Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

But most of them most don't want to start building. Oh yeah. I don't blame their time as monies. I always love it when they call. We start construction. We should have started plans six days ago. You can start move dirt. Go pound some plaques to the ground. Move them every couple of weeks. make you feel like so what is this text amendment you know I try to

all right I'm here that all

I got one minute to spare amendments Wow. So, is SV is that a state? That must be city terminology. This is getting close. Just step up. Everybody's ready.

You guys ready? We only have five though. We only need five, right? Can break five, right? Dang. Good evening everyone. Welcome to the Syracuse City Planning Commission meeting for October 7th, 2025. It's now 6 PM and we will call this meeting to order and we'll have an invocation or thought by Commissioner Baker. Not here.

I'll go ahead and do it. Our beloved father in heaven, we're indeed grateful for this opportunity that's given us to serve on this planning commission and to represent this wonderful city of Syracuse. We pray tonight that we'll be mindful of the citizens of this community and do those things which are appropriate to help us flourish and do those things which will want citizens to be here. And bless this meeting, Father, that we'll be kind to one another. And we say these things humbly in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. And our pledge of allegiance will be given by Commissioner Bird.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, thank you everyone. And now um we'll do the adoption of the meeting agenda. I move to adopt the agenda. No changes. Okay. And we have a motion to adopt the meeting agenda. Second. Second.

And we second. And any that? Okay. they will have the amending or adopt the meeting agenda as listed. Next is the regular meeting and work session for September 2nd um 2025 for the meeting minutes. I hope you've reviewed those and read through them. Is are there any changes or need for additional comments?

I move that we approve the minutes. I don't remember the date. September 17th. Okay, we got a motion and a second to approve the meeting minutes for September 2nd, 2025. All in favor? I

I. Thank you. Next is public comment. This is an opportunity to address the planning commission regarding items not scheduled for a public hearing on this agenda. Please consider others and limit your comments to three minutes. No um public comments at this time. Next, we'll open up the public hearing. This is the general plan text amendment proposed third amendment to the Syracuse general plan. And you uh I'm ready for that, Mr. Chair. Yes, please.

Uh hopefully here, let me pull up the uh packet. Hopefully you guys have had a chance to read through this. Um, our general plan was adopted in 2019, but we've had various amendments to the to that. Uh, we've had a few for affordable housing. Um, mostly we've been making updates as required by state law. Uh, the Utah legislaturator's been active in in requiring certain things to be in general plans. Like I said, the last one was related to affordable housing. Uh this one is related to water and growth. Uh there's another one that's required before next summer that's related to connectivity. So we'll we're trying to knock this one out. Um of course water is a hot topic. It's important to make sure we have enough water for growth. Uh in the city we have a secondary water system for our irrigation and lawns and gardens and things like that. We also have a culinary system. We have uh on our website we have an impact fee study plan for both systems. We also have a water conservation plan that's adopted also on our website. So, a lot of this was trying to pull some of this work that's already been pulled out and also have a conversation um with planning commission and the public about um what the city's doing and what some of our goals are to make sure that we're water efficient. We've recently changed some of our ordinances as far as landscaping requirements. Um, and so we've we've attempted to to uh add this is like a an appendix. I

didn't include the rest of the text of the general plan. Um, and so this is meant to be initial draft form. uh if we have any comments, we can we can forward that to city council who's ultimately in charge of of adopting the document. Um we've also sent this off to the state for comments and um the goal is to try to get it done before the end of the year um before the before the u the deadline for adoption is is hit. So, um I don't know if you guys how detailed you guys want to get into this, but um hopefully you've had a chance to to study it and look into it. If you have any comments or questions, we can we can discuss this item. But the goal here is to forward some sort of recommendation to city council of what your thoughts are on on this uh new water element for the general plan. discussion question. So there were a couple items in there about being full buildout. Is this like a plan at a full buildout or if we go ext exceeding beyond that or do we need to get to that point? the the goal is I mean I think the underlying um reason why the state is trying to get involved here is they want to make sure that the cities are planning well for their full buildout numbers and that we don't somehow issue too many building permits. You probably see that a lot on comment boards and things like where's the water going to come from, you know? So I think um it's important for cities to plan ahead. Um and the city Syracuse actually has done a really good job

