City Council · 2021-03-09

read a notice to begin with. This is a notice of an all-electronic meeting and opportunity for public participation pursuant to Mayor Richard F. Brunt's proclamation dated February 26, 2021. The Orem City Council meeting on March 9, 2021 will be an all-electronic meeting. There will be no anchor location for the meeting. The city cannot ensure the recommended minimum of 6 feet of social distancing for meeting participants at the usual anchor location in the Orem City Council Chambers. Therefore, holding the meeting at the City Council Chambers would present a substantial risk to the health and safety of those who may be present at the meeting and may contribute to the spread of COVID-19. There will be no public access to the Orem City Council Chambers. Those desiring to view or participate in the meeting must do so electronically. To view the meeting, please go to aurum-org/meetings. To make a comment, please submit your comment through aurum-org/comments. Written comments will be accepted before and during the meeting. All written comments received will be entered into the record and forwarded to each City Council member for review. Written comments will also be read aloud during the live meeting. When required by law or when time permits. As technology permits, the City Council may accept oral comments. Once an item has been voted on, that item will be closed to additional comments. Thank you for your cooperation during these challenging times. We'd now like to go ahead and begin with a discussion about an amendment to the Sleepy Ridge Golf Course agreement. 15 minutes set aside, and Carl Hurst, our Recreation Director, and Heather Shriver, our City Attorney, are our presenters.

This is Carl.

I'll start off with a little bit of history in this just to kind of set the table. Orem City— I should have checked this date, but it had to have been 15 to 18 years ago— started acquiring ground for an 18-hole golf course inside Orem city limits. Took a little while to get the ground, and then in a unique step, we partnered with Sleepy Ridge Golf Course to build the golf course. Sleepy Ridge itself invested their own money into building the golf course, and then through an agreement, they were awarded 39.5 years to recoup their investment. Now, that timetable was put together Based on a number of studies that were done on what the market for golf in Utah County was at the time. I think, I think Golden's on here and he will, he will indicate that the market was not as it was represented in those studies, and that is what we have found over time. There is, there is not the market for golf. And that it became very clear early on that that Sleepy Ridge Golf Course was not going to make a lot of money and that other ideas had to come and be put on the table. Part of that was— it came from Sleepy Ridge— that they proposed that we build a bigger clubhouse than was originally thought and add office space and wedding space to the building. And so during this agreement, Sleepy Ridge proposed this. They invested their own money into a grander clubhouse and office space and space to hold weddings. And included in that was at the end of the '39, Orem City got the golf course and the office buildings back free of charge. So where we're at right now is Sleepy Ridge is in a position— Lewis and Young came and Presented that they're in the position that they will probably never get back their their investment, or it's highly unlikely that they will. That in an effort to be fair and to recognize the the how this agreement was formulated at the start was was to allow them to get at least some of their investment back. We're asking that we extend this investment just by way of information. Orange City is one of is one of the few organizations that does not support their golf course in their community. All of the risk is on Sleepy Ridge. None of the risk is on Orem City. I think Golden will acknowledge that golf is kind of dragging down the profit on the rest of it. It was a creative idea to add to the building, and that's— I believe that's the only reason that Sleepy Ridge wants to continue this agreement. Is, is there— they're profitable because of the rental space, the office space, and the weddings. And that is the only reason they want to continue this or extend this agreement. Are there any questions about the history of how we got here?

So, Carl, how many years have we been into this agreement?

I believe we're 15 years in.

Okay, and the original agreement was for 40 years?

Yeah, 39 and a half. Yes.

Okay.

You know, Carl, I'm a little surprised that the golf is not more profitable since I live on the 9th hole. I see tons and tons of golfers all the time. I just— maybe just the expenses to maintenance are so high, but a lot of people golfed, especially during the pandemic. Lots and lots of people were out golfing. So I guess I'm surprised that it's— I'd hope it'd at least break even.

Part of the—

and I believe it is right now, Debbie. Part of the agreement that we have with them is they basically open the books. And so every year we get a financial report and the costs to run the golf course are about the same. And so the up and down on golf Is, is there profit? Some years they have lost money and, and some years they've made a little bit of money on golf.

I think too, okay, Debbie, during this, uh, pandemic period, revenues from golf have been very, very strong. But a number of years ago when we were battling through the, the Great Recession in that time period, golf revenues were significantly softer than they are today. And obviously, much like the pandemic, we didn't anticipate to some degree the Great Recession happening as well.

Well, my hope is that some of those people who caught the golf bug might continue because it was a great opportunity to get out, get some fresh air. And I know I golfed a couple times myself. So hopefully that's— it'll be stronger in the future, understanding the problems of the past.

And just to close in my statements, and then we'll have Heather get to the agreement, it has been a very good working relationship with Sleepy Ridge Golf. I think we've got one of the, the most beautiful courses in the county in our community, and Orem City owns the ground and had to purchase the ground, but as far as operationally, we don't have any risk. This is all coming at someone else's risk, and, and that is why I believe that extending this agreement is a good idea.

Carl, if I could just chime in on this. You know, I golf there, not as much as I'd like to, but every chance I get, and it really is a beautiful course. They've done a really good job. I remember when it first started, when it was just the trailer, the trailer house for the clubhouse there, and And, uh, you know, I'd love to, I'd love to see them continue and, you know, hopefully things will turn around.

But it—

I, I have nothing but the highest of praise for what they've done with that ground.

Thank you. Yeah, they, they do a really good job maintaining that. It is a nice course.

And they, you know, the, the, the fun thing about Sleepy Ridge, and I've, I've mentioned this before, but It brings in people from other places, other areas, and one of the fun things about golf is the multi-generational opportunities that are there. You know, it just, it provides a lot of great, a lot of great time to just be together and enjoy all of that beautiful green scenery.

Yep, I agree.

Mayor and City Council, I'd just like to run through the proposed amendments with you quickly, and I'm going to go ahead and share my screen if I can. See if this works. Okay, um, here is— I'm going to back up one slide actually, if we can, just so you have a picture of, of the land we're going to be talking about on the initial amendment. So the first part of this amendment is Sleepy Ridge is going to transfer all of Clegg Pond to the city, and the city will go ahead and use The portion of Clay Pond that it doesn't own right now, and another little sliver of property that we've been referring to as the Springwater Point property. We are going to take that property and include it as part of the golf course lease. So this is new property that will be rolled in. It will revert back to the city at the end of the lease term, and Sleepy Ridge will go ahead and maintain the property. But the city will have the opportunity to use the Clegg Pond and this small sliver of property for stormwater maintenance, discharge, and facilities if it's necessary. So the second amendment that we're going to be proposing is the extension of the condo term and the lease term that Carl has already addressed. So currently those 2 terms expire on December 31st, 2046. The proposal is to extend both of those terms to December 31, 2060, and the reversion of all of the golf course property will then come back to the city January 1, 2061. That's just, you know, as Carl has, has stated, this will give Sleepy Ridge the opportunity to recoup some of the investment that they've made in the golf course. The city is reserving the right after the current lease period expires, 2046, to sell that property to a third party if the use of that property is going to be for something other than a golf course. But before the city determines that, you know, this is the course of action it wants to take, it has to give at least 90 days notice to Sleepy Ridge. So that's the caveat attached to the lease term extension. The 3rd amendment is just clarifying that 1% of the gross revenues that are generated from the golf course will be held in reserve for future needs by the city. Sleepy Ridge has already committed and has been contributing 4% of gross revenues to annual improvements to the golf course. The amendment that you'll see in this agreement just memorializes that and and clarifies that relationship. And that 4% of gross revenue annual improvements, of course, is subject to the approval of the Golf Course Advisory Commission. And then the last amendment that we'll be proposing is just a clarification of what should be included in gross revenues. It's my understanding that there's just a question about food revenues that are generated directly by Sleepy Ridge and those that are directed by vendors who might use the property. So we just need to make a clarification in the agreement as to what is included in gross revenue. So, um, those are the amendments that we'll be proposing to the City Council at a future City Council meeting. If there are any questions, Mr. Holt is here, Carl's here, I'm here. Go ahead and let us know if you have any questions or concerns.

So Heather, question for you. The 1% of gross revenues held in reserve That starts immediately, or that starts in '46?

That has all been happening— sorry, Carl, go ahead.

I believe this will be the 5th year that we have been doing that. We just envisioned that there could be a major capital improvement project that we would need in the future. So instead of spending the whole 5% on the course to upkeep it, Every April I've gone and got a check from Sleepy Ridge and we're just banking that for when we need it.

Okay.

Any other questions or comments?

All right.

Well, we thank you, Carl, and thank you, Heather.

So, Mayor and Council, we will bring— I think as Heather stated, we will bring this agreement back for your consideration formally on the 23rd of— or excuse me, the 23rd or the first meeting in April?

First meeting in April is when we talk about it.

First meeting in April.

Okay, let's go ahead and move on now to a discussion of the University Place Community Development Amendment, and that is to present— be presented by Jamie Davidson.

Mayor, thank you. And I am going to invite Heather Shrever to join me in this conversation. Several months ago, during the pandemic, the Utah State Legislature passed SB 6001. What this particular legislative action did was allowed organizations that have CDAs, much like the Woodbury Corporation and our university CDA, to extend the term of that CDA, not extend the amount of the CDA, but extend the term of recoupment within the CDA as a result of the pandemic. And earlier, actually late in December, we received a request from Woodbury Corporation that they would like to make this request of the City of Orem's Redevelopment Agency to amend the Community Development Agency and the agency budget to reflect 2 additional years as part of this relationship. This is something that has been done not just here, obviously, under consideration in Orem, but For example, there was a project several weeks ago in Provo that received similar consideration, as well as several projects up in Salt Lake County. What we need to do, or what you would need to do acting as a redevelopment agency, is by resolution grant the CDA an additional 2 years in terms of its term, and then we would amend the the CDA agreement with the Woodbury Corporation memorializing and recognizing the additional 2 years subject to the limitations of SB 6001. This does not require any action on the part of anybody but the Orem Redevelopment Agency. So for example, there's not a requirement to get the sign-off of the Alpine School District or Utah County or Central Utah Water, but this is an action that can be directly made by the Orem RDA. Again, this does not increase the amount that Woodbury Corporation and the CDA has in terms of a negotiated reimbursement, but it does extend the time period by an additional 2 years for Woodbury to recoup their investment by way of the CDA. Heather, is there anything you want to add to this?

No, that's a pretty comprehensive summary. I would just like to add that, again, to clarify, there is an additional cap for the school district on the amounts of funds that can be, you know, reimbursed. So that cap will be maintained. This doesn't change anything. It just gives Woodbury 2 more years to recapture the funds that they've contracted for to recapture. So—

And obviously the basis for this request is the turmoil that has resulted in the construction and development world as related to COVID-19 and this pandemic. And of course, we as a city know well how this has impacted even some of our own city construction projects. And so we can attest to delays and limitations that have come to pass as a result of the pandemic.

And also, Jamie, the price increases that the Woodbury Corporation have had to face in price of copper or lumber. Yeah, some of them are pretty dramatic. Lumber up 26%.

And, and all of that information, Mayor, thank you for pointing that out, is identified in your packet.

Right.

As justification in part for the request.

I was surprised at the amount that PVC has gone up. In the packet I was reading, I couldn't, couldn't believe that.

But—

Yeah, and unfortunately, given current, given current oil prices, and given that it's obviously an oil derivative, we can probably anticipate that the cost of PVC is going to continue to increase.

Yeah. Well, and in addition to the increased cost, it's my understanding that there have been significant delays as well in implementation, and that's, that's, that's a very important component that the City Council should consider when determining whether or not it should adopt this resolution.

That's a good point. Any other comments or thoughts from the council?

Yes, Mayor. Explain— if Jamie would explain, how much money are we talking about?

So the total amount of investment that the city made as part of the CDA agreement, and I don't have the budget in front of me, but I think it was approximately $50 million between all of the taxing entities that participated. And this included the Alpine School District, Utah County, obviously the City of Orem, the water— Central Utah Water Conservancy, and several other smaller districts. Our share of that contribution runs about 15%. Obviously, the supermajority of those dollars that are contributed to the CDA came by way of the Alpine School District. And as Heather stated, the Alpine School District did specifically apply a cap to their contributions. So I think, I think it was about $59 million.

Go ahead, Debbie.

If I remember, the number of school children that were in their apartments at the was like 7. Do you know if that's still accurate and that they were still getting the property tax? So it was actually advantageous to them. Yeah, there was only maybe 7 students, and I don't know if that's still accurate, but it was— we were still getting a lot of sale— I mean, property tax off of this.

So, I mean, just to kind of revisit this, the city and all the other taxing entities provided a $50 million incentive as part of a $500 million investment, and the level of contribution was capped at a certain amount per year. So 75% of that new increment was, um, set aside and put into the CDA, And 25% of those new tax dollars actually pass through to all of the existing taxing entities. So while, yes, each of the taxing entities are contributing to an incentive package right now, because the level of investment has been significant at University Place and the taxable valuation of the property has increased, all of those agencies are actually getting more. in terms of property taxes than they were prior to the project?

Yeah, I think Orem, or I think the total package is actually double what it was prior to. And just to point out that the school district at the end of 40 years, 20 years before the 2-year extension and 20 years after when we receive the full amount of property tax, will end up having received $90 million of increased funds for the school district. So this is a great win for all sides.

Mayor, if I could add to what Jamie said, the school district participation is actually, actually 65%.

Oh, that's right.

And the other taxing entities are 75%. But one thing to clarify for the public, Woodbury doesn't earn any of that money unless the project is built completely out.

I shouldn't say any. They don't earn the full $50 million unless $500 million is spent.

So to date, we're not near that yet because it's a 15-year master plan.

I noticed that Artie is on the line. Artie, I'm just wondering if you could tell us how much of the $50 or the $500 million percentage-wise has been spent to date.

Hi, Mayor.

Yeah, and hello, Council. It's good to see you all, and thank you for the invitation to the meeting. Mayor, to answer your question, so we have spent ourselves approximately just under $250 million. Or when I say we've spent, we've deployed that much capital into the redevelopment that's happened already. But in addition to that, Dillard's will now be spending a significant amount of money. I believe it's approximately $30 to $40 million on their new store. And R.C. Willey also spent money on, on their new store that I'm not counting in that number. We actually think that the total investment will exceed the original $500 million estimate. And based on our latest planning and based off of the infrastructure investment and other things that we've done to date, we believe that we will be able to, you know, achieve our original goal of 700,000 or in excess of 700,000 square feet of Class A office space. We've currently constructed 115,000. We have another approximately 100,000 under construction. And so we would have, you know, another approximately, you know, 500,000 square feet of office space that we'd be constructing going forward, a hotel, and some additional, you know, Class A apartments as well. And so You know, these— the pandemic, I think, you know, we— the cost increases are absolutely real, and we can speak more to that. The delays are really probably one of the bigger things that we're faced with here, and which is why we've made this request in particular. You know, just a quick example, our hotel that we planned, we had a flag already approved with— it's a Marriott-branded hotel, it was a Courtyard by Marriott. We purchased the land from— we actually had to acquire a piece of land from UTA. And so we worked through that, acquired the land last year. We had intended to be under construction the first part of 2020, but obviously, you know, as soon as the pandemic set in, we just put everything on hold and we likely won't be constructing, you know, that hotel for another 2 years from now is what our current estimation is. But also from an office perspective, Office leasing has slowed dramatically in the marketplace, and, you know, we've always said that we're going to build this as the market dictates and let the market drive the speed at which we would be developing the project. We're pushing ahead with the next office building that we're under construction on now. We actually have no leasing, so we're building that purely speculatively in the hopes of, you know, continuing to push the project along. But we would hope to be able to have some additional leasing activity before we would be starting a next office project there. So, Those delays are absolutely real and things that we're facing and why we're here making this request.

Artie, if I could just add to that, you know, we're, you know, as you can see, the office building, parking deck, and the Dillard's are all already a year behind schedule due to COVID. And so it's very— was with some good foresight that the legislature passed this because With these extensions, it enables us to, in our lending and other things, be able to have more confidence and the lenders to have more confidence that there's additional time with which we can recoup some of the infrastructure, infrastructure expenses that we're going to incur and helps us to move things forward faster. Obviously, a lot of stuff got put on hold. We are doing— going forward with some of it, as you just heard, like on the office building and stuff, even though it's delayed, we're moving forward on that. But like the hotel, other things are still being delayed. And then all, you know, all this money that comes through this tax increment comes to help offset infrastructure costs. And we still need to recoup that in order for this project to move forward. And that's what the money is used for. And so Hopefully that gives you a little bit additional insight. You know, costs are constant. You know, we had those costs that we put in there have all increased significantly more than was in that letter when we first made the request. I think they'll continue to go up. But the biggest thing, you know, out there is these delays that we've been incurring and our inability to recapture that time to, you know, have the appropriate amount of time to be reimbursed for that infrastructure. And that's one of the main reasons we've made this request and the reason the legislature put it into place.

Sure, thank you for that. Any other comments or questions?

I have another one.

Okay.

Um, and maybe Artie can, um, answer this. Usually there's a job component part to this. Have you had a chance to look at the job creation part?

