and just kind of, because I was the one who brought this forward a while ago. So, this came through the Conservation District.
Trish Hedin: Jay Olson, through UDAF, Utah Department of Ag and Food, came to speak to one, the SB, I can’t remember what it was, the water protection that has to go through, and he also spoke to this. And so, it’s called an Ag Protection Area.
Trish Hedin: This is a voluntary program that landowners can engage in, but in order for them to engage in, just like the landscape ordinance, there has to be an ordinance in place at a local level. So, the big things are, you know, what it can protect small or larger scale ag from are things like nuisance lawsuits, as you mentioned.
Trish Hedin: It gives some stability to zoning. It protects from things such as imminent domain, such things like that.
Trish Hedin: So, in order to do this, and I’ll send you, Jay did send me numerous ordinances from the state, so I’ll get those to you, and I’ll also send you this flyer that I carry around. But the big things, I think, for the Planning Commission are to look at things like minimum acreage, right?
Trish Hedin: And so, here, it might be smaller scale. If you think about something like EZB that does produce quite a bit of food for a very small, or for our community, they’re very small.
Trish Hedin: I think they’re just a couple of acres.
Trish Hedin: So, I think we want to look at acreage.
Trish Hedin: We want to make sure that they are agricultural producers, right?
Trish Hedin: So, we’ll have to make sure that that’s defined in code.
Trish Hedin: And then the zoning compatibility.
Trish Hedin: So, is it range and grazing, emerald residential?
Trish Hedin: Whatever you guys think is going to be deemed appropriate to get that through.
Trish Hedin: But it just allows, once we have the ordinance passed, it allows landowners that are interested in voluntarily becoming a part of this program to be a part of it.
Trish Hedin: So, it’s all voluntary.
Trish Hedin: Nobody’s forcing them into it.
Trish Hedin: We’re not solidifying ag protections, but they can opt into it, and it protects them into perpetuity.
Andrew Jackson: And some of the small-scale farmers may be on the urban fringe, and they may understand that in 10 years, they’re going to sell their property and then relocate just a little bit further out and be able to continue on.
Andrew Jackson: So, it’s not necessarily that they have to stay in that same spot forever.
Trish Hedin: So, I don’t think we have much to talk about today. I’ll make sure I get stuff to Andrew, and we have a working draft.
Andrew Jackson: I just want to make sure that everybody understood what we’re talking about, the parent urban, or are we talking about the large-scale ag protections?
Trish Hedin: Right, we do both. I mean, we do have larger-scale producers that are on the fringes, and both lives out on both sides of the pump that would apply to large and small-scale.
Andrew Jackson: And this is presented as an information item, but because it was on the agenda, I think it’s open to that there could be questions if people would like, if they have questions on things.
Andrew Jackson: I may not know all the answers, but if I don’t, then I’ll get them to you next time.
Andrew Jackson: But I think it was on the agenda properly that it could be discussed if you so chose.
Mary Hofhine: What’s that presentation? Is there anybody that wants to have a question? I think we’re bringing Beth back.
Speaker 15: Good. Especially if we get the relationship. Yeah.
Trish Hedin: Yeah. Get it drafted together.
Trish Hedin: Perfect. And then you guys can just add some parts out.
Sean Yates: Yeah, sounds good.
Mary Hofhine: All right. Is there anybody on Zoom on the flat? Is there anything to say about what we just listened to?
Mary Hofhine: I worked for Extension for a while, so I kind of observed a bit of all that. Okay.
Trish Hedin: So from our meeting on the 16th, and there was quite a bit, we had a public hearing of the major utility overlay that City of Moab came and did quite a long presentation. And we did have a couple citizens speak against that.
Trish Hedin: And there was a public hearing for the Novak Rezone, and there were just, I just wrote down my notes, there were 12 people that spoke against that. We had a CUP for Ride Moab Industries, and that passed unanimously.
Trish Hedin: We had a CUP for Randy’s Metal, and that passed 4-3 with Hadler, Hedin, and McGann in opposition.
Trish Hedin: I do want to make a, this is, I don’t think it’s an opinion.
Trish Hedin: I think it’s a fact.
Trish Hedin: This was a rezone, a unilateral rezone being an administrative process not allowed under Code 17-27A-506.
Trish Hedin: You cannot issue a CUP that are not allowed in that zone.
Trish Hedin: In our land use table, large lot residential, which that was, and extending land use, which was residential.
Trish Hedin: Under that 3.4.10, there is no C in that land use table under light industrial, which is what Randy’s Metals is.
Trish Hedin: So, that decision can be appealed.
Trish Hedin: Do you want to add anything to that, Mary?
Trish Hedin: Because you have quite a bit of knowledge of that, and I’m just kind of, I dove into it a little bit, but I don’t, you know.
Mary Hofhine: When I heard it on the agenda, I was very surprised. Right.
