Neighborhood Districts

District 3 Provo Neighborhood Meeting 8/31/2023, 6:30-8:00 pm Brian Taylor, Chair, Conducting 1. Provo City Council Q&A - Council Katrice MacKay a. Most begging issues dealing with? b. Getting Organized as a council - We have a tracker, need a second on all items c. Housing: Attended a housing conference. i. Bottom line: There is not a lot we can do: 1. We can’t change market prices, 2. Cannot keep investors out or prioritize home ownership or prioritize Utah residents getting into homes. 3. State laws limit what we can do. 4. It’s hard to be a united front to send a message to say we don’t want single family homes to go to apartments. 5. Things we want to make the most difference on, it is hard, need more like-minded people to get things done. 6. Limited land: As a city we do not have much land. We have the West side for some room for growth. There’s the infill going on and redevelopment. Northeast side startup. ii. What we can do: 1. Zoning enforcement 2. Send a message that we care about higher quality and more amenities 3. the more you look into state rules, state laws limit what we can do. iii. We are at a stage where Provo is so desirable and we’re getting some economic ___ . More commercial and companies we are excited to have: NE side startups, downtown commercial spaces. We are at a point where we can ask for higher standards. iv. Biggest issue in buying. There are not a lot of starter homes to buy for entry to home ownership. The only way to fix that is smaller square footage. We have a lot of rental apartments and no condos. We need more condos for people to be able to buy, create their own wealth, making those next steps to get them into a starter home. v. Message to developers we want smaller square footage - for sale - not for investors to buy up to rent, but owner-occupied condos. d. Question: Have there been any laws considered regarding Airbnbs. e. Answer: i. There is a need for Airbnbs: Football games, weddings, graduations, Education Week, every week of the year. ii. Moab just did a whole moratorium on Airbnbs in their city. Will not do another legal one, anything sold cannot be an airbnb. It has devastated their city.  iii. SLC: Inundated with airbnbs. iv. Santa Monica law - cannot run a credit card without a business license to run an Airbnb. Completely cut down on illegal, rely so much on third party __ to run their ___inventory__. v. Priority should be the Provo citizens who live here in the community as opposed to those who want to rent a room for a week. vi. Corporate purchasing of homes? How to address it? State law. Want to say anyone from CA, WA, OR have a 20% tax on real estate transactions but we cannot say where an investor needs to be from. Legal terms that we cannot limit commercial transactions, prejudiced against… f. Question: Where are we on adopting the 2050 Provo Plan in being a smart city. This idea where there are zones in London to completely eliminate all vehicles (or gas vehicles?). g. Answer: Have not seen anything on that. h. Travis Hoban i. In trying to do things smarter in conservation, water, etc. Balance mandates vs education and incentives, we try to stay on education and incentive side. ii. Water conservation and air quality - build in the right places to limit cars and travel. If build high density on west side inefficient use of sewage capacity and increased commuting because not as many services there. Do not want high density on west side. Create high density where there are transportation hubs and services. i. Question: Traffic plan for West side? Does the city have a plan? i. McCoard storage unit on Center Street? Airport will go international, it’s growing. Will Center street turn into an 800 N situation eliminating every house to accommodate the traffic necessary on the west side? j. Question: What was the outcome of the trailer amendment and Finch Family Farm? i. Trailer: Tried to be commonsense to open more options yet did not want trailers to be the prominent feature in our neighborhoods. Safety is a priority. Would need to pull out diagrams on what is and what is not allowed. Not supposed to be in front yard, where is parking? ii. Allow for more flexibility and safety. More options for people with trailers and will have better enforcement. Kept the language enforcement officers came to us with. Issue where enforcement needed to be more consistent and fair. iii. Hoban brought up to allow more in agricultural zones. Allow more types to enable farmers to still keep property as ag and have other businesses on property. Finch Farm specifically, wanted to avoid zone change and just do a conditional use permit which