Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

It's 5:00 PM and we are at the Canyon Community Center for the February 4th meeting of the Springdale Planning Commission. From the town we have Kendall Sagers, Tom Dancy, Robin Romero, and April Radits. On the dis we have Matt Frink, Zion National Park representative, Tom Keniston, Terry Krus Kruski, Jennifer McCulla, myself, Paul Zimmerman, Koshbati, and Melissa Labour, which Rich Swanson is out tonight. So Melissa will be voting in tonight's proceedings. Is there a motion to approve tonight's agenda? I move we approve tonight's agenda.

Second. Motion by Paul, second by Melissa. All in favor, Jennifer I. Paul I. Motion passes. Are there any general announcements from the town? Um um so uh Jennifer, you you mentioned that um April Ratitz is here at the staff table with us. April is the new deputy clerk. Um welcome.

Um working with the commission pretty pretty closely. So welcome, April. Um the second announcement is on um Tuesday, February 17th. On on Tuesday, February 17th, we will be having a um a community presentation and information sess uh session on the wildland urban interface zone and the establishment of the wildland urban interface boundary in Springdale. Now, the commission is very familiar with this because this is an at the commission um and the council has discussed this a little bit and we're we're getting ready to um move forward with this. But before we do, we wanted to make sure that there's an opportunity for the community to come and learn about the wildland urban interface zone um and get their questions answered before the council goes ahead with formal adoption. So that will be um Tuesday, February 17th. Um the exact time is TBD, but it will likely be around 5:00. Um, and that will be here in this room. And then we have one more announcement.

On February 19th, a Thursday, we're having a messaging initiative at 6 PM here at the community center and we welcome all of you to come and provide your input. Then additionally on March 6th here at the community center as well from 2 pm to 4 pm is the town birthday party um which I will be contacting you on on two commissioners that would like to to come and represent. Um and then that whole week we'll also be having a locals week that we're pretty excited about. Are there any other announcements?

I have an announcement. Um, I know this is a little irregular. It's the first time I've done this, but uh, I think people should know next, uh, Friday, February 13th, from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m., our artist and residents, his name is Sam Woo. He's a concert composer. Uh, he will be giving a presentation uh, here in the Canyon Community Center. Highly encourage everyone to attend. It's open to the public.

Thank you. Are there any other announcements? Does anyone have any potential conflicts they would like to disclose? Okay, moving on with the agenda. For tonight's agenda, we have an oath of office and two non-action items. The first item is oath of office for Terry Krushki.

Shall I read it to you? So you'll just repeat after me. I state I Terry Kushki having been appointed to the planning commission having been appointed to the planning commission do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will support obey and defend that I will support obey and defend the constitution of the United States the constitution of the United States the constitution of the state of Utah and the constitution of the state of Utah and that I will discharge the duties of my office with fidelity and I will discharge the duties of my office with fidelity

fantastic Okay. The first non-action item is a discussion following direction from the town council to revise chapter 10-21 of the town code relating to the repair and refurbishment of non-complying buildings. The stat do that. Could I interrupt for a minute? Given that we um nominated and elected Terry to the vice chair position in December and his term expired I believe in January, I would move that we uh nominate Terry for the position of vice chair again and reelect him. Do we need to do that?

His term expired. I just want to make sure that Yeah. So, it's good. I didn't want to get us into any trouble. So, good deal. Good deal. I am back. Yeah. Welcome back, Terry. Uh, the staff contact for this item is Nyall Connelly. He is not here tonight, so Tom will be presenting.

That's correct. Thank you very much. Um, and um, before we get in into the meat of this item, I think it would be helpful just to do a quick recap of of where we've been, and and why we are, where we are now, and kind of how we got here. I think that will provide a little bit of context for the the discussion tonight. Um, so, um, as you mentioned, Jennifer, the reason we're we're even talking about this at all is because, um, a number of months ago, the town council directed the planning commission to better fi better define the concepts of removal of a non-complying building and ordinary maintenance and repair of a non-complying building. That's important because per the town code if you remove building from your property, every future building on the property needs to be in compliance uh with with current standards. Um and so what it means to remove a non-compliant building um is is a pretty important concept to to have a hold on. Um similarly a a property owner is able to make is able to do ordinary maintenance and repair on a non-complying building but anything that exceeds the scope of ordinary maintenance and repair of a non-complying building similarly would require the building to be brought into compliance with current land use standards. So so those two concepts are are pretty important and that's why we're here. We've over over the past several meetings, we've talked about a number of different strategies and concepts related to those two terms. What does it mean to remove a building? What does it mean to perform ordinary maintenance and repair? Um, and and the conversation at the commission is is kind of um taken a lot of different routes and and and explored different ideas and different things. In your last meeting, I I think we got some really

good clarity that it seems that the commission's primary concern with the removal or ordinary maintenance of non-compliant buildings has to do with the setbacks of those buildings. And so in your meeting um last last time you said we we really think that non-compliant buildings their their setbacks are are important, but other other aspects um yeah, we we think it's important to bring those compiance when a when a building is removed or or is repaired. One of the strategies that you recommended to address that was to do areas specific setbacks for properties that would reflect the prevailing development pattern of setbacks in that area and then adjust simply adjust the setbacks for that neighborhood or for that area such that the majority of those properties are compliant with these newly adjusted setbacks. Um that works really well for many of the residential neighborhoods in in uh in the town because they were all developed either at a certain time or a similar time or or um pursuant to a similar development style or development pattern. And so um you can identify certain neighborhoods in the town that have a consistent pattern of non-compliance when it comes to setbacks. And that's what Nile has done in this in this staff report has done that analysis on several of the town's residential neighborhoods. That um that same analysis is is difficult to do in the commercial zones because there isn't really a consistent pattern of non-compliance when it comes to setbacks in the commercial zones. So, we're going to talk about that in the next agenda item. how to handle non-compliance setbacks with commercial buildings in the next agenda item. So,

um I'd recommend that you for for this particular discussion you concentrate on residential non-compliant structures. Um so again, what what Nile has has tried to do here with the information that's in your packet is to look at various neighborhoods in the town and to see if there is a consistent pattern of setbacks and if so, do those does that consistent pattern of setbacks comply with the town code or is it different from what the current standards in the town code would would dictate? And in many instances, Nile has found that yeah, there is there is a pretty clear pattern and in many instances that pattern is not what the town code would dictate. And so in his tables in in the in the staff report, he has proposed some different setbacks set uh neighborhood by neighborhood different setbacks that could bring a majority of those properties into compliance with these setback standards. Now, a big caveat here and and Nile mentions this in his staff report. This analysis was done using um high resolution aerial photography. Um, and so it's pretty it's pretty good, but it's only as good as the correlation of that high resolution aerial photography and the GIS data representing the property boundaries. And in many cases, that's really good. In some cases, it's way off. Um, and so these this analysis that Nile has done, if you wanted to move forward with it, would need to be ground truth and vetted and further refined to make sure that it is accurate. Um, another another big uh point to emphasize here is that the intent of of these proposed altered setbacks is not to bring every single property in the neighborhood into compliance with the setback standards. It is to generally um

