City Council · 2025-05-13

Thanks.

So Later in this year and, and get a contractor on board to, to do some upgrades and whatnot. One of the things that just recently happened— North Point is part of NUEA, the Northern Utah Environmental Resource Agency. And there's 4 member entities: North Point, South Utah Valley, TransJordan Landfill, and Wasatch Integrated up in Davis and Morgan Counties.

We all own the Bayview Landfill and are recently in a newer meeting.

The board increased our rates by $1 a ton.

So my last slide here is just a history of what North Point's fees have been over the year. over the years. So in July, North Point is going to have to start paying an extra dollar a ton to Bayview. So I'm projecting that there's a possibility that when my board meets that we will, uh, hold a public hearing and possibly increase that fee starting in January. With the cities now doing their budgets, I'm trying to get out in front of them to say, hey, please anticipate that. And then I anticipate maybe another 50 cents come January 26th. That one will just— when I get to my budget, the unfortunate part is we're on the different cycle as the cities, and sometimes that makes it a little bit difficult. But yeah, so that's just what the $37 a ton for the residential curbside fee is, what I'm gonna anticipate going up to in July. If we can hold that off until January, if our budget will allow that too, we'll We will hold that off till January, but I got to get those numbers together for my board. Any questions?

Well, that's all I have.

Okay, well, thank you.

Thanks, Neil.

Thank you.

Next up, we got our 2.2. And that's all I need. Uh, Jay, summary for Deputy Experience Training.

It's safe.

Mayor, Council, thanks for having me again. Uh, this is meant to be an update as to what, um, has occurred since our last work session, how we're progressing and moving forward with any of the potential changes and the, uh, proposed ordinance for short-term regulations. So since our last work session, um, both the council as well as city staff, we've received an increase, um, of Communications, emails, phone calls regarding concerns about one, any proposed ordinances, and then secondly, how that ordinance may affect neighborhoods. So we've seen kind of 2 different groups: those that are in favor generally of short-term rentals, and the neighbors who are concerned about how a short-term rental in their neighborhood would impact their home and their lives. So just as a summary as to kind of what the 2 different groups have represented as we've met with them and heard their concerns and perspectives is, first, the most common issues raised with the proposed ordinances as it looks now is occupancy limits. That was a very common refrain, is concern about the number of being 8. capping occupancy at 8 for short-term rental would significantly impact the finance feasibility of running a short-term rental. Secondly was the idea of nightly rental limits or capping the number of nights to be rented at 182 for the calendar year. The third was geographical spacing restrictions. This was the spacing requirement that a short-term rental could not be located within 1,000 feet of another short-term rental. And then the other area that was of great concern was the numerical cap on the total number of short-term rentals licenses that the city would potentially issue. So those were generally the 4 most addressed issues by those that spoke in favor of short-term rentals. Additionally, the individuals and groups that we met with, they represented that they believe that short-term rental properties are generally better maintained and cause fewer neighborhood problems than long-term rentals. Some of the reasons for that is that their arguments were that because their business model is based off of reviews, That it's an incentive for them to maintain properties in a way that maybe a long-term landlord wouldn't. Entertain grandfathering, but their desires are that there would be some sort of preferential treatment or some sort of priority given to those that could show They were in operation before, and they're good operators. The third is they expressed a desire for some sort of a community commission on short-term rentals. They wanted to form a commission, a committee, and be able to somehow affect enforcement policy as well as just general policy as far as regulation.

So these were the perspectives and concerns we heard from those that We're in favor of short-term rentals.

We've also met with a number of neighbors and people who are located near short-term rentals. The most common issues we heard were issues relating to on-street parking. And examples were given of, of numbers of cars that are parked there. Even if the driveway's open, or there are 2. And those are 2 spots in tandem that they don't see people use all 4 spots.

They'll use the 2 spots in the driveway, and then they then park on the street so they don't have to shuffle cars around.

And so there's, there's been concerns about on-street parking as well as most recently over the weekend we had an incident where a school bus again dropped off.

A team or a youth group at at a short-term rental here within the city, causing you know again the buses parked there in the middle of the neighborhood as it's loading and unloading individuals and luggage and whatnot.

So again, issues with parking in large groups. Another homeowner, and this was not just Just a one-off, but this homeowner affecting their ability to enjoy, quietly enjoy their own home. So a short-term rental is located—

they're next-door neighbors.

The short-term rental is located in the basement, and this particular short-term rental has a drop box for keys, and so individuals can check in.

at any hour of the day. And oftentimes they will have individuals checking in at 11 o'clock or at midnight. So at that point they come to check in, security lights go on outside of the home. At that point, lights are now shining into their master bedroom. The homeowner reached out to the owner of the short-term rental and said, hey, you've got some light trespass, and it's It's waking us up at midnight, 1 o'clock, 3 o'clock in the morning.

And the home— the short-term rental owner said, well, tough, I can do it.

Deal with it.

Close your blinds.

Move on.

And so it was a— it was an example of, again, real concern of, you know, if a business is operating and a neighbor's trying to address it, and they're saying, you know, we don't need to do it. We don't need to deal with you because there's no regulation on this. It becomes a real concern about how does this impact the livelihood—

not the livelihood, but the lifestyle and the quiet enjoyment of one's home.

Noise and general safety concerns were also brought forward.

Again, large groups, especially when you get large youth groups together, there were concerns about noise and impact.

And then there was particular safety concerns about proximity to schools. You've got people who are not familiar with neighborhoods, not familiar with the safe walking routes of elementary schools, and they—

so they're not necessarily on the lookout for kids as they're walking to and from an elementary school.

And so that was one of the issues brought forward. These groups generally advocated for a restriction of short-term rentals. However, If a short-term rental restriction or prohibition is not workable, then a licensing system which regulates use and is desired.

Further, this is for the neighbors and neighbors of short-term rentals.

So I would generally categorize them as anti-short-term rental because that's what we've generally heard from neighbors of short-term rentals is this is affecting my property.

I wish it wasn't here. So I would categorize them as anti-short-term rentals.

And density, number of rentals, number of people, number of rentals.

Again, if we go back to about 18 months ago, The Goat House, that neighborhood, one of their concerns was, we have this short-term rental, you go around the block, we have another short-term rental. At what point does our neighborhood just turn into a resort community as opposed to an actual neighborhood?

And then last would be, how do we effectively address those short-term renters if we create a license—

licensing system? How do we have some sort of mechanism to ban or prohibit Short-term rental operators that continue to violate our regulations.

There is consensus amongst the groups and where we can build on that, and that is both between the short-term rental operators as well as neighborhood groups. Their interests were, if we are to have a short-term rental licensing program, that there be some sort of focus on operations that we can help mitigate the impact on a neighborhood.

What are the ways that we can focus on bad actors or bad tenants of short-term rentals? So the very first area that I would like to get direction and clarity from the council is On parking requirements on a parking plan, parking requirements for short-term rentals.

Our current version provides that a short-term rental must provide 1 off-street parking spot per bedroom, up to 4 off-street parking spots. I wanted to use Logan as an example. of how they have addressed parking. Logan requires 1 off-street parking spot per 2 bedrooms.

So if a short-term rental has 1 bedroom, its capped occupancy is 4, and it requires 1 parking stall.

So they—

Any thoughts on it?

So the way Logan's— the way Logan's coordinates work, So, so 4 bedrooms, 10 occupants, and then it'd be required of 2 closets.

And if there's 4 bunks in there, that's still 2?

Yes.

The other way we could do this—

yes, yeah, I think something like that work. From my perspective, single issue in parking, you don't want to give them a parking nightmare to our neighbors. So probably this driven parking not be a priority that we have.

So, and that leads me to the second, is we could tie occupancy and parking spots So, for example, we could require 1.5 occupants per parking spot.

So if they provide 4, 4 options—

I mean, most people are gonna say that seems pretty high, 1.5.

Parking spot.

Correct.

But again, as I have met with short-term rental operators, one of the common themes is we provide ample off-street parking. And so if they do provide ample off-street parking, then again, I think this really ties occupancy to the parking.

And I think it's too—

the off-street parking makes more sense for the one that I need.

Okay, again, this is erring on the side of being more conservative as opposed to erring on the side of being more liberal.

Or less cost.

Correct.

Again, the concern where this has been a common refrain from neighbors is parking is one of the main pinch points of short-term rentals.

I think it, I think it is in the best interest to perhaps err on the side of caution. and see how it goes, because it's easier to relax a requirement than to tighten the requirement.

And are we currently one off-street parking spot per resident parking portal? Correct. That's the current proposal.

So after hearing from the different groups, this would be—

do we want to approach this a different way?

Who did you call before?

Logan?

Yes.

Have they hit trouble with theirs?

So, um, recently we went down for a, um, city attorney's conference. I had the chance to speak with Logan City's attorney group.

In favor of short-term rentals because they wanted to operate as short-term rental. After we passed our ordinance, then we had a bit of blowback. We had a bit of negative They then had to tighten the regulations, and they've had to go through multiple iterations of their code to get to where they feel—

And where are they at now?

So on parking, it's what I've presented up here, is that they've tied it to both occupancy as well as to bed length. So Again, for 1 off-street parking per 2 bedrooms. I'm proposing something more conservative than that.

At least there's 2.

So when you say 2, 2 per occupant? 1 spot per 2 occupants or 2 beds?

Well, I mean, I think I feel better about that one now.

I'm trying to figure out Because we're talking parking. How many cars are you gonna have at that house, right? You have a 4-bedroom house. How many cars are we gonna— are they gonna allow in the house? Because they're not— they're gonna have 2 parking spaces in the driveway. Yeah, they're saying they don't do the tandem parking though.

So that has been a—

the concern is tandem parking does not generally occur. They need whoever's next door to— Actually, human behavior is we're not going to tandem park. We're going to park 1, 2, 3, 4 on the road.

So in other words, in the parking stall calculation, I don't think we would count any— we would only count stalls that were not in the driveway. So if you had a garage and a driveway, counting the garage and driveway, we would count that. Is that what you're saying?

Yes.

So essentially, you have like 3 parking spots and 3 parking spots.

Correct.

as you build the side path.

And that can be done with time, you know, 1.5, correct? You're starting off tight, and if it has to expand, then we can adjust it. You start tight, you can adjust it.

Because really what we're looking for— I don't know, maybe I'm misspeaking here— but to me, what I see as a, as a positive use for the short-term rentals is what these people have told me about is families coming to visit, you know, coming to get warm for a reason, bringing their families. I mean, if we start adding separating cars, more cars, we're getting back to the goat house sorority, you know, reunions, party houses, opportunities for that to occur.

Correct.

So what you're saying is, if the reason you want to do it conservatively is you're saying the 1.5, we can see if it actually creates a problem for families to come, uh, while still ensuring that we're not having these party house, um, events occur.

That is correct.

Somehow I don't understand this, but if we—

because if we go 1.5, is that the constraint? So 2 spots equals 3 people? 2 parking spots equals 3 people, correct?

Yeah.

Yes.

Okay, so, so, okay, so if you come back, you come back to— if you're basing occupancy off of parking spots. So if you have 2 parking spots, 5 occupants per parking spot.

2 parking spots equals 3.

So, yes. How— maybe this is a discussion for another time, but how many complaints do we have? Data that shows how many complaints we have. Uh, a given time from throughout the year, neighbors that certainly notice on parking, on lights, on— and with those complaints.

You have an issue where you're having one of those and you create a tension within a neighborhood of reporting on the neighbor. How likely was to say their security lights keep going off?

I mean, it's bothering me. I probably would.

I would. I have.

I'm lucky I don't have that problem.

I, I, I don't see that as an issue.

But other things, they were parking on the street, you know, those kind of issues, I can see a concern.

I—

somebody's wife from behind my house, but I think there are some other more weighty issues that I think people would be more inclined to be concerned about, like the goat house and other situations that we've heard about. But I'm just wondering how big of an issue— obviously it's a big issue.

I'm just wondering None of these short-term rentals are licensed. There is not a license for these short-term rentals within the city. So given that, again, I, I think generally neighbors haven't made complaints because there's not necessarily been an avenue or regulation for them to do so.

If we now create regulations, it does provide an avenue for neighbors to more readily report this to our neighborhood improvement team.

So I'm going to spin back to, to the parking issue so we can then move on to other areas.

Is it a correct assumption that the council would like to see something more liberal than the 1 parking spot for 1.5 occupancy? Is that—

This is what I— okay, look at your chart there. We've got 2 parking stalls in 2 different columns, and one of them you have 8 occupants, the other one you have an opportunity for 10 depending on how The dead end, right? So 2-car garage. I mean, I don't know. She— yeah. Yes, I'm looking at occupancy. I'm looking at parking stalls too, but the one— if I don't have a one-car garage, then you've got to be one car, right? Um, I guess the only tricky thing is, you know, husband, wife, kids. How big are those one— those houses? I rented one of them, one of the community-scale homes. They're pretty small. They have a button. So I, I keep coming back. I mean, I would like to kind of think about this for a little bit, but to me it seems pretty reasonable.

The—

if this is your 1.5, that's our current version showing up there on the chart.

So the chart is Logan City.

I was using Logan as an example of kind of A method of tying bedrooms, occupancy, and parking together.

So you do an 8 to 10, which is kind of where we were when we started out, based on the size of the home, right? Um, you got a 3-bedroom house, how many people you can put in there? You got a master suite, that's 2 people. You got 6 more people you put in 2 other bedrooms, gives you 3. I mean, let's think about that for a second. Right? You can have kids, that makes sense, but are we adults? How many cars are you gonna have? You see what I'm saying here?

To me, it doesn't really—

and does this work?

That is this balancing test that we're, we're all engaged in.

Okay, is that— it seems to be some amount of openness and positive feel to what Logan has put together. I think there's the same thing. There are 2.

I want to rent this Airbnb, we got to take 2 cars.

Build it.

But what I'm saying is, because you have to own 1.5 per car, per stall. You're right.

That's not worth it.

No, this is Logan, and I like Logan better than what he's saying.

Use Logan's model.

Yeah.

No, no, actually, Mayor, I'm, I'm saying that is one avenue we could, we could approach, is the Logan model, or we could tie strictly to parking stalls to occupancy.

How do you do a min? I mean, your example would be this, right? Yeah. So, so maybe the 1.5 kicks in at You know, right.

Okay, so what I'm hearing is you like the Logan model with the chart.

You would like To also see a version with a ratio around 1.5 to compare.

Right, so we don't have the floor—

with a possible floor in C, in fact, maximum.

So just to be clear, so you're kind of suggesting that maybe 2 parking stalls get you a base level, whether that's 6 or 8 or something like that, and then for each additional stall, then you get 1.5 or whatever?

Yeah, something more than 1.5.

Yeah, whatever.

Because 1.5 of the base is not even— I mean, it's not really— why is it that?

So, so to repeat what I think Steve said, 2 cars get you 8 people if that's the thing. But if you have a bigger place, I mean, I don't think most of—

We're going to address occupancy, I think, later too.

Um, okay, so, so I guess we just take a chart.

Yeah.

Okay, these next I don't think will be as intensive as far as the conversation and questions, but other areas—

these were not controversial amongst either group—

is requiring an owner representative to be available 24/7 to be able to respond on-site to any sort of calls. The reasoning we would do this is it helps provide prompt responses to complaints and emergencies of the home.

It aids with us in enforcement of local regulations because we have a contact person that our NIT team can go out and meet with.

It also aids in making sure the properties are maintained and that guests that are renting are safe, and we have up-to-date inspections of the home. It also helps maintain a local presence.

They're part of the community.

And then also address—

addressing any potential negative impacts to the neighborhood.

One of the—

again, one of the anecdotal stories is, was somebody was living next to a short-term rental.

They made no headway with the out-of-state homeowner that was operating it. But once they got the property manager involved, the issues were alleviated because the property manager stepped in.

But it took a bit of detective work. from the neighbor to figure out who was managing the property, because the home—

the short-term rental owner didn't ever give that information to the neighbor. So again, that would, that would aid both the city as well as neighbors in alleviating those concerns. General property maintenance, we would obviously want them to follow all of our landscaping rules, all of our maintenance rules, snow removal, etc. We'd want that location to be safe. Again, a very non-controversial issue amongst either group.

Quiet hours. One of the things that we would look to do is to align our proposed ordinance with our disturbing the peace ordinance.

It was brought to our attention that there was a bit of a discrepancy between the two.

And so I think we would just look to bring those in line. The quiet hours were a bit more restrictive than the disturbing the peace ordinance.

Are there any concerns about aligning our disturbing the peace ordinance and our quiet hours, bring them in into alignment there.

You don't have quiet hours required at 10 AM in, in homes, right? Correct.

And that's why we would be bringing them more into alignment with the disturbing the peace.

Yeah.

So you're thinking more like 7?

Yes.

Pull off the 10 AM.

Yeah, yeah, okay, that makes sense.

Okay.

Um, and again, restricting some of the more I guess, attractive nuisance on properties, their uses after those quiet hours—

hot tubs, pools, perhaps outdoor sports courts, etc.— to help the neighborhood quiet down in the evenings.

So you mean we have these pools and hot tubs during quiet hours? You mean restricted use?

Correct.

What if they have an indoor pool or hot tub? Do you want to restrict them?

I would even restrict that because oftentimes you could get the noise emanating depending on the structure that encloses the swimming pool. Okay, um, so it would be prohibited between the hours of 10:30 PM and 7:00 AM.

Apparently this video does not want to work down here.

But one of the other things that I would, I would also recommend that we look at adopting is a provision that would require short-term rental operators to use or monitor decibels within the home. This is a common practice now amongst many Airbnb and VRBO operators in that they place this decibel monitor within the home or on the premises of the home.

And it doesn't monitor conversations.

It doesn't, you know, invade any privacy.

All it is doing is monitoring the decibel level.

If the decibel level goes over a set amount and does so for an extended period of time, then the property manager or the homeowner is alerted, and then they can come out and intervene and mitigate the noise issue without having neighbors have to file that.

How expensive is that?

I'm not sure the pricing of that, as I've talked to at least 2 different short-term rental operators who operate in multiple Airbnbs along the Wasatch Front. This might have a little bit more controversy, but this would be something that I think, again, we would want to maintain is this is a residential neighborhood.

We would want to maintain what is currently in the proposed regulation. Of only allowing short-term rentals to be used for overnight accommodations, that they are not to be used as event centers, weddings, concerts, corporate events, etc. This is one of those areas that oftentimes a venue then turns into a party house.

Again, this is something that Airbnb has over the last couple of years has put out programming as well as their internal regulations.

They've created a way for neighbors to report to Airbnb party houses. So this is not just a, you know, somebody calling, you know, wolf. This is a common issue that is out there with Airbnb and VRBO is party homes. And again, I think we would want to restrict it to overnight accommodations.

Are there any questions or I don't have time for that.

Okay, so occupancy limits. So currently in our, our proposed draft is 2 individuals per bedroom, 1 per bedroom that is of 70 to 99 square feet, no occupancy in a bedroom less than 70 square feet, with a maximum of 8 individuals.

No matter the size of the house?

Correct.

Now, the last time we were in work session, there was discussion about increasing that amount.

As we have reviewed that, there are concerns that we have as to how increase other areas of regulation within city code for occupancy. And so we would be very hesitant to, to move forward with just creating a larger number. for unrelated individuals. A possible solution would be adopting a single-family definition and not putting a cap on the single-family definition. So you could have a single-family, it's 12 or 14, and it wouldn't violate a maximum cap.

Well, then we would have a maximum cap as it pertains to unrelated individuals.

And that maximum cap would be 8. So this could still potentially address some of the issues that were raised at our last work session of, we will have a large family, we want to have a family get-together, family reunion. Well, grandparents can rent the property if they have their 3 or 4 adult children and spouses.

And then there—

We want these families to come here because they're here to celebrate a graduation, or they're here for a funeral, or they're here for a family reunion and to recreate as a family. we could use the single-family definition. But then by limiting it to 8 unrelated individuals, we are also potentially mitigating a future party or other sort of, um, nuisance in the neighborhood.

Are there any comments?

So unrelated individuals, and then that would be also guided by you can't have 8 Well, again, that's why we'd have the parking requirement, right?

So we're trying to use them in tandem. Well, if this comes back to an—

Trying to figure out—

A little bit more convoluted to enforce because you can have 2 families and they say, you know, we're siblings. Does that— how do we enforce that? That becomes more problematic. But what it does is also addresses some of the concerns we've seen with the school bus rolling up and it's a youth team.

So again, this is the balance of trying to address how do we allow for what I've—

what I've heard the council saying is we want to have families, and we have large families. We want to provide that avenue. But yet, how do we also mitigate the potential risk of having a large unrelated group which turns into being a nuisance within an neighborhood?

Yeah, just making sure. It seems like normally, of course, it will be from neighbors complaining, right? Neighbors complain, and then goes out there and— Correct, correct.

Any other comments, concerns?

What I'm hearing is—

Family number would be, again, based on individuals per bedroom. So we would use a bedroom occupancy as opposed to a total occupancy.

Yes, I'm okay with an 8 max on a 2,000 square foot home. I'm not okay with that on a 10,000, 6,000 square foot home. You need to have something else. You know, 7,000, 8,000 square foot home with 8 bedrooms, that person can't make it work.

So I think you need to do something on a bigger— one size fits none is what our friend—

one size misfits all.

Misfits all.

Thank you.

That's, that's a friend from Utah League of City and Towns, and I think that's what we're doing.

So, yeah, once again, I think we're kind of looking for a combination balance, customized approach, but still—

Some exception. Yeah, yeah, gotta have some exceptions.

So, Dick, are we talking about I mean, there's 2 situations, right?

There's a homeowner occupied that it's a big home and the homeowner lives in the home, not living there. So is there something in there that we talked about that could help that situation? Because they are on the fence.

So we could create— and, and this is not in this presentation—

another solution could be is that we have one set of regulations for owner occupied And we have another set of regulations for non-owner people.

I feel like if the owner's there, that's going to eliminate 90% of the problem.

Correct. And I should eliminate 90%.

I'm being conservative.

So yeah, I agree with that. Um, because one of the things that seemed— you seem to hear a lot was people coming, families coming to Orem, but they're not from here.

This is a gathering place.

They were originally from here, or they come here, but they're not staying with family. They're coming somewhere that has a place big enough to hold everybody so that they can enjoy their time together. And I, you know, I don't think putting a cap helps those situations where it makes sense if they're large enough to be able to do that. Um, I think that's an important— to not have a rubber stamp. Nice to have a little flexibility in those situations. So, um, exactly.

Well, unfortunately, you know, when I go over to my family, sometimes I gotta get that other room. I want it, but I gotta pay for that other room. So if we're having a family reunion, maybe you gotta get 2 houses. You know, and then you play cards in one house. So there's solutions.

You gotta see where you're planning on that. I mean, you're You're saying this for staying over the night?

I think I'm over time, Mayor. Um, I'm happy to continue, but I also want to keep you on schedule with your agenda.

So I guess I think it's in the agenda next week. Over there? No, I'm not. Yeah, I feel like we still have a lot.

I think we do talk about Yeah, and I liked—

I don't know, I think your first slide said something about maybe a group of people coming together to help in the process. Would that make it harder?

No, that's absolutely faster, right?

So there— I mean, I've heard both from—

I'll be frank, I've heard both from the group.

The worry I do have— I do have worries that if we get a commission you can sometimes create a candle, right?

That rather than creating the horse, you create the candle.

Um, so I would— I, I'm still listening to feedback. I'm getting emails on a weekly basis from different groups. I'm happy to continue to filter that for the council and the mayor, allow, you know, and then to come back and present again of here are our next steps. This is the next 2 or 3 topics for us to address.

I would say Jake has been more receiving the information, boiling it down, and coming back and sharing with your council. And really get a bunch of the council really being closed off to the input. And yeah, we get, uh, we get a lot of good feedback.

you are listening and gathering nice information. There's 2 sides to the story. You know, the vocal group is the perfectly normal group that owns the property, right? So no, I think we can see this moving forward.

I think it's tricky because we're representing both communities, either a contemporary language that's You know what our role is, and so I think kind of what you said about Logan. You know, to be the home shelter now instead of where they have to go financially, we'll take care of the most right now. But we're going to make sure that the neighborhood nowhere else are left in the process. And to be told that the lady, I'm not sure how that would work. I think it's best to just. You know, gather as much information as we can from the federal government already, from the residents. I think we're getting a lot of good information from some of the rental organizations, and I'm thinking that sort of my software has— this is what has worked in other areas, and this is what has not worked. So I think we've been working through that, but as far as we know, I don't have any information about that. So I'd like to see us keep going down this path. get to an agreement with council on what we think we're going to do.

I'm sorry, this is Chris from Zumper. I was missing presentation, so since you guys are all here, so I'd like to give you guys a big presentation. What do you guys think?

You don't have to.

So the only other area that I wanted to talk about today was Spacing, or not, not spacing, but was our numerical cap. So that conversation, I would anticipate, would be another 10 to 15 minutes.

Okay.

Okay.

So the next area that has been, you know, something of concern for the short-term rental Group is at our previous work sessions, we proposed a cap at approximately 100 short-term rental licenses. The way we reached that is by looking at basically issuing 3 licenses per 1,000 households. That would give us approximately 89. We rounded up to 100. At our last work session, there was a general feel that that number would be too low, or at least that was the perception I, I took from that meeting. Um, I really wanted to drill down and see where the council may want to see that number, um, moving forward. So again, some of the information that I think might be useful is if we were to look at our housing stock according to the 2020 census, Orem City, we had 29,295 short-term rentals, or 1 per 100 households. If we were to look at the number and scrape the number completely, the data off the internet, as to how many short-term rental operations are currently out there and actively advertising on Airbnb and VRBO, we would approximate that number to be somewhere in the area of 250. So that kind of gives you some information as to what is currently out there. And, you know, if you were to take a 1% of the housing population— or sorry, not population, but housing inventory. So not as—

So I believe that is how the census works, is any apartment, any condo, any townhome, Any address, any particular individual address.

So with that said, are there thoughts on where that numerical cap should be, or if there should be a numerical?

I just want to see some other data. But, you know, this to me, this is pretty routine.

What data would be useful?

What's our demand? What's going to need it? Um, you know, every day I can't find a house.

Long-term rentals then?

Like how many long-term rentals?

Okay, what's the demand for housing? You know, I don't know if you get all data, but I'd like to kind of drill down on actual housing needs.

Did you do a comparison on other cities, like hurricanes or cat numbers?

So I did.

Let's see if I've got—

so Provo, they don't have a numerical cat per se. Where it goes, where they do have a cap, is in multifamily buildings.

If it's a multifamily building, it is— they're not allowed to have more than 10% of that multifamily building being used as a short-term rental. Sandy City allows 2 short-term rentals per every 100 single-family detached dwellings.

And so, and then if you look at Logan, theirs is 2 2 per 1,000 population.

So Logan's is approximately right now 108. So those would be 3 different examples I, I have for you.

Just to clarify some of those stats I'm asking for, I mean, some of these long-term rentals may be classified— maybe short-term rentals that are just classified as long-term, right? Correct, because of the space that you use.

Yes, another interesting point. So we set up this structure, there's gonna be some costs involved, right? There's gonna be some amount of generators worth cost. So whatever this contract is, those costs need to be covered by the filter manual. And that would be part of it.

Yes, I wouldn't want the number set any less than what we think are the current. I think that's just a fact. So I think the 1% is a good starting point. And I do agree with something that the, the owners have said to you earlier, because they normally keep their property nicer than the guy who's renting it. Every 3 days they get a review and they need positive reviews and they need to have nice pictures.

I think that the density thing is like just a wise kind of intuition or something like that.

Yeah, this goes from—

the one area is not filling in that other lack of connectivity.

Another, another kind of counterpoint to that, I was hearing someone who was telling about, uh, they had someone, you know, by a period of time that this man became disabled. United States, America specifically, or Utah, you won't get anywhere else.

And so I think there are some benefits to that as well.

You can come here for a little bit and upshot with farmers market to see some of that.

So I, I would get that in a homeowner occupancy.

Yes, homeowner occupancy.

That's the difference, right?

That's what it's really for. And I think even your point, Tom, well, you mentioned you wanted to cap it at $295, and that's the cap.

No, just the 1% of households.

Yeah.

And then you can't go above existing cap, right? We're at $250,000 now again. Yeah. But then there's people assuming we can get maybe better numbers.

It'd be interesting as we work with a piece of real estate. I gotta find— to use as an Airbnb, I gotta find out how many are in the city before I close the deal. That would be—

Well, it's an investment.

Yeah, but how do you find that? It's tough to find that. Or if they're all licensed.

That's similar to when we have our rentals, you know, we have a visual assessment. I think that would be helpful here. It's not a large amount, it's a very small amount, it's really investment, but it's very helpful for us to know who the owner is, where they are, and if there's a problem, how do we get in touch with someone, whether it's a medical emergency or got a party going on. Along with that, if they're out of state, we can locally get folks to property.

Yeah, the last, um, I mean, the last area that I would like to address is just, is there any appetite if the number was to go below the 1%?

I like where we are. I've heard a lot of complaints about some of them, so I'd like to go slow and see where we are. Those complaints, let's see if we can get those, those resolved themselves. That would be fantastic, that those people could still maintain their STR, you know, their circumventals and and figure out what— how to run it under our guardrails. Um, and then if we're— everybody's happy, we can then look into expand wealth opportunities there. I'm not against that, but I agree with the slower path.

You start high and then go to high. Um, let's help you with this.

Okay, um, the last—

I'll just pivot real quick to one question because it's been brought up a couple times.

Is there any appetite for me to look at developing something that is owner-occupied and non-owner-occupied, a tiered system?

Is there any appetite for the council to see something like that?

My knee-jerk reaction for that is I would love to see something. I feel like there's a such an added benefit by— for our community. So I think maybe, maybe they get a little bit of an additional benefit for being there on campus versus somebody who's out of state. I think that's— I like that.

I think that's a good deal.

Okay, well, you didn't talk about the schools, the, the distance proximity for—

so we don't have sex offender issues, violations, and things Yes, so that, that is going in our new version of the draft, is there will be a proximity restriction to primary schools, so elementary and junior high.

Okay, thanks for doing this.

Um, with that, with that direction, I thank you.

It was very, very helpful to me. Um, with that direction, I'll come back in a future work session And we'll talk through a couple more of the issues, and then hopefully we can get quickly to having a draft that we can put before the council.

Okay.

Yes, so just really quickly, uh, if you recall a couple months ago we talked about boards and commissions. We made some changes to code, um, and we talked about the website, and there were a lot of great suggestions that came from you as council members that the boards and commissions site that we used to have was really clunky. It was difficult as a council member to see what the term limits were, how long they've been in office. And so, um, our, our development team, our software development team took your suggestions and has created a new site, and I'm going to show you really quickly. Yes, with that.

Yeah.

Sounds great.

Thank you all for having me. As a quick refresher, I know most of you are well familiar with this website. Here's the old one. If I'm a citizen wanting to apply, I have to fill out this lengthy form, go through a few things, and then say acknowledge, and then that goes off to our boards and commissions internal site, which up to this point is the exact same site. As an employee, I would click the staff login, and that would be that. The way that we've rewritten it is there are now 2 separate sites entirely, so that anything that the citizens interact with can be isolated. They do their thing. And then those of us that use the admin tools, which would be most of you, have your own login that will be living in the employee portal that you currently use. What you're looking at right now is the citizen-facing side of this. They can see clearly what is available to them. As well as— and these have yet to be filled out— but descriptions about every single one of these so that they know what they're signing up for before they actually go and click the button. Something that is nice about this, though, is that we are implementing a new login scheme for all of our citizens.

