TREMONTON CITY CORPORATION
PLANNING COMMISSION
SEPTEMBER 27, 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 5:30 p.m. The meeting was held September 27, 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, City Manager Warnke (joined via Zoom), and Deputy Recorder Nelson were in attendance. Commission Member Sorensen was excused.

1. Approval of agenda:

Motion by Commission Member Conrad to approve the September 27, 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—August 30, 2022

Motion by Commission Member Conrad to approve the August 30, 2022 minutes. Motion seconded by Commission Member Fowler. 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 on Tremonton Housing Plan – Sam Taylor

Chairman Bench said this draft was sent to the Planning Commission. Commission Member Dennis said in a previous meeting it was discussed that Tremonton is the hub for affordable housing for the County? Why are we the ones who have to provide all that? Chairman Capener said we are the biggest population and the legislature has put that responsibility on the bigger cities. I liked Manager Warnke’s comments and adjustments on the population estimate. We are already past the 2027 estimate. Even though we had a spurt we may have a valley in the coming years so the average could be about the same. The immediate past is higher than the average. I was surprised by the age demographics. Commission Member Dennis said our 65 and older population is a lot lower than I thought it would be (12%). That is not a bad thing, but we need to start planning for our schools, we will be bursting, well we already are.

Manager Warnke explained that their deadline is October 1, which the City will not make. There is a 90-day grace period though. We should have something ready by December. We are trying to implement what the State wants and have a good draft from Zion’s. There are a few things that need to be addressed. We are hoping they can summarize the data in a meaningful way and that could be the starting point for the strategies. We have narrowed those down. We have to have at least three, which is the minimum requirement for the State. They have incentives for cities to implement five, which is tied to transportation dollars. We want to make it less complicated and pick strategies we really think can work. We plan to focus our efforts rather than broaden them since we are required to report on our progress. For all those reasons we are trying to decide the best path forward for Tremonton.

When asked about extending infrastructure, Manager Warnke said we have discussed using housing dollars the City has generated from the West Liberty Foods project area. We need to check with BRAG, our housing authority, to see what is available. It might be beneficial to go to the other side of the Interstate with utilities. We do have easements to take us up to the Interstate and bore under for water and sewer. We have to also figure up secondary water.

Manager Warnke said the State is taking a result approach of reporting. Some of the strategies will be easier to report on and to see if we are actually making headway with affordable housing. Some are a bit more policy related that may or may not translate into affordable housing units. Those are things to consider, as well as how they affect the different area median incomes (30%, 50%, and 80%). The 30% is drastically different as far as the resources and it is trickier to provide housing at that income level. That usually requires a subsidy. It would be nice to think in terms of some of those targeted thresholds.

Commission Member Dennis said in the last Commission meeting minutes, it was brought up that for Box Elder County Tremonton is taking in all the affordable housing. Why is that? Why cannot Brigham City take their fair share, too? Why does it all have to be Tremonton? Manager Warnke said essentially Brigham City has the same process we do. There are certain thresholds the State requires to have an Affordable Housing Plan and one is a population over 5,000. Brigham City and Tremonton fall into that. Other surrounding areas in Box Elder County do not have to go through that same planning and recording that can be overwhelming. The smaller towns do not have the resources to do that. The plan looks at the area median income and our proportionate share. The report does a good job of walking you through that. I can send you the section to focus on. We could also invite Zion’s to a future meeting and have them walk through the numbers. The Commission could also review it to make sure everything is accounted for. We need to drill down on everything we have that meets affordable housing and make sure those numbers are reflective of what we already have. The next thing would be to make sure we are providing our proportionate share. As I read through it, the numbers being reported seemed legitimate. The five-year projection shows the deficit we currently have as well as projections into the future to show what we need to have.

