Oh yeah, that's 4,000.

Okay.

No, but seriously, turn around and look at the view.

Okay, I understand.

The camera view.

Getting old, my eyes are getting late.

Go ahead and turn it on.

I have sunglasses you could borrow.

I'm gonna do this the whole time.

I had to do that at a restaurant the other day.

I could have broken out my double ARB.

Right, right.

John just blind.

All right, everybody.

Let's get started here.

Sorry for the pause.

I had to get powered up here.

And uh I had to memorize my agenda since I can't read it right now.

So I'd like to welcome everybody to the 530 session of our uh council meeting.

It is September 9th, 2025.

As a matter of roll call, all our council members are here and present today.

And uh we always start out with a prayer and I ask Chris if you would do that for us today.

We are thankful, Father, for her residence, and we're thankful for the staff and and for those who serve on um the city's behalf.

We're grateful, Father, for um all the blessings that thou's bestowed upon us.

We ask thee this evening, Father, that thy spirit may be with us as we um listen to presentations as we have dialogue about those issues that come before us that we may uh be guided in um by thy will and pray that we may uh be one with another.

We pray, Father, for those who serve on our behalf, we pray for our first responders for our military and for their families.

We pray for those who put their lives at risk for our behalf, and we pray that thou may watch over them and bless them continuously.

We pray that thou may watch over our families as we are all away from them this evening that they may be blessed and watched over as well.

And this we pray in my son Jesus Christ.

Thank you, Chris.

All right.

Uh we have one presentation uh today.

This is uh one that I've I've been working with uh Hales Engineering for a while.

I was looking for a simplistic way to illustrate uh what's coming our way in regards to traffic, particularly on the south end of town.

Uh it's a little easier matrix to understand.

The north end of uh town gets pretty complicated.

Uh but the south end we can understand it.

So I ask um Josh to come in and he's put together a slide presentation.

I think is very helpful.

Uh yet uh I I wondered, I wondered what it would be like if we just finished the current projects that are in design or in process or in construction right now, uh, where that would leave us if we didn't do anything else because we know there's uh a bunch of other roads that will have to be built, and this helps explain why.

So Josh, I'm gonna turn it over to you.

Great.

Thank you, Mayor.

Council members, mayor, it's great to be with you here tonight.

Um I do have some slides.

If I plug in, will it show up there?

We'll give it a try here.

So uh as the mayor said, my name is Josh Gibbons.

I'm with Hales Engineering.

Uh local firm here in Lehigh.

I'm also a Lehigh resident, so double whammy, I guess.

But uh grateful to work with uh the city I love and and uh live in with my family.

So um so tonight I just have a few slides to go over.

Uh trying to keep it pretty simple.

Happy to answer questions as we go.

We're at the end.

Uh you'll recognize some of these things you'll see here, but uh wanted to talk about uh future transportation demands.

Uh specifically, like the mayor said.

Uh looking at um current current uh programmed projects that are being worked on uh currently in the city so just to set the stage a little bit.

So just to set the stage a little bit, um you're all familiar with MAG and their uh regional transportation plan.

Uh they look out to 2050 currently.

Uh over time that'll uh you know move forward as they uh as time goes on at uh 2055, 2060 eventually, but as of today, they're projecting out to 2050.

Um the numbers you see here are population population numbers uh in the county in in Utah County in different areas uh in that time.

You can see a lot of growth in the Eagle Mountain, Saratoka Springs, Lehigh area that they project, which which makes a lot of sense, growth in other areas as well.

Now, as we've talked with city staff and the mayor and others, uh something we've been asked to do is to look at not just stop at 2050, but look out to a uh build-out scenario.

So we looked at Lehigh in a build-out scenario, and then uh city staff is coordinated with other cities in northern Utah County uh to look at uh full build out for other cities.

So this is some of that information that we've uh we've we've gathered from other cities.

Um looking at their their build-out numbers of population, um looking at these four cities alone, Lehigh, Saratoga Springs, Eagle Mountain, American Fork.

Um the uh you'll see that today I show 2024, but we'll say that's existing.

We're at about a third of what full build-out population will be in these four cities.

2050, where Mag is projecting, it's about two-thirds of full build out.

Uh, and then you can see the numbers for full build out for for those uh those cities.

So can I interject something?

Of course, yeah.

Sorry, I'll try not to interrupt too much.

But we made the decision a long time ago to start looking at full build out.

Uh you know, we frequently get criticized because of our failures we haven't planned properly.

You don't really plan properly unless you look at you know what the future the total future condition is going to be.

And uh and and particularly Lehigh, it illustrates why we need to look at full build out because unless we can identify certain corridors for future uh transportation construction, we will never get them because everything is going to be developed.

And in order for us to buy up developed property, that gets enormously expensive and it pushes those projects uh years and years back from when they could have been built, if we can identify the corridors and plan around those.

So that's thank you.

Yeah, it's now that um we can preserve um so uh the this comes from MAGs traffic build out conditions.

You know, we we expect even more soads.

We have Main Street.

And uh by each each uh that's the capacity of how many cars can travel on that road per day at an acceptable level that is not a failure, uh failing level of service for those roads.

Um so roads like uh Main Street with one lane per direction would be 16,000 uh cars a day.

Uh specifically in the current uh sections where the west it's larger.

At the east it's uh parkway as currently programmed and funded one lane per direction.

They could travel there.

Uh assuming the flux lane project that's planned.

Uh capacity of about or so.

Um and uh what you'll see here is we've drawn these arrows in um going east-west, and you'll see the legend we pointed out that even with just those capacities and assuming they function at a good level of service, that would mean that we'd have an additional 101,000 cars per day trying to travel east-west through Lehigh uh to travel you know between communities.

Um so it trying to illustrate here the need for other facilities, other capacity east-west through through Lehigh.

Um I may come back to this as if there's questions.

I'm gonna go to one more diagram that shows the same thing, but hope maybe a little bit simpler.

Um so what what we show here is that at build out with these communities around Lehigh and Lehigh at build out land use-wise, we'd expect a demand east-west of 183,000 cars a day.

Um you'll see Main Street, Pioneer Crossing, Pony Express.

We've shown their capacities at 16,000, 50,000 for Pioneer Crossing, and the remaining demand to be served by facilities or uh by capacities.

Um the project's currently programmed, currently planned here with funding, I guess I'd say today that need to get through east-west through Lehigh.

Tell us what away does now.

Um freeway, sorry?

Yeah, what is it?

I 15?

This is an idea.

Yeah, so um I-15 at its peak is over 200,000 cars a day.

That's in Salt Lake City.

Um, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Standard freeway carries about 50.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

So with so you know there's been uh freeways proposed, freeway alignments proposed in Lehigh.

Uh these are the three that are currently on Mag's uh RTP.

Uh one along Pioneer Crossing to eventually replace the flex lanes.

Uh that would that would be that scenario.

Uh scenario two would be a freeway along Pony Express Parkway.

Scenario three would be uh one along the North Lake Shore.

Um, there's different pros and cons to each of these.

Um these are the results we found with these different scenarios and how much they they carry.

And so here here's you know, another answer of how much the freeway would carry, right?

Where if the freeways on Pioneer Crossing, we expect it would take it would carry about 115,000 cars a day.

You know, and and on Pony Express 116, the North Lakeshore 91,000 cars a day.

So you'll see that these freeways as modeled would take on that uh deficit that I that I mentioned a minute ago, uh which uh you know illustrates the need for these facilities or one of these facilities, I'll say.

Uh are there any questions about that?

Uh to point out scenario three is the only one that handles the 183,000 trips a day.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah, the the North Lakeshore freeway does give the best capacity overall for the system for the for the network, I'd say east-west.

Um the other ones, especially uh Pioneer, well, yeah, both scenario one and two, um, it doesn't add a new facility, it takes up a current facility and therefore doesn't add um as much capacity network-wide.

That's that's what I was gonna ask because so pioneer and pony express in those two scenarios.

Is that 115, 116 in addition to what the flex lanes and stuff would carry, or is that total?

Because the 91,000 in the scenario three is complete is all new traffic, right?

Like it's 91,000 new of that 101,000 it's taking 90, it can take 91,000 of it directly.

Yes, yeah, it it would it would take 91,000.

And uh you could say it's new trips.

Uh, whenever you add a freeway, you know, it's kind of like a funnel, but all cars will d gravitate to that.

Um in the scenario of you know, the current program traffic, if there is no freeway, uh we would expect this demand, this unmet demand to trickle through whatever street is fastest.

You know, you know, people will try Google to try to find out what street is fastest.

It could be a Lehigh local road.

Uh a lot of it could go to 2100 north and overload that more than it should be.

Um but like I said, a lot of it could trickle in through roads like uh 700 south, 300 north, um 900 north, 1500 north in Lehigh, um, whereas it's regional traffic that should be handled on a freeway type facility.

So the difference between I think a scenario one and three is about 10,000 trips speed on pony.

Why is the why is the difference?

What would be different in scenario one versus scenario three when it comes to pony since we're not you wouldn't be making that into a freeway?

Yeah, scenario three is uh it's lower on the freeway just because there's more facilities, right?

So uh because the North Lakeshore freeway is relatively close to Pony Express, Pony Express can handle some of that east-west traffic that's more local.

Pony Express can handle some of that east-west traffic that's more local.

Okay, whereas the freeway would take on more of the regional traffic.

Um but it's it divides up more evenly among four facilities rather than just three.

If you have three, it'll push more traffic to the three facilities.

So in scenario three, Pony could handle up to 30,000 trips, it just wouldn't.

And so that you'd be able to travel faster on those lanes because it's more efficient is also what you're showing there too.

Yes, correct.

So yeah, here where we show 18,000 of demand, or like if you went out there and counted in in a build-out scenario, you'd count 18,000 cars, but if it was built out to say five lanes, the capacity would be more, but the freeway would be faster, so people would take that over that.

So which shows that it would be um good level of service, you know, not congested on those facilities uh because they're distributed more evenly.

So these aren't capacity numbers in this chart.

This is anticipated traffic flow on each of these roadways based on the east-west materials.

And this is where we get the the 183,000 demand that I pointed out here saying this is what we the max we've seen that can get through the network through with as you know with uh high capacity.

Um yeah, and it and it shows that you know it kind of balances out this way.

So any other questions I can help answer tonight.

We do comment uh one of the things we talked about, which is interesting.

You see it actually now.

Uh they're shutting down Pony or uh Pioneer.

You shut down a road, and if we eliminate a road, how do you get through town?

I mean, I-15 shuts down with the world just stops.

Yeah.

Well, east-west, if we if we take one of these roads and turn it into a freeway, we just eliminated an arterial that could be very beneficial even during emergencies or even to carry traffic.

Uh so to us, it's always been four is better than uh three is better than two.

You always have some opportunities then.

Which is why I like this slide because it really shows the you know, making it efficient that you can see as the numbers drop, but knowing that in those kind of worst case scenarios that these roads can handle more.

So it's not just right.

Yeah, and in the scenario, pioneer crossing could stay as you know, flex lanes where we I showed a acceptable capacity of 50,000, and we're showing a demand of 47, so it'd be good flow.

We've even we've even talked about you know, maybe there's opportunity with more capacity on Pioneer for transit lanes or other things like that, you know.

So it opens up the possibilities, I think, to do more with it.

It would be really cool to see kind of max capacities too, to just to be able to show the efficiency of the different models.

Yeah.

And we have that too.

I could provide that at a later date to council.

Yeah.

And to to Lauren's point too, you know, um with the Pioneer Crossing construction starting and um and with school starting recently, and uh I live in the west part of Lehigh, Jordan Willows area, and it takes me about 10 minutes to get to work typically, and uh last few weeks has been about 20 minutes.

It's been surprising, you know, with the the change and goes to show that when one facility uh is constrained, it it hurts the the entire city network.

So go back to your other chart.

A lot of the reason I want to have this discussion, I'm sure some of you had a similar experience is last week I was driving back from my uh UTA meeting.

And uh I left I left there right around 3 34 right in that time frame period, and I I always turn on uh either Google Maps or Waze or you know, my Apple Maps to just see which you know how how busy the freeway is.

And this time I didn't until I got down to uh uh almost to Sandy and the traffic was stopped southbound I-15.

