City Council · 2023-10-10

Visits by fire service professionals are the best way— service professionals are getting ahead of the game.

Very anxious. We'll have Derek Spencer and Chief Sanderson give this presentation.

The mayor, I've asked Sean Hurst, our assistant fire chief, to also— he oversees all of our fire prevention from the administrative side, and Derek really buckles down with the boots on the ground. Actually provide the fire prevention activities.

Okay, that's good. Community risk reduction today, and we're always looking for ways to educate our citizens and also collect data in areas we can help them out. So we're going to implement a new program, and this is a virtual program, and I know several of you have been emailed the survey and have not been able to fill it out. We're going to watch a little 1-minute video, and then we'll go over the survey and see if there's any questions. So, if we just play this.

Home safety visits by fire service professionals are the best way to accomplish community risk reduction. The problem is none of us have the resources to timely visit every home. Until now. Virtual CRR starts with a survey asking the same questions you would ask in a home visit, such as, do you have smoke alarms? Do you have a home escape route? Or do you use extension cords as permanent wiring? It is followed by a detailed report with the same information you would leave if you were actually in the home. You choose the questions and responses. On the back end, Virtual CRR is collecting all of the statistical information you need to assess the risk of your community. Virtual CRR allows you to reach a much larger percentage of your community and is a much better use of your valuable human resources. For more information, visit Virtual CRR.

So, sorry, the double volume there. Um, you know, we don't have the manpower to get out in every home, and that's pretty intrusive anyway. So this is a non-intrusive way that we can ask, beg, plead for people to do our survey so we can provide the education. And as I'll show in a minute, collect some data. So this is the survey that we'll send out. We're hoping that people put in their address so we can get an idea of what parts of town need more help with. Like, I took it, but that was just for an internal group, or has it gone out? It hasn't gone out yet. No, no, it was just, just for a free look at it. So, so all you have— all people have to fill out is, is the city and pick a language. Like I say, we're hoping they put in an address so we can know that the southwest part of town, the city needs Oh, understanding carbon monoxide alarms or whatever the issue may be. So the survey is pretty simple, yes/no questions, and I'll answer them randomly so we can look at the results. Do we have a working smoke alarm? That's number one, so that's our biggest priority of this survey. CO detectors, I'm going to put no here. I think I don't know yet, but I think when we get this back, we'll find CO detectors are an area of concern. Fire escape plans— cannot occupants get out of our home? Now, this is important for us, you know, because we do— when we get on a structured fire, we do send in our search crews. If we know areas are going to need more help getting residents out, then we'll adjust accordingly. Meeting places outside the residence. Usually, you know, kids love these drills, and I know my elementary school kids come home and we practice this stuff. But so we're going to encourage, encourage that. Fire sprinklers, they're not required for residents in Orem because we have, we have good response times and adequate water, so residential sprinklers aren't required. for our single-family dwellings. We do see them in apartment buildings. Smoking in our home, we're going to put yes here. Candles, candles are usually what NFPA calls the number one source of accidental fires, candles and open flames, so that's an area to hit. Matches and lighters, extension cords. Do we have a working fire extinguisher? Working fire extinguisher solves You know, a lot of the problems with the fire starts, so it's nice to have a working one and keep it up to date. Portable heaters, we're heading into winter, so we're going to see some problems with heaters as it gets colder. After the survey is done, it was 12 questions, pretty quick. We generated a report. You know, the, the green ones are the ones that I answered appropriately, the red ones I, you know, whether it's yes or no, we need some help. Education is under— whether you answer yes or no, you still get the education for like—

Yes.

For smoke alarms, you still get the education here along with the video that we're not going to watch. Um, then we can go down that the residents can print it off for future reference if they decide to do it annually. Download it now. So the primary focus of this is to get education out there. You know, if you do the survey, you get the education, and hopefully people are inspired to change the batteries in their CO detector. On the back end, we get to look at the data. Now, so this data is not accurate, right? It hasn't gone out. This is just people trying to survey. So it gives us percentages of yes and no answers, and then we can view the map. Like, this is for smoke alarms. So now we can see, and we can click on 95 East Center and see how many residents in that area— I don't know where Tom lives, and I'll stay away from that.

I answered too, but I didn't answer truthfully because, right, you made it sound like—

Down this one. That's probably tough, and that's okay. All right, so check on the other one.

Yeah, that's me.

That's me.

Okay, so you both have smoke detectors, right?

I'm the one up above right there.

So we know 3 city council members are protected. So this is a way for us to look at the data and, you know, encourage people. We reach out to elementaries and other groups to Hey, your part of town needs help with the fire escape. And my guess is virtually no one has a sprinkler system unless they're apartments. Yeah, we have a few nicer homes with sprinkler systems. In unincorporated counties, it's required. I counted my outdoor sprinkler system. You know what, we're paying almost no attention to that question. So you count whatever you want.

I like the videos because I did go through, I answered questions no on purpose. Does Alphaville get But they're instructional.

They're good, aren't they?

Nice and short and concise. So it's the program in a nutshell. We're going to try to send it out over social media and other avenues. Is there a thought, you know, if you fill the survey out, come and get it?

Something?

Not yet. 40,000 people, obviously, but maybe, maybe get a CO2 detector for I mean, well, if you'll picture a drawing, a drawing, yeah, that'd be fine. You get out of the fire, fire extinguisher. Yeah, yeah, do some drawings. I'm curious, some participation.

I mean, the big factor with this whole thing is the only way— Chief Hurst was instrumental in our ISO survey. Tender to reduce insurance rates for residents. This is a key component that we failed at miserably, is that community risk reduction. And so by implementing this program, which we own, which we control, and we can change the questions based, based off of whatever from our service line changes, um, it's just the best way for us to reach as many people as possible. I do like the idea of creating some incentives to encourage that. I asked Eric to show you this map because I feel like this could be a sticking point for some of the people that you may run into or have questions about. What are they doing with my address? So I wanted to be transparent, and we can click on it, fire department can see it. There will never be anything done from a retribution or violation perspective. We have no legal bounds to enter anybody's home. This is all a safety protection for them, and it's gathering statistics for us so that we can educate specific areas within our communities. So if you get that, what do they do with an address? Much different than the business model that we said where we show up and inspect businesses. We don't have that same luxury or ability with a private residence, so we don't want them to not share their address, but And we clicked Orm, Vineyard, and Linden because we provide fire service.

Right, yeah, it's going up now with 3 cities. One thought that might not apply because it's fire, but if you're talking about safety, a real common thing that seems to happen is people's water heaters, the bottom falls out of them, that floods their basement. And you can kind of solve that by maintaining, you know, what does it— those little alarms. It costs $10 to go off as your water hits. Those have saved me thousands of dollars.

And these are amazing things that we can incorporate into this program because we have the ability. We've purchased it, we own it. We can address anything that comes up from the community in regards to safety prevention, saving money, those kind of aspects.

Yeah. Can I admit a stupidity?

In my younger years, I had a carbon monoxide detector. I was so excited to moved into this apartment, I plugged it in down by the furnace.

That's not where you want it. You want it up in your bedroom, right where the furnace air comes out.

So anyway, I think our getting program is just gonna get better with time and we'll be able to zero in and provide a much higher level of fire prevention for all 3 communities we serve. So that's the intent, getting in front of you. Have any questions or concerns or recommendations, suggestions, please, um, Luke, Sean, Derek, myself, whoever, we'll put them on our list. There's no reason why we can't incorporate those in, uh, in another survey or even just a training education. If you can get people to this site, you can do a lot with it. That's the goal, the intent.

Good.

Any other questions?

Okay, well, thank you for that.

Thanks for your time.

Appreciate it. Thanks, Terry. Next up, we've got item number 3. Uh, this is Women and Children's Memorial. This is Beckett Briggs, Jill Barrett, Sarah Reed, Julie Allen, Steve Nelson, and John Baxter.

So the other 2 ladies, they're both professors at BYU. They were here at 3 o'clock, but you guys were looking at the Big Dig, so they recorded their message. And when we get to the slides, we'll be able to— you'll be able to see that they've already addressed this and you'll be able to click through. So just a very, um, a very cursory explanation. Um, John and I went to a symposium that Becca was presenting with, along with these 2 females.

Hi.

doctors, and they were talking about the impact that female immigrants have had right here. And they told a story, um, of getting off on 1600 North, and I thought, well, that sounds really familiar. And then Becca said, now I'm driving past Quick Quack, and I thought, well, that sounds really familiar as I live a block from that. And she then proceeded to show a plot of land where a home used to exist, and she told me, she told all of us, that 2 actually pioneer children were buried there in the dark of night, um, so that they weren't, um, given away as being part of a polygamy family. And I thought, how, how have I lived 12 years from this plot of land and not known this story? So then in there we decided we were going to do something about this and become great protectors. So I'm going to turn the time over to Becca and she's going to explain who Eva Charlotta is.

It was really interesting because in preparation for this presentation that I was giving, I went to the lot because I figured I should know this place that I was going to be talking about, and there, there was Like very little there. There was a sleeping bag and there were a lot of needles that I was really nervous I would step on. And so yeah, just this idea that this is just this lot right here that's not being used the way that it could.

Um, yeah. Okay, so these ladies will kind of introduce— they'll kind of give a little bit of backstory.

Hi. My name is Julie Allen. I'm a professor of comparative literature and Scandinavian studies at BYU. I work really extensively on Scandinavian immigration, particularly— Hi, my name is Julie Allen. I'm a professor of comparative literature and Scandinavian studies at BYU. I work really extensively on Scandinavian immigration, particularly Scandinavian immigration to Utah in connection with conversion to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Saints. I don't think it's widely known, even among people, the hundreds of thousands of people with Scandinavian ancestry, that Utah County was a hotbed of Scandinavian immigration on par with Sand Peak or Cache or any of the other really well-known Scandinavian settlements. In particular, Pleasant Grove, Lindon, and North Orem were places where a lot of Scandinavians settled and found community here in ways that were really important and that have been forgotten by the public. One of the reasons I find this project so important is because it brings to mind those settlers and their sacrifices, and the way that that knowledge can enrich our community can only begin to be explored by establishing this garden.

Yeah, I'm Sarah Reid. I'm an assistant professor in the history department at BYU, and one of the experiences that many— around half of the population in Utah— in the 19th century was being in a household of polygamist families. And when the federal government made that illegal, a lot of people were separated from their families, went into hiding. That's the case in this as well. And that made a lot of women very vulnerable, especially pregnant women. So they couldn't get the help they needed when they were giving birth or when they were pregnant. One of the statistics we have is 40% of women in the 19th century lost one child or more, which is an astounding number, right? Child mortality rates in Utah were significantly higher than they are now, but even now that's still a struggle for a lot of people.

And when you consider what these people had given up to come to Utah, to come make the desert blossom like a rose, I think it's the least We can do to try to honor their memory, to honor the hardships that they experienced, that women today also experience. It's a way to connect past and present, to turn our hearts to those of our ancestors, and to really honor the legacy that we have inherited of bravery and courage and faith.

Okay, so now that you have a little bit more of a scholarly background, um, behind Our project, um, we— I wanted to talk about who Eva Carlotta Anderson is, this woman that is the inspiration behind the garden that we're hoping to put in. She was born in Sweden, and she was baptized to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1881 in Sweden. She was the only member of her family to be baptized. And so she was given the opportunity to immigrate to Grantsville, Utah. She came, and there's a really funny story where she promises her sister that she'll never get married because they were, they were going to have these separate lives right across the Atlantic. But then that doesn't end up happening. A year after she arrives to Utah, she ends up marrying William Jorg, which I learned means birch, church tree. So William Birch, in 1885. And then immigrates— not immigrates, but moves with him down to Orem. And it's during this time that she gives birth to 2 sons, but because she does have this illegitimate illegal status as a second wife, she wasn't able to get any of the help in childbirth, which, like Dr. Reed said, made her more vulnerable. to death. And so both of her sons died and then were buried in the dark of night because it couldn't be known that she had plural children. And what first connected me to Eva Carlotta Anderson was the diary that she kept as she traveled from Sweden to Utah, because I, I just found her very succinct and very interesting writer. She says Today, June 29th, we came to Ogden, Utah. No one can imagine this land before they see it. It is awe-inspiring. And to come from Sweden and to think Utah is awe-inspiring, I thought reflected a certain character.