I'll talk a little bit more about why we're going that direction in a minute.

What this means is that the application process is very streamlined. You don't have to fill out your personal information because that's already been filled out. We already know who you are, and we can verify that you are a citizen of Guam before you even get to this step.

Okay.

Yes.

So this is live data.

Yeah, this is, this is live right now.

So these are according to So maybe just something at the top that says even though there may not be an open seat, you can be in the queue to be considered when and where you want.

Couldn't you just say next open, next open seat is this date?

Encourage people to sign up and get ready to monitor.

Yeah, absolutely. That is something that we can do. And that actually leads us to one of our design philosophies that we've been approaching as a team, which is making sure that a lot of these changes can be easily done by the people that use this application. So for example, Teresa is an admin over a lot of these items. She would be able to go in and actually make these changes herself without requiring additional resources from the software development team to make these kinds of changes. So we are thinking about those types of things.

I know.

So a change like this would be very well within the realm of possibility to do very quickly. Something that was requested in this new rewrite was a requirement to upload a resume. For now, you are not able to submit unless you have a resume that you upload in PDF form. We also have certain acknowledgments that you have to read, as well as the ability to opt into receiving communications and notifications from the city.

So are you therefore requiring like a cell number, like required fields? Yes, because I have that.

Yes, and that will happen. That is forced upon you when you sign up for an account in general. Yeah, you, you can't skirt those requirements in order to be validated as a city spotter.

Now, Right, exactly. We also have— I think part of our— I think this is all— but I think part of our— what we're trying to accomplish here is we're trying to feel bottlenecked by people who are even aware of this.

And if we have some customizations like my name of information, people should be curious.

Yeah, we can definitely field those requests and spit those out to make sure that we can.

That's the best part about having software developed in-house. If we were to do this out of house, we would never be able to say, yes, we can help you with that. But we could definitely have that. I don't think that's—

Right. These are things that we can actively scope out for sure. What you're looking at right now is the internal application. Now, this might look almost exactly the same. You'll notice that there's this board over here. This is a directory very similar to what you would have seen if you had logged into the previous site. The difference here is that if I click on this, I have an admin view into this, so I can look—

Or is it reporting?

Right.

So you'll be able to see who is assigned to it, what members they are, how long they've been serving, any representatives. staff, etc., that are associated with this, as well as quickly able to see any applicants that currently exist for this board or commission. I will note that these all say one term. Just about everything is going to say one term right now because we weren't keeping records of that information until very recently. So while this information might not be completely accurate as of today, As we continue to use this, because we are tracking that information, it will be more accurate as time goes on. So we will have an accurate representation of how long somebody's been serving in a given capacity as we continue to use this.

Do you know if we have a spreadsheet that shows how long, how many terms people have been on the Board of Pension? We don't, because it was kept individually by the different Admissions and not by— So it's absolutely great to be able to get to the staff support that we store in both of those. There's some more work on our end to try to update that as much as possible.

The data that you're seeing is data that we are storing internally inside of our database, so this isn't dependent on a Google Sheet or some Excel sheet that's keeping track of that. This is stuff that we are keeping track of. Now we can take that data and put it into our database, but what this allows us to do is get away from those types of things and just get you the information that you want readily available to you.

We used to track that on a Google Sheet. I keep saying it was external from this.

I wonder why that is.

I don't know when we stopped doing that. It's been maybe a few years.

We'll try and find it. But I would think that's just Ask Stats, right? For—

So these are the major updates that we have to boards and commissions.

We were able to get this rewrite done in about 1 month from when it was requested. What you're seeing is going to be going live tomorrow. This is going to be in the hands of the citizens and in your hands as well. You'll be able to access this application through our website. A plug for my team. They've done an excellent job. Previously, something like this would have taken 4 to 5 months to do a full rewrite. But between how we are now structuring our project management, as well as leveraging various tools available to us such as AI, we've been able to expedite a lot of our development.

So, and since the request came from me, is there anything about what's posted this meeting?

That makes perfect sense, man.

We make sure to hit the ground running whenever we're giving something up.

So, okay, we know we only have 1 minute left, but we want to show you really quickly. We are working on a new citizen portal where it's a one-stop shop for utilities, for signing up for recreation for your family, all those things. We will have this new site. This is just the framework of it, and he's going to go through it. We decided we want to call it MoneyLearn. Open to any suggestions.

Will it be Spanish as well?

That is something that we need to scope out to add to it. Initially English, but we can definitely— benefits of having an in-house development team, we get these requests, we can scope them out, and we can tackle them. The idea behind this is that right now we have a bunch of different applications that serve our citizens. So our utility billing is a completely unique application that is disconnected from our fitness center application. There are unique login events. I go to one, I have to remember my login for the other one as well. Or if I don't, then we are encouraging our citizens to engage in bad practices of having the same password and same login information for different sites. We are trying to avoid that. And so as such, we are unifying all of these accounts into one using Azure, which we are currently using internally for all of our systems. But we are taking that capability to our citizens as well, and anybody who wants to do business. What that means is that when I go into my Orem, if I need to sign up for a business license, which is It stays within the application itself. It still knows who I am. I don't have to re-sign in. I don't have to re-authenticate, but I can still continue to do my business. And then if I want to, I can go back to another application. The plan for this right now is when we launch MyOrem, which will be at the end of the year, we will launch with business licensing and utility billing as the first 2 applications. Currently, we are writing business licensing.

Okay.

And then other applications will follow. We will continue over time to integrate more applications into this so that we are bringing them up to security standards as well as code readability standards. And hopefully we get a unified front that we can present to our citizens where they are easily able to interact with all these various functions that we provide as a city. The main thing that I do want to highlight with this is a wallet system. So payment is another thing where we ensure PCI compliance by doing this new method through PayJunction, where we can store this data, but we aren't actually holding on to the data itself. We are letting a third party handle the security of that. That allows us to use this payment data in any application that we want to integrate into 911. So they only have to enter their payment information once if they share certain things.

Any questions?

No, no, I just wanted to ask, I think one thing we thought of was that with all these things, like the unknown permissions, to get all these inserts well instituted, Yeah, it'll be similar to our Citizen Connect campaign where we do something every month to let people know. Yeah.

Thanks, Rob.

Thank you so much for having me.

Thank you. We're up first, right? Okay.

Numbers.

Yes, yeah, we learned some fun things last time. You can only have 4 mics on at a time. Mayor, you will enjoy the mute button that's right in front of your—

if you raise your voice, it mutes you.

If you raise your voice very hard, you can't—

I kept being accused of using it because the mics kept going out. I'm like, I'm not touching it.

Our next step will be like Yeah, little trapdoor under.

That's what we had in the previous place. I kept— my feet kept falling in the hole in the floor underneath.

So anyway, you can turn it down. It's over here.

That was fast.

So we got here 2.4, joint planning. And Gary, if you'd like to— Yes, great.

Thank you, Mayor.

We have a joint session of the Planning Division Council behind this is not to talk about individual projects or anything like that, but to talk at a higher level about issues or concerns that the council may have, the Planning Commission may have in the city that need to be looked at and addressed.

Right now we're going through our general plan update.

Planning Commission's been working on that. They're working on and looking at aspects and things are coming together.

what should we focus on? What are the big, big picture issues that should be addressed?

We also have a heart of downtown project that's happening. And our consultants will be coming back to be joining us by Zoom at a council work meeting here in the near future to talk about where we are and give you an update. We don't have a draft report back yet. If they've been doing some good work and we've been working with them and meeting with them every couple of weeks. We have been having meetings, giving that information.

So that's the intent of this meeting. And I know, Dave, you are the liaison to the Planning Commission, and Madeline is our councilor, Planning Commission chair. And so, Dave, anything you'd like to add?

Madeline? Well, I think it's just maybe get on the same page, get to know the people out on the Planning Commission, and come together as a committee.

Likewise, I feel like we've not had a lot of interaction, and we are starting to look at some of these bigger picture issues. in the city. It's been really informative as we started to dig into our current general plan and what's there and what's not there, and start asking questions. And what we're finding, that has been really— I think my fellow commissioners would agree, it's been eye-opening as to some areas where we could maybe be more creative and look at planning and how that could develop our city in certain ways, how we can look at some of our code. how we are making decisions. I think we're starting to get some indication that we don't always have all the information that we need to be making recommendations to y'all.

And we're—

part of that is having some feel for what your vision is for the city, what, what we want to see.

And, and as staff, our goal is to give with to the council and to the planning the best information you can, so that you have all the facts in front of you, that so that you'll be able to make decisions. And as we have projects coming in and respond to them, but also as we're doing planning through the general plan and other things, it's helpful for us to know what's a high priority to look at. We have limited time, money, and resources. And we want to know where we should apply the planners to study things, think about things. You saw earlier talking about short-term rentals.

Boy, what, what a, what a big topic and an important topic to go down.

Lots of nuance with that. There's a lot of planning topics. that deal with that? And how— which are the more important ones? How can we prioritize these things? So this is intended to be really kind of an open discussion that we can have here and see if we can, through this meeting, come up with certain ideas or principles that we can either be guided by, or topics or areas that we would focus on as we go forward in the planning department.

And I want to use one of your analogies. You've given us an analogy about the general plan that has really kind of helped me as we've worked on this, which is, as we work on the general plan, we're creating a skeleton. We're creating the base structure for what we want to see in the city, what we want to go to see going forward. And then it's going to take us time after we do this process to flesh it out, to put the muscle on, to find all the rest of it to make it work. And I think that, that thinking of it, that structure, that what are the goals, what are the basic things that we want to see, where do we want to focus time next year or the year after as well in terms of development. Because as we say, we're finding a lot of things that we can't address as we sit here and work through each section of general plan.

You want to get that in the timeline of where we're at on general plan? It's a good long process.

Yeah, we could have Jared on the phone.

I just want to say something about as far as the federal planning. I was really impressed with the way the Planning Commission went through this process because, I mean, the normal process is just, you know, math, road, this, that.

You guys kind of took it to the next level.

You looked at If you make different changes on transportation plan, does that make a small family seem the same? And there were structures where if we did it a certain way, we wind up always clear up to our neighborhood parents, or, you know, like the areas they should be. But by digging deep and really getting into it, great job coming up with something that will possibly impact neighborhoods. So my hope is that we go through the dental plan through that same process. What are our foundational things that we're trying to accomplish? Obviously, you know, you're kind of boots on the ground.

Because we really are at a crossroads here in Orem, right? We've talked about this renewal, revitalization. That's where we are. We built out. So what's our focus now? You know, where— how do we achieve that goal. And to the mayor's point, from the transportation standpoint, I've gone to some of the meetings, the MAG meetings, where they talk about transportation. And it's just so wonderful to see that they're no longer relying on Horam to funnel all the cars east and west, that they're looking for other options on the interstate to help dissipate the traffic. So I feel that that message was well received at first.

Thank you.

you know, maybe not so much at first, but to this point, to the point now, well received and understood. And I credit that to you guys and the time that you put in to really go through that with the finding of code and from the perspective of our neighborhoods and protecting. So yeah, I just want to echo thank you, thank you, and I'm really looking forward to your input Hey, go ahead and give me kind of a rundown on where we are in the timeline.

So right now, the plan is we're a little bit behind on our land use elements because it's taken longer as we've identified problems and issues. So we're still finalizing land use element, which is— we knew would be the biggest one. And that's where we started with it. So we continue that this coming meeting in May. And we're starting the redevelopment session to start talking about that mathematically. And Taylor's working on that section for us right now. I'm gonna go through some cases you want to see with redevelopment. We're slated to come to the council sometime after the redevelopment, so we're looking for a little time in a work session to update on what they've done so far. And then we run economics by the beginning of June, transportation in June, water And then we need to update the council. That should put us in July. Housing needs to start by then because it coincides with the modern housing plan that needs to be updated as well. Then Parks and Recreation, Public Services, and Urban Design. We're going to be doubled up on some of our work sessions, but we're, we're lighter on our regular sessions. So what we did last week, for example, we had our work session for an hour. Went into the radio meeting and was right back in the workstation. So we need to do that pretty much all summer long. We want to update you guys during the end of June, beginning of July again, and then again in August, like before we go to final draft. So we're slipping behind a little bit, but we're still hopeful to be getting to final draft in September. But as we make adjustments, we want to make sure that you're kept in the loop. We have those 3 times. We should be showing you the updates of where we are 3 times between now and such.

Let me, let me say, just as a Planning Commission Remember how impressed I am with the people we work with at the city. These guys are just fabulous, and the people that support them just do a remarkable job. I don't think you could find a more capable, dedicated person than our chair. Madeline is very, very competent, takes it very seriously what she does, and you just—

we couldn't do better.

The city would have Madeline is our chairperson.

She's just great.

You mentioned that there are some things that are surprising. We'd love to hear about that.

It would be great if you go into the weeds.

Yeah, I was gonna say, I know for me, like, because it kind of had a conversation with a question I asked. We're doing land use right now, and this came up, I think, the last time I was before you all also, like, what are the definitions of some of these words? Like, what— and it's different for residential, and it's different for commercial. What is high density? What's medium density? What's low density? What, what are these things? And as we started digging in, we're finding that we— because there's 2 maps. There's the projected map that we have that's part of our general plan. And it says, this is kind of the general idea of what we want where. And then we have our actual zoning. And there's differences between the 2, which isn't odd, but there's specifics that we've been trying to get information about. Like, I asked, like, well, what is the density of the neighborhoods? And we know that they're zoned R-8, but we know a lot of those neighborhoods are not R-8. A lot of them are 6.5 or 7.5 because of the different times they've grown up. And so it's the We don't actually know what the density of a lot of our neighborhoods are. And I think there's a lot of information that we could glean. I think there's better choice, like better decisions we could be making if we knew that, and we could understand kind of how Orem is. And along with that is things like, where are historical neighborhoods? We don't have anything directly that says this is a historical neighborhood or that. I think preserving historical neighborhoods have to be a part of that. That's part of the conversations we can have.

You said something that surprised me.

We have places that are zoned R-8, but they're only 6,000 or 7,000 square foot lots. And I guess, you know, we've been going forward finding people who work here.

How does that happen?

How do we have an R-8 that isn't an R-8?

I guess I'm confused by that.

Things like that happen frequently in planning.

Something will be about 30, 40 years In the law, we need one scheme set.

And then as times change, things will change. And they'll just come in and frequently rezone the area. It's far away.

But they didn't really look at what was really built there.

Yeah.

And this is a corollary to what Madeline was saying. One thing I've been thinking about, wondering how much time and effort we should put into is a housing type study to have us really come in and dig into all of, all the neighborhoods and look at all the uses, especially housing, and really go in. So we know, in this neighborhood, there are X number of units, and they are single-family homes or attached. homes or let the breakout—

yes.

So we zone something R-8 now, and people start building, I think we have checks and balances in place to make sure they have 8,000 square feet.

Yes, we do.

And I'm not concerned about that. But I am concerned about knowing what we actually have, the snapshot on the ground today as we make decisions.

future.

Because when we see the plat map like you guys do, it says 8,320 and, you know, 8,412, and I'm hoping those are real.

So yeah, so there's no concern about what's coming, okay? Historical— what that adds to confusion when people try to come and build, I'm like, hey, I'm right next to 6.5, give me a variance. Yeah, yep, give me a change. Why wouldn't you do it? The whole neighborhood has been like that. And then we get in the position of, well, they're not wrong, I'm saying there is a lack of data.

One lot left in that neighborhood, and I go to build on it, and these guys tell me that's not 8,000 square feet, it's only 7,200. And so I have to ask for a variance, right?

Usually they'll get—

okay, probably they would be okay.

That's different.

What happens when they sell? But same, same thing.

It's only if they try to subdivide it and And we've seen it like with flag lots.

Those have come before us where somebody was a flag lot in a 6.5 neighborhood, but they had to meet the R-8 designation, which makes for a much bigger area in the backyard. They'd have to, just as an example, but things like that do happen.

Yeah, you just brought up something that I wanted to address with you folks is the flag lots. I would like to see that looked at very closely because just having different setbacks for a flag lot, you know, you don't have the same protections as the single. It's like within PRDs.

Small ones, single-unit PRDs.

Yeah.

So anyway, sounds like you're on top of it.

No, I—

and but I think that also leads to something else is that I think there's a lot about our code that needs to be updated. I think we need to look at and say, What is this? I mean, shifting from residential to commercial, we basically— I know there's a few exceptions, but we basically have 2 main commercial zones, and they're almost identical.

Right.

If you go through the uses. And I think that that is one of those places where going forward, I think there needs to be further discussion. And we've talked a lot about this. This is what we spent a lot of time last week on, is what kind of other designations are there? Are there other types of retail we want? What do we want to attract? What kind of commercial? Where does the commercial belong? State Street's 5 miles long. Should there be one designation for the entire thing, or should that be broken up? Same for University Parkway, Geneva. We were kind of identifying some big things. We've talked about some alternative ideas looking in neighborhoods at some of our cross streets like 4th North and 8th West. There's like pocket community where you've just a little bit of retail. right there along those roads. Are there other places in Orem that that might be useful? Who would, who wouldn't want to have a little cafe or a small—

If we're advocating people walking out of the house to get stuff, we need to look at those areas. We also talked about detaching these as a possibility, or smaller lots for tiny homes. There's, there's a lot of different things coming in. But we have been working together on this for a while.

And we We've lacked—

by the way, I have to give credit to Gary.

Just—

Up until him, and I've been here for over 5 years, I have not been able to get any information from anybody. So now I get easy access to information, has been fantastic. Asking for maps, I asked for maps before, never got printed. It's almost like the gatekeeping was so hard, so then we don't—

we didn't—

we couldn't see through the veil. And what has been transparent, right to the point, ready the next time. And when we show up, we have the maps requested. It gave us a way to see what the city wants, where the city wants to go. And we've just— one of the things we want to do is, I know we're the Planning Commission, I would like to get suggestions on what your vision is. What is your vision? What does that look like? We're big advocates on private property rights. And keeping the city as a family-centered city, having the neighborhoods to be— anything comes in has to be in line with the same existing neighborhood, having access to services to go to each neighborhood, fire, police. You have to have easy access. And we fought a big fight with that on the 1200 North property where they wanted to put over a few hundred units, where that would have been difficult for the Department of Commerce to go through. So what is your vision? We're currently talking about, uh, the legal nonconforming issue for, for commercial properties, which is what I faced, is what caused me to take all my businesses outside of Guam, all 3 lots, all my commercial property and my businesses. Sold everything, went out, because at the time the law was completely prohibitive to my growth. Now it's not, for a couple years. So that's— we want to protect any zone changes. We want to make sure that the previous mom-and-pop owner can get loans without having to worry about being non-conforming. So we're working on that, or can sell to somebody else. So also, the, the, the new plan that came in, it, um, it gave me a little bit of PTSD from the old State Street Master Plan. Looks like somebody copied and pasted and passed it through. So now we're going through the old plan tooth and nail because it still advocates of taking properties out of landowners on State Street to make things bigger. That's not what we want as a city.

That's not what I fought for when we had that issue.

So there—

what is your vision?

Can we align on that vision so we don't have those instances where we don't know why these guys vote 7 to 0 on everything?

That's not true.

We listen to the citizens on everything. We extend the times, we listen to them. We want to see what we— and we follow the existing ordinances. When we did so.

So we're—

we want to have alignment that shows the power of everybody aligned on the same thing will advance things so much faster. Where currently there's a push and pull unnecessarily.

And now the data is not an issue, which is great, but we do lack a lot of data, just like she said. Um, I can give you—

so I can give you information about what data is. The information's not necessarily maintained in the book angle, right?

Yeah.

One thing that, uh, Yeah, that'll be fantastic to look through as we go through.

And we've expressed a desire to have maybe have the historic preservation, the public utilities, parks and rec, when we get to there, have those commissions come and meet with us so that we can get a better idea.

So another, just a simple question, but what designates a historic area?

You have to tell us.

That's a question.

He's been sitting on meetings, do you know, Chris?

Yeah, so it's, it's Usually it's a designation of time that has been in place and cultural or area significance. It was the first— so it's not just it's been there for X amount of years.

That's one of the elements, but there's also some other reasons.

Has to do— has to do when Chris was born. Oh yeah, anything before that's historical, I think.

That means I'm historic.

Is that historic? Well, there's historic, there's prehistoric. That's me, prehistoric.

And the survey Chris is talking about, go into an area and look at all of these homes, and this whole area may be of historic significance, right? Now, having said that, there may be individual, uh, structures that are landmarks or historic that we can honor and preserve and do things with.

That unlocks the door for them, for homeowners that live in those kinds of residences, to get grants and repair and fix up their homes with grant and some money.

We have a number of those in the city currently.

Yeah, they're always looking for opportunities to get more money.

And those who apply first usually get it.

And so we've been always on our resource sensitive ask on questions. So this one is on the customer meeting things that happen. Yeah, no, let me just say something about that. As a historic in the North, one thing that we've talked a lot about, if you ask us Um, going back into this, but so we were getting a lot of push from the state, uh, to do a lot of experience, to do a lot of— and they would have money available if we wanted to do something else.

And we've—

I've been talking with them a lot lately about the importance of Legacy City. We're holding several restraints, and as such You've got areas in our city that are open to, you know, county, somewhere in the middle run down.

Yeah.

And so, you know, one of the things that's really important to us and what I've been talking to the state about is these funds that you've got, let us have some of those funds and use those to renew certain areas of our city. And so there are ways to think of it if you've got areas that are run down.

We can designate him for certain areas based on age and ability. And then, and I run into that a lot in Connecticut. Most of our contractors work in Connecticut, run into historic homes, and it became to the point where it's prohibitive to do work there. So we want to balance.

Yeah, you want to balance.

Want to balance, because for us, in order to do a commercial contract we'd be waiting a year to 3 years to get it just passed through the historical committee that we can touch it. We want to balance the idea of what's— and sometimes never works out.

But it is important to look at the big picture. And even as you guys are doing your, you know, going through things, are there areas we should be like considering designating as renewal areas? You know, because If you do it on bigger macro filter, you can filter 4 acres in an area, 6 acres in an area, and that area can be revitalized. And in a way that there are, there are models where you can do put smaller homes, a whole community built.

Is that only available for residential? Could be commercial as well?

This is mainly residential.

Residential only. So we cannot designate State Street as a No, there are ways of—

that's a different aspect. Yeah, but yeah, but that goes back to the same information questions we were having, because that's where some of my questions started coming out, and then kind of some of the kind of discussion was that, but we don't know where those neighborhoods are. Like, we can't quickly look at a map and say, you know, this neighborhood was built— this was a Geneva Steel neighborhood that was built in the 1940s or '50s, and that's— it's the character of this neighborhood, and that's what we want to preserve. So it's getting that information working towards that. Right now, we're really just in an identification phase. But we totally agree with what you're saying.

This has been one thing I've been interested in doing since I've come here is a housing study, a use study, because it would help us identify that exact issue.

How old? What's the average size? When were they built? You know, all of those things help us identify and focus funding, other types of grants and things that are out there that— and then we can look at economic grants also, facade grants for businesses and things like that, and target specific areas to help them. I don't like the approach of just regulating everything. I like to give incentives to help people stay and improve.

That's what we talked a lot about with commercial on our— in our last meeting. We were like, okay, what opportunities? What could we do? What could the city provide? Is it worth a tax break to be able to do this? That's outside of our purview, but we're saying like just kind of to start generating ideas to set as goals is looking at how to revitalize State Street.

Yes, revitalizing And I want to give a quick background on State Street, and I'm sure most of you are aware, but the old way of trying to get State Street to look better and advanced was economically prohibitive language where the code was put in the way. If we need to make a change over 10% of something, certainly we have to bring it up to code. And bringing up to code is a great word if it meant electrical and lighting. But bring up— literally demolishing, putting on State Street. That's what I fixed my lot on, uh, uh, 942 North State, where it was, it was a car lot. The building was in the back. I wanted to make an addition to it, and the addition dictated me I have to demolish it, put it in the front, and my car lot in the back. That was— that's how the code was written. And when I sold the property in '72 to somebody else and they tried to put a shed It was told to do the code, and these guys chose to take their business to American Falls.

They sold it and took it to American Falls.

A developer, by the way, that knew about existing— came and negotiated in a way that was advantageous to him. He still owns it. We didn't force it to be high density. The way the old code was put together, it was guardrailing people to arrive to a certain conclusion and a certain use. And that sparked issues where we now don't have that problem, but we also don't have a plan. So how can we do both? We'd love to have a plan, but without stepping on all those business owners and telling them, like, I'm sorry, $2 million property, okay, now it's $4.5 million in debt.

By the way, it's only worth $3 million.

That's what happened. So that's the background. So when we talk about our passion on State Street, and oh my gosh, this is the same exact design, and you have to It's not because we don't want the advancement, we just truly want to find the balance between protecting private property rights and making State Street look amazing. So whatever we need to do, we'll come to a conclusion.

Maybe more meetings, maybe more understanding, um, data.

That's just a little background on State Street. So yeah, I love the idea of designating older neighborhoods to receive grants.

Thank you.

And as far as State Street, I think most business owners would be willing to take a seat if you need to renew something in addition to what the city can do.

And to your point, since we voted down that, got rid of the State Street Master Plan as a council 3 and a half years ago, it has— you could tell that there were businesses who wanted to remodel and revitalize And they weren't able to that 2017 to 2022, right, that 5 years. And honestly, we've seen all of it, you know, the swim school, that there's so many storefronts that have been redone just in the past 3 and a half years. It's just—

And they wouldn't have been able to.

They wouldn't have been able to, right? Yeah. So, but I appreciate your point that let's go to the next level. So what's your vision? So I want connectivity between the businesses. I think what makes the BRT work on University Parkway is you have connectivity between the parking lots. Everybody can talk about ugly parking lots all they want, but they provide— commercial is not going to go away from parking lots, right? So yeah, so I can, I can turn at the Verizon store, wherever that is, Um, I can turn there and I can access all of those businesses in that parking lot. I, I don't have to worry about getting off State Street. So my push has been, when I've talked to Mag and people like that, I'm like, would you get on board and start negotiating those— um, I don't even know what you call them— right-of-way, what's the—

Cross access.

Cross access. You know, if we can get that step forward and we have more connectivity between businesses, maybe that would then help create more of an opportunity for— yeah, so I— in those areas and businesses helping each other.

It would also help those businesses that in order to get access, you have to get back on State Street and go back in, and people will not rent there because it's hard access for money, for people to spend their money. And that would help tremendously. In addition to that, having also—

we do a lot of business in East Coast.

And they have lots of medians and lots of U-turns. And in order to get somewhere just across next door, you have to go so far and come back on, which hurts the businesses. Is there a way we can address that? Because I noticed we're putting more medians on. In 800 North now, the left turn is no longer right away. They have to wait for it, which adds more to the traffic.

I don't know how—

when is that?

That changed recently in a month or so.

Well, not—

Can we address that? Is that something under our purview? Well, it's your medians and—

yeah, if you're talking State Street long-term, UDOT does have plans for medians on State Street, and part of that would come up in our transportation master plan. And they try to be— even though it's a state facility, they try to be very responsive And so as we come in, in our next round of transportation master planning, that's one of the things that we should do before we begin the plan is often the plan. So just among us, no transportation engineers here, the plan sometimes will come from a desire of Oh, we need to look at this as a region, which we do. We need to look at it regionally. We also need to look at it as what's best for our residents, what's best for our quality of life. And, and come in and set those kinds of ideas or principles about how we want transportation to function in order to serve our big priorities. So what are they? From what I'm hearing from the Council and Planning Commission over the couple of years I've been here is number one, quality of life for existing residents. Number 2, how do we create good and easy access and for commercial facilities to help people coming in and do those things? And so we build it from those— that premise rather than how do we get professors who teach at BYU but live in Lehigh as quickly to campus and out as possible. That should fall down the priority list for us as a community.

You can let down, Gary, how responsible we should be here providing additional housing.

As pointed out pretty well, I locked you out.

How do we do that?

And I don't know how high of a priority that should be.

I like your first recovery. transportation within that. The people from Lehigh are going to come through to go to BYU or wherever they're going, right?

So they're going to have to, whether it's a priority or not. So I don't know how, how much of a priority new housing should be. And how often— Yeah, and that's a great question. Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. That's a UDOT— you're right, there should be one at 800 North and I agree with that.

Yeah, and, and Provost worked for years— I worked for years on, uh, an exit at 820. And if you look at IHC, what they're doing at the hospital, they want that. They want that also. But we also want to have traffic through because traffic, you know— Well, I'll tell you a quick story. Provost was so jealous when In-N-Out Burger came.

And brought in a vice president for the in-and-out burger, put them in the playing room around the Valley.

Wow.

You know, so you want to put an in-and-out burger in Provo?

Look at this great community. Pitched all that stuff and said, you've got a great community. Let's see why you're so proud of your community.

Let me tell you how it works.

As soon as you have X number of vehicle traffic passing that location on Colby. So we, we do want to balance quality of life with facilitating—

If we could have had canes, we could have got the canes instead of Provo. But I want to address the decision not to put it in a certain location anymore. They wanted housing there.

But I do want to address Tom's question. Tom, would you repeat your question? Priorities for how responsible we are as a city for—

I think current residents have to be number one.

I think getting them around has to be number one. We can't ignore the fact that the Lehigh guys are coming through here.

Yeah.

And then what do we do with people who want to build?

How do we help?

Like developers, you mean, like people to live in?

I think we've been through a lot of that in the last few months with developers coming in trying to add homes to the community, but it was not in line with the neighborhood style. And we, we keep— all the developers so far have come to conclusion, every single one of them, that it does pencil at the current zoning.

And they all did.

David's point, when Canyon Park was going to be developed, he said, hey, R-8 is the gold standard, and they adjusted to it.

But however, how many times they showed up trying something different? And they tried so many different tactics. And if I didn't have the historical experience of that exact property and how much they're trying to rent it for in order not to get rented, to keep it empty and private, you can't rent it. I told them I'll rent the entire building to you for my business. Yeah, at the existing OREM rate.

Yeah, we can't do that.

Well, that solves your problem.

I'll rent the whole building.

So it's—

and if you see how much they rent N for versus what Q was for, it's— again, what happened was what was supposed to happen. We need the homes there.

They are able to— great.

But every single time the council, the Planning Commission said that is not in line with this vision of the city is time. They raised so many flags, and but at the end, you know, always came back every single time, it penciled at the existing code. Every single time, not once, not once they said, oh, we're not going to build here, it's over.

Not once.

And I think that comes back to the general plan as well.

