Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

You guys not like to go home?

I do like to go home. That's why I'm saying look to him. If he won't, I will.

Remember, I was in a hurry one night. Dave was in trouble last night. I mean, I remember that now.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's done presenting. No, I'm going to pull off. Dave, how do you like this part?

Yeah, don't quit. Yeah.

My partner just called.

Yeah, he thinks it's great.

Yeah. Best thing he's ever owned. That's actually my opinion too. He's an old Toyota guy. Yeah. Any of those? Oh, yeah. I've only seen white ones.

Do they make other colors? Yeah. Several. Really? It's a cool looking car.

You don't even know whether it's new or old.

It's a little retro.

Well, he spends a lot of time, like you do, out in the bush.

Yeah.

He lives in Sterling, up Six Mile Canyon. So he's constantly going somewhere. Yeah.

We get attached to things.

Um, on the floor, I don't have to do anything. They have a table, and, well, you've got a toilet. You've got your own toilet. It's fine there. And it also does, you know, it's water, water. It's a bubble, but it's clean. Yeah. So we're gonna talk more about ADUs tonight.

Yeah, in just a couple minutes, I'm going to start some more slides because I'd like to get some more feedback from you in general about detached ADOs so that then I can take that into account when crafting some graph code. And I won't push the start at this time. I apologize in advance. We obviously needed more time, and we don't, we have until October 1st. We don't have to take that much time, but we do have time, so. I shifted down here. Okay.

Did you know we were just so passionate about it?

No, the hard part is ultimately the city council takes the money. But I think it's great. You're all interested in the topic. It is a topic customers talk about all the time. And so. Customer development.

That applicable.

So customers, homeowners, yeah. So as we build calls about that.

So we've got another three or four meetings we could do this in.

I mean, I know you've got five, but as many as you need, I guess. We'll see if we can get through it today.

Rest up and let me go, okay?

Yeah.

I already went in.

I'm not going to be surprised at this point.

Recording in progress.

Well, before we get started, sorry. I'm feeling a bit of a cold, and my voice apparently just decided to cut out. Before we get started, we're going to discuss part two of our accessory dwelling unit discussion that we started our last planning commission meeting during our executive session. Melissa is going to lead us in that discussion. We do have a new planner that has joined our staff that's sitting behind me here, Grant Hancock. We'll introduce you to him formally later on in the meeting at the end, but wanted to introduce you all to him. He joins us from the U, University of Utah. He's a recent graduate there. and this is his first formal private job, I believe.

Correct.

So if we can beat the idealism of it.

That's right. We're doing our best job that we can this week in trying to get the ball going.

Yeah.

We've been making him drink through a fire hose all week. So it's a lot to take on and learn and do, but he's done a great job, and I think he'll be a great fit for our team. So with that, we're back to fully staffed, which is great.

That's my program at the UI, isn't it? Oh, did you? Before getting my architecture. Oh, okay.

Great. So yeah, we're excited to be back with full staff. We've got a lot of new staff members. We've got Pat Fancy, who you guys have met before, but he'll be presenting tonight. He quit a few months ago. A lot of change, but change sometimes is good. And I think we've got some great staff members that have joined our team. We're glad that we have them. Before we jump in with Melissa's presentations, Are there any follow-up comments or things that you guys wanted to, that you can kind of chomp on that since our last discussion about it that you wanted to dive in? Or do you want to let Melissa kind of jump in with her presentation and then ask those questions?

Well, one of the things that I've been thinking about, I don't have any answer to it, is the idea of percent coverage. You know, we talked last time about if you had a small lot, like 8,000 square feet, that it would depend on how much coverage is on the lot. And if it's a larger lot, it would still depend on percent. And if it's a bigger lot, like a couple acres, it's I don't remember if we talked about percentages.

We did a little bit, just in the fact that they are accessory buildings and would fall under existing accessory standards as far as total size. At least that's the way we're framing that.

Or it's a basis, at least, of comparison, whether we want to have it less the same or more.

to or something like that, but that's still up for discussion and how we do that, but just to give a framework, yes, we currently allow for 25% of the rear yard, but we could look at overall lot coverage when it comes to ADUs.

That's what I was thinking we were thinking about is have some percentage. So long as they're not exceeding both.

structure, then they could still be back. So anyway, there's some ways that we can address that.

Yeah, and what coverage, I think, if... detached adhesives were allowed in all residential zones, not just the larger ones, then I think a lock coverage standard is very important. That's a very key tool that we would use. Because then that takes the big ones and small ones. And some of the comparisons just to think about for lock coverage is that detached accessory structures that are just like a shed. It's not an ADU, but we have this maximum of a square footage or 25% of the rear yard, whichever is less. So we have a combination of a size and a rear yard lot, whichever is less. So that ultimately not to exceed your rear yard of 25%. And then, but that's just production. that way for detached aid use. But also, in the larger lot areas, if you're in the sensitive area over there, for lots that are 15,000 square feet or less, is a maximum of about 50% overall lot. Currently, we don't have an overall lot coverage all over the city and residential zones, but in the sense of very overlay, there's a 50% max, so when we're doing building permits, we're looking at that, and that's hardscape, buildings, your driveway hardscape. Yeah, and then if it is, greater than an R1, like R120s and above, it's a 40% max lot coverage in the system grade overlay. So that's another kind of just relative standard that we apply now. So as we had started to discuss last week is these detached ADUs and we had a, were able to collect feedback on various standards that could be considered. Because when I pose these kind of narrow ideas to get feedback, then I can take it all into account and craft something, but I can bring that back to you. so that this new state law requires us to allow for detached aid use on at least lot size the less house the greater so we went all through that last time about what the state law says common themes in our region some standards that we use now that we'd like to see carried forward and there was from what i gather last time is there was strong support for allowing detection use in all residential zones but we may have like a maximum lock coverage standard or and or other standards that as long as they can meet all those then why limit it to only the large ones and to allow the two detached, let's see here, two detached ADUs on a lot, but it does depend on lot size and maybe even more depending on the site and the size of the lot. But limiting it to just one detached ADU or one internal versus detached is not, not so strong support or wanting to liberalize or welcome the testing use. And in terms of the parking, we also were looking to go ahead and use the state standard which allows us to require additional parking. Like, one, we can allow one additional parking for a detached AU, if it was 650 square feet or less. And two, if it's more than 650 square feet, currently we already require four on-site parking spaces. And two in a two-car garage and two in the driveway. and that if you have an internal ADU, we don't require any more parking spaces currently. We actually cannot require any more because the state law says for internal ADUs, if you already require four, you can't require any more. So we have the four, but we're allowed to do this one or two depending on the size of the detached ADU if there's support is what I believe I heard from you. for that.

And I think support with the understanding that would be .

Oh, yes.

Yeah, that's the basic assumption.

Were you talking about the number max of how many ADUs you could have? and still probably meet the same percentages. It's the lot coverage. It's the lot coverage. It's the lot coverage, but if you have four or five of those incentives, still, if it meets the lot coverage, you're okay. If they're each 300 square feet,

then that one shoots a shilling, and you're allowed additional lot coverage of, say, 800 square feet based on the existing will. But then you have to provide two additional parking spots.

Yeah, if we adopted that code.

And remember, she's saying the lot coverage includes your hardscape, so that includes your driveway, sidewalk,

It, you know, it can, I mean, our, in the detached accessory structures, it doesn't necessarily cover like a hardscape patio, but it's the structures covers. But when you're in a sensibility overlay, it's just a total lock coverage, not just rear and back. It includes hardscape driveways, rear hardscape patios, structures. Um. How tall the, oh, we're gonna get to that. Okay, so the other one we went through is how tall should we do ADUs, and there was general support for two stories, but it does depend on the size of the lot and the setbacks.

I think the setbacks are really critical.

And we can get into, or I can work on the height measurement, but just the general idea, one story versus two story.

Okay, you're interesting.

house and you have a large block you can go in the backyard with two-story accessory well that's where the next one comes in which go back a couple of slides where it says no higher than the primary goal oh yeah well that would be another um so i don't think that's oh yeah yeah because some of those primaries that guy has an underground house

Well, there is one. There is one.

It's so weird. They can't have any.

We don't know how much longer he's got.

He's still property line to property line. That's also a problem. My opinion is on a two-story, if you meet your existing So if you have a smaller lot, there's no way you're gonna be able to get a setback of a two-story structure within, I can't say no way, almost no way where that's gonna work. But if you've got something that's a larger lot, there are things that will work and things that will look good. And so why limit that?

So what you're saying is if somebody has a 1961-story Rambler on a half acre, they should be able to build a two-story ADU in their backyard if they meet the zip. Yes.

If they meet the distinct setbacks, that should not matter. Meaning that they don't get a reduction down to the lower setbacks if you're doing a single-story. Do we have a square-foot limitation?

I guess one of the things I'm wondering is could it ever be possible that the... detached ADU winds up being the primary, and the primary becomes the detached ADU.

And I think that's okay. I think that's okay. As long as one of them is an owner-office.

Exactly. Right? One has to be owner-office. So it doesn't matter which one it is.

Yeah, right. Or you could move into the small one if your kiddos can move in.

I thought about that.

We don't like that. We don't like that.

I mean, that also is the issue about, you know, there's people in front playing at home. I mean, there are very good situations that will say, hey, you can't build up front.

It'll be just fine. So, existing setbacks and things like that. How do we monitor if people are occupying? Because there are a lot of neighborhoods.

Same way you do now. A lot of neighborhoods have owners that don't live there. I know. They're renting them out. Yeah. A complaint, someone has to say something. They don't police.

When they apply originally, I mean, it's not perfect. And we don't have code police running all around looking for this. And so, yes, complaint-driven is how we operate. but that's pretty much ubiquitous all of them, not just Utah. But when they apply, if they apply for renting a accessory apartment or internal ADO, as opposed to just having that there, the unit with the mini kitchen and stuff where the, their extra family and friends, and they're not renting it out, well, we have an affidavit for that, but we don't have an additional permit. But if they do want to rent it out, we require a special use permit for that with a business license, and at that time, we check for, I believe their tax records is one method to check that that is their primary residence. And so that's a way that when they're first doing it that we see that that's there. It can be owner occupied and that that's their primary residence and they're not just renting out the whole thing. On short-term rentals, we have some software that really helps us to find out about players that might be renting things out on a short-term rental basis. That is a valuable tool. Yeah. Just a question about code.

Building code for these small little homes, it's the same it would be for a regular home. We're not going to get trash homes in the backyard because they're smaller and they're secondary homes. Well, they still need to protect those.

They've got trash homes that are standard.

Well, I know, but the trash homes initially met the standard. I'm just wondering if we're going to get some really cheap homes built.

that don't meet the regular building standards, no doubt. No doubt.

Especially if you're doing . Wasn't that part of the legislation?

I don't know that they have, well, they have to get a building, they have to comply with minimum building and fire code and help. For a whole. For a detached ADU.

I'm speaking specifically about that special use permit or that building, or not building, what's the other permit?

don't believe they dictate the cities to you must get a land use permit with that it's just you you can do these things and the minimum requirements are that it meets building health safety etc i would say i would say it makes a lot of sense for the city to require a building

saying that, but a special permit for these as a way to better track them.

