City Council - Regular Meeting

Just give me one second, please.

Welcome, everybody. This is a regular meeting of the Grantsville City Council, and for the record, today's date is September 16th, 2026, and the time is 7.01 p.m. This meeting is being held at the Grantsville City Council Chambers at 429 East Main Street in Grantsville, Utah, as well as electronically by Zoom. I am Mayor Heidi Hammond, and I will conduct a roll call for our records. Council Member Butler?

Here. Dalton here.

Skinner here. Thomas here. Williams here. Thank you. If everyone would please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. All right. Our first agenda item tonight is public comment. And as a reminder, if you will please state your name when you come to the podium. And also a reminder that we have three minutes.

I don't know. I'm sorry, can't hear you.

Sign over here. And sign over there. Thank you. So that they're available on our minutes. So if you would like to make a comment, sorry, I don't have my glasses on. Can't see what they're telling me back there. If you would like to make a comment, this is your opportunity. And we will do those who are in the audience first and then go to our Zoom participants following those in the audience.

Hi, my name is Clay Barney. I live at 3842 Sun Valley Drive. Just got a few comments I'd like to make. First and foremost, I would like to thank the mayor and all the council members for considering all of our points that we have brought up in the meetings that we've had and I appreciate all your time and efforts. I know it's a big task to sit up there and make decisions and I appreciate all of you. So that being said, You know, we had a working meeting here with the residents and supposed to have it with the developer. And I don't feel like anything got accomplished in that one-hour time frame that we had in the working meeting. When I look at the new proposed development, I don't really see any of the issues that we had brought up. being addressed. Um, I look at the size of the lots. We, I know we talked about, um, having it transitioned from one acre to maybe half acre lots and so on. And we're 8,000 square foot lots. We went the opposite way. We went smaller rather than larger. Um, I think us as residents, we're willing to sacrifice and say, okay, we will settle for third acre lots. But 8,000 square feet, that's not a very big lot. So that's one of my big concerns. The other concern is, you know, so I watched a video that somebody sent me with the proposed development. Don't know if you guys have seen that or not, but there's a three-foot berm with a seven-foot fence somewhere in the property, an equestrian trail or whatnot. And I look at that on the one side of the fence, it's all landscaped, shows landscaping and everything. On the other side of the fence, It's dirt. Okay? It's just dirt. Now, first, my biggest concern with it just being dirt, the first rainstorm, that's all going to wash away. That's all going to wash onto my property or onto other residents' property. If we're going to put a berm there, we need to put a retaining wall. We need to hold that back. We need to put something there to hold that dirt back rather than just slope dirt. So that's a big concern of mine. Once again, you know, I have animals, and I'm still very concerned about all the nuisance calls. If we put this many houses... 15 feet away from my animals, you're going to get nuisance calls. I guarantee it. And, you know, I'm looking out for not only me, but I'm looking out for the city. I'm looking out for the future residents of that place. So I just would encourage, you know, look at everything. Look at all of it. The developer, you know, says he's trying to make affordable housing. When I look at the number of houses, he's never decreased the amount of housing that's going on this development. He's made it more, bigger. So I don't feel like we're looking at, you know, affordable housing. I think we're looking at maximized profits. Okay. I look $400,000 for each house, $256,000. That's over $80 million. Okay. OK, I understand some of that's going to be a cost to develop that property and stuff. But that's a lot of money. Right. So I don't I don't feel like this is necessarily, oh, I want to build affordable housing. No, this is this is about profit, maximizing profits. And I understand it's business. OK, I understand that. But at what cost to the city and to the current residents? So I just please encourage the council members and the mayor to consider all that. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments?

My name is Kimberly Smith and I live at, I live on Sun Valley Drive. You need the number? Okay. Anyways, thank you again. I do thank you guys. It's like every two weeks you're having to meet to come and hear about this. It seems like beating horse. When we talk to Joe, and like I said, I'm not anti-Joe, and I'm not anti-Joe making money. I just would like to find a solution that works best for all of us. When we had talked, we thought it was going to be down to half acres, but he actually said maybe third acres around us. And one of you, I don't know which one, was so wonderful when you said that you're listening to the citizens. That amazed me. And I thank you for that. And that You wanted him to be a good neighbor as a developer. And you talked about him coming all the way around, from what I took from it, that even the people on the other street around us. I don't know the name of your street. Marty, what's your street name? that they would have houses similar. So then they would move on. Well, it looks like they're not going to have those type of houses. They're going to still have the flex home type homes. And like I said, I'm not coming against them. I do see a difference. I see a bunch of lots, but they're very small lots. And behind us, we're getting a building. So I'm just here as a concerned citizen for the development to be more fair and maybe bigger lots like the minimum a third acre and that's pushing it. I think a half would have been better but we were okay with a third and so I don't know if this is a way to try to keep inching and inching to get a little few more houses in there but we still want you to keep looking and checking out what he's doing because it doesn't seem like it's quite there yet but I wanted to thank you all very much. Thank you.

All right, good evening.

My name is Marty Graham, a neighbor of the proposed Allington development. Mayor Hammond and members of the City Council, thank you for the time and hard work you have already put into the Allington proposal. I want to thank Mr. White for listening to the concerns raised at the last meeting and for making changes in response to them. I recognize that the revised proposal addresses some of the concerns. At the same time, there are still important questions that I hope we can get answered tonight. After the last meeting, I reviewed the video and transcript very closely. Before Mr. White presents the revised plan tonight, I want to briefly restate the concerns and requests that came from the council so we can compare what was asked with what is being presented tonight. First is density. multiple council members said the proposed density was too high and asked to see fewer units. So tonight I ask how many homes are proposed compared with the last proposal. Second or deviations councilman Dalton question why the city should grant so many deviations from the existing code. It was asked what's the point of having a code if we don't go by it. Other ever said deviations should provide a clear public benefit. So how many deviations remain in what specific benefit does grants will receive in exchange. Several members also asked for larger single family lots along the West and South batteries and I do see improvement there. However, the council specifically mentioned multiple times moving toward a quarter to 3rd acre happy medium. Councilwoman skin erase concerns about our current police and fire capacity other members question traffic, including levels of service grades and whether individual traffic studies adequately show the combined impact of multiple approved developments. The council also questioned whether this plan provides the balanced residential mix contemplated by the PUD code. Also, I want to briefly return to Councilman Dalton's comment that Grantsville should not be the guinea pig for flex-ready homes. I promise this is not intended as a dig at anyone. I just want to keep the discussion factual. That concern was somewhat challenged at the last meeting, so I went looking for the receipt. That concern is not unique to Grantsville. In February, in a publication called The Park Record, It was reported that Heber City Councilor Aaron Sheetwood also stated that he wanted to make sure Heber City was not a guinea pig for flex-ready homes. So I think it is fair for this council to continue asking questions about how a relatively new product performs before approving it at this scale. As we hear tonight's presentation, I ask the council to compare it carefully against the concerns and direction you gave at the last meeting. Most importantly, please listen closely to my neighbors and other citizens here tonight. If key questions remain unanswered or the revised plan still falls short of what you asked for, I ask that you seriously consider whether it should be tabled again rather than proceeding to a final vote tonight. But I do believe we are making progress. Thank you.

Thank you. Any additional comments?

Camille, Bert, it doesn't have to do with that. It has to do with the water-wise. I'd really like you guys to consider it, passing it. Water's very important to us, and if we don't do something now, we'll run out of water, and then we're all going to be out of luck. So people will move here, even if you tell them they have to have a zero scape front yard. That shouldn't be an issue on what's going on with that. Um, and actually in the future, I wouldn't mind if you guys give fines out to people that waste the water, because when I walk in the morning, I see tons of water going down our sewers instead of onto the people's lawns. So I'm all for the water wise, all for possible fines in the future for people that are wasting our water when we so desperately need it. Different side note, is there some way the city can get together with the county and possibly the school district so we all don't have the same meetings on the same nights? Because it really makes it hard to decide which meeting I need to go to when I feel all of them are potentially very important. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you.

My name's Robert Smith. I live on Sun Valley Drive. Thank you guys for all that you're doing. You know, we make laws and rules and offsets and all that stuff. I've been in the building trade since I was 15 years old. All I'm asking you guys to do, and Derek had brought it up, At the last meeting, we need to follow what the laws and the rules are. And when you start compromising, then you got to compromise for everybody. And why vote something in? Why put something there if we're just going to compromise it? You know, me and Kim are stuck on the end. I'm going to have a big building there. So we're here. for the help of our neighbors down the street. I have very good neighbors, very loving neighbors. I was going down the street today and you can't help growth. But it was so nice to talk with one of my neighbors and me and them walking down the street without all this stuff that's going to come our way. We can't stop the growth. I understand that. But let's build Grantsville because I don't plan on leaving. And I want to see everything work out in a good way. And if you have order and stick to the laws that you guys have brought in and all the ordinances and all that stuff, then it keeps everybody in line. But what I'm seeing here from 1.6 to 1.8 on those lots, the only one up, what, two? What happened to the... Quarter acre. Quarter acre is .25, and it's .18. That's the minimum, but it should have been a third or a half. And it's just going to make everything look wrong. And then the equestrian, whatever that is, in the back, those people don't have horses. What's the horse thing for? I don't understand that. People are going to be walking down that? You know what I mean? I'm not against people walking, but let's just take a closer look at everything. And I'm not against Joe. You know, he's a businessman and I've been a businessman all my life, too. But let's work like we were going to. Let's work together to make Grantsville great. Not a hassle. Let's work together to make Grantsville a place that people want to come live instead of everybody bunched up. You know, one other thing, the traffic. The traffic. I tried to pull out at 530 the other morning off of my street. And it took me almost five minutes. All these traffic things that are going on. I think they're all hogwash. They need to add them all together and go, what the heck? Because that is a dangerous situation. I have to actually pull out in front of somebody or hog them or whatever just so I can get on the road. So I'm just asking that before we put the cart before the horse, let's examine everything. And if it needs to take a rest and get everything settled right so everybody's happy, that's Grantsville, that's Joe and us. so that we can all live together in peace, right? Isn't that what we're supposed to do? I want to love my neighbor, as the Bible says. Amen.

I have a sign in favor. Thank you, sir.

Evening, City Council, Mayor. Sorry we weren't here last week. I was on Zoom. But Jeff Nestegaard. I live at 3610 Sun Valley Drive. I'm kind of laughing at this week's proposal a little bit because this is what, our third, fourth meeting over this now? And every time we meet, I feel like you give the developer pretty clear-cut instructions of what we're looking for or you're looking for out of the development, and then he kind of puts his own little tweak on it. Last week, it was, hey, we want to see the larger lofts that were in orange integrated with the flex homes. He put larger loss. They weren't as large as what the orange plan showed. And then he also added more density, got rid of the open spaces that were there, and just packed in almost the exact same amount of units. One less unit is all. So he's obviously worried about his profit margins there, which I get. He's a businessman. But It still just takes away from the fact that there's no open space. There's no privacy, really, in this place. It adds a lot of people to the area, which we talked about. I don't know where the equestrian path in the YouTube video came from, because I don't think anybody's ever even asked for that. I'm assuming he came up with it to build a three-foot berm so he could get a nine-foot tall fence without having to do engineering because when you do a masonry fence, you got to do engineering usually. So if he builds a berm, maybe you can get away with doing a regular vinyl. And again, just what I saw, I definitely wouldn't want an equestrian path right behind my property because it negates any issues we had with only having four people that can look into my backyard versus the entire town or the entire neighborhood. Excuse me. So. I just, I feel like we're getting filibustered a little bit as far as, you know, it just keeps changing things and, but not doing exactly what's asked or what you've asked of him. So I definitely think you should look at that and maybe decide at the point, what point is it time to vote and maybe. Yes or no, we either feel good about this or we don't about this And personally this latest plan doesn't work I don't think and it doesn't answer any of the concerns that you have all brought up to begin with so I'll just ask that you look at those concerns again and see if this plan has enough information Information to actually make an accurate vote on that. So thank you for your time.

Thank you Do you mind signing over? Oh, yeah, I'm sorry

My name is Nadine Hunt and I also live on Sun Valley Drive. I just want to ask the council and Mayor Hammond if anybody went or contacted all of the cities that turned down flex homes. There was eight or ten in the state that have turned it down. Ephraim was the only one that started and they let 36 homes go in and then stopped it. Did anybody contact any of those cities and why was the reason? It might be worth a few minutes of your time to call and check out a few of those things if that wasn't done. And I just hope you make a conscious decision. Thank you.

Any other comments?

I'm Caleb Martin. This isn't what I'm here for, but I think having a diverse size of units is a good thing. It helps with taxes. What I am here for is, well, I'm a senior at Grantsville High School. I started riding my bike to school this year, and I don't feel safe getting to or from school. My friend who does drive doesn't feel safe either. It's little visibility getting out of the parking lot because of cars. I have to look out for cars in every direction, especially when I'm turning left, which is weaving in traffic. It's not very safe to be mixed in with car traffic. Cars almost never go to the speed limit unless there are cars in front of it. Crossing the road takes, there's a lot of vulnerable time because the road is wide. I've emailed the city several times about the broader city safety, as well as Cherry Street, but I've received no response. What is the city's plan to make Cherry Street and the nearby area safer? Can I speak, Tam?

Are you okay?

Sure, go ahead.

Would you... I'd like to get your information. If you're interested, we're looking for individuals to be on the Grantsville Youth Council. And I would encourage you, if you're interested in something like that, we need individuals that want to have a say in what happens around the city. And I think you would be awesome in that role. So anyway, I just wanted to share that with you. If that's something you're interested in, let me know. Thanks, Jake.

But also, do you have an answer to the question?

We aren't able, actually, to have dialogue with you. Oh, you can. Sorry. Yeah, I'm so sorry.

But thank you for your comments.

Yes.

Thank you.

Your comments are heard and read, and everybody is taking notes and received. So don't think we're ignoring you. Just they're not able to make comment or have a dialogue with you this time.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Kevin Saunders. I live on Sun Valley Drive. So I really just wanted to get up here and just kind of second every single comment from my neighbors. And just please take a look at this. Look at this development. I sit there on a small farm. Where I raise pigs, I raise horses. You know, I've raised goats before there. And so I have horses there. And so with this type of development, this, I look at this and see more of a urban, or not really urban, I mean, you know, Some development it really doesn't match up to send Sun Valley Drive And it really doesn't match like every single house around there So if you go down there on on the state road, there's people that have horses they have What else we have down there? You know we have we have the meat processing plant there. We have going around there and then up around, we still have many other horses and agriculture going on. And it seems like we're just taking this development and sticking it right there in the middle of, you know, in a rural, I mean, an urban development in between all this rural development. And so please look at that. See how it meshes up. I don't see a great mesh. Like I said, the comments of the lot sizes, the berm, the green space that I'm seeing in here, and this equestrian pathway. I mean, I have horses. But taking my horses down into an urban development, It's not only a good thing. I don't have bikes running around there, you know, motor scooters, things that just do not mesh with a horse or with my small farm. So I'd please ask you guys, please take in consideration of all that things. And thank you very much for your service.