Yeah, I would say.

And then the next entry, she says, we came to Salt Lake at 12 o'clock noon. Here I stood alone looking around, no one to meet me, and thought of going to the tithing yard to inquire the way to Grantsville. Right? This woman, she comes to Utah, she knows nobody, she's greeted by no one. She eventually does make her way to Grantsville, right, where she establishes this life. But this isolation that she experienced being an immigrant woman is a thread that continued all throughout her life. Fascinating enough, while doing this research, I discovered an old newspaper article that was published in the Provo Herald in 1981.

You can kind of see at the top, probably not.

And it was talking about this family and their house because they had this historic house that was built in 1885 and then burned down in 1981. And they were talking about all these really cool things that they found in the house, like old newspapers and magazines. And then also it further gave more evidence to the This family lore of these 2 sons buried in this lot. It says grandfather Bjork lost 2 small sons and buried them just east of his home.

I don't know if you could—

yeah, you might be able to read that.

And then it also later on says when the Klanders sold Bjork's home 12 years ago, they retained— oh, the Klanders is the next generation, so it's the granddaughter of, or the daughter of When they sold the home 12 years later, they retained a portion of the land to build their own home, being careful not to disturb the unmarked graves. So these, these graves, these babies have been in the minds of this family, and therefore it's the legacy of this plot for over 100 years. And then also one last thing, because we're wanting this garden to be a memorial to women and children, which Jill will talk about in a little bit. I was fascinated that Eva Carrad Anderson was never once mentioned in this newspaper. It was all in reference to her husband's experience. He built the home, he did this, his sons died, right? And so this reintroduction of women into the narrative of the founding of Utah is a really important idea.

to consider.

And then this is just a reiteration of what the professors said in the video, that half of Utah's populations were in polygamous households. This is a really relevant history for this area in Utah. And then the pregnant women were especially vulnerable, and this infant mortality was a very, very common thread throughout this entire generation.

All right, so these are historical photos of the lot that we're talking about. The lot is only half an acre, it's 0.577 acres. In 2015, the lot was purchased by Orem City, and Orem City still owns it right now. As you can see, it is unkempt. Sometimes we have a homeless gentleman who lives here, sometimes there's shopping carts on the land. There are needles on the property everywhere. Um, so first of all, it does need to be cleaned up, but I can't think of a better reason to be doing this than, um, to honor these 2 boys and all women who have lost children and who in the future will lose children. Um, so it— the proposal— there's a lot more information in the proposal for those of you that have it, and I encourage you to read it.

Thank you.

A team of BYU undergraduate and graduate archaeology and geology students under the direction of 2 geology professors have volunteered to come and find the graves with LiDAR radar testing, and they have graciously offered to do that for free. They are in works right now with the city manager to get that completed. And They will provide surveys of the reports upon translation, so I hope that we can find the children, but I want to make it very clear that whether we find the children or not, there is enough evidence to show that they do exist there. And we are asking you as a city council to make a historical designation on this property that in perpetuity that will never be commercially developed. We can do that. If we go on to the next slide. So, these are some pretty staggering statistics. 1 in every 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage. I think there's very few women present in the room today, but I want you to think of your wives, your children, your grandchildren, your granddaughters. Each year, about 2,100 babies are stillborn in the United States. Globally, that is 1 every 16 seconds.

That's a lot.

That's a lot of very, very traumatized women and families.

21,000, right?

21,000 in the United States. Um, 2 million stillbirths per year globally. Um, and they go on to say, um, the WHO goes on to say, the World Health Organization, losing a baby is still a taboo subject worldwide, linked to stigma and shame. Many women still do not receive appropriate and respectful care when their baby dies during pregnancy or childbirth. The National Institute of Health— I encourage you to get copies of this slide presentation if you can. There was quite a bit of talk about what happens in the psyche and the future dreams of parents who lose children in infancy and also in youth. One thing, a few that I find very interesting and traumatizing at the same time. It says, when men and women relate to child conceiving and childbearing roles as central to their existence, to have a child taken away might feel like part of your existence is actually removed. The parent-child attachment bond is integral to the identity of many parents and children. Is the major organizer of the individual parent's positive sense of self and significant relationships with others. We want to provide this garden not just for those who have lost children, but for those who will lose children, because statistically there's going to be a lot here in Orem. I have 2 sons. I'm really lucky, but I lost 3 others, and I lived in Washington, D.C., Dallas, and here when it happened. I had nowhere to go, so I went back to work. And I know that we can do a lot better. We should do a lot better for the next generation. If they think their only option is to go back to work the next day, that they don't have a place to grieve or to talk with their grandmother or their mother or their sister, then we really failed as a society. So let's go to the next.

Um, We—

Becky and I were at the property a few weeks ago when the professors were doing some initial work, and the gentleman from East Hardware right here, um, he started conspicuously walking around spraying weeds that were not actually on his property, and it became pretty clear to those of us that were there that he was snipping his future property. And as it's come to find out, he is looking at acquiring that, um, doing a land swap for this land here, for this land. I, I find that appalling, first of all. Um, and so I went home that day and I started writing pros and cons because that's what I did in real estate. So I worked in commercial real estate in Washington, Dallas, and here Since 2002. I woke up this morning and I thought, you know what, you guys are grown-ups, you don't need an argument, what you need is a cause. So today, instead of telling you the pros and cons, I'm going to tell you from my perspective the value of what lies in this project. First of all, you have 2 children from a pioneer era. There's enough evidence to prove that they're there. You have a team of professional BYU geologists who have offered their service graciously for free to do this. You have a chain of title that we know of the property. That property is now owned by Orem. Like every major hurdle that you could ever accomplish or face in a commercial perspective approaching the city, I— you've met all the hurdles. They're done.

Thank you.

So, um, the value is— I hope that you look at this as a very singular, extremely rare situation that lies before you to do something really great. In my time in real estate, I've never seen a property proposal like this. I've never come across something like this. It's only 0.5 acres. One doesn't stand to make any money off of it. And if, if the Historic Commission comes up with a memorial that is significantly more than what the city is willing to fund, we're happy to go find private investors. We want this property to be special, and we're asking you to set it aside to be different, to be off limits to commercial development. If you want to go visit the property, I invite you to drive there. Go look, go see how drivers treat each other while they're waiting in line at Kwik Klak. Um, look at the traffic in this half a little block. It's atrocious most of the time. We can't put anything more commercial here. It's just not feasible. I live a block from this, and sometimes it takes me 2 or 3 light cycles to reach State Street. And that's pretty unacceptable to me. Are there any questions, any comments?

One last thing. I feel like this is just such a phenomenal, like, just a pretty simple way to live up to this motto of being the family city, right? If you have this memorial here in order to recognize and honor the women who have sacrificed so much, their lives, their happiness, their children, in order to build these families that we now herald from.

Yeah, so Joni Mitchell, um, in 1970 wrote a song called Big Yellow Taxi. It's, it's a super popular song. It's been recorded by 600 other artists because the message is important. Those of you might already know the words. Um, don't it always seem to be that you don't know what you got till it's gone? They paved paradise to put in a parking lot. I hope we don't look at developing this and in 5 years realize we blew it. We had something really great. We could have done something great. I don't want to be the ones to say that now we know what we lost because it's gone. Like, let's do better.

A couple comments. One, That is such a noisy, awkward place to pull in and out of.

What if—

definitely put a monument there because you've got those 2 little boys represent all of the children you're talking about. But I wonder if the city could do better than that. We could put that in grass and put a monument there to recognize those children. It'd be nice if there's a quieter spot that women that have had miscarriages or whose families could go to. We've got to own places, pieces like that, all throughout the city. I wonder if this would be— not to take away from this, because this is very significant, and I think we do ought to have a monument there. And but, um, and I were talking about this the other day. I stopped at the monuments when you drive to southern Utah. I stopped and read about Indian wars and read about all this stuff. But, um, it was just a thought that it might be nice for the city to say we actually have an acre at this place, it'd be a lot quieter, where you would have easy access in and out. Because right now you've got an issue with that road that goes back, you know. Yes.

And so I can tell you what, there used to be a stop sign here. It has been hit, it got bent, and now it's entirely missing. This is a mess. It's an enormous mess. There's times of the year when traffic going into Quick Quack goes all the way around here to State Street. There's buses, there's a bus stop right here, almost gets rear-ended all the time. The height of Quick Quack and its proximity to the road is inappropriate. It's— you try and turn, you can't see where you're turning because the building is right there. It was, it was poorly designed. There's not enough space for cars the queue and this lane right here, the outside right lane, because it ends at a merge, it is a constant danger and a— what's the word— like a derby, like a Grand Prix to see who can beat the other cars.

That's my concern. If we put some parking stalls there, it's not a peaceful place to go and meditate. You'd have to sit in the road. It would be— it'd be nice to have a monument there and a way to pull in, but there's got to be another spot that would do more justice anyway.

Well, the great thing is, is we gave this presentation to the Historic Commission, Historic Advisory Commission, in May, and 2 of them had perused the entire article and they had already come up with renderings of what they thought would be an appropriate memorial there. Now I understand that they do want to put a well house on this site, and the family has already said they're okay with that, provided that they do it in an appropriate way with the right kind of plaques and information. And certainly if we build a well house, we could extend walls this way to give it more privacy. Um, But that lies with the Historic Commission. That's their— it falls under their purview.

Can I just say, so I serve on the Historic Commission with some of our citizens, and I've communicated—

I mean, Becca and Jill, we've talked about this for about a year now, it seems like.

And I appreciate that you brought up the well, because that is a reason why Orange City has this property, is that potential. if a need for a well in the future. I understand that's a few years out, but— and you have indicated in our discussions that we can work around that.

Yes, and I am, I am 100%— I, I agree that Warren City was supposed to buy this lot. This, this intersection right here has been a nightmare since we moved in 5 years ago. They fixed it. They did a very good job.

Yeah, because I'm in that queue lane because that—

I turn right just up the street there to get to my home.

So I actually have that experience of always at least once a week possibly rear-ending somebody in front of me because they stop real quick to turn into Quick Beck. So that is on the—

I will say we have had communications with our traffic engineers. That is on the list to kind of take a look at that and see if we can close that down or remedy that situation.

It's a mess.

Yeah, um, I just want to speak to your presentation.

Um, I really love the words that you chose today where you said, um, shows the bravery, the courage, and the faith of these women, this woman, and all women.

And I don't know how many of us are here, right?

Like you said, this is probably 80% men in this room. Um, but there's a woman behind every one of you. That's true, because of a woman. That's exactly right. Well, and their wives, right?

And daughters and I have 5 daughters.

Right. I'm not even criticizing you at all.

You're exactly right.

I'm saying that the connection to this, I think everyone could connect as a woman. I'm not saying you guys would connect as a woman right now, but think of your, like you say, your spouses, your daughters. I've experienced some of these things in my life. I've lost an infant child. And I agree with you that that community does not exist.

Um, that support—

I mean, there is support. I don't want to downplay. I received a lot of support, but, um, I think this is a more visible support of that. I would love to see some pink rose hedges, you know, around this property, just even a little I don't see it as a place where we'll have people come and play. It's not that large of a plot of land, but, um, just the message I would love to have Orem send to our, our, the women in Orem is that we hear you, we see you, we understand. Even though maybe you're not gonna bring a whole family reunion here to this plot, you know that we know that this is a point that happens in lives of women and men. My husband was just as devastated.

So I appreciate what you're putting together here, and I support it.

So Orono is, is a unique city. We passed our centennial mark. We're not one of those young cities that's grappling to find enough water shares for 150, you know, townhomes. We're not 3 years late on a sewage treatment plant when we've already given out 3,000 building permits. We're not there. We're at the point now where we need to start thinking about legacy. We have the financial capability to, to start doing really important things. David Spencer, I became good friends with him, and he told me he ran for city council because they wanted to develop the baseball fields just right over here. Who wouldn't want to take that away? Like, those are the things that make a city livable. When a city really has a heart, when there's places where people can go and mourn, where they can celebrate, where they can feel like they're not alone. And we're now at the stage in the forum where we can do that. We're not young, like, we're seasoned. We know what we're doing. Let's, let's start doing things like this.

