Most of them don't have to start building.

Oh, yeah, not on one.

They're going.

I always love it when they call or start the plans.

You can start, but just move dirt.

Go pan some planks is around.

Move them every couple of weeks.

Make you feel like so.

What is this text amendment?

You know.

I try to find the difference.

All right, I'm here.

You guys that I'll move.

I got one minute to spare.

Well, so is SB uh is that a state.

Yeah, SB.

That must be city surrocate.

Everybody's ready.

You guys ready?

We only have five, though.

We only need five, right?

Yeah.

Okay.

Good evening, everyone.

Welcome to the Syracuse City Planning Commission meeting for October 7th, 2025.

It's now 6 p.m.

And we will call this meeting to order.

Um we'll have an invocation or thought by Commissioner Baker.

Not here.

I'll go ahead and say that one.

Our beloved father in heaven.

We're indeed grateful for this opportunity that's given us to serve on this planning commission and to represent this wonderful city of Syracuse.

We pray tonight that we'll be mindful of the citizens of this community and do those things which are appropriate to help us flourish and do those things which will want citizens to be here.

And bless this meeting, Father, that we'll be kind to one another and we say these things humbly in the name of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

And our pledge of allegiance will be given by Commissioner Burt.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Okay.

Thank you, everyone.

And now we'll do the adoption of the meeting agenda.

Move to adopt the agenda.

Okay.

And we have a motion to adopt the meeting agenda.

Second.

Second.

And we have a second.

And any okay, we'll have the amending or adopt the meeting agenda as listed.

Next is a regular meeting and work session for September 2nd 2025 for the meeting minutes.

I hope you've reviewed those and read through them.

Is are there any changes or need for additional comments?

I move that we approve the minutes.

Okay, we got a motion and a second to approve the meeting minutes for September 2nd, 2025.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

Next is public comment.

This is an opportunity to address the planning commission regarding items not scheduled for a public hearing on this agenda.

Please consider others and limit your comments to three minutes.

At this time, next we'll open up the public hearing.

This is the general plan text amendment, proposed third amendment to the Syracuse General Plan.

And you uh I'm ready for that, Mr.

Chair.

Yes, please.

Uh hopefully, you know, let me pull up the uh packet.

Hopefully, you guys have had a chance to read through this.

Um our general plan was adopted in 2019, but we've had various amendments to the to that.

Uh we've had a few for affordable housing.

Um mostly we've been making updates as required by state law.

Uh the Utah legislature's been active in requiring certain things to be in general plans.

Like I said, the last one was related to affordable housing.

Uh this one is related to water and growth.

Uh there's another one that's required before next summer that's related to connectivity.

So we'll we're trying to knock this one out.

Uh of course water is a hot topic.

It's important to make sure we have enough water for growth.

Uh in the city, we have a secondary water system for our irrigation and lawns and gardens and things like that.

We also have a culinary system.

We have uh on our website, we have an impact fee study plan for both systems.

We also have uh water conservation plan that's adopted also on our website.

So a lot of this was trying to pull some of this work that's already been pulled out and also have a conversation um with planning commission and the public about um what the city's doing and what some of our goals are to make sure that we're water efficient.

We've recently changed some of our ordinances as far as landscaping requirements.

Um so we've we've attempted to uh add this is like uh an appendix.

I didn't include the rest of the text of the general plan.

Um and so this is meant to be initial draft form.

Uh if we have any comments, we can we can forward that to city council who's ultimately in charge of of adopting the document.

Um we've also sent this off to the state for comments, and um the goal is to try to get it done before the end of the year.

Um before the before the uh the deadline for adoption is is hit.

So um I don't know if you guys how detailed you guys want to get into this, but um hopefully you've had a chance to to study it and look into it.

If you have any comments or questions, we can we can discuss this item.

But the goal here is to forward some sort of recommendation to city council of what your thoughts are on this uh new water element for the general plan.

Discussion question uh so uh there were a couple in items in there about being full build out.

Is this like a plan at a full build-out, or if we go extent exceeding beyond that, or do we need to get to that point?

