Cheri Condie - Spoke regarding the Oak Road parcel. Appreciates work of the Council and the appreciation for parks and open space. Cedar Hills is a beautiful place tucked up next to the mountain. City leaders know how to live up to environment and scenery loved. Thanked the Council and city staff for the work put into it. She's happy with the outcome.
Ben Ellsworth - There is new construction on Cottonwood Road. He would like to see ways to make the road safer as there are cars parked on both sides with construction. Suggests the city put some lighting in that area as it's very dark at night and hard to see.
John Condie - Thanked the Council and Chandler for efforts put forth on the hillside project of Oak Road. Chandler spent a lot of time finding historical records and dealing with complaints. Appreciates his hard work.
City Reports
Chandler Goodwin - Final week of Jr Jazz registration this week. Golf is winding down but would like to stay open until Dec 9th. Ski bus registration is open but chaperones are all assigned. Snow parking signs have gone up throughout the city. LPPSD did appoint a new chief tonight. City received plans for Phase 5 of the Cedars Townhomes. Original townhomes were approved in 2002 but they are making some minor changes. If residents reach out to council, please direct them to staff.
CM Rees - Still working on State of the City, but it should be ready to go to the designer by the end of next week. I have not received any feedback from the Council on the articles so we'll move forward.
Mayor Gygi - LPPSD appointed Reed Thompson as new fire chief. He's from South Jordan.
CM Zappala - Parks and Trails Committee met last week. Santa night is December 4th. Working on proposal for the budget next year for their projects. On park maintenance, they would like to be consulted on the RFQ for park maintenance. Have some concern with proper maintenance of trees throughout the city. They want to know who is responsible for checking on and maintaining trees, especially newly planted trees.
Review/Action on Canvass of Election
The City and Utah County Clerk’s office jointly administered the November 7th General Election. All Cedar Hills ballots were received and processed by and under the direction of the Utah County Clerk’s office. Pursuant to state law, it is necessary for the City Council to act as the board of canvassers and to canvass the election returns by reviewing and verifying the Statement of Votes Cast provided to us by the Utah County Clerk’s office. It will be necessary for the City Council, by motion, to officially certify the results of the canvass and declare “elected” those persons who had the highest number of votes. Also, it will be necessary for the City Council, by motion, to officially certify the results of the canvass and declare “approved” those ballot propositions that had more “yes” votes than “no”, or declare “rejected” those ballot propositions that had more “no” votes than “yes” votes.
The official counts are:
Total Votes - 2,067
Jenney Rees - 1,462
Denise Andersen - 1,322
Ben Ellsworth - 1,139
For the PARC tax - 1,105
Against the PARC tax - 925
Review/Action on Rezoning a Parcel of Land from the Public Facilities Zone to Residential
This item was removed as the landowner contacted the city through his attorney and removed his application. If at some future time he wishes to pursue this he will need to submit a new application.
Review/Action on Amending Ordinance Related to Premises Occupations
A resident has applied for a premises occupation business license, subject to the provisions in City Code §3-1E. The applicant meets the various provisions except for a requirement for the property to be a minimum of one acre. Premises occupations are only allowed where a home has ingress/egress on an arterial roadway (Canyon Road). Currently there is only one premises occupation in Cedar Hills, Shelly’s School of Irish Dance. The new proposal is for a bike shop area to be located in a new accessory building in the rear of a property that totals .65 of an acre. The homes along Canyon Road are zoned in either the R-R 1 20,000, R-1 15,000 or H-1 zone. Staff is recommending that three changes be made to the premises occupation code:
1-Change the approval body to be the City Staff as was approved in §10-5-37, conditional use code. The chart in that section of code identifies Admin as the approval body; in this case the appropriate administrator would be the Business License Official. This change would bring the two separate codes into agreement.
2-Change the provision requiring one acre. This size provision may be reduced and still meet the intent of the code, that the use remain primarily residential in nature. By reducing the area required, it will allow additional homes to have the option to have a premises occupation. By making the change to half acre, six additional homes would meet this requirement.
3-Change the provision requiring a BCI background check to be only for those businesses as outlined in §3-1C, businesses that involve minors or elderly individuals.
This was unanimously approved.
Review/Action on Signage for Walmart
Walmart is in the process of updating their store to fit in with the current color and design scheme of their brand. Walmart is proposing to alter their current signage by adding a blue background to the current “Walmart” sign, as well as add a “Pickup” sign on the northwest corner of the building with an orange badge. The pickup is a new service offered by Walmart, this portion is a new sign location on the building. During the April 3, 2007 City Council meeting, the Walmart site plan was accepted with the provision that, “signs shall be subject to all provisions of the Cedar Hills sign ordinance. The City Council will make a finding at final site plan approval as to which facades of the building will be determined to be the front.” The proposal alters the current signage on the front as stated above, as well as changing the verbiage of the sign on the south of the structure from “Outdoor Living” to “Lawn & Garden”.
Planning Commission split their vote, 3-2 in favor of recommending the proposed changes. The concerns of the Planning Commission centered on the colonial aspect of changing the colors of the signage. Cedar Hills has conflicting language in the code regarding commercial signage.
§10-5-26 (D) (4) limits commercial signage to a cumulative display area of 25% or 90 square feet, whichever is greater. However, recently adopted code §10-6A-(E) (5) limits signage to 10% or 75 square feet. The more recent code would trump the older code, however in this instance Walmart’s signage was approved prior to the adoption of §10-6A.
