City Council - Regular Meeting

The council for the office, but also for the city of Provo. She is a dedicated public servant that comes to work every day, happy to provide any and all service she can to citizens, and that's that's something that she exudes every day. She's an example to me, but also to really everyone in our department, I think, in the city. She's she's respected by all of the departments that she works with, and I really I really can't ask for someone better to work with every day. So, Malia, thank you.

And look, you didn't cry, but I did. So thank you.

Now it's time for your speech.

Alright. As indicated on the screen, a required public hearing will be held for certain agenda items prior to council action. After each such item has been presented, time to comment will be provided for all those who wish to speak. For items that do not require public hearing, public comment will still be taken following presentation of the item but will be limited to ten minutes. At this time, up to fifty minutes have been set aside for an open public comment period, which is intended to allow comment on matters that do not appear on the agenda, but are limited to topics regarding municipal business or within municipal council purview.

Persons who speak during this time to an item that is on the agenda will not normally be afforded a second opportunity to speak during the comment period specific to that item. During any public comment period, each speaker will generally be limited to two minutes. Due to no seeing requirements, no formal action will be taken in this meeting on matters that do not appear on the agenda. Those with comments are invited to approach the podium. Those participating on Zoom will need to use the raise hand feature to indicate they wish to comment. The chair may choose to alternate between in person and online commenters. Please begin your comments by stating your name and your city residence. You will have two minutes to speak. So we'll open it up right now for open public comment.

Hello. My name is Chelsea Hicks, and I'm a resident of Provo. And I'm also a community advocate for the Ruth and Nathan Hale Theater, that just opened up last year. And we we affectionately know it's known as the Ruth. And in an effort to elevate the arts in our communities, The Ruth is featuring cities in Utah County this year, and provost week will be April 20 to the twenty fifth when we will be showing the wizard of Oz.

We have six VIP vouchers for the mayor and city council members and any other city employees that the mayor would like to give these vouchers to to use for the show during that week. And we'd also love to arrange a tour of the Ruth for any city employees that come that night, and I will be the one giving that tour, so that will be so fun for me. And we also would like to, include an ad in the city newsletter and any other city communications that offers a $5 discount to any citizen of Provo during that week for that show. As long as it doesn't get out to everybody outside of Provo, we just want it for Provo residents, and that will be for bookings during that week for up to six tickets per order. And, that's it.

Thank you for your time, and we hope to see you at the roof. Thank you.

My name is Dallin Flake, and I'm a resident of Provo. Two weeks ago, I stood here to to discuss the constitutional concerns regarding flocks warrantless surveillance and the issues surrounding the flocks safety network. Since then, I have shared evidence with all of you over email regarding the lack of independent data regard supporting flock's efficacy, documented security vulnerabilities in the system, and abuse of the flock safety network, both real and potential. I was encouraged this week when your councilor McKay responded to me

to these concerns. She noted in an email to

me that the e video evidence of security breaches is very concerning and has expressed that she's not confident the footage is safe or that the benefits outweigh the risks. In that email, she indicated to me that she would like the city council to conduct a work meeting to fully understand the flock contract and the safety of the data we are collecting on our residents. I am here tonight to formally ask the rest of the council support, councilor McKay, in this request. This is the only responsible path forward. We cannot continue, to ignore, the fact that Flock's own researchers have questioned the company's crime reduction claims, that security experts have demonstrated how easily this data be compromised, and the Fourth Amendment and privacy concerns that it poses to the public.

I urge you to schedule this work session to and suspend the use of these cameras until the privacy and security of provost citizens can be guaranteed. This is happening across the country. Cities everywhere across the entire United States are realizing the dangers of the flock safety network and voting to terminate their contracts, for one reason or another, all of them valid. And I think that, you as city council can take a stand for our citizens' privacy for our rights, and join them in, voting to, look into these issues and ultimately, I believe, terminate the contract. Thank you.

Thank you. Any more open public comment? Alright. We'll move on to our next item. An applied motion on ordinance amending Provost City Code to clarify the duty to keep a proper lookout. I'm also going to read number two because, Matthew Griffins will be presenting on both. The next is also an applied motion on the ordinance amending Provo City Code regarding the criminal offense of battery. Matthew.

Hello? So we discussed these in the last session. I'll be more brief here. Essentially, the the legal department is proposing two changes to our ordinances. The first one is to change this, duty to keep a proper lookout from a class b misdemeanor to an infraction.

We slightly adjusted the wording as well, but we believe that this will make it more in line with, state traffic statutes that are similar to this, city code. And the next is, we are proposing amending our battery ordinance. Right now, basically, the the battery ordinance is already covered by the state assault statute, the way that it's worded. We changed the wording to to cover something a little different where it would cover situations that are not necessarily covered by the state code, where where our officers have a, a case that that is something that would be covered by the state code and a city code, they generally need to or they're encouraged strongly encouraged to to cite it under the, or to charge it under the state code section. But where we have a city code section that is duplicative of a state code section, we wanna change change the wording, and so we have altered it accordingly as we discussed in the work session.

If anyone has any questions, I'm happy to answer them.

Any questions for Matthew? Doesn't look like there are any. K. Well, thank you, Matthew.

Thank you.

Alright. Any discussion on this item? Let's open up for public comment first. We're gonna open up both of these items up for public comment. Did you go over both of them recently? Do the second one. You went over both. Right?

Yeah. He did both.

Yeah. Okay.

Perfect.

Alright. Thank you, Matthew. I have seen no public comment. We'll open this up to council discussion. Councilor Whitlock.

Thank you. I think it might just be helpful to kind of for the folks here and those paying attention online just to kinda describe my understanding in simple terms. What we're doing is essentially, these are laws on the books. Right now in Provo, if you were to hit a mailbox, that would currently be a class b misdemeanor, which is a bit excessive and not what other cities do. It's kind of a bit more aggressive than other cities. Secondly is we have kind of an outdated definition of battery, which more closely matches assault as the state's definition and doesn't give our police officers a way to charge people for things like unwanted touching or unwanted kissing that's slightly less aggressive or serious than assault or sexual battery. Is that a good summary?

Yeah. I think that's that's a pretty good summary of it.

And then one question I asked in the in the work meeting for those here is that I was concerned maybe about taking away the negative incentive for driving safely when it comes to pedestrian safety, but we were told by the attorney the city attorney that if someone were to hit a pedestrian, this would most likely not apply, and they would be charged with something a bit more severe. Is that also fair?

Yeah. The the there's a state code section, failure to yield to a pedestrian, which would more likely be charged than improper lookout. The let's go back to that slide. Usually, we would charge this, like you said earlier, somebody hitting a mailbox or some other property, something unattended. It could also just be an accident with another vehicle. I think in theory, we could charge it for a for a pedestrian accident, but, typically, there are other sections that are more applicable to charge than than this one for that situation. Thank you.

Any more discussion?

Alright. We'll go for a vote. We'll

vote on each independently. So first, an ordinance amending Provo City Code to clarify the duty to keep a proper lookout. Councilor Garrett? Yes. Councilor McKay? Yes. Councilor Christensen?

Yes.

Councilor Whitlock?

Yes.

Councilor Bogdan? Yes. Councilor Hoban? Yes. Councilor Whipple? Yes. So that passes seven o. Next, an implied motion ordinance amending Provo City code regarding the criminal offense of battery. Councilor McKay? Yes. Councilor Christensen?

Yes.

Councilor Whitlock?

Yes.

Councilor Bogdan? Yes. Councilor Hoban?

Yes.

Councilor Whipple? Yes. And councilor Garrett?

Yes.

That passes seven o. Thank you, Matthew.

Thank you.

Next, a revolution approving an interlocal agreement between Provo City and Utah County regarding funding for State Street Trail improvements from 300 South to 900 South. This will be presented to us by Vern Kiesler, our traffic manager.

Good evening, chair McKay, vice chair of Christensen. I don't see him. He must be online. And hello.

Oh, but I'm listening.

Great. I'm happy to be before you to ask for approval for an interlocal agreement between Provo City, Utah County. This will provide the funding for the State Street Trail between 900 South and 300 South. We've already completed the trail from 900 South to Slate Canyon Drive. So that's on the East Side Of State Street.

Last year, we were able to work with UDOT, and UDOT put a traffic signal at 900 South by the cemetery. So the next phase of this project would be to complete the trail up to 300 South. We do need an interlocal agreement between Utah County because we're using their funds through Mountain Land Association of Governments. Furthermore, UDOT has committed, not officially, but as soon as the Transportation Commission approves it, a few $100,000 to assist us in doing doing new curb and gutter along that stretch. So we're really excited. We got four partners in this.

That's very exciting. Thank you. Any questions for Vern? Councilor Whitlock?

Just to kind of paint the picture a little bit. So this multiuse path is primarily for, like, walking and biking. Correct?

Correct.

Yeah. And and do you which side of the the east side? Correct?

Yes. It will be the continuation of the one that's currently on the East Side.

Perfect. And then just a few constituent questions. Will this affect parking on the street?

No. It will not affect parking. Drive access will be affected because we're doing new curb and gutter. We're doing the new curb and gutter, not the deep well curb and gutter. So they will be the beneficiary of new driveway approaches between the sidewalk and the street.

Perfect. And then last question. There's no change to the street itself. Correct?

