Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right, we're going to call the Midvail Planning Commission meeting to order. It's October 22nd, 2025. Robin is not here, so I'm going to be leading. Um, we're going to start this meeting like we do all of ours. We're going to do the Pledge of Allegiance. If you can stand. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Can we get a roll call vote, please?

Or not a vote, a roll call. Vice Chair here. Commissioner Tippetsz here. Commissioner Snow here. Commissioner Leki here. Commissioner Edwards here. Commissioner Kasparian here. Thank you. Did we all have a chance to review the minutes? Yes, I did. Yes. Any comments? I had none. Okay. I'll entertain a motion. I make a motion that we approve the minutes from October 8th, 2025.

I'll second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? All right, thank you for that. Let's get on to the public hearing portion. Um, number A on the agenda, we have Daniel Herszog requests preliminary subdivision approval for a 16 lot subdivision located at 743 West Bingham Junction Boulevard in the Jordan Bluff sub areas 1 through3 development JB 1-3 pod C zone. Jonathan Anderson is presenting.

Thanks, Chair Ericson. Um, so like you said, this is for a preliminary subdivision. Um, this is for phase two of the Jordan Heights project by Homes Homes Development. Um, it is at the southern end of the city. Um, you can see there phase one, I believe, is pretty much complete, right? Yeah, pretty much complete. Um, so here's just the preliminary plat. Um, and the site plan has previously been approved. Um it was approved by city staff a couple of years ago. Um so this is just for the subdivision of the property. Um you will see some future subdivisions um as these are condominium buildings. Um this is just the overall subdivision um for the individual lots for those buildings. So you will see more of this in the future. Um and then we just have the findings and conditions um as what was in the staff report for this project. So, any questions? I did not get any um public comment on this.

Thank you. Cool. Not at this time. And Daniel is here if you have any questions for him. Yeah, Daniel, if you'd like to come up. You don't have to, but if you'd like to give us more detail than Johnny was. Uh, it's pretty simple. Since it's a second phase, it's good. But I just wanted to just mention that how great it's been to work with the with the the group um led by Wendelyn. It's been and uh Jonathan and Elizabeth has been absolutely spectacular. So just probably one of the best planning divisions in the in the state honestly. Um yeah, it's pretty much the same thing, but you will be seeing us come back in with uh all of the buildings hopefully the first part of November um with every condo building in on its own plat. It's going to be a long list, but basically the same thing over and over. So we'll be back for that.

Okay. Any questions at all for us? No, I appreciate the sidewalk you got put in, though. It's nicer than running on the road. It's it's wide enough. It's definitely wide enough. And then the uh trail will come in along there that's uh finishing up as well. It's going to be a spectacular spot. Yeah. So, anyhow, excellent. Yeah. My goods. All right. Thank you. Thank you so much. Appreciate your time. And thank you for the fair warning. Yes. Yes. We'll keep our eyes out. It'll be almost comical. We'll have Yeah, we'll try and laugh. We'll bring refreshments. All right. Um, I think we can open this up for public hearing. It is said open.

Seeing no comments, I move that we close the public hearing portion. Second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Thank you for that. Like to bring in Daniel. Um, any words of wisdom from legal? Well, you had me confused on the last time that Daniel was here. if you had any questions. Uh so this being an administrative decision, it's for the planning commission to make. Uh if it meets the requirements, you are required to uh approve it. If it doesn't, and in this case, as you've been briefed, it doesn't fully you can deny it or you can also approve it with conditions as what was recommended.

Right. And it sounds like there are conditions that Johnny has noted. Mhm. Um, so those will carry with this. Yeah. Any comments, questions? I just have a a couple comments to the developer. Um, I have had a lot of phone calls from owners in this project or the first the third phase, I think. First phase. First phase.

First phase. The one that we've we've done. And yeah. Anyhow, they were um they've made a lot of comments how that there is just not a lot of extra parking and I know this meets the code for parking, but they just haven't had a lot of response from the HOA or from the developer about any possibilities of creating any additional parkings parking somewhere or squeezing it in. Um, so that's just my I feel an obligation to pass those concerns on to you. And also they have also mentioned that they would like to put up banners on their balconies saying do not buy in this project

because they're so upset about parking. And so I just think that that would be important for you to know um that there are some very high rate owners of these condos that are concerned about parking and uh the lack of parking or the uninforcement of parking or whatever it may be. So, just feel an obligation to pass on the chatter that I get to hear and let you hear it. Also, I appreciate that. It's definitely um one thing we've always been proud of is we actually have more parking than code requires. That being said, phase one has been going through the construction process, so the buildings have been going up. And so, I think we're wrapping that up on that side. And I believe there's probably been some contractors that are probably snaking some of that parking. So that should be relieved now that I think the the final building gets up. But we appreciate it and we'll definitely try to reach out and make sure everyone's feeling that they're being listened to.

Yeah. Thank you. So that's the only comments I have is just to pass my earful that I've received and we'll make sure to we'll make sure as we go forward the pain that I have been feeling. Yes. Thank you. I appreciate it and I understand. We'll we'll definitely listen better. Yeah. Awesome. Any other comments, questions? Okay, that's all. I'll be talking to our HOA as well. So, okay. Appreciate it. Thank you. All right. Is there a motion? I'll make a motion. I move that we approve the preliminary subdivision located at 743 West Bingham Junction Boulevard with the findings and conditions noted in the staff report.

Second. Can we get a roll call vote, please? Vice Chair Herit? Yes. Commissioner Tippets? Yes. Commissioner Snow. Yes. Commissioner Ludkkey. Yes. Commissioner Casperian. Yes. The motion passes. Thank you. Please continue to work with staff and we love them as well. They're great. Spectacular. Thank you so much. We'll see you again.

