OPENPUBLICA · PUBLIC MEETING RECORD
Record of Proceedings

Draper City Council Meeting and Work Session - February 17, 2026

Meeting PortalTuesday, February 17, 2026
BodyDraper, Utah
SessionMeeting Portal
DateTuesday, February 17, 2026
StatusFILED
Video Record
0:00 / 1:56:23

Transcript — Verbatim
1:23

So maybe we'll get us a year and have to go.

1:26

I don't think I've seen an agenda of this many text amendments.

1:32

And it's because we're trying to like implement all of these like legal changes that we've got to do.

1:38

We have our our we have no reason for a closed meeting tonight, so we'll go to um our report from Jordan Valley Water Water Cons Conservancy District.

1:50

Take it away.

1:53

Well, this is myself really quick.

1:55

I'm John Richardson or Upsonny Draper and Water Pro and Resident Draper for quite a while now, and thank you for taking some time and uh want to introduce Giselle Terry.

2:04

She's chief operating officer now.

2:07

Um reappointed and really I guess we want to talk about just briefly capital projects at Jordan Valley.

2:13

There's a lot of water and exciting things going on as well, and water budget policy and then I see if we can get a question answered, but Chiselle take it away.

2:22

Yeah.

2:24

Um so yeah, just a couple of things that um we kind of want to talk about in terms of construction projects that you may or may not be aware of.

2:31

So right now we're doing two pretty um big uh vault um projects on 114th South.

2:36

We're doing one at State Street and then um one at 110 east.

2:40

So the uh State Street one is basically just corrosion issues, so we're just doing redoing the piping and the valving in there, but it will it's currently um scheduled to start in March.

2:50

It will require a brief shutdown.

2:52

Um and our operations folks are currently coordinating with your operations folks to make sure that we can keep everybody in water.

2:58

The other one um is currently under design that will be a little bit more involved because it's relocating the vault from outside of the middle of the street um so that we can get to it.

3:06

It's it's one of those dangerous faults, it's hard for us to do any work in um just because then we have to shut down the street and all that sort of thing.

3:13

So we'll actually be relocating that vault.

3:15

And that will be a little bit more involved um in terms of the work that needs to be done there.

3:20

So that is still under design.

3:22

We're probably looking at still another um nine, ten months before that one um construction gets underway.

3:29

Um couple other things are happening.

3:31

We are uh doing a uh increasing the capacity of our Jordan Valley water turtle plant.

3:37

I don't know if any of you have been there.

3:38

It is our largest.

3:43

Yeah, if you're on uh Mountain View corridor, you can't help but see it there.

3:46

Um that plant is currently a hundred and eighty MGD plants, largest in the state, but we are um doing phase one of a 75 million yellow pay um expansion.

3:57

So the first phase we'll look at um expanding the 3540 MG.

4:02

And we're just doing that because of demand.

4:05

Um and that will um benefit all of our member agencies.

4:09

Uh that we're about six months into a four-year project.

4:14

Um to do that.

4:15

We're rebuilding filters, we're doing sedimentation bases and upgrading all the key there.

4:21

And that's basically so that we can treat what we call our ULS water, which is our uh the last portion of the Central Utah project.

4:30

Um where we're bringing strawberry water across um down Spencer Canyon and into the Salt Lake Valley.

4:36

So uh we've got to strawberry flavor, right?

4:40

Strawberry reservoir, good clarification.

4:43

We do.

4:44

And we've got about 16,000 acre feet of that water that we'll be looking to treat with this expansion.

4:50

So those are some of the big projects we're we have going on right now that that are um that will directly affect Draper um in the middle.

5:00

Another thing that we kind of wanted to talk about was a water budget policy.

5:05

And throughout the last, I would say year and a half, we've really been wrestling with, you know, everybody knows that we're in a drought, we've got a certain amount of water, there's a lot of growth still going on in the state, and we're really kind of wrestling with, you know, how do we manage that?

5:19

How do we how do we make sure that we have enough water you know for developments that are happening now, but that that doesn't use up what's left for developments that might be happening later.

5:31

So we went through an analysis of population, demand, um, developable land, which we considered anything that was uh less than a 30% slope in our service area, and based upon that, we've came up with what we are calling a water budget for the rest of our service area, which is 1.35 acre feet of water per acre of land.

5:53

So that's what we're kind of broadcasted out there for all future development if within our service area, and we put a policy in place that significant developments greater than 50 uh acres, we would have a policy that they would have to meet those requirements if they did feel like their development could meet that 1.35 acre feet of water per acre, they could come with additional water, or they could come with a speech in lieu of water and say and and meet that requirement.

6:23

So we had a policy in place, we've implemented that in a couple ways.

6:27

We're currently still negotiating with the point, but we've um under that premise, and then we also some of you might be aware of the Olympia development in Carmen, and we did a development agreement with that for them to meet those requirements.

6:40

We're now looking, our board is looking at the next phase, which would be looking at um how do we implement because you know there's a lot of development that's gonna go in that's not greater than 50 acres, and so you know you get infilling different things, but we've still got to meet collectively through that service um our service area that 1.35.