Sorry, come off mute. Yes, and we, we had just sent the job creation report to the city, and I apologize that we're a little bit late on providing that to you. But in our first office building, there's 115,000 square feet of Class A office in the first office building there at the intersection of the corner of State Street and University Parkway. And in that building, based on the feedback from our tenants, We believe there's 100— excuse me, 1,045 full-time employees working in that building. So it's very, very densely populated with employees. And the average wage there for the annual wage for those employees is approximately $32,000 to $33,000 per year. So it's a significant amount of money. And actually, I'll just look at the figure here. Just so I'm not misspeaking, about $34.3 million in annual wages just on the employees in those buildings. And like I said, that's about 115,000 square feet. We have another 100,000 square feet in the office building that's currently under construction. The building just adjacent to where the new Dillard's building will be has a parking structure, and you may have seen that as you've driven by. We're about third or fourth level, we're beginning to frame the fourth level of the parking structure. So, 5 levels of parking structure will be underneath, and then 4 levels of Class A office on top of it. It'll be a 9-story building. And so, in that additional 100,000 square feet, we hope to be generating a similar amount of jobs. The other thing that we have under construction right now is about 7,300 square feet of office that'll be on top of the Forever 21. It's space that actually had existed in the past, but we had built a brand new facade. Again, you may have seen this as you've driven by. It's not yet complete, but we're also building an elevator tower and and sort of grand lobby in order to really make this Class A office space and hopefully be able to attract tenants there. So that's where we are right now on the existing building, and we hope to have similar success in the future buildings. The one other number I just quickly would add is that if you look at the number of full-time employees per 1,000 square feet, Like I said, it's very dense, and a big part of the reason for that is one of our tenants in there, Sykes, which formerly was known as Clearlink. They have many tenants per 1,000 square feet, but the number— the total number is about 100— excuse me, 1 employee per 110 square feet of space based on that 1,045 full-time employees. And like I said, the biggest tenant in the building is taking up 2 floors, has about 1 employee per 78 square feet of space. So it's very dense. We anticipate it'll be a little bit less dense in future other buildings, but, but still hopefully similar results from the standpoint of new wages created.

And one other thing to point out is you look at the trend of malls across America, you're seeing most malls go the opposite direction. And with the creation of just this 100,000 square feet of office and a little over 500, you know, now over 600 residential units. Our mall sales have actually seen a significant double-digit increase in sales versus going the opposite direction where there's so many retailers and so many shopping centers around the around the country going out of business. We've actually been able to gain increases, which is you know not only preserved jobs, but it's also continued the sales tax flow into the city, and that's a that's a significant win for us and for. the city of Orem as that continues to thrive where it is not in many other communities?

So you're correct, that is a great driver for sales tax within the city of Orem. And, you know, if we have a strong economic base, we can have a strong government. And we appreciate what you're doing. I would have to say I'm not aware of any other mall in the country that is adding a new big box store as an anchor. to their facility. So congratulations to you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, any other comments? All right, well, let's go ahead and move on to a discussion of the City Center feasibility analysis done by Method Studio, and we'll turn the time over to Brent Bybee and Joe Smith.

Yes, thank you, Mayor and Council. I'll just provide a little bit of introduction and Background here to the study. Over the last handful of years, we've, we've done a series of different plans and studies and evaluations of our city center buildings here. And so we asked Method Studio to, to review all of that, those different studies and plans, and help us come up with some, some renderings that could provide kind of a better vision of what we might do here. on our city center into the future that was perhaps more than just a bird's-eye view that we've looked at in the past. And so, they'll walk through a couple of two— well, not a couple of— two main options based on how a new potential city center might be constructed. So, one that would allow employees to stay in the existing building while new construction happened on a new city center, and another where employees would need to be relocated to build a new city center facility. Both of these options— and you'll see everything that Method Studio goes through incorporates parking impacts and space needs assessment and requirements or recommendations from our State Street Master Plan. And we've got updated cost assumptions and trying to keep into account improving the layout and workflow and maintaining kind of more customer service-oriented spaces and access for the public, while still maintaining the safety needs that we would need for a new City Center facility. So, with that said, Joe, I think I'm turning the time over to you, and then you can kind of delegate to your team from there.

Sounds really great, Brian, and thank you. And good to be meeting with you, all of you, and to be able to present sort of the culmination of the study that we've been working on together with the staff. And so as Brian indicated, we've evaluated in multiple different ways. We're going to have a few people from my office joining us in this presentation. So Rob Beischlein, who is also a principal with Method Studio, and he focuses on civic structures, and he's been working hand in hand with me and the team. So he's going to be running the presentation and walking us through the evaluation that we went through initially to evaluate all the previous studies that were done, and then to do an existing building evaluation and to look at the cost and impact of what might be needed there. if the existing building were to be reused and added onto. And then 2 concepts, as Brent indicated, that we studied and evaluated. And I think the key point there is that these are all just concepts. They're not— we didn't go through a full design process. So they're just trying to capture, you know, the potential vision of what, you know, a different approach could be to how we approach the siting. On the, on the City Center campus. I've also got Ryan Hammerschmidt and Jarrett Moe from my office who can share their models and spin us around at the end of our presentation if there are additional questions. So, Rob, do you want to take it from there and kind of walk through the bones of the presentation?

Yeah, you bet.

Can you guys all hear me okay?

Yes.

Very good.

Nothing like talking on mute for a minute and not realizing it, right? And can you guys see my screen? Okay, this has got the blue rendering of the—

Yes.

Great. Okay, well, Joe, thanks for the introduction, and thank you to Bren and Mayor and Council. Thanks for having us. It's been a great experience to work with Orem on this. We love what we do. We recognize how fantastic Orem City is, and we hope we can bring some value in looking at this with you. So with that, here's what we'll, what we'll touch on tonight. So I wanted to give you a quick history of some of the studies that have happened on the site, outline some of our feasibility study purpose and goals, show you a program space summary, walk through our existing building assessment and what we looked at on the existing building and some of the findings there. And then, as has been mentioned, show you 2 options for how we might create a new structure and then make some formal recommendations based on the, the information that we found in this study. So there has been a lot of work done on this site over the years. As recently as January of 2020, a seismic study. We also looked at other study documents, including building remodel options from 2017. Mechanical and electrical systems evaluations from 2016, the initial seismic study done in 2015, and then the facilities master plan done in 2015. So all those documents are part of our appendix. We have reviewed those documents and have folded in some of the relevant information into our study. So part of our purpose and goals, first of all, was to review those past documents and make sure that we're providing updated as needed. We also wanted to update the city's programmatic and functional needs. And then really evaluate the potential of a building remodel and compare that to what it would be like to construct new. And then provide cost data to support both of those options. And then show some site and massing options for new construction. And then provide conceptual renderings of what that could look like. So with that, the program summary we looked at, I'll show you a couple numbers to note. So this column here represents the existing building and what we know, broken out by things like public areas, administration, support, information, administrative services, et cetera. So you see that the existing building is about 45,000 square feet. In 2017, the study that was done, Identified a target of about 49,000 square feet. So sort of a modest addition, or if they were to build new, a little bit larger. We evaluated those documents, and based on the city's needs, we arrived at 54,500 square feet if we were to look about 2 to 5 years out. And if we were looking beyond 5 years, we were adding a couple hundred square feet. So as the basis for our analysis, we were targeting 55,000 square feet for what the need is. We do have these documents broken out in multiple pages in a big spreadsheet to show that information, but we thought we'd just show you the summary tonight. Alright, so the building assessment, really the first thing that we did was evaluated the condition of the building and looked at what what advantages there might be in remodel addition, as well as some of the challenges. So a couple of the findings, really, we recognize the inability to grow and upgrade in a very efficient manner. There was a lot of crowding and dysfunctional spaces. We recognized a lot of escalating maintenance costs just to keep up. We noted a number of areas that weren't compliant to the ADA. Some issues with energy efficiency with the building envelope. All of the glass is single-pane. The mechanical system that's not current. There's also some fire alarm issues. No fire alarm pull stations in the basement. Some other safety concerns. Aging diesel generator. Certainly some seismic deficiencies in the structure that have been identified in some of the earlier studies. And then electrical security and technology system challenges. This is pretty normal for a building of this vintage, but certainly some things that, that should be remedied. So as we considered the existing building assessment, we wanted to identify what scope that might take. And if we're going to compare a remodel addition to new construction, we wanted to make sure that the end result for both of those were equal as we were comparing them. So We did outline what we thought would be appropriate for a remodel addition scope, with the objective that if we were to take that path, that the end result would be an efficient, energy-efficient, code-compliant new building that would last for decades. And that would be the same criteria we would keep for a new building. So we kept the new building proposed some new building additions to meet the. program space requirements. We did add a little bit of square footage when we were considering remodel addition, and that's mostly because there are some inherent inefficiencies. It's hard to just fill in corridor space and some of those types of things with functioning space. So often when you do a building remodel addition, you need a little bit more. We incorporated the seismic upgrades from the previous studies. The scope of the remodel addition also included building envelope upgrades of the walls and roof, reconfiguring the interior spaces with new walls, doors, and finishes, upgrading and reconfiguring the restrooms so they're compliant with building codes and ADA, replacement of the elevators, a new fire sprinkler system, new HVAC system, replacement of all the electrical technology and security infrastructure, and then repair and replacement of sidewalks, landscaping, and open space, and then additional parking as required by zoning. The zoning ordinance is going to require more parking if we put more building space on the site. So, the cost scenario that we ran into when we looked at the existing building assessment on the right— I know this text is a little bit small, but here's kind of the summary. We estimated the cost of a remodel addition to be about $21,800,000. And $76,000. We think an appropriate construction range would be between $350 and $370 per square foot, so ranging between $21 and $22 million, really. Keep in mind too, this is for construction cost and your total project cost, including soft costs like furniture and design fees, testing, inspections, surveys, utilities. construction contingencies, we'll need to add 20% to 25% to that. So keep that number in mind as we go through these new building scenarios. So about $22 million.

And Rob, just an added note there that these costs were— we reached out to a third-party cost estimator that's well known and heavily relied upon in this in this community and in the state for many of these numbers. So they helped evaluate, and they provide costing on civic centers and city centers across the state. And so they assisted with the generation of these, the numbers that we came up with and all the cost scenarios.

Very good. Thanks, Joe. Yeah, their numbers come from municipal projects that they have done recently and There's a lot of detail we get into sometimes when we break these out, and we've had a lot of discussions about COVID and the impacts of construction and all those things. And that's often why we'll give you a range. You know, this is a pretty early estimate, but it is based on real numbers and past projects that are of similar type and size.

Okay.

So new construction, 2 options. We'll start with option 1. Option 1 is a sort of an L-shaped configured building that really anchors the corner of Center Street and State Street. What it does, if we configure the building this way, it creates a nice common open space between Library Hall and the new City Hall. The State Street Master Plan does want these buildings to face State Street and be very close up to To the, to the edge there, which we've done. We've held that, and it's compliant to the master plan and really does anchor the corner. With that, it would require new parking that we've shown here to the east. And what this scheme does is it will allow the City Hall, the current city building, to be occupied during construction, and you can see the footprint of the, the current building roughly in this red dashed line. So by anchoring this corner and having this L-shape, that building can maintain occupancy. We are showing this as a 3-story option right now to achieve our 55,000 square feet. There are a lot of different ways we can divide that up. We have had quite a bit of discussion about incorporating a basement, which is certainly possible with this option, and depending on how it's configured, could, could end up saving some dollars by incorporating some basement space.

Rob, I think the other thing to note, if you'll go back to that diagram. Yeah, just thinking through the constructability of this option. So if the existing City Hall were to remain occupied during construction, the staging for the new City Hall by a general contractor would likely have to take place around where that new parking area has been identified, somewhere in that zone. So staging and site access and the crossover of a functioning, working building and City Hall while construction activities occur is one of the challenges with this site, but it also is one of the good things. And the pros about this option is that you are able to remain in the building while the new building gets built and then move over.

Joe, I think you could correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't it also save about $300,000 to $500,000 not having to move and lease another facility while construction goes on?

Yeah, there's the— there's some number there, and I think your range is probably a good one at $300,000 to $500,000. cost to relocating and leasing new space, or something to that effect. So, the, you know, sort of the added question to that would be, what would be the cost of the tight site constraints from a constructability standpoint? Because that would have some impact to the construction cost as well. And then the— But we haven't We haven't evaluated that. We would need to reach out to a general contractor and kind of get their feedback on that, which we're happy to do. But you're absolutely right in that case, Mayor.

Okay.

Excellent.

So let's show you a couple views of what this could look like. I know Joe noted this earlier, but we haven't gone through a comprehensive design process. But we did want to put some, some, some images and renderings down so that we can understand what this could be. So for example, this, this nice shared space between the new City Hall and the library. This could be configured differently or programmed specifically, but you get a sense when you see this that you could have specific programming for the library hall that could spill out here. You could have civic activities and small programs. You could have food truck night or, you know, a craft fair, and all of these things really could make this a really lovely experience for the city members and anyone who came to visit the site. Here's the view from the corner of State and Center. The State Street Master Plan does ask that we have an entry on the corner. So that, that's how that could work. Here's the view of the inside. This would be from the parking area looking at the main entry of the building. Certainly we want there to have some, some pride and civic pride, so we want to make sure it has a nice feel. We could incorporate elements like a modest clock tower or other kind of things that would give this a nice city feel. Another closer view of the pedestrian experience, and then some other views. Here's the view really directly east, looking west at the building edge. Here's the space between the library hall and the city, and how that could be activated by some of these design features. And then here's the entry. This is looking south from the library hall. Over into the entry point. So we did evaluate some of the pros and cons, and Joe, I know you mentioned these already. I think the main pros are that we— you have a nice shared open space between the 2 buildings, and we, we do allow the building, the main building, the current building, to be occupied during construction. Some of the challenges, really, with the main entry sort of on the inside elbow, That main entry isn't as present from State Street or Center Street, and you'll see that in the second option, that, that main entry is more, a little more visible. But, you know, there's still a nice entry. It's just not visible from those main streets. And then operations of the city, the existing City Hall, even though you can occupy the building, it can be challenging to be getting some work done and having a Zoom meeting. While someone's outside trying to build a 3-story steel building.

So it can be noisy.

There will be dust. There will be disruptions if you are occupied. And then, as Joe mentioned, there are some limitations to construction staging that we would have to address and have some further discussions with some contractors about. Let's look at Option 2. Okay, so Option 2. Really takes a similar L configuration, and rather than turning that leg along Center Street, it turns that leg inside, pointing really more to the northeast. And so what this is going to do is it's going to open up the building so that the main entry here is very visible from Center Street, and I'll show you a rendering of what that's like. There's still a lot of open space, but it's a little bit more divided. The main entry into the plaza or into the City Hall. is here. There still are lots of opportunities for some of those other experiences in Library Hall, but it's not as much shared. And then certainly this one also could incorporate a basement just like the other one. So here's the bird's-eye view from Center Street looking northwest, what that entry plaza could be like. You'll also notice that the architecture between these 2 options is a little different. We did keep many common elements, but there are a few different things, and the exact architectural style really would be determined in a more comprehensive design process. But once again, we wanted to at least get down some ideas of what it could be like. Here's the corner experience with this option. There is a sort of a brow and almost a colonnade. We thought that creates a nice civic presence to it. And then the building here, and once again, we wanted to show a clock element. We just think that adds some warmth and character that could be on the building or in the plaza.

Yeah, and Rob, I could add from that, back to that view, the other nice thing that this option does is, with it sort of bending back from the corner, is it at the terminus of those views, It works really well with the library hall and, and still sort of respecting the views to the library hall. So it's sort of directing traffic that way between the buildings.

Yeah, and I think you'll see that in some of these, these renderings coming up. So this is the view from Center Street if you're driving west. That's the presence that the building could, could have. And then here are some of those other pedestrian views along State Street here. This is really the corner with this, with the Library Hall here on the left. And then this would be sort of the building in from the parking area. As you're walking, you'd walk over to this side to really experience the main building entrance, and this side to be part of that open space between the Library Hall and the new city building. Then here's that corner, Joe, that you were mentioning, as it— as this turns the corner and the leg kind of goes into that plaza space, the nice quality of space that that could be with a brow or overhang and maybe some wood elements and some landscaping here.

Yeah, what we were trying to do is, with the wood elements on the columns, is just to, you know, try to play off of the details of the wood columns or wood elements that are on the columns there at Library Hall. But with this option, a little bit more so than the other option, to open up this space and allow some pre-function, post-function space, if there was an event going on at Library Hall, that it could spill out. It could be a really nice welcoming plaza space out here, as the, as the 2 sort of buildings work in synergy with one another. So that was one of the key differences in the designs between the two.

Yeah, very good. So pros and cons. I think having the main entry prominent from center is a really nice feature. With the footprint of the new building encroaching on the existing City Hall, While it does require city operations to move during construction, it does result in, in more site area and flexibility for construction access. So costs of this, as we looked at this with our cost consultant, we went ahead and broke this out by division based on some comparable current municipal projects. And we've estimated this cost to be about $19 million, somewhere between $320 a square foot and $360 a square foot. Those soft costs also are going to apply. And one note also about these range of costs that we want to make sure is understood, and that is we've had quite a bit of discussion about how to treat this building from a risk category standpoint. And so whenever we create new buildings, we have to assign them by code—

Oh, absolutely.

A risk category. So risk categories 1, 2, 3, and 4. And what these do is they represent sort of the durability and the ability of the building structure and infrastructure to resist natural disasters, really is what it amounts to. And so with a city administration building, the code allows that to be a risk category which is going to mean our costs would be a little bit lower. However, we may not want to think of it that way, or we may elect to have some building components that would impact the risk category. For example, if you have building components that are related to fire or police that are— if you're using the building as an emergency shelter, or if you have backup communications facilities within the building, then that's going to put it in this risk category 4. And I think the reason why we wanted to note this is that decision will start to impact this cost, although we believe if we were to approach it as a risk category 2, it would be on the lower end of these costs, and a risk category 4 would be in the higher end of these costs. And those are some of the decisions that are going to dictate at least what some of that range is going to result in.

