Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Oh, there we go. Okay. And we got it. Okay. It's 5:02 and we are here at the Canyon Community Center for the April 1st meeting of the Springdale Planning Commission. From the town we have Tom Dancy, Nile Nyall Connelly, and April Rat Radits. On the dis we have Matt Frink, Zion National Park representative, Terry Kruski, myself, Jennifer McCulla and Kosh Bati, Rich Swanson, Tom Kenistston, Melissa Labour, and Paul Zimmerman are out tonight. Kosh will be voting. Can I get a motion to approve tonight's agenda? We'll make a motion to approve tonight's agenda.

I second. Motion by Terry, second by Kosh. All in favor? Terry I. Jennifer I. Ashai. Motion passes. Are there any general announcements from the town?

Um I have a general announcement. Um the town has um been recruiting for the director of community development department and we are pleased to announce that we have um filled that vacancy and um I'm extra thrilled to announce that NY Connelly will be filling the position as director of community development. Um and so we're grateful to have him be willing to step up into this role and take that responsibility on. And as commissioners, you are familiar with Nile and know what a great job he does and and the value he brings to the town. And so we are excited to have him in this new role. His is although he's, you know, been doing this this job pretty much for the past couple of weeks, his official first day will be April 8th. So welcome Nile.

Congratulations. Congratulations. Yeah. Thank you.

Are there any other announcements? Yes, the park has one announcement. Um, so, uh, there's going to be a Navy day in the park on Monday, April 20th. Um, the Office of Community Outreach with the Navy is bringing some sailors from different programs, but most importantly, most excitingly, uh, there will be a free community concert on Monday, April 20th at 6 p.m. at the OC Tanner. For those that have not attended a Navy band concert before, they are worldclass performers. So, highly encourage the community to come out and enjoy a free concert. Thank you. Any other announcements? Does anyone have any declarations of conflict of interest at this time? Okay, moving on to tonight's agenda. We have two non-action items. The first is a discussion about potentially introducing a requirement for a new permit to deal with construction phase storm water management. Staff contact is Nyall and Nyall will be presenting. Thank you. So just to introduce this again uh this item continues a discussion that began at the last commission meeting. Uh it was proposed that the town investigate ways to more effectively manage construction stage pollution impacts. Um so uh pollution impacts that can arise from storm water runoff from construction sites uh tracking dirt on the out onto the streets, those sorts of impacts. Uh at the last meeting there was some discussion about the state storm water permit process which already exists and um and a discussion about whether the town should do something similar. Um so

to carry this on the staff report includes a few options that the commissioners may want to discuss this evening. Um the discussion last time was really about well if we were to introduce a permit uh what sort of developments would need this permit and what's the threshold. So um the various options that are included in the staff report for discussion are so firstly we could create a town permit that mimics the state process. Um the second option uh identified is that the town uh creates a permit process that applies to projects which include land disturbance and that's a that's a definition that exists in the erosion hazard chapter. So it could be something that we could could use there as the threshold. The third option uh would be to create a permit process that would apply to projects um that fall under a different definition. So a new definition that the commission would craft. Um and that there's some suggested language for that in the staff report that you might want to look at. Um and then the staff report also includes a fourth option would which would be not to create a permit process a new permit process but instead to strengthen the town's enforcement um abilities. So, as far as, you know, putting some language into the code that would allow uh the town's code enforcement people to um take more action if if we're identifying uh pollution impacts from construction sites. Um so, there's a few different

options. Uh these are obviously not exhaustive, but they might be a start for a discussion. Um and then there was just one other point that I wanted to touch on. So at the last meeting there was some discussion about the best management practices that were included in within the packet of different measures that can be used uh to manage uh storm water runoff in in construction sites. And there was some discussion about well you know there there's things that are going to apply to some property some developments and others would be unnecessary and ownorous if they were kind of applied to everything. Um, so just to clarify that, um, staff would recommend that those best management practices be more of a a menu of good practice that would be applied appropriately to individual sites that, you know, contractors would be able to identify which which measures would are necessary on their property without having to kind of um deploy things that are unnecessary. Um, and uh, we have George, Robert George from our streets department, our street superintendent here again this evening, and he's available for any more technical questions. I'd also be happy to answer any questions you have.

Does anyone have questions?

Um, excuse me. I wanted to go back and make sure we understand sort of what problem we're trying to solve here. Um the way I understand I want to make sure that's sort of correct is that the town staff and would like to have more involvement in the storm water management process which the state oversees at this point. um and potentially also include projects that might be less than the state requires. Um and so in that is it is it the intent that we want to leverage as much as possible the state infrastructure and not create separate infrastructure or separate reports and things that have to be done. Is that a true statement?

Yeah. Yeah. Do do you want to jump in, Robert, with some thoughts?