reflect [clears throat] the prevailing pattern of setbacks in the neighborhood and there could be some outliers that fall outside of that pre prevailing pattern and they would continue to be non-compliant structures. But the idea is is to to see what the general pattern is and to bring as many of the properties in that neighborhood into compliance based on that prevailing pattern of setbacks. Um, and then the last point to make is that the the reason why this could be a good strategy is it removes a lot of the concern that I think the commission has had previously when we've talked about the definitions of removal of a non-compliant building and ordinary maintenance and repair of a non-compliant building. Previously, the commission has had concerns about, well, if if we tell this person they can't uh maintain their building or they can't they can't uh put it back if it's if it's in a state of failure with the way it is, they're going to be deprived um the right to build their on their property consistent with what their neighbors have. And maybe that's not fair. Well, by doing this, that removes that concern. And I think that could allow the the commission to take a more direct and simplified approach to refining the def the the concepts of removal of a non-compliant building and ordinary maintenance and repair of a non-compliant building. Again, that's what the commission has, excuse me, that's what the council has directed you to do. So, we still need to get to that. This strategy, I think, makes that process easier and simpler because it removes a lot of the concerns and uncertainty that associated those discussions previously. So, having said that, um, this is not in the staff report. I'm just going to throw this out at you cold and and and you can kind of see what you think and we can talk about it later. Um when it comes to to defining those terms, removal and ordinary maintenance and

repair, um a couple of of thoughts. One is the state law, the Utah state law defines removal of a non-compliant building as when a property owner voluntarily demolishes a majority of the non-compliant structure. That's what the state law says. Once once the property owner has done that, voluntarily demolished a majority of the structure, that constitutes removal of that non-compliant structure. So, one strategy that the commission could consider is just to build on that concept that's already in the state law. What does it mean to voluntarily demolish a majority of the structure and use that as your starting point? Right? So, that's that's one one idea. Um, and then when it comes to ordinary maintenance and repair, I think our code actually already has a really good and comprehensive definition or or um description of what ordinary maintenance and repair means. Let me read it to you. You've you've all read it many many times. We've all we've all heard it, but let me just read it one more time to to refresh our memories. Um it says, "Ordinary maintenance and repair of non-compliant buildings and structures is allowed so long as such maintenance or repair will not result in expansion of any nonconformities or creation of new non-conform conformities. Ordinary maintenance and repair means improvements made to a building for the purpose of keeping the structure in a state of repair and protecting the structure from failure or decline. The term shall also apply to the rehabilitation of a building or structure which is in disrepair for the purpose of making the structure safe and sanitary in accordance with local building code. Further, interior improvements within existing walls not resulting in additional habitable space shall be permitted. So that's pretty comprehensive already. I think if you what what you could do is to just further add some clarifications is add a couple of additional um statements. Um, one is that ordinary

maintenance and repair does not include anything um that requires the removal of a majority of the structure as defined as as you may define with removal of a building. So, if if that's what your ordinary maintenance and repair requires, then that's no longer ordinary maintenance and repair. You're removing the building. And the other clarification you could make is um that ordinary maintenance and repair does not include any changes to the structures exterior footprint, height, roof line, roof style, or general design. Right? So if you want to get in there and you need to fix something, you need to make it safe, you make make it sanitary, that's great. You can do that. But once you start contemplating um expansions or height changes or roof line changes or things like that, that that's no longer ordinary maintenance and repair. that's kind of building a new structure and that's outside of the scope. So, that's a lot of me talking, but I wanted to to make sure that we we frame that discussion and and put that in context. Do you have any questions about the staff report or that introduction as I've explained it to you? I guess my question is is for the purpose of this agenda item, the information you just presented about removal and ordinary maintenance. Um, we're not deciding that piece tonight or recommending anything on that piece. Really, we're we're looking at changing the setbacks for this item. Right.

Yeah. So, it's up to the commission. I mean again the whole this whole conversation is in the context of those well within your rights to do so if you wanted as I mentioned I'm just throwing that out you right perfectly you you you could take more time to deliberate that on that tonight okay

what I'd recommend you do tonight um first of all is reviewed um have a discussion about is this really the the direction we want to go or not and if so, do these draft proposals for neighborhood by neighborhood setbacks make sense? I think that should be your primary discussion tonight. And then if you wanted to have some additional discussion on these terms of removal and ordinary maintenance and repair, you could. Thank you.

Maybe I'll start since I'm back again. So, I looked at this packet and I said, "How the heck did we get here?" Um, weren't we talking about removal? And now we're talking about changing setbacks by neighborhoods. So, I went back and reviewed. I think I kind of got some sense of how you guys got here. Um I I guess at the higher level from somebody who hasn't been in these conversations um you know sort of my first response is is we're making something significantly more complicated than it than it has been in the past. And generally you create you you risk creating a lot of unintended consequences when you make things more complicated. Um I guess you know one way to look at these tables if we were to to implement something on this you're kind of creating a bunch of new zones right in other words we've got you know now we're going to have VR VRC and VRD and VRE and VRF because each neighborhood will have its own set of setbacks and and sort of once we've done that you open up the door well you know a few years later well maybe we should have different heights in these different maybe we should have different colors in these different neighborhoods. And we're sort of opening up a possibility to create a lot of variety in the town which may not be what we want in the town, right? Is is Springdale a bunch of different neighborhoods that have different sets of rules and we're kind of going down that path is the way I looked at it. Um, so I'm a little, not having been in the conversation before, a little leerary of going down this path of, well, each neighborhood should have, you know, a

different set of setbacks because that's the way that neighborhood is right now. Um, and it also leads potentially to complaints and issues in the future where people are saying, "Well, my neighbor two streets down has one set of rules and I've got a different set of rules." You know, why is that? Um, or or my ne, you know, my neighbor bought a house that already existed, so they get to keep building and get different rules than I do because I bought a lot and I'm building a new house. Um, And so I think we I would feel like we need to be a little careful about going down that path. Um and so we I think having this discussion is probably good in the sense that get a sense of well there are a lot of places where um where a 30-foot setback kind of destroys your ability to build something and and maybe we need to figure out what to do about that. But I'm a little leerary of creating all these different sets of rules and so I wasn't in conversation before. So

I I I tend to agree with you Terry. I think um and I think you made some very good comments about this. You know, Mike, you know, I wasn't here at the at the early January meeting when you discussed this were which I think is kind of what pushed into this direction um of coming up with these different numbers and that sort of thing. But um you know when I look at this when I step away from this and sort of look at what the town council's asked us to do and what the general plan and guidance the general plan guidance is that we you know keep a village feel and you know small town character to the to this uh community we live in. Um and [clears throat] the concern I one of the concerns I you know I'm not sure this does that. One of the concerns I have is that if we relax the um you know the general plan presumes that not everything's in compliance or non-compliant properties, but over time they'll move towards being in compliance. And so if we if we relax the the guidance or the you know the rules, the setbacks in this case such that uh we just allow anybody to go with whatever the least the minimum is now or close to the minimum. Now, we're we're going to lose that impetus to move towards the general plan guidance that we want to have that we plan for over time. I'm uncomfortable with that. I think that's probably not the best approach. It may be a simple solution to this immediate problem in that we can, you know, throw out a thing that says, hey, you know, here's if we just adopt these changes to setbacks, um, we can get through this. But it's probably not, I guess, in my opinion, it's probably not the right thing, the right way to go about it. for the longterm picture because that's that's what I thought our job was to figure out what what do we want to do for the long term? What does the general plan direct us to do for the long term? What's the town council push back to us to to say, you know, how are we going to move uh Springdale so that

it maintains a village character? Um, and what is that? So to me, were you done? I'm sorry.

