TREMONTON CITY CORPORATION
PLANNING COMMISSION
APRIL 12, 2022

Members Present:
Micah Capener, Chairman
Jordan Conrad, Commission Member
Penni Dennis, Commission Member
Paul Fowler, Commission Member
Layne Sorensen, Commission Member—excused
Bret Rohde, City Councilmember
Steve Bench, Zoning Administrator
Shawn Warnke, City Manager
Cynthia Nelson, Deputy Recorder

Chairman Capener called the Planning Commission meeting to order at 5:37 p.m. The meeting was held April 12, 2022 in the City Council Meeting Room at 102 South Tremont Street, Tremonton, Utah. Chairman Capener, Commission Members Conrad, Dennis, Fowler, City Councilmember Rohde, Zoning Administrator Bench, and Deputy Recorder Nelson were in attendance. Commission Member Sorensen was excused.

1. Approval of agenda:

Motion by Commission Member Fowler to approve the April 12, 2022 agenda. Motion seconded by Commission Member Dennis. Vote: Chairman Capener – aye, Commission Member Conrad – aye, Commission Member Dennis – aye, Commission Member Fowler – aye, Commission Member Sorensen – absent. Motion approved.

2. Declaration of Conflict of Interest: None.

3. Approval of minutes—March 8, 2022

Motion by Commission Member Conrad to approve the March 8, 2022 minutes. Motion seconded by Commission Member Dennis. Vote: Chairman Capener – aye, Commission Member Conrad – aye, Commission Member Dennis – aye, Commission Member Fowler – aye, Commission Member Sorensen – absent. Motion approved.

4. New Business:

a. Discussion of section 2 of Draft Integrated Land Use Plan – Sam Taylor, Landmark Design (joining electronically)

Mr. Taylor provided an update on the plan and answered question for chapters 1 and 2. Commission Member Fowler said in updating those developments, one of the things we talked about was knowing the number of units of multi-family already in the City. That is more useful to us. Manager Warnke said I sent out our population projects, which are based on our impact fees and projected ERUs that are going to occur in a 10-year period. Commission Member Fowler said that is helpful, but when it says multi-family residential on 52 acres, I wonder what that means? How many units is that per acre? How many do we have on the books now? Mr. Taylor said we can do that, but how does that affect the conversation? The number of units is determined at the zoning level. The future land use map is about the types of uses and community character. Commission Member Fowler said I agree, but it helps us to understand what that true ratio is when we know the number of units and not just the acreage. This is presented in a way that slants it to make it look like everything we are building is single-family, but that is not the case. I think that information helps us in our future planning. We need to know the number of units. It helps to know if we have 200 or 2,000 going in and the acreage does not tell us that.

The Commission reviewed table 2-1, existing land use, which gives background and purview for future planning. Chairman Capener said are we trying to design this on what we feel the future use will be and plan it in a way the uses will line up with the demand or are we trying to plan it based on what we think we want to see and then change it to meet the use that will actually be applied? When the real-world hits sometimes these plans do not pencil so then we go property by property and rezone it to what will. We have to foresee the jobs that are coming in, the incomes that will be here, and the types of housing we will need in the future. Commission Member Fowler said it would be nice to see that plan. We want things to match and flow so we do not have abrupt changes. Developers can make an informed purchase and make it pencil knowing what that use will be rather than making us change the zoning. That is the part that drives me crazy. Why have a plan if we are just going to change it anyway? I am not saying the plan should not be adapted as we grow and things change, but I do not think the intensity should be so much.

Manager Warnke explained that the Future Land Use Plan is an advisory guide for zoning in the future. The Land Use Plan should be your best effort and recommendation on what you think the future land uses should be, not based necessarily on demand, but based upon land use types and the transportation system that is there to support it. You are setting the stage of what you think these land uses are going to be. We are seeing a surge in demand for attached housing products so those are shown, but there is a lot of opportunity for single-family homes. Mr. Taylor said this will help create a vision for your community. Often times a plan is implemented, but then zoning ignores it. What this plan is recommending should be reflected. We are looking at what the existing land uses are and what is the highest and best use for the land. The idea is to really set the character. Things can change, but the idea is to set the character and adjacencies of the different land uses to guide that zoning process so we are not ending up with conflicting uses or less desirable options.

