City Council - Regular Meeting

This is a soundcheck. Can you hear us?

Yes, I can hear you. Thank you.

I'd like to welcome you to our work session of today's City Council meeting on May 26, 2026. And thank you all. I've seen a lot of each other lately, the past few days. We've had some great things happen here and it's been good to see you all and to celebrate the dedication of our Gold Star Family Monument and to reflect the Memorial Day program. So our first item on the agenda is a continued discussion on the short-term rentals. 60 minutes has been allocated, 30 minutes presentation and 30 minutes Q&A. And before I turn the time over to Jake, I just want to thank you, Jake, for For tackling all of this, and just know that you've looked at a lot of different options. I know that you don't your, your job is to. Is to present us with a variety of options and use the council consider those and appreciate. You taking the time to go ahead and look at those some of those options may not be what we vision for the city, but it's not you saying we should do that. It's these are things that these are possibilities and I appreciate that. And Council, I would like to ask that we save our questions until Jake is done with his presentation. like to have him have the opportunity to present but he has and so if you wouldn't mind saving your questions until jake says he's ready he's going to facilitate the discussion after and and so if we could do that that would that would be great so any questions on that before we get started All right. Oh, I do that. So, all right, Jake, I'll go ahead and turn the time over to you. Thank you bear.

Um, so to pick up where we left off from. Previous conversations about short term rentals. Is a provision that could be included. Um, that would address concerns that have been writing. the ability for short-term rentals to be used as a way to provide student housing in a way that would be in violation of our current student housing ordinances. And one way we could address that is through requiring a dormant period for short-term rentals. The way this is currently written is that for any monthly period, short-term rental would have to sit vacant for five days. Those five days do not have to be consecutive five days, just five days during the period of the month. That still allows for an occupancy rate of short-term rentals in excess of 80 percent. Based on what I could research on different websites and what I've heard from short term rental operators is they typically operate between 56% and 70% occupancy. So, I enlarge requiring five days that are non consecutive days. should not impact any short-term rental operator uh hugely financially it may be something they may not like but it would not necessarily have a large financial impact on a short-term rental operator again this is just a non-consecutive five i just want to make sure that it's understood um some of the pros again are it helps preserve the housing stock for long term residents. Because again, one of the ways that you'd want to make sure that short term rentals aren't being used as a way to provide student housing. Also, negative side to this is it would increase a little bit of complexity about enforcement it would require short-term rental operators to provide records of their bookings when they come in for renewal to show that we were in compliance with this provision so again adds a little bit of complexity and that would be the negative on that uh Another provision that we wanted to present to the council is there has been several individuals who've come in at personal appearances or who've met with self or city council members and have expressed, well, I thought I was doing everything right. I thought I had done what I was required of me. I came in, I obtained a license. um albeit that license was for a rental dwelling license which is different than a short-term rental license but nonetheless there was a request is there any sort of provision that could be put in place that would aid or help individuals that found themselves in that situation And what we've crafted here is what we would consider a legacy status of those that could show the following. That they were in prior operation prior to January 1st in 2025. Now that date, um, I picked that date here and that we could subject to obviously the council. Um, but the reason I picked that date was. By January, 1st of 2025, there were already several ongoing discussions and council meetings and work sessions. Short term rentals were. Prohibited under our land use code and so it would. basically create a clean line between when the council was being educated on what the status of the law was and when people had been operating by their perspective in good faith. The second is they could show some sort of documentation that they obtained a valid rental dwelling license from the city prior to January 1st of 2025. The third is that they were in continuous activity, that they can show us that they listed the property, they had been using the property as a short-term rental on one of the platforms out there for the short-term rentals. Fourth, they were in compliance with the tax provision. They could provide us documentation showing they've been paying the transient room tax, sales tax, or any other appropriate tax needed to be. What that would allow them to do is potentially have them be exempted from a more onerous restriction as it came to density requirements. As we've talked about in previous work sessions, we've talked about short-term rentals being no closer than 1,000 feet together, and we've talked about potential numerical caps. What you could do is you could have a numerical cap of, say, 30 or 20 short-term rentals. If those licenses have been used up, then you wouldn't be issuing any new licenses for non-owner occupied short-term rentals. But what the legacy status would allow is somebody who falls into that category to still obtain their license because they fall into this category. Over and above those 20 or 30 caps provides them an exemption. Sorry, I'm actually okay to answer a couple of questions here because this is a little warning list.

And so what would that number? What's the approximate number that potentially could be at that? So there's the 20 or 30 of the non and then what would this for example.

i don't know that number um that number um could vary quite a bit thank you um because we've never really tracked short-term rentals so but so the scenario you're explaining then as a council could set density requirements those would could be based on this part over ruled by including some legacy status people but you're so you're

you're saying legacy status is above and beyond not already included in the density so what what this would do is it would provide an exemption to those that can fit within this legacy status so you you you choose prohibition one density or numerical prohibition and then if if individuals if the council were to choose to go this route if individuals were able to show that they fit within this category then we would provide them a license even though they would be otherwise restricted so why wouldn't you already include it in the density let them be the first level already approved density numbers part of the reason you would you wouldn't do that is um you're gonna have short-term rentals already that are in violation of that density.

And then you just, they lose their legacy. It's just like legal non-conforming. You just use it once you stop doing it.

Correct. If somebody was to lose their legacy status, they have their license revoked, or they fail to renew it, or they stop, or they sell the home, then they would lose that legacy status. And yes, from then going forward, if there's a density prohibition or numerical cap, they would, whoever owned that, or if they were trying to re-up it, they would not be able to obtain that license again. What it does not provide is it does not provide any land use right doesn't create a transferable right. Nor does it limit the city council's ability to come back and change the program or the requirements of this program. What we are trying to do in essence is provide some sort of equity or you know fairness to situations where people feel like you know the city might be pulling the rug out from underneath them brand did you have a question.

yeah just that um this uh they'd still have to come up to all other standards that would be identified by by the city right correct i just want to clarify since you said you would take questions this with the sale of the property

If it's over the cap, that is no longer allowed to be a short-term rental. So there's not going to be creating, we're not creating a market for legacy status short-term rentals to be sold in the community. If you sell the property, if the density, whatever it is, it's gone.

Right. If this license is not a transferable license, none of the short-term rental licenses would be transferable. Okay. Any other questions or desires for me to clarify what this provision may or may not do?

Other than the legacy, would they be also required to pay the same annual fees that everyone else would, which will be quite a bit more than anything we've ever done before to cover the cost of our enforcement and everything else we have to deal with them?

Yes. So, and legacy status, short-term rental operator we still have to annually obtain the short-term rental license they would have to meet every other regulation on the books for short-term rentals including the quiet hours occupancy parking requirements all of those other things jeff you have to hold my question until later because it may be answered down the road i have a question it's jim

Can you just help me understand the logic of or why the evidence of continuous listing on STR? Just how are you thinking about that?

The thinking is we want to make sure that these are individuals that truly were operating as a short-term rental as opposed to an individual who came in, obtained a long-term rental license, and now want to convert over to a short-term rental operation.

Okay, thank you.

we talked about one of the things the council had expressed was trying to make this be a sustainable program how do you make it sustainable what are the costs the actual cost that this program would cost the city would incur how do we fund this type of a program I've worked with staff on management services and we've identified, you know, potential positions and maybe higher need to be hired or expanded. And this really kind of depends a little bit on where the council wants to go, how, how proactive the city council wants the city to go and how expansive the program becomes. If you go non owner occupied, it's obviously going to be a much more expansive program than if it just stays at owner occupied, as opposed to also a ban. But looking at just the overhead salary costs, a level one NIT officer, the cost of the city would be roughly $65,000. For an associate planner, the overhead would be $75,000. So if you were to add one planner and one officer, the reason you'd add a planner is to help with the inspections, the paperwork, the licensing, all of that's going to fall within Community Development Department. And then the officer, obviously, to help with the enforcement. That comes to about $141,000. If you were to add two NIT officers and the planner, you're looking at closer to $210,000. Again, it really just depends on how many licenses. You could take that number, divide it by the number of projected licenses and say, well, this is the cost of enforcing and regulating the program, so our fee is going to be X. If you were to take that 210 and you're going to say roughly if we had 250, just even taking the number that's been thrown out there for how many short-term rental operations are out there, that fee is going to be around the $800. So it's going to be substantially higher than what you see the comparable cities. So, ways that we would try to validate is we would, we would pull our, our ordinance. We'd provide it to Lewis Robertson, Birmingham LRB. We'd have them do a fee study. What we'd want to do is, again, the rollout point is to pick and say, we think this is a fair number, a reasonable fair number to charge initially, and then we have LRB move forward and validate it for moving forward in ongoing years for what our fees should be to operate this type of program. As you can see, fees vary quite drastically throughout the loss at Trump. um lehigh being one of the lowers at 190 and logan being 575. also something to consider about logan's is they also have a conditional use permit requirement over and above his license so their fees may want to put an asterisk next to that they're probably a little bit higher but then you notice the renewal fee drops off quite drastically for logan I don't know that that would be appropriate because this is something that we would want to have as an ongoing program. Enforcement is going to be ongoing. It's not just a one-time inspection and everything is fine. Another thing to consider here is as we move forward with this type of a program is we want to make sure that any STR that is operating is correctly identifying the property that is being used with the Utah County tax assessor. If, for example, they're living in the ADU portion and the primary residence is being short-term rented, it would be appropriate to make sure that that portion of the property is not receiving the primary residence exception under the property taxes. Likewise, if it is a whole home rental, we want to make sure that that home is being correctly represented on the tax records as a commercial investment as opposed to a primary residence. Um, that number, it's a little bit, you know, it's not going to necessarily help. With the financing the program itself, but it would be something that we'd want to make sure is reflected for all taxpayers and their tax burden. Um, so these are all of the very nuanced provisions. That I wanted to go over at this point. wanted to identify the areas of consensus, where I believe we have consensus and where we may not have consensus. So I'm going to go back through the presentation. And as we have questions, feel free to ask the questions as we go. I want to ensure that we have a good bearing on where we want to go.

Jake? Yes. For the portion that you presented on, are questions on that portion appropriate now?

Yes, absolutely. I'll take any questions.

Can you help me understand the five-day dormancy requirement a little bit more? I just need to understand the logic of why we're worried about student housing there and if we have evidence that that's been done before. That's question number one.

And I don't have any anecdotal evidence. I can't point you to one property that has been used as student housing. I'm just sensitive to those homes that are near UVU. And if somebody were to obtain a short-term rental, license and then artificially lower the rent um in such a way because i would say on a nightly basis i don't think you know market markets being what markets are it would bear out that somebody would want to rent it nightly housing but if somebody were to artificially lower that uh so they could then in essence rent it out to six students um this would be a way to prevent present that prevent that from happening That is the thinking. There were concerns raised earlier in the drafting of the ordinance about somebody trying to use this as a way to circumvent our student housing zone. But we don't think that's happened yet. I haven't had any particular cases brought to our attention.

And it's not really necessarily just student housing. It could be anybody. If we're sending our cap at eight unrelated people occupancy, right now it's three. Somebody could potentially use this as an end around to say, okay, I'm just going to start renting to eight people. Requiring them to have the five-day vacancies ensures that you can't really do that. It's really truly a short-term rental.

And how did you come to five days versus two or three or 10?

I was looking at what I could see doing research online as to what the average occupancy rates are for short-term rentals and trying to use the natural occupancy rate that already exists out there so as to not negatively impact short-term rental operators. but five days would, in essence, prevent somebody from renting long-term, but not necessarily financially impact a short-term rental operator.

Would this be for just non-owner occupied, or would it be owner occupied as well? This would be either.

For both? Yes. Okay.

Thank you. One piece of data I would like to get, if we can, um is that i know i know platforms like airbnb have a monthly rental option uh where you can rent for a whole month right and that would essentially preclude that option if we did this and i would just be interested in knowing how many of our str str operators actually use that if it happens uh if it doesn't happen then and with the occupancy rates you're talking about maybe it doesn't matter to them um but i I could imagine a world in which it might matter to them. Thanks for being thoughtful about that. A second question is on the other piece, the legacy status, the next one. Code enforcement, how did we come up with an estimate that we might need another NIT officer and another associate planner? I'm just trying to figure out how we did the labor math on that. And you mentioned that we don't have an ordinance, so it might be hard to calculate, but I'm just curious as to the logic behind that.

Going off of current caseload for our NIT officers, if we were to open this regulation, I would anticipate we would need one NIT officer at least to build additional phone calls, emails, and compliance calls. That just is a natural feel based on talking to our NIT officers. Janik's team put together as far as caseload. Associate planner, maybe Gary can speak to this, but with our licensing, I would anticipate this would be an increased resource. Um.

Needed within the community development office, it really depends on the direction the council goes. If you. have a licensing program with short-term rentals and it's short-term rentals alone if there are annual inspections and things like that probably wouldn't have nit that they would be handling the enforcement i would need a planner in who would help with business licensing to do some of that uh so it depends on the regulations that the council puts on it's just get a license and we never think about it again yeah then not probably not but if it's let's do inspections let's have things like that and if we increase it to doing uh Some sort of rental licensing that's a little beyond what we're doing now then.

yeah we'll we'll need somebody so it's up to you okay listen if i could just say wait before i move on to the question is um as we've talked about different provisions some of the things that we've talked about here are parking we would want somebody in community development if if that was a requirement to put eyes on that parking line and make sure that it truly is a functioning working parking plan Um, our ordinance does contemplate inspections. Um, it also contemplates coordination with. Validating or corroborating property records to make sure that they're the owner if we're doing owner occupied. So, I think there really would be a poll on community development to have an associate planner there to put eyes on those. And if I may add to that, Jake, I mean, this isn't.

completely without some precedent when we did our landlord licensing process for many years ago we had a couple of personnel now i'd also say we're not trying to suggest this is going to be locked in right like we'll we always do we'll evaluate process the process and we'll map it out and we'll and if there are software solutions that help with that of course we'll we'll look at that you know maybe maybe it's hiring two seasonal nit code enforcement instead of one full you know we'll we'll go through that detail assessment and we'll we'll lean on lrb to help make sure that there is a rational nexus between the cost and the fee

that's good the thing that i was trying to figure out in my head is how much of this is already happening with an it right and versus how much burden are we now expecting put on that is not being done right now so that for us too there are some unknowns there but also we're trying to anticipate

there could be some efficiencies gained if what is decided by the council on the short-term rentals affects how we license long-term rentals as well. And so there could be some joint work in that regard. And so then some of the costs could be spread across both of those fee revenues in that event.

I think that I appreciate this. I think one of the concerns that I've heard from the community is that if we did do short term rentals that we don't have currently have the bandwidth to do the level of enforcement or license or regulation. This is a very regulatory intense process, especially if the council adopts something involving the legacy, because at that front end, you're going to have a lot of people coming in, trying to provide information to show that they were in existence before. And then going forward, you are going to have a lot of A lot of regulatory work, and I think that it's important to have that regulatory work. I also think that it's important that those who have short term rentals bear the financial burden. Of having that regulatory work, because. they're they're the ones who are have that's that's the use that has created this extra workload. And I think that they need to they need to pay for that.

Jeff, they have a one of my questions that that would attach to that is so with with um would those who have enforcement infractions obviously they're going to pay for those infractions, right? So would that be taken into account for the upfront? We don't know what that's going to be, right? We hope that they're in a perfect world. There would be no infractions. So would that just be, I guess my question is that money would not focus on the upfront costs. That would just be additional for continued enforcement above and beyond what we're already planning on.

I think you'd also have to identify that there's going to be other added costs by the enforcement itself. The minute that we cite somebody and then we end up going to the ALJ, we're also paying for an administrative law judge to hear that case. And so those fees that we collect through the ALJ don't necessarily always cover the cost of the ALJ process itself.

And I guess that was the next step of that question. So these fees would then cover the other outward ripples from that enforcement for the infraction. Okay. Can I ask another question going back to the two-tier regulation? What about the case of an heir? If a mother and father willed that home to a child, would that be transferable?

Not currently as I have it drafted. Again, if the council were wanting to go that direction, I would define it as any transfer of the property that there is no transference of that right. That new owner, whether it be an heir or a new buyer, has to come in and apply for that license separately as themselves.

But then if the new buyer comes in... Oh, never mind. You're talking about if it wasn't a short-term rental to begin with.

No, I'm talking about if it was a short-term rental.

Short-term rental. Then the new buyer just gets put into the bottom of the list as licenses. They don't get any preference. because of the legacy status.

Along those lines, what if the home is in a trust?

So we account for that currently in our definition of an owner. If you are beneficiary trust and you have 51% interest in that trust, then you could count as an owner.

Hold on a minute. I've got the truck.

Because oftentimes people will put their property in the trust.

So then we've totally lost our licensing ability because it is now a financial, it is now a business venture that can be willed and transferred through a trust. So we have lost our licensing ability.

At the time the license is created, if it isn't a trust and it's in their name, it's tied to the person that's the trustee. So, I'm not... We have multiple trustees.

You're saying if one trustee has 51%,

We come back to our definition of it here. So this is so they would have to the time they obtained their license, they would have to show that properties in a trust and that they have over 50% interest in that trust.

As the beneficiary?

As the beneficiary.

What if you have multiple beneficiaries and together they make 50%? Does it have to be a single beneficiary?

It has to be a single beneficiary. My brain hurts. Sorry.

Is that a loophole?

I don't believe so. We use that definition elsewhere. So.

Well, but we're establishing a financial venture. In perpetuity.

No, we are not.

If how are we not.

So you want to yeah, I actually think this is a really good question because. The other person that yes, I mean, let's take a typical situation where you maybe have a family trust, let's say, and, you know. Uh, 2 parents, mother and father, you know, they set up a trust and usually they're the beneficiaries until they die. And then. No, the kids become the beneficiaries and sometimes those trust can keep operating even after the initial beneficiaries die. Right? I think that's the situation you're kind of talking about. Could that trust continue to. know run an airbnb short-term rental um even after the the two principles have passed on that's the question maybe we need to just better define in that scenario um that even if the trust is still in existence if the primary beneficiaries or the original beneficiaries have passed on then that right is lost it doesn't the trust doesn't get to continue operating and be comfortable with that that would be an option i'm not saying do that i'm just saying that's an option

Otherwise, everybody just puts them in a trust and then you have all these homes that are in trust. So we can't regulate.

We're stuck for a long time.

Every time they changed beneficiaries with that. Look, they're for rental license then. Well.

I mean, that's something we could, we could address it that way if you wanted to assess.

Yeah.

I know a community that they required you to be the trustor and the beneficiary. So, for instance, my wife and I, if we wanted to do this, we would create the McGinn Family Trust. We would both be trustors because we own the home and we would be beneficiaries of that trust for estate planning purposes. My children, they may be beneficiaries, but they would not be the trustor. And so you have to fill both roles. So there's ways around this to make it work, if that's a concern.

That's not for me. I don't know. Is that a concern for folks? I think having good language would be the best concern. Yes.

Any other questions?

I have some questions. Will you go to your fees slide?

um so nit officers so that's got to be just salary that's not including benefits that that is i feel like we need to lower the cost of an employee that is the overhead for salary and benefit for starting an i.t officer one so that's pay and benefits right so

pay them 20, 25 bucks an hour, and then they don't have, they're not a post-certified police officer. They don't have the same retirement, so.

That is super low.

That is what our, you know, the numbers I obtained from our militia team, so yes.

