Cache County Council Workshop Meeting - 10-30-25

Here. We have a lot of people from different departments. I wanna recognize representative Casey Snyder here from legislature. Senator Chris Wilson said he would be here, so maybe he'll come. We got our health department group here as well. We've got Skyderbuck from the state water. We've got our fire department. We've got our planning and zoning. We've got some of us on the county council. We appreciate, mister Webb being here from the executive's office. We're hoping today we can just start getting an understanding of where we wanna go in the county. As the planning and zoning, I'm the liaison on it and as I sit. And we are having some huge subdivisions come before us and we really don't have the ability to say no if they meet everything. And is that the right path? And so where we head from there? And so I just want an open dialogue so we can talk. Andrew Crane sent me an idea if we come to an idea of restricting subdivision lots in the county. But maybe we start with five that they could do a well and then do septic tanks if they go above five. Then we look at a unit of one well for all the houses as well as some kind of irrigation not irrigation, but septic tank system. Something that will help us. Jordan and I talked earlier today on that. And Jordan, if you would take a few minutes and give us your idea on water and septic, see so we have a starting point. Does that make sense?

Sure. You know, we have the microphone. Yes.

What else?

I got a lot of different thoughts. I've been part of development that's gone really bad as it developed over time that led to where where standards were met, but as density increased, we say in our field, the solution to pollution is dilution, and concentration kept was going up due to density. And so it can go really bad if you don't have some foresight. And my experience is it's always lots more expensive and hard to fix that problem of pollution once it takes place. There are options for us to will you hand me that real quick? So the Department of Environmental Quality recently put out some guidance around planning for on-site wastewater disposal systems. This is in non sewered areas of the state. Tools for preventing contamination of public drinking water sources. And in there it talks about the establishment of a source protection team. Communities can determine what that source protection interdisciplinary team that takes into account a lot of different stakeholders that look at what does good growth look like and how do we manage all the competing demands and ensure that we still have protection of the water that we need for life and sustainability. That team is designed to help provide data points that allow us to implement policies with a surety that what we're doing makes sense and has rhyme or reason to it. Like Nolan said, right now, we don't have the ability to say no even though things tell us that maybe it's not the best way for us to grow. And that's that's one option that we have to to look at is looking through this and seeing how we might be able to put together a team that could then guide and direct local policy at a county level and for the health department to to guide us and make sure we're on the same page as we look at how do we develop. Was that what you want me to Yes. And then

along with what Andrew sent me is if we had a certain size of subdivision, could we in this county go to that new type of septic tank where all the homes are on one system and it makes a cleaner type of water. What do we call that septic system? The one that we're talking in? It's it's the new inward. I I need to talk about advanced treatments. Is that the advanced? Is that something that could be done or used for I mean, three twenty lot subdivisions. I don't know that I like seeing 20 wells and 20 septic tanks in such a tight area. They all basically get on the same septic, or they all get on a water users area so that there's not 20 wells. Something like that can we discuss, or is it possible?

Yeah. It's definitely possible. The the challenge in in my experience, you don't have to probably research it, is finding the body politic. So you can't have an HOA oversee that septic system. You're having to look at something like a special service district, or dictate that the health department be that special service, or the body politic. Same thing with the water system, if it's serving multiple homes. How do how do we govern that to to assure? The whole reason is to make sure that operation and maintenance into the future is assured. And so the body politic and you can probably speak more to that on the water side of it. Cameron from Division of Drinking Waters here, from DEQ.

I'd just say that's that's not unprecedented in the state. There are some special service districts that do exactly that. Green Hills in Weber Weber County, I think. And and they're Damron Valley, I think, down in Washington County. So it's not unprecedented to do that where they have a How long they've been in? Do you know?

Decades. Haven't they? Yeah.

Yeah. I think the I think the concern would be you still have that much sewage, and now you're concentrating it into one particular area. So it'd have to be really well designed as far as drainage and the and the, you know, know, the drain field has to be big enough and the right and the right material and all of that to make it work. But it's not it's not unprecedented. They they do exist.

But but you can also do those same systems on a single home. So it wouldn't be necessarily the subdivision had to all go to one septic system. It could be each home is required to put one in. Right? Then you don't need the sewer district. So I think there there's a lot can be discussed there. Is that possible? That way too? If if you're talking about the advanced systems. Yes. Multiple advanced systems. They're they're more expensive, but you can do them on a single home or a large a large system. So So

the the downside, can't jump in here gentlemen, but the downside to the single home is each one of those is permitted on an annual basis, whereas the community one would be one permit on an annual basis. So the cost over the life, because they become mechanical, and so they have to be inspected more often to ensure that they're working. Did I say anything wrong?

Okay. Like, this is a starting point from a health side of things. Jason or Chief George from a fire side of things. What do you think about certain size subdivisions in the county? And then Matt at the IQ to come up afterwards from a municipal services site.

You know, and I've been I've been working here for fifteen years almost now, and and I and I do you know, when before, our subdivisions were only three houses per subdivision. And that's something that we were able to to deal with, I guess, with the tender task force that we we put together for the county. But recently, like like, no one has said that we have gotten to the point where we've got 20 plus houses in a subdivision. And, as far as water supply, and we don't have any water supply in the county as we all know, so we have to bring trucks, and that's our water. I'm just I'm very concerned that I mean, we all had know that there's hydrants in cities and that's, you know, they hook the hydrants and the pipe fires in cities to protect not only the one structure but structures next to it. Now if we have to protect, it's hard enough to protect one structure and put the fire out, let alone try to protect the other two structures that are next to them. That's when we just don't have the manpower or the the water resource to to handle those kind of those fires. So that's my concern with the subdivisions coming in at 20. And then the other thing that I'm really concerned about is where they're putting the subdivisions, you know, up in the close to the the interface, wildland interface. I it's just it's it's getting scarier, really, for for us. We do have we we do have parts in the county where we've we've stopped, construction just for the fact that we don't have we only have one way in out of the out of the area, and there's four places. And and it's just and and we're coming to a point where we've gotta start making a decision. Either we lock the gates, we don't let anybody else in the in the valley, you know, because the girl's gonna come. Right? It's just gonna keep coming, and so we've we've gotta keep up. We I I I truly feel that we're we're behind the eight ball on water supply out in the county. I mean, there's other counties that have it, but I just like to come up with some kind of solution to help mitigate the water supply issue if we're gonna continue to let these subdivisions come in in the the urban interface areas. Top of the you know, everybody I I get it. Everybody wants wants the view. K? But it's dangerous.

So Okay. Yep. Matt Cameron, if you take a few minutes after Matt on the drinking supply of things, just give us some ideas there. Would that be alright? Thank you.

Nolan, I walked in a little late, so I might have missed some of your conversation. Is there some items that you specifically wanted me to talk about? Well, when we talked before,

I mean, any subdivision comes in, it lands on your desk, and you have to do the engineering and approval on it. That's correct. And so we're being impacted from roads, snow removal, all of those other things that goes on. Just like Jason said, huge 20 lot subdivisions. I mean, I sat on the planning and zoning for a long time. I think the largest we ever did was 11, wasn't it?

It's right around there. Right around there. And now we have And then they would chain them together. Yes. And then all of a sudden, you've got 30 or whatever. So all in one area. So

the ability of Cache County from a municipal services and helping on those larger subdivisions. I mean, I think you and I talked before if we could start at five that that would be a normal one. And then if you go bigger, we put certain conditions such as water or such as septic tanks. So that and maybe my area that their wells have gone dry, and they're in the active process of rejoining wells right now. So I just wanna see I mean, and as a county and I think those accounts that were, like really, it's 20 lot subdivisions where we want them in the county. Can we build more dense in the cities and around the cities and not have such thing? I mean, we gotta watch property rights, but that's what I'm asking. Jordan was up talking about the type of septic tanks we can use. So and that's why I talked to you and Jason about what we see from a county standpoint.

