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Commission recommends city council adopt revised building‑height measurement with grandfathering date
Summary
Planning staff proposed and the commission recommended a code amendment changing how building height is measured citywide and added an effective‑date carve‑out allowing subdivisions approved before April 14, 2026 to use the prior measurement method; developers supporting the change said they had relied on the old standard.
The Pleasant Grove Planning Commission on March 12 recommended that the city council adopt an amendment revising the city's definition of building height and adding an effective date that preserves the prior measurement method for subdivisions that received approval before April 14, 2026.
Daniel Cardenz, Director of Community Development, and planner Jacob Hawkins summarized the change: the administrative definition of how to measure building height will remain but staff added a clause that allows building permits within subdivisions approved prior to April 14, 2026 to use the prior measurement method when they apply for permits. The staff rationale presented to commissioners framed the issue as a balance between developer predictability and resident concerns about scale and neighborhood impacts.
"What we're saying is: we're going to measure it like this, but any subdivision that was approved before April 14 when they apply for the building permit, we're going to apply the previous one," Hawkins explained.
Haley Pratt of Castlewood Development, the developer for the Santa Heights subdivision, told the commission the effective‑date addition was important to protect projects that were planned and permitted under earlier expectations: "When we went in and bought this land, we've received approvals based off of certain standards and assumptions...we really are baked in now."
Commissioners discussed the planning tradeoffs between protecting developer reliance and addressing resident concerns about new development scale. Commissioner Butler moved (second Commissioner Nelson) that the commission recommend city council approve the code text amendment to revise the building‑height definition and add the effective date; the motion passed by voice vote.
Next steps: the planning commission's recommendation will be transmitted to the city council for a final decision; the amendment, if adopted by council, will take effect under the timeline in the ordinance.
