City Council · 2026-09-22

Oh, there's—

All right.

Like to welcome you to this afternoon's work session of the Orem City Council. Today's Tuesday, September 22nd, 2026. Welcome to those who are here in the room and also who may be online or will watch this meeting later. Go ahead and start off with a presentation by our Tiger Traffic team. And, and they will be discussing speed limits. So it looks like our presenters, Mr. Shirkey, our Public Works Executive Director, and it's 30 minutes, 20 minutes presentation and 10-minute Q&A. Okay, so 20 and 10. 20 and 10. All right, take it away.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. We have Taylor Forbush here, John Dorney here from the Traffic Tiger Team, and BJ's representing for the Tiger Team today. We have Blake Finn, who's typically on that team that serves with us.

You said you've seen enough of him lately.

Yeah, I've seen him.

Yeah, I've seen a lot of him.

Yeah, for fire, we have Derek Spencer. And we have Taggart Bowman from engineering. So it's well represented by a diverse group of professionals who review issues, including speed limits, signs, signals, pedestrian ways, multi-use paths, all things having to do with traffic. So. With that, we're going to be presenting on speed limits. I didn't doctor up this presentation, so it's going to be black and white, just like a speed limit sign, right?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, so first slide. You can't read this because I'm going to go to this slide. That's the summary of it. Okay. But I'm referencing Utah State Code 41, Motor Vehicles. And this is under 41-6A-601, speed regulations, safe and appropriate speeds at certain locations. And it calls out prima facie speed limits, emergency power of the governor. And it's the first line that says, a person may not operate a vehicle at a speed greater than what is reasonable and prudent under the existing conditions. It also calls out this term here, prima facie speed limits. And so I wanted to kind of give you some background on how speed limits are established in the state of Utah and generally throughout the United States. What are these speed limits? What's prima facie? So forth. Well, prima facie is a Latin legal term that means at first sight, or maybe at first glance, or on its face. Okay. Steve can correct me on any of the legal parts of this, or Gary. But in law, it refers to evidence that is sufficient to prove a fact or establish a case on its face, unless it's disproved or rebutted by opposing evidence. So, in Utah, the prima facie speed limit is determined to be the posted speed limit unless shown otherwise. So, how are they disproved or rebutted or shown otherwise? Is that even possible? Utah code also states that a person may not operate a vehicle at a speed greater than is reasonable and prudent under the existing conditions. So, is a posted speed limit at 25 reasonable and prudent? It might be. It may not be. Prime facie— are prime facie speed limits reasonable and prudent? They might be. They're determined to be that initially. Um, at first sight. So who determines what is reasonable and prudent? Well, sometimes it's the driver. They think they know, or the police officer, or the judge, and so forth. So we're going to go into some of this. If you guys have any questions as I'm going, please stop me at any time. In Utah, prima facie evidence for a reasonable and prudent speed is deemed to be the posted speed limit. So the court accepts that claim as true for the time being. If somebody is pulled over and they're caught speeding or going above the posted speed limit, the burden of proof shifts to them to present evidence that refutes or contradicts that claim. If the other party presents enough evidence to disprove the claim, then the presumption of prima facie speed limit then fails. So what are the contributing factors to a reasonable and prudent driver or speed? Yeah, very— a variety of conditions.

If—

let's go back to the example. Let's go 35 miles an hour. But the weather conditions are fine, and the physical street conditions are in good shape. Traffic volume is normal, time of day, they can clearly see, lane widths are appropriate. There's not a curvature in the road and so forth. You have clear sight distance. The land use seems appropriate for that speed. Intersection density is adequate and perceived safety is reasonable, and you feel like I could go maybe 35 or a little bit more. So reasonable and prudent speeds may actually be lower or higher than what the posted speed limit shows. 85th percentile speeds. Has anyone ever heard of that term, 85th percentile speeds? Okay, thank you. 85th percentile is typically determined to be a safe and reasonable speed regardless of the posted speed limit. So if the posted speed limit is 30 and you're going 35 and the 85th percentile speed is 38, In a court of law, they could probably present their case and say, Judge, I was going, you know, 38, and it was posted 35, but the 85th percentile was maybe 41 or 42. And he provides the evidence, then the judge would probably look at that and say, okay, it seems like you're going a safe and a reasonable and a prudent speed. And that probably would get thrown out. Not saying it will all the time, and I'm not justifying speeding in any way.

Or renting the law.

But the fact is that the 85th percentile speed of vehicles is what is typically determined and recommended to be determined for the posted speed limit. In some areas, in some cases, the posted speed limits are lower than the 85th percentile speeds. In the city of Orem, we have 4 different classifications of streets. We have local streets, collector streets, minor arterial streets, and principal arterial streets. So the principal arterials are Geneva Road, State Street, 8th North, University Parkway. Minor arterials are roads like 4th Northwest of State Street, or 12th West, or 3rd, or a few others. 16th North, 8th East, 12th South Collector. So, so most of those streets, the collector streets, the 85th percentile speed is around 37 miles an hour. And it's interesting, as we look at the data across the board throughout the whole city, it's pretty consistent. Most, or at least many of those posted speed limits are right at 25 miles an hour. So there's a bit of a dilemma or concern, maybe not an extreme concern, but we wanted to bring this to your attention. With respect to how posted speed limits are created. General thought at the time we did a study in 2003, 2004. And this is a result of that study. This is put together by John Larson. He was one of our traffic interns, and I worked with John back at that time. And we evaluated 4th North, 12th West, 16th North, 8th East. For speeds and speed limits on all of those streets, the posted speed limits were around 25 or 30 miles an hour. And our recommendations were to go a little bit more because the 85th percentile speeds were much higher than the posted speed. So, a traffic engineer perspective is speed limits have little impact on driver behavior. And most drivers drive at a comfortable or reasonable speed. And so most, meaning the 85th percentile, or 85% of the drivers travel at that or below that speed. There are several documents out there and literature that we use and reference. So in the, in the traffic world and industry traffic engineering, I should say, or transportation engineering, we use the Institute of Transportation Engineers, the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials documents. We use the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices. And so these are documents that have been prepared and reviewed and refined over decades of research and studies. And so those are what we look to. That's— those are our Bibles of sorts. So for fire, Mark, Chief Sanderson, we're looking at the International Building Code or Fire Code, for example. Or in, in Gary's department, he'll look at the International Building Code for building. And so those are references or documents or professional transcripts and, and, and, and so forth, and manuals that they use. And they're the guidelines for them to provide safe buildings for fire safety and so forth. Likewise, we have these other documents here. At the time of this study in 2003 and '04, we did several things.

We had a—

we reviewed the transfer or the speeds throughout the city and speed limits throughout the city with the Transportation Master Plan Committee that was at that time. A document was prepared for recommended speed limits, and then we received feedback from open house where we had hundreds of people that would come— that came in April of 2003. And we held and received public input and on the proposed changes. We then took a lot of the input and feedback, and then we created a modified recommended speed limits. And so what we did at that time is we modified those speed limits at that time in conjunction with the actual 85th percentile speeds. So this shows all of these corridors, 16th North, 12th West, 4th North, and 8th East. Down at the bottom, it shows the range of change from April of 2003 to October of 2003, April 2004, June of 2004. An example in, in my neck of the woods on 16th North, the before speed was around 32, and these are average speeds. So these are not 85th percentile. These are averages. I'm going to flip it to 85th because that's what's most important. For establishing speed limits, but you can see on 16th North, the 85th percentile speed was almost 40 miles an hour. In October, after we made the change, it went up to 41, then went down to 40, and it was down at 40 again. Well, 8th East was another one that where we had a lot of concerns and pushback and feedback from the citizenry. Our 85th percentile speed before we raised the speed limit was 30, almost 39 miles an hour. And then after we changed it, it went up to 40 in that timeframe, that snapshot. We did another study and 40.3, 40.2, 41.2. You can see that in those cases, the speeds didn't change that much from the 85th percentile speed. In fact, the range of the speed changes, not speed limits, the speed changes. We actually had a reduction in one segment from -0.34 up to 1.68 miles an hour. In this other study, it went up only 0.2 miles an hour, or 1.4 miles an hour, and then 0.15 and 2.3. And so what we confirmed was that people don't travel at a speed necessarily that is posted. They're going to travel at what they— I think in their minds determined to be reasonable and safe speed. 85th percentile speed study confirmed That assumption. So, in the— in this literature here and another literature, this is a summary of that. So speed limits should be set by an engineer. It's based on the 85th percentile speed. I mean, speed limits are recommended to the governing body, which is in council, based on the empirical data and the studies that are determined—

make—

that participate in making the recommendation.

So.

Speed limits should be based on the 85th percentile speed, even if the posted speed is higher than the design speed. The MUTCD also suggests that speed limits are adjusted to the nearest 5 mph of the average 85th percentile. So we'll, we'll adjust it down typically. It's not effective or good practice— engineering practices— to set lower speed limits without a valid engineering reason. That can lead to a decrease in actual safety overall. And there are multiple national publications that follow the 85th percentile speed. I referenced those earlier in AASHTO, MUTCD, and ITE. Some of the outcomes or takeaways directly from this document, I'll just read those. The main conclusion of this study is that the speed limit appears to be a minor factor in regards to overall driver speed as far as speeds included in the study are concerned. Because of the fact that increases in the 85th percentile speeds were so minor as a result of the raised or increased speed limits, the Orange City Council at the time voted in favor to increase those speed limits to what was recommended based on the 85th percentile speed data. We have, uh, before you at this time, uh, some results of some speed studies that we've performed in the last year. And these are done on 2000 North, 8 South, 12 South, 2000 South, Main Street, and 8th East. And you can see on the data over here, this has the 85th percentile average on each one of these areas. And in fact, these are different segments of these particular streets. So 2000 North, as you go up to the east, I think the speeds might be a little bit higher. For example, but the 85th percentile speed on 2000 is around 33 to 35 miles an hour. In anticipation of, you know, we thought it might have been around 36, 37, but it was a little bit lower than we thought.

Now, it would matter if you're going uphill or downhill too, right?

It can.

I mean, significantly.

I mean, yeah, if you have a horse-drawn wagon, it will for sure. But with our vehicles today, I think the data is pretty similar up and down.

I just know I— when I pull around that corner, Rushmore Perfect, and I start heading down 8, I'm going faster than I think.

I would say it's probably true what you're saying, but—

So I guess my question is, was that going east or going west?

8 to 4?

Oh, you did both?

Both.

Okay.

Yeah, so just curious how that data was gathered. Is that the little rubber thing that goes across the street?

Taylor, our traffic operations engineer, he can describe that because he's the one that collects the data. So we, we have these radar units that shoot across the road.

Okay, so if you get anything, intend to slow people down, look at it. There used to be things with And then the tubes, to try to get it natural, we try not to put anything out there. The modern technology, safety running across the road.

Yeah, people really see some if you're just driving.

Chris, can you just explain what the different columns are?

There are different locations on these corridors. I don't have that specifically here. John maybe has that. Blocks, um, about 4-mile segments. 4-block, 4-block, which is half mile.

So when you go to State Street to 4th East and you just kind of go blocks, it's, it's a— instead of taking one shot on each road, every single kind of block segment or set of blocks has its own little kind of micro speeds in live time.

But it does show on here, for example, that State Street to 4th East on 2000 North. So they're intermittent. And did that go up beyond 4th East? On 2000 North?

Uh, no.

Okay. And then 8 South is from 12th West to State Street. 12th South is Main Street to 4th West. Does that go— does that go to State Street or not on that one? Just to Main Street to 4th West?

Um, maybe, or Boulevard.

I think it is Main Street. Yeah, 2000 South, we just looked at that from Main Street to the Lakeview Parkway, or to—

yeah, the road.

East of Main Street, that is a local street. West of Main, or west of Main Street, 2000 South is deemed to be a collector. So you understand, and then Main Street from University Parkway to 2000 South, that data was 31 and 28 for the 85th. 8th East is the only one that we're recommending to lower. It's currently at 40 miles an hour posted. 85th percentile speeds are 35 miles an hour. And if you think about 8th East from University Parkway to 8th South, you have a couple of intersections that have signals and you have medians, and the volume of traffic is much higher. All of those contribute to driver behavior. And do they feel safe? And like a reasonable and prudent speed is probably around 35 miles an hour. That's what we're recommending that to be posted at. So we would have that, or that's a reduction.

Well, if I'm thinking of the right place, a key there is your houses are separated by a mini road right over on the east side. Yeah, you don't have homes lining that street. Whereas farther north, you do have homes.

Every 80 feet on both sides, you have a driveway. But the speed limit on that is posted at 35, and the data before was 38 for the 85th percentile, even though it was residential at that time.

It was—

the road is wider. We did, we did a variety of things, though, to help with safety. We, we striped the road, we narrowed the lanes down. We created bike lanes where we could. We created a shoulder lane line as well, and we installed bull belts at every pedestrian crossing where you had a school crosswalk.

Now you're talking East 8th East? You're not talking this section of 8th East?

No, that's farther north.

Yeah, by Orchard and stuff, right?

Cascade.

Yeah, even Center Street. Yeah, Cascade.

This whole—

I should say. So we are not bringing before you a recommendation necessarily, but we're saying this is how speed limits are generally designed or determined to be posted at the 85th percentile speeds. This is what those are. Many of our areas in the city are posted a little bit lower, maybe 5 to 10 miles an hour low than what— lower than what 85th percentile speed is. When Chief Robinson is out there with his guys patrolling and they're in an area where the 85th percentile speed is actually 33, but it's posted at 25, and they're going 33 miles an hour, it's probably not enforceable. And people are driving at that speed right now. 85% of the drivers are at that speed or lower. We do have outliers. We do have those that at 3 in the morning are going 50 miles an hour on a 25-mile-an-hour road. We know that. That happens in Orem. That happens everywhere in Utah, everywhere in the nation. We cannot solve that and fix that problem, and we're not recommending anything regarding that necessarily. But this is the data right here that we have. This is for you to review and to consider. You have the document will be shared with you tonight. But we wanted to present to you kind of the theory and, you know, the reasoning behind settings and establishing speed limits. Do you have any questions or feedback, or was I legally correct, Steve, on most of it at least? I want to compliment you on your lap. Was it fascia or fascia or fascia?

Okay, I don't know. Please, Brian. Sometimes we do get complaints or requests by residents all around the city that want more traffic enforcement or want us to look at what the average speed is in front of their homes. So, if we were to— if we were to follow a process that was done 20-plus years ago, What would we, what would we do from here with this data? So if we were to kind of cross-reference this information with maybe, you know, hotspots that we'll get complaints and requests from the public, would we then maybe follow up and do sort of proactive public open houses or education, or?

We can, we can certainly do an open house and meet with the public or produce documents and so forth. The first step for us is that the data collection, the review, and the study of the data, and then analyzing it, reviewing it with all the different departments— Public Works, uh, Engineering, Police, Fire, everybody— and we include the feedback from the community as well. The bottom line is, is those speeds, those, those speeds are going to stay the same regardless of where we post it. They're not going to change, but it's not that enforceable for the police in some of those areas. So, we can certainly hold an open house and meet with the public generally, and I'm certain that we'll have the same comments that we had 25 years ago. And the results will be the same.

We can also have our tire traffic team come up with other potential traffic calming measures as well, if it seems necessary.

And we do.

So, I'm just going to say traffic calming means traffic gridlock to me when I hear traffic calming. Sometimes we have to find a balance.

Between gridlock—

calming is such a nice word, but it really is traffic gridlock sometimes when it's applying.

Traffic pillows. Just lay down in the street.

I thought of you when I was driving over those. And anyway, so yeah, I, I'm just saying there's a balance.

That's a great point. We can't just put these anywhere. We can't put them on state. We can't put them on a primary arterial. We're not putting them on the freeway. We can put them on local streets. They're not allowed on collectors. Do we have them on collectors? We do, but by our master plan, they're not recommended to be put on collectors because they serve a different function. They move a higher volume of traffic. And, um, and certainly we have to find that balance on a case-by-case.

My perspective on the balance, it's in the eye of the beholder.

If you're living on that street, by dang, you want everybody going 25, maybe 26.

But if you're getting from A to B, you are traveling 33, 35, and that's okay. And there's a lot of external factors that we try to teach our officers, uh, cars parked along the side of the road and makes it more narrow, uh, time of day when you have pedestrian traffic.

Um, I'm a little more apt to lower my reasonable speed because of those external factors that are present, um, as opposed to just carte blanche. Uh, if you're going 10 over, we're going to pull you over.

And so it's somewhat specific to what's going on there. Just because the school lights are on at 8 PM Should we be pulling people over for going 25 in 30?

Well, there's not a child around, but somebody forgot to turn off the lights.

That would be an example of, of an example of, you know, case-by-case basis.

So it is very much whose perspective are you looking at and trying to thread this needle?

And it's tough.

Can I add one more thing that happens in our area a lot is the breaks, the need to have breaks in traffic to get out of neighborhoods. Yes, on to 1600 or on to— so are you guys— I'm sure you do, but please, you know, you study that. Do you, do you have an ability to help with that? I hear that one a lot.

Yeah.

No, I mean, I know I'm very familiar with what you're referring to there on 16th North, because there are times of day in the morning when you're trying to make a left turn, you might be there for over 5 minutes. And it's constant flow, or during BYU game day. What can we do for that?

Not maybe a lot, but—

And driver behavior may have to shift and change a little bit where we can influence that directly all the time. They may have to maybe go out to a different street. And, or a different location or a signal. Unfortunately, that might be the case as traffic grows. Taylor, do you have any comment on that, on being able to produce gaps so people could make turns?

Yeah, I've got, I got 2 comments.

I guess it's a lot easier on signalized corridors where you keep platoons of vehicles together.

So that signalized corridors can Maybe be a little bit easier, but also harder because of the bumps.

The other comment I have is looking at the data, what we see when we change the speed limit.

And if you go from 25 to 30, the 85th stays the same, but what you see is a tightening of The average, the range of vehicles.

So there—

Makes sense.

If you get them driving about the same speed, it becomes more predictable.

If you're ever pulled out on the street, it's kind of hard to gauge the speed of a vehicle.

It's a lot easier if it's more consistent and all the cars are driving the same, about the same speed.

So I guess that's my other comment.

Oh, go ahead.

Time's up. Go ahead though.

I think I heard you say you're not making a recommendation, but then I heard you say there's one that you're making a recommendation on lowering. So you're giving us information, but I'm inferring that you're interested in raising all of those other ones up to 30 or potentially 35. Is that right? I unfortunately, I didn't have the pleasure of attending the open house in 2003.

I did.

I was there too.

What kind of feedback did residents provide? So you mentioned that we anticipate getting similar feedback as we got 23 years ago.

Sure.

Just wondering what that was. And then maybe also, BJ, if Does police have a perspective on, is this good or bad for what you guys do? Let's go first.

Okay. So, first question is, what was most common, perhaps, feedback? And that, in my opinion, I think it was, if you raise the speed limit 5 or 10 miles an hour, everyone's going to go at least 5 to 10 miles an hour faster. Not true. The data confirmed the 85th percentile speed stayed relatively the same. Independent of the posted speed limit. And that was something that we knew to be true based on the documentation and so forth. Had we done that across the board like this throughout the city and a study like this before? We hadn't. But it came back and it was confirmed. And so that eased or assuaged concerns on behalf of the council and probably many of the neighbors that lived on those streets. So I know some people were called Saddam Hussein. for, uh, for doing this. I was called that. Yeah, they said we just got rid of one dictator, we don't need another one. And I said, well, I think that's a bit harsh, but okay. So there were some hard and passionate feelings regarding those on your home, in front of your homes.

But I would—

I was here during that time, and there was— I wouldn't say directives, but there was a strong push from police leadership to Make sure that we're enforcing the traffic with more tight tolerances.

Traffic didn't really change.

What we were pulling people over for before was what we noticed. And so to me, it was a big— I wouldn't say a nothing burger, but there wasn't a lot of change so that you didn't see this big creep of excessive speed. So, if these were to be increased, I think our enforcement tolerances would remain the same, and you would see the same amount of traffic stops and/or citations. People traveling in excess of that 85th. So, I think it's very enforceable. I think it's very fair.

And back to your point, it threads the needle and keeps traffic moving at a relatively predictable and reasonable pace.

I guess that would be my next question is how much of this, of the regularity, is a function of volume being regular? Consistent is a better word, probably.

You know what I mean?

So these are, these are Streets that are often heavily traveled, you have a large volume of cars. They're keeping each other to a certain speed because of the volume of cars on that.

I'm talking like a grand marshal.

Maybe, right?

Yeah, like the NASCAR, you know, the guy who's going—

the one that goes 25 in every pit center.

But I guess I mean more, it's kind of like we're all kind of keeping each other at the same— I don't know. That's—

and there are some that we met with somebody last week that said, I will go 25 on the street and people will, you know, come behind me and then will be upset with me. I'm going the speed limit. And I said, well, the 85th there is probably 37. So, and it was only a 20 posted at 25. So that's part of the reason why we don't recommend keeping it at 25 is because of that. People feel very safe and comfortable driving at a higher speed. Yeah, based on On the 85th percentile data, we believe that most people drive safely and prudently.

And some of that's better cars, better road surfaces, better, you know.

Sure.

Yep.

Is there any reason these were not fixed 23 years ago? Is it different volumes and things on these roads now?

The volumes, I think they're a little bit lighter volumes on, on like 2000 South. 2000 North isn't compared to like 8th East, for example. 16th North has 30,000 cars a day on the west side of State. I mean, those streets have larger— they were mostly minor arterials. 8th East, 4th North, 12th West, 16th North were all minor arterial streets. All of these collector, collector, collector, collector, collector, minor arterial. And that's the one we're reducing, ironically. So there are different street classifications. The volumes are less. We focused on streets with much higher volume. I think the study showed that all the streets we looked at were 7,500 cars a day or more. These might have 2,000 to 3,000.

