TREMONTON CITY CORPORATION
PLANNING COMMISSION
JANUARY 14, 2025
Members Present:
Micah Capener, Chairman—excused
Karen Ellsworth, Commission Member
Andrea Miller, Commission Member
Mark Thompson, Commission Member
Ashley Phillips, Commission Member (alternate)
Jack Stickney, Commission Member (alternate)
Raulon Van Tassell, Commission Member
Bret Rohde, City Councilmember
Jeff Seedall, City Planner
Bill Cobabe, City Manager—excused
Tiffany Lannefeld, Deputy Recorder
Sam Taylor, Landmark Design Planner—via Zoom

Co-Chairman Van Tassell called the Planning Commission Meeting to order at 5:32 p.m. The meeting was held January 14, 2025 in the City Council Meeting Room at 102 South Tremont Street, Tremonton, Utah. Co-Chairman Van Tassell, Commission Members Ellsworth, Miller, Thompson, Stickney, Phillips, City Councilmember Rohde, City Planner Seedall, and Deputy Recorder Lannefeld were in attendance. Chairman Capener and Manager Cobabe were excused. Also in attendance was Design Planner Taylor (via Zoom).

1. Approval of agenda:

Motion by Commission Member Thompson to approve the January 14, 2024 agenda. Motion seconded by Commission Member Miller. Vote: Co-Chairman Van Tassell – yes, Chairman Capener – absent, Commission Member Ellsworth – yes, Commission Member Miller – yes, Commission Member Phillips – yes, Commission Member Thompson – yes, Commission Member Stickney – yes. Motion approved.

2. Declaration of Conflict of Interest: None.

3. Public Comments: None.

4. Approval of minutes—December 10, 2024

Motion by Commission Member Miller to approve the December 10, 2024 minutes. Motion seconded by Commission Member Thompson. Vote: Co-Chairman Van Tassell – yes, Chairman Capener – absent, Commission Member Ellsworth – yes, Commission Member Miller – yes, Commission Member Phillips – yes, Commission Member Thompson – yes, Commission Member Stickney – yes. Motion approved.

5. New Business:

a. Introduction and welcome of Karen Ellsworth, Ashley Phillips and Jack Stickney

The Commission all made introductions and welcomed the new Commission Members.

b. Discussion and consideration of Moderate-Income Housing Strategies

Planner Seedall said in the 2010s the State told cities they needed to adopt a moderate-income housing strategy to help plan for affordability. We strategize around households that earn 80% or less of the area’s median income. For Box Elder that is about $74,000 per year. We have to try and create housing options for that range. Cities were asked to put an element into the General Plan. Every year we have to include updates on what we are doing. In 2024, we adopted our strategies (C, L, and R). Strategy C is an ongoing house renovation for lower income houses to sustain and improve existing homes. Homeowners can apply for home improvements, like new siding or window fixtures, to keep the house value up to date. Strategy L covers impact fees with City funding. We added a resolution last year. Strategy R waives or reduces impact fees for accessory dwelling units (ADUs). Although there are other strategy options, these are the strategies we feel the City could consider. I would prefer to create a plan with the Planning Commission for the Council and provide updates on how that is going. Strategy E is to reduce regulations on ADUs, which we have done already. The Council has adopted all the changes we discussed the past couple meetings. Strategy H, reduces parking requirements. The form-based code could help reduce parking requirements and could alter parking regulations for multi-family residential along Main Street. Another strategy is to amend land use regulations for single room occupancy developments. A lot of the housing and our code are written toward multi-family developments. What changes could we make for studio apartments. The last one is zoning incentives for moderate income housing units in new developments. The PUD covers this a little, but I am open to figuring out how to put that into other zoning. We need to create a plan that is less about checkmarks and try to measure if these strategies are working.

Mr. Taylor said I would encourage all of you to become familiar with the whole menu of strategies the State has provided. The State is looking for progress toward each of these. We are required to see implementation actions and timelines for those actions to demonstrate that measured progress. You do not have to accomplish everything in that year reporting period. You might be on a five-year track for some of these ideas. These goals can be accomplished within a longer horizon, but we have to make sure that incremental progress is being made.

