A few new bills of interest out over the holiday weekend. They are:
HB438 – Point of the Mountain State Land Authority Amendments – this bill makes a number of operational changes and additions to this authority, including the ability to impose an energy tax and raise other revenue, bond, what funds can be used for and how, and the ability to use the Public Infrastructure District provisions (PIDs).
HB443 – Utah Inland Port Authority Amendments – a number of changes, including those anticipated reducing the number of local officials serving on the governing board. The bill also requires the primary municipality in which the district is located (Salt Lake City in this case) to sign an agreement agreeing to “facilitate the efficient processing of land use applications, as defined in Section 10-9a-103, relating to land within a project area, including providing for at least one full-time employee as a single point of contact for the processing of those land use applications.” Interesting.
HB445 – Homeowners Association Amendments – would require the Property Rights Ombudsman Office to hire attorneys with backgrounds in, offer opinions on, and be experts on all things HOAs! Oh, man, oh, man, .. HOAs are not required or administered by local governments, they are essentially private agreements. For the PRO to have to get involved in that – can they even legally do that? Hmm, I need to ask Jordan…
SB232 – MIDA Revisions – makes a number of essentially technical and operational changes to MIDA. It authorizes the use of PIDs in MIDA district areas. Here’s an interesting provision: would make it so that Section 57-11, the Utah Uniform Land Sales Practices Act does not apply to land in MIDA districts if MIDA has done the following:
has a development review committee using at least one professional planner;
(B) enacts standards and guidelines that require approval of planning, land use, and plats, including the approval of plans for streets, culinary water, sanitary sewer, and flood control; and
(C) will have the improvements described in Subsection (11)(b)(i)(B) plus telecommunications and electricity; and
(ii) if at the time of the offer or disposition, the subdivider furnishes satisfactory assurance of completion of the improvements described in Subsection (11)(b)(i)(C).
In addition, a substitute for HB303 has come out, as promised by the League, that substantially changes the character of that (badly written) bill. Now it would simply stipulate that for public notices required for changes to the text of land use ordinances, the notice “include a summary of the effect of the proposed modifications to the text of the zoning code designed to be understood by a lay person; and be provided to any person upon written request.”
Okay, that’s it for now. STILL waiting for the big land use bills, and there are only two weeks left…