And what we're talking about is, what do we want? We have such limited land left. I mean, such limited, and it's in little pockets. And some of those pockets probably make sense for certain types of developments, and other parts of it probably don't, or we want to maintain that land for other uses. And I think that it kind of— going with some of the conversation we've had, that's the pivot forward we need. We need the plan. I said this when with State Street Master Plan, hey, we've got rid of it. What are we doing now? And I think that that's where we need to get to now, is what are we doing? Now, what is Orem gonna have going forward? What decisions? Because sometimes I— and I've said this before— we make decisions kind of in a vacuum. We keep getting lots of land, and somebody comes and says, this is what we want to do with it. And then we have to sit there and say, okay, is that this or that? Okay, does that work with the neighborhood? But we do need to have a more general plan across Orem as to what constitutes family city, what is for the best interest of our citizens. What do we want to see going forward? Does this make sense for the transportation? But having those conversations before the developers come also helps the developers know what to expect as well. Because I know there's been some back and forth with that. They don't always know. Would we have more investment, certain types of investment, if it was clear what our goal was, what our desire was?

Possibly.

What else could we be attracted to?

So as far as state 3, Renee's talking about, you know, having infrastructure. Um, you're talking about median, you know, controlling the cost of medians, at least on our side. And so those are things that, you know, we could be working through on State Street, because I believe that if we can figure that out If there's a scenario where, you know, you can pull off State Street— I don't know if there's going to be room, but this is something to look at. You can pull off State Street and we can have connected areas. If that became a thing, I think investors would come in and they would pay to take out that kind of building, what construction we're talking about. It would unify State Street and enhance connectivity. So, you know, some creative thinking along those lines.

And we'll do our best and figure out how can we align the interests of the city with the investors and the citizens.

Just to—

that's the key, right? If we can create structure, then that funds a lot of these changes. Some of the citizens that I speak with that know I'm on the committee, the planning committee, complain about traffic.

You know, you have to wait if you're coming south through the intersection at 800 North and State Street.

They'll have to wait sometimes 2, 3 nights to make it through that light at certain times of the day. Yeah.

And then, uh, so there's, there are a lot of traffic bottlenecks, increasing numbers of those. So then the idea we need to get more housing, people say, well, my kids can't afford to buy a even on?

What can be done about that?

Then you realize that at some point you just can't do anymore. And then some people say our kids have to build a home or buy a home elsewhere, which all of my kids live outside of this area, the city of Orem. And people say, well, My kids will say, why do you stay there? Because it's getting so congested that it's, it's hard to get around, you know. And living here 50 years, as I have done, and things can't always be like they were 50 years ago.

I well realize that.

But we have to be careful.

I think at some point we get to a tipping point where we can't really go back and fix things.

Right.

So some of these open areas that their own consideration for development. I think we have to be very careful not to make them so they're points of congestion. I just say that's what—

To Jim's point, we—

I have people that will not move to Ormond because traffic, and we haven't added any more housing yet.

They just will not move to Ormond from the city that everybody wanted to move to.

Like my—

and my neighborhood is in the northeast corner where lots of people want to live by that place by the canyon. They just won't. The homes, they have been for sale for so long. It has nothing to do with the pipeline project that's about to go in. They have been for sale for much longer than that. And each person that comes in, they're sophisticated. They look at the neighborhood, they look at the school, they look at the traffic, and they decide not to. In addition to that, just— this is a little side quest here— the 1560 to 1550 East intersection that keeps getting an accident, the 201 One of my neighbors almost died last week. My other neighbor was disabled because of it. A third person just got in a wreck there, uh, because of the diversion from the water project as well. No, no, the water diversion hasn't happened yet.

Road right before the—

right by Wilson Street. Yeah, 8 North on—

but there's a lot more— they're diverting that way though too, right? That is important, that road.

Yeah, they haven't tore it up yet.

It's just been dangerous forever.

Yeah, again, as a side quest, sorry, it in there, but it's worth mentioning for the night accident that happened in that intersection.

So when we—

but people are not moving to Orange.

You guys will start hearing this. People are not coming to Orange because of the traffic. Whether we like it or not, the existing infrastructure does not support Orange more people. And whoever kind of coming— and quite frankly, I want to live in Beverly Hills, can't afford it, I'm gonna live somewhere else. It's just how it works. That's just how it works. You can't afford it, don't live here. I couldn't live in Orem. I lived in Eagle Mountain. Well, I had enough equity, took it, put it down payment, lives in Orem. That's how, that's how economics work. You're not going to bend the reality of economics so you can make affordability happen.

Sure.

It just doesn't work that way. Now, if you want to work, you can do like Texas where you throw, uh, multi-level housing everywhere to the point where they go bankrupt and they become crime areas. is because the rent now is so much less than the mortgage. But you see, but you see that. But so the inverse already happened like that. That already happened in other areas. One of my great neighbors that I, by the way, live for him, went to Park City in a remote area because of the traffic. He owns land, he owns enough multifamily housing in Texas. His rent went down by $450 per unit. This occupation is now 65% because the amount of growth and amount of buildings on there, to the point where it now starting to be a problem area. You have to rent it so cheap right now, and you get much, much bigger areas, much more primary. So we, we, we have the privilege to know that data before we get there.

And I think bringing it back, kind of what the mayor was saying, that is, if I think if we make a general plan to actually Truly reflective of what we want to see, because currently it's not. It's just, here's some definitions and here's some things. But if we really set that out so developers can say, no, this is what we're looking for, this is what you want, I think we would get those investments.

I think they would find us.

We also have, here's a list of every way you can break the rule. We have, we also have, here's a list of every way you can break these rules.

Here's a TV.

That's how we need to fix this.

But that's, that's the next step.

We give them a way to break all the rules we're trying to build in the same exact ordinance. Yeah, that's—

once we have the goals, then we go through and we have to do the similar sort of actual fixing the code to equal what we want. And we have a lot of conversations about why do we have PDs, probably because our, our districts don't— our actual zoning districts don't work. And so it's time to replete.

No, I'm just saying, go back to safety, that's the fire and state street, that's our economic need, right? And putting a median down in here is really tough for the fire and police because their response time—

if we're really supposed to take care of our citizens, they can't get across, they can't take their rigs across, they'll ruin it.

So if it takes you 5 more minutes, that person might be dead.

So to me, that's why I'm like, we need to open it up, right?

Mhm.

And so I—

but we need to bring in the police and the fire because They're the ones that live next to it, right?

They have to react that quickly.

So they need to be on board when we talk about transportation because they have—

they live— that's why we need connectivity.

Yeah, I mean, Hobby Lobby up to basically Best Buy, that's, you know, do the whole thing.

Almost densely populated cities in the state.

I don't think we want to look higher cost.

Yeah, with the second highest density in the state.

So if I'm understanding—

I've been quiet—

what I hear is that the vision of the council is the economic driver for Orm City— just want to make sure I'm understanding this— is going to be retail, low-end retail. Is that my understanding, what the vision for Orm is?

Because I haven't heard anything beyond that.

Whatever is on University Parkway and State Street, that's our— right now, that's our economic engine.

Yeah, but that's all low-end retail.

So we don't have any vision beyond that?

What's that?

I mean, real mechanical, all done.

Yeah, we have medical.

What are we doing to attract high-end retail?

We're starting to get stuff at University Place. And I think as we talk more about economics—

And we got a lot.

Absolutely. We did.

Got great places.

We've got a Cheesecake Factory finally.

Got great places to be.

But leveraging off of those.

What I would think is the lower-end retail is your foundation, your stable engine.

While high-end retail is great in a recession, it's not—

And to me, that's a negative term.

I think it's small business.

Small business, right?

That's what we have. And what builds America? The small business.

Yeah, but if I were to ask you, what are the top 20 to 25 small business employers in Orem? Who are they? And what do we do to help them? I'm just—

I'm not—

actually, my conversations with her haven't been terribly fruitful, frankly. I'm just throwing that out there. My conversations with Kathy have not been I just want to throw that out as a Planning Commission member. I see that as a gap that we could better define what we're targeting, who we want to support, how we want to support them, what types of retail. We have wonderful universities bookending Orem that could provide us all sorts of talent if we wanted to encourage entrepreneurs.

Like Provo does.

Last 3 years.

Yeah, no, I understand, but I'm not—

There's been 800 each year for 3 years, so there's been 2,400 new business development in the last 3 years.

Yeah.

And how many of the—

Yeah, right. And to your point, I remember when I went to the Black Belt ribbon cutting, They were like, we want to be right here by you, right next to BYU. That's our market, right? And who— how many people could name that business, right? But they are thriving.

Yeah, that's right.

And they started, you know, to your point, I get it. Yeah, let's figure out, well, how to attract more. Let's do better.

In my spare time, I work with people who are unemployed twice a week trying to help them find jobs. It's kind of tough right now. And I think we ought to be looking at ways of developing so that we can make sure we're all continually fully employed, our citizens, that when they're looking for a job, they can find them that match their skill set. I just think we can do a better job there personally. But that's, that's my 2 cents.

And we have talked about within like commercial designations, do we want to look at accelerating areas? Do we want to look at incubators? What could we do with some of our Class B and Class C office space, which we have quite a bit of in Orem? How could we maybe leverage those, incentivize to get those to, to people so that they could build between, again, between BYU and UVU?

We've got a lot.

We're in a good location.

How do we leverage that?

And so those, setting those goals and looking at those.

That is one thing. They say they need a better guy.

But that's not widely known, right? When they're— and Brandon went back to Tennessee, they were targeting those monies to go to your point of creating more jobs, more opportunities.

So I didn't mean to dismiss— I need to jump in. I didn't mean to be dismissive. I don't believe it's adequately addressed in the plan and what our goals are and what we're trying to achieve and accomplish. And how we're gonna go about doing it. I hear about access to Hobby Lobby and Walmart and whatever, and they provide a lot of sales tax. Got it. Track them 100%. But what are we doing to take advantage of our talent pool? What's our strategy as a city? How do we support that with the plan in terms of what sections we're gonna use and target and try to encourage business to come? And, you know, partner with us to buildings or whatever needs to be done. I just think we can do better with that.

Right. We've approved the office thing down by Neaters, right? That one's not been built yet. What do we do? How do we—

anyway. Some of those projects right now. In terms of turning that feedback into something constructive and productive, you know, whatever is written is what types of business users do you want to attract?

Let's come up with some of that list. It has been a little while since we've done an in-depth update for everyone.

We did that. We did do a deep dive into retail.

And again, I think that comes back to zoning, right?

And what is it? And what is our business zones? Because when you literally have everything under the sun in your one long list of everything that doesn't focus things, that doesn't draw attention. And we, like, we've talked, like, an example would be like having a medical area to go around our hospitals and say, this is going to be a medical zone and we want to attract medical. And so it's specific so people see that this is, these are the kind of things we want here.

We do have a surgical center. We do.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But that land is C-2 right now. And so—

If you make it C-6, so it's only medical stuff.

Yeah. But anyone could put in a gas station at the front of that lot if they decided not to build.

You're gonna look at the—

you said C-3, C-4.

They're almost like that.

So that really needs to be— C-3 is the transition between neighborhoods, right? So that needs to be tightened up. No gas stations or whatever, because that's how we got messed up on that one too.

And that's probably a step beyond what we can do in the next 6 months with bidding. We probably say our goal is to— one of the goals that we need in ORM is to refigure out, or what— obviously better phrase than that, but that, that would be what I need to know, the next step.

Sorry, a piece of data I'd like to request, and, and just, just to understand density versus economic status. Is there a data point where we have correlation between density per square mile and economic status of per city in Utah? That, that just could be Because we keep saying, oh, it's a great economic center, fantastic, we haven't missed for 3 years, awesome. How many other cities have done that based on how many people live per square mile? You see, we don't have that data. So as we go to zoning, like, are we going to dictate for the same density, more density, less density? Other cities have much less density per square mile and the economic status is so high.

And why?

Or does it have to be correlated to highest density per square mile to make sure the economic engine is moving on a lot Details happen on that piece of data. It could be found because we have that right now. We finally had a citizen bring us how many citizens per square mile living.

A citizen brought it, by the way, in one of the Wilkinson Farm conversations. Beautiful piece of data.

But then is there a correlation between that and economic status of each city? Because if we have cities where it's so low density per square mile but economic status so high, how do we model those?

Well, essentially, what is the tax value, tax generation per square foot? Essentially, it shows the university's equity on the spot. Essentially, the closer you get to the moment, the more state street That was, that was that spread. But as far as holistically, as people, that was going to say, yeah, that is another— it does seem like there's a certain point on the extent of— so yeah, often goes a little bit. Correct. And then we could give that piece of it, but possible.

I mean, we have half of it, not just economic status. That would be good to know where to start.

Yeah.

Okay, well, thank you. I want to thank you guys for coming, and we've got more meetings like this.

I think the goal is to get—

make sure councils are aligned, funding instructions are all on the same page. So hopefully this gives you some ideas.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I could just manage expectations just a little bit. I don't think this general plan update in 6 months will resolve all these issues. What I'm hoping it will do is identify and give us a work program on which to build.

Exactly. So you guys I thought I'd better stop here. Thank you guys for spending time with us.

You mean to bless the food?

Yes, please.

I can bless the food.

I do it often.

Our Father in Heaven, we are grateful this evening that we could be together as citizens and friends of this great community of Orem. We ask you to bless us that we'll be wise in the deliberations that we have one with another, and that we will make good decisions, that we will get along with one another. We're grateful for the food that's been provided for us and ask you to bless it, that it will nourish and strengthen our bodies.

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Amen.

I'd like to welcome everyone here tonight to our first official City Council meeting in the new City Hall, and it looks like we're using our space wisely. We'll start out with an invocation from Cyril Lundeen, and Chris invited her in. So, Chris, if you'd like to introduce her.

Thank you.

Yes, she's a member of our Orem City Youth Council and has been a bright part of that, uh, Process this year and looking forward to that continuing into the future, and just very grateful to have her here representing this wonderful group of young students and those that participate in understanding more about the city through that Youth Council program. So we'll invite her to now come forth and offer the prayer. Amen. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we'll have our joint police-fire honor guard present the colors and lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. The audience, please stand.

Thank you.

We've got a full agenda tonight, and I might say this a time or two, but this is a historic night in that this is our first time to be in the new city council chambers. And so all of you that are here will be— this will be something you'll always remember, because I don't think there'll be another city building built in our lifetime. Um, I do want to encourage everyone to— we've got some issues tonight that are fairly controversial, and so I want to invite everyone to, uh, also remember that this is Kindness Week in Orem. And so to express your opinions in a kind way. And, uh, I, I, and, and along that line, um, if there's anyone who's got any signs or anything that they're holding up or, or bringing, I'd encourage you to put those down, actually, um, just in the, in the interest of decorum and, uh, Keeping things positive. There is free speech, but in the rules of decorum, I'd encourage you to, uh, keep those down. Let's start out with item 8.1. We've got a presentation on Orem Birthday Kindness Week recap and One Kind Act Today acknowledgments. And, uh, Carrie will present that to us.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. I appreciate you recognizing that we just had our Kindness Week. We celebrated our 106th birthday as Orem City last Monday, May 5th. We also had our, our Kindness Week that week. We, we offered 500-yard signs that were made available to the public, and several banners were placed around the city center and the recreation center. Social media posts daily prompted doing one kind act a day to do our wonderful residents, such as 3 compliments to people, kindness in our family, kindness in our neighborhood, kindness in schools, and kindness in our workplaces. Our police department social— or sorry, our police department school resource officers gave out kindness citations when they witnessed youth doing something kind and are continuing to to do so throughout the week. Those kindness citations came with a free treat graciously donated by one of our local businesses, The Chocolate. Our Youth Council also performed a kindness service project by cleaning up the All Together playground on April 10th. We accumulated both celebrations by doing a service project by planting flowers on Saturday, May 10th at Nelson's Grove Park, served treats to participants, and had an Indian flute group The Orem Senior Friendship Center's Timpanogos Flute Circle playing throughout the park, and the Orem Royalty and Senior Royalty. We've also had a fun children's craft project of painting rocks at the park with our partner One Kind Act a Day. We have a video that recaps this week, and then after the video, we have an exciting opportunity to listen to the Chantettes— the Chantinettes, sorry, Chantinettes— and they will perform 2 songs for us. And then just so you're aware as well, they are also performing on May 19th at Library Hall for a free concert at 7 PM, so we welcome you to join us then.

Orem's 106th birthday, and it's a special day to reflect on the incredible city we call home, because the best way to honor a great city is to spend time improving it.

Happy birthday, Orem!

Rather than all the other options we had, The citizens wanted to do service, and we've had a big push for service the last few years. And so we're here celebrating the 106th birthday, providing service, overhauling, fixing up Nelson's Grove. Community service has been a huge emphasis for us because community service is how you bring the community together. By working together, getting to know each other, doing good in your community brings people together.

Happy birthday, Orem!

My company has like a community service day, so my team decided to come out to help out for them and kind of garden all together as a team. It's been super fun. It's a beautiful day out today, and honestly, I love gardening, so any chance to get out in the, in the soil, especially in the springtime, is always very fun.

Honestly, I didn't know it was a birthday service project. I just heard that we were helping out with the Adopt-A- spot, park plots. I've enjoyed this park for many years, just like going around with it, and especially this little area where all the like plants and flowers are at.

So I just wanted to be able to give back and support it.

Happy birthday, Orem!

It's fun to see so many people like helping out, planting all the flowers, getting all the weeds out.

Like, it's, it's gonna look so nice.

Thank you so much, honestly. Like, it's been super It's been super awesome. Y'all have been super nice. It's been a pleasure working with y'all. Happy birthday, Oram!

Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday, dear Oram.

Happy birthday to you.

Thank you, Carrie. And can everyone hear okay? Were you able to hear the video okay? It's good. Thank you to Chantinense for performing for us. We really appreciate that. That was appropriate with our. First meeting and Kindness Week. So, thank you. Moving on, item 8.2. We have a presentation, a Gold Star Memorial Monument donation from the, from the Knights of Columbus, uh, Escalante Council 1136 and Escalante Assembly 1146. Dennis Strobel, if you'd like to come up and make that presentation.

There you go. To Mayor Young, City Council board members, and guests, on behalf of the Knights of Columbus Council 1136 from St. Francis of Assisi in Orem and Father Escalante Assembly 1146, We would like to present 2 checks, one, one of them of $1,000 and the other one with $1,100, to the family memorial, or to the Orem City, as part of the Gold Star Family Memorial. We are pleased to have been able to raise these funds and are excited to have such a fine monument represented here at the Orem Freedom Center at Orem City Hall. May God bless all the men And women and their families who sacrificed their lives for our freedom. God bless America.

Thank you.

All right, 1, 2, 3.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. Thank you, the Knights of Columbus, for that generous donation for our freedom. Next up, we've got item 8.3, Natural Resources Advisory Commission. I'll have you introduce yourself as you're members of the Natural Resources Commission. All right, thank you, Mayor and City Council.

Um, yes, we are, uh, 2 of the 5 members of the Orem Natural Resources Advisory Commission.

And I have an introduction slide, but it's after this one. So, just as a note to those listening today, our mission is to promote the sustainable use of the natural resources in Orem and to help with education, outreach, and advisory roles.

My name is Paul Dunn. I'm currently serving as chair of the commission. My vice chair, Hillary Hungerford, could not join us today. This is Sarah Bateman, also a member of the commission. We also have Quinn Meekam and Darren Hawkins, who were not able to join us today. We also just want to recognize the great work of different people working with the city who also help with the activities of our commission.

So Councilwoman Jen Gale is our point person with the city council. For much of the year, we worked with the planning, um, the, the city planners, and Matt Taylor was our liaison and great help.

And now we are working with Public Works, and Tyler Pay and April Nelson are both helping us with that.

So just wanted to say Thank you for that. Um, we do several different things as a commission.

Um, we help with an advisory role for the natural resources of the city. We educate and inform citizens. We strive to build a community of stewardship leaders, um, also building alignment across natural resource organizations outside of the city, um, and also advocating for the conservation of natural resources.

Um, we just wanted to briefly give you a report on what we've worked on this year. We don't have enough time to tell you all the amazing things, but just a few highlights where we focused on community events and education outreach. So, for example, this year we helped co-sponsor an Earth Day planting party along with several other groups, including Bike Orem. Uh, we, uh, planned a community snowshoeing event. We also, uh, did a Provo River Delta tour to look at some of the new facilities down there.

And, um, Sarah Bateman on the, on the commission has done an excellent job organizing in a few events called free swaps, where people can bring lots of different things they're not using, and we can recycle and upcycle much of our stuff rather than throwing it away.

As far as education and outreach go, we've done a lot of different things this past year. Our general goal is to seek to learn and share best practices with our fellow citizens.

So for example, we have run several booths at different city events, including Orem Fest this last year. We've teamed up with Bike Orem And we'll also be doing the same thing this year at Orem Fest and helping Bike Orem with their bike valet. We also have advertised and told our fellow citizens about different energy and water consumer rebates that are available to them. And we're very excited that we also have launched a new awards website where citizens can nominate their neighbors for the awards, the Natural Resources Stewardship Awards like the ones we're about to hand out today.

Moving forward this year, we look to continue to build community, especially through the expansion of our commission.

We're hoping through subcommittees that can help with outreach and events. We also want to continue to partner with the city and are meeting with different people from different departments to see how we can best serve and, and help with that. We also will continue to work with media outreach through the city to advertise our events and let people know about great opportunities available to them and just expanding participation, especially through volunteers.

That can help with the commission. And with that, we would like to move on to the truly exciting part of this presentation, which is the awarding of our stewardship awards. And we have 2 different winners today. And so, um, I will go ahead and announce the first winners.

Um, our first winners of the, uh, Orem Natural Resource Advisory Commission's Stewardship Award are Josh and Charity Kresge.

Would you please stand and, and come up here, Kresges?

The Kryszkis have, have won the award for their outstanding commitment to sustainability.

They are honored in the Waterwise Landscaping and Outdoor Spaces category, and they've transformed their yard into a model of water-efficient design while enhancing the beauty of their neighborhood. Josh, a lifelong Orem resident, and Charity are active community members whose landscaping choices demonstrate The sustainability and curb appeal can go hand in hand. Their leadership and example inspire others to take practical steps toward a more sustainable Orem. So thank you, Kresge's.

Thank you. It's my privilege to announce the business winner of the Environmental Stewardship Award, which is Utah Valley University. So I'll have you come on up first and then say nice things about you. Um, so UVU has steadfastly— whoa, that's a little too much.

Yeah.

UVU has steadfastly worked to embody the spirit of green. And most of its buildings meet LEED efficiency standards, or the state of Utah's high efficiency performance building standard. It has used renewable energy, geothermal energy, since the 1970s. And in 2024, it added solar. to its renewable portfolio, and that generates a net 100% of Orem campus's electricity. So new smart irrigation technology and water-wise landscaping conversions have resulted in over 30% water reduction in recent years, and UVU is designated a bicycle-friendly university, and its UTA partnership promotes free transit for all Wolverines, demonstrating a commitment to reduce traffic congestion and improved air quality. Last fall, Rocky Mountain Power and Utah Business Magazine awarded UVU with a Green Business Leadership Award, the same ceremony, um, where the City of Orem also received an award for its green initiatives. So receiving the award on behalf of UVU is Associate Vice President of Facilities and Planning, an all-around great guy, Frank Young. And I think we're taking a group photo.

Yeah.

Okay, great.

1, 2, 3.

1, 2, 3. Click, click, click, click.

Thank you.

And thank you to our Natural Resources Commission for all their good work. Next up, we've got item 8.4. Police Week is this week, May 11th through the 17th. And BJ Robinson, our acting police chief, if you'd like to come up. We'll make that work. In 1962, President Kennedy proclaimed May 15th as National Police Officers Memorial Day and the calendar week in which May 15th falls as National Police Week. Established by a joint resolution of Congress in 1962, National Police Week pays special recognition to those law enforcement officers Who have lost their lives in the line of duty for the safety and protection of others. How can we best honor these officers who have lost their lives as they've served their communities? As police officers, we bring honor to those who have died by continuing to take up the watch from here, serving with integrity and professionalism. This is my commitment to you as City Council and my commitment to you as the citizens in the community of Orem.

Thank you.

The Orem PD will continue to meet this standard. How can those of us who are not police officers show our respect and appreciation for the fallen?

My answer is to remain or become engaged in the community service, however great or small.

Be willing to be engaged in conversation rather than just winning in an argument. In short, be part of the solution and rather than causing the problems. Be nice. Help out where you can. I hope this sounds familiar as I'm describing our city that I love. I'm describing you, the citizens of Orem, and what you guys do and how engaged you are in your community and how much you love this place and you are committed to moving it forward.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And thank you, Mayor and City Council, for the continued support that you show the men and women of our police department. They work hard and they're deserving of your love and your admiration.

It's not taken for granted.

We remain committed to making Warren the safest place to live, work, and play. Thank you. Thank you, Chief Robinson. Next up, item 8.5, a presentation from our Public Works Director, Chris Shirkey. First of all, I'd like to thank Chief for those inspired remarks. It's hard to follow that, but we will try. This week is, as mentioned, is a National Public— or excuse me, Police Week. Next week will be National Public Works Week, so we will clean up all the party debris and so forth from this week after the police celebrate heartily. Um, we would also like to have a party, and we'd like to recognize, um, all of the good work that the, uh, employees of Public Works perform on our behalf. We have currently around 120 full-time employees, around 60 part-time employees. Those part-time employees are primarily responsible for the maintenance of all of our park facilities, and other, uh, part-time responsibilities in Public Works. I'd like to share with you a few of our statistics from this last year, and also at the end of this, invite you to our Public Works party, which will be held on Thursday, May 22nd, at Public Works.

And that'll be a lunch that'll be provided to all of our employees at Public Works, as well as to our exec staff and City Council.

And so in parks, we have over 6,800 trees. We have over 34,000 burial plots in our cemetery. In our stormwater division, we have— our stormwater group is responsible for cleaning and maintaining— not maintaining, but cleaning the streets. You might not think about it, but we have a lot of debris that occurs every year. throughout the, um, throughout the year. And we— our goal is to sweep every street in the city at least 10 times. And in 2024, we, we were able to sweep 3,940 lane miles. In our Streets Division, this is an interesting statistic. You might recall 2 winters ago we had some record, near record snowfall here in Orem and in the state. And that year we used 2,230 tons of salt that was applied to the streets. This last year was quite a bit different. We only used 845. And so we have a reservoir of sorts, a storage facility for all of our salt, and we have to manage that ebb and flow of the, the events as they occur throughout the year. Our street crews also laid, uh, let's see, 24 tons of asphalt in 2024. And they've done an amazing job keeping our streets nice and clean, as well as pothole-free. Our traffic operations group, they maintain 6,320 streetlights. Of all of those streetlights, about 150 streetlights as of today are not functioning properly. And so that's about 0.25% that are actually out right now. We consider that to be quite an achievement, and we're grateful for your support in that area. We're working on our last lighting district to replace that this year. That'll be completed, and we've done that over the last 5 or 6 years. We have 11,976 street signs. That's a lot of signs to manage and maintain, but we also need to repair and replace them. And so we're, we're starting an ongoing effort to repair and replace those Those that are dilapidated in nature. So in 2024, our fleet, entire fleet, PD, Public Works, Development Services, Community Services— sorry, Gary— and then other departments in the city used about 250,000 gallons of fuel. That's all managed by Public Works, our fleet division. And we have 17 pieces of yellow iron, for example, in our construction area. In 2024, we produced around 8 billion gallons of water. On the flip side, at our water reclamation facility, we treated 3.2 billion gallons of water. And you might ask, well, where did the 4 point— what is that, 4.8 billion gallons of water go? Well, that actually went out onto your yards. And so, the majority of the water that we actually produce, we actually land apply. For irrigation purposes. So those are just a few statistics that I have for you tonight. Again, Public Works Week will be a week from— well, next week it'll be the week of the 22nd when we'll be having our party at Public Works. I'd like to at this time invite all of you to our party.

Are there any questions or comments you might have regarding Public Works at this time?

Seeing none, I'll give you this. No questions, but you guys are doing an amazing job in public works. And thank you. We appreciate your support. We appreciate the citizens of Orem who support the work and efforts that we provide. We've done a lot of fantastic things, I believe, in our, in our park areas in particular. In the last 5 or 6 years, we put more money into our park facilities than perhaps in the last 20 years combined. So, And again, that's a tribute to, to the citizens who have supported the CARE tax, for example, and, and the council that's promoting that as well. So thank you for your support. Great. Seems to be doing a great job. Okay, next up, item 8.6, and this is our Youth Council. And this will be, uh, Jenica Jones from Strategies— in our Strategies and Innovation team, and Sydney Wong, Events Coordinator and the Youth Council.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. We are excited to be here tonight. Sydney and I have had the wonderful opportunity this past year of being able to work with our Youth Council members, and we're excited to share a little bit more about what they've done this year. We've been able to work with over 20 amazing and dedicated members of the Youth Council. Our role has been to facilitate their discussions and help them understand the workings of city government. Um, it's been truly inspiring to witness their passion for Orem and their commitment to making a positive impact in their schools and their communities. They are the greatest kids. So this year, our amazing Youth Council members have spent many, many hours serving and learning about our community, and we are very proud of their learning and growth. So tonight you'll have the opportunity to hear from a few of these amazing individuals about some of their key takeaways and accomplishments from the past year. But we want to express our gratitude to every single member of the Youth Council for their hard work, their insightful perspectives, and their genuine desire to serve our community. We also want to thank you as the council for your continued support of this program. And then, so now we'll just turn over the time to a few of our youth members to share their experiences with you.

Good evening.

Whoa. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Thank you again for this opportunity to let us present to you tonight what we've learned this year. Um, my name is Clara Mielstein, and I'm currently a junior attending Tipanogos I'm Catherine Collins, and I'm also a junior at Timpanogos High School.

I'm Keaton Coons, and I'm a sophomore at Mountain View High School.

Okay, so this year we have had 23 youth council members who are all our residents, and we have had high school students grades 10 through 11—

well, 10 through 12, my bad.

We've had 8 students from Orem, 8 students from Mountain View, 6 students from Timpanogos, and 1 student from Freedom Preparatory Academy. And with service, we did Stuff for Santa, where we personally bought 2 items for 2 families in need.

We helped with Utah Food Bank at Westmore, which was my favorite because we got to socialize and get to interact with more of the community. And lastly, we cleaned up the Alta Glider playground slides, equipment, and we picked up some trash.

Um, we also had the opportunity to go on several field trips this year. Um, we were able to tour the city center while it was still under construction, um, and learn more about, um, everything that goes into that. Um, we were also able to tour the fire station and see some of the equipment and learn more about what our firefighters do on a daily basis. We were also able to attend Local Officials Day and Utah State Capitol visit, which was kind of a conference for all of the youth councils in Utah. That was a great opportunity to be able to learn from the other youth councils and meet them. We were also able to hear from our Lieutenant Governor and participate in mock debates. Along with our service and field trips, we also got to learn a lot about Orem, and so Um, some of our activities were a mock debate and a mock budget meeting where we got to act as the city council in these scenarios and get to present to the mock council and just learn more about the processes that you guys go through when you're making decisions like that. And then we also got to have panels with the city council and the staff just to be able to ask them questions and learn more about their jobs and what they do for the city.

For me, what I personally learned is how much time and effort is put into the city. And because of that, it makes me feel more proud and more happy to live with a community that—

and a council that puts so much effort towards our city.

And that just makes me happy in general. So, yeah.

Thank you. Um, my biggest takeaway from being on the Youth Council this year was just how much effort, um, goes into, um, making the government function and just making Orem such a great place to live. Um, I didn't really know about all the different, um, like positions that are available and just how many people, um, work together to make this city such a great place to live. Very similar to both of them. I really enjoyed learning about the inner workings of the city and all of the time and effort that go into making our city work from all of the different people and just learning about all of the different jobs That go into all of the things that happen in our city that I didn't realize the city, like, took care of for us to make the whole thing work. So, yeah.

