Any time love to have you.

We begin with a prayer and a pledge.

Do I have any volunteers for tonight's prayer?

Miss Christensen, Brooke, would you do that for us?

Our dearest Heavenly Father, we are so grateful that we could gather together this evening and worry about and contemplate the issues of Sandy City.

Please bless us that you'd be able to have the residents' best interests in mind and that we would be able to come to solid decisions that would benefit them.

We are so grateful for this wonderful country and the amazing freedoms that we have.

We ask thee for these blessings in the name of thy son, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Amen.

Thank you.

And if everyone will rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Oh, Tracy Cadell.

I almost forgot you.

How could that happen?

Um so if we can go around the dais and introduce ourselves and who we are, Danny will start with you if you don't mind.

Danny Schoenfeld, Planning Commissioner.

Dave Bromley, Planning Commission.

Cameron Duncan, Planning Commission.

Lynn East Davenport Planning Commission.

Chris Nichols, Sandy City Council, District Three.

Marcy Houseman, City Council, District Four.

Craig Kitterwin, Planning Commissioner.

Brooke Christensen, District One.

Cindy Sharkey, City Council at Large.

Alison Stroud, District 2, City Council.

Jennifer George, Planning Commissioner.

Brooke DeCosa, City Council at Large.

David Hart, Planning Commissioner.

Aaron DeKaiser at large.

And Mayor Monica Zletanski.

James Swordson, Community Development Director.

All right.

Shane Pace is making his way in here too.

Perfect.

And Lynn Pace is here as well, as usual.

Thank you, everyone, for coming tonight for this special meeting.

We will have for anyone here who's here to give public comment.

If you want to do that, we have blue cards in the back of the room that we'll ask you to fill out to speak during the public comment period, which will start at about 6 o'clock.

We'll also take public comment on council voting items as well.

First item on the agenda is our joint meeting of the city council and the planning commission to discuss our upcoming land development code update.

Melissa, you are our presenter, right?

Yes, well, I just wanted to uh introduce the presenter.

Um we have uh consultant team uh representatives, we have Chris Hubb, who's the lead on the the project from SOMAS.

Uh their office is nearby.

And um also Greg Haas from SOMAS, and they'll be um doing the presentation.

And what this is is to give you an overview of uh this project, which is updating our land development code on the heels of our adoption of the general plan.

So we want to make sure we're consistent and have the tools in our code, our zoning code, uh, so that we can uh see the vision that was laid out in the general plan to uh fruition.

So Chris, if you'd like to get up, we have a it's a short presentation.

We'll have plenty of time for questions.

And uh you can use this to go forward and backwards.

Just let me know if you need it.

Okay.

Okay, so uh as was mentioned, um on the heels of the pace of progress.

It was a well-thought out, great plan that went through several strategic measures.

We're looking to take those measures and see how we can be consistent with that with the code so that as an application or something comes before this large body one at a time.

We'll be able to use this general plan and apply the code to meet those guidelines.

And so that's that's the general idea that we're gonna be taking as we go through this this code update.

That being said, um, this will translate those guiding or that guiding vision and the specific goals and and strategies into code format so that as you make adjustments to applications or whatever may be, or you make decisions on those, you can actually have have that confidence that we're actually meeting what's in that general plan update.

Uh as we go through this, um, that's that's just a little background.

Obviously, that that's finished.

We're we're kicking this off.

This is going to be a few-year project.

Uh, we should be finishing up in 2027, so uh a little bit of time.

Um, this comes uh in in part with a grant from the Wasatch Front Regional Council.

The the general plan came in part from a grant from Los Angeles Front Regional Council as well.

And there's a representative uh hi Byron from WFRC, he's the project manager for that, and so he'll be helping to manage this from their side.

Uh I am the project manager for this project.

Um, Greg Haas is our senior code analyst, and and uh we've been we've been doing this for uh a little while.

Uh we also have a few other individuals on our team that have specific emphasis in landscape architecture in code analysis and code writing and uh state mandates and other things like that, just to make sure that we keep the city safe.

So that's uh a little overview of the team.

Uh we are the group uh Greg Haas and I helped with the Stadium Village Master Plan to help finish that one up as well.

And so uh former resident of the city, we love we love this place, it's wonderful.

That said, a little bit of background on us.

Um this is a a small list of some of the codes that we've helped update in the last three years.

Uh it's a lot.

Um done a few uh in that time frame, and and these go, and I'm gonna use a a little bit of buzzword, but I'm gonna explain it.

These can be anything from Euclidean to form-based, and what that means, uh Euclidean is more here's the specific standards and measures that a thing needs to do.

For goes more towards this is the look and feel of how that uh is developed.

And so we've done all of those.

We've uh also done hybrid codes, which are sort of a merge between the two, and so we've done quite a bit of that, and and we're excited to help with this one.

Uh, it's uh Sandy is near and dear to my heart.

My wife grew up here, so that said, here's a a very brief overview of the schedule.

You'll see on the right-hand side the general timeline, but then on the left, you'll see the specific phases of how we're going to move through this code update.

This is our our process that we've uh implemented for this specific process.

We as we go through this process, we'll have strategic areas where we meet with the steering committees and technical committees.

We have specific time frames where we'll be meeting with the individuals in this room as far as those key points of stakeholder interviews and and one-on-one interviews just to get a sense for the pain points that you have and the things that need to be brought into this process to make sure that we keep this group safe and we make sure that we also see the vision of the general plan as we continue to work through this.

And so, one of the biggest pieces that we're currently working through is a preliminary code assessment, and and what that is as we leverage our best practices and in past experience and things.

We have been digging into the code, it's uh big.

Um, and a little bit of light reading, it's it's quite fun.

But as we go through this, we're finding areas where there's inconsistencies, incongruencies, and and things that don't meet the general plan.

And we're looking for all these things and then laying the best practices that we've found on these dozens and dozens of codes that we've been writing.

That's this first piece.

Once we do that, we'll have our preliminary assessment saying, hey, this is this is what we're noticing.

Then we actually come out and we meet with the stakeholders one-on-one to say, all right, now we want to get a little bit more flavor of some of the the concerns or the opportunities here that we can really work to enhance, and then we'll update that code assessment to get a greater context.

Following that, we'll start to develop that framework that gives us the general outline, the general flow of how each and every zone is handled.

So, for example, there's some inconsistencies right now with the code.

You that's no shocker to you all.

We're gonna help streamline those things and make them a little bit more systematic so that it's easier to enforce, maintain, manage, and understand uh the code.

And so that's something that we're gonna be going through as well, and then we'll draft uh drafting takes some time.

Um so we'll go through that process.

And that's that's generally the process of uh if you have any questions with this throughout the process.

We're we're open, we're always available.

In addition to that, we're we're also meeting bi-weekly every other week with Melissa as well as we go through this process, and we'll be bringing people in and out of those meetings as well.

Oh slightly delayed.

So with the code update, we're going through that revamp as we talked about, and this is looking at the development code as a whole.

There's some segments where we're going to take a high level view, specific zones that have sort of the one-off zones and things to see how we can blend those into the code as well.

But generally, we're looking at all of this to modernize it to find things that will help maintain it more easily, uh, so that we don't go a decade plus updating it so it stays current, it stays fresh, it stays something that helps the city.

In addition to that, we're we'll I know there's some discussions about missing middle housing and things.

We're going to take what comes out of that and and help uh address that with the code as well.

So whatever that decision is, how however that gets moved into this, we're going to take that and pull it into the code as well.

And then the standards.

So the NACS from the general plan and the corridors and the station areas that will all be implemented as part of this plan.

We're gonna look at those pieces specifically to say, okay, this is what we're saying with with a station area, these are the guidelines.

How can that guide this code?

How can we actually put the the rubber where it meets the road into this code?

So that's what we're looking there, enhancing the walkability, the contextual design and all these pieces, and then that framework just to make sure that that works for all zones, and if there's an adjustment in two years, this is the process to do it.

This is how it can fit, so that when you're reading through it, you're not like, wait, is the parking in this section, or is it supposed to be over there?

Or it's going to be very simplistic so that it's I know exactly where it's at.

Uh, so that'll be part of it as well.

And then again, we help with the Stadium Village design standards, and we're very familiar with the Cairns master plan.

And so, as we we look to those, we'll also be incorporating those into the process that we take.

Um following that, our our specific next steps that we're looking to is we're establishing a website that's more of a public information.

You've done an incredible job at the general plan update and and the engagement to get the city involved.

We want to take that and keep some of this information front and foremost to residents so they know okay, this is why it's important to me.

This is how we we integrate with this, or this is why I should even care.

Um, so we'll have some of that information on the website to just keep residents up to date as we go through this process.

Uh steering committee will be established where we identify general topics of discussion.

The steering committee will it's it's high level, uh, so we're not getting into the nitty-gritty with the steering committees.

It's gonna be well, are we we looking more at a form type topic, or is this more of a Euclidean where we're getting into the specifics of here's a setback, here's a whatever, and so that's more the decision as opposed to it's 10 feet here and 12 feet here, or whatever it may be, so very high level on the decision making for that piece, and then the one-on-one interviews are are coming up in in the next about a month and a half or less is the process on that.

Um chapter by chapter code audit is happening right now, and again, if you're ever uh struggling to sleep at night, just pop your code open.

Obviously, it's joke.

You can keep talking how much you want.

Yeah, and that's why we go through that code so that it won't put you to sleep at night.

Okay.

There you go.

Um obviously there's some specific code sections that we're gonna prioritize again with an Axe missing middle, housing tools, the mixed use regulations, the corridors, and some of those other pieces.

We're gonna be uh encouraged to to look through those and from the developer side from the city side.

How can we infuse this into the code so that we can make sure it meets what you're looking for, and there's no cutting corners from a developer side or anything of that nature to protect the city uh in that process.

We like to try and break the codes we make so that they are a little bit more uh I'm gonna use this term foolproof.

Um, and then uh consistent updates as we go through this process.

You'll see in this this previous graphic, we have uh several locations where we're going to be meeting quarterly or at key milestones with these groups to just uh let everyone know this is where we're at, this is where we're headed next.

So, with that said, any questions?

Oh, sorry, council planning commissioners, Ms.

D'Souza, go ahead.

Thank you.

So I'm just trying to understand the process from that one of those first slides, and I don't know that it's specifically said, but are we planning to introduce code amendments along the way or are code amendments to be reviewed by the planning commission and the council to wait until the entire process is complete October 27th?

A great question.

I don't know if you want to take the first pass or if you want me to first.

Okay.

As we go through this process, we're going uh that's why we have these regular quarterly slash milestone meetings to address some of those topics as we go along.

So we want to to bring you through this process so it's not at the end of like here.

Yeah, that doesn't help anybody.

And so we want to to bring you along that process, and so we can have some of those design directions as we go through it, and then towards the end of this process, we actually will have meetings with this body where we go through okay.

Here's this chapter one, chapter two, chapter three.

We're going through this today.

Let's go over the basic outline, how this works, how the structure is, and take it step by step through that.

But we're going to be walking you through that process along the way.

Does that answer that question?

Well, I guess I'm just looking for like the specific legislative update to the code that enacts it in that moment.

Are we waiting until October 27, or are we going to be bringing bits of code to the planning commission and the council throughout the process?

The intent is towards the end, is where we will work through those adoption pieces of it.

Um, and let unless as we work through the process, you're like, well, we really need this part done.

We're flexible there, but generally it's we keep it at the same time so that if something else changes, we don't have to go back and readopt something.

Yeah, um the uh intent in terms of engagement is um in our scope of work is to have oh, yeah.

Um we'll have a steering committee which will meet quarterly or key milestones, whichever is first, and uh through that we'll we'll uh be giving updates and um going through the uh progress of it.

We will also come back at these joint meetings uh approximately quarterly to give you all um updates.

Uh we'll have um technical review committees like uh per topic, let's say if our development review team that normally meets on um specific projects in the city, but they might be a resource or one on one-on-one.

We also will have a few open houses available, but it sounds like you'd like to see um code that um is crafted um along the way uh and would like to avoid um having to go through a lot of it towards towards the end.

What was your thinking in terms of with that being said?

Let me let me try to answer what you're saying as far because I think I I get what you're what you're saying.

That does not, however, mean that everything is on hold with the city council, that we're not going to be adopting any code amendments.

For instance, we have the ADU that was just approved by the that was just approved by the city council or by the state legislature.

So we'll be moving forward with that immediately.

We're meeting with the we have a meeting with the council on March 31st already to start moving that forward and bring you some ideas on that.

And we have to have that adopted, for instance, by October to actually march that through.

But if there's other items that come to the city council that we can't wait on or things like that, we will definitely run some of those through and add on.

We're not going to stop the business of the city until this is done if there's some critical things we need to push through.

Okay, and and I was just really trying to understand what the um vision was from your guys' perspective on what we as a council and a planning commission could expect throughout this process with regard to actual review of code changes.

And part of it was the um identification of some maybe priority topics like mixed use and um mishaping in general that would be helpful to not wait until you know a year and a half from now to be seen and and discussed because I think that those things and personally are really important to um maybe get through more quickly.

So it is our intention to move through with the housing because that was has been the hot topic with our workshops and things like that, and we've committed to look at that right off the bat.

Um the things that are part of that we're gonna transition into the code.

There's some things we're gonna do up front of staff, but other things we're gonna hopefully do as part of the code, and the reason we want to do that really is um they talked about the code stand together.

We don't want to we don't want to one off too many things because the code all is integrated into different aspects within each each chapter, so we want to keep that together just as much as we can so we have a very unified and very concise and very you know at the end, but in the meantime, there are areas that we probably do need to move and we can move faster on if that's what we end up, you know, that the candle council ends up having this.

Yeah, the detached ADUs, we definitely I'll be taking that on, coordinating with information feedback with the consults, but I'm definitely moving on that March 31st is on the on the docket.

We also have a an application by a citizen that would like to see changes to our building height code, you know, how we define building height.

So uh that's kind of separate and moving faster.

Okay, but that was go ahead.

Yeah, well, I was just gonna respond to that as well.

That's also why we put this framework very early in the process so that we can integrate with these things so that those can potentially meet that same framework of this final code.

So there's not a lot of adjustments.

I want to address one more thing too.

The housing, the housing study that um Dustin has is gonna discuss tonight that you worked on for five different meetings.

That's anticipated depending on what you all do with it as a council tonight.

That's anticipated to immediately be given to the consultant to take your comments and and work on that as well within the code.

Yeah, we're s we're definitely staying and listening to all that presentation and then looking forward to the final version because um it that's great because it further refines guidance from the general plan process to code so that we can then craft code and um that um is consistent with that vision.

Okay, that was my question.

Thank you.

Dave, go ahead.

Um I'm just curious how we're going to avoid the the conflict if somebody's trying to move through the process and we adopt a code and then they're stuck.

They're what's what does that look like?

You know, I I don't want people to be able to have to stop and wait because their projects are timely and money costs, you know, it grows or changes.

So how are we gonna handle that transition from the old code to the new code?

And is there going to be a grandfathering of people who are in process when the code is adopted, or are we going to catch people and yeah, the general rule is that at the time of application, the code that's in effect at that time applies?

So if three months from now, even though we've been planning for two years to adopt something, that code at the time they apply is is going to be the one that's in effect.

So no one will slow down and we won't hold anyone up.

The code will always be in effect.

The code we have now will come they'll they'll have to comply with the existing code until the council adopts something new, then that becomes law.

And that's the way we operate.

And then they'll comply with the new one.

Yes, right.

And that's the way we always operate for all code amendments that may be in process.

Yeah, that's typical.

And actually, I think it's part of a legal framework that we have to adhere to too.

I asked a question as well.

If the new code is more advantageous for the person, even though they apply it under the old code, can will they be able to use the new code?

If it's adopted by the city council, right?

Um they could they could re put their project in and go under the new code, but it would have to be adopted by the city council as the you know the ordinance of Sandy City, they have to decide whether to wait, so they could that would be up to them.

They could do that.

Oftentimes there's close communication where if we have something that's that's going to be adopted, or we know when the dates coming, we will inform them and talk about the timing that might be advantageous, advantageous for their business decisions.

Can you tell us who will make up the steering committee?

Not the people necessarily, but the positions and the organizations represented.

So I've got a list of uh there's there's very specific groups of individuals that we typically look to that take up the places of steering committee members.

Uh council, planning commission usually fill some of those roles.

Uh and you obviously understand that we can't have more than a certain amount to, otherwise, it's a public meeting every time you meet.

Um, and and there's certain things that we need to address.

But in addition to that, staff, all technical advisory, uh, it's it's usually internal to cities, the groups that we involve.

Yeah, so specifically, I I have everyone from the steering committee except for city council representation, so I'm anxious to hear from you tonight as to what your decision would would be on that.

But we have uh Byron Head from the Wasat Trent Regional Council.

We'll have several people from our community development department um sitting in on those.

Um there are people from the city administration, our city attorney's office, um the Martin Jensen, uh Public Works, Parks and Rec and Public Utilities, Fire Department and the RDA, and um our planning commission representative Dave Bromley, um also Historic Preservation Committee of Representative, Architectural Review Committee, and the Utah Transit Authority has uh requested to be on that committee because uh you know, when we develop along uh certain transportation corridors and looking at certain density per the direction of the general plan, that um there the Utah uh transit authority is anxious to see that our development is moving in their direction so that they could invest in that kind of uh transit services.

I just have one follow-up comment.

Um, and I'm not super super familiar with the legislation, but I do understand that um that UDOT will now manage a lot of the land use around front rush stations, so I wonder if UDOT would be good to add to that committee.

I was going to mention that, and and where we're talking some corridors, there are some UDOT corridors that it would address them.

So, yeah, that's already a consideration.

That's a great addition.

We'll we'll add that.

So I have a question about the makeup of the other committees.

So we're talking about the steering committee, which is overarching, high level, kind of defining a process and keeping the process tracking, right?

And then you talked about on the next steps a technical and technical advisory committees.

So who makes up those kind of committees?

Are those subject matter experts in different parts?

Okay.

Um, how many people on those committees generally speaking?

Typically based on need.

I I don't want to bring in a bunch of people and they sit in a meeting for no reason.

We want to be cognizant of that.

And so it's it's we have this topic that we really need to address.

We need these two subject matter individuals come in, have the meeting, and and so it's it's we have a list of individuals that we would potentially pool on, but it's it's not always going to be it's these 10 people every time.

Yeah, so what and then you talk about conducting one-on-one interviews.

Tell me about that.

Who's being interviewed one on one?

Well, we would anticipate a significant group here.

Uh we'd also have staff, we'd have community groups that have a particular interest in like a UTA or those types of larger groups that represent some facet of the city.

We also talk to the development community because in they're the ones that build the city.

And so as we work through this, we want to understand what are the issues that they have, how does this integrate with what the city council and the and staff and everything are saying?

And so those are generally the groups that we look to again, the UDOS, the UTAs as well, and and uh in some cases Rocky Mountain Power, we all love them, they're super great to work with all the time.

I'm never sarcastic either.

Go ahead, Marcy, go ahead.

Thank you, sharing the mic, thank you.

Um great questions.

I'm learning a lot.

Thank you for for this presentation.

Um I want to kind of circle back to you talked briefly about the a website that'll be used for kind of keeping the community informed.

In the past, and in some of our um obviously general plan, but also parks and recreation with the Alta Canyon conversations, we did some like pop-up kind of experiences where we went to the community instead of asking them to quote come to us by coming to the website and doing things.

So I I love the website, especially if it's very interactive, like we had during the pace of progress process.

Um, but do you have any thoughts around kind of a go to the community, town hall, pop-ups, those kinds of things?

Great question.

Uh when we're working on the code, it's not a visioning thing.

The vision is established.

We have the input of the public and and we know the direction they want to take.

Okay.

Now this code will look to take that direction and see how we can marry the two.

And so we don't typically do pop-ups for this.

And and realistically, in most cases, if you go to your neighbors, most of them they're like, what's a code?

So it's more informational at this point saying, hey, we're looking at the general plan, we heard you, and we're wanting to take what's in that to guide this code process.

And so that's uh more of an understanding of why code's important, how it affects you, how we go through the process, what things can be addressed in this, what things shouldn't be addressed in it, what your rights are as a resident, more that type of information with the public engagement, as opposed to what do you think about this code?

I don't know, I don't deal with that.

I'm a dentist or whatever it may be.

So your vision then for the website is is more what you just described, not asking, not an a place to gather feedback as much as hey, did you know we're updating the code?

Hey, did you know this is how it affects you?

That kind of thing.

Yes, um very uh more informational, but in our scope of work, we also have established some interactivity um uh ability on the on the website.

Okay, and uh I'd love to hear more about that.

We we have in our scope uh open houses as well.

Right.

You do have open okay, so again it's more informational as a opposed to tell us what you think about this chapter.

And I could have I could have clarified by pop-ups.

I simply you're right, pop-ups are typically gather feedback on these designs and all of that.

Yeah, right.

But I I was thinking in terms of going to the community instead of just asking them to come to the website.

So it sounds like it's already built in, and maybe I missed that.