One thought on that is that If a disaster were to occur, you have survivability as far as the people in the building, number one, and number two, future functionality. So in other words, is it going to take a month, 3 months, a year for the building to get back up and be operational? Or if in fact you build it to, like you say, the Category 4, It could be operational much quicker and not sustain as much damage. So in fact, all the different functions that happen in the building could continue on.

That's correct, Mayor. So in a Risk Category 4, the idea is that it would be considered an essential facility, and an essential facility would need the ability to maintain operations almost immediately after the event. So it's designed with some higher levels of redundancy and contingencies to survive that event and continue to operate. At the lower end of the risk categories, the risk category 2 would allow you to get out of the building safely, but the building would need some work to come to become functional again. So, and that could, you know, depending on what the damage That's done could take a year or 6 months to a year or longer.

Yeah, and sometimes these things are a little challenging to quantify because it does depend on the type of event and the impact, but it is very clear to say that building to a risk category 4 would result in an operational building much quicker than, than an option 2. are a risk category 2.

Yes.

Okay, so with that question—

excuse me.

Yeah, go ahead.

Question. Brent Sumner would like to ask a question.

Yeah, Joel, appreciate all you've done here. Do you have a cost, or does this include the cost of demo?

Rob, do you want to speak to that?

Yeah, the cost of demo, we actually sort of set up on the shelf and didn't include that in here. If we have an existing building, there will be some selective demo that we would have to go through and possibly some abatement. If we have the new construction, then we would demolish the whole building. But those costs really are not considered in the cost estimate. The cost estimates we have are construction costs only.

But Brent, we can get those numbers to you and report back to you.

Okay. Thanks, Joe.

Notice in the cost estimate that column is blank. So that will start to impact some of these numbers a bit depending on the approach that we take. Okay. So, you know, with that, it seemed pretty clear that it just wasn't really a very appropriate consideration to, to think about the remodel addition. And most of the additional cost in that was due to the structural seismic upgrades. And if you look at the seismic upgrades in the cost estimate for the remodel addition, I know they're tiny here, but we estimated those at $3.6 million to upgrade the structure. And if you look at the costs of the new building, The concrete and the metals, that's going to be about $2.2 million. So that's a lot of what the difference is, is because of the nature of the building condition and the seismic upgrades that are required, it's making it so it's not very feasible to consider a remodel addition. Okay, well, with that, I was hoping that we could open up our models of these projects and just take a minute or 2 and kind of spin around them. I think that's— it's nice to be able to see some different angles and views. So, and certainly we also want to leave some time for additional questions too. So as soon as we're done with the models, we can field any more questions you may have.

Yeah, or as we pull up the models, if there's questions, we can spin the model around to look at any different angle. So Jarrett, if you don't mind, if you're ready to go ahead and share your model, let's just spin around, do a quick overview, and then we'll switch over to Ryan and he'll show the other option.

Sure.

So I'm just kind of pulled the model up on the screen here. Is everyone able to kind of view? Yeah, we can see it.

Great.

We'll just do a little tour around here. Again, this would be the west side from State Street. And you can see the plaza space here that's created between Library Hall and this new Option 1. It certainly helps to upgrade the intersection of State Street and Center Street and demonstrate what can be built according to the State Street Master Plan.

Yeah.

And Mayor, just an added note there. So both, both options that we're showing meet the requirements of that master plan. So both are within the setback limits. They just do it a little bit differently, one compared to the other. So in this, in this scheme, you can see the central focus and main entrance is really sort of focused inward. So with the added amount of parking, you could park in either one of these lots, the new lots, and then—

Yeah, I was just gonna say it brings the parking closer. To the library hall. So right now we have no parking in the middle there, and the parking closest to the library gets filled up quickly. So for most people, they have to park quite a ways away. This would allow additional parking close to the— closer to the library hall, particularly for elderly or disabled or whatever.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. It does, it does provide that. And And another added note, we put an island between— in the middle of that stall, the new parking, with removable bollards. This idea that, you know, on days that you want to have that open, you could remove the bollards and drive over the top of that, but otherwise it could be closed off so that you don't have folks driving through, you know, intent— trying to take a shortcut through the parking to get to the neighborhood.

Joe, this is Debbie. The new City Hall has some nice brickwork. Is there any brickwork that would tie it in with the City Hall, or is it— what kind of materials on the outside are you thinking?

Yeah, so we kept it relatively neutral for the purposes of the study. study, knowing that, you know, with a full design process, we would go through, you know, options and evaluate materiality. So right now what we're showing on this one is a lighter brick that would relate a little bit more to the Public Safety Building. You know, the main— not the main volume, but the entry volume has that sort of creamy color stone look to it. Even though the rest of the building is kind of a red color. We were thinking that, you know, it would be nice to have some sort of fresh look to this, but still tied it into the other buildings in some way. But under a full design process, we can investigate doing the orange brick or the reddish color brick that's on campus and evaluate those as well. We did feel like that this did still seem to fit within the sort of the campus without being too overly, too overly heavy on the corner is kind of what we were going for. But it's, you know, these are quick studies and it could really go any direction in terms of design aesthetic.

Okay, thank you.

So how's the, how's the group feeling about what they're seeing? I know it's a little blurry at times. Um, It's a very different— it's sort of upgrade to the corner presence in a way, giving it this option. We were trying to give it a little more civic stature on the corner. The other one, we're doing the same but trying to break down the scale and still allow some level of sort of pedestrian feel. So purposely trying to You know, make them a little different from one another. Joe?

Yeah.

This is Brent. How does this compare in square footage to what we're in now?

So what you're in now is about 46,000 square feet, and then this, this represents 55,000 square feet. So it's, it's about 9,000 square foot more. You know, to accommodate the growth and, you know, the evaluation that we went through in this sort of preliminary program exercise that we went through with your staff.

Okay, thank you.

Ryan, do you want to switch over to your model and let's do the similar overview. So they can get a feel for things on that one.

You should see it there now.

Yes.

And so speaking on the materials, we did try to do the material a little bit different on this one. So this represents a little bit more of a warmer gray, almost stone material on the main volumes, and then a little more wood on this front canopy section. And if you can imagine walking along the sidewalk, and there you begin to sort of see the frame views and how it ties into sort of that rhythm of columns. That give it that sort of colonnade and very approachable feel along State Street. That space in between Library Hall and the new city center becomes an activated zone that, you know, could sort of spill out and be used by various programs, or as mentioned before, pre-function space, post-function space, if there's an event going on at Library Hall.

Those are very attractive concepts. I think they bring a modernity to it.

Mm-hmm.

Ryan, I think maybe it would help to go to an axonometric sort of top-down view a little bit to kind of orient everyone. And zoom back a little bit. So this is where you begin to see that the main entrance to the building, even though it's on the inner knuckle, it becomes a lot more visible from Center Street and from the, you know, outside the campus itself, with a parking lot that's somewhat associated and really shortens the distance to those front doors. So it's just one of the different goals that we were trying to do between the 2 concepts is do one one way and one another way, just to see what the effect would be like. Yeah, there you go, Ryan, that helps. You want to come bring us down to sort of street level? And then sort of pan around back to the corner, the outside corner. This idea of a clock on the building sort of facing out to the city, we thought could be an interesting one. It could be something that was lit at night, sort of becoming this sort of beacon and element that could be seen from the corner.

Yeah, that'd be a nice addition. I like the cars.

A little contrast there.

So, any thoughts and questions, feedback?

Yeah, and if, if I may just add, so Mayor and Council sent you kind of the full report, copies of the full report and this presentation, and we felt like Method Studio has, has helped us look at our city center in a comprehensive manner and helped us think of new ideas on really kind of every aspect of, of, of this subject, from aesthetics to, to safety to access to the public to the open space around it to constructability. So it— and even kind of detailing out, as you've seen, the pros and cons between the 2 options that they're That they've showed us here. So at this point, know that it's a lot of information to digest and respond to, but we're really looking to you of essentially how you're responding to what's been put together here and what you think about these kind of 2 possible visions of the future of this campus.

I can go. I think I like the second version with the idea of tying it in with the library hall as well as the entrance on Center. I don't know if the costs are pretty much similar, but this option 2, I think, is the one that, just preliminary looking at it, I really quite like. So that's just my feedback, just initially looking at it.

The costs for them will be, will be the same, other than potentially the cost for relocating city services during construction. That's really the only difference.

Thanks. How do you think the rate you're seeing of it for older and for—

I think they're both very nice. Um, I like the idea of not having to upset work while, while it's being constructed. in the, in the current city center. But I actually like the look of this one. But I like the look of the other one too, so that's not very helpful.

And Mayor, in terms of your comment about the car, we We just wanted you to see what it would look like with Iron Man's Audi.

Yeah, driving by.

So that question's answered.

Has Tony Stark become an investor in the city now?

I do like the additional parking. I think that's advantageous, particularly closer to the City Center building and particularly closer to the Library Hall. I've often worried about parking for Library Hall, where if we get 300 to 500 patrons there and there are still people in the, you know, in the parking lot for other reasons, that it's going to make it really, really tough for a lot of people to get to the Library Hall easily, which I think we want to have. So I feel like this really opens that up, that parking, and uses that space properly and still allows plenty of green space around the buildings.

Mayor?

Yes, go ahead, Brent.

I was just going to say I like both of them as well. Probably have to study a little more, but I I just like how it doesn't look overpowering either one of them, and they at least from these renderings they just seem to really fit. I I like these layouts better than some other cities are building, and I I appreciate what you've done, Joe. I I just wonder question for Jamie if. Coming out of this pandemic and people working at home, are we going to do any kind of analysis for work-at-home people in need and size of building and that kind of thing?

Yeah, actually we have incorporated an at-home or what we call a remote work policy into our handbook.

Recently.

We do anticipate that there will be some employees that can benefit from a remote work environment. I would not say that a majority of our employees, obviously given the face-to-face nature of much of what we do as an organization, whether it be public safety or public utilities or library services, we don't anticipate a significant amount of our workforce being remote-based, but we did take that into consideration as we sat down and talked with Method as it relates to future needs. One of the things we, we do struggle with in this, in this building is we have a lot of square footage that is not very efficient. We have a lot of hallways. We have a a lot of kind of areas that don't serve much of a purpose, or we've repurposed them. And so with this new— obviously this new concept, you have greater square footage, but you also have, I would say, more functional space that can facilitate collaboration and working together much better than we have But yes, it does represent a building that we can grow into in the future, but also takes and keeps in mind the limited percentage of employees that we would have that could benefit from a remote work opportunity.

I guess it's better to build it now than to add on to it.

Yeah, and you see some of the square footage, obviously, Here is square footage that if you look at the specifics within your report, you can see that, for example, in our City Attorney's Office, we haven't budgeted or we haven't planned for 6 or 7 additional attorneys. We have planned for 1 or 2 additional attorneys, and the same can be said in all of our administrative areas. We are operating, for example, our 311 center that is in an area that is significantly smaller than it probably should be. And so you'll see an expansion in the size of the 311 center. You'll see an expansion in the size of restrooms, for example, where we don't have facilities that are even ADA compliant. client here in this building. You will see a break room that's included in this building that we don't have in our existing facility. You will also see some additional conference spaces that are programmed into the space that we currently don't have as well. It's our understanding, and we believe the trend for The short term will be to maintain remote-type environments for many organizations. But I think businesses that are engaged in public activities like we are are probably not going to transition in a very direct way to remote working opportunities. I don't, I don't know, Joe or Rob, if, if you can scroll back in the, in the presentation, or I don't even think it's a slide where you can identify some of the spaces and some of the quote unquote extra space we've loaded into these buildings. I think that's found in your report. It's not necessarily in the presentation.

Yeah, Rob, I'm wondering if you have the full report handy that you can pull up. And share.

Let me see what I can get to. I think while I'm doing that, one thing that I did that probably speaks to that a little bit, I think pre-COVID, when we're looking at a 5 to 15-year plan, there's quite a bit more here typically. And so you notice there's not a huge swing between this 2 to 5 year and this 5 to 15. And that really is an acknowledgment that there may be some, some growth that is allowed to be more remote in its, in its working type. So let me see if I can find our report.

The detail on this is pages 10 to 13 of the full report.

Okay.

Let me pull it up.

And Rob, can you explain the grossing factor that's found at the bottom?

Yeah, you bet. Grossing factor— usually when we start planning, we're using this NSF, that's net square feet. So that net square feet represents if you were to measure from the inside of your wall of your office, inside to inside. that's the square footage you can use. When we plan a building, we always want to account for gross square feet, which includes the thickness of the walls. It includes corridors and circulation space to get there. And depending on how we do it, sometimes it also includes some support storage, mechanical spaces, depending on how we've allocated that. But in general, when you're planning for a facility, you need to make sure you have all the interior space that you need in your office. And then all of the wall thicknesses and corridors and everything to get to that as well. And that's how you arrive at the GSF, or gross square feet number.

And maybe we could just mention what departments and what groups we have within our City Center building. As an example, on the main floor, we have our administration. We have our HR department. We have our business development department. We have our 311. We have our utility payments. We have our zoning and planning. And then in the basement, we have our IT department, our accounting department, our engineering department, our servers, our storage areas. And then on the 3rd floor, we have facilities.

Our facility staff and some of our planning staff is also on the first floor.

Okay. And then on the third floor, we have legal and we have a child room for mothers, and we also have our generator. As mentioned here, the generator has reached the end of its useful life, and the biggest concern is the fact that it's up on the second story and is attached to a diesel tank in the ground a story below. So I often look at that and wonder if we ever did have an event, would you have that generator then possibly causing problems with diesel leaking and creating a fire?

So, Mayor, Mayor, we actually have our building department that is also on the top Okay, and maybe also to share with with you some news that is not necessarily very good. But we have you mentioned we have diesel that that fuels both our city center generator as well as our public safety generator. Well, we have recently found a problem with our public safety generator and potentially the fuel pump that powers and pushes diesel fuel. to that generator, and we have a potential diesel spill that we are going to have to mitigate here in the summer months. So as obviously as our facilities and infrastructure ages, we start having some problems with it. And in this case, Ryan is reporting that we could have 1,000+ gallons of diesel fuel that has essentially found its way into our soils, and we're going to have to take care of that this summer and potentially excavate all of that material out and replace it with clean material.

So, Jamie, if you were to do that, would you replace the tank in the ground?

No, right now at this point, we, we believe the problem is not the tank itself.

Okay.

But rather a potential line that extends to the tank, to our public safety building, or it actually may be related to the generator that is tied directly to our public safety building.

And has that line corroded? Is that what's happened?

We don't— I don't know specifically. Ryan can maybe speak better to that. But the reason I share that is just You know, even the Public Safety Building now is 20 years old, and we have facility issues we need to address.

Right.

Yeah, I know we had a consultant come out just this morning to look at it with our facilities team. I have not received a report yet.

Okay, I'll know more in the morning. One thing that's in the report that hopefully everybody will read, if you go back and reread it. And that is that throughout Utah, we're experiencing about a 6% inflation rate in construction costs. So, what that means is if we did nothing for 10 years and we suffered a 6% inflation cost of construction costs, that would add an additional $12 million in money that we would be spending. And if you look at the interest costs, the interest, though minimal, has started to rise. And the long-term interest rate actually has gone up— is going up by 10% and should be up by 10% by the end of the year. That could cost another $2 million in costs. And then we're averaging on our maintenance, repair, resupply of the building about $300,000 a year and have done so now for 4 years. So that after 10 years is about $3 million. So if you add the $2 million in interest rate increases, the $12 million in cost inflation, And the $3 million in the maintenance costs that we're suffering every year, that comes to about $17 million. So in 10 years, if we do nothing, our costs will equal almost what it would cost to build a brand new facility. So that's just something to think about. I would like to have everyone on the council take the report from Joe and read through it, look at the details, study it, and then we could come back and revisit it. But I'd like to have everybody spend time on it. And actually, there's 42 pages. Actually read every page, all the details, all the reasoning, all the thoughts behind what's there, and realize that, you know, our city center is an important government building, and we as a council and as staff need to focus on the future community needs and the safety and security of those we ask to work in this building every day. So any other comments or questions? All right, well, Joe, I want to thank you and your staff for presenting, and as always, you do a very thorough job, and I believe those are, you know, it's good to look at the facts when you look at all the different things that are in a mode of needing to be replaced. And again, I hope the council will read through this entire report. It's very important. So thank you.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you everyone for allowing us the opportunity to present tonight, take some time with You bet.

All right, let's go on to a discussion for 5 minutes of the administration of the 2021 municipal elections, and Jody Bates is our presenter.

Yes, thank you, Mayor and Council. I will make this quick. Where we're in an odd year, it is our turn to have an election. We have spoke with the county, and this is the contract that the county has provided for us for to do the elections for 2021 for Orem City. We will send it through our internal approval so that finance and legal has a chance to look over it. Then we would like to bring it back to the council on the consent calendar in 2 weeks. If you look on the last page, which shows the cost, please keep in mind that they do— they average these costs based on— excuse me— registered voters. Due to the presidential election, we increased our registered registered voters by about 6,400 people, so our costs have gone up a little bit for actual costs and registered voters, but the amount that they are quoting for us will not exceed that amount. In fact, we're hoping it will go down based on people dropping off their ballots in the ballot boxes versus mailing them.

Okay, anything else? Okay, let's go ahead and do an agenda review then, if we could. Mayor, I have a quick question on that, if I could. Go ahead.

Just curious, so for those elections, so that, that amount would change based on the actual number of voters that they— that they— the ballots that they handle that are mailed in?

Yes, 11 days before each election They will look at the amount of registered voters and they will base the primary based on those numbers and the general based on the numbers 11 days before the general election.

Okay, and then I was just curious where that comes from, uh, out of the budget.

We have a specific line item for elections that we budget for.

