Planning Commission - public_hearing

I called order this Utah planning, Utah County Planning Commission on this July 21st at 5.31 p.m. And we will turn to the agenda. We start with our, we'd like to first welcome any visitors. Two, two visitors. Thank you for coming. We'd like to start with our Pledge of Allegiance. And I've asked Sullivan if he would lead us in that today. I'll rise since he has his scout uniform on.

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.

all right thank you our first item of business is to approve the minutes and so if um if there are there any corrections has everyone received the minutes and are there any corrections to be made um there is one correction to be made i think it's still on there or did we get oh okay well i've signed okay all right that's the only direction which is

It had your name on the call to order last time. Yeah, I got it. We're good.

Good. Okay. With corrections that have already been made to the minutes, are there any... Motion to approve. Motion, yeah.

Second.

And the second, been moved and seconded to approve the minutes. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

I was not here, so I just abstained on that vote. Okay.

Okay. So we've got all ayes except for one abstaining, okay. All right, the minutes have been approved. The next item of business is a public hearing to discuss a land use ordinance text amendment. And can we have a staff report on this one?

Yes, Mr. Robinson from Community Development give you an introduction.

Thank you. Great to see everybody out today. So this application that is driven by an individual that is requesting to amend the requirements in the RA5 zone to reduce the area minimum and the frontage minimum for lots in the RA5 zone. The applicant is requesting to reduce those from five acres to two and a half acres for the area and from 250 feet of width to 210 feet of width. The applicant has indicated that they'd like to do this to assist with affordable housing and that the cost of five-acre lots prohibits many families to buy a lot and build, which is one of the reasons that he has indicated. As some of you may recall, you were here in January of 2025. A similar application came before you, which asked to reduce the area minimum to 2.5 acres and the width to 125 feet. within an HOA, if they were within an HOA. The Planning Commission recommended denial of that, and the County Commission unanimously voted against that change. And so to give you a little bit of background with this application, so in the RA-5 zone, a five-acre minimum has been in place since 1990. At that time, or before that, The required minimum area would have been between 20 and 100 acres, and in that time, they would also have to have livestock and farming equipment or farm equity to qualify for primary caretaker dwelling at that time. Just to give you some information from our land use ordinance and our general plan, mainly from the intent and also objectives of those, Just wanted to point out a couple items that I think were important to understand related to this, that the RA5 zone is generally irrigated land utilized for growing of crops and raising of livestock. And in that, also the main thrust of the RA5 zone is to protect the farming industry, is what we have in the intent of the RA5 zone. The land use ordinance. Also, there are a couple items that relate to kind of the agricultural use of that. And Bryce, if you want to pull up that staff report, the first highlighted area. So there are several things, but I wanted to highlight just a couple of these just to kind of, I'm sure you've read the staff report, but kind of emphasize some of the things that I thought were critical to understand in the development of the RA5 zone and are the intent of the land use ordinance and general plan for the RA5 zone. One of the things is to reduce the waste of physical, financial, and human resources resulting from excessive scattering of population, meaning that having Smaller lot sizes that restrict farming activities because of the size of those sometimes results in the scattering of population results kind of inefficiency in kind of the development of property next one scroll down. This is from the general plan. The underlined area, the non-farming residents on parcels less than five acres in commercial and industrial development should not be approved within agricultural zones consisting of prime agriculture, sorry, agricultural and irrigated cropland areas. So this is one of the objectives in our general plan that we follow. Continuing on, the objective number two is kind of one of the things that we're striving to do with the general plan is kind of the prioritize the development of residential uses and then the first one is within existing municipalities. The second, again, in unincorporated communities and areas that have existing water systems. And then the third finally in in zoning loss in unincorporated areas. The last one that I kind of wanted to really emphasize was the kind of the information in 1990 when we were going through the review of modifying the land use ordinance to allow for five acre lots. The state engineer reached out to our or we we got a statement from the state engineer and they emphasized um oh you can get past that one they keep going down sorry right um oh i think i passed it i didn't highlight it maybe green sorry no it was there was I'll just read it. I don't know why it's not there. But the state engineer emphasized that, he said, it is my feeling that there is only a very small quantity of unapproved water and potential for withdrawing 50,000 additional acre feet from the groundwater network. Could prove very taxing with that amount of wells. I'm certain that mutual interference would occur in areas with low transmissivity, significant drawdowns would occur. I would also be concerned about 51,000 individual drain fields and the possibility of contaminating those confined groundwater networks with unconfined aquifers carrying discharge from the drain field. I think it would be in the best interest of the health of the groundwater networks that this development should it occur be served by central systems. And that, again, later, more recently, the Utah Department of Environmental Quality has kind of reiterated those sentiments. So just to kind of emphasize, the staff is recommending denial of this. This is kind of a strong denial from staff. It's not something we feel we do very often, but this is one of those areas that we feel is important for us to kind of ensure the kind of continuity and efforts that the previous planning commissions, county commissions, and planning staff have kind of put together and following the land use ordinance and also the general plan. There are ways to develop property, and we feel that those areas, just as our general plan states, the best place to do that is within areas of municipalities where those services can be provided. and best served. There are opportunities to do smaller lots than five acres in the county, but those areas that allow for smaller lots than five acres generally are required to have or be served by central systems that allow for us to manage some of the impacts of those systems. With that, if you have questions, I'll be happy to answer those. The applicant is here to discuss his application. And just also with the way that the applicant made comments of what he wanted to change, but didn't give us exact language. So this is my, the red lines that are provided are my interpretation of the way that he presented that. One of the reasons is that there are certain other uses that require five acres that the applicant did not address in his application. I left remaining. I didn't know if he wanted to remove all of those uses or just kind of keep and just change the only requirements for single-family dwellings. So that's kind of staff's presentation. Again, if you have questions, I'll be happy to answer those.