The proposed signage is below:
C. Geddes was fine with the blue. Stucco color is easy to change. Doesn't think the City Council should mandate color for signs.
C. Zappala said the decision has to be made on whether this is considered a sign or part of the architecture of the building. The sign ordinance allows, but the architectural design says colors have to be earth tone.
C. Bailey feels it's part of the sign and he's fine with it.
C. Andersen stated while it's not something she'd choose, she wants to be friendly to Walmart. They have left other cities when it's been difficult to work with cities and she wants to keep Walmart here.
I looked at other signage in the area. Harts has a metal rectangular sign that is silver and red and doesn't necessarily adhere to the Colonial Style. I agree with Denise that the blue isn't something I'd prefer, however, I worry that our city has a reputation as being difficult to work with when it comes to commercial development. Now that the State is moving forward with development of their land across the street from our commercial zone, I worry that we may miss out on commercial opportunities that we'd prefer if we are harder to deal with than other entities. I would like to stick with most of our colonial aspects, but would be willing to compromise on signage for businesses.
This was approved with the change that the "pickup sign" should be an actual sign, not painted brick.
Review/Action on Accepting the FY17 Financial Audit
Annually we contract with independent auditors to review the basic financial statements. The independent auditors are expected to obtain reasonable assurance that the financial statements are free from material misstatement and are fairly presented in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. The auditor presented. It's rare for cities to have their own staff prepare the CAFR so he is impressed Charl does this for us each year. The city received a clean opinion on the audit. They also found no deficiencies on internal controls. There were no findings with compliance of State programs.
Review/Action on Amending Ordinance Related to Building Plans
The Cedar Hills building department, currently and in the past, has required Utah registered design
professionals to provide design documents for all structures being built under the I-Codes with the
exception of the IRC (International Residential Code). The most recent (2015) International Building
Code (IBC) Section 107.1 indicates that this is required only if the statutes of the jurisdiction issuing
permit for construction requires it.
"IBC Section 107.1 General. Submittal documents consisting of construction documents, statement of special inspections, geotechnical report, and other data shall be submitted in two or more sets with each permit application. The construction documents shall be prepared by a registered design professional where required by the statutes of the jurisdiction in which the project is to be constructed. Where special conditions exist, the building official is authorized to require additional construction documents to be prepared by a registered design professional. Exception: The building official is authorized to waive the submission of construction documents and other data not required to be prepared by a registered design professional if it is found that the nature of the work applied for is such that review of construction documents is not necessary to obtain compliance with this code."
In an effort to continue providing for the safety of individual structures and the community as a
whole, the requirement to provide registered design professional prepared building permit plan
submittals should be recognized by Cedar Hills statutes. This would only apply to commercial buildings. Residential building and residential accessory buildings (such as separate accessory structures on a lot that is used as a home-based business) will follow the IRC. This was approved.
Review/Action on Amending Ordinance Related to Weed Nuisance
Based on the discussion on the rezoning proposal of the Oak Road parcel, it has come to staffs attention that the weed ordinance needs to be amended to account for large properties that should have some type of annual weed abatement. Additionally, the ordinance needs to account for natural open space that should be preserved, while balancing the need for fire protection. The ordinance as proposed uses the Utah State Code definition of weeds, and provides for the Zoning Administrator to determine the practicality of the abatement program. Additionally, landowners may make written request to receive an exemption to the provisions of the code. The Zoning Administrator may determine whether the real property poses a fire risk to the surrounding neighbors and what the compliance method shall be. This was approved.
Review/Action on Golf Cart Lease Agreement
Staff has been looking into golf carts the entire year as our extended lease is up at the end of the 2017. Based on our prior experience and the topography of the course itself staff feels strongly that we need to get a different cart and go with the new lithium ion batteries this time. There is no battery maintenance required and it will also save on acid drips on the cement in the cart area. We will also save 4-8% on our electric bills with this new battery. In addition we estimated that we will save approximately 180-200 hours per year on labor with the new carts. There is no other company that currently has lithium ion batteries in the market yet so this is a single source provider. We also were able to have them bring down a cart for our staff to demo; we had our mechanic go over it top to bottom, he is very much in favor of this to free him up to work on other pressing maintenance issues throughout the year. RMT is scheduled to pick up our current carts at the end of December and deliver the new carts sometime in the middle to the end of February, allowing us time to organize the cart area in preparation for the new fleet. In order to keep within our budgeted amount we are reducing from 80 carts to 78 for the duration of the lease. This reduced number of carts will still allow the golf course to host full-field tournaments. Because the batteries are fully warrantied for the duration of the lease we also would be extending our lease from 4 years to 5 years. This was approved.
Discussion on RFQ for Outdoor Maintenance and Solid Waste Collection/Recycling Services
As a best practice, Cedar Hills attempts to put professional services contracts out for bid through an RFP/RFQ process every five years, or as needed. The current service agreements for Wilkinson Outdoor Maintenance and Waste Management are set to expire in the next 2-6 months. The RFP/RFQ process will allow the City to obtain quotes that ensure competitive pricing and ensures quality of service. Both RFP's will go out over the next couple of weeks for a decision to be made in January. The parks maintenance RFQ will be shared with the Parks & Trails Committee to receive their feedback.
