City Council · 2024-12-10

Well, there's more in here.

I mean, I don't have to. Sounds good.

Well, yeah, we do.

Only up here.

And then, uh, thank you. You guys, you have your laptop.

Is that easiest?

Good afternoon.

I'm woefully lagging. I just finished negotiating one-on-one and I forgot.

It's kind of like that one time she delivered for 2 weeks.

That's exactly right. You should take that. Good. How are you? He said 9:30.

All right, everyone.

Hey, so my voice is quieter than normal because I lost it last week and I'm just getting it back, uh, which is good or bad depending on which side you're on. Um, anyway, welcome to our work session and welcome to our, uh, city council meeting later on tonight. And Thomas requested that we keep it going till midnight.

I'm fine.

No, I'm always trying to accommodate.

Um, no, believe me, I'm fine.

Okay.

Um, anyway, so we'll start out with our presentation on boards and commissions, uh, a code change.

And, Jen, are you taking care of that? Okay, I've got Carrie here. Take it over.

Okay, thank you, Mayor, Council. So I'll just be presenting on some of our recommended changes to our boards and commissions. You've had the redlining code sent to you to review, um, but I'll be going over kind of the general overview of categories. So, uh, I'm grateful for this opportunity to present. We're thankful for the input of each of you and for all of our commission members and for the staff that went into this evaluation as we looked over the past several So the goal of this evaluation was to make sure that we're tying it back to our areas of focus. So aligning our council, employees, and citizens in ensuring that we have a community-focused and effective government. And so my division has conducted an evaluation of these, uh, boards and commissions by looking at ours, reviewing all of our code, looking at how other cities do it, and making sure that we're doing it in the best way possible. So these are the categories of recommendations. There's 5 major categories, but I'll go through each of those in turn, and feel free to ask questions. So our first area is to provide training and review for our commission members, staff, and council. So based on best practices and things that we've seen done elsewhere, we feel that if we provide regular training and guidebooks and handbooks, it will allow and ensure that each of our commission members is equipped with the knowledge about what they need to know as a commission member or a staff member or a council member assigned to each commission. understand what their commission's role is in the broader perspective of the city, what all the groups do, and what all the city does as a whole. Uh, and so my team is creating a training guidebook for commission members that will kind of go over these things. And we're also looking at doing orientation sessions so they can get together and learn from each other and learn how to operate, collaborate, and work together on things. For staff, kind of a similar thing. For staff and clerical that are assigned to commissions, there's obviously templates they need to follow. There's certain things they need to do for, uh, open meeting requirements. What's their role? And just providing a standardized guidebook so that's easy in one place for them to refer to and make sure that they understand the whole purpose. For you as council members, especially looking forward to the new year, as you'll likely be assigned some new commissions, making sure that you are able to be provided with that knowledge immediately about what the duties and roles of each commission are and you're trained appropriately.

Thank you.

And with this in conjunction, we're looking at our team doing a regular review similar to this, um, to just ensure that all of our boards and commissions are operating effectively as we move forward. So as far as specific code changes, we're recommending a few groups or articles of code that maybe are no longer relevant or could maybe be done in a different way. So there are a couple groups that are not active. They were set up at one point but no longer relevant. So the Alcoholic Beverage License Hearing Board and the Arts District Review Board looking at striking those from code. The Public Safety Advisory Commission is one that hasn't really gotten off the ground, and again, while these things are important, we'll make sure they're fed through other commissions so it won't be a standalone commission. Beautification Advisory Commission is one that is an active group, but we're looking at potential overlap with other commissions that operate in the city, so transitioning that to a subcommittee under the Neighborhood Commission so the members would be able to serve as subcommittee members. They wouldn't be full appointed commission members, but they're able to carry out some of their same roles, maybe in just a slightly different way. Same thing for Heritage. Obviously, with the transition from Orenfest to now Events Advisory Commission, I think this is a much broader scope and sphere of the events that they look at. So Heritage Commission, their focus is patriotic veterans, uh, making sure that we're instilling that into all of our events, and the Veterans and Memorial Day events would fall under their And that Senior Citizen Advisory Commission would be removed from a formal commission. Again, that we'd still get volunteerism from our senior center members. They'd be able to provide input. It just wouldn't be through this formal commission, and they would still provide a report to the council once a year. The next— the bulk of the rest of it is really just standardization. As we were looking at code, there were some inconsistencies or maybe things that needed to be updated. So There was some variation currently on the left side of what their titles are as far as if they were a board or an advisory commission or just a commission or a committee. So we're looking at adjusting the official titles to either be a board or an advisory commission if that's what their role is. Their— the role of each of these groups is to provide advice to you as the council. Um, and then Youth City Council will still be a council.

That one's kind of an anomaly.

it's not the same type as the others, but it all now just be a board, a committee, or an advisory commission with that exception. Some other standardizations that were noted in the red line is that we're looking at standardizing the member term length to 3 years. There were a couple of groups that had a 4-year term length. We're looking at just putting that at 3 years across the board. Uh, term limits, we don't have those still currently for any groups except for Planning Commission and the Board of Adjustment. We do recommend keeping those for the Planning Commission, but the Board of Adjustment It doesn't meet frequently, so we don't feel that term limits are—

What is the limit on the planning position?

It's 2. 2 years?

2 consecutive terms. So that would be 3 years each. That's better than 3. So that would be the only group that would have term limits with this change. And then the meeting frequency, again, there was quite a bit of variation in the groups of how often code dictated or how often they were meeting, whether it be They are supposed to be monthly, uh, bimonthly, semiannually, quarterly. So we're looking at just generalizing that across the board, giving the group some flexibility as certain years or certain times of the year, maybe they're more busy or they have other things they need to do, and certain times maybe they don't need to meet as frequently. So making sure that they have that flexibility within our code. Um, there are those exceptions for Planning Commission, looking at that dictated, uh, meeting frequency. The Board of Adjustment for Building and Fire Code Appeals are ones that are just Talk about that as needed. And then the member vacancy terms, there was a little bit of variation there as far as what causes a vacancy. So this is going to be the one that's listed. A member's office automatically becomes vacant if the member establishes residence outside of the city or lives outside of city boundaries for a continuous period of more than 60 days. And then other vacancies will be covered under the clause about other specific language. Uh, any member of the commission may be removed from office by the mayor with the advice and consent of the city council. And that's what— that's already language that's in there, but just making sure that this, when they move out of the city, that language is consistent as well. The next one is looking at standardizing the language around chairpersons and vice chairs. So standardizing the chairperson's term length to 1 year, stipulating that they can serve consecutive terms. Codifying a vice chair for all commissions. Currently, they're mostly all operating with one, but not very many of them had that in code that they would have a vice chair, and they would also have the 1-year term length. CARE is one that does not have a chair or vice chair. We're not recommending that. Ensuring that meeting minutes are required in the code language for all groups. The quorum numbers, as we were going through, we found there were some errors there as far as some of the bigger commissions. The quorum was not consistent with what the actual quorum size should be. So we're updating that and then standardizing the language surrounding your roles as city council liaison. So that would read as a member or members, if there's 2, of the city council shall be appointed to act as a liaison between the commission and the city council, but the city council liaison shall not be considered a member of the commission, and the term is determined by the mayor. So again, just codifying and making sure what's happening is in our code.

Thank you.

And then just a few other miscellaneous recommendations. For the arts, we're looking at reducing the number of members from 13 to 9, um, and removing the requirement for one of the members to represent Hale Center Theater. Oren is moving out. And then with neighborhood, uh, this is one that increased from 9 members to 18, and we're also looking at increasing kind of the scope of their responsibilities, especially with some of this beautification and other things. events that they'll be responsible for. So looking at increasing the number of city council liaisons from 1 to 2 for that group. And those are the major ones. Um, John, if you have anything else to add to the red line. Okay, any questions on any of this? No, it's very thrilling, a great way to start off.

I echo Chris's comments. Thank you for getting it down to 92 pages. You're welcome. So much easier that way.

I do have one question about the subcommissions. So are those not appointed, the members of that, are they not appointed by the mayor? Are they just kind of random volunteers that might— how do you see that working? Yeah, so in the language it says something about like the commission consists of this many members exclusive of subcommittees. So they'll fall under that. And so if they want to get other volunteers, and it could be commission members that serve on that as well, but just Yeah, kind of just— I don't know if that's clear enough.

They're not—

it's not a specific number of subcommittees that they can have or a specific number of people that can serve on them.

But they can elicit volunteers from wherever.

Yes. Yeah, yeah. And then they could be invited, you know, just to the meetings that are relevant to those purposes. Thank you.

I just want to say, as far as, uh, This is a great example of strategies and innovation team, uh, because I mean, we've talked about this for ever since I got here pretty much, uh, that the boards and commissions were— some were effective, some weren't, some were active, some people hadn't done much, some people have been on forever. There was just this chaos of things going on. And if this is going to be how we're going to oversee Orem, and this is an integral part of how we reach out to the community and work with the community, It needs to be structured in a much more meaningful way. So we basically gave it to Strategies and Innovation, and they've done this as a major project to try to figure out which boards should we get rid of, which ones, you know, are there any we need to add.

We just tried to optimize everything.

But that's, that's what the difference between just going along and living in the same zone for 100 years and taking a step back and saying, how can we make this better? How can we optimize it? And I think you guys have done a great job with that. I applaud your team.

Thank you, Mayor. I really appreciate that. Yeah, I think that's a good, great point.

Like, I—

one of the crucial points of this is that we will continue to look at it because things change for the city. Maybe next year we need to make an additional change, and, uh, we'll continue to improve. And that's what we're all about here. So, um, we're so grateful for each of you, and again, for all of our wonderful commission members that serve and make a difference in our community every day. That's— we have a very active— and we have a lot of commissions compared to a lot of cities, which I think is Which a lot, in a lot of ways, a great thing because we've got that involved.

So we've got a ton of involvement. We got a lot of citizens that want to help.

And so we want to create a framework that they can be really effective. And I think that's what you guys are doing.

Well, and I want to give a shout out to Carrie and to Bryn and to the mayor. I mean, truly, this innovation thing started with you guys, right? I mean, that was not happening when I first got on the council. So this has been amazing. And I'm sure there were a lot of others.

I, I probably shouldn't call out people, but This has just really been amazing to see through your leadership, that kind of stuff, this stuff happening, because it is—

that, that was so fun, the appreciation dinner for our commissions.

Well done.

Everything was so well done. So thanks to you guys.

Thank you.

Any other questions, or— Yes, thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, moving on to item 1.2, the City of Morum Housing Approach brochure. And Gary, we're going to have a chair discussion in that. Okay, so I'll echo that.

Okay.

Thanks for the time this afternoon. Um, I haven't had a chance to introduce myself to most of you because it's been hit and miss for meetings since I came on board as the planning manager. So I'm Jared Hall. Um, Matt, I think you know, and there's been a lot of work done on this housing brochure, um, to, to kind of illustrate Orem's efforts at housing and, and counteract some or, or put forth more of a, a visual, a more concise kind of impact statement about what we already have for housing and, and how we fit into that larger scheme. Um, so this is a mockup, I guess, of the brochure, um, that Matt's been working on. And Peter, appreciate all that help. And I'm gonna let Matt kind of take you through—

No problem.

Take you through that, the brochure and some of the points that are in it. There's a lot of really good information in it. It is, um, there's a lot of data. So a lot of the work that's been being done so far has been to make that data more reasonably accessible as you look at it, more sort of visually inviting as you look at something like that brochure. Um, there's also, let me just say, the kind of the why. Yeah, where this came from was we're sitting in meetings up at ULCT and speakers are talking about all these different things that we need to be doing. Right. And as Brenda and I are sitting there, we're like, oh, we did that 3 years ago, we did that 5 years ago. Orem is really ahead of the curve in most of the things that the state is now imposing on the rest of the state. And so we just want a way to proactively be able to say, hey, here's our calling card, here's for our city, this is what Orem is doing, and let's talk about it and kind of make that the starting point as opposed to getting our assignments coming. Yeah, thank you, Mayor.

That's a great, that's a great point.

And, and As housing is concerned, a lot of times it feels like that from the legislature there. One kid in your family is making trouble, but you're yelling at all of them to not single out that one kid. We want— so I don't want to say credit, that's not the right way to say it, but in a very simple way, we want to point out, like the mayor said, what we've done in order to— the part of that burden that we are currently bearing and how we approach housing and have that be a way for them to quickly see what we do and what is already on board in the city.

Thank you.

Those strategies and things that are already in place. With that, I will let Matt kind of walk you through the brochure.

And as you have questions, as you see things, please. Okay, not gonna put my spot on there for him. Sorry, I'll try to explain it. I gave you what we're calling a mockup. One is because designs are full bleed, meaning the printing goes out to the edges of the page. It doesn't quite do that on our printer. So if we have to go ahead and any final adjustments, then we'll work on either getting it printed with the full bleed or reducing it in. So there's a little bit of a— it's not the final product. Okay, so I'm just gonna walk you through. As explained, this idea originated from other sources coming out of the league, some of the league meetings of the mayor. described, and, um, I was asked to reinterpret it, rebrand it with our data, our story. And, uh, I also want to give great credit to Pete, who also helped with a little bit of the final design here, and anybody else that helped with that, and acknowledge him. Um, the brochure— I'm just going to go through what the brochure contains. One of the things that highlights, and I think is a, uh, something that either legislators— and I think with this, let me back up. I think the audience could be, as it was explained to me, uh, the legislature and those that we work with at the state level. Uh, however, I think it could also be used as far as constituents and the residents of the city and explaining not only some of the challenges that the city faces, but, um, also the efforts the city has done. for, um, 20, 30 years of, um— and it puts that more into, uh, a condensed, portable, walkaway handout. But one of the, one of the challenges that many municipalities are facing are infrastructure impediments. Uh, ULCT identified that within the state there was 190,000 entitled housing units. Um, that might be— they were zoned for housing, but nothing's actually been built. Maybe the subdivision improvements aren't in there. And why is that? Sometimes, um, there is a shortfall when it comes to having enough water supply, or potentially services need to be extended to vast areas of certain cities.

Yeah.

Uh, and theoretically, cities probably shouldn't have areas annexed in their city that they can't service, but that does happen, either historically or, uh, the cost of that— they just can't able to budget that. Uh, on top of just supplying infrastructure, um, there's always a shortfall, right? In that the cities, uh, municipalities are gifted in development process infrastructure, and that infrastructure over time ages and wears out. But what we're not gifted with that development is an endowment of maintaining that infrastructure. And so that comes back to us to bear the cost of replacement Upgrades, and that can be anywhere from 15 to 20 years for a road. Make sure, ensure it has appropriate overlay, um, so it doesn't fail. Fails, it, it's even more expensive to rebuild and replace. Or, you know, over a longer period, it might be 50 to 100 years before sewer and water— I don't know, I think our water expert back here might know the exact numbers, but, uh, those things eventually have to be replaced too. And that costs a lot of money. And so that is on the front end, getting the infrastructure to places where growth is happening, and on the back end of replacing that is a challenge. And I think there was a message for the state that there may be some assistance. And if there's wanting help with housing issues, that maybe there could be some Orienting budget and money. So that's part of the story, is development costs on the front and the back end. But also part of the story is Orem City has done vast amount for housing in this valley over the last 100 years, and particularly we looked at the last 20 years because that's where we have the most reliable data. Some of this data comes out of our Moderate Housing Income Plan. Grant Allen's been key in compiling this, uh, data. And, and that's where the source is, if you're asking for the source on some of these things. Some of this data comes out of our building permit database. But, uh, according to our records, there's upwards of 347 vacant residential lots. Many, um, many developments have, uh, entitled— what does entitled mean? Entitled units means that there's a zoning right to build those if they provide appropriate building permits and final site plans, bonding fee, etc. But, uh, they have the right to move forward. I'm not going to go through all these numbers, but we showing here our ADUs, legal ones, ones permitted in the last year. Um, and then I think I have a repeat because it's cutting, pasting So ignore that. I don't think it's in the brochure. And we also highlighted that 60% of our housing is owner-occupied. We have a higher than average amount of rentals in the city, and that makes sense for a lot of reasons. We are a college community. We also are one of the older, more developed cities in the county where we have a lot more services and jobs. And so people come and go. So there is a higher proportion of rentals in the city. Moving on to some other data that we've collected.

We—

almost 8% of the new housing units since 2015 have been townhome or multifamily. 11% of new residential were single-family detached. And About only a quarter of our permits have been about single-family homes last— in this last time period of 20 years. Okay, this is a breakdown. This comes from our building permit data in 5-year chunks of the types of housing Orono has been developing.

This is permits or construction? This is number of units permitted or constructed.

Constructed and finalized.

So would it be inappropriate to say multifamily housing? That's a new word for me.

I'm, you know, I think we've always referred to that as high-density apartments.

Multifamily housing is what we say in our city code under the zoning ordinance.

Is it the equivalent high-density apartments?

Well, it could be anywhere from a 2-unit side-by-side twin home is a multifamily unit to a 100-story— or not 100-story, 100-unit apartment building or more, right? Yeah, multifamily has a broad range of definitions.

Do you have that breakdown? Like, I mean, because you had townhome up there too.

Yeah, I think actually I did subtract townhomes as a distinct class. So, uh, but when we're talking about multifamily, we're talking about apartments or attached housing units. So rentals, probably 3 and over. So maybe 3 units to 100 units or whatever.

And so does townhome— when I hear that, I think owner-

Is that incorrect?

It doesn't necessarily mean owner occupied. The way that a housing unit is owned is separate and distinct from the form of construction.

Okay.

So I think that's the narrative right now, right? At the legislature, the meetings I've been to, owner occupied versus rental, balancing that in communities.

Sure.

Okay.

Yeah, but that's— pay-on-home doesn't necessarily mean owner-occupied. You could have single-family homes that are rented. You can have homes that are rented. You can have condominiums in a 100-unit complex that are rented. So this— for that last slide focuses on construction, not occupancy type.

Perfect.

Thank you. So one other question. I've asked Ryan this 4 times. The number of units in Orem is around 22,000, is that right? 23,000 housing units? It's somewhere in there. Yeah, 22, 23, 24. I'm just trying to get that number in context. And when you talk about housing units, that could be one unit in a high-density apartment of 100? No, I think that's single-family homes. That's what that number is. 22,000 or 23,000 single-family homes? That's what I And I can find a moderate income estimate for all we need. I'm just curious to see what the total number is and to get the context of what these numbers mean. Sure, sure.

And that's something we could follow up with. That's why we're— I think we're bringing it now is to hear that input and what would be helpful to include in the final product.

So the gray that is in this thing, attached single-family housing, would be the twin homes or other things?

Twin homes or townhomes. They're usually side by side. The distinction with usually a multifamily unit is often a stacked type unit or product.

So, that is something we're trying to understand, wrap our arms around, like what you're saying, just as far as what it is we're talking about, you know, I mean, because high-density apartments are regarded differently than You know, a 4-plex or something. Sure. And so anyway, that would be useful to have that information. So more granularity and multifamily that's under a certain number of units versus over a certain number. Yeah.

And that's something we can see if we can dive into the data and extract that out.

I don't know off the top of my head.

Because I like having that construction profile. that type of construction profile. So maybe I'm not saying replace, I'm just saying additional information.

Sure.

Yeah, we can see if we can extract that data from our— in a coherent way that makes sense.

It just helps when I'm having conversations in the CHAW groups or whatever.

Really helps us to be able to describe to them what we have.

Sure.

And I think one thing we could also add is some definitions. Well, what is a multi-family?

Exactly. That's always good.

What's an attached? Maybe some pictures.

Perfect, thanks.

So, uh, I think one of the major things that comes up is Orem is more dense than surrounding communities, and this is a map drawn from census data looking at not the city as a whole but as, um, in census blocks. This is how the census gathers data and divides it down into areas. So you can see this is Utah County. You can sort of orient yourself to Utah Lake. Orem is this area here. And you can see this right below it, right?

This is Provo, correct? Similar density, it looks like.

Yeah, Provo South Campus is higher, but that makes sense. It's a, you know, student-oriented housing area. But you can see just sort of the pattern in the county is that the, you know, the orange has higher density. Forgot to include the table in the slideshow, but this is about— without doing some more research, I can't get more granular than this graphic in the brochure. But It is showing that on a regional level, Provo-Orem has contributed by far more density than on average the rest of the valley. Okay, even though Lehi may be developing some higher densities now overall, as you look at these census block areas throughout the region, you see where the population density is highest. And I think that conveys a story or to policymakers that we have been in the housing game for a very long time, and we've done a lot of housing in the course of the last 50 years, and where other communities are not there yet. And I'm just gonna briefly— this is sort of the inside of the brochure, but just talk about some of the tools that we do have in place to allow for, uh, more housing or to simplify the development process. And, um, I, I won't go over those in detail, but if there's any questions, uh, we can talk about those.

How many square miles is it?

Off the top of my head?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, and one reason we relied on the census tract block map rather than a gross calculation of density is because, um, depending on how much open space in your community or undeveloped tracts of land in your community, that can, that can really affect a raw number of what is the density of your city versus another city. But if you just visually compare on a smaller scale, Section by section of the city, it gives you a more accurate representation of where the density is and how dense it is.

I just have one. Do you have in your urban planning, is there a percentage of commercial infrastructure that is recommended in that urban planning model? Because of course we know we need that. I mean, we run our city on our sales tax, right, on our commercial infrastructure. So are there guidelines for balancing that?

Really, as a ratio of overall development, how much is commercial, is it land use?

Yeah, land available.

There's no straightforward type of growth measure for that that I'm aware of. But it really comes down to your population base.

Right.

And knowing exactly how much commercial land use should be devoted is probably more of a factor of population and also demographic, you know, income. And that's really hard to define because that can vary over time too, you know, the supply and demand of certain services.

Right.

You know, where, you know, maybe the type of demographics have changed over time too. Maybe you have an aging population that spends less versus, you know, a large family population that can shift over time. So there's a lot of factors going into like what the optimal amount of land is. We could look into that, research it more, but I don't have anything off the back of my head.

It's an interesting question.

I mean, Let's pretend you're gonna go start a new city like Utah City or something. You're gonna start a new city. Okay, what is the mix that's optimal in all these different categories? What's the mix that's optimal in commercial?

You know, and it'd be interesting to see if—

I'm sure somebody's taking some government grant and figured this out, but it'd be interesting.

And then, you know, we are not just a city unto ourselves. Orem City is a regional center.

Right.

You know, we draw population, we have a daytime population that I think is 60,000 to 80,000 people higher than our residential population or nighttime population. And so, you know, Warren City, population 100,000, has a different retail demand than, say, another city of 100,000, uh, say it's Westford, right? Maybe they don't have the university, they don't have the business and employment centers, uh, as in-depth as we do. So all those things factor in. And so, uh, you know, an individual retailer, they have that all down to, to, to, you know, the individual person, right? And they know exactly how many credit card swipes a certain area has and the incomes and everything. Uh, that is not a level of information that we usually get into, and when we do, it's usually part of an economic development study.

So we do have data going in here that speaks to it, and it's Warren's daytime population. But we look at the number of people that leave the city to go to work versus the number that come in, and same with students. So that shows a net increase of about 20,000 extra people. So that is on that side of the road.

I really appreciate that demographic. I never thought about that one before. That's pretty key, right? You've got 20,000 coming into your city every day. That affects your planning.

Daytime population is very important.

Your resources, everything.

Yeah, other cities might have a daytime net loss because people are commuting out, right?

So I would say Mapleton probably maybe has a loss during the day because we're gaining their population. So That was the concept and the instructions I was given. We're open to taking some of this feedback and improving this. If there's a general consensus that this should develop further, then we would have it finalized and printed where we wouldn't have the bleed issues and folding issues. But any questions before we wrap this up?

Oh, every housing unit. So it's been a while, but we do have a website, aurum.org/housing, that has all of this data on it. Our planning department probably needs to take a little bit of a look at it and see if anything can be updated. But it's 29,000— last time this was updated, 29,593 occupied housing units in Aurum. Of that, 16,509 are single-family homes. And then it breaks down townhomes to 2-unit apartments or condos on down to— So do you think that 29,000 is a 100-unit apartment? Is 100 units? Yes. Of that 29,593 count, 4,434 are multifamily units in a building that has 10 or more apartments or condos in it, and it's broken down into 5 or 6 categories. What was the So it's orm.org/housing, and Planning put this together I think about a year and a half ago, maybe 2.

So we could take some of that and provide more refined data in this brochure.

And that data matches what's in the brochure, the 60% owner-occupied. That's where that number's coming from. So 29,000 units is the Macro big number, right? 29,593. So at that time, that's based on census data, uh, 2021 census data. And that— I just pulled up the census data right now, um, for the quick facts that may have not updated housing unit counts for authority. So if I can just highlight in summary again, you know that we're hearing a lot from the state housing, but the legislative session coming up, and we just wanted to make sure— well, we saw this idea of a brochure that shows our city's data up at the ULCT conference, saw some other cities that have done it, recommendation from ULCT for each city to kind of show how they're different and how they've already been trained to respond. I feel like you've got essentially Good response to this. Essentially, they're hoping that other cities can do what— and if there's ways that we can improve, let's just take it in context with what our reality is. Right, because that's always our big pushback is the different cities differently because they're all different. We'll just prove it. Yeah, so well done.

That was good.

Okay, thank you.

And I'll leave a few extra of these prototypes there for anybody that wants them.

Thank you. Okay, next up, item 1.3, Modern Income Housing Strategy Proposal.

Gary McGinn?

Yes, and, uh, shows you how good I am at planning. Jared, I was going to introduce him, but he went first on the agenda, so I didn't have a chance to introduce him. Everyone, this is Gary McGinn. So now that Jared's introduced me, let me introduce you to him a little bit. Jared is our Planning Division Manager and brings a wealth of experience to the city and, uh, has really a remarkable talent for being able to explain difficult planning concepts and issues to laypeople and neighborhood groups. You know, one of the things that we always run into trouble on is we get used to the jargon, and we use insider talk, and we forget, you know, we're communicating with people who don't really know. And so That's one of the things I've really become impressed with Jared about is his ability to do that. So I'm sure you will get a lot more opportunity in the future to work with Jared and me, and we're very excited he's here. So anything you'd like to rebut that I said? No, I'm good. I'm good with your assessment.

I would—

if you ever want to talk about this kind of thing, I would talk about it for free, basically.

Ask my kids. I talk about it for free all the time. Ask about your job.

I'm the right kind of place. I wanted to describe him as a planning nerd, but everybody knows. Appreciate that. There are these really great maps, you should look at. I think I call them— I think we call them spike maps. We were talking about the ratio of commercial properties to— in the city of Yotta Happen, they do these great maps. Now, I think it's called spike maps, where they take a commercial property and look at the opportunity cost of it too, and say, well, how much, how much for example, commercial sales tax, property tax, does a certain property generate versus how large it is, how much space it's taking up in your cities, you know, you always look at that too, how much, how much it packs, etc. Kind of fun to look at those, for me anyway. Yes, let me, let me introduce this. Uh, the state has now required us to do a moderate income housing plan. And we do a plan and we turn it into the state. And as it's evolved over time, they have required that cities put in strategies to promote or help affordable or moderate income housing in their communities. And so the council, a couple of years ago, adopted a plan, and one of the strategies that we've had was looking at impact fees as it relates to affordable housing and looking at whether it was feasible to either waive or reduce those impact fees that affordable housing would, would take. And in our plan, we specifically related it to senior housing. And so that strategy, we sent it to the state. We now need to take some action and move forward on looking at it. We said we would investigate whether that were feasible for us. And our last update with the state telling them what we've done for affordable housing to promote and help and even Um, they came back and said, okay, you have this strategy dealing with affordable housing for seniors, uh, and you really haven't done much. What— You need to make some progress on this goal that you have. So, as staff, we went back and, uh, looked at it. And, uh, let me give you a little bit of context. Back in 2012, the city adopted the ASHO overlay. That's Affordable Senior Housing Overlay Zone. And so we have ASHO overlay zones in the city. And there's been a handful of projects that have come in since 2012. In 2018, the City Council also passed an impact fee ordinance. And in that ordinance, it says that the city can waive or reduce impact fees for public purposes such as affordable housing. So we went in as staff and looked at how many projects have come in. We've got some numbers, can talk about that. Jared's going to do that, and then at the end I'll explain what our recommendation to you is. Okay, thanks. So since 2012, as Gary mentioned, There have been 20 different— 20 units implemented under this program. More than 20 units, but under this program, 20 units. Those are fourplexes generally. So you have 5 total developments. I think it was 2012, 2015, 2018, 2022, and 2023. 20 units.

The total impact fees collected between all those units was $74,122.

So the proposal— the proposal was to have that, but that is 50%.

That would—

you could imagine what that number would be.

We, we may see an increase, an uptick in these kinds of developments, but that's the history for us so far in, in those years, 2012 to current. So 12 years, 20 units. So as we've looked at that in our, uh, plan, we proposed to state that staff, we would analyze it and come back with a recommendation to the council. So our recommendation is to reduce the impact fees That would be applicable to qualifying affordable senior housing projects by 50%. So if we had done that in the past, it would be 50% of $74,000 would have been approximately $37,000 over the last 10, 11 years of fiscal impact to the city. Projects, when they do come in, it's a tough balancing act because, as more projects and housing units are built in the city, there is definitely an impact to the overall city utility systems. Water, sewer, parks, police, fire— they are all impacted. And so Our recommendation after looking at this would be to recommend that the council adopt a resolution. And if you're so inclined, that resolution is on the consent agenda tonight, where the council would direct staff to— for qualifying senior affordable housing projects that would come in. reduce their impact fee by 50%. Do all of us over 60 have to freeze ourselves? No, you have to live there.

Okay.

Yeah, I— those senior housing jokes used to be a lot funnier to me years ago. They become less funny as time goes on. But so that is one of the aspects of affordable housing that A lot of people talk about families and, you know, getting a start. Affordable senior housing is really a big issue also, because often they can be seniors that frequently they're single, very limited income, and it's hard for them to find housing. So this is a step that the council approves it. Our projection for the future would be— we can't predict with exactness, but we think it would be somewhere in this area over the next 10 years or so, probably between $30,000 to perhaps $50,000 of an impact to the city over the next decade. as part of our strategy to promote affordable housing, which is required by the state.

You're not talking annually, you're talking total.

Total, exactly. Yeah, I would— thank you. I want to make that clear. It's not an annual impact, it's a total impact. But that is a— it's an educated guess, right? Because there's so much potential areas this could happen. This has only happened this much so far.

And if you cut Their impact isn't half.

It might make a lot more people do it. So we don't know for sure. That's just a guess. But it's a relatively inexpensive gamble of $4,000 or $5,000 a year.

Yes.

$37,000 over 10 years, right? And this is something that every year we would monitor it to see if it's being effective. If it becomes a big impact, or we think it might become a big impact fiscally, On the city. Well, that's one of the things, Matt, in talking about the housing pamphlet in front of you, infrastructure is a big issue. It's easy to talk about, oh, we need to increase housing. But every time you increase housing, there's an increase in the need for water, for sewer, for all of those utilities. And those are real costs that we as a city deal with. How does this apply against if somebody wanted to do a bigger project like a, a trio, but it was affordable? How big of a project would this apply against? This theoretically could apply to like a trio. They could come in, and as long as they meet the requirements of our ash overlay, um, it could theoretically happen. So they have to keep rents below a certain level? Yes, the rents have to be so that I believe it's 80% of the average income that can be afforded in the area. And so historically, most of these types of projects have been done by groups like Utah County Housing Authority. And Utah County Housing Authority is actually a fairly good group. that to be able to partner with, because they go in, and when a unit's built, they manage it, they take care of it, they do maintenance for it, they work with the renters and provide usually more assistance and help for them. It seems like, uh, to us, as we did our analysis, a fairly reasonable, uh, moderate approach to see if it works. And we can analyze it as we do our moderate income housing plan and have to do our continual reporting with the state. We'll be looking at this to see what the real impact, and if we start running into trouble, um, we can come back and have those conversations.

Thank you.

I'll also emphasize that's all impact fees combined. So, yes. So, you know, it's $1,000 from sewer, $1,000 from culinary, parks, public safety, roads. That's, that's all in all of our half a dozen impact fees over that 11 to 12 years. Any other questions?

And this, and this, I mean, the reason we're going—

I mean, it might have come up organically, but we, we need to do this to fulfill our requirements with the moderate housing plan, right? Correct. We turned in a moderate housing plan. We adopted a strategy, one of the strategies listed in the state code. We're required to select some from that list. This was one of the strategies. And we said staff would come in and analyze this and see if there's an area where we could help promote affordable housing. This seems like— and specifically as it related to senior housing is what we said. And this seems like a pretty reasonable measure. step to be able to come into compliance with, with that plan. And if we don't come in compliance with our plan, then there, then the state can theoretically withhold some street funding monies from the city.

I guess the bottom line is, is anyone not okay with this?

Or are we good? To move forward. No, and can I add one thing?

Um, I'm hearing that the legislature is going to possibly extend this to a 3 to 4 year renewal instead of every year.

We, we hope so.

That would be— I understand you guys put a lot of student into this plan, and it would be great, right?

That's the feedback I've heard, is that you could appreciate not having to do this every year.

It would be a Christmas miracle, lady. And frankly, like this gives us an opportunity to analyze it. It's hard, hard just every year to really get any meaningful data to be, to be able to analyze and say whether it's effective or helpful. Mayor, if I could add, I just double-checked the code on the affordable senior housing overlay, and it's limited to a lot that's half an acre or less. Okay, so it's very limited. It'll be more like a duplex, fourplex. That's why everything's built today, it's usually a 4-unit building.

Okay.

Yeah, that makes a big difference. Yeah. And that's typically what happens. But theoretically, it could be a larger project. But it would be limited by some of the parking that would be required. So again, I just want to manage expectations. I can't guarantee that it would just be a duplex. Or a fourplex. It could be a little bit larger.

Okay.

All right. Thank you, Tim. Well, we appreciate it. Thanks for the update. Thanks for solving that problem for us. We'll move on to item number 1.4, Family and Children's Memorial. Chris Murphy, I'll leave this conversation to Okay, Mayor and Council, it's a pleasure to be here tonight. Like to introduce Rob Beinstein. You all know him, I think, from previous, um, discussions and so forth with other design elements at the city center, with in particular with our, um, Gold Star Monument. And so we've asked him to, to be engaged and involved with us. Also, Tyler, uh, is involved with us on, on a staff level in evaluating a couple of locations for the children and family Memorial. Um, this was, uh, basically the city council commissioned us to, to gather together with a group of, uh, citizens in our community that had an interest. And, uh, in particular, there was a family that had a couple of children that had passed away as, as infants along 16th North by Council Member Miller's house and our house, my house, and our neighborhood. Uh, that happened when, you know, probably in the 1800s, I think. And so there's been a lot of excitement and ideas, and I don't believe we have any of our, uh, committee members here tonight, but we have about 5 committee members, uh, from our community. And, uh, and I, and I don't, uh, unfortunately they're not here tonight to speak to this. However, um, we've invited Rob to present some of the ideas and findings and some of the, uh, elements that the committee would like to embrace, and we'd like to present that to you now for your consideration. And we'll start off with the Orem Cemetery Memorial location. So I'll turn the time over to you, Rob. Thank you, Chris. Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's great to be back. We love working with, with Orem City. As Chris mentioned, my name is Rob Beischlein. I work with Method Studio. I'm a principal architect there. Been involved with a handful of projects with Orem over the last number of years. So, so yeah, we'd love to show you some of the ideas that we have developed for the Orem city. We'll start with the cemetery. So you can see here on the screen the location that we've chosen to study in the cemetery right there along East This location, if I could, if I could mention—

Renee, were you there when we, when we met on this?

It was like snowing, snowing, raining.

Yeah.

And, uh, and there were a few, few committee members there at this time. We looked at a location on the southwest corner of 8th East and, and, well, of the cemetery property. It's— it would be about 8th East and 12th North, and we just felt like that maybe that was a little too busy. And they— we went up to the north part of the cemetery area and felt like maybe it was too steep. And although this is right next to 8th East, we think there's some mitigating sound measures we can take with this. But that kind of gives us some background. We did do some field trips with these committee members. Where's Woodville in relation to the crematorium area? Crematorium on here— well, the cremation gardens is right here at this location. So it's on the other corner of the lower cemetery. Okay. Well, you know, this is a very impactful project, right? I mean, this is such an important issue that we all wrestle with at times in our lives. And really, our objective was to try to create a space where people can mourn appropriately within the cemetery. and particularly focused on the loss of children. And so we developed a handful of iterations and considered some different strategies, and this was the one that we landed on after a number of committee meetings discussing how to best address this, this need. And so I'll walk you through some of the features that we've identified here. So this proposed memorial garden has a series of small gardens, And the idea here, you can see the 3 smaller gardens on the screen. The idea here is that each garden may be focused for a particular type of loss. For example, if you lose a child during childbirth, as opposed to having maybe a toddler or maybe a teen. And so each one of these could have a focus so that someone who's experienced that would have a distinct place to go and be, and each one might have a different kind of spirit or feel to it. Then we have a larger memorial plaza here. We have— it's a little more open, a reflecting pool, a little more larger space. And then we've got a water feature and paths that connect these gardens. And we've explored a couple of ways to do this. This particular iteration shows a kind of a meandering stream. We've also considered a linear stream. And, and one of the really powerful things about this is some of the symbolism that we've wanted to instill within this. It's been really great, a great strong council. Thank you, Councilmember, for all of your feedback and input on that. You know, when we deal with mourning and loss, the symbolism is really important. And that's, that's what we're trying to do here is instill that we're talking about what the water means and how it might represent death and what it means to us when we have loved ones that pass away and where they might be and how we might think about that. All of these things we're trying to instill in some of the details of the garden. We've also recognized this is kind of a unique circumstance. We have a bike trail that runs through the cemetery, and I don't know, Chris, if you want to speak to some of this, but there might be some opportunities to have some synergies with With the bike trail. So the, the Furlough River Water Users Association manages this 100-foot right-of-way, goes from here over to here on this side. We have approached them and on other locations, including the one on the 16th North and 4th East area, generally speaking, and thought maybe there would be some opportunity here to engage with With the recreational components. And again, it's very interesting and very unusual and perhaps even unique that we have a recreational facility running right through a very safe location. However, it is, it is what it is. And maybe there were some things maybe we could do here to promote bikers to maybe stop there if they needed to, to repair a bike or to take a break.

