City Council · 2023-08-01

Are they— how do they feel about the city? And then we go, we do an in-depth dive into 5 different topics. There's engagement and meaning, welcoming and safe, growth and autonomy, teamwork and work-life harmony. And then I have supervisor evaluations, but it's really the executives and the leaders of the come out of the city. So we have these 5 areas, and in each of them they tell us what's most important within that area, and then they also tell us how you're doing. It's important, and, and you'll be able to see how that works. And then at the very end, we also have some demographics. There's some— we have some feelings about benefits of working for the city. All right, so this is— these are the demographics of the city who participated. Most of them are full-time staff.

This—

the tenure with the city is pretty balanced. You have some who've only been here 1 to 4 years or less, right? We have quite a few who've been here 10 years or more, so we'll be able to look at the tenure of the employees if you wish and see how they're feeling. Not much of a difference, I'll be honest. We have supervisors, non-supervisors. About a third of them are supervisors, about two-thirds are non-supervisors. And, and we can look at the difference between them, and there's some minor differences there, but not much. And then we have all the departments. We have the city manager department, development services, finance. We also had part-time staff, and when it was in the end, we kind of pulled all the part-timers together, all of the you know, seasonal staff into one group. And that's— I think that the reason why we did that is so that you just couldn't figure out who that person was who gave a response, because some departments only have one or, you know, whatever, and you might be able to guess who it is. And we wanted this to be completely anonymous, and so we grouped all the part-timers together, which was a good way to do it, even if they're across multiple groups. So we have a good group I'll pause right here. Like, any questions before I go any further than this? Anything you'd like to have me answer?

So our responses, are we in the part-time, or did you put ours—

I don't know if the city council was included.

Were they?

Yes.

If you mark part-time, you're in the part-time group. If you mark full-time, you're in the full-time group.

Some of us are part-time.

It all depends on how much effort you put into it. No one at all received a reward.

They did.

They got 4 hours of PTO. They got 4 hours of— but that only went to the full-time. Correct.

We want to find a way that we can incentivize—

Oh, really? I didn't know about this, by the way.

But we don't have any way to incentivize the part-time, give it to them without knowing who they were.

You're not incentivizing their responses, you're incentivizing their participation.

Survey.

I love that.

I can realize the right response, right?

That's why it was 95%.

That's why we got over 90%.

That is the best idea.

I'm gonna ask why not, right?

I'm gonna steal with pride. That's a great idea.

Well, but it wasn't totally right as far as we gave that incentive only if the city hit—

We—

our goal was 90%, so if we didn't hit 90%, there wouldn't be an incentive.

It was all or nothing.

It was all or nothing. Oh, so it wasn't individually based.

It was all right. But all the full-time employees got a 4-hour addition to their PTO clock.

Well, they probably went to their neighbors and filled that out. Come on, don't you want—

I love it. That is so smart.

We also had an employee in the police department that's going through a rough time with one of their children.

And so a lot of people donated those 4 hours to that particular person.

So very cool, learn something new every day. So we had 488 total people, you can see down in the corner, 488, and so it's, it's all done for you. Okay, the first thing we want to do is find out how they feel about the city in general. The question on the bottom, in your opinion, has the mood or vibe of our working environment improved, stayed the same, or declined in the past year? And, you know, you do have some people who say it's declined, but you have a lot who say it's improved. And it's higher than I've typically seen, by the way. I've done 2 other cities there, none of them are this high. So you're in a really good place. Of course, I, you know, it's not a big sample size of 3 cities, but that's what we've got. I've done them before. And if they say this, if they said stayed the same, you'll notice we asked if the direction of the city, if the organization is headed in the right direction or the wrong direction, they tend to feel it's the right direction, right? So if they said like the vibe is declined, then they are more likely to say it's the wrong direction. That's almost an even thing. If they say it stayed the same or improved, they're saying we're going in the right direction. So it's a pretty strong number. Then 80%, I have never seen I've done a lot of citizen surveys, about 25 now, and then 3 employee surveys. I've never seen that high of a number going the right direction. And I've seen some high ones. I've seen some like in the high 70s for a city, but this is really high. And I found that employees can be a little more critical even than citizens, if you can believe it or not. So you're in a good place. And I feel good about that. And also we have compared to other cities, are we better, about the same, or worse? And you're also— a lot feel you're better, you know, or about the same. And about the same is there's some great cities around you, so it's not like you're surrounded by poor cities. So any thoughts about this before I continue on?

So that bottom question is not— that's not— that's actually asking the employees if they think it performs better.

Right.

And other cities.

Okay. Yeah. Compared to other cities in your region, which statement captures your feeling?

Okay.

And they say, I think it's better than other places.

Okay. So you start out with the vibe in the past 2 years, right? Improved, stayed the same, or declined. And then depending on how they answer that, it takes them to the direction of the city.

Well, no, I mean, all 3 are— there's 3 independent questions, right? And so we say, how's the vibe? And they'll say, oh, it's improved or it's declined. Okay, what do you think about the direction of the city? I think we're in the right direction or wrong direction. And also compared to other cities, how are— how do you think we are doing? So just to clarify, so I'm just reading the bullet points. So this is referring to employment? It is talking about not the city overall, correct? Working for the city.

The culture as an employee in the city of Warren.

That's exactly right. Now it's a really good number and you're in a really good place. Next, this is a very important question here. What is your job motivation at the start of each new day? How motivated do you feel to do your job at the start of each new day? Very important question. If you have unmotivated people, you want to know. And also, if you have unmotivated people, you want to be able to dig into it and find out what it is that's an issue, which we shall show you. And so there's not very many of them, and you're doing pretty well. Also, it's really important to know if people plan to stay at the city long-term or not. If they plan to move on, you know, I'm out of here kind of a thing, and they're not, most of them. Most feel they want to stay here 6 years or longer, which is great. 1 to 5 years, you probably even have some who are thinking about retirement in there, but you're doing pretty well, and very few are saying less than 1 year. And so it's a very strong number.

And when you have the 5 choices answer, like your first one, job motivation, starting state, you know, I don't know, surveys I've taken, really very few people typically pick the perfect, you know, everything's great, everything's beautiful. So there's a lot of people who will pick the 9 or whatever, right?

Or the 4, whatever.

Yeah, 1 to 5, you'll go, oh, there's always room for improvement.

And there is a rule, right?

Yeah, so sometimes those are grouped. I've always heard that those are often grouped. It's kind of like you showed on the first slide. It kind of transitions.

You know, you'll see a little later on, I do have my— I have a 5-point scale and I group the high and the low together. It's very common to do this, and then you're super high. Yeah, you know, you're super high, like 80%. So very, very strong motivation. And is there room to improve? Sure, we'll see some of those things, but you're doing very, very well. Now, I did it by department. And so here you can see the various departments, Management Services. This is sorted in descending order from top to bottom on improved. So if they feel it's improved, that's the blue bar. And Management Services and Buyer and Recreation, Development Services, even Police, you're doing pretty good. All the way down to public works. I mean, pretty doggone good. And then finance is struggling a bit. All part-time staff, it's the same, kind of a problem with the part-time staff. And I guess you guys are in the mix either raising it or lowering it, I don't know. But the part-time staff and then the library is very, very low. So I thought that was interesting to see.

And that's really a function of some of the inaccurate reporting that's happened about our library that we've corrected. Through some of the—

Yeah, I don't know what it is.

Accusations that were made and then actually corrected. So I can see that if you're reading what's in the newspaper and you see that it's not correct, you're going to feel that.

Yeah, apparently it's very real. And also, are we heading in the right direction, wrong direction? So you get the same thing here where both of them are very, very high fires, very high management services, and public works is pretty high on right direction. But the part-time staff in the library is considerably lower.

What I'll say, if I may, Mayor and Council, is that first of all, I think that the fact that there's differences is an indicator that employees were really expressing how, you know, they truly felt about the city. But, you know, you know that a few years ago we received feedback from our public safety and public works personnel, and it was technically good to be made aware of perhaps blind spots or ways that we can improve. Over the last few years, we've been making those improvements and changes, and now we can see that the vibe and the feelings amongst our— those groups that made us aware of their concerns in the past are now in a great spot. So to me, that gives me a lot of confidence that now we can take this good information and continue to make improvements and be responsive. And so that here in the next, you know, over the next months and years, we can continue to make sure that everyone feels like we're improving. And as Carrie is often saying, building a better aura. Yeah, yeah, that's great. Yeah, very good.

I also did it for motivation, and the trends are pretty much the same. Intent to stay, that one's a little tougher. The part-timers are the ones who are most likely to leave if you're talking about intent to stay, and that makes a lot of sense. And finance is a little bit lower on intent to stay. But motivation is pretty good for most other than the ones we've already pointed out where we think things are going the wrong direction.

Do you remember what the question was for motivation?

Yeah, at the start of each new day, how motivated do you feel to do your job?

Yeah.

Now, I mentioned that there were 5 areas that we were gonna kind of go through and prioritize, and engagement and meaning is the first that we had them look at. So what we did is we presented to them first these 6 attributes about engagement and meaning. So we worked together to make sure we had the 6 attributes that felt right for Orem. And then we said the city desires that all employees feel engaged and meaning in their work and find meaning in their work. Of the statements below on the topic, which 2 are most important for city executive leaders to focus on now? And so they would look down the list and they say, I think you should focus on these 2. And the 2 that they cared most about were executive leaders who value and appreciate your opinions and work that is meaningful and worthwhile. And they had a hard look, like some people had different opinions, right? Some would pick recognition for work accomplishments and Some picked an immediate supervisor who values and appreciates your opinions. Well, the one that was lowest was an immediate supervisor who capitalizes on your strengths. But in general, if you were to focus on 2, maybe it'd be the top 2 or 3, and maybe it'd be executive leaders who value and appreciate your opinions and recognize work— recognition for working requirements because If they pick it as important, we ask, how are we doing? And you can see that we get a few more on the very poor on those 2. So a little bit of room to improve on valuing and appreciating opinions, and a little bit of room to improve for recognition for accomplishments. So we don't know this by department here, but I'll show you something later on.

And this should be really beneficial to management, right? Because this shows what the employees think is the most important. issue for them in terms of the way their leaders take care of them. So I think that's really valuable for management.

Right, to zero in on things. We did the same thing with welcoming and safe. Welcoming and safe, this has more to do with acceptance and for people who— for who they are. And different ideas and opinions are heard and respected is the number one. And it kind of goes along with the one on the prior page, executive leaders who value and appreciate your opinions. It's a very similar meaning there. Different ideas are heard and respected, and policies applied fairly to all employees. And it looks like of all of them, those are the 2 that are most important, and also those are the 2 where maybe there's a little bit of room to improve. And so, so it'll be interesting. We didn't ask a comment about what's wrong with the policies, or, you know, we didn't do that. And it does make it far easier You may want to do some listening though and try to figure out if there's something up in that area, or you might even have your suspicions, but that might be where you get some employees to just kind of help you figure that one out. But you're doing pretty good on those, but that's where, that's where. And a welcoming environment to all is very important, and you're doing pretty good. Growth and autonomy, a very important attribute here. The right tools and resources to execute your responsibilities. So I can do this because I have the tools that I need. Very important. Ratings are pretty good. Leaders who care about your success. Very important. You're doing pretty good. Sufficient training to perform your job. Also important. You're doing pretty good. So there's not really a big hole in this one. I think in general, growth and autonomy is coming along nicely. And the only one where there's a hole is the lowest rated one. which is routine discussions and reviews about your career path. And some people feel that's important and that you're not doing so well, but it's not very many of them. So it's probably an individual thing where some people wish that there might be something that they could benefit from. Teamwork and work-life harmony. This is a really important one, and a lot of people care about balance between personal and professional life and a positive team environment. So that's what they love, and frankly, you're doing pretty well. It's really good to see that. A workload you can manage, some people mark that as important to them, and you'll see that there's some areas where that comes out as being a little bit more important. And that's one where maybe there's something to look at on an individual basis. Maybe there's departments or some areas where there could be room to look at that, but it's working pretty well. And so the things that are most important on the very bottom, collaboration with other departments and teams, it doesn't feel like they're much of a need for that to improve from the employee point of view. And then work in your team is well planned and organized. For most people feel that that's indeed the case, that things are well planned, you're organized, and you know what you're doing. So, so some very positive things about teamwork and work-life harmony. Any questions on this? The last one is department heads and executive leaders. So we asked 5 questions in this section: executive leaders that communicate effectively with employees, executive leaders with integrity, executive leaders and elected officials that work together well— work well together— executive leaders that have solid job and technical knowledge, and executive leaders that seek the best interests of residents.

city.

By and large, you're doing pretty well, but it does look like there could be— looks like there could be a little bit more communication that could be thought through and worked on. So I think that's a bit of a, a bit of a hole. And it's also one that is the least likely to be marked very good and good. Like, there's a lot of okays on this one, and there's some poors and very poors. So you have about, you know, you have over 50% who are I don't know, you're not there. So that might be an area to think about and to find out maybe where there's some areas to improve on that space. But in general, you're still doing very, very well. Your integrity is good. And so that's a good thing. And although there are some who think you have no integrity, it seems, but I think in general, you're doing quite well.

Just 12.

Just 12.