Okay, so I'm still going to ask though, because I don't know that I agree with this University Parkway one. You're only going from 8th South to University Parkway, and we've actually put in— haven't you guys put in a stoplight or 2 in that little segment right there too? 8 East.

8 East.

Because that's kind of slow. People, you know me, you're just getting going and you're stopping again.

Yeah, there are 2 signals in between those 2, so it does influence speed, but also volumes. And there's side friction, there's people pulling in and out regularly. There's a lot of conflict there that people drive a little bit slower.

And the one to turn, you have to turn east when you get to 8 South if you're in the right lane.

Correct.

So you don't really have 2 real lanes there. So it does make you go slower. That's correct, because you're in the left anyway, which is good because that's kind of a crazy area.

Quite frankly, it is.

Yeah, and 40 probably isn't appropriate.

I think it should be local driving.

That would be our recommendation.

Yes.

What prompted this to review now? Is there some kind of regular review pattern, or like what?

We meet every 2 weeks as a Tiger Team, and, and we get requests from people Some requests were made directly to raise speed limits on some of these streets. Some were made to lower or to maintain them. And we went and evaluated. We collect data regularly, nonstop during the— when it's nice outside and we have reasonable time and weather conditions, we're collecting data regularly. So in part, it's a reaction to requests, but we evaluate data all the time. Volume data, speed data. Thank you.

I'd also say we're very responsive to those commands.

Thank you.

You know, they come in and either to a patrol officer or patrol sergeant asking for, you know, extra speed enforcement in an area. And, you know, sometimes we'll send officers out there and they sit there for a period of time and they're just not seeing what is being reported.

And so sometimes we'll put that out, that traffic, uh, data collection device and get some of this data back to help us be a little more focused and deliberate, as opposed to just putting an officer out there, uh, period of time, being as efficient as we could be. So that's one thing I would want, uh, the public to know. It's open for—

you live there, you know where you are seeing issues.

Let us come there and see Actually what the issues are and maybe provide you some data to actually are seeing, and maybe the cars aren't going as fast as you think they are. Or yeah, maybe they are. Add some extra patrol.

What about State Street? Can I talk about State Street? There's something you don't know.

We don't regulate it.

Yeah, it's out of our control.

All the—

so State Street, Geneva Road, University Parkway, 8th North.

a lot of complaints about those in your district.

No jurisdiction.

Um, but we patrol.

Yes.

So what would— what are the complaints that you're receiving?

Too fast.

So that wouldn't be something that we could—

And red lights.

Collect data on, or— yes, there's some of those that are like, come on, give me— give me my left turn arrow.

Um, on the signal coordination on all the signals throughout the city, including UDOT and Orem and So we do that. Speed limits, we don't.

Yeah.

All right.

I should also mention that 2000 North and 2000 South are both on shared boundaries with other municipalities. So that would require a discussion probably with those councils as well.

Okay.

Right.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right, next item, uh, amending Section 21-1-3, water connection requirements. Brandon Nelson, our Chief Financial Officer, 5 minutes.

Start the clock.

Okay.

So, in our connection ordinance related to water connections, we are removing 1 word. Well, technically 2 words, I guess. Or occupants. So, to be consistent with how we are— do our practice under the new landlord licensing and everything, all units need to be in the landlord's name, whether they be commercial or whether they be residential. And so this change in the ordinance makes that change so that we are consistent across the board in relation to their account with the city. So the consent item that you'll have in the meeting makes an amendment to the ordinance by removing that or occupants part of the ordinance. That's it, unless you have questions.

So if the occupant, then how would they find out how much water They're using.

So, whoever owns the property is the one that can give them potentially access, whether they be a tenant or whether it be a family member or whomever it is. But the owner of the property has to be the only one.

So the occupant can come in and say, what's my water usage? They would have to get that from the landowner.

So, why are we doing that?

So, we already do that with basically residential property. Landlords.

So, okay, here's my concern. I, I, I would like to make it available to the tenant, to the renter.

It is available as long as the landlord provides it.

No, I would like us to provide it.

The owner of the property is the one who has the— has rights. The tenant does not have that to just come and look at it. Now, if they can provide documentation That from something signed from the landlord, i.e., maybe that rental agreement, they can potentially get information related to where they're at. But the landlord's the one that controls the property.

So the reason I'm saying this is because my daughter lived in a place down in Provo that was charging— it was— they All of the tenants, or all of the— they were splitting the whole water bill, the whole electricity bill between everyone, even the vacant apartments, everything there. And yet they were telling them that they were billing them for their own individual use, that that would vary on their own individual use. So I believe— now, Chris, maybe you know about this, but there were, there were some lawsuits filed and there were some problems. With that situation down there where it was disclosed what this, what this owner was doing at this complex. I just feel I'd like to have some protections for the renters in here that they have the opportunity to come in and view the usage on their meter. I mean, if we're talking about conservation, we're always encouraging conservation. Why wouldn't we let someone see? And I get a thing from the gas company. doing better than your neighbors or worse than your neighbors or whatever all the time. Why wouldn't we allow them to view their, their impact? Is that our decision? Can we make that decision?

If I could add, um, there's usually just one volume or one data set that's there, and it's not divided among the basement versus the upper. And so there's no way of knowing who's using more or less. And So, in some instances, there are apartment facilities or buildings that have an individual meter on every single unit.

That's very rare.

99% of the time, it's just 1 meter servicing, and then they bill it out.

I thought that's what you just said, is they each have a meter.

I'm saying, so this is specific to, as you see from the top, commercial stat, non-residential buildings. We already do that for residents, so we would need to look into what we can and can't do in that relation. So this is making the commercial ones when it's an entire building. Yeah, yeah, making it match what we already do for residential.

Business.

So was part of this part of, um, an effort also to know who is at each address? who the owner is at each address to help us focus in on that, because we had a lot of illegal rentals that we didn't know who was there and who was— if there's a first responder need, or if there are other concerns, city didn't know who to reach out to. I think this kind of helped us hone in on that as the owner. This is who's responsible. This was part of a further step of—

This is all—

of that information.

This is commercial property.

This is— this piece is, yes. So, in other words, commercial, we can look into how to educate tenants. See what's possible there and figure out a path for how do we educate tenants. But from, in terms of billing and collections, want it to be clear and to not have any conflicts that the owner of residential or nonresidential units They have to pay the bill. They're responsible. They're the ones that are in charge of the account ultimately.

I guess I'm bringing up something different.

Correct. And I, I understand what you're saying. Yes, we can look into that and try to potentially address that, whether that be through ordinance or whether that just be through policy. Um, you know, we can work with—

I see what you're trying to do, but thank you for I appreciate you bringing that up.

I don't know the exact answer to that. So we'll have to look into what can they have access to and not have access to, and what would we need from a point of if they— if the landlord hasn't given them access, can they provide us something that we could rely upon to provide them with? Maybe just usage information only, right? We wouldn't want to share potentially the dollar amounts or anything of that nature, but we potentially shared usage, but we would want to talk about—

So we're not complicit if this is happening as what was happening down there.

Sure.

So I understand. So yeah, we can, we can go back and take a look at that particular component.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Yes. So in a commercial situation where somebody's leasing the whole building, The owner, it's still in their name, correct?

Yep, and they have to then determine, similar to landlords, if they have someone else who is doing, you know, in charge of renting out the building, 3rd party, and they would have to give access to that 3rd party to be able to control and monitor that utility account.

They serve as a collections agent.

We're far more successful at collecting bills with owners versus just—

And I'm Flora Meekums-Geller.

I just want to play it back, make sure I understand it, because it's taking me a while to get it. This makes sense if I hear Brent right, because we will be more successful at collecting Very much so.

Okay.

So that seems like a reasonable motivation. How does the commercial piece that you're trying to change compare to what we do with residential?

That's what we're changing. Residential currently does not allow— it has to be the owner of the property.

So we're just aligning it with residential.

We're aligning commercial with what we already do for residential.

And then to Lenee's points, Right, the 2 issues that I'm hearing, which I'm, you know, seem like issues to me.

Interested in, yeah.

Potential for abuse because the tenant doesn't have the information, right? Which means that a landlord who is dishonest would charge them for what they're not using.

Actually.

And then number 2, motivation to conserve, right? Which again, When you measure something, you're more likely to try to do better. So if they don't have the ability to measure it, that means that the data that would help them conserve is missing. So if I'm right, I'm hearing you say that those are still potential issues and that one way of resolving those issues is providing feedback on usage to the tenant and that you're looking into that.

Yeah, so we'll take that in and see how, if a tenant wants that information but the landlord is not giving them access to their account, how can they potentially get access to that information?

Did I get that right?

I think that's what—

That's my understanding.

In other words, the proposed amendment tonight only addresses the first item, uh, in that, uh, bills only owners.

Yeah.

The 2 additional items of providing usage information and educating on water conservation Would be follow-up items that we would do separately outside of this proposed amendment.

Okay, I don't want us to forget about this.

So I will say, keep in mind, a large number of our landlords just charge a flat fee. So you just pay a flat utility fee.

And that's actually okay, as you know, but that— I'm just telling you, I personally know what happened with this thing, and it was crazy. The, the utilities that were being charged because my daughter was not in her room all summer, and yet they went up for air conditioning that she's supposed— you know, it was just— and it was a— and just, it was a BYU law student that actually sued the complex because he lived there and he saw what was going down. So yeah, I just want to— is the more housing we get, I just feel like let's, let's just see if we can figure out a way to not have that happen. And Protect everybody.

What's the current status with nonpayment on commercial entities? Is it higher, or is there a reason for that? I wouldn't say it's higher. We've had a, if you will, a rash of them lately, and that's what prompted us to look at this. And they noticed that they're different when that— we started looking into that. And so we thought, why, why, what's The logic appears, seems to be the same for both. So why, why does one— if we made the determination that being a landlord is a commercial, and why would we treat commercial differently than we just said the residential commercial is the same thing, right? Unless it's a large— for example, some of the large commercial entities, someone may own the property, but they're almost like a silent entity. commercial leaseholder controls everything and does everything, does all repairs. So, so they basically are like, in your case, someone who would pay for everything, and then you're going to push it back onto probably a silent— in some commercial entities that I'm aware of, they would have to give— allow them access to that account.

Yes.

Do our new meters, do they detect leaks?

Yes.

Yes, assuming they're working properly.

Yeah.

Okay.

It just says on averages, it tells you how many gallons per day, per hour.

Yeah.

Well, what I'm wondering is just, that would be another thing too, is if the land— if the property owner just says, oh, you know what, your water bill, your tenant, was $500 this month, or $1,000, and then there was a leak or something, and the landlord just was just passing on the cost rather than The challenge with all of this discussion is that if you have master meters and multiple users based on 1 meter, there's no way of knowing of where the source of the problem exists. That's true.

Single use, and that's probably cost prohibitive. And that's—

there's a reason why we don't do that.

We have over 1,000 units on University Parkway on the University Crossing. They come through 2 meters. For 1,000 units. And most of our commercial businesses have multiple units and tenants. 1 master meter for multiple units, different uses. Some have a higher demand, some have a lower demand. How they manage and understand how that's billed, that's up to the owner. We don't get involved with that at all, and we, we can't determine where the leaks are.

It's—

commercial is very particularly challenging because Uses are very dynamic and change for the different businesses and productions that are—

or the tenants that are there.

Yeah, we have one storm that has about 100 residential units, 2 meters. If they have leaks anywhere between those 2 meters, we don't know where they are.

They don't know where they are.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing from a water conservation perspective? It's not good, but it is what it is.

we would have to put meters in every single one of those units.

It's a private HOA for that whole development to be able to resolve that problem or help to resolve the problem. So it's not an easy fix, but it is, it is a problem that's clearly identified.

Okay, thank you. Um, Mayor and Council, I'll put, uh, Carrie and strategy innovation team and Pete and the communications team that were On record to committing to follow up on the 2 items of water conservation education and looking into how we can get strictly usage data to the tenants. Our group can look into that particular component. We can work with legal and determining how to get access. Water conservation, sure. All right, just want to make sure we had staff commitment in a public meeting.

I appreciate that. Thank you. Next item is a presentation on partner cities. Uh, presenter is Jenica Jones, Strategy and Innovation Director. Jenica, while you're— while you're setting up, I got— I left something upstairs. I'm gonna run up and grab that, but go ahead and get started. I'll be right back.

Okay. Okay. Yeah, we'll just go ahead and get started. So, well, Sharon, really look back. So this is Sarah Monson. She is an intern on my team. So just introducing her, she'll be helping out in the presentation today. She's done a lot of research. So we're excited to be here tonight and share this initiative with you. And we want this to be interactive and would value your feedback throughout the presentation. So please feel free to chime in as we go throughout this. So the idea of this is, we were asked earlier this year to look into the idea of establishing kind of a network of cities that face similar challenges to Orem. And this is something that ties into what we're always trying to do at Orem, that we're always trying to do things better, trying to learn, trying to grow. And so this is one way that we can tag on to that and continue to innovate and, you know, learn from other people, uh, and really become the best city that we—

Yeah.

Something that's really unique about city government is that unlike kind of the corporate world, cities are really often willing to share information and lessons they've learned. We've seen that a lot in our team as we've reached out to other cities, and because we all face similar challenges. At the core, we all have to provide services to our residents. We have to, you know, do that on the day-to-day, but there's a lot of similarities in what we do. A lot of times we go about it in a different way, but there's a lot of similarities, things to be learned. So today we'll just be going through kind of the background and benefits of this initiative. Sarah will talk about the decision criteria scoring matrix for some proposed cities, and then we'll talk about the structure and what this could look like moving forward. So again, why, why are we looking at this initiative? So we all know that Orem is actually the best city that possibly exists, but—

You're here.

Amen.

But gives you—

and it's very unique. We know Orem's very unique, and it's kind of our setting in the western United States, which Where we are geographically along the Wasatch Front, set up in proximity to nearby cities, the presence of our university, strong sales tax basis, all these things that make Orem what we are. But there are cities that face similar challenges to us, both within Orem or within the state of Utah and outside of that. And so again, there's potential to learn and grow from that, from cities that face similar challenges. We see a lot of potential with this because just as we have things that we want to learn about There's other cities that face challenges that maybe it's something that we've gone through and have been successful in, and they would want to learn about that, or something that some of these other cities have dealt with similar challenges, and we can just, again, all grow and improve together. And we also see significant benefits that it's a really low-cost, high-yield initiative. We have staff and elected officials spending countless hours researching and implementing policies, Practices, programs, and this would be able to make that time more efficient and effective as they would be able to partner directly with staff and elected officials from other cities to be able to, again, make that time more efficient and effective. So, kind of not to beat a dead horse, but there are a lot of benefits to this. There's a lot of time and money savings using that efficiencies in the staff and elected official time. Lead to time and money savings, really long-term cost savings. We can adopt lessons that are learned from other cities, maybe avoid some of the pitfalls and expensive mistakes they had, especially if those aren't public, or there's not a way for us to know that they went through some of these things unless we take the time to work with them and figure this out. Again, with improved benchmarking, something that my team's constantly looking at is, you know, how are we doing things versus how is another city doing things? But this will really enable All of us to kind of dig down and understand how other cities are allocating staff time, resources to things, and maybe see potentials for improvements in the ways that we do things. And another benefit is giving us a stronger legislative voice. We deal with problems and challenges of things that we have to do because of, you know, something the state or federal government tells us, or things that we sometimes have the opportunity to do, but sometimes. It's really not just an issue with us, it's more an issue with the whole system. And we will be able to better identify these things, you know, oh, we're facing these challenges, you are too, and kind of band together to improve that voice and take it to the state or federal level to advocate for some change that could bring about positive changes for us and for other communities. Yeah, Brian.

Jenica, do any specific examples come to mind? That's in the last 10 years.

I mean, a lot. I think back to even like starting with the efficiency study. That's kind of, uh, we started looking at some of these things. That was a huge exercise in, okay, how are we doing things? And sometimes the answer isn't we need to do it exactly like this other city, but we understand why they did it a different way, and we can better defend why we make the decisions we do. But With that, and then again, yeah, my team is constantly looking at things like this, but it's kind of an ad hoc, like, oh, we want to maybe look at this position that we're doing or a new program. And so it's, it's really just formalizing that and expanding it.

I would just add to that, we're, by creating this group, we're breaking down those barriers of being able to communicate with those cities directly, right? So that we have that point of contact that we can reach out to.

Yeah, yeah. And always have the right person, because sometimes with these issues we reach out, but it may not always be like, you know, the decision maker or someone that can really help us understand the whole motivation behind something.

So I think this, I think this was a factor when even implementing Hometown. And when we look at benefits or we look at kind of the range of utility fee charges or look at internal policies. These are all different examples. When we kind of changed our focus a few years ago with our library and wanted to look at what does it mean to have an experiential library and draw people to come to the library to experience Than just reading. Anyway, I just wanted to be clear on some examples of the primary benefits that Jenick is talking about in principle.

There's been—

we've seen these benefits in practice.

Well, and I think we've seen— I've just— things that I've seen, you do, especially the My Hometown. That was huge, right? We had other cities to look to, but then we had to customize it, which kind of gave us a benefit because we were already looking at mistakes they've made. Yeah, or, you know, and then code enforcement too. That was huge, right? So anyway, great things.

Yeah. Okay, now I'm going to turn the time over to Sarah to kind of talk about cities that we looked at and our evaluation for that. Okay, so for our research, we initially looked at 22 cities across the western United States. We were looking for cities with similar population, demographics, culture, and university presence, as all of these are major factors in how a city feels and operates. We included a lot of Utah cities in our research because we already share and collaborate with them on a lot of things, as we've just discussed. We also acknowledge that Utah is very unique in that we have a lot of large cities in a relatively small metro area. However, it was also important to us that we evaluated other cities from the western United States to try and find the best matches for Orem, even if those cities exist across state lines. After compiling research on all of these cities, we wanted to develop an objective way to evaluate them and compare them to Orem. So we built a model to score the cities and rank them according to how well they match Orem. So this model we built uses the scoring method where you set criteria and then assign weights to those criteria. So the higher the weight, the more a city's score in that category would count towards their final score and ranking. So all of these scores were added up and given a final weighted score for each city, which we could then rank and determine which cities were closest peer match to Orem. A note on the visual here on the slide: the top row is the criteria weighted the highest, and the bottom row is the criteria weighted the lowest. Within each row, those criteria are all weighted the same to each other. The model is built so that we can change the weights if needed to reflect what we feel is most important. So starting on the top row with the criteria that was weighted most heavily in our model, we have population around 100,000, so similar to Orem, and the young families criteria. To look for similar family demographics, we looked at both the median age in the city as well as the persons per household. This criteria was crucial to us defining peers for Orem because both population and family demographics influence resources, services a city needs to provide, provide, as well as what kind of issues are important to the residents who live there. The next level of criteria considered in this model were similar voter demographics. This was done using the 2024 presidential election results. These voter preferences reflect what issues might be important to the residents living there and influences the kind of things that cities may decide they need to legislate on and guide policy decisions. We also looked for a similar college landscape. So we're looking at both on-campus student population in that city as well as student population that might be within 15-minute drive of that city and how that student population as a whole compares to the overall resident population of the city. So kind of what that impact of that university is on that city. This criteria was important for us to look at because the presence of a university has a big impact on a city. As we know, universities affect what kind of services a city provides, public safety needs, employment opportunities, and much more. Finally, in this level of weighted criteria, we looked at similar build-out status.

So where we—

which we measured by comparing population to the projected 2050 population for that city. Buildout, as you know, affects a lot of the constraints a city faces in terms of what kind of economic development they're seeking, how they can support growing families within their city. Finally, um, still crucial to our model, but weighted the lowest, we looked at similar affordability using a ratio of median household income compared to median home value in that city. As well as we looked at poverty rates. Housing affordability and poverty are indicative of community needs and challenges. We also looked at if a city was in a similar size metropolitan area, as this affects the kind of broader resources available to both the city and the residents, and some of the limitations and constraints that city might face. We can go on to the next slide. So, according to—

Was that 800,000 people? What was your 800?

Yeah, so that's the metro area. So, like, that's the metropolitan statistical area.

Utah County.

Yeah.

The Provo-Orem area for everybody.

About 800,000.

Yes, you got it. So according to the criteria that we evaluated that I just laid out, the best matches for Orem are Provo, Lehi, and Ogden. So we have those listed here as Tier 1. Our Tier 2 cities, which represent cities that still scored high, just not as high as that Tier 1 group, are Layton, Kennewick, Spokane Valley, Nampa, and Sparks. As I mentioned earlier, we designed this model to be an objective way to look at all of the cities we researched to find what would be the closest match to Orem. However, these are just the results of the model, and they can change according to the wishes of the council if you feel strongly about changing any of these cities, changing how we weighted the criteria, and so on.

Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not sure why we're going outside the state.

Yeah, yeah. So we wanted to expand it. We work a lot with cities in our state already on issues, but we wanted to see, are there cities across state lines that still face similar challenges, and there's opportunities to learn. There would be different challenges, you know, they might face different constraints from their state legislatures, but there's potentially programs or things that they still have to offer. We can help them with things. So we just wanted to see, I mean, we can exclude or include all Utah, but if we look at all those 22 cities that we looked at, which are the most similar to Orem based on these criteria?

I like the, I like the mix on that because we do, like you said, we've had— we do have those relationships with some of these other cities within the state. But to me, I was just whispering to Brian, I saw that list. I said, I did not going to mention the city. I said, oh, I hope we don't match up with— nameless that. But I was— but these are cities I never thought of.