Commission Member Stickney said the definition of moderate-income housing, does not match the economy. Is it even feasible to work toward something within those restrictions? Also, is the use of the old hospital on 600 North considered single unit housing? Planner Seedall said yes, there is single unit housing in there. We could start looking at what does that impact look like? To my knowledge, that is the only kind of studio-style apartment project in Tremonton. Councilmember Rohde said all of this is driven by rental or home pricing. We can have all the small apartments we want, but if they are above that medium income then they do not qualify. Planner Seedall said at $70,000 income, people are looking at the low $200,000s. We have to show we are trying to do it, despite the fact that the economics are not there. Mr. Taylor said the mind of the State legislature and Department of Workforce Services is that while they recognize there is an economic disparity in this effort, their goal is to remove barriers that may be in place in communities across the State for more housing stock. Many of these strategies are targeted toward removal of those barriers. The State thinks if we can reduce those barriers collectively across the State that will increase the amount of housing supply and the economic situation will balance itself out. The most important part of all of this is that progress is being made. Planner Seedall said we have adopted the PUD ordinance, which allows more density if they give more to the City. That can be done through open space or architectural standards. The PUD and development agreement are a tool the State permits to have higher level standards. The State has cash incentives for those who have housing prices under $400,000. Councilmember Rohde said remember that inventory drives price. I do not think we are ever going to see the price drop to a median income, but if we have the right amount of inventory, then that could help drive the pricing down.

Planner Seedall said out of strategies H, I, and J, which ones do you feel the City should look at? Commission Member Stickney said I would propose we consider I and J. Strategy I is pretty viable because you get a lot of single people trying to rent an apartment together. Having a studio available might fit a niche. Encouraging developers to make that part of their plan would be a good idea. Planner Seedall said we can start working toward I and J. Councilmember Rohde said something that concerns me about this discussion is I do not think we have a good base for where we stand. We do not know how many low-income housing units we have or how many qualify. Mr. Taylor said we do have data from 2022 that could be updated. Councilmember Rohde said it would be nice to have more true data if we are going to set goals and move forward. The Council is going to start setting some high-level goals. One of those could be, what percentage of affordable housing can we increase over five years? We need to have those discussions so we can set good goals.

Planner Seedall said the Planning Commission will need to put the guidelines out so as private money comes in our terms and conditions clearly state the vision we have, both in our General Plan and code. I will have a presentation at a future meeting about the Planning Commission’s procedures and then we are going to work with code adoption.

c. Discussion of Chapter 1.08: Commercial and Industrial Zone Districts

Planner Seedall provided a summary on this chapter that the Commission can review until their next meeting. He said there were a lot of changes to this chapter. The Inland Port Authority is a State organization that is adopting chunks of land to advertise for industrial growth. The priority is to create high quality jobs by bringing in industrial work. They are finding areas to create a sustainable center for communities while bringing careers and infrastructure. Currently, the State has almost 104,000 acres tied up in the Inland Port Authority. There is the Garland-Tremonton zone where Lakeshore Learning is built. The new area just adopted is called the Hardwood zone west of McDonald and south of Main Street. It is 250 acres that the City will serve. This will create a public infrastructure district. 75% of the property tax increase goes to the infrastructure district to pay off the bond and 25% goes to the City. Those contracts run for 25-30 years. Next meeting, we will start working on regulations we can enforce before things come in. We want to mitigate the impact of industrial, especially for water usage. Too much industrial could halt our residential growth until we have more water. We would have a mitigation plan for what is underneath the City’s purview. We are trying to get our code done so we are better prepared. This Chapter 1.08 will set up the structure that the Inland Port is going to have to follow to meet City standards. The things we can regulate from an engineering standpoint are water usage, wastewater generation, and storm drain output. Usage is up to the Commission and City Council. We need to add to the usage tables to show what is or is not permitted. That is what we are amending next meeting.

Motion by Commission Member Miller to table the item until their next meeting. Motion seconded by Commission Member Phillips. Vote: Co-Chairman Van Tassell – yes, Chairman Capener – absent, Commission Member Ellsworth – yes, Commission Member Miller – yes, Commission Member Phillips – yes, Commission Member Thompson – yes, Commission Member Stickney – yes. Motion approved.

6. Planning commission comments/reports: None.

7. Adjournment

Motion by Commission Member Miller to adjourn the meeting. Motion seconded by consensus of the Board. The meeting adjourned at 6:54 p.m.

The undersigned duly acting and appointed Recorder for Tremonton City Corporation hereby certifies that the foregoing is a true and correct copy of the minutes of the Planning Commission held on the above referenced date. Minutes were prepared by Jessica Tanner.

Dated this _____day of ___________, 2025.

______________________________
Cynthia Nelson, CITY RECORDER

*Utah Code 52-4-202, (6) allows for a topic to be raised by the public and discussed by the public body even though it was not included in the agenda or advance public notice given; however, no final action will be taken.