Robert George. So, it could be handled either way. Um, a lot of municipalities that are not an MS4, which we discussed last time, they kind of create their own language so that they're not doing exactly what the state does because the state has such a high threshold of what they require. These many SWIPS, we or you can decide what can be added or taken away from that. And so it could be as big as a process as you want or as little of a process as you want. And so yes, you could go by the state standards, but there's a lot more standards to follow and go through going that route. Whereas if we just identified it and did it ourselves, we don't have to be as strict with what the state standards would be. Um, but for those projects and contractors that would have to meet the state requirements, um, would we prefer to require separate requirements from the town um or or separate reports that that report similar data? So, the only thing that we would require if it was uh part of the state stuff like the uh residential neighborhoods and that that fall under that, all we're asking for is their uh an email with their photos of what their best management practices are and showing that they're keeping them updated. That's the only thing that we're asking for on the state side. on our site. If we did things less than an acre, we could curtail it to what we wanted and you would still send in pe pictures, but it gives us a little more room to go in and uh look at a job site to see that they're doing those things. Um on the state stuff, say a house on Anastasia, the town technically can't go in and say, "Hey, you're not doing these things." That's the state's prerogative to come in and tell them that, not us.

Mhm. And so by having this in place, there's a few things. Um if we require them to send us their photos and they're not doing that, then we can keep those photos, send them into the state and say, "Hey, they're not doing what they need to with the SWIP stuff. Here's the file showing the non-compliance. Do with it what you will." Now, on the stuff that's less than an acre, then we could step in. We as the town could write a non-compliance letter. Hey, you're not following the rules of what we set. You need to do these things or we may do A, B, or C to get you in compliance with what we asked for you to do.

Okay. So, it would be your intent that for those that are covered by the state, you might forward enforcement to the state.

Correct. So Gil asked me to mention something. We were talking before uh planning commission started. Um we were talking about sweat programs and some of the things that he's dealt with um in his life. And one of the things that I brought up was that the state since I've worked here since 2015 has only come in one time to look at these kinds of projects in almost 11 years. And that was kind of the catalyst of hey maybe we need to start stepping in and see if we can help with this. The other uh reason for starting asking to start this is at some point the state may come to us and say you are going to be an MS4. So we've already done some of the leg work to get us there if that does happen.

So this term MS4 you said yep means that the state that a community would take over the enforcement from the state. Okay. Yep.

Questions comments but you have a question. Oh, okay. Gil Kefir. Um, it looks like this is just for or during the development process or development time. Why it doesn't it extend to uh once the property is turned over or after it's been permitted? Why are you differentiating that time frame? Will I answer that question or? Yeah, go ahead. I think I Yeah, go ahead.

So, uh, within the town's construction standards and existing procedures, um, surface water management is dealt with kind of as part of the approval process. So, the end state of developments um will have drainage kind of designed into it. Um so this is really just during the construction phase because the we already we already designed that in or that's already designed into the um projects already. So

So I have a follow-up question on that. I was noticing in at least one of the examples there was a monthly fee in addition to the permit fee. So, was that still just during construction or was it more of a a follow-up maintenance that was ongoing? Because I thought it could be either way. Um, the way that I read it and understood it in that example is it was only ongoing during the construction process. Okay. Yeah, it seemed to imply it was to cover inspection costs and things like that.

Okay. which to me it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Like why wouldn't it just be the fee? I guess it depends on how long the project goes on. But anyway, yeah, the town chose that particular Sure. So I could kind of answer that too. Um so like with our encroachment process, we uh tabulate into the fee of an encroachment pro process and the permit um our hours for us to do the paperwork and that. So I think that's what it was doing is on those certain projects there would be ongoing documentation and paperwork. So it was just a fee to keep that process going is what they were doing.

If there are no other questions we can move into discussion. And I thank you for laying out these options so nicely. Um, and going through them um option three um was the one that resonated most with me because it's so clear. Um even though there would be some addition to the code um it was um easy to understand and it was still proactive instead of being reactive and having no permit. You're there's there's still the the permitting requirement. Um, and then also, um, I wouldn't be a huge fan of like the fees in that example. That was seemed like, um, pretty exorbitant, I thought. Yeah, I believe most of our fees, I think perhaps by law, are designed to cover costs. Um, and that's how a fee for this permit would also be calculated. Is that true?

Yeah, I believe that's the case that yeah, our fees have to reflect the cost of it rather than be making money,

right? Um, personally, I I I kind of agree. I feel similar that as I read through these options um a part of me would like to be able to use option two for simplicity of the code um but it really doesn't match um the needs for the storm water um issue. I kind of looked at it and said, well, in a sense, the whole grading permit issue that where we've listed what land disturbances are is designed to protect people from the water, whereas what we're talking about is designed to protect the water from the people. And so it's somewhat different. Um, and so I ended up on three also. um even though it does add a different definition to the um to the code. Um one thought I had about that might be to produce a table that shows the two in comparison when we get to that point. um that uh you know developers can use to understand well what conditions apply to this permit versus what conditions apply to another permit. Um it might make it easier for someone to sort of understand the difference between the two without having to go to two different chapters of the of the code. Um, but again, I think I agree that that three to me seemed like the most viable option. Um, in terms of option four, it might not even be a land use option, would that be true or would it still go in the chapter 10, you know, in our in our bellywick or would it be a different part of the ordinances?

Yeah. So at the moment there is something in is it chapter three that deals with nuisances or title three that so outside of the land use ordinance that deals with nuisances and kind of pollution on a more broad level. Um, so that's that's kind of where it sits now, but it's it's a little bit vague and it, you know, maybe doesn't give us much teeth. And I think it's I think the benefit of potentially connecting it to title 10 is um that it kind of connects it with the land use planning section of the town. Um, so as far as the department that's approving developments and building permits and doing the site inspections, it it kind of connects those two worlds. So that's but but it but it could live somewhere else, too.