Yeah.

Utilize the restroom facility. Maybe there would be a place there for, for them to have a place to, you know, to have a snack or a lunch break or whatever it might be. That's an element that could be explored. We haven't really pursued it. We just wanted to bring it to your attention that it does happen to be directly adjacent to this area right here where we're looking at putting in a maintenance building. with the bathroom facility, and we thought that that could be kind of like combined and we could synergize that area that way. It's a possibility. Thank you, sir. Anybody else?

No?

All right, the, the other thing that really is a, a lovely opportunity with this is to have, um, memorial blocks that could be purchased. And what we mean by that is if someone's experienced loss, they could have their loved ones name, for example, in memory of, put on a stone that could be incorporated into the garden. There's a lot of ways this can happen. We generally don't want to put them in the ground as pavers. We think there's some— we've seen that before, but they tend to wear, particularly when you have snow and shoveling. And so having your loved one's brick paver or something, you know, crumble over time isn't really what we want. So we're thinking of this as more of a vertical application of some kind. But you could, you could get a memorial stone for someone, and that provides an opportunity also to visit regularly and so on and participate in that way. And then the other thing is that this, this is really very easy to phase. I'll show you costs here in a minute, so get ready for that. But the nice thing about it is, is it can be divided up in any number of ways that are appropriate. And the large plaza could be constructed first. The subplazas could be constructed first. The water feature could come later. There's a lot of ways to realize this gradually if needed. Okay, we have a couple of sort of spirit renderings of what this could be like. So here's a view looking— I guess this is west— the reflecting pool, and this is the larger plaza. The water feature feeds into that. And there's a view from the other side of the water feature. And then the small memorial gardens, I mentioned that these could be themed. So one option is that there could be art or sculpture within the memorial gardens. But they could also be a rose garden or, you know, a specific type of landscaping or greenery or something that's going to be conducive to that, or a combination of the above. There's a lot of ways that we can reflect and mourn and meditate and things that help us through that process. And we see this as having a lot of different opportunities. Okay, budgets. So we've gone through and we've itemized the costs that we anticipate for this fully executed about $2.3 million as shown, as we've shown it to you. And that includes the parking lot, the restrooms, um, this home edition maintenance building, and then all of the park. So $2.3 million. And we have talked about a handful of ways too, if we need to mitigate cost, we can make some modifications to things. So right now it's a, it's a fairly open concept that can be developed further.

Does that include statutory What's that?

Are you estimating statuary?

I don't think we have art costs in this one. We did have a sculpture in the one that's coming.

Yes.

And I know Chris had mentioned the cemetery memorial, and we've also got the memorial on 1600. If you have any questions about this, we can address that now, and then we can move on and show you some of our thoughts for the memorial on 1600. We've contemplated funding sources, of course. You know, if we could tie in maybe a portion of this as the recreational element, we have recreational resources in forms of grants and other things that could perhaps help pay for the parking area or restrooms or some pavilion space or something like that that could be tied directly and associated with the trail that could offset costs. We also know that all the council members have a lot of money in mind to donate. So that's, that's, that's basically our only solution for this. We know how to beg the community for money. Would the restrooms be open or locked like they are now between September and October, November? You know, that's a good question. I think we could keep them open. generally before the course of the whole year. We have staff that are up there nonstop working. Restrooms at the cemetery are locked during nights and weekends. Well, yeah, they're nicely closed, huh?

Yeah, very nicely closed tonight.

But the restrooms be closed at night? Yeah, yeah, when the staff isn't there, they lock in the evenings. Yeah, but parks, generally speaking, we should— we lock all of them in October And open them in April. Yeah, so during the wintertime we could have them open during the day. That's what I was meaning, right? So especially where we'll be building new, we can plan for essentially the HVAC needs to make it— because that's a problem. Yeah, so notice that the Palisade Park, you have outhouses here. for people who are— there's the park. The regular restrooms are locked, but there's outhouses. Interesting.

Yeah, during the winter we close it.

Yeah, I think one of our exceptions is here in the Ultimate Playground. That has some HVAC units within it. So that's why it lasts. Bryce, any comment on why? I mean, Tyler, I could speak to— we've gone through sort of systematically, I think we have 5 now that are winterized. So they can be used during the cold season based off of where we have turf amenities, where we see year-round play. We've been retrofitting those. And so it's possible because it costs money. And so we've just gone sort of by priority working down the line. But if we're doing a new build, maybe it would make sense to plan on that as part of the— since it seems like you already have enough money for all of it, I think is what you're saying earlier. I know it's a small percentage. Yeah, I can't read it. So I'm guessing it's under $2,000.

Is that right?

The bathroom facility. And yeah, we plugged in for the bathroom facility and the maintenance building and the parking lot and so forth, all of that there for clearing, grubbing, and then installation. We were thinking around $500. But again, here in particular, where there will be reasons to believe that there's going to be no year-round use. Yes. Great idea.

And it looks beautiful.

Yeah, that's really a nice conception. Thank you. You know, we did, we did try to use the existing mature trees where they were. And that really drove some of the design too. That's an asset that you really can't buy, right? So many of the larger Trees you see there are the existing trees that could be pruned and shaped, and then the gardens can work through and around.

And like Chris said, there's a berm on the west side that kind of insulates.

Yeah, it's really beautiful.

Yeah, there's some landscape enhancements I think that would help with sound, mitigating sound, because it's right next to this reflection pond area. There are some things that we need to consider for them. But there was a berm, and we could even enhance that, do anything you want, really. Okay, that's, that's the secondary. That's the primary concept. Where the, where the family lived back many years ago, 100 years ago, it was right here. The family that lived there just recently, where we bought this property, there was a family named Callanders, and we know them quite well, and we know their history. And then we've actually led in on the story through their, their family there. And we didn't know how impactful this would really be and how interesting it would be for the community and so forth. But as we, as we kind of lean into this, and then with the help of our BYU student that That really studied this and learned a lot more detail and so forth regarding this family. They performed some studies and some acoustic sound studies and so forth, tried to determine perhaps where the burial site may have been. We don't— we've been unable to find it, but we tend to believe that it was probably more in the road area than it was on the property itself. So right adjacent is the site.

So please.

Yes, and so the, yeah, the, the, the story, I don't know the details and I don't know that I'm going to go into it too much, but Eva Carlota Anderson is the name of the woman who lived here with her children, and, um, and I believe it was 2 twin boys. Am I getting that right?

Uh, just 2 separate births.

2 separate births, um, that were lost and, uh, and, and believed to be buried here. So there's a lot of interesting history and kind of a tender spirit about this site too. And we did, we did like the cemetery site, we spent a little bit of time here. One of the things to note about this is the city has identified this as a future well site. And I don't know if you want to speak to that too, Chris, but on the next slide—

Can I add one thing before you go on?

Yes.

I think what Chris said, just to kind of help everybody understand, as neighbors, it was always just neighbor to the poor. You know, we never really— it was just a story this family told. But what, what made it happen was this BYU student did some research and found the journal of this woman and her compelling story. And then it just kind of really took off from there to, to, to validate those family stories.

So Ryan, maybe you can refresh my memory. When did the city acquire this property? And it was through transportation dollars, I believe, through MAG. It was back when the intersection was kind of self-made, so 2007 or so. Yeah. So we acquired this maybe 15 to 20 years ago, this property here overall, when we put in this access to this property and put in the signalized intersection. We anticipated this would be an excellent location. We have a need in the area for a well site. I thought that would go there. We've brought— put on the kind of a footprint of that boundary that we need to make that function properly. So, this is all private property here. So, this is owned by Ace Hardware that connects in. It's a stem connection to that Ace Hardware property over here.

Okay.

But the memorial garden area would be up in this location between that wall and the 1600 block. I'll walk you through some of the features here we've anticipated for this. So in considering this site, the first thing we wanted to do was create some kind of a buffer from the street. Once again, this is not just an interesting piece of history, but sort of a tender moment. And in many ways has parallels to what we talked about at the cemetery. People can go here to understand and to mourn and to relate to someone who may have experienced something similar. So what we've tried to do is create some buffer and a little bit of separation from the street with some trees and some raised planter beds. But we also see this as being kind of telling the story and the history. And so a starting point on one side and moving through the site to a finish point on the other side. So we have a flagstone path that goes from one end into the other. And then of course, the new landscaping and shade trees to buffer the street. And then we have some shade structures. And we're kind of leveraging the well site wall, right, we're going to have this wall there. And so there's an opportunity to use that. So we see that maybe as a little bit of an upgraded finish so that it doesn't feel quite so maybe industrial, it can, it can fit into this memorial. And so we're thinking about some shade structures and then some memorial plaques sharing the history and story of the site. And then of course it culminates with a little more open plaza where you can reflect, and there's some nice views of the mountains and some of the city from there as well. And there's potential for a sculpture. So here's a view of one of those shade structures. You can see the the wall from the well site on the right, and then potentially some plaques that give some of the history and background, the flagstone path, kind of the sculpture area in the middle to the little bit to the left. Of course, those information panels can take a lot of different forms. We're showing the cast bronze panel. We also want there to be some softness to this, so we've started to include some landscaping and We've had some discussions about what is the most appropriate type of landscaping. So I think that's still a bit influenced. We're showing a lot of different plants, but it could take a little more greenish, greener approach, or keep with this kind of a warm look, warm stone look. And then there's the sculpture plaza. So this would be looking south a little bit toward the west. All right, so cost for this, a little bit smaller plaza, we estimated about $448,000. And we have looked at some options for reducing that cost too. I think there's a lot of ways to do that and still maintain the kind of the spirit of the place too. We could use like a stamped concrete instead of a flagstone path. We can take raised planters and Put them in gray. That saves a little bit of cost. We have some lighting and some other things that we could scale back a little bit. Cast bronze plaques could be more like a stainless steel or aluminum, a little less expensive material. When we start looking at those kind of modifications, we're down into the $250,000 to $275,000 range. So there's, there's a lot of ways to budget this depending on what's important, what the priorities are, and what budget is available. That's just the memorial piece. That would be pretty much everything shown here. And it's not the well site. Is that what you asked? Yeah, it's not. We need another $5 million for the well site. When we talked about this before, we thought very few people would go there for reflection, more would go to the graveyard than down here. So I would be opting for saving some money here so we have a better site if we have limited funds, which we always have limited funds.

I think the, the educational value of this is, is what captivates people.

The story, the history. Yeah, history. Okay, any questions? From the parking, just on the So yeah, there is currently parallel parking. I believe it's— you can see it painted here. But that is, like Chris said, East property. It's private property, so we don't control or own it. And we have talked, I believe, for— what's this piece, right? Yes, it's a detention basin. So there was some talk about maybe some parallel parking there as well. Of course, there's a big parking lot over here, but, um, one of the things that we want to encourage use of that. But I think the surrounding areas certainly support a handful of cars without too much trouble.

Yeah, the Quick Quack—

the owner of Quick Quack reached out and said when we start fundraising for this, he wants to be involved. He hasn't raced it really and wants to Thank you.

Any other comments, questions, feedback? Appreciate it. Looks good. Thank you. Thank you. I would stand up and walk around, but then I would just have to walk. I'm on the agenda. Next up, we've got— I have 1:45, I believe. Library model. Mayor, Council, thank you. Um, yeah, we're all introduced, so we'll just jump right into it. This is sort of the other end of a project. You just got to see the very early designs And Rob and I have had the chance to work for over a year on the facility master plan of the library, and now moving into some construction of the library. And so Rob's here today to sort of discuss 2 major aspects, one indoors and one outdoors at the library. A lot of this will be important to our ability to efficiently deliver our services, to create better turnaround times and better service metrics for our users, and to really deliver on our goal to create a place of gathering, a place of being, a place of community at our library, and not just a place to come and transact with the materials. So with that, I'll turn it over to Rob. Thank you, Bryce. All right, so library. As Bryce said, we've been working on a remodel. I think what we're, what we're going to do is walk you through that. We are, we're ready to release this to our bidding contractors so we can get pricing. Just a few minor details and a little bit of budget confirmation that we're still working through, but we're actually meeting later this week with the contractors. So, okay, so the first aspect of this is a remodeled administrative area. Of course, that's the sort of the upper right main entry into the children's wing. Remodeling some of that, and I'll go into some of that detail in a second here. But we've also got some updated exterior spaces. So plazas, the plaza space between the 2 library wings, and then some other outdoor plazas at grade and— Here's our at-grade plaza adjacent to the library hall down here and the chosen story area. And this is the 3rd level plaza Well, it's the second. So those are the areas that we're, we're looking at. So within the administrative area, really the features that we're looking to implement, reconfiguring the staff area, we've put in more workstations, more offices, more work zones, we have a work island, we have just more space for the staff, and we've sort of extended the footprint footprint of the administrative area. Previously, that wall, or the existing desk, is sort of in this area. And so the area behind that's a little bit narrow back here. And so now we've expanded that to be a little bit more generous for the staff and still allowing patrons to come in the main entry and have that similar kind of experience. We've also designed this to accommodate automatic book sorting equipment. So we'll end up keeping the automobile drop-off as well as a walk-up book drop. And anytime someone drops a book into one of those, it'll go down a conveyor belt into some equipment here where it'll be sorted into bins. And we've got a large window there where you can watch that happen. We all like to watch the books. And the kids love that. You know, the one drawback is Bryce is going to have to clean the handprints off the glass once the kids watch. That's a feature. That's a feature. Okay, we also have lighting upgrades because we're reframing a number of walls. We're also removing the ceiling and we'll put in new energy-efficient LED lighting. So that will be a nice upgrade for the staff. And then we have a new circulation desk, a welcome desk, where it faces both the kind of the children's side. So if there are questions from people using the library, they can come to this edge and addresses the main entry side if someone needs help or assistance. And then we have additional self-checkout stations that are within the visual sightlines of the staff as well as conveniently located on the way out as patrons check out books. And then we've updated the colors and the finishes to give this a welcoming and engaging kind of exciting feel. So here's a rendering of that desk. We have some acoustic baffles above so we can keep things, the noise down a little bit. Large window here, you would see. In fact, I'll just go to this other view. Here's kind of a side view of that whole experience. So here's the window where you look into the books order. Here's the main entry on the east side, and then a window that allows users to peek back into what the library staff are doing on a daily basis, and then where they can get help.

How does staff feel about that big glass?

I think it's an important part of telling their story, to see the work that they do and to see the life of the book. And so obviously, yes, there's some pros and some cons, but I think overall they're excited to be able to connect better with the patrons. This is a group of staff that is currently disparate throughout the library and behind closed doors, so I don't think people understand what they do or get a chance to interact with them. And so we really wanted to feature them as part of the experience of the library. This is a trend in library design that's pretty common now. I know, Bryce, your staff also visited Spanish Fork Library as well as others, I'm sure. Sure, have similar kinds of things. So I know that you've been able to get some feedback about how that's working for other library systems. Okay, well, let's keep going. So we have some exterior upgrades as well. So the space between the 2 library buildings right now, it's largely grass with some pavers in it, some trees. And really what we're looking to do is create an experience there that's a little more conducive to library programming. So there can be more planned activities and events. Also something that's going to warm up the space and make it more cozy and comfortable, as well as alleviate some of the maintenance challenges, getting the mower down the hill and mowing in there and those kind of things. So a lot of what we're doing is working on those 3 fronts. So we're incorporating some new landscaping. We have some pavers and some concrete, some new seating, and then we're also providing some connectivity between the different vertical levels. So this space, of course, is the lowest level here. That's the one that will be really coming out of the basement of the library. Got a spiral stair in this corner that comes up to the ground level plaza. Another spiral stair that goes up to the upper level plaza. So you can move between them much easier without having to go So far in and out of the library. And then the last part to this is we've designed a greenhouse to go in this space, and we've envisioned this as a very multi-use type of, type of space. It is very literally a greenhouse where plants can be grown. It extends the growing season so that late into the fall and even early winter, you can be starting and growing and using plants. And, um, the library can sponsor, you know, they, they've got, you got the seed catalog that's going to go in there. You can have gardening events that are going to happen there. You can have book readings unrelated to, um, gardening, but just in a nice setting.

Sure.

Um, the other nice thing about it, the way we've set it up, um, there's sort of a front, um, porch that's got the opportunity to have a, even a small performance or a recital or, or another kind of So it's really a multi-use space that creates a nice sort of welcoming feel to this. So here's a rendered view of those exterior spaces. You see the basement. Here's the, of course, the bridge that connects the wings. We've created a new stair, goes down rather than a gate with a turf hillside. So that's going to welcome patrons. It'll be a little more engaging. They can get to the space from outside of the parking lot rather than having to go through the library. We're keeping some of the existing trees. Here, of course, is the greenhouse and the sort of the porch that aligns with the entry out of the library. Here you can see the spiral stair connects up to the ground-level plaza where we're doing some upgrades to incorporate some— there's these interesting kind of fixtures. I'll show you these in a minute. And then another spiral stair that gets up to the top.

Thank you.

So here's a view down in that space of the greenhouse. Now the greenhouse has a— this angled roof that really is being driven by the sun. Because this greenhouse is in between 2 buildings, we need to ventilate the greenhouse in the summer. We don't want it to be too hot, but we need to keep it warm in the winter. So we're trying to capture the sun in the winter. So having the roof angled up and a little bit taller allows it to to gather. We've done some sun studies to make sure we're going to have some solar gain in the winter through that space. And that's— this is kind of the shape that's driving that. And of course, in the evening, if there is some sort of an event, it can have some lighting inside and be a nice cozy place to be. And then within the greenhouse itself, not just functional things if you want to grow and have staff that are presenting and working on different kinds of plant activities, but also you know, book readings and other kind of things that can occur sort of around that environment. Okay, let's go to the ground level plaza and the upper level plaza. So here we've got also upgrades to landscaping, some site furniture, some new seating, and then of course the access between the spaces on the spiral stairs. These sort of funny-looking flower shapes. Are these kind of vertical structures that are— that you could grow plants on? We're going to have some climbing vines that will grow within that. We can put Christmas lights and lighting on those as well. You can sit around them. This is going to create some nice shade here in summer, extend that season, maybe allow for some programming to spill into this area from the library hall to be comfortable and sort of I think supplement what we have there with the fireplace and some of the other seating and plantings. And then, of course, if we go up, this plaza is largely empty now. So we have some perimeter plantings and another one of these fixtures up here so that you can, when you come out of that space from the 2nd level, it's, it's got a nice place to be and read a book. whatever you want to do over there. Okay, that's it. Any questions? Bryce, did I cover everything?

That was—

I thank you.

Yeah, if you have any questions, please let us know. Over the last couple of years, we have continued to see year-over-year growth of about 25-27% more people coming in. They're staying longer. They want to be with us. And so, you know, you saw some of those really neat information about our events that Jenica provided last week. Similarly, we're trying to adjust and plan for our library, our facilities, where they want to come and have spaces to be here. And so what Rob has presented, worked closely with our librarian staff and our program staff and our collection staff, is to have a space where they're able to do that. And so hopefully extending the library outside and inside and have that all sort of go to a gray area, we're really excited about. And we think we'll be able to serve a lot of our individual residents, but also a lot of the groups here in Orem that need a place to be and a place to present. And so we hope to be able to accomplish all of that with what Rob has presented today.

So can you—

the slide of that area, but looking straight at it like you're in it.

That one.

Wow.

I don't know.

I love that.

So I don't— and I would just ask, you know, maybe some electrical outlets or wiring for those globe lights. Those soft would be beautiful, even strung across. Just the ambiance with something like that. I think I could see that being just a beautiful place at night, you know.

Absolutely. Yeah, that's something we could definitely look at.

We talked a little bit about safety lighting and door lighting, but it's the ambiance, the vibe. It's the, the place to be on a summer evening.

Love that.

Thank you. If I can just also add, you remember at our council retreat, we came with kind of a general concept of we want to try and look into things that provide, I guess, services or, I guess, improvements in facilities that activate our bodies, our minds, and our hearts. So this is kind of a return report with more details with that kind of general overarching goal in mind. So I want to make sure that we are continuing to kind of move along in this and setting, I guess, a vision that is consistent with your feedback and direction. Wonderful city park and a library. Yeah, we'll be good. Well, and congratulations to our library, Mr. Bryce, right? Totally. I mean, you go back a couple years and there was a little bit of drama around the library. I mean, it's progressed, it's moved forward, it's in a very good place. It's growing at 27% a year. I mean, and at a time when libraries are supposed to be declining, that says a lot. So great job. Thank you for your support, Mayor. The goal is to have construction do this project as part of City Hall, so they'll be getting pricing for their subcontractors, and our goal is to have this work completed close to the same time St. Paul is, so that we're not tearing everything out at once. So hopefully by the end of next year, close to the same time that our Freedom Plaza parking lot goes on the market.

Okay, and I apologize, I was out doing the recording, so maybe I missed this.

So what's your— how, um, how do you control books not going up the stairs?

You do and you don't. Okay. There's some technology we can implement.

Okay.

And there's a second spot just outside that was actually— Rob had a chance to work with his partner Freedom Plaza. So we'll have a couple of controls in place. But yeah, not—

it won't—

it's not 100%.

I love the openness, but we got to protect our books.

We'll be able to that at the doors in the— at the barrier of the building, essentially. Also, so as this happens, will you be closing off certain areas, uh, as work progresses, or will you just shut everything down, go in, make it happen? Our goal is to not ever have a significant disruption to services.

There will definitely be some— just, you know, the, the children's wing or the, the north wing doors will be closed for several weeks, maybe even a month or 2.

But I don't think we will have to just have a disruption of services, we'll be able to maintain circulation through these doors. And so when this is being demolished right here, these are available, we'll make sure.

So we'll do our best to not have any more than maybe a day or 2 when we're changing over some power and stuff for the City Center project.

One note I was going to add, Ryan had said the timeline We also hope that our plantings and our paver choices and all of that will make the city center plaza as well as this feel like a unified civic block. And so some of the choices, design choices we've made will make it feel like when you get here, all the buildings are working together. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, why don't we, uh, just take a 5-minute break and—

Great.

Well, basically have food so we can get that going while you guys are doing the presentation.

Sure. So that takes us to— would someone like to have a blessing on the food? Sure. Heavenly Father, we're grateful to be gathered here during this holiday time to, uh, contemplate Things in the city to partake of this meal. We're thankful for it and ask a blessing upon it in the name of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Let's just grab our food and be back in 5 minutes. Thank you, Mayor. Appreciate the opportunity to come and talk about some things that we, that we need to Uh, major input on and your approval on.

Uh, first of all, I'd like to introduce a couple of people. Uh, Rick Saby, to my left, is the Stormwater Division Manager.

Uh, he's responsible for the ongoing maintenance and operation of our stormwater system. He's also very, uh, very influential, uh, and, uh, helps us as we, uh, plan for the future, the, the improvements that we need to make in our stormwater and water system. Uh, Rick's got over 30 years of this under his belt doing this, so he's about as good as they get, and he's a great resource to me, uh, as I, as I perform duties in my job. Um, someday he'll retire, and that's not going to be a good day for the city, but it'll be good for him.

So, uh, but, uh, and then to my right is Chelsea Lindsay. Uh, Chelsea Lindsay is a program coordinator in Public Works in the Stormwater Division as well.

Her primary responsibilities are the long-term stormwater management planning. She works with businesses to make sure that the improvements that they make on their site will control stormwater and that they meet regulations that are that we have from, from the state. She will be our primary presenter today. I want her to get some face time with you so that you can get to know our staff a little better. But as a— just to briefly introduce what we're doing, Jared Hall and his previous presentation earlier mentioned that when it comes to the state legislature, we have one person that's that's misbehaving, and they decide to create rules that affect everybody.

In a way, part of this presentation is a response to that.

The state passed some legislation last year, and we need to comply with this. It's really not that difficult for us to comply with it. Some of it relates to eliminating fines that you can Levy on contractors and developers. We've never been heavy-handed when it comes to fines. We've tried to work with contractors and developers to, to let them know, to show them what needs to be done and have them do that before we become heavy-handed. Unlike some other places that are reliant on fines to fund their program, we don't do that. It's It's a very, very small, um, budget line— not revenue line item that we have. And frankly, we probably never reached the low number that we, that we budget for. Um, we, uh, there's also some, uh, some changes in reporting to the Stormwater, uh, Pollution Protection Program, also called the SWPP. And then there's some, uh, general updates that we have recommended, uh, as we've looked through the code and kind of cleaned it up a little bit. Um, and so, uh, with that brief introduction, I'll turn it over to Chelsea to dive in a little more over the details of what exactly, um, we— the actions that we need to take as well.

Thank you, Reese. Uh, so stormwater pollution prevention plan, uh, to give you some context, if there's any of you As concerns stormwater, that's your sign at a construction site saying this is a permitted construction site. It's your silt fence stuff. So this new law, 18-5-123, is regulating specifically construction stormwater runoff, no other area of stormwater runoff. And this law was passed back in the last legislative session, and it goes into effect they were going to do immediately, like as in July. And, uh, we said, whoa, cities can't be, um, in accordance with this law. That passed to give us till January 1st. So this law goes into effect January 1st, 2025. So we really hope that we can get this passed in the general session tonight so that we can be in compliance with the state. Um, the main points are— of the changes are all inspections submitted by operators must be electronic inspections that simply means that they're geolocated and timestamped photos. So that's the main component of this, is the operators are submitting a different type of report to us. And we are oversight authorities, we have to make sure that the operators, the contractor is doing his footsteps. We're the oversight authorities, we make sure they're doing what they're supposed to do. So we're the eyes for the state, essentially.

What about those lower standards?

What was that?

What are those? Stormwater—

Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan. Thank you. It's a document saying what they have to do.

You see them post it when they're building things. I'm just bringing it up. What, what it is, there are certain things that they'll do to make sure that when it rains that there won't be any runoff to contaminate, uh, water sources.

So whether it be silt fences or Other, other needs.

Yeah, so historically we've gone on site to do our inspections, to look at their, um, controls, like, uh, for example, some gravel socks around the inlet. We've gone and inspected those with our own eyes. With this new house bill, we are not to go on site. We are to look at the inspection report they submitted, timestamped, geolocated photos, and do our inspection based on it. So if we cannot determine compliance based on those codes, we would have justification to go on site. So that's the main part of that. So that's called oversight inspection. And the city can no longer issue SWPPP-related fines. We have fines in place that we could issue in the past, and now we're no longer to issue those types of fines. We can only do stop work orders after a set enforcement that is listed in that state code. In the future, it's potential that they will bring that fine structure back in 2025. So the code changes we made were created to be flexible. For example, instead of saying we will no longer issue fines, we said that we will possibly— I don't know exactly— possibly implement fines according to or not in conflict with state law. That way it's flexible if they differing effects. So we thought that prudent. Um, we cannot require any stormwater runoff control regulations that are more stringent than federal regulations. And again, this is state code, so all cities will now not be able to be more stringent than the federal Clean Water Act, uh, that regulates SWPPP. And lastly, the city must have a preferred BMP list. BMPs again are those controls, um, whether it's dust, water trucks getting the dust down, or protection around inlets, those types of things, erosion blankets. Those are called BMPs. We have to have a preferred list of those BMPs for the contractor to go off of. They, again, it's called preferred, meaning they can have other ones, but we need to have our preferred list. So when it comes to our ordinance changes itself, so law-related changes we made, there weren't too many because Orem has is awesome and is already very up to date. We've had a major revision just back in 2022. And so references to BMPs were modified to direct them to a preferred list that would be published on our city webpage. That way we don't have to keep changing the code every time there's a new BMP we want to have. Uh, there will be modified references to administrative citation. I talked about that, to be flexible. And there's minor update to the code to match state criteria for final site stabilization conditions that warrant onsite visits. Again, it would be things like a risk to public safety, or we couldn't tell based on your photos. That's the thing. And then the enforcement actions section of our code, uh, was rearranged to talk about specifically construction-related enforcement. Um, so they weren't too many changes there, and I think they were sent, the red lines, if you wanted to review them. They're pretty minor. And then generally updating, anytime we do code ordinance stuff, we had it reviewed by somebody from the city attorney's office. He works with Gary McGinnis. And so all of the changes that are made are legally appropriate. And we as well did some general upkeep stuff like grammatical errors. No matter how many times we review it, there tends to be a few little ones still left. And then organizational, organizational wording changes, such as the different groups in public works are now called divisions rather than sections. So there's some housekeeping items. And then if there's references to gender for certain positions, such as is for city manager, I just said city manager, no gender reference. And then at the top, we've discontinued the stormwater quality credit. Package. You guys approved that a while back in 2023, so any references to that program are also taken out. So our next steps from here is to ask for your consent in the general meeting session to adopt these changes into the ordinance. And then on our end of implementing this new code change, we are going to— is it Teresa? types in those new changes into the code and publishes it. We're gonna publish our preferred list of BMPs. The Utah Stormwater Advisory Commission has worked very hard to create a preferred list for the entire state, and then of that list, we will take ones that the City of Orem will use, and that will be published before January 1st. It's supposed to be finalized Monday. We've been editing it. Um, we'll begin accepting electronic site inspection reports from operators, so this new type of inspection. And then we have created new SOPs for this, um, instructing Dennis or Glassy, the city, how to, um, implement these new changes. So construction— And then potential changes to Utah law, like I talked about, um, in this next February session. They may or may not add back in fine structure. So I'm hoping we won't need any code changes unless they make major changes, which is likely. So I know that was a lot. Do you guys have any questions about this? And thank you for your attention, even though you're eating.

This should be a fairly straightforward update.

It's required by the state.

There's a chance that they will look at it again.

We try to anticipate any changes so that we won't have to come back to you in the future. But we see this as—

it doesn't really affect us very much.

We just need to pivot a little bit to and adjust to the way we're currently doing things to do things a little differently. Thank you.

And so the red lines were provided to you in your packet.

It is on the consent agenda to be approved tonight. So if you have any concerns, now would be the best time to ask us, but I don't anticipate any.

Like I said, it's a fairly straightforward update to the stormwater master plan that helps us to comply with state code.

Thank you. The state code. So I, I don't think I've ever seen a requirement where we are supposed to be less than the federal regulation. I've never seen that. So this is like historical thing.

Yeah, we were like, okay then, we'll probably do that.

The previous permit actually required us, if we had more stringent regulations, it specified we had to keep them, right? So now it's a change, you're right.

We appreciate all you guys do.

Thank you.

We're a great team.

Uh, got, got a lot of good dedicated, uh, employees at Public Works, specifically in the stormwater group. It takes a, takes a lot of effort to keep our systems up and running, and we like to do our job so that nobody can— nobody knows that we're doing our job because everything works well. So great. Again, we appreciate, uh, your attention to this and, uh, look forward to the approval with the consent agenda. Sounds good. Thank you. Appreciate it. Mayor and Council, if I could just also highlight, really appreciate our Public Works team with trying to lead out with solutions rather than with maybe a stick or something punitive. So I just appreciate that they're, they're great and even proactive about trying to implement our services and regulations with that kind of spirit and intent.

Yeah, we are the first city to be this proactive. A lot of other cities are like, oh man, it's almost January 1st, we gotta get everything done.

No, I'm Yeah, of course.

I should say we were prepared last month. You guys should—

these meetings. Thank you. You know, if I may, Chelsea just finished her Master's of Public Administration degree in conjunction with Forum City. So we partnered with her on doing that. We're excited for her and her leadership skills. Thank you. Yeah, so we've invested in her. Thank you. We'll move on to item number 1.7, and this will be amendment to the County Major Crimes Task Force. Just for, uh, review or education, Utah County Major Crimes Task Force is a multi-jurisdictional, uh, project that is about 30 years old now, um, where throughout years it's been the opportunity for various detectives from all over Utah County, uh, as well as the FBI, the DEA, the ATF and HSI, where we work together on primarily large-scale drug trafficking operations as they pass through and affect our city. Um, to give you a real quick rundown of how effective they are, just October '24, uh, by way of statistic, um, 21 felony arrests, a lot of those going for federal indictments.

Uh, 23.

3 pounds of methamphetamine, nearly 22,000 individual dosage units, pills of fentanyl. And that was actually a slow one. And on the methamphetamine side. But they're very effective. They use very sophisticated techniques, investigative tools, and so forth, and technology. Um, OREM has been very involved in the project since the onset. We continue to be, uh, fiduciary for the project. Uh, myself, I'm on— I'm actually the chair currently on their director's board. One of the things that we've been working through, and extensive help from the legal department for years, has been reconstructing our MOU. Uh, Obviously, with this level of productivity and proactivity, there's a certain amount of liability and litigation that comes with it. From time to time, we are involved in either use of force matters, so forth, with these types of arrests. The result of litigation— we've had in the past a couple of instances where different cities, where you may have had a detective from one city and a detective from another city involved in the same matter, uh, a lawsuit may be filed against both cities. And there's been instances where it's a discord between cities on settling those lawsuits and so forth. So what this MOU amendment is, is it basically prohibits any participating, uh, entity from settling without the consent of the— um, so that one can't hurry to take a easy way out, so to speak, in litigation. Have an individual action, organized pro bono. So really, that's the only amendment to— So that, that would normally be like 2 separate lawsuits, and then you're saying— I mean, it'd be one, but they would both be plaintiffs. So 2 different— quickly, in the end. So for instance, if it was a pro bono or a warrant detective, they would be suing pro bono for them. So if Provo were to settle it, basically it makes it really hard for us and for our attorney to mount any adequate defense when we've already got one of the plaintiffs. Is that settling it?

Yes.

Interesting. Makes sense. Any questions? Thanks, Brian. This will be on the consent agenda? Oops, sounds good. Thank you. Okay, item 1.8, um, presentation on the reorganized school district interlocal agreement by Steve Earl. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, Mayor and City Council, as you are all very well aware with the passage, uh, propositions 11 and 14 recently, we find ourselves in what's referred to as reorganized school district with, uh, Linden, Vineyard, and Pleasant Grove. And, uh, state law as part of that reorganized district imposes some, uh, requirements upon us, uh, to, uh, register, for example, with the Lieutenant Governor's Office as a, uh, local entity, and also to file a plat map that kind of shows the boundaries of the new reorganized school district. And, um, it's been proposed that we, uh, enter into an interlocal agreement with these other 3 cities to help us to accomplish some of these responsibilities that the state imposes upon us, as well as to consider whether there are other things that we ought to be thinking about doing in this interim period.

As you probably all know, um, a new school board will be elected next November for our reorganized school district, and they will take, uh, office in January 26th, 2026.

So there's kind of a 1-year interim period between now and when the new, uh, school board, uh, will take office. So again, uh, the thought was maybe we ought to have an interlocal agreement with these, with these other 3 cities, again, to accomplish the state requirements and also to talk about issues, to see if maybe there are studies that ought to be done, or uh, other matters. Basically, it'll open up some formal channels of communication, things like that. Thank you.

Um, I had previously sent you all kind of a—

an initial draft, uh, on Friday, and since you all had a chance to review that, there's been some additional comments and proposed changes to that interlocal agreement, which I sent you earlier today, and with one additional change after that.

So sorry, this is kind of fluid document, we'll kind of go over that.

Maybe I'll just go over the changes that have been proposed since the original draft that was sent to you last Friday.

And I know you probably don't have a copy of that in front of you right now.

But hopefully you're familiar enough with it, you can kind of follow.

So basically, the purpose of this interlocal agreement is quite narrow in scope.

Like I said, the primary function is to fulfill these state requirements that we have in And we're also proposing—

and to maybe do reports, studies, things like that.

But we're also proposing some additional language that would allow this interlocal group to take such other actions as the city councils might authorize their designated Native representatives to undertake. So again, the scope of what they can do on their own, very narrow, but they could have more expansive role or more expansive action if that action is approved by the respective city councils. So there's, there's really kind of more accountability and more involvement by the city councils than was originally proposed in the first draft of this. Secondly, we're proposing a change here to modify slightly the representation. So as part of the interlocal agreement, there's created what's known as a joint board.

