City Council · 2023-08-22

How are you? Good, good to see you.

Good to see you today. I am. Good looking jacket, Jeff. Oh, is that Armani?

Okay.

Thank you, that was fun. Thank you.

All right, I need to do one better.

I think we have to, we have to, we have to walk along too. Yes. So Pete, what did you have for lunch?

Uh, we went to, uh, Pho Plus. Oh yeah, it was delightful. That was my first time.

Did you have their pho?

No, I had the little, uh, Vietnamese sandwich.

Ah, the banh mi.

I didn't have any phone, so I thought we did have one. Was that Karina and Tessa's idea? Tessa didn't get to go, but Karina was there.

Okay.

Carson came too. How did that work?

Oh, for the public.

This is the Miranchito and this is the school property. If there's a question about that, the answer is we talked about the changes. So Marco, and we have to clarify, warm.org is going to participate in taking Do you want to get food or do you want to wait?

I'm gonna say it's here.

I need to wait. Great.

Please sound great.

4:30.

What is it?

Something sensitive?

Pizza. Pizza.

It's 4:30. I mean, if it's hot.

I know, that's what I think.

I'm just gonna talk now. Say, Pete, did you just get the food just now?

Oh, they brought it in.

Yeah.

So do we have a preference as far as eating now while we're watching presentations or waiting for an hour?

I could eat while it's hot, but that's me.

I, I, I'm, I'm not hungry at all. Whatever you want, I can write somewhere.

How's that?

How do you like that decision? I don't really care. Yes, maybe we could do both. All right, let's tell you what, compromise. If people are not hungry, we have warm pizza. Uh, let's do the presentation number 2, and then after that we'll take a break. Okay, so we're ready to go. Okay, we'd like to welcome everyone to the work meeting this afternoon. We've just returned from a tour of the community gardens. Gardening seemed to be a much more popular thing lately, all the supply chain issues, and, uh, so we're just looking at other cities' gardens and looking at what we potentially could do in Orem. Now we'll move on to item number 2. Um, Kathy Lewis is going to give us a presentation on the economic development status in the city.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm excited to be here today to share with you economic details of how the City of Orem is doing. So first of all, I wanted to kind of shape what economic development is, and this comes from the International Economic Development Council And really, it's kind of like the best practices. It says the focus of economic development is to promote the well-being and quality of life for communities by creating, retaining, and expanding jobs that facilitate growth, enhance wealth, and provide a stable tax base. So that kind of shapes what economic development is. I want to give you a roadmap because I like it when I listen to a presentation, I kind of know where are we going. First, I'm going to talk about Recently completed projects here in the city. Then I'm going to share some great data that will help you to understand the context of what's happening in the city, what has happened and what is happening. And I'm going to talk about the Orem Business Alliance and how that has helped our businesses and what the purpose of the business alliance is. Then we're going to talk about projects under construction and what's happening at University Place. and then some proposed projects. So some recently completed projects. We have the Orem Tech Center located at 1400 North Geneva Road, and this really is an amazing project here. It's one of the hottest products on the retail market right now, flex warehouse, where it has some office, sometimes it has retail space. and then warehouse and shipping on the back. And look at those numbers, it really is pretty amazing. It occupies almost 70,000 acres and a total of over 700,000 square feet of this flex warehouse space. And you can see there is over 7 different buildings. And what's incredible is most of this space was leased before it came out of the ground. And there's one building that isn't quite leased, and that's Building 7. But we have some great businesses in the other spaces. If you look, La Canto will soon have 2 full flex warehouse spaces. And I know Dave Spencer helped to connect me with La Canto, and we helped to facilitate their ribbon cutting. And they have almost a third of the space, the total square footage they will have of all the flex warehouse spaces. So it's really a successful project. The next is just north of Orem Tech Center called Commercial Center. It's smaller but occupies about 15 acres and totaling about just over 200,000 square feet. It's 3 different buildings and most again were leased before they were even out of the ground. One building still has— Building 1 still has a portion of it that has yet to be leased, but there are some great local companies from Just Ingredients Utah Baseball Academy, the Overhead Door Company of Utah, Redline Racing, and an industrial kind of building product company, Rocktop Solid Surfaces. So again, some great businesses, and it really does have a beautiful facade. I'm sure you've seen it driving up and down I-15. La-Z-Boy Furniture went into— it's the former Michaels space, and it's great to see some of these big box stores being leased and having some good tenants, and La-Z-Boy Furniture is a great solid tenant there. Petco moved from by Smith's, Center and State Street, over to the Parkway. Again, another great solid business. Big Blue Swim School took a third of the space about of Ridley's here on Center and State. Now the interesting thing about Austin Smith, the owner of Big Blue Swim School, his grandparents Founded Meaters, and his father is a part owner in the Airman Group, the restaurant company that helped to really make Mobetta's and some other local chains national companies. And so he's a third-generation businessman, and it really is a great quality company.

Where is that?

Um, that's in the former Ridley space right over here.

The old Albertsons.

Yeah. And it does have the in-ground pool. It's beautiful inside. If you haven't had a chance to go see it, go take a look at it. He runs a really quality business there. Second, Charles went into the former Dick's Sporting Goods store, and it is open, I understand. It's a used bookstore and kind of a used video games tech business, but again, it's great to see this big box store space filling up.

Is that a national company?

I've never heard that name. It is. So now we're going to move into the data, and this is sourced from the Development Services Department. This is our commercial building permit data. If you can see, the red line is the remodel— commercial remodel or addition data, and the blue line is the commercial and industrial. Look how the commercial industrial permits have really stayed fairly solid. really haven't gone up and down much. But as far as the commercial addition and remodel, they really peaked— that's about like 289 permits or so in 2015. That really peaked there and has kind of slowly dropped off. And then to date on the right, 85 permits have been issued for the commercial and additional remodels. So far in 2023?

'23, yes.

This is the residential building permit data. If you can see, it really peaked in 2015 at 108 single-family residential permits issued. This is over just about a 10-year period, and it peaked again in 2018, and it's been steadily going down, possibly for multiple reasons. Building costs are rising. Interest rates are rising. It's just you know, a difficult time right now to build. So today, as far as the last 6 months, about 27 permits for single-family residential have been issued. Now this on the left are the condo and townhomes in the red. You can see it really peaked, um, at just under 250 permits in 2018 and then took a deep jump 2019 to 36 permits. And then today, in the last 6 months, no condos or townhome permits have entered. And then moving on to mixed-use, I combined the mixed-use and the multifamily together into one, and that peaked more at about 2014 at 843 permits issued. And it did have another peak again in 2019, 740, but again, no—

2,000.

permits have been issued to date in 2023 in the last 6 months. So commercial business licenses, this is from our commercial business license data here in the city. These are businesses, these are not home occupation businesses, but actually commercial businesses. These, this reflects renewals and new applications together. And so a slight uptick As far as the last 6 months, closer to 3,000, but it has remained fairly steady. And you can see that it's, you know, a little bit of a growth and then it kind of dipped. It was difficult around 2020, but it's rising again. It's good to see that.

Which is COVID.

Yes, yes, that's true. Now, the number of employees reported— businesses, when they Reapply for a business license or take a new business license. They're self-reporting, and so not all businesses have to report, so this is somewhat approximate for your understanding. So, um, just, you know, above or below about 30,000 employees, but it looks like, um, from the last 6 months, maybe more businesses are reporting, or maybe there are more employees employed in these local businesses.

So just to clarify that number of employees reported, that's the total number of W-2 employees in the city of Orem. Is that what that is?

The businesses, when they renew their business license or take a new business license, they can self-report how many, how many employees they have. Yes, but it's not completely accurate because like I said, some businesses, they don't have to report. It's not a requirement. or obtain your business license, so it's an approximate. Now this data comes from the Utah Department of Workforce Services for the year 2020 only, and if you notice, they're comparing Utah— well, we're comparing Utah County against 4 cities: Provo-Orem, Lehi, and American Fork. And the first is the number of firms, and so if you look, obviously Utah County has the largest number of employers or firms. Over 19,000. But notice Orem has 3,700 firms and Lehi has quite a bit less, and Provo has less too. But then when you look at employment numbers, Provo has a much larger employment number, and that possibly could be due to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center being one employer, BYU being another large employer, possibly.

Sure.

You guys do seem to have other big ones down there, right?

Correct, correct. Now I want you to take a look at the difference. So, so Lehigh has a, has a smaller, the second smallest number of firms, and they do have a good amount of employees, but still not nearly as many as Orono Provo. But I want you to take a look at the next number now. Um, this is the monthly wage. Look at how Lehigh spiked, and that possibly is due to the high-tech industry that's housed in Lehigh. Because they do have quite high-paying jobs along the corridor in Lehigh and those high-tech companies with Adobe and others that have the high-paying salaries. So that—

Orem also has a lot of retail jobs, which brings down that. That's true.

So now we're going to talk about office and retail vacancy rates, and this data comes from Colliers International. It's their International Research and Forecast Division, and for each area they do research specific to the area. So this can all be found online. And what they did here was they took Utah County and they divided it up into 5 quadrants to make it pretty easy. So today we're going to compare the north quadrant and the central Utah quadrant. And the north quadrant is comprised of Lehi, All the way down to Lindon and the central quadrant, it's pretty easy. It's just basically Orem and Provo. So first I want to just review— it's good to know what's the difference between Class A, B, and C office. And so Class A really is all about location, and right now what the office sector demands is I-15 frontage. So you're really going to see the Class A along I-15. It's going to be beautiful, new, shiny, the best materials. It's going— the amenities are top quality. You might see medical office in it. You might see some restaurants or some type of food service for their, for their employees. You might see great lobby, really beautiful monitors in the lobby. You might see a fitness center, kind of state-of-the-art fitness center. It is going to have beautiful landscaping, pristine, you know, some nice rockery. Just when you, when you walk up to the building, it has that wow factor. Class B is better than C. It's old but still in good condition, renovated. It still has a nice look to it, but the amenities are kind of average. If it has a fitness center, it's just kind of okay. It might not have The nice food options inside, probably good kind of medical center, just kind of has average looks. And then Class C is most likely 20 years or older. It might have very outdated, if any, amenities, and it probably needs some renovations. So here's a visual for you to see. See the Class A? That is just beautiful. It looks modern, updated. Class B is still nice. It probably has Great lobby, it's been renovated, it's clean, it just doesn't have that wow factor of Class A and probably the amenities. And Class C is older, probably 20 years or, or older, and looks like it needs some work. So that kind of shapes when we talk about— this is Class A. Now the blue is the central quadrant, that's what ORV and Provo are in, and the Red is the North Utah County. So these are the vacancy rates for that Class A office. And you might look and notice from '21 to '22, there's a pretty big spike in both quadrants. And one thing that might explain that is sometimes when Class B office is renovated and put onto the market in Class A, it puts a lot more capacity into Class A. And also what happened here was University Place, the office space at University Place, was put onto the market in 2022. So that accounts for the spike from '21 to '22. And then also in Valley Grove, there were 3 separate office complexes that were put onto the market. So it sort of increased the capacity, and the vacancy rate then was increased. But I do want to frame this, that one thing that isn't accounted for, many businesses have chosen to renew their lease, but they don't occupy it. So it might look vacant when you drive by some Class A office, but some office— some companies have chosen just to keep that anchored, and sometimes they sublease it too. And this doesn't really account for sublease in the market. Now, this is Class B, and if you look in the central Utah County, it's a lot more of a steady curve between 15% and 20% vacancy rate in our central. And then, you know, looking at the North Utah County, quite a spike there. And I just, you know, it could be that more Class B office space was put onto the market. It could be that some individuals chose not to renew their lease because, as we know from COVID things haven't quite been determined. what is office going to look like? How much of it is in-office work? How much of it is remote work? Is it a combination? And so it could be that the market is reacting to that as post-COVID. Now, Class C. And the thing that stood out to me on Class C is look at the North Utah County, how flat it is. And that can be understood because there really isn't a lot of Class C office space available in general in, um, that quadrant, the north quadrant. Now it's interesting that the vacancy rate is dropping off in, um, our quadrant, essentially Utah County quadrant. So it could be that, that maybe some businesses are coming back into the office and taking that Class C office space up and leasing them. These are just, you know, kind of ideas of what— So it's more sought after?

Um, cheaper. Cheaper.

Yes, because it's cheaper, it's more sought after. Exactly. So this is the retail vacancy rate. Um, now the thing that is in our advantage in the Central Utah County region is in retail, that there is more retail space on the market, which It would make sense that it would drive the price down. And so for businesses wanting to come in, if they had to choose between the North Utah County area or Central Quadrant, they might come to our quadrant because the retail space might be more affordable. And we have seen that. We've seen that quite a few of the big box stores and the smaller spaces— boy, they have a quick turnover. They are empty as long now. So this is information that came to me from Brandon, our finance director. This is an indication of the new property that's been developed and the tax increase that's happened because of that new property, and this is compounded year over year. So if you take 2018 through 2022, the total increase of new property tax is just almost $700,000, and that compounds year over year. So in 2023, added to that almost $700,000 will be any new increase from property that's been developed in 2023. So this is the general fund tax, and I think this indicates That even though we've been through a difficult time with a pandemic, a difficult time of not really knowing how the economy is doing, our sales tax from 2020 to 2022 has had somewhat of a steady increase. It really has. So it shows that we're a healthy city. Not only, not only do we have property tax from new developed property, but we have an upward slope on that General fund sales tax revenue. So now I'm going to talk for a minute about the Orem Business Alliance, and I gave each of you one of our new Orem Business Alliance notebooks, but I wanted to tell you a little bit about the background. It was started in 2020, in March of 2020, a month before the pandemic hit. So we had one in-person meeting, then we went to all video webinar type of meetings for a year, and then we resumed, and to date We have an average of about 40 businesses attend our monthly meetings, and we've held over 50 customized ribbon cuttings for our local businesses. And just to give you an idea, the aim of the Orem Business Alliance is threefold, and the first is to connect our businesses to valuable resources to help them do what they do better, because a lot of our small businesses, you know, they're— they represent the hopes and dreams of all of us is to, to do something that they love to do. So we help connect them to national, to state, to regional, and to local resources, whether it's funding sources or webinars, free opportunities for them to learn. And the second thing we do is we provide monthly education on topics that they choose. We poll our businesses every month, and so our topics are focused on what they really want to hear. And some of the topics are work-life balance, health and wellness, cybersecurity, supply chain issues, just whatever they want to hear. We find someone that's skilled at that and we give that presentation. And the third thing that we really try to help our businesses with is networking. And some businesses, as you can see from the picture, they love coming to meet other businesses. And at every Business Alliance, I try to make those connections Businesses. If one business is looking for service, certain type of service, I introduce them to a business that does that service.

Kathy, are there a lot of repeat people coming to the meetings, or are you getting different?

We have about 30% repeat, about 70% new every month. And I think that's a great mix because the businesses that come every month, there's always somebody new, you know, that they can learn from and that they can connect with. And then once a year we have business awards. We call them the Standout Business Awards. We do 3 categories. We do the historic category, the innovative category, and the community contributor category. And we really want to recognize and give back to our businesses, and they love that. That's our best attended alliance meeting is when we have our business awards. This is just an idea of some of the great businesses that we brought into Orem and done a lot of these in ribbon cuttings. Just really top quality businesses. And here's some of our great restaurants, and if you haven't tried some of these, please do. They're amazing. The one in the middle towards the right, Chubby Baker, that hasn't come in yet. That's just to the west of Trader Joe's in kind of that outlet by the ice cream shop. But I've tried so many of these, and we have outstanding local businesses. So some of our businesses under construction currently, and we have Smarty. I don't know if you have heard, they're going into the new— the old Stevens-Henniger College. This is a concept drawing of the outside, completely renovated inside, beautiful new facade outside. It's hardly recognizable as the Stevens-Henniger College building. They do address recognition software. verification software. So their company is currently located in Provo, but they're moving to Orem. Half the time though, their logo is upside down. Have you ever seen that? I have, I have. I don't know if that's part of their branding. I wonder. This is 877 North, and as you're aware, it has 3 retail pads, a project on the west side. So, um, you know, it's going to add just an economic boost to that area to have those retail pads along State We have Nickel Mania about 1000 North State Street. It's been in the works for quite some time, but we're hopeful it'll be completed soon. Is that like Nickel City? Is it a similar concept? Yes, yes, similar. I think it— I don't know if it's the same. Is it the same? No, but it's, but it's an arcade. Then we'll talk about University Place. Completed and under construction. Dillard's, you know, it really is one of the retail anchors in Orem, close to 160,000 square feet, one of our great sales tax generators in our city. University Place, over 100,000 square feet, over 4 stories, above a 5-level parking garage. Buffalo Wild Wings, one of the good anchors at University Place. It had a great ribbon cutting. Debbie was there.

Yeah.

Um, Courtyard by Marriott, another beautiful hotel in Orem.

What's the date that's supposed to open?

I don't have that. I, I don't know that the Wickery Corporation knows that either. Yeah, and this is just kind of a sketch of the projects in progress. It's not including everything that's happening, or some of the other projects at University Place that have been completed with Dulles, Quench It, and Dirty Dough that's going below the Devon apartment complex there on the bottom in the retail space. Now, just a couple proposed projects. The Maverick on 85 West and 800 North, it's currently in Maverick, but it's going to be completely rebuilt in that spot. And then the other Maverick, 1247 Geneva Road. So those are the— that one looks larger than the other one. Is that one bigger? I'm just seeing that. I just, I don't know. The other, I just got a concept drawing off. And so I don't know.

Okay.

Do you know that one's bigger than the other?

One on the Parkway might be bigger. There's a nice separate bonfire type. They're all—

So I just think that showing the data and showing the completed projects, the projects under construction, and the projects yet to happen shows that we have a balanced and thriving economy in this city of Forum, and it's just a pleasure to present to you today. Does anybody have any questions? Has anyone looked at the shop over here? Has there been any movement at all? There has been talk. A real estate agent, her name is Kelsey Bowler, has been working to try to get under contract, um, maybe divided up into 3 or more spaces, and she's working hard to do that, but hasn't Doesn't yet have any LOIs or anything.