I think it would tie in with the Gold Star Monument too. I think it would uplift that area there, and I think I mean, I think I wrote you a note a long time ago, the parking would be there, but I think it'd be positive.

I don't know what we do to move forward, but I'm all for it.

I do have to say as well, 1600 North, um, you guys have done a bit of bashing, like tearing down a ton of trees along 1600 North on the north side and then putting in telephone poles that are ridiculously high. It's pretty ugly. I would love to start seeing a boost, and this would add a boost to the beautification and also for morale for a lot of us that live there. This is actually, um, I think it's significant that right here we have 2 babies born. Battle Creek used to be the entire area, that was the name of the entire area that was developed, Pleasant Grove, Linden, North Orem. This is going to be the boulevard that most people take to go to the Linden Temple. So I I think we need to do what we can to try and make this a meaningful and beautiful place. So would that be like a resolution that we could do if we wanted to move forward with something like this?

Um, I don't know what formal process we need to do.

We would look into in terms of memorial or historical designation. That being said, we are We are, as you mentioned, looking at figuring out how to close that access on the west side of this property. We do want to make sure that we can add in and/or preserve the use for a water well, but we've looked around in the city. We actually don't have a lot of historical monuments, so there is clearly a lack of providing that service.

As Julie Allen says, she's like, Orem doesn't have a heart. We need to have a heart.

Yeah, I think we have plenty of heart.

Let's show it.

Our Parks Master Plan has referenced the idea of having many parks along the corridor, and this could be a good kind of model home or beginning, so to speak, of that concept and exploring that concept. And to your point, Terry, of, you know, potentially finding other locations where we might essentially create kind of useful small open spaces. Where are we putting the home that was found on the station?

Where's that going?

That'll be a heritage park or tank there where we just toured.

So like Terry's saying, is like mini havens.

Throughout the city.

So, so yeah, I think those are some of the additional kind of contextual reasons that we've been talking about internally. So you know, the finalizing at City Council. Well, that's why we bring this to a work session to solicit your input and then receive that and move forward. Jake, any, anything come to mind in terms of— I would ask for, you know, to have the will of the council. We do a resolution, the council would formally express its intent that we would have a memorial, that we would do a memorial garden, memorial park on that lot. It's also expressing the intent that we want to have the street closed. With that resolution, staff would then start moving forward to See and develop the council's will there. I would anticipate a resolution. So I propose the resolution is bigger than that. The bigger the resolution is, we as a city council want the city to look at parcels that might be used for memorials or other— so just not that half acre. I'd like to see that expanded. And, and half of our voting population is women, I believe, last time I checked. So it'd be kind of nice, you know, uh, you know, that's, that's a great one. Yeah, and again, to Dave's point, I mean, I think we have 3 immediate things that we can work on. So this one here, our Gold Star Family Memorial Monument, and then our Heritage Park. And then the resolution, Terry, I think it's smart if we could say other city-owned properties, maybe we list and say potentially. Let's see what they're in. Yeah, because he— because this is really tough, you know. If we put some parking stalls there, we've got a well there, we've got the traffic. You try to get into there from the north or from the, you know, or to make a left turn into there, uh, you know, you can't. So So are you talking from like as a park?

Are you, are you saying you don't want the memorial there at all?

You know, I would like a memorial there, but I think it's going to be a real pain for anyone to even get into it and walk around it. It'd be nice to have it there, have people know. I'd like to have another spot that's a bigger deal that is honoring women and pioneer heritage. And we've got a great pioneer heritage in Orem. And maybe this is a smaller Subpark.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't want this to be the, the end, uh, game. I want this to be a start. I want— I'm glad we started the conversation. Definitely a memorial for these 2 little boys, but those 2 little boys represent how many hundreds of children that were buried.

So I—

that's why I'd like to see— Maybe like a little gazebo or— Yeah, I want both, but I don't know if there's a lot of access to that, like, for people. It's just gonna be tricky. And now that's— I mean, the nice thing is, I mean, it's on 1600 North, so depending on how you put it together, it could be really visible. That could be a good reminder, and people see it all the time. Yeah, I like that.

Statue.

Many parks are intended to just kind of more serve the immediate area. And again, if you think about it, in that general area, there actually isn't a ton of open space. So again, from That perspective, purpose of the mini park. But like you're saying, Jay, mini park isn't intended to be the end-all say-all. It ideally would be part of— I mean, I use the term kind of model, where if we do it right there, there could be other places we might expand on the concept. Well, you could do it where those 3 that you're talking about get listed, and just the fact that as a city council we want to prioritize these types of things throughout the city. Pete, you did a little bit of research on how many monuments— I mean, we have the field map. There's a mammoth monument in Southern Mammals. Yeah, that's just a marker. Like, that would be another great thing to do in the same spirit. There's a few kind of sort of Locations that should be a little bit more. So that could be another next step. We look at those few existing ones and see if there's ways to expand on this concept. We are building— entering our city, we're having a nicer sign. So I think that speaks well.

I was just gonna say, how do you memorialize what we're talking about, but also consider prime real estate commercial property for taxpaying businesses that generate our future as far as recognizing the need here? So I get it, but I think that has to be taken into consideration. Well, prime property for specific projects.

I think what they've kind of addressed that though here—

I mean, I live there.

I know what she's saying when she says 1600 North cannot take another commercial strip mall in that area. There's just—

I don't know how you'd— Having, having listened to hundreds and written hundreds of proposals in different cities, in the different places where I've lived, I've never seen a project like this. The opportunity to have 2 buried children that we know about, within that verifiable evidence. I just don't think even if I stayed in real estate for another 100 years, that I would ever find an opportunity like this. And you wouldn't either. You can reach out to other cities and ask, but this is just like almost like a gift wrapped. I don't know any city that would turn something like this down.

And really, you're speaking highest and best use, right? That's the real estate principle. But we also understand our parks are in some areas, there is a higher, better use for those areas, but we keep them as parks because the better, the best use is the use of our cities.

And Joni Mitchell actually said, now 50 years after releasing that song, she said that she's actually received quite a few emails from different cities, the impact that that song had, that they've actually taken down a lot of parking lots to turn them back into parks. I think that speaks a lot towards the human.

Can I say one more thing? Just in the design, who knows, it's gonna—

our Historic Commission will probably be heavily involved in that. But to Terry's point, I just see a lot of not just a marker like Miro has, but a little more femininity. a little more, um, tip of the hat to women. So you always do that?

I don't tip my hat to women.

I said you always do that.

So here's my feminine side.

I used to have those pink roses like they have at the Provo Temple.

Those are gorgeous.

Well, this makes a lot more sense than putting up a 3-story apartment building.

I mean, the traffic here cannot— can't take any more cars.

Have we discussed the well?

Yes.

Okay, this location, and that would need to be about 8,000 to 10,000 square feet and needs to be secure and blocked off. It can't be integrated with the park. And my second question was, is there evidence that there are bodies there?

We're going to find that out by surveying. And that's in the proposal that they dug and they didn't find anything. We're going to find out from the team of professionals.

They just did a preliminary setup of their machine, right?

Yeah, so I saw, I saw the report that was done by SWC years ago. And it was sorely insufficient.

I don't think they've done it yet.

No, the team is going to come.

Yeah, I think they're saying based on some of these former reports.

One other point to bring up, this is someone who's purchased So what would it— what would a transportation need be? Uh, I don't know. That's a good question. We had to buy it.

Is it in the deed? I mean, is it connected?

Like, I know that there is land like by Nielsen Park that it's connected.

UDOT will—

we can't do anything with it unless it's transportation.

Is that a stipulation in this map?

That's what I've been told. Um, this was originally bought for the intersection, right? So we actually surplus this land for It definitely hasn't been maintained. All right, well, we're gonna have to wrap up.

But we appreciate you coming in.

Yes, our emails are in this if any of you want to reach out. This is the original proposal. It was given to the Historic Commission. So if there are updates to it, we look forward to the Historic Commission having those updates.

Okay, well, thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

So as a follow-up to this, um, we'll leave it— we'll leave that for the staff to keep following up on this and taking us further down the path.

Okay.

All right, next up, item number 4. We've got short-term rental and nuisance code. We talked about this a while back at City Council. Jake Summers is going to update us on what he's got with that. Yes, so several weeks ago, actually, probably closer to the first part of August, um, I let the council and mayor know that there was an ongoing issue with at least one Airbnb, VRBO, short-term rental, however you want to term it, property within the city that was causing quite a bit of an impact to the neighborhood. With that, the request was to research kind of where we are on short-term rental regulations and kind of what the lay of the land is, and that's the purpose of today. So really, Utah State has not passed any sort of prohibitions on municipalities' ability to regulate short-term rentals. The only prohibition they have is that it prevents us— there's a law that prevents us from using a short-term rental website as the sole basis to enforce a short-term rental ordinance.

When was that law?

That law was passed probably around 2016, '17. Since then, there have been a couple other laws that have gone up as far as a bill. In 2022, Utah State— House considered whether or not to allow— very specifically to allow municipalities to regulate short-term rentals. They were looking for explicit language. That bill didn't make it very far. And then 2023, we had the converse, where they were looking to specifically prohibit municipalities from regulating short-term rentals. And also that bill also died. So I don't know where exactly where the legislature feels about regulating— having municipalities regulate. But I do think this is going to be something that is continually revisited in legislature as well as in other cities. Our local ordinance, we don't have anything specifically that regulates short-term rentals. What we do have is we have zoning ordinances that are applicable to the specific zones. So if a short-term rental is operating within R-8, they have to operate under the regulations of the R-8 zone. One of those would be a single-family definition. So if a short-term rental is renting out to multiple families or multiple individuals and they don't fit the single-family definition, then we could enforce violation of of that zoning ordinance. Also, if they're acting outside, if they're using that short-term rental as some sort of an event center or a wedding center or other sort of non-residential use within a residential zone, then we could, we could enforce our zoning ordinance that way. And we have been doing that. So we are responsive to residents' complaints. So as neighbors see Airbnb or VRBO short-term rental operating in violation and it's brought to our attention, city staff are responsive to those complaints. They have our neighborhood improvement team goes out, they're the primary investigators. They would work with the neighbors to gather information. Based on their investigation, they would then determine whether or not to cite issue an administrative citation or administrative summons, and then there would be an administrative hearing to enforce that, that use. Um, well, so we wouldn't be going after the renters per se, we'd be going after the property owner because they are the responsible party for that problem. So where are we as a landscape? As far as regulation, generally there are 4 different approaches to regulating short-term rentals. Quantitative restrictions— you're trying to restrict the number of times a property is rented within a calendar year, or you're limiting the number of people that can occupy that short-term rental. There are locational restrictions. That we're looking to regulate or restrict a short-term rental operating within a specific zone or within a specific designated area. Density restrictions, also looking at how many short-term rentals are perhaps in a neighborhood or how close they are to each other and trying to make sure they're spaced out so there's not a heavy impact. And then there's also qualitative restrictions. And those would be more— we're looking to have a licensing program to make sure that we have good operators, that there are fire code safety or building code safety issues are taken care of. So those are the 4 different regulatory approaches to short-term rentals. As we look around to other Utah County municipalities, Provo has right now pretty much ban on short-term rentals within an agricultural, agricultural or residential zone. So a short-term rental could operate within a commercial zone, but it couldn't operate within a residential zone. Pleasant Grove has not yet addressed this issue. They've had the issue pop up on their Planning Commission agenda a couple times, but that agenda item has been continued indefinitely. So there's been no action yet by Pleasant Grove. So, Lehigh operates a licensing program, and within their licensing program, they've adopted several requirements that I think would meet some of the concerns that I've heard from individuals. Addresses off-street parking and restricts them from 600 feet of elementary, junior high, or middle schools, puts caps on the number of individuals that can be rented to at any single time, and then they've also adopted a quiet hours timeframe. American Fork has adopted a business licensing program with similar restrictions.

