Council reviews water conservation plan, steers code rewrite and hears plea to revive historic preservation
October 15, 2024, 4:00 p.m. · American Fork City Administration Conference Room, 51 E. Main St.
Public Works Director Sam Kelly said the city has cut culinary water losses from about 2,658 acre-feet in 2018 to 844 acre-feet in 2023 as the five-year water conservation plan came up for renewal. Council members gave direction on a rewrite of building and development codes, agreeing to keep RA-1 and RA-5 agricultural zones and drop surety bonds as a guarantee option, and heard Historic Preservation Commission member Brittany Snow warn the city is losing its history.
From the approved minutes.
Decisions at a glance
| Item | Result |
|---|---|
| 2024 water conservation plan | Discussed |
| Code rewrite, Titles 15 and 17 | Discussed |
Agenda, item by item
Item 1 · Presentation
Steel Days 2024 report
No action
Pulled by the mayor.
Item 2 · Roads and utilities
2024 water conservation plan
Discussed
State law requires systems over 500 connections to update conservation plans every five years; the last was 2019. The city has 11,496 connections and 38,000-plus residents. Goals: cut per-capita culinary use 10%, cut irrigation use at least 5% a year. Culinary supply fell from 5,499 acre-feet in 2018 to 4,388.8 in 2023 while unmetered losses fell from 2,658.1 to 844 acre-feet after leak detection, PI metering and meter replacement. A five-member water conservation committee meets quarterly and could advise on rates. Adopted Oct. 22.
- Connections: 11,496
- Water loss: 2,658.1 af (2018) → 844 af (2023)
Item 3 · City code
Code rewrite, Titles 15 and 17
Discussed
Legal counsel Cherylyn Egner and Development Services Director Patrick O'Brien sought direction on consolidating zones. Council kept RA-1 and RA-5 (three areas on the south side), discussed merging single-family zones with average lot sizes and replacing PR zones with planned unit developments, possibly a downtown zone, frontage-improvement thresholds for remodels, and agreed to drop surety bonds as a performance-guarantee option. Brittany Snow of the Historic Preservation Commission said the city has no historical society, lost its Certified Local Government status in 2023 (cannot recertify until 2026), and suggested an archive (Archiva database, $6,000 a year) and a municipal historian (Lehi pays $65,000 a year). The mayor said funding would go through the budget process and the committee should be reorganized under its bylaws.
- Budget$6,000 to Archiva