So, Kathy, one time the mall thought they'd leased out that whole space above the parking, but then, but back then they were saying that they were a little nervous about that contract. So, any updates on that?

Not that I've heard, and I looked today online, but not that that's updated accurately. But not that I've heard. Yeah, I know that You know, Brandon Fugle's actively marketing that. I think it's just a tough time for retail space, office space, and office space in general. It's just across, across the nation, across Utah. But, you know, eventually it most likely will level out.

So, Kathy, I appreciate your, your, uh, presentation. And, you know, on, on, uh, on Facebook, you know, there's a group that's saying that Orem is a dumpster fire. And, and nobody wants to deal with warm. And I think your presentation speaks totally different, so I don't think they know what they're talking about. So I appreciate your presentation.

Thank you, because I really do think that the data and the numbers speak for themselves. And looking at the quality of the completed projects, we're talking large, major, big box projects, and I think it really is When you look at the totality of it. So can I say, I've had many businesses that we do the work with, I mean, they thank me for how good Oren has been to work with. So I don't know what the dumpster fire means, but—

I don't—

I mean—

Our, um, the Jasons, the Ryans, whoever they work for, they are getting kudos. I've had more than— I probably the last 3 or 4 people say Oren was great to work with, we appreciate— they were so good.

They were.

So I think, I mean, we—

people are coming to Orem for a reason. And I think it's just, it's nonsense what they say. I mean, I guess it's on Facebook, it's got to be true. So it's just garbage what's out there. And I think that's garbage in the dumpster fire who's saying that.

It's full of crap.

Well, I'll give you 2 examples. So when La Canto came to Orem, they researched for 2 years where they could put their North American manufacturing facility. And they looked all across the Wasatch Front, and they specifically chose Orem. They like the culture of Orem. They like the family friendliness of Orem. They like the ease of doing business. And so they're an international company, and they chose to come here. And the same thing with Big Blue Swim School. Austin Smith is the owner. He purchased the rights to 5 franchises here in Utah. He has one being built in Saratoga Springs, one proposed, I believe, in Spanish Fork. And he said he chose Orem because he grew up in Orem and his grandparents founded Meadors here in Orem, and he just thought it was a great place to do business. And I was so happy to hear that. So businesses want to be here. Well, and I love that big blue swim school. I mean, we could have had high-density housing there under another plan that was put forth a few years ago, and now we have this wonderful retail spots that are actually giving to our community and offering opportunities to our community. I spoke with the developer this last week about some projects he's looking into. He just wanted to see where I was, and I kind of told him where we were and what we were looking for as a council, and he said, we're going to work with you. We want to be in Orem. Orem is the place to be. You're by the mountains, you're by the canyon, you're by the freeway, you got good people, you got good businesses. we will work with you because we really want to be in Orem. And I just thought that is really kudos to all you guys, right? And what you have brought to Orem and what Orem is. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna second Dave's, you know, let's look at the reports, folks, instead of what's on social media.

Reality is Orem is booming, and I think people want to come here. I know 2 or 3, there'd be more restaurants coming, plus other, you know, Bundt cake. They're putting their application there in American Fork or Lehi. They want to come here.

So Orem's a destination, and that's—

I think we're a destination for employees and for businesses because we need all the sales tax we can get because that's our general fund.

Yes, in fact, Nothing But Bundt Cakes reached out to me and they are coming in near Sprouts.

Yeah, they had an issue, but yeah, I talked to them.

Yeah, it's awesome that people want to come. Yes, Mayor, I have some information for Debbie's question. So the real estate listing for Shopko was updated in July, and they're still showing Tractor Supply Company on the left portion of the building next to King Buffet with Trampoline Park in the middle, and then the right portion of the building is being leased separately. It says they have 2 letters of intent on those 2 spaces, so you may not have You gotta know where to go to find these, and sometimes they don't come up with that where most commercial sites are. So yeah, I'm just teaching Kathy where to find these things.

Thank you, Brian.

Um, so yeah, we'll see if that happens or not.

That's an interesting combo. Yeah, so you can go to King Buffet, you can go to the trampoline. And then another possibility, Big Blue Swim School, and that former Albertsons or Ridley space, the east portion just to the left of Big Blue Swim School. In talking with a real estate broker, he said he almost has pinned down a letter of intent and a lease for a large national restaurant to come into there.

So, nice. Yeah, and what these guys are saying, what you're saying, I mean, so accurate.

You hear about all, you know, this gloom and doom and dumpster fire, whatever.

Our, our, uh, retail space is only about 3.5% vacant. That's not a dumpster fire. And that's, uh, we've got as much demand as we need on the retail space. got plenty of things that can happen with that on State Street as well.

So there's, you know, it's a real good picture.

Commercial office is a different story. You know, they're at 15% vacancy. But we're following national trends. That's right. That's right. That is national, regional, national trends. 15% vacancy there. But on retail, 3.5%. So there's a ton of upside there.

And it really does show that we're in a thriving, strong— has a thriving and strong economy.

I think too that Orem City can support those businesses with our police and fire and everything else.

So I think that's a plus. It's kudos.

And we are growing. I mean, we're definitely bringing some great businesses here.

I love it.

Yes.

Thanks for all you do. Thank you.

I just have a question for what— so what you're saying is The city's going the right direction.

We're making progress. Don't screw it up by changing— don't have people try to change what's happening.

It's not doom and gloom.

We're heading—

our projection, as Kathy showed, is we're heading up.

So I, you know, the next year's—

Have our sales tax been strong this summer?

Great. Flap.

Thank you.

How about before COVID How about before COVID

How does it compare?

Well, there's—

we're still higher than before COVID Um, but this year, for instance, we just got today the last one for the prior fiscal year. So we finished fiscal year '23 0.9%. Okay, so we're pretty flat. So considering inflation, that's one of the biggest concerns, is that flat despite inflation being as high as it was. So there's some concern there, um, sales tax, if you will, perhaps plateaued. Economic concerns over, particularly during the late spring or late winter and early spring, led into summer here. If that's— people got over that, hard to say. Inflation's still being what it is, fuel prices still kind of rising. Yeah, so there's some concerns there. Obviously it's still a decent amount of money.

I did read something that you'll be seeing Christmas stuff much earlier this year. People are hoping to have a Christmas, not just the October, November piece, now. Because they brought it in last year and weren't able to sell it.

So that's—

Well, either way, I mean, I actually just bought an ornament at Costco. Oh, that's cute. So, you know, it's working. But don't be surprised to see a lot of Christmas.

Any other comments? I think good job.

So I just want to say, yeah, Kathy, where'd you go? Those ribbon cuttings are fabulous. You do a lot of work to do that. And I've noticed a lot of— we talked about social media— a lot of different pages that bring up Orem issues, that's on there. And I know that I have had friends say, well, I didn't know that store was in Orem. You know, I'm gonna go get some of that meat from that store. So fantastic job.

Thank you.

That's what we want. We want to showcase.

And Pete, you've been highlighting those on Saturdays, right?

That's right.

Yeah, let's go to the hospital every Saturday to see what the new business— yeah, that's been really good. Yeah, we do.

Do we still have our interns? Are they continuing or did they all go?

Yes, they started school, so they have less hours now, but I still do a lot of the same things. All right, let's wrap up on that. Let's take just a 5-minute break and grab some food, and then we'll come back and do item number 3 on the work session. Yes.

I have been given the opportunity to meet as a city council and staff to discuss the pertinent business of the community. We ask Blessing on this food that has been prepared for us and help that it will nourish and strengthen our bodies. Pray for the opportunity to live in America and the freedoms that we enjoy. Ask these favors and blessings in thy holy name of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Amen.

Yeah, I'm going to show you. So for instance, the Utah State Tax Commission, that's how it's reported. Yeah, I work in the Utah State Tax Commission. As far as you selling it to me, right? Not for the deep— They also want to work it, but they just shouldn't.

They don't—

right.

So when you look at that number I got the positive and the negative. All right, everyone, let's go ahead and resume back to our meeting. And, uh, we're gonna talk about Freedom Plaza area behind the new city center. And Ryan, if you'd like to take that away. Yeah, Mayor and Council, we're happy to be here tonight. I'd like to introduce— maybe I'm not— Rob Beischlein. He's been working on our City Hall project and has been so kind to help us with our Freedom Plaza. We've had a steering committee meeting and working on this to come up with this design, and tonight we're hoping that you will think of this as the dessert to your pizza. Give us the thumbs up to move forward to full design. This tonight is just a concept. The plans— not all the plans have been specified, but we— the next step would be to take it to creating the plans so we can actually take it out to bid and then build it about a year and a half from now when this building is taken down. Just to orient you quickly, where we are sitting right now is approximately somewhere in this area, so you sitting on possibly hallowed ground. So I will turn the time over to Rob. I'm going to go to the pizza lobby. Thanks, Rob. I'll have my dinner. Thank you, Ryan, and thank you, uh, Mayor and Council. Um, I'm not going to take up too much time, but I will say I'd love to echo the comments earlier. Um, Orem's a great place. I'm not a resident, uh, but I've worked with a lot of municipalities, a lot of cities. Gowney's stayed on a lot of projects, and our time with Orem's just been a pleasure, a joy, and we're really appreciative to have that opportunity. So fantastic. All right, let's, let's dig in, and I'll show you a little bit about this. A little bit of a delay. Okay, there we go. Okay, so yeah, Ryan mentioned this. I just wanted to say that we have had a process that we've gone through. We looked at an original concept back in the spring and— share with online. Thank you. An original concept in the spring, and really after that We were invited to participate with the committee. The committee involved city staff, of course, council representation, and then we had our landscape architect working with us, and then we as the architect were involved with this too. So see if that goes. Yeah, okay, so the process was really fantastic. We had some really great discussions and some really great feedback, and I think everyone engaged was really thoughtful about how important this is, how to make sure that it was successful, how to make sure we're creating a space of dignity and reverence and strength. Of course, it involves a Gold Star monument, and we had a lot of discussion about how should it be oriented, how's the sun going to interact with it, how are people going to interact with it. We talked about things like, are we going to see the golden arches poking up behind it? It's sort of like ruining that reverent moment, and can we deal with that? Is there a way we can design this so that there's this spirit of reverence there. Not that McDonald's is evil necessarily, but, you know, we wanted this to be a really focused space. Also, the opportunity for a big, beautiful new Freedom Tree. We wanted to look at that, and then how this works with the adjacent spaces, how you get into it from the library, how you might approach it from State Street, from the parking lot, from the new city hall. We talked about having a usable lawn area, what type of plants were appropriate. So there's just a lot of really great feedback and discussion from everyone, and this is the result of that dialogue. So I'm going to walk you through some of the features. Feel free to jump in and have questions. I'll show you 2 overhead views and then some renderings of what it's like sort of experientially. So, all right, so just to orient you, the library is on the right. The new City Hall building is on the left. Up is State Street. So really, we wanted to create a space that, that really drew you to the Gold Star Monument. You'll notice that it is sort of wedge-shaped so that it directs you to that spot. We also wanted it to have a certain sort of dignity and formality to it, like a monument, a formal monument, which is why we have a series of lighted poles with banner arms on them. You can have city flags on there, we can have the flags of the military branches, whatever you choose. You can change those out. Even the pattern of the paving sort of draws you to this moment. So there's a very clear and deliberate purpose for what this is about. There's, there's a lot of sort of open space, and that's on purpose too. It creates this sense of being able to enter and focus on the Gold Star Monument itself. We have a series of columnar trees on the sides. Basically, that— we have some landscaping, some benches. And then one of the things we talked about in our last meeting, and I will take zero credit for this idea, but having a field of remembrance poppies around the Freedom Tree is a really kind of special way to reemphasize, reinforce the kind of military significance to that. And so those will bloom in the summer and you'll have a lovely experience in that space. Okay, I'm going to reorient the view a little bit. Library now is up, City Hall is down, State Street on the right. So I wanted to show you a few things related to this. You can see that sort of wedge shape and the Gold Star Monument there. So one of the other things that we spent some time doing is thinking a little more about the space to the west. And how that could reinforce the ideas in the Freedom Plaza. So you can see the large new signature tree here. Just a quick note on that, we have a list of large mature trees that are available from local nurseries right now. We also worked with City Harvest, Josh, and got some feedback from him on what type of tree he might recommend or might want to use. We've got our eyes on a big few oak tree. Of course, we don't know until we're ready to purchase it if it's still going to be available. If not, we'll find something else, but we have a list, and that's our hope, and we have some backups if the oak that's currently available is not. Freedom Tree isn't a very specific variety of tree, is it? It's just whatever we call it. It could be an oak, it could be something else, but that's what we call it.

Correct, correct.

Thank you. The existing Freedom Tree is an evergreen of some kind. We don't want that. So yeah, the oak would live longer than— Yeah, I'm not going to speak to tree expertise. So that's a little out of my element. That's why we have our landscape architect. But working with Josh to help select, the oak tree is going to grow a little slower but have a lot longer life.

Yeah.

Be a little more sort of grand. The other thing you'll notice here, these 2 trees are the existing ginkgo trees that are right out here. We really wanted to save those as part of our construction process, so we designed around them a little bit and used them as an opportunity to create some nice space. We created some landscape areas at the side of the entrances from State Street sidewalks. Those are lined with trees as well, so there's a nice opportunity for Christmas lights there. And then there's a certain number of places where you can sort of enter into the middle spot where you have this grand lawn feature, a place where you can go, you can have a picnic, you can sit and reflect. And that's going to be— you're going to have the sort of backdrop of the Gold Star Monument. I'll show you a rendering of that. So I covered all of that.

Yes.

Okay, so views. Here's, here's the view looking west to State Street, and we've got these row of trees that are going to start to block the cul-de-sac. screen that. So really, you've got the kind of the majestic Freedom Tree as the backdrop behind the Gold Star Monument. And then here is looking southwest. This is really the— almost coming out of the library right out here. This is really the way you sort of will be presented to the Freedom Plaza. You have the bench seating around here. The Gold Star Monument itself, there will be some graphics on this side. my understanding is there's an opportunity to select those and photos and images and things that can be placed on that. So this won't be blank, we'll also have some, some different elements on it that reinforce the idea of the Gold Star Monument. See the flags in the background, um, you see, of course, the remembrance poppies.

Remind me, are the names of the fallen and mourned, are they going to be on that monument?

You know, I don't think so. I think they deliberately do not put names on it. It's set up for the friends and family. Okay, here's a view of the east, um, of course across the concrete slab on the right. And then this is an afternoon shot. Here's a view if it's more in the, like, late afternoon, early evening, the way the sun is going to hit that. And then as you're walking from State Street, here's the line of trees. Of course, this would be a pretty similar view to what you'd see driving past. See the Gold Star Monument tucked back in the background. Here's a nice opportunity for Christmas lights here. Is that red? It will be.

Looks like Dave Spencer's bag.

I got the wrong sheet. Yes. Yeah, okay, here's the existing eco trees and some of the seating area. That's right. And then here's the view of that lawn space. Once you're sort of inside here, there's a really nice place to sit and be and reflect. And once again, kind of the backdrop for that, whether there's library events, there's not. Community to still go out and use this space. That's all for renderings. Any questions on that? I do have some budgets too I can show you. We've done a cost estimate just so we go in nice wide open and know what our costs are.

I love it.

See the cost. See the cost. All right, so Um, yeah, there's a lot of site development with it, but we've, we've estimated about $332,000 to do this. And of course, this is an estimate. Um, we've itemized all of the different elements, unit costs. We've used unit costs, um, that have come from our general contractor, um, as they've done the City Hall building. But our general contractor hasn't bid this yet. That would be one of the things we would have them actually provide us a bid so that we know these numbers are Can I ask Brenda, how are fundraising going for the Gold Star Monument?

Have we—

So it started, and there's some that's going on. One of the things we've been doing is waiting for you folks to give us approval here of the concept, the stuff, so that we can take it to people exactly what we're asking to build versus a notion.

You know how we talked about the rock wall with the water?

Is that in here? So, um, maybe explain what that is.

Yes, you bet, you bet. So, uh, one of the things we talked about is having a small water feature, um, that not only has a nice feel to it but also, um, has the potential to create a little bit of background noise that's pleasant rather than traffic. Um, so we have an itemized thing down here And water features, it kind of depends on how big they are, where they are. If we want to add a water feature, we talked about having something up here. Potentially sort of back behind the, the Gold Star Monument. We talked about maybe having it integrated somewhere back in here by the seating. So as you're sitting down, you could have that noise there, pleasant sound, if you will. So yeah, there's, there's that discussion. We have a line item cost if we want to go down that road, then we certainly can get more details and hone in on pricing.

But we could plumb for it now, put in the pipes and everything.

Yes, certainly. Yeah, some power and some plumbing would get us there. So, so are those stairs to the— on the very top, are those stairs coming down into that, or what is that? These? No, on the— go further up each tree side, right there. These just cavers taking you from the sidewalk into the space. Just check out this flat. There's a little bit of grade here. I'm trying to remember if it was a foot or 2 feet of fall. all the way across. But for most of us walking on the space, it'll feel flat, and we'll have to grade it down. But we've already got the grading for all of this, including the plaza itself, covered in the cost of the buildings. Where are the flagpoles? Oh, the current flagpoles out here? You know, actually, I'm not sure, but I believe they're somewhere. They're right there. Have you given much thought as far as the city in terms of Christmas, and if we're going to do it here, we're going to do it more in the park, or— I mean, does it fit here? There's lots of great opportunities, certainly, and it depends on exactly what you want to do. Yes, I think, Fred, you could speak to us about it more in terms of if you have a specific I would say it'll— I mean, it would be tighter here. I think generally with our city events, we've been trying to upgrade them and get even bigger attendance than in the past. And so we might have an opportunity to look at moving into then our city center park area. Potentially, but we'll see over construction how, you know, having Christmas lighting over there. We've talked about using, for example, the train coming in and having activities with that. See how that's received and how attendance is with that. And that may provide a compelling reason to perhaps shift the actual Lights On event over there versus here. But okay, so of course we'll have— yeah, we can still put lights on the trees out here. Yes. So you heard Ralph talking about how, yeah, that was contemplated throughout this design, that putting the lights and having extra trees in that corridor between Library Hall and the city center was intentionally to get back Christmas lighting. So, so, another idea on the new City Center building is having lights, you know, the permanent lights under the eaves of that too, which is kind of fun. Absolutely. And that's, that's in our current budget.