Not completely. There was a discussion item at the I think the January 4th meeting where um there's some discussion about if the if you're going to tear down most of the house um you know whether because it's damaged or because you just want to expand it or whatever. Um you know you should be able to rebuild it within that within that same footprint if you will. My suggestion is if your tenor structure that sort of thing it's a nominal increase in cost any increase in cost to just move it and put it where it belongs as opposed to continue to impede on your neighbors and by remaining in the same setback areas and that sort of thing. So again, you know, it's not it's not helping us for the long term. Um because we're kind of co-opting into a thing that says, well, you know, we want to be nice to the to these pe people that decide they want to change change their house over over time. If they're doing a small change of the house, yeah, okay, they can put it back where it is, but if they're going to if they're going to tear up the foundation and tear up, you know, the roof and tear off all the the major supporting structure of the house, move the thing. That's probably a better approach. And go ahead. I'm sorry.

No, that's great. Um, so my perspective in going down this path is yes, I I do agree that this appears to be very complicated, but the foundation of this idea was to follow the general plan in keeping the town character and then in considering different properties um and what the setbacks are. um there was some agreement as to this kind of a plan maintaining what makes Springdale and creates the character it has today. So from my perspective, it is about maintaining the character and then also taking into consideration not only where a building currently exists, but taking into consideration where it currently exists in relationship to everything else around it. Um, so for instance, if a building was um built in one spot, the surrounding properties they built based on where that building was was already placed. Um so it was um you know really taking into consideration how things evolved over time and um and then at the same time to balance that um and moving in direction of compliance balancing it with the other non-complying um ordinances having to come up into compliance. I guess um a thought a thought on that is

you've got how you know we some of these communities still have vacant lots. And so if if you know we go down the path of saying well this neighborhood has a different set of setbacks that means that the new house built on the vacant lot can also follow that same set of setbacks. Um and so you end up perpetuating the difference between these communities between these residential areas. Um, and I I I more would go towards the mindset of like you say, somebody who's there's a house that's been there 50 years. Um, you know, we've talked about maintenance. I think Tom's right. We've got a pretty good definition of maintenance and work and we've talked about removal. One of the key words that mention state ordinance was the word voluntary. Um, and I think that's something that's sort of missing in in what what our ordinances um apply is that I I look through the scenarios. I did look through the January notes. So, I thought I kind of wish I'd been here, but I looked through the scenarios and I think, well, there are scenarios where there's nothing wrong. the choice was the owner's choice to rebuild versus a scenario where there's things wrong and you have to rebuild because you got mold or there's been a fire or there's been an explosion or something. Um, and to me that's more the key in maintaining a neighborhood. If there's a house and it's in a location and it needs to be rebuilt for some reason, then then rebuild it in the same place seems reasonable. Um, but to say, well, the whole neighborhood now has a different set of setbacks than another neighborhood. And in fact, you

could be back up against somebody and you've got a 20 foot set back from the back, but they've got a 10-ft set back because they're in this other neighborhood. Um, creates a sense of arbitrariness about the way the whole thing works. Um, my gut feeling is that we should go more towards it's a matter of whether you're voluntarily changing it or you're being necessarily being required to change it because of some issue. Um because if you're voluntarily choosing to change it, then you should come into compliance with what we want the whole community. I've seen evidence in various parts of the ordinances and I won't go into things that I concerned about and complain about for, but there's a certain amount of arbitrariness in how the zones have been laid out. And we make a lot of differences. So people will buy a property or own a property, oh, I'm in a zone. Well, gee, I can't do something or or I have to do it differently because I live here instead of here. And it kind of creates it kind of pulls the community apart rather than brings it together in my mind. Um, so I'm a little more in line with we ought to try to make rules that apply more generally across the town. Um, and I agree. I think that if you're forced to rebuild a house, you should be able to rebuild it in the same location. Um, and in the same footprint. Um, and and I also see looking at some of the diagrams, some of the past, there are some properties that look like some of the setbacks might make it very difficult. And in those cases, maybe that's something we need to figure out independently of whether you're remodeling or whatever.

It's do we have lots that you can't really build on because of the set tops is kind of a different issue to me.

But that's that's a you know a situation where a variance can come into play where if they can't build the property, you know, on the property. they've had a house there for for years, decades, whatever, and now they they want to rebuild on it because for whatever reason, um, and they can't build on it, you know, if it doesn't if it's not buildable given the current setbacks or whatever, then they come in with a variance and say, "Hey," and there's a mechanism to do that. So, it's not it's not there for everybody. You know, one of the concern I have on some of these things, if we, you know, if we reduce the setbacks to zero feet or five feet, um, you know, there's the rest of the town doesn't have that uh luxury to be able to do that. And are we only doing that for the people that are rebuilding? What about the guy who comes in and buys the empty lot? Does he now because he's in that particular mini zone, if you want to call it that? Um does he get to build at zero feet or 5 feet? Is that an appropriate thing to do? I mean, that's kind of one of the concerns I have with this. So, if we were if we're to adopt something like this, I it wouldn't be my uh intent to want to do that. I would say we you have to constrain it to people that were rebuilding as opposed to to new building. But then how do you how do you answer the question that the person that comes in want to put wants to put a new building next to a guy who's rebuilding his existing house and say no you can't put you can't use those same same setbacks. So that's that becomes a problem. So, regarding the voluntary, you know, um, situations, I think we got to where we got because, um, drawing the line at voluntary and we did have some public comment about that at one point and what is voluntary and what is not and and how that's defined and um, and if there's

there's discrepancies of if a property owner thinks that it's voluntary or if it's not. So, just some background to where we got to where we were with um it being more inclusive. I believe I read in one of the older ones where there was some talk about, you know, a an inspection or some kind of report, right? Right. That says that okay, you know, if you're going to if you're going to rebuild half of your le less than half that number right now,

then you don't have to get professional. But if you're but if you say I've got to tear down the whole thing because of mold, then there should be an inspection report that backs that up. Um, and I think that's should not be an overbearing sort of requirement. Say that, okay, I've got an, you know, I had inspection, I had a professional look at it, and they said, yeah, you've got to tear everything down. Um, and then the town should be able to accept something like that. Um, but if but at the same time, if you got to tear everything down, you know, in my view, there's not a whole lot of reason why um they can't just make it move it over 10 feet and make it compliant or relocated on the property and make it compliant. I mean, if you're going to rebuild the structure in completion completely, um, that I don't see any reason why we need to continue to allow them to be non-compliant. Now, you could argue that, okay, 51% maybe, you know, you know, where's the line? I don't know.

Well, yeah, we're back to that conversation. How do you define 50%. But putting that aside for the moment, right, um, the the thought I have about which says that that if the pro um just you may not be able to just move the house correct I mean there's place situations situations where no you have to build something different to fit within the requirements right that that just the size and shape of it

but if you're going to build I guess you know maybe I'm assuming uh something that's not evident but my assumption was that if you're going to build exactly the same thing you got you put it where it was and we're all good but if you want to make it bigger or different or whatever in some fashion, then you got to move it.

Oh, well, that that I understand. I'm more in in I'm going to rebuild because because of termite damage and I want to rebuild what I got and what I got can't fit anywhere else on the lot. Um, versus, oh, I want to build something different. Um, and so, and I think, you know, to me, the key terms are whether it's voluntary or not. And and I think we could be pretty open about things that are not voluntary like mold and termites and other kinds of things and whether it's the same envelope or not. Um, and if it's a different envelope, then I'm more in tune with you should then follow the rule the the the ordinances. And you know, maybe I kind of looked at this maybe like VRB maybe should have smaller setbacks in general as a 5,000 foot lot. That might be something that makes sense. Um, because a 30-foot setback on a 5,000 foot lot might be kind of a problem in some places. Um, but again, to me, that's sort of an issue that we could look at and say, "Okay, for VRB, we're going to change something, but rather than saying, well, we're going to change it for that neighborhood, but not for this neighborhood." Um, and a lot of these lots that have the problems seem to be smaller lots, although some of them are VRA lots, I think, also have some problems. Right.

