BOUNTIFUL—When the new Bountiful City Hall was renovated one of the ideas behind it was to make it more usable for the public. There are several rooms that could be considered for public rental and the city council discussed creating a clear policy to guide the use of those rooms at a work session held Dec. 9.

“For those who don’t know, in the basement we had, right in the middle of this building, basically below us, what we call the black hole,” said City Administrator, Gary Hill. “It was a huge storage area that was basically unused for anything other than that, just enough to see what you were doing.”

It was a large unused space, he said. “In addition, what I think the neatest innovation that we’ve done in this building with the remodel was adding the windows to this council room. It opened up this space and some other windows on the top floor. We have a lot of natural light in this building now.”

The other great innovation was being able to take that space downstairs in particular and configure it in a way that is much more usable for employee activities but we also designed it in a way so that it could be rented out and used for the public, said Hill. “One of the challenges with renting public space is figuring out the doors and the locked situation but we think we’ve kind of figured that out. What we want to do is get some direction from you (council) on a variety of issues related to our proposed policy so we can begin renting the building to folks that might need it.”

Hill said city staff are proposing four different rooms. “Potentially one is the council chambers. One is the basement conference room. That’s what is lovingly called the fishbowl room. The one with the windows around it, or with the glass around it. Then the multipurpose room which can be used as a whole room or can be divided in half.”

Those would be the spaces available for rent, he said. “We would recommend some fees. The first policy question we want to ask is if you are comfortable with the idea of a differential fee for residents versus nonresidents.”

“I have a question about whether these are a per hour fee or a block like four hours or a whole day,” said current Mayor Kate Bradshaw, who was a councilmember at the time. 

Yes these would be for a block of time, said Hill. “Essentially half day blocks.” 

“This is Bountiful City Hall and personally I’m fine with giving a preference to residents of Bountiful,” Bradshaw said. “I could see this as kind of a regional gathering point for surrounding communities or our legislators who serve multiple communities.”

“So I did have a question about a group like South Davis Communities that Care,” said Councilmember Beth Child. “They kind of travel around to each of the south Davis City Halls. I know they’ve had one meeting here recently but that’s a group that benefits our community.”

It’s not necessarily from Bountiful, she said. “Would you charge them a rate to do lunchtime meetings?”

“Right now what we have contemplated is primarily the use would be folks who want to come in and use it for a recital, potentially a reception or a birthday party or the occasional meeting,” said Hill. “What we haven’t really had much conversation about is this idea of nonprofit use and ongoing use. Our recommendation is that we not allow anybody, to say, hold clubs here or monopolize the space having a regular meeting all the time that isn’t our own. We have our own committees like the community service council that already meets here once a week and things like that.”

Maybe it makes sense to have a nonprofit category that is separate from the resident, nonresident, he said. “I believe there are city partners and establish who those people are that we would allow to use it.”

It would be nice to be able to say for example that elected representatives from the state or from Congress coming who might want to have an open house here for residents – not political – just an open house could, said Hill. “That’s a great benefit to our community. Our residents are better served by having it here than having to go to some other community. We might need some discretion on if it’s a part of governmental partnership or maybe educational so that there’s some ability to waive fees.”

The council discussed what the public’s rental would include. “What about access to our tables and chairs downstairs?” said Bradshaw. “Would that be an additional fee or is that an expectation that you can use them?

“That’d just be included with the use,” Hill said. “The rental of the room, the tables and chairs.”

“I love the idea of allowing these spaces to be more accessible for all types of uses,” said Councilmember Cecilee Price-Huish. “I do hope that we can really dive into this but I do like the idea of our city partners and partner agencies and all the things that were mentioned and maybe having a fee extension.”

“I agree with you that the intent is that people can come here to City Hall,” said Mayor Kendalyn Harris, who was in office at the time. “It’s accessible. It’s for the residents. I love that idea for sure.”

The council did not make a firm decision that night. For more information and a proposed fee chart go to Rental chart page 7.