SHCC REPORT 2022 SEPT

19 Aug SHCC REPORT 2022 SEPT

• DRIVE THROUGH in SUGAR HOUSE The Planning Commission held a discussion (not a public hearing) about whether or not a drive-through should be allowed in the CSHBD (Commercial Sugar House Business District 1 and 2) zones. After much discussion, the conversation was tabled until the next meeting because three Planning Commissioners were not present for the discussion. Right now, it is a permitted use in this zone, but has been causing some traffic issues.  They probably won’t take away the use, but make it a conditional use.  The LUZ Committee discussed this August 15, and directed me to write a letter stating that we wanted the drive throughs to become a conditional use, rather than a permitted use, and to extend beyond just this zone, but rather the geographic area of 7^th East to 13^th East and 17^th South to the I-80, because there are many drive-throughs in that larger area. That area is still considered the Sugar House Business District.
• We have a second draft revision to the revision of the Accessory Dwelling Unit ordinance which has been in place for 3-4 years.  The big issue I see is that they have taken away the requirement that one of the units on the property needs to be owner-occupied.  We think owners take better care of their property.  They haven’t sent the final revision out but we could write a letter now saying we oppose that change. You may identify other things that are problematic. I have not yet sent a letter with our comments.  Here is the most current version:
• Salt Lake City Thriving in Place Study – the city has hired consultants to look at the housing situation in Salt Lake City.  The idea is to study what it would take for our community to thrive – people would not continue to be displaced, because their affordable apartment building is torn down to make way for a new market-rate apartment building, and then they are forced to leave the city because there is no affordable housing to be had. The consultant from Berkely said they have done this same kind of study of about 30 other cities in the USA, and Salt Lake City is by far the worst.  This is because there is no affordable housing available, and our geographic position means people can’t move out all around the suburbs, because we have the Mountains on one side, and the lake on the other.  That means people have to go much further south or north to find housing, and then commute further distances. Here is a link to their website:
• Thriving in Place SLC,    You can read about what they are doing, it is very thorough.   Click here to read the results of Part I of the Salt Lake Survey.
• Affordable Housing Incentives – This is still circulating among the emails, and hasn’t been on the PC agenda in its revised form.  We have learned that there are two bills approved by the Legislature, that shed light on why the city seems to frantically be working on all these various policies.  One is SB0034 from 2019, which is 68 pages. I haven’t been able to find out which pages apply, or if they all do.  Here is the link: https://le.utah.gov/~2019/bills/static/SB0034.html.  The second is HB 462, here are the pertinent lines. The city is expected to give a report to the Legislature by October 1 on how they comply with all the requirements, or they will not be eligible for any state money.
• Sugar House Circulation Plan (aka Local Links). This plan was reviewed by the Planning Commission July 27. Here is the Draft Report. This is an update to the SH Circulation Plan of 2020; the first goal includes walking and biking connections and will be a multi-jurisdictional plan that would guide future transportation and construction. The second goal is to evaluate transit connections between Sugar House, South Salt Lake, Millcreek, and Holladay, and hopefully determine the most appropriate transit connection would be. The Planning Commission recommended forwarding this to the City Council for Action.
• We have learned that the proposal for a Kum and Go where the Sizzler used to be on 13^th East will be on the Planning Commission agenda at one of the meetings in October. There are slightly revised plans, but we have not seen them yet.  When we get them, they will be found on our website.

The next Land Use meeting is September 19 at 6 p.m. via zoom.  We do not yet know what will be on the agenda.