That That's correct. And just a note that both VRA and VRB do have reduced setbacks compared to the VR standard zone. So that's already in the code. So it would be whether or not we think they should be maybe a little bit smaller or something.

That's the question. Correct. neighborhoods. Are these neighborhoods that have the smaller homes or the the neighborhoods that have less setbacks for the the built environment? Are they a value to the community or do we want to make the community homogeneous so that the homes in Canyon Springs match anything else that can be built. I I think that the asbuilting environment that those neighborhoods are of of value to the community, definitely of value to the residents who live there. And for us to perpetuate the notion that we shouldn't allow people to rebuild because are smaller lots or or the community is not desirable for some reason because of setbacks may be somewhat important along State Road 9. Uh but for the communities themselves um no one goes down there except for the residents. So it's it's it's an issue for them I think more so than for our trying to build a community that's more homogeneous. We want smaller homes, you know, so that we can support a more diverse community that might include retirees and and work force and that sort of thing. And to be able to support that, we need to have structures that that have that are smaller and have potentially have uh lesser setbacks than what the general plan currently calls for, what the or

the ordinances currently call for. So I think it's kind of a balancing act uh with all that. I when I think about you know the the way that that divided up the neighborhoods. I mean, Zion Shadow Circle, to me, that's a very homogeneous neighborhood with with setbacks that are very similar to one another. There's the buildings are very close together. I hadn't been down there, but just a couple months ago. And Watchman Drive also, it's sort of a distinct entity in and of itself neighborhood. So if you're buying a home there, you sort of expect that you know the fees or the setbacks and you know you don't want to don't want to know or wouldn't want to know that you know potentially you couldn't be allowed to rebuild if there was a problem. So I think we need to be careful about what we do and you know maybe it would take a little more analysis to like Terry was saying what are the V v and and you know what are the sub zones how large are they and what what is a reasonable setback you know the front the back and the sides that would allow a decent size structure to be built um you know to make them viable without going through a variance I mean a varian to me should be an exception for a really special condition. So, um I um I I just I'm cautious about being too um too restrictive on allowing people to rebuild if they need to or want to. And I agree and I I think there's an opportunity if somebody's rebuilding um and bringing other things to

compliance. Even just the the the like in a neighborhood, the look of the house even um in following the current ordinances could be a positive. tell you. Okay. I think I agree with with what you said, Tom. Um I think we're both kind of going in a similar direction in that sense that um people should be able to build and and certainly again we're, you know, we started out talking about this concept of what does removal mean and what does maintenance mean. Um and and I think we should error on the side of if you're replacing something, you should be able to replace it, right? And that um it comes down to and you did at one point say you know need to or want to and that kind of is one of the differences I think right if it's just because you want to rebuild um then we should be able to have a set of of of fairly uniform setbacks. Say if you just want if I just want to take it out because I don't like it anymore then I should be able to fit and maybe maybe those setbacks you know like say maybe Maybe in A or B they need to be changed a little bit. Um or may you know like for example I'm not sure I have comfort with a zero setback like I saw in one of these charts that as a neighbor I don't know that I would want my neighbors to do a zero setback.

So that already exists in the VRB sub zone the have a zero setback. Yeah, there's some there's some if you look at the overhead, some of those houses are, you know, buted up right next to each other. That's the edge. Yeah. Um well, if it were just me, maybe I'd look at changing, you know. Yeah.

I want like you got to you got to you got to actually dig onto somebody else's land to have a zero foot setback, I think. Right. You can't you know, you're going to end up impacting somebody else's property, but that's a separate issue. Um I guess I guess we agree in many ways. I think mostly my concern is that if we create so many different sets of rules, the complexity worries me. I think we take a risk of creating a lot of unintended consequenc.

Yeah, I I think we're all sort of in agreement. I you I don't hear anybody saying we can't build, you know, if your if your house is destroyed in some fashion, whether by bugs or by mold or by whatever fire or whatever, you know, we're not saying you can't rebuild it. We're just saying if you want to make it bigger and you want to make it significantly different, then um or you know, or if you're going to have to replace the whole thing, then since you're doing that anyway, you know, you ought to probably just kind of shoot scoot it over a little bit and put it somewhere where it's not in violation. But um and certainly if you if it's because you want to do that as opposed to have to do that then it's more appropriate to do that because that's what the the folks that are coming in and trying to build on a lot next door potentially. Now granted in some of these neighborhoods there's not a lot of empty lots next door but there are some many um you know they have to they're being held to a different standard and that's not fair uh to them in the future. So, and and and then what you end up with, you know, the behavior you end up with that is you'll see a developer come into the neighborhood and say, "Well, I'm going to pick off a house that's been there for a long time and it's not doing so well. I can get a really good deal on it. I can tear that thing down and I can build a new house, you know, in the same non-conforming area and make it lots bigger than anything else in the neighborhood and take advantage of that as opposed to the guys that are, you know, right next door that that don't have that ability. So, we have to be careful of that down the road too because that that will happen eventually. I often complain about people go back to California, but back in California, um, you know, I lived in a neighborhood, an old neighborhood, and um, and people would come in, buy the house, just like you say, tear it down and build a monster house, taking up the entire lot as far as they can.

And that doesn't perpetuate the neighborhood. that actually disrupts the neighborhood. And so we have to be careful that in the attempt to perpetuate a neighborhood, we're actually creating the opportunity to disrupt the neighborhood. Um, and I think that's a real it's a real possibility. So, taking a different tact, if we're ready for that, we could look at the tables and see what kind of numbers are on the tables and see what we think of some of the numbers. Um, might be useful for us to kind of get a sense if we're all in similar. Um, I see I'll just Start with one. Maybe we'll just start with the first one. Is this the first one? Yeah. And so there's some So these numbers in red, the proposed numbers, Tom, are numbers that were chosen so that most of the properties in the neighborhood would become compliant in terms of setbacks. Is that true?

That's that's correct. Yeah. And again, um, the appendex to the staff report, you can see Nile's analysis, how he how he came up with this. But yes, the intent is that these would make the majority but not all of the properties compliant. And again, so this is the um this is the Canyon View Watchman Drive subdivision. You can see as as you mentioned earlier, Terry, there are already in that three subzones, the Valley Residential Standard, Valley Residential A, and Valley Residential B. And so Nile has analyzed the homes in each one of those subzones independently and proposed um changes to to the zoning or the setback standards in each one of those subzones independently per neighborhood. Does that make sense? And if you go from table to table um the proposals for V are slightly different in the different tables.

That's correct. The intent would be not to it is you know you you phrase you reframed it as creating a bunch of a whole new mini subzones and and you could look at it that way. The intent is not to create new subzones, but it is to say if you are in this neighborhood and you are in the V sub zone, these are your setbacks. They're not really creating a new sub zone per se, but but you are correct that the setbacks would vary across neighborhoods as proposed on these tables. I guess the other I'm thing I'm going throw out um we've been talking a lot about the p you know viewing this from the perspective of the person who's trying to change their home whether uh intentionally or unintentionally. The other thing that we need to consider in this is that the people that are living on the site in the surrounding area next door um when you're changing the setback on on the guy who wants to change or needs to change his his home or whatever that's going to move that propert. So there's you know and he's done nothing to earn this uh wonderful benefit.