All right. Item B that was noticed um has been withdrawn from the agenda. So, I just want to mention that. So, if you were here for that, it's not coming up. Um on to item C. Midville City Parks and Open Space Master Plan which includes the impact fees facilities plan and Adam will present. Thank you vice chair and uh planning commissioners. I was just going to introduce this um we uh as staff um with planning engineering and other uh divisions in the city have been working on this parks uh trails and open space master plan for probably about the last year. Um and it is in a draft form ready to come to you for recommendation uh to the city council. Uh what this plan has looked at is um our existing facilities um in Midvail, what those contain um strategies for expanding our parks and open space network um and how we can improve the uh parks and open space areas that we have currently in addition to expansion. Um, I will note that um, one of the things that we found uh, in doing this study was that basically from I would say west of I-15 is very well served by a parks and open space uh, network that we have. And when you get east of the freeway, that's where it really uh, kind of goes down in um, what the what the facilities are for the residents basically east of I-15. So, you'll see that um as the consultants go through the the plan, you'll see that there are some areas that we call gaps in service. And we're looking to kind of close those gaps over time and how we can expand that network, whether it's through acquisition of property, whether it's through partnerships with, let's

say, the school district or the county um in order to expand that. So, I'll uh turn the uh presentation over to uh MHTN who uh have been the lead consultants in this. Um and I will also uh just make note and I believe they will as well, but part of this was to create an impact fees facilities plan which basically shows us if we want to carry forward a level of service um what that will cost. This does not set impact fees. It does not give recommendations on what those impact fees are. It just simply that the plan states that for this level of service it will cost this much and then we would move on to the next step which is the impact fee analysis which has not been done but the facilities plan uh is tied in with this. So with that I'll turn it over and feel free to ask questions along the way. We're hoping it can be a back and forth. So don't hesitate to jump in.

Thank you. I was going to say good morning, but it's actually evening. So, good evening. Uh, I'm Vince Alcott. I'm director of landscape architecture at MHTN, and this is Emily Singh. Uh, she's our uh one of our planners and and community engagement specialist. Um, we've again we've had the opportunity to work with staff and and others on this and it's it's been interesting. We've also been helped by Horix engineers with some of the public engagement stuff and also PL alta planning and design doing trails and active transportation. And then the IFFFP was done by Zans's public finance and we'll get into that here in a minute. All right, I'm going to see if this works. Um today we're just going to go over uh a brief portion of it and I think in your packet where you have the whole the whole plan to be able to to look at. Uh we're going to talk about the the schedule. Uh then Emily is going to go over some of the public feedback. Then we'll get into some of the recommendations. Um and then we'll talk about the draft plan and some of the next steps. Um again this is just the overall uh schedule of our plan. Again, we are literally at the very tail end here and so as we go through this, if you have any comments, please speak up or or write them down uh so that we can incorporate them into the final plan. Um now that I've done the introductions here, Emily is going to talk with you a little bit about the public engagement portion, uh which was somewhat lengthy. So, Emily, welcome back.

Okay. Hello. Nice to see you all again. Um so like Vince mentioned um we partnered with Horox to um implement some of the strategies for public engagement. Um they were great to work with and um we love working with your community. Uh your residents always have something you know very interesting to share about you know what they love about the space and um what they hope to see. So

can I make a comment? Yeah. Um, just to start off, I've I've seen you in some of those public engagements and sometimes there are some contentious residents that approach you and you handled them with such kindness and grace. I've just been very impressed with how you um engage with the community and we really appreciate it. We're I don't know if I'd have the patience that you do.

Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, we Yeah, it's it's been a great process. Yeah. Um yeah. So we've uh have several approaches both um online and in person. Um we um had several communications um and outreach go out through engage midfail um sharing the public survey and responses there. Um we had 234 responses overall which was great. and uh Horox attended um different focus groups and have done one-on-one meetings um also tabled at um different parks like Bingham Junction, Midfield City Park uh to get people who are you know just there enjoying their day uh and provide feedback that way. Um so in total they passed out over 400 flyers to get people to um take the survey. Um we've also hosted a booth at uh Los Miros on Maine. Um very well attended event. That was great to see and it was it was great to see uh you know people of all ages participating young um to older folks. So it was it was great hearing their feedback there. Um we had about 150 plus interactions um at that event. So um and and in that stage of the project we were looking to get feedback on some of the preferred scenarios proposed um trail networks and other strategies that we um have in the the documents. So um they were able to to to share what they liked and didn't like about those. So I'll just hop into uh some of the key survey um takeaways. So, a lot of the residents that uh took their survey said that they they use um

the park system on a weekly, daily basis, some monthly, um some uh 17% rarely, um very few never. And some of the most noted barriers to getting to some of these parks, um just limit in uh limited accessibility. So, um crossings, uh getting to and from um different destinations, uh maybe lack of sidewalks. Um this was shared kind of a lot throughout the in-person and online uh responses. Um some other ones were safety concerns kind of aligned with the crossing uh responses and uh lack of amenities. Some people not finding the amenities they want or or need at the the parks. Um so that was specified there uh in the survey as well. Um and when looking at the types of amenities, people were really wanting walking and biking trails altogether. Um I think the the park systems and and trail systems that are currently here people are using but want to get to other destinations or um have closer um amenities near their places. So, walking, biking trails were um pretty prominent on on the surveys. Um some other um things with uh dog parks, community gardens, splash pads, um picnic areas. So, just in general like more amenities. Um

I thought that was really striking that walking and biking trailers trails were so large. Yes. Yeah. Which makes sense because that would probably be my preference, too.