Yeah. I know last time we talked about having some type of HOA that would be responsible for maybe fire hydrants or something from an engineering standpoint. I think that's hard for us to manage to make sure those fire hydrants are up to standard, that are that they've been approved. I mean, there's a lot of issues with trying to turn some of that over to an HOA where I support more of a special district or some type of a district that has a trained staff that knows what to look for, that can, you know, adequately do maintenance in response. A lot of HOAs aren't gonna have access to the materials and the equipment necessary to do those improvements all the time. Well, in HOAs, you can't even get people to serve as president or whatever. So Yeah. As far as the county roads and those types of essential services that the county is providing, again, the county currently doesn't provide any of those city type services for sewer and water. You know, we try to provide the roads so that the trash can get there and the UPS and those types of things. But as these developments go out, some of the issues we're facing is that the roads from wherever the development is into the cities. So our network is getting stretched thin and the increased traffic on some of our rural county roads. We don't have ways to, you know, impact fees or these types of fees. And most of the time, those developments are not responsible for, you know, the access roads, you know, getting from, you know, urban area to the rural area. And so those are some of our areas where we're seeing because of the expanded growth and large number of growth. We're seeing a lot of our county roads are becoming substandard or drainage issues and those types of things that well, for instance, 20 lots out in some of these ones that we're talking about those roads have historically seen very few trips per day or garbage trucks or construction traffic and all these types of things. So as those developments are getting pushed out further in the rural areas, it is it is taxing on, you know, the county to keep providing a high level of service to all those areas.

Well, the three the three subdivisions we're talking about are all in the South End, which would all basically be using 6800 South.

That puts a huge demand on that type of county road. Some of the other stuff that we do see, Nolan, is that you your storm water. Right? You go out in these areas, and now you're trying to control storm water where it's you know you've got 20 lots and all that stormwater is going something a lot of times we don't have that infrastructure to adequately handle that it's either a borrowed ditch or a drainage ditch, and sometimes that's you you know, been for relatively low water or irrigation flows, but a lot of those are getting pipes. So we're we're just kinda facing all of those issues that you would normally see from development out in the county. So, you know, one lot here and a one lot there, we're usually plowing those roads. It's not any increased service to plow our main roads. Right? We're plowing those anyways, but it's it's increased traffic, increased storm water, you know, increased times the garbage truck goes, construction traffic, all those types of things that comes along with development. But but I support that I think, you know, working closely with Jason and the other emergency services in the valley, you know, I think water does, you know, fires, those types of things. I I support those guys in trying to find ways to, you know, get that water service out there. And you know I think it's to the best of the county to try to do what we're doing now and talk about it and if there's ways we can get water from the cities or other things that we can develop water to try to limit the ground water. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome.

Andrew, will you be present ready to present your thing you emailed me as a starter thing? Okay.

Hello. My name is Cameron Drini with the Utah Division of Drinking Water under DEQ. And just having a few thoughts here as we've discussed this. I think there's some important things to think about such as I'm gonna say the 20 lot subdivisions. Is that correct? Right. The moment they have eight connection well, let's say, if if every individual did individual wells, that's fine. That would just be individual residential wells. It becomes a legal nightmare when wells start going dry as to who has water rights over the other, who can it's whoever drugged it or dug the deeper well tends to often is the case. Right? It's the shallow ones that tend to go dry first. So that can be a nightmare. As far as the division of drinking water is concerned, we would much rather see a a single or multiple wells in a large actual water system. K? It's it's safer overall. However, with that, as soon as you hit eight connections, so eight homes, now now that would be considered a public water system, and they would have to abide by all of the administrative code rules of of being a public water system, even if it's privately owned. So that again is that's good because it can be regulated for safety, for safe drinking water. It's also a lot of rules. So there's so there's that thought there. As far as septic tanks go, my original thoughts were is the source protection zones for wells. If you have a municipal well, again, with eight connections or more tied together, you have source protection zones, and you can't have, septic tanks in the zone one, which is easy. That's a 100 foot radius around the well. But septic tanks are also restricted in zone two, which is a day time of travel. That's two hundred and fifty days. So if you think about it in theory and this has to be determined through geology and so forth to do the study of the soil types in the area, how deep the aquifer is, the trans mistivity of the water. But anything that spills in that 200 and or spills in that area and can travel to the wellhead within two hundred and fifty days through the soil, that becomes your boundary. As you can imagine, sometimes they're still pretty small. If it's a sandy area, if it's a clay area, or whatever, that it just can depend how large those can be. So now you have homes that if you have a well that's near the subdivision, it could be restricted there with with, septic tanks. That was some of my initial thoughts.

K. Thank you. So I asked Andrew, Cache County Attorney's Office, to give us some ideas if we were able to come up with a process of stages of a subdivision based on size, if I can put it that way. Because a guy who puts in 20 lot subdivision is making some big money. We need to put back some of the cost of keeping clean water and keeping those things just like Cameron pointed out. The guy who has a well go dry, he's got problems. So, Andrew, if you can give that it's just a starting point. I mean, we have to be careful. And, senator Wilson, appreciate you being here. We're probably gonna ask you and representative Snyder to give us some thoughts from the legislation side that we're facing.

We just wanna address where we're at on that. So I wonder if you'd start there. Yeah. I think you know. And then basically, like, what you alluded to, I appreciate that as I gave just some thoughts. You basically already hit on the high point is and you can pick whatever number you want. You want if you want to say a five or more triggers on these requirements, you're talking about, like, you have a central water systems, septic system or Right. Those are just some thoughts I have. I think some of those points and concerns have already been If we kind of wanted to say pick whatever number that is, five, three, or 10, or whatever, and that'd be the trigger for these additional requirements, we can certainly look into that. But, again, I want some of the input from all these other players that we've already talked about. As far as the other ideas that make them look into the I think we should on that. So that'd be fine. And you also asked about you've got some guidance on when people can submit for, like, a reason request per se, RU two. We wanna maybe have that be within a certain amount, a certain distance of the municipality that's gonna be

Okay. So Senator Wilton and Representative Snyder, what we're facing as a planning and zoning here, when a subdivision comes to us, if they meet, you know, if they're in an a 10 and they've got enough acreage, then they can put houses in. But it says, we shall approve, and it used to say May. So as a county, if somebody comes in I mean, we've got a situation now where a guy come in with 300 acres. He can throw up 20 homes in and we can't say no or anything else. And there's where the concern goes is putting 20 homes in a tight place next to somebody else who's already got houses, but we can't say no or we don't have any guidelines. And that's why I'm wanting to talk. So as the planning and zoning sits here, we got some background and that's why I've asked legal to give us something on that side. Any thoughts from you guys from the legislative side or what do you think?