I mean it was basically stop, so I flip on the radio, I turn on Google Maps, and the radio said that there was an accident northbound or yeah, southbound I-15 on Main Street in Lehigh.

And it was backed up all the way to uh Sandy already, right?

So uh excuse me, it wasn't sandy, midfell, midfell.

Because it was it was all the way up uh in the area, the 22 uh 2021 yeah, interchange there.

So I jumped off.

As soon as I got through that interchange, I jumped off my you know, my uh uh Google Maps was telling me to take one route.

I'm like, I know a better way.

I'm gonna go through Draper because I know some of the roads.

I get in I get in Draper on the local roads, thinking I can get them up over the top of the mountain and cars are stopped on the local roads.

I mean, they were packed.

The one road I know you can go north and south there was just stop, and that's like around 1300 east.

So I call Mayor Draper and I said, How hey, if if I can't get through your city, can I spend the night at your house?

Like I don't know what I'm gonna do here.

So I said, you gotta coach me through your city.

So he's telling me all these little side roads you can go through to get through.

And he got me out of most of the traffic, but by the time I got to the road that heads up over the mountain, right?

It was backed up all the way to the freeway.

I had to wait my turn to get in line.

Um about three hours to get home that night.

And that was because of one accident on I-15.

Right.

But everybody was just they just filled out uh go back to the slide before, sorry.

This one?

Yeah, that one.

Yeah.

The vehicles and we're talking I-15 freeway, so you're probably talking you're probably talking two hundred thousand trips a day, you know, right?

Yeah.

They were filling every local road that was available parallel to I-15.

I mean, they were all full.

And it didn't take long to get there.

And so that's that's the reality, and so I got I was really concerned about that.

I was thinking about this, is if we don't start creating all these additional routes soon.

Uh we're gonna see that scenario, I think, quite frequently in our town.

And so that's that was my motivation here to bring this information to you tonight.

Josh, can you provide these to the council?

Yeah, of course.

It'll be nice.

Along with the number Heather.

Yeah, of course the capacity.

Yeah, I can do that.

Thank you.

Any other questions for tonight?

Just real quick.

Going back to your scenario, is that if is your scenario if we didn't add the North Shore?

Yeah, where we we just keep the two but make one of them into a freeway.

You're using losing one.

Yeah.

One artery or just cutting one artery off.

And not I this probably getting off on a tangent a little bit, but just curious what your thoughts are.

But as Mountain View Corridor gets built out, um Redwood seems like it's always under construction to get widened and all that kind of stuff.

But uh whether it's a new road going east-west like Pioneer or Pony Express or the Lake Shore, or it's a new north-south right that is extends further south.

How how do we how do people how do we get people to take those roads?

Because is is it just like you said, it's it's if they can see that it's faster, you get on Google Maps and it's all green, you're gonna you're getting migr, you know, go to it or yeah, I mean sometimes it takes time with new r new roads, and especially with Mountain View Corridor, that's gonna be a big facility that's gonna help a lot north-south uh from Lehigh to Salt Lake County.

Um it'll be a mixture, right?

And people will figure out the fastest way.

It's traffic's like water in many ways.

It just flows to the least path um path of least resistance.

Um so yeah, I mean Mountain View Corridor, you'll have people take Redwood for a while, and they'll have a good experience because lots of people will be on Mountain View, Redwood will be a lot better.

Um yeah, it just takes time.

I I personally use Google, even if I'm driving local just because of the congestion, just to see, okay, where is it?

I'll take the some back roads if I need to sometimes.

And I think other people are like that, probably.

Not everybody, but yeah.

So I know I've talked to a lot of mayors of the cities up north, and you know, I they the Mountain View Corridor has kind of created a concern for some of them too, because they have to deal with uh they have more east-west corridors than we do, right?

And they're they're widened and they're pretty efficient until they they have some kind of accident that causes congestion.

Their concern is is a lot of traffic taking Mountain View Corridor because a lot of those trips they have to end up going to work, which is along the I-15 corridor anyway.

So they'll take Mountain View Corridor because the traffic is free-flowing until they get to the turnoff and then they have to go east uh to the I-15 corridor where those jobs are at.

Yeah.

And so they're really nervous about how to handle that congestion as well.

So they're they've got kind of a similar problem though as we do.

It's not quite as intense, but it's there.

Yeah, and and the the closest close ex close closest example of that would be uh Puerto Rocco Boulevard and Bluffdale.

If you've driven it recently, it's already backing up.

And um that'll be a tough spot for a while.

So a couple questions.

That's all right.

On this slide, is this current conditions?

Uh how far out?

I mean, we don't have Pony Express yet, but yeah, the capacities here and the routes shown are those that are there today or going to be there soon based on current programming and funding.

Because Pony Express will go in soon.

Pioneer Crossing will be flex lanes soon.

Uh the 2100 2100 North Freeway is going in soon, so that is assumed in this as well.

The volume is a full build out though, correct?

Yes, that the volume is full build out, the capacity is short term.

Basically saying if we do nothing else besides what's already programmed, what's going to happen?

Okay.

Well, one thing I notice is Saratoga Springs and a Pony Express Parkway is not at failure, and they have they're planning the wider five lanes versus our two-lane road.

Right.

So you know, if we widen that road to match theirs, would that improve conditions?

Yes, on that road it would.

You know, there's a volume there of about 30,000.

If you get more capacity, you know, there it might that volume may go up.

So yeah, it would be that would help a little bit.

Um if you picture this diagram, if you widen Pony Express to one two lanes per direction, you could essentially double that capacity.

Um Main Street, if you widen Main Street through the core here, it would double the capacity, but I understand that's not good luck with that.

Exactly.

So it it eats into that demand a little little by little, right?

It takes a freeway to really take this demand.

That's does it take in consideration the potential bridge across the lake or road across the lake in the middle of the lake?

Um these the volumes you see here do assume the lake.

Yep, the lake bridge.

And I think it was modeled between Saratoga Springs and uh Probo Oram area.

Yeah.

How much is that supposed to take?

Um I think it's in the range of um 65 to 75,000 cars a day.

And so that that that's also part of this too, right?

A small, a small amount of this demand could go south to that lake bridge.

Okay.

But it's so far south, we don't expect that to help this as much, right?

It still would have failure in Lehigh.

Uh some of this would go on 2100 north, but then that would fail, and therefore the rest of it goes through Lehigh local roads.

So is there a timeline for that bridge to be in?

No, i i it's not.

It's just part of the sometime 2050.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Express is massive by 500.

Yeah.

So it will match eventually.

Do you know how far out that is?

Having a master plan is important though.

That might change the numbers then, right?

Well it's here or this go back to your other.

At an extra.

So you're taking out of the hundred and hundred and one trips or a thousand trips, you're taking an additional sixteen out of that.

Approximately.

So you've still got 85,000 trips a day you have to deal with.

And so that 101 remaining demand.

You're you're thinking that that I don't even know what to call it, the lake bridge, whatever.

Won't it's not going to change that number.

It won't.

No, it won't take all that on.

And I I forget the exact number it took on.

I I think of this amount, we we we saw maybe 30,000 would go up to 2100 north.

I think it was close to 15,000 would go on on the lake bridge.

So even then you're left with the whole lot of demand that's not being met or not being served by any facility.

Do you say that again?

You said 15,000.

Yeah, so with the 101, about 15,000 would route south to the lake bridge, because they that would be the fastest route at that point.

And then 30, about 30,000 would go up to 2100 north.

But these are all trips that want to go east-west between Saratoga, Eagle Mountain, and over to American Fork, Oram, Provo, those places.

So they're going very out of direction to go where they want to go.

And uh so that so people will find Lehigh roads to go on to beyond those major facilities to try to get through.

2100 north would already be a failure even without that additional 30,000.

Yes.

Yes.

Well, um, no, with the 30,000 it would be.

Yes.

Yes, sorry.

But this in the south area, that's not going to affect 2100 north, right?

That's only the other alternatives.

If no freeway is built in this area, then it will affect 2100 north, and that will be more overloaded than projected.

Because traffic will find its way up that way.

To go south.

Uh probably over to American Fork, Highland, uh, Cedar Hills, to go that way, you know.

Go back to your other slide because there's one thing.

You can see where 2100 North Main Street Pioneer Crossing, they all have a red bar on them, but it doesn't go all the way on on all the roads.

Those are where those those are the sections, the roads that fail and force people off onto the local roads.

So as soon as they're like on Main Street, as soon as you get to that point on red main street if you're if you're eastbound and you hit that congestion, you're popping off and you're going on a local road.

The the one thing not shown here too, you know, we mark that as red because that is the one lane per direction area.

But I mean, even today you see Main Street, and because it's a choke point there, the queue backs up into the five-lane section past 2300 west and um river.

I that's my neighborhood, I shouldn't should know that road.

But uh you know, it goes further west.

So basically what you're saying with the the hundred and one that we had.

So if we once we expand Pony to the five lanes, that takes it down to 85,000 or trying to go somewhere.

Yeah.

You said 15,000 would go south, 30,000 would go on 2100, which means we're just having multiple roads that are failing.

This is risk where the waters basically the traffic's gonna try and flow, and we still have 40,000 that are still gonna try and travel through this.

So instead of just saying you're failing in the south, you're failing in the north and all across the lake shore because everything's taking more.

Everything has to take part of that 101,000 trips that don't know where to go.

And they're just gonna and they may have to go up to 2100, even though it's they're traveling farther, but it may take less time than the amount of congestion in the south.

Yeah, that's how the system will work out.

People will try different routes each day and eventually they'll find a route they like.

Over time it kind of evens out where it's uh e even travel time from Saratoga to American Fork on all these routes, because it's evenly congested on all of them.

So the the 101,000 excess demand that's not being met.

That is the entire city.

You're taking the north end into count too, right?

Um this is the specific east-west flow.

There's other demand that's going to be a little bit more than a little bit.

Well, I'm just saying um you're just looking at 2100 north, but there's potential uh um projects coming online further north that might take away, take some of that 100%.

Yeah, so projects like uh the the freeway to freeway connector that's been talked about.

That's maybe more to serve north-south flow traffic, and it wouldn't really help with this east-west issue.

That's a separate um topic uh because it really you you'd go north on Mount View and you could then go north on I-15.

Um it wouldn't really help east-west, especially when that's so far out of direction.

Um 2100 north is close enough and east-west enough where that's a reasonable route for people to take to reroute.

Um but roads that far north are with the freeway, so you're saying the freeway to freeway connectors are not gonna help with our east-west traffic.

Not the east-west demand in South Lehigh.

This is specifically in South Lehigh.

So let me ask it again.

Do you know what I'm saying?

Yeah, let me let me answer one quick uh Port of Rockwell.

Yeah.

If you look at Port of Rockwell, it fails miserably, obviously.

It helps us some.

I think it was like some percent of our roads help out, but what it really helps is those roads north.

So that one really 20 Rockwell, what did it get up to?

Like 90,000 or something.

Yeah, 70 something thousand.

Yeah, just it's just total failure.

But I think it helps to explain that these are people who want to travel on the south part of Lehigh.

That is their destination to go from the south, and but because there's an excess of a hundred trips that need to go there, it's they can't.

It's gonna fail.

So it's gonna go in and fail on other roads because at least it will be less of a failure than if a hundred trips above what those roads are at capacity for.

So then I can see how it just like it's then just trickles down the line, like everything starts to fail, even though really what people want to do is just travel around Pony Cro, you know, Pony Express and Pioneer.

Yep, but they can't.

Yeah, the one 101 won't go right on Pioneer because it would take all day to get through, essentially, right?

So they will divert.

You see it all the time, even on Main Street when I drive to work.

Um if it backs up from the roundabout going west, you see cars divert within seconds.

If they're stopped for a few seconds, they'll turn left, go on a side street, go up to 300 north to go east essentially.

So people make these decisions every day to reroute as needed to get there faster.

So let me ask my question again.

Um 101 unmet demand.

That is for southbound traveling or west or eastbound.

It's not for 2100 north and north is a whole additional unmet demand or whatever.

Yes.

That's why at the beginning when I said we took out the north area numbers.

Yeah, he just has it on the map, so I didn't know.

It's hard to balance it out, and it really doesn't make any sense in regards to this study.

Yeah.

Yeah, and in 21 2100 north is a little bit different because there are people that can cross over and then go north, right?

So it's kind of serves both east-west and north-south.