No. We're not gonna change the crown or the striping of the street. It has buffered bike lanes, if I remember correctly, along this stretch.

Yes. Yep. Thank you.

Alright. Thanks,

Brian. We'll open the sign up for public comment. Any public comment on this item?

Hi. My name is Aaron Wheatley. I live here in Provo. And, I didn't know this was come coming on the agenda before, but it's really funny. Two two weeks ago, I was biking with my, young kids. I think you've seen me here before with my kids. And, I was literally on that road. We live semi close there, but we wanted to go to a new park. And I was on there, and it was kind of amazing how nervous I was feeling. And then I look across, and I see some other people who are on bikes who I I would assume live in that area, and I just can't imagine having to do that every day or even multiple times a week.

There's bad you know, if you're in a wheelchair, there's really bad access for that too. Thankfully, I'm not in a wheelchair, but even I'm on a bike, it just opened up my mind. And so I thought it was really cool tonight to see that, and I would urge you to to vote for that. Again, I don't live in the area. I did use it. But especially for those people who live in that area, let's get them so they can be safe. It's a super fast road. We all know that. We all know that. Let's, give some some space so everyone can feel safe getting around in our beautiful city. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other public comment?

Hi. My name is Ethan Unclesby. I am also a resident of Provo. I wanna echo Aaron's comments and say that even though I don't live in that Provo South neighborhood, I live in the Timp neighborhood, I do use that area on my bike all summer, every summer to go to Bicentennial Park and do the story time with the kids in the the library. So I I wanna just echo that. I'm sure it would benefit the people that live there. It'll also benefit other people in Provo that travel to do Provo things. So oh, yes.

Thank you. Any other public comment? Alright. Seeing no more public comment, we'll move to council discussion. Any discussion on this item? Councilor Bogdan.

I might ask Brenna a question. Why did they do this section last? Do you think they do this section first?

That's a good question. I don't know. I wasn't here during the time they did the first section, so I could deplete the fifth. I just don't know.

Well, I think it's amazing that they're that they're doing this. I think that chunk needs should have been included in the first place.

Yeah. It's kind of the GAP project. If you recognize what they've done on 3rd South on this part, it's done all the way from 7th East over to 5th West.

Mhmm.

So it's about time that we get this GAP project completed.

I agree. And that new curb and gutter should be help with ADA access. Correct?

Absolutely. We'll have new ADA ramps at the intersections, and it will be a much better curb and gutter that will carry the water without storing the water.

I like that idea.

Yeah.

I'm sure they like that idea too. Thank you.

Any other discussion? Alright. Well, this is an easy one, Byrne. Thank you. We all love trails, improving our curb and gutter away from those old ones that people, like, get stuck in. Fantastic. So thank you. So we'll take a vote on this implied motion. Councilor Christensen. Yes. Councilor Whitlock? Yes. Councilor Bogdan? Yes. Councilor Hoban?

Yes.

Councilor Whipple? Yes. Councilor Garrett?

Yes.

And councilor McKay? Yes. So that passes seven o. Thanks, Vern. Next, this is gonna be a short meeting. Next, an ordinance amending Provost City code regarding development standards for the year 2026. This will be presented to us by David Day, our assistant city engineer.

Thank you. I'll I'll try to be as brief as possible. I don't know if you have that presentation, Andy, that we used in the work session. So we have two things going on here, the standards that we normally update every year, which in the work session, it didn't seem like there was really any questions on those. The second item was changing the some of the road cross sections and getting rid of the lowest one.

It seemed like maybe that you wanted to keep that, but as is and not change that. But I maybe I'm putting words in your mouth, but I I can just answer any questions you have. I'm just trying to be as brief as possible in consideration of your time.

Any questions for David? Thank you. Yes. Councilor Garrett.

And, Dave, thank you for your presentation a couple of weeks ago. Very helpful and insightful. Relative to the street width, if this amendment is passed, would we be limited or restricted in considering a 24 foot width for an infill project or for any special development that might justify a narrower street?

Yeah. So from my perspective, it would probably be best to keep the 24 foot width and just make sure that we strictly enforce the no parking on one side. And and that way, it would be available to use in infill and on other low volume streets.

Do you feel developers would would this be the default width for most developers in proposing new development in the city where they would automatically prefer the 24 foot width for their development for for efficiency?

It it it's used very sparingly. They have to have a low volume of less than 400 cars a day be able to use this width. And so that would be somewhere around 30 houses. Mhmm. So it it's it's not used very often, but it is used in smaller cul de sacs.

It's common on a cul de sac. It's common on a road that is kind of an infill road where we don't expect a lot of volume on that road. The the predominant choice of developer is the thirty thirty feet road. And the reason why they do that is so people can park on both sides.

Okay. And maybe I can rephrase my initial question, Dave and I value and appreciate your recommendation to keep the 24 foot with considering the scenarios I presented. Let me ask would that if we were to approve this though, would that preclude us from using the 24 foot Or would that still be available for

special projects? So you'd have to approve part of the changes and not approve the change to the 24 wide road width. Let me go real quickly to the proposed text of so right here, we we would just get rid of all of these changes right here on the on the road standard for the 24 foot wide road. So but you would have to make

that one. More of a Brian question. So, Brian, if we wanted if, say, for example, if you got rid of the 24 foot road in code, what would we have to add so that we can do an exception if we want for certain infill? For example, that TIM project we did that was so awesome, where that got a more narrow road and that was appropriate and worked for fire and police and

Well, yeah, I mean, I I guess the simple answer to Gary's question is if you eliminate it as an option, you've eliminated it as an option. So if it's not if it's no longer in the code as a viable option, it's not an option.

But we do exceptions all the time.

Only if the code says the I mean, only if the exception is in the code.

So there's no way to put in wording. I'm saying that we put in wording for discretion.

Well, discretion becomes a very problematic concept because discretion without criteria is asking for a lawsuit because then what happens is you get sued on the basis that the discretion is being applied in unequally. So I guess I'm not understanding what the concern I mean, if you're trying to

Well, for example, we did a more we've done more narrow roads in 24 in neighborhoods where like, TIP neighborhood. So that new development we're putting in, we're doing a road that's more narrow because it was an infill project where it made sense, and it was still passed off by fire and police. So we do do exceptions.

I'd have to defer to David on that. I don't know about that specific project.

Yes. So even our alley width is 24. So that's really as low as you can get and still maintain a fire access, And that that's why we stopped at 24 and didn't go narrower, was to keep that fire lane width that needs to be there for fire to access these developments. So if if you did the math really close on a 24 foot wide asphalt width, you do have another three feet. So you end up with 27 feet from face of curb to face of curb.

So if you parked a car right against one side of the road really tight to the road, you'd end up with about 23 feet, 22 feet of of fire lane access would be the remainder of the road with a car parked there. If if they were parked a little bit out, you'd still you'd still be the twenty, and twenty is kind of a drop dead for a fire access width. So 24 is kinda deceiving the number we throw out because we do have three more feet. So it's really a 27 face of curb to face of curb.

So I suppose to I suppose to back up if I'm understanding correctly. If if you if you if the council's intent is that you want to allow twenty four four foot roads only in certain circumstances, and you don't want people to be able to ask for them unless those circumstances are met, that's fine, but we need to put what those circumstances are into the code. So we would need to instead of just deleting it, we would need to add some kind of provision that says 24 foot roads are allowed under the following circumstances.

Over so right now, this is how the code reads, and we've redlined what we would change to get rid of it. So if you wanted to leave it in, we would get rid of those red lines. But in this chart over here on the right, it has some stipulations of where that road can be used, and it talks about the 400 vehicles per day. We we could edit that with some other ideas that you have that would even further limit that, you know, the 400 vehicles per day plus some other criteria that you guys feel good about.

K. Thank you, David. Any more questions for David? Councilor Whitlock.

Thank you. One question I had is, so sometimes the city will do bulb outs, on intersections that for safety features. How would this change affect the ability to do bulb outs for safety features?

So on our standards, when we have a 24 foot wide width that we're talking about, That's that's what a bulb out width is, so we don't have a bulb out because it the whole road is. When we do 30 foot wide roads, we do come back in, and you'll see that transition at the intersections choking that road width down. So I I don't think it would change that. And the reason we don't choke it down any narrower than than the 24 foot wide asphalt with is the same for fire access and stuff. We've we've done turning templates on these corners, trying to turn a fire truck and stuff, and and we feel like that we're as tight as we can get it.

I I don't know if you've been in some of these subdivisions out in the lot of the dump trucks end up driving over the curbs to make the corner. And so we're we're trying to make it so our our emergency vehicles can get in there.

And then just for as far as these development standards apply, the same standard holds true for other types of traffic calming measures like gutters or plant boxes, that type of stuff? Or I should I should say what plant boxes? It's basically or is it just for the blacktop width?

Yeah. So this is just for the width, and then we we incorporate the standard curbs and sidewalks that we put on every road. Is that what you're asking?

I

I'm I'm more asking, for example, if does this it's more just for the for information. It's like, if there are other types of things that are not physical infrastructure, blacktop and and and curbs and sidewalks, is that applicable here, or is it just for the blacktop width and curbs and sidewalks?

Yes. Because so our our planner strips, what we put in there is dictated by other code. We don't we don't specify that here. So, really, we're just saying the dimensions, and then we refer to what is put in those spaces in other areas of the city code. And part of it's the planning code, and part of it's the engineering, and part of it's parks. So it's it's pretty interwoven.