6:58

So we're currently working through that with our board.

7:01

We um are looking at kind of a very flexible three phase of kind of a decision tree.

7:07

If we feel like it's warranted, we can still do a direct development uh agreement with the developer, um, similar to what we've done with Harriman and what we're kind of working through at the point.

7:17

We can also what we've been looking at is working with the member agencies depending on the hyper reference.

7:22

We have some options where we can piggyback on the development agreement that the member agency has with the developer, and we allow the member agency to basically ensure that they'll meet that requirement and also collect any water or fee in lieu of on our behalf, um, and then at some point in time they can either transfer that water to us or we can put it in the calculation for their water budget.

7:46

The other option, and in that case, we would ask that the member agency withhold any occupancy you know permits until we can ensure that they're gonna meet that requirement.

7:57

The other option is that we can basically give the member agency and say, this is what based upon this developable land in your in your service area, you've got X amount of water.

8:08

We're gonna leave it up to you to how you implement that with development, but that's it.

8:13

So if for some reason, you know, one development that comes in early, like way overspends their water budget, then it's gonna be up to you to figure out how to implement that with later developments.

8:23

Can you help put this in perspective?

Discussion Breakdown — Share of Meeting
Procedural██████████████14%
Land Use Regulation██████████████14%
Water And Wastewater Management█████████████13%
Short Term Rentals█████████████13%
Public Safety██████████10%
Parks and Recreation█████████9%
Fiscal Sustainability████4%
Budget Equity Analysis████4%
Community Engagement████4%
Summary of Proceedings

Draper City Council Meeting and Work Session - February 17, 2026

The meeting began with a work session covering updates from Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District, short-term rental regulations, legislative updates, and a review of city committees' duties. This was followed by a formal city council meeting that included a consent agenda, multiple public hearings on zoning text amendments, a boundary adjustment, and a budget amendment resolution.

Consent Calendar

  • Approved the February 3, 2026 City Council meeting minutes.
  • Approved Resolution 26-10 reappointing Christine Green as an alternate member of the Draper Planning Commission.
  • All items passed unanimously (4-0).

Public Comments & Testimony

  • No public comments were made during either the general public comment period or any of the public hearings.

Discussion Items

  • Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District Report: John Richardson and Giselle Terry presented on capital projects including vault repairs on 114th South (State Street and 110 East), expansion of the Jordan Valley water treatment plant (75 MGD expansion, $75 million, 4-year project), and a new water budget policy limiting future development to 1.35 acre-feet of water per acre. They also reported severe drought conditions: statewide snowpack at record lows, reservoirs ~10% below last year, and expected spring runoff at 40-50% of normal. A drought monitoring committee will meet to decide on voluntary or mandatory conservation levels.
  • Short-Term Rentals (STR) Update: Staff (Jen) presented a draft ordinance. Key discussion points included where STRs should be allowed (single-family, townhomes, condos, detached ADUs; not internal ADUs; apartment complexes allowed to rent units short-term but tenants cannot sub-lease). Minimum stay was debated (2 vs 3 nights); council leaned toward 3 nights. Other provisions: 24/7 emergency contact, occupancy limits, parking standards, prohibition of parties, and annual permit renewal. The council directed staff to incorporate the agreed-upon items and bring the ordinance back for review.
  • Legislative Update (Mayor): The mayor reported on state legislative activity: property tax reform likely to reduce the city's fund balance cap from 35% to 25% and restrict use of reserves for capital projects (requiring bonds instead); a six-month gas tax reprieve (6 cents/gallon); the 'preferred land use regulation' bill (Ray Ward) that could erode city land-use authority; UTA restructuring into a seven-member commission with state-appointed members, which the mayor supported as a path to more state transit funding; and an infrastructure loan program for housing development. The mayor expressed concern about the influence of social media on tax policy and lauded Representative Calvin's work on infrastructure banks and the gas tax bill.
  • Commission & Committee Duties Review: Council discussed the overlap between the Tree Committee and the Parks, Trails & Recreation Committee. Members noted that the Tree Committee's role is broader than trees (includes landscaping, water-wise education) and that the Parks committee focuses almost entirely on trails and open space. They suggested updating the committee descriptions to reflect actual activities, adding education components, and ensuring projects require council approval. Staff was asked to bring back proposed revisions.
  • Budget Amendment Resolution 26-11: John Bike presented multiple amendments: transferring funds for in-house prosecution services; recognizing a fire prevention grant ($90,000 for a truck and chipper); increasing police overtime by $250,000; funding open space purchase ($2.85 million, partially reimbursed); several capital improvement projects (Pioneer Road storm drains, Fort Street improvements, LED street light conversion, stormwater improvements, sidewalk installation, traffic signal upgrades, 134 South connection, and City Hall parking lot expansion). Staff also requested adding $100,000 from transportation impact fees for a transportation feasibility study regarding The Point development. Council approved with the additional study.
  • Zoning Text Amendments (Ordinances 1701–1704): Four ordinances were presented together: state code reference updates (1701); variance and appeal officer title change (1702); public access amenity definition changes (1703); and residential parking requirements including an exception for owner-occupied affordable housing units and visitor parking clarifications (1704). All were adopted unanimously after a single public hearing.
  • Boundary Adjustment (Ordinance 1705): Adjusted the common boundary between Draper City and Highland City to swap a narrow strip of land owned by each city, reuniting parcels with their respective municipalities. Adopted unanimously.

