Okay, I need to do a quick summary (well, turns out it’s not so quick – sorry, but there’s a lot to these bills) of the several new bills that were released in the last couple of days that I haven’t gotten around to.  Here they are.

HB355 – Critical Infrastructure Materials Amendments – the background leading to this bill is long and convoluted.  This bill is now the latest iteration in the conflict between sand and gravel pit owners/operators and local governments.  It’s probably no surprise to anyone to say that there has been a lot of wrestling between them over the years.  All you have to do is perform a search on news stories about the topic and you’ll find many.  After a lot of back-and-forthing legislatively (and in the courts) in recent years, a working group of operators/owners and local governments was put together to see if some accommodation could be reached.  My understanding is that in 2023, there was sort of agreement, and then not really.  So.  There’s a lot more to this, but in the interest of time, let’s just cut to the chase, which is a bill passed last year, and the bill proposed this session.

In the 2024 session, when agreement between the groups couldn’t be reached, the legislature passed HB502 – Critical Infrastructure and Mining, which just called for a study of the issues around sand and gravel extraction, including “…whether critical infrastructure materials operations should be licensed, permitted, or otherwise authorized or regulated by DOGM, another state agency, or local government.”  The study was to be presented to the legislature by the first day of the 2025 session.  I was waiting to see the study, but it never came.  I finally asked Justin Lee at the League, who was monitoring this issue, if he knew what happened to the study.  He said there is one, but it wasn’t presented.

Justin gave me a link where a report on the study can be found, which was a help.  The finding of the study on the issue of local regulation said, “The “grandfather provisions” of Title 17 Chapter 17-27a Part 10 and Title 10 Chapter 9a Part 10 create confusion, conflict, and are a source of frustration for many localities.”  I think it meant to say Part 9 in both these titles, because those are the Vested Critical Infrastructure Materials Operations parts of LUDMA.

The study concluded that on regulation of aggregate materials operations, “… the industry, communities, counties, and municipalities would be better served by a state-level organization with the capacity and capability to consistently regulate all aggregate mining across the state and set the minimum standards for which all other authorities need to meet. Land-use designation, rezoning, and permit decisions should probably remain with the local officials where the benefits and impacts of the quarry will be most realized.”

That led to this year’s bill, HB355, where a number of changes are proposed.  I think because the study authors saw production of aggregate as such a critical resource for future growth and development (which would also impact on the cost of housing), the bill gives rather sweeping rights to the industry.

The bill:

• Would say that instead of needing to have a valid permit from a local government, or have a nonconforming right, a critical infrastructure materials operation is deemed to be vested if it existed or was conducted prior to the date on which a local regulation took effect. The burden of proof to establish the validity of this vesting is switched from the operator to the party making the claim it does not meet this standard, and the standard for proving such a claim is changed from preponderance of evidence to clear and convincing.
• Would say that even if a local jurisdiction has adopted rules limiting operations or expansion of such operations, if they were adopted after the date of the establishment of the operation, those regulations would not curtail the operation’s right to grow, extend, enlarge or expand to any surface or subsurface land the operator owns or controls, or to any new land that is contiguous.
• Would allow a critical infrastructure materials operator with a vested critical infrastructure materials use to have a right to expand the vested critical infrastructure materials use to new land. The operator must provide notice to the applicable local government, and the local government shall hold a public meeting or hearing. After the meeting, the local government may only prohibit the expansion to new land if there is clear and convincing evidence in the record that the expansion to new land will imminently endanger the public health, safety, and welfare.

Again, there is more detail, but I think this gives an idea of how things would change under this bill.

HB368 – Local Land Use Amendments – this is one of the anticipated land use bills, containing most of the stuff agreed upon by the Land Use Task Force (though this is the first time we now get to see the actual bill language), and it is huge – over 7,200 lines!

A lot of the bill, though, is the recodification of the annexation code, which doesn’t make a lot of changes to how annexations work other than eliminating the separate process for Salt Lake County.  It just mainly rearranges the code to put it in a more common sense order, and eliminates some obvious conflicts and contradictions.

Beyond that, here’s what the bill does:

• Would clarify the time limit for review of a permit application includes review by all relevant divisions or departments in the city, such as engineering, utilities, building, etc. It would make a number of other changes to the permitting process, such as a time limit of three days to determine if an application is complete, etc.
• Would make changes to the notification process for public meetings and hearings for “ministerial” changes to the local land use code – the bill defines what those ministerial actions would be.
• Would create a new section in LUDMA prohibiting private maintenance of public features or facilities.
• Would allow a vested application to consent to review under a newly adopted code or requirement
• Would not allow withholding of a building permit or certificate of occupancy because the applicant has not submitted a private landscaping plan.
• Would make a number of changes to how improvement warranties are to work
• Would add provisions to designation and applicability of zones for transfer of development rights.
• Would create a new section in LUDMA to implement provisions for review and approval of “identical” plans.
• Would prohibit holding of public hearings for land use appeals and variance applications.
• Would implement provisions related to temporary roads and paving and fire protection for issuance of building permits, and for issuance of certificates of occupancy.

There’s a lot of detail in this bill that I haven’t called out – suffice to say, this bill will require careful study to make sure your entity is complying.

SB195 – Transportation Amendments – here’s a good summary by Miranda Jones Cox at WFRC:  This bill, commonly referred to as the “transportation omnibus” includes several changes to various transportation programs. On the planning and land use side, it would do the following:

• Requires cities by 2027 to develop a plan to connect roads that dead-end at water conveyances (canals), and then — along with their MPOs — make substantial progress to implement the plan by the end of 2029. If they fail to do so, the bill would require UDOT to withhold and redistribute their motor fuel tax class C road funds, beginning in 2030.
• Clarifies Station Area Planning (SAP) reporting requirements, by requiring the city to report to their MPO in five-year increments after the SAP is certified. The report (which would not need to be approved by the MPO) would share the status of actions in the SAP, and identify potential updates to the implementation plan that would advance the SAP objectives.
• Allows UDOT’s Transportation Investment Funds (TIF) to be used for corridor preservation.