The City Council held a marathon 6+ hour meeting Thursday night with some notable accomplishments. So, if you have run out of fun Netflix series to binge watch, you will find the meeting video on the City’s YouTube channel here. Here are a couple of highlights.
The City Council finally passed a water conservation ordinance for new construction. It’s not perfect by any means, but it is a start. And I believe it is far better than the few ordinances other southern Utah cities have passed. We also agreed to review it in six months. (Download the draft ordinance. The final will permit all new single-family homes to have at least 600 sq.ft. of grass or pools or water features even if their calculated allowance is lower. There will also be a few minor changes.)
Fire Chief Andrew Parker gave a detailed presentation about the state of the Fire Department. Most importantly he presented four options for getting the Center Street fire station operational again for both fire and EMS calls.
To me, they weren’t really four different options, as in pick one. I looked at them as one plan to be implemented in four phases. The fourth option was meant to be a longer-term vision for Ivins and Santa Clara over the next eight years. (Download the presentation.)
After a lot of discussion, it looks like the Mayor and City Council agree that we need to implement the first two options immediately and add option #3 as soon as possible. This will cost money. What doesn’t? The final decision on options will depend on how we can fit in these extra costs in our 2023 budget (2023 starts this July 1st). That will be decided at the June 16th meeting when we finalize the budget.
Over the past few weeks, I heard a lot of frustration from current and past fire and EMS volunteers. That’s because the Fire Department has been moving us from a primarily volunteer department to a primarily full- and part-time employee department. This is a needed change, but it comes with growing pains.
However, we should still rely on volunteers because that gives us superior response ability. Council member Jenny Johnson led a discussion stressing the need to rejuvenate the volunteer program and the Fire Chief agreed to work with us on that. He also stated he has recently taken steps in that direction.
On a different topic, the mayor reported that the Washington County Water Conservation District (WCWCD) and the cities in the county will likely finalize a plan by the end of this month to only allow new development if there is sufficient additional water available now for that added development.
We don’t know the “formula” the WCWCD will use to distribute whatever water is available to each of the cities. They have suggested a few ways of allocating water to each city. Chuck Gillette, our Public Works Director, provided some estimates that are probably close to the final numbers we should see in the next 30 days. He estimates that Ivins will likely receive an allocation between 700 and 850 ERUs.
ERU means equivalent residential unit. So, a single-family home is 1 ERU. A condominium is less than 1 ERU because there’s less outdoor area per unit to irrigate. And so on.
That would mean Ivins can only add 700 to 850 new homes (or equivalent) that haven’t already been permitted, until the WCWCD “finds” more water. What if they never find more water? Then we’re done after we add those homes.
But the WCWCD can “find” water in different ways. Starting to use secondary water is like finding new water. But that’s a few years and millions of dollars away. Or when we start using less water, like we hope will happen with our new water conservation ordinance, that’s like finding new water. Or we can “find” more water by starting to provide education and incentives for existing property owners to conserve water. So, over time, Ivins will likely be given the go-ahead from the WCWCD to build more. But only when the supply is there.
Finally, Cade Visser, our Finance Director, presented the results of a detailed analysis of the City’s future financial position given a variety of scenarios. All scenarios included additional annual expenditures for increased Fire/EMS. One scenario assumed development activity will decrease significantly. That impacts the City’s finances, but we never knew how much until we saw this forecast. How much? A lot! (Download the presentation.)
In my view, this is the most realistic scenario given the WCWCDs upcoming limitations on permits. So, spoiler alert: If this is the scenario we should expect, we will need to increase real estate taxes for the first time in years. That won’t happen this year, but it is a possibility next year.
Please share your comments on these topics
and other Ivins issues that matter to you.
Email me at Mike@MikeScott4Ivins.com.