Okay, good.

Let me, let me say this too, just to be clear. These trees really are lovely, but this isn't what they're going to look like The year they're planted. There's gonna— they're gonna be a little bit of time to fill those out. And I don't know if you saw on the budget, but the Freedom Tree, the oak we're looking at, which was a 6-inch caliper tree— I don't know what the canopy size was, we don't have that, but 6 inches the diameter of the trunk— that was $4,000. And each one of these trees we have, I don't know, it's about $600. So about— do the math. Significantly more, 600 instead of— Just need to raise more money. Yeah, so these are right now specified as 2-inch caliber trees, which when they're planted are going to be that big around and 8 feet tall maybe, and they will grow into this. This is probably a 5 to 10 year growth period, and we certainly can invest more money and get bigger trees if that's desired. How we've learned though, getting bigger trees, from what we've been told by suppliers and arborists, is when you plant a larger caliper tree, the 2-inch may surpass the 6-inch because the 2-inch will grow better than one that's established somewhere else. It's a bigger trunk size. Am I saying that right? Yeah, our landscape architect wanted to be clear too that In some cases, you know, over a 10-year period of time, you might end up in the same place by the time they grow, because oftentimes when you transplant large trees that have already been established, they don't grow as fast as they could. That does depend on the species. So the other thing that we want to be careful about, be mindful about, is what species we specify here. We want to make sure they're going to thrive and work well. We want to make sure they're going to grow fairly quickly and fill in quickly. Those kind of decisions are important. I'd say that as much as I'm excited about, you know, Orem's economy and, you know, overall positivity there, I'm just super stoked about the idea of not just bringing the Gold Star Family Monument here, but that we have a vision that I think is, is even Increasing, compounding, expanding that into this Freedom Plaza. I think it's just very, very lovely and very appropriate.

Well, I really liked in our discussions, you know, oftentimes we talked about the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and I don't know if you have been there. It is a spectacular experience, truly life-changing to go and see those monuments during the day and also at night. So I really appreciated how you guys are really paying attention to detail of the day experience and also the night experience.

Right, yeah, it is, it is very important. And I do remember my time at the Korean War Monument was at night. I've been to the Vietnam Memorial both times. I've been to Lincoln both day and night, and it is, it's different, and it's very transformative when you see it at night. And we do have a line item cost, not just for the light poles, but we have some landscape lighting and to light the monument itself. So it will be a safe and bright and beautiful space at night as well, kind of a beacon out there. Do we have a thumbs up to— I was just going to say, to compliment Rob and your team and all the city team that have been working on this, it's been interesting from the very first meeting. there was nothing. We were just kind of throwing ideas. To start with that blank canvas, I mentioned this last time we were together, but to see what you come up with starting with a blank canvas and create this concept and be so sensitive to what we hope it becomes, and that's a sacred space for families to come and reflect. I think you've done a marvelous job in doing all of that, and so thank you for your sensitivity. Thank you, thank you for the kind words. It's, uh, it's an important thing. It's something we take very seriously. It's something that's, uh, I think we need to make sure, you know, all of our generations— my kids and their kids and my parents, right— can come and remember things that are Thank you. We appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Rob. So, Ryan, did you say— Ryan, you're asking if the council's okay to move forward, right? Yeah.

Do we have—

yeah, very good. Hey, David, oh yeah, Rob's got some more work packs.

So make it so.

Yes, you got your orders. Okay, will do. Make it so. Okay, we can always raise more money.

All right, let's, let's move on.

And just run through the agenda tonight, make sure we're all on the same page. We've got, uh, yeah, we'll run through this. Dave, were you going to report on your—

I can.

I'll just briefly— what I'm serving on and how much happens.

Okay, why don't you go ahead and do that and then we'll continue on.

Okay, so, um, I'm on the, uh, the Senior Commission. Um, they're looking forward to us serving Thanksgiving.

Date on that again, David? I know we have it somewhere. I should put it on the calendar. I assume it's like right before Thanksgiving, only that Friday before. Yeah, it's the 17th, I'm guessing.

Let's see. November I think it is the 17th.

Thank you.

So they're looking forward to that.

They enjoy that. They did have a funeral at this center.

I think we'll cancel the chocolate.

We're gonna put you in charge of the milk again, Tom.

We did have a funeral there at the senior center, and it worked out really pretty well. It was quite touching. Joyce's husband passed away, and it was good to go to that and see how many people came. And it's just a great— Gina Burleson does an excellent job there. Beautification Commission, they're working on getting the signs for the lights coming up for Christmas. They've handed out all the businesses' awards and the beautification awards.

yards, so they're going to work towards that.

Public Safety Commission, I think we're still struggling to get moving on that, so we're just working on that and trying to find some new leadership probably in there.

We just recruited one of the captains from Pleasant Grove who was part of that commission. It's now a full-time employee for us, so it's a member we have.

Good, good to hear we're a destination now for the fire images from other communities.

That's nice.

Uh, Recreation Commission, um, I think we're just moving forward. We just had the Lakeside, you know, park grand opening. That was huge. Um, so that's, that's a good amenity we have now thanks to Mayor Young and the money from the county. So we appreciate you on that. Um, and then also the Care Commission, which I serve with Jeff. And we've already done that, so we look forward to next year.

And I think that's it. I didn't mention a funeral, and it might be fitting on media to mention the passing of a former city manager. Darryl Berlin passed away, married to one of our ceiling girls. Yeah, I don't know, I just think we could recognize that at some point. We're hoping to get you more detail, but there was a city manager here for some time. Yeah, I have something I can send you, Mayor. It'll be interesting to see. I want to give everyone a minute.

Yeah, yeah, because that was a funeral yesterday.

Well-respected man.

Funeral was yesterday.

His wife works at the Sarah. Yeah, that'd be great. I'm glad I could help you out.

I do have a question. Is the rec committee, uh, with the care funds being renewed, are they probably going to be Doing things to help support?

Yes.

Half of it goes to rec.

Yes, um, the whole group is out. I think we'll be more organized pushing that, but they're all talking to their neighbors about it. Okay, we've done good things. We just added another $20,000 to the co-sponsored groups for recreation for this next fiscal year, so it's very positive and they're all—

okay, I just want to make sure.

Yes.

Appreciate it. Okay, is that it?

That's it.

Okay, thank you. Mayor, uh, just in response to February's question here in terms of fundraising, I actually coincidentally just got an email from Rocky Mountain Power saying that they're gonna donate to our Gold Star Family Month. So, uh, for Gold Star Family Month.

Did they give you an amount?

No, but they will. I think we got plenty of businesses, but, but to Chief Adams' point, I mean, now with these visuals, we feel like we can definitely kind of kickstart this. That's good. That's great. Okay, um, moving on. So we'll start at 6:15. We've got to call to order. We've got our invocation. Got our Pledge of Allegiance. Got item number 6. Even though it's not on the calendar, is it okay for him to recognize the mayor towards just an acknowledgment of Mr. Berlin? Do you need to notice this kind of stuff? There are legal people here as well. It can be part of the mayor's address. That might be a good place to put it. Okay, you've got item 6.1. Uh, Mark, you're gonna be recognizing— Yeah, I'll kick it off. I just wanted to make sure that as we recognize the first responders and then the citizen who performed the life-saving events, at the end of that, you're okay with the group photo with the group and the Marin Council? Yeah, that's fine. Okay. And then we've got item 6.2, proclamation Constitution Month. Okay, so you want— you'll want me to read that? Okay.

And are we And we got—

well, do you know if we've got other— because we talked about having other activities with that Constitution Month.

So I think, um, it's just kind of like it's not going to list what we're doing, it's more just like support what we're doing next month.

Okay, okay, sounds good.

I actually have someone that I ran into this last week. She's, um, from Holland. She would— she used to go around and speak. I think she still does speak to some of the high school, the kids, about her dad led the resistance against the Nazis. And she just told me a little bit about it. She's written a book. She's really amazing. I would love to see if that would fit in this program.

Yeah.

She's an Orm resident.

So yeah, we'll have to talk more about where we're going with that, but I know we're planning on doing a number of things. So yeah, the proclamation will call— ask citizens to participate in events and activities to learn about democracy, the Constitution, the role that it has in our society and our history. So the proclamation will ask to have that generic call to action, okay, and then we can then afterwards roll out Programs and events in the month of September. Okay, this actually came from the legislature. They passed a bill designating the whole month of September as Constitution Month, which surprised me and shocked me. So I've got the prayer and pledge on the 12th of September. I've got a speaker coming, it's okay, he's a student that won the award for speaking on the Constitution for the Freedom Festival. It'll take like 5 minutes. Okay, part of that is part of the Constitution Month. Yeah, that'd be perfect. Yeah, I switched so that I had that in September so I could have it. Okay, that'd be great. As you have kind of names and contact information so we can help?

Yeah, I'll give that.

In fact, I'm going to listen to— there's 2 or 3 kids at each one. I'm going to listen to them and I'll give you the name of one which I think is most appropriate for them. Yeah, that's gonna be an exciting event. What we're doing on that. Okay, then we'll have item number 7, personal appearances, 15 minutes. Um, Wherever you recommend it. Yeah, 6 feet through. Okay, okay, and I know we've got, uh, As far as personal appearances, I've heard rumors that there's gonna be some people concerned about Airbnbs. Yeah, I'm not sure, um, where we want to go with that. As far as— If you want, Mayor, to direct them to contact my office, the Legal Services Office, as well as Um, within IT, we can help direct and be responsible for those concerns. Okay, and I, I think what I'd be curious about is just what the regulations are and if we have any control over that as a city council. I think we have a comment. I researched that on what other cities have done. That's why I've asked.

Yeah.

Yeah, so, um, state law doesn't have any prohibition on us taking any regulatory action on Airbnbs or to prohibit Airbnbs within the city. Um, just past councils have not taken any legislative action at this point, so we can research with some guidance and direction as to what direction the council would want us to go. And then we can move forward towards implementing any sort of regulatory program.

Okay, but you're going to check what other cities are doing, right?

Because, yeah, I didn't speak with the mayor from Holiday, and they have just kind of an interesting take on it, so I would appreciate hearing anything.

Okay, so we'll, we'll refer it out, but we'll also just talk a little bit about where we might go with it. So We've got the consent items. Item 8.1, approval of meeting minutes. Item 8.2, city code updates.

That's why I passed out both papers. There was a small change from when I sent out the packets. I don't know, you know, the change was—

the change is in the is in 227.4, the order of succession for city manager. As staff working with council members, it came as a concern that if there is a catastrophic event wherein we lose the city manager, the assistant city manager, the city attorney, and then the director of development services, the next in line is the chief of police. Chief Adams may be a little bit busy, so he was lower down on the succession order based on that concern.

So, may I— I wanted to add something. I also wanted to add, when we talked about this on the bus, I had a concern and we weren't able to get that ready. I talked to Jake about this. We weren't able to get this ready for this part, this ordinance. And my concern was, you know, we talked about the election reporting of donations and election campaign finance. I would like to add— I'm just kind of throwing this out there for you to think about— I would like to actually add something where members of the City Council once a year have to report from the previous year any donation that they received. So like October 15th, If I received anything from when I was elected until October 15th of the next year, I'd have to return. You're talking about gifts? Um, any campaign contributions, contributions, not necessarily gifts, but no, isn't that different?

So gifts could be considered different than a campaign contribution.

But if it's worth X amount of dollars, that's a dollar value.

It would be.

So we do need to clarify that. That's what we did have that conversation. So just kind of we're on those ideas. So any concerns you have, maybe— yeah, let's set that aside.

Is that— it's not on Section 2-3-4 Election Code. That's not that.

No, and we didn't really vet it because we were on the bus, right? So you guys should share what I said. So yeah, so they're going to prepare that for a work meeting.

So Mayor, to answer your question, 2-3-4 through 2-3-7, that is a change where we're just adopting the state law. And we're just coming into compliance with what that state law is. We're coming into compliance with state law. We have another conversation about if we want to add on to that. Yes, because state law allows us to have a more restrictive policy, but we don't have that at this time.

Okay, sounds good.

Concerns? Okay. Item 8.3, Library Advisory Commission. Lorraine Jeffrey will be appointed in the consent items. Item 9.1, we'll have a public hearing. Simple terms. Jason Kittle. That's what that is. Yeah, so Mi Ranchito, which is a restaurant now on South State, that's home. It's not running residential, of course. You want to take that part of that and convert it to parking with access to the park lots. They've done it now. We basically try and get them to correct how that's rezoned, the part of commercial you can use it, keep the residential part cool. So together, that's why the county's required you just to rezone That portion back. That's what they want. Okay. All right, thank you. And then 9.2 is the autism development. Okay, that's a public hearing as well. Item number 10, communication items. Uh, we don't have anything to go on that. Then item 11, City Manager, information items, do you have? All right, and then we'll adjourn. We'll also adjourn this meeting, so we'll see you over there.

Adjourn to adjourn.

It's stuck right by me.

Are we still doing this? Um, I think they— I think we believe that it's been working. They just certainly can't use our board, right?

Test, test, test. What have you been doing since, uh, since you retired? Where do you live?

St. Louis.

Oh yeah?

We're, uh, I talked to Bill Peterson this week.

Yeah.

And I saw him at Blackness in the Temple. He and I work in the same field.

So what's good?

What's the best way?

What if we were just putting all these—

yeah, so like pulling up the other presentations. So, um, so this means kind of just, you know, how we split it from one big council to 3 small councils.

We'd like to call this meeting to order and welcome all of you here tonight. We'll start out with an invocation by Mr. Hale and a Pledge of Allegiance by Mark Seestrand.

Our Heavenly Father, we're grateful this evening to be here in these, uh, this council chambers. We're grateful for the many people who serve us in the city of Orem, for those who spend their time most of the day trying to make this city a wonderful place to live. We're grateful for those who are here this evening to be recognized and celebrate the, the wonderful way that they helped Trent Mallinson and his situation. And we acknowledge them and are grateful for their efforts. And we're grateful for Mr. Mallinson and that he is doing better. We're grateful for the city of Orem, and that we can live in this beautiful city, in this beautiful country. We pray that thou will bless our leaders, that, that they will be inspired, that they will find ways to improve the lives of the citizens and, and to continue to make this a wonderful place to live. We ask thee to please be with those who've been negatively impacted recently through Disasters of various means, those in Hawaii and other places around the world who've had their lives disrupted, please bless them, comfort them, and help them in all that they do. And may thou watch over this meeting today, that it can be productive and beneficial, and the business be completed that needs to be done. This we say in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Amen.

Mark, you—

if you'd like to lead us in the pledge.

Yes, thank you.

Please rise.

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

Thank you.

Thank you, Mark. We've got a special recognition tonight from the fire department, and we'd like to have Chief Sanderson come up and, and lead that.

All right.

Yes, I'm Chris Shirkey, Public Works Director for Orem. I'm here with Chief Sanderson, Fire Chief, and I've been asked to share a few comments regarding what happened. a few months ago with our, our coworker Trent Mallinson. I've personally known Trent for over 20 years, worked with him. He works in our Traffic Operations section. He manufactures and produces all of our signs, traffic signs, throughout the city, and has done that for many years, and he's done an excellent job. So, so to kind of introduce the story of sorts. It was a normal day, I think, and that we were all working hard as we usually do, and Trent was out on a particular assignment where he was installing a street address sign and a stop sign with one of his coworkers, Dave, who works closely with him. I received a call from Taylor Forbush, one of his supervisors, and Justin Gaines to let me know that he had collapsed and that they were performing CPR on him. Shortly after that, I received a phone call from a sergeant in our police department explaining to me that I needed to call his wife as soon as possible. And It was then where I realized that he might not be here after this phone call, that his life was leaving. So with that introduction, I'm going to turn the time over to Chief Sanderson to talk a little bit more about what happened that day.

Mayor and Council, thank you. The citizens, my name is Mark Sanderson. I'm the fire chief. It's my opportunity at this point, and I want to express my gratitude to the first responders, our police and firefighters, for the excellent service that they provide, and let them all personally know how honored I am to be the leader and in the capacity and the role as fire chief. And with that, I've asked our Division Chief Ben Williams to run us through the scenario, and then we'll do a formal recognition of some awards. So, Chief Williams.