Yeah. Yeah, and people were um wanting we we'll show a little bit later here, but where you see some of the gap areas, it it does kind of inform why there is this demand for walking and biking trails. Um and in the survey, people were also able to specify specific areas that they felt like needed uh better connectivity. Um so some were identified near Union Park that crossing um getting from the nearby neighborhoods to there um some between 300 East 700 East um across you know 7200 South ID 215. So some of those major corridors being um impacting people's um access to those amenities. uh and and in general just feeling like there's not many spaces for gathering sprinkled throughout the city. Okay, this slide here is is not from the survey but some some general feedback that we heard from um the booth at Los Miros on Main. Um we asked people to write or share their their top three um recommendations that we were presenting there and uh just something to note this is people who wanted to participate in this type of activity and um followed through with the full top three choices. Some some just said I just want this one and and went for it. So just wanted to make that note. Um so the most ranked or top answer was the canal trail extensions wanting better connectivity from there and seeing that as an opportunity to increase um access um both from the north and south um parts of the city. So they saw that as a a

major opportunity. also uh an extension to the Porter Rock Wall Trail. Um just being able to use the current Porter Rock Wall Trail and and having that be extended throughout the rest of the city be helpful. Uh and then kind of throughout um this chart here, you'll you see mentionings of, you know, being able to cross 7200 South State Street, um crossing improvements on Center Street, just overall improving that experience walking along there as well. And this aligns with some of the past plans um with what people have said as well. Okay. Um and we had an activity here where people can vote for their top three choices and how the city can invest in um parks, trails, and open space. Uh large response being building new trails, maintaining and improving um what's you know existing. Um and then just expanding more uh amenities and recreational opportunities at these spaces. Uh some other general comments or themes that we've heard throughout the interviews throughout um the tableabling events uh people wanting to you know focus efforts in areas where there's gaps where we've identified in kind of the eastern area of Midvail um improving um crossings at major corridors including more amenities. Uh, some people mentioned having fitness challenges where people can explore different parks and trails throughout Midville. I think there was um a bit of uh lack of information on online or what they're able to see. Um, so most people were going to, you know, parks near their neighborhoods but didn't really

explore any other places. So, um, just wanting to know what's all out there. Uh and yeah, just in in general expanding recreational um services and with um the Jordan Bluffs Regional Park, I think some were also wanting that to include lots of different amenities since it's it is one of the larger parks in Midville. Okay, I'll turn the time over to Vince to talk about recommendations.

We're we're tag teaming in, so I'm tagging in here for just a second. Um, so we've got a series of recommendations that are in this plan and of course the first one of the first things we always do is we come up with a vision statement with uh the city staff and and other stakeholders. Um, so this is the the vision statement that everything is based off is Midvail Parks and Open Space will meet the city's unique needs by providing all residents safe access and strengthened connectivity to a diverse network of highquality parks, plaza, and linear open spaces featuring a wide variety of amenities to enhance community identity, health, and quality of life. So that basically is our vision um that we've come up with uh with help of the city and hopefully it represents the city well. So um following that then we come up with a series of guiding principles and followed by certain goals uh that again working with the city staff and other stakeholders. And so these are basically the five basic guiding principles. And so all of our recommendations are now based off of those. Uh first one is connectivity and access um with its series of goals. Then second one is innovative and multi-purpose use of of the spaces. So it's not just you know one one use for every space that there's multiple uses and it's something that's unique. Uh third one is resilience and environmental stewardship. uh again we want to make sure that things are taken care of uh people aren't being hurt that type of things and then it's resilient. Uh fourth is community centered and inclusive planning process and again throughout this we want to make sure everything is transparent pe transparent uh people are included in that. We want to incorporate different historical

landmarks and events. Um and there's some bilingual communication items also in here. And then the fifth thing then is this plan needed to have a clear path to implementation. Um so and we'll go through some of that as we go through our our recommendations here. Um as was mentioned earlier, we talked about the IFFFP and in terms of the level of service. So this is um Zans's um bank. It's not Zans's bank, it's Zans's public finance. I keep wanting to call it Zans's bank, but um they've done a wonderful job on this IFFFP. And so it over here on the right hand side there it gives different cities that are nearby or that have a level of comparison to give you uh right now it per thousand people Midvail has about 0.54 acres per thousand people in terms of park space. Um so just understand this the IFFFP considers only systemwide park and and trail facilities for this purpose of calculating it. Um the existing levels of service are based on a 2025 levels of service and the parkwide the projectwide park and trails field facilities cannot be used to establish levels of service eligible to be maintained through the impact fees. So right now the city manages a total of just about 80 acres of parks. Most of these park acres are either not owned by the city or they are jointly owned by the city and another entity. And so that does bring that level of service down. Um so a total of 20.67 acres of park are eligible or impact fee eligible. Um so

and that gives us our 54 acres per thousand people. So, um, trails throughout the city. We have an existing level of service. Again, we have 416,000 square feet of asphalt trail. That was all with all fun to figure out. And then we have just about 356 square feet of of concrete trails which we've calculated. And you can see those those different levels of service there. Um, over down at the bottom right hand corner. Then we're going to start talking about the existing and the proposed impact fee levels of service. And again, the existing is 0.54. The proposed is 0.54. So there wouldn't be necessarily any increase in the in the level of service there. And the same thing for the for the trails. Um just understand this that as we grow here uh so the growth demand so the declining levels of service that will occur due to the projected population growth in the next 10 years if there are no new facilities added. Um so basically what they're proposing here is over the next 10 years they're projecting about 4,820 people uh growth in terms of the city. So in order to maintain that existing level of service along with that population that there needs to be about $1.7 million $1.8 8 million worth of facilities constructed. Um and then down there there's some other tables there that relate back to that. So um and then there's just again I guess just

reinforces what they're what they're telling us to maintain that level of service. Any questions up to this point? had a question why we chose some of the communities we did for contrast to levels of service like Karns. Karns is not really directly adjacent and so it's kind of an interesting uh segment to compare against. Some of it may have to do with the size of the city or the the the park system that's there. I don't know exactly why they chose those. We can ask them. But yeah, typically that is that's related back to more of like a city size or a population size or just their park system is somewhat similar. Thank you.