Like we kept it on here because we saw that without a freeway, traffic would go up there and travel east-west and make that fail even more.

Gotcha.

This afternoon I was going from Orem over by the golf course, uh, Collins Cove or whatever out in Saratoga.

Um and I pulled it up and it wasn't even peak time, but it was a minute faster to go up to Lehigh Maine instead of taking pioneer out.

And it also gave me, you know how it gives you the extra options with five extra minutes.

I could have gone to 2100, if we were willing to take five extra minutes longer.

So you can see how those you know, the dominoes fall and sooner or later everyone all of them are down.

Yep, exactly.

I guess we can point out too the numbers.

I mean, we're showing a total demand of 183,000 trips a day.

Now that's a number that's increased.

Every time we seem to run a simulation, right?

That number gets higher.

But not a lot.

I mean, we've been looking at roughly around 175 or above 175,000 trips for years now, right?

Every time we analyze it.

So the data, the data seems extremely solid.

My biggest concern, I've literally lost a lot of night's sleep over this.

And and that is what if we can't build a bridge across Utah Light?

And that's a possibility.

And nobody's studying it to find out if we can't.

And if we can't.

Yeah.

I think these results are going to be part of the study though if the federal funding is approved, right?

I mean that will tell us the environmental impact study.

So that's ours.

Give us some information in regards to that.

We'll be looking at the lake bed and everything, and there'll be a the if it comes back in our study, you can't build in lake bed.

You can't build a bridge, you can't build a causeway, you can't build anything.

Then we've got a bigger headache to worry about.

I mean, I mean a much bigger headache.

Basically, if the lakeshore does work, it doesn't guarantee the across the lake will work.

But if lakeshore doesn't work, there's no way on earth there's probably the bridge across like they they better get looking at that real quick and see if the strata is any different.

It's probably not.

Yeah.

Because across the middle of the lake, you got three north-south earthquake uh faults that run through the lake.

You said three of them?

There's three.

Yeah.

Well, and they approximate them, but every map I think shows three.

I don't know how they tell that, but they're on the maps, and so you you know that's something they have to deal with.

But the north are you calling it north then shore lake, whatever.

Yeah.

That could, you know, fail the environmental impact study, but probably has proximity to wetlands or because it's close to the shore and the bridge across the lake might pass.

So it might give us some, but it's not.

Let me just clarify something.

It's probably not going to fail the wetlands because there's actually once you're in the lake, the body of the lake, there's no wetlands.

So the only place there would be wetlands is over on the east side, and we've already looked at that, and there doesn't seem to be a lot of apparent wetlands.

What would fail is the base, the substructure of the lake?

I've heard a lot of different things, so I don't know.

We'll see what the study says.

But can I ask you another question?

Um I we were just sharing anecdote anecdotal um experiences, but is it mostly compute uh commuter traffic?

It's all traffic going between vehicles per day, but is this where we see most of the failure?

I mean, this is what we're seeing now, right?

You can't get out certain times of the day.

Yeah, so it's really peak it's really peak hours that fail fails.

You know, there could be other times a day where it doesn't fail.

Once it gets this extreme, it could be many hours of the day that do fail.

Um but really the capacities we talk about are essentially um uh framed in uh to show peak hour conditions.

I'll I'll say that.

Uh um yeah.

Yeah.

Peak hours your commuter traffic typically.

Yeah, exactly.

Any other questions I can answer tonight.

Okay, thanks, Josh.

Yep, thank you.

Okay.

Are there any questions on the agenda tonight?

Administrative report.

Just we had a successful bond ratings trip.

Uh we just got back this afternoon, uh, met with two rating agencies, both of them indicated that our uh metrics and things like that that they look at look really strong.

So they anticipate that we'll have a similar strong rating in the bond uh bond rating.

So we expect that back in about two weeks.

So we'll let you know.

Thank you, Jason.

Some of that was a little bit more intense than usual, particularly our second interview.

But we hope for the best and we should, because they're very familiar with Lehigh and the economy here and everything.

So council, anybody like to make reports.

Uh we do have another unveiling, right?

Right.

Okay.

And that is at 7 p.m.

Yep.

Reaching for my phone to check my calendar.

Yes, I believe so.

I think I was looking at it today, and I believe it was 7 p.m.

Then we have the day of service coming up too.

They oh yes.

So we had the day of service coming up this weekend.

That's on Saturday, and uh uh encourage everybody to show up and uh do what they can do.

I've got a uh uh I think also with the uh the hives that I do do every year, but I'll be back and check on be checking on all the sites.

Uh they've had pretty good response, I think, on uh the just serve site.

And so uh pretty excited.

It seems to have been a better program every year.

Staff they do have to do a lot of work uh to make sure that everybody they have work for everybody to do and they're there and can manage that.

So there's been some really good citizens that have joined uh stepped up and will help manage some of that.

So that's awesome.

And we appreciate Adobe, all they do.

If you've if you want experience, if you haven't done it, just go out at Adobe and look at what's going on out there.

Uh they're just a lot of fun stuff going on back there.

People volunteering.

You've done that a couple times, right?

You and your own family have shown up there and did that.

So family park last year was the first time.

They have activities for all age groups, so there are some locations that are a little bit different this year, so you'll want to check the app.

Yeah.

Here you go.

Um also I was chatting with Laura Banger earlier today, and if anybody has some pictures from Heritage Day from inside in the general vicinity of the Stanley Wandless um exhibit, I'd like to have a few more from around there.

If you could send them to her, that'd be great.

I was kind of busy.

I wasn't taking many pictures.

But I do have a good one of me and Stanley.

All right.

That was kind of a special thing to have him there and all those other artists, you know.

I wish I could have spent more time kind of going through and looking at all the displays, but I didn't.

So I just had other things to do, but yeah, it was kind of neat.

It was a neat event.

It really was.

Okay.

Anything else?

Okay.

Uh we uh need to go into a closed door session.

Uh this is for the purchase or lease of uh real property.

Would someone like to make a motion on that?

Mr.

Mayor make a motion that we adjourn from our work session and go into a closed session for the discussion of the purchase of real property.

Okay, I have a motion to go into that session.

Uh do I have a second?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay.

We'll reconvene here at our regular session time at 7 p.m.

Come in and take a seat.

We do have some seats up front.

They're the expensive seats, so you know you want to be up front.

All right.

I'd like to welcome everybody to the uh Lehigh City Council meeting.

The date is September 9th, 2025.

This is our regular session of City Council tonight, as a matter of roll call, all our council members are present here tonight.

We do uh like to start this meeting off with a pledge of allegiance, and I asked Heather Newell if she would lead us in that state.

I was alleged to the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

All right, thank you very much, Heather.

We do have one thing that uh to begin this session, it's item 2.1.

This is what we do uh once a year.

We always look forward to Constitution Week because we have a proclamation we we read here.

Uh Katie Madsen is here as she always is to uh go over this, and I'm going to read through this proclamation for those who don't know.

This is Constitution Week here.

It's the week, well, it's the week of uh uh September 17th here, and so uh uh the 17th through the 23rd.

So I'm going to read this proclamation and I'm gonna sign it, and we'll come down and we'll get a picture taken and everything, and we do that every year.

So this gal has a lot of medals on, so just like this is awesome.

Come on up.

Tell us a little bit about it before I read it.

All right.

Well, I'm Katie Madsen, and I am a Lehigh resident, and I currently hold the title of Utah Honorary State Regent of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

The DAR has three objectives: historic preservation, education, and patriotism.

As such, we try to educate the public about the Constitution and encourage people to read it and be grateful for it.

Constitution Week is celebrated every year from September 17th through the 23rd.

And why this week, you ask?

Because after intense debate all summer long, 39 men from 12 states signed the new Constitution on September 17th, 1787 in Philadelphia.

They were inspired to fashion something better than the Articles of Confederation that were not working very well.

This year is the 70th year, Constitution Week has been in existence.

A past President General of the DAR had the members of the DAR in April of 1955 adopt a resolution for Constitution Week.

This resolution was discussed in the U.S.

Senate in June of 1955.

Both houses of Congress passed the resolution, and President Eisenhower issued a proclamation on August 19th, 1955 for Constitution Week to be observed the following month.

This first observation in 1955 was so successful that Senator William Noland of California introduced a Senate joint resolution to have the President designate September 17th through the 23rd annually as Constitution Week.

The resolution was adopted and signed into public law in 1956 by President Eisenhower.

Every year the DAR presents lesson plans and programs about the Constitution to our local schools and sets up library displays.

After Mayor Johnson signs the proclamation, I will add it to the display next week.

All right.

And to the patriotic celebrations, which will commemorate it.

And whereas public law 915 guarantees the issuing of a proclamation each year by the President of the United States of America designating September 17th through the 23rd is Constitution Week.

Now therefore, I, Mark Johnson, by virtue of the authority vested in me as mayor of the city of Lehigh, Utah, do hereby proclaim the week of September 17th through the 23rd as Constitution Week, and ask our citizens to reaffirm the ideals of the framers of the Constitution had in 1787 by villigently protecting the freedoms guaranteed to us through the this guardian of our liberties.

In witness thereof, I have hereunto set my hand and cause the seal of the city to be fixed this ninth day of September of the year of our Lord 2025.

Signed.

And we have it.

And we'll get it sealed.

So very much.

Okay.

Item number three is uh time we allow in every one of our council meetings uh for citizen input.

We allow 20 minutes for this.

Uh this is an opportunity for some anybody to come up to the microphone, give us your name, and say something you see in the city that needs to be addressed.

Something that we may not be aware of but need to be aware of uh so you get addressed to council here, myself and the staff, uh some of those things we can make note of and we'll make note of and see if we can address those in the future.

So is there anybody here who would like to participate in public comment tonight?

Come on up to the microphone.

And like I say, you do have to give us your name because it will go on your permanent record, and that of the cities, of course.

Um my name is Rachel Anderson.

Um, and I wanted to ask about infrastructure lagging behind our growth.

So there's been a lot of road work recently, but since we have so many people coming in, the traffic has been really bad.

Like, what are we doing to lessen that gap?

You want me is that a question?

Kind of, yes.

Usually we don't respond to these, but uh but I will.

And we actually has a had a presentation in pre-council meeting about the the growth that is coming, and it's something we're very concerned about and we're working towards.

Problem we have here in the city is we do not receive money uh to take care to build new roads until after the growth occurs, and that's through uh mechanism called impact fees.

So unless we receive some kind of money from the state of Utah or the federal government, it's hard for us to build roads ahead of time and uh before those homes are actually built.

So don't know if that makes sense.

No, that makes sense.

Thank you.

But that yeah, we we would love to fund roads.

We've been working on it any way we can.

This year we actually uh went back to the federal government and we've acquired uh well we got two and a half million dollars uh for a federal transportation study.

Uh and if the bill passes from in the House and the Senate this year uh for the federal transportation bill, we will receive that money to start that study, and that's really important for our city.

Okay, all right, thank you.

Thank you.

Next.

That was a great question.

So just go on up.

Uh my name is Lily Leighton.

I was just gonna say that at crosswalks, I've noticed that there's certain crosswalks that have flashers and some that have the flaggers.

And I think that the uh flashers are more effective in allowing people to see the pedestrians attempting to cross the road.

So I was just gonna say I think it would be more effective to put flashers in instead of having flaggers at crosswalks.

You mean the like the crossing guards that you're referring to?

Okay, we can note that.

What happened to our traffic engineer?

Where'd he go?

You better be listening.

I think one of the kids took a seat.

Okay.

Alrighty.

Appreciate your comment.

Thank you.

Other comments.

Come on up.

Hi.

Uh my name's Emiliano Botaro.

Um I just wanted to bring up how I've noticed that a lot of main traffic kind of spills into like residential areas or roads.

And I was just thought it'd be good to bring it up to you guys.

Maybe so in future projects you guys can kind of redirect traffic and just like traffic congestion away from residential areas so it's safer for not just drivers but pedestrians.

That was exactly what our study in pre-council was about today.

So your point is well taken.

We're concerned about that.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Other comments.

That extra credit.

Does some of you mean extra credit?

My name is Isabella Black, and similar to what Emmy said and what the first girl said, I just want to talk about traffic and road work, uh specifically on the street north uh 2300, uh the street in front of Willow Creek, because that's a street right by my house, and I've noticed that there's just been road work on it for like over a year, and I was just wondering you don't have to answer, but it's just a point.