You have any thoughts, Kosh? I think we're on the same page. Option three was what I was

I I have some specific comments for option three if we want to go to that next step. Um so a few comments I had um for preparing a small garden which was one of the options I think there would be clarity in giving a number. I chose 500 square feet because it's part of it's the number we're also using. Um, but I think that way we're not getting into discussions about what constitutes a small garden versus a big garden. Um, and it's clarified in the in the um, ordinance. Agree.

Some additional things I might include in option three. Um we might include um any project that involves the delivery of premixed concrete. Um one of the best practices was managing wash out from concrete trucks. And so if you know you're doing a small construction, a small patio under 500 square feet, but you still have a concrete truck come in, it seems that that concrete wash out issue still exists. So, we might want to include that as a kind of project that would require this. Um, another one is whether or not the project includes a portable sanitary facility like a you know a portaotti because again one of the requirements is staking it down. Um and so even if a small project happens to for whatever reason want to use that then I think it would be important to verify that they've staked it down. The last one I'm a little unsure of um and I thought about this the application of pesticides, herbicides, fertilizer and other kinds of chemicals. Um this would be something we'd want to protect our waterways from. Um, but I'm not sure how to, it seems like we'd want some kind of size limit, and I'm not sure how that would work. I thought, well, maybe if you're going to spray, you know, herbicides on more than 5,000 square feet or something. Um, I don't quite know where that lies or maybe something smaller. I'm not an expert in sort of how to decide, but it it is one of the things we're worried about are these pesticides and fertilizers and herbicides. So maybe we should include

that even in a project that is small, but it's going to do a significant amount of chemical treatment for some reason. Um, so those were kind of the things that came to my mind that we might want to include. And I would just add to that maybe defining even more clearly whether it's um like for instance it does say routine clearing of vegetation debris and other improvements um which I would think that weeding and um activity of activity of activity of that nature would be covered. under that. But um for instance, trees being removed or um you know more than just weeding and somehow defi defining that a little bit more because we touched on it last time and we're talking about how really when you pull anything out of the ground as opposed to like spraying it for weeds or whatever then it is a disturbance. So maybe some more definition there. I I don't know exactly um what that would be yet, but

um so yeah, I see what you're saying. You pull out weed, you pull out trees, are you doing various kinds of things? Um we might again want to have a a size limit, right? If because we're basically allowing people to create a garden, let's say up to 500 square feet. um that would involve pulling out weeds and doing fertilizer and things like that. So maybe that's the right number for these kinds of things that say well if we're going to say you can do a garden without having to get a permit then these are the things you might do to a garden. So maybe again some sort of a size limit and possibly I don't know how you figure out square footage if you're going to be pulling out individual trees for example,

right?

Um but we might have to work on something like that. Um again I want to avoid you know I want to you know people who just want to go out and do something very small having to go through the process of getting a permit. Um, another example, as I'm just thinking about this now, that's in one of the examples was um distance from a waterway. Um, and we might want to consider including how close to the Virgin River, like if something is close enough within I think 300 feet or something was one of the numbers that I read. Um, that maybe a smaller project that's close to the river may be as important as a larger project further away. I would be curious what what experts might think of that. Is anybody here have a comment from a from the audience on what that might look like

from the rabbit hole that I told you I went down last time? Um, places that did have water, they were more strict the closer you got to the body of water versus being far away from the water. Okay. Um, I could provide more language um in the ne for the next meeting if you'd like to see some of the verbiage on some of that if you'd like. Well, I think that would be helpful. And is the same concern apply to like the ravines that drain to like then are dry most of the time. So, a lot of the verbiage, yes, ravines and stuff count, but what most places we're looking for is if you're changing the topography of the area, it's changing how the water is then flowing off of that property. And so, if you're pulling weeds or something and it's not necessarily changing how that water is running off, it's not that critical of an issue. Now, talking to Gil earlier, say you put a a barn or something up and it's two foot higher than what the actual ground level was. Now, the sheeting is different than it was before you put the barn on because now it's two foot taller. You've got the roof and now it's having to sheet different than if it was just natural gr or land. So I think every case is unique in its own way and that's why it's so broad of language and so many rabbit holes.

I guess one other comment I would make is is I is I agree that the best practices should be allowed to be tailored to various projects. Um, like you say, um, and for the applicant to choose, um, I assume that they would maybe maybe in the act of making a permit, they might say what they plan to do and we would review it as a town and agree or not agree. I I think that would be the case. Yeah, I think Well, sorry, Tom, weren't you going to say?

Yes, but the town needs some kind of criteria to to judge whether the the BMPs as proposed are are good for the site. If you just say, "Oh, applicant propose some BMPs." And then it's like this black box that you go to the staff when when you come back on there should be some kind of direction to help. So um my first thought is that various of the best management practices are aimed at various um kinds of um of a a runoff uh you know whether it's silt or whether it's you know concrete clean out or whether it's chemicals or that. So would a um direction that says BMT BMPs that that address the specifics of the project based upon what it is the project does. You know, are we grading? Are we concrete? Do we have concrete? Are there, you know, construction vehicles moving in and out? And that the BMPs be um associated with the nature of the project. Is that would that be sufficient?

