Municipal Council - Regular Meeting

be kind of excited to one day right before our council meeting. Yep. Wired up. I'm not certain we could I know. I'm not certain that we could we don't we we cannot keep him from levitating though. Now we can sometimes do it. Selfie. I am much better than I was two years ago. Am I wrong? In what way? Well, we weren't here two years ago.

We will call to order the April 7th meeting of the Logan Municipal Council. And we will start with an opening ceremony from Lisa Stoner with the Cash Valley Starlight Alliance. Hi everyone. Um, happy Utah Dark Sky Month. To start off, my name is Lisa Stoner. Um, and it's an honor to speak with the council and our community here that's joined us. Um, as was mentioned, I am here representing the Cache Valley Starlight Alliance. We are a small group of Logan City residents uh recently formed to build greater awareness about the benefits of night sky lighting and to hopefully support better compliance with Logan City exterior lighting codes. For context, uh I am a dark sky advocate. Um I am on the board of Dark Sky Utah, which is of the state chapter for dark sky international. I served as the program coordinator for the Colorado Plateau and the Basement Range Dark Sky Cooperatives for four years based in the Institute of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism at Utah State University. Uh my work was largely focused on outreach and educational programs and partnerships to elevate the importance of naturally dark skies to help reduce light pollution. I've lived in Logan City for 26 years. My husband and I started our family here after graduating from Utah State. We have two daughters, one now at USU and the other a junior at Logan High School. The primary reason for making Logan our forever home is the quality of life, the schools, the natural beauty with incredible access to outdoor rep and the good naturatured people. I care deeply about our community and maintaining a prosperous yet safe and healthy

lifestyle for all residents. Our main message today is we want to encourage responsible outdoor lighting. We want people in our community to be aware that well-designed outdoor lighting can directly benefit our quality of life. To start, I want to mention the following that dark sky does not mean dark and light pollution is not synonymous with outdoor lighting. It only applies, light pollution only applies to outdoor lighting that is excessive, maybe misdirected or maybe intrusive. If light is well directed, meaning pointing down where it needs to be on the curb, the stairs, the streets, or an entrance to a building rather than light that goes in all directions. This can actually improve our ability to see at night. Our our eyes are adapted to change at night and bright lights interfere with this. Some lights can actually be painful particularly with aging eyes and cause people to look away. When light is off the target, one thing that can happen is light trespass such as when light comes into someone's home when it is not intended. When some considerations when planning for responsible outdoor lighting include checking if the light has a clear purpose. Is it useful? Is the light targeted where it needs to be? Light should only be as bright as needed um for the activi activity to be done safely. Does the light need to be on all the time? Adaptive controls such as dimmer and motion detection sensors are excellent ways to reduce waste. And again, having a motion detection device can be the safer option to detect

unwanted or unsuspected outside activity. Installing warmer amber colored lights are much easier on our eyes at night than the bright blue lights that unfortunately were once the only type of LED on the market. Amber colored LEDs are indeed available. And something to think about, if someone needed, this is an example uh that I think applies to everyone. If someone needs some form of emergency response, will that paramedic or law enforcement officer be able to see the address if there is a bright light shining in their eyes? Simply stated, brighter does not mean safer. So, what are the benefits of life- friendly lighting? There's a long list of benefits actually, including protecting public health. It saves energy. It supports wildlife. It preserves the beauty of our night sky as well as economic benefits for our community and local businesses through astroourism. From a public health standpoint, light trespass into our homes can interrupt our circadian rhythms and seek patterns which has been linked to anxiety, impaired cognition, weakened immune systems, and in some case cancer of some kinds. In uh in contrast, you may be interested in a research program that a colleague of mine from the USU extension is currently studying the benefits of stargazing among teens and benefit veterans. He is one. He fought in Afghanistan several years ago. Having an awe inspiring experience sitting under a starry sky has been shown to have positive impacts on mental health by reducing stress, promoting social

connectedness, and broadening one's perspective. Economic benefits of having starry nights has also been shown with the rapid increase in people seeking night sky experiences. This is the astroourism part. There are several important economic outcomes. Reduce energy costs is one and the benefits to a community and our local businesses when a place is known for its night sky quality. You may be aware of an economic study published in 2019 on the economic impacts of dark sky tourism on the Colorado Plateau by researchers David D uh David Mitchell and Terrell Galloway. Uh this was published just before the COVID pandemic. So keep in mind they predicted that in 10 years $2.5 million will be spent in this area the Colorado plateau because of astroourism. It is a place astroism um draws people from all over the world um to a place where they can actually see the night sky because they can no longer see it at home. Um and is quite lucrative because generally people stay longer. Uh not yet not yet to my knowledge. I'm not sure how much time we have left. Um, but I believe there's a potential for job diversification as well. Many people desire night friendly lighting. Maybe not everybody. Um, yet there are not enough electrical contractors who are familiar with night sky lighting. I have learned this from my work um across all the western states. There are not um and in some cases we don't have those at our local hardware stores. I have checked um wildlife is kind of self-evident. Um one thing that I like to point out is we are so lucky to have an an um a insect. Um our firefly park

in Italy is actually quite special. Um they do not occur everywhere. Um and they only come out in June for a couple of weeks. We also are on the path for a major flyaway of birds um passing overhead um just twice a year, millions of birds. I want to uh we appreciate what Logan City has done. Uh we have lighting ordinances in place and they are well written. I think we could probably put a little more teeth into it. Um I want to point out the resources we have available with Dark Sag International. um specifically the ordinance templates they provide which are legal and enforceable and effective for the preservation of dark skies. They also provide a service to review ordinances that are pre creative like we have. We want to provide support and solutions. The Dark Sky the Valley Cash Valley Starlight Alliance will be having our first community event on April 16th at the library. We are co-sponsoring it. Um I do have a flyer that's on the table. um for you and I you can take a look for this and there's a QR code. Um we welcome everyone. Um it's a familyfriendly event. Um we'll actually have a local astronomy club members for um getting introduction to dark star party type um things that they do in the summer. Um we've also um started uh we I'm working with local local high school Logan High School Leaf Club. They submit a proposal for an amber porch light exchange program. They buy the lights. They find people that are interested in exchanging their other light with amber colored lights. Um I'm also working with Utah State University's wildlife society club um and um some Ottabon members from Salt Lake with a night sky quality monitoring project. So we can have real data to look at and know exactly how

we're doing, if we've approved or if there are areas we can look at um to improve to to improve. So we also are hoping to meet with the Logan City School Board Board later this month. Um that just came up today. Um so I'm really excited to have that opportunity. We will give them a presentation. So um lastly, uh we want to save the stars for ourselves and generations to come. submitted a proclamation request to have a dark sky week for Logan City. Um, we hope the council and our city leaders will consider making dark sky lighting a priority for our community. Um, and we feel that night friendly lighting is another way we can make our community a welcoming space for residents and visitors of all ages. I am now ready for questions.

