TREMONTON CITY CORPORATION
PLANNING COMMISSION
MARCH 11, 2025
Members Present:
Micah Capener, Chairman—excused
Karen Ellsworth, Commission Member—excused
Andrea Miller, Commission Member
Mark Thompson, Commission Member
Ashley Phillips, Commission Member (alternate)—excused
Jack Stickney, Commission Member (alternate)
Raulon Van Tassell, Commission Member
Bret Rohde, City Councilmember—excused
Jeff Seedall, City Planner
Bill Cobabe, City Manager
Tiffany Lannefeld, Deputy Recorder

Co-Chairman Van Tassell called the Planning Commission Meeting to order at 5:31 p.m. The meeting was held March 11, 2025 in the City Council Meeting Room at 102 South Tremont Street, Tremonton, Utah. Co-Chairman Van Tassell, Commission Members Miller, Stickney, Thompson, Manager Cobabe, Planner Seedall, and Deputy Recorder Lannefeld were in attendance. Chairman Capener, City Councilmember Rohde and Commission Members Ellsworth and Phillips were excused.

1. Approval of agenda:

Co-Chairman Van Tassell said the approval of the agenda is where we, as a Planning Commission, have the most ability to make an influence on what we are discussing. If you have ideas or something has come up in your conversations, let us hash it out. Is there follow up on other items we have discussed that you want to see happen? Amending the agenda means we bring things to the table or remove items. This will help us influence priorities of the City and neighborhoods.

Motion by Commission Thompson to approve the March 11, 2025 agenda. Motion seconded by Commission Member Miller. Vote: Co-Chairman Van Tassell – yes, Chairman Capener – absent, Commission Member Ellsworth – absent, Commission Member Miller – yes, Commission Member Phillips – absent, 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—February 11, 2025

Motion by Commission Member Stickney to approve the February 11, 2025 minutes. Motion seconded by Commission Member Thompson. Vote: Co-Chairman Van Tassell – yes, Chairman Capener – absent, Commission Member Ellsworth – absent, Commission Member Miller – yes, Commission Member Phillips – absent, Commission Member Thompson – yes, Commission Member Stickney – yes. Motion approved.

5. New Business:

a. Discussion and consideration of Moderate-Income Housing Strategies

Manager Cobabe said this is a summary of things we are working on now and items that were initially adopted with the Moderate-Income Housing Plan. We want to know your thoughts and if we are headed in the right direction. We could also add, amend or switch any of these. One strategy the City is currently working on is an annual program with Neighborhood Non-profit. This allows lower income households to get improvements done to their house and help keep up our affordable housing inventory. Commission Member Stickney said how do people apply? Planner Seedall said there is an application. Commission Member Stickney said locally, there have been upgrades, but no new construction? Planner Seedall said not yet, but they do have acreage near 1000 West that could be used. Manager Cobabe said the City has, through RDA, accumulated about $2.5 million to distribute to these types of housing projects over the next few years. The application for that is almost finished. The Council approved the rating and ranking criteria we just need to get an application that gets the information we need to satisfy those. That is going to be divided into chunks of about $800,000 each, going toward purchase of land and revamping houses in Tremonton through those organizations. Item C is something we will work on. These non-profit organizations will apply to the City for funds and give us a detailed plan of how they are going to use that money.

Manager Cobabe said we also have an item related to impact fees, specifically accessory dwelling units. Planner Seedall said the Council approved it with the changes we made to the ADU chapter. The Commission discussed some of the requirements that were in that chapter for ADUs. Manager Cobabe said we have eliminated ADU impact fees there and have already made some changes in our code related to allowances for moderate-income housing when in a PUD situation. We have allowed a density bonus for those.

The Commission then discussed item A and had some concerns. Co-Chairman Van Tassell read, rezoning for densities is necessary to facilitate the production of moderate-income housing. Manager Cobabe said it is kind of a loaded phrase. Land here is relatively cheap compared to other places. What that looks like in Tremont may be very different than what it looks like in Salt Lake County, for example. Co-Chairman Van Tassell said would that mean we are rezoning for studio apartments, or these types of things even more than we already have? Are we going smaller so they basically get a tough shed? Manager Cobabe said when we talk about six to eight units per acre, that is pretty dense for Tremonton, but officially you do not get high density until you are up around 26 units per acre. Those are apartments and high-rise condos. That is considered high density. However, for here, and for the neighborhood feel and fabric we are trying to establish, having 5,000 to 7,000 square foot lots. Nielsen Homes said they can still turn a profit and do affordable housing when they provide smaller lots and smaller housing (5,000 to 7,000 square foot lots). The push is to follow that model. Townhomes and apartments can provide affordable housing while staying in the umbrella of lower density by giving more open space. Developers would squeeze the number of units they are allotted into a smaller area and the rest would be open space.

