The Summit County Council has a pretty light agenda Wednesday. They will hold two public hearings, looking to amend the Snyderville Basin Code, as well as regulations on the East side.
The council, meeting at the Coalville Courthouse, will hold two public hearings starting at 6:00 pm.
First up is a proposal to allow food trucks in the planning code. Deputy county manager Janna Young said the change only applies to the Snyderville Basin.
“The municipalities, such as Park City, have the authority to set up their own rules around these businesses. Currently we don’t have anything in our code or our use table regarding these businesses so technically they’re not allowed in the county.” Young explained, “There was legislation passed by the state legislature this last session that basically said as long as a mobile food business had a commissary business license and a favorable review from a health department they could operate in any jurisdiction. So, this triggered the county to look at how we want to be regulating these businesses”
She discussed the details of the ordinance.
“The ordinance basically involves things like location of where the businesses can operate.” Young continued, “We’re keeping them to private property and not the public right-of-way, assuming the property owner has authorized that. There’s things in there about signage, waste collection, cleanliness, noise.”
We asked if the council had received any public input on the proposal.
“There was one e-mail that was attached to the staff report on public input from, I believe, a brick and mortar restaurant owner who was concerned about things like refrigeration and waste control.” Young said, “I don’t know specifically if other e-mails have been received by the council individually.”
Next up, an amendment to the East County Code deals with the requirements on new subdivisions to provide adequate water and sewer. Young said this is a technical change, following up on revisions the council made to Chapter 4 in the Code.
“It’s one of those things like we’ve discussed before when you undertake such a large effort such as re-writing the code things are going to be missed. In this particular case the section about adequate water refers to definitions and verbiage that are no longer elsewhere in the code. So, it’s a cleanup for that but it also has some practical implications.” Young explained, “Basically, a developer has to, if they’re on a major subdivision, show that there is adequate water for that development. In the current code it references minor and major, well that no longer exists within the code. This proposal is to adopt language elsewhere in the code that defines a minor subdivision as three lots or less or a major subdivision as four lots or more.”
Young said it could have a practical impact on small farm properties on the East side.
“Most family farms, small family farms, are defined as three lots or less. We’re finding in eastern county unfortunately that a lot of these family farms are not able to compete anymore in the market place. A lot of them are choosing to subdivide their land and sell it in order to make ends meet.” Young continued, “If this were to remain in the three lots or less category that would mean that a family farm would have to actually drill wells for each lot of that land. That’s about $40,000 a pop. It would no longer make it economical for that land owner to subdivide and sell their land.”