planning ahead with with all new development. We collect water shares. Um we we uh we have um wells that are meant for future capacity. We have a current well right now that we use. Um so we have extra capacity in the water rights that we have for culinary water. And then development also pays impact fees. And uh so so yeah, the the goal is to make sure that we have enough water for our projected buildout. And our max um is the 60,000 that's listed here. That's kind of what we're

Yeah. And the impact fee study plans are designed to to capture the projects that are needed for full buildout and they go off of the general plan and the densities that are anticipated in the general plan as we know sometimes change and so uh the 60,000 and the and all of our plans are based off of our current general plan and that's you know that's the best you can do. Um but if if things become more dense then you know you need more water and make sure we plan ahead.

And do we need anything in here because it and with the secondary water uh I know I think that there's like a 13,000 uh acre feet capacity if I remember right from reading it. I know the water conservancy district is looking we're metering all of our houses. Is there do we need to include anything about that and potential for like overusage? How to protect because right now we're just if you have a a spigot you can let it run.

Yeah. So there is a few paragraphs talking about that or maybe only one in our water conservation plan. There's there's more. Uh but yeah, the city's under has a huge project underway right now. We're installing secondary meters on every house and uh of course with new growth, it's easy to install a new meter per the standard spec, but we're also retroactively going through and installing the meters on the existing connections. That's that's a $16 million project. and the city did get some funding and you know some help with the grant and things like that but it's still millions of dollars and this and the things like that that's the reason why why the city collects impact fees so that we can capture projects like that. the uh the anticipated costs when you do impact fee study plans sometimes are not accurate to what the actual costs are. And the way impact fees are collected with development doesn't always follow a linear pattern based off of market demands and things. And so when a home's built, we collect the impact fee, but sometimes you just need an a like for example, we built a new water tower. you reach a point in your system where you just it's a big chunk of money and it doesn't always line up with the rate that we're collecting impact fees. So, um that's why it's important to always be updating your impact fee study plans. Uh so, we're in the process right now of updating our both the culinary and secondary impact fee plan and that's public works is doing that right now and they've hired JUB to to do that.

And we've also passed this on to JB this water element and we want them to help populate some more detail. Um so we we like I said the goal is to try to get done before the end of the year but it's looking like most likely it'll be done by or get to city council either by the end of the year or the first of first part of January in here. You know, we we've got about 60% complete for secondary water. Are we 100% metered for our culinary water? Yeah. Yep. All all culinary connections are metered and we have a tiered fee structure.

We don't have to go and read the meter, though. It's all electric now. Oh, we uh we just it's all it's only been within the last five or six years that we have a radio read that you you can drive by with a truck, but it doesn't you still have to have somebody drive through every single street and read all the meters and it and as you drive by it, it transmits the data. Not too many years ago, it was a wand read and you put a wand on it, it goes beep and then it reads it. And not too many years before that, it was literally you you open the thing and you write down the number and then you close the lid and you go to the next house.

So like just the act of reading is I mean it it requires um employees and software and all kinds of stuff. But the the secondary, you know, we the first the first step is to have it metered and actually understand what the water usage is cuz like you said, I don't think the city understands how much water is really being used because it's not metered and you pay a flat fee and some people put that thing on and you know, who knows what they're doing in the backyard. So I I think that's a and you know that's that's spelled out in our water conservation plan that the document references but once once we start reading secondary data get some data the city can understand what an average usage is per home and they can I think in the future they'll have some sort of tiered rate and you know the the bad actors will either get shut down or fined or pay in exorbitant maybe not exorbitant but like they'll it should it's only fair that you use more you pay more maybe you use less you pay less

thank you you're you're running you're running you're running things today I was unfortunately a little bit late my apologies any other question welcome to the meeting yeah we're this is going to be a quick and quick and easy one I think yeah no I've got a couple questions for Uh I'm assuming that all public buildings are involved in that secondary metering. Maybe those were the first ones to be done. Yes. Yep.