So, Casey Snyder, Paradise represent the 5th District, so everything South Of Logan. I I talked a little bit to the state engineer on this issue because I I think I have some of the same concerns. I mean, our our basin is currently under review for closure for small domestics. I I think that's wise on the state engineer's part. I think that's coming. I think there's more than enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that new new wells are having impacts on prior and more senior water. You can look at the artesian wells that don't flow like they used to. You have wells that are going dry that never did. And I I do our our state statute does allow you to seek damages if you can prove damage from other new and more junior water, but it's very, very, very hard to prove. So almost impossible. So the in the absence of that, you are chasing water where your your groundwater mining, which is what you mentioned before where you basically have to dig deeper, and I think long term that's a problem. On the the notion of doing companies or having these water systems for 20 homes or whatever, I think the Snyderville Basin history is is a very good lesson on why we should not do that. You basically had a bunch of companies created to supply water for development that was in there, ultimately ended up in years and years of litigation, and the county had to to figure out a way how to have a better provider there ultimately. And I think in the absence of a very cohesive long term strategy, this county will end up in that position where at some way, somehow, this will become a county problem. There will at one point, it will either be on the shoulders of the water district or or something will happen. These these individual systems, I don't think it's a long term viable solution. Now I talked to the again, talking to the state engineer, you do have in your discretion the ability to set, as was mentioned by the attorney, some of the standards going into or prior to a subdivision. So if the if you approve a subdivision and the state engineer sees a water right, she has to approve that water as available. If an individual, because our basin isn't closed, says they wanna do a single well for one home, she has to approve that. Those are the scenarios where approval is required. But under your rules, you do have the latitude to to require a subdivision hooked to some sort of other municipal supply as a function of creating some of this density. So if you had a is what she told me is if you have a 20 unit subdivision, you could require as a a per condition of their approval that they find some sort of municipal system to hook to based on the density. Those are requirements that she mentioned. She wouldn't be bound to approve. So that's that's something to think of. On the automatic approval side, what we were seeing is sort of this endless eternal loop for subdivision approvals, which is why Kurt knows this as well as anybody. A lot of these are Wasatch front problems that ended up spilling over the mountain, but that's at least the cause of that. I think if your rules are clear from the get go, you can still make go, you can still make denials if it does not line up with with the rules of the county. So it's not an automatic approval, you know, no matter what. But if you have not clearly articulated the requirements of a of a subdivision, you you can't come back and jump in the middle of that. Our our state statute does not allow that. So the more forward thinking you can be, the more specific you can be, the longer term, the better interest or the best interest will be of everyone moving forward. Question.

So point in case, the 20 lot subdivision that's up in Mount Sterling did approach Wellsville to hook on their water system. But a lot of municipalities have a statute or ever ordinance that they won't supply water outside of their city limits. Yeah. So as a county, how would we handle that? Any ideas or thoughts there? I we could follow-up with Teresa for a more specific answer, but I

if you're gonna be in a situation where you're gonna end up requiring these to either be their own water system, I think that's substantive enough that you could just deny this subdivision. Right? Like, that's if they don't have the water

interesting. So

that's that's my understanding of it. And again, there's a private property rights issue here that's really, really hard. Basically, it's scary. That's a lot of but But at the same time, I do think as we're look navigating this, their private property should include the ability to develop your property. Right. Absolutely. But it does not extend that private property right to impact your neighbor. And I think that's the balance you have to figure out on all of this infrastructure is what are the impacts on senior water right holders? What are the impacts on county taxpayers as you're facilitating infrastructure for new development? That's that's the balance. I cannot be you know, I can't tell you how to do that. That's what you all have to decide. Our just our rules just state that if your rules allow it, you must approve

it. So

I'll ask your question. Of course.

So Nolan is asking whether you'd be willing in a way to change change it from back to May from shot. I my point of view on that is the legislature would be really hesitant to allow it to say May because that would be I don't see that going back. No. Yeah.

I'm just So then we gotta do what you're talking about from the county standpoint, have those guidelines So the as the subdivision first comes to us Yes. We've got those restrictions

or those steps they have to meet to do that. Yeah. I think and I think, ultimately, that's what we wanna do. Right? We don't wanna say no. Right. We wanna make sure we can say yes in a safe, protective way for all these things we're looking at. Right? We we don't wanna at least I don't think. We wanna be telling people no when they come in for subdivision. We wanna say, you can do it, and here's the five steps you need to meet. And if you meet that, then it's then it's a shallow proof. Right? If you can't if you can't meet our things, then then it's a no. And that's I think that's where we need to get to. And we just from all the things that are right. The it first started with water, and then sewer and now density. This is a five year process. So we've got a these meetings are gonna be often and long if we're gonna get through this in a timely fashion.

Right. But, yeah, good input from from Casey and And and I know I've talked to represent Peterson and and senator Wilson's here, and he can speak to this maybe too. I I do think we are willing to nuance sort of this rural issue because it's not the same as what's happening in Salt Lake. And if there are specifics that we need to figure out as we're working through these zoning rules and how they apply to state statutes, we need to make adjustments. I think we're willing to do that. The May to shall, I don't I think is foregone. But the if there needs to be a clearer parsing of rural versus suburbia, we can do that. And that already exists in statute to a degree. Right? You have to have, what, 5,000 people or more of it in a city before you hit some of our there's those sort of nuance in statute, and we can navigate that too. Jordan, you had your hand up? I I was just curious of this subdivision. Are they in our future annexation

area that that they require?

Sometimes. The first one, yes. Within Wellsville's annex footprint. The second one is within Wellsville's annex footprint, but Wellsville is saying growth to the North is better than growth to the South or the East. So I would say it's a long time away. But the first 20 lot subdivision did go to Wellsville and say, I will pay for a sewer line, and I would like to hook onto your water, which I thought was amazing. But some citizens voiced opinions against it in Wellsville at the end. And it was a close vote from council, but Wellsville did say, okay, no on the water. So that's why I was asking about if we did follow what Teresa says, if we could say, okay. And I I like what Andrew said. Right now, we just have a guideline on RU twos within a mile of a municipal boundary. Correct? Yeah. I mean, there's nothing in writing. No. And he's talking about if we did an RU two, we could say you gotta be within a half mile or it's not even considered. Yeah. I I I will say, like, for the RU twos in particular, maybe to a small extent, the r U r fives.

Like, what what I see in in some of the rural areas like Young Lord or whatever where I used to live is, you know, there are some smaller parcels. Like, I have five acres out there, and so it's just it's a lot split more or less for a reason to that, and that's not a lot of impact. And it's how some of our rural areas grow. Right? We we see clusters of of homes in different places out along county roads, that sort of thing. That seems okay. But a 10 to 20 lot subdivision or something like that, yeah, it belongs

adjacent. So I mean, it's spelled. Yeah. Especially if we can say that they need to hook on city water. Because then you lessen I mean, a lot of our municipalities have wells. So if we allow a 20 lot subdivision go next to municipality and they all drill wells, we're really affecting the municipality's possibility of water in a way.

It just seems like

reasonable, Andrew,

if it's in their future annexation plan to say, you must seek those services from the city and make them fight that fight with the city, is it fruitful for it?

Yeah. But some some of them are so far away. They're in their annexation zone, but it's like their hundred year. Yeah. Bent Mendon goes north of Valley View Highway. Like, they're not gonna be out there. All of us will be dead. And so to to restrict all those homeowners or landowners and say, you can't develop because Mendon can't run water out there yet. And see To me, it seems like a A lot of those construction people say, hey. Two hook on, you gotta bring water into the system.

Yeah. You have to convert your water rights.

Whatever well, it can be water rights, secondary, whatever it may be, you know, that they can then utilize within their system to baby to be able to even expand their current water their, you know, their water system. And and would that be something maybe from the legislature standpoint they could look

at the municipalities and say, if you're saying this is this is your future annexation zone, you must accept

request to provide services. That's a good battle. Oh, wow. Senator Wilson. You think the mayor's shawl was big?