Thank you, Lisa. I appreciate it. You're welcome. I don't know if anyone has any questions for you. If not, we will let you okay take your seat. Thank you so much. I have your email and I will share it with the rest of the council as well if they have questions. They can reach out with you. Appreciate your question. Thank you so much, Lisa. We will now move to the pledge of allegiance and I will lead us in that pledge.

I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you again, Lisa. We'll now move to the acceptance of the minutes and approval of the agenda for this evening. I'll move we accept the minutes and approve the agenda for tonight. I'll second that. We have a mo motion and a second. If there's no further discussion, all in favor, please say I. Can I? Can I actually ask a quick question? Yes.

I had emailed the attorney said about changing Chair Johnson on those few lines that he was commenting that doesn't look it was changed. Okay. Because the one I looked at, it wasn't. Okay. Final version. Perfect. Okay. Then I'll say I We'll call that one more time. Okay. All in favor, please say I. I.

I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Our 2026 regular meeting schedule is the 1st and third Tuesdays at 5:30 p.m. and our next meeting will be April 21st. Uh this time of our agenda is for questions and comments for the mayor of the or the council. So anyone in the audience who has a question or comment or concerns of anything in the city that pertains to or is within the realm of responsibility for the mayor or council is welcome to come up. Take 3 minutes or less and please state your name and city of residence. And the time is now the public's.

Seeing no one, we will close the public comment section and I will turn the time over to Mayor Anderson for our mayor and staff reports. Great. Thank you very much. Um Joe, are you here in place of Paul tonight? Paul was here. Oh, Paul. Oh, you are here. I didn't see you here before Paul. Okay. No, I was like I was in anticipation that Paul was going to be Paul. Would you like to introduce our new streets storm water manager? Thank you. I'm sorry I can see you hiding over there. No problem. Yeah.

Uh council, just excited to go on take just a minute and introduce you to Whit Wil Cox. You can see he's much taller than I am. I'm part of our application process. Um no, I'm excited very much so. It's always exciting when we're able to have an opportunity to promote, especially from within. worked been with Logan City for 20 years. Um, did time. I shouldn't say did time. Started in the parks department and worked part time in the golf golf course and the full-time parks foreman. Did nine years with the street division. I knew that operator

and spent the last 11 years in the water division as a weltech and foreman over the Weltech crew. Cool. So, we're very excited and we had to take about 15 minutes, but anyway, Will Wilcox's our new street and storm water division manager. Y congratulations. Appreciate that. Any questions or anything? You don't have to say anything if you don't want to. You just keep you just keep doing the good work. Yes. I appreciate that. Thank you. We're excited for you. Mhm. Excited to have you on your have you on the team. So appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thanks Paul. Thanks.

All right.

We also wanted to announce that in February we received a letter from uh Representative Blake Moore and we received funding from the let's see the Environmental Appropriations Act and we received 1.75 million for our wastewater treatment facility. Now, the technology behind this is is quite complicated, but it's really really interesting, and they do tours out there from time to time. So, if you're interested in finding out how this works, you're welcome to participate. However, this this grant will be used in conjunction with our ongoing expansion of the the biomag, which is what extracts the solids from the the the waste water. And it will I know it's huge.

It's big round. It's really cool. It's really cool. But this will help with the ongoing expansion and will add additional mixing to the bioreactors and make our our system more efficient. So we wanted to announce that we'd gotten that grant from the federal government to keep our water clean as it comes through the city and goes back out into our environment. So very exciting.

Yeah, super exciting. And this was our team with a little help from uh legislative uh lobbyist to help us get this. So that's great great work by environmental department. Yeah, great work. So we do have a bunch of uh board appointments and when I say a bunch uh I mean a bunch. So there's there's a lot. So um for the golf course advisory board and we have two new appointments, Jeff Miller and uh Scott Hyde for the golf advisory board for the parks and recreation advisory board. Carol Stefan Higen and Scott Mchon for the historic preservation committee. Connor R. Smith and for the water wastewater and storm water advisory board, Dr. Jeff Horsesburg. So we have a load of new participants on our board here.

If you are here, we would love to have you stand up and take 15 minutes. Yes. And take 15 minutes just like Whit. Thank you for coming since we had a small percentage of you here. So it's lovely to put a face. Yes. to to all the names and the resumes. Can they tell us their names because I don't know who they are. Please. Jeff, I'm Congressman. Awesome. Very good. Thank you for coming. Thanks for coming. I'd love having you come and excited to have you serve on our boards if council approves. Do you think he says that like

is there a reason we shouldn't leading you into making that decision? So, we need an official motion. Yeah. I move we approve the board appointments as to I move we ratify the appointments as presented. I'll second. We have a motion and second. All in favor, please say I.

Any opposed? Wonderful. Thank you, council. You're on. You're on. Yes. Thank you. And uh we'll make sure the chairs of your boards get in touch with you and let you know what the plans are. So, thank you. And uh our Logan City Parks and Wreck have received an award from the Utah Recreation and Park Association. And if you're here to participate in that, please come up to the microphone. Including our parks representatives. Do you want Russ as well? Yeah. Are you going to come up to Russ? No, you're you're not part of the awards. So,

please I'm used to grabbing a microphone when we're up here. So, you're you're close.

