TREMONTON CITY CORPORATION
PLANNING COMMISSION
SEPTEMBER 26, 2017

Members Present:
Robert Anderson, Chairman
Val Bennett, Commission Member—excused
Micah Capener, Commission Member
Arnold Eberhard, Commission Member
Troy Forrest, Commission Member—excused
Ben Greener, Commission Member—excused
Tom Stokes, Commission Member
Bret Rohde, City Councilmember
Steve Bench, Zoning Administrator
Linsey Nessen, Recorder

Chairman Robert Anderson called the Planning Commission Meeting to order at 5:31 p.m. The meeting was held September 26, 2017 in the City Council Meeting Room at 102 South Tremont Street, Tremonton, Utah. Chairman Robert Anderson, Commission Members Capener, Eberhard, Stokes, City Councilmember Bret Rohde, Zoning Administrator Steve Bench, and Recorder Linsey Nessen were in attendance. Commission Members Bennett, Forrest, and Greener were excused.

1. Approval of agenda:

Motion by Commission Member Eberhard to approve the September 26, 2017 agenda. Motion seconded by Commission Member Stokes. Vote: Chairman Anderson – aye, Commission Member Capener – aye, Commission Member Eberhard – aye, Commission Member Stokes – aye. Motion approved.

2. Approval of minutes—August 22, 2017

Commission Member Capener had one correction on page three, paragraph four says, “All a person needs is .6 to water .6, you do not need one to water one” what he meant was a person does not need one to water .6. With the correction, the Board approved the minutes.

Motion by Commission Member Eberhard to approve the August 22, 2017 minutes. Motion seconded by Commission Member Stokes. Vote: Chairman Anderson – aye, Commission Member Capener – aye, Commission Member Eberhard – aye, Commission Member Stokes – aye. Motion approved.

3. Public Hearing:

a. To receive public input regarding amending Title II Subdivision Ordinance adding Development Requirements for Secondary Water Systems as an improvement within new developments, and amending Title II Subdivision Ordinance, Section 2.06.020 Sanitary Sewer Systems, and Section 2.06.080 Deep Lot or Flag Lot Development requirements.

b. To receive public input regarding amending Title I Zoning Ordinance Chapter 1.26 Site Plan Permit amending Section 1.26.040 Approval Standards and adding Secondary Water Improvements.

Chairman Anderson opened the public hearing for item a. at 5:35 p.m. and for item b. at 5:39 p.m. Both were closed at 5:42 p.m. after a discussion. Administrator Bench added that there was a change to the agenda. In item a. of the public hearing he said they need to strike out the part about amending the Title II Subdivision Ordinance, Section 2.06.020 Sanitary Sewer Systems. The ordinance on the requirements for a secondary water system has been improvement with some modifications to the new developments and section 2.06.080 Deep Lot Flag Lot requirements that were sent to commission members.

There was no public comment, but Administrator Bench did explain the process to those in attendance. He said about 15 years ago the Council tried to implement secondary water, but it was too much money. Over time the city was able to add a secondary system on the west hillside that covers a couple subdivisions. Last year the culinary sources got real low and conservation was needed. They are in the process and need to find additional sources. They are looking into secondary water and putting an ordinance together that would require new developers to participate in a secondary system in their development and provide water shares. It will take several years to deploy this system throughout the city and they will start with the easier sections first, near the canal and where a pump station would be easy to tie into the existing systems. They then closed the public hearing.

4. New Business:

a. Discussion and consideration of amending Title II Subdivision Ordinance adding Development Requirements for Secondary Water Systems as an improvement within new developments, and amending Title II Subdivision Ordinance, Section 2.06.020 Sanitary Sewer Systems, and Section 2.06.080 Deep Lot or Flag Lot Development requirements.

b. Discussion and consideration of amending Title I Zoning Ordinance Chapter 1.26 Site Plan Permit amending Section 1.26.040 Approval Standards and adding Secondary Water Improvements.

Items A and B were discussed together.