Thank you, Mayor and Council and citizens. It's my opportunity to review, run through the scenario. I teach paramedic school, and that means we recreate it and practice it, but we're not going to do that tonight. I have the opportunity just to summarize briefly the situation that occurred involving not only our city employee in our fire department, our police department, as well as, as a wonderful citizen in our community. And on the afternoon of April 12th, 2023, our city employee of 23 years in the Public Works Department, Trent Mallinson, experienced medical emergency. And it's my understanding he was out working and a coworker of his was kind of aware of a problem and beginning the process of contacting 911 and getting us coming. Uh, and an individual, James, uh, Kawa, pronounced Kawa the way you remember it's Cowabunga, which in the dictionary is delight or satisfaction, is to express delight. So I think that's a great last name for you, James Kawa. Now we're going to call him Kawa, but it's Cowabunga in my mind now. Um, he was there and he's looking out the window and he oversaw an individual just didn't look right. And instead of just continuing his day and assuming he was just resting, he chose to take action and head out. And often we do get man down calls in the fire department, and en route we're asking for additional information, and quite often it's a bystander passing by who thought something looked out of place but continues on their way, which is unfortunate because quite often in the true emergency, it's those minutes matter. When we're talking the need for CPR, American Heart Association Talks about the need for immediate defibrillation, immediate CPR, and for every minute that goes by without defibrillation, your chance of survival goes down 10%. So if you're waiting for the fire department to come within 3 to 5 minutes, your chance of survival goes down 30 to 50% and maybe longer. But if you're willing to step up and do CPR and intervene, the chance of survival goes way up. Every 5 years, the American Heart Association reviews life-saving standards and best practices. And every 5 years it is all focused on basic life support with CPR. There's very limited studies and science to support the advanced things, the medications, other things we give, which do in theory make a big difference. But the science does support that early CPR with limited interruptions, even just chest compressions only, makes a huge difference and survival is improved. And the way American Heart Association and others tally survival is not getting a pulse back, but actually the individual leaving the hospital and having some sort of quality of life. And in this case, that's what we had. We had Trent Mallinson, who presented with a medical emergency, a coworker who called 911, and an individual who, instead of just calling 911 saying it looks bad but don't know any more about it— which often those guys are just sleeping at the bus stop and things, so it's, it's okay sometimes— but boy, it's the worst thing to call 911 and keep going if person has a true emergency. And in this case, James thought it didn't look right, went outside, and immediately began chest compressions. Our fire engine, heavy apparatus, Engine 31, arrived shortly thereafter with paramedics and an AED, continued CPR, was able to deliver a shock using the AED that we carry on the heavy apparatus with no change. 2 officers arrived as well and continued to assist in both doing CPR as well as contacting coworkers and family. After that, our Medic Ambulance 32 arrived and our Critical Care Squad 33 to continue ALS intervention while maintaining CPR the entire time. After 4 shocks, multiple medications, advanced breathing, and probably 14 minutes of— well, 14 minutes, probably closer to 16, 17 minutes of CPR, counting what James did, we received return of spontaneous circulation or got a pulse back and were able to transport James— or excuse me, Trent— to the hospital, where he's here today with us, thanks to the many actions. So at this time, we very much appreciate the efforts and would like to present a letter of commendations to the EMS crew and the police department that was there to help that day. And I would like to call them up. and present them with our certificate from Chief Sanderson. First, we have Firefighter EMT John McGraw. Firefighter Paramedic Karsten Peterson. Firefighter critical care paramedic Dane Erickson. And an individual who couldn't be here tonight because he was just fighting a fire up in Alaska and is on recovery after they get back, a firefighter Critical care paramedic Austin McBride, engineer paramedic Steve Trejo, also couldn't be with us but isn't on a fire, just you know, and Captain Ryan Kimball. And our 2 wonderful police officers who arrived to assist early on and help with that chain of survival, Officer Gavin Johnson and Sergeant John Savage. And now I would like to bring up James Cowa, have him stand up here while we present to you an award, a Citizen Commendation Medal from our fire department. If you could just stand up here, please. Well, thank you. During the afternoon of April 12, 2003, James looked out the window of his residence and saw an Orem City employee slumped over. James immediately ran out, checked on the employee, and immediately identified that he was not breathing appropriately and knew he needed to do something. After assessing the patient, James immediately began CPR. Working with other bystanders, Orem Police Department, and Orem Paramedics, James was an integral part in saving the life of this individual. James' willingness to step in— into an emergency situation, offer his assistance, and take immediate action in performing life-saving actions made all the difference in the outcome of this patient. Without his willingness to perform CPR, the patient may have not received the necessary intervention in a timely manner, and the outcome could have been much different. On behalf of the Orem Fire Department, we recognize James Kawa's heroic actions that day and present him the Orem Fire Department Citizen Commendation Award for displaying courage and boldness in the presence of a difficult challenge and for his actions performed that day to save a life. Thank you, James, for, for your making a difference.

Mayor and Council, what we'd like to do now is ask Trent Mallinson and his wife to come up, and if you all would join us in a group picture. I think that would conclude our time. Thank you.

Chris and I are going to jump in this picture. All right, 1, 2, 3. Perfect.

If I could just mention, Trent mentioned he's headed this week to finish the job he was doing near James's home back in April, and we've asked James to keep an eye out for a Tread. Thank you.

Thank you for everyone involved in that inspiring presentation.

That's awesome.

We've got the next thing on the agenda is item 6.2.

And this is Constitution Month.

And Constitution Month is something new. We were contacted several months ago with the founding group of people who are putting together this, these events for Constitution Month. And they asked if Wharom would be interested in being part of that. And so we talked to some of the members of the city council, and they were all— everyone was very excited about being a part of that. So we've got a proclamation, and I'll read through it just to give you a feel for where we're going with this. So this is proclamation for Constitution Month. September 2023. Whereas the Constitution of the United States of America, signed on September 17th, 1787, is one of the most remarkable documents in the history of human government, serving as a beacon of liberty and a safeguard of individual rights for over 2 centuries. And whereas the Constitution of the United States of America has guided our nation through times of both prosperity and adversity, ensuring the principles of freedom, justice, and the rule of law endure. And whereas the Constitution of the United States of America continues to inspire citizens to engage in the democratic process, fostering a deep sense of patriotism and a commitment to the ideals upon which our nation was founded. And whereas the City of Orem recognizes the importance of educating our residents about the Constitution and its enduring significance, as recent studies have shown a steep national decline in how citizens feel about patriotism and community involvement. And whereas the City of Orem is dedicating— is dedicated to promoting civic engagement, understanding of the Constitution, and the rights and responsibilities of citizens among its residents, and whereas September, as the anniversary of the signing of the United States Constitution, presents a meaningful opportunity to celebrate the Constitution's lasting legacy and to reflect upon the principles upon which our nation was founded. Now therefore, I, David A. Young, Mayor of the City of Orem, do hereby proclaim the month of September 2023 as Constitution Month in the City of Orem, Utah, and encourage all residents to reflect on the significance of the United States Constitution in our nation's history, engage in educational activities that promote a deeper understanding of the Constitution and its amendments, participate in civic events and discussions that celebrate our democratic values and promote responsible citizenship, encourage the teaching of the Constitution in our schools, and support initiatives aimed at raising awareness about the Constitution's importance among our youth. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the City of Orem to be affixed this 22nd day of August in the year 2023. And so this is a proclamation that I'll sign. And then going into next month, you'll hear a lot more about this, but we're excited to be a part of it and get the word out. So we're excited.

Thank you.

Next, I've asked Debbie Luray to Give us a little memorial for Darryl Berlin. He was a former city manager here.

Happy to do so.

Darryl Berlin served as the Orem city manager for 14 years, 1980 to 1994, and stepped down after a serious heart attack. He was named City Manager of the Year twice and served under Mayors Jim Mingham, Lance Squire, Blaine Willis, Joyce Johnson, and Stella Welsh. He was instrumental in making sure women received equal pay, established master plans for sewer, water, streets, parks, and land use, and developed an employee retirement system. He made the deal to purchase Sarah Park so that it would remain a park in perpetuity and not become commercially developed. He, he helped create WordPerfect Business Park, CITO, Orem Redevelopment Agency, and many more projects. He really accomplished great things for Orem and left a wonderful legacy. We send our condolences to the family and we appreciate his fine service.

Thank you, Debbie. All right, next on the agenda, we've got personal appearances. Sometimes we have a lot, sometimes we have none. Tonight we've got So we've got 12 people that would like to make a personal appearance. Let me just read instructions for those of you that haven't been here before. Time has been set aside for the public to express their ideas, concerns, and comments on items not scheduled as public hearings on the agenda. Essentially, this is a chance for anyone in the city to be heard. Those wishing to speak are encouraged to show respect for those who serve the city. Comments should focus on issues concerning the city. Those wishing to speak should have signed in before the beginning of the meeting, and that's the list that I've got here, so I'll call your name for you to come up. We've got here, please limit your comments to 3 minutes or less. That doesn't mean that you're required to speak for 3 minutes. That means that please limit it to 3 minutes or less. And you'll see as we get going where we've got quite a few tonight. If there's things that other people have spoke about, unless you just want to double emphasize it, just trying— we're just trying to understand the problem and the situation. And so just try and massage your comments to help us understand. But we'll start out with Nathan Hoffman.

All right, well, this meeting has been so positive and lovely, and, and I don't want to rain on that parade. I just want to preface these remarks by saying we're not trying to— I'm here with a large group of people about the same thing. We're not trying to attack anyone or anyone's business or anything like that. But since I'm first, I should probably introduce the subject. There's a, there's a short-term rental in North Orem listed on Airbnb that it's on a large lot. It has— on Airbnb, it's advertised as sleeping 25 people. This is just a normal house on a normal, you know, street. And so, so there are many of us here that are concerned with many different things. I want to give the perspective of a neighbor on the, on the backside of the fence, the other side of the fence. There are pygmy goats in the corner, and they stink. And I think in 2010, the city council said that's not okay to have pygmy goats. In fact, it was to our personal friend Holly. So we know about that. And so they, you know, they stink. And but also the noise from, from the parties and the revelry that goes on there. I mean, if you're going to have a 25-person sleeper, you know, Airbnb, you're gonna have— it's basically saying this is a party house, you know, bring everybody, it's going to be a great time. And the— I remember one, one night, my, our oldest went outside, who's on the autism spectrum, high functioning, but has some issues with sensory things. And our cat had gotten out, and our oldest was trying to get the cat back. And the noise from the pool and the party was coming over and actually made her afraid. And she texted my wife and said, I don't know what to do. I need to get the cat, but I'm scared to be out here because of the noise from these neighbors. So anyway, um, those are just a couple of the issues that we face being on the other side of the fence, on the back side. And there are probably other people who will definitely talk about what goes on on the other side of the goat house. But that's all I wanted to say for, for my part. Thanks.

Thank you.

Next we've got Mary Warner.

My name is Mary Warner. The side of my house faces into the cul-de-sac where this Airbnb or goat house is located. My husband and I have been in our home for 46 years. I want to address 2 concerns: parking and added traffic, and I have 5 points. I think of the congested parking that is caused by this Airbnb like a kitchen full of dirty dishes, pots and pans. The dishes fill the sink or stacked on the stove and cover every bit of counter space. It could be overwhelming and weigh on a person. It's a relief to wash and put away all those dishes. It's calming. It's freeing. 2 weeks ago, after a full week of cars jammed into the parking spaces around my home, I went out early to go for a morning walk and the extra cars were all gone. I literally had to take a second look. It was a physical and an emotional relief. The streets around my home were back to their normal state. The clutter was gone. It looked beautiful. Number 2, one Sunday evening with lots of cars parked around my home, I walked through the cul-de-sac and knocked on every door, seeing what cars on the street belonged to people who actually lived or rented in those homes. I counted 15 cars on our street in the cul-de-sac that were associated with the Airbnb that evening. 3, The Airbnb has been used for a business conference with 25 people in attendance. This was documented by the police. 25 people means a lot of cars and a lot of traffic. The advertisement for the Airbnb reads, and I quote, this home is perfect for corporate retreats, end of quote. And this home is perfect, except for those of us who live next door to it. Number 4, I've seen adults drop off teens with sleeping bags and backpacks at this house and then drive away. 5, many times I've seen cars park, people get out dressed for swimming, the people walk towards the Airbnb, and later they come back and get in their cars and drive away. So not only do we have the people who are actually renting and staying in the Airbnb. But on occasion, we have their friends and family and those people who are staying— friends and people of those who are staying in the home coming to enjoy some of the amenities like the pool. And I would do the same if I was spending $1,000 a night for this home to rent it, and I had extra extended family and friends in the area. I would invite them to spend an evening or afternoon with me. But again, it means more traffic. Orem city families expect and deserve better neighborhood conditions than this. It's a nightmare. Unless you have actually seen the, the look of the neighborhood when the Airbnb is rented out and when it's not, you wouldn't believe the difference that it makes. You as the City Council have the opportunity and responsibility to make codes for short-term rentals to protect our neighborhoods from the condition like these that I and my neighbors are living with. Please help us get back our neighborhood.

Thank you.

Doug Warner.

Good evening. My name is Doug Warner, and I've been a resident of Orem for 48 years. And I'm concerned also about the number of cars and added traffic that is a result of the Goat Airbnb at 617 West 1475 North. Recently, we had a 50th wedding— 50th wedding anniversary party held at the Goat Airbnb. Airbnb earlier this summer. The people renting the goat Airbnb had a sign and balloons out front directing guests toward the backyard. The street parking in the cul-de-sac was saturated. And I watched as cars, after driving around the cul-de-sac and not finding a place to park, drive back out onto 650 West to park. The comment left by the person who hosted the 50th wedding anniversary party said, Scott— said he, meaning Scott Gemmell, who's the GOAT INRP host and part owner— even provided folding tables and chairs for our event. But one thing Scott didn't provide was sufficient parking for 50 wedding anniversary celebrations. Most people into a short-term rental would with one goal, make a profit. Get your property booked as often and as consistently as you possibly can, even if it takes advertising your rental as a great place to have a business or a corporate retreat, or it takes and allows 5 or 6 or more couples to go into single booking, or it takes allowing 25 people who know how, many cars at that time to use your rental, you do it. This is the smart business sense. The only way to stop that kind of legal smart business practice is to put into place laws, regulations, codes to restrict that kind of abuse in the Orem neighborhoods. The Goat Air B&B houses is the biggest and has the biggest yard Of any of our neighborhood. Because of the size and amenities, this particular Airbnb, it brings a lot of traffic when it's rented. We have at least one Airbnb in our neighborhood. Unlike the GOAT Airbnb at 617 West, this smaller home doesn't have a pool or a hot tub. It doesn't have 7 bedrooms and 4.5 baths. It doesn't have a pickleball court, a basketball court, a tennis court, or a volleyball court. It doesn't have beds to comfortably sleep 25 people. It doesn't have 3 gathering places within the home. The smaller Airbnb might have 2 or 3 extra cars at one time. The heavy traffic and parking is such a contrast to what we have to contend with, with the GOAT Airbnb. There needs to be some regulations, some limits, some rules, some codes to protect against this kind of neighborhood abuse. We ask that you, the Orem City Council, to please help us. Please send up some codes, some regulations to protect us all who have come tonight to try to bring our neighborhood back on track and to protect our quiet neighborhood with a short-term Thank you.

Thank you.

Please try and keep your comments to 3 minutes. Next we've got Steve Assel.

Always says like a stale piece of bread. Still, it's a pleasure to be with you tonight. This is a very serious thing that's happening to our, our city. We have had the pleasure of working with a city attorney, Jacob Sumption. Thank you. And he's been helpful to a point, but we're at the point where he can't help anymore. We need your assistance getting ordinances in place so he can perform his job, and so the city police they can do their job. And they can't enforce— we were told by an officer last Sunday, we've got been a week in St. George, and officer there said, well, he can't do anything about it, it's an Airbnb. And it was pretty, pretty rough on us as a neighborhood, people that live there. We felt like we were once again victims. And we know, we know it wasn't just representation after tonight of everybody. It must have been a bad day for him. But we were not treated very nicely that night. We need help so we don't have to come to meetings like this and do this. We need your assistance in helping us become family-friendly neighborhood again. We raised our kids here.

I've been in Orem—

I'm 70— for 60 years and graduated from Orem High School a year ahead of Terry. Thank you.

He doesn't know.

He was younger.

But we have had the pleasure of teaching our kids in our cul-de-sac to ride their bicycles, to play with neighbor kids, to have the advantage of having a cul-de-sac that's long. It's different than the other cul-de-sacs in our area. We worship together, we played together, and now we're before you together to try to get assistance. My grandchildren cannot learn to ride their bicycles in our street. We've got too many people, too many cars coming and going. There's events sometimes 3 times a week. You can go online to the Goat House and see what they've got staggered out over the next few months there. Every 2 or 3 days, it's a new group of people coming in, a new group of 25+. The last group there was representing a business, a large business. They had a base of 25 people with people coming and going all day long for 4 days. And I talked to them personally, just trying to get someone to move a car in front of my house so I could put my garbage cans out. And it'd been 3 days, they parked in front of the house. It's an emotional problem. One sweet sister in our ward just down the street looked out her window at 1 o'clock in the morning, and I talked to her at the ward dinner the other night. She said, yes, it's pure pornographic. There's a bunch of naked people in the hot tub drinking and shouting and running around. And this is a house that's surrounded by houses, ladies and gentlemen, by other houses. And so we're in a community where we're really close to each other. It's not in Sundance, it's not in the mountains someplace. We're there where everybody has availability to see what's going on in everybody else's backyards. We put this before you and ask for your help and assistance in getting ordinances consequences in place that can be enforced. So we don't have to have things like this if it meets your approval. Thank you.

Thank you.

We've got Colette Astille.

So last night we were at a Meet the Candidates. meeting, and many of the candidates talked about Family City, USA. And as more and more investors come in, I'm afraid they're going to turn whatever home they buy into an Airbnb short-term rental, and we will lose that feel of Family City, USA that we're so proud of. So like everybody else said, we really need ordinances and direction from the city council. for these rentals before it gets so far out of control that you don't know what to do.

Thank you.

Next we've got Ward Ireland.

Susan Bash has owned and lived at 1458 North 650 West since 1977. Her backyard faces the Airbnb. Susan is out of state right now, and with her permission, I will read her statement. This would just be west of the house. As for the Airbnb, when the weather is nice enough for my windows to be open, the noise from the pool is very annoying. The other night, the drunks At least they sounded drunk, were very loud, and their language was pretty bad.

Not fun.

One night a group sat out and talked until 4:30 AM. Sometimes it goes on quite late. Last night it went on until 11. They don't have any respect for the neighbors. My house being a split level puts my main floor directly aligned with the pool, and I hear it all. Recently we had 5 cars parked in front of my house from the Airbnb for several days. Some people might be able to move to get away from the noise and added traffic. I will not be able to do that. Like to add my comment.

It's not that—

from speaking for my wife and myself, it's not necessarily we're opposed to, you know, an Airbnb. But if so, it seems that there should be some sort of ordinance that limits the scope to match the the zoning of a, of a single-family residence, something of that nature. Thank you.