Counselor Bogdan.

How do garbage trucks do down these roads?

What's that?

Garbage trucks? How do they do down these roads?

Big trucks.

Garbage trucks.

Garbage trucks. They do fine. So they're they're a standard garbage truck with, which we've already accommodated for. Probably our harder truck to get down it is a snowplow. I wish we had snow, but those are, like, a 12 foot wide snowplow blade on the front, so they have to kind of work around to get down the narrow roads.

And how wide are the garbage trucks?

They're less than 10.

Are they?

Yeah. They're

pretty narrow?

Yeah. With well yeah. Otherwise, they have to be a wide load.

Okay.

Be signed as a wide load.

Yeah. Alright. Thank you.

Councilor Whipple. So

Catrice has mentioned that she believes there are some streets that are narrower than 24 foot in the city. How many streets are

I'm not aware of any narrower Oh,

I thought you said that there were some in the new development that you just talked about.

24?

They're 24.

24. Are there any that are less than 24?

Oh, I see what you're saying. The infill for temp. Yes. I did think that we gave them an exception for the back road that went behind the townhomes and stuff, you know, between, like, the gas station and the new homes. Yes. But maybe I'm wrong.

But but is that a

new sort of That that was more of a a driveway parking lot. Yeah. And just incidentally, the distance between parking stalls in our code is 24 feet from back of stall to back of stall. So that that's also a common thing. If if you have angle parking, you can narrow it down to 16. So if they if they were to incorporate that into their design and have, like, a one way in and out, they could narrow that up there. So I think all of those things are workable.

Okay. So we we think that anything that's less than 24 foot would be, like, a driveway or a parking thing. So to your knowledge, are all of our streets at least 24 foot wide?

I I haven't. I'm thinking of the streets that are over on about eight East just

Like the Shakespeare Street.

Or South Of Center.

Yeah. The Shakespeare neighborhood.

Yeah. And I think those are right about 24, but I'd have to go measure it. That they are, like, a a old neighborhood that had narrow roads, and that's probably the narrowest that I'm aware of.

Yeah. I I've spoken with many people who live in the Shakespeare neighborhood, and they really like it. It with those narrow streets, it's more human scale, and it's safer for walking. Cars naturally go much, much slower with the the parking on the streets and the trees and everything. Like, it is a much more pleasant place to live and to travel through, traveling slowly and at low volumes.

So I like that we have that, and it is an old established neighborhood that is working fine. So I don't understand the need to change the standard when it is very much working in the neighborhood where we do have the narrowest streets. I'm not saying that we should do street diets and reduce all of our residential streets to to that width through the area, but having that variety seems to be an asset to our city.

Yeah. And a lot of the well, the width is dictated on the future build out of the city and what volume we expect on that road. So, you know, that volume on those roads is gonna change. It's been there, and it's just gonna stay pretty static. But the the advantage that neighborhood has is they have alleys in in back of their homes, so they don't really there are a few driveways, but a lot of the access for vehicles in the back of the home, which which is kind of a really good thing.

Oh, yeah. It's well designed.

The livability and the drivability.

Yeah. I recognizing that we've already got a solution for the emergency access by doing parking on one side, which is what this says, I'm trying to understand why we would take this option out of code if by doing so, it means that we can't do it even as an exceptional thing.

Yeah. And, like, it's kind of up to you if you wanna make it more restrictive and and you see something that we could do. Right now, the only restriction is the the traffic the future traffic volume. So if if you thought of something else we could add there, that'll that'll be fine.

Are there other other areas like the Shakespeare neighborhood where that we can think of that have this kind of narrow street where it is more of a problem?

I I don't know of any other streets like that. That's the one I always go to because I've driven down it and I've explored it. We we do have new subdivisions that have the 24th. I think we have somewhere around 18 or 19, somewhere around there of segments, 24 foot wide roads.

And is this the kind of thing where you have a 24 foot wide road going to a cul de sac so that you would have anticipated very low traffic volumes.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's the idea. And and then little

Or, like, the t things.

U shaped roads that have low volume.

So if the road is designed like that with the dead end, it's unlikely that would ever exceed the volume requirements that would make this 24 foot width inappropriate.

That's correct. So you'd have to have something really change.

Like, tear down a house and build the road out through it?

Free road and and connect it to an I 15 interchange or something like that.

That would be much more drastic.

Far fetched. Yeah.

Yeah. Alright. Thank you.

I do have a question for you. There's three of these that have been recently built in my neighborhood that are 27 feet, and they all have the bulb outs. And there's lots of trucks because a lot of construction was going on, and they're always going over the

Going over the curb.

Yeah. So there's for sure bulb outs.

So we may need to go look at that because there shouldn't have been.

Like, it's hard to come in and out at the same time.

Yeah. We'll have to look at that closer.

Any other questions for David? Craig?

Yes. Just a quick question. I understand that we would be able to make people aware when it's a new neighborhood that they would be aware that it's just parking on one side of the street. This kind of restriction to one side of the street, we hear from lots of neighborhoods that it's just very frustrating. There aren't enough places to park.

It creates parking challenges. Wouldn't this wouldn't this just exacerbate the the ability to for people, new citizens to park their cars? It just seems like we're we're we're contributing we're we're not paying attention to the the neighborhoods where parking has really been a been a challenge.

Yeah. As I meet with developers and builders and such, I always suggest to them that they need to go with a 30 foot wide road width so that, you know, both sides of the road can if they want to park park on the street. But there are circumstances where our code allows them to go to 24, and that that's on these lower volume. And and we try to put that no parking on the side that the fire hydrant's on so that our emergency vehicles have access and don't have to worry about cars being in their way when they pull up to the fire hydrant. I, yeah, I I know personally the street I live on is 36 feet wide.

And, you know, people are parking on both sides, and there's still room. And I live by an elementary school and for ten minutes in the morning or fifteen and fifteen at night. It's it's a kind of a dodging game, you know, as people go down the street, but it it's it's a livable width. It's it's wider than either of these two. But, you know, if somebody had a trailer or a boat, they could park it on the road and not worry about people running into it. So I could see both sides.

Yeah. I I I like the idea of having the 24 foot guideline or 24 foot roads where we do have the we pay attention to the the vehicle count. I think that helps to address when this would be appropriate and when it when it would not be. So if if that vehicle count is part of the part of the guidelines, that makes me feel a little bit more comfortable with the 24 foot road. Although, I think there are some significant trade offs in terms of parking and creates a different set of issues. Thank you.

Thanks, Craig. Any more questions for David? Alright. Thanks so much, David.

Okay.

We'll now open this item up to public comment. Anyone's welcome to come up for public comment on this item.

Alright.

When's the timer start? It's on now? Okay. Name is Alexander Monson. I've lived in Provo a while, and this is an issue that is near and dear to my heart. I know that Provo is very committed to safety and very committed to high quality of life. I respect all the work that Provo has made done to make this a safe and high quality of life city, but I'm worried that this change would go counter to that. These 24 foot streets are really wonderful. I remember walking around the Shakespeare neighborhood. I don't live there.

Maybe one day, I hope to, with my wife, and we, said to each other, this is somewhere we would love to raise our kids. And that neighborhood feels so safe, and it's really because of the 24 foot streets. And it's honestly because of the parking on both sides of the 24 foot streets. When this came up in the planning commission meeting, I did some reading. I read everything I could on the subject, and there's very, very scant, very slim evidence to suggest that streets that have a narrower than that 20 foot clear are more dangerous than fires.

There's very little evidence to suggest that's a the streets that you see in the Shakespeare neighborhood, even with the parking on both sides, very slim evidence to suggest that they're more dangerous than fires, and mountains of evidence to suggest they're more safe in literally every other situation. Your orders of magnitude more likely to sustain a traffic injury than you are to die in a fire. And these streets with the parking on both sides, these narrow streets really cut down on your odds of taking a traffic injury. We all know that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and I'd really hesitate to sell just a huge stockpile of prevention we have in these, these, you know, parked 24 foot streets. They're really wonderful for traffic safety.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi. Thank you. My name is Jacob Wixom. I'm a resident here in Maser. My wife and I actually moved our family down here from Orm just a few months ago for this among a handful of other reasons, the human scale in Provo.

I'm a social scientist and a consultant, and I wanna strongly make the case for narrower human scale roads. Here's what I worry could be missed in this discussion. This is exactly the kind of regulation that leads communities to reject new development. When residents fight new housing in their neighborhoods, they can't always articulate what they're protecting, but they know it when they see it threatened. They know that the old neighborhoods everyone loves, the ones where kids ride bikes freely, where you know your neighbors' names, where you actually feel like you belong somewhere, Those places work differently than what we're building now.

And regulations like this are why. The 24 foot street is shared space. Parents can watch their kids play from across the street. Neighbors can have actual conversations without shouting. Traffic moves slowly because the street feels like it belongs to the people who live there, not the cars passing through. At 30 feet, much of that dies. The street becomes a barrier instead of a connector. Cars speed up. Kids stay inside. That spontaneous interaction that turns neighborhood into a community becomes so much harder and less likely.