The the goal is I mean, I think the underlying um reason why the state is trying to get involved here is they want to make sure that the cities are planning well for their full build-out numbers and that we don't somehow issue too many building permits.

You probably see that a lot on comment boards and things like where's the water gonna come from?

You know, so I think um it's important for cities to plan ahead.

Um and the city Syracuse actually has done a really good job planning ahead with with all new development.

We collect water shares.

Um we we uh we have um wells that are meant for future capacity.

We have a current well right now that we use um so we have extra capacity and the water rights that we have for culinary water, and then development also pays impact fees.

And uh so yeah, the the goal is to make sure that we have enough water for our projected build out.

And our max um is the 60,000 that's listed here.

That's kind of what we're yeah, and the impact fee study plans are designed to capture the projects that are needed for full build out, and they go off of the general plan.

And the densities that are anticipated in the general plan, as we know, sometimes change.

And so uh the 60,000 in the and all of our plans are based off of our current general plan.

And that's you know, that's the best you can do.

Um but if things become more dense, then you know, we you need more water and make sure we plan ahead.

And do we need anything in here?

Because it I with the secondary water, uh, I know it I think that there's like a 13,000 uh acre feet capacity, if I remember right, from reading it.

It's I know the water conservancy district is looking, we're metering all of our houses.

Is it do we need to include anything about that and potential for like overusage, how to protect because right now we're just if you have a sp a spigot, you can let it run.

Yeah, so there is uh few paragraphs talking about that, or maybe only one in our water conservation plan.

There's there's more.

Uh but yeah, the city's under has a huge project underway right now.

We're installing secondary meters on every house.

And uh, of course, with new growth, it's easy to install a new meter per the standard spec, but we're also retroactively going through and installing the meters on the existing connections.

That's that's uh 16 million dollar project.

And the city did get some funding and you know, some help with the grant and things like that, but it's still millions of dollars.

And this and the the things like that, that's the reason why why the city collects impact fees so that we can capture projects like that.

The uh the anticipated costs when you do impact fee study plans sometimes are not accurate to what the actual costs are, and the way impact fees are collected with development, doesn't always follow a linear pattern based off of market demands and things, and so when a home's built, we collect the impact fee, but sometimes you just need a like for example, we built a new water tower.

You reach a point in your system where you just it's a big chunk of money and it doesn't always line up with the rate that we're collecting impact fees.

So um that's why it's important to always be updating your impact fee study plans.

Uh so we're in the process right now of updating our both the culinary and secondary impact fee plan, and that's public works is doing that right now, and they've hired JUB to do that.

Um we've also passed this on to JUB, this uh water element, and we want them to help populate some more detail.

Um, so we we like I said, the goal is to try to get done before the end of the year, but it's looking like most likely it'll be done by or get to city council either by the end of the year or the first of first part of January.

In here, you know, we we've got about 60% complete for secondary water.

Are we a hundred percent metered for our culinary water?

Yeah, yep.

All cell all culinary connections are metered, and we have a tiered fee structure.

We don't have to go and read the meter though it's all electric now.

Oh, we uh we just it's all it's only been within the last five or six years that we have a radio read that you you can drive by with a truck, but it doesn't you still have to have somebody drive through every single street and read all the meters, and it and as you drive by it, it transmits the data.

Okay, not too many years ago, it was a wand read, and you put a wand on it and it goes beep and then it reads it.

And not too many years before that, it was literally you open the thing and you write down the number, and then you close the lid and you go to the next house.

So, like just the act of reading is I mean, it it requires uh employees and software and all kinds of stuff.

But the the secondary, you know, we the first the first step is to have it metered and actually understand what the water usage is because like you said, I don't think the city understands how much water is really being used because it's not metered, and you pay a flat fee, and some people put that thing on, and you know, who knows what they're doing in the backyard.

So I I think that's uh and you know that's that's spelled out in our water conservation plan that the document references.

But once once we start reading secondary data, get some data, the city can understand what an average usage is per home, and they can I think in the future they'll have some sort of tiered rate, and you know, the the bad actors will either get shut down or fined or pay an exorbitant, maybe not exorbitant, but like they'll it should it's only fair that you use more, you pay more.