I have one question. Next door to me, a farm just sold out in the five-acre lots. And I'm just curious, if the zoning ordinance isn't changed, how many more five-acre lots can be developed in Utah County? That may be a hard question to answer.

I didn't calculate that, but I mean, I can probably give you a rough estimation. There is 78,000 acres of RA5 zoning. So there would be a number... Well, let me just do the quick calculation really quick.

So it looks like, let me do that again. Make sure I did it right.

Approximately 15,685 based on.

So there could be 15,000 new five acre lots built with homes?

That would not include new five acre lots. That would include the entirety of RA5 zoning I calculated. That's the total number of RA5 or five acre lots. That number would likely be increased because of lots that or parcels that have been approved on lesser acreage, but that's a rough estimate of what the number of total lots that would exist in the RA5 based on current zoning.

And what percentage do you think is in our five lots right now? That percentage of that total, like half or fourth?

Um, I know maybe Bryce can answer that a little bit better, but I don't think a large percentage have been developed into subdivisions. There, there isn't.

We have, sorry, this is Bryce. We have currently an unincorporated population of about six to 7,000 people. And if you figure the average household size now is about, you know, three ish, or, um, we're looking at probably about, uh, two to 2000, uh, residential units out in the county. Not all of those are in the RA5, but much smaller than half or fourth.

Can you show us the RA5? Is that readily handy?

We can definitely do that.

I'd just like to see where all that area is in the county.

I think it's under the different browser.

Go ahead. I'll let Greg navigate this. And one thing I want to add is this is a very significant change. This would be doubling the density. And this is something that we don't take lightly.

and uh have some pretty significant concerns with this so i recall being on um in that meeting where we discussed this potential change before and the concerns ranged from water to police to just all kinds of services that the county is not in a position to uh provide and that was the biggest driving force from what from i recall my recollection of that meeting is county's just not in a position to support that kind of development.

Correct. The county's not in the business of providing municipal types of services. The property tax rates out in the county are based on zones and their densities. And so this potentially could have the impact of looking at the need to raise the property tax rate for the RA5 zone. If you're going to increase the, double the potential density and and the number of potential emergency responses, and you have more people, you're going to have more of those call-outs. So there are a number of concerns, one of which is significantly impacting the services needed and the level of service that we currently provide. I had that loaded up. But you can see as I let Greg get back, the light green on your map is our current RA5 zones. Much of the area between West Mountain and the freeway is RA5 zone. We have a significant amount in the Goshen Valley area, east of Alberta. And then we have some pockets up north and scattered in between. the mountains and the freeway in between Salem and Payson, Spanish Fork. We can zoom in any area you'd want. This is where we see most of our development in the county, people wanting to put in home sites.

Well, I think a lot of the north end of the county is gone as far as RA5.

Yeah, and that's kind of by design.

20 years ago, there was a fair amount of more green in that area.