Any questions? It was great to be with you the other night when we were all here together. It was fun to see you and see more of your group.

Thank you for what you're doing.

Yeah, you guys, uh, we met with you several times and your group is doing an amazing job and super active through the community and, and learning about government, learning about Orem. So, uh, this is our first year really taking the Youth Council to the next level, and you've done a great job. Mayor, can I say something as well? I, uh, have the privilege of serving on the Orem Youth Council with these amazing young men and young women, and, um, Claire and Catherine and Dean are a great representation of this group of youth. Uh, they're fun, they're energetic. When we had the mock city council meeting, there was a rush to the dais like I've never seen before to see who got to sit in which seat and who got to be the mayor. And maybe we could emulate a little more enthusiasm going forward. But I, I just want to say thank you to them for who they are and what they represent. And the great service, and we've actually learned a lot from you too, being able to work with you.

So thank you.

Thank you, guys.

Thank you. Okay, we're up to item 9, personal appearances. And let me just say a few things about this. So, with personal appearances, this is an opportunity for the citizens, the residents, to be able to have their voice be heard if they have questions, concerns, or opinions on what needs to happen in Orem. And I think we here in Orem take that to the next level because we've got our city council here. But in addition, we have most of our executive heads of our city staff. And we do that so that as people have different issues, we can refer them to those— our city executive staff leaders, and they can get immediate results in the things that they're trying to do. Now, tonight we've got, um, An interesting situation in that Wilkerson Farm has been continued from previous city council meetings, is going to be voted on tonight. And that's probably one of the more pressing issues on the agenda. And as such, there's no need to be heard in the public comments, which is right now, because there will be an open hearing when we get to that item where you can be heard. So there's not really any reason to come up. Prior to that. And that takes us to, uh, what else we've got on the, on the public appearances. It looks like the majority who have signed up are interested in short-term rentals and what's happening with short-term rental legislation here in the city. Now, if we— there's 30 people have signed up. So if we allow 30 people to have 3 minutes, that's an hour and a half of public comments. Usually we allow 15 minutes, 15 to 30 minutes for public comments. So, and, and as far as, like I said, our focus right now tonight is on Wilkeson Farm. We don't want to go to 11 or 12 or 1. Uh, we'll be completely wasted. We won't be able to make a decent vote. Uh, so, as far as the short-term rentals, everyone who signed up, if you'd like to, if you still want to come up and make a comment, Uh, and can keep it to 1 minute. I'm fine with that. I just want to keep it concise because that's not our main focus with the short-term rentals. We're still in the process of gathering as much information we can, working through that in our city council work meetings. We haven't made any decisions yet. And that's not likely to happen in the next, next city council meeting, but maybe after that, possibly. But we've got a lot of work to do on that. So anyway, so I'm going to— so I'll call your name if you still want to come up. Come up for— and keep it under a minute. At a minute, we'll have to cut you off just to keep this going. And, um, but if you— but if you want to wait, uh, and do it another time when it will honestly would be more effective, which is when we get to voting on short-term rentals. Uh, that's fine too. I'll let you decide. And then there's a few people on here, like I said, that are for Wilkerson Farms. You'll be invited up in the public comment section after this on the next item. And then there's— it looks like there's a couple people here from— for Ken Garth, and you're welcome to come up. Is that— there will be no public hearing on that, but this would be an opportunity for you to say something if you want to. So, with that in mind, and Whoever comes up, um, you just have to push the button to turn the mic green to be able to be heard. So, let me just read what we usually read. Time has been set aside for public to express their ideas, concerns, and comments on items not scheduled as public hearings on the agenda. Those wishing to speak are encouraged to show respect for those who have served the city. Comments should focus on issues. Concerning the city. Those wishing to speak should have signed in before the meeting. And in this case, please limit your comments to 1 minute or less. So we'll start with Marissa Harris. And, and if you want to come up, come on up. If you don't, uh, just don't come.

Thank you.

Can you hear me?

Good afternoon.

Thanks. Um, I'd like to help focus really fast on being part of the solution as someone who's been on all sides of the short-term rental issue myself. We are a board composed of 6 women, and I speak on behalf of 65+ local Orem residents who are responsible short-term rental hosts, all registered advocates On rentresponsibly.com. Some advocates are here today representing short-term, some long-term landlords as well. Um, will all landlords in the room please stand to show representation? Use us, make us an official city-sponsored committee, because there is a need for education to relieve misunderstandings if we are to solve the real issues. We can do better. We need to get more creative, but together. Um, these packets we handed out to you are all the research we've done as a committee to help navigate a solution. We want to work with you, not against you. Let us help bridge the gap between landlords and the city so that this transition can seem more seamless. Use us to implement good landlord practices. There are some great things you have on the proposal. We just highlighted some necessary adjustments that will help you as you navigate a more balanced approach. Use us. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, first time for everything. Um, 23-year resident here in Orem. Appreciate you guys spending the time this evening. I'll make it really quick. Just a couple of items I wanted to point out is the Are the quiet hours. I love the quiet hours. I want to sleep, but it seems like in the draft they're different from— for residents, 10:00 PM to 7:00 AM, and maybe in the new draft it was 10:00 to 10:00. It's a little odd, so you might want to look into that.

10:30.

10:30, whatever it is. But I mean, it kind of prevents kids from going outside in the early morning hours and, and just playing some spikeball or whatever they want to do. So just let's keep it consistent. Number 2 is, um, Max occupancy. Um, I built a big home, raised kids, graduated from Orem High.

I got 2 more graduating.

Um, and, um, got a big house. It comfortably sleeps quite a few. And, um, you know, we're, uh, 9 rows by 14.

You do the math.

There's a— It's a 99 occupancy limit in this room right now on the sign. So anyway, just let's just be smart about it.

And so we're safe in here.

We're going to get out if there's a— if there's an issue. But let's, let's just be smart and not cap it at 8.

So, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Gary Havens. So, I appreciate the opportunity here. And, uh, would request that you work with the group here with that we're with, the short-term rental group. My wife and I moved down 2 years ago, uh, built a house with an accessory dwelling unit in it, and was specifically told through the building permit process and everything that we'd be able to rent the unit on a short-term basis. And, uh, the proposed ordinance would preclude us from doing that. I use them, use the income to support myself in retirement and to support my family. I blocked it off this week because I've got family coming in. And so they're, they're using the, using the apartment there that's in my house. And so just encourage us to allow us to use the ADUs as, as short-term rentals and to work with the with the group so we can get solutions to, uh, to the issues that are out there under the proposed ordinance. Thank you.

Rob Sloat.

Thanks for the time to hear me. I'm just going to not read a thing and cut to the chase on this here. Uh, I use hosted short-term rentals. I've been also a real estate broker for over 30 years. Where we are finding creative ways to help people buy homes and things like that. Um, I'm not trying to be critical, but just in sitting in on your work meeting and stuff in there, I got the impression that none of you have ever owned a short-term rental. None of you probably understand what it takes to keep it going and what's important. And As I try to find out what the problems have been that they're really trying to resolve, that seems to be kind of hidden away under all these restrictions that are coming on. And most of them, I can tell you, are pretty much designed to put short-term rentals out of business.

Okay.

What we're proposing is that you give us 60 days. We'll take 3 people to work with Jake and, you know, come up with solutions. The next meeting you have, if we can't agree, Jake can show his thing, we can show ours. We can speak to you what the solutions are. And, you know, if we got something like that, the rest of these people that want to talk today might even just say we're good enough and move on. Okay, thank you. You were Rob, right?

Yeah.

Alicia. Alicia, get us—

Yes, sorry, nobody can say my name. First, I want to thank you for your thoughtful work today, um, in the work meeting on the proposed short-term rental ordinance. It's clear you're taking a careful, considerate, balanced approach, and I really appreciated what I heard today. I'm here to advocate for a legal path for owner-occupied short-term rentals. My husband and I bought our home in Orem 24 years ago and have raised all 4 of our children here. Right now, our youngest boys, 2 boys, are serving missions in New Zealand for our church, and our oldest are working full-time and in graduate school. For families like us, our home is often empty, but it's important that it be available when they want to come home. Giving us the flexibility to have a short-term rental allows us to supplement our income, pay for college missions, and help us prepare for retirement. I also urge the council to continue considering rules for owner-occupied units different from investor-owner-occupied or investor-owned properties. Especially when it comes to proximity limits, which is my major concern. A homeowner renting part of their own residence is fundamentally different from someone managing multiple investment properties, and the ordinance should reflect that distinction. I believe the proposed distance between units in its current form is too restrictive, and I will— I do want to say that none of our neighbors were even aware that we had a short-term rental in our basement because it's had that low of an impact. Our short-term rental generates income for the city. We've had the pleasure of hosting people from around the world. A surprising demographic of our guests are those coming to Orem for specialized cognitive and physical therapeutic treatments for extended multi-week stays. They shop, eat, and fuel their cars in Orem.

Time's up.

Okay.

And if they leave, their money leaves. So that's all.

Thank you.

Next, I've got— I've just got Jackson. I don't have a last name. Are you Jackson? My dad's name is Jack. I'm Jack's son. Do you have a last name? What's your last name?

Rollins.

Rollins. Okay, stand up and talk to the mic.

Okay.

All right, uh, where to begin? From the top of the list.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, honorable council. Uh, thank you especially to Lenee Millett for talking to me briefly about ADUs. Uh, I grew up in Utah County.

I've been a property owner in Orem since 2007.

I kept it as an LTR for years, mostly with students. The tenants, as you could guess, were more miss than hit. You know, friends and family talked me into going to an Airbnb May 2024. It was great. Except for 1 tenant that lied, saying they were coming to visit their grandparents and instead threw a bachelor party. We gave them 1 hour till past curfew, and then we had to intervene. So that was squashed. Um, it's similar money coming in, but no more parties, cleaner home, and better yard makes for happier neighbors. And to follow up real quickly on, uh, I think it was Deputy Chief Robinson's statement. I love this city.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, council officers, everyone here. Um, I look forward to continue working with all of you so we can continue to keep the Orem city great.

Excuse me.

Orem city. Thank you. Thank you.

And Green?

No.

Okay. Um, Sherry Selberg. Okay.

Thank you, Mayor and City Council members. I'm a longtime Orem resident and member of the Orem Business Alliance. After a late-life divorce, I invested heavily to prepare my home for a short-term rental to secure my financial future based on guidance I received from the city. I've operated in good faith and with respect to my neighbors. I understand the city's concern preserving long-term housing, preventing disruption, and ensuring enforceability, but owner-occupied hosts live on site and have every incentive to maintain respect for our neighborhoods. I support reasonable, reasonable regulation, but the proposed 182-night cap is an issue that affects all of us. This cap focuses arbitrarily and too narrowly on rental limits, ignoring noise, safety, and neighborhood disruption. Instead of a hard cap, I encourage you to consider exempt owner-occupied homes and units with no complaints and to create a permit system that supports reasonable hosts, responsible hosts, and focuses enforcement on real concerns. Let's keep Orem a place where responsible residents can stay rooted and continue giving back.

Thank you.

Thomas Packer. Hi, thanks. I'm Thomas Packer, Windsor neighborhood, 20-year resident.

I have a basement apartment, short-term rental.

I live above, and I believe it helps prevent problems. Sorry about that.

And, uh, I've heard 2 main short-term rental concerns: affordable housing and neighborhood complaints.

I have no doubt that these 2 concerns are valid in certain places and should be addressed carefully, taking time to learn the nuances from conscientious hosts who must deal with these risks and their own risks with every booking. As a data scientist for 20 years, may I suggest that if a metric is hard to optimize, like the ratio of parking spots to occupants, It could be either the wrong metric to look at, or we don't have enough of the right data. So, regarding neighborhood complaints, I've had 495 bookings in my 3 and a half years, not a single neighbor complaint. And regarding affordable housing, I think Utah County is the 2nd lowest STR rate among the populated Utah counties. Sorry, but time's up.

Okay.

Thanks.

So thanks for your service, Dora. Thank you. Kim Poole.

My name is Kim Poole, and I live in the Windsor neighborhood at 1458 North 75 East.

I've loved Being an Orem citizen since 1991, I've served on city and school committees such as Neighborhoods in Action and PTA. I plan to live the rest of my life here, surrounded by beautiful mountains and good people.

In 2022, my daughter had an opportunity to buy a home next door to me. Through a miraculous set of circumstances, we turned a vacant eyesore into a charming home with an STR in the basement, enabling her to afford the mortgage. Prior to spending significant money, time, and effort to do this, we thoroughly investigated options with city management.

We were upfront about planning a short-term rental. Everyone, including office workers and inspectors, told us we were compliant with all laws and regulations.

After this assurance, I think it is pretty rough to hear that you should now tell us we are operating illegally and may be forced to close our STR.

Christy, Christy Harwood.

Me again. Hi, everybody. Um, I just wanted to give just a couple of points. I know Most of you know me. I would hope that we can work together and work with the community council. I want to see that more data is available so that we're problem solving based upon data and not on supposition. I am concerned about the non— the tandem parking issue that was brought up in the meeting. And if street parking doesn't interfere with what's happening in your neighborhood, why is that a concern? Um, I would hope that we can look at and say, this is a new time and a new— the way the neighborhood is configured is different than when I was raising my kids. My home, I am 20 minutes away. If there's a wreck on the freeway, even I can be there. I'm spending more time. I'm working with my neighbors. They know me. There are 4 of us that are now widows in the neighborhood, and I appreciate everything you're doing to help this be something where we can be a win-win.

Thank you. Vic Tavano. Thank you, Council. I'm just going to say, uh, I come from a history, uh, in Orem. My family, the Barber family, came, moved here in 1949. I'm grateful for the people I've associated with back then. Was Marie Huff, you know, developments. Marie was a sweet, beautiful woman. Jerry Washburn, neighborhood action groups that we did. were wonderful, and we had that in Bella Vista.

My house is 510 North Bella Vista.

I was one of the first houses there in the early '90s.

We care, and we care about our children.

We care about safe haven places for them. There's no way we want any elementary or junior high school ever to be jeopardized by people that would be of ill repute to those kids. So I'm grateful for Jim Reams too, for Jim was a hard guy and fun guy.

I'm grateful for you guys here that we can talk.

Most important, I've heard a few things is beginning in conversation.

The chief said to the citizens, Riverside Country Club, I belong to for 39 years.

We always had annual meetings and subannual meetings to get together to do these types of things.

This is why we had an area council, Bella Vista, where we got together once a year at least, and we talked about these problems for the 1,920 homeowners that were there.

And that's all I'm trying to say is families are very important to us. Community together, Bella Vista neighborhoods and council. These are all good, and you're all part of your home and your area. We want to make it work. There isn't anybody here that wants a tragic incident, but I can tell you, STRs work. I don't even own the STR. They're just next to me, the largest one around on Bella Vista. I'm grateful for my Jewish friends who I've had come from Jerusalem and New York to be there for the last several years.

Time's up.

I'm grateful for you guys for holding this. I'm asking you to not have any meetings on this until at least 2 to 3 months. It should take that long because we have holidays coming. People won't be here the end of the month, 1st of June. So please remember that. That's all. Thank you very much.

Kim Best.

Hello and thank you.

Nobody wants obnoxious neighbors. And just recently I've complained about our neighbors, uh, loud music playing day and night.

And enough of, enough of us complained that they came and they taught him the rules and said, play by the rules or we're going to fine you.

And guess what?

Peace was restored. Wasn't that a beautiful thing they say?

Peace starts with us.

Peace was restored. And our Airbnbs, we have 2 of them, they provide an amazing service that nobody gets around. We have that you can't get through a hotel. People from all around the world come to Orem and they don't want a hotel.

They want their families together. They want a kitchen.

They want all the cool things that we provide.

We provide an amazing service.

And what I'm asking you to do is put some teeth in for those who don't follow the rules, because those who do, we provide an amazing service. Everybody wins.

Jordan, Jordan.

All right, I'm on the other side, I guess. Um, I was born and raised in Orem. I've been here for 39 years. Uh, we purchased a home to raise our family in Orem. I'm passionate about the community of Orem. We wanted to raise our family in Family City, USA, for that reason. Ever since this Airbnb has come into our neighborhood, it has been extremely disruptive. Every week we are dealing with a new Our latest problem was the school bus dropping off a bunch of teenagers and staying parked on the street. Nightly tenants don't care to maintain the integrity of the neighborhood. While the landscaping may be maintained better, we now have parking issues, noise issues, speeding issues. We live next to an elementary school. The rental is in a very high-traffic area for kids. When you are not a long-term resident, you don't learn the patterns of the children. You don't know where to look out for them or where they live. And since the Airbnb has come there, we've seen a lot of kids We wanted to be in a family community neighborhood. We thought we were getting into that when we bought, and now we live next to a hotel. It's really been a— it's also really hard having to police it and constantly call to get neighborhood enforcement out. It's ruined the cohesiveness of our neighborhood, and it creates such a tension. Having 300 homes as Airbnbs now, we'll be losing so many families.

Thank you.

We have tried to work with the neighborhood enforcement, and we've just not had a lot of success. So it's just been really frustrating for us.

Chris Derrance.

My name is Trish Barris, and I appreciate you listening to us tonight. Mine is a little bit different.

I've lived here for 40 years and in the same home, and I've liked most of the things that have happened in the city.

But we have a home that is right by us, and they have, uh, they advertise, and every weekend they have— they're an event center, and during the summer, 2 to maybe 3 times a week, they have events with 40+ cars in our neighborhood. There's nothing we can do.

We want to worry about the safety of our children.

And sometimes I wonder if we have to have someone die because of the safety issues.

And our family has gone through that in a neighborhood that was not safe, and we had someone that was almost died because of that, and the person couldn't see the child. And so I hope that this is different, because if people are using it for an event center, it is different than having people in their own home.

Thank you.

Brendan Henry.

Good evening.

I'll keep it short and sweet. There's really 2 items that I wanted to address when it comes to short-term rentals. Um, thank you to the city attorney for reviewing the proposed amendment with us. Um, there's 2 items that I think are important for the council and the mayor to consider as we— as you're considering adopting this. This, uh, amendment, um, first is moving from an isolated zone within the city to now allowing nightly rentals across the entire city of Orem requires the input of more residents that are just in this room. Um, and on both sides to gather input on the impact of disrupting neighborhoods again from an isolated zone to any, any zone in the city being allowed for short-term rentals. Secondly, um, within any type of short-term rental that I've seen successful within other municipalities, it requires great enforcement. I'm concerned that we don't have a plan for administrative costs to go up to enforce the regulation that we're putting in as a city. And so, again, I would encourage not only a feasibility study, but also for the city to consider, um, Upping some sort of budget for enforcement.

Thank you.

Stephanie Hathaway. Stephanie, I'm not Stephanie, but I am her husband, and I think I got skipped over, but I'm going to go for her anyway.

Um, I just wanted to talk shortly. Um, First and foremost, I'm just concerned about safety of our neighborhoods in Orem.

I've lived— Uh, first and foremost, I'm concerned about the safety of our neighborhoods.

I've lived in Orem and Provo for the last 20 years. Um, I'm— I've been a law enforcement officer for 10 years, so I understand how vehicle traffic has a huge impact on communities. Um, our neighborhood that is right next to Airbnb, we live directly next to it, is—

we're a couple hundred feet from Um, a school, and then that school has tons of children walking by every day.

Um, we also live in a very low visibility area, and even 25 miles an hour is way too fast. Um, with cars, excessive cars parked in the street, it's closer to about 10 miles an hour to actually negotiate corners and being able to see around cars.

Um, and then that Airbnb that's next to us is impossible for them to know that coming into it every day, there's a new person there. Um, I hope that you understand that the regulations that are—

yeah, you're putting out, I really appreciate it, all those, but it's going to be extremely difficult and very costly to the city to enforce.

And that's all I have.

Thank you.

Matthew Beadle.

Family is really important to me.

I've got 10 kids, 10 grandkids.

Just found out Mother's Day had 2 coming.

Um, and Orem is a very family-oriented deal, and I love that my short-term rental has allowed families to come visit their other families here for graduations, for weddings, for funerals.

Uh, they've expressed a big empathy or appreciation that their large family that have now separated and gone multiple states can once again gather in one roof to just reminisce like they were when they were kids. Uh, there's something magical about that. I appreciate that I can give that to them.

Um, we have short-term rentals and we have less cars at our place, less parties, less noise than my neighbors do. Short-term rentals are not an issue that's different than just regular homeowners or regular long-term rentals.

There is a difference, though. They're short-term, they're gone, they're out of there. Whereas some homeowners with 10 cars, loud parties, they're, they're still in the community.

Short-term rentals, again, shouldn't necessarily be restricted just as much as regular homeowners or long-term rentals.

They're a solution to our family, to our community needs.

Thank you.

Alderman Jones.

Actually, I'm here about the Wilkerson Farm. So, yeah, thank you.

Yes, if you're for Wilkerson Farm, we'll have a public hearing for that later. Uh, Brendan, Brendan Beck.

Okay.

Uh, thank you.

It's not on.

Oh, sorry.

Oh, thank you. I'm a licensed owner of a 7,000-square-foot short-term rental here in Orem. I'm also the oldest of 7 kids, so I know firsthand what it means for large Utah families to gather under one roof. That's exactly who stays in my home— grandparents, cousins, siblings, families reuniting Not partiers, not problems, people making memories. But the proposed caps would make that impossible. My home was built for togetherness and would now exclude the very families it was meant to serve. If safety is the concern, follow what other cities do. Require fire inspections, check for alarms, extinguishers, exits. The smarter and more enforceable.

I live down the street.

I enforce quiet hours, parking rules, and guest behavior.

I'm the kind of host this city should support, not regulate out of existence.

You're all invited to tour my property where I can show you how to manage and enforce rules. Let's build thoughtful policy that protects neighborhoods and protects responsible operators in the fold. Yeah, I think we're getting close to the end. Uh, let me just clarify though. Um, several of these, I think, are for Wilkerson. If you're not, then stand up and come on up. Sue King is for Wilkerson. Uh, Reese Hoyle, you're for Wilkerson. Uh, Katrina Lewis or Karina Lewis, Wilkerson. Uh, John Porter, Connie Pella.

Wilkerson. Okay.

John Cheney. Okay, and then these next 2 say Ken Garf. So Isaac Aragon.

Oh, sorry.

So my mother wasn't able to come.

She's out of town, but she wanted me to speak on her behalf and our whole family who is being directly affected by this move by Ken Garth. She sent me an email, but I'm just going to be brief, that by doing this, this is going to affect Our neighborhood, and I've been here before, um, telling you all about the misrepresentation that Kent Garvey has given y'all and the neighborhood about its intentions, and how in the end, this is just going to negatively affect our neighborhood. And no one, but beside the party invested in having this go through in the neighborhood, is satisfied or is happy about this. And I just want to remind you that By rezoning, we would have to change school buses that pick up and drop off students in the neighborhood.

We've already had a death in the neighborhood due to traffic on 1200 South, which is very horrible.

So I just want to remind you all that this is going to negatively affect us.

Thank you.

Thank you. And last, Remington Fuller. Guessing it's green, so we're good to go.

All right.

Hi, I'm Remington Fuller. Um, I am actually the brother-in-law of Isaac, and I have 3 kids who play at their grandma's house, whose house is within 50 feet from Ken Garf's brick wall. And I'm just going to put it this way. If you want to rezone housing, An R-8 residential with a perfectly good house on it and get rid of a property next to it that could have a house on it for a parking lot. You're just asking for a problem. You're asking for children to get hit by cars. You're asking for car accidents. You're asking for semis to go down a road that was built for small cars. This dealership already has an access open on 1200 South that's more than 15 feet wide. They have 3 access points on 200 East, and they use none of them for this semi that they've claimed they need for. They claim they need more parking spaces, and yet today alone, on my way to this very city council, I watched 3 cars from their mechanic shop pull out from that parking lot that doesn't have enough space. I do not feel like there's enough transparency behind what Kingarf is telling us. There's not been a traffic study done despite them claiming they need more parking spaces. Which, according to city council, we need a traffic study done if there's 75 spaces being added. Also, they've talked about putting in an access route for a semi truck, which once again would require traffic study since it's now a 2-lane road getting put in the back of this. I do not feel like Kengarff boasting to the city that they bring in $3 million of tax somehow equates to them earning this rezoning, when in fact we give them money. Alone last year, we gave them $800,000 in vendor fees. So I'm sorry, I just— I don't feel comfortable living in a city where we would care for a car dealership getting more parking spaces or an access road, when in reality it's just getting rid of family homes and opportunities for families to live here and for families to live safely in this city. This is not the city I've lived in for over 20 years. This is not the city that my mom moved us to. So we could be in a better place. This is a city that would care more about the tax dollars coming in from a company and less about the people living in it. So I propose that we keep it an R-8 and we do not rezone it to a commercial lot.

Thank you.

Okay, that, that brings us to the end of our personal appearances, and I appreciate all of you being very respectful and kind. We'll move on to our item number 10, our consent items. And the only thing on the consent items is the approval of the meeting minutes from March 25th, 2025, uh, April 8th, 2025, and April 22nd, 2025. So, can I have a motion to approve those? Mayor, I move that we approve the meeting minutes of March 25th, 2025.

Second.

And April 22nd, 2025. Now go ahead.

And April 8th.

And April 8th. Sorry, all 3. Second.

I second that motion.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Hi.

Hi, Jen.

She said hi.

Jenny, you there?

Hi.

She said hi.

I am.

Can you hear me?

Okay, thank you. Uh, the consent items passed.

Thank you.

All right, moving on to scheduled items. The first item, item 11.1, is an ordinance. Ken Garf, amending Article 22-5-3A and the zoning map of the City of Orem by rezoning properties located generally at 134 East, 1200 South, and 110 East, 1200 South from single-family residential R-8 to commercial C-2, approximately 1 acre, 1.05 acres. Uh, Jared, would you like to present that?

Sure.

I'm plugged in if you—

Uh, thank you, Mayor and Council. Um, this, as you said, is a request by Ken Garf to rezone the properties at 110 East and 134 East, 1200 South from single-family R-8 to commercial C-2. Um, this, um, the properties are shown right here. You can see the vacant parcel, and then this parcel does have an existing single-family home on it that would be removed. Um, in the, like, um, in the event that this is rezoned, uh, Ken Garf's proposal is to use this for additional parking. Wanted to show it in the larger context. You can see the dealerships around it in the area. They would absorb those parcels into the dealership lot and use for parcel, uh, for parking, uh, and access onto 1200 East or 1200 South is what they're proposing. The, um, the, the reason I wanted to show this is to show that larger context, and then that access that they're proposing, or that they would propose if a site plan were approved after they go through rezoning. I wanted to make it clear that this is their request for rezoning, uh, in order to do any kind of commercial use on that property. It would have to be rezoned and absorbed into the larger dealership property. The zoning, as we said, is R-8 right now. The dealership is in this PD-5 zone. They've asked for the C-2 zoning to allow them to have that access on 1200. That's the reason for that different zoning. Um, the site plan that they show in concept that would need to go through the approval process if it were rezoned is shown here. It adds 79 parking spaces, landscape buffers for the adjacent residential properties. You can see kind of a shot from 1200 South there of the vacant parcel and then the home that's there. Um, the, the council, when it reviewed this project, uh, previously talked about a development agreement that's, um, been looked at. The development agreement would provide some assurances that the zoning, C-2 zoning, cannot— that would mean a gate that they would agree to do, uh, and a stone fence, a masonry fence along the property line on 1200 to mirror the kinds of Improvements that have been done to properties in the PD-5 zone that protects more of the commercial, uh, or protects more of the residential from the impacts of commercial. So those kinds of things have been looked at in the development agreement that would go along with it and provide that masonry fence and the gate. So the access would be— impacts from the access could be mitigated on 1200 South in that neighborhood in the area. Um, the Planning Commission— excuse me, I just wanted to go through the Planning Commission action. On January 15th, the Planning Commission held their first hearing. Uh, and they continued the request to the meeting on February 19th. On February 19th, the Planning Commission heard the request again and voted 3 to 3 on 2 separate motions involving, uh, recommending approval. So no recommendation has been forwarded to the council this time. Uh, council first heard it before and then is rehearing it tonight with the development agreement attached. Uh, is there anything else that staff can tell you about the project?

Did the planning commission see these fences and the other agreements?

No, but the idea was talked about at planning commission. Uh, the 2nd, the 2nd motion to recommend approval involved some kind of development agreement saying, well, let's recommend that the development agreement would— we can recommend approval with a development agreement that would control those issues that we can't control with C-2 zoning. And that motion also failed 3 to 3 on a tie vote. So, they did talk about it, but no, no motion came forward. Yeah, there were 6 in attendance that night.

Um, will you go back to your site plan there?

Yeah. Uh, the main—

the larger—

yeah.

Um, so you're telling me that this— they haven't put this forward.

What's the level of confidence that this is what will happen if it were rezoned?

Correct.

They have an application pending for site plan that cannot be approved unless the zone change goes through. Level of confidence that they would go through with the project. Pretty good, I would say.

Okay.

And then go to your fencing one.

Yeah.

Would you explain where that— what's the— is that across? Where's the length of that?

Thank you. So the length would be the full, the full length of those properties. The PD zone is already required wherever it's on 1200 Southeast of this area. A fence like that. Um, this is the, the masonry fence. There needs to be a clear view area refined. And so that open fence is shown to show where you would have to have clear view coming in and out of that fencing. So this area would be fenced with that iron, wrought iron instead.

And just to clarify, currently, part of what you're showing with the new fence, part of that is chain link, right?

I don't think there's a fence there at all right now.

Is there nothing there?

Not that I'm trying to think. Oh, there's, there's a fence in this area right there, but that would be removed in a site improvement. Okay.

Because one of the things that the council was concerned about and talked about was to have a nice landscape buffer, a nice fence, right? Um, to help separate that commercial development and actually improve the current situation. Right?

Right. And that's the reason for the location of the fencing that they show here that allows for the trees and landscaping to be outside that fence. to provide that sort of softening of the wall. Wall's nice. It creates maybe some sound barrier and some visual barrier, but if you can soften that with landscaping, that's even better. So, uh, the agreement would, would require the landscaping to go on the outside of the fence as well.

So, any questions?

Go ahead, Steve. Uh, Mayor, just to clarify. So I've got a copy of the development agreement with me here, and just to make sure everybody is clear, not only are they agreeing to put this Simtek fence along the, along the frontage of the rezoned property we're talking about. It would also go along the property immediately to the east. So it would be an improvement on property that's not even under consideration tonight to improve the area and, and the visual effect.

You said Simtek, he said masonry.

Which is it?

Yeah, I mean, Simtek we consider to be a kind of masonry fence.

So it's a specific type of fence.

I think, I think that's a Simtek fence you're seeing up there on the monitor.

Yeah.

