Planning Commission & Land Use Authority - Regular Meeting

Welcome to Planning Commission for July 1st, 2026. We'll start with a prayer by Sebastian and I will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Safe meeting with discussions to better our city. I also want to show gratitude for having the ability to live in Washington City with all the safety, patriotism, and development in the city. I pray that we have all these answered, and in Jesus's name, thank you.

Amen.

Please rise. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, Okay, item one on tonight's agenda is the approval of tonight's agenda.

Commissioner Tupou, I make a motion to approve today's agenda. Commissioner Davis seconds that motion.

I have a first for Commissioner Tupou and a second from Commissioner Davis. All in favor? Aye. Item two is approval of the minutes from the Planning Commission June 17th, 2026.

Commissioner Davis, I move that we approve the Planning Commission minutes from June 17th, 2026. Commissioner Tupou, I second that.

I have a first by Commissioner Davis, second by Commissioner Tupou. All in favor? Aye. Item three is adjournment.

Commissioner Tupou, I motion to adjourn. Second.

I have a first and second for adjournment. All in favor? Aye. And we will start the land use.

KIND OF DRAGGED IT OUT THERE.

ALL RIGHT.

WELCOME TO LAND USE. THE AUTHORITY MEETING FOR JULY 1, 2026. ITEM ONE ON OUR AGENDA IS THE APPROVAL OF TONIGHT'S AGENDA.

COMMISSIONER DAVIS, I MOVE THAT WE APPROVE TONIGHT'S AGENDA. COMMISSIONER URER, SECOND.

FIRST BY COMMISSIONER DAVIS AND SECOND BY COMMISSIONER URER. All in favor?

Aye.

Item two is approval of the Land Use Authority minutes from June 17th, 2026.

Commissioner Tupou, I make a motion to approve the minutes from June 17th, 2026. Commissioner Davis seconds that motion.

I have first from Commissioner Tupou and second from Commissioner Davis. All in favor? Aye. Item three is declaration of abstentions or conflicts with tonight's meeting. Does anyone have any?

None.

All right. We will move on to item... 4A is a preliminary plat approval for the Rio Virgin Estates subdivision located at approximately Smith Creek Drive and Bear Trap Canyon. The applicant is Ryan Lay, and we will turn the time over to Sebastian.

The applicant is requesting approval of a preliminary plat for the Rio Virgin Estates subdivision located at approximately Smith Creek Drive and Bear Trap Canyon Drive. This subdivision is proposing 20 lots on an area covering 10.75 acres of land. The proposed subdivision is within the residential 1-8 zone. So the PUDR zone is to the north, county to the east, open space to the south, and PUDR to the west. Let me just drag that over so you guys can see it there. So this is the location of the subdivision right here on the screen. A non-conforming subdivision previously occurred at this location, and the applicant is proposing to make this essentially clean it up a bit, change the irregular shape lots so it blends in more of the future development. So that's the proposed area there. The proposed subdivision conforms to the approved zoning and the request meets the subdivision requirements and other city ordinances as it relates to this location. Staff has reviewed the request and recommends that land use authority approve the preliminary plot for the Rio Virgin Estates subdivision based on the following findings and subject to the following conditions. That's essentially it. I can happen to answer any questions you have about maybe why it was non-conforming or the look and feel of it, if you have any questions.

Yes, Commissioner Davis. Sebastian, I would appreciate that, just trying to understand what was illegal or non-conforming about it before.

Essentially, the previous owner of the parcel deeded it to separate individuals prior to it being annexed in the city, from what I can tell. And now the new owner wants to follow a legal process of going through the subdivision process.

So illegal subdivision is, I'd call it a term of art. All the planners, all the zoning folks use that language. I have a question, though, that the action itself wasn't illegal. So the state law allows a landowner to take a 50-acre parcel and sell it to 50 people in smaller legal description. Now, it's a lot of surveying work. It's a lot of legal description work. But that is lawful. But for Washington City Code purposes, if that were to happen in a piece of land in our city, we would call that an illegal subdivision. And so the illegality is it didn't come through the process. It didn't get platted through the right plat application. But it actually is a lawful transfer. It's just a subdivision that the cities won't recognize unless and until it comes through the proper process. And so I don't like the word illegal because I think the common man hears that and thinks maybe a criminal action or at least something that wasn't lawful. And these were lawful transfers. There's no potential punishment or penalty for what was happening. And this is the planner's role of trying to help get it so that the city recognizes it as subdivided lots that can have utility services and all those other things that kind of flow from the proper subdivision process.

All right. So just so that I'm clear, it was It wasn't in compliance, but has it been sold? But it has been sold to a new owner who's proposing the 20 lots. So even though it was nonconforming, they kind of walked away. And now we've got somebody else who's picking it up.

Correct. So there are actually various owners of the individual lots. Plum Holdings LLC owns most of the lots on the screen. However, there are separate individual owners for a few of the lots there.

So there's a different owner for each lot?

So about half of the lots, I would say, are Plum Holdings LLC. And then there are a few of the other lots have separate individual private ownerships.

So on the final plat, there will need to be a signature from each and every lot owner if it's different and distinct to consent to the plat.

What is the plan for the future development right there? Is it going to be a, this is all residential, so it would still have to be residential. They'll probably split it. They'll come back in and have to go through this, if they split it and go through this process again, to split it into another minor subdivision or an addendum to this flat.

So that future development applicant has not specified exactly what Plans would be constructed there. However, if they choose to subdivide that part of land, they would have to come back again and put the subdivision again.