Yeah, there's still a few pockets. Most of that's being annexed. And one benefit of having the land use policies we have in the RA5 zone is it tends to preserve more greenfield. open space, so when it does get annexed, there's opportunities for those cities to master plan a little easier without having to worry about smaller lot sizes and having to navigate tighter roads and higher densities.

I have a graphic on that if you want to pull it up, but you don't have to if you don't feel like it's necessary.

So for these RA zones, what is... You have to give me the top three, like, values that you want for those. And I know you've kind of written it in here, but just so we can just sort of, like.

I think Greg kind of spelled it out in the intent of the RA5 zone is to really promote and preserve agriculture. People can argue that five-acre lots are problematic, and I wouldn't disagree with that. I think at one point the county required 40 acres, and I thought, I think that was really trying to meet that intent. But there were some compromises made to allow landowners to develop their properties. And so that's where we landed on the five-acre zoning. Preserve greenfield and open space. And then protect some of the environmental discharge areas.

So I think moving forward, obviously there's going to be a lot more demand on land, right? And so, and I agree with you totally. Like I feel like the five acre parcels is very generous if you really want to preserve ag protection. Like five acres is like almost kind of laughable in that terms, right? Like I agree with the 40, a minimum 20 acres. Yeah, so I definitely get a little bit, I mean, and it's not an affordable, I mean, It's not going to really offer affordable housing because it's still going to be really expensive. And so I agree with your concerns about making it even reducing the size of 2.5 because I think five is too little at this point.

And as Greg mentioned, we do have zoning designations that do allow for as small as half acre lots, but those are, our TR5 and our RR5 zone, and those should be targeted areas, should be limited. But that does solve some of the challenges that we see with the environmental concerns of putting more sewage discharge into the groundwater system and such, because they would require to have central systems.

Well, I think the water issue is a big issue, especially with how unpredictable our droughts are going to be. moving forward. And I don't think we can assess, like, we can account on what it used to be like. Because it's been a really hot summer and we don't know. I mean, even the snow levels have changed. We're not getting the kind of snow levels on the mountains that we've had in the past. So I think the engineer pointing that out is noteworthy.

Any other questions for staff? Do we have the applicant here? Chris, if you'd like to tell us about your request here and your amendment, what you're hoping to achieve here. I guess it doesn't move.

It doesn't. Perfect. Thank you for being here.

And just for the, since it's being recorded, we'll state your name so we have it on the recording.