Close enough. Good. Awesome. Well, my name is Megan Salinger. Um, I am currently serving as the president of U Utah Parks and Parks and Recreation Parks Recreation Utah Recreation Parks Association. I always get those two flopped, but I also am currently the director of Pleasant Grove Recreation Center as well. So, got a good opportunity for us to be here. This is actually one of our most favorite parts of of what we do as our job throughout the years. We get to come out to meet you as the cities, recognize the awesome work that's happening in your communities. I mean, really, if you you start thinking about your community, think about what it would be like without green space, without parks, without youth leagues and things going on, it kind of sounds depressing. And really, we want to just really re reiterate the magic that happens within communities because of parks and recreation professionals. you know, we're not just rec centers, we're not just fitness, we're not just aquatics, but we're really connecting people and bringing them opportunities to meet their neighbors, um to just find lifelong health in in whatever way that looks like for them in recreation. And so, this is such an important work. And I think sometimes people just think it's just fun. You just do fun for your job, which it is fun. We love what we do. Um but it is so important for communities. And so, we recognize Logan and they've been such a wonderful partner of URPA throughout the years. Um both Dan and Russ have served on our board of directors in in in the past. And so we just really appreciate city council and administration for uh being a part of that and and being able to uh have them be a part of us and share their knowledge in this awesome wonderful event that Muel is going to talk about here in a second because it's it's a wonderful opportunity to recognize them on a statewide level with the wonderful work they've done. So Muel, take it away on the event. Um so my name is Michelle Christensen. I'm the assistant director for URPA and we are so excited to be here today to um every year we do awards through our association. Um and this year we had over 120 nominations for various awards and we are very excited to announce that the outstanding special event this year has been awarded to the

Broomsticks and Boogie Witches Dance and Halloween Festival. Um and I think if I've got my history right, this event started small with some some groups and then grew to a point where it was a little bit uncontainable. And so it was a great opportunity for the council and city and the recreation department to um come in and make it a partnership and really support the things that were happening in the community. So um with that in mind, our awards committee was very impressed with the blend of creativity and tradition um along with just outstanding collaboration community partners. So um the Logan's Hocus Pocus group um local businesses, sponsors, and lots of volunteers. Um it sounds like the Hocus Pocus group does a lot throughout the year. It sounds like you guys have like two or 30 hund dances every year. That's amazing. So, just really cool to have that centered here uh in Logan. And then to be able to build on that and invite the community in um and just everybody around. Um so, this event is really a testament to your commitment to building community and creating inclusive and um spaces with provide uh events and and recreation for teens, adults, seniors, and everybody in between. So, um we know this event and other events throughout Logan are not possible without your support. So, we just want to say thank you and a big congratulations to the parks department and the local posters group. So, if you guys want to come up, usually we do a picture. Is that okay? And we'll just present them with the plaque. Um, and then we've got a picture of those who were able to attend our conference. So, we got pictures here. only can't get away from the little witches.

Bring the little witches over here. We're just going to hide in the background. It's your direct. I say I'll just do the duck. If I can't see the camera, it can't see me. So, stop fighting.

Keep dancing. You've been following the photos. Awesome. Well, thank you guys. Thanks again. appreciate everything you guys do. It's amazing. Having put on a lot of events personally, I know how much work and effort it takes to to make it happen. And so, thanks to Parks and Wreck and to the witches to put this on. It's a lot of effort. It's really a lot of effort. So, thank you for that. Thank you. Thank you. That's all for my reports today. Thank you, Mayor Anderson. You're welcome. We'll now move to council business and we will start with a planning commission update from Junior Sims.

Uh planning commission met on the 26th of March. Uh they spent most of their time talking about the general plan which we will begin to discuss later in the meeting so I won't go into that. Um they also approved a project which has come before planning commission four times. only four.

Only four. But um it is a development that will occur in the very small strip of land right behind love to cook between Love to Cook at the park. Um so it is it will be um point it's8 acres and it will be divided into 20 lots and construct 18 three-story town home units and one three-story mixeduse building. So that's what we did. Interesting. I did not know about that little development there. Should have paid attention to their agenda that you could have paid attention to it three other times. Yes, probably.

That's probably true. It's really a unique development. Yeah. Yeah. I hope they pull it off, you know, this time. And if you have I don't know if any of you've noticed, it's a little bit off the subject, but have you've noticed the the the um town homes that are going up behind the courthouse just north of the courthouse or the the Logan City Courthouse. That narrow strip of property, narrow strip of property that was for sale forever. Russ and I talked about it this morning. I was like, "Oo, it's going to be tight driving. Be super tight." Have a compact car. Yep. make it work. But it's nice. It's going to be affordable and they're building to be for sale and affordable. So, that'll be nice. The way it is.

Great projects. We'll move now move to council announcements. This is the time for the council. Uh if you guys have any updates or announcements or anything you want to share with either the council or the public, I will just turn it to the council for any board meeting or community updates that you guys have. And if nobody has one, I have a couple, but I'm happy to go last. I have a quick one. is not huge, but Debbie from the parks and recck department has let me know that they have started texting from the recck department. So, if you have signed up for a program in the past, an event, sports, things like that, you will start getting text updates from the parks and recck department about activities that they have in the future. Cool.

Kind of a little bit of a opening up communication. That's awesome. It's always hard to get a hold of everyone. Yes. So, we can we can say that there are several of us that are participating in something tomorrow morning called fire ops, which requires us to be in full fire gear with a smoke mask and boots and a hat. And all I could say was, I hope I have plenty of time to get dressed. So, we will be participating in a fire. Yeah. and an extrication from a vehicle and an EMS emergency.

We're still looking for volunteers to crash their cars and light their houses on fire, aren't we? No, we're out there at the tower. We don't I know we're going to the train if someone doesn't want their house. That would be really cool. So, I do not want to have to get dressed in No, no, no, no, no. Anyway, it will be a very interesting and unique experience. My six-year-old son is very jealous. You did it before, didn't you? No, I have not done it before. This is my first year. Have you done it before? No. Oh, yeah. Let's say Ernesto, Genie, and I are going to the newbies. I think Melissa's Melissa's not

I'm just worried about I have a large. I'm worried about the helmet fitting. So, I did the 911 in full bunker gear. Bunker gear. Is that what you call it? In full gear. Full gear. That stuff is hot and like sweaty and heavy. My I still laugh cuz when I did it with Mark Mayor Anderson. Mark at the time, right? Yeah. I went home and I texted him the night after. I said, you know, we did all the stairs and I did it with the the oxygen tank thing. The thing that hurt was my neck from holding that helmet. I went home. I was like, man, I stupid. I don't normally I don't know what they weigh, but they they're a lot.