Well and There's also sort of the assumption that all the neighbors are happy with the present arrangements. It may, maybe not. Maybe, maybe not. Right? There may be neighbors who say, "I really wish that shed that he built, you know, two feet from the property line really should, you know, so we have to be careful not to assume that all the neighbors are happy with way the neighborhood's laid out." Um, and maybe they're thinking, "Boy, I'll be glad when they rebuild, then they'll have to move it, right? who what about the neighbor to the one who's rebuilding

what setback to me is a townhouse potentially and and I don't believe that it's our intention to allow those in most of these zones right in theory two zero foot setbacks is a shared wall that's right [laughter] so again these These are initial draft proposals, right? Right.

And and and the the figures can change, numbers can change. I think the bigger question is um so so so yes, look at the figures and let's analyze those. But the the bigger question is is this the direction we want to go in the first place, right? If if you decide no, this isn't the direction we want to go, then we don't need to worry about those. If you decide, well, yeah, this is a strategy we want to pursue, then we can get in and really refine what the what the new setbacks would be. Yeah, I I guess I mean I I sort of align with Terry in in regards to, you know, let's not expand our many uh zoning areas and do many many more. Um, it might be interesting to take a look at if we were to line all these things up, you know, all the VR A lot, you know, proposals from this from this long list and see if we could find some commonality might be a a first step so that, you know, we're not necessarily making it zero in one area, five in another area, and 10 in another area. And so creating three different independent zoning areas based on what street you live on. Um, maybe we could to something that was a little better along that line. Like you say, for example, there's a couple of them here that say that list 15 ft for VRA as a proposed front setback, right? So you could say, oh well maybe VRA should be 15 instead of 30 or something.

I could see something like that. Um I mean looking down the the side setbacks we've got for VRAS we got five foot um zero I'm sorry two and zero yeah all coming down from 10 or thereabouts. There's been a few people who have been quiet. Is there any other comments from people who haven't spoken yet? I I feel like I'm

I really don't have a comment because I live in an apartment and you guys are homeowners. So really, I'm just going on what you guys live in and where you guys are at. I'm assuming that you all live in different property. I mean, different areas. So, it would be different for each and every one of you. Um, we can't make everybody happy. And the town is beautiful and we want to keep it the way it is village wise. and obviously have more people come in. And like Tom said, for retirement, I'm hoping to buy some land in the future so I could retire here and not live in an apartment for the rest of my life. And listening to this, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I don't know if I want to." [laughter] Um, so that's just coming from my perspective because I live in an apartment now and I'm not don't have property and I, you know, I have neighbors and everything and I look at each neighborhood and the way it's so different. Like if you go around town, every neighborhood is not the same. It's different and it's beautiful and I I'm hoping we keep it that way. But this is so confusing to me. [laughter]

Well, sorry.

And I think I would like to really look into like look at maps now that we have these numbers. Um really see the spacing of the houses where the footprints are. Um because it is beautiful and all the neighborhoods are beautiful and there there's, you know, my mind keeps going to where structures are in relationship to one another. And maybe that isn't as important as I think it is if I actually am looking at all of these neighborhoods and where they are in relationship to each other. Um,

that's what I'm saying is some kind of map where we actually see that's kind of what I did. You the town website's got the interactive GIS map you pull up and look at the men's needed, you know, or you can look at watchmen or you can look at whatever. I'm not sure that you'll be able to I was just trying to pull that up here and I'm not sure the bandwidth is sufficient to be able to do that without a direct connection. I don't know. It might you could try. It shows the difference between the like the VR, you know, S. Well, one option is is, you know, down here at the bottom of this um is all the details. So, we could just pick some of these parcels. You like this 119A and let's go look at that's what I did on the

That's kind of what I did. Yeah, I picked some of these and went and looked at them on the on the um on that map that that we have access to. Um, [laughter] it's fun. Oh, this is not the um this is a town map. Yeah,

this is you can put parcels on top of this if you want.

And you you just kind of tell me where you want to go on our virtual field trip and and there this is Zion's shadow. So, we could start here, right? This was one of the uh one of the tables of Zion Shadows, right? And that's what this one is. And as you can see, it looks like a lot 54 there had a zero setback. Yeah. Yeah. You can see a lot of um Well, and you have a lot of small lots and some of these are mobile homes, correct? Or like they're not all stick built. Uh most of them are not stick built. They're they're manufactured homes or modular homes. Yeah.

So you you can have a a modular home or a manufactured home. You you can't have a a a mobile home, but um but yeah, there's there's no problem bringing in a modular unit or a manufactured home as long as it didn't have wheels at one point. Huh. So you have to bring it in on wheels and then take them off and You have to remove the running gear and the axle and put it on a permanent foundation and connect it to utilities, all that kind of stuff. But yeah, they they all come in on wheels. Correct.

So I think you know you look a lot of small lots here, a lot of a lot of properties. I mean you look at these properties and a 30-foot setback on a lot of these properties. These would take out a whole chunk of what you can build on. I'm guessing looking at these, none of these buildings look like they're 30 foot back from the road. Correct. Now, again, this is in the Valley Residential B subzone and so these properties already have reduced front setbacks. I believe the the current front setback in the Valley Residential B subzone is 15 ft. So,

these properties already are not subject to that 30-foot front setback. We we've already recognized that in the code and made an adjustment. The the question is we when we did that we you know it used to be that everything was just value residential standard which requires 3/4 acre lots 30 foot front setback 10ft side setback 20ft rear set back and obviously those setbacks did not work for a neighborhood like this. So we that's when we created the valley residential sub zone A and sub zone B. So already taking a step in the direction that we're talking about tonight. The the question is, does that need to be refined further in in in more in more nuanced neighborhood specific setbacks? Um, or are we okay with those two subzones and maybe we just need to massage the setbacks in those two sub zones a little bit? Or are we okay as it is right now in general and don't need to make any changes?

Well, let's maybe take a look at a couple specific properties. uh from a front setback. The smallest front setback is S98C with an 8 foot front setback according to this tape.

Oh, to look by those. Yeah.

S98- C. And the table lists as an eight foot set front set back. It doesn't. This one's not going to work that way. Can't search by parcel number on on this application. I'm sorry. Here's Manzanita. Manzanita is the one that's kind of down behind the

Zion Park Motel. These property lines have actually been adjusted. Originally, there was some development that was over the property line and so these have since been kind of adjusted to to reflect what was historically constructed. So here you know so these look like conditions where many of these properties are legal non-compliant um because of setbacks and if they just if they chose to rebuild then the house would not be able to go exactly where it is now. Right? If if we decided this voluntary versus nonvoluntary thing,

well, if it was an involuntary rebuild, then they they'd be able to rebuild it where it is now. If they decided to tear it down, they'd have to make it look different. They could rebuild, but they it wouldn't be a big square box in the middle of a lot. It'd be a long skinny box. Right. Right. Centered in the Looking at say that one where the cursor is right now appears to be like right on both sides.

It goes wall to wall, right? Yeah. So they would have to bear a little bit narrower. Um, move over to Winerland Lane if you could up around the corner to the right. Slide it to the right. Right.