Recording is Chris Cowden. Thank you. Thank you for being here and coming here tonight. Initially, what prompted this for me, we've worked with many people over the past few years who want to live in the county or the country and move out of the city, raise their families and have farm animals, horses, et cetera, and have open space. They've tried to buy the five-acre lots, but because the land prices have soared and lot prices are approximately for a five-acre lot would be $500,000 to $550,000 or more. As they've dealt with these individuals, they can come up pretty much with the down, but because of the interest rates, it becomes unfeasible for them to purchase or to buy a lot. It's too much money. Most have the close to the down payment, but the balance is too high with the interest rates to buy and build. The change would allow individuals and families who cannot afford five-acre lots to raise their families in the countryside and have farm animals, horses, et cetera. They can also participate in urban farming. So with the five-acre, if it reduces down, there's urban farming, which they have the same benefit of rebuild. The cost of five-acre lots prohibits many families from buying and building, and this is true. With a two-and-a-half-acre lot, the price would be in the $300,000 range, which is approximately $200,000, which is a lot less money. And this would work for them. And this is what actually brought me to this meeting. I've been in business for 46 years and building and developing. And I've watched this, especially in Utah, Utah County. Many people that have wanted to do this, they can't do it anymore. We live in a time when our children and our grandchildren are living with their parents, grandparents, and others to save money and hopefully someday buy and build a home. For the people I've worked with, the lot size changed with a smaller price. It brings a change for them and others to live and to build in the county. Many would love to move out of the city. The lot size, as we know, has fallen even down to 5,000 square feet in the city lots and larger homes. A 200 acre lot is 108,900 square feet, or about two football fields. Large sections of Utah County that are in Greenvale are being annexed into the city's zoning range from low to high density. So as I looked at this in the beginning, I addressed the five acre lots, but as I continued to do research, Many of the cities around us are annexing a lot of the Greenbelt property into their cities. One of the annexations recently into Spanish Fork, approximately 700 west and 1,900 south. It's about 55 acres. It's the Larson Park development. They have three acres for commercial use and 204 residential lots, and that's on 55 acres. low to medium and high density zoning with multifamily condos and high density single family units. This means that there are 204 water connections, commercial water plus landscaping on 55 acres. In the county, if it's two and a half acre lots, you'd have 18 water connections versus 204 water connections plus the landscaping. That is 204 connections versus 18 water connections Additionally, the amount of traffic that could be produced from both developments, 204 units plus three acres of commercial versus 18 units is a huge difference. This is happening all through the county. Every acre that is annexed out of Utah County greatly increases traffic and water consumption because of land density and zoning. The benefits of the two and a half acre lot versus the low to high density that is happening within the land that is being annexed out of Utah County is water conservation, less traffic congestion, less pollution, and maintaining a rural area for the next generation. As I reviewed the annexation, that was just one parcel. There's many, actually. If you go to Provo City, Spanish Fork, Lehigh, Saratoga Springs, a lot of the land is being annexed out of Utah County. Where I live, there's three canyons community. It's annexed into Saratoga Springs just recently, it's 1,200 acres. So a lot of the land that is inside of Utah County is being annexed off. Two and a half acre lots brings this, water conservation and one connection, less traffic and pollution, peace to families that want to work the land and raise a family. In the county, it takes about 15 minutes to get to the grocery store or shopping. In the city, it takes 30 minutes to go the same distance. The two and a half acre lots are large enough to where each lot can have a well with a hundred foot protection zone and a substantial area for a septic system that meets state code setbacks and requirements. This is real. The two and a half acre overlay will help bring water conservation, maintain rural areas, let individuals and families have a piece of land that they could not have. We've developed five-acre lots, and it's been fascinating to me that how you sell those, people can buy them now. That's real. And I deal with that on a weekly or monthly basis. And as I pondered the event, I thought, if we change the ordinance to 10-and-a-half acres, it would give them an opportunity. A couple hundred thousand dollars on a lot is a lot of money, and that is real. We've been in the business for many years. As I approached this, I just felt it was important to have an opportunity to share my feelings and the feelings of others that we associate with, to give them an opportunity, if that is even possible, in Utah County, if that makes sense. that's pretty much my presentation i mean there's a lot of questions if you have i could be answered but they are large amounts of land every now and stuff i only mentioned a few i could have put tons and it is shrinking um the two and a half if you burst the two and a half acre lot versus 30 units per acre uh spanish fork city is presenting a development now with townhouses in the Benjamin exit and it's 30 units per acre. That's annexed property that was Greenbelt before it started and that's what's happening. If it's changed, there will not be that much of an increase in a short period of time. Benjamin will be its own city. Much of the land that's managed by Utah County will change because people come and the growth and the desire. Bluffdale City was one that changed. It was just like the area here in Utah County. It is happening at such a pace. It is fascinating to me. My feeling was it would be nice to let somebody have something that they couldn't have.

That was my full intent. Thank you. Any questions that you have?

Thank you. Are there questions for the applicant?

I have a question to staff. So how do you respond to that when he's saying, well, they're going to get annexed? What's your response to that?

Maybe a little more detail on which part of it. If you're talking about the water usage, then we're talking the efficiency of water usage in residential development where there's higher density is much more efficient than it is in an agricultural area. The area that they'd have to irrigate, they would use as much or more water. We have agricultural users on the board that probably can share that information. Is that a good thing for agricultural users? Yeah, there's a benefit that the county has seen to maintain agricultural uses and allow them the ability to use their property in developing those farms. Is that kind of what you're talking about? Are you talking about like the efficiency of some of the things that Mr. Cowden mentioned, which I can definitely appreciate. We're talking about some of the things that the traffic and things of that nature that's kind of the the intent of our land use ordinance is that those areas are being served by cities that are designed to maintain those where the county has a lot of area that that they don't have the resources or haven't specified the resources at this point to be able to maintain a lot of those areas and roads utilities or not utilities but the services that are needed to to maintain residences out in the county, especially if density increases.

