Friends of Virgin, Inc.
P.O. Box 790005
Virgin, Utah 84779-0005
www.friendsofvirgin.com
If you wish to be removed from our email list please send a message to friends@friendsofvirgin.com.
Our Purpose:
To promote the continued health, safety, security, beauty, and viability of the town of Virgin, Utah, through the combined efforts and talents of the individuals and entities herein known as the Friends of Virgin. Though the Friends of Virgin differ dramatically in viewpoint and political affiliation, they unite here to assist in informing and educating local residents and decision-makers; promoting openness in the town government and free access to its records; and encouraging public input as well as its serious consideration by officials.
Board of Directors:
Lee Ballard, president
Adele Pincock, secretary
Sandra Grow, treasurer
Linda Collet, director
DRD Properties South, director
Jan Walker, director
MEETING WATCH
[editorial and explanatory comments italicized in brackets]
Planning & Zoning, 11/05/03:
The Commission was presented with a proposal for development of the Bull Cinch property. The applicant showed a plat map of the 2.67 acre parcel, expressing interest in converting the bar into a duplex and building up to a total of 26 rental units. Commissioners and residents expressed concern over sewer installation, housing density and allowing a residential use in the Commercial zone, and no action was taken. 
The Commission next discussed provisions to be included in Virgin Town’s road and sidewalk standards including right-of-way, asphalt and sidewalk widths, as well as utility easements. The item was tabled until the P&Z meeting in December.
The Commission unanimously recommended the revised Subdivision Ordinance to Town Council for approval.
Zoning Administrator, Lenny Brinkerhoff, compiled the multi-page description of the current Commercial zone to reflect new and amended use provisions, removing no-longer-used pages, making the ordinance more clear. P&Z unanimously recommended Town Council approve the clarified format.
A discussion of the town’s excavation permit ordinance (2000-03-16) then took place. L. Brinkerhoff stated a dust control provision was missing and suggested the Town expand the ordinance to stipulate when and where excavation permits would be required. This item was tabled until P&Z’s next meeting.
Town Council, 11/20/03: [we will only mention a handful of items, as this meeting was covered in the Virgin Town newsletter] The council discussed a heating source for the old church behind Town Hall. Gary Wilcox and John Grow reported that they can obtain a gas pack unit for the church for around $800 and a total amount of $2,000 was suggested for heat, insulation and power. Plans were discussed for requesting volunteers to do the labor on the project (including installation of the heating unit, running electrical lines, glazing windows, and so on). Bob Kelly offered to chair a committee to look into restoration of the old Church, and Bruce Densley and Mike Crawford were appointed to the committee. 
Other actions taken that night included the appointments of Bill Johnson as Mayor Pro Tem; of John Grow to finish K. Cornelius’s term on the Council (which ends in January); and of Matt Spendlove as a Planning & Zoning Commissioner. John Grow was named Council Liaison to the Planning Commission. In the open forum section of the meeting Bruce Densley presented the results of the survey he had mailed to town residents. According to his figures, the people consider the top five most important issues facing Virgin to be, starting with the most important: control of youth centers; seeking federal grants; eyesore properties; fire department; and police services. A resident stated that she had attended a County Commission meeting at which the mayor of Hurricane spoke to commissioners of his concern about youth homes moving into Hurricane’s hotels and motels and prime commercial areas, depriving the town of valuable tax dollars. [unlike motels and hotels, residential treatment centers do not pay sales or service tax]
The Council voted to direct the Planning Commission to begin the process of removing two things from Virgin’s commercial zone description: the use "planned unit developments" and the catch-all item which allows approval of uses not listed if members find them to be similar to other uses and in harmony with surrounding zone. [you may remember that Sydney Fonnesbeck of the Utah League of Cities and Towns last winter recommended we do away with these catchalls in our zoning ordinance] 
Gary Wilcox agreed to act as liaison to the BMX Track Committee until January, when Bruce Densely can take over. 
Congregate Living Facility (CLF) DISCUSSION
As reported above, newly elected councilman Bruce Densely this month presented the results of a survey he had mailed to all residents asking that they put in order a list of concerns for Virgin’s future. We were not surprised to hear that "Control of Youth Centers" was the respondents’ number one priority. In view of community concern, we will devote the bulk of this newsletter to information about the committee’s new draft of the Congregate Living Facility Ordinance. Below you will find interspersed accounts of recent CLF Committee meetings, parts of a report prepared by Lee Ballard for the Committee, and excerpts from the ordinance itself. 