Their—

also has a caveat that it has to be owner-occupied. Some cities have adopted this requirement, and the idea that if the owner is still residing on the same property, then there's going to be less problems if the owner is not there. Spanish Spanish Fork has not adapted any regulations. Rather, they just have adopted a transient room tax to make sure that they collect any taxes on, on these short-term rentals. Looking at throughout the other area of the state, Sandy City has a licensing program, but they've also adopted a geographical cap. So again, they've broken their area up into neighborhoods. and they say no, no more than a certain amount in this area. Torrey, which is just outside of Capitol Reef if you're not familiar with the city of Torrey, they have also restricted specific uses, saying you can't rent it out for weddings, bachelor, bachelorette parties, etc. Ogden, they've taken a licensing approach as well. They've also done a geographic limitation as well as other restrictions. Logan's is interesting in that they have a licensing program, but before you can even apply for the licensing program, you have to get a conditional use permit to operate that short-term rental. And they've also placed a per capita limitation, so there can only be 3 short-term rentals per 1,000 People population for the city of Milford. So they've adopted kind of a hybrid that way. And then Washington County, they've adopted a lot of restrictions, but they've also put a size limitation on that short-term rental based on the lot size where the short-term rental is located. So you couldn't build a 5-bedroom short-term rental on a 0.1-acre lot. You would have to be sitting on a 1-acre lot. So various different regulatory approaches. Now, it's not all sunshine and rainbows when you adopt regulations. New York City has adopted pretty much a ban on all short-term rentals. I think they're in the midst of being sued by various short-term rental groups. And then it's also caused kind of a black market of approach to short-term rentals, where owners are renting on social media or other websites that are lesser known as a way to circumvent and get around these. Again, there is also some value in having short-term rentals. We may not be a tourist destination hub like a, a national park, a city that sits right on the outskirts of the national park. But there is tax dollars that are created by short-term rentals. So that is something to balance as this council decides whether or not to adopt any further regulations on short-term rentals. So really, ultimately, in abbreviated sense is where do we go from here? There are various considerations to take into account that the council should mull over and consider. As the council makes those decisions, we would hear any feedback from the council as far as making any drafts or any decisions moving forward. I'm happy to make this presentation available to the council for your own personal time to mull over what regulations you see appropriate or not appropriate. Based on that feedback, we could draft any sort of regulations the council council desires. Any questions? Yeah, I just took a quick VRBO search and found dozens in promo that in theory don't allow children in residential areas.

Correct.

So even if we pass something like this, enforcement would be a headache, is my guess. Correct. Okay.

And so wait, why would it be a headache?

You just say, hey, you're, you're disobeying the law here.

Yeah.

You'd have to go through dozens and dozens of These and hope they'll take them down. I don't know. So I don't know that we can kick them off the VRBO site. So the way Provo has kind of addressed this issue is we couldn't go to VRBO to get a listing because that state law precludes us from doing that. But what they've done is they've adopted some language saying if there's people that are renting a home and they're staying less than a certain amount of time, then that is deemed a short-term rental. And so they would be using their neighbors to say— so you can't go to this site and say, at X north and something east, there's a site. We would be relying on resident complaints. Okay, that's right. Is it true that if there is a short-term rental, you can do it? Not necessarily. Not necessarily. There would be some ways that we'd have to draft our regulation To address those issues. But yes, what Brian is speaking to is if you are using something in a conforming way now, and then we adopt a law or regulation, then they would have that legal nonconforming use, and we would want to, to address that as we adopt any sort of regulation scheme. Okay, any other questions?

What do you see the timeline for this?

Really depends on the feedback that we get from the council on what regulations, if any, council wants to proceed with, and then the timeline for adopting those.

And then, are we aware of any legislation in the upcoming session?

Has there been anything?

I've not heard anything from the Utah City League of Cities and Towns. So how do you want to go forward from here as far as time-wise? So what I will do is I'll send this presentation out to the council, um, and then I'll just wait for any feedback from individual members. And, um, maybe in a future work session we can revisit and just see if there's any follow-up that's needed. I think we'd like to do something fairly soon. Especially that neighborhood that came to us. They've obviously got a giant mess going on there.

Yes.

So, and it seems like based on what you're showing us, they're in violation already. Yeah, we are currently taking enforcement measures. There's an administrative court hearing set up, I believe we're scheduled in November to address that particular, that particular ordinance that we have in place.

Correct.

And I think we could talk about this, but I mean, it seems to me like, like a business license, like some limitation on density, you know, how many of these can be within an area, because it definitely affects them. We're trying to be about affordable housing. It definitely affects housing values when you sell them on that basis, and it pushes the prices higher. So if you did some kind of density, you know, restriction, then that would help that. if we're trying to, you know, push for affordable housing. I like the one where it said your ADU can't be used as a short-term rental, because if our whole purpose for having the ADUs is to have more housing in Orem, and then people are using that like for a hotel for out-of-staters to come, you know, that seems—

Yeah.

Okay.

So I think in terms of research takes research, As you can see, there's kind of a wide range. So that's why we wanted to bring this to you and solicit your feedback. The impetus for this was the house, you know, the house where we've received a lot of complaints. And even with that, there's a pretty widespread spectrum on how we might address it. because we're in the middle of enforcement, to address the extreme consequences that are being experienced in that area. So that we may be able to, for example, address some of, some of the extreme consequences through essentially enhancing some of our existing ordinances, as opposed to necessarily doing a short-term rental-specific So again, all that to say, the road is wide. So we'd love your ongoing input so we can kind of tailor this in a way that you as our governing body feel like is best for them specifically. Yeah, and I think that makes total sense. I— and I think it's good that we're doing the enforcement that shows that that can work in the existing structure. I think the benefit of having this come up is look at those different cities that have all kinds of different ordinances. I think we should have a conversation to what do we really want, what would be the optimal way to structure this. So absolutely, that's kind of why I use the graphic there of the winding road. I'm not opposed to taking several drafts and ultimately finding the right approach here. Okay, well, thank you. We've got one last thing, but we should probably grab our food while we're having this last presentation. So let's just take like a super short 3 to 4 minute break, grab your meals, and we'll come back and have this last conversation.

Somebody like to say a blessing on the food?

Our beloved Father in heaven, Lord Jesus Christ, grateful for the opportunity we have to be here this evening and to learn more about our great city and the preparations and work that has been done to strengthen our residents and provide for them. We're so grateful for the food we're about to partake of. Pray that that will bless it, that it will give us nourishment and strength in serving thee. Grateful for all the many blessings which we enjoy. We say these things in thy Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Amen.

All right, we're going to resume the meeting.

I'm here. Ready? Okay, we're ready to resume. All right, gotta keep moving, we're not gonna make it. So we're gonna move forward with item number 5. And again, this is gonna be, uh, Jay Summers, Deputy City Attorney, to lead this conversation. So, Jay. And I am mindful of the time, and so I am going to talk fast just like the last presentation. don't be afraid to raise your hand or say stop for a second. I'll answer any questions along the way. So this is a proposed resolution in support from the council to display the United States national motto in our City Council chambers. So just briefly, the history of the national motto. I find it really interesting is in 1814, Francis Scott Key penned the poem Defense of Fort McHenry. That's more widely known as the Star-Spangled Banner. And in the 4th verse, it reads, this be our motto, in God is our trust. So that was the first historical reference to, to In God We Trust as a motto. During the Civil War, The 125th Pennsylvania Infantry assumes the motto In God We Trust, and there kind of actually became this rivalry between the Confederate and the Union about, you know, whose side of the war has got it all. And so different, different infantry groups, different states started adopting In God We Trust or variations of that. Salmon P. Chase, who at the time was the Secretary of the Treasury for President Abraham Lincoln, presented a proposal in 1863 to include the motto In God We Trust on U.S. coinage. But unbeknownst to Treasury Secretary Chase, in the 1830s Congress had enacted a law that said you know, really limiting the ability of the Treasurer to put anything that Congress didn't deem appropriate on coinage. So they actually had to go back and pass an act, and so that we got the Coinage Act of 1864, which then authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to include the motto on 1-cent and 2-cent coins. During that same time period, I didn't include it here, but The $20 bill, which was a high level of money back in that time, also got it printed. But greenbacks, as they were called, printed money wasn't regulated by the Treasury the same way that it is now. Different states, different banks issued their own paper currency, so you had various versions of it. The last act of Congress prior to the assassination of President Lincoln was a bill which allowed the U.S. Mint Director to place In God We Trust on all gold and silver coins. So that's where it gets its, its kind of its footing in history. And then we go quite a ways, we go up into World War II, and at the end of World War II, the 84th Congress passes a joint resolution declaring In God We Trust as the national motto. And it passes unanimously, and President Eisenhower signs that, that bill into law. So this replaces the informal de facto motto, E Pluribus Unum, and current— as it currently reads, U.S. Code reads that In God We Trust is the national motto. This was reaffirmed by the U.S. Senate and commemorated in 2006 by the US Senate. And in 2011, just shortly after— sorry, in 2011, the US House of Representatives passed their own resolution reaffirming it in a 396 to 9 vote. I just put those votes there because, again, knowing what's going on on the federal level, I find it still so amazing that we have unanimous bipartisan legislation on this in the '50s and then again up until 2011. 369 to 9. Pretty amazing vote. So the displays of the National Monuments can be found in various different locations. This picture on the left here is of the dais of the Utah House— sorry, not Utah, U.S. House of Representatives. So above the Speaker's dais is the frame— is the phrase In God We Trust. In the center on the top is a plaque that's outside the Senate chambers, the U.S. Senate chambers, on the south entrance. It says In God We Trust. Other municipalities and county governments are following suit and adopting this. In the bottom there is the City of Fresno, and under its city's name behind the council dais is In God We Trust. On the top right-hand side is the dais for the Davis County Commissioners here in Utah. And then in Utah, back in Governor Leavitt, so I'm trying to remember when Leavitt was in office. I want to say 2008-ish. He passed— he signed into law legislation that required every high school, junior high, and elementary to have prominently located a display that reads In God We Trust, to have that national monument in our schools, national model in our schools. And then They can't pray in school. They can't pray, but they can have this reference. And then Governor Herbert signed into law allowing the In God We Trust license plate, so you'll see those around. So that's one of the official selections that you can have when you buy a new car, register your vehicle, is you can have one of those 3 plates. And so the national monument is publicly prominently displayed throughout. And I think, Councilman Peterson, you go to your question, the legal authority. This has gone before mostly to deal with the coinage, the printing on the coinage. And the 10th Circuit reads that this issue has squarely, unambiguously held the national monument motto, In God We Trust, does not constitute an establishment of religion under either test for the First Amendment. So it's pretty well settled that the In God We Trust can be predominantly displayed in government buildings, on US coinage. And the reason it can be that is because there's a secular purpose as well. There's not just a religious purpose, but there's a secular purpose. purpose. And the 10th Circuit just said that secular purpose symbolizes the historical role of religion in our society. It fosters patriotism and it expresses confidence in the future. And that primary effect is not to advance religion, and that it does not create an intimate relationship of the type that suggests unconstitutional entanglement of church and state. So there are secular reasons for why we want to have this model display. And the 10th Circuit isn't alone in this holding. This has also been a holding similarly held in the 9th Circuit as well as the 5th Circuit. So what would be the purpose of us doing this? It would be to help solemnize the public occasion of our city council meeting, public work that you do, expresses confidence in the future of the city, and it also fosters patriotism. It kind of goes hand in hand with the idea that we're just coming out of Constitutional Month, that we are establishing the Gold Star Family Monument, and then as we move towards our new council chambers in the new city building, it makes sense that we would adopt this and have this as a part display in our new council chambers. Are there any questions about this? Any comments? Well, my comment is, want to put it in our chambers, whatever, and I think it might be good to put on the back of a flag. So we just have a new flag. Why don't we put it in government trust? I think it's a smart idea. The flag's not— as Jake said, it's not— when I talked to him about it, there's nothing on the back side of the flag. We could have it copy-paste. I mean, it says right there you can do it. I say we do it. So that's a new idea. What we've at least talked about up to this point is the idea of incorporating it on our medallion and then also including it in some fashion in the Freedom Plaza. There's a desire to— I'm not sure if it would work as far as because the transparency of the plaque. It's like you'd have to go like triple thick or something. Yeah, my comment was not one of design. It was, um, as we were sitting here beforehand, we wanted to see on the flag, and I made the joke of, well, there's nothing on the back, we could always put it on the back. I think what we talked about so far is we talked about out there in the City Council chamber, we talked about the Freedom Plaza, Hill Star Monument. We've even talked about potentially on the city building. So I think that's what we would encompass in this resolution, but then it would essentially give us the right to have a discussion about different places to have it.