Uh another question. The availability of our water rates or our water rights, excuse me, on the amount of acre feet and all that. I'm assuming that's based upon a historical average of how much water is available. So yeah, the way water shares work, um, some years they're good water years and some years they're not. And so we have it's called a water share, uh, which means that you get a piece of the pie and sometimes the size of the pie actually changes. Um, and so the city does uh we have uh watering schedules and so if you're in certain parts of the the city, you have certain days that you can water and then of course Sunday is is a nonwatering. And um and of course the city buildings, we're trying to lead by example. We've we've flipped the strip. We've pulled out a lot of turf in the front there. Um the key word is nonfunctional turf, right? So if you have areas that aren't uh used for sports or picnics and some of the city hall area is um somewhat functional because of the annual parade and you know it's it seems maybe silly to have grass for once or twice a year but you know it is something that residents enjoy. So with those water shares uh in Utah is it based on seniority? So there there are the old farmer shares and then um there are so the the way I understand it it's like you have uh projects back in the day you know when they built echo that's a project and that's a tier water and if the shares are part of that or if you know as they build different canals and different projects and so there's like a

different project water and so the city pays annual annual fees. So, as far as our availability of water, I think is what you're getting getting at the city the city's high up there on on our ability to get water. We're confident that even in drought years, we'll have our fair share.

So, assuming anything other than a total catastrophe, we have enough access and seniority that we would not be superseded and say that Roy gets our water instead because that's all the water that's left. Yeah, these these are good points to to bring up and I don't know if we want to uh talk about that. You know, I I didn't get into that level of detail, but I know that it's something that the city thinks about and and in the level of the totem pole of priority. Secondary water, you know, it's important to have our gardens and it's important to have landscaping, but but the the real important one is the culinary water to make sure that we are we you know, you don't have drinking water, we die. I without getting too far out in the weeds, I guess my point is all these speculations about uh water capacity for 60,000 inhabitants, is that based upon ASIS projections or is that extrapolating that we're going to have additional consery measures in the future that's going to allow us to stretch to that or is that a conservative goal and we still have some wiggle room with some additional water saving measures on top of that?

There's a lot more that we could do. I think it's a pretty conservative measure and to be honest, I mean just a just we've been saying build out is 60,000 for a long time and that's just like a big round number. It could be a lot more than that depending on what happens. And there's a lot of lot of variables there. Like I said, density, housing type, that's dictated by by all kinds of things that are outside of the city's control sometimes. But the city controls the zoning and doesn't have to approve a project if it's feeling tight on there. But the the current sentiment with our where we're at with our SIM systems is that that we have the capacity for growth and we have planned ahead and we you know we are planning for growth and we still have we're about 40,000. We're and with the 60,000 buildout, that's still quite a bit of growth. If you look around, there are still a few farms. They're going fast and if there's a farm around, the chances are there's somebody that's looking at it.

Yeah. And and generally a farm uses more water than a households are going to use anyways. Okay, that answers my question. Thank you,