Okay, awesome, thank you.

All right, well, let's go ahead and go through our agenda. We have a presentation tonight from the Sleepy Ridge Golf Course. Is Golden giving that, or who is giving that, Jamie?

Yes, Mayor, Golden will be, will be on the call and will provide the presentation.

Okay, so then we have our personal appearances, approval of city meeting minutes on our consent item, appointments to board and commissions. We have Carl Cook there. We have Mr. Rollins, who's, I think, in his 90s. I'm sorry, Mr. Brown, who's in his 90s, who is going to retire. And the Metropolitan Water Board has requested Carl Cook, who has been on our planning commissions for about 6 years, and many of you may know him. But I think he would be a good appointment. Anybody have a comment or thought about him? Is everybody okay with him?

He does a good job.

I know him.

Okay. All right. Then we have a resolution— I'm sorry, what? Okay. We have a resolution on the Utah Public Treasures Investment Fund administrative rights authorization. So we're basically giving that to Brandon and to our treasurer. Any comments on that?

Mayor, this is just an update on the signatories on our account to include Brandon and to recognize a change in the name of one of our employees who got married.

Okay.

All right, good. Everybody okay with our consent items? Okay, then we have 2 scheduled items. The first one's 9.1. I'm not going to read through all of that, but it relates to buffered sidewalk requirements. And Matt Taylor, are you here?

I don't think he's quite on yet. This is Jason.

Okay, any comments, Jason, you want to make?

So this is our way of helping those properties that— there's about 50 properties along State Street that have a building that is Too close to the street to be able to meet the current State Street standards. This is our way of allowing them to redevelop behind that building without having to tear down the building. So it's actually a good thing for existing property owners.

Okay. All right, and then 9.2 is also a public hearing with regards to 1600 North 400 West and the step-back requirements and the setback requirements. of the state street zones. And Jason, you're our presenter, if you want to go ahead and talk about that.

So we have had the opportunity to meet with several residents. We do have some maps that we've sent you during this week to kind of show the difference between the 50, 75, and 100. We'll kind of outline how that affects certain properties in the district and have some other, you know, opportunities to hopefully explain our position and then talk about what the neighbors have said as well.

And I'm trying to remember, did we even get to the point of hearing from the public last time?

You did hold a public hearing.

What?

You did hold a public hearing, yes.

That's right.

And so—

You actually closed the public hearing. So you opened it and then you closed it.

Okay.

All right. So we will actually have a public hearing on that.

Well, actually, you would need to reopen the public hearing if you chose. So it wasn't a continuation of the public hearing, but you would need to open and close it again.

It seemed to me like we had people speak, correct?

Last, last council meeting?

Yeah.

Yes, I'm just suggesting procedurally, if you would like to include additional citizen input, you would need to reopen the public hearing.

Okay.

Any comments from the council? Would you like to hear citizen input?

I think it'd be good to open it up for a little bit to hear some more comments.

Okay.

I agree. I'd like to hear citizen input.

Okay.

I would agree with that too. I've, I've had a lot of, a lot of emails, so I'd like to hear some more input.

So in relationship to that, we've got just a couple of minutes, but I'm concerned that everyone understands what this is, and I'm not sure that everybody does. I received a long— I sent a long text and received one back from one of the active people, and she did not understand what she was discussing. So we will go through that tonight, but I would hope we'd all listen to everything so that we have a full understanding of how the edge zone works, how the setback on top of the building works, how the residential zone then affects the step heights as far as footage back and then step up and then footage back and step up. I've received numerous emails today about the apartment complex that's going in there. And again, this is not an apartment complex. It's a condominium project with 20% affordable housing condos. Jamie, do you have anything you want to bring up at this point?

Yes, Mayor, thank you. Just some information, some information for your benefit. You may have been following President Biden and Congress's actions in recent days as related to the American Rescue Plan Act, which is the latest stimulus measure that the federal government is looking to roll out here. in the next, potentially the next few days. That $1.9 trillion relief package or stimulus package includes about $350 billion that have been set aside for local governments. The allocation of those dollars will happen in a way different than in the former CARES Act and will follow more of a kind of CDBG entitlement city type arrangement where cities in excess of 50,000 in population would actually receive a direct allocation from the federal government. So we anticipate the potential to receive additional stimulus dollars here in the City of Orem. I just wanted to make you aware of the fact that that will be coming forward and something we need to consider as part Part of obviously future budgets and future action plans as related to the city. We anticipate that we will as a city be eligible for these dollars. We don't know how much as of yet, but we will not be required to go through a process like the CARES program where we went through, for example, County, but rather that money would come directly to us. As you, as you well know, we've been having some discussions about utility bonding, and we have meetings with Standard& Poor's and Fitch this week to essentially introduce them to the debt that we are proposing by way of several ratings presentations that we will make via Zoom to these rating agencies.

agencies.

At that point, once they provide us the rating, then we will have much of the necessary pieces required to move forward with our utility program and bonding for utility infrastructure. Speaking of infrastructure and the legislature, as you well know, the legislature closed their 45-day general session late Friday evening, and as a city, we were able to benefit from the state-proposed infrastructure and transportation funding bill. HB 433 included dollars for about $1.2 About $1.2 billion for transportation projects throughout the state. The city of Orem was the beneficiary of about $65 million of those dollars, $40 million set aside towards the expansion of 1600 North from 1200 West to State Street, and about $25 million for Geneva Road from University Parkway South to about 1800 South. So we are excited about this opportunity to work with UDOT in these road expansion projects. And of course, there are environmental programs that we need to initiate and get underway before we can, in fact, move forward with these projects, including engineering construction and right-of-way acquisition. In addition to that, there were some bills that were passed in the legislature. A good number of them were things that we were able to essentially push back on, everything related to— from billboards to administrative oversight of additional fees. But there were some things that—

I don't know where you're at, but I think I have you down for giving the prayer or pledge, so I—

There were some other bills that we didn't fare so well on, and I think in a future meeting I'm going to invite Heather to just prepare a little, I guess, overview as to how we did in this recent legislative session. And then finally, just wanted to give some time to Bren to give you a brief update as to where we are with our Hillcrest discussion and the public meetings that we had last Thursday evening and kind of next steps for that effort.

So, Bren.

Yes, thank you. So I followed up with Mark Vlasic and Lisa Benson this afternoon, and they indicated that consistent with what they suggested at our public meeting, that they allowed the kind of the comment, the open-ended comment period that we shared and announced on the website went through the weekend. And so they just wanted to take the next couple of weeks to compile that and Come up with a kind of a summary of how that might apply naturally, as we saw in that meeting. There's, you know, mixed, mixed reviews or mixed comments on, on what, what people want to see there at Hillcrest. So, so we'll give them the next couple of weeks then moving forward from here to put together a summary report. And of course, we'll make all of those comments available with that, their summary, when that, when that comes about. Meanwhile, we've also been doing an update to our parks master plan and, you know, look up updating how we categorize different parks and making sure that our park standards are consistent. And, and we've been going through an update to the survey that was done a few years ago so that we can see how the public's opinions have perhaps compared today as they did a few years ago. And in large part because I think the main takeaways that we got from our last Parks Master Plan survey were, you know, Rebuild, update the fitness center, and update playgrounds. And obviously we've made a ton of progress on those main takeaways. So, so that survey process is still going, and Landmark Design has contracted with Y2 Analytics on that survey process. And they'll be taking the next few weeks to, of course, compile the statistically valid survey results, come up with a summary and report and presentation on that as well. So right now, we're targeting to come back to you with both of these reports at our first council meeting in April.

Okay, Jamie, anything else?

That's all I have.

Thank you, Mayor.

All right, let's turn some time over to Debbie for her council report as far as commissions and committees.

Thank you, Mayor. I have 3 assignments: Summerfest, Arts Council, and Natural Resources. So I'll start with Summerfest. Summerfest, which is probably the most exciting. I think with things moving in the right direction, we're planning on having Summerfest June 7th through the 11th. Unless something changes majorly, we're hoping to have a grand parade and a carnival exactly how they look. There may be a few modifications. Governor Herbert has— former Governor Herbert has— is going to be our grand marshal. Same theme as we had last year, This Is Where You Belong. Our normal appreciation dinner will be at the new library hall the Friday before. We're working with the National Storyteller, who will hopefully be dovetailing some other places around BYU, UVU to come out. The car show again on Wednesday with the hot dog Dinner, I think that went well. The pool party on Tuesday. Once again, a family day on Thursday. Orms Got Talent on Friday. A baby contest, we're hoping to hold that at the new fitness center. Fireworks, we'll still— somewhere probably a 12-minute show. So we'll know everything as, you know, as we see how things and how the You know, we have to pull a permit from the county, so we will be taking direction from them, but we are— we're feeling more optimistic that we'll be able to do this June 7th through the 11th. So good news. Arts Council, we've been working on some utility boxes, putting art on utility boxes. This is a vinyl wrap, and we have the next 2. Cassie Barney has designed one as well as Jesse Smart Smiley. They'll be going in at the Sierra Park and the City Center campus, and the Arts Council is going to hope to ask for some CARES money in this next round of funding to do more. They're also going to be doing some entertainment at the stage, like they've done concert series, and that will open up in April, and then hosting some arts— artist shows at the new Library Hall, where you saw Cassie and the Christiansen family art, there will be opportunities to maybe have other artists show their works there. So that would be good. And then in partnership with the Natural Resources Committee, there's some BYU students who have been working on a kind of a rooftop garden. I know there's some issues with some roof problems, but there's also some ideas of looking at some low Native American plant— not Native American, native Utah plants that we could probably do something fun in either in the courtyard or something on the rooftop. The Natural Resources met, and they are going to be doing a water conservation campaign. They hope to do some xeriscape awards coming up with business and residential through the beautification committee. And then they hope to take a survey of some of the ways people have been conserving energy and various things. So a lot of exciting things. I think we're gearing up to have more meetings and look for some great, like I said, wrapped utility boxes, a great Summerfest. We'll know more as time goes on. With Summerfest, we will do a magazine that'll go to people's homes. And we hope to have that in people's homes by the end of May. So if there's any questions, otherwise good news. I think we're heading in the right direction.

Just appreciate what you're doing. I know that the Miss Orem Scholarship Pageant group is holding meetings with potential candidates for Miss Orem, and they're moving ahead. So we'll have a new royalty coming up. If nothing else, let's go ahead and adjourn, and we'll start our City Council meeting back up in 8 minutes at 6 o'clock.

Thank you.

I blanked out.

I can, but I, I know I'm blanked out. Steve, are you ready to start?

Mayor, we're ready.

Okay, we'd like to welcome everyone out to our City Council meeting. I'd like to begin with a notice of an electronic meeting pursuant to Mayor Richard F. Brunt's proclamation dated February 26, 2021. The Orem City Council meeting on March 9, 2021 will be an all-electronic meeting. There will be no anchor location for the meeting. The city cannot ensure the recommended minimum of 6 feet of social— distancing for meeting participants at the usual anchor location in the Orem City Council Chambers. Therefore, holding the meeting at the City Council Chambers would present a substantial risk to the health and safety of those who may be present at the meeting and may contribute to the spread of COVID-19. There will be no public access to the Orem City Council Chambers. Those desiring to view or participate in the meeting must do so electronically. To view the meeting, please go to orm.org/meetings. To make a comment, please submit your comment through orm.org/comments. Written comments will be accepted before and during the meeting. All written comments received will be entered into the record and forwarded to each city council member for review. Written comments will also be read aloud during the live meeting when required by law or when When time permits. As technology permits, the City Council may also accept oral comments. Once an item has been voted on, that item will be closed to additional comments. Thank you for your cooperation during these challenging times. We now would like to call our meeting to order, and we'd like to ask Debbie Luray to give us our prayer and Jim Luray, her husband, the Pledge of Allegiance.

Our Father in heaven, we're grateful that we have gathered this evening for city council meeting. We appreciate that we're able to serve thee and serve this community. We ask for a spirit of unity and cooperation as we discuss the pertinent business of this, of this, of our city. Thank you for the many blessings and the freedoms that we do enjoy, and we ask these favors and blessings in the holy name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Thank you, Debbie. Now we'll turn some time over to Jim. Oh, I've got a flag here for those—

so all rise, please follow me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

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

Thank you, Jim. Thank you, Debbie.

Mayor, with, with you, Jim, and Jamie on the call, this may be the largest gathering of Silver Beavers on any Zoom call.

Really?

That is true.

Okay, all right, let's go ahead and begin, um, by a report, uh, of the Sleepy Ridge Golf Course, and I believe Golden Holt is here to give us his annual report. Golden, we'll turn the time over to you.

I'm here, Mayor. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Mayor, Council, thanks for having me every year. This is kind of something I look forward to. Like you, it's probably a different year on an annual report than any year we've had so far, but I'm happy to report to you today on the past year and answer any questions you might have. With COVID hitting us all, the mayor and council is familiar with the model that we have of kind of a 3-for-1 business model where we have the golf course, which is the anchor of our project. Then with the bigger clubhouse, we have our offices, and then we have the wedding and event business. Golf, I'm happy to report, had the best year ever through COVID. The outdoor nature of golf, the, you know, people being confined and doing— as you know, everything outdoors kind of took an upward trend with COVID and golf was a beneficiary of that. So we're happy to report that our revenues were up 50%, and we had by far our busiest year in golf. We are anxious and crossing our fingers that some of those trends continue, but we're not quite sure. The flip side, from a Sleepy Ridge business model standpoint, the wedding business took a 50% dive just for obvious reasons. The idea of gathering and social distancing and state regulations, which we honored and did our best with, weddings just got postponed. You probably experienced that in some of your personal lives. We went up 50% in golf and went down 50% in the wedding business from an overall business perspective, and we're grateful. I'm so blessed with a great Orem City partner. We've been at this now 15 to 20 years from when we first had the idea of starting, and I know the council's aware of some things we're working on with contracts and stuff, but what makes us unique is we have that 3-for-1 business model where we're not relying totally on golf. If it was that, we would have been in trouble years ago. But we were able to survive slower periods in golf with office revenue helping being stable on a golf course. Then the wedding business has been our best business to date. But last year, things got reversed. We're glad we have 3 businesses at the golf course under the model with the city as a partner that we've been able to put forward and have done so. We continue to make improvements. I'm just blessed with a great staff. Orem City, I've said this in every meeting going back to previous staffs and previous mayors and councils, they've— I'm proud to say I don't think I've had anything but a unanimous vote before on anything I've brought before them. So it's been a great partnership. Other cities and other municipalities are looking at our model because golf is a tough business. What makes it most difficult in our area is the seasonality of it. When you have to do it all in 7 or 8 months, it's different than California or Arizona or other places that have a 12-month season to their business. That puts extra pressure on golf in our climate and area. But with the city's vision of partnering with us on the private side and then their public support through our contract, we're proud to say the city put up the land and helped us with water and we've paid every bill since. Survived through the slower times and are actually literally looking forward to the future because of those 3 businesses.

Well, it's nice to have a 3-legged chair because that keeps you pretty stable.

That really is true, Mayor, for us.

Any questions or comments by the council?

I do. Golden, this is Councilwoman Larray. I actually live on the 9th hole, and I noticed you You're doing some— I think it's the 10th hole you're doing some remodeling. Can you tell me a little bit about what's going on there? And I think your 11th hole with the new homes have had a little change. Just report on what that's going to look like.

Thanks for asking. We're excited about that. As the city council may know, part of the contract requires us to put— requires us, we're anxious to do it— 5% of our gross revenue aside for capital projects. And that allows us to always look forward to try to improve the golf course or the clubhouse or make sure maintenance is upkept on a capital basis. So we are doing some things to improve the golf course. On number 10, we're doing a little pitch and putt practice area. The current area is fairly small right next to the range, and it's convenient, but now with the demand we have, it's not big enough. And particularly with things like junior golf, Or high school golf teams that come down in kind of groups. Tyler, we haven't had a big enough facility. So over on the 10th tee, which is convenient because you can start on 10 or 1, we've had Luke Dye, Matt Dye's brother, come in and we've actually laid out this large putting green. We'll have some little pitching areas and then a sand trap to practice your game on. So that's all going to be funded out of this capital account. The golf committee helps us on that. Number 11 is our signature hole, and with Jamie Davidson's help and the staff, we've come up with an unbelievable win-win-win. A developer was finishing the little Darryl Clegg Pond, 9 or 10 units that you guys have probably heard about, and the city needed a new 55-inch stormwater drain to put in from Springwater Park for their needs, and I saw the opportunity to improve the golf holes. So through the, through the stormwater project, we've kind of reconfigured the 11 tee box area and are going to have larger tees, a longer hole, and make our signature hole even better. So that's all done with a little bit of planning and the way the contract was set up, funded with monies that are set aside for those kind of improvements.

That's exciting. Thank you.

You're welcome. Anything else, Golden?

No, not unless you have any other questions. We're, we're glad to be here and glad to have Orem as a partner.

Well, we appreciate it, and I know a lot of our residents love to play golf, so it's nice to have that course there.

Thank you.

So we'll go ahead now into our personal appearances. This is time set aside for someone who would like to speak to an issue that is not on our Agenda tonight under scheduled items. And Steve, do we have anyone that has come forward?

Mayor, we have 13 comments so far, but they're all for the 1600 North Village.

So we'll not take them here. And it doesn't sound like you have anybody else for anything else.

Not yet.

Okay, so we'll take 90 seconds and open it up for anybody who wants to get online. Okay, our time is up. Anyone call in, Steve?

No.

No, I can't hear you.

Sorry, no comments, Mayor.

