Mayor Hart introduced Peter Stempel and Nicole McDermott.
Peter Stempel advised that Elissa Black had taken a position with Southern Utah University, and Nicole McDermott is now the Assistant Director for "Form Tomorrow."
Commissioner Reed explained that the General Plan was rewritten, and the commercial zones changed. The Commission needed to come up with new purposes and definitions statements for those zones and are asking if there are there ways to encourage commercial development through incentives, not through higher regulations, and to meet Vision Dixie’s guidelines and attract commercial to Ivins.
Peter Stempel submitted an outline and suggestions on commercial zoning (copy available at the City office) which included:
1. consolidate the commercial code, simplifying the rules so that someone coming in with a commercial project has clarity. Their first step is to consolidate, understand the intention of the Zoning Ordinance and the General Plan, and then illustrate the code. By illustrating the code, it can determine if the ordinance is accomplishing the goal. Clarity is essential not only for enforcement but for developers.
2. recommended reducing the number of zones because some zones are very similar.
3. recommended considering an overlay for Mixed Use Zone to establish mixed use and allow a simpler underlying zoning.
4. recommended reviewing the Zoning Ordinance for verbiage using "shall" and "should." Several examples were given.
5. 15% of the rules do 85% of the work - Look at which sections of the ordinances really shape the development and which is most important to the City. There could be extra requirements that do nothing.
6. Encouraging the "good" instead of restricting the "bad" - Regulate what the City cares about and illustrate what the City wants. Strategies can easily be delineated with a couple of rules without getting to the point of designing the whole complex. Give the developer the most critical rules, the height standards, material standards and design standards.
The Gould/Evans report and the current ordinance indicates that the City doesn’t want a lot of strip development and lots of parking, but more of a neighborhood type that is appropriately scaled along with the mountains and community. Form Tomorrow proposes to take the commercial zones, complete the standards and then illustrate what some of the zones would look like.
Other discussions focused on developing walkable communities, requiring residential use within commercial zones, the height of residential over commercial buildings and how it effects the preservation of views, reducing zones and discussions on form base zoning.
Mayor Hart explained that there was a lot of discussion during the multi-housing zone on not to exceed a certain height from a certain distance from the street but additional levels are allowed as the structure gets further back into a complex. The principle applies whether residential or multi-family. The mayor asked about form based zoning.
Peter Stempel stated that form baseed zoning can work if you have unity as to what it should look like. It depends on how you want the town to evolve. He is not a fan of form base zoning. For larger commercial zoning it’s better to set standards. Another way to do a Town Center is with an overlay. Create special rules for the Town Center and govern by development agreement. He asked if the City wants to create an entire zone around one unique location or establish more general commercial rules and then create a form based overlay over that particular area. Or it could be done by a development agreement. The City could achieve the goals with effective and straight forward regulations.
Mayor Hart commented that Form Tomorrow’s suggestions are asking the City to respond to reduce, simplify and consolidated.
Peter Stempel asked for feedback as to what the City wants to see in each zone. Form Tomorrow will then illustrate it, send it back and give specific suggestions on how to achieve it while incorporating the existing ordinance. Their goal is to take everything in the ordinance and all the new zone descriptions and adapt it. The examples presented are standards that are easily measurable and can be put in one place so that a developer is clear on what is allowed in that zone. This is to be used in conjunction with the current design standards and guidelines.
Council Member Rusick suggested starting with the Table of Uses since the zones are already designated. She was also concerned as to how this would affect density bonuses.
Commissioner Reed explained that the Table of Uses is for the old zones and not for the new zones. They need to examine the Table of Uses and see how it fits into the new structure of the General Plan.
Peter Stempel explained that incentives work really well but they also work well with overlays. This outline is to establish a baseline but make it low enough to incentivize.
Commissioner Mehr commented that this is a methodical approach, well organized, and the illustration would accomplish what we want to see in the General Plan and Zoning Ordinance. He suggested establishing how the Council and Commission should communicate.
The Council and Commission had further discussions on how to proceed with the review and how to communicate between the Council and Commission. It was determined hat the Council and Commision would first review the definitions and give some feedback, then proceed with the suggested density discussions, heights, setbacks, and illustrations and then work on the Table of Uses. After the Commission makes recommended changes, joint work meetings can be scheduled to review the direction that Form Tomorrow and the Commission is going.
Peter Stempel proposed that they come back with a series of diagrams and numbers that would work with the definitions and show what it would look like on the ground. It would be proposed in line with the existing ordinance and objectives that are there. They will also formulate a work plan and communicate by email.