Planning staffer Matt McDonald reviewed competing approaches to the county’s land-use ordinance and sought direction from the Planning Commission on whether to start from the 2011 ordinance and add required legal definitions and new sections or to pare back and refine the more detailed 2025 draft. McDonald said the 2025 draft had expanded regulatory content and more chapters, while the 2011 code is simpler to use but has gaps and process problems that have produced litigation, inconsistent interpretations and unresolved cross-references with the Spanish Valley provisions.

Commissioners and attendees debated key trade-offs. Several commissioners said they preferred a simpler, more usable ordinance and emphasized restoring and expanding precise definitions (which previous staff had developed) so that administrators and the public could apply rules without repeated attorney interpretation. Commissioners also discussed the use table: whether to begin with the 2025 use table and “blank it out” for commissioners to assign uses to zones, or to transplant the 2025 use table’s entries into the 2011 format. Participants agreed to circulate a “blank” version of the use table so each commissioner could indicate where uses should be allowed before the next meeting.

The commission discussed Spanish Valley repeatedly: members noted Spanish Valley’s different infrastructure and growth pattern (sewer, water, and higher densities near municipal annexation plans) and urged that Spanish Valley provisions be reconciled with a countywide ordinance rather than creating permanently separate rules. Commissioners also flagged the concept of transitional/annexation areas around Monticello and Blanding and asked staff to coordinate mapping with municipal annexation plans and special-service districts.

Staff described potential steps: (1) bring combined drafts that map 2011 sections and the 2025 use table into a single working document, color-coded to show state-required changes; (2) publish a dated working draft for public review; and (3) return to the commission with a draft use table and recommended zones. Commissioners asked staff to solicit public review, to bring definitions forward from prior drafts, and to work with county attorneys and the council of governments’ planner (Todd) on the legal and water-integration pieces. No formal ordinance change was adopted at the meeting; commissioners directed staff to prepare draft materials and to circulate a blank use table ahead of the next meeting.