Yes.

Okay. as you described like they're called best management practices or BMPPS for a reason. That's because what that's what you do, right? If if you if you have a a slope that's got a lot of silts in it, you put up a silt. If you have place where you anticipate a lot of nuisance water coming off, you put a straw bottle because that's what it's there for. So, I mean, the the function of the BMPs is kind of built into the the practice, right? So, Okay. So I I would think we would want to go that way. It would allow flexibility. The point is you're addressing the problems and choosing the best method to address the given problems of a given project. Right? Okay. So at this point, are we in agreement on working with option three in the items that we discussed as far as um further defining different areas such as gardening and perhaps um removal of other vegetation and including um the best management practices and then getting the feedback from you as well to move forward on that. Was there any

I I feel that Yeah. Is that enough for you to go on? Yeah, I think so. I think we can spend some time refining that option and coming putting together some of that detail um that you've given us feedback on. So, yeah. Okay. Okay. Take this to a future meeting then. Yeah. To a future meeting. Okay. Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. And moving on to the second non-action item is a discussion about a potential revision to the town's parking standards. Staff contact is Tom Dansancy. Tom is presenting.

Um this is an item that's been on the planning commission's priority list for a while. It's also an item that um we kind of point to in our general plan in several locations. Um, and it's also an item that has been gaining speed and gaining traction with um, municipalities and local governments across the country. And the the item is the super exciting topic of parking reform. Um, so I'm glad that we've got a packed house here tonight to talk about parking reform because it's awesome.

Um, so in the staff report I I I kind of outlined the kind of the history of why we have parking standards. Some some of that potential specifications for just again really quickly, not to not to repeat what's in the staff report, but just just so that we're all on the same page. And I did something on the display computer. I don't know what. I'm sorry. Can you fix it? I did. Thanks. Um, okay. So, just just by by way of of again of of introduction. So, the the history of parking standards really came from um the kind of automobile boom of the of the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s. And the idea was, oh my goodness, we have all these people driving around in cars now. They used to drive. They used to get where they needed to go on foot or on on the bus or street car and now everybody's driving. And the urban form that existed did did not um support that trans that that uh that transition in travel patterns. There was no place for for people to park all these automobiles. And so planners said, "Oh my goodness, what do we do? let's make sure that everybody when they build a new when they build something new they provide parking places for all these new automobiles. Um and so that's that's what municipalities all across the country started to do. Um and it it proved to be a little bit of a difficult thing to predict how much parking was required at different uses. Um and so the Institute of Transportation Engineers um some really smart people that that study these these transportation issues said, "Hey, we've

got a manual for that. let's uh let's let's let's let's tell you what it is. And so they did some studies and some analyses and and put together a big manual that says here's here's everything you ever wanted to know about parking, but we're afraid to ask. Planners, use this. And um so so planners have been using that manual ever since to say, "Hey, if you have a retail establishment of X square feet, it requires X number of parking spaces." Um and um planners are are inherently um I don't want to say lazy, I'm going to say ignorant. So rather than than coming up with with these standards on on our own, we just say, "Hey, what what's ne what's our neighboring jurisdiction doing for how much parking is required at a theater? Let's just use that." And that's what planners have done for the past 30 years is is copied and pasted these these parking standards. Um and and so now they're they're fairly uniform and fairly standardized across the country. Um so that's that's how we kind of got to where we are now. Recently there's been there's been some research put into the impacts that these parking standards have had on um planning and and uh the development of cities and towns. Um and some of those critiques or some of that research points to some problems or some critiques and and one is that By providing all these parking spaces for cars, um, we've not only accommodated the automo automo automobile boom of the 40s and 50s, we've actually perpetuated that and encouraged um, automobile travel to the detriment of these other forms of walking and biking and transit. So now the default mode of transportation is driving. Whereas 60 years ago, the default mode was not

driving was something else. But parking the the the um the assertion is that parking standards have been a key factor in that transition. And if we want to get back to encouraging walking, biking, transit, one of the ways to do that is to curtail parking by making it less convenient or or less less appealing for people to drive their cars. Um so that's that's one that's one critique. Um the other critique or another critique is that because planners have just kind of copied and pasted these parking standards over and over and over again, they probably don't bear any real justifiable relationship to the actual parking demand at an individual property. Um maybe at one point the the um IT's manual on parking generation was was a good standard, but because it's been copied and pasted from cities, large cities to small cities to urban cities with all sorts of different needs, those those parking standards are fairly uniform, they may not actually reflect what the parking demand at any given property is. And so it's kind of an arbitrary number that we're throwing out there. Um, and the the third critique that I raised in the in the in the staff report is um these parking minimums are inherently um designed to provide peak parking. So that we're saying what is the what's the most number of people that could need a parking space here at the busiest time? Let's make sure everybody has a parking space, which is great on Black Friday when you're going shopping and you want someplace to to park your car. But the other 36 four days of the year when you go to the mall, you'll look around and you'll see see that 60 70% of the parking is is vacant. Um because they're designed for peak parking periods. That leads to inefficient use of land. What