That's right.

The first step— well, it depends because we may redesign In that logo. So right now everything's in flux. We're just essentially talking about conceptually if we want to have In God We Trust. And where this is coming from is essentially, I mean, we remind ourselves as Families to USA, we're doing the Freedom Plaza, you know, forms very patriotic. And this allowing In God We Trust, so we'd have God, family, country would be our 3 core values. That's, that's what this is really about. We very much go in line with the idea of the Freedom Plaza fostering patriotism.

Yes.

And, and this is just that first step is just to get— have this resolution express the City Council's will that this is where we want to go. And then I think City Manager's Office and staff start working on mock-up ideas of how it would be incorporated, how it would be displayed. Seek advice as to how to go through it. He's done quite a bit of research on this, and if we go down this path, we would be just the second city in Utah to have a formal resolution. Who's the other city?

Anyway, it would be a—

it would be a big step to be essentially saying this is who we are, this is what we represent. So countrywide, from what we understand, there's about 450 cities in the US. I think it sends a great signal.

I like it.

I like it.

Always taking it to the next level.

Why not?

I like it.

I'm fine to carry up.

And in your package should be a copy of the resolution, and then a future city council meeting will add that to the agenda. That was outlawed a long time ago. That would be it. Only if it's gold or silver.

That would not be supported by the federal government.

All right, well, thank you, Jake, for that presentation. All right, let's, uh, let's run through the council agenda for tonight's meeting. Um, Tom, were you gonna— would you like a 2 or 3 minute report? We're probably fine, but I think you've got time. Okay, I'll give a quick report. Uh, Jacob, I, I ask you to stay tuned on the first part. One of my committees is the Board Youth Council, which hasn't been as active this year. Uh, we have sent out our invite for our first activity. I don't know if you've been— I did not get it. Hey, so happy to be there. Uh, we've had, as you know, some changes in some Delaves and our legal counsel who head up that Foreign Youth Council. Looking forward to having that come to me shortly. Look forward to doing that. It's a joy to work on the Heritage Committee, who plans the veterans program and the Memorial Day program. And Peter and Tess are just critical parts, but it's nice to meet with our veterans who are all in on this, who have a perspective that's maybe different than many of us get to when we go to other committees and It's a joy to work with those veterans and watch them climb the speakers and see their true commitment to the United States. It's fun to meet with them. Tom, yes, about that, the veterans meeting, I think the program's at 10. I think it's at 11, 11 on the 11th. It's always at 11 AM on the 11th. Because BYU has a game at 1, I think. I'm sure they'll change it. You're right, that will no doubt— but thank you for that insight. Make sure that our group knows that. But Veterans Day isn't normally as well attended as Memorial Day because it's always on November 11th. Next year, the 11th skips the Sunday because of leap year, so we don't have to deal with having a program on a Sunday. So we've got another 6 years before we have to deal with that. But it's always at 11 AM on the 11th of November, on the 11th month. So that will affect some of your abilities to attend with the BYU game. So thank you for that insight. And we already have a backup plan to have it inside if the weather's— And then the last one is I'm on the Orem Community Hospital Outreach Board, and they bring in a lot of people. Kevin comes to it from your staff here. and just give us great information about events happening in the community that are typically geared to the less fortunate in one way or another, their programs that they sponsor, either through the hospital or other good community events. So those are the 3 areas that I could pull out relatively quickly. Okay, thank you, Tom. All right. Okay, I have a 3-color order. Item 4, invocation, inspirational thought. That'll be Gareth Carey Morley that will give the invocation. Uh, number 5, pledge of allegiance. Diane Morley and wife, will you pledge? Uh, Mayor's Report. I know we've got personal appearances. So, Mayor, on personal appearance, I know there are people coming, uh, regarding this 9.1, so I don't know if you want to announce if they want to hold their fire for the public comment on 9.1 or not. Okay, yeah, no, I'd actually prefer they would. It's a public hearing, they would have an opportunity to speak. That doesn't mean if they want to speak at that time instead of the public notice, that might— I'll announce that. And that gets tricky because sometimes people don't put what they're speaking on, so— but I'll announce that for sure. Um, consent items: approval of minutes for September 19th and September 26th. I want to note how Yeah, going great for months and months. As far as he's right on track with the minutes, Patricia. Um, item 8.2, or 8.2 is an appointment for the Board of Adjustments. That's on the consent item. That's Carlos Iglesias and Dr. Seth. I'd like to thank Brent for his work in vetting so many good candidates and sharing that information with us. I think he did a great job. Right. I do too. We, I mean, we really did have a lot of good applicants. I think there's, as you know, there's some of them that are currently on other boards, but those that aren't on boards, I can, uh, you know, confidently say great volunteers for future opportunities in the near future as well. I know there were a lot of good people on That was good. We got— we're getting a lot of really good participation on all of our boards, really. Okay, item 9, scheduled items. As the chair mentioned, we have a public hearing amending Section 22-12-5, Urban Mixed Use Overlay, Properties with Boundary Adjacent to University Parkway and East of 800 East with an area of more than 1 acre in size and no greater than It goes on and on, but essentially we're going to talk about that property tonight, have a public hearing. Item 9.2, resolution, transportation plan that we've been discussing for a while, and we kind of wrapped up last council meeting. Uh, we'll introduce that and just kind of move to a resolution unless there's things on there that people want to talk about. Item 10, communication items. Item 11, let's see, Andrew, information items. Do you have something on that, Brent?

Just a few.

Okay, and then we'll adjourn. Should be pretty straightforward meeting tonight. So with that, we'll adjourn from this meeting and go to the next one.

Thank you.

Check, check, check, check. Test, test.

Test, test, test.

Can I?

Am I also allowed to record myself? Test, test, test, test. I can't tell if it's in here. Shouldn't be. All right, there's no way for it to be. Yeah. Oh, there we go.

Got it.

It's more delayed. It's beyond 30 seconds. Dude, I think we're set.

We'd like to call this meeting to order. And we'd like to welcome all of you who are here visiting tonight. We'll start out with an invocation, uh, by Gary Morley and a Pledge of Allegiance by Diane Morley. And Gary, if you'd like to come up and go ahead and give the opening prayer.

Heavenly Father, we're grateful for the privilege of living in freedom and peace. We pray for thy comfort and blessing For those who are living in difficult circumstances, special place. We pray that the ideas shared tonight may be done in a clear and productive manner and in the best interest of our city. We thank you for those who serve and pray that thou bless them as they serve with integrity and honesty, that they might find satisfaction in their service. Please watch over our community, we pray, and help us to understand and enjoy living with one another. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Thank you, Gary. Now, Diane, if you'd like to lead us in the pledge, and can we have everyone rise? Thank you, Diane.

Yes.

Okay, next on the agenda, we've got personal appearances. And it looks like these are all— we'll just go with what we've got here. First, we'll, we'll start with Jeffrey. I don't have his last name.

How much time do I have?

3 minutes?

Thank you.

All right. Testing, 1, 2. Can you hear me? Can you hear me?

Yes.

On 5 occasions between September 24th and August 9th, I have found cameras aimed at me inside the EOS gym shower area. The Woodcross gym in nearby area had headlines about a coach being arrested after cameras were found in the locker room areas. He's charged with child exploitation, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Utah. So after this has happened, you'd think gyms would be utmost vigilant about preventing people from being recorded, but that doesn't appear to be happening at EOS, where I've now found, as I said, 5 occasions where a camera has been aimed at me. What's happening is the saunas adjoin the shower areas. So, counsel, imagine where you're at as— imagine those are showers, and there's a sauna adjoined where that white wall is. And people who use the sauna put the backpacks down there with cell phones, and they claim they use them as timers because they're in the sauna. They claim the need to use it as a timer. Nonetheless, if they want to use it as timers, as somebody using a shower, I shouldn't have to walk past a camera that I have no control over whether it's recording or not. Because if it is recording, it only takes one creep to make it happen. then it's too late. By then, a nude body could be recorded. And this gym allows members as 13 years old. They don't do sex offender checks as far as I understand, but I talked and I've asked about that. And so I gotta calm down, it's getting me upset thinking about this. So EOS member experience representative spoke with me on September 27th. He said he'll train staff to put away— to tell people doing this to put away their phones. He'll have a clock in the sauna, which still hasn't apparently happened, and they'll do locker checks, but they're not documenting names when they do locker checks, I've learned. I reported this to a sergeant at the police department there. I believe his name was Siletto, or Siletto, pardon me, I'm butchering his name. He said he can't send officers, and they don't send officers unless it was the gym owners doing this. So After talking to that member experience person on September 27th, there were 2 other incidents where I found the cameras aimed at me as I'm going to take a shower. And it tells you that there's a culture of this happening. So the ideas that I've proposed to the gym is they need to post signage at the sauna area specifically, blatantly, clearly making crystal clear no cameras allowed. And instead they have cutesy signage that says something like, oh, you look great, but please no recording. And they're using this nitpicking language saying no recording instead of blatantly saying no cameras on the signage in the lockers. They need to document the names when they're doing their patrols, send text emails to the members reaffirming the rules, have a temporary guard checking, doing patrols. And also what this council perhaps could do is take away their release of liability. So it appears as though it says without exemption they have release of liability in the little small text when you sign up to be their member. So I guess if another Woodcross incident happens and another victim gets filmed while they're going to take a shower in the area where there's an expectation of privacy, it doesn't even seem like you could hold them legally accountable in a civil lawsuit if that happened. So this, I encourage the council to take away I don't know why gyms get these special privileges to have waivers of liability. Do hotels, do Walmarts, do any other stores get liability waivers if you slip, you fall, or you get recorded in the bathroom or something like that? And also, maybe this city council needs to outright ban cameras in the shower areas because it's kind of akin to having— if you got stopped and you had an open container of alcohol, you're going to tell the officer, I'm not drinking the alcohol. That's kind of like having the camera right there pointed at me as I'm going into the gym shower. Am I supposed to trust that every person is not doing that?

Jeffrey, we've got to, we've got to wrap up.

Where I guess I can, you know, identify how I want to go into a female locker room, and anybody could be doing this. So I will follow up with the council and send greater details. Sorry for being upset. It's an upsetting situation. Thank you.

Okay, is there— say, Brent, is there a follow-up that you would recommend with this?

I've taken notes on it, and I'll see what can or can't be done from here.

Okay, thank you. Next, we've got Marlon Coe.

Thank you for your time this evening. My name is Marlon Coe. I'm a member of the Transportation Advisory Commission, and I'm here representing our group. It's come to our attention that there is a recommendation to adopt the Transportation Master Plan, but with certain parts excised and pulled out of that plan. We are here to again confirm our support for the plan as we submitted it to the Commission and to the Council. Some of the items that you should know: we've spent about 6 months working with the various groups that are affected by that. That could— that is MAG, UTA, UDOT, the engineer here in the city, Sam Kelly, as well as the engineers who developed the plan originally to talk about it. The plan is based on science. It's based on engineering facts, things that will need to happen if other things happen. The plan itself doesn't mean that anything in particular is going to be built. It means that we have the opportunity to respond if things happen. If you take things out of the plan, cherry-pick them out, we will not, as Orem, be in a position to respond in the future. Failing to plan now will put us in a position where we have planned to fail when it comes time. One of the comments in specific was that the 12 North overpass would lead to industrial areas. We don't want industrial areas having direct access to our neighborhoods. We agree. However, who knows, 10, 15, 20 years from now, how many of you would have imagined that Geneva property would be vineyard? the way it is now 20 years ago. Nobody would have imagined it, but there was planning to prepare for that transportation reality. And while we don't necessarily support all of the individual elements within the plan, we do support planning for the potential, the potential that things will happen that will continue to make Orem the center or the engine of our economic community within Utah County. If we close off those opportunities, then we are inviting other cities to usurp our leadership. And we believe that that is not a good position for Orem to put itself in. We believe that we are in a leadership position, and our transportation master plan gives us options to continue to be in a leadership position. When we take those options away, we do a disservice to our fellow citizens, to our future citizens, to our children. I don't want to be in the position of my grandkids saying, you know, you, you could have done something, and we didn't because we took it out. There is a 5, 10, 15, 20-year planning cycle for financing. If we pull it out now, we are hamstringing ourselves and handcuffing ourselves in the future. If we leave it in, there is no guarantee it'll be built, simply that we have the opportunity. Thank you for your time.