Um, but but you said open houses and an interactive component in our scope we had written in uh interactive element to uh the website.

But um, you know, the the general plan and that process, the product you're producing versus updating the the zoning code, the land development code, there they're really very different, and so we see so much of that public engagement has been um accomplished in gathering information and uh exchanging that, coming out with a vision, adopting it, and so that vision is already established, and so we are wanting to uh create tools in the code that um are consistent with the vision of the plan.

But to directly answer that, we do have a workshop at the beginning, middle, and end.

Perfect.

Right.

We are we are introducing workshops throughout the process.

Excellent.

I I just know that throughout the whole pace of progress experience, that was phenomenal.

But yet you know there's still a piece of our community that they don't necessarily know that we've made these plans.

And so where it might hit them is another round, but it's from a different angle.

It's we're we're changing code, and this is how it could affect you.

And and you probably know why I'm asking this is because as we work to address the missing middle, which I know we're going to talk about next because of our housing workshop.

But as we as we work to um not just change code, but we start the process of of starting to see some things going in that um might you know raise some questions or wait, wait, this this isn't what used to be allowed.

Why is this now?

You know, um anything we can do proactively, and it sounds like you've got it covered.

I love the idea of workshop before middle after.

I I think I think you have a plan.

I should have just known that you would.

I why even ask?

Well, I think it's important to note though, because it is a little different than the general plan type of workshops, but you described it, you it will just be what more of the code type and and asking questions and things like that, and and what we are doing with the code and things like that.

It won't be the visioning that the general plan, because that's established, but it's but it's planned in here, and it will give people an opportunity to learn about what we're doing and ask questions.

I love that.

And we want to of that too.

So yes, and because what that will do is is certainly um continue the conversation around.

Sandy City is committed to doing what we can to address the housing affordability crisis to help more and more people become homeowners in Sandy.

And so anything we do in public engagement wise, and I completely agree.

This is a visioning, this is a feedback, but this is here's how all of that visioning and feedback you provided.

Here's how that is informing actual you know things we are changing in Sandy through our code.

So I'm very happy with the plan.

Thank you for clarifying all of that.

Sure.

Yeah, and sorry, sorry to I I don't know if it ended up in one of those slides, but yeah, we do have beginning, middle, and end, and again, we want to be very protective of the vision that was established, and that's why we're careful on how we craft these these workshops.

So individuals don't think, oh well, I didn't really like this one thing.

I can change it now.

No, that's not what this is.

No, the general scenario.

That's all I have on attraction.

What other questions or comments do we have?

Commissioners, council members.

Anything else?

All right, thank you for the presentation.

We appreciate that.

And we will inform things.

Perfect.

We're looking forward to it.

Now, this concludes the joint meeting of the city council and the planning commission.

Planning commissioners, you are invited to stick with our meeting.

Uh there are interesting items on the agenda that I think you might be you might like to stick around, please.

And we'll adjourn just for a minute while we move around and remove chairs and stuff like that, and then we'll come back to the meeting in in just we're recessing for just a minute.

Be right back.

Yeah.

Is there a possible price?

We're good to go.

Okay.

Thank you for that short recess, everyone.

Appreciate that.

Um I do want to point out for those of you who were here last week too and want to comment on the rezone.

You have two opportunities to do that.

You could either do it during general citizen comment or I will also be asking for public comment during that specific voting item.

So not to confuse you, but sometimes we're confusing.

So uh thank you for uh thank you for coming again.

Appreciate it.

Um it is our six o'clock public comment time.

Hang tight, hang tight.

I'll do the others first.

All right.

Um for anyone who would like to speak at this time for something, um, just fill out a blue card if you haven't done so already, hand it to staff.

Um we'll give you three minutes.

I do have a card from Dennis Tenney.

So, Dennis, step up to the microphone.

What do you have to tell the council tonight?

You have three minutes.

Good evening.

Uh Mayor Soltanski, members of City Council.

My name is Dennis Tenney.

I sat in your place for a few years.

I'm here to, as a private citizen, to encourage Sandy City to seriously consider a formal sister city relationship with the city of Sacatecas, Mexico.

I was in Sacotecas about a month ago.

There is already a budding informal relationship between Sacatecas and Sandy City.

Uh Fire Chief McConaughey and I are working on accumulating quite a bit of uh surplus fire equipment, fire fighters uniforms and so forth.

And um major credit union right here, Mountain America has donated many laptops for two youth centers in Sacotecas.

Um if I could have a uh the if I could capture the expression of those youth when they saw those computers, it's changing their lives.

There are many levels of opportunity for a formal sister city relationship.

I think I've emailed to all of you copies of letters to Mayor Soltanski.

A little bit about Sacotecas very briefly.

It's a city that was founded in 1548.

It's almost going on 500 years of existence.

It is the major single largest silver producing area in the world.

In the hotel, the mirror frames are silver.

The the lanterns are all silver.

It's it's amazing.

It's an incredible city.

There are several levels of potential relationship that would be beneficial to Sandy City and businesses.

Number one, they have a very vibrant business community, which many of them are bicultural, bilingual.

They have two or three major chambers of commerce that are very dynamic.

They're anxious to have interchanges.

One chamber of commerce is strictly comprised of business owners, they're decision makers.

There are cultural opportunities, there are educational opportunities.

Beautiful old colonial city.

It's on a high desert, it's about 8,000 feet elevation.

The people are as friendly as you can be.

In the past, I know Sandy City has had a formal sister city relationship with Mieson Germany, and then Chris McCannis had encouraged and we've had a sister city relationship with Pietros Negros, Mexico.

I don't know what the status of those are.

But since our largest ethnic minority in Utah are Hispanics, it's to me just a no-brainer not to consider this.

I think you can be justified on every level educational, cultural, commercial, um, political, uh, in encouraging and developing this formal relationship with them.

The the mayor of Zacatecas is very dynamic.

His name is Miguel Varela Piñedo.

Wonderful person.

They're very sharp.

They don't take a second seat anyway.

So I'm just encouraging you to form a committee and establish a formal sister city relationship.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, those are the only cards for general citizen comment that I have in the chambers.

Dustin, will you see if anyone online has a comment at this time?

Uh yes, madam chair, and then just a note, I also have a comment that somebody requested get read into the record.

Okay.

So if we could do that after uh our online commenters, uh, if you're joining us virtually this evening via Zoom and you'd like to comment on any city business, now's the time.

Go ahead and click the raise hand button on your screen.

I'll call your name in the order in which you raised your hand, and you'll have three minutes.

I don't see any hands raised, madam chair.

Um, you know, in looking at this, it seems like it's in relation to the uh one of the rezons this evening.

I don't know if you'd like me to read it now or wait until let's just wait.

Okay.

Yeah, let's do that.

I'm making it the responsibility of all of you to remind me.

Maybe we do it now.

Okay.

I can't be trusted to remember.

Uh Council Representative Oakerland and I spoke a little bit earlier today, and he offered to come down and give us kind of a debrief on the session.

And I thought now would be a good time.

Do you guys agree to put him into our agenda right now?

And go ahead.

Thank you for coming.

We appreciate you.

Don't worry, you're not limited to three minutes.

We'd love to hear what you have to say about what happened in the last seven weeks of your life.

Well, thank you.

I uh the one thing I've learned in my short political career is that people do appreciate brevity.

So I will try to stay within my three minute allotment.

So this has been another whirlwind.

I still feel like I deserve a couple of naps that I haven't yet gotten, but I have gotten back to work and uh am slowly recovering.

So this year, um, well, first I'll introduce myself.

I'm Clint Oakerland.

I represent District 42, which if you live in Sandy east of 13th East, you probably live in the district that I represent.

Um intern was an intern for for me and another representative in the state, and she said that I got six times as many emails as the other representative.

Uh I was told that um when she tallied it all up, it was the number one constituent responsive uh district in the entire state.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

I still owe a lot of people a lot of responses to emails.

I got about 200 emails a day from constituents as well as other um voicemails, text messages, and other things that I try have tried to respond to.

But if you texted, emailed or or sent me a voicemail, I am gonna try to get back to you.

It's just gonna take me a lot of time.

But I'm just so proud to represent such a politically active and engaged uh citizenry.

We had a record of over a thousand bills introduced this year.

I don't think that's great.

I think we should have fewer bills.

I I think famously I've kind of become known as the guy who wants to try to limit the number of bills in the legislature.

I think that would give us more time to uh give thoughtful discussion uh to the bills that are represented in the legislature, and uh I'm gonna continue to fight that fight in the future.

But we did pass fewer bills this year, which is probably for for those of you who think that uh when the legislative session starts, what are they going to do to me this year?

Uh the good news is we did a little less damage uh than than we might have otherwise.

Uh I think it ended up being about 541 bills passed, and then uh today I think we pulled one back because it got its final votes after the stroke of midnight.

So uh so that was kind of a new thing for me to see that.

Notable highlights this year.

Sorry, my voice is not recovered yet from all the talking that we do, but um notable highlights this year primarily is what didn't pass.

If you looked at the emails that I was receiving from constituents uh as the session was starting, uh people were terrified by all the legislation that they saw that they didn't like.

I encourage you.

If you were terrified by some of the bills that you thought were going to uh be introduced and passed, uh go back and look and see if it actually happened.

If you really thought it was awful, there's a decent chance that that it didn't pass.

Uh, we really did a good job of uh of screening these and and making sure that um we did the will of the people, I think this year.

Um so which bills did pass and which ones didn't.

Uh a lot of the what I think my constituents consider to be a tax on the judiciary.

Most of those did not pass.

Most of them didn't even see the light of day.

We did end up um expanding the Supreme Court, uh, which I wasn't a fan of, but it happened anyway.

Um we kept mail-in balloting, which uh my constituents are big fans of, maybe not everywhere in the state, but East Sandy really loves their mail-in balloting.

Uh we uh funded education even in a light budget year, and so I think uh we can be proud of ourselves for uh the prioritization that we gave to our educator and our children, and we found all kinds of creative ways to make sure that more water gets to the Great Salt Lake and that the water that gets there gets saved.

Uh a lot of our money got invested that way.

A lot of creativity went into uh into making sure that our air stays cleaner, our water uh stays in the Great Salt Lake, and in some cases uh we had some legislation that did a little bit of both when it comes to the U.S.

magnesium deal that we did.

And uh anyway, I just really appreciate the thoughtfulness, the engagement that I had from our city leaders.

Uh there were several times we were texting back and forth about bills and legislation that would impact Sandy, and uh we've got great leadership in this city that uh knows how to engage with with me and with our other representatives in the house.

And I thanks for your time.

Thank you.

Goes right back your way.

Thank you for being so responsive to us.

Thank you for your outreach to us at times, asking us how we felt about certain bills, funding opportunities, things like that.

Thank you very much for the two-way dialogue that we had during this session.

We really appreciate that.

All right, thank you.

All right, it seems to me I have not closed general citizen comment, and I just got another card.

And so that is McLean.

Um McLean.

Come on down and give your comment.

Is there a doesn't matter if I'm not going to do that?

Okay, I'll make sure.

I know I look like a robot, so mind you that I appreciate the accommodations, which most cities do not have prepared or been ready, or even know where it is.

So great job on them.

That was very quick, so I appreciate that.

Um I actually work in the ADA world with people who are deaf and hard of hearing.

I'm hard of hearing myself.

I was born getting it genetically to my mother, and I was involved with the Hill Center Theater with all the ADA accommodations at Listen Tech, and they also provide your guys' services, so we appreciate you working with businesses who are based here in Utah.

But um, I've been going around the cities to um lend the helping hand to make sure that we're working with the businesses in the city to make sure that we are providing accommodations and checking up on that.

Uh I work a lot with the hard of hearing communities, especially older, younger, even teenagers, and just making sure that we're encouraging them to come out and support the businesses that are doing that, so then that way we are supporting and making a note of businesses who take the time to look and see what services because technology gets better now.

We have AI and hearing aids.

A lot of people don't realize that now.

And I get to test a lot of that technology, it's kind of crazy how far we've come.

Um, and so I like to come and make that now and give my information so then that way if there's entities that are doing that and have connections to businesses that are looking for information or have been expressed concerns of not proper accommodations.

I just wanted to make sure we do that because about 93% of the uh websites are accessible for people with disabilities, and then about 50% of uh workers who have some sort of disability say they don't get adequate accommodations, which makes them not able to work as efficiently.

So just trying to bridge the gap because there's a lot of questions with it, and making sure that we always just check up on it every year.

So I just want to leave that with you.

So I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thanks for coming.

Thank you.

All right, that does conclude our general citizen comment.

So I'll close that section of the agenda and we will move on to item number two, um, presentation of the building our future housing workshop draft final report.

Dustin, please.

Thank you, council.

Appreciate it.

Uh Liz is gonna go ahead and pull up the report, which I have to say she compiled the final report, and didn't she do an amazing job?

It looks so nice.

If I had had to put that together myself, you would have gotten one long word document that wouldn't have looked uh nearly as nice.

And she also helped draft quite a few sections within the report.

So I just want to pass along appreciation to staff, and I'll pass along appreciation to all of the other staff at the city that helped work on this as well.

Uh Shane and Lynn and James and Jake and Casey and Rob and Justin, and I've already mentioned Liz, and uh I'm probably missing somebody, but there's a lot of work that went into it, and I just want to pass along that appreciation to uh city staff, and then finally appreciation to uh you guys and to the mayor for participating in the workshop series, appreciation to Councilmember De Kaiser for kind of bringing this up initially, you know, in the middle of last year.

Um hopefully we come up with something that we can pass along to the consultant that just presented uh that'll help us to make some good amendments to Title 21 uh that that really consider uh housing, housing affordability.

Uh so I I don't have a slides.

I'm gonna go through the the uh document that Liz put together.

Um so but but let me start out with what our objectives are tonight.

This is a draft.

You know, it's our best effort to capture what we feel like was said during the housing workshops, the five workshops, and our best effort at giving you recommendations on uh how to move forward based upon the feedback that we got.

You know, we took into account all the feedback, uh, especially the exercises that we did, right?

We did exercises and workshops three, workshops four and workshops five.

And it maybe you didn't feel this way in the workshop, but there actually was a lot of consensus.

When we put together all of your participation and looked at it, there was a lot of consensus.

We did not attach all of those appendices to what you're looking at tonight.

Though when we bring back the final after feedback tonight, we'll make sure you have all the all the appendices, and you can take a look at the various exercises or the results from them, and you can you know make your own judgments based on that.

But we we did take all of that into consideration.

So our objectives tonight, um, number one, does the report accurately capture your intent?

Number two, are you comfortable with the three strat with the strategies, the tactics, and then the tools that we recommend in section four?

And then the third objective is are you comfortable with the implementation plan that we outline in section five?

Um I'm gonna jump through this just a little bit.

We're not gonna go through every page.

Okay, so really quick, I don't want to spend a lot of time on recapping what we did.

Um, you all lived through it, even the council members that weren't council members in 2025, you attended, you watched, um, you observed what happened.

But I want to give a quick recap for everybody.

So it was a the workshop series started in the middle of 2025.

It was elected officials, all eight elected officials, key staff, and then we had some industry experts present at the beginning.

We had folks from WFRC, the governor's office, the Utah Foundation, the Chem C.

Gardner Policy Institute, and then we had a developer from Cowboy Partners who also presented.

From those industry experts, we identified 48 major issues within 10 categories.

And we have those listed here on page 10.

Oh, maybe not, maybe I've got the wrong page listed.

Sorry, I do.

Page six.

There we go.

So those are the 10 categories that we identified.

There were 48 issues that we identified within those categories.

They will be attached to the pendix.

Umce we identified each of those issues, we provided all of them to you, and we created an exercise.

And what we asked you to do was to was to go ahead and identify which of those you felt were the most critical to Sandy City.

And as a group, you prioritized three of these 10 categories, and you identified five of the issues that you felt were the most important.

And the categories that you identified were category A, severe housing shortage, category D, limited housing stock variety, category F, neighborhood and community opposition.

The issues you identified were obstacles to middle housing, limited options between large family homes and apartments, right?

Nothing in the middle, uh, lack of tools to enforce owner occupancy, low condominium construction, and restrictive zoning codes.

So we that was our first area of focus.

Um the next thing that we did is we we all worked together and we created a shared vision.

I'm gonna skip through quite a few of the pages here that go into detail on the background, and we're gonna go to the vision.

So once we identified and prioritized the issues, uh we worked on an on a vision as a group.

And the vision that you all came up with was the following to ensure continued sustainability and to maintain the character of our city.

Our goal is to encourage housing and housing affordability for residents across all stages of life.

We want to encourage, allow, and incentivize a larger variety of housing, including housing for seniors, first-time home buyers, middle housing, and workforce housing, more housing in the right locations, and we want the housing to be owner-occupied.

That's the vision.

Every policy recommendation that we're making within this draft final report, every strategy, every tactic, every tool.

Um, it was filtered through those two lenses.

The lenses of how do we achieve the vision that you've put down on paper here, and how do we address, how do we best address those prioritized issues.

And then finally, the the kind of last thing that we did to gather your feedback before we we went to work.

Um you gave us feedback on the types of housing that we should encourage, where it should go, who it should be for, and how to make it happen.

You might remember we categorized categorize that as the what, where, who, and how.

So in our workshop four exercise, you provide a direction regarding what types of missing middle housing belong where within the city.

And then in workshop five, you provide a direction regarding the types of conditions that are required for those housing types and for those locations.

And then in that same exercise, you also provide a direction regarding the types of development incentives that the city can should consider, and then what types of housing or public benefits we should actually incentivize.

Okay, so now we have all that information, all of that feedback that you provided us with, and that is what we use to come up with three actionable strategies.

The strategies are kind of the overarching the umbrella, I guess I would say, for the tactics, the tools, uh they are what are we trying to accomplish?

Um, and so the three actionable strategies essentially are incentivizing variety, uh targeting strategic locations for additional housing, and then encouraging ownership and quality design to maintain neighborhood character.

Okay, and they're listed here on the screen.

I I shortened them a little bit in what I just read, but those are the three key uh actionable strategies that we're proposing.

Um each strategy, uh I'm gonna go through in detail.

Each strategy has uh a couple of tactics that are applied within the strategy.

Wait, how are we going to work towards that strategy?

That's what the tactic will cover.

So let's go through each one.

So, strategy one uh permit and incentivize a variety of housing options for a broad range of residents.

There are a couple of tactics that we've proposed.

The first tactic for this strategy is to legalize middle housing much more broadly.

Okay.

Um how are we going to do that?

That's the question, right?

Um the focus from our perspective, and based upon the feedback that you gave to us, is that we should focus on gentle infill when we're talking about some of the lower density neighborhoods with the kind of denser uh development uh in the cairns and centers and along corridors.

It became really clear to us that that kind of gentle or invisible infill in neighborhoods was important to uh all of you as elected officials.

Um specifically, uh you talked about a few housing types.

Number one was detached ADUs.

Okay, so detached ADUs you said were preferred in low and very low density neighborhoods with specific conditions.

Small lot single family, preferred in low and very low density neighborhoods, but without conditions.

In other words, we're ready to go.

Let's put those in those lower density neighborhoods.

Small midrise, preferred in centers along corridors with conditions.

I'm sorry, we and I'll add the the cairns onto there as well.

I forgot to mention that.

Uh mansion style multifamily, preferred in the cairns, centers, and low, very low density neighborhoods with conditions, preferred along corridors and in medium density neighborhoods without conditions.

Uh, twin homes or duplexes, depending on you know if you're renting them or or uh selling them.

Uh preferred in low or very low density neighborhoods with conditions, preferred in centers without conditions.

Okay, so when we're talking about legalizing middle housing, what we're saying with tactic one is let's legalize these housing types.

There will be conditions attached to some, there won't be conditions attached to other to others.

So some of the conditions, I'm actually gonna stay on this slide.

Some of the conditions that uh you mentioned is important.

I'm gonna go over them by location.

So conditions that you came to a consensus on that were important for very low, low and medium density neighborhoods were dimensional requirements.

Okay, so things like the size of the structure, the setback, where it's placed on the lot.

Uh how is it going to impact the neighborhood?

Things like parking, right?

That's what that would be an impact.

Is there going to be new infrastructure required based on this new structure?

Uh is it going to cause some new noise issue, or is it going to increase traffic, right?

Those are the types of conditions that you identified again as important in neighborhoods.

And then the final one is owner occupancy.

That is a clear preference across pretty much every location type, quite honestly, but especially in medium, low, and very low density neighborhoods.

So those are the conditions that we're talking about when we mention uh with conditions on these various uh housing types that you've identified as preferred.

Within the cairns, you've identified one condition that you came to consensus on, and that was affordability.

Within centers and along corridors, there wasn't consensus reached on any particular conditions.

And quite honestly, that aligns with the various housing types and the locations that you've brought up because there aren't any that you've really said, hey, in uh centers and corridors, this is okay, but with conditions.

Okay, you didn't identify any conditions.

So we're approaching each of those areas and these housing types based upon what you've said is preferred and the conditions that you've identified as preferred.

So that is the first tactic within strategy one.

The second tactic is uh incentives.