what are we sacrificing with that property that's devoted to parking um that could be used for some other beneficial purpose? It also has associated environmental impacts of increased storm water runoff um and uh increased heat island impacts and also um impacts on urban character or or town in our case town character and and town appearance. So those those are some of the critiques. Um so the the what what communities across the country have been doing is rethinking parking and saying do we do we want to be in the business of telling a property developer how much working they need to supply or should we let that be a market based decision? Somebody comes and and develops their property and um should the government tell them how much parking they need or should that be a calculated business decision um that the property owner makes? I can devote this much to parking or this much to building space or this much to landscape and and and should that be left to the property owner rather than being mandated by the the um government. And a lot of a lot of um of municipalities have said, "Yeah, that's not something that we as a government need to get in the middle of." And so they've been repealing those parking minimums or drastically reducing them. In fact, some have gone so far as saying, "We're going to put in a pack parking maximum." Um you can't have more than x number of parking spaces for this type of development. Um so the question then is, is this something that is applicable in Springdale? Is this something that we think is is worth exploring? Is this something that that is a problem? Um, by by looking at parking, do we see that we could accomplish the goals of our general plan more effectively? That's a that's that's essentially what the discussion is tonight. Um, before we get to that, just a couple of of comments. Um,

one is that Springdale is obviously super unique, um, and in the fact that we, um, have businesses that provide parking for their patrons. And as a town and as a community, we also provide parking for the majority of visitors that go to the the Drive Design National Park. Um, obviously those are two very different things. The the parking demanded by patrons of individual businesses and the parking necessary or demanded by visitors to the park. What what this report is focusing on is the parking at individual properties for the patrons of that property. the the the issue of I mean anybody who was in town the past couple of days knows that parking for visitors to design national park continues to be an issue continues to be a problem continues to be something that we need to to deal with and to manage. That's not what we're talking about here. What we're talking about is at restaurant A or gift shop B, how much parking should that property be required to provide for the patrons of that property? So making that distinction. Um then the the other uh thing to to note is um we have received one public comment letter on on this um issue and that's also who is not here tonight. He also has some thoughts and comments that he distributed as well and hope you all had a chance to to see that. If not we can bring those up on the screen. We have a copy of his comments up on the screen that we can reference as well. So, with that introduction, what what is the action of the planning commission tonight? Well, tonight you're not trying to solve anything. We it's we have far too little time for us to solve Springdale's parking problems in the in the time we have tonight. Um, but what what I would suggest the commission

should do is just discuss this idea of parking reform. Is this something that resonates with the commission? Is that point to this in our plan? But that doesn't mean that we're mandated to do it if it doesn't make sense. So have a discussion amongst the commission. Does this make sense? Is this something we want to pursue? If not, no further action is necessary and we move on to the next item item on your priority list. If as a commission you say, well, no, this this is something that we'd like to research, then the action for you tonight is not to solve it, but to but to lay out a course of action. And the staff report recommends a couple of things that you could do. You could appoint a small working group to work on this. And that could be um uh commissioners, staff, residents, business owners all working together to analyze these issues. Um you could give staff direction to do additional research and bring back more information and be happy to do that in a future work meeting. Um or you could uh take any other action course of action that you wanted to to pursue this this item. So that's what I would recommend you do tonight is have a general discussion and then plan plot out a course of action. Are there any questions that I can answer before you start your discussion?

So the the existing Springdale or ordinance on um parking minimums is is that are the numbers in the ordinance from this book that you've talked about from the engineers? Is that where we have the num where the numbers that we have today came from?

No, that's a great question. So many years ago we had numbers in our in our ordinance and um I don't know where they came from. Um about I don't know 10 12 years ago we actually looked at at this issue again or or or initially and decided that yeah these numbers that we have in our ordinance don't match what what Springdale's parking actually looks like. And so we actually went out and did our own counts of parking and analyses of different and and tweaked some and revised some, left some the same. Um, and so I don't know initially where they where they came from. I'm assuming that it was from the IT trip trip generation manual as it had been filtered through maybe several other communities before it time got got to Springdale. But then we additionally went and did some Springdale specific analysis that um adjusted those parking standards a little bit.

So this analysis was you said about 10 years ago? I can't remember. It was yeah 10 10 12 years agoish. So go ahead just jump off that for a second. So today is there identification of overabundance of parking or not enough at any particular business or cumulative of all the businesses. So we we like I like I mentioned to Cherry we did that analysis a number of years ago. We have not We've not updated that analysis. Okay.

And so that could be a key piece of of action if you wanted to pursue this is say let's let's update that and see where we are currently. See see what our parking looks like. Certainly if you know just anecdotally if you drive around town there are um properties that have full parking lots all the time and there are properties that have largely vacant properties lots of the time. But we could we could that's just anecdotal. we could go through and do a more detailed parking count and parking analysis and bring that back to you. I think my gut feel is that I need we need to understand if there's a problem to solve or not. And my general feeling myself that driving around town or having to park or bringing my 95-year-old mother-in-law and trying to find a place to park and all of the various issues is that overall given the stress we have on our parking systems, I think we do a pretty good job. there's things that could be done and like you said, there's a whole where do all the park visitors park. Um, and so I I think that if we're going to do something, we would want to do something that solves a Springdale problem, not something that solves some other problem or some, you know, generalized problem. Um, and so I would be curious what the what type of analysis was done and whether that makes sense to do the same analysis again or possibly adjust an analysis we would do to understand what kind of problems if we have what they are and that would help us understand what we would do to solve them. Um

can can I tell you what the analysis was that was done previously? Yeah.