Commission Member Miller asked about item Y, creating a first home investment zone. When we did our house in 2016, we had a rural housing loan with zero down and that is the only way we were able to get into a house. Could we do something like this? Planner Seedall said we would have to make a pretty significant zone so we would have to identify green space for that. When asked about funding, Manager Cobabe said funds are available through BRAG, but due to our population and demographics we do not qualify. Planner Seedall said my initial thought with this zone is that we could applying it to BR Mountain. It really is the only large chunk of open space we have. That should start developing soon. I think it would be a great program to help people be able to afford view lots. Looking at Tremonton as a whole, where we have infrastructure, there are very few spots that would be worth having this zone established. BR Mountain needs some infrastructure work, but it needs less than everything on the south side of I-84 and I-15. I would look at applying a zone on BR Mountain because it will be for housing and not commercial development. Manager Cobabe said the idea is that if you created smaller lots and provide density bonuses or other incentives, it helps bring the cost of development down so housing becomes affordable. We are kind of doing that already through our PUD ordinance.

Planner Seedall then discussed an item to amend land use regulations for single room occupancy. As we look at reuse along Main Street and commercial buildings that could be flipped into single bedroom dwellings, what kind of regulatory environment would the Commission support? Everything in our code is designed around families. What aspects would the Commission want to see for these dwellings? We need to consider parking and what areas could work, along with ownership versus rentals. Manager Cobabe said single room occupancy is basically a series of rooms surrounding a central kitchen and bathroom facility. You pay for your room, plus some of the upkeep for the common areas. We have some very large houses in town that could be converted to single room occupancy. Our current regulations require that you have to be related by blood or marriage to live in a house together. This would basically eliminate that requirement and allow for everywhere to be a big front house. The Commission reviewed some of the current codes and regulations. Planner Seedall said the old hospital is a great example. If larger structures are looking to be redone, what do we want to have in place? It is not the most likely form of moderate-income housing, but I understand the amount of construction costs that might be saved in convert something like this. Commission Member Stickney said I do not mind the idea of repurposing some of those upper floors of the buildings on Main Street to housing units, if you can figure out parking. Planner Seedall said could this apply to any zone? Is there zoning we feel this should be stuck to? Is there a minimum structure size? There is a lot of creativity that could be done around this. If we want to adopt this strategy, we could start showing progress and discussions toward what we would like to see.

Co-Chairman Van Tassell said what is J specifically referring to? Manager Cobabe said we did this when we adopted the PUD ordinance, which allows for density bonuses for moderate-income housing. This is one we could look into next year. These strategies are tied to our funding sources for roads from the State. When we have nothing to report, we look bad and it makes us ineligible for additional funding. Planner Seedall said J, is something we did with the PUD ordinance where developers could get up to 20% bonus density as long as there were deed restrictions toward moderate-income housing. The developer would have to figure out who oversees the deed restrictions. That is not something the City is allowed to do.

Planner Seedall said in considering F, the question is what kind of units would we want per acre for all of Main Street? Are there districts where we need more or less density? With the form-based code, we will have a section for adaptive reuse. If you are trying to use the shell, you have to bring it up to code. There are things we need to understand and put into the form-based code. Due to the accessibility that Main Street has with the commercial, it is an area we can point to and say moderate-income housing makes the most sense here. We accept that this might be a spot for dense units.

Motion by Commission Member Stickney to consider Y and F as strategies for the City. Motion seconded by Commission Member Miller. Vote: Co-Chairman Van Tassell – yes, Chairman Capener – absent, Commission Member Ellsworth – absent, Commission Member Miller – yes, Commission Member Phillips – absent, Commission Member Thompson – yes, Commission Member Stickney – yes. Motion approved.

Planner Seedall said I will look into Y and F and will present at our next meeting how Tremonton can implement those.

6. Planning commission comments/reports: None.

7. Adjournment

Motion by Commission Member Stickney to adjourn the meeting. Motion seconded by consensus of the Board. The meeting adjourned at 6:56 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.