First we will give readers a bit of history on this issue. Over a year ago, the Planning and Zoning Commission formed a committee to work on the question of group homes in Virgin. The committee researched the ins and outs of congregate living facilities, gathered sample ordinances from other towns, conferred with the ULCT and returned to the Planning Commission with a draft for an ordinance to regulate all types of group homes in February of 2003. Much work and discussion followed. The ordinance, much of its language borrowed from Ogden City, defined numerous types of facilities and the draft proposed many options for regulation, including maximum occupancy levels, population percentage limits, strict safety and monitoring requirements and etc., with the idea that, once anything legally questionable had been removed, there would hopefully remain some degree of control over zoning. 
In June of 2003 a much changed version of this ordinance, having received a recommendation from the Planning Commission, finally was presented to the Town Council, who sent it to Town Attorney Russ Gallian for his advice. When Gallian returned to the town having researched cases he was not encouraging about the defensibility of the ordinance. He had gathered case law which he offered to show to members of the committee, who procured copies of the research to help in revisions. 
In reading the case law provided, members of the committee began to think they were taking altogether the wrong approach. Before getting to any of the stickier issues, they had to be sure the ordinance did not discriminate against any protected group, such as the disabled or the elderly. Then they had to find valid zoning reasons for each of the restrictions on these homes. Regretfully, they scrapped the version of the ordinance R. Gallian had advised against, and started with a new premise. 
The Congregate Living Facility (CLF) ordinance committee met on 10/30/03 to discuss a new draft. Committee member Lee Ballard reported on her review of district court decisions pertaining to various types of group living arrangements across the country. In most cases, the courts ruled in favor of a group home if a city or town neglected to offer applicants "reasonable accommodation", or when the ordinance being challenged violated Fair Housing laws. The committee agreed the ordinance should include certain distinctions to ensure placement of CLF's would be logical and in accordance with the town's General Plan and Uniform Zoning Ordinance. The realization that certain types of facilities did not seem to fit well into any of Virgin’s current zones led to the proposal of a new zone, tentatively named "Industrial Commercial". A chart was also proposed to be included as part of the ordinance, providing a quick reference to the type of facility allowed in any given zone.
The committee met again on 11/13/03. Revisions, additions, and deletions had been made based on the legal research, Utah Code, and fair housing provisions; and in an effort to ensure standards, conditions and requirements for all CLF's are uniform so as to avoid disparate impact on certain classes. The new ordinance draft is shorter and simpler than the original one. New sections, ‘Special Guidelines’ and ’Placement‘, were added. The 'Requirements' section now outlines general requirements and those necessary to obtain a conditional use permit and business license for all CLF's housing more than 5 people. The 'Procedure' 
section contains a step-by-step process for all CLF applicants and provides for 'reasonable accommodation' application. 
REPORT TO CLF COMMITTEE (excerpts):
Fair Housing laws are designed to, in part, prevent municipalities from acting with discriminatory intent. The committee’s intent in regulating congregate living facilities is not to discriminate against the disabled or the elderly, as our proposed policy will be to welcome small, family-style dwellings for the disabled in our communities, as is required by law. Our purpose is to prevent the development of uses in our town which will conflict with our general plan and the welfare of the residents and property owners. 
One requirement of law protecting the disabled is that the town must offer reasonable accommodation to persons with disabilities. A reasonable accommodation is a "change in a rule, policy, practice, or service necessary to afford a person with a disability equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling." As used in this definition, "reasonable" means a requested accommodation will not undermine the legitimate purposes of existing zoning regulations; "necessary" means that without the accommodation someone with a disability likely will be denied an equal opportunity to enjoy housing of his choice; and "equal opportunity" means achieving the same result for a person with a disability as for a non-disabled person. 
The new CLF ordinance draft includes extensive instructions for requesting and deciding requests for reasonable accommodation. Since the offer to, in effect, break our own rules for the disabled is required by law, we must be careful not to make our accommodations before the fact; the ordinance should be drawn strictly enough to accomplish Virgin’s goals while still leaving room for flexibility so that when a request comes we may negotiate an accommodation without undermining the intents and purposes of our zoning restrictions. It is important to remember that we do not have to make any accommodation which will give preference to the disabled, nor which will endanger the character of the underlying zone. 
The new draft of the CLF ordinance makes no distinctions between group homes based on composition of households (with the exception of familial status, which is up for discussion). A group of students living together to save money is treated exactly the same way as is a residential facility for the elderly, and so on. This rule allows us to adopt sensible requirements without fear of unintentional discrimination.