So you're going clear to the corner by the J-dogs, right? We're going— we're replacing that chain link fence to all the way east. Okay, thank you. So Simtek is the picture of the fence that you see right there. That's a type of fencing. I don't know what it's made of. Polyethylene. I don't think—

This solid fence here is the SIMTAK where they— if you— I don't know if you can see the cursor or not. That is SIMTAK. This would be necessary. This is shown just because there has to be clear view coming out. So we don't, we don't put solid fences right up to an access. So, there's a clear view triangle that has to be drawn. That's represented by that little green area there. Um, so you can see this, this portion would be in the, in the wrought iron, but all the rest of this, all along the front edge, would be the, the taller solid fence.

Do you want to call the applicant?

I can. That's probably a better question for the applicant. Um, I couldn't really address that with, with the site. I can, I can try to address that through a different— so the question that I'm hearing from the audience is about how far the gate is back from the roadway. Again, this is a concept that is shown for purposes of the development agreement and purposes of understanding what they would intend to do if they were rezoned to C-2 zoning, but it's Still has to go through the site plan process with the development staff, development review staff, and the planning commission. So they would look at all of those things. And I know one of the concerns that folks have about a gate is how much they can access that gate and how much we can get traffic off of a road if there's a gate to any kind of an access. So that will be looked at in design.

Mayor, if I may, I, you know, the fence that we're talking about here, you're seeing there is, is Is shown to be 10 feet back, and I think the gate is basically along the same line as the fence. So, I think that essentially means that it's going to be 10 feet setback from the back of the sidewalk.

I'm not sure how wide the sidewalk is in that area, but I think the gate is the red, isn't it?

Okay, so, so we've got to go back to decorum. I'm sorry. Mayor, I would suggest the applicant, Chris, uh, their agent, Chris, uh, Vic is here and he can explain distances on the, uh, Site plan. Okay. Chris.

Thanks.

Thank you very much. Um, yeah, I just wanted to clarify a few things.

I know there's a lot of questions on this one.

So, um, the gate itself and the location, like Jared was saying, it will still go through the site plan application.

Currently, we're proposing to put the gate 10 feet. Back from back of sidewalk.

So that's about 15 feet from the face of the sidewalk on that portion.

Um, as far as the traffic that's coming in and out, it's not going to change from what the current use is, because all of this parking in this parking lot is inventory parking.

So they're just going to move cars around so that they get a better flow through the site.

Currently, there's about, um, in a given week, 1 to 4 haulers that drop off between The Honda and Volkswagen establishments that will remain to be the same number.

Um, it's not increasing the number of trucks.

It's not increasing the number of employees or traffic that's going to be coming in and out of the site. Um, we did talk to the, um, the store itself.

Um.

And to see about how many employees would be coming in and out of the store. Um, for the entire store from the 7:30 to 8:30 shift, there's 15 employees that use the Volkswagen store, um, that would be coming in during that time.

From 7:30 AM to—

Yeah, 7:30 AM to 8:30 AM, there's 15 employees that come in during that time. Um, That's employees coming in from whichever direction.

Even if we say half of those come through the north and half come from the south, that's 7 to 8 employees if you split it up even.

From the 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM shift, there's another 15 to 20 that come in there. So it's staggered a little bit.

And again, that's total employees using the store. Some of those using other accesses, not all of them using this current one.

And then in the evening, exiting the traffic from 3 to 4, there's about 10 to 15 employees that leave about that time period. And the 5 to 6 window, there's 5 to 6 employees that leave during that time, and then the rest leave around 7 to 8. The, the fence that's, that's going through Um, is not, is not a requirement by the code, but it is something where we had heard.

And, you know, from, from city council, from residents that we wanted this to look better.

And with that, we worked with staff in order to come up with a solution that, you know, provides a gate, a fence, and a gate that works with the code, and it works to Make it so that you can't see through into the parking lot.

Um, so this—

Jared, do you happen to have the colored exhibit that I sent over?

I have one that's like colored and has all the—

Okay.

Um, but the—

there's a 10-foot landscape buffer where we plan to put all the trees and the planting in there and make it break up the fence a little bit, but then also have a very nice looking fence behind it in order to to shield the cars for as much as we can on that property.

The only areas where we aren't able to shield it is where we have those sight visibility triangles.

Um, we, um, aren't planning to bring semi trucks into the parking lot. You can't circulate in and around that way.

So those semi trucks would continue to use the road as they currently are.

Um, the One benefit of having this access here is that the semi truck can park on the shoulder and drop cars off of the back and go directly into the site where—

so that makes the trips a lot shorter for cars to get into the inventory parking lot, which means the semi truck is there for less time.

As was brought up as well, having semi trucks come in and out of a driveway.

Is, is a safety concern, having, having them back up, pull forward.

You know, more maneuvers equals more, more risk of damage to property or life.

And so pulling off to the shoulder makes it so that it's, it's easier for the truck drivers to navigate, which also mitigates the risk of property and life damage. Um, and then, in addition to—

this was brought up by Steve—

in addition to the fence that's going along here, there were complaints about the chain link fence that was on the Honda property on the northeast corner of 200 East and 1200 South. And so, part of the development agreement that would go along with this rezone requires that fence to be replaced with a similar Simtek solid fence.

Like this as well.

So that chain link would go away and it would help it look better through that area.

Um, are there any additional questions?

I guess.

I think we're good.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other, uh, anything else? Anything from the council? Okay, so this was continued from a previous hearing, and we've already had a public hearing on this. That's why we allowed the ones earlier. Um, as far as we've, we've looked at this in depth, uh, we've done everything we can to basically, uh, create a nice buffer between the company and, and the neighborhood. And that's what the Simtek fence will do. And the Simtek fence will actually— that whole area will look better with that Simtek fence and then the nice landscaping. So anyway, if anyone would like to make a motion.

I'd like to make a motion, Mayor, that the city council moves to approve by ordinance amending 22-5-3A and the zoning map of the city of Orem by rezoning the properties located generally at 134 East 1200 South and 110 East 1200 South from a single-family residential R-8 to a commercial C-2, approximately 1.50 acres.

Excuse me, before we have a second, do we need to say subject to the development agreement? It's not on there.

Do we need to?

You don't need to. The development agreement's been fully executed, but I mean, it doesn't hurt to note that there is a development agreement that this rezone is subject to, subject to a development agreement that they have. In either case, I'm happy to second it.

Thank you.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you. The ordinance passes. Thank you. Okay, we're up to 11.2. And this will be a discussion about— we continue this from earlier. This will be a discussion about Whitestone Estates, amending Article 22-5-3 in the zoning map of the City of Orem by rezoning the property located generally at 710 West 2000 South Wilkerson Farm, from the OS-5 zone to the R-8 zone, approximately 14.01 acres. Jared, if you'd like to start that.

Thank you. Um, so again, yes, this is, uh, 14 acres in the OS-5 zone. Uh, it was operated as Wilkerson Farm. That's how most people know it. This is 2000 South to see the property. This is the acreage we're talking about. Um, the applicants have requested R-8 zoning. This had been previously viewed or previously applied for in other zones. Um, they then changed to a concept that was R-8 single-family zoning. Um, this is the R-8 zone that you can— or sorry, the OS-5 zone. You can see it does have R-8 zoning to the west and other open space zoning to the north. To the south is Provo across 2000 South.

Um, Whitestone Estates, before you jump across, has Provo already done something with that property?

With the properties in here? I believe they're under development, or they've been approved for development, uh, for subdivision. I don't know if anything's built yet. So Whitestone, um, the proposal under R-8 changes the nature of the property significantly from OS-5, the existing zone. Just a few things to note about it. Um, in the OS-5, it allows for single-family development, but on 5-acre minimum lots. So very large lots, but it does allow for single-family development. Multifamily is not permitted in the OS-5 zone. Does allow for, for what we would call quasi-public uses like churches. Uh, allows for schools, allows agriculture, recreation, uh, different recreation types, and then agretainment, which was what Wilkerson Farm had started to do. The proposed zoning, the R-8 zone, would allow some of the same things, single-family development, but on significantly Significantly smaller lots, 8,000 square foot lots. Multifamily again is not permitted, uh, does allow for churches and schools. Uh, the concept plan that you see here is provided, um, to show kind of how many lots they think they could get in a yield out of this acreage. It, it would have to still go through subdivision if this property were rezoned to R-8. It would go through the subdivision process and, um, development staff at the city would have to look at— the review staff would have to look at sewer and water and all kinds of things. Um, that it can be provided for has already been looked at, that it can handle the sewer, that we can handle the water. Exactly how might change slightly some of the configurations here, but generally, we think this would be how it would lay out. Um, it would provide about 53 lots for the developer. Uh, those lots would range from 8,000 square feet to 18,500 square feet. I think the average lot is about 9,200 square feet if you average them all out. Uh, these would be public roads. Um, And improvements standard for public roads. But again, that would all be dealt with in the subdivision process. This is a concept only. Um, on March 19th, 2025, the Planning Commission reviewed this in a public hearing. They voted 5 to 1, uh, with 1 abstaining to forward recommendation of denial to the council for the zone change. And that's all I have for you. Do you have any questions for staff? I know the applicant's here and had some things he wanted to show.

Do you have an aerial view?

Just the— just this one. Yes.

Can you zoom out?

Zoom out?

No, I can't.

Sorry.

I can't. I can pull up aerials and zoom out if you want.

Um, I will ask you to do that later.

Later?

Yeah.

Okay.

No problem.

We have the technology.

Any questions? Yeah, let's, let's go ahead and hear from the applicant.

Sorry, can you hear me pretty good?

Okay.

Uh, I'll just keep my comments pretty short.

We've all talked about this a lot. We've been to plenty of public meetings. I'll just give maybe a little, little history, and then we'll just have some discussions. But so about a year ago, the property owner came to us and some other home builders and told us that, you know, he was no longer interested in leasing this property to Wilkerson Farms and that he wanted to sell it. And so, you know, we negotiated with him and got the property under contract. And then we went and met with city staff and sat down in the city offices and looked at the city's general plan and asked the staff, you know, what are we— what are we supposed to do, you know, according to the city's plan with this area? And based on the city's general plan, they pointed us to a PRD, which, you know, fit within the city's general plan. And that's the first plan that we brought forward was a PRD that, you know, we'd worked with staff and gone back and forth on and We brought that and, you know, went through all those public meetings and, you know, there was a lot of, uh, kind of pushback because we had some townhomes in that. And a lot of the talk was about density and, you know, how we didn't want to do townhomes. And so, you know, we went back to the drawing board, so to speak, and changed it to an R-8, which, you know, we were told is kind of the golden standard for Orem. You know, they're single-family homes. They're, you know, large lots, 8,000, you know, 9,000 square foot lots.

Um, and that's kind of, you know, how we got where we are.

Um, I guess one thing I would mention is, you know, our application is to rezone the property. It's not to, you know, end Wilkerson Farm or anything like that. You know, that decision is just—

it's not what we're trying to do.

We're trying to rezone the property. And I think it's important to note that, you know, what we're asking for is consistent with the city's general plan.

A couple of things are also important.

You know, that road, I think it's— is it 2000 South?

2000 South right now.

It's, you know, it's an old county road. It's just a small, narrow road. Um, there are, you know, people are complaining about the traffic there, and I think that's what happens when there's development all around in a city. But, but you're left with some small county roads. You know, part of our development would be widening that road. We'd be putting in sidewalk. Um, I know you all know, like, I don't know if it's the biggest city park or the nicest, but there's a really nice city park over there. And there's a bunch of residents that are already, you know, kind of walking there and there is no right-of-way. Um, part of our development would be widening that road, putting in sidewalk. A couple other things, it's on the city's master plans for their utilities. There's a trail that's supposed to go through here when the property is developed. Um, we're supposed to install a master plan storm drain line for the city. You know, it was planned that this would be developed as part of the city's master plan. Um, it's a pretty big storm drain line that runs through it. Um, so there's a lot of things that, you know, this property has been planned to, to be developed in all of the city's plans. And so I just think, um, those are some important things to note. So, um, I know also, uh, I don't know if the property owner wants to speak, but I know one of his representatives does. So, Those are my comments, and I'll let Jason— Is it possible to hook into your screen? Mayor Young and council members, I appreciate this opportunity to speak with you tonight. I know this has been a, a bit of a difficult issue. Um, displacing a farm is, is not fun. Uh, but I know that, you know, Al Switzer, who owns this property, has been, uh, the biggest supporter of Wilkerson Farm from the very beginning. To the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money and the use of the property for basically no charge for 10 years. Um, but he's choosing now to move on. I think it will be helpful for the council and possibly those that are here interested in this to, to see a few slides, um, to see where to share our thoughts of where the— where Al Switzer and the owner of this property is coming from. This property was annexed into the city in 2015. This graphic shows the yellow line shows the 227 acres that were annexed in. The red line was the previous boundary of Orem City before the annexation. This is the graphic that was used at the annexation city council meeting, and I put the blue over the top of it to show you where the subject property is. The, the minutes of this meeting, uh, when this was annexed, described the land as a mixture of light industrial, community commercial, low-density residential, and professional services. And it says, for this reason, it was placed in an OS-5 zone, Open Space 5, as a transitional holding zone. It was never intended to leave it in an OS-5 zone forever. It was meant to be placed into the zone, uh, as if you could imagine this were coming into the city today with those— that many uses. Uh, putting the correct zones in the correct places from the beginning just isn't possible. Um, and so it was zoned OS-5 at that reason for— at that time for that reason. The 2nd graphic here shows 3 separate Uh, general plans that were presented at that time in 2015. Uh, there was a lot of work and effort gone into this to get the correct general plan. Uh, option A, which is in the top right— top left corner, had the subject property as high-density residential, which is right here with the arrow. Uh, option B had light industrial. And option C has a low density residential. And as we all know, option C is the one that was, uh, was accepted. So this is that option C that shows the light density, low density residential. And once again, I've placed that blue section over it so you can see the subject property. All of these graphics, graphics, except for that, the little blue addition, are what was used in the actual annexation meeting.

Meeting.

Uh, meetings that where it was approved. So now I'm going to take the current zoning map in Orem City and just talk through 6, um, rezones that have happened in the city since this was originally zoned OS-5. There are 3 here that were zoned commercially and 3 that were zoned residential. If you look down here in the bottom left-hand corner, this PD-55 was rezoned, uh, recently. Last year in 2024. And as you remember, because you're the ones that voted on this, it's a gas station and some flex commercial space that is either a light industrial or a retail type flex space that was approved last year. The 2nd one is the red C-2. This is where the Holiday gas station is currently under construction. That was approved in 2020, and that went from the OS-5 zone into the C-2 zone. The 3rd one, professional office. This is the autism center that's been there for a while, and that was rezoned to professional office zone in 2023. The 3 residential zones— there were more that have been zoned in this entire 227 acres, but I'm only going to focus on these 6. The 1st residential is this one here. It's the large apartment complex that's there. It's a PD-43 zone. And it's a multifamily zone that allows up to 12 units to the acre. The 2nd one is Payton Crossing, uh, 22 lots that were approved in 2018. And, uh, once again, this was OS-5 zone that was then rezoned into an R-8 zone, which is exactly the same thing we're trying to do to the contiguous property to the east. The 3rd is this PRD zone. And this is the most interesting one, I believe, in my mind. There's 25 homes that were approved on this lot just 18 months ago by this, uh, by this council. 5 of the members of this council voted on this. Uh, Chris Kilpatrick and Jen Gale were not on the city council at this time, but the remaining 5 of you voted for this. Uh, 5.2 units per acre density. And, uh, if we were to transfer that same density that was approved, 25 single-family homes that was approved on this lot contiguous to the subject property, the Wilkerson Farm property would have 76 lots on it, 76 homes. The applicant is only proposing an R-8 zone, which would limit it to the 53 that is being applied for currently. So, Uh, R-8 zone application, 3.7 units to the acre is all that this would be when it's all built out. Uh, this is what it would look like. Um, when it's all said and done, 53 homes that, uh, that create an atmosphere similar to, to the lines of what Family City USA is trying to create. Uh, as we've worked with the city staff on the approvals of this, uh, every one of them have said that it meets or exceeds any requirement necessary that they've seen through traffic or engineering of any kind, utilities planning. Uh, and it, it's, it's no different than the dozens and dozens of other single-family neighborhoods that have been approved through Orem City, uh, that are all across our city. And so, as a representative, Al Switzer, who owns this property, I asked the— we asked that you treat this property no differently than you treated these other properties and rezone this to a low-density residential zone, which was the intention from the beginning when this was originally annexed, and it's not changed to today. And so, any questions, I'm happy to answer them, or I'm happy to sit back in the audience as well.

Oh, I'd like you to pull your map back up. Uh, there's one. Uh, no, the one you were just at right there. And I'm going to give you a little context, if you don't mind. Yeah, from my experience. Um, PD-55, you're right, that was approved as a gas station and commercial. It will be frontaging the new Lakeview— is that what it's called? Lakeview Parkway?

Yes.

Will be the frontage on that. So that is an appropriate zone. If you were to go watch the video of that meeting, With the city council, we, um, changed the site plan during the meeting and added a significant buffer zone between the homes that were already there and this commercial use. So let's put that in context.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying that I'm against any of these zones. I'm saying they were all OS-5 and they're changing as they're being developed.

Right. And thank you. I will get to that. The C-2, the Holiday Oil, um, I'm gonna just call that one a sneak attack that happened, um, during 2020, during COVID when all those, those people who lived in those R-8 homes bought their homes there, bought their lots to build their brand new homes. That particular, um, area was shown as R-8 and on every— all of the sales material that they had and somehow that gas station got through. That was before I was on the council. Um, the PRD zone, the brown one, um, that one was a, a housing unit that was specifically presented to the council as for autism, for the autism school that's right in front of it. So to the, to the west of that is professional office. Um, those were supposed to be specially built homes for children with autism and families with children with autism. And if you'll notice, there was a significant buffer zone left from the east to the railroad tracks and to the edge there, that diagonal line.

Um, and to, to that point, that there's no way in the minutes of the approval, there's no way to limit the purchase of those properties.

To anybody.

So I could go buy one, and I have no autistic children.

I completely agree with you on that one, and I asked that question during the meeting. But that was the story that was told to the council at that time. They've since changed their plans on that one, by the way. Um, but, uh, the, the intent there that was given to the council that those would be built to a higher standard of, of construction because of autism— children with autism often have an issue with sound. Right, and, and issues with that. So, you know, you know, whatever you want to say to the council, we believed them at the time, and, and hopefully that will be what will come to fruition on that land. So I just felt like I just want— and then, you know, to your traffic point, um, I'm just going to push back on that. I've been a resident where I've fought developments in my area, and I've seen traffic studies for the exact same property change based on what the developer wanted them to say. So I can appreciate that, but we do have a lot of unknowns here with what's going to go in on the Provo side there, with as far as homes and traffic and those types of things on that center.

Provo side's already been platted and approved, right?

But until you actually get the homes there, yeah, you know what I mean? And, but, but I don't, I don't necessarily want to have a debate about this, but I'm just trying to say These are also, you know, I'm hearing all sides here. These are, these are— I tried to give you those decisions in context because I don't, you know, there was some inference there that we approved all this stuff, but I wanted to give you some context there.

I appreciate that. So the 2000 South property, the street, and Roger Dudley's here that's helping design that street.

It's a 66-foot wide road.

It'll have an eastbound lane, a westbound lane, full lane, and it'll have a true turn center lane in the middle.

Left-right turn.

So it's 3 full lanes, and then they have medians on both sides. And so it's, it's going to be a 66-foot road from the tracks all the way down to the lighted intersection on Geneva Road, and probably beyond. I haven't looked beyond that, but, but it's— as far as it being a little country road, it's not. It's as wide as any other city street other than this, than the major streets like University Parkway and Center Street. It's a— It's more like probably 8th East down by the By the, uh, uh, well, yeah, well, not at least, it's probably like, oh, the city, the streets change, but it'll have a center turn lane left, left and right from the center, left both ways from the center of the 2 lanes. So it's a full 3-lane road. So, as far as traffic, I don't, you know, it's not gonna, in my opinion, affect much. And lastly, it's more of a property rights issue than anything, in my opinion. Uh, the farms— I know there's a lot of people here that are trying to save Wilkerson Farms. That's one of the reasons why we tried to push this into June and July. With the farm off the property, this would have been a much different discussion. Uh, June 1st, they will be off their property, and they've been notified in writing they will be off their property. And we were hoping to present this to the council with that not being an issue, but we are where we are. Anything else?

That's it.

Okay.

Unless— any questions from the council? Thank you. Councilmember Millett brought up a traffic study. Um, do you have any comment towards that? I actually have a graphic on that, just in case you brought it up. This is a graphic from the traffic study that was done by Avenue Consultants. Avenue Consultants is probably the premier traffic study engineer in the state. Uh, David Besant is the engineer, and he— I've been doing this for 30 years, and by far he's the most, in my opinion, the most respected engineer out there. He prepared this himself. The circle shows 56 single-family detached housing. He actually made a mistake. Thanks for viewing. Oh, I guess we're done. Uh, there we go.

Uh, he—

the 56 was a typo, um, from a previous— well, this has been brought to the council 2 or 3 times. The 56 units was one of the other times it was brought to the council. But what this shows is that at the peak hours, AM peak hours, there are 58 vehicles that are going in and out, in and or out of the property. Uh, 15 coming in and 43 going out at the PM peak hour, there are 78. And so what that means is that, uh, in the morning, the busiest hour in the morning, uh, basically every minute. 1 minute a vehicle will be leaving or coming in, and obviously 2 or 3 could leave at once, and then it may sit there for a number of minutes before the next one comes in. But on average, during that first hour, and the weekly daily total would be 784 in and out of the project. There are 2 access points in and out of the project. So it'll be spread out from either one of those. This combines both of those, those access points. And so the, uh, David Beslin, Avenue Consultants, said the impact on from this development onto 2000 South and Geneva Road is very minimal. There is impact. There's 53 new homes there, 53 families that live there now. But the impact, as far as waiting times, is next to nothing, because most of the traffic waiting will be, will be actually before it enters onto 2000 South. Once it's 2000 South, once it's been approved, Uh, it— there's, there's really no concern with the traffic, and we've consulted with the traffic engineers here at the city, and they, they've agreed with this, this concept.

Does this include your Provo development? How many homes are you guys— you own the Provo side, right? How many homes are you putting there?

30.

And did this traffic study take into account those 30 homes being completed?

No, this is just Orem.

Okay.

Yeah. So if you extrapolate, we're probably, you know, another couple hundred a day or so. Thank you, Jeff.

Great question.

Any other questions? Do you want this left up for discussion or close it and go back to you?

I want to see the other area. Yeah, gotcha.

Say that again.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

How far out did you want to zoom?

Um, I don't need it.

Oh, okay.

That's all right.

We'll have it. It's up.

Have you got anything more, Jared?

Uh, no, I don't think I have anything to add necessarily. If there's any questions, I'm happy to answer them.

Okay. All right, so let's go ahead and open up public comment. And with this, it's just a matter of, uh, I know there's a lot of you here, and so I want you to be able to say what you want to say, but if— but, but do try and keep it concise.

Can I just ask—

And if you go over 3 minutes, I'll have to cut you off.

I'm not starting yet. I just want to know this before we get started. Are we allowed to ask them questions as they were allowed During the previous one where they were allowed to ask the developers questions?

Yeah, not really.

Um, I just want to clarify, they told us in the neighborhood meeting it was going to be 40 houses on the north— on the south side and Pueblo side. Have they changed it, or was that a misstatement tonight? Everybody in the neighborhood meeting was told 40.

Okay. Yeah, no.

Okay. All right.

Yeah. So, so what you need to do tonight is just present whatever you like to present to the council, but don't— we can't really have a group conversation going on.

Okay, then I will just give you my concerns for what I heard tonight.

If I can interject, sometimes what works well is if a neighbor has a question, they can ask the question. Gary or Jared can make a note of it, and then when the public comment is done, then the developer can come back and answer those questions. Okay, so we can follow that process.

All right.

Questions are, do they think they personally are going to widen the street all the way down to the stoplight, or are they going to wait till Provo does it? They're only going to take care of in front, and then it's going to narrow back down and bottleneck until Provo does it, or are they going to be responsible for all the way down? And, um, The traffic study was done before the gas station was open, and that's going to add a lot of traffic, plus the south side and this. And we're really having— I mean, sometimes it takes us 5 minutes to get out of 800 West because of if the train's there, traffic blocks, backs up sometimes almost to the light. If the light's red, it backs up towards the thing. So traffic is a real problem.

Did you state your name?

Sherry Fong. Sorry, Sherry. Sherry Fong lives in Payton Crossing. So, I was concerned about the traffic and the study that was not taking in gas station and south side and, um, the, the safety. We have at least 20 kids living in our little tiny neighborhood, plus The Provo side, and they all get together after school. And we need— if they're going to go do widening of the streets and things, we need traffic lights. We need something to make it safe for these kids to get back and forth. And I see a lot of people on 2000 South not stopping enough distance from the school buses when the little stoplights Signs come out and the lights are flashing, and the kids linger and talk. The bus moves on, then they go south side, north side with no adult around, and it's just— it's worrisome. So please consider also the fact that when we bought these homes, like I believe it was Miss Millett said, we bought before anything about the gas station or anything else was even known about. Um, when we bought our home, there were 2 houses where the gas station is. So we had no idea that during COVID they were going to have a Zoom meeting that nobody knew about and change the zoning. So please, we need open space.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, I think most of you know who I am, and if you don't, you should read the Orem Forum. My name is Anthony Kretschmer, and I was asked to read something in behalf of Romy Allen. Good evening, council members. I'm reading this on behalf of Romy Allen, who couldn't attend tonight due to a family baptism on April 8th. I requested an investigation into the rescheduling of the Wilkerson Farm rezoning vote. I also asked for policies to address conflicts of interest. I would like an update. Residents deserve answers to these questions. Question 1, which council member requested a behind-the-scenes vote to reschedule the rezoning meeting? Who Who asked city staff to conduct the vote by phone rather than a public forum? Why did this council member prioritize the developer's wishes over residents who spent hundreds of hours and funds sending out postcards and emails for the April vote? Question 2, Jason Dodge, who works for the landowner and is facilitating the sale of the potential development, read online that he Wanted the vote postponed until after Wilkinsons were no longer on the property, in hopes that people would give up fighting to protect the land. Which council members are participating in that strategy against Orem residents? 3, are there council members with financial or personal ties who should recuse themselves from voting on this project? This project has raised serious concerns about possible backdoor deals. eroding public trust. 4, both the developer and the landowner have indicated if the vote does not go in their way this time, they were assured that after the election things would change.

Who told them that?

Why?

It is concerning that there seems to be an agenda in play, plans to remove council members who are fighting to preserve Family City USA In order to push higher density growth again.

Orem 5.

Orem is currently Utah's most densely populated city. We are 95% built out. The developer has a large development already planned right across the street on the Provo side. Why sacrifice Orem's last open spaces for luxury homes starting at $800,000 to $900,000? 6, have city council members reached— researched the dangers of building homes close to trains? Building near train tracks poses safety risks, including derailments. The Planning Commission has discussed and researched these risks and has recommended against rezoning, 5 to 1, by the way.

All right.

And I used my time— I used my time on behalf of Romaine. I'm just going to say this. I'm going to echo what Romaine said.

We are the densest city in Utah.

We are 95% built out. I was told personally on a Facebook comment Jason Dodge wants us built out 100%. He wants us built out 100%. And are the developers going to say, oh, Orem's built out, let's go to a different city?

No.

No, they're going to want to build up, and that's high density and multi-use.

Thank you.

Say, excuse me, say, Bryn, did you say we could fix that?

Yeah, if we—

if you want to take a quick break, then we can kind of untangle the cords for the mic there and extend it to get it on the podium.

So it's a little bit Yeah, let's, let's take a 5-minute break and a firm 5-minute break. Um, so we'll take a 5-minute break. You can keep your places in line and we'll fix the mic and we'll be right back.

This Um, less desirable and will fall.

I've seen it happen where they'll fall into disrepair. I kind of like the, the previous plan that had an HOA and that had all of that under control to keep all of that maintained. Um, if you look up and down railroad tracks, a lot of times you'll see homes that no one wants, or people don't want to pay a lot of money for, and so they kind of just fall into disrepair. And so that's one of my concerns is I think, you know, maybe a quiet zone should be part of this, and then maybe an HOA. Um, also, the lots behind me, the developer, um, had, um, given us I guess, matched our lots better with the previous plan. Sorry, your time's up.

Sorry.

And so that was my other concern.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Rachel Flores, and I'm a proud Orem resident and homeowner.

Um, thank you.

I just want to say thank you to Alf, the homeowner, for letting us benefit from his land for the last 10 years. Um, but I wanted— I'm here to offer a hopeful alternative to rezoning Wilkerson Farm. Instead of, instead of development, I propose that Wilkerson Farm be preserved and transformed into a nonprofit educational farm, a living, working space where our children and families and community, community members can reconnect with the land and our shared agricultural heritage. Turning Wilkerson Farm into a nonprofit would open the door for fundraising opportunities through donations, grants, endowments, and more community events. It would also provide educational programs for school groups and families and hands-on learning experience. And some examples of that are harvesting and fertilizing soil and milking cows and collecting eggs. And it could also be a living museum where sustainable agriculture could preserve our roots, our farming roots, and also provide Um, organic food and teach skills that are becoming extremely rare in our modern world. And as a mother, I want a place where my children can not only learn something as essential as growing food, but have an opportunity to eat fresh local food that has not been genetically modified or has been poisoned by pesticides. Um, thank you. farm's operational model would be supported by, one, donations and grants as the primary source of income; 2, the supplemental revenue from the visitor fees and the continuation of their community-supported agriculture program, as well as the seasonal harvest festival and other events; and then 3, also by, um, community volunteers, uh, fostering pride in our community and reducing costs, and we could draw upon the expertise of UVU and Utah State's Extension Office here in Orem to provide state-of-the-art farming techniques. I firmly believe in the value of non-governmental, community-led, community-serving, mission-driven organizations, and I'm happy to organize with like-minded people to make this happen. Rezoning and developing this land would benefit only a few. Preserving it as farmland and expanding its purpose to serve as an educational resource could benefit thousands of Orem families now and in the future, upholding the slogan Family City USA. So I ask you, please keep Wilkerson Farm zoned as agriculture. Let's protect this space not just from development, but for something greater, for learning and for connection and community. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and City Council members. My name is Anna Green, and I've lived here in Orem for most of my life, over 40 years. And first, I want to sincerely thank you for all of the work that you do Um, on behalf of our city, I especially appreciate the Christmas lights in the city park. I think they bring a really special sense of community and joy during the holidays. And thank you for all of the other unseen ways that you serve. Um, I'm here tonight to speak briefly about the Wilkerson Farms rezone issue. And like many others in the community, one of the things that I love most about Orem is commitment to parks and open land. And I understand why neighbors want to preserve this property as it is, and I truly respect that perspective. But I also value conservative principles like property rights and liberty and fairness. And from what I understand from tonight is that Wilkerson Farms is closing at the end of the month and the lease is not being renewed. And so the farm will be gone regardless of what the council votes tonight. Voting no doesn't save the farm. If this land is important to the neighborhood or the city as a whole, then I support— if the landowner is supportive of this, then giving people time to do something like what the woman before me just proposed. Maybe 6 months or a year to try and pool resources, or for the city to purchase it. Um, to— that would be— that seems like a fair and community-minded solution. But if no buyer comes forward and the land is just sitting there empty, then I believe it's only right the city allow the property to be developed into single-family homes, especially when the proposed development Is consistent with the surrounding neighborhoods and the general plan. And, um, this is about freedom and fairness and property rights, private property rights. And a city that respects its residents must also respect landowners and the rule of law. And thank you for all of your work and listening tonight.