The Commission wanted to compare their previous plans to what has actually happened in the City. They agreed the population projections have been close. Commission Member Fowler said trends changed and family sizes are now trending up. People want to come here and live in single-family housing. Commission Member Dennis said parks is another thing to consider. We are only increasing them by 40 acres, but we are almost doubling our population. Commission Member Fowler said for parks and open space I think we are planning too small in the future. We want 4.25 acres per thousand people, while Brigham City is 8 and nationally it is 10? Manager Warnke said we are working on a parks impact fee, but we can only perpetuate the same level of service we have currently into the future using impact fees. In order to increase the level of service, the City would need to invest other financial resources to increase that. Through development agreements the City has negotiated additional park space, which comes at no cost to the City. Commission Member Fowler said on the City budget we need to tweak and add more to Parks and Recreation. Councilmember Rohde reminded them that they can set a bar or things they want to see happen, but they cannot dictate what future Planning Commissions can and cannot do. We can set standards and guidelines, but we have to be careful. Other people will have insights and be allowed to change it. Manager Warnke said this is your future land use plan. You are identifying what you want it to be based upon. We talked about the transportation system. When asked about demand, we did look at that from a commercial standpoint. We did adjust some of the land uses.

Chairman Capener said why do we not use multi-family as a buffer rather than putting all these homes by the industrial and commercial? Manager Warnke said that is an adjustment we could consider. Mr. Taylor said Commercial Center Districts have a bunch of uses. Ideally, we all want to have adjacency that flows. The Commission reviewed the Commercial Highway Corridor, the Commerce Center and other things reflected on page 20. Chairman Capener said if you are going to put multi-family anywhere you would want it to buffer that commercial. In going back to the parks discussion, Commission Member Fowler said that is where your number of units come into play. We are looking at open space per population. As we get denser, we have a lot more people. The same area has a lot more people in it, which means a lot more demand on open spaces and parks. That is one reason I want to see the number of units. It helps us project the population better. Mr. Taylor said in the level of service per acreage of the population today is 3.4 acres per thousand. We made the recommendation to maintain that in the future. We can do more. Commission Member Dennis said it was suggested that since the mountains are close, we can go out and recreate there, but when gas costs so much a gallon it is hard to get to the mountains. We need to amp our parks up a bit more. I think we are decreasing our parks with this future land use.

Commission Member Fowler said I like the corridor treatments and the community gateways enhancements. I would like to know more about the node enhancements and what that means. I love goal nine, which is to improve the sense of entry into our community, which needs it from every direction and policy 2.2 captured my attention on adopting new tools to preserve Tremonton’s open space and rural character. It talks about coming up with implementation measures to evaluate what we have, develop restrictions and seeing what can be done to enhance that. What we can and cannot do that bears some discussion.

Commission Member Dennis said why does page 18 suggest higher densities in the core of the City? Chairman Capener said that is where the road systems and utilities can handle it. There is also walkability for the commercial districts. Manager Warnke said we have negotiated different open spaces and parks with some of these denser neighborhoods and are working on different projects. One of the next ones is creating the cross section for the central trail. Our hope is that our park offering will be better by design and that is by having the right professionals help us. Chairman Capener said we are adding great parks, secondary water and all these cool things, but it all comes back to affordability. For the average buyer we just added $100,000 to their house. We cannot put all these things in the plan that are not affordable. Commission Member Fowler said like in all things in life, you dream what you can become. Our City has to dream and have some vision of what it could be. Our job is to set that ideal. Maybe we cannot have a firm bar, but we could have a visionary bar on what it could be and what we want it to look like. I do not think we can control everything, but there is nothing wrong with having the vision of what it could be and shooting for it. When the time comes, we deal with what we have to work with. Chairman Capener said that is fine, as long as you are okay with the Land Use Plan and the real plan not being the same. Are we planning something we cannot afforded and do we need to dial it to something more realistic? Commission Member Fowler said in our own zoning ordinances we say we are not going to make abrupt changes from one zone to the next and we have done that. In some instances, we need to have more backbone when it comes to holding these ordinances. If I bought land that was zoned commercial, I have the expectation it is commercial. If I decided I want to do it residential then why did I buy it? When it comes to the Planning Commission, we have to have more spine to say, no that is not the zoning instead of rezoning it every time someone comes in and wants to change it because they can make more money. I disagree with that. I understand this may not be the plan and we cannot hold every detail to that, but we are not planning every detail. We are putting the vision out and trying to make sense of it. I do not have a problem planning the City out in a way that it should flow and transition using good architectural landscape design principals.

