The City Council has been busy in the past month. Is that a good thing? I’ll understand if you want to paraphrase Mark Twain and say, when the city council is in session, no resident is safe.
In addition to a major rezone to accommodate short-term rentals at the beginning of September, the council rezoned just over 40 more acres in the past 30 days to create additional tourist accommodations. Most of a 31.5-acre parcel on Snow Canyon Parkway was changed from low density residential to Resort Commercial for additional tourist accommodations for Black Desert Resort. Another 9.6 acres just south of Highway 91 was changed from high density residential to Resort Commercial to allow short-term rentals.
Despite those changes, the council eliminated the ability to add any more short-term rentals in residential zones. However, they continue to be allowed in Resort Commercial zones. Still with me?
Oh… hi… you’re still here. Okay, absorb this: We just updated the city’s Moderate Income Housing Plan at the end of September with three goals, including one to “rezone for higher densities necessary to facilitate the production of moderate-income housing.”
The switch from residential uses to Resort Commercial for tourist accommodations on 40+ acres doesn’t seem to mesh with these goals. Plus, the state requires cities to act on the goals. And they are starting to check whether cities are successful at implementing them, or if we’re just…
So, do the actions in the prior few paragraphs “connect the dots” for you? Probably not. Well, welcome to sausage-making-101. That makes the next bit of information really important.
Updating Our Vision & Goals
The mayor held three community meetings in mid-October to kick-off our update of the city’s General Plan. There are three more community meetings at the end of October, but I’m writing this before they happen. There was good attendance and lots of resident input at the first three meetings, including a near unanimous view each night that residents don’t want more short-term rentals or other types of tourist housing.
The city is mailing a survey to all residents in the next week or two to help guide the General Plan update. Please watch your mail and don’t mistake the survey mailing for junk mail.
Please participate. The General Plan, with its vision, goals, and action-steps, is an important document. As state statute says, the plan guides the present and future needs of the city, from public safety to water to development.