A lot of the annexation that's happening removes the need for county to support the land. You don't have weed abatement. You don't have the farm marshals coming out there. There are huge swaths. In fact, we continue to research the Spanish Fork City policy, and I talked to a developer yesterday on this. As it gets closer to the freeway and then on the west side of the freeway, their intent is to have high density. That is why they're annexing in so much property. That affects each of us. It also reduces the land that the county maintains. In fact, in Saratoga Springs, when they pull 1,200 acres out of the county, that is 1,200 acres that they don't have to maintain anymore. So it's actually reducing. The amount of, in the next three or four years, probably 10,000 acres or more will come out of that. And also Benjamin City will be created, which eliminates a huge amount for the county to do the work. That's just naturally happening. That has never been addressed here. The road and the soil removal is less. Larson's farms, these farms are huge sections of property. That is county property that they maintain or don't maintain. It has been removed at such a pace that it equals what we're asking to do by far. And within a short period of time, there will be a few more cities that are right there in Benjamin. That's happening even now. And it'll happen.

So the follow up the sorry. So just to follow up on some of that. yeah the county wouldn't be responsible for the snow plowing in those areas that are annexed because cities have those plans in place and the resources in place to be able to. that's kind of the point that we're we're really trying to make is that all those areas that are annexing are being annexed because the resources for those developments are in place in those municipalities. One other point that I just wanted to point out is that during the time that we were in 1990 when this was being discussed, the same reasons for going to five acres were brought up so that people can have properties that they can develop and farm. And in some cases, that works out very well. In a lot of cases, the weed problem that we're talking about happens to a large part in just on the observations of our office, it happens a lot on those five acre parcels because they're not being maintained the same way a large agricultural property would be maintained. So there's a lot of good points that Mr. Cowden is making and understand that we definitely see that people want to be able to enjoy that ability for them to live in those areas, but we also find out that In those areas that these smaller lots develop, there are many areas that start complaining about the farm uses, and then those farm uses go away because people are complaining about them. So there are definite trade-offs, as we all know. And yes, we all understand that agricultural land is disappearing, and sometimes that's a really sad truth. But it's property owners and agricultural users that are potentially selling those properties to develop, which is their right to do so.

Mr. Chair, I think it's recommended that if the applicants presented his presentation that we open it up for public hearing and then kind of glean all the information and let you guys ask the questions.

I do have some questions.

Yeah, I think there's still some questions here, so.

Just some clarification. You mentioned Greenbelt, and I don't think the Greenbelt is a statute and it's five and a quarter acres. So I don't think two and a half acres is going to help anybody with Greenbelt, right?

What I said was that when they're annexing in Greenbelt. into the different cities that are losing the greenbelt, or the greenbelt meaning that land that was preserved then for open spaces. So when you have two and a half acres, they can do, oh, I just went blank. Urban development, which is the same. So this is urban farming. And so that's been provided. Can you share something else about water? I think Craig may know this individual, Shane L. Swanson. You deal with him? Alpine City, correct. And he's brought developments in through your department. In fact, as I've done developments, your staff says that they really like working with him. because his developments go through the county really well. Let me share something from him. And he's a certified engineer, public engineering. He wrote a letter. I'm gonna write about this. Craig is referencing a letter that was 1990. This letter is in 2017. This is 27 years after the letter you've addressed. We learned one by the lake. And we had one Tesla. And I didn't know that he was the city administrator for Alpine City. And he also is the director of public works. He runs that city. Shane lives in Benjamin, Utah, or Spanish Fork, close to the development that we did. We did the first well, and he wrote this letter. We anticipate the wells drilled on the other six knots within this development will be within approximately 700 feet of the well that was drilled in Route 1. With the close proximity of the existing and proposed wells, similar topography, and the same proximity to Utah Lake, we anticipate that all the wells that would serve the proposed knots will be drilled into the same aquifer and would have similar water quality. The existing and proposed wells will provide sufficient flow and pressure quantity, and delivered to meet the requirements of Utah County for the lots. Since he wrote that letter, every well that we did exceeded expectation. There is so much water under Utah County. It is amazing to me. I've been there and seen the water come out of that ground. And the gallons per minute has been fascinating. We have other companies that we deal with that are engineers. back up what we're doing we give them the information we just don't come up and speak from the cuff we get engineers to back up the soils the water and all the information utah county is blessed with abundance of aquifers under this property is a blessing and each well that is drilled is successful You can go to the water right division and you search exactly what I'm telling you. You will see every well that was drilled that came through and is effective and works for individuals. The ground in Utah County, to me, is a promised area because it provides the needs of so many people. The town of Acrel Watts is a minimum. Within, again, a few short years, large swaths are being annexed off into Spanish Fork City. Their intention is, if you look at their master plan, is a massive multi-level, which will be near Benjamin and those towns there. The 20th Acres helps preserve those areas because then they can't come in and buy large sections of property. I've looked as I was doing this, the amount of people that want to come in Utah County and buy up sections of land. So many sections in those areas have been purchased. If you look at the MLS, you will see they went buying them to farm. they're buying it to develop and they wait and then they get 30 or 40 units per acre that is what's happening in utah county a couple of questions um the

If the RA5 zone is changed to the two and a half acres, it does not prevent a city from annexing the property.