And here's what breaks my heart. We don't even realize we're doing this. We think we're just being sensible about traffic flow and emergency access, but what we're actually doing is choosing car convenience over human connection. We're making it structurally impossible to build the kind of neighborhoods people are willing to fight to protect. Then we wonder why there's so much resistance to new development. People aren't being irrational when they oppose new housing. They're protecting something real, possibility of knowing their neighbors, of the kids playing outside, feeling rooted in an actual community. And when they see regulations like this, they see us destroying those possibilities six feet at a time. If we want people to welcome new housing instead of fighting it, we need to show them that we understand what makes neighborhoods actually work, not just traffic engineering, but human flourishing. Thank you.

Thank you. My

name is Ethan Uclesby. I live in the Temp neighborhood, and I would like to apologize to anybody watching online. I'm going to speak to you from 45 feet away, the width of my street.

At Timpanogos Elementary in Provo City Schools, all of the children are taught tigers give me five. Tigers are taught to be safe. Tigers are kind. Tigers are responsible. Tigers are respectful, and tigers are problem solvers.

Point number two. On January 12, I got a warning for parking on 600 North right across from the library after 8PM in a permit parking only space. My child is a Timpanogos tiger who is learning to be respectful and responsible and safe and kind and a problem solver. I consider myself a Tipanovus tiger, and I will never park on 600 North after 8PM without a permit ever again because that's what a responsible citizen does. They follow the laws.

We already have a rule where if you have these 24 foot streets, there's no parking on one side. And I think it is disrespectful to the citizens of Provo to believe that they can't follow the rules. We have to make a whole new law because some people can't park in a someone can't stop themselves from parking in a no parking zone. I think we should believe better of our citizens that if we establish a no parking zone, people will not park in it. I believe that council member McKay is already looking for exceptions. That means we're not solving a problem. I think that means we're creating one. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

My name is Barbie DeSoto, and I live in Grandview. So I just wanted to echo some of the same sentiments people have said. The best streets in Provo really are the 24 foot streets, the Shakespeare neighborhood, like, was mentioned. Walkable neighborhoods are also the highest value neighborhoods in terms of, like, home values. And I wanted to make the point that if we really want families, we need to make spaces and and neighborhoods where they can raise their kids. I live on a street where people go 45 or 50 miles an hour. My kids can't go to the front yard. They're nine and six, and I still don't let them because if there were something to happen, they would die. No doubt. And a lot of times what happens is on those streets, those houses become rentals, and that destabilizes our community.

That makes it so that there's you know, the home values drop in all of this. Mhmm. And in fact, I actually think that we should have road diets almost everywhere because of that. Because if kids can't walk around and be free and safe, like, what are we doing here? You know? I think council should consider changing the volume requirements as well. I'd go further. And actually not make it so that they widen because of volume. Because if you widen it but you don't raise the speed limit, then people are just gonna speed and break the speed limit, and it becomes unsafe. So we need to go the opposite direction.

I wanted to point out also, construction is temporary. I don't see why we should make a permanent change to our permanent infrastructure that increases costs for our budget and liabilities when construction is people if you're driving a truck, you should be able to go not on the curb. Like, that should be a requirement for somebody who has a license to drive that kind of truck. I mean, I think that's pretty basic. And most emergency calls, as probably somebody's pointed out, are ambulances, like, 10 to one or something.

It's a really crazy statistic. But and I wanted to point out also not all people want parking to take over the entire neighborhood. We should keep the 24 foot streets in the toolbox as an option, especially in places where we have to have more density because that will take pressure off of your

Thank you.

Hi. I'm Susan Krueger, barber and live in Joaquin and have worked with the city of Provo to create street diets in my neighborhood. Joaquin Streets are at least 45 feet wide, and we regularly have pedestrian car collisions here. I haven't even personally witnessed a car hit a bike. The wider the streets, the more dangerous they become.

In Chicago, during an art residency, I worked with city planners, businesses, engineers, and organizers regarding Milwaukee Avenue. Ten years later, they skinnied the street and prioritized safety. It is a joy to experience now wider streets, narrower lanes, raised crosswalks, bull bouts, art, and now flourishing businesses. Also, I've helped make a documentary about Boulder's community cycles director. Boulder is embracing skinny streets and a speed limit of 20 miles per hour.

I filmed and experienced these efforts. Cities all over the country now choose the opposite of wide street minimums that prioritize cars, opting instead to value the safety of their communities. A 30 foot minimum reflects older thinking, while new studies from NACTO, UCLA, and the John Hopkins Bloomberg School encourage 20 to 28 foot width for residential areas. I end my time by listing college towns that are implementing the new recommendations. South Bend, Claremont, Boulder, Ann Arbor, Tempe, Lexington, South Bend, Fort Collins, Johnson City, Eugene.

Let's prioritize community over car culture for residential areas. Make streets for people of all abilities in transport. Narrow streets save lives. Let's design for 20 miles per hour. Let's design for people and families. 20 is plenty.

Thank you.

Hi. My name is Emily Weatherhead. I live in the Shakespeare neighborhood. I have several neighbors who couldn't be here, usually because sick and children, but there are lots of children in my neighborhood. I feel so safe in my neighborhood. I have friends who go on regular walks in my neighborhood. We just we're we feel so safe. The trees are like this canopy above our neighborhood. There's a street directly behind me with, like, four or five families with children under the age of 11, and they literally do what was said earlier. They come out.

They walk around. It's, like, amazing to see. And, it would be really awful to lose those spaces because we are prioritizing these big streets. As a resident of that neighborhood, I have seen fire trucks in my neighborhood. I have seen ambulances in my neighborhood. They don't really have in my eyeballs. I have not seen any scrapes or any collisions from emergency vehicles. They do just fine in this neighborhood. Maybe it could be a little bit easier with code enforcement. There are a lot of rentals in Provo.

A lot of people over rent, and you're supposed to have, was it, two off street parking spots, and that's an issue that I think is maybe not being addressed when we're looking at this. We don't need to sacrifice this kind of wonderful living space. The houses in my neighborhood, like, they are covered in. One goes up and it's off. It's average off, I'm not even joking, in, like, three weeks. It's a beautiful place to be. I drive around in Orem, and I see yellow lines through these neighborhoods that have houses facing in. That is so opposite of what we have. And I'm like, oh my gosh. Like, how do people let their children, like, comfortably do that?

Like, yes. It's it's just totally different. And these minimums, at the very least, allow these places to be built. We want high density. We want that ability. I don't really have no issue. I've been there for almost ten years. Thank you.

Emily? Thank you. Chair McKay, can I ask Emily a question? Absolutely. Do in your neighborhood, in the Shakespeare neighborhoods, do residents park on both sides of the street?

Residents do park on both sides of the street.

So there are no parking restrictions on one side?

If there are, I haven't seen any signs Yeah. And people do park regularly on both sides.

Emergency vehicles are able to get through?

Yeah. Actually, so where I am, I am three houses down from a corner, and then the very next house on the other corner Mhmm. A resident did die there a couple years ago, and I remember seeing an ambulance or a fire truck, like, parked right outside.

Mhmm.

And my street specifically, actually, I can only say for sure that there are five houses that are owner occupied, and so everything else is, like, rented as far as I know. And so my my street is particularly packed with cars, and I do remember seeing a fire truck, like, not in, like, a weird 2AM time, but I mean, if

it Right.

Thank you, Emily.

Okay. Thank you.

Hi. My name is Laura Leavitt. I'm a vice chair in the Central Neighborhood District. I wanna echo what everyone else is saying, and I guess just kind of apply some of my personal context to it. I am a user experience designer, meaning that I work in tech, and we're often trying to think of the most intuitive way to get people to perform the tasks that they need to in an app.

When I think about street narrowing, it it feels like the most intuitive way to limit driver speed. It's just easy if you think of it as yourself being a driver. When I think about the streets in my neighborhood that are also 45 feet, people do park on both sides. Happen to live on 400 East, which is a bit of a collector road. There aren't as many stop signs, and it's scary.

I live in a neighborhood full of children and parents who are terrified to let them out on the street. I want you to think I hope everyone is will be familiar with this road, but just the street that goes from the ice arena over to, like, toward Wasatch, north to Wasatch. The speed limit is actually the stretch that I drive, it's not even posted there. I think you could easily go 45 miles per hour and feel comfortable. It's just massive versus something like the Shakespeare neighborhood. The other thing that I wanna say as, like, a just a neighborhood rep is that I've been surprised this is my third year, and I actually do get three minutes instead of two.

Yeah. That gets three. Yeah.

But oh. K. You're good. Awesome.

I've been struck by how many projects have come to our neighborhood meeting, not by, like, even hippie bike walk Provo people. I love bike walk Provo people. I'm just saying that, like, sometimes we think that this issue is going to be you know, there's there's, like, one demographic that fits it. I'm thinking right now of the project that we did recently on 100 North between 500 West and the freeway. People were cruising so fast on that.

We finally have, like, one of those little speed, like, yeah, the little radar things, that I hope is helping. I'm thinking about how one of our most recent CDBG grants was for elementary school students to cross. Right? Because it was so dangerous where they're crossing. I just can think of so many places in Provo where wide streets are the problem and not narrow streets. Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Tyler Fleishman, and I drove here. And because

Where do you live, Tyler?

Say again?

Where do you live?