Maybe you use less, you pay less.

You're you're running, you're running you're running next to that.

Unfortunately, a little bit late.

My apologies.

Any other Welcome to the meeting.

Yeah, we're this is gonna be a quick and quick and easy one, I think.

Yeah, no, I've got a couple questions for you.

Uh I'm assuming that all public buildings are involved in that secondary metering.

Maybe those were the first ones to be done.

Yes, yep.

Uh another question.

The availability of our water rates or our water rights, excuse me, on the uh amount of acre feet and all that.

I'm assuming that's based upon a historical average of how much water is available.

So, yeah, the way water shares work, um, some years that they're good water years, and some years they're not.

And so we have it's called a uh a water share, uh, which means that you get a piece of the pie, and sometimes the size of the pie actually changes.

Um, and so the city does uh we have uh watering schedules, and so if you're in certain parts of the the city, you have certain days that you can water, and then of course Sunday is an is a non-watering, and um, of course, the city buildings we're trying to lead by example.

We've we've flipped the strip, we've pulled out a lot of turf in the front there.

Um the keyword is non-functional turf, right?

So if you have areas that aren't uh used for sports or picnics, and some of the city hall area is um what functional because of the annual parade, and you know, it's it seems maybe silly to have grass for once or twice a year, but you know, it is something that residents enjoy.

So with those watershares uh in Utah, is it based on seniority?

So there are the old farmer shares, and then um there are so the the way I understand it, it's like you have uh projects back in the day, you know, when they built Echo as a project, and that's a tier water, and if the shares are part of that, or if you know, as they build different canals and different projects, and so there's like uh different project water, and so the city pays annual annual fees.

So as far as our availability of water, I think is what you're getting getting at the city.

The city's high up there on our ability to get water.

We're confident that even in drought years we'll have our fair share.

So assuming anything other than a total catastrophe, we have enough access and seniority that we would not be superseded and say that Roy gets our water instead because that's all the water that's left.

Yeah, these these are good points to to bring up, and I don't know if we want to uh talk about that, you know.

I didn't get into that level of detail, but I know that it's something that the city thinks about, and and in the level of the totem pole of priority, secondary water, you know, it's important to have our gardens, and it's important to have landscaping, but but the the real important one is the culinary water to make sure that we are we you know you don't have the drinking water, we die.

I without getting too far out in the weeds.

I guess my point is all these speculations about uh water capacity for 60,000 inhabitants.

Is that based upon as is projections, or is that extrapolating that we're gonna have additional conservancy measures in the future that's gonna allow us to stretch to that, or is that a conservative goal?

And we still have some wiggle room with some additional water saving measures on top of that.

There's a lot more that we could do.

I think it's a pretty conservative measure.

And to be honest, I mean uh just a just we've been saying build out is 60,000 for a long time, and that's just like a big round number.

It could be a lot more than that, depending on what happens.

And there's a lot of lot of variables there, like I said, density, housing type, that's dictated by all kinds of things that are outside of the city's control sometimes.

But the city controls its zoning and doesn't have to approve a project if it's feeling tight on there.

But the the current sentiment with our where we're at with our sim systems is that we have the capacity for growth, and we have planned ahead, and we and you know, we are planning for growth, and we still have we're about 40,000.

We're in with the 60,000 build-out, that's still quite a bit of growth.

If you look around, there are still a few farms.

They're going fast.

And if there's a farm around the chances are there's somebody that's looking at it.

Yeah.

And generally a farm uses more water than a households are going to use anyways.

Okay.

That thing answers my question.

Thank you.

Mr.

Chair, if I can just uh hop in here for one second.

I'd opened up a couple of things.

Uh so we we do have the projections, but we also do deal with this on like a case-by-case basis, uh with the secondary in particular.

And then also with housing, uh, when people apply for a building permit, we're gonna have uh water impact fees uh to pay for pipe upgrades and things like that in the future.

So uh, but for subdivision plats, so for any sort of new housing or new commercial or industrial development that we get, we have requirements uh that they dedicate water to the city in the form of a water share, uh, before the plat's allowed to be recorded.