Mary Hofhine: Because in the past, for a lot of years, we had, and this is also on budget, we may not have gotten that far if we had had more input.
Trish Hedin: Right.
Mary Hofhine: I agree with that. And I saw where you were, the section, it wasn’t in the code. Right.
Mary Hofhine: When I saw it, I just panicked. I was like, all of a sudden, they can do it.
Trish Hedin: It’s not in the code.
Mary Hofhine: I was surprised it was on the agenda. It should have not even been put on.
Mary Hofhine: I think it should. Yeah.
Andrew Jackson: So, people have their day in court with a day before the Planning Commission or the County Commission. I think staff has to take that role of, look, this doesn’t fit in here.
Andrew Jackson: And even if it’s attempted as a home occupation, it would be an accessory use, but you have to have a primary use. And the primary use has to be the primary use, not a small portion that may or may not even be used for that as a home occupation.
Andrew Jackson: And so, as an accessory, that’s how it is.
Andrew Jackson: You can say that several times to them.
Andrew Jackson: If somebody pays their fee, they can move on.
Andrew Jackson: But I think it has to be made clear that it’s not a staff recommendation.
Trish Hedin: So, I’m learning a lot.
Mary Hofhine: And the little house that’s on the property, I don’t think he lives there.
Mary Hofhine: Right. His grandma’s or something. And something like that.
Mary Hofhine: Yeah. And in the past, they have more than two employees.
Speaker 20: Right.
Mary Hofhine: So, and it’s actually the building that they’re using. It’s not a permitted building. It’s never given a good.
Trish Hedin: Right. So, yeah.
Trish Hedin: And I guess for me, one thing that I pointed out during the County Commission that I’ve learned, I think there’s this misconception that CUPs kind of are applied to a business because I now have two CUPs on my little street that are businesses. But the reality is, it’s applied to the property.
Trish Hedin: And so, and it overlays that property and stays with that property. So, I think we just have to be very careful with CUPs.
Trish Hedin: And hopefully, within that land use code update, the Planning Commission will look with VRV at them and where they’re appropriate and where they’re not.
Trish Hedin: And hopefully, we can make appropriate decisions.
Trish Hedin: But this is a one-off because it should have never even been.
Andrew Jackson: And within a zone, you have bid uses, uses by right, you have sometimes uses that are listed as not permitted. However, that’s less in the U.S.
Andrew Jackson: and more in like Australia and New Zealand where you can do anything unless it’s prohibited. Okay.
Andrew Jackson: So, you have some uses that are not permitted.
Andrew Jackson: And then, you have uses that are permitted with conditions that make them compatible.
Andrew Jackson: So, you may have a church in the residential zone, churches in the residence, but with certain specific conditions on it, it may be able to deal with those conditions.
Trish Hedin: Okay. And then the last thing that I have is there was the rezone for the walking course and that passed unanimously, I believe. I couldn’t remember, Brian, but I thought it was unanimous.
Trish Hedin: Yeah. Okay. So, that’s what I have for the census.
Brian Martinez: And then, just to go back, there was actually a little bit more on that because under that use right there that Trish was just talking about, allowed is small-scale manufacturing, which is what the commission and the people who voted on the board believe that this use was. So, yeah.
Brian Martinez: Under that, it does apply for CD.
Brian Martinez: So, there is an interpretation that’s listed right here on findings of factors.
Trish Hedin: I couldn’t find small-scale manufacturing in the land use table when I looked at it. So, well, I’ll look again.
Mary Hofhine: But it would have been in the commercial zone.
Trish Hedin: Right. I couldn’t find it in, yeah.
Mary Hofhine: I expect to get it because it’s in the land industrial area. Right.
Mary Hofhine: And if you’ve got findings on that, send them over.
Brian Martinez: Yeah, it’s the findings of that right there.
Andrew Jackson: There were staff’s recommendation that was, I think, and I didn’t write the staff report, but I think it was for denial.
Andrew Jackson: But if it was approved, then these will be the conditions that are based upon the details and probably not forced for that staff report.
Mary Hofhine: I couldn’t find anything under that. I don’t think it should have ever been on the agenda.
Laura Long: Which documents are you looking at to find it?
Mary Hofhine: In the land use code, it’s section three.
Laura Long: Section three of the land use code?
Mary Hofhine: Yeah, there’s, yeah. Actually, there’s a couple of places that when you look up anything for any use, it’s not just one page. You have to go back and forth to the end.
Mary Hofhine: You’re aware of that. And it just never showed up. They were right to do it.
Andrew Jackson: That’s one of the things that I recommend to go back is some of the ordinances that have been approved in the last couple of years, but they haven’t been in the code.
Andrew Jackson: And so, yeah, we just need to move those forward so that we know that something, oh, well, I’ll have to adopt that.
Andrew Jackson: I don’t know if I’ll have the ability to adopt that.