Okay. All right, well then go ahead and go to our consent items. The first one is 8.1. This is the approval of meeting minutes of the City Council meeting of February 23rd, 2021. 8.2 is an appointment to boards and commissions, specifically The appointment of Carl Cook to the Metropolitan Water Board to replace Mr. Brown, who's retiring. And the last one is 8.3, a resolution for Utah Public Treasurers Investment Fund administrative rights authorization. Would anybody on the council care to move any of these items to a scheduled item? If so, please let me know. All right, if not, I make a motion that we approve the 3 consent items as read. Could I have a second?

Second.

Okay, let's go ahead and vote. All right, Dave, we'll start with you.

Aye.

Okay, Brent.

Aye.

Debbie.

Aye.

Terry.

Aye.

Tom. Aye.

Jeff.

Aye.

Okay, and as the mayor, I vote aye as well. Our consent item schedule passes. Move on to our scheduled items. The first one is 9.1, which is a public hearing amending portions of 22-8-8B, 22-8-8B-3 of the Orem City Code, and enacting sections 22-8-8B-7B, 22-8-8B-8. 22-8-8B-9 and 22-8-8B-10 to the Orem City Code pertaining to permitted modifications to buffered sidewalk requirements and adding additional design standards and utility enclosure standards within the State Street corridor area. And our presenter is Matt Taylor, Senior Planner.

Thank you, Council. Just give me 10 seconds here. I thought I had my presentation open. Here it is. It's a pleasure to be with you. Brief reminder, we discussed this with— in a work session on February 9th, I believe, and we went over each of the proposals in detail. Tonight, my intention is to be a bit more brief. I hope nobody will— I hope you all will appreciate brevity, but I am prepared to answer any questions and talk at length at any point that you'd like to. Let me share my screen.

Let's see.

Okay, you see that?

Yes.

All right, so as I said, I'm just going to recap what we talked about in the work session. The goal of this— this is an ordinance, so we'll be proposing that you adopt a change to the zoning code. Specifically, our goal is one— threefold. The primary impetus for bringing this forward, though, is to adjust the ordinance to help property owners expand existing buildings when desired. And I'll touch on a little bit more of that in just a second. We also want to carry some of the design standards from the districts to the entire corridor. Although we propose that these standards be to a lesser standard, the goal to encourage the corridor as a pedestrian-oriented corridor for future transit and to be supportive of the districts. And finally, we want to apply to the entire corridor provisions that bury or screen utility boxes or other type of utility appurtenances. Within the corridor. Currently the code requires, just as a reminder, we have a 15-foot buffered sidewalk, which means we have a 15-foot planter strip with trees planted every 40 feet and an 8-foot sidewalk developed behind that. You can see examples of that just right outside the City Center. It was recently installed this last year. You can also see an example next to Sun River Gardens, I believe on 12th North-ish, that's been recently installed. The challenge is—

oops, this is—

Sometimes there are existing buildings that are within that 23 feet from their front of their building to the back of the curb. We have some specific owners right now that are looking to expand their existing building, and the way the ordinance reads is that they would have to demolish that portion of the building within the 23 feet. And I forgot that graphic. I can show you that in a second, but essentially imagine the front portion of this building being required to be removed in order to comply with the buffered sidewalk provision. To be accommodating to existing business and property owners, we are proposing a standard that allows for flexibility within this area between the sidewalk and the— sorry, the back curb and the building by modifying the standards in a number of different ways. We think that this would only, if everybody took advantage of it, would only apply to about 3% of the corridor and likelihood to be much less than that just for the property owners that do not desire full-scale redevelopment. We also propose that they wouldn't be able to expand the building within that area, so we wouldn't increase the degree of nonconformity with the standard. Just an illustration here that shows how this standard could transition along the corridor amongst existing buildings. This is an extreme example on South State Street where the buildings come very close. I do not actually anticipate that these buildings would take advantage of this provision, but if they did, this is how it might play out. We also propose, like I said, carrying on some of the design standards, albeit to a lesser standard, along the entire corridor. These standards refer to— sorry— street entrances along the street, how the building's articulated, the street side having inhabitable or leasable space for access by the public. Street-facing windows.

Oops.

How buildings articulate the weighting of their materials, having lighter materials above heavier materials, the types of materials that are acceptable within the area, and the screening of utilities, as I previously mentioned. So with that, is there any questions or any points that I ought to elaborate on more? Matt?

Yeah, go ahead.

This is Brent Sumner. I was wondering on that landscaping, does the city or does the developer take instructions from the city as far as what kind of tree, what kind of vegetation? How it's planted. And I mean, who oversees that to make sure they're in ordinance or somewhat the same all the way up and down State Street?

Yeah, forgive me, I'm fairly new on the staff, so I don't have the code memorized, but my recollection is, is that there are landscaping standards for that space, and that landscaping would be approved as part of the development review plan. As far as the particular trees, if memory serves, there are approved tree lists, but I'd have to defer to Jason Bench to confirm that.

Yeah, so this is Jason. So there is an area— the trees are selected based on the districts and also between the districts. So there are certain types of trees that we, for the beautification and consistency along State Street, require certain types of trees in certain areas. So there are stipulations, and we as a Development Services Department would enforce that.

Okay, and the business owner or the developer maintains that in front of his property, correct?

They do, yes.

Okay, one more thing about the city. One more thing. When we went to those other cities, it seems like that planner landscape planner strip was less than 15 feet, and I could be wrong, but it seems like 15 feet is pretty pretty wide usage space that is valuable for a property owner. Was that— was that— I guess what I'm asking, was that the width that we visited in? I can't remember what it was, but is that the standard width that most cities use?

So it's— I mean, each city has its own standard, pretty much. What the State Street is corridor was designed for is that if, in the event that when UTA comes in and does a BRT or something up State Street, they would end up taking 7 feet on either side of that.

Okay.

So ultimately we'd end up with an 8-foot planter strip. So it's a little bit wider knowing that eventually that may be taken up for improvements on State Street with the remaining 8 feet with the trees in that back 8 feet so they don't have to tear them out. We end up with smaller trees again. So it's It was part of the State Street Master Plan, was intended to do that. And that is all the landscaping that's required for developers, the 15 feet. So we're not asking then an additional behind the sidewalk. It's in front of the sidewalk, and that would be the extent. So it actually gives the property owner an additional 3 feet based on the current C-2 standards, which would require a 20-foot landscaping behind the sidewalk. This puts 15 feet in front, an 8-foot sidewalk, and it actually brings the building a little bit closer. I don't know what current standards would allow. Okay, thanks, Jason.

Any other comments or questions? All right, well, this is a public hearing, so we'll go ahead and open it up for public comment. And hold your comments to 3 minutes and tell us your name, and we'll open it up now. And we'll hold it open for 90 seconds to allow anybody to call in. All right, our 90 seconds are up. Steve, have you received any additional calls from anyone?

No, no comments, Mayor.

Okay.

All right, any other comments or questions from the council? All right, I would like to make a motion then that the City Council by ordinance amend portions of Sections 22-A-8-8B, 22-8-8B of the Orem City Code, and enacting Sections 22-8-8B 7B, 22-8-8B-8, 22-8-8B-9, and 22-8-8B-10 to the Orem City Code pertaining to permitted modifications to buffered sidewalk requirements and adding additional design standards and utility enclosure standards within the State Street corridor area. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, let's go ahead and vote. We'll start with Dave.

Aye.

Brent?

Brent?

Aye.

Okay.

Debbie?

Aye.

Terry?

Aye.

Tom?

Aye.

Jeff?

Aye.

And the mayor, I vote aye as well. So the ordinance passes. Thank you, Matt. We appreciate that. We'll now move on to a public hearing, which is 9.2. This is amending portions of Sections 22-24-5F2C, 22-24-5F4C, 22-24-4F 22-24-4F4C.

22-24-1F4C. 22-24-2F4C.

And 22-24-3F4C of the Orem City Code pertaining to step-back requirements. and building setback requirements in the State Street District zones. And Jason Bench is our presenter.

Thank you, Mayor. Can everybody see my screen?

Yes.

Thank you.

So before you tonight, I know that we continued this from last meeting. To give the council some additional time to look at it and review it. I just want to go over some things to just remind you of what we're looking at and some other maps and things that we've created. And then be able to address some questions. As you recall, the first requirement was the 50-foot— what we're calling the setback, where it's a height limitation area with a maximum height of 35 feet. But that's in connection with existing standard which allows— requires, when it's adjacent to residential zones, a height and setback equal, I guess, to the height of the building. So, for example, if somebody wanted to build a building 50 feet tall, they would have to be at least 50 feet back from the residential property line. So we're proposing 2 different standards that would help mitigate some of the issues that we're hearing from the neighbors as far as buildings and things next to the residential zone. So I want to go over both options and how I think those 2 together are consistent with what I think the neighbors are, are wanting us to do. So the mayor requested that we look at a map that shows the 50, 75, and 100-foot limitation area in all the quadrants of the North Village District, and I want to just go over a few of those. I got different slides that are a little bit more Close up, you can see in the northeast quadrant the impacts that that would have. The biggest impact, I think, is the corner. Turn my laser pointer. You can see the 100-foot impact, the 75, which would basically render that corner limited as far as the overall height that would be allowed in the corner. What it does on the southeast corner, as you look down here, the subway sandwich shop, the Chinese buffet area. The larger that setback— these are smaller properties in depth, so if we were to go to a 100-foot limitation, it would pretty much wipe out any ability for them to redevelop higher than the 35 feet. Same is true on the southwest. You can see some of the limitations, not as impactful necessarily, but on the northwest corner, you can see these top 2 properties on North State Street, 1709 and 1717 North, I would pretty much render them 35 maximum is all they would be able to fit on that based on these standards. So I'm not saying that that's a negative thing necessarily, but it is an impact other than just maybe the one property that we're focusing on. There are other properties in this district that would be severely hindered with development higher than the 35 feet. Ryan, I know sent you an email this week showing some kind of outlines of what that means as far as the setback equal to the height. And I just want to kind of highlight some of that, if I can just pull in here and just kind of show you some of these things. So if it's a 35-foot setback, the height of the structure has to be set back 35 feet. What we're proposing is a 50-foot, 35-foot minimum setback. So if you get down into the 40-foot tall buildings and the 45-foot tall buildings, they would have to be 35 maximum until they reach the 50-foot setback. So that is a more restrictive standard than we currently have. When you get to 50 feet and above, then it has to be equal to that height going forward. Just as an example, we showed this, but I made some modifications to this. So this is a The top graphic shows that equal to the height setback standards. So if there's a 14-foot building, for example, on the commercial side, it has to be set back at least 14 feet. And 14 feet would be the maximum height. And as you can see, it steps back to 28 feet. And at this point to this point has to be at least 28 feet. Same is true with the 42 feet. The difference though, if you look at the bottom graphic, is if you have a 50-foot, 35-foot maximum height area, this 42-foot building would not be able to be allowed in that area. It would have to be at least 50 feet back in order to get that 42 feet. So what we're doing is requiring these buildings to maximum height of 35 feet. But at the same time, they have to step back. So even though this area, a 50-foot setback area, is limited to 35 feet, there still is a requirement to have that step-back requirement. So buildings will not be in this area. The difference on a residential side is that the residents can have a shed, for example, or a garage in the setback next to their rear property line. 18 foot is the maximum height, but that can be located on the property. The same is not true on the commercial side. They would have to be 18 feet off the property to have an 18-foot shed. So that's the reason for these standards. We knew that the commercial would have a little bit more ability to build larger, and typically they do. They're larger properties in a residential lot, and so the buildings are going to be a little larger, and that's why we built in those standards. That standard equal to the height is the standard we use citywide. So the Harmons, for example, the Smiths here on Center Street, all those that back up to a residential zone have been built over the years to that same standard. So we're basically wanting that same standard and And that's what was included in this State Street districts, was that same standard that we've, we've continued. In addition to that, though, we're requesting as a council direction that we add that 50 feet at a 35 max capacity, which then adds another layer on that restriction that moves that building further away from the property. Just another quick example of Of what this standard means. This is not to scale, it's kind of exaggerated on height, but it just shows you the example of what, what this means. So this diagonal angle means that, you know, the height of the building has to be equal to the setback. So the building, as it goes up in height, is continually going away from the residential zone as far as setback, with a 50-foot setback, maximum 35-foot tall height. So a 40-foot building would have to be set back at least 50 feet. in order to meet that standard. And then the same is true with a 50-foot or a 60-foot tall building would have to be equal to that setback, either 50 or 60 or higher depending on where they are, but it would be equal to that setback off of the residential property.

So Jason, just a question if you could go back to that. So if in fact you had the 50-foot setback but decided to make it 75-foot setback, then that would allow the property owner to Take his building up to a 75-foot height.

Provided he was 75 feet back. That's correct.

Okay.

But he could build within that. Let's say we do a 75-foot limitation with a 35-foot— they still could build within the 35 or that 75-foot area, 35 maximum height, but they still would have to have that 35 section away from the property, residential property, 35 feet. So it doesn't allow them to build to the property line. It still requires that setback, but just a maximum, you know, cap of 35 feet. Once they get out of that 50 or 75-foot limitation area, then they could go up to the higher standard.

And if you went back 75 foot and the requirement is in there that you have to allow a 20-foot setback from the main floor to where residential would start, then would that allow him to actually build a 95-foot-high building?

So, well, we'd have to be 95 feet back to the highest.

You would be 95 feet back with the 75 feet plus the 20-foot setback on the top of the first floor.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, the setback, the height limitation area, and the height equal, you know, the setback equal to the height all would play into the factors of whether or not it would be approved. So you would have to meet all those different requirements. And that's why I guess I'm thinking, at least our thought is that with those 2 standards in play, it is very similar to a 35-foot high max, 75-foot, because you're, you're, you're having 2 different standards you have to meet. And by the time you get to 70 feet, you're going to have to be 70 feet regardless. Whether it's 50-foot or 75, it's, you know, 5-foot difference.

What I am saying is if you added the 75— 25 feet to the 50-foot and you went back 75 feet, then you had to go up a layer, a floor, and then 20-foot setback from there. That would actually allow a 95-foot-tall building.

Well, yeah, provided they're 95 feet away.

Yes, correct.

Yeah.

Good.

So this is another example we showed last week, the 35-50-foot setback area, or setback area. So just real quick, we did meet with 3 representatives from the neighborhood yesterday. Ryan and myself met with them. They would prefer the 75-35. I guess our argument is that the, the 50 and 35 and then the equal to the height Is very similar to the same standard.

So I think we're actually 70 foot back.

Right. So yeah, so I mean, there's a difference of 5 feet, right? Whether it's a 75-35 or a 70 equal to the height requirement, they pretty much equal the same standard. And so we already have those in place. And so that's the addition of this 50 feet 35 separation, you know, the height limitation. Accomplishes, in our opinion, the same.

So you basically end up with a 50-foot back limitation would equal with the 20-foot setback after the first floor, a 70-foot building, and you'd be 70-foot back.

Well, depending on the layout, right? Any, any building that has residential in it That fronts onto a street would have to— any portion of the building that has residential would have to be stepped back 20 feet. Yes. So you'd have the building that could be up to the street, but then any elevation above that that has residential would have to step back to 20 feet. Yes. So, but they could build that step-back area within the 35, provided that that overall height is not over 35 feet. Anything higher than that would have to be outside of that 50-foot area.

But they'd still have to be 70 foot back to go 70 foot high.

The 70 foot portion would have to be 70 feet. That's correct.

Jason? Yes, this is Brent. I, I was just wondering, when you started talking, you said, and meeting with your group, you were talking about the 50 foot setback. And if you go to 75, there wouldn't be much difference. Can you Did I misunderstand you, or did you— can you explain that again?

Sure. So, for example, if somebody wanted to build a 70-foot-tall office building and it happens to be next to a residential zone— let me go back. Let's just pick a property. Let's say this property here, which is now the Ace Hardware store. If somebody come in and wanted to build a 70-foot-tall building right here, they would have to be a minimum from this property line right here, the residential property, 70 feet off of that property before they could start building that building at 70 feet. What the neighbors are suggesting is we go with a 75-foot area that allows 35-foot minimum— or maximum, sorry. So it's pretty consistent. I mean, it's 5-foot difference, basically, is what we're saying. In either case, you're still going to have to be equal to the height. And if you do the 50-foot, 35 maximum, you're still going to have to be at least 50 feet off the property, maximum 35 feet. But at the same time, you're— that 35-foot building portion is going to have to be 35 feet off the property anyway. So there, there's 2 different standards we're working with, but they, they come to the same conclusion within 5 feet of each other, that if it's a 75-foot height limitation area at 35 feet versus a height equal to the height of the building, you're still going to have to have that building back off the property at a minimum 70 feet if it's a 70-foot building. Hopefully that makes sense.

Yeah, it does. So with that extra 5 feet, what that does is push that building 5 feet towards State Street, right?

Right. Right, so that does add another 5 feet. You're correct.

Okay, what— so in our vision, we've studied for years, all buildings were supposed to be right up to State Street or close, you know, within a few feet, right? And the current potential developer we're looking at, he's starting in the back end, and I, I'm confused from our vision and what what we're trying to do with the North Village area.

Well, let's, let's take this one, for example, here on the corner of 4th West and 16th North. This property comes back in the frontage that they have is this portion along 16th North and this portion along 400 West. That is their street frontage. The rest of their property is behind these other properties that actually have frontage on State Street. Part of the requirements of the, of the district is that 50% of this frontage has to be covered with some type of building before they can develop anything in the back. The intent of the district was to get buildings, bring them out front, make them more pedestrian-friendly, make them more visible, because we really, in our opinion, I'd rather see a nice-looking building than a big parking lot. And so the intent of that was to bring buildings out front. It doesn't stipulate you have to have housing. It doesn't stipulate you have to have a certain size. What it does is require that building to be up front, and then you can move in the back and develop. They can't do a development back here until that requirement is met. And that applies to any of the districts in the city.