So they're not allowed to build anything without water dedicated to us.

So even if they don't have landscaping in, we have water.

So here's an example of a water share.

Uh these things are essentially currency.

Uh this gives you access to a certain number number of acre feet is defined here through this one's Davis and Weaver Canal Company.

This is accepted everywhere in the city.

And then there's Leighton Canal.

We also accept Hooper irrigation.

Uh Leighton Canal is pretty much everything below the bluff, so west of that.

So the this canal company provides access to that area just based off of the gravity.

So when we uh have these water shares that are dedicated to us, this essentially gives us direct certificate access to the water from these companies.

So we are guaranteed to be able to have that access.

So I guess you know, uh barring some sort of substantial calamity that occurs, maybe like the echo uh dam breaks or something like that.

We we get guaranteed this water, right?

So it's not like uh oh, there's a drought.

Well, what's gonna happen?

Um, you know, we we do have these things that are managed through larger regional water systems, and these are these are guaranteed.

So um, and and developers are required to dedicate these to us.

I've I've seen a few uh developments over the years that have died because they couldn't find find the water.

Sometimes people that are selling, like a farmer will sell their land with water, sometimes they don't, but either way, it doesn't matter.

We we still require them to provide the correct number of shares and for like uh single family residential, for example, that would be three acre feet per acre of water, it's like an acre foot, uh if I remember right, isn't it?

It's an acre of ground covered with one foot of water, isn't that how they measure that?

So it's quite a bit of water.

Uh, but basically just make sure that we have the water available, we have direct access to it through here, and we have all of these.

I mean, hundreds of pages that we have uh several thousand shares isn't mentions in the general plan that are in a lockbox.

We've got direct access to that if we need it to verify that we have access to that water.

Great.

Thank you.

Yeah, my father-in-law has uh done some developing and he has uh he's had to deal with the water shares quite a bit, um, especially like up on the uh North Ogden benches.

They were, I mean, it's a it it's that way everywhere you go, but they are very, very stingy with water shares and who's gonna let them go and everything.

And when he said that these are currency, he's not kidding.

Yeah, it's it's literally like liquid gold, like they and sometimes there'll be water speculators that they'll swoop in and they'll buy the water shares from the farmer and then they'll hold on to them and jack up the price.

And anyway, we're getting in the weeds.

Yeah, I was just gonna make one more comment.

Um approximately 110 years ago, the Colorado Compacts divided up the water flow of the Colorado River among the western states.

They based that on the average that turned out to be record high abnormally large water flow years.

So they're essentially dividing a number that didn't even exist.

They were dividing 120% of average instead of a hundred percent.

And so that was just on my mind.

Yes, the shares are meaningful, but you can't divide zero, right?

So that just comes in my mind.

I know we're being aggressive, and I'm I'm grateful for that.

I just uh the waters like say water's always a present worry in the west.

Yeah.

Well, I'm I'm confident that we've done all we can to ensure, but it's nature, it's this is only secondary water too.

This isn't going.

So it's weaver weaver river and the flows on the Weber River can fluctuate, but it is um coming below a dam, so they can regulate the flows.

Um and like I said, it's it's a piece of the pie.

So some years can be more thin, but that's where you implement more water conservation measures and things like that.

We had that one just what three or four years ago.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um, this is a public hearing.

Is there anybody online?

Nope.

Any public input.

Okay.

And my rec or the understanding is this is a recommendation to the city council.

Is that correct?

Yes, sir.

Any further discussion?

Commissioners.

I've got one other item.

Noise.

Can you scroll down?

I believe there was a bunch of conservation methods or something at the end of the document.

Recommendations.

Is that right?

There we go.

Just wanted to get a good look at those.

Um, so these are goals, they're not mandated.

There's no set plan, they're just future actions that we may implement as a city.

Is that right?

Yes.

Thank you.

Yeah, this.

So if you clicked on this link, that carries this out, and this is an adopted plan by city council by resolution.

So it's not an ordinance, but it is um something that the city endorses and buys into commissioners, and we make a motion.