Yes. I think that would be the assumption because they're supposed to, whether they rent it out or not, and they're doing an internal one and they need to do a little remodeling for that, get a building permit, and at that time we're vetting all that stuff. And we put on Like you need an affidavit for la la la. If you want her to rent it out, you need a special use permit with business license. And then if they were to do detached ADU, they're gonna have to apply.

That's the difference between the internal ADU and the external ADU. When I worked at Hominate, We had a hard time tracking the ADUs. And because they, you know, it was internal. So like a lot of people would make it building ADUs or make their homes for ADU if they had no idea. You know, they didn't want to pay the fee. But if it's an external EDU and they will have to get a billing permit anyway. Absolutely.

That makes sense. Yes. That'll actually be easier to track that way because they won't be able to use that billing permit. Yeah, another way that we enforce that is someone wants to sell their home, and we get calls, or they want a zoning letter, or they're asking about this basement apartment. We say, well, they may have that, but I do not see any building permits or any affidavit, anything. So therefore, they apply and bring it into conformance. Let's see, okay, so one of the questions is, should basements be be allowed and so this is just an illustration we you know you can have a fully one-story underground basement walkout basement or half basement is there any like right now our guest cottage that cannot be rented out very small for this provision that we do allow it does not allow a basement period so And so I was just wondering if there's any thoughts on pros or cons or support for, sure, allow the basement.

What would it hurt putting a basement since it's not affecting the neighborhood? It's going down, you don't see. I mean, if it's going up two stories, I'd probably complain more that if it went down one. Well, that's a good point.

go up can you go down I think it just it does add more square footage so there's more intensity but at the same time you know we regardless of whether there's a basement or not we are going to be calculating the interior area of the home for well the perimeter of the home for I mean stairs take all this space

Stairs take quite a bit of space.

Yeah, they do.

So if somebody can come up with a design that still gives them the space they want with a basement, I don't see any problems. Nor do I see what the second story is. But stairs are tiny.

No, they're not. Yeah.

I mean, as far as a landowner sitting here, and I've got all these PUDs around, and this guy's got a two-story, this guy's got a two-story, it's going to really seem crowded for me. in my neighborhood, because people like to have a little space other than some of them don't. But I mean, sometimes it's so like, when I came here, I had these 8,000 square foot lots and whatever. And so I had a little space between me and my neighbor, and that's why I bought this, first to find a half a lake acres or whatever.

Are you assuming that a two-story could be built 10 feet from the river?

No, even if it isn't, I mean, I'm trying to see all these two-story, when I look at my backyard, I'm sitting there looking, I'll see all these roofs everywhere.

What I would say is look at your backyard around there and see how many could actually have a two-story structure built and still meet the setbacks.

My bet is there's setbacks are 10 feet from the side, 10 feet from the back.

Well, in terms of a detached ADU that's yet to be determined, but we do have current standards where if you're going to do this guest cottage thing, currently in our code it allows that you cannot rent it out no more than 400 square feet for the guest cottage, no basement, mini kitchen, you don't get a full kitchen, et cetera. That provision is there, and it is, what I was getting at is that is 10-foot setback for the side in the rear. But that's what we have now. Yeah, I think it's reasonable.

But you look at your rear yard and map out where you can build something and have 10-foot setbacks. I think you'll find on an 8,000-square-foot lot, that's going to be pretty small. And then to go two stories, a stair takes about 150 to almost 200 square feet.

What's the rare yard setback for an 8,000 square foot block? 20. See, that's the point. We're not telling you 10 feet. We're talking 20 feet on that. You're talking 10 on the side and 20 on the back. And so the fact is that most of those homes don't allow for another structure to be built within those existing setbacks and also be... I would guess that most of those homes only have a 30 foot. So there's a lot of talk about... on a smaller lot. So the basement would fit. The basement doesn't require the joint foot setback. It's still required.

No, yeah, correct.

No, it's the one story. The set height.

Oh, the one story.

The one story. So you could do that.

Potentially, yeah. And if that's what you want to go with, that's great. I think it's in a reasonable comparison with our... You know, like a shared detached structure could come as close as two feet to a property lot, but you know, I'm not sure that you want a detached ADU to be that close. But in terms of basement, it's just not a strong opinion to... You know, either way or, you know, go ahead and. Say yes.

That's what I thought. The only thing I'd say, it doesn't matter, and I'm sort of talking about this, is if I have one or two little small homes or a two-story, it's the number of homes that I'm going to have in a square area. And how many homes are we having in that? Because it gives you a feeling right now, like I've got a little bit of distance away from my neighbors. And that's why I bought this particular lab, because I have a little distance. All of a sudden, everybody's now putting all these other homes on. I don't know.

Everybody's not doing it. The cost of this is going to be so high, still, even though what we're trying to do is provide a lower cost avenue. It does. It does do that. But still, the cost is way higher than the average homeowner is going to be able to throw that kind of money in that direction. Plus, the other restrictions that are going to be on there are going to be such that they're relative to setbacks and heights and parking and things like that. So that's also going to limit things in a way that this is not going to be... I don't think you're just saying... Particularly the smaller lots are not going to have much activity in this ground. I'm just worried about changing the nature of the new...

I don't think there's going to be a land rush. I don't think that's going to happen.

I don't think... If you sit down and draw it out, you're probably looking at... You can do the math. How deep is your lot? Say it's 50 feet. Divide that into 8,000. You're going to be what? 30 feet? 40 feet wide? Yeah. So then you put your house on there. and your house is probably 10 feet from your side, it's probably 20 feet deep, so you're already used up 20 feet or 30 feet, you've got it set back in the front that it's what, 10, 15 feet, 20 feet? So that means you've only got a 20-foot backyard. So if you want to go two stories, it's your house. There's no way you can do anything.

An attached internal ADU would probably be more feasible for a common lot. That's on the books now all around in all of our residential zones. But there's a lot of people that think the detached ADU, even though you can have privacy between your internal ADU and the other one, you don't have to have doorways through. But a lot of people think that way. And I think perhaps construction costs are way, depending on if you get some kind of a pre-fab thing, maybe cheaper to do the detach because you're gonna have to add to the roof line and depending on the type of roof line and which direction it's going, it may be kind of costly to do that add-on. But so many different variables of the situation on the lot. whether it's one story two story where their windows are but just keep in mind you know those smaller lots maybe to pull it off is max out that building footprint with an attached abu and then if you have more room is it detached so the basements we that's all and the other thing

Unless, if it's detached, they're gonna require a certain distance, Steve, from the house. Yeah, probably. So you can't build it. What is it?

Six feet.

Six feet is the minimum you'd build?

That's what I heard.

Yeah, six feet.

That's pretty tight.

chewing stuff up. I'm nervous.

I'm sorry. Let's see. The next one is Dave's favorite topic. We're gonna talk about some setbacks and one of the first aspects of a setback is in the front yard. Now this illustration I was trying to show where you have a front yard setback of let's say minimum of 20 feet. But, well, our code, let's say 30 feet, no front yard setback. But your house maybe is actually set back 40 feet. They didn't go all the way to the front. And so the question is, what are your feelings or preferences on a detached ADU? Should it be no further than the front of that existing house? Or should it just meet your standard track yard setback? I thought you were going to say, is this a trick question?

a lot of homes like in other markets that have like you're right it is it is in the front yard and whatever and it flows great looks great um but again it's it's secondary uh because primaries are very limited. So, I mean, to put a hard and fast rule on that, I think is extremely limiting.

So you're thinking as long as it meets the setbacks of the primary, anywhere on the law, you're okay with that? Yes. That's correct.

Good.

I would refer it not to the backyard, but that's from a designer standpoint, from my standpoint. I'm having a hard time saying no to it.

When we did the tour of Daybreak with the city council, there are some new homes that are being built in Daybreak that have what they would call One of them was the side load. Right, side load. So we have seen examples, even at new construction, where that is happening. Within an existing fabric of a neighborhood, there may be situations that that's appropriate, maybe not. But some houses are set back, say, 80 to 100 feet. And they're pinned all the way back in the lot. If we don't allow them in the front, then they're fine to be in the side or the rear, potentially. So there are some situations like that that are rare.

know to allow him to fill to the lot lines or to the setback homes. Even though I may not personally like it, I think I have a hard time telling somebody they can't put it out in front.

My setback is 400. I mean, you're on to a lot of instances. I had no idea it was 400. That's a lot.

Your property is all in front. You don't have to think that, right? It's a lot of stuff in front.

The point is that not all properties are the same and if you set conditions up, you're going to be able to come to things to meet circumstances that allow those circumstances to do something that is tasteful and not all of them.

There's a circumstance where it shouldn't be any further than the on bigger lots where they're set back and bought. But let's say the smaller lots, 10,000 or less, do you think there's a situation where it's like, no, I think it should be no further than the front of that house.

Can you show me an instance of a 10,000 or 8,000 square foot lot that actually is built and has enough room to go in front of the front line? So my point is, all the other realms around this are going to limit out those smaller plots from being able to meet this function or that ability. where you're L-shaped and you've got a garage with a casita above, and that is awesome. There's no concern that we should do that at all.

You know, the reality is if we thought 20 feet was fine when they built the primary house, why wouldn't 20 feet be fine when they built the second house? I mean, it's still 20 feet.

Well, I think that the general preference is that it would just meet your minimum front yard setback. of main house, that would be open.

It really comes down to whether you want these to be more be more hidden and not as obvious from the front. I think that's maybe the design choice that you're making.

I don't think it matters as long as it's in good taste. My gut is that new construction has less constraints associated with it. And so you're going to be able to get some new construction that has some great design that has it. that is really going to facilitate this very often. So I think that not allowing new construction to be able to have this type of opportunity will further limit housing for some context.

I think if the neighborhood looks like that,

value if you have one or two thousand for best no i don't think so you don't think so at home we don't currently allow accessory structures except for a designated in the front yard except for a designated properties of over 40 000 square feet so this would be different than what we would allow currently for any other accessory structure just for context and i think that the

going to be living space. So there's going to be different parameters, different sizes. There should be a lot of different things that come into play when there's people living in the structure versus when it's just a detached room.

So you'd be okay with a living area built in the front, but not necessarily a shed?

Do not put a shed. Absolutely do not put a shed. legally we cannot regulate views in utah yeah views are not protected that's why if you go with existing setbacks if you do two-story then you have no harm no fun

We can regulate mass, size, scale, setback. We cannot regulate view or doors.

Yeah. So Dave, you're saying that if it's a detached two-story, it would need to meet the setbacks of the primary value? Yes.

That's what keeps it back from mounting papers.

And it's not going to impact the original . Yeah. Yes, that's the rationale. Yes. I'm following.

So make the front yard setbacks. Don't make any setbacks. And when we're looking at these smaller lots that, well, any lot, but particularly small lots, there's very few instances where this actually is gonna be able to apply. So it's very few, as opposed to trying to regulate every single thing.