Um we've listed as adopt financial and regulatory incentives.

One thing I want to point out, it was made really clear to us early on that there wasn't an interest in incentivizing housing in necessarily particular, you know, uh geographic locations, and there wasn't an interest in incentivizing particular types of structures or types of housing, but there was an interest in incentivizing outcomes, and what I mean by that is uh incentivizing uh things that might constitute a major public benefit.

Okay, so an outcome might be housing for first-time home buyers, right?

Or housing for seniors.

Um we've listed some of the public benefits here on this on this slide.

These are ones that you've you all seemed to speak to is important to you.

So we have affordable units, housing for first-time homebuyers, workforce housing, housing for seniors, and again you'll see this pop up all the time owner-occupied housing.

So those are some of the major public benefits that we're recommending you consider incentivizing.

How do we incentivize them?

You made it clear that there were three areas that you were interested in using as incentives.

One is density bonuses, one was city assistance, city assistance could be various things, right?

It might be providing land at one end, or it might be providing city funding at another end, or it might be fee waivers or reductions, right?

Some type of assistance from the city.

And then the third incentive that you identified were accelerated, was an accelerated approval process.

You know, and we don't know what that looks like at this point, but it could be something like if you propose a propose a project and it meets this particular set of standards, we're bumping it at the front of the line.

We don't know that what it would be at this point in time.

But what we're recommending is in order to achieve those public benefits that we recommend a combination of those three incentives.

And honestly, we'll probably have to use all three of them.

Uh the second strategy that we've identified is more housing in the right locations.

And so I'm I'm referencing that as targeting strategic locations.

Uh there are again, there are a couple of tactics that we've outlined within the report.

Uh, one is encouraging higher density housing options downtown, so we mean the cairns, in centers, and along corridors.

Okay, you've identified you know, mansion-style multifamily, townhomes, small mid-rise, those options.

So that's tactic one.

We want to encourage those in those higher density area, or I'm sorry, we want to encourage those in the downtown areas, centers, and corridors.

The second tactic is the one that will make a little bit more of a difference in my mind, and it's context, sensitive infill in existing neighborhoods.

Um those are mostly made up of your low and your very low density neighborhoods.

And again, we're talking about small lots, single family.

Okay, and you mentioned again that you wanted you didn't have a lot of conditions that you wanted to apply to that.

Twin homes and mansion style multifamily.

You made it clear to us that they that design standards were important.

You want to make sure that they fit in, right, to the neighborhood.

You want to make sure they have that look of the housing that's surrounding them.

And the other condition that you wanted to apply to those was uh impact, right?

And so you're concerned about do we have enough parking?

How is it going to impact traffic?

For example, um, and then the third is detached ADUs.

So detached ADUs is um this one's interesting because as you all know, uh the state just passed uh new law last week related to external ADUs.

And interestingly enough, I actually from my read of it, and I had a conversation with Lynn.

I actually think it fits pretty well within uh what you've identified here, the conditions that you've identified.

Owner occupancy is one of the conditions that you said was important.

Uh, under that statute the past, we can still require owner occupancy for either the ADU or the primary dwelling unit.

Um dimensions and other design standards.

So the statute it takes a little reading to get to this point, but it does make it clear that you can apply certain design standards, especially when you're trying to make it look like uh the existing home, right?

The main the main home.

And my recollection from the workshops is that was one of the topics that came up.

How do we make sure that it fits?

Um you can still apply things like setbacks, size requirements, etc.

There are some some stipulations on the amount of parking that you can require, but I I feel like we're still we're still good there with what the state has passed.

The area where maybe we're gonna have to give a little is the location condition.

So you you all made it clear that location was really important when it came to external ADUs.

There was a lot of conversation about well, maybe they're best on kind of the odd lot that that where maybe the impact won't be so great, maybe they're better along busier streets, or when they're abutting uh you know, a commercial area, or they're kind of transitional.

We can do that when we're talking about lots that are under 11,000 square feet under the current state statute still, if we want to.

But once you hit that 11,000 square foot threshold, my understanding of what was passed is they're gonna be permitted by right.

We can still apply some of the dimensional and design standards, we can still apply the owner occupancy standards, but we may not be able to apply some of those location standards.

Um to go back through tactic two, context sensitive infill, we want to focus on small lot single family, twin homes, mansion style homes, and then detached ADUs with the conditions that you've identified.

Uh Strategy three that we're recommending is I'm calling it maintain neighborhood character.

Um, but really it's maintaining neighbor neighborhood character is kind of the result of that strategy.

How you do that is we are recommending uh again two tactics.

One is incentivizing, encourage, or require owner occupancy requirements whenever possible.

Okay.

I think an important part of maintaining neighborhood neighborhood character is you're maintaining the character of hey, the people who own this property live here, right?

That's that's uh my understanding of what you passed along to us.

And so one of our tactics is let's do everything we can to incentivize, encourage, or require owner occupancy, especially when we're talking about uh neighborhoods.

That's really what's important.

You identified ADUs, you identified low, very low density neighborhoods is uh where owner occupancy is most important.

And then the second tactic is to adopt uh robust standards for the location dimensions and design of middle housing in neighborhoods.

So any of these middle housing options that we've talked about, the ADUs, the uh do I'm sorry, the twin homes, the uh mansion style multifamily, etc.

We want to make sure that when they're built in those lower density neighborhoods that they they fit, right?

They look like uh the surrounding neighborhood.

And that's what Tactic 2 is talking about within strategy three.

Um so how do we how do we meet those?

What do we need to implement in order to make that happen?

We have come up with a list of kind of broad operational uh regulatory tools, and most of these are really going to be we're gonna need to consider them with our Title 21 rewrite.

That's where that's where this belongs.

And so we've identified four regulatory tools that we would recommend.

One is buy right development approval.

One is looking at some form-based codes.

Um, and then the other two are looking at development agreements and then overlay zoning.

So I I I'm not gonna go into those in group into those in great detail, but I'd like to talk about them a little bit.

So the development agreement and the by-right development approval, those are the how do we make this happen.

By right development agreement, I'd kind of view it as the self-checkout lane, right?

It's hey, here are a list of standards, here are a set of standards, and if you meet these standards by right, you can build this thing in this location.

The development agreement is how we you know make sure that if we're incentivizing something or if we're offering something that's maybe not necessarily offered by right, that it's gonna happen.

The form-based codes and then the overlay zoning are how we implement those two things.

Okay, so form-based codes are gonna be there.

If your building looks this way, then we're going to give you more leeway on what can happen inside of it, right?

It's a little different than Euclidean zoning.

Um we're talking about the overlay zoning, that might be more surgical in nature.

So if we want to apply an incentive to a very particular location within the city, we may use an overlay zone to more surgically say if you do XYZ, then you may qualify for this benefit from the city, right?

You may get a density bonus, for example.

That's just an example of how that might work.

That's not the full detail, obviously.

But those are the regulatory tools that we're recommending that we move forward with exploring in the Title 21 rewrite.

Um, and so finally, I want to talk about just implementation and next steps.

Um, the way we've kind of written this out is a green light, yellow light, right?

Green means green means go, yellow means slow.

And the green items are ones that we want to start moving on right now.

As soon as the council says, yes, we like this, let's move forward.

And so I'm gonna go through those really quickly.

Uh number one, permit detached accessory dwelling units ADUs.

Um James and his team, as Melissa mentioned, they are ready to come present and say, hey, here's where we want to go on external ADUs based upon uh those the workshops that we've held.

We would like to do that on March 31st.

We've got it listed tentatively on the agenda planning calendar.

Once the council says yes, we like this.

If you say that, we're ready to go on that.

Um public benefits.

So the next issue that we want to attack is understand is helping you to understand the kind of interconnected uh use of development agreements, um, by-right approvals, and then certain incentive programs to achieve the kind of outcomes that we've we've noted here.

And Lynn is prepared to come and present to the council on how we can make those three things work together.

How can we use development agreements and incentives to achieve the outcomes that we want, right?

And we would plan on doing that uh in combination with the uh incentives that we've identified here in the report.

Uh in addition, uh tied into that is obviously accelerated approvals.

Um, that is another topic that would be covered in that same meeting.

And then finally, uh financial and soft cost relief, and um Casey and Rob are ready to come present on city and RDA owned property that has the potential for future housing projects, right?

So that would be the city partnering with with a developer in some fashion in order to move that forward.

They're also prepared to uh suggest a property that we might be able to use as a test case moving forward.

So we're ready to move on all three of those things, and we'd like to come present on them within the next month and a half.

Uh two more mandate owner occupancy for ADUs, that's another topic that will be discussed on March 31st.

And then again, the use of development agreements, that'll be in what in with the uh April 21st presentation.

The yellow items, those are items that we're recommending we um complete along with the Title 21 rewrite.

So, Brooke, you mentioned, well, what are the things that we're gonna move on right now, right?

You mentioned uh during that presentation.

Are you gonna bring things to us or are we gonna adopt everything at the end?

So I think right here we're identifying, hey, here are some things that are important to us that we want to focus on, and maybe we want to tackle these a little earlier than two years, maybe.

Um so that's that's um why we're calling them out here.

So those yellow items are items that we would want to notify our.

I'm sorry, I I said general plan, but I didn't mean that, or Title 21 rewrite.

We want to notify the consultant that those issues are important to us.

Maybe we'll want to consider them a little earlier, but they are going along with the Title 21 process.

So uh legalizing small lot single family housing, uh encouraging mansion style multifamily, allowing twin homes and duplexes uh more broadly, focusing on high density in the cairns and centers, establishing uh design based conditions, and then um prioritizing ownership in neighborhoods, and then finally the implementation tools.

Those are also the tools that we would suggest be considered in combination with the Title 21 rewrite, a combination of form-based codes, overlay zoning, and then buy right approvals.

Um in conclusion, and I'm happy to open it up to questions.

Um, what we're trying to accomplish tonight is again the following.

Does this report accurately capture your intent?

Are you comfortable with the strategies, tactics, tools that we're recommending in section four?

Are you comfortable with the implementation plan we've outlined in section five?

And then finally, once we get to the point where you are comfortable, we would like the council to adopt this at some point and say, hey, we're making this our final report, not our draft final report, but our final report on the house shop working.

I'm sorry, the housing workshop series.

Um so with that, happy to answer questions, and I'll invite any of the staff that helped out with this to jump in if you have any answers to the questions as well.

Ms.

DeSouza Thank you, Madam Chair.

Okay, so on page 32, there were a couple of things that I'm not sure in specific that I thought reflected my recollection.

Um, and it was the mandate owner occupancy for ADUs.

The subtext says require that the primary unit of any property with a detached ADU be owner occupied.

And so I would think that either one of them, but not necessarily the primary, because I mean it kind of defeats the purpose that somebody might want to.

Yeah, well, and that's that's fair because the new state statute also says that it can be either or.

So that's okay.

There are certainly some things that we'll have to amend in this based upon that the law of the past after we put this in the packet last Friday.

Okay, no, that sounds good.

Thank you for that clarification there, then.

And then the um other one is the between the green light and the slow down yellow light, the prioritize ownership in neighborhoods versus use development agreements, and maybe I'm missing it, but it sounds like the development agreement is a tool of owner is is a potential tool of owner occupancy.

And so I guess I'm I'm questioning why we would focus on that specific tool as opposed to the overall goal and a plethora of the tools.

Can you point out where you're what you're referencing one more time?

Sorry.

What page are you referencing?

32.

Page 32.

Am I looking at an old it's a printed?

Okay, yeah, right there.

So in the the bottom section, the yellow and the green.

And I guess my question is wouldn't we prioritize owner offer ownership, prioritize ownership in neighborhoods versus just use development agreements?

I think that and I'm I apologize if I'm not getting your question correct, but I think those things are tied or tied together potentially.

Well, no, I guess that's what I'm saying, is prioritize ownership in neighborhoods is slightly larger that may have more tools than just development agreements, where development agreements is maybe a tool in prioritizing ownership in neighborhoods.

And so my question is why would we just prioritize one specific tool as opposed to the goal which may allow us more tools?

Does that make sense?

I'm not sorry.

Are you asking why use development agreements is green instead of being the opposite?

Why are we focusing on that first instead of oh?

Okay, yeah.

So just like why are we focusing on used development agreements?

I think because Lynn's gonna present that to us first.

Yes, one of but it's not like the only thing, right?

You just want them to be different.

So it's maybe maybe I can answer your question.

And again, if anybody wants to jump in, feel free.

But so development agreements.

What we would like to do on April 21st is have a joint conversation about a couple of topics, and it's kind of how development agreements are interconnected with uh incentives, for example.

Um that's why we've listed that one as green, is because we can move on it now.

Prioritizing ownership in neighborhoods.

I understand what you're saying because prior maybe the development agreement is um maybe in order to prioritize uh ownership in neighborhoods, we may need to talk about it with development agreements.

You may be correct, but um I think that the intention is to talk about how development agreements and incentivize incentivizations are connected to one another.

Umership in neighborhoods, not an incentive necessarily, right?

Okay, it is a public benefit that we might experience.

So I think you're right.

I think a lot of these are tied together, but we just didn't classify that one necessarily with what we're planning on presenting in April.

Okay.

Does that answer your question?

It does.

I the incentive aspect was missing from my mind when reviewing this.

Um I just don't want to miss opportunities for a year and a half to um come up to or to create um tools that would be beneficial in the overall goal of providing prioritizing owner occupancy.

But this this isn't the the end all be all, right?

This is our recommendation on where we're gonna start.

Where are we gonna start off?

Um we might get into the Title 21 reboot rewrite, and a year later the consultant says, Hey, have you guys considered this?

And we'll say not at all.

It might be a new thing that comes up, right?

But this is just what we're recommending at this point in time.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for that question.

Um I I'm gonna more comment just on the the layout because I don't really have any questions, but more comment.

I I really appreciate um the the way that you sort of unpack the process.

I can't imagine the hours spent looking for consensus across all the sticky notes and handwritten stuff, and um, and I agree, Liz is beautiful.

Well done.

Such branding.

I just finished my marketing class, so I can talk about branding now.

Excellent.

Um, but the thing I'd like to highlight is not just a summary, but coming back to us with actual here's what we'd like to talk about next, here's who's gonna present that, here are the dates.

Um I'm a big fan of stoplight.

Like, here's what's ready to go green.

Here's some things we're still talking about.

Doesn't mean we're not gonna do it, but but we're not ready to commit to dates, sir.

Um I I 100% approve, like I know you're looking for actual adoption of this, so I'm uh I'm wondering, does that also mean like you're you're good with these dates?

Because I think that's the chair has said, yeah, those dates are good, right?

Like if they're in in this document, they are they are tentative on the agenda.

We have not spoken with the chair about the dates.

Okay, thanks a lot.

Oh, sorry.

Very listed as they're listed as tentative.

Tentative.

We were gonna go over them once we heard from the council today.

Sorry, sorry.

Well, then I am I am proactively saying the timeline I think is is great.

I think we cannot miss, and I think this was sort of what Councilmember D'Souza was after.

Um I I don't want to miss any uh window of execution around the things that are green, and I think they're the right things.

I think there's consensus, there's there's years, you know, two almost two years spent on this, right?

Is it a year?

No, I I think we started last middle of last week.

Marcy's been thinking about it way longer than that.

So is Aaron, and so is we all have we talked about ADUs.

I want to say that was over a year ago.

Yeah.

Am I correct on that, guys?

Yeah, yeah.

So I think I think we have the right traction.

These are the right uh what did you call them?

Um it's not just strategy, it's tactics.

Tactics, thank you.

I just drew a blank.

I think it's the right tactics.

I I love the specific dates.

I love that we are gonna set things in motion.

Um, and I'm ready uh to bring it back with all the appendices so that we can actually adopt this because that is ultimately what you need from us, right?

Yeah, what I'm looking for tonight again is does this capture your feeling of what was accomplished during those workshops.

Did we miss anything?

Are there any changes that you'd like to see us make?

And then our plan at that point is to attach the appendices and put it on the next agenda for adoption.

James will then take the adopted version, hand it to our consultant so that they have that when they're going through the Title 21 rewrite.

Yep.

And we will then immediately be able to begin kind of bringing those green items uh back.

Okay.

I think the one thing that you did um really well, if there were any tuning needed, this would be the only thing.

Uh but I'm I'm again I feel like it's really really well done.

Um, but I like what you've done in terms of highlighting the need to to blend.

Like we spent a lot of time talking about transition from a certain type of housing structure into what we might allow, but the need for buffer um and transition type housing that makes that feel more seamless instead of just we have this and then we have this very abrupt, all of a sudden very, very different type of housing.

I think that's reflected in here.

I I don't know if it if it could be uh emphasized in a in a few other ways, just so the people know we are the the way we got to some of the where thinking about transitional house, like transitioning that blending.

I that's the only little piece of feedback if if we could say it a few more places.

I think that's one thing that people are gonna want to do that.

That's a that's a good recommendation.

I actually noticed as I was preparing my notes over the last couple of days, and I was reviewing this for the 15th time, right?

I thought, hey, some of the conditions that we're talking about maybe aren't called out in here quite well enough, and that would be a condition, right?

Those kind of transitional and so maybe we could look at um maybe inserting those conditions a little bit.

So we're so we're not going dramatically different because continuity means I'm gonna look exactly like this area, the housing we approved in the hair area adjacent is gonna look exactly the same.

What I remember from all of our workshops was this thought around a transition, like a slow transition.

So this this in the middle will look somewhat like this, but then when we get over here, this looks even more different.

Does that make sense?

Just sort of the and the the place we talked about that, unfortunately in the report is the place that we can't do it anymore, and that's with ADUs, right?

Right.

Um so yeah, we could look at we need to edit that section anyways, and so we could try to kind of wiggle that somewhere else just so it's it's more clear.

Perfect.

I I really appreciate all the work on this Christensen.

Um this was super helpful for someone who was stepping into it after the fact.

The only two things that might possibly be helpful, totally up to you guys.

It's all helpful.

Okay, yeah.

Um the conditions, like specifically they weren't listed in there.

That would be really helpful.

Okay, and then also um a map that shows when you're talking about the three things you talked about locked throughout with downstairs, downstairs, downtown centers and corridors, yeah, like a map at the beginning or the end, just calling those specifically out to be referred back to.

Those are really good.

Excellent recommendation, Mr.

Dukaise.

I don't want to add too much.

I did agree with Councilmember D'Souza's reading of the ADUs and the ownership requirements that'll change.

Also, as we talk about transition, uh let's uh really edit that as we do that.

I didn't think that had anything to do with ADUs, as far as I'm concerned, you can plop one down wherever you want.

In terms of going from, you know, uh on a busy street from a residential to build up to scaling to a McMansion, whatever we're calling them.

I think that's more the intent in the transitional housing or housing on peripheries and through corridors, things like that.

Um, but too, I did just want to give a huge shout out to you.

I cannot wait for the council to pass an ADU uh ordinance.

It's been over a year since we've been trying to do that.

There are dozens of residents chomping at the bit for this to happen.

So I am super excited that that happened in the legislature.

Um, but yeah, huge kudos to you for doing this and also to the uh working group team, Lynn, Shane, everyone else who is involved with those meetings.

Um it was a big lift uh for the city as a whole to do these workshops and bring in all the speakers that we had.

So thanks to everyone to for doing this and look forward to implementation.

Thank you.

So is the intent that when the council passes this, that this gets taken and built into the new land development code.

I think the intent is that it the consultant considers it, that they reference it, right?

It is you it is a conglomeration of policy feedback given by the legislative body, right?

You didn't vote on all of those things necessarily, but you you participated in quite a few exercises where you expressed your preferences.

You expressed what issues you thought were most important to the city.

And so I I feel I I know James feels this way as well because he said it to me, that providing it to the consultant as a reference of hey, this is where we're at on these issues, is good.

It also gives us some understanding of maybe what what some of the priorities that where we should maybe start are based upon kind of what Brooke had mentioned during the first presentation earlier tonight.

You know, where are we adopting this all the end or are there things that we're gonna talk about throughout?

Right?

These might be the things you want to talk about throughout.

As I said before, when we were doing the housing workshops, I'm still struck by the fact that we're missing something that I feel is very important, and that is a staff recommendation.

We are not, we have our opinions and we're the legislative body, but we are not the decades-long professionals.

Um we're not, and I feel like because of that, I'm wondering whether we might already be making some mistakes.

Um, too strong a word.

Um, like as an example, page 26, if you want to go back to that one, Dustin.

So we did make it very clear, and I would agree that we talked a lot about a goal being owner occuper-occupied housing.

But on page 26, two of the three things we have on here would be rentals.

Um I think what we're missing is the guiding hand of the professionals saying, did you think about this?

What about that?

Um I must say I am uncomfortable with the fact that the council, who again decides in the end, but should be deciding based on input from other professionals along the way, I feel like maybe that isn't happening.

Um I like the idea going back to page 32 of trading density for affordability or maybe for owner occupancy.

But I would pose the question, if that's a tool that we're thinking of using, did we already in adopting the future land use map, did we set the standard as too dense?

Did we leave ourselves room for that kind of negotiation?

That was my first thought.

