- Council hears planning commission recommendations
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PUBLIC HEARING ON MAY 11TH TO CONSIDER CHANGING "COMMERCIAL PERFORMANCE STANDARDS" ORDINANCE • Section B of the ordinance now reads… "The building is remodeled or expanded, and the expansion or remodeling has a valuation of over one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000.00) as determined by the building inspector." The change would drop the $100,000 amount and only use 45% of the current value the trigger for compliance. The ordinance also affects upcoming building. Above, dirt is being moved to a site north of Shopko where commercial building will take place.
By Myrna Trauntvein
Times-News Correspondent
Two recommendations from the city planning commission were considered by the Nephi City Council.
One of those is designed to help with future projects in Nephi and the other deals with a subdivision expansion process.
The Nephi City Planning Commission held its regular monthly meeting on Wednesday, April 13. Chairman Glenn Greenhalgh reported on items considered and recommendations made by the commission.
The first of those had to do with commercial performance standards.
"When any business proposes changes to their building of 45 percent or more or over a monetary amount of $100,000, we try to make the business owner meet the city's commercial performance standards," said Randy McKnight, city administrator.
He said that the $100,000 had been in place since the early 1980s but that figure did not meet the needs of today. The costs of remodeling a business building had a wide fluctuation and, for some businesses, that amount could build a new building but for others it would not cover even the cost of a new roof.
Nephi commercial performance standards call for curb, gutter, a certain number of parking slots per expected customer use, sidewalks, ingress and egress, loading areas and such general kinds of things required of new building.
"The planning commission would like to leave off the $100,000 and just use the 45 percent change to a building as the criteria for meeting the city commercial performance standards," said Greenhalgh.
The recommended change would call for a public hearing, he said.
"We had a lot of discussion as a planning commission and one dissenting vote," said Greenhalgh.
One thing that brought the topic to a head was the proposed remodel by Mt. Nebo Market, said Greenhalgh. The roofing on that project would meet the $100,000 standard.
"We would like to work with them to see what can be done to meet performance standards," said Greenhalgh.
"The proposed change makes sense to me," said Greg Rowley, city council member.
If Mt. Nebo Market were to meet the requirement of sidewalk around the west side of the building, it would create a drainage problem. If it was required on the right front of the property, the business would lose needed parking.
Drainage would also be a problem, said Greenhalgh, in that storm water from the east side would drain to the gate station, located to the west. That problem needs to be mitigated.
McKnight said that it would be fair to say that the recommendation would affect any future project.
Greenhalgh said that with prices for such projects as high as they were in today's world, the 45 percent change to any building made more sense than the $100,000 price.
Another item that the planning commission had addressed, said Greenhalgh, was the request by the Covington Ridge subdivision to allow building another plat. This particular section would be for 10 more lots from 100 South to the highway (Main Street) on the east side of town.
While the authority of the planning commission, by state law, would allow the request to be approved, by practice in Nephi, the planning commission makes a recommendation for approval to the city council.
The planning commission is designated in the land use ordinances as the land use authority in the city for making land use decisions.
"City government has three functions: judicial, legislative and administrative," said Greenhalgh.
The mayor in a municipality operating under a six-member council form of municipal government is, except in limited circumstances a non-voting member of the council. The mayor is the chair of the council and is the chief executive officer.
In the six-member council form of government the council is the legislative body of the city or town and exercises the legislative powers and performs the legislative duties and functions of the municipality. This is done by either ordinance or resolution as may be appropriate.
From an administrative standpoint, he said, the question that needs to be asked is does it meet city standards?
"Once it meets your ordinances, it can be approved," he said. "We will continue working with them."
Another action that took place at the last planning commission meeting, said Greenhalgh, was the review of the ordinance that concerned a business complex.
"Would that address the strip mall by the movie theater?" asked Don Ball, resident.
It would have more to do with the businesses to be built around Shopko, said Greenhalgh.
"We have done a lot of research concerning business signs that would be in a business complex," said Greenhalgh.
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