Manager Warnke said the number of low-to-moderate income families that we have and the deficit both were surprising to me. Chairman Capener said I think it is worse than the numbers portray in real life. Some of the units have increased in price so much that the gap has widened between affordability and rent price. My gut says the numbers are actually worse than they show. We can go through that and tell you what they are missing. Commission Member Fowler said I wish there was a rating that showed how hard or easy it would be to implement the strategies and what the impact would be for each. A rating would help to better understand those. Chairman Capener said it could be easy to implement a strategy, but it might be hard to spend the money or make adjustments. Mr. Taylor said there is no restriction as to how broad or narrow you take the strategy. They are just looking for measured progress. You identify what the City plans to do and then report what happened. Chairman Capener said we need to pick what we want to do and start working on how to implement it and how it would really provide affordable housing. Commission Member Fowler said some might be easy to implement, but might not have an effect on affordability. It would be nice to have some way to measure or rate that. Manager Warnke said Mr. Taylor and I we went through a matrix process on how effective they would be for Tremonton. We tried to look at what would really move the needle. We would adopt these strategies, but some are just broad strategies. It really gets figured out when we write the ordinance and try to implement. Sometimes it sounds like a good idea, but when we apply it, it might not. I felt this way with the accessory dwelling units. Administrator Bench put a draft ahead of the State code change, a more stand-alone accessory dwelling unit, which was forwarded to me. Conceptually, I like the idea, but when you think about the lot sizes we have in Tremonton, especially in the core part of town, I am not really sure they could accommodate that. I was concerned about parking and impact on adjoining property. I started looking at our lot sizes and where this could really be applied in a way that would not impact the neighbors or neighborhood. We have sort of put that on hold for that reason. Sometimes you do not figure out the feasibility until you get to implementation. Mr. Taylor said we will not know how effective something can be until it is implemented, but that is why we went through the matrix to determine the best options. You will have general plan goals, how much of an impact do we see on providing affordable housing, how easy is it to implement from an administration standpoint, how cost effective is it to implement, do we have evidence of prior success, and finally does it create a positive economic impact. Those are the balances we are looking at. It is still general and broad at this stage. If as we get down the road and have barriers, there are no penalties. They are just looking to see if an effort has been made. If you do have barriers, were you able to rectify them and if not, then what are new ones you can try? This is an ever evolving and ever-changing list of goals for your community to making things happen. Nothing is set in stone.

Commission Member Dennis said is our strategy to build more low-income housing or to try to work with what we have? Manager Warnke said this five-year projection shows we would create more affordable housing going forward. They want more units. Chairman Capener said we have not built any affordable housing in the past 10 years. Mr. Taylor said it depends on what your definition of affordable housing is. What is being constructed now is out of reach of many people in that threshold so now we are looking at rental properties. So, by that definition that is where you start grabbing accessory dwelling units or a single room unit, something that is attainable. Past definitions of affordable housing were starter homes and townhomes, but those are starting to slip out of reach of this threshold group. If we are targeting that income, we need to determine what is affordable housing for that group and then that is what we need to provide. Chairman Capener said so what if we use our West Liberty Foods affordable housing money? We could use that as a catalyst to provide infrastructure to specific areas that have imminent projects that could provide affordable housing units as part of a large potential development. That option could provide the units because of the overall benefit of extending the utilities to a specific area. It creates value without having to come up with the cash to subsidize that. You could require 10% of the project to be affordable, which would provide a good mix. Then we would have small sections in bigger projects. Commission Member Fowler said I would rather have pockets of it than an overwhelmingly large area. Having it dispersed makes a better mix of citizens and various groups. Manager Warnke said absolutely we could. I think that is a great idea and something we are looking at. It works well under a scenario where we are extending infrastructure outside our current City boundaries and we do a pre-annexation agreement that defines what funds we are using and the requirement that goes along with it. If we do that, we need to make sure secondary water is available, too, so we can continue to provide culinary water. Sometimes the market dictates when someone is willing to invest, but we can do our best through agreements to get commitments. It could have a multiplier effect not only for affordable housing, but for other types of development, land uses, and transportation corridors. Chairman Capener said another idea to explore would be to provide some of the funds available to subsidize development costs in exchange for providing the 10% voluntarily on existing and fully approved developments that are going to be built in the new future. That would be faster than extending utilities to outside areas. Manager Warnke said it is complicated for the developer to facility deed restricted affordable housing. The housing has to remain affordable and that is not for every developer. We need to sit down and see where there are gaps in infrastructure and where they could be overcome. Larger tracts of land would create those mixed neighborhoods. There is a benefit when there is a mix of social economic classes.

Manager Warnke confirmed that they would work with Zion’s to get the next draft. They would then be invited to present those numbers to the Planning Commission. I will send out the matrix that Mr. Taylor discussed so you can see my comments and provide your own insight. Once we have a good draft from Zions we will continue to refine the strategies. I will figure out if we should have three or five of them and what we can actually implement and report on. You guys can provide any comments along the way.

5. Planning commission comments/reports: None.

6. Adjournment

Motion by Commission Member Fowler to adjourn the meeting. Motion seconded by consensus of the Board. The meeting adjourned at 6:28 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 13th day of December, 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.