Makes me wonder if the city council— Right, there's a percentage there. Just kidding. But anyway, you're doing well. Now, it's nice to go through the 5 sections, and it's also very helpful, but the reality is, is you still want to prioritize. That we've gone through 5 sections and you try to get your mind around it. So what we did is people have gone through and they picked the 2 most important in each section that we went through— engagement and meaning— all the way down to department heads and executive leaders, so that everybody has picked 10. attributes that they said are the most important to them. So we showed them those 10 attributes and we said, okay, now what 3 are the very most important? So out of 30 attributes, you get everybody's top 3, and that's very meaningful, and that's what's on this page. So on this page, on the left-hand side, you have the 3 most important out of 30 that everybody picked, and this is very useful.

And I have—

I'm showing here the top 20. So there's 10 that aren't on this list, they're on the prior pages, they just fell off, they're not in the top 20. And you can look at this, and as a city leadership team, you can say, all right, what's most important and where we rate it poor. And therefore you can really prioritize because you can look at the top 5 or the top 10 of all of these attributes of focus. And executive leaders that communicate effectively with employees was the number one. Like that's what they want, and it is an area also where there's some room to improve. So that out of everything that we went through now, you can— a little more communication. And so that's an important thing. You're okay with the integrity. It looks like to me it's important. Balance between personal and professional life is very important, and for the most part, you're doing quite well. And the right tools and resources to execute your responsibilities, also important, and most people feel you're doing a really good job. But different ideas and opinions are heard and respected. That's an area that's also in the top 5, and maybe there's a little bit of room to see how do we bring those opinions up a little more effectively. But by and large, like, you're doing really, really well. And I did notice that policies applied fairly to all employees. There's some people who think that's not the case, and it's also relatively important because be important because it's in the top 10. So that's one. And also workload you can manage. There are certain departments where, you know, we could maybe take a peek at that and figure out what's going on at a department level, because some people feel, I'm not, you know, I can't handle this. Does the data represent the different departments on that particular issue? So, so they, they'll have the ability to look at this at a department level, and we're not presenting all of that here. Some of it I am going to show.

But we have the ability to look at that by department? Yeah. Yeah, it would be really helpful.

Anything you want to ask or explore here?

So I have the code to this so we can sit down and look at that.

So that's the beauty of it. The beautiful thing is, is we can just say for any department, we can select that department and go through all of the responses. It'll be very helpful. And there are differences by department, which I'll show you in a little bit. There's some significant differences by department. department on what's most important, how are things rated, and that's something you can easily do. Okay, and this is like one example of it. So what I have done here, and I'm going to stand up and point. So on the left-hand side, we have the top 10. It's just like the prior page where we had the top 20, but we had the top 10. And these are very motivated and somewhat motivated people on this side. And on this side is the exact same data, and these people are somewhat unmotivated and very unmotivated. So we have the unhappy ones here, the happy ones, the motivated ones here. And so, like, what's most important here? It's kind of interesting, and I kind of broke it down, but on the— among the motivated staff, they prioritize communication, integrity, work-life balance, the right tools, and a positive team environment here, right? And you're doing pretty good. Even among motivated employees, though, it looks like you communicate more. So there's a feeling that there could be more communication. If we come to the unmotivated ones, the order changes quite a bit as to what's most important to them. And they care about having the right tools. That's kind of an interesting thing. I think some of them feel like I can't do my job the way I would like to do it. And that's something to explore.

Are we going to get a hard copy of this?

We, we have it. I can give you this hard copy. Exactly. We didn't bring it, a hard copy, but you can produce it.

We can share this presentation.

We can even share this presentation, right? Should we share it with everybody?

Yeah.

So the right tools, leader integrity, a workload they can manage. So that kind of comes up. That's not even over here on the happy people. And then being heard and respected and work-life balance. So we have that. And by and large, they're just not happy, you know, with these things. So So there's not very many. There's only 38 people who fall into this group out of your 488, but there are those people, right? About 10%.

About 8%.

You can drill down by department on that too.

Exactly. Exactly. So it looks like maybe there's something about exploring the tools a little bit and trying to find out. So what is it? that might be needed here. Leader integrity, I don't know what to think about that one. That's tough. But a workload they can manage, probably really deal with that. And being heard and respected, which kind of goes along with maybe the communication. Now they cared about being heard and respected over here as well.

It just wasn't as high among the satisfied people. Meaning that they probably felt they were heard.

Meaning what?

Meaning they don't feel the city needs to address the issue. Yeah, not that it's not important, but they don't feel it's a problem.

That is pretty incredible. I mean, you're showing a lot of data there, but your sample size on the left is 390 people who are motivated or very motivated, and only 38 who are not motivated. So that's—

it's amazing. Like, it's very cool. Yeah, so yeah, this, yeah, this page is very helpful.

So that speaks to culture also.

Yeah, yeah, I love it. If you have a motivated employee base.

Yeah, I love it.

That's really good.

Good job.

Now, okay, I want to explain this one because what I did was I took the different categories: engagement and meaning, accepting and safe, growth and development, teamwork and work-life harmony, and department heads and executive leaders. I took these and I just color-coded them so that we could see, like, okay, out of your top 10, kind of what category are they in, right? Or out of your top 20 or whatever, what category are they in? And it's kind of an interesting thing. First of all, engagement and meaning is the only one that's like not in the top 10, but all of the others are. And, and, and actually there's 2 department heads and executive leaders here, they're the most important. But there's 2 teamwork and work-life harmony in the top 10, and there's 2 growth and development ones in the top 10, and there's 2 accepting and safe in the top 10. And so what it seems to be telling me is you just have to be doing all of it. Like, you cannot— like, you cannot relax on any of the categories, right? And, and I mean, you have to be thinking about accepting and safe and growth and development and teamwork that works like harmony and department. You know, you have to be thinking about all of them and you can't relax too much on any one of them. And if there is one to relax in, they're doing pretty good on engagement, meaning that they don't feel like there's a— like it's not a big problem. But, uh, yeah, I thought, okay, let's find out what a big issue is. And it's like that, very balanced.

Which, which, if it's that balanced, to me that tells you they're not Horrible problems somewhere. There's just a general improvement that can be done in the different areas, right?

I think you're exactly right on that. I think you're exactly right. Then here's kind of— it is just the very last page, I think. No, it's not. Okay. Also, what I did was I do all of the departments here in alphabetical order. So we have part-time staff and the city manager and development services and finance, so all the way across. And then what we do is I have a dark if it's like really high in importance for the people in that department. And what you can see is that, like, there are some differences that stand out, and you can quickly pick out the top 3 or 4 for any department in a big hurry and see what's most important. And I thought it was interesting. So like, if you go to recreational services, there's 15 people in here, and it comes down and Quite a few people are thinking about recognition for work accomplishments, where like that's really important to them. And they might be doing reasonably well.

We don't—

we're not able to see how you're doing, but you can see that's really an important issue for them. So, so department head for, for recreation can go, well, I better make sure that I'm doing that better because that's really important to all of my staff. And, and then the library, you come down and there's executives have solid job and technical knowledge, and nobody else really has that very high, but they do. And there's a feeling maybe there. And so I thought that was interesting. And then a welcoming environment for all is pretty high. The others are relatively not so high there, but for them it is. And so you can use this as your leadership team to kind of go through the leaders and just sit down and talk with them and think, oh, let's think about some plans for the coming year. Let's at least pick the top 4 or 5 in your area that are really important to people and see if we can help you think about how we get that better.

So, Ron, this is super—

And I think that's about it. I'm done.

Okay, thank you. So we want to allow our council to be able to quickly go over the National Night Out, but I do want to say that You know, of course, there's a lot of great information that tells us we're doing a lot of great things. At the same time, we really are excited about the things we can improve. I think we have an executive leadership team kind of a growth mindset. We've already been talking about improving communication by doing a City Manager Minute on a regular basis.

We're—

we've made additional plans with our employee appreciation party. We have more submittals than ever for Building a Better Orem awards. We're implementing a new Babo Buck program where employees can catch other employees doing things well and give them a Babo Buck, and they're not going to be used to purchase Orange City swag on our employee store. So we are taking the things seriously that we do need to improve, but it's also motivating and exciting to see that there's a lot we're doing right as well that we can build on, and we're confident we'll continue to Get better and better. Yeah. And just, just to back that up, you know, as far as our overall goal is to make Orem the best-run city in the state, right? And what's exciting about this is you can sit and hypothecate and guess and hope and, you know, pray or whatever, but this is hard data and this is measurable. And so you can see where you're at and where you want to go, and you can develop strategies to optimize your performance based on that. So I think, I think it's invaluable. So, just, just a comment with this great study, Ron. Uh, 390 motivated employees, 38 unmotivated employees. So, you know, of course it's an election year, so you hear all sorts of stuff in the city when that's going on. But I've heard that, uh, the city council is divisive, or, uh, you know, there's a division, or they're divisive, or— this doesn't appear that way. It appears that—

No, I— look, I'm telling you, we do the same thing for citizens. surveys as well, right? We do the same thing, the same kind of logic and findings. And it's really important to hear the needs of the many, like, or the views of the many, because you often hear the views of the few and they're valid. Like, it's not like they're invalid views, but they sure make, they sure make it feel like there's a lot more of them sometimes than there are. And it's legit. And it's very important to have this kind of information so you can be grounded thoughtful and focused where it matters, rather than not be pulled off onto something very easily. Was this study more on management than on council? This isn't really about the council per se. I would say it's, it's about management primarily, and about the working environment within the city leadership team.

I would say so.

It's not really so much about the council. There are a couple of questions about working together, you know, there, there are those questions.

But I think if I, as an employee, if I'm filling out a survey, I'm talking about my, my feelings working in Orem, I think, which ties in the city council and the city manager and my immediate boss.

In my city, I would consider that.

Yeah, if I was concerned about this department, not that, I'm not checking a gold star under my question if I think that things are divisive.

I agree.

of the people saying that you're going in the right direction?

I would think so. Not very many if it was divisive. Yeah, like, you have such a great place to start from. Wren has like a really good place to start from and good clarity on where to focus.

And that's what I'm excited about. We've got a really good platform, a really good dev. So I think this was a different survey from the last one you've had in the past.

This was very positive, and I think We're glad that we ran into you down in Utah. Well, the last survey said, are you happy with the amount of money you make?

And no one answered yes on that one. This one asks very differently.

I'm just talking about the surveys over like the years.

It's about 10 years. This has been a night and day difference. Yeah, there are questions that you can act upon really, you know, and there are questions that are really difficult to act upon. And this is designed so that you can ask Okay, so, well, thank you for that.

That's great data, and, um, I'm sure staff will look forward to working with you further just to figure out where to go next. Um, we've got a time situation. Steve, can we start the council meeting?

I mean, you're supposed to start it at 6:30. o'clock, because that's when it's been noticed for, you know, you're gonna have— well, I thought you were gonna have public here to consider the issues. I mean, it looks like if you run up there and come back, that's going to be—

isn't it the park? This is right here.

So we come back at that.

You're gonna walk over there and walk back.

You can make it by 10 after.

How late does this go? Does someone need to let the people know? If that goes to 8, let's go back. That goes to 8. This is a fast event we've got tonight. Yeah, we'll be done. We'll be done. We'll stay after. Yeah, that'll motivate us, man.

So is everybody okay with that?

Yeah.

Are you the 28? What are you?

No, the 38.

Um, Dave, you and I can do this.

And you want to vote again? Okay, um, let's just move through this then. Agenda review and preview of upcoming agenda items. Dave Spencer, you're supposed to report. Do you have things to report tonight? No, I wasn't going to do it.

You're going to do it on the 22nd because I was going to give us time to go over there.

Item number— now we're into the regular session. Call to order. Item 3, item 4, invocation. Scott Scribner. Scribner. Scribner. Sorry. They're my friends.

So these are your friends.

Jenny Scribner. So would you like to just introduce them? Okay. And we've got, uh, item 6.1, UVU track honor for Coach Kuhl. Um, so this is for Evelyn Kim Loy. She won the national championship in the 10,000 meters. Oh yeah, second place on 5,000. Yeah, is she gonna be here? She won't be here. She's actually gone professional now, but the coach is going to be Great. Okay. So who's going to manage this? So we have Chad Foot from UVU that'll be here. Yeah, the athletic director will present it to the coach. Okay. And then we'll do it. I do have some comments about the coach because he's coached for my kids. So maybe we should get— so I'm happy. I mean, I can do it, but I'm happy. I'll say some things about Scott. Okay, I don't know anything about the girl, what she did, but I know a lot about Scott. I— he's going to be the one getting the award on her behalf, so I think that's okay. Yeah, I'd be happy to. I'll keep in mind she just won the national—

yeah, I need to know her name.

I thought you were—

good luck. Okay, and then it's not her name, but okay.

So what—

this is a big deal. Um, okay, so I'm not clear on where we're going here. So, so I'll introduce Chad Foote.

Well, it sounds to me like—

yeah, uh, there's somebody else who's coming.

Chad's a—

he's a friend of mine, so he's out of town. Okay, so who are we putting in charge? Let the guy come that's doing it. So it sounds like the coach will be here if Chad won't be.

Yeah, somebody's here, but I don't know the name.

Okay, somebody give me the name before the meeting starts. So if you don't mind, maybe I'll just stand up and talk about her winning the national championship, and then Terry, if you don't mind talking about the coach. Sure. I mean, he's been a track coach there for a number of years and has some great values. Okay, so we clear? Yes. Okay, uh, item 7, personal appearances, 15 minutes. Item 8.1, these are consent items. 8.1, approval of meeting minutes. 8.2, approval of updated City Council schedule. I have my 8.3, reappointment to Recreation Advisory Board, uh, Skip McCorder. So who's over that board? Okay, with Bryce. Okay, so I'll just go through these, and these are consent items. I don't think Skip's here. Okay, uh, item 9, scheduled items, uh, public hearing amending the development agreement for the property located at 1981 South Geneva Road in the C-2 zone. So Jason's going to present that. Okay, so you're going to present and then this is a public hearing? Yes. What's that? Okay, so we'll have a public hearing. Are we doing a final vote at this point? It depends.

