Politics & Government
City Council members disagree over Hadco annexation
Matt Hemmert | Lehi Free Press
On July 9, a City Council agenda item brought strong opinions and tense exchanges between Lehi’s lawmakers.
The agenda item that became the hot topic of the evening was Hadco-Pacific’s (Hadco) annexation application and accompanying zoning designation of Light Industrial zoning located at approximately 2100 N. 1450 W. Applications for annexation from Utah County property into Lehi City, including initial zoning requests, are standard, and typically don’t involve controversy if the proposed zoning complies with the city’s General Plan. Typically, annexation applications are submitted in order for a property owner to be able to connect to water and power and initial zoning designation is guided by the existing General Plan. The existing General Plan shows that the property in this agenda item falls within a Light Industrial zoning district.
The Planning Commission previously held a public hearing about this item, and residents expressed concern about its zoning designation. Concerns included excess noise, excess dust, routes for access and current use(s) being incompatible with Light Industrial permitted uses. Most, if not all, of the concerns were based on Hadco’s current and unannexed use of the land. The Planning Commission ultimately recommended approval of Hadco’s application with an annexation agreement that included several mitigation requirements from Hadco.
John Hadfield represented Hadco at the City Council meeting and explained that Hadco originally wanted to annex just over three acres, but the City recommended including all the adjoining parcels into a combined 24.95 acres, including the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) right-of-way property, in an attempt to avoid any other unincorporated islands of land. Councilmember Chris Condie asked why the City was requiring Hadco to include all the land not owned by Hadco in the annexation application. Kim Struthers, Lehi City Community Development Department Director, explained that annexation policy requires that if property is adjacent to a roadway, the roadway property parcels need to be included in the application. In this case, large parcels owned by UDOT, including the 2100 N. roadway, needed to be included in Hadco’s application. Struthers further explained that a zone must be applied to the property as part of the annexation process.
The meeting took a turn to focus on the annexation agreement drafted by the City pursuant to the Planning Commission’s direction. Condie questioned whether or not it was within the city’s power to obligate a property owner to certain conditions prior to the next step in the development process of an application to develop the property. That next step would include renderings of the proposed office building, landscaping, boundary buffering, etc.
“This seems we’re putting a big burden on the applicant at the time of just trying to annex property in. This just feels heavy-handed. It feels unjustified to me at this stage in the process that these types of mitigations be put in place,” Condie continued.
“I’m concerned because I’ve never seen so much discussion like this on an annexation application before. I’m also concerned because, right now, I’m involved in a lawsuit filed against another city in the state of Utah because they denied an annexation which had met all the criteria of the General Plan,” interjected Mayor Mark Johnson. “These protections [detailed in the proposed annexation agreement] should be in the zoning ordinance. That’s where they belong. That’s where they’re meant to be. I think this [annexation agreement] is a violation of our oath of office,” Johnson continued.
Councilwoman Michelle Stallings disagreed with both Johnson and Condie and questioned the city’s General Plan update process. “The issue here is not necessarily with annexing, but that we have Light Industrial uses next to residential. I’m just wondering when you did the General Plan update, why on earth did you put Light Industrial next to residential? This isn’t the only place that’s on there,” Stallings said.
“That has nothing to do with this application,” Condie responded to Stallings. “This [General Plan] is what it is right now. We can’t put this on pause and say, ‘Let’s go check everything else.’ What’s interesting about this, again, is that you’re talking about three acres that are on the very north end, there are no residents to the east of it, and yet we have language in here [listing many mitigation requirements]. What’s the logic behind it? It seems so arbitrary to me. I think there’s a much better way to handle this after [annexation].”
“After when?” Stallings asked Condie.
“You’ve got to trust the process,” Condie responded.
“This is the process. We make the changes now,” said Stallings.
“Not this,” Condie responded. “We’ve never seen an annexation agreement like this ever, at least in the 11 years I’ve been here and the two years I was on the Planning Commission.”