Casey, while you're there,

let's go to your happy part of the valley. Yeah. That's right. Drive out through beautiful paradise. There are homes everywhere, and they're all just, you know, all over the place. And I don't think they're maybe quite as dense as, you know, a little bit bigger parcels, but you get in some of those areas. And they're not within Paradise City, but they are just all over the place. And so we're already experiencing, basically what you are describing out there in Mount Sterling. We're experiencing it in other areas already. Cove up there. You know? You've got them all over there and even some rows and stuff like that. All county, but they're all independent. Now, you know, there is risk to to build, and we gotta keep in mind that, there is risk to go out there and build by yourself in an area. And you can't take that 100% risk away from anybody. And if we think that for one minute, you know, that we're gonna say, hey, here's a risk free place no matter what you do. If you do it this, it's gonna be perfect. It isn't gonna happen. And you mentioned I I appreciate your comment about saying that, you know, these water rights. It's it's hard to fight that battle to prove, saying, hey. My well went down because of you. You know, it it's all but impossible to prove that. Yep. When in reality, what you described, I know out there where I am. You get there's our teaching wells that were just gushing all over the place, but we also changed irrigation systems, you know, from flood to, you know, up higher flood. I mean, we've changed so many things that we don't know what has affected the Artesian and what hasn't. Yeah. And that's these are some issues that, you know, I don't want to really stir the pot, but I I think that some of these things the the basic things that, hey, if you're gonna build in an area, we gotta be able to get in there and out of there in more than 100 feet. I think that's just a that has to be for safety. And then as far as water, I think it'd be very wise that they've gotta determine whether they've got water, and it's their it's their reliance that they find the water before they start.

And Well, and The idea is Maybe Did we do that in Box Elder? Do they have to drill a well and find water before they do a certain size subdivision? Yeah. I believe they have to. Because that's what we'd heard last time when we had one of these meetings with some talk on there. And to your point, the planning and zoning had a had a person come from, Petersburg, 98 acres that wanted to rezone to an RU two. Guess what that puts in up there? And to me, if there's a place in the valley that's having problems with water, it's Cass Junction and Petersborough. So Not only quality, but quality. Yes. And so then they so we were able to deny the RU two, but the very next day they call me and say, okay, RU five. Well, that's still a bunch of houses out in Petersburg. So

Also, Representative Snyder, you said one thing I think is huge. Never set our standards to a level that once the developers got their money, they're out of it and it fails, and then you have 25, 40 people, whatever it may be in an area that's gonna say, hey. County, take care of me and and and be the litigation, and try to have the county come in and solve the problem that was created by the guy that took off with the money. Can I share a story, cautionary and tell him

that? My first few months, you talked to senator Wilson. Not senator Wilson, but senator oh, god. Winter. Winter. And He calls me two months into my jobs out in the basement, and he says we gotta I need you to come to this subdivision. Septic systems are underwater. They'd have a lot of rain, things like that. Right within the the annexation area of the city, the the future annexation area of the city. Long story short, after a class action lawsuit that drugged the county, drugged the health department, drugged the city that provided the water, but no sewer, into it. And multiple years, I'm telling you, and then trying to find an annexation route that was approved, trying to get those citizens to agree to annex into the city and to agree to all the additional fees and everything that was gonna come after they had planned these things, that was I I understand the point about, yeah, that's a that's a long time out that they're planning this annexation area, but it was we got through annexation. A 30 foot easement is what prevented the requirement for the island. Right? We got a 30 foot easement along County Road to be able to connect this back into Roosevelt City. And it took two and a half years of just fighting and going back and forth and trying to go to the water quality board. It was a pain in the butt. And the same sewer line had been proposed two years or five years before at half the cost of what it cost us. And we didn't weren't even able to connect as many houses as what was proposed five years before because we we just eventually grow into this space, Within that? Then the standards that they require as a city need to be met upfront.

Otherwise, it costs everyone a lot of money later on.

The the other thing I may throw out there, and this is not necessarily germane to this discussion, but I do think, you know, we're talking about water and where it's gonna come from and all those things. We have the tools in place with the water district in terms of all the authorities and financial opportunities, but we also don't have any water associated with the district right now. And so long term, we all we have right to water in other from other sources that we haven't developed that we may want to be developing at one time. So as you're talking about water supply and and how you're gonna find water, there may also need to be a discussion about how does the water district start acquiring water? How does the water disc what's the long term plan for the water district to provide services much like some of the other districts do? Just put that out there as like the Can we just say that the county has some water rights?

Should

maybe that is I I think I I just put that out there as, like, the the vision of what the district could be long term is, you know, that every other district keyword. Every other district in the state, that's how they are managing this, right, is through their their facilities and and the water they provide. So just thinking about that as well. So

Senator Wilson, you got some

help here for us for water the water right that needs to go into the district, if it if it even exists. Yeah.

Well, it's good to be here. Appreciate it. Thanks to be amongst my friends and appreciate majority leader Snyder. He has let out on these water issues in the house and a lot of legislation. I appreciate his work, and I'm not really your water guy, but I am concerned about water. One reason why a couple years ago, I was able with Teresa Wilhelmsen's help to get half $1,000,000 allocated for a groundwater aquifer study. And I don't know if Nathan's heard anything where we're at with that. I had some updates, but I I didn't get a chance to find out where we are. A year out. You know, so that's something that we were able to get, and I think that'll be very helpful for us going forward as, you know, where is our groundwater aquifer where we're at. And so I'm I'm excited. I had get a I I did get an update probably this spring, but I haven't had anything since then. But I think that's gonna be very important once we get that, you know, where we're at as a water a water position for the county. Then I think we ought to, you know, meet again and try and figure out what some things we can do to try and protect what the water we do have. But it'll give us an idea where we have abundance of groundwater and where we maybe have some issues that might help with some long term planning.

So For sure. Thank you. Yes. We definitely appreciate that study. And that's part of are we getting ready before that study comes out? Yeah. And so

we were in Israel and Casey and I went as on a water water delegation and with with Teresa and we got discussing some things. That's when she mentioned, you know what? We got talking and I thought, boy, we need to try and get some money and find out where Cache County is. It's been, what, twenty five, thirty, maybe forty years since they've done a study. '93. '93. So we were able to get a half $1,000,000. I think it was a year ago and they started it a year ago, but those things take time. I've seen some updates. I do have some an update from them at our our December. K. Happy to yeah. And they should be updating me also. So anyway that the USGS isn't even able to answer or do anything right now because government shutdown. Right? So Well, put the Utah Geological Survey doing most of it with USU. So they're they're still working. USU has been involved and so yeah. So unless somebody's got questions, I appreciate thanks the opportunity. It's good to see and please let me know if anything we can do and again, I appreciate majority leader Snyder, for all his Should we make him a hat? Believe me. He'll get me back tomorrow when we meet with the governor. I'm sure I'm gonna get it. So anyway so thanks again. Appreciate all your help. And and if there's anything I can do and and seriously, it's good to have so many good friends

and associates. Thank you. Appreciate your time. So anybody have questions or thoughts before we move anything else or anybody wanna speak? I guess I I do have one question. We've kinda we've

a lot of the discussion, it was dancing back and forth from an HOA to special districts to back and forth. And we've even seen within the county failed HOAs that all of a sudden they also come knocking to the county saying, hey, fix this fix this for us. Take our roads. Take yep. The roads and everything.

It's a municipality

all the time. Is it what, I guess, what is the best strength that we have to keep, I guess, to keep the problem there.

You know what I'm saying?

In other words, if if you whatever you however you set it up, that if they have an HOA and they have to take care of, of, you know, I guess you said that sewage, you cannot do a sewage and HOA at all.

No. If it's a community system, you have to have a body politic. The same thing with water. Right? Of the

same problem. Same thing. We have just imagine. Quite honestly, in

in Duchenne City, just south of Duchenne City, there was a private water system that also went defunct that they were just trying to find somebody to purchase it that would come in and invest and bring it up to par.

