The Kane County Commission met for a special public work meeting at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, February 7, at the Kanab Center. The topic was the Planned Unit Development or PUD at Willow Reserve Estates on Route 89 east of Kanab City. Commissioners Meyeres and Kubeja were in attendance, as well as Kane County Attorney Rob Van Dyke, Kane County Engineer Kelvin Smith, and Kane County Land Use Administrator Shannon McBride. Commissioner Wade Heaton attended remotely by phone from Salt Lake City, where he was attending Utah’s State Legislative session.
Commissioner Meyeres led the room in the Pledge of Allegiance to open the meeting. About 45 members of the public were in attendance.
Commissioner Kubeja welcomed the attendees, commenting that, “We’re here today to discuss the zone change for the Willow Reserve Estates,” going on to add, “This is a different format than the Commission has done in the past. This is a working meeting,” and noting that public comment would not be taken. Commissioner Meyeres explained that no decisions or binding votes would be made during the meeting, and that the purpose was for all three commissioners to ask questions of the county’s attorney, engineer, and land use administrator to work through where they each stand on various issues related to the PUD application.
Attorney Van Dyke next took several minutes to explain the status of the developer’s application.
All three commissioners asked questions about the development plan, including on issues they’d heard about from constituents as well as questions they had themselves. The two-and-a-half-hour meeting included a significant amount of information, and the public is encouraged to visit the Kane County website to read the full minutes.
In general, questions that were asked, answered, and discussed included concerns about water, septic, the condition, maintenance, and improvement of roads, lot sizes, location and grouping of multi-family structures, water flow and drainage across the property, the size of lots on the perimeter of the property, setback distance on lots on the perimeter of the property, and public access to open spaces on the property. At the end of discussion on each topic the commissioners verbally expressed their positions.
Common themes in the responses of all three commissioners included preserving the rural feel of the area, holding the developer accountable, and transparency in decision making.
The meeting ended with a motion to adjourn at 5:32 p.m. Both Meyeres and Kubeja made themselves available to meet with the public afterward.