Uh, good evening.

My name is Steven Strong. I live at 1664 South 500 West, just in the Lakeview area by the stake center off of 1800 South. Um, I like the idea of this being single-family homes, this development. Um, I have family that lives in the neighborhood across the street on 2000 South in the Provo side. They are excited about the development of the 30 homes going on that new piece of property. Um, and they would love— and I'm speaking for them at this point, but they would love that development to match across the street. Um, it would make safe sidewalks to get down to Nelson Grove Park. Um, and from a citizen that lives close to this area, having a long-term outlook and sustainability of Orem is single-family homes. I don't think there's a better use for, for the property. Uh, we, a year ago, kind of went through the same thing on the property, the 10 acres that were on 1423 South, 400 West. Um, some of the people that are arguing don't build anything here were arguing for a highway commercial zone. So it's kind of weird that now they don't want anything built when some of the public members want— wanted, uh, Highway commercial on that zone. The city council voted to rezone that as R-8, and now we have 37 homes going in that are— it's going to be a great addition to our neighborhood right there off of 1423 South 400 West. Uh, we're really excited about that development, and we feel like this development on this property would match our neighborhood and kind of maintain Um, a great single-family environment that, that I want to live next to the rest of my life.

So, thank you. Uh, members of the city council, hello, my name is Mercedes Catamartori. I am a resident of the city, and I believe it is in the best interest of the public to keep our remaining farmland, Wilkerson's or otherwise, for its intended purpose to grow agricultural products. I hold a Bachelor of Science in Agribusiness Management, so I can say with confidence in my agricultural education that our local farmland is part of what makes Orem such a great place to live. Not just the farmland that is the topic of tonight, but all of our little remaining open space and growable space. I believe the landowner has every right to sell their land, but zoning should stand. Developments and buildings can be built on bedrock, against cliffs, in a swamp. You can build anywhere. You cannot, however, grow crops anywhere. To see our working plots of land that are producing food bulldozed and paved chills my blood, as it should yours. We should be begging our farmers to stay. We should be doing everything possible to keep them close, giving them every incentive to provide us and continue to provide us with local, low-cost, and nutritious food. Simply put, no farms, no food. So, uh, thank you. I'll leave you with these lyrics from a hit song from my youth that best encompasses what I'm trying to get across. Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you got till it's gone? They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Isabel Stoddard, and I know that this decision to try to rezone won't— if we want to keep agriculture, won't benefit the developers or the person selling. But I believe it's more important for the community as a whole to keep it as is. And part of that is because we can see what happens when a city gets very developed. So all across the United States, cities such as New York, Chicago, San Francisco, they're all spending millions upon millions of dollars to expand urban agriculture because they realize that they developed too much too quickly. And we are not to that point in Orem yet, but it could get to that point if we don't protect the remaining farmland that we have now. So once farmland is gone, it's gone forever. And there are so many benefits for the entire community for keeping farmland such as urban green spaces. It reduces heat, it filters air, captures carbon, supports pollinators and biodiversity. Local farms also contribute to local food resilience, producing fresh, healthy food for the community. And Orem now has a rare opportunity that isn't about resisting growth, it's about guiding it wisely. Preserving this land isn't a step backwards, it's a step forward in protecting education, environment, and local food for generations. Cities across the country are investing millions to restore what we still have now, and we don't have to claw back green space. We can protect what we have now. Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Linda Olson, and I will be giving a speech for Helena Kleinlein, who could not be here, so I'll be reading it. Members of this council may have received favors from Mr. Jason Dodge. a local realtor, that have influenced their decisions on property developments in the City of Orem. Jason Dodge, who is driving— a driving but silent force behind this rezone, both as a realtor from Colliers and Tapitha's Way, recently stated on Facebook that, neither the current landowner nor the developer have ever donated to the campaign of any member of the council, unquote. And he was right, except Mr. Dodge did not disclose his personal donation to a 3-city— to 3 city council members. Chris Kilpack told myself and Jim Hawkes that Jason Dodge had given him, Chris Kilpack, Jen Gale, and Jeff Lamson permission to place political signs on all the land that Mr. Dodge owns in Orem during the election campaign of 2023, and that's a sizable amount of property and very advantageous in an election. Having done a large favor for Chris Kilpack, Jason Dodge has now, not surprisingly, earned the support of those same 3 council members, even though it does— it goes directly against the wishes of their constituents. This constitutes an election contribution, and this violates the Utah Public Officers and Employees Ethics Act. Utah State Code 67-16-5.6 states no person may donate or offer to donate personal property in exchange for approval of an application or permit, unquote. This is exactly what happened in the last election. Mr. Jason Dodge gave privileges to 3 of our council members in order to get them elected, and now he is calling in his favor as the realtor from Colliers representing the Whitestone Estates developers. Because of this conflict of interest Chris Kilpack needs to recuse himself from this vote tonight because he cannot possibly be objective when he owes Jason Dodge such a large favor. So, Mr. Kilpack, your constituents are asking you to recuse yourself from this vote. This is a matter of your integrity and trustworthiness. If Mr. Kilpack chooses not to recuse himself from this This will be seen as an act of pay-to-play. It is unconscionable.

Sorry, time's up.

And point of order. Mayor, point of order.

With regard to that last letter, this particular individual was, uh, committed a misdemeanor and was charged with stealing signs. And also, I've never personally received any remuneration or anything else.

It was just a form of, I could go to every— any business, may we put a sign? There was never any other factor or any other agreement of any kind.

So I think that's a form of disparagement that's inappropriate. Thank you.

Point of order.

Rolling is not Mayor, perhaps Mr. Earl could explain donations versus, uh, you know, buying a vote. Could you explain a little bit about that, Stephen? We understand that. Obviously you don't. So I'll defer to the mayor. I, you know, the mayor is, is in charge of the meeting, directing the meeting. If, uh, the mayor wants to Direct a question to me. I'm happy to answer that. I don't, I don't think we want to get off into the weeds. Um, let's just keep going with the comments. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Michelle Lennon. I've worked at Wilkerson Farm for the last 8 years. Working there has helped me gain knowledge and experience that I haven't had at any other job. Having a job in that environment has taught me the satisfaction of hard work, to have food awareness, how to work with the team, resilience and uncertainty, to pay attention to detail, and to connect with nature. I know all these characteristics would have— would and have benefits to the younger generation of the community that come and work at the farm. It's a great project and does much good and service for its community. It would be disheartening and devastating to lose this piece of farmland that has optimal soil to grow food for food security and gives the community and future generations the experience of agriculture and open space. In closing, I, I've seen firsthand the work and love that's been put into the farm to serve the community and witness the fruits of our labors as we see the love and unity that the community has for the farm. If there's any hope in saving the farmland, I would suggest that you would vote against the rezoning for the farm will benefit the community more than housing. Thank you.

I'm John Porter.

I live in Payton's Crossing, directly west of this project. I smiled when the now largely irrelevant traffic study was put on the screen with all the statistics. It reminded me of Mark Twain saying, There are lies, there are damn lies, and there are statistics. That study took nothing into consideration for the added traffic to the south. A lot has been said. I join in most of it, but I would like to further mention something about density in our city.

I've asked your staff, and they have done so, to pass out this blue handout.

And I have a few more if anyone wants it later. The city of Orem is the most densely populated city in the county of Utah. The density of this city is 5,000+ people per square mile. Our city to, to the south and north, or whatever direction it is, Provo, has, uh, almost half that. We are completely built out. We do not need more homes, more traffic, more overflow parking on our roadways. All of the problems that will come with this development. I strongly suggest that we observe and honor the existing zoning, which calls for large lot residential development and open space. And we do that in remembrance and as a tribute to the heritage of this city.

Thank you.

Karina Lewis. I'm here because I feel very badly for the owner of this land who is in an impossible situation trying to make people happy. Um, some people here are really attached to the Wilkerson Farm, the carnival, the experience of that. And that is no longer feasible. Al Switzer has spent 6 years trying to make this, um, trying to make it profitable. He's put hundreds and thousands of dollars of his money and given them free rent trying to make this profitable. And not only do I appreciate him for that, and not only do I respect him for that, I also believe him if he says this does not make market sense, and I trust him. He has no idea who I am, but you know someone based off what they do and the outcomes they have, and that this whole sale, the whole proceeds will go to Tabitha's Way, and he is not personally benefiting from this. Some people don't care so much about the carnival experience, they care about the soil and the gardening. And I have the most compassion for that perspective, and I don't have a good answer to that. I've tried to go through different solutions in my mind, but it makes— to me, it's very important that something makes sense from a free market perspective, that it's going to be profitable and that it makes sense. Other people have expressed they don't care what happens to the land as long as it's zoned as open space. They don't care if it goes to weeds and if it's vacant. And my nightmare for this is that they'll— that whoever buys that land will first get a great discount, and Tabitha's Way will not get the funding it could. But also, that owner could just wait for things to change, and then that owner could push high density. Instead of single-family homes, we could be looking at 14 acres of apartment buildings. And I do not want that. I don't think very many people here would want that. So what I'm recommending is that we untie this owner's hands, that he can have the freedom to support Tabitha's Way, that he can fight hunger, that he can continue this mission that his mind and his heart is so invested in. Thank you.

My name is Doyle Mortimer.

I'm a resident of Orem. I was raised on a dairy farm.

I drive down Geneva Road. I, I was raised on a dairy farm, and I drive down Geneva Road several times a week, and I appreciate the rural nature of Geneva Road, and I miss farms. That's why I often have to go to Juab County or other places. But common sense says that if that isn't going to be a farm, which it isn't going to be a farm, then it has to be looked at with— as a property just like all the others that you vote on every day throughout Orem. And consider something, and that is now you have a common sense developer who is willing to stay with single-family residences while Others all over the city are destroying orchards and everything else around them for multifamily, high-density, multistory apartments and otherwise. I think that what is happening here is we're turning into a political— not potato, tomato. And people are throwing a lot of falsehoods here. When in reality, this is a common sense thing to do and the right thing to do considering the location and otherwise. Before I step away, I was a member of the Utah State Legislature. We received donations every day when we were in the legislature, and sometimes you had a direct conflict of interest and you would state that conflict of interest before you voted and otherwise. But I promise you that I don't think any person in this council today, and I know every one of you, Jason Dodge, who I know, is a dishonest person and is buying or selling a vote. That's all I have to say. I've lived in Orem for 26 years and, uh, love it. And I think the city has done a great job managing as best it can growth, which is always difficult. This is my first ever city council meeting. I appreciate what all of you do, and thank you. This is a lot of work and a lot of hours, and we— and even if you're getting paid, we appreciate your efforts. Um, I came to the city council meeting because I fell down a rabbit hole on Facebook a few days ago, and I saw something happening that concerned me because of that.

it followed a pattern I saw as somebody who grew up—

before I lived in Oregon for 26 years, I grew up in Oregon and in Salem, Oregon. It was a beautiful town to grow up in, great shopping district downtown, a place that now you would not want to take your kids to. And the thing that started that slippery slope was the same thing that I saw on Facebook that made me worry, which was— almost a mob mentality of accusations, concerns for people that have high emotions for the place they live, um, trying to persuade public officials that people who don't have an interest in a property should be able to decide how that property is used. And that happens up in Oregon all the time, and you can see the consequences. It has been a disaster. And when people who don't have standing Try to decide how a property should be used, it ends up becoming an unmanaged property, and I would not like to see that happen. And my 3 primary concerns are, number 1, original intent and precedent. When this land was first annexed, it was stated quite clearly it was going to be single-family homes or residential or mixed-use zoning to change as, as property changed hands. I think that was a good plan. Uh, and there have recently been zones just like that right next to it. So my second concern is, I don't want, as a resident, want the city to be spending legal challenge money defending itself if it were to make a decision to not rezone this property when there's a clear precedent for the same kind of properties. I do not know the developer. I do not know the owner. I've not had a conversation with either one of them. Uh, I couldn't even tell you their names. I'm just concerned about this pattern, which I've seen before, that ruined a community that I loved and lived in for many, many years. And I don't want to see the same slippery slope happen here to us. Thank you. My name is Mark Johnson, and, uh, I didn't have anything else to do tonight, and I wanted a public forum to talk about the fact that the Utah Jazz got the 5th pick in the lottery and how unfortunate that was. No, I've lived in Orem. Life is not fair.

That, that it is not.

And I hope everybody in this room understands that, and those that are making the comments. Um, I've lived in Orem for 33 years. I've raised 6 kids here. I live in Northeast Orem. So many may say I don't have a dog in the fight where this is at. Since I've lived in Northeast Orem, 8th North has become a 4-lane highway. 8th East, busiest street there is. University has changed. I've seen Cirque Lodge get approved to put a building and block all of my neighbors' views. We have behavioral hospitals in our neighborhood. We have Harmons and other things, and it has changed the way that our neighborhood is.

Thank you.

All that being said, it is an amazing place to live and change happens. And I understand the people that are struggling with this challenge. I've seen fruit tree after fruit tree torn down in Northeast Orem, farm after farm. Are we out of fruit in Orem? Not at all. Can I still go to the store and get fruit? Yes, there are farms. And there will always be farms. This is a sensible solution to an area where people want to come and live. It's about property rights and the smear campaigns that I sit and listen to. First city council meeting I've also been to, and the smear campaign of people that don't really know the people they're smearing is, is unacceptable.

Thank you.

I love Orem, and where I live has a lot of challenges, a lot of challenges that the people that are complaining about probably wouldn't like. But it's a great place. It should be rezoned single-family homes. Let other people come here and enjoy what we have. Work together with the Planning Commission, build the infrastructure, and take care of the concerns. But let this happen.

Thank you.

My name is James Brown. Um, I want to just really briefly address the property rights issue. I think it's been kind of an interesting discussion tonight because earlier we had the whole conversation about, um, short-term rentals and all that, and it seems like the city really wants to put their thumb on that. They want to have absolute control over short-term rentals and, and that sort of thing. At least that seems like the direction that it's going from the concerns that were expressed. And yet now we're talking about, oh, property rights, property rights, property rights. I think we need to be consistent about that. And so I, I would just caution you to, to play that fairly on both sides. But the main thing that I want to address tonight is I want to give you another option. I want to give you a third option here. I feel like there's basically 2 camps. One camp is we want houses. The other camp is, oh, we're, we're trying to control what Al's doing. I want to offer you a 3rd option. The citizens have gotten together. We would like to buy that property. The problem is, as long as this process continues to go on, Al is under contract, so Al can't sell it to anyone else. So there's no way that we as citizens, the neighbors, the people who are most most impacted by this can step up and purchase this and do what we want to do with it, which is maintain it as a farm, because this process keeps going on. So I would encourage you to make a decision tonight to not approve this. Give us as neighbors a year, which is, as I understand it, the, the process, right? You can't bring back the same plan within a year. Give us a year to fund this and encourage Al to participate with us. He bought this property because he wanted to preserve the farm. That was his stated goal 15 years ago when he bought this property, is I want to maintain this as a farm. I want those fresh vegetables. I want to continue that, and I want to give Al his money. I want to pay Al full price, whatever that is— $5 million, $6 million, whatever that number is. I want to pay him full price so that he gets his money He can go do whatever with Tabitha's Way. And yet we as neighbors have the opportunity to better control that because we would own it as a consortium. So I would encourage you to deny this so that that process can go on. If that doesn't happen, my comment would be that Tom McDonald said, I'm the one who brokered this deal. I'm going to remember that when I vote. And Tabitha's Way, Is not getting any of my donations because they're taking away the production of food to build a food bank. How does that make any logical sense at all? We're going to take away a farm to build a food bank. That makes no sense to me. Anyway, I encourage you to deny this so that we as neighbors can take control of that, purchase that, give Al all of his money. Everybody wins. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, council. My name is Skyler Griffin. Um, I agree with a lot of the points that were just made. It sounds like there's a lot of potential solutions to not, uh, to not have this property fall into a state of unmanagement.

Um, so I live adjacent to Wilkerson Farm in the R-8 zone.

Uh, I've got 3 young kids.

Uh, we've got a 5-year-old, uh, 2-year-old.

a newborn. We enjoy going to the farm every year. It's a place where we've made a lot of great family memories. We walk to the pumpkin patch, we go through the farm. When our family comes to town, we take them as well. So while fully understanding that the farm will probably be lost in that respect, it is something that, that we are going to miss as a uniquely Orem experience for families.

So Specifically, I'm— I have a couple concerns.

I'm concerned with the space directly north. That's, that's right, touching, you know, where my home is. It seems that it's too small to fit houses there and a road. And so if that's also rezoned, I think that, that, that creates some issues. Um, second, my fear is that the new plan is actually just a stepping stone to the old plan. I fear that rezoning is our last defense against the originally high-density plan that was proposed. And I think that if we don't uphold that defense, then eventually we're going to have high density in that area through amendments and whatever other processes, um, and, and all the issues that come with that.

And then lastly, uh, with property rights, right, they do and have always existed. Um, they don't override zoning laws.

And, uh, I believe that the property owner will have any and every right that he had when he originally He purchased the land as open space to do with it what he wants to as open space.

Um, so in Family City, USA, I fear the negative impact on my family.

And, uh, for that, I encourage you guys to deny the rezoning.

Thank you.

Sorry. Um, okay, my name is Melissa Erickson, and I am actually a resident of Lehigh. And I am here to let you know, I'm here because I just want to tell you the far-reaching effect that Wilkerson Farm has had in Utah County. We have been going to Utah County— I'm sorry, we've been going to Wilkerson Farm for CSA shares for— and before they even did CSA shares, probably since about 2014 is what I want to say. And I second the woman who spoke about the need for organic local food. And to the guy who thinks that we can just go to the grocery store and buy our food there and we'll always have food, must have forgotten about the pandemic because we had huge food shortages, during which time Wilkerson Farms sold CSAs, which stands for Community Supported Agriculture shares, um, for a reasonable, incredibly reasonable price for 10 weeks of, uh, of local organic food that really lasted for a long time. So my family of 5, 3 small children at the time, uh, didn't—

they—

we didn't have as much, uh, food insecurity as a lot of people did during that time, okay? Because they were— everybody else was all, um, they were all just dependent on the grocery stores. I just need to let you know that The loss of Wilkerson Farm will be a huge loss to the community and to Utah County. I know many other people who don't live in Orem who also bought CSA shares from Wilkerson Farm during that time. So I'm going to encourage you to not rezone it. Just don't do it. And it sounds like most of your constituents don't want you to do that. So I would go with them if you want to be reelected. And I'm also saying one last thing.

If Orem is—

their motto is all about family, why do we get rid of all the places where families can gather and have fun? Why do we do that? I want you to think about that. So I know that I will not get to vote, and maybe you think I don't have a stake in the game, but I do have stake because Wilkerson Farm directly affected my family, and the lot— the loss of it will also directly affect my family. And so please do not rezone it. Keep it open space and let somebody farm it.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Suzanne King, and I want to thank you for having your patience and for the ability for those of us to come up and express our our, um, immense feelings about the place that we live and love. And with gratitude for the theme Orem City, Family City USA, I'm very grateful for that and would like to, uh, see that. And I would like to ask that we do not rezone. And I love the idea, a couple of the people that said that we could create a community educational, we could, we could have projects to teach children and to grow food. I wanted to bring up World War II in Germany. The people of Germany were starved out. It wasn't just that they were bombed or shot, but when the borders were closed and the people could get no food, they were starving. And we have had— we have not had those lessons in America. We've had such— such good lifestyle and such abundance of food and liberties, but we don't know how important our farmland could be. I wanted to bring up a science experiment by Calhoun in around 1960 about rats. And he had a container with a bunch of rats, and he decided to experiment and compare it to population density. So he'd pack more rats in, and he found over a period of time that they became neurotic, that they became— some criminal behavior, that they treated their babies— they didn't feed them, the babies died, and eventually some of the rats died. And, you know, we have to consider the effects of these decisions. And I I celebrate the open space that Wilkerson Farm is, and I vote that we don't rezone.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council. I'm Margaret Dayton, and last time I spoke to you, you were in a different setting. And isn't this delightful? It's fun to be here with you the first time in your new digs. And I was appreciative tonight of the presentation that was made for people who were pro-green, UVU and that community. There was that couple that was trying to be pro-green. I like the idea of green. I like the idea that we've had lots of livable open space, livable space and farm space and open space. And so I want to just say that I endorse a lot of what has been said tonight about private property rights. And what has been said about different ways to use the land. Private property owners should have the right to do what they want to do with their land according to the law, and developers should have the right to do what they do with land according to the law. So the decision, of course, is you, the city council, creating zoning that works for the city and what your constituents want. So I I just want to thank you very much for being willing to serve as city council, realizing that these zoning issues fall heavily to you. And I would encourage you not to zone away the open space we have, but to vote against this proposal tonight. And please feel appreciated for your service.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Crystal Muelstein, and I— a lot of what I want to say has been said, but I will keep it short. There's a few false dichotomies happening here. This idea that, you know, you can only love Wilkerson Farm or want there to be zoning or property rights. I can love Wilkerson Farms and recognize that a landowner should get to do what he wants with that land within the zoning that it's appropriated at, which is what comes to you. The other false dichotomy is that it has to be housing or it has to be farmland. Or, or that if you don't, we shouldn't like this because it's housing. I love the R-8 zoning. I think R-8 zoning is great. However, in this location, I think R-8 zoning is a really bad choice. This is very close to train tracks, and if you've ever lived close to a train track, you know how loud that is. And some poor unsuspecting homebuyer will come in and buy that thinking that they've got a great place to live and realize That it is loud and disruptive, and it's going to drive them crazy. And what's this going to become? It's going to become a blighted neighborhood. I've lived close to train tracks. I know what that's like. That seems to be falling down. Sorry. Um, I would encourage you not to zone this for housing because it's too close to train tracks, and the noise would be way too much for any reasonable person to live with. Um, keeping it as agriculture in open space and even light industrial would probably make more sense. than housing in this area. Thank you. Hello, my name is Nathaniel Wilkerson, and I just want to say that, look, I've lived by trains and they're loud. They're, they're also dangerous. And When we're in the house at night, the shape that when it goes by, it shakes and it feels like an earthquake. So I guess my question is, if would you want to live in one of the houses that backs right to the railroad as shown in the current development plan? Because I know I wouldn't, and I'm pretty sure most of the people here wouldn't want to live in one of the houses. So please consider your vote.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Leanne Swanson. I've been a resident down on Sand Hill Road, which I would really prefer you guys to rename it Sand Hill Speedway, for 30 years. There's no calming device, there's nothing down there. You can't get in your driveway, you can't get out of your driveway. your driveway. And I'm going to second the gentleman over here that talked about the traffic study that included 2000 South and Geneva Road. Where's everyone going to go? Sand Hill Road— Sand Hill Speedway, sorry. You didn't include that in the study, so that study is a true lie. Um, and if people are going to use Geneva Road to go up, down to the parkway, to come around to get to Walmart, they're not. They're going to come down Sand Hill Road. So we need to take that into consideration. Um, it's— there's constant, um, traffic all the time on that road, 24/7. I mean, it's, it's unbelievable down there. And we don't have any— the— I've called several times to have it patrolled. That doesn't happen either. That will— that they don't show up. Um, but anyway, my suggestion for this property is let's leave it Wilkerson Farm. Let's farm it, let's have a carnival there, and let's put an event center down there for people to have weddings and other kind of special events. It, it'd be a great location, a great spot, like they've built them in Spanish Fork, Mapleton area. It'd be a great idea. Thank you. Hi, my name is Rachel. Um, I've only worked at the farm 2 and a half years But I'm a personal testimony of the change that Wilkerson Farm can have on people. I was raised in Chicago, away from farmland. I was always a girly kind of girl. I hated dirt under my nails. I didn't like to go outside. But working at the farm with such passionate and hardworking people instilled in me values I didn't know that I could have. Uh, the loss of this open space will be tragic for the city of Orem. It will be tragic for the children who've never had the opportunity to play at the farm. For the college-age kids who's never had the opportunity to discover a new love and passion, and for the people who benefit from the produce grown out of a farm. Additionally, I actively drive Sand Hill and Geneva every day, and those areas are just so hazardous to drive in, and I think the traffic is just a major concern. I would urge you guys to leave this as farmland. For, for the city. Thank you. My name is Rachel Wilkerson. I wrote something, but it's 5 minutes. Would you guys permit me to read the prepared message for 5 minutes?

I don't know.

It's kind of tough.

Sorry, Rachel, but you've got to work it down to 3.

Okay, I'll do my best here. Um, I know that nothing I say will change hearts and minds. That's not my intention here, but I wanted to just say some of the more complex issues that are going on for people that feel all these emotions. I think there's something bigger than just this property, this project, and I don't think it's any one person's fault or any group's fault or anything like that. Number 1, farmland is sold for development every minute in the United States because of profitability issues. This is a reflection of the extreme difficulty of the industry itself and our modern culture towards food. It is not a reflection of just us as operators personally. One of the arguments is that the farm cannot succeed financially in the free market. If we had focused solely on making profit, growing little by little by little, our impact would have been minuscule. And at that point, they would have said, Well, it's making no impact. But because we grew it as hard and fast as we could, there's people here to speak for it. We are not holding hostage the ground for any— trying to do that in any way. But the extinction of food-producing soils should be alarming. Number 2, the American dream of owning land at all is dwindling. The most anyone can hope for from working full-time their entire life is a mere quarter, fifth of an acre, maybe less. And even a simple home purchase like that is becoming impossible for the new and young families, including my own. I have 5 young children. Even if the density is needed for the growing population, it should be thoughtfully balanced with open space. Compare that to Central Park for New York City. Number 3, families do not have as much quality time as they need, with both parents compelled to work full-time, children schooling full-time, and the unrealistic expectations of extracurriculars, families are constantly stretched and pulled apart. We need places from— that are a break from offices, parking lots, traffic, and even just the air of hastiness. Our business may be gone forever, um, but I think there is— there's multiple ways to serve people with it. It's not just the way that we've shown people. Number 4, the unpredictable free market fluctuations of land value is the crux of this issue. A crash in 2008 is what allowed the farm to even get started by my husband Richard in 2010. And what brought the relationship together in 2015 with the current owner was the mission of food security. He wanted to feed people with better, fresher, healthier food. And I greatly admire the work that Tabitha Sway does. I've witnessed firsthand the essential service they provide. They feed tens of thousands of people. Most of those are children. Because they don't— the children don't know where their next meal is coming from. No argument whatsoever to that. But at great personal sacrifice, we have also tried to produce good food now, but also prepare for the future. After 10 years of working on this, it is not that we suddenly became squatters that needed to get our act together, because why would they sign a 5-year lease in April of 2022? 2022. I know that there's a People's opinions about the timeline. But what is driving us apart now is fluctuation. Price per acre is changing rapidly and quickly. It is not that we've suddenly become divergent upon our mission. We both have food security at interest. If we were lucky to inherit family land, it would be a different story, and we would take away that temptation, hopefully, by putting it into an easement of some sort. But that's neither here nor there because we are not able to access land as the new generation. And lastly, I have learned more in months working at the farm. I came from Orange County, California as a young girl and grew up there my whole life, came here, volunteered to pick pumpkins, and my life was changed. In the mere months working there, I learned more than I did in the years I spent getting a business degree from BYU. So I'm not just a dumb farmer, as people like to think. But as an eternally optimistic farmer, we are just looking for some sort of win-win. As James Brown mentioned, there may be a group that wants to purchase it for something to keep it the way it is. And I'll end there. Thank you. My name, my name is Aldine Jones. I've been doing nonprofit work since I was 8 years old. I had my own nonprofit nonprofit since 2012. And, um, I've had 3 community gardens that I've run myself in 3 different states. I've also worked in the community gardens in Denver where they have the children take— go out of school and take time and actually they plant things. Well, I don't even need to tell you what they do, community gardens, but it's so beautiful for these children. And the, the earth and the, the dirt There's something about gardening that heals people. It's so good for these children. I'm just suggesting the idea that if you leave it open, the right people will come and they'll take that land and turn it into a really productive organic gardening. I see it in California. I have— I'm also from there, and in Sacramento, UC Davis, what they're doing is incredible. Thank you. And I'm just saying, wow, if you had found a dinosaur bone the size of this not goodins or whatever you call it in lot property, guess what would happen? You wouldn't be able to do anything on it, right? Right? The museums would. Okay, well, what you have is priceless. You have something that's real. Look at all these people who in America is the sickest people of the world. World. All the Americans are sick. You know why? All the drug companies. And there is no such thing as organic gardening. Monsanto and Bill Gates and these people are buying up all the farms. They're talking— there are people on YouTube talking about how people are going to create a fake famine because people like Bill Gates and people like the globalists think that we should only just have 10% of the people on the planet, and then we'll have a more verdant World. Let's think about this. Look at the drug companies, how they work with this. They're not trying— they're not there for you. These medical stuff is business. What is happening to our food supply is terrible. The stuff they sell there is garbage. It's the stuff that our farmers feed to the pigs. All these diseases are not a coincidence. There are the horrible coincidence of the poisoning they've been dumping. I used to work in fine jewelry. I used— when I was young and looked attractive, I worked in fine jewelry for Finlay and for the Liberty House in Hawaii, etc., etc. Now I'm old and I'm not attractive, so I do flagging on road construction, and I watch these farmers and it makes me cry.

Thank you.

Because they used to spray their fields. They don't spray them now. They literally are pouring this poison on all of these plants, and these beautiful children in Utah are eating. It's not fit for human consumption. We all wonder why we're all getting gluten, you know, intolerance. I don't have anything to say. I have a ton of stuff to say, but I'm just telling you, we are at war right now, and we're. We're the only ones that don't realize it here in Utah, because we're the most educated people in the whole world here, right here in Utah. So a lot of us have 2 or 3 degrees.

Time is up. Thank you.

Yeah.

So why is it happening here where you people are intelligent? That's what I'm saying.

How y'all doing? My name is Reese Hogle. I'm a painting contractor, and I painted the building directly east of the properties being discussed about 5 years ago. And I couldn't— I would have to wait 5 years ago. I'd have to wait for half a dozen cars or more on the easement that there was there. Um, what strikes me about this is, um, We're not just at one choice, yay or nay. We're looking at multiple options, but we need time. And I think the best option is to let the citizens purchase this property and put a, put a postponement vote on this for, you know, one year. Let him raise the money, and then he gets his money. He's been, he's been contributing to our society more than we've ever thought. Uh, the, the man is a— Al is a very generous man with his time and property and Resources. To put in a development that serves only housing, it seems like you got 35 on the Provo side, roughly, and then you got 55 over here, roughly. So you're looking at about 80 homes. But you know what I think as a painter? I think that, you know, I'm from Seattle, so the Oregon guy, I relate to you. But the thing is, Daybreak did an awesome job. They put in ponds like lakes, and there's room enough for that to happen. And I would propose that the acres that are attached to the 150-acre parcel that's zoned for agriculture— correct me if I'm wrong— that one on the north side, I would propose that you make that more open space. The children could farm there from— what strikes me is This is an emotional topic, but what strikes me is there's autism school there, and, uh, I was married to a woman with an autistic child, and I could communicate with them, but you had to be in a certain wavelength. Um, if the children are going to be healed, they're not going to be healed, uh, next— yeah, I— anyway, there's just so many issues that need to go into it. You've got brake dust, That is more toxic than all the carbon monoxide we're putting out. The brake dust is what's doing the damage to our air, and if you don't have clean air, you get what I'm saying. And so we've got to be aware of either selling, making more options, selling the property to the people, or partial. Partially going with the homes and then leave open space so it can still be open space. So we can actually do, you know, 2 things in one. And, uh, I really think that that's what we need to do. So, um, remember the children when you vote, and remember that they need clean air and they need— they need more help than we need. But there's no more open space, by the way. It's only 5% left.