You may want to continue it based on what happens.

Okay.

So the satellite has faced some moving targets.

Yeah.

So, so for example, I think they've removed the car wash from their plan, but they kept the drive-through. So if you wanted to approve it but ask them to take out the drive-through, then you probably need to continue it so you can make that.

Okay. Did they do that at the last Planning Commission meeting? That's new just for today.

Planning Commission meeting had the car wash. I wasn't there.

They did opt to remove the car wash after. So Planning Commission doesn't know about it? It's just about them removing the car wash?

Based on the feedback.

Because we didn't discuss the last one.

And there haven't been changes to the building?

So the building itself, the dumpster which was next to the residential Changing building type. So they're maintaining—

they're continuing with the Holiday Oil type building design.

So Steve, shouldn't that go back to Planning Commission if they're going to change— they're changing what Planning Commission voted on?

No, not necessarily.

And that happens pretty often where they take what they saw in Planning Commission, which is apparently a very negative feeling towards that car wash. So now they're changing their plan to come to City Council.

So that's, that's perfect. Does it also have the record of whatever the Planning Commission recommended?

No, if they were at— I mean, basically they're, they're subtracting something.

Yeah, because they did not like the public or the drive-through.

If they were adding something different to their site plan that the Planning Commission didn't consider, then I would say they would do that.

And then the negative to the drive-through was the idling cars?

About a half hour worth of maintenance. That's one of them. Okay, so we can discuss that. Item 9.2, place renewal of care tax on the ballot. Steve's gonna present that. Okay, uh, item 10, communication items. Uh, city manager information items. You said you're having something? Just a few little things.

Okay.

And then we'll adjourn, so we'll meet in the council room. Thank you.

Test, test, test.

We'd like to call this meeting to order. And we'll start off with a, uh, an invocation and a pledge. And, uh, Lynette, if you can introduce your friends you asked to come.

You bet.

These are just some great members of our community, the Scribners. So we've got Scott Scribner will do the prayer, and Jenny Scribner will do the Pledge of Allegiance. We really appreciate them. They do a lot for our community. Thanks to both of you. Yes.

Our kind Heavenly Father, we are grateful for the many blessings that we start this city council meeting. That we will be unified.

Amen.

Amen. Thank you, Scott. And then, Jenny, if you'd like to lead us in the pledge, please rise.

And to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Item 6.1, first thing on our agenda. Is Carrie Rugg, if you'd like to come up and introduce this.

Thank you, Mayor and Council.

We're excited to have Coach Houle in the audience with us, if he wouldn't mind coming up. We are here to honor him and his track team, as well as Everlyn Kimboy.

She was the national champion in the 10,000 meters this year, and they had a great, fantastic season.

So we wanted to honor her and your team.

And Councilmember Peterson says he's worked really closely with you for many years, so he has, has some things he'd like to to say?

Well, when we— when I saw the award coming to your member of the track team, and, and I have to say a few things about the coach. And he's coached a lot of great track teams, great winners. I knew him as the basketball coach at Orem High School. And he— I believe Lisa was your first year coaching. Is that right? So he coached my daughter, he coached 4 of my daughters, and she just— her oldest just got married, Coach. So just, just kind of dates you a little bit. And she was about 15, 14, whenever she was when you started coaching her. But a great coach, great man. Coach Houle not only, you know, is a good coach, but he's a good person. And that's what you really want to have your your children, whether they're in college or high school, you want them to have a good mentor that's a good person that has good values and cares about the children. He coached 3 of my girls, and they all, they all went on to play college basketball. I'm not— this isn't about me. It's about Coach Poole. But, but my 4th daughter that he didn't coach because he went to UVU, but he trained all those girls, and they took the state championship right after he left. So. He did a great job. So I just— it's just a thrill for me to see that Coach Houle has one of his athletes that's being acknowledged. And, and we also acknowledged him. I don't know how many years at UVU, Coach? 20 years at UVU, plus what he had in the high school level. So thank you for blessing the lives of our community and the people that get to play for you. So thanks.

Thank you.

We'd like to invite you guys to come down and get a photo.

Okay. And could you Coach, could you just tell us a little bit more about this woman that won this award and what that means and why this is such a big deal?

Yes, Evelyn Kimboi comes from Kenya and is an amazing distance runner. Came here, had a great experience as a runner, as a student athlete. She's now signed a pro contract with— I'm not quite sure which company, but she's already started her pro pro endeavors. She won the 10,000 national championship, which is amazing when you think of who she raced in that meet and beat from Utah and Florida and Alabama. And, and little, little Orem, Utah has its first collegiate national champion. And so that was pretty fun to be part of.

Second place in the 5.

And second place in the 5. So she— and that's a hard double to come to do a 6-mile race. And then the next night, come back and try to do a 3-mile race at the level she ran in. And she actually ran one of the— I think the 8th fastest time in the NCAA history this year.

Wow, thank you.

That's very impressive.

Thank you.

Let's go ahead and take a picture.

Thank you.

Next up, we've got item 7, personal appearances, and I'm not quite sure I'm gonna have to ask some questions. Because I'm not sure if you're here for the public hearing on the gas station that's coming up, but if you're not, let me know. I've got 3 names here. I've got one that's crossed out, so I won't go into that. And then I've got Browns and McGrew. And I guess if you, if you've got something you want to say just in general, we have a 3-minute spot for that for each of you. But if you want— if you're here to speak in the public hearing for the gas station, then that would be different. So would either of you like to come up, or are you good? Okay, the gas station. Okay, thank you. Okay, well, we'll move on from personal appearances then. And we've got our item number 8, the consent items. 1 is approval of meeting minutes. Item 8.2, approval of updated City Council schedule. And item 8.3, reappointment to the Recreation Advisory Board of Skip McCorder. Would someone like to make a motion on those consent items?

I move we approve the consent items, Mr. Mayor.

Second.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

The consent items are approved.

Thank you.

Next up, we move to our scheduled items on item 9. Now we're at item 9.1, a public hearing. And this is about amending the development agreement for the property located at 1981 South Geneva Road in the C-2 zone, and Jason Bench is going to present this to us.

Thank you, Mayor, members of the council. Let me get this started really quick. So this property, and I'll show you a map here briefly, was rezoned back in 2020, December of 2020, by the city council at that time to the C-2 zone. It was general plan prior to that, and the applicant at the time came in and requested it. The rezone on the gas station. So the property is at 2000 South Geneva Road, outlined in red. So that was the property that was rezoned to the C-2, like I say, back in 2020. For the purpose of a gas station. At the time of the rezone, the City Council accepted a development agreement which limited the property to a gas station and convenience store only. So the only use that's allowed on this property based on that development agreement is a specific elevation, a specific number of pumps, and a specific orientation of the, of the gas station as outlined in the development agreement.

And Jason, when was that?

That was in 2020.

In 2020 was when that was approved?

Okay, so December 2020. So this is the outline of the concept plan that was adopted with that development agreement. You can see on the north there's a large convenience store. At the time, this indication or this plan showed 2 kind of fast food on either side of the convenience store, which was housed in the middle, and then the pumps. You can see the white portion are the covered fuel pumps. At that location. They did have an access on 2000 and an access on Geneva Road, understanding that they would have to work with UDOT and Provo City at the time because Provo regulates the access on 2000 at this point, and Geneva Road is a UDOT facility. This is the elevation of that, what was in the development agreement originally. You can see there is some signage indicating some restaurants, but At the time it was just a placeholder. It wasn't necessarily the subway was coming to that. So fast forward, Holiday Oil has purchased the property with the intent of putting their branded gas station on there. Holiday Oil, if you're familiar with that, is a Utah company that has— and I'll let the applicant explain that— but they have multiple locations throughout Utah. What they're proposing is to locate this, as you can see, this concept plan Is a significantly less intrusive, I guess, larger buildings, a little smaller building. They were proposing a car wash. This is the plan that went to the Planning Commission with a car wash. You can see on the east side of the property. This is the plan that they're proposing tonight. So since the meeting, the Planning Commission did make a recommendation that the council not approve the amendments to the development agreement, but leave the development agreement as is, basically. They've come back with the alternative of removing the car wash, leaving the— obviously the convenience store, and then they still are proposing this drive-through here, which would be a drive-through for their convenience store, not another convenience store. So Holiday Oil does have the ability to serve drinks and different things out of the drive-through window, which some— I think that one other one, or I'll let the applicant explain that, but there are a couple stores that have a drive-up window as well. Another issue with the Planning Commission— and go back to this slide— they had the dumpster located at this location, which was along the north property next to these residential homes. They have since agreed to move it, as they've talked with us, move it out to Geneva Road so it would be next to the street and not next to residential properties. So tonight what they're proposing is to amend the development agreement in a couple different ways. One is to change the concept plan to show their floor plan, which is the Holiday Oil concept, keep the number of gas pumps, fueling stations, so that one fueling station has a pump and then they have both sides of the fueling station. So don't be confused with the number of pumps versus the number of actual hoses that are on there, but they will keep the same number of hoses, and I think they're even less than what they're So let me just compare the current versus the proposed. In the requirement development agreement that currently exists, they would have to dim the lights at 12 midnight and through 5 AM. They're proposing to keep that the same. Hours of operation would be the same. Restriction of fuel pumps, no more than 8, that stays the same. So 8 pumps, both sides have a hose, so that's 16 actual hoses and limit the number of, you know, no semi-trucks. Those types of things would be the same as well.

That slide, they look like they're exactly the same to me.

Are they?

Did I miss anything? Okay, I just wanted to make sure the proposed and what— right, I didn't want to—

okay, I didn't read it.

It looked the same to me too.

So thank you, Terry. I'm just basically side-by-side comparing. They are the same.

Thank you. Thank you.

The only difference is the next page, which they are proposing to do a drive-through for their facility, and the existing or current agreement did not have a drive-through. So if we go back to the— sorry to flip through these slides— but if you go back to the original concept plan, there was no drive-through, there was no car wash. It was simply the convenience store, the restaurants, and the fuel pumps.

Proposing no restaurants now, just a convenience store, just the convenience and Swager, some type of drink of their own making.

Of their own making.

Thank you.

Correct. Yeah. So the difference as well is the current agreement has the slides on the left, which you've previously shown. What they're proposing is to change it to the slides on the right, which is the prototypical Holiday Oil that you see throughout the state, has the red roof, has the Holiday Oil logo on it as well, and the color scheme will Change slightly. This is kind of a difficult slide to, to see because this is a photometric slide showing the lights. If you can see on the slide to the left, you can see the numbers, the, the 1.0. As it gets up onto the residential properties, it goes to 0. So they're— the way they've directed the lights and the way they have the canopy lights and things will not bleed off based on their photometric slide, will not bleed off into the neighborhood. That's what they're proposing. will be part of the site plan.

Is that the same as the original agreement? Yes, the lighting is.

Yeah. So Holiday Oil actually went a step further and provided a photometric. So at the time they came in, they did not have this. So Holiday Oil has provided this for us to show that, because they're in the process of going through the site plan process.

So, so Jason, I mean, if I remember correctly, I thought the lighting They were gonna start dimming at like 11 o'clock, not midnight.

The agreement is midnight. You sure?

Was that snuck in quickly or something? I don't remember that. I thought it was 11, but okay.

I mean, that's something could be obviously amended or addressed in this meeting as well.

And Jason, weren't these going to be lights that were shining down so that they wouldn't—

I don't know, I remember something about shining down toward the canopy lights under, over the pumps. I don't know what happened there. I will shine directly down. Yeah, so typical convenience store now, gas pumps, you'll see the lights, they're bright, but they shine directly down, not spill out into neighborhoods.

Yeah.

Could you go back? I think your first slide, maybe this, keep going back. Back, thank you. Right there. What's next to that cul-de-sac to the— I don't know, to the top towards the cul-de-sac from the drive-through? Is there a home right there?

There's a home here.

No, home there. And then I see another home. What's the one between the 2 lines?

So that, that was eventually— or part of the plan was to have the residential property come this way. And then the plans changed, the council rezoned it to C-2. So this is part of this development. will actually get rid of this proposal and the cul-de-sac will be ended, and this property could be dedicated back to these 2 property owners on the sides.

But there's not a home right behind—

there's not a home here. There's a home here, right?

And they're on a legal-sized lot, and the other home's on a legal-sized lot. But if the development doesn't use that, they might do something else with that. But it's not big enough for a lot. It doesn't—

it's not big enough for a lot.

No. So right now it's just vacant ground.

It's, it's, uh, did I I'm not sure if the plat dedicates that or not. That could be dedicated. I'm not positive. I think it's part of the public street. If the city vacates it, then it would just go back to property owners on either side of the street.

Thank you so much.

And then that cul-de-sac is not completed, correct?

The cul-de-sac is complete.

The, the circle is completed.

This is not complete.

No, I don't believe that is.

I drove out.

Okay, so it would be completed. Responsibility to then finish that off?

I believe Holiday Oil would have that responsibility.

Is that in an agreement with them, or would that be— do we have that cement, you know, nailed down?

No, not at this time.

Okay.

