Sandy council reviews moratorium revisions and proposed rules for trading sewer capacity (ERUs)

City of Sandy officials spent more than two hours Monday night debating proposed revisions to the city's wastewater moratorium and a program that would let some property owners reassign or transfer equivalent residential units (ERUs) that represent sewer capacity.

The proposed moratorium 4 language, drafted by staff and presented by Josh Soper, would (1) update the prior ERU allocation program now that the initial allocations have been delivered; (2) add flexibility to an ERU reassignment program so allocated capacity could, in some circumstances, move to a different property for commercial or industrial uses; (3) allow limited land partitions while protecting the city's control over ERU assignments; and (4) make minor housekeeping edits to clarify existing rules. "These are the revisions that were prepared by staff based on changed circumstances and lessons learned from implementing the moratorium up to this point," Soper told the council.

Why it matters: Sandy is under a sewer moratorium because of system capacity issues. ERUs are a scarce commodity: they determine which projects can connect to the city's sewer system. Council members said they want to avoid creating a speculative…