Administrator Bench told commission members to have a discussion and then make a recommendation to the City Council. Commission Member Eberhard asked if any of the subdivisions going in now are required to follow this standard or is the city waiting for this ordinance to be approved. Administrator Bench said we could not require them to do so because we did not have it in place to require it.

Commission Member Stokes said if a piece of property does not have water currently would they have to go out and find it? Administrator Bench said they would need to provide that before they could subdivide. Commission Member Stokes said so you are requiring the developer to go buy them and if you cannot find them you cannot develop? Administrator Bench said I am not sure, but you cannot really stop development. Commission Member Stokes added are you stating that it depends where I live or develop whether I have to abide by the ordinance? Administrator Bench said developers would have to provide water shares whether there is water there or not because they can find them, it just depends how much they are willing to pay. Councilmember Rohde said my understanding of the ordinance is in order to develop in Tremonton you need to provide the shares, no matter where you live.

Commission Member Capener asked for an update and said I am unclear on exactly what we are doing. What are we approving? In the last meeting we identified we are not getting into the implementation or how it is going to be exacted, so are we just approving to say yes we want a secondary system or what are we doing? Administrator Bench said they are making a recommendation on the ordinance. Commission Member Capener said is this a new ordinance or have we seen it? Administrator Bench said they have gone through it and it has changed some but was sent to them. It still requires one water share per acre. Commission Member Capener said I do not like it. On the subdivision we are working on down the street we built four homes per acre. After you take the road, home and driveway out I bet it is going to be really hard to get to a half-acre, let alone a full-acre. I think it ought to be exacted on a subdivision-by-subdivision basis, by the amount of irrigateable acreage. Councilmember Rohde said I do not know that you are deciding on the one to one. Commission Member Capener asked if they are approving the ordinance or not. Councilmember Rohde said the City Council is meeting tonight to have some of those discussions. Commission Member Capener said what are we approving? Are we approving if we want a secondary water system or are we approving that ordinance? The way it was presented originally is that the ordinance was a place setter and the City Council was going to negotiate. If the City Council is not to that stage then this is premature and we should table it and review it.

Administrator Bench read a paragraph from the ordinance, saying a developer shall also provide water shares sufficient to meet the municipal needs that will be created by the development. The exact number of water shares from the Bear River Canal Company to be dedicated to the city for each acre of developed industrial, commercial, institutional and multifamily (need to add residential he said) is to be calculated by the city engineer after a site specific analysis is performed. He said dedication shall occur prior to the approval and contingent on the approval for site plan issuing any building permit. Commission Member Capener said I am picturing myself as a developer saying I want to develop this five acre piece, how much water do I need and I call the city and they say I do not know, but spend three grand to design it and we will tell you later, which maybe that is what it has to be if that is the most fair way to do it.

Commission Member Capener said in the last meeting they identify that Manager Warnke and the City felt the canal company was requiring one share per acre no matter what was on it in order to water that acreage. He said my belief is that it is one share per irrigated acre not one share per total acre, but we need to answer that question. If my theory is not correct then this is a whole different conversation and the one to one makes sense, but if that is the case then we have a lot of problems across the city. Most of the pressurized irrigation systems are just on a meter, you have a share and you either use it or you do not.

Again Commission Member Capener asked what are we approving? Administrator Bench said the ordinance that requires the secondary system to be installed and developed. Chairman Anderson clarified, we are not approving it we are just recommending to the City Council if they should proceed and I think they should. Commission Member Stokes said but the details are not there. If a developer calls in tomorrow after this is approved what do you tell them about shares needed? Commission Member Capener said the way the emergency thing that the City Council put together was one to one until otherwise changed. Councilmember Rohde clarified that if they are developing five acres they would need to give five shares according to this ordinance. Commission Member Stokes said how it was put in the ordinance was not legal according to the city attorney because he came back and said they can only extract .662 legally. Councilmember Rohde said they would found out more information in tonight’s special council meeting.