That would be part of the site plan approval. So what they're proposing then is the drive-through, changing the elevations, and This kind of shows an outline. This was provided by the applicant. You can see the home on the left, which with the crosshatched, which would be the building size that was approved originally. There is one up in Lehigh. If you go out on Pioneer Crossing, there's a facility that they kind of mimicked after that. So you can see the size of that building versus the Holiday Oil size, which is a little bit smaller, a little less tall, 27 feet to the peak of the roof. So you can see, this is just their shop. They're not proposing any other type of restaurant or facility. So this would be the, the elevations that you would see. The Planning Commission did make a recommendation to deny. They felt that it wasn't— the changes weren't necessary, I guess, at this point. And so they just requested the council not approve the amendments.

What was that vote, Jason?

Trying to see, Ryan, do you remember? I think there was 5 planning commissioners at the time.

Jason, were they opposed to the car wash and the drive-through or just the car wash?

Do you remember?

I think you'll find tonight that they're opposed to the gas station as well.

Oh, the whole—

The whole thing. Oh yeah, if you go back to the original rezone in 2020, there were only 4 homes that were under construction that were actually owned by the owners. The rest of the homes are under construction, but they were owned by either the builder So they weren't— the homeowners that are currently there were not owners of the property at the time of the rezone, so they were not part of the neighborhood meeting. They weren't part of that process.

But legally, they could develop what we approved a couple years ago?

They could develop according to the development agreement that's in place currently, yes.

And it's the only thing they're adding to that, the drive-through?

They're wanting the drive-through and changing the facade to the Holiday Oil.

Okay.

Yeah.

Are the elevations cemented? Are they nailed down too? Could that— could the elevations change? I know we had that with a development in the past where— so it was approved and then—

So what we're proposing is these things that we're showing you here would be in the revised development agreement so that in the event that Holiday Oil decides to sell in the future and another gas station, they'd have to go through the same process. So what we're proposing is the development agreement take all these elevations that they're proposing, and they actually are part of that development agreement, so they would be tied specifically to what you see in these slides.

And does the original development agreement have these elevations? They have, as we're seeing here, they have these on the left.

Those are in the development agreement. Okay, and I really am sorry, I can't read your numbers, but so compared to the original, not the proposed, right, but the So let me go back to the—

if you wouldn't mind, please.

So this is in the— this slide is in development agreement. And this slide is— there's multiple slides. I only picked a couple of those, but these are within the development agreement. So when they came in with a different type of gas station, we said no, that doesn't match this development agreement. Either build here or you go back to the council to revise the development agreement, which is why we're here today. They wanted to move forward with their prototype, not build to this. So that's why we're here today.

And I guess my main question is the height of this building in the original development agreement, that height in relation to the homes, has that changed with this new site plan?

So it would actually be lower.

And is that— are we assured of that?

So, well, the plan that we'll submit in this plan is not— I don't know if I can blow that up or not, but it's basically 20 to the peak of the roof that you can see there is 27 feet. That would be in the development agreement, so they could not go taller than the 27 feet to the peak. They would still have to be equal to the height, so that elevation that comes down the gable that comes down next to the residential would have whatever that height is, they have to be equal to that setback, and then it steps back as it gets to that 27 feet.

So the 27 feet in relation to the 3 feet lower, the retaining wall that you showed there, so effectively a 24-foot in relation to the homes. Yeah, from the, from the, the level, the ground level of the homes.

Approximately, yeah, the retaining walls are roughly 3.5 feet. Yeah, plus the 7-foot precast fence as well on top of the retaining wall.

So I have a question for Steve Earl about this. Steve, looks like there's, there's several different choices on what to do. Would you just go over what those are as far as the City Council could vote to do this? This seems like there's 3 that I can come up with.

Sure. Excuse me. You could vote to approve what's been proposed as is. You could vote to reject it entirely. You could vote to approve it with some modifications to what they have proposed. So if there are things on there that you don't like, you could, you could ask to have those removed or modified in some way.

So if it was voted to reject it, that means— what does that mean?

It means the original development agreement would still be in place.

So they'd still have the original development agreement.

Yes.

Not with—

not any of these improvements.

What if—

what if you don't like the original?

What if— what if the council doesn't like the original? Or what if the developer doesn't?

Yeah, if the council decided they didn't like the original.

Uh, well, then obviously Is that still occurring there, that feedback?

Um, you—

I mean, the possibility is there always for the council to rezone it to a different zone if you wanted to.

Okay.

However, however, however, you know, the—

I'm assuming that develop— development on C-2 property is significantly more valuable than probably any other zone that you could put on there. It would probably mean a pretty serious loss for the developer, I would assume.

So they could potentially sue us for the difference based on bad faith of some sort?

Well, anybody can sue you for any reason, but I don't think that they would have a valid cause of action against us for that, as long as we rezoned it to a zone that still allowed for some viable economic use. You know, if you wanted to put it back on OS-5 or something, that probably wouldn't fly. But, you know, other commercially viable zones would, would probably be okay.

Which would be—

which ones would you recommend?

Well, you could be, you know, it could be a C-1 or a C-3, or it could be an HS zone or a PRD, you know, those kinds of options.

So you're saying a professional office building If— I mean, that would be— that's a possibility if there was a rezoning. It doesn't— it wouldn't have to be residential. It could be residential, or it could be a doctor's office or a dentist's office or whatever.

Yeah.

And across the street, if I'm— I mean, I drove out there, so south of this land, I believe, are some condos, townhomes. Is that correct? They're shaking their head yes. So that the density—

we—

you could have the equivalent density in a PRD, possibly.

Sorry, I didn't entirely follow that.

So if, if it were to be rezoned for a PRD, the density in that PRD could be similar to the condos or townhomes that are across the street.

You're talking about the Mansell development?

I think the Mansell is further west.

You're talking south. Yeah, which is a little, probably a little more dense than we would allow in this location. Okay, so 7 units an acre.

There you go.

And the PRD would be how many units?

7. So the Provo one has probably a little bit more density than that.

Okay, because maybe a good transition between the single-family homes to the, to the street.

They would have— yeah, and I should look at— yeah, there's 2.16 acres. So yeah, that would meet the Requirement of PRD, which is an acre and a half.

How big is this total lot?

This project, 2.16 acres. I'm sorry, 2.16. Okay. The difference with the PRD is they may, you know, we may require the access to go into that residential for a secondary access or the main access, so That would be another option.

I wasn't clear on the drive-through. As far as you said, there wouldn't be any restaurants in there.

So it'd simply be if you pull up to, you know, they, they provide drinks, they provide snacks. I imagine they have a hot dog thing you can order through the window to whatever they provide as a convenience store through the window.

Okay.

And I'm sorry, can I just have you clarify because I see some blank stares. So would you just clarify what a PRD— kind of the short-term, or just short—

Planned Residential Development, which is a residential development, but it does allow for twin homes, townhomes, but they're not stacked. They're single, or they could have a second story, but it's, it's a one-unit, not a stacked unit. So not a, not high-density or apartment-type development.

Perfect. Thank you for clarifying that.

Um, gas stations was something on our economic development plan. If you looked at our sales tax leakage that we were lacking in City of Warm, there was hotels and gas stations as far as our population size. So this is something that normally would be a positive thing because we don't have enough to service our whole population. plan. I can't remember what year that was, but when I looked at that, so I hear some negatives on a gas station, but I also know that for the size of our city, we actually need more. So, you know what I'm talking about from the economic development plan?

Okay.

So do we know that— because I know there's a gas station down on University Parkway. Do we know the distance? I mean, this is half mile, within a quarter to half mile, probably.

About a mile, a little bit more, maybe a mile. Okay, roughly. I haven't— I didn't measure it, so I'm not positive.

I can measure it if you'd like, if you just give me a second.

We have any other questions, comments, or should we open this for public?

So the applicant is here as well, Mayor, if you want to allow him some time.

Okay.

Yes, why don't you come up?

While he's coming up, it's 6,000 feet straight as a crow flies from 2000 South to the parkway. So, and to Councilman Larray's point about the number of gas stations in the former economic development strategic plan, since then I believe we've added one at Holiday.

We've added a Holiday on 8th North by the Public Works Department, and we have lost one on Center I'm sorry, University Parkway and State Street on the corner. So we have had—

we haven't had any essentially new ones.

So there still is a need for that, if I'm listening to what you're saying?

Yeah, based on the, you know, number of those types of stores per population. Yeah, we're pretty lacking still.

Okay, that's what I thought.

But Debbie, you could find studies saying we need more apartments and most of us would disagree. So I don't, I don't know where you—

This is based on the sales tax that the governor You— when I was an economic development manager, you would get the different categories of different commercial. And as far as Orem, we were way high with, with clothing, food, restaurants. The 2 areas where we were not was hotels and gas stations. So it is a— it's based on real numbers, it's based on sales tax, based on your population, and you can compare city to city to city. So it's nothing related to It's purely on, well, your sales tax revenue. So it's a tool that you use to try to recruit the areas where you're lacking. And I pulled it in American Fork when I was economic development, and, and we would work on getting the things that— because when, when your neighbors go to other cities, you're not capturing the sales tax, anything that you need for your own community. Now, when others come to you, we're getting more. So there's kind of a trade. Orem gets more than Let's just say like a Lowe's, we're getting quite a bit of Provo people coming to our Lowe's and our mall. But as far as gas stations and hotels, our people are having to go to other communities because we do not have enough to service our citizens. It's a sales tax leakage report. It's one that's a valuable tool. Economic developers use it all the time. It's not related to housing. It's not related to anything about density. It's related to you capturing your sales tax. for your community based on your citizens, and it's a very valuable tool that I used all the time.

Well, we're the envy of the county for sales tax, so—

That's a true statement that we are capturing more than our fair share in many of the areas— clothing, restaurants, automobiles. That is, that is true, and that is, that is to our benefit. But as other communities develop more their citizens will stay home, right? So over time, we will probably lose that increase. If you look at something, 100% meant you're capturing what your people— a lot of our areas, we were maybe 120% or 110%. So if you look at the document, it's just a tool to see, and it's something that you always want to make sure that as other communities develop, you will be getting less sales tax. So you always want to be plugging your holes.

So it's just a tool.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you. If you'd like to present.

Yeah, thank you. My name is Brent Neal and I'm here with Holiday Oil. Thanks for the time to discuss this. I know it's a hot topic and to kind of go through the current development agreement and the new proposed development agreement. So we've, you know, gone through neighborhood meetings, Planning Commission, talked with staff as well. And, you know, a lot of the feedback from the neighborhood meeting Planning Commission, the residents. That's why we, as Jason explained, amended, amended the amended development agreement to take away the car wash. The trash enclosure was a big, was a big, you know, big turning point on the Planning Commission as well. So removing those 2 things, we feel like it's, it's an acceptable site plan that's fair for us, you know, giving up a lot of our services that we typically offer as gas stations or car washes as an accessory to our gas station. So, you know, dropping off some of those. And as Jason mentioned, the 2 main things is the drive-through and then using our branded elevations, just how people recognize us by for the changes to the development agreement. So one thing, or a couple things that you guys mentioned, were the lighting. So the development agreement shows from 5 AM to 12 AM. So we are open 5 AM to 12 AM on Friday and Saturday, Sunday 7 to 10, and then weekday 6 to 11. So we have in other locations, we don't have to take it up to midnight, you know, as we— half hour before closing or something like that. Other locations we have dim the lights. So the C-Store is not a 24/7 operation, but we do have our gas canopy as a 24/7 operation. So we do like to keep that lit, but we can dim some of the area lights around the neighborhood especially. Of course, the more you dim, the possibility of security decreases a little bit, so we do like to keep it lit, but we, we can continue working with staff for positive or what kind of recommendations for the, for the lighting. And as we've been discussing, so I, you know, as representing the property owners and for Holiday Oil, we have a development agreement that's in place that's been approved by council and by staff in the city, and then are proposed. So we— I mean, we've never built one like that Silver Eagle proposal. When I look at it, I see some things that are not as good as what we're proposing, such as the multi-use building, where it's a lot larger structure. RC Store would take up the middle, and there would be extra space for— to accommodate some other type of multiple-use tenant, whether that's sandwich or whatever it might be. So we look at it as a gas station typically has an AM and PM peak hours, so 7 o'clock to 8:30 is a busy morning, and then from 5— well, 4:30 to 6:00, 6:30 is our PM peak hours. With that Option A, the original, we've— we felt if we put in multiple uses, it's going to increase the PM or the peak hours kind of throughout the day. So I don't know if that's a better proposal, just keeping it more busy as opposed to just AM and PM is our peak. But that is something where we could build that. We just have never done it or designed. So that's why we're trying to see if we can come in with our design where we keep it to a single-use tenant. And yes, the drive-through would be just our inside the store stuff. So no other tenant would be in there, but it would be our drinks, hot dogs, popcorn, anything in the store can be served out of the drive-through as well, is kind of the purpose for that.

Can I ask a question?

So how busy are you with that sort of service?

I mean, The drive-through?

Yeah, because I've never really seen a bunch of people at your other ones. I've never seen it stacked up as far as cars, but I mean, is it depending on the time of day?