“There is a way to do this, Michelle,” Johnson interjected. “It’s through our ordinances. This [annexation agreement and the mitigation requirements] is targeting something we don’t even know is going to happen. And we can’t do that through the General Plan.”
Councilmember Paul Hancock came back to a question Stallings asked previously. “You [asked] why did we, when we made the General Plan, make this Light Industrial when we already knew there were issues. That was a multi-year process. We had multiple public hearings. And no one from the community came and said, ‘Hey, I don’t think this should be Light Industrial.’ That, in my mind, would have been the time to engage.”
“This is our job. We should look out for residents,” Stallings replied.
“Our job is to protect the Constitution of the United States. That’s our job,” Johnson said. “Adjacent property owners do not have property rights to a subject property. They do have protections, and I hope I made that clear. Protections, we deal with that through the zoning laws. And I’m suggesting we can address this, but we do that through the zoning laws because this [annexation agreement requirements] is arbitrary.”
“The fact that this is Light Industrial next to residential, and yes, maybe it’s not right adjacent, but there’s a park there, there’s a potential to have [the subject property] extend to the east where there are residents, so whoever has that property has those [Light Industrial] rights. This is our one chance to put in some mitigations or maybe just deny the annexation and come back with some other zoning designation that might be more compatible,” Stallings responded.
Hadfield spoke briefly about the annexation agreement then addressed Stallings directly. “I have a council member here we reached out to, who never talked to me,” Hadfield said.
“You reached out to me? When?” asked Stallings.
“Yes. My assistant called you and asked for a meeting. You’ve never been out. You’ve never talked to me. We’ve never spoken. You have all these opinions and you’ve never come out and looked at the property from my side,” Hadfield answered.
“I would have been happy to meet with you, I know you’ve met with other council members,” Stallings responded.
“You actually represent me as well. Your job is to represent me and [the residents] and to come up with something that works. But it’s not heavy-handed and it’s not one-sided, it’s something that’s a compromise that allows the world to go forward and make things work. I live here, I’m part of the community,” Hadfield said.
As discussion continued, staff disclosed that UDOT had not yet been provided a copy of the proposed annexation agreement and would also be subject to the list of obligations and restrictions.
“I would prefer we put a pin in this, reach out to UDOT and have further discussions with John (Hadfield) and the neighbors and see if we can come to some middle ground on this. I don’t want to be heavy- handed, but I also don’t want to ignore the concerns of some really incompatible uses that are adjacent to one another,” added Councilmember Paige Albrecht.
Condie turned the discussion back to the small parcel owned by Hadco. “When you look at the application itself, we’re talking about three acres [for development]. Three acres that are undeveloped on the very north end, there are no residents to the east of it. It’s UDOT property, a park, a church and the park and ride [adjacent to it],” Condie said.
Councilmember Paul Hancock concurred with Condie. “We’re holding this three- or five-acres hostage for something to solve that’s not been the problem. [Hadfield] could stay in the county and do exactly what he’s doing now. The only reason that he would want to be annexed into the city is because wants to build some office space,” Hancock said.
Stallings made a motion to table the resolution while approving the annexation agreement, but there was not a second. Hancock made a motion to approve the resolution and strike item 6, the mitigation obligations, from the annexation agreement entirely, which Condie seconded. Hancock’s motion passed with Stallings offering the only negative vote. Hancock then made a motion to approve the accompanying ordinance—approving the annexation and zoning—which Condie seconded. Hancock’s motion passed with Stallings being the only negative vote. Any restrictions or other mitigation efforts can and will be addressed during the next phase of the development process that includes the application for building Hadco’s intended offices.
Other items decided by the City Council were approval of an agreement for a restroom at Shadow Ridge Park, the amendment of a zone change at the Exchange Business Park from R-3 (high-density residential) to Neighborhood Commercial, approval of a grading permit for the Holbrook Industrial Building 5, and approval of a development code amendment related to requirements for bicycle parking.