So yeah, right in at Field Lane. That's what So there's an example of of a few more that are, you know, one's built across two lots, one's built, and I'm assuming the the parcel lines are probably off from reality because of the aerial nature of the photography or whatever, but you know, again, they got properties built right on the line. Maybe a little bigger piece of property than the other one, but still the same kind of issues. But but you know, I guess maybe I was approaching it from the standpoint that if um if what we're trying to do is say, well, the guy on what is it S47 or 5 whatever the the one that's wall to wall up on the top of Foothill on the top left right there since he's built like that. We should be we should make it so anybody can build like that. I think that's the wrong thing to do. We shouldn't make we shouldn't relax these requirements such that because we've got one or two people looking like that, we we can make the whole community anybody on that street can do that. That's probably the wrong way to go. You know,

that might be achievable just by massaging the numbers, the setback numbers. Yeah, you're right. Maybe we can come up with a different kind of numbers that it's not going to bring that guy into compliance, but it might be maybe more meaningable for, you know, somebody who's got a smaller lot, but I don't know. But then if you look at, you know, and I don't really know, um, you know, the blue line is around 947, but then there's a there's a a strip right next to them that that doesn't have a part a parcel number on it. I don't know what that

Well, not no on the right the other side. That one there. Yeah. a bigger potentially buildable lot, but it'd be a long skinny house if you had a, you know, 10 foot setback on each side or something. So, but, you know, that might be undeaded property, too. I don't know. Subdivision is is interesting because there are these lots have been kind of sliced and diced over the years and and there's remnants and combined parcels. So, I'm not exactly sure what's going on with this parcel, if it's been combined with 947 or we'd have to research that and see what right

so with the issue with existing structures and lots I mean we could different differentiate by new build and existing footprints and structures Can I make a comment? Yeah, my mind is trying to think through the little I think I know what you're going to say. Go ahead. I I would encourage you not to make a dis a differentiation between Okay. A couple reasons. One is is just

from a consistency standpoint, I'm not sure that that makes a lot of sense. And second, from an administration standpoint, it makes it really, really difficult because you say, if you're building something new, here's your here here are your standards. If you're rebuilding something, here are your standards. We all know what that means in 2026. Um, but then in 2037, right? Yeah. Development, what does that mean? Does it mean something new from 2026? Does it mean something new in 2037? When is that cut off date that and then we have to track that? It makes it really difficult.

Yeah, that makes sense. I was trying to get to some more flexibility with building in the same footprint. Um, but not having the same But I I know what you're saying. Well, but if they're building the same footprint, then most of this stuff just doesn't matter anymore because they if they're going to build in the same footprint and we allow that, then we don't care what the setbacks is because it's the same footprint. it's going where it is. It goes back to whether the question of voluntary versus required by some problem.

Okay. So, you're saying Okay. I guess I'm assuming that if voluntarily if you want to tear your house down and build it back exactly in the same footprint um and make it compliant with all the rest of the standards other than other than the setbacks, I'm plenty good with that. I don't have a problem with that. Well, then you kind of just but whole idea that eventually properties over the years and decades come into because you just say, "Okay, no long that's no longer true, right? People just can rebuild whenever they want. They can just decide, well, I'm going to tear the house down as long as I do the same footprint. I don't have to follow the ordinances for my property."

Well, you do it with the exception of the setback. make it just a setback. Yeah. So you I mean you still have to make it you know look you know comply with all of the

set setback or setback and size because that was part of he I mean I I would say set back and height you know whatever. I don't know how you make it bigger within. Oh, let me let me rephrase that. If you build it in the same footprint, okay, it doesn't matter what, you know, it's going exactly where it was going to get bigger. Well, yeah, there is that. I mean, you know, you can a house may be okay. So, you may have a 12 or 15 foot tall house one foot from the property line.

You're saying, well, I can tear that down and I Build a 26ft tall house one foot from the property line. You're saying no height. You have to build the same height. That'll look like the old one did. Right. At least sizewise. My concern about that is if you allow people to voluntarily decide to do that,

then you're breaking the concept that eventually the goal that eventually the properties will all come into compliance. This is Paul. What what you've described is very similar to the proposal that that was developed based on the commission's discussion for the next item um for for commercial properties. I don't want to muddy the waters. I don't want to muddle things, but would it make sense to just introduce that concept as as it's proposed for commercial buildings at this time, or do you want to keep those separate and not get too too too muddy with with this agenda item right now?

I know the answer to that question myself. We've we're kind of muddy already. Um but conceptually the idea might apply to both. Not necessarily that would combine both agenda items, but that a particular concept might apply to both. Correct. That that that's that was my suggestion.

Well, maybe to to try to move on and you know, we're obviously going to have to talk about this more. Um maybe I don't know if it's a straw pole or something. We could say, well, do we want to continue down the path of looking at all these different neighborhoods or do we want to maybe take a different way to see how we can deal with um properties where um there's limitations in how you can build even I think that's part of what we want to figure out here. Do we want to continue down this path of looking at individual neighborhoods like the staff would have to go and get more detailed, right? More accurate numbers and things like that.

That's correct. And we didn't want to do that. We don't want to spend obviously suspend that effort if this was not a strategy that the commission wanted to pursue. And and again remind you that this is all in the context of the council's direction to you to clarify removal and ordinary maintenance and repair. That's the end goal that we're getting to, Terry, as you as you indicated. And And you should you should probably excuse me you should probably get to to to that clarification sooner rather than later based on the on the time when the council gave you that direction. And um so

I think we've had some convers and that might be the little bite out of the really big bite that you know the big piece. I mean we may not be able to solve the whole problem but we can maybe solve that problem. That's a pos the sports.

Yeah. May maybe maybe an approach is to take this conversation and put it aside. This conversation about how to deal with different neighborhoods and different sites kind of go back to, okay, what is the definition of remove versus maintenance? And you know, do we differentiate between voluntary remove and, you know, required remove? And separate maybe we separate them. Is that a way to maybe get us to where we can get more progress?

Yeah. So, just so I'm clear, so so if we did introduce some of those same concepts that we have for commercial, we would still be going down the path of um changing these or revising these. Yeah. I'm saying we We'd put aside the idea of revising the setbacks. Oh, completely put it aside. Okay. Separately, right? And and so we would do the definitions, but we would come back to looking at setbacks and saying, do we want to do something with setbacks and what does that look like?

Okay, I follow you. I mean, to me, that makes sense. Yeah.

Allow us to make some progress and and and and do the job that the town council wanted us to do. Um and and and maybe knowing that we're going to go look at that then we can have a better you know be more comfortable with say what constitutes um a forced removal versus a voluntary removal. We might be able to be more comfortable with that knowing that we're going to go look at setbacks um separately. You want to do a straw poll on that? I I agree with like looking at those looking at them separately. The straw pull is do we look at them separately?

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So the thumbs up is to separate the figuring out how to define remove and maintenance from how looking at the setbacks and saying do the setbacks match what we really should want for the town either doing it by neighborhood or doing it by adjusting what VR and A and VRB are now. So we take that subject matter and we'll talk about it separately. so that we can we can go back to the town council. Okay, here's what we think remove means. Here's what we think maintenance means. By the way, we're going to look at setbacks and say for some neighborhoods, maybe the setbacks are different or maybe we do a little something different with VRA or VRB so that people in some of these neighborhoods can build something that fits better in their neighborhood. And that's a separate topic. So that's the up and down is do we separate them? Did I confuse you?

No, I see them sort of intertwined together, particularly when we're talking about the commercial um side of things, the other agenda. So I guess that would be a sideways on that. Five ups and one sideways. Five and a half. Five and a half.

I mean, I think we came let's separate them so that we can get the one done for the D council. We'll I think there's a lot of discussion still to be had about set tops setbacks. Um, we can do that and and we can then that's that's great and that gives us direction to focus on those two terms. I know we want to get to that second agenda item. Before we do, it would help us um as staff when we come back to you with those terms to um maybe just clarify a couple of things from the discussion tonight. Um Terry, you've you've um come back a number of times to this concept of voluntary removal versus nonvoluntary removal. Um can we get a straw poll on whether or not that is a significant um portion of the definition of remove that you want us to investigate? sideways on that.

Three ups, two sideways, and four ups and two sideways. Three sideways. Okay, we'll we'll we'll we'll explore that. Obviously, this doesn't lock the commission into any one direction, but we we can provide some additional ideas along those lines.