Mr. Chair. If I can just uh hop in here for one second. And I'd opened up a couple of things. Uh so we we do have the projections, but we also do deal with this on like a case-byase basis. Uh with the secondary in particular, and then also with housing, uh when people apply for a building permit, we're going to have uh water impact fees uh to pay for pipe upgrades and things like that in the future. So uh but for subdivision plat so for any sort of new housing or new commercial or industrial development that we get we have requirements uh that they dedicate water to the city in the form of a water share uh before the plat's allowed to be recorded. So they're not allowed to build anything without water dedicated to us. So even if they don't have landscaping in we have water. So here's an example of a water share. Uh these things are essentially currency. Uh this gives you access to a certain number of acre feet as defined here through this one's Davis and Weber Canal Company. This is accepted everywhere in the city. And then there's Leighton Canal. We also accept Hooper irrigation. Uh Leighton Canal is pretty much everything below the bluff, so west of that. So th this canal company provides access to that area just based off of the gravity. So when we uh have these water shares that are dedicated to us, this essentially gives us direct certificate access to the water from these companies. So we are guaranteed to be able to have that access. So I guess you know barring some sort of substantial calamity that occurs maybe like the echo uh dam breaks or something like that. We we guaranteed this water, right? So it's not like oh there's a drought what's going to happen. um you know we we do have these things that are managed through larger regional water systems and these are these are guaranteed. So um and and developers are required to dedicate these to us. I've I've seen a few uh

developments over the years that have died because they couldn't find find the water. Sometimes people that are selling like a farmer will sell their land with water, sometimes they don't. But either way it doesn't matter. We we still require them to provide the correct number of shares. And for like uh single family residential for example, that would be three acre feet per acre of water. And so like an acre foot uh if I remember right, isn't it? It's an acre of ground covered with 1 foot of water. Isn't that how they measure that? So it's quite a bit of water. Uh but basically just makes sure that we have the water available. We have direct access to it through here. And we have all of these I mean hundreds of pages that we have uh was it several thousand shares as it mentions in the general plan that are in a lock box. We've got direct access to that if we need it to verify that we have access to that water.

Great. Thank you.

Yeah, my father-in-law has uh done some developing and he has uh he's had to deal with water shares quite a bit especially like up on the uh North Ogden benches. They were I mean it's a it's that way everywhere you go but they are very very stingy with water shares and who's going to let them go and everything. And when he said that these are currency he's not kidding. Yeah. It's it's literally like liquid gold. Like they and sometimes they'll be water speculators that they'll swoop in and they'll buy the water shares from the farmer and then they'll hold on to them and jack up the price. And anyway, we're getting in the weeds. I I was just going to make one more comment. Um approximately 110 years ago, the Colorado Compact divided up the water flow of the Colorado River among the western states. They based out on an average that turned out to be record high abnormally large water flow years. So they're essentially dividing a number that didn't even exist. They were dividing 120% of average instead of 100%. And so that was just on my mind. we yes the shares are meaningful but you can't divide zero right so that that just comes into my mind I know we're being aggressive and I'm I'm grateful for that I just uh the water's like I say water's always a present worry in the west

yeah well I'm I'm confident that we've done all we can to ensure but it's nature it's this is only secondary water too this isn't going this isn't for drinking this is the untreated so It's Weber Weber River and the flows on the Weber River can fluctuate but it is um coming below a dam so they can regulate the flows. Um and like I said it's it's a piece of the pie. So some years can be more thin but that's where you implement more water conservation measures and things like that. We had that one just what three or four years ago. Thank you. Okay.

Thank you. Um, this is a public hearing. This are anybody online? Nope. Any public input? Okay. And my re or the understanding is this is a recommendation to the city council. Is that correct? Yes, sir. Any further discussion? Commissioners,

I've got one other item. Royce, can you scroll down? I believe there was a bunch of conservation methods or something at the end of the document recommendations. Is that right? There we go. Just wanted to get a good look at those. Um, so these are goals. They're not mandated. There's no set plan. They're just future actions that we may implement as a city. Is that right? Yes. Thank you.

Yeah. this. So, if you clicked on this link that carries this out and this is an adopted plan by city council by resolution. So, it's not an ordinance, but it is um something that the city endorses and buys into. Thank you, commissioners. And we make a motion. So, are we motioning to city council to approve this as worded?