They're helmets. So, um I have one or two updates unless anybody else has anything.

I have one. Um at some point I mentioned um or asked a question if we were um informed about the Department of Justice uh enforcing some additional ADA regulation on accessibility for our PDFs on our website. I know we're working on a new website, but usually PDFs don't uh get all the attention because they're an afterthought many times. Well, apparently they're going to start demanding uh enforcing that um PDFs also follow the same accessibility uh requirements that websites do.

That's a big change because usually they didn't. Um so that even affects our agendas uh for our meeting. So I don't know if we've heard of that uh and if we are working towards getting to be accessible. Yes, we are. Excellent. Thank you so much. Can I ask one? Is it mostly like contrast and fonts and sizes? Is that the general? Headers, descriptions, uh tags on the HTML code and Yeah. Which on the website makes sense. Yeah. So interesting. Thank you for the update.

Um, two quick ones for me. There's a forestry advisory board meeting um, tomorrow afternoon and um, which I have not attended one of those yet. So, it'll be my first and um, I was out of town last week for the um, uh, cash arts board meeting. Um, and then I'm going to uh connect with Heather at the warming center and go by there before they close this Saturday. And I don't know if anyone else tomorrow, correct? You're going tomorrow. I'm They tried to schedule me for tomorrow, but I'm going to fire. Yeah, I'm

I have been going to be It's going to be another day, I think. So, um, but it's going to be before Saturday when they close. So, um, for the season. I made it last week. We had a really good conversation. Good. Okay. And on the warming center, I just attended the home local homeless council today. Um, and that will be closing Saturday morning, but they are trying to have some outreach programs this summer to get some information and needs, you know, figure out what they can do to help people throughout the summer as well. That's it.

Wonderful. Um, I just have and and Joe left. I was going to let Joe like correct me as I'm wrong here. I went to uh the our water advisory board and they had a whole bunch of updates from the legislative session and I was going to give you guys like a couple little blinks on this cuz I thought some of these were interesting. I will email you this um document that Joe sent me though. But a couple ones I thought were interesting that came out of the state legislature this year is that we have to have tiered pricing requirements on all of our water billing. um which we currently don't perfectly meet. We're close, but I'm going to look at Paul. But I think from what I remember from Joe, we we do need to update that a little bit. One one of the ones that I found was interesting though was uh and I won't give you the number there, but the legislature passed that we can't have that there is no lawns permitted in park strips or areas that are less than 8 ft wide in new developments anymore in the state. Uh, and no more than 50% of a front or sideyard of a landscaped area in a new residential development can be lawn after the bill goes in effect this year, which I thought were a couple interesting ones. But I'll email you all this so you can look at the legislative updates. The other thing that I thought was interesting from waterboard, and I know some of you have probably seen this before, but over the last like 10 to 15 years, our water usage as a city has been pretty much flat. We've had some ups and downs, u, but trend line has been pretty dang flat. Really over the last 30 years, but over the last 15's been

been flat. And I know we get a lot of emails about water conservation and obviously we can do better in some areas, but it's nice to see that even with the growth of the city over the last couple decades, our water consumption has been very level. Um, which is kind of nice to see that we're giving more people water, but not necessarily using more water. So, I thought that was an interesting update. Uh, and unless there's anything else, we will close council announcements and we'll move to action items, which we don't have any of, which we don't have any of, and we will move to our workshop items. And we'll have our first one, which is resolution 2610. And we'll have Amanda Pierce come us through our CBDG grant annual action plan.

How are you, Amanda? The lights just changed color. It was just the projector. dim the lights. Rich, thank you, Rich.

That was Jeff. Okay. Oh, you need to do that. He had to turn it on. We're good. You didn't have to push a button. No, you you do it with that thing back. Oh, I see. You just pull it out. I don't think they're something the witches did that were they were staying witches. No, they got it going magic. We're ready. Okay, I'm ready. Tell Amanda, take it.

Okay, I am presenting the funding recommendations for the community development block grants 2026 annual action plan. Uh the funding goals are to invest 60% of annual funding towards neighborhood infrastructure in LMI areas and to the remediation of access and mobility barriers in all areas. Uh 20% towards public facility improvements and public service activities and 20% towards administration and planning projects. Uh the funding estimate uh for 2026 is $550,000. So the updated funding recommendations um there were the two sidewalk projects from 2024 that needed additional funding um that are not able to use 2026 funds because they'll start before the funding can be used. So, they were removed. Um, and the additional funding was put towards the ADA ramps project and the land acquisition project. And then we'll go through each one of these projects. Uh, the ADA ramps or 198,000 will go towards installing new ADA ramps throughout the city in low to moderate income areas. The yellow and red areas on the map are the eligible LMI areas throughout the city. It's

one of my favorite houses. I know. I love that house. I missed one. Sorry. uh 62,000 will go to the Cash County Senior Center to help purchase food uh to provide 22,000 meals to Logan senior citizens uh benefiting approximately 375 Logan seniors and 20,000 will go towards the installation of vinyl murals on four existing bus shelters. two at 200 North and 50 West in front of the post office

and then two along 100 west in front of the rec center and the tennis courts and 29,000 will go to the Sunshine Terrace to update paint in their residential hallways and common areas and replace flooring in 15 resident rooms uh benefiting approximately 65 residents. 130,000 will go to the Community Development Corporation of Utah to purchase land uh for the development of up to two single family homes that will be sold to LMI households. And that's all the projects. Any questions? I say we already asked them.

Any questions for Amanda before we move on? Can you tell us again on the LMI the land acquisition? Um were they was it was there going to be like a what do you call it a deed restriction or something to keep those? Yeah, they um they use the land trust model and retain the ownership of the land and then reduce let's see they cap the equity growth at 1.5% per year to keep the cost down. So essentially the nonprofit always owns the land which brings the price of

owning living there to just the property which is then capped per year at growth. and so that it always stays affordable and you don't have that $100,000 so land costs underneath. Can I ask Rich a question about that? How does that work for t taxes? Because if a nonprofit owns the land, it would not be have property tax on. Correct. you'd have property tax on the building, but otherwise it still does as long as the like we own land as a city and if that building or facility or the land itself is rented out then we do have taxes. Now it it could be reduced because they're selling the house.