Thank you.

My name is Max Hunt. I live on Sun Valley Drive, and I get out of breath a little bit, so try to cope with me a minute. I've always loved Grantsville. I've been a longtime resident, and it hurts me. It makes me literally hurt to see the image that that is going to have on people coming in town. Not only that, but of all the traffic that is going to be dangerous. And I think the city ought to look at that. It's going to be a danger to the kids. It's going to be a danger to the people that's trying to get on work to work. And I thank you for doing the best you can up here. And I would say that I hope that things will turn out good for all of us here. We were supposed to have half-acre lots. That all went to kaput somewhere. That was a grade two, three years ago. That never happened. There was also some more agreements for the water and everything. That went under the bridge somewhere. I don't know where it went, but it went. And I thank you for putting up with us, yes, of our concerns. Thank you.

Thank you.

Just go ahead and put in your name right here.

Any other comments?

Mayor, Council, Michael Van Wyk. I'm glad you guys are sitting down because you're going to be shocked I'm not talking about the development. So, but anyways, I agree with everybody. So anyways, Mayor, City Council, my name is Michael Van Wyk. I own a small woodworking business here in Grantsville and currently operate under approved home occupational conditional use permit. I just wanted to raise one question. If you consider expanding micro-entrepreneurship into additional residential zones, there seems to be some overlap between home occupation and micro-entrepreneurship, but also potentially a gap between them. For example, an existing home occupation may reach to the point where it needs One employee, a microentrepreneurship allows that employee but introduces another restriction, including the accessory storage provisions and prohibits prohibitation on wholesale distribution. For a small manufacturer, I think it would be helpful to clarify whether wholesale distribution means operating a wholesale distribution business or whether it also includes selling products. that the business actually manufactures on property. This ordinance expands into more residential zones. I would just ask the council to consider whether there is a clear and reasonable path for successful home occupation to grow slightly while remaining compatible with the surrounding neighborhood. I'm meeting with the planning and zoning administrator tomorrow about my particular situation, so I'm not asking the council to resolve that tonight. I just thought the overlap between the two sections of the code was worth bringing to your attention. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments from anybody in the audience today? Is there anybody online that would like to make a comment? If you're online and would like to make a comment, please raise your hand. It's a nice one.

We have Lauren Faber.

Sorry, what was that?

Lauren Faber. Oh, okay.

Hi, this is Lauren Favor off of Cook Lane and Durfee Street, connected to the Sun Valley Estates. Probably going to sound like a broken record, but just want the comments at least to be heard. I did actually reach out to UDOT because I was very concerned about the traffic. And they did a study last year. I think it was 2025 that they did a meeting at the Erda City Council. I'm not sure if you've received that or not. If you haven't... UDOT basically said that there is a significant gap in the local road network, and they concluded without a well-connected local street system that the state roads will begin to fail even if they are widened as planned. I think this is going to become extremely important with the amount of homes that are going in just in this region. one mile radius. So if you haven't seen that, I'm happy to send that over. But I also wanted to mention on the latest update of Allington, I don't see that it was much of an update. It literally went from 0.16 to 0.18 acres for the lots that were around the outside. Those lots did not go by my home. I'm the one that has the horses that there's a road right up against with 256 units driving by it. I don't think that's safe. I said that last time, and apparently that comment didn't take into consideration at all because there's still a road right behind them. I think that that's important. When you've got a certain amount of animals and you're talking about loud things going by constantly, things that can spook them, that could be dangerous too. I just want to make sure that the amount of units is taken a look at too. It's just too much. We have to deal with... you know the building for a couple years the noise of the construction um you know the cars and all the different trucks going up and down uh we're gonna have a lot to deal with so i think you know the compromise really we're taking a huge hit on this so i just would like some more consideration for the residents who actually live here that's what i got

Thank you, Lauren. And just for the record, yes, we have seen the 2025 UDOT study. So thank you for mentioning.

Okay. Wonderful. Thank you.

Anyone else online, Alicia? I don't see anyone else. Okay. Last chance. Any other public comments? All right. We're going to close that. agenda item and move to agenda item number two, which is the summary action items. The first item A is approval of minutes from the August 19th, 2026 city council regular meeting. Any questions or concerns from the council on those minutes? And if not, if I could get a motion, please.

Yeah, I'll make a motion to approve the August 19th city council regular meeting minutes.

All right, we have a motion by Councilmember Butler. Is there a second?

Second.

Second by Councilmember Williams. All in favor? Aye. Item B, approval of minutes from the September 2nd, 2026 City Council regular meeting.

I didn't get those.

Sorry. We're going to hold off on those until our next meeting. Item C is the approval of the bills. If anyone has any comments on those or if anyone would like to make a motion for the approval or denial of the bills.

I'll make a motion to approve the bills as is.

We have a motion by Councilmember Dalton to approve the bills. Is there a second? Second. Second by Councilmember Butler. All in favor?

Aye.

All right, moving on to agenda item number three, consideration of ordinance 2026-28, amending chapter nine of the Grantsville Land Use Management Code regarding landscaping, waterwise landscaping, irrigation, parkways, park strips, medians, and approved plant materials. And we have Bill Kobabe here, our Community Development Director, to present this to us tonight. Thanks, Bill.

I always feel like I need to apologize for not being Shelby because I know she's amazing and she's the one you expect. So I, I'm here.

We'll take second best. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that.

I think it's pretty well laid out in the staff report what we're looking for on this. The Planning Commission did hear this item, and we're unable to come to a vote. And so that is forwarded to you as a negative recommendation by the Planning Commission. But it was a two to two tie, basically, on that. So that's how that works per state code. It's considered a negative recommendation. Staff worked really hard on this ordinance. We feel like it complies with the spirit of what state code anticipates. And it's in keeping with where environmentally we ought to be headed with making sure that our development happens in a responsible and sustainable way. So with that recommendation from staff and with the non-recommendation, the non-vote from the Planning Commission, that's what's in front of you tonight. I am here and available if you have any questions about anything. Blue is online as well. Blue is the the gentleman that we've been working with from the state to help us implement these things according to what the state code anticipates. So, he's been great.

So, Bill, I had the opportunity to sit in on a couple different meetings where the planning and zoning discussed this. Just for the other council members, could you just surmise for all of us what this is And what this isn't. I think it's important to understand. I think you kind of know what I'm getting at.

Absolutely. So what this is, is a way for the city to regulate new development in the city to help monitor and regulate water use in people's front yards. It's not intended to be zero scaping. It's not intended to get rid of all plant life in your front yard. Although if you wanted to do that, that would certainly be within your rights. This is intended to use water-wise, intelligent, careful landscaping in your front yard that is attractive, that is also sustainable, and uses less water. There are many places you can go to, many resources you can go to, to find out how to do that. And we recommend looking into that. But you can see there's examples in your packet of water-wise landscaping in the city already and around that is attractive and is not completely devoid of all life. It's not intended to be that. It's intended to help and regulate and responsibly use the resources that we have. Does that help?

Yeah, there's so many details to it, but yes. Well, and that's one of the reasons why we... The key is, is this is tied to development, right? Correct. It's not necessarily tied to a single home being built, correct? That's right. Is it even tied to a minor subdivision?

No. This would be major, right? Correct. Anything more than four lots.

So it wouldn't include anybody currently existing. They're just new.

Correct. Yeah, that's important. Again, there are programs available to help. There's the Flip the Strip program and other things that the state has going on that putting this ordinance in place makes us eligible to go and get if homeowners want to put in something.

Can I add something to the homeowners? It's not just homeowners, but business owners as well.

That's absolutely right. Correct. and the city. So it makes sense to remove or replace some of the water intense uses turf in specific and replace it with landscaping that's more water conservation minded.

The two that voted on the Planning Commission not to, what was the big concern for them?

The big concern was, well, there were several concerns, but probably the biggest one, and correct me if I'm wrong on this, but the biggest one was government overreach. Honestly, this felt like it was the government stepping into individual private property rights questions, and I should be able to do with my property what I want.

However, this is new. So therefore, those that purchase that will receive those lawns, those front yards will technically already be in place. Correct. That's right.

Well, not all those subdivisions.

If it's a part of the MDA and if it's maybe an HOA that would be a part of that subdivision. And those are things that we would look at to provide that regulation, that guidance as new development takes place. Not all developers do the yard. A lot of them will just leave you a dirt patch and let you do your thing. But it would be in the HOA and in the MDA that these are the water-wise requirements.

Yeah. This doesn't need more restrictive than the state.

Oh, no. No, no. This is what the state is exactly looking for. So we work closely with Blue to make sure that that was the case.

I've had residents reach out regarding us not having the option for those programs that are in place by the state. If you want to, you know, attack your park strip per se or areas of your yard to be able to access rebates based on, you know, making your yard more water wise. And so I know there's an interest there. from members of the community for that part specifically.

And I think it's important to remember that if you are flipping the strip or something like that, you cannot just for the state's program, you have to have plant life still there. They just have to be on a drip line and be. So the point isn't just to put rock all over the entire world. It's just to have some plant life, but not wasting water in those narrow areas where it's hard to water.

Blue would like to comment. Okay.

Blue, go ahead, please.

yeah hey everyone um i'm just uh calling in from manti right now um but i just wanted to say uh exactly that um yeah we for the landscape incentive program which uh residents would be eligible for um after the ordinance is in place um those residents can take out as much grass as they like um and then that square footage we require 50 perennial coverage to come back in um We understand the utility and kind of the need of mature canopy as well. So we have changed some of our rules so that a third of those plants can be trees that people install as long as they're irrigated with drip irrigation and have that three to four inches of mulch for moisture retention and weed. Yeah, and to deter weeds. So... You know i'm we're i'm we're here to give resources afterwards, so you know myself and my coworker Matthew were the technicians that helped run the program we're we're around all the time to to help out anyone with the landscaping and give answer those questions that they have so. But just yeah more more program like the rebate program information side.

Thanks blue does anyone have any questions for him.

Does this deter... I actually love the developers that put in the front yards. I just think it makes the whole development... I applaud the builders that do that. Does this deter a builder from putting in front yards? Meaning... I mean, I don't know. I'm trying to... Trying to be intelligent. This is not sounding intelligent, but I don't want to hurt. I think in today's world, people, houses are so expensive, rates are so high that the people can't afford their yards once they get in. It's all they can do to get in. So I applaud and I want to help those developers in any way that are willing to put in those front yards. Does this deter that in any way?

I would guess the answer is no, I'm not a developer. So maybe that would be a question for developers. But my guess is that what developers crave more than anything in this process is predictability. So if the requirement is to do all turf, great, they can deal with that. If the requirement is to do 50% water-wise landscaping and then you can do 50% turf, also great. They can put that into their cost estimates and things as they move through the development process. But knowing what the city expects from them is the key. In the absence of any language or any coherent language that makes sense for the landscaping requirements that we may have, that's where they start to struggle because that's a moving scale and they don't like that because that implies and involves expenses that they didn't anticipate and can't anticipate.

I'm going to do something non-customary and put Joe on the spot. Joe, you're a developer. What's your opinion on this as far as the developer is concerned in regards to Jeff's question?

I like it a lot. It doesn't deter. It does give. The one thing that I think he said is we like predictability and certainty. To be honest with you, it's a wash. The water-wise plants and stuff, I mean, they're actually I think people have less time in all their yards to do their things anyway. HOAs are taking over more and more of them. Even in single family residences, you're seeing HOAs take over the maintenance of the sidewalk and all that stuff. So to answer Jeff's question, I don't think it does deter me. It wouldn't deter me from putting them in.

If it was a WaterWise requirement.

I like the WaterWise program.

Thank you. Thanks for your help.

Especially in the park strips.

Yeah.

Yeah, okay.

I think the other question is, you know, to answer, and I think this is probably, I listened to the meeting the night this was discussed. And I think the other side of that was also the concern of limiting, you know, limiting what someone can do with their front yard. And I think that's where, you know, as... As we talk about one of our most precious resources, water, obviously, and protecting it, I think this is where, you know, do we want everyone to have a football field in their front yard? Probably not. So how do we find a balance in there that works so that we can make, you know, everybody can shower and have a drink of water when we need it and be able to take care of their yards as well? So I see that concern. I guess... you know, as Jeff mentioned, and I appreciate that, like, did you see any, do you see anything in there that on the flip side of that, that limits, that limits, you know, the ability to have, I mean, what does it limit?

So mainly what it limits is turf. I mean, that's just to cut completely to the chase. It limits the turf that's available in any given yard to front yard to 50%. And the rest has to be in the water wise landscaping. And again, that doesn't mean no plants. It just means plants that are drought tolerant and are conservation oriented rather than just turf.

The best place to see that, sorry to interrupt, is page three of the document that was provided. There's a table. There's a table, yeah. There's a table there that really kind of lays it out.

And turf is just, it's thirsty, right? It just wants to use all the water. It was made and designed for Kentucky where it rains 50 inches of rain a year. And we get like 12, right? And even there, they have to water in order to keep it green all year round because it gets hot and it doesn't do well in the heat.

I'm going to bring up a different point that I just am thinking of. So you just said everybody doesn't need a football field in their front yard. Well, my yard is opposite of most people's and I have a big front yard and a small backyard. So I have very little turf in my backyard and my full front is turf. So just opposite. So what do you do with somebody, or maybe it's the orientation and they want the evening sun and the area they're going to use their turf is in the front yard versus the backyard. Is there any flexibility with whether that can be opposite?

I don't know of any flexibility in the way that the code is written currently. The front yard is where the focus wants to be because that's where people spend most of their time and they put the water heavy, the water non-conserving plants in the front yard because they're pretty and they're desirable. There are pretty plants that are water-wise. I'm not trying to say that there aren't. I'm just saying that that's why the front yard gets so much attention. you know, 50% of turf in your front yard is obviously not gonna be great for a soccer pitch, but there are parks that you could go to that are perfectly well-maintained and have lots of space available for a soccer pitch. That would be the recommendation. I know in places like Arizona, people don't have yards at all. They have rocks. And if you want to go run on some grass, You go to the park and that's it. That's your option. I'm not saying that we should do that. And nowhere in the code is that suggestion that we should look at. We like our grass and personally, I do too. But we're going to run out of water. And that's we got to find ways to keep as much water as we can.

