The Tooele County Commission considered four rezone applications for three different developments in Erda during its Tuesday night meeting at the County Building.
The county commission approved three of the applications, overriding the planning commission’s recommendation on one application. They sent the fourth rezone application back to the planning commission for further consideration.
Tooele County Commissioner Shawn Milne expressed frustration with the planning commission’s recommendations.
“I would really like all of these to go back to planning and zoning because I think sometimes they like to eat their cake and have it to,” Milne said. “They love to put us up as the ones that get hit by the bus. I think this is a great example of how they have been split on it. If they want us to respect their votes and not vote around them, I need a more concise opinion from them.”
The planning commission’s recommendation on the four applications was split.
They voted to recommend denial of two of the applications. By the failure of a motion to recommend the denial of the other two applications, the applications advanced to the County Commission as recommended for approval, according to Tooele County Attorney Scott Broadhead.
“I would have liked them all to go back to planning and zoning to rectify what I think is schizophrenia,” Milne said. “I think they are being schizophrenic in these items. I’m having trouble with a failing to deny being an acceptance, as some of them were. I think it’s schizophrenic. I want planning and zoning to be more cohesive.”
Approved by the County Commission on Tuesday night, but recommended for denial by the planning commission, was an application to rezone a 109-acre parcel in east Erda west of Droubay Road and north of Bryan Road from RR-5, rural residential with a five-acre minimum lot size, to RR-1, rural residential with one-acre minimum lot size.
The 2016 Updated County General Plan calls for a density in this area of between one and 20 single-family residences per acre; however, the planning commission voted 4-3 to recommend denial of the request, citing general plan requirements that “growth should preserve agricultural land” and growth should be “tempered to fit in with surroundings.”
The county planning staff recommended that the request be approved because the density fits within the general plan and the higher density development would make investments in sewer and water infrastructure economically feasible.
County Commissioner Myron Bateman made a motion to approve the rezone request, because it fits in with the general plan, it fits in with with the sewer system the county has been working on for the last four years, and it keeps the lots to one-acre, he said.
“One of the reasons this is so important is that in order to put infrastructure in, water and sewer, you have to have smaller lots,” Bateman said. “We need to plan for the next 20 years. We know we are going to grow and we need a water and sewer system. Instead of the residents paying $30 million for infrastructure, you make the developers pay step-by-step. This is the first step.”
The County Commission voted 2-1 to approve the request with Bitner and Bateman voting in favor and Milne opposing.
The County Commission also approved Tuesday two rezone requests for two parcels south of Excelsior Academy on Erda Road west of state Route 36.
One parcel includes 38 acres currently zoned RR-5. Immediately to the south of that parcel, the developer, Joe White, requested a rezone for a 156-care parcel.
Both parcels are zoned RR-5 and the request was to rezone them to R-1-10, residential with 10,000-square-foot minimum lots. However, in the application for both rezone requests, White asked for a zoning condition that would limit the overall density to 2.77 residences per acres.
White’s plan is to use both parcels to develop 10,000-square foot lots on a total of 121 acres while leaving 73 acres of open space and infrastructure improvements.
“The node of Erda Way and SR-36 is where you would want greater density,” Milne said. “It would be better to give a rural buffer up against the existing rural households.”
Bateman amended the motion to approve the zone changes to include a recommendation that the developer create higher density closer to the commercial highway properties and allow larger lots toward rural areas.
The planning commission recommended approval of both of the rezone requests. The County Commission voted 2-1 to approve the requests with Bitner and Bateman voting in favor and Milne opposing.
Milne said he opposed the motion because he wanted something more binding than a recommendation on the density issue.
A motion to recommend the denial of the two rezones failed to pass the planning commission.
The fourth rezone application for property in Erda considered by the County Commission Tuesday was for a development known as Shoshone Village.
The proposed Shoshone Village is east of Bargain Buggys on SR-36 and west of Droubay Road.
The original request from the developer, which the planning commission voted to recommend to deny, was for 174 homes on 109 acres with one-third-acre lots.
The general plan calls for the future use of the west half of the parcel to be mixed commercial and residential with 10-15 housing units per acre and a density of 2-8 residences per acre on the east half of the parcel.
After the planning commission voted to recommend denial of the request for Shoshone Village the developers revised their concept plan. Their new plan still requests an overall density of one home per three acres, but has lots ranging from 10,000 square-feet to one half-acre in size, according to Jeff Miller, Tooele County planning staff.
“I would like to see one-acre lots, but in order to provide wastewater, again, you need higher density,” Bateman said.
Milne said he could support a graduated density with higher townhome like density near the commercial area and SR-36 and lower density on the east end of the parcel.
“I’m fine trading density for some of the niceties we want,” Milne said. “I would be fine with higher densities by the commercial area. I would like to see a greater disparity, meaning that in the SE corner where it’s next to Droubay and Brookfield, that there are larger lot sizes there that are more rural and blend into the greater density.”
He added, “I’m not convinced half acre is appropriate next to the five acre, but it could be one acre or 2 1/2 acres. Then if they are looking for an overall density of a third acre, we’re talking about greater density over by the commercial. I would be supportive of that.”
Milne said he had trouble with voting tonight to approve an overall density of one-third acre without some assurance of what that is going to actually look like.
The county commission discussed bypassing the planning commission and working directly with the developer on a development agreement.
“We could do that with a development agreement,” Milne said. “But lately we’ve been eviscerated here recently because we dare conceive development agreements as a legal and appropriate tool.”
After more discussion, the commission unanimously approved a motion to send the Shoshone Village rezone request back to the planning commission so it can consider the developer’s new concept.
While voting for the motion to send the Shoshone Village development back to the planning commission, Milne said he wanted more consistency in the planning commission’s recommendations.
“I would like more direction from planning and zoning,” he said. “I think they have given us some conflicting messages and it creates some inconsistencies, whether its East Erda or West Erda. I’m not totally opposed, but I don’t like how there is not seemingly a consensus.”
Milne further said he wants “planning and zoning to come to terms with its self. I think for the last several years some members have come and gone. I think it’s a lack of us training them. It’s a lack of some of them not taking their job seriously enough to go to the training. We let them vote and they don’t really understand their job.
“Then when it’s tough, and they have a bunch of their neighbors there with them, they buckle to public clamor at certain times when that’s not what they should do,” Milne said. “They pass the buck to us and then when we override them, they throw us out as the terrible guys, but where were they on making a clear cut decision? I don’t expect unanimity. I don’t expect everybody to conform all the time, but I expect them to be a bit more consistent in how they decide.”