So that's a good question. Um, this is a newer design for us, so our first store that we are doing with the drive-through concept is out in Lake Point, and it's opening this month. So as we have other plans in other cities right now that are going through the site plan approval, there's about 3 other ones that have a drive-through option. So that is what we're trying to do. We've seen services— I mean, all the soda shops that have popped up. I mean, people use our DoorDash. People— we're seeing people don't want to get out of their car as much, you know, especially for a dad or a mom picking up their kids from a soccer practice or something like that. They don't want to come in the store, they want the drive-through option. So the ones that we have kind of tested in Lehigh— there's a couple on Main Street, Hartz, there's some in Spanish Fork. They're, they're busier, but they're not— it's not a SWIG-type busy where there's 10 cars in line, is what we're kind of expecting.

Would you say 1 to 2 cars is like— what's a typical backup?

I would assume there's probably no stacking. So really meaning 1, yeah, 1 to— maybe there might be a second car stacked, but not—

So as far as idling or pollution?

Yeah, there might be 1 to 2 I mean, I don't want to say our operations team would hate having 10 to 15, 20 lined up, but I don't see that happening like a Swig, SodaLicious, some of those other type of brands.

Okay, thanks.

But it is just our services out the drive-thru as well.

Any other questions? Or do you have more to go?

No, I was just saying, yeah. So I mean, when we had the— well, when we bought this property, We didn't know all the history behind it, which is controversy and there's a big deal, but we bought the property with the intended use because it was approved with the development agreement that it was C-2. So that price we paid was in relation to that C-2 zoning, not residential. So I know someone brought up what's the difference, and it is a substantial decrease if we turn it into residential as opposed to keeping it at that C-2 zoning.

Are you concerned about this other gas station, the proximity? That seems like it's pretty close to you, to residential neighbors. No, though, the one on University Parkway, as far as competition.

No. So I mean, we, you know, looking at our feasibility study, we have one, you know, the extra mile, about 1 mile to the north, that Extra Mile C-Store, and then the next store is 3.5 miles down on Center Street in Provo and in that gas station or the 7-Eleven. So I mean, we have stores in Pleasant Grove that are close. We have stores all throughout Salt Lake that are within— not our stores, but Maverick and competition and our, you know, even within our own store that are within half mile, a mile. So I mean, we've looked at this site as a great site for a convenience store just because there's nothing in between that extra mile in Orem. University Parkway all the way down to that center street in Provo.

Can I ask a question?

It seems like— so the neighborhood sits at a higher elevation than the actual property of the gas station. And it seems like that would affect also the lighting wouldn't have the same effect into the neighborhood because of the fact that the gas station is sitting at a lower elevation than the neighborhood is sitting. Do you— do we know how much higher that difference is?

So the one plan, this house directly behind us is at that 3.5 feet, and then plus a 7-foot-tall masonry fence. So as you go down, if I remember correctly, if you go up the neighborhood, It slopes upward. So behind the second home and the third home, it's— and I haven't— we haven't done final grading, it's just preliminary grading plans until we get further along in the process. But that's going to be even more difference than right behind our store. So it could be 11 feet, it could be 14 feet, because the way we're setting it up is we would have to, you know, cut some dirt to make the grading possible. So directly behind us it's 10.5 feet, but yeah, as you go more east, it's going to increase. Just by the way, on our preliminary plan. And I think that's a great slide that Jason was showing, is just, you know, with the existing building. And this is for the house directly behind us that's in the cul-de-sac, so it is a higher— it is a taller building, so they're going to be able to seat a lot more. One thing is lighting underneath that, like the soffit and whatnot. we have a thing that covers it as well, so it would be shining down directly on the wall and not necessarily protruding out. So that's one thing. Um, and on the landscaping plan that's on there, you'll see that we propose trees all along the back. Now, they're not going to be huge up front, but they will, and over time, you know, help with sound noise, light, to help block out some light and things like that as well.

Jason, what's the typical fence height between Residential and commercial, it seems like it's a little higher than 7 feet.

7 feet is the, is the max.

So behind the old Chuck-A-Ram, or where is that, the old car dealership Nissan, all of that, that's 7 feet.

That's 7 feet.

Jason, how long is the drive-through? Because you enter in from the From Geneva Road. And if you— let's say you had 4 or 5 or 6 cars backed up, would that back up into the— for them, those people going into turning right on Geneva Road?

My guess is, and this is just a guess, the 5 would be somewhere in this location. So if you have, you know, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5-ish, so probably 5 in the stacking.

I think it's 5-ish.

And Jason, I know I would assume they would stack this way.

Correct.

And that's what I thought we were showing, but not in Geneva Road. It would stack along Geneva Road if there was 10, 15, 20, whatever cars that would stack down along in front of that trash enclosure on Geneva Road.

Any other questions, comments? Okay, well, thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Let's go ahead and open this up for the public to comment. So any, anybody that would like to come up, feel free.

My name is John Porter. I live at 861 West 1950 South. This is the property immediately north of the project. I have several quick comments. Let's not forget there's also a Chevron station on University Parkway near Sand Hill, so there's 2 stations on University Parkway within easy driving distance, so that's not really an issue. With respect to tax income, I know that's important to the city, but at what cost to the neighborhood? Why have a gas station in a residential neighborhood just so you can get more tax dollars. To me, that's not protecting your citizens, that's just lining the pockets of the city— the city itself, no one individually. Um, the drive-through. This is my personal prejudice, but I don't understand why people can't park their car, walk in, buy their beer, pay, and leave. Why do they have to drive through Engines idling, revving if they're kids, sound systems blasting out, the exhaust fumes, the streetlights or the headlights shining against things radiating into the backyard and bedroom windows of the houses. To me, it's just a waste of time. It's not ecologically sound, and it's, it's just a complete nuisance to the residents, and it's just unnecessary. Park and walk. My real concern about this whole project, and we've— you've touched on it briefly, is how in the world this ever got zoned for a gas station in the backyard of the house where I live. Why would the city permit— and this was a former city council, not you— why would a city council permit zoning which puts a gas station in a residential neighborhood? It's just completely wrong. Now the developer has come, they're asking to change the zoning. If you look at that paragraph 1, there was made very clear that the then-approved standards were what the zoning was based upon. If they want to change that, and regardless if they do or not, I suggest this is the time for the city to decide this zoning is wrong. We are going to correct this mistake. We're going to have to look what really is a compatible use, and a gas station in a residential neighborhood is not. Something more compatible would be professional or residential. Um, those are my important points. If there's any questions, I'd be glad to respond.

Thank you, buddy.

Sorry, my hands are full. Good evening. Thank you so much for, uh, giving me this opportunity to stand before you and share some things that are being quite weighty on me, my family, and my community. Um, my name is Hunter Kimball. I'm a father, I'm a husband, I'm a churchgoer, member of the U.S. military, long-term employee of Orem City, and even longer-term resident of the, the Provo-Orem community. We have a great community here, don't we? I come before you because I need your help. My community has been wronged. Our community has been wronged. Land that was meant for single-family homes has been rezoned and sold off to make some extra money and tax revenue. My community is now dangerously close to having a gas station built in the middle of the neighborhood. Let me make this very clear: we don't under any circumstance want a gas station there. In fact, there are already 3 gas stations on Center Street in Provo, 2 gas stations on University Parkway in Orem, and another gas station on Geneva and Center Street in If I need gas, it's on my way to the freeway. It's right there. It's accessible. I don't need it right next to my home. Absolutely not. Now I live on Geneva Road. I don't want increased traffic. I don't want increased crime. And the negative environmental and health effects the gas station would bring— of course I don't want that for me, my family, or my kids. Now I'd like to take a moment, and if you would please imagine with me, imagine that you live in that neighborhood. You live in that house directly behind where that gas station is going. Every single one of you, please imagine that that is your neighborhood, your home. Can you honestly say that you'd still support building a gas station there? Where your family lives, where your kids play, where you host social events, where you plan to live the rest of your life potentially. Would you want to live there? I cannot— I can firmly— I firmly believe that none of you say that you would support that. And that leaves me and my family with really one choice. If this gas station is built, we're moving. We're getting out of there. It's absurd. I'm not going to put up with that. I love that part of the community because it really is a secret gem here in the Provo Orem community. We don't want a gas station there. We don't need it. Like Vineyard, they didn't— they haven't filled it with all these gas stations and different things. They kept it on the edge. People are coming and going. We don't need it right there. The representatives from Holiday Oil, I'd ask you to please do the right thing and cease and desist this project. Show some compassion to the community you're seeking to tarnish. Don't give in to corporate greed and build a gas station where it does not belong and where it's not wanted. And I call all of you, Mayor Young, council members, I call you to action. Please protect our families, our homes from this health and safety issue. We absolutely do not want this here. And please keep these corporate clowns out of our backyard, and please do everything you can to help us improve that Orem City is Family City USA.

Thank you.

Mayor Young Hunter, where do you live from this picture?

I used to live in Orem, but I live about a quarter mile south.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Have a great night.

That's hard to follow up. My name is Bronson. And my wife and I live right behind this proposed station. I agree with everything Hunter said. I'm not sure I could state it any more eloquently, but I don't want a gas station there. I actually really appreciate Brent. We've been in contact over the last 6 to 8 months and he's been really, really great. So thank you. Thank you for all the concessions you've made. I really appreciate that. I still stand by my opinion that I don't want a gas station right behind my house. And I understand that we do need gas stations. I'm not against development or anything like that, but the situation that this was rezoned in— my family wasn't even living there. No one was living there at the time, and we didn't have a say. So we want to say now that we don't want this. And I would like to also state that the Autism Academy is no less than 800 feet away from this gas station, and they also have a proposed development that they want to develop a residential area behind that the Autism Academy, and that is for families with kids with autism, kids and adults with autism. And if this station gets built, that is so close to an area that could be a really beautiful part of Orem. And beautiful, yes, physically, but also, you know, like that we're caring for our citizens in a really special way. And those kids with autism like to wander a little bit, and heaven forbid they end up in a gas station. And it's very likely it's only 800 feet away. I'm not sure what else I can say except that I feel very passionately about this because my wife and I, Sydney, we purchased this house a year and a half ago and we hoped to live there and build our family there. And just like Hunter, if this gas station is built, we're moving and our tax dollars will no longer be in Orem. Of course, we will still shop, our families live here, but We're not going to live here. So thank you for your consideration. Thank you for your time. I know it's a tough situation for everybody, but we really appreciate it. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Sydney Dameron. I didn't expect to be this emotional, so if I cry, just know that it's because we've been here a couple times fighting Fighting for our home, and it feels really scary being here this many times. I know that's not necessarily what Holiday Oil is wanting us to do, or wanting to do, but I want to echo what Bronson has said, which is that even though there is a development agreement in place that has already approved a lot of this, a lot of what I'm going to say is going to be what I wish we could have been given the opportunity to say. When these homeowners, my friends and my neighbors, were not made aware of what was going on. There was a developer that came in and decided he could make money off of this property, and that's what he did. He didn't think for one second about how this was going to affect the people who have made huge investments in these homes and in the city of Orem. We chose Orem. My husband grew up in Orem. He went to high school and college in Orem. I went to college in Orem. My dad grew up in Orem. I love this city, and we purposely chose to live here, but we, we will be forced out if this happens. And we— there's the real estate here is few and far between, as I'm sure you all know. A couple things I wanted to point out is even the previous city council, who didn't do a whole lot to protect us, they did protect us from having something bright and flashy and commercial right behind our homes. And what's being proposed now is bright red. It's got big logos. And I would urge you to think about what that would look like in this residential area. These homes are brand new. And it's less than a mile from the new temple. And I would hate for the first thing that goes in right after the temple to be something big and flashy and commercial, whereas we could use this new development to be a template for what could surround the temple. And even though The gas pumps, or even though the convenience store is not 24-hour, the gas pumps are. And doesn't matter what the hours or the peak hours are, all it takes is one person with a loud stereo to come in and fill up their gas tank at 3 AM to wake our family up, to wake our future family up, and to create a situation where we don't feel safe. And another thing I would point out is that elevation change where our homes are higher, that makes it a whole lot easier for people to look right up into our back windows. And the back windows of our house look into our bedroom, our living room, and our kitchen, and I will not feel safe in my own home. I will not want to open my blinds, my curtains, which means we will live in our house with our blinds and our curtains closed. The last thing I want to point out is that there in the packet that was sent out today, the proposal asks that the council consider whether this is in the best interest of the city. safety, the well-being, and the overall health of the city. And I don't think anyone can argue that the gas station this close to our homes, this close to an autism academy and a proposed autism community, is safe or healthy. Thank you.

I am Linda Brown. We live on 2000 South. And I want to say I'm very happy to see that the car wash is off the list here. And now the— my next thing is, let's get the service station off the list. We don't need a service station, and you would not want a service station in the midst of your residential area. One of my concerns, maybe a big concern, is the traffic. 2000 South is a racetrack. There is not a speed limit on it. We see no patrolling it. And even though there has been a stoplight go in on Geneva Road, there seems to be a contest to see how fast they can go between Geneva Road and the railroad tracks, and it is terrible. Now put this much more traffic on 2000 South. And I have said before, I called UDOT, talked to the person who's over our area of UDOT, and he said there are definitely restrictions on how many access roads can be off from Geneva Road. They have to be a certain distance, and they would have to have a special— anyway, they'd have to do something special to get an access off from Geneva Road. The subdivision for Payton Crossing could not get an access off Geneva Road. They wouldn't allow it, so they had to go off from 2000 South. So the traffic is, is a real big concern. And I think the drive-through— I agree with what was said before. A drive-through is absolutely unnecessary. People can get out of their car and go in and get their soda pop or whatever they want. Thank you.

want.