Um the second question is um this concept of um uh what what you brought up a couple times, Paul, is if I'm if I'm to the point where I've got to take the house down all the way, voluntary or no, does it go back to the same place or at that point does it does it move? Um can we can we get a straw poll on that as well? So let me just reword it so I can help. Is it is it required to move or allowed to go back in the same place? Can we is that would that be the way to

Well, that that that's that's kind of what you were saying earlier is right if if I if the house is so far gone that even even if it is involuntary, I'm basically rebuilding it. At that point, the property owner should be required to rebuild consistent or in compliance with the with the current code set top setback. Yes. If you are in support of that of of um concept, thumbs up. If you if you say I'm not sure about that, then a thumbs down. I would I would

add a qualifier to that and that is that what Perry and I were talking about is that you know if it goes back in the exact same you know location size you know measure whatever then then um it could go back in the same spot I guess but if it's going to change in any way from that it's going to be bigger in any way then it then it should move. Does that change people's vote? If if it's rebuilding essentially the exact same structure obviously there may be some some incon I don't care what they do but internally it's it's changed but in terms of uh footprint

height you know general general um and then they can put it back in the same spot otherwise it's got to meet um current or if they're going to change it then they move it. Okay then I'll go then I can go up So it can go in the same spot as long as long as they build the same inside the same envelope. Okay. Including height. So essentially what you're saying is oh my gosh my my house is eaten by termites. I've got to replace it. Okay. I'm putting the my house back but I'm not building a Taj Mahal. Right. I want exactly the same house back because that's where I like living

and I should be able to put it in the same spot. I think we're all in agreement with that. Regardless whether it's voluntary or or involuntary. Yeah. Even well if it's involuntary. If it's voluntary, I'm not sure why you're doing it to be honest. Why do you voluntarily tied down? But if it's involuntary, they can do that anyway.

Yeah. Any Yeah. Any loss, any including ter, you know, all these things we might describe as voluntary or involuntary, you can put it back in the same spot. Um as long It's the same height, fits inside the same envelope, I think. Um, but if it's voluntary, if you say, "Well, the house is fine, but I want to tear it down and build something different," then you have to come in, right? Different footprint. Well, I guess I'm a little curious as to why you would voluntarily tear down a good house to build exactly the same house. So let me [laughter]

so this I think this is this is we can let me just make a point here. We can continue this discussion tonight which is fine. I think this is going to get into a bigger discussion. So we can have that tonight. We we or we can move on to the next agenda item and and we can continue that discussion next time when um the staff is able to provide you maybe with some additional background and and starting uh starting points for discussion. I think that sounds good and it sounds like we're in a good spot for progress. So, that's great.

Okay. Uh, the second non-action item is a discussion of renovation of non-complying buildings in the commercial zones. Staff contact is Tom Dansancy and presentation by Tom.

All right. Thank you. So, this is, as I mentioned, this is is going to be very similar to what we just talked about. Um but this is is now focusing primarily or or exclusively rather on um the commercial zones. So again in a previous commission discussion um we we talked about the fact that we've got all these non-compliant commercial properties and um the commission felt that well yes in general we we want to have um structures that meet our the vision outlined in our general and our land use ordinances recognizing that there may actually be some redeeming qualities of of our non-compliant structures and adding character and variety to the town that enhances the town's character. Um, and what the what you as a commission pointed out was probably the of those non-compliant features that that fit that category, the most significant maybe was setbacks. And so the the discussion was well maybe a um in order to perpetuate or or excuse me to to maintain this kind of uh village character of the town that incorporates that that is is is recognizes the fact we have non-compliant building a non excuse me a commercial non-compliant building could be rebuilt in its existing footprint. So, um, staff took that direction and and put together this proposal. And I'll just run through it for you really quick. It's actually really similar to what we just talked about. If there is a commercial property that um has a structure or structures on it that are non-compliant with setbacks, then that structure, that building could be replaced, whether it's voluntary or involuntary. um that structure could be

replaced with a structure in the exact same footprint. As we just talked about with the residential um properties, that structure would need to be within the the same height. That actually in this proposal, we we make an allowance for a little bit of different height based, you know, there might be some construction reason why you need to to vary the height or something. Um, but it's it's got to be the same height essentially as what was there before, the same footprint as what was there before. So, what that means is um say the the front is the front setback is non-compliant, but maybe you could put an addition on the rear that is compliant with the setbacks. This would say no, you can't do that. You you can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't get the benefit of the non-compliant setback and then also expand the building to to to make it larger. It's got to be the same building in the same the same space. Um and other than setbacks, all other non-compliant aspects of the building and the property would need to be brought into compliance. And so if um as as you've seen in in previous staff reports, many [cough] of our um non-compliant commercial properties are non-compliant in more than one way. Maybe it's landscape area, maybe it's parking area setback, whatever it is. So yeah, you can keep that non-compliant setback for your commercial building, but when you redevelop that, you're going to have to bring the parking set back into compliance. You're going to have to put bring the the landscape into compliance. Um this accomplishes the goal that the planning commission um identified of kind of incremental progress towards full compliance with commercial properties using the incentive of allowing a commercial property to

redevelop in its current setback and requiring all other portions or other aspects of the property to come into compliance could fit that could could be a means of accomplishing that goal. Um, so that is um that's basically what the what the proposal says. Any questions about how that proposal would work? The idea is this applies to both the central commercial and the village commercial. Correct.

That's as drafted. That that is correct. But obviously that would be a decision that the commission could could deliberate on. Initially we were we were talking just about the central commercial zone but then at one point the the commission expressed the idea of well we actually have a lot of non-compliance in the village commercial as well and what's good for the central commercial could be good for the village commercial but again that's a policy decision. Does anybody have any questions for Tom?

So on the um two foot increase in height, you said that's basically was just a number you chose to allow for construction issues. Is that

correct? Yeah. I mean, um, not not being a commercial contractor myself, but but having dealt in the review and approval of a lot of of buildings over the years, it could be that, you know, the the roof trusses that were used historically, um, you can't use those now and you have to have a different kind of roof truss that's bigger or beefier or something for per engineering standards and you can't get that exact height. So that was just an allowance to keep the building in the spirit of what exists there now, but also recognize that there may be some um slight changes necessary based on construction standards.

A couple concerns about that. One is so so you rebuild, you grow two feet, 10 years later you rebuild and you grow two more feet. And 10 years later you rebuild and you grow two more feet, right? Because it's each time you're placing a non because this says it remains a non-compliant building. Yeah, I guess I would I to sort of prevent what you're talking about doing is I would caveat that and say it can grow 2 feet, but it can't exceed whatever the height standard is for that for that u zone.

Well, part of the problem is like okay, so we have properties that are buildings that are say 10 feet from SR9 or whatever like some downtown and they're I'm going to guess 15 feet tall just to make a guess. Well, the height limit is like 26 feet. So now eventually the building is almost twice as tall. I take your point, right? And I don't think we want that. So I would say you can it's pretty simple fix to say that two feet from the first original. Right. You can't reuse the two feet every time you rebuild. I don't know exactly how you word that, but I think you'd be careful with that.

I think close to state right now there is a set back single story,

right? And that that was that was my other thought about that is that do do we use it as a step height, right? Like the idea is, you know, we've got buildings close to SR9 and they're a certain height and they have a certain feeling to them and we say, well, once you get behind where the set top set back is supposed to be, then you can be taller. So you could replace it with a building that goes and gets taller further back potentially is another thing that we might consider. Um, but I think we want to be careful not to allow big tall buildings right next to

SR9. I mean 26T height restriction, right? Unless you're 100. Yeah, you can get 28T if you're down and far away.