That's right. I just would say you're thinking about my neighborhood where the lots are basically half acre to an acre. And I can only think of one lot. where the guy that owns it is set back like 70 feet from the street. That's it. He's the only one who could do something like that. Everybody else is probably somewhere between 20 and 30 feet back from the street. But they've gone all the way to your two side yards. So everybody has like a 10-foot side yard unless they've already put a parking area there. And so for them to build something within that 10-foot strip is going to be relatively difficult. They might be able to add under the house, but then they're allowed to see that. So I can only think of one situation in my neighborhood where there is a constructed home far enough back that somebody could build in front where it would be a problem, maybe two months. I have a hard time, if we tell people that 20 feet is the front yard setback, theoretically every single home could be 20 feet back and you'd create a wall down the street. That's the street I live on. Of every single home. And so if somebody within that walled neighborhood decided to build their house a little further back and then came back later and said, I want to do an addition and bring it out to me, we'd have no problem.

No problem.

But if somebody comes in now and says, I want to put a detached unit there, why wouldn't we have a problem?

Well, that's another rationale.

architect would not suggest putting that out front i haven't been to daybreak but it's also not my favorite place um it uh it would be hard pressed for me to recommend that but i could see where somebody would do it and i think that if everybody else had the right to build to within 20 feet i think they ought to have the right to do it so i don't think we should make extra great just an adu that doesn't comply with the criteria that everybody else is that's my only thing we're gonna have to leave your favorite slide i've got more

I've got a couple more related to, I mean, there's a lot of other variables, but for these slides, a couple more related to side and rear yard setbacks depending on height and conversions of existing as well as balconies and rooftop stuff. So anyway, let's do this. So these... two slides relate to, you know, depending on the height of an ADO, and for simplicity, I'm just using, it's a one story, you know, not just American, but right now, we will. One or one and a half story, where you have like a bonus space, versus a full two stories. So I've got these two slides. So the first one, you know, and I'm asking, I'm not dictating here. but this 10 foot setback um and that that applies we have that now so that's one option some other cities they allow them to go closer but if you had a one to possibly even a one and a half uh story with bonus area in the rooftop a story detached adu how what kind of setbacks do you think would be appropriate for that. A two-story will be the next slide. We can look at that next. But if it was that tall, I mean, that makes a difference for the neighbors in terms of height. And right now, as I had mentioned, just as a comparison, the guest cottage thing is a 10-foot setback. One-story only, no basement, 10-foot setback minimum. As opposed to a shed, you can come as close as two feet. Any feedback on that? Like, yeah, that screen's full, or no, I'm wondering.

Well, I'm just debating this story just for...

for now. We'll replace that with height.

Yeah, and we can even define building height by the stories and the height combined. Oh, to assert? Yeah, numerical value. The state actually just added that in this year, that building height can be defined with both, which I think is good because there's things that can happen.

Would you ever want to split the difference to, say, 15 feet for one and a half?

As far as setbacks? As far as setbacks. No, my thing is one and a half is so close to one, it really just, your height isn't much different. It's just so, you've got a lot of time.

You have dormers coming out on that one and a half.

You're essentially, I mean, I don't have, you're not expecting.

Yeah. You could do a hybrid thing, some type of dynamic setback that changes based on the height.

Oh, we'll have, yeah, there'll be different setbacks. What I was thinking, there's a big difference from when you have full two stories versus you have one story. a little bonus living area in a one and a half. And also we can regulate windows depending on the setting.

Is there gonna be a height? So on a one story, what is the maximum height?

Oh, the numerical dimension? Yeah. We'll figure that out and I'm gonna put, right now just for discussion purposes.

I think one and a half. I think, for me, it depends on the height. Okay. If it's the same height as a two-story, then I would say that.

No, okay, no, it will not be the same height as a two-story, and we'll also have to look at any, you know, windows that might be looking at that neighbor's property.

I also think that there's, we had a garage that came in a couple of weeks ago that could have easily had a unit on top of it, right? So is that considered... My point is, we have a lot of . What was this crazy idea? We have a lot of lots of apps. This is my point, right? So this is real easy on a flat block to save anything for one and a half, but we have a lot of scope.

That is a really good point. I haven't even occurred to me until you brought it up of the situation where you'd have one detached accessory structure and you want to come really close to that property line. But guess what? I don't have a neighbor there. I just have a hill and it's... You know, and so maybe they can come closer to the pen.

Thanks for the example. You know, you know.

Rare and, I don't know, developed and duplicated. Right, but I can, I mean. Yeah, everybody on your street has a slope on their backyard.

Yeah. So depending, I think I'm in tune with everybody is think about, well, what if you don't have a neighbor or the neighbor is up the slope and way over there? Because this is always, at least in my mind, disclosing, always thinking of there's a neighboring property behind you, and so the impacts to the neighbor...

is is the top of mind but in fact you're going to have situations i think you have to be a little careful i think you have to be a little careful with that and i think we need to have a standard that kind of applies to everybody because yeah you can dig into the hill and be a little closer then the next guy comes in and he wants to do it but there's a person back there and you say well you can't do it because there's a person back there and that's not that doesn't have anything to do with his problem with him That person just happened to be there. So I think we have to be consistent, that's what I'm saying.

Right, and it could be if there's some deviation that unless or for, except for, and we have specific criteria, and if it's so dramatic, it could be we need to push to a conditional use permit under these certain conditions. In general, your standard is we have to allow some sort of these conditions on 11,000 square foot lots of braider.

I would just caution also that can think through all of these minutiae. Oh, yes. And then when it comes to actually administrating those little edge cases, it becomes a very convoluted and very long code that's hard to read, understand, and interpret. Like the code we have now for existing accessory structures, where we try to get into too many variables. That's why I'm saying we ought to just pick a number. Just think of that in context, though.

Yeah, the 10 feet, I think, is a great number. I think 10 feet's a lot.

Yeah, I think it is.

We're going to go to that next slide. We're going to that next slide. So in general, a 10 foot, even if it's just a one story, is a reasonable amount. We can start with that.

I think so. Now that I understand what one and a half stories is, yeah.

And you're saying that the one and a half stories would not have windows to their neighbors.

We can build that in.

I mean, that would give more privacy if you're out.

Well, it's tricky with the state laws, Gary knows, of what we can do and how we do it. But using a setback in how we write the language, we can then say, like, you know, window is allowed if you're 20 feet back.

you know, facing your neighborhood.

If we can't protect views, how can we protect privacy? We have a big window. Well, design regulation is. Why should we protect privacy if we're not protecting privacy? It seems like a contradiction. It seems like they should be able to put windows anywhere they want.

Again, you can regulate that type of thing. You can't regulate a view. That's state law. Yes, we are preempted from being able to regulate view corridors by state law. That's not our choice. I was asking about the privacy.

Well, a view corridor versus looking at your neighbor's backyard are very, very different things. And that is one of the primary things to not allow these. That has been the pushback, but that is the big... And about even allowing these is, you know, the impact to the neighbors. There's a lot of people that don't, they're really concerned, don't like it. Even just sheds we have issues with.

of the bedroom of the next door neighbor. That's a different view. It is. But if they need to have that privacy, you go two stories. Because your other house is far enough back.

Right. And so height, whether you have upper stories or not, whether you allow a balcony or not, lighting, windows, those all come into play. I have one slide about balconies just to see your preferences. But I'm aware of that, and we want to do what we can to regulate negative impacts on the immediate neighbor. Because, yeah, your light blaring, you know, when you're really close to the property line, that could be a real nuisance for the neighbor.

So, anyway, ultimately, as you just... Let's talk about the two-story.

Yeah, two-story. So, on a two-story, that's a different case. And... So what I've illustrated here was if you've met the setbacks for the main structure, just like this primary dwelling, that if it, and for most of the lots, if we're talking about ones that are 11,000 square feet or greater, these are your setbacks. A minimum of 10 feet on the side, and then on the rear, it's anywhere from 20 to 30 feet from your rear property line. It depends on the zone.

Well, I think that's exactly what you ought to do. I don't think you should, if you're going two stories, you should be treated just as we did the front yard. you should be treated just like everybody else. Well, I agree. If somebody wants to build a big house on that whole dotted area that's two stories high, they should be able to do that. If they come in with a little house there and a big house there, that's fine.

It might. It might. Yeah. Just being a lot setbacks wherever it gets to.

Yes. Okay. And that's why we... President, it's logical if you can build a main house there and all the way out to those things, why does it matter if there's a light separation?

If they want to move a story or a half a story and go a little further back, that's fine. Okay. And you're saying that six feet is the allowable distance between houses?

We have in our code right now a six foot separation between the detached structure and the primary structure. You can come closer, like let's say you've got just a three foot setback between your shed in the rear yard and the house. You then can do it, but you have to meet the primary structure setbacks. So you can't be two feet.

Is there any kind of fire code associated with it? The building code is five feet. Five feet, yes. The building code is five feet. Now, there are provisions that kick in as far as how it's constructed. I'm old.

I thought it used to be 10 feet. No, that's totally correct. Now, building code is five feet. Our zoning code is six feet. We might want to rectify those in the near future. to do anything with combustibility so yeah otherwise they have to put up something that is non-combustible in that five-foot area but yeah building code has evolved recently about about us okay so i got that i've got these fun things wouldn't this be fun to have your neighbor in the backyard let the party begin should we allow balconies and rooftop

objects on the primary home in the setback?

In the setback?

No.

It's complicated. Within 20 feet of the fence? No, no, I'm saying just within the setback. If it's a building envelope.

If it's covered, we treat it like the primary crusher. If it's not covered, we have a range of setbacks based on how high it is off the ground.

Well, if that's the case, we ought to treat it just like every other setback.

So if this is a two-story and you put a balcony on this two-story and it's 20 feet away and the balcony's 10 feet away, then you're now 10 feet away from the property line.

But if my primary home is a two-story home and I am 20 feet away from the property and they allow me to put a balcony on my primary home and it goes into the 10-foot setback, There's no difference. There isn't, but it was a right to do at the first place.

There's not.

She was saying that the setback is from the foundation. So yeah, if they did have a balcony, then that could easily extend to that setback area.

I mean, personally, I don't think balcony should go into setback here. But if your code allows it already, then I think you have to stay in total absence.

Well, OK.

It's not . Well, we've got to draw the line someplace, I would say. We have to draw the line someplace distinguishing that from the primary .

Yeah, yeah, so I think we were, in general, had support for, if you want two stories, well then you're gonna have to make the main setbacks. You don't get to have reduced setbacks. So then, like you said, the question is, well now where are you measuring from? Where is that, if they're two-story, they can allow it, but they have to be within that footprint. Is that balcony going in, like now it's 10 feet, or does it have to be here? I think.

Does the balcony have to be about 20 feet?

have to be consistent. If your primary residence could be 20 feet away and they could put a balcony on it and that could protrude 10 feet in,

I don't think you can. No, I don't.

I mean, whatever it is, I think you ought to apply it. It has to be developed. These have to be a certain distance from the property.

Yeah, we measure from the foundation. So sometimes they can leave her a little bit out of her, but if they have a foundation post, we're measuring from those foundations.

Okay, well, then I'd push it the other way.

It's not a primary residence. It's not, but if you were to build your primary residence as big as you could build it, you would have that kind of situation. In the primary residence. In the primary residence.

An ADU is a privilege. It's not, I don't think it's a, the state says it's a right.