Yeah.

Out-of-state ones, and to think that they might have some Some perspectives that would be helpful and have had experiences.

I guess it depends on what we're using this for. How are we matching up with them, right? Because some of the things are not going to match up.

Right. Yeah. And I think—

We're in the desert.

Maybe some quick examples that are ideas or programs that have maybe come from across state lines. Uh, um, looking at Ironman. Who would— an awesome Ironman. When we were looking at Heart of Orem and how to, you know, make an extra activated supportive arts area, our Taste of Orem came from outside of state lines. When we were recently looking at potential impacts and/or benefits related to a potential large amphitheater, we looked outside of state lines. I can go to those anytime. Those are just sort of quick examples that come to mind. Again, there's just additional data that helps weigh in, and there's another data point to take into account, but it isn't necessarily always going to be used for every single thing we do.

And I think we— I'm just saying we have— when, you know, we've got to clarify that for those listening in, that these— this is not just one big We're going to use it based on what we need it for, like the particular situation we're going to be in. What does this other city in Washington or Nevada do that we— that is our same demographic population, whatever?

Yeah, and we wanted to verify that. Yeah, we'll talk about that a little bit in the implementation, but as we move through this, there may be certain topics or things that are only salient to a subset of these cities. You know, not every single one of these univers— or these cities has a university, obviously. Lehi and Layton do not. And so even within the state, there's a lot of things that we can work with those cities on and some things that maybe a city outside of the state is a better match for that. So thanks for clarifying.

I failed to mention one example that if Chief Sanderson was here, he would, he would be speaking up. Our fire training facility and ambulances came from kind of outside of state lines.

Yeah, so we wanted it to still be regional, so that's why we focused on the western United States, but Like state lines.

And then just here's a map of where those proposed cities are in relation to Orem.

And I'll turn the time back over to Jenica to talk about what's next. So again, kind of what do we see this looking like moving forward? And we want this again to have your input, but the first step we would see is an official invitation to these other cities. We would draft a message that we could send from our city council, city administration, kind of explaining the program. invite— telling them why they're selected, inviting them to join the partnership, and then follow up with those cities. I'd imagine a lot of them may have questions, may not really understand what it is at first, and we would want to work with them and help them see, you know, what are the issues you're facing? How could this benefit you? We've tried to do our research as far as, you know, what are current issues they're facing that may be similar to us, but there's a lot that we don't know without talking to them. And then this would lead into a governing board for this group depending on the cities that ultimately end up being part of it. We would want all of the cities to be invested and committed to this partnership. And so being able to have direction from all of them, we feel like will help it be successful if we have stakeholders from us, an elected official, staff member from all of the cities to be able to shape what that looks like and provide that input. And to your point, you know, figure out what's the issues that we can work on as a whole group or as a subgroup. And so we're just kind of formalizing a committee there that— or a board that can do that. This board would be responsible for establishing working groups, meeting schedules, and determining exactly what that looks like depending on, again, the issues that they want to focus on based on the whole group and setting regular meeting schedules. And then it would continue to iterate. We would want to Continue to grow the program, we would, you know, maybe tackle one issue and then move on to the next. So any questions on this?

I love it.

I do too. Love it.

What sample— what sample issues are you— Yeah, so I'm not gonna jump in yet. I gotta hear this whole thing because I don't want to lose my legislative power to No.

Oh, no.

You can lose it to a group of cities. Well, it can. I mean, it can if they say, you know, this is what we think your city should do. And this, you know, depending on how— I've just seen it happen in other areas, right? Depending on how it's packaged, it can then make you look like the bad guy if you're not following this advice from this group of people who have a broad spectrum of opinions and ideas and Data. And, and you see what I'm saying? Yeah, that's what we're going to hear from this is, is this going to usurp our—

I don't think it will. I think it's just a place to gather. I understand what you're saying.

Yeah, I'm just saying, I don't think so. We just have to be cautious with this because that, you know, you have to be gutsy if something that's going to stand up and just say, okay, you know what? I'm not disagreeing with this. I'm just trying to throw out what we— the cautions that we need to be aware of.

Yeah.

Yeah, something like this.

Yeah, I understand that, and I agree. I think the thing that's important to keep in mind is that this board or this group of cities wouldn't have any governing power. I mean, it's an information sharing way between departments and elected officials, but at the end of the day, each city takes that information back and has to implement and choose how they want to do it. We may end up doing something completely different than another city. But we understand, or we might be able to understand why they went a different direction.

And so to me, the idea is these cities are bringing us their best ideas, and we're all sifting through those and saying what our experience is, what theirs is, and hopefully coming up with some options, you know. And then that's what's being then presented to, to our staff and then to us to consider in our city.

I also, I also see commiserating. I think if you get together with this group, these groups are going to say, Oh, man, you know what? We've got— we love the university we have in our town, but we have these issues. We're gonna be like, yeah, you know what? We do too. I think there's gonna be some therapy in there, commiseration, and say, what are you doing? What's working? What's not working? I think it's—

yeah.

And then we just come back and say, then you said sift through it, say, okay, what would make sense here? And does it make sense? So I'm gonna sort through that way. Oh, sorry.

Are we wanting to Do this with as many of those cities that you listed as possible? I mean, are we going— it feels a little bit like a dating app where we're reaching out, you know, do we swipe left or right?

I don't know what that means.

Are we going to try and get multiple cities versus just 1 or 2 cities? Yeah, it's an even bigger perspective.

Diversity.

Yeah, ideally, I mean, a significant portion of them. I don't know. Again, it depends what they have going on, their ability to be part of this program. But I think more— the more information, the better. Again, we work with some of the nearby cities, especially on a lot of things, not in this way exactly, but being able to expand that. But we don't want, you know, 20 cities on, on in this group, that may be too many what we're looking at if we're trying to focus and actually make concrete decisions.

So we have some that say not interested. It may have some that are like, yeah, this is a great idea, we would love to collaborate and work together.

Yeah, we kind of see this as like the biggest group size. And so depending, you know, maybe some of these cities aren't able to do it at this time. And so is there a chance maybe we move down the list? There's cities that scored close to some of these cities, and there's potential that we could move to that.

If I could commit us and emphasize that we would use the information like we do with our other comparative analysis efforts. We would be transparent about it. We would show you the range and the source of the information. And that would just be, again, a data point, an arrow in the quiver, so to speak, for then you all to make decisions with. And then maybe, maybe an example, we would want to use this to act, not necessarily to be acted upon. So in other words, I think we have things that we want to look into, you know, that Utah County Commissioner Skyler Beltran has been trying to reach out to a lot of cities, encouraging them to, to try and build an ice sheet center anywhere in the county. Spokane, Washington, we've heard as we've been, you know, looking at other locations that have them here, they've got a great one that's both ice sheet and kind of track and field oriented and all indoor and everything. And so we'd want to, you know, now that we know that they've got some other similarities to us, Uh, we want to be able to, um, go and proactively use this research to inform us. Okay, now how could we propose the best potential IC center proposal to the county and get transient room tax grants or Utah Outdoor Recreation grants, et cetera, or Utah Mammoth grants to make a project like that happen?

So.

Okay.

Anyway, to emphasize transparency and—

And I think too, this— I like this because it helps establish ORM, or could help establish ORM as a regional leader in these types of things. For example, I'm thinking, for example, Ryan and I went to the Town and Gown Conference in Texas. One of the things— this is a place where Lots of universities, and a lot of what they were talking about was alcohol culture. And where that might not be particularly an issue here in our community, but maybe we would have some of these other communities, I mean, perhaps in other states, because it seems to be something that's more outside of Utah than just because of our liquor laws, but maybe helping them connect. But if we could be a convener too and show that we're Putting out this effort saying we want, we want to talk, not that we're gonna have alcohol issues, but what maybe we can connect the other ones that have common issues that we don't have anything to do with, but at least help facilitate the exchange of ideas amongst them as well.

Yeah, great point. So, yeah, these are some of the broad types of issues, but we wanted to have your feedback as well. If As we look into this, is there certain issues that you would be most interested in learning about from other cities, things that you'd like to add to the list, things like that?

Yeah, not just preservation, but also kind of rejuvenation, or Ogden's very good at that.

Yeah, they have a lot of—

yeah, they would have, but I wish we had some of those, just those kinds of ideas. Revitalization. Yeah, perfect.

That was a great list.

Say yes to all of it.

Yeah, I'm like, every one of them, there's things we want to learn, and we're constantly working on every single one of these. And again, some of all the other cities are too. So we just see there being a lot of value in this. We do it again informally as we look into this specific code or this specific type of issue, but this is just establishing it as structure and formal framework for us to all be able to do that on a regular basis.

I'm okay with everything. I'm a little nervous about the board. Okay, just be upfront there. I'm always nervous when— I mean, we've seen it around us even where things happen with people who give authority. Yeah, and I would want all of the information to come to us as a city council versus Yeah, not knowing the viewpoints or the people, you know, I can see a point how vetting is wise. Having some people do some work initially is good, but I wouldn't want it to be so narrowed to where this is our recommendation on that point, right? I would like to see it be what it should— what I truly— it sounds like you're describing is really a collaboration of ideas.

Mm-hmm.

bring, that we can bring to our city. So that's why I say this board, the way it was described, I'm kind of like, oh, wait a minute, let's just make sure that that stays very broad, very, um, almost collaborative is the way I would see it, is just them sharing ideas, each city, and then everybody just taking notes on what they need, taking it back to their city.

Yeah.

Am I—

that's the way I would envision it.

Is that—

That's the intent of this.

Okay.

The way I look at it is it's like—

I envisioned that too. Creator space.

that we can network together and think of or talk about our issues or things that we've done that are outside of the box that other cities might not have thought of.

I think this is just maturing our Strategy and Innovation Division.

This is just— we've done a really great job of all the great ideas that we've come up internally, and now we want to bring other ideas in to us.

Absolutely.

Yes.

And also, oh, maybe to emphasize the point, rather than calling it a board, we could call Your city collaboration team or something.

And I think an important thing to say is, though our form of government is very unusual in Utah, it's very common outside the state of Utah. So I, I would be interested to know if those cities have our same form of government.

Do you want me to look at that?

Well, that makes a difference on how qualified the— I don't mean this rude at all, but how, how really involved, maybe is a better word, the city council is in the day-to-day. the city. You know, we're not— we're part-time. Some of these other cities might have more engaged council members, and our strength is in our staff. Yeah, knowledge is more in our staff. So just thoughts.

Yeah, and I'll just say one more thing on the board. So our vision for the board is more just a planning group for like just determining those meetings and the structure and content of what are we going to discuss at this next thing, just to have Investment from all the cities. So it's not just one city saying, this is what we're going to do because this is what we want to learn. We would like all cities to be able to have that opportunity. But again, no decision-making power. It's more just planning behind the scenes. Elected officials, staff are invited to these meetings that are happening on salient topics, and then they go back and take that information, make their own decisions.

And actually, I appreciate what the mayor said about, you know, we're commiserating But I actually would really hope that we go to this and everybody is talking about their successes.

Oh yeah, they'll do that too.

How to share.

Mostly that.

You spend the first half hour, 20 minutes commiserating, and then it's like you have to get it out of your system. You go, yes, you want success.

The reason why we need to add a topic on there that says prove how awesome Orange is.

We don't have to prove—

I'm just— okay, Jenica, I'm just throwing this out there because what I said is what I'm going to hear when I leave this meeting. I'm going to have people say to me those things that I said to you. So, yeah, no, we have all the responses. They were very good, by the way. So hopefully we answered questions in front of people's questions. They were able to hear the vision.

Yeah, thank you.

I just wanted to mention one thing. The reason why we thought of a board or an oversight Is, is not to lead everything, but so that everybody has some ownership in this, so it doesn't just die away, or all the burden is on Jenica's team to keep that group going.

Where if everybody has some ownership in it, then, then it will continue to blossom and grow.

And I can see, I can see some great synergy coming from that in those meetings where we have our events team show up and share what they're doing to have such great success at everything that they do. Because some of these cities may be in a situation where they're saying, we're trying to get this taste of Kennewick going and nobody shows up, you know. So I, I, I can see a lot of really good synergy happening from this.

And I was just in Denver this last summer. Oh, because my daughter was there, and I saw some housing things that I see they're trying to bring here, and I saw the failures there. And so I think, to the mayor's point of commiserating, we— I would love to hear those things that they're commiserating on. Yeah, so we don't make those same mistakes.

Just as important, if not more so, to learn from failures or struggles.

Yeah, that's great.

Any other questions? Final thoughts?

This is great.

Amazing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, brings us to the next item on our discussion, our work session, and it's a discussion. It's, it's the one— it does kind of feel— probably Jake feels this way— you kind of feel like the show Groundhog Day, the movie. The arms got off. I got you, babe. And anyway, um, so, um, Jake, I know that we— it says here 90 minutes. We're behind, which is no surprise. Um, so I just wanted to— I would, I would hope that we can have a stop at 5:35 to 5:40 because I would like council Member Meekum to be able to give his, his report. We put him off last week, last meeting, and so I'd like him to have that opportunity to do that. And council, because we're behind a little bit, uh, I would just like to ask that we don't ask— just, I'd like to have, uh, Jake be able to get through his whole presentation.

Well, but wait, but we're, we're crafting an ordinance here, so we need to talk about it.

But yes, but if we get to the presentation, we get the holistic, and then go back I don't know. How long is your pre— how long was the presentation?

You don't want us to make decisions as we go? What do you prefer?

What I am going to propose is let me present. There will be points where I will ask a question. Maybe that will prompt a discussion. I will be very paying attention to the time. I may have to wrap that discussion up and move on. I would like to try to get through the different waypoints that we have. Because what I would like to have, hopefully, from the council leaving tonight is that we at least pick a trail to walk down. We may not have that trail completely blazed, but at least we know which trail we're walking down.

Okay, okay, we'll at 5 o'clock take that brief break. Um, that's when we can— we'll offer a blessing on the food and we'll eat and we'll continue. So So we'll follow, we'll follow what you, how you want to. You're the guide, and that's what you want. I just want to make sure that we can get through as much as we possibly can. And I know you have a presentation to do.

So anyway, not to interrupt, but is this an OREM short-term rental right here?

No, this was an AI-generated National Park Lodge. We're out for a hike.

Okay.

We're back on the hike. Didn't want to trigger anybody, so we're talking about mountains. Okay, so as I, as I left last week's, uh, 2 weeks ago, the meeting from last time, um, we, we went through talking about owner-occupied as the framework from which we're operating under. We talked about some common language, and there was some concerns raised, and we'll be amending some language about the 24-hour rental period. To make that actually mirror how somebody would use an Airbnb, and then licensing enforcement, amending some language there as well. A reminder here, right now we are talking as though we are in an owner-occupied-only world. Okay, so as we work through this regulation, we are in an owner-occupied world. Um, as I said, we already have got our validation stickers for the first 3 waypoints, and now we're going to work through density, qualitative restrictions, parking, rental restrictions, occupancy, and then hopefully get to the last point, the exceptions to any owner occupant. Okay, so, as I said, think about this as we talk about the different waypoints. We're trying to get to a summit here of some type. We need to pick a trail. Start considering which trail you want to be. As I see it, there are potentially 3 different options. There may be other options that I don't see yet. And if the council has different options they would like to propose, I'm absolutely happy to hear and go down that other, that other option. But as I kind of see it, option 1 is that we move forward with an only owner-occupied framework. For an award. Option 2 would be that there's an owner-occupied framework with a provision in there for a limited one-time licensure. That would be what we had previously talked about as a legacy.

Illegals, the ones that are currently illegal. I don't like the legacy word. That's not a legacy in our city right now.

So again, there would be a limited one-time licensure window to license. The 3rd option would be to run basically simultaneously, a framework for an owner occupied, and then as a separate ordinance that would live or die by itself, the idea of this limited one-time licensure exception. Again, there may be other options out there, but as, as we go through this, start thinking about what trail you may be willing to start walking down. And, uh, First issue we want, um, the waypoint is density spacing and any sort of limitations for owner occupied, uh, as far as requiring ADUs. Um, previously, as we've done, we've discussed this idea of density spacing or numerical caps. It's always applied solely to the non-owner occupied realm. Um, council members had raised some concerns about You know, do we need to limit this? Do we need to have this apply also to the owner occupied? So I wanted to have the conversation with the council first, particularly talking about density. What does that look like? We could, again, as we've talked about this through a non-owner occupied lens, it would be that there couldn't be an STR within a 1,000-foot radius of another STR. If you were to adopt that same language into the owner occupied with the same perimeter, it would potentially limit the number of STRs within the city somewhere. If Gemini is correct, and we all know AI is correct 100% of the time, somewhere between 130 to 165 STRs. Within the city, and that would be owner occupied. And so, as you can see, you zoom out, that circle doesn't look very big. Get closer into the neighborhoods. It is, it is pretty, a pretty big radius there that it's owner occupied. When we talk about spacing, this would be a limitation that an STR could not be within 1,000 feet as a pedestrian would walk from an elementary, middle, or junior high school. Now, I don't have the GIS skills to, to figure out that pedestrian space. So, this map simply represents a 1,000-foot radius centered on The elementary, middle school, or the junior high. This is what it potentially looks like, but don't hold me to those exact circles because I am not a GIS specialist. Um, and then when we talk about numerical cap, this would be setting a hard limit for the number of STR licenses that the city would issue. In the past, we've talked about how many housing units are available, how many of those are owner occupied, and what that percentage looks like. So, as you can see, there are approximately 16,500 single-family homes within the city. Of those, 81% are owner occupied.

Or 14,531.

So where would the council, if we were to put a numerical cap on an owner-occupied limit for the number of licenses we'd issue, where would the council be comfortable with? That's a rhetorical question at this point. I want you to consider that. Where, where is that comfort limit? Is there a comfort limit? Is there a need for numerical cap? There's also been discussion in the past about requiring anybody that wants to operate an STR within an owner-occupied landscape that they are required to have an ADU permit prior. Some of the arguments for that is, if you're going to segregate the home, The 2 living spaces, you want the city one to be notified as to where that STR is within the parcel itself. And also, these potentially could turn into long-term rentals. So, at the same time, it would make sense to outright license them as an ADU permit at the, at the time it's created. Also, that helps a little bit with potentially tax collection of of property taxes. If you're identifying what part of the property is to be rented as opposed to be lived in, it may help assess correctly property taxes within the city. So there are some benefits there. Now, there are obviously some negatives to that is anytime you go in to do an ADU permit, there are some pretty— there are quite a few different requirements you have to do to get your ADU permit.

One of the—

probably the most complex would be if the property is out of compliance with any sort of building code, it may be required to bring that section of the building up to code standards to get your ADU permit.

Okay.

So it could be costly. So that would be the negative side of that. Now is where I'm going to open it up for Are there any, any positive or negative feels about anything I've just talked about as far as where the council sits on these requirements within an owner-occupied landscape?

Do you have the number on how many licensed ADUs we have in the city right now?

I do not have that number.

I have that question right, right here.

If I just—

Gary, Ryan, any idea?

I can get that. Just 1 minute. Ask a clarifying question. When you were talking about the number of units in the city, I think that was part of your density conversation. That includes townhomes, condos, anything where there's an owner in it, or are you saying townhomes and condos are not relevant because they're not big enough? What is your Feeling there?

I don't—

when I reference single family, I was talking where I would think it would most likely be practical to hold one. Now, our ordinance wouldn't prevent them from occurring within a townhome. I think it'd be much harder to segregate and get an ADU within a townhome, and it may be prohibited in a townhome. Um, it would just be much more difficult.

That's connected to the ADU discussion.

Um, so when we, when we talk about, again, these are broken down by numbers. So single-family, townhomes, and those numbers are different. 16,500 single-family homes where there are 3,227 twin homes or townhomes. When you're saying of our single-family homes, only 1,978 That is according to data compiled from the last census.

Yes.

In 2020?

In 2020.

Do we have— do we know how many rental licenses we have in the city?

Again, I don't have the number of how many landlord or residential dwelling licenses have been issued.

Yes, ma'am.

I recognize the expense of creating and having to create an accessory dwelling unit in order to have it have something like this. I just have a clarifying question. I'm going to make a comment. So, in an ADU, the owners could live in the basement. They could live in the ADU and rent out the top. They can do that now. So it's just as the owner has to live. In one of the units, correct?

As we define owner occupied in the ordinance, we could define it that they have to live on the parcel. So we don't have to require them to live in a primary portion. Okay. They just have to live on the parcel.

I recognize, I recognize the cost, but what I'm concerned about is creating between creating kind of a parallel, I say, parallel universe to the ADUs, the ADUs, and they're running legally and they're for long-term renters. And then we have our— we have a short-term rental license, but that's not tied to the ADU. That's a— that's something that looks like the ADU, but doesn't quite meet the ADU. And I, I don't know if the parking requirements are going to be the same as the ADU. I'm just concerned that there could be confusion later on, especially if, let's say, the STR doesn't work out. And, and somebody starts wanting to rent it out as an accessory apartment when it isn't a legal accessory apartment. So I do have that concern.

And I think you answered the mayor's question in a way that answers one of my questions. But when somebody goes in and gets an ADU licensed, right, it's for a particular portion of the home. And I'm imagining a situation where You know, older single person or an older single couple. They don't have a big home that they raise their kids in. And they don't need to live in that big portion.

They—

so I think I heard you right. I'm just confirming. Let's say that their ADU is mother-in-law apartment or is a basement apartment in their home. You don't see any issues with them living in that portion and have— and renting out the larger portion, which is not designated as an ADU.