Okay, thank you.

And Jason, those other buildings in the back do not lend themselves to be putting— put themselves on State Street since the other properties there are owned by somebody else. So this is, this is developing the interior property on the second phase in the middle, and then down in the corner you have to develop that along the street, but the other property isn't really open to that.

Right, and it's not necessarily unique. If you go to the other properties, there are, for example, this one here where the current Vasa Fitness is they have a little bit limited frontage on 16th, and they have a small portion of frontage on State Street, and then you've got other parcels that take up the other frontage. So we'd have to work with individual property owners in this instance to make sure that that requirement is met. So if FASA wanted to come and tear down the building and redo it, they would have to put some type of building up here to meet that standard. So it's applicable, you know, district-wide. It's not You know, specific to this one property that, that we're having some issues with tonight.

So Jason, another question, if you can go back there to the 400-1600 location. So as an example, if you have a building there and we're saying 50 foot from the curb headed north, But if you're from the west side headed— I mean, on the east side headed west, over on the bottom right-hand corner.

Right here.

So if you're on the curb on the east side and you're headed west, you go 50 feet and then you have to match the the height with the distance as you go up.

Right, so, so for example, if we— if council decided to do the 50 feet, this, this line right here, if you extend this line up 50 feet and then over here, this area here would be limited to 35-foot max. And but when this is rezoned, let's say that's, that's in process right now, and the city council rezones this portion back to R-8. Then not only do they have the 50-foot restriction, but now they have to be equal to the height from this property line and this property line. So for example, if they wanted to put a 70-foot building right here, they would have to take that and be 70 feet off. In addition to being outside of that 50-foot area with a maximum of 35 feet. So there are multiple standards that we're, we're stating that are in place that would protect buildings being too close or perceived to be too close to the neighbors because they're going to have to be set back sufficient enough to meet both standards at this, at this time, at this corner.

So either way, they'd have to be 70 foot.

So it's either 70 or 75, and whatever is decided, I mean, they're going to have 2 different standards that they're going to have to meet regardless of if it's the 75-35, they're still going to have to meet equal to the height standard. From a residential zone. And this is going to be heard by the council, you know, in a couple weeks or within a month, that this will be all rezoned back to R-8, and then that standard will be applicable as well. So there's 2 standards that as a city we're stating that if they have to meet both of those standards, they're going to be pretty consistent with the 75/35, which seems to the majority of the neighbors are okay with. I can't speak for all the neighbors, but the ones that we talked to You seem to think the majority of the neighborhood are okay with, with at least the 75-35. What we're stating is the 50-35 and equal to the height are very similar to the same standard.

Right, and basically you're getting your 70 to 75 foot. Right, with, with the 50-foot edge standard. So you got the 50-foot, the 20-foot, you're there at 70 foot. You basically have what everybody's been discussing.

Yeah.

And to that point, one other thing, it's, it's my understanding that the applicant on the area behind the residences is looking at putting in a road with 2 lanes going, one lane going each direction and landscaping where they're actually back off the fence line. by 80 to 85 feet for what they want to build.

Right. And so, I mean, the neighbors have seen that plan. We have not, you know, officially been looked at, but that plan, 80 feet off at 70 feet high, meets the, you know, meets that equal to the height and would be outside of that, you know, 50 feet or 75-foot area. So sure, yeah, I mean, that, that building would comply because it's, it's set back off that residential property line 80 feet. Which is consistent with those 2 standards.

And let me ask Jason, is the applicant or his architect online?

I don't believe they are. We didn't specifically give them the link.

No.

Okay, that's fine.

So if I make— just continue just briefly to talk about requirements, is that okay?

You bet.

So just briefly, well, I guess we talked about the Arts District last time. So to be consistent with what we're doing in North Village. Basically, that next to the res zone— this one only has one res zone, so it's not Res A or B, it's just the Arts District res— we would have that 50-foot around that portion as well. The rest of the properties are bounded by streets, and so that's our intent on that one as well. And then the step-back requirements, this would be applicable to all Districts. Basically what that entails is that anybody that wants to come in and build an office building and have residential above, that setback requirement would be at the level that residents would be starting. So example, for example, in this picture here you've got a 2-story commercial building, you've got, you know, the 2 different levels, the residential starts above that, and you can see that there is a setback area. What we're proposing is that setback area be 20 feet, which is currently in the ordinance. The difference is that we'd allow that setback area to be on the second level instead of the first level, because this is associated with commercial. The setback area purpose behind that in the ordinance is specifically designed for the residential units so that they could come down to that level and access that. It was not and is not required for a full office building. So if somebody come in and wanted to build a 5-story office building, they would not be required to have that step back. The step back is specifically designed for residential uses, and we felt that it would, it would need to be associated with that. The majority of the time, we're probably going to have one level, and it's going to be stepped back on the first level anyway. But we felt that if there was some that wanted to do multiple commercial or office buildings and have a couple stories on the top, that that step back would be then At that level. So that's the purpose behind that.

And Jason, the project that we're looking at— I mean, this, this relates to our setbacks, and maybe I'm premature, but the project that's been applied for with these setbacks are for condominiums, not apartments. Is that correct?

Correct. Yeah.

And Tom has a question. Go ahead, Tom. Tom, are you there?

Yeah, sorry, I'm driving, trying to unmute, et cetera. If, if these are virtually the same, Jason, why do we care if the neighbors feel like the 75 fits their needs a little bit better and they functionally do the same thing as the 50 or the 75? Do we care one way or the other?

I think we— the staff, you know, although we think that the 50 feet would be acceptable and work together with the other, I don't know that we'd be opposed necessarily to the 75/35.

But to that point, Jason, if in fact you did that, would you not then also allow those buildings to go up 25 higher in height? Feet higher in height.

Well, no, they would still have to meet the— they still have the height, you know, height equal to the setback would still be in play regardless of what is done tonight, whether it's the 50 or the 75-35, it's still required to meet both standards.

So if you went back 75 and then you went up one floor and then you went 20 feet back in for residential above commercial. Then that would actually be 95 feet. And would that allow them to build a 95-foot-high building?

Well, yeah, as provided that they're 95 feet away on that, that level that goes up to 95 feet, as long as—

So to answer Tom's question, why would we care? You would care because the building could be 20 feet, 25 foot higher. So instead of being a 6-story building, it could end up being an 8 to 9-story Well, again, the standard that would be applicable there would be equal to the height, right?

75-foot-35 wouldn't be applicable at that point. It would still— it would then revert to the other standard, which would say that the building has to be equal to the height. So in your example, Mayor, if a 90-foot building wanted to come in, they would have to be a minimum 90 feet off of the residential.

I agree, but what I'm saying is that by adding 25-foot to the 50-foot gives you 75 feet, and then you have 20-foot setback on top of the first floor. So that's 95 feet. So that would actually allow them— give them the opportunity to build a building that's 2 to 3 stories taller.

Well, it does push it back into the property, but I don't know that it has any height limitation. They still would have to meet both standards.

No, no, I understand they have to meet both standards. But I'm just saying, if you're going back further, you can go higher. And by going higher, then all of a sudden you're adding 2 stories, maybe 2.5 or 3 up.

I don't think that's what Jason's saying, Mayor. Let's, let's have Jason do another run at that.

So what I'm, what I'm saying is, well, there's 2 different ways you can look at it. If you push them back farther, then, Mayor, you're right that they would say, okay, I have 75 feet, I can only do 35. feet. So, once I get to that 75-foot line, I'm going to go 2 more stories because I have to get my density or whatever there. What the other one, the 50-foot, allows them to do is actually stair-step it up.

Right.

So, they can actually have a lower profile building. I see your point now. But so, it does allow a lower profile building to step up versus someone that allows that 75 and a maximum of 35. They are going to, when they get to that point, go as high as they can to make up the difference. Yeah. Yes, so there is a potential. I'm not going to say they're all going to do that, but there is a potential to get taller buildings, the more you require that 35-foot maximum height limit.

Mayor, this is Ryan Clark. If I could comment as well.

Go ahead, Ryan.

The reason that we, we are proposing the 50 is because it's also consistent with existing C-2 zoning that is throughout the city next to single-family homes. Family homes, and that zoning has been in place for a number of years. And this proposal is consistent with the C-2 setbacks that we've had for quite some time. So, for example, in a C-2 zone, if it's a 50-foot-tall building, it's 50 feet from the property line. This, this would be a standard that exceeds what is currently existing on C-2 zones if you went to 75. That's why we're focused on the 50, to answer Councilman McDonald's Ryan?

Go ahead, Brent.

Yeah, this is Brent Sumner. I was— okay, we hate to beat this setback to death, but there's not much difference between 50 and 75, from what I understand. And the— but the building needs to be moved 5 feet towards State Street, correct? That's, that's what I understood before.

It would require an additional 5 feet. That's right.

Yeah.

Okay. Now, if you go 100, that's 5 more feet.

Where—

and he still has his right-of-way there because he owns that whole gap there. So I just, I guess, would 100 just do 5 more feet?

So to make it 75, is that what you're saying?

No, 75 to 100.

So I have a 100-foot setback with 35 feet?

Yeah.

Oh, well, that would be pretty extreme, actually.

Well, that would kill the project.

Well, that would kill multiple projects, not only on that property, but if you look on the screen now, and I don't know who's drawing on my screen, that's funny that Tom has the ability to do—

Councilman McDonald's drawing on the screen on accident.

Okay, stop that. If you look at 1717 North State Street that I've got up on the screen, if we do 100 feet, that basically precludes them from doing anything but 35-foot maximum. Because they would not be able to build anything above 35 feet, where if they build a building out here, they may be able to get up to 40, 45 depending on that setback, but it basically precludes them from doing anything but a 35 or a 1-story, you know, maybe 2-story building. So it has impacts other than this one property that you're, you're considering. It does have not only that property, but you see these properties down here closer to 12th North. It would basically make the Subway sandwich shop property buildable of 35-foot max. So they basically lose out any potential that they would have on the frontage. Because we're artificially requiring them to be at 35 feet, where they would have to be at least equal to the height here of whatever they propose to build. So if they want to do a 50-foot building, they would have to be at least that 50 foot off before they did that. So, I mean, to Ryan's point, and code, we already have those standards in place, and it's been worked for many, many years on developments that are next to residential zones.

But years ahead, when the State Street's developed, that doesn't affect them.

It would affect these guys.

Yeah. How? No, on State Street.

Yeah, yeah, on State Street. They could build a building up to State Street, but this is the only area that they could go above anything above 35 feet. And practically, they're not going to be able to build a, you know, a 15-foot-wide building, you know, 50 feet tall or whatever, and have the rest of it have to be 35 feet. It's just impractical to do that. So ultimately what we're doing is saying that this property now is limited to a 35-foot maximum height if we go to the 100 feet. If you go to the 50 or 75, it still gives them some ability to do something besides that, but there is a pretty significant limitation on that backside. That's all I guess we're saying is there— we built into the city standards years ago that it has to be equal to the height And it's, it's functioned that way for, for many, many years. And so, I mean, ultimately the standards are there. The additional 50 feet 35 is in another standard that requires the buildings that are within, you know, 40 to 50 feet, they have to be now beyond the 50 feet. So it adds another 10 feet of setback next to the residential zone is what we're saying.

Okay, thank you.

No.

All right, um, so hopefully we're, we're understanding here that the 50-foot— can we have you people muted, please? Who's ever on the car or in the house, please mute it. But your 50-foot would be a 35-foot max in height within the 50-foot. And then if you're building a building with residential on top, you've got to go another 20-foot. And so you're at 70-foot. I won't argue the 5-foot, but you're at 70-foot. And again, the residences there, for the developer to get his cars in and out to the condominiums, he has to have a drive area roadway on the backside. So you're going to be 80 feet there. So you're 70 foot down on the corner and 80 foot on the, on the rest of it, and all the residences will be protected in a residential zone. It seems like that meets a lot of the requirements or needs of the neighbors. You're not going to have a Midtown Village, 9 stories, right behind the fence of the residents there, as somebody pointed out to me, or 50 foot from the back fence and then go up 90 feet. As we're saying, you can't do that. So you would have to go back 90 feet. Before you could go up 90 feet. So the more you push it back, the higher the buildings can go. And I don't think the residents really want 8 stories, 9 stories, 10 stories up. You know, I don't think that's the purpose of this. So you've already got your 50 and 20, you have your 70 feet.

Anyway.

Keep going, Jason, if you've got more to Okay, I've got it. Yeah, go ahead, Dave.

So, um, if we, if we look at the, the C-2 zone where it was before, right, there was a height restriction of 60. So is there a possibility we could do 75 feet and have the height restriction at 60?

You mean beyond the 75?

No, so, so the 75 feet, but then have a height restriction of the building at 60.

Well, that's not currently the standard. That's something that we could always, you know, bring back, but that's not before you tonight. There's no height limit right now.

Okay, and then go back to the, the original station master plan and how we went and visited Oregon, and, you know, the whole, whole gist of this station master plan is to If you want to make any modifications, you have to move towards State Street. So if we look at the, um, where we're at now on 1600 North and 400 West, my concern is, and it's been always this, is that project needs to move to State Street. And that would be fine. It can have a 10-story building on State Street, but that's what we wanted to do, have commercial on the bottom and housing on the top, and it blends back into the neighborhood. So that's parking in the back there on 1600 North and 400 West. So that's why I'm looking at 100 feet, because I want to push that project to State Street, period.

Well, that's true, but they don't have property on State Street.

They've got it right up to, uh, the Meinecke Building, right?

Yeah, they just don't own the corner property.

That's right, right.

So I mean, they could push it to there, but I'm just saying, one other thing I was told Okay, if we don't do this thing, somebody's going to put a bar in on 1600 North and 400 West. So is that allowable?

So a bar itself is not allowed, no.

Okay.

But on the corner, if this did not go through, you could put in a fast food restaurant. You could put in a Maverick, and they have a lot more cars than A condo project.

Well, I mean, I'm not trying to—

I don't—

I'm not trying to scare the citizens or the people on the council, but my concern is from that neighborhood. If we, if we move it back to R-8, which we'll be doing, if you go 75 feet with the R-8, what does that do for us, Jason?

So if it's R-8, you'll have the— you'll have 2 standards. Let's say you go to the 75-35, the step or setback that we're talking about right now. You'll have that standard and you'll have a height limit equal to the height of whatever structure they want to put on that corner. So if they're wanting to put a 70-foot, let's say, on the corner, they would have to stay outside of that 75-foot and they would have to be at least 75 feet from anywhere that abuts the residential zone. So let's say you rezone this portion back to R-8. They would have from this point to wherever that building starts would have to be whatever the height of that building is. So if they want to do a 70-foot building, they would have to be at least 70 feet. But they'd have the 75— let's say you impose that 75-foot standard, they would have to be at least 75 feet away from the street. And then they can build 35 within that 75-foot area, but the overall height above that would have to be at least outside of that 75-foot area. And equal to the height. So there's 2 different standards that they would have to meet.

So, so right now with the— if it goes, let's say we say 75 feet, it's still— it's not R-8 yet, then what does that come into play? That, that other setback's not there?

Not until the Planning Commission considers it on the 17th of March. So as soon as the the Planning Commission makes a recommendation to the council about the rezone, that will be pending and they would have to follow that standard even though the council has not rezoned the property.

So if you did 75 feet and you ended up doing from the north and from the south, you've got no room to put a building up.

Well, that's why you'd have parking there.

Well, you'd have it, you'd have the ability to do a 35-foot building.

Yeah, but I mean width-wise.

So forth.

Yeah, you'd have to be 35 feet off of this property if you want to do 35 feet.

You're right.

So they would, they would be limited on this corner to a, you know, one-story, maybe two-story building. It could have some residential, but it would be very limited on what they could do height-wise. They would have to potentially come over here, like you're saying, Dave, is, you know, redevelop this, move the building over here, and then move maybe these uses over here on the corner.

Jason, this is Brent. I talked to Ryan and, well, yourself too, and he gave us a national traffic study. But what is the— do we have a recent traffic study for this area? I mean, year or two?

So this project has not been submitted, so we don't have a traffic study based on what they're proposing. proposing. That has not been completed at this point because they haven't made an application yet. But, you know, so no.

Councilmember Sumner, what we shared with you was a trip generation study done by our transportation engineer, Brady Hale. The proposed project, based on what we have seen on a concept— again, there has never been a formal application submitted— but based on that concept would generate 1,034 trips a day. Based on a condo unit generates 5.44 trips per unit per day. To give you a comparison, a mid-sized fast food restaurant such as a Taco Bell will generate more trips than that. So just to kind of give you a comparison, a convenience store with a gas pump will do the same.

Yeah, those— and those are national numbers though.

Those are taken from the standards that Traffic Research reports are created from when a traffic study is done.

But nationally, correct.

Thank you.

Okay, Jason, you want to keep going?

I think, I think I'm done, Mayor. Be glad to address any other questions.

Any other questions from the council?

This is Terry. Yeah, just, just a comment. When we're comparing apples and oranges when we're talking about fast food versus people parking in front of your house. I don't know of any of the parking complexes that the cities have approved where they don't park and where there's enough parking. So the parking would be an issue. My other concern is we've heard so much from the citizens of Orem. All our dialogue is talking about a master plan. We need to listen to the master citizens. I think it's important that we listen to the needs of the citizens and not just say, well, we can't do this because it's part of a master plan. Anyway, I'm just concerned that the city is not a master plan. The city is made up of about 100,000 citizens.

Any other comments?