Case law suggests we should be prepared to defend any of our zoning policies which impact protected classes by showing that they serve legitimate governmental interests. Therefore, some discussion of the specific purpose of each of our zones is in order. The key idea in this new draft is to classify CLF’s by qualities directly related to zoning concerns. For instance, a distinction is made between "open" facilities, where inhabitants are free to mix with the surrounding community, and "closed" facilities, where occupants are strictly limited or monitored in their activities and may not even be allowed out of the facility without strict supervision. This distinction is an important one. The Fair Housing law which requires municipalities to permit homes for the disabled and elderly in any area where similar residential dwellings are allowed is intended to promote the integration of these classes into normal community life. In the new ordinance draft, an "open" facility for up to 5 occupants is a permitted use in residential zones, but "closed" facilities are excluded. In addition to echoing the goals of state and federal law, this distinction will help preserve the character of our neighborhoods, in disallowing facilities which may have an institutional appearance and may detract from a harmonious sense of community in residential zones. The placement of a "closed" facility or industrial enterprise in our highway commercial zone could interrupt the flow of consumer-oriented business and reduce the space available to provide for the growth of tourism, which is highly tax-beneficial to the town, and of businesses providing services to the actual residents, the two main categories of use encouraged by our General Plan for the current Commercial zone. On the other hand, this attribute of a CLF would not necessarily have an adverse impact in a different zone. The proposed Industrial Commercial zone (the implementation of which will require a public hearing as well as planning board and council action) would provide logical placement not only for "closed" businesses, such as manufacturing enterprises which are not necessarily designed to attract or deal directly with the public, but also for "closed" CLF’s, as the purpose of the zone is to provide opportunities outside of our precious highway commerce and residential neighborhoods where less interactive businesses may locate. 
Another distinction the new draft makes is between "tourist-based" and "non-tourist-based" facilities. Because of the unique beauty of Virgin’s location and its proximity to Zion National Park, we have a built-in advantage over the majority of municipalities in this country: high visitor traffic. Virgin’s General Plan suggests we should promote the development of tourism here. The proposed ordinance would consider the protection of areas where consumer-based business is encouraged to grow, uninterrupted by less integrative uses, in the placement of various types of group residential facilities.
The new draft makes a third distinction, between "temporary" and "permanent" residents. It seems obvious that, the more transitory the residence of a group dwelling is, the less conducive its existence may be to the harmonious sense of community desirable in, for instance, a zone set aside for single dwelling units. On the other hand, the more transitory are the residents of a CLF in the commercial zone (for instance, a motel), the more surrounding businesses are likely to profit, and the more the public will hear of Virgin as a destination for visitors. 
Here are excerpts from the new CLF ordinance draft:
SPECIAL GUIDELINES
In order to determine which types of businesses and congregate living facilities will work best in which zones, certain properties of proposed enterprises must be considered. 
1. For the purposes of this ordinance, an "open" residence is one where inhabitants come and go as they please, where movements of occupants and their visitors are unrestricted by formal program rules or by external law. An "open" facility is one in which residents have unrestricted interaction with the community. Such facilities encourage integration of residents in a neighborhood atmosphere and, in commercial areas, connect and enhance surrounding commerce spaces.
2. For the purposes of this ordinance, a "closed" residence is one where inhabitants are strictly monitored, where movements of occupants may be limited by formal program rules and/or external law. A "closed" facility does not necessarily provide unrestricted interaction with the community. Such facilities do not encourage unsupervised integration into the neighborhood and, in commercial areas, create commerce-stagnant areas which may interrupt commerce.
3. For the purposes of this ordinance, a "permanent" residence or CLF means any building or portion thereof where individuals are actually residing at a given point in time and intend to remain, and not a place of temporary sojourn or transient visit. 
4. For the purposes of this ordinance, a "temporary" CLF or residence means any building or portion thereof intended to house occupants on a temporary basis. 
PLACEMENT
1. Residential (R) and Rural Residential Zones (RR): Because it is the purpose of Virgin’s residential zones to provide and protect areas for low density, single-family residences, CLF occupants shall be limited to five or fewer in these zones. A residential facility for the disabled or the elderly is a permitted use in any zoning area where similar residential dwellings that are not residential facilities for the disabled or elderly are allowed. Because it is the goal of state and federal laws protecting the disabled and elderly to encourage the "deinstitutionalization" and the "mainstreaming" of these classes into "normalized" residential neighborhoods, and because closed facilities do not contribute to harmonious neighborhood character or integration into residential communities, only "open" CLF’s are permitted in these zones. Because the continuity and stability of a residential neighborhood is disrupted by the transitory nature of temporary residents, only "permanent" residential facilities are permitted in these zones. No congregate living facility which would likely create a fundamental change in the character of a residential neighborhood shall be permitted in these areas.