would open up all sorts of things in entire city. Maybe do not want a wedding venue next to residence. May not want to give a blanket free pass. Denied that but still think there’s a possibility to allow on an individual basis. They will come to us with a  specific policy zone change for just that. Allow more design and oversight. Was an ag business considered? Council wants to preserve the ag we have and make it work for farmers. If someone comes to us and it’s in the right spot, right type of thing, council is willing to approve those things. k. Question: Did the Finch farm make sense but it wasn’t in the right spot? l. Answer: Hoban: Based on staff recommendations and based on specific things in their plan that did not make the staff feel warm and fuzzy about it so …there were specific concerns about their plan. m. Question: Will there be a pathway? Neighbors were excited and wanted to help them keep their farm. Have not heard any specific examples that do not fit. There should be a way, if the city wants to keep agriculture, we need to help find a path to do that. n. Answer: Hoban: Need to go back and see why the staff was concerned. Agree there needs to be a path. o. Question: Middle School road to Sports Park to airport. Why does it need to connect to the neighborhood? 600 south to airport. ___ Neighbors do not want increased traffic around school, church. To provide better access to school and sports park, priority put on people visiting sports park and not the residents. 600 S to Lakeview. Geneva will also be connected to Lakeview. Do not want this connection… and this connection… under freeway 1800 S , 600 s will always be … will get bigger. Safety issue. p. Answer: We are not aware yet, we do not get info until it’s ready to come to council and there is a zone change request. We can get more familiar with. Ask for field trip. Traffic studies. Can advocate, as it’s coming closer. 600 has to happen but the other roads bring to council, discuss. 2. In-person Minutes: a. Zoning change requests are the biggest impact. With 7 of us, need a united front to send a message to developers. No will not let single family go to apartments, hard thing is we are not in total control. Biggest frustration. Things I want to make the most difference on, it’s hard. Need more like-minded people to get more things. b. We have limited land, we have the West side still, infill going on and redevelopment. Provo is desirable, economics rising, more commercial, companies and citizens are excited to have big startups on NE side. More commercial space downtown really helpful. At a point where we can ask for better development, ask for quality, amenities. c. Starter home, only way to fix that is smaller square footage, keep getting apartments and no condos, which is what we need to start buying things to create wealth. d. Want smaller square footage for sale, not for investors to rent but for Provo residents to buy as owner-occupied. e. Any laws considered to regulate Airbnbs? We are a desirable place for airbnbs, football, education week, weddings, every week of the year there is something. f. Moab did a moratorium no new airbnbs, now allowing none. Devastated their city. All these ADUs became Airbnbs in slc, now they have to have FT airbnb people in housing dept. g. CA Santa Monica - law- VRBO, Airbnb could not run a credit card without a business registration. Cut a lot. h. Priority needs to be for provo citizens who want to live in the community as opposed to just staying for a week. i. Would love a state law, CA, WA, OR pay 20% more but we cannot say investors cannot buy something. Legal phrases, cannot limit commercial transactions like that. Cannot be prejudiced against… j. Where are we as a city to adopting the 2050 city agenda? #1 city in nation all eyes on Provo, where do we stand with these ideas that all cities will be Smart cities. k. Created zones eliminated…havent seen anything at risk for us in that regard. l. More energy efficient in city buildings, do things smart as far as air quality and water conservation. Doing little things, balance mandates as opposed to education. We try to stay on education and incentive side. Make sure we build in the right places to limit travel and cars people have to use. If we build high density on west side inefficient use of sewage, commuting muchmore. Want high density in areas where there are transportation hubs, single services. m. McCoard warehouse approved. Airport growing, center street, will it turn into 800 North eliminate every house to have the lanes to accommodate the trafic? n. 50 year plan for MAG, arterial. Nothing from Geneva road west. Freeway to