Mary Hofhine: And it looks like there’s something, Andrew, that was just discretion, that the state was going to not allow conditional uses. Did I hear that?
Andrew Jackson: I didn’t hear that. There’s a lot, like I say, schools.
Andrew Jackson: Well, schools, if it’s a private school, but if it’s a public school, then the city of New York County doesn’t have any jurisdiction over them. But there’s a lot of things that are still, by conditions, they’re accepted.
Mary Hofhine: I just heard that somewhere, and I thought, oh, you have to adopt it.
Andrew Jackson: I hadn’t heard that.
Mary Hofhine: Did you say you had something to talk about, Brian?
Brian Martinez: No, that was it right there. I think Trish nailed them all.
Mary Hofhine: All right. We have no public hearings, right?
Mary Hofhine: Now we have discussion and consideration of the MFR. No, we don’t have any discussion for approval.
Mary Hofhine: It’s just discussion of the MFR 45.
Brian Martinez: So yeah, I mean, I can start off with that. You guys have questions to start.
Brian Martinez: I’d like, I thought you had discussed that we would have the workshop at this meeting, but there was a little bit of miscommunication. Anyways, I’ve been talking with the Utah Housing Corporation, and they’re willing to send a couple of folks over, or at least Zoom in, so that we can have a better discussion.
Brian Martinez: And I thought it might be better if we did that discussion when we have a full commission.
Andrew Jackson: I talked with the folks today from the Housing Trust here locally, and they’re willing to help as well.
Andrew Jackson: We’ve got some different programs that they have, the criminal program.
Brian Martinez: If you guys want to have some general discussions right now, that’s great. If not, you guys want to maybe schedule this for a workshop at the next meeting, or another meeting.
Brian Martinez: Just let me know so that I can let the Utah Housing Corporation know when they can come on.
Mary Hofhine: Actually, Sean should probably do that. That’s his job. So we need to have, and it would be a great idea to have that.
Sean Yates: So it’s been suggested that since this group here, the commissioners volunteer that that the workshop would work around your personal schedules.
Sean Yates: And I don’t know if you’d prefer to do that for the next meeting, or now, I’m not sure.
Sean Yates: That apparently works for this meeting for you all.
Mary Hofhine: I think the sooner we can schedule one, the better. And we’re still going to have to go through all of the motions once we do vote on something.
Mary Hofhine: So if we can have it for the next one, would that give you guys enough time to…
Andrew Jackson: So the 13th?
Andrew Jackson: I won’t be here on the 13th, but I can call you in. But the folks that you’ve got coming, local MOAB folks or state folks, it’ll be…
Andrew Jackson: And they’re going to be able to describe everything well with what they’ve worked with.
Mary Hofhine: And I agree, we need more people here so that everybody understands.
Speaker 15: There’ll be more people in the commission.
Mary Hofhine: And I just have, when I was going, when I saw this as a workshop, I used to… Hey, I used to be in the planning office, of course, everybody knows that. And when the application would come in, I would take this stuff and go through it.
Mary Hofhine: And without a good land use code, everything contradicts itself so bad. I have this many little tabs of all the contradictions on this. It’s not written well enough to be linked to public hearing.
Mary Hofhine: And I wanted to let it go, but because it needs more work, it doesn’t. [Sean Yates] (59:37 – 1:00:11) Yeah. So anyway.
Mary Hofhine: So Chris and I sat down with Gabe this past week to work through the budget. And Trish is there for the budget review board. There’s been $90,000 budget set aside, at least in the draft budget, $90,000 for a rewrite of this.
Mary Hofhine: That would include a couple of different public outreach meetings. And we feel, yeah, based on what Trish was saying, that $85,000 was budgeted here. So I feel that should be sufficient to…
Mary Hofhine: Are they going to go for an RFP? [Mary Hofhine] (1:00:12 – 1:01:04) Are we going to go out for an RFP? I think one has been in the development stages, but I’ll have to coordinate with that.
Mary Hofhine: Sooner the better. And I watched the last commission council meeting. And I really felt hurt that the council would give $700,000 to the airport for private hangars and had such a hard time providing something that’s so needed.
Mary Hofhine: And the airport has essentially the largest cost they’re going to look at. So anyway, it’s my two cents worth. Yeah.
Mary Hofhine: That’s my complaint for today. [Sean Yates] (1:01:04 – 1:01:15) And as you know, I’m sure as you know, working in the planning office for so many years, it really takes someone to champion it and dig down in the weeds and really tune everything else out to do it. [Mary Hofhine] (1:01:15 – 1:01:21) Oh, I definitely think it would be a technical writer.
Mary Hofhine: A technical writer. [Andrew Jackson] (1:01:21 – 1:01:32) I think it’s common knowledge that I have applied for the planning position here. So I’m going to just stay quiet before we have this discussion.