I understand that, but I'm saying that as far as the neighbors go, your primary residence and your ADU, there's no difference. If somebody's living in the primary residence and they're X, Y, Z distance away, and you're in an ADU, you're X, Y, Z distance away, it's no different.

You can't put that. Is that also in the biblical code, the balcony that's considered parley and filth? I don't think so. And so would that be part of our calculation against that?

I think that in itself is going to limit it.

Yeah, we're counting back parents.

Are you saying they say it will limit that? But whether you allow them out of the hall or what situation is what we're trying to ask.

So I'm going to say this. I know these guys are helping me on this question. If you have a detached garage, is there any allowed to build if you potentially have a problem. And I wouldn't want to bring them down. They have access to get to the second floor anyway.

The other thing is we are required to allow the address. So they are allowed, regardless of what we think, whatever we establish the setback at, they are allowed to have a landing on the sub stairs if they have a landing or exterior to the restaurant.

That's a different point. If you wanted to make it a little bit bigger,

Well, you don't have to have a landing and stairs in this.

Because veterans don't have to have.

You can have a landing and stairs.

They can have outside windows. They don't have to have a landing and stairs. But I could also change the base.

And you could put landing and stairs on the side You need to have stairs to get there. But you don't have to put your stairs in setbacks. They can go somewhere else.

What Jake is saying is we don't get to stay. We don't get to stay. They want a landing. They get to stay.

The landing and stairs are out.

The state code doesn't allow the city to regulate that. So they're the ones that get to say that's where they want them.

So I could build a house with a bunch of landings, stairs, and setbacks, and get rid of the bent beam, the property line, and the balcony.

You can only get there with a landing, not a balcony. It's not a balcony. It's just the landing. and the state code says how much it can gross. That's basically what the state code says. If I'm remembering it correctly. I think that's only in New York City.

an existing structure table that needs to be different. Or it needs to be modified if there are, so that existing structure or table is extremely limiting if you're gonna have properties that have mobile on their local units. and you can't really do jack on this. So I think that that table, I would suppose like the $1,499 are smaller to be instead of $750, you do $1,000. $1,500 to $1,999 instead of $1,000, you go $1,500. $2,000 to $4,000, $399 is $2,000. Instead of $1,500, you do $2,000. $4,000 larger instead of $2,000, you go $3,000. another suggestion i would say overall would be um i think this stuff is pretty important and um i think it makes sense to have like staff do bullet points of what rather than write every the whole code out do bullet points and then have another meeting and i would suggest so that there can be a joint discussion and so that there can be hopefully a little more knowledge on their part on really what I think a good majority of funding commissioners are thinking. I would agree with that.

And he'll be with us, we'll talk with him and see about what I had intended and we're not in a big rush like I was last time. see about doing that I think because you know they're very conservative they're very you know about this because like I said this is a big issue for people you know I mean people feel strongly you know to allow lots of things versus other people that are very nervous about it and so there is kind of a discussion yeah what is my point because otherwise it'll come out of the planning commission we can present our planning commission recommends this and if they're way far here then yeah i i think it could be effective but i'd really like to hear from you nothing else would be good for us to be there answering the questions so and have that dialogue as a group yeah With illustrations, yes.

Before I've written everything out. That can be a draft. That can be discussed. Sure.

And that's why, yeah, bullet points. Yeah, that's why I'm talking about just broad issues just to get a feel.

We'll break out that and see where we go. I think it's a good suggestion. It is. Especially because the feeling that I'm getting is we have a council that is very reluctant to make decisions. much more liberal in the application of this. So it is true that if we followed your direction, it's very likely it would get when we brought it back.

It may be more productive. It may be better to have that. discussion before we get into that.

I'm glad you spoke out front because I think it's a bit successful. Obviously, James needs to wait on that. I don't think we have time for this, but it's okay. We'll come back. This actually is the hardest. You have an existing structure and you want to convert it. Well, it's already built. Are you going to use all of it? Can you use a portion of it? What portion?

I was going to say, you've got the existing ordinance a bunch for accessory dwelling. So I think it would be helpful as part of that to help us understand what this is.

As tonight's chair, I'm going to call this conversation complete.

Yes.

I have to ask one question. And when we come back to talk about this, I think it's important as to whether it's conforming or non-conforming. Because we have a lot of these existing abilities that are non-conforming that people are going to want. It has to be lived. Yeah. And that means people have to learn it or modify it. So they got five feet for the prop tonight. recording stopped your story's up okay like yeah you're absolutely right i think that's the first question is it conforming or not right

Recording in progress. All right. I think those are the magic words. I think Mike and Aisha, are we okay to go ahead and get going? Amazing. Thank you. All right. I'm going to call this meeting to order. The Planning Commission, we welcome you to tonight's Planning Commission meeting. I am the current chair of the Planning Commission, Winnie Stavenport. And I'm joined by my fellow planning commissioners. And I'll have each commissioner introduce themselves, starting with Jennifer.

Jennifer George. Ron Mortimer.

David Hart. Cameron Duncan. Dave Bromley. Steve Rigley.

All right. Thank you, commissioners. And Mike, will you please introduce yourself and the rest of the Sandy City staff?

Yes I'm Mike Wilcox I'm the city's planning director to my left is Darien Alcorn our senior city attorney. We have in the audience Clinton Spencer if you can raise your hand when I call your name. He's our development services manager. We have Jake Warner with our long range planning manager. We have Melissa Anderson who is our zoning administrator. We have Cash Hansi senior planner. We also have Grant Hancock a planner in our office. We also have Brittany Ward city engineer and Ivan Hooper transportation engineer. And then we also have Aisha Malia-Tulua who is our administrative assistant in the community development department and secretary to the planning commission. I think that's everyone.

All right. Thank you sir. He introduced he introduced Darren. Mike just to confirm did you want me to do you want me to read what we as a planning commission are responsible for doing.

You may or you may not. It's up to you.

I would love to. As you may know, the Planning Commission is a non-elected body consisting of citizens who live in Sandy and who have been appointed to this commission by the mayor with the advice and consent of the city council. We are a land use authority for Sandy City and charged with certain responsibilities as outlined in the Land Development Code of Sandy City. We are asked to make recommendations on land use decisions to the city council and the mayor. We are also the decision-making body for various land use reviews and applications as required in the land development code. Our duty is to uphold the laws and ordinances as established and adopted by the city council. So we meet at the call of the chairman, normally on the first and third Thursday of every month at 6.15 p.m. here in the city council chambers. Our meetings are typically preceded by a field trip of the agenda items and an executive session which consists of training by our staff and legal counsel. These are part of the open meeting and the public may attend. The training and regular portion of the meetings can be attended virtually through Zoom webinar as well. All right. We'll go ahead and begin tonight's meeting with a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.

indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay. Tonight's Planning Commission meeting will follow the agenda that has been published. This is made available at the entry to this room and digitally on the city's website. Each item on that agenda will proceed based on the agenda. So we do not have any consent calendar items. We do have three public hearing items and three public meeting items on the agenda, and then we'll proceed in order shown on the agenda. So... All right, we will move to the public hearing items beginning with the Canyon Gate general plan amendment and Mike Wilcox Will you please introduce that item?

Yes thank you Madam Chair. The first item is the Kenyon Gate general plan amendment. We're going to do a joint presentation for both the Kenyon Gate general plan amendment and the rezone. This is a request that's being presented by Nathan Boyer on behalf of the Boyer Group who is the applicant in this particular instance. They're representing the property owners of the Kenyon School District for a property located at 825 East 9085 South. They are seeking to change the future land use designation in the general plan as well as seeking a rezone for this property and I believe the applicant is here in the audience and can come up and make their presentation.

Do they need to introduce themselves with name and address or did you already do that for them? Please introduce yourself with your name and address.

Yeah, my name is Spencer Moffitt with the Boyer Company. And our address is 101 South, 200 East, Suite 200 in Salt Lake City, Utah. I'm going to spare the long introduction. I think staff did a really good job in the packet, and I'm assuming that that was handed out and read. I'll just give kind of a general overview of the project, and then happy to answer questions or whatever the process you would like to follow. But we were approached a while back by the Canyon School District to ascertain our interest in purchasing the property. We did have interest. Unfortunately, we don't operate schools or anything of that sort. So we approached the city and asked about a zone change. And that is why we're here today. We've been back and forth with staff, talked kind of about different options and different possibilities. And what we have settled on is what you see kind of before you. It's the rezone of the 7.2 acres. from R18 to the PUD 12 zone. In conjunction with that rezone, we presented this concept plan. I'll remind you, this is conceptual only. But we did spend quite a bit going through this with staff and different members of the community. We did have a community meeting and kind of discussed this with some of the residents in the area. And we're able to share some of our thoughts and objectives. But you can see that before you. I'll just kind of hit a couple of the highlights. We've learned a lot over the last, well, I've done this for 25 years. Boyer's been around doing this for a long time. We've made some mistakes and we're hoping not to make mistakes. The same mistakes, at least again. One of the things we've learned is parking is very important, especially in smaller communities. And so we've got full driveways in all of these units. 20-foot drives can fit two vehicles. We've often found that when we build townhomes and we don't put driveways in, the garages become storage sheds. and there's nowhere to put a car, and it becomes a mess for most of the residents. So one of the features that we incorporate in most our communities is the full-length driveway. We also have adequate guest parking. We try to park beyond the standard, city standard. So you can see we also tried to spread it throughout the community. So parking is a big one. And then also a mix of units. We've got a couple different unit types in the product, just so in the community. We don't want it to look homogenous, so you're looking at the same thing over and over and over again. Out on 90th South, you'll have some three-story units, kind of some taller units that are rear load face onto 90th South, give some architectural look. As you come down 90th South, you'll see the front of homes. As we talk to staff, what we don't want is people driving down 90th looking into the back of homes and seeing maybe people's things out there, garbage, debris. those type of things so the homes along 90th will front on to 90th South they'll have the garages in the back of the home in the center of the community in what I'll call the lighter orange those are rear load units so the garages will be in the back and then the front doors will front onto a Paseo or a guard landscaped area where those front doors will be facing front doors and it'll activate those space in between the homes that's the space kind of that the residents can utilize with kids animals just to be outside and you can see we tried to get you know a decent size so it's usable and there's some breathing air breathing room in between those units and then as you go south and bump up against the adjacent community to the south we've gone to a front load community so it's back door to back door with the existing community And we've got those units – well, I should mention the units in the light orange in the middle are two-story, and then the rear – the units on the south of the property are also two-story, so as to not encumber the property that is south in views. Anyway, just a general overview of some of the salient points that we talked to staff about and we've heard from various residents. So I thought I would just highlight those. I know this is a conceptual plan and we're talking about a rezone, but I – Obviously, those are a few items that we feel that are important and we intend to incorporate into our community. So that's a general overview of what we're trying to accomplish with the community. Yeah, I'm happy to address any questions about it when the time is right.

Thank you. Thanks for the information. Madam Chair, make sure your microphone's on.

Oh, thank you, sir. Any questions to the applicant? All right. Okay, yes.

So your density on this is 86 units, but that's less than what it could be for this property.