I think the point is that I think we're going to look at have LRB do an analysis because we don't know if it's really going to take full-time people or if it's going to be a third or half-time or whatever. They'll do that analysis. They'll take the numbers. So these aren't set in stone.

Okay. What I'm trying to show by these numbers is potential costs.

So if my benefits for my salary are three times, I end up with three times what my original salary is. What is their salary only?

I would look it up for you, but I don't want to necessarily go into it. Why am I sharing my screen?

I mean, do you see my question here?

The number I'm presenting here is both salary and benefits.

For the planner, I can tell you that's... That looks right to me as a planner one, step one, very entry level, adding their benefits. Benefits usually are close to a third more.

So I get it. So maybe we should do a five-year employee. Someone who, because, you know, I guess you're saying we put people here and then as they prove themselves, they advance.

And we can raise the fee. Yeah. I think that's a good point. We just need to make sure it reflects what we're paying.

Should we use an average cost?

I was just going to say for fire prevention fees, we adjust the cost every single year based off the increased scale with the STEP program with our inspectors.

As long as that's transparent for these licenses, I just don't want them to think that Oh, the fee jumped up 20%. Well, because our employee is now worth more and they're paying them more.

And again, yeah, this is just a starting point. We'll want to go through and make sure that we're doing it in the most efficient and effective way too. It may be that It's best to get a few seasonal or part time. Code enforcement rather than 1 full time. We may be able to more done that way. We just haven't done that analysis yet. Right?

Well, again, what I was trying to prove, and I guess not done very well here is. Even at entry level with two individuals or three individuals, that fee that we would impose on a short-term rental is going to be substantially higher than the comparable fees. That is what I wanted to show.

Perfect. Then my other question. So just to clarify, because I've had these questions, this fee, even though our NIT is under our lease, this will not be coming out of our public safety This will be paid under what fund? Development Services? How are we paying this?

Obviously, the associate planner would come out of a general fund there. NIT, I'm not sure what bucket of money. Is that also a general fund?

We put the code enforcement officer under police, and so that would be paid for through the Public Safety Special Revenue Fund.

But the revenue source, but we'll have the transparency showing that. They are themselves. Yes, that's just the question. So.

Yeah, we would identify the revenue source would be. This fee, the short term, this landlord licensing fee, then your legacy status go to that slide.

Please. So valid or was the valid renting license. Showed that they already had a valid.

Documentation number two, documentation of valid City of Warren rental dwelling license.

Okay, so is that different from being certified as an ADU?

It is an ADU licenses or an ADU.

what do we call it a license for ADU or ADU approval is very different than the rental dwelling license kind of talk about those two just so we're informing our public here you can have an ADU and not have a long-term rental license because we charge a one-time fee you just explain how that works so the record for that Gary would you explain the process because I'm not as familiar with the ADU licensing process

Yeah, with the ADU process, you come in and let's say you're the single family home, you live there, you want to create an ADU in your home. You come in, you make an application, we go in and we have requirements in the code that that ADU needs to meet. We'll go in, we'll do a zoning review of it. We do a building code. A review of it, and then at the end of that process, you can get a license license, but the intent of it is not for short term rentals less than 30 days. It's 30 days or longer. Is.

so when um i'm just saying but that license is different that is just the permission to separate the property then they do dwellings but then they pay a rental license every year correct so um that's our land is that license that's 30 days long but is that help me remember is that for the basement adus or did we pass something where they only pay that once correct so we need to change that then

I suppose it's been switched to a short-term rental.

So how are they showing that they- It's owner-occupied. How are the owner-occupieds, how are you going to delineate them? Because they haven't paid every year. They're not going to be able to document.

They're going to document- What we are requiring here is not the ADU license. We are requiring the rental dwelling license. Okay, perfect.

So if it's an owner occupied and they're using their ADU, they should have obtained a loan license. Okay, thank you for clarifying that.

It might be, well, you know, three years old since.

But they did it. Wait a minute. So do we not require rental licenses to be renewed?

We do. We require it. Not if it's a...

It's what I'm trying to say.

Not if the owner occupied any, but if you're renting the whole home, it is an annual $55 rental dwelling license.

But in this, they should still be able to meet 1, 3, and 4.

I would anticipate they still, even if they're renting the basement, they still should be able to meet 1, 2, 3, and 4.

Okay, so I guess I'm thinking out loud here. We'll fix that problem with the ADU not having to get a rental license every year by... them having to prove that they were a short-term rental because they're going to be doing 1, 3, and 4, providing documentation for 1, 3, and 4.

I'm going to clarify this. If they are operating or had operated as a short-term rental prior to January 1, 2025, for them to get a legacy status. They would have to show all one, two, three, and four, regardless if it was a whole home or if it was a basement.

So they have to be helpful.

And my last thing.

So this, you started off by saying, you know, this is for the people that said, I thought I was doing everything right. With fairness. uh status regulation is what this one is basically so i guess i'm just going to make a comment i think that people living in the neighborhood buying a home in a neighborhood that they thought was homes residential not commercial enterprises also thought they were doing everything right buying their home in the right place and i'm just thinking of the woman who said she has short-term rentals on both sides of her So this will essentially, and the other woman who said she had three on her street. So this essentially gives no relief to those people. Because we are grandfathering them in.

Well, no, we are not grandfathering them in. There is no legal non-conforming right here. So it's not a grandfathering. This would be providing an exemption to, if you were to go to the non-owner-occupied option, And this would only grant an exemption to density and the numerical cap. It doesn't, and that's also assuming that all three of those on that one street also had come in and reobtained a rental dwelling license. So there are ways that this still is serving or pausing the growth of short-term rentals that are non-owner occupied, while also giving olive branch or mercy to those who thought that they were offering or operating lawfully.

So what we could do, too, I know we've talked about this before. I think it was when we met. I think it was when you and Jake and I met. I can't remember which council member it was. But I'm going to tweak this a little bit. So we could do, as a council, say, since we don't know how many legacy rentals there are, but if we set a cap of, let's say, 20, we're just going to have 20 non-owner occupied. rentals in the city, short-term rentals. Then there are ways, there are vehicles. We talked about a lottery. We talked about how those who, maybe those who meet one through four, put their name in a hat. And And then it's so it's not a it doesn't have to be everybody necessarily, but it doesn't have to be nobody. It's we as a council can decide. What we comfortable with.

On a non owner occupied and density could also be taken into that consideration.

Location location. Yeah. So, I'm going to just ask because Jen's not here in person. Do you have any questions?

Thank you for that. No, I don't currently have questions. I'm just listening to the discussion. Thank you.

Anybody else have questions so far about what new information Jake has presented to us today? Before he goes back, he's got about 12 minutes, 15. You know what, we started late. Got about 15 minutes left. I know you want to go back through the slides and try and reach some consensus on some issues.

with that um i i'm going to give my perspective here and put myself out on the ledge as your trail guide so don't push me over the leg but i view the council as being in three very distinct camps I feel that there are council members that are in camp 1, which is to maintain a prohibition or to clarify that prohibition. I feel that there's a 2nd camp that is in the middle that feels very comfortable and allowing owner occupied short term rentals. And then I feel that there's a 3rd camp, which is more open to a broad regulation, allowing non owner occupied and owner occupied. I don't believe that any 1 camp has a majority or consensus approach at this point. Is that. Does anybody disagree with that statement where there is no objection or disagreement? I do believe that this is the foundational question that has to be resolved because I think the other questions. that are there will answer themselves as we move past that foundational question. I do believe that there is consensus as to qualitative controls, quiet hours, 24-7 response requirements, enforcement mechanisms. There may be small discrepancies as to how much a fine should be if it's not high enough. There may be some smaller discrepancies in how we approach parking or density. But I think this is the number one question. i think the other number two question is how do we address occupancy within whichever road you take um with that being said i am happy to come back to the council at a council meeting with competing ordinances Um, if that is the desire of the council to move forward. I'm happy to work with council members to craft a compromise ordinance. If that is the approach I do view and again, this is me standing on the ledge. Um, I do believe there is. Potential consensus in the area of. Owner occupied. I do believe that there is willingness to compromise amongst council members to get to an owner occupied regulation. There may be a group of council members that are willing to expand beyond owner occupied to allow a limited version of non owner occupied and owner occupied. Is that a fair statement? Is there any objections to what I've just laid out?

So, are you asked 2 things there?

Okay, let me ask you a question. Is there a group of council members who would want to see owner owner occupied only version of an ordinance?

Yes, it would depend on how big the option option to how many would. I am firmly in option 2.

and i'm looking over at option three but with a very like looks like 20 at the moment just very very limited baby steps so let's let's go tiny bit if i want the willingness of the council to come back for me with an only only owner occupied ordinance i'm in favor so if i could just maybe just chris how do you feel about that you know i'm i'm leaning towards very limited allowing some of the other crystal you, I believe, shook your head. Yes. Affirmative.

Same mayor probably would probably lean toward the owner occupied only Jeff leaning towards owner occupied, but I would be willing to listen to the discussion about a little bit of wiggle room.

That's the owner occupied with me. I'M INTERESTED IN AN ORDINANCE THAT ALLOWS LIMITED NUMBERS OF NOT UNOCCUPIED IF THEY MEET CERTAIN CRITERIA.

NEW SPEAKER I'M ALSO INTERESTED IN LOOKING AT THE THIRD OPTION WITHIN LIMITED CRITERIA.

NEW SPEAKER WITH THAT SAID. Is it the council's desire for me to come back at a council meeting with those two competing ordinances for consideration?

I would like a vote on option one. Council to vote on option one also.

On the prohibition. Oh, on a flat. Okay. You would like to ask the same question, but just saying, is anybody in favor of option one? Correct. Okay.

Okay. So, so those two, the council would be wanting me to do that. Okay. With that, is there any council members that want me to bring forward a prohibition ordinance to compete with the other two? um i get i'll just go through the list chris yes yes no no no jen no um so where there's not full i'm i don't anticipate bringing that forward um and just coming with the two competing or does how does the group feel about just those two i'm seeing some shaking heads i'm seeing okay i mean i want to see what you bring i'm in favor of that i'm in favor of media yeah we're gonna get both okay with that process um how am i in time 10 minutes um with that process um is it still the council's desire to have a public hearing with actually let me take one step back do you want that conversation to take place in a work session or you want that conversation to take place in the regular council meeting i think we'll get more done in a work session okay jeff i think we're just i think we need to get a few more things ironed out before we go to the public because i do want the public to weigh in

Okay. Lene?

Yeah, I'd like to see the, we just, you know, talked about all kinds of things. Let's funnel it down and get specific.

Chris, what do you feel the same?

I'd like to see, I'd like to have more discussion in the work session. I would also like to be in the council session before we get to a vote.

Yeah. Chris, we read. Jen?

Yeah, I think we need more discussion and I think the work session is probably more productive.

Okay. So with that said, when would the council like me to come back with those two competing ordinances to be considered in the work session? When could you?

When is our next work session? It's not the ninth because that's our budget in the draft. One third.

to be june 23rd next june 23rd is that enough time for you okay i could make the fighter happen so i make one request i would like to get your slides a week before i would like to get the ordinance drafts to both for both out to the councils for consideration well before that works at least eight days i need like i'd

Only weekend or something, it's really hard to prep for council. Unless I'm working on my weekends.

So your ordinance draft include. In one of the, or both of the organs of as far as occupancy, a square footage. Yes, option. Yes.

Okay.

Is there so where I've got just a few minutes. i wanted to verify each proposed ordinance just briefly for owner occupied is there anything in particular that the council is looking for in an owner occupied only regulation that they would like to see that has been discussed or has not been discussed okay i might of those provisions that we've talked about. Is there something- ADU, make it require an ADU. Is there any strong feelings that you want to make sure is included?

I would like to see that all of them must be in residence when the short-term rental is being rented out. So maybe it's owner occupied, but they're traveling a lot of the year or whatever.

So you want an owner, you want the physical presence of somebody upstairs or downstairs or wherever on the property.

Available if there's a problem.

I'd like it to be a certified ADU, so not a boarding house model. Anything to not have a boarding house model. Oh, beautiful.

So you'd have to have an ADU permit plus a short-term license? Yes, sir.

for the other competing words um as some council members have expressed they are open to it but with extreme guard rails what are those extreme guard rails that council members are looking for for the competing workers maximum 20.

That's a much 20 in the entire city, 20 within the city number. Yeah. So like 0.01%. I don't know the percent. I just 20 max for non owner occupied.

I'm interested in up to 1% residences.

And I would say that that is spread out among the neighborhoods.

So density requirement.

Yes. So one is bearing the brunt of something.

I also support density. I'm not comfortable with three strikes. We're comfortable with two. Two strikes under that. If we do non-owner occupy, the stakes need to be very, very high for the owners.

And I'd also like to look at the fines for it. we're sending it to be a fine it should be commensurate with the rental price of the property and not a flat fee for anybody i don't think you have a minimum maybe and then escalates according to the value of the of the rental because otherwise over five thousand okay so just be a multiplier okay dollars a night your fee should not be commensurate with something that's running for

seven hundred dollars in a bunch of okay well i'm gonna disagree with that in a sense that i think we should have a flat fee five hundred dollars or a thousand whatever we had there and then it goes up based on the value of the profit you know the rental opportunity and i'd even be okay with that minimum i'm down with the kicker because otherwise they just pay them wait three years or five years and then get

I also want to know what does constitute strike?

Is it a complaint that's been gone through verified and then that's kind of what I envision one that's gone through the process that has been like a verified proven complaint.

But I want that laid out.

Yeah, it needs to be laid out. Yeah, so everybody clarity to the transparency.

Yeah, and to that, I just don't know what to do about this, because I don't want to have to have our police verify, because I know I've had people say, I called dispatch, they said the police don't come out for something like that, 10 p.m., 11 p.m., 2 a.m., obviously, because they're busy doing other things. So how do we, are we going to pay for an NIT officer to be on call? Because our police should not be really handling that kind of stuff.

That's a good question. It's the scenario.

Someone calls in a short term rental violation at 2 AM. They call dispatch and dispatch is like, yeah, our officers are busy right now.

I wouldn't want them going out if it was a code violation, but if it was a criminal violation, noise complaint or disturbing the disorderly conduct type stuff. Oh, yes, we would respond to that. But code enforcement part is more difficult.

let me ask you this then so sometimes turn on at 3 a.m when the when the tenant checks in so i call and i'm like the lights are on right now shining in my bedroom yada yada didn't take care of this does that have to be verified by a police officer or does that complaint count you see what i mean i mean i don't know how to comes down to a little bit of yes it would count here's the here's the problem is one of the things we've heard ongoing is neighbors don't want to have to come in and testify against neighbors

But then who is our witness? So that's why we'd have an officer go out and confirm or corroborate. And then the officer can be the one that testifies. So we've worked through different ways that an on-duty officer could go out, make the observation, make a knock and talk, and then leave. Refer the case to NIT for follow-up investigation. There are ways to do that. The US doesn't take manpower off of patrol. It does. Respond to barking dog calls too.

Yeah, but I'll just give an example of Timpanogos parking lot. The kids doing all the wheelies and stuff. It took like several calls because you guys were busy doing other things and that was not a priority.

We responded 32 times.

We did several great things. But I'm saying I got complaints. Well, they never came. I call it and I'm like, they're police officers. They're doing other things, you know. So I'm just saying that scenario could happen. How do we, while we're coming up with this process, come up with a solution to it so it's not...

I mean, no, I don't see 1. We would need to respond and to do just that to verify it. Down to back to the typical was part. We responded. 32 times and on the 33rd, when he issued a citation and received complaints, because we were being too strict and we're like, well, we've been here 32 times telling you it's not be here. And so.

to me there's gonna be times where we don't get there to observe the location uh because we were elsewhere sorry yeah we would respond so how do we solve that as a council to me i don't want it to be on you i don't want you to get the bad press because you didn't show up while the violation was happening can we do maybe that and i'm just saying out loud maybe that's an on-call nit certain you know if it's a criminal if it falls in the criminal code

I see what you're saying, but if it's, yeah.

Then I can do on storms and it needs to be built into the fees that they pay to cover the costs of mitigating those kinds of things.

Otherwise, we're doing it to the neighbors again, the neighbors.

It's just hard to figure out. At the end of the day, how do we make sure that rationally efficient too? Because they only get. One of those calls a week. Well, it has to be low priority for our police officers. And if we can come up with other ways to build evidence when there's a violation, then we can exhaust the other ways to build evidence.

Like a video? Do you get videos from people? There's a house party, right?

As long as the neighbor is willing to cooperate with our process, then yes. The problem is where the neighbor then says, well, I don't want to be known. I don't want to be involved, but I want the problem to go away. That puts us in that quandary of we still need somebody to lay the foundation for the case.

And if we have to have a post officer come out, we need to calculate how many times they come out, how many man hours that is, and make sure that that's in the budget. through this process which we'd be able to do so again we'll set an initial fee yeah and then we'll engage with that and then time will tell statistics will evaluate these will be accordingly and it'll just move on but it eventually be covered for what citizens are asking for city

be your intent and let me ask one last question of where is the group on the legacy status as a to send to the non-owner occupied where does the council fill on the legacy status verification on that request so in other words jake the legacy status could be applied to both ordinance options on uh let's see owners only or limited i don't think we had a limit on not on our occupants did we well there is no limit on the owner occupies excuse me legacy status wouldn't necessarily come into play for owner occupied unless you were going to still allow legacy status a non-owner occupied in the owner occupied even though we're not allowing owner occupant because the legacy status has to go so in my in my mind the way i framed it in my mind it is legacy status would only apply if the council was willing to extend the regulation to allow for non-owner occupying okay so there'd be no legacy status and owner occupied so there is a version jake right of owner occupied with legacy status for non-owner occupied but no no no

So I'm sorry, I don't remember discussing owner not having limits on owner occupied. Because I think it's important that we preserve our new housing option and have a balance there too in our community.

Maybe I need you to clarify, Lynnae, I'm not sure I followed that.

Not limiting, not having any type of limit to ADUs that owner-occupied can cause housing supply issues.

So we want a density requirement on owner-occupied. Yes.

But I think if we have the ADUs, I think that's going to limit that to an extent because there's an expense involved in becoming a .

I'm just saying, my child's living in Springville because she couldn't find anything here.

So again, I can provide that as an option for the owner occupied ordinance. If the council wants to adopt the density restriction or a numerical cap, if an owner occupied, but it has not been a basic part of the conversation for the owner occupied. And if that is an option that you want to see included in the owner occupied, you can provide that option.

Okay.

Did you get your answer and guidance on the, uh, the legacy status?

No, I didn't. So thanks for asking.

I don't know how I feel about that yet.

I don't know how I feel because I'm in camp.

Over occupied, so I have to think about.

Yeah, because you're like, if that's going to happen, I want to have some say in it. But I don't want that non-owner-occupied to happen. I want to be in this.

Not an official conundrum.

Okay. I will then prepare an option for that to be considered for option two, for the non-owner-occupied.

I don't know. Do we have four that wants to do that? I'm not in favor of a legacy option.

i would like to see it okay i i just want to look at it to see and i and i'm with the mayor i'm in the camp of non owner occupied but if there were some circumstances that it made sense um i i'm not opposed to looking at that as an option but i i yeah well i guess i want to understand also based on density

Maybe let's talk privately because I would like to understand circumstances that make sense. You know, if there's something that you're thinking of, I would love to have that discussion if we don't have time today.