Steven Assel.

We pronounce it— we pronounce it as stale. My wife says like a stale piece of bread, if that helps.

I was just talking to the mayor.

Oh, I can go loud. I can go— I'm just— I was trying to not make a thing about my name. Let me get my notes.

I'm here to do—

I'm here to do a follow-up on the goat house property located at 617 West 1475 North, or And we came before the council a while back, about a month or so, 6 weeks ago, and we listened to your work meeting tonight. There's 11 of us that listened, and so we're very impressed. Thank you so much for taking this up, taking and working over the site, this problem, our neighborhood problem.

Thank you.

The property is located in a quiet cul-de-sac, just a reminder, of 8 homes. Okay, we've been in the house since 1979. We moved in, it was a brand new house, sat vacant for a year, and that's a whole nother story, and we stayed. Our kids have encouraged us to move. We like Warren. I graduated from Warren High School. I got my wife to come over here from Salem, and she hasn't been able to go back. We like, we like Warren. All the current homes in the neighborhood are owner-occupied. Are there being rented to families as long-term rental. That fits within the residential code. We now have a home, our house in our neighborhood, that's an event center, is being used as an event center, not a short-term rental. And that's a problem. We've had constant ongoing events there. The house— the owner does not live in the house. The site he has listed as a GOAT house actually is a— I don't think it stands for greatest of all time. He actually has goats on the property. I think that's a violation of city ordinances, but somehow that's used as a marketing gimmick for his goat house. And reading the comments on previously on Airbnb and VRBO, people love to play with the goats. They stink, they smell, they're offensive. We've got a neighbor over our back fence that borders the goat house property by the goats, and the goats— her grandchildren cannot play outside because of the smell. A neighbor next to her can't have her children outside playing because of the offensive smells of the goats. It's a problem. I believe that something can be done about that. We have constant events going on. You may be aware that we had not just a corporate event there where the neighborhood was tied up with probably 50, 60 cars over a 3, 4 day event from a program. We also had a sorority party from the University of Utah. With 100+ girls, and there's 2 police agencies involved, our city and also the county was involved. We shouldn't be having to go through this. This needs to be addressed, please. Um, this last weekend— it doesn't stop every weekend in our neighborhoods— a party, literally it's a party. There's people there for 50th birthday parties, 50th anniversary parties. There's people there for Sorority parties, you name it. There was a bus that holds 25 people that was in our neighborhood this last weekend, and the house was full again. And we had a bus driver that could not navigate our cul-de-sac correctly and figure out how to turn the bus around. Winter is coming. It's like last winter, we're gonna have a lot of problems on our street with all the traffic that's going to the goat house. I'm asking for something to be done immediately on a short-term basis. I understand from watching the work meeting that there's a court appearance that's coming up soon for the owner. We'll be there as a neighborhood. And what we'd like to ask, that the use of that property being used as an event center be stopped immediately until after that hearing. That's what I'd like to present today to the council.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mary Warner.

Thank you, City Council members, for taking the Airbnb. I'm along with Steve Estelle, and many of the neighbors are concerned about this. I just wanted to thank you for you considering it. My main concerns are the traffic in and out and lots and lots of cars parked on the street. So, um, I understand that Lehigh has a limit of 10 individuals per an Airbnb. That would take care of all of our problems in our cul-de-sac. Or American Fork has to be occupied by— part of the house has to be occupied by the owner. That would take care of the problem. There would be no sorority parties. There would be no You know, really, it was like 40 or 50 cars parked all through our neighborhood for that sorority party. So there's not a person in here, I don't think, that if they had this house 2 houses away from them would not be upset and would not want to plead for something to be done that we can have this problem taken care of.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Randy Schwartz.

Thank you, Council. I was here about 6 weeks ago also. First of all, I want to say thank you for those who have been investigating other ordinances from other cities. We know ordinances are part of cities, both to protect the citizens and also to protect liability for the city. And, you know, you have building codes, fire codes. They advertise the goat house as having room for 25 people to sleep. We know there's been more than that with the numbers that we count going in and out of the house, staying overnight. The other day, about a month ago, I had my garage door open. I'm at the end of the cul-de-sac and I was ready to go out. I left and I would turn around, get in my car, looked in my garage, and there was a person in my garage coming in from my backyard, which was locked. And this person, I'm like, what are you doing in my garage? He says, I'm looking for the Airbnb. He says, my brother-in-law has a white van, just like the white van you have in your yard. Well, The white van we have is a work van. There was a white van in front of the Airbnb that was a family van. I don't understand why he was in, in my garage. He quickly exited after I asked him to leave. So we have things like this going on. It's a continual problem. And we, we need— we appreciate the investigation that's been going on. I know they've been looking at different cities. ordinances are important to protect the citizens here and us. We deal with this problem on a daily and generally on a weekly, weekend basis. That's when they— now they advertise it as for corporate events, weddings, and in a family residential neighborhood, it's just not— it's not a sitting good thing to have in a neighborhood. We have I was gonna say that we have— it's a quiet neighborhood. The residents that are there, they're renting, they're just single-family homes, and everything works fine that way. And that's how it should be underneath the city ordinances. So please continue to look into this. Protect us, protect those— we have other people concerned in our neighborhood that this could happen to them too if no ordinances are, are brought up and have put forth in the city. So, but thank you for your time.

Thank you. And as you mentioned, we have been working on this. And Jake, maybe you can look into— so they came 6 weeks ago, there's been violations, they're going through the legal process. Is there anything that can be done in the meantime to stop this from continuing to happen?

So to answer the question is to continue to work with, contact the neighborhood improvement team. Every violation of our current code, the single-family, the zoning restrictions we have in that area, every new offense would be a separate violation that we could then enforce.

Of course, later on.

So if there are ongoing issues, to continue to work with neighborhood improvement, the neighborhood improvement team.

Okay, thank you. So I would encourage those of you that came up tonight and your other neighbors to just keep on this, and, and ultimately it will get resolved, but the way to get resolved is to keep on it. Okay, great. Thank you. All right, that's the last of our personal appearances.

Again, just to reiterate, reemphasize, there was some gratitude expressed of the efforts that we have going on, so I'll just, I'll just reassert, we are continuing to work on this. We'd love continued feedback so that we can tailor Orem-specific ordinances related to this issue in the way that you feel is best for the city of Orem.

Okay, thank you. This will get resolved. We're not really doing an open forum, but okay. Did you, did you have something?

Yes, I got tied up in traffic. I just— I was here for the opening prayer. I just need about 3 minutes.

Um, what are the guidelines?

It's discretionary with the council. You can open it back up and allow him to speak.

Okay. So I'll open it back up this time, but I want to make the point that this is a one-time deal and this is not a normal situation because we, we have a— we want everyone who's going to speak to sign up before they come up and just need to, you know, manage that decorum.

Excuse me.

My name's David Dawes. I live at 113 North 500 West. I'm here to tell you thank you. On January 24th, I asked and had films to replace or move a drainage right where the sidewalk was. The first of this, uh, Spring. That was corrected, and I want to tell you thank you and your city works department for doing such a good job. So thank you very much for correcting that problem. Another thank you is I was over at the family center and I passed out. When I woke up, there was— I was surrounded by paramedics. Take care of me. Thank you again for that service. And I want to thank you also for the custodians at the Family Center for keeping that center so clean. And if you didn't have good custodians to keep it clean, they could become a dirty place in a short period of time. So one of the things I was wondering if you could get from contact some of the businesses in here to, to volunteer or give one token where the paramedics and the fire department, the police department could get a reward for a meal out or something like that. Show your appreciation. I really appreciate The services that are given here in Orem. I appreciate your police department, fire department, and the good service from the work department. So if you— that's in charge of the work department— if you would pass that on to your employees, I'd appreciate it. And do the same for the paramedics. Thank you.

Thank you for letting me speak.

I've been trying to get here for months.

So, Mayor and Council, while it's up to your discretion to reopen public appearances, maybe we can just say only when people give thank-yous and express gratitude.

Yes. Now, we appreciate that very much, and our city works really, really hard to be the best city in the state, so we appreciate that. All right, moving on to item number 8. We've got 2 items on the consent items. We've got approval of meeting minutes for September 19th, 2023, and September 26th, 2023. And then we've got 2 appointments to the Board of Adjustments, Carlos Iglesias and Paul Crescent. Would someone like to make a motion to approve those?

I move we approve the consent items.

Second.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

And I think Carlos is here. Carlos, you want to stand, please?

Thanks for your service, Carlos.

Thank you.

The consent item's passed. Moving on to item number 9, public hearing.

Okay.

We've got amending Section 22-12-5, Urban Mixed Use Overlay Zone, for properties with a boundary adjacent to University Parkway and east of 800 East with an area of more than 1 acre in size and no greater than 2 acres in size, and amending Article 22-5-3A and the zoning map of the City of Orem by rezoning the property located generally at 925 East, 1400 South in the PRD zone to include, to include the urban mixed-use overlay zone, which is UX. Also enacting Appendix GG by adding the concept plan and building elevations for the Hillcrest Ridge development. Jason, would you like to present that to us?

I would. Thanks, Mayor. A lot of A lot of things, I guess, tonight. It boils down to a couple things, and I'll just explain the proposal tonight. The location is at 925 East 1400 South. You can see 800 South— or 800 East, excuse me. You can see my pointer. So 800 East 14 South. The property is outlined in red. The access. This is the property we're talking about. Yeah. So the applicant is here tonight. He's purchased the property recently. It was approved for 10-unit townhouse development a couple years ago. It's gone through a couple different approval processes. The applicant has come in and wanted to modify that and build something different. In order to do that, some modifications to some ordinances need to take place. And I'll explain this process as we go through. I just want to identify where it is, what they're proposing. You can see here the outline of the building that they're proposing. It's a 3-story office building, 2 stories with half of the top story as a deck. So part of it is 3 stories, part of it is 2 stories, with underground podium parking underneath the building. Then it has 2 accesses, one here and then one over here on the corner. Part of the project will be completing the cul-de-sac there at the end of 1400 South. What they're proposing, like I say, is 2 office space and then also 4 residential units that will be a part of this development. So you can see, and we'll outline the ordinances as we come forward, they're proposing 2 stalls per residential unit, and then 1 space for every 300 45 square feet of office uses, which is a little bit different standard, but that's what they're proposing for this project. And so a total of 102 parking stalls would be proposed. So tonight they're here to propose a rezone. There is a UX overlay zone that was currently in the books, hasn't been used for many years, but the staff has gone through with the developer and made some modifications so this project would work. If the council chooses to rezone it to an overlay, so the PRD zone, the Planned Residential Development zone, would stay in place. The UX, or the overlay zone, would be on top of that so that we would have 2 different zones, but this project could be built under that UX proposal. This is the elevations they're proposing. And see, the portion of it is 2 stories with a deck on top, and then there would be a portion of it that is 3 stories. So the top level 1 would be all office. Level 2 would have some office area with the residential units on either end, and then the 3rd story would be office in this location, and then this would be the— Yeah, the deck area that would observe looking east towards the mountains. So as part of the UX zone, we have made some modifications to allow this project to come forward. Right now we don't have a current zone that would allow mixed use other than this UX. And so we've modified some of this to allow it specifically for this location. You can see the location is pretty unique as far as locating this general area as the only place currently that would be applied to this zone. Allow one residential unit for 10,000 square feet. And then allow the parking would be tied to the concept plan, which will also be a part of the motion tonight if the council chooses to approve it. Appendix GG would be created. The concept plan elevations would be a part of that ordinance, and they would be subject to developing that according to the concept plan. Some materials, aluminum composite paneling type stuff, would be proposed, which you see on a lot of modern buildings. modern office buildings around the country. And then we've added in the concept plan of what we need to see as part of someone coming and proposing to propose this development, which you see that the concept plan meets this criteria. And then part of the development would be required to meet the concept plan that's approved tonight if the council chooses to approve it, along with the elevations. There are some, you know, within some measure of discretion with, but it would need to be substantially compliant with the concept plan proposed. This, of course, is the property that's been vacant for many years. Used to be the RLDS or Community of Christ Church that was demolished several years ago, many years ago. It's been vacant for quite some time. The Planning Commission, the hearing that there was Several neighbors that came out, probably 10 or 15-ish, that had some issues with traffic and had some issues with retail, which would be allowed in this ordinance as well. So mixed use would allow office, retail, and residential. The Planning Commission, during the discussion, recommended denial on this project. The applicant actually met with the neighbors after the meeting and discussed if they were to eliminate the potential for retail, that the, you know, would the neighbors be opposed to that? And my understanding is the majority of the neighbors, if not all of them, agreed to, as long as they withdrew the ability to have retail and it would simply be office and the 4 units, that they would be amenable because the access does go directly down the residential access. So although the Planning Commission did recommend denial, the 2 issues that they were recommending denial based on, I think, have been modified or resolved, the applicant agreed to proffer a development agreement, which would— which Mr. McGinn has written, and the applicant has actually signed it before this meeting, agreeing to, as it stipulates there in the underline, no retail uses of any kind shall be allowed. And that's written in the development agreement along with the concept plan and along with the elevations. So our recommendation is the council consider, based on that new development with the neighbors, that the council consider not only rezoning it to the UX, also approving the zone to the UX, making the modifications to the ordinance itself, and then adopting Appendix GG that would tie this developer to this specific concept plan. Be glad to address any questions.

