The Hills, the Roads, and Everything After

By Toquerville Sentinel Staff

Photo courtesy of Brad Langston

There are certain phrases you don't expect to spend much of your adult life thinking about. "Hillside development permit" was one of mine. And yet here we are. There was a moment in the September 2 Toquerville City Council meeting when the conversation wandered deep into hillside regulations, trail standards and 30 percent slopes when Councilman Wayne Olsen asks a wonderfully uncomplicated question,

“If we're not going to stand by the ordinance, why do we have the ordinance?”

This particular question followed me through the rest of the meeting, because this meeting was filled with rules, exceptions to rules, rules that may need changing, rules whose origins nobody could explain, and one particularly persistent question about what Toquerville should allow as it continues to grow.

The conversation began discussing things that sound spectacularly boring until you realize they’re deciding what gets built outside your kitchen window. This meeting had several of those. The official agenda included Toquerville Parkway, utility billing corrections, hillside trail standards, pavement preservation, and subdivision entrance and exit requirements. There were also reports involving new FEMA flood maps and a hillside development permit application. 

First, The Good News 

Toquerville's drinking water system recently underwent what is called a sanitary survey. I realize "sanitary survey" sounds like someone with a clipboard telling you terrible things about your kitchen sponge, but in this case it is an inspection of the city's public drinking water system. And Toquerville passed without any deficiencies. I’m so proud of us. 

The Hills Are Alive, and They Need a Permit

During the reports, Silver Ridge came up briefly. The city has received a hillside development permit application, and staff is reviewing it.That caught my attention because later in the meeting, the council spent quite a bit of time talking about what Toquerville should and shouldn't allow on its hillsides. We have hillside regulations for a pretty obvious reason. We have hills. Beautiful ones. And the city has already decided they're worth protecting. Its Sensitive Lands Ordinance specifically names native vegetation, washes, ridgelines, peaks and even "viewscapes" as things worth preserving. You can see why. Our hills have those rough, ancient-looking folds, with black lava scattered across the ground as if somebody emptied a fireplace over the desert.

Which brings us to Councilman Wayne Olsen's rather inconvenient little question, ”If we're not going to stand by the ordinance, why do we have the ordinance?" Because once a hillside is cut, graded, terraced, roads built, scarred or otherwise "improved" there is no Ctrl-Z button hovering over Southern Utah. The council was considering an ordinance that would set rules for trails in hillside areas. This wasn't a new discussion.

In May, the council talked about possible exceptions for trails and recreational uses after a property tour with Firelight, where a proposed recreational staircase wasn't allowed under the existing hillside ordinance. By June, a hillside trail ordinance had made its way to the Planning Commission and then the City Council. The council ultimately tabled it 5–0. So the discussion wasn't simply, "Wouldn't trails be nice?" The bigger question was this: When should the city allow something that its hillside protections would otherwise restrict?

How Protected Is Protected?

The proposal would allow trails on hillside areas under certain conditions. There was a fair argument for flexibility. Not every trail across a steep slope is going to wreck a hillside. Some can follow the terrain, disturb relatively little land and get people somewhere they couldn't reach otherwise. So I can see why the city wouldn’t want an absolute ban. Fair enough. But the other argument was harder to shake because the word “protection” gets complicated. We protect the hillside. Then we make an exception for a reasonable trail. Then another reasonable project comes along. And another. Eventually you have to ask what "protected" actually means.

Which left the real question, if the hillside is protected, when should the city be allowed to make an exception?  Are there places where the answer is simply, "No, we don't build there?” Or is the answer, "Usually no. But come show us what you have in mind.” Those are two very different ways of protecting land.

The Little Number Called 30 Percent

Much of this conversation revolved around steep slopes, including slopes around or above 30 percent grade. Thirty percent sounds wonderfully mathematical because numbers give us comfort. But the council's disagreement exposed the problem with drawing a number on paper and then encountering an actual mountain.