400 South. Amazing.

Yeah. And

because I do want better driving in Provo, I strongly, urgently support narrow streets. To help explain why, I asked a friend for her perspective on the topic. She said, quote, I am on city council in Falls Church, Virginia, and I'd like to share our experience on road design. Falls Church is very similar to Provo in that we've seen rapid population growth and concerns about traffic and safety. Over the past two decades, Falls Church has grown its population by about 40%.

But during that same time, surprisingly, total traffic has dropped by about 10%. This happened because we made deliberate investments in walking, biking, and counterintuitively, street designs that physically slow cars down and make neighborhoods safer without relying on constant enforcement. The result is that Falls Church is no longer a convenient cut through for fast traffic. It reduced overall vehicle miles traveled and reduced traffic over time. We're now investing investing to undo the mistakes of overly wide streets from the nineteen seventies.

In that process, we've made clear that street design, including for emergency access, should prioritize saving the most lives. That often means making trucks fit our neighborhoods instead of widening streets to accommodate higher speed traffic, end quote. Her experience shows that the shows us that traffic congestion in Provo is a design choice, not an inevitability. Wide streets are anti driver, but they're also anti family and even anti Provo. Things changed over the years as Provo abandoned traditional street design like the Shakespeare neighborhood.

Federal money and national highway standards pushed us towards wider, faster streets, designs optimized for through traffic, not for places where people live. We built California style roads that we would never have chosen to build on our own because the funding rewarded width and speed over convenience and quality of life. My daughter was born six days

Thank

you.

Hi. My name is Aaron Wheatley. This is why I came here, it's cool to see the other one, like I said. But I live in the Joaquin neighborhood. I did it on Google. It looks like my road is about 36 feet. There's not that many cars that go on it, but they go fast. I, last week, was driving here on Center Street. And after the first bump right there, you know, after university, I quickly noticed I looked down, and I'm going 25 already. And it's a 15 mile per hour.

This is something that I'm I care about, and I even noticed to myself that, wow. I'm automatically speeding on this road. I knew I was come gonna come here today, and I realized, like, how crazy that was that even when I'm trying to be aware of it, that I still automatically was just going so fast. So that's the things I wanted to bring up. But then one other thing I just do wanna say for this, but in general, as a council, I would encourage you to look at ways to reduce the rules that we have.

It sounds like we already have some rules for this, you know, parking on one side of the street. We're trying to address these things, but let's focus on the things we already have on the books and try to enforce the things that we have instead of adding another thing. Because if we're not even enforcing the one that's on the books and we add another one, I don't have a lot of confidence that we'll be able to enforce that. And I know that if we do that, it will make it easier for all of us. If we as citizens can know what the rules are, we can follow them much better. If we have to read the huge, you know, novel to understand how to live in Provo, that's not a place any of us want to live. So I'd encourage you not only on this, but in the future to try to focus on let's let's do the things that we already have and see if that can address our problems. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Hi. My name is Grace Tuler, and I'm a resident of the Timp neighborhood. Last year, I completed a goal to walk every public street of Provo, so about 300 miles of road. So I have a lot of observations on the walkability of Provo's streets. And in general, I've had a much more pleasant, experience on narrower streets. Like others have mentioned, the Shakespeare neighborhood is very pleasant and walkable and livable and, just feels very, lovely to walk around. So I would love for similar neighborhoods to be possible in Provo. And so for that reason, I think it's important to allow for 24 foot foot roads to remain an option in the city council. Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening, council members. I'm Aaron Scabland, and I live in the River Grove neighborhood. I speak tonight as a representative of Bike Walk Provo, a local nonprofit that advocates for street design that makes it safe, convenient, and fun for all people to move around our city. I am also speaking as a representative of the Utah chapter of Families for Safe Streets, a national organization which confronts the preventable epidemic of traffic violence by advocating for life saving changes in communities. One of the most effective life saving changes that both of these organizations advocate for are narrower streets.

Narrower streets are safer streets. Narrower streets are the best traffic calming device. Narrowers narrow streets enhance the safety of everyone, especially older folks and children. Both of these organizations are opposed to this ordinance for all the reasons so eloquently articulated, by those who have made public comment this evening. Not allowing for narrow streets for for streets as narrow as 24 feet, in new developments will make those streets more dangerous.

This ordinance may also adversely impact the city's efforts to retrofit our existing streets to make them safer for, people, of all ages and abilities. We shouldn't be making it more complicated for the city to do that, but easier. Please keep and make our straights our streets even safer. Please vote against this ordinance. Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Brooklyn. I live on 200 South close to Pioneer Park. This is Briar. And we we bike everywhere in Provo. We didn't used to, but we 've learned since living here, I went to BYU, that Provo is growing, and it will soon not really be feasible for cars in our experience. So as we've made that switch, it's been a really positive experience for us.

But

we know firsthand of the safety of Narrow Roads. We live on 200 South, which is a very wide road, and something that started happening within the last few months is the rush hour traffic that's going down Center Street to get to the freeway is so backed up that the cars are now coming down our road. And with that being a very wide road, that means and there's no stop signs on our road, so that makes it very appealing as an alternative to get to the freeway. We're getting lots of cars, and I, like he was saying, understand how natural it is on a big wide open road to just speed right through. That's very nerve wracking for me when I'm on my bike and Briar is in the trailer.

And, yes, I would love to see choices made that support narrower roads because they do feel safer. I would also like to speak towards the future planning aspect of narrower roads. We are faced with the future that we may always be renting the rest of our life because there's not enough houses in the ones that there that are available are very, very expensive. I I think that decisions that will support public transit and easy access as well as high density housing and us being able to live in a house one day would be awesome. Thank you. Thank

you.

I'm Jonathan Handy. I've lived in the Joaquin neighborhood for over seven years. I live on 800 East currently. It sounds like a lot of people here are, care a lot about streets that are a human scale design, narrow streets that encourage people to live. And it sounds like the main reason for this consideration is emergency vehicle access, which is an occasional, hopefully, never thing that needs to happen.

As we take, as we add space to the road for cars, in our cities, we're doing so at the expense of taking space away from people for living. So I would posit that perhaps, though it's not the scope of this discussion, But perhaps in the future, a better solution would be to have smaller emergency access vehicles. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Great. Let's have Phineas Jensen speak, please.

Here to an island on

Hi. I'm Phineas Jensen. I live in the I actually don't know the name of my neighborhood, but, just by the rec center. And, I would just like to point out that, first of all, this is we've talked a lot about narrower, safer streets, and I strongly believe that those are better and safer. And it's very important, but this this ordinance doesn't even concern narrowing any streets.

It doesn't concern changing anything that we have right now to be more narrow. It's only about options that are possible in the future. And I don't think it makes sense because of parking or potential emergency vehicle access to restrict this thing that is so beloved by the people that live in neighborhoods that have narrow streets just because of these these smaller issues, especially when we have proof that they work already. We have the Shakespeare neighborhood where these streets work well. I would also like to make a comment.

In a council work meeting a couple weeks ago, I believe, one councilor mentioned that they didn't believe that narrower streets make people drive slower, and they cited the narrower part of 500 West. And I just felt I needed to push back on that because, there's a lot of good statistics and common sense out there that shows that people do drive more slowly on narrower streets. And if people are driving really fast on 500 West, it's because it's not a narrow street. At its narrowest in the more southern end of the road, it's only or it's over 40 feet wide. And as other people have mentioned, that's a a speed or that's a width that makes people drive really fast, usually unconsciously.

So I would also urge counselors to keep the 24 foot road as an option. Thank you.

Thank you. Clark Clark Davis, your turn.

Hi. Thank you. My name is Clark Davis. I've lived in Pearl for nearly twenty years. The Joaquin neighborhood now in Dixon. And, I'll maybe bring a little bit different angle to this. I wish I could be there in person, but unfortunately, I'm out of town. Well, I don't disagree with what's been said. My my my angle kind of is infill. I live in Dixon and live in an old house. We fixed it up. We love it, but would like to build a new house. We don't wanna leave the neighborhood. We don't wanna leave Provo. And I have explored infill, doing infill on a couple different blocks that right now are just back backyards full of weeds.

There's three of them identified in that area that could be done, and I have worked and reworked kind of aerial view plans of those multiple times. I'm a designer by by training. I I do furniture design. If I have a strength, it's probably working in small spaces. And what I've experienced is if I had to put a 30 foot wide road in there, it would be nearly impossible, to make that work.

I came to the meeting last week and saw a lot of support and excitement I felt for infill. And I feel like in my neighborhood in Dixon, it would make a huge difference to bring some high quality detached, single family dwellings that would bring stability. Out. The Dixon neighborhood could definitely use that. And maybe miss I'm misunderstanding, but to put it, to get the required frontage, these are more than just a flag lot.

There's there's some places you could put six to eight units in. And I actually haven't asked for the city, and that would be to consider a 20 foot with no parking on either side as an option for infill to allow some of these spots where you'd have to take a house down to be able to get, you know, the access to the center of the street or the the the lot. That a 20 foot with no parking on either side will be a huge benefit. It's it's allowed by international fire code, and I think not from this

Thanks, Clark.

Hello. Dallin Flake. I live in Provo. I, didn't come here tonight to speak on the subject, but, having listened to all this, I I actually I I don't claim to be an expert or anything, but I have I do know a little bit about street design, and it is very much the case that smaller streets do decrease, traffic speeds through their very design that decreases the amount of policing on that you have to do on the traffic to reduce speeds and so forth. It's it's safer.