Yeah, well, less in what regard?

Well, I mean, this property, the 7.2 acres could have more units if you decided to go with this. I think it was 16, you've gone with 12 or something. Yes, yes, yes. So you're actually giving more space than you could.

Yes, to meet that. And we're compliant with the 40% open space that's required per that zone. So there's a couple of things that, yes, we self-regulated on the zoning to get to that 86 number.

Is there any play areas in here for kids? Yeah, there is.

If you go back to that concept plan, on the northeast corner, we've got a tot lot there. And then we do have a pickleball court. And then also on the southeast end of the community, we're showing a spot for a dog park. That's kind of the three community amenities we found to be well utilized in other communities that we have built. I find generally 50% to 60% of the homeowners in these areas are dog owners as well. And so, you know, not having a private yard, they do need a place for their dog. And then, you know, small children as well, a tot lot, something to that effect. And then, yeah.

So the selling price of these units will be about what? I wish I could.

Great question. You know, construction costs and land costs, I don't know the construction costs. We don't have architectural drawings. We haven't bid them out. So I don't know that.

They're not to be moderate income or whatever.

No, no. I think it's pretty safe to say, based on what we're paying to the school district, they won't be affordable or moderate income.

All right. Thank you. I think with that, thank you so much for coming up. Mr. Warner, would you like to provide additional information?

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. Just a couple of things. So the focus is on the rezone. The rezone, I guess it's arguable as to whether or not the rezone is consistent with our future land use map and our general plan currently. 90th South does have the transition corridor overlay on it, however the underlying land use designation is institutional. It was designated institutional because of the school facilities on the property. The transition corridor overlay does open the door for consideration of support for some infill, medium density. The general plan indicates that the transition corridor areas could provide or would be a max of 16 units per acre. Staff wasn't comfortable with supporting the idea of the transition corridor because it is on 90th South. Staff wasn't comfortable supporting an argument that that be applied to the entire property because it's along 90th South. So we felt like it was a better, more transparent process to also do a general plan amendment to amend the underlying land use designation from institutional to medium density. which the applicant has submitted an application for that general plan amendment as well. And that plays in to Mr. Wrigley's questions about whether or not they're meeting the density or under. If they have 7.2 acres, they would be maximizing the density at 12 units per acre. But again the transition corridor land use designation potentially would support up to 16 units along the frontage of 90th South. So they would be maximizing the density of the zone but the land use designation itself potentially would support something higher depending on the context along the frontage of 90th South. So with that this is a legislative item. And you do have two items in front of you. We've handled them as one item, one presentation. But you do have two applications in front of you. Both need separate decisions. As legislative items, they require a public hearing, which has been noticed. And then planning commission makes recommendation to the city council. And the city council is the final decision maker.

OK. Members of the commission do you have any questions for Jake before we move to the public.

I just have one comment I think this is a great use of that transition zone. So I think that was a good discussion when we went over the general plan.

And it maybe should be said that they are, if the general plan amendment were to be approved, changing the underlying designation from institutional to medium density, the medium density designation supports a density of up to 12 units per acre, which is what they're asking for. But they are then pushing more of the intense units, the taller units, up towards 90 south And the transition corridor land use designation would support maybe a little bit more intensity right along the corridor itself. So that would be consistent with the general plan amendment that they're requesting.

Great. Nice. All right. All right. Thank you, sir. We will now open the meeting for the public comment on this item. And we'll begin with those attending in person. If you would like to speak to this item, please come to the podium one at a time. We want to hear from all that desire to speak. Therefore, we will give you approximately three minutes for each person. If you're representing a group, we may be able to give you some more time. Just let us know when you come up to the podium. And then please state your name and address for the record. Do we have any members of the public? All right. Yes, please come up. Thank you.

I have questions.

Wait, will you please start with your name and address?

Absolutely. My name is Zoe Millard. I live at 826 Gatewood Drive, so right around the corner from this.

Okay.

And my question was more so a question. Is this designated for owned units or rented units?

So we typically don't answer questions from the public, but I think we can maybe get to that once we get back to the deliberation process. Okay. But I think we caught your question.

Thank you.

Thank you. Any other public comments? All right Mike do we have anybody online.

If you are joining us via zoom webinar and would like to speak on this particular item for the rezone and the general plan amendment of this subject property please use the raise your hand feature and we'll address you one at a time. I'm seeing no hands.

Thank you so with that we'll close the public comment on this item and turn it back to the Commission for any deliberation And next steps we should probably address her question.

Maybe you could Thank you Jake So the applicant is portrayed to staff that they do intend to subdivide this property this project into individual townhome owner occupiable units and However, that's their stated intent and there would be no requirement currently on the table that would bind them to that. So they could do either or or a mix? If the rezone is approved and no other measures are taken, then, yeah, that would be up to them.

Great.

I guess there would be another process through a site plan process where that would come up and we would talk about that, right, with the applicant?

That could be talked about with the site plan process, but once they have the zone in place, they have an entitlement based on what the zoning allows. Correct.

Yep.

Just going to say, I feel this proposal fits the neighborhood much better than a high-rise apartment complex that could be possibly put in there. So I'm in favor of this. This is a good idea.

Thank you. Any other comments? Are we ready for a motion?

I guess I'm ready for a motion. So I'd like to make the motion that we forward a positive recommendation to the City Council to approve the application for a change of the future land use designation of the subject property from the institutional designation to the medium density neighborhood designate. Excuse me, designation.

Second.

Sorry, that second was Dave. Oh, Dave. Cameron Duncan. Yes. David Hart. Yes. Dave Bromley. Yes. Ron Mortimer. Yes. Steve Wrigley.

Yes.

Jennifer George. Yes. Laniece Davenport. Yes. This motion carries. Great.

Thank you.

I'm ready for a second motion.

Amazing. Thank you.

I'd like to make the motion that we forward a positive recommendation to the City Council to approve the application for a zone change of the subject property from the R1A zone to the PUD 12 zone.

Second.

Cameron Duncan. Yes. David Hart. Yes. Dave Bromley.

Yes.

Ron Mortimer. Yes. Steve Wrigley. Yes. Jennifer George. Yes. Laniece Davenport. Yes. This motion carries.

Great. Thank you. All right. Congratulations. With that, we are going to continue to the next item on the agenda, which is... the amendments to the Title 21 of the Land Development Code related to building height. And Mr. Wilcox, if we can start with you to introduce the item again.

Thank you Madam Chair. This next item is a code amendment request being sought by a property owner in Sandy Dave Hunt who is being represented by Jeff Knighton who is the applicant on file. They've applied to amend Title 21 of the Land Development Code to revise residential building height standards. In particular this proposal would allow for heights in residential zone districts where the predominant slope on the lot is 30% or greater to be measured from natural grade rather than the average finish grade. I believe the applicant is here and can present on their request. So we'll start with that first.

Thank you. Please come to the podium and then just state your name and address.

Thank you. My name is Jeff Knighton. I am a resident of Mapleton, Utah. I used to be a resident of Sandy City and loved my time here. I'm with Knighton Architecture. We did make this application and we sent in some slides so I can walk you through what we're trying to propose here. Really what we're trying to do is on sites where there is a lot of slope, the way that the current city standard is written for measuring building height is based on finished grade, and it allows for potentially some manipulation of those grades, and we think that especially with lots that have a lot of slope on it, using the existing grade, as kind of how you measure your building envelope to stay within on your building heights is probably a more effective way for lots on steep slopes. And it's something that that's commonly how a lot of the jurisdictions around here that are in the mountain areas or have a lot of slopes, that's how they measure their building height requirements. And so that's kind of what we proposed. Do I move this slide or do you guys? Is there a button? This one? Okay. Awesome. This button. This button. That button.

There you go. You got it. Whoops. Too many buttons. You got it.

All right. It was just delayed. There we go. All right. So, yeah. Problem is... And yeah, what brought this to our attention is, as was introduced, there was David Hunt, who's a resident here, and ran into some issues with his home. And so that's kind of what's prompted this conversation. But the current heist entered, if it's, I'll actually just go show you this next slide here. So when building height is measured off finished grade on a slope, essentially you can bring in fill at the end of the project and bring in a bunch of dirt around the edge of the house which then brings the way that that height is measured you know because you measure off that finish line you can bring that line up and so you can get a taller house by just putting more dirt up against it uh... which doesn't solve that that house is still visually very tall to the surrounding areas, right? So you can kind of manipulate that finish grade when it's on a steep slope. And there are, you know, we've seen some homes like that in Sandy where, and not just Sandy, but in a lot of places where you can kind of bring in a lot of extra fill at the end, bring in finish grade to satisfy this type of requirement as opposed to, let's go to this. So if you go off of, Existing grade, essentially what we do when we're designing a home on a steep slope, we have a model of our topography that we get from our surveyor. And then we copy that up to the building height, so 35 feet. And then that gives us an envelope that we have to stay within from the design standpoint. So your home, as the lot goes up, the home has to terrace and kind of step up with the grade. And it's based on the existing natural grade as it's been surveyed. So there's less opportunities to manipulate the grade because I think the intent of a building height would be preserving views for neighboring properties. There's a life safety component from a firefighting, fire marshal access kind of standpoint. And this kind of approach we feel like is actually a better way, again, on a slope. So what we're proposing is, you know, the 35-foot height limit that's required, instead of just measuring off those two points at finish grade, then it depends on where you set it, that we just use the existing surveys, you know, before the project starts and then have that be the... be the measuring stick, which we think aligns with the intent in the general plan with Sandy City. You end up with less scarring. You don't see the home at the end that's got all that dirt just put up against it or carving deeply into the hill or those types of things. And it is more land responsive. You have to design with the land and the contours and the topography. As a designer, as an architect, it is more challenging. to do it this way, but we believe in it. And that's why we're a proponent of it in this setting. Yeah, so we still protect the views. And it feels like a lot, I know that there's, when you look at a lot of the available lots to build still for custom homes, especially in Sandy, they're in the hills. There's a lot of slope on a lot of those properties. Um, one of the things we actually presented to and discussed is maybe there's an, it's an alternative to in the code and I don't know, um, you know, I'm sure Mike and Melissa will share some of their thoughts too, but It doesn't have to be that everybody now has to follow the standard. It could apply to lots of steep slopes. It could be a lot of code has, this is the standard, but there's an alternate method that you can apply for. And again, it puts more responsibility on the design team to demonstrate the compliance. We have to provide more exhibits, more information. We have to model it in 3D and provide those documents. So it could just be that it's an alternate method in the code that doesn't have to vary from what is in there now if you are comfortable with what's there now. But I did want to get to this image and especially the one on the right, you can kind of see it's a pretty direct interpretation of this type of approach where the roof literally slopes with the slope of the ground and that's kind of what we're getting at. That same home, if you use the standard or the current standard where you see on the far right of that image where that deck is, The way this current Sandy Code is written, the homeowner could bring in 10 feet of dirt instead of that walkout basement, and then measure from where that dirt stopped the new fill, and then measure the building height off of that. So you would end up with this piled up dirt mound around the house, and then it would comply. And so the same thing in some cases apply to David Hunt, who's here. If his house, if he just piled up a bunch of dirt around it, then his house would be in compliance the way it is now. And unfortunately, in that case, there was miscommunication, and it was framed off of an older set of plans, not the approved set of plans. And then that wasn't discovered until final inspection. So now he's in a tough situation at no fault of his own, and not because of the plans that were approved by the city, but just because there was a miscommunication which drawings to use for the framing But again, if you just brought in a bunch of dirt, then you measure that finished grade, then all of a sudden it goes away. The problem is bringing that finished dirt, in his case, covers the garage, covers some functionality in the home. So not only is it, yes, is there a case-specific example that is being discussed and He's currently trying to work through with the city. As we got into this to help him out, we see this in other communities, in mountains communities, and we think it is an appropriate way to measure building height when you have a lot of slopes. It is more sensitive to land. It is more sensitive to the views. It is harder as a designer to demonstrate compliance, but I do think it is the right way to approach it. I think that's for the most part what I had to share with you. I can answer questions.