Correct.

So it doesn't solve that problem. It can still be annexed. Correct. You're still going to have the same density issues that you have now with five acres.

What it does is it gives people an opportunity that will never have an opportunity to come in to live in two and a half acres before the land is all gone.

There'll be. Sure. But what happens then is you get your two and a half acres and you build your house and you have your horses out there. And then 15 years later you go, I'm going to do a flag lot out here. And so I want to get. So I don't know that that solves any problem. Uh, the other question I have is if we go to two and a half acres, then to me, that's more of the county has to maintain because there's more traffic in the county areas. and water issues. And so I don't know how that benefits the county maintenance people to go smaller lots.

The smaller lots is for the individuals to have an opportunity to live.

You made a comment on the maintenance burden that the county faces. And to me, that increases the maintenance burden that the county faces. And I completely agree that the challenges to acquire rural land and have that pastoral setting is dwindling. It's very difficult. Part of the problem is the landowners are asking for a lot of money. And so if you buy the property, you don't have any opportunity to make any money unless you put a high density on it and So let's just ask all the landowners, like Mr. McMullen here, to sell their property at less per acre.

That's fair to him.

Right. Why don't you make that sacrifice for all of us? Yeah. It's just the conflict there, and I don't think this solves that conflict.

I didn't come basically to solve that problem, but with the amount of annexation that's occurring, there are more land going out of Utah County than a few 2.5 acre lots would add to the stress of those departments. It doesn't just happen overnight. Development just doesn't happen overnight. It takes time to go through the processes that are necessary. But within a few short years, again, there will be Benjamin City. And there'll be other cities even across the lake shore that's happening. And all those areas will be taken out of the county. Just as Poverville was, Springville, Spanish Fork, Salem, all of them had the same issues that we're dealing with right now. But the influx of people into this Utah is massive.

That thing, without growth, you die.

Yep. This building wouldn't be here without developers having the courage to move forward and to invest in Utah County. That's how it works. The whole purpose for me was to do something for someone else that they couldn't afford. The whole purpose, I think, of our lives is to serve others and to do something to bless someone else's life because eventually I'm not 20 and 30 anymore. I'm older and I have a realization that I'm going home. But if I can do something for family or bring them joy, then it's worth it to me because I'm not giving up anything.

I have a comment. I love how you're advocating for people to be able to have that kind of lifestyle. But I do want to go back to the water issue. And I'm not necessarily impressed with somebody who's a certified engineer. Working with engineers, that doesn't mean a whole lot to us. And so I wanna go back to just the water issue because you're saying this, but yet you guys are saying you're concerned about the water.

We're kind of talking about apples and oranges here. I think the reference that Mr. Cowden made was to a specific project engineer that has processed some five-acre lot subdivisions that requires an engineer statement certify that they're going to be able to produce the required flow and quantity of water. And so, you know, we were just looking, those are just looking at five acre lots. What we're referring to is concerns made by the DEQ, which I have had personally conveyed to me, reiterated the 1990 concerns as recently as 2019 from the Division of Water Quality Director. And the concern is to have the proliferation of sewage disposal along with water wells at a higher density than five acres per lot south of the lake.

Thanks.

Any further questions for the applicant? Can I make one more comment?

Yeah, a lot of irrigation, too, has advanced drip systems used in many farms and orchards. I think that's, is that what you do?

You're referring to me? Yes.

I'm sorry, I didn't hear you.

Do you have orchards? Yes, we're in the fruit business, and I respectfully disagree with you on the water situation, and I understand, I think, a little bit where you're coming from, but I, I was opposed to the five acre deal and I think that's, it's, it's ruined our agriculture and our county. And I'm like I said, I'm opposed to this. I'm sorry. I just can't, can't agree with you at all. And as far as water goes, I don't know where you're getting your information on water. They're re adjudicating this county. They're taking, if you're, if you can't prove you're using your water, they're taking it away from you.

And that's been there for years.