It makes for more enjoyable neighborhoods. I mean, I I can just echo everything that's been said tonight, and and I don't know if I really have anything that would be necessarily different to add. But I I do want to jump in and just add my voice on this because, I think that limiting our options, in terms of, like, potential future development is it makes no sense. Why would we limit our options? We should have everything available on the table.

And when this is particularly, this design, this these 24 foot streets are clearly so well loved by the people that actually live in them, why would we why would we throw that option away? And so I just wanna, you know, throw my voice on here as well on the subject because, ultimately, what what is our goal is to create, safe and enjoyable space for us to live. And I I have to say as well, like, these neighborhoods, I've walked through them many, many times. I used to live on the East side of the of the, Shakespeare neighborhood. I would walk through to go to Smith's.

And as soon as you get out of it, all of a sudden, it's much more uncomfortable and much less safe, and and didn't feel good to be in. But as soon as you go back, all of a sudden, it's just so much more enjoyable. And each walking trip decreases the amount of traffic. If we're concerned about the amount of traffic, this is a solution. So, yeah, just wanna add my voice on that. Thank you.

Thank you. Any more public comments on this item? Alright. We'll turn it over to council discussion. Any count counselor Garrett?

I'd like to ask questions of our traffic engineer, Vern, if you wouldn't mind. I'm trying to get some relative perspective of I know the condition for the 24 foot road is 400 vehicles per day. So I'm trying to In my mind, I've come up with three streets I'd like to ask. 500 North is that a 400 vehicle? And I know you don't you'd have to look more closely at your data but just based on what you know about that street, would you expect that would be in excess of 5400?

I would probably think so but I would have to take a look at it.

Tim Fue Drive?

Way more than.

700 East?

Way more.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. Any thoughts on this issue, Vern, as long as you're at the podium?

For me, it's all about mode choice and safety. We need all of it. We need the ability for people to walk, bike, scooter, moped, rollerblade, vehicles, motorcycles, whatever method they choose to use, we want them to travel safely. Right? The other thing in regards to this, and I think this is the big question is, I love the option for narrower streets.

They provide an opportunity for most of the things that have been said. Not all, but most of the things that have been said. Okay? I think the big question is, we currently have in our ordinance is the no parking on one side of the street. To me, that's the bigger issue, not the 24 foot width.

The 24 width street can work fine. We just wanna make sure that when our emergency vehicle partners are attending a fire or medical emergency, that they can get access to our residents and their homes. And so that's my concern is I want to everybody to be safe. I love the option for design. We just need to make sure that we can get through to serve what these fine people do in the back in uniform. And that is they provide medical attention and emergency services for us.

Thank you, Vern. Thank you.

Councilor Hoban.

Okay. So first of all, thanks to everybody for their comments. Appreciate the perspective, and, you care about our city. You care about safety and and our neighborhoods and such. So appreciate all that.

I have little kids, of course, and lived on busier roads and less busy roads. Called the called one of our police officers once and somebody is driving too fast. So totally get it. The I guess the the question I have, and maybe some council members can enlighten me, I'm not really understanding all the comments. I I get that they're against wider roads and against maybe more lanes and such, just generally.

But this specific thing that we're debating today, if I'm not mistaken, is do we want 18 feet? So so you have 30 feet. Each vehicle is six feet wide. Subtract 12 feet. You're at 18 feet. You have 24 feet. You subtract six feet. You're at 18 feet. So we have 18 feet of drivable space whether we pass this today or not. So do you want 18 feet of drivable space with cars on both sides or 18 feet of drivable space with cars on one side?

I think that's what we're debating today for this specific issue. I think the broader question of do we want less than 18 feet of drivable space is not what's being debated here, though it is potentially something that could be debated. But I understand that what we're debating today is do we want parking on one side or not? Because the the drivable space is the same. I'm not sure if that was conveyed properly in the presentation, but I I think so.

But based on a lot of the comments, I'm not sure that it's really understood what we're debating today. As for the debate of whether we have less than 18 feet of drivable space and have smaller roads in general and whether it's parking on both sides or one side or not, you know, neither side, I think that's just a bigger debate. So am I mistaken in that? Somebody

No. You're you're completely right.

That

is But but are there considerations that I'm not taking it? Is there something I'm not taking consideration? Maybe maybe a 30 foot road with no cars parked on either side

Yeah. That's what I was gonna

say. Is gonna have faster traffic than a point before.

But your statement assumes that there's always cars parked on both side of the street.

In developments today, typically, we do unless they're these large lots that, you know, newer it would have to be a really like, I think in my neighborhood, I can see where we do have wider streets and there's not necessarily cars parked on both sides

Same for the

the most part. These established neighborhoods, I see that. But in the newer developments, like, I have my rental property on the West Side, they're more dense. And pretty much everything we build nowadays is more dense, though not always. But okay. I I see that's probably the only thing maybe that I'm not considering. Okay. Thanks for humoring me as I work through that.

Thanks, Travis. The yeah. You're right on that. So a few things I wanna talk about. So what isn't being done right now? Is it due to the the fire marshal? This isn't a voting thing of the council, but there needs to be parking on one side, and that is not happening right now. There are three streets in my neighborhood that were just built at 27 24, and they the neighbors were not told there's parking all over the street, and they're gonna lose parking on one side, and they're very upset about it. Now all of these streets line up to Canyon Road. And so if there's an event or something, they're gonna have to park on Canyon Road.

There will not be enough parking on the street. There's it's already the parking is already full on both sides, so that's gonna another thing. But, so they're very concerned about that. And I am worried. I lived in the Foothills where we had a parking permit program, and there was no parking on the street. But people had events, whether, you know, parties or baby showers or church events, and people just disobeyed the parking because there was no parking, and they couldn't figure it out. So in an emergency and now on those streets, it wouldn't matter. They're wide enough. But on these streets where they're not wide enough, I do think an emergency matters. I think it's important, and they may be rare.

But a life's a life. An emergency is an emergency. It matters. There are ball valves on all of them. There's ball valves on the 27 foot 24, sorry, foot streets by my house.

What Travis said, you know, that 18 inches is it is relevant. It's still the same amount of if there's a parking, which generally there is. There absolutely should be exceptions. There should be situations for the 24 foot because there is certain infill, like Clark Davis was saying or, like the Tipp neighborhood that we did. Those are really important, and those infill projects is paramount to make them happen, and I think that's really, really important. But there's plenty of open land on the West Side. In my area, it was a bunch of old orchards and horse land. You know, it wasn't an infill project. There was and those the streets are small. No one's speeding.

They're not speeding streets. There's no problem at all with speeding. There's no problem with the volume of cars. None of that is the issue. It is the parking and that people want to park and that I'm worried that people will just park on both sides in an event and cause a problem there. So I think we're and and then I so I talked to the developers of those streets, and they said that they just did the 24 because it was cheaper. And so I asked them, you know, did you pass those savings onto your the lot buyers or the home buyers? And they said, no. I sold them for the maximum I could, period. You know, they didn't that that savings of doing a more narrow road was not passed on to the home buyer.

So we have received emails from citizens that are gonna be losing parking on one side, and they're very upset about it. And they say that they need that parking and that their street relies on that parking. So there are gonna be a lot of upset. I think it's 11 streets. Is it 11 streets that we need to 16 to 20? Okay. I was wrong. So there's 16 to 20 streets that are gonna get a wake up call when they have to go parking on one side. And, yeah, the issue is not about construction. That's Barbie's right. That's a very short period of time. It doesn't that's not what this decision is about. I think it's about long term parking. It's sustainability of neighborhoods. And like we said, we're building a lot smaller.

We're we're doing smaller homes. We're doing denser developments. We're doing infill. We're do there's external ADUs we're doing in places. Like, all of these things make it more dense, and the parking is all the more needed. We have people living multigenerational. We have you know, the it's a huge issue. And, doing more concrete in garages is becoming less and less usual. People aren't doing it. So there's they're not able to park all their teenagers or the multigenerational families in their home. They have to use the street. So those are just some of the ideas I had. Jeff Whitlock.

Thank you so much. I I I think just a couple thoughts here. One is it seems to me that I agree with what you said, Travis, that the real question here is do we essentially want to take 24 foot streets with parking one on one side out of the optionality for the for developers and for people purchasing? Not necessarily not necessarily do we want smaller streets with parking on both sides. That's not an option on the table right now.

A couple a couple thoughts. One is I think as we've all talked about infill development, we we really need it in lots of places in the city. I really like Clark's comments where he basically just said some of the and I actually met with Clark, he showed me some of his concepts, and they're amazing. And some of those things just would not be possible when you require the 30 foot road plus our existing setback laws. So I personally don't see why we would take away this option.

If we wanna add additional requirements, we should add those requirements. But I I don't really feel comfortable taking away an option that in many types of developments that we talk about we need are seeming is seemingly necessary. And as far as I understand, the administration and the and the fire marshal are neutral on both options and maybe even prefer the because I I actually was doing some math, and there's actually more it's not actually quite as simple as what Travis was saying because cars are a little bit wider than six feet. And and there's a lot of cars that are up to seven feet wide, particularly when taken mirrors. So there's actually more space for emergency vehicles to get across on the one side parking with the 24 foot than there is on 30 with parking on both sides.

