All right, good evening.

Welcome to our Draper planning commission meeting.

Today's date is January 22nd, 2026.

Welcome to the new year.

We would like to thank the staff for getting everything ready tonight and the agenda will move forward as proposed and posted, correct?

We don't have any changes as proposed.

So all right, and thanks to the commissioners up here for volunteering their time.

And again, uh I would thank the attendance of our citizens and fellow neighbors, but we don't have any, so unless they're listening in, we'll welcome you remotely.

So let's go ahead and get started.

Uh tonight's agenda item.

We have an action item just simply for approving the planning commission meeting minutes for November 20th, way back when on 2025.

Will someone give us a motion to approve that?

Or is there anything that we need to change?

Go ahead.

I don't know that date.

November 20th.

I have a motion.

I move we approve the planning commission meeting minutes for November 20th, 2025.

Perfect.

Thank you, Mary.

And who will second that motion?

I'll second that.

Thanks, Kendra.

Okay, let's put it to a vote then.

Mary?

Yes.

Kendra?

Yes.

Susan?

Yes.

Lisa?

Yes.

And Gary.

Yes.

Perfect.

All right.

So the next one we have is a public hearing, and this is a city initiated Utah State Code reference update text amendment request.

So on the request of Draper City, a text amendment to portions of the Draper City Municipal Code, titles 9, 11, and 17 in order to update reference update references to Utah State Code known as application number 2026-002-TA and Todd Taylors our staff contact.

So go ahead, Todd.

Thank you.

As met as this is a proposed text amendments, these are in responses to changes in Utah State Code, specifically Senate Bill 1008, which was adopted during the first special session last year.

So I've included all the text here, but basically it's just renumbering sections.

So and then uh just as a note, uh if there were sections in the other three text amendments, those got updated in those amendments.

So uh it just sort of depended where the text uh fell between all four of these text amendments.

So that concludes my presentation.

Thank you.

Well done.

All right, this is a public hearing, so if there's no questions for staff, we'll go ahead and open it up to hot public debate.

So if anyone would like to attend our meeting and actually uh give us three minutes of their opinion, they're welcome to do that now.

We don't see anyone, so we'll go ahead and close the public hearing portion.

All right, commissioners.

On this one, what do you say?

Lad say looks good.

I'll make a motion if listen.

Perfect.

Let's do it, Susan.

Go ahead.

I move that we forward a positive recommendation to the city council for the city city initiated Utah State Code reference update.

Text amendment as requested by Draper City.

Application number 2026-0002 TA, based on the following findings and the criteria for approval as listed in the staff report, dated January 5, 2026.

And there are two findings of approval.

Great, thank you, Susan.

Who will second her motion?

I'll second it.

Thanks, Gary.

Let's put it to a vote.

Susan, how do you vote?

Yes.

Gary?

Yes.

Lisa?

Yes.

Mary?

Yes.

And finally, Kendra.

Yes.

All right.

Next public hearing.

It's also a city initiated variance and land use appeal update text amendment request.

It's on the request of Draper City again.

Text amendment to portions of Draper City Municipal Code, titles two, three, six, eight, and nine, and seventeen to address recent changes to Utah State Code related to variances and land use appeals.

It's known as application number 2026-0003-TA.

Todd Taylor again.

Go ahead.

So this uh text amendment is in response to House Bill 368, which prohibits the city from requiring a public hearing for a variance or land use appeal.

So basically we went through the code and looked at any place that it said a hearing and changed that to a meeting.

Also changed the title of the appeal and variance hearing officer to appeals and variance officer.

So that's why there's so many sections included in this text amendment.

So since we had to uh since these are public meetings now in our noticing section, we added a section about uh we we clarified here that this the noticing is for public hearings.

Uh we made it match the radius that we adopted for subdivisions, which is 300 foot radius uh for mailings, and then we remove some of the language that was previously required of an applicant when they noticed uh their own site uh which was removed from uh I believe state code of a few years back, and then we've added in a new section here for uh how to notice for public meetings, and that would go to the abutting uh properties, and then finally there is a section that Commissioner Nixon noticed that I missed that uh is highlighted here in yellow that will be fixed when it goes to the city council as uh shown here, and that's the reference to the Utah State Code.

Uh that concludes my presentation and I'm available if you have any questions.

I I'm just curious why would they have changed this from public hearings to just public meetings?

That seems really strange to me.

Is there a good reason?

There's a reason for it.

So with a variance, a variance has to meet five legal criteria.

Right.

Um, and those are questions of law, not questions of public concern.

And so if you call it a public hearing, do you have to create uh a public hearing where somebody gets the opportunity to stand up and make comments?