So Well, so I mean, that's my question is, what is the best way to somehow by, again, allowing some private property rights and then, you know, take if the risk the risk stays here, the risk whatever it may be, I don't know whether is there a, you know, some money that's set aside for certain number of years that, you know, that things maybe rise up in ten, fifteen years, that that pot of money is available to litigate. I don't know. What what how can we just keep the problem there that is spilling over to municipalities and all these and and everywhere else within the county that the county taxpayers end up having to take, you know, respray that burden to everybody. Is it possible?

You can require a bond.

And I'm I met with I've talked met with box box of the county since our last meeting. Right? Their water district is a couple decades ahead of us. They have multiple or have had and still have multiple private culinary systems all around the county. The district has water lines. So they do have a requirement if you're within half a mile of a of an existing culinary system, that's that's who you've got it hooked to. If you're outside of that, you can still do a subdivision on wells because it's it's far enough out. But, yeah, they they're they're in the same process of every few years a private system is beginning to fail or whatever and they come to the district and say, will you take our system? Yeah. And in some cases, the district says, well, we will, but here's gonna be the cost because we've gotta now bring it up. But they can build that that subdivision separately in their billing system. Right? Those customers can pay a different rate than these customers. So they've addressed it that way. Those cost them. They they aren't overflowed into the rest of the county. Yeah. That subdivision pays for the initial cost so that it's not spread spread to everybody. So that there are ways I mean, they'll tell you that's that's not necessarily the perfect way, but that's where they've ended up because of situations like they've talked about. Right? All these private systems, some of them are still running great, and they they may run great for another fifty years. But

But what Jordan said about the city and its problem, not annexing in, but yet they provided water. And yet, to me, that's a that's something we need to look at as far as, like, the RU twos and everything

else that we're saying. I I I'm one of those that says if you have an RU two, you're gonna be bordering a city

for an RU two. Yeah. And and I think I'm I'm a little more with Chris on those. You get an RU two. I think if it's maybe a number of them. Right? If it's a if it's a two or three lot split out somewhere where it might make sense, it isn't. But if it's a a four lot or five lot, it might be similar to the water on. Right? If it's gonna recreate five lots or more, it has to border or be within that half a mile. I think there's some some ways you could restrict it more than what it is now, but there's some places in the county that still make my sense right out in Paradise. If if you add one more house to this, you know, five acre lot, it doesn't really change the feel of that area or the the, you know, the road density, some of that stuff. But if you add Yeah. 10 lots to this area, there's some impact. So I think there's still some more discussion, at least on my side, before we would say you have to border a city for that r u two.

K. So it's based on size. But I think we need to have some kind of ordinance that helps back up you guys in planning and zoning when an r u two comes. Because right now, it's just a guideline. Well, within a mile of the city. I think that's one place we we start is an RU two. And if it's an RU two of so many houses,

then we we can allow it in the city and look at it. One or two, you know, just like you said. I I agree with that. And even I could even see that with with the fives. Right? The RU fives. If if it's gonna if it's a a 100 acres and it's gonna result in 20 lots, do we really want that out in the middle? Or does that leave you within a mile of the city? I mean, I think there could be a few things on that that piece of code address.

Well, and the whole point is is you guys in planning and zoning have your books full every time you come here. And if we're talking about writing an ordinance, it usually falls on planning and zoning. So there needs to be a way of help helping on these type of ordinances if we're talking to RU two. And then even because we have the moratorium in now and we're into this three months.

Yeah.

We need to come up with something like he's identifying that okay for a while until we see different from the water study. Maybe we do just stick to a five lot subdivision until we decide what's going on there. I mean, we need to come up with some parameters so that we're ready for when this study comes out that hits us that may say that there is less water out there. I mean, I'm open for ideas. So anybody that wants to talk, now's the time. And if you've got some thoughts that helps Andrew and the planning and zoning get ready. So we start doing these. So you guys have. The ability to step back and say no. And here's why. And it's from a county ordinance or whatever rather than because we're dealing with this shall and may, so we gotta come up with some ordinances like representative Snyder says. We got some ability to say no on there. We we hear from the state legislature,

bill, bill, bill, bill, you know, shortage, shortage, shortage. Could they maybe be a little more specific? Build here Yeah. Within the city. Build yeah. Or, you know, be a little I mean, that that tenancy basically tells a lot of developers, we just gotta sprawl and all that. We just gotta, you know, go this way Yeah. Rather than within the cities. You know? Maybe incentivize. I I hate to even say government incentives. That's but just create something within we build within the inner corners of what's already established more than sprawling it out.

Mister Webb, you're being way too quiet. So

Intentionally. So I'll just keep it that way for the time being.

People who buy these lots are so excited about getting that new home. They're fantastic. They'll sign on the line, and they won't read anything. And I think we have to put a little bit of responsibility on the buyer as well as the developer and somehow put some statement there that says buyer beware of this, this, this, and this. And these could be the amounts that you may owe eventually for some time. Because developers, we know why they're there. They make their living life. They make pipes in the ground, curb and gutter, streets, and say, okay. Here you go. Build your house, or I'll build it for you. And I look at that and I think, I've been in this valley now since we got out of school about fifty years. And what has gone on in North Logan up on that bench, I would have never imagined. But, apparently, they've got the water because they keep building homes. Now on the West Side, there's not much chance we're ever going to get the water. And, hopefully, the water district will tell us that and make it very aware that if you're gonna build a home over there and I know which grandpa lived there and everybody else lived there, but it's just not going to work. I mean, how how many years ago did they almost shut anything down because they didn't have any water, so they had to go find something.

That took them a while to find it too. Yeah.

And it's it's a concern, but I think people who build things and we're all not gonna have a home on the bench with the view. That's just it's the way it is. And I well, I'm Logan, and I see apartment building after apartment building. Everybody says, oh, why are we building all this apartment building? Whether we like it or not, our kids or grandkids or great grandkids may be raised in an apartment building. They are in New York. They are in Chicago.

Well, we know how that That doesn't turn out so well.

Yeah. But those are things that you have to say, buyer beware. But in times, we have to make it very clear what you're they're getting into.

And I think at the same time too, I mean, there are two situations out where I'm at. 20 acres for sale for 3 and a half million. You don't buy 20 acres for 3 and a half million without the idea of throwing a bunch of houses in there to get your money back. 14 acres being sold for around 700,000. And this is all in the a 10 area. So when a developer or somebody, some of them aren't developers, these guys are saying, hey, here's a way I can flip and make some money. But just like you said, there's gotta be a way that the county can say there's some impact for you doing that that other citizens shouldn't have to hold up to or be part of. And I don't know how we do that, but we've gotta come up with something and Well, maybe we'd better say developer beware.

These things are happening. This is because how many people in California have come up here and bought ground and never got the waterized with that ground? And then the farmer comes out and says, you water rights with somebody else.

Well, how many people come from California and say, this is the cheapest thing I've ever seen in my life. I'll buy it up. Right. And But they don't realize that they haven't got any water and they don't ask.

