By Myrna Trauntvein
Times-News Correspondent
Mona is working to form a general plan that will guide the city into the future and the planners will attend the city council meeting at 6 p.m. on September 25 prior to council meeting. The Mona City Council held a Council Kick Off Session with Urban Planning International, LLC on Wednesday September 5, at 7 p.m. prior to the regular Planning and Zoning meeting. The purpose for the session was to present information on Mona City’s upcoming general plan, to form a vision statement, and to set goals. This special session was held in the council chambers. In attendance at the planning meeting was Dr. Michael Clay, Professor of Urban Planning at BYU, Kira Johnson and Katilynn Harris, Brigham Young University (BYU) students who are working on the project as part of Urban Planning, LLC, council members, the mayor, and city planning commission and city staff members. Urban Planning, LLC, will create the new general plan for Mona which will take approximately six months to do and there will be several planning meetings and a pubic hearing prior to its adoption. “Kira Johnson has poured over your existing plan (1980),” said Clay. “She has also prepared data to share tonight.” “We are asking for the council to list items that the council would like to see for the city in the future,” said Clay. “These plans can last 10 to 20 years.” He said that often the children of the creators of the first plan were the ones to revise it. The planners will now put together the information they gathered via a PowerPoint presentation for the 25th. The Tenth Amendment, or Amendment X of the United States Constitution, is the section of the Bill of Rights that basically says that any power that is not given to the federal government is given to the people or the states. “That means that general plans have constitutional power and they are legally binding,” he said. Bill Mills, mayor, asked if the city had any authority over the county in possible annexations. “The city has jurisdiction over its land,” said Clay. A state might have jurisdiction over a state road passing through a city but the city had jurisdiction over the land in its boundaries and had a “halo region” of five miles around the city. That was considered the potential growth areas. There were some pieces of data about Mona that were surprising, Clay said. “The medium income for the community is $75,000,” he said. “You are very wealthy which surprised me.” The population demographics indicated that there were a lot of kids and adults. The college-age students were not there, however, they were getting educated but many of them were coming back to raise families. “You are doing well,” he said. The planning group worked with those present to come up with a vision statement that all would be comfortable with. Once suggestions were made, Clay said, those suggestions would be put into adoptable form for the council to consider. The vision statements of Eureka and Manti were presented as examples of what that vision statement might look like. “Mona didn’t have a vision statement in the old plan,” said Clay. It was thought that the city wanted a vision statement that protected the agricultural nature of the community which provided for growth. “We would also like to see some small businesses to help with our tax,” said Mills. “There would need to be approximately five employees in that type of business.” Clay asked what the mayor considered a small business. It would need to be defined. Also a business district would need to be defined. Mills said he favored Main Street but that there were a lot of houses on Main. “We have a commercial zone along 200 North to the freeway and also going west,” Ingram said. The types of building structures desired also needed to be considered, said Johnson. “Culinary and irrigation water is a key issue,” said Lynn Ingram, city planning commission chairman. “We can bring the state water board here,” said Clay. “They said water should not hinder growth in Utah.” “We want to stick with one-half acre lots,” said Mills. Clay asked if the council knew if the school district was planning another school building in the future. If the school district did want to buy property, he said, they should be encouraged to buy within the city limits. The sixth grade will be shipped into Nephi beginning in 2019 which will free some space in the elementary school. Mills said he did not favor having apartments because it created traffic problems as it had done along the Wasatch Front, however, he understood that the city had to provide space for some sort of moderate income housing. Some places had smaller lot sizes, said Clay, in some areas of the community. Others had duplex property available and those would meet the requirements. Motels and restaurants were businesses that brought people into a community to spend money but those people did not stay, said Clay. The council also considered the question of the kind of business they would like. “I would prefer small sustainable businesses that would stay,” said Mills. Transportation was also a topic for discussion. “How do we protect the grid plan?” asked Ingram. That should be part of the general plan, said Clay. The strategy should be to set rights-of-way. Failing all else, the city did have the right of eminent domain but most mayors were reluctant to start such a proceeding which could be lengthy. Dr. Clay has been a professor at BYU since January 2011 and was previously a Professor of Urban Planning at Auburn University for five years and five months. “I am from rural Utah,” said Clay. “I am from Delta and wrestled on the high school team.” For that reason, he felt at home in rural Utah and in communities like Mona.
| 