Moab City Council Meeting Report 2021-01-26

Proposed Ordinance 2021-02

An Ordinance Enacting a Temporary Land Use Regulation Prohibiting, for a period of 180 days, the New Development or Expansion of Vehicle Sales, Rentals or Leasing, Commercial Outdoor Recreational Uses, Commercial and Recreational Tour Companies, Outfitters, and Guide Services as they pertain to All Terrain  Vehicles.

At the October 20 Joint City/County meeting the City Council passed a resolution by a 4-1 vote “to formally initiate proceedings to amend the Grand County Land Use Code and the Moab Municipal Code to amend those relevant portions permitting vehicle sales, rentals, or leasing, commercial outdoor recreational uses, and outfitter, guide services and facilities and to impose a moratorium on issuing new business licenses for the sale, rental, or leasing of all-terrain vehicles (ATV), commercial outdoor recreational uses involving an ATV, and ATV outfitting, guiding, and touring and to impose a moratorium on issuing new special events permits for ATV vendors, associations, and groups.”  

The moratoriums on ATV related business licenses and special events stand. Since then City staff has considered interpretation of the italicized text, which was intended to satisfy a condition in state law which allows local governments to apply code changes to land use applications made up to six months prior to those code changes being finalized.  At the 1/12/21 Council meeting staff advised Council that the Oct. 20 resolution may not reliably meet the state code condition and, if desired, the Council use a more definitive moratorium. Council directed staff to prepare a moratorium, technically referred to as a Temporary Land Use Regulation (TLUR) in Utah. TLURs are limited in length to 180 days. You can read more about them at the Utah Property Rights Ombudsman TLUR page . 

On 1/26 the council considered the TLUR as drafted—a variety of opinions were expressed, to which I will attempt to do justice. There seemed to be some discomfort with limiting specific business types, perhaps because it could be perceived as arbitrary, and arbitrary limitations might then be applied to other businesses by a different council. The argument was made that the city land use code limits all sorts of businesses and other uses to manage and hopefully minimize real conflicts arising from adjacent dissimilar uses, and real off-site impacts; ATVs and possibly ATV related businesses are creating significant off-site impacts in residential zones; there has been little controversy about excluding businesses with stationary impacts (like, industrial uses) from residential zones; and given the state preclusion of local regulation of street use of ATVs addressing the situation via the LUC is warranted. There is some sentiment that regulating noise directly would be preferable as it would apply to all vehicles on the street. It is unclear if, when, and to what effect such regulations and enforcement will occur, a topic beyond the scope of this meeting or report. There was concern that the fraction of ATVs on our streets which are rental and tour ATVs is unknown, that the benefits derived for the political and economic and goodwill costs of a moratorium may not be justified, and that a moratorium was premature. Conversely, it was suggested this is precisely the use for a moratorium—there exists a compelling reason to pause any growth in on street ATV use for a limited time while additional data is collected and permanent policy changes are enacted. 

During the meeting the Planning Director briefly presented a new version of the moratorium, which the Council had not previously reviewed, redlined from the one in the meeting packet. Which offered options to additionally define “expansion”, and nuance to what aspects of expansion would be limited during the moratorium. Several council members expressed concern about possibly acting on language they had not had the opportunity to review. At least one argued that limiting existing business’ fleet sizes might cause a business to fail during the period of the TLUR. Lack of opportunity to review the amended ordinance, and disagreement over expansion limitations may have been the primary issues leading to lack of action.

The formal action proceeded thusly:

• MD motion, KJ 2nd, to adopt Ordinance 2021-02 as presented in the packet. After some of the discussion summarized above MD withdrew the motion. 
• RD motion, KJ 2nd,  to adopt Ordinance 2021-02 as presented in the packet. More discussion. KJ and RD aye, MD, TKB, KGN nay.  
• Some selection of the last 3 councilors motion and 2nd to table until next meeting. Passed unanimously. 

Culinary Water Resources Policy and Conservation Measures

Staff sought formal approval from Council on two water related actions:

• to develop a rule that, when appropriate, and for city water customers with the technology, watering happens during the darker, cooler, and often less windy parts of the day/night, and
• to develop a Water Shortage Contingency Plan, applicable for both short term emergencies and longer term drought created shortages.
  

Both of these will come back to Council as ordinances, at which time the public and council can review and refine of the actual ordinances. The sample Plan ordinance from SLC did not have the Plan, but just set the intent, and authority to draft and implement.

Council passed unanimously the following motion “I move to direct staff to develop a Draft Water Shortage Contingency Ordinance and a corresponding Water Shortage Contingency Plan, and Time-of-Day/Day-of-the-Week Water Resource Management Ordinance.”