And there may not be such a circumstance. But if we've told somebody one thing and we're something different, if there's a circumstance that would make sense, I'm not opposed to considering it. Oh, is that the yes, that's a really big wishy washy. Yes, I would like to look at that as much.

I wishy washy with him. Okay.

I'm glad to see you're watching this. I say no, I can see. Oh, no, we've got is he wishy wishy washy.

I just see it and I just want to just want to see it as an option.

I just want to support it necessarily. I just want to see it as an option and give me what is there maybe there may be an existing.

That's not only occupied that would meet every criteria and have been. Perfect in the application, so we, I just want to see it. So that if there is that circumstance, we're not just saying, you know, I don't want to keep out. You're out.

I want to see the only reason I want to see, for instance, we've heard from people that live next door to their short term rental.

And with that said, then Jen.

Yes, I'm interested in looking at that as well.

Okay. So I will prepare that. Okay, now I feel like I have a clear direction to come back to competing ordinances for you to then push me off.

One more request. In your ordinance, when we, and this is the council to ask this question, when he comes back with the ordinance, I would like to take the time to go point by point and have us make decisions instead of rely on our past conversations. Let's just hammer it out. Is that what you anticipated?

I would present option one, talk through it. And yes, if you want to hammer it out, then or if you, again, I would anticipate I'd have direction, there's support for this provision, or there's not support for this provision.

Can I ask just a procedural question for viewers, Steve, because I'm gonna play I'm kind of new still, how much decision can we make in a work session?

you can't make a final decision so you can give guidance and direction so i think essentially what you would be telling jacob the next meeting is we would like this to be in the draft ordinance that's going to go first the council then the planning commission then council gotcha okay i just want to make sure you're still free to change your mind even if you tell him i would like this in the draft at any point in the process you're still free to change your mind and say you want something else okay can you have competing suggestions under one point in the draft Well, I think he's probably going to be going on a majority suggestion, if you will, as to what he puts in.

Absolutely.

And then then there obviously could be discussion, you know, in the city council meetings and the planning commission that change or modify that.

Well, thank you. Feel free to push me off the cliff now.

Chase been very great guide and also thank you, Mayor. going through this difficult process of taking this step. I know it's been kind of painful. Also, we are making progress, though. I'm a big fan of focusing, I think exec staff and employees get sick of me saying, progress over perfection, making progress. So thank you.

i didn't like you saying you were at the cliff at the ledge you know you're they're the leader don't leave and come rescue you jake thank you thank you jake All right, our next item on our agenda is that Jameson know your force and then taking it's not like the star wars. Not quite, but still a very important force. So, you know, 15 minutes for that and 10 minute presentation and 5 minute Q and a.

All right, well, thank you mayor city council. I know we've been trying to get this for a few weeks and. Hopefully get through it quickly.

So you guys get back on your agenda, but you are part of our agenda and you need.

All right, so no, your force is our, it's a feedback system that we use for the community that allows individuals to be able to actually give surveys on officers through. The majority of what we use it for is our traffic stops, which is the majority of our interactions with individuals. So we pull somebody over, give them a citation, even if it's a warning. There is a QR code that is actually fixated to that citation. so they can take a picture of it and they can go through a series of three questions as well as they can ask additional or they can put additional comments and this isn't necessarily just for positive praise and i'll show you guys some examples in just a minute but it's also for uh criticism to have on them and you'll notice on all of our patrol vehicles there's also a qr code on the very back so this is an example of one of our vehicles that we have and so on the right hand side there should be a qr code On the left hand side, sorry, the QR code. And on the right hand side, there's actually the number of the vehicle. So it's an identifier to be able to identify which officer this is relevant to. So this is kind of the basis of how we can get this information out. We also have business cards and on our business cards, There's the QR code, and again, it all comes to Know Your Force. This was established in 2021. I believe the previous chief met with a gentleman by the name of Scott Lowry, who's local here, and this is kind of his baby, and we've been working with him, and he's been a great partner, and we've been able to give him some good ideas to kind of help grow his business as well, too. So the needs that we needed within our department. So, the 3 questions, and this is the QR code, you can actually take a picture of it and you can see firsthand, but I provided you the questions for you. So the 1st, 1 is please rate your interaction. And so this is just a generic question. Just rate your interaction out of 4 out of 5 stars. They're able to go on on the right hand side. You can kind of see how that is. If you pull it up on your phone, that's the way it basically is. You can kind of notate what your rating is per question. uh question number two is based on your interaction how comfortable would you be with our officers providing service to a family member so again this is just based on cumulative rating please share with us your complements and concerns so those are the three questions that we have So, it's kind of basic, we don't want people to have to spend a lot of time on it. We just want to get to the nitty gritty. And then also, if they want to provide their contact information, they can, if they don't, they don't have to. But for some things, especially if there's like a complaint issue, we want to make sure we're able to reach out to them and try to make sure there's some form of disposition if there's a concern. And so with that information, so far, I pulled these numbers last week, we've had 686 citizens that have actually responded. We have a 4.1 average rating out of five stars and 77.3% of the responses were positive. and so that's good it shows that we're not padding because you're going to have some people as you'll see it doesn't really matter if they have an opportunity to speak they'll speak if they especially if they can be anonymous and um you'll be able to see so let's look through them so our breakdown of our submissions uh one star so if someone just gave us one star mind you it's the commutative of all of the questions that we've asked um we have 105 out of that breakdown Two stars, 23, three stars, 28, four stars, 49, but I'm proud to say that out of all of the stars, five, the highest that you can get, that's the majority of where our ranking is. That shows that our officers are doing a great job and it shows that the people that are participating are giving us the accolades that our officers deserve. Some examples of some of the one stars, again, they can create their comments. The officer was rude. Officer was speeding on State Street going at least 50 miles per hour in a 40 mile per hour zone. I like this one. You guys literally put a QR code so we can be on our cellular device while driving. You guys are corrupt and you should be. And then you get some that are just kill yourself. I mean, you probably wouldn't be surprised, but some people don't like the police. So that's some examples of some one stars. I haven't got to know you yet. Yeah, examples of 2 stars officer did not use his blinker again, depending on the individual that were that service that was 2 stars and that. could have been more than likely not a traffic citation, but then using the QR code on the back of the vehicle to submit that. Just a little frustrated because I just got a ticket for a legal tent, which I understand, and I bought the vehicle like this from a dealership that told me it was legal, which I know doesn't matter. So what I like about this one is that they got the citation, but they also took ownership of, yeah, I mean, I should have probably learned more, not just took another word for it. Thank you so much for protecting me and my neighbors from cars parked with the left side against the curb. We all feel so much safer. I'm very happy to provide extra funding for the new city hall. Again, just examples of 2 stars, right? Didn't listen to us at all. We're incredibly rude and actually escalated the situation rather than calming it down. So, the nice thing is, is if there's if there's identifiers, if there's information, so 1 of the questions may be is, what do you do with this information? If there's a situation where we have an identifier, it's a great training opportunity for officers. For instance, you know, someone that was speeding down State Street going 40 miles an hour. Additional context would be beneficial. Were they responding to a call where they weren't doing lights and sirens and they're trying to be a little bit more covert? Or was it they were just going 50 miles an hour down State Street? And so we have to understand that we are a public billboard and it doesn't really matter what we do. It says Orem City. We represent them in the context of Family City USA, and so we need to make sure that we represent that regardless if we're going to a call. But there may be some additional information, some context, but we can use that as a training situation for those officers just to make sure they're aware. Let's see. Oh, this one was clever. So this is a two star out of where I just want to throw. The officer pulled me over saying I was on my phone. I was, but I was scanning. Then he asked if I've been drinking. I said, Yeah. He asked me to step out. I said, Okay, but hold my beer. He said, No. Can you believe that? When you hold my beer, he did pick up the quarter bag I dropped. That was nice. So, you know, some humor on the car. If you would hope, yes, 100%, they're joking. They have their few minutes of fame now that we just focused on. i thought it was skimmer so i wanted to i'm sure forever in our meeting or youtube channel forever examples of three stars i'm gonna i'm going the speed limit this cop was speeding tailgating me and shot the gap to get in front of me all to stop at a red light didn't use his blinkers on left turn courteous and swift service thank you for keeping the road safe didn't seem interested in helping and haven't heard anything back So, again, these are three stars, and there's some variations. Some are positive, some can be considered negative, but again, it's all based on the subjectivity of the individual that's filling it out. And I would say the majority of the ones that we receive would be what? What do you guys think we would actually receive most on? Speed, driving. I would say that's probably the biggest one that we are able to work on and do better at. So, examples of four stars. Five stars for specialism, minus one for ruining my Spotify vibe. Officer was kind and understanding. Friendly but short conversationalist. Very kind and reasonable officer. Have a great day. The officer was nice. He's not rude or anything. He was polite and I was polite as well. No concerns or anything. I appreciate the calm voice he used.

I did have an officer ask me once when I was speeding and I said, I was listening to Duran Duran and I hadn't heard that song in a long time.

It was Duran Duran. That's an example. Thank you for all you guys do. Interacting was great. She was professional. Answered my questions. Y'all are cool. He let me in. He let me in. Truly a valiant moment for a surely valiant officer. Or police are fantastic. Quick response. Polite. We love our officers. I just drove past an officer, stopped on the freeway, helping someone change their tire. A very great act of kindness and service, and I'm happy to support them. So, as you can see it for us, it's a resource and a tool that we can use number 1 to be able to collect subjective information from individuals as well as we can use it as a training opportunity. 1 other element that this program does in 2023. the state passed SB 124, which required all police agencies to have an officer early intervention program. And that was supposed to be enacted in 2025. We were one of the first agencies because we were in relationships with Know Your Force to be able to actually use them for our early intervention program to be compliant with the state. And so we actually use these

these accommodations as well as complaints to be able to help with our early intervention program and so that is know your force any questions this comment that i really think is phenomenal that our officers are open and willing and vulnerable enough to to do this and i think it's a i think it's overwhelming evidence that we do a functional job of holding the line of the law, doing it in a way that is president friendly, that keeps in mind that people are humans and people make mistakes and that. There's room for improvement. This is phenomenal.

Ruth, you had a public question or comment?

Jameson, this is an awesome presentation. I just think this is just outstanding. Can you provide us with an example of something that you've changed as a result of BVAP surveys?

This particular one, I can't give you feedback because I'm in support services, but it would be more of the patrol attendants. But I would say the driving one, for instance, right? You have an individual, there's people that give us the code on the vehicle, vehicle identification number. And so for us, it would be more of a training opportunity of someone going home. We know they're not going to a call, but let's say they're on the freeway. They're trying to get home, but they're going a little bit faster than they should be. So being able to have that information, being able to use it as a training, exactly what I just told you, we are a billboard. So that in itself is a training of just making sure people are understanding that it's different if you're in your personal vehicle, but when you have your vehicle number, you have a QR code, you have information that identifies who you are, you have to make sure that you're actually in a position where where you are doing the speed limit unless you're responding to a call, which the state allows us to do. And so I would say that's number one. Number two is the communication and just being able to have individuals be able to have conversations and not, like Bryn was saying, if you are interacting with someone, treat them like a person. and be able to actually have conversations and yeah we know they've committed a crime but you can still treat them as a person and so one of the things that this individual even going backwards says this officer was uh courteous and swift or was it was basically friendly but a short conversationalist right So he's friendly, but short conversationalist. So that's a great training tool of saying, yeah, we are vulnerable. We are in a position where we're giving someone a card and saying, hey, I want you to rate how our interaction was when I probably just gave you a citation. And so why can't we use that as a training tool of saying you can still sell the citation, you'd still be courteous and you can still get the job done. You don't have to conversate with them, but you can still talk with them. I would say mostly for Know Your Force, it's conversational, it's more humanizing individuals, it's getting them in a position where they realize they're going to be graded, so make sure you put yourself on your best behavior and represent the city as well as the department as best as you can so i would say that's more of a continual training of change of just making sure when we do get new officers they understand that we hold them to a higher standard we want to make sure that they continue to represent us in that way and so i would say more for the newer officers and even when there's an attaboy if there's like a good uh a good one that comes in where it's an identifier we definitely want to praise that and say good job

uh way to way to represent us and we want to use that as an example of what can be do what can be done i don't know if that answers your question yeah so let's play back three things uh identify people with driving problems uh secondly help people be more courteous and conversational with so there's kind of this training element for individual officers but i think that last insight was was helpful which is that officers know that they're going to be rated, right? And so I think it just helps to create a mindset of customer service. These are people that we are serving, and it probably helps influence the culture overall.

It's the culture, 100%. And I would even say going above and beyond that, it's a de-escalation technique. I mean, if you can treat someone and you can have someone berate you and you can just keep calm knowing that you're going to be evaluated, knowing that you're going to be seen, I feel it's a great de-escalation tool to be able to actually just be friendly in the times when you don't want to. Right. And create that that that boundary between you and them. I'm law enforcement, but also, again, like you said, it's a professional courtesy of me being able to say, I understand this may not be what you want, but I'm doing this is what I'm doing.

If you as a department ever think any significant changes as a result of this, what's about it?

Thanks, just a quick question. So first of all, thank you. This is this is a brave. This is a brave thing to do because if there's anybody that's going to be. It's going to have a target on them. It's the police officers, but I you know the saying of if you can't measure it, you can't manage it goes a long ways and I just think this is such a great open and honest tool to be able to to know how you're interacting with the public. Uhm? i lost my train of thought daniel was a really good one too um well come to me uh eventually at 2 a.m yeah that's that's what all good things yeah uh anyway thanks for doing this um but i i just i love the fact that you're willing to gather information and then use that to make it to learn where there might be opportunities to improve. Another positive thing, I love the shenanigans. Those are fun to read. And I think those little interactions with the public just help them to know that you guys are human and that you have a sense of humor and that you have challenges and all of the things. So I just, I appreciate you being willing to let people tell you what they think.

do get a lot of comments about your social media positive very you guys that's really humanizes you i think um i really love that it also is a service right to our community so doing what you're doing it's great but yeah i'm curious if you do there's approximate percentage of how many of them are anonymous versus not oh that's a good question i would i don't have that number but just off the top of my head i'd say probably

20% would be more anonymous.

Also 80% of you.

I apologize. The opposite. 20% would be the lanius know who it is. And 80% would be. Yes. Yeah. Especially when you're putting comments like that, the positive ones. Yeah. But I was going to say, especially the negative ones, people don't want.

Thanks, Brandon, for triggering my question. Is this going to be available for the public to see, not necessarily the comments, but the ratings?

Yeah, I believe on our website at one time we actually had that. It was actually embedded on our website, and I'm not sure what the change of it isn't. But yeah, at the bottom of our website, I believe it was, Know Your Force.

Well, Pete, let's make note to recognize and celebrate It's good job. Thank you.

Phenomenal. That you did at the banquet that they would see the officers when they were young.

I appreciate those that actually participated too. So thank you.

That's so cute. Do we have those little cards at the door at city council meetings?

Oh, maybe you should automatically four years. They rate the council with that officer that writes out a ticket. The QR code has the baby picture. Any other questions?

I had one really quick. Yes, sir. If somebody confess listening to ran, ran the citation ever, you know what?

And in which way would I go?

I would say

On the page of our officers, I'm not sure how many people would know.

I understand that you are good. Right. Well, thank you guys. Thank you.

All right, our next presentation of reprice, our assistant public works directors confess to me. Says that his presentation wasn't going to be very exciting, but he's had an hour and a half to create some razzle dazzle. It's about waste water. There's razzle and dazzle because we have a wonderful system that works.

So.

Yes. Soundtrack.

Good memories. Yeah, we'll start sending you. Oh, I do. Okay, thanks.

For this opportunity to be here today, this is an annual report that we're required to do to inform the governing body of the POTW or the Publicly Owned Treatment Works wastewater treatment plant to assure you that we are taking great steps to ensure the long-term viability and sustainability of our collection system as well as our wastewater treatment plant. so what is the mwpp it's the municipal wastewater planning program uh it's a survey that we answer it's a series of about 100 or so questions specific to the financial condition of our utility to the condition of our collection system as well as the treatment facility itself. And these questions help us to evaluate and summarize technical, operational, and financial conditions of the utility. By doing so, it helps us to identify areas that we might need to focus on more. and to focus on them before they become more serious and thus costly. Again, the survey evaluates three different areas. First is the financial evaluation. and then the collection system and the treatment facility. So as we went through the questions, the areas that it focuses on are efficiency of revenues. Do we have enough money to do what we need to do? Our answer to that is yes, we do. Due to the, uh, the support that we've received from the city council. Uh, in recent past, uh, increase rates in order to allow us to make the improvements that we, uh, that are necessary. Uh, in our collection system as well as at the facility. Uh, to aid the city council, we had, we conducted rate studies to show exactly what was needed. That's 1 of the questions. How do you conducted a rate study? Do you collect impact fees? Which we do. Do you have a capital facility plan a plan specific to the wastewater treatment plant? And identifying things that are needed at the facility. and then overall master planning. That encompasses both the capital facilities plan as well as the collection system plans to line the pipes, clean the pipes, replace the pipes, increase the capacity of pipes in certain areas. So we were able to answer positively in all aspects of the financial condition of this particular utility. when it comes to the collection system which is the series of pipes running through our streets that collect sewage from all of our residents and convey it down to the wastewater treatment facility it asks for system characteristics how old it is what is the largest size pipe you have it asks if you've had any backups last year we did not have any backups backups are are very rare because of the program that we have to bar pipes clean how much new development have you had uh what if you have a preventative maintenance plan are you able to get around and clean the main lines on a frequent basis and and other residential lines as well and asks additional questions about our master planning up effort it also asks about our staff how many staff do we have on the collection we have nine um and how many of those are certified uh three three of those are are certain certified with a grade four certification the others are working on it um and uh in fact i think someone's take is that two more we've had two more five should have talked to them we have five last week I should have, I've recognized Ryan too. So it's in my notes that I couldn't get to up without you guys seeing off. So I'll be more prepared and ask Pete how to do that. But we've got a good crew. We have some tenured employees that are guiding a younger generation that are new to the industry, eager to learn, and great workers. And so we're glad to have them on board under the mentorship of Brian, Chad Johnson, and others. The last part of the survey focuses on the wastewater treatment facility. It asks, what are the flow characteristics? What is this facility designed for? What flows are you receiving? Again, these questions are designed to have us look at it and say, oh, my goodness. our flows are about to exceed the design capacity. We're in good shape. Things that were designed years ago and constructed when it comes to the treatment ability of the facility, we're in great shape. However, with the facilities master plan, there are improvements that we need to make to upgrade things and meet new regulations. And so, yes, we do need to, despite saying we're in great shape, we do need to continue to invest and into the facility and we are able to do that. It asks about facility maintenance if we had any violations, which we haven't had. It also talks about master planning for the facility, that capital facilities plan. It's in place. We're following it. It also asks about the operators that run the facility. And Ryan, I guess I'll have to. Certified operators on treatment for okay. And then there's 1 grade 2.

So.

another young group that are studying and are great resources and are the future of the facility down there. So that's really all that I had to present. Again, this is just an opportunity for us to report to you and to the state that we have informed you that we went through this process and we're confident that the position that we're in puts us in great shape to continue to provide this necessary and valuable service to the citizens of Orem. So with that, happy to take any questions that you might have.

Also, any questions?