Um all right, so this one here is this this map here is showing the level of service and also the gap. So basically what we've done is we've put a a big circle um again around each type of park and there's different types of parks. So in Midvail we have local parks, neighborhood parks and community parks and then there's larger parks on top of that. So we put a a a circle basically 0.25 miles around every local park and those are those green neighborhood parks is a half mile and then community parks is one mile. And then what we've done is we've come up with these areas in the city where there are gaps in what's covered. And so that's important to note. And then you can see also starting to show up on this are trails and pathways. So we've labeled basically five gaps uh where there at this moment there is there's just they're not covered by a city park. Um, this one is when we start adding in more of kind of the regional type parks um that are around maybe they're just outside of the city. And again, you can see that there's still a couple of gaps uh that are left to remain one on the basically the very north end and the other one down towards the south. And that's the full that's the future level of service that you're looking at. Again, there's still there are those basically those two areas that are missing. Um, when we start talking about trails and we add that into here. So, this is a map of the trail system as it exists. Um, you have the basically the five major trail networks or the primary networks that run through the city. Um, and then we have these dash lines that are uh basically desired networks uh where they're going to propose to bring

in uh additional trails or amenities on those trails. And then there's a series of secondary networks also in there. Um, and then there's school properties and project project areas that we're talking about and how they're connected by trails. And this goes back to like people want more trails. They want more connection to different things. Questions? So I I feel like there's a and maybe it's just how the impact fee study portion works. Um maintaining the level of service in 10 years

where we can currently see there's not enough level of service. So, if we were to maintain 2025 level of service for 2035, understand the population increases, but if we're currently at maybe what we would consider a lower level of service than than we want to be at. Sure. So, I guess maybe the impact fees aren't addressing the improvement. Is that correct? Okay. Okay. I understand better. Okay. Okay. It's just under a different umbrella than I was thinking. Correct. and and the plan attached to that plan at the end is the actual IFFFP and it will answer it much better than I can. Okay.

So,

um then we get down into kind of like a prioritization and an anticipated time frame for different things. And so this is also part of the plan. Um so we've got a short-term phase of things that can be readily achieved uh right now midterm phase that would be like two to five years to to accomplish some of these and then a long term which would be five plus basically and noted in those are the different parks and the trails that are associated with those. Um, I'll let you take a look at it for a minute and then let me know when you're ready and we'll we'll keep going on. Any questions on this?

Was there any mention of the um I know it was on our ballot um about a new it center rec center at Union Park. Did that ever come up? Not to my knowledge, it didn't come up. Okay. Not that I remember. Major Yeah. thing to talk about if we're going to talk about park. Yeah. Cuz I know a lot of people were looking forward to that. Um but I haven't heard anything since then. So I I just didn't know if it was captured in in this study. Is that rec center? Is it associated with the library? No.

No. Okay. That's a park on the east side of the city that they're looking at putting in a community center, rebuilding or okay, putting in a new aquatic center in there closer to the high school. And I do remember in some of our streaming committee meetings, it was brought up, but because it's a county facility, right, would be more maintained by the county, it wasn't so much reflected in this plan, but it was discussed. Okay, that makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah. Union Park's kind of a albatross. Yeah, we we've we've accounted for it in the study in in that it serves the Midville residents, but it was noted that it's a county owned facility. Correct. Right.

That is that is correct. Okay. Okay.

Um then there's some of these trail recommendations as we go through this. Um and this is just one of them. And you'll notice in your full packet, it has trail recommendations for every single one. So, just note that it's in here. Um, and there's recommendations for each type of trail, uh, active transportation area. And then that there's a couple of things associated with that. So, um, they got go into in the plan into different things that can be done to a augment trails and these pathways, um, to enhance them. All right, Emily, I think you're up. You get you get all of the parks.

Thanks.

Yeah. And uh something to note with uh the trail system. Um part of this plan kind of had to think creatively about how to use small areas of space. um especially when you know people are wanting more amenities and kind of a better experience um to and from different destination to and from different parks. So that's where that this um slide is coming from to kind of enhance those um spaces, incorporate green infrastructure um places for seating, shade uh to I guess create a park experience extended throughout the trail system. So that's where um Ela planning provided these recommendations.

So did that go back to the linear part that you had mentioned earlier? So this is that element the linear K. Yeah. Connecting dots.

Okay. And this is a a little section from um the document that you might have seen. Uh they get got sectioned out to the existing conditions of the park kind of addressing uh some of the challenges, assets, uh different opportunities um that are currently existing. um also shares a little bit of information about uh the ownership size, things like that. Um and then on the right hand showing uh what could be proposed on uh on the parks. Um providing some example uh imagery of you know what amenities could be there. Um their alignment to the guiding principles. um how they've addressed uh or aligned with some of the feedback of wanting more pathways, better connections, thinking about signage and wayfinding nearby uh the parks as well. So that's kind of how these are uh formatted and um we've gone through and looked at it for each park um for yeah city owned or owned by other parks just so it's captured in there. Uh another thing to note is uh we've um included uh we've we've mentioned some of the other uh previous plans that were done with um the state street study station area plans for Ian corridor um as you know spaces like those develop and there's opportunities for uh maybe some parks additional open space trails um that's considered as well. on that um green space that marked number nine. Is that city owned? Says wetland.

Yes. That city owned. Is it accessible? Not right now. Okay. I didn't even know that was there.

Yeah. Not at the moment. And for for this park, um some of the recommendations are just like, you know, educational pieces about some of the wetlands area, connection to the Jordan River Trail that's um to the west of it, um and providing more um yeah, north south pathways. So, making the space a little more inviting and uh interesting to walk through. Um maybe just a side comment that wetland area the the e easiest way to see it is if when you are in Bingham Junction Park you take that trail that that dead ends at the Jordan River and on the left side that's where all that wetland area is.