Because if you have two seven foot cars, that equals 14 instead of just seven. But we're only adding six feet. Sorry. That was a lot of math really fast, but maybe you're following me at least, councilor Garrett. So those are my thoughts on the matter.

Councilor Bogdan.

Fire marshal hubs, can you come up here for a minute? I just wanna address some comments. Have there been times that you guys have had ambulances you could not fit down those roads that you've to take the gurney out and the equipment out and go race into a call? There

have been. I measured the streets, and they're actually less than the 24 standard, and they have

Are they?

Parking on both sides. It's not been very often, but, yeah, I've I've carried a gurney all the way down the street in the snow when they couldn't get a snowplow down. So we had to, you know, carry it all the way through the street once.

Thank you. Also, I wanted to address some comments that keep on coming up. I do know that Europe has smaller fire vehicles and smaller ambulances. Do we have those options in The United States?

Not that I'm aware of.

We asked this question in in work meeting as well. And, I know that he was saying fire chief was saying that there are some ambulances that are smaller, but you can't work in the space that's allotted in the smaller the smaller areas.

Yes. Like, European countries have basically, like, the Florida Connolly line vans and stuff that they convert into ambulances, but that's not, like, a purchase option for us here. They're sold by very few companies, and we have to take what they offer. And I don't know of anyone anywhere that has a fire truck option in that.

Thank you. Yeah. I do wanna say that on my streets, my kids have walked around. What I am worried about is more my sixth grader going to be seventh grader next year walking all the way over to Shoreline. One, because I love her to death, but she's she's lost that brain function that I'm sure a lot of those younger kids have.

So I'm worried about her safely walking, but I'm not worried about her safely walking around my neighborhood. I have five year old kids still to this day, two year old kids just wandering around my neighborhood, playing around my neighborhood. I interact with my neighbors across the street, and my street is not 24 feet wide. I don't know how how wide my street is. Do you know off the top of your head?

I thought yours was 24, but I No.

My haven't been

able raise your Okay. It's definitely not 24. It's definitely wider than that. And the more teenagers you get, the more cars you get. And I am going to echo what some of my council members have said is we try to maintain the characters of their neighborhoods, we and try really hard not to take away parking anywhere. Is that right, Vern? We try really, really, really hard. We only do that when it is absolutely necessary. On 5th West, they took away all the parking, and it is really, really, really hard for those people. There were some issues with Slate Canyon when we took away that parking, and it is still really, really, really hard for those people.

We had to increase the fees for our parking permit programs, and it's really, really hard on those people. We do have laws on the books that say you're supposed to be able to maintain all of your vehicles on your property, and it's just it's still really, really, really hard. I don't think we're at the point yet where we can go where there's no parking on a street, and I don't think we're at the point where we can say, hey. We can take these narrow, narrow roads and go ahead and and have parking on both sides. I think we've got to accommodate the fire, and we've got to accommodate the ambulances because these poor guys, even if it may be on occasion, are still hauling these gurneys and all this equipment down for lifesaving people down the street.

I really do respect what they do, and I am in support of making sure that we can get whatever our fire needs down these streets. Thanks.

Mayor Junkins.

It's on. Wait. When the light was green, it was off. Right?

Thank you. Okay. Thank you for letting me give my input. And I appreciate all that everybody has said, the public comment and also the really thoughtful comments of the city council. I know this is a a difficult a difficult choice.

Right? It it feels like a difficult choice where we have parking and we have narrow roads, and there's pros and cons to all of that. And I so I've been as I've been thinking about it, as people have been talking, if we take a if if we pass if you, not me, if you pass this tonight, the question still remains on what happens to those narrow roads. Are we still taking away parking or not? Because that's not addressed in this. Then we will not take away parking.

That's not to be addressed. The fire marshal has said that parking will be taken off 24 foot streets and lower, and

that is his So it's going to happen either

happen regardless.

Okay. So it's gonna happen either way regardless. Way, period. Okay. And that's fine. I just wanted to double check on that because if that's gonna happen anyway and moving forward, we put no parking signs up. It won't be removing parking from anyone. They will know from the get go that there won't be parking on one side of the road. And as I've talked to our fire personnel, they say that there's no problem if that's the case. Right?

And I just I just worry that removing this 24 foot option entirely is restricting this council and future councils from making decisions about infill projects that would require a 24 foot. I mean, we've talked about the infill. And and it it seems like keeping it in but using it more strategically would be the better option. And so thank you.

Yeah. I agree with you. I don't think anyone wants to get rid of it completely because there's infill projects where it's appropriate. But a developer just doing it to save money or make more money while parking is an issue for citizens when we're trying to do more dense stuff doesn't make sense, in my opinion. Councilor Whipple.

Yeah. This is, I think, a point where I will disagree with you. So we're in agreement on the necessity of preserving this for infill and redevelopment projects. And you are critical of a developer who did that and didn't pass on cost savings. But I would argue that that neighborhood got the benefit of having the narrow street that's more human scale, that feels safer to walk on, and is more welcoming.

So even though they may not have gotten a monetary benefit because there's less asphalt, they have that environmental benefit that's built into their neighborhood. And that is a very real benefit that you can feel every day even though it's not a pocket budget issue. So I think it's important that we preserve this for new developments even in areas that appear to have a lot of open space. Because if the roads are narrower, then you can have more housing density, which is, you know, places for people to live. And you could have more green space, and you have a better quality of life.

I am every once in a while sitting to cross University Avenue and 300 South, and I just look at the size of that intersection and think how many homes in their yards could fit in that sea of asphalt. Like, we use a lot of potentially habitable space in asphalt, in roads, and in parking. And I'd prioritize places for people over places for cars. So I do want to preserve this option for the city. I don't support removing it from our code.

I think this is in line with the best practices and industry standards to keep this as an option. With regards to the competing safety concerns that have been raised, having access for a rare event, which is important, or having the everyday benefit of the safety for everyone who lives on there as they drive, walk, or ride their bikes. In a utilitarian calculus, the everyday benefit that all of the residents have wins over the one occasional potentially catastrophic event if we're just looking at at balancing these numbers. So and the the last thing that I'd say is that I want to preserve this option for a possibility where if we wanted to do a road diet, to narrow the roads or to do really big bulb outs or chicanes or things like that. And I'm worried that we would lose those options if we reduce the asphalt width that's required by our code.

I want us to have the flexibility to meet the demands of our community and the recommendation of our traffic engineers.

K. A couple things. I did watch the planning commission meeting, and the fire chief distinct fire marshal, Lynn, distinctly said that he would stick with recommend the 24 inch roads. So he did say that. And just for the record, the people who live by me because they made a point of it's been a big thing of discussion since the roads were built. They hate the narrow roads. They're very frustrated by them. They get sometimes they can't get one car through. They drive a lot of big cars, and kids have events. There's events going on, and they cannot get through sometimes.

And they're very upset about the parking that's going to be removed. So they're very upset the roads are more narrow. But so there's just different opinions on it. There's people have different priorities, and I understand that, and it's hard to balance them all. Councilor Whitlock.

Could we ask? Because I think I made an assumption earlier, but I I would be curious if we could ask chief Hedman what his position or his thoughts on this are. That'd be really helpful.

Thank you. The position of the fire department is whatever is best for the development is fine. We just need to maintain the fire code access of 20 feet. So however we may however we manage that fire code requirement is okay with us. We have had rare occasions where we couldn't get in to a a medical. Hasn't happened on a fire yet. That would be more catastrophic, But it's it's it is the exception. So

Thank you. Yep.

Councilor Garrett.

I I want to add my thanks to that expressed by some council members to the many of you here and online who have taken time to address this important issue. I recognize the value also of the 24 street and here interest in preserving that as an option. I would like to explore the possibility of creating in code an exception that would allow that would provide for a provision for this for infill projects, other important redevelopment projects. And so I would make a substitute motion that we ask staff to create in this code a provision that would provide an exception for for infill for certain kinds of projects our redevelopment that would allow us to still have the 24 foot option for those projects.

K. Do we have a second on that motion?

I just have a a clarifying question. So is the idea that we would leave the 24 foot thing, but we would add more restrictions for when that could be used from what's in the existing code? Is is that your intent?

Could could you repeat that, counselor?

So the current code allows for the 24

foot Yes.

That's correct. Certain conditions. Is your request that we add more conditions for when a 24 foot could be used No. So that it would be exceptional?

That we approve the ordinance, but create a provision that allows for exceptions in the event of infill or development for the 24 foot road.

Okay. Thank you. I I think I understand better now.

Councilor Bogdan. I'd second your motion your substitute motion.

K. Councilor Hopin.

I guess I appreciate the sentiment. I just don't know if we need it because you could just well, here's the thing. You you can't allow parking on a 24 foot and still meet the state code for fire. So you if if I'm if I'm not mistaken, we can just leave it as is and just you have the 24 foot option, you just can't have parking on it. We have to enforce that. Right? Which we haven't done up to this point. So there's really no need

that to to be open everywhere that every developer can fit

So you're saying so you're saying I'm trying to understand the sentiment a little bit, but and I'm not being argumentative, by the way. I just really wanna understand. So you're you're saying so generally, it would be 30 feet parking on both sides. There would be certain situations where we would go down to 24 feet parking on one side, and and you're you would want staff to come back with some sort of recommendation around that?

