Neighborhood Districts

Minutes for the Neighborhood District 5 Meeting on September 14, 2023 17 residents signed in as attending. Executive board members there in person were Laura Leavitt, David Harding, Dylan Cindrich, and Sariah Hillam. An additional 5 attended on Zoom, including executive board members Leo Lines and Jason Ream. Both Shannon Bingham and Quinn Petersen emailed the board earlier to let them know they would not be able to come and to voice support or information to be shared at the meeting. 1. Q&A with members of the Provo City Council The meeting started with a Q&A for Provo City Council members Rachel Whipple, current vice-chair and representative of District 5, and current chair Katrice MacKay, who is a city-wide representative. The first question asked about construction that UDOT (Utah Department of Transportation) will be starting soon. The resident had received an email about working at night from a vendor, a water company, talking about cutting into the street for main lines. The council members were unable to comment without seeing the email, but assumed it may have to do with the 300 South project. Dylan assumed that the project has had some delays. The separate project for the bridge over the train tracks on University isn’t slated to start until at least next year. Becky Bogdin mentioned that there was a study done some years ago about a possible bridge over 500 West versus 200 West. It is on the MAG (Mountainland Association of Governments) master plan. 500 West would be the location if it ever gets funded, which is not currently the case. The next question was about illegal parking of a truck across a sidewalk in Joaquin neighborhood and whether to call 311 or police non-emergency dispatch if it is after hours to report it. Rachel Whipple recommended taking a picture of it and posting it with a complaint to 311 online (https://www.provo.org/provo311). Parking enforcement is not under the police in Provo, but Rachel Green confirmed that if it is after hours, the non emergency police dispatch is the place to call (801-852-6210). Rachel Whipple said that they will talk to 311 and see if they need to have this question clarified for residents in their materials. The same person asked whether there was a policy where if someone wants an auxiliary living space in their home and it is a recent purchase and their student child is given title so that then 4-5 kids will pass through the house, if this is a sham title posing as a owner occupied home to excuse a second unit being put in even though it is in effect a duplex. Rachel Whipple confirmed that there is a sham title law in place if that is indeed what is happening. If the parents are still on the deed it could qualify as a sham, but if the house is given outright to the child as the new owner, the parents legally no longer own or control it. This is a legal right often used for purposes of estate planning. More facts would be needed in the specific case to know if it qualifies as a sham or not. Dylan asked about the widening project of 820 North and 800 North. While not in our area, the cars from there would be driving through it. Some property was bought along the corridor. Is widening a project the council is working on? Katrice MaKay answered that it is not. MAG has taken it off their 10 year plan, so nothing will happen for at least the next 10 years. It will not be addressed or discussed for at least that time. If it does come up after that time, there would be a full vetting that we have not even started. There is a bridge on 800/820 North and 850 West over the Provo River Trail that is failing and someone died there in the past year. It has a safety issue with the turn. So that is an eminent thing that the city will be doing. They may have gotten some MAG money for it, but there is city money going in to that. And bridges are very expensive because they have to be safe. Because of the weird angle there will widening needed and some destruction of property. But that will be done in the next year, but Katrice does not have exact dates on that. The next question asked about what kind of enforcement can we expect to see for bikes and battery powered transport in the city. Rachel Whipple said that they have passed a policy but it is not enforced yet. The maximum speed of a bike on a sidewalk is 10 miles per hour. It’s more of an add-on crime if you are stopped for something else. The rental Bird scooters and bikes in Provo top out at 15 mph. Katrice mentioned that there has been a trail system problem with private electric transport and even golf carts screaming down them, when those are even illegal on there. Parks and Recreation is working on a policy and program for the trails that includes more signage. Scott Henderson has been working on that. One resident mentioned that he has witnessed police enforcement of the 15 mph on the Provo Canyon trail. Dave Harding commented that if we can get credible his of enforcement, many will slow down. Katrice mentioned that there was a problem with motorcycles going up Rock Canyon. The police does have some dirt bikes that they use up the trails and they were able to ticket them. David mentioned that on Center Street you can break the law and ride on the sidewalk or go in the street and take your life in your hands. Excited that the new plan on Center and elsewhere that there should be more shared space. It was asked of each of the council members about how they feel about following the Joaquin neighborhood plan of anything above 500 North for high density and south of that in preserving the density. Katrice feels passionate about keeping the residential conservation in place unless there is an obvious need for exception. Rachel Whipple sees the residential conservation zone as a stop gap measure where they froze everything in place, but is not good as a permanent solution. She thinks we need to look at the mix again while preserving the character of the neighborhood and the ability to have flexibility where needed for the best outcome. She would like doing that as the whole process to have a clean code going forward. 