So are we motioning to city council to approve this as worded?

Yeah, whatever you recommend, you can recommend them recommend to approve, approve with conditions.

You could table, you can even recommend to deny for certain reasons if you felt like this was you know, if if you felt that way, probably better for us to keep working on it here for a little while to make some changes.

I have no notes.

Okay, I'll make a motion.

Uh I move that we recommend approval to the city council um as worded on the amendment to the Syracuse General Plan in accordance with SB 110 water as part of the general plan and SB 76 water amendments.

I second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second.

All in favor?

I mean, hey, this is recommended to move forward to the city council.

Okay.

If you'll pull up the agenda, we'll go to the okay.

Um motion to adjourn this commissioner meeting and or planning commission meeting and move into a work session.

Hey, all in favor?

I think work session.

Um we have the department of business city council liaison report.

I don't think uh I don't think I have anything major to report, but I did want to make sure everyone is aware that we have an upcoming election in our city.

So we have two city council seats and the uh mayor is up for election.

Um, and so we have the second of two uh meet the candidate nights tomorrow here at City Hall at 6:30.

There'll be kind of a little bit of a meet and greet, and there will be a question and answer panel.

So anyone wanting to find out who's running for city council and and what they stand for, that would be a good opportunity to come out and and see them tomorrow.

So that's it.

Can I jump in with the question, please?

Sure.

Uh for those that are unable to attend, well, there'll be platforms or information listed anywhere that people can look into.

Yeah, so the the uh you can go on to the Davis County website and also the state website, and they have uh all the candidates do a little bit of a blurb about themselves and kind of uh explain what they're about.

Um, other than that, meeting them in person, reaching out to them, um, following them on Facebook.

Most of them have campaign page, those types of things are how you stay informed about them.

So thanks.

Okay, thank you.

And I was just gonna add to that with for your question.

The state website is really good at telling you all the candidates, not just for our city, but you can look at others for the all around you and get their information.

It's required to put that in for you.

Okay.

If you have any questions on who's running, you can always look at corn over.

Yeah, I was just showing you guys this county website that has the election stuff.

I I feel like I looked at the city web page and it was pretty scant.

So it sounds like the county websites are state.

Yeah, the the city recorders primer or one of her job responsibilities to run the local election.

But but yeah, that they have um all of the candidate ballot stuff on here.

Thank you.

And then we are glad to welcome our city attorney, and anything for us.

Oh sorry, I should have introduced uh so this is uh this is Kayla, she's our new planner.

Um so our city attorney's actually on vacation right now, so he was unable to make it today.

So she's with us as one of our planners.

Yep, yep.

So Mike uh left a few weeks ago, and uh Kayla's replaced Mike.

So we're happy to have her.

She's been great so far.

So we're excited to see what she can uh accomplish here.

So welcome, Kayla.

Welcome.

That reminds me, we need to get you a name, a name thing.

Uh yeah, so other department business.

We wanted to talk about the schedule coming up for the November.

Um so we have um Veterans Day on November 11th, which is the regularly scheduled city council night.

Uh, and so they're gonna be bullies to you guys, and they're gonna they're gonna steal your your night on the 18th.

So we'll need to cancel that night for planning commission.

Okay.

And then as far as upcoming agenda items, uh we have an application for Anelope Station lot number two.

Uh this is a the architecture review committee met on this a long time ago, and then it's just taking them a long time to make revisions to the plan.

But I we believe that they should be back.

Chances are high that that they'll be ready for the October 21st.

Uh we also have Sadie's Glenn phase four.

That's the one off 27 or south, the the attached senior housing project.

Um, that's a final plat, so no public hearing required.

We think that that will be ready.

And then uh we have a lakeside flat.

If you remember on the uh six-way roundabout, the southwest corner uh behind there, there's a recent rezone and general plan amendment.

There's like uh how many lots is like 30 lots or something like that.

It's pretty small residential subdivision in the R3 zone.

So they're working on a preliminary plat on that one.

Uh we also have the West Lake Landing, which is the commercial portion of that project that's up front, and there'll be gas station and multiple commercial buildings along the frontage there.