Yeah. So so what we did is we um we inventoried all of the parking lots in town and said okay you this this parking lot has x number of spaces and then we did counts um at various time set times throughout the day. I forget what they were like 9:00 a.m. 1:00 p.m. 400 p.m. 7 p.m. something like that like four times a day. And we repeated that on a number of different days throughout the year. So a standard weekend day, a holiday weekend day, a standard weekday day, uh, you know, so so we we got kind of various different data points and then we're able to combine those to get a snapshot of what parking looked like. We could do that same kind of analysis again. Sounds like a fairly thorough analysis. Um, some other questions I have. How often or do you remember ever getting a variance request on minimum parking spaces?

I don't think we ever have. So, nobody's tried to say we need fewer parking spaces than the minimum. No, that that was referenced in in some of the material that was included in the staff report. Um, you know, one one of the assertions was, well, planners like to have these parking minimums so they can use them as a bargaining chip and and variances and Utah in in in Utah variances are very specific and I don't think anybody would ever qualify for a varian from a parking minimum in Utah. It would be difficult to I think right to to justify a variance from a from a parking standard or parking minimum.

But that's kind of what I was wondering when I read that. it seemed like it would be difficult. Um but on the other hand, uh so there's this analysis you discussed. One of the things I think might be valuable might also be asking um business owners in town if they feel that they're required to have more parking spaces than they need. um or maybe to find out some of a number of the commercial um developments that have come through in the time I've been in the planning commission have actually built slightly more parking spaces than the minimum required. which sort of implies to me that reducing the minimum may not reduce the number of parking spaces actually built if we're already tend to be below what they want to build anyway. Um so to me that information would also be valuable. Um and so we haven't applied this concept to um residential zones from what I hear so far. Is that true? So we haven't said well let's reduce the number right now we require like say two parking spaces for a single home. Has anybody we ever discussed whether we should reduce that to one for example?

Um We have not had that conversation in the past, but you're welcome to have that conversation as part of this discussion. But but my gather from what's been presented is the what what it is we're being asked to look at is more aimed at commercial than at residential. Is that true? Not necessarily.

Not necessarily. I I I think that the the issue is is applies to all kinds of uses. And again, you know, Terry, you you make a good point and and I referenced this in the staff report. We don't want to do something just because another another municipality said, "Hey, we've had this great success with parking reform. Rep just replicating what another community does in Springdale is is is not guaranteed to bring us success." Right? How with that caveat um a lot of um communities are specifically looking at at reducing or eliminating parking minimums for residential as a means to encourage more affordable housing. Um parking spaces are super expensive to develop and if a developer has to provide two spaces or or one and a half spaces per unit in their in in in their um housing development. Just reducing that down um can be the from two spaces to one space or from one and a half spaces to one space can be the difference even even though the the end development costs are only reduced say you know 20 $30,000 that can be the the make or break between an affordable housing project working and not working. Yes, that was one of the one of the thoughts I had because we do have an affordable housing section in the um in the ordinances and it doesn't say anything about offering, you know, if you build affordable housing, you can you you know have fewer parking spaces.

Correct. That might be an interesting incentive for some of the things we're trying to accomplish. Um my general feeling is is I'd like to get more information and like some studies of where we are today to understand what problems we do have if any. That's sort of my feel on this.

I agree. I I actually agree with um some of Tom Kenistston's comments um where his comment was we may pre be prematurely um reducing availability of parking. I don't know if that's it. We can structure this a lot of different ways, I know, but maybe we're just not quite there yet. I um understanding the direction of the general plan, I I think there's some forward motion on that as far as um the bus transit system and the bike trails, but I I just don't think we're quite there yet. I think it's something that should stay somewhere in the priorities to keep talking about and adjusting um when it may make more sense. But perhaps in the meantime getting a little more information that might um put a different perspective on it would be helpful because there's a lot of different ways if I'm understanding right this could be structured like you could remove the minimum and the maximum

right maximums but right or yeah move the minimum or put a maximum on there's just a lot of different ways and um needing that information to determine what the structure would be. Um but then mostly just if if now is the time, right? And it comes back to, you know, do we have a problem and what exactly do we have? Yes.

Because you you're right. We could reduce minimums, we could remove minimums, we could have reduced minimums as incentives for affordable housing or something like that. there's a variety of options we could take but without knowing what the problem is we're it's difficult to choose what the approach would be. Um so I agree we should maybe the direction of the staff would be to maybe conduct a survey or or get some information or maybe come back to it with with a recommendation of of how to gather information and then we can determine Okay.

Yeah. Maybe that's going to take it sounds like it might take a number of months to determine to gather the information and then we might set it aside during that time and then look at it if we understand after looking at the analysis that there is some significant problems to take care of

more info. I would say that a maximum at this point wouldn't make any sense to me. Yeah. I don't know of a reason to put a maximum. Yeah. Unless there's something in the analysis that tells us I'm a little more it makes a little more sense to me to possibly reduce minimums in some places. Right?