So, again, within the ordinance framework itself, that's a possibility. That is a possibility. Now, are there potential issues with that outside that are collateral issues? Perhaps. Like, now, now, do you have a much larger impact on the neighborhood because the The STR could be larger than what the ADU is. Yes. Again, but as far as legally speaking within the ordinance framework, write it that way.

Yes.

Wait, are you talking STR ordinance or ADU? STR actually says you can live in one or the other. Well, we're writing the STR correct right now. Yes, I have a serious— as I thought at first, I thought no big deal, let them live wherever they want. Right, whatever portion of the house. But then I started thinking, just what you just said, we are essentially creating entire homes, ADUs, which have— I'm sorry, STRs, which have been the ones that have caused the problems. The majority of— I mean, there's been problems in owner-occupied too. Majority of the problems have been in the whole home.

Rentals.

With noise, with parking. Yeah, impact on the neighborhood. So I'm actually rethinking that. I really think that it would be wise for us to just say, if the short-term rental portion, the owner should live in the main part of the home. And the short-term rental portion should be the ADU portion. Otherwise, we're creating a situation where someone could go buy a big, huge house, put in an ADU that they're going to live in, and buy and rent that as a short-term rental, which then makes an entire big house like that Like the goat house, um, have impact on the neighborhood. Now we can say parking, we can say occupancy limits, and we've done a lot of that, but we're still— there's, you know, still those ones that have the impacts. And with us having shortened the timeframe now, where previously in a work meeting we agreed to 18 months and 2 strikes, now that was now shortened to 12 months and 3 strikes. It's going to be even harder to help that owner feel the impact of their bad tenants. Really, the control of that is going to be— is going to be felt by the neighborhood.

Jen?

I think I probably see it a little bit differently for 2 reasons. One, I think with owner-occupied, the owner is there. So if there's a party going on upstairs, they have to live with that, and I think that motivates them So that one, but with all these previous properties, whether it was Goat House or whatever, there weren't—

there wasn't a strict enforcement code.

There wasn't any strict anything written.

So I think with our strict guidelines that we're sort of creating, that doesn't give them very much wiggle room to not be good actors.

If they're not good actors, then they're gone.

So I think that policing helps, and I'm okay with them living. That's not really true because we did shut down the Goat House with the same— many of the same stipulations that we're putting in place now.

Those abuses, but that was not owner occupied, right?

Correct. And so I would just come back to, and I think part of the reason that we hadn't really had the conversations of these restrictions within the owner occupied realm was that the idea of having the owner living on premises would mitigate many of the impacts.

I have 5 houses behind me right now. I could have an investor come in. Buy those, get a couple to live in the basement, or put their kids in the basement, and then I have party houses around. These are million-dollar homes.

What is in there?

So you can rent them out for $1,500, $2,000, $5,000 a week.

I don't know that that scenario would work under what we've already talked about under the framework.

The owner-occupied—

we haven't talked about distance yet, Chris. We don't know. They may say we don't want a distance. Requirement here.

It goes back to discussing all those right now. To the common language where we went last time was the definition of owner was you have to have at least 50% interest in the property. And again, the fact scenario that you just laid out, I don't think would fit the owner-occupied.

If they make their child the owner in a trust or an LLC.

Again, if they would have to have 50% or more interest in that.

They want to give them 50% or more.

And we hold that individual accountable for mitigating the impact.

It doesn't— once again, and I'm back to the other issue, is housing supply. That house is now not going to a family. It's now being rented as a commercial venture in the neighborhood. So, and I'm not debating with you, Jake. I'm pointing out things to my fellow council members here that— but, you know, imagine that happening In your neighborhood, you've got this beautiful house. I mean, in my case, this beautiful new homes, right? If we have one of them bought up as a short-term rental, that's gonna affect the quality of the neighborhood.

Crystal.

One of the concerns that I have is, how does short-term rental— is that a verb? The main portion affect enforcement for things like parking? Because right now we have it that you have to have a space specifically for it. Well, now, if they have the main portion of the home, does the owner park on the street? Does that change how we need to address parking if we're opening that up?

Conceptually, again, would require a parking plan. Again, we haven't reached that portion of the ordinance, but There would be a parking plan requirement that would show that they would have sufficient parking spaces for the occupancy of the home that are dedicated for that STR. So they would have to show that in the parking plan they submit with their application.

So, and unlike with the ADU, where it has— it can't be on the driveway with behind the garage and all that.

The—

so we would—

portion could be in the driveway or with the garage. It could be rented.

And then again, they would have to designate that in the parking plan. These are the slots that we are dedicating for that STR use. And again, we would, we would be looking to mirror a lot of what the ADU parking plan is here too, as well as they'd have to show this is where the parking is. This is how we're allotting it. This is how it still meets The setback required. So there would still be a lot of work that they would have to show that this rental would not impact, that there would be enough parking, that guests of the STR aren't going to result in parking onto the street.

I think part of my concern is that we are putting— we're putting a lot of variability in how this can Be executed as an ordinance, which makes it a lot harder for residents to know how it's supposed to be, for law enforcement or code enforcement to know how things are supposed to be. There's just gonna end up being a lot of variability from property to property to property to know exactly how this is supposed to be for that enforcement sake. Does that make sense?

It does, and I understand that it's very nuanced here, but at the end of the day, what I'm trying to do is still create a black and white rule for the officers or NIT. As we get to the parking again, if we can document that an STR guest is parking on the street, that counts as potentially as a strike. Because it is on the STR operator to ensure that the guests are parking in the designated parking spots. That is not a requirement for the NIT officer to say, go move your car. It's going to be on the NIT officer to say, oh, is that a guest vehicle? Okay, here's your citation. That counts as a strike. We're putting the ownership back onto the person who's actually operating the STR. Trying to make it as clean as, as we can for the NIT officers.

But it's still on the neighbor to then report, and if the neighbors don't have a clear understanding Of what the laws are, or the ordinance says, because it can vary from property to property to property. We're making it a lot harder for them to get anywhere in enforcement.

Again, every property is going to be a little bit different. Every property is going to have a little bit of a nuance. But again, I'm trying to make that, that rule very black and white. STR guests cannot park on the street. STR guests are to park off street. So, That would be a very clear ability to then call and have an NIT officer respond.

The owner could park. No, well, I think in this slide he had the owner can't park on the street either. Can't make it.

We're trying to ensure that all vehicular resources are being taken off the street and put onto the property themselves.

Which is different from just a regular homeowner.

Correct.

So it's a— yeah, it's a little more stringent for somebody that that's part of the deal.

Yeah, if you want to do that, you got to be strict.

Yeah, so I'm going to go back to the ADU requirement. One thing you said is super, super key, where you said ADUs require— you're showing, oh, there's all this stuff people have to do. We've actually loosened this a lot. It used to require separate HVAC. Do we have 1 or 2 off-street parking? I mean, there was a— there's a lot that we've made a lot easier.

What's happening?

So let me finish what I'm saying here. Um, the key, and I think what the mayor has said too, that I have experience with, is the benefit to the ADU requirement is we are making sure that this area that someone will be sleeping in is safe, that is up to current codes. The biggest one that I'm familiar with is, you know, ingress/egress. To me, that's the biggest one I see. Taking an older home, they have the smaller windows in the basement, and I think our ADU requirement makes sure, you know, you have the ingress/egress, you have the GFI, you have, you know, some of these The clearance. I mean, I've heard stories from our development services of, you know, those doors aren't being big enough because of older homes. So the benefit to just saying, hey, if you're going to do an accessory dwelling unit, you know, if you're going to do it in your home, let's just make sure it's safe for whoever you have sleeping there. It's a win for you, and it's a win for them. So that's why I agree with the mayor when he talks about, yeah, let's just make sure that they are ADU. They've been through our inspections and they meet those same safety requirements.

Jake, the parking plan doesn't— the owners have to post the parking plan or include it in their advertising. They have to, they have to proactively ensure That users obey the parking plan. Yes. So in that qualitative, from one to another, it's a little bit different. Yes, they have to prove and proactively tell potential tenants, you've got to be off street.

But how do the neighbors know what the parking plan is? So if they're not following those rules, how do the neighbors that know what is and isn't allowed?

Asking about, because it included in the advertising. So, again, it comes down to— if we haven't gotten to this, but it is required as part of the qualitative restrictions that an STR operator provide basically information to their guests. And part of that is that it has a parking— what the parking expectations are, the parking plan, the parking requirements for that property. How do the neighbors know? Again, if they see STR guests coming and going and they're parking on the street, That again, trying to make it clear for those that live around it, because they may not know that, oh, parking slot number 1 in the driveway is what's designated in the STR parking plan. What matters to the neighborhood is, are they parking on the street? And so that's again, trying to simplify that rule down to a black and white, bright line rule for the neighbors and the NIT officers.

So if anybody's parking on the street—

yes, Gary, I think you have the answer on ADU numbers.

862. 862.

I have the number on landlord licenses. 3,143 landlords, uh, 4,588 properties.

Oh, so the—

say that again.

588 properties.

Say those—

say 3,143 landlords, landlord licenses issued, 4,588 properties part of those licensures. Brandon, that would mean that some landlords have more than one property within Orem.

Correct.

By landlord, it's an individual.

Yeah, but we had like 3,400 2,143.

That was the landlords, but what was the properties? 4,500. And Gary, where did your number come from? Uh, we keep track of the ADUs that we have.

Isn't it on the website? It used to be on the website.

Yes, the—

I don't know if it is now.

We do 2 things. We have a new Orem planning and zoning map that you can go in and look at. Accessory dwellings and search the statistics. It'll tell you how many, and it'll show you on the map where they are. And we also keep a secondary list, make sure miraculously they both have the exact same number as of this moment.

You are right.

And then Ryan actually did a— what was it, a Gemini search and came up with 859 according to Gemini. So pretty confident.

What did you say?

862.

Those are ADUs.

ADUs.

Yeah, we don't know if—

yes, permitted ADUs that we have tracked.

And, and we have 4,600 rentals, rental properties. So the 90— the 1,900 is 2020 is way off.

But that would also include potentially something—

come back to here—

apartments too, apartment buildings, wasn't it?

Condos, townhomes, other numbers that aren't necessarily represented in the single-family home category that I mentioned.

Okay, so 100, I think, could be one student housing project.

Ask you a question about ADUs.

Yes, sir.

Do we know of other cities in Utah or out of Utah that require ADU certification before it can be an STR?

Yeah, one thing.

Trying to go through the number of cities I've looked at. Um, there may be 1 or 2 that have an ADU. I can't tell you off the top of my head which cities have an ADU requirement. Not Not the majority. There are also a handful that require a conditional use permit process. But again, that is a handful.

And these are all brand new ordinances. None of these ordinances have been tested. So I don't know why we would try to look at what other cities are doing right now. It doesn't necessarily— it's not a metric of success.

Like I say, there's, there's a handful that have done conditional use permitting as well.

I think my only concern with the ADUs is just that the people that are going to be likely wanting To rent these properties are going to be people that are doing it for financial reasons, and this may be a burden that may be excessive for them. Yeah, they are still running a business out of their home. So there are startup costs to any business that you start, and ensuring that it's safe for the people that live there, that it's up to fire code or proper ingress/egress, all those kinds of things. I would hate for there to be some sort of Disaster that happens in which one of the city-owned— Well, we're on the news, and lots of other ones would be on the news too, because they don't require the AC requirements. I think there's just this balance between government regulation and overreach versus— government overreach is not, is not this. This is not government overreach. This is safety. We have the rule of law that we're supposed to be abiding by, and that's why we have the codes, and that's why we have Guidelines for safety for people. I had a resident call me and he was upset. He was going to have to spend $7,000 to cut out the windows in his basement that he wanted to have an ADU. And I used to work fire claims. I saw people, I saw house fires. And you don't want to be stuck down there. Do you want to be responsible for somebody stuck in your basement because they can't get out the 1-foot-by-2-foot window? From an older home. It's, it's not— it's protecting them. It's protecting lives. It's not, you know, I just think it's a no-brainer.

I'm going to step in again just because we're looking at time.

Um, I think it's probably fair to say that the council doesn't have a clear consensus on where they want to go ADU-wise, correct? Um, where Might there be consensus on other— as far as density spacing and numerical limits, is there a strong pull one way or the other?

I'll share that I have some reservations about the 1,000 thing. I feel like it's pretty far in many cases, in particular neighborhoods. And I also feel like it's not particularly equitable if somebody came in with an SDR, right, 900 feet away from you, and it just prevents it from being in your home. That raises some equity questions for me. I am interested. Because I have a very, very high priority in making sure we are not overrun with SDRs, right? I want our neighborhoods to feel like neighborhoods. I want our neighborhoods to feel like they're single-family residential areas. And so I'm not opposed to density requirements, but I have concerns about that 1,000-foot.

So, Quinn, um, so this— you're talking about owner-occupied because you're talking about owner— in this particular case, we're talking about owner-occupied.

Do you have That can say, I think that's the scope we're looking at.

Okay.

Do we have any distance requirements for ADUs in our ADU ordinance? Do you have to space those out?

I don't believe we do.

Okay, so what we're talking— what you're talking about is if we're going to be saying these are ADUs, because then when there's ADU— well, I guess if they're going to turn it into an STR, there'd be a distance.

Maybe if I can clarify there, I think the ADU would be like kind of the floor, right? You get your permit, and then now you're eligible to apply for the STR. So the STR now has the spacing requirement or that density requirement that they— if you remove that STR, then you could do a long-term rental with that ADU without any—

Yeah, you could still have the impacts.

I can make a comment on ADU permitting process and government efficiency, or, you know, What's the potential concern that day? I think a reason why we have felt some relative confidence in proposing that is because of some of the research we've done on software opportunities that will help us efficiently, effectively, and accurately, I guess, regulate according to Ordinance constraints and the permitting constraints. So, um, there's been one particular one that we're especially interested in, and called Decker Technologies, and they've done— they've been really great about meeting with cities that have, like, Utah League of Cities and Towns, and it really is some pretty impressive software. So anyway, just want you to be aware of it. From a, from a tracking and, and all of that standpoint, I think we would be in a good spot. Chris, and I also agree that the owner-occupied, the density discussion that we're talking about, 1,000 feet seems to be a bit much. And looking at many of the other things and just looking at the map of possible current SDRs, you know, football field, maybe 2 football fields, that's 600 feet. Apart from each other, and that also creates that neighborly away from each other. So I, I think 1,000 is a bit much, but possibly 500, 600 feet.

So, and I just want to give an experience in my neighborhood, the next ward over, and I'm going to use ward because we all know about how big those are. Um, they have 6, um, short-term rentals. So I feel like what the 1,000-foot does, or maybe less, um, is it actually makes it more equitable. Throughout the city, the burden of the short-term rentals, instead of just in older neighborhoods, poorer neighborhoods, smaller home neighborhoods, you know, instead of putting that burden in it, kind of, if you want to have a short-term rental, you see that as your, you know, because you don't want a long-term rental because you still have an income-producing opportunity through renting out your ADU.

Then.

Perhaps if you move here, like one gentleman said, I, I built this because I wanted to have this feature in my home. And you look at that area of where you can get that. You have that opportunity. We're not boxing anybody in. We're not stopping anyone. But it does— having a limit does help spread the burden out across the city. Because otherwise, I can think of several areas of our city that won't have any. And just the nature of that area of the city.

So, Lenny, can I ask— this is a genuine question— of the 6 in that neighborhood, are those all owner-occupied, or are they a mix of non-owner-occupied?

Well, there's one that's kind of— they're probably owner-occupied. Yeah, I think there's one that's not.

Okay. Yeah, well, I'm just curious as I'm trying to figure out this.

owner-occupied. And, and I'm just going to tell you, it has been felt in that area, that, that lack of community they're, they're feeling, because they used to have people living in the top or living in the— there's one house that it is kind of split, and actually the owner lives in the bottom and she short-term rentals the top out right now. And, um, there, there's— I've just had people say, yeah, I've, I've families that have lived places, or even the young couples that come in every so often and lived in the ADUs, lived in our primary or whatever.

Okay, that informs it.

Thank you.

Jen, you had a comment or question?

Uh, just more where my leaning is on some of this. I think, again, the whole owner occupancy really tends to govern itself in a lot of ways because the owner has to live with their neighbors and they feel those pressures. So I would be less stringent on a density requirement, um, or even a numeric cap if the owner lives there. And I think to Mayor's point, we don't regulate how many, you know, there's none of that stuff on ADUs. So, if we're talking about doing ADUs, it doesn't make sense to me that we require a cap for these, but we wouldn't for those.

The difference between an ADU, long-term rental, and a short-term rental is people who are there longer term to invest in the community and be a part of it.

We— I—

around the corner for me in the cul-de-sac, there's been 2 short-term rentals that— in owner-occupied homes. One, the home just sold, and now they're running that ADU as a long-term rental, and everybody who lives in that cul-de-sac is like, oh, we are so grateful that they're long-term renting this out because we now have stable people that are there. One of the neighbors said to me, I feel like I'm always on edge. I, I never know who's coming or going in the space that's so close to where I sleep. And so I, I would prefer that there is A density spacing requirements, and I'm aware of that because there are parts of the city that would have more of them in neighborhoods that could have multiple of them, and people just feel more comfortable when they know the people who are living around them. They feel more comfortable when they know what to expect rather than when it's even an owner-occupied short-term rental. I still never know who's coming or going.

I—

one of my neighbors said that to me. Just a couple weeks ago, and they are owner-occupied. Both of those were owner-occupied.

So, thank you.

Take your break.

Take a little break here to grab our dinner.

Yeah.

So, do you mind offering a blessing on the food?

Our Heavenly Father, we are grateful for the chance to deliberate tonight, to work together on behalf of the residents of Orem City. We are grateful for the food that's been provided, ask blessing upon it, and, uh, ask for thy blessing on our, our conversations and discussions, uh, both here in this room and as we enter our larger meeting tonight, that it may be productive and that we may be thoughtful. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen. Amen.

I look like shit, but I think it was a little bit when I did that.

I know, it's kind of got some floaty things.

All right, so we've got— see, Jeff's in line, Lenee's in line. Crystal's getting hers. So you saw this, give us like 1 more minute.

It was painful.

And while we're waiting, just so you know, one of the most important events of the year is happening. I don't know if you have heard of Fat Bear Week. Fat Bear Week is going on right now. Fat Bear Week is a contest amongst brown bears at— what was it, the Katmai? Is that how you say it? River in Alaska. They have been eating and stuffing themselves with salmon in preparation for the winter. And I'll, I'll send out the, the link to the website. But then they picked out contestants and they have brackets. And each year Fat Bear of the Year is named. So they all have names or numbers, and if you really get into it, people are campaigning for certain bears. And anyway, but they have before and after pictures, like before the season and after, and some have done exceptionally well.

So multi-year winners, any of them?

They looked at that.

I don't see—

what's that?

They win year after year.

Yeah, some, some in the past, some have been multiple-year winners. But what are you— are you showing Fat Mary?

I'm showing—

Yeah, yeah, he won last year. He's like 6 inches off, I think, is his name. But there's Marshmallow and there's Otis. Otis died. He was like a big-time champion, but he was in his 20s and he disappeared.

Yeah.

So anyway, Fat Bear Week is this week. Little Ebony. So now I think we've got all the council members through the good line.

So, Jake, let's wait for Quinn to get back in.

Oh, wait. Oh, Quinn, I'm sorry. Didn't mean to forget you.

Okay, just looking at timeframe. For the rest of the evening, what I would propose is this is based on what I'm feeling at the— where the council is. What I would propose is I come back and we, uh, with— again, within the framework of an owner-occupied, with an ordinance that includes some density, but maybe a reduced density based on from what I'm hearing, uh, still remaining spacing. Uh, requirement, and then potentially the ADU requirement based on kind of where I'm feeling where the council is, but not including the numerical cap because the density basically regulates the numerical.

Um, where spacing—

yeah, leave it in. He said leave it in.

So with that, I'm going to move on to the qualitative restrictions just to keep the conversation moving. Um, I don't know that there's anything really controversial here. Um, so maybe we can move through this portion of the ordinance quicker. Um, and that is, as far as urgent response, again, this is not necessarily that applicable within the owner occupied. The urgent response is more within the non-owner occupied realm, so it may not necessarily be. All that applicable if all we are looking at is owner occupied. Um, that being said, within property maintenance, we would require— and I can go into any one of these if we need to— we would be requiring pretty much that they are compliant with our code. That they're removing snow, that they're compliant with our landscaping, that they're compliant with our noise and nuisance. Ordinances, so they have to have some controls put in place to make sure that they're not having disturbances there. Quiet hours. This would be the big difference from a neighborhood home. Or long-term rental is that given the nature of the transient use, where these aren't people that live in the neighborhood and don't have to answer to their neighbors of why are you having parties late into the night here? My kid has school. Can you just be a good neighbor? They're here for a weekend and gone and may never come back. So we would have restrictions on when you could have amplified music, when you could use pools, hot tubs, sports courts, etc. And those would basically mirror a lot of what our nighttime disturbance ordinance is. So 10:00 PM to 7:00 AM with some changes for weekdays and weekends. Again, that they would have to come in, they'd have to have a noise management plan. That would have to be as part of that, that notice of what they're telling the tenants. Basically explaining, you know, what are, what are the regulations, what you can and can't do within the property itself. And then that has to be in a conspicuous location, has to be notified to the tenants, et cetera.

Um, lighting.