They're what? They're selling house selling the house. That's I I think they would both have taxes both the nonprofit and the homeowner. It would just be but the homeowner would have lower taxes because they're not paying the land taxes. Yeah. Okay. I just thought of that. I don't know how that works. I don't think there's any land trusts in Logan currently, Russ. No, I know there's I mean, they're getting more popular across the country. Um but yeah, I didn't think there was any here. I know. But that's an interesting It'll be interesting to see how the state applies Yeah. taxation under that model.

Yeah. Because if indeed they don't pay property tax on the land, it's a little detrimental to the city to be creating these pockets. There's got to be some revenue consideration for that property tax so that you don't have that loss because otherwise how can you incentivize cities to cons?

I don't think that nonprofits are exempt for paying property tax if they own the property. even even if they are they would still pay property tax if it's rented or sold or occupied. So even if if we own a piece of property but yet we're commercially and I use that term simply or loosely it could be a residential purpose but if we're renting it out but we pay no property tax on this building or the library to ourselves public government entity. I think that I think nonprofits still can be taxed just like a nonprofits don't pay some dozens. Yeah. Some do nothing. It depends on. So depends on our class.

So it ties up and the use. Yeah. Amanda, remind me because there was a match on that um that grant as well. Correct. There was a match on every one. Well, yeah, but like they had an actual substantial amount to match it if I remember right. But yeah, they have a large amount. Yeah. See, I thought they had 300 something to build the homes. That's what I thought. You're not required to have a match, but I can also ask them about property tax and report back. I'm just curious. That's all. I'm sure the house like the homeowner would still probably at the very least. Can you remind me how much they originally asked for? They asked for 198 something like that.

189 something. It It was high ones. I was trying to remember. Yeah. Sorry. There were more questions than I thought. And you've talked to them since I have about the 130 and they felt like the project was still feasible with that 130 cuz you've got a line in here saying it was Yeah. He said 130 would be um would make the project more feasible. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Pretty much that they would make any amount work that they were given. So you just appreciate the help.

Yeah. It's surprising to me, but not that Logan City is at a place being a part of Utah that housing costs are such that we have this kind of program and opportunity kind to Logan. I lived in Charleston, South Carolina over 20 years ago, 25 years ago. And as a young professional almost it was very close to purchasing a house just like where it was it was owned by you had to be within a certain income level and it was an opportunity to be a first-time homeowner in a place where you otherwise would not. And um so it's just it's kind of wild that's but it'll be interesting to see how it works and how you know here hopefully successful

hopefully. Yeah. I'm optimistic. Any other questions for Amanda? Thanks Amanda. We'll see you in two weeks. Okay. Our next item is resolution 26-09. This is our general plan and we'll have Russ Holly come up and run us through it. Run it through. Thank you, council. So, we've been on this journey for about a year and a half. I'm thinking the finish line is close by, but we can move.

Well, we shall see. So, uh this was uh reviewed by planning commission. uh they they took two meetings to review it and they had a list of about six recommendations. I'll go through those in a second, but really quickly, let me go over the general plan. Please do. I know all of you have participated in various ways um in numerous ways over the last 18 months and I'll run through those numbers. So, we've had 15 workshops, uh over 390 participants, uh 63 residents and stakeholders, um held targeted focus groups. Um we've had 300 responses to the online survey. Uh we've done unique mapping, uh popup events at some of our community, uh events. um 830 total points of engagement. Uh we've had online comments on the plans. So this is the third draft. We've had opportunities to comment on all three drafts. Uh the the consultant um has broughten has invited various subconultants and staff members here. All in all, they probably had about 15 uh people, numerous visits collecting data um and other things, steering committee meetings, and three uh meetings with planning commission and city council. And that leads us to today. So, um there's a couple of things that the state of Utah requires uh for general plans. AUD is general plan and you need

to update it. Um, but there's also required chapters or elements. Uh, you need a moderate income housing section, a water use and water preservation section. And then they want to see a transportation section that looks at both your uh, city's transportation but also the connectivity to the surrounding area and region. The uh top issues identified for Logan have have been affordable housing, walkability, traffic congestion, water infrastructure keeping up with growth, economic opportunities, and the preservation of our green open space. The plan considers our uh previous plans, including the 2008 version of our general plan, uh the the neighborhood plans that we've completed, four out of the six, the water master plan, sewer plan, transportation master plan, moderate housing, moderate income housing plans, annexation plans, public art plan, historic district guidelines, uh parks and recreation open space plans, bicycle pedestrian plan, and our downtown specific plan.

Just a few plans. And our fourth north and our fourth.

So what's a general plan? It identifies city's existing assets, strengths. It identifies the community issues, the desires, the needs, the aspirations. Um and it acts as a guide book for a broad range of topics that eventually um uh turn into policy or code. It's a dynamic uh document that is meant to be updated as we evolve and change. So this plan will need to be looked at in the years um to properly adapt to our changing needs. why it's important. It's an opportunity to tell Logan's unique story um to inform and educate the community. Um this is used for potential businesses that that may want to locate here or potential residents that may want to live here. So, this is a resource for those folks. It u provides a foundation for zoning and ordinance framework. uh it coordinates local and regional services. It's used to help support CIP and budgeting processes in the future and it also might identify future issues. So they kind of have five phases to their uh project. They look at kickoff and existing conditions, public engagement, uh plan visioning and recommendation and then draft plan and final draft. The plan is broken up into 12 chapters. Introduction, community outreach, community profile, vision and goals, land use, housing, economic development, transportation,

community facilities, parks and wreck, community design, and implementation. So, the outreach, again, I I went over all these numbers, but they've got some really cool infographics that that show all the outreach and uh engagement that they went through. vision and goals core elements. This is set up so that um land use, housing, housing um and neighborhoods, economic development, transportation, mobility, community facilities, um parks and wreck and community design. Really quick, I'll just touch on the main chapters. So, land use part of the general plan includes what we call a future land use plan or a flop. They've proposed a flop that has 10 different districts. Um, this was intentionally chosen to have a a fewer amount of districts so that as you go through and apply zoning, you have more choice. So, for instance, the the light yellow represents possibly three different zoning districts. So, as you go through, you can determine, okay, maybe the the higher single family zone, which might be in the future an NR8 or something is is appropriate here, or if it's in an area where it's not appropriate, you could pick an NR4 or something like that. So, it gives a little bit more flexibility as we go forward with zoning and reszoning. A future land use plan does not entitle a property to this. um it it may become that in the future. It it may not be ready to be zoned that. Um

so there's not any sort of instantaneous entitlement if a property is shown differently on a future land use map. It describes each one of those land use designations. It doesn't really uh change u our our direction. it it generally maybe looks at densifying some things to help try to tackle some of our affordability issues. Um, but the industrial, the the commercial, even the residential is similar in character and nature. So overall, I think the general plan um makes some adjustments to our course, but it it it doesn't, you know, turn our ship around 180 degrees, if that makes sense.