They are the ones who kind of manage this, if you will.

They're the designated representatives from each of the cities. The original draft said that that joint board would be composed of each city's mayor and each city's manager, city manager or city administrator. And based on your feedback, it was proposed that we also add a 3rd representative that a city council member of each city would also be appointed to this joint board, and that city council member would be as chosen by the city council, with respect to each city council.

So basically, the joint board would be comprised of 12 members total. In addition to that, you know, each city has its own city attorney that attends these meetings, but not as voting members, just as a—

advisory capacity.

So then the third really substantive change here is proposed modification to the voting power.

And we're proposing, and really in recognition of the fact that not all of the 4 cities are of equal population or equal tax base, that sort of thing. I think if you did the numbers, looked at the numbers, Orem would represent around 60%, or maybe just under 60% of the total population. And so we're proposing, in recognition of that fact, that voting power be divided a little bit disproportionately, that Orem would have 50% of the voting power, with the remaining 50% of voting power divided among the other— amongst the other 3 cities based on population. And then any, any action taken by the Joint Board would have to be by 51% vote of their board. So what that basically means is that Orem could not take any action on its own, would have to have the agreement of at least one other city.

But also no action could be taken by the board without Orem's agreement.

Are the other cities okay with this?

So we just barely sent these changes to the other cities. So yeah, that's a great point though.

A good thing to note that these proposed modifications haven't really been reviewed by the other cities yet. We've barely sent that to them for their consideration, and, and obviously we need to get their, um, approval, uh, of this to, to, for this to be effective. But that's what we're proposing. We're hoping that they'll, they'll be amenable to these proposed changes, but we'll have to wait and see what their, what their thoughts are.

Um, in addition to that, there's a few other, uh, somewhat what I would call housekeeping items.

We're proposing to— there was previously a section regarding community engagement, and we just, we felt like it was appropriate to just delete that. And not that we couldn't engage in that, but basically we thought that if that's going to happen, maybe it's something that the City Council should weigh in on, on how that's done and what the messaging would be and that sort of thing.

So, and, uh, those are the, the major points that we're proposing.

Does anybody have any thoughts or questions like to raise?

Um, in some cities I know mayors are appointing.

They—

so is that in there? Does the mayor can attend or he can appoint someone else?

Yes.

So we, we mentioned that the—

we have the 3 representatives: the mayor, city manager, manager and a city council member, or we say, or the designee of any of the 4. So any of those 3— yeah, so that's right.

If any one of those 3 can't make it, they can appoint somebody to act in their place.

Perfect. And by the way, this is—

this is—

sorry, go ahead.

I was gonna say, do you anticipate—

I mean, my thoughts are we just step back as a So I don't see city councils— I don't see it being appropriate that city councils drive this bus, you know, direct this very much. Do you see, um, other than the things that have been dictated, you know, pick a name, set up an account, uh, do you anticipate other unknowns?

It's hard to know. I mean, part of the Part of the process and part of the engagement and discussion is to think about those things that maybe nobody has thought about or knows that we should do.

And maybe ideas will come up that we haven't foreseen yet, right? So, you know, that if those things come up, you know, that's hopefully what this group is set up to do. But again, if it's something that is a big thing that we want, oh, hey, we should be doing this, and it's a big thing, but it's outside the scope.

Yeah. of what we designate as the purpose, then that would need to come back to the respective city councils to say, yeah, yes, we want to do this, or no, we don't want to do this.

In the form of a public discussion?

A public meeting, probably, yes, but not necessarily a public discussion.

Okay, so it's not something that can be decided by email, there will need to be— or phone calls, you know, I'm in favor, I'm against, it needs to be publicly—

I mean, I guess it depends on, you know, how, how big a deal it is.

If it's a significant deal, I would think it could go public. Do you think we should put some kind of a timeline, time restrictions on that process so it doesn't go off into never-never land?

I mean, we have 4 councils that have to get together and they have to all make up their mind how—

well, if we're trying to do it on a timely matter.

Yeah, I mean, obviously, I think if it's something that's really significant, then for this to happen, then the councils would have to agree and act quickly, you know.

So probably if it's something that's really significant, it's probably going to be something that's important to everybody and something they all want to act on quickly. That would be my thought. But I just thought— but I just thought somebody just like went on the clock. It'd be just nice to not have somebody— And, and one thing I've said too is that, that, that power for the city council to do that is also based on this weighted voting power. So for example, if you had again, say, 60% of the voting power that wanted to do it, the 40% could drag their feet, could stop it. Okay, that's a good point. Excuse me, to Monet's earlier comment, This is primarily maintaining until the school board takes them.

I mean, we're not trying to change the world.

We're just trying to maintain status quo until January of '26. Right.

And so this—

yeah, the effectiveness of this agreement and the joint board ends when the new school district or school board takes office. I think the main things that might come up are going to be around just having parity with the other districts. If one of the other districts decides they're going to do this, then we'd have to go, do we need to do that? In sync, you know. You know, and part of the other thing to note, as you're all very well aware, there's a bill out, or potential bill out there that could change the nature of things that we're required to do. So we could revisit on this in a few months.

So there's, you know, so to Lenee's point, there may be things that we're not anticipating right now that we might be required to do or find it necessary to do.

At some point in the future. So, uh, I was going to say that this is, uh, this draft interlocal agreement is on the consent agenda for, uh, this evening. If you have comments or discussion you want to have about it, I would just invite you to tell the mayor if you'd like to pull it off consent agenda. We can discuss it in a, a regular item.

Okay.

Um, or if you're good with it as is, then you can vote So, Steve, what did you add after the second draft?

What did you add? You said you added one.

Yes, so that, that was in the, uh, the purpose section, basically, uh, speaking to the power and authority granted. Um, I added a provision saying that, uh, in addition to the enumerated, uh, powers, they could also take whatever action their respective city councils authorize them to take.

So in other words, if you as a council authorize our representatives to take some action or to vote to take some action, then they would be empowered to do that.

Otherwise, they would not be empowered to act beyond the limited scope.

Okay, so that was added to create that opportunity for flexibility.

Right. Again, to basically, if there's something that we're not thinking of right now that they might need to take action But again, have to come to council, have that transparency, have that input from council. Because we have to come back— let's say we, we want to do something that's different, outside the scope. So we talk about it with that group and then every— their councils and see what's approved, or we have to go to our council?

I think you— yeah, I think you could talk about whether this is something you want to take back to your councils and get authorization to do.

Okay, so we can— we'll be free in that.

Yeah, I like the mayor's idea of like a 2, 3-week, 2-week. I mean, everybody has a meeting within 2 weeks, some type of, I don't know, time limit. Maybe we need that.

Maybe it depends on the thing that we're deciding. Decide what they're meeting.

I think that again, if it's important to cities, they're going to be motivated to have that meeting.

If it's not important to them, then you're right, they probably won't.

You're saying majority?

I mean, 51%.

Okay, yes, 51% of the children. Can I ask a question? I'm curious, does the— would the law, the provision, the school board—

would—

is there a process to allow the merit and councils to be the school board? No, you can't do that. No, no, fire chiefs will sign me up. It'll be a safe school. No, and that has been kind of a little bit of a controversy over this whole time, is that the school boards are independent entities. They run the school. They're like what the city council is for the city. They're that for the school board. Thanks for that clarification. It just seemed like if the other cities don't approve this, you may be tweaking this again.

That's possible.

To get— so if we're okay with this, it still isn't law until the other 3 cities buy in. That's right.

And there will probably be some tweaks that they want So can we do that?

Would we have to have a special meeting? I guess we would have to have a special meeting, either by phone or whatever, to— yeah, probably, probably would need to do that. So would we have to do that? I mean, okay, let's say— I mean, when we tried to get a statement out, it took 5 times and then got ditched. Yeah, because it was old news. So with this, we do it tonight, we send out, we pass it Somebody else says, oh, we want to change this. So what then?

I mean, that's, that's, that's part of the challenge is, you know, just because of the time constraints that we've been under. I mean, ideally, we would have liked to get everybody to review a draft and be okay with, you know, all the provisions, but just the time constraints we're dealing with, that's not been possible.

What time constraints are you talking about?

30 days.

Yeah, and, and the time we've had to, to get to this point, right?

And so, I mean, technically we're supposed to file these things with the state by December 15th, you know, so we're, we're trying to really push this quickly. Um, so is there anything we can do to make it so that— I mean, I just don't get our next option. We call a meeting, it's got to be public notice.

So, so I think so.

So the way I've worded the resolution is that the city council would authorize— would approve and authorize the mayor to execute the agreement in substantially the same form as what the draft I've talked to you about. So allows for some minor tweaks. But I think if it's major, probably going to have to bring it back to the council unless you want to— unless you want to allow major changes.

Yeah, we have major changes.

So I think— I'm just kidding, that was a joke. Nobody laughed.

I think as I had conversations with other—

from—

with council members from other cities, um, there is a different level of understanding of what this is. So I think that they, um, we make sure that each city's city administrator or manager is explaining that this is till the new board gets in. These are the things outlined by statute that we'll be doing. There's really not that—

you're not acting as the school board. I mean, just—

Yeah.

Help them understand. Yeah, just how basic it is. That was one statement. And then my next one is, when is the Um, is the defined time that the school board— are you saying January in there? Because I have heard that there's talk in the legislation to move that up once the canvas is done.

Yeah, that, that's the state of current law.

Is it a date in January?

Well, yeah, so the new school board would take office in January of 2026 under the current law. Okay.

Now, yeah, I've heard talk that maybe they're thinking about trying to move that date up, but that's not how it is So we'll have to wait and see.

Does our—

are we flexible in this interlocal about releasing?

Yeah, yeah.

So this just simply says that this agreement remains in effect until the new school district board starts their term. So, okay, if we change that, then that will be reflected. Okay. Or we may have to come back and revisit this if the legislation is significantly different that passes. We might have to come back and upgrade this. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's possible that the legislature might dictate some terms to us about what your earlobe has to say. If that—

if they do that, then yeah, we have to come back.

Yeah, seems pretty simple.

Any other questions? Any questions on it?

Good.

Okay, thanks for all your work. Yes, thank you. All right, thank you, Steve. Um, takes us to item number 2. We'll go to the agenda. We got first up, we got city council reports on boards and commissions. Yes, that's right. Uh, Jeff and then Tom. Okay, so, uh, Heritage Advisory Commission, which may be changing, so we'll hear changing. Um, They've been a joy to work with. They just did a great job with the Veterans Day program. And just so much fun working with them. And, but yeah, so they're, they're just so grateful to be able to share their patriotism every way that they can.

Thank you.

Um, another board that I serve on is the Utopia board. Um, they just passed the 70,000 subscriptions rate under the Utopia umbrella. Um, and they reported in our meeting yesterday that their operating expenses are at or slightly under their budget, which is always good news. Under is always better. Um, they also reported that, um, They're continuing to widen the amount of incoming revenue versus bond payments. So the difference between what they owe and what is coming in as income is continually increasing, which means we'll continue to get hopefully more money back each time they make interest. Where are we at right now? Uh, I don't remember. It's, it's a lot. Just how much the borough pays each year to Pennsy Utopia? 3.5 million. I think it's about 4 million with the 1 million in person. So I think it's about— is that about right? And every year it goes down, we pay less and less and less. Well, the payment goes up every year, so does our refunds. So Yeah, it's the ground sustained. So you're asking us about $3 million right now? Yeah, till about 2039. Do you know? 2039? Yeah, that's just around the corner. 15 years. Yeah. How old will you be in 2039? Probably 50. Um, of the 70,000 subscribers, that's Through all the different cities, right? So that's all of the, all of the different cities. And then they also have opened up to some other areas. So it's the Yellowstone District, which is parts of Montana, that they actually are able to receive revenue from. They don't have any debt. So they're helping to— Because the local entity paid for the debt, but they manage it. They have an operating agreement. Yes. So does that affect— is this all mixed together? And then that's how we come up with this million-dollar— We're an investor, basically. The original cities are an investor in Utopia. So we get the dividends, not the other cities who came on later.

Now, I wouldn't say it was a great investment. We are investing in—

we have the debt, right?

So our debt goes down. We have a lot of debt, but we get the benefits. So there is a relationship between how many subscribers we have in the world, their revenue, that affects our number on this thing against this. I think they do total revenue and then pass it out to the investor portfolio, which we're a pretty big investor. There's other guys fell by the wayside. We were a pretty big investor. David, I'm going back to early days that you and I know about this. So yeah, I don't mean to trump you though. It's 35%. Otherwise, filled out. So whatever that is, 35% of those that can subscribe. Right. But I think, I think we did recently get this report in April. So I'll go ahead and forward that to you.

And if you—

I'd be really curious just to see that one. Okay, um, let's see.

Uh, do you—

board, um, we all probably had an opportunity to meet now with Steve Anderson and Val Peterson, and I think a great form of outreach, trying to work together on some housing situations down there. Uh, and then, uh, as we reported earlier, uh, and hopefully we have more opportunities to have some of their students work with our staff, uh, in design and, and, uh, learning from our, our, uh, professionals, uh, how to help them through their educational process, uh, whatever field it is that they're going into. I think that was a wonderful, wonderful thing. And then the CARE Commission, Dave and I serve on that. And we're— those CARE dollars continue to bless thousands more residents and our good neighbors from other cities every single day. And we'll be doing another round of that here shortly. So thank you. Thank you for not doing a PowerPoint presentation to make me look bad. So I go from the commission, from 3 commissions who either cost the most money in the city of Orem or the least money in the city of Orem. The most money is spent by the Public Works group that provide all of our infrastructure. We have a phenomenally well-trained group of committees who are doing exactly what we want them to do.

By saying that was no detrimental talk to Chris or anyone on that committee.

But just conscientiously, conscientiously determine what we need in water and sewer improvements. And that committee is made up of well-trained professionals who are more than just a pretty face. They're well-equipped people who counsel and guide like you've asked them to.

The least expensive one we have is the IHC Outreach Committee who buys our lunch when we go to their meetings. and provides community information, and others in the city have been part of that.

Although that— without going too public, but the manager of the hospital has had significant health problems. And so my real involvement on that outreach committee has been texting him every week or so and seeing how he's doing. So that committee's somewhat at bay while we seek for better information on his health. IAC Outreach, is that, is that Tippinogos? No, that's Warren Community Hospital. So Warren Community, that's where you're affiliated? Yeah, I happen to have a seat on the Tippinogos board, but none of these would be my city involvement, just community involvement. Okay. And then the Warren Youth Council, they work cheap. You give them some treats and they come to meetings and they have fun and they plan and they enjoy.

And, and mostly our legal department helps take care of them.

Not anymore.

Oh, who does it now?

I'm sorry, it's actually Management Services.

Okay, sorry, sorry. But the youth—

we visited fire stations and learned how they act. And it's really fun to watch the young people get excited about what we're doing in the city. And they're above average students in the respective high school. Almost all of them are females.

We have a good mix this year. Let me check.

Did it change?

It's still like 70%.

Yeah, I thought it was majority female. It's, it's grown, grown a lot though. How many kids have you got on it, do you remember?

Uh, I think 21-ish.

That's a nice circle.

Are they going to the, um, what is it called, the league, the ULCT? Yeah, first day of legislature. Yeah, awesome though.

Yes, we're really hoping that you guys will interact with them really well.

While they're up there. Okay, we're really looking at taking that to a whole new level. That youth council, come in likely— I don't know if it was on our presentation, but we'll probably have 2 city council members on that. Just with the idea that we're going to— That won't be part of the update today.

We had it.

Okay, that's all right. Thank you. All right, let's just run through the rest of this. Thank you. Um, okay, well, I'll call the order. Uh, item number 4, item number 5, them on vacation. That's Elaine Wilding. Uh, pledge allegiance is Mike Carpenter. Item 7 is mayor's report, uh, and that's item 7.1, a report on the Highways and Parks Council. MP? 7.2, a report from the Metro Water District. Chris? Item 8, personal appearances. Um, we're gonna have to manage that tomorrow so people confused about where they're talking. So we'll have to make— so you just text my WhatsApp, make sure they write what they want to talk about so we can screen that down to the right hearing. And then item 9, just said items. 9.1, approval of meeting minutes. 9.2, appointments to the Bridge Golf Course Advisory Commission. Uh, 9.3, that appointment to the Golf Course Advisory Commission Okay, that's John. He said he was coming. Okay, thanks. How many people— do you know how many people are on that? There'll be 6 total. Okay, as far as from the city, there's 6, or there's— From the city, there are 3 appointees. 3, okay. And that works with Eric?

Yes.

Yeah, okay, perfect. Then item 9.3, um, we'll have a switch. Tom's about to lose his power as mayor of Pro Tem.

It's like South Korea, you know, could have been North, maybe.

Will rise up and become the new mayor of Pro Tem.

Um, item 9.4, an ordinance about the Stormwater Code Update 9.5, and Ordinance Board Commission Code Update. If you have any questions about any of these, ask, because these are all— I have 9.6, Resolution Modern Income Housing Strategy. I have 9.7, Resolution Approval and Amendment to Interlocal Agreements. Okay, does anybody have any questions about anything on consent item, or you going to be okay? Well, there's 9.8 too. He goes on the backstage. Oh, excuse me. Okay, I think you remember, uh, 9.8, resolution approving interlocal agreement with Vineyard.

Didn't we just have this?

The first one was police. 8 was— 9.7 was the police. She said it's the Utah County.

Okay.

Oh, it's a different one. Okay, trying to trick me. Okay, item 10, scheduled items, uh, 10.1.

Oh my gosh, we're doing that before the zoning stuff.

Nobody was here. Short and sweet. Oh, it is short.

I am not giving you any information. Be careful, David.

You got an over-under for tonight?

It's at 9:30.

Wow.

No problem. I've blessed you. That's true. Oh, okay. So I'll take it. It's okay.

It is a special guest, though, the auditor.

Yeah.

Okay.

Maybe we don't want to wait. If they're quick. Yes, he has some other meetings to get to. That's really— and you have another meeting, Brandon, at 6:30. You need to be gone. Okay, and then item 10.2, public hearing, like community development block grant consolidation.

We're doing that too.

Business end.

Can't have—

get on a separate— me for a month. Okay, so that public hearing, that's going to be simple, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, can we move 10.3 and 10.4 to consent items, Mayor? That'd be good. And so then 10.3, you all know what that is, that's Canyon Park. So we're going to Canyon Park first, um, and then 10.4 public hearing.

Um, okay, so, so 10.3, we'll go through the public hearing, we'll come to the vote. We'll do everything.

Um, so what's been proposed is that in an effort to try and allow us to go home tonight, checkpoint, um, we looked a lot of ways of doing this, but that we, we say an hour for each of those. If it make you feel better, but maybe do it 50 minutes for each of those. We've got to give people enough time to be heard. At the same time, a lot of people will say similar things. Yeah, and I don't—

in the past we've done pros and cons on different sides.

I don't think there's no cons.

There's not going to be a lot of pros.

Oh, pros.

Yes, I've got one email. Yeah, who's in favor? Yeah, yeah.

Oh, one email.

That's right, we did get one.

Um, but again, you're right, they're going to say similar things, but we respect their willingness and ability to say this stuff.

Well, and we created that by continuing it.

Yeah.

Did you—

are we gonna like 2 minutes?

Is that what you say?

I think we'll reduce it to 2 minutes.

Keep it moving.

And then I think we'll, we'll let them speak for— I mean, you, you guys want to do— you want to do— I mean, 50 minutes be fine. 40, 45.

That's 25 people.

I mean, so after they speak We're gonna have to talk. So maybe 45. So maybe we give them 45 and then 15, and then hopefully we take 15.

Standing break?

Yeah, Dave Spencer break. Yeah, right.

Once we get there, you'll be knocking on my side.

The rest of us need a break. That was actually Perez that did that. Yeah, not me.

Okay, so we're gonna shoot for 45 minutes.

Public comment, and then we'll take it back from there. That sound okay, Steve? Yeah, we'll go 2-minute increments. That's like 24 people.

So the last person is 1 minute.

Walk up and walk down.

Yeah, I'll be standing up there.

Yeah, that's—

stand by the wall.

That's a good idea.

Okay.

Let's say, go stand and be on deck.

And if they're friends, if they know what each other is going to say, they might want to pick a person they're like, you know, 30 or 40 emails today, a lot of them said, I can't come to the meeting, but this is my intention. And it was almost exact, like copy-pasting from each other. So hopefully it'll be someone. And if you see a lot of repetition, repetition, you can Reduce the field. I actually saw, I saw more creativity than anything else.

That's right.

They were not copy-pasting.

You can always tell.

He used the words like robust. Who says robust?

All right, so we'll do 45, 15, 45, 15. That'll be our goal. And then 11 is financial information. That's that financial thing that we don't really ever do anything, just say it exists. Uh, then Brent will give a 15-minute speech to an empty hall. Okay, and then we'll adjourn. Questions on any of that?

August 12th.

Okay, go ahead and Do you want your board? Yeah.

For you. Test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test. Test, test, test. Test, test, test.

There we go.

What's That's right. We'll see.

Do we have any more agendas we can get?

Yeah, I'll make some copies. Pete's gonna make copies. Thank you. We're gonna make copies. Yep, I use my— I'll borrow Dave's when I need it. Mayor, you okay?

David and I can share.

Is yours done?

No, mine's testing.

Testing.

Mayor, use mine.

David and I can share. You sure? Okay, it's like random.

We'll go ahead and start. Okay, we have a slight mic phone issue, uh, but in the meantime we'll get this resolved. I'd like to call this meeting to order and welcome all of you here tonight. We're glad you could all make it out. And to start this meeting, we'll have an invocation from Eleni Wilding and a Pledge of Allegiance from Greg Carlisle. And they're both just very active Orem citizens. They're not married, for anyone who wonders, but they're here to help out tonight. So we'll start out with an invocation from Eleni.

Father in heaven, we're so grateful that we could meet here tonight with our city council. This night we ask that thou wilt bless them, that they can be mindful of the charge that we as the citizens of Oron have given them to be our elected representatives, that they will know that they're— they work for us and that they can be mindful and open to solutions to the different things that the city has to face tonight. We're grateful for all the people that have shown up, that they have taken an active part in our city in keeping it a place that is wonderful to live and preserving it as Family City USA. We're so grateful for all the blessings that we have. Bless those that still claiming that they will come here safely and be able to participate as they desire. We're grateful for these things. Give thee thanks for all that we have. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Thank you, Eleni. Please rise for the pledge.

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

Thank you, Greg. Thank you, both of you, for participating. Okay, well, that takes us to item number 7, and this will be the mayor's report, items referred by the council. Item 7.1, a report from the Arts Council, and this will be taken care of by one of our staff, Communications Director Pete Wolfley. So Pete, You're up.

If anyone needs an agenda, there's some more here. Sorry about that.

I thought I had all the time in the world. Yeah, no worries.

All right, thanks for having us here. Adam Robertson is here to present with us about the Orem Arts Council, and this is just the annual report letting you know what we've been up to on the Arts Council.

So we'll go ahead and get started. That's it, I'm just introducing. Well, first of all, thank you to so many people for coming out to listen to the Arts Council report tonight. Um, thank you to Pete for putting together these slides. So the first slide, here's our, our, uh, Orem Arts Council members. Lots of great, great community members. Um, we'll be quick. Uh, the, the Arts Ambassador Program is is one of the big things we've worked on this year. Uh, for a long time, we were presenting more and more and more, and we decided, you know, we have a lot going on in our city, and how can we be supportive to all of those folks, uh, receiving CARE dollars from the CARE program and let them know that we're here? And how can we support them and, and be there on their opening night or their closing night or their event? and, and be a liaison with them. And, um, and so we kind of shifted from, uh, art creation to promotion of the arts. And of course, uh, Pete and his staff are very helpful in the Facebook, um, and, um, social media of, of a lot of the great events that have, that have happened. The, uh, the 7 weeks of free community concerts at the, uh, at City Center Stage is another thing that we kind of oversee and, and, um, and, uh, get to get— we have a subcommittee that picks these bands and tries to get a nice variety of performers and styles of music. We do those in conjunction with the efforts of the Orem Farmers Market, and this is all funded from a grant from the Utah Arts Council. And we, we were hoping to do more signage in the park in 2025. We also partnered this last year with the World Folk Fest. It was our first year partnering with them. Dancers from all over came and performed not only at the City Center Park but also at Library Hall. And that is, that is, the Folk Fest is looking to expand in lots of areas, and we hope that one of those areas is our city. Public art projects. We have, we have successfully completed a number of utility boxes throughout the city. We're trying to focus our efforts in the Arts District area, and we hope this year to do more with the— that's what this picture is— the center poles of the pavilions at the Sierra Park, whether that's half of the pole or you know, part of it we, we have yet to be determined, but wrapping these boxes with some kind of art. We've got lots of art in the queue and ready to go. We just need to identify places for it in utility boxes and pavilions, murals, that sort of thing. In terms of what's next, we hope, of course, more art experiences at city events and Arts in the Park. always looking for partnerships with the great cultural groups that we have and keep promoting all of the many offerings we have. We have a thriving arts community with lots of things happening, and so we hope to make sure that everyone knows all about that. But anyway, very brief, very short. We do want to make sure Um, to thank our, our wonderful staff, mostly Pete, for— and McKenna, for, for all that they do, uh, in, in helping the Arts Council function and, and, uh, and meet every month. It's a great organization of people that love the arts and, and love to promote what's happening in our city. That's our report. Any questions? Great, thank you.

Thank you, Adam. Thank you, Pete.

Hey, can I just say something? I think we have a— Adam, you do a great job on that commission. We have a great variety of people serving on that commission representing lots of different areas of the arts. So we appreciate all that you do. Thank you to all of you. And if you're here, thank you. If not, thank you.

Thank you. Moving on to item 7.2, uh, the Metro Water District of Orem, and this will be Chris Shirky. And, and Reed Price.

Mayor and council, it's a pleasure to be here with you tonight. Last year, Reed and I were able to make this similar presentation. Um, we will introduce the Metropolitan Water District of Orem and who we are and our purpose, and then give you a very light report. Last year, uh, it went 30 minutes. This year it'll take 4 minutes, just so you know. I don't want you to get have, you know, limit your expectations, right? Here we go. Reed is our general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Orem. He's also the water resources manager and our assistant public works director for the city of Orem. I function as— I'm also the public works director for the Orem city, but I also function as the vice chair of the Metropolitan Water District In the last year, there have been some changes in our board. We'd like to share that with you now at this time. As you all are aware, in very unfortunate news, Steve Brown passed away. He was our chairman of more than about 10 years at the Metropolitan Water District of Orem. He and his father, Russ Brown, have served the community, the city of Orem, for probably 4 decades, and we owe a lot of thanks, and we're very grateful for their service and what they've contributed to this community on behalf of Metropolitan Water District of Orem in helping to assure and restore our water supply and ensure that we have sufficient water for today and well into the future. Last year, when Liddell Gilman was present, he announced unbeknownst to us at that time, that he was going to resign. He was 94 years old at that time, and the term was 6 years. He didn't want to serve to the age of 100, so we thought that was probably okay. Since then, the, the, the City Council has appointed Casey Shaw, who is a renowned engineer in this area. He served in many organizations including Geneva Steel and the Central Utah Water Conservancy District. His father was also a BYU professor, and he's beloved in this community, and he is now also serving as our chairman. That's Casey Shaw. David Fox was appointed by the City Council recently also to replace Liddell Gilman. So we are now fully staffed as a as a board. And unfortunately, we just learned recently that our secretary will now be retiring. She's been serving for about 30 years as the secretary for the Metropolitan Water District Board. So she is committed to offer some cross-training and to help out over the next about 8 to 12 months to help train a new individual to help with our record keeping, including all of our share and filing that we have with the state of Utah. Just for background's sake here, Metropolitan Water District of Orem— well, metropolitan water districts were created initially in 1935 under the Metropolitan Water District Act.

That was an act that was formulated in 1935 in the state of Utah.

At that time, the city of Orem decided to also create a district. and it's known as the Metropolitan Water District of Orem. The district services essentially the area between Provo River, Utah Lake, 2000 North, 2000 South, the extension all the way to the lake. At that time it was created, the boundaries of Vineyard were, well, Vineyard wasn't a community at that time, and it was unknown what the boundaries would be for the city of Orem. We have recently had an audit performed by the Squire, uh, Squire Group, Squire and Company, and in their statement they say— they state that in their opinion, the Metropolitan Water District as of June 30th, 2024 and 2023, and the, uh, and the changes in its financial position and its cash flows for the years then ended in accordance with accounting principles as generally accepted by the United States of America.

Essentially, they gave us a clean bill of health in their audit. Um, tonight, I think our auditor for the City of Orem is also present and will be presenting to you, but that's independent of, of the district.

Um, we are in a good state of, uh, of health, and our conditions are, uh, I, I, I would say, are healthy and suggest that we have sufficient water supply for our needs.

What, not only well into the future, but through buildout and ultimately during drought conditions.

So we are in a very, very good position. We owe a lot of thanks to our forefathers all the way back to the early 1900s who have made it possible for us to live and thrive in this community and not to have a concern regarding water, clean water supply. We do have one looming challenge that we wanted to present or reiterate last time we did that as well. As you're all aware, the Provo River Water Users Association is the sponsor and manager of the Deer Creek Reservoir and the Provo River Project.

With that, they are in the process of completing a $100 million project that affects Orem, and many other communities in North Utah County, as well as in Salt Lake County.

The challenge is that there is an intake structure that is being replaced, and essentially it's being built and resolved in the wet, meaning that divers are resolving the challenges that we see at that basically 80-year-old structure at the base of that reservoir. It's a $100 million project. Orem has about 6.4% of the responsibility for that financial responsibility, which is about $6.4— excuse me, yes, $6.4 million. So we will be working and have engaged in conversations with Lewis, Roberts, and Burningham Our— the city's financial advisor to help us solve that and make a repayment plan for the next 20 years. So that is probably our largest challenge that we have at this time, and we look forward to solving that with your help and assistance. So that is our report to you tonight, and we would entertain any questions you might have.

Any questions?

Okay, thank you for your support.

Thank you.

Look forward to giving a report next year.

Okay, next up we've got item number 8, and this is, uh, personal appearances. This is different than— as we go through the 2 issues that I think a lot of you are here for, we'll have public hearings For those, uh, later in the, in the meeting. Just here at the very beginning, these are— this is an opportunity for people who have signed up to make a public comment on the concern, uh, that, that, uh, they've got. Just to summarize this, it says items listed on the agenda as the public hearing will allow for public comments to be heard during the specific item and does not require you to sign this form. Um, time has been set aside for the public to express their ideas, concerns, and comments for items not on the public hearings. Those wishing to speak are encouraged to show respect for those who serve the city. Comments should focus on issues concerning the city. Those wishing to speak should have signed in before the beginning of the meeting, and please limit your comments to 3 minutes or less. And on this, and I think we will have a lot of people wanting to participate tonight, so I'd encourage everyone to be as, uh, concise as they can while still getting their point across. But we'll start out with this part, um, and the first person on here is, is Russ Rader. Rader, if you'd like to come up to the— right there to the podium.

Mr. Mayor, City Council, thank you for—

Go ahead and pull that mic close to your mouth, please.

Mr. Mayor and City Council, thank you for this opportunity.

What can we do with the signal lights in this city, especially Center Street and Orem Boulevard? This morning at 6:45, I dropped my wife off. I was proceeding back home I had the green light and I started out into the intersection. I slammed on my brakes because a 4-wheel drive was coming eastbound on Center Street. If I hadn't stopped, I probably wouldn't be here tonight. I'm gonna follow you 3 months back on that intersection with the police department. I'm gonna see how many wrecks has been going on there.

And then believe me, I've seen several myself every day I drive that. Yellow lights.

What's yellow lights mean in this city? It means to stop. Here in Orem, it means hit the gas pedal.

Drag strips. 800 South, State Street, Orem Boulevard, Center Street is turning into a drag strip. I'm into classic cars, I'm into hot rods, but you'll never see me do that in Orem. And some of you people know me and can vouch for that.

But this morning, that scared the living you-know-what out of me.

I'm sorry.

That's all I have to say.

But if you go down Provo State Street and Cougar Boulevard, 9 times out of 10 you'll see a police officer sitting on a motorcycle there.

And if you run that light, he's going to get you. That's what we need at Orem Boulevard.

Thank you.

Thank you for my time.

Thank you, Russ. Mike Christensen.

Hi, Magic Mayor McDonald's. Dave, Jeff, and others, um, thank you very much again for Lights On. Last year's was such a huge pro compensation for having to move it from the front yard, but it made me think this is the way we all always should have done it. Spanish Fork has their parade, Riverwoods in Provo, Travers with their stars in Lehi have some Pretty big shows, but as for general activity, I honestly think we've— you've topped at least this whole county now. Um, I've noticed even the improvements that you made for this year. Thanks for making sure the stage was well lit. And I don't remember if you had the audio company provide those big FM radios around the park last year, but please correct me after this. But that was quite a nice addition as well, so making your announcements and hearing the performers and stuff. If you can afford those for Summerfest performances in the future, that'd be hot too. Um, I'd like to request 3 more improvements for the future. One, that you advertise the show as starting at 5 o'clock instead of 5:30, even though the actual ceremony is at 5:30. Because the performance just before that is technically part of the show as the warm-up entertainment before the main event. Kind of like when you have a few things happen at the cemetery before the main speaker comes on, but they're still part of the program. This lighting ceremony is the main speaker because you have— but you, you have a little concert section before that opens the ceremony, and that seems to start at 5 o'clock, so it'd be nice to have for us to all be reminded of that time to be extra prepared with seating and stuff. 2, I love the— I loved the big splash that Santa Claus made when he came in a roaring fire engine, Code 3, but we've missed that now. So will you please invite him to come back on Tiller Truck 33, either blazing down Center Street and over to the Senior Center, or maybe Even better, make the zig up to First North and then, uh, down over to the Senior Center, since that's kind of right in the direction we're looking from the stage. And then we'd see all that— oh yeah, without even having to turn around. And then down to the— down the Santa path from the center to stage. Um, number 3, it would be really nice to have a lot more rows of chairs for stage stuff, um, kind of like you have for Summerfest, so many fewer people will have to be standing around. Would you be willing to have Jim and those guys set up more chairs, more rows of chairs? Also, I'm happy to hear that you'll be having Orem's first drone show starting with next year's program, as far as I know, but correct me on that too. Oh, and I love that you keep the Christmas lights on through January to help fend off our January blues. Thanks for that too. Happy Friday the 13th again this week, because we just had the September one, and happy Christmas.

Thank you, Mike. Next we've got Chelsea Trujillo.

Hello, council members. My name is Chelsea Trujillo.

I am a Utah native, but I only recently moved back to Orem as of March of this year. We had lived all over with my husband serving with the U.S. Army for 22 years. On returning to Orem, everything has changed. There's more houses, more people, more traffic.

Thank you.

And as city infrastructure goes or grows, our population increases and traffic congestion is imminent. I see bus lanes where none existed, yet I only see a few major streets that have bike lanes, and the lanes that exist are poorly kept.

Pedestrians don't have it much easier because on top of being forced to share their bike lanes with the—

sorry, their sidewalks with the bikes, their crosswalks The lack of bike lanes is puzzling to me because a center turn lane is not as important as a bike lane would be. A car can wait on the left or could be passed on the right as someone is waiting to turn just as easily in a left lane where you have 2 lanes as in, as in a center lane. But a bike cannot do the same thing without a lane as safely.

safely.

More lanes encourage more bikers and reduce congestion and pollution, which is badly needed. I listened to the city council meeting last week where this sweet woman was struck and killed on a 25-mile-an-hour street. If such a horrific thing can happen at 25 miles an hour, imagine trying to ride your bike with cars going 35, 40, or more. It's often terrifying.

Thank you.

I myself have nearly experienced a T-bone collision just a few weeks ago from a car that did not see me. My daughter was in an accident on Center Street on her electric scooter on October 21st. She was crossing the Target entrance where the traffic comes in and out. The woman did not call the police, and later when caught, blamed my daughter for causing the accident.

Oh my God.

This was in broad light and broad daylight and midday, so no excuses. My daughter is a minor and had no idea what to do, and she shouldn't have to know what to do or be put in that position. The woman was not prosecuted, which is abysmal in my opinion. My daughter's had to go to numerous doctor visits, physical therapy, chiropractic visits, and is still not better. Her concussion from being knocked down And rolling into the street will take a minimum of 6 months to heal. The stress of having to get her to all these visits, hire a lawyer to deal with her medical care, and deal with all of the, the logistics of the school and difficulties there has been overwhelming. How many pedestrians and bikers will have to be injured or killed for safety conditions to improve?

5.

for all road users.

And if we do not prosecute those that cause, cause these actions, nothing will change.

Thank you, Chelsea. Yeah, Chelsea, have you had a chance to, to reach out to the police and talk with them? Okay. Okay, I, I invite you to keep working with them on this.

And, and with our traffic team.

With the traffic team as well. Should she talk to them tonight?

Yeah, she could speak with, uh, at least get to know and exchange information with, uh, Chris Shirky, if, if she hasn't already.