Is there a likelihood that the basin's gonna be closed? I mean, it sounds like We're seeing what the city says. Yeah. There's a chance. Yeah. There's a chance. But, I mean, that changes the playing field completely, doesn't it? Not really. Be because

not 90 and Skyler would know a better number. Right? But most most of the wells we're drilling are off of existing water. Right? The only way you get that single home new water right is if it's an original parcel from 1990. 1999 or earlier. If it's been split in any way after that, you're already not getting that. So they're buying a water right and moving it. And that will even if we close a basement, right, that will continue to happen. So it's not gonna it won't we know new wells. It's no new water rights. K. There's but those water rights are going this way. Correct? Yeah. And they're they're always getting just like land. Yeah. Land's gonna go up. Water rights are gonna so people will still find the water rights to develop. They'll just cost a little bit more. We're not gonna shut down new wells. I mean, there's there's adequate water for that. I bought water shares here, oh, about ten years ago. $200

a share. Per an acre foot? No. It's just it's a water share within a certain company. I bought this it's another one here just about a month ago. 7,000. Yeah. And that and that's gonna continue. That's that's the that's the impact of saying, hey, I can buy it over here. You know, all this stuff I just have, you know, to grab grab a share that has an equated amount of water to it that I can then I'm going, well, you know, it's Yeah. But I we always said meant more that we keep that water in the system rather than them trying to move it out, so we paid

it. Just a quick comment on my I think this is a really good destruction good discussion destruction. And and destruction. Good discussion. I think we're I I I think I like the the direction we're going. I think if we gave it would it would not only help us as a planning commission, you as the council, but also the developers. If we said, here's where here's where our u twos can be. If you're outside of there, don't bother asking because it's not gonna it's not gonna happen. And and I Now that would help, Angie. Wouldn't that be huge for you in your office? Development services and and some of the frustration that some of the people have, they're, Oh, I bought my dream piece of property out there, and we're gonna split off these lots so we can afford it because it costs millions of dollars for the property, and then they come in here, and it's a pretty disappointing thing when we say, No, it doesn't fit. I think if we come up with something within the code, this is where you can expect this to be. That doesn't mean that every one of those is going to be approved.

It

may be approved, but it needs to be within this zone, whether that's a distance or some other guidelines. I mean, I I get the the thing. Hey. We've we've already got a a five every five acre lot, and it's, you know, in Benson around the loop, and there are houses all the way along there. Well, it probably makes sense to to maybe have higher density there because it's already a residential community there. So it probably has something to do with number of lots. But something something taking those things into account that we can have code that that a developer can look at, a property owner, and say, yeah. This will work. It makes sense. It makes sense to purchase this property or get it under contract and go through the process. Otherwise, I I I think we're making a lot of work for us and frustration for for the people that are that are requesting it.

I agree.

Andrew, can we come up with something on our u two in the next little while? Yeah. I think we dreamed I think we have Angie, unless you have different thoughts, I think we have enough guidance on we can start grabbing a proposal ordinance on that specific one.

Yeah. That gives us a start. And I think we could do one, you know, Jason could could pipe in. But on the on the two accesses, right, for a subdivision I think that's huge. And if you're over so many lots, you you've gotta provide whether it's a tank with a hydrant. I mean, there's gotta be a secondary supply of water. And the hard part with that is, right, originally, you can make the developer put it in and fill it. But And I'm not sure that those avenue I think no matter what, there's needs to have two access. Yeah. Oh, I think it's both. I think it's both. It's not one or the other. I think it's both. Mitigate yourself out of it by putting Yeah. I think I think it's both. You have the two access second way of getting people out. We've seen what happens in other places during the dry year. And and a supply of water on-site that's deemed however many lots. And just to clarify, that hasn't been clarified already in kind of go back to The two accesses.

I'm not and I'm thinking that that's that's too too many. Yeah. 30 seems like a lot. That's that's me, that's that's way that's a way too much. 30 is the Internet. But can we strain Could the county restrain that if you want to? Yeah. And I think we did. Yeah. That number. Yeah.

I think we can on the basis of safety. I think we should then too. So What do you guys think? Yeah. I I think the fire one's easier. I think the water one and the sewer is gonna take a number of meetings to get to consensus. But those two, I think, maybe they're our first two we

chip off. What role does fire insurance the homeowners fire insurance like? I mean, it what does it cost to insure a home from Petersboro versus Logan City? Great question. Again, you may they may find that that fire insurance eventually costs them more than they ever want to spend.

Well, right now, if you if you build a home in Bear Lake and you're against BLM or any kind of Forest service. Forest service, premium is going sky high. Sky high. I mean, I got a quote that's $7,000.

There's a chance of forest fire. Yes.

So have we seen any difference of that here in the valley or we're getting closer to this? Yeah. I know that I I get

hiring is to this new home in the county. Then when I tell them, well, that's about two miles away.

So there's any discussion of wildfire because of trees or habitat out there. Does that make sense too? Oh, it's coming in. It's absolutely exciting. Yeah. That's what's happening in Bear Lake. So That's still 48. I love nothing. Great Great deal.

Great deal. Great

deal. Great deal. Great deal. Great deal. Great deal. Great deal. So Jason, on that line, if if we look at an ordinance that requires secondary supply of water. Right? It it's not an HOA managed system. Right? It's essentially a tank with a hydronaut that you could hook to. How would we maintain those maybe long term? Right? If if you use the water, you would know you gotta refill it, maybe. But but would that be an asset that's worth looking at putting in as a requirement in some of these subdivisions, or do you still just use your tenders?

It's tough when it comes to residential because

as soon as the, you know, the project's done, it's done. Yep. Now you got

Yeah. You know what I mean? So residential is tough.

Sprinkle every house.

Yeah. You gotta take the water at the toothless. That's the case. Always. If if the power is still on, but the fire starts externer external on the exterior of the structure, the sprinklers will not work because the sprinklers do not extend to the exterior

structure.

Sure. So it will burn until it gets to a sprinkler

inside, which typically after the structure is collapsed.

So as we address this from the fire department and if we can, as a county, go lower than 30 homes, where do you guys feel comfortable as saying, okay, two egresses or what size subdivision? Does that make sense? Where do you see it being 15? 10?

Yeah. I would act. Matt? It all Yeah. I would act. Matt? It all depends on where Yeah. You know, that's the

the tricky part. Well, but, sir, let me draft that in the code then. Yeah.

Nolan, I just wanted to give everyone an example of kinda one of these areas. Development or a subdivision, you're you have issues like that where if you start saying 10, you're already past ten. But another part of, say, Smithfield Canyon is Smithfield's coming in to redo their waterline. And it goes all the way up Smithfield Canyon, way up there to the top. They're gonna run their waterline right down the center of the county road, past all 30 of those homes, into the city where their tank is located in the county. So something like that. I think that we have a lot of these municipal water lines that are crisscrossing county property. They come out in the county. They drill a well. You know, a lot of their tanks are in the county. There seems to be a lot of crisscrossing of municipal water services, but they never provide anything for Jason. So if Smithfield City, when they came in and redid their whole water line down Smithfield Canyon, somehow we could get them to provide a couple of fire hydrants. Right? Maybe that's not treated water, so you might not want to drink it. But as part of their project, if they were able to provide Jason a few fire hydrants, that would add a whole bunch of level of protection of Smithfield Canyon that only has one access. And something like that, you may allow more homes up there when you can work with these cities. But right now, it seems like the cities running their water lines in our roads and down our roads and putting tanks and, you know, doing all these things. But there's not any coordination of how we help fire protection or, you know, they're not gonna let any of those Smithfield residents or, you know, county residents of Smithfield Canyon have connections either. So

Do they have to come in for a permit to put that line under your road? Yeah.

So now it's That could be very expensive. I don't know. You can have the permit, but we want five fire hydrants. Exact exactly. So I think there's some ways where we could Just need to get it. I don't see any city people in here, you know, and so I hate to speak for in behalf of them or say what would it be good for them. Some areas of the rural county that we might be able to add or help Jason's fire service protection. So

Okay. Okay. Thanks. I have two questions for Nathan and for Skyler. So if we start talking from a county having an ordinance of you go so many houses, one water group, and it was talked to us before from Cameron 8 or more, then they have to be a Public. Public. So how do we meet that and yet still say, okay, we've looked at the water and keeping the quality of water as far as septic tanks and all that? Does that make sense? When we talk size of subdivisions. Say that's a big ordinance we're looking at when you when you mesh those two together.

We won't be done before your moratorium is up.