Yeah, whatever you recommend. You can recommend them, recommend to approve, approve with conditions. You could table, you can even recommend to deny for certain reasons if you felt like this was, you know, if you felt that way, probably better for us to keep working on it here for a little while than make some changes. I have no notes. Yeah, I'll make a motion. Uh, I move that we recommend approval to the city council um as worded on the amendment to the Syracuse general p plan in accordance with SB 110 water as part of the general plan and SB76 water amendments. I second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. All in favor? I I Any oppose? Okay, this is recommended to move forward to the city council. Hey, and if you'll pull up the agenda, we'll go to the Okay, a motion to adjourn this commissioner meeting and or planning commission meeting and move into a work session. Motion to adjourn. Okay. All in favor?

I Okay, work session. Um, we have the Department of Business City Council liaison report. I don't think I I don't think I have anything major to report, but I did want to make sure everyone is aware that we have an upcoming election in our city. So, we have two city council seats and the uh mayor is up for election. Um and so we have the second of two uh meet the candidate nights tomorrow here at city hall at 6:30. There will be kind of a little bit of a meet and greet and there will be a question and answer panel. So, anyone wanting to find out who's running for city council and and what they stand for, that would be a good opportunity to come out and and see them tomorrow. So, that's it.

Can I jump in with the question, please? Sure. Uh, for those that are unable to attend, will there be platforms or information listed anywhere that people can look into? Yeah. So, the the uh you can go on to the Davis County website and also the state website and they have uh all the candidates do a little bit of a blurb about themselves and kind of uh explain what they're about. Um other than that, meeting them in person, reaching out to them, um following them on Facebook, most of them have campaign page. Those types of things are how how you would stay informed about them. So,

thanks. Okay. Thank you. And I was just going to add to that with for your question, the state website is really good at telling you all the candidates, not just for our city, but you can look at others for all around you and get their information. It's required to put that in for you. Okay. If you have any questions on who's running, you can always look at corners around. Yeah, I was just showing you guys this county website that has the election stuff. I I feel like I looked at the city web page and it was pretty scant. So it sounds like the county website's a resource state.

Yeah, the the city recorders primary or one of her job responsibilities to run the local election, but but yeah, they have um all of the candidate ballot stuff on here. Thank you. And then we are glad to welcome our city attorney. And anything for us? Oh, sorry. I should have introduced uh So, this is uh this is Kayla. She's our new planner. Um so, our city attorney is actually on vacation right now, so he was unable to make it today. So, she's with us as one of our planners.

Yep. Yep. So, so Mike uh left a few weeks ago and uh Kayla has replaced Mike. So, we're happy to have her. She's been great so far. So, we're excited to see what she can accomplish here. So, welcome Kayla. Welcome. That reminds me, we need to get you a name a name thing.

Uh yeah. So, other department business, we wanted to talk about the schedule coming up for the November. Um, so we have um Veterans Day on November 11th, which is the regularly scheduled city council night. Uh, and so they're going to be bullies to you guys and they're going to they're going to steal your your night on the 18th. So we'll need to cancel that night for planning commission. And then as far as upcoming agenda items, uh we have an application for analopee station lot number two. Uh this is a the architectural review committee met on this a long time ago and then it's just taken them a long time to make revisions to the plan, but I we believe that they should be back. chances are high that that they'll be ready for the October 21st. Uh we also have Sades Glenn phase 4. That's that's the one off 2700 South, the the attached senior housing project. Um that's a final plat. So no public hearing required. We think that that will be ready. And then we have a lakeside flat. If you remember on the uh sixway roundabout, the southwest corner uh behind there, there was a recent reszone and general plan amendment. There's like uh how many lots? It's like 30 lots or something like that. It's pretty small residential subdivision in the R3 zone. So, they're working on a preliminary plat on that one. Uh we also have the Westlake Landing which is the commercial portion of that project that's up front and there'll be gas station and and multiple commercial