Um I'm not sure that I I just I have some angst.

I definitely have some angst.

Yeah.

May I, Madam Chair?

Yes.

So one one thing to point out is when you're talking about owner occupancy, my my belief in where we're focusing on is owner occupancy within neighborhoods.

Right?

When you mentioned page 26, you're talking about uh centers, the cairns, and I don't think it's really any of our perspective that all of that is going to be owner occupied.

I don't think that's anyone's perspective necessarily.

That's not what we're recommending.

In terms of staff recommendation, is this exactly what we would recommend is like as planners, right?

The non-elected officials in a vacuum.

It's probably not what I would recommend, right?

I'm a trained planner, but it's what I would recommend based upon the feedback that you've given us as elected officials.

And so that is one of our one of our intentions was to gather that feedback and give our best recommendation based upon what's important to you as the elected officials.

And so that's what we tried to do.

Um sections four and five are our recommendations, they're our best recommendations based upon that.

There will be more recommendations coming because these still are somewhat high level.

How are the details going to work?

That's where I think you have to leave it to the subject matter experts to really flesh that out.

We don't want to be coming to have conversations with you all about every little word, you know, within a within Title 21.

Um, but I understand what you're saying.

Maybe your perspective was we should have given you a recommendation first.

That's not how we approached it.

We approached it from we want to hear from you.

It doesn't always go well for us to give recommendations before we understand the perspective of the elected officials, I don't think.

And so that's usually what we try to do is get that perspective.

Well, I would say too that it's uncommon for the elected officials to make such a consequential decision without professional staff recommendations.

And I'm worried that if we're not getting there, at very least, can I say during this process of updating the general plan or updating the land development code?

If we're going down the wrong avenue, and there's professional staff that believes you started this out by saying this, your background is in planning, you wouldn't have done this.

I what what I said is I I wouldn't necessarily in a vacuum suggest all of these things, but I am not here representing what would you suggest?

You don't want to know what I would suggest.

You you don't, because as a planner things are different.

I have a different perspective.

I have a different perspective than what might be acceptable accepted by the residents, right?

Or accepted by you as elected officials.

But we are giving a recommendation based upon the feedback that we got.

Now it's true.

We could get a whole lot of professional recommendations and still decide against it.

For me, it's just an important part of decision making, right?

A very important part, especially with something so consequential.

We may be already seeing the the effects tonight in another agenda item of a decision that we made and now we're second guessing.

I'd like to do as little of that as possible in the future.

And it would when it comes to complete overhaul rewrite of our land development codes and specifications.

It shouldn't be let's pass it and then fix what we got wrong later on.

It should be let's make our best attempt to do it right, and then maybe fix in hindsight what we got wrong.

But I I am a little bit worried.

Um I'm just I'm just gonna put that out there.

Um would I say that this is not representative of what the council I think we probably went a little too far on this mansion style multifamily housing for this reason, and and I'm just speaking for myself, other council members may disagree.

Um I think we liked that idea as an owner-occupied solution that fits into neighborhoods or corridors or whatever, meaning it looks like every other house around it, but instead of um accommodating one family, it accommodates four.

Isn't that a great thing?

But then we came to find out that that because we aren't moving the needle very much on condos, we don't know how many of those will get built.

Um maybe we wait to enact those until we feel a higher level of certainty that the use is gonna be owner-occupied instead of rentals.

We didn't get anywhere on condos in this legislative session.

Um, one of the things that I think it's in this that we talked about is as a city.

This is kind of a Jake Warner kind of question or comment.

It seems like the information we've been getting is that when it comes to market rate apartments, we're doing pretty well.

We are fitting the need of affordability at market rate for the 80 percent and above of household income in Sandy.

If we're gonna build apartments, should we focus and we're designating a lot of them?

Should we focus on the unmet needs, not more of the already met needs?

Um I don't think we're being, I know I'm not sure if we're being very visionary in that category.

Um I don't know if we want to build more apartments, but it sure looks that way by what we came up with, right?

We know in the Cairns we've already permitted some, and so that's where we're headed.

But I I'm I uh I just want to make sure I'm uncomfortable with an answer, which is this is the council's product sitting there in a series of work sessions saying that sounds good, but we're missing the input of the professionals, and that makes me uncomfortable.

So may I, madam chair?

Yes.

The in I this is just my my perspective of this point.

As I mentioned, um this is our recommendation based upon the feedback that we got.

But there is going to be more in input from the professionals.

We have we have uh the next three sessions scheduled where you are going to hear from city professionals and where they're going to recommend this is how this is going to work.

This is how we should move forward, right?

This is higher level than that at this point.

The green means go, yellow means slow, right?

The yellow items.

We're still going to get professionals, additional professional staff input on those items.

None of those, we could we could not take one of those items and say, ah, let's just go ahead and stick it in the code right now.

They're not code amendments, they're not written that way.

Staff, the consultant will come back with their professional recommendation on how are we going to actually put this into the code, how are we going to make it happen.

Can they go as far as if?

I would say yes.

Yeah, there are there could certainly be things.

Maybe Lynn comes back in two months and says, hey, this thing about owner occupancy, we've really looked into it, and in order for us to enforce it, it's gonna cost you know a million dollars, and we're gonna have to do XYZ, and it seems really hard to do.

And we might say, Oh, well, maybe we're gonna have to sideline that one for the time being.

We don't know at this point, right?

What we're trying to uh figure out in the report is did we capture the high-level direction that you gave us so that we can move forward and drill down and ultimately adopt amendments to the code to hopefully make these things happen.

Some of them may not may end up not being feasible.

That very well that I think that's a completely possible outcome for some of them.

Cindy, maybe I also want to make sure that some very important people sitting in the room are hearing this too.

I I am looking for your opinion, your guidance, your input.

This is collaborative.

I don't want anyone thinking when they get this, this is what the council told us to do, so how are we gonna get this over the finish line?

Right.

So anyway, and I know I haven't forgotten that you wanted to speak to, but Miss Nickel, go ahead.

Thank you.

Uh for me, I think the document gives flexibility for a purpose because it's not set in stone.

None of this is, and until we write code, that's the stone, and I I think we'll have a lot of input.

I I do.

And as far as making it perfect the first time, we write code until it's until it's thinking it's good, and we're until until we find out it's not good.

So setting the goal as perfect is a high bar.

I don't know that we'll get there.

Um, but I just wanted to voice I think it's a great document.

The sentiment is there in what we said, and um obviously there were other things said as well, and I think those will be taken into recommendation too.

So thank you.

So Lynn Pace, I'm willing to let you weigh in finally.

If we have to hear from the attorney, we will.

Um first I want to echo Councilmember DeKaiser's comments to thanks to all of you and the staff.

This this was a lot of time spent wrestling on what is a very challenging issue.

Um and so I I applaud all of the time and effort that was spent.

Um I also in terms of what I you're looking at tonight.

I think this is a um ultimately, I think Dustin is looking to bring this back for a vote, but this document is directional.

It's not it's not it's not a decision, it is direction to staff and to the consultants to say go explore these options and bring back possibilities to us that we can then put into the code and that we can actually start to implement.

So I I would not panic over the fact that it isn't perfect.

These were the things where where we expressed interest and support, would like to explore that.

And I if you think of it, what we would in my mind, what I think we want to develop is some kind of a menu of options so that a a landowner or developer in coming into Sandy could say, oh, I can do X, which is my base zoning, or I could do option A, B, C or D, if I meet the conditions, and that menu of options gives them possibilities, it gives them certainty, it gives them predictability based upon market conditions and what they want to do with their property and the etc.

So we all what we're doing tonight will give staff the ability to go explore those options and bring back those possibilities.

And and and you of course will get the final decision on all of this.

So I don't want you to panic that by by saying yes to this tonight or a month from now that you you've somehow unleashed Pandora's box, right?

That's not the case.

Um the other thing I would I I guess I wanted to comment on was Councilmember Seuss's comments.

As you look at this, and we've we have marked this you know, blue, green and yellow.

I wonder, as I sit here tonight, I wonder if you want three colors, because what I heard tonight was that the code rewrite is not going to be completed until December of 2027.

Because what I heard tonight was that the code rewrite is not going to be completed until December of 2027.

That means the next for whatever elements of this housing plan that wait until 2027, the end of 2027 to get adopted, you won't be able to use those tools until summer of 2028.

That is two years from now.

So I I think you might want to say, what do we want to do right now?

ADUs, we have to do right now because the state told us we have to.

What do we want to do next?

And when I say next, I mean without waiting until the end of 2027.

Are there things you want to pursue?

We may not be ready right now, but we don't want to wait for the whole code rewrite to do them.

So maybe you want to think about using three colors.

I don't know.

But think through that.

For instance, I'll just give you one example.

On I don't know what page this is, Dustin, but this is on the implementation of the next steps.

We have permit detached ADUs as green.

We have allow twin homes and duplexes as yellow.

Well, bear in mind that with the state's authorization of internal ADUs, every home can have two unit units right now.

And with the authorization of external detached ADUs, any large lot can have detached ADUs starting in October.

So this is not going to wait until the end of 2027 to implement.

Our citizens are going to start using it now, or at least in the fall.

So you might want to think about accelerating that.

Just just think about as you look through this list, which ones do you want to do now, which ones do you want to do soon, and which ones are okay to wait with until the whole code code rewrite is done.

That would be helpful guidance to staff in just in terms of sequencing.

But all in all, I think it is it is critical to uh to move forward as fast as you feel comfortable, and that may be sequenced, uh, because the crisis is now.

Um, and for you know, for Sandy citizens or their children or college students graduating two years from now is an eternity.

And so anything we can do to move the ball forward in terms of accessibility, number of units affordability is enormously important and enormously meaningful.

So that's I think that's our our collective pledge is to help us accomplish that at whatever in whatever specifics and whatever timetable you're comfortable with.

So thank you.

May I make another comment, Mom?

Sorry, go oh just in in um reference to Lynn.

If you'd like, we as staff could take a look at those and make some recommendations on what might be kind of the now next end of the general plan.

We could do that and include those changes in you know, a potential next version if you'd like us to.

If you want to give us any feedback tonight, open to that.

The other thought in reference to your comments, madam chair, would it make you more comfortable if we uh included in our resolution, you know, setting this as the final report, you know, the findings and but we make sure in the you know now therefore uh staff is directed to you know pursue use this report, but also to let you know if there's anything that's just not just doesn't work, right?

I'm not boardsmithing this really well right now.

But we could include something like that in the resolution so that it's exceptionally clear.

Hey, staff, we if something doesn't work, we want you to tell us.

We want you to let us know.

Yeah, yeah.

Ms.

DeSouza.

Thank you.

Um, you're you're bringing up the mansion-style apartments um or multifamily housing uh reminded me that I felt like there was a bit of a disconnect in a couple of areas of this um really amazing, beautiful thank you, Liz um report.

Um, where we talk about that page 31, where you I think you're still at when it talks about um encourage mansion style multifamily, it says to authorize multi-unit buildings designed to look like large single family homes, and and that kind of is the that you know the beneficial use of that style of housing is to um create density in areas um that may not be suitable to other types of housing very well from a consistency continuity and look.

But then on page 31, I think it's 31.

Oh no, it's 26 because that's where we're on.

Sorry, um it says mansion style multifamily was preferred moderate density middle housing option with within the Cairns neighborhood activity centers and along corridors, but I don't know that that style of housing matches that particular location as opposed to a like lower medium density single family neighborhood.

Yeah, madam chair, may I?

Yes.

Yeah.

Uh we actually had discussion about this in some of our uh meetings that we had as a group.

We were a little uh we were interested to better understand um why uh the elected officials felt like that fit there.

That might be one of the um mansion style homes, for example, in the cairns may not be it may be one of those items that the council member Sharky's uh comments that we come back and we say, you know what?

Maybe we wouldn't recommend that.

That might not be the best idea for XYZ.

We've already actually discussed that.

We intended to draft this using all of the incomes we didn't want to cherry pick, right?

Um but I agree with you.

Okay.

Well, and we went through a lot of the the information, not that we went through it quickly, but there was a lot of information to get through even over those five meetings, and so you know, um, reminders of the styles and types, there's you know what it looks like and and density, they're very different.

Now, if you want us to take that out now, happy to, because again, it's a topic we already discussed in one of our meetings.

I think we generally agree that it doesn't necessarily belong in the cairns, for example.

Um corridors, centers may be a different story, but I mean we'd be happy to take that out if that's what you guys would like us to do.

It doesn't have to be in the report.

Okay, I'm not recommending that we take it out because I think it's still an important topic to cover or consider.

I just wanted to voice the discrepancy with what it looks like and its intended use versus where we say we're comfortable with it, they don't match.

Yeah, you did note also mansion style was interesting because mansion style, you all made it very clear that you were happy with it just about anywhere.

And so really we we've talked about it in multiple locations in this report, and in our minds, I I shouldn't say our in my mind, and I'm under in my understanding of uh the minds of some of the other staff, maybe it doesn't belong in locations like the Cairns, for example.

Okay, and then the only last comment that I was gonna make, and it kind of goes back to Councilmember Houseman and Council Member De Kaiser's comments on the transitional zoning, and I'm thinking I you know, I'm thinking about it.

I I think I understand what you guys are getting at and more of blending to different densities so that they aren't there isn't such a stark contrast and prove uh providing more I don't know what the word is assistance, is the only word I can think of to um create a better blend between two opposing density areas.

So yeah, but I I do agree that we need more direction.

That's kind of the word I was looking for on how to achieve that appropriately.

Thank you.

Yeah, madam chair, may I?

Yeah.

I I think what we could do in the report is make sure that it's understood that that is uh an area of interest, right?

That's a priority.

Um we noted it specifically under ADUs, which we need to change that at this point, right?

Um but maybe we could, as I mentioned earlier, move that or make that more clear in reference to other housing types or other locations that aren't necessarily uh ADUs.

AD that was another kind of area where we had some some conversation and we felt well, does there really need to be buffers between properties that don't have ADUs and properties that do have ADUs?

In the exercises, you made it clear it was important, but it's another one of those things that maybe doesn't quite align with what might be best in practice, right?

Miss Saman.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Uh I just want to understand a little bit more.

I I really appreciate this conversation around the mansion style, because my vision doesn't mean it's the right vision, was more in line with with Councilman D'Souza that it it helps us accomplish housing.

But Councilman Sharkey, you just said that it falls I and I'm making an assumption.

You said two out of the three on this page are rentals, and that you had concerns about that.

Are you saying that the mansion style multifamily is a rental?

Uh-huh.

Why is that the case?

Because otherwise that's not my understanding.

Oh, the well, we did talk about that during one of the meetings.

It being most likely that unless it was built as a condo, and we just are having trouble getting condos built.

So it's most likely an assumption based on like what is what the market is currently doing, but it doesn't mean that um we're limited to it being rental.

In a development agreement, we could try to get away with mandating it with a developer.

But it's the developers that are resisting building them.

Well, they don't know about all of the other things that we're we're working on that could make it.

This is in my mind, this is one of those areas where incentives are really important, right?

If you're going to ask for something that maybe isn't being built right now, and you're gonna say, hey, we and we want it to be owner-occupied, you better be willing to offer some incentives that make that interesting to the person who's gonna develop it.

And so that's where those details are the things that I think we're gonna have to struggle with over the coming couple of years.

Um it was it was clear that incentives for particular types of housing weren't of interest to you.

Maybe that'll change in the near future.

But it was also clear that incentivizing again outcomes was right, like as you mentioned, owner occupancy.

So if you're saying we like mansion style multifamily, for example, and we want it to be built like a townhouse where it's divided and can be owned, um, but the market's not necessarily allowing for that, you would have to offer some pretty pretty good incentives to encourage it to happen.

Okay.

Well, um, and I and I agree, uh you don't need to take any like strike it now, but I I do want to make sure that we maybe revisit that of what do we uh feel is is are the right locations.

Um I understand if the staff recommendation is not in the cairns, I'm I'm fine with that, but it doesn't say here single family neighborhoods where I think that is a possible location for this.

Because you're looking at a the strategy, so this is an individual strategy, right?

And this strategy uh this tactic, I'm sorry, within this strategy is specifically talking about uh housing in downtown and centers and along corridors.

So it's only talking about those locations.

Okay, okay.

But if you go to the next tactic under that same strategy, it's talking about context sensitive infill in existing neighborhoods, and you'll notice that it also talks about mansion style multi-family.

Okay, because mansion style multifamily was a housing type that you that there was broad consensus that it was something that you all liked at least in the workshop series.

Again, maybe that changes, but it there was interest in exploring it pretty much everywhere in the city.

Great.

Great.

Okay, thank you for clarifying.

I think that's all I had.

So, in terms of the question that both you and Lynn asked about, do we have other priorities, council?

Other than are are we okay with the priorities that are listed on here already, the items in green?

We have three of them teed up to be heard next month.

So it seems like we're starting out at a pretty good clip.

Um I think I'm gonna answer my own question and then look to others.

Um there was a bill that but got pretty close to passing for starter homes, and so we know that that is a great interest at the state level.

And if we're not if we're talking about something not being implemented until 2025, we're falling be I'm 2028, we're falling behind.

So I would suggest that we maybe we escalate legalizing small lot single family housing.

Um maybe if we can get a jump start on that, um, we can beat the state in telling us how to do that.

So that would just be my input.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Since you asked, uh you offered to have the revised set um version come back with staff recommendations doing that very thing, like act now, um, like immediately, but still then act now, then wait for so almost three per Mr.

Pace's recommendation.

I would love to have that in the revised version that comes back to us so that we are parceling out act now.

May I madam chair?

Sure.

Yes, I'm happy to sit down with planning staff and discuss with them.

Hey, what's the where which of these items could be in that middle ground, which could we actually potentially move forward?

That would be our recommendation.

Um I wouldn't necessarily want to recommend something outside of what they feel like can be accomplished.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Any other council input or questions?

Anything else that you're looking for, Dustin?

No, it sounds like thank you for the great notes and recommendations.

We're still looking through this as a final edit.

You know, even today I found a couple minor things that we needed to change.

So we're still doing that.

I will talk with staff.

We can kind of add a middle ground to some of those, you know, upcoming or I'm sorry to the roadmap.

And then if you're comfortable, I would like to put this on the agenda two weeks from now.

And essentially what we'd be asking for is just for the council to set it as is the final report, right?

You know, we're not necessarily adopting and saying this is the policy of the council on how this is going to happen.

It's the final report from our housing workshop series that staff will use to implement the code rewrite and to consider when bringing forward you know other recommendations related to housing.

So that's what how I would like to proceed if you're comfortable with that looks like I'm seeing nodding heads.

Great.

Okay.

We're done on that one.

You're up on the next one as well.

Do you want to stay there or take your seat or it's I'm happy to just stand here for a minute.

I might go sit down.

Liz would you mind pulling this off the screen though?

Thank you.

So this one is selecting a council liaison or liaisons for that land development code steering committee.

Yes so the intention of the this agenda item tonight is to allow the council to discuss how you would like to select who you want to serve on the the steering committee.

Whether or not that was the intention of the meeting that that's what it was in my opinion.

And then as you recall there were the technical subcommittees that you served on and we actually appointed you to those in the same process we do with our annual committee appointments.

We had them listed on that resolution and you appointed selected who to go on and you appointed them.

So since we don't have a particular process my interest is in is an understanding how the council would like to proceed and you could appoint a person or people to serve the entire time you could appoint a person or people to serve for shorter periods of time and switch it out.

You could say hey you know what we want some we want a staff person to be on the committee you could and I'm just throwing out some examples you could say you know what we don't want to formally appoint somebody let's just hear when the meeting dates are and we're going to have a council member or two you know attend the various meetings without being formally appointed.

Haven't spoken with James about that one but I'm trying to throw all the ideas out there.

And so there may be some other good ideas that you may have I don't know tonight you could select who you'd like to put on the committee you don't necessarily have to do that by resolution at this point.

You could just say you know informally we make a motion and we want council member XYZ to represent us or you could we could bring back a resolution two weeks from now you could pick somebody we could change that in January when we do the uh council committee liaison appointments there's a lot of different ways that you could do it I I would suggest you know if there are if there's a lot of interest in participating you should give as many people an opportunity to participate as you can and that doesn't necessarily mean you have to appoint everybody it could mean the different people attend at different times that's my best suggestion though try and make sure that everybody has an opportunity to participate if they'd like to so we've heard it's quarterly possibly more often do we know when the meetings are daytime nighttime do we know that I haven't heard them Melissa do you know we haven't um set a time uh of of day but I would anticipate it would be daytime our first meeting we want to do on April 29th lunch meeting in in this room right behind us and it would be approximately quarterly or at milestones whichever's first so um and probably we'll try to shoot for Wednesday or Thursdays.

I know we have a strong prep preference by our planning commissioner in terms of Israel that he requested that.

Do you know when the first regularly scheduled?

It seems like I had some notes about this.

Is there a first like regularly scheduled meeting?

We have we haven't set that that up.

We we did reserve and identify, okay.

We're gonna do this is the first time we're gonna move from there.