Okay. Yeah, thank you for the presentation. The information is helpful. Having the visuals is helpful. Before we turn it to staff, Ms. Anderson, it looks like we do have some questions from the commission.

So what would stop somebody from over-excavating and then wanting to go from the natural grade that was there originally in building a taller home?

So, I mean, if they over excavate, they could potentially bury more of like the basement into the home, I guess.

I'm just saying that if they lower the grade. It's off existing. It's off existing.

Off existing, so off the survey before they start construction. Yeah, but if they lower the grade. Then they would still be off the existing grades.

Right, but that would be taller because they'd be adding additional square footage and additional height down below. Right. So they could build a taller house by over excavating.

Taller as measured in the end, but in terms of the visual impact to the neighbors, they're not exceeding what would have been built, if I'm understanding correctly.

It would be measured from the existing grade. So if they lowered the grade, their building would have to be shorter.

No. He's saying from the original grade. If the original grade's here, I lower it, and I build from here to here, I can go from here up. So you can build a taller house if you over excavate, is what I'm saying. And to an existing neighbor, it doesn't matter. He's still going to be looking at a three to four story house if you do it that way. Your argument is correct. If you pile a bunch of dirt on, it's originally from the existing grade. But when you over excavate, you now have the ability to build taller because you're adding that over excavation to the height that you would normally be allowed to use.

Yeah, I mean, maybe to address that concern, you could still say that there's still a maximum height. I mean, there's still building code maximum heights. There's still what the fire marshal would require for the height requirements as well.

But it's off of grade. Correct. And it's off of finish grade because that's what the fire marshal uses to determine how high they have to go.

Yeah, I think the building code would look at the height just off the home. And then the planning looks at the height through a different lens. So what we're talking about would be from the planning side. But yeah, maybe you put in some provision that prevents all that over excavation if that's a concern.

Great. Other questions?

So the current home that's somewhat in discussion is how tall?

It exceeds the height by five feet. It's about five feet, so it's 40 feet. So on one point of it, yeah. The backside of it is well within, if we were to measure it this standard, it's on the one front corner where the garage is that it's taller.

And this originally came with approved plans, but the actual building of it didn't meet the approved plans. Correct. Now coming for a change in the building. That's correct.

All right. Seeing no other questions from the commission, thank you so much.

You bet. Thank you.

Yep. We'll turn it to Ms. Anderson to provide more information.

We're going to bring up the slides back up again. OK. So Mike already went through our introduction slide, and that was a good presentation of the proposal by the applicant. And it's delayed, but I'm going to try one more time, hopefully. There we go. So just to make sure everyone understands what our existing code is, I just wanted to outline that. In the existing code, the maximum building height for a primary dwelling in residential zones is 35 feet and the building height is measured as the vertical distance from the average finished grade and that illustration kind of shows you when you are in a slope you're measuring from a midpoint to the peak to the surface of the building to the highest point of the coping of a flat roof top of a mansard roof or a top of a ridge for a gable hip or gamble roof so that's what we've been using we've been applying that standard methodology for four decades here in sandy and this was just some points about the proposal I think our applicant did a very good explanation of that but basically it's going to be applicable to residential properties where the predominant slope within the building envelope is 30% or greater that's what the proposed language was among others and it is alternative method for measuring building height and that's optional for an applicant so it's not required but optional, and that the maximum building height for habitable portions of the dwelling would be 35 feet measured from the existing or natural grade. There's other fine points, but that's the basics. And this illustrates what precipitated this code amendment. This is from a distance showing the home. And it's the top portion of that home that is exceeding the building height limit. It took over a year to get the plans reviewed and approved. Building height and consistency with the rest of the plans took quite a bit of time to finally get an approved set of plans. There were other issues as well, but there was an approved set of plans and stipulations that it needs to follow the approved plans, but it was cited that when they were you know, getting the elevation checked, that it exceeded the building height, and so apparently there was some miscommunication with the plans, the approved plans versus the previous plans and what was used. So anyway, that's just a good illustration of what precipitated this. Now, staff, as proposed, does not recommend approval of this. I'm going to go through four basic issues. There's others as well, but some of the very meaningful issues are that this would allow taller homes. The proposed method of measuring building height would enable a taller home, as you just saw on the illustration, to be constructed in steeper sloped areas than is otherwise currently allowed. And so the methodology has some merit in terms of trying to follow the existing slopes, but as proposed and with the 35-foot height limit, you're basically allowing a taller home because that's what it resulted as. Inequity. is another issue that staff is concerned about. The applicant would be able to have a taller building with this code amendment, while existing homeowners have not been allowed to use the same methodology for measuring building height, as well as inconsistent enforcement. Previous cases where a new home was being constructed taller than the code allowed have been required to physically correct the situation to meet the code. as well as there would be significant revisions required to the text as proposed for it to be implemented and consistent with the rest of the code. There are a number of either ambiguities or other areas of the code that have not been addressed or defined that significant changes to the language as proposed would be required. There are other issues in terms of there is additional cost. Application requirements will have to be defined if this type of a methodology is used because it requires 3D modeling and staff will have to have appropriate information to be able to accurately assess it. using this methodology at the time of building permit and then for surveys done throughout the construction process. So there's other reasons too, but those are fundamental reasons. So staff is recommending to the Planning Commission that you forward a negative recommendation to the City Council to amend Title 21 of the Municipal Code pertaining to building height based on the analysis and the findings in the staff report that goes into further detail. So any questions?

Any questions?

I have a question, I guess. So if we approve the amendment, Is it retroactive to this home since it's already approved, it's already built? Would this be retroactive?

That's a good question. I asked that myself. They would have to apply for another building permit. But whether it is physically changed to reduce the height or whether there's an administrative change that would allow the existing structure, either way they have to apply for a building permit. And we'd have to review that. And so it's not necessarily retroactive. But if a code amendment was passed, they'd have to submit another building permit. And we'd review it at that time with any new code applied.

So you're saying that it's not just one thing was presented, there's several things possibly that would have to be changed in the code that... Modifying the language, perhaps additional definitions for clarity.

For example, a predominant, a lot that has a predominant slope of 30%, I'm not sure what the predominant is. There's habitable space. that is proposed to measure where the building where you have the habitable space and we generally do not measure the height based on the land use because we can't go in and check and verify and or consistently check. We're measuring the structure, the outside structure and the top of the plate. Those are just some examples but there's more, definitely more of more comprehensive changes to the code, as well as it's proposed at 35 feet. That's one of the big things, at 35 feet, measuring for natural grade, because that is what is allowing the building to be taller than what we normally would allow it. Because it's not met the code now. This new methodology and code would allow a taller building. That's the outcome.

So this would be difficult for me to vote on, because I'm not really sure what I'm voting on, because you haven't presented all the policy changes, so I know what it meant. Is that correct? I mean, I'd say modify, yes, modify this, but I don't know what I'm saying yes to, because we'd have to have several policy changes.

Yeah, I think it would have to be revised, and the applicant could revise it. We are unsure whether this code amendment is actually going to do what they think it's going to do. We haven't seen evidence that it really will meet the code. Thank you. Thank you. That it would actually meet the new proposed code language. So we're just uncertain about that. I think the applicant is. But what the evidence or the proposal that was submitted, we're a little unsure about that.

Okay, what you were saying last is...

But the thing is, as proposed, because this is from a citizen, that it's not necessarily staff's job to rewrite their whole code for them. But that would need to be done. Someone would need to be doing, look at all other sections of the code that this might touch and affect. And after looking at other codes where they are trying to apply this type of methodology from the existing grade, The building height is lower. Anywhere from 25 to 30 feet is common. There's some that have a bit higher, but some of the examples that were cited in the proposal, they're not 35 feet measured from existing grade.

So this would be basically everybody else in the city would do 35 max, but if you have a hill 30 grade, you could have 50 feet, 40 feet based upon your grade?

It depends on what you do with it.

I have a question. It seems kind of strange to me that we're going through and doing a rewrite for one problem.

And so I'm opposed to it from that standpoint isn't there are some kind of variance that Mr. Hunt could apply for or some type of waiver that he could demonstrate why he's had this situation occur rather than going through and Rewriting all of this we've had we've had trouble with 30% slopes forever or greater in a lot of areas and I just I think that this is just I kind of a way of trying to get that one approved, but a lot of other people have had to deal with the code as it is, and they've had to build on steep slopes with the way it is. So I'm hesitant. In fact, I'm against voting for it. And I think that there may need to be another administrative way of dealing with his situation rather than changing the code to allow it. That's my comment.

Thank you.

Jennifer? I have the same question. Are these the only two options to either spend the money to renovate or change the code? Yes.

I don't believe that this would meet the criteria for a variance. We have administrative variances, but those are for very small, you know, less than a foot difference. And so that's the only option. We've had other cases where there was a misstep and they had to physically change it to comply. So that's not, just that it has happened before and it's happened a few times. It's always unfortunate. We never want this to happen. That's why the, you know, reviewing and finally approving that building permit, it took a long time for us to get measured according to our building height per the code and that the other plan set sheets were also in line with that because you don't want just one plan sheet that says this with the rest of the plans, the grading plan and the rest of the building plans don't match. All right.

What I am hearing – oh, did we have another comment?

Oh, I was just going to – so you're saying there's not a third option at all, making that an absolute statement?

No, and there's also a contract and an agreement with the applicant because our attorney's office in the city administration had worked with the applicant.

I know, but there's no authority that the planning commission has to look at any kind of variance or change or anything like that. Okay.

The Planning Commission doesn't have any authority to grant an exception for height. They have an option to apply for a variance that would go to the Board of Adjustment. However there are statutes that have been established by the state that set minimum criteria and one of those criteria is that it can't be a self-imposed hardship. And it's hard to argue that that's not a self-imposed hardship that they're dealing with in this case.

Because I don't want to get down the road and say a what-if scenario. So thanks. That's the answer to my question. Those are good questions. Thank you.