And is there a little lake in there when it rains? No. when it rains when there's wet, there's water. The city actually has spent um over the last I would say year um quite a bit of time to manage the invasive species in there. So, there have been volunteers with um Tate from GIS pulling out invasive species and then there's been some replanting of better species, I guess. Oh, okay. Any other questions here? No.

That was a great segue into talking about maintenance and implementation. Um, yeah. So for uh for the park section um some some ways to you know carry out some of these efforts uh could be um having them phased in um so they don't impact you know park usage and other things is still a good experience but they can get phased in over time um to you know enhance the overall vision. Um yeah, and then with maintenance, uh adopt a park or trail programs, um to get the community involved. Uh that could be, you know, one way to help, you know, increase, you know, stewardship of the the environment that's in Midvail, get u people together and um increase their awareness about different parks and what's needed to maintain um these facilities. So it could be a good educational experience. um potentially thinking about revenue generating amenities. Um this might be more likely for like Midville City Park, you know, during events and other things. Uh ways to offset maintenance cost um and reinvest back into the system. Uh Vince mentioned this earlier, but uh shared use agreements with um different faith-based institutions, schools, um other partners to to provide uh additional space for parks. um thinking about what type of plantings uh water um usage and uh mitigation that way. Uh you know only providing things that are um high with high ecological and recreational value. Um and then thinking about grant and foundation support. So, uh, some other, uh, things to consider

for revenue. Um, this is presented in the IFFP and they've kind of pointed out, um, grants, bonds, inter fund loans, transfer loan, general, um, transfer from general fund, impact fees, and, uh, anticipated or, uh, accepted dedications of system improvements. Um, those are all talked about in the IFFP. and just some things to consider when thinking about um park and trail funding. Um and lastly, uh just with the the parks and trails plan, I think, uh there's been, you know, a bit of de demand from the community wanting to know like, okay, what else is out there? What is around me? Um, so having that be in a readily available um, space online or in person, you know, with signage, um, a dedicated spot in the city website where people can look at what to explore in in the city. Um, I think having user friendly and bilingual maps and signage can can get people of different uh, backgrounds out to these spaces. um partnering with local schools, nonprofits, businesses. Um I think having events and newsletters um kind of throughout the year to help people see these different spaces and um connect with community members that way. And that could also be a good avenue for um sharing those volunteer opportunities to get people involved. So, some next steps um after today and after our uh city council um presentation like to, you know, take that feedback and get that incorporated into the document. Um so, and yeah, get it out to to all of you. So, I will just

leave it at that. Um but it's again been really great to work with your community and your staff. Um, shout out to Laura as well for helping with public engagement. She's she's amazing. Um, yeah. Any any questions? Will there be a parks department that will be created that manages like I'm thinking how to to advertise the parks, how to have community engagement in the parks. Would there be There's probably more

a centralized group of community and city leaders that would try and facilitate like I was thinking you know that'd be fun to have a movie in the park but to have it at a different park each month. Yeah, I could see something like that going to I mean if the community council wanted to take on something like that, but I don't believe that there would be like a fledged parks department. Um it would be in coordination with communication council members. Maybe we're not Ponyie. Funny joke. I don't have anything. No. No. Great job.

Great presentation. And thanks for being at APA, too. Said hi. It's great to see you. Okay. Well, thank you. All right. So, we this is on our public hearing portion. So, I am going to open this up for a public hearing. Seeing that there is none, I will make a motion motion to close the public hearing. I'll second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Um I think Daniel,

this is a legislative decision, so you have more discretion as to what you can do on this one, but ultimately it's for the city council to decide on and you're going to be making a recommendation and that can include any of the changes you'd like to see. I just wonder not to be the bad guy here, but at the end of the survey that they sent out with the 234 people, if the last question was, would your answer change if your taxes went up or if the this fee was assessed, how many people's answer would stay the same? Because I mean, yeah, I parks great, fun, but to tack on, you know, like another fee to a builder or raise our taxes.

Mhm. I don't know if I want it that bad. I mean, if it's tacked on to a developer, I'm not as heartbroken, but that's coming from my perspective. I know a lot of people that are turning down projects in Murray City right now because of their Yeah. I mean, but their level of service also was next level eight. Mhm. Yeah. So, that's an important thing to know. But their their fee is on average it's equal to or more than your permit for a house. Oh, okay. So, I mean, maybe that's egregious, but but they're same boat. They weren't charging enough, so they were playing catchup. I don't want us to fall into that same

Yeah. Well, we don't want to promise low income housing, but then we're going to keep just tacking on little fees to the builders. This is like where do we stop? How do we make housing want to come here if we keep putting fees? But a lot of the housing that has been encouraged to build here um just because of housing demands requires more open space. But I don't think we're counting that in this, which I think we should. It's true, too. Yeah. Yeah.

One one way to think about this is also that you know what you're looking at is really it's a master plan. I mean you or you can say you know we've been doing quite a bit of long range planning. It's it's a general plan element and that's that's the first step you know in long range planning to know you know what am I shooting for and ideal conditions this is you know what makes sense what's consistent where to come up with the funding you know is a different story I mean if if you think back to the last two years the people in Midwell actually as citizens have been willing to tax themselves with the bond that got passed.

So maybe after this year they'll change that. I just got my tax notice and yeah, of course, that was a tough one to swallow, but never knows. Um but right now we're talking about you know the technical aspects of what makes sense for us with you know the assets that we have in parks and the few trails we have. Um how to finance it you know a totally different story. Impact fees is you know it's that's one possible tool but there are many others. No I I'm I would rather impact fees than taxes. Not going to lie.

Yeah. But perhaps this is before the cart before the horse because we're we just need the vision first and then we put our staff in charge of I'm worried that if we go down that there's no turning back. We're Yeah.

