03.26.19 Council Minutes

THE STATE OF UTAH
COUNTY OF SEVIER
CITY OF RICHFIELD

At the City Council
In and For Said City
March 26, 2019

Minutes of the Richfield City Council meeting held on Tuesday, March 26, 2019
at 7:00 p.m. in the Council Chambers of the Richfield City office building located at 75 East Center, Richfield, Utah. Mayor David C. Ogden presiding.

1. OPENING REMARKS
2. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
3. ROLL CALL
4. MINUTES APPROVED
5. PUBLIC HEARING FOR STREET PROJECT BONDS TO BE ISSUED
6. PUBLIC HEARING FOR REZONE
7. DEVELOPMENT OF CURB, GUTTER, SIDEWALK, PAVEMENT AND PARKING LOT FOR NEW PARK
8. OTHER BUSINESS
9. MEETING ADJOURNED

 

1. OPENING REMARKS were offered by Councilmember Barnett.

 

2. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE was led by Councilmember Christensen.

 

3. ROLL CALL. Present: Mayor David Ogden, Kevin Arrington, Bryan Burrows, Richard Barnett, Kathy Christensen, Connie Nielson, Matt Creamer, Michele Jolley. Excused: Mike Langston.

 

4. MINUTES APPROVED. The Council reviewed the minutes of the meeting held March 12, 2019. Motion: Approve the minutes of the meeting held March 12, 2019, Action: Approved, Moved by Kevin Arrington, Seconded by Kathy Christensen. Vote: Motion carried by unanimous roll call vote (summary: Yea = 5). Yea: Kevin Arrington, Bryan Burrows, Richard Barnett, Kathy Christensen, Connie Nielson.

 

5. PUBLIC HEARING FOR STREET PROJECT BONDS TO BE ISSUED. At 7:03 p.m., Mayor Ogden opened a public hearing to receive comments for the issuance of Street Improvement Revenue Bonds and any potential economic impact to the private sector regarding to the construction of the Project to be funded by the Bonds for the 2019 Street Improvement project. Hearing no comments, Mayor Ogden closed the hearing at 7:04 p.m.

 

6. PUBLIC HEARING FOR REZONE. The Council held a public hearing on a proposed request to rezone the strip mall (formerly Kmart) from CS commercial shopping to CG general commercial. Mayor Ogden opened a public hearing opened at 7:04 p.m. Brad Ling was present to explain what they are proposing to do with the old Kmart property and why they are asking for a zone change. The hope would be that the Council would approve this zone change. They would like to open a U-Haul moving and storage location there. The code does not allow for any the storage that they would like to do on the property. Mr. Creamer stated that the report from the Planning Commission recommended this zone change. Councilmember Nielson understood that this would include outdoor and indoor storage. She asked Mr. Ling what the outside storage would involve. They are planning to put in a strip of 10 up to 20 outdoor storage units. They are ready built boxes that are secured to the ground. Then they would be sided with whatever materials are deemed appropriate to make it look like a finished building.

This gives them the ability to provide a little large unit for some of their customers. Their average unit is a 5X10. The building is a little small for their operation. With what they are investing in it and the work the building is going to take to put back into a usable function, they need the outside storage to generate the revenue to make this make sense for them. Councilmember Nielson asked if their trucks would be parked at this location. Mr. Ling gave them a proposed site plan. Along Main Street there would be some angle parking to the street where they can park an array of trucks in different sizes. On the north along the fence they would also be parking rental trucks. They are a truck sharing company and an equipment renting company, so they do not store things. The intention is not to fill it up with a whole bunch of inventory, but the idea is to have enough inventory to cover the needs of the community. Most of the time, the communities have a hard time rationalizing that we are not storing equipment because it seems like there are the same number of trucks there all of the time. They usually turn over their entire inventory every couple of weeks.

The hope is that through the process of managing inventory, they would keep something useable here. They believe this is a really good use for a big box store.