Okay, right. Thank you. Next we've got Philip, and I can't quite make out your last name, Philip, but if you'd like to come up—

I heard about the Canyon Park area, so I'll wait.

Okay. All right, we'll plan on that. Next we've got My goodness.

Somebody Christensen.

Somebody Christensen starts with a T. Timo, maybe.

Okay.

Hey, uh, yeah, I'm Timo Christensen, um, EIT Orem resident and director at Bike Orem. A few weeks ago, I heard about the crash that Chelsea's daughter experienced and saw a video of it. And I, in response to that, thought it relevant to look at the situation with the accesses at Target. And I guess I have a question for the council is, have you ever slept on a futon? If you haven't, I wouldn't recommend. It's really not super comfortable. A futon is kind of this remarkably unremarkable piece of furniture that tries to be a couch, tries to be a bed, fails at both. And I think Center Street is a type of road that we see a lot that is often referred to as a strode.

It tries to be a street, tries to be a road.

It's kind of the futon of transportation infrastructure.

Right now, we have issues with the Target driveway there where Chelsea's daughter was hit.

And is really close in between 2 signals, and there's high-speed traffic passing by. And in this bit where, where Center Street is attempting to be a road in that it's trying to accommodate high-speed traffic passing by fast, and it's trying to be a street accommodating traffic coming in and out of Target.

It tends to break down and fail. And I haven't gotten the best of data, but from what I've found, that one intersection at Target is far more deadly than either of the other 2 entrances to the property on Orem Boulevard or at the Garden Park Drive traffic signal.

And it is— its design is really not up to standards by ASHTO or Orem's Transportation Master Plan. And I— we have been in contact with the, like, city's Traffic Tiger Team, and I know it's on their radar, but I thought it relevant since it was brought up to Tell the council about that, and, um, I hope that you guys can, um, see this and understand what you can do to help quench the bloodthirstiness of these infrastructural futons plaguing Orem.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, we've got Shawna Meekum.

Hi.

Firstly, I'd like to thank Orem City, especially the engineering department, for installing crosswalks, enhanced crosswalks with lights and some traffic calming on 200 North and by Orem Community Hospital. We've also worked with engineering to, to place bike racks around our parks, which are is fantastic. We really love the progress on those things, and some of the bike lanes that have been neglected for years, or the paint is coming back on. My husband teaches at Lake Ridge, and recently he was talking to a German exchange student, talking about, you know, what the similarities and differences between the US and here.

And she said she really enjoyed being in the US, but In Germany, she could get wherever she needed to go by walking or biking or transit.

And where she is now, she's stuck, right? You have to have mom or dad or whoever she's staying with to drive her around. When we think about family city, I wonder what we can do to better encourage our youth, maybe our Elderly parents who shouldn't be driving, those who don't have a car or cannot physically operate a car.

What can we do to give them more independence?

And also, speaking selfishly as a parent, how can I be free of chauffeuring duty?

I don't like that.

So while we can get anywhere predictably and dependably by automobile, the same cannot be said of biking, walking, scootering, etc. And the recent crashes, the fatality on 1200 South, um, the, the student on her scooter hit by Target, and then Timo won't tell you, but he got hit on 800 South.

He's fine.

Um, but recent, recent events have made it evident that this is—

that while we're making progress, we can accelerate our progress. And that's what Bike Oregon would ask ask the council to direct the city to do is accelerate our effort—

efforts to create safe streets for everyone so that they can meet their daily needs. And I know an active transportation plan update has been on the radar, and please make that happen and then make the things that are in the plan happen. And Bike Orem, we'd like to offer ourselves as a resource for community involvement. creative solutions, temporary projects, and on-the-ground observations as well.

So thank you for the time, for your time.

Thank you, Shawna. Last on this list is Norman, but on here it says Canyon Park. Okay, so it's coming up later. Okay, thank you. All right, that's everyone on the personal appearance sheet. We'll move on to the consent items, and we've got a number of consent items tonight. I'll read through these and then we'll just vote on them as a group. There's item 9.1, approval of meeting minutes for October 29th, 2024. Item 9.2, an appointment Sleepy Ridge Golf Course Advisory Commission, and that's John Oldham is here. John, if you like, stand up. We appreciate you helping out on that commission. That sounds like a good one. Item 9.3, we're going to change the mayor pro tem. Tom McDonald's been acting as mayor pro tem. He's going to turn that over to Lenee Millett for the next 6 months.

I'm not getting fired. It's a normal rotation.

Um, item 9.4, we've got an ordinance on— it's a stormwater code update. Item 9.5, an ordinance, board and commission code update. Item 9.6, a resolution, the moderate income housing strategy. Item 9.7, a resolution approving an amendment to an interlocal agreement with Utah County and multiple Utah County cities regarding the Utah County Major Crimes Task Force to extend the term of the interlocal agreement through 2029 and improve the notification requirements and collaboration efforts between agencies in the event of a claim, notice of a claim, or lawsuit brought against an MCTF participating entity. Item 9.8, a resolution approving an interlocal agreement with Vineyard, Linden, and Pleasant Grove related to the reorganized school district. Is there anything on there that anyone wants changed or moved?

Okay, not seeing any. I move for approval of the consent items.

I'll second that.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Okay, the consent items pass. If your mic doesn't work, then your vote doesn't count. We strategically did that. Okay, moving on to item number 10. Scheduled items. The first scheduled item on our agenda tonight is item 10.1. We just had a 2024 independent audit presentation and an annual comprehensive financial report, and we'd like to have Brandon Nelson and, uh, and John Hatterley from Larson and Company report on that to us.

Hey, thanks, Mayor.

As you are well aware, every year we're required by the state of Utah to have an independent audit by a CPA accounting firm, and this year we, we completed that, uh, just a week or so ago. And, uh, John Hatterley here, a partner with Larson and Company, is the accounting firm who did that independent audit, is here to report on, on that audit today. So I'll turn the time over to John. You can try it.

Thanks, Council, for letting us just take a few minutes. Uh, just want to report on the results of our audit. Um, I'll go over the opinions that we give, um, and what those opinions mean, um, and then I'll go over the findings and recommendations. Uh, but I'd first want to just Tell the finance staff of the city and management thank you. The audit process was smooth. I appreciate the timing of responses and the transparency of the city. We do get pretty invasive with our audits and ask for a lot of different things, so it's, it's very comforting when, when I get good reports back from my staff that there aren't any issues and, and the city is You know, very transparent and open and honest with anything that we ask for. So, with that being said, um, the first opinion that we issue on is on the financial statements themselves. That is the main focus of our audit, is the financial statements. That is an unmodified or an unqualified opinion. That's a clean opinion in, in our auditing world. Uh, and The reason why it's unmodified or unqualified is it does— that just denotes that we have not had to modify or change the language in our audit report based on an issue that we could not overcome or we weren't comfortable with in our audit. The next opinion that we're required to issue is for the Utah State Auditor. Each year they Issue compliance guide, and we are required to test certain aspects of Utah code that they feel is important, whether it's something new. Sometimes it changes. There are certain areas where we, we look at it every year because it continues to be a problem across the state. The areas that we were required to look at this year. Get to the letter real quick. Uh, we were required to look at your compliance with your budgets, so budget integrity, uh, the Justice Courts, making sure that there's controls at the Justice Court, making sure that the money that comes flows through the Justice Court makes its way back to the city, uh, the fraud risk assessment, fund balance. So we, we look at each fund, making sure that you maintain a positive fund balance and you don't have any deficit fund balances, and also that you are in compliance with the general fund balance maximum or minimum thresholds. We look at restricted taxes, we look at governmental fees. So our opinion is also an unmodified or an unqualified opinion on your compliance. It's a very specific opinion on these areas, not on the entirety of Utah State Code. Nor is it a legal opinion. There were a couple of state compliance findings that we'll talk about, but I'll give you the last opinion first, and that last opinion is on your federal awards that you spent. So if in— during a fiscal year you spend more than $750,000 that comes either directly from or indirectly from the federal government, you're required to have a single audit, which is a a federal audit that's separate from your financial statement audit. We do them concurrently because it saves the time, saves us time, and it saves the city money, um, if we do them concurrently. Um, that limit now is going to change to $1 million starting just in this prior October. So after— let's see, I guess it'll be next, next fiscal year. Um, you'll have to reach the $1 million to, to have a single audit. We are looking at your compliance as well as your control over compliance. So as part of this opinion, we are looking and testing your controls over how you spend federal money. That's also an unmodified or an unqualified opinion. Um, the major program that we're required to test this year is the remaining part of your ARPA money. I think there's still probably just a little bit left but that was the significant portion. We didn't have any findings related to the single audit, so that's good. The findings were directly related to state compliance. So the first finding is deficit fund balance, and this is in the facility maintenance fund, which is an internal service fund funded primarily from other funds in the city. So basically, you're just allocating money to this fund. That fund was in a deficit position last year. It's also in a deficit position again this year. The way to get rid of this finding is you as a council, when you adopt the budget, need to allocate 5% of this year's budgeted or budget actual revenue needs to be outlined in the budget as a separate line item for deficit reduction. And then if you maintain budget integrity inside that fund, then that would result in a positive net income at the end of the year, which would result in reducing that fund deficit. The next finding is the general fund balance. I don't necessarily think this is a bad problem. But the city exceeded the 35% threshold that the Utah Code allows to maintain in the general fund. Depending on the situation, a lot of times cities will accumulate funds to be spent in future years. Sometimes, especially over the last 4 to 5 years, there's been so much federal money that's been thrown at cities that fund balance has naturally gone up. So that's why this— the state actually increased it from 25% up to 35%. Um, but the city is still in excess of the 35%.

Um, and it—

let's see, the, the number that you exceeded the maximum fund balance was $2,630,000. So you're just kind of barely over. So you're about 36%. So really our recommendation is just look at that calculation at the— at year-end. If you are accumulating funds, those funds really need to be allocated to other funds, whether it's capital projects, whether it's your internal service funds, other funds where that money is in the future going to be spent. It needs to be moved before the end of the year into those funds. All right, so the last finding is a budgetary finding. So there were 3 funds, um, and when we talked to the audit committee, we actually said it was the IT fund, but as I went back and relooked, it's actually the Senior Citizens Fund, um, the Self— the Self-Insurance Fund, and the Facility Maintenance, uh, Internal Service Fund, uh, all exceeded budgeted appropriations. And this is a result of expenditures that come in at very year-end that really aren't planned for. So just make a note of that when you're adopting next year's budget and amending fiscal year '25's budget, that you're looking at your budget actual results, making sure that all funds are within the— within budget. And give yourself a little bit of grace. There's a lot of emphasis put on budgets, and a lot of cities and counties try to budget to the nearest, you know, $100 or $10. They want to be, you know, right there on the money that they're going to spend. But typically what happens is you're going to have a late invoice that applies back to the previous year, and then you have a budget issue because you didn't allocate or appropriate enough for that. So give yourself a little bit of a grace. Your budget really is a roadmap that you're telling the public, this is how we anticipate spending money. So it doesn't need to be an absolute assurance of if we say we're going to spend $10 million, then we're going to spend $10 million. It's more of, hey, we anticipate spending $10 million. Actually, we're going to spend $9.2 million. So if that makes sense. So just give yourself a little bit of grace. I know Brandon is quite the perfectionist. He likes to do things right, which is a good thing. But really, it's anticipating. I just had a conversation with another entity today that, you know, that they had an invoice that showed up 4 months after year-end. And they had no idea that it was coming, and it was significant. So we understand that things like that happen. So just give yourself a little bit of grace. And then, like I said, this year there were no federal award findings related to the federal programs that we tested. So with that, any questions for me?

Any questions from the council? Tom and I went through a presentation with the auditors, uh, earlier this week, so I think we're good.

Okay, we need, we need to move for approval then, correct? I move, uh, to we approve the independent audit— let's see, the annual audit and comprehensive financial reports for the year ended June 30th, 2024.

Hi.

Hi. Hi.

Hi.

Hi.

Hi.

Hi.

Okay, the audit's approved. Thank you. Okay, we're up to item 14— or I'm sorry, 10.2. Community Development Block Grant Consolidation. Uh, this will be relatively quick, and then we'll be, be moving on to the items that all of you are here for. So this is our, uh, Jenica, if you'd like to take this.

So we're here tonight to do our Didn't push it. Here tonight to do—

I'm sorry, go ahead and state your name.

Oh, I'm sorry.

You're from MAG, right?

Jessica DeLora from MAG.

Yep.

Heather Cox from Innovation and Strategy. Okay, so we're here tonight to do our first public hearing for the Community Development Block Grant 5-year Consolidated Plan. We're in the very beginning process of making that plan, and so we always want to give the public a chance to weigh in at the start. So that's what we're here to do. It'll be very quick. CDBG is federal money distributed from HUD to communities directly, and then within the parameters of the CDBG program, the city makes decisions on how those funds are spent to improve the community. So some of the, the most basic funding categories in, in the CDBG program are public facilities Um, housing activities, public services, and economic development. These are categories of activities that can be undertaken with CDBG but, um, aren't required. So it's really up to the local community to decide how to allocate funds. And then, as I mentioned, we're at the starting phase of our 5-year consolidated plan. Um, Orem City receives approximately $600,000 each year through the CDBG program. Um, and so we are creating the roadmap for how we think that should be spent over the next 5 years. Um, just as an example on past, uh, projects that have been undertaken and also some really popular uses of CDBG funds, um, sewer and water improvements in, um, income-qualified neighborhoods can be done, sidewalk improvements, um, home repair Um, homebuyer and rental assistance, um, improvements to senior centers or services to seniors, um, mental health services, youth services, code enforcement. It's a pretty good variety of activities that can be undertaken. So we're just here tonight to allow the public to weigh in on what priorities, um, they think, uh, are here in Orem for CDBG use. And we can, um, take comments tonight, but we are also, uh, Taking comments through the planning process, which will be through mid-May, and Taylor Draney at MAG is our primary contact if anyone wants to submit comments at a later time.

Did you want to open that for comments from the public then, or— okay.

Yes, that would be great.

Thank you.

Okay. Yeah, we'll just open that up to the public if there's anyone here who would like to make a comment on the CDBG funding. Okay, it looks like we don't, so we'll close the public comment, but thank you too for coming. Okay, now we're here to one of the items that most of you are here for tonight. We've got item 10.3. And this is going to be a public hearing for a proposed ordinance for Canyon Park Tech Center redevelopment. Enact Section 22-11-67, PD 54, Canyon Park Tech Center Redevelopment Zone, and Appendix AAA of the Orem City Code, and amend Article 22-5-3A and the zoning map of the City of Orem by changing the zone of approximately 24.3 acres from the PD-6 zone to the PD-54 zone, located generally at 1203 North, 630 East. We'll start this with, um, Jared Hall from the city, who will introduce this and bring us up to date on where we're at on this project. No, no.

I apologize. It's a long way up here tonight.

Okay, that should—

And most of what is on this first slide is what you just read, Mayor, so I'll spare us the rereading of all the details. But the, um, the important thing to note is that this is, uh, this is a, a request to change that zone that exists in this location from the PD-6, where it's a technology park currently, to a PRD zone, which will allow some housing. We'll go over some of those items real quickly.

This was—

and the applicant is here tonight to present some of the materials as well. So I'm going to go through the staff items relatively quickly and leave time for the applicant and then for questions.

Thank you.

Questions from the— and comments from the public. This property is the tech park that you can see there. The zoning is PD-6. The line of that project goes right there past that diagonal building. The request is to change that to a PRD zone that would be effectively PD-54. And that would allow housing units. This project was at the Planning Commission and City Council previously. And was continued and sent back, remanded back to the Planning Commission to have adjustments made to the site plan, the concept plan that goes with that change of zoning. It's a little unique, the PRD zones, the way they work. They present an application to change the zoning and amend the text of ordinance. That's why that explanation in the, in the first slide is so long, to change not just the zone, but the text that goes with it and supports a plan. So a plan is presented as well. The description of the zoning did not change, but the applicant's concept plan has been modified from 150 units in the previous iteration to 108 units in this instance. I'll let you see some of that here. There's about half an acre of open space included in this. You can see that in this park here. There would be a homeowners association. These are all single-family detached homes. detached lots. So there are lots that would support single-family homes. There's no attached housing like townhouses in this project as it's presented here. And again, as I said, it's down to 108 units. The— sorry, moving on from that, I'll let the applicant show his slides related to this. But the Planning Commission reviewed this at November 6th at a public hearing on November 6th, and they did vote at that meeting to approve the application. forward a recommendation of denial to the City Council for this iteration as well, which was their previous action on the first version of this plan as well.

And what was the vote?

7-0, if I remember correctly. I'm going to look that up in a minute, but I believe it was 7-0. So it was unanimous anyway, whether it was 6-0, 7-0, I'm sorry, but it was unanimous to recommend denial. And Brian Prince is here for TriPointe Homes. I will try to— we're trying to see if I can get his slides he's got prepared ready for you to see. So I'll try that.

That'll work.

So while I get that going, I can do more than one thing at once every once in a while. So if you have any questions while I'm pulling this up, please feel free.

I have a question. Is there visitor parking anywhere? You have a park, you have green space.

There is no official visitor parking located here. It would be— these are all single-family lots, so you would assume 2-car garages and 2-car driveways at least. But there's no separate visitor parking included in this proposal.

And do you have anything that shows the footprint of the house and the setbacks from the side yards?

I do not. Not in the, not in the applicant's materials. Um, we can assume some things, but we don't have—

Are you going to address that? Then I'll wait for your presentation.

I'll let Mr. Prince do that. Sorry, 1 moment. Is the drive better than this?

Yeah, let me see.

That's going to take a minute.

Good evening, everybody.

I'm Zach Hartman with Land Advisors. I'm the consultant that Mueller hired to repurpose the property. And going through the, you know, through this process that we've gone through in a couple public meetings, I'm just going to address some questions we've had that are more about the market and about the process and the current office environment, and then I'll hand it off to Brian and to the Mueller Group.

So I thought—

sorry, I'm getting used to someone else's computer. So if you look at this, you know, you're typically, you know, you've got Utah County in the blue and then you've got Orem in the red. And over 10 years, you know, consistently Orem has absorbed, you know, less office space than Utah County as a whole, which should make sense. The smaller area, right, it's more developed area. But if you look at the direct vacancy over a 10-year period, and that's like a golf score, right, you want that number to be low. And so as you see that every year the vacancy grows, um, both in Utah County and in Orem, and you know, it gets to be a major problem, about 20%. Because even if you're a dentist that worked for 40 years and you own an office building and you've got a mortgage that's about paid off or a low-leverage mortgage and it's a big part of your investment and you're a small office owner, eventually you can't cover debt service beyond that 20% vacancy, right? And so to answer questions from the Planning Commission, I think one was, why should we care? Or we don't care. I can't remember the phrase. Um, I think even if you didn't like us You could, like, you know, the other citizens in Orem that own office buildings, and this would be a reasonable thing to consider, that that's a negative environment for any office owner, right?

Oh, sorry.

Another thing to look at is the base square footage. Um, one of the comments we got was we don't want to lose our office Park. And I think if you look at Orem, Orem's had a pretty steady trend, 10-year trend, of having the same base for square footage as an office that's available in the market. Utah County's grown consistently. If you look at the weighted lease rates, that's really not a fair number. We're below that in the market. And then also, it doesn't account for concessions and build-out and things that are given away to get deals done today. So it's a little more depressed than that. I like putting the numbers off to the side so you can just see what— when I say absorption, right? So if you look at this, every year you're kind of absorbing, meaning tenants are coming into the market and they're taking up vacant space up until about 2023. And then you've got these big negative numbers that start to jump, right? And that's where it starts to get a little bit alarming from a market perspective. Direct vacancies—

Just out of curiosity, is most of that office space Utah County is the most at, the Lehi corridor?

So Utah County as a whole, we took— that's in the Utah County, and I would say probably, probably not, because a lot of that has what we call dark and sublet space that we don't really have good data on what— where that's at. We just have like tenant moved out. But, and we'll—

but there's a—

but that's a big part that's in trouble also, and that has more to do with the tech industry and with the office industry. So it's like a one punch, right?

Okay.

I'm just curious if that— maybe because that's where most of the big new offices have been showing up, is out along that corridor.

That's, that's where your growth numbers are coming from, and that's where you guys are kind of flat on the growth side. But even with that, you guys— Orem as a whole has a much higher vacancy rate, right? So there's a, there's a delta in underperforming the rest of the county, right?

Okay, thanks.

Sure.

This is just—

I like to see the numbers. Like, we're talking 7 million square feet versus 19 million square feet, right, for your base. And we don't need to really go through that again. All right, so this is the— I always thought, like, I like to understand, like, what is the result of a decision, right? Like, does it really matter, right? Why should we care? Those kind of questions. And I think this is pretty interesting. So currently, you know, if you're looking at Orem office vacancy, you're at 16% vacant today, right? Tonight you guys say no, right? It jumps at the first of the year because we lose a major tenant, right? Um, tonight, just our project— this doesn't count anything else going on in the city— it jumps to 19.7%, right? Now take a different approach. You say, and the county as a goes from 12 to 14, so you affect the county as well. Now say we go a different direction and you say yes to this proposal tonight, it goes from 16 to 12. That's a much better number. And when you're looking at that from an investor's perspective, from a new company coming to Orem to someone trying to reinvest in a current company that exists here, that goes from being alarming and scary to kind of positive, right? We actually— we move the needle on the decision here tonight in your office market, right? And I just— we haven't done a great job about talking about that because we didn't think—

we just kept hearing these recurring questions.

So I just wanted to take a minute and go through this.

Do you have a tenant paying for some dark space now? Is that what you're saying?

Yeah.

And that lease expires the end of the year?

First— it's just like first month of the—

I think it's—

That's, that's close enough. Within a month or 2.

Thank you.

Is that in this subject property area? The, the PD area that we're addressing right now?

I'll let, I'll let Moeller walk through it, but our furthest southern building has been vacant for 7 years.

Okay.

And the next building has been vacant since COVID but they've been paying rent. And so, and that goes dark, dark, right? And so that's hard. Um, I've already gone through this. I'm going to be trying to be quick. All right. We also heard in a bunch of meetings that Orem has done their best on the housing side, that you've approved more projects than anyone. I would say on the single-family for-sale side, that's not true, because if you look at your downward trajectory on permits issued— and this comes from your, um, from Orem City, this isn't our data— um, that's a pretty poor track record for delivering single-family housing, right? So that's not an award-winning performance, and it's not that difficult. 50 houses is not hard, right? So, and, you know, so we'll more than double your output. And then, and we can—

May I ask you a question? What's your definition of single-family housing?

A house that is not attached to another house, single-family detached housing.

So rented or owner-occupied is not included in—

It's not into that. But in today's market, the for-rent side doesn't make money. It's worse than off Okay. So for sale, you can survive, you can exit. For rent, it just costs too much to build a house, costs too much to buy the land, costs too much to— and the cost of capital to rent it, like to get a loan and then rent it to another person, there's just no— it's not financially feasible right now.

Okay.

Um, this is an interesting chart, and I— it was awesome you were doing the budget tonight because I would imagine with declining population in the city that your budget gets harder and harder every year. And as that, you know, it looks like it's an accelerating trend.

It actually hasn't gotten harder and harder every year, and we're not in decline.

Perfect.

We're actually very stable. We've got AAA bond rating. We're one of the few cities in the, in the county that does.

I would love—

I loved how you had the surplus in every bit, right? Like, that's a great story, but you have to admit, any declining pop— any declining Declining population for any economic model is challenging. It's not typically— and it's— but it is, it is the challenge.

I admit that. I just don't go along with the premise that we're a declining city because we're not.

I didn't say declining. Declining population does not mean declining city.

Either challenge either one.

All right, I'm— my point is, you know, it's not an upward trend.

Yeah, I've got a different population. I've seen a different Population numbers.

So perfect, we love that. Okay, like we just pull it where we get it, right? And but it wasn't skyrocketing, right? So it's something for us to put.

To the mayor's point, and we are, and we are aging as a country. Good.

Yeah, and we are aging as a country.

Bond ratings.

Yeah.

Anyway, I'll let, uh, turn my time over to the Mohler Company. I just want to address a couple questions that we really felt like we hadn't answered, so Thanks.

I don't have any slides. I'm gonna stand up here because otherwise you might not be able to see me. But my name is Steve Santa Croce. I'm with the Mueller Company. We are the owners and also the manager of Canyon Park. And I just wanted to kind of give you— come over and give you guys a brief sort of history. what our vision was, our acquisition, what our vision is, and how we've had to make some adjustments to that. So we bought the property in 2018, February of 2018. I can't believe it's going to be almost 7 years. And when we bought the property, one of the things that attracted us to it, it's one of our first acquisitions in the state of Utah. And we loved the unique nature of the property, the campus setting, the spread-out office park, the beautiful setting that it was in, surrounded by, you know, the mountains with great views. If you're in an office, I know whenever I go visit our management office, it's hard for me to get any work done because I'm just looking out at the mountains and people jogging along the trails and everything. And just the fact that it was such a well-integrated park with the community surrounding it. You know, starting from when it was built as the WordPerfect campus, it's just, it fits really well within the city of Orem and with the neighbors. Buying the property, we knew going in we had a big challenge. It was at the time just under 1 million square feet, and that's a pretty sizable office park when you consider the total size of the Orem office market. We knew going in that In order to be successful, we were going to have to draw tenants not just from within the city of Orem, but also from the Utah County, and as a matter of fact, the entire state and maybe even larger companies wanting to move from out of state. And that was our plan going in. We've— since we've bought the property, we've actually, besides our purchase price, we've invested Just over $23 million into the property. We spent just under $10 million on amenities and capital improvements, including in our— where our offices are, Building M. We have a gathering area and a gymnasium called the Hub, which a lot of members of the community— we've also made it available from time to time. And also the outdoor area. That we call the Yard, which is also an amenity area with a lot of activities out there that we do ourselves. We open it up to the community for various events. We've allowed various community organizations to use that as well. And then we've spent, other than that, on the capital side, we've done things like maintain the roads, the lighting, you know, and obviously done improvements to the buildings. improvements to the property that were needed— roofs, you know, all that HVAC, all that kind of stuff that comes with running an office building. And then we've also spent, in addition to that, roughly $14 million in leasing the property. And this is for tenant improvements, putting tenants into the property, um, and just leasing costs. We've always felt that it was important with any property we own, and specifically with Canyon Park to be an integral part of the community that we're located within. And to that regard, we really go out of our way to, to be a part of the community, to be a good neighbor. We've participated in the Summerfest every year, and for the past 3 years we've hosted the VIP dinner. We support and attend the UVU Gala every year. We open up property for the use of the police and fire department. The police department, as a matter of fact, they were there today doing some training, and I think they've been there, uh, my property manager told me, 17 times this year doing training. So almost twice a month right now. The fire department hosts their annual banquet there. Um, neighboring communities, the Da Vinci HOA hosts their HOA meeting at our property. Donations. I have a list from our property manager. I'm not going to read it, but we are constantly donating back to the community. Book drives, libraries, Boys and Girls Club, food banks, you know, and I could put together a pretty good list. Going back to the leasing of the property, you know, we knew it was going to be a challenge going in. The larger tenants that we were hoping to get just never materialized. You know, we, we work with our brokers to be competitive with the rest of the market. As you pointed out, there's been a lot of development north of us, and those— it was a lot harder than we anticipated attracting those larger tenants to the spaces we have. We did sell 2 of the buildings. One was already in escrow when we bought the property, and that was to Unicity, a user. And then we sold the other one to a user that was not in escrow. Sold a small property to a developer who's building office condos, but even he's having trouble reselling his office condominiums. And then of course COVID hit, and that caused a major shift in the office market and the usage of office space. And a perfect example is the one that Zach was talking about, which is Wayfair, which is in one of the 2 buildings that are part of the property being They're in 50,000 square feet. They— we literally did a renewal and expansion with them, gave them like $1 million to fix up their space right before COVID and they went dark during COVID and told us they weren't coming back. So that building has been sitting dark now since COVID They have been paying their rent. They're a large national company. So they have been paying the rent, but their lease is up in January. So we're going to have that whole section of the campus, 290,000 square feet, is going to be vacant. Building Q, the other building that's part of that, as Zach pointed out, it's been empty since we bought the property. So, you know, we've had to reevaluate our business plan. And revisit our strategy on what we're going to do with the property. In addition to COVID, the capital market disruption has also created some significant challenges both for us and for tenants coming in. For us, obviously, interest rates have skyrocketed, so our loan lending costs, our borrowing costs have gone way up in terms of operating the property. Our interest rates have skyrocketed. rocketed, and that travels through to our tenants. As you know, it's a technology park, so a lot of the tenants we attract are startups, and these startups, a lot of them rely on venture capital funding because they're not profitable when they first start. So they're getting infusions of capital to develop their business. Unfortunately, a lot of that venture capital has also disappeared because the returns that those venture capital companies now need, just don't pencil to fund these startups. So the tenants have struggled because they can't get the money they need. We've struggled from both our financing costs. And in addition to that, rents have stayed relatively flat, come down slightly if you look at effective rents. And what I mean by that is landlords will ask a certain rate, $20 a square foot, But they'll usually give concessions like free rent and helping a tenant move in, and that reduces your effective rent. So even though you might see a chart that shows effective rents or market asking rents flat, effective rents have come down because landlords are giving more concessions. So while rents kind of— the effective rents are kind of declining, costs to build out space have continued to grow and costs to The, you know, COVID spurred a supply chain crisis, which still we haven't recovered from. We all know about inflation that's been going on. So basically, we've got rents flat or coming down, and we've got costs continuing to go up. So one of the comments I know has been, why don't you guys just, you know, why don't you just lower your rents to attract more tenants?

There's 2 issues with that.

One is, if we did that, you know, we look at our competition. And when we— when I say our competition, I'm talking about the type of class of office building that we have at Canyon Park, Class A office that you see up the Lehigh Corridor, that we want— we compete with those tenants. We're not a concrete tilt-up office building, uh, or industrial building. And yeah, if, if we lowered the rents to those levels, maybe we'd get more, you know, more tenants, but they're not the type of tenants we would want at Canyon Park. And I don't think they're the type of tenants that the community would want at Canyon Park either, nor would our existing tenants be very happy with that. And as their leases came up, you know, you start a downward spiral if you start trying to do that. The other issue with that is the deals just stopped making economic sense, as I pointed out. We've got rents flattening out, but all of our costs are still the same or actually going up. So at a certain point, and compounded with that, we typically for these type of tenants try to do 5 to 7 year leases because of the market uncertainties. Tenants don't want to sign long-term leases. They want to keep their options open. So we're looking at doing— most tenants want to do a 3 year lease. So you look at the rents we're going to get, the effective rent for a 3-year lease, and you look at the cost to put that tenant in there to build out his space has gone way up. The cost to operate that space has gone way up. If we start to drop those rents, literally we don't make our money back from that lease. And there are, you know, in worse examples in cities like LA or San Francisco, there are landlords literally keeping their buildings empty. Because they— it would cost them money to put tenants into that space. So with that in mind, we had to revisit our plan. And one of the things we realized was that as the demand for office space is declining, the demand for residential housing is increasing. And we looked at our property. And we realized that we did have this portion, 24 acres, that was in the lower part of the campus that was vacant or about to be vacant. The way it laid out with the large parking, open parking field, it was a good sort of fit for a future residential development. The northern part of the campus where our management office is and the remainder Those properties are very well occupied. Well, they're occupied. They're not— we'd like to see more, and we're hoping to get more. But we have those properties also have spaces that are smaller size, 5,000, 7,000 square feet, which is what the market is kind of looking for right now. So what we tried to do is come up with a balance so that we could right-size the whole project. Because we develop— we're office developers. We build and manage office properties. We invest in office properties. That's what we do. That's what we want to continue to do. But we realized that we had to do is look at Canyon Park and say, how can we continue to maintain this as a viable office complex for the community? And we're going to be left with about 580,000 square feet. It's not a small property. And so we have that property remaining that we can now focus on managing. It lowers by selling the property, it reduces our loan basis on almost 300,000 square feet of empty buildings. So now that gives us the money to continue to lease up the property we have and operate an office Park that I know the community wants as well. And we definitely believe in Canyon Park. We still love it. Every time I come out here, I love it. We want to continue to build it and to grow Canyon Park. We want to continue to invest in Canyon Park, but it has to make sense for us. We can't throw good money after bad. By working this plan, you know, we think we're doing that. From day 1, before we even brought in anyone to market the property for us, we brought in our own consultants. We met with members of the city council and planning commission, you know, frequently. And we were aware from day 1 of the concerns of the surrounding communities, you know, the desire not to have an excess of density, access, traffic, etc. We did traffic studies. We did a bunch of research to try to come up with concepts that would balance both the need for housing as well as the concerns of the surrounding community. The first buyer we had in, which is the largest homebuilder in Utah, Edge Development, you know, we thought that they could put together something that would work. They didn't. And we were We were not pleased at all with what they came through with. They kind of— we showed them what we had put together. They didn't want to listen to us. They wanted to do what they wanted to do, and we know what that result was. And, you know, we were not happy about that. But with Brian and TriPointe, we think we've brought in a group that is more aligned with what our vision was for doing residential in that portion of the property, and that also tries to meet the needs. And we realize we're not going to ever be able to please everyone, but we really have fought hard to try to design something to meet the needs of and the concerns of the community, to balance out the entire park so that we can continue to operate our office property and to provide the housing, you know, that, that in the bigger city of Orem. There is a demand for, and we, we think we've come up with that plan. We started at 150 units. We heard the response to that. We've scaled that down to 108. And, you know, we think we've tried as well as we could to address the concerns both of the City Council and, and our neighbors. So, um, with that, before— I know Brian wants to come up and talk more about the development, but I'm happy to take any questions on, you know, our involvement and Canyon Park. Nothing?

Okay.

Well, no, I don't have a question. I just have a comment because we're going to go into the public part of this when you guys are done. But I mean, as I listen to you, I understand commercial office has all kinds of issues right now, right? And your park here in Orem has issues. And a lot of those are beyond your control. You know, you've got high interest rates, you've got a really poor private equity market right now. So that's all. And I know there's been some debate on that, but I would, I would agree with you that, you know, you're in a difficult space as far as commercial real estate right now. So I get that. Um, but where I think there's a huge gap, and I think we'll hear more about that, is from all your neighbors. Because as I'm getting emails up the wazoo, um, I've got 1 out of probably 150 emails in favor of your current project.

Mm-hmm.

And so as a city council, that's a problem. And so you've got a problem, your neighbors have a situation they want to avoid. If there's a way to come together and, and do something more like what we suggested last time you guys were here, I think you'd have a lot more luck. But I just want to put that out there.

Okay, thank you. Appreciate that.

Evening, Council. Brian Prince, Pride Pointe Homes. Appreciate the time tonight. Uh, Jared, thanks for, uh, working through that. Um, and I want to thank every— I've had the opportunity to talk to most of you individually. I want to thank you for the time you've provided, the feedback you provided while we kind of reprogrammed our vision here. Um, maybe jump to that cover.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for that first slide. A lot of it's been hit on tonight, but I think it's— before we jump into the design, I wanted to point out kind of Zach and Steve hit on the context of the situation and maybe the context of the proposal. As we all know, Utah County has gone through 10 to 20 years of strong growth, economic growth, job growth, Population, household formation, and that's had an impact on housing.

Right?

And and after the Great Recession, the home builder community has never really caught up with the demand, particularly in Utah County, because of you know a larger percentage of that population growth and economic growth is here relative to other areas of the state. And that, as you all know, you've heard about the housing deficit and the housing shortage. more demand than supply, has impacted most communities along the Wasatch Front. And it's impacted these communities in different ways. And so I think it's important to kind of identify how that's impacted Orem in particular relative to other communities that have other challenges and that are in different stages of that urban growth cycle, right? I mean, what's happening in Orem is different than what's happening in Spanish Fork and Lehi and other areas. So maybe jump to that next slide. I mean, it's already been hit on, kind of the urban cycle that Orem's going through. And, you know, it has a population that is maybe aging and going through a cycle. Um, um, that of, of not decline, but a population that is not growing at the pace it was. And that presents certain challenges. Maybe keep jumping there, Jared, to the next slide here. On top of that, like was pointed out, maybe zoom out a little bit. Just because you're an older city, there's just fewer opportunities for, for builders to add new homes to to Orem. And that's not your fault. You've been growing and have been a city for many, many decades. And so this is a graph that shows last year in 2023, all the single-family, all the home building permits that were issued throughout Utah County. And Orem accounts for about 1% of that, about 50 units, 50 permits last year. And I think that's, that's just a practical challenge that Orem has, that most of your city is built out. And so it's, it's been very difficult for builders to, uh, add additional homes to Orem City or replace older housing stock with new homes to meet the needs of Orem families. And so this is the kind of— this is the, the disconnect that that you're seeing in the real estate market and families that are looking to find a home in Orem, move back to Orem. These are the kind of the macroeconomics of an aging community where that's going through that cycle, a housing stock that's getting older but relatively expensive for the condition of that home. There's a lot of older homes that are at a higher price. And so, what's made it challenging for Orem families is they're looking at these options saying, yeah, there's this 1960s mid-century home or 1970s split house that I can buy for $500,000, but I got to put another $100,000 into it. And it's just a challenging dynamic because there's just— the builder community hasn't been able to keep pace and add the housing stock to meet the needs. And so that— the point of me saying that is that has been taken into consideration as we've come— as, you know, following that August City Council hearing, we got the direction to try points direction. The feedback we got from you as a council was come back with something different as it relates to density and take into consideration the transition of land use from the west to the east. We want to see some kind of transition Some type of buffer. But beyond that, I want you to know that we, we've worked with Mueller and worked with a lot of consultants to understand in the redesign what is the real buyer, what is the homeowner that we're really targeting. Here, jump to the next slide.