Aside from the reclamation facility, which I know you love, what's your favorite thing about our wastewater treatment?

um i would say the most the most fascinating thing there's there's several i when i started my career i knew very little about it started at the wastewater treatment plant and running the lab and i was just fascinated by taking the free water and making it clean the big huge culture of microorganisms that basically eat the organic material to clean the water. It was fascinating. And to know that you had to keep it at certain concentrations and by getting rid of a certain portion after each day in order to keep the population steady. And then what you do with those microorganisms, the biosolids part is quite fascinating too, where the disposal of the biomatter that's that's at the end seeing a nice clean clear product come through that's been uh cultured and and processed in such a relatively small square foot square footage of area duplicating what mother nature does on her own with only he can't handle such high volumes on her own. So we duplicate what she would do on her own.

There's an interesting statistic that we've heard in the industry over the years that the Mississippi River from Minneapolis, from Minnesota down to the Gulf is reused probably six times from top to bottom. And so it's a fascinating industry. Without the wastewater treatment plants that have been developed in the early 1900s, our death rates would average closer to 55 to 60 years old. So it's a significant contribution to human life and our lifestyles. and the life quality and so on and so forth and i think ryan even likes to render round too so that's another interesting if it weren't for that treatment 55 or 60 grand would be dead

Sounds would not be classic.

Yeah, I wasn't going to go there, but that's that's a good point.

1 thing that so that our legislature was proposing a bill this last year that required that we had to meet a certain modified annual gross income. a certain percentage of that in order to qualify for getting some loans from the state, some low interest loans in some cases. If we didn't meet that, then they would say, well, you need to reevaluate what we just presented on tonight. Do you have a financial plan that is robust enough to support your capital facilities plan? Is that in place? And if it's not in place, these numbers are going to reflect that, then you're not going to qualify. And so what's the alternative? Well, communities are then required to go back and do these studies and then reevaluate their financial models. And then rates will have to go up a little bit to be able to generate a sustainable future for their wastewater facilities.

Again, appreciate Ryan and his group, all they do to keep the facility running and the flow uninterrupted down to the treatment facility and doing their jobs out of sight, out of mind. Thanks, Rita. Thank you.

You can flush the confidence, as you say.

We really do have an exceptional team and planning program. I mean, Chris and I were just hearing from someone on the tip of the sewer board that they're looking at even bigger cost impacts for improvements that they need to do. So the fact that Orem's just done such a good job for such a long period of time of being sophisticated, planning ahead, and doing improvements over time, But we have more to go in the near future. We are in a much better spot relative to our neighbors. Thank you.

You've been a great, a great audience.

Razzle the dazzle us.

Thanks, Reed. You're welcome.

Our next razzle dazzle is going to be Gary McGann, our Community Development Director, Blood Damage Prevention Amendments to Chapter 10 of the Orem City Code. It's for 10 minutes, 5 minute presentation, 5 minute.

Sorry, no. Okay. Is she in Dubai? I think she's only going to be here for the first part. Oh, that's right. She was only in Stanford.

That's the apartment. That's one of the elements. What time must it be?

My, she's still stuck on Utah time. Well, that's all right. I can smell that picture. Yeah. Just some. Okay, we're going to talk about, uh.

our fema map or not our fema map but our flood damage prevention we have to do an update to chapter 10 of our code and so it's the national flood insurance program that we're dealing with and flooding in utah is actually the most destructive and common natural disaster we have There's more property damage year in, year out from flooding than there is anything else that we have. And this is from the statement. It's a weird kind of statistic. So 60% of all Utah properties have a 25% chance of flooding during their 30-year mortgage. I've been in my house 22 years. I've had two floods and I don't live anywhere near a creek or anything like that. One happened with a microburst and one actually was the spigot on the outside of my house. Luckily, where it broke was on the inside of the house, on the inside of the wall, because then insurance covered it. And we'll get into that. That'll be really important. If it had broken on the outside of the house and flooding from that came into my house, I would not have been covered by insurance. And 40% of all the damage in Utah happens outside of their high risk zones. So it doesn't even happen that you'd think along the river or next to the lake, something like that. Okay, so the National Flood Insurance Program was established back in the 60s. And what it does is it provides federally backed flood insurance for us. And it tries also to reduce damage from floods through mitigation and floodplain management. So we have there's a voluntary federal local partnership with this and we have to to access federal flood insurance rates and get mitigation grants and disaster assistance we have to have an ordinance that's approved by By the federal government, and we've had an ordinance since the game. It was popular.

Oh, she said is a.

I didn't know Duran Duran would come in today. That must have been a long time ago. At about the same time water was invented. so so we have a current floodplain ordinance dealing with all of this and we have to have this ordinance that's approved and authorized by the federal government for us to access these benefits and the reason why we're we have to do an update is there have been some changes. In June of 2024, they updated their maps. And the original maps were kind of old. A lot of things have happened since then. The changing flood risks, there's been some advancements in how we map and do things. Also, Utah lake shoreline has changed. So because of that, everything in our region uh has to be dealt with and also there are some uncertified levees out there and they're mostly in uh provo during the floods of 83 provo constructed levees but they were not army corps of engineers certified and that creates some unique difficulties for any community that has something like that so updating the maps now 40% of all flood claims come from moderate to low risk areas and standard home ownership insurance or homeowners insurance does not cover flood damage. So back to my example, if it had been a flood that came in from the outside, my insurance wouldn't have covered or it would have been a very limited cover. and i would have been stuck with the remainder since it wasn't technically a flood but it happened inside my house they insurance covered it and the bill and this just happened a couple of months ago was over 12 000 to take care of the damage but if it bent from water from the outside I would have been on the hook for all of that. In the microburst about 15 years ago, I had one room flood because of a microburst. And I didn't even make a claim. And I just covered it all because I didn't have flood insurance. Now, the National Flood Insurance Program is available to all ORM residents. our application deadline i have here june 23rd but the mayor gave me a letter at the beginning of this meeting where uh fema we were kind of wondering about this uh they've extended the deadline to august for us to adopt uh our ordinance our ordinance goes in updates uh we're using the standard template they have it's it's really if we don't enact their ordinance. We're not included in the floodplain. program and there our ordinance has to be compliant with what they do so the best thing to do is just use it so it won't be a major change or shift we basically have requirements in the floodplain zone of what people can and cannot do how the habitable floor area has to be above the base flood plain elevation level plus a foot and those that's kind of the best practice to do so you'll be seeing this it's not on your agenda tonight but that will be coming back uh wanted to give it uh put it on in case you had some questions that came up you know let me know about this here in the next month or so as this works its way back to you and uh that's it so any questions about floodplains Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Our dinner's ready. So we're going to take a little break for dinner before Aaron would like for assistance. The attorney gives us his presentation and we have some discussion. I've asked Quinn if he would offer a blessing on the food.

I was hungry like the wolf. Hungry like the wolf. Are you ready? Our Heavenly Father, we're grateful for the chance we have to serve in this capacity in the city for marvelous people who serve Orem residents and thought that goes into important decisions. Blessing on the food, we're grateful for it. Grateful for the chance to In the name of Jesus Christ, amen. Amen.

Thank you.

improvement team and parking post and it's 30 minutes uh 15 minutes presentation 15 minutes to aaron mcknight our assistant city attorney thank you thank you mayor last time when i was here evaluating made in horses and

Explain the matrices last time and some policy changes and creative changes. Reinforcement more efficient and fair. And I talked about code changes. At a later City Council meeting, but let's go through planning commission. And then then we'll bring it back. I was meeting with wanted to provoke one of the older them in a work meeting. Kind of some of the immediate changes that we want to make related to the code enforcement. And again, we call enforcement in parking areas that are separate ordinances for enforcement. So recruiting them different, although in many people's eyes, they're the same in many citizens eyes as far as Some immediate code enforcement changes, neighborhood enforcement changes that we're going to make are to allow an unregistered vehicle in a driveway. Currently, our code does not allow that. If you have an unregistered vehicle, you can keep it in your garage. You can keep up to two of them in your backyard behind a side obscuring fence. But there's been some consensus that allowing one in a driveway would also be allowed as you allow for people who may not have room in their garage may not have a garage whatever but still might for whatever reason one that registered vehicle in a neighborhood in conjunction with that we would allow one inoperable vehicle in your driveway as long as it's covered by a vehicle cover and there aren't any junk part junk flat tires uh suspension or jacks or other visible body damage that makes it look cold and thrashy so if if you want to be working on a vehicle that one that you uh restoring you'll be allowed to do that and keep it in your driveway as long as while you're not working on it it's in a neat and perfectly covered neighborhood looking nice so those are some kind of concessions in terms of uh more more lenient and allowing for some more wiggle room for people to use their property some things that we want to do to create more clarity is explicitly state that there is no clumping on a residential lot except for in the driveway or the parking lot What's a parking strip?

I can picture it between the curb and the sidewalk and the curb.

And that's a good question. There's a very specific legal definition for a parking strip. So you're thinking a park strip. This is a gravel parking strip. There's a specific regulation in our code that says. We used to only allow you to park on a paved driveway. It was either concrete, asphalt, or paving stones. Okay. And that could be expensive, so we created a new section in our state that allows for a gravel strip where people can park. It's adjacent to the driveway. I was thinking park strip. Yeah. So this is specifically for that, and the code will refer to that section just to make it fair for everyone. we're not definitely that that is what we're going for here is clarity and not more and that's the four inches of gravel that's the four inches of gravel that that is required under that regulation yes i don't know to what extent all gravel parking strip center in the city are reported to be but yes um Anyway, that's in there because NIT will often get into arguments about current regulation is you can't park where landscaping is required. So people will park on their grass. They'll say, well, there is landscaping there, but it's not required to be there because I only have to have up to 60% of my yard landscaped. Anyway, we just want to make it clear, park on your driveway, not on your grass. Let's see here. And currently, the city code that allows the city that's obstructing the sidewalk or the road, we want to expand that to allow to remove vegetation and for it to be a nuisance that NIT can address through our code enforcement processes, the information that's obstructing traffic control signals and devices. So if there's a tree that's grown over a stop sign so people can't see that there's a stop sign or a speed limit sign or whatever, if it's under that definition of traffic control signal and device, then we'd be allowed to go in and cut that back or require the property owner to do that. we are going to increase funds for repeat offenders. And this is targeted mainly at situations where it's more financially, it makes sense financially for a person to just pay the fine every day and keep engaging in the illegal activity on their property, then they still make a compliance, right? Possibly common example, we've seen this come up a couple of times, is where people are renting their home out to more than three unrelated people. And they get a code violation. They're ordered to pay the $50 a day. But they're actually making more than the $50 a day. So it's more advantage for them to just come and give fines, keep renting it out. Or what we've actually seen more often is they get get picketed for it and kick out the extra tenants that they have that they shouldn't have and then six months later they they fill up their house with a bunch of tenants exceeding the cap again and it just turns into this revolving thing where they're willing to take that risk because the fines are low enough that it makes sense financially for them to do that so that's that's the rationale behind that and then there are a couple of um things that commonly happen in the city those last four things illegal home occupation storage pods so removal and storing things and having junk and vacant lots those are all technically already nuisances under the city code we just want to make it more explicit again so that uh nit doesn't have to get into the same type of arguments that they do with homeowners when they're trying to enforce on those things because that can delay coming into compliance. I saw your hand, Lenny. Let me just explain one more thing, and that is when I say that they're currently already nuisances in their code, they are the way that, for example, just as an example that you're familiar with, the way short-term rentals are currently permitted under the code, right? Currently, they're not permitted, but it's It's not explicitly stated you can't do this. It's in a use table. Part of what people find and that kind of a thing. And so we just want to make it explicit.

Well, that would be my, just because of the short-term rental conversation we had earlier, we do have problems with illegal home occupations, you know, excessive occupancy.

I would actually like to have this. landlord is there. I know I've done now particular that we will sit down by you guys.

So I don't know how we would go about doing something like that is and we want to explore that.

I can look into that. I'm just off of the top of There may also be a landlord license if they're not in compliance with our code. You haven't ever handled it that way? I think you've connected me to that already.

I know some of that. You sent it down. You sent it down.

Just got a text from the call from me. They're back at it. They're doing the written top and bottom again. While we're going through this, if we think of a way to, that's already in our code, let's figure out how to give it to our netbed.

Can I look into that and research a little bit, maybe get back to you on? I think a mechanism already exists where we can throw a rental dwelling license . um again we haven't handled it that way we've handled it through the nhp way or through the administrative law judge but uh i appreciate you bringing that up because that that could be another way to help us keep clients in those sorts of situations uh i just uh wanted clarification on snow removal is that removing snow from your property what is that um that is clearing off the sidewalk Making sure that your sidewalk is clear. Yeah. Just making sure it's clear. Yeah. So that it's . Driveways too, and sidewalks. Just the sidewalks, yeah. We wouldn't be regulating the driveways. I guess that's great. But our main concern is keeping it off the sidewalks so that people can access it.

And then just a question I have for those who are not. physically capable because of age and whatever else. Do the snow removal, is there a mechanism for neighborhood groups or others to be aware and try and help neighbors in times of need? That would be just the thought that I would want to make sure that we have. And awareness. I know I want to help with the struggles.

I'm not having the opportunity to question you.

I think it would be good to kind of brainstorm some ways to address that. Another common issue I think might be, you know, someone's out of town for a week and it snows. How do we deal with that? Maybe? Maybe the answer is the city was removal. And I don't know, administratively, I'm not sure that public works. That's doable. It's too much.

And so really, it results him if someone was in because of the snow, not having been moved.

No, that's, that's a whole different area.

And I would also say, our

I'll inform enforcement the way it's been requested.

We probably end up in a situation where they wouldn't get fined anyway. In terms of exercising discretion to enforce it, this is more for people who are just, they can and they don't care.

And we could employ some of the same connections with hometown, United Way. I know they would all want it. Yeah. Ways to serve you.

That was excellent.

like i say if you're out of town that's an issue if you're out of town long term i would hope that they would be the neighbor boy right i i would hope that if you're leaving for an extended period that you would be a responsible property owner and make decisions for taking care right it would be the same thing if you're out of town now from over the summer you need someone to mow your lawn and then we've got some parking parking for changes that we want to implement as well something that came specifically from the council during discussions regarding this was that we wanted currently our code does not allow any people to be parked on the street sale and there is a consensus that we want to allow people to be able to park a vehicle for sale on the ones that are There was also an issue in terms of how far does a person have to move their vehicle or specifically a recreational vehicle, boat or a trailer after a 72-hour period limit that we have. Some people are moving it six inches and saying, well, that's good. So we wanted to put in a specific distance. You got to move it at least 200 feet a little ways down the block every 72 hours. Again, this is aimed at keeping people from storing their boats, trailers, and RVs and stuff on the street. That's not something that we want in our neighborhoods. that again increased fines for repeat offenders along the same lines our our fine for parking is 25 legal parking um which is much less than say a parking pass at one of these apartment buildings down by uv and so a lot of people will just break the parking Regulations down there and figure that, hey, as long as I only get 2 or 3 tickets a month, that's cheaper than the actual parking pass. And so we're. We're increasing the fines for insiders to avoid that kind of it. And also people ignoring and. And maybe need a louder all this.

Is there an escalation process?

Oh, I don't know that we're. Planning on booting or towing per se, except for in cases of abandoned vehicles. Yeah, just escalating the fines.

At this point, it says not really anything to do with the parking code changes, but the car dealership. I got a complaint from someone. Well, car dealers, people who are transporting cars to bar dealerships, and they park in the middle of state street. Yes, I know. I, I know I'm near literally nearly killed somebody at 9 and limited. He was standing out in the road in black anyway. But are there are there are there laws to prevent to prohibit that.

Aren't we've been and educate the dealerships and the. Hundreds of. I just don't want someone killed.

It has been something we've done a greater amount of focus on over the last several months, and we have seen progress. Thank you. Thank you.

can i uh the one thing your first one yes to avoid a loophole from someone just parking their rv in front of their house with the first cell sign in it can you put a timeline on that yes yes well i don't know what would you recommend i would say that parking an rv in front of the house for 72 hours or longer

or would still be subject to the 72 hour limit right even if it is for sale it's not you can't park it in front of your house still intense those those 72 hour limits would still apply okay yeah uh so far all of the code changes that i've talked about tonight we've discussed in our many meetings the last two we haven't but they came up um as as after i've been speaking with staff and uh one issue is that people are parking in our city parks and using it as using them as parking lots uh sometimes storing their rvs because again and park directly in the street for longer than 72 hours but there's nothing about parking it in a city parking lot and so they would like to see a code change that basically enforces park review but also for cars and the rationale there again is if if you can't physically be in the park your car probably shouldn't be in the park either it's not a parking a storage parking lot for people as they've been treated. And then the other one is a big problem is having car dealerships park the car that they have for sale on the public streets and really clogging things up and making it difficult to park. So staff would also like to see an ordinance indicating that car dealerships cannot park their inventory on public streets. It needs to be on their lot.

And that has to be paid, still has to meet the paving requirements.

There was Yeah, there are site plans and, and other ordinances that would say, hey, you can't park on landscaping on the floor. So when I say lot, I don't mean their parcel of land, I mean, on their part of their their ship. So there any concerns with those changes? Okay. And then lastly, there are some other ones that we discussed. Making exceptions for our circular driveways to the landscaping rules. making rules regarding carports, how they need to be presented. Food trucks are a big issue, and that's going to require a fairly heavy lift. And then rental disclosures for landlords with our occupancy enforcement. Those are all kind of future code things. These will not be presented in the next month or two to the Planning Commission City Council, but are kind of projects that will be coming down the road in the next I mean, year or two. So any questions about any of that?

That's one quick thing. So rental disclosures, is that going to encompass our desire to build on long-term?

Yeah, that's directed mainly at long-term rentals. That was an idea brought forth by Gary, where Provo requires rental disclosures to help enforce their occupancy laws. And they have similar struggles the way we do with being a college town and all that kind of thing. And the rental disclosures helped. Part of why this is being kicked down the road a little bit, it is administratively in terms of enforcing it. Well, I think all those resources and all that stuff.

Remind me what our current situation is with food trucks. You said that was like, they're just, they're everywhere.

Yeah. They have anything. We currently have, we currently have a code on food trucks. I'm not super familiar with it, but I do know that it is, that it's fairly, fairly unworkable. Meaning, One provision of it, for example, is that a food truck cannot remain in any one place for longer than five hours. And that's just not how food trucks are currently working. And it led at least one situation, a food truck, to be like, oh, okay, well, I'm going to remove the wheels on my food truck and put it on blocks, and then it won't be a mobile vendor anymore. It's a private vendor, and now I can stay here indefinitely. um that's not really okay that that's worse so anyway uh that's that's an ordinance that is just going to take a lot of thought i think we're going to want to get a lot of input from the industry as well a la short-term rentals being put from kind of all sides and crafting an ordinance that makes sense and is enforceable and it's about so they know so they can just know what they're allowed to do a lot of them just want to do yeah well it's unfortunate because i i think you know there are probably some who want to do the right thing we have an ordinance the right thing is to follow that uh but there are a lot that don't follow it and don't care

And then part of the reason is because it's difficult to enforce.

Part of it is because it's maybe unreasonable to enforce on. And had to be asked, I guess so we collect taxes from them.

So, self-tax to wherever their home is really.

That's not good because they're competing with our restaurants here.

all right thank you aaron i appreciate it all right so now we have item two on our agenda uh city council reports and crystal i yeah so i cover four different areas um public works advisory commission they still rock and party We're there, so that's awesome. The transportation utility fee is probably the biggest thing that Public Works has been talking about the last little bit. Anything you'd want to add there?