Does the council have any questions?

I do.

So Jason, you mentioned that the UX zone, is that the only one we have?

That's—

or is there others in there?

So down on 8th South, across from the VA hospital on the south side, where the— where it used to be Rite Aid, across the street where the Walgreens— yeah, there is a development there that is on UX.

Wash place and—

right, doggy wash.

Okay.

Yep.

But that's the only one?

That's the only one.

We change that, then it affects that area there too, right? Correct.

Yeah, so I have one. I agree with the residents, and I appreciate that the landowner entered into the development agreement. But my question is, why then— why are we continuing to have retail space in the code? Can we take that out of the code too? So then this This is specialized to office space uses.

Good. Yeah, I mean, this is the proposal tonight, and that was part of the UX that would be applied potentially other places, but I don't see a reason why we couldn't take that out.

But that the 8 South, that's just—

that'll be grandfathered in, so it doesn't affect them, right?

Unless you do something new.

So they currently have a real— I don't know if you— there's a 2-story that has a real estate rocky Mountain Real Estate, or that's office on the bottom, then they have 6 units above. So that's, that's been developed years ago.

Okay.

Any other questions? Yeah, Terry, if you like, you've been working with the Planning Commission and the developer on this, right?

Yeah, so the— when you see the 7-0 vote, the citizens came. And this is my neighbor, I'm just across the street from this area. So, I know this area really well. But the neighbors, what they'd really like is give us, say, quarter-acre lots and put it all in homes, which it's not subdivided for that. So, I mean, that was the— I mean, it's not approved for that, zoned for that. So, I mean, that was their first concern. And then as they talked through it, it was zoned right now, you could put 10 townhomes there. And in fact, The owner was— that's easy to do that. But that discussion, and I really appreciate the fact their willingness to go through all this work to make this an office building. Now then, so at the Planning Commission meeting, the understanding, I think, with the neighbors, and you can correct me if I'm saying this wrong, but it was kind of like, we'd love to have this be single-family homes. Well, that's not going to happen. And so the Planning Commission was hearing they didn't want this project. Well, afterwards, Trent and myself sat in the workroom and kind of talked through this. This office building would be a heck of a lot less traffic than 10 townhomes. 10 townhomes with basements could be 4 or 5 bedrooms each. So 4 or 5 bedrooms each for 10 townhomes, that's over 100 people living in there, maybe more than that. You know, if you have 10 and 5 bedrooms each, so this will be a lot less traffic. It'll be beautiful. As you come up to Orem, you will see this beautiful office building on the left, and on the right we have this incredible new sign says Welcome to Orem, which I think looks incredible. But, um, so I'm really excited that the owner and developer have gotten to this point, and I hope this is satisfactory with the neighbors. Maybe they'll speak later, but But, but that was kind of what happened, Mayor, is that at first everyone was thinking, we'd like individual homes. And so they were opposed to this because they thought they could have individual homes. Afterwards, we had a discussion saying you can either have 10 townhomes, or if this got zoned, this could happen. That was, that was, that was kind of the background.

Okay, thank you.

Do you tell me if I get— if I said that incorrectly, Trent? That's what that was.

Read I had, but so any other comments, questions?

Jason, Jason, can I ask you another question? So it looks like it's that number 4 that has the retail in it, and then down in 5, what is the— when we have 1 residential unit per 10,000 square feet of office space, so we've seen this This drawing, where are you now at the percent of office space per— how many, you know, we have the residential units for what percent of office space?

It's a little less than the 40,000 that they would need if you were to take the— you go to the elevations.

I mean, I like their design, I really like it, but I just want to kind of compare that to the code.

Sorry, let me go back to my— so if you go to the elevations, if you count the deck, area, they reached the 40,000 square feet so they could have the 4. Right now they don't have 40,000, so they would be limited to 3 units the way that it's designed right now.

So, but you want the 4, and but there's no— like, with the amount of office space that you have per the code, you could not get up to more than 4? Okay, that was my question.

Thanks.

Can I ask a question?

So that brings up a valid point, because are, are we able to count the rooftop deck or not?

Because if we're not able to count that, then we need to alter that, because this plan only works with the 4.

It wouldn't—

the 3 units interior wouldn't work out.

Yeah, the way we interpreted it is that it would count. So that's the way we were moving forward with the fact that they could get 4 based on— with the, with the deck counting, it's 40,000 square feet. square feet.

And it makes sense that it would count because that's less obtrusive and it's just a nice deck.

And so based on our interpretation of the ordinance, we were okay with the 4 based on what they're proposing.

And you would use the deck for your commercial purpose for the office.

Okay.

Any other questions? If not, I'll open up, open up to a public hearing. If there's anyone that would like to comment on this from the public.

Thank you.

So I'm one of the grumpy neighbors that came last time. We had quite a group here, but yeah, and after meeting with Councilman Peterson and a developer, I think there were some things we didn't really understand about this project that we That we were kind of made aware of after the meeting. So I think by the time we left, we all kind of felt like, you know, that the one hangup we had was just, you know, how do we, how do we control what becomes of this, of this building and how it gets used and what kind of businesses go in there? And, and because that will kind of dictate how much traffic and And things like that. So with that amendment to the code or whatever that is, I think, you know, that kind of assuaged a lot of our fears of what might happen there. And I think I could— I don't want to speak for everybody in the neighborhood, but the ones that I've talked to recently, I think they're all pretty comfortable with this idea. And I personally, I live right across the street. And, you know, we've always known something was going to go there. And the more I think about this, I think that's probably— for me personally, that's probably a really good thing to put there. And I would, I would support it.

So thank you.

Do we have any other comments?

Terry has a letter also. Terry has a letter that was sent by—

okay.

I also came and spoke last time. I hadn't seen their proposal, and we do appreciate that much better than the townhouses with too many bedrooms. So the one thing too was they did say they had green space, which I was appreciative of, and that this would have a whole lot less traffic. And since there are so many families that live on that street, that was a big deal.

So having less traffic with their plan of this building would be a whole lot better. And so we appreciate that. Thank you.

Hi, Carlos Iglesias. I just have a quick question. I like the project.

Just listening in.

There can be a little bit elaboration on the development agreement so that to assure the residents that there will be no retail going in the future. So, for example, if the development gets sold or anything like that.

Yeah, so the development agreement would run with the land, so it'd be recorded in the county. Anybody that buys it in the future, if it's not developed for whatever reason, would be subject to that development agreement.

Okay.

So I don't see that in my packet here. Has that been written yet?

It has been written.

Mr. Kimball signed it. Sorry, Mr. Smith. Sorry, it's not— Ms. Kimball has signed it, and we have copies of that. But yeah, Gary has written that. And yeah, and within that, so the language that I showed earlier So basically, sorry, let me get to that page. So that paragraph that you see under there is directly out of the development agreement. So the applicant has proffered development agreement. Basically, no, sorry, the developer intends the project to be office and residential uses only. That's in the agreement. And then no retail uses of any kind shall be allowed. That's also taken directly from the development agreement. The concept plan and the elevations are also attached in the Development agreement in other, other legal language that Gary can explain, but it ties the developer to that and also stipulates the rights the owner has going forward with development.

So this concept plan that we're looking at—

Yes.

That you've submitted.

Okay.

Yes, thank you.

So as staff, when they come through for the site plan, we would make sure that it's substantially compliant with what you see here.

Looks beautiful.

Any other comments from the public? Okay, we'll go ahead and close the public hearing part. And as far as going forward, so yeah, we're ready to vote on this.

Okay, so I make a motion, Mayor, that we amend Section 22-12-5 Urban Mixed Use Overlay Zone UX for property with a boundary adjacent to the University Parkway and east of 800 East with the area of more than 1 acre in size and no greater than 2 acres in size, and amending Article 22-5-3A. And the zoning map of the City of Orem by rezoning the property located generally At 925 East 1400 South in the PRD zone to include the urban mixed-use overlay zone UX, also enacting Appendix GG by adding the concept plan and building elevations for the Hillcrest Ridge development.

How do we amend them for the retail removal?

And In addition to that, authorize the mayor to sign the development agreement that is attached as Exhibit B of the ordinance in your packet.

But I want to take the retail out of the order, right?

You can also reference the fact that we can strike out anything related to retail uses.

And add the strikeout of any retail uses in that property.

So he's saying not just that property, but that zone.

In the zone text, yes.

Okay.

And in that zone, and then authorize the mayor to sign. That's who you're—

and authorize the mayor to sign. How'd I do?

Can I ask you a question, Mayor? I don't know if that's protocol.

How big is this piece of ground?

A little over an acre.

1.34 acres. Are there any other pieces of ground in this area that are more than 1 acre and less than 2?

Not now.

I mean, I guess some could combine, but this is the only one we're perfecting.

Thank you.

With that understanding, I'd like to second Councilman Peterson's motion.

Okay.

I just like to say, I mean, from my perspective, this is the best use for the neighborhood. It's the least intrusive. It's, it's really positive that way. And then it's also very positive as the entrance to Orem to be sitting up on that hill and stand out as a beautiful building.

So let's vote.

Aye.

Aye, and I appreciate the win-win with the neighbors. Can I say that?

Thank you.

Aye. Aye.

The resolution passes.

Thank you.

Okay, we're up to item 9.2. And this will hopefully finish off a major conversation we've been having over the last few weeks. In the last City Council meeting— this is item 9.2, it's a resolution adopting the updated City of Orem Transportation Master Plan and amending the Orem City General Plan to include the updated, updated City of Orem Transportation Master Plan in Appendix F. Sam, would you like to present that to us?

Sure.

So we have placed there by your monitor a copy of the resolution. We have taken the consideration that the council gave us at the last meeting. Also, in a meeting we had with the mayor last week, we also adjusted some other items out of the Transportation Master Plan.

If you'd want to go through those.

If you want, we can go ahead and go through these item by item, looking at the, the line numbers there, and we can discuss the items that we have modified from the original Transportation Master Plan update that was submitted, if that's what you'd like to do.

So what would the council prefer? Because we've discussed this in depth. Do you want to go through the line by line? read out our— I mean, as he mentioned, I've gone through this in depth with them, and then also we've done it multiple times, but we can go through it again, or we can just carry on.

Is there anything different from what the Planning Commission recommended that has been changed?

Yes, what we've done is we have added to what the Planning Commission has changed. The only— we have added some language in there in Item 1.1. It's going to be line 48, 47 and 48, that those are comments made towards future BRT and light rail improved transit in Orem. If we go further down to—

Sam. Yes, Sam, if I can clarify, you're using the term added.

It was stricken. It was modified.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

Sorry.