My opinion is I think the state's going at this the wrong way. We need to save our water and conserve it, but instead of making a city or municipality come up with a whole ordinance, making it so new development can't have that option, they should just open up the rebates to everybody and give them that option if they want to flip their strip or their their yard or their lawn instead of forcing it upon people. Kind of, I guess, kind of in agreement with what was talked about at the Planning Commission, government overreach and I think that was actually brought up. I think Cameron brought it up that why not just open it up to everybody instead of making a city make an ordinance for this and force it on them. So the citizens can participate? Yes, so everyone can.

So that's a great point. And I think that the place for that to get addressed is at the state capitol where those decisions were made. I'll have to talk with the governor Friday. Do it. Just as you're shaking his hand, say, hey, by the way, Brother Cox, this is way wrong.

You can pin him down, circle around him, I guess. The thing with that is, I'm not disagreeing with you necessarily, but maybe just looking at it from a different prism, is that none of this affects existing homes. It doesn't affect my home. It doesn't affect Heidi's home. It doesn't affect Jeff's home. It just affects due development. And so if an individual doesn't like the fact that the yard's done and that the turf in that front yard, only the front yard, it doesn't dictate the backyard, is 50%, then they have the choice to buy the home or not buy the home. I mean, they can go somewhere else. They can go buy a home that maybe the NDA was under this agreement. I mean, it's only going to, with the choice and the individuals being able to do it if they want to, then it's going to allow that form anyways if we approve it. So the residents that want to do it, if we approve it, they'll be able to do it. And the other thing that was discussed quite a bit was the park strip. And while the park strip in front of an individual's home But the park strip is still city property. I think we all know that. We all agree with that. And so in those regards, we can, I guess, government ordinance or dictate, so to speak, what's put in those park strips moving forward in those developments. So if we'd like.

So why, and this is probably coming up, why is it not optional? Why can't a developer just say, hey, we're going to put in water-wise landscaping.

Well, they certainly can. They can do it. Right. They can. It's just this makes it so that it's a city ordinance. Right. And makes it so that all new development has to do it. Yeah, that's what this does.

And it makes current residents eligible for those rebates. Because right now you can't get them unless you have an ordinance on the books.

Yeah.

People don't want to do it. They can choose to to exercise the rebate and they can go in and.

Flip their strip as you so eloquently called it. There are requirements of the city puts on development and developers all the time from the roadway cross sections to infrastructure requirements that are, you know, so it's it's it's just this is just an additional layer that's pointed directly towards conservation.

I don't, I mean, like when we have our first house, there's like, you have the HOA rules, you have CCNRs, like every development has their own rules. It's not like you buy this house and get to do whatever you want. They're going to have HOA because it's going to be a development. We have specific trees we can have, we can have. So this, I mean, yeah, I think it's, I'm from Arizona, so our flowers are wrong. You get it. Yeah. But we didn't want, you don't have the water. You couldn't, you couldn't water your grass. If you had a full lump grass, you just wouldn't have enough. And so.

They really don't have grass. They have artificial turf.

We actually did do artificial turf in our backyard because it was just too expensive. So yeah, if ever we get to see our first church, that would be great.

I was down there in May, and I was genuinely surprised at how many cactuses there are in people's front yards. That's their greenery. Is that a big saguaro cactus?

That's our state cactus.

It was cool. It was cool. Again, I don't know if I like it here.

I do like my church. I mean, I do like the flowers and the stuff, but it's when you have the water issue. I just think, I know a lot of people are saying this is government overreach, but there's already all of these things in place. And this just makes it so the people then can, individual citizens can then get their rebates as well.

Yeah. Well, and I think citizens having access to more water-wise, you know, like you don't know what you don't know. Yeah. You know, you plant a tree that, you know, takes 100,000 gallons to water every year versus one that, you know, that doesn't grow in the area. I know some of the programs that we've had at the city, that the tree program has been fantastic, I think, to provide a canopy over Grantsville that's been needed. You know, it was a plain here and now... you know we've we've had that program for years and that the city has participated in that allow the residents to take the benefit and so ensuring that all of those things are are working for the benefit of the city it I I think we we need to look at ways to maintain water conservation so I think this is a step in that direction.

Bill does this have any effect on What developers do with their required open space. Because it's just for homes in their front yards and side yards that yes.

So parks and open space are not going to be impacted by this unless we are. Unless we choose to do that on our own. Um, and that's, you know, something if, uh, for example, at the skate park, obviously there's a lot of hard surface there that would be water wise. Um, the, the, the green that's up there is, uh, it's a turf product. It's a fake grass and it looks just like real grass. Um, except for that needs to be combed a certain direction, right? It's got the comb over look going on some of it, but that'll, that'll even out over time. Um, No, that kind of thing is definitely something that we could look at, but you can't have a ball field without having grass. That's just, there's no way around it.

There's no rock patch in center field.

It makes sliding in a second a little tough. Throw some cactus in sticker weeds. We've got enough sticker fields around here. That's right.

Do those qualify as water-wise? Stickers.

I don't know if those plants meet the requirements. Kids don't like them. I love it. I think this goes across the board with everything we do. I know as we look at new play areas and the ways in which we water them, you know, water sensors and timers and all of those things, having access, there are programs in the state that allow for that all the way through municipalities, and we ought to look at all of those options to make the most of the water we have.

I have a thought and maybe this is something you can come back to us if we don't go into a consensus and possibly table this. But how does this, implementing this, change the amount of water that we require for a given lot with the city? And how does that affect how far water and and and water credits and under our chairs regardless of you know you buy a share of water from the irrigation company you got a share i mean you you get x number of gallons depending upon how much rain we get in a given year but how does that affect a lot differently if this is implemented versus it not being what we have in current currently I think I know where I'm going.

I do. So if our current requirement is for a half acre foot per residential unit, I don't think that's accurate, but it's close enough. And if with the waterwise landscaping, we're reducing that water use, do we then reduce the water requirement per lot? I don't know if I have that number right off the top, but I think I understand the question. Blue, are you still there? Do you know the answer to that one?

I personally haven't seen the shares change after the ordinances have been passed. But I think that's definitely something to explore. I think that'd be potentially really cool. But I don't think that I've seen any communities go into the water shares so far.

I just wonder if it's an unintended consequence.

I think for the ones with the irrigation company, you have to dedicate a share. Like the outdoor use, you would think that, yes, there would be a reduction there. What that looks like, I would say, would depend on when that developer comes to present the landscaping plan, if they just go with the 50%, or they go more than that, or what that looks like in those areas for the open space in those community areas. probably have to map that out and then based on that calculate how many extra vegetation or drip lines are in there and that'd be a reduction obviously because you're not overwatering grass you're running down a drip line so you could calculate things there's got to be math on drip lines and things like that i think it might be actually even more simple than we're making it so if you assume that half of the grass or the half of the water is going to be in the backyard and half is in the front

And then you're reducing the water requirement in the front yard by half. That's three quarters of whatever we're requiring now would be the new requirement.

I think that's pretty logical what you're saying there. Yeah. We'd need to look into it to find something specific. I'd like to see it a little more definitive before we actually approve this. I think I would.

I think it's an interesting point. It is.

I'd like to see if there's any, I don't know, maybe Blue has any stats or anything about how much a municipality, similar in size to us, how much water they've saved by transitioning to this water-wise ordinance.

I could definitely look through with the Tooele stats that we have. We have, um, just the program, the program involvement from the landscape incentive program, but we only really are able to track the conserved water annually from those projects, not necessarily the new homes that are getting put in. Um, cause we don't have the data to put it up again. Like, well, I guess we could do like predicted, um, water use versus, um, actual water use. Um, I'm sure that I could get something from some of my colleagues about that, maybe in other, you know, comparing cities. But we have more stats in terms of like the, after homes have been converted from grass into waterized perennial plantings through the Landscape Incentive Program. I don't know if that, does that answer your question or?

Yeah, yeah, it does. Thank you. I think we all agree that

I think that's what we're after. If I could suggest something, this is just for your consideration, is that the ordinance itself could go tonight and then we could bring back those numbers and change that water dedication separately. because those two things are kind of independent and we could base that information off of what studies Blue could provide to us and then the logic that we would apply from those lessons learned to our situation so that they could realize some savings as they go in. None of what we're proposing tonight actually would impact any of the developments that have already been on the books and applied for, which is kind of weird when you think about it, because we have so many subdivisions that are already approved. But if they have received approval and they are entitled, then they're entitled under the codes when they were approved.

The other factor of this is it might not just be the water dedication, but a lot of people use of the water may be higher than what was dedicated. And depending on we don't cap that as a city. Once you get on there. We don't cap it five acres used and dedicated your property like the irrigation company. We don't turn off someone's faucet to their house. This is we may charge more. So this would help incentivize them to not use that because they don't have the long to open water and that the cost of that extra water they use. So I think that that's the factor that comes into it as well. That would be hard to even quantify. in calculations.

This is a question for Blue. The WaterWise program has been around a long time, for years now, correct? And is it working?

It's been a fully funded statewide program only since 2022. Before then, it was just at Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District from 2017 until then as a pilot program. We do see a lot of program participation. I don't have my dashboard up in front of me, but I know just from this year, we've been out more going around all over the state. So our service area goes everywhere that doesn't have a major water conservancy district. So personally, my coworker and I will drive up to Cache County, over to Tooele, and then down to Moab sometimes. But I mean, we have more participation this year than we did last year by a pretty good margin. Almost every city in Cache County has signed on. Just talking about ordinances and how many other cities have ordinances, I have a stat that's a little old. That was about 63% of cities in Utah were eligible, and that was last year before we had the entirety of Iron County sign on. So, you know, we're seeing more cities sign on with ordinances and just trying to get people paid because obviously people want to conserve and we just want to give them the pathway to do so is has been the point with the water wise program, the landscape incentive program and the affiliate kind of stuff that we do around it. I also did want to mention just with the water dedication, I was thinking about that a little bit more. We do have a lot of statistics that show from the Utah State University that Utahns will irrigate two and a half to three times more than is necessary for their grass. Especially during May or in September when the temperatures are cool, but people are turning on their irrigation systems or adapting them from summer. So it's, you know, it's accidental waste. But we don't see... Even with that excessive irrigation, we don't see a lot of irrigation companies turning off the taps, so to speak. But we do have the tiered rates as a tool to fund conservation. A lot of cities have implemented a punitive highest water rates policy. where all the money from that goes towards conservation and conservation forward programs. That's one of the things from Washington County, they have that countywide. So yeah, but just some, you know, there's, I think that the ordinances, they're very tailorable, they're very, you know, based off of the community that they're in. So that's just to speak to what Bill was saying.

I just got handed some numbers here, and I don't know the source, but it comes from Alexis, so it's got to be 100% gospel truth. This website says that residents of Utah saved over 100 million gallons of water through landscape conversions in 2024. Three million square feet of lawn was replaced with water-wise landscaping in 2024, and residents... received over $7 million in funding from the state and water districts. And that's from water.utah.gov. Thank you, Alexis. You're awesome.

I thought he said Alexa.

Alexa. Hey, Alexa. No, Alexis. Alexis is online.

She's fabulous. Thank you, Alexis.

I was curious to the, he mentioned, Blue mentioned this a little bit. Blue, do you know, would you, were you saying about 65, 70% of the state's municipalities are in this program?

Yeah, we had a 63% as of last year, and that was before we had the entirety of Iron County sign on. So, and, you know, we just had a price sign on, I think this week, maybe yesterday or the day before. And, you know, there's, their ordinance is very, very oriented towards them. So, yeah. you know, their enforcement is done instead of by city staff, it's done by their police. This was one of the things that was like a very, you know, a kind of, we hadn't seen that in a lot of different ordinances, but it's, you know, it's cool to see that people are seeing different pathways for best usage of the ordinance. But no, yeah, I think it's about like 70-ish percent. I can pull up the dashboard and then I can give you that number just one second here. But yeah, about 70-ish percent, probably 70, 80.

I think that was another thing that's brought up in Planning Commission was enforcement. Another thing for our code enforcement officer to have to enforce. But it would be enforced during the certificate of occupancy. Say I move into a house and I'm like, I'm sick of this landscape. I go in and change it. Someone's got to go in and enforce it, right? Yeah, but not everything's an HOA, though.

I don't think that affects an existing home.

No, I know what I'm saying. So we approve it. A new developer that brings their application tomorrow so that it goes into effect. I move into that house in 10 years when it's finished. I'm sick of the rocks and the minimal turf, and I turf it. That's extra time of code enforcement. It's got to go around and make sure, okay, when was this house built? Did it go before or after the application? I have to research it, and then they... Got to put a note on my door, and then you got to go through all those steps and take up other people's time.

I think we just equip our code enforcement with Roundup, and we'll just...

I think while that is a situation that could happen, I remember him talking about that, the likelihood of that potentially happening I think is probably less than, I would think less than 1%. I don't think an individual who's going to buy a home is going to go to all the trouble, potentially, but it is what it could.

But I don't think it could be very obvious and probably self-policing. You know, you move into a neighborhood that's got all of these beautiful and kind of cohesive. Beauty is not a beholder, but yeah. And then all of a sudden there's grass.

I see what you're saying.

I just sit here thinking the rocks of my house act like fertilizer. I don't know how it does it, but the weeds just grow.

That's a concern of mine as well.

I am constantly spraying rocks. Constantly. I know family members that are blowing their rocks off. I'm just worried about the overall beauty down the road.

Well, and another thing with that point, Jeff, is that, okay, we save more water, but what's the harm of dumping all the Roundup all over our...

I mean, these five features, there is not a weed on them.

And that's not how it is on your rocks? No.

I looked for my house to be on there, and it wasn't. But not a weed. That's impressive.

Don't use the cheap weed barrier, by the way. That's the key.

Well, that better be New York.

Well, you've got to go four inches on your rock, too.

Well, I have a daughter that lives in Stansbury, and she bought a home that the requirement was that they had to be in a water-wise neighborhood. And there are weeds everywhere coming up in that neighborhood. It looked really nice the first year, and now it's not so great. So that's a whole other complaint and a whole lot of roundup. So I don't know. I don't know the right answer. All right.

I would still like to see how it affects the amount of water that's required for a given lot. Now that how that's going to adjust. So I actually make a motion we table this and get that information with with the instruction step to get us that information. You got it. So. Mayor, I make a motion we table Ordinance 2026-28, which discusses amending Chapter 9, Waterwise Landscaping.