Yeah, it's at the forefront of our efforts right now, and we're excited to making an announcement shortly regarding a new public that we feel will help those efforts that's another big thing you do yeah and so i appreciate your help with us on that committee to to interview and it's been a long effort but it's going to be worth it

Yeah, Chris invited me to sit down on the interviews for that and be part of that panel. And I enjoyed being part of that process. That was great. Events Commission is another one that Jeff and I serve on. And our big event of the year is coming up with Orem Fest. So we're excited to see all those labors of the past and have a great celebration for Orem. It's always a fantastic week. I also serve in the Orem Youth Council with Chris, and we just wrapped that up last month for the school year. The kids all loved being a part of that and really enjoyed their time. So I'm excited to see the new kids coming in in the new school year. I've had a couple of emails from Participants in the Miss quarantine, I did where I had talked to them about the Oregon Council, they didn't know that was a thing. So they were excited to try and participate in that coming year. I'm also I serve with the legislative policy committee for you. And we've had a little bit of a break since the legislative session ended and the St. George thing. So that'll be starting up again this next month. And I'm excited to see what's going on in the interim sessions.

thank you thank you for the for your service on those different boards and commissions and for the update all right this evening's agenda we have uh it says just so you know the invocation and this racial thought and this invitation i got that covered on that. I just didn't have names by the time the holiday weekend that Teresa needed to get that out. We do have some presentations. We have Representative Nelson Abbott coming to present. We have the Natural Resources Advisory Commission Awards. We have the Orem Fest kickoff coming up. We have our summer reading program from the library and then the Miss Orem introductions. And so we will have that time and then we will also have a presentation, the police autism picnic after that personal appearances against 1 consent item is to update the city council 2026 agenda traces sent that out some updates on that. And then the scheduled items. Presentation, this one doesn't require a vote. This one, as I understand, is information only. It's ORMS Community Development Block Grant updated annual action plan and proposed budget. And then we do have a public hearing after that amending a number of articles in our city code relating to the powers and duties of the planet. Special exceptions. So, do you have any questions you want to ask about that in here? Or because Jared Jared is going to be called presenting that, but it looks like it's moving things from the board of adjustment over to the planning commission. Pretty much and.

some things and then we have i was there when that was that logic was presented client commission but it would be worth i think just new science version of logic yes there's a there's a specific type of development where if you have a single family home that's almost completely surrounded by a higher density uh There is a path for you to go and yet. You have to go forward of adjustment. To for them to make a determination, and then it comes back to planning commission to basically make a very similar determination and it just seemed really redundant and inefficient to do it that way when planning. Be looking at it from a much broader perspective anyway.

Okay, so thank you. So that's going to be a public hearing. And I'll put your husband on the spot a piece of good sport. Then we have another public hearing ordinance amending our zoning map over the old Central Utah Water Conservancy District properties over on University Parkway from R8 single-family residential to C2, along with the development agreement. It actually has a list of uses that would not be allowed on there, including gas stations. like that so that appears to be our agenda this evening and then oh we cannot forget our esteemed city manager he will have some information items and then we will adjourn so that's and look at the oh look at the time any other council members want to report on anything they're working on if not let's just so we're doing the um

active transportation plans in our tax so if anybody has any ideas for bike paths or biking or anything oh yeah yeah i do want to you know add let us know what's the timeline for that we'll have it done by the end of the year so october maybe september okay and you're you're racing i'm sure with all the bike books

yes thank you all thank you all for serving on those different liaisons for those different boards and commissions and thank you for being being really involved in all the different events that we have here at the cities we're in a month of a lot of things happening in a couple of weeks with all the different warm fest and so like my little jar is getting full of where i have to pay in if i call in A season rather than I don't want the city. I don't want the other city over back there. So, yes, I'm trying really hard and. But yes, I'm excited for that. Anyway, how are you feeling about the pace of our work session? I wanted to ask about that. I've talked to staff about maybe not having as many items on our agenda so we can go at a more deliberate pace rather than always feeling like we're panicked. At least maybe it's just me. It's like, are you OK with this amount of stuff?

It's more able to get the detail and also deliberate more than just fire host.

Yeah, I think so too. And we do have a few minutes here and it's not you'll give us a chance just to visit. We don't get to visit with each other as much.

Anyway, I just offer that I think this past week has been extraordinary. The city has shined in a way that those communities don't have that opportunity. And we have some of the most elite executive staff, planners, and folks who have created environments for our citizens to find hope, success, peace, opportunities to heal. We've created over the last few days and just the events that I've had the opportunity to be a part of. so just want to express gratitude for all of them doing lately and it was super impressive last night at this era of our firefighters up there on the stage that was we got some really good pictures i'll get to people to post yeah that was so sneaky and also the we all got to redo it and they got the standing ovation for like a long time yeah it's great you deserved it truly

And that's the Sierra Salutes series. They're going to be doing those, but how honored for our fire to be the first ones.

That's really nice. Great.

Well, if we don't have anything else, we'll just adjourn until we come back.

We'll be adjourned. I make a motion we adjourn then.

All right.

Motion and a second.

All right. We will reconvene at 6.

Thank you.

i saw that the dog one got shooting it did yeah that's what i thought too you know like did that stop okay probably like complete to us like i don't i know that that was to the stars anyway so we're interested what else is on the menu oh is it bad it's him oh it's not that home aging nervous well we may not stay on to me and in the morning Okay, it was a really great like. yeah yeah yeah yes yeah if i girls i'll watch it so it's like what Yeah, I saw it. Oh, is that why? Until they're official. Well, thanks for letting us know, Lori. I appreciate the word. Yeah. It's okay. Yeah. We'll be there when it's time. Awesome. We like to be flexible. We appreciate you. So let me just see.

Let's test.

Yeah.

All right, I would like to welcome you to this evening's City Council meeting. Thank you for your attendance. We're going to go ahead and start with an invocation by Tom Scribner. And after the invocation, the Pledge of Allegiance will be led by Glenna Scribner. So thank you for coming and doing that this evening.

Heavenly Father, we are grateful to be here this evening. We are so grateful to live in this country and to be in an area that is safe and a place where we are capable of meeting like this to discuss various issues. We ask you to bless this meeting with thy Spirit. Bless everyone who speaks that they may do so civilly. And bless each of us as we are in this year of 250 years for our Republic that we can be humbled in remembering the sacrifices of our forebears. And we say these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Please stand and repeat the Pledge of Allegiance with me. I pledge allegiance 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, Scriveners, for the invocation and the Pledge of Allegiance. After the Pledge of Allegiance, as we were reciting that, it reminded me of the wonderful events that we've had this past weekend here in Orem. We had the opportunity to gather out here and dedicate our Gold Star Family Memorial and invite you to go take a look at that after the council meeting. And then we also had a wonderful Memorial Day program yesterday. And so grateful for this country and for the opportunities we've had this last few days to remember those who have served. We have a number of presentations this evening. Our first presentation is going to be a legislative report given by Representative Nelson Abbott. So I'd like to welcome you to come up, Representative Abbott.

Yes, thank you for having me. It's good to be here. I appreciate the work you do and the good things you're doing for Orem. I was here Friday night for the Gold Star Memorial and that is a wonderful thing and it was a super touching ceremony and very well done. So I appreciate the efforts you're making as a city council and mayor and city manager to Make Orem a better place. So my name is Nelson Abbott. I represent about a third of the population of Orem, and I represent about 80% of Vineyard at the Utah legislature. I'm in the House of Representatives. And so I was asked to just come and kind of report on, I guess, a few things that are happening and kind of some of our priorities. One of the things we're super worried about is the cost of living. And it's a little frustrating at the state level, and I'm sure you're experiencing the same thing at the city level, in that we don't have a lot of options because most of the levers that drive the cost of living happen at the federal level. So our hands are somewhat tied. For example, starting July 1st, gas tax will be reduced about 15%, which sounds good. but I'm not sure anybody will notice because gas is up probably double or more in the past few months. So there's a lot of issues going on like that. But some of the things we've done is we have lowered Income tax substantially over the past six years. We've increased funding for education significantly. It's up about 36% over the last six years. Just this year, we raised the weighted pupil unit by 4.6%. So we're trying to continue to fund education. I know that's important for Ormond Vineyard and that we have a new school district and there's going to be some economic constraints that they face given just the division and what's going on with all of that. So those are some of my priorities and You know, I guess another priority I'll mention is just I appreciate the working relationship I have with you in that you guys have helped me screen bills and say, hey, this is going to impact citizens of Orem or Vineyard in this way. And so be aware of that. And I appreciate that good working relationship and the input that you give. And so I guess that's about my presentation. I'm happy to answer questions. But I don't have a lot more to say than that.

All right. Thank you. And likewise, we appreciate the relationship we have with you that you're very accessible and we're able to come in and visit with you about different pieces of legislation and how they will impact those we both represent. And so, Council, do you have any questions for Representative Abbott? Okay, Councilmember Mecham.

Thank you for being here. You are my representative. I'm in your third of arms, right? Fantastic. It's great to have you here between now and the next legislative session in January. What are your priorities? What will you be working on in particular to get ready for that session? And how can we support you?

So, you know, I think one of the issues that everybody's facing right now, well, I think people in Orem are concerned about it, although it's distant enough from us, is the data center up north, right? So we're hearing that a lot in the news. But I think the broader picture is how do we deal with tax increment financing and giving tax incentives to certain businesses or organizations? That has grown substantially over the past few years. And I think a lot of us in the legislature realize that while that serves a purpose, we probably need some more guardrails and we need some more careful structuring of those organizations so that elected officials have more responsibility and more say as to actually who gets those. And so that's one of the things I'm going to be working on is to try and figure out how we can reign that back. It's always hard when you have a government program. It's easy to start government programs. It's hard to end government programs. So it's going to be a challenge. It's going to be difficult. But that's one of the things I'm going to be working on.

Mayor counsel, if I can just also echo what what mayor is that representative Nelson Abbott has been very thoughtful, very smart, very accessible, willing to engage and open to to feedback and take take our input into account. or has a lot of of great uh state legislators and representative abbott is absolutely you know uh not lagging in that regard and he's just been wonderful to work with thank you thank you appreciate you all right thank you well we've got somebody else can i just say one more thing

We notice that your sweetheart is here with you this evening. Yes, she is. And we just want to say, again, thank you to you for all that you do and all that you have done to bless us here in Orem, all of your hard work. But we just want to say thank you to your wife as well. We know that she puts up with a lot and sacrifices a lot to allow you to be able to do what you do. So thank you to both of you.

Thank you. That's appreciated.

Yes. Thank you. Mrs. Abbott, it is a running and having someone serving elected office is definitely a family affair. family and friends, so thank you. Before next item, I neglected to excuse Councilmember Gale. She will not be here this evening. Our second presentation this evening is from Bradley Day, our Communities and Sustainability Officer, and it's Natural Resources Advisory Commission Awards. So I'd like to invite Bradley up for that. And it looks like you have two of your commission members with you this evening. Indeed. Welcome. Check. Yeah.

And I'll actually hand the time off to them. I'll hand the time to Hilary Hungerford, but we will also make time for the recipient families to share a couple remarks as well for these awards.

Thank you. Hello Mayor, hello Council Members, and hello fellow Orem residents. We're very excited to present our Natural Resource Advisory Commission Awards this year. On behalf of Orem's Natural Resource Advisory Commission, we're privileged to recognize local leaders championing clean air, energy efficiency, water-wise landscaping, waste and recycling, green space, healthy ecosystems, local agriculture, and outdoor recreation. Our two winners tonight are Orem residents who have gone above and beyond using their personal yards to directly benefit our community. So we'd like to invite our winners up, Cole Ludwig and Oren Cooper. Please come up. So I'm just gonna say a brief word about each and then they'll say. So Cole, you're gonna be first. Both of these residents took amazing and really different approaches to their landscaping. For Cole, he was nominated for creating a natural looking and feeling habitat for native pollinators. He turned a large portion of his lawn into a thriving native pollinator garden, and he worked with the State Department of Agriculture to collect native plants. He created a highly drought tolerant garden full of color and life. We would invite you to say a few words.

so the um this was actually something real exciting for my family we about five years ago decided that we wanted to cut down on our water use and our lawn being a big hole for all that water. So we reduced down our grass to about a third of what it was and then had all this extra space that we didn't know what to do with. And I just happened to run into on Facebook a post about the Pollinator Habitat Program. It's something that was started back in 2002 by our state legislature with the Department of Agriculture, where they supply A lot of native plants to families to just plant in areas that they have. Utah is home to over 1000 different types of native bees. And. And we're part of what we're doing is trying to do our best to. Create a good living space for them. Even recently. I've been out there just kind of seeing what we've attracted. We have a lot of carpenter bees that are just there hanging around all the flowers. A lot of smaller solitary bees that we don't really hear about because most of what we hear about is the honey bees. But there's so much more than just those guys. We love going out, we love seeing the flowers, all the activities, the butterflies and things like that. And it's been real exciting for us to have this opportunity and to be able to grow it.

Great. Thank you.

Yeah.

Take a seat for a minute, then we'll come back up to present the award. The next is Oren Cooper. I think Oren is here. Yeah, OK, good. Welcome. I haven't met either of these people before tonight. Very exciting. So Oren and his family turned their entire front yard into a productive garden. They made sustainable landscaping a true priority in their lives. Their yard feeds fresh food for their family, and it gives neighbors and the community a unique opportunity to enjoy locally grown vegetables. So we'd love to hear from you.

Thanks. So our motivations were similar to what we just heard, that our lawn, as you can see up here, we used 96,000 gallons of water last year in a month just to try to keep our lawn green. We live where our lawn was sloped, and that's a lot of water. In fact, we saved enough water over the year by changing this landscape for a household of four in Orem to live and do everything except for have a lawn. So that's very similar motivations. One of the other things that I wanted to share about tonight, you can show the other picture of the garden. Here where we had 60-something tomato plants, we've got those planted this year. Love fresh produce. We ran into some challenges actually doing this. I went to apply for grants and the City of Orem and the City of Provo don't qualify for some of the state grants because of the current legislation about how much our yard needs to be grassed in those requirements. We had some challenges initially with this city. We went from being reported as one of the ugliest yards to, in 15 months, being reported as one of the most beautiful yards because it was a process. We took all the grass out. It was basically mud through the winter. And thankfully, City Manager Bybee was very helpful in that process. So I hope this can be a start of a conversation to look at how we can change some of the ordinances I don't know if you've seen in the last couple of days, but Salt Lake City, their main water supplier, is going to start charging fines or fees if the various cities overuse their allotted amount of water. So again, I haven't studied all the ins and outs of how we get our water, but the fact that we could encourage more citizens to save water and even return that to groundwater in years that we have excess. Again, I'd love to follow up more so that more people have these pollinator friendly and beautiful yards. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, we would love to officially present you all with your awards and take picture with the mayor and city council. So please come forward. Do we do it all as a group? Okay, all as a group.

And it's cool to see yours with family too.

We actually live across the street from each other. Awesome. Hey, I'm going to have the front row.

Everyone just take a step this way. Perfect. Sarah, I might have you come on this side with me. Is that okay? Thank you. All right. Everyone look at me. Three, two, one. All right. Hey, we're good. Thank you.

Thank you and congratulations. Oh, those are beautiful flowers. Very beautiful.

Today from their yard.

Wow, that's amazing. I'm having yard envy and so I've got some goals, more goals now. Got the backyard. with a lot less grass, now the front's the next target. So thank you, congratulations, and thank you for being such good examples in our community. Our next item is our OrmFest kickoff, and we have Kanice Whitaker and Sydney Bailey from our event staff here this evening. Thank you, welcome.

All right, so here to talk about everybody's favorite week of the year, Orem Fest, which is June 8th through 13th this year. Okay, so we're going to start with this is our theme for Orem Fest this year, celebrating, of course, the 250 years of freedom in the United States and the role that each of us play in preserving those freedoms. Orem Fest 2026 is a tribute to the American spirit that has defined our nation for two and a half centuries. In Family City USA, we believe that the American story is more than just a history lesson. It's a living legacy passed from one generation to the next. As we mark this historic milestone, we honor those who paved the way and the citizens who will carry the best of their legacy into the future. Red, white, blue, and you celebrates the past, the present, and the great hope for the future.

Our grand marshal for this year is the Colonial Heritage Festival, and they perfectly embody this year's theme of red, white, blue, and you during this National America 250 celebration. The Colonial Heritage Festival is held every year during the week of 4th of July. This year it will be held the 2nd of July through the 4th of July at the Sarah Park. It is the largest colonial living history festival east of the 13 colonies and it's right here in our city of Orem. The Colonial Heritage Festival's revolutionary figures, they have folks that dress up such as Benjamin Franklin or George Washington, and they're going to be making special appearances throughout Orem Fest. So please make sure to watch out for them at our car show and at our orchards jam and at our carnival days.

So we obviously couldn't have done it without our event advisory commission. We have 10 of them right now that are helping us out through, especially this week and throughout the year. And then we have a lot of staff that also puts a lot of work in to this week, which makes it all possible.

this year we have about 19 food vendors with a variety of tasty eats for you to try and boutiques about 48 different vendors with a lot of variety of wares too so please come and check out all of these vendors

We also wouldn't have been able to do it without all of our sponsors, generous donors. We have a title sponsor, Surf Pro. They help us out big time for Orem Fest. And so we had a lot of cash donations as well as a lot of in-kind donations just to help with volunteers being able to come be a part of this, giving back to the people that make this all possible.

Okay, so now we're going to just highlight some of the events throughout the week. Our event start off with on Monday, June 8th with our Ormfest car show, which is so much fun. We have over a 100 amazing cars that show up for this event, plus there are free hot dogs for the first 2,000 attendees. We have lots of businesses promoting what they do for our communities and offering free things too and engaging activities. On Tuesday, June 9th, there is an Orenfest pool party. We have discounted tickets of only $3 per person for admission, and it's not just a fun swim. There's music, dancing, contests, free ice cream, so make sure to come out for that. On June 10th, we also have an Orange Fest charity golf tournament for the Kiwanis Club. That starts at 8 a.m. So if you're a golfer, make sure to sign up for that too.

And then on Wednesday the 10th, we start with our Sports Fest tournament. So we start with a pickleball tournament all day. That is men's tournaments, women's, mixed. And then we also have a parent and child division, which is really fun. And we're still looking for people to join that. So if you are interested or have neighbors that are interested, definitely sign up for that. In the evening, we have an event that we do with University Place Mall. It's called Orchards Jam. This year is America's birthday. So we will have foam cannons and giant lawn games and free cake and balloons. We'll also finish the night off with the silent disco. And then we have the children's entrepreneurship market as well, which is all, Kids version of a farmer's market. They're very adorable. It's very fun, so definitely come out for that. And then we will also start the carnival and the food vendors on Thursday this year. We have 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Thursday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, all at City Center Park. We'll have activities for the kids, which we'll talk a little bit more about, live music, and then like Kenice mentioned earlier, really delicious food.

okay so for kids crafts you won't want to miss that either bring the kids out for free craft they can make that on thursday and on friday between one and four really fun american themed crafts there for you we also have our maker space from orem public library coming out to help us out on friday so join us for from some fun there uh sports fest cornhole tournament there are still some There are still, am I coming through okay? Okay, there are still some spots available for signing up for the Cornhole Tournament and Orem Fest Fit, if you haven't done this before, it's a lot of fun, a lot of energy outside, high fitness, spotlighting some of our instructors at the Orem Family Fitness Center, just over behind the Orem Fitness Center, so come out for that.