There was also some other items that were stricken. Those were on line 93, 94, 95, and then from 99 all the way down to 115. And those were other comments that were made pertaining to transit system. One of those was the planning and lobbying efforts will assist in procuring the necessary funding to support, develop, implement, and maintain a sustainable transit system. It's not that the Transportation Master Plan does not support transit— it does— but there was some verbiage that we removed, such as actively lobbying efforts to secure funding. As well as some other language from 99 down to 115. Those were comments made towards planned light rail, BRT, and there was also some language in there in reference to Frontrunner at line 116 that talks about the MAG Long Range Transit Plan. And looking at that MAG Long Range Transit Plan, which is Figure 29, that we removed. It had BRT and/or light rail on State Street. It also looked at light rail that came up 4th North, down 12th West to UVU, as well as a light rail replacement on University Parkway. And then the other component to it was also concerning Frontrunner was double tracking. And through OREM, Frontrunner is already double-tracked. The future phases for Frontrunner to double-track are in the Vineyard area, a little bit further north. I don't know if there's any in American Fork, but I do know around the point of the mountain in the Narrows area, they need to have that double-tracked. And with that being double-tracked, then they can increase their, their frequency of times. But we just removed that long-range plan because there really isn't anything in there that Orem currently supporting. At least that's the direction I've gotten from council. Other than that, we kept all the same items that were stricken according to Planning Commission. As far as looking at growth connectivity, we changed the wording on line 67, 69, 71 from wills to may— I think there's a typo there on 69, because I think the office development may provide cross-access easements. So essentially, we remove some of the teeth that we have, leaving it somewhat optional. And we discussed that previous, but those are some of the items that we addressed in connectivity.

Sam, if I can jump in, the one direction from our last council meeting was To keep it as a must. So for us, I heard wrong, commercial, that is on line 68, starting where it says retail and office development must provide cross-access easements to create circulation patterns. So that's going to stay.

So that's—

I recall Councilman Miller wanted that on our retail corridors.

Correct.

Kind of. I mean, what we talked about is we want to totally encourage that, but there may be situations where that would block a business out from being able to develop that. And so we don't really want it must, but we want to strongly encourage it.

Okay, just wanted to make sure. I had written down must at the last meeting, so it should be may then.

It should be maybe, throw in strongly encouraged so we understand what we're doing.

Okay.

Okay.

How does that, how does that affect our ability to create this connectivity Between our main, you know, 4th center.

If it's may, then we can ask them to do it. If it's must, they will have to do it. So that's kind of where we as staff have to kind of go with it.

So what would it preclude development if we have must?

I mean, not necessarily. If you have land that's just too narrow to do cross-section, there would still be discretion, right? It would be You know, if it makes sense, based on if they're— if it's going to hinder them from developing their property, then, you know, you're not going to make them do that necessarily.

Because, I mean, we— because that's what we want them to do. Yeah, we just—

so can we—

so maybe that—

I don't know how you describe it.

But that's—

we really want that pushed.

Yeah, maybe the legal guys have some good—

yeah.

Do you see the—

Edward Smith?

So what I would suggest is, rather than must or may, is that where it says retail and office development should provide cross-access easements to create circulation patterns to adjacent properties, to eliminate access points to the major street system when feasible or when possible. And so at the end of that sentence, I would add when possible, and then rather than must or may on line 69, put in should. So we want them to do it, but it'll still allow staff to deal with it. And if it's a reasonable thing to do, then we can ask them to do it. If it's going to be excessive or very impractical, then, then we can have that discretion not to force the issue. And now we can work more cooperatively with a business owner coming in. And I think that would address the issue that I'm hearing.

Yeah, I feel like that's the intent that we were looking for.

That's right.

Hey, could I ask a question?

We heard some members of the Transportation Committee talk about Hey, we're planning for forever, right?

20, 30 years.

And what happens if we change this? My guess is there'll be multiple new transportation plans in the next 20 years. So my question is, I'm aware of their concerns, but we approve whatever we approve tonight, that doesn't forbid some future council from getting a new master plan. Is that correct?

Correct.

Okay.

And these are done every 5 years. That, that's not an unreasonable amount of time to reassess the situation and see where we are.

Correct.

Okay, thank you, Sam. And you're all dressed up now that you're employed, you have to look sharp. Yes, as a consultant, you could get away with anything. I know. Now I have to. Welcome.

Thanks.

He's still in this probationary period.

Thank you, Brent.

Appreciate you pointing that out to him and us.

Okay, Sam, did you have more to go through?

The only other items I guess to speak to were just the, the item that we modified, 800 West. It originally was stricken by Planning Commission, the verbiage to widen to 5 lanes. This is line item 87. And we've— I think it seemed like there was concurrence with the council to at least allow 800 West to remain in there, with the caveat that we're looking specifically at the area between State Street and 400 North. And similar to the rest of the projects, we would study it before we move forward on any action. And then, other than that, there's really essentially— that's what was there. And then part 2 of this resolution also just speaks to the ongoing Further discussing of updating the bicycle and pedestrian master plan, which I've currently submitted to MAG for some funding to go ahead and move that forward. Looking at connectivity of UVU and Orem, as well as look at the Orem Center Street connection to Geneva Road and I-15, and then just generally connectivity impacts. on neighborhoods from pass-through traffic. And then we did also add on— it's number 5, but it's, it's line 124— to pursue funding for the studying of connectivity among the businesses fronting on State Street and the beautification of the State Street corridor.

Any—

can I highlight something else? I would like to highlight this because I just want to make sure everyone understands because maybe they're not reading this, but also on line 93, we talk about improvements to our transit system— 92, actually, 3.1.1. It says Orem should be involved in supporting transit as a viable and attractive alternative transportation mode in the city. We are signing— we are agreeing to that. And then the next thing is the UTA bus system is versatile as routes and stops can be adjusted, and as the demand and other factors require it. Close coordination with UTA will improve bus service as well as reduce congestion along major roads such as University Parkway and State Street. So I just want to highlight that to say we are of the mind that we are interested in coordinating with UTA and providing an adequate bus— an improved bus system. for our residents in Orem. That's part of this plan, correct?

Right, that, that is the part of the plan, and the part that's being taken out is related to BRT and the light rail.

So can I say one more thing?

I have been driving up to Salt Lake a lot, right? I've been going on Foothill Boulevard, so 215 to Foothill Boulevard, and, and that is a 4-lane I don't think they have a center lane in some areas. For the most part, it's a 4-lane road. And I know, Sam, you have talked about what the Traffic Advisory Commission has talked about. Well, do you know there's a push for Center Street and Orem to go to 7 lanes? Where's our stopping point?

Where are we?

And I believe that the TAC said, no, we're going to stay at 5 lanes. You know, that's, that's where we want to be for Center Street and Orem. And I, every time I drive on Foothill, and I think, ah, this is so congested, you know, they need to widen this. I recognize that that's the decision that they have made, is that they want that to remain a 4-lane street for that area of their town. So I believe that that's kind of something we do need to consider, and we have considered in this transportation master plan, is what we want our city to be. If we want to be a little I-15 plopped right in the middle of our city. I know we joke around in my area and we call 1600 North I-16 because we have so much traffic on that street, but we don't want it to be more than the 3-lane road that it is. So I just want to kind of highlight that as something that we— when we're making these decisions, I feel we are planning for the future, and the future might be a little different from the perspective of the resident. And the perspective of through drive-through traffic, and that's what we have to consider when we evaluate these plans.

Terry.

So, you know, going along with what Lynnae is saying about widening roads, I like us to really say what it really is, and that's tearing up neighborhoods. I mean, you widen a road. And this is— thank you, Sam, for what you've done. You've done a lot of work in listening to all these voices and putting this together. So my comments are just, you know, future plans in the city. It's like putting overpasses into industrial areas. Are you kidding me? But widening roads is not widening roads. Widening roads is gutting neighborhoods. So it's kind of interesting what we've got going, and I'm not running for reelection, so I think I can say this without anybody thinking that I have any kind of alternative motive other than I live in Orem and I care about our city. But you've got this group, Stronger Together, that got organized during the Prop 2 issue. And they were fighting the, you know, wanting Orem to stay part of Alpine School District. Okay, so that's over. That was history. And Many of us on the council voted that people should have the right to vote for that decision. So that happened and that's over. But now we have a campaign going on. And in this campaign, this same organization has now gone from Prop 2 to another issue, and the issue is transportation. And, and wanting to, to reverse the State Street Master Plan, which we changed in February. And, and the concerning thing about that to me— I mean, unless people want 10,000 apartments— but the concerning thing to me about that is the people on that, on that pic are all the people— many of them were on the city council before when they passed the State Street Master Plan approving all these apartments. Many of them are either former mayors or former people on the city council. Val Hale was the director with Gary Herbert over the transportation plan for the state of Utah, and, and Mr. Hale is very much a proponent of the BRT route going down the middle of Orem. If you did that, that would destroy our commercial strip of businesses because you're going to wipe— well, it's like you see in other places where they've got a bus going down the middle. Of Put, put a bus down the middle of State Street and see what it does to all these surrounding businesses. So the reason I bring this up is this transportation plan is currently very much in play with the State Street Master Plan and this current group, which no longer is working on Alpine School District. That's in the past. But now you just look at all the folks involved, and these are all people that want to turn Orem back to what it was before February. So I just saw a really interesting video the other day. If we want to see what this would be like if these people that are in this group— and like I say, just go down the list of it, and some of them have property on State Street. Brent Sumner voted for this. He has property on State Street, former city council. And you just go down, Dick Bruns. I mean, just the whole list of people that voted for this in the past, and now they're the ones fighting to get this election changed. But if you want an idea what it would look like if Orem had 10,000 apartments, which is what the plan was with the State Street Master Plan, take Vineyard and stick it on State Street in Orem. Put Vineyard on State Street in Orem, and that actually is even a little conservative, but that's kind of what it would look like. You'd have a logjam, you would have traffic congestion, and, you know, people move out of Orem. But anyway, I just bring this up because this is, this is just a couple heartbeats away from something we'll be dealing with as citizens. So I'd encourage everyone to be very diligent in looking at this campaign. Look at the people that are, you know, recommending candidates and look at their history as far as their involvement. This has nothing to do with Alpine School.

district.

This has everything to do with Orem and mass transportation and high-density apartments. So may I just bring that up because this is all very concerning to me because these people are very involved in trying to change what we're trying to do as far as beautifying the city and having a mass transportation plan that takes care of the citizens. So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other comments before we bring this to a vote? No, we're not having a public comment.

Gary, I don't think we, we have a public hearing associated with this, right? Or Jason? I don't think—

I don't—

Yeah, we— that's why, the way I remember, we had it last time. So, so I think we're good to vote if someone would like to make a motion.

I'll make the motion. Okay, I made the last one. I was waiting for someone else to. I make the motion that the city adopt the updated City of Orem Transportation Master Plan and amending Orem City General Plan to include the updated City of Orem Transportation Master I second.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

And while I don't agree with the political statement made recently by Mr. Peterson, I vote aye on this.

Okay, the resolution passes. Thank you all. Now we'll move on to item number 11. And this is a chance for Brandon, our city manager, to bring up anything he'd like to.

Thanks, Mayor. Just a few quick things. I mentioned last time how we have a lot of fun fall events. A couple of additional FYIs: our Altogether Playground, we're going to have a re-grand opening of it on October 19th, and we're also scheduled to get our trackless train. It's scheduled to arrive at the end of this month, and once that's in, then we'll do, you know, a ceremony with that as well. So that's really exciting. And then you'll be seeing in our upcoming newsletter, we've had a bit of a little campaign recently where we've talked about how Orem Gives You More, and we, you know, turn the Orem logo, the letters of Orem, into more. And as part of that, we wanted to kind of show our citizens that one of the ways in which they get more for their— more bang for their buck is the great work that we've been doing on our grant applications. Over the last year or so, we've had 35 grants applied for, and about 90% of them have been awarded, resulting in more than $28 million awarded to the city. And as Sam mentioned there, a new grant that we— he has just recently applied for is a $5 million active transportation grant that would be— that would help us make some of the improvements that were identified in the transportation master plan here, more particularly along State Street. So, and then finally, I think last time you received invitations to the Orem Temple open house. If you need any help with signing up for a time slot for that, Tess Jones in our office is happy to walk you through that.

Thank you, Brent. And that is really significant what Brent's saying about $28 million in grants that our grant writer has been able to to Orem, because that's $28 million less in taxes that our citizens will be paying. So that's phenomenal. And then just as a last thing, um, there is— fall is a really fun time in Orem. And as I was going through with Pete on different things, there's just a slug of activities coming up. So look at our social media and keep track of that and come out to them. Someone like to make a motion to adjourn?

I move we adjourn.

Second.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

We're adjourned.