Okay, we have a motion by Councilmember Butler to table Agenda Item Number 3. Is there a second?

I'll second.

We have a second by Councilmember Dalton. All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Nay. All right, roll call, Butler. Aye. I need the motion. Thomas. Dalton. Aye. Skinner. Aye. Williams. Aye. Did you get that, Alicia? All right. We'll move on to agenda item number four. Consideration of ordinance 2026-27 approving the Allington planned unit development located at approximately 948 East Main Street, SR 138.

From the staff standpoint, I don't think we have much more to add to this. We've discussed this a lot. And so if you have any questions for staff, let me know. Otherwise, I know Mr. White and some other representatives are here and would love the opportunity to speak to you.

I just had one question. Is this little chart here that shows their deviations, has that been updated with the new plans yet? That's my understanding, yes. It has? Yeah. Okay. That's the only question I had for you. Okay.

Good evening. I'll be honest. I'm a little bit shocked at some of the public comments. I don't think... the intent was to say, you have to have this. It was just to show options. Like this is what it looks like. So we've, we brought it, we brought in some YouTube video of two different things. And one is the, with just the houses and the other one had an equestrian trail course. I don't care if you have an equestrian trail. One of the things you talked about, the neighbors talked about was privacy and, and different things. So we're just trying to visually show something. So for a starting point in the dialogue. Did you want to play them? Yeah, we can play them. I think we ought to play both of them.

And this was not on this design. This is on the...

This is on...

Your design last week.

Yeah, the last week's design, which is there's both of them sitting here. All three of them, except for the bigger lots ones here. All right, they're all three here. Good work. But I want to explain the 8,000 that Grantsville doesn't have. They have an 8,000. They don't have a 10,000. They have a 12,000 square foot lot requirement. So it's about eight feet per lot. So it goes from four lots to four and a half. So it's a half a lot different. for the quarter acre, which we talked about. But this is, as you can see, this is the back of a house on a Sun Valley house to if you had a lot. Now, this really doesn't matter if it's a quarter acre or whatever lot. The back setback is the same, so it's 25 feet. And everyone may not come back to there, but we wanted to show the difference in what that looks like. And then give you a discount on Costco.

I want to hear more about that.

So again, this 40 feet will vary because obviously some are front, some are in the middle of their lot. It's just a different variant. Yeah, just looking at view. View corridor versus what they see. Now go to the other one. And this one wasn't to say you have to have the equestrian. It was just another idea for their horses and things like that. So the equestrian starts Allington's property line. And like I said, that's just a different view. That berm wasn't intended to try to get through any laws or anything. It was just to show this is what it looks like, the fence. It doesn't have a vinyl label on it. I mean, it's all, it was for a visual effect, right? And then you go across and now you have the open space, which would be 15 feet more without the equestrian trail to the first house. So we really, like, I know that Dan, The sentiment from the neighbors is we haven't tried at all, but we've really tried. We've come back with multiple different things. From my consensus or from my standpoint, the other thing that this does is one of the things that we tried to address, Councilman Dalton's thing where they didn't have alternatives, right? We just gave single-family homes. Well, here you have single-family lots. The pink are to be rental units in the middle. And then you have all the other lots to give a variety of things in there. It's not ideal. I don't love it. I don't love this plan, to be honest with you. But it shows us some of the things that you were asking for. my my preferred one that i prefer is the one that we where we gave you a bunch more open space um the fence can be burned and it can be we just got to decide that i think the city ordinance is um it's six feet but the seven feet if you have it if you have it uh engineered right and i know i know that shelby that's right you're right okay um that she knows those ordinances really well. So I appreciate the comments. What I'm hearing is this is what we have to do or nothing. And I don't have that sentiment. I have really worked really hard to implement some of the questions and some of the concerns to do it. I have no problem on the right side there. If you go to Well, it would be the second plan. Do you want to announce? Oh, I don't know if I would.

She just had a note. This one?

That one. I have no problems going. One of the things we can't do, we can modify this road a little bit so that we keep more open space here and lose that road. That lady explained that. We can put one here. We lose some units here because you can only go 150 feet. on a dead end for fire. I have brought, and so the second point is I think we're getting a little bit caught up in the flex and is it legitimate, is it not? Here, you can put really any building here. You can stick build it, right? You don't have to have, it doesn't have to be called flex. You can just build the whole thing. And when we plat it, that's what we'd have to do. So we kind of got caught up in the flex. I've asked the flex, the people who own flex, if you'd like to hear from them. They can refute some of the banter in the community, some of the concerns. We actually are working with the cities of leagues and towns on affordable housing projects. They've testified in front of the legislature several times. They've been asked to do this multiple places. I know we want to say it's new, but coming up with innovations to try to give different price points is not new. It's actually, man, it's getting really scary. I don't know any of us that could afford to, well, I shouldn't say it that way. Not if we had to buy our house today at its current value very few would would be able to buy it and That's a different just a different perspective on What are we really putting people in and trying to get them to do right the the third point is I? know there's a lot of talk about the density and We've heard a lot tonight about, from a developer standpoint, no one wants to give up their rights. We don't want people who have front yards to give up their right. We don't want to give up our animal rights. We don't want these things, but everybody has rights. And as a developer, we have rights too. It doesn't really matter in those bundle of rights that you get in your property. It doesn't tell you you can't make a profit. I know that's been a little bit of a theme tonight, that the profit drives. But in the scheme of approvals with the city, it really doesn't apply. And you don't make as much money as everyone thinks, right? It's just, this is really expensive stuff. The UDOT alone, the UDOT intersection, $780,000. And I have to put it in before I even build a house. The infrastructure on these things are incredible. And the amount of money, you put almost $1.5 million into this project. That doesn't count land before you even turn a shovel. So I know it's easy to say that that's a thing, but it's a reality in our world. And small developers like me, we're actually just being pushed out. We don't have the ability to compete with the Newmans, the Lennars, Meritage, all them, Romneys. You just can't. And so when you try to stay afloat, you're a greedy sucker. But, you know, it's a reality in our world. The last point I will make is they say this isn't the right place for it. But the city is saying something different. To the east, to the north, to the south, our project's just like this. So the area is in the process of changing. And communities change every 30 to 40 years. Downtown's become really popular, then they become ghost towns, and then they're back popular again, right? Just because of the way that the trends are. And that's just like this. We have, even though it may not be ideal or what people who live there want it is the place where the zoning has been moved to do it um it's it's not like we're going in the middle of some place and just plopping this down it it's the city's actually pushing growth to this area um and i just happen to be a casualty in not in the fact of the growth part but in the in the fact that sun sun valley has uh, enjoy their lot, their one acre lot that they bought for so long. Right. And it's no different than, uh, Anderson ranch where there's people around it and they're mad, right? It's just, it's the nature of growing. And I don't know if you want to hear, uh, from, uh, the guys from flex homes, if it's a, if it's an important thing, I think you should, uh, if you'd rather not, it's up, it's up to the council. Um, But just from my end, no. I've spent a month listening. I've spent countless hours trying to figure things out and make it work. What I'm hearing is we just don't like it. And I get it. But I don't know that that's just the right answer. So any questions you might have on any of the scenarios?

Would anybody like to hear from Flex Homes? Yes? Okay.

Greg, this is Greg Magleby with Flex Homes.

As I said, Greg Magleby with Flex Homes and my brother Kurt and I. Started Flex Home. So let me give you just a tiny history of Flex and why we're pursuing this. My day job, I own an engineering firm. I've run LEI consulting engineers for 30 plus years. Right now we have on the books probably between 40 and 50,000 units of some type from conceptual to final plots of lots. but doing this for 30 years and I don't see anything that's truly affordable. And there's a lot of push for affordability, has to have density. And then the governor has come down and said, we want single family detached homes affordable. And so we took that challenge on a couple of years ago and said, okay, we've got to do something different. We have to look at this a little bit different way. We have to innovate. We have to bring some of the technologies, some of the processes and products into an affordable space and do it different. We just can't expect to do something smaller and say it's cheaper or do it cheaper and sell it cheaper. We have to innovate to do something for the market to be affordable. So Flex Homes was born out of that. And Flex Homes really is an innovative supply chain and process chain. We're bringing developers and suppliers and contractors into this to really look at this from the ground up. How do we build affordably again? How do we get back to the point that we were probably raised out of our parents' work, that you could afford an entry-level home? One of the things that my engineering firm has been If somebody comes out of college, I always had a goal that within four years they could be licensed and their salary could be enough to buy a nice affordable home. That is not the case. I can't pay the wages that afford a starter home that I'm developing or designing everywhere. And so that's why Flex came in to be. Its intention is to start off with the home you need when you need it, that you can afford and you can qualify for. And then brings in the expansion options that, you know, it's interesting because we've talked to a lot of realtors and the realtors say, well, You really need a soaker tub. I would love one too. But on the affordable home, are we more worried about housing people with their cars and their soaker tubs or getting them into houses so they can enjoy the American dream of affordability, of equity, and of investment and growth? So, again, the house is designed to be expandable. All the impediments have been taken out for that expansion. I do structural engineering as well in our company. We've looked at remodels. You see a remodel, prices just go through the roof. So we looked at flex and said, okay, we have to take out some impediments. We're expanding the home. we have to say no additional concrete, no additional excavation, no new sewer service, no new water service, no structural changes, no roofing changes, no HVAC changes. If we can take out those seven items, we can add on when people can afford it and when they're able to afford it, cheaper than the initial price of the home. That's the magic of flex. It's not a guinea pig. It's not We're building a very simple, straightforward home that the intent is to look nice, to not look like, oh, let's put the starter homes over there. I've dealt with that my entire career. If you're talking starter, it's got to be out somewhere else. No, I want these to be owner-occupied, investable, single-family homes that people can have equity. My brother and I went to college because our parents had equity in their home. We're pushing the whole generation into the idea that rental is a good idea and it's a lifestyle. That's what the media is pushing now because everywhere you go, most things are BTR or affordability is because the rent is affordable. Well, the rent might be affordable today, but the rent always continues up. So Flex, there's been some discussion about that we've been denied everywhere else. That is simply not the case. In Ephraim, we have four homes that we've built in Ephraim. We purchased 36 lots. So Ephraim City was willing to rezone because, again, if you look at the Flex product, what we're trying to do is an alley-load single-family home. where all the additions or any of the expansions happen on the backside, so you're not affecting the streetscape, that are on the backside. The alley is there for the purpose. It's there for fire and trash and all those things and cars. We want to bring back a tree-lined street. We want to bring back the... We've been at the state capitol several times. One of the things we said... On our drive in today to the state capitol, we saw all these beautiful homes that are 40-foot frontages that I can't build anywhere else in Utah. When you ask people, where do you want to live? You've got a chance to live somewhere in Salt Lake County, they would say Daybreak, they would say Sugar House, and the College Streets. What do those all have in common? It looks like flex homes. They're rear load or side load garages. and they're short frontage, and they're well done and well maintained. So we're not trying to reinvent Ephraim to dispel all fears. They placed a moratorium on multifamily, and multifamily included the zone that was given to us of R1B. We're not in a moratorium. We can build 36 of the units. We also have another project in Ephraim approved for 32. So there's a moratorium about... Amenities associated with townhomes. So it got put into that moratorium. But we do not have a moratorium on flex, right? Heber City. I've heard the quote guinea pig many, many times. Heber City voted to move forward. Their challenge, though, to us was we love the flex product, but we want to have something that can reach down to a 60% AMI. So if you think about it, 60% AMI is generally a subsidized housing. And so they've asked, can you bring a market product to bear that can hit 60% AMI? And we accepted the challenge and we're going back to them in multiple properties with, yes, we can hit 60% AMI in a market solution. That's what's so different here. We're not coming asking for grants and things from the city, even though we've talked to every county housing authority. We have housing authorities that are just chomping to help this process through. But we're saying this is a market rate solution because we're building the home that you need when you need it and allowing you to get into the market. We're working in multiple cities. We've been asked to, again, go testify on Capitol Hill regarding regulations. What regulations are keeping Flex and other affordable products from market? A lot of it is zoning. Not many cities have a single family zone that would allow a 40-foot frontage. because most of them are 60 to 80 or even more. And so we're saying, let's do something that's a little bit different, but let's do it better. Let's do it back to the days that did work extremely well, that we've lost that. And we've replaced that smaller frontage with multifamily. And so most of the things I'm doing right now to get density or to bring the price down, and again, Price down, it's all relative. Because if we say, I can't say it's a reasonable price of $425,000 to $470,000 for a townhome. But that's the world we live in right now. And so we're trying to break that mold. So any questions you may have for me, I'd be glad to answer. I'll give the hard ones to my brother. So this is a kind of a passion project for us. we've seen the need and we feel we have we have a market rate solution to that need so and we're just looking for opportunities in each of the cities to show that I think you've been given the the photos of the homes that have been built in Ephraim effective we have those So when we talk about affordable, I know everybody, I've been to so many city councils, and I say the word affordable, and everybody in the audience of the council, they think of the worst fourplex you have in town, and you multiply that by 100. And that's what affordable is in most of our minds. And so what we would ask is you replace it with what we're proposing for the flexes. Okay, this is the website. So these are mostly images. Do you have the actual photos? I didn't get any photos.

Yeah, I didn't get anything.

Well, the photos look almost exactly like the renderings. So this one is 103, the third home we built in Ephraim. It looks extremely similar to that thing. This is the plan that's in EFRM. So if you see the, again, the color coding is very similar to what you see on the proposed Allenton. There's two different models in this. It's called the Flex Garage, which is the blue and white. And then you have the Flex Premium, which is kind of the mustard green and white. And what that is, is the blue and the mustard, that is the base home. You have a base home, but you have all the foundation placed, all the electrical plumbing connections for the expansion in the blue one for garage and owner suite, garage and studio, garage and office, however you want to do it, or two bedrooms. All those things can be done in the future. The premium is a little bit bigger, and you see quite a few of them in Allentown. This is a home that starts off at a three-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath, or two-and-a-half. You start at two-and-a-half. A three-bedroom, one-and-a-half. But it can go up to six-bedroom, four-and-a-half bath. Again, investable so that you're staying in the neighborhood, you're growing, your equity is increasing. So there's two areas that can be added. That's an owner suite and office, owner suite bedrooms. All those configurations can be decided later. We've got the foundation. We've got the infrastructure in there to extend it for that. And then the garages. I love garages. My brother is a Ford retired guy. We love trucks. He can quote every depth of F-150s. The garages, we love them, but would we rather house people or house their cars? And that was one of the questions that started Flex Ready is that Eagle Mountain, when we asked that question, and Eagle Mountain City said, we require a garage certificate of occupancy, and so there's no exceptions. And the state came and asked us, what impediments do you see? We said, well, we love garages. We're planning for garages. We want that. But it's holding so many people back from qualifying for a home because we're putting a $30,000 garage and saying you have to have it to house your cars, even though you park them outside a lot or you go to work and park them outside. But it's a necessary thing to be a citizen. So the state passed two years ago, Senate Bill 181 said, if you are affordable, if you're 80% of the average sales price of a home in the county, you don't have to have a garage at occupancy. So that came down because of flex and because of the request to say, what is our biggest concern? Housing people? Then let's build houses and let's give them the opportunities to have that garage and have a 24-foot deep garage because then it fits the F-150 and you can walk around it. That's the intention. That was a long introduction. So I would entertain any questions you may have about Flex or the site itself.