Thank you.

So next I've got Leslie Ireland.

Hello, it's really good to see you. Lynnae, you know our neighborhood.

Yes, I do.

Because you used to bring your children there for violin lessons, and she knows what a charming neighbor and neighborhood it was and how it's kind of a moderate little neighborhood and kind of a short cul-de-sac. My name is Leslie Ireland, and I own the home directly across— I directly across from the Airbnb. My husband and I built the home in 1977. Currently, I'm renting my home to a single family of 5 people, 3 boys and their parents. I raised my children in this home and neighborhood, and then I raised my grandchildren in the same home. It was a quiet, safe neighborhood with a moderate amount of traffic that allowed the children to play games of football on the street, to ride their bikes in the cul-de-sac, and to play night games in safety. That atmosphere changed immediately when the Airbnb began in earnest with its business. The number of cars parked on the cul-de-sac has been overwhelming many, many times. My renter even went so far as to post some signs in front of his home suggesting that no one is welcome to park there because he couldn't find any way to park for his own child. I have spent some time at my rental home and have observed a huge increase in traffic as the Airbnb visitors come and go All day and all night long. If I was raising children in this neighborhood now, I would not feel comfortable letting them play outside in front of my home. They would be confined probably only to the backyard. The visiting Airbnb guests, guests seem to consider the neighborhood as a business area to accommodate their cars and not a neighborhood of living families. And besides, with the bumper-to-bumper trucks parked on either side of the street. A kickball game is out of the question. There's just no room. It's too narrow and it's too dangerous. When I first figured out the Airbnb had transformed from a single-family home to a vacation spot for 25 or more people at a time, I went on the website to learn more about the new business. And at the time, they were charging over $1,000 a night. The first thing that crossed my mind was, I should do the same thing someday when my renter moves out, because I only make $47 a night on my rental. What a foolish thing it would be not to try to consider to do that. But then think of all the cars and parties and noise that would be added to the neighborhood if I rented my home out. And I think it could cover 13 or more people every night. I'm not planning on taking this route. I would like to support my neighborhood's peace and safety. I would like Susan Bash and Mary Warner to be happy that they live where they live and not wish that they could move away. As with all my other neighbors that I used to have as neighbors, I am of the opinion that a better zoning law needs to be written for Airbnbs in single-family neighborhoods. When I ran my OREM-licensed violin music studio in my home, I had to be very careful about only having a few cars come and gold from my home for that business in the same hour. I think the same thing should be done for this situation.

Thank you so much. Thank you.

David Haskell.

First, I'd like to thank you for the opportunity for all of us to be able to voice our opinions tonight. My concerns, as I heard about the Airbnb in our neighborhood, was the infrastructure. Our sewer cannot handle this many people, and it is almost every day we have 25 plus their friends, plus the parking. Plus, I believe there is a fire danger in this house with that many people in a single-family residential. I also believe that, that many strangers in my neighborhood every day is a little frightening. I'm worried about my possessions. I'm worried about my hobbies in my garage. I can't leave my garage door open. I'm concerned of theft. And I also agree with many other statements that were here tonight.

Parking is dangerous.

The noise is bad. We have been in touch with NIT and the police department. And I have talked to some people in the fire department, and all of them seem to be appalled at the situation. And they are telling me that they are— hands are tied. There's no regulation because it's short-term rental or Airbnb, and we feel that it should be kept to the same standards that we have to keep as far as single-family dwelling. And Those are my concerns tonight.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Randy Schwartz.

Thank you, Council, and thank you, department heads, for being here. We appreciate your service for the city. I lived here for 30 years in this neighborhood. And I've raised my kids in this neighborhood. We love this neighborhood. And just for a second, would everyone who's here for neighborhood, would you like to stand up just to show who's here? And these are people just not in our neighborhood, but like they said, behind and around. Imagine, for example, we all like to go to weddings, especially in the summertime. They have those wedding receptions in their backyard. And the one thing when you go to those wedding receptions, you never can find a place to park by that house. You're always parking down the street and away, and you have to walk. That's what we face every week. Every weekend, it's like a wedding party going on in our cul-de-sac. We've had school buses there dropping off a track team. We've had basketball teams come. And so you can get a variety of What sense? We don't really know what's going to be in our neighborhood from day to day. This Airbnb is rented out pretty much 3 days a week, 5 days a week. It's, it's every weekend is booked. And we're just very concerned. There's like, there could be some liability too for the city if not addressed. If there was, like David said, if there was maybe a fire with fire codes with that many people. in one building. That's something that should be addressed. We, we're here tonight searching for answers, searching for you to delve into it to see what you can find. This is something that maybe might affect you and your neighborhood someday. We've had— There's an old saying that you never want to be the nicest house in the neighborhood, and this was one of the nicest homes in the neighborhood. They had 3 lots. And we had, when they were selling it, the last owners that had it, they had like 5 or 7 deals fall through because it was so expensive. Until we had a very cunning and sharp business person that thought, I can make— this is the perfect place to make an event center out of. And that's how it's advertised is as an event center. And that's what we see on a weekly basis is events. And I'm worried for my grandkids when they come over. I don't like to have them in back— out in front too, because there's so many cars. I never know. I see new people's faces every day. And I don't know who they are. Before, we always knew what was going on in our neighborhood, who was there. We felt comfortable with that. We know if something's not right, we can call the police if we know something's not right. Now, Nothing's not right all the time. So please take your time and delve into this seriously. Look into it, see what codes that you can write and put into the city ordinances that we can be, be safe from all these things. And I thank you.

Thank you.

Bladen Lautensack.

It's nice to see all of you again. Let me just say, as I begin, I know this is going a little bit different direction here. It's a year in which we're having elections, and I just want to take time to say thank you to all of you. Regardless of where you stood politically, for your service and the time that you've given. That being said, I'm here because of this tonight. Citizens received this in the mail.

All the—

or most of the citizens of Orem that I'm aware of received this in the mail, and it's asking us to vote for certain candidates for Orem City Council supported by a group that's known as Stronger Together. Um, it says on here, uh, which I think is kind of divisive, last year a divided city council, which I think is really inappropriate, um, forced Proposition 2 onto the ballot and 72% of us voted no. Um, that being said, I'd just like to ask the question, so how's that going? How's that going right now? You voted no. Let me tell you how it's going. The Alpine School District has already closed several of our elementary schools, with Kim Byrd and David Stevenson from the Alpine School District staying true to their word when they stated back in October of 2022 that they were considering closing and consolidating 7 Orem schools. And of course, Alpine School District board members Ada Wilson, Sarah Hacken, And Sissy Rasmussen, who represented the PGA. I'm just here to tell you from personal conversations that truth was not told and people were lied to in many different ways things were said. And the question is, you know, is things going good? Well, it's not going good. It's not going good at all. of Orem citizens, teachers, and PTA members voted no because they were duped and lied to. And I don't know how else to put it. And I'd just like to say, I bet that parents and teachers from the schools that have been closed and are being closed, along with the children who have been displaced and moved to other schools— and I might add, with increased classroom sizes— are, I'm sure, not part of this 72% anymore. And how about Alpine School District recently voting on and passing a resolution that resulted in a 20% tax increase to our property taxes, 70% of which go to the Alpine School District? And, and the question is, how much of that's been allocated for Zero. I'm just here to tell you, we need to make sure that we are not aligning ourselves with Stronger Together. Please do not vote for candidates, whether they're on a council or candidates, some sitting out here, that support this group. That's not the direction that our mayor and our city council has tried to take us.

Thank you.

Next week, and I'm not sure I've got this right, but Kayla Olson. I must have got that wrong. Introduce yourself, please.

That's common, no problem.

Galen.

And I'm here to talk about the Airbnb. Basically, on my part, I'm at the position where I can look down the cul-de-sac, and like everybody said, it's just a whole row of vehicles. My big concern is these people aren't from this area. I've seen the traffic of— I'm going to say 45 miles an hour. I know it's 25, but my concern is when is somebody going to get run over? I've been tempted myself just to pull my truck out in the road and give somebody a reminder that it's not 45 miles an hour plus. And it's motorcycles too. So it's just these people aren't from here.

Maybe they don't care.

They don't Where, I don't know, but, but it's a big concern of mine that someone's going to get run over sooner or later. And the, you know, speeding around the corners, burnouts, all this has increased. And I've only lived there 7, just over 7 years, and it's just, it's obviously, it's noticeable change in the short time that I've been here. So I'd like to see something done for the safety of the community at the bare minimum.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Last up on the public comment, we got Chuck and Jody, and I can't read your last name.

I'll speak for the both of us. This is also in regards to Airbnb.

There you go.

Yeah, this is in regards to Airbnb.

I was pretty shocked when I heard that this happened, and this was in my old neighborhood. I lived in that neighborhood for 30 years, and this is a nice, clean, upstanding neighborhood, good community, great people. We moved a few years ago, still live in Orem, but my concern is this is happening in this neighborhood. Is it happening in yours? Is it happening in yours? Where's it happening next? Is it gonna happen in mine?

That's my concern.

I hope that there's going to be some rules, some ordinances, something put into place to prevent this from happening for the safety of all of us so that we can keep our communities and our neighborhoods safe. That's what I'm saying.

We usually, just when we have the public comment, We don't really discuss it further at this point, but I can assure you that we've, we've talked and we appreciate all of you coming out and painting a picture for us of exactly what's going on so we can understand. Because from our perspective, this is Family City, USA, and we don't know what we can do as far as ordinances, rules, but we're about to start a research project just to see what other cities are doing and what's possible, so. We'll do our best for you, but we appreciate you coming tonight.

I just want to add, I happened to meet with Steve and Colette and happened to go down the street, and I think it was a Thursday afternoon at 3 o'clock.

Oh, a Tuesday.

Okay.

A day that you would think there would be no one on the street, and it was literally bumper to bumper from the top of the cul-de-sac to the bottom. I don't know what day your garbage day is, but I, I don't know. I don't know how a garbage truck could get in and out of there safely. There are just so many cars on the street.

So that, that was something that I hadn't heard mentioned was garbage day. And I'm sure that adds a whole nother layer of concern.

All right, we're going to move on. Item 9.1. We've got 2 scheduled items tonight on the— for public hearing. Is amending Article 22—

Mayor, if we could address the consent items.

You're right. Okay, good catch. Let's go back. How did that get checked off? Okay, let's go to item 8.1. These are our consent items. We've got 3. We've got our approval of meeting minutes, item 8.1. This is from August 1st, 2023. We've got item 8.2, city code updates, Section 2-27-4, order of succession for a city manager, and Section 2-5-5, powers and duties of a city manager, and Section 2-3-4, 2-4 through 2-3-7. And then lastly, in the, in the consent items, we've got an appointment to the Library Advisory Commission of Lorraine Jeffrey. So, Renee, would you like to say something?

Just real briefly, Lorraine, she's here. Would you stand up for us? I've interviewed Lorraine. I know Lorraine. She loves books. She loves libraries. She's going to be a tremendous asset to our commission, and I'm grateful that she was able to accept this. So thanks, Lorraine.

Thank you. Would someone like to make a motion on the consent items?

I make a motion that we approve the consent items as listed.

Second.

Question.

Yes, maybe for legal. Did we 2.3-4 and 2-3-7 were not on the handout. Were they the same as what had been mailed out to us previously? Thank you. I just wanted to make sure we were covered.

Thank you.

Yes, that is the same as what was handed in.

Thank you.

Sorry. Thank you.

First and second.

Yeah, we got a first, second. Would you like to start, Jeff?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Consent items pass. Let's go to item number 9, back to number 9. Schedule items, public hearing. And this is amending Article 22-5-3A and the zoning map of the City of Orem by rezoning a portion of the property at approximately 0.084 acres located at 426 East 1070 South. From the R-6.5 zone to the C-2 zone. And Jason, if you'd like to present that.

Thank you, Mayor, members of the council. This is the location of Mi Ranchito restaurant, which is down on South State Street. As soon as we get our thing going, I can show you the I can explain a little bit while we're waiting, but the restaurant owns a home that fronts the street facing north that they have owned. And what they're wanting to do is take a portion of that property and convert it to parking that would be a part of the restaurant itself and keeping the home. Meeting the requirements for a single-family home in the R-6.5 zone. It's probably best if I can explain it with pictures, but give me just one second.

Mayor and Council, I'll apologize for our technical difficulties. In good news, we do have a whole new system coming by the end of September. Unfortunately, during the process of building our new city center, our existing AV system has been reaching the end of its useful life, but we're trying to find a workaround here real quick. We have been able to get the presentation to show on online. Now we're just trying to get it to show on these screens in here.

All 3.

We could just tell everybody to pull the YouTube up on their phone.

I've got it online.

Can you pull up YouTube and stream that? Any of the TVs, these TVs too? Because we'll need this for both presentations. The next presentation is even more involved. We'll definitely need it for that. Do we have any other options as far as we bring in a remote screen and just plug a laptop straight to it and just go off of that? I mean, if this isn't going to work, we're going to need it. So we apologize for the delay.

I just had one. Item to, I guess, announce and invite you to. So this Thursday is our annual employee appreciation party. It'll be at noon and at our City Center Park here and the outdoor stage. And, you know, you'd think that going on 17 years in city government, work that over time I'd— one might think, you know, you'd become more and more jaded at and think that, you know, there's not enough that we can do right. But in fact, for me, the complete opposite is true, that it seems like as each year goes by, I become more and more impressed with the amazing the innovative work, the energetic work that your— our employees here at Orem do. So this year we'll have— we'll actually recognize— well, we had by far more submittals of examples of the excellent work that our employees are doing, and so we'll be handing out more awards than But also, we've added a couple of new awards. We've added like a Rookie of the Year Award and a Rising Star Award as well. So as we've done in previous years, we'd love to have you come and help us hand out these awards and recognize our employees.

Question, so because I've got on my calendar like 9:30 to 3, but is the awards portion? Is that at noon?

It starts— yeah, it's at noon. That was an early placeholder, so for some of us that are going to help set up. But yeah, if you can just be there by noon to help us hand out the awards themselves.

So you're saying 80% of those employees are pretty happy to be here?

Is that—

I'm referring to the survey in case people are wondering what's he talking about.

Yeah, and in fact, you know, as we started to see those survey results It's one of the things that was some of the feedback we got on what we can do in terms of continual improvement is, is recognizing our employees and communicating with them. So this is certainly a quick response opportunity we have to still do better, regardless of how well we're doing.

Thank you, Brent.

I think while we're waiting, I think we should— I think we should do item 9.1 because that's pretty simple. And maybe if you can just, you know, draw a picture for us what we're talking about, I think we can have a public hearing on that while we're waiting to get the video set up for the next public hearing.

Sure, glad to, Mayor. So there's— if you can picture in your mind, Mi Ranchito, which faces on State Street. They have a parking lot that goes behind their restaurant that you can park in the back as well. On the south side, they do own a home there that has a hair salon as well. That's part of the overall complex in the C-2 zone. They also have a home that's actually fronting on 1070 South, which is 426 East, which fronts onto a neighborhood street on the north side of— next to, I think it's Burger King. Or one of those other restaurants that faces State Street. On the other side of that, on the east side, there's a home that they also own. It's in a residential zone. What they're proposing is to take a back portion of that residential home, and which backs onto the parking lot in the back of Mi Ranchito, and convert about 12 stalls, pave that over, put 12 stalls there that would be a part of the commercial parking lot. In order to do that, according to city code, it has to be a commercial And so they're here before you tonight to rezone that portion. It's about 3,600 square feet of property to the C-2. The front home itself will stay in the residential zone. It will be platted as a residential lot, so it still has the size they need, even if they take off that back portion. So both parcels will remain whole. The residential lot will stay legally sized that it needs to be for the home. And the back portion will be added to the commercial to add that parking. So they're here only to get that portion rezoned. We'll take them through after that for the site plan to get the parking and the plat redone as well, but then that'll be through the Planning Commission. Tonight is simply just the rezoning of that back portion. For the home or for the business? So that's the home that they own that faces into the residential. And then the Mi Ranchito is addressed off State Street.

So does Mi Ranchito— they own that home now?

They do.

Okay, so they own the home and somebody's living there?

I think one of their employees or something lives in that home and then just, you know, commutes by walking over to the restaurant, I guess.

Okay, so the idea is, is they would— is there a parking lot on that part of the yard right now?

So what they, what they've done is they actually took the whole yard, if you've been back there, and converted all of it to pavement. We've been working with them because they can't do that and maintain that house with the proper setback. So they'll take a portion of that that they've already put in out and leave what's— what can legally stay there, and then convert the rest of it back to grass or whatever they need to do for the back part of the house. So they've already converted it to asphalt. They'll need to modify it through our site plan process if the council chooses to rezone that portion.

Okay, so they would just be picking— making their parking lot official. Would they, would they put some kind of a wall there?

So they'll be— they have a wall there now. They'll just need to take that wall and move it south. So they have proposed and have put in the wall, they'll just have to move it.

Okay.

Yeah.

Do you know just roughly how big that lot is right now?

Yes.

Right now it's about a quarter of an acre. So, they're taking about 3,600 square feet. It's in the R-6-5. So, they're going to have 6,500, a little bit bigger than 6,500 for the home itself, and then take the remainder and put it into the commercial zone.

Okay.

Any other questions?

I have a question.

The neighbor to the west, that on the corner there, State and 1070 South, are there any issues with that?

That's a commercial lot, right? The restaurant?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Have they expressed any concerns about any of this?

No.

Okay.

Nope.

May I make a comment?

Debbie.

So the Planning Commission looks like they gave a positive forward, so there was no issues that they were concerned about?

No, because the neighbor— I mean, the neighborhood remains single-family home facing the street. It's only the back portion that will be commercial, and the back part of that, that the restaurant is already commercial, so it kind of fits into that.

Okay, there wasn't any concern.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, sounds good. Any, any other questions?

Tom?

It sounds like you're just moving a line a little bit closer to the house, is that correct?