Again, that we have shielded exterior lighting to ensure that there's not light trespass. So if you have a security light that goes off at 3 o'clock in the morning and somebody's getting ready to go, leaving your STR to go on the hunt, or to go get a good spot on the Provo River for fly fishing, you're not disturbing your neighbors because that light is now shielded. So it's not going into their bedroom window at 3, 4 o'clock in the morning. And then this is probably the most new and novel portion of this, is a background check requirement. And that is, we would not permit any STR to be rented to somebody listed as a sex offender, and that an STR operator would be obligated They would have a duty to run the guests and the guest list through a background check, and failure to do that could be considered a violation of our ordinance. So I know that the question might be, well, what does Airbnb and VRBO already do? So again, this is from One of the different websites where you can go out as you— if you're looking to say, do I want to operate as an STR operator? I believe it's called AirROI is the website that I'm pulling this information from. It gives a breakdown of what VRBO does already, inclusive as far as their listings as what Airbnb does. Now, neither VRBO or Airbnb give a true comprehensive background check. So it may be incumbent on the operator to go out, and there is the National Sex Offender website where you can run the name, and you can do that for free.

There's no—

there's no cost to do that, to run the name. Or they could find other services that are available online that May integrate with other short-term rental platforms like Airbnb, VRBO, hospitality. And at a, at a pretty nominal fee, you could have the ability to run that guest through a background check to see if they're a sex offender.

You have a lot.

When looking at what other cities have done, this is patterned after Sedona, Arizona, what they have implemented as far as their— is there anything in particular that needs to be discussed on qualitative? Jen?

I have a question about that last part.

Would it be possible to connect with Sedona and find out Like, what's worked, what hasn't, what things they caution about, or, you know, I could reach out to them. I'd be interested to know, especially where it's not super common, like what works well, what doesn't.

Yeah, the urgent 24/7, I think we have to have that still. Because the whole idea is it's owner occupied. The owner's right there to take care of anything happens, or they've designated someone. So I think keeping that part of the owner occupied is just as important because, you know, that's the whole idea, right, is the owner is there. He didn't go out for the evening. He didn't, you know, he didn't leave it at work all day. Yeah, the party to rage on while they're having dinner in Salt Lake, whatever.

That issue is addressed. So I'm gonna move on then. Parking and rental restrictions. So this is probably where there will need to be a little bit of discussion. And again, I'm trying to be mindful of time. Is really setting what is the metric that the council feels comfortable with as far as requiring spaces based on Occupants. Now I'm choosing to go by occupants, and let me explain why.

Again, this is trying to create a very clear bright line rule, so it's simpler to apply in practice.

So at the time somebody applies, you're going to be trying to set an occupancy for that STR. That based on whether it's square footage or whatever occupancy system we set at the time the STR license is issued, that license will include the total number of occupants that can be in it. So that STR will have a specific occupancy. Based on that occupancy limit, that sets the number of parking spaces. Again, trying to set clear expectations. for both the operators as well as staff that have to enforce this. So if we go off of, is it 1 to 4 individuals that can rent? If there are 4 individuals, that's the max occupancy, it would be required to have 2 cars. The thinking is, as much as we'd want to have somebody carpool to an STR, that's not always the case. Again, looking at the freeways, looking at the roadways, vast majority of cars have a single occupant, maybe 2 occupants. So, again, trying to think what would be the biggest impact to the neighborhood in parking is thinking 2 occupants per vehicle and basically adopting it that way. Are there any real— is there any real heartburn about the matrix that I put up here?

Tying parking spaces to number of individuals makes no sense to me. Because I think we should tie it to the number of cars. So I can just imagine situations where 5 kids, 2 parents, right? Under this ordinance, that would require 4 spaces. I'm gonna bring 1 car. So I'm wondering if there's a way to— Obviously, I think we all want All the cars off the road. So that, that's not an issue. But is there a way for us to separate individuals from cars that will be at a property?

Well, what I think maybe is, like you said, 1 car with 5 kids. They'll have enough space. There'll be enough parking at that location if they say 6 people are allowed. So they'll only use one space. I don't know, help me think through this. To me, it seems like it's— if you have greater occupancy vehicles, this isn't going to even be an issue. How much the house has to provide in case they have that many people that come in separate cars.

Because I think the inverse is also true. So if we were to set At the time, the way I'm thinking through this, Quinn, in my head is then at the time you issue the STR license, you say total number of people is 8. Based on your parking plan, the total number of vehicles that can visit your home is 2. And now you've limited that way. And then if they want to then pour another pad, then they have to come in and amend the license or something like that. Um, but at the time the license is issued, you're, you're capping basically potentially occupancy Based on the number of vehicles too. Is that a fair representation?

Yeah, I guess I'm just thinking of, you know, a place that can host 20 people, right? In this case, that would require 7 spaces. I'm just not sure how plausible it is that something I just don't know. I mean, this would be something that I would want more information about, but, but they're thinking about kids. Mapping the number of individuals to the number of cars, I think, might not be that accurate.

I agree with that. I think maybe one of the differences too is that when you have these STRs, it's not like, hey, we're all going to go meet at a restaurant, everybody drive together and meet.

We're going on vacation together, so we are together, you know. Family of 9 is going All of us.

So, actually overestimated, but I would love to know if there's industry standards.

So we're again, as I've looked at other cities, as far as the algorithm, you're probably on the more lenient than as those that have done a parking system like this. The metric is typically a little bit more conservative than what I've presented here.

This is the assumption that only families are coming to rent this out, but that's not the reality of what short-term rentals see. They don't just see families. They see people coming for a work conference or whatever, and, you know, multiple individuals in different bedrooms, and they're each bringing a car. So under the assumption that everybody that would be renting an STR is a family, Is kind of a fallacy there, I think. And if that were the case, if it was always just a good family vacation, I don't think most of these conversations would even be had.

Crystal, I think I'd agree there is— it's a Venn diagram, right? If we look at, you know, you might have a subset that are families, and then you have another group that are— it's an adult group. So it's 4 couples, and each of those 4 couples might drive their own vehicle because they're coming from different locations. And they may not carve. It may be a group of, of, you know, individual adults going on a girls trip, or it might be a group of guys coming to a BYU football game or coming out to go fishing. So again, it doesn't always squarely fit within one subcategory.

I think what we're trying to do is we're trying to avoid— like, I got a call 2 weeks ago from someone. There's the STR in my neighborhood has 10 cars on the street and 2 cars in the driveway. And I was like, I gotta go see what house this is. So they sent me the address. Sure enough, all the cars, I counted them, saw the 2 in the driveway. And this was not that big of a house, right? But the idea behind— and it probably could have fit 6 cars if they did them, you know, we— it could be 5 or 6 spaces that could be accommodating there for that particular home. But I think the idea was to try to lessen the impact on the neighborhood, and there were 12 cars for that house at— in that moment.

Yeah.

Yes, I'm just going to say I like this because it kind of covers a broad spectrum. So worst case scenario, they're going to have these many cars show up. We've got it covered. Nobody's on the street. Best case scenario is they show up in 2 cars because it's 2 large families that are coming together. Additional parking that's not being used. No harm, no foul.

Again, this is putting the ownership on the operator, not necessarily the SDR renter. Um, the last thing, and I know that I'm now 5 minutes over time.

Oh, you got 45 minutes.

I want to hit Some rental restriction language here, as we talked about parking as well. We had previously spoken about requiring, restricting the number of rental nights. Or requiring that, you know, there'd be a vacancy period. And we wanted to move away from that based on what we had heard from the council, and this would be The maximum stay for any single guest or a group of guests will be limited to 30 consecutive days. And this is to address the concern that somebody may try to circumvent, you know, a student housing zone by reducing the rate of the STRL to rent to 6 different college students. Rather than having some sort of requirement of a vacancy period or number of nights rented, Um, we're capping the number of nights that can be rented within the— you choose this route. Um, I do want to address that we— the council should consider some language of restricting the ability to operate both a long-term rental and a short-term rental on the same parcel. Um, that would be a scenario where you live in the primary section of the home or the ADU. You have an ADU. And then you also now have a DATU, and now you could basically have 2 revenue streams while also some sort of length. Clarify, you either have a long-term rental or a short-term rental. And then is there any desire to try to restrict STRs from DATUs?

As long as there's one STR on the property, I don't— what I don't want to have is have an STR in the basement and then an STR in the backyard.

It's—

there's one.

So only solely one STR on the parcel, which we already have that language. And then also adopting that it's only one STR per one LTR.

I'd be okay with a, a det— an STR in the backyard.

Okay, that's my time. I wish I could finish, but that is my time for tonight.

Okay, Quinn, can you talk fast? Can we give him another 5 minutes? Okay, that's another— do you want to do another 5 minutes?

I need to— so I asked a question. Oh, the number of landlords didn't seem right to me. So she corrected it. It's 1,382. Approximately 3 rentals for every landlord.

Wait, which number is the landlord?

So the 3,143 is not correct.

And how many properties are they then?

48?

That's still—

that's still that number.

What was the landlord? What was the number?

1,382.

And is a property just like, like 1 housing unit? Like, it's not— or is it a unit?

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Okay.

You want to go for another 5 minutes, or would you feel this would be a good stopping point?

That would be a good stopping point because the next conversation is occupancy.

Oh, okay.

And I think that conversation is going to exceed 5 minutes.

5 minutes. All right. Jake, thank you. Thank you for being such a great trail guide.

We—

and, and just as a reminder, Council, we only have 3 more City Council meetings this year. Have one the first— we'll have the, the, the one on 2nd Tuesday in October, 2nd Tuesday in November, and the 2nd Tuesday in December. Is that right? Yeah, one, just those first parts of the month because of the Utah League of Cities and Towns Conference, and then Thanksgiving. Holy smokes. And Christmas. And now I was like, I got to Christmas shopping. Anyway, so we'll just— we'll keep plugging away, and I feel we're making some progress. All right, so we're going to skip to number 3, agenda review and preview upcoming agenda items. I'm going to turn the time over to Council Member Meekum for the report. Appreciate you, uh, your patience as we postponed you from last meeting. And—

I'm easy. Uh, there are 3 commissions that I'm actively, um, liaison to that are operating at this time of the year. The, uh, Arts Advisory Commission, the Library Advisory Commission, and the Planning Commission. We're in a really good spot in the Arts Commission, I think. Um, last, um, couple of months, uh, we've had some great performances. We have a performance committee, uh, that works on that. Um, the point of information, when the Hale Theater was here, Cody Hale was, uh, appointed to the Cultural Arts Commission, but now that the Hale Theatre is not here, um, but Cody is a resident of— he is no longer serving as a formal member of the Arts Commission, but he is helping with our performances subcommittee. So, um, Adam at the Sarah and Cody Hale are both, uh, we're utilizing their talents as they—

That's great.

As they think about Uh, getting us the best performances throughout the year. We also have really integrated our arts commission members into, uh, announcing performances and being the emcee. Uh, they did that at Taste of Orem. I thought it was really successful, so we're utilizing them well. Uh, we've started out, uh, working on an arts master plan as well, building on some things that have been done in the past and Our public art people are doing some really interesting things in terms of suggesting ways in which we can increase the quality and amount of public art in the city, thinking about spaces for that. And so we'll be back to you with more details on that. And I would love to have our Arts Commission join a work session at some point. You heard the library report last time and the video that was made, which I thought was great at helping us think through all these great things that the library is doing. The Library Advisory Commission does have a retreat scheduled in November about their vision and their mission of who they want to be and what they're going to do. And so looking forward to seeing what they come up with there. And the experiential Arts Library are doing all kinds of great things. Cinemania just kicked off on Friday. It's a way, kind of like our reading challenges, it's a way of getting into our film stacks. The film room has 31,000 films that you can check out. Any place around here that I know, I was able to kind of help kick that off on Friday night. It was kind of fun. And then our Planning Commission, they are interested in— I think there's some pre-work to do there, but they're interested in having a joint Planning Commission-City Council huddle at some point in the next few months, which I think would be great for all of us just to learn a little bit more about them and what they care about, and for them to understand a little bit more about the council and what some things we care about. One of the more interesting things that came before Planning Commission was this past week, the former Hale Theater property. There was a concept plan that was presented, and for quite a few units on that property, and the Planning Commission asked lots of great questions. They ended up continuing that discussion. That discussion is going to be about affordability and density and the things that we might expect on that location, which is on Forum Boulevard, I believe. One other thing to note is that we do have a vacancy on the Planning Commission, so we need to appoint a new planning commissioner. I'd like to do that sooner rather than later if we can. That's, that's the desire of our commission chair, who worries sometimes about making sure we have a solid quorum there. And I did just send an email to the mayor saying this is where we landed last time we were considering Planning Commission candidates. And so I anticipate we'll be hearing from the mayor at some point soon about how we might go about filling that vacancy.

That's my report.

All right, thank you.

Who left?

Britton Rudolphson. He resigned. He had some ongoing health concerns. He resigned during the summer.

Do we have new applicants?

I think there were a couple of applicants over the— since we interviewed last time, but not really.

Not really.

Well, yeah, so that's— you'll be hearing from me probably in the next few days. Are we all involved in that? Yeah, what I'll do is suggest that we—

I mean, have you made recommendations, Gwen, or—

I sent an email to the mayor today just saying, uh, based on where we landed last time, this is the information that we just—

reminding me of who, who was next at the time. Yeah, and so, no, it wasn't a recommendation per se, but it was just helping me refresh my memory on that. Um, and thank you for bringing up the, the library, the, the movies and things. I will tell you, when I went to the senior center yesterday, there were— there was a girl that was pretty excited to watch Footloose.

Yeah, uh, the library is part of this challenge, is screening a ton of films in the next 6 weeks or so. So, um, I, I, uh, was there for Vertigo on Friday night on the big screen in Asheville. Oh, that would have been fun.

And so it lived up to its name. All right, thank you. So tonight we have the privilege of having our invocation, inspirational thought, and Pledge of Allegiance done by some of my favorite people in the community, American Legion Post 72. So they'll be here this evening. Oh, there's a Well, spot one in the wild right now.

Coming in right now.

They got their flags, they're getting ready. So we'll have to have them do that. And then after that, we have some presentations, just Youth Council introduction and swearing in, a day of service report, Companies Championing Women Award. There will be time for personal appearances, and then you'll see the consent items that we have on Now, the meeting minutes, a couple of commission appointments, a resolution about, uh, about the dispatch. And who's, who's handling that? Well, if we have any—

who's—

Jake and I.

Oh, okay.

I figure it's a consent item, but council, do you have any questions about that?

Last time we talked about that, there was a question about maybe having that happen sooner. Have you heard anything more? About that, are we still where we were before?

Yeah, so central in, in how the board voted is that they would get it—

get us there as soon as possible, but no later than that March date that we talked about.

Good.

And then 9.5 is a section— the section we talked about in our work— in the work session. And then we do have one scheduled item. It's a public hearing And it is establishing regulations for permitting detached accessory dwelling units on single-family properties. And so I— so Gary Jarrett's going to be there to present that.

He better be.

Okay, there's one part on there that I don't recall talking about, and that was the 6-foot distance between commercial and open space. It was on that chart. You know, I thought we had talked about just maintaining the normal setbacks from property lines.

Okay, well, we'll have to discuss that. There, there have been comments, and I missed the last meeting, the last work meeting, but I know there have been comments about that next to commercial property.

Can I share?

Um, I was in the meeting and asking questions. The commercial code says you could build right up to the line, and I think you had said, let's make it at least 6 feet.

1 to 1.

Commercial code is a 1 to 1, a foot back, a foot up, starting at 13 feet. Right?

I'm talking about, uh, like on a commercial code, commercial code, 2 commercial properties next door to each other, they can build Right up to there.

I'm talking residential next to commercial. Okay, well, maybe that— maybe that's where it came up.

That's where that was.

It's got open space in there too, which we didn't talk about.

And that's just making sure that we stay away. If it's open space, we don't know what's going to be there. So we'd make sure we don't build up to the line, get off the line.

Well, but it should be— but okay, and thank you for saying that. But what our discussion was, was that we would keep the residential setbacks in residential zones. But the dad who goes in a residential zone. We did talk about it at that last meeting.

It was—

I remember, um, Jake said there was not a consensus on that. I don't know about consensus, but I remember we talked about it. Yeah, I don't remember the 6-foot thing. So do we need to decide now, or—

I mean, I think we can talk about— we get the information from Jared on there, then we can vote. And then financial items, and then it's in the packet, or— and then city manager, you remind us of Who we're supposed to be this week or whatever it is. I think we—

I don't know.

I have— I, like I said, I'm a slave to my calendar.

Well, we have a few things coming up. Okay, I'll share.

All right, if there isn't anything else, let's give ourselves a little break before city council meeting.

And oh, do we—

oh, we need to adjourn. Do we need Well, it doesn't— there's no adjournment here. It just goes straight into—

Who likes the adjournment?

I do. That's right, that's right. Um, yes.

My son, you like the draft?

Like, I had to take a break.

Success. Flush also.

Not want you going home.

They're not a line.

Tree, like, growing like— so it's not all trees.

That's what I said.

These look actually slick.

Planning Commission.

Kind of tired today.

After Pete raised the bar last week.

T-shirt.

I'm sorry, this isn't yours, is it? With all the flowers.

Cemetery.

Tell them how I spread.

Cemetery.

Hand spreading.

What is that?

Derogatory comments.

But I'm like, I think that's okay sometimes. And that's where we live, the impact over time.

Shortcut.

The neighbors trying to preserve any sense of history.

Test, test.

Got everybody here?

Yep.

Like to welcome you to this evening's City Council meeting on September 22nd, 2026. We've just had a 3-hour We had a 3-hour work session where our Tiger Traffic team presented information about speed limits. We discussed— spent a few minutes discussing something that will be on the agenda a little later about water connection requirements, talked about partner cities, and also had a discussion on— continued discussion on the short-term rental ordinance. And before I get into the regular— before we go Before I turn the time over to our special guests this evening, I just want to mention that there, there will only be one City Council meeting in October, and there will only be one in November, and only one in December. So there are only 3 City Council meetings left this year. That is, and they're all, I believe, the, the first ones of the month, like this, so the second Tuesdays because we have Thanksgiving and Christmas, and then there is a conference that we will be attending in October that conflicts with that schedule. So just as a reminder that there will only be 3 more City Council meetings this year after this evening. All right, I have the privilege of turning over time to—

Thank you.

This is some of my favorite people, American Legion Post 72, and they are going to be, um, presenting, doing an invocation or inspirational thought and Pledge of Allegiance. And it looks like we're going to actually have a, a flag ceremony. Okay, um, and what—

Rodney Gardner.

Rodney Gardner is going to to offer the invocation. So if you go ahead and offer the invocation and then turn the time over to— oh, you're like Kirkpatrick. I, I've been having a brain cramp. What was it? What was it?

Kelly.

Kelly. Yeah, I will remember that because that's my daughter's name. Kelly. I will not forget that ever again. Kelly Kirkpatrick for the flag ceremony. So welcome.

Our kind and gracious Heavenly Father, we come before thee at this Orange City Council meeting. We're most appreciative of our elected representatives. Pray that thou would bless them with wisdom and courage, that they will always stand up for the right, and that they will keep Orange City a city where families will strive That they'll be inspired to know how to solve the many challenges that they face. We pray for thy inspiration. We pray for the protection of our Constitution and our freedoms. And we say this in the name of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Amen. Thank you, Rodney.

All right.

Kelly, we'll turn the time over to you.

First question I want to ask is, do we have any veterans in the audience?

Sir?

Army.

You need to know, if you've served in the military, active duty one day, you have the privilege of saluting the flag, whether you're in uniform or not.

Wait, wait, do you want to go to the—

you're running out, right?

You can turn them— maybe turn them around so they're facing me.

I know I'm soft-spoken. I'm fine. So I'll ask all of you to please stand.

We won't be able to hear you.

Yeah. You've served in the military, you may salute the flag. If you have not, please place your right hand on your heart and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

2.

You may be seated. We're going to present the branch of service flags. If you've served under these colors, you may clap, cheer, stomp your feet, but no standing on the chairs. Obamacare does not cover that. Honor Guard, attention and hut! Advance the colors. I bought a sign the other day that says, God, guts, and guns is what keeps America free. Let's keep it that way. We are a veterans organization. We do anywhere from 200 to 500 hours of service every month in this community, in this state. It's voluntary. We do anywhere from 120 to 154 funerals per year.

And schools at all levels.

Oh, yeah, retirement centers. Okay, okay. I'm not starting over. We teach patriotism in the schools at all levels, retirement centers, Scout Court of Honors. We have programs for the youth. We do an oratorical contest. We test their knowledge on the Constitution of the United States. Also the Bill of Rights. We sponsor Boys State, where you actually take a part in running a city. You might be a mayor, a police officer, a city council person. So even though we're not active duty, we are still very active in our communities.

So— Thank you.

What we'd like to do for you now is— I don't know how many of you ever have seen the casket flag at the funeral folded in 13 stuff, 13 times. Anybody seen that?

Okay.

Do you know why?

13 original colonies.

Okay.

Want to hand your flag to Doug?

Jesus.

Okay.

Flag detail, right face. Forward, hut. When they come back up here, I'm going to ask Officer Alan Anderson and Officer Gerald Nay to advance the flag forward, and we're going to show you and talk about the 3rd The funerals that we do, we cover 7 different cemeteries from Provo City to Camp Williams in Lehi. If we are asked to go outside of those bounds, we do. Sometimes we'll go to Salt Lake, sometimes we'll go to Wallsburg or Heber. The furthest one I've been to is Blanding.

So, thank you.

