Ephraim City Council approves zoning for starter home project

EPHRAIM—In two votes, both 3-1, the Ephraim City Council has approved a general plan amendment as well as a zoning change, which will facilitate development of so-called “starter homes” on an 8.3-acre site in Ephraim Crossing.

But the decision on June 4 might have contributed to the dissenter, Councilman Chad Parry, resigning from the council five days later.

At the council meeting, Parry, a consistent critic of Ephraim Crossing, said he agreed with zoning land in Ephraim for single-family homes on smaller lots than previously allowed. But he said, “I do not agree with this site.”

He said the Camino Verde Group of Las Vegas, land developer of Ephraim Crossing, had not completed the things it had promised.

“For seven years, they haven’t followed through,” he said. “We as a council have changed several things that I didn’t agree with on their development. I don’t think they’re being treated the same as other private developers.”

The 8.3 acres are located between 200 and 400 West, south of 400 South. Before 2018, when Ephraim Crossing was proposed, the property was owned by Ephraim City, which had planned to make it part of a city industrial park.

However, Ephraim ended up selling 86 acres of city-owned land to Camino Verde to help get Ephraim Crossing going. Subsequently, Camino Verde got some of the one-time industrial land rezoned to R-1 and R-2 for residential development.

Since then, Camino Verde has designated different acreage in the Manti-Ephraim Airport protection zone for industrial development.

However, the city’s general-plan map still designated the 8.3 acres as C-2, an industrial classification. So the first step in making residential development possible was amending the general plan.

Mayor John Scott and Councilman Anthony Beal were absent on the night of the vote. Four council members were present—Dennis Nordfeldt, Lloyd Stevens, Margie Anderson and Parry. Nordfeldt, Stevens and Anderson voted in favor of the amendment, while Parry voted against it.

Part of the site was still zoned C-2 (industrial), a classification dating to before 2018. The rest of the site was zoned R-2, a multi-family zone.

For the smaller lots to be permitted, as requested by Camino Verde and an associated developer, Flex-Ready Homes of Utah County, the 8.3 acres needed to be rezoned.

During a meeting in May, the Ephraim City Council voted to establish a new single-family zone, R-1-B. In the historic R-1 zone, the minimum lot size is 8,000 square feet with 75-feet of frontage. Under R-1-B, lots can be as small as 3,000 square feet and 40 feet wide.

The next vote was to change the C-2 and R-2 zoning to R-1-B. That passed with the same council members voting in favor and Parry voting against.

Based on a site plan included in council agenda materials, Flex Ready Homes plans to develop 48 homes on the 8-plus acres. If the land was developed as a standard single-family subdivision, there would be room for about 28 homes.

Mike Ballard, CEO of the Camino Verde Group, which will be selling the land to Flex-Ready, said 36 of the homes would be built on small lots. Still, the average lot size, about 4,000 square feet, would be a little larger than the minimum for the R-1-B zone. He said the homes would be an average of 40 feet wide.

Another 12 homes would be built on lots averaging 6,200 square feet with average frontage of 63 feet. Megan Spurling, Ephraim city planner, said the larger lots would form a buffer between the R-1-B zoning and an adjacent R-1 subdivision.

During a presentation in May, officials of Flex-Ready Homes said reducing lot size is one of the only ways to get the cost of single-family homes down to the $300,000 to $320,000 range where at least some first-time buyers can afford them.

Although built on smaller lots with communal green space nearby, the homes themselves would not be small. They would start at 1,200 square feet with the potential for expansion to more than 4,000 square feet.

A key feature of the Flex-Ready design is putting a parking pad or garage at the rear of homes and building a private road behind homes so people can access their garages.

Spurling told the council the Flex-Ready development would have two standard roads running in front of homes with curb, gutter and sidewalk. The private access road running between two rows of smaller lots would be 28-feet and be paved, but without curb and gutter, which Spurling said met the standard for private roads.