The service station would be an absolute deterrent in our neighborhood. We don't need it. And I, I can't imagine the city council, if it was this city council or the prior city council who approved this service station in the midst of a residential area. It makes absolutely no sense. It isn't needed, and it is— it would be A real deterrent in our neighborhood. Thank you.

My name is Casey Backus. I live in Payton's Crossing, and I just kind of want to inform you guys of timing.

The timing of approval of this gas station was not right.

Uh, from my understanding, talking with the developer of our subdivision, he fought the gas station till he couldn't fight anymore because he didn't have any skin in the game. My understanding. And then they came in during COVID to approve this, so nobody was building and we had COVID at the same time when this was approved. So maybe that helps you guys out with your timing though. getting this changed. Um, I just want to read it with the sentiments that these guys have said, is that I don't want it. I don't think it improves our value of our homes. I don't think it improves our city of that bright spot that we have down in that corner.

Um, yeah, I love Orem.

I want to stay in Orem, and, uh, I put a lot of value into my home. I built it myself.

Thank you.

And I would hate to see that value decreased, um, and I would like to stay there. I would hate for anything to give me that little itch to maybe move.

I want to stay there.

Thanks.

Hi, my name is Zach Price, and thank you guys for your time tonight. Me and my wife and our 4 kids live in the home directly behind the gas station, the very end of the cul-de-sac, that is affected by so many things here. This was our, our dream home that we built. We planned it, we planned for it, we saved for it, we built it. It's a custom home right there at the end. We moved in under the— as you guys know, under the premonition— that cul-de-sac that runs right past our house, that road was going to phase 2 of homes. We were going to be bordered by homes on the back. As you can see, our home directly behind that gas station. Our trampoline is right in the corner there, and as has been discussed, we're set up higher. elevation-wise, then, then where the gas station will be, our home and our kids playing on the back, jumping on our trampoline, is on full display. And as a husband and as a father, that is what is the most disappointing and, and scary and frustrating for me here. So, as everyone has, has pointed out, I stand behind them. I would urge you, beg you to please rezone this. A PRD would be perfect for this area and exactly what we all moved in with the expectation of and the promise of. If that absolutely can't be done and won't be done, then 2 points I would like to make. One is along the back wall, if there's nothing we can do to stop this, along the back wall, there needs to be put by Holiday Oil some money into a retaining wall for the privacy or the safety of my kids and other families' kids. That wall needs to be put on our level, not the gas station's level, because if it's on the gas station's level, our home, our kids jumping on the trampoline in their swimsuits are on full display, and we're looking down on everyone as they come and go from the gas station. So I would ask that we can get that in the contract and that that wall is on our level rather than theirs. And also the cul-de-sac that, that is right in front of our house borders our property. And I would ask, as was discussed earlier and pointed out, if this has to happen, that that is put in the contract, that Holiday Oil finishes that off. So that that land can be split and it can be finished and our neighborhood can be nice rather than that road left unfinished and not what was promised or planned at all and would affect us and the visual of the neighborhood as well. So I'd ask for a rezone with everything that I have. If that can't happen, those 2 points please be put into the contract and into the agreement. Thank you very much. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

My name is Cynthia Damron, and it's my son and daughter-in-law that live right behind this proposed gas station. One thing that no one has brought up yet is if this gas station goes in, the property values will The National Bureau of Economic Research states that on average, the home prices within a quarter mile of a gas station decrease by 2.3%. There are over 200 homes within a quarter mile of this gas station, and if you average out their sale price and say each home is worth $500,000, and many are worth much more than that, the cost is $2.3 million for all of those 500— or for all of those 200 homes. If the developer sells this land, they will not lose nearly that much. They purchased the land for $500,000. They won't lose much in sunk costs or opportunity costs, especially when there is land available all over the state for another gas station. Why is that cost then spread out among families who, unlike a Corporation cannot absorb these losses. Even if— well, even if they— if the people around here wanted to move, the loss that they will incur in their homes will be astronomical to them. So why punish these people for something that they have no control over? Thank you.

Hello, I'm Sherry Fong, and I live just on the other side of the street that backs up to this. And like everyone else here, I feel betrayed. When we bought our home This is the thing you sent us telling us about this meeting. That's what it looked like. There were homes there. And there was a sign on 2000 showing the proposed loop back to 850 West and down to 200. We had no idea that there could possibly be a gas station there. There were homes there. It was residential. Exactly when you decided to change, and I don't understand all of the zoning exactly correctly, perhaps, but I was told that a C-3 gas station proposal was proposed at one time and was denied because it would need to be more of a buffer zone, and they changed it to C-2, which I thought was a buffer zone between residential. and commercial. Is that correct or not correct? I don't know. But a gas station 5 feet from your backyard is not a buffer zone. And just to prove the point that we feel betrayed, I have a quote from a Planning Commission meeting in October of 2020. Now, we bought our home in 2021, a year and a half ago. No one— realtor, builder— no one seems to have been aware that this change had taken place. Maybe their fault, I don't know. But we picked this location because we didn't want a gas station on our corner or a Starbucks or anything like that. But this quote is from the Planning Commission. Report. Someone said from the commission, there is no way of knowing for sure, but these realtors and contractors may or may not have communicated that information to the homebuyers. It is evident in the many public comments these residents made that they were probably not informed. Yet the change was approved. And that's why many of us are so upset, so emotional, is that we do feel like we were led down a primrose path just to find an unpleasant ending to that path that could have been avoided. We could have moved somewhere else. We looked from San Quentin to the point of the mountain when we decided to buy our home. And it took us 6 months.

We—

well, even longer.

We started in November and we didn't purchase our house until June. It took us that long to find the setting we wanted, the neighborhood we wanted. So please consider how to make it right for all of us that came in with blind faith. Thank you.

Hi, you guys. My name is Carlin Price. Um, I want to thank you guys for all being here and hearing us. I appreciate it, and it means a lot to us because I actually know about this meeting, and I'm grateful for that. Um, but also, Brent, thank you also for the amendments that you've made and the changes that you've made to that. And I see that you're wanting to help us too. My home is right behind the building. So my husband already spoke, Zach. And when we bought this property, when we bought the land, we, like everybody else had mentioned, it was going to be a neighborhood. We have 4 kids. This— and this is a We're a blended family, so this is our home where we're bringing 2 families together, and we spend so much time out in that yard, and we were looking forward to having so many more families and kids for our kids to play with and to just grow up there. But then, as we started building our home, we got word that it wasn't going to be a neighborhood anymore. We had no idea what it was going to be, but we got word that it wasn't going to be that anymore. So then we were like, well, well, that's awesome. And then all of a sudden they start knocking all the buildings, the 2 houses down, and then ripping all the trees out and everything. And we're like, oh, what's happening? We have no idea. I had to go outside and talk to people in my backyard as they're ripping stuff down and say, hey, what are you guys doing? Like, I have—

I would—

we had no idea. There was nothing being told to us. And that was just like what she said.

I—

it was— it felt like a betrayal. Um, so I think having this gas station here is terrible. I think it is not needed. Um, I understand everything and I hear everything that you guys are saying, but What Hunter said at the very beginning was, imagine those homes as your home and with your kids. Like my husband said, we have parties, birthday parties, and they're in their swimsuits. I don't want this gas station right there with strangers seeing my children like that. So I do not want this, and I hope you guys can see that and feel that. and make a good choice. I believe in you guys. Thank you for hearing me.

Do we have any other public comments? One more.

I'm not going to repeat much what's been said other than I agree with what's been said. A couple of other points. We put— oh, thank you, it's Alan Moose. We, we put the offer in our home on January 2021, approximately a month after the rezoning was done, somewhat in secret. You can debate that point. And so someone could say, well, that's all public information, why didn't you just look and see that that had been rezoned? Well, as a citizen, not expert in this field, I didn't do that. I found it interesting. And Brent, I do respect you, but Holiday Oil didn't do their due diligence either to know what had happened before and what the ops— the opposition they may face. So that's point one. Point 2 is, and it's already been mentioned, Holiday Oil bought this property with a C-2 zone, right? It's very valuable. Well, we bought our homes at the peak of the housing cycle. So we're all in, and, and Mrs. Dameron pointed that out. So if Holiday Oil takes a loss, that's a tax-deductible loss. We're all going to share in that because we're all taxpayers. If we personally take a loss, We bear that individually. It's kind of interesting, isn't it? The other point that I do find is— I don't know how many of you find that you go to bed at midnight and get up at 5 in the morning. I don't try to do that very often. Now, they said they'd like to dim the lights, but they're a little concerned about security. Oh yeah, we get it. We're really concerned about Security. I would imagine that each of you would be also. So those are the things that we would hope you consider. Again, as it's been said, and someone in the Planning Commission— we really appreciated the support of those members of the Planning Commission— they said this seems like the way that this was just done was injustice. We agree with that view. We hope that we— you would consider, in spite of getting a little incremental tax revenue from an area that already has plenty of tax revenue— that information is all public. So we would hope that you would reconsider rezoning. If not, I think Zach Price's comments about accommodations that would be made were spot on. So we appreciate your support. Thank you.

Evening, my name is Tanner Nordstrom. I live in the community of homes right across the— right across the street. I'm actually the president of the Lakeview Fields HOA, which is the 21 or 22 homes right across the street. I happen to have a lot of firsthand knowledge. about how this went last time. I was very active and involved with the first, the first developer and their, their very frustrating lack of information they provided the community. I was in close communication with the members of the Planning Commission and understood why they voted to not recommend or not provide their recommendation for the change that was proposed. I was on the call, the city council calls during COVID so everything was virtual at the time, and had met with council members privately, or say personally, even out on site leading up to the council meeting, and knew that there was a very solid majority of them who were not in favor of this. I almost didn't come tonight, walked in at the last second, because how this went last time really eroded my faith and trust in local government. I listened to that city council meeting where council member after council member expressed their concerns, their frustrations, concerns around lack of diligence, lack of community involvement. It looked pretty solid like all, maybe nearly all, the council members would vote against this. And then to have the mayor get on, this is a former, former mayor. and very much bully the meeting. And then what ended up happening, if I understand right, was essentially a conditional approval that based on the development agreement, some things could happen. I received calls after that meeting to let me know that the mayor has something of a personal relationship with that particular developer. And this was prior to Talade Oil. But there's a lot of us in the community who were very tainted by that experience and are very tainted by this, this whole process. If something like this is going to go forward, I think the most that any of us can hope for is that our concerns would be taken very seriously into consideration, that a development agreement we put in place that works with the community, both the style of the building, the types of lights, elevation of the lights, hours of operation, the type of traffic that will be coming through that particular area. Um, And hope that this is an opportunity that the rest of us can reflect on as one where the citizens of that area were able to work with local developers and local government to find something that worked instead of something that members of local government wanted to do to help, simply just to help a developer. I'm happy to provide additional information, additional context based on, again, what happened in the past if anybody's anyone's interested. Thanks.

My name is Pamela Moose and I live in Patons Crossing. I thought it was interesting that, that the Holiday Oil representative admits that there is a security risk of having this gas station there, and that's why the lights are such a concern. And I like to just reiterate, I don't know that I have a whole lot of new to say, but I am also very concerned about the security risk with our homes right there. The added noise. Teenagers— I mean, think back when you guys were all teenagers. What did you do at 3 o'clock in the morning when you were driving around, you had to stop at a gas station, you know, or what were your friends doing if it wasn't you? We don't need that in our neighborhood with our little kids running around or our grandchildren there. The car stacking number onto Geneva Road is only a guess.

It could go—

it could become a real community problem, having the cars stacking into that space and causing more problems on Geneva Road. Also, nobody's mentioned this, but not only are there neighbors behind this proposed gas station, or the— but also directly to the The east, and what accommodations will be made to protect that home that's right there next door. Obviously, I'm also— I just want to add my voice to everybody else to say I am against having this gas station there, but if it does get approved, I think major accommodations should be made above and beyond to make it so it's more viable for the neighbors that do live there.

Thanks.

Hi, thank you so much for taking the time to listen to us. We really appreciate it.

My name is Paula Mahady, and I live in Payton Crossing also. Our homes are already built. They are there. We can't take them and move them somewhere else. Holiday Oil is not built there yet. They can take that and they can move it somewhere else. I beg and plead with each one of you, please, please don't let this go through. Those are our homes.

That is our life.

Please.

Thank you so much for your time.

Hello, my name is Chris Lichten. My husband Jim and I don't live in Payton's Crossing, but we live to the west in the 55+ neighborhood. But we know and love a lot of the people that do live there. I just did a quick Google search while I was sitting here, and, and I don't know exactly how accurate it is, but I read that there's 4,000 fires at gas stations per year. Not every gas station, but collectively gas stations explode. We all know that. So my big concern would be that that safety factor. I was in occupational safety for 40 years, so I tend to kind of default to safety as well and security, the issues that I already discussed. The second concern is we've— we do live— we do feel like it's a slice of heaven out there where we live, and we realize that sometimes development has to happen. We get that. We don't love it that it's very condensed out there housing-wise, but we love it that we're surrounded by farms and a view of the lake and the view of the mountains. We'd hate to have that whole— the atmosphere change when it can be avoided. One of the concerns when I heard about this, my first concern was— I don't know what the politically correct word is, but with establishments like this, there is the propensity for panhandlers, and we've been spared that out in our community. seeing that. And I know that there was a time, I don't know if it's happening now, but I've seen it here, I've seen it in California, where at convenience stores, if there's people loitering, excessive loitering, they start playing really, really loud music to discourage that from happening. So that's something I haven't heard mentioned. I don't know if that's something Holiday Oil does or others. And just again, the security issue is huge. The potential there for, you know, stores getting robbed and, and all of that, just exposing that to these wonderful homeowners and their families. So I would just add my thoughts to what has already been shared and have you as a city council Have that empathy, and if that were your home and your neighborhood and your family, what would your decision be?