3. Resort Zone: Because it is the purpose of Virgin’s Resort zone to accommodate resort properties which are designed to provide recreation and entertainment for visitors to the area, no "non-tourist based" facilities are permitted in this zone.
4. Commercial Zone (C): Because it is the purpose of Virgin’s Commercial zone to accommodate commercial businesses designed to service the citizens of Virgin Town and visitors to the area, including the encouragement of foot traffic, "closed" CLF’s are not permitted in this zone. 
5. Industrial Commercial Zone (IC): Because it is the purpose of Virgin’s Industrial Commercial zone to provide opportunities removed from its public commerce corridor for non-consumer based businesses which do not necessarily deal directly with the public, "closed" CLF’s are permitted in this zone.
GOINGS ON
Hearty congratulations to Virgin's two newest Town Council members: John Grow, who received the most votes, and Bruce Densley, a close second. Congratulations also to Matt Spendlove: as the candidate with the third most votes, he has been appointed to serve on the Virgin Planning & Zoning Commission. Thanks to Larry Sorden and Bob Kelly, who also received substantial support from voters. Thanks to the hard-working election judges, who began early in the morning and worked through the final count after the polls closed. Finally, congratulations to the citizens: Virgin had the highest voter turnout in eastern Washington County, at 56%. 
Voter turnout: 178
John Grow: 99
Bruce Densley: 95
Matt Spendlove: 65
Larry Sorden: 51
Bob Kelly: 40
Upcoming Dates
Town Council: Thursday, December 18th at 7pm; work mtg 6:30 
Planning & Zoning: Wednesday, January 7, 2004 at 7pm; work mtg 6:30
History
Here is another excerpt from the diary of Charles Workman. He and his wife Josephine were the first schoolteachers in Virgin.
NOVEMBER 1898
1 (Cooler - clear) Josephine gave birth to a fine boy this morning at 3:15. He weighed 9 lbs. A girl was also born to Nephi and Lizzie this morning at 12:10. She weighed 9 lbs.
10 (28- Clear) Got 68 lbs. of flour of Ab. Stratton to finish paying for the grapes he got. Word has come that B. H. Roberts is elected Rep. to Congress.
11 (24- Thick Ice Clear - Cold North wind) Cattle men are driving. They have over a thousand head here now. They are going to ship some to Salt Lake City.
15 (Clouds) Leaves have fallen from all the trees except a few. We still have some houseflies.
17 John Campbell arrived from Tropic this evening and brought us 350 ft. of lumber to pay for the stove we sold them.
18 (Warmer- clouds) 'Coons have caught six of our chickens. I got up at 2 o'clock this morning and drove one away but it took a chicken with it.
19 (Warmer- Cloudy, S.W. wind eve.) Made an extension to my hay shed so as to extend over my workbench. Y.M.M.I.A. this eve.
20 (Clouds- light rain this morning. Heavy S.W. wind all night, Cold North wind today) I attended S.S. and 2 P.M. meeting, Bros. Jas. Duffin and Walter Slack were the speakers. Organized Seventies Theological Class this evening. I was chosen teacher.
21 (20- Clear- clouds eve. calm) Two more pupils today. Discharged our hired girl (Tillie H.) today. She charges $5.00 for the 3 weeks.
24 (Cloudy- N. wind, a little fine snow or frost fell) THANKSGIVING School is having a holiday. We had a school entertainment this evening. Lois stayed home with Josephine and the Babies while I went.
25 (Clear).
26 (Cloudy, light rain and hail) Bought 2 bu. potatoes of a Beaver man at 1 1/2, paid dried peaches @ 4 and grapes @ 5. Made a workbench. Attended Y.M.M.I.A. this evening and gave a lecture.
27 (Clouds) Attended Sunday School 10 A.M. and Seventies Theological Class, 7 P.M.
28 (Cloudy) Lois started to school today. Wife and children stayed at Mother's today and we all ate dinner there.
30 (Clear) Prized goods at Co-op Store this evening. Received first copy of "Thrice-a-week World" dated Nov. 23.