I think it would make sense uh getting some feedback from the group in terms of regularly scheduling at that first meeting.

Okay.

So it seems like a good starting point for me is finding out what how many council members have an interest in being on part of this steering committee.

Ms.

D'Souza says she's interested.

Miss Nichols says she's interested.

I can.

I don't need to be, but I actually love the rotating option.

Of course, but I'm flexible guys.

Ms.

Stroud says she's interested as well.

Sounds like you're interested.

Daytime meetings are you can make it work.

Okay.

Mr.

DeKaiser's interested.

Do you want me on the microphone or I I am not, but I um I am interested in in starting with two who do spend some time.

I think some continuity, um, at least for the first couple, I do think it's important to have consistency.

Um I feel like though there's value in rotating, I think we need to be very wise about how frequently we rotate.

This is just it's important for people to have context from one meeting going into the next, so the feedback is provided.

So I'm ready to make a motion if you are open to that.

Let's have a let's see if there's more discussion on that.

Miss D'Souza.

Well, I was just gonna some of the options that were brought up, you know.

I am not a huge fan of rotating frequently, you know.

I I know that we did a test pilot case with the legislative kind of policy update, and um I didn't love the idea going into it, but said I would try it and ultimately and I I did serve um well, sir.

I agent attended a couple of meetings, and ultimately I felt like um it was a disservice to the people in the serving on it to be um valuable in a in a way that extended past like that one moment because things change so fast.

So I'm not a huge fan of just rotating.

I think that um it also creates problems in scheduling and not just for for those um in it but for anybody that wants to serve on it.

Will I be available this week?

Is it gonna be my week?

Do I have to you know hold this out in my my calendar?

And I just I think it's I I prefer to have two appointments to it.

Go ahead.

Question.

I think we should only have one person.

That's just my thought.

Like the planning commission's only having one person, it's already a fairly large committee, so I personally don't think we should have more than one person doing it.

Um I don't know.

I think that I don't think uh it's such a high-level committee.

Like when I talked to James, he said 30,000 feet, like there it's not making a lot of decisions, it's just a person that's there to steer very generally with the rest of the committee.

And so I don't know, I don't think we need more than one person.

And if we're we all disagree, I think we should send Dustin, but Ms.

Nickel.

I like the idea too, because if one can't make it, it's just a guarantee to the steering committee that shows commitment that the city council is gonna be in it.

That's just my idea.

I would agree that it sounds like um, I don't think there my understanding of the steering committee is it's basically attending the meeting, finding out what's happening, and coming back and reporting to the council during council member business.

I don't think there's any decision, certainly no technical decision making being made there.

So I'm I think anyone could do it.

And yeah, I'm not clamoring to be on it.

I think it's just kind of a like I'll know because whoever's on it will come and explain what's going on.

Sounds like we've got five council members at least though that would like a chance to be on it at some point in time.

Um I'm okay with the idea of doing two largely because of what you just said.

If one can't make it, we already have a backup that can.

So if we did two, could we make one of them a staff member so we have that consistency no matter what?

I think Dustin's on it.

Are you on it, Dustin?

No.

We could have to say I don't want to overwhelm the committee with the council either.

I'm very concerned about that.

I just want to share that.

I I I share that sentiment and we we could send a staffer if needed to, but also just to whittle it down all uh withhold or or remove my name from consideration to get us down to four to serving on the committee.

But I I too agree with council member D'Souza.

Uh one person serving over two years provides a lot of continuity.

Um and and I think um, you know, the first few meetings are just getting your feet wet and figuring it out, and so um I I'm seconding what both of you are saying.

If we go to one person, I'm happy to take my name off the list.

I guess I don't understand I guess I don't understand the reason why one person is better than two.

Yes, and if we're gonna do two, why it needs to be a staff member.

I mean, this this is uh we are the legislative body.

This is you know, a steering committee for legislative items that will be coming back.

Staff has already expressed, and I'm not speaking for you, but my perception is you know that there's a lot of um council led projects that they're working on, and so it would take more time out of their schedules to complete other things, and it just seems unnecessary.

Plus, I do think that originally when I first heard about it, it was recommended that there were two council members, so I'm kind of surprised by the the suggestion that we would only go down to one.

Anyway, those are my I guess I'm trying to understand why one is such a big deal.

Oh, I did we recommend who I missed that.

Who recommended two?

Melissa one of her first two, yeah.

When I talked to Dustin originally, you had mentioned that it was because I'm totally throwing James under the bus.

Don't listen, James.

He said he thought one was more than enough just because there's only one planning commissioner and the breadth of the other committee members, like there's a lot of different people, and no one other than the planning staff is having more than one representative come.

So that's that's my reasoning.

I didn't realize that we were recommended to have two.

Just to clarify in the packet, it says the preferences for one representative from the council.

May I, madam chair?

So change that.

Yeah.

I um I did suggest two to a couple council members.

What's in the packet is what uh administrative staff recommended.

And it doesn't, in my mind, um, I have if you guys want me to do to be on steering committee, I will, but I don't think I can do a better or worse job than another council member.

Whatever you guys want.

But the reason that I had suggested two to a couple council members is pretty simple.

Number one, uh sometimes schedules can be extremely difficult, and it is good to have somebody available if the other person can't can't be there, right?

Otherwise we get thrown in, which I'm fine with, but it can be difficult to kind of go in the middle sometimes.

Um the other thing is, you know, I think Cindy dig did a good job of saying, hey, the purpose of this is to go, maybe express a 30,000 foot level opinion on behalf of the council, right?

Not on behalf of yourself as an individual, but on behalf of the council, and then to report back to the council.

And so it's good to have a couple of members so that you are you don't miss something.

You ensure that things are being reported accurately.

If somebody forgot something, you say, Oh, you forgot this.

Here's uh here's how I remember it, right?

So that's why I suggested two people initially, just because I know your guys' schedules, I know how difficult it could be, and um in my opinion, I don't see an issue with one or two.

I know administrative staff has recommended one.

Yeah.

Um how often I just so I understand every time the committee meets, we'll be getting uh update from will it be Melissa?

I don't know who.

Um every time you guys meet, you'll come back and update the council anyway, right?

That's my understanding.

Yes, periodically we'll be um have the same setup.

We we'd request that anyway, planning commission, city council joint meeting to give updates.

Um we were anticipating about uh quarterly.

We just want to make sure that you all are informed and we don't come back a year and a half later with a big surprise.

And eventually after the first little bit meetings are anticipated to go quarterly.

Is my understanding?

For which one for this for the steering committee.

For the steering committee, yeah, ours in our scope, we establish it as um quarterly or at key milestones, whichever's first.

Okay, thank you.

Ms.

Straff.

I think two's great.

I mean, it does, you know, if there's scheduling issues, if there's something where it's you know, a council member um you know forgets to relay some information, you know, you can you have two people that are able to talk about it, especially with something this big and this um impactful, you know, to be able to bring back that information, and if there is something that starts to be discussed, that it's like, oh wow, you know, we need to make sure that we are um requesting more information or more engagement that we have that chance to do that.

So, you know, I I mean I I don't see a problem with two, you know.

I would even throw in and say there's a third, and you put in a staff member with that, you know, just in case there is I mean that that conflict.

I mean, this, you know, when was the last time that we did some sort of code rewrite?

I mean, how how long has it been since we've looked as comprehensive as we are planning to do that?

Less than 20 years, but more than 15 years back.

So something that we're looking at.

And but and it was all staff staff done as well.

But even that, I mean, something that we're looking at a couple of decades, probably a couple of, and we add in that two years, so probably around there, you know, this um this significant and 20 years ago, Sandy looked very, very different than what it does today.

So I think having uh as much you know, awareness of bringing things back because I I think you are 100% correct and accurate in saying that it it's not a council member's job to try to steer the steering committee, but more of bringing information back if there are concerns or clarifications that need to happen, or saying, hey, you know, as a as a body, you know, this is what I'm thinking the council is feeling, but then to bring it back in to discuss with other council members.

So you know it I I think you you know write on the money with that.

So I I mean I'm I'm happy with one staff and two council members, but you know, whatever works.

So it kind of sounds like, although we could kind of do a vote, it kind of sounds like the consensus is no harm in two.

Um maybe there's another person to cover if someone can't make it, their scheduling issues.

Um, and if we're doing it the way it's supposed to be, we're really not no one's conveying their point of view.

It's reporting back to the council on what's being decided in the steering committee.

Um what about the issue of the longevity?

Shall we shall we make it a till the end assignment or shall we shall we've shall we select two people and then bring it up again in January when we do our committee assignments?

That would be about a six-month commitment, and then we could take it back up again in January with all our other committees.

What what what is the period of time we're thinking about Madam Chair?

Since there's four people, why don't we just pick two for this year and two for next year and we can settle it?

I think it would be beneficial because the committee is gonna be the same, maybe keep them the same.

And it now less it lessens our pain up here to do this again.

I see we left Marcy Maker motion.

See that maybe we'd start with the two, and then we could look at it in January, and if those two are and the feeling is to maintain that continuity.

That's what we always do with the committee.

Is if someone wants to stay on it, we will really take that into consideration.

What that recommendation is that it it really would be beneficial, but I I think you could start with the two, and then I mean, if it's not you're going, you know what, it really is just kind of relaying information back and forth.

Um whoever gets selected may want to get rid of it.

That's true.

There's a 50-50 chance.

Yeah, yeah.

All right.

So Marcy, make your motion.

So we have something real to choose.

I tried Melissa.

I tried to just like get this done so you could be gone and but we had a great discussion.

Great discussion.

But I feel like we've got some clarity.

So it sounds like you're uh you're open to my motion.

So I would like to motion um so that we can move forward with the steering committee.

Um nominate Chris Nickel and Brooke D'Susa because of their experience in uh Chris has served on the planning commission.

Brooke has extensive experience on um in real estate.

I love the idea of having that like having it be those two who serve, and then they come back and say uh for continuity we recommend staying, or they say at the year mark.

I wouldn't want to rotate before the year mark, but at the year mark, they could come back with the recommendation and say there's you know, I think I think it makes sense for another two, or I think it makes sense for continuity, but at least those two serving for a solid year on the steering committee.

That's my motion.

Thank you for this port, Mercy.

I'll second.

All right.

So the motion is for council member D'Souza and Councilmember Nickel to serve for one year, which brings it back on a March agenda in 2027.

Um I'm I'm hoping that they will make a recommendation as to like what it looks like at the year point as yes, let's let's reconvene and and choose two additional people, or we recommend we continue serving.

So I don't know how that needs to be reflected in the motion.

Still needs to be on an agenda for discussion.

Okay, so agenda for discussion.

Yeah, okay in a year.

Yeah, okay.

In here we voice there's all right.

So shall we're just taking a procedural vote on this.

Uh Madam Chair, do you want me to I've drafted a motion.

Do you want me to reread it and make sure I've got it correct?

So uh from Councilmember Housman, I move that we nominate Chris Nickel and Brooke D'Susa to serve on the Title 21 steering committee to be uh discussed again after one year of service.

That works.

Thank you.

Does that start one year or January today?

Or after one year.

What does that start?

Yes, it would have the first meeting.

She wants to know if it would start today or the first meeting.

Oh, good clarifying question.

Thank you.

Um, a year from the first meeting.

That's a great addition.

Thank you.

Okay.

Okay.

Do you want to make a friendly?

Is there any friendly, would you be willing to friendly whatever it to, I know I'm really articulate tonight.

Um to January, not because I'm worried about the year time frame, just because it seems like it would be easier for the staff to keep track of, and all of us when we're redoing our committees to look at our schedules.

Um well, I like we've heard that it's quarterly meetings, and so a year from the first meetings means the they will have they will get four meetings in because they're gonna meet quarterly, and so then the next batch, if it does pivot to two more people, it's a clean start with the second year and four quarterly meetings.

So I I think it's uh I think this in particular aligns with the schedule of the team that's that's running the steering committee.

I think they'll be able to keep track.

I don't think it's complicated.

So I think I'll keep it as is.

I just want to comment for the record.

I don't think you'll have four quarterly meetings.

I think there'll be more like six since it's scheduled to end in October.

Um if we do it January, you'll the the first group will get three meetings, and the second group would get three meetings.

I didn't realize that the end date, so it's more of an 18-month it won't be perfect.

I mean, that's the best shot we have, but just estimating when it will depending on approvals, it could go over that, it could be a little, you know, okay.

That's uh estimate.

What are your thoughts on aligning the terms of this with the the steering committee calendar?

I think my comment on that is what you all decide is most fair for you.

Oh my goodness.

Dodge.

Okay, I think that's a fair point that it's um potentially three and three.

I mean, you based on what you've outlined, you're anticipating three and three.

Okay, so what if the friendly amendment is following three meetings?

Then we regroup.

That way we're not locked in at the January thing, but we're making sure we revisit after we've had we're halfway through.

I I'm fine with either way because I have this feeling that by the time we get to three meetings, no one else is gonna want to do this.

And so that's the I don't care.

I was only thinking for like staff's sake, so it doesn't matter.

Okay, let's I don't know how.

Oh, sorry.

Oh, go ahead.

No, that's all it is.

You could make the friendly amendment just for the calendar year.

And then we would do it in January when we're talking about our committee.

No, I know, I know that's the friendly amendment, but I I don't know that that's gonna get us at to three and three.

So if I were gonna make an amendment, Mr.

Fraddo, would it what would it sound like to be to ensure we're doing three and then revisiting?

Um so here's what I've written down.

Okay, I move that we nominate Chris Nickel and Brook D'Souza to serve on the Title 21 steering committee uh to be uh discussed again after three meetings of the steering committee.

Perfect.

That takes into your feedback, but I feel like it's a little more.

I I just need a little more certainty that we're gonna get consistency across at least half of the quarterly meetings.

So I'm good with that change.

Thank you, Mr.

Fraddo.

So that means I need my second two.

Yes.

Are you good with that?

Okay.

I don't was that my job?

That was your job, sorry.

So yeah, council, are we good with a voice vote?

Or okay.

All in favor of that motion.

So aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay.

That was easy in the end.

All right.

Um to the next, we have a consent calendar.

Um they left.

Uh reappointment of our two planning commissioners, and then we have four more intent to annex.

Uh, do I have a motion?

Motion to approve.

Second.

All right.

All in favor.

Aye.

Any opposed.

All right.

Um, and we're moving on to item number 10, agenda item 10 at this point.

That is the rezone of the 106 church.

Sorry, madam chair, I wasn't sure if you were inviting me up to give an introduction uh before you take it.

Take action.

Um Jake Warner, long-range planning manager um for the city.

On March 3rd, the 106 church rezone application was presented as an informational item to the city council.

The request is to rezone um 1.94 acres of property at 166 east 106 south uh from the R140A zone to the R110 zone.

Uh you have ordinance number 26-05 in front of you for your consideration tonight, and uh staff is available for questions, and I believe the applicant is joining us virtually tonight okay, council.

Do we have any questions for Jay Corner or for the applicant who's online doesn't look like we do?

Um, this is a voting item, so we will open this up to public comment.

I don't have any blue cards on this, Mr.

Frato.

Will you invite the online participants?

Of course, madam chair.

If you are joining us this evening virtually via Zoom and you'd like to comment on item number 10 on this evening's agenda, please go ahead and click the raise hand button on your screen now.

I'll call your name in the order in which you raised your hand, and you'll have three minutes.

Somebody had contacted me earlier and noted that they wanted to comment on this item, and I see them online, but their hands not raised.

That's for item 11.

Oh thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Okay, I don't see any hands raised, madam chair.

All right.

I'm slowly going to close public comment on this item.

And we will bring it down back to the council for action.

Would anyone like to make a motion?

I will make a motion to approve resolution 00712 with regards to the church rezon as presented.

Second.

Is that what we're voting on?

Yeah.

Okay.

Is it the church?

Yeah.

2605.

26.

2605.

2605.

Okay.

Oh, yes, I read the wrong number.

2605.

Thank you.

All right.

For the record, Madam Chair, it's ordinance 2605.

It's 2605.

It's been a minute.

All right.

We have a motion and a second.

Ms.

Edwards.

Miss Nickel.

Yes.

Ms.

Christensen.

Yes.

Ms.

T'Susa.

Yes.

Mr.

DeKaiser.

Yes.

Ms.

Stroud.

Yes.

Ms.

Houseman?

Yes.

Ms.

Sharkey.

Yes.

Madam Chair.

That motion carried seven to zero.

Thank you.

All right.

Item number 11.

That's the Fortner rezone.

Jake.

Madam Chair.

Um this item, uh, the Fortner rezone was presented to the council on March 3rd as well as an informational item.

The application proposes to rezone 0.65 acres of property, two parcels actually, at 8564 South 10th East, uh, from the R110 zone to the RM12 zone.

Uh you have in front of you ordinance 2604 for consideration tonight.

And uh again, staff is available and the applicant is present tonight as well.

Council, any questions for Jake or for the applicant?

Ms.

Trout.

It actually might even be a little more for Lynn as well.

Um so we received an update from you.

There was a memo, um, and in that memo, it to me is it sounded a little more like that the applicant was questioning if they were going to make them for cell units.

You know, they they had some concern about how that may do that.

So, you know, I'm wondering, Mr.

Pace, the Lynn version or Tracy, somebody.

Um, you know, if we looked at trying to and and seeing what we've just gone through with our you know, housing, the the five five different uh meetings on there, and then the uh the update that we got tonight, um, looking at either deed restrictions or um developer agreements, but if we're really interested in that and with both of those conversations coming up, you know, in the next six weeks, I think one was in April.

Um, you know, if we if we were to move forward on this, which I don't like the multifamily, you know, that that part, you know, I would rather them be single family and and to see, you know, I mean, even if it was smaller lots, but you know, to ensure that we are looking at um providing some of that missing middle, what it is described, you know, when we have this um this RM zone, you know, I I'd like to hear more about deed restrictions and developer agreements, you know, and and you know, whether we're tabling this or we're waiting a little bit on there just because that is so close, you know, to make sure because that is something that I've heard um more frequently in the past several months with the council is looking at the desirability of owner-occupied homes and not just something that is um going to be rental or turnover.

So I'm Madam Chair, I curious.

We received a memo and an update.

No, I think there was it was an email.

I sorry, it was an email, you know, questioning of some questions that I had back in front.

I wouldn't receive that.

No, and I think it was just questions back and forth.

Oh, I asked questions specifically about it.

Okay.

I thought those things were I thought responses were gonna be shared across the case.

I think it was just you know, an informal that's probably my fault.

I apologize.

I just asked uh Jake about if the developer would be interested in a development agreement if that was something that he even would consider based on the information he had.

So I'm sorry you guys I didn't even think I just want to miss something that I shouldn't have read.

So okay, so there would it wasn't he wasn't.

Do you want to madam chair?

If I could I would like to clarify um this issue.

Um there were a couple of questions um asked of me that um I asked of the applicant and I responded.

Um questions about um sellable units, which in my mind is separate from uh questions that we also received about owner occupancy and then also the potential of reducing the number of units, and so those were the three issues that I approached um the applicant about um when I say the applicant um I'm talking about um stance and development uh Ben Child is the stated applicant individual on that application for stance and development.

We heard from his partner last time, Josh Becker.

Um so um my conversation was with uh Josh Becker.

He is not available to be here tonight, but Ben Child is so um my responses were based on my conversation with uh Josh Becker, and um they absolutely intend to sell um to subdivide and sell uh the units.

Um there is nothing in the code that uh allows us as staff to require that.

They've that's their stated intent.

Um as far as owner occupancy, um they have some hesitancy around that um as far as being a a requirement in their mind, they're concerned about um restrictions that might be seen as uh might might be might might make the uh project less desirable from a financing perspective for potential finance for potentially financing the project.

So they have concerns about that, they have concerns about their own uh long-term responsibility.

Uh what does that look like as far as ensuring that the owner occupancy continues um you know, once they sell the units, they um they don't want to be responsible to ensure that those units are owner occupied.

Uh again, not knowing the mechanism, the tool by which that would be required.

He has concerns about um costs associated with hiring attorneys to ensure that that's done in a way that's legally viable and and appropriate and acceptable.

Um so he has some hesitancy around uh potential requirements around require uh you know uh a requirement on him to make those units owner occupiable.

But he they they have stated that they absolutely intend to sell the units, um, and then uh a reduction in the number of units.

Um, they're open to that.

Uh they would like to see the project approved.

Um obviously they're they're open to the idea um, but again, hesitant if that number drops too far, and and then that affects again the viability from their perspective of um of the project.

Um but they're open to that discussion as well.

So that was the nature of the back and forth that I had with a couple of council members.

Nice thing I tell you guys, sorry.

Yeah, totally okay.

I'm very interested in this issue of, and I wonder if Ben can address it.

Um construction lending tied to a requirement for owner occupancy.

I have not heard this before, and I'm very interested to know about this.

I was interested to hear that too.

Um, but he was worried that you know, as far as underwriting uh more requirements, you know, that that could affect potentially um the underwriting of the project.

Huh.

Okay.

Any other questions?

Okay.

So this one is probably more the direction here.