All right. On Friday night, we also have the kickball tournament. That's going to be at Community Park. That's a really fun one to get families involved. One of the big things this year is also Orem's Got Talent. It's the 10th anniversary. That's always a really fun way to see all of the talented people here in Orem. That's at 7 p.m. at City Center Stage. And we will finish Friday off with a drone show at 945. We'll have music there. You can also tune in to KOHS. to hear the music if you're a little bit farther away, and should be really fun and exciting this year.

Okay, then comes Saturday, which is very packed with fun. We start off the day with our Rotary Pancake Breakfast. That's between 8 and 10. There's always delicious toppings for these pancakes, so come out and support the Orem Rotary Club for that. We also just after you filled up you can stretch out with yoga at the park just in front of the city center stage. There is a baby contest so if you have a cute adorable one make sure to register for that. The contest takes place over at the Hillcrest Park Center and winners get to ride in the parade.

And then last but definitely not least, this year new is the Orem Fire Department Fun Run, which will happen before the parade. So we'll have a lot of fun. You know, people cheering everyone on is... in support of the fire department, restoring the historic engine number one, and all of their funding for that. And so we have registration also online. Then right following that, we'll have the grand parade, which know we are excited for all of you guys to be a part of excited to have everybody in there to finish the week off um and we'll finish it with the fireworks um at city center park and so that is kind of the end of the perfect week of ormfest we hope That's awesome. Do you guys have any questions?

Any questions? Council Member Millett.

So I just have a couple comments. So now verify this for me. I was told last night that the fun run is along the parade route right before the parade. So you get to run in front of all your peeps and that is here along, right? That is right. Then I just want to do a big shout out. So I've done the, what was it called? I wrote it down. Orem Fest Fit. And that was so fun. I'm glad to see you moved it to 8pm. Because I think we had earlier and it was a little warm when we did earlier. So just I love that. And then the last thing I want to say is thank you so much for your efforts to find support in the community and to have this sponsor because it used to be a budget item. So you guys have done a great job of helping our community help us pay for this party. So thank you.

Yes, thank you. And I'll put a plug in for the Orem Fire Department fund run. I did that many, many years ago. And it was along the parade route. And it was really fun. And I wondered why everybody was so excited when I came by. You know, they're giving me high fives. It was because I was in last place. And they knew that the parade was going to start as soon as that woman went by with that ambulance behind her, which I was glad to have. But anyway, it was really fun. And so it's a good cause. The whole events, all of Ormsfest is really fun. So excited to be part of it this year. Thank you. Thank you. All right, our next item on the agenda is our summer reading program, and our presenter is program librarian Meg Flinders-Pay. Welcome.

Thank you for having me here today. Let me just get this up. Is that better?

Is it working?

Okay, thank you. All right. My name is Meg Flinders, and I am the program librarian at the Orem Library. I'm excited to share a little bit about the summer reading program that we have this year and to give you a glimpse of all the hard work and effort that our library staff have been putting in for over a year to get ready for this summer. Our theme this year, which was selected by the Collaborative Summer Library Program, is Unearth a Story. We are really excited about this theme. Whether readers are digging into a good book, uncovering hidden histories, or exploring the past, the slogan underscores the joy of discovery that reading brings. It also emphasizes that every person and every community has stories waiting to be found and shared through books, programs, and local knowledge. We run our program through an app called Beanstack where patrons can create an account and track their reading minutes to earn badges and qualify for prizes and our special finale event. We anticipate about 2,000 participants between the ages of 0 to 18. The goals of our summer reading program are to encourage children and families to read over the summer break and to lessen the summer slide, which is a decline in reading comprehension and reading skills that can happen when children are not in school. We also want our young patrons to develop positive attitudes about books and reading, and we're also excited to provide free engaging and educational experiences for our community throughout the summer. We're starting the program off this Saturday, May 30, with our kickoff event, In Time, which is presented by a performing group, Live History Shows. This interactive experience blends elements of an escape room, theatrical performance, and quest as our patrons explore the library and solve clues to complete the mission before their time is up. Patrons can sign up for the kickoff at library.oram.gov. Along with the kickoff, we have an exciting lineup of programs this summer, including a Red Pyramid Party, celebrating the popular junior fiction series by Rick Riordan. Film screenings, Mammoth Day, where we are excited to feature Miro and talk about the mammoth discovered in Orem. Trash Talk, where our teams will get to dig through trash, which we are creating ourselves, so it's not like actual garbage. to learn how archaeologists study civilizations, as well as many other fun and educational programs for all ages. You can subscribe to the library email newsletter to find out more about the events that are happening all summer long. Oh, yeah. Can people get it? In addition to great events, our patrons can also earn prizes for reading. We have ticket prize drawings that readers can enter to win, and these include donations from local businesses and museums, as well as toys, books, and games. Everyone who finishes the challenge at ages 0 to 11 will earn a dinosaur toy, while our teen readers will earn a goodie bag, which they have picked themselves what they want in it, which I think is really fun. We will also have a special prize this year for completionists. They will earn a real fossil that was actually dug out by our librarians back in the fall, which was really fun. And you can see some of us here in that picture. We had a really good time getting to do that. then our completionists will also earn entry into our annual pool party finale at the Sarah pool. So we're excited to celebrate and reward reading all summer. And we wanted to thank the city council and city administration and the amazing staff throughout the city and the library for making this program possible. Did you have any questions or comments?

Can we do 1 for grown ups?

We actually do have a challenge for our grown ups. It's called the arm reading challenge and it is about it's a year long challenge. It started in January and it will end in November. So that 1 is specifically for our adult readers because we found that the demands are a little bit different. So we're trying a little bit differently this year.

So this is so fun. Oh, council member.

This is just fantastic. I'm thrilled with library programming. For those of you who don't know the way that our library thinks a little bit about its mission, it really has transitioned from a place where we collect and store books for you to check out and now is much more of an experience library and a place where People come to engage with their community and to have experiences and to be inspired, not only by books, but by other members of the community. And these activities just go so far in terms of helping that along. So I just think this is a fantastic asset that we have as a community. And Meg, really appreciate your leadership on this.

Thank you. Thanks so much.

All right. Thank you. This is exciting. I can hardly wait to tell my granddaughter about it. Thank you. And so thank you. All right. The next item on our agenda is a presentation, Ms. Orem introductions. And so presenters Donna Millard and Joanne Jeffs with the Ms. Orem program. And it looks like you brought some people with you. Welcome.

It wasn't too long ago we were at this very podium practicing our interviews. And now we have a brand new royalty for both our teen and our Miss programs. We will let them introduce themselves as well as their community service initiatives. But my name is Donna Millard. I am the Miss RM director and thrilled to be here with you again and thrilled to be here with this new group of young women. We are blown away every year at the caliber of young women that come through our program. And we think we're going to make them better, but they make us better. So without further ado, maybe Joanne can introduce herself. Certainly.

I'm Joanne Jeffs. I am the events coordinator for the Miss Orem program. And so if you're at a ribbon cutting or a city event, you'll probably see me there. We love our city officials and we love interacting with you regularly. It is such a treat for our girls to have a relationship with the people that run the city. And we are so grateful for that. Thank you.

So we'll turn the time over to the girls. But again, we say this all the time, but we are very grateful and appreciate your support as a city council and of our program. So thank you.

Hello, everyone. You all know me already, but hello. My name is Mellie. I'm the new Miss Orem for 2026. My community service initiative is Mellie for MLE, Multilingual Education. So I'm an advocate for especially dual language immersion programs here in Utah, but just bilingualism in general, I'm a big advocate for. And one of my attendants, she's going to introduce herself. This is Brooke.

Hello, my name is Brooke and my CSI is called Dreamers into Believers. It's encouraging fifth grade students to build leadership skills as they plan to create their dreams to help them come true in the future.

And then this is our Miss Orem's teen, and she's going to go ahead and introduce her teens.

Hi, I'm Andy Oldham. I'm 17. My community service initiative is Stronger Than the Storm. It focuses on mental health awareness for teens, mostly. My attendants are Harley, Elsie, and oh my gosh, Sienna. I swear I know. Yeah. Anyways, I'm excited to serve Orem this year.

I'm Harley Wild and I'm the first attendant for the Miss Orem Teen Royalty and my CSI is keep it green by staying clean which is all about keeping our community clean and thriving and picking up trash and planting like plants and trees and flowers and just making Orem look beautiful.

I'm Sienna Busey. I'm the second attendant, and my community service initiative is called Notes of Hope, Amplifying Change Through Music. And it's all about connecting musicians with nonprofit organizations or other organizations that are already instated and helping bring more heart, awareness, and support to community events through music.

Hello my name is Elsie Thomas and I'm the third attendant and my CSI is called the Joy Project and it's all about finding healthy effective coping mechanisms for people of all ages.

Thank you and congratulations we look forward to working and serving with you this year so thank you.

Right front row slide this way just a little.

There we go. All right on 3, 1, 2, 3. Thank you so much.

I'm going to take 1 with the camera too. Just a 2nd.

Okay, we're good.

Thank you very much. Should I say something mayor?

Sure.

We are grateful for these young women and the great work they do to serve our community. But I just want to give a shout out to Donna and Joanne. They are behind the scenes and do so much good, not only through this process of the pageants, but I've heard from multiple parents in the last month of how They are there to support these young women in some really powerful and empowering ways. And we just want you to know how much we appreciate you and the work that you do and your whole team for strengthening our community and working with these amazing young women. So thank you.

Thank you. All right, our next item is a presentation by Cameron Wilson, a behavioral health specialist, and it's our police autism picnic. So welcome Cameron.

I'm so happy to be with you today. I should come to city council more often because I was sitting back there like, wow, there's so many cool things going on that I don't hear about in my little bubble over there. But like the introduction said that the mayor gave, my name's Cameron. I'm the behavioral health specialist that runs the mental health unit over at the police department. And I was asked to give a little recap on my favorite event of the year that I could talk about for a very long time. I'll keep it brief today, I promise. But this is our fifth annual picnic with police. Happened about a month ago. Just a little bit of background. The purpose of this event is to celebrate and enhance relationships between uniformed law enforcement and our citizens with special needs. When I first started at the police department about six years ago, Our now deputy chief was my lieutenant and he sat me down and he said, I want you to do a ride along with every shift. I was like, really? Every shift? That's kind of a lot. Highly recommend, by the way, if you guys haven't been on a ride along. Sorry, chief, I'm just throwing that out there. I'm sure it's fine. maybe he'll take it himself get back out on the road could be fun um anyway i went on a ride-along and i was brand spanking new like two weeks on the job i was with one of our officers he's a he's a big old polynesian one cutest little smile on his face all the time nicest guy but he's big and physically intimidating And he did a traffic stop on a minivan and the mom had no license plate on the back of the minivan. He pulls her over, mom's like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. She's very stressed. And she's like, I just didn't have the right screwdriver. I have the license plate here. I just don't have the right screwdriver. And he goes, oh, well, I'll just put it on for you. So I'm in the front seat of his patrol car. And I'm watching him on the side of the road, put this license plate on. And after a second, you can hear some, hear some things and see some things happening in the minivan.

And I was like, uh, a little concerning.

And he kind of looks back at me and I look at him and I'm like, Hey, there's some stuff going on in there. He walks over to the driver's side and the mom says, I'm so sorry. I have a son who's got autism and he is terrified of police officers. And he was a young kid and the officer, he runs back to his car and he's trying to find some stickers and they all stay pretty stocked with like stickers and snacks and treats and things like that for situations like this. And he's trying to get the kid to calm down and create some sort of rapport. The mom eventually just looks at him and is like, can you just let us go? He's like, yeah, totally fine. Have a good day. Well, I got back and my lieutenant asked me, how was your ride along? And I said, ugh. This is bugging me. This is bothering me. So I kind of vented a little bit. And he goes, well, what are you going to do about it? I was like, oh, I don't know. Been on the job for two weeks. And he said, well, that's why we hired you. So I brainstormed with my team. With great support from our administration, we came up with the Picnic with Police. So this is our fifth year. Our first year, we were expecting about 200 people. We had about 500. Well, this year, we had over 1,500 in attendance. We hit our target demographic very well. You can look around and see that it draws in the right people because it is an event that's needed. We had so many booths. We had over 70 police department employees there. We ran 15 different police booths. Connect Four, The Grill, Face Painting, Kickball, Volleyball, Legos, you name it, they're doing it. That's a good chunk of our force, by the way. And we ran 15 different police booths and then we had 22 local organizations, resource booths, come in and do activities and give families the tools that they needed, hopefully to prevent a crisis situation in the first place, right? Get them better connected. It's something that we can do in a reactive department to be a little bit more proactive. So I know in years past, we've had some council members present. Bad timing this year, probably my bad. You guys were at a nice little retreat, and that's OK. We'll catch you next year. But it's genuinely one of my favorite events. So the feedback was really great from attendees and the resource booths and our officers. They actually, not to brag or anything, but they fought about who had to work the road this year so that they could come to the picnic. So some of them duked it out and decided who covered what. It's becoming just a really good event that we all look forward to at the department. I hear about it all year long. Oh my gosh, you're the police department that does the picnic. We love that. And just the interactions are fun and genuine and it's the best training I could ever give for our officers and the best interaction that I could give to the public to just kind of ease some of that tension and make sure that we have good relationships with the vulnerable population. Another thing to note, this event doesn't cost any taxpayer dollars. It's entirely run from donations and sponsorships. The Autism Council and Macy's were our two sponsors this year. And so big shout out to them and to our Parks Department because I would die if the Parks Department didn't help me. So we're very, very grateful. Any questions?

Sounds like a wonderful event. I'm sorry we missed it. That's okay. We'll be here next year. Thanks a lot. Anybody else?

say I'm really sad when I found out that we were at our League of Cities and Towns convention. I was really sad. You guys do such a great job. I have several friends who take their children. And it's a game changer. It truly is that relationship building that takes place there. It looks like just a big party, but it truly, truly you're fulfilling the purpose. So thank you for that inspiration.

Thank you. Thank you. Chief, anything I missed? Thank you so much for your time.

All right. Thank you. All right, next item on our agenda are personal appearances. So time's been set aside for the public to express their ideas, concerns, and comments on items not scheduled as public hearings on the agenda. Those wishing to speak are encouraged to show respect for those who serve the city. Comments should focus on issues concerning the city. Those wishing to speak have already signed up, had the opportunity to sign up before the meeting, and I will stick with that list. There are over a dozen of you. And this last part, please limit your comments to three minutes or less. And I just want to give you a heads up. I learned right before the meeting that we have a new timing system here for the personal appearances. We've had some issues with people going over three minutes. And so I don't know if, do you want to do a test run, Pete, to show what's going to happen? So it goes, well, I guess, do we have to wait through the whole three minutes? Okay, so when it gets down to what's going to happen, if... Okay.

Yeah, as it counts down, it'll give you a warning, and then it'll do some chimes, but just respect the time is basically what we're asking.

Okay, so yes, it has that. So we ask that you do limit your comments to three minutes. I do notice that a number of you have spoken with us before about the same topic. So I would encourage you that you are just, that you don't need to take the three minutes. We're not gonna make you take three minutes. That you can take is up to three minutes. And like I said, we have over a dozen who've signed up all to talk about short-term rentals. so we'll go ahead and get started with amy harks is it amy is that right okay yep welcome i feel like the guinea pig with the new timing system

Thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts on short-term rentals. I didn't realise it was all going to be short-term rentals tonight. I'm definitely under three minutes. My name is Amy Horrocks and I am a resident of Orem. I'm very grateful for the work that you all do as council members and for the people that come to the city council meetings. I do come as often as I can and I enjoy hearing what's happening in the city. Clearly from my accent, I'm not originally from Orem. But my husband grew up here and we've been here for over nine years now. And I love living in the city of Orem. Our youngest daughter just graduated from Mountain View last week. So it's been a privilege to feel exhausted from all the events that we've done to get her to that point. But tonight I am here as a resident to express my concern for the issue at hand, which is short-term rentals and their continuation in Orem. I'm concerned as the decision seems to be coming black and white, and I'm unclear as to why there is no middle ground for short-term rentals. I have good friends in the room here tonight whose primary source of income is through short-term rentals. They've created these short-term rentals legally and follow everything that is required of them. And I'm sure if you were to ask any of their surrounding neighbours or friends of these people, they would have no complaints amongst them. I'm sorry to hear about the terrible experiences that have been expressed by some of the residents of Orem with short-term rentals that are near them. And I've heard the stories and they do sound pretty horrific. But that said, I can't help but wonder if there isn't a middle ground that does not completely remove short-term rentals, but rather makes it harder for those who are not adhering to the short-term rental laws continue providing this service. I agree that those creating significant neighbourhood disturbance and disruption should be penalised heavily, but punishing every short-term rental owner for the bad behaviour of some does not all in honesty seem fair. The friends I have who own short-term rentals are the kind of people I believe we all want as our neighbours in Orem. I would prefer we found solutions to protect them and remove the exploitation of the few who have found ways to do so. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you and I apologize that I didn't mention this earlier as I saw what the topic is for everybody. I want to give you a quick update on where we are on short term rentals. We just spent an hour over an hour in our work meeting, continuing to review short term rentals and some of the issues with that. We appreciate legal staff. particularly Jake Summers for helping with that. Just to let you know where we are right now is the City Council has directed our Attorney's Office to draft two different ordinances. One ordinance would allow owner-occupied short-term rental units. The other ordinance would allow non-owner-occupied be two-tiered system where there would be owner-occupied and then non-owner-occupied with a number allowed in the city to be determined. That's something that we still need to hammer out. So right now that's where we stand on looking at those two ordinances. Right now we've got June 23rd as our next work session where those two proposed ordinances will come back to the City Council for discussion and I thought we had a productive meeting today, council, as far as that's concerned. But that's the update right now, that right now it appears that there isn't going to be an all-out ban because the two ordinances that the council has directed include short-term rentals in the community. It's whether or not it's just owner-occupied or are we going to allow non-owner-occupied as well. That's where we are. right now again there's no final decision that's not a final decision we've got a long ways to go still before that final decision but that's that's where we are in our point of discussion sure yeah so just to your point um and that is a compromise we are doing compromises we have heard strongly from our residents that they want an all-out ban so just so people understand there are compromises that are happening and just because it's not going to show up on an agenda in a future meeting doesn't mean that compromise wasn't made do you want i thank you i appreciate that i appreciate that clarification i i neglect that we there were a couple of council members who felt a ban on all where it was appropriate and so yes what we're what you're seeing and will be the ordinances that are coming forward on for our further discussion on June 23rd, our compromises as we've gone forward. So, thank you. Thank you for that clarification. Appreciate it. Next is, is it Nico? Romney.