I was going to say, it sounds like we might need more time or information on this item. But I'm going to hold off until, OK. Let's hear from, let's open up. Thank you, Ms. Anderson. Let's open it up for public comment. beginning with those that are in person if you'd like to speak to the site and please come to the podium and introduce yourself we just need your name and address don't fault me I live in Draper Pratt diamond 2627 East Canyon edge Drive in Draper

I didn't come prepared. I didn't know this was a public meeting, but I am here, so I'm the guilty one. I built it. Mr. Hunt went through a transition of contractors, several of them at the time, and so when I got involved... That's what happened with the plans. We had a set of plans. We were off and running. So none of this was done with ill intent. Obviously, if we had to do it, we'd do it over again. But there were several things we call a stack effect that happened on this particular thing. And I'll end with something that I'm building over in Pepperwood that I don't understand how the code's really being applied. But it all started with the grade, which I came in around the footing stage. Footings were already done, and then the foundation went on top of that. That loft sits back about 15 to 17 feet off the front of the house, which doesn't have really a visual effect as far as the coat, but it does have an effect on how the coat is interpreted. I didn't design that, Mr. Knighton did. It's a beautiful home. We did submit to the building department several structural changes to the house, which ended up adding about 2.3 to 2.7 feet to the house, which were approved. I'm not saying the building department did anything wrong. That's not what I'm saying, but... We had to make some adjustments just due to some engineering changes that happened with the home with some heights of some windows and so on and so forth. So we had some structural trusses that had to be built. And then on the top, it was where you saw that loft. There was an extra foot to 14 inches put on there because there was no slope up there. You get a lot of snow. So we ended up taking that about 14 inches up on that top portion there. But if you look at that, I think he said it's five feet too high. On the rear, we're way under that. So I don't know how to interpret the code on that. So there was a stacking effect that happened on that. With the site slope, the structural system changes, and so on and so forth. So I say that. I'm not asking you to change the code for this particular instance. I do believe, Mr. Hart, you mentioned a variance. Hopefully there's an option for that. I'm building a home currently in Pepperwood, and I use this as an example. And I build on a lot of slopes. I wish I could build on an ivory home splat piece of land. I don't even know what that would look like. So I'm on three bent hollow lane. They applied the same situation, same code to this one. This house is a rambler. It's got a 12-12 pitch, a couple 14-12s and some lowers. It's just under 29 feet tall. but we couldn't get it to apply to this code. So the planning department, we ended up having to put a rock wall on the south side because this is a sloping lot this way. It may not be the same here. So we had to put a rock wall in order to hide that in order to meet this particular code in order to move forward. We're six feet under the 35 feet. However, directly across the street, similar to Mr. Hunt's lot, very, very similar to the upslope like this, they decided to keep the house there. It's 62 feet in the air directly across the street, but they decided to keep it there. I'm not saying it's over 35 feet, but... I just think at some point that the code needs to be looked at and maybe there are some options. I liken it to like you have a clothing store and you have a one size fits all and everybody goes in that clothing store. They all got to fit in the same clothes. There are some things that need to be changed with this code at some point in the future.

Great. Thank you for your comment. Appreciate it. Any other comments? Yes, please.

I'm David Hunt, 3351 East 9980 South. I'm the homeowner. I thought you should hear from me. I do want to say that now that I've been exposed to this concept of running the height measurement with the original grade, I will say I am behind that. I think it's a good idea. I do agree there were some things that some definitions, I think maybe it was Ms. George pointed out there, were missing some I'm not pointing fingers at anybody, but we did submit the original proposed code amendment and did not receive any red lines back. We certainly would have liked that. We would have liked to have worked toward a workable code. A lot of these objections that we're hearing now, we would have liked to have worked through as opposed to the blanket no. I think it was maybe almost a month and a half ago. So that would have been helpful, but it may be too late for my house, but I think finding a way to run houses up the side of the hill makes a lot more sense. Like Mr. Diamond pointed out, there are houses all around us that are 50, 60 feet in the air where they've just been excavated in a way and the ground pushed up. They look giant from the road. You can't see the grade that is pushed up against them. When you're driving by, you just see this monstrosity going up into the air. So we strongly believe that, especially with 30% grades, like you see in other communities, that the code should be modernized. Mr. Hart had the point that, well, you could just manipulate it by digging lower. We could put clauses into the code that say you cannot be 35 feet from any point, whether it was, you know, like you couldn't dig down. It couldn't be 35 feet from a new point below the original grade. So you couldn't manipulate that. And that's an easy one or two lines in the code. So thank you for your attention to this, and thank you for your questions and considering it. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you so much. It's a hard spot. We appreciate it. I think any other comment from the public before we turn it. We do have one online.

If you are joining us via Zoom webinar and would like to speak to this particular item please use the raise your hand feature now and we'll address you one at a time. Mr. Van Maren you may unmute yourself.

Thank you, Michael. Good evening Planning Commission. Steve Van Maren, also a Draper resident. I'm a little confused by a couple of things. The first was, if you are required to infill back to the original grade, so it is truly a maximum from the final grade as well, rather than the average. And second, it should be the grade level of I'm sorry, third, second, not out of three then, it should be the grade level from which the measurement is made to a maximum of 35 feet. Infill I can understand, but I don't understand how the proposal would let you excavate and just have a tall house on an excavated lot. Second, I'm confused about the uninhabitable space as well. Staff is I don't see why that would not interfere with Perception of height and I don't think that makes any sense.

Thank you for letting me speak Thank you anybody else I'm seeing no other hands All right Seeing no other hands with that we can close the public hearing for this item and turn it to either to staff to answer any questions that might have been posed. I'm not sure if we need to do that. Or does the commission want to deliberate any more on this item? Are we ready for a motion? What does the body feel like?

Well you've heard my opinion. I think that we're rushing a code amendment that we haven't had a great deal of opportunity to think about. I don't think we should delay it. I think they ought to if they're going to work on a code amendment they can work on a code amendment and bring it back later to us in an appropriate manner. I'm sorry that Mr. Hunt is in this situation. I fully understand the anxiety that he's going through as I'm building a house, but the reality is I don't think we do – we don't change an amendment for one situation. And so I would recommend that we vote no, send a negative recommendation to the city council.

That sounded like a motion to me. Do we have a second?

Well, I think he's got the motion.

Who? Yeah that sounded like a motion to me. Okay Cameron will you please make the official motion.

Make the motion that the Planning Commission forward a negative recommendation to the City Council to amend Title 21 of the Sandy Municipal Code relating to building height that's shown in Exhibit A based on the four findings as outlined in the staff report.

I'll second that.

Cameron Duncan.

Yes.

David Hart. Yes. Dave Bromley. Yes. Ron Mortimer. Yes. Steve Wrigley. Yes. Jennifer George. Yes. Linny Stavenport. Yes. This motion carries.

Thank you. All right. With that, we will go ahead and turn to our next item on the agenda, item number six, which is the Silver Ridge Flats Special Exemption Review. And we will turn the time over to Mike, Mr. Wilcox, for introduction.

Thank you Madam Chair. We'll actually be discussing the next three items 6, 7 and 8. They're all related to the Silver Ridge Flats Estates proposed development that is being submitted by Andrew Gutierrez the property owner. They're requesting preliminary subdivision site plan and special exception review for this property located at 886 East 7800 South. The proposal is consisting of consolidating two existing properties and then subdividing them into nine residential townhome units and seeking a special exception to require or to allow for a single point of access into this development for a private road with a varied profile and improvements in width. And I believe the applicant is here and can present their request to the Planning Commission followed by our staff member Cash Hansi.

Great. Thank you. Please come to the podium and state your name and address.

I'm Brandon Preece from Gilson Engineering representing Andrew Gutierrez.

If you could pull that microphone up close to your mouth. There we go. You're a little taller.

Our address is 12401 South 450 East in Draper. As this project is moving forward, what it is is we are consolidating two lots located on 7800 South. The two lots are currently allow for have enough acreage for to be able to have nine townhome units with a private road we are we're asking for three special exceptions on this law the first special exception oh thank you perfect uh you can see the layout that is in front of you uh it has uh four four townhome units on the east side five townhome units on the south side uh private road coming in with an additional dedication along 7 800 south to meet the current right-of-way required by engineering. One of the special exceptions that's being requested is a modified hammerhead turnaround at the end of a cul-de-sac. The standard cul-de-sac or a standard hammerhead turnaround requires 60 feet From the centerline of the of the private drive in each direction For the apparatus the fire apparatus to be able to make a full turn and get out of the subdivision we met with fire marshal and staff and Have put together a special section and an auto turn that actually shows a full ladder Aerial fire truck can make this turnaround in this offset Hammerhead, which is a special exception from the standard Hammerhead which is in the development code. The second special exception that is being asked for is a modified private driveway access. The modified private driveway, as you can see on the exhibit next, includes a 57-foot right-of-way section. That 57 feet includes a modified sidewalk only on one side of the driveway. of the of the project that goes in front of 90 90 degree parking stalls we know when it comes to townhome projects that parking is always the key right these units have full garages on them but also needed to provide additional stalls for visitors as well just It's just always a problem. We've done a whole bunch of these from the engineering side, and parking is always a challenge. The modified right-of-way would include those 90-degree stalls and a full sidewalk on the one side. The reason it's special exception is it doesn't have the standard sidewalk on both sides of the access. in order to fit units and continue that connectivity. We have extended a sidewalk around the exterior of the project to provide pedestrian connectivity and also just make it a better amenable space. And the last special exception that's being applied for is a single point of egress. They're basically the single point of egress. We have designed that the Hammerhead does go all the way to the property line that allows for future connectivity development heading westerly, as there are some larger properties that could develop in the future. But this project does allow for a single point of egress that meets fire truck turnaround, that meets traffic counts for nine residential townhomes. They're not apartments. These are nine families. They're going to call these their homes. Those are the special exceptions that we're going after. As far as the project is concerned, it meets the requirements as far as density goes. It allows for a good amount of open space. It does have a small park. I know amenities are always a good thing, especially for kids, young families. There is a small play area on the southeast side, and there's also open space that are used for stormwater, but is planning to be detention to allow for plenty of open space to allow these families to have a... have a place to live. So that's the special sections for this project. It's what we're going after. And we believe that it meets the requirements of the Planning Commission. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Great. Any questions?

So this does not have any type of driveways on here, right?

No, it does not have any type of driveways. The development code, we either have to go to three feet off the top back of the curb or to provide a 12-foot driveway. With full garages and the additional parking, it was determined to make the actual units larger and to attract a better product for families. than to make them smaller and more long and cylindrical, which is not really the look that anyone wants.

Typically, these units would have a garage and a driveway, which is two cars per unit. You have some extra parking, but I think it's only 11 parking spaces. So if you have two cars per unit, that gives you two spaces for visitors.

Right, so each, so there's a combination of units. Some of the units are one stall, one stall units, but most of the units are actually two stall full garages. So the two stalls per unit for the development code is handled with the garage itself. And so all the parking required except for the I believe it's three units that are single are handled in the additional parking provided.

So this was a double wide drive for most of them? Correct. Okay. That makes a little more sense than just 11 units for everything else. Parking stalls for all the rest of the units. Thank you.

All right. Any other questions?

It's pretty clever how you came up with that, but I do like the sidewalk around the perimeter of that. I thought that was a nice addition. Thank you.

Okay. Seeing no additional comments or questions, thank you so much.

Thank you.

We will turn the time to Mr. Hansi to provide any additional information on this item.