But I was just wondering why, like it's like what has been taking so long, or right now specifically there's just cones blocking up lanes, but there's like no road work happening, so I'm just wondering why.

Mr.

Mayor, I would join with her on that question as well.

I'm not sure why that's still going on.

Well, I'm looking at Lauren.

I know the answer to that, but I'm gonna let Lauren respond to that.

I'll let Brad respond.

Where is Brad?

He's in the way that's always in.

Okay.

Brad, if you want to sit down, we have our engineer who's actually been working on that project, and he can come up and spend no more than 30 seconds giving the explanation.

Yeah, mayor and council, that's a great question.

And it's a question that many people have.

Uh as you know, we're wrapping up the construction of 2300 West.

Um, you know, it's it can be frustrating because it's been paved for nearly a month now and it's been striped.

But we're working on a lot of shoulder work on that roadway.

And so um what we'd be determined with the contractor as well, he's working on those sides.

Yes, he may not be working there every day and and parts of every day, but we we feel like it's much safer to keep those outside lanes closed and let them and work in those areas than close them for a half day, open them for another half a day, you know, close them for two days, open them for three days.

So it's just that's part of the reason why we leave them closed is because it it lets them our contractor work faster and be in those areas, and yet it's not creating safety problems where people are not understanding was it closed now?

Is it it you know it was open yesterday, it's now closed.

So it's that that's probably the simple answer.

So we will have everything north Main Street open, right?

It is now right?

Yeah, it's currently open now.

It's just not open to the full five-lane section.

Okay, how long before that happens?

Um as soon as the contractor is complete with the work we're expecting by the end of the month.

But that's you know, so we're just encouraging everyone to just be patient.

Uh you know, we want to make sure that we're we have safety in mind of both our our contractors as well as the people that are on the roadway.

So we start with another project south of there.

Yeah, we're starting on the design of that other project south um in the next coming months.

So construction on that one will be not till 2027.

So thank you.

Does that answer your question?

You have to come out of the microphone again.

Um I just uh what's the what's the purpose of the project?

Uh remember the first question about congestion?

Yeah.

It's to help resolve congestion.

Okay.

Is it gonna like are you guys expanding the road?

Yes.

Okay.

Adding lights.

Okay.

Yeah.

Cool.

That's exactly people talk about how there's not uh I mean we were addressing planning, right?

Well, we've had a master transportation plan in place since what, 1980 that showed this as uh a bigger road that would handle more traffic.

So it's been anticipated for a while and now the park's finally going in.

Sounds good.

Welcome.

Okay.

Other comments.

Mike Dixon.

Um Lee High resident.

So it seems like traffic congestion is the number one complaint so far, the predominant.

Um outside of that, what would you consider the second most biggest concern that you'd like to solve?

Well, if if I could solve all the congestion in town, I probably wouldn't it'd take me a while to come up with another complaint.

A lot of people don't like the growth as well, but we're a growing community.

We're actually we're a growing growing society.

Everybody's experienced growth through the entire state, particularly on along the Wasatch Front and in uh Washington County.

So there's we're all part of the growth.

So there's not much we can do about that, but just plan around it as best we can.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Corgan Reeves.

Um I have a question about the road 1200 west.

It's right next to Fox Hollow Elementary.

Uh it's a freeway exit, and they're building more buildings next to it that are probably going to attract more traffic.

Uh a ton of kids from the school have to cross by that road every day, and my brother got hit there last year by a car.

Is there anything you guys can do to help make that road safer?

I don't.

Lauren.

We've got we got the traffic controls in there now operating, right?

So 2300 west.

We're talking about 12.

You said 1200 miles.

Uh by 3200 north.

Oh, we have more.

So is it where 2100 becomes 12 on that?

We can look at that.

Uh we can look at the studies.

We're gonna have our traffic engineer look into that a little bit more to find out that the we do have we do have pedestrian controls in there that should be operating all the time.

All right, thanks.

Okay.

Hi, my name is Claire Jensen, and uh I just want to talk about the road work that's been done in North Dry Creek Way.

And I was kind of wondering what is kind of the hold up, because I know that they're making a development across the like street, I guess.

And it was supposed to be done about a year ago, but construction just keeps getting pushed farther and farther.

I'm just wondering what are the holdups for that, and is it with like trying to get some of the sewage pipes done, or what is the holdup for that construction?

Is this one up by Smith's days?

This is like family park.

Yeah, by Lehigh Family Park.

Funny you should ask.

Oh, 1600 or 600.

I mean 600 east.

Yeah.

Uh it wasn't gonna be done a year ago.

It was it was a long time closure.

There's been it's been done in uh in pieces, if you will.

I hate I don't know think of a better way to do that.

Uh there was a number of things that had to happen.

They had to put in a new gas line, went from a 16-inch high pressure gas line to a 24.

Uh so that has taken them a long time.

That had to be in place.

Plus, we have a new well that's delivering water, and there's a new water pipe that has to go in there.

Uh Lauren, what's that the water pipe isn't quite done yet, is it?

Or is it No, they've they've still got a they've done the south side, they need to do the north side.

Just large facilities.

It takes time.

The gas line did take a lot of time.

Then we had to redo the structure in the bottom, which we finished what early this year.

But all those facilities just take a while to build on far, unfortunately.

And they said that it was gonna be done by like this October, or is that still on track, or is it going to be longer?

A little bit scary.

I drove it yesterday.

Yeah, I live at the bottom of it.

We're still aiming for that.

Okay.

If if the weather holds, yes, we will pave it and have it done, but we just never know how the fall will be.

But we're shooting for it.

Perfect.

Thank you.

What it's worth, I want that road done too.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You got a high five out of that.

It's not to take pictures of the case.

Okay.

I'll take it.

I'll take another one or two comments if you have them, but then we need to get on with a regular meeting.

Any other comments?

You guys are gonna wish by the end of the term that's got something.

All right.

Thank you for your comment.

Who's from uh which which high school?

Skyridge.

I thought I was hoping you were gonna say it was Sky Ridge on one side, Lehigh on the other, and I was hoping it was some kind of competition.

Not that you not that the two schools are competitive at all.

So thank you for coming, though.

Can we ask which teachers?

Oh, by the way, you can't leave till the meeting's over.

Which teachers are your class.

Pick it?

Okay.

Isn't Pickett the one we went and spoke to?

Yeah, pick is the one that did the name this the Falcon Way.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right, let's get this.

Let's get a handle on this.

Let's get going to other meeting here.

Just kidding about leaving.

It's not like church.

You don't have to stay to the end, but you may want to because you never know what happens when we get there.

Uh item number four is the consent agenda.

This is item 4.1.

And uh council, do you have any questions on the consent agenda tonight?

So I this is Carter Johnson.

Um I have a question regarding air quality.

I was wondering what specific actions are taking place to solve poor air quality to help protect the uh just community health in general.

Okay.

This will be the last one because I already closed the meeting.

No, that's okay that part.

So we actually have an in uh an environmental sustainability committee.

And one of the uh committee members, the board members on that committee is actually in charge of air quality.

And they and the whole committee does a lot of work in regards to that.

They they uh work on issues of uh uh recycling and water uh better water systems and uh water conservation uh they work on a lot of issues in regards to the environment.

That's why they're called the environmental sustainability committee.

But air is one thing they address, and we do participate through them.

We actually participate in all the CLARE, the clean air uh organizations that are in the state.

In fact, Lehigh City, because we have that group, we've we've been identified as one of the more uh aggressive communities in the entire state for trying to address environmental issues.

So some it's a little too bit a lot of people don't know.

So we're working on it.

Sweet.

Okay.

All right, council.

Uh uh consent agenda.

Any questions?

Okay.

I'll take a motion.

Mr.

Mayor, make a motion that we approve the consent agenda as presented.

I have a motion to approve.

Do I have a second?

I'll second.

And a second.

Uh any questions on that?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay, the consent agenda passes.

Item five is consideration of resolution 2025-65 approving uh First Amendment uh network operation agreement with UNA Basin Electronic Telecommunications doing business as strata networks.

Who is Shay?

Of course, you're the one presenting.

I should have looked up first before I started to ask.

Okay.

Um just to clarify, nothing is changing in practice with what we're already doing.

This amendment really just brings that practice into alignment with the agreement.

Okay.

I uh with all these kids here.

How many of you are using Lehigh Fiber to game on right now?

I just wondering.

If you are for homework, yeah.

Okay.

If you're not, you should be.

And you can when you find out how fast it is, you can thank Shay because it's her fault.

So, you have any questions for Shay on this.

Okay.

I'll take a motion.

Okay.

I have a motion to approve by Paul.

Do I have a second?

A second.

And a second by Chris.

Any uh questions on the motion is given.

Hearing none, we'll start with Rocal.

I'll start with Michelle.

Yes.

Chris?

Yes.

Heather?

Yes.

Paul.

Yes.

And Paige.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Item number six is consideration of ordinance 57 2025.

This adopting Title VI, Chapter 5, Section 8, Establishing Bridge Safety in Lehigh City.

I don't know who is presenting this.

Mayor and Council, thanks for uh considering this.

And you've got all the kids here to listen.

I passed that word.

Not that any of these kids would be jumping off a bridge in the Jordan River, right?

I'm happy to answer any questions.

I I guess for the people that are here, I'll just give a little background and then I'm happy to answer any questions that you have.

Our concern first and foremost is for the safety of the people on the bridge and the people using the the trail, the Jordan Trail system.

This particular bridge is on the north end of the city.

It's a pedestrian bridge.

It's probably three or four feet wide at it at the most.

And people were uh using this bridge to jump into the water.

It's it's not designed for that, and so people would either have to climb over the rail and jump in, or else uh more often they would come with a platform, a s uh uh self-made platform, and then they would jump from there.

And it was really obstructing other people's use of the bridge, and so uh anyway, we're we're asking that you consider this ordinance that will prohibit um jumping from the bridge and also obstructing other people's safe use of the bridge.

Yeah.

Counsel, you've had an opportunity to look at this.

Are there any questions on it?

I I do.

Um I understand the purpose, and I understand that people have been injured and because of some of these issues.

Um I'm just wondering though, we're making this ordinance for one particular bridge, and there might be other bridges um that are wider that we might want to allow fishing on, particularly.

Um if we pass the ordinance as it is now.

Um we would just need a sign saying fishing is per permitted here.

It's well this so if you look on the ordinance, it says unless unless otherwise designated.

Right.

And so I would propose that the ones where you cannot jump, we would post those, no jumping, and no, you know, we would we would do that, and then if perhaps if they're not posted, then they are allowed.

It's allowed.

Yeah, I that's one way to do it.

I think you could post it either way.

You just designate the the ones that are uh prohibited and the ones that are not.

Yeah, that's not how this reads.

Right now it prohibits it unless you post a sign that allows it.

Okay.

Yeah, either way.

I'd rather do that.

Yeah.

I I would think post it, and then if it's not posted, it's exempted from this is the way I would clean up.

Okay.

Okay.

What do you think there's going to be more of allowing or not allowing?

I'd rather have you put up fewer signs.

Yeah, I I don't know.

Um I know there's there's two bridges I can think of that would meet the criteria being very narrow and hard to um allow.

But I don't know.

I'm just I'm not envisioning where in town we'd have a sign that says jump here.

You know, yeah, I don't think I think you I the way I imagined it was that it would just not it's similar to no trespassing, right?

You put a no trespassing sign somewhere where you cannot trespass, and if it's not posted, you can assume that you're okay to be in a public place, but I might be reading it backwards.

Yeah, I I don't know if that we do have ridges where we would want people to jump, but fishing might be a different story.

So I'm just wondering in section B if we just change it unless otherwise designated.

If we could just change that wording to I get I get what you're trying to do.

You want to be able to cite people who are causing problems and you know creating problems.

Is that attorney now?

What would we want to take the post that it's allowed unless posted?

I don't know.

Um, like you said, right now it says it's unlawful to stand fish linker loiter or remain on any any bridge over the water unless otherwise designated.

Um so change that to if designated that it's prohibited.

Right.

One of the problems is we don't really control the signage because these are well, at least the particular bridge that gave rise to this ordinance is is a county bridge.

Right.