It could.

It could it could, but I mean, you look at their visions and goals. Um it's things that we're already kind of trying to work towards. Um there shouldn't be any big surprises, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. So, one of the issues with the flop is the fourth north corridor. This is one area that that identifies some pretty um big jumps in zoning and density. This corridor is a UD do corridor that's been been a highway now for many decades. It was originally developed in the early 1900s as low density single family homes. When the when the highway expanded to a five lane, um most of the families kind of saw the writing on the wall and started moving out. Now it's uh 98% rental properties and so and and a lot of the properties are reaching a phase that is ripe for redevelopment.

They're aging out.

They're aging out. These blocks are highly developed and and chopped up into all different shapes and sizes, too. And so redevelopment is sometimes a challenge when you have 42 properties um and they're all configured differently. You typically have to cobble together a project site. But this uh corridor presents a unique opportunity to actually connect campus with downtown um in a way that uh can accommodate more student housing and more commercial activity. Uh it also acts as a gateway to Logan Canyon, Bear Lake, Yellowstone National Park. So, a lot of eyes go up and down this uh could be uh more placemaking, more landmarks, more more impressions. The streets safe itself, I think, warrants some upgrades. It's a it's a pretty um plain jane five lane street and and you know, between furnishings and enhancements along sidewalks and park strips and banner poles. Um I think uh similar to what we did downtown with West Center Street, how those improvements spurred redevelopment and reinvestment. Uh that could also be an option here. Um but this this says that um those single family homes should be redeveloped into higher density or mixed use. The the the kind of maroon brown is mixed use designation. The dark orange is their high density designation and then the yellow is the lower density. An alternative to this would be creating two nodes at the intersections of 600

east and 200 east. Those are both traffic signals. Uh commercial mixed use makes a lot of sense at those intersections. And then the two blocks in between would go to that um that medium orange And then this darker yellow is, excuse me, the darker yellow is the medium density, which is maybe a density between 9 and and 20 units. And then the darker orange is is 30 units or more. So this this option would allow more redevelopment at the nodes and kind of along the street face of 400 North, but it would transition a little bit smoother to some of the neighborhoods to the north and south. Because if you go back to this one and you've got, you know, 30 unit high density here, it's a little bit of a transition to go back to the six unit. We do have codes and ordinances that requires height limitations and a little bit smoother. Um, so this would be what I call proposal B or kind of an alternative. Another thought um that council member Simmons brought to my attention today would be possibly an overlay or a suggestion that she made that that could um allow for a fourth north corridor overlay that that maybe looks at some specific ordinance or zoning for that uh corridor itself. And it could be maybe formbased or prescribed in a way that really kind of shapes how a project could be designed there in a more specific way. So this could be um proposal C. Uh planning commission made a couple of adjustments to the or recommendations from the flop and I'll get to those in a second. So, housing is chapter six. And again,

did you did you go back to the Are you going to do the other one that's on the highway? Yeah. Okay.

Uh again, the the biggest number one issue is housing affordability and how we provide housing for our up and cominging generations. and it identifies some strategies um like ADUs, like flag lots, infill. Um there's projections on what's needed as we continue to grow, what's available, what kind of green space do we have, what kind of redevelopment uh areas could be identified, planning for new growth areas. Um, so like on the west side of town, if you introduce maybe some uh kind of neighborhood village style where you've got a little bit higher density in a few areas out there, economic development, business attraction, retention, uh, destinations, could we do more from a tourism standpoint? We have a a good relationship with our university. There's a lot of spin-off companies um that do well here that are kind of tied to the A and to the technology in the A. Also, the space um dynamics and and those two kind of industries seem to have a pretty good foothold. Talks about how to, you know, try to better retain, how to attract new. Looks at the different types of business areas. They all have different character. You've got downtown. You've got uh kind of our corridor commercial. You've got our industrial areas, manufacturing, transportation. It looks at uh roadway networks. Um what roadways should be classified in a way so that we can get

around town. It looks at um public transportation and how to continue to make that more viable and efficient. active transportation, walking, biking, community facilities, uh water use, preservation, community services, uh police, fire, library, schools, institutional and chapter 10 is parks and open space. So, kind of breaks it down into a few different categories. There's natural areas, there's um more formal parks, recreation, you know, soccer, things like that. Tourism, it looks at a more regional um scope, like could we uh look at a more countywide map there? What are what are some of the attractions? What are the draws? It kind of concludes that our our nature-based tourism is probably our strongest um asset with with all of the the wilderness and and forest areas, placemaking, identity, neighborhoods, points of interest. So, what kind of things do we need to continue to make Logan unique and attractive? Public art. uh third places, branding, uh signage, gateways. It looks at the neighborhoods and and how they're currently drawn and how they're currently unique points of interest. And then implementation is how do we use

this plan? How do we update it? How do we uh determine capital improvement programs? uh zoning and uh future ordinances. Okay. So, planning commission uh made a couple of specific recommendations. Uh Daniel or excuse me, Denzel Stewart Nature Park is the wrong color on the map. uh community services police could add the uh addition of animal control as a service provided uh rec w rec center um either that's a collaboration with the county or city alone I think it's too early to determine that but um put some language in there uh the senior center as well community design um add summer tourism specific to our our summer citizens, our senior summer citizens. Is there more we can do to try to attract uh summer citizens at dark sky friendly policies under that um community design section as well. Uh one typo and then the fluff is the the fourth north corridor that we just talked about. And then um down on the south end of town there's an area that's zoned uh resource conservation right now and the flop currently shows go to red or commercial but probably should stay green until we actually see a site specific or project specific there because there's

the spring creek that runs through the middle of that. So, I think ideally it would be a perfect um corridor preservation purchase. We could figure that out. Could be. Okay. I tried to be quick. There's a lot of information here. There's 150 pages. I'm happy to drill into any detail or answer any question or go over anything more. Um if you would like. Do you want me to talk about the club? Why we the discussion we had? Absolutely. Before Jamie, would you go to

kick us off?