Yeah. And so it's tight. Water is tight here in the county. We have wells. We pump wells. We have water rights. And those wells are going down. And during this drought, it's a tough deal. And I don't know what's going to happen unless we get some relief. So water's tight here. And I can't imagine another several thousand lots here in this county. I just can't fathom them, so enough said.

I appreciate it, but the fascinating thing is it's okay to annex property into Spanish Fork and put 1,000 units on 500 acres, but yet if you're in the county, it's all drawn out of the same order. So those are my thoughts. Thanks.

Thank you. Okay, we do... We do need to open a public hearing. Motion to open a public hearing.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to open the public hearing. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? We are now in a public hearing. Is there anyone here that would like to address the public hearing? No? okay darn all right um is there any additional uh do we need to close the public meeting uh any any reason to keep the public hearing open if not we should we close it move to close second been moved and seconded to close the public hearing all in favor say aye aye any opposed say nay The public hearing is now closed. Are there any further discussion points or questions for staff?

Any further discussion from the commission? I'll just kind of add my two cents. I just don't see how this actually will address the goal, the problem that we all know is housing affordability is a problem, but I don't see this actually significantly decreasing Um, values of properties. I mean, five acres, two and a half acres. I just don't see that big of a difference there. Um, as the County mentioned in, in the, in the staff report here. Um, and also I just, you know, the, the numerous concerns that the County has brought up of being able to provide services for all these developments, um, the water issues. I sympathize with the desire. I grew up on a five acre county lot and it was a dream. My parents' property no longer exists. It was taken out for Pioneer Crossing. Unfortunately, the reality is that we have people moving here and development happening. As you said, that's a good and a bad thing and Unfortunately, it just takes a whole lot of land away, but I don't see a way to fix the problems by doing this, by reducing this. So that's kind of where I'm at.

Any additional comments? Just a few thoughts.

This is such a major change in the land use ordinance and in the general plan of Utah County. This is essentially the, what is it, AR5, is that what we call it? RA5, yeah. I'm old. It's to support agriculture. I mean, that's the purpose. This is such a change. This would not support agriculture. So I think before you could even consider this, I think you have to go back to the general plan and look at the general plan and get people involved in the community and really start all over with what do we want utah county to be do we want to preserve the agriculture or do we want to go in some other direction because this is really opposed to what's currently in the general plan i think i don't know i just think it's so different than what's there that we need to almost go back and start there first if we were really interested in making a change two i don't know that You quoted 200,000 less. I think if two and a half acre lots opened up, they would go so fast and they would go for almost, if not at least the same price as five acre lots. People love that. And they love it. And they're mostly horse people come out, have a horse. But I don't think the price is going to be any cheaper than a five acre lot. In fact, I'm surrounded by five acre lot people and they tell me, gee, I didn't really want to buy five acres. I'd like to have bought, you know, two or three acres. That's all I really need. I just don't see that being any cheaper. So I'm not sure that if that happened, those lots would be any cheaper. I'm just not convinced of that. When it comes to water, I just, let me just tell you my story. I live on a 38 acre farm and I have had five acre lots develop all around me. And back when my house was built in 1940, my well is like, 100 feet deep. All the wells that were being drilled back then were like 100, 150 feet deep. But as time has gone on, that's changed to 200. And all the wells for a while had to go 200 feet deep. Then they had to go to 250 feet. Then They had to go to 300 feet. And I just have two neighbors that just built their wells. And both of those wells had to go down over 360 feet to find water. So that water level is dropping. And for me, I'll just tell you, my culinary well is an artesian well. And I've lived on that property for 35 years. And a month ago, for the first time, it went dry. It went dry. and they're used to water flow out and it would i could feed my my livestock and then the other come up and branch one go to my house one go to my livestock it's now dropped low enough that there's no more water going to my life so it's drying up and it's gotten me nervous at some point i'm going to probably have to invest forty thousand dollars and re-dig my well so that i can get water so it's it's it's disappearing it makes me nervous so i don't know when people say oh there's plenty of water there might be 500 feet or a thousand feet down but It gets really expensive. So my water is disappearing, and I've never had anyone come out and require me to prove that I'm using my water for agricultural purposes until now. But I will now. Yeah, I know it's coming, but I never had that in the last three or five years because it wasn't as big an issue. So it is a big issue. Water is a huge issue. And then lastly, we keep talking about this has to develop in the county and that's not necessarily the case. My suggestion is if you want two and a half acres, go to cities and let them annex property and tie their culinary water to two and a half acres. And there are a lot of cities that have one acre lots. And I know some cities that have two acre lots. If that's something you want, that's the place to go, is go to the cities. And it's not the same water. It's not the same water. I'll just tell you, the cities get their water from multiple sources, from reservoirs, from rivers, from wells as well. But it's not exclusively tied to wells. And so I think there are options. If you want to convince the cities that there should be two and a half acre lots, they can certainly do that. They're more set up to do that than we are as a county. So I just, I'm opposed. I appreciate Chris's proposal. I understand. I sympathize with what he's trying to accomplish. But I just, I'm just uncomfortable with doing that.