I mean it's it's within Lehigh City, so they don't really have an enforcement mechanism, but they they would do the signage of you know whichever way you want to we'd have to ask them to to create signage that then complies and puts people on notice of the ordinance.

We are going to have an additional bridge that's going to be constructed by you dot.

I do not know if that's going to be turned over to the city or if that will remain under the maintenance of U dot.

I don't even know if we've had that conversation with them.

Is Brad's still here or is he gone?

He's left, right?

Do you know Lauren?

The one the one right there north of north of the 2100.

Because it's a UDOT's gonna build that, and that's a pedestrian bridge.

I don't I don't have a clue how wide it's going to be.

I would assume it's gonna be turned over the city.

That's another one that's going to make a name.

Yeah.

Sure.

Oh.

Well, I was just gonna suggest I I do like where your suggestion is going, and I think it's less signs and less hassle.

Um I just I just wonder if it says um at the very beginning, if posted or something that you listed it at the beginning, if if designated as unlawful to blah blah blah, blah, blah, then that way it's if you're stating if it if there's something there that says you can't do it, then you can't do it.

But if there's not, then one of the problems is we had the county post signs.

I'm sure none of you did this.

Other people tore them down.

And so if your ordinance just says it's only unlawful if there's signs, but then those that want to jump or tearing the signs down, then you don't really have an enforcement mechanism.

Particularly if the sign says blah blah blah blah blah.

Yeah.

Well, but but if you put if you have to put signs up to say it is lawful, like you can fish, is the assumption you're not going to pull those signs down because it says you can.

I I would think fisherman didn't want to pull those signs.

I would say that an officer would use their discretion as to whether the fisherman was impeding someone else's use of the bridge, if that makes sense.

Now these particular bridges are narrow and it would be hard to say that it's that it's not, but an officer could determine whether somebody's use of the bridge, uh whether they're pausing on the bridge for a photo or fishing.

The officer could determine whether that is impeding somebody else's use of the bridge, and and they would use their discretion that way.

Okay.

I have another option then.

Um just pulled some code from Iowa City, see if this works for you.

But um what if we made it unlawful for any person to congregate, stand low for loiter upon any bridge over water as to so as to obstruct the street.

Um sorry, they had street sidewalks, but struct the bridge.

Um crossing or hinder or prevent persons passing or attempting or desiring to pass their on.

A violation under this subsection could be proven regardless of whether a person or vehicle vehicle is actually hindered or prevented from passing.

Would that work?

I mean, the the main goal, I would keep the don't jump from the bridge section.

So this would probably be section B.

But would that serve the purpose?

Is it like the main concern is obstructing?

Yeah, it's it it seems to I'll let Ryan maybe then.

Okay.

Well, that's what I was wondering is what if we actually wrote this to address the actual problem, which is obstruction of passage across the bridge, right?

I don't know uh that we're that concerned if they're jumping off or somebody's fishing or not.

The problem is is they're obstructing others to pass and making it difficult.

Sure.

That makes some of them frankly feel uncomfortable because they're kind of outnumbered on the bridge.

There's been a lot of the big thing for me is that officers are able to enforce, not enforce based on their own judgment, not based on a sign.

That's I want to make sure that that isn't hindering any kind of an enforcement.

Because it I mean, I I think if you're addressing it that way, it solves the problem.

Because it could be they're they're obstructing through fishing, so I don't want to be careful about reeling anything out when we don't know what the officer may need to be able to enforce it with.

Sure.

At the end of the day, it's the officer's opinion, right, as to whether or not they're obstructing.

It's it's an ordinance and it's left at the officer's discretion on how to enforce the ordinance.

These these are all possibilities.

Yeah, I mean, we can bring it back to study session if it needs more discussion or do whatever you want us to do.

We'll draft it, however, a majority.

The bigger bigger issues the obstruction, not the jumping.

Is that true?

It depends on who you ask.

Because they're not they're not designed to climb over and jump off of.

And and thankfully, we have not had a lot of injuries, but we have had injuries in the past.

So it it depends on who you ask.

The the river does fluctuate.

Um I I don't know.

That's the problem is we really don't know how deep that water gets.

And after they they turn the pumps off in mid-October.

Not that anybody should probably be jumping after them, but if they do, that water is only inches deep.

The the complaint that we're dealing with uh to answer your question is somebody that feels like their use of the bridge is is hampered by the jumpers.

So I guess that's what has brought it up.

But I wouldn't discount the safety factor either.

So I do think we have to consider liability issues if we fall into the attractive hazard type situation.

It's not our bridge.

Yeah, it's not, but we will have one.

That's what concerns me.

And Thanksgiving Point also has one, but they can effectively patrol that because it's private property.

Yeah.

In fact, I think they do.

I think it's pretty important we get this right.

If you guys don't mind putting a little more thought in this and we just table this, is that you okay with that, G?

That's fine with me.

I know you just hate to keep coming back here.

I'd rather just sit down.

So the is somebody like to make a motion on this.

Mayor make a motion that we uh table resolution 2025 or excuse me, ordinance 57 2025 as presented.

And we have a motion to table this.

Do I have a second?

Second.

And a second motion is made by Paul.

Second by Heather, this is an ordinance.

So we do do roll call again.

Uh Chris.

Yes.

Heather?

Yes.

Paul?

Yes.

Paige?

Yes.

And Michelle.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

It'll put you to work some more.

Sorry.

All right.

Okay.

Item seven is consideration resolution 2025 66.

Approving a real estate exchange agreement with S P.

Lewis properties for property located Jason Miller Roads Park.

Uh Tony's coming up to join you here.

So, better about this than I do.

Yeah, Tony, I knew you this was on your mind, so come on up.

Serious.

Go I'm with you.

I'll stand right here.

I don't know why I need to come up, but any questions about this?

Uh we've talked about this at great length.

So really this is just making it so that we can make our sports fields down there at Miller Roads wider.

Uh better access for parking and a lot of those things.

So three-year process, yeah.

We're good.

When you say we've talked about it at great length.

I know you two have probably talked about it a great length.

I we've had conversations, I think with each every one of you, I would dare say pretty close.

We've looked at it in the past.

Let's see how that council.

Do you have any questions on this item?

You guys do what you gotta do.

Right.

I'll I'll be straight.

Please don't table this one.

Okay.

Uh I know a lot of work has gone into this, so Tony, I appreciate your efforts here and Steve, you too.

So uh council.

I this has been something we've been working for for a long time.

So uh the exhibit we have in front of you, or you all should have it in front of you, should make it pretty clear what we're doing and why.

Are there any questions for either one of these gentlemen?

Hearing none, I'll take a motion.

Mr.

Mayor, I move that we approve resolution 2025 66.

Approving a real estate exchange agreement with SP Lewis properties for the property located adjacent to Mailer Roads Park.

Okay, I have a motion to approve by Heather.

Do I have a second?

A second?

And a second by Chris.

Any any questions on that motion?

I'm gonna start the voting with Heather.

Yes.

Paul.

Yes.

Paige?

Yes.

Chris.

Yes.

And Michelle.

Yes.

Yeah.

All right.

Item eight is consideration of ordinance uh number 49, 2025.

This approving a development code amendment to table 05040-A.

This is uh residential bulk and intensity reducing the setback for remodels and additions to the RA1 and R115 zones.

Okay, yeah.

I can represent this one.

Yep, in the next couple.

Um so this came forward uh as a request from the city council to to revisit.

We we changed this table.

Oh, it's probably been three or four months ago for for the R18 zone for some of these uh it it allows a reduction to your building setbacks if you're adding on if the house has been there two years or more.

So it just gives you a little bit more flexibility on your building footprint.

If somebody wants to, instead of having to buy a new house, they have a little bit bigger footprint to add on, remodel.

Uh so this just adds two additional zones that would have that flexibility on those rear and side setbacks.

Um it is coming forward, I would note with a negative recommendation from the planning commission.

Their main concern was they'd rather just reduce the setbacks up front and not have to have somebody have a house that's been there for two years before that uh broader setback applies.

But um that is the way our table is currently set up, and this just adds these other two zones.

So anyways, happy to field any questions you have on it.

Yeah.

Council, any questions?

I remember us doing that.

That was to make sure that it was added on as part of remodels rather than having a developer max out the size of the house.

Yeah.

So kind of yeah, I think there's reasons to have it set up the way we do if we want to incentivize, especially with the affordability crisis right now, uh, keep the footprint smaller initially, but then if somebody does want to remodel it, and it's not a huge amount, you know, it's five feet I think in each direction, front or the sides in the rear.

So that's a good question.

Yeah.

Is it I am I reading it wrong?

It goes down from 30 feet to 15.

Uh let's see, I think that's that yeah, I think the rear setback does have a bigger allowance.

Yep.

I and I know I originally was supportive of this.

Um but it it does concern me that 15 feet is not very big to have.

Especially, you know, on a larger lot where you kind of want space between your neighbors, you probably value your privacy a little more.

Um I uh you know, I this is ironic, but listening, the planning commission, I did it kind of changed my mind because it was you know, is this arbitrary?

Um originally I was thinking, yes, there's a good reason if we want to be able to remodel, you know, expand if we kids have to stay and live with us kind of thing, which is happening more and more.

You guys move out someday because it's parents like to see you off on your own.

But um reality is tough.

Um yeah, but um but I in my own neighborhood I'm seeing remodels and expansions where I'm hoping they're staying within the setbacks and there's seem to be able to fit it in there without this.

And to me, going from 30 feet to 15 feet is a big big difference.

Um I'm I'm very hesitant about this one.

I'm not kind of leading against it, but that's my thoughts.

Well, this one I remember it came up because we have a resident who wanted to add uh a an on whatever port.

Yeah, so and if they were to add an inch detached at the roof line that they could put it in.

But because it was attached to the house, they no longer met the setbacks.

And I guess the hard thing I have is that you can put an ADU unit closer than this would be to add on.

So they could still add residential areas closer within that.

You know, I don't remember what it is, like five feet without a window.

Uh yes, if they don't have a window.

Yeah.

So it's like we are so I guess that's where like there's some of those kind of ambiguous things where they could work around it, but they're still gonna have the same impact or the same kind of setbacks.

I yeah, that's a thought.

Um I'm just wondering if this is the direction we want to keep going.

And I you know, a porch is much less impactful, I feel for them because I've I've known other people have dealt with the same thing, a couple inches and they couldn't do a wraparound porch kind of thing, and um so you know, in those situations, again, because those are kind of external amenities added to just because they're attached to a house, you know, it's counted in that footprint, but they don't have the same impact.

So, you know, that one I maybe we could have fixed with a different approach, um you know possibly um yeah, I just don't know if we're gonna keep going down this path.

I think people who who buy those larger lots um they do it because they value a larger lot and distance that it creates.

Um and there's like I said, there's some in my neighborhood that are going in that again.

I'm I didn't measure, so I'm hoping they fit code, but it's you get a two-story that close to a fence, and it's pretty intrusive.

So um some of these are happening because it not because they're expanding for family or you know, those kind of reasons, but to have ADU short-term rentals.

Um I guess I appreciate your point, Heather.

Um I'm just not sure I want to keep down that path myself.

You know, Kim, I'm I know when I build in 93, you know, I'm in a subdivision that's half and third acre lots, right?

I think our setbacks I was just trying to pull up flat.

I think our setbacks were ten feet.

Yeah.

On the sides.

Yeah, on both sides.

Yeah.

And uh we might not even add setbacks.

I know we had a front, and I know we had easements.

Uh but in that entire no neighborhood, nobody really wanted to build that close to the property lines.

Nobody did, so I don't I think it's probably a rarity that people are going to build that close.

Uh particularly on some of the larger lots.

I it is their property, and they should have the right to expand where they need to.

Uh we need to prevent any of the nuisance, but I'm not sure.

I I think I guess I'd be worried about us harming people's constitutional rights when it comes to uh the Fifth Amendment more than the infringement on uh on a nuisance.

I'm not sure if a finished structure is more of a nuisance than having a porch where you'd be entertaining and having people outside and making noise.

I I think in some ways a porch, while though it doesn't seem as obtrusive, you know, on the surface, could likely be more intrusive than a finished structure that's walled off and insulated and whatnot.

But if if you didn't even have it have a designated area like that, let's just just say you had a patio or an you know independent patio, right?

That was just out there with uh gazebo, it could be right on the fence line where entertaining can go on.