Uh if somebody stands up and makes comments, that has no bearing on whether the applicant can prove by the burden that they're required to prove that they can meet all five criteria that are required for a variance.

So it makes a lot of sense actually to not call that a public hearing and not give people their say in it because then people are going to show up, they're gonna talk about how awesome their neighbor is and how much they want their neighbor to have this variance, or how awful their neighbor is, and how they don't want their neighbor to have this variance, and that should have no bearing on whether they can meet those five five criteria, and then you'll have a bunch of angry villagers one way or the other makes sense.

Thanks.

Is that also for appeals because appeals are usually just off the record?

Is that uh I'm not certain about appeals.

Um I can I can answer, I can answer for certainty that the those variances are legal matters.

Appeals not always the same.

Um because if you'll recall, as the planning commission um decided a while back with an applicant, there was an applicant who had a multifamily development come in with um without sidewalks on both sides of the private streets, and the way that our code reads is that the planning commission may grant an a deviation under our code if the planning commission find makes these certain findings.

Um if the planning commission made the certain the findings, the planning commission was also welcome to say no to granting that deviation because the way that the code read, the code read may.

So in that case, um there could be a basis for overturning the planning commission's decision, which the appeals and variance hearing officer has the opportunity to do.

Effectively, the appeals and variance hearing officer stands in the place of the planning commission and can uphold the planning commission's decision, um, overturn the planning commission's decision or impose some new conditions.

So in that kind of a scenario, a public hearing might be useful.

So could they still have the possibility of a hearing?

Because I mean it says may not require one, so is that even a possibility?

Under state law, it would be permissible to have a hearing barring any of our ordinance changing.

So in our changing the ordinance, it makes more sense to like take that out of the planning commission or out of the appeals officers' hands and and leave it in the hands of the planning commission, the body making the decision.

And you know, worst case scenario if somebody doesn't like our code and doesn't get the result that they want with the planning commission, doesn't get the result that they want with the appeals officer, they have other avenues take from there.

Right.

Okay, thanks.

Great, thanks, Susan.

Okay, so this is still a public hearing, and we'll go ahead and open this up to public comment.

Is there anyone that would like to address this agenda item?

All right, we don't see anyone, so we'll go ahead and close the public hearing.

All right, commissioners I can go ahead and make a motion.

Go ahead, Kendra.

I move that we forward a positive recommendation to the city council for the city initiated variance and land use appeal update text amendment as requested by Draper City application number 2026-0003-TA based on the following findings and the criteria for approval listed in the staff report dated January 5th, 2026.

That would include the six findings for approval listed in the report.

Awesome.

Thanks, Kendra.

Who will second that?

I'll second.

Thanks, Susan.

Okay, let's put this one to a vote.

Kendra.

Yes.

Susan.

Yes.

Mary?

Yes.

Lisa?

Yes.

And Gary.

Yes.

All right.

Now we're on to item one D.

This is also a public hearing.

It's the city initiated public access amenity zoning text amendment request.

It's on the request of Draper City, a zoning text amendment to portions of Draper City Municipal Code, Title 9, to address recent changes to Utah State Code related to public access amenities.

Known as application number 2026-0004-TA.

And Todd Taylor again.

It's your turn.

Take it away.

Thank you.

So this text amendment is in response to House Bill 368, a different portion of that bill.

It prohibits the city from requiring private maintenance of public access amenities, except for park strips and sidewalks or those amenities that are agreed on upon through an agreement.

So we basically just uh looked through the code to find out where we uh had anything that required public open space or uh public trails uh for our planned residential developments and uh we these were uh requisitions was required, so we have just changed it to open space.

Um I think the biggest section where we had uh this was our uh transit station district, um the TSD over by Vista Station talked about public use spaces, so again those are just being changed to open space um removing the definition for public use space.

There's already a definition for open space in the code.

Oops, and that's the majority of really the the text amendments is uh just changing it from public use space to open space or public uh open space to open space.

Does does the open space mean that the public can use it?

Or is it just great like green space?

It really would depend upon how the developer sets it up.

Uh I mean it would be green space, but it could be a private open space, and when really this state law has really tied our hands and we can't require it to be public.

But they how would they identify it as private then?

Would they have a sign?

I mean, what would how would the public knows they could fence it off?

They could fence it off or restrict access to maybe only the residents of that complex.

Um I like it, it makes sense.

I mean, it's private land, private use, and then can't really force them to make it public.

I get it.

It's funny that's still in our code that way, but that concludes my presentation.

Do you have a okay perfect?

You're were you waiting for Susan?

No, I was just we were we were waiting.

He was he was looking right at you.

Okay, I'm just kidding.

Okay, all right.

No, thank you.

All right, good.

