Editors Note: This article was originally published in the April 17, 2024 issue of the Chronicle Progress. Some information may be outdated.
Website allows residents, businesses to fill out surveys; hearings planned
Millard County officials are set to begin work updating the county’s general plan—the living document at the heart of governing decisions regarding everything from housing to resource management to transportation—through the end of the year.
The last time the plan was revamped was in 1998, though it was last officially updated in 2013.
A planning consultant is assisting county officials in the work. Jones & DeMille Engineering was hired to help manage an updated master transportation plan as part of the effort. The engineering firm is also contributing technical help in changes contemplated to county ordinances.
Mike Hansen, a consultant with the Hansen Planning Group, has already started work gathering information and data to be used to set the goals and objectives the county wishes to pursue in its vision for the future. Plenty of public input is both required and desired as the project moves forward, he said.
County Planner Adam Richins is Hansen’s point of contact in county government.
“Whenever there’s growth, the general plan is supposed to be a guiding document,” Richins said. “Decisions are supposed to be consistent with the general plan… We need to adapt and make sure that what we are trying to do is still consistent with what makes sense. Usually every 10 years it’s really time to sit down and go through it and make sure it’s still consistent with the vision.”
Hansen has already set up a website—millardplan.org—with surveys for residents, an outline of the planning process and a place to contact Hansen directly via email. Three surveys currently available online allow users to enter demographic information and provide opinions on the county’s general direction, land use and transportation in the area.
“This is about asking residents and business owners what do you want this county to look like when you grow up,” the consultant said about the opinions he hopes to collect. “If they have a voice, they need to make it known now.”
Hansen said the county is at the very beginning of the process, which should take until the end of the year to complete.
He said the state requires some information be completed earlier, by late summer. This usually involves technical details about infrastructure needs and contemplated changes, such as pipelines and transmission facilities, he said.
“It’s mostly the county in charge of this timeline. They have told me to go for this calendar year for sure,” Hansen said.
Richins said one other area the county will be focused on is changing its subdivision ordinances to comply with new state mandates as well as updates to the county’s resource management plan, a subset of the general plan.
He said the state has rules in place to ensure counties all generally have an extensive outline of what resources are available, which are stressed and what future plans and expectations the counties have for various resources.
“While we have a pretty extensive resource management plan, it’s still not as extensive as the state wants,” Richins said.
Water, for example, is looming as one area where the state expects counties, including Millard, to have a laser focus.
Officials here are awaiting, for instance, the publication of a groundwater study of Pahvant Valley’s aquifer, which may lead to a state-coordinated groundwater management plan affecting up to half of the water currently going to irrigate local farms in the valley.
Hugh Hurlow, geologic manager with Utah Geological Survey’s Groundwater and Wetlands Program, said a first draft of the groundwater study is set for distribution among internal and external scientists to ensure the reliability of its findings. The study was anticipated at the beginning of the year but has not yet been made public.
“They are working really hard to finalize the first draft and then we have to go through a series of reviews, both internal and then we’ll have some external scientific reviews. The short answer is we are hoping to publish it (the Pahvant Valley groundwater study) about 6 to 8 weeks out. That would put us into June,” he said when asked last week about his agency’s progress.
Hansen agreed the state is very interested in how counties are managing current water resources, given the state of the Great Salt Lake and the 25-year drought that may or may not be finally subsiding.
“This (general) plan is supposed to talk about all of the issues a little bit…but the state, when it comes to water, they want to see that we’ve done some homework…that’s what they want to see in this plan,” he said.
Hansen recently finished a project updating Juab County’s general plan. He said he looks forward to hosting a series of workshops in communities across Millard County as the proposed plan updates develop. Letters have already been sent to area municipalities alerting them to the pending changes and soliciting their input. Public hearings on the revamped general plan could begin as soon as mid-summer, he said.
Meanwhile, Richins told county planning commission members last week they should expect to hold a few additional meetings over the summer months to go over potential plan changes, some of which must be completed by the fall per state requirements.
He said the resource management plan changes will likely take longer and move into next year.
“We have several things that are time sensitive that have to be done before December. The subdivision ordinance is one of those. There’s some state mandates that have come out. We are required to have our process changed prior to that,” the county planner said.
Costs of revamping the general plan could be as much as $50,000, though some state funding is available to offset some of that, Richins said. One-time federal funds the county has on hand will cover the remaining costs, he added.