I I I think if we start dictating this, it's going to be, you know, I I just a little uncomfortable with it personally.

But I just want to address that.

Um when I say I don't want to go down this path, so right now we're gonna allow it after two years, which seems kind of arbitrary to yours is fairly short amount of time.

Um and then so I could see opening the door for people coming in and saying, Hey, you're allowing this after two years, and I guess this was brought up in the planning commission meeting.

Why can't I just do it now?

It becomes arbitrary at that point, with after two years you're allowed to do it, but one year you're not.

Um setbacks uh they are constitutional, they're protection, and we often talk about property rights as far as particular use.

Um those rights are guaranteed as long as they're legal rights, a legal use.

Um we also have uh a right, um there's a lot of different property rights.

We have the right of exclusion, we have the right of disillusion, we can sell our disillusion.

We have the right to um the free enjoyment of our property, so protection against unreasonable nuisances.

So we have to, when we're protecting property rights, I think we need to protect everybody's property rights.

And um, you know, some people value the property, their privacy and they purchase larger lots.

Those who don't, they you know, they could they can purchase smaller homes or smaller lots or town homes or um you know some areas of cities where the buildings are very close.

Um but I just you know when somebody buys a larger lot with certain expectations that the setbacks are 30 feet in the backyard, um they want that distance and then to have it change after a couple years, I think that's we're gonna run into some problems.

Um then again, just I I think it becomes more arbitrary when we say at a certain number of years, then you can expand, but not originally.

So yeah, this isn't I don't feel like this is a path I want to go down because I think it's gonna go to smaller and smaller setbacks.

And if you if you're near a home where they're they build very close to your property line, it it is intrusive.

It you know, you and it I see it with um neighbors who've complained about um uh shops or um ADU external ADUs or you know, garages, and it's very close and it shades their yard and it's structural views, but yes, they don't have the right to a view.

But um I don't know.

I to me a setback is a protection to protect some people and the right to again to use their to the free use of enjoyment of their property.

So that's my opinion.

All due respect you had mentioned that setbacks are a constitutional right now.

No, they're a protection, they're a protection to property rights, and property rights aren't just a use, the right to use your property.

They have a property rights beyond your your property.

No, you no, but you you are protected from nuisances.

That's why we have zoning regulations in the first place, to protect our health safety and public welfare of our residents, and setbacks are allowed, they're they are constitutional.

Um protecting property rights again, that bundle of rights that includes more than just the use, it includes the enjoyment of your property.

I'm just gonna say I'm uncomfortable with that interpretation.

Uh I understand property rights quite well, and I think they're very specific, but I also understand zoning laws and the importance of zoning laws to provide protections.

Why that makes that argument makes me uncomfortable is we're trying to globally establish a rule of a setback on the pretense that this may be maybe offensive to a neighboring property, and I I understand that, but in a lot of cases where somebody needs to, their family is growing and they may need to build on an extra bedroom or another bathroom or something.

I think saying that you can't do that because you're less than 15 feet away from your neighbors or from your own property line.

That that just concerns me.

I really do think that's an infringement on the Constitution.

So let me ask, are are we to get rid of setbacks altogether?

Uh if you wanted to consider all Jeffersonian principles, yes, you would do that.

I'm not I'm not lobbying for that.

But zoning laws didn't exist till the early 1900s.

That was long after the Constitution was in effect.

Yes, but whether Constitution discussing.

Yes, we do have the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution.

That all rights not given to the federal government are designated to the state and to the people.

And that's where the state gets the policing power, the regulatory power.

And the state in turn brings that down to the city level, and that's in state code.

And so LEDMA and all that gives us the right to provide protections to protect everybody's property rights.

And I see setbacks as one of those protections.

And it's not just free use of property, it's again health safety, public welfare.

We we tend to get fire hazards, you know, when buildings are too close together.

And there's there's a lot of issues, access issues, um, easement issues, drainage issues.

I mean, there's a there's a lot of reasons to have setbacks.

So I don't see that it's a constitution constitutional taking by requiring setbacks, and I think that's probably upheld through every state in the union where we do have they have setback ordinances in the some states don't even don't have setbacks.

Yeah.

Some cities don't even some yeah, some cities.

I dad lives in Houston.

That's not a place I want to live.

No zoning ordinances there.

Um we we have these powers and it it is derived from the constitution down to the states and from the states to cities, and and the purpose of those is to protect health safety and public welfare.

Um I'm I'm just saying I I believe it's entirely constitutional to have setback requirements.

Okay, I'm I'm going to say there's no taking because there as I mentioned in these larger lots, there's room to expand.

I've seen it.

Um it does a prohibit uh um all use of their their property.

Um so I I don't think it I think it's entirely constitutional to require setbacks.

I would respectively disagree because I think the fifth and fourteenth amendment are pretty clear.

Okay, counsel.

I I would just say that um I I agree we can have the the zoning and the setbacks.

Where I I find this to be arbitrary though is that we are allowing ADUs, we're allowing sheds, we're allowing other buildings and structures to be that close to the property line already.

So where we're being arbitrary is we're saying if it's attached to the house, then we have to follow more setback, which then forces them to build uh standalone structure or you know, I I have the same thing where neighbor has a two-foot shed within like inches of our property line.

Um so it's like we're allowing that already, but then to say like, okay, you can't add on a a covered porch unless you make sure it's detached.

So it's like it seems like we have this arbitrary ruling where we're already approaching into these setback areas, but somehow this protects the setbacks if we're saying it's we're gonna disallow it if it's attached.

But if you detach it, you can even get closer than 15 feet.

So that's where I kind of feel like this fixes some of the arbitrariness that we have already put into our code that allows these kind of encroachments, as you will, upon you know the property line.

Um, but it does it allows more usage and things I think would be it'd be better to have these attached to the home rather than have it right up against the fence line.

Like uh for this particular property owner that brought the the issue forward, I'd much rather see them attach it to their house than to have like a a standalone that becomes even closer to the neighbor's fence line.

So I think if we had if we'd gone back and we said we because when we I was on planning commission, we were first doing the ADUs, I wanted to have those ADUs have the same setbacks as the the homes in that zone.

Because I'm it's a residential property, it should have the same setbacks, but we don't have that, so now I feel like we're being arbitrary on this portion where we already have it open for the ADUs.

Basically, you you're saying a structure is a structure is a structure.

Yeah, it is a structure, yep.

Okay.

Um of my experiences in the past year have led me to understand that um if I want a setback, it needs to be on my side of the fence.

Um and so I maintain that much, however much I want from my house.

Um I would agree that this does seem a little bit arbitrary considering what's already allowed, and that's something that the state legislature has taken out of our hands, and it's so conflicting in the code.

I mean it it it's contradictory, and I don't think it makes a whole lot of sense.

Um I would though ask of staff if you would please could you briefly summarize the intent of the two-year waiting.

Yeah, I think the the original intent of why that's in there is to maintain a smaller footprint initially when they first build their house.

Uh we we want it to we generally want our setbacks to be followed.

Uh so yeah, the two-year period is just, you know, they've built their house, they've established the you know their yard and everything, and and really this flexibility or this allowance is just to give a little bit of relief if they want to add on, because a lot of times they'll max out that footprint.

And so yeah, any small addition, anything like that, you're really precluded from ever doing unless we give a little bit of uh deviation from that.

So I think the two years, you know, let's if we have setbacks, they're there for a reason we generally want people to follow those.

So we don't want you know, somebody to come in immediately during the building process and say, actually, I'm gonna you know, so it's kind of a yeah.

Yeah.

Like for example, if a developer wanted to come in and take advantage of it on every single lot.

Yeah, yeah.

So so I think you know, setbacks have many purposes, whether it's for fire safety, emergency access, just livability, light, air, you know, having space to get your lawnmower to the backyard.

There are a lot of reasons that we could probably articulate why we even have setbacks in the first place, and that kind of came up at the planning commission.

But so I would say generally speaking, we we want the standard to be what the the setbacks are initially, but we're willing to give a little bit of leeway.

If somebody's lived there for two years or you know, the house has been there for two years, we can give a little bit on if they want to add on.

Is that so the two years is basically just what you felt like was a period of time that would pass where it would not be considered part of the original construction project.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yep.

Can I ask a question to that?

I just opened that comments.

So this only applies to new builds then, correct?

If I if I sell my home as is, someone's gotta wait two years before they can add on to that home?

No.

No, it's is once the home is constructed, whether it's you or if you've sold it multiple times, it's from the time it was initially constructed.

Right.

So basically new builds.

Yeah, two years from the initial build.

And because to me, the two years is arbitrary and it does it's never made sense.

It didn't make sense the first time either.

Um and it's not something I think it's gonna get resolved tonight.

But to me, I'd much rather say something like after the the initial sell of the home, after you know, construction.

Yeah.

If you decide to add on, you decide to add on.

How many people are gonna build a home, especially in today's economy, and then day one afterward say, well, I want to add 1200 square feet onto my house.

The the chances of that are very slim.

Um so to me, I the problem I've had with this is not the you know it it's it's the fact that a gentleman couldn't even extend his porch and put something on there because of you know to what you're saying, Heather.

I mean, to me that just seems ludicrous that the guy, the family couldn't do it because of this the way the code is written.

Um especially to have to wait two years potentially to do that is is ludicrous to me.

I mean, that to me is an infringement on someone's property rights.

Um to me, I would like to see this code where if it has to have some sort of limitation, it's it's the day after the sell is complete of the new home.

There's no reason for the city to step in in my opinion and give any kind of time frame as to when someone can add on, do something different to their home.

It's their property, it's not ours.

So that's that's the problem I have with this code.

Again, do I expect it to get resolved tonight?

No.

But I I seriously would encourage that this get revisited and that that arbitrary two-year rule get eliminated and and replaced with something else.

It's not our place to tell someone when they can build something.

We're already, to your point, Michelle, we're already giving setbacks.

Setbacks are arbitrary by the city.

We're already giving them setbacks.

So to say, well, on top of setbacks, we're gonna also give you a time constraint.

And on top of that, that's the road I don't want to go down.

I don't want to keep going down this road of putting more and more obstacles in place as to what and when you can do to your property.

It it needs to be the day after you purchase that property, the day it's deeded, whatever it is in your name, you have a right to go for it.

Chris, can I ask a clarifying question on that?

Sure.

Uh so I I if I hear you correctly, what you're suggesting is when the original building permit comes forward, it it has to abide by the setbacks.

Yes.

Once the occupancy has taken place, the setbacks have been complied with, and in and in your mind, there's no reason why, hey, if I want to 12 hours later add a add to what was originally part of the building permit, why not?

And and I guess maybe a question for staff is you know, if Heather brought up the external accessory dwelling units, if I built a house and the day after I take occupancy of my home, I want to build an external express accessory dwelling unit.

Do I have any kind of waiting period?

No.

So from that perspective, I I think I agree with you.

I I I I'm okay with extending the boundary.

Uh and I understand the intent of wanting to to keep the uh setbacks where they are, but but I tend to agree with you that the two-year is, especially when if we're gonna use the ex external accessory dwelling units as the a re rationale for why we're gonna allow this two years later, why not allow it on day one?

That's great.

And I and so I'd be supportive of that.

Yeah, that's what I've been trying to figure out too.

Like, why not six months or a year?

Was it and the only thing I could think too is because I've built three homes and it always seems that the developer can hang along a little bit longer and you can get uh deals on having them finish your basement.

I I don't know, where did the the two years come from?

Are you worried that if we did it right off the bat that the developer would still be in the game and saying, okay, now we'll add this on too, but we just have to or like I didn't get what the this goes back probably to I don't know, I'd have to look 2010 or maybe even earlier than that.

I would say, and and I'll maybe ask Ryan his opinion.

This is your code.

You know, you're the legislative body.

If you if the majority of you like changing that to your rule, I don't know why you couldn't just direct us tonight to say we're changing it to add it to these zones, and we also want to remove that or just say upon occupancy a certificate of occupancy, then you can request the reduced setback.

So remove it.

Yeah.

So it's there because it's currently there on other on the other ones?

Yeah, yeah, I think it was just, you know, let's let's allow this for remodels was the whole idea, you know, just kind of digging back in the foggy corners of my memory.

Um it was just you know, that seems like a reasonable time that somebody's been in their house, they've lived there long enough.