The standard casket flag is 5 feet wide, either 9 or 9.5 feet long. These 2 gentlemen are the 2 best flag folders in the state of Utah. Okay, the first, first fold is a symbol of life. The second fold is a symbol in our belief in eternal life. The third fold is to honor and remember veterans who have given their all in defending our country or to attain peace throughout the world. The fourth fold is a symbol of our weaker nature as humans and American citizens trusting in God, to whom we turn in times of war and peace for his divine guidance. The fifth fold is a tribute to our country. The 6th fold is a symbol for where our hearts lie, because it's with our hearts that we pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The 7th fold is a tribute to our armed forces through which our country and flag are defended. against our enemies within our boundaries and in the world. The 8th fold is a tribute to Jesus Christ, who entered into the valley of the shadow of death that we may see the light of day, and to honor mothers, which is why we fly flags on Mother's Day. The 9th fold is a tribute to womanhood, who mold the character of all men and women who have contributed to this great country. The 10th fold is a tribute to the fathers who have given their sons and daughters to defend our country. The 11th fold is a symbol of the Star of David, which glorifies the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The 12th fold is a symbol of eternity and glorifies the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The 13th fold, as the flag is now completely folded, The stars are shown, which remind us of our motto, In God We Trust. When completely folded, it is in the shape of a cocked hat to remind us of the revolutionary soldiers under General George Washington who granted us freedom, liberty, and the rights we have today. The flag is then presented to the chaplain. In turn, the chaplain presents it to the next of kin. After that, we fire a 3-volley rifle salute. And the bugler plays Taps. This is our part of the program for tonight. May God bless you, and may God bless this United States of America. Thank you. I'm going to take just 2 minutes. The flag is folded in a triangle representing the hat worn by colonial soldiers. The 3 points of the hat represent the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. To many, the American flag is a reminder of the sacrifices made to protect our Constitution. Would you stand? Here's a copy of our Constitution. And our responsibility to protect the Constitution of the United States, for it was created by We read in the Doctrine and Covenants, it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another, and for this purpose have I established the Constitution of this land by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose, and redeemed the land by the shedding of blood. Our God-inspired Constitution is hanging by a thread. I implore all to read The Law by Frédéric Bastiat. He lived during the French Revolutionary of February 1848. This was a period when France was rapidly turning to socialism. He explained how socialism will degenerate into communism, but most of his countrymen chose to ignore His logic. The same situation exists in America today as in France of 1848. The same socialist communist ideas and plans that were then adopted in France are now sweeping America. It is the duty of every veteran and elected official to defend our Constitution, for we have taken an oath To do so. To read the law online, just Google the law. May God continue to bless the USA, I pray in the name of our Savior.

Amen.

Amen. Thank you. I have to confess, my allergies kicked up when, when the flag detail came up and unfolded the flag and shook it out there, I thought, why are my allergies doing that? Thank you. I appreciate all of you and the service you have given and continue to give. All right, the next item on our agenda is— oh, Let's see, we have 3 items. The first is a presentation where we get the opportunity to meet the new Orem Youth Council and have them be sworn in. So I'll turn the time over to Jenica Jones and to Sydney Wong for, for this part of our council meeting.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. We're very excited to be here tonight to present our 2026 and 2027 Orem Youth Council, and we have many of them here today. So if you're here, please come on up to the front of the room. So this year we have 38 members on our Youth Council, which is the biggest group we've ever had, and we're— they're from all the various schools in our community. We're so excited to work with them.

Um, yeah, we are very excited to see these amazing students get involved in the community this year, and as they volunteer at various city events, learn about different city departments and issues, attend Local Officials Day at the state capitol, and take the lead in several service projects. We can't wait to see what they will accomplish and learn this year.

So our city recorder will now conduct, uh, a swearing-in ceremony for our Youth Council members, and following that, they would be honored to take a group picture with you as the City Council as well.

Okay.

Okay, so each of you are going to raise your right hand and you'll repeat after me.

I, state your name, do solemnly swear that I will support, obey, and defend the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the State of Utah, And the laws and ordinances of the City of Orem, and I will discharge the duties of my office with fidelity.

Good job.

Well, let's have you scoot this way.

Kind of square up there and we'll take the photo.

You can have the shorter, shorter people in the front.

Yeah, that'll work.

All right, here we go.

1, 2, 3.

Thank you.

Congratulations! You are now besides we have military and other and some other officers part of the group that has taken an oath to defend the Constitution. There aren't very many people in the country who've done that. Elected. officials, and I don't remember if police officers— do police officers do? And, and then our military as well. So welcome, look forward to working with your Youth Council and see the amazing things that you'll be doing. Next item is a presentation on our Day of Service, our Day of Caring report, and the presenters are Pete Wolfley and Bradley Day.

Good evening.

So I'll turn the time over to them.

All right, thank you, Mayor and Council. I will just briefly say thank you for supporting this effort every year. I think this is the 12th year that we've done the Day of Caring, and it's always a great opportunity for the employees to get out into the community and, and, and help do some good in the community beyond what we get to do every single day.

I'm going to go back to my little box over there and let Bradley take it from here.

Thanks, Pete. Good evening. It's become a part of our American fabric to serve during this time of year, and the opportunity to serve particularly here has become a powerful resource for our community to heal and find unity. And I'm grateful that we partner with the United Way of Utah County to find meaningful projects and the opportunity that we as employees have to then meet those needs in our community. This presentation will briefly review the City of Orem's 2026 Day of Caring. By the numbers, 100— well, more than 140 city employees volunteered their morning on September 10th at 10 different project locations. That included schools, nonprofits, and city facilities. I've summarized these projects into those groups, and in each of these, I've also named the employees and their departments who helped as leads for those projects. Starting with schools. When serving at the schools, we often touch up play features and safety curbs. We add new play features and we help beautify the campuses. And this year was no difference. Here's some examples starting with at Westmore Elementary. And we have a few police officers who volunteered their time helping paint this new compass game as well as other new features and touch-ups throughout the playgrounds. This is at Orem Junior High where several employees from many departments helped with touching up walls that had become faded with sun over the several years. And here's a particularly interesting feature that was added at Aspen Elementary. The principal there asked for a peace walk as a means to help children learn and practice conflict resolution, and so we helped stencil and paint that in. Moving to nonprofits, we had quite a few labor-intensive projects this year, and I'm just going to highlight one for the sake of time. With kids on the move, In their backyard space, they have a wonderful planter box that was an Eagle Project from some time ago. But over the course of about a decade, it's become deteriorated and thus a bit of a hazard for the children playing around it. And so our employees were able to rise to the challenge and remove that planter box and then replace the area with sod and soil so that kids wouldn't have a tripping hazard as they continued to play in that area. Looking to city projects, many city departments were very generous in donating or providing an opportunity for the employees to help in serving. The abandoned canals recently is a fantastic example of that, as they've become recently prone to overgrowth and discarded waste. The city employees transformed a portion of the canal from something that looks similar to what we have here on the left image to what we see on the right. Their labor helps show the work necessary for maintaining the canal and opened the opportunity for future service projects cleaning along the canal. And of course, several of the City Council members and others helped plant 30 trees at Lakeside Park, which supported our ongoing tree planting initiative, which is known as Rooted in Orem. This past Day of Caring, we gave back to our community and invested in our city, not only for today, but also the future. A brief and huge thank you to the following: the United Way of Utah Counties employees, as they helped coordinate several of these projects; the city's principals and nonprofit directors who gave these project opportunities; the city volunteer leads who took point at each project site; the city volunteers who gave of their time and hopefully got to see the impact of their service in their community; and of course, you all, the city council and the executive staff, for permitting this longstanding relationship.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Thank you. And a big thank you to the employees and their, their work and the volunteering. We truly have a volunteer community, and it goes— and, and we get so many things done, and I think really enhances our quality of life here. Thank you. Um, final item under this part of the agenda is a presentation by Heather Cox, Companies Championing Women Award. So welcome, Heather.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, I—

today I would like to present to you the 100 Companies Championing Women Award.

So on August 27th, the City of Orem received the 100 Companies Championing Women Award.

This award highlights our exemplary family-friendly policies, flexible work, professional development and leadership, and commitment to pay equity, among other policies that we have here.

As the saying goes, ain't mama happy, ain't nobody happy.

And so I wanted to thank you, City of Orem, for helping to advance the happiness and health of families by championing women in the workplace.

This truly strengthens family City USA, and just want to take a picture with you guys if that's all right. Anyone else want to come?

1, 2, 3.

Councilmember Millett.

Okay, so I just want to say something. I so appreciate this because I don't know, let me think about how long it was ago. 40 years ago, maybe. Yeah, um, I graduated from college, got a job. And, um, in the course of that job realized that I was hired the same time as a gentleman, as a man in the job, and was paid $7,000 less than him and had equal if not better qualifications. So I am so grateful to see, and I tell my daughters all the time, it doesn't mean, you know, you don't, you don't play the victim, but you work hard and you show them how good you are. So I appreciate you're giving women that opportunity to show their daughters and other women how good they are. And I appreciate all the men who are also championing this cause and recognizing some of the things in the past that maybe weren't the best hiring procedures or whatever. So I just think that this is such a great topic to talk about from a positive perspective. Perspective and to see how far we've come. So thank you, ladies, for everything. Appreciate that.

Yes, thank you. All right, next on the agenda is the time set aside for personal appearances. Um, it's been set aside for the 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 serve the city. Comments should focus on issues concerning the city, and those wishing to speak have already signed up, and I have a copy of that here. So we'll go ahead and start, and our first person who has signed up is Aaron Larson. And after Mr. Larson has spoken, James Gaffney will be next. Thank you. Welcome, Aaron.

Thank you.

So on Friday, I intend to serve Orem with my lawsuit challenging an ordinance that takes away property rights that Utah state law clearly gives Orem residents. I'm here tonight to make one final effort before Orem taxpayers incur significant costs paying a Salt Lake City law firm firm to defend an ordinance that discriminates against residents who want to build a home with a flat roof. First, some background on why this roof design ordinance was passed. During the city's discussion of the ordinance, Orem's community development director described the underlying concern as addressing the, quote, one weird situation that in 20 years I've seen somebody build the box rather than a home within the box, end of quote. By the city's own description, this ordinance arose from one extremely unusual situation, and it wasn't just said once. In public meeting after public meeting, city staff openly acknowledged that this ordinance was being written in response to public clamor over one home. These facts raise a serious question whether the ordinance was the product of reasoned policymaking or an arbitrary and capricious response to public pressure over a single property. During one planning commission meeting, Councilman Meekum asked city staff what other options had been considered. Staff identified 2 straightforward alternatives: reduce the permitted height or do not allow 3-story homes. Those alternatives matter because Utah law allows cities to regulate height and the number of stories. Instead, the city adopted an ordinance whose practical effect is to restrict roof pitch, the very building design element specifically protected by Utah Law 10-26-18. Please pay special attention to what the law says a city may not do. A city cannot, quote, impose a requirement for a building design element, end of quote. The Utah League of Cities recently advised municipalities about this law and specifically identified roof pitch as one of the building design elements city, quote, can't regulate. End of quote. I do not know how the legislature's intent could be much clearer. Yet in Orem, if a family wants to build a home to the maximum height permitted in its zone, the city imposes a requirement that the roof meet or exceed a 3:12 pitch. In other words, Orem is imposing a requirement on the exact building design element, roof pitch, that state law says cities cannot Impose requirements on. Orem needs to stop discriminating against people that want flat roofs. I hope you will seriously consider amending the ordinance so it complies with state law. Otherwise, you will be spending taxpayer money defending an ordinance that is discriminatory and takes that— takes away the state-protected personal property rights. One final matter. I would like to meet with someone from the city so that I can understand why city staff Are still looking for a way to take action against my home in a manner that I believe would violate the 4th, 5th, and 14th Amendments. My family and I have invested thousands of hours and our life savings into building this home. I simply want to understand why the city continues looking for ways to tear down my home.

Thank you. All right, Mr. Gaffney, you're next. And then after, after you, Claudia Stokes. Welcome.

Thank you, Mayor and members of the City Council. Before I begin, I want to make an important distinction. When I raise concerns tonight, I am not talking about every individual Muslim. Many Muslims simply want to live their lives, raise their families, and practice their faith peacefully. My concern is with Islam as a system of religious, legal, and political doctrine, particularly when interpretations of that doctrine are used to seek governmental authority or place Sharia above constitutional law. I believe we can protect individual Muslims from discrimination while still having an honest discussion about ideas, laws, and political movements. I'm here tonight because I'm concerned about the Proposed mosque that is in being built right now, property that's been built or bought. And I'm asking the city to reconsider allowing this project to move forward until the city has fully examined its impacts and established safeguards to protect the entire community. I'm asking you to look beyond whether the applicant can simply check the boxes required for construction. Ask what happens after the faculty opens. What are the rules for amplified outdoor religious calls? What happens if large religious gatherings overflow into the streets or sidewalks? What protections exist for residents who publicly criticize Islam? And will every rule that applies to a Christian church apply exactly the same way to this mosque? We have examples showing why these questions matter. In Dearborn, Michigan, residents complained about amplified Islamic calls to prayer reaching their homes early in the morning. More seriously, Christian evangelists criticizing Islam encountered a hostile crowd where objects were thrown. Authorities removed the speakers, and the federal Sixth Circuit ultimately held that their First Amendment rights had been violated. Europe provides another warning. Germany's own government identifies tens of thousands of people within Islamist extremist movements. France has closed organizations and places of worship authorities connected with Islamist extremists. These problems developed over years, not overnight. This is why I don't want Orem to wait until we have conflict before deciding what our safeguards are. I am asking you to reconsider this project and determine whether the city has every legally available protection in place before it proceeds. Require equal enforcement of noise regulations, protect streets and sidewalks from unauthorized obstruction, protect peaceful criticism of every religion, and make clear that religious tribunals have no governmental authority over unwilling citizens. I want our elected officials to please take this seriously. No religious legal system should ever supersede the United States Constitution. The Utah Constitution, Utah law, or the constitutional rights of American citizens.

Thank you.

Thank you. Right. I just wanted— I'm going to ask Mr. McGinn as the community development director. I know that I'm not aware of any, any active applications for any type of mosque being built or proposed in Orem. Are you and your department aware of any?

No.

I'm not aware of any.

Okay. Any council members, are you aware of any?

Okay.

In the search, it said the property was bought for the purpose of a mosque, and they're raising funds to try to build it.

Okay.

But there is currently is not one under— oh, like, when your turn—

When it's my turn, I have something to say about this.

Okay.

All right. Next up, Claudia Stokes. And after Claudia, we have Laura, is it Rostrum?

You know, Laura had to leave, and so she left what she was going to say. She typed it up. I can read it for her if that's okay or not. I can give it to you.

You just give it to us since she's not here. So, all right, thank you.

Welcome. All right, thank you. Um, I ChatGPT'd this, and I asked, what is the difference between the Muslim faith and the mafia? And, uh, it says you weren't necessarily saying, uh, necessarily saying the mafia and the Muslims are alike, you were noticing similarities in certain systems of the loyalty, obedience, punishment for leaving the group, treatment of outsiders, and restrictions on women. Those similarities can exist at the level of social or authoritarian structure even when the underlying belief systems are completely different. I noticed tonight how we honored women. Not going to happen with them. I noticed how we talked about families. There was a couple other things I noted down, how we recognized— let's see, we have the freedoms to choose. They do not. Under our Constitution, we have protected rights. They do not honor our Constitution. They honor their political agenda, whatever that is. It's not something they make up. It's what they believe, and that's what they honor. So if there's an issue in our country with them, They will follow theirs and ignore ours. We give the right to freedom to every person, and they do not. We also believe that all people are free, and they are not under the Muslim law. I also spent a month in Indonesia this year, and at midnight, 1 AM, 2 AM, 3 AM, 4 AM, 5 AM, 6 AM, 7 AM, 8 AM, 9 AM, 10 AM, noon, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 to midnight. Every hour, every Muslim mosque was over the loudspeakers singing their prayers all over Indonesia. I thought it was great. That's where they live. But that will be here in Orem, and you hear that guy singing that one. That one goes for 45 minutes, that one goes for 30 minutes, that one goes for an hour and a half, and then they're back at it again, and it's from midnight through every day when they have their certain religious freedoms. I'm not saying that's bad, but I think we need to understand what it is we're letting in. That's not near as bad as the fact that they will not support our Constitution. They will not recognize our rights. Whatever they believe will be first and foremost. And as you've noticed Tonight, many countries are trying to shut them down because they come in to live their religion, which most of us would allow, not realizing that there's a wolf in sheep's clothing there that we are unaware of. And I beg you again, each one of you, all of you, look it up. Understand what you would be allowing into our community because our community will change drastically. It'll affect our children. children and our families more than you realize, and I hope you'll take the time to study it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And just get this over here.

All right, yeah, if you can just leave that right there. Thank you. All right, our last person who has signed up is Judy Christensen. So welcome, Judy.

Thank you.

All right, like you said, my name is Judy Christensen. I am a very proud member Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Councilmember of Orem City and our Honorable Mayor Karen McCandless. I'm happy to be here with all of you city council members. I am so happy about the way that I feel you all work so hard to listen, to care, and to put in the time to represent and listen to us. And I want to say thank you, especially for this recent letter that went to our friends and neighbors in Provo to let them know that we respect and appreciate the way we've been able to work with them through the years and also represent the needs of our people here in Orem. Like, we love our canyon and our pristine areas, and we want to protect Um, the safety and, and welfare of our people as far as the light pollution, the noise pollution. The— I, we do love the arts and hope that we can find a better place to put it instead of, um, jeopardizing our canyon. But I also want to say I really appreciated the, um, the, the presentations that were made last, last week. I, I love our first responders. Um, I love our— my favorite officer happens to be Jeremy Jameson, and I love how he has helped out our families specifically. I love the Water Conservancy. We've gotten some good information there. That's how we planted our plants that were indigenous to this area, so they took less water. We're trying always to be more prepared, and I feel like we have an area who loves and serves and just is so great. I, when I got home last, after the last meeting and listened and I heard the concerns about Muslim, I'm like, what is all this about? So I decided to call the and go visit the Utah County Muslim Center. And so on September 11th, on Friday, I went to a prayer meeting and I was, I made a new friend, Naheed. And I found that because they're living here, they have their call to prayer Indoors, where it goes from room to room inside. No neighbors here. I had another neighbor I was telling, and she went over and visited and found out that all the neighbors love them. And yes, they do plan on building a mosque, possibly in 16 years. They will honor our area. I happen to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I know that we have in our church library a place that we can go and learn. learn about Muslim and Latter-day Saints relationships. And there's a pamphlet that I'd love to hand out. And I appreciate Claudia and the others who spoke. I just want to say, rather than ChatGPT, maybe you can go and meet people. They have every— the last Friday of every month, they have a potluck that's open to the community.

Thank you.

Thank you. All right, Council, next we have our consent items. We have first approval of the meeting minutes of September 8th, 2026, and we have the appointment of Brandon Jeppson. I know Brandon's here. Welcome, Brandon, and, um, to the Cultural Arts Advisory Committee. Appreciate your willingness to serve in our community. And the appointment of Diana Wannamaker to the Library Advisory Commission. She's not able to be here this evening. I didn't see her. And we also have a resolution authorizing the mayor to sign a membership fee agreement and an interlocal agreement between Central Utah 911 and the City of Orem to provide public safety dispatch services, and an ordinance amending Section 21-1-3 of the Okay. And for the public, that's changing one word in water connection for commercial buildings from— to the owner being the one who is responsible and not any renters. So anyway, Council, those are the items on our consent calendar. I would look for a motion. For those, please.

Mayor, I so move that we approve the consent items.

I second.

All right, thank you. A motion and a second. All right, I will go ahead and start with the voting, and I'll vote and go, go to my left. I vote aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you. Motion carries. And so the consent items have passed, and so officially, welcome aboard, Brandon.

Thank you.

All right, the next item on our agenda is a scheduled— our scheduled items. We have a public hearing, an ordinance amending Article 22-6 of the Orem City Code establishing regulations for permitting detached accessory dwelling units on single-family properties. And our presenter is Jared Hall, our planning director. And as he's coming up, and he's probably going to say this in his presentation, just for the audience. State law was recently passed to where cities of a certain size have to have ordinances that allow detached accessory dwellings in their communities on lots larger than 11,000 square feet with some certain parameters. So I'll go ahead and turn the time over to Mr.

Thank you.

Why don't you just keep going? You go ahead and I'll just— you can— oh, no, I know, you know, by now you can run it, right?

I'd rather listen to you than to me.