Mary Hofhine: [Mary Hofhine] (1:01:32 – 1:01:34) Well, then you know how bad… [Andrew Jackson] (1:01:34 – 1:01:35) I don’t want to have any confusion. [Mary Hofhine] (1:01:35 – 1:01:39) Very best provided for two cents.
Mary Hofhine: I wouldn’t want it. [Andrew Jackson] (1:01:39 – 1:01:41) I’ll keep my two cents and my five-year claim. [Mary Hofhine] (1:01:42 – 1:02:11) Anyway.
Mary Hofhine: Yeah, I think we do need a land use code and as soon as possible. There are… Chrissy said it a lot when she was not working.
Mary Hofhine: It’s totally broken. And it’s not any one person’s fault. It’s just that when you keep changing it, changing it, changing it, you don’t go back and look at it, it gets worse.
Mary Hofhine: So there are things in this land use code that if somebody wanted to build something, they could build it. [Speaker 20] (1:02:11 – 1:02:11) Yeah. [Mary Hofhine] (1:02:12 – 1:02:14) Because it’s not…
Mary Hofhine: It might not be a good thing. [Andrew Jackson] (1:02:15 – 1:02:40) And you do have the e-code folks. And I think you have a subscription to them or paying them a fee.
Mary Hofhine: And they have attorneys on staff. So you send them the ordinances. They will go through that and put things on to the online code.
Mary Hofhine: But they’ll also let you know where there’s problems with other areas. And so I think there’s maybe been some of that that’s… [Mary Hofhine] (1:02:40 – 1:03:02) Well, part of it is we don’t even have a land use map.
Mary Hofhine: I was calling the office and asked me to ask where it is. And I said, oh, it’s on the bottom of my back of my office. I don’t know what happened to it.
Mary Hofhine: We do not have an official land use map right now. [Andrew Jackson] (1:03:02 – 1:03:04) The general plan map or the… [Mary Hofhine] (1:03:04 – 1:03:12) Yeah, but the general plan map is not an official map.
Mary Hofhine: The general plan map is a brushstroke that here’s what we want to see in our map. [Andrew Jackson] (1:03:13 – 1:03:13) You’re talking zoning? [Mary Hofhine] (1:03:14 – 1:03:23) I’m talking about the zoning map.
Mary Hofhine: The first thing that would happen is once we got our land use code written, that would happen. And we would have it. [Jerry Klaes] (1:03:26 – 1:03:36) From an agenda standpoint, Mary, just to wrap up the MFR 45, did I hear right that we’re going to have more detailed discussion in our meeting on the 13th?
Mary Hofhine: [Laura Long] (1:03:36 – 1:03:45) We are. Are we going to do that before? Or is it going to be part of our planning commission meeting?
Mary Hofhine: I think it’d be best to have that before. [Mary Hofhine] (1:03:48 – 1:04:18) The last time we did a workshop, I think we did it at 3.30. We did it an hour before.
Mary Hofhine: I wasn’t part of it. I’m pretty sure we did it. We started at 3.30.
Mary Hofhine: I think that’s right. And we had the county commissioners with us. And then we started our regular meeting at 4.30.
Mary Hofhine: Or if we don’t have anything that’s pending, we could actually work that right into our meeting time too. [Andrew Jackson] (1:04:18 – 1:04:22) I think we’ve got to get to that’s going to make the people go home. [Laura Long] (1:04:24 – 1:04:37) What are the preferences?
Mary Hofhine: I think we should do it an hour before. 3.30 on the 13th. It’s a workshop.
Mary Hofhine: [Andrew Jackson] (1:04:38 – 1:04:40) Well, we will have the one on the latest. [Speaker 15] (1:04:40 – 1:04:40) Right. [Andrew Jackson] (1:04:40 – 1:04:43) But we figured it out at the 4th.
Mary Hofhine: [Mary Hofhine] (1:04:43 – 1:04:50) Oh, the one on the next. Yeah. Sorry.
Mary Hofhine: Anyway. [Aaron Lindberg] (1:04:59 – 1:05:01) Can I put a couple of comments in here? [Mary Hofhine] (1:05:03 – 1:05:03) Sure.
Mary Hofhine: [Aaron Lindberg] (1:05:03 – 1:05:06) Hello. Can you guys hear me? All right.
Mary Hofhine: [Mary Hofhine] (1:05:07 – 1:05:07) We can. [Aaron Lindberg] (1:05:08 – 1:08:57) Okay. So, you know, Brian, I looked over your MFR 45 relay.
Mary Hofhine: And so just I can see I would just like to frame some things for us. You know, I understand your concern, Mary, that, you know, we’re looking at needing a total code overhaul before we can start. But, you know, in your world, it would be better to revise the entire code.
Mary Hofhine: I kind of see it as like, I would like these ideas in the chamber, you know, kind of ready to shoot when we have that. We have some of these discussions and frames by the time we have that. And I think something this big is something maybe we can kind of kind of start thinking about have little mini discussions, I guess, in that spirit.
