Council Work Session Meeting
NOMINATION OF VICE CHAIR: Because CM James Rogers resigned from the council there will be a vacancy to fill for about 2 months until the newly elected CM for District 1 is sworn in on January 2nd. Since CM Rogers was the Vice Chair, we will be replacing him for the coming 3 months. CM Chris Wharton expressed willingness to fill that role.
ADMINISTRATIVE UPDATES:
- COVID: Some numbers are trending in a good direction but all are still very much high. We are still in the High-Transmission level. 21 children under 14 have been hospitalized this week. Vaccinations have jumped up about 2%. We are at almost 64% fully vaccinated in our city.
- HOMELESSNESS: Mayor issued a 6 month moratorium on applications for permanent homeless shelters. This gives us time to review our conditional use permits. Total occupancy of our 700 HRC beds is at 93% which is essentially full capacity. Andrew Johnston also spoke about some interesting patterns of Trauma and Substance Use and how people living on the streets cope with their situations.
- OTHER: The city is looking for an ADA coordinator. If you are interested please apply!
UPDATES ON RACIAL EQUITY AND POLICING: Commissioner Nicole Salazar Hall will be the Chair of the Commission and Commissioner Tanya Hawkins will be the Vice Chair for the coming year. The meetings will be 5:00 pm on the last Wednesday of the Month.
UNIVERSITY IVORY HOUSE ZONING MAP AMENDMENT: This project intends to build student housing on the U of U campus near the LDS Institute building. The developer is the Ivory Foundation and the land owner is the LDS Church. This zone changes the underlying zone from I-Institutional to R-MU Residential Mixed Use. The changes would allow for smaller setbacks and 75’ in height. On most of the U of U campus the city of SLC does not have jurisdiction. However, this property is owned by the LDS church rather than the State of Utah so we do have land use authority in this case.
LIVABLE STREETS PROGRAM RECOMMENDATIONS (TRAFFIC CALMING): I am very very excited about this. It is an item of constant constituent interest. Our previous neighborhood traffic calming program was stopped in 2005. Today we learned more about the recommendations from the Transportation Division to revamp and restart a city-wide traffic calming program. This may be around a budget requirement of $700K-$1M per year. This program is for streets which have residential uses, are owned by the city, have a posted speed limit of 30 MPH or less, and are 3 or fewer lanes.
ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING UPDATE: This is the nerdy tech thing that the city’s IT department is implementing. It’s a system that allows all city departments to input data regarding staff, assets, and finances. The vendor for our system will be Workday. The exciting thing is that it will make our data analysis much easier and allow us as a council to make decisions about taxpayer money and resources with better and more complete information. This will streamline and modernize our systems.
TECHNOLOGY RELATED LAND USE TEXT AMENDMENTS: These are zoning changes which would define Biomedical Facilities, Technology Facilities, and Data Centers and clarify where they can and cannot be built. It also further defines uses such as medical laboratory, research and development facility, medical testing facility, etc.
BUDGET AMENDMENT NO. 3: This is a re-allocation of money that we appropriated last year of $2M for Switchpoint to operate the Airport Inn. We approved this last year but apparently the contracts were never signed or executed so they are asking for us to do it again.
BOARD APPOINTMENTS: Today we met 3 people who will be volunteering with our city including. Michael Abrahamson volunteered for the Historic Landmark Commission, Andra Ghent and Aimee Burrows both volunteered for the Planning Commission. If you are interested in serving our great city, check out slc.gov/boards/ for a list of options and the application form. This is how I initially got involved in public service and it’s a great way to use your expertise to benefit our community.
UTAH INLAND PORT AUTHORITY BOARD: We discussed appointing CM Dennis Faris to the UIPA board as he is currently our only council member representing the west side of SLC.
Formal Meeting
PUBLIC HEARINGS:
- MISC. GRANT APPLICATIONS: 2 people spoke to these grant applications. Council closed and deferred to a future council action.
- GRANT APPLICATION FOR HOMELESS SHELTER CITIES MITIGATION: This grant would fund 3 new ambassadors for the SLC shelters. 2 people spoke to these grants and the comments were mixed.
- REZONE AND MASTER PLAN AMENDMENT AT 554/560 S. 300 EAST: One person spoke to this and shared some concerns about the impacts on the neighboring residents but didn’t outright oppose the ordinance.
- REZONE AND MASTER PLAN AMENDMENT AT 461 S. 400 EAST: One neighbor spoke in favor of the added density but was concerned about active ground floor uses. I agreed with the comment and asked staff to follow up with me about it.
- REZONE AND MASTER PLAN AMENDMENT AT 203/221 E. 2100 SOUTH & 1991 S. 200 EAST: This is a D5 project and about 5 people came to speak to this. Comments were mixed with some expressing excitement about added walkability. Others expressed concerns with parking. Some with outright opposition and others with full support.
- ELM AVENUE ALLEY VACATION: About 10 people came to speak about this and all spoke in support.
- GENERAL COMMENT: We had about 6 comments tonight touching on topics including: Inland Port Public Infrastructure District, general gratitude for council/mayor/staff, gratitude for former Councilmember Rogers, Park Police Officer Patrols, Traffic Calming,
NEW BUSINESS / ACTION ITEMS:
- MEETING WITHOUT AN ANCHOR LOCATION: Council Ratified this Determination
- NOMINATION OF VICE CHAIR FOR 2021: We appointed Council Member Wharton as the Vice Chair.
- APPOINTMENT TO THE UTAH INLAND PORT AUTHORITY BOARD: We appointed Council Member Faris as the UIPA Board Member.
- BUDGET AMENDMENT NO. 2: Approved Unanimously.
- CONSENT AGENDA: Approved Unanimously.