Geneval road will be 5 lanes. o. What was the outcome of the trailer amendment? Thoughts on Finch family farm zoning change? p. Trailer issue: Commonsense about it. Open up more options but do not want trailers being the prominent feature. Safety an issue. Would need to pull out diagrams to explain. Should not be in the front yard or front yard but so far from the sidewalk. Try to allow for flexibility and prioritize safety and aesthetics, better enforcement. Kept language enforcement officers came with. Got enforcement consistent and fair. q. Finch family farm: look at allowing more in agricultural zones. A lot can do but allow more types of things to enable farmers to still keep their property as ag and have other business on the property. r. Finch didn’t need zone change if have conditional use permit, not a good idea so opens ups throughout city, city-wide. Maybe don’t want a dance wedding venue next to a preschool? Denied the conditional use. Can look at situation. Will present specific policy zone for just that. s. Design and oversight t. THey brought back concerns to offer up as a blanket thing, look at individual basis. Animal rights, council consensus to preserve ag land we do have. Makes sense, right spot. u. Did farm didn’t make sense and not in the right spot. Specific concerns about their plan. Did approve harmonizeing of two zones. Didn’t do anything. v. Provo Bay neighborhood: 2470 road past finches, past school connect to lakeview drive. Road go into new sports park. Understand going past sports park, don’t know why it needs to connect to our neighborhood. 6th south to airport road. Feels like priority to access to sports park and not considering neighborhood. w. John Bunderson West side resident, want 600 S connection. Center is horrible. 2470 will be connected in less than a year. Engineering dept does traffic studies, flow, other commerce around airport, can provide numbers of increased trips through area. Other part of 2470, it is the main trunkline for the sewer lines installed there to the new lift station installed to allow for growth there. The sewer line, storm drain, water line connections. x. When will the lift station be fully operational? It’s imminent. y. Engineering can come to a neighborhood meeting. z. I live next to Sunset view elementary - no sidewalk from houseto school. No sidewalks and then see sidewalks being torn out to put in new sidewalks. aa. 1600 W, south side of 600 south. Especially with new development. bb. Many neighborhoods without sidewalks. Pricetag = $100m to put in all sidewalks. cc. Old farms, etc. not required at the time. If sold or redevelopeed, required to put the 6ft wide ones in. Money issue. Special tax for sidewalks, gives $500k a year for sidewalks. Always getting further behind, not enough. Can look at taxes, development, RDA, development zone, all taxed accordingly over time then a sidewalk gets put in. How are places being prioritized over safe routes to school. Center is a UDOT road vs a city road. dd. Administrative decision as opposed to city council. Administration decides priority. Developers pay for sidewalks. ee. Center street - west center from interchange west of geneva, tearing out existing walks and improving it’s all UDOT funds. ff. 1600 W unsafe - it’s a street - no shoulder. 1600 South alleyway. Working with city. There is a plan by city. Expensive, cannot do it now. Plan but no funding source for it. Go through new subdivision. No sidewalk on 600 W. Improvements on 1600 W, over 600 Million. gg. Is there a plan for water. Aquifers under the roads, run out without that. What do we have to prepare for dry seasons again and population. 95% of water from aquifer. We have multiple wells, feeding aquifer, extra water this year, we get water shares from Deer Creek reservoir and bring it to our aquifers. Geography and water rights, we are secure. State as a whole, use less water. We need our water cycle to go through. When don’t use water, saving reservoir,need cycle to go through, keep grass and trees alive. Need to water lawns to go through system to return to aquifer, keephealthy, watch how high it is. Got money from feds and state to do our system. Working our wastewater treatment plant to clean and pump water back in. Construction by motion picture studio, putting pump to feed water. Most wasted water in the city is park strips. Offering incentives for  that. Doing legal things to protect water rights for cities. Flip the strip incentives to get funds. If want to take out park strip and replace with xeroscape, can do that. Reimburse you for using more conservative sprinkler heads, smart sprinkler controllers. Lot of reimbursements. Will provide free shade trees, update windows. Old non-egress windows and replace and more energy efficient windows. Park strips have to be wider that go in now. Alsl looking at reducing minimum amounts for yards, min amt of vegetation. Don’t need any grass but needs 40% vegetation, pavers, tons of vegetation. hh. Would there be, love incentives, encourage citizens to reduce grass, water usage, xeroscaping. Good to water stuff, put paper down is bad for environment. Turf is really bad for environment, water supply. 