And they're working on a final plat, but they're just not quite ready yet.

And so we believe that we will have a meeting on the 21st.

If there's any changes, we'll make sure to let you guys know.

Um appreciate you guys being here.

I know that's been a little bit slow, and we cancel the last meeting coming in towards the end of the year.

Sometimes things get a little bit slower, and we'll you know, for for uh Thanksgiving and Christmas, we'll have to look at those those meetings.

Looks like city council on the 25th is you know, gonna get uh canceled and let's have the one meeting for that month and then December 23rd, city council that would get canceled too.

But as far as the planning commission, November 4th should be good.

And then, like I said, the the 18th would be canceled.

So we probably only have one planning commission meeting in November and then December we'd have the second and the 16th, and most likely both of those dates will be good as long as we have agenda items.

But if if we don't have any business to do, um you know, we can either cancel or we can convene to do training, or we can you know, we can read the general plan and talk about certain chapters because I think coming up we're we're going to need to understand you to understand what's in the general plan because there'll be an update that's needed soon.

And I think some of that training and review will be good.

Also, um for the fellow commissioners.

If you guys have anything that you think we need to go over as a commission, obviously put don't just feel free, please do bring it up that you think that we need to bring up meeting pizza.

It's just it's important for us to make sure we're discussing localness.

On that note, um, do we have any um thing coming to the planning commission for the former JAG site?

Yes, no official.

Sorry, did you want to do that?

Yes, I mean it's still your thunder.

So exciting.

So there's no official application yet.

Uh, but word on the street is that 7 Eleven is interested in purchasing it.

But like I said, that could change depending on what actually happens.

Okay, and brick walls are going up across the street from that.

So yeah, so the the Costco project is working on their footings, and they'll be pouring pouring a lot of concrete here soon.

Yeah, I saw some today, and and like I said, brick walls are starting to go up.

Um that's pretty exciting.

I noticed that the Jags location actually does have some utility pipes and everything coming up too right now, too.

So yeah, they started the Jags project, they had it fully approved and everything, and then it just stalled.

I have kind of a little quick tangent question about that.

So I was recently learning about the uh I believe it's called uh the rap law, the recreation arts parks.

And I was curious if there was any kind of projection of what kind of impact the Costco would provide to that.

I'd imagine it'd be substantial, unless it's part of the no growth free uh element of that.

Yeah, so uh Costco's projected to generate a lot of sales tax, and we do have uh there's different acronyms in every city, it's different, but I think it says ours is wrap wrap tax.

Uh so yeah, it should should generate increased amount of that because it's uh sales tax.

No uh no ideas or guesses on that though.

I don't think we have a projection.

We've we've done just general sales tax projection, you know, the way sales tax works is it gets charged and then it gets sent to to the state and reapportioned based off of the city's population, but then there's also a local point of sale per half of a percentage of this that gets back to the city, so it'll be a major boon for the for the city.

It's not that it doesn't come without its impacts and other costs as far as impacts of traffic and enforcement, things like that.

Yeah, I think other cities they call it a zap.

I feel I've seen different acronyms for it.

Arts, parks, zoos, all that stuff is the same thing.

Yeah, it was new to me, and I just thought it was so cool.

So I I'm looking forward to benefits the city, we'll be able to read from Costco.

Sure.

Yeah, there's l there's lots of different ways that the city can generate revenue that way.

Anything else?

Thank you.

Motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Move to adjourn.

Okay.

All in favor.

I highly thank you, gentlemen.

Just one quick note.

I know this is this week.

It's coming up.

So this Thursday and Friday, the planning conference at the uh the gateway, I believe, in Salt Lake.

Uh American Planning Association, the Utah chapter is holding their conference.

So if any of you are interested, we do have budget for it.

We'd be happy to pay for your tickets.

Um, they're always really interesting, enjoyable, great presentations.

That's on Thursday, Royce.

Uh Thursday and Friday.

Oh, okay.

Thank you.

How are you doing?

Yeah, how are you?

Oh, yeah.

Probably put this a million times, but I was thinking that this one.