Mary Hofhine: There was a couple of comments I wanted to tell Brian about in the last meeting. I presented a kind of a code thing as an and I was concurring to Brian’s thing that he published. And so I saw differences between mine and his.
Mary Hofhine: I saw made like some differences where it was like mine was an overlay. And I think that will be discussions that we have to have. Mine had also commercial aspects to it.
Mary Hofhine: And I’ve been reading a really interesting book by Brian Goldstone called “There is no place for us.” And it’s talking about the current housing crisis that Atlanta is facing. And it talks about how, you know, people are going into these basically weekly hotel hotels. That’s like the solution that’s been given and how these are like economic centers.
Mary Hofhine: And it’s like if they were just pushed a little bit towards some had some commercial spaces to them, it could be a major help to people that are living in high density, high density housing. So if you read my version of an MFR 45, it gave substitutions for commercial in these high density housing units. And I also had I had also local ownership requirements.
Mary Hofhine: Not requirements. There were some differences in that. I think that this community would probably like to have that hashed out and have us think about.
Mary Hofhine: And then, you know, what was my other point here? I had. Yeah, local ownership, local landlords like tech.
Mary Hofhine: So basically, my thing is, is like, I appreciate, Brian, you’re publishing that because I think, you know, we can kind of start, you know, looking at some of these ideas that are floating around for something that’s MFR 45. And I just would like to have you guys, you know, start thinking about those things of ideas that we that we have going around. Thank you.
Mary Hofhine: [Brian Martinez] (1:08:59 – 1:09:34) Yeah, just to kind of comment on what you said there, I think you have some great ideas right there on bringing in commercial and bringing in local ownership. But I just want to make sure that everybody understands that the point of the MFR 45 that I was hoping for is actually for two specific programs. And the one of them is the light tech program.
Mary Hofhine: And then the other one, which we don’t know too much about, is the Utah. Was it the Utah housing grant? I believe that’s being run by Governor Cox right now.
Mary Hofhine: And so it’s kind of flying by the seat of its pants right now. Nobody really knows what’s happening with it. It’s being developed as things are going on.
Mary Hofhine: [Mary Hofhine] (1:09:34 – 1:09:35) Just like our land use code! [Brian Martinez] (1:09:37 – 1:09:45) But I do like Aaron’s idea that we get these ideas out on the table so that when it is time, when it is time that we can go ahead and start talking. [Laura Long] (1:09:45 – 1:10:06) And I just want to do a little plug here too.
Mary Hofhine: There’s this book called An Introduction to the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program, Affordable Housing Development, written by Bill Knowlton. And if anybody has access to getting this, it would probably be good to read through it a little bit before our workshop. It’s been pretty helpful.
Mary Hofhine: I’m borrowing Tricia’s copy. [Mary Hofhine] (1:10:06 – 1:10:08) Things that used to happen in the planning. [Andrew Jackson] (1:10:11 – 1:11:05) Also, within the last couple of years, the state legislature has added some extra tools for local communities.
Mary Hofhine: One of the things that we’ve had as a problem in Vineyard is you have a bunch of townhouses that were developed and proposed and built that were based off of, these would be for single-family homeowners, et cetera. But then what happens is you’d have an investor come in and buy the whole block of those. And so, the bill, the state legislature allows you to come up with a zone that has to be either owner-occupied or it can be by the housing authority or something like that.
Mary Hofhine: So, it’s not investors coming up and buying all the housing and then turning it into expensive rental properties. [Laura Long] (1:11:06 – 1:11:08) It’s like deed-restricted. [Andrew Jackson] (1:11:09 – 1:11:26) Sort of, except you can identify a zone and say, this area here can only be these individually-owned, not major investor-owned property.
Mary Hofhine: That’s the issue they’re having up there and I don’t know if it’s an issue here. [Mary Hofhine] (1:11:27 – 1:11:38) Cool. We don’t know.
Mary Hofhine: We haven’t got that far yet. So, who’s presenting the status of the recently approved high-density ordinance? [Sean Yates] (1:11:38 – 1:12:03) Yeah, I can just give a update on that.
Mary Hofhine: I believe there’s a copy out there floating around where the ordinance has been written. It’s just a waiting signature. Oh, HPHO.
Mary Hofhine: So, we’re still trying to track that down. I think I spoke with Dana about that. It’s just a matter of…
Mary Hofhine: [Mary Hofhine] (1:12:03 – 1:12:06) Oh, and they haven’t signed it. It’s not been… [Sean Yates] (1:12:06 – 1:12:44) Yeah, it was on as a fact because the 15 days have passed.
Mary Hofhine: According to Dana, it’s just a matter of getting a signature on that. And then, in association with that, there’s going to be a need, and of course, this isn’t really necessarily a policy writing group here, but that’s something that needs to be done in-house to complement, to be a companion with the new HPHO ordinance. A policy?