A provision that would allow for that for redevelopment or infill.

The specific to specific types of developments. I'm sorry. I'm still just

a little are we saying that we would continue the item until they come back with the recommendations?

Yeah. So

And not or approve the the condition what is it called? The something motion?

I think

I think staff would need time to come back with Yeah.

A recommendation

on it.

So So it's a continuance then with okay.

Right. Patrice?

Thanks.

Yes, Brian.

It seems to me I I'm not in grave I'm sorry. Sorry.

Go ahead, Greg.

Sorry about that. I raised my hand, but you didn't see it.

Sorry. It seems

to me like we already have Gary, we already have those opportunities in what we have. So I'm not in favor of withdrawing, you know, this option. I I think it's a valid option. We already have, I think, those protections. We've I think we've got the what what's currently on the books, I think, addresses those exceptions for infill and other things. So I don't feel the need to really do anything, and I'm I'm not in favor of of withdrawing this as an option.

I'm sorry. I I didn't totally understand what you're saying, Craig. So You're going with it as is?

Yeah. I'm just saying I would keep it as is. I don't I'm not in favor of withdrawing it. It seems like the current language we have, we already have the ability to, create exceptions for infill. I don't see why

it's just like The difference he's saying so right now, any builder can pick 24. Please pick a 24.

Yeah.

They're saying that to do exceptions, at least that's what I understand from what Dave what David was saying, that we do need to put in exceptions to keep the 24 sometimes for infill and redevelopment.

But but my understanding is you can only do the 24 foot road on certain streets that have low numbers of traffic.

But you can do them any developer can pick that with that load.

Are the

Yes. And that's most residential streets. So Well,

I will is it It might be

oh, sorry. Chair, I'm and I don't know if David wants to hop. It might be worth clarifying that. He had showed this chart, which I can't read. So I guess the question I would have that I'm not clear on from this discussion is, is the 400 trips per day the only requirement?

Yes. So it's it says so we have to add for infill and redevelopment as also an requirement. So it couldn't be new streets where there's dozens of acres and the room you know what I mean? It you'd be considering the size of the development and that that was needed to make the project happen.

So in other words, what we would do is add more restrictions to the existing requirements in order to do a 24 foot street. Yes. I'm not in favor of that. But Understood. Think we now understand what the motion is and where we are. Yes.

Does that make sense, Craig? And I don't know if you're for or against that.

That that does make sense. I I don't feel the need for, additional, language or restrictions on this.

Okay. Thank you.

Alright. Pass a call. Oh. I was just gonna ask. So right now with the four hundred four hundred trips per day, we can use it in anything that's less than that, which generally implies infill and other kinds of things. So what you're saying is the 400 would not be the criteria. It would be the other issues. Is that what you were I I'm just trying to understand

what It would be it'd be also adding that it was infill or redevelopment.

So the 400 would not be a controlling element. It'd be those other elements. Okay. I didn't understand

that. Yeah. Discussion on the motion. Have we we're I think we're doing that. Is there any more discussion on the motion?

Who seconded the motion? Okay. Thanks.

Alright. We'll take a vote on the implied motion.

No. On the substitute.

Thank you. We will take a vote on the substitute motion.

And this is to

this is to continue it, basically. Yeah. Because we have to come back with language. So counselor Whitlock? No. Counselor Bogdan? Yes. Counselor Hoban?

I'll say I'm vastly on this one, but a continuance will give us time. So I'll say yes to the substitute motion.

Councilor Whipple? No. Councilor Garrett?

Yes.

Councilor McKay? Yes. Councilor Christensen? No. So that passes four three. So we will come back to that one.

Chair McKay? I'd I'd just

like to note that there are multiple other things that need to be changed in the code. And as far as I know, there's been no counsel objection to any of the other things. And so I just wanted to recognize that this item is Can we pass the rest the just the 24 foot thing. Yeah.

Can we

pass the other stuff?

Yeah. Well, the problem, I suppose, is well, no. The the no. Because the publishing isn't legally required anyway. So the the the real problem with trying to proceed is that I'm anticipating there will be a debate about whether you proceed by deleting it and then adding it back in later or proceed by leaving it in and coming back later with the with the exceptions?

If that's not a debate, if there's an easy answer to that, the way that you could proceed the easiest way for you to proceed is by leaving the 24 foot in for now by deleting lines eleven and twelve and thirty two through 34 of the ordinance. Okay? And changing part three to part two at line 36. If you make those three changes and and public works updates before the on base process proceeds exhibit a

Shouldn't what does it matter to you guys to get this done tonight, is it okay if it all waits? Just wait.

Yeah. And but what they might wanna do, I think, to councilor Whipple's part, we may wanna bring back part one of this ordinance separate from part two so that it's easier to take care of everything else in one go.

Okay. Thank you. K. Alright. Thank you. Malia. Just quick question. As we're coordinating with public works, on the specific language regarding exceptions for infill or forget what else you said. Infill development. Redevelopment.

Are there specifics council can think of now other than because currently, it's 400 trips per day, which automatically limits it to smaller development. Are there other criteria that council has now, or should we coordinate with you out of this meeting on what those specifics would be? Because just infill or redevelopment leaves that really wide open as far as code. I think it's a Gary, do you want? I think it's about things that couldn't be done otherwise.

You know what I mean? Like like, the temp project. Like like, it's it's the weird little infill. We've done some up in Carterville. We've done, you know, those kinds of things where it's still safe with works with fire and police, but that to get those infill project and I I would I think that the I would think that development development could figure that out and know what's appropriate. But Okay. It's it's not it's about not that a developer can just pick it because they wanna make more money.

Chair McKay, how would you feel if council office worked with public works and development services and brought just this portion back to the work meeting?

They just hid it to all council. We can all look at it.

Perfect.

Councilor Whipple.

So it occurs to me that there are some projects in which narrower streets are useful because of grade or sloping, where if you can have the narrow street, you have less cut and disturbance in the the hillside areas. So I think it's useful for that even though that doesn't meet your infill or redevelopment requirement. Also, I think it may be useful if you more clearly defined what you mean by redevelopment because I think taking a farm and turning it into houses is a redevelopment, and I believe that is not what you intend. So I just wanted to you. To kind of think through what that means.

We need I can't I don't

think well on the spot.

That's okay.

That that's why we work together.

Yep. Yep.

I I just had a question about a statement of fact that seemed might be helpful to clarify as we're thinking through this is when director Day, you were giving your presentation, you said 400 trips a day is primarily streets leading into a cul de sac or streets that basically go around, whereas there were some other discussions saying 400 trips per day is most residential streets. Could you speak to that?

Yeah. So it it would be a calculated volume for that segment, and it would be based on how many units were contributing to that section of road. 400 trips a day is really low.

You said it's, like, 30 houses or something. Correct? So we're already talking about quite small developments within infill. Okay.

We we also use the narrow roads and hillsides to try to limit the cut into the mountains, so that's another use.

The question. So so, Jeff, your point with that is is that it it's gonna default to 30 feet a lot of the time. So we're debating situations where it's gonna be kind of rare and only Yeah.

I'm I'm still just not really clear how in code we define what we're trying to get after. And so, again, I'm happy we can let the administration go do it. The motion passed. I don't wanna be a stick in the mud, but I'm still just, for myself, a bit confused.

Alright. If there's no adjourn have no objection, we will now adjourn the Probodemissible Council and convene the RDA Governing Board by unanimous consent. An implied motion on the election of the redevelopment agency of Provo City chair and vice chair. This will be presented by Justin Harrison.

Alright. I am so glad there's so many public commenters here for the RDA meeting. Just quickly, so the RDA bylaws dictate that the chair and vice chair of the municipal council will serve as the chair and vice chair of the RDA board. The vice chair serving vice chair of the council is serving as the chair of the RDA board and vice versa. However, title two, pro city code two point o five zero two o sets forth the process for electing a chair and a vice chair of the redevelopment agency board should the aforementioned positions not be desired to be filled by by the vice chair of the council and or the chair of the board.

So so long as that made sense, please nominate and vote for a chair of the RDA board.

Councilor Bogdan.

So, Justin, what we're saying is that it's not in the bylaws that the council chair and vice chair are the RDA chair and vice chair?

So it is in the bylaws. However, if the vice chair of the council chooses not to serve as chair of the of the RDA board, then the RDA board may elect a new chair. If the chair of the council board who, by bylaws, would have served as the vice chair of the RDA board

So has

serves as the chair of the RDA board, then

you So has Craig said no? No. We I nominate Craig as the chair of the RDA board. I would second that.

Do we have to do him separate?

Well okay. Now I'm equally confused because he he is already the chair of the RDA board.

Okay.

I thought

It'll be good to go.

I'll I'm I'm I'm totally confused because I thought we had this worked out, but we

Don't we have

Don't we still have to officially vote?

No. No. No. The only reason we were voting is because we were under the impression that one of the two people that would automatically be put in did not want to serve.

Craig, do you wanna serve?

Yeah. I'm I'm happy to serve as the chair of the RDA board.

Katrice, are you willing to serve? Yes, ma'am. Alright. Then I I'm

That's great.

I'm good. I'm out here.

So we don't We don't.

If there is no objection, we will now adjourn the RDA governing board by unanimous consent.

Almost withdrew my substitute option.