There's there's no way. So out in Box Elder, do they have to drill before they get and show they've got water before they do so many houses? Should we look at that?

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe they do require enough water.

Is that something we could I think that's something that could be done final through my state.

Yeah. You don't wanna do that at the preliminary. Yeah.

You have to have wet water with every best place to put that.

Yeah. I agree.

Yeah. But the developer could say to the to build the resident, instead of putting a 100,000 into a well and a pump, you're gonna give us 50,000 extra for the lot for me to control water for you. I mean, like you said before, the cost is there. It's just where we push it on that water stuff.

Yeah. They're not that good. They're not gonna eat it. No. It's gonna get spread out to however many lots of there. It's spread out. You know? That's just Chris.

I I wanna ask about I I think one of the frustrations I've had over the years as I've seen projects come in is with some of the municipalities and the fact that they've, you know, they've declared these annexation areas. Right? And so when a proposal is within that annexation area, we reach out to the cities and we say, what's your thoughts on this new 20 lot subdivision out here in your annexation area? And even in some cases, like, you know, I think of the examples in Smithfield. Oh, they never answers. We are approving subdivisions that are adjacent to their boundary. Yeah. Right. And they won't provide the services. And that's very frustrating. It's like, it's within your annexation area, and in some of these cases, it's like, it's on the boundary. The water lines running down the street. Yeah. Like But can't you have the you That's a through this if you it's Mitchell City to provide you services. That's something that'll work. Yeah. And no. I think the property owners have have you know, they made that request. We try to, like, say, hey, you know, maybe think about annexing into the city. They can provide the services, and we can out in the county. It's gonna cost you a lot of money to drill a bunch of wells. And and I don't know what the answer is, but it's a frustration of mine because I feel like the CDDs are saying, yeah. We wanna grow this way, but we're not going to, you know, Put the put the infrastructure, you know, when in some cases, it's immediately adjacent to the boundaries.

Well, I know before when there's been subdivisions like next to Wellsville, right, where you had some property, Kurt, Wellsville come in and said, this doesn't fit with our annexation plan, then it gives the planning and zoning a reason to say or some background to say, well, if it doesn't fit, then it shouldn't be there. Yeah. And

that's a sort of sub frustration of mine is that all the cities that don't say anything Right. Are saying, hey, we don't care. It's like, are you sure you don't care? Like, this is going to affect you.

Yeah. You're not recognizing that. Like John White used to say when he's mayor of Paradise. If you build outside of the city, you still come in and use my city services. I just don't get anything from it. So the cities need to step up and help us as a county from what they're looking at from their annexation plan, but plan, but I don't know how we get there. Of course. Nope. So

Yeah. East Of The Heber, there's a development I think called Timber Lakes, if I remember. You go way back up in there. And I I had a brother. He had a cabin up there. And I remember driving up and around through there, and we saw these great big huge cisterns. And I always thought it was culinary that were placed quite high in the mountains. I thought, well, gravity, you know, it's for culinary. And then my brother told me it wasn't. He said it was for fire. It was all fire. They had they build them at certain levels. They were pumped in there. They had overflows, and it was just for fire. And they had them at elevated portions out there to suppress, you know, a fire. And then the restrictions were very high in those areas as to what you could or couldn't do. You couldn't do. You couldn't even have a fireplace in your cabinets. Some would have they had them well, at certain levels, you couldn't have them. Some other levels, you could, but you could only use it January and February. And but it was just really interesting how the restrictions were so tight in that area that they require you know, they required to mitigate and be able to have that many homes in those areas. They paid to have some sort of water source just for fires. Maybe some of these other subdivision areas too. They've somehow, they've got to provide some elevated source, you know, to supply some fire suppression in those areas, and maybe that's a requirement. I don't know.

We do have some of those in the county.

Yeah. Paradise West? Yeah. Over there on the West side of it. Yeah. And and it's been there for a long time, and we've used it a few times. So

worked.

So here's a question for planning and zoning and for Andrew. So we've got our moratorium that the council put on. It's gonna end in, say, three months without stepping on, septic tanks and water. Can we draft we we've got the RU two, but can we draft something that where we're able to limit the size of a subdivision in the unincorporated part of the county, at least until we understand what the water study comes out with. Does that make sense? So because I'm looking from the standpoint of a county councilman and it and there's no way the county can keep supplying these things to a large subdivision. So I'd like to see some number where we sit until we get an understanding of water. Because like you say, Nathan, that's gonna take a lot of talk to get to there. But I want something before our sub our moratorium's up where we've said, you know what? For now, we're sticking it 10 or five. And so we get some studies because as a county,

this is what we're looking at. What's everybody's thoughts there? I would I would expand even from RU 2 and even expand maybe RU 5, bringing that closer to municipalities. Yeah. And then I would also expand the number of even number of homes are even allowed without a secondary access.

You know? Well, we were talking fifteen, ten. Where are you comfortable at? Fire and Matt? And that's that's what's so hard is it's You can help us with the basis is what I'm saying, you know, because we're sitting here planning and zoning. I mean, we never had to worry about this before. Eleven or nine or something was it. Now we're I would say, you know, 10

Are there natural breaks that insurance people look at? Well, it depends because You know? Yeah. Is there like, an insurance company says, you know what? At this so many accesses here or whatever, do they say, hey. Your insurance goes up not because of who you border, but I don't know whether they look at it too, whether it's a natural break.

Okay. What if we said eight? Then it stays in time with what Cameron was saying is if we ever come to the fact of, k, you've gotta drill a well and provide water for eight houses. Eight is a place that's Seven or less. Seven or less. If it hits eight, you hit that level. So seven or less. So then we've got a that's area that ties in with water if we ever go to the water down the road. And then we've limited it till now for the moratorium. Seven is still pretty big, but it's far less than flipping 20.

We need to make sure that we address the cumulative factor. Yeah.

And that's what we're facing on a

phase one, phase two, phase three. Yeah.

Yeah. They're different. If they're different parcels, they're different subdivisions. Where

where are you comfortable on an RU 5, guys? Because RU 2, we're saying within a half mile. Is that I think a half mile

is actually fairly if you if you do a half mile as the crow flies from a municipality That includes everything. It's everything. It's everything. I think it probably needs to be Is it contiguous? Less than that. I would honest with almost to push it to either contiguous or

mile to Logan's West boundary, that's not very far. Right? They're gonna be there pretty soon anyways. But if there's other cities, if you do a half mile between I don't know if there's even less between sun cities. Puts you in Yeah. Then then you're at the river Yeah. Almost. Exactly. So each each city is a little different.

But Can we zone things like that on R U 2 or we gotta be pretty R U 2 is the same way everywhere in the county.

I think it would have to be everywhere, whatever that distance was.

Yeah. Keep it keep it simple as we can. There you go. So then And if you did a quarter of a mile, I mean, does that does that

Yeah. If you do if you do a quarter mile or so many lots or less, and then the RU five could be the half mile or or three quarters. Yeah. Yeah. And and again or so many lots or less. Right? If you got a 20 acre parcel out there that's and so that would make four lots, maybe that still makes sense if it's not in that. I think there could be a couple but then then then the developer knows. Right? If he's looking at a parcel, he can look at that and say, oh, that's in this zone. The most I'll ever get is Seven or whatever. Seven on that a 10 piece that's even those 200 acres, it's seven lots.

And and and here's the point. I mean, we can if if we decide to go a quarter and a half and that doesn't work out, we can always modify the code. That's the beauty of the plan. And then you look at the clustering as well. So we talked about the health department. We drill a well, the septic tank. They can get down to a a quarter acre lot or smaller that could affect the well to the to the neighboring guy that's clustering.