Um when you have a property, such as this, you know, between a where they want where they're asking for six units, um, the property is owned by one person, but then you have six they're not independent, but uh residential units, you know, even though they're connected.

How does that work when you're looking to say, okay, you know, if I own this, um is that I own the house, but not the land that my house is on, or do is there a requirement to subdivide?

Separately.

Yeah, I th I think the my understanding is that this the property would be subdivided and it would be sold as per the subdivision, uh, as per the subdivided lots.

And is that done so a requirement that would have to be made now?

I'm I'm sorry, you were asking a hypothetical.

Now you're moving to specific what I don't understand your question.

Um it just so how is it recorded at the county then?

Well, a subdivision is recorded at the county.

So if you take an acre of land and you cut it into six pieces, that gets recorded at the county, and they have the right to sell each of those six pieces separately.

That's a subdivision.

I don't know what your question is beyond that.

When you have a block of four townhomes and then two town homes, who's taking care of the yard.

It will it will the owner of that property will take care of the yard.

And if you have two owners, imagine if you have uh this this happens all the time, but but imagine if you have a um two twin homes next to each other with a patch of ground around them.

It may be an owner on one side and the other side being rented, or that may be subdivided in the middle and each owns half.

But whoever owns the land is responsible for maintaining it, Madam Chair, could I also address that?

Ums for both housing types that would be rental product and housing types that would be for sale product.

It doesn't allow the way our code is written, and there may be some legalities around it.

Our code does not allow us to dictate through the code whether or not they are sold or rented.

The applicant has stated that his intent is to sell them, we cannot, as staff ensure through the code that that would happen.

Now he is hoping to avoid an HOA.

Um the scale is not there for a feasible HOA.

So his intent is to subdivide every inch of the property into individual lots.

You know, some of those property lines would go down the middle of buildings between units, but every um portion of the property would be owned by the owner of a unit.

Um the discussion came up about the private lane.

Um it it is common for us as a city, in fact, we require it with flag lots, for example, that the private lane be divided between the two property owners accessing the flag lot, and so and then there's a shared access agreement amongst them, but the lane entire the entire lane is owned by somebody and it's split down the middle between those parties that are accessing and then they share access easements.

So even with a private lane, it is possible that every portion of the property could be completely owned by the owner of a unit in the property, and that's he has stated that's his his intent is to avoid having to create um an HOA for the added complexity for six units, and you know, would that even be feasible?

Um viable.

Um I can tell you what is stated intent is um, but through the code we cannot ensure that that is what happens.

So Madam Chair, could I take a crack at Alison's question too?

Sure.

So Council Member Stroud, it I heard a lot, you know, kind of a lot in what your question was.

And um it is interesting, and sometimes it's weird to think that a person say it say a twin home, for example, that two different people can own a twin home, and that the property lines right through the middle of the two twin homes.

It seems kind of odd and nonsensical, but in fact, that very well can happen.

In this particular case, that may very well be what happens, but sort of in the abstract, I mean, I I hear your question is more of a bigger question, which is what on earth can we do to ensure that these kinds of projects um amount to the kind of housing that the council has said that they really want, right?

I mean, we know what the we're hearing what the particular developer in this case or what other developers want, but how do we get from the abstract conversations we had on the housing summit to really get what we want?

So yeah, I mean, there's tools like a development agreement that you can have, say, with a project that you can negotiate in good faith.

Um because when a city requires certain things, um there has to be some sort of consideration for those things.

Like, hey, if you can agree to certain deed restrictions, we can give you more density so you could make more on the project rather than just telling them you gotta have these deed restrictions, which might cost them money.

In fact, it might make them much more difficult to finance the project.

It might make the contract not viable or the development might not be viable.

And so I think that maybe one of the takeaways from your question is to think about the bigger picture in terms of what you're going to be working on for the next year and a half or two years as you examine Ludma, and think about these very questions on the tools that you can use to utilize things like deed restrictions, development agreements to accomplish what you really want, which is more affordable owner-occupied property, is one of the major takeaways that I heard from that particular from from many of your many discussions and questions.

This particular case, I think it's it'd be really difficult to say, well, now that you've done all this work, we want a deed restriction and we want to do a development agreement in order to ensure that it's the way we really want it to be.

That would be really difficult to do at this particular stage.

So your your options probably today are to say, I'm okay with the zone, and I'm okay with what happens in this rezone, including the site plan and things that the developers proposing, or I'm not.

And I'm not for this reason, this reason, and this reason.

And then we work towards coming up with strategies and goals to accomplish the very things that you've articulated in your questions.

Um I can understand why you have the concerns that you have in that area, it's very eclectic.

There's some really nice on that street.

There's some fabulous single-family homes there, really great on really nice lots.

And then there's some multifamily properties that are more common in my neighborhood.

And so you have to ask yourself: does this fit in and is this the rezone that you want?

And I think you have to think about that differently than the bigger question that you're asking, which probably can't be accomplished today.

But some of those things can be accomplished with a focus on policy and developing mechanisms in our code to accomplish the things that you're talking about accomplishing.

Does that does that answer your question, or is that clear as mud?

Clear as mud.

And and yes, it does.

I mean, getting, you know, we're at this point in the process, and a lot of it just came from the housing discussion we had.

You know, I I guess ultimately is I'm not comfortable with this.

I mean, it's more dense than the um the complex across the street, which has a playground.

Um it's it's more dense than those really nice single family homes there on 10th East.

The home that we had that had been referred to as a as a triplex that was right next to it, I believe.

Um, you know, that is a single family home that was converted into three units.

I mean, but it was built as a single family home.

Um we start getting into it it just it's it's a mix and match, um, and it doesn't look good.

Um the there's a home two or three doors down, and and it's huge.

It is huge, and it is a single family home.

Um, but and it's set back a little bit, it's got a bell on top of it.

I mean, it it it's it's a really really big home, and that's what I'm picturing is seeing this for this this large um building being there, and it it doesn't fit.

You know, that home doesn't fit, but it is set back far enough that it's hard to tell, and there's a home in front of it.

So, you know, just looking right there, even along 10th East, which is you know, it might be gonna call a minor collector road.

Um, but that's it just it doesn't fit right there.

So I am not comfortable with that density.

I'm just trying to look to say, you know, I mean, that's if we have you know a council that is, um, what is something that we can do to ensure that these don't just turn into rentals?

Um, you know, I I think there's there's a couple of layers here that I have concern with.

Um, you know, I I think there's there's a couple of layers here that I have concern with, um, and yeah, I mean, primarily the density, but then where we are trying to find a solution to a problem and just creating density that once again is more dense than the complex across the street with a playground.

Um I I think we're just posing more problems.

Um so you know, looking at those two, so yeah, so Tracy brought up nope.

I'm you know, I I am opposed to this.

I think there's something else that can be done differently.

Um but then you know, looking at other options that could be coming down the road, although understanding that they've walked down this path.

So any other questions for Jake at this point.

All right, this is a voting item.

We'll be taking public comment on this item.

We do have commenters in the room.

Um Ron Larson.

Thanks for taking my comments.

And I was able to speak on this last time.

Appreciate your time.

Um I was I kind of ran out of time last time.

And I was going to mention Alison mentioned something about the the house to the north, and they advertised it as a triplex.

Well, it did original, like she said, it originated as a single family dwelling.

And it and then after time, they divided it.

I think they divided that house into a duplex, and then they built a shed in the back.

That shed or big giant barn uh is it's a big giant shed or a small bar.

I don't know.

But it is 22 inches from my property line, and it is about six inches from the property line to the north of it.

So I'm pretty sure it doesn't follow code because it doesn't have the setbacks, it doesn't have the backyard, it doesn't have any of those things, and that part of that building, which is a dwelling unit now, they added to it until it became a dwelling unit, and so there was just sprawl or just additions that were probably not even condoned by the state, but probably didn't have a building permit to do it because of these things.

So that's there, and they called it a triplex.

Okay, started out as a single family book dwelling.

You need to know that that's probably not a triplex, that it's a duplex in the front, and a barn with a living unit on in the back.

Okay, directly across the street, too.

The one is a multifamily dwelling unit, it's one lot next to that, and directly across from their southern lot is a single family residence, and next to that's another single family residence, and then on the other side of it, there's a single family residence as well.

And that single family residence has a posted sign that says it's a a uh wildlife preserve, which is kind of odd, but that's what it says, and then there's a flag lot that goes back, and then next to that's another single family residence, and next to that is a church, and so they're in that area by far the most uh, and then beyond that, when you go past that um that multifamily dwelling, that one multi-family dwelling thing, there's a huge huge area of just single family residences in most of the stuff down 10th east for miles, it's just single family residences.

You know, I'm uh and I told you I was zoned as R a special district SD R17, which is zoned as a single family residence, and then um to the south, um the house on the corner.

I'm not really sure about it, but it seems like there's two units there, and then and then there's also oh, another time you're here.

We go again.

But by far to the south, other than those couple of units right next to it, it's multi or single residents.

Thank you.

Thank you, um right.

Shannon Maynard.

Hi.

Um I've spoken at all of the meetings, so I'm just kind of condensing everything that I've brought up over the past few meetings.

So there have been many of us neighbors that have spoken up against the rezone to try and preserve this area that has grown into the single family neighborhood over the past 40 years.

So this type of, or yeah, we disagree and oppose to the RM12 rezone and everything that comes with that for this specific property.

This type of rezone would not only double the density of what this area has grown into and developed into, but it completely changes the look and the overall character of this neighborhood.

So those of us that reside in this area and that travel the roads and are in the intersection.

We know the current safety issues and the concerns that are currently here.

So putting this higher density with more the driveways and everything, it will only increase those concerns and those safety issues that are currently in place.

So again, the the higher density multifamily units is not what the feel of this area is.

It's grown into the single family residence, and that's what that's the fill and the look we want to continue.

Again, the big a big four plex unit right there on the street would be drastically different than the single family homes, even the newer ones that have been built just down the road.

And then the eight that are being built right behind.

So it's it's completely different.

Let's see.

So we are just asking to any zoning in this area now or in the future, just comply with and maintain what is currently here and has currently been established again over the 40 years since the previous since the apartments were built, and even the duplex, I think is almost 90 years old or something.

So those were previously built, but again, what has been grown in the 40 years has been the single family residence, and that's what we like some of us are second generation, some of us are third generations that have moved specifically to this area because of the low to medium density, and that's why we built or that's why we bought or built our homes was because of this lower density, like I said, the lower to medium density that it has grown into, and that's what we would like to continue seeing as we move forward with some of the older lots that are bigger, like we want to continue that and maintain that look and that feel of the single family homes.

Um a few other things is we don't want rentals.

Again, that's a big issue.

We don't want rentals.

Um the rentals we've had have been an issue.

So we are just hoping to maintain that single family look and hope that you would listen to our pleas with that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And Miriam Tucker.

Uh rezoning.

Yeah, it's proposing, it definitely does not fit with even what what was proposed here or talked about here is keeping things looking the same instead of having different different homes that that kind of stand out a little bit.

Um I'm worried that if this rezoning is is approved, that sets a precedence for other other little pieces of property in our area that will start doing the same type of thing.

And then we're living in a hodgepodge community of rentals among single-family um dwellings, which we don't want that to happen.

We want to try and keep it as single-family um homes.

The apartments we've had trouble with.

We've had lots of police have come there, we've had drug deals going on there, which you know presents a problem for our community.

I worry about the infrastructure that is right there on 10th east.

It I know that there are they've talked about in the last meeting that the county is is has a project that they're looking at re redoing that road with sidewalks and curb and gutter and whatnot.

That hasn't happened yet.

How long that will take, who knows.

So that creates a problem, and having a this higher density complex adds more vehicles and parking possibly on the street, which creates a problem for people seeing trying to back in and go out of their homes and children playing, you know, trying to cross the street to go to the other side.

That creates problems when we add a lot more vehicles like that.

So those are my concerns.

I did I I just I think with that small of a property, trying to put that many units in there is it's not feasible.

We it we need to try and stick to single family dwellings.

And there's no there's no way you can control what an owner is going to going to do with their property.

If they want to put it up for rent, they're gonna put it up for rent.

Which kind of sounds like that might be what what will happen.

So those are just my concerns that we're not making that type of a property fit in with our little community in here.

We need to make it look more uniform and more like single family dwellings.

So thank you.

Thank you.

All right, that's all the cards I have in the room.

Dustin, let's uh let's invite our online participants.

Thank you, madam chair, and then I do have this one to read into the record as well.

Uh, if you're joining us virtually this evening and you'd like to comment on uh item number 11 on tonight's agenda, go ahead and click the raise hand button on your screen.

I'll call your name in the order in which you raised your hand, and you'll have three minutes.

Okay, madam chair, we've got Ken Gold with his hand raised.

Ken, I'm gonna allow you to begin speaking.

Please remember to unmute yourself, and you'll have three minutes.

Hey there.

Um, I just want to make sure I'm talking to item number 10, the church rezoning.

And can you hear me?

We actually already voted on that one, Ken.

My apologies.

We missed.

Can I I can I just I just literally have a question?

There's nothing I wanted to push back on.

I just had a question and it was hard to keep up.

I was waiting for so long.

But the question is now that that's been voted on, and and I wasn't trying to stop the rezoning.

Can you tell me when or if there is an opportunity to talk about the drainage on that property and anything else that has to come back to the city for approvals beyond just the zoning can if so he registered, so we have some contact information for him that community development can get back to him?

We should have an email address along with Ken.

As long as you put in your accurate email when you registered, I can pull that up.

Alternatively, you can email me, Dfratto at Sandy.utah.gov, and I'll pass your information along.

That is great.

Appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thanks for joining our meeting and waiting so long.

No problem.

Madam Chair, I don't see any other raised hands.

Um, are you okay if I read this into the record from side of it?

Yeah.

Okay, just out of fairness, I'm gonna set a timer.

Tracy will let me know.

He's the enforcer.

Okay, uh, says dear Sandy City Council, please add this to the public record.

My name is Mike Dericott, and I reside at 8566 Johnson Wage Drive, Sandy, Utah 84094.

I strongly urge you to deny the proposed RM12 zoning change.

This is a well-established single-family neighborhood, and increasing density here would not fit the character of the area.

There are approximately a dozen other lots nearby where ownership may change in the coming years due to the age of the current owners.

Approving this rezoning could set a precedent that extends to those properties, potentially leading to widespread changes that alter the neighborhood's long-term stability and feel.

As our mayor Monica Zoltanski emphasized in her election campaign video, it takes leadership to push back against density where it doesn't belong.

Protect land use diversity in single-family neighborhoods.

This rezoning would undermine that principle by shifting a single family area toward higher density.

Please preserve the existing character of our neighborhood and avoid setting a dangerous precedent for developers of proximate lots.

I ask that you consider keeping these two adjacent Fortner lots single family.

Three homes would fit here much better and preserve the well-established single family neighborhood.

If the council decides to increase the density, please consider an RM8 or less.

Thank you for your consideration and for protecting our community's established residential character.

Sincerely, Mike Derrickott.

All right.

Seeing no more commenters, no more blue cards, we'll close public comment on this item and bring this back to the council.

Jake, I've got another question.

I was just looking at the drawings, and I probably should have asked this last time, sorry.

But in our code, it says that um lanes, private lanes have to have uh the full size apparatus, must be able to negotiate the road without backing up.

So that's um a fire code issue.

Um but my understanding is that a private lane can be up to 150 feet long before that is required.

Okay, it just says it shall be less than 150 feet in the code, unless I'm reading it wrong.

I correct.

I just want to make sure I'm not reading this.

So if they exceed 150 feet, they would need to provide a turnaround.

It says if it's less than 150, it has to be less than 150 feet of length.

It doesn't say that if it's 150 feet in length, unless I'm reading it wrong, you guys.

It says that it has to be able to turn around.

It's allowed to go for 150 in the input checks and anything over that has to provide it and turn around.

Okay.

Just checking, because that's not how I read it.

So you want me to finish?

Yeah, I'll just do all my thoughts now then.

Here's my thoughts on this.

Um I don't like private lanes.

I think that they're problematic at best.

Um, no one can park on them.

It's not wide enough lot to have anyone park on it.

Um I think an RM12 is uh too dense for 0.65 of an acre.

The most they could build on it is like I mean it's only 2800 square feet, so like four units is all they could build on that, and I'm assuming that would include the current house.

So I I don't understand the reasoning for asking for such a for this density when you can only build have four units built on it total, one of which would be two units, right?

Am I thinking of this correctly?

I'm ready to be corrected again.

Well, I'd have to get my calculator, but I've done the calculations, and um at if it was straight 12 units, they could have what is it 7.8 or something like I can't remember the actual number of units.

They're further restricted by um some minimum area requirements.

Um with those minimum area requirements, they uh it appears that they could get six units on the property at an RM12.

Okay, because I I was just looking yet again, my code reading.

It said that it had to be like 29,000 square feet to move up to the next over four units to do a six unit.

And when you take out the road and the setback for the tenth east improvements, it would drop it below that already because it's only 0.65 of an acre, which is like 28,183 feet.

See the map.

There's some area the minimum area requirements is by building size, and then if you've got unit counts in between those.

Yeah, so you can't.

Then there's an individual number, and so when you put all that together, um it appears based on and I'm I'm not the expert on design either.

We have other planners that would deal with the subdivision style side, but we've met with them and we're all in agreement that uh six is feasible.

Um again, it depends on layout and so forth, but um based on just the calculations, it appears that it's feasible.

So then I I don't like the private lanes.

I it this changing the zone doesn't require it to be separate parcels unless we did a deed restriction or something of that sort, um, and that's not included in this ask.

And like Cindy said last time we talked about this, which I thought was great actually, that um we shouldn't consider zonings that they're not asking for because they're not asking for them.

So without having the deed restriction and with having a private lane and with asking for up to 12 units on 0.65 of an acre because that's what they're asking for in RM12.

I I just don't think this is um a good fit for this specific lot.

I think that I'm totally open to other zoning, but they're not being asked for, so in terms of this one, uh I'm not in favor of this as it's asked.

Ms.

Nickel.

So this is a tough one.

I mean, we we have a master plan, we need this middle housing.

Um it's difficult.

I used to live in 8280 South, so I'm really familiar with 10th East and the concerns of backing out of a driveway.

Um I hear those concerns, but I I um in stepping back from it, they wouldn't they wouldn't be able to build if it wasn't safe.

And so but I understand your safety concern with that.

The concern of having them rentals is huge.

We don't want that.

Can we do that now on this?

I don't think so.

Um but I it's it's such a hospital of zoning that this is logical.

It's not an over, it's not an over ask.

Um it's a difficult one.

I I'll have some more comments, but that's what I need to say now.

Ms.

Halzman.

Uh thank you, madam chair.

I I agree.

I think you you captured the difficulty well, and and for those who are here and those who are online and shared via email, it's it is really complicated.

Um and there's been a lot to weigh.

Uh everything that's been shared, but then also private property rights and and the right of the property owner to to petition the city.

I think that is an important part of this process.

Uh I I want to say thank you to Mr.

Cadell.

I really appreciated um kind of that perspective that that you provided thinking about this decision in terms of what what is before us and what can we do now, and what is on the horizon.

I really like that.

Uh what are the tools that we hope to have?

One of which that we didn't really talk about in this discussion, but it was has been on my mind throughout the entire thing, is incentives.

Like if we had the tool of incentives, um, because we are trying to achieve an outcome uh for example the the the pri the property owner here has been made clear to us that she is trying to stay in Sandy, she is trying to find a way to downsize because she is of the age that she needs to, um, and there is nothing to move into in Sandy.

So she's trying to think in terms of how do I stay in a city that I love, how do I use the the thing that I've invested heart and soul in in terms of property to allow me to stay in Sandy, and I think in the future we're gonna have more tools.

We're gonna, but we don't have those tools now, and so I I appreciated that insight.

Um I I also agree that what we have to consider is the application that's been brought to us, and that's that's what I've been weighing is weighing all of the perspectives um and considering them against the application that is sitting right in front of us.

I think there's a lot ahead for this application, our process, and I think this is what you were alluding to a bit, Councilwoman Nicholas.

There's still additional steps in terms of um evaluation and and studies and ensuring these concerns get addressed through the process.

So I think there is um a process for that.

I think the intent of the developer is to I know it's being called other things, but the way that I am seeing this project is the intent of the developer is to make single family living a reality on a tiny little footprint of a lot, which may not be what everybody wants, but it is something that we need in Sandy.

So, yes, I understand that it it isn't necessarily a large single family home.

I understand the concerns that have been expressed because it it could even though the units are gonna be individual parcels and and ownership is the priority.

I know that it will look a little different, but we have to we have to think about the ability this might give to allowing um homeownership to be a reality, and I think that's what I'm that's what I'm weighing here, and I think that is the intent of the property owner.

She wants to stay in Sandy, she wants to live in one of these units, she wants to have neighbors who are now able to be homeowners.

I think that intent is good.

Um so I know it's it's hard, and I know it's not what some of you are hoping to hear, but I think that's where I'm landing on this.

That's all I have, Madam Chair.

Ms.

DeSouza.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um along with colleagues and uh hearing the concerns, you know, this this is a difficult one.