Can.

So I wanted to, before we jump into the design, wanted to give a quick overview because I get asked, maybe zoom out a little bit. I get asked a lot about, you know, who is the buyer we're pursuing. So like Jared mentioned, we went from 150 to 108 lots, and this big disconnect in housing availability and pricing does make it challenging for homebuilders to deliver a quality move-up home that meets demand at a price that's attainable. And some of the big disconnect is When we quote $600,000, $700,000 price points, for all of us that bought homes 20 years ago, that doesn't feel affordable because it isn't.

But it—

but that is kind of the new normal for a quality single-family home in this community based on the challenges of land values, cost to build, labor, etc. And so the target buyer for this Canyon Park community Looking at the data, 58% of this of the buyer demographic we're looking at is three plus you know person household. These are families, and they're young. They're on average older families. Forty almost a little over forty percent are over fifty five. So it's a mix of larger older school kind of school age families, and then that that fifty five plus maybe empty nester demographic. that have the means and the desire to move back to Orem or stay in this community that would be looking for a better housing solution.

Now, how did you—

how did you—

where did you get this demographic information?

So this is— it comes from consultants that we hire that look at housing trends, homebuyer survey data that's out there, that—

And they told you this is what they think your type of housing product will This is—

so this is me backing up saying if we're going to redesign the community, we've got to have a very clear intention on the buyer, the realistic buyer that is out there. So we don't want to design something that doesn't meet the needs.

Okay, so you feel like you're targeting this demographic that you've listed?

We believe this is the buyer that is looking, that is actively looking to find a place here in Orem, right?

Thank you.

So in the context of the design of the community, higher income, you know, and then, you know, a big percentage of these folks have older, you know, maybe older kids, but school-age families. So the kind of the average family profile, the family that's looking to— looking for a home, looking to move back to Orem, it's a family that has owned a home, has some equity, is in a spot where location is a big deal. They're looking to be close to aging parents, other family members, workplaces, amenities, and they have some equity to afford that $600,000 to $700,000, $800,000 home. Location is a primary driver because they could clearly buy more house in another market, in a more affordable market. And again, these are, these are people that are driven to be in the community where they grew up or where they have family members. Jump to the next slide. So this, that kind of sets some context to the buyer where we think is going to be looking and interested in living here. This is an overview of that redesign. A lot of this Jared already hit on, so I want to be brief with my time, maybe jump to that next slide. So this, just to give it as a reminder for those that weren't here maybe last time in August, this is the plan that we presented in August. It had 150 lots. That average lot size was much smaller, about 6 lots per acre. And that next slide shows what we've submitted after a few months of work. So it went from 150 to 108 lots. And I'll just talk through some of the big changes that were made there. Next slide. Like I mentioned, a big request was have along that western boundary Some, some type of buffer transition of lot sizing. So the lots along the west are all above 10,000 square feet. And that's a minimum. There's some that are larger than that, up into a 3rd acre. And so the intent of that design is to have a more moderate transition from the existing neighborhood to the west. That range— those lots, the homes to the west of this property range from 10,000 to 12,000 to 15,000 square foot lots to, as you move north, as you know, into much larger acre-plus lots. And so this western side has much bigger lots than what was in the original plan. Jump to the next slide. In addition to that, we wanted to provide a lot more diversity, so a mix of lots, lot sizing, which allows us to offer offer a mix of floor plan sizes. So what this means is if this is to be built out, there would be a much more diverse of home sizes, large to smaller in size. So the red are those larger, on average, quarter-acre lots. So a third— or sorry, a quarter of the lots in this new design are in that range. And then the blue is that smaller to 6,000 to 8,000 square for the lot size. So a better mix, a better diverse mix of lot sizes and thus home sizes. Jump to the next slide. In talking with a lot of the residents, I've, you know, one thing that we've done no shortage of is talking and reaching out to the neighbors and talking to the constituents about this redesign. And one of the questions that came up was, well, So you've put these 10,000 square foot lots along the west side, but how big are those? What does that really mean? And I've— people have referenced the— what is, I think, Mountain Grove subdivision, and this is that little subdivision that was developed a few years ago next to the high school. So the average lot size in this plat is 10,900. So this is a good comparable. These lot sizes in Mountain Grove subdivision Mountain Grove subdivision. Down there in the bottom right corner, you can see the subject property where the star is relative to this subdivision I'm referencing next to the high school. So the lots in that subdivision on average are the same size as the lots that we've put in and intermixed within here to offer a bigger mix of lots. And that— this slide is just intended to give you— give residents here and you as a council some context to the size of the lots that we've added there. This just gives you an overview. There was in the August hearing, there was a heat map that was presented showing densities that it really wasn't very— it wasn't accurate necessarily as far as the actual lot sizing relative to what we're presenting. So this just shows you a kind of a summary of lot average lot sizes. surrounding the subject property. So immediately to the west along 1200, those subdivisions range from 10,000 to 12,000 to 15,000 square feet. And as you move north, you get into, you know, as you know, a subdivision that's much larger. On average, these are over an acre in size. And then to the east of us in Da Vinci, Strawberry Fields, and Abbey Road, Those range in, you know, about 7,600 to, you know, pad lot subdivision that have, you know, 3,000 square foot pads, but not really defined lot lines. The point in showing this to you is, I think what we've come back with is a good mix of what is both to the west and to the east. We have larger lots, smaller lots, both incorporate Comparable lot sizes that you see to the east, as well as see the west. We— but I, you know, I recognize the limits we have in our ability to have— You know, it's extremely difficult to come back and say we're going to offer acre lots. That's just really challenging to do due to the cost to redevelop the site and the cost of home construction. But I think I think this new design does a good job of balancing, uh, you know, having complementary lot sizes to the west as well to the east. Um, another big question that came up after that August hearing from a lot of residents was trying to understand what TriPointe's vision was for homes and the product. And one of the big disconnects that I saw was Tri-Pointe is a, a move-up semi-custom builder, and what that means— we're a production builder, but every homeowner will have the opportunity to come into a model home, select a floor plan, and go through a design experience. And I think that's important to know because we're not a mass-spec production builder. Every homeowner will come in and, and go through a design experience to pick the floor plan And design the home that goes on the lot. And that's important because it produces a really thoughtful community design at the end. So these are just— these are photos of other TriPointe homes to give you an example of this, of the architectural styles and themes that we're envisioning here. As you can see here, very traditional architecture that I think is a complement to the existing surrounding neighbors. That's another streetscape of TriPointe homes that give you an example of the architectural styles we envision. There was a question about— some questions about, as we've stuck with the ordinance that we proposed, this PD ordinance, but the only change is, as Jared mentioned is we didn't change the draft ordinance. We stuck with that stated ordinance. We just made the lots bigger. And so the question is, what did that do to the context of the homes we're looking to build? And so I have 2 exhibits here that show a scaled concept for the, for the larger lots. And then for the smaller lots, for both products, because we're We're really showing you a subdivision that has a mix of larger and smaller lots. So this is an example of— so we've taken the, the average lot size, those 10,000-square-foot lots, and placed the actual footprint of the proposed architecture, the footprint of the home, and showing where that home would sit in the context of these larger lots and the setbacks that are in that ordinance. So you see These homes all have 2 to 3 car garages, full-length driveways, ample space on the street for on-street parking and in the driveway. Again, as we've discussed, these are city standard roads and plenty of space for on-street parking and in the driveway parking. So that was the question that came up. This is showing Maybe jump back to that slide really quick. So this shows kind of the context of, of where the home will sit on the, on the lot relative to the spacing between the homes and the backyard spaces. And those, those homebuyers will have the opportunity to, to select the floor plan, identify where they want it placed on the lot, where that driveway is, program that backyard space. It's a very custom experience they go through. Next slide.

Are your side— what are your side setbacks? Are they 4 feet?

Yes.

Yeah.

So again, we didn't change. So for a little bit of a, you know, stepping back for the audience, we submitted this PD ordinance 6 months ago, and we just ran with the PRD standard language and stuck with those. Setbacks. We didn't change that because we didn't want to modify the application, start over. All we did was we made the lots bigger, so the setbacks are— have not changed.

So are you sticking with the PRD of a limit of 2 levels? Are you doing a 2nd story with a basement at times?

So it's the same as what was presented in August, and that would allow a basement in the home. And so I'll move briefly here. This is just another— this is showing you on the smaller lots where the homes would sit. Plenty of space in the backyard, even in between driveways, plenty of space for on-street and in the driveway parking. Big question about— there's obviously a lot of trees on the property. And so we had an arborist and a consultant go out and look at the trees. look at the subdivision design and where those roads and homes would sit. And this is just showing— this was a big question that came up of, you know, there's a lot of trees. And I was very honest about the fact that a lot of the trees would have to be removed and be replaced. We have a plan and CC&Rs that would require a new tree every 25 feet in the park strip. So in the subdivision, about 300 New trees will be planted. But above and beyond that, this is an exhibit shows the trees that we would anticipate being able to be preserved that are on the out perimeter of, um, along the east, south, and west side of the property. So there's about 88 trees that we feel strongly we can preserve, um, that are just on the edges, in addition to the trees that we'll plant through the construction of the subdivision.

Um, Next slide.

This is an example. There were a lot of questions about— this is Research Way looking north. There's a long row of trees along in that park strip. We're obviously not going to touch that sidewalk and park strip. All those trees would be preserved. Another big question that came up that I think was a big confusion in the August hearing was the city road. There was a lot of questions about, is there enough On-street parking. These are these teeny roads. This is your city standard road. And so this is a scaled exhibit showing the width of that road, which is about 38 feet from curb to curb. 8-foot park strips, 5-foot sidewalks, and then you've got, in addition to that, 20 feet. So a very traditional Orem subdivision as it relates to the city standard road and where those homes will sit relative to the road. This is just an aerial rendering showing that scale dimension of, of your city standard road. And I thought I'd give you a couple quick examples. Carrera Villas is a subdivision just north of the high school. This is an example of, of the road standard that would be built in this subdivision. So this is a kind of a— it's just showing a photo of here's the road in an adjacent neighborhood. This is the same road. width and standard that would be built in Canyon Park. Another one, Cascade Estates, which is a well-known newer neighborhood there next to Harmon's. So you can jump to the next slide. Just got a few other slides and I'll wrap it up here. There's a lot of questions about our proposal versus an R-8. And we've— I've talked to a lot of you about Um, and want to be very transparent about the 2 options. Um, our proposal, 108 lots, R-8 would, would, you know, your standard R-8 would produce about 90 lots. Um, and there have been a lot of questions about ADUs. I've got a lot of residents call me and say, I don't like this because it's dense, it's 4 lots an acre, but then there's going to be ADUs and it's going to be hundreds of people. And, and I think that's a misconception. And I've had to clarify that in the, in the PRD ordinance, ADUs are not allowed. In the R-8, there would, you know, there would be 90 lots, but the potential to have ADUs in that standard subdivision. And so there's pros and cons to that. Our lot, you know, our home sizes would range from 45 feet wide, the home, to 70 feet wide. So there'd be a little more diversity in home sizes. sizes, and in R-8, they're going to be pretty defined to be about 50 to 60 feet wide. Um, you can jump to the next slide. Um, TriPoint does an incredible job of investing and, and, and targeting a full-time resident, and one way that we do that is we, um, in our contracts, uh, restrict sales to investors. And beyond the sale and the construction of the home, we'll record CC&Rs in a community that not only, like Jared mentioned, maintain the private park, enforce landscaping standards and maintenance, but restrict rentals and ensure that there's primary residents that really are owning and living in those homes. And that's just a question that I've got a lot. Tri Pointe is a newer homebuilder to the Utah market, but we're, we're an award-winning builder that builds a move-up quality product, received many awards over the years, particularly in the last several years, 5 years, being Builder of the Year nationally. awards for our architecture, community design features, as a company admired as being a great place to work and live. And so, um, I know that this will be a beautiful neighborhood. It is definitely a change. Change is not easy in any circumstance, but I think this will— this new design provides a, a better mix of lot sizing and home sizing that ultimately will produce a more organic streetscape when it's all said and done and provide a homeownership opportunity for those families that are looking to stay in Orem or move back to Orem. With that, happy to answer any questions. Allow me the last slide, um, about TriPointe. You know, we're not a local company, but everybody that works for TriPointe here in Utah is local, born and raised. We're a local leadership team that have years and decades of experience. So I want you to know that I think there's been some concerns about TriPointe not being, you know, maybe our headquarters isn't here, but our team here are people that live in the community, local folks that know how to build quality communities and have been doing it for years. With that, happy to answer any questions you have about this new design.

Do we have any questions?

Jen?

We have that are, that are starting but not completed. So I don't have community subdivisions that are completed that we can walk down.

Anything else? Okay.

Would love the opportunity to answer any questions that may come up from, from the audience. Thank you.

Okay. All right, we'll go ahead and open this up to a public hearing. We're going to try and do this as organized as we can. And as many of you know, we want all of you to be able to be heard that want to be heard. We do have a disadvantage tonight, and then we've got another similar-sized project that's as controversial that is going to happen after this. So yeah, what I'd like you guys to do is if, if you'd line up over on this side, everyone that would like to speak. Um, I'd, I'd like you to try and hold whatever you've got to say, uh, to 2 minutes if possible. And, um, but yeah, go ahead and line up. We'll let this go on for probably, um, about 40 minutes or so. And, uh, like I said, maybe talk amongst yourself, and if you've got similar things, I don't know, just kind of organize yourself. the best you can to get your message to us.

So I was thinking I'd go last, but you can if you like. I will lose the will to live if I have to sit for 40 minutes. So, uh, I, I'm sensitive to the fact that I have a lot of colleagues here behind me. Uh, my name is—

We'll go ahead and start.

Okay.

Yeah, my name's, my name's Kareem Clark. Uh, Mayor, nice to see you again. Tom, thank you for taking my call. Jen, thanks for reaching out to me. Um, I live west of the technology park, Old Orchard Estates. By the way, they're not 10,000 square foot lots. It's 40+ acres with 33 homes. So they're all about an acre except for Bruce's property. I've been in Orem for 40 years. And, um, most people don't know that in Old Orchard Estates, we pay to maintain our trees ourselves. We pay for the mow strips and we pay to maintain the perimeter of the property. We've enjoyed a great relationship with Canyon Park. I'm also— my day job, I'm the CEO of First Colony Mortgage. If you haven't heard of First Colony Mortgage, 40-year-old company built in Utah County, $3 billion in sales this year. 75% of the homes that have mortgages in Utah come through First Colony Mortgage. I'm also the chairman of the board for the Governor's Office of Economic Development, so I work really hard to make sure we We have incentives to help businesses get here. I'm also one of the founding members of Silicon Slopes and still on the board. So we work really closely with tech companies to try to make sure that we raise all the boats in Utah. So hopelessly devoted to Orem. Everybody wants me to live in Alpine.

I live in Orem.

Um, we understand that Canyon Park, they made a bet. To invest in this property. I love that property. I had 3 businesses there. And it didn't work out the way they wanted. Totally get that. We also understand that this piece of property is probably the largest, last big piece of property in Orem. And so, while we do believe that eventually there needs to be housing there, this project doesn't make sense for our community. These are multimillion-dollar estates, and we feel strongly about that.

Thank you.

Park strip. So it's not on this plan. There's a little half acre of grass. It's, it's almost offensive considering the park strip that's there. And those trees are more than 30 years old. Those trees are not going to survive when they start constructing that. And by the way, if you look at the plat for the city, that strip of parkland is a 16-foot public easement that I was here when the technology Ecology Park came in, and it was a big issue then. So we had the same kind of a hearing. And so now they want to get back to housing. I totally get that, but we want to protect that, that park strip. We want to make sure that the houses make sense, that they match our community. If you look at Da Vinci, Strawberry Fields, and you look at, um, Penny Lane, they're dense. Don't love that, but they're one story, right? They're trying to fit into the community. So, Old Orchard Estates does not support this project, and we think that since this is the last big piece of land in, in Orem, that we should take our time, that we should make sure that these houses make sense. 108 homes or 105 homes with 3 people in it, that's not a family, that's a couple with a kid, and that's not going to solve our housing problem. I hosted a summit on October 30th with the governor and and the Utah builders to really find solutions for housing. And there are things that we can do. Jen, listen to some of my ideas today. I think there's some reasonable accommodations that we can come up with, but it is not this project.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Before you start my time, I'd like to correct something. I think, uh, Jared had a Had a slide up there, I think about the second one. You know, I think there's a mistake on it, and I don't know that it's legally any big deal, but the notice that we got in the community spells out different acreage than what he had. And I just want to make sure that says approximately 14.18 acres.

I don't believe that's correct.

So whatever happens, we need to make sure that—

sorry, it's 24.3. I have 24.3 earlier in it, and I have for some reason a parenthetical of the other project.

And I have spoke to Jared a little bit, and I appreciate that. I was sure it was just a mistake.

Okay, and if you will state your name right when you start, that'd be great.

I didn't want the clock start too quick on me. Ron Hanson.

I live in Strawberry.

Berry Fields transplant there from a row crop farm in Idaho, and the discussion I've heard to see today tonight from the owner representative, I understand that completely.

It sounds to me like what I've been doing for the last 50 years as farming. After doing that, I tried to sell my land for $10 million, and it turned out that I only was able to sell it.

for $1 million.

Right now, a brand new John Deere combine costs $1 million plus $125,000 for the header.

So sometimes things just don't pencil out the way you want them to.

So for what it's worth, I want to talk about the process. I think I've resolved that issue with, with Jared, and some of the city people have been most helpful there.

The flyers and some inaccurate information. So there's 2 other things I'd like to mention. And the first is, uh, when this all started and I went to the first meetings, it was a Da Vinci model. And so I don't think there's very many people here that went to those meetings that never heard that explanation. The plans that were presented then weren't Da Vinci model, and the plan that's being presented now is not a Da Vinci model. If it was, as Da Vinci has 48 homes in 12 acres, they want to put 108 over there on 24 acres. That's a 12-home increase over what it would be if it was—

Da Vinci was doubled, which is roughly the acreage doubled.

And so, um, 108 back to 96 is what it should It should be if it was the Da Vinci model. And if you took half that land again and put 6 of those 12 homes over in Da Vinci, I don't know where you'd put them. There's no place there for them. Yeah, you could do away with the pickleball court, you could do away with the gazebo there, but those are amenities that add value to that property. So, um, I think we need to, to maybe stick to that a little bit.

Thank you.

A little bit better than we are.

And sorry, but we're— in order to get everyone in, you've hit your 2 minutes. So maybe take—

Okay.

27 seconds and give us your last point.

It takes a little bit to deal with what we've heard.

If you took everything up there on those slides in general and sat down and talked with them about it, there's many things there that I don't think are quite accurate, but you had a group of people that did that and they made a recommendation and they went through it with them. And the only other thing I want to say is that I hate to set precedent here that may not be able to be changed in the future if we look through all the rest of that development. I live there. I'd like those homes to represent the type of homes that I live in and not 2-story Thank you.

Hi, my name is Jace Anderson. I'm a resident of North Orem. Just wanted to start by saying thank you so much for listening to us tonight. This topic of adding higher density neighborhoods is not new. This was actually the first question the Daily Herald asked last year when the current city council members were campaigning. I think it's important to recall what some of the I appreciate what the answers were to those— to that question. Jeff, in your response, you promised that you would, quote, protect our neighborhoods. You said that growth is always a concern. The key is how we manage that growth— a slow, thoughtful, methodical approach, smart, reasonable development where it makes sense, and directing it away from areas that it does not. Jeff, has this approach been slow, thoughtful, and methodical? Is this smart and reasonable for all parties? Chris, when you were asked about this topic, you said, I'm committed to managing the city's growth responsibly to ensure that Orem continues to thrive while preserving our unique character. This means that future development respects the character of our neighborhoods. My neighborhood on the west side has a lot of unique character. If you vote to approve 108 homes that back right up against us, will you be preserving that unique character? Is this responsible growth? Jen, I really appreciate you listening to me. You are an awesome listener, and I really appreciate that, even though we disagreed on a few things. Thank you. When you were campaigning, I saw that you got frustrated that a lot of people said you were pro-higher density. You put out a campaign flyer saying, I oppose loosening zoning laws to allow burdensome high-density housing in low-density neighborhoods. Jen, the owners and developers here tonight are asking you to not just loosen the zoning laws, but to completely change them. We are asking you to live up to your campaign promise and oppose this project and protect our lower-density neighborhood. I'm really glad that the the owner representative is here tonight to hear some of this, these responses. I think this is the first time you guys have sent a representative here, and I'm really glad for you to, to hear our perspective and how this doesn't match and how this does not help Orem residents.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi there, my name is Janae Anderson. My husband Jason and I currently are residents in Orem and recently purchased a lot along the fence line next to this proposed development. Honestly, we're pretty burnt out on this ongoing battle with people who don't reside here in Orem and people who won't be around to deal with the consequences that come with a higher density development. We were so relieved at the last city planning meeting when all 7 of the members on that council agreed that this development is a bad idea. They all said that it would, quote, negatively affect the health, safety, and general welfare of the city.

Which is why so many of us are confused to hear that there may be some voting in favor of this plan tonight.

If you are one of those people, I sincerely ask you, who are you representing if it's not the people who live here and are standing in front of you begging you to consider how something of this magnitude will affect our day-to-day lives? And what's the point of even having a City Planning Committee if you're just going to completely disregard something that all 7 of them disagree with? Thank you. We've heard over and over again that some of you are aiming to provide affordable housing to young families, but unfortunately, this is not the way to do that. TriPointe even said it's not the way to do that. With the price tag that will be put on all of these small lots, all you will be doing is increasing the starter home price in Orem and also decreasing the starter home property size. We will be the ones left to deal with the traffic, the increase in noise, the decrease in our property values, the decrease in privacy, and the extra burden that will be placed on our schools, which are already dealing with huge class sizes and fewer teachers every year. There are still ways to compromise with everyone in this situation. Keep the berm, require larger lots along the west side, and then gradually transition the lot sizes to nothing smaller than quarter-acre lots. We've been told time and time again from the developer that this just won't pencil, but somehow they keep finding ways to make it work after dealing with the pushback they've already received at every stage. I'm confident that a plan like this would miraculously pencil if push came to shove.

Please represent those of us who put you in the position that you're in. Stick up for us.

Be a voice for us. Keep your campaign promises.

And please vote no.

This is a bell we can't unring.

Thank you. Thank you.

My name is Dave Noble. I am currently serving as the president of the Da Vinci HOA. We have been there for 17 years. We were the first piece of property that the predecessors to the current Canyon View Tech Park sold to become a housing subdivision neighborhood. We are the pacemakers for the area, if you will. Da Vinci is a gorgeous neighborhood. We take very good care of it. One of the things that isn't ever mentioned here is what it— what constitutes success.

In a subdivision. Success in a subdivision is a subdivision that looks gorgeous all the time.

It's a subdivision where people want to move in and live there, and people fight to live in that subdivision. The last 3 homes that have sold in Da Vinci have had between 3 and 9 buyers, in spite of the fact that interest rates are 6 and 7% on mortgages. We are a 55-and-older community. Truthfully, we're probably more particularly a 65 to 85, but officially on records with the City of Orem, we're a 55 and older community. We're getting older with time. We like quality, and we take care of what we have. The success of this neighborhood, to be honest with you, doesn't have a lot to do with anybody in this room right now, including those of you on City Council. I'm Sorry, you are responsible coming up with good electrical programs, great plumbing, good water systems, safety, and all of those things. But the success of this future neighborhood depends on the people that buy homes there, and it really, really depends on the HOA board that runs that neighborhood. Some of the HOAs in Utah stink.

I've seen them.

Okay, maybe you haven't spent as much time as them.

Some of them are wonderful.

Da Vinci is wonderful. We take care of what we have, and we take good care of it. We want a quality, successful neighborhood. We are in favor of this plan, okay? The Da Vinci HOA board comes to you tonight telling you that the 5 members of that board are in favor of developing this plan with Tri Pointe. I've heard people say that Tri Pointe isn't in Utah. Well, they're here. They build quality homes. Do you We haven't investigated what they build elsewhere. They're not going to build something special here and not so special somewhere else. They cater to a $700,000 to $900,000 market. The homes in Da Vinci sell for $700,000 to $900,000 plus dollars. Okay, it's a lookalike.

Thank you, sir. Your time's up.

Please consider that.

Okay.

Good evening, City Council members. My name is Elaine Wilding, and I've spoken to many of you. Some I wasn't able to get a hold of. I live on the west boundary of Canyon Park. This proposal is not just a poor fit, it's a glaring misstep for Northeast Orem and its residents. As a former, former residential designer, I can see there is a foundational flaw, and that's the zoning that they're they're requesting. The zone change to PD-54 allows setbacks and height allowances that are extreme and completely incompatible with the west boundary neighbors. This zoning clashes with Da Vinci single-story senior homes, the spacious lots of Old Orchard Estates, and the low-density neighborhoods to the west and south. This is not a neighborhood alignment. This is a blatant mismatch. The Planning Commission has twice unanimously rejected this proposal. Even members of the city council advised the developers to pursue R-8 zoning or larger. Why greenlight a plan that mirrors Vineyard's worst planning decisions? Several misleading narratives have surfaced, like the declining school enrollment. I've got 9 grandkids. 6 of my 9 grandkids are in Orem. 4 of them left the public school system in Accessory apartments will increase density. The risk of overwhelming density from R-8 zoning is negligible compared to the certainty of overcrowding with the PD-54 development. We need homes for young families at 700,000. These homes are not affordable for young families. Every one of you campaigned on protecting Orem's neighborhoods from encroaching density. Approving PD-54 would betray those promises. Orem takes pride in being known as Family City USA, and it's essential that you safeguard the families who already live here. I'm not opposed to new housing in Canyon Park, but it must fit. A rezone should reflect the surrounding area's character, not exploit every inch of land for maximum density and profit. Last thing I want to say is that park strip along the west fence, gifted decades long ago as a walking path is an example of what goodwill and thoughtful neighborhood planning looks like from a developer. I urge you to reject this proposal. As it stands, the zoning is just not right. Let's do better. Let's get it— let's get a zoning that actually works for the surrounding neighborhoods. Thank you.

Um, hi, I'm Sherry Page. I live in Da Vinci. And for a long time, I thought the only option we had was that this was a beautiful piece of property, but it was failing because it was older and less desirable. So there was no other option other than to sell. When I attended the Planning Commission meeting, 2 of the commissioners made statements And I'd like to read those to you. Haysom Saker said, quote, as far as the building being vacant, uh, buildings being vacant, this has been sore topic for a long time. The REIT, which is a real estate investment trust, the owner— and that was Mike— uh, the owner has had the option to renovate the buildings like they did to the N Building, which is 100% full. They chose not to, and they are trying to rent it at a higher cost than the average market to keep it empty. They could have done something about it a long time ago. I offered— Mr. Saker, I offered to rent a space there, but the price was way higher than I can get for a glass building in Lehigh on I-15, end quote. So viability distance seems to be the issue. Mike Carpenter, a member of the commission there, quote, I've never been in favor of redoing the office park. We don't have space to build another. It is like redeveloping the mall for housing. We can't build another mall. So if we lose this space, you just can't do those things that the city needs. We need the diversity to thrive. We need office parks. We need industrial, all ranges of different zoning, end quote. It appears to me that the only people who will benefit from changing the zoning would be the land seller, which is a REIT, a real estate investment trust from out of state, and the property developer, TriPointe Homes, which is an out-of-state developer. I beg you to, you know, maintain this property for Orem's future. It could be kept as an office park, or the Orem school district— new school district buildings or a satellite campus for UVU, or I hear BYU is doing a medical school. That land is valuable, and don't, don't rezone it for housing, please. Keep it for Orem.

Hello, hello, I'm Norman Faubert. The Canyon Park Center rezoning, there's— there are those in our community who are very fearful that if we inadequately promote what our real desires are, that we will reap an undesirable result. And so we end up accepting an unacceptable result. Understanding that this is a complicated issue because we don't all agree, there's no consensus. I want you to consider these 3 things. Homeowners who moved into the area surrounding the tech center or built there or lived there know what the zoning is of their homes. They also know what the zoning is for the tech center. The developers knew the zoning, uh, know, know the zoning, what it is, and they want to change it. The owners and the developers are now desiring to make this change so that they can sell the property at a more profitable amount. And, uh, clearly at any level they're able to sell the property. Uh, the second item I'd like you to consider is that with a new federal administration, they will be encouraging employees who are now working from home to go back to the office at least part-time. And the tech center is beautiful, well-appointed, and the facilities aren't that far from I-15. And petroleum prices are also expected to stabilize for at least the next 4 years. And so commuting will not be as difficult. The surrounding neighborhoods are also Well established, and homes are likely to become available with aging owners. The third item is that you'll hear from school boards and teachers that they need this housing. That is not necessarily so.

The schools—

children get old and they don't go to school after a while. I've been through that cycle. So while Old Orchard Estates and Windsor might consider 108 homes high density and Da Vinci be willing to consider 108 homes or less, I consider maintaining the tech center and letting the economy make its upswing.

Thank you.

My name is Shelby Stassny.

I live in Da Vinci, right across Research Way from this project.

I've heard a lot of suggestions tonight how to spend other people's money, but I think there's been a good process to come up with the development that's here. When, when I first heard about them attempting to sell the property, I was shocked at the—

at The first proposal that we saw a couple years ago, how somebody could expect that they could put that high density right in the middle of a neighborhood.

We talked to them. I, by the way, am on the Da Vinci board.

And I—

and our board, as you've already heard, voted in favor of this. As you also have heard, there's some neighbors who don't agree with the board. Uh, we have great neighbors in Da Vinci. It's a great place to live. Uh, I believe that TriPoint has done a super job from where they first suggested a proposal to the proposal they've come up with now. They've worked with the neighbors on the west. They've worked with us. Uh, I live directly across the street. And I believe the proposed project would be a good neighbor to Da Vinci. Thank you. Hi, my name is Keith Youngquist. It's nice to be able to talk to you. I came late, I was raking leaves with the activity day boys. I'm happy to be here and I'm glad you're there. Uh, I wrote a letter to you 2 meetings ago about the same property. I got up at 2 o'clock in the morning because I couldn't sleep. I know the meeting was coming up, and I wrote every reason why I love Canyon Park the way it is. I have no beef with TriPointe. I have no beef with Canyon Park. But I do think that the Planning Commission raised an issue that I wasn't aware of before, and that is that there is no other business campus like this in Orem. And if we get rid of it, we don't have any. And once we get rid of it, it's gone.

forever.

The other issue I have is that it's like TriPoint, even though it's a good company, I'm sure it is, and Canyon Park, they're like the prince in Cinderella trying to shove a glass slipper into Cinderella's stepsisters. It just doesn't work. Um, it has so many reasons why it doesn't. There's 3 schools: high school, junior high, Elementary. That's all very close, within a half mile, and that's walking corridor on 1200 and 1600. And this is going to increase the traffic in the morning because they're taking kids to school. We've already had one fatality in the last couple years because the sun was in the driver's eyes and she was on a crosswalk, and she was our neighbor. And so we don't want any more traffic like that coming and going, uh, throughout the day. I also feel that right now Orem is in a high-density mode. I think they're ranked 5th in the state. Is that correct?

Anybody know?

And if this goes through, you can multiply 108 times 4 because it's going to cascade with the other development of the rest of the project. More than likely, if they can't rent one building, they can't rent them all. And so that's 424 homes. In that small space.

Thank you very much.

My name is Stephen O'Rourke. Thank you for allowing me to speak to you tonight. Ever since my wife and I first were made aware of this proposal to create a unique and special zoning change in our neighborhood, we were curious how it would affect our neighbors. In all of the neighborhood chitchat and talk over the fence, at the mailbox, in the driveway, The desire for this higher density housing was concerning.

In fact, all the comments were strongly to the contrary. We decided to get a more accurate pulse from the surrounding neighborhoods, so we put together a petition. My wife and I took 4 hours one afternoon.

We knocked on over 100 doors.

This petition identifies the group asking for zoning accommodations and why. We illustrated how we felt this would impact our community through the addition that higher density housing would have on our streets, our city services, and our safety. With only one exception in taking this to over 100 homes, everyone expressed concern— somewhat concerned or very concerned.

The one homeowner that expressed their desire for this was respectful, but they were just one out of 100 homes whose doors we knocked on. I will close my remarks.

Oh well, I just also need to say there's been a lot of talk about working with the community and understanding and, and trying to meet a consensus. This petition doesn't support that. I'll close my remarks by saying this: any city council member that supports this proposal as it is presented and has been turned down twice unanimously by our own City Planning Commission is saying the following to Orem City residents.

Number 1, if I support this proposal, I don't support the values of my constituents.

Number 2, if I support this proposal, I don't support the views, opinions, or concerns of my constituents. Number 3, if I support this proposal, I don't support the lifestyle of my constituents. Number 4, if I support this proposal, I don't want to protect the safety of my constituents, of their Number 5, if I support this proposal, I would rather defend the desires and values of out-of-state investors and out-of-state developers above those of my constituents. And lastly, if I support this proposal, I'm not interested in remaining on the Orem City Council and would rather resign or be removed by the voice of my constituents. Thank you.

Thank you. And so just to clarify, to kind of hit the timeline we're trying to hit. We'll finish up with the 3 of you against the wall. And you.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Michelle Pfister. I live in the Old Orchard Estates. Um, my husband and I moved into Orem 39 years ago. We lived on the homestead lot for North Orem. It had rock foundation. There were holes. It cost more to heat that place than it does our house today. And we were a tiny family. There were 2 kids in that small home. We then moved to Old Orchard Estate. We've been there for 33 years. We were one of the first homes there. Every week I go on walks through that beautiful wooded area that lies to the east of the property, and we enjoy those beautiful beautiful large trees. For years, I walked from my home to work in that beautiful technology park. I love this area. I so appreciate what you said about all the emails you've heard.

Thank you.

I just want to confirm that yes, you heard us.

Thank you.

My name is Brian Clark, and, um, I'm a neighbor on the west side. I live on the south side of Bruce Bastian's, uh, property there. Um, and the big thing that I wanted to make sure you heard is the fact that whether we define it as high density or higher density, uh, R-8 96 homes, and that is doable, especially if we keep the forest, the park. Every day people walk through that park. The kids run track. The kids go take a smoke in the park, and it's a multi-use area. So my biggest concern is I have 300 feet of my fence line that faces that property. And they're going to put an extra 10 houses in there and bulldoze 350 trees and plant 300 brand new 3-foot-tall trees. That is a precedence that I would never ever trade. That is one in a— once in a lifetime that we can preserve that buffer, that forest, that park. I would love love to see it turned into a park. I would love to see Orem preserve the character that is there. Um, the, uh, other trade-off that I wanted to say is the increase of traffic, especially like was mentioned. There's 3 schools that are within walking distance there, and it is one of those things where you know when school's out because you can hear the kids running through the trees as they head back home. And we want to preserve Family City, USA. That's why I moved here 40 years ago, and that's what keeps me here in Aurora. Thank you very much.

My name is Diane Fraser, and I live across the street. I'm on 1200 North. I'm right across the street from Building Thank you. When we moved into our, into our house, it was an apple orchard. Okay, if we were also concerned about trees, why did we knock all those apple orchard trees down to put in office buildings? Okay, there's so, you know, there's a lot of logic. The people who live on the west— so when I had a beautiful view from my house, and now I have a building across the street from my house, and so I have my front drapes Closed all the time because I don't want to look at the stupid building across the street from my house. I'm happy for this to come. And I think it's great. The houses on 1200 North are 2-story homes. So what is wrong with a 2-story home being across the street from my house? I have a 2-story home. Most of my neighbors have 2-story homes. As far as traffic goes, let me tell you about traffic. When there was People working those buildings across the street from the house. There was a lot of traffic. And there were times when I'd try to walk my dogs, trying to cross the street across 1200 North was really hard to do. My husband worked for WordPerfect for a while and he would go come home for lunch and sometimes it took a while to cross that street. So don't tell me about the traffic. Also, I get the Canyon View Junior High superhighway every morning with the kids going to school. It's, it's just, it's been, that's the way it is. But it's not all day. It's only a certain time in the morning, a certain time in the afternoon. You know, don't go out then. You just don't worry about it. So I'm here to irritate all the people who are against it. I'm all for it. I think it's wonderful. I'm excited. I hope you vote for it. Thank you so much. I appreciate your time.

Good way.