You know, we've established the initial build with the setbacks, but yeah, I don't I don't think there's you said it's probably a little bit arbitrary.

I think you know the intent is like I said, as long as we know the initial building permit, we met the setbacks when they add on, if they want to do it day two after or day one after they own it, great.

I don't have any problem with that.

So we've been through this before, Kim, if you remember.

I mean, you go back go back 20 years, right?

Yeah, you're pretty new.

Because we looked at we had a whole bunch of 8,000 square foot lots in town.

Like this would be for we had any uh third acres, we hardly had any quarter acres.

That's what he's talking about.

So but the problem we had is we had a whole bunch of 8,000 square foot lots of people were outgrowing the lots, right?

Their homes.

Yeah, they had to move the highlands.

Because of the setbacks, they couldn't exp they couldn't add on to their home.

And because there was no they wanted to live in Lehigh, but because there is no there were no 10,000 square foot lots or 12,000 square foot lots.

They just like hard hardly ever existed unless you bought a farm parcel, right?

Yeah.

So you know where I'm going with this, right?

We changed the law back then to allow them to uh build on, right?

So we changed the setback if it had been in their home that they could get a reduced setback.

That's where we also came up with the new ordinances to encourage and we changed it actually the zoning map to encourage a variety of housing styles, right?

Yeah, the VLDR and the LDR.

That was pretty successful, right?

Because we went from being a transient community to a community that could entertain housing for all life styles or life cycles.

Life cycles, yeah.

Thank you.

Right.

So this isn't the first time this has come up.

Yeah.

So yeah.

Just one last comment.

And Heather, I do appreciate what you brought up.

And I totally see your point.

Um so that's something I've thought about, but it's I'm just throwing out the caution here that if we go down this route, um, you know, we already have gone from two years to the day after closing or whatever.

Then I could see developers coming in.

Well, why do we have to abide by this setback setback when you know a day later you don't have to?

And I I could see that, you know, why do we have the setbacks for this zone, right?

So let's get rid of them, let's reduce them altogether.

Um I guess it's if you value the setbacks or not, or if you see a purpose there or protection there or not is the issue, I guess.

But um just be aware where this is trending, I guess.

And I I just feel like you know, we started down this path.

I feel like I I would like to draw a line in the sand and uh say, okay, okay, larger lots that's let's pr preserve that setback.

So just keep that in mind.

But anything else?

I you oh okay.

He answered your question.

All right.

Council, I am ready to entertain a motion from any one of you if you'd like to make it.

We'll see where it goes.

Mr.

Mayor, I'll make a motion that we approve ordinance 49-2025, approving a development code amendment to table 05.040-A.

Residential bulk and intensity reducing the setback for remodels and additions in the RA1 and R115 zones, and instruct staff to eliminate the two-year waiting period on these two zones as well as any other zone where the reduced the reduction of setbacks is relowed is allowed, and that we require in order for the addition to be made, we require a certificate of occupancy by the owner by the owner of the property.

Um we will not allow a developer or contractor to increase or decrease the resetbacks.

Um it has to occur after the certif certification of occupancy occurs on the property.

Okay.

I have a motion.

Do I have a second?

Second that, Mr.

Mayor.

Okay.

I have a motion.

I have a second.

Now I'll take comments.

I comment, would you also uh consider adding the DRC from Kim about including the R122 as well?

That that was the one zone that's not part of this.

Oh yes, I I would amend to include R122 as part of this motion.

Is that correct?

Yep.

Okay.

Any other comments?

I have a motion and I have a second.

This is a second stand.

Okay.

Second stance.

Okay.

Sorry, sorry, one more.

Okay.

Kim had a second comment too.

So they can switch the table.

Um just the order so it like makes sense, yeah.

So I'll amend the motion as presented by Heather.

Second.

And that stance can any other comments.

We've had a lot of conversation.

I want to make sure we get it all in this motion.

Okay.

I I think I'm gonna be starting with Heather.

Yes, Paul.

Yes, Paige, Michelle, and Chris.

Yes.

Okay.

There you go, Kim.

You got your marching orders.

Okay.

Thank you.

All righty.

Item nine is uh consideration of ordinance 50 2025.

This approving a development code amendment to chapter 19th, renewable and energy system regulations to remove references and requirements for being a conditional use.

I thought Ryan was about to talk about that.

Yeah, Ryan's gonna take this one.

No.

Um so we've we've been making a an effort throughout the development code to try and eliminate as many conditional uses they have their place, but we think we've overdone it.

Um they become problematic in that there's a perception that because it's conditional that somebody could in theory you you can deny them, but there's a very high bar or high threshold to get to that.

So this is part of that effort.

Chapter 19 regulates all of our what we call renewable energy systems, like solar panels, wind energy.

And this is like the really big wind energy, like the ones you see at Camp Williams all the way down to a small scale.

We haven't really seen a lot of the wind, but uh for a while there that was really a big thing that you could have your own little windmill on your house that generated electricity.

So we have regulations for those.

We're just trying to uh make those permitted uses, but but make sure we have the right conditions in place.

So that's what this there's some uh updates to this chapter to that effect.

So council questions.

Oh question, remind me again, I did read the packet, but why are you taking out the the requirement for a noise study?

Um we just didn't know if that was really warranted.

They we we did some research, they don't really make a lot of noise.

I mean, if you think about unless they're the really big wind energy facilities, and even those, it's more light flicker, which we left in here.

Uh some of those other concerns.

Um the noise doesn't seem to be a problem.

They're actually very quiet, so but we have noise ordinances, I think is what it said, if I remember correctly.

Yeah, which we haven't updated, so that was my concern.

Yeah.

And we're happy to if you want to leave any of that for now, we can take it out later if we don't think it's warranted.

But when we were going through, we just thought that's probably not something that needs to be required.

So yeah.

Could we I don't see us getting any of the really giant windmill things, but um could we require the noise study if it's over a certain size or something if that if those are the Yeah, we could.

Yep.

We could leave it in section 19040, which are the larger facilities, and then maybe we could exclude it for the smaller wind energy, more of the residential size.

So what was the acreage required for the big ones?

I'm sorry, I'm just struggling.

Trying to remember.

I'm just trying to think if there's any place really where it would even yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I mean we have any really windy four acre parcels.

Yeah.

You know, you get wind corridor d along the Jordan River, uh, obviously in the low hills, but a lot of that, especially now that we put our conservation easement.

There is still some private land to the east of our conservation easement, but yeah, I I don't know if that's a viable area for wind.

It probably would have been more along, you know, as you get closer down to Temp Highway, which all of that is fully committed in some fashion or another.

So probably the you know, never say never, but I I bet you it's pretty slim that we'd ever get a wind farm like you see in Wyoming and Nevada.

Spanish fork.

Or yeah, Spanish fork was prime.

Yeah, our canyons, yeah, we don't have a canyon like that to generate the morning and evening winds.

But we're happy to make whatever revisions you feel are necessary.

We can leave in or modify anything.

Council, you got any other comments on this.

I'll take a motion.

We'll make a motion.

Um I move that we approve ordinance 50-2025, approving a development code of amendment to chapter 19 renewable energy system regulations to remove references and requirements for being a conditional use.

Um except for in section 19.04 to um retain the requirement to do a noise study and include any DRC comments if there are any.

Okay, I have a motion by Michelle.

Do I have a second?

Well second.

A second by Chris.

Any questions on that motion?

So you want you want to leave in the requirement for a noise study for the I just want to make sure the larger facilities and it's a 10-acre minimum, so that's potentially doable, I guess.

But any other questions?

Okay, I'm gonna start the uh voting with Paul.

Yes.

Uh Paige.

Yes.

Michelle.

Yes.

Chris.

Yes.

Heather.

Yes.

Okay.

Item 10 is consideration of ordinance 48, 2025, approving a development code amendment.

Uh to table 37080 off-street parking table to allow allow tandem parking.

Okay.

This is the last of the code amendments tonight.

And this one is actually something that the state legislature has mandated that all cities have to allow tandem parking.

So I think you're all pretty familiar, but tandem is you know, you have one car with another one parked behind it instead of parallel side by side.

We we actually used to allow that uh up until about two years ago and we took it out of our code because we didn't feel like it was effectively providing parking because inevitably, you know, especially in our multi-family units where you have you might have four unrelated individuals and everybody's got a different schedule and nobody wants to get boxed in and parked behind, so then they end up parking in the streets and other areas.

We just didn't feel like it was very effective to allow tandem, but the state is now saying we have to.

So this is to put our code in compliance with state code.

So that's why we're here on this one tonight.

Okay.

We don't have a choice.

Yeah, unless we want to be in violation of state code.

So I grew up in a house that only allowed for tandem parking.

Of course we only had two cars at the time.

So makes it easier with.

I love gate glades, DRC response.

No, this will further exacerbate the parking problems in the city.

It also causes contention among residents, and the result is to increase police calls.

This does nothing to improve things for residents and only allows developers to get more for doing less.

So we include that.

I'll give him the name of some of our legislators for promoting it.

That sounds good.

Okay.

I'll take a motion, council.

Mr.

Mayor, I make a motion that we approve ordinance 48-2025 approving the development code amendment to table 37.080 off-street parking table to allow tandem parking and to include DRC comments.

Okay.

Got a motion to approve by Chris.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Second by Heather.

Any questions on that?

Paige, I'm going to start the voting with you.

Yes.

Michelle?

Yes.

Chris?

Yes.

Heather?

Yes.

And Paul.

Yes.

All right.

Item 11 is consideration of granting an existing an extension for Vivian Estates phase three, extending the approval that expired on April 11th, 2025 for one year.

Hi there.

My name's Austin White.

I'm with Focus Engineering.

We're the uh engineers on the project.

Hey, Austin, tell us why you're asking for the extension.

I think I already know, but I want you to tell us.

Well, it's just due to the construction which has taken a bit longer than originally hoped for, uh, both with Vivian Estates and with the neighboring 600 East.

The the time for recording the project is has, you know, it's uh come to pass and now we just need to extend to accommodate those longer construction times.

We already talked about 600 eight.

So I figured that's what it was today.

Everybody's favorite.

All right.

Council, any questions?

Do you have an estimation of how long this extension has to be or will go for?

So I understand that the extension would be one year from April, I think it was 11th.

So it would go until uh April of 2026.

Yep.

One year from the original approval.

Do you anticipate construction going that long?

Yes.

I could see that.

But it's my understanding that we have to record before that time that date the plat at least, which we have a certain amount of construction has to be completed for that.

But I do anticipate a construction to go at least that long.

Hopefully we can get some roads paved this year, but we'll see.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, there's going to be a big factor in that because just paving times and we might have to pave in April, depending on how things go.

Any other questions?

I'll take a motion.

Mr.

Mayor, I move that we approve granting an extension for Vivian Estates phase three.

Extending the approval that expired on April 11th, 2025 for one year and include all DRC comments.

Okay.

I have a motion by Heather to approve.

Do I have a second?

I'll second that, Mr.

Mayor.

Second by Paul.

Any questions on that motion is given?

Being none, I'll start the voting with Michelle.

Yes.

Chris?

Yes.

Heather.

Yes.

Paul.

Yes.

And Paige.

Yes.

Okay.

Item thank you very much.

Item uh 12 is consideration resolution 2025-64.

This is an amendment to the grants corner development agreement allowing automotive accessories installation and service.

Who is presenting on that?

Why not?

Hello.

Uh my name is Sam Johnston.

I'm the potential tenant.

Um, not representing the landlord.

And uh hoping to start a business.

It's uh auto tinting and uh paint protection film company.

And so just changing the zoning to allow for those uses.

Okay.

Questions.

Do you have any other shops?

Is this your first one?

Uh and it's uh franchise, and it is my first.

Oh, okay.

But you're bought into the franchise, sir.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Uh not hearing any questions.

I'll take a motion on item number twelve.

Sorry.

Just a second before we do that.

Um could you address the DRC comment number one and how that relates to how this change would apply?

Yeah.

Um let me pull up the DRC comments.

Yeah.

So I guess what I'm looking for is I uh I believe when we chatted on the phone that this would be an entirely indoor.

Is that correct?

Correct.

Okay.

Yeah, um I I think if it was probably my comment that we wanted to make sure because the original request was just to open it up to automobile service and repair, which the window tinting falls under, but we wanted to, I guess tailor it to so it was more specific so that if his business left, then this agreement doesn't leave it open to somebody that wants to do oil changes or breaks or tire repair.