I do have familiarity with the area too.

I lived right on 7800 um at 11th East and backed on to 78th for many many years, and it just happens to be the Midville side of the street, and so there is a lot of um I used the word word hodgepodginess last time because that's again all I can think of in the um with the fact that it was county for a long time, and then you have Midvale just up the road and and sandy a little further, and things have come in and developed at different times under different jurisdictions, and so you know it is I I think I think it is hard to make an argument for what would be considered um continuous or uh provide continuity with the surrounding area because of the mismatch that exists currently.

Um I loved living there.

I loved it.

It was such an active community.

I loved the commercial that went in a little bit further east.

There is a lot of walking with Storm Mountain Park right there.

Um so again, I'm really sensitive to the uh safety concerns that have been brought up with regard to um you know that the sidewalk and the curb and gutter and the crosswalk, and so um it sounds like those concerns have hit the minds of those of the county, and again with the public um utility or excuse me, public works department in terms of of increasing safety um at those areas.

I do have a little consternation over the additional driveways backing onto 10th East.

Um we don't currently have anything in our code that requires otherwise.

Um, so that that does provide me a little bit of um hesitation and discomfort uh, especially in thinking about safety and some of the issues that arise with the um amount of traffic that 10th East sees.

Um I too want to prioritize the opportunity for um increasing opportunities for home ownership.

Uh here I have a question before before I finish my comments.

I have a question.

Um is it possible to and is there a an openness or willingness?

I'm I'm not even sure if development agreement is needed, if it's a conditional approval, but in ensuring that the lots are at least subdivided so that there is an opportunity for owner occupancy versus because right now you said the code, it's it's kind of a you can come up, Jake.

I is that okay, madam chair.

Um it doesn't require that the lots be parceled.

It's uh they may be parceled, right?

Correct.

And and I can tell you from my conversations with the with the applicant that they are open to if there's a mechanism to do that that's reasonable, they are open to that requirement.

The mechanism may be more of a legal issue that our attorneys may want to weigh in on, but uh they are open to that requirement that um those units be subdivided and and uh sold individually as that's their intent.

And I I understand you know the difference for the most part, not totally in in detail, but um, with the issues that creating deed restrictions may cause versus the requirement to subdivide um and give the opportunity for owner occupancy to exist where it wouldn't otherwise, and um so you know, on top of the backing on to the 10th east, I think that's my second biggest is um I would feel more comfortable if there were some skin in the game with the developer to say, well, we've said that we plan to subdivide if there was more of a an agreement that we could feel comfortable with that that would actually happen after a vote on this.

So I don't know where that leaves us.

I don't know if the attorneys can weigh in on uh on the best mechanism or if that should just be abandoned and we are considering this just as a is that a question?

It is, yeah, it didn't sound like it, but it is um if what you want is to ensure that the units are sold.

That's pretty easy to do.

You just make your you're assuming you approve this, you may not, but assuming you approve it, you make the zoning, the rezoning conditioned upon subdivision of the property uh and and an execution if need be a execution of a development agreement uh guaranteeing that all the lots will be sold.

No, that doesn't guarantee that they won't be rented by the owner who buys it, but it does guarantee that they will be sub platted separately and they can be sold and they they can be occupied by a buyer who will then gain some equity in that property.

Okay.

Um so I don't know, that's those are kind of my thoughts.

That would be my preference.

If it is, of course, you know, if if the applicant would be open to that.

Um I'm assuming that they are because they said that they are, and if we can just do it in a way that ensures that that's done, that would be great.

But if I can interject again, uh and and Jake may know more about the applicant's position, but if the only way you're comfortable with this is if they are subdivided, then you say the only way we're comfortable with this is if they're subdivided.

So if you're willing to sign a development agreement, we have a deal, we approve the zoning.

If you're not, you don't sign the development agreement, and you never get the zoning.

So you make your vote conditional on the terms upon which the rezoning is acceptable to you.

So may I, madam chair?

I have stated my I I've portrayed my conversation with the applicant.

The applicant is here if you would like to ask that question of him.

Why couldn't it just be why couldn't it just be part of the motion to be subdivided?

Why does it have to include a development agreement?

Because unless you have a contract, you have nothing to sue on.

You have nothing to enforce.

I don't want the glasses on there, you would give me just a series of.

No, I'm looking at me.

I can put them on.

I thought we're looking at lead.

I just I'm not saying the applicant's a liar, I promise.

But I've done this a lot of times.

And it's been backed out of one too many times to trust someone's good intentions when it comes down to their dollars actually working.

Okay, so for my comments on this, we looked at the housing section, the draft of our workshops, and there was a very interesting phrase that was used throughout that I don't remember being used during the workshops.

So I'm guessing that Liz Terrio coined this, which is gentle infill.

I thought that was kind of masterful.

I don't see this as gentle infill.

Um we annexed this, I don't know, six or eight months ago at our 110, four units per acre.

Where we have an application just a few months later now for 12 units per acre.

That is quite a change.

I realize they're not planning to build to the extent of that zoning, but that's a big change.

Um I think that this coroner could use some redevelopment.

I think it would increase everyone's property values.

I think it would be beneficial to support redevelopment here.

Um I just think that the density is too great in this particular application.

So that would be my point of view.

Any other comments?

All right.

I'm wondering if the applicant is here.

Can we hear from the applicant?

You want two Ben?

Okay.

Ben Child.

I am wondering if what I suggested in terms of uh agreeing to subdivide the parcels should it be approved, if you would be open to that, and it sounds like it would have to be done through a development agreement.

Yeah, I mean, that's really what we were trying to do.

And was it you that also talked about the yard and who was taking care of the yard or yeah, multiple have by okay?

But yeah, that's kind of what we were thinking is um subdividing is, and then everyone has their own yard they can take care of their own unit.

Um my aunt's actually here, it's it's her property, and um you know originally this was in the county, and when we were looking at it, and we're like, should we try to do this county or should we annex it?

Or um my partner, he started doing his homework, and you know, we we saw like the future plan, the master plan, and it and it shows like medium density in that area, and so we're like wow, this kind of makes sense.

We looked at the zoning around there, Cush Street, and um, and then we also looked into you know how Sandy City wants more affordable housing, and to us we are like this makes sense.

So um can't remember which one of you said it, but it was like it's like a lot of single family on a smaller parcel, and it is two you know, two lots right now, and we are just thinking of um kind of doing it in in that order, really, where it would be similar to six single family small on that parcel.

So okay, um, and I don't know that it it's necessarily been made clear, but I I don't want to throw a wrench in this, but I guess I'm throwing a wrench in this, and I personally, and I don't know where anybody else is, and maybe nobody else is in agreement on any part of it, but would be would be amenable to approve the zoning with the condition that each um unit be subdivided so that it and and sold.

Right.

I'm I I understand the the disc the difference between you know offering it for sale and ensuring that its own are occupied, and and that's not where I'm going.

I'm just going with subdividing and selling that provides the opportunity for ownership.

Right.

Because ultimately, I think you know, in our our workshop meetings that we've had, the intent was to encourage more ownership opportunities through maybe um density considerations, and so because our because we haven't been able to yet change our zoning to match some of the conversations we've had, you know.

I guess I'm I'm I'm trying to explore very quickly the option of um a development agreement that would um include subdividing and offering for sale.

Right, and that's what she wants.

She's lived there for over 20 years, and so she's been there for a while.

Okay, and she doesn't want rentals either.

So is that a you'd be okay?

That's okay.

And that's just in writing that you you know, you're going to do what we're doing.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah.

Okay.

That was all we had.

Thank you very much for coming up.

Okay, madam chair.

Yes.

I think I I think we if when a motion is made, it needs to be um made properly so it doesn't risk financing.

Um, and is what we the intent is.

So I'm gonna take a shot at it.

So I motion to approve ordinance 2604, subject to successful subdividing of no more than six lots, and contingent upon the lots being sold on the open market.

Second, but I'm thinking that we're smith it.

Yeah, I I think I understand where you're going.

I think I would just make it subject to the execution of a development agreement, providing what you've just described, and the preparation of a subdivision plat, and when those two items are delivered to the city, the zoning becomes effective.

So we have the documents in our hands, we can record them, and when we have those, the zoning becomes effective.

I like it.

So it would in effect approve the zoning subject to these conditions, and the rezoning will have a delayed effective date when those conditions are met.

And that's a part of the process of building.

I think that's what everyone on the right, yes.

Okay, and that process will give um the people to share concern or staff to share concern if there's our large safety issues if these things cannot be done.

That will that's part of the process too.

Right?

Okay, that's my understanding.

Okay, thank you.

So it's gonna be my motion modified by Lynn, and I think we're good.

Do you have that, Dustin?

Do we need to restate it for the record?

We're certainly gonna need to do that.

So here's what I have so far, and Lynn, there's something you added that I missed.

So uh motion to adopt ordinance 26-04, subject to the execution of a development agreement, which subdivides or subdividing the property uh to no more than six lots, uh, and noting that each unit will be sold on the open market.

That's what I have at this point.

When I think I think it's subject to the execution of a development agreement and a subdivision plat.

I think that's all we need, right, Jake?

But I want to make sure it's no more than six parcels.

May I, Madam Chair, add something?

I'm I'm just curious if um a development agreement would be needed if the effective date of the zone is subject to the approval of uh subdivision plat of no more than six units.

You're probably right.

If we have the executed plat in our hands, we don't need the development agreement.

So if you if just if you just want to make so two options one, you can make it effective today with it or effective upon the execution of a contract, or B, you can delay the effective date and it will become effective upon the execution and recording of the subdivision plat.

Does it care of the ownership?

Yes.

As well.

Okay.

Madam Chair, could I just add one other thought?

Keep in mind that the approval of a development agreement is a legislative act.

So it gives you another opportunity to look at it one final time if you include the development agreement component.

You may not think that you need to, but if you do, and it's important that you get another look at this, then you'll want to include the development agreement portion.

One question based on that.

So in that scenario that you guys talked about, having them sold on the open market is anticipated, or how is that written in to yes?

I think I think the um you're actually talking about two separate things that we need to cover.

One is the subdividing of the property, the second is to make sure the units are sold, and the sub recording of the subdivision plat does not necessarily ensure the units are sold.

So that would have to be done by contract.

I think Tracy and I will need to talk.

I think in our form of government, a contract is a mayoral function, not a legislative function.

But if you want to approve the form, that's and run with the property, it is a legislative act.

So but the but I think the concept it would be um generally speaking.

This I'm sorry, we're draft you know making sausage on the fly here, but but the but the concept would be we approve this concept.

Here are the terms of the agreement.

Our vote tonight will become effective when you do all these things.

That's what you're doing.

So just if as long as you describe what all the terms and conditions are, if it's a development agreement, if it's a subdivision plat, if it's a review of the terms and conditions, whatever whatever conditions you want to make sure happen, make sure those are in your motion, and your your zoning become the zone zoning ordinance gets recorded and becomes effective when those conditions have been met.

Just to clarify, the zone would have to be effective.

The subdivision plot would have to be approved.

The property would have to be developed before the lots could be sold, but if it was in a development agreement, it provides the foundation for legal action if you're not going to be able to do that.

Correct.

If the lots are not ultimately sold, then you'd have a contract on which you could uh file a suit.

If if they weren't sold, well then we're not fixing the the rental problem, right?

So we need to have them offered on an open market to uh a potential buyer.

You know, we just keep them in the right.

Yeah, otherwise the owner could keep them all.

I thought we were saying we have it has not in the buildings, until they sell later.

No, no, no, you build and then you sell or you sell a lot and you build.

Yeah, it you can do it either way.

I think they're planning on building.

They probably couldn't get financing for the improvements themselves until the zone is effective.

Subdivision is approved.

And then they can get financing for the improvements, but they can't sell them until I mean they probably wouldn't be able to sell them until well, they couldn't sell them until the subdivision plat is approved.

They might not be able to sell them until the improvements are in place.

So I'm just saying that if you want that to be a condition, we need to allow the zoning and the plat to be approved.

We just I'm just clarifying that that the process that those would need to happen.

You know, we we can't hold them to sell this units individually until those things happen.

Right.

Yeah.

And that my motion does that, correct?

Uh I think with all the clarification here, I think.

Let me let me clarify.

I think I just want to make sure it's the right wording.

So what I heard was the rezoning will become effective upon execution of a development agreement and a subdivision plat delivered to the city, meaning we have them both, we can record them both.

Um so and once that once that happened, the rezoning ordinance is recorded, uh it would be recorded the city recorder, and then the city would file the record the subdivision plat and the development agreement.

And the development agreement is only for the the units being offered on the open market, being offered for sale.

Right.

Okay, so that part is.

Development uh terms and conditions.

The zone would be in place.

The plot would be approved.

I see what you're saying, but he's saying something a little bit different.

We couldn't go back on that if they rent out the units, but we would have potential legal action against them.

So just to be clear, the zone will if the zone has to go into effect before they can you know, or concurrent with the approval of the subdivision plat or recording of the subdivision plat.

But both those things will need to happen and they will be done before they can sell them, and then we need to hold their feet to the fire if you want that to be in the development agreement.

Do we can't undo those?

I don't think we can undo those things.

When you say hold their feet in the fire, what are you talking about?

Sure.

And potential legal action.

Well, well, we're going to require that the units be subdivided and sold.

If they are not sold, and they'll have to be a reasonable window of time to do that.

They may be sold as vacant lots, they may be sold as improved lots.

But but there will be those terms and conditions will be set forth in the development agreement.

And if those conditions are not met, then the city would file suit.

I'm just saying I don't know that we can undo the rezone.

No, no, no.

Once you've recorded the subdivision plat, the zoning is in place because you can't record the plat until the zoning is in place.

The zoning never vests.

The entitlements never vest until the conditions are met.

But the undue what I'm saying is they can't meet all those conditions without the zoning effective and uh they don't vest without meeting the conditions.

So you got to make sure that they can pop that they can vest.

That the conditions have to be able to have conditions.

Right.

I think I understand.

Okay.

They can't sell the lots until the zoning is in place.

Yes.

So they're making a promise to sell, but the zoning is going to going into effect before they can sell anything.

So if they don't comply with that promise after we've delivered the zoning, then there would be a legal action to force them to keep their promise.

Yes.

Madam Chair.

May I?

Yes.

Um I've been kind of holding my cards.

I just want to say I am probably a yes vote on this.

Um, as a I think it aligns with the general plan, and it's a corridor at 10th East connects Sandy to Midvale.

I hear the concerns about safety, stormwater, runoff.

I I spent an hour um walking around all your all's property today.

And I think it could be a good fit.

I do want to note though, I am a no vote if what Lynn said is true in that the project doesn't have to be built and these can be sold off as lots.

Um that to that to me would change my vote.

But but the main thing I want to talk about, I think this is great.

I just like requiring that they get sold doesn't mean they're not rentals.

Right.

So I know, but we cannot do anything above that.

You can deed restrict.

We can deed restrict for an age.

We can deed restrict for a couple years on someone's equity.

Uh these are like subsidized lower housing.

There are a lot of things we could do on that.

This is a market approach to it, and letting the market do its thing.

We can deed restrict for owner occupied.

So I I think I think though the market approach um is is fine.

I would I I would just like to have something with more teeth to accomplish the council's goals.

Because similarly, why would we force the applicant to subdivide?

Why not let her rent out the five units that that to me is the same logic as as having the market do it.

So also I mean, if if somebody buys it, it it could be a rental if they're buying it for a rental.

Those are things that happen, and that's the that's the general, that's the market doing its thing.

Yeah, so my understanding.

We've made an opportunity and a chance.

That's what we need to do.

Absolutely.

Like that's the least we can do.

My understanding from this conversation was that you know we're gonna have a lot of conversations about this stuff in the future, and we're going to bolster our tools and make our codes better and slowly steer the ship to where we want it to go for housing.

But let's just go back to the issue of if if we can if if it's possible for the way that the motion is that these can be sold without the entire project being developed, is you made that comment.

Is you made that comment.

Is that a possibility?

I'm not the policymaker.

Okay.

But what I heard was you want the property to be subdivided and you want them to be sold.

That doesn't mean that this owner has to build the houses.

They could sell the lot and then have someone build a house on it after it's sold.

Unless you feel otherwise, in which case put it on your list of conditions.

But does it matter whether one owner builds all the houses and then sells them or sells the vacant lots and each owner builds their own home?

I mean if it does, it might it might matter, yeah.

Yeah.

I mean like I said, I was there for an hour and it it could matter.

I um yeah, I'll just leave that up.

Madam Chair, I have a draft motion if you'd like me to pull it up on the screen.

That might be the easiest way to do it.

Is that okay?

Okay.

Can we call the question?

Are we ready?

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Uh Lynn Tracy, let me know if you feel like this needs to be changed.

Motion to adopt ordinance 2604, subject to the execution of a development agreement and a subdivision plat delivered to the city that ensures subdivision of the property to no more than six lots and ensures that each unit will be sold on the open market.

Yeah, I don't really know.

If it were me, I would say I would say uh and then add another paragraph that says this ordinance will not be effective until until the conditions above have been met.

Until and sorry, until the uh until the uh development agreement and the subdivision plat have been executed and delivered to the city.

See there's where I think you get confused.

Yep.

I think that that language is confusing in and of itself the way that you worded it.

Think of something else.

Well, what I want, what I want is I want I want a signed contract, uh-huh, and I want a signed plat.

But you can't do that in our process.

They can't go, they can't move through the process unless first the the it's subdivide.

And then they build.

We well, no, no, I'm not talking about building, I'm not talking about selling.

I'm just talking about signing two documents and giving them to the city before this ordinance becomes effective.

And when we we already know in here, so the execution of a development agreement and a subdivision plat delivered to the city in the first sentence.

Is that not capture what you're mentioning?

Right.

When when is the zoning effective?

When is this ordinance become effective?

When those conditions are met.

They can't do all three, is what I'm saying.

It's a hypothetical condition.

So you're talking about a hypothetical condition that they in this and you can't finance a hypothetical condition.

All the they can sign a development agreement and they can sign the plat, and the development agreement will promise to sell.

Okay.

Both of those can be done.

Okay.

I think that's a good thing.

Their intent is well, I'll just tell you that their intent is to not sell.

Their intent is to build these units and then sell each unit individually.

So if the requirement is that they sell the property before they're built to one property, you know, to one buyer to build them themselves.

Some property.

I think we're getting confused on the on the obligation to sell.

The obligation to sell doesn't happen for years.

They sign a contract to sell and they sign a plat.

That's why I'm saying that they can't sell.

The zone has to be effective before they sell.

The zone will be effective.

All they have to do is make a promise to sell and a and a sub and a subdivide.

They're not going to sell each lot and have like custom builds on it.

They've got what they've got, I think, and that's what they're planning.

Right.

There's there's nothing in here that talks about when they have to sell.

They just have to subdivide and sign a development agreement before the zoning becomes effective.

Both of those they can do.

So all I'm saying, Gustin, is you just need a a statement that says this ordinance will become effective when those two conditions have been met.

Okay, could we say motion to adopt ordinance 2604?

And setting an effective date subject to the execution?

Is that or I think typically I I haven't seen this ordinance, but typically it's you have the terms of the ordinance and then you have an effective date.

And what you want to do is modify the language as the effective date that says this ordinance shall become effective upon the completion of the conditions set forth in the previous paragraph.

And an application becomes void after four or two years.

That's incentive there too.

Yeah, I know.

But I'm just saying if they don't build it, then that goes away anyway because it's subject is them doing it, that are cycling.

Right.

But again, the effective date.

If it's subject to all those conditions being met, they're not going to sell those.

There's nothing in here that makes them promise to sell.

It just has to sign an agreement to sell.

Since we draft the development agreement, it will be worded to deal with that.

What would you like me to state at this point?

Setting the effective date when?

I'm not I'm still not clear on what we're setting when we're setting an effective date.

Yeah.

I'm sorry, Councilmember, what are the conditions you want met?

Because what you want to do is make sure these are our conditions.

When you've met those, your zoning becomes effective.

I've heard two conditions.

Sign a development agreement and prepare and sign a platform.

Yes, do we need an effective date?

The effective date is after those two items have occurred.

Did you get that dust?

And if it hasn't happened within one year following from today, then the ordinance becomes void.

I I get you.

I'm just trying to make it work.

Yeah.

Are you good with this motion?

Yeah, I'm good with it.

Um I know I'll call the question, but Marcy has a question.

Their question wasn't called, there wasn't a second to call the question.

Oh, okay.

Cool.

I just need to know that what we're putting in this language is doable, that they can accomplish the intent that has been communicated to you if they're willing to sign the development agreement and deliver a subdivision plat.

Does that allow them in your mind to move forward and do what they've expressed they intend to do?

Well, the applicant could express that for themselves for himself, but uh my understanding of their position is that they are willing to do this.

Okay.

And you're okay with the language of yes.

Thank you.

All right, so we have a motion and a second.

Roll call vote, Ms.

Nichol, yes.

Yes, Mr.

DeKiser.

Yes.

Ms.

Stroud.

No.

Ms.

Housman.

