Kanab City’s Planning Commission met on Tuesday, March 7, for their regular planning and zoning meeting - the agenda was dense, with twelve items to cover, four of which had their own dedicated public hearing section. Some of the items were simple vote-and done, with unanimous support from the council and no feedback from the public. The others, however, had significant time dedicated to them, the largest of which was the discussion of the Ventana Resort Village subdivision, PUD and PID.
Ventana Resort is a 10-year rollout plan designed for the School and Institutional Trust Land Administration (SITLA) lands along Kane Plex Drive and in the adjacent area. The site, which many readers will know as the location of the proposed golf course that was denied, is now set to be brought before the city council as a five hundred home subdivision, including a hotel and resort, restaurants, single family homes, townhomes designed for residence and short-term rental and attainable housing apartments for long term rental. Tuesday’s meeting was the discussion of the initial site plan, which also considered questions like infrastructure, municipal services and roads - the subdivision would be a pioneering development, meaning it would require brand new installation of many of these services, and could receive financial incentive for designing said services with future growth and city needs in mind. The developers agreed to donate a percentage of the short-term rental revenue to local youth sports and recreation as part of this proposal.
If approved as the plan stands now, the subdivision will be constructed in six phases, beginning with the hotel resort in the center and the single-family homes on the northern side of the property, and ending the final phase with the attainable housing on the southeast side. The phases include reworks and expansions of roads in the area by the sixth phase.
After a few hours of debate and discussion, including public feedback, the site plan was unanimously approved by the planning commission, and the vote to recommend approval to the city council was five in favor and one against. The proposal will go before the city council on Tuesday, March 14, with a positive recommendation from city staff and from the planning commission. The planning commission records and posts their meetings to their Facebook page and YouTube accounts, but the city staff recommend attendance in person; one, for the sake of being able to comment and provide feedback in person, and two, because the system used for recording and posting the video feed can be inconsistent in quality and hard to hear at times. Interested citizens can subscribe to the planning commission docket on the Utah Public Notice website for consistent updates on meeting times and dates.
