Moab City Council Meeting Reports 2020-09-08, 2020-09-17, 2020-09-22

MCC Meeting reports

September 8, 2020 Regular Meeting. Votes on a rezone and several minor subdivisions.

• A property owner on Kane Creek had requested a rezone from RA-1, Residential-Agricultural Zone, to C-1, Commercial-Residential Zone. The owner had built and operated the property as a B&B for many years, but let the business permit lapse during a period of code changes which prohibited re-instating the license in RA-1. C-1 is the lowest intensity use zone which would allow B&B’s, and it also allows other commercial uses. The Council voted to deny the zone change request.
• Several minor subdivisions were approved without debate.
  

September 17, 2020 Special Meeting. Council members Guzman-Newton and Jones requested that the Council be brought up to speed on the current work of the Arches Hotspot Region Coordinating Committee (AHRCC). Due to the exclusive use of the 9/22 regular meeting for a Prop 8 Public Hearing, a special meeting was called for this purpose.

• The AHRCC’s, as well as City supporting staffs’, focus for the past several months has been on a redesign of downtown core commercial side streets to increase on-street parking, traffic calming, and aesthetic/landscape improvements.
• A hardworking citizen advocate, Matthew Hancock, has researched similar redevelopment in other cities, and in response to his presentations the AHRCC agreed that applying to use Hotspot funds for such could accomplish the primary goal of Hotspot funds of congestion reduction (UDOT believes there is a connection between parking and congestion), as well as the secondary goal of economic development, and City General Plan goals for downtown improvements and multi-modal transportation.
• The primary features of these redesigns include reallocating street width to median diagonal parking, landscaping, lighting, and other features, including consideration of Complete Street concepts, and speed limit reductions. One local example of such is Center St. in front of the library and city hall, although it is unlikely that changes in other areas would have the vertical planters utilized there.
• Last month the City conducted an online public survey to assess citizens’ opinions about such possible changes and priorities. The public response supported increased parking, but ranked improvements to pedestrian, bike, and aesthetic improvements higher.
• The City Engineering Dept. has developed conceptual plans which establish a likely parking stall number increase, and budget. The City Engineer has argued against median landscaping, despite citizen and General Plan support for a more attractive and green streetscape.
• If the money is awarded this tension will hopefully be resolved during a subsequent phase of design, with a consultant team with multi-disciplinary competency and experience in such work, but the dialogue which is occurring within and outside multiple meetings is typical of the messy reality of the skirmishing of political decision making.
• The most recent plans, and survey results, are available in the meeting packet at https://moabcity.org/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_09172020-969 .
• The AHRCC has a webpage https://moabcity.org/558/UDOT-Hotspot-Funding-for-Moab-Area, meetings are public, and are noticed on the City Agenda Center at https://moabcity.org/AgendaCenter/Search/?term=&CIDs=7,1,&startDate=&endDate=&dateRange=&dateSelector=
  

Sept. 22, 2020 Regular Meeting. The only item on the agenda was a public hearing on Proposition 8, the Recreation, Arts and Parks (RAP) Tax. This is a ballot measure that will be decided by city voters, so this was a forum for people to express their opinions to influence other voters. For and against opinions were expressed. The City Council has no further role in deciding whether or not to allow this sales tax.

Best regards,
Kalen Jones, Moab City Council member