Yeah, this is Debbie. Jason, is Is there a reason if we did a 75-foot here at North Village but did the 50 back at the Arts District, we don't have to do them identical, do we?

Have to be consistent in the district, I believe. I'd have to defer to Steve on that, but whatever you do in this district, you would have to be consistent in that district.

Yeah, just—

this is Steve.

So yeah, you can have different standards in the Arts District versus in the North Village District.

They're 2 completely different zones.

You could have different standards in each.

Okay, because it seems to me that the 50 would work fine over the arts and maybe the 75 would work best here. So that would be what I would— we don't have to do them identical is what I would say.

Right.

So I think it would be important to remember that with the 50-foot wide edge zone there, you're actually out 70 feet before you can have a 70-foot building. If you add another 25 feet, that will in fact encroach upon the property owner's ability to pencil, and it will also allow a much higher building. Anyway, if no other comments— this was a public hearing when we first looked at it. I would like to reopen the public hearing for public comment. Steve, how many do you have listed that would like to make comment? Are you there, Steve?

Yeah, 13 or 14.

Okay, so if we were at 13, we can go 3 minutes each, but we'll hold it to 13 comments. And then I don't know that we can take more comments coming in because 13's going to put us at about 45 minutes, and usually I like to try and hold it to a half hour. Anyway, let's go ahead and open it up for the public comment. And Steve, if you would like to go ahead and, and read them, if that's what you've got written down.

I will, Mayor.

Give me just one second to wet my whistle.

Okay, then hold it to 13 comments, if you will.

Okay, first one is from Katrina Blyle. To the mayor and city council, the area of the North Village District is in need of your help. We would like to have the setback behind our houses changed from 50 feet to 100 feet. The additional feet— 50 feet added on to this is not a lot of space, but it is enough that it would help us be able to keep some semblance of a neighborhood. Jason and Ryan said in their letter to, to you that they applaud us for trying to preserve our neighborhood. However, they aren't willing to budge on this issue. They think that 50-foot setback is good enough. But do you realize that they're not saying that nothing will be built in that 50-foot setback? They're saying that something that is 35 feet tall could be built in that first 50 feet. The density— the high-density housing plan that is supposed to be kept on State Street and help us build up State Street is not going to be on State Street at all. They are saying that it is going to start right at our back fences, starting at 35 feet and then building up as it gets farther away. We are not against the North Village District being built. We realize that is going to happen, and it could improve the city. However, we are asking you to work with us. We're asking you to help us preserve our neighborhoods just a little bit. Just adding an extra 50 feet to the setback, making that behind the houses, would help that. Even just adding an additional 25 feet to make it a 75-foot buffer would help us preserve our neighborhood just a little more and keep the neighbor— and keep the building height smaller near our fence lines. Having that little bit more space where something huge could not be so close. To the houses would be the best thing in preserving a neighborhood, and that is what the State Street Master Plan was all about. It was created to help preserve neighborhoods and create more living space, but that is not what is happening right now. Plans are built— plans are to build high-density housing right next to residential, right at the fence line to our— to the houses. There isn't anything that is being put on State Street. I ask you, if this was being built right next to your houses, wouldn't you want to have a little bit more of a buffer between it and your house? You make the buffer 75 to 100 feet would guarantee that the building step up would be a little bit farther away from the homes. It would mean that we wouldn't have a large structure right next to our backyards. It would mean that the 35-foot tall structure could still be able to be built there, but it would continue another 25 to 50 feet than it is already planned.

But it would—

can think about it, 25 to 50 more feet, the size of one living room. That is the distance we were asking for the height limits to be continued. Please help us add just a little bit more buffer to help us preserve our neighborhood. Please help us keep the original state statement using the State Street Master Plan to help us preserve our neighborhoods true. That's the first one, Mayor.

Okay.

The next one is— Debbie, do you have a question? Okay, keep going.

Next one's from Christina Much. I have seen Phase 2 of the high-density housing project that again affects 400 West and North Orem. The second project is a space from— is a space from me, but Phase 1 is directly across the street from my residence. I did not understand the big rush to implement these housing projects, especially when they bulldoze forward and ignore residents' concerns.

concerns.

I've lived in an area before I moved to Orem where a high-density housing project was built directly behind my house. There was no buffer zone. The complex was literally 6 feet from my back fence.

I used—

I used to be able to go into my backyard that was fenced, but with this housing project, I lost my privacy because people just looked out their window into my backyard. This Phase 2 project, as I see, is a repeat of what I endured until I finally had to sell my home where I My family lived for 30 years because of this problem. If Orange City is going to continue to encourage high-density housing in residential areas, then it needs to create a buffer zone of 75 to 100 feet from adjacent home property lines. Many people have backyard patios, play areas for their families. High-rise housing robs them of their privacy, their enjoyment of an afternoon sunset. These projects loom over residences, and in my opinion, they should be lower height as they near residential neighborhoods and houses. I watch traffic every morning come down 400 West to 1600 North. There are mornings when cars are backed up nearly to nearly 2000 North. Phase 1 and 2 will inundate, inundate the area with traffic, creating dangerous situations for families with children, pets, and just residents trying to gain access to the road in front of their homes. The speed limit on 400 West is 45 miles per hour. I see cars exceeding that limit all the time. Finally, there needs to be a 50-foot setback from homes that is non-structural. Progress is a fact of life, I understand that. However, as a resident of Orem for 30 years, I should have the right to maintain my quality of life. I want to protect my home and continue the safety of my neighborhood. Increase the buffers, buffer zones, and moving traffic access to State Street is one way to keeping a good neighbor status between the city and its residents. Next one, Mayor, is from Charles Tanner. This is another silly problem to have placed in this area. It's way too close to State Street and the Quiklite at 400 West. Just ridiculous to even have a meeting about it. Too much traffic on 1600 North, a very dangerous intersection already to contend with. I never wanted a left turn on 400 West. The last time it was changed. Don't slow. Next one. Mayor Brian Cowley, please work hard to continue to develop more accessible housing in Orem. This is a wonderful place to live, and I believe many should be able to join the wonderful community here. I believe current proposals with setbacks detailed on the Knighton architecture proposal dated 3.3.21 are appropriate, and further restriction discourages creation of this accessible housing Orem needs. Thank you. Next one, Mayor Tonya Pearl. Dear Orem City Council, May 8, 2021. Your time as well as mine is valuable. I appreciate the attention given to Orem city residents' concerns and our issues with the North Village District. I am new to understanding the current setback regulations permitted. That being said, I have read and agree with what Stephanie Visna has written and presented to you in her letter and refer you to reread it. I ask that you please listen to the residents that voted you in, trusting that you would make moral and honest decisions on our behalf. Your decisions affect our daily lives. Thank you for your time. Sincerely, Tanya Pearl. Tanya Pearl. Next one, Mayor Stephanie Visna. Agenda item 9.2. Orem City Council members, thank you again for taking the time to give attention to the North Village District and some of its challenges and concerns. Hopefully you've had the opportunity to review the resident's proposal and driving tour emailed to you earlier. Our hope is that this proposal and the real-life visual examples of current setbacks has clarified the issue at hand. The residential homes need more protection and buffer from larger development in our area. The Planning Commission's 50-foot buffer from a larger develop— oh, 50-foot setback proposal was tabled to further understand setbacks and the resident's request to increase increase the setback to 100 feet. This 100-foot request is not as restricting as it appears. Rather, it gives guidelines and directions to how property can be used— parking or the required 20% open space— as well as providing an adequate buffer for adjacent residential property. The resident's proposal includes a 50-foot non-structure area that can be addressed later. The main focus is the issue at hand, to increase 50-foot setbacks to 100 feet or a compromise of 75 feet. which hopefully the council will consider. This increased setback would still allow buildings of up to 35 feet to be built within the first 100 feet, or 75-foot compromise, providing the necessary buffer that has not been achieved through zoning. Zoning in the North Village District uses edge zone as a transition from larger commercial property to adjacent residential property. Being a transition zone, the edge zone should have a maximum height restriction to feather back From commercial and high-density housing, which it does not. Since edge zones do not have maximum height restrictions and allow high-density housing, an adequate buffer or setback is even more important. Increase the proposed setback from 50 to 75 feet, or even 100 feet, would provide a better buffer for those residential homes that abut edge zones. Increasing the already proposed 50-foot setback, or 100, or even 75 would provide a more appropriate buffer in areas where edge zones abut residential. Again, this buffer area is not dead space, but an area where structures can be up to 35 feet and where the required open space for parking could be directed. The North Village District is a narrow district with unique challenges. We hope the City Council will improve the master plan to accommodate the specific needs of this district. Thank you again for the time to considering the residents' In the North Village District, Stephanie Visna, 399 West 1560 North, Orem. Next, Tay Kratzer. Please keep Orem a bedroom community. The high-rise projects are changing the face of our community and the desirability of living here. Orem is already such a hub of outside traffic coming to malls and shopping centers. That, that's not bad per se, but I don't need more traffic beyond our current traffic. I live off of 400 North and often have to wait for a long procession of cars in order to cross at the crosswalk. This seems to be primarily because of traffic from Vineyard up to Orem. Summary, we don't need more residents or traffic. Next, Marie Lowe. Regarding the proposed development of 1600 North 400 West, I understand the proposed high-density apartment development, North Orem, that fits under the provisions of the State Street Master Plan. I've heard the neighbors are pushing back about the transition from neighborhoods to developments along State Street, and I believe this is a part of the master plan that was not fully considered. I do recognize that there are many natural buffers between some neighborhoods and what the plans call for, but there are also many other areas where the plan has not been fully taken into account, the kind of transitions that preserve the integrity of the neighborhood. There are 2 abrupt and don't make sense from any buffer perspective for State Street either. These are— these were some of the issues raised when the master plan was adopted. How can they be acceptably addressed now so that we don't have this type of issue every time a development occurs? I look forward to attending the virtual conversation tonight. That's 8 of the comments, Mayor. Next one, GL Page: I see no place to access this proposed monstrosity. Plus, it will dwarf all the buildings around it. You'll have to— you'll have another eyesore like the one on State Street at 350 South with the same silly name, or with the silly name. It really doesn't seem to accomplish the welcome to Orem atmosphere you're going for. Next, and I apologize if I mispronounce the name, Anya Becerra, B-E-C-E-R-R-A. I appreciate City Council members' time and consideration on this matter. As a homeowner in the North Village District, I do not oppose the development of high-density housing that is in alignment with the original vision that was presented to us, with the appropriate access points and vibrant developments on State Street. The original vision looked great on paper, but I believe this is the perfect time to reconsider the execution before it creates a greater problem in this area. We ask that you recognize the desire of one developer to squeeze very Every last inch out of this landlocked property without proper infrastructure and access points would have a detrimental impact on thousands of property owners who live in the North Lawn neighborhoods and those that drive through these intersections, and not just those who live along 400 West. I agree with the proposal shared by Stephanie Visnaught and Lenee Millett of increasing setbacks to 75 feet or even 100 feet from homeowners' property lines, with a 0 to 50 feet zone identified as a non-structure area behind homes for the following reasons. NVD edge zones do not have maximum height restrictions. Pictures were shared with city council members what potentially a 70-foot building might— like Midtown 360 could look like, 50 feet and 70 feet views. Buildings can be built within the first 50 feet, just cannot exceed 35 feet. A 6-story building 50 feet away starting at 35 feet, so close to homes is not protecting homeowners and neighborhoods. It is extremely intrusive to homeowners living west and east of 400 West. The proposed 50-foot setback is not 50 feet of vacant open land. A 0 to 50 feet zone identified as a non-structure area behind homes with a 75 or 100 foot will still allow for the development of the property with a parking lot, open space, and easement placement. City planners would argue that our requests are more restrictive in nature, and the mayor has said, and I quote, Sorry. If homeowners on 400 West are against it, then they should not have stayed. I find this type of statement coming from our mayor quite disheartening when some of these residents have lived along the street for generations. I would remind you, when original plans of NVD were presented, we were reassured by city planners that any large high-density developments would remain on State Street and not engulf residential homes. NVD zone is different than other State Street developments, and setbacks must be addressed differently. It's closer to residential, smaller in size, and less commercial. The intersection is one of the most dangerous in Utah County. See Daily Herald 2019. And 400 West is heavily trafficked. It's important to highlight that the only ingress/egress to this property is via only right turns on 1600 North. No one is using the turnaround next to Quick Quack to turn back. Westbound 1600 North or enter this property instead of using 400— instead, drivers use 400 West to make U-turns. Now imagine the undrivable conditions a development so close to this intersection would create at this location. We request that City Council considers appropriate setbacks to protect residential homes and adequate access points to State Street to mitigate dangerous traffic conditions at this node. Mayor, that's 3 minutes. We will forward on the, the entirety of that comment.

Thank you.

Okay, uh, keep going. We've got enough time. How many do you have total?

I have 3.

3 more to go? No, let's see.

Um, some people are throwing on additional comments, so if If I were to read only those that haven't commented yet, it would be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Okay, let's go ahead and read those.

I've read the response from Mayor Brunson to a neighbor. This is Jill Barrick. I hope each of you will read what the mayor has to say about the proposed and heavily contested development of 1600 North 400 West. What he said to this resident is what he is saying to each of us who are also residents directly affected by proposed development. He claims the complex is for condominiums to be sold and not for apartments. With 20% of the affordable housing unit contained therein, selling condos means absolutely nothing about it being occupied by the actual owner. Condos are bought as investment properties all the time and then leased to occupants, the same as apartments. Being a condo doesn't change a thing about its transitory nature within the community. Young families are not likely to have their starter home be in a high-rise condo. They find smaller starter homes and townhomes in neighborhoods with parks, open spaces, Other young families newer amenities. This argument for helping young families build equity is false. Putting in high-density affordable housing within a stone's throw of State Street, of the state liquor store— some of the proposed property actually shares the parking lot with the liquor store— is a bad idea. We have repeatedly asked for studies about crime rates within close proximity of high-density and affordable housing and the state liquor store, and still nothing has been provided by developer Northern City. Unacceptable. Orem City is already 40% rentals, 40%. From Brunson directly, I would ask you to consider what is reasonable. What if you were the other property owner? How would you want to be treated? What if you own multiple homes on 400 West? How would you want to be treated? Have not all residential homeowners known that they bordered commercial property along their back fence, which would develop? And in fact, they're against this, then they should have— then they should not have stayed. We need to have fair property rights for all property owners. I believe that proper and fair compromises have been made. I would hope you would stop and consider what is fair for both sides equally. This is not the language a mayor should ever have, not privately and not to a resident being affected. How condescending, how insulting, how disgusting. This is open from— this is spoken from a rich person living in Cherry Hill and a rich developer living in the word-perfect mansion community, about a neighborhood and homeowners that they are not a part of. The audacity and insensitivity of a community leader to place one developer above what over 75+ families in just my immediate neighborhood have written and expressed discontent with— this should outrage everyone. There is no other way to say it, and for a rich person to simply suggest that a longtime resident of a neighborhood should just move away is appalling. Oh, and oh, to have the financial freedom to do such a thing. Only a rich person from Cherry Hill could go so far. Oh, to have the emotional lacking to simply leave friends and residents that we raised our children with and mourned lost friends because we see an undesirable circumstance arise. We residents have the right to defend our neighborhoods. The mayor is supposed to stand up for our communities. He's supposed to lead out for all. Mayor Brunt's words have no compassion. No real desire for— Mayor, that's the end of the 3 minutes, and we'll forward that comment on.

Keep going.

Next one is from Jim Condie. City Council comment, 6 PM meeting agenda 9.2. I want to express my appreciation for the passion of Jason Ryan as well as other city staff working so hard to provide equitable solutions for all property owners, residential, commercial, or mixed use. I want to state that I'm not against development. of the State Street corridor, and I'm not against growth and progress in the beautiful city. I just do not want it directly located in my backyard, destroying the desirable Orm neighborhood residential feel. As a resident in the buffer zone of 400 West above 1600 North, I have a home and I want my property— and I want my property to be residential. Any buffer that limits the distance and evaluation between— sorry, elevation between me and commercial properties is extremely appreciated. The more the better. I do not want a developer to be able to build a skyrise next to my backyard. I would favor designs that support parking or common park uses to help buffer my home from tall development. Also pushing tall buildings towards State Street, help develop big beautiful building fronts on State Street where they were— they're very ugly on my backyard property line. Additionally, I have huge concerns about traffic, parking, and access to a bottlenecked property. where large developments are being proposed. I trust that such a proposal would go to a good vetting process, taking these concerns into consideration. Mayor, I'm gonna, I'm gonna call in the bullpen to help me, uh, finish this out.

Did you fall asleep on us, sir?

Hey, it—

I did not schedule BYU's game to end at 12:30 last night. You can't blame me.

Okay.

All right, this one is from— The name of it. Dear council members, our neighborhood is asking you to create an ordinance that would provide a transition or buffer zone between our neighborhoods and the high-rise, high-density housing planned along State Street. We firmly believe that the intent of the State Street master plan is to place high-rise housing adjacent to State Street and not along our back fence lines. As landscaping and parking will be required for any project built, we request you simply designate that the Parking and landscaping required for such buildings should be located on the side of the development that abuts the homes. Designate that area as a non-structure. A non-structure area would not impact the property rights of the commercial landowners. A good example is the Alpine Credit Union building. ACU placed the parking for their building behind the buildings and adjacent to the homes, thus creating a buffer. Parking and open green space will be a part of any commercial or residential development built in Orem. This isn't an issue of limiting property use. We could reword that to say the intent is to put high-density housing on State Street, and the intent is to mitigate the impact of high-density housing on single-family homes. Our proposal of a wider 100-foot setback fits within both of the objectives of migrating— mitigating impact while still allowing business owners to develop their land. Property rights on both sides are being affected here.