Yes.

Ms.

Sharkey.

No.

Ms.

Christianson.

No.

Madam Chair, that motion carries four to three.

All right.

Moving on to our next agenda item.

Do you want one?

Getting a request for a very short recess?

A five-minute break.

Okay.

Five minutes.

All right.

Five minute recess.

Madam Chair, will you just let us know when you're ready to go?

All right.

Let's, yeah.

We're ready to reconvene.

Okay, we're ready.

All right.

Next item on the agenda.

Um the council members asked for this to be heard as an RDA item.

So I'll make a motion to recess the city council meeting and convene a meeting of the RDA.

Do I have a second?

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

Ms.

Houseman.

Uh still chair, right?

Thank you, madam chair.

I can just chair of the RDA.

Um so hopefully, and it's late, so I'm gonna be super super brief in my intro, but hopefully you had a chance to kind of look over the the proposal.

I'm essentially bringing forward this concept of a public-private child care co-op that would convert vacant commercial space into a state certified early learning center.

It would serve infants through elementary age children.

We can get into those details later, but um with a focus on on economic development and sandy, allowing Sandy businesses uh to recruit and retain employees, which aligns you might remember to one of the goals we put in our in our um general plan and something that um we have that there's a lot of research around economic development and the value of providing child care to employees.

In fact, I heard from um a constituent about this, citing the very the very instance of we are losing uh employees because we can't offer child care.

So I think it's been validated.

Um what I think makes this really um particularly timely is a lot of the convergence of a lot of policy.

I want to make sure that I say very clearly this is not government-funded child care.

Um, this is an RDA, it would be a redevelopment project that we through Utah legislative um uh you know legislative policy, RDA funds can be used for this very thing, providing infrastructure.

So redeveloping a vacant space, turning it into child care center.

Sandy would not be providing the child care.

There would be a state high quality provider.

So the the provider provides the child care, the businesses cover the cost of the child care, or in some type of a sliding scale, it's part business, part family provided, but we are not paying the cost of child care.

We are just taking action on legislative policy, state legislative policy that allows RDA funds to be spent on infrastructure that makes it possible for businesses to to have a co-op approach to child care.

Um, in addition, so that's one of the the policy levers that has come into play here as a state lever.

Um, and then an additional federal level lever, of course, is the tax benefit to businesses, and then state lever of tax benefit as well.

So there's a lot of convergence here in trying to solve a real challenge, uh, a challenge for businesses, a challenge for families, and Sandy has the opportunity to kind of take the lead on that.

So I'm not asking for uh any like approval on funding right now.

What this proposal is is simply asking that we authorize RDA staff to conduct basically a feasibility analysis, um, identify potential sites that would qualify for this state-approved use of um RDA funds, estimate the cost of renovation, and I've already um been working on sort of assembling a team that can answer those questions, uh, gauge business participation, so start communicating with businesses and then return a within 90 days to the same body and provide a bit of an update.

And that update would say here's what the model could look like.

Here's some sites we've identified, here's the costs we've we've identified as for per site the cost of renovating the site so that it could be certified by the state as a child care center.

Um, and then of course we have the next conversation, which is what is the right site based on what we have what we're bringing back, what what costs are we okay with, what cost are we not okay with, etc.

etc.

So I'm just asking for that, conduct uh approval for the staff to conduct a feasibility analysis that the team does um including all of these partners that I've already been working on for I I've honestly been working on this for almost two years.

Um if the analysis supports it, then we get to be like a first mover in the state.

We get to be the first city that acts on this state legislation that allows RDA funds to be used in this manner, essentially creating a blueprint that other cities could then take and run with.

So we are in essence setting in motion a potential expansion of child care offerings for businesses to use as a tool of recrant recruitment and retention across the state.

Um just today I heard from two council members in St.

George who are interested, they've been having similar conversations, and they're really interested in in what we're doing, and and so I'm gonna set up a meeting just to get them up to speed on on what I've brought.

And so I'm gonna set up a meeting just to get them up to speed on on what I've brought.

I it's a proposal at this point.

Um but I'm hoping at the second reading that we're ready to go and and we can signal as a as a body authorized staff to conduct this analysis.

And that's my proposal.

Council questions, comments, Miss Nickel.

So you mentioned tax benefits to the state and the federal.

What what tax benefits are those?

So it at the federal level there is a tax incentive for businesses.

Um I I cannot remember if it if the benefit kicks in if they pay for 100% of child care costs or a subsidy.

I have to look that up.

So but there is an incentive.

Business gets the incentive.

The business gets the incentive.

There's a tax benefit to businesses that offer child care to their employees.

Same thing at the state level.

I my understanding is what was passed was um a requirement that this the business cover 100% of the child care costs in order to access the tax benefit.

The federal benefit is 50% comes back to the business.

So 50% of what they spent on child care comes back to the business in the federal tax benefit.

I don't know as much about the the state one.

Okay, yeah, I think that unless it changed, you can also get have a tax benefit having your kids in a preschool too from paying the tuition.

I'm not sure, but that's okay.

Yeah, that would be something worth exploring too.

The the benefit to the families, yeah, right.

Exactly.

And I love the idea.

I'm on thank you.

Thank you.

Ms.

Christensen.

Okay.

So who would own the building?

So the RDA, well, it doesn't have to necessarily be the RDA would cover the costs of remo re renovation.

It could be that it is, it works out that we own.

I don't know that we would own a whole building because this is an office, potentially an office space within a building.

So there would be a landlord, um, the RDA comes in and redevelops that, and then the rental cost is part of the child care providers' costs.

I don't know that there is the ability to buy a whole building for this.

So the only participation of Sandy is to renovate a building, period.

We don't have any liability, we don't have any oversight ongoing.

We're just we we would we would need to explore that's part of the analysis.

We would need to explore if because we redevelop the space, we would need to contract with so for example the the party who does the renovation could become a an like an operations where they they they make sure the building the the space is um maintained and that kind of thing.

So maybe there's we'd have to explore if that would be a piece of ongoing.

Um but it would if there were some ongoing, it would be for the maintenance of the space that we remodeled.

I don't even know if we would have to do that.

So I yeah, because I'm just thinking like would we have to hold the lease for it, or would my intent some private business holder the child care provider is the business, they are running that is a business.

They are running the child care business.

And we would like put it out for like bid to see which daycare facilities wanted to expand into the space.

Um I would we would have to look into that.

I don't know if we have to bid, but I have a partner that I have already been talking with that has a model that could be replicated.

So I don't know to answer your question if it would be a need to be a bid or not, but I already have a child care provider that has said they're ready to go.

Do we have any businesses that have actually said that they would be willing to do this?

I have um some conversations that there is definite interest.

I have not yet received commitment that I would feel comfortable conveying we have commitment.

Um this is an exploratory like, but there is every every business I talk to, there is significant interest.

There's just obviously they don't this is very early, yeah, but the concept um there's tremendous support for.

Okay.

So we've talked, so this isn't a surprise.

Um I just I guess my biggest problem is is I don't think it's government's place to subsidize child care, period, right?

So for you take it for what it's worth.

I I just don't I I don't haven't seen any successful models, and maybe this would be it.

I but like the county's gotten rid of their child care, they spent two million dollars a year subsidizing it.

They just they just partnered with a a nonprofit partner who's providing that child care.

They didn't but they're still subsidizing it in the budget.

So that's less than their two million dollars a year in the past that they were putting into it, but like I mean they'll still have to subsidize.

I just want to clarify county eliminated it from their recenter, but now they are doing it through this other method.

Yeah, still gonna have to subsidize it somehow is the plan for them because otherwise, so I don't like to do that.

I think that we have lots of competing budget issues.

I think especially child care businesses run on such a small margin that they that's why it's so hard, right?

It's a tough job, no one wants to work in that field in general, and it's like really expensive to run that and the liability for having kids on your premise.

Anyway, I don't think government should be part of that, and then I also think that um it's just gonna turn into a situation in my opinion, a situation where how do we say one business is good over another business?

Like how do we say that you know, ABC daycare and mother's helper and XYZ and all five that run in Sandy?

How do we how do we say we're gonna subsidize one business over another?

That's concerning to me.

Um so just some of my concerns.

I'm I'm not in favor of this.

But under understand.

I think the legislature would disagree with parts of what you just shared.

Um, you know, the fact that they're willing to say RDA funds can be used be used for infrastructure.

Yeah, we've got to solve the child care crisis in the state.

And if we were gonna use RDE funds, I would say my feedback would be we should wait until the economic development plan is completed and then see where that where the feedback comes from our consultants in that process, which I know is like a couple years out, and so not an immediate solution.

I think our economic development department is actually working on a strategic plan right now, and there is a goal about this because we adopted this goal that well, the prior council adopted a goal around supporting businesses with recruitment and retention of their employees through child care.

So we've identified as a city this is a priority, and the economic development team is is putting it in their strategic plan as a priority as well.

I mean, when is that set to be done?

So the proposals close next week.

Date 16th or 17th, I can't remember, um, in March.

But we'll have a consultant hopefully under contract by um early mid-April.

An anticipated timeline?

Uh it just depends on how in depth they can take anywhere, probably six to nine months.

Okay, uh, to do the full strategic plan.

Okay, thank you.

Mr.

Souza.

Thank you.

Okay, so giving you feedback.

Um, I do think that there are a lot more details and nuances that matter, and I get that this is a request to bring those kinds of details and and information nuances back.

Um overall, I I I am interested in learning more and and understanding if this is um if this is feasible, if this is something that we can um work towards.

You know, I I struggle too with the idea of um you know subsidizing what to subsidize.

I don't I don't necessarily feel like this is a subsidy from Sandy because it's it's um I look at it from the economic development standpoint of renovating a space so that others can occupy so that so that businesses can flourish and people can be employed and and and whatnot.

And so um, you know, conceptually I'm interested in learning more and would um support staff looking and bringing that information back.

So that's my feedback.

Thank you.

Ms.

Trout.

I did a very very very precursory, you know, looking in the big beautiful bill and all these other things that you had kind of noted here.

Um I do have concerns, like Ms.

Christensen, you know, with government subsidizing, you know, and looking at anything kind of specific, you know, I guess you're talking about as well, you know, looking at that.

Um what happens, you know, with the money, so we put in 100,000, 200,000 up to 500,000, and then the child care co-op goes under.

You know, are there any sort of guarantees with that?

You know, I mean, a a child care facility is very specific, you know, it's not an office building that can be easily transformed from company A to company B.

Um, there are I mean, a lot of a lot of health and safety issues, um, space requirements that make it very unique to um to renovating some sort of office space.

So, you know, I I don't, and I've never had a problem with looking into things, you know, I I don't have a problem with that, but I am um skeptical, you know, and that's I I mean I'm a teacher, you know.

I I I hear about this all the time, you know, the questions of child care concern.

I mean, that's you know, my my niece and nephew, the twins, they're eight years old, my brother went through this, you know, just you know, fairly recently, um, you know, a finding that.

So it's you know, I know that that quality child care can be difficult, but you know, wondering if that is something that should be falling onto city level.

Um, what are the guarantees that you put in however hundreds of thousand dollars, whatever that is to make sure that it doesn't just go under?

Uh, you know, I I had I was aware of an experience, so downtown great big triangle building, it's like one of the tallest ones down there's the Wells Fargo Center right now.

Um they did this for their employees, they had this and they have a parking garage, and they had on their second level a child care facility for their 24 floors of this class A office space, and it went under.

They were not able, and that was a business, and this was 25 years ago, but it was not able to maintain and to recruit you know in a in a downtown area where you have a lot of parents that are working in office buildings.

So I mean, there's a lot of questions that I have, you know, and I don't know if this is where you're you know, this is where businesses are getting that that money from and saying, okay, you know, we've offset by you know several hundred thousand dollars, and so it it makes it last longer.

So I I mean I I am curious, but I I am highly questioning if this is the best use, and then um just wondering what happens if it does go under.

I mean, this this the example of this building, you know, they owned it, so you know, they put all into it and it was their private money that that they lost on that renovation.

Um, so I I mean I have concerns of how our how Casey's the RDA money um is protected for you know years, but you know, I I mean it and then you know, I just need to do some more research with you know, all of the different, you know, all the bills, you know, you got a very precursory, and and that was me not looking into it, you know, of you know, I I guess better understanding those, but I don't have a problem with you know letting Casey kind of look into this, um you know, and and in that direction, but I I have some pretty significant questions, but we'll see what happens when it comes back if it comes back your input.

So those are my concerns.

Thank you.

We're looking at using RDA funds for other incentives that in my hierarchy of benefit, this is as good.

If we're writing down values of properties in order to provide some benefits to some, but not all, to me, this is in the same kind of category.

The um the thing that I'll really want to dig deep on is the financial viability aspect of it.

Who is going to participate?

And yeah, are we going to we don't want to build it and then they don't come, right?

So it's pretty clear to me if I have it right that for a state tax incentive, the employer has to pay a hundred percent.

I don't know about the federal and just doing a really fast Google search.

It it's talk I only found employer provided on site, but we're talking about employer paying all or part of the expense off site.

I I could I just couldn't find that.

So I think the tax incentives and understanding those and making sure that when if we're looking to get quasi commitments from people to explore the financial viability, they must understand whether there's some tax benefit or no tax benefit on both a state and federal level.

So I will really want to do dig deep.

If we're contemplating this kind of investment, will it will it be used by the community?

And will it really have a purpose?

And if the purpose is as you're suggesting, then I would support it.

But I'll be really looking for that pro forma to prove that our investment is worth that expense and the public will use it and be benefited by it.

Yeah, thank you.

Sure.

Ms.

Christensen, how many hours do we think it will take to do all of these things listed under the specifically the immediate ask?

Do we have any or Casey?

How many?

I mean, I'm not gonna hold you to it.

Just like roughly, is this like how many?

Good question.

I don't know.

Um I think you know, my first reaction when seeing this in the 90 days, 90 days is you know, approximately three months, but with starting the strategic plan and the other things we're working on, it may be a tall task when we only have really two of us that will probably be working on this, Rob and I, and then potentially if we brought Dan Nelson, the property manager into the loop.

But I that's why I think it's kind of a tall task to do it in 90 days, and that's why, madam chair, if I can be you know a little candid.

Um, I think it's a good use as far as I mean it it's it's uh it's a qualifying use, it's a good use, there is a need.

Um the recommendation that I made to board member Housman when we talked was we're getting ready to do the strategic plan.

And you know, as board member and and houseman and I talked, there's a uh a goal within the general plan that already somewhat states this.

I think this takes it to the next step.

But my recommendation was to kind of roll this into the economic development strategic plan as a priority and a goal.

Um that way the consultant can actually look and see what other outside the state of Utah, what other programs are available, what other as is there other you know, mini municipalities or governments that are doing this side of thing this type of thing outside of Utah, and they that way they can do some of the legwork as well and provide some of the input and that and maybe in the same process of why we're doing some of the other um research on it as well.

I know that doesn't answer your question.

I think bottom line, I think with everything else right now, 90 days would be probably a tall task.

I mean, could you even get like business participation commitments within 90 days?

That's it, that's very open-ended, likely no.

Um but we would have to do that research and talk to some of the businesses to do that.

But uh, within 90 days to get business commitments when we're still providing re we're doing all the research.

I mean, I'm still trying to familiarize myself with a lot of this.

I know it's an issue, it's been talked as board member Houseman has stated in the legislature for the past two years.

That's why there's this mechanism to do that, is because there is a need.

Um, you know, I there was a chamber that was uh study that was done that basically said Utah loses about 1.5 billion dollars in um revenue because of loss of workers in the workforce because of child care issues.

So there is a need, uh, but uh yeah, I mean it's can't answer some of that questions without starting to do the research, but 90 days would be a tall task for staff.

Okay, and then just one last thing.

Um we are already doing this as a city, we're supporting the Sandy Club.

So I guess it would be how many how much more do we want to do with our money since we're have ongoing subsidies with them as well.

Like maybe we need to look at a different segment.

Maybe we don't do kids that are in elementary because that's covered by that group, and if it really is going to be looked at, maybe it's just pure not school-aged kids because we're already meeting that need in our city.

Thank you.

I'll I'll just quickly address both of those.

Um I I love the feedback on timeline, and I mean I'm totally fine bringing back a revised version toss in the 90 day.

That's I mean, that's great feedback.

Um, it could be that the we're we're basically saying as an RDA board, please roll this in, this please roll this study into the strategic planning process.

I just I want I I want the body to signal we're we are behind exploring this specific thing.

In terms of Sandy Club, I think that's a totally different audience.

I don't agree that we're doing the same thing.

This benefits businesses.

I love Sandy Club.

That is a direct there are no business engaged in that.

That is supporting families with with after school child care for sure.

But isn't that this?

I mean, we're gonna families.

Let me finish this.

Let me finish.

No, it's economic development.

This is an economic development goal.

We're helping businesses recruit and retain employees through offering child care.

So yes, does it benefit families?

Totally.

It's a different audience.

So I I would argue this is we are we are supporting businesses who are then supporting their employees.

You can disagree with the other.

Just because they're lower.

Doesn't mean that's not supporting businesses.

It's just supporting more different types of businesses than the ones you're talking about.

Well, we can just agree to disagree.

You're you're I think it's I think it's two different audiences.

This is that's why we're a body, so we can all have opinions.

Just a clarification.

We're talking about a one-time use of RDA for Mr.

Susan.

Okay, I'm not I am not trying to increase the debate on the Sandy Club by any means, but having served served as a board member, and I hear the comments, and I just you know, my thought is it is a different audience because it's specifically after school care, which this from a child care standpoint.

Having been a parent that had to work with young children, I had to find child care during the daytime hours so that I could employ myself to support my family.

And so the what what I hear this proposal is as providing a space and an opportunity for that type of daytime infant to you know outside of school age, even primarily um child care, as opposed to or the Sandy Club services after school care only, and it doesn't that that type of of child care option doesn't provide somebody the opportunity to work if their children are not in school for the majority of the day.

So anyway, I do feel like it is nuanced and needed to be clarified again.

Thanks.

Uh just one reminder.

Um I would need to get direction from the executive director to move forward on this and do the feasibility analysis and and the research.

So I would make sure that I would need the executive director's support to move forward with this on the staff level.

Just as a reminder.

If I could, madam chair, I just want to comment.

I think this is really commendable.

I have a lot more to learn about this.

My questions are mostly with like the feasibility of the feasibility study.

You mentioned that you're spinning your wheels trying to figure out, you know, learning about a lot of this stuff.

It seems to me like this is not necessarily in your wheelhouse.

Like, can't can you even do all this?

Or like it's almost like you would need a hire a daycare consultant or something.

That's I just wonder tough answer whether we would even want to trust your opinion on the feasibility study.

Okay, uh, I can uh the one thing I can comment is the use of RDA funds, yes.

I mean, I can comment on that.

Is it allowable use?

Yes.

Can we do some of the research as far as office space, those type of things that you know, board member Housman's asking?

Yes, as far as those other things, no.

Um, and that's why again the recommendation of potentially having this go along with our strategic plan, because we we could have some call consultant consultants that we've hired that may have some experience or at least do some of the legwork and research, you know, and provide feedback on that.

Would we get the whole program designed?

Possibly not, but that's why I said it it would make sense rolling that in and doing it through that process versus a separate process that we can provide some of the information, but I wouldn't be comfortable making recommendations, no.

Madam Chair.

Um, yeah, so the only thing I would add to that is as part of the consultant um process, come the strategic plan, everything that you're setting a motion.

If we folded this in, I can absolutely provide resources to you.

People, people, resources, experts, etc., who would meet with the consultant, um, any gaps the consultants might have in in knowledge base, they would absolutely be able to fill ultimately so that consultant can come you know back and and say, hey, this is how this might be folded into the strategic plan and that goal specifically.

So I'm happy to serve as a resource, I'm happy to make connections.

Um I've done a lot, like I said, I've been working on this for two years.

So I've done I I've I've built I mean infrastructure of a different kind.

I've built a team that is stands ready to serve as um at no charge as consultant, you know, whatever um uh people who bring tremendous amount of understanding to this, and all like from unique um requirements of the law in terms of certification of the space to uh unique ways to repurpose the space with different building materials so that it can go in quickly, like so you're not in this alone.

You're not in this alone.

I think it's a valuable question, and I know why you couldn't answer it, because uh you don't know, but in terms of supplementing what you are brilliant at, I have a team standing at the ready.

I just need the body to say we want to learn more, and and we'd like staff to help Marcy, you know, help bring back things.

If it's a year timeline, I'm really fine with that.

The 90 days was just to signal uh I'd like to have start having conversation around this.

If it takes a year, if it takes 18 months, uh whatever, however, it folds into the process that you set in motion.

I'm very, very comfortable with.

Um, I just want to show that we are we are investigating this.

We are we are leading out and and hope to be a city that is acting on this state legislation because originally Susan Pulsfer came to me and said, Do you know about this?

Why isn't Sandy doing it?

And then she passed the legislation on to Tracy Miller who said, Hey, we're making it better.

What feedback do you have?

And so they're asking why isn't Sandy, why aren't other cities doing this?