So and I think the planning commission actually had even a little bit more specific uses that they they wanted to zero in on, like um because they didn't have any problem if somebody wanted to do uh audio system installations, things like that.

So and and I think we're comfortable with that.

We were really just trying to avoid the other heavier automotive uses that probably wouldn't work very well in this building.

So any other questions?

Yeah, so just to clarify automotive accessory installation and service the service applies to the accessories, not automotive services in general, right?

Yeah, that's correct.

I'd like to take a motion on this.

Mr.

Mayor, I'll make a motion that we approve resolution 2025-64 and amendment to the grants corner development agreement allowing automotive accessories installation service and um include the DRC comment, which specifies that.

Um I have a motion to approve.

Do I have a second?

Second.

A second.

Motion was made by Chris, second by Heather.

Any questions on that motion is given?

Um what if we included because I what Michelle so it'd be automotive accessory installation and accessory service?

Some do we need to add accessory twice there so it makes it's not just automotive.

Explicites are to the accessories.

And I didn't know if you wanted to look at the planning commission's specific that they have language they actually in their motion had they they included like the audio systems, car stereos.

But yeah, I I agree that I guess you could just say to clarify that it is this accessory services or this services relates to the accessories, not other automotive types of services.

They had a pretty comprehensive list.

I don't even know what some of these things are.

I think Commissioner Everett's list is good in the planning commission.

And I'm comfortable with the expansion to audio and whatnot, because that's again pretty pretty standard a lot of times those things are tied together.

Yep.

I like the way Kim put it if you want to add that to your motion.

Yeah, so I'll I'll add um that we make it accessory uh installation and accessory services.

And that we also include the uh planning commission motion uh where they list out the various services and installations that could occur.

Second stance.

James second stance.

Any other questions?

May I ask the applicant something?

Yeah.

Do you did you feel comfortable with the the language in that motion for the or the wording?

Uh yes, and covers if if I you know, as the business evolves, if if something else comes up, I I'm I can take it back before the planning commission, but I don't see expanding beyond that in the first couple years.

Okay.

You just come back if you need more.

Okay.

Um let's see.

I think Chris, I'm starting with you.

Yes.

Heather?

Yes.

Oh?

Yes.

Page.

Yes.

And Michelle.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Looks like some of the students paid attention when I said it wasn't like church.

No, I think it was 8 30.

I think are you required to stay till 8 30?

Is that what that was?

No.

No, I'll take a picture at the end.

Oh god.

She knows all your teachers.

So they're going to get a copy of that picture.

Okay.

Item 13 is consideration of ordinance 56, 2025.

This approving the Maverick zone change located at 520 West Main Street, changing the zoning on 0.72 acres from mixed use to commercial.

Uh petitioner.

AWA Engineering is doing this.

Change this.

We're missing something in that.

Uh no, that's the name of the company, yeah.

And the representative.

Oh, I know.

It's just it goes from mixed use to commercial petition.

There's no period.

Oh, yeah.

I'm just reading through it.

So is uh who is doing this.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

My name is Rick Magnus with AWA Engineering 2010 North Redwood Road, Salt Lake City, Utah.

84 116 and whatever you'd like.

Actually, your name was just fine, but that's okay.

Well, I want I told some of these in the audience that I would drag this out for them.

But no, let's not do that.

Don't worry, I'm not gonna have you do that.

I know.

Um I want to just say, first of all, it's really you have a wonderful staff.

They're great to work with, uh especially to get this in front of you and we concur with staff recommendations, and I'm just here to answer any questions you may have.

Questions?

I have a question.

I'm not sure if you're allowed to answer it or not.

But is this is this property what what's the intent of the property?

The intent is to not be a fueling station.

Um it's actually to be uh you'll see us back.

We're going to actually submit our client is a credit union, and they're gonna they have to relocate from a place up further north on just north of there.

And so they're trying to find a home, and this is the home that they would like to have.

And the reason for the zone change is so that we can allow so it would allow for drive-through.

And they can make some extra cash with campaign signs, right?

Rent renting space for those.

Yeah, that's what we'll do.

No.

Um if you drove drove through the.

Oh, yeah.

All right.

Yeah, yeah, I did.

So um this has nothing to do with the assisted living facility then.

No, it does not.

Nor to the property to the north and nor across uh the roundabout either.

This is its loan stand alone.

Well, I guess yeah, I guess the zones allowed, so um when that comes back, I guess.

Yeah, and it's in compliance with your general plan, so any other questions.

Council, I'll take a motion on item number 13.

Mr.

Mayor, I'll make a motion that we approve ordinance 56-2025 approving the Maverick zone change located at 520 West Main Street, changing the zone zoning on 0.72 acres from mixed use to commercial, and that we include any planning commission and DRC commons.

I have a motion to approve by Chris.

Do I have a second?

I'll second that, Mr.

Mayor.

Second by Paul.

Any c any uh comments on or questions on the motion?

Okay, I'll I'll start the voting with Michelle.

Yes.

Chris.

Yes.

Heather?

Yes.

Paul?

Yes.

And Paige.

Yes.

Thank you.

Item 14 is consideration of a grading permit uh approval for the Auburn Springs grading permit on approximately 34 acres at 400 south, 2500 west.

Edge homes.

Spencer Llewellyn Edge Holmes.

Draper.

Tell us what we're doing here.

So what we're doing, um we have our first phase of Auburn Springs.

Um that is we're planning on going into pre-construction in the next couple weeks on that, having our pre-construction meeting on that.

What we would like to do is we would like to expand the area of our earthworks to include phase two so that we can start filling our roads and do grading operations in both phase one and phase two at the same time.

Okay.

And you're gonna have are you gonna grade the entire site before you start construction?

Um that is our plan.

We have to import a lot of material for that site.

And so we'd like to try and do as much import as we can, especially what before the weather turns, and then um just as material becomes available that we can use for import material.

Understand.

Council, any questions?

I I do have a couple questions, Mr.

Mayor.

Um first of all, how what do you have an idea of how you're going to bring in that material?

What where how you where you're gonna bring it in at?

Yeah, so right right now, the only access we have to our site is um through those neighborhoods.

I can't remember what is it through Jordan Willows on Riverway where you guys see.

On River Pont.

And then come in that way.

Okay.

I guess it would pass two homes that are in Jordan Willows.

Yeah, okay.

The the other question I have, and I'm I'm not sure if I'm just reading this wrong or if the map is turned.

But on your your grading map, it it it shows the road, the the punch out road fromora states, right?

That would come out onto Southern South.

And then it shows one on the north end and on the northeast, which would be a future.

It's a what is it called a punch road?

You'd punch like a stub street.

Yeah, stub street, yes.

Yeah.

But it wouldn't go through because you it's not your property between that and 2300.

The question I have is I don't see any road being punched into River Way, which I mean I'm I would that would be great, but I guess I'm a little surprised you don't have a road there.

Yeah, so down on River Road to the south, that is owned by a different person.

That property we don't have access on to this would be going on to wouldn't be going to the west side of the property on the west side, um, where you have the 90 degree turn.

The northwest.

Yeah, north or southwest, actually, southwest.

Okay, I'm pulling up the map.

This is an ANORA states.

This is a south.

This is south, but this is further east.

So over here is Jordan Willows.

And there's there's supposed to be a road right there.

Um are you looking at looking at that map right there?

Uh-huh.

So that map is north, is on the left hand side of that.

So at the very bottom in the what would be the southwest corner, we do have a road that's connecting into Jordan Willows, and then on what would be the southeast, we do have a connecting road there as well.

Okay.

And then to the east, where you're saying that stub street doesn't currently connect to anything.

Right.

So that would be a future connection out to the road on the east.

So north to the left.

Yeah.

So this one, this one's got to be the one that's punching out to North States.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

You guys explained that.

It's just I was thinking North was topic.

So I knew I had to have some left.

Yeah.

No.

Thanks.

Uh council.

Do you have any questions on this?

I also have a question about the planning commission motion that they gave a positive recommendation, with the exception of the primary and secondary hall routes, and recommended it to be revisited and moved to the east side of the development, coming off a 2300 west.

Um we are under contract on the property where that stub road does go out to the east.

Um I approached them about getting an easement across their property, and they wouldn't give us an easement.

They want us to close on the property before we can use that as access.

So that is um an access that I've been trying to get.

Um, but our um closing date on that isn't really conducive to when we're going to be starting construction on phase one.

It's a little bit further out than or our proposed closing date is a little bit further out than what we're currently starting construction on.

So once you do close on that property, would it be better then to switch?

Or would you okay?

So you will switch at that point once you have it.

Honestly, that's where I would prefer to access the site.

I just can't get through there right now.

I don't have permission across that property.

Okay.

So now that I'm reading the map correctly, will you remind me again where you're going to bring in the material and such?

So what the plan is there.

So if you have if you have that map, on the third one, there's a Google Earth image on the third sheet.

So we have our primary hall route highlighted in yellow, and then our secondary hall route.

I don't want to use that secondary hall route.

We can if we have to do it for circulation.

Um where you have to do that really tight U-turn.

Yes.

And so that's that's the problem.

Trying to bring trucks in.

Yeah, that's that area really.

Those that is going to be our primary or secondary hall route for construction because right now that is the only access we have to the site.

Let's get that other property closed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

That's that's my preference as well.

So what about the the route from Main Street to the city property?

Um so I've also been working with public works to visit the possibility of being able to access off Main Street.

Um there are going to be some issues mostly with SWIP and track out through there through through the neighborhood.

We can keep a sweeper in there because there's not a whole lot of traffic.

We can get the track out cleaned up.

On top of that, we would have to build a temporary road through there, which is it a little bit cost prohibitive because we we're also going to have to cross one of the ditches in there as well.

And then there's also Main Street being the traffic on Main Street, it getting trucks in and out of there in traffic is also problematic.

Yeah, I I see those problems.

You just that's a lot of trucks moving and out through the neighborhoods.

Yes, and that was I I I completely understand.

And that was that's the big thing is they also said like if there is a speck of mud that gets out on Main Street, they're shutting that access down.

And so right now we're tied to those two accesses on the south.

Thank you.

Thanks for explaining that.

Okay, similar question.

Okay.

What why is the one that seems more complicated to me the primary route?

Um because uh you you've been down there, right?

Yes, you know that road, majority of that road, especially once you get past the Nora States neighborhood, it's not very wide.

Yeah.

And earlier today in our pre-council meeting, we were talking about losing the potential road and how that's gonna cause congestion in other places.

I I don't know how long this grading is gonna take or how long you're gonna need to bring trucks in and out for that or other equipment.

Yeah, but we're basically gonna lose access to this road.

There's there's no way your semis in a car.

I mean, it's gonna be really tight, right?

I mean, it might be doable, but that it just seems odd to me that you're gonna use that little teeny piece of two homes to make U-turns to come in and out with that size of truck.

And I yeah, I and I understand you're in a pickle, I really get that, but that does that just really is hard for me to and I live in that neighborhood, so I I'll I'll disclose that.

I live there, but I feel for all these residents are right there, and and that road is basically gonna be gone for for our use because your trucks are gonna take up that that road.

Yeah.

Um with that, um, the reason that that is the primary is the concern for the neighbors.

We'd be passing two residential homes there instead of several of them.

Several of them that are lined down both sides of the street.

Yeah.

Um but again, I totally understand that as well.

Um our plan is to be running about five or six trucks at a time through there.

So they do for from where we're getting the material, they are spread out enough that it's not constant trucks coming through.

Um they they will be spread out.

Um it is going to cause congestion.

Are these the single single dump um what I mean trailer, single trailer, not not at second, whatever they call it, a belly trip dump.

Like doubles.

Yeah.

Um we have we have our contractor has the option to use doubles.

Um what we'd probably do is we probably use singles or super singles, which are a little bit bigger.

When when they're when they're going in or coming out, right?

We I understand they've got the two houses there, right?

Yeah.

I mean, is there really enough room for them to make a left turn or a right turn and then do another right turn right away and vice versa, left out, left.

Again, that road, that inner that three way intersection is so tight.

Yeah.

Um we haven't actually tried it with a haul truck yet.

Um we have brought in we have brought in a backhoe to do some exploratory.