Well, I think we need to have a vision. If we don't have a vision, then we're not going to improve or develop or uh do anything with our public wrecks. So this is all a total waste and we shouldn't even be doing this if we don't want to have to worry about paying for anything and the pain can be you know a lot of these things that we have talked about improving and trails have been grants from the federal government and from the state that has helped to that will help mitigate that and stuff and so I'm all for that but I think we have to have a vision and then as part of that vision is is, you know, what how do we how do we do it? And you know, when there's opportunities to widen or improve 7200 with the state, then we can incorporate some of these parks or uh bike lanes and stuff like that.

If you I I'm agree with you, but let's say in two years they decide to move ahead with this. So, and they decide not to do an impact fee, but taxes. So, we get taxed and then the county says, "Yeah, we're willing to go ahead and move forward with your community center." And then our taxes go up for that then it's like it is a concern, but also we I mean that's that's that's what I'm thinking of. I I would love to have parks, but I think we need to along with figuring out how we're going to and what we're going to Mhm. financial part of it is bigger to me.

Yeah. That's just me. Yeah. But isn't that kind of part of this plan is figuring that out? I mean, it's not setting anything in stone. It's it's opening it up for discussion to figure out how to make this work. and and what the opportunities are. Yeah. I just worry that if we get the ball rolling, it's whether we want to or not. And I would say this isn't necessarily getting the ball rolling. This is identifying there could be a ball one day and then here's a track, but we don't have any balls to put on the track yet. I bet it's closer than anything

perhaps. But when you get a plan that someone really likes, sometimes they find a way to make the money happen. So, I guess I'm more on the idealistic and probably naive side. Yeah. About it. Being a naysayer. Yeah. Sorry. We need opposition. Had we not just got our taxes the last week, you know, wouldn't have been as bad. Two weeks too late. Yeah. Okay. Is there a motion out there? I move that we recommend approval of the parks and open space master plan and its associated IFFFP. I'll second. Can we get a roll call vote, please? Vice Chair Ericson,

yes. Commissioner Tippetsz, yes. Commissioner Snow, yes. Commissioner Lkkey, yes. Commissioner Casperian, yes. Thank you. The motion passes. So have fun at city council and thank you for the presentation. That was Thank you for being here. Thank you for letting us come. All right. Next up on the agenda, we have our staff update and other business. First is a discussion on potential code language changing changes regarding commercial square footage in the todo zone, the transit oriented development overlay. And Vendelin will present. And this is just a discussion. So

no voting. I can't be negative. You can you can be negative if you want. I'm Yeah, if you want to be negative, this is the time. I'm sitting there looking at I prefer not to call it negative. It's just feedback, right? That Thank you. Thanks. Um, thanks for that. So we appreciate your negative feedback. don't come back.

Um, so this is a discussion. The reason why this is um coming up and we as staff decided to bring this to you is um that we've gotten some feedback on the transitoriented development overlay zone. It seems things in the development community start to um you know move forward a little more than they were maybe a year or two years ago. And so we've gotten some inquiries inquiries on projects. And if you remember we you know changed some provisions in the to zone. Um, one of those provisions is that we have um two mapped areas in the ordinance. Um, this is around the Center Street Track Station and then around the Fort Union track station and these areas require mixed use. Um and there were there are currently provisions in the ordinance that put some numbers around that and a method. Um if you look at this um we're talking about the 50% of the building footprint area. Um that's a requirement in these mapped areas that any project is supposed to have. Um, of course, there are economics behind this. Um, the idea behind this portion of our development code is that this requirement is offset by the ability to have very tall buildings and very high densities.

Um then the second aspect that we wanted to talk about is where this is applied and how it's modified. Here the second sentence says buildings that front on Fort Union Boulevard may not contain may not contain office uses along that frontage on the first story. This is similar idea as we discussed with a formbased code just outside of our building here that if you have commercial uses on the main floor and especially commercial uses that encourage um pedestrian activity then we'll see some synergistic effects of that that will help everyone run maybe an an additional business on Main Street or you know businesses feed off of each other and it just adds um pedestrian activity. So with that in mind, this being the current code language, the concepts that we see for possible projects all have a hard time with the minimum 50% of the building footprint area as commercial space. Um, part of what you also have to keep in mind is the construction method of choice is oftent times what's called podium parking. So the parking is internalized in the building on that first floor. And that also of course means there's only so much other space left. And um you know all of this I'm not a developer but all of this of course is

also connected with the economics of can this um building happen or not. Um here's what we have been thinking about and we just wanted to get your feedback if we are sort of on the right track with this. Um the idea is to change you know the idea well the paradigm behind our requirement and to move away from a percentage of the building footprint. Uh instead we are thinking about making it a percentage of the frontage of the building at a street. Since our main I our main desire as a city is to encourage um this walk well walkability and with that walking activity. Um so that's one change we made here. The other change is that um that we added State Street and Center Street for the areas where we you know want uses other than offices because offices oftent times do not contribute much to people walking in. So that's really the idea and we as staff wanted to just get some feedback from you if you think this is a viable option. Do you have other ideas?

So the first the how it reads now is 50% needs to be office and retail on the so I'll just read it. Um, the first story of any vertical or commercial mixeduse structure must consist of a minimum of 75% of the streetfacing building facade as office, retail or restaurant use. And that's what you're proposing, but what it said before was 50% of the building footprint area. So, does this make it so you can put office up front on the street facing and then you could still do parking behind podium parking behind.

Is that what Yes. He require that you cover a substantial portion of the frontage. We really don't care how much square footage you give us as long as the street frontage is covered. And the way it's set up right now, if you just look at the numbers, you know, we require in a way possibly more. We say 75%. Earlier we said 50% of the footprint area. So it's allowing a little bit more flexibility with the square footage of the commercial use that would be going into it. Yes. So that you could put parking behind it if you needed to.