Manager Warnke said a park is easy to build if you have the land. We are trying to acquire land as it becomes available and we need to be conscious of parks. The best thing is to get the acreage. We can get it cheaper and before it is developed over. We have been insistent in doing that for parks, opens space, and trail corridors. Some communities have done that almost to their detriment. Those areas become an eye sore if not taken care of or improved to a certain level. One of the recommendations in the plan is conservation subdivisions. Those work well in bigger areas. In small subdivision it creates more of a nuisance strip than anything productive. We want to make sure what we set in place meets the objectives. Chairman Capener said I see more restriction on the development that pushes everything to multi-family—that is the only way it can be afforded. If we loosen the restrictions on bigger acre lots, we would encourage one to five acres within the City. That will bring the most open space with little expense to the City. The more restrictions we have the more it forces a higher density.

Manager Warnke said the appendixes talks about recommended changes to our ordinances to enact a plan. We would adopt it and start working to make some of these amendments. They agreed to continue their discussion in the next meeting.

Motion by Commission Member Fowler to table this item (sections 2 and 3) for future discussion, but close the discussion for today. Motion seconded by Commission Member Conrad. Vote: Chairman Capener – aye, Commission Member Conrad – aye, Commission Member Dennis – aye, Commission Member Fowler – aye, Commission Member Sorensen – absent. Motion approved.

5. Public Hearing:

Chairman Capener called a Public Hearing to order at 6:48 p.m. to receive public input on the item below. There were five people in attendance.

a. To receive public input and consideration given to proposed amendments to Title 1 Zoning Ordinance, Chapter 1.04 amending Planning Commission Members and Duties. Amendments to Tremonton City Standard Drawings deleting the fifty (50) foot minor street right-of-way, adding sheets 2F and 2G Street intersection details, updating Dumpster Enclosure Details sheet 23.

Administrator Bench provided an overview. One of the adjustments is to the number of Planning Commission members. It was suggested by the City Council that the Planning Commission go from seven members to five. They may also reside outside of the City. Manager Warnke explained that Planning Commissioners provide planning, they do not represent the people. Instead, they are those who have the technical expertise to help the City make good land use recommendations. They are technical advisors to the Council. Administrator Bench said when there is a vacancy, they shall appoint a person with advice and consent of the City Council.

Chairman Capener asked about the dumpster enclosures. Administrator Bench said it was recommended by our waste contractor that some of these dumpster enclosures were not wide enough. They have a big truck and do not want to knock things over. The proposed increased is to be 14 feet 8 inches in width. It was increased by less than two feet. There are also the cinderblocks with a gate to create the aesthetics. By being behind something it beautifies the area.

Administrator Bench then explained the changes behind the road sections. They deleted the 55-foot minor road from the code since it is not used. Manager Warnke said it was our engineer’s recommendation to get rid of that so it did not confuse developers. Administrator Bench said overtime it was determined that was not wide enough for our traffic patterns. This also goes over the standard collector intersection details to provide travel lanes for all directions to keep traffic flowing. That is on a 66-foot right-of-way. There is also the standard collector to minor arterial on an 80-foot right-of-way. Manager Warnke said 80 feet is the ideal width. Some arterial roads were forced to a 66-foot right-of-way, but in those cases we changed the cross section slightly to accommodate the same functionality just in a smaller right-of-way. What we give up is on-street parking.