Councilmember Burrows thought maybe this would be a repair and maintenance facility and his understanding now is that it would be storage and a truck facility. Mr. Ling stated that they would have about a 5,000 showroom inside which would contain packing materials, boxes and hitches with accessories. The only repairs that would be done onsite would be minor maintenance. They do not change oil, so the most they would be changing a tire on the lot, fixing lights, checking the oil and adding fluids.

Councilmember Nielson wondered how this would affect other businesses on the property with the parking lot being filled with trucks. The parking lot in front of the building would be theirs. There were no shared agreements with the neighboring retail offices for parking in the past. They all had the available spots that were necessary for their type of business located in front of their properties. They expect a little bit of overflow so the majority of trucks they would be keeping for rentals would be kept on one side and the storage straight out in front and some along the street. They are not trying to encroach on the other area and they are certainly not trying to cause any grief for any of the other tenants.

Mr. Ling does notice that 2 or 3 of the neighboring tenants are empty and the hope is that they would fill back up. Councilmember Christensen asked if they would be fixing the parking lot. He indicated that they would be repairing the parking lot. They are a long-term investment company and they do not sell any of their buildings and what is expected of him is to maintain their properties. They do not allow the parking lots to have potholes and they would keep them stripped and painted.

The exterior of the building does look a little shabby and they will come in and initially setup a temporary kind of operation because they will need to create some plans for the building and they would need to be approved. So they would come in and create a small showroom so that they can start conducting business and would initially paint the fascia around the door. They will put up some temporary signage while they are obtaining proper approvals for what they want to do in the building.

They have revamped about 54 Kmarts nationwide. They just opened one in Price, Utah. They try to do a lot of things to meet the standards of the City and try to make the building fit the community that they are in.
Councilmember Barnett asked how many indoor storage units they anticipated having. Mr. Ling thought there would be about 300 units. They will all be climate controlled.

Councilmember Nielson asked if they are tied into the people who have rented out U-hauls before or if they are totally separate. Mr. Ling stated that he works for U-haul Company of Utah and they own 11 locations across the state and there are 125 locations that are independent contractors. Mr. Boyter, here in town, has a contract with them to offer the product and he has had that contract for 20 years or more.

Councilmember Burrows asked how many employees it would take to run it. Mr. Ling thought there would be 10 and maybe 15 when everything is built out. They will have a general manager that will run the location with an assistant manager and a hitch professional that will all be fulltime positions. The rest of the staff will be part-time. Mr. Creamer stated that the City is excited about their willingness to invest in Richfield. This has been a real worry with how long the site was going to sit empty. They did a lot of research to make the decision to come here. They are going to invest 2.5 million dollars in the building and another 2 million in the renovation of the building. Mr. Ling walked through it a couple of weeks ago after the last snow storm and warm-up and found 25 root leaks. The building is deteriorating and if someone does not get in there soon, that deterioration is going to result in tear down verses renovate. They are anxious to get going on this. They believe there is a good market here. Mayor Ogden closed the hearing at 7:27 p.m.

 

7. DEVELOPMENT OF CURB, GUTTER, SIDEWALK, PAVEMENT AND PARKING LOT FOR NEW PARK. Mr. Creamer has been working with Ryan Savage for the CDBG grant for the new park in the amount of $275,000. This is mostly for the development of the infrastructure on the block such as curb, gutter, sidewalk, asphalt shoulders and a parking area. It will also include stubbing the water and sewer lines into the property.

A parking lot was that could be pulled into was suggested off from 500 North. Councilmember Burrows was approached by someone with the Babe Ruth Association and they had a plan with a pavilion and some parking, ball fields and play area. They would be willing to put some money into this. Mr. Creamer stated that we do have the grant approved and we have thought for some time that the Council may want to invite residents to give their ideas for the park. This might be the appropriate time to put out a call for ideas. As we zero in on what we are doing, we need to keep the folks who donated that land in the loop to make sure whatever we come up with fits within their vision.

Councilmember Christensen has been approached by people living in the area and they are anxious to know what is going to happen there. She indicated that the Council would open this up for ideas.