Correct. Okay.

Yep.

That's—

I'm sorry, it took a few maps for me to figure that out.

I wish I could have shown you.

Sorry.

Yeah, I found it on Google.

I'll just make a comment, Mayor Terry. I think this is great. This is an example. We said we had a presentation before this meeting about some of the small businesses in town and how we're business friendly and how they're improving. Kathy Lewis— I don't know if Kathy's still here. Anyway, she did a great presentation about it. This is a great example of that. This is, this is this family having a small family business next to a giant developer that's been gobbling up houses along the street, and they're playing by the rules, coming to the city council, getting approval to widen their parking. And anyway, I just think it's great.

I just—

applaud all small businesses in the city. And sometimes they have to go through a lot to get things done, but good for them. And it's a great restaurant. Everybody ought to go there.

I mean, family-owned. It's been a generational type restaurant. So yes, they're very committed to this location.

That was one thing I was gonna say. So we frequented this restaurant often during COVID They had this awesome pickup in the parking lot. And now to go and have this expanded parking, it's a lot easier to get in and out and They have great food. Really like it.

Indeed.

Any other comments by the council? Why don't we go ahead and open this up for public hearing if there's any of the public would like to make a comment. Looks like no one has a comment, so we'll close the public hearing. Would somebody like to make a motion?

I'll make that motion, Mayor. Make a motion that the City Council amend Article 23-5-3—

22.

I make a motion that we amend Article 22-5-3A and the zoning map of the City of Orem by rezoning a portion of the property, approximately 0.0884 acres, located on 426 East, 1070 South, from the R-6.5 zone to the C-2 zone.

Second.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

The motion passes. Thank you. All right, are we Good with the audio, with the video.

So we just have this screen. I apologize to the audience. We don't have— unless we turn that so they see, then you can't see.

But you might, you might be able to turn it just a touch to—

I don't know if they're gonna be able to see or not.

Can you get— can you see or no? Can you or not? No, it's off.

That's off.

And Mayor, just for the public as well, the presentation, the staff presentation made for this agenda item is in the packet online that the audience can download and look at.

Okay.

Okay.

Thanks, Jake.

All right. I'll describe this and— are we ready to start? Are we back?

Sorry.

You guys just don't— you guys need to learn magic.

Here we go.

That's right. Okay, here we go. Item 9.2, amending Article 22-5-3A in the zoning map of the City of Orem by rezoning a portion of the property that fronts Geneva Road from the West to the PO zone, approximately 4.83 acres, and the remaining property from the OS-5 zone to the PRD, approximately 4.7 acres, and amending Appendix KK of the Orem City Code for the property located generally at 1875 South Geneva Road. And Jason, would you like to lead us in this conversation?

Thank you, Mayor. So this portion, or this property, is where the Autistic Academy is located. It was built in the county before it was annexed into Orem City so many years ago. Well, not many, but several years ago. It's when it was annexed into the city, it was put in a zone OS-5, which is an open space zone, 5-acre minimum, as a holding zone. They're now coming before you to do a couple things. One is to rezone the front portion of the school to a PO zone, professional office. This type of school, or school itself, is a permitted use in the PO zone. So it makes sense if they ever want to expand. And I'll show you a site plan in the future. They do have a Phase 2 for the school portion up front. And then they want to take the back portion and convert it to a PRD, planned residential development, with some single-family homes, single-family lots, and ultimately Ultimately build homes on there for the students that have either graduated or in the process of graduating from school here. So they have some type of issue with autism or, you know, whether high functioning or whatever. Could be open to their parents or families as well as part of that. So that's what they wanted to do, to have school available. They do have— And I'll let the applicant explain, but they do, after they graduate, they do provide services after graduation. to come back and then do some training as well. So that allows them to be a little closer to that facility. So here you can see an aerial view of the school up front. You can see Payton Crossing, which is the residential properties to the south of this, and you can see 2000— if you can see my cursor there— 2000 South in Orem, 2000 North Provo, and this is Geneva Road. At this location. So this is the autistic school at this location. What they're wanting to do is take this portion here, which is just over 4 acres, and convert it into a basically a subdivision with a little smaller lots. So you can see the configuration of what they're proposing. I'll have a little blown-up portion here. Let's go to the front. You can see there, this is the existing school. Eventually they will have a Phase 2, which will be the Adult Autism Center. So they'll build that and they'll explain, I guess, when they want to do that. But that is the front that will be zoned to the PO zone. The back portion, you can see it's 25 lots. 2 of those lots will be used as parking, so Lot 21 and 24 will actually be required parking for the PRD. PRD requires 2.5 stalls per So they have a 2-car garage, and then they'll have this parking stalls that are required to be within 150 feet of the lots. And so this does comply with that requirement. The streets within this are public. And so this will be a typical subdivision. You can see the average lot size is around 6,500 to 7,000 square feet, with some smaller, some larger, but they will be single-family.

the homes.

This is the configuration. The red are the public streets. You can see that there is a portion— so this property right here that you can see that separates the Autistic property from the Payton Crossing property is undeveloped, and in the future potentially could be developed but not part of this plan. The portion—

or the—

this section here is projected to eventually connect When Payton Crossing was developed, Stub Street was put in right here facing north, and we are requiring this development to face south so that street connection can be made. Sorry, so this little section right here. So we are expecting, based on the streets, you know, master plan and the way that configured, that would be connected as part either this development or near future. Payton Crossing has one access to 2000. This process— this project has one access to Geneva Road. So by connecting that, it gives options to go to 2000, and it just gives interconnectivity not only for convenience of the people that live there, but also for fire and police to be able to respond. If in the event that Geneva Road is closed, they have a secondary access To get in, or vice versa.

So wait, that one at the bottom, that doesn't go anywhere, right? Is that that dead end of the cul-de-sac where the gas station was going to go?

So this, this is a cul-de-sac dead end here.

Yeah.

Yep.

I can go back.

Not an anticipated connection there though, correct?

Let me go back to this. So no. Okay, there would not be an anticipated connection. So this is their connection here on 2000. Right here. And so it has future to stub across and then connect into the road systems as they develop going north.

Debbie has a question.

So these are for autism families. Will that be part of— like, will the school own these and then restrict it to families with autistic kids, or will they be sold to the general public?

Probably a great question. For the applicant, if they're here, if they want to come up. So Paul Washburn looks like representing, if you want to.

Yes, please.

Good evening, council members. My name is Paul Washburn. I'm representing the development this evening. Just a little bit of background. The Autism Center has been there since about 2011, I believe, is when the construction was done. Was mentioned earlier, was previously in the county and then was later annexed into Orem. It's been a terrific center. I don't know how many of you are familiar with it, but they really do a great job of finding ways to mainstream kids into the public in schools and everywhere else. It's really worked out very well. One of the things that is happening now though is when I was growing up, and I'm older than any of you, but life expectancy for children with autism was relatively short. That has changed now, and I think most of them have a normal life expectancy. And what's happening now is we do a real good job of taking care of kids when they're in school, up through high school. After that, it gets a little bit more difficult. And particularly when you end up with parents in their 60s and 70s with autistic children in their 40s and 50s, there's a real demand for, for housing that is specific to that. group of people. And the autism center, when they purchased this property, the intention was at some time to create some family housing for individuals in that situation. When we initially approached the neighborhood, neighborhood meeting, we looked at a little more dense situation. We had twin homes as opposed to single-family homes. It was suggested by the neighborhood that they felt like single-family homes would be more fitting with the rest of their neighborhood, and so we made that adjustment. Our density on this project is just barely over 4 units to the acre. It's not much different than an R-18 would be anywhere else in the city. However, doing the PRD does give us— allow us some flexibility. In terms of being able to range. the houses and make things work so that this neighborhood is cohesive. The question was, is this going to be deed restricted? And it's not.

These—

when we get into deed restrictions, the legal implications that become very difficult to make work. The other problem that happens is when you have a heavy deed restriction on a property, it's hard to get financing. people that need to have a mortgage on these units. However, the units are going to be designed in such a way that they're really not going to have a wide appeal to the public. There's going to be special refrigerators, special stoves in these units. The restrooms are going to be built much different than you would have in your own home. And so I think, you know, we've— there's always been a discussion the last 30 years. We build Senior housing projects, we're afraid they're going to turn into something else. Well, the way they're designed, they don't. You know, you may have a family live there while their parents are on a mission, but it pretty well stays senior housing. I think we're gonna have the same situation here.

So they will be privately owned the way you're describing?

They will be privately owned. That's correct.

How are the— I'm looking at the floor plan. So how are these bathrooms different?

Our director, Trish, maybe she could come forward.

Sure.

Hi.

There we are.

Hi, I'm Tricia Nelson. I'm the executive director and president of Utah Autism Academy. And just to give you a quick background in history, 20 years ago, my son Riley was diagnosed with autism. And he's quite profoundly affected by his autism. And 10 years ago, I started a nonprofit organization, Utah Autism Academy, to help individuals like him better integrate with the community. And this is kind of a moment for me because this is a dream that I've had for a really long time. Excuse me. So to create a community that is friendly for my son and for others like him. And as we've served individuals on the spectrum, we've noticed that it's really hard to integrate in community. And we want to create a safe space for these families to know that their loved ones are taken care of and that they have the space that they need. So, for example, the bathrooms being different, it might look like floor drains because sometimes we overflow the tub, right? It might look like the sinks and the cabinets are off the floor just in case there is water that's on the floor, or the faucets might look a little bit different so that they can They can access them if they have gross motor skill deficits or things like that. So, things that can be modified and adjusted based on the individual's needs, that's how the houses would be developed and designed by the owners who know their loved ones best.

So, it's more of a fixtures issue versus— Sure.

Some of the things would be built in, like the drains and the floors and things like that, but other things can be modified in the home.

Perfect.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah.

So, Mayor, I might just finish. So as part of the PRD ordinance, we do require the concept plan and elevations to be put in the appendix, which is Appendix KK, which then binds the developer of the property to build what they say they're going to build. So if the council approves the concept and the elevations tonight, that would be part of the ordinance, and if they ever want to change it in the future, they would have to come back to the council to make that modification. So they have several, several elevations that they want to pursue. So you can see A, B, C, and D here. So they're a little bit variations of the facade. And then they have E and F. So single-family homes, just a different little look on the front. The advantage of a PRD is that we don't allow accessory apartments. That's one advantage, I guess. We don't allow accessory apartments in a PRD. So what you're going to get is 23 single-family homes. family homes without the ability to have an accessory apartment. So for the neighbors—

So they have basements?

No, they will not have basements.

No basements, just single.

We've had a soil study done on the property. There may be 1 or 2 homes that may be able to have basements, but the majority will not. We've got a high water table, as you're all aware. We're just off the edge of that hill, and water's pretty shallow and warm in that location.

Yeah, the Payton Crossing to the south I think, built up their whole area about 5 or 6 feet, so they could have some basements. But that would be the same in this case. If they keep it the way it is, they would not be able to have any basements. If they were to build up the earth around it on the lots, that, that could be a potential, but the high water table is pretty significant in this area.

I do have a question for Paul.

Do you have a cost estimate on these?

Cost?

Yes, yeah, these homes are probably going to be in the $500,000 to $700,000 range. Just while we're talking about price, we'd just like to make one comment. We're not asking you to change your ordinance or anything else. These are regular city streets. These are single-family houses with double-car garages and driveways, and we're being asked to provide 2 additional parking lots to allow for the guest parking. The impact of that is $25,000 per unit. Now, when we talk about driving, you know, the things that make housing unaffordable for people, this is one of them. You know, if this was any other neighborhood in the city, not a PRD, we'd be thrilled to have the driveways as guest parking. So anyway, that's a soapbox issue. I'm not asking you to change anything, but something that, as you look in the future, may want to look at. If you have a full-width public street, why in the world do we need to do that?

Can you show a picture of the house so they can park in the driveway and in the garage, right?

Correct. The PRD does allow, though, or require 3, which you can count either the garage or the driveway.

You can't have both.

Now, that's something we could look at in the future if the council's comfortable with us moving forward with an amendment. But right now, because the PRD allows a little higher density, up to 6 units per acre, that's where the council, you know, past councils created this ordinance to require a little bit higher parking level.

I think Paul makes a good comment.

But would it be better to just have an R-8?

Or an R-6? I mean, that's, that's possible.

He's 4 per acre.

Yeah, but I think some of them Between 6 and 7. Some of these lots are a little bit smaller, which, which allows them— so 5,700, it allows them to go a little bit smaller in a PRD because the concept plan is what you're approving, not necessarily the lot size. So if you approve this as a configuration of the concept plan, then they can build and record it according to the lot sizes that you see. There's not a set lot size in a PRD zone.

So how far apart are these homes?

So they're 59 feet in width, and the majority of these that you see along the street—

How far apart are the homes from each other?

They're 10 feet.

Be a minimum of 10 feet. They could be a little further. If you look at this design, this is the allowable footprint based on the size of the property. Houses will adjust somewhat. So what we've done there is that's— that is a standard footprint that could be used, but it doesn't necessarily mean the house will be that large. It's the other thing, because this is a PRD, these are not individual lots. The homeowners association will be maintaining all of the lots, similar as you have for other communities.

Kind of what we're doing then is instead of the normal single-family home setbacks between homes, you know, we're narrowing that to 5 feet from the— from each home to the property line. 5 feet property line.

In this instance, yes, the PRD does allow them to do attached homes if they wanted to, right? So they could do twin homes, things like that. So it's not necessarily required, but there are state standards in the ordinance that if you have separated lots and then have separate buildings, there is a minimum setback, which is 10 feet.

And then these— is he correct? These are— this is the normal width of a street?

Yes, they are sublocal street. And what the standard sublocal street that we require in every subdivision.

Okay.

So you can see the separated sidewalks, you can see the planter strip, and the 20 feet of asphalt is the standard width.

Ryan.

Sorry, Mayor, hard to see me over here.

One of the challenges with the PRD though is your lots are narrower.

So the amount of on-street parking is less than in an R-8 where you have 80-foot lots, so your driveways are closer.

So just something that does differentiate a little bit.

We're not asking you to change that. It's just like I say, it adds substantially to the cost, and I just wanted you to be aware of it. We're not asking for a change.

And because the design of PRDs throughout can differ, that's kind of the— just a standard that the city came up with, the 2.5. So doesn't mean it couldn't change in the future, but it's not proposed today. So the Planning Commission— there was 5 planning commissioners at the meeting. 2 of them had some questions on the street connectivity. safety of the children. And so it was a 3 to 2 vote, so there was no recommendation coming to the Planning Commission. It was 3 in favor, 2 negative. So just so you know that there was no recommendation from the Planning Commission. Any questions that I can address as far as staff?

So question, question on the parking. You've got 2 parking lots, so how does— how do the lots below Access that.

You can see that there's a sidewalk right there.

That's a side. Okay.

Yep. And then one here as well. Okay, so the ordinance requires the access to those visitor stalls to be within 150 feet of a lot. So if you can look at all that, we've measured that each of those have access within that 150 feet. Majority of their parking is going to be in their driveway, and we recognize that, but the ordinance does require them to have visitor parking off of the street. So this does comply. Are they going to use it on a regular basis? Maybe, maybe not. But that is the requirement that we have in the ordinance.

So I'm just confused about where the autism fits into this. I understand the concept of what we're getting approved, but is there, is there a special thing about autism in these homes or something I don't understand.

What we're trying to do is trying to create a community that we have a base of people because of the Autism Center to the west, the facility we've literally to this day, probably several thousand students have circulated through there. There's a large community of people that would like to live in a neighborhood that is very sympathetic to the same issues, autistic children, They're great. We've had them in our neighborhood, but particularly as they get older, they tend to wander. There are other issues. If you've got neighbors that understand your situation, have the same situation, it creates a community. We've had a lot of people over the years have approached the center asking if there's some kind of housing or some kind of neighborhood that is specifically for friendly to that, to that use. And that's what we're trying to create.

Can I just clarify one thing really quickly?

Sure.

The idea is an HOA, right? And the individuals that live in these homes or the families don't need to be associated with our program, but there will be services offered for the community in the community center that we plan to build for adult day treatment and a community center. So this is open to the community. But it won't be required that they need to participate in our program. But it's an HOA-friendly community so that those families like mine can feel included and not siloed away in a locked-in-gate community, but yet have access to friendliness of their neighborhood environment, if that makes sense.

So, so, Tricia, do you see it as— I mean, do you see it filling up as All autism people with autism, or do you see it as a mix, or is it—

Yeah, I honestly see it as there's a lot of interest in this space. So, I think a lot of families who have a loved one with autism will purchase these homes, but it could be a grandparent that has grandchildren often over to their home, or it could be a neighbor who really has a desire to be inclusive in this type of community. But I do see a lot of these homes filling up with folks on the spectrum.

Yeah.

Let me ask you something else. As far as I've heard that there's other places like this, other communities like this that have kind of been— or there's not?

We haven't seen— we're looking across the country at what they're doing, and there isn't anything quite like this, especially with the adjacency of the center with the services that we'll offer. There's communities that try to be more autism-friendly, and we're trying to imitate some of those qualities. But there isn't something that's like this that we found even nationally. This is something unique of sorts that people are trying to develop, but that we wanted to do in a community that was conducive to this kind of environment, which we believe Aurum is.

Okay.

And are you doing this as a— so you've got the autism School right there, and that's in the nonprofit. Will this area be affiliated with the nonprofit or funded by the nonprofit? Is there any overlap there?

No.

So the way that this looks is these will be sold off to private— to privately, and their resources that we gain from that, those profits will go right back into the center and the community services that we offer there at the center.

So, so the profits from this would be donated?

Yes.

Back to the foundation?

Yes.

Okay.

So, so, Paul, I've got a question for you. So you mentioned that the fixtures and everything's different. But if I wanted to buy a home there, could I just make it my home and not have anything to do with autism?

You probably could.