Fair enough. Well, um, I appreciate, I appreciate the introduction. You're 100% right, Mayor. The, the state code, what we're trying to do tonight, among other things, the goal is to comply with state code, um, and eventually have the feed up there for you to see. Um, there we go. Thank you. Um, the goal is to provide a regulation that will meet the new state code requirements, uh, and then maintain the requirements that we've had in Orem's code for a long time for what we call accessory apartments. Orem has been doing this for a long time. They're currently in 2269, uh, called accessory apartments. 22611 would Replace that. And so it would add to what we already just have for accessory apartments, or what we would call interior accessory dwelling units. We would add detached accessory dwelling units as well. So— and this is the slide that talks about that— we need to do this by October 1st. We've had a few meetings to talk about things. The goal is to meet those requirements of state code and keep the substance of those regulations that have been in place for a long time for those internal ADUs. or interior ADUs, uh, that we called accessory apartments, and then combine those regulations into one place so that it's easy for people to find those, and we can reference them more easily as well as city staff. Um, it's best understood kind of to me in 3 parts, uh, as we think about it. Part 1 is the purpose and definitions, uh, and it calls out in that first section of what we've proposed in 22-611, uh, a few kind of Um, main issues. First of all, they would be allowed on, on residential properties and subject to the restrictions of the section. And like you pointed out, Mayor, that's 11,000 square feet for detached accessory dwelling units. Um, but regardless of zoning, and then interior ADUs are allowed, um, in most of our zones and on smaller parcels as well, but not in PRDs and, um, in planned residential developments. They're not allowed unless, um, and then also not allowed in R-5 zoning. For the interiors. Um, primary dwellings, we have to have some definitions, and there's another code change coming on the heels of this that will match up definitions. It got kind of— it's been through the planning commission. It needs to be readjusted again, and so I'll have to bring it back to you. Um, but it's not as imperative as this first part. Uh, but the definitions that we need for this are accessory dwelling units. That's a single-family dwelling subordinate to the primary dwelling on that same lot or parcel. A primary dwelling, which is a single-family dwelling. single-family detached home permitted by the zoning of a lot or parcel, an interior accessory dwelling unit. That's a dwelling unit that's contained within the footprint of the primary dwelling, or a detached accessory dwelling unit, which is what we're talking about mainly tonight, because that's the biggest change, which is separate from that primary dwelling on that same lot or parcel, but also still subordinate to it. Um, part 2 would be the regulations for internal ADUs, and those are those regulations that we already had for accessory apartments. We brought those over pretty much wholesale, retitled them interior ADUs instead of accessory apartments, and the same things still apply. Um, those include things like, uh, not being allowed in R-5 or PRD zones, uh, a requirement for owner occupancy. That's been, uh, all along, and that still remains in the current, um, current proposal. Uh, they need to be located inside the footprint. Parking is required in addition to the primary dwelling's parking. Utility meters need To be in the property owner's names. Entrances shouldn't face— shouldn't be on the same facade as the entrance to the, to the home, or be facing a street. And you need to get permits and have rental dwelling licenses when you do these. So we keep a, we keep a running list of all the legal licensed ADUs in the city. Um, part 3 would be the new regulations for detached accessory dwelling units. So that's the part that we've been focused on mostly. Um, these would be permitted uses on residentially zoned lots that are 11,000 square feet and greater. There's about 5,800 of them in the city. Uh, one, it clarifies also that 1 ADU or DADU per lot would be allowed, that you can't have an interior one and then do a guest house as well that you can rent out. Uh, it has the same requirements for owner occupancy that we proposed. Uh, we're requiring demonstration of utility capacity. That's pretty standard in most cases. I don't think that'll be an issue, but there might be some cases where we can't provide the kind of water or other services that need to be there for a detached unit. And they need to meet building and safety requirements. The other part of those regulations would be the lot area and the limits on sizes for the DADUs on those different sizes of lots. So, the task going— coming in tonight was to kind of provide the most— an absolute consensus we do not have, but to provide the most consensus in the versions of things here. That's what we've tried to propose here. So lots that are at least 11,000 square feet, they need to be allowed between 11,000 and just under 13,000 square feet. Uh, 650 feet for a DADU would be allowed, 2 bedrooms. Uh, between 13,000 and just under 16,000, 850 square feet. Between 16,000 and up to almost 20,000 square feet, 1,200 square feet for a DADU. And then those lots that are larger, uh, over 20,000 square feet, uh, up to 1,500 square feet for the DADU. We did, um, we did look at a lot of different lot sizes and things like that through the city. Emma's been very helpful in looking at all the data. Uh, we have all that data for you if you want it in spreadsheets. Um, it is mind-numbing.

There are—

I think it was mentioned in your, in your pre-meeting tonight— there are over 15,000 residential lots in the city. So looking at all of those can take a little time. Um, and then just, uh, one note, the DADU should not be greater than 50% of the footprint of the primary dwelling. We've made that Changed that fix since last time. We never really defined that well. That's in the, that's in the draft at this point that's attached tonight. Um, so regardless of any of those numbers, 650, 850, 1,215, if it, if that would be more than 50% of the footprint of the home that's on the lot, then that would be the 50% would kick in and reduce the size. The next thing on the, um, in the regulations would be the height restrictions for DADUs. What we've proposed is for flat roofs at the minimum setbacks. And we'll talk about setbacks in the next little section. At whatever the minimum setbacks are, if that's where you're locating your DAU, your flat roof would be a 12-foot overall height, and you can increase that height at 1 foot of height per 1 foot of additional setback up to 14 feet. For pitched roofs, 14 feet at those minimum setbacks, increasing 1 to 1 up to 18 feet. So, what we showed there in that little diagram is a 14-foot pitched roof DAU structure, 6 feet from the home. That's one of the setbacks we're going to talk about in a minute, and 10 feet from a side yard. Side yard property line. Again, that's kind of illustrating the minimums. Um, looking at different plans for ADUs, we don't think those heights are going to be problems. A lot of those plans, you're not going to— you're not going to be a problem for 99.9% of the plans people would want to do for a single-story, um, ADU. And that's another thing to point out. This also, with the height requirements, would also include that these are single-story structures, uh, not allowed to be taller than the primary dwelling in any case. On a lot, um, and that we wouldn't allow exterior balconies, and you can use interior loft spaces, but not more than 20% of that internal floor space should be loft. Another, another setback. This is the— not another setback, another section about setbacks. Um, from the primary dwelling, 6 feet would be a standard, uh, from the rear property lines. Based on the last conversations we had, those would be based on the requirements of the zoning. Now, a lot of the, a lot of the lots that are going to qualify for this are going to be in the R-8 zone. That's the most common zoning we have in the city. That's going to be a 25-foot setback. So that's what we're showing in this, on this drawing here is a 25-foot setback to the rear property line. The interior side lines would be 10 feet. This one's the 10-foot, so they've shoved it over in this drawing to the 10-foot minimum setback. This one's a much greater setback, but again, 10 feet there. And then from the street, any street, if this was a corner lot, we would want 25 feet from the street to make it Still appear residential. Sorry, still appear, um, the kind of standard residential setbacks that we have for things. And then, um, we did write an exception based on our notes for an adjacency to commercial or open space zoning, uh, 4 to 5 feet. A lot of times this is— I know this has been a— this wasn't completely settled, right? So, I had in my notes that we needed, uh, an exception written for that kind of thing. Uh, in most cases, I think in, in a lot of the cases, you're still going to find PUEs back there. You're going to have public utility easements that are going to— they're going to force that to 8 or even to 10 feet anyway. But in those cases where they're not present and someone can have a little more freedom, that was the purpose of an exception as we understood our conversations. Does that make sense to everybody? That is an exception that's written in, and there was some language in there that Steve Earl, the Magnum PI of city attorneys, um, came up with earlier to clarify one of the statements that I'd made, um, that didn't quite, didn't quite fit. So, um, what we'd written was saying the required setback for the accessory dwelling in those cases unit may be reduced to 5 feet. We would add the required setback for accessory dwelling unit adjacent to such properties may be reduced to 5 feet, because it's not clear that not all of those Property lines. I'm going to use this as an example. So, if this was open space here, under the exception we wrote, we were trying to say that could be— that could— that setback of 25 could be reduced to 5, or if this was open space here, this setback here could be reduced to 5 instead of 10, but not both. If this is not open space, you don't get to go 5 on every setback, just the one where you're adjacent to the open space or the commercial zoning. That wasn't clear. Steve clarified that. So we would make that change. Um, does that make sense? Or if I confuse that enough. Um, it is important to understand too, just because it's one of the, one of the tenets of the state code that came out, um, garages or other accessory structures that already exist, if they can meet the setbacks that we impose here, they should be allowed to be converted if they can meet all of our requirements. And that's, that's written in this code as well. Um, the last, one of the last things that we need to talk about is parking. Uh, the parking for DADUs is also limited by the state code. We're not allowed to ask For more than 2 spaces for units that are more than 650 square feet, or more than 1 space for units that are, that are no more than 650 square feet. So that's written into code. The locations and things like that, we are allowed to limit. So we've, we've used the same requirements that existed in the current accessory apartments code that we have, which means you have to be located to the side and/or rear of the primary dwelling. So you'd have to flare your driveway out here. You don't count the spaces in the driveway for your ADU. You go to the back. And that's kind of shown in this diagram as well, but I'd already used that one, so I wanted a different picture. That's the kind of thing you need to do to park them, 1 space or 2 space depending on the size of the unit. And those same parking requirements are in the internal ADU requirements as well, just so you know. Last but not least, again, we mentioned that we would want to show that the that the DAU being proposed could be served by the existing utilities, that we have capacity for that. Um, speaking with public works and folks about this and the, uh, the engineers upstairs, we don't think we're going to have problems providing services for DAUs in most cases, but you never know. So we want that demonstrated. And then again, permits and licenses are required. So we'll continue just like we have in the past to license these kinds of units as rental dwelling licenses and, uh, and get Uh, building permits and work for all that construction to meet those codes. That is my presentation. Do you have any questions for staff?

All right, Council, thank you. Um, Jared, Council, do you have any questions for Jared?

From—

all right, we don't have any questions from the staff, so I'm going to go ahead and open up the public hearing. So if you would like to speak to this proposed ordinance that amends Article 22-6 of our city code, establishing regulations for permitting detached accessory dwelling units on single-family properties. I invite you to come up, and if you could state your name, and you will have up to 3 minutes for, for your remarks. So, welcome.

Yep, Aaron Larson again. The legislature passed the detached ADU law because housing affordability is a growing crisis. One part of its solution was to give homeowners greater freedom to build a second small home on their, on their own property. I've followed this ordinance through the Planning Commission and City Council discussions. Not once did I hear anyone ask, how can Orem be part of the housing crisis solution? How can we make this opportunity available to as many eligible homeowners as possible? Instead, the discussion repeatedly focused on limiting the possible impact of the dadu law, and especially on what neighbors might think. But neighbors don't hold property rights in land that they don't own. This ordinance was intentionally written to significantly limit how many Orem homeowners could build a ADU. The intent of the legislature was to allow as many homeowners as possible to help be part of the affordability crisis solution. And the comments I kept hearing was, well, we can loosen things up later. We all know the odds of that actually happening are close to zero, but that is policy concern. The more pressing issue tonight is legal. As written, this ordinance conflicts with state law in at least 3 places. Before I address them, remember that the Utah League of Cities specifically identified design elements that cities can't, quote, can't regulate. First, bedrooms and interior layout. State Law 1021.304 says DATU ordinance must— may not contain design standards that conflict with Section 102618. Section 618 expressly identifies the number or types of rooms and the interior layout of a room as building design elements municipalities may, may not regulate.

Yeah.

Orem's proposed ordinance caps Bedrooms and regulates the interior loft space layout of loft space. Second, parking. State law 102618 says the city may not prevent an unobstructed tandem parking space from satisfying 2 required parking spaces. Yet this proposed ordinance says the driveway space in front of a garage doesn't count. That is the very type of tandem parking restriction state law prohibits cities from requiring.

Thank you.

restricting. Third, roof pitch. As I explained earlier, state law is clear: you can't regulate and discriminate against people who like flat roofs. And there are more that I don't have time to list, but I would ask you to ponder this before you vote. A vote for this ordinance as it is written is a vote to restrict state property rights. It is a vote— it is a vote to enact provisions that conflict with state law, and it risks spending Orem taxpayer money defending those provisions in court. Please vote no on this ordinance until staff can fix all the points that conflict with state law. Please don't make part of your legacy passing ordinances that break state law. And I have brought the state law if you want to read all of the parts that this ordinance is breaking. I have highlighted all of them for you.

All right, thank you.

Could you state your name? Yeah, so Aaron Larson. Okay, I also want to say I am incredibly impressed with Jared. I love his sense of humor. I love all the work that he has done in this. I feel bad that I'm going to make his job a little bit more difficult. However, I will remind all of you, I brought these things to his attention and to your attention almost 2 months ago.

Thank you.

All right, thank you. Um, Mr. Earl, just to let you know, when we're done with the public hearing, I would, if you wouldn't mind, address just the relationship of the ordinance, the proposed ordinance, to the state law. I'd appreciate it. All right, is there anyone else who would like to speak to this? All right, if you could state your name again.

Yes, Claudia Stokes. Um, last week when I was here, we talked about having the arts thing up the canyon. One of the concerns was traffic. Um, Orem Is just locked up in traffic. If we open up— I have 2 duplexes myself. If I thought of adding more traffic to here, we built buildings that cannot hold all the cars in the building, and so the streets are crowded. Um, I, I would know this. It's a frustration to drive in Orem. It's a frustration to get around If you're out early in the morning, you do okay. Later on in the day and mostly at night, it's horrible to get anywhere. Utah City, every— I mean, it's— there's roads are so narrow. I mean, it's a joyous place, but the roads are so narrow because there's not enough parking and our streets are not wide enough. It's a frustration. I drove a school bus for many years. This is it. I just I just don't like it. I'm against it. I'm happy that people can have little dwelling places, but what is it going to do? How much more traffic? Has anybody done a study on that? What are we going to do about the traffic? What is that going to cost the city if we need to, to work on the traffic? Or do we even care about the traffic? I hate the traffic. It's horrible. It's— this is Apartment City USA. It is It's not family city anymore, it's apartment city. And so many of us are so fed up with dealing with the traffic and the frustration it is to get through this town. Thank you.

Thank you. And just to clarify, Claudia, the state is required— state law is requiring us to do this. So if you have a concern about us creating—

thank you—

creating these detached accessory dwelling units, I would recommend contacting your legislators and talking to them about requiring cities to enact certain zoning.

That would be great. But is there anything on the books about widening the roads so that we all can get where we need to go?

And that's— we do have our transportation plan. And so that's probably a matter for another meeting. But yeah, but that's— yes, the traffic is a frustration. I actually made it down State Street this morning at like 7 and got all the green lights, and I thought I'd won the lottery. So anyway, I would say you did.

Yeah, and I'm just going to agree with you. That is definitely right there is an example of government overreach, that the legislature, legislature is requiring and dictating this to our city and without understanding exactly what you're talking about, requiring us to increase density. Which is going to create all the problems you talked about. So, thank you.

Yes, thank you. All right, sir. I didn't know if you just wanted to change scenery or if you wanted to just introduce yourself.

My name's David Leckie.

I've lived in Orem for 17 years. Um, my— after watching the working meetings, I think my one area of concern is I'd prefer and like to see the maximum lot size for lots from 11,000 To the 1299, or, um, like that, to increase from 650 square feet to 800. Uh, when you look at the minimum lot size of 11,000 square feet, going from 650 to 800 is only an increase of 1.3%. I know there's concerns about visibility, aesthetics, proportionality to the main homes and their access.

3 dwelling units and different things.

But I feel like a 1% increase, or just over a 1% increase, is not going to have a dramatic impact when you look at the aesthetics of the neighborhood, or that on an ADU.

Um, most lots are—

and granted, that is at the very minimum lot size that would meet this exception, is a 1.3%, where there are lots of units units that are bigger. And so some people might say, well, 1%, that is a big difference. But I feel like generally in our life, when we think about 1%, you won't notice that. And so I'd like to encourage that maximum lot size for the smallest section to be increased from 650 to 800. And I think that, um, I have been living here for the last 17 years and, um, I think we have seen the dramatic increase in growth, but the expectation that Orem is going to be the same city that it was 20 years ago or 30 years ago is disingenuous. I think it's growing and there's demand for it to be here for growth and people who want to live here. And we can't maintain the same standards that we had 30 years ago.

Increased traffic, those things are going to happen, and I think we should.

minimize, uh, some of the limitations or what a homeowner can do on their own property.

Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to speak to this? All right, welcome. If you could state your name and—

Good evening, Council.

I'm Miriam Baxter, and I have very much appreciated city staff's work and The executive staff also for the input and the Planning Commission. I have—

if I couldn't be in, in person, I have been very grateful for the recordings. It's helped us get educated and understanding. One of the things that can't— has come up in several work meetings has to do with proximity into neighboring properties and I'm wondering about all of this keeps coming back to design. As the policy evolves and as this comes into place, design elements really matter. And so again, what the speaker previous to me was saying about Orem's gonna continue to change. We turn to design to make it feasible, to make it aesthetically pleasing potentially, and accessible, and have safety in the mix. I really appreciated also the consideration for how do we make it the same.

An ADU should have the same safety factors and restrictions and requirements as, as short-term rental.

And the same things within a house, an accessory apartment. We—

I raised our—

we raised our family south of the expanding UVU, and we had many of our original homes anywhere from 1,500-square-foot homes and up, and literally there apartments being put in that we were saying, or amended, that we literally kept saying there's a reason to have separate air systems and to have fire safety between residences. All of that matters.

And so we really appreciate the effort that's gone in.

The other part I would— I think we do have ways to see where this is successfully handled. I think oddly enough, the market drives a lot.

Our oldest daughter lives in Santa Cruz for over 5 years, and they have very criteria— strict criteria of how short-term rentals and even Airbnbs are run.

So I hope that we will continue to be educated as citizens, that we will find out ways that if a person—

that was said in the work meeting, Lynnae, or Council Member Millett, about the individual that— or maybe it was Crystal— said they didn't feel comfortable because the accessory unit was close to their property line or where they slept.

And I thought, okay, do we need to look at design about making a more secure separation or fencing. You know, I, I think we've got some potential here that will help.

Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate you. All right, anyone else who hasn't spoken that would like to come and speak to this? All right, I'm going to go ahead and close the public hearing, and I'm going to ask Mr. Earl if, if you could address the concerns that Mr. Larson said about our ordinance and state law. And I recognize that we might not agree, but at least I want to hear what he, what he has to say.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor.

Um, you know, recognize that some of his arguments on the ordinance here are the same ones he made with respect to the other changes that we made to in our ordinance regarding the building envelope. Um, one thing I will say is, I think I actually agree with him on, with respect to one of his points, and that has to do with the, uh, um, regulation of number of bedrooms. And this is actually a discussion we had previously had, and we thought we had made that change, but it appears that it's still showing up in the ordinance. And so, uh, appreciate, uh, him bringing that up again. Again, I thought we had got that changed.

Okay.

So what we want to do is remove that, that aspect.

Um, as to the other elements that he has raised, I'll have to respectfully disagree with him.

Um, I think that our ordinance is otherwise in compliance with the requirements of state law.

All right, thank you. And so you'll, in the, in the final draft, you'll do that?

Yeah, and that should just be part of the motion then that we would strike that language regarding reference. Referencing the number of bedrooms.

Um, before I turn it to the council, I just have a question for, um, Mr. Hall. Um, the gentleman talked about increasing the— from 650 to 800 square feet. Now, question I have, and I'm going to use a real-life example because it's my house and my lot. I have a lot that's 11,700 square feet, so I qualify for to do this. But as I recall, there's something in the ordinance saying that it can be no larger than 50% of my main floor. My main floor is 1,200 square feet.

Right.

So even if the ordinance said if we— it was changed to 800 square feet, the maximum I could do is 1,200— I mean, 600 square feet, because that is—

Right.

The maximum. So The 800 isn't— is my point is, is that the 800, if we were to raise it, is not a given. No, it's got to— you still have to take into consideration the main floor without any basement or upstairs.

Correct. The footprint.

The footprint. Okay. Thank you. All right, council. Councilmember Gale.

I guess to that point, my question would be, if we raise it to 800 square feet, there probably would be some Homes that qualify to build to that.

Yeah, to the, to the exact same argument. Some would, some would have large enough homes to qualify for the 800 if you did raise it.

Okay, thank you.

Anyone else want to counsel? Councilmember Meekum.

Um, my understanding, having been in conversations, uh, around this ordinance, is that the ordinance that you have presented to us tonight is a compromised position in many ways, trying to find common ground between divergent perspectives on the council.

Yes.

Um, and it reflects that. And I think, you know, we all have a strong interest in passing an ordinance tonight to be compliant with state law and to prevent worst-case scenarios from happening. Um, I, I also, you know, I— my original position has been that We should start at 850 square feet. Uh, I also recognize that that's not everyone else's position, and so I can compromise on that 650. I don't think it'll matter to too many places, but if there is majority support for moving that up to 850, I think 850 probably makes more sense than 800, just because a lot of the, the dwellings that people might be building tend to fit into that 650 or 850 category, is my understanding. But if there is If there is majority support from the council to change that, I would vote to do so. Um, otherwise, I just want to commend you for, for trying to find common ground across diverse perspectives, including on things like setbacks.

How do you feel about my ignoring the attorneys oftentimes? Apparently, I, I have to apologize. I'm sitting here thinking back through the times that Aaron talked about the bedrooms. I should have had that out in my final Draft. It's just been a lot.

You know what, though? There was so much back and forth. Give yourself some grace.

No, that's not gonna happen today.

That's okay.

But I appreciate it. For reference visually, this is when Emma did this graphic for me. This is an 850. This represents an 850 with a 14-foot pitch roof, and this represents a 650. So just for— these are both large enough lots to accommodate either one, but that's the difference in kind of size and ratio. For reference. Okay.

And just to— oh, I'm sorry, go ahead, Councilmember Miller. Respond. I want you to understand what the thought was behind this. The thought to this gentleman was, um, it's not just about that property, it is about the neighborhood. And we are essentially putting a commercial venture in a neighborhood. We're putting a rental property in the backyard of your next-door neighbor. So we are— and I know you disagree because you think we should only look at that property, but I have to listen to residents who live next door to that property who are now saying, you know, I bought this house in a neighborhood and that's what I expect to live in, so please preserve my neighborhood. So this is kind of the thought process behind that. We often, as Councilmember Meekum said, we have to find some common ground with people and look at— I mean, honestly, this is one of my things. I believe in property rights. I'm a very firm property rights proponent, but I believe that property rights exist on both sides of the fence, and my actions should not negatively impact your property, the property next door. So with that being said, I need to ask Jared a question. Would you go back to the Uh, this one or this one? That one. Okay. So, is that a good illustration of what we allow in our ordinance? Yes, we, we will prohibit parking in the backyard.

Um, no, you can't park in the back.

You could—

this could run all the way to the back as well. This is just an easy— it needs to be in our code. It needs to be behind the front wall of the home.