Key Outcomes

  • Approved consent calendar (minutes and reappointment) unanimously.
  • Adopted Ordinances 1701, 1702, 1703, and 1704 (zoning text amendments) 4-0.
  • Adopted Ordinance 1705 (boundary adjustment) 4-0.
  • Approved Resolution 26-11 (budget amendment) with an added $100,000 for a transportation feasibility study for The Point, 4-0.
  • Directed staff to refine short-term rental regulations and bring back a draft ordinance.
  • Directed staff to propose revised duties for the Tree Committee and Parks, Trails & Recreation Committee.
  • Received updates on water district operations, drought conditions, and state legislative actions.

Meeting Transcript

So maybe we'll get us a year and have to go. I don't think I've seen an agenda of this many text amendments. And it's because we're trying to like implement all of these like legal changes that we've got to do. We have our our we have no reason for a closed meeting tonight, so we'll go to um our report from Jordan Valley Water Water Cons Conservancy District. Take it away. Well, this is myself really quick. I'm John Richardson or Upsonny Draper and Water Pro and Resident Draper for quite a while now, and thank you for taking some time and uh want to introduce Giselle Terry. She's chief operating officer now. Um reappointed and really I guess we want to talk about just briefly capital projects at Jordan Valley. There's a lot of water and exciting things going on as well, and water budget policy and then I see if we can get a question answered, but Chiselle take it away. Yeah. Um so yeah, just a couple of things that um we kind of want to talk about in terms of construction projects that you may or may not be aware of. So right now we're doing two pretty um big uh vault um projects on 114th South. We're doing one at State Street and then um one at 110 east. So the uh State Street one is basically just corrosion issues, so we're just doing redoing the piping and the valving in there, but it will it's currently um scheduled to start in March. It will require a brief shutdown. Um and our operations folks are currently coordinating with your operations folks to make sure that we can keep everybody in water. The other one um is currently under design that will be a little bit more involved because it's relocating the vault from outside of the middle of the street um so that we can get to it. It's it's one of those dangerous faults, it's hard for us to do any work in um just because then we have to shut down the street and all that sort of thing. So we'll actually be relocating that vault. And that will be a little bit more involved um in terms of the work that needs to be done there. So that is still under design. We're probably looking at still another um nine, ten months before that one um construction gets underway. Um couple other things are happening. We are uh doing a uh increasing the capacity of our Jordan Valley water turtle plant. I don't know if any of you have been there. It is our largest. Yeah, if you're on uh Mountain View corridor, you can't help but see it there. Um that plant is currently a hundred and eighty MGD plants, largest in the state, but we are um doing phase one of a 75 million yellow pay um expansion. So the first phase we'll look at um expanding the 3540 MG. And we're just doing that because of demand. Um and that will um benefit all of our member agencies. Uh that we're about six months into a four-year project. Um to do that. We're rebuilding filters, we're doing sedimentation bases and upgrading all the key there. And that's basically so that we can treat what we call our ULS water, which is our uh the last portion of the Central Utah project. Um where we're bringing strawberry water across um down Spencer Canyon and into the Salt Lake Valley. So uh we've got to strawberry flavor, right? Strawberry reservoir, good clarification. We do. And we've got about 16,000 acre feet of that water that we'll be looking to treat with this expansion. So those are some of the big projects we're we have going on right now that that are um that will directly affect Draper um in the middle. Another thing that we kind of wanted to talk about was a water budget policy. And throughout the last, I would say year and a half, we've really been wrestling with, you know, everybody knows that we're in a drought, we've got a certain amount of water, there's a lot of growth still going on in the state, and we're really kind of wrestling with, you know, how do we manage that? How do we how do we make sure that we have enough water you know for developments that are happening now, but that that doesn't use up what's left for developments that might be happening later. So we went through an analysis of population, demand, um, developable land, which we considered anything that was uh less than a 30% slope in our service area, and based upon that, we've came up with what we are calling a water budget for the rest of our service area, which is 1.35 acre feet of water per acre of land. So that's what we're kind of broadcasted out there for all future development if within our service area, and we put a policy in place that significant developments greater than 50 uh acres, we would have a policy that they would have to meet those requirements if they did feel like their development could meet that 1.35 acre feet of water per acre, they could come with additional water, or they could come with a speech in lieu of water and say and and meet that requirement. So we had a policy in place, we've implemented that in a couple ways. We're currently still negotiating with the point, but we've um under that premise, and then we also some of you might be aware of the Olympia development in Carmen, and we did a development agreement with that for them to meet those requirements. We're now looking, our board is looking at the next phase, which would be looking at um how do we implement because you know there's a lot of development that's gonna go in that's not greater than 50 acres, and so you know you get infilling different things, but we've still got to meet collectively through that service um our service area that 1.35.

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