Councilmember Nielson felt that the more parking we could have there the better. The ball fields would be for the younger ball teams. Councilmember Burrows recalled that the Babe Ruth Association Plan had two fields, a splash pad and a few other things. Mr. Creamer had some people in the area state that if a splash pad were approved, they would try to raise money for it. Councilmember Burrows thought that this was something worth looking at, especially since they are willing to put time and money into it and not just the initial stage, but yearly in maintaining it.

Mr. Savage stated that when we originally talked about this it was just a park with restroom and pavilion with parking around the outside. If we are going to have ball fields there with 30 cars there every night, we may want to re-look at this. That will probably raise the cost of development.

Part of the proposal is to approve a contact with Savage Albrecht Engineering for their services on this project.

Mayor Ogden noted that at the City Park we have angle parking along the east side. He wondered if the road around the new park would be large enough that we could have angle parking there. Mr. Savage indicated that it could be done, but it would add some asphalt to the project and increase the cost. That would more than double the parking on whichever side we do that. They suggested doing angle parking along 600 East and 600 North. The Council determined to ask the community for written suggestions for the park development and then discuss it again. Mr. Savage said he would do a plan with parking on the 2 streets and get the Council a cost difference. Councilmember Burrows did not want to thrown the plan for a parking lot clear out, but he does think there needs to be some parking on the streets. Motion: Approve the contract with Savage Albrecht Engineering for the engineering on the new park, Action: Approved, Moved by Kathy Christensen, Seconded by Connie Nielson. Vote: Motion carried by unanimous roll call vote (summary: Yea = 5). Yea: Kevin Arrington, Bryan Burrows, Richard Barnett, Kathy Christensen, Connie Nielson.

 

8. OTHER BUSINESS Councilmember Nielson stated that she heard Mayor Ogden on the radio and stated that Snow College was going to have an appraisal done on the property proposed for the new pool and she wondered why. Mayor Ogden stated that they want to have a dollar figure for their donation in the project. Councilmember Nielson asked if we had gotten any money from any of the organizations that were approached. Mayor Ogden said that they have not yet.

Councilmember Nielson also asked if the County was going to have a ballot initiative on the ballot to ask if the residents were willing to allow the money being paid for the SVC to be used for the pool when that debt is retired. That would not change the amount of taxes that the residents of the County would pay.

Councilmember Burrows stated that the shoulders on our roads are in horrible shape and we are losing a lot of our asphalt along the edges. The turn by Mike’s Auto along 100 East has gotten really bad. Mr. Mogan said that we will try to run the grader down there but there is a drainage issue there that adds to the problem. That is part of the road project and when they rotomill some of the streets, we plan on trying to do that road with some of the rotomill and built it up enough to address the drainage.

Councilmember Burrows asked if there was an easier way to fix this than trying to run a grader down along there. Do they make a piece of equipment that can wind roll that and shoulder it out? Mr. Mogan said that they make an attachment that can go on the loader and can be set anywhere from 3-foot to 6-foot. Councilmember Burrows wondered if there would be any advantage to us looking into something like this. Mr. Mogan said that he could look into some equipment.

Jr. Miss Richfield was held Saturday night. It was a nice program.

Councilmember Christensen stated that they will be taking the lights off the trees on Main Street this Saturday. Mr. Mogan felt that if we were going to continue to put lights on the trees we should spend the money to fix the outlets. We had a bid on this for $4,000 to $5,000 a few years ago. He spent a lot of time resetting the lights. Councilmember Christensen felt we should replace some of them each year. Mr. Creamer stated that we should work that into the budget.

The League of Cities and Towns is April 24 thru 26. Mr. Creamer needs to know who is going before next meeting.

 

9. MEETING ADJOURNED. At 8:01 p.m. Motion: Adjourn, Action: Approved, Moved by Kathy Christensen, Seconded by Connie Nielson. Vote: Motion carried by unanimous roll call vote (summary: Yea = 5). Yea: Kevin Arrington, Bryan Burrows, Richard Barnett, Kathy Christensen, Connie Nielson.

PASSED and APPROVED this 9 day of April, 2018.