So I think that defeats the purpose of the PRD personally. If that's supposed to be a community to make sure that's safe haven, I don't— I think that's—

I believe it's through the HOA that, that accomplishes that, is because through those, those Things that we develop in the HOA for an autism-friendly community, much like a 55-and-older community of noise ordinances or different things like that. There will be some ordinances that will be developed in that community to help understand and be compassionate towards an autism-friendly neighborhood, but the home could be built or established much like any other home.

So, I mean, if it's a $500,000 home and that's the best deal, then everybody's going to go there and buy it and we're pushing everybody out that really needs it.

I don't think you're going to find it's the best deal.

I mean, a $500,000 home, I mean, it's very rare to find in Orange.

Yeah.

What's the square footage, Paul? 1,600.

And if the basement is 3,200, so—

Yeah, I would like to add too that I would hope that with water and soil testing, if it is compatible with code and everything, that we would be able to have basements in any of the homes that, that the regulations allow for. So yeah, basements as well.

But you can't have accessory dwelling units in a PRD zone.

So Jason, what— is there anything that prohibits, like, how deep do they have to go to have a basement? Can this be a house that's significantly higher out of the ground?

Potentially, but they'd have to meet the maximum height limit of— and I went blank on that. I think it's 27 For a one level.

Okay, that's the safeguard there.

Yep.

Okay.

So they could build it up to get a basement, but they would be limited to the maximum height.

The basements will be determined by the soil study that we've done, and we've potholed a number of places that you're familiar with on the site, see where water table is, and that's what will determine that.

Each individual home would be required, if they want a basement, to do a specific test on their own. parcel to make sure that works. And that's something that Sam Kelly, our city engineer, would, would review and make sure that meets the standard.

So have you crafted your CC&Rs yet?

I'm sure in the process of that now.

I just asked if they'd craft— you'd crafted or written your CC&Rs.

We're working on those right now.

So it looks to me like this is a design. This is a 2-bedroom home. Looks like a very nice home, 2-bedroom, 2-bath, if I looked at, right? So your, your target market is then maybe an older couple that has a special needs or autistic child, which it could go either way, right? And for them to have this single-level home to be a place where their child is near your center, and in, in an area with people in the like situation.

Yeah.

So they can feel supported there.

Yeah.

There's so many different scenarios with autism that we just want to create some options for many.

Okay. Wonderful.

And we're confident there's going to be a strong demand for these. We're not trying to build 100 of them. We're building, you know, low 20s. Yeah. They're going to fill up.

And then it sounds like you're, I mean, you're using this to finance your autism school. You're through these developments, You're hoping to get some nice proceeds to then build your— and improve the services that you're going to offer to these individuals.

I would say improve the services, yes, to the community really as a whole. Like, we have the financing and the profits within the organization itself to be able to be financially sustainable on its own. This will only help the community.

Because you own this land and it's just sitting there. So now if we can find a way to use it to assist in your programs. That's what I'm seeing here. Am I seeing that correctly? Yes. Okay.

Thanks. It's to assist families just in—

And then your goal is that the buyers that come are going to be people who want to be by the autism facility so they can use your services, but there's really no—

No. And the need for— we have a waiting list right now of 1,800 kids in our program. Like, there's no— there's such a lack of services that we're not looking For additional business here. We're looking for opportunities to be able to say, this is what can be done, please duplicate it elsewhere so that these families can have resources and options. We won't, we won't have any trouble getting people into our building for services. That's not the goal here.

And the max is 10 homes with this POD.

Max is 7 units per acre.

Oh, I didn't know.

I was looking— sorry.

Yeah, what was the number, Paul?

The maximum on this is 2,600 square feet.

No, the, the number of homes.

23.

23.

23.

I was looking at the screen and it was just the lower part.

Sorry.

And I was, um, if I'm remembering, the, the opposition by the neighborhood next door that I didn't— don't remember any. I mean, it seemed like they were pretty supportive of this.

They're here, I'm sure. And though Share their thoughts.

Okay.

Yeah, I think it was a mix. I think the biggest concern is they didn't want the road to connect to their neighborhood. Everybody's got a concern about traffic. This property is unique in that it's surrounded on 2 sides by property that's in an open space easement with the state of Utah. You've got the Cherry Hill Farm is one property, to the east is the same property that is immediately to the south is owned by a gentleman named Al Swetzler. He's been very helpful with this. He's allowed us to use part of his property to get a 90-degree angle on our road going out onto Geneva Road. However, that property is currently being utilized for produce for the—

Tow's Way.

Yeah, that's right. And so their intention is not to develop it. Can't say forever, but at least in the foreseeable future. So this is kind of an isolated neighborhood.

What's that? Any other questions on the council? Do you have more to the presentation, or is that for public hearing? Okay, let's go ahead and open this up for the public hearing. For anyone that wants to comment.

Hi, my name is Thomas Jason James Zingas. I have autism. I've been coming to these meetings since January 2018. I would really love this as a kid. I have not had much interaction with people with disabilities other than myself, so this would have been really nice to have as a kid. So that's all I have to say.

Thank you.

So I just, I just have a question. I get that this is primarily being zoned for or put together for autistic kids. Is this a facility that would also be open to those that are possibly Down syndrome? I don't— it's just Mike and I were talking about that. We just wonder.

Our program services autism and intellectual disabilities of any types. So yes.

I'm Pamela Moose.

I live in Payton's Crossing, and I am not opposed to this idea. I just have some questions. Clarifying question is, you talked about having an HOA.

Who's in charge of that HOA? Is it going to be the autistic school that's in charge of the HOA? So you're the one that's saying you will approve, like, so.

Moving forward, like pretend some, uh, like an older couple wants to live in there, but they need different fixtures in their bathrooms. Do they need to go to you to say, oh, we really don't need this type of fixture, but we need this type of fixture in our bathroom?

Are you the one that has to approve the changes to the homes?

Yes, we would approve that. And in the case of the fixtures, they would probably be approved, but only in a sense that they could be reconverted at some point.

In the future, so they could move back and forth as necessary.

Yes.

Okay.

Can I just add to that, that the goal is to have a homeowners association that really is with the homeowners, with the folks that are living in the homes, to have a representation of what the demographic is. We hope to design that for the folks that we know are interested in purchasing these homes, and that will be conducive to the autism community.

Tricia.

Just let me ask you this. So as far as just to try and get an idea here, so you got 23 homes. And are you going to give priority to people with autism? I'm trying to figure out how you're going to get, you know, community of autism. I mean, because if it's just price, price driven, it could be whoever can afford it kind of thing.

Yeah, really, we have such high interest in need for this type of thing that as we carefully distribute this to the people that we know within the state that have the need for this type of services, we believe there will become a waiting list of just individuals who need this type of specific housing for their adult dependents or children with autism, that the houses will fill up really quickly with those just as we carefully craft the marketing materials for the community.

And this, this would be kind of a question for Paul, but is there a way that you can push it that direction? You know, as far as— I'm, I'm just thinking if we go through all this and we set this up and get this going for you, but then we have just a bunch of people show up and want to put a deposit down, how do we focus this towards the autistic community?

That'll all be done with the condominium documents or the HOA documents, excuse me. It's going to be— make it very clear that this is an autistic-friendly community. We're going to have, you know, talk about the different things that are peculiar to autism. You're probably going to have people wandering through your yard or may wake up one morning with somebody in your garage. And that's just part of being in an autistic— with a lot of autistic kids, that happens. They're going to be very Very well informed of that, and they will have to sign the HOA documents as part of their closing that they understand it and they'll abide by those rules.

One of the things also to know, we can, we can do that mechanically.

As Tricia said, it's— we've got a lot of people that are extremely interested in this kind of a concept for housing. If we were building 100 of them, as I said before, we might have more to worry about. out with 23, and it, as with most projects, they're not going to all be built the same day. It's going to take a year, year and a half to start building, and they'll be getting ready incrementally through. And I don't think we're gonna have any problem. Okay, pretty straightforward.

I can't really speak for the rest of council, but I think if this does pass, that would be the intent, would be to, you know, we look out 10 years from now, we have an autistic community over there that's meeting all the needs we're talking about, right?

Yeah. One thing we have to really be careful of is there's a— there is a fairly new settings rule that's a federal law that says that we can't create a congregate care setting that isn't open to the community. So if we were to restrict this and say you have to have autism to live in one of these homes, it would require us to go through a settings process and a high scrutiny process. And I don't think it would pass that process if it was Just like a group home vibes, if you know what I mean. So just be careful to open it to the community and then, and then carefully give them access to the community from there.

Okay, that makes sense.

So do you see these homes— I'm sorry, may I ask— owner-occupied dwellings?

Owner-occupied, yes.

Potentially, will there be restrictions on how— what percentage can be rented?

It's not our intention to have any of them rented, but yes, we can do that. I think this evening we're looking at trying to get a zone change so we know if we can move forward. We've obviously spent a lot of money on plans and everything else up to date, but there's going to be a lot more money spent if you decide to change the zoning tonight. One of the things we can do as part of our presentation on the site plan, we can provide the HOA documents to you for the Planning Commission to review to make sure that that we're doing what we've agreed to do.

Just, just a comment about HOA, and it's kind of going along with what the mayor is saying. I think it, you know, all of us have probably been involved with them. I'm involved with a couple HOAs, and there's not— they don't really have as much teeth as they think they do. You know, I mean, there's a lot of laws that you start violating if you say this HOA is only gonna let this person or that. So if Dave Spencer says, hey, Terry, Julie and I are going to buy one of those places. Why don't you and Sherry buy one next to us? If we came down there, neither of us have a connection with autism, and we were told we couldn't buy there. Or if 4 of us wanted to go down there and say, that'd be fun, we're all friends, let's go down and buy there. I think you run into some real problems if the HOA starts to pick and choose. I know you do.

I know that as well. But what we can do is if you decide to move down there, you're going to understand this is an autism-friendly community. You're going to— the HOA documents will spell that out very clearly. And if you decide to live there, you're right, it's fair housing, we can't stop you. But you're going to understand where you're moving. And as you know, we all age and die, the HOA documents stay in place. I don't, I don't think we're going to have a shortage of people Looking for these kinds of houses.

I also have a comment, but is this still public hearing time?

It is public hearing.

And I'll wait.

Okay.

I just add one thing too, and I hope people like you come and want to live in a community next to my son, and that people are interested in these homes because it is adjacent to an autism, and that they want to be autism-friendly. Like, I hope, I hope that is the case on a lot of levels, that we have interest from people who have an interest in being a neighbor to folks like this.

That's important to me.

Yeah, so don't, don't take what I was saying wrong, because all of us know someone has autism. I was involved with Scenic View for a number of years, so I understand very well what you're talking about. I just want to make sure the HOA doesn't get in trouble by trying to just pigeonhole, you know, who can and who can't.

Yeah, and I think it's like we want to make sure the opportunity's there for this waiting list for these families, right?

Let's go ahead and just— do we have a comment here?

A couple of questions for clarification, if I may.

Could I ask Mr.

Bench to bring back the picture that has the red and green lines? I am Sherry Fong. I live in Payton's Crossing, and I also am concerned about the traffic. Say our street has— everybody has 2 cars, right? So say our street has 4 40 cars, and those 25 homes have 50 more cars. I'm concerned about the traffic because with the parkway going to be started next, the connector to the parkway, it's going to start very near the autism school. So where is that going to come in, and why can't the Green Line become, become a second entrance or exit?

Thank you.

the green instead of going through Payton's Crossing. I know that that farmer who's going to start farming, supposedly 80% of what he produces ends up in Orem food banks. So they do good work, and I'd hate to see, you know, it being cut off. And I'd hate to see the traffic on 2000, which is already horrendous for a 2-lane road, Have 50 more cars going in and out of it 2 or 3 times a day. So I just wondered if you've considered the traffic patterns with that Orem— I mean, Geneva Road to Lakeview Parkway that supposedly is being started next year, how much traffic that's going to increase, and if that's being addressed in any way. And is this going to become— second question— is this going to become a board bidding war if it's listed for $550,000? It took us from November to June to find our home because bidding wars. If somebody autistic comes in and can afford a $500,000 home, but somebody else comes in and says, I'll give you $640,000, Is that going to be taken into consideration, or is it going to be, this is the price and that's it, so that people know upfront and can plan on it? So if anybody knows anything about the traffic pattern, or if you could at least consider it as you're making your decision and explain to us why that green line can't become a red line.

Thank you very much.

Okay. We've had a very detailed traffic study done on this by Horrocks Engineering. This kind of housing— and I know members of council understand this— senior housing, you don't have the same peaks as you have with regular housing. Typically in a regular neighborhood, you have housing peaks that start at 7 in the morning and end up peaking at about 8:30 in the morning, and then it drops off. Typically, people in these kind of neighborhoods, the housing— the drive peak is generally mid-morning, 10:30, 11. Not— doesn't have a major impact on the roadway. In terms of Mr. Switzer's property, that we're only using 900 square feet of his property, and we're replacing it with an additional 1,000 feet that he'll be having, so it's not going to impact his ability to the crops that he has now. The red line is the public streets, and that's how it circulates through the property. They're located where they are because there are traffic requirements of spacing of roadways, and we've met all those court requirements. Not only has this been looked at by the City of Orem, we've also had UDOT look at it. Geneva Road, as you know, is a UDOT facility. One of the nice things though is by the time these homes are built, This end of Geneva Road is going to see a major reduction in traffic because of the new airport road that's being constructed jointly with Provo City, and that connection is actually going to be to the north of this. I know about a little over 3/8 of a mile, I believe. The green line is basically a fire emergency exit if for some reason there was some event that would mean that this— the main intersection would be closed or restricted, we still have a way to move traffic out of the neighborhood. In terms of how we're going to be handling traffic for the center, most people will come in on the Red Line, they will loop into the parking lot, and then they will go out where that Green Line is back onto Juniper Road, trying to keep everything Everything going one direction instead of multi-direction in the parking lot.

Any other public comments?

My name is John Porter. I live in Payton's Crossing. First of all, I want to say this sounds like a wonderful project. It's neat.

It's needed.

And it's well planned, well designed, but it isn't well thought out. I'm here to express the concerns of our neighborhood, mine, my neighborhood, to the traffic going south on 800 West. The traffic, when that goes through, and I know it's not immediately, is going to go right through our neighborhood, our quiet little neighborhood that the city did not even require streetlights for. We're gonna have all of that traffic through our neighborhood, and it's gonna put an unfair burden on our neighborhood. The project shows they have access through that what's now marked green, but they don't want to make it a full-size road. They say eventually we'll have our secondary access through our neighborhood. But if you think about it, if the secondary access is in place, It's important now. You're gonna have people living there with one access. They should have 2. That green line should be a legal street red line. The other concern I have is this property will be subject to purchase by anyone who can afford it. There cannot be any screening process, and what's gonna happen over the years And this was discussed about by 2 of your planning commissioners, is people are going to move in there, single-family homes. We might have students in there, and the density is going to go up and up and up. And then when that road goes through to our neighborhood, we're going to have even more traffic in our neighborhood. I am surprised that they haven't given you copies of the HOA agreement. the draft, uh, copies of the CC&Rs so that the council could really look at what protections are there. This neighborhood, which on paper says it's for families with autistic children, there's no guarantee that will happen. The market's going to drive who lives there, and we will end up in a few years with a single-family residence, high density, lots of traffic, and that's going to affect all of the development north of that.

Thank you.

My name is Craig Brady, Orem resident. I have a grandson with autism, he's 22, and I am affiliated with the Utah Autism Academy. I just want to make one comment. In the Planning Commission meeting There was one objection, and the reason was we're setting a precedent in the western development of Orem. That precedent's already been set. Across the street is high density. But that's not the issue. Quite often when we say we're setting a precedent, it means something negative. The really cool part about this whole program is Orem has a chance to set a precedent for the country. This hasn't been done before. And it's a great plan, and it's very— it can be replicated easily. We have an opportunity here to really make a statement. Family City USA, uh, the autism community is represented in the family. And with the effort that's been put forth by this 501, they've got nothing to gain from this financially. It's all of the effort over the last 20 years for Tricia, 10 years for Utah Autism Academy. Right now, the state has passed legislation for Medicaid to go to those 21 and over. There are some real strides being made for adults with autism. And this community center that will be built is for everyone. Tricia mentioned she's got a waitlist of 1,800. That's hard for her. It's extremely hard. She wants to make a difference for the whole community, and this facility that will be built will be for the community. And I hope that you sense that, that you have some compassion for this portion of our community and will vote yes.

Thank you. Thank you.

Do we have any other public comments? Okay, one in the very back.

I'm Susan Lautensock. Happy to be here tonight to listen to all the issues. I just have one question. I don't have any autistic relatives, but I do have 2 friends that have autistic children. Their income levels are completely different.

One's high, one's low.

I just—

the only question I had was You mentioned at the beginning that the, the value of the homes will be between $500,000 and $700,000.

Considering we probably— I don't know the percentage of autistic people in our community or our county or our state, but would you consider perhaps making some of those homes in the $400,000 range? Or making them $400,000 to $700,000 instead of maybe $500,000 to $700,000, maybe opening the range of affordability for people with families with autistic kids?

Obviously, it's to our advantage to make things as affordable as possible. With building costs where they are now, that's a difficult thing to do, right? With the requirements, as I mentioned earlier, the parking lots. We're adding $25,000 per house that wouldn't have to be there otherwise. We're going to do what we can. We want as wide a range of people as we can have in there. As far as my being able to sit down and say right this minute, these— we're going to have a percentage— I can't do that. I don't even know what concrete is going to cost me tomorrow. I mean, I grew up at a time when it was $30 a yard. The last project I was involved in was over $200 a yard. You can't buy a 2x4 for less than $10 anymore. I mean, it's just, it's, it's difficult. We're gonna make things— obviously, it's to our advantage to make it as affordable as we can, and we'll do what we can.

Okay.

The densities here keeps getting referred to as high density. We're basically in the same acreage getting one more unit than we would have if the whole thing was an R-1A. We're not— this isn't a high-density project. We do need the PRD to have the flexibility in the design so we can make these homes work in a way that's gonna benefit the people that are gonna be living in them.