3% goes to grass and it’s useful, it goes to aquifer. It’s a good thing. Need to work within our water systems, us keeping water from aquifer is a bad thing. ii. What is your vision for Provo: Travis: I think there is a lot of pressure to develop as much housing, highest density, also pressure to be like Orem. Vineyard will have Utah City. What Provo has is very unique. Preserve the great things about provo and still adapt to changing world around us. Demand 40k shortage housing units in UT. If we built out every inch we could, we still would not solve the housing crisis, don’t solve the macro problem, coming from CA, NJ, WA, NY. We have low cost of living, economy, jobs, great schools and great culture, outdoors, 4 seasons,will never satisfy housing demand. Instead of making bad decisions reactionary, to what end? WIll not solve the problem. Wish more and cheaper housing. Preserve. Grow but in the right places in the right way. Just continue to keep the wonderful things growing instead of making bad decisions and become like West Valley City. jj. Quality of Life. Need to balance the growth we need to do, think long term. Picky about every decision. No rush idea desperate, will get better next years, want better amenities, higher quality of construction, can be done better, do not settle, think long term, not reactionary. Developer, past work. Worst case scenario no one wants to live here. Keep up ratio with parks tso people, traffic, watch all as growth happens. kk. Travis-aware of long term effects on air quality and water usage. All hard things to balance. Lets have provo and not Vineyard, orem, or OR. ll. Sewer on west side is a legit real limit. Terry McCade school board 3. Shoreline is on schedule - opening next school year aug 2024. Email concerned about construction trucks. Not taking lakeview parkway like they should. If going down a street, please report. 1100 W was closed at end of shoreline. Driving down 1600 W with semis from freeway. Contact city council construction trucks are going down wrong street. 4. Can we change meetings to rotate between schools. Charge for custodial. This is a soft cost. Neighborhood chair the hard cost, school board having to cover. City employees staying after work to go to meetings. Organize with Rachel. 5. 890 will turn into 900s will be widened. 6. Puncture weeds - kids cannot ride bikes to school. Can send to council, we do enforcement by reports. Do not have resource to be proactive monitor, but will respond to complaints. Goatheads. 7. Public Comment a. Request a turn lane Center st, lakeview pkwy, improved is north of amelia earhart, other intersections between there and geneva road, and every intersection to lakeview parkway would benefit from a turn lane. Advocate for a light at ameila earhart. Saferoutes to schools, there’s a crosswalk school crossing guards. Turning lane helped a lot. When westbound on center, make left turn stop traffic on center. 1600 W and Geneva rd would also benefit. Lane on north side for westbound traffic, no parking but a full width lane. Try to turn left, traffic veers around them. 8. Additional Topics a. Service Project Ideas: Send to BYU Y-Serve Community Clean-Up group i. Combine with BYU Y-Serve community clean up group. BYU students goal to clean community. New guy in charge looking for ideas. 1. Goatheads 2. BYU students service hours come help 3. Lions park brush clean up 4. Parks will clear up brush along lovers lane 5. Can paint houses, brushes, make a wishlist 6. Cottonwood park owned by the county 7. Permission of property owner 8. Combine with residents and BYU students 9. Email rachel service ideas b. Matching Grant Update (Brooke Barnes) c. Neighborhood Social Ideas–Budget lapsed but have new budget - lost 6k, no matching grant and did not use social budget i. Socials, parties, come to party to advocate ii. Set up a zoom district meeting to get more people involved. iii. Pay for rental and then get reimbursed iv. Block part to block off street v. $5k matching grant, $1k social, bike rides with refreshments, facilitates a meeting, a social. d. OCt 12 meeting in council chambers.