Um that is a it's a small change b it doesn't force um it actually reduces it actually gives developers a little more freedom um to adjust parking to their the needs of their site. So, and I and I like the idea of moving toward or going in the direction of the general plan and making steps for more public transport, different public transportation, you know, just um that would be another thing to, you know, to coordinate with other things that are sort of outside of the planning commission perview

um about well, if we do reduce minimums and actually the number of parking spaces does go down or doesn't go up as much, whatever that leads to, that there the other options are coming along in combination um with that. Um overall, I think we've done a pretty good job with the bus system we have with the the parking that we have. have I mean it's not a planning commission issue but it seems to work pretty well other than in the really peak times the parking that we have for the other issue the Zion park visitor issue. Um it also in my experience seems to encourage visitors to come and park and get out of their car and go to the park or walk around town or rent bicycles and other things. generally it dis it discourages them from going and getting back in their car and driving to another place in town. Um, and I think that our system seems to work pretty well that way. Um, and so I wouldn't want to create a situation where now there's no place for them to park and they're driving around town trying to find a place to park. Um, so I want you would want to be careful of something like that. Okay.

Is that enough for you? Do you guys have information to move forward? Do you have enough, Tom, to come back to us with from us? I've I've got plenty for Nile to come back with you with. Yeah, that's Did we give you enough? I I think the primary request is to come back to us with a proposal of how to do a study to gather us information to determine if we have a problem. Perfect. So, so you're not actually you're not looking for us to do that data at gathering and that analysis at this point. You want us to say here's what we prop how we propose to go about getting that analysis. you can take a look at it and say, "Yeah, that looks good." Or make tweaks to it. And then we can go ahead and do the

right that way we can understand, well, what kind of data are we going to get and does it match what we think we need? Yeah. Yep. We can do that for sure.

I think I just wanted to add one thing. Um, so from a park perspective, as you can imagine, uh, we get asked or pressured a lot to add more parking in the park. Um, and I've only been here about a year and a half, but speaking with people that have been in the park since the the visitation spike since 2010, um, I just wanted to share for the the commission's consideration that there there will never be enough parking. Um, and so the commission may want to consider like, you know, what what do you want the character of the town to be? And then parking kind of fills in around that. It It's kind of how we operate. Like, you know, the park has to maintain its character. We can't just put parking lots everywhere, stuff like that. And so, not a not advice, just something to consider. um that I've heard quite a bit when we talk about various projects. It's often suggested we'll add some more parking because, you know, that'll uh that'll help, but um visitation isn't going anywhere. And yeah, the overall feedback is there will never be enough parking. So,

good point.

Thank you, Matt. Can I just add a little bit on that? I mean, it's the same concept as you can't build your way out of congestion on a freeway, right? like you in in Southern California, you say, "Oh, just add more more lanes on the freeway." And they just clog up, you know. So, this the same is true of of of parking and and that's why it is great. You you know, you mentioned we have the the bus system, which is a fantastic addition. We're working on getting the multi-use trail through here. Um, in order to really capitalize on those and make those effective, we one one way to do that is to adopt land use policy that supports that. And that could be not providing as much parking in Springdale. So again, anecdotally, I'm a frequent bus rider. Um, and it's and it's great. And all throughout the winter, I was I was a solo bus rider. I had the whole bus to myself. It was, you know, was it was fine. It was great. Um, the last two days when parking was a hassle in Springdale and people knew that parking was a hassle in Springdale and and UDOT's doing a great job of getting that information out and saying parking is a hassle in Springdale. Bus has been packed and people have said, "Well, I'm going to I don't want to deal with that in Springdale. I'm going to take the bus." So, the success of these other modes like the trail, like the bus is is um intrinsically linked to our land use policy regarding parking. I'm glad to hear that about the bus. That's great.

Um, but sort of going back to one of the things you talked about early on, the changes we're considering um would be changes to parking spaces associated with commercial businesses which generally don't want someone to come and park their car and go in the park all day. Um, and so we have to be aware of it's a different type of parking than parking for these visitors who might be regional visitors who aren't going to spend the night but are but are going to drive up here because they're coming from St. George or wherever. Um, and so we have to be conscious of that difference. Ex.

Exactly. And I I just brought that up as an example and and your point about the difference between patron parking at businesses and visitor parking to Zion is absolutely right.

And along those lines, um Tom mentioned that Kenston and his comments about potentially adding more paid parking to um just add on to that strategy of encouraging people to not have to pay to park and doing other transportation. And then on the flip side of that, the public comment letter from Jonathan Zambella um is coming from the business perspective and asking um if having paid parking um you know just kind of weighing the the the how much what the revenue is compared to um costs and and running that. Um, so you can kind of see two different perspectives there and the balance is probably somewhere in there with the parking spaces as part of the factor of all of that.

Just as a side question on that, is it is it that the paid parking that the city runs I is a sort of a net zero operation, meaning it's not profitable but not loss any covers the costs? Uh, no, that's not true. Oh.