Yes. So rather than limiting the parking to say 50% of the footprint, it could be 60 to 70 and then you could have smaller retail just facing the street. Why 75? Why not 100? What is the what I was just wondering index? Yeah. Part of the ingress egress, you know, like a door is still part of that. But if it serves the upper, that's not necessarily for the business. Yeah. So you're saying just like a just a stairway to go up like or to track or the drive into parking lot and there's no science behind the 75%

I will be honest we didn't have an impact. So on a on a corner lot could we change it to a higher amount so they could put the ingress and egress? Sure we could. Yeah. So if they build on center on the corner of center street and state street does that include center street and state street they'd have to have commercial 75 ft or just one 75% of each both have to have it on both on both frontage.

Yeah. So so the way this is set up I mean in that case you have double frontage or even triple depending on what all you own. This basically right now says 75% of all these frontages. Kind of like that. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's more the intent of what we're looking for. The activated spaces. This satisfies it more than the 50%. Yeah, I agree.

What's the downside to changing this? I mean, the the cause for manipulation here for me is, you know, you build frontage that is, you know, for those uses, but it's five feet deep and not really functional for any any real reason. Just so you you fulfill that requirement for frontage. We we have to have a minimum square footage on retail, don't we? I mean, it did before.

I mean, to have a business license, do we have to is there like a minimum thousand square feet to have a business? um the the business license doesn't really regulate that. I mean that that idea does exist in zoning in general. You know, many ordinances that you see will have let's say a minimum square footage for a residential unit. I don't know that our code has anything along those lines that applies to a commercial space. Normally the assumption is that you know there's some self-interest there and you'll create commercial space that's viable.

See what you're saying. Yeah. Like a kiosk. Yeah. Right. Yeah. You do all kiosks along the whole Yeah. But the the developer is still going to want to create a space that can be sold that can be rented that can be rented. And if they there's still that motivation. Like I don't know how many kiosk retailers there are that are outside of a mall that want us. I would say that if it's going to make or break 70 units on top of this. He's putting kiosk. Yeah.

I'll I'll just jump in for one second. One of the reasons we thought of this is uh we got we received a concept plan that under our current code and we've been finding this out with with different concepts and developers. the 50% of that footprint when you have parking underneath it can't work. But we're also but we also need parking. So what we thought is we got a concept and we're like okay this is a concept that we really like. How can we make it work because it doesn't work right now? And that's where we came up with this is we used a concept that was turned in and they wanted feedback and we're like this is really what we're looking for because they did provide close to that 75% if not that amount and all the residential was on top and there was still some tuck under parking. We're like this is really what we want to see to activate these streets. How can we make this work and that's where this came from.

That's a great idea. Could Could you put a percentage of depth? Correct. Or the building's 100 ft deep. Yeah, you need 20% depth. You need 20% depth. Yeah. I just don't want to run into getting too prescriptive. And that's true. We turn into the designers. Yeah. Then it's difficult.

Let me jump in here. Probably the biggest thing and we could probably ask Riley um the building official on this. I mean, for commercial stuff, I mean, they have to meet building code obviously. So if you know somebody wants to put say a restaurant or some small retail store, I mean they have to meet building code for certain dimensions for things anyways. Um so that would probably drive yeah ADA requirements. All of that is I mean baked into zoning but you know more of the the fine grain in the building code. The other comment I'll add is I think Salt Lake City around the Delta Center has done an excellent job of this. Um where they have uh and and I guess those aren't like livable spaces above, but they do podium parking with uh street front commercial in a really fabulous way. And so it'd be interesting to contrast the way they're doing it to the way we are and see if that there's something we can poach.

There's a spot in Sugar House. I can't remember the East, but very similar. And it seems to work. Yeah. I just feel like this is down the line that's that will get us results and some of these lots built out. And I I like it. I I do too. I really struggle with a developer trying to put commercial on or you know retail and restaurant use on the front that is unusable. I mean

that doesn't make I I just can't imagine a developer would waste his time and money. I mean they can but again I think we get into the point of are we going to design these buildings for them or are we going to allow them to design their building uh under our code and so I think but if I'm going to heat a thousand square feet and make it not usable but I'm going to get 75 units on top. Yeah. Yeah. I'm eating 1,000 square feet. Yeah. Someone that works your finger for the right. Yeah. Yeah. I I work to manipulate between the lines like this all the time and like finding those spaces um where you are able to maximize for yourself. Yeah. So there there's going to be somebody that does it. Yeah.

If you don't close it. Yeah. But then again, then we go to the design. Well, I mean building codes do they're pretty detailed. They're not going to tell you exactly, but once you get all the elements in there, you're going to go, "Oh, I need more square footage than I thought." Yeah. No, I agree. I think it's a good idea.

And we I mean, we'll definitely discuss this with a building official um and and see where that falls. Um I mean, in general, I think it's a good idea for the city and to not be too prescriptive when when it's not really warranted. I mean, if you look at the form-based code for downtown, there's there's there are very specific reasons why we are very prescriptive. Um, but you know there there's also a different approach to developing. Um and you know we in that sense we are not the experts in in many of these things and we want the you know private sector to to have the you know the liberties to innovate because this is not what we are trained for.

So could you add 75% of all street facing Sure. Yeah. Sure. Do we want that? It doesn't hurt you because if you're on a corner lot, they could say, "Well, I have one side of 75%." Yeah. And and I think this, you know, the or public road facing. Yeah. See, this is if you have a a road that goes back to the parking, then are are we going to scream because hey, you don't have commercial facing your private road?

Yeah. rather than we want it on 72 state center. Uh you know that's what our real in Fort Union that's our real intent is to have street facing not private road facing.