Okay.

I think this, this will be our last. I cannot do it too. No, you can do it.

I'm—

no, you are the last. Okay, bring it home. My name is Rick Jorgensen, and I grew up in Provo and moved to Orem. Um, I, uh, appreciate the sentiments that have been said, but the most impactful one on me today was the young dad with the, I don't know, 5th or 6th child on the way who just bought one of those homes, um, that seemed like they came up overnight just to the west, uh, where the gas station is now, right in between those. His words— I don't know his name.

Uh, I looked for him.

He was a big guy, but I can't see him anymore. He probably went home to take care of those 6 kids. But I live up the road on Main Street in Orem, Main Street, USA, Family City, USA. And the traffic is pretty intense. My dad bought a piece of property on Sand Hill Road about 45 years ago.

And I spent a lot of time working That, uh, mini farm.

It's not—

it's just a massive garden, really.

Horses and stuff.

And Sand Hill Road is, as the woman who lives on it can testify, I go in and out of there every day a few times, and it's pretty packed.

Geneva Road is not fun for me to be on anymore.

I used to run down it, but, uh, 2000 South is a main throwaway now, and people are going to go from those housing developments and they're going to go right up. And they're going to try to drop into Provo, going to the west side or going to the east side over there, and they're going to use 2000 South, and that's going to become a main thoroughfare too. And you're clogging up all the arteries that are in that area when we add more impact.

I'm mostly concerned again about the train.

I live at the top of the hill and it's pretty loud. If I'm living back Uh, the back of my yard is right on the tracks.

I have some concerns about that.

I don't know who can afford an $800,000 house, but that's a different issue. But, uh, who's going to buy one next to railroad track?

I don't know.

I don't know.

There is a lot of traffic.

I understand development, and I should have probably moved to Genoa 10 years ago, but, uh, I live in Orem, and I'm grateful for all you guys have done. But, uh, I'm not sure it warrants falling on a sword to save a farm. I don't have a vested interest in that other than the fact I'm trying to work the ground myself, just stay in touch with reality, because I still can't figure out how they can produce a raspberry that big. But, uh, I think that we need to take in question some stuff long term.

I have great respect for this man that does a lot of Humanitarian work, he's, he's given away more than I'll make in a lifetime.

And so I understand the dynamic. I'm just hoping that we're careful with, uh, with, uh, removing open space and adding traffic to a place without a plan between Provo and Orem with that road, because it's not pleasant right now.

Thanks. Hey, thank you for all of your public comments. We appreciate that. We'll go ahead and bring this back to the council for a conversation. I think we've— does anyone have any conversation you'd like to have, or would you just like to make a statement? I think— I mean, we've, we've been talking about this since December, so. Um, is Jen still there? Jen?

I'm still here.

Okay, Jen, would you like, would you like to start and just say what your thoughts are?

Sure.

And speak loud because you're, you're hard to hear.

Okay, I'm trying to. I'm losing my voice a little bit, so I'll do my best. First, I just wanna thank everybody who's come and engaged in constructive dialogue about this. I know it's a tender issue for our city, and I have wrestled with it for months, actually. And there are very valid points on all sides of it. I've spent countless hours looking at it from all sides, meeting with residents and city staff and property owners, and reading emails and taking calls, and I visited the site several times. And like my fellow council members, I don't take this decision lightly. And I know there are strong feelings about this property, and rightfully so, because we love the Wilkersons. We love the Wilkerson farm, and our community values that open space. And I would love to see it stay open space. But as I've wrestled with this, I keep coming back to this issue that it's not public land. It's privately owned land. You know, I've heard it called our farmland, like as if it belongs to the public. But no matter how much we love it, Sentiment can't override ownership. So it's been argued that the property owner should exercise his property rights under the current OS-5 zone. And that's a really persuasive argument, except for 2 things. The first being that the city's general plan, which predates the current owner's purchase, designated this land as low-density residential, not farmland, and the property owner bought that with the understanding, and he's now requesting a zone change that aligns with that general plan. single-family homes on R-8 lots, which is what we just approved in Northeast Orem. But it's a place for families to grow and thrive in Family City, USA. And the second thing was that the surrounding zoning supports this request. Nearly every adjacent parcel except for the railroad has been zoned to R-8 or even higher density PRD zones. So denying this one request would unfairly single out the owner and essentially require him to bear the burden of preserving open space for the entire community. Which I don't think is fair or even possibly legally defensible. So my last point is that it's been suggested that we deny the zone change to give the public time to put that together, to put financing together, and I've seriously considered that. That was even until this afternoon.

I—

that was a very serious consideration for me. But I think the Wilkersons had over a year to purchase this land before the owner put it up for sale, and after that it was listed on the open market for nearly 9 months. And at any point the public could have made an offer, and they didn't. So to deny the rezone now, after those opportunities have passed, just feels unfair to the property owner. So I'm really conflicted in this. I love the idea that it stays farmland. I think there's been some really compelling arguments about the value of farmland. But on this one, I have to side with the rezone.

Thank you, Jen. You want to go? When I want you to go, go. And why don't you just jump in?

Yeah.

Okay. So, um, I just need to address some of these things because I've seen some of these things on social media and people have said things to me. Let me just clarify, and maybe Jared, you can clarify this too. Um, because I think I got this quote from you when we discussed the general plan a few days ago. Jared's our development services— um, I don't even know what your title is.

Planning manager.

Planning manager. He's our go-to guy, right, when we have questions about zoning and planning. And I just want to clarify this because we keep talk— people keep talking to me about the general plan, the general plan, the general plan. You just need to understand— well, do you want to take that one?

Jared, about the general plan.

Yeah, an advisory document. The thing you told me.

Yeah.

General plans are advisory documents. There's no— and they, they are living documents. They get modified, they get changed. Um, we're in the process of updating the general plan right now. Some of these things, some of these lines might be changed.

There's no—

it is always the first thing we consult looking at zone changes, a planner, a city planner, a career Municipal planner, the first thing, the first question you ask yourself when you see a zone change request come through is, what does the general plan say? But it's not the last question you ask yourself. There are other, there are other considerations too. It's not the only thing you consider. So other, other things are important to think about as well.

And thank you. And, you know, I kind of, while we were talking on the phone, I wrote down what you said, and I'm just going to quote you if you don't mind, because it kind of, you kind of, you kind of got it about right. That's about the same.

That's scary.

You said the general plan is an advisory document. It is the best guess, if you will, of the possible direction of development. It often changes. It doesn't have a strong timing element. It doesn't mean it will happen that way. It is a guideline of where the city may go in the future. It is not binding. It is not law. Staff are currently updating our general plan, and kind of the idea there is we update these every 5 years to kind of adjust them for where our city is going, for where the, the development environment is going.

Yeah.

Did I quote you correctly there?

I, I, I'm going to say yeah, I'd stand by that statement. That's how general plans work in my estimation.

Okay, awesome. And then would you pull up that map? I told you I wanted you to have that map ready.

I've got a Google Area up. Will that work, or do you want—

Yes, Google Area is fine because that— and, and, you know, I, uh, I just wanted— this was something else else that I saw online. Where's 2000 South? Right there.

Right there.

Okay. So, and I keep hearing this, this statement about, you know, all around it is zoned, is residential. It's not. Look to the east. Maybe 3 sides of this property is residential, but there's a 4th side. There's 25% that is not zoned residential. And that carries on for pretty much quite consistently along the railroad track. There's some mistakes. I'm going to tell you, there's some developments along there that I think were bad decisions by council members or developers. But for the most part— and that's what I'm going to adjust right— address right now. Okay. First of all, I just want to start off with my comments and just say thank you. Thank you to all of you for your diligence. As the mayor said, this has been going on since December. I'm exhausted. I don't know about you. I'm exhausted by this, but thank you. You shouldn't have to deal with this. I mean, truly, our job as a council is to watch out for you as citizens and represent you when you can't be here, but we are sure grateful when you show up and when you come and tell us what you— what you— your desires are. I've been in those seats. I ran for city council because I had been in those seats and wanted to change change the direction that Orem was going. Everything was going towards increasing density and high density, and I just didn't think that was the direction we wanted Orem to go. So I, I can empathize with your exhaustion. Thank you for your advocacy, for your engagement, for your caring about your community, about our community. Now let me talk about a few things. First, let me say what we're not here to discuss today as a council. Some of you have truly, have truly understood this, but I, I wish we were here um, we were here to discuss Wilkerson Farm, but we are not. I love Wilkerson Farm. I love that it provides enjoyment and entertainment for the citizens of Orem, especially our children. I've served, I've volunteered, I have supported children in our community, community for over 25 years. I love that it provided food to Tabitha's Way, a very deserving charity critical to feeding the hungry in our community. I love that it preserves farmland and open spaces in the city of Orem. I wish that we were here to discuss Wilkerson Farm and what we could do to preserve it. I would love to have that conversation, but unfortunately that's not why we're here, and how I feel about Wilkerson Farm doesn't really matter at this point. Second, I want to address property rights because I've heard this in our community also. I am a firm believer in and proponent of property rights. However, I also believe that the rights of one property owner should not and cannot infringe upon the rights of property owners around them. As I often say, you'll hear me say, property rights exist on both sides of the So here is where city ordinances and zoning come into play. We enact city ordinances and zoning to protect all property rights of everyone in the city. Okay, so the— these ordinances are in place so that everyone's rights can be protected. A very important job— part of my job as a city councilwoman is to enact, enforce, and maintain city zoning laws and ordinances in such a way that they protect the rights of all. I'd like to clarify a few things here on this particular situation. Um, this property is zoned OS-5. As correctly stated, OS-5 can be a placeholder. However, it can also be what it is, an open space designation with a small— with a low-density residential opportunity. A home for every 5 acres in order to serve as a buffer zone, to serve as open space, to serve as what we saw in that picture all along those railroad tracks. Um, the residential use allows the landowner to develop the property with 1 house for every 5 acres. That's the 5 in the Open Space 5. An important thing to note is that this landowner purchased the land with the OS-5 zone. And has the right, has the property right to develop this property according to the current zone. No one's property rights are infringed upon or threatened by him developing the property in that zone. Property owners have the— also have the right to make an application to the city to change their zoning designations. If the city agrees with the application, then the laws are changed And the property owner can do what they would like within those new zoning parameters. If, however, the city does not agree that the property owner— then the property owner does not have the right to do as they wish. A landowner's property rights do not include the right to a property zone change. Again, property rights extend to the current zoning rights assigned to the land. So we're here tonight to decide if we should change this land from open space residential to R-8 residential, if that would be suitable for our— that area and also for our community. Once again, property rights exist on both sides of the fence here. One of my most important responsibilities as city council is regulating and balancing land use in our community and creating opportunity for families to thrive. Another critical part of that decision is asking, is this a safe, hospitable, livable location for housing? I need to ensure that neighborhoods, homeowners, and residents are protected and that proposed zone is appropriate for the area. We don't allow commercial or industrial in the middle of our neighborhoods. Good land use provides buffers and transition zones between uses. So let me define for you what a buffer is. Okay, I've got— I looked up this land use manual, and I really Googled a lot of stuff, but I got this definition out of this manual. Okay, these are what the planners use. So a buffer or transition zone is a designated area in a land use plan where development intensity, building types, or land use shifts gradually to minimize conflict And to create a smooth interface between incompatible zones, for example, from single-family homes to commercial or industrial areas. That definition right there kind of fits what we're talking about tonight. Buffer zones are essential. I recently was talking to a council member from Lehigh, and they have some areas in their city where they have residential next to industrial zones, and they are having serious problems with that right now with the The complaints between the different uses. That's why we do transitional zones and buffer zones. Um, I understand, you know, with that picture, if you want to put that picture up for a second, if you look at this picture, I understand why this land was given the OS-5 zone designation. Not only if you can see, is there a freight train? I don't know if you can point to that, Jared, but there's a freight train and a commuter train. There's also an industrial— do you want to show the industrial portion? There's just a big strip of industrial use right next to it. I drove down the gravel road there. It's not very— you have to zoom in more, but I drove down that gravel road between the industrial zone. And I got to tell you, there's heavy equipment, there's large machinery just shockingly close to where this developer wants to put houses. There's also the Union— as has been discussed, the Union Pacific train tracks with ground-shaking freight trains that drive by and blow their horns almost nightly. There's the FrontRunner train. I stood next to that where the house is going to sit when a FrontRunner train went by. It's— it was like a tornado. I can't imagine people living next to that noise. You know, as a city council, we recently Approved a subdivision right behind my house, so they're putting in the infrastructure there. For the past 3 months, um, the heavy equip— I have had heavy equipment behind my home starting at 7:00 AM. Okay. Um, and per our code, it could go until 10:00 PM in some— at some cases. It's loud, it's annoying, it's inhospitable. I can't imagine anyone living next to such a sound-intensive, um, environment every day.

Thank you.

Subjecting residents to that type of housing is truly unacceptable to me. Um, it's essential to buffer and transition between these zones and uses and to match zoning and housing opportunities with locations. This subdivision would allow the creation of homes in a substandard, inhospitable location. Some believe that it would most assuredly be rentals. I think renters deserve better. They deserve to have someone looking out for them now before they even move into a home to rent. Our residents deserve quality housing options, and allow housing in such an area with inappropriate zoning is so unacceptable to me. The appropriate residential use for this land is 5-acre ranchettes, its current use. I feel strongly that I must protect future residents from an inhospitable living environment. This development just doesn't fit. The open space zone was wisely put there. It serves as a transitional zone, as we saw on this map. There's no housing to the east, and the buffer zone, like I said, is mainly adhered to up and down, north to south. Frankly, it seems to me that maybe with some good marketing management, Wilkerson Farm could be a brilliant use for that property, quite frankly.

Um.

And because I believe that this zoning request would produce undesirable— 2 undesirable results. Um, the first one being, it would remove the necessary and important buffer that the current zoning provides from the freight train and the railroad tracks and the industrial zone. Um, it would also create, as I described, an inhospitable living environment. for whoever is going to live there. The current zone appears to me to be appropriate for this land. It was the zone that was in place when the land was purchased. And as I said, you have a right to use your land according to the zone that it has. You do not have a right to a zone change. I will be voting against this rezone request.

Thank you.

Thank you, Lenee. Who'd like to go next?

Thank you, everyone, for coming out tonight, and, uh, it's been an exciting first meeting in our city council chambers.

Um, Orem is 95% built out. And we need to keep our open space because once it's gone, it's gone.

We have plenty of residential homes in Orem, and our focus should not be to build more homes, but it should be to revitalize our existing neighborhoods, period.

We do not need any more traffic in Orem as our streets are very, very busy. We all live through it.

Governor Cox, on April 24th, 2025, issued a drought executive order, which he stated, we've been monitoring drought conditions closely, and unfortunately our stream flow forecasts are low, particularly in southern Utah, said Governor Cox.

I urge all Utahns to be extremely mindful of their water use and find every possible way to conserve.

Water conservation is critical for Utah's future.

The more homes we build in Utah, the less water we have to sustain our current needs. I've read a lot of interesting things on Facebook about Wilkinson Farm because Facebook is the best place to get good information, which it's not.

It's a bunch of garbage out there, but people can say what they want.

But But when I was reading on Facebook, which I don't do a lot, but when I was reading on Facebook, things were written that what is going on within the city council and the ins and outs of our meetings. And I'm not sure, um, the misinformation about Vilkerson Farm, and I'm not sure how this person got this information because if it's going on in the city council, then somebody must be speaking to somebody.

I don't know.

Thank you.

That doesn't make sense to me.

Um, I have the OS5 code in front of me, or zone right here. And it states, open space shall mean any area of land or water that, 1, is not part of a residential lot, 2, is divided— is devoted to environmental preservation, agriculture production, or outdoor recreation. And 3, generally lax buildings or other structures, except for structures that are subordinate to the— customarily incidental to the use of the open space. Recreational facilities shall mean facilities designed for recreational use, such as parks, playgrounds, athletic fields, pathways for pedestrians, bicyclists, and other similar uses.

The OS-5 zone—

in the OS-5 zone, the OS-5 zone is established to promote a large Lot developments at the density not to exceed 1 dwelling unit per 5 acres and promote the preservation of open space.

Nowhere in this zone or this zone does it say that it's a holding zone.

This is an actual zone. And this is what the property is zoned at, OS-5.

You know, um, I hear that private property rights—

I'm 100% on private property rights. But if I bought a home and it's zoned R-8 and I want to change it, then I've got to go before the council and get it changed. If I live within my means and what I bought the property as, OS-5, I deal with it, right? So, The property that is zoned OS-5, when it was bought, is zoned OS-5 and has, has a buffer zone from 2 railroad tracks and the commercial buildings. In my opinion, there's no compelling reason to change this from OS-5 to R-8. I'll be voting to keep the OS-5 zone and keep our open space and arm from being built upon.

Thank you. Thank you, Dave.

Who would like to go next? Tom? First of all, I'm so impressed with the— how well you spoke and how articulate my— articulate my fellow council members are in expressing their views and doing it very well and well thought out. And I respect them and appreciate that. I think I think part of my approach of this comes because I've served on the Governor's Committee for Housing. And as you know, he also, in addition to talking about weather, he's talked about water rights. He's talked about 30,000 homes being built. And granted, 40 or 50 homes on this plot doesn't really move the needle. But in December, when we had discussion and James and I talked about that, there was a discussion that they wanted to be treated the same as Northeast Storm. And Northeast Orem recently went to R-8. And as you know, that same property that was being discussed the night you all were here for an enduring meeting. And I, uh, I talked to the developer and I just said, look, I kind of liked townhomes against the railroad tracks because I thought it provided a buffer.

I thought my, my colleague David Spencer had a great idea of maybe storage units right there against it and have R-8 in front of it and storage units behind it.

But in either case, that didn't seem to be going. And so I probably used a poor choice of words, James, when I said, hey, I talked to the developer and I talked to the representative of the landowner and said, yeah, I did think in favor of it, but I'm not going to do it unless it's R-8. And you guys figure out what price you need to make that work for it to go R-8. So I probably did use the word broker with you, but that's what I did, James. I talked to the 2 of them and said, Hey, these people in Southwest Orem want to be treated the same as Northeast Orem. We ought to go R-8.

Um, I have a brother-in-law who lives in this area who's not particularly thrilled with me either. So, um, but I wanted to be treated the same.

I wanted, uh, and, and we, we talked in, in Northeast Orem. We said R-8 is the gold standard, and it was not zoned for R-8 at that point, and we made the change to R-8. So to me, It seemed fair to do that here.

Um, and, and, and, and, uh, and talked absolutely specifically that master plans can be changed, and she did that very well.

But there was a time when we thought about this being local family homes.

And so, to me, this seems like we move the needle ahead.

We bring people into these homes with minimum impact, not no impact, but minimal impact. The same impact that happened when your home and my home was built on a farm or an orchard. We're going to be allowing new people to move here, and I will be voting in favor of a zone change. Thank you, Tom. Who would like to go next? Chris, thank you. I also appreciate the comments that have been made, and it's been an evening that has provided me opportunities to Hear and review the things that have been heard, and by all of us on the council, and we've been contemplating this for some time. I appreciate the, the efforts of each one of you who have strong feelings about what way we should go with this property. I do have the opinion that several of you have about the property rights, the ownership. Also appreciate Councilman Millett and also Councilman Spencer and their thoughts and processes and what they're thinking. So that the needs of all are considered and weighed importantly as this piece of open property is being considered to be used for homes, as has been said, the master plan said that it would possibly be, but not necessarily be. And so, as I've weighed the pros and cons of all of those options and choices, recognizing that when a decision is made, some are impacted one way and others will be impacted the other. As I've weighed this out, I felt that as we've gone forward and those same reasonings that I'm coming to with my decision tonight have been based on neighboring properties. on other situations and on the open space that's available there. So, just to express my, again, feelings for all, I respect and appreciate each of you and your opinions. And as I've weighed heavily on this thought process, even this evening, I'm going to vote in favor of the R-8 zone change. Thank you, Chris.

Uh, Jeff, again, uh, thank you for, for being here and enduring the evening.

Um, and as Lenee said, this is exhausting. Um, so thank you for, thank you for being here.

Thank you for listening. Thank you for participating.

Um, I don't know that I have anything really new to add to what's already been said, but I do have some, some things that I do want to— some thoughts that I've had that I would like to share. Um, it was my understanding, um, first of all, if I could also say thank you to the Wilkersons, uh, for what they've done over these past years. I've never been a farmer, um, and I'm sure that that is hard work, and they've, they've done some great things for the community. Also, Al, I want to say thank you to you for the great work that you have done and continue to do in providing food for those who don't have it. I think that's one of the most noblest causes that, that we could be engaged in. Um, when I, uh, in my— the conversations that I've had, um, when this was zoned OS-5 back previously, And the thought with the council then was that this would be changed to low-density residential. And part of that reason that it was zoned OS-5 at that time was because they didn't have a way to get water to the end of the row, so to speak. They didn't have the infrastructure to get to make that happen, which we do now, or we're in the process of doing that with a 10 million gallon water tank and other work that has been done over the years.

Um, some things that are concerning to me.

Um, first of all, Payton's Crossing, which is directly west of this, this piece of property, was OS-5 and then changed to R-8. Those are beautiful homes, and I've driven through that neighborhood more times than you can imagine, and I've driven where this piece of property is.

Um, Those are beautiful homes, and, and, uh, and I think it's a beautiful neighborhood.

Um, I have concerns about one property owner being treated differently than another. Um, and one of the, one of the things that, that I've gone back to, uh, when I ran for city council, uh, years ago, one of the things that I heard about Repeatedly was the concern of high-density housing. And so that was what I ran on. I'm against high-density housing, but I also said that I was in favor of a slow, measured, metered approach to growth. I feel like this is slow, it's metered, and it's measured, uh, in, in adding this R-8 Um, I've talked with other farmers. Um, I talked with another family in the area that they farm, and I said, is this something that you would ever be interested in purchasing and making a go of it? And they said, it's not big enough. It's not big enough to be a farm to make, to make a profit. And now there may be other farmers that would have a different perspective or different outcome on that. Uh, the challenges— someone, I apologize, I don't remember who it was that said it, but they talked about challenges in their neighborhood. Another concern that I have is right now we have the opportunity to make this nice. Low-density residential homes. Uh, but my concern is that down the road, if the state starts mandating higher density and this is sitting open, then all of a sudden we don't have that opportunity to make it R-8, and it becomes something different that none of us want. Um, the homes along the tracks. Uh, you know, I, I understand the concern about that. Um, I mentioned this a couple months ago. I took the opportunity to drive through some of the residences, uh, in Orem and along where the railroad tracks go as far up into American Fork. And I thought, well, if nobody wants to live here, they're either going to be empty houses or they're going to be a lot of houses for sale. I saw one home that was for sale. That was actually along the railroad tracks. Um, I, I do have a concern about the working together with Provo and, and them getting this road done and that not impacting the neighborhoods unfavorably. Uh, and I would like to see some coordination between Orem and Provo so that when that's done, Maybe they get theirs done first before we start this subdivision so that that's already done, and then we move forward. Uh, and then the other concern, um, is just always the concern, and I think someone else mentioned this earlier, uh, of possibility of a lawsuit against the city for one property owner being treated differently than another.

I think it's fair.

I think this is— it's a beautiful area. Um, and I think in my mind, uh, I think R8 makes sense. Uh, I know that people here don't agree with that, um, but I, I feel like that's a good use of this land. So, that's my 2 cents. Thank you, Jeff.

Yeah, can we just address the lawsuit? Should we ask Steve if that's an issue? Do we have to be concerned about that, Steve, on our vote tonight?

Well, you never know, right? You never know if somebody's going to file a lawsuit or not.

Anybody can file a lawsuit for anything, right? But a legitimate— I mean, doesn't LUDMA protect us as a municipality in our ability to legislate the use of our land?

It's a very—

I understand that's pretty strong Supreme— Utah Supreme Court rulings.

Yeah, state law gives Uh, municipal, uh, city councils, uh, a lot of discretion in making zoning decisions.

Um, it's a very high bar, a high standard for somebody who wants to challenge a landowner who wants to challenge a city council decision.

Basically, not to go too deep into the weeds here, but the standard is, you know, that the, the council decision would have to be found to be arbitrary and capricious, which again is a high legal standard.

Yeah.

Um, there have, you know, there have been lawsuits in the past where developers or owners have sued cities based on their zoning decisions. Um, of course, I'm in no position to say whether that might happen in this case or not.

Well, and you're always good to tell us both sides. Thank you, Steve.

Thank you. Um, I'd just like to give my opinion unless anyone else has anything. So, here we are. I want to thank you, you know, council members, residents, and neighbors. Thank you all for your commitment and thoughtful participation tonight. We're here to decide something that will have permanent consequences on our community, whether or not to rezone the property where Wilkerson Farm resides. I want to be very clear from the outset. This is not just another land issue. It's about the future we are building or destroying for our children and their children. Wilkerson Farm is not just a patch of land. It has been the heartbeat of this community. Every fall, families pour in with kids to enjoy something real, something grounding. It varies. But my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, My understanding is it produces approximately 250,000 pounds of fresh food most years, food that supports local families and a more resilient local food supply. It supports dozens of small businesses and employs seasonal workers. It teaches— most important, it teaches kids where their food comes from. It strengthens our economy. It binds us together. And yet tonight we are being asked to rezone this land from OS-5 open space farmland to residential. Let's talk about that. We've talked a lot about property rights. I respect property rights as much as anyone. And more than most. And yes, property rights matter, but let's be honest, owning property does not mean you can do whatever you want to with it. That's the entire point of zoning. That's why you can't build a 5-story building in a neighborhood of single-family homes. That's why you can't open an industrial plant in the middle of a residential block. And that's why tonight it would be reckless to allow high-density housing next to an industrial corridor. Not high-density housing. It would be reckless to allow this housing Next to an industrial corridor, a freight line, and a commuter train. Our job, your job as council members, is to protect the public good, to think long term, to weigh the irreversible nature of this vote. We're already seeing the damage from the high-density decisions made in the past. Residents are tired, tired of traffic. Tired of congestion, tired of feeling ignored. This is our chance to do better, not just for now, but for generations. As far as consistency and precedence, we, we've had difficult decisions before. Think about Canyon Park just a few weeks ago. First, 250 units were proposed. They were denied by the city council. Then 108 units were proposed. That was denied by the city council. Then an R-8 zone was proposed, a compromise, and was approved. That decision aligned with our values. However, that was downzoning from commercial to residential. Downzoning is one thing. This is different. Upzoning from OS-5 farmland to residential density. is something entirely different. That adds pressure, more cars, more people, more strain. It doesn't preserve our identity. It erodes it. As far as infrastructure, now, let's not just pretend this neighborhood can absorb this. We have no idea what Provo is doing on their side with the road. I've received so many photos showing cars lined up and down the roads surrounding Wilkerson Farm. Parking is already a problem. Traffic is already a problem, and we're considering increasing density. Where is the plan to support that? What are the guarantees that we won't be making the same complaints we're hearing today, only worse? Now, let me get personal for a minute. When I was a teenager, I stayed over at my friend Albert's house right next to the train tracks. Every night the ground shook, headlights pierced the room, horns screamed, and we couldn't sleep. We couldn't even talk. That was life by the tracks. I asked Richard Wilkerson what it's like now when we went down to see the property. He told me the front runner feels like a tornado, the freight train feels like an earthquake, and now we want to build single-family homes. Right next to that. Let's be honest, every sound barrier we've ever built along freeways, along Sand Hill Road, through UDOT projects, the one we're doing on 1600 North, they exist for a reason, because sound pollution is real. It's a health hazard. Studies and even I— AI Tell us constant exposure to train noise leads to stress, cardiovascular risks, and sleep disorders. And we're going to put families there. Are we, are we really going to use human beings as a buffer zone between the tracks and our existing neighborhoods? And this project has 53 homes. Well, 12 of those 53 homes are right on the tracks. 4 of those are just off the tracks. So essentially, 16 of the 53 homes are right next to the tracks. Let's remember why the OS-5 zoning was there in the first place. That farmland isn't just nostalgic, it's strategic. It's a protective barrier between disruptive noise and our residential core. It shields families from train vibrations. industrial yard activity, and freeway noise. To remove that buffer is to deliberately expose people to noise, risk, and stress. And for what? A few dozen more homes? 53 homes? We've already got 25,000 homes in this community. And we need 53 more. We need to lose this, this farmland. This is what it really comes down to. Over 1,000 residents have spoken out against this.

I've heard—

I personally have heard from fewer than 10 people who support it. Every survey, every call, every email I receive points to one conclusion: our people don't want this. And frankly, this is common sense. This isn't a hard vote. We are the stewards of this community, not just for today, but for tomorrow. Let's not trade Orem's long-term health for short-term gain. Let's not unravel the values we've worked so hard to preserve. Let's not abandon the farmland that's fed us, connected us, and grounded us. For all of these reasons, tonight I will vote no on this proposed rezoning. Let us protect the public good. Let us preserve our values. Let us keep warm the city we all love and not the one we wish we could get back. Thank you. Hey, Mayor, I'd like to make a motion.

I make a motion.

The motion that the City Council moves to deny the ordinance by amending Article 22-5-3A in the zoning map of the city of Orem by rezoning the property located generally at 710 West 2000 South from an OS-5 zone to an R-8 zone, approximately 14.1 acres.

I'll second that.

You want to vote?

You got a motion and a second?

Ready?

Yeah, we've got a motion and a second.

Aye.

Wait, you're voting to turn it down? Yeah, because I, I, I, I saw to deny, which I'm voting to deny.

Okay, so this is a vote to deny.

Aye.

Nay.

Aye.

Aye.

Nay.

Nay.

Nay.

Okay, well, Mayor, I make a motion. I make a motion that the city council moves to approve 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. Oh, I'm not— to the R-8 zone, approximately 14.01 acres. I second that.

Aye.

Are you ready for a vote?

Aye.

Nay.

Nay.

Aye.

Nay.

Louder, Jen.

Okay, the resolution passes.

Thank you.

Okay, let's make a— let's go ahead and wrap everything up. I've lost my agenda.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Can you take it? Okay. Let's move on to item number 13. Let's move on to item number 13, Bren.

Thank you.

11.3, you mean? 11.3, Mayor.

11.3 up here. Oh my goodness. Okay, sorry. Item 11.3. Sorry, Brian. I lost my agenda. Mine doesn't work. Okay, Resolution 11.3, a resolution, community developed block grant. CDBG projected use of funds for fiscal year 2025-2026. Taylor, would you like to present that?

Or is—

Yes, I'm actually Heather, but Taylor was on the agenda. I apologize.

Yes. Yes, Heather.

Um, yes, so this is the same budget we went over. Um, let's see if this will present.