Mary Hofhine: A policy or a procedure that gives the guidelines and direction on how to implement the new policy. [Andrew Jackson] (1:12:45 – 1:12:56) What are the steps for someone who’s applying for that? What those steps are?
Mary Hofhine: If it’s a meeting before the Planning Commission will sit in, County Commission will order. [Trish Hedin] (1:12:57 – 1:12:59) It would be best for the Attorney’s Office to do that. [Speaker 11] (1:12:59 – 1:13:01) Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mary Hofhine: [Sean Yates] (1:13:02 – 1:13:06) Anyways, that was brought up by Dana. I’ll just bring it up here. [Mary Hofhine] (1:13:07 – 1:13:14) Can I kind of give…
Mary Hofhine: We already talked a little bit about this one. The land use code updates. Yeah.
Mary Hofhine: We’ll never quit talking about it. [Sean Yates] (1:13:14 – 1:13:34) It would be nice that… I don’t know if we’d have a professional facilitator there.
Mary Hofhine: A third party that could perhaps help kick it off, start off the brainstorming session, get a lot of folks’ input into it, and then kind of mind map it with some yellow sticky notes, and then go back and kind of synthesize it. [Laura Long] (1:13:35 – 1:13:45) Kind of like the future trails map. Were you at that meeting?
Mary Hofhine: Yeah. Future trails master plan. I like that.
Mary Hofhine: That seems to be effective. [Mary Hofhine] (1:13:46 – 1:13:50) Would that be… You want that at a meeting, or you want that as planning commission to do that?
Mary Hofhine: [Sean Yates] (1:13:51 – 1:13:55) I was thinking that maybe perhaps you were part of that workshop. [Mary Hofhine] (1:13:56 – 1:13:57) Other ones coming up? [Sean Yates] (1:13:57 – 1:13:58) Yeah, yeah.
Mary Hofhine: [Brian Martinez] (1:13:59 – 1:14:37) Kick it off on the land use code. To have both? That might be a little bit much.
Mary Hofhine: Probably, yeah. That’s true. Because you’re going to have so much.
Mary Hofhine: On this note with the land use code update right here, I have a talk with Dave about the possibility of single source for this right here. And the logic behind that would be that since CDZ has done the work on the future land use map, right, they would be in a unique position to where they wouldn’t have to go through and do as much research in writing that land use code. So there’s conversations about using CDZ again.
Mary Hofhine: [Mary Hofhine] (1:14:37 – 1:14:41) And they write general. I mean, they write land use code technical. [Brian Martinez] (1:14:41 – 1:14:43) So it’s just looking into that.
Mary Hofhine: [Mary Hofhine] (1:14:43 – 1:14:51) But I still think it means the county requires that Pat go to request for proposals because you’re spending more than $5,000. [Andrew Jackson] (1:14:52 – 1:14:54) It looks like they’re trying to do the sole source. [Speaker 12] (1:14:54 – 1:14:55) Yeah, it’s the sole source.
Mary Hofhine: [Laura Long] (1:14:56 – 1:14:58) And I’m like, what is that? What does that mean? [Sean Yates] (1:14:58 – 1:15:43) So anything under $50,000 to be done without competitive bidding according to just typical procurement policy.
Mary Hofhine: It’s thought, I suppose, in some individuals’ minds, it said CDZ did the land use map as part of a general plan update that a continuation of that could occur by the same vendor to carry on that thing that was adopted back in December, 2004 as the land use code update. I’m like, yeah, that’s what you’re talking about. [Mary Hofhine] (1:15:43 – 1:16:22) So this would happen in a little bit quicker time.
Mary Hofhine: I mean, that would be my only reason for it. I don’t know that. I think they need to come to the Planning Commission and explain how they can work that out.
Mary Hofhine: I was going to say, in an effort to work smarter and not harder on this, if especially if we already have a plan in place, I think we should let the experts do their job and tell us what input we should be prioritizing, providing first, and then use that workshop time to provide them the material they need to get the ball rolling. [Brian Martinez] (1:16:22 – 1:16:33) And then rather than us just… So the question’s out right now to stocks.
Mary Hofhine: And so kind of waiting back to hear what the county attorney has. But we are working on it. [Trish Hedin] (1:16:34 – 1:16:52) Well, and I think there’s an extensive list of…
Mary Hofhine: Elisa, I know, had a list going of items that she felt were priorities when we made that land use code update. So it exists somewhere. I’m like, this is it, this is it.
Mary Hofhine: You know, it’s there. [Speaker 11] (1:16:52 – 1:16:55) Yeah, I can imagine over the years there’s… Yeah, yeah.
Mary Hofhine: [Mary Hofhine] (1:16:56 – 1:17:13) And they do that group that takes on and just go and reuse it. Yeah, and we had co-publishing that I worked with, and they were really good about making sure that we followed through with those. I don’t know why that’s not being followed through.