Yeah. And I and I think there are quite a few nuances to this that I'm not sure we're quite ready yet to address um on the fly, you know, but I I I really appreciate your thoughts on this and we'll um look at this further and I mean maybe if you want we can bring you know an example of where you could see you know what are the impacts on a potential development. And that may help us, you know, calibrate this a little more. Yeah. Without disclosing the conceptual, is there something that you could show us? Um, I think

you guys like um I think tonight I'm not ready for that, but but we can definitely um do that. Get all the labels taken off. Yeah. You label it. Show us what you like and what you don't like. Black it out. I mean, this helps push that type of development forward that we've been looking for. If we see some Yeah. I mean, if we see issues, we can always work to amend the code again. And that's why this is before us relatively recently is what we thought before we thought was a good idea, but

it just isn't practicality. It's not working. We're running. And so, this is a way to help move that forward. And if we see things that we don't like, we can rate it in a little bit. I like it because it helps parking. So, if they're going to have retail, everybody's not going to park out on their main road. Yeah. They're going to provide parking because they can. Yeah. And it's not going to hinder their their project. And that kind of parking is not always And again, it becomes shared parking, too, rather than Yeah. Oh, I like it. Yeah. Okay.

Good innovation. Good job, guys. Great. So, um the other thing I wanted to um talk about is that the city council um approved the form-based code yesterday night. Um the changes that you know you recommended and the transportation connectivity plan was also approved yesterday. Were there any like big comments?

Um no. for the transportation connectivity plan. There were um really no big comments at all. I mean they all thought that's a good idea and I mean we hope that this will help us um with finding funding for projects. So, um, with regard to the parks span that we talked about earlier today, I just wanted to make sure that you're all aware that the city is actually already also working in the eastern part part of the city to get some facilities um, uh, in place. So, we are working with UD do and uh, We're still in the process of choosing a consultant to get hopefully a buffered bike lane in on 900 East. Could also become a multi-use trail. We're not sure that is an option. And and this would be from um our northern city boundary to um immediately south of Hillrest. and and there's a you know bike lane there that ends in that area so it would provide some continuity. Um and the city is also working on a pedestrian crossing on 700 East. the engineering department has um some funding for that and it's this would be on 700 east um quite a bit north of Fort Union somewhere in that area because that's that's has that has come up before in the past that it's hard to cross um the streets.

There have been a lot of complaints about that. Yeah. Yeah. Um then the next item and last one is really the APA conference. Um all of you who had some time to attend a session or two. Is there anything that you came away with that you thought we should keep in mind, look at gather some ideas from? I did end up ordering a new skirt because of the APA conference.

So, they did a presentation on the ballpark neighborhood and how they're going to um adaptive reuse part of the um stadium. So, they're not going to get rid of it all, but keep some of it because the expansion joints lined up. Um but part of the project that they've prioritized is daylighting some of the um creeks that go through um Salt Lake County. And so it's a convergence area where three creeks like Redbute and two others come together and they're currently underneath 1300 South in like a culvert and so they're going to daylight them as part of the ballpark project. Oh, that's cool.

And so the the group who does the the conservation for these creeks because they had like the mountain preservation people and they had the Great Salt Lake preservation people but they didn't have the in between people. Um, so they they have their own um organization and they have a map of where all the creeks are currently and they put that on fabric and main skirts and it was adorable. So that's my story.

Very nice. I was wondering where the skirt would call the presenter had one on and I was like that is a nerdy skirt. I like it. I got one quick question that I meant to ask earlier on our water storage that we're looking to get for Midville. The water storage tank that we had talked about a while ago and it may have been not at a meeting. It may have been at a something that I went to. Would that include parks? Like would we put parks on something like that if we found a place to put water? You could. Potentially. Yeah, it would be a good kill two birds with one stone. Yeah, because you can do that with detention areas, too. Oh, yeah, definitely.

So, are we still active looking? Uh, I haven't heard about that in a while, but I believe we are. I believe still looking at that because that would help the east side that you guys are worried about. Yeah, because it's higher. Yeah, true. Any other APA conference? It was huge. Um, and the seats were too comfortable. They were because it was at the IMAX. Yeah, it was at the movie theater. Yeah. And then they got their schedule off and so they showed a 1980s planning movie and I quickly fell asleep. They were desperate for something to show up.

But it was lovely. I mean, it was interesting. Uh, someone from Salt Lake was talking about how they changed their zoning. They only have six zones total now. Um, and that was a little wild. Am I right? It was six, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a Mayor Manden Hall, I think, mentioned that. Yeah. Yeah. The only APA conference where they had to you had to go through a metal detector. That was a bit funny. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Those planners. I know. Yeah. They're deadly people. Their reputation preceded them. Johnny, is there anything that you came home with? other than a skirt that I did not buy.

Right.

I mean, there was this I mean, with the whole parks conversation going on, there was a presentation on the was it playful learning landscapes, I think is what it's called. um just like bring in you know art pieces or just you know educational opportunities into you know public spaces whether it's sidewalk park I mean they had examples of bus stops and whatnot that you know it's these like interactive pieces that you know for kids for adults etc that it was I mean I thought it was pretty cool and it's something that I think we'll probably definitely try to especially with you know Main Street you know future parks especially and upgrades to them I think would a pretty good easy improvement. So,

yeah, Johnny stole one of my items. I had to um the the other one that I had that I found was quite interesting. Um one of the key notes was about youth involvement and um I've been sort of thinking about can we involve youth with the planning commission somehow. So that may be something to think. Johnny's not youth. I don't think Johnny would. So only six years passed. No. Yeah. So anyway, that's that's all I had for today. Excellent. Thank you. You're welcome. I did go to a football game.

A football game? Yeah. Oh. How bad did they get smoked? Yeah, we got rain delayed. Okay. How was the marching band? It was great. The band is good. Yeah, they are sounding so much better. So good. But they're new. They're new. I mean, they've only been around I think this is the third year. Yeah, they haven't been around very long. But once I wrote that letter, I think they've been playing louder in my general direction. I will say. All right. Do you want to adjourn? I would love to, but I don't know what time. Someone call it for me. 78. I make a motion that we adjourn at 7:18. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Have a great evening.