Hello. My name is Nico Romney and I work with short-term and long-term investors all over the state of Utah. We have long-term properties in Orem as well as short-term properties. Tonight, I just want to focus on the economic impact of these properties and also the economic benefit or just the overall benefit to the community of Orem. The majority of short-term rental owners I work with are not large corporations. They are local residents, families, and small investors. These are people who love Orem and believe in this community. They want to share it with investors or with visitors. Many are using these properties to help offset rising costs, create financial stability, and build long-term security for their families and retirement. Short-term rentals create consistent work for local cleaners, landscapers, handymen, plumbers, electricians, contractors, photographers, and small businesses. These properties also bring visitors into Orem who directly support local businesses. As a host, we actively encourage guests to support local businesses. We recommend Orem restaurants including Taco Amigo and Maria Bonita and so many more to encourage our guests to experience something new and experience something that's unique to Orem. Also, in many cases, these guests already have strong ties to Orem. A large portion are visiting family, friends, Students or local universities, others are former residents returning to visit loved ones, attend graduations, weddings, sporting events, or community gatherings. so uh we we just ask for fair regulation we we do try to do everything we can to be good neighbors to take care of our properties to bring the quality of our neighborhoods up and to be very respectful we send messages to renters There is a huge benefit to these short-term rentals where people come in, oftentimes fall in love with the city and do bring their families and move in. We've had people come in, love it, come back, come back and return and return again. And we've actually had several who then came and bought homes in Orem. So we really do appreciate that you guys are listening, that you are making compromises and you are working with us. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up is Morgan Romney. Then after Morgan will be Chris Hammond.

hi um my name is aubrey spicer i'm taking his wife's spot because i was late to sign my name down um and i live next to a sober living home a short-term rental property and many long-term renters in my neighborhood we were asked by some of our friends to come and share experience with short-term rentals sober living and long-term rentals in our neighborhood I understand the importance of occupancy limits and protecting neighborhoods, but I do not believe a blanket cap of eight people, which I think is what you guys were looking at for every short-term rental, is the solution to your guys' problem. In our area, the short-term rental guests are families visiting for weddings, funerals, graduations, and events at BYU and UVU. A family of 12 traveling together may only bring three or four vehicles and create very little neighborhood impact and the home is kept in beautiful standing. In contrast, neighborhood impacts are usually caused by things like excessive parking, noise, trash, and poor property management, not simply the number of people inside a home. From my own experience, the short-term rental near me has had no issues because it has clear parking limits, rules, and active management. That has mattered far more than the occupancy alone. When our friend asked if we would come address our honest concerns with the different types of properties in our neighborhood, the short-term rentals, sober living, long-term rentals, and owner-occupied homes, we have seen and have had far more issues with the sober living, long-term rentals than we have ever had with any of the short-term rentals. If the city's concern is truly neighborhood impact, then regulations should focus consistently on measurable issues like the parking overflow, nuisance behavior, property upkeep, and code enforcement across all housing types. Long-term rentals and owner-occupied homes can also create significant neighborhood issues when properties are neglected, vehicles overflow onto the street. um ordinances are not enforced the focus should be on the actual impact to neighbors not arbitrary uh occupancy number alone i would encourage the council to focus on measurable neighborhood impacts such as parking oh did i just read that oh sorry Okay, I know Hebrew City has just implemented an occupancy rule of 16 guests capped, but the parking only allows for whatever can fit in the driveway, which seems like a great way to respect neighbors and also encourage the right people to book. I love Orem. I've lived here now for nine years, and I'm from Idaho originally, from a little farm town, so it's been so fun to live in the big city. for me um and that's just what i've experienced so far is just the the differences between short-term rentals the sober living and then the long-term rentals they just seem to be a little bit more problematic and i wish there was more emphasis on them than the short-term rentals and i believe we can protect neighborhoods while still allowing responsible property owners to operate in a way that benefits visiting families and our local economy thank you thank you right next what

Spicer, Aubrey Spicer, right? Okay. Great. All right. Next we have Chris Hammond and then after Ms. Hammond we have John Brooks. Welcome.

Hi again. So nice to see you all. I am here one more time just to express as Once again, my positive for short term rentals, I spent a good part of my adult life looking at and studying correlations evaluation policy, finding reasonable solutions for complex problems. I respectfully ask that city council to rely on statistics data and thoughtful planning and creating policy. That makes sense for long term solves the problem and does not require a reconsider reconsideration. Even last week Salt Lake City is having to reconsider. We have the Olympics coming to Salt Lake and they're not going to have adequate places for people to stay because they got rid of short-term rentals and so they're having to re-look at it. Boulder City is another one where Sundance is going and they're going to have to reconsider there because of their restrictions that they've made. I am hoping that we can look forward thinking versus backward. It's always nice to say back then was so much better, but we have got to look forward. BYU is adding a medical school. The U of U is increasing and doubling their nursing program. They're also adding another business program. The Osmonds announced their new venue, which I know is... controversial, but we should be prepared for what's going to happen. We continue to hear claims that short-term rentals impact housing, but that is not true. There's no statistics that they make a change in that. And currently, there are 263 homes in Orem for sale. and over between 160, 600 rentals that are available. And so short-term rentals are not making an impact on that. We have repeatedly heard concerns about the sober living organization and how that impacts, but they are governed by an entirely different federal government guidelines and we need to look at that and I have a professional paper that I'll hand out to you tonight. Additionally, for individuals with special needs, those kinds of homes are governed by the federal government and individuals need their own space and so I hope that you'll consider a bedroom count versus something that's eight. Historically, if we dictate how many days that something can be open in a short-term rental is only available on average about 50% of the time. The street in front of my home is a public street and I would hope that I have use of something that I pay taxes on. Let us be forward thinking. Let us plan for the future growth of warm. Let us consider the revenue that is brought in. I personally employ a crew of 10 people that are dependent upon what I do and how I manage. I respectfully ask the council to create a fair balance and data driven policy that preserves neighborhoods without having. the way we support public businesses. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you.

And if you'd just like to leave that with Melissa here, she'll make sure that we get those. All right. John Brooks. And then after Mr. Brooks, Jerry Duckworth. So welcome.

Yeah, thank you for your service. I am a neighbor of a rental property and one of the largest in the city of Orem. And I'm just here just to say that I don't ever see any issues. I never see any noise or anything like that. It's a great place to have Family City USA come back and have a large enough place for families to actually visit and be a part of. And I don't see any issues with it. And I'm just here to say that. I also see that on the same street, I do see issues with the um health hospital hospital and also cirque lodge that have a tendency to walk down the street on palisade that has a bigger concern for me than having zero cars in the street on a home that has a beautiful home that all it does is just bring people to oram and and be able to see our city and so i just say that and thank you for your service right thank you thanks for coming all right next we have jerry duckworth and after mr duckworth we have um connie romney would be will be ready

Come on.

Welcome.

Thank you. It's heartening to me as an American to see you all function so well when the times around the world are challenging. And it's a blessing from our founding fathers that you do such a good job. Anyway. I live in Provo, but I worked in Orem for close to 20 years for a mortgage company called American Lending Network. Mike Riley and Stephanie Brevard were the owners. And it was a pleasant experience. Challenging. But I'm here on behalf of friends who live in Orem concerning short term rentals. And I have known them for years. and often visited a large, nearly two acre short-term rental property as it is immediately next door to a friend I often visit. I have occasionally been invited over by guests along with my friend to meet the guests that have rented the property for a week or two. A year and a half ago, I met a Jewish family of 30 to 40 people. And I was so impressed with their character and how they enjoyed being here, commenting on the mountains, the streams, the people are so nice. And my friend had known Bibi Netanyahu and his brother. who was killed in the German Olympics years ago. And so there was a appreciation from our Jewish friends for his service in security for the games. They live on site. They don't let noise become an issue. For years, the city has approved short-term rentals, recognizing the value of our local economy and our neighborhoods. These homes are more than just places to stay. They are where friends and family come together, share meals, celebrate milestones, create memories that last a lifetime. Short-term rentals allow visitors to experience their city in a personal, authentic way, supporting shops, restaurants, attractions. They foster cultural exchange. They help homeowners afford their homes in Orem by sharing responsibility with visitors from both near and far away. I believe we can continue to uphold safety and neighborhood standards by preserving the benefit of short-term rentals. Let's keep this tradition alive for our residents, our visitors, and the future of our economy. 21 seconds. Okay. If you look at the the world conditions, imagine if you own a short-term rental and all your income comes from that. And if our economy, which is really our national deficit, what would happen to people who get threatened by reduction in social security or their income's gone? You know, we have to take that into account. And particularly if they followed the guidelines the city had approved prior. Please take that into account. And I thank you for the opportunity. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Next, we have Connie Romney. And after Ms. Romney, we have Gavin Nebeker. Welcome.

Hi. Good evening. I'm coming as a different aspect of it. I clean the places. And I wanted to talk to you tonight because it has made a real big difference in our life. It's a second job for me. It's made a big difference for our family. It's helped us to handle the high cost of things. My husband, he retired really early and so it's helped us, our family, to get control of our finances. For me, it's not about corporations or that is about families and being able to handle the costs of things and that it is the places like the clean the homes they've been I'm sorry I lost my train we Many of the guests are visiting families from here. During their stay, they're going out to the local restaurants and stuff. And I understand we should have rules and stuff, but we also should support these people. Like the one that I cleaned here, it's beautiful. The yard is beautiful. Everything's beautiful around it. But the house next door that someone lives in, it looks like it's falling down. For some of the... And for us, it's stability in our home. And it's been quite an asset to us. And I just wanted you to know from that aspect what it has done for us. It's made a big difference in our lives. We wouldn't be able to make it without the income that it's made for us. So that's just a different aspect for us. I appreciate your thoughts. Thank you for listening for us. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, Gavin Nebaker and after Mr. Nebaker, we have Ingrid Pineronda. Did I even get close? Okay, she's nodding. I'm feeling better about that. Okay, welcome.

Well, thank you. Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, City Council members. I mean, the first lady that came in spoke, I just wanted to basically say amen. That's very similar to my story here. But my wife and I, we moved here to Orem probably about three years ago with our family. And we've spent a lot of time getting to know our neighbors and our community, our church community. And it's been such a blessing. We're very grateful for it. After getting to know our neighbors and our community, we've learned that some of them had been operating an Airbnb. And we actually had never known that as there hadn't been any disturbances from their guests and they had been great owner-operators. They've continued to contribute greatly to our community. And there's, you know, again, been nothing that has been done to disrupt our family and all the things that we've been looking for in owning a home and living here in Orem. In fact, I'm very grateful for them because as we've had my wife's family and other family members come to visit, they've been able to stay close by and not have to be in a hotel. And so we've been able to spend more time with them. Also, my wife and I, I mean, our family, we have a child who has some special needs. And so it's harder for us to be able to get out. And so on our anniversary, we were able to stay at another Airbnb that was just a couple blocks away. So we were still close for any medical concerns from our babysitters or whatnot. And so it was great for us to be able to still have that experience to go stay in another home that isn't just ours. And so what I've learned, As I've learned more about the coming restrictions from our neighbors and other hosts, I felt bad for the great services that they've been providing, which benefit the community and could be jeopardized and cause some of them to potentially move. Now, I understand that there have been some bad apples. Um, but I do fear that there will be an over compensation in the effort to correct those, which in turn will help, which in turn will hurt all the other short term rental owners. And even their neighbors and friends are people like me who've been able to benefit from those. So, again, thank you for your time.

All right, thank you appreciate your thoughts. All right. The ingrid and then after Ingrid, we have Rocio Rocio.

she lives oh she had to leave oh she had to leave okay so i'll cross her off okay welcome thank you and i do not speak very well in english because my first language is spanish spanish so she's going to help me okay okay okay um yo vivo acá in oren desde el 2017.

She's lived in Orem since 2017. Oh, can I interrupt for a minute?

Let's give them just a little bit longer time because we've got an interpreter. So we'll keep the clock running, but yeah. Thank you. But still give a little bit more time.

En este año pasado, como yo tengo un hijo con síndrome de Down, tenía que quedarme en casa para cuidarlo porque él terminó sus clases.

She has a Down syndrome son, and so for her to go out and work, it makes it really hard.

They thought it would be thoughtful to take a place and make it beautiful so that they could give service to their community this way. They've had people visit such as families, people come to the MTC to serve missions.

She's just grateful that she can have people and provide that help to those who come to visit in the college and whatnot.

Y poder yo estar en casa cuidando a mi hijo.

So that she can be home and take care of her child.

Thank you so much. Gracias. Thank you. All right. Next up is Brendan Beebe. Welcome.

Thanks guys for having me. I do a Substack where I comment and listen to every city council meeting and I follow this discussion for probably two years now. I think you guys have been talking about it. And I like to try to bring data and details to it that maybe the city council doesn't have. And I know recently, I think I emailed most of you guys, but I was talking about how many Airbnbs are in Orem. And I think there's currently 89 Airbnbs that are of whole homes that you guys are trying to create rules around. It's just 89. And there's 200 total Airbnbs listed currently or in the last 12 months. A lot of numbers get thrown out there. I think there's a recent like newspaper article around like five to 600. But in my sub stack, I list out the sources and how you can actually go just validate that yourself. And so I'd invite you guys to do that. And what I'm also trying to do is I put in a grammar request for every neighborhood improvement complaint made since 2024 out of just my own pocket but i plan on bringing that data to you guys in a detailed analysis of like what are we talking about because what i've noticed is that it's the same six to seven homes that come up in every single city council meeting and the rules we're putting out there and the rules you guys are creating i want to make sure that's not around the anecdotes and the feelings that we have around these six properties and it's about about what's actually happening in orem so thanks for having me

All right. Thank you. Next, we have Aaron Kirkham. And then after Aaron, we have Elora Herron.

Hello, Council. My name is Aaron. I'm a resident of Sandy. I'm here on behalf of two of our clients. We manage vacation homes. Our company is called Conmigo Vacation Rentals. We manage homes in Idaho and in Utah. I'm a member of the Idaho Vacation Rental Association. And what I wanted to talk about tonight was in regards to the occupancy limits of eight and potentially the five days. Specific as it relates to McCall, Idaho, McCall, Idaho had an occupancy limit of 4 people per bedroom. They changed it to 2 people per bedroom were sued by 5 different individuals and lost to those 5 individuals. That also then helps stimulate House Bill 583, which recently passed in 2026, which has removed all regulation within the state of Idaho for short term rentals. And all residential units need to be treated equally underneath the protection of the law for being a residential unit. That's really my biggest fear as it relates not just to our clients, but the whole argument of 8 people as well as 5 days of. Blocked out unavailable. Really? It does appear that the city wants us to host people for longer because they're trying to remove elements of short term rentals. Thus long term makes more sense. And so if we have a guest who stays longer, actually, within our own portfolio, we've had a shift of about 50% of our portfolio within the summer. So that's 30 to 40 homes from Salt Lake City down to Provo. Shift to what is called midterm 30 days or longer. It's traditionally contractors who are coming to the area families, architects who are building, but need places for an extended stay. Putting in a 5 day limit would remove that opportunity for those individuals as well as from just a straight standpoint of only having 8 people. just doesn't follow a systematic approach of how to use the home. We also have a place in Kanab, Utah. We follow Kane County's rules. Today, I got my license for our short-term rental. We follow their rules, which are two people per bedroom. We have three buildings on one property. And In there, we have the capacity to sleep 16. We're only allowed 10. So that's what we do. It's still we've found ways to make it profitable and that would be my request or my input is that I think that the city would be opening themselves up to potential liability of adding more. restrictions as it regards to people using their own homes whereas anybody who has a business license they can be open 30 days yet for some reason if you have a short-term rental you can only be open for 25 or only can have eight people into your business that's my feedback that i want to give thank you council thank you appreciate it right laura okay okay welcome

Hi, sorry, we had some confusion with the people. So Laura is actually Aubrey who took my place. So I'm gonna speak for her. I'm Morgan Romney. So you've heard a lot from the Romneys tonight. So I appreciate that. I know, I'm sorry, this is not how city councils go, but I'm gonna come up and take my turn. So I'm Nico's wife, Morgan. Just some quick background. I lived in Orem up until we got married and he made me move to Salt Lake County. So I apologize. But I attended UVU. I have friends and coworkers that live in Orem. And the one thing that everyone can agree on is that it is an amazing city. My favorite festival is the Orem Fest they were just talking about tonight. Also the Orem Library is amazing. I've worked in tourism industry for almost my whole career. And my husband prides himself on helping locals with homes that they would otherwise lose because of various situations. His first home he bought was actually in Orem. which was the jumping point to what we now live in. I think that is important to have places for business people, families of citizens and tourists to come stay for extended period and fall in love with what I think we all love about Orem. Nico has been able to hire local cleaners, lawn mowers, plumbers, and repairmen. I hear a lot about it all the time, right? We're also a small business just trying to survive. If we say an absolute no, which I know we're not, but... just the thought behind the different rules um to these short terms many people may lose income um in a very turbulent time in our economy economic history thank you for your time and considerations again i'm sorry for the back and forth with the presentations but thank you all right thank you and nico has she forgiven you for having her leave orem okay

all right thank you all right council and members of the of the audience that concludes our personal appearances thank you for coming and being part of the process here in our city we really appreciate hearing from you the next item on our agenda is our one consent item we have needed to update our city council 2026 schedule and so i would look for a motion to approve that consent item so moved Thank you, Council Member Kilpatrick. Do you have a second?

I'll second.

All right. Thank you, Council Member Mecham. All right. I'm going to start. I'm going to vote aye, and we'll go this way. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. All right. Thank you. Motion carries. Items 10, the scheduled items. 10.1 is a presentation of the Orem Community Development, or CDBG, updated annual action plan and proposed budget. And our presenters this evening are Bradley Day, our Community and Sustainability Officer, and Jessica Delora, Mountainland Association of Government. So welcome.

Thank you. Is that on? Okay. Thank you so much for having us. As Mayor McCandless said, I'm Jessica Delora with Mountainland Association of Governments. I work closely with Bradley on the Community Development Block Grant Program.

Do you have anything or would you like to start?

OK. So tonight we were originally planning to have the Council vote on a resolution to approve the draft annual action plan that we submit to HUD every year. But we didn't need to make a change to the plan and push that timeline back a little bit. So I'm going to talk to you about that. If I get too into the CDBG speak and don't make any sense, please feel free to interrupt me so I can try again.

OK.