Well, I felt very strongly that we we have in the past spent money on something called the fourth north corridor plan. And that plan was um quite in my opinion one of the best we've ever had done. But it identified a commercial hub at Second North and 400 Second East and 400 North and another one at 600 East and 400 North. Those two commercial hubs in my opinion are probably the most um they probably will happen quicker than most anything else than larger redevelopment projects. And I wanted to take the rest of the corridor and I talked about I talked with Russ today for a long time about overlays and about different types of zoning opportunities, but I feel like that corridor is unique in the fact that it is a gateway to multiple destinations and redoing it, we're only going to get one chance and we need to redo it so that it is both a welcoming gateway to Utah State and not an intrusive gateway in its piece moving toward the canyon. So that it has a a sense of place that puts it both as part of Logan, part of the university and part of the canyon and beyond. Um, so I was hoping that we could look at that bit in between as a more formbbased so we could consider as a council and as a community what we want it to look like. not mixed use, which can be anything

from solid apartments with a tiny little bit of retail or a whole bunch of retail and no apartments. It can be a lot of different things. We can decide what form we'd like to see that develop in. And I'm also concerned that we're starting to bleed into neighborhoods when we we reszone fifth to fifth north and to three third north with really high densities. So I want to just take a step back and put it into the plan in more of a let's investigate this a little further before we put lines on the map and say this is the color it's going to be. because I think that we have an obligation to think whatever decision we make is a 30 to 40year decision and I think we need we are in a position to be able to help make a good decision for that area but it's not necessarily just mixed use so that's why there's a third alternative I really wanted to be have the whole thing be a plan development overlay, but Russ told me that was really not appropriate, not doable. So,

and you and I talked briefly on the phone about this. Yeah. And I I agree with you. I think it's, you know, we've gone to how many general plan meetings and one of the few negative things I've heard from residents is just concerns about what we're doing in this area and what the long-term plan is. And I think I think the approach that you have and you've brought forward I think is uh reasonable and I like the idea and I think it's I think it's a good way to approach it. Well, I think we it gives us a little more security in the community and neighborhoods and and in how it will, you know, won't end up being sixstory buildings and then a twostory building and then a four-story building and, you know, it won't

it'll look a little more cohesive. Yeah. and it will look like a gateway. Yeah. So anyway, as I mentioned on the phone, I agree with you. Well, thank you. I think it's a good proposal.

And I I mean, can you one of the things that you mentioned and I I know is the case, but I don't know how uh I don't and maybe it's in there in terms of, you know, the updates and PL. We know that this plan once we adopt it is going to evolve and change and as you say even the coloration of you know some of this it's not saying the future land use is automatically that right but that that's the concept or that's what we think would be a good use for it it but to Janie's point relative to this it's by thinking really deeply about this particular part. Um we want to show our intentions of you know like the thoughtfulness that went in so that in 10 years or you know this is what we thought was really the best use and intention but it's a long way of asking when it comes to you know um updating it and I feel like this part of the plan the colored map with the different zoning future land use is the part that has most potential to be to come back and you know well this is what it shows and is this an issue you know this

it's rarely updated yeah and so but what happens and I don't mean to stop you but what's in my length of time participating in this what I see happen often is people come to planning commission and say well it's on your future future land use plan and I want to do it today. Yeah. And often times there will be a an inclination to engage in that more than if it said, "Oh, it's only single family." Um, you know, we've we've seen that where people go, "Oh, it's zoned this, but I really wanted this

because I want to do this." And so I think if we can get the the future land use plan sort of in our heads how we envision it to look it makes that whole process a little bit easier

and I think to you know also that what I don't want to have you know if we can avoid and think about and and what is in here how do we actively um you know what are the parameters around the future land use currently, how we envision it, how knowing some of this is not currently, right? This is not how it's owned. And so that if we do have things come up where someone says, "Well, you're showing it that and I want it to be that." So why is that a issue now? You know, how do we address that? Does that make sense? I don't I'm not articulating it well, but I'm trying to just have us think about um because I feel like this part of that plan is where we could run into, you know, those sort of misunderstandings really is what it comes down to, but how um people understand the intention of this. So the answer the flop is trying to solve is how do we accommodate growth all the way out to 2045 where our city will be roughly double in size. You know h how do we actually facilitate that and so that's what this map is trying to solve. Is it an exact science? No. Um but it it's going to lay out some kind of strategies of well if you redevelop here, if you grow here, then you can accommodate that new population. It will need to be updated in in in a few years as as things change, as development uh patterns change, as as techniques change. But that's kind of the goal of the future land use map or plan is to solve that problem of how how

do we fit 80,000 folks into this space and where do we fit

and where do we fit that because there's some land uses that are not necessarily compatible. You know, we don't want to put a bunch of houses next to something that's not going to be a nice place to live. Um, so you have to look at compatibility and shifting and and where makes the most sense, but that's the the general goal of a flop. How it's implemented is really up to city councils as we move forward. It will also the the one of the first exercises that we need to work on after the general plan is how do we update our zoning or minutes to better fulfill the general plan. Are we going to need to to adjust some of our zoning districts um so that they they fulfill the goals of this flop. And then um then it's a matter of of choosing is this the appropriate time now to to upzone

question on that third option for the fourth uh 100 corridor. Yeah. If it became something along the lines of what you guys were saying, an overlay of some sort, how often does a big enough developer come in, sees that and says, "Oh, I really want to tackle that one and tries to is that is that even or or would we be looking more like multiple small developers trying to tackle a small piece here and there?"

