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Snyderville Planning Commission Considers Additional Regulations To Accessory Buildings

The Snyderville Planning Commission is pondering whether to create additional regulations for accessory buildings and structures.

After hearing from a couple of residents Tuesday night, they asked the staff to explore ways to get further public input.

The county planning staff reported they’ve heard concerns about the number of accessory buildings in residential neighborhoods, their size and specifically the use of metal storage containers.

Basin resident Debbie Scoggan has been at the forefront of bringing the topic to the County Council and Planning Commission. At a public hearing Tuesday, she discussed several examples she sees in her Old Ranch Road neighborhood.

“In the spirit of the zoning, which is rural residential, one house for ten acres. The openness that people bond for as you can tell by the open space bonds that passed and all the money being raised to save open space. When you get the accumulation of roof tops for one residential home and they have five to eight outbuildings. With no farming, this is just to store, I don’t know what’s inside but they’re not farming. Then it becomes a collection of rooftops and its no longer this openness. As people start to move in to some of the open areas they look around and they don’t see restrictions. They assume they can do whatever they want. Which they can!”

Among some limitations proposed by the staff—there would be a maximum of three accessory buildings allowed per lot. On a lot more than one acre, the combined footprint of all accessory buildings could not exceed 5% of the lot area, 26 feet in height, and it has to be located at least ten feet away from any other building on the lot.

Planning Commissioner Joel Fine asked how the staff came up with their numbers. Some of his colleagues also asked if the regulations might be an intrusion on property rights.

Planning Commissioner Canice Harte talked about some of the questions raised by the regulations.

“I totally get this idea of trying to keep it proportionate and in relation to the size of the house and not looking massive but if you really have a riding stable its pretty big. This is where the rabbit hole begins. Now all of a sudden you have a ridding stable and that accessory building is a given size. The person who wants to put in a sports facility, or some activity that they’re using may make that accessory building look identical to that person with the horses but actually have less impact because now they have no manure or anything that they’re producing.”

Planning Commissioners said they’d like to hear from more of the public, especially in the areas of Old Ranch Road and Silver Creek, where accessory structures have become an issue.

Commission Chairwoman Bea Peck said she is willing to discuss the topic. But she said it appears to be “a solution looking for a problem.”

“It’s a vocal minority and I’m concerned that it’s a minority and not the majority. I really don’t want to start legislating unnecessarily. I have great concerns about that. I sure would like to figure out a way to get more input from these neighborhoods in particular.”

Known for getting all the facts right, as well as his distinctive sign-off, Rick covered Summit County meetings and issues for 35 years on KPCW. He now heads the Friday Film Review team.
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