Commission Member Capener said do you think we should do something with this or table it until we have a more revised ordinance to look at. Councilmember Rohde said my biggest concern is if we have developers coming in and we do not have anything to obligate them to provide any kind of share for development. Commission Member Capener said I thought you already did that? Commission Member Stokes said that was the one to one. Councilmember Rohde said that is what this is. We have been having discussions, but have not gone all the way. Commission Member Capener disagreed and Councilmember Rohde said I do remember voting on something like that. Commission Member Capener said to my knowledge it does require a one to one—it was a temporary injunction, emergency 911 meeting to require the one to one subject to finalization of the exact language to make adjustments as necessary. That is why we talked about implementation, the zones and water quality at the last meeting. Manager Warnke basically said that has nothing to do with you—why are we talking about it, which is fine but that is why I need to know—what does involve us? What is our opinion if you do not want us diving into the details? I am not sure what we are approving and I need to understand. Commission Member Stokes agreed.

Administrator Bench said the general basis of this is first, the one to one requirement or an engineer’s analysis and second, the requirement to install the infrastructure on a new subdivision. Commission Member Stokes thought the engineer said this is on commercial property only. Administrator Bench said this ordinance has the one to one for residential subdivisions and the engineer analysis on the commercial, which is the same as before.

Commission Member Eberhard provided the example, if they can get .5 shares to water an acre but individuals over use their allotted amount of water, is the canal company going to shut them down or charge them extra? Commission Member Capener said you get a certain number of gallons per share, which is metered from each one of the zones when they pull it out of the canal. Administrator Bench said it is not metered now. Commission Member Capener said but it will have to be. Commission Member Eberhard said I could see some problems if they go over their usage. It will be hard to go back and collect money. Administrator Bench said I could be wrong, but there is no intent on metering this. The system has been in place for years and is on 24/7. People water at their leisure and we have had no issues. Commission Member Stokes clarified that it is not metered at the home but would have to be at the major part. Administrator Bench said we do not meter there either. Commission Member Capener said then why does it matter, who cares if we are just pumping whatever we want to pump? I would think they would require it. I think everyone of these zones will have to have a meter and get X amount of gallons and then you have to shut it down. Administrator Bench said it could be metered, but it has never been shutdown. It is on 24/7 through the summer months.

Commission Member Capener said I make a motion that we table it until we have more information and a chance to review the in-depth language. Commission Member Eberhard said I would like to approach it another way and say that we would like to see secondary water and not endorse any numbers until we get those, but we endorse the process. Commission Member Stokes said we could just not approve the next subdivision that comes through—we could table it. Councilmember Rohde said the Land Use Authority Board does that. Commission Member Capener said we cannot deny anything it just has to meet the code and they have to do the one to one. Administrator Bench said we would not get the piping put in. Commission Member Capener said for the new subdivisions that would apply within the next few days, which has not mattered for 10 years, I do not know why it would matter for one week. Administrator Bench said it would not apply until the council approves it anyway. Commission Member Capener said my opinion is we table it and get more information. All these numbers are questionable. In my mind we are either approving the details of the ordinance or we are just saying yeah we want secondary water. I do want secondary water and I think it makes a lot of sense.

Councilmember Rohde said the city has to obtain shares. But for discussion sake, lets say the engineer says we figured it is going to take .67 of a share to water every acre so what about asking the developer to come up with that one acre per share, but then the city picks up on the other and reimburses that portion in order to help move this along. Commission Member Eberhard said I like that. Commission Member Stokes agreed. Councilmember Rohde said he does not want the developer to feel like they are subsidizing the secondary water system. Commission Member Stokes said I think that is against the law, but if you are going to reimburse them I think you are fine. Commission Member Capener said up on the hill is going to be their biggest issue because there are a lot of homes there and the area is dry as a bone. The cost to buy those shares has already increased because of the 911 the city put in place. If developers have to buy at that extreme price, those shares double and they will sell half of them back to the city and I do not think that makes any sense unless they city is going to pay the exuberant price. Councilmember Rohde said they would have to unless there is a ceiling set on what those could be and that would be negotiated. Commission Member Capener said I think it is going to be hard to be fair unless we are implementing the entire city at the same time. Councilmember Rohde added that it needs to be consistent across the board.