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Heather Fry. I'm a resident of Orem. I attended the Planning Commission meeting a couple of months ago and just happened to meet the Porters and several of these other amazing neighbors and residents of our city, and my heart goes out to them. And I have been following this process, and it's, it's a little scary as an Orem resident to know that you can have facts misrepresented to you when you buy your property, that you can have facts misrepresented to you and not be properly notified by those who should be communicating with you, and to know that you can show up at the end of what it seems to be a very long, hard road that these residents have been traveling and know that they may not be able to do one stinking thing about it because of the powers that be. And I had a couple of conversations with them— sweet Connie Porter and John and Hunter and Linda and Sydney and Zach and Don and Alan and Casey and Connie and Pamela Terry. Bronson, Carlin, Kurt, Leo, all of them care so much about their community, care so much about their children, care so much about Orem that they chose to live here and chose to trust their officials, chose to trust. And what are we going to do about it? I would hope that despite the mistakes that were made in the past, that we can rectify that. That, that the trust that we've placed in our current city government can do better for their residents. And one last thing is that we should not pave paradise to put up a parking lot. We should remember that any good society is left by the older generation who plant trees that they will never stand in the shade of. And my heart goes out to those citizens, those residents who saw the trees get torn down, who saw the rezoning happen. And I find it— I find that it really behooves us as a city council— not us, behooves you as a city council and our government and our elected officials to right the wrongs that were committed against these great residents. Please listen to your citizens. Do not sell Orem residents to meet a metric that does, does not consider— respectfully, the professionals and experts mentioned do not live there.

These people live there.

I don't care about metrics. I don't care about what professionals and experts say. I care about the residents of Orem. I'm Heather M. Frye and I'm running for City Council. Thank you.

We're going to need to wrap it up pretty soon, but if you could go ahead, be the last person.

Hello, my name is Mac Damron. I live in Northeast Orem. I live in a cul-de-sac. I know my backyard neighbors. I get annoyed when someone on 4th East revs their engine. just to make a loud noise and make it up the hill. I enjoy keeping my windows open during the summer. I enjoy the natural light that provides. I enjoy my backyard, enjoy playing in it. I want my brother and his neighbors to have that same opportunity. Part of, part of my comments now are about noise and light pollution. I appreciate the mitigation that is going on, but no matter how much mitigation you have, You will have noise and light pollution from a gas station. Let gas stations be other near— be near other commercial units, not near homes. In Northeast Durham, there's not a gas station near my home. If someone were to tear down 2 or 3 homes and put a gas station up, that would not be great. And it would be detrimental to the neighborhood that's existed since the early '80s. The tax revenue tool, it's a tool. It's impartial. You are not. Please exercise your love for the citizens and for the city. Thank you.

I'll be short. My name is Tiffany Damron. I'm also a resident of Orem, and I just wanted to note that I believe that it is already established there's utility hookups for family homes to be built in the future. And, you know, another 5 or 7 families. And I just wanted to remind you of the Orem slogan, which is Family City USA.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you for all of your comments. We appreciate that. And we'll close the public hearing now. And we'll just hear from the City Council as far as anyone that would like to make a comment, and then we'll go ahead, Debbie.

So I just wanted to ask the gentleman from Howlity Oil. First of all, there was discussion of maybe raising the level of the fence for privacy. I don't know what that would be, 7 foot to— Jason, 9, 10? What would be an appropriate—

7 is the max without having planning or city council amend it. So if the city council would want a taller fence, we would have to bring that exception back, and the council could allow a taller fence, but by ordinance currently it's 7-foot max.

Okay, but we could ask that, but the council could amend that.

Yes, but I don't think they asked for a fence, they asked for a retaining wall.

Oh, that's true. Yeah, or retaining wall, whatever. I mean, it seems like Privacy issue is something that could certainly be addressed. I personally don't like the red roof. I think that's too bright of a color for that neighborhood. I think it's very offensive. And I love the color red, don't get me wrong, but the original one we had was a— wasn't it a brown-looking building? It looked more like that would fit into the neighborhood and sell a really bright red, and I don't know if that's something that could be negotiated so that would look more like it belongs in a residential instead of— and I don't know, that's a question I'm asking you.

Um, yeah, that's a good question because all of our sites that are new builds and we have that red color, that's just marketing branding. That's what we've kind of been identified as. I know when like my little girl drives by, she knows it's a gas station and she's 3 years old. So it is identifiable, not only to young kids, but this look was more of something that would blend in the neighborhood area.

Yeah, what I'm asking, it would be a compromise. It would look better. It would look more like a residential thing that would belong with brick, and I just think it's more attractive for that area. That's just my personal opinion. I'm asking the question. How tied are you to the drive-through? It sounds like that is an issue. I mean, it's not essential to your core operations. Is that something that you could eliminate also as a compromise?

Um, yeah, I think that's something we could be looking into. I mean, I do know it's part of our process moving forward and some of our business and our services moving forward.

I mean, do you have other ones that are in neighborhoods that would— I mean, it's kind of a compromise.

Sure.

Yeah, kind of meet the needs of the neighborhood.

So like I said, the one in Lake Point, that one is along the highway. The other ones that are part of site plan commissions in Bluffdale and some other areas are neighborhoods. That is something we can— I don't know if it has to be amended tonight or a conditional use to the development agreement, or if everything has to be voted yes or no this evening.

Okay, but it's something I think we could bend on for ways to improve it, make it less offensive to the neighborhood and kind of compromise.

So yeah, so we can definitely look at that. And yeah, and as far as the red roof, we can discuss and continue moving forward of that. And I guess the privacy, I mean, that got brought up a lot with retaining wall. So I mean, we do, with the grading issues, we have to put a retaining wall to keep, you know, their dirt on their property and to make it so it doesn't come off to ours. So we would do the retaining wall, which is shown in some of those slides. So the retaining wall, like I mentioned earlier, 3.5 feet roughly right behind our property, and then it does increase. That's what it looks like in preliminary grading. So on the retaining wall, there's another 6 inches to And then the retain— then the fence would go on top of that fill, so not directly on top of the retaining wall. So it's retaining wall, dirt, and then on the property line, basically, where that fence would go, the masonry fence.

So how would you deal with the privacy issue? How would you respond to the privacy?

So the privacy issue, I mean, the masonry fence, whether it's 7 feet tall or if it needs to go a little bit larger, people aren't going to be able to stand and look in it. enter in their car and look in it because it is 10 feet above the ground, at least on our site. So on our site, it is 10 feet up. I mean, so I'm not sure the visibility of how people would get over and look at it unless they are directly on top of the fence looking into properties because it is 10 feet tall.

Okay, it was just to concern people, right?

Sure.

Yeah, no, so for sure.

So, Mayor, we got a question.

Dave.

So I guess the question is, how do we make both, both whole? How do we make the residents whole and you whole? Our Holiday Oil whole? So the question I have for you, Steve, is you mentioned earlier we can approve the development agreement, we can reject it, we can approve with modifications, or we can change the zone. So how as a council do we change the zone to make— and make them whole?

I don't—

Well, I mean, I don't know if a zone change would make them whole or not, but the way to do that would be, you know, for members of city council directed staff to start an application to rezone it to say a C-1 or C-3, something like that. Then that would, you know, we'd start the process.

I mean, okay, so I mean, the question for you is, you know, you paid X amount for the property. So what you paid for it, that wouldn't pencil to do residential neighborhood?

No, it would not.

And when did you buy it?

Last summer.

And am I allowed to ask how much you paid?

Is that public knowledge? Or is that So I believe it's $16 a square foot. So at 2 acres, it's about $1.4 million.

So, so I know for a fact that there's a church available, or that's for sale in our neighborhood, and it pencils at R-8, and it's 2.1 acres.

They're proposing a PRD, so they're asking for more density.

So I mean, I mean, I'm assuming the name of the citizens would, or the neighbors would would, wouldn't mine appear to be, aside from, aside from the gas station. So I'd be all for looking for a zone change, but I'm not sure how we do it.

So just for your information, so we probably wouldn't be able to do a PRD zone right now because that requires a concept plan with the application, and I don't think we have anybody who's ready to submit a concept plan. So, so you probably most likely be looking at a C-1 or C-3, would be my guess.

Can you remind us, can you remind us C-1 and C-3, what would be allowable?

Yeah, I think in this case it's really important to know the setbacks for the C-3 to clarify that, because that's When— what I understand, the typical zone that you have next to residential neighborhood versus this.

Jason probably can answer that better than I can.

I don't know if I can do it off the top of my head, but there is a limit on the height. So 35 feet would be the— probably within 100 feet. So it'd be capped at 35 feet would be the max any structure would be able to be built on the site in a C-3 zone. It would have to be equal to the height. So if it's a 35-foot tall, it would have to be 35 feet off the property line, or 15, or whatever that would be, whatever that ratio is. So that would be the requirement in the C-3. The C-3 does allow— Pinehurst, for example, that's a C-3 zone. So any retail that you see in Pinehurst, fast food, sit-down restaurant, office, those types of things, medical offices, all those types of things are allowed in the C-3 zone. So C-1 is a little bit different. They're limited to office uses. So there's, there's a few minor, like a stoke shack, things like that, they're allowed in the C-1 that the council's changed over the time. But typically they're office uses. The Dastrip office building on 8th East and 8th North, that's a, that's a C-1, I believe. The dentist is up the street, that's C-1. So typically designed for office.

Okay, so Steve, I've got a question. So if we, if we zoned it R-8, you don't need a concept plan for that, do you?

No, you don't.

And then once it's zoned R-8, then they can come back if they wanted a PRD, if that—

Somebody could do that at a later time.

Yes.

You need my pencil?

So with the rezone, we'd have to go through the application process, neighbors needing all that stuff. So you couldn't do that tonight.

Do we just continue this and say—

Well, if that's the direction that the majority of the council wants to go—

We haven't heard from everybody.

No, right. So I'm saying if, if that's the direction most council members want to go, then probably you would want to vote against the application tonight and perhaps give some direction to staff as to what zoning change you would like to see the city apply for, essentially.

But that doesn't put a placeholder in place for the development agreement that's already in place?

Well, it would essentially nullify the, uh, the current development agreement. If, if you were to rezone the property from C-2 to something else, it would basically nullify the existing—

Between now and the rezone, they— that is still active, right?

Still be active until—

yes.

So would there need to be a new application based on that? Based on, based on the original development agreement, would they be starting with a new application?

They have an application in, they would just have to modify their application to match the development agreement, to match the original development agreement.

So that, that doesn't, that doesn't help the neighbors.

And, and you don't have to make this decision tonight either.

Or if you continue it, then you can kick the can down the road and figure out what we're doing and get with Holiday Oil.

Or again, you could— yeah, you could continue it, or you could reject it, vote against it, and, you know, people can kind of go back to the drawing board.

So, I mean, do you— with the way the development agreement is now, do you want to build That.

So we were a commercial development group. I mean, we build Holiday Oils. We, we ourselves don't do single-family resident, high-density, anything like that. So we would— yeah, we're not in the housing business. So we would develop the commercial, commercial with the existing gas station. If we didn't get approval, I mean, we would move forward with a gas station.

Okay.

So you would just go back to what—

so you wouldn't have the drive-through, you wouldn't Would you go back to the look and feel?

I think we would have to—

yeah, they would have to, they would have to match the development agreement.

So it would be better than what we have right now, basically.

And again, that's a developer.

And again, if we go back to the original development agreement, that, in my opinion, poses some additional concerns, you know, upwards to 3 different types of businesses inside the building instead of just a gas station.

I get—

Steve, I guess they could build only the portion that they could choose not to build the sides if they only a portion of the building.

I mean, the, the original development agreement does say that they have to build the site in conformance with the drawings that were attached to it. So, you know, there would have to be an analysis of what constitutes substantial conformance.

But if they chose to not build the 2 wings and just build The center portion that looked like that.

I think we'd have to look at that and determine if that's substantial conformance or not.

Okay, so that could be an option.

So Steve, how do we pause this so it does not move forward and we can get our ducks in a row and see if we can get it rezoned residential, if that's what the council wants to do?

So again, if you— if what you really want to do is to rezone the property to something else, then probably you would want to either continue this item or vote against it, and then provide the direction to staff to submit an application to rezone the property. And then that would start that rezone process through the process. And, you know, Planning Commission and then come to City Council, just following the normal process.

So, but I think what his question is, is does that stop The development from going forward if, if you rezone the property. So if the council doesn't want a gas station in a residential area, does that stop it or move forward?

Or yeah, I mean, if the property is rezoned to a zone that doesn't allow a gas station, then yes, it would.

But it doesn't—

I know what you're asking.

It doesn't stop it tonight.

Right now, Right now, the developer has the right to build in conformance with the existing development agreements.

Right, right.

So the only way that gets changed and they would not have that right is, again, if the property is rezoned.

But we have to continue to do a continuation. So this isn't—

You would not have to do a continuation.

We can just vote against this tonight.

Vote against it tonight.

But that means they can do the original development.

Yes.

So that doesn't help.

So what does continuing do?

It probably has the same effect.

But if you continue it, then you start the application, right? Or can you not? That's what I'm trying to get clarity.

Yeah, yeah, we could start, we could start the application either way.