My name is Jim Chatterley. I'm a licensed civil engineer and live across the street from the project, potential project on 12th North.

I've made a number of attempts not only to visit directly with Brian Prince and offer some creative options which might reduce the agony of of how we repurpose. I worked with a developer in, in part of my career, so I empathize with both ends of the spectrum— the cost for a developer to make a return and for the buyer to live in a—

for the right reason in that location.

My suggestion is that we reduce the size of the rezoning as it did with Abbey Road and Strawberry Fields were once a part of Canyon Park. Secondly, to— I have a design in mind where we could retain 90% of the existing landscape, which Mueller Group has done a great job in upgrading, and retain the hydrology studies of the existing parking, putting foundation, concrete foundation In that parking area, serving the, the residents with one-way alleys to serve garages, retain the lighting that's in the park. So there's some creative options that I hope that we can incorporate.

Excuse me for not standing up. I'm nearly 90, and I don't just stand up and hang around.

Let me just add 2 or 3 things. What is your name? My name is Philip Smith.

We've lost the cemetery that used to be our area where people could walk around, and that's disappearing. I don't want to lose the berm as well. Another thing is where, uh, high-density housing means people— we need high-density housing very much, but we need it close to the Frontrunner.

People need to be within half a mile of Frontrunner stations.

Many of those people don't have cars or have one car for 2 workers, and they need to be able to get to the Frontrunner to go up to Salt Lake County. Or down, uh, Utah County.

And, uh, why don't we put that out in that area?

Now, I wouldn't mind much unless if they reduce this, uh, the number of building lots so they were compatible with Da Vinci where I live.

I wonder why they don't do that.

My dream is that the city council will buy the whole thing and turn it into a park.

Okay, thank you. Uh, we appreciate all your comments and, and your efforts, and we know for some of you this has been, uh, a process. Um, because we're back. Yeah, this has been a process. Um, as some of you have told me, you're kind of exhausted. But let's go ahead and bring this back to, uh, the lectern here and, and then wrap up as far as with the city council, uh, having questions, comments.

I guess I'll start it off. Um, the, the question I have is Is, do you have a plan B? If you get— if this gets voted down, do you have a plan B? That was one question. But my concern is, um, if this passes, that's going to be a domino effect for any other property that's available in Orem, and I don't want to set that precedence. Um, we are 95% built out, so I don't think that's fair To say we're not doing our job on building permits.

And I think that's—

that was a bad slide. I didn't like that. So, because you can put a slide up, but it's garbage because we are built out. And there's only 5% left. So you got to cut us a break there. I don't see any compelling reason to change this zone unless it's consistent with the neighborhood. It's not consistent. I've got a zone map here of all the neighborhoods around. To the west, that's like an R-49. To the south, that's an R-12. Or to the north, that's an R-12. To the south, that's an R-8. You just take that, that's an R-23. One pencil. So we did— the city council did say come back with a a transition, but the transition wasn't on the edge, and then it's small, you know, so it doesn't fit the neighborhood. So, um, I think that, uh, you know, the, the last election, people did run and say they weren't for high density. This is higher density, and it's the same thing. Um, there's a chapel on 4th East. People wanted the 4th East and 8th North. There's Whitechapel, but it's torn down now. But a developer wanted to put 15— 13 to 15 homes there, do a PRD. And I said, it doesn't pencil, or it doesn't make sense to me. And he goes, well, we have to do it because it doesn't pencil. And we pushed back. Now Ivory Homes bought it. There's 6 homes, 1/3-acre lots. That's what we're talking about. So we don't want to give in. We want to stay our course and stand our ground. We want to make Orem Family City USA, and their minimum lot size is what? R-8, period, in Orem. So that's my stance. Um, also the Gilman property on 1600 North— there's 2 properties. We pushed back on that because they wanted to do a PRD. It's zoned R-8 now. What are they doing? They're building R-8 homes. That's what I'm talking about. That's why we're listening to our constituents, the citizens of Orem. Um, let's see if I have anything else for you. We talked about ADUs. Everybody can have an ADU in Orem, and we don't have that many. If I have a kid, I have an ADU, he can live in my basement, and I have no problem with that. Um, if this, if this 23-acre thing passes, then Eventually it'll all be the same. And like you said, the gentleman said probably 400 or 500 homes. So, um, it was good meeting with, with TriPointe. Um, I think we need to— the minimum would be R-8, and maybe we need to look as a city, maybe we can figure out maybe a little park on that berm or something and maybe put some— invest some money into that or something.

I don't know.

But, um, so I'm definitely voting no.

Uh, Thank you. Want me to go? I'll go.

Sure.

Okay, so I'm going to be brief because, man, how many times have we talked about this, right? I'm exhausted like you are. But let me just say, first of all, uh, Council Member Spencer also left off a property in Southwest Orem. Uh, we had 3 different— well, one of them was before I got on the council, Council, 3 different higher density presentations. Uh, the, the one, the last one was 84, uh, homes they wanted to put in there. As a council, we said no, and we're getting 32, um, owner-occupied R-8 and above building lots. So when I hear developers say I can't make it pencil, I mean, I would ask this question, but I get in trouble. Like, they get angry when I ask. I say, what's your profit margin? You know, it used to be 15 years ago, 20 years ago, it was 10 and 10. I was in the construction industry. You took your cost and you added 10% profit, 10% overhead. Right now, our higher density of these buildings, the, the, um, these subdivisions we're seeing, profit margins are at 37, 38%. I understand. My dad was in real estate. There's risk, I get it. But there's also reality. And our approving these type of, of properties at those profit margins, in my opinion, I'm contributing to the inflationary housing that, that happens when I approve projects at those profit margins. Um, let's see. So first of all, but, but at the same time, I want to say I'm Very sympathetic to your office, um, to your, your situation with the commercial office market. I get it. Once again, I've got the background in real estate. I've seen it, I've lived it. It is— it— some areas, you know, there's, there's that risk in that area right now. There's that, um, cyclical nature. We really do appreciate the support that we've received from the Mueller Group and Canyon Park over the years. I, I really have to set aside though in this, but I have to look at this development. As mentioned, our council has heard variations of this project. When I vote to use my land use authority as a council member, I feel it's very important that my decision matches developments with Orem's land needs and that those developments presented match a specific property location. Those are kind of my benchmarks that I use. But I also, trumping both of those, I also believe that I need to listen to the local residents. They know their neighborhood. They, they communicate to me their understanding of that area, and that's what I consider. Right now, the housing product that our community needs is not starter homes. We don't need higher density. We just heard in our work meeting the density that we already have in Orem. We don't need more rentals.

We're—

our percentages are perfect there. We're doing our share. We're contributing. Um, what we need is we need the, the second and final home, the move-up home, um, that where established families bring their kids and, and put them in our schools. And, and, um, these homes will not do this. The, you know, I hate to tell you, it's the comment that was made that this will not be families with kids and I tend to agree with that based on this, these designs. Um, we need owner-occupied R-8 housing. My recollection from our August meeting was that we did say as a council we're going to continue this. Well, I voted against it, but the, the thing was we'll continue this, bring us R-8 minimum. Very disappointed when I saw this. You know, um, if there were conversations with individual council members, because I see you shaking your head, but you didn't call me because I was pretty— I was very specific in that, the direction in that meeting. And right now I would support that. Bring me that product as a land use authority, as me exercising my land use authority here as a council member. That's what our community needs. As Councilmember Spencer has said, we are seeing that as we communicate this message to developers, I understand they're trying to maximize the density in their land, but when we say no, they bring us back this, this housing product. And it is good for Orem, for our community right now. It is the demographic in housing that we need. So I think you can tell from my speech that I will be voting against this zone change.

Thank you.

First of all, my hat's off to almost all of you who spoke today. Brian, we'll try to preserve your smoking area for you to have over there. I appreciate that people could vote, say, hey, parking— I mean, traffic will be worse in a commercial park, which it probably would be, than a housing development. I appreciate that. I appreciate almost all of you just could disagree with one another without offering any alternatives. ultimatums that if you don't agree or you do agree, you're a bad guy in some way or shape. So I appreciate the fact that the community has come together and disagreed in probably one of the best ways we have on a hot issue. So thank you for all of you who followed that kind of policy and procedure. I appreciate that. I do believe this development would bring new blood for the schools and community. I think that would be a good thing. I think the community would be good for a possible move up to a new to her home. And I think in many ways it'd be better than an R-8, which some of my colleagues here would, would support. And I think you ought to make an offer to buy that land next to you that you've been walking on, and maybe Canyon Park will sell it to you, Moller Group will sell it to you, and to buy a buffer for your home. But I am hearing the community. I think if an R-8 was put through, I— it would probably largely be approved, and I'm not sure that would be great. But I appreciate those who spoke from Da Vinci. I appreciate the times I've talked to the TriPointe— excuse me— at all different hours of the day, because I was in China for some of this time and took a call very early in the morning to accommodate their afternoon schedule. I can— I hear the community though, and I realize not all the community's here. This does not find affordable housing, which if it did, I would be more likely to tilt in favor of yes on this. But since it doesn't do that, I'm still on the fence. So stay tuned. The quicker these other people talk, we'll know soon. Thanks.

Stay tuned. Okay, that's not, that's not political. Jeff, you want to go ahead?

Well, not Not to belabor the point, um, I just want to echo what has been said. Thank you for being here. Thank you for sharing your points of view, your perspectives, and thank you for all those emails and text messages. Um, I apologize for not getting back to everyone. I gave up 2 days ago and, uh, hope to reconvene, uh, when things settle down. But, um, my, my point Um, when we met back in August really hasn't changed, and that is that this is a, this is a special piece of property. Um, this, this, this area, uh, needs to be done right. Um, it needs to be, uh, very thoughtfully and carefully planned, as we've heard and, and as has been expressed. I think, um, I think we were all hoping for an R-8 situation. And, um, I, I think, uh, you know, uh, I, I think that would be a much easier decision for all of us. But thank you for all of the hard work that you've put in. Thank you, Miller, for the wonderful community partner that you are for Orem and Canyon Park. Uh, you've supported the city and the community in amazing ways, and we're grateful for that. And, uh, so I'll just— I'll leave it at that.

But, um, thank you for—

thank you Thank you for sharing. And again, rather than repeat what all of the other members of the council have just shared, I, I do want to express my appreciation for the views, the emails, the calls. Some I've tried to get back to you and my schedule didn't meet yours, so I apologize. Um, I've heard you. I, I understand, uh, the perspectives and, and where we're at. I've also listened carefully, uh, to those who are presenting this project. And, and so as we continue on in here just a few moments, I'm just making sure that everyone knows that we are concerned about this area. I raised my children here. This is where we— my family moved 40-some-odd years ago. And many of you in this room I know by face and name, and I'm grateful for who you are and what you represent in your own homes and families, and, and a blessing to our community. So with that, um, just want to express again appreciation, and we'll have a vote here in just a few minutes and, and get this all wrapped up, and then the next steps. I would also, based on the direction and, and part of the fence-sitting or others that in the council, they're still deciding as they even are sitting in their seats, um, I just like to try to point also if there are options that you would want to propose if it turns Where we're not able to make the full vote tonight in the favor of what you're considering. The question was asked, what's your possible plan B? And another thought. So we just want to make sure that we want to hear everyone and look to this future project to make it a blessing for everyone and, and just allow you to speak to that, if you would, at some point. Thank you.

Wait, wait, wait a second. Um, yeah, we're gonna—

I didn't—

sorry, that was actually—

yeah.

Oh, you want to ask him a question?

I just asked him the question, does he have a plan B? Like, we get asked.

Oh, okay.

If he asked—

yeah, if he asked you, I'm sorry, uh, do you have a plan B? Go ahead and respond.

It's probably not, you know, That question may have to be asked to Mueller because they're the current property owner. Um, you know, our proposal— what we heard tonight was everybody loves Da Vinci, Abbey Road, um, Strawberry. I mean, everybody loves that, those types of homes. What we've proposed tonight is that—

I mean, our—

the density we proposed is exactly the same. And so, um, the, the motion that was made in August was Come back with something that's lower dense and has a transition. We did that, um, and we've got the feedback tonight. Appreciate the feedback. Um, what I'm hearing tonight is it's more— it's clear direction. I mean, what I've heard tonight is what we really meant was R8. And, and that— I mean, is that a, a fair assessment of like, that's the general message?

That was exactly what we said.

And try to keep some of the berm, maybe, if you can.

Okay.

No, no, I don't have a plan B. I think it's unfair for me to speak on behalf of the property owner at this point. This is our proposal, but I do want to thank everybody for the feedback. Each of you have given me time to— and I— it is not lost on me the impact of this decision. I understand it's a forever decision. The vision I have is, is great, but it doesn't mean everybody's got to see it and feel the same way. So I want to thank the residents that have come out, given us direction. In the event that we can find a way to come back with a Plan B, I think my answer would be, well, we'll, we'll do that. But it's really ultimately up to the property owner. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Sure, Jen.

Okay, wow, you could hear a pin drop in here.

I love this.

I just would like to echo what they've all said, is the, the level of respect in this room has been really appreciated, and the phone calls and the, uh, the emails.

Hold that a little closer to my— yeah, there you go. Is that better?

Can you hear me better now? Thank you.

Uh, we really do appreciate your level of respect. The seats that we're sitting in are not easy Seats, and especially with a project like this, there isn't consensus. Obviously, I think we have people on the west side saying, look, we're really not happy with this. I think we have people on the east side saying, actually, it's not so bad, we kind of like it. Personally, I don't think it's unreasonable. I think that Brian has really tried to find the balance between those 2 groups. I think that's a really hard thing to do. I think we need more diversity for families. Not every family wants to live in an R-8. Some families say, I don't I don't want to shovel the sidewalks. I don't want to do the yard maintenance. I want to live in a smaller place. I also, at the same time, I— this is a forever decision, and when in doubt, wait might be the strategy here, because I don't want to make the wrong decision. I know that there's a lot of people in favor of that park strip. I think it's a beautiful park strip. I know people are asking for R-8. I do respect that.

So I think I think let's—

with that, thank you to all of you for your participation, and I think let's turn it over to a vote.

She can keep that mic. I've got my own. Mine works. It's actually Tom's, but you're not mayor of Peoria anymore, so I got your mic.

Okay.

All right. I appreciate all of your patience and your endurance. In getting to this point, um, I'll just bring a few things together. As I mentioned earlier, um, I appreciate the, the Mueller Company, and they have been really good partners with Orem. We enjoy working with them. They've offered their facilities to us, and, and we've got a good relationship. Um, and so I, I empathize with where they're at, and I accept where they're at as far as, uh, you know, right now, uh, commercial real estate, uh, and its relationship with private equity is kind of a mess. And so they're in a difficult spot. Um, at the same time, that said, this is not a— this is not— shouldn't be a quick decision. Um, and I don't believe that just because they keep coming back, we should settle. I think this is a beautiful part of Orem. I think it's, you know, it's 23 acres, and it could potentially be followed by more if this trend continues. And we've got a responsibility to do it right. And it's different. You know, we talked about property rights. Property rights are really important. They're important for the people trying to do something, but they're also important for the people who have already done something who lived there. And so you've got to try and bridge that gap. And I often give preference to the people who have been there the longest because they made the first decision to come in. And I— to me, they, they've got a, a precedent. I also, um, I am, I am disappointed, uh, with this proposal in that I thought we pretty clearly said come back with an R8 proposal, and, uh, I haven't heard from anyone since that time. Uh, maybe they think I'm a hopeless case, I don't know. But we asked for R-8 to come back and we didn't get that. Um, and so, and then when you add in, uh, the Planning Commission, uh, this time voting 7 to 0 against, I just don't see how as a city council member I can just look that in the face and say you guys are just decorative. You know, we don't, we, we don't buy your opinion. Um, I, I, I do see a solution as far as I think there is a solution. It's just going to be a less dense solution. And I think if we could do something to protect that walking path and then transition down to, uh, the other neighborhoods and keep it R-8. Uh, I think, you know, that would be a solution that's a real solution. And so, like I said, I get kind of annoyed that we're just kind of seeming to go in circles. Um, and for me, this, this isn't like this really difficult decision at the end of the day. Before I ran for mayor, um, I ran for mayor because I was in your seat out there, very frustrated what was going on with Orem. And, and the 10 years before I ran, uh, from 2011 to 2021, almost 4,000 apartments came into Orem. Well, that's not reversible. That changed the nature of our community. And so I ran to protect the community and protect our neighborhoods and let our citizens have a voice. And so for me, as I hear your voice, and it's in the vast majority, it's your neighborhood I can't just turn a blind eye and say, no, I know better than you guys. So anyway, I, I think there still is a solution out there. I don't think this is it, and so I'll clearly be voting no on this.

Hey, Mayor, I'd like to make a motion. Okay, make a motion. The City Council moves to deny by ordinance the Canyon Park Tech Center redevelopment enacting Section 22-11-6 PD-54 Canyon Park Tech Center Redevelopment Zone and Appendix AAA of the Orem City Code and amend Article 22-5-3A and the zoning map of the City of Orem by changing the zone approximately 24.3 acres from the PD-6 zone to the PD-54 zone located generally at 1203 North 630 East.

Second.

So we have a first and a second, but just Just to be clear, because this can get confusing, this is a vote to deny.

So if we say yay, we're agreeing with the denial?

Yes, a yay vote would be a vote to deny the rezone request.

Okay, that's exactly what I want to clarify because I don't want to get all screwed up on that. Okay, so let's start.

Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Okay, the request is denied.

Okay, thank you again. Uh, as requested, can I make a—

can I ask a comment here? I feel it's, you know, 9 PM. I'd like to know if the next item on the agenda, if your people have been able to remain this long, if you're comfortable proceeding, if we should move To make— have them make a motion to move it to a different meeting. You know, I've— I feel bad if they're not going to get their day, their moment, because of the time.

Okay, I, I think—

Do they—

do you guys have a spokesperson? Have you noticed your neighbors leaving, or are you okay proceeding? We're good. Okay, I just need to know. You want to stay?

Okay, they're good.

All right.

They're good.

Okay, I'll make a motion that we adjourn for 5 minutes.

We're going to take a 5-minute break and then we'll start back here at 9.

So I, I think, I think good people like you are gonna stay the course. Yes, I'm gonna go. Speech already? Oh my gosh. Oh, she's, she's in the back room there.

How are you doing?

Test, test, test. Is it coming through?

I can't hear.

Testing. Let me invite everyone to come back up the dais if you're on City Council, and we'll get going here. Okay, welcome back. This is pretty crazy. It's 9 o'clock and we still have a big crowd. We appreciate all of you making the effort to come out and let your voices be heard. Right. All right. Okay, next up on the agenda, we've got item 10.4, and this is a public hearing, an ordinance— hang on one second, there's a lot here— an ordinance, Whitestone Estates, amending Article 22-5-3.

Second.

A, and the zoning map of the City of Orem by rezoning the property located generally at 710 West, 2000 South from the OS-5 zone to the PRD zone, approximately 14.18 acres, and amending Appendix KK of the Orem City Code. And we'll start this off again with Jared.

Okay, thank you for having me back, as it were. Um, this is a, this is a similar, uh, yet distinct application. It's the same kind of application. We're looking at a zoning change, but we're also looking at a site plan, a concept plan that needs to be approved to make that happen. The existing zoning, as, as was mentioned, is the OS-5. It's open space zoning. This is, um, property that's commonly known as the Whitaker Farm. Am I getting that right?

Wilkerson.

Wilkerson. I knew I was going to It's, you know, it's after 9, so I knew I had a W in it.

So, thank you.

I appreciate that. Yeah. OS5, the Wilkerson Farm. I appreciate that. This is, um, this is near the 2nd little insert right here is to show you that this is the farm right here. There was a recent PRD zone approved for For a different project. We didn't want any confusion with that. So there was another slide inserted that way, but the property we're talking about is right here. Um, you can see that, and the zoning, as we said, this is OS-5 zoning. The recommended— or sorry, the requested zoning would be for a PRD zone that would allow the development of, um, of some multifamily or some housing there on that project.

It's a mixed—

It's a mixed-use project. project, some single family and some, some single family detached and some attached single family townhomes. Townhomes sometimes referred to as attached single family. The general plan does call for low density residential in this area. This is the concept plan that was reviewed by the Planning Commission recently on November 6th in conjunction with this application. Um, the Single-family properties, you can see in the middle here, there are townhomes placed up against the rail line in the project's layout. There's a significant number of off-street parking spaces that have been allowed as well. Guest parking spaces. We'll go over some of that data in just a moment. The zoning around it, we should have talked about more. Sorry, zoning around it is predominantly single-family detached. And then some open space zoning, and then that one segment that was recently rezoned to a PRD for a school. The project, again, total area is 14 acres, just over 14 acres. There are 54 single-family lots, 39 townhome lots. There are total 97 dwelling units. The parking for the property that's been provided includes 56 guest spaces, and then there are 2 car garages on each of these units. The parking totals do not include the driveways. All of those units, though, also are projected to have driveways in that concept plan. So there's a, there's a significant, a significant amount of parking provided again with this, with this particular proposal. The Whitestone folks are here tonight, and they have some other things to talk to you about as well. I'm just gonna run through some of the plans that are included with this. The home plans that they have and the materials. These are 2-story homes that are projected to be on this property, a couple of different styles, some different floor plans, and then the townhome units as well. These are all front-loaded, as I said, with garages and with driveways, increasing significantly the parking that's available in the project. The materials— there are varied materials for different— that can be used in different units. The materials are all shown here. And we're included in your packets. And that would conclude my slides. We can talk to the, to the developers if you have any questions for staff at this point. I did want to review with you as well. Sorry, I missed that in my slides. The Planning Commission did review this project and proposal, as I said, on November 6th. The Planning Commission's vote was again unanimously to deny the— to recommend denial to the council. Um, for the change in zoning, uh, citing some issues with some of the, um, some of the configuration, some of the density increases and the area and the loss of the, uh, the open space. How many questions for staff at this point?

Just a point of clarification. So you said that each unit has 2-car garage.

Yes.

And parking. In the driveway, but the driveway parking is not included in the parking in those counts.

Yeah, that's correct. In the counts here, in the total, this guest parking is indicative, and these total lot parking— sorry, the guest— the parking that's been provided on these lots and included in the counts does not include the driveways.

But the driveway is big enough to park a vehicle.

Driveway is definitely big enough to park a couple of vehicles.

Well, depending on the size, but as far as, as far as a single-family lot, that's 27. Yeah, is that right?

Yes.

So let me go back to this and show you. So as you, as you look at this, yeah, these are all front-loaded. And a lot of times with townhomes, you have rear-load alley loads, you don't get any driveway spaces in those. These are all front-loaded, so you do get it, you do get a significant extra number of parking spaces. But that 56 guest spaces, sometimes That would include an account from a developer that would include, like, the driveway spaces. That's not the case here. They provided 56 additional.

Are the roads narrow so you can't park on the road? Is that why we need the 56 parking spots?

Let me pull in on this. They're, they're too narrow to allow a lot of street parking. Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

If you have no— if there are no other questions for staff, again, it's a— this is a public hearing as well. If you'd like to hear from the developers here.

Yeah, usually we'd prefer to hear from the developer.

Yeah, yeah, I will be as brief as I can. Um, so my name is Tyler Horan.

I represent the developer and then also the company that plans to build the homes here, uh, Keystone Construction.

Uh, we're family-owned businesses.

We're based out of American Fork.

Um, that's where I grew up. Uh, one thing I wanted to ask for, just a little bit of grace.

I was on the, uh, the planning board for a little bit.

wrestling team in American Fork. And I think the last time I felt this nervous was when I watched the guy in front of me get beat up by the returning state champ, and then I had to go on the mat.

So a little, a little bit of grace maybe.

I'm not too good at this public speaking. So like I said, we're just family-owned companies.

We got involved with this property.

I've known the Owner of the property for a long time. We've, we've been good friends for a while. He approached me about a year ago and mentioned that he was considering selling it, and he and I, you know, negotiated and came to a deal.

And then we've been working with city staff for a while.

We hired some local professionals, some engineers who've helped us work with staff. We designed the project.

I'm not.

You know, too in the details. My, my younger brother Nate's here, and he can answer a lot of the numbers.

But from the high level, you know, this project, what, what we're asking—

I've been told the density matches what's, what's in the general plan. So it conforms to what's been planned. And then your, your master plans, we've looked at those, what was planned for this area, which is, you know, a large trail.

And then the roads, as well as the storm drain system.

And our plan is to accommodate, you know, all those things that are on those plans.

That's really, I think, most of the comments I had.

You know, obviously, we're going to build and sell these houses. We want this to be successful. We really feel like those townhomes would fit well there, and the smaller single-family would do well in this area. So I wanted to just have the representative for the current owner of the land is here, and he wanted to just get up and kind of speak to kind of how we came to have this property under contract. And then my younger brother can get up and give a little bit more detail and then maybe answer some questions you have. So thanks for your time. Thank you.

My name is Jason Dodge, and I have to Let you know that I'm in big trouble because a lot of the Laguna Vista neighborhood that's behind me, that's the neighborhood I grew up in. My favorite bishop's back here, my scoutmaster's back here, my parents who still live in the neighborhood, next-door neighbor is here. So, uh, but I work directly with the charitable organization that currently owns this property, and my heart and soul is with this charitable organization to the point where I will even annoy all of my good friends behind me because I think this is the right thing to do. Um, there's been a lot of information that's come, I think, at you. I just witnessed the last, uh, segment of your, of your council meeting, and I don't know how you do it. Uh, whatever you're paid is not enough, but I appreciate you being here. Um, I think it'll be helpful to— for me to share a few things with you really quickly, and I'll try to quick because it's late. About 7, 8 years ago, a man named Al Switzer sold a company in Provo, made a pile of money, and he wanted to go out and save the world and put mega money into organizations. Tapitha's Way is one of them that you probably are aware of. He bought this property with a desire to bring a resource to bring fresh vegetables to his Tabitha's Way food pantries. The most difficult thing for it to be donated from grocery stores and such are fresh vegetables. They get plenty of cans, but nothing really healthy. And so he bought this property with that in mind. I'm going to farm this property, and it's going to bring vegetables to all of these people. FYI, side note, in the last 30 days in Utah County alone, Tabitha's Way has fed over 17,000 individuals in just Utah County. 17,000. There's great need here. He partnered with Wilkerson in such a way that Wilkerson was going to farm this and pay him in vegetables. That was his pay. And they made a 7-year run at this, and it just didn't work. The efficiencies that needed to take place here to make sense to continue operating this as a vegetable garden to provide food for these people in need. It just didn't make sense. It was cheaper for him to buy the vegetables from somewhere else and pull the money out of here, the millions of dollars he put here, pull it out and put it back into the Tabitha's Way resources that they need. They're building buildings all over Utah County, just finished one in Pleasant Grove. One will be breaking ground in Saratoga Springs soon, and we're finishing one in Spanish Fork. And those are the 3 facilities that we fed the 17,000 in. 2 years ago, we went to Wilkerson and said— I didn't, Al, the money man behind this. Al went to Wilkerson and said, this isn't working. I'm going to give you one more year, and in a year, I'll sell it. And so he had every opportunity to come and try to put something together to buy it from him because he knew that he was going to be selling it. It's so much money to own a property like this that he just couldn't put it together. So roughly a year ago, a little more than a year ago, Al came to me and said, help me sell this thing. We came to Orem City first, sat down with Jason Bench, who's one of the most amazing guys I've ever worked with in any city. He's laying on a beach somewhere, I'm sure, right now. Here he's doing well. But he's the one that told me this needs to be at a 7 lot per acre density. If you can get it at a 7 or a little bit below, he said, this will fly right through. He said because of the railroad tracks and because of the industrial park, and it's up against Provo. So, you know, it's pushed the traffic to the edges of the city. And so we went to work and limited who we sold this to and marketed it to. to groups like the one behind me, uh, that would not come to you and propose some stupid 15-per-unit development like all of the— the one that's just, just to the east or west of here on Geneva Road that we— so we reached out to this group and they're amazing to work with and came to the point where, uh, where we are today in front of you right now. But every penny of this— not that it matters where the money goes, but I think it does help— this isn't some fat cat getting rich. Every penny of the sale of this property goes right back into the community to feed them. But there was a lot of misinformation that I even heard from people in emails and such coming to you. I just wanted you to hear the, the full story from the beginning, and here we are now.

So, Jason, a couple questions for you. As you— this has been the second most emails I've gotten in the last little while, come from many of you in this audience, I'm Um, I keep hearing that we should just keep this as a farm. It doesn't sound— it sounds like the owner was willing to keep it as a farm, but the man or woman or family who farm it can't afford to buy it or lease it at a reasonable price. Is that why he decided to sell it? Is that kind of the background?

That is actually exactly it. So he had a year head start to put something together and just couldn't put it together. I wasn't involved in those conversations, but I did confirm that with Al Switzer today, who had those conversations with Wilkerson.

And just, just to confirm, I mean, because we're going to paint a narrative here, but as far as this property is not affordable to farm at the value that you can put high density on it?

No, no, it is.

I mean, there's got to be a price which is worth farming.

To continue farming this makes no sense. That's why all of Orem is now— there's no more orchards here.

Yeah, most of us live at home, but what I'm saying is it's based on the value of the land.

Absolutely. Yeah, and so the land they're paying—

if the land's pushed to a high-density price, then it's not a— it's not worth farming.

Exactly. Yeah, and it's honestly not worth farming a square inch of Orem for what you could do with the land here. That's why—

Well, because the land's that valuable. But that's where you get into potential green space laws and different things, because it's important to preserve land. Yeah, when you need to. So that's why there's all these different ways to try and preserve green space, because otherwise the entire Ovorum would be high-density housing. It would take over every single, you know, neighborhood. Absolutely right.

Yeah.

And I, I don't view this as high-density housing. You know, it's not an apartment. High-density housing is the corner of Geneva River Road and 2000 South in Orem. That's high-density housing, and it's out-of-control parking.

It's—

this has more than adequate parking, single-family homes. Nothing here will be rented initially. It'll be sold to individual homeowners. And as far as affordable housing, this is— this is why we grabbed Jason at the very beginning, Jason Bench at the beginning, and said, help us put together a project that will bring the most money for the charitable organization And make it palatable for the community and for Orem City, so it would be easier to approve. And that's what we feel we've put together, because I— where I live in Northeast Orem, I've been in Orem my entire life. And my neighborhood is an R-8 neighborhood, and there's probably 20 or 30 accessory apartments in my neighborhood. If I counted all of those, I don't think the density-wise were much more— much less than what this would be because it's just, you know, and there won't be accessory apartments here because they don't just put those in these types of communities.

But to clarify, because we keep talking about accessory apartments, but to clarify, there's, there's essentially 29,000 units of ownership in the city of Orem. There's about 900 accessory apartments.

So there's a bunch of those in my neighborhood that are illegal.

They must all be living there. So, but, but in the big picture, because I keep hearing that There's all these, but there's 900 out of 29,000 units.

So there are a bunch though.

I could—

I'll give you a list after and you can give them to your enforcement officers.

Jared, I have a question for you. Although you're new to the city, I'm sure someone here can help us with the facts. When, several years ago, when we laid water and sewer pipe down there, we laid enough to handle, I think, this— I think that's probably why Jason said if it's 7 to an acre, It's magical. Can Brian or someone else give me some reality check on that? David, you and I were here then. I don't know if others on the council were. But, but I think it was to handle development on this all the way down to 2000 South. Can someone help me who knows this?

Working on it.

If you can give us some time, Tom.

Yeah. Okay.

Chris, what do you know down there?

So it's not dependent on utilities.

It's— we have sufficient capacity in our utility system down there because, because we built for this type of development down there, I think.

Absolutely.

Wasn't it a, uh, uh, way the sewer line, um, the angles or the lift— I mean, I heard Dave said something about a pump station. I heard that same thing. Is that an issue down there?

This would all sewer to the lift station. That's reference to the Mansell property. Then it would be lifted to the sewer water treatment facility.

Oh, but we have the infrastructure to do all that.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you. Sorry to take so long.

Hello, my name is, uh, Nate Horan. I'd like to just say, for most of all of the council members, it was nice that each of you took time out of your days to either meet with me or Julie if I wasn't there for that meeting. So I have a list of just certain aspects of this development that I'd like to touch on that I think will help answer a lot of questions that might come up. So one thing that Tyler did notice, one thing, well, that we do do when we're looking at property is, we'll go and look at what the general plan is for that area for the land use. And for this area, uh, the general plan, uh, says that for land use density, it's anywhere from 4 to 8 units per acre. Um, on this specific site plan, uh, you can see we're right at, uh, I think it's 6 point— well, that one doesn't show it.

Yeah, 6.9.

Right under— yeah, right under 7 units an acre. Um, so we're trying to be, you know, upfront and not trying to do a bait and switch that, you know, a lot of people are worried about. When we look at, you know, looked at this, this is what we felt was, uh, appropriate for what the city had planned for this area. Uh, with that being said, we are striving to provide affordable housing and a high-quality product. Uh, like my brother said, we are local and we've done quite a few developments here locally. And so, you know, we invite people to go and look at our website, see where these developments are, go and visit them and see the kind of products and communities that we do build. Um, another thing that's been brought up, uh, in the past, uh, with the past development is, uh, for some reason, some people do, some people don't like the 2-story houses. On this specific project, at this point, we want to do basements on everything, on, on all of these units. So they will only be a single-story product. They won't be 2 stories. Um, so, you know, that's, that's, I think, something to note here is, is that is the plan going forward. I know that some of our illustrations showed a 2-story, uh, but that would be, I guess, what we would consider the worst-case scenario if we're not able to build the basements.

So what's your square footage then?

So the—

could I—

I'll get to that one real quick.

So when you say if you're able to build basements, can you or can't you?

It'll depend on how— so we have done— it'll depend on where the water table is. So we have done studies and the water table is high in this area, right? But it's not too high that we can't make it work, meaning we could raise the roads a certain amount and bring in fill to the site, you know, nothing crazy. But then we would be able to still fit basements, you know, on this site. It's just right on the balance to where we'll have to go through more engineering to get to that final product, you know, to be able to know for sure. That's why, you know, I just wouldn't like to say—

It's the same It just seems like, I mean, for us to make a decision, that's a fairly significant issue if this is going to be single story or if it's going to be 2-story.

Yeah.

So I, I mean, there's something that I would want to know.

Okay. Um, so starting on the east side of our project, uh, against the railroad tracks, we're planning on building townhomes all the way along, um, along the railroad tracks. Um, these townhomes will be priced in the mid-$400,000s. And, uh, we think it's suitable to have townhomes along the railroad tracks to help be a buffer for that train that's, you know, frequenting those tracks. Um, we're going to be building these townhomes a little bit different than we have, you know, just your traditional townhome that would not be built next to the railroad tracks. Some of the things that we're going to offer on these townhomes are double-pane laminated windows and window coverings. Uh, increased insulation. Uh, we'll be using an advanced wall framing system, uh, which will change the framing and the exterior construction of the building to reduce sound transfer through the walls. And this can be accomplished with spacing— with stud spacing, foam ceiling, all penetration, and thicker drywalls. Uh, another thing we're going to be doing is, uh, building an 8-foot concrete fence Uh, along the backside of, of those townhomes to help with that, with that sound coming from the, the tracks. Um, so to, to get back to Lynnae's, uh, question, these townhomes will be anywhere from 1,800 to 2,100 square feet townhomes, and they'll consist of 3 to 4 bedrooms depending on what the, the buyer chooses when they come choose their floor plan and choose the design of their house. So they're not by, you know, when you can— when you hear of a townhome, these are not small townhomes.

So is that 1,800 to 2,100? How's that laid out?

Is that— Yeah, so the end units are bigger than the middle units.

Okay, I guess what I'm asking is if it's in 2 stories, so it's basically 900 and 900.

Yeah, uh, we have the, uh, that one that the table must have been cut out. But yes, you're right, it— the, the main floor is usually, uh, 1,000 to 1,100 square feet, and then another 900 up on the second story. So if it was a basement, then the main— the square footage would likely be even more than this. You know, we'd have, say, 1,100 on the main floor and close to 1,000 beneath.

So, so if it was, if it was a basement townhome, not a 2-story townhome— if it's a 2-story, then it would be— either way, it's stacked with 900 or 1,000 or 1,100, something like that?

Correct.

Okay, thanks.

And the mayor and I were a little confused. Did you say $450,000 for the townhomes or for the single-family homes?

Yeah, $450,000 For the townhomes.

Okay, I think that was more than when you and I chatted.

Uh, so the townhomes, yeah, they would be— so from low $400s to $450. So the interior units, since they'll be smaller, they will be, they will be cheaper than the exterior units that are going to be larger.

How much cheaper? Like, like $450, $400?

$400,000 and $450,000? It'll just depend on when we actually go to sell and see, you know, what the market is doing at that point. It's too hard for me to predict at this point.

Okay, thanks.

Another feature for the townhomes is they will all have a 2-car garage and a full-length driveway. So like was mentioned, it'll provide a lot of parking for this community just with the garages and the driveways. Another thing for in front of the townhomes that the city had on their master plan is the trail system. So you can see it going in front of the townhomes. It's roughly twice as wide as a regular sidewalk, and we have done these in other communities and they're very popular. People really like the, the wider sidewalk, the path, and so we've added that there. Thank you.