So uh no questions there for staff, so we'll go ahead and open this up to public comment.

Who would like to address this agenda item?

All right, we don't see anyone, so again we'll close the public hearing.

So, commissioners, would you like to vote on this?

Yeah, I'll make I'll go ahead and make a motion.

Okay, go ahead, Gary.

I was just we were we were waiting he was he was looking right at you okay I'm just kidding okay all right no thank you all right good so uh no questions there for staff so we'll go ahead and open this up to public comment who would like to address this agenda item all right we don't see anyone so again we'll close the public hearing so commissioners would you like to vote on this yeah I'll I'll go ahead and make a motion okay go ahead Gary I move that we forward a positive recommendation of the city council for the city initiated public access amenity zoning text amendment as requested by Draper City application number 2026-004 TA based on the following findings and the criteria for approval listed in the staff report dated January 5th 2026 in their findings for approval in the report great thanks Gary who'll second that I'll second all right thanks Mary so let's put this to a vote then Gary yes Mary yes Susan yes Kendra yes and Lisa yes all right thank you I think we have one more it's also a public hearing it's the city initiated residential parking right requirements zoning text amendment request it's on the request of Draper City a zoning text amendment to portions of Draper City municipal code title nine to address recent changes to Utah State code related to residential parking requirements known as application number 2026 yes 0005-TA Todd Taylor again thank you uh so this text amendment is in response to Senate Bill 181 it modified the provisions for the size and configuration of parking for one and two families single family homes and town homes uh specifically uh dimensions of parking spit uh stalls uh whether they're there enclosed or uncovered and then uh tandem parking and then it restricts the city from requiring a garage for attached or detached single family homes that are is owner occupied affordable housing and that's defined in the bill um so this one uh first we went through and we added the exemption uh for not requiring a garage when it's the owner occupied affordable housing as defined in uh the Utah State code um and then uh we started uh we've added some standards for visitor parking um that uh because of how the the tandem spaces were were working with our current code and that we require two spaces per unit and additional visitor parking spaces um we've added in that visitor parking spaces shall be located in an area of common ownership and be accessible for the intermittent short term use of all visitors to a property um so then we went and revised our tandem parking definition to uh say that it's a pair of parking spaces um that are located end to end where uh the spaces is not directly accessible to the street or one of the spaces without traveling over the other parking space um so then in the parking code we uh went into our uh section that we allowed tandem parking spaces and added in single family and two family dwellings and then added in town homes uh to the multifamily dwellings um but then indicated that if it's a private garage or driveway they those parking spaces uh shall not count towards visitor parking requirements um then we went to the accessory dwelling unit section and since single family homes can now count um tandem parking spaces we are proposing to allow the two parking spaces for the uh I8U deviation to be counted as a tandem pair but they cannot be counted with the uh the the two parking spaces for the home for the single family dwelling and then finally we went through anywhere uh in our code that talked about visitor parking spaces and added in the um requirements that it should they shall be located in an area of common ownership and be marked as visitor so that's in our MARF section um idleweiss um and our multifamily uh development standards uh that concludes my presentation and I'm available if you have any questions thanks Todd all right this is again a public hearing so we'll open it up one last chance seeing nothing we'll go ahead and close the public hearing so go ahead commissioners Mr Chair I would like to make a motion go ahead Mary I move that we forward a positive recommendation to the city council for the city initiated residential parking requirements zoning text amendment as requested by Draper City application number 2026-0005 dash TA based on the following findings and the criteria for approval listed in the staff report dated January 5th 2026 and the findings um that we would include are listed in our agenda thanks Mary who will second her motion I'll second that thanks Kendra okay let's put a vote to this one start with you Mary yes Kendra yes Susan yes Lisa yes and Gary yes perfect all right I think that concludes our agenda items uh other business uh coordination between city staff and planning commission as needed

And the findings that we would include are listed in our agenda.

Thanks, Mary.

Who will second her motion?

I'll second that.

Thanks, Kendra.

Okay, let's put a vote to this one.

Let's start with you.

Mary?

Yes.

Kendra?

Yes.

Susan?

Yes.

Lisa?

Yes.

And Gary.

Yes.

Perfect.

All right.

I think that concludes our agenda items.

Uh other business, uh coordination between city staff and planning commission as needed.

Is there any needed?

I have nothing, but Lori does have uh conflict of interest disclosure forms if you haven't filled yours out yet.

Perfect.

We'll stay after we conclude the meeting and make sure everybody gets those filled out and turned in.

Sound good?

Sounds great.

All right, perfect.

Well, well done, everyone.

Seeing no further uh business in front of us, what say you?

I move we adjourn.

Great, adjourned.

See you next time.

Three.