Um, certainly it costs a lot of money to run the the the um program, right? There there's some significant costs there. Um, however, we do net money from the parking program. That money is all poured back into transportation improvement projects in the town of Springdale. So, a lot of the sidewalk projects that have been going on, um the Robert has has done a great job leading leading, those have been paid for by parking fees, um a lot of the um enhancements with crosswalks and benches and and and those kinds of things, th those are paid for out of those parking revenues. So, the the the paid parking does two things. Yes, it it covers the cost of the program and it also helps the town provide amenities that benefit residents and visitors alike.

And as I understand it, some of the parking lots are on private property and the private property owner gets some portion of the revenue that comes from that. Is that correct? So the the town has an agreement with only one private parking lot in the town where where we operate that parking lot and manage it and and then we split the revenue with the property owner. All of the other off- streetet private parking lots in Springdale are privately owned and and the town does not um enforce or or manage or administer any of those and all the revenue goes to the property owners.

Okay. So in th those cases they use whatever payment system they're going to use. They're not part of the same. Okay. That's correct. I don't know that this is relevant at all, but do you know how many businesses in town do what Hudos does where they require a minimum purchase? It's like kind of both. Their patrons, but then it's also long-term parking.

So I I think that model is, as far as I understand, is unique to Hudoo's and it's a it's it's a creative model. Um there are a number of properties who um you know Terry me you mentioned that a number of properties have more parking than the code requires them to have. There are a number of those properties that um charge visitors to to park in those surplus parking. So it's it's not exactly what Hudoo's doing is doing. They're just saying, "Yeah, we've got extra parking. You can come park here. Here's the fee." Um I think Hudoo is the only one who has the model that they're using. Yes,

sure.

Hi, Gilke Kefir. Uh, Terry, you're right. For most of the uh um businesses that if it's a place like Oscars or something, they come in park for a meal. So, they're there for an hour. I believe they try to chase them out of the parking lot for after that. However, the bike businesses, which there's about 13 or 14 of them now, they come in, they rent a bike. Um there's usually, let's say, two people to a car. Uh they rent two bikes, but they're going to be there for four to eight hours, sometimes 12 hours. So they they don't turn over those parking spaces more than twice a day.

So a lot of you're saying many of the bike rental facility or businesses allow the patrons to re park their car and leave their car while they're gone on their bike.

Some of them do. if uh the what that's part of the problem that you're trying to solve is the fact that um some of the bike uh businesses only have maybe five uh to 10 parking spaces yet they're renting out 50 to 150 bikes a day. So that just right there says that 50 to 100 cars now have to go find a place to park on a busy day. So for each business. So, my other suggestion was that um until um the lot down the street here gets developed, there's a lot of things that have to go into that development of that lot. You could probably change that into a a parking lot fairly inexpensively. and it's an acre worth of parking that would park anywhere from 150 to 200 cars on a busy day. So, it's just just a thought. Um, what I would like like to not see is um the parking part of what the material that was presented uh also had some blue lines on it. I don't know if it's it's later in the document of where the um uh the residential parking areas are in town. I would like to not see those impacted uh and changed in any way to allow additional parking. Um you're you're getting closer. I'm not unless you passed it already.

Anyway, I would like to not see those changed to allow for overflow parking for a busy weekend or something like that. Those residential areas are are basically residential areas and we need to park our cars there. Um they're also uh I don't believe the streets are wide enough to allow parking on one definitely not on both sides not even on one side to allow uh two-way traffic there especially with an emergency vehicle. So I want I would like to make sure love to see you not go that direction.

So So on that on that topic um you're talking about on street parking I I believe right? Um, and my perception is around town some number of neighborhoods have, you know, either no parking signs or they have permit parking. Um, and I think that is is the right way to go for probably most of the residential neighborhoods that we I agree that we save them. And I and I my understanding is we're kind of moving that direction anyway because it looks like I'm over year over the years have seen more areas that either become permit or no parking areas in off of FR9 in residential areas. Um and I would definitely want to continue that. I think

so everywhere that is not a paid parking zone. So you know you see the paid parking zones with the signs and the kiosks. Everywhere in town that is not one of those is either a prohibited parking zone or a permit parking zone. So, okay. So, so basically everywhere in town is controlled one way or another. Yeah. Let me let me clarify that. That's on town owned streets. On town owned streets.

Correct. Yep. And I know many of the private owned streets also prefer and have put up no parking signs and worked with the police department on on managing that is my understanding. Um so yes, I think we should focus the only focus I think we would have on residential areas is whether we might reduce the minimum for a new residential construction, the minimum on off streetet parking. Um, but again, we'd want to understand if there's an issue that needs to be solved or not. That's at least my perspective. Yeah.

Yeah. Is there any other discussion? Tom, will you actually be bringing this back to us? Are you going to be at future meetings or are you transitioning away? I'll be I'll be here for the for the next little bit. So, okay. Unless I get kicked out. You guys can kick me out whenever you want, but absent that, you know, until April and I say hit hit the road, I'll I'll be here for the next month, two months, three months or so. Okay, perfect. Motion to keep Tom forever. You want Tom? In that case, is there a motion? Motion to adjurnn.

Make a motion to adjurnn. Second. Motion by Terry, second by Kosh. All in favor? Terry I. Jennifer I. Asha I. Meeting is adjourned. Thank you all the town staff for for your information. It was very helpful. We did