So is, is that part of an ongoing trail system?

Uh, yeah, yeah. This— the city has it planned going right, right where we show it and continuing north through the—

the development goes all along there, and this is part of it.

Yep.

Okay, thanks.

Uh, so going on to the single-family homes, uh, these homes will be priced in the $500,000s, and just like the townhomes, each of them will have a 2-car garage and a full-length driveway. Um, the square footages from them are similar to the townhomes in being 1,700 square feet to 2,200 square feet with 3 to 4 bedrooms depending on, on what the buyer decides to, to build there. Um, one thing that I had in my notes that we haven't touched on here is, uh, this site plan is Not consistent with what we have talked to a lot of the council members about. Um, we had— we weren't able to, uh, get that added to the presentation just because we haven't, um, we haven't had that go in front of Planning Commission. But I would like to touch on, um, we are planning on following your guys' recommendation of putting those R-8 lots along the west side of the project, even though you can't see them here. That is our full intention of, of building, you know, those 8,000-square-foot lots to match the neighbors, um, that— to quite honestly, the only neighbors that, that we have in this development. That's been, you know, one of their big concerns.

Can I, can I ask, can I ask a question? Um, so when, when we visited, you had a map with the R-8 on this, on that. That's what you showed me.

Yeah.

But it— you weren't able to get that into the presentation.

Uh, yeah, we were told that since it hadn't gone to Planning Commission, we couldn't add it to the actual packet, but that if you wanted to view it, that he, uh, he does have— is it Jared? Yeah, Jared does have access to it, just so you could see what it would look like if you would want to see.

I was gonna say, I remember seeing, yeah, larger lots along that west side.

So do we have to say pretty please to Jared to get him to show it?

That's what I was told.

I just want to be able to claiming the Planning Commission never saw that. So what their recommendation to you is based on what you're seeing here, not what—

So what are we voting to approve?

Well, we can make an amendment to the approvals, Stephen, subject to R-8s along the west side, right? I don't know how much— sorry, again, they're going to show something that shows R-8s along the west side of their property, but the Planning Commission had Hadn't seen it. So if we were to approve it, we could approve it subject to this other slide that Jared's going to show us.

So to make sure I'm clear, are you actually proposing an R-8 zone or an R-8 type development?

Uh, just an R-8 lot size, 8,000 square foot lots. So what we would ask for is approval with a condition that we build R-8 along this west boundary.

Okay, can I clarify? Because When I say R-8, that's not just an 8,000 square foot lot. That includes the traditional R-8 setbacks. So, are you changing the setbacks for your R-8? Are they 20? What is it, 24 in the backyard?

25.

25 backyard, 25 split on the—

No less than 8 split.

That's a good point.

So, they may be just saying 8,000 square foot lots and not R-8.

Yeah, that is a good question, and I would have to provide additional information for that. I mean, I think Roger's our engineer. He could speak to that, uh, a lot better than, than I could, to be honest.

I, I could speak to that.

I do have a paper copy of that. Um, it's too bad that you don't have it.

Basically, we lose 5 units on the west side. The neighbors to the west Have met with the developer and suggested that we put larger lots.

And basically, we've taken 5 lots out of that bay and reduced the density there.

So it reduces the density to 6.3 units to the acre and allows for those larger lots along the west side.

So is that the entire west side, or is that just the bottom part of the west side?

Just Just the bottom part.

Yeah, the bottom part.

Yeah, right here.

Okay.

Yeah. And you lose how many, Roger?

5.

5 out of the 9 that are there, right? You lose 4.

Uh, let's see.

Yeah, I lied, I lied.

I would lose 4. We lose 4.

There's 5 there now.

Gotcha. Thank you.

Okay, that's a big—

I'd be happy to show you this if If you'd like to pass it around, I apologize for not having it.

I do have it. Yeah, if you'd like me to put it up, I'm I'm happy to do that.

Yeah, one moment.

Yeah, yeah.

Thank you.

Uh, so just a few other points that I'd like to address real quick, and I'll wrap this up. Um, we've had a couple concerns come from, uh, the neighbors, uh, one of them being the traffic, uh, and we had, uh, Avenue Consultants, uh, do a traffic study on this area, and they recommended that, uh, there would be no significant, uh, traffic impacts with our development going in. And, and given that— Who did you get? Avenue Consultants. So, I mean, it's not— it is I'm not the one saying it. It's a professional engineer that the city recommended that we hired.

So I missed that comment, but I heard a lot of applause.

What can you say again?

We performed a traffic study on our development, and the conclusion was that there would be no significant traffic impact. Another thing that was mentioned is the the amount of parking in our, uh, in our development. We've calculated all of the available parking spots, and it came over— came out to over 500 available parking spots, counting legal on-street parking, uh, which would be over 5 unit— 5 parking stalls per unit. Um, so we feel pretty comfortable that this could self-contain, um, all of the parking that, uh—

Now, you're, you're counting inside the garage too though, right?

Yeah, yeah.

That's not in our code, just so you know.

Uh, so inside the garage is in the code, but the driveways are not.

Okay, so 4 spaces aren't 2R, basically.

Uh, yeah, I guess I should have prefaced the— I came up with that number just for what could be possible, right? Not what actually what Orem City, uh, qualifies as a parking spot. Sorry, that was my My bad.

So, so with that math, I'm just trying to figure this out, uh, before we vote. But I get my house, I guess, would have— I've got a 3-car garage, so I would, I would have 13 parking spots according to the way this works. 3 in, in the garage, 3 in the driveway, and then a bunch parked all around the house. I just, I'm just saying.

I think we spoke about this when we were together. How are these lots being maintained? There's an HOA of some sort to keep front lawns, back lawns— what's being maintained by the association?

Yeah, that's a great question. Uh, so yeah, we had discussed the townhomes will always be maintained by the HOA, the landscaping. We have also decided to have the HOA for all of the single-family homes maintain their front yards, so they will have full— you know, they will have full landscaping when they purchase the home, and the HOA will maintain the, you know, all of that landscaping. So from a street view, this will be a very well-put-together community. And You know, we think that that'll be something that will add to this, this community greatly.

So have you, have you done that before in developments? Do you have HOAs?

Yeah, we've done that.

Yeah.

What have you typically seen your HOA fees to be?

I, I could not give a number specifically. It really depends on the amount of open space and the amount of amenities. One thing that You know, we don't have a lot of amenities. We do have the, the pavilion and the playground right here in the corner, but it— I, to be honest, I couldn't speak to what the actual dollar amount would be. I just wouldn't feel comfortable.

Because my sister lives in an Ivory Homes development right by the new Provo High, um, and they just— it's kind of like these homes, they just do the front Front— I don't think they do the front yard. I think they shovel the walks and that's about it. $125 a month. So you're starting to eat into that affordable housing payments opportunity, right?

Yeah, that's exactly the conversation that we had internally because we're like, well, if we're going to have them do the front yards, why don't we just have them do all the yards? But at that point, it does get very costly, right? And so we have been trying to find that balance. And yet, to be honest, we don't have the exact answer, but we are trying to keep it as low as possible for the affordable housing that we're trying to provide, because that is one of the main things that people will look at when they're looking to, you know, purchase a house, is these monthly payments.

Because they have to add another $105 on their monthly payments.

Exactly.

Okay. And while they're chatting, last— so it looks to me then And from this thing that I saw, that your 5 lots down at the bottom, you're probably doing the traditional setbacks for an R-8, but the ones up above, you've got your 4-foot on the side of fence, 5 feet. And then what's your back like?

Like 20.

20?

Yeah.

Okay.

Can you speak to us at all about rental versus ownership?

You know, what is your vision there?

Yeah, so that has come up too with the, with the community. So we have committed to limit the amount of rentals in this community. Uh, what we put in the, in the CC&Rs is 60% of this community has to be owner-occupied. And so a lot of people automatically think that, well, 40% is going to be rentals. And historically, especially over the last couple years, that just hasn't been the case with just how expensive housing is and how high the interest rates are. Especially the last 2 years, we've been seeing anywhere from 80% owner-occupied in our communities to higher than that. So that's what we plan on doing to to help in this community.

When you say in our communities, you mean your specific communities that you're building?

Yeah, that we're building.

Are you gonna—

sorry, what about ADU apartments in your—

They're not allowed.

So when you say— so are you going to put a mandatory amount of ownership in the community?

Yes.

And how would you— how would you work that so that it's mandatory? Because, yeah, do you know what the number is on where you can't finance your property? What is it with FHA?

So it would— so that would apply to condos, and not like this community in specific. So for this, I mean, so it wouldn't apply to this? No, it wouldn't apply to this community. I mean, that is a big thing that happened. Pretty much all of our communities, we want to be able to have first-time homebuyers. So be able to get that financing. So it is high on our priority list to make sure that, you know, these homebuyers can get those loans.

Any other questions?

All righty, thank you.

Well, I do have one comment. Yeah, because I looked at our Master plan, general plan. And I think you're— I think the definition of low density, this does not fit the master plan. This is a medium density project that you're bringing. So that would— do you know what I'm saying here? I mean, you're saying that you're bringing something that conforms with our master plan, and this does not. This is medium density in its own—

Zone for low.

Isn't that what that area was zoned for?

No. Do you have the Planning Commission? Yeah, Jared, go back.

You had it on the slide, low density.

Ryan was going to speak to it too.

So we've gone back and recreated what happened in the past here, and with our planning staff, a lot of them retiring, we've lost some of that knowledge. So in August of 2020, in a city council meeting, the general plan was updated for this area to be what Jared is showing as low-density LDR Southwest. That was a new designation at the time, and the council debated over 7 units to the acre or 8 units to the acre. And in the end, there was a vote to approve that new designation at 7 units per acre. 4 to 7 is what it states.

So by our definition, 4 years ago, that was low density.

That was in that discussion, and that is what the general plan shows.

Do you know what, Ryan, do you know what it was prior to that? It was—

How do we explain this?

No, it wasn't anything. So, well, I can't recall. It was probably— it was the general plan. So when this was annexed in, Everything came in, the zoning was an OS-5 as a holding at the time. I, it may have been just zoned as regular residential. I'd have to go back and look on that as well. So if you give me a second, I can look at that.

So do you have—

if you could look that up, and it's OS-5 currently, right?

That's the current zoning, but the general plan is low-density southwest, and that's how that was created in the minutes from the city council meeting, which I'm looking at right now, it said that staff would go back and create a zone for that specific designation, but that never happened. It just never got done. So, okay.

Right, because the current definition in our current general plan, which I don't know when it was adopted last, but it— this does not meet the definition of low density. So we've got a discrepancy here. I mean, I'm reading low density is low density residential classification is established to provide the majority of the housing stock within Orem. Typically suburban neighborhoods with single-family homes on individual building lots should comprise the majority of development within the LDR classification. Low-density planned residential development should be scattered evenly throughout the city, subordinate to the single-family home. And then medium density says, which I think this is. that Tom said, its classification is established to provide for transitional areas where a higher density than the LDR classification is justified. An overall housing density between 4 units per gross acre and 7 units per gross acre is acceptable. So, yeah, it sounds like there's not a conflict.

I don't disagree with you at all. Just the meeting minutes show that at the— and I'm going to read straight from the minutes. It says, at the time of annexation, a general plan map was adopted by the city and generally included a light industrial designation for property on the west side of Geneva Road and a low-density residential designation for property on the east side of Geneva Road.

With the announcement of the temple site at 1471 South Geneva Road and the additional interest in development in the general area, the City Council asked staff to review the current general plan for the area.

And that's how this came to the City Council in 2020, and that was the end result That created that new general plan designation. However, the zoning— a zoning definition or follow-up to amend the text of the general plan never took place. So the map was updated, but the text was not.

And so the general plan that was adopted did not indicate that.

So I can maybe add some more clarification because I was looking at the general plan too, and the section that you read is straight out of the general plan. You're right. But there's another section in that same general plan that says low-density residential consisting of low-density planned residential development, PRD, R-8, R-12, and R-20 zones. So our general plan does say that the low-density residential general plan classification includes R-8, R-12, R-20, and low-density PRD. I say low-density because we used to have A high-density PRD and a low-density PRD. So we were distinguishing that was only the low-density PRD. What's confusing is that those 2 sections should probably be together, and they're not. And so you're looking at one section of the general plan, and this is in a different section of the general plan, which is a little bit confusing, admittedly.

But then that is also different from the LDRSW?

Yes.

Okay.

Yes.

And That makes it even more confusing.

It does.

Yeah, so, so we need to fix this.

Okay.

All right. Um, any other questions before we open the public hearing? Okay, let's, let's go ahead and open up the public hearing, and we'll follow the same format as the previous meeting. If you guys would just line up on the left-hand side, and we'll We'll, we'll limit the comments to 2 minutes each.

Sure. I just wanna— can I have more than 2 minutes just to clarify a few things?

Okay, just to, just to clarify where we're going. So the goal here, um, Yeah, we'll, we'll go till 10:30. That'll give us 40 minutes. So if you guys could kind of prior— prioritize amongst yourselves, uh, how you want to do that and keep each person's comments to just 2 minutes so we can make this work, that'd be great.

All right, I'll try to be quick then. I'm Richard Wilkerson, and I am the— I was the— I'm the steward over the place and, uh, partnered with the person they talked about, Al, who I love a lot. And I think that these 2, these developer guys sound pretty good too. I, I'd love to work with them if I was going to build something. But, uh, I also know the Dodges really well and I love the Dodges. And so I am not here to say anything negative about any of them.

They've—

Al's been a great partner to us. And, and, uh, like I said, 7 or 8 years ago we partnered up to try to do something great and, and grow the vegetables for the food banks and also grow them for profit and see if we could scale up the project. Unfortunately, the vegetables, as you probably can guess, have a really hard time making much profit. And so that We could never get them over $200,000 of gross income on the vegetables. We could never get over that. And as you can imagine, that's not a very big number. So that's enough to pay maybe a salary or 2 and try again next year, but that is never going to be enough to purchase that land. And of course, at that time, that land was worth a lot less. It was just coming off the housing crash there. But obviously recently it's skyrocketed and now it does seem like a good time to sell for the housing. It's probably at a, you know, it's peaking pretty good right now. Al can get a good return on the investment and we want him to. And so I'm not here to try to take down his, return on investment. And the most likely way I would think that they would think is, is the development of the housing to do that.

And, uh, say that, that alert's gonna go off, but I'm— because, okay, because you're a founder here, I'm gonna give you special priority, let you tell your story.

Thank you, Mayor.

But everyone else will need to stay at 2 minutes.

And, uh, but a year ago, Al did, did talk with us But last fall, it was— the numbers were starting to drop. Now, I just back up a little bit. Where did the Corn Bellies of Orem thing start coming in? Well, the vegetables weren't doing so good, so we says, well, we got to try to market, market the things that the people do want. And so we started going that direction in addition to trying to do the vegetables for the donation. And of course, that was growing pretty fast. and has been growing pretty fast. And now in the last year and a half, it's had a hard time. The economy seems like it has changed a little bit. People have gotten tight and it's hit a dip. Well, it's this dip that it hit and the housing prices being so high that made us have that meeting where we said, Al says, well, I think we better, you know.

Sell.

sell it.

And I says to him, I says, well, can we have another year and have another chance at it? And, and of course this year didn't go very good, but it doesn't mean it couldn't go good in the future. And once, maybe once that— one of the guys said that economy starts picking up again, I'm sure that it would start picking up again heavily, but We need to get there if, if that's, if that's something the city's interested in. And I want Al to get his compensation, and I don't have the money to do it, but for the last 7 or 8 years we've been doing the Corn Bellies of Orem, and I've been throwing a $500,000 party for the fall festival for the city for the last 8 years now. I can't do that by myself anymore. I'm just a young— I, I'm only 38, and when I started the farm, I was 22. I don't have no big money to, to, to do that. But if it's something that the city is interested in, I'm sure that Al, being a very reasonable person, as you can tell, he works with very good people. And maybe I'm one of those good people too, that I'm sure if if given a very solid offer, he would consider that. And it could potentially be preserved for the City of Orem if we could work together for that. So we're looking for a mediator, and we're thinking the City of Orem since we serve the public. But we may be able to find other mediators too. There's a lot of people interested in doing that. And, um, But if we could get Al compensated, insert a mediator in there, we could go through the conservation easement program and refund that mediator over the next couple years so that now really the city would end up only having to spend maybe a million or 2 to own that piece once they're refunded, or whoever the mediator would be. So that's my request, and I don't care if the city buys it and fires me and toast. I'm just glad that I could build something down there that everybody could, could have a fun time at. And hopefully, if the people really do like it enough that represent the city, they will, they will help reimburse the good man who helped save it and, and see if we can put together a, a great project that the whole county can enjoy. And that's all I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Byron Taylor.

This is my sister Paula.

We planned for what the old 3-minute rule, so we may go just a little bit over, but not by much.

You were unable to attend, attend the planning meeting for this project, but we did watch it on YouTube. We are grateful for all of our neighbors who spoke out at that meeting. We believe they did a superb job in presenting a solid case against this development. Now we must correct some misinformation that was presented at that meeting. We own Cherry Hill Farm that borders the north side of the Wilkerson Farm. It was correctly stated that we placed a conservation easement on our farm. It was correctly stated that conservation easements involve a third party who ensures compliance to that easement. In our case, our easement partner is The Nature Conservancy. They are a valued partner. Who we have grown to appreciate and more and more since the year 2000 when our conservation easement was placed. Now for the disinformation. It was suggested that our easement could be renegotiated at some point. This is wrong. Even if we wanted to develop, which we don't, we could not. Even if Nature Conservancy Agency wanted to withdraw as our partner, which they don't, they cannot. Even if we sold the land, the easement stays in place. Quoting from the easement pertaining to this parcel, it is the primary purpose of the easement to preserve and protect in perpetuity the scenic and open space and value of the property. This map is misleading because a road is stubbed to our property. It suggests future development on our farm. This is not going to happen. For many years, we have attended meetings such as this. We never opposed reasonable development. We only suggested that good planning could enable the coexistence of farmland and housing That could result in a unique and appealing community. We suggested that a mishmash of higher density with associated traffic and farmland did not make good sense.

Our thinking never gained traction with Orem City. From our perspective, it seems that in our area, planning is driven by developers seeking, seeking maximum profits, and that Orem City enables as much density as the developers can get away with. During the past elections, we have watched the videos of candidates for Orem City Council. A common theme was the preservation of neighborhoods. As we've attended Orem City meetings since annexation that involve Lakeview, we get the feeling that our neighborhood is not one that should be preserved. How does Lakeview get preserved? The higher the density, the higher and quicker the turnover. This destroys any semblance of community or neighborhood for long-term residents. We already have a great deal of higher density, high turnover housing.

Once again, we find ourselves asking for more thoughtful, wisely planned development in Lakeview instead of anticipating the development of Cherry Hill Farm as suggested.

Why not address the fact that our farm will never be developed and plan in that direction? We believe the Lakeview community, as well as the greater Orem area, would benefit if both Wilkerson Farm and Cherry Hill Farm were preserved as a unique configuration of open space. As we watched the planning meeting video, one word jumped out at us: livable. And preserving the Lakeview neighborhood, is livability too much to ask?

Thank you.

We do not pretend that we preserved our farm for the greater good of the community. We did it for personal reasons. However, now that it is protected, why not plan and develop or not develop with that in mind? We keep hearing that people want their children and grandchildren to be able to live in Orem. The context is that we need more affordable or higher density housing.

We cannot make sense of this idea.

Orem City is a finite area. Families grow exponentially. Unless we want Orem to look like Manhattan Island, we should not feel a moral obligation to cram as many houses into Orem as possible. One particular meeting in this room we remember well. During the staff presentation regarding development in Lakeview, it was stated that our farm, present with its conservation easement, was a problem, an impediment. We can only hope that such a perspective does not persist to this day.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Just, just one, one quick question.

One quick question. How, how large is your farm?

Well, we're talking—

this parcel is 20 acres.

The one that's in the conservation easement?

Well, no, we have 160 acres in conservation easement, but the parcels impacted by By this is east of Geneva Road, and that's a 20— 16 acres of the 20-acre parcel are in a conservation easement.

And that's right next to this property that we're talking about.

This map shows a road going right to our property, the edge of our property.

I don't, I don't get that.

It's okay. So as we get further in this, if somebody could pull up a map where we can see where their property's at, we can come back to that, but just for future reference. Okay, thank you.

Appreciate what has been presented. Appreciate all of you staying this late hour, and, uh, I presume all your meetings are probably this late hour.

Appreciate it very much.

I'll just say a few things. Uh, it's nice to have an HOA, but if that particular contractor you want him to come do your backyard, there's another $700 to $1,000 a year you're going to be paying, uh, for that contractor that does the front. One thing we have in Southwest Orem is— well, 2 things. One is the Grandview traffic. Most of the people who come out of Grandview to get to the freeway come Sand Hill Road, Orem Main Street, and some Geneva Road. That is an awful lot of traffic every day. And you take a look at the cars going along Sand Hill Road that turn up into Grandview, and it's a steady stream of cars. I do not believe that the traffic engineer who studied this would say that this has no effective effect on the traffic, because it certainly will. We have also units, uh, in our area of college students where someone buys a house, rents it out to 6 or 8 college students. So we have 6 or 8 cars in front of that house.

And we have numerous of those in our area.

We have on the Sand Hill Road some packed-in apartments and things.

They're not awfully bad, but there are a lot of people that live along those areas.

20th South is not the greatest road in the world.

It's been increased just invite you to drive down under the freeway on 20th South and make sure you let your tire go off the edge of the, uh, the pavement there in that little hole that's there. That, uh, and so that needs to be improved greatly. Uh, I would just think that this development, they ought to reduce it by about 20% units and have less units. I'm not anti-development, but we would appreciate the council taking consideration of Southwest Orem and make it as beautiful as the rest of Orem is. And this is not the last development you're going to be dealing with in that area, because there's probably going to be many, especially as 20th South Road goes clear down to meet the road coming north from Provo High School. There'll be a lot of development and a lot of fun things for you folks to deal with. We appreciate your time. I've only been here for 4 hours. I'm gonna go relieve my daughters who are taking care of my sick wife.

Thank you.

My name is Tanner Nordstrom.

I'm the, uh, HOA president for Lakeview Fields. We're approximately 20 homes, um, exactly right across the street from Wilkerson Farm, but we did show up on that map that they presented. We're very close. One of the things that we looked for, my wife and I, and I know some of my neighbors as well, when we're shopping for homes, is something that felt like it just had a little bit more breathing room to it. We really appreciated being, you know, on that side of the freeway, Wilkerson Farm, a little bit of open space where you felt like you come home at the end of the day and just not constantly looking at more buildings, more apartments, more of just everything else. Wilkerson does represent something that there's really very few of If you ask my 6-year-old where he lives, he's gonna tell you he lives by Wilkerson Farm. No one's gonna be excited to say, I live by such and such development. This is one of these things, kind of like stated with the item earlier, that like once this is gone, like we're out of farmlands to live by, farmland to look at. I love taking my kids over to the farm and talk about where food comes from. Um, some really great unique opportunities there that I feel like we're really running out of in our community. Many of my neighbors are not here tonight, um, though I asked them to come. They cited their experience of coming before this— I should say previous council, don't want to throw all of you under the bus— um, regarding the really delightful clown gas station they got approved that's being put in on the corner. Um, another situation where Planning Commission voted against it. Um, seems like there were some close ties between Uh, the developer and, and some decision makers. Um, I guess my plea here tonight— you'll hear a lot of other opinions— my plea here tonight is, uh, please don't give my neighbors another reason to feel completely disheartened, uh, with trying to voice their opinions, um, to their elected officials and giving in to developers.

Thanks.

Hi, my name is Tricia Nelson. I represent Utah Autism Academy, and we are Um, the owners of the land adjacent just to the west of this development. Um, a couple of things are, we came before this council about a year ago and got our PRD approved for a very important autism-inclusive neighborhood there, um, something that we were really excited to have surrounded by farmland and so grateful to have good neighbors over the last 10 years that I've been there. Um, a couple of logistical things I just want to bring up right now. Currently, there's a 3-acre parcel of land just south of our academy, um, that I understand is under contract with the same development team, and I'm not sure what they're planning to do with those 3 acres. I think that matters in this conversation, whether that plays into the zoning or what they plan to do with that 3 acres that's right now vacant. Um, also, there's an ingress egress that would, um, come halfway in our property and halfway in this 3-acre property that, that needs to go as an access to our PRD zone. if this land is developed. So I'd like you to take those things into consideration when you're reviewing this as well. Thank you. Hi, my name is Sydney Damron, and I live directly west of this proposed development. Um, and I apologize for any emotion because we are here a lot and it's hard.

But thank you for listening to everybody tonight.

I think we're going to echo a lot of what the Canyon Parks residents said.

Um, our neighborhood has housing surrounding us, and the negative impacts of those developments have been significant.

We've seen promises from developers of well-maintained landscaping, sufficient on-property parking, and open spaces that in many instances have just not been realized.

We are sympathetic to how hard it is for homebuyers in this housing market.

We are first home—

or first-time homebuyers ourselves, and so far have spent a significant amount of time in this room fighting for the value of our home and the integrity of our neighborhoods.

Thank you. This is not a solution to affordable housing. Developments like this one exacerbate the problem when landlords come in, purchase multiple properties, and turn them around for a profit because they can afford to. With high occupancy rentals, there is always parking scarcity, which leads to unsafe traffic conditions. There are currently renters and visitors parking all along 2000 South Geneva Road and Sand Hill Road due to a lack of parking. I am not convinced, even with the proposed number of stalls, that this will be enough when you consider the proximity of this property to both BYU and UVU and the high likelihood that there will be 4 cars or more to a unit. Having lived in a similar townhome development and after driving through an existing Whitestone development, I can assure you none of those students will park in a driveway, and those 56 guest spots will dry up very quickly.

Recently, it was so congested with cars along 2000 And south that making a turn out of our single-family development was nearly impossible.

Knowing the struggle we already face, we urge the commission to consider what a development of this density will do to an area that houses kids, families, and elderly residents.

We bought our homes in this area based on a plan of single-family residential and open space.

Wilkerson Farm is a treasured open space in Orem, and we plan to trade it for what? For cramped lots, overcrowded parking, and dangerous increases in traffic. We are also coming to you as a neighborhood that has been severely overlooked by both developers and past city officials.

Speaking personally as a resident of the Payton's Crossing development, we are reminded every day as construction moves forward on the Holiday Oil Gas Station how we were left out of the conversation to rezone the land behind our homes, and we now have to deal with the fallout of that decision.

Please do not overlook us this time around.

Thank you.

She's a hard act to follow. That's my wife, Sydney. Um, my name is Bronson Damron. I also live in Payton's Crossing, just west of this development. Uh, we understand that growth is necessary, and I'm happy to hear of the concessions we've already gotten from the developers in terms of owner-occupied percentages and R-8 zones next to our neighborhood. That's pretty great.

Thank you.

Some of those changes seem to have come outside the normal routes, which Worries me a little bit, but overall, thank you. We actually want families to join us in Southwest Orem. We're obviously worried about traffic and parking. As mentioned before, Geneva, Geneva Road is a parking lot from the fields. Like, if you're down there in the morning or in the evening, there's a quarter mile of cars just on the side of the road there. And I feel like this will be the same thing on 2000 South because of this development, regardless of the extra parking available. Um, Southwest Orem is arguably the most neglected piece of our city. Please help us make it a jewel the likes of our friends and neighbors in Northeast Orem you've heard tonight by only approving an R-8 zone, or best case, help us find a way to make this an open green zone of some kind to bless current and future generations. I loved hearing earlier that something like that might be possible. We have many of the same concerns as those residents you heard earlier tonight. Please do not allow this rezone and please put safeguards in place to ensure that we can keep our neighborhood safe.

Thank you.

in place to ensure that larger single-family homes like those in Payton's Crossing where we live will be built when it comes time to develop this land. Please do not allow this current proposal, and please put in a provision to have at least an R-8 zone, which is the standard of Orem, as previously mentioned. Please don't leave us again to struggle with a lack of control over our future. We've been coming here for a year and a half trying to defend our home from a gas station and more due to the decisions of a previous administration. We are now forced to watch that gas station being built literally right in our backyard. We have suffered a change in our home equity and a great deal of emotional and mental trauma after coming here so often and not being able to defend our home from corporations. Please help us defend our home this time and this neighborhood from unchecked growth.

Thank you.

My name is Dustin Palmer.

I am the president of Palmer Wholesale and Victorio Kitchen Products located at 1804 Sand Hill Road, very close by this proposed development. I both live and work in this part of Orem, and I wish to voice my concern about this development. This same development, or one very similar to it, was denied in August of 2015, 9 years ago.

I was at that meeting and it lasted till 2 in the morning.

I hope this one does not go that long. The reason it was denied was due to insufficient infrastructure to support support the increased traffic and density. At that time, particular attention was given to the unimproved portions of Sand Hill Road south of the roundabout at 2000 South and the segment from Sand Hill Road, 2000 South Sand Hill Road to Geneva Road. These roads remain in the same condition as they were in 2015, lacking shoulders, side sidewalks and adequate improvements to handle higher traffic volumes. Additionally, the development that was approved at that same meeting in 2015 on Geneva Road at 2000 South has highlighted these issues. The lack of sufficient parking for its residents and visitors have led to vehicles lining both sides of Geneva Road in the evenings, creating congestion and safety concerns. My specific concerns are about the traffic congestion, because 2000 South and Sand Hill Road are increasingly used as collector streets for motorists seeking an alternative to University Parkway. Adding a high-density development like this without addressing the road's limitations will exacerbate traffic congestion and safety risks. We've already talked about parking. I won't go into that further, but yes. It is a joke.

They will be on the street.

There is not going to be enough parking there with it being that close to the college.

It will be turned into rentals.

Not opposed to development, but this is too high density for the area.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Dustin's wife, Amy Palmer, and my— I wasn't going to get up, but my big concern is safety and the infrastructure the lacking road infrastructure that needs to, to be improved. Um, I, I have 4 college-age students.

I know about the housing issues, and, and we need, you know, housing for, for that age group.

But as soon as that kind of thing goes on the market, it's going to be parents from all out of state that are going to buy up those townhomes and put young single adults, and there will be multiple cars. And the kids that don't have cars going to try to ride their bikes and their e-bikes and stuff to UVU, and there are no bike lanes and no shoulder, and it is very dangerous.

And I don't want to see that happen.

I have a son that rides an e-bike because he's on the spectrum and he's not as comfortable driving, and he rides a bike everywhere. And these roads in these certain sections just give me so much anxiety because I have one of those kids that needs, needs that.

And so I just like to leave you to think about that If we could just improve the road structure before we approve more housing. It already needs to be approved now, whether we approve that more housing or not.

We need it because of all the other housing and things we've added down there.

Thank you.

My name is John Porter, and although the evening is young, apparently I'll go quickly. I walked around our neighborhood. I checked with the City of Orem and City of Provo Planning. My neighborhood, Payton's Crossing, has 19 homes with a density of 3.6 per acre. Across the street in Provo, there's some apartments near Geneva. East of that, there is another neighborhood with 18 homes and a density of 3.0.

Homes per acre.

Easterly of that is undeveloped property.

It's agricultural now, but there is in the works a plan to put in 31 homes with a density of 3.0 units per acre.

This project, they plan to cram in almost 100 homes at almost 7 units per acre. That is totally inconsistent with the neighborhood, the Provo and Orem neighborhood. And on that basis alone, I think it is an unreasonable request. It also seems to me to be sort of a half-baked request. We're getting some information.

Something hasn't gone to the Planning Commission, but maybe it'll be considered now.

I believe the deny— the request should be denied. Thank you. Hi, my name is Ryan McDougall. I actually back up to the Wilkerson farm, so I'll be impacted probably more, at least as much, if not more than anyone else by this project. Um, but I gotta tell you, as I look at it, it's hard for me to find fault with what the developers and the engineer have put together. When you look at the impacts of the industrial and the railroad and the freeway that this property backs up into, I would ask each of you, would you buy your dream home, your, you know, $800, $900 million home up against the railroad tracks, up against I-15, up against that industrial? I think what the developers have done is smart. They've put that Townhome row right up against the tracks, which for me will provide a sound barrier. We hear those trains coming by and it is loud every day. The freeway is loud every day, and I would love to see a row of townhomes without— with very little gaps in between, blocking all that out for me.

Also, the—

as far as the traffic, I don't think you could find a place in Orange Orem that would impact fewer residents than this. And I know nobody wants to hear that because we will be the ones that will be impacted in this, in this area. But we're on the edge of Orem. There's fewer residents in Orem that this will impact than any parcel I think you could find in Orem. And the traffic there, I know, you know, people are upset about the traffic. To me, it— I don't think the density difference between 7 or 8 units to the acre to 4 or 3 is going to make much of a difference. But what will make a difference is this developer is willing to put in single— or single-story homes, which I think is a major benefit. And then to, to put those townhomes along the tracks, along the freeway, to provide that buffer, I think is very important. I would love to see that. I look at the Wilkerson Farm every day when I wake up. I have huge windows that out— that look out over it. My only Issue, and, and I don't think the developer wanted to do this, but there's a road that ties into us, or just, just to the north of us, that I think the city made them put in, which I would love to see taken back out because the traffic is going to come up through our street, turn in, and come back down. And I don't think it's necessary. I think they have 2 entrances already. I think that's enough to handle their, their subdivision, their traffic.

If we could contain that just to their subdivision, I would love that.

And I don't think that the extra access is necessary. Maybe there is some reason that they put it in as far as, you know, not trying to landlock another property, but I think that that could possibly be worked out. But I think these developers are reasonable. Everyone's saying, I want something reasonable. This is reasonable when you consider where this is going. No one's going to buy a million-dollar house up against those railroad tracks.

Thank you.

Will you put the, the secondary map back up that the developer provided, the one with the R-8 homes? Can you guys connect me back up again?

It's disconnected.

Okay, I don't need that at the beginning, so I'll let you do that while I'm speaking. My name is James Brown. I live along 2000 South, so I suffer the Traffic every day from all these developments that are going in. I just have one question for the city council. Are we Family City USA, or are we High Density Apartment USA? Because that's really what we're deciding right here. So no one can afford these big land purchases, right? The idea of doing the easement like has been done at Cherry Hill Farm to me is is the perfect solution here. We don't have to put in a bunch of high-density housing. We don't have to solve this traffic problem. We don't have to address any of these things. We can leave the farm as it is and the property owner can get paid. I think that's the ideal solution. I would love to see Orem partner with them and work toward that. They need a third-party partner. Orem could be that third-party partner and help them with that development. I think that's a great idea. I think that should be Landowners get to do what they want with their property within limits. Oddly enough, it's your job to decide what those limits are. You're here to protect the rest of us and make sure that we don't put in developments that don't make sense. I would call your attention to this map. Notice that there are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 actual R-8 houses here, and that stands in stark contrast to The high-density housing that they're trying to pretend isn't. I think that map is the perfect example of why this project shouldn't go in the way that it is. If those were R-8 houses, I think you'd have a lot less people standing in this line right now objecting to this project. I would encourage you to cooperate with Wilkerson and with the landowners and develop this easement so that this property can stay exactly the way it is. Let's be Family City USA, not Apartment City USA.

Thank you.

I'm reading a statement from Carolyn Hargraves, Utah Department of Agriculture and Food Director, Marketing and Economic Development Division. Dear Orem City Council members, I'm writing on behalf of the Utah Department of Agriculture Agriculture and Food, UDAF, to share our perspective on the proposed rezoning of a parcel that is currently in use by Wilkerson Farm. While we understand the complexities involved in land use decisions, we encourage the council to carefully consider the broader implications of potentially rezoning this parcel. Agritourism operations such as Wilkerson Farm Family Farm play a vital role in communities. They provide significant economic benefits by attracting visitors and residents alike, preserve valuable open space, contribute to agricultural production, and increase local supply chain resiliency and food scarcity. Maintaining agricultural production in and around our urban centers is critical for ensuring food security and that access to fresh nutrient-dense foods remains available to residents. The importance of preserving open space and productive agricultural lands cannot be overstated. In the past 60 years, Utah has lost nearly 20% of our farmland. We often say that once agricultural lands are lost, they're lost forever. Losing farmland such as this parcel is a critical threat to local food security. Thank you for your thoughtful consideration of this matter. UDAF is available as a resource should you wish to discuss strategies for supporting agritourism or opportunities to support agriculture in the context of land use planning through conservation easements or other means. Sincerely, Carolyn Hargraves. Karen Turner from Orem. I request that the city council be forward-thinking like the citizens of New York City back in the 1850s when it was rapidly growing and they determined to create a park, and that's when Central Park was created. The intent of that park was to provide an escape from urban stress stress, a place to connect with nature, and a healthy alternative to the growing city around them. We can do this for the future. We can do this for our families, for the school kids. They need to have this agricultural experience. And I was just thinking before I came in, up in Salt Lake there's another farm place, and maybe you guys have been there. I can't think of the name of it.