So here's my question for you. You mentioned Daybreak, and out here Daybreak's kind of a swear word. But I'm living this nightmare or dream right now. I'm an escrow officer for a title company, and I'm doing a ton of closings in Daybreak.

Yep.

And I'm living where I'm seeing people. They love Daybreak.

Yep.

So I've asked them who are living in these type of homes. I'm a country boy. So I say to them, what in the world do you like about this?

What's drawing?

And the answer is all the amenities. If you want to love daybreak, then you've got to enjoy the amenities. Yes. Walking trails.

Fish ponds.

Fish ponds. I could go, I mean, rec centers, they have access to, I can list 12 activities they have access to that are missing.

Yes.

And it's like we're just supposed to, we're just supposed to take it without all the good that those people enjoy in that community.

Let me walk you through, I have, I, In my day job, again, my passion is for master plan developments. And so we do a lot of very large master plan developments. And every one of them asks me, can I produce another daybreak? Absolutely. I can produce another daybreak if the land is free or a liability, because it was a liability to Rio Tinto, and I can make my own code and my own density. And that stops the discussion. There will be one day break and it's going to be on Rio Tinto property because nobody else can duplicate it with the amount of amenities that they do because they've turned the land into the amenities to sell the land that was tailings. And that's in the land of development, that is the base issue.

But we, I mean, we ask the question, where are the kids playing catch? And we're told they don't play catch anymore or they're going to do it in the street.

Oh.

And that just is not.

When you look at the, let's maybe pull up the plan again. This one is great. That one's great. It's got the nice green in the, zoom in on those, we call it the paseo. It's a fancy word for linear park.

Yeah.

The linear park from front of house to front of house is about 60 feet. So this is not just a small green area. This is a significant play area. Show me that again. The Paseo. So where the units are facing face to face. So you've got an alley on the south side. And the Paseo is the green space that the units are fronting. With the trees. Yep. That's the city street. So there's a standard city street, 66 foot. Once we go interior, then there's the alley that's servicing the garages and the driveways. And then the next one is the paseo.

This?

That one. So that is the linear green from porch to porch. Again, you can look at the dimensions on the south side. It's about 60 feet. That's between the front of the houses and the one acre lots to the west. And you've got about 60 foot there then that has the sidewalks. So in the planning world, this is the mecca for children. They're out playing in the common green open space. The intention is to have multiple parks and age appropriate parks. You have, you know, you'll have a small park that's maybe, you know, kindergarten-age kids, and then you get the larger one on the south there that would be in a larger green space area. You'd get a little bit older kids in playground sets there. So there's, I think, four different playground areas. There's a couple pickleball courts. And then dog parks are the number one request in all master plan developments right now. I don't necessarily understand that, but it is the number one request. And so you've got a dog park. And again, a dog park, we can amenitize a dog park. There could be sitting benches. There could be all types of things with that. I think we have included a dog park. Since this one is so linear, we included a dog park on the south and a dog park on the north. And then one of the things that was also discussed was about water use and landscaping. Now, you look on the lots, particularly on the north, you'll see the difference. There's two different colors of lots that are outside the house. The intention there is that the HOA maintains the front yards so that there's not somebody turning off their water. one house and they're maintaining others next door it's about it's about keeping that consistency and again a development that is investable for the people and and maintains its value anything in the lighter green that would be a private area that you would maintain yourself or whatever you would like to do and it's generally behind a fence

It looks like it's mostly a side yard.

Yeah, they're side yards. So on the ones that, the longer units, that's a side yard. And then the other one's a side yard. And then you have, the intention is to use that, the passeo or the linear green. And when you look at the trails, if, you know, trails is a huge thing and pathways and, you know, we even try to give circuit or what's the length of the circuit. I don't remember the length on this one, but if you look at the south sidewalk connects to this, or west sidewalk connects to the south, connects to the roadways and comes back around and connects all that. So the intention is to have this a walkable. You can get to the sidewalk. To the open space areas, you can you can own and enjoy something that is different than a multifamily development.

So you mentioned you've had zoning issues you haven't had denials that zone of issues because no city has zones that will fix that will match what you guys are trying to build.

And there's miscellaneous zones. I'm working right now in Leverken. They've got 50 foot lots. And so we're doing a lot of the lots that are on this on the top side of this that are facing out, but have a shared driveway going to the garage in the back.

But they're having to do. New zones for this.

Those were used in existing zones. We're trying to put it in existing zones where possible, but most cities do not have anything that would allow for an alley load product of a single family. This is your neighbor here, Tooele. There's a piece of land that's zoned multifamily. We went into them. I guess this may be a denial of one type. We said, we'd like to put flux on this. Well, it's a zone for 72 units of townhomes. We'd like to put 72 single-family homes on it. They said, well, this is a multifamily zone. You can't do single-family. Detached. So we took the Flex Homes products and attached a breezeway between them. Again, what is... This zoning just hasn't been around for so long. I was probably one of the bad guys back in the 90s trying to push and change to quarter acre and larger lots because they were selling like hotcakes and it was cheap. Land was pretty cheap and we could give away amenities. We could say third car garages and turf for the front and all these things. The world has changed so dramatically. We can't do anything. And so we've kind of polarized the whole zoning to multifamily and quarter acre and larger lots. And said, well, and you hear it all the time, probably in the planning circles or our League of Cities, the missing middle. Flex is the missing middle. This is exactly what the missing middle has been intended to be. We need to fill that missing middle because that's where our kids can live. and enjoy the benefits of a single-family house.

I don't know if you know this information because it's so new, but you talk about affordability, affordability. How much does the house value go up when you add the next levels? Because to me, it feels like it's only affordable once. Once you expand and remodel, then it's no longer affordable and we lose our whole affordable housing because townhomes, they don't go up in value as much so we can control that or other type of styles. So do you have that information on what?

I'll give you the exact numbers from Ephraim. So a base home in Ephraim that is the three bedroom, one and a half bath appraises for $369,000. with the garage and the owner's suite above it, then your four bedroom, two and a half bath, it raises for $444. Now, yes, the intent here is initially affordable. We're not looking to, and this is where I have a hard time with the term affordability. If we put too many restrictions on affordability, then we're just creating secondary owners. They're not enjoying then the increase of equity. They're not enjoying the benefits of that. I'll give you a perfect example. We're doing a project in Hawaii. Hawaii has a deed restriction that it has to be, if you sell it at a 70% AMI, you can only sell it within 50 years to another 70% AMI. Why would I invest a dollar in that home? I can't get it out. I have to sell it to somebody in my same economic status. And so the value is still at that same thing. The intention here is to create affordable neighborhoods, let them expand, let them grow, let them increase in equity, and let's do this again. Let's do it again. So we bring more people instead of, and we call it this second-class renter. becomes that affordable home that sticks in that affordable. You have to stay in that affordable realm. The value will not increase as fast. And the value of single-family homes, when you look at townhomes versus single-family, the uplift is 15% to 20% between a townhome and a single-family in similar circumstances. And the equity increase is higher on a single-family than it is on a townhome or a condo. And so again, we're trying to bring people into the housing market that are absolutely shut out. You know, the question I was asked is where are our kids going to live and work? Because the jobs are not supporting, you know, when you look at the, the average house price in Utah is pushing over $525,000. Where are the jobs that are supporting that? Well, it's, Maybe sitting over at Silicon Slopes, but it's not in standard Utah wages. So bringing a new product to address that need that is completely unmet.

Can I ask a question? Which one are we voting on? Because I'm just confused because I'm like, we've got three, but I thought one of them was one who kind of said, no, go back and do again. So which one are we actually looking at? This is the new one. This is the new one. Which doesn't show any green or anything. So are there parks in here?

It's the same linear. I'm sorry. The same linear park is in there. And so you see the Paseo is still the same going through the middle. I didn't have time to color the greens. So I think the one that Joe's... Yeah, they're not in that drawing right now.

Here's the drawback or the trade-off, right? If the single-family lots take so much room that it doesn't leave room for the other stuff, so that's the trade-off. they go all the way to the back. So that those 8,000 square foot lots take all, take more, um, open space away. I, it, and here's the other, the other caveat to that. All, all we do is we're, we're causing more problem with single family versus, um, single family, large lots right now. Our dilemma is our, our project, uh, is the main thing is someone's backyard. What we've done here is we've created a front yard problem with two different types of houses. So now instead of a backyard problem that has 60 or 70, 80 feet, now you have a front yard problem that has 25 feet in the road. When we looked at it, we penciled it out. It is not compatible for the entire project. I know we're trying to acquiesce neighbors and trying to make it work. This one, Alicia, is the preferred project. And we went back. This is the second time. If you remember, this is the one we went back and we extended, gave feedback. double the density in the open space on the people for the Sun Valley ranches. The fence, I don't know what you want. Do you want a fence that makes it so they have a view out the back? Is it a tall fence to keep privacy? I mean, that's up to you guys, how you'd like that. But as far as Councilman Williams' question, where's the amenities? The amenities are in this second group. That's where they are. The pickleball, all that stuff is here. So, man, I think we've done a good job. I know it's not ideal. It's not what everybody likes. But I think we've made our case that the single family is better than the townhomes. We provide a ton of open space. We've tried to meet in the middle. We talked about when this process started that people would be bruised but not beaten. And I think we've met that. I think we've tried really hard to meet that. And yeah, we can adjust that south side and make it more. I really thought the equestrian, I mean, I've been bucked off every horse I've been on. Grew up with horses. I had to ride from behind 711 on Main Street is where our farm, our farm, it was a half acre where we kept our horses. My grandpa had made me ride up to Settlement Canyon and we crossed roads and I got bucked off every horse. So they don't have a little warm fuzzy for me, but I can see the advantage of if you had an equestrian trail that came around and would come out on that top right side and you could have a trail along whatever road that's gonna be. I don't know, I think it's a Romney piece there, I mean, either we try to do Equestrian or we don't. I'm indifferent. But I do think the benefit of the single-family flex product, and it doesn't, I mean, it's just a house. I know we get caught up in the flex, but for me, the things that we're asking for is a benefit of The other thing, and I just throw this in, I don't know that it's a big deal to be honest with you, but the city in their capital improvement plan has a 12-inch line going east from SR 112 up. The city asked if we would increase that from our 8-inch to 12-inch to that corner to our intersection. It's an expense. It's just another expense, but yeah, I told the city that we would do that. Did you help point out exactly where that's at? So it goes from the intersection where Maverick and I think Holiday is starting now, right? Is that Holiday oil that's broke ground? So from there, this way, I don't, is Sun Valley a six-inch or an eight-inch? I can't remember. I think it's a six-inch line. There's no? They're all septic. We're all septic. Oh, don't have a water line? Water. Oh, water. I was like, tell me they're all wells. But I think it's a six-inch line through here, so... there's already an 8 right here, but we told the engineering department we'd go from the intersection to here as a 12-inch, and I don't know where it goes from there, to be honest with you.

It would help our looping for our water system. And it helps in volume.

And is there...

The equestrian, that was

I wish I would have kept it in the sleeve.

I think I'll just ask a few questions and maybe make some assumptions and just tell me yes or no. The equestrian walkway is not for the residents in your space.

No, not at all. It's just for the owners in Sun Valley. The intent, I guess it would be good if that would go past... If you could get it to go past...

Main Street's crazy. I don't know that anyone would ride across Main Street.

But connectivity, if Grantsville really wants to keep some culture, some connectivity for equestrian, I mean, it was really the intent was to show the view, the difference between the single family and that. I understand.

The intent is that that fence, the fence, the privacy fence, the six foot tall, seven foot tall final concrete precast whatever metal side um is is meant to be on the other side of that so essentially those residents are gaining an amenity that is still owned by you the easement is is grad school water company yeah it would be i mean they'll have the easement on it but that amenity is for Now, they may not want that. They may not want anyone in the backyard, even their neighbors.

I would agree with that.

It sounds like to me that's kind of where it was leaning was that they don't want anyone back behind there putting anything across, riding motorcycles, which may very well happen, probably would.

down the easement.

I mean, I can kind of see their perspective, but what you were trying to do is you were trying to accommodate those that do have horses to have an area where they can ride for a longer distance than just their backyard.

So I think your intention was well, and also just to I really trying to show the council and the neighbors like we're trying to be thoughtful. We're trying to say, all right, what really are these things? What things can we can we modify and not give up the farm, so to speak? Yeah.

Well, and I know there was some questions regarding berms and stuff. It's in other states, specifically the Boise area, Eagle, Star, all of those areas inside the Boise Valley, they use berming techniques on all of their subdivisions. And it actually is really neat because you drive into an area and it feels like its own little area. It's encompassed, you know, the grade changes, the sound changes. You can have traffic and congestion outside. That sound doesn't carry through the berm. And so, obviously, they have a lot more water than we have. So, you can't compare. But that technique is used for sound dampening and some other things. So, there are benefits to it. It also would shade. It would also create... a height variance, meaning what the neighbors on Sun Valley, they're going to see less of the house, which I know was a concern. I did hear that concern. So that, you know, that also in my mind presents, could present a benefit. I guess it's how it's perceived. But anyway, I just wanted to bring that up because I've seen that.

I still have a question. And then maybe I'd be like, this is the one, this is the same plan we talked about for two hours last time, right? So we're still talking about the same plan. I'm confused.

Well, not necessarily.

With the equestrian part?

This was the alternate that was presented.

But that's not what you were talking about. You're pushing this one.

This is the preferred.

This is our preferred.

This is what we spent two hours talking about last time. We said, no, come back. And so we should be looking at this one, right?