I guess that's clear as mud.

I don't know.

So, so I— yeah, so back to—

let's—

we don't know what the council wants to do right now, but let's say the council doesn't want to have a gas station here. Let's say the council thinks that when this was done previously, it was a bad idea and shouldn't have been done, and the council would like to potentially move it back to a residential. So how does that happen? What are the steps?

Yeah, we don't need help from the audience, thanks. Um, so if you wanted it to be residential development, for example, then the process would be to direct staff to file an application to rezone the property to R-8 or whatever residential zone you wanted. But either way, I mean, they're going to still have— until the property's rezoned, they're going to have the right to build the gas station under the current development.

Unless we do a continuation.

No, that won't stop it.

If we do a continuation We haven't approved the—

But right, but the current development agreement is still in place, so they could still develop under the current development agreement.

So Steve, aren't we— we're forgetting one thing. The city doesn't own the property, Holiday Oil does. So, you know, we can talk about all the things we want to do, but it would really be, you know, if we, if we kill this, it's their decision of what they want to do. They'd come to the city and say, okay, we're going to do this commercial, or we're going to just turn around and sell it. Or, I mean, I don't think we want to be speaking for what they want to do. We know we're listening to the citizens, but isn't that fair? I mean, it's like, we're not going to decide we're going to zone it for this or that.

They own it.

I mean, we could, but we should be fair to hear, you know.

Right. There's basically only 2 entities that can submit an application for a rezone, One is the owner of the property. The other is the city. So the city can submit an application to rezone property that's owned by somebody else.

And that's, that's based on LADMA, correct? Don't we have pretty strong—

No, that's actually, that's actually city code about who can file an application.

Strong standing on that too.

Yeah, I mean, that again, that's in city ordinance. We limit basically, so, you know, somebody, your, your neighbor or your, your friend can't come and file an application to rezone your property without your permission, but the city can.

Okay, so we're still clear.

Yes, it is a bit clear as mud, but As far as—

No, no, you've got the mic.

Okay, I'm sorry.

As far as options to move forward, because we do need to move forward, the only thing that the city can really do is we— and I don't know what everybody wants, so this is all hypothetical— but if this— if the city wants to, you know, attempt to Change the zoning, then we would just vote against this, and then we would put an application to change the zoning. And that's one of the options.

Yes.

Now, we don't know that that solves the entire situation, because if Holiday goes ahead and files to build this other gas station, the original one, then that's a possibility too, right?

Yes.

And we don't know how that plays out.

Correct.

Okay, so someone— so may I make a comment on that?

Sure, if you're ready.

I've listened to 18 citizens and/or friends, and I, I just don't think this passes tonight. So depending how much you want to have a discussion on this, I'm ready to move that this doesn't pass, that we reject this proposal. And right now the only thing they can do if they're going to be in compliance is do exactly what was there then. And that's still another discussion for neighbors. I understand it doesn't answer all your concerns, but I mean, at this point it seems like we reject this proposal and listen to the citizens who spoke, and then we move forward with whatever Plan A or B is, right?

Right.

So I mean, maybe everyone wants some mic time, but I just want to clarify what—

yeah, what's the difference between continuation and rejection?

In terms of what they can do with the property right now, no difference.

Because even if we continue, they can still do the original development, correct?

Sorry, and David, my point is I want these neighbors to know we reject it, not continue it.

I think we all want them to know that. We're just trying to figure out if there are other options under the continue option, correct, that would be more beneficial for the neighbors.

But the problem with the rejection, it doesn't stop the gas station. And so we need— people need to understand.

Maybe there's a developer out there that would like to come and offer all the money to put a PRD or a residential development, but I guess that's out of our hands. So we're trying.

Okay, so we're down to reject or continue.

Well, I don't think it— it's basically the same, in my opinion. So we just reject it.

Well, I can make a motion if everybody's ready. I don't know who wants to.

Jeff, did you want to say something?

I would just say that the potential value in continuation is if you want to consider a series of concessions or limitations on the existing proposed development that's, that's been brought here today.

Okay.

And I, and I, and I've— well, none of these citizens want this, you know, and that's not the only criteria. There's, you know, Holiday Oil has, like you said, has rights and it's their property. So our job is to try and balance, you know, what Holiday wants and the citizens want. But I think my take is, is that we— I mean, you're talking to Family City USA microfilm.

phone.

And so we would be standing up more for what the citizens want on something like this.

So, I mean, my original question was, how do we make both whole?

And I don't think you can make both whole.

Yeah.

So, I mean, not—

I think this is moving in the right direction to reject it. And then maybe we can get with Holiday Oil and maybe bring somebody together and we can change the zone or something.

Yeah.

And so, just a question on it. So, so does a continuance— does that allow us to have discussions, discussions to go between both parties, going back to Dave's point about making this as right as we possibly can?

I think, like Brian just very well said, the only reason to do a continuance is if you think you can make the gas station work, but with some modifications.

And you won't—

you need time to discuss what those modifications would be.

And I think we heard pretty clearly from the citizens that live there that they don't want a gas station. And so, you know, if they don't want a gas station, then that would be an indicator to Holiday Oil that, you know, do something else if you can. But anyway, to me, it's, it's a reject move forward.

And just to kind of reiterate something that you all know, I mean, it's— your decisions are not based on, you know, what the people in the audience or the crowd want necessarily, but if they've given you reasons why you think that doing the gas station there or not allowing this amended development agreement is a good idea, then that is legitimate.

So, and I agree with that completely. They've given us a lot of reasons.

Can I say something?

I'm just really disturbed here because, I mean, I You know, before I was on the City Council, I went up against a developer that really didn't have the buffering in place for neighborhoods. And as a City Council, you know, when we took away the State Street Master Plan, we added additional buffering and distance between residents and commercial buildings. And to me, when you're, when you're preserving neighborhoods, which is something that I ran on and which I think a lot of us feel is very important here, that's one of the first criteria that you recognize. I'm kind of bothered that There, this buffering. I mean, why would you put a gas station right next to residents? Why would you not have in our master plan or something, you know, before this even came before the prior Planning Commission, which we know that there were different ideologies on that Planning Commission, and now we have a Planning Commission that has a lot more Family City USA ideology in place. So I guess that's my big concern.

Thank you.

My concern here is the buffering. I can appreciate Holiday Oil, and you're kind of stuck here with what was done prior. And I feel for you. I also feel like, you know, our residents and the ability to have something between them and a gas station, some kind of transition that protects homes, something like in this photograph.

Yeah. That's nice.

Then, you know, I actually don't know that I would have approved this. But anyway, that's my statement, I guess.

Okay, thank you.

Would somebody like to make a motion?

I'll just make one more comment, Mayor, is that we need to be really careful how we're doing this rezoning, because I don't think any of the neighbors want a smoke shop and a tattoo parlor to replace the gas station. So I think we need to listen There needs to be community input, you know, attending Planning Commission meetings. Sorry guys, but you might have to keep this process going. Just make sure your voice is heard and make sure that it is acceptable what ends up in the neighborhood.

Well, and I think, Terry, I think my comment was, I think it needs to go back to residential and it needs to be zoned residential. So I think it was an OS-5. I think it was an OS-5 zone last time, wasn't it?

It was a holding zone.

A holding zone.

It was a holding zone.

Oh, it's got it.

Was that the one that has like 5 acres?

So to match the property to the north, it'd be R-8 would be the zone.

And maybe somebody in the neighborhood is a developer, and maybe they can start negotiating with Holiday Oil. I don't know. So, but I'll make a motion.

Is OS-5 high density, basically?

No, it's just single family, 5-acre lot.

Oh, 5-acre.

R-8 is, is what the property to the north is.

So I'll make a motion that the City Council deny amending development agreement for the property located at 1981 South Geneva Road in the C-2 zone.

I'll second that.

Jeff.

So a question, the way that you just worded that, we're voting to deny their development agreement that they have on the table today. Okay, so I'm voting aye to deny it.

Correct.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Okay, the motion—

resolution is denied. Okay, moving on. The last item on the agenda, we've got item 9.2, resolution to place renewal of CARE tax on the ballot. Steve Earl, if you'd like to present that.

Yes, thank you, Mayor, City Council. Are at that point in time where we are ready to and need to place the CARE tax renewal on the ballot again. That was— this was last done in 2013. And that was valid for 10 years. And so we're coming up on the expiration of that current CARE tax. So we're basically keeping everything pretty much the same as when we voted to put that on the ballot back in 2013. Pretty much only the dates have changed. You know, some of the primary points are that the care tax funding would be allocated approximately 50% to recreation, 50% to cultural arts. We would have maintained a care tax advisory commission, make recommendations to the council on how care tax funding should be allocated. And just as a reminder, this is a tax of 1/10 of 1%. So, if I—

Which is a penny for every $10.

I prefer to say a dollar for every $1,000. I think that's easier for me to compute in my head.

So, if I'm wrong on that—

$10 and a penny, I think that's pretty—

Okay.

You say to me, you're dealing in high numbers.

That begins, you're an attorney. So, that's how Okay, okay.

So this obviously would go on the ballot for November 21, 2023, if it is approved by the council.

And are we ready to make a motion? Do we need to have any discussion?

I think we're—

I mean, I think if we're keeping it the same, in favor, I think it worked last time, and I think It's a good thing for the city.

So, and the one thing I like about it is you are getting the sales tax from your neighbors. And so you're— and because a lot of people shop here, it's not— it's spreading, and it can only be used for arts and recreation, which I think is great fun. And we have the Sarah, and we have our recreation. So it's a wonderful opportunity for us to continue having these, these things that will have funding. And like I said, the burden is very low. for our citizens.

So I think since Jeff and I are on the Care Commission, maybe Jeff might want to do the resolution.

Well, does anybody else want to say anything? Terry?

I'd like to make a comment about taxes. They're ridiculous. Citizens of Orem pay— it'll now be 7.45%. If you go to— if you go to a restaurant, it's 8.45%. That's just insane. I mean, I remember when we'd go to California, I'd take my kids to Disneyland and I'd say, our taxes are 4% and theirs was like 7%. So that's why we live in Utah. So I'm very much opposed to increased taxes, but I do have to do the but. What was that? A dollar for a thousand, Steve, or whatever it was. Anyway, I do see a great asset to the community. Sira is a wonderful gem for our community. I am, I am opposed to about half of our sales tax, which goes to UDOT and, you know, all the public transportation crap that we have in the city. So I am very much opposed to that. And I'm sorry that we have to be burdened with that as a city. But I just want to throw my dig in because I do not— you don't see me vote to ever increase taxes, except the $1 per 1,000. Steve, you got me on that one.

So And I, and I just want to echo Terry on that. I am very much not in favor of a lot of taxes out there. We have to have some taxes, but I do think they sneak away from us and we have a lot of unnecessary taxes. And so, working with City Council, we've worked hard to not have any additional taxes. We push back and we haven't passed any taxes since we've been put in. As far as the CARES tax, that tax is currently in place. And as far as taxes go, that is probably the most cost-effective tax where you're actually paying a tax, but you're actually really getting something. I mean, what a thought. But you really do get something and it's money very well spent. And so I'm against most taxes, but I'm very much in favor of the CARES tax.

Yeah, I'd like to just— I served on the CARE Commission, CARE Tax Commission, as a resident years ago, and very impressed with, as you know, Debbie said, this is a tax that's paid a lot by people who don't live in Orem, people who come and shop here. Appreciate that a lot, the contribution to our community, but then it's invested in our community, and some of my favorite things were like the Orem Corral and the, the senior— this corral that really created connections for our senior citizens and the Chantinets. Yeah, I guess that's the— they, you know, to just see them and go to some of their performances and see how it really helped them to maintain this social organization along with a talent-sharing organization. The arts are often underfunded, and I think that that really helps this. It also helps with the burdens in our rec area so we can keep our rec fees low, and families that are maybe a little more disadvantaged can join our community rec programs. I agree, I don't like taxes either, but this one is amazing for what it does for Orem. So thank you.

It's a, it's a great blessing and a great benefit to our community in lots of ways. Well, I would like to make a motion that we place the renewal of the CARE tax on the ballot.

Second.

So, so sorry, can we back up?

Let's—

can we just basically make a motion to approve the resolution? And then do you have the text there that you can read the heading?

I don't have—

it doesn't have much text on our agenda.

I just read all of the text that was there.

Do you need my glasses?

So the, the first paragraph?

Yeah, the, the title, the caption there in the all caps.

Okay, well, you're gonna make me work on this one, Steve. A resolution of the Orem City Council placing an opinion question—

Sorry, sorry, Jeff.

Could you just—

you're saying you're— I make a motion to approve a resolution to—

Okay, I make a motion to approve this resolution of the Orem City Council Placing an opinion question on the November 21st, 2023 municipal general election ballot as to whether or not the City of Orem should renew a citywide local sales and use tax of 1/10 of 1% to fund city-owned recreational and cultural facilities, the ongoing operation expenses of city-owned recreational facilities, and the ongoing operating expenses of private non- profit cultural organizations in Orem, and approving the ballot, the ballot title and proposition.

Second.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Resolution passes.

So what do we got?

Okay, we're down to communication items.

I want you to get to the National Night Out, so I'll just have a quick update in a city manager minute tomorrow. So I'll include that message to you, but just some, some heads up on things going on.

Okay.

Thank you, Brad.

You can adjourn.

I move we adjourn this meeting, Mr. Mayor.

Second. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Our meeting is adjourned. Thank you for coming.

Thank you.