Councilmember Rohde asked if the city has the developers under obligation to put in the system at this point? Administrator Bench said no, just to provide the one share. Commission Member Capener said I do not think that is a big deal. I am sure some subdivisions are coming along but it has been coming along for 10 years why is it 911 all of a sudden. It sounds like the subdivisions we are putting in with secondary water will alleviate the 911 for water shortage as of today. He wanted to read the language of that resolution and stated he would be surprised if Manager Warnke required the water and not the pipes to go with it in the emergency 911 resolution. This would give us some time to work through the exact details I would be surprised if that was not simultaneously required. Ten years ago they were required to put the pipes in, but a lot of those, even 10 years later, are still not in use. If I were the city I would not want to take someone’s water unless I knew how to put it to work, you will have someone upset because you just took their water. That is what happened 10 years ago; they started it and required them to put in the pipes but then did not implement it.

Recorder Nessen found the resolution that was passed by the City Council. Commission Member Capener read, “as of August 1 contained in exhibit A new developments are to include secondary water distribution lines as an improvement and provide water shares from the Bear River Canal Company to the city for secondary water as currently contained in exhibit A.” So yes, they have already passed that as of August 1. This is the ordinance to be followed up from the resolution. Does it have a time limit? He continued reading, “to adopt a temporary land use regulation that imposes financial acquires on the development…time is of the essence they need to immediately address new water sources to serve…essentially allows a municipality that has initiated formal proceedings to amend it’s land ordinance to apply new development standard to submit applications before the standards are formally adopting or otherwise denied as a subdivision application the submitted application.”

Administrator Bench said the developer shall provide sufficient shares to meet municipal needs that will be created by development and each acre of residential development requires one water share from the canal company to be dedicated to the city. He was not sure if there is a sunset date on it, but they thought it was likely six months. Commission Member Capener said this is something huge, I think we need to think through it. If the city council does not want our opinion they will just pass it tonight anyway, like they did the emergency resolution. If it is not passed tonight let’s review it when they do talk about it and figure out what they want to do. I want to dive into it further. It would be ideal if the Council made a few specific decisions, like how much of the system they are implementing. Administrator Bench said the engineer came up with the plan that has 13 service areas. The city cannot afford to do it all so they will start with service areas 1, 2 and 3. Commission Member Capener said they should get with local excavators and see if they feel like this is the best solution. He said they need to make sure whatever they do is a high quality system. I would rather pay $5 to $10 extra a month to have a system we do not have to rebuild our whole sprinkling system for.

Motion by Commission Member Capener to table items a. and b dealing with secondary water until they can obtain more information. Motion seconded by Commission Member Stokes. Vote: Chairman Anderson – aye, Commission Member Capener – aye, Commission Member Eberhard – aye, Commission Member Stokes – aye. Motion approved.

Commission Member Capener said he would want to know what the canal company is requiring. If what Manager Warnke says is true that is a dramatically different thing because then we need substantially more shares than we really need. That needs to be addressed first then we need to address money and bonding. Are we doing it all or some? How are we going to do it? From there we can address an ordinance to implement what they decide. Administrator Bench explained that implementing and the cost is a Council decision. Commission Member Capener said I understand but how do we put an ordinance together without the other piece, meaning if we are going to take their water, no matter how much it is, in an ordinance we are going to put in place right now, I think we need some sort of plan as to how that is going to be used. If we are going to make a subdivision add the pipes and spend big money, like they did 10 years ago, without a plan to implement I think we are asking for trouble. It is like saying I am going to need 500,000 gallons of gas for the rest of my life, let us go ahead and buy the gas, store it and then we will buy a car someday, maybe. That is what it feels like to me. I want to see it implemented. I want to see it a big thing, a good thing. Administrator Bench said the Council will decide some of that tonight—whether to bond or do a piece at a time and then they will worry about the one to one.

4. Adjournment

Motion by Commission Member Capener to adjourn the meeting. Motion seconded by consensus of the Board. The meeting adjourned at 6:15 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 10th day of October, 2017.

______________________________
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.