Council Report

by Kathy Bence

Budgets

The Toquerville City Council meeting passed a resolution to amend the Fiscal Year 2022-23 budget and a resolution to adopt the Fiscal Year 2023-24 budget. 

The 2022-23 budget amended some corrections from now until the end of this 2023 current budget year.

The new proposed 2023-24 budget that will begin July 1 was approved. Included in it was compensation for the planning commission: $100 a month for each commission member and $200 a month for the commission chairman.  The council decided the planning commission should be compensated. The compensation will be minimal especially compared to the time the positions require.   The compensation will be tied to attendance at meetings.

Cemetery

The Toquerville Cemetery Ordinance was modified. It amends and restates Chapter 7 (cemetery) of Title 7 (public ways and property) to clarify…

“differences between a burial plot and a burial right, identifying the city’s ability to promulgate specific rules and regulations in the form of a standing set of ‘cemetery policies’ that may be amended and changed from time to time.”

I asked a for a layman’s explanation of this action and was told that modifying this cemetery ordinance brought the policies in line with standard cemetery policies. The focus is no longer on burial plots but rather burial rights, which seems to allow the cemetery to determine an appropriate space and not necessarily the specific plot. My only concern was that I am unsure how this would affect the passing of burial rights to family members.

home Occupations

The council also approved an ordinance that amends, restates, and transfers home occupations into a new chapter of the business and license regulations of the city code. It moves the regulation of home occupations within the city’s residential and quasi residential zones by licensing instead of permitting.

Multiple Use Districts

The council passed an ordinance amending and restating Article A, Chapter 11, of Title 10, which involves the MU-20 zoning of Multiple Use Districts under the Land Use Regulations. The purpose was to clarify the number and nature of dwellings on a lot, amend the abbreviation from MU-1-20 to MU-20, and eliminate or modify several conditional uses that don’t fit the purpose of this zoning district.

The ordinance provides a handy “Allowed Use” table that details what is permitted, conditional, conditional with standards, or prohibited.

The city of Toquerville received a request this year to rezone a residential area, R-1-20, to MU-20 with the hope that a conditional use permit would allow for an RV park. For this reason, the planning commission and city council took a closer look at what is allowed with MU-20 zoning.

While I value property owners’ rights to do what we want with our property, we also need to consider the rights of the neighbors that are affected by what we do with our property.

According to 10-11A-1 of the Toquerville City Code:

“the Multiple Use District (MU-20) is established in areas of mountain, hillside, canyon, desert and other open and generally underdeveloped lands where human habitation should be limited in order to protect the indigenous natural beauty of those areas…”

An RV park would not have fit the bill. 

Residents may love traveling in RVs but no one wants an RV park next to them or in their small town.  RV parks sometimes bring neighbor problems such as loud vacationers partying into the night, messes that go uncleared for days, and may cause nearby residents to feel unsafe. 

RVs have wheels meaning you can move them anywhere you like, including away from these problems.  Toquerville houses would not have had that option.  By adopting this ordinance, the city leaders put Toquerville residents first.