Thank you. I do think the applicant handled the presentation pretty well. One thing I did want to clear up just on that parking count, there is a total of 14 uncovered parking stalls because of an average of three stalls per unit. But yeah, a little history. The property was annexed and rezoned to this back in 2024. to give you some context on this. And so there was a neighborhood meeting held then to discuss this. And now it's been zoned that RM10. And they're able to do up to nine units on this lot. And that's what they're proposing. So I don't have anything else.

Okay. Any questions for staff? Okay. All right. All right. We will now open the meeting for public comment, and we'll begin with those that are attending in person. If you'd like to speak to the item, you'll have three minutes. Please come to the podium and state your name and address. Yes. Please push those microphones down a little bit. I'm short.

Thank you. I am too. I'm Susan Hardman, and I live at 870 East, 7800 South, Midvale, to the west of this property, by the way. But I'm not.

Ma'am, please address the Planning Commission and not the audience, please.

I'm sorry. But they keep thinking that I'm going to sell them my property to extend this. They are barking up the wrong tree. Sorry. But nine units on less than an acre is not safe. I don't know how they're going to get a ladder truck in there and get it out safely. Not to mention we have a special needs school, elementary school, and a junior high school right in the vicinity that we have kids walking back and forth to schools. Plus, we have elderly. One of them is my father that takes a walk every day up that road. I have walked up that road, and you can't get out on that road anyway safely to cross the street. If you've got cars, and I know these cars are going to be parked in my front yard, not on their properties, And you can't see traffic coming this way or this way to get across safely. Anyway, I do not want to see nine units. That's way too many units going into a less than acre property. There's just no room. Period. I mean, they're not getting my property, so they can bark up the wrong tree on that one. Anyway, and here's my other concern. This concern is ever since the home and the sheds and the weeds and trees have been removed from that property, we have seen an increase of rats and mice. This is a health issue, and all of my neighbors I sat there last weekend, 21 rats I trapped, and I watched them walk along the fence line. I want them, before they start to do any construction at all, to hire a professional, professional company to come in and exterminate the rats The mice, they need to get rid of the raccoons. We have got a family. I'm talking huge. I've got them on my cameras. They're now climbing up on my house, which they've never done before, of raccoons that they need to catch and get rid of before they even think about trying to build anything on that property. I have six neighbors, the two sets of town homes,

The neighbors behind me plus myself. Sounds like you do have, you've met your three minutes. I'll let you finish your statement.

We don't want to be infested with this vermin. I mean, it's, you're talking hunt a virus. You've got, they'll come in and start eating our wires, our homes. I've already got them eating on my house and I have a log home. My neighbors. I just had to put $400 more in rat poison and tracks. I have an extermination company that just raised my bill $45 a month to put extra stuff for this vermin. I don't want it. They don't want it. We've been catching these things for the last three years or more. So anyway. Thank you. Thank you. I'm very avid on this. By the way I hear that.

Thank you. No thank you for your comment. Appreciate that. Any other comments on this item from from the audience. OK Mr. Wilcox we have anybody online.

Yes we do. If you are joining us via Zoom webinar and would like to speak on this particular item please use the raise your hand feature now and we'll address you one at a time. Looks like Mr. Peter Warnock you may unmute yourself.

Thank you. Peter Warnick, 865 East, 7800 South. So I'm basically right across the street. We have two houses there and a couple of acres. My concern here is the traffic. A couple of years ago, we had these meetings where the project that's right behind Harmon's was supposed to be 60 units. And because of the public outcry, I think it's only 30 or maybe 35 because of the egress and ingress. Didn't really support that. When the gentleman spoke about maybe extending this property into the back to the... backside of the property and adding more units, one thing that comes up is the concern about how is that traffic going to be handled. 7800 South between 7th East and 10th is a nightmare. People speed, there are kids all over the place, there are a number of bicyclists that use that road and every time there is more cars parked on the street it forces those cyclists into the drive lanes which makes it difficult. My wife and I bicycle there And if there's a car parked on the side of the road, you're in the traffic zone. When we talked about this other project that was behind Harmon's, Sandy committed to having the police do something about the traffic. Because people's speed, it's unreal. It's a thoroughfare. And with the schools and everything, And Sandy never did anything. The police never came. They didn't put up a trap. They didn't put up a sign that said, hey, your speed is this much, slow down. I went to the police themselves. They said they would do something. They never did. Coming out of our driveways, if there's a car parked in the street, you can't see. You can't see beyond that car. And because people drive so fast... It's really dangerous. My mother-in-law, who lives next door, 92 years old, drives still. And for her to come out of her driveway It's a threat to her safety. And unless Sandy does something about curbing the erratic behavior of these drivers, the speed and everything, I don't see how you can add more density to this when already you eliminated 30 units out of that one subdivision. Now you're adding nine more in, which is one-third. And if you fill in the backside with more units because they buy the land back there, what happens to this area between 7th and 10th that is so dangerous? Thanks for hearing my comments.

Thank you so much. Anybody else, Mr. Wilcox?

I'm seeing no other hands.

OK. Great. Does the commission want to have staff answer any of those questions? Do we want to move on? OK. Sure.

Just quickly. City code allows how many maximum? Nine units maximum. Nine units? Correct. And what is the number of parking stalls required or minimum for that project? Stalls and parking with garages and all, what's the number? I'm trying to figure out. Sure.

You'll have to forgive me. I took over this project from Thomas, so I don't know what it is. Mike, if you have that number off the top of your head.

Can you restate the question, please?

Just the minimum parking. So there's some requests as to our cars being on the ground because there's not enough parking. So I was trying to determine in a nine-home complex, how many parking stalls would be needed? And is there more than they would be required by the city?

Yeah. So each home requires two car off street parking plus visitor parking. And the way that's administered is for the first five units there's a requirement for five off street parking in addition to the two off street. And then for every additional home, it's 0.25 stalls per unit for additional guest parking when they're configured in a parking lot configuration like they're doing with this.

So the city's basically looked at this and said, met the city.

It does meet our parking requirement minimums.

And is there a traffic study required on this or not?

We can have Ivan Hooper. It's such a small project. Speak to that on traffic. Any concerns or questions?

as far as traffic goes, it's ridiculous on that street.

Yeah, Ivan Hooper, transportation engineer. We did not require a traffic study. This is, I recall. Largely, as you said, it's nine units. It would generate approximately 70 trips a day. So from an overall traffic impact, it's a very minor 278 or so. Thank you.

Great. Any other questions or comments? Seeing none are we ready for a motion? Anybody willing?

Yeah, I'll make a motion.

Thank you.

Okay, I'll make a motion of the Planning Commission approve the request of special exceptions described in the staff report for the Silver Ridge Flat subdivision located at 886 East 7800 South based on three findings detailed in the staff report.

Great. Do I have a second?

Second.

Dave Bromley.

Yes.

Ron Mortimer. Yes. Cameron Duncan. Yes. David Hart.

Yes.

Steve Wrigley. Yes. Jennifer George. Yes. Lenny Stavenport. Yes. This motion carries. All right. Thank you.

We still have two additional motions that would have to be made.

Site plan. Okay I'll make a motion that the Planning Commission determine the preliminary site plan review is complete for the proposed Silver Ridge flat sub development located at 886 East 7800 South based on the five findings and five conditions detailed on staff report.

Do I have a second?

I'll second.

Go ahead.

I'll second.

Great. Dave Bromley. Yes. Steve Wrigley. Yes. Cameron Duncan. Yes. Ron Mortimer. Yes. David Hart.

Yes.

Jennifer George. Yes. Lenise Davenport. Yes. This motion carries.

Now for subdivision review. Make a motion that Planning Commission determine the preliminary subdivision review is substantially complete for the Silver Ridge Flat subdivision at 886 East 7800 South based on the five findings and seven conditions detailed in staff report.

Thank you sir. Do I have a second.

I'll second.

All right. Dave Bromley. Yes. Cameron Duncan. Yes. Ron Mortimer. Yes. David Hart.

Yes.

Steve Wrigley. Yes. Jennifer George. Yes. Laniece Davenport. Yes. This motion carries. All right. Thank you so much.

All right. With that staff Mike do we just move on to administrative business. OK. Do I need I guess I need a motion to approve the minutes. Sorry.

Motion to approve.

Sorry. Before we do that I just have one correction and I didn't get a chance to talk to you ahead of time but on the very first page it says there's 11 of us present. with Jennifer and Laniece being here twice. So we want to get that fixed.

I move that they get double pay. Second.

Does that mean they get two votes? Sure. Second second. I'd love for them to have two votes.

All right. Any other comments?

Motion to approve as adjusted by Cameron.

Nice. So your chair is losing it. The next item on the agenda is the Sandy City Development Report. Mike is that you?

That is an informational report. I don't have anything specific to address on that unless there are any questions.

Okay. All right. I have a question. You do? It's not about the report. No. Okay. Seeing none. All right. And then director's report.

Yes. As we mentioned earlier, James is not here tonight, but will be here the next meeting. So I did the meeting all by myself. He didn't think I could do it, but, you know.

Good job.

Thank you for Aisha and her help. I didn't actually do it all by myself. James does so much up here every week so we appreciate him and we miss him when he's not here. But as far as our department as I mentioned earlier in the executive session we did make a recent hire for a planner that replaced Bryn Bolander in our department and we've got Grant Hancock here and we'll ask him to come up and just briefly introduce himself and give him a little background on himself so you get familiar with him because he'll be bringing items to you all in the near future.

Awesome. All right. Thanks for the opportunity, Mike. My name's Grant Hancock. I'm from Austin, Texas originally. I was actually raised in a small town about an hour north of Austin. I had a graduating class of about 70, so a pretty small little Texas town. Joined the Marine Corps right out of there. Right after I graduated high school, it was like three days later, I was in boot camp. So I went in that direction and spent six years, about six years in the Marines. I got out, started my undergrad education, majored in public history, and didn't actually know much of a direction from that point. But luckily, during that process, I found a passion and just had some issues actually with planning-related topics and how it impacted my life. And it kind of planted a seed for me. And so I had the opportunity to pursue a graduate degree and came to the U to do the master's planning program. And it's a wonderful opportunity to join Sandy City here and start my planning career. So very excited to be a part of the city.

Nice. Awesome. Don't we need to say like hurrah or something? What do we do? Hurrah. Hurrah.

I want to hear that every time you present now.

At least when you get something approved.

We're excited to have Grant join our team. This has been his first week. He started on Monday, so he's been drinking through a fire hose all week, and I'm sure he's exhausted. So we're glad to have him, and he'll be a great addition to our team. Other than that I don't think I have anything to report. Can you give him the rest of the night off then? We definitely can. Definitely he's earned it. We will have a meeting I believe next June 18th. Plan on that. We'll determine that for sure tomorrow but I believe that we will have another meeting then. And as of right now we might have a meeting on July 2nd. Barring planning commissioner availability preventing that, I think we might have some items that will be ready to go. So as of right now, our availability chart is showing that we have at least four that would constitute a quorum for that meeting.

So unless that changes, plan on that one as well.

We hope not during. Thank you all.

Is that it?

All right. One last motion? Yes, please. Motion to adjourn.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you.