Thank you.

We feel our proposal of combining a setback along with non-structure area guidelines is a good balance for all property owners. Thank you for your efforts to understand this issue, and I hope you will institute ordinances that will give builders the guidelines to create projects in a way that will protect community rights of the homeowners. Warmest regards, Lenee Millet. Hey, just a note from Jim Condie. He says, sorry, my previously submitted comment was for 9.2, not 9.1. One, this one's from John Barrick. The residents near the North Village area have not had due process with respect to the proposed development. The developer's agents never provided the comments from the original neighborhood meeting as promised. The development appears to have changed architects or designers as well. As neighbors, we are asking to be heard rather than being asked to move, as was suggested by some of our elected representatives. Okay, Murray Lowe submitted again, but he's already spoken during this. Stephanie Visna has also spoken. Next comment is from Alicia Hagee. A recent traffic study won't work since we are in COVID. You need one pre-COVID. Our neighborhood is insanely busy normally. We are toned down at the current moment. Please listen to us rather than listen to the dollar. And if you are going to compare fast food businesses, you can only compare the businesses in Orem traffic, not national traffic. And that is the last comment.

All right, well, we'll refresh here.

Give us a second. We'll see if another one's come in yet. We got one more.

And it's pretty short.

So this is from, from Jeff Knighton. I represent a property owner in the district, and a 75-foot setback from the curb makes developing anything on the corner of 1600 North and 400 West very difficult. When developing adjacent to a street, the setback equal to the height is calculated from across the street. The properties being discussed are currently commercial properties, and there are local property owners, residents of Orem, wanting to invest and redevelop and improve property that is currently covered in asphalt, creating affordable housing. And the current direction of making redevelopment more difficult will prevent existing properties from being redeveloped as the city has envisioned.

Okay.

All right.

And that's it.

That's it. Okay, appreciate it. All right, any comments from the council? Before I say that, we'll close the public comment portion of our public hearing and bring it back to the council. And any comments from the council?

Yeah, I've got a comment, Mayor.

Go ahead, Dave.

Jason, can you scroll up on the northeast where the 1700 North is?

1700 North.

Yeah, so right, yeah, the one you said it went 100. So on 7—

okay, sorry, let me go. There you go.

Okay, so there are 50s in a dark red and then 75, and then 100 is the other one. Okay, and then, um, can we go back to the, the, uh, 1600 North and 400? Yeah, so, um, when I was talking with a few neighbors, they mentioned that that parking lot to the 1600 North and 400 West was residential, and it was changed to commercial. And what they were telling me is that commercial— to switch it to commercial was supposed to stay a parking lot. Do you know, do you have any recollection of that?

It's— if it was residential, it's been years ago, back probably prior to Anderson Lumber being there.

So yeah, I mean, could there have been—

it was for Anderson Lumber, but could you Could there have been an agreement that that's only supposed to be a parking lot?

We'd have to research. I don't know of any agreement that's there, but I'm not saying there wouldn't be, but I don't think there is.

Okay, so if we, if we do this and we pass this and, and it comes back that that is in the zone, then what do we do?

We'd have to do some research on that. I can't answer that specifically, but I don't, I don't believe there is a restriction. as far as parking lot only.

All right, well, Mayor, I'd like to make a motion.

Just a second, Dave. We want to hear the rest of the comments from the council. Okay, then you can make a motion.

Thank you.

This is Debbie.

Go ahead, Debbie.

I'm comfortable moving 75 to the, to the North Village, but I think 50 works better on the other districts. Is that a problem if we make this one 75 and the other is 50?

So we're just talking about the Arts District and North Village. We're not talking about the other 3.

Okay, yeah, so if we leave 50 for the arts, it seems to work fine there, and 75 for this one. If I heard Steve Earl right, he said that would be okay.

Yes, that's true.

Okay, that, that's what I'm leaning toward. I don't know how others feel.

Okay. Any other comments from the council?

I have a comment, Mayor. So, you know, I hate to bring this up again, but, you know, a year and a half ago, I spent a fair amount of time of my life out knocking on doors and meeting with people as I was learning about what it means to become a city councilman. And the number one thing that I heard was high-density housing, the concern with high-density housing. And we all know that growth is going to happen. It's happening all around us. But I, I really feel like, you know, trying to keep this as close to State Street as we can is important. And so my point is, I feel like when we're elected, we're elected to represent the people. And I've had more emails over this issue than probably anything else that, that we've talked about. And so I just want to make sure that, that we are representing the concerns and the needs of the people in the neighborhood, as well as the, the rest of the citizens in Orem, because it really impacts all of us. And, you know, I, I realized that, you know, the State Street Districts were there to To put the higher density housing on State Street. This one feels like it's, you know, kind of closer to 4th West, but if the, if the neighborhood's happy with, with the 75 feet, I could go with that. But, but again, my intention is, you know, I feel like we need to do what the neighborhood is in favor of.

Okay.

Anyone else?

So just going along with, with what Jeff's comments were, Jeff and I were campaigning at the same time and heard the same, the same concerns. I feel like the 75 feet is kind of sad because it's this neighborhood trying to compromise and trying to decide what can we live with. That there's— I would still, from what I'm hearing, is they're still not happy, but they're saying, well, it's better than nothing. That's pretty sad. But I'll tell you what, as soon as that gets built and there's parking all up and down 4th West, I hope people are raising hell about it because darn it, city, that we shouldn't do that to neighborhoods. So I do— I have a lot of concerns about this. And I feel bad because the neighborhood is trying to compromise on something that they're not real happy with.

Okay, Tom, you have a comment?

Yes, thank you, Mayor. First of all, I want to commend the citizens in that area. They've become more knowledgeable about city code and setbacks, etc., than I ever was before I was on the council, so I applaud their efforts. I also want to address Terry's last concern, and maybe Jason could address this. Jason, when we— whatever goes in, we're going to make sure there's adequate Parking, and sometimes you get surprises, but I know with other developers we said, look, you can't charge more for parking, you got to have X numbers per. And I think Terry references previously approved parking when it was only, you know, 65 or 66, 66% for parking, which was approved many, many years ago. But I think we want to be extremely careful so we don't see the concern that Terry raised become a reality. Jason, could you address?

Yeah, in the districts itself, we did write a standard that they cannot charge separately for parking, so they have to include the parking as part of the rent, or if it's for sale, then they include them as part of their purchase price so that we don't force people on the street.

So what was the ratio? What's the ratio there we'd be proposing on a building?

So it's a— the first portion of it is a mixed use with a commercial component, and then each unit after that has to have at least 1.75 stalls per unit. So overall, it works out to an average of probably 2 per unit.

And we found that to be more than adequate in the past, I take it?

Yes, hopefully it's— yeah.

So Jason, where is that more than adequate in the city? Because I don't know of any apartment buildings Apartments where they have enough parking. Could you tell me one that does?

Well, it's, you know, obviously each of them are different. Each of them were PDs, planned developments, at the time, and each of them were negotiated separately with the council. So I can't say that there's not some spilling over, but a lot of parking— and it's not always true, but some is more conveniently parked rather than because they don't have a space. So Midtown Village, for example, you have 2 levels of underground parking. People will find a space on a surface because they don't want to necessarily walk up 2 flights of stairs or get in the elevator and park down in the basement. So a lot of the parking is relatively based on convenience rather than not having enough parking. Granted, there's probably projects out there that are inadequately parked. I will give you that. But that's something we're trying to rectify by changing the standards to hopefully come to a standard that is enough parking. What we don't necessarily want is parking like a Walmart that has, you know, 50% vacant all of the year except for maybe, you know, November 26th. And so we're trying to find an adequate balance that gives enough parking so it's not parked in the neighborhood, but not too much parking that it just sits empty. And that's what we see.

I don't think we have any Walmart parking facilities in any of our apartments in Orem.

No, I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is we don't want a standard that's so extravagant and so high that it makes it impractical for somebody to develop a property because they have to have, you know, whatever stalls.

So far, Mayor.

Hey, any other comments? Yes, go ahead.

Is it me, Brent?

Yes, go ahead, Brent.

I was just going to say, I was gonna bring this up later, but maybe this is the time. A lot of these developers come in and use the affordable housing phrase, and that's great. We need, we need housing for our young people, for all people. I agree with that. We need to require or have accommodations for them. But I— and I don't know legally if we can do this— but if we could put some kind of standard in as to what affordable housing is, I don't think 20% is as affordable housing.

And, uh, well, it's funny, Brent, it's 20% of the condominiums will be set up for affordable housing. Um, it's the number of condominiums available that will be in a price range that is listed as affordable housing.

But what I'm saying is that's very few units in each development. I'm looking at something like, uh, uh, Pedersen, you know, where he has— I think it was 60-80% affordable housing, uh, FHA. And I, I think we ought to take a look at that. And maybe Steve can give me direction on this, Earl, but I think we ought to put some kind of requirement on what affordable housing is, because I don't think a lot of this is affordable housing.

So, the state has a list of what affordable housing is. It relates to the ratio of the rent to income. So, in other words, if your income is only 80% of average medium income, then that's like a medium income deal. But if you're like at 60%, then that's low, and affordable housing is meant to be in the range that, you know, people can afford it. So, as an example, what I learned from the developer is that the 20% of apartments— so, if there's 190, there'd be—

36.

There'd be 38 apartments, and the 38 apartments he's saying are in the range of like $180,000 to $250,000. And, you know, people right now are facing homes, used homes, new homes from $350,000 to $450,000, which for most people, it's hard to afford. So this is helpful to have 38 apartments that would be below $250,000 and be affordable for young families. And, and to the one comment, someone said, well, young families would never buy in a high-rise condo. Well, what you're talking about is we have a developer in the city that's developed 2 housing condo complexes. Both have mostly young families in there. They purchased their units for $150,000 to $250,000, and they could get in, and they're happy to get in because they can build equity. They have a 2-bedroom, 1-bath or 2-bedroom, 2-bath facility that they can live in where they can't find a house to get in.

I think you're talking about FHA financing too on what you're talking about.

That is correct.

Yeah, and then there's a lot of difference between FHA and conventional. I'm just saying we have some kind of guidelines in if we can.

Okay.

Currently we don't, but that's something we're looking at.

So we all want to see more affordable housing, and the reality is we want to see housing that people can get into. So right now, for example, in the last year, the available housing stock in Orem has dropped by 50%. The price for housing has gone up 10 to 17%. The price for rentals has gone up 5 to 8%. So we're, we're in a real hard situation where young people can't find a place to live. I had one resident who said, I'm totally against this development, but at the same time, my son can't find a place to live and my daughter can't find a place to live. And that's the, the problem we've got, is that we don't have places for our families to live. And affordable housing is helpful. Having condos, you You know, whether they're rented out or not rented out, I, you know, I don't know that I or anybody else has any control over that. But a lot of condos are purchased and people are living in them. And we need condominiums rather than apartments. And again, this is, you know, I've had about 15 residents tell me this is an apartment complex. And it's not, it's a condominium complex. The idea of having some non-structured space behind the fence line. The developer is planning on 85 feet, which has been told to neighbors before he starts the building to go up, and that 85 feet includes 2 lanes of traffic, one going each way, plus landscaping. That seems pretty reasonable to me that that's how he's setting it up.

Mayor, one more question, uh, or one more comment. Uh, of these, uh, that aren't affordable housing, I, I as a citizen or whatever you call me, I could go in and buy 10 and rent them out. Now with, with the, the previous development you were talking about, that would be almost That is correct.

If, if this developer were to do an FHA program, then he would not be able to have that big a difference. I think in that requirement, they have to have at least 50% that are owner occupied, and then after that, they can rent them out.

Okay.

So, it's not 100%, but I think it's 50%.

Okay, thank you.

But again, I'm— that's not what this particular developer is doing, but he is doing 20% of the gross number of units being available for affordable housing. Now, if you go into Salt Lake, or if you go to the state legislature, they try to legislate where if you're building a new complex, and you get some help or whatever state interest in it in some manner, that they require that you have at least 20% of that unit as affordable housing. And if you go to Provo, units there that are being built have to have 20% affordable housing. So that's a common thing. It's not that it's bad or good. It's just that is pretty much typical throughout the state of Utah. Again, 85 feet of, of drive and green space and parking behind the fence line where the residents are. Again, if you take a 50-foot and you add 25-foot to it, then that's 75-foot. And then if you go over to the building and there's a setback on top of the commercial or retail of 20-foot, which is what is required, then that gives you 95 feet, and 95 feet is what you're allowed then to build in height. So by adding the 25 feet, you actually increase the height of that building by 2 stories. So Midtown is 8 stories tall, and they have a 9th story with the elevator put on there. They're actually 111 feet high. And so if you're Going for, like I say, 50, 25, and 25 and 20, you're at 95 feet high. And I don't think that's really what people want, is to keep raising the height of the units. And like I say, with the 50-foot and the 20-foot, you have a 70-foot buffer all the way around the entire project. And this developer is going to actually make it 85 feet behind the houses. So I feel like that the 50-foot is reasonable. I don't blame anybody for wanting to be, you know, to keep their homes the way they want them, to have bigger setbacks. I understand that completely. But at the same time, these homes are next to a commercial property. And both sides— what I was trying to say earlier is both the commercial owner and the residents have rights and should be fair. And I think we should be looking at both sides. And I feel like that's important. When I first became mayor in 2014, I noticed that a lot of commercial properties were being redeveloped from commercial into high density. And I disagreed with that. And so we put forward a law that said you cannot do that on any of the main streets within the City of Orem, that being University Parkway, State Street, 800 North, Center Street, and that there would be no change from a commercial zone to a high-density zone until we had done our State Street master plan. When we did that, we found 5— we fixed 5 zones and set up where high-density could be put in place as a mixed-use facility. So it's not just apartments or condos, it requires resident— it requires retail and commercial on the bottom. And each one of those hub zones, and the North District is one of them, are approximately 2 blocks to the west, to the north, to the south, to the east. And so just in these 5 spots, we have allowed high density to be placed. And high density— we have to have some apartments in our city. Some people will say there's too many, but in reality, we slowed the progress of apartments way back for many years, and we're just now allowing mixed-use facilities for some apartments to come in, or condominiums. And this is a tough situation. I understand fully both sides, and I don't blame any resident for being upset, getting mad, you know, wanting things a different way. But their property borders a commercial property, so both the commercial and the resident have rights, and they should both be respected. So that's You know, as I look at it, I don't see that you gain anything by making it 75 feet instead of 50 foot. And what I do see is that you're operating under the chance that the building could actually go up another 20 foot, 25 foot in height, because you go back— the distance equals the height. And as you go back, so now you're up to a 95-foot building. And I don't know if that's really what everybody wants. And I think you really get what you want right now with the 50-foot edge situation that we have proposed. So I won't say any more. Anybody else on the council wish to say anything?

Mayor, this is Terry.

Just one question.

Over 40% of our city is rentals currently. What's the number you think would be appropriate?

Well, the average that we have had for many years has been 64% residential. I mean, 66% residential, 34% rental. And now it's gone up to like 40-60. But that's throughout the state of Utah. That's not just in Orem.

What number do you see in Orem? What's your goal for Orem?

I don't know that I have a goal as to how many are rentals and how many are houses. What I have a goal is to protect your residential neighborhoods, as we did with the law a year ago that does not allow high density to come in. But we only have certain spots within the city that high density can be in, and that's these 5 zones. And, and so it's important to look at it that way. I have no control over how many people rent their home or how many buy their home, nor does anybody else. That's done strictly through market forces. Anyone else have a comment?

So I have a comment before I make a motion. Is that okay?

Sure, go ahead, Dave.

So, to everybody listening, the state's master plan, in my mind, Is to move buildings to State Street and to put the high-density housing on State Street and to stay away from the residential neighborhoods and that creep. So that, that's why I do not like the project, and that's why I'm going to make this motion. I make a motion that the City Council, by ordinance, amend portions of Sections 22-24-5F2C 22-24-5F4C, 22-24-4F2C, 22-24-4F4C, 22-24-1F4C, 22-24-2F4C, and 22-24-3F4C of the Orem City Code pertaining to setback requirements and building setback requirements in the State Street District zones. And the setback in North Village is 75 feet, and the Arts District is 75 feet.

I'll second that.

Okay, let's go ahead and take a vote.

Dave, sorry, Steve Earl here.

Just can I clarify that language?

Sure.

So when you talk about the, the 75-foot setback, you're talking about the 75-foot where the maximum height is 35 feet, is that correct?

We'd previously proposed 50.

You're just—

the only thing you're changing is moving that 50 feet to 75 feet, right?

Okay, in both districts?

Yes.

And that is from the back of the fence?

Back of the property line, yes.

Okay.

All right, so Dave?

Aye.

Okay, Brent?

Aye.

Debbie?

Aye.

Terry?

Aye.

Tom?

Aye.

Jeff?

Aye.

And I, as mayor, vote nay. The ordinance passes. Thank you, each one, for that. And we'll move on to our next item. Jamie, do you have any city manager items you'd wish to bring up?

Jamie?

All right.

Sorry, Mayor, I don't have any items.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you very much. So I did want to mention one thing in the city that's been brought up, but the legislature has passed a transportation bill which included $25 million to widen Geneva Road From 1800 South up to University Parkway to 5 lanes, and then to widen 1600 North from 1200 West up to State Street to 2 lanes each direction for $45 million. So they allotted $65 million to the City of Orem to improve our roads. So if you see your legislator, please thank them. This is a huge win for Orem. But it's something that's very necessary to keep traffic moving and to have traffic safe for everybody in those areas. I would now accept a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Okay, is there a second?

Second.

Okay, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Okay, any nays? All right, we are adjourned. Thank you very much.