Mary Hofhine: [Speaker 9] (1:17:14 – 1:17:18) I don’t know, it’s been a couple of years. In some cases, it’s been five years. [Mary Hofhine] (1:17:18 – 1:17:24) Well, part of it could be that we had so many people jumping through the…
Mary Hofhine: [Andrew Jackson] (1:17:24 – 1:18:10) Yeah, so when I talked to them on the phone, I said, hey, I’m working with the county, whatever. And they were like, well, we’ve got this person, this person, this person, this person. None of those have worked there.
Mary Hofhine: Some of them I’ve never even heard of. We’ve been going back a couple of years. So you’re right, it was people that moved on, but that was something that got dropped.
Mary Hofhine: And so they were waiting, expecting that there would be some of those. In fact, I think they sent out an email and said, hey, we haven’t heard anything from you, but it’s certainly the time. And it was because all the people that they had on there, no one worked for the county at all.
Mary Hofhine: [Mary Hofhine] (1:18:11 – 1:18:14) And it seemed to me that there always was at least two. [Jerry Klaes] (1:18:18 – 1:18:35) Hey, Mary, I’d like to make a suggestion. And that is that we just leave, that we keep an act or a status update line item on the agenda for land use code in the next few future meetings so that we can keep track on this.
Mary Hofhine: [Mary Hofhine] (1:18:37 – 1:18:43) Perfect. I love that, Jerry. I mean, I would ask her meeting anyway.
Mary Hofhine: [Jerry Klaes] (1:18:44 – 1:18:52) Yeah, no, I think it’s good to keep it on there so that everybody knows coming into it that we’re going to at least do a brief update. [Mary Hofhine] (1:18:54 – 1:19:07) All right. Is there any more discussion on that?
Mary Hofhine: Compact neighborhood zoning discussion that Sean or Andrew doesn’t have a name. [Sean Yates] (1:19:09 – 1:19:19) This is part of the packet here. This is a sample.
Mary Hofhine: This is a sample of a potential compact neighborhood zoning to be completed. [Speaker 11] (1:19:20 – 1:19:27) Thanks. So on the very last page there is an example and what a compact neighborhood could look like.
Mary Hofhine: [Sean Yates] (1:19:29 – 1:19:32) Let’s just have people know about property. [Mary Hofhine] (1:19:45 – 1:19:54) Is that, is this discussion about the compact neighborhood zoning? [Speaker 14] (1:19:58 – 1:19:58) Yeah.
Mary Hofhine: [Mary Hofhine] (1:20:00 – 1:20:33) Because we don’t have a, you know, even in current because we haven’t gotten that far with from here to the land use code. You don’t have that. You don’t have a definition of that.
Mary Hofhine: So that’s the biggest problem I have with how this is all going on. We don’t have a definition for that. And as you know, and it’s just been like a speaking area of it was rushed so good.
Mary Hofhine: And we have, we don’t have anything like that on there. So we don’t have that. [Laura Long] (1:20:36 – 1:20:52) What would you suggest?
Mary Hofhine: Because this keeps coming up. What would you suggest? It happens when we put like a moratorium on this kind of thing to hold until we update the land use code.
Mary Hofhine: I just, I. [Mary Hofhine] (1:20:53 – 1:20:54) That’s a discussion that has to happen at council. [Laura Long] (1:20:54 – 1:20:55) Okay.
Mary Hofhine: [Jerry Klaes] (1:20:57 – 1:21:41) Laura, I’ve got a thought on that and that is compact. All of these land use code changes have to go through the public hearing process, right? We don’t have, like you just said, we don’t have compact neighborhood in land use code.
Mary Hofhine: It doesn’t exist. And so until it does exist, until it goes through the development process and public hearing and it’s adopted in the code, we have to use the code we have. And so, you know, if it doesn’t line, if they’re, what they’re proposing doesn’t line up with something in the existing land use code, then we can’t consider it.
Mary Hofhine: Does anybody disagree with that? [Laura Long] (1:21:43 – 1:21:44) That makes sense to me. [Mary Hofhine] (1:21:45 – 1:21:56) It does.
Mary Hofhine: It’s not in the land use code. It says specifically in the current land use code. If it’s not in there, it doesn’t, it doesn’t exist, right?
Mary Hofhine: Right in the first parts and article three. [Jerry Klaes] (1:21:58 – 1:22:07) So I think that’s our guidance is we have to use what, we have to use the code we have until we have the new one. [Mary Hofhine] (1:22:11 – 1:22:18) Do we have any future considerations in terms of that discussion?
Mary Hofhine: [Mary Hofhine] (1:22:20 – 1:22:34) I was thinking if we can figure out what, what we’re going to do as far as rewriting this land use code, if we’re going to see the thing. [Brian Martinez] (1:22:35 – 1:23:13) I mean, I think the decision has to be, you know, started, you know, urban turtle in the park. Right.