Well, let's, so not, sorry to interrupt you. We were trying to go, but you gave me recommendations to the next one, and then the next one was different than the recommendations from the first one, right? So what I'm saying is, as we go through as these evolve, and we look at them, for project continuity and the things we're trying to do for the neighborhood... The second one that gave, instead of a 27-foot buffer, we gave the 60-foot buffer is what we heard. And more amenities is what we did to the second one. Then the neighborhood banter was, we just want lots there. So we went back and provided the lots. That's the third one you see. And it's...

How many more lots did you provide than within the previous one?

It's the same number.

When we had left, we had said we want bigger lots. We're trying to negotiate here. Give us a little bit bigger lots. It was Cook and Sun Valley. We said give us a little bit bigger. And this is the same.

No, they're bigger. The lots are bigger.

This is the same as it was in the first rendering you had. You didn't have it all drawn out, but I think this is what you're saying.

Oh, you're talking about the orange that just showed that. Well, that was just to show the lots. And then we talked about the one thing where I did miss is we talked about quarter acre lots and not 8,000 lots. So you're 2,000 feet, whatever, different. The reason we went with this is that's the standard that Grantsville City had, or you go to a 12,000 square foot lot.

There's really not a ton. Because you have 11 variances. You could ask for a variance for that.

Right. But that's why we did it. It doesn't make it different as to why we're doing it.

I just feel like we went over this one for two hours last time. And so I'm like, now we're like, hey, let's look at this again. Am I wrong?

No, you're not wrong, but it's probably the best one.

According to you, but we had all the neighbors saying that this is the one they didn't want. And I'm trying to, like, let's meet in the middle here, but I just feel like...

But let's talk about what's the middle? Can I just ask what the middle is?

We have bigger lots. And that's what we said, bigger lots on both of these sides. Can we do a little bit bigger? It would be less for you. I mean, you wouldn't get as many.

Okay, now wait a minute. That's the problem I have. Bigger lots. We can fit them in. We can do bigger lots. If it's 2,000 feet instead of four and a half back there, you can get to the quarter acre. But the middle ground assumes that I'm going to lose 70 lots somewhere else, and that's just not the case. So that's where we need to figure out what's the trade-off. If bigger lots are more important, I get density elsewhere, and you lose some open space. Instead of 25%, you get 20%. 18, whatever that is, you lose some amenities. That's why I'm saying it's hard to acquiesce where the amenities for the subdivision would be in someone's backyard. Yeah.

I just think the density here is what we're asking for less of, and I understand that means you lose more, but that's all.

I think the request is just what has been a request from basically every subdivision that has come through is that provide a buffer to existing residents. That is, I get that we have in this density, the opportunity to fill it with what you filled it with. But we have asked other developers to do the same, to be cognizant of the right to develop it, to be cognizant of those that they're placing next to. And that, I think that's where I, you know, this new layout is, you know, I don't feel that it meets that request based on kind of what we discussed. I do have a question though regarding what does this, Is this a parking lot that's next to the dog park to the north that's in between the commercial? What is that? Is that parking?

So you're talking about? Yeah, just that little area in the white area. So on the middle plan, what it would be is if you have a contractor's parking lot. So if you have a contract like a trailer that you have to have for your work and things, you could park it there. We're assuming you're not going to have a whole bunch of them, but we wanted a place where if you're a contractor and you need a place for your your trailer, you can park it there instead of in the roads.

Okay.

So it's similar to what was designed before.

Is that rented or that's just, you can use the parking?

It would probably, the HOA would probably have a fee for it because it's a commercial thing, but it wouldn't, because there's not enough for everybody to have one.

Right.

Right. It'd be kind of probably on a first come first serve type, but

Another one of the concerns I have with the, I'll call it purple, lavender, I don't know, the smallest ones, is we were talking earlier about the tree-lined streets and bringing those back. And instead, all of these with the purple, it looks to me like you have a parking lot in front of... all the units so that's because they don't have gorgeous right so what I'm saying though yes is that there's nothing appealing about a parking lot in front of home.

Well that's for 2 reasons it's it's a different price point and that we're trying to do variety we're trying to make all right we want to have different you know because one of Councilman Dalton's thing is there just wasn't variety and it didn't provide for that and so that's that's what that is it they can all go back to that. the blue and tan there, but it just, it gives you another affordable comp. You know, that's the affordable product. Right there is the lavender ones.

Well, I disagree. The Flex are affordable. He said it can get, it's a 60% AMI, right?

No, that is not what he said.

So we can try.

Okay, we could try, but...

I heard him say, if I wrote it down on another book, it's Biden.

Okay. I get what you're saying.

60% AMI is a total. That's true.

So Joe, I just had on my notes from the last meeting that one of the last comments you made is you thought you could get to quarter acre lots. And I thought, and I thought, wow, they exist. happy. I don't know what it's going to do to the new residents. But then you didn't get to the quarter acre logs.

Does the quarter acre, I mean, let's just talk about it. Does the going to, let's not talk about size. Let's talk about use. Does the single family use back there Does the benefit of acquiescing to that request pay for what we lose in the development?

Well, it seems like we've lost it with these 8,000. And haven't we lost our open space?

Yeah, it is hard. You have lost a lot.

I like the other, the green picture better, but So we've already, I guess I'm saying, okay, I know what I've lost now, but I was, tonight I was fully expecting the quarter acre lots around the perimeter. Does that even affect it more? I mean, I'm sure.

I mean, we could, if that is what the council has said and everyone's set diehard on, I don't.

Am I crazy? I just thought that's one of the last comments you made, and I thought, wow, that's going to, these residents ought to do the job.

Well, but that's not what we heard tonight anyway. We heard that 8,000 is not enough, but we want third and half. No one said, hey, we can settle for quarter. I think you would still have the same banter about that. But, like, you know, we talk about meeting in the middle.

Okay.

But I can, if quarter acres is what makes that work.

That's just what I expected tonight.

Yeah.

And I don't know that you can really tell. I think it would be negligible if we went the 2,000 on the 100. You're getting 18 and a half more feet, right? Yeah.

So you basically take the report plot out.

So.

But the setback in the back.

Oh, the setback in the back.

Still be 25.

So the bigger lot does not move the house further away from existing.

Yeah.

Because of the setback.

You know, but you got less neighbors in your backyard.

Who am I just about the buffer? I deal with this a lot. Transitions from lot sizes as buffers, I generally look in it's more acceptable or in final product, an additional setback like we have here, then product changes. As product changes, Don't give the distance to the units. What this has given is about 60 feet from the neighboring properties to the front of homes. Whereas standard lots, it would be 25 feet. And the 25 feet, again, you can put sheds in the back, you can put trampolines in the back, you can do all that type of stuff in the backyard. So if it's space we're trying to get from existing uses to future uses, not a size of lot change because that just puts the same uses right next to each other. But it's a distance of this open space that then is an HOA maintained. It's not somebody's backyard where the kids are jumping on the trampoline around against it. If that's this concern of the neighbors, I think this plan alleviates that better than standard lots.

So I have a question for Bill, or maybe it would be Tyson if he was here. A no vote on this is just no vote on the PUD deviations, correct? OK. There's nothing in the code that says you can't bring it back for another.

So we would just retool and come back?

No vote or a negative vote.

Is there a difference?

I think the preference would be the table, and we could keep working through some of these things and bring back something that's maybe a little clearer. We need direction, though. That's what we did last time.

That's my frustration.

We did two hours.

I've got three different layouts. I'm trying to see the difference between, and obviously there was a layout before this, because that what I'm looking at currently, is this what was being, I mean, so we received this one today, which has all the lots across the back, but then I've got two others, and they're substantially different. One shows the bank of homes along here, Cube, and this one shows them aligned in a row, and they're different product types.

So this one- Well, that's the original one. So if you remember, the original one- This was out the buffer. And this is the one that this is where so I was directed to go back, show more of the green space where it's at, take the take the headlights out of the backyards, make sure that no one is is got lights going into backyards, and then give them a way bigger buffer. That that was my instructions on the from first to second, then the second one morphed into all of a sudden, lots all along back there. And and stuff. So I really, I mean, 18 feet is a, I mean, it's not like we didn't listen. We gave you a view of what it would look like if you say, all right, I mean, we didn't ignore it. We just, you can say, all right, put the other 20, 18 feet in. I'll be honest. I don't know that I liked that plan. I think we did it to show the neighbors to see if it would be something we did a drawing. We did a video of it. It just, it doesn't work. And so it's a hard, hard thing when you're asking to give buffer, but give me privacy, but give me this. And in the end, for me, you guys are here to protect everybody, including the rights of the developer, including their rights. And you have a hard decision. I'm here to try to acquiesce and help the neighbors, but still protect a good project that I have to build and put my name on.

I just have frustration because we're still talking about the same one we talked about last time. And my understanding is that we've kind of already said no to that, like come back. And so if we table this, we need to decide what we're saying no to so we don't come back with the same stuff.

I don't know that you said no to it. You just wanted to see it.

I think we said no.

I don't know that there was a vote.

That's what I'm saying tonight. Let's not table. Let's actually say what we are saying no to because I feel like we're doing this. This feels like the same stuff we talked about last week. And I guess from my perspective is, you know, you like the second one and you're saying, you know, we said, come back with bigger bots. This looks exactly the same, essentially, of what we had last time. And you're saying, well, we lose out, you know, you lose out on the pickleball court and all that stuff. But people, those people lose out with the open space and the pickleball, but you're not really acquiescing to any lots here. So that's it. Me, I'd like to see less density. I know that's a little linkage. That's what I thought we had asked for.

Sorry, I don't have the minutes done, but the notes I took was Council Member Skinner asked for this item to be tabled and brought back in two weeks with a more detailed draw up with quarter acre lots and single family homes along the west and south sides. That's what I got.

Yeah, and then these aren't single family ones.

That's right. Yeah.

Sorry. Quarter acre. That's what I mean.

They're 18 feet, 18 foot. So if you take out every fourth lot.

Okay. And I guess I should clarify from what I said is I, I'd like to see less density. So that's overall, I'm not opposed to the flex homes. I think it's like in general, I think it's a good idea. I think that it looks very much like the first home I got. And so like, and we did, you know, I just, why do we have to have so many of them crammed in here? And I understand that, you know, maximize your profit. I understand that too. It just feels like a lot. And I think that that's my concern with, with everything, the traffic, the kids playing here. I think that just, I think on the other hand, we talked about too, we know that you could build townhomes. And so that's what we're up against.

Well, the other component is the green space and opportunities for those that are going to live within that space, which is a benefit. It's a huge benefit. You're not going to sell homes without a place for those kids to be. Because most of the, I would suspect that most of these individuals that are going to come into this are going to be younger families. So having what younger families want is going to draw younger families there. And I agree with Brittany on that as far as the concept. I don't know that I have an issue with the concept of them. I know as a city, this is something new. You know, that's also, you know, you know, and The hard part of this is if we say, okay, yes, go, and this product doesn't go, then you're going to be coming back and saying, hey, this product isn't going. What other options do I have now?

Well, let me – can I just respond to that?

Yeah, go ahead.

What happens is you just build a footprint. You just build a footprint from the beginning, and then you set your price, and it is what it is, right?

And I say that, but we've had it on all sides. they had some that have larger acreage that want to reduce the acreage, you know, we want to reduce the acreage because the larger, so it flips to both sides. So, but I think, you know, um, wanting to ensure, wanting to ensure that the kids have what they need there, it should be, it should be a, it should come from both sides as far as that, you know, meeting, meeting there for that, for that reason. And As far as the request that I, and I've already said it, but I'll say it again. The only request that we've asked developers is that they, as they're coming into those areas, that they take into account those that they're coming in. That is an ask. I understand that It's not something that would happen.

So explain to me that.

You know, there's probably a difference if you ask each resident. Yeah, I agree with that.

Or 18 versus most.

That's the hard part. But I do feel like when we were here, that... was the consensus from the residents is create a barrier, some sort of barrier separation. That could be with the berm, that could be with quarter acre lots. But I do agree, I think we need to be able to give you, and you probably feel frustrated because we've given you some things and you've come back with some things, I get that. And I appreciate that you're willing to go back and look at it as we,

I think with 255 units and let's just say there's two children per home and there's obviously no way of guessing what that number would be but you're talking over 500 children and regardless of any of these plans I'm just not seeing enough space for 500 kids. That's one of my big concerns.

I think we're overestimating there. You'll see all kinds of people from many walks of life here. And I don't think every home is going to have two kids. I think you're going to have a lot of not singles, but you'll probably have some single elderly. You'll have 55 and older that don't have kids at home. I think we're trying to pigeonhole something into something that there isn't just young families that can afford this. There's people who are on fixed income that will be able to afford this. So I think we're, um, like I said, pigeonholing into something that...

Right, but you were pitching earlier that this is where your kids can afford to build a home.

Well, and that's still true today.

It is true, so we can't take that away.

I agree.

I agree with that. Yes, there's going to be the senior couples that might live there without any children, and there also might be the family that has, when they have, you know, what was the top... Six-bedroom, four-bath. Six bedrooms and four baths. They aren't having six bedrooms for nothing.

I agree. So... But they can afford it.

Yes, but 500 might be a minimal number. I just don't know where you're going to put 500 kids in this place besides in the house on a tablet.

I did have a question regarding that. These are all classified as a single family dwelling, right? If not, they don't work.

Okay. Yeah, they're not attached. Maybe there's some twin home. There's a little mother-in-law.

I can't really tell. No, they're all single family. Okay. Yeah, I just want to clarify. Thank you. Yeah. And I'll be honest, and maybe this is for Greg, the engineer. Is there a ratio for acreage versus kids? I mean, we're all about.

Not for the number of kids. I mean, generally in a newer neighborhood, you're going to see. 3.5-ish people per unit. That's the number we generally have. So is that two parents and 1.5 kids? Or is it one parent and... A lot of pregnant people. So generally 3.5. And again, open spaces, we can plan the programming around this. And again, we're looking at open space that's interim to this. There's also then city open space. That has a level of service that I think you're probably 6 or 8 acres per 1000 people. And so there's going to be paying into those regional parks and those, those larger. Larger parts around and so, you know, 1 of the tough things again with with looking at affordability is trying to say. Um, we need to also put all the park space associated with these users within that development. Well, if that's the case, then there shouldn't be impact based to go build parks outside. And so are we trying to double down on park space? Maybe. No, that's that's kind of where a lot of these, these go, these types of things, because we want affordability, but we want amenities. But a lot of those amenities and those larger amenities are intended to be through cities. And then you look back at the historical affordable neighborhoods, the amenities were done by the cities. It's not an HOA. Again, we start putting a burden on these folks to say, well, you need to have all of your recreation needs met within your development, and you need to pay for it on a monthly basis. Well, you paid for recreation needs also with your impact fees to go towards larger amenities elsewhere. So we're doubling down. So again, HOAs are great in some regards. Most people hate them. Because it is then, what am I getting in return for the fee? Well, you're getting a lot of management. You're getting a lot of oversight. You're getting a lot of state regulations. You're getting all these things. But we're trying to land something that's affordable that doesn't have a $200 HOA.