There we go.

This is the resolution, um, the same numbers that Presented last time, a little over 30 days ago. Oops, I'm sorry.

Could you help me with that, Heather? You presented it, but we had to wait 30 days to vote on it. So this is something you've already gone over with us, and now we're voting yay or nay.

Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. Thank you. Sorry, let me see if that— I can get this fixed real quick. And these numbers have not changed since, uh, we talked about it last time.

Okay.

So, exhibit—

so the final statements are Orem Police Department Victim Services will get $30,000. Orem Police Department Homeless Services, just under $1,900.

Can you make that a little bigger on your screen? Is there a way to do that?

Oh, let's see here.

Yes, I can.

Does that work for you?

That's better.

Thanks. Critical home repair, $57,000. Neighborhood revitalization, $1,800. Uh, LMI playground equipment replacement, $288,000. $288,000. Uh, CDBG administration, $126,000, $30,000 of which will go to Orem City, uh, administration. Section 108 loan—

Excuse me just a moment. That's a certain percentage that's approved by the—

Yes.

Thank you.

Yes, by HUD. Um, Code Enforcement, $161.5. Rocky Mountain University, a regional project, just under $15,000. Um, Centro de Educación Financiera, $35,000. Big Brothers Big Sisters, $10,000. And the Fuller Center for Housing of Utah County, $17,000. So we just need a motion, I believe.

May I? Would somebody like to make a motion? I move that the City Council moves to approve the, um, Community Development Block Grant, CDBG, projected use of funds for the fiscal year 2025 through 2026.

Second.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Resolution is approved. Thank you.

Thank you.

Item 11.4, CARE tax distribution— distributions for fiscal year 2025-2026. Brandon. No kidding.

Oh, come on, you've not done any hard work.

Yeah, it was hard.

That was hard work. And again, before you go through these, David and Jeff, are you 2 on the committee? Perhaps others. And this is what you recommended some time ago.

And again, it's the same thing.

We saw it before and we're just approving it now. Thank you for that clarification.

There we go, sort of. So, um, this is the, the full, um, distribution. So before, what we had shown is the pieces related to our mini and mid-major grants, as well as the major grants, primarily on the arts side of the distribution. Um, so that's what you see here. Um, and then if we scroll, these are all of the items that were on, uh, during that work session that we discussed.

Um, hey, would you, would you go back? Yeah, to the top there. The refuge, what, what artistic rec thing do they do? Um, Is it— what is the refuge?

Oh, you're gonna make me try to remember that. I thought actually I got—

oh, it's $150. Okay, I thought they were like a women's shelter or something. Is that a different one?

Okay.

So those mini and mid-major grants. Or $126,000. Uh, the 2 major grants— so jumped over the Sierra and the Metropolitan Ballet. The 2 major grants awarded, uh, for— are proposed to be awarded, $984,909.

Brandon, before you go off that slide, I see Adams here doing a light night with us.

This is like maybe $250,000, $300,000 more than we were able to grant in the past.

Go back a few years. Is that correct, Adam? I'm so grateful that you're here and able to use this money and that the citizens have voted for CARE tax. So thank you for being the, uh, the rock star of the CARE program, at least on the art side.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, Brandon, that's the, that's the max we could give them, correct?

At 35%.

So, oh, thank you.

That's it.

Thank you.

Um, so then we have, um, the remaining dollars in relation to what we are budgeting for there, the half related to civic-related items. So we have library technical hall— library hall technical upgrades, and then each of our recipients have the opportunity to book the library hall for their performance if needed. And so We, um, if you will, reimburse Library Hall for the use thereof. Um, and then the remaining money basically goes to what we are saving up for, for the improvements we hope to make down at the heart of downtown in the Sierra area. Then when we move to the recreation side, we have our co-sponsored groups. Um, our events group is looking for chairs, tables, a trailer, um, and some safety barricades for— I believe they're primarily for Orem Fest, but any of the events that they feel like they need to have those in place for. Um, and then various of our parks related to the various things that are in there. I believe Community Park is a Playground, if I remember correctly. Um, and you're testing my memory as to what each one of them were. Maybe, maybe Bryce would even be able to let us know specifically what some of those were if you had questions about them. I think Community Park was restroom rebuild and some shade over the playground.

Okay.

So, oh yeah, Foothill Park was the playground, correct? Yeah.

Okay.

Then there's an administrative fee tied to, to the totaling the budgeted care tax amount of $3,350,000. Are there any questions related to any of these items?

No.

Okay.

I'd like to make a motion. Uh, the City Council hereby authorizes the distribution of fiscal year 2025-2026 care tax revenue To the organizations and projects, and in the amount set forth in Exhibit A.

Second.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Sorry, aye.

The ordinance passes. Thank you.

Thank you, Brendan.

We're up to 11.5, public hearing resolution fiscal year 2025-2026 tentative budget adoption. Brandon, you're still there? You're not mic'd. You're not mic'd. You're not mic'd.

Oh, that's good to know. All right, so, see, how do they say that? So our, uh, what we've been working for the last, uh, basically 5 months, 6 months working on, uh, is finally here in relation to the presentation here of our tentative budget. Uh, first off, just so you're aware, you'll know, I know you did not receive the budget. We're, we're having new software and we're working through the, the production of the budgets done within the software program, but the production of the document Uh, we're still trying to work through that, so you'll be receiving that hopefully by the end of the day tomorrow or shortly thereafter. But, um, so we've pulled the numbers out of the actual program for the— this presentation. Um, as you can see, our proposed tentative budget is a little over $177 million. Uh, last year, uh, our 20— our current fiscal year budget was proposed $160 million. So there is a $17 million increase in the total proposed budget, and we'll touch on some of the reasons for that. Uh, just as a reminder, uh, various, various meetings that we've had over the last few months in relation to the retreat, as well as various work sessions leading up to this point in and the various dates and topics covered in those work session meetings. Some of the budget highlights, as mentioned, increase in total revenues, um, primarily due to the various items mentioned there. And a big portion of those— that increase is related to our enterprise funds, the water, water reclamation, and stormwater, which we'll touch on a little later. Um, this budget does, uh, fund all of the city's compensation, primarily the, you know, the step adjustments and anybody who's still on the merit system. So, um, covers all of those increases. It also provides targeting for any market positions that need to be adjusted based on when HR reviews those. Um, so there's an if you will, a pot of money to try to cover any of those that are identified when that occurs. Uh, health and health insurance, we have a pretty large increase that is projected come January 1st unless things improve dramatically, is my understanding. Uh, so that also is—

That follows a large increase this year too, but a giant discount 2 years ago. Um, the right numbers?

Correct.

Right.

That's correct.

Yeah. Um, you'll— if you can remember from our fleet replacement during one of the work sessions, uh, funding $2.8 million worth of fleet items, as well as $32 million in capital projects. So just to give an overall overview, to give you an idea of what it looks like. Um, from the perspective of the city as a whole, um, an increase you can see in the revenues, our transfers, and appropriations, um, to come up to that $177 million. Um, the general fund of that, you can see from the revenue standpoint, that $15 million increase, approximately $3 million of that is in our general fund. $3 million of that is in our water fund, and $9 million of that is in our water reclamation fund. So, So, $15 million of that, you know, that $15 million is those 3 funds in particular.

So, say, Brandon, you don't have some more? Oh, there you go. Maybe you're going to rub it in. Major fund. I was just trying to get more clarity on that increase. You're going to get into that? Yeah.

Um, just, just to give you an idea of the size of each fund, um, where those dollars lie in relation to the revenues associated with each of the funds and, and how they are in relation to that $177 million total. So as we touch on— let's see, I went the wrong way. Oh, that's interesting. Same slide. Oh no, general fund.

There we go.

So as we talk in general fund, as you saw, it was just under half of our total revenues in relation to the general fund. Uh, you can see here the slight increase in revenues as well as transfers in from other funds to pay for various services that are housed within the general fund. And there's the— if you'll see the bottom line there in the totals, the $78 million compared to the $75 million, uh, the, the revenue increase there. Um, about, uh, $500,000 of that, half a million of that, is sales tax estimate increase. Everybody cross your fingers. Um, property taxes, we're proposing about a $300,000 increase. Then there's various smaller ones that are in— so cemetery, $80,000, ambulance, $150,000. And the other large one is in relation to our fire contracts with Vineyard and Linden, and those are approximately $800,000. So Um, that's probably the one of the biggest pieces that falls within here as we prepare for, um, primarily the, the Vineyard Fire Station coming online and, and all the things related to that.

So, are you— is this your normal conservative nature?

Uh, I will say that no, it's not my normal conservative nature. It Relatively aggressive. I won't say ultra-aggressive, but, okay, but it, it definitely is pushing the, the needle.

Okay, perfect.

Um, just to give you an idea of where do our general funds revenues come from, the various sources, as you can see, taxes continues its decline in relativity to the whole, and its charges for services continues to gradually rise. And so that, you know, those are slight concerns as we've discussed before, but you can see they're not huge changes from, from that year, and they weren't a huge change from the year before either. But anyway, gives you an idea of where those come from, where those revenues are coming from. As I mentioned, sales tax being the one of the— out of that, um, $75 million, $70 million in the general fund, uh, almost half of that, $32 million, is coming from sales tax. And then you can see, uh, the estimate that I put in, that's approximately the fiscal '25 estimate is, is Approximately a 1% increase, and then the fiscal '26 proposed item is about a 1.5% increase above that fiscal '25 projection. So when you talk about, am I being aggressive or not being aggressive, that part right there is obviously subject to debate about whether or not we're going to get to that at 1% even through the end of this year. We're currently at break-even. So when you're talking 1% for the remainder of this year and then a 1.5% going into fiscal '26, um, that's a little too far out there for my magic ball to, to guess. So we're again being a little bit aggressive there. Uh, I mentioned property tax, and you can see kind of a history of, of our general general property tax and the estimated increase. We have a lot— a rather decent number of projects that came on— came online here, and so we expect that to— that to jump up a little bit in that regard. And so we're again being a little bit more aggressive in that regard. Um, franchise taxes have been pretty flat recently, and so we're not budgeting any increase there. in franchise taxes. That also is somewhat of a hedge against those other 2 that I just mentioned, property tax and sales tax. So, you know, because franchise taxes are primarily based on a lot of use, you know, your Rocky Mountain Power and, uh, what, Enbridge now? Enbridge are 2 of the big pieces of that franchise tax, as well as Comcast. And then, so, and telephone, although telephone's been just gradually declining, but those 3 are the 3 that are a big piece of that. Building and service charges, you can see for, you know, a little bit up in business licensing, a little down in our building permits and related fees. So nothing wildly one direction or the other. in that area. Are some other items of note that are rather large revenue pieces in the general fund are interest earnings, which, uh, you know, recently have been very beneficial to us. But as rates decline a little bit and as we spend money on a certain building as well as Um, some other projects that we have, we expect those revenues are going to drop down a little bit. Um, and then an increase in our ambulance fees as we continue to, especially as Vineyard comes along and, um, we, we continue to grow— I call it grow, but improve our ambulance transports, as well as the collection, which is one of the bigger pieces of that, is not only just having the transports, but how well you collect on those. There is obviously a potential— we do have a rather decent high amount of Medicaid, so if recent legislation happens to impact Medicaid, that potentially could have a negative impact there. But again, it's nothing that I can rely upon, so I have to rely upon where we've been and where, you know, to Go forward. Um, just to give you an idea in relation to this budget versus our current '25 budget and the categories where those funds are expected to be spent, and you can see despite that $17 million increase, um, you know, a big piece of that is going towards capital. which, you know, we might expect as we start touching on the enterprise funds here next. As you've been well made aware of in relation to our water reclamation, the sewer fund, you'll see a large impact there. And so that's a big piece of that change. This gives you an idea of where each fund, their money goes in relation to the whole and in relation to each category within each one of those funds. And so, uh, and again, it's just to give you a relative idea of where that money is spent. You can see our personnel, the majority of that falls within the general fund, whereas if you go to capital, you can see, you can see a large portion of that goes to our 3 largest enterprise funds. Um, some, some of the items that, uh, for the general fund in particular this year that, uh, were expansions are, uh, um, the— which we've mentioned before— would be the AI reporting software for our police department. They're currently in a trial testing it out phase, but we wanted to budget some dollars in case they decide that that's something they want to pursue. after going through that, that initial tryout. Then our patrol officers replacing rifles, so putting that in a, a more rotational basis instead of always in a big lump sum type of situation. And then, uh, put it— setting aside some money for the library admin remodel, area remodel, which we may or may not need that depending on how the other projects go, um, and remaining funds that may be available that, that may not be necessary to use. And if that ends up being the case, then that just falls to our reserves, which then you'll recall the big transfer that we come back and we transfer to our CIP fund. Those dollars just fall into that transfer. Some other personnel additions. Um, we have, due to our— that vineyard expansion I mentioned, we have 3 firefighter paramedics included in this budget. We also do new training facility. As that fire training facility comes online, need a person that oversee that. And obviously the hope is that we budgeted a little bit of revenue for the current fiscal year, but the hope would be that once that facility is is fully operational and we've got a schedule in place that we can offset some of those costs with additional fees in relation to use of that facility. Then there's also a Deputy Fire Marshal to expand the oversight of the, you know, inspection operations and other building necessities. And so there's a addition of a deputy fire marshal there. And then our Public Works Department, they have a need for a GIS technician. So we have someone who basically, I'll call them a gopher. They can go out and do a lot of the small things that our current GIS staff have to go do. And so this individual would go at that, and their primary— they are entirely— this technician would be entirely allocated to our enterprise funds. So even though there's a cost there, there's an allocation that covers that cost within our general fund. And then obviously our new Heritage Park, as that comes online, there's various equipment and personnel needed to operate that facility as that becomes fully operational. As we mentioned in a previous work session, the total of our fleet replacement, that $2.8 million, Um, and just to give you an idea of where those funds are, that fire apparatus, you'll notice, is— it's relatively low, but that's because we had set aside some funds elsewhere that we're going to be using in the current year to fund various things, as well as potential in the future funding those large dollar items that they have through financing. Um, and then You know, large— a lot of these things within there are sinking funds for those large vehicles that you can see, the $1.2 million, so that when those vehicles are ready to be purchased, we need to replace, those funds are already available and we don't have to fund all of them in big swaths. There are already funds available to pay for those. In our streets department, there's not really anything new. This is, uh, The, the biggest thing on here is, you'll notice the 2nd item from the bottom is the Memorial Trailhead. Most of the other items on there are normal, other than the— sorry, I guess the Lakeview Parkway project right above that Memorial Trailhead. Those 2 items are probably the biggest change to the, to current funding as opposed to other years that we've had. Um, and that is something that we're looking forward to being able to accomplish. Up, I believe it's up by the cemetery area, if I remember correctly. And moving on to— are there any questions about generally overall as well as particularly the general fund? Great. Uh, our debt service fund, um, there are basically only a few items remaining in our debt service fund. We have one general obligation bond. We have the new sales tax revenue bond that we, we got for the public safety improvements. Um, and the— we have a Siemens lease, which was for energy improvements, that continues. And then the 4th item is the Utopia paying— covering the Utopia payment. So those are the 4 big items that fall within the debt service fund as, as far as making the payments on those particular And how much does that Utopia payment go up every year?

Will you remind me?

I believe it's 3%.

Does that increase every year too? It does.

There is a corresponding— we have budgeted a corresponding revenue increase reimbursement from Utopia to cover that increase. So, so the net cost for that Utopia is technically zero. Does that make—

the net increase is zero.

Yeah, there is no net increase in the total cost because there's— we've budgeted both a revenue increase for an expected amount that we will receive from Utopia or UIA that offsets the increase in that Utopia payment.

But we still have the debt till 2040, correct?

Are you seeing—

are they—

or do you have any stats Thoughts on, um, the implications of the Skylink? Is that what it's called?

I don't know anything about that.

People transitioning to that, you haven't— that's not in the ballpark yet, or not in there? Okay, we're still increasing in subscriptions.

Yeah, yes, it's my understanding.

Brendan, just out of curiosity on Utopia, Um, I mean, so it's the revenue from it is offsetting this cost right now, right? Correct. Just out of curiosity, when was the crossover? I know in the, in the beginning it did not cover it for quite a few years. Do you know when the crossover was?

Um, they— 2022, I want to say.

Again, it only covers the increased payment.

The net payment stays the So, if we were paying $3 million and then it's $3.2 million, they give us $200,000, and then it's $3.4 million, they give us $400,000. But the big chunk—

and I'm making up a number, I'd love you to— you could correct it—

but they're only covering the increase so that our baseline payment stays high until 2040.

Okay.

Okay. That's approximately $2.6, $2.8, somewhere in that neighborhood.

Okay. So, so, The baseline, whatever that number is, if it's $3 million, who knows what it is, something. But that baseline we are actually paying, correct, out of city funds, and then the increase is being covered.

Correct.

It's projected that the baseline will never go down. Well, when it's over, but I mean, it will not.

They're only budgeting to handle the increase.

Okay.

Did you want to correct me, Brent?

So Roger Timmerman, the director of Utopia, he's actually Um, currently scheduled to come in and share kind of the full picture of what they're currently experiencing and, uh, somewhat of what they project. So this is something that we can kind of follow up on with him. Um, I would say that their projections about the future are becoming more and more optimistic than the other way. Um, one other change that happened a little bit earlier was that the city also used to subsidize operations. And we haven't done that for several years. Also, what Roger— what Utopia will tell you is that they are accounting for the amount that each city is paying out of their own coffers, and that, that is an increasing liability on Utopia's books. So even after 2040, when the debt is paid back, they would continue to pay pay back us and other of the original cities, um, that amount of liability that's been increasing over all this time.

And then they're adding more cities. Are they still adding more cities?

Yeah, one of the more recent ones was Pleasant Grove City and, uh, Bountiful.

And that benefits us also, correct? But not— I mean, I understand that where we are, but I mean, as long as they can.

They, they are charged a little bit more than the original cities, from what I understand.

Yeah, that'd be great for him to come because I'd like to get clarity on from the beginning how this whole thing worked and where we're at now. Thanks.

Thank you.

We got to fix that. So then we move on to our internal service funds. Internal service funds are designed in a way because they Generally help the all departments of the city, and so they have their own fund in order to allocate to provide us with a better tool to allocate their costs to the specific groups that use their services. And this just gives you an idea of the magnitude of those five internal service funds, which total just over ten million dollars. And you know the various things our fleet maintenance. that's pretty self-obvious. Self-insurance, so our workers' comp liability, property liability, those are the 2 bigger items within there. Unemployment, those are the big 3 that were within that self-insurance fund. Obviously, we've had a mention about being sued. Self-insurance covers those kind of lawsuits as well. And so IT department, our facilities maintenance group handling all the, the various buildings And then our warehouse and purchasing group. All right, now we get into our enterprise funds. So the water fund, um, to the— some of the big things that we were talking about here is down in that left corner, uh, 2 new fees, um, basically related to Jordan L Water and the Deer Creek Creek project, as impact fees in water have, for the most part, dried up and have been covering a lot of the costs associated with, um, particularly Jordan L. Uh, it's become necessary to be able to pay for those through a separate fee-related increase. Um, and then on top of that, we have our water base rate up on the right corner there from Uh, $2,117 to an increase of $2,181 for our base rate on a 3/4-inch meter. And then there's various increases to the tiers related to usage. Um, just to give you an idea of even with those increases where Orem falls within that increase, keeping in mind this particular chart, you know, we— if you'll recall, there's Another chart at the very end talking about if they have an average increase across their utilities, and we'll show that in as far as in a total. This particular one is strictly related to— this is what their fee, as far as we currently know that it is in relation to our fee, which we are saying what it's going to be. Water Reclamation. You can see the fiscal '25 estimate and our fiscal '26 proposal, obviously a rather large increase. That's due in part to both the— or primarily to the base rate. You can see there the increase from $1,698 to $2,182 as we prepare for the big things that need to be done down at the water treatment plant. And so that we can get that ball rolling, that Will probably, and more likely than not, require a debt issuance to be able to complete those projects. But we needed some seeding to be able to get those things rolling. And then you can see on this chart, again, even with that increase, you can see where Orem's rate falls in comparison to many of our constituents, comparables. Um, and, and that's still in the bottom half, if you will, in relation to that. Many of these cities have had to do the same similar thing because there are many of the big reasons why we're having to make those adjustments is because of various EPA regulations, which not only affects us, but is affecting all of— most, if not all of these cities as well. Our stormwater fund, uh, a modest increase in the ESU rate, which you can see the effect of that increase. And then in relation to where that would then put Orem in that same— those same cities, still very comparable in regards to that particular rate. Um, I, I should mention, um, we're talking about sewer here. Even though the base rate is increasing, which is a large portion of that, 2 of the biggest items in there are Linden and Vineyard, who will be paying us for their share. And so that is being accounted for in the current year. So out of That $9 million increase you see there, about $6 million of that is related to those 2 entities. So it's not necessarily that that entire base rate is making that increase. So just to make you aware that it's not all on our citizens. A lot of this increase is then being obviously reflected in Linden and Vineyard making payment to their share of the water reclamation, the treatment plant.

Okay, so just to clarify, $9 million increase, but $6 million of that is going to be paid by Vineyard and Linden, correct? But it still will result in this 28% increase on our residents' bills for the base rate? Yes, for the base rates. Those are gonna— okay, thank you.

Correct.

Our recreation fund. Um, just there are some increases in relation to fees. There were also some decreases. And so, um, in relation to our— as you can see in the little note there on the side, memberships continue to increase. Our indoor classes are going crazy. So that's obviously—

Well, how are we doing that? Because we only have a limited facility size, right? Are you maximizing our facility better, Bryce? How's your mag— what's your magic there?

Uh, this includes the Sarah Hillcrest and the—

Oh, okay, so we've added Hillcrest. Okay, that makes more sense. Thank you.

Correct.

Um, our solid waste, um, solid waste fund, um, as we've accumulated a little bit of, uh, reserves, um, over the the last couple of years. And so we've elected to propose that, um, we don't increase the rates in relation to the— our garbage, um, and we'll maintain that for at least this year, uh, just to, to make sure that, uh, you know, we're being good stewards of those, uh, funds that we've received. Um, I— you'll remember from North Point's presentation, uh, That doesn't mean that our cost is not going up. North Point's obviously going to increase pretty— I'll call it relatively substantially. And Waste Management, I'm sure, will also come back with some increases as well. And so we'll have to monitor that as we go forward, not necessarily for fiscal '26, but when we look at this again next year, we'll have to reevaluate it at that point. And you can see, leaving our fee where it is, where we, where we fall in relation to other entities in the area. So, talking about all of the utilities put together, you can see, and there's a very small note at the bottom, which you can see, which indicates that this table assumes an average, which we've gone back in time and evaluated, um, the city— each city's average increases over time, and it's approximately 4.9%. So we applied that percentage to their fee in relation to our increased fee, and you can see where we fall in relation to that, which even with all of those increases that we've talked about, we're substantial— we're So, we feel very, very well positioned in that, in relation to our utility fees. With that, are there any questions about anything there? Great.

So, is there somewhere we can— are they going to send this to us, or is there somewhere we can see this?

Yeah. I mean, the— obviously the presentation will be available online, but then having an actual budget, we're hoping to get that to you tomorrow, by the end of the day tomorrow, if not on Thursday at the very latest.

Is that this presentation?

No, it would be the full budget. This, this will be available basically tomorrow.

Okay. Yeah, no, I'd like to get just this presentation. I want to see the rest too, but I'd like to see something.

Yeah, I'll provide that to Teresa. Teresa will make that available, and then we'll also be posting it on our website as well.

Okay, great. Thanks. Mayor, if I may, for all of you who are still here, we've been going through this for some time in work meetings, and I appreciate the summary you gave us tonight.

Oh, this is a public hearing, so I can't— Yes, it is.

Yes. So any questions for Brandon?

So just to give you an idea, The— obviously, this is a public hearing primarily, in case anybody wanted to indicate, but this is the first time you're seeing the, the really the guts of the whole thing put together. Um, so, you know, the idea here is you'll receive that, and if there are any questions in the— in essence, the close to the next 30 days, we'll have a meeting. We have the meeting on June 10th to adopt the budget. So, you know, you have that amount of time to take input from citizens or thoughts that you might have or things you're wondering about that then can be brought forward as when we have that adoption meeting.

Sounds good. Any, any other questions for Brandon? Okay, let's go ahead and open this up to the public if there's any public that has anything they want to say about the budget. Council and the executive staff, I as a resident appreciate the Um, the detailed look at and the physical conservative nature of the budget. We have done an outstanding job in this community, and I give plaudits to the mayor To Brandon and to all of the staff for holding the line. To have an edifice like this with no bonding, no increase in taxes, is amazing in our current economy and in our current governmental spending sprees. That we can see all around us emanating from Washington as well as from our capital city. The, the hope and prayer of all taxpayers is to get more services with less tax burden, and Orem is the shining example across the state and in the nation of doing things the physically conservative, the correct way. And if we can make that the Utah way over what has been previously called the Utah way, uh, would be an outstanding legacy for all of you. Um, having realizing that increasing the, the enterprise funds fees is a small form of tax increase because it's all on the back of the same taxpayers is is a minor point to someone who's— to someone who abhors tax increases such as Utah County has done within the last few months. Um, I'm, I'm not asking you to take on the burden of administering Utah County, but they can learn some things from you guys.

So, thank you.

Thank you. Mayor, I can make a motion if you want. First, I need to close the public hearing.

Oh, yeah, I thought you closed it.

Never mind.

No, we'll close it already.

Any other comments?

Okay, thank you.

We'll close the public hearing.

I'll make a motion.

Now you can make a motion.

The city—

the city council by resolution adopts the fiscal year 2025-2026 budget. extend the budget and sets a public hearing to adopt the final budget on June 10th, 2025.

I second that. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

The resolution passes.

Jen dropped off.

She, she, yeah, she had to go. All right, thank you, Brandon. Next up, we've got item 13.

I don't have anything, but I did receive a message about some sad news from about a former council member. Councilmember Dave Spencer knew this individual, so I was going to let him share that. Yeah, we'd like to take a moment to remember former City Councilmember Les Campbell, who passed away this week. He served the city from 2000 to 2007. on the council.

Les also served on the Planning Commission.

He was a very passionate civic servant who helped make the CARE tax program happen and did a lot of great things in Norman. Also his wife Linda, who also passed away.

Les was my seminary teacher in high school as well.

Wow.

So I've known him for a year or two. I saw he passed.

And I think Adam, Adam knew the Campbells quite well.

Okay, thank you, Dave. Okay, we're on the agenda. We've got to adjourn to a meeting of, uh, well, geez, that's still—

you need a motion for that.

Hang on here. Yes, I need a motion to adjourn to a meeting of the ORM. May I move that we adjourn to a meeting of the ORM Redevelopment Agency, RDA?

Second.

Go ahead and vote. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Oops, aye. My mic was—

Okay, we'll adjourn to a meeting.

Mayor, I'd like to make a motion that we approve the consent— RDA consent items, approval of the meeting minutes, June 18th, 2024.

I second that. Okay.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Okay, the consent items pass. Item 16, RDA scheduled items. Item 16.1. Uh, Brandon, you're back.

I'm back.

All right, uh, the Redevelopment Agency of the City of Orem is a separate legal entity, so as such, We need to hold a, uh, have it— it has its own separate budget, and so we needed to just touch base on it. Um, all of the old RDAs are now, um, completed, and the only remaining active one is the CDA, which is the down at the mall. And so there are no more incoming funds in relation to the old RDAs. place. And, and so therefore what you see here is, uh, you can see the— down in the expenditures area there, the University Place CDA incentive. Um, as they, uh, as we receive the property taxes for that entity, uh, that area I should say, um, we remit 90% of those dollars back to University Place, back to the University Place folks, and we retain 10%. of that 10%, 5% is paid to the general fund for administrative purposes, and the other 5% is retained within the CDA, the RDA, for future use for infrastructure needs. There are remaining funds in the old RDAs, which we gradually are spending, and but so there you still see some That very bottom item, the project area totals, um, the, the $65,000 there. So there's also an administrative element to continuing to administer those, as well as some costs from a reporting standpoint that are part of that. So you can see that's pretty small as far as comparative to the remaining CDA. Are there any questions?

Okay, no questions. We'll open this up for public hearing. We'll close the public hearing. Go ahead, Dave.

Mayor, I'll make a motion.

That the Board of Directors of the Redevelopment Agency of the City of Warren, RDA, by resolution adopts the fiscal year 2025-2026 tentative budget and sets a public hearing to adopt the fiscal budget on June 10th, 2025. Second.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Mr. Mayor, I move this passes. Oh, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I move that we adjourn to a meeting of the Orem Special Service Lighting District, SSLD.

Second.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Make a motion that we approve the SSLD consent items, approval of meeting minutes, June 18th, 2024.

Aye.

Oh, second, second, second.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

You got to turn your mic on there, man. We need to figure out why mics magically turn off.

Currently, it's programmed to not allow people to talk over each other.

Oh, we definitely got to get rid of that.

Yeah, we could look at tightening it, but that also helps with our AI being able to capture what everyone says.

So, so technically, what? So I vote, then I turn my thing off, and then she votes and she turns her thing off.

Speak one at a time.

It's to the 4th person. Does it turn mine off?

Yeah.

Anyway.

Yeah, that's gonna slow down our voting process. We'll have to see what we think about that. Okay, we approved the minutes. Now we have the minutes, and now we're at 19.1, SSLD scheduled item 19.1, public hearing resolution, Special Service Lighting District of the City of Orem fiscal year 2025-2026 budget adoption. Brandon, you're still there.

I'm still— Um, so again, the Special Service Lighting District is a separate legal entity, so it has a budget. Um, there you can see the, uh, what the expectation for our proposed budget for the street lighting is. Um, it does include a fee increase, which we'll touch on in the next slide, but you can kind of get an idea from where their revenues come from. And, and then what those revenues are spent on, primarily at this point. Chris mentioned the last lighting district is being completed. And so this is basically a maintenance budget at this point. And as well as we have added the holiday lighting component to that since that was such a hit. And to provide more permanent funding for that event. And then, as I mentioned a while back with the debt service fund, the energy— so the street lighting fund pays the debt service fund for that debt because a large portion of that lease payment is related to changing all of the light bulbs from regular light bulbs to LED light bulbs. So the street lighting fund pays for that. And then, as mentioned, an increase from $316,000 to $328,000 in the street lighting fee. Um, and that's what I have for the street lighting fund.

Thank you, Brandon. Any questions? Okay, we'll open up a public hearing on this issue. We'll close the public hearing on this issue.

Um, you want me to make a motion?

Yes. The board of directors of the Special Lighting Service Lighting District of the City of Orem, SSLD, by resolution adopts the fiscal year 2025-2026 tentative budget and sets a public hearing to adopt the final budget on June 10th, 2025. Second.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

The resolution passes.

Mayor, I'd like to make a motion that we adjourn to a closed-door session. Can I not do it?

Okay, hang on 1 second. I want to get— we had a change of plans.

So, so, Steve, do, do we just say we move to adjourn then, or do we have to cancel this?

That's correct.

No, you just move to adjourn.

If you don't, if you're, if you don't feel the need to go to a closed door.

I make a motion that we adjourn. Second.

Second.

Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye.

We are adjourned. Thank you for those who endured.