Okay.

Well, and to the high density, unless I'm missing something, you said it was— there were 2-bedroom, 2-bath, right?

Yeah.

So if it's 2-bedroom, 2-bath, by definition, I mean, you're doing almost RA, but with a very low population.

Yeah, yeah, it's gonna be a low population area.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

I have dear friends that suffer—

well, don't suffer, they have children that are severely autistic that obviously can never live independently. My only concern is I live in Payton Crossing.

My name is Connie Porter.

And again, the traffic And then I'm concerned about the safety of these autistic adults, if there'll be somebody to monitor them and follow them so they're not wandering on Geneva or wandering on 200 South.

That—

I think that needs to be addressed because the autistic people I know cannot live independently. I assume that most of these people would be higher functioning and would be able to live independently. But if they're really high functioning, they can live in the community, just a normal community. So I'm just worried about the safety of the occupants of these homes. And then I'm worried about the people that will move that will live there without any involvement in autism and what that will— how that will impact our neighborhood.

Thank you.

And again, I think this is a lovely idea, but I wonder if they've really thought through the safety of these individuals.

Thank you.

If I can address that, we've had the autism center there for a dozen years. We've never had any serious safety issues. These people are really well trained to do that. The idea of having a neighborhood that is for autistic people, the people that are going to be living there are going to be especially cognizant of being careful driving.

So my question is, you've never had an incident where an adult has wandered from the school, away from the school? I mean, is there supervision?

Is there—

With Utah Autism Academy, we have never had any of our individuals wander off the campus.

And is it because you have locked doors? Is it because you have adults?

We have appropriate staffing for their safety needs. All of them are staffed one-to-one. So after hours Right now we operate 8 to 4, but it's my intention to make sure that individuals with autism are safe wherever they live. And safety will be addressed through their individual state support coordinators and things like that. And services will be offered to them to help bring safety up to par. But also, we don't want to put these kids in a bubble or these adults in a bubble. We want to give them opportunities to explore their communities in a safe way. an appropriate way.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, let's, let's go ahead and close the public hearing. And then we can move it back to the council.

Yes.

You know, based on minutes of Google searching, 1 in 58 children now are autistic, and I didn't know anyone when I was a kid in high school who was autistic. I live in a neighborhood that has 3 autistic children, and I watch these neighbors get together and find a support structure amongst themselves. I have a grandson who's autistic who doesn't live in a neighborhood where he has that support structure, and he's not always treated kindly by neighbors. And I don't think they mean to be mean. They just don't know how to react. And so thank you for the good work. I agree with some of the concerns that red can turn green, and I don't know what the problem is there, Paul. And I don't know the gentleman sitting next to you, but you must have some interest to be taking the heat at the front of the room. Say it again.

Tom Bankhead.

Oh, Mr. Bankhead, good to see you.

L&T Construction. He'll be constructing the project.

Sure. So I don't know why we can't have our own ingress regress, 2 different roads. So I think that would handle the 4 lanes. and other questions to people who live in that neighborhood. So that's my one question. But as far as the idea of building an area where we have safety, and yes, this is going to be for wealthy kids who have autism, I understand that. It's a, it's a strike. It's just a disadvantage. And I'm— I understand that.

I'm sorry.

But this is going to be for people who can afford to pay it. And frankly, I think once you have a dozen families move in with autism, It'll be a natural setting of who moves in and who doesn't. So can you address the ingress regress?

Is that okay if I ask that question, Mr.

Mayor, of the, of the group? It's really not a question. Go ahead, maybe you can address it.

I can address it. That goes right through our playground. I, the Utah Autism Academy has a playground area so that would stay, the green area would stay locked unless there was an emergency.

Sorry for the recorder. Is there room to move the playground to where you're thinking about a construction?

I think the ingress regress is a big deal here, and I don't know how—

Can I address that really quick?

Sure. Sorry, Tricia, if I cut you off.

I didn't mean to do that. So the green road is a secondary access only, and it's only going to be used until such time as that other access, a public street, provides the second access.

What if that other street never came through? Is this a small enough, uh, or, uh, strong enough, small enough? Like, I live across from Arthur's Court, and that only has one ingress regress, and it has about 40 homes. Is that similar to this?

Uh, it is, but the current standard is that we want multiple.

They couldn't build Arthur's Court today, is that what you're saying?

Not with one access.

Okay.

No, but this is only 20.

With a planned future access, they can, even if the future access never comes?

Well, Like with Payton Crossing, they only have one access now to 2000 South, right?

Okay.

So the whole plan of developing a greenfield development is that we know we're going to have some dead-end roads in the short term, in the short term, and eventually they are going to connect. The intent of the city is to make sure that we have interconnectivity, not only for the citizens but also for public safety, which really drives the multiple access points. If you have an accident on Geneva Road that blocks that access out, you're out of luck. You're out of luck. And so, I mean, the fire chief, the police, you know, police chief, all would want to have multiple access points to make it safer, not only for them to access but also to respond at a quicker time. So understanding there's traffic issues, but as you, as you have more connections, it disperses traffic. It doesn't focus traffic. So the more connections you have into a neighborhood, the less you're going to focus traffic down one Even if there was a second access through the other neighborhood, 95% of the traffic is going to go through the current access it has, it sounds like. Most likely, most likely.

You standing to dance or just stretch, Paul?

Yeah, if I could just stand up here. This will be the main access most of the time.

People that are coming to the center itself would use this access, come out this way.

But they're not going to home, they're not going to bed for the night, they're just going to school. Right? Is that correct?

Right. Something that blocks the street, this would allow a fire truck to get in or any emergency vehicle.

And they'd have to shut the playground for a period of time.

And again, we have turned in the traffic report. This is a very low-impact traffic subdivision. I mean, significantly lower than you would have if this was, you know, a standard subdivision.

They're small homes. They're not going to be 3 teenagers with cars, etc., out front.

I get that.

Thank you.

Well, but you've got, you've got a 2-car garage and 2 bedrooms, so you usually figure a car per bedroom. So, and a single-family home, typically in traffic reports that I've seen, say you have 7 trips per day from a single-family home. So you got 2 cars, you got 14 trips per day per home. 23 homes, was it 23? So you're saying it's— I guess I'm not understanding why this you think would have fewer than that.

I think what you're going to find is the peak times those traffic go through, and you get 100, 200 trips. This sounds terrible. I mean, you sit there and think, gosh, what are we gonna do with all the traffic? That's what goes through a bank drive-up window. window in typically in 20 minutes during the day. It's not that many cars.

So can I just get some clarification here? I'm not understanding the future connection. Future— why is that an unknown? When is that going to happen?

Because the owner of the property— we don't get to just drive roads across somebody else's property. When he decides to develop it, that's when that connection will take place.

When he's developing the property to the east?

To the south, to the east, or to the south, either one.

Okay.

And we land there, that's a different property owner that divides the 2 subdivisions.

This property right here, we're labeled OS-5 zone, that is not part of their property. So when this developer comes in to develop, that is when this connection—

And they're probably going to use that road. They're going to use the road you're building.

Yeah, correct.

More likely than you're going to use the other road. road unless it stopped for some reason.

Their costs of development are going to be a fraction of what ours are.

If you look at the improvements, they'll be putting, you know, the curb and the sidewalk. The street will be pretty much in.

So what you're saying, Jason, if I hear— can I just provide this? So you're saying when that developer to the south wants to do that row of homes, part of the requirement the city will put in place is for them to finish the road to connect those To, and the fact that you're putting that road in will make it probably a little more attractive for them to develop that land.

Not just the road, but the storm drain system, the water and the sewer lines.

But the thing holding it back, from what I'm hearing, is that the people who own that, they're kind of dedicated to farming. Well, they see their mission as the food— providing food for the food bank.

for the food bank and Tabitha's Way and giving kids an opportunity to work.

And I mean, I understand there. Okay, thank you. I have a question.

Does Al Sweitzer own that piece of property?

This piece here?

He is the founder of Tabitha's Way in North County, so that's why he's doing that.

Okay, thanks.

And I mean, I have to say, he's been very accommodating with us. We need to put the road out to make the right angle to Geneva Road. He's been very helpful. He's been, been a good neighbor.

So just a way of information which may not be relative here, but the property to the north is in a conservation easement. That's the Cherry Hill Farm. So that's never— well, I shouldn't say never, but most likely not going to develop, which is why we don't have stubs going to the north. If it was a regular piece of farm property, you would see a stub going to the north as well to have that interconnectivity. But because we know it's not going to be developed because they've donated their rights to the Conservancy, that's never going to be developed as far as higher density. So that's why you see it southeast and then out to Geneva.

So, so Jason, is the property to the south— is that R-8?

It's currently OS-5, so they would have to come back to the council to rezone it to some other zone, typically an R-8, which is what the property to the south of that is, is R-8.

There's got to be a way we can work this out. I mean, I'm hearing that, you know, the need to have these homes, but also hearing, seeing that these are a lot smaller than the potential lots that would be to the south. So, and now we're assuming that everybody's family has autism. There's just one child, right? There's a mom and dad and they just have one child. That's it. They don't have any more children because there's no room in the house. It's just a 2-bedroom house. So for those families that have more than one child that has autism, what if you made those lots bigger and made the houses bigger? That's going to reduce the traffic concerns that some of the other neighbors have. It also makes it more consistent with what the property that would probably eventually be like to the south of it, where they're a lot bigger. You see where those lots are penciled in. So you're saying, well, it costs more.

Yeah.

And we all see what's going on with real estate. So now you're buying a 3 or 4-bedroom home, which means that you're not just picking on an autistic family where there's the only child that can move in there is the autistic child. I mean, we know that it's not always the youngest and everybody else has moved, or the oldest. It might— there might be 4 kids and one of them have autism. They should have a right to be able to live right next to the school as well. So I'm just wondering, what if, what if there was a compromise and you say, let's make these lots bigger, let's make some of these houses, you know, so okay, a couple of them might be 2-bedroom, make some of them 3 and 4-bedroom. And just, just a thought that might kind of resolve it because I sat through the Planning Commission discussion and, you know, could see the concerns. And I'm hearing the same tonight, you know, saying the same kind of concerns. So just, just a thought.

Won't the basement do that on some?

There are some that will be able to have basements, and that will help solve some of the problems you're talking about. One of the things— this isn't something we just woke up one morning and said, well, let's just build a subdivision. The Autism Center has been doing research on this for years. And we're trying to provide housing for the most likely scenario of people here. It's not going to work for every single person that has an autistic child. We know that we can't save everybody. We're saving as many as we can. We're taking for the widest group possible and trying to make that work.

So, Paul, can you— or Tricia, I think will help this. We've talked about it earlier, but could you define that demographic for these 23 houses?

The demographic are probably going to be parents, probably from the age of probably late 40s to maybe mid-70s that have an adult autistic child. Now, that may not be everybody. You may get grandparents who want to live next door to their autistic child, but that's going to be the demographic.

Okay.

And this is not a price range that somebody that's an entry-level buyer is going to be able to buy.

This is—

I'm just trying to drill down to the demographic. demographic, because I think that drives—

Yeah, a lot of the folks that we're talking to, it's, it's families like mine who are middle-income families who are going to save up as much money as they can to put a down payment on a home like this, so that they can either live there with their adult child with autism, or, for example, my oldest son might move in with him as his support staff, and it could be his home. But the idea is to have some type of investment for him, that when we die, that he has his own place or that he can be served in a place that is friendly to his situation. So it's for us to be able to give him an opportunity. Again, middle-income family, but we're willing to invest so that he can have a place of his own or with his support staff or with us.

So is that— so that's mostly adult— adults, adult adults with autism?

I would believe so, yeah. Unlikely a caretaker That doesn't have autism, or adults who don't need a caretaker but who need a little bit of extra friendliness in their neighborhood, who could own their own.

So is that clear?

I have one— I do have one question. So we're doing a zoning change here. Do we have a site plan connected to this? Is this it? This is the PRD zone that we would be approving? This will not change?

This is the concept plan.

Okay.

Yes.

If it does change, it would have to come back to the council.

You might want to make a call to Al, our contact. Al bought that land for Richard Wilkerson to farm. I don't think he has any plans to develop it anytime soon. If that makes a difference in the rating, it might be worth investigating.

Do we have any other comments?

I mean, I have a question on the, on the playground. Is it fenced?

Currently, yes.

And you said that your staff is 1-to-1?

Yes.

So if you have people on the playground, you would have 1-to-1. So maybe you could have a road that maybe it's a 10-mile-an-hour as an exit or an entrance to satisfy the neighbors.

I don't think the traffic counts are going to address that. I mean, the traffic study that we've turned in showed this as being extremely low impact. We do have accommodation for emergency. As far as putting 2 roads into it, it's just pointless. It's—

Well, Paul, I mean, there was a concern from the citizen. That's why we brought it up. So we were asking you the question.

So I don't—

I think that was a good reason they had a concern. So we try to listen to everybody.

Sure.

And, you know, it's not pointless.

So—

Well, and it is, it is an issue from a safety perspective, the limited access. There's so many homes back there, and you have one way in and out. There's no way you could have the green be at temporary road till you— we get that future access.

I'm going to just speak on the advocacy of every child that attends that center and say that their families would sit here in opposition all day long to the safety and the, the, the trouble that that would create to be able to put their— you know, we have them to one-to-one, but we want to be able to go where they can run around so that their staff can be 5 feet away from them instead of right next to them. And to speak to the safety of those individuals on the spectrum, I'm, I, I am strongly opposed to any sort of road that regularly has cars flowing through it through our playground.

Well, so it's not just through your playground. I mean, this is your property behind you that you're developing. That—

so the green—

you're the one developing it, right?

The green line, the green line goes through the playground. That's the emergency exit, right? Like The—

but I guess my point is, this is your— you own all this property, so it's not like someone's infringing on your property by putting that green line through. This is a way to— I'm playing devil's advocate here, you know. This is a way to access your property better in order to be a good neighbor to the people south of you.

This would be the main entrance in and out.

There's an access here, there's an access here. In an emergency, a fire truck could get through here.

If this intersection was backed up, there's no reason—

With the exception of a section of road with no homes on it here at all, you've really only got a few hundred feet that doesn't have 2 exits.

Have you, have you approached the owner to do the future connection now? But he won't let you put that road through?

Okay, very first thing I did when we started the project was approach him. They don't, they don't want that to happen.

And Jason, you're comfortable with this, with having one access for 23 homes from a planning perspective?

Planning perspective, as long as that secondary access is there. There might be an issue with— as we talked to Sam Kayline, they go through the process. There may be some issues with the 23 homes being built. I mean, they may only be able to build part of them. But we do have the Payton Crossing, which has— I don't know how many homes they have, but they only have one access as well, with the ability that knowing that there is going to be a future connection to the street pattern going forward. So we know that coming into these greenfield developments, there are going to be some times where they're not going to have as many connections as we would want, but knowing over time they will be connected. So—

But Payton Crossing, they're not going to have— where are they going to have their other connection.

This will be the same future one.

Oh, so they're depending on this one too for their second.

Okay.

Okay, any other comments?

I would—

I see Chief Sanderson nodding in agreement with that comment about the safety concern. Do you, Chief Adams or Chief Sanderson, have anything that you would like to add to this conversation? For both developments.

Yes.

So we're trying to understand, is the, is the green, does that meet your requirement for now? Okay, well, maybe you get to come up here.

The, the idea with the green emergency exit is just exactly for that emergency access. And so I think the only thing that concerned me from this conversation was that if it's currently— I mean, they would have to make that available. We would hopefully never have to use it, but in the event that there was a problem coming off Geneva Road, that would be our only access.

It'll be paid for, right? Yeah.

So, so you're, you're okay with this?

Yeah, I would support this, but I would hope that that road south would push through with the current development. That would be a fire department preference, is the road, not the emergency access in the future.

And so we're back to, if that's not going to happen anytime soon, does that still work?

Well, I think in support of being able to review limiting the properties, whatever the— from a building code perspective, as long as if they can put all 23 houses in there and we have the access, the emergency access, I don't have any problem with it.

So, so you are okay if that's not right now, but you've got the emergency access that meets your requirement.

Yep. Chief Adams, you too? Yeah, the other difference for us obviously is traffic flow and stuff like that, having access off of 2000 South, eventually all of those. The thing that I— on this area that concerns me is if there is a major incident on Geneva Road, our ability to access it from any other secondary route actually takes us clear up around I-50. On Sand Hill Road and back down. Yeah.

Yeah.

So, but this with the green road, you can access this through that if you have to. Is that, is that a difficult thing? You break the fence down? How do you—

No.

And a lot of times there's a, there's either a crash gate or some form of, I mean, we, we can bump it, unlock it. It just depends on how the property's developed with whatever kind of security gate.

So, so to be, so to be clear, You're okay with— I mean, because the issue seems to be that road to the south. No one knows when that's going to happen, but in the meantime, this works with, with the green access on the other road.

It gives us our secondary access if we need it.

Okay. Any other questions?

Okay, thank you.

Now you know where the green road is. Okay, any other comments? We ready to make a motion?

I'd make a motion if you, if you're willing to hear that, Mayor.

I'm ready unless anyone else has anything else they want to go over. I think we're good.

I move that we amend Article 22-5-3A and the zoning map of the City of Orem by rezoning a portion of the property that fronts Geneva Road from the OS-5 zone—

did I get that right—

to the PO zone, approximately 4.83 acres, and the remaining property from the OS-5 zone to a PRD zone, approximately 4.79 acres, and amending the Appendix KK of the Orem City Code for the property located generally at 1875 South Geneva Road.

Second.

Jeff.

Aye.

Aye.

Nay.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Thank you very much.

Motion passes. We've already covered our CM information, our city manager information items. And so I think we're done for the night. We just need a motion to adjourn.

So moved, Mr. Mayor.

Second.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

We're adjourned. Thank you for coming.

Thank you. You're one-on-one in your— Band-Aid just wanting to fall off.

Yeah.