So I think we couldn't Right. But I don't want to allow a building that's now 15 to eventually become 26, 17, 19 eventually get there, right? Um, so I think we want to be careful of that. We'd want to make sure it's just one one increment. Um, and maybe even they'd have to show that there's a construction reason for that. Um I mean other than that I'm actually I read this I was felt pretty comfortable in terms of it providing an incentive to rebuild some rebuild buildings that wouldn't otherwise get rebuilt. Um and um like you say, we we we we require all of the other aspects to stay the same. Um as I I'm agreeing with that. I guess where I was going to go is if you look at the if we move on to looking at the image and how you know this thing gets more complicated because you know when they when they want to rebuild that thing within the existing footprint they're still going to have given these guidelines they're still going to have problems because they don't have enough parking they don't have enough landscaping they don't have enough whatever and so before we get into that discussion I have some questions about this drawing um as to what the lot limits are, you know, because there's two different areas that are in red and then some adjoining spaces behind the the long red piece that is framed in black. Is that part of the same parcel owned by the same people or is that a separate thing altogether or do do we even know?

So, these actually are this is this again maybe there there's no uh there's no easy parcel in Springdale. They're all hard. So this this actually is like about four parcels of car. Correct. This is a development that spans several parcels and it's been our um and and this is this is not uncommon in spring to others properties that span multiple prop parcels. It's been our practice that when these properties are redeveloped, we say, "Okay, you've got to combine all got to combine the parcels first." Right. Yeah.

Yeah. And and and that's what we would do with this parcel as well. So I was I was just assuming that that would be done and that's why I outlined the property in orange for discussion purposes saying assume this is the parcel not this not these little black lines. My my concern is that is the parcel that aligns on the right side. So that one there is that part owned by the same people can be aligned in with that as well. So th this is owned by the the same the same ownership but because it does because it doesn't have any development on it right now it's I I did not include it in this hypothetical

given given that is the case um I'm going to open another can of worms and and say okay um I I'm not sure how they can rebuild that property and be compliant under these rules because of the landscaping and parking and all that sort of thing. But if you took maybe a section of the the long piece coming down the back of that main building and you reloc it off and you relocated up and tucked it in up against the other building and made, you know, open that whole space up now and put some additional parking and some landscaping in, it might become viable. Um, but again, that's not compliant with what we just described.

Correct. So, so should we consider the fact that if it were if that were a beneficial thing to do because maybe it would be um should we say gee it's got to be located entirely within the footprint or the footprint can be altered not to be any bigger or larger but relocate the footprint in order to accommodate these other things. Is there a way to do that? Yeah, and that that's again that's a policy decision for the for the commission. The reason why it was I drafted it the way I did. Yeah. Considering that one is it um in in the draft it it specifically contemplates the fact that

a property like this would require or would not allow all of these buildings to be rebuilt exactly as they are and comply with parking and set and and landscape and all that. So that this is is to demonstrate that yeah maybe maybe they can't build this long tail on the back and they've got to convert that to landscape or parking or something like that. So so that's was specifically contemplated in drafting the ordinance the the your proposal of of saying well maybe maybe if they slice this and and and move it up and shift it and they've got more workable area down here for parking and landscaping and makes it gives them more flexibility. Yeah, we could do that. the what I was trying to avoid again is this idea of like having your cake and eating it too, right? So you so you we say yes, [clears throat] take that that non-compliant front step setback and and you can keep that because that that adds character to the community, but we um we don't necessarily want this to be a vehicle to expand the development potential of the property. We want this to be a vehicle to perpetuate town character. and and so just where you fall on that spectrum would would guide that policy decision.

Well, I guess I guess the the the view that I'm taking on it is if you if you think that it might be beneficial to have that property rebuilt to enhance the character of the town in some way and we want to incentivize them to do that. um might be a way might be a way to do that and say, "Okay, you can take that little part of that flag, move it up over there, and then you've got room to do landscaping, you got more effective parking, and you maybe have a better better end product." But we haven't we haven't described that yet. Well, do we want to? I mean, I don't know. You know, one of the ways I read this um must be entirely within

Yeah. footprint. So there's nothing to stop them from building a smaller building inside the footprint to leave space to do the parking and the landscaping and whatever else. But then but then that then they ask the question of themselves, you know, well, is that commercially viable? They may say, no, it's not. So we're just going to leave it the way it is. And and to me, that's fine, right? [clears throat] That that we're not we're not trying to make every property change.

No, I'm not either. I'm just But what we I think the the one of the original premises of this is, you know, maybe we want to provide some incentive to people uh to help them kind of move along in the track of, you know, getting down to where they're going to be compliant over over time. And so if we give them some incentives that that would encourage them to rebuild the structure um in a in a better and a safer way, it might be better for the town. So that's that's the only reason I'm looking at that. And I kind of go agree with what Tom was saying is that we want to avoid people gaming the system.

Absolutely. Right. Larry is saying, well, and to me, this is kind of like taking properties where this particular property is is fairly um has a dated look to the front of it, which we may you may or may not like may, right? Um, but if you're the owner, you might say, "I'd like to take the front of that property and make it look much better, much more modern," or whatever. Um, Oh, [laughter] guess up.

Time's up. Um, personally, I I I would be very careful about allowing allowing it to be gamed. And um, that's why I said as they can of worms. Yeah, that's um [clears throat]

because once we allow them to start moving, then then they're really kind of rebuilding it anyway, you know, and making a choice that okay, and then maybe we should go back to the standard. Okay, if you're going to tear it down and build something new, then meet the ordinances. Um This is an interesting It's got that huge space.

Yeah. Stuff piled up there. And if you could somehow change the the building in a way that that becomes more usable to be landscaped to provide parking and that sort of thing, it might be a a a benefit to the town as well as to the property owners.

This is just one property, so we don't need Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We shouldn't ordinance against one. Yeah. Um and I'm comfortable with the way we have it outlined right now. Do you guys have any thoughts? Yeah, that is an unusual lot there.

Um, what do you need from us to move forward? I think are we all comfortable with Seems like we're all comfortable with this bulleted list of um structure of how an ordinance would look, right? Want to roll back up to that bulleted list. Let's see if if we're all comfortable with this, then I think the next step is the staff could actually draft some ordinance against that, right?

Yeah. Yeah, only once. Right, straw poll. Okay. All right, we're good on that one. All right.

And can I just make a a comment on this one? So, um, as the commission knows, our our ordinances are always forward looking, right? We they're not they're not retroactive with very limited exception. Um recognizing that I think this this kind of change is going to be the most significant change type of change the commission makes moving forward because there's not a lot of undeveloped property left in Springdale. So as as much as the we we work really hard on things like the buffer yards and things those are awesome and those are great and we should still work very very hard on them. The ability apply those on vacant undeveloped properties is fairly limited. I um anticipate the majority of development moving forward in the town is going to be redevelopment. So these kinds of ordinances that specifically address how these older properties redevelopment become very very critical and crucial. So I just say that to to put context on on I think how important this kind of ordinance is and how carefully you should consider it as we move forward. Thank you.

I might just add one thing and and that is that taking a cautious approach um is probably a good idea because if we did something like this and then we figured out a few years from now that it wasn't enough, we can always expand it. It's much harder to make to contract it later in the future. So I would think you know if we error on the side of not making it too expansive we can correct more easily in the future. That I move that we journ motion by Paul second by Terry. All in favor? Terry I. Jennifer I

Paul I. Hash I. The meeting adjourns. first. It feels like a feels like the old days.