So this is why it's such a pain not going through the steps, because there's probably no CCNRs in this or anything like that or retention ponds or stuff along those lines, right? So is this fix all of that or is that something that needs to be with the city? Will this fix all those problems and it's all gone through and it's all designed right now? Correct.

So all of those will be part of the administrative process. So any lot that's identified within this plat will have been reviewed for all of those compliance questions. Yes. The future development is not yet there yet. But if it were to want to be developed, it would need to do that. So part of the challenge of an illegal subdivision is they could show up and say, we want to apply for a utility service. And the city could say, well, we don't have to because we don't recognize your lots, for example. And so almost all illegal subdivisions eventually get corrected because there's a good reason to do that, which is if you want to develop it into things that can be served you got to do it right and so frequently the illegal ones are just in raw land status and it's once they're ready to bring it into a finished developed product that it ends up coming through the process correctly so there's no roads or anything i i didn't drive out there to this but is there roads is it paid it's not paved or anything right on that future development area is that is right on the boundary with the big gravel pit. And so I'm sure that there's some questions about what the neighbor's going to do that'll probably influence what that one does someday.

The future development. It looks like it's storage units around it. So I'm talking to the east there. I was talking about 7 and 8 up there at the top where it says future development. That's the one that I was worried about. Okay. But that would have to be homes, correct? I mean, you can't go in and throw a commercial building in there or anything like that. It is a residential subdivision.

and change that parcel letter, but it's currently R18, so I imagine just residential houses. Okay, that's all I was curious about.

Yeah, I mean, presumably it's lots 9 and 10, right? I mean, that's... Yeah.

Okay.

Do you guys have any other questions? This is a public hearing.

My only thing is just lots 7 and 8 are like really hard to build anything on. Just... I mean, it's a corner lot, so you lose side setback plus front setback, plus it's only 86 feet deep. It's hard to fit much of anything in there.

Mm-hmm.

We do have, our standard does account for lots that have two front yard setbacks, which I think is how we'd call that number 81, is it's got two street frontage setbacks, and so there's a little bit of relief there. But you're right, for a quarter acre lot, that's...

You're going to have to be pretty creative.

So this is a public hearing. If anyone would like to speak to this. OK, if no one would like to, we'll close the public hearing portion of this and look for a motion. If you guys have any more questions.

Is there anything the applicant would care to say about future development or anything for the group here? If there's anything that you'd like us to better understand.

My name is Rick Meyer with Bush and Gudgel. The future development there adjacent to lot 11, the only reason we don't have that as part of the development now, it will be two lots in the future. The Plums own one of those parcels right now, and then the other one is owned by somebody that just passed away, and their family's still going through the probate process, so none of them are willing to sign an owner consent for it. But they are... They do want to do that and then develop it into a lot in the future. We just can't do it now because nobody signed the owner consent. So that's the future though. So we'll just bring that in as a phase two later on through the process. The other future development there behind 15 and 16 is going to be a couple months ago we rezoned that as PUD. And so that'll be six more units in the red trails subdivision. And, uh, so we'll bring another preliminary plot in for that one as well. It'll just be a phase five of the red trail subdivision.

So Rick on that future development parcel, you see those little small square things there. Is that just a vestige of the past or is that part of the future planning? You see where the cursory is, you just got a bunch of little, it looks like pads maybe.

Yeah, those are entitled building pads for the current phase four of red trails.

Okay, so those are showing what's currently been entitled, so townhome type pads. Yeah, they're like the detached townhome product. I think you, I think Keith might have, were you thinking those were storage units?

Well, I know there's some up the road. Like I said, I was off. They're all close.

That's why I was thinking that way too. And so I just wanted to clarify. So it is just, it's all staying residential of some type.

Yeah. And then the gravel pit is just to the east of that drainage well there.

That's why I was worried about the future subdivision. Because like I said, I didn't drive out there to this one. I thought it was open and closed. And then I started looking into it more and I worried that that might be next to the industrial area. where they could try to slide something like that in and just mess this up for these other residents.

I mean, nobody knows yet what's going to happen with that gravel pit, you know, like how they're going to reclaim that in the future or whatever, but.

Whatever, Hurricane City's already got a road plan for it. Yeah. So there's regional plans to have that hurricane purgatory road cross through there into Washington and connect to the state route. which is probably a really, really good future route that we're going to need as far as regionally. But the challenge there is they're sketching it through a pit that's got a lot of dirt missing. Quite a field project. Yeah, you're going to have to dig a pit that size somewhere else just to build it up.

Thank you. Not that it has any bearing on this hearing, but my own two cents, if I were you, I would look at combining seven and eight and just have another half acre lot there just for buildability. We'll look at it.

I think we're good. Thanks. Yeah, I'm ready for a motion if you guys are.

This is Commissioner Anderson. I'll make a motion to approve the preliminary plot for the Rio Virgin Estates subdivision located approximately Smith Creek Drive and Bear Trap Canyon Drive with the findings and conditions outlined by staff.

Commissioner Davis seconds the motion.

I have a first by Commissioner Anderson, a second by Commissioner Davis. Individual voting. Commissioner Anderson? Aye. Commissioner Davis?

Aye.

Commissioner Tupou?

Aye.

Commissioner Ure?

Aye.

I'm Commissioner Bullock. I'm an aye as well. So this passes. And item five, adjournment. I look for a motion to adjourn unless anyone has anything else they'd like to say.

Commissioner Ure, I move that we adjourn.

Commissioner Tupou, I second that.

I have a first and second. All in favor?

Aye.

Meeting is adjourned. Thanks, guys.