Wheeler Farm.

Why can't we have something like that in Orem? We need something where the kids in this community can learn how to garden and grow vegetables.

Okay, just let me change the rules a little bit. So we're supposed to stop right now. Let's end people coming up to the line and let's just give—

nope.

Okay, okay. And then we'll, we'll We'll, we'll let everyone in the line have just 1 minute, okay? Because I mean, we're supposed to end it right now, but we'll let each of you have 1 minute.

My name is Darren Hawkins.

I've interacted with many of you, but I, I sit on an Orem City Committee, but I'm here tonight on my personal capacity.

Um, I just want to promote the idea of pausing, and because this is a forever decision, I think that there is a possibility of finding a mediator As Mr. Wilkerson said, I think there is a possibility of finding someone who will pay for a conservation easement for this property. I've worked with the Crandalls on this, so I know something of this. You folks who are supportive of conservation easement in the case of the Crandalls, I would ask that you be supportive of looking around and thinking if that is the same possibility here, because I have some experience with this, and I would like to say that I think it is Mayor Young and City Council, my name is Margaret Dayton, and I appreciate your public service, and I appreciate you extending your time, and I appreciate your supportive family so that you'll be here.

I agree with the concerns that have been expressed about traffic and safety. I would like to address specifically also the food issue. You are all probably aware that Orem City is one of 3 places in the state that has a microclimate that is ideal for fruit growing and ideal for agriculture. One of those other places I was in today, up in Perry, Utah, where a lot of their peach orchards are now replaced with driveways and homes. And once you ruin that microclimate, choice soil, you cannot replace that opportunity for growth. We need to have a place for food to be grown. It used to be a very common thing when I was early in the Senate to have farm field day out in Vineyard where there were 13 dairy farms. There isn't a farm field day or a dairy farm left in Vineyard, and I really don't want to see that happen to Orem. So I just asked you please to consider, for the food safety, for the option of us have growing our own food, to not be supportive of eliminating the benefits of Wilkerson Farms.

It has come to my attention that Wilkerson Farm may be shut down with the recent proposed sale of the property that the farm is located at.

I think this would be a terrible loss for Orem City, as Wilkerson Farm has provided so much entertainment and opportunities, not just for the people of Orem, but for people throughout Utah County and the surrounding communities. People come from all over Utah to attend the Wilkerson Farm Fall Fair every September and October. For many years now, the fair has become a place of community traditions and lasting memories.

Memories such as people proposing on the tractor ride, picking out pumpkins for Halloween, and seeing incredible views of Y Mountain from the top of the Ferris wheel. People must— people may just see a potato field or pumpkin patch, but Wilkerson Farm is so much more than that. It is not just a farm, it's not just a part of our community and our culture, and it is— wait, I'm sorry.

It is a part of our community and our culture and is part of Orem City.

This year I'm 20 years old. When I have a family 10 years from now, what will be left for my kids? Orem is becoming a concrete jungle. Please consider the future.

Thank you.

I'm Nathan Wilkerson, Richard Wilkerson's oldest brother. So I understand there's a perceived bias here, I suppose. But I just wanted to say, my family and I moved back from Washington State about 4 or 5 years ago, and we're temporarily staying over here at the Fields just because of the situation with the housing and the interest rates and such. So we're not quite ready to buy yet. But trust me, just as soon as we have a chance, we will be moving out of the fields. It's not a very nice place to live, to be honest. And so when I look at what you're planning on putting here in this location, to me, it's very similar. It has that same sort of feel. And if you want to put high-quality housing into the city and keep it a family city with long-term residents who are not just transitory for students, I think you guys should really question, you know, maybe RA housing is the situation. But, and my other observation too is if you look at, I've walked along, you know, around the Farm quite a bit recently. And if you look at that piece you're gonna put along the tracks there, I don't know who would actually wanna buy those houses and keep them long-term. I sure as heck wouldn't. So just saying that. So finally, I just want to say, look, the conservation easement, I think that's the way to go. We need this farm. We have one shot here. We have one opportunity. You know, we got to seize this moment, or do we just let it slip away? And once you do let it slip away, it's gone forever, and we know that. So we need to do the right thing. So I say save the farm.

Everyone has said everything much better than I can. So I just want to attest to the value that the Wilkerson Farm brings to the community. I live on Main Street, just above it. I walk by it every day. There is joy that comes out of there.

It is a place of sanctuary for the youth.

I've lived in Portland, Oregon, for 20 years, and in living in Orem for about 6 years, there is No way to describe the comparison between the 2. Keep building these high-density or even low-density housing projects and taking away some of this farmland, and you're going towards that direction, and it is not a good direction to go for anybody, for the community, for anybody. Um, the Wilkersons, this is a labor of love for them, and love abounds in that place. And as you make the decision, please be wise.

That's all I ask. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Kevin Wiest.

Um, I recently purchased a home across from Wilkinson Farm on the Provo side in the Provo neighborhood there.

Um, I actually left my house in Orem because high-density housing was being built in my neighborhood on State Street and 800 East, if you know that development. So I left that neighborhood to have more of a rural feel anyways.

My only comment to you is please just put a hold on this until we find a better use for this land, until we figure things out.

I feel like this is rushed.

It could be a mess. Let's not make a poor decision with this.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Leanne Swanson. I'm probably the only one here that lives on Sand Hill Speedway. That's, that's its new name.

We need to rename that road, I'm telling you.

And it's not 35.

It's 45-plus on that road.

We do not need to put any more traffic on that road or on 2000 South until Utah State decides that they need to put an exit somewhere to control all this traffic that's down there. I've lived there for 28 years and I've watched it, and now it's a nightmare, and we don't need to put anything else on that road.

And also, I would—

and And the parking, the parking is a big concern also.

I live by townhomes, I live by apartments.

The parking is a nightmare now that they're parking on the street where there's really no parking on the street.

And then if we cruise up the road that takes you up to Krispy Kreme, that's a nightmare too.

So I would love to see this property stay as Wilkinson Farm. My grandkids love it, and it's a beautiful place to look at when you drive I'm sorry, my knees would not let me stand for an hour either. Uh, 20 seconds. I'm Sherry Fong. I live in Payton Crossing also, and I just— I, I can't see changing the zone to PRD, which is high-density planned residential. There's just too much density already On the road. There are times I cannot get out of 800 West for 5 minutes because they're all backed up to Wilkerson Farm waiting for the light to change at Geneva. And we don't need 500 more cars, which is what it's likely to end up instead of the 2.5 per unit.

We know that.

So thank you.

Okay. Thank you, all of you. We really appreciate your input and your comments and your staying out late tonight. And for those of you who feel bad about being here for the last, uh, 6 and a half hours, we've been here for the last 9 and a half hours. But don't feel bad for us, we ran for this. Um, let's go ahead and bring this back to the city council. Uh, I'd just like to have each city council member say what they think.

And I've got a Quick question for, for Jared. Yes, can you pull up the map of the subdivision of the 19 homes?

Of the 19 homes?

Um, I just want to know how big is that subdivision?

What's the acreage?

I can't pull that subdivision itself up real quick, but I did have the Google Map up. Just one second.

Also, if we can clarify where that, uh, other farm is.

Yeah, here's Wilkerson Farm.

So this is Cherry Hills North, I guess.

And, and so that's Cherry Hill, and that's all up in here in a conservation easement, right?

Okay. And then there's the autism school.

There's guests.

So what, what is that plot, that whole plot there, the 1950s?

Yeah, this area here. I don't know the area of it. I'm sorry.

Ryan's going to be a wizard.

And we— when we bought our homes where the gas station is going in, were homes. There were 3 houses on there when we bought our houses.

We did not know there was a possibility of changing zoning and putting in the gas station.

I'm not sure what the left is.

That's Manziel property.

Oh, it's that— what's that? What is that? Is that industrial or is that—

what?

While they're looking up, that's fine.

So, Councilman Spencer, what was the— sorry, it's 6.87 acres is the boundary of Payton Crossing.

7 acres roughly, and there's 19 homes.

Yes.

Let's see the property to the west.

That looks quite crowded.

Here, let's—

That's another one.

There's 21 units, 21 lots, but 3 of them were existing lots that were included in that 7-acre development.

That's right, if I count them right.

Okay, Jen.

Uh, Chris, can I ask you a question?

I don't know if you know the answer to this. Do you know what the plan is for 2000 South?

2000 South, that's boundary with Provo Memorial. The rest of the railroad tracks is owned by Provo City.

So we do not own that road? And do we happen to know what Provo is planning to do with it?

As far as I know, it's to complete that cross-section that's there in front of the crossing.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions?

Yeah, will they be curb and guttering, curb and guttering that sidewalks, etc.?

Yeah, Jeff.

So your traffic engineer that did the traffic studies not here tonight. I'm wondering if we could ask John Dorney, our traffic specialist, if he has an opinion on what impact this might have from a completely biased standpoint—

unbiased standpoint, sorry.

John Dorney, City of Orem traffic engineer. Don't know if there's a specific question. Generally, the study was done under the guidelines that we gave them. They didn't— they followed all the standards. We do have a level of service value that they met, and we did ask them to change their accesses. It doesn't show this on here, but there's a road planned, I believe, in Provo on the south side of 2000, and we asked them on that Eastern road to change that to right in. Sorry, the one on the west to be right in, right out due to access management standards. So they did modify their site plan. And regarding the other accesses, I believe, and I'm speaking kind of for Tagger here, the city engineer, but the western stub into the neighborhood was partly due to infrastructure of future water and sewer lines. And also, generally, we get complaints when we do approve subdivisions that don't have access to their neighbors, because once they integrate in and these, these are all their neighbors, especially in Utah culture with the church mechanism and, and things, that they can't get to their neighbors' houses without having to drive out to a collector road. And people have asked us, why Why did you do that? Why can't my kid just go to my friend's house and I have to let them walk on the collector? So there was some thought behind the connectivity. I wasn't involved as much with the stub to the north, but it is in the same line of in case something happens. We wish it was there as a city. If not, it stays that way in perpetuity. So it did take a lot away, a building lot by doing, or at least 2, by doing what we requested traffic-wise. The tough thing is, when you have a rural community that's being asked to accommodate this, the traffic might meet the minimum standards that we set, but that doesn't mean it's not impactful to the neighborhood. And so when this— when the traffic study says there's no significant impact, that, that is interpreted to be we meet all the standards based at On what we've established. That doesn't mean you're not going to see an increase of cars. Um, there's about 1 car a minute, um, coming in and out in the morning and a little less in the afternoon. Um, that's about what the increase would be. And we— I used to do a lot of work up in Heber and Midway, and I tell you, those subdivisions coming in up there, those people, except for Swiss Days, are used to A little bit of a quaint neighborhood, and anytime something comes in, it's really, it's really hard to cram an urban type standard into a rural setting. So you're on the cusp of growth in homes right to the east and farms to the west. And this is that area that traffic-wise technically meets the standard. But we do as a city recognize the residents will have some impact. Not like how the traffic study says no impact. Any questions?

Okay. Okay.

What's that? Yes. Are we okay? We're good. Any more questions? Okay, why don't we— Yeah, let's Go ahead and start. Any council members would like to lead off with this?

I can go.

I went first, I guess, last time too. I can really read my same notes as I had before, um, because I still feel the same way, um, that we need to keep the integrity of our neighborhoods, and that, uh, is established R-8. So I don't see any compelling reason to change the zone because it's not consistent to the neighborhood to the west.

The—

I think if it was R-8, I think that that would— I could go for that because it's consistent. And, you know, the neighborhood has been through a lot down there with the With the gas station, everything else. And I, I feel for them. And a home is the number one purchase in your life. And I just think that the 22 or whatever people came tonight to speak, there was one that said yes and the rest said no. And I will follow the constituents that came tonight, and I will vote No on the project.

You want to go?

First of all, I think this is a good transition. We're right next to a railroad track. I don't think you'll get R-8s built right next to it. I've heard we don't want apartments. I'm grateful that That 60% of these will be homeowners. And so I like the developer there. Most of us are living somewhere that was an orchard, a farm, or some other land. And then once we build, we don't want anyone else to build near us. So I think that's a little bit interesting. I like the fact that they're single story, that they are more affordable. And I know my mother would roll in her grave when I said $450,000 for a townhome is affordable. And a half million plus for a single-family home, but nonetheless, much more affordable than where many homes are. I think the whole area, when we approved sewer and water down Geneva Road, was built for this medium density, and whether we called it low density in 2020, I think we all agree it's medium density, not low density.

Yeah, yeah.

So, uh, they— we've had a year to try to find a conservative easement. Somebody to buy it. I don't— doesn't seem like anything happened. And so I like the fact that the landscaping's maintained. I like single stories. I like that they're, again, affordable. So while I realize that the 21 of the 22 who spoke here today aren't going to be happy, I think the 92 who buy homes there will be. So I'm going to be voting yes.

Boo!

Save the farm!

Buy the farm.

Okay, now let's, let's, let's knock it off with the boos, please.

First Amendment.

Uh, yeah, anyway, we're not going to go there. We're going to be kind and we're going to be, you know, have a good conversation. Um, who's next?

Can I ask a question?

No, I'm, I'm sorry. We've, we've moved back to here.

So, 92 or 97?

93, I think, from the 4 lots moved, right?

You went from 97 down to 93.

Is it contingent on the removal?

I, I mean, yeah, we, we can't answer the question, but to me there's a lot of confusion on where we are and that we're trying to prove something that wasn't presented to Planning Commission.

But anyway, so, so, Mayor, if I can speak to that real quick. So if I'm understanding, they, they had kind of an alternate map, is that right? Where they, where they reduce the number of lots total and they increase the size on the west boundary.

So that's right.

I actually think you could approve that tonight if you were inclined to do that. I mean, they're basically proposing less density. So in other words, the idea behind, you know, the fact that it went to Planning Commission, people are on notice of what they're proposing. If they actually come back to you and say, oh, we'd like to do something less dense, that's not prejudicing, you know, the neighbors. That's actually working in their favor.

How about things like maybe it's a one-story, maybe it's a two-story?

Well, I'm not sure that they've ever proposed, and maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong. All I'm seeing is kind of this aerial map that shows the footprints. I don't know if they've included as, uh, because elevations— that's the word I was looking for—

because that would affect our decision.

There were absolutely—

that could absolutely impact your decision. So maybe you can clarify elevations as a part of the concept plan.

Okay.

And are those 1-story or 2-story?

Or 2-story elevations?

Okay, so we're approving 2-story.

So it sounds like you're approving—

even though 1-story was what people were told without basements because it's a PRD.

Yeah, is this told to the PRD?

Yes.

Okay, 2-story without a basement.

That's correct.

Right.

But your plan, this PRD that we're voting on, is the 2-story. They have to stand by.

Apparently, yeah. Yeah, apparently they're proposing 2-story elevations, so that would be no basements.

The application includes the 2-story elevations.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Okay, I'm ready to— I can take that. Why not, right? Okay, so I'm sorry it's late, so I kind of wrote down some of my stuff I was gonna say, because I'm a little tired. I didn't sleep much. Okay. I, I just want to kind of highlight what was said before, and truly, this is where we are in our city. Our most recent city council election last year, our residents made their opinions known. Orem has made it clear that we have enough higher density housing. What we need is more owner-occupied single-family housing. We have a lot of rentals. We talked about that earlier. I don't agree with the unique zoning designation that was somehow assigned by a prior city council to this property. It's just not consistent with our accepted definition of low density. So what Tom says, this is a medium density. This is an increased density project. Our master plans are put into place to balance communities. We balance housing types. We balance commercial, industrial, Manufacturing, parks, open space. You know, all of this is important in a, in a community. You know, zoning is, is used to bring plan diversity, balance, and protection to people. It's important that we match developments with location, and this development doesn't match this location. I don't think it's appropriate to have housing on the east side of the property near Union Pacific freight trains. Zoning protects homebuyers.

Okay.

And I would hate to see a young family so excited that they just bought their townhome, moving in to shockingly discover that night while they're sleeping that a freight train drives by their house. Have you been next to a freight train? They are body-jarring.

You're—

you can't even hear. I mean, go stand by and you can be 1,000 feet away and you're still going to feel it.

It's amazing.

So I feel a responsibility there that I'm sorry, I understand this is somebody's property, but that square footage is not appropriately zoned for housing on the east side. It's just not for someone. You know, why would you subject someone to live there? Um, like I said, I'm really stuck on this, um, location there and subjecting residents to that, um, because we don't put stores in the middle of neighborhoods. Um, and I feel like I need to protect those future residents. Um, also, you were all here earlier when I also stated that, that my first choice is— would be to, um, not do higher density, and I would actually like to pause this a little bit. I know there's this— Wilkerson's had a year, but, you know, when I talked to them, bless their hearts, they really didn't understand the process. And I think a lot of people have reached out to them now about these opportunities for conservation easements. So I think it can be a win-win for Tabitha's Way and for the Wilkersons if we bring the right parties together. I understand there are, you know, a former Representative House Representative, Utah House Representative, sent us an email, Marsha Judkins. And we've, you know, we saw the letter from the, the Department of Agriculture, and I've heard there are other legislators that are tuning into this now. So I really feel if we could pause this and just give a little more opportunity for that to happen, that would be my, my first choice. And frankly, if it turns out that the farm isn't able to be preserved. You know, I'm on— I'm R-8 housing. That's what we need in Orem. I stated earlier, and, and that's where I think we need to be as a city council. It's important that we listen to you. I think you've made your, um, opinions of what should go there very clear. And as was mentioned earlier, there are property rights, but those property rights are on both sides of the fence. So So that's my opinion. I'm, I'm not going to approve the zoning tonight.

So, um, complicated situation. Um, we have a property owner that bought a piece of property. With the intent of serving the community, providing food to those that need help. That didn't work out, and so now we have a property owner who is envisioning a way to use that same property by selling the property that he owns to help fund. That same concern that he had with his initial vision of buying this property in the first place, which is magnanimous, in my opinion. I think that's wonderful that he's willing to do that with his, with his money. So I'm concerned about property rights and telling someone what they can or can't do with their property. I appreciate the fact that someone mentioned food safety and the fact that what he wants to do with this will secure more food safety for those in need with what he will continue to do with Tabitha's Way and helping to build these other buildings. I like the— and I feel like this is a good— one of the areas that Affordable housing, giving the opportunity for young families to be able to purchase a home and build equity, which is what gives us all— it's that equity that we got when we invested in our homes that allows us to have a more comfortable life as we get a little bit older. And when people aren't able to have that opportunity of building equity, The younger that you can start that, the better it is for you. And I, I'm excited about the opportunity of, of some affordable housing and opportunities for families to, to purchase these homes and to start building equity to improve their lives for the future. I do, I do have some concerns about the questions, and I, I wouldn't be opposed to A pause, um, just to kind of get some, some things, you know, factually right.

As far as, are we talking one story, we talking 2 stories, some of those questions.

But, um, I, I feel like this is one of those areas that I, I think, um, this could be a blessing to the community. Um, I know neighbors have expressed otherwise. But I think it would be an opportunity for people to purchase a home for the first time. And so we'll, we'll see where we go. Just, just some thoughts.

I want to express appreciation to all the room full of people that are up here so late at night and, and have a real concern for this neighborhood. Has been mentioned by the homeowner, the Tabitha's Way, and the developer and all others, the respectful dialogue has been again something that I've appreciated in being able to be together. We might have a difference of opinion in the way we see things, but yet we're not disagreeable or, or in any sense showing discord or unkindness. Um, again, I also see the, the value of that was brought up by the developer of smaller homes being able to have families move in, but also recognize the challenge that was attempted to be addressed by having those R-8 homes on the neighbors adjusted. And so I think there's a willingness to try and make this a neighbor friendly development. And again, I, I see the value in possibly considering a pause to look at some of the alternatives that we've brought up and questions that we want to get more, more clarification on, to possibly see what else could be done to understand the Wilkerson perspective and what they could possibly do, along with the owner of the property. And his rights to move forward, and either in this configuration or possibly another option as we weigh a little bit of time to look at. So I, I like the general concept. I'm concerned that the neighbors are still concerned about it, so I'm looking at that angle as well. But I think a possible pause and then another thing is come back at this would be a possible solution, has been brought up also. Thank you.

Do you want to know what keeps me up at night as a council member other than this meeting? Is thinking about this, because this is a really difficult situation. On the one hand, I think we have— and I've been actually so impressed with the love that you all have for this farm and for each other. It's evident, and I really appreciate that. Even as you talk, I guess Richard Wilkerson, as he was talking, I could see the emotion in his voice.

talking about this is, but I, I love the property owner and I love the manager and I love all the people and I, and I really appreciate that about this community.

Um, on the one hand, you have that and this desire to preserve this community farm. On the other hand, we have this question of property rights, and I can't in good conscience deny an applicant because I want to have a conservation easement on the property, um, where, where the app— where the property owner would then take 60 to 80% less of the value of his property. I don't think fair.

So then I think I have to look at it based on, okay, what is the value of the development itself?

I have to not think about that side of it and think about whether it's development itself. Um, and I think, as, as Jeff expressed, I think there's some great value in giving families the opportunity to build equity. Um, I think that's something that's missing, and, and we're seeing less and less of that, and it's going to have really negative implications for our communities down the road. I think that this property represents a really unique location where there's a railroad track on on one side, where I-15 is right on one side, and where there's an industrial storage— I don't even know what it is— an industrial storage area on that side. I don't think that that's going to be a spot where people want to build their dream homes.

So I think townhomes are actually really well suited to that area.

That said, I do also appreciate that this neighborhood wants to stand up for their homes and what they feel is valuable for their neighborhoods. I do think also there are some unanswered questions with this developer, you know, our 2-story, 1-story. Um, uh, I guess there were some others as well. Um, and, and I'm open to putting a pause on it right now if that is the vote of the council.

Okay, thank you, Jen.

Can I make just one more sentence comment?

You always want one more.

I do not always, but I am this time. Okay, I just want to identify one thing. Okay, we talk about property rights, zoning rights. Currently, the zoning on this property is OS-5. There is no property right to get your zoning changed.

Okay, so this is the property right that is with this.

Thank you, and I'm glad I let you say that because that was a great point. Okay, that's a great point. Um, let me see if I can get through this.

It's very late.

Um, I just want to say to the developers, you know, I appreciate your sincerity. I appreciate what you're trying to do, and I just appreciate you're trying to work with the neighbors. Uh, although I think there's a lot more to do, but I appreciate your, your attitude. Um, and just to— no one's really said this, but as far as Wilkins Wilkinson Farm is being portrayed as this situation that's just not working out. We all need to shut it down and we need to sell property. Everything cycles through. I don't think, you know, if every business out there you gave up after you had a bad year, you'd have a lot of businesses going out of business. So things cycle through. So I don't think we're necessarily at the end of the road. And just to make that point, on average over the past 5 years, They typically grow 250,000 pounds of food each year, and they donate about a third of that. That's over the last 5 years. However, in 2022 in particular, they actually donated 120,000 pounds of food. So that's not insignificant. That's a lot of food. And they have anywhere from 38 to 30, and they've tried to enhance it by Turning in the the entertainment park, but they have anywhere from 38,000 to 52,000 people come through each fall season. That's significant. That's that's not that's a very meaningful number. As far as just a few points, so I agree that Southwest Orum. gets neglected. And I'm just saying, if we just switch roles and the last group was arguing for this, you know, would they have a different outcome? Because I, I, um, I mean, I, I, I think I'm the only council member that lives on the west side, so— but I try and represent everyone, west side or east side. But anyway, I, I just— I'm just throwing that out there that I I think we need to give equal respect to all the residents of Orem. Um, like, say Holiday Oil was an interesting example of that. I tried to help you with that. Um, as far as, you know, we're talking here, we're talking 93 homes on 14 acres. We just turned down 108 homes on, what, 28 acres? Was it 23?

24.

Okay, but we just turned that down. This is, you know, way more dense than that. Uh, there's the issue with, you know, I've heard a lot of complaints about cars, cars, cars, and, uh, and traffic. And, and then we go to mid-$450,000 for townhomes. I mean, I mean, seriously? Okay, let's think about this. So I want to buy a $450,000 townhome. That's— and it's not really $450,000 because you have to add in the price of the HOA, and that takes your monthly cost up. So net that in, and you're probably a half million dollar, $525,000 townhome. And a townhome that's basically been defined as helping the area by providing a sound barrier.

Okay.

Now, now, I just want to— I have a little bit of experience with this. I had a friend when I lived in New Mexico. I used to go spend the night at his house. And he lived on the train track. And it was actually a single-family house. And it was shocking. I mean, in the middle of the night, not just the sound, The entire house would first light up because the light from the train would light up the house. So you felt like you're about to have an airplane land on your house. And then from the distance, the entire thing starts shaking. And then it gets so loud when it's going past, you can't even hear. I mean, seriously, half a million dollars for that experience every night. And if you're, if you're a young couple trying to build equity. I mean, good luck. And I think how we're winding up here, I mean, we want affordable housing. We want to try and do that however we can. But I think because we're down to the last parcels of land in Orem, there's an old saying, we're trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. I mean, we're trying to take something that you wouldn't normally do, which is stick a whole bunch of townhomes right next to a train track. We wouldn't normally do that. And even to Lenee's point, I mean, is there a liability to doing that? I mean, if somebody shows up and lives there and all of a sudden they're having PTSD every night because they're having this experience. Anyway, you know, and going back to this was denied in 2015 by our city council. I'm not sure what's changed except that there's less land. Um, you know, going back to the— are we voting on 1 story, we're voting on 2 stories? Uh, we don't know. Uh, there's no plan there. I'm not sure what the plan is to— I mean, say we approve this— to define this so there's a rental restriction. I'm not sure how, you know, how that's enforced, what—

how it works.

Works other than it's, it's something we're talking about. Um, I think the traffic situation is, is really unknown. I mean, this is happening all over Orem. Essentially, there's, uh, some condos over by our house. There used to be everyone parked in their parking areas and everything. Everyone stayed where they're expected to stay until, uh, all of a sudden people started renting out all their And you start having 3 or 4 people living in a, a townhouse, and there's nowhere for them to park. And so when I drive home tonight after this meeting, the lights will all be out, but I'm going to go past probably 50 cars that are parked on the street that shouldn't be, because we're creating these situations and it's evolving into this parking nightmare. Um, To what some of the other council members have said, I think it's time we take a breath. If we pass this, we're done. It's a forever decision. I think we take a breath, we take some time, and we just, you know, we figure out what the right answer is. I think we've got a lot of input here. Here we've got an idea from a developer. We've got the Wilkersons are trying to figure out what they're doing. We've got the neighbors are trying to figure out what they're doing. Let's take a breath and let's make sure we get it right. And so I'll vote against this tonight with the idea that let's, let's take a breath. So anyway, back to council.

Go for it.

I kind of hate the continuation situation. I'd rather— well, they can, they can reapply. I mean, and the developers are friends with the landowners. Um, and so it's not like they're just out in the dark. I mean, they— if what I'd like to see is take a step back, try and figure out a real solution and see where this goes.

Yeah, I hesitate with a continuance because look what happened last time. They didn't bring us a significant change.

Well, exactly. We just spent the last 3 hours in a meeting that was a continuance, and we wound up in the same place.

Yeah, so I'll make a motion.

You're going to— Stephen, were you going to explain something to us?

I think I was just going to offer a couple thoughts. I'm not sure if they're relevant or applicable to this situation or not, and it sounds like you're kind of maybe going the same direction I am anyway. But, um, you know, in discussing a continuance, you know, the, the, the applicants have made proposal, obviously they're, they're, they're entitled to a decision one way or the other within a reasonable time. If you felt like you wanted to continue this till the next meeting, or, you know, a month or two down the road in order to give you more time to think about it or gather more information or things like that, that would be entirely appropriate. Um, but if it's really kind of a, a continuance, you know, indefinitely, we don't know whenever it's, you know, I think that they probably are entitled to a decision one way or the other. I had another thought, but now my—

It's getting late.

It's getting late. Oh, the other thing I was thinking of— oh, I know what it was. It was with regard to their entitlement to file a new application. If they get denied on this application, they can't file the same request for a year. So they can file a different application. So if they want, but it would have to be substantially different than what they're proposing here. So, for example, if they wanted to, they got denied on this and they wanted to come back and apply to rezone the property to R-8, for example, that's significantly different than this. They could do that. But if they came back with another PRD request and they just, you know, shifted some units around a little bit, but it's pretty much the same, they would not be able to do that for a year.

I could maybe provide some clarity if I could have like a minute to at least answer some stuff.

I don't think we need any more answers. What I mean, do you have questions? I don't have questions.

I think we—

Okay, I, I, I think we're, we're good with taking a pause. But I mean, that's what I'm getting up here.

A pause or a vote?

A vote.

A vote to deny and then come back later.

Once we get to—

I'll make, I'll make a motion in there that the City Council moves to deny by ordinance amending Article 22-5-3A and the zoning map of the City of Orem by rezoning the property located generally at 710 West 2000 South from the OS-5 zone to the PRD zone, approximately 14.18 acres, and amending Appendix KK of the warm city code.

I will second that.

Right here. Okay.

Aye.

Or don't say aye, right?

Yeah.

Okay.

Aye to deny.

Nay.

Aye. Nay.

Nay.

Nay.

I would like to do the pause. Pause the continuance.

So we're having a conversation up here. They're— they voted no, and they say they're— they— because they want to pause.

They want to do a continuance.

I—

you got to have 6 months if they're going to give them the opportunity to, um, seek out Wilkerson Farm opportunity to follow up on some of these leads.

So maybe I can offer another comment suggestion. If, if you want to continue this to maybe give them an opportunity to make some modifications of some sort, you want to see something different. Maybe you want to see single story with basement versus 2 story, or maybe you want to see more R-8 size lots adjacent to the western boundary, or maybe even more, you know, more of those size of lots on the interior or some. Somewhat fewer lots generally. Obviously, if that's where the direction you're going and that's the reason you want to continue this or pause it, it'd be helpful if you gave them some direction what you were thinking.

And so, so my reason for the pause would be on both sides. I want the Wilkersons to be able to investigate their ideas of what they can do to preserve that part of the farm. And then the other side would be, um, if that doesn't pan out, then they'll let the developers come up with the idea. of that modification like we just mentioned. That's different than this.

But the thing is, the denial would accomplish that.

That's the thing, Chris, is if it were denied, then that allows it to move forward as far as both parties. But like what you're describing, if we pause it, it doesn't do that. It doesn't allow Wilkinson's to do anything. Yeah, it only allows the developer to figure out another option.

Exactly, which we would get with a denial too. Because they can reapply.

Yeah, they can, they can reapply. This is just— a denial would actually just— no, it can be less than a year if it's meaningfully different. Yeah, so, so this gives everyone the same options.

So do you want me to do another motion?

Well, yeah, I, I can if I'm— I'm just wanting to understand. So the purpose of my pause is to allow the parties To have a few. It appears that after a year or 2 years now of waiting for something to happen, nothing happened. And now that they're finally realizing something should happen, both sides, the, the land— Wilkerson's and the landowner— want to come to some form of resolution. So I think we just— that amount of time, that's my— what's the best way to get to that?

A couple thoughts again. Um, you know, I'm assuming that the, the developer, the applicants maybe have the property under contract. I'm assuming you've got an expiration date for that contract.

Yeah, we have earnest money and we've already invested quite a bit of time and money into the property, and we do have it under contract.

So, okay, I mean, maybe, maybe what you're suggesting Is maybe you want to continue this. I mean, probably our next meeting is about a month.

Yeah.

Maybe. I mean, right now, the owner of the property, the ones who would potentially do a conservation easement, they've kind of given up control to some extent because they've got the property under contract, right? But maybe I'm just kind of thinking out loud here. Maybe that time could be used for a couple purposes. Number one, to find out if the owner is even interested in pursuing a conservation easement at all. Maybe they've already done that. Maybe they've exhausted all their possibilities, and we could find out if, you know, they think it's futile.

Steve, don't you agree that a denial is the only way for them to figure that out? A denial would allow Wilkerson to figure out whatever they're going to figure out. It would give the developer a chance to come back They could come back with a revised option that was meaningfully different, or they could wait a year and come back with this same option. So to me, a denial gives everyone the options. A continuance takes away Wilkerson's option.

Uh, I, I, I, I don't— I think I might see it a little bit differently. I, I think that is one way to do it, definitely. But for example, if you, if you Continue it for 1 month. I think there could be some communication with the owner. There could be some communication with the, the applicant even to see if they're willing to pursue that type of a thing. And if ultimately they came back and said, no, that's not possible, then they still have this proposal on the table that the council could ultimately vote on, on its merits, you know, with or without potential changes. So, but obviously, ultimately, the council can do. What you feel is best.

So I'm right here. We tried it for 7 years. It's not— the price of this property is so high.

Well, it's high at the, at the additional zoning, right? Did you appraise it at OS5?

Yeah, at OS5.

Price so high.

If you took out 10 or 15 of the lots, the price of this lot is so high. Who's going to come in and pay $4, $5, $6 million?

So, but the price is driven by the zoning.

It's worth more than this.

But what I'm saying, OS-5 zone is a lot different value than a 100 units on the property zone.

Farm it, or 1 unit per 5 acres?

1 unit per 5 acres?

No.

So you're saying you're not gonna—

you're gonna hold aside Did I hear—

no, I'm saying right now your value of your property is determined by the zone that it holds.

This is residential property that happens to be in an OS by itself today.

And there, there is no holding hostage. I mean, you've got an entire neighborhood that doesn't want this to happen. So this is a city council trying to— this is a city council, this is a city council trying to figure out what's the best way to deal with the landowner and the neighbors.

Pull it up or down, just give us an answer. These guys have spent a lot of money and we've got a lot of money to spend on this project. Why is it okay here but not on Northeast Door? Right, next available track.

So the continuance would allow us to talk to the property owner, get a little more detail, and then next month we'll be able to come up with a few more thoughts. That's the only reason for the— my reason for a pause is to find out and speak directly to some of these questions that were brought up.

Um, I, I don't know. I don't know that that, that could be answered that quickly. I mean, you're going through Christmas and you're gonna try and figure out mid-January that they're going to figure out a conservation easement. It's not going to happen. They would need more time. And not that we're— I, I'm just— we're not doing this because of that. We're doing this to, you know, to figure out what's appropriate.

So representing the owner, I'm just saying, would a month help, or should we just vote?

We, we picked the wrong day to put this in front of the council. If it's— it makes sense to approve this, it makes no sense to approve the one in North— North—

Where do you live? Okay, that's what I thought.

You got protected by the council, we got messed over.

His parents still—

but he doesn't.

Yeah, moved out of his parents' home, right?

I'm just saying we need to treat everyone equally.

So far we're at a continuance. Well, we're at a, uh, did not—

the did not—

the deny—

deny did not pass.

See if a continuance will.

And we can see if a continuance will. Other than that, we're where we are.

And you're continuing for 2 months, you said?

Even if you want— even if you feel like you need more time to think about the proposal, I think it would be appropriate to continue it for a month. If you felt like you need time to consider it, study it, I think that would be okay. Or obviously you can vote to, to approve or deny it as well tonight.

But it's Christmas, and when is the next city council?

Yeah, I think we go January, early January.

So that's not going to be even enough.

Mid-January.

So 2 months. First meeting in February.

So that's 1 month.

Yeah. But that's Christmas and stuff. That's why I think 2 weeks.

The first meeting in February, second Tuesday in February, whatever that— February 11th. February 11th.

Okay, see if you can make that motion.

So I, I move, I make a motion that we, um, continue this until February 11th, uh, to allow us more time to study the issues and, um, and then make our final decision then.

I'll second that.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Nay.

Nay.

You guys hanging me out there? I would rather have— I would rather have something than nothing anyway. Yes, a continuance.

Right.

And my point is, we could have come out with the exact same outcome with a, with a denial of the property.

I would prefer a denial, but I would prefer to stay alive rather than nothing.

Yeah, that's fine.

So anyway, but that's beside the point.

Okay.

I'll change my vote to support the mayor.

Thank you all for coming out, and I'm sorry this is a frustrating process. But we appreciate it. We've got— we're not done yet. Um, if you can give us just, just give us a minute here. We're, we're going to move, uh, forward with acknowledging our finances, and we'll have Bren. Do you have anything to say, Bren?

Just—

can you, can you just be quiet, please?

Yeah, you guys can leave, but if you cannot talk, that would be great.

Just let us finish the meeting.

I handed out to you at the beginning in each of your spots our year in review for 2024. I'll let you know this was coming.

It's back by popular demand, has a bunch of fun metrics from our 2024 year, and then just a brief look at big projects in the 2025 year.

You know, we use a lot of this information to communicate.

On an ongoing basis, and, and we get a lot of positive feedback on, on sharing these metrics and this information.

This is significantly complete, but if you have any feedback in the next week or 2, always happy to take it. Other than that, look forward to meeting with you next Tuesday for our holiday party, and appreciate the extra time with you tonight.

Thank you, Bren.

Okay, let's see.

I make a motion we adjourn.

Yeah, don't you usually do it?

Make a motion that we adjourn.

Okay.

Second.

Second.

Aye.

Aye.

Okay.

Oh gosh.

Aye.