So, I thought we talked about that, and we had several residents come in and say, You know, we don't want headlights pulling into my bedroom window all the way to the back, all the way to the back yard. So, did we not list that anywhere in our ordinance? I don't have that, right?

I don't have anything about maximum length or how far back to take it. I don't have anything about that.

Sorry.

I remember that coming up.

Yeah. Privacy protections for the, for the bedroom of the person behind.

Yeah, I don't have— I mean, we could. I guess we could look at something like that. That's the kind of thing that this whole ordinance, like, like you've said, represents kind of compromises between things. We haven't had the kind of time that I would really like to spend with this kind of an ordinance, as complicated as these things are that come up right now. Um, this kind of driveway for an RV, or even for just additional parking in your backyard on your own in a single-family home, regardless of the DADU, would be allowed if someone wanted to pour a driveway.

But that's different. Once again, this is a commercial enterprise in a neighborhood.

Absolutely.

I'm just saying, so there are different rules. We got to be a little more careful with allowing that.

And I'm not sure how to write that, but we can, we can try. I didn't write anything yet.

No.

Okay. Um, the other thing I would like to ask is, um, my impression of our discussions were this, like, I think I talked in the work meeting, this last section of an exception for commercial and open space. space of 5 feet. I don't recall ever talking about that. I remember Jen saying it, but I don't remember any other council member agreeing with that. Um, I feel like if we want to have something with commercial, I, I respected the point that, um, Councilmember Kilpatrick made where he said, well, with commercial right now, against commercial is, um, zero setback, if that's correct. Um, but open space, I completely disagree with that.

Thank you.

Because if a home eventually goes behind there, they will suffer the impact of that lack of setback that their neighbors should have in a residential area.

If it were rezoned.

If it were rezoned.

Sure. So that's understandable.

That's kind of my opinion on that. I think if we want to add the exception for commercial, but I don't believe we should have open space included in that unless you want to define open space as something that is unusable, unbuildable, you know, um, something that can't negatively impact a future property owner.

Right.

Thank you, Councilmember Lamson.

And that was my recollection, is when we were talking about that, that that was for like a park, a school, something else, that there would not ever be anything built on that property behind it. That was My recollection of our discussion.

So we would just want to— I can put— we can probably accommodate that if you guys bear with me for 1 second. The exception, the way I wrote it, is where a proposed detached accessory dwelling unit will be adjacent to a property which is zoned commercial, industrial, or is zoned or used for public facilities, parks, or open space. If we strike the open space, that would be like the OS-5 zones that sometimes—

Open space is not vacant lot or— yeah, it's—

yeah.

And say those again because public facilities, public facilities, parks, or open space, that would be like schools, um, the public works buildings that we have around the fire station.

I think that would—

things like that. It would be— it would be those things. Those don't— those— nothing is safe from permanent.

Did you hear me perk up public facilities? Because we know that's pending, right?

Sometimes that's a good thing.

Some of those properties are pending sale right now. Yeah.

So if you wanted to, we could strike— um, I mean, the open space is probably the biggest concern, right? Because the OS-5 zone is— there are conservation easements and things. And I— my impression in that, as brief as conversation was, my impression was whether it's going to be up against something that's truly open space. But that isn't— like you said, it's not really strictly defined. Uh, would be zoned or used for open space. So OS-5 zones, they do get rezoned to other things sometimes for housing of different kinds.

So do you want to do just commercial at this point then?

That's up to you.

And I would do public facilities too. I would just strike— I would find just striking open space.

I am as well. And I think there's an argument to be made that whoever ends up moving into that residential area will know what they're getting into before they purchase the property and can make that decision at that time.

Strike.

So, if— let me read it back to the way that if it's striking open space, then it would read where a proposed detached accessory dwelling unit will be adjacent to a property which is zoned commercial, industrial, or is zoned or used for public facilities or parks, the required setback for the accessory dwelling unit adjacent to such property may be reduced to 5 feet.

Yeah.

Does that work? Okay.

All right, uh, council, I have a couple things.

Oh.

Oh, Councilmember Kilpatrick, I just want to also mention that I think the $850 would be fine moving that up too.

So if you wanted to add that into that, and then we can vote on that.

Is that— is that— is that—

No, I disagree with that.

That's what I— that's where I was headed with this. I wanted to talk about with the council increasing $650 to $850, about what thoughts were, and then also the parking, um, being able to Making any changes to extend it, because you did say that it can clearly go back as it is. I know people who park their RVs and things back.

Maybe for this, say it can't go past the main dwelling, the rear corner. So your parking is right after that? Yeah.

Table.

But I'm not seeing parking.

So, this doesn't really deal with this. I'm just reading the code section on it that's drafted. So, right now—

Oh, that's staff. That's not true.

So, right now, the parking reads as follows. I'm going to summarize the first part, and then we'll get— I'll read it verbatim when we get to the part that matters. Okay. You have to have 2 dedicated parking spaces. Sorry, page 3. Go to page 11, actually, of the code. Well, I'm sorry. No, I'm telling you, I'm looking at a whole different thing. Sorry. It's section D6. Um, D6, and then it's A through G. So, 2 dedicated parking spaces. shown for the primary dwelling, 1 additional space for any detached structure, detached dwelling unit between 200 and 650 square feet in area. And again, whether we raise that 650 to 850 or not doesn't matter. That's separate for the state code. Uh, 2 additional parking spaces provided for anything larger than 650 square feet. Parking space needs to be 8 by 16. Parking spaces in a garage or carport serving the primary dwelling do not count for the additional required parking stalls unless the garage or carport has more than 2 parking spaces. Driveways leading to a garage or carport serving the primary dwelling shall not count for the additional parking requirement. However, an area of the driveway that is widened or extended beyond what would customarily be installed to access the garage may be counted toward the parking requirement if it meets the parking dimension requirements herein, and if parking in the designated area would not block or impede access to the garage or carport. That's— they can't be located in the front setback. They have to be paved. Parking areas have to be paved with concrete, masonry, or concrete pavers. So I don't have anything about the distance. You'd be imposing something saying no further than so much past the front wall of the home or something like that. I'm not sure how to—

I'm okay going along the side of the house, but just like your picture right there, just so it ends at the home and doesn't—

to the rear wall of the home or something.

Yeah.

Or this side fence, wherever you have your side fence.

What do you think? Is that, is that something you're comfortable— what would you— so what you're saying, Councilmember Millett, is just Having it go up to where the farthest they can extend into the rear yard is the back of the main dwelling.

Yeah, I mean, the nonusable side yard that we're always told about by Central Utah Water, right?

Oh, yes.

Uh, can I ask a question?

Sure.

Uh, Jared, can you just maybe clarify what discretion we have regarding parking with the state ordinance?

The state code is pretty clear that it doesn't want you to do— that you not to ask for any more than 2 spaces for something bigger than 800 square feet or bigger than 650 square feet, and no more than 1 space for something up to 650 square feet. Beyond that, in this specific code, it doesn't tell you. Um, there is, there is information about tandem parking in the, in the state code section, the pretty codes, um, that don't allow us to To require certain materials and things. There's information about tandem parking there that we should count that. Um, but there's nothing here prohibiting that either. So.

So, are you saying in another section of code, it says we can't prohibit tandem parking?

Another section of state code talks about tandem parking being countable.

So, if we make it not countable in this ordinance, is that going afoul of state code?

We don't do that in this ordinance.

Yeah, we're not making it not countable.

All right. So what did we decide, council, with parking? Where do we— where are we talking about the parking? Oh, Councilmember Kilpatrick. I'm sorry, I keep going like this.

I'm just stuck in the corner here.

I'm good.

Um, I don't have any issues, especially if the DADU is straight off that edge for that parking to come to that DADU. I don't, I don't. I'm just saying, if it were on that side, I don't have any issues with it being there because that would allow them to get closer to their unit in the middle of the winter or whatever else that have a path to their home. Um, I don't have an issue with any of that extra parking strip at all.

So you're, you're saying that's okay to go to the back of the house, or you're disagreeing with that?

I'm saying it could go far farther in the back of the house if the DADU was farther, have it go closer to the DADU. Setback where it is off the back of the house, rather than just the side of the main house.

So you want to write in there, if we—

if I just say leave it alone and let them— I would let the property owner decide and not make that an issue for this ordinance.

So you don't have a problem with cars driving in the back of a house in the backyard?

I do not.

All right, council, is that— do we want to discuss that issue anymore? Okay, let's go talk— let's talk about the 650 to 850. The reason I asked my question was, and granted, I know my house is not the biggest house in the city, but I do think that that restriction of half of the main floor is going to regulate quite a bit. Because if it's 850, it would have to be main floor of— what is that, 1,700 square feet?

850.

Or—

that's half of 850. What I'm also thinking about is situations where mom and dad are getting older and I have a lot and I want mom— and actually, as I get older, I become the mom. It gets to— And I just— and I don't envision all of these being commercial ventures. Well, I recognize that there will be some that are commercial ventures. I— the people who have contacted me about this want their parents close by. They want to help provide for them. And so I'm trying to picture, am I— would I be happy living in, in a 650 square foot? Me, probably yes, because I just— that's just my— I'd be okay. But, but there's just me. But if there was a mom and a dad, I mean, y'all, y'all are married, you love your spouse, but you know what? Sometimes you need a little space.

Yes.

And, and so I would be, I would be comfortable going up to the larger size because I want to help. I, I, I see this as a tool that we can use to help families, and I think that it's 150 square feet more. Um, I, I think that, that, that would help. I'm looking at this picture where the 850 square feet and the 650— are the 2 houses on the front of that lot, are those the same size, the same footprint? They don't look like they're the same.

No, they're not exactly the same size.

So that's what I'm trying to look at, the relativity. It looks like the smaller house has the bigger detached and the bigger house has the small. Yeah. So anyway, so I see this as a tool for families. And so I would be, if the rest of the— I just let you know, I would be open to increasing that on the $11,000. The $11,000 to $13,000, if, if others were as well.

I would definitely support that.

I'm definitely against it. That was something that we had negotiated in our discussions, and to come in this meeting now and change everything that we have collaborated together on is— well, if that's the way you want to do business, then that's the way you do business, I guess.

Thank you. All right, and then All right, well, we've discussed these different things, so I'm ready for a motion of some sort.

So I'd like to make a motion that we vote on these individual things if we can.

What individual thing?

Like the parking extension, the square footage increase.

I would prefer to have it be— I'd like to have this hashed out so it comes into one ordinance, but I don't know, is there any difference in breaking that all up, um, or what, what, or taking separate votes on and then do a final vote at the end, or just have the council members express You could do kind of a straw poll on each of those elements and then vote on a final ordinance that contains all the elements. Okay.

Have a majority vote.

It would be a formal vote.

That's fine.

Yeah, that's fine.

But just kind of know how everybody weighs in on that.

That's great.

Okay. So let's tackle— okay, we've— we're not— I crossed off the setback thing, so we're not going to be doing that, right? We've already decided. Okay. Parking extended to the back. Um, what are your thoughts?

I think that parking should be able to get close to the DAU, so that may involve times when it needs to go to the back.

I concur with that statement.

And again, Jared, that's where it currently is, right? I mean, you can park In the, in your backyard.

Yeah, we don't, we don't have any regulations about extending a driveway. If you get, if you want to extend the driveway on the side of your house and run it into your backyard, you can do that.

Okay.

I'm okay with that. We could. The other thing that we can do is start looking at— I'm not sure how to word something that would, that would accomplish that, but we can certainly start looking at that. I apologize. That's not something that I wrote up, but we could look at something that would give consideration to glare or things like that. There might be a way to do it. I'm not sure how to. How to say it correctly tonight without— Um, we could try, um, not extending past the rear of the home or something like that. But the point being that it's not a lot of people— it's when it's an RV, you don't back that in and out 3 times a day or whatever. It's not as common. Um, so the situations where it happens nowadays, or where it could happen, it's not really happening a lot. It would be This would be more— this would cause it to happen more often. So we can look at—

Okay, now I'm going to need a little clarification. So the ordinance talks about, and the state law says that the parking has to be past the front of the building.

Well, the state code doesn't care where we park. They don't require too much parking. That's where we talk about it, but it says it shouldn't be in the driveway. That shouldn't count.

That's—

this driveway area doesn't get to count for your detached or your internal ADUs. That's just not This isn't where you say, well, I got plenty of parking in my driveway. You create it to the side or rear of the home instead. Or if you have additional— if you have like a 6-car garage or something, that's fine. Okay, you have to show 2 cars in a garage for this house, and you don't get to count the driveway that leads to those 2 spaces as your ADU stuff.

And so we— and just to make sure I understand the current zoning and the residential zoning, like the R-8, you could, you could put your Parking clear back if you wanted.

Yeah, we don't, we don't have regulations on limiting the extended driveways and things that people do. We just, we don't have that.

So we'd be silent on that then.

Current code does not speak to that. That would— what we would write would be specific to this ordinance for ADUs and DADUs.

Okay, so what I'm hearing then is you 3 here are okay. Not limiting it, not limiting the parking to— okay, let's go over here now.

Yeah, so I just am going to clarify the whole reason why I'm making this point and that we've had this discussion is just like you came tonight, we've had residents come and ask us to not— to when these DADUs were coming to our community, now that they're coming to our community, to Yes. Help not create something that he has experienced in his neighbor's backyard where cars were pulling in at all hours of the night and lights were shining in his bedroom window. So, you know, this is some— just like we seem to be responding to you tonight, we have other residents come on different nights and ask us to help them resolve some of their concerns. So that's why we've had these conversations over the past 4 or 5 meetings about this, is to try to give, um, you know, representation to every viewpoint that comes before the council. So that's why I'm where I am, is because I am trying to help that individual, those individuals that have come and expressed that concern with this As I said, government overreach, the legislature telling us that we had to have detached ADUs in the backyards of residential areas. So that's my— why I'm not in favor of it, because I'm representing those residents at this time, and I feel strongly about doing that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. May I just offer a potential, I guess, compromise that might address what you're all saying? Just throwing out a brainstorming idea here. Maybe it could say that the driveway does not extend beyond the rear corner of the DADU.

Oh, so you're talking about parking B. So what you're— so you're— so your concern would be, I think, as I understand it, it's not just the cars. I'm thinking cars coming here, the headlights this way, but I think So you're concerned about cars going like that and parking like that one picture we saw where the front of the DADU was actually facing the rear yard?

Mm-hmm.

Okay. So, Council, what do you think about what Mr. Bybee's—

I, I think my main concern is, you know, thinking about people trying to get into their home, um, particularly in weather or snow or other things, um, that you need to be able to get access to your home. Um, and so, uh, I, I think I'm comfortable with his, his proposal, which is that, uh, you wouldn't have to get beyond the unit to be able to get into your home.

Can I build on that? Just thinking about what Brent said and Quinn's response, um, it's, it's making me think about what Councilman Kilpatrick was saying. If these, if If we're just using this simple model as kind of a, uh, an illustration, if this space, if they wanted it closer to the unit, they brought this driveway back and we said not the rear corner, but not past the front corner of the DAU. Then, like Councilman Kilpatrick was saying, if the headlights are facing at their place and that's blocking that light, and maybe that solves for that. And we can, like we've said before, if that's starting to cause issues, we can, we can bring that back with that.

So the front corner, Council, how would you feel about the front corner of the detached ADU? So it would take— All the way up to the front where they could park right next to the front.

I'm in favor.

Would that work?

That works for me.

Okay. Yeah, that works for me.

That would work for me.

Okay. And okay, there, we took care of that. All right. Now, um, the— can you go to the slide? Slide with the yes, that one. Yes, I want to acknowledge what Council Member Millett mentioned, and that that was that 650 square feet was it was there was a lot of discussion and and was a compromise, and and I recognize that that's part of my struggle because I'm I'm trying to because I do know that. That's something— anyway, that's something that is a— it has been really worked hard on. But I also am concerned about, about the families. So what, Council, what, what is it you want to do? Like I said, I'm truly— as I think more about it, I'm truly conflicted.

That's where I'm at.

I think we have an opportunity to do something for families. I think this could make a meaningful difference to people trying to house their parents or young families. And if we can give them flexibility within reasonable limits, I think that the compromise to take it to $850,000 makes sense, especially knowing that if that 50% requirement isn't met, you know, people will automatically be eliminated. But I feel very comfortable doing that, taking it to $850,000.

Okay, thank you. I need to make— I'm making notes and I have the conflicted column, and I— so far I hear Mr. Lampson and me. And then you're comfortable keeping it at the $650? Okay.

I prefer keeping it at $650.

I'm fine at $850.

Fine at $850.

With that same 50% limit. So that will make the lot size smaller. It will auto-limit it.

And then you're— I think, as I recall, you're comfortable with 850.

Yeah.

Okay. Mr. Conflicted.

I am conflicted, but, but again, the whole point of this whole ordinance is to help People find affordable housing and to help those people that are in the situation that this is going to be helpful. So with that in mind, I think I could be persuaded to go up to $850,000.

All right, so, yeah. All right, well, we'll Sure.

I just want to comment on something that I've seen online, and I just want to kind of make— put this out there because I've seen people saying that, um, our, um, this ordinance that we're putting together is making it unreasonably difficult, you know, to put a DADU on 11,000-square-foot property. That is not true. We went through the properties and there's a significant amount of 11,000-square-foot properties that we— that will be able to do this if they would like. And that was one of the tenets of the legislature, is that we don't make it unreasonably difficult. I appreciate Jared and all of our staff and for what you guys did, the research that you did to show that this is going to be a good fit for a lot of people. in Orem if they choose to put one of these in their yard, that this ordinance has been crafted very carefully to make sure that we were looking at the ability to make it work for people. So thanks, Jared, for that.

All right, thank you. All right, should we try another motion?

No, I will motion, but I need help. Like, what did we say? Can you tell me what we said?

Mayor's probably got a better list than me. Do you want to run through the— do you want me to run through that?

Okay, so, um, you, you have the— well, it depends what your— what is your— what do you want to do with your motion? Do you want to approve it? Continue?

I want to approve it based on the things that we have talked about, talked about incorporating those changes.

Okay, so first we have the change when Mr. Hald completely ignored the attorneys.

Yes, and all the times I've done that in my life, yes, it always turns out bad.

So it's to, it's to remove the, the bedroom. Okay, and then on the parking, it was to extend to the front, to extend to the front of the, uh, DADU.

Further than the front of the DADU.

Okay. And to— for lots areas 11,000 through 15,999, the maximum size of the DADU would be 850 square feet.

And then the change on the exception, the exception for setbacks.

Oh, strike open space from that. Is that what you all recall?

It was striking the open space and also adding that minor language about the set—

that reduced setback only applies to the adjacent commercial or industrial property and not all property boundaries.

Yeah.

Okay. Yes.

Yes.

Sorry.

It can be a complicated motion.

Okay. Before I motion, though, I do want to acknowledge that this is a compromise vote, probably for most of us.

It is definitely for me.

I don't think that we've actually settled on something that I'm thrilled with yet. And if the public, as they try and go forth and do this, has input, I welcome them to come back to us and talk about it. So, that said, I motion to approve by ordinance amending Article 22-6 of the Orem City Code, establishing regulations for permitting detached accessory dwelling units on single-family properties with the following notes. Uh, one, that we remove Maximum bedrooms from the language to that the language regarding parking is that we extend parking to the front of the— no further than the front of the detached ADU. Uh, also that lots of 11,000 to 15,999 square feet, the maximum size for DAU be extended to 850 square feet.

Uh, the—

yes, also an exception. For— in the exception for setbacks, please strike open space from the list and clarify that the reduced setback only applies to borders with those exceptions.

All right, we've got a motion.

I second.

All right, Councilmember Kilpatrick seconds. Is there any further discussion on this item? I just want to reiterate something that I haven't said this— that someone else said that I haven't said yet this evening, that I'm particularly not comfortable— uncomfortable with the state telling us as a city what to do with our zoning. And I think that— I'm just— I'll just leave it at that. There's a lot more that can be said, but I will not say it.

All right.

So we have— go ahead. How do you vote, Councilmember Millett?

I'll say more if you want me to say more. If you want more to be said, I vote aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Motion carries. All right.

Thank you.

Officially the best part of my day, right?

No, no, you need tomorrow morning. You need to go to Mr. Earl's office and just listen to him.

Yeah, mine is the motion to adjourn.

So there you go.

And then disregard.

Oh, we've got a nice second there to adjourn. We got— we gotta have—

we gotta have—

you are the only thing between us and adjournment, Mr. Bybee.

Okay, I'll be quick. Um, I have the official numbers hot off the press of our Taste of Orem event, my favorite event, city event. We had 6,600 attendees and we had over $60,000 worth of ticket sales.

Wow.

The most popular food vendor was Fancy Burger. And then we've got a couple— over the next couple of weeks, we've got a few more popular events. Harvest Festival will We'll be at the Orem Community Hospital next Monday, and we have Orem Night at UVU soccer on September 30th. And then we, we finally have our fire training facility grand opening on October 6th, and we'll have a fire safety night on October 8th. And as I look over the next couple of weeks, I can't help but, you know, Publicly cheer and say hallelujah that my son, who has been battling cancer for the last 2 and a half years, he gets to ring the bell on October 5th. And I just have to— I can't thank you all and exec staff and staff in general for For the tremendous support and love and care and compassion for my family and my son. Thank you so much.

Well, tell him congratulations for us. He did it. Congratulations, Mom and Dad and family. And wow, that's wonderful. All right, before we have a motion to adjourn, I just want to say, Chief Robinson, I have a quick question for you after if you could stay. Don't worry, don't worry. It's— we're good. All right, uh, would someone like to make a motion to adjourn?

So moved.

All right, second.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

All right, thank you all. Our next meeting is October— what, let's see, the 2nd— where is it— October 13th, Tuesday