Planning Commission unanimously recommends RC Zone rewrite to Town Council

The Huntsville Town Planning Commission voted unanimously on Jan. 15, 2026, to recommend Ordinance 2025-7-23 — a rewrite of the Recreation (RC) zone — to the Huntsville Town Council.

Chairman Allen Endicott opened the public hearing, thanked the commission for its work on the draft and described the commission’s job as a recommending body to the council. The draft ordinance, as discussed at the hearing and in earlier work sessions, narrows RC-zone language to focus on private, member-based recreational uses and adds special provisions for events, camping, parking and lighting. It also cross-references the town’s conditional-use procedures and Weber-Morgan County health requirements for sanitation facilities.

Commissioners and the town’s council liaison, Sandy Hunter, emphasized that the ordinance is intended to give the town clear tools — conditional-use permits and development agreements — to manage uses that could affect neighbors. The draft includes limits now in the text under consideration, such as a cap on the number of special events per property per year, restrictions on on-site parking and shuttle routing, nightly quiet hours and a daytime dBA guideline for amplified sound. Work-session notes circulated earlier also show the commission at times discussing a campsite density limit expressed as ‘4 per acre’ and other draft thresholds; those figures appear in multiple draft sections and were debated during the review.

Residents used the public-hearing period to urge careful safeguards. “Some of the wording in the ordinance [appears] tailored to Powder Mountain,” one resident said, and others raised traffic, noise, cemetery access and enforcement concerns. Commissioners responded that a development agreement would further define permitted operations if a property owner pursues rezoning or new uses.

Chairman Endicott made the motion to recommend approval; PCM Ahlstrom seconded. The roll-call vote was recorded as all aye and the recommendation now proceeds to the Town Council for decision and any further edits.

What happens next: the Town Council will receive the Planning Commission’s recommendation and may adopt, modify or reject the ordinance. The draft ordinance text that the commission reviewed contains multiple cross-references to Utah municipal authority and the town’s conditional-use procedures; the final numeric limits and operational conditions (for example campsite density, event caps and exact dBA thresholds) will be clarified during the council review or in a development agreement, according to commission comments at the meeting.