Eagle Mountain City Council and Planning Commission work on new General Plan

[print-me/] The Eagle Mountain City Council and Planning Commission held a special work session on December 12, 2017 to go over a new General Plan. The meeting was attended by members of the Planning Commission, current members of the City Council, the City Council and Mayor Elect, and several City Staff. There were three residents in attendance as well, one of them a former member of the Planning Commission. The meeting was to discuss the new General Plan that the city staff and consultants have been working on for the last couple of years. The plan is currently in Phase 6 of 8. According to the consultants website Phase 6, the Formulate Draft Plan, will continue into Feb of 2018. Then it will move to Phase 7, the Approval Process, which will finish in May 2018. Phase 8, the Publish Final Plan, is also scheduled for May 2018. Earlier in the year the city arranged an open house to show three concept maps. This Draft includes details from all three of those maps, including changes based on City Staff and Resident input. The draft also has been reviewed by a Steering Committee and a focus group. The last open house for public input was held at Nolan Park during Pony Express days on Jun 30th 2017. The 114 page plan that was presented to the City Council and Planning Commission was created by CRSA, Zions Public Finance, Inc, and Alta Planning and Design. CRSA’s website states this about the general plan, “What is a General Plan? Simply put, a City’s General Plan is its ‘constitution’ for development. It is comprised of elements that provide a comprehensive slate of citywide policies and strategies for growth and development.” They continue, “The purpose of the General Plan update is to analyze the changes that have occurred in the community and to formulate goals, policies, and implementation measures to guide future development of the City.” A representative from CRSA did a presentation explaining the process used to create the Draft plan, as well as some general information on the layout of the plan. The Council and Commission were broken up into two groups and given large copies of the map. They were asked to write suggestions and comments on the map. The map divides the city into different types of zoning and neighborhood areas. The residential categories included: Agricultural Conservation; Conservation Neighborhood One and Two; Rural Density One and Two; Neighborhood Residential One, Two and Three. The Mixed Use/Commercial Categories included: Community Commercial; Town Center Mixed Use; Regional Commercial; Employment Center/Campus; Business Park/Light Industrial. There were also areas for Public/Civic that included: Civic Use/Schools; Parks and Open Space. It was noted by City Staff that code changes will need to also be made in the future to allow areas to be zoned with the new general plan guidelines. After the city council and commission discussed the maps, each group selected a spokes person to share what they had discussed as CRSA consolidated the maps. Tom Westmoreland, current city Council Member and Mayor-Elect, talked for one of the groups and Muriel Xochimitl, a former Planning Commission member that was recently replaced by Brett Wright or DeLin Anderson, talked for the second group. The City Council and Planning Commission discussed their concerns about transportation, open space, and other city growth topics. Their input was recorded by CRSA and will be used in finalizing the document. I felt the public should have a copy of the draft that was discusses, so I did a GRAMA request with the city for the 114 page draft document. The GRAMA request was denied based on the fact that no City Council action was taken, and the document has not been finalized. The document will be available to the public after receiving more public feedback in the future. Until then the document will be considered protected. CRSA website states this about the draft document, “As we work on the General Plan update we will post a draft document for you to comment on and give us feedback. Please check back periodically for these updates.” The full draft document has never been posted for review by the public, but they have posted several scenario maps for public input.

People in Attendance

City Council: Ben Reeves, Colby Curtis, and Tom Westmoreland (Mayor-Elect) Council Elect: Melissa Clark, and Donna Burnham Planning Commission: John Linton, Matt Everett, Rich Wood, Brett Wright, and DeLin Anderson. City Staff: Steve Mumford (Development Director), Michael Hadley (Planning Manager), Tayler Jensen (Planner), and Fionnula Kofoed (City Recorder) Residents: Tyler Shimakonis, Mike Kieffer, and Muriel Xochimitl (former Planning Commission member) As mentioned above the draft was created using suggestions and data provided by a Steering Committee and Focus Groups. Below is a list of the members of both of these groups.

Steering Committee

Steve Mumford (Community Development Director) Mike Hadley (Planning Manager) Tayler Jensen (Planner II) Chris Trusty (City Engineer) Ifo Pili (City Administrator) Paul Jerome (Asst City Administrator / Finance Director) Brad Hickman (Parks & Recreation Director) Mayor Pengra / Painter Aaron Sanborn (Economic Development Manager) Planning Commissioner John Linton Councilmember Tom Westmoreland Councilmember Stephanie Gricius

Focus Groups

Regional Context & Collaboration: Eric McDowell (Utah County Sheriffs) Dan DeVoogd (Area Fire Marshal) Sarah Carroll (Saratoga Springs Planning Dept) Shawn Seager (Mountainland Association of Governments) Adam Ferre (Rocky Mountain Power) Rob Smith (Alpine School District) LTC Matt Price (Utah Army National Guard – Camp Williams) Nodes & Neighborhoods / Community & Culture Steve Conger Vincent Liddiard Darren Garrett Maria Hopkin Paul Jerome Ryan Ireland Shon Reed Cougar Hall John Linton Diane Bradshaw Scot Hazard Charlotte Ducos Scott Langford Brian Haskell Linda Peterson Adam Olsen Jon Celaya Ryan Myer

Additional Resources

Website on General Plan by CRSA CRSA Website Zions Public Finance Website Alta Planning and Design Website