One argument was that a trail may cross a 30 percent slope without creating meaningful damage. Another was essentially, why did we establish the hillside standard in the first place? Toquerville is going to continue growing. Developers are going to continue bringing plans before the city. There will always be a reason why this particular road, trail, staircase, retaining wall, subdivision or project deserves flexibility. Sometimes it probably will. But exceptions have offspring, and before long everyone knows someone whose project is "different."

Discretion

There was considerable discussion in reviewing these projects on a case by case basis. Which sounds harmless, and often it is necessary because mountains are inconveniently unwilling to conform themselves to municipal code. There was discussion about reviewing these projects on a case by case basis. Which can be necessary because mountains are inconveniently unwilling to conform themselves to code. But discretion also means future decisions depend on who is sitting in the chairs. Who is given an exception and why?  Would someone else asking for the same thing get the same answer?  Those are important questions.

And Then They Talked About Asphalt

The council moved on to pavement preservation, which involves various ways of keeping roads from deteriorating. Crack sealing, fog sealing, slurry sealing, and chip sealing. To me these sound more like spa treatments offered to a very exhausted highway. The basic idea is that roads are cheaper to maintain before they fall apart. We also use this revolutionary concept with teeth, roofs and marriages. If you wait too long, the repair becomes considerably more expensive.

The city discussed how to create a maintenance cycle that preserves existing roads without overwhelming the budget. This matters when we talk about development because every new road will eventually need maintenance. A developer may build it today, but years from now, the city may be paying to repair it. Growth is good, but it can send bills into the future.

Why Twenty?

Toquerville’s subdivision ordinance has additional access requirement once a development reaches 20 lots. During the discussion someone essentially asked, why twenty? As in, why is the threshold based around twenty lots? And I loved the question because this is exactly how municipal codes accumulate over time. At some point, somebody chose that number, and then years later everyone is still obeying it and nobody remembers why. The council began discussing whether lots are even the right thing to count, because twenty lots do not necessarily mean twenty homes. One lot could potentially contain multiple dwelling units. Within the discussion they realized the more meaningful number is people, the cars and families trying to leave, or firetrucks trying to get in.  

Once you imagine a wildfire, or a flash flood, or an accident blocking the only entrance, the discussion changes. A subdivision with one road in and one road out is perfectly functional until the one road becomes unusable. That’s when an "emergency access" and an actual second road becomes a no brainer. The council discussed what should qualify. Does an emergency access need to be paved? How wide should it be? Can it normally remain closed? At what point should a development be required to provide a genuine second roadway instead of an emergency route? The questions may be among the most important the council asked because Southern Utah does not have to imagine wildfire, flash flooding or evacuation. We have met them recently.

Change Order #29

Next came Toquerville Parkway. The council considered another change order, this one for $36,812.65, for additional roadway safety improvements. The city explained that these changes largely resulted from UDOT safety requirements, including signs, striping and roadway safety improvements. The money also comes from highway funds rather than the city's general fund, all of which may be entirely reasonable. But I was more interested in the number 29. Twenty nine changes to a road construction contract makes me want to know what the original contract cost, what all twenty nine change orders cost collectively, and what the final project cost will be. It is normal for construction projects to have change orders, because roads encounter surprises, and UDOT has requirements. But at change order #29, I think citizens are entitled to meet the whole family.

Wait, We Have a Radio Station?

This became my favorite little detour of the evening. Toquerville apparently had an FM Broadcast Construction Permit. No, Toquerville is not launching its own top 40 station. A private party was interested in taking over the permit, and the discussion became a question of whether the city should assign it or terminate it. The important distinction was liability. As the matter was explained to council, assigning it could leave the city connected to the permit in ways the council didn't particularly want. Termination meant Toquerville was done. The council chose done. This may have been the easiest decision of the evening.

Update on the Radio Station

Maybe this wasn’t the easiest decision of the evening after all.

Since then, I’ve learned that the city agreed to wait for the FCC to assign the license. Here is the rest of the story—information I did not hear discussed at the meeting and that the city may not have had at the time.