Resident Kristie Bowcutt said I live in Holmgren West. Commission Member Fowler I like your statement that said we need backbone in Planning and Zoning. Some members of the Commission have shown backbone and I appreciate that, but a lot of times it has been squelched. I do see some of you are trying. On the notes it talked about going from a seven-member zoning committee to a five. What I would like to see are the different regions of the City having representation rather than it be clustered. On the east side of the City there are three representations and that is overkill. We need someone on the west and north and all the regional areas. Each area has different insights and that would really benefit the City. I am all for seven, but realize that may not happen.

Chairman Capener closed the Public Hearing at 7:04 p.m.

6. Continuation of New Business:

a. Discussion and consideration of proposed amendments to Title 1 Zoning Ordinance, Chapter 1.04 amending Planning Commission Members and Duties. Amendments to Tremonton City Standard Drawings deleting the fifty (50) foot minor street right-of-way, adding sheets 2F and 2G Street intersection details, updating Dumpster Enclosure Details sheet 23.

Commission Member Fowler asked about the changes to the streets. Administrator Bench said this shows we are allocating more space for turning. It tapers away from the intersection for more stacking. Manager Warnke said at intersections is where capacity fails. We want all vehicles to have their own turning movements without shared lanes. Commission Member Fowler said on the dumpster, what if I have a six-foot dumpster? Some businesses would never have 12 feet. Where does this enclosure apply? Manager Warnke said for multi-family and commercial. That is for a new business, not existing. Commission Member Dennis said if you ended up with one dumpster then the 14 feet is overkill for a single business. Administrator Bench said sometimes there cannot be a choice. Manager Warnke said their garbage trucks are picking up a piece of equipment and dumping it so all they are wanting is two extra feet to have the ability to do their job safely. Commission Member Fowler said maybe there should be a single and double dumpster so seven- and 14-feet requirement? Administrator Bench said businesses could eventually expand and then they have a dumpster on the outside of the enclosure. Things look better when dumpsters are enclosed. The previous enclosure was 12 feet and this new one is 14 feet eight inches. Manager Warnke said we are just trying to make it easier for our haulers.

Commission Member Dennis said I do want to talk about the seven versus five Planning Commission members. I like seven, especially if we have 10,000 members of the community. We need representation from a wider variety of people and we get a better conversation. Right now, we have Chairman Capener and Commission Member Conrad who work together. I think it is not as diverse as it used to be. Commission Member Fowler said we are not representatives though or elected to represent sections of the City. We are here to represent expertise and background, which could come from anywhere. I agree with the argument to be diverse—it adds to the conversation. We have different backgrounds and we learn from these healthy debates. We all need to research and stay in the know. The community has benefited from the Commission being invested in it and preparing ourselves for these meetings. Manager Warnke said the State code has five councilmembers and a mayor. In my experience five is a good reasonable number with a good diversity. The larger the group the more complex it is and some are not engaged. Five is an ideal number and large enough to debate. This has been a good Commission. You have done a great job at debating the issues. Commission Member Dennis made a motion to keep the Commission as a seven-member quorum and approve the rest of the items discussed to the City Council. The motion died.

Commission Member Conrad made a motion to amend the chapter and that they recommend approving the amendments. We would go with a five-member Commission and approve everything as is. The motion died.

After some more discussion Commission Member Fowler reignited Commission Member Conrad’s motion (listed below).

Motion by Commission Member Fowler to approve all the changes for the City Council’s review and to have a five-member Commission. Motion seconded by Commission Member Conrad. Vote: Chairman Capener – aye, Commission Member Conrad – aye, Commission Member Dennis – nay, Commission Member Fowler – aye, Commission Member Sorensen – absent. Motion approved. Motion approved. Motion approved by a 3-1 vote.

7. Adjournment

Motion by Commission Member Fowler to adjourn the meeting. Motion seconded by consensus of the Board. The meeting adjourned at 7:37 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 14th day of June, 2022.

______________________________
Linsey Nessen, 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.