So there are two things that we're trying to accomplish right now with the CDBG program. One is submit that annual action plan, and the other is to wrap up the city's revolving loan fund and reprogram those funds for other uses. So I'll give you a little background about the revolving loan fund. The program was started, I think, several decades ago, if I'm correct. Okay. Several decades ago to help small businesses through loans for working capital and those kinds of things. There have been many successful businesses that I'm sure you're aware of that got their start with these funds. But it has become increasingly difficult for businesses to meet the federal requirements, compliance, and reporting requirements of the CDBG funds for the smaller dollar amount that they can get through the program. cost-benefit analysis hasn't really worked out in the last few years. So the the last loan was made in 2017 so it's not been super active as you can tell and so that means that there are now some unspent funds that were programmed for the business loan for a program that haven't been used so that's about 350 000 in that program and that has triggered a different issue with hud what they call the timeliness test you can't have more than 1.5 times your annual allocation in your CDBG bank account and so we're trying to address the revolving loan fund so that we can get under that 1.5% as we pursue other projects. In 2021, HUD came and did a routine monitoring of the program. A couple of businesses did raise flags. They were unsuccessful in their business or unable to provide the jobs required for the CDBG funding. And so what that did was trigger a finding that the city had been working through. And then when MAG came on to administer, we've continued that work to help the city reconcile the historic records from many decades. And just make sure that we're ready to close that program with the CDBG program and HUD. So as I mentioned, we've been working to do that. That leaves us with $350,000. And we do have to include that amount in the upcoming annual action plan. We just found out from HUD in order to meet that timeliness, we've got to program it into the current action plan. That wasn't originally in the budget for this year's action plan because we were still working with HUD to resolve it. The government shut down and their short staffing put all of that work on hold, and so we've reinitiated that conversation, but the timing has just really not been great. um what we need to do is reprogram those funds in a placeholder project for this year's action plan what that means is that we'll put a generic capital improvements project into the plan we'll restart the public comment period and then come back to you next month to get a resolution to approve that plan we'll then work with the city and with the citizen commission and take public input on how to actually reprogram those 350 000 so We're putting a placeholder in there to meet one requirement so we can move forward on another one. A little convoluted, but that's how we're going to address that. So you can see this is the new expected funding, the annual allocation. What we get regularly from HUD is that $563,000. And there's about $100,000 from past year projects that came in under budget or didn't proceed for some reason. And then we do anticipate making a little bit of cash there on the single family rehab loan program that we incorporate. And then you'll see that $350,000. So we're looking at just over a million dollars to program for this year. and this is the new allocations by project type so that 350 has gone into that first line item the public facilities and infrastructure nothing else has changed in the projects that you saw presented last month And so our next steps, we'll be holding a public hearing at MAG and online on June 11. We would normally try to do that in this setting, but because of your schedule, we can't get that done in time to submit the action plan. So we will make that available to citizens online and at our offices from 515 to 6 PM on June 11. we have also opened a comment period for the public just started a few days ago and we'll go through June 22nd so we'll be taking comment that whole time we have links to that from the ORM website to the ORM CDBG website that we host so we will take those comments and then we will come back to this council to vote to approve that action plan on June 23rd and submit that to hud um and as i mentioned we will work with the city um and the citizen commission to identify priority projects once we get past this annual action plan submission that's all i have all right thank you yeah uh i know that with our discussions that that the um the hold up

On the $350,000, it's not our city's doing it. You've been wanting to do something, get this, but it's been on the federal government. And the reason, I just want to point out, as I read this, the reason why this money hasn't been used is because the dollar amounts that are available, counsel, for revolving loans do not justify the amount of bureaucracy needed to accept and use the loans. Is that a fair statement?

Very fair statement, yes.

OK. So I just want to make sure that it just wasn't worth it. So counsel, do you have any questions for Jessica or Bradley? Okay, thank you. Council member Miller.

Okay. And I talked to Jessica earlier. Um, so just a few more comments. Um, I really appreciate this 350,000 and I appreciate your mention mentioning the, um, our rehab loan program really hoping that we can. have some opportunity to further invest in Orem through renewal, through that program. I think you've done some great things. And having spoken with her, talked about this is our plan. We are at the end of this cycle. Your presentation here is at the end, just to make it clear to everyone. And we will be doing a new cycle this fall with applications and everything. One thing we did kind of chat about was expanding the opportunities to other nonprofits. As I've looked through the plans, I was on CDBG for a few months, my first year on the council, and then I got shifted to another, I think the Lake Authority Commission or something, I can't remember. I'm seeing the same nonprofits that are receiving CDBG benefits. And I looked on, like I just did a search today of food pantry resources or groups, nonprofits for that. And there were some great fun names like Lasagna Love and Homestyle Direct Meals and Mom's Meals, things like that. And I think one of the things that we talked about was, food pantries are great, but as I've been involved in some efforts to help feed our children, I'm finding that It's the same problem I have in my home. I go to the grocery store, I buy things and they don't always make it in a meal to the table. Because maybe I don't plan ahead enough to put it all together at the right time or whatever reason, or maybe there's an education aspect there. So I guess I'm just advocating for two things. The first one is maybe in the future when we start looking for new projects, look for different ideas, look for ways to maybe deliver a meal to a family versus little parts of the meal that they don't know what to do with. And then some education in cooking. I know my hometown is having classes on meal prep. to help families. We all think we know how to do that, but there are a lot of people who weren't raised in a family that had a meal on the table for them, for their family, unfortunately, right? And I guess the last thing would be, the second thing is just that point of, you talk about the red tape issues, Mayor. Help us help you. We were sitting in an event here Saturday with Senator Curtis. here in Orem. I see Senator Lee often. I would love to know what the needs are, how we can cut the bureaucratic red tape or give suggestions to push up the pipeline directly from you, from the needs that you have. And otherwise, you know, there's gonna be other people making those suggestions. So why not have it be us, right? Why not you? So anyway, I look forward to working with you more in the future and having that teamwork to try to fix some of these things that bureaucracy just shouldn't be involved in.

Yeah, absolutely. And if I may respond, I appreciate those comments. And I think they point to maybe a two prong approach we can take to make sure that the applications we receive are meeting the needs of the city and are being used effectively. The first one at just the local level is building up organizations that don't currently have the capacity to meet all those compliance requirements. In the long term, I think working with our elected officials at the federal level to try and streamline some of that is a good way to go. But in the short term, building capacity of organizations to meet those. Mayor McCandless, you know how complicated it can be to meet all the requirements and submit all the reporting, have all the financial management and administrative controls in place to comply with CDBG. It's just, it's not easy for organizations. So I think one thing we could do is if we target organizations that are doing the work that the city thinks is important and would like to see doing some technical assistance to help them prepare for receiving a grant or being competitive to receive a grant. So we would Certainly love to hear any organizations that you have your eye on that might, you know, carry out the work that we need that we could help build that capacity so that when application time comes, we know that they can carry it out. We don't want to set any organization up for failure with a federal grant that could end up in paybacks and noncompliance. So that's really important, I think, on our level.

I just I was just going to mention. Thank you. That's that's the thing is I was thinking about these little groups I first thought it'd be interesting to have a consortium of the of the groups and have have one person be the Do all the compliance or like what when I was at treatment I was running community action what we would do is we would work with little organizations who didn't have the capacity for the financial or the compliance capacity and and we subcontract with them. So they actually were able to provide the services that they have, but they didn't have to have all of that expertise on staff. So that's a good point that there are a lot of different options out there because I follow Lasagna Love on social media and they're wonderful organization and I love Lasagna. And so, but anyway, and then food security is near and dear to my heart. But yeah, I think that there are some options that we have as council members to let Bradley know, let Jessica know that how can we, what's important to our community and let's see other partners out there who can help facilitate that.

Yep and I'll say we maintain a funding availability mailing list. It's thousands of entries long at this point so we're always adding new organizations as they come along or get on our radar or maybe do work that fits with CDBG. Our website has a link where any organization or individual can get on that mailing list or if we hear it from any of you we'd be happy to add people to it so that can help us reach more organizations and also if you have one specifically you're interested in, we can do that targeted technical assistance to see if they're a good fit for funding for that program.

And can I just, the Lasagna Love, it looked to me like they just deliver lasagna, right? They deliver love to lasagna. But why not, and I think we maybe said this, Deliver a recipe with it. This is how you can make it in your home. This is what you have to buy, mom, who's overwhelmed already with looking for a job or making ends meet. But anyway, I would love to see a little more out-of-the-box thinking on ways we can. And I really appreciate, Mary, you're saying that of how to help these other groups. become more effective.

And then I think our other maybe suggestion of how we could accomplish your goals once we identify projects that you're interested in and find a partner that has capacity to implement that is to we'd love to run a project together and see is this feasible? Is it eligible for CDBG? What are all the compliance requirements that come with that particular type of activity? We always want to do that as early as possible so we don't spend a lot of time Building a project that ultimately is just a bad fit for and they're just our projects like that. Um, and I think our experience has really helped us find what those are. So, if you have an idea, you want to kick around, we'd love to do that in the early stages and say, okay, if you want to do this, here's the kind of stuff here's the data we'll have to. get from the organization that they'll have to report on clients and all those kinds of things that helps us really figure out what's feasible early on in the stage. So we would love to do that. That process also helps us identify where the red tape is. We can say this project would be great. Here's the CDBG red tape that is holding it back. And those might be the things that we could take to our federal elected officials and say, This isn't regulatorily required, but it's been a HUD mandate and those kinds of things we could maybe identify that way. And then again, finding the right partners whose vision and mission aligns with what the city needs and building those projects as early as we can so that they're ready. And sometimes that takes more than one year, one cycle, and maybe we'll start the conversation in the next cycle, but they won't be ready to apply or to implement a project until another year or two. So those are my recommendations. Of course, we really need the city's help in identifying what it is you're looking for and the partners that would be a right fit. But we'd love to help ideate on those projects that would be most beneficial for sure.

All right. Any other comments, Council? All right. Thank you. Appreciate it.

See you next month. All right. We'll see you next month. Thank you. All right.

Another, oh, a very long sentence. Okay, public hearing. We have a public hearing now. Ordinance amending articles 2-15-2, 2-15-11, 2-16-2, and 22-21 of the Orem City Code relating to the powers and duties of the Planning Commission and special exceptions. it almost gave you enough time to get up here and set up almost oh i could could have done a little more slowly but i didn't welcome um jared holler planning manager will be presenting thank you if he gets everything plugged in and running he'll be presenting

So thanks I am this is a text amendment that the planning staff brought forward we just to put it in a nutshell has a lot of different articles and citations there. You can really break it down into 2 parts, and I want to background it 1st, by saying there are different things that the planning commission does different things to the board of adjustments does among those things are special exceptions. These are already part of code, the board of adjustments. Usually when people think of the board of adjustments, they think about variances and that's still correct. The board of adjustments handles variances in their powers and duties, and they handle a couple of different special exceptions, which don't have to meet the same really stringent standards of special of variances. The Planning Commission does land use recommendations to you legislatively and does the administrative duties that they have. And those powers and duties are all in Article 2 for both of those different bodies. So that's where you see the Article 2 references. Article 2221 is part of our zoning code and it's a specific special exception. Okay, so what does this amendment that we're proposing do? It changes the, it makes a couple of changes to powers and duties as they relate to the Board of Adjustments and the Planning Commission. In order to transfer to transfer the review and granting of special exceptions from the board to the planning commission instead. And specifically, there are 2 special exceptions in our code. 1 is for billboards because the billboard lobby has power to say, we want to change this billboard relocated because of these circumstances. And we grant a special exception for a very couple of very specific circumstances. The Board of Adjustments has traditionally reviewed those and said, okay, and granted them if it meets the standards. And then the second one is a finding of an exception to allow multifamily development on single family parcels in certain circumstances. There's a long list of circumstances that you have to make that finding for. We're not proposing any changes to those. That's in addition to this, what does it not do? it just transfers the burden of reviewing those exceptions and the eligibility for them and then granting them to the planning commission instead of the board of adjustments does it make sense enough so it's just who who reviews it no we're not making any chain proposing any changes to any of the other ordinances or anything that's exactly right just who it really goes to for review okay that's exactly right Um, so this is the list of them. Uh, some of them are things that we, there are in 25 or sorry in 215, 2, for example, that's an addition. It doesn't say anything about the board or sorry about the planning commission in its powers and duties doing special exceptions. So we would need to say specifically they're, they're empowered to do that. 215 10 is that exception for relocating billboards. That section is related to the BOA. We would strike that because we wouldn't want them to do that anymore if this is approved. 216.2, that's powers to the Board. We would strike them hearing those exceptions. 216.11, that grants the, that creates a section or changes the name for the BOA and the Planning Commission to hear them instead. And then 2221, again, that criteria, there are a couple of places in the body of 2221 where it references the Board of Adjustments must make this finding in order to grant eligibility for this exception. We would change those to planning commission, and that is in a nutshell what this would do. We don't have a lot of applications for this. There aren't a lot of properties that meet eligibility. The ones that we've had brought to us so far have failed eligibility and haven't been eligible. So we'll, we'll keep all right.

Thank you. Council member.

So, Jared, I was there planning commission when this was brought forward and it made sense to them. Gives them more stuff to do potentially. Uh, my understanding is that 1 of the motivations for this change is that the board adjustments meets very irregularly. Yes. And that can cause problems in terms of getting things done and the planning commission meets twice a month. And so planning commission would be able to deal with these in a much more timely way. Is that correct?

That's correct. For two reasons, really. The first being that the board doesn't meet as often or meets very irregularly only when there are applications. And the second being that part of Article 2221, Everyone hates when I talk about 2221. The staff is so sick of it. When part of Article 2221 is finding the eligibility, that's the Board of Adjustments job. And then within that same body, the Planning Commission has to review a site plan if it's approved for eligibility, if it's granted the special exception, and then apply all of these different standards. And they are a little different than normal multifamily or site planning standards. So it just made sense to say, Why are 2 different bodies reviewing the same standards? And then 1 of them is saying, okay, you can apply these standards and the next body is applying them. Let's just let the 1 body do it, especially because their land use decisions having to do with the billboards and the.

The multi family standard there, my 2nd question is. How does the Board of Adjustments feel about this and what duties remain for them that we are not transferring over?

They still get, that's a great question. They still get, in my opinion, the worst of all possible land use duties, which is variance. They still have to review variances, which are just monstrous things to have to review. The five tests of hardship and motions run really high. So they still have a terrible job to do. And I would ask them if I could convene them, but all of them are um are in that period between having served we need a new board of adjustments so i don't know how they feel about it you'd have to contact them my guess is they've probably not reviewed a lot of these exceptions over the years their job their main job has always been variances and probably always had appeals they hear appeals too so they get two of the worst jobs so do you have a sense on an annual basis how many of these uh special exceptions might come before either the board of adjustments or the planning commission I only know of one that was done in, I think, 20, one was reviewed in like 2018, 2019, something like that. So I'm only aware of the one. I wouldn't expect one more than every couple of years, possibly.

I've only seen a Board of Adjustments meeting once in five years.

Yeah. And that was maybe for an exception. We had the Board of Adjustments meet for a variance in the two years. I've been here not quite two years. We had the Board of Adjustments meet once. Previous locations, previous municipalities where I've worked in later years, boards of adjustments have met less frequently. For actual variance cases, I might hear two or three a year at the very most in a very active BOA.

Right. Council, any other questions? All right, this is a public hearing, so I'm gonna go ahead and open the public hearing. If anyone would like to speak to these proposed amendments to the city code, you're welcome to come up and introduce yourself and make your comments. Seeing none, I'll go ahead and close the public hearing and bring it back to the council.

So council, what would you like to do with this?

Mayor, I'd like to make a motion. I move to approve by ordinance amending articles 2-15-2, 2-15-11, 2-16-2, and 22-21 of the Orem City Code relating to the powers and duties of the Planning Commission and special exceptions.

Right. Thank you. We have a motion. I second. Right. Thank you, Councilmember Kopac, for the second. So we have a motion and a second to approve. Is there any more discussion? All right, Councilmember Kilpack, how do you vote?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay, the motion carries. Thank you. Next item on the agenda is a public hearing, another one. It's an ordinance amending article 22-5-3A in the zoning map of the city of Orem by changing the zone of the property located generally at 355 West University Parkway from R8 single family residential to C2 commercial together with a development agreement limiting certain uses. So I'll go turn the time over to you, Mr. Hall.

Thank you. Thanks again. So this is a request for a zone change, as you said, to C2. This property that you can see here, it's just under six acres. This was the demonstration gardens for the conservation district or the, I'm getting the wrong word. I'm distracted by the Garden of Eden. It's like we're conducting the people's business from the Garden of Eden here. We should have this all the time. By the time you get to Bren, you're in the wasteland and then further out, the further you go that way. But you guys are all good still. So it was a demonstration garden. It stayed in the R8 zone. So it's a non-conforming use, this office building here. It's been used as an office for some time, but it's been non-conforming to the RA zone. The applicants in this case have come with an application to change the zoning to C2. This is University Parkway out front. The project is, this is a snip from the land use map and the general plan. uh it's regional commercial c2 is one of the zones that's prescribed by regional commercial there are several most of the properties along the park we are in this regional commercial land use category several of them in terms of zoning are in for example highway services here and then the pd5 which is a specialized commercial zone a development agreement kind of a zone and some others they've asked for the c2 zoning for some flexibility in site planning a pd zone limits the site plan. They're shopping for different tenants. They want to have some ability to, this is really good visibility for some great retail. They want it as potential developers to be able to accommodate different higher end retail establishments if they come through. They have provided a concept site plan Because we asked for that with our zone change applications. The site plan that they provided, as you can see, it incorporates still that office building that would remain. And then another about 12,000 square feet, just over 12,000 square feet of retail can be accommodated with the parking that's needed in that area. And they would choose that kind of high side visibility to University Parkway. there are standards in place with c2 zoning that require buffering from residential buildings have to be set back at least the height of the building from residential property lines and as you can see there is this very established residential neighborhood just to the rear there's already a wall in place back here and some landscaping that would all be maintained in any kind of a site plan for the buffer again though i want to stress that site plans We look at concepts for these zone changes, but the C2 would allow them to hunt for different tenants for these areas and site planning as a process. If it were rezoned to R2, if it were rezoned to C2 zoning, they'd still have to come back through the planning commission for any site plan and development. So that's one thing to be aware of.

So this site plan is not part of the development agreement?

Not part of the development agreement. The development agreement that they proposed after meeting with the neighborhood and then with the planning commission is limited to uses. The neighborhood was concerned about vehicle-oriented uses, car sales, gas stations, that kind of thing. They had no problem with that as a developer. In fact, they just added up several things to that as well. Areas that they're not interested or different areas sorry, different uses that they're not really interested in leasing to on this property. So they would eliminate those in their development agreement as well the planning commission added tattooing to that when they made their motion at their public hearing um they held their hearing on april 1st then the applicant went developed development agreement came back on april 15th and they were voted six to zero to recommend the city approval along with that development agreement but it is limited to uses these different uses that they would voluntarily eliminate from their lists

All right, thank you. Any questions for Mr. Hall? All right, the applicant here this evening. All right, welcome. Would you like to come up and introduce yourself? And if there's anything you would like to add, please feel free to do so.

Absolutely. Thanks for having me tonight. My name is McKenna Christensen with Coal West. Jared gave a really great overview, but just to give you a little more background, we chose the C2 zone rather than a PD, like Jared said, just to have some flexibility. If we need to change some of the building elevations, make it bigger or smaller to accommodate tenants. We wanted the flexibility to be able to do that without having to come through an entire zone amendment process and then a site plan. So we had a really good meeting with the neighbors, went to two planning commission meetings, talked through all the uses. I think we landed on a really good compromise with this development agreement. But if there's any questions, concerns, I'd be happy to answer any of those.

All right, thank you. Do you have, Council, do you have any questions for the applicant? All right, thank you, Council Member Millett.

Okay, a few questions. So Coal West, what do you guys specialize in? You're a retail developer or what kind of? Retail and residential. Retail and residential.

So are you looking at mixed use for this area? We are not looking at this site for mixed use. We do all types of housing. We do for sale single family, built for rent townhomes, single family homes. Looking at the general plan, it didn't seem like it was appropriate for this area and that this was more of the commercial corridor. It is a great location being next to UVU, but hearing about some of the historical history of the site and some of the other ongoing developments in the city that were capitalizing on more dense multifamily and residential, we didn't feel it was appropriate for this site.

Okay. Because it is pretty concentrated in that area already. That street is really heavily concentrated with high density. So thank you for that. I saw some little notes of potential retail restaurant people there. Looking great. Hopefully you can get one of them in particular that I love. Awesome. i won't mention it here but um let's see thank you so much to our planning commission for adding tattooing and thank you for not being interested in that yeah of course and then my last question is um on your site plan you did concentrate will you pull that up jared the site plan so it looks like that bottom part it i'm guessing you don't need all that parking for what these two buildings

No, probably not. All of the parking on the east side is really for the office. We'll need some of that southwest corner for the two retail buildings, particularly if we have some restaurant users that typically take up some more parking, but it is unlikely we would need all of that parking.