Rich Civic Times
The P&Z meeting began as scheduled at 5:00 PM on 1
Oct 2014. The board members present were: Lance Bourne, Mike Schiess, Dewayne
Gifford, Pat Argyle, and Steve Arnold. Absent was Susan House and Jim Stone. Gary Cox, Garden City Administrator, and Mr.
Hanzelka were also present. The first role of business was to swear in Steve
Arnold as a new board member to fill the Nate Gracey vacancy.
The minutes for both the Public meeting and the Planning
and Zoning Commission meetings for Sept 3 were accepted with minor
changes.
The Commission continued to kick the “Gross Leasable Area”
topic down the road. Steve Arnold asked
if the definition was taken from other towns.
Mr. Bourne said “yes” it was and the Commission uses other cities
ordinances as a baseline in several cases to save time and to use accepted
wording as much as possible. The number
of parking stalls for each business is a major part of this ordinance and the
point of contention because several businesses have more customers than private
parking stalls. It was pointed out that
UDOT may stop allowing people to park along Hwy 89 and that would be a big
impact to parking. Gary Cox reported
that within the next year the city plans on making 270 parking stalls available
to the public. George Peart, Building
Inspector, stated that Ideal Beach is required to have one parking stall for 5
guests. This is different than the 3.5
passengers used in the parking formula.
This reporter was surprised nobody on the commission asked why the
difference. It was stated several times the plan is to make the town a
pedestrian type of town so parking will continue to be a major issue. Pat Argyle stated several business people
have told her they are not interested in developing in Garden City because it
is too costly and difficult to meet the requirements. Hanzelka reported Senator
Hillyard said it will be difficult for the city to obtain future grants if they
don’t come up with some better business plans.
During the discussion a recommendation was made to let
the businesses define their parking needs instead of the city telling them what
is required. One idea was to have them
help pay the cost of the shuttle since the plan is to have the town become a
walking district and all businesses benefit from the service. The commission discussed the possible need to
charge for parking in the prime areas in an attempt to encourage people to use
the public parking areas and the shuttle.
Darin Pugmire was asked for his opinion and he stated he submitted a
proposal 6 months ago and it obviously wasn’t accepted so he has no comment
other than the current ordinance isn’t right.
Cox was asked to email the current parking plan to the members for
review. A proposal was made to table the
discussion because there were so many different ideas.
The next topic kicked down the road was in regard to
Hotel/Motel zones. The Commission is
considering the following three locations now, down from the four previously
reported: South of Hwy 89 at 700 west and south of the old raspberry patch; an
area just below Shundahai and finally an area south of Bear Hollow and west of
300 West. A recommendation was made to
use Google Earth as a way to look at the locations, topography and size of the areas. The plan is to locate areas where building
higher than 35 feet can be built without obstructing the view of those behind
the higher structures. This topic was
also tabled for another month.
The next topic discussed was the re-zoning of Ideal
Beach, and the area west of 300 W to 450 S.
The rezoning would be changed from Residential Estates to Commercial 2 and
from Commercial 2 to Commercial 3. Discussions
focused on where adult and industrial businesses should be located. It was stated there isn’t a place that will
meet everybody’s desires but a zone has to be made to prevent them from being
located within the middle of town.
Public comments were voiced against changing the zone from Residential
Estates to Commercial 2 zone. Mr.
Schiess pointed out the current plan requires industrial businesses to be
enclosed so piles of logs or stacks of wood would not be visible from the
higher elevations. Motion was made to
table the discussion.
It was pointed out that nightly rentals were 75% of the
issues for the ordinance officer during the summer. A recommendation was made to have a zone
defined for nightly rentals. Pugmire
said there are discussions going on by the town council to allow only three
areas to have nightly rentals after a new ordinance is passed; Snow Meadows,
Harbor Village and Ideal Beach. Peart
pointed out there isn’t a difference in the business fees for a small rental
versus a large one even though the impact to the infrastructure and to the
neighbors are very different. A
recommendation was made to have the city consider having different rates for
business licenses based on the occupancy.
During the miscellaneous discussion, Peart said the request
for building permits has slowed down a lot this year. Argyle said the impact fee is higher along
with water connection fee being about $4500
depending on the zone. It was pointed
out the high connection fee is due to the cost to maintain the oversized water
treatment plant.
Cox reported the shuttle service went very well for the
first year with several bus schedules full of passengers. One of the main reasons why the service was considered
to be successful was because of the usage even though there was no advertising
about the service.
Argyle said some people have asked her opinion about starting
a “Glamping” business west of the rodeo grounds and above the canal. It would comprise of portable tents and covered
wagons with beds, fire pits and toilet facilities. This would only be for summer time use and
the tents and wagons would be removed during the winter. Parking
would be below the canal so bridges would be required to allow the guests to cross
the canal. She also stated other people
had asked about dog kennels. Pugmire
said the city council is moving public hearing meetings to a later time during
the regular meeting to allow more time for the citizens to get off work so they
could attend both meetings. He also
stated the council allows a two-three minute period for the public to comment about
the agenda topics. The commission
thought this was a good idea and would consider making the change.
Meeting adjourned at 7:50 PM.
No comments:
Post a Comment