2. Public Comment Laura Leavitt introduced the next item on the agenda. Rob Slater asked for neighborhood input on improving the park strip next to the Fresh Market Property on Center Street between 500 and 600 West. There are currently some trees there with crumbling asphalt. He is interested in getting neighborhood service hours help to take out the asphalt and put in landscaping, but wanted to make sure there was support before going to Fresh Market to ask for donations of plants. Many present brainstormed ideas on how best to go about the project, and there was a general consensus to tell him to run with the idea. 3. Additional Topics (7:15-8:00 PM) A. Get Out the Vote event Dylan mentioned that the executive board has been trying to plan a get out the vote event but that there has been some confusion with what they are allowed to do. Rachel Breen clarified that a pure get out the vote event is fine, but candidate stuff is not. Farmers Market has donated the use of a booth to help raise awareness and voter registration, but volunteers are needed to man it. There are printed signs designed by Laura Leavitt that should arrive on September 21. The group has talked about having food and possibly a raffle where you get an entry by showing that you are registered to vote. The push is considered important because even though our area has a very large population, it is known for having very low voter turnout, which hurts its voice in decisions that affect the city and our area. B. Speed control options on 100 North between 500 West & 900 West (matching grant project?) Shannon McGuire was incredibly busy with finishing up preparations for her wedding in 9 days but felt so strongly about this issue that she came to present at the meeting. She has lived in the neighborhood her whole life and for at least the last 31 years people have sped along 100 North between 500 West and 900 West trying to get to the freeway more quickly. There is a high percentage of elderly and disabled residents in the area who cannot cross the street safely as a result. She has called the police and the city, who have said they will put in a note to patrol there but it hasn’t happened. Some suggestions that have come forward to help with traffic calming would be to have a 4-way stop put in at 700 West to break up the four block straightaway and painting bike lines or parking lines on the side to make it visually smaller. Dylan mentioned that any effort would need city approval. Rachel Whipple mentioned that when BikeWalk Provo did a soft streetscape project on Timpview Drive last year that the city engineer was bawled out for because residents in that neighborhood were angry about it. The residents along these streets would need to state they are in support, which Shannon said would be easy to get. Sariah warned that when they painted in bike lanes on 400 East between Center and 300 South, that traffic noticeably sped up because it looked like a higher speed limit street than the surrounding residential ones. She thought the most effective measure would be the 4-way stop. Katrice said that there would need to be a traffic study to make any changes because they can’t legally put in a stop sign arbitrarily, and it was mentioned that the traffic engineer said that study could be done after they finish the raised sidewalks on Center Street. Dave Harding suggested to have the traffic manager do the study in October and then put it on the agenda to have him present the results back here at this meeting. He also suggested it would be nice to have the speed trailer set up along that road to show people what the speed limit is and how fast they are going. Becky Bogdin mentioned that basically every road and street in Provo has a speeding problem, and suggested finding out who the Neighborhood Officer is. Her neighborhood had some success with theirs hanging out on 500 West whenever he had down time between other calls. C. Downtown Trick or Treat Dylan read out the information Quinn sent via email to inform people of the downtown Trunk or Treat on Halloween Octobaer 31st. Most businesses on Center Street will be participating in from 3-6 pm or until they run out of candy. They plan on having some music and DJ stuff outside the convention center again. They aren’t sure yet whether they will be able to shut down the road for the event. Quinn also sent an update on the raised crosswalks along Center. The first one at 450 West has been finished. The road resurface finished and reopened two days ago. Construction of the second at 50 West will start the first week of October. It will take 2 1/2 weeks to cure and be reopened. After the meeting it was confirmed that there will be some paint and brick features installed on the raised crosswalks (table design rather than speed bumps) to make them more visible. Their height makes it so that pedestrians are at the same level as the sidewalks on the sides of the street, and are fine to drive over as long as you are doing it at the speed limit. Ted Davis mentioned that he was in attendance to represent Apollo Apartments, and was interested in talking to residents after the meeting about their feelings on the Denali project that concerned his group as well because of the possible parking issues next door. The next District 5 Neighborhood Meeting will be on Thursday, October 26th, 2023 at 6:30 pm in the City Hall Community Room.