It's probably a little of both. Like I tried to mention, these blocks are chopped up and cobbled up, and to be able to get seven land owners to agree to sell and and create a project site is sometimes a very difficult task. Um, and it would be a combination of maybe there's three that want to sell and and there's a developer that's ideal for a smaller project site and they can take that on and develop that and that's within their wheelhouse. So, it's a combination. The other thing is is it's not sequential. I know we all want to start in one place and then just, you know, build the entire corridor in in in the dream way that we want to build it. That's not the way it happens. Um it it would be here, then here, then here, then here. But typically when you upzone at a substantial tick, like maybe you double the density, some cases triple the density, that's enough incentive that these current property owners are going to say, "Okay, I'm going to sell and I'm going to get out." Especially when when you look at what 90% of them are rentals. Um they're typically sold quicker.

It's it's a it's an investment. It's a money decision. Yeah, it's an investment, not an emotional decision usually. But the third alternative allows us to create a form concept so that if the however big or small that development is, it would follow the form and so that there would become some sort of cohesion as development occurs. Whether it's height, whether it's whether it's material types, material types or something like that

doesn't prevent them from doing X Y and Z. It just gives it more cohes. You can you can do XYZ. It just has to look like M. Yeah. Russ, how much input did we get from Utah State on the general plan? Did we did we get a lot from the university or a little bit? So they were on the steering committee. Um there were a lot of them at that first they were heavily involved up front. They the latest drafts I haven't seen as much involvement but they were definitely involved heavily up front.

Okay. because on the 20th of April the landscape um architecture environmental planning their senior projects are being presented and uh one of their projects includes fourth north and some really cool ideas. So, I think we should go and take a look at that and see what they're thinking cuz the university president's going to be there. And so, u I will be there. I think we should I think we should be there. So, I will be there.

Yeah. So, I I would like I'd like to see that because I think if we're planning for fourth North and we're talking about being a gateway for Utah State, it needs to be a collaborative effort. Yeah. And some of those plans and graphics could actually be really helpful if we are thinking about a formbased code that we can say I really like how that looks. How can we craft code so that it, you know, actually looks like that? I think it's a really great opportunity for us to work with them. Not that what the seniors are putting together is exactly what we want, but um I think it's a really good opportunity for us to collaborate with USU. So to see some new unique ideas. Had some I talked to them last week. got some really cool ideas.

Cool. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. When when are they presenting the budget? The 20th at 10:30. Other questions for Russ? We've all been to a lot of general plan meetings at this point, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, if there are no other questions, we will let Russ Holly Yeah. finish for the night and we'll see you back in two weeks. I'm sure we'll have some public comments and some more questions for you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Russ. We have one last last item for tonight. It's resolution 26-11 workshop with Rich Anderson, our finance director. So, we have one request tonight to to appropriate $200,000 of financial assurance funds that have been provided by a developer of Lloyd Lloyd Estate subdivision to to reconstruct missing uh improvements. So this doesn't happen very often but whenever we have um con new construction we do require certain uh deposits or assurance deposits or bonds so that if the developer doesn't follow through with everything that's required that we can do that as a city. This is one of those cases. So we're requesting to appropriate $200,000 which we'll use to complete those improvements that were required. Do you know what the improvements were? Out of curiosity.

It's a storm water detention base. Yeah, storm water detention base. There's a punch list of several things. Um and then there's been a couple hiccups there. There's several. One of the primary um concerns was the storm water retention base that needs to be brought to go. Okay. So, this is specifically will be addressing those things. Yeah. Right. But we don't have a timeline. I think that's what No, we've called in on the bond. um the banks that the money should be in our account soon um next week or so and then we'll hire a contractor and then get improvements. So in these cases we give the developer every opportunity to comply with the with the restrictions and the specifications that were included in their in their development

development agreement. We've been working with this developer for some time now trying to get them to complete the improvements or correct them. Hasn't happened. The bond is set to expire in the next month or two. So, we've got to move. So, we did earlier you said that we don't always require uh this type of assurance or a or a bond. We typically do require you do. Okay. That the state is limited what we can do and what we can collect. But we do typically particularly on larger developments collect something. Is is this the full amount of the is this of this case's bond? It is. I say that was similar to my question. Does this cover the full costs? So, we're still

not anticipated that it will, but it's hopefully it covers most of it. So, the taxpayers are still footing part of the bill. They probably I can't say now, but yes, more than likely it's going to depends on what the bid comes in at, but probably that's frustrating. Yeah, we don't have to do it very often. We don't have to do it very often. I don't I think this is like the first one I've ever First time in the second years last 20 years. But there's been a few hiccups from what I've heard at this location. Yes. Yeah. There's been a few what? Hiccups, bumps, road bumps, mistakes, errors, problems. Something like that. The other synonym you want to use.

It hasn't been the smoothest road development from everything I've heard. So went up really fast. Other questions for Rich? That concludes our workshops. Any other considerations before we adjourn?

Um, yes. I had somebody approach me uh today actually about asking if somebody's uh following up with when Google goes through installing the fiber to ensure that u everything sealed after they do their work. Apparently, there is a good strip of missing pavement um around Hillrest area um I think between 1500 East and that corner by Hillrest. I don't know what road that is. They've been going around and putting hot black stuff in cracks. And it does take him a couple weeks from what they did in my neighborhood. They have been done up there.

Yeah. More than a few weeks. and they did come through on do. So that that makes me wonder. So the question really is is somebody kind of checking up on their work, making sure that they're sealing everything. Um I'm sure it takes a lot of time to to do that, but we hired somebody just for that job. Yep. Okay. And they they have been very good to work with. I'm sure there are hiccups along the way. Speed bumps, road blocks, detours, I'm sure there Sorry, I didn't mean to give you funny. That's just what you get on the green. But we will we will have Paul maybe look into that. Yeah. Yeah. I'm assuming cuz I've seen a lot of the smaller ones that are just quickly sealed. But maybe this one was bigger and it's

What was What was the It was missing sidewalk. Is that what it was? Pavement on the road. Missing pavement. Yeah. They probably micro trenched it and didn't kill it. Yeah. And what was the address again? 1500 North. Sorry. It's uh 1500 East between is that corner by Hillrest is what he said. a Hillrest school, the elementary school. He takes an epoxy up there. I'll go. I'm like, I feel like I should have noticed this. He said he thought maybe he said he rides his bike daily to work and it's big enough that like I have kept one on a bike. It is not fun. That one

during the during the winter months it is a little harder. Not that this was much. Yeah, they've been done up there for a while. So yeah, it's worth checking. Any other considerations? I don't think so. We are ajourned. See most of you at 10:00 a.m. for