buildings along the frontage there. They're working on a final plat but they're just not quite ready yet. And so we believe that we will have a meeting on the 21st. If there's any changes we'll make sure to to let you guys know. Um, appreciate you guys being here. I know it's been a little bit slow and we canled the last meeting coming in towards the end of the year. Sometimes things get a little bit slower and we'll, you know, for for uh Thanksgiving and and Christmas. We'll have to look at those those meetings. Looks like city council on the 25th is, you know, going to get uh cancelled and they'll have the one meeting for that month and then December 23rd city council that would get cancelled too. But as far as the the planning commission, November 4th should be good. And then like I said, the the 18th would be cancelled. So we probably only have one planning commission meeting in November. and then December we'd have the 2nd and the 16th. And most likely both of those dates will be good as as long as we have agenda items. But if if we don't have any business to do um you know we can either council or we can convene to do training or we can you know we can read the general plan and talk about certain chapters. because I think coming up we're we're going to need to understand need to understand what's in the general plan and because there'll be an update

that's needed soon and I think some of that training and review will be good also um for the fellow commissioners if you guys have anything that you think we need to go over as a commission obviously don't just feel free please do bring it up that you think that we need to bring up the meeting because it's it's important for us to make Sure. We're discussing local on that note. Um do we have any um thing coming to the planning commission for the former JAG site? Yes. No official Sorry, did you want to do that? Yes. I mean, steal your thunder. So exciting.

You stole it. So, there's no official application yet. Uh, but word on the street is that 7-Eleven is interested in purchasing it, but like I said, that could change depending on what actually happens. Okay. And brick walls are going up across the street from that. So, yeah. So, the the Costco project is is working on their footings and they'll be pouring pouring a lot of concrete here soon. Yeah, I saw some today and and like I said, brick walls are starting to go up. That's pretty exciting. Now, I noticed that the Jags location actually does have some utility pipes and everything coming up too right now too. So,

yeah, they started the Jags project. They had it fully approved and everything and then it just stalled. I have kind of a little quick tangent question about that. So, I was recently learning about the uh I believe it's called the the RAP law, the recreation arts parks, and I was curious if there was any kind of projection of what kind of impact the Costco would provide to that. I imagine it would be substantial, unless it's part of the no grocery uh element of that.

Yeah. So, uh, Costco's projected to generate a lot of sales tax and we do have a there's different acronyms in every city. It's different, but I think it says ours is wrap wrap tax. Uh, so yeah, it should should generate increased amount of that. Uh, sales tax. No. Uh, no ideas or guesses on that though.

I don't think we have a projection. We've we've done just general sales tax projection. You know, the way sales tax works is it gets charged and then it gets sent to to the state and reaportioned based off of the city's population, but then there's also a a local point of sale, a half of a percentage that that gets back to the city. So, it'll be a major boon for the for the city. It's not that it doesn't come without its impacts and other costs as far as impacts to traffic and enforcement, things like that. Yeah, I think other cities they call it a zap. I' I've seen different acronyms for it. Arts, parks, zoos, all that stuff is same things.

Yeah, it was new to me and I just thought it was so cool. So, I I'm looking forward to benefits city will be able to reap from Costco. Sure. Yeah, there's there's lots of different ways that the city can generate revenue that way. Anything else? Thank you. Motion to adjurnn. So moved. Move to ajourn. Okay. All in favor? I thank you gentlemen.

Just one quick note. I know this is this week. It's coming up. So this Thursday and Friday the planning conference at the uh it's down the gateway I believe in Salt Lake. Uh American Planning Association, the Utah chapter is holding their conference. So, if any of you are interested, we do have budget for it. We'd be happy to pay for your tickets. Um, they're always really interesting, enjoyable, great presentations. That's on Thursday, Rice. Uh, Thursday and Friday. Oh, okay.

You guys are too old. Thank you. How you doing? Good. How are you? Good. Hey, Scott. Hey. Oh yeah, probably this a million times, but I was thinking back to see that heard that before.