You're talking to the wrong. The city's about 50 years behind on our parks. So it's a major issue. So we can't discuss that tonight. The hard thing is, is there's no comp, we're not compromising between builder and existing owners. We either hurt the existing owners and benefit the new owners, or we hurt the new owners and benefit the existing owners. There's no compromise in that. Like where's that subdivision that works for everybody? It's either the new homeowners are hurt with no open space or the existing owners are hurt with houses 25 feet away. There's just no compromise.

I think that is the conundrum of zoning.

Let me speak to that a little bit, Jeff, if you don't mind. The benefit of them is they have their one acre lot.

It truly is...

benefit of the existing owner, right? There isn't anybody that can encroach on their property at all, period. So their benefit is they have 60, 70 feet from the back of their house. We put 40. We didn't go measure every single house to see how far. But the benefit is no matter what anybody else does in Grantsville City, with their rights, no one can take their one acre lot from them. They can do whatever they want on their bundle of sticks, the bundle of rights that they bought when they bought Sun Valley, and no one can take that away from them. We can try to help them and benefit them from what you're talking about, these compromises, but no one can take that from them. But I think it goes two ways. I would hope that they see the value in their rights and the things that they get to keep and use to whatever landowners around them. And I think that that's what makes this a little bit more difficult, because you have owners who are encroaching over their bounds to what their rights are, and a developer that's trying to acquiesce in some way to make them appeased which I don't know even with the lots back there that we can appease it, right? So to answer your question, I don't know what the right zoning is. The right zoning is everyone keeps their rights. That's the right answer.

But I'm saying you're getting your $256,000. No matter what.

No matter what. I'm trying to make it better. I really am. I know that it seems disingenuine, but it really is. We provided the single family. It's better. I'm not.

But you're here asking us for variations and deviations and to put 250. And you're asking us for that. But we're not taking anything from you because you could build on it. You could build townhouses. So it's like you're coming here asking, but saying the citizens should just be happy with the acre later on because they have that. And you have your property. So I don't feel like there's a real, I'm kind of with Jeff. I don't feel like this is like, where are we compromising? You're still getting all your laws.

Well, I'll be honest. There's a lot of compromising. There's 60 feet of buffer. There's all kinds of fencing between them. There's an HOA that maintains it. I mean, there is all kinds of benefits to this plan versus a townhome plan. And I think if we start there and, and look, I'm, I'm indifferent. I'll be, I'll be honest with you. I really believe that I've tried, but you guys, you've said some, a few of you said, well, it's just too much. Well, what's enough. Like if you say, all right, Joe, we'll, we'll approve this. If you do 200 lots, we'll approve this. If you do this, like, you know, all I, all I hear is there's, we just, it's too dense.

You said if you left the open space in the pickleball, then you would lose 70 lots. Well, okay, take 70 out of them.

And I'm not willing to do that. And I just want to be honest and fair.

Yeah, I think you should. I appreciate it.

20 lots? Maybe. 70? I mean... should we I mean we'll take 17 feet off the back of a lot somewhere that someone wants to give up to help the buffer, I mean that's the compromise right. I'll give 60 you get 15 off of your acre and we'll we'll have a 75 that's that's a that's the basis of a compromise.

We're also compromised city, I mean you're coming in with 11 variances and I don't see any benefit that the city is getting in this.

And

And I don't want to deny your rights. I said it. Come in with the normal zoning and build these kind of new products.

If that's what the city council wants, I'm fine with it. I disagree with you. I think this is a much better project. I think it's a much better product. I think it meets more needs than ever. But if that's the way that you want to go, I'll be honest, if the 18 feet on that side is... that big of a deal, but that's the compromise. You can't give 18 feet and then lose 70 units and say that it's a compromise and say that it's good for everybody. So we're all, I mean, I'm in a hard place. But I would disagree with that you're getting nothing out of it. I really do.

What are we, name?

You're getting single family housing product that's much better, better resale, better value. It'll generate more taxes for the city. It's just.

But at what cost?

Zero.

We're getting a brand new product that no one knows a thing about. Supposedly Ephraim does, but there's 33. There's cheaper homes on.

But that's my problem.

Right now than what your bottom line is. For your homes. We're not getting affordability. We're getting some little bit cheaper single new homes, but I don't think they stay affordable for that long. We don't get open space.

You do get open space.

We get terrible safety issues with traffic.

I don't see how that changes if we just did the standard thing. I really don't.

I'm saying if any developer comes in here and wants 11 variances... They better have something that says, this is what we're offering the city to get these. This is our compromise to you. I don't see a compromise here.

Well, it's a half a million dollars to the city, and it's a better product. It's a better project. And, you know, I don't know. I don't know how to answer your question because there is intrinsic value in longevity here. Townhouses right now, the cheapest townhome, I don't know exactly where they are, but the middle units are like $390, $399 starting, brand new, no options, no upgrades. You have end units that are $420. So they're really the same thing. They're not going to be as... I mean, the ones that I know of have HOAs, so they'll probably stay valuable, maybe. But...

I've said too much. I mean, I know, and we can both know that we win the battle, but lose the war. You come in and you can put a million townhomes or whatever you want. So there is some value. I can't put a million. How many can you put in?

254. Yeah, I think you put 260.

Same density. So we're... Why can't there be a proposal that is great for the new people and great for the existing owners?

So what is that? I mean, that's the question of the night, right? Right. What does that look like?

Well, you said you could give up 20 lots. So in this one, could you give up a few more lots and put back in some more open space?

So you're saying the ask is to reduce this by 20 lots?

Oh, I'm not, I'm saying, you said 20, so I just was saying that. I don't know, you said 20 is kind of your bottom line, but can we put more open space in here? I mean, I kind of feel like with Jeff, kind of our back's against the wall because we're looking at condos. If we don't, we don't want that. We said this is a benefit, but I also feel like

What's the number? Let's talk about that number. If I'm going to lose 50 lots, no. 20 is 20, the number we're looking at. So instead of 255.

Well, you said 20 was your bottom line.

So let's talk about how to...

I don't think there is a number, but there is some type of safe neighborhood. Well, we're assuming... With places for the kids to be and... Parks or pickleball courts or whatever that is, it's just gone. I don't know, Joe. I really don't. I don't know what the number is.

If there was something, I'll be honest with you, we all don't like this from our own perspective, right? But from the engineering world, it meets all of the criteria of a safe neighborhood. So it's really hard to say from Joe White's perspective, is it safe? Yeah, because I've had it engineered. Someone way smarter than me has done it. But we're sitting here, we're seeing this from our own perspective instead of saying, all right, here's the criteria. Just 20 less units, here's what I want to see. And that's, to me... that's the direction if that's really what you want i've got to go back and say all right is is losing 20 acre lot 20 lots in here worth you know worth that i've just got to make that decision if that's what you say this is what you want but i last time i didn't hear

Like, you can't do anything, but here's one thing I wrote down with your experience is because you got to meet somewhere, right? So if you can do about 256, 260 single family attached homes on what your current. I can't hear you. Sorry. You can do approximately 256 to 260 single or single family attached homes with your current property or 156 detached.

I think it's like 172 or something.

Well, according to our little thing here that Shelby gave us, it's 156. So meet that in the middle, that's 100 homes. I say if you do quarter-acre lots where existing homes are, cut 50 lots out. I might, with and keep your open space 10% the minimum, and with some amenities, then that might look a little brighter to me.

So you're asking me to reduce it by 50 lots?

So 200 lots. So 55 lots with quarter acre, with any existing home that's built, and your 10% open space.

10%? Well, that's what he's saying. He's saying reduce it by 50 lots, get your quarter acre, and then go to 10% open space.

Can we talk about, I know we're in a good spot here trying to negotiate, but as far as safety, I'm just looking at this for just a second. And this alleyway that goes between, I don't know how to describe it on here, but, yeah, not there, Alicia, more, yes, through there. I mean, that looks like, teenage runway to me of a 27 foot road and a whole lot of potentially young people that's taking us off course but I'm just looking at safety and I can't see anything great about that long stretch of road right there with such a narrow street and so many houses condensed in that area

I mean, I guess you put in speed bumps. You put in your what? I don't know. I'm just going to be quite frank about this. I don't know you can develop this property any other way than to have some kind of those. It's so long.

It's a long and narrow piece.

And that's why we did the curved road the way we did it. The city wanted Cook and that to connect. And you're assuming an alleyway, they're going to go below 15, right? I don't know what the alleyway is.

Well, I would hope that I also have teenage drivers.

I agree. I agree. But that's why we put that there, the through traffic, because that was my concern about connecting Cook and this. You have to have it for fire safety. But our first drawing we had that preceded the drawing, the first drawing that preceded had that varying a lot more because I didn't like the straight path, but it's just, I know it sounds disingenuine, but it's really hard to say, lose 50 lots. It's just, it's a really hard ask. But if, I mean, I'll give it to Greg and say, go to work and see what he has. I'll be honest with you. I see no value in the single family lots. I know they do. I just don't, I don't see how putting that row of houses along there does anything for anybody, but give them a warm fuzzy, but it's not really, it really isn't accomplishing what they want. They don't want people in their backyard throwing things over. Well, now you're assured that you're gonna have people right on your back. You're gonna have 25 feet away, which is what we didn't want in the first, in the first rendition, but that, that just ensures that they're, they're, getting what they don't want. And so it's hard to say, all right, that's a win-win for everybody because a few people win at the detriment of an entire project. And I thought we were really good at coming up with the buffer from going from 30 to 54 and 60.

No, I appreciate that. I think the I think that what I heard when I was listening is, you know, if we have a buffer there, then any and all of those kids are going to go into those areas. And the preference would rather be two people in my backyard, two families against my back, or... Or the six kids, because now they have a bigger house. Or versus, you know, that being the neighborhood park. And throw away. That's what I heard. I can't speak for the residents, but that's to move to a single lot because then at least you know who you're working with. You're working with two neighbors in the back of kids that might throw stuff over versus an entire open space where you could have 600 kids throwing stuff over. Go to plan two. That's how I interpret it. I hear what you're saying. It's a tough property. If it was square and we had some... From an engineering standpoint, it's probably a headache because they're trying to figure out how to... How the burn becomes the rubber. He wants a green plant. But it doesn't... Yeah, I'm sure it doesn't pencil in trying to get the boxes in.

Forget to address one thing. I'm a Boise boy. I know exactly what you're talking about on the berms. I have an office in Boise doing berms. One of the options could be, again, we tried to put the question to give that. personal space buffer for animal thing, and then put the berm, we could shift that berm over to the property line, start at the property line, and put the fence over a ways. The HOA can maintain that. It can be the Boise berm. It can be that and give them the privacy, give them some distance. It's distance that's really going to give this. And then, yeah, the plantings are there. It's not the kids climbing to that. It's let's give the attraction to the kids to not go to the fence and climb over the fence. I just finished design on a big lake. And the big thing was, well, we can't have the kids jumping off the rocks into the lake. Okay. We planted pyrocantia. Okay. You can't stop everybody from doing, but you can certainly just determine.

And I brought that up. We can't figure for the worst case scenario, but I do think I mean, like I said, I think we're coming back full circle. The idea was to, and Jeff probably said it a lot more eloquently than I can, is we've asked to provide buffers in those areas against those. So the definition of what that is is probably different in the minds of each citizen. I get that. And so how do we find, as Jeff mentioned, there's a way to the middle. HAB-Jacques Juilland, A way to the middle to make it work and I HAB-Jacques Juilland, If that's going back and what I yeah I HAB-Jacques Juilland, What I heard tonight was citizen say we met for an hour. And I know it was short and fast and we were trying to cover a lot, but I feel like a lot of what I heard. I don't know that we incorporated HAB-Jacques Juilland, That in as best that it might. So,

Well, we, I mean, we tried, we just didn't get the 18 feet versus, I mean, it's not without the effort. If, you know, if you said, I mean, I could, I can't, I don't even know the engineering side and how it works. I just say to Greg here, do this and he does it. So I can't say, I believe 50 is too much of an ask. to come off there. If we put, if quarter acre, and I don't know, I mean, from what I heard tonight, quarter acre was still not big enough. I don't know if you're going to, if that's still going to be a sounding cry. I do, I did hear loud and clear last meeting that if a quarter acre is, you know, kind of the thing, if a quarter acre works and we lose 20 lots in here, and provide more open space and amenities, that's probably tolerable. I think 50 is a really big ask.

Well, if you lose every four lots, you're losing only nine of the single-family homes along the experience. He's saying he'll take out some.

He is saying he'll take out some far over.

Yeah, because you're saying put a pickleball court back or do something. So if you take out those 10 and you lose 10 somewhere else, that's probably doable. But to put that there and take out 50 lots, that's a hard thing for me to pencil. Okay. So maybe this, and Shelby's not here, so I don't know. Maybe Bill can do it off the top of his head. The other problem with going all that in the back is the AMI becomes really restrictive because now you have zero to do AMI. There's no chance you're doing AMI on any of that back property. I don't know exactly what the AMI requirement is yet. and how you get there because I think it was 50 units if I remember right I can't remember because we talked about it with the current plan it's 50 with the current plan yeah so for me I guess we got to decide how important that AMI is because if we go quarter acres there and I have to I lose 20 lots what is that ami right is is that it's obviously it's not 50 but one of the things i i ask is to say all right if we do all that and we do it can we negotiate and say we're going to lose 20 lots and we're going to lose 15 ami units 75 but you lost yeah And that way we're really at, we're meeting, we still have AMI product. We're giving them what they want. I hope I can make it pencil. I really do. You know, with those quarter acre lots, you're putting a 500 and we were talking about affordability, but you're putting 500, $600,000 homes on those lots. So yeah, that's what you guys want. But I don't know that it meets the purpose of that.

But so I am trying to really- Yeah, I could see how that can conflict with the product type that you're putting in. Yeah, I mean, but it's also another option too, which is one of the- And something we could do. Council Member Dalton, we're trying to, this is a mixed use area. It's another component there as well. Yeah, I mean, I think that along with just, you know, whatever the approach is along that western side, and it could be a berm, it could be a berm and a fence or, There's two right there.

