A couple of “surprise!” bills regarding planning and local land use administration were just brought to my attention, worth being aware of.

SB340 – Protected Person Amendments, released at the end of last week, is mainly about what people who face documented and credible evidence of danger to their lives or safety can do.  No worries here as far as land use goes, right?  Not so fast.  The bill would stipulate that “improvements” to the certified threatened person’s property are not subject to local land use regulations.  The person must still submit plans to the local entity for a building permit, but the local entity is restricted to reviewing for compliance with building codes only.  No other land use provisions apply, and if the entity holds up the approval of the permit, the person can challenge it in court and the entity can be subject to $250/day penalties for holding up the permit.  Now, what are “improvements?”  They are defined in state code section 78B-2-225 as “any building, structure, infrastructure, road, utility, or other similar man-made change, addition, modification, or alteration to real property.”  Here’s a news story from the Wasatch Back about at least some of the anticipated ramifications of this bill.  This bill has passed in the Senate and is now in the House awaiting a vote.

HB249 – Nuclear Power Amendments, which is mainly all about encouraging development of nuclear power facilities in the state to make Utah a leader in use of power generated in this way, establishes another state development authority, this one for “electrical energy development zones.”  The language that has become problematic at this point, as described in this story by Utah News Dispatch, is where the bill says that “a state land use authority may propose an energy development zone within lands under its jurisdiction… by submitting (to the Utah Energy Council)… a development plan that includes… evidence that the proposed zone is consistent with applicable land use plans and regulations.”  The key word in this is may.  Cities and counties really want this word to be “shall,” and apparently that was what the word was in the version passed by the Senate.  When the bill went back to the House for concurrence in the change, the House would not agree.  A conference committee of the two chambers was appointed, and latest word is that the conference committee did not agree to language.  So.  At this point, the bill is still on hold, certainly while negotiations continue.  Hanging fire!

Finally, more on the Beehive bill – SB337 – Land Use and Development Amendments.  It continues to generate opposition from a number of different sources, here’s the most recent I’ve seen, an opinion piece by Malin Moench, described as “a retired legal and economic analyst and a member of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment,” takes on this bill and also the electrical energy bill (HB249), mainly attacking the concept of state development authorities.  While this bill appears to be dead, I also need to say, while I generally do not like to pass along “rumors” because that just seems not very credible to me, in this case, I’m going to pass along a rumor I’ve heard that the provisions of this bill may get tacked onto another bill  that is still moving ahead.  This tactic has been used before, just a couple years ago with another land use bill, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility.

It’s interesting from my standpoint to note that so far, we have not seen the state take primacy over local land use for housing nearly as much as has been happening in other states, opting instead to work more cooperatively with local entities.  But that certainly does not seem to be the case for all manner of other kinds of development, from inland ports to former prison sites to electrical energy generating sites, to even sand and gravel operations.  As I have noted in a recent post, we had a session on state development authorities at the ULUI Land Use conference a few years ago, and the issues brought up there are just mushrooming.