Any further comments or discussion? I'll entertain a motion.

I move that we recommend denial to the Utah County Commission of the proposed Utah County Land Use Ordinance text amendment to section 12.08. I'll second.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend denial of the text amendment. Is there any further discussion after this motion? We'll move to a vote. Should we do a roll call? We'll do one at a time. Start down on this end. There's an aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

IT WAS UNANIMOUSLY APPROVED TO DENY. APPROVAL TO DENY. RECOMMENDED TO DENY. OKAY. THAT IS THAT ITEM. THE NEXT AGENDA ITEM IS TO TAKE ACTION ON A PROPOSED UTAH PLANNING COMMISSION RESOLUTION Number 20 2601 and I know this was worked on by somebody besides me.

So yes, this is a this is a staff put together. If you recall a couple months ago, we made some changes in the ordinance related to planning commission duties based on recent state legislation. And we kind of recognize that it calls out the duties of the planning commission to spell out how to conduct their business. And one of those is accepting applications. Um, we've had a policy in place, um, for years. I couldn't find the resolution that kind of memorialize that. So we just thought, let's just kind of develop a clean one that just, uh, mirrors kind of what we're practicing right now. This is just how we, the timing and when we accepted that application and what needs to be submitted and how soon they can get on the commission agenda. It's kind of just how we're doing this now, but we just wanted to have something to point to.

So just reading the text here, this is really about making sure we have plenty of time to digest it, review it before it goes on the agenda. So I assume that means that we've seen submissions where they want it on tomorrow's agenda.

Yeah, yeah. People will come in and say, hey, can I get on next week? When's the next meeting? And so, yes. Number one is to make sure we meet state requirements for noticing, which generally, well, potentially, like tonight was a public hearing, so we had to have it at least 10 days before the meeting. And then also to actually review it, ask for some additional information if we need it, put it all together and prepare a staff report for all of you. So, yes, that kind of is encompassed in that 28 days is what we have. We don't want to be too long out because people kind of want to move forward. And so we try to respect that, but try to find that balance. And 28 days seems to work pretty good.

And I noticed in the language they they can submit and request even a further out meeting if they want, but they can't request one sooner than 28 days, basically.

Right, right, yeah. Sometimes, you know, we have one that's ready to go, and it's like, okay, we'll put you on the next one, and they're like, oh, I'm going to be gone, so can we put it out? We didn't want to kind of tie our hands by this to say, no, you've got to go on the next one that's available.

Okay. Also, I notice we do allow that if, if the 28 days on a weekend or a holiday that you really allow them to go to the next business day.

Yes, and that actually happens quite often because this, under our current format, this 28 days falls on a Monday and from time to time will be closed on the day before or of the deadline. So rather than say, oh, you should have had it in last Friday, we'll just kick it to the next day. Okay.

Any questions for us about this or staff about this? Resolution, any discussion?

Mr. Chair, if there's no further discussion, I'm ready to move. I move that the Planning Commission accept resolution number 2026-01 for procedures for the submittal and acceptance of applications.

I second that.

It's been moved and seconded to accept the language of resolution number 202601 as it's been given to us. Is there any further discussion on the motion? If there's no further discussion, we'll take a roll call vote. Start down here again.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Okay, this resolution is now adopted. And we have now reached the end. of our agenda oh wait there's public comment it's supposed to be on right we're supposed to have a public public comment on here is that right still on public comment we don't need to open for public comments on the agenda so does anyone want to address the public comment i don't see anyone wanting to address the public comment the meeting is hereby declared adjourned

Just one note, business-wise, yesterday was our deadline. It corresponds with our new resolution, and we have not had any applications. So I'll give you the best news of the night. We're off on August. No meeting in August.

No meeting in August. Okay. Awesome.

I know you're a clear calendar.