Yeah, I brought that up. Okay.

Joe, can I offer a suggestion?

You're fine.

Come on. What's next? Another hour. So if you got rid of every fourth lot, right, to make the quarter. Yeah. And then you have some here I got to get rid of. Yes. And then you get rid of a couple here. But on this section, because this is Marty's house, these two are in front of his front yard. Like you could probably leave those ones at their current set and just get rid of those. we'll say lots total and put what here just open space that to this health city I see what you're saying you know I mean just get rid of if it's usable yeah yeah yeah because it was a kind of an open space area so you could do that and then figure out what how many other because that leaves like eight to ten lots Additionally, and then you've met the neighbor's request. And then that gives you eight to ten lots to get rid of to meet the city council's request of more open space or less density. And that's just outside looking in. Because those two lots right there. Is Marty going to get mad that there's kids playing there and going to throw it?

No, because that's his front yard. But now we're doing water-wise, so we're okay. I'm just kidding.

Don't even go there.

I see what you're saying. And if that's, if that's the way, if that's where we meet and I can make it work with, with, with the 20, would you prefer, I guess my question is, I know I shouldn't be addressing them. This is such a backwards thing.

I don't want to work with you. We don't want to work against you.

want to work but is is homes is homes by you more more desirable than losing 50 lots and making that or 20 lots and making that buffer bigger and i guess you can take a time out and huddle up but I want to work with Sun Valley. I don't want to work with Sun Valley at a detriment. So meaning, I think we can get the quarter acre and give them what they want. There's a couple of questions as to how that looks, right? And we stretch it. I don't really want to do the long lots because the problem with the long lots is it truly eats open space. It really does. But Now, if they'll plug their ears for just a minute, it's really hard. We will never get anywhere if we have 18 voices saying what they want, and we're going to try to listen to all 18. And I don't even know how they decide, but three or four or four or five or five or six is a much different thing for me to work with just because of the voices. So let's decide what voices we wanna listen to. And I get it, that's really hard. I mean, I know I already have my favorites who I think we could work with, right? I'll be honest, 50 is too much. I think we can get to quarter acres and I think we can get the open space. If that's the ask.

Is that the ask?

Could I ask one more thing?

Yes.

Oh, that's good.

Just like my kids, though. You may not get it.

This is something I really feel pretty strongly about, and that's the product of the fence type. Okay. On the west and the south side, I want it to be precast concrete. On the west side? On the west side and on the south side.

Except around open space? Well, maybe even open space?

No. What do you mean, except for around open space?

Meaning if we leave that corner open, I guess you would want concrete just to those two lots?

Yeah. Like if you change that to open space, basically the fence would start there. That's what you're saying?

Yeah. So the open space would mesh with his front yard and then fenced again. Concrete fencing is?

I'm well aware. Okay. I'm building a building in West Valley City.

Okay.

So I don't know. What is the cost? I don't know. Throw a wrench in it, right? No, I'm not throwing a wrench. Six foot tall, precast concrete fence is not going to allow any kid to punch a hole through the fence. They can throw stuff over it, but they're not going to be able to climb over it unless they lean a ladder up against it. How tall? Six foot.

Hold on. I actually have pricing, I think, in here. And it's not Alexa.

She knows everything.

So can I do this as a compromise to you, Councilman Butler? Let me meet, because some of the Sun Valley residents would rather see the berm, to be honest with you. The berm with the final fence? Well, it was just a fence. But I think we specified a metal fence in the last meeting. But let's try to acquiesce that request because if they're okay with it, if that satisfies them and they have their quarter acre behind them, if we do it the way I'm kind of thinking, they'll have less people behind them. And that seems to be the crux. Instead of four, you might get two. And so I think we can do that. so rather than long and narrow we just a little bit we do wider and then we move that the purple comes down this way and that way gives us more open space on the paseo I like saying that I like your pitch not very many people say the soccer pitch so but we're providing those quarter acre lots all the way around we could wrap it we could wrap it

You're not going to be able to build a home where the sewer line is. We already lose that.

You're going to lose that house. We want to make a trail in there anyway because we want it to go into the next... If we can, it probably goes right into a lot right there. But there is an easement. There is a sewer easement. I don't know if you can make that a trail, but it's in his property, so that's up to the city. I'm not going to start that. Anyway, it has been a long night, and I do appreciate the feedback and the debate. And I do appreciate Sun Valley residents coming and saying, hey, here's some things that we can work on.

So 20 less lots, a fence that appeases the neighbors, that keeps people out, we're I don't think we're all on the same page necessarily on the flex homes, but I think we can tolerate them. How's that? And I don't want to use the guinea pig. I appreciate you coming and present today. And I think I have a different viewpoint of that after this meeting. So we've got that wrapping all the way around, a little bit more open space and some amenities for those kids. Quarter acre lots. Maybe we can get this done 15 minutes next meeting.

I would hope. I don't know. I know that everyone's... That's what I'm saying. You guys are the decision makers. We want to listen to some voices, but not every voice in our head.

I've taken notes for three meetings in a row, and there's been probably all 18 individuals. And yeah, I mean...

So if we can agree to that, And work on a more of a, yeah.

I don't know if all five of us are going to vote yes.

Yeah, I mean, you have your own views here. But I would rather have marching orders than, I mean, you know where I stand. 50 is too much. I mean, you've heard the parameters where I think it's acceptable to me.

No, I would rather not. So we've heard, I mean, everybody in Sun Valley ought to be way happy with corner acre lots. I mean, that's come through loud and clear. But that's their number one ask. And so, I mean, if you can make that work with a great fence and help the new residents to... happy life. I mean, we're very close to being right there.

And decreasing the density a little bit.

Yes.

Thank you for doing this. To appease that.

Do you, but I just, to be clear, does it matter where we lose the density? Just, we go from, we go, we're going to lose those nine or whatever, and we lose nine or ten, we lose ten somewhere else. Does it matter? Do you want – I'm just asking the question because if we lose it – I'll let the engineers decide that.

My opinion – I mean, there's a number of different approaches you could take. I like the idea of trying to think outside – to keep people on the roadways, keep the areas where the kids are going to be from crossing roadways type of thing inside your space. So, you know, centering those areas, in my opinion, they are going to cross from one side to the other. Somebody's going to have to cross from the top to the middle. But you know what I'm saying? Just making it have some more flow to it, in my opinion. I know the boxes have to go where the boxes go, and you've got to fit round pegs into square boxes.

To that, Councilman Thomas, would you rather have bigger amenities or more amenities spread out? Because that seems to be one of the questions here, too.

The community is pretty walkable. It's built to be walkable. It's built to be walkable. maybe it makes more sense More of one central.

More of one central. Versus five or six little. I don't know either.

With more kids, maybe you want to spread out a little bit more.

With a house fit. I mean, you can approach it in a couple, you know, you can have a younger kid area and an older kid area type scenario.

I mean, if you have a one big one, then everybody can come here, sure.

I mean, if you can't build a home over on that... Where the sewer goes through, is that going to be an area that could be green? Open space. Does that make sense for him? And also, you know, does that make, does it make sense? I don't know. I'm This probably has, this one probably has the worst open space of all. This one is the latest one. But I think by widening those lots and squishing them, which helps the residents in only having less people across that, that does give more space in the narrow rectangle portion for you to have more green space between. more buffering between some of those homes, which I think would be the selling point and better too. I didn't probably answer your question, but I think my biggest concern is the buffering. I think that's what I voice. If we find a common ground on the buffering, The area I I think there are areas if you're shrinking that you're going to have more space east to west to be able to no options probably to be able to And I do think we have plenty of parking we may be able to lose that front parking between the commercial and and that That that would be Because I think we were way above the parking I mean, it can be park on one side or the other. I've seen a number of different approaches. It could be central. You could have a park where that parking lot is, and you could have a park over on the, you could go north to south with them, one on the other side. I do like where you've got like the pot lot type little jungle gyms in between. I think those will get a lot of use for your younger, you know, but I don't think you need multiple of them. I think you could, you know, put one in there and then maybe two other larger ones. I don't know. I'm speaking for myself. Interesting. Spread them out. Yeah.

I would say a little bit spread out and then maybe one area that's more of a common area for everyone that has maybe a pavilion and something of that nature.

Maybe pickleball courts. Yeah, I like the pickleball. Those would be used.

Like you could pick a ball back and grab the ball standard right next to him.

Right.

If we put them far enough away, they should be. And if you're like me, you're missing it all. Anyway, you're not really hitting it back because you're not very good at pickleball.

Well, you're playing until...

okay do we need to table this then is that the best approach and it's four and five right you want this one yes do do we feel like this we're good direction you guys okay with everything is there anything i think he's asking for the variances to be

Our code doesn't allow, as it stands right now for these flex homes, and in nearly every one of those instances, that's the reason for it is for the flex homes. So a different product type.

And the concession would be the buffering. Right. using the additional lots to drop in some more amenities. Do you see it differently?

I'm still at the 200. We're in 200 homes. He won't go down that low, so that was my...

I guess my... What about the townhomes?

I put 200 because then we're meeting him in the middle. He can put 260 or 150. a little and we're there. Amen. None of us would be here if we would have just built the original thing from 2022. So I don't feel bad at all how long this process has taken because we should have had those built a long time ago. All right.

Are we tabling it? Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. Mayor, I make a motion that we table items, agenda items four and five. I have to read the whole thing.

Does she have to read the whole thing?

I can just say, yeah, we're going to, I vote that we table agenda items four and five until our next City Council meeting.

We have a motion by Council Member Skinner to table items four and five. Is there a second?

I second.

Second by Council Member Thomas. All in favor?

Aye. Aye. Aye.

No. Oh, and then we have a roll call then. Councilmember Butler? Yes. Thomas? Yes. Dalton? No. Skinner?

Yay.

Williams?

Yes.

Okay, moving on to item number six. Consideration of Ordinance 2026-29 amending Chapter 15 of the Grantsville Land Use and Management Code to add eligible zoning designations for micro-entrepreneurship.

Hi.

Hello again.

Still not Shelby. So this is an adjustment to our use table to allow for a new kind of use called micro-entrepreneurship. to residential areas. This would be underneath the home occupations thing. It's a little bit different from a home occupation in that there are some adjustments that are allowed based on the kinds of uses that we're seeing. And so that's what we're looking at with this. I hope that makes sense.

Not really. I guess. Can you explain a little bit more? What is what is allowed for? I know, Mike. Oh, there you see. Mike was talking about that. He wanted to add this would allow him to add. I don't know, explain it a little bit more to me. I guess I don't understand.

So the idea is not that we're going to be doing a bunch of warehousing, but that warehousing could be a component of home occupations. So we're not going to do like a big Amazon distribution warehouse. But if you were working out of your garage under the auspices, again, of a home occupation, which wouldn't allow for that kind of thing under the way our code is currently written, Let's say, for example, you were silk screening T-shirts and you were running that operation out of your home in the garage. It could be a circumstance where it's a little bit more intense than a typical home occupation. And then... this would allow for that kind of thing so that you could go in and have that kind of business. And it would still not significantly impact the character of the neighborhood, but have a little bit more of an impact than just a regular home occupation.

23D printers in your garage?

Yeah, something like that. The main thing is that we would allow it. We've already identified what that is in the code. We just only allowed it in that one particular zone. So this would apply that to different zones as well.

Let's go to page 11. Because the changes on page 11 are on the table.

Yeah.

And that's the only change. Yeah.

And we've already defined what micro entrepreneurship is. Um, if you remember several months ago, we, we talked about the, uh, the home on the corner over here on Clark street.

Yeah.

And, uh, the idea was to help encourage people to, um, have a business on their property. And there are pretty strict guidelines regarding what is allowed. We would look at things like parking and all of those kinds of things. So again, the attempt is to allow people to do things on their property that they currently can't because of the restrictions. And this just opens it up to make it conditioned. In all residential zones. So if you can meet... Right. If you can meet the requirements and other strictures that are outlined in the code already, we just figure why not. Yeah.

So this is just adding micro entrepreneurship.

To the rest of the seas all the way across. That's right.

Okay.

Let's go through. What was P&Z's?

They voted to approve it. Yeah, recommend approval. Yeah, recommend approval.

What were the downsides that were brought up during that meeting?

I don't remember many downsides.

It just adds more commercial type stuff to your residential areas. Some people may not want that. You want that on your commercial corridors. Based on conditions. Yeah. So they would have to go through that process.

And that's the idea behind all the conditional use permits is that if you can mitigate the potential impact on the existing either other businesses or In this case, the residential areas, if you can mitigate those impacts, then you can get a permit. If you can't mitigate those impacts, then like if you were going to do a butcher shop or a, I don't know, I don't know anyone that would object to a bread shop, but it's one that comes to mind because it produces odors, right? And a bakery wouldn't want those odors in your neighborhood. Maybe someone would find that objectionable, right?

I wouldn't object to that either.

I want a bakery donut in the morning.

That's true. Anyway, that's the idea is to try to keep those kinds of things mitigated.

Anybody have any questions?

No, I think it's good. A lot of people are finding ways to do business. I do have concerns, but like we talked about, A guy like parking people like how do you enforce that? We talked about that with the. In the Clark street one or whatever, but they're conditional, so they'd have to meet those conditions. So right.

And I think as long as they go through that, that process, we're narrow in that process to ensure that I don't see an issue with it.

I think one of the things that has been nice about this is that allowing it where we did allowed us to kind of have a test case and see how it worked in real life. And we haven't had any complaints. So, um, it's been successful for them and, and. Obviously, the ideal is to start out as a micro enterprise, then grow out of being able to do it strictly in, and then you'd need to get a storefront.

It's an opportunity for a small business to grow, which I think is a good thing. It's just that it is a residential area, right? So it's finding that. There's a balance there. Yeah. But I think just like anything, it has conditions. And if those conditions aren't met and neighbors are concerned about one thing or another... all of those things can be brought and that commission can be pulled. So, anyway. Mayor, I make a motion. We approve Ordinance 2026-29, amended Chapter 15 of the Grants for Land Use and Management Code to allow zoning designations for micro-entrepreneurship.

We have a motion by Councilmember Thomas. Is there a second? I'll second the motion. Second by Councilmember Skinner. All in favor? Aye.

Aye. Right? Thank you. Just one thing in regards to the comment that Mr. Van Wyk mentioned. I believe he said that he was going to meet with Shelby and talk a little about his concerns on the overlap between the two sections of the code and just his situation. And I'm sure that maybe something will come of that. And there may be a separate proposal to maybe potentially clean that up. Make some massages and tweaks. Yeah. Yep. With other parts of the code.