The FCC determines who receives the license, so the city is not responsible for that decision. Toquerville Heritage Communication wants the station for emergency use. If cell towers or other means of communication were lost during an emergency, the radio station could provide important information to residents. That would be its sole purpose.

Being prepared for emergencies is always a good idea. Hurricane and some other surrounding communities have radio stations for this purpose.

In the meantime, the station is KTQZ 97.3 FM, where you can hear classical music—not Top 40.

When City Hall Makes the Mistake

Picture this. The electric company shows up at your door holding a calculator and looking sheepish because they forgot to charge you properly for a year. How much of that bill should become your problem? Three months? Six? Twelve? Twenty-four? Nothing? That was essentially the problem before the council.

A commercial utility customer had been underbilled for an extended period because of an error in the way the meter usage was being calculated. The customer had been receiving bills, but the usage portion was apparently only about one-tenth of what it should have been. This problem exposed that the city doesn’t have a clear policy for what happens when the city makes a billing mistake.

The council discussed several possibilities. Should residential customers be treated differently from commercial customers? Should the city absorb some of the loss when the error was its own? One suggestion was to split some of the cost, similar to the way certain water leak adjustments can be handled. Another argument was that when a business makes a mistake, sometimes the business simply has to eat the cost. The problem is, the city had a point too. The customer did receive the utilities. If the city simply says, “our mistake, enjoy the free utilities,” the utility fund absorbs the loss, which ultimately affects the other ratepayers.

There was also some discussion about whether  a customer should notice when a utility bill is unusually low and whether that expectation should be different for a household than for a commercial account where someone may simply be paying whatever invoice arrives. In the end, the council approved a policy allowing the city to correct underbilling going back no more than 12 months. A customer receiving a corrected bill must be given at least the same amount of time to repay it, without interest. So if the city corrects 12 months of billing, the customer gets at least 12 months to pay it back. If the mistake goes the other direction and the city has overcharged a customer, the policy allows corrections going back as far as 24 months. Twelve months when the customer owes the city, twenty four months when the city owes the customer. 

I will leave you to decide how you feel about the arithmetic. 

FEMA, Flood Maps and Other Things Worth Knowing

The city also reported on work at Westfield Park, the annual financial audit, proposals for city attorney services, and the results of a community well-being survey that should eventually be released to residents. All fairly normal.

Assistant City Manager Darrin LeFevre discussed changes FEMA is proposing to Toquerville's flood maps. Apparently, a line on a FEMA map can change what you can build, what your lender requires, whether you need flood insurance, and potentially what your property is worth. In other words, it is one of those little government lines that is not little if your house happens to be standing on the wrong side of it. From the council discussion, only a handful of Toquerville properties appear to be significantly affected. The council didn’t specify which properties those are. The complication is that the FEMA study began before the Toquerville Reservoir existed, meaning the proposed mapping may not fully reflect conditions as they exist now. And if I were one of the affected property owners, I would suddenly become the sort of person who has strong feelings about hydrological modeling. And I would attend the FEMA Flood Map Open House at the St. George Library on Sept 15 from 5:00-7:00 pm where FEMA will be answering questions. 88 W. 100 S., St. George, UT 84770. Also, put on your schedule the upcoming events including Sept 11 events and bird season starting Sept 15th.

What Will Still Be Here? 

At first glance, September 2 was a meeting about everything. But by the end, I realized almost everything circled back to growth. More specifically, it was about what happens after a place grows, and perhaps the most interesting question is what does Toquerville want to still look like when all this building is finished? What I noticed the most was the odd vocabulary. They talked in units and parcels, density, access and slope percentages. But nobody said that hill, or that view, or that patch of desert my kid thinks has always been there. Government speaks in ordinances, I understand that. But the rest of us don’t. We live on the nouns underneath the ordinance. And when the meeting ends and the vote is recorded, it’s the nouns that we have to live with.