Well, what we hear last time on the size of a lot for a subdivide or a septic tank, it was a acre and a half? Smallest you can do in the county is half. It depends on the soil as well. Depending on the soil, but Yeah. It's quite,

acre and a half. Yeah. Okay. It's gravel. It's

smaller. Representative Snyder, what you hearing? Does that cause you any heartache? No. So the smaller Yes. So you can go smaller. I've given you your records.

Remembering ourselves.

That's pretty good. That's that's probably where our hat Title Wilson gave you? I don't know if it would be a lot.

Stipulations on there, and they they say that they wanna do more, then that actually puts pressure on them to get at it.

Yes. And that's why we said that's why chief said we gotta stop the progression of going seven seven seven. Right. Right?

So I think it is. It's 25 well, it's eight connections or 25 individuals. Yeah. So that's

I mean so you gotta look at that. That one's harder to figure. The house. And and

the problem is is people always say, well Four. It's just us as a couple. And they have five kids. And that changes the the math.

And so Based on the bedroom is in the home. We're looking at is What is the potential? I'm seeing that brings its that brings up ADUs.

You put a dwelling unit next to a house and you just doubled what the people are using and and then that's been my argument all the time on been my argument all the time on apartments in this in the county is that goes against what they applied for on a water right too. You know, how did the county council come up with

five? You know, five is the restriction right now during the moratorium for for development. We were just looking at the number of connections. We're just so Is that something we keep in place

until we get the study out? I think the seven was I think the seven was I think the seven gives us some facts. More sense. It was science. Something to back it on.

Science.

Cameron, you have to defend us. We're staying seven. To your question, though, it could be if that's what we updated the ordinance to say. But so we update the ordinance, it the moratorium is all we have. When's the moratorium

end?

January. So if we get working on this and we have another meeting with the council and the planning and zoning, I think we can make some progress because Sounds like we're having Thanksgiving together. We've we've got the r u two. We've got the r u five ideas. What's the difference? What's the zone the distance on R U five? Half a mile and a quarter mile on the R U twos for now.

Now, like Nathan said, on the RU fives, if it's what? Two or less, we can consider RU five out in the outer areas. Like, if you're splitting a five digit needs to be a number. There areas in the county to me that seem like they make a lot of sense. Makes sense. Yes. A 20 acre piece and you got eight homes on each side. Right? It doesn't four homes on that 20 acre piece really doesn't change that field. But if it's a 20 acre parcel and there's nothing around, so I think that one would still be some are approved and some aren't, but we don't want that other one coming back in that's 98 acres and wanting No. 19 lots on R U 5 in the middle of

nothing. And out in Petersburg where people are already screaming about water. Yeah. Okay. So any other thoughts? I sure appreciate you guys being here. This I think this is very helpful. I think this is very helpful because street, and I'm like, holy flip. This is a new world. And it's gonna I mean, 20 acres for three and a half million, 14 acres for 700 50,000.

That's a pretty good deal at 14 acres. They're gonna come in here. So Have I got a deal for you? You you you go go look at a lot in Providence and see what it costs you for a a quarter acre. 14 acres really. No. You could have called me a lot. Yeah.

Bad. Anybody else have any comments? Skyler, we barking up the wrong road road for where you're sitting?

I I love that comment he made about wet water. I think that was that's that might we don't require that. Right? That's not what we're doing too. I think that's that'd be another thing. Somehow get that built in

about wet water. And I think that one becomes, in my mind at least, more critical when we start looking at the bigger subdivisions again. If we're gonna require a a a public water system, right, you wanna make sure you have a good producing well that that supplies that. Right. For that. You just go. We need we need some way in the code to quantify adequate water. Yes. Because because there's not very many single home lots that haven't found water. Cameron.

So Larry's here.

I can only think of the two. Already, but the state's We're opposed to amend it. We're close to amend it. There's already legislation

to call it minimum sizing standards, how much you have to go to produce and store depending on the population and the water use.

At least reference. Reference. So that so that's clear in from upfront in

the process for a developer to look at Yeah. That these are the expectations. Thank you for that. Any other points to consider? Do we wanna look at that clustering? And loss size for protecting water rights? Yeah. That's well, if we set I think it will auto I think it will automatically if we go in the future, if we go to these public water system requirements It will then then you're gonna have those Because the cost zone one and zone twos, and it's gonna automatically put that protection in place under current rules that are already there. So, like, if if they wanna put five homes clustered together, they need to be, like, a two acre lot so they're protected on Well, it'll it'll depend on where that well is and what those zones are like they talked about earlier. It it it may be bigger than two acres. Right? They might not be able to get that that close. It may be small. It'll come together, but there may have to be some

we will need to look at how to make that work with access roadways, etcetera Yeah. With turnarounds,

excel, all that stuff. Then that will That's why I say this. Those bigger ones that are not for three months.

Turn around. So, Jason, where do we need to put second access in on what number of homes? We said seven is the max we're going out in the county till we figure out where we're at on the water study. But this second access, what do you think? Seven?

Yeah. If we don't have water, I mean, yeah. It's

Can we do that from a legal, mister

Andrew? It it exceeds federal, you know, the standard national standards.

Yeah. We've gotta be able to change that and put in, you know, because the that fire code is designed for

getting towards this moratorium in so that we're talking RE twos, the RE fives, and the sevens on outside. Planning and zoning, what can you see in your future for a meeting again?

Another calendar invite with a couple of options and we'll find out what the rest of us.

Gentlemen who are here besides the county, do you want to be invited in those discussions? What do you think? Cameron, are you there? Sir, I'm sorry. Tell us where you're from and who you're with. I'm with the Department of Ed. K.

And I know that there's some requirements for cities and counties to do some planning or upgrade their planning with water and land use. And so we're just resource

people that are working on those planning process. That's gotta be the one that we had before the council. Right? Yeah. We just approved it, didn't you? I think we pushed it, didn't we? The watermelon? It was just here Tuesday.

Right. Watermelon. Yeah. We sent it to you with Yes. Recommendation for approval. The watermelon?

Yes. No? It's it was rescheduled for public hearing for this conference. Okay. Right. I was gonna say it was just scheduled for the public hearing. We have we have not Is that the one you're talking about? Yeah. So that one's on the way. This one's a little deeper and

costlier, I guess. So if you'll if you'll come next time, we'll have that on the agenda for the county council. Take a seat where the library people would sit.

You're welcome.

Sorry about that. I I had to throw that.

So if anybody has any questions and

Isn't that the one Brandon Bell was working on?

Yeah. We and Jay Jay met with us a few times. Jay also Okay. Planning meetings for the So that's when you and I sat in on. Tired, so I'm kinda open now to see if the transition

k. Thank you. Jason and Chief, can you guys? Bless you to fire. Jordan said you wanna be here involved. Right? Matt, you as well? Cameron? We all We got you. We had your email. From in line. Can you give that to Angie? K.

And I was just going to mention, in conjunction with this process, next week at planning commission, we have a discussion item for a change to the septic, that's being proposed by a third party applicant. So they're doing some studies about alternative wastewater systems as well that could help inform and impact this discussion.

Can somebody can somebody from the health department be here to help us on that? We will be. It's a proposed change to allow septic systems in

adequate adequately controlled septic systems. On behalf of the church. Mhmm.

Based on what Jordan told us about the water level and everything else, can that be adequately controlled? I think. Who knows, Yes. Well, I think we need to meet technology out there, I think. Couple weeks to put this together and then meet again. So she'll send out calendar invites. Again, thanks to the planning and zoning guys. You guys put a lot of time in and you're Yeah. So good. We're really racking up the overtime.

He like didn't pay me for a couple of times. That last check was huge. I got two lunches out of it. It was great. Almost was able to take my wife on a date. Take

the rest of the night off, guys.