Mary Hofhine: Which way it’s going to go. And then it would have to be a decision on, A, is it, is this something that we can, you know, do a sole source on? And if it is, is it advantageous to do it afterwards?
Mary Hofhine: Right. Like will it be done quicker? Will it be done, or will it be done cheaper?
Mary Hofhine: Because they’ve already done so much research. Well, that’s why I’m. Second, you know, if it’s not that, then it’ll have to be, you know, an RFP and that RFP is going to have to be developed internally.
Mary Hofhine: Right. And then they’ll have to go out to bid. And then after that goes out to bid, then it’ll become that process.
Mary Hofhine: So it’s just finding out where we are. [Mary Hofhine] (1:23:13 – 1:23:34) And that’s what I’m saying. I think if we, if we can get that ball rolling, determine who’s going to do it and then figure out what information they need from us.
Mary Hofhine: So it’s not costing us more for us to be providing material that they don’t necessarily need at that moment and have them waiting on stuff that they do. That question’s getting to the attorney’s office. Brian just mentioned that.
Mary Hofhine: [Brian Martinez] (1:23:34 – 1:23:45) Yeah, I took the lead when I got in here. And I kind of see, is this, is this an option? Is this someplace that we know?
Mary Hofhine: And we’re looking into it right now. [Mary Hofhine] (1:23:45 – 1:23:50) So I think my only consideration is just, yeah, Wendy’s updated. [Jerry Klaes] (1:23:53 – 1:24:07) Brian, to your, to your comment earlier, if legal is looking at it now, we should have an update at our meeting on the 13th.
Mary Hofhine: See where we’re at with that. Perhaps we’ve got the okay to go ahead. Perhaps we don’t.
Mary Hofhine: At least we’ll know at that point. [Brian Martinez] (1:24:08 – 1:24:22) Yeah, I can’t speak for the county attorney’s office right now. Hopefully we would get something back on if this is going to be allowable use and if it is, you know, which, which way we would start going with that.
Mary Hofhine: [Mary Hofhine] (1:24:29 – 1:24:31) So do I have a motion to adjourn? [Jerry Klaes] (1:24:42 – 1:24:44) See you all next time. [Speaker 11] (1:24:55 – 1:24:56) I think that’s good, I think that’s a good end of that.
Read the official agenda here: Grand County Meeting Agendas
Meeting Summary
Landscape ordinance amendment
Planner Andrew Jackson introduced a draft update to the landscaping ordinance. The changes are required by the Utah Division of Water Resources so local property owners can qualify for the state’s turf buyback rebate program. The amendments focus on reducing allowable landscaping in new commercial, industrial, and multifamily projects. Commissioners discussed enforcement, with Jerry Klaes pointing out that landscaping before a certificate of occupancy is already required but inconsistently applied. The group agreed the update should advance to a public hearing at a future meeting.
Water preservation element
Jackson then presented an overview of a new “water preservation element” that state law (SB 110) requires counties to adopt into their general plans by the end of 2025. The plan must address how new development will affect water demand and set strategies for conservation. The state target is to cut per-person use from 333 gallons a day to 248 by 2065. Jackson emphasized that Grand County’s tourist economy creates unique demands not reflected in the state model. This was an information item only, with plans to bring it back for public input and formal discussion later.
Agricultural protection
The commission reviewed issues around protecting farmland at the “para-urban” edge where small farms and residences meet. Jackson described problems like dust, noise, and runoff, as well as greenbelt tax complications when land shifts from agriculture to residential use.
Commissioner Trish Hedin said the Utah Department of Agriculture supports voluntary Agricultural Protection Areas, but Grand County would need its own ordinance before landowners could apply. Commissioners agreed the county should explore an ordinance while keeping participation voluntary.
Housing and zoning: MFR-45 overlay
Commissioner Brian Martinez advocated for a proposed MFR-45 multifamily zoning overlay tied to affordable housing tools like the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit and a new state housing grant. Commissioner Aaron Lindberg supported including provisions for local ownership and mixed commercial uses.
Commissioner Laura Long suggested commissioners read up on the technical Low Income Housing Tax Credit before the scheduled workshop to continue developing the idea.
Land use code update and consultant debate
Martinez floated the idea of hiring CDZ, the consultant that worked on the county’s future land use map, to also update the land use code. Hofhine pushed back, saying county procurement policy requires a competitive bid process for contracts over $5,000.
She argued the county has failed to properly prioritize or fund the code rewrite, and urged the Planning Commission be given a real role in shaping it. Commissioners agreed they want regular updates on the code included as a standing agenda item.
Compact neighborhood zoning
The commission briefly discussed “compact neighborhood zoning” as a concept in state planning documents. Hofhine expressed frustration that the county is asked to consider new zoning types when the existing land use code doesn’t even define them.
She called this “the biggest problem with how this is all going on,” pointing to years of rushed, underfunded code work.
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