Weber County, UT Building Safety: Childcare Center Rules (2026)

020, lists 'special occupancy structures' that count as critical facilities for geologic hazard purposes, and it specifically names buildings for schools through secondary or day care centers with capacity greater than 50 students alongside hospitals, jails, and fire and police stations. That classification triggers the natural hazard standards in Chapter 108-22. Section 108-22-2 bars any critical facility, other than transportation lines or utilities that must cross active faults, from being built astride an active fault trace, and requires a minimum 50-foot setback from that trace; the Land Use Authority can only shrink the setback if a geologic report, reviewed by the county engineer, justifies it.

If a fault turns up during excavation for a day care center building, the developer must obtain a geologic hazard study and report under § 108-22-3 before proceeding. Section 108-22-3's hazard-study chart requires that report to cover liquefaction potential, landslide/rock-fall/debris-flow risk, surface fault rupture, and flood hazard for any critical facility, plus tectonic subsidence review and any other hazard the county engineer flags. A smaller day care (child) home operated out of an occupied residence for eight or fewer children, defined separately at § 101-2-5, is not swept into the critical-facilities standard because it does not meet the 50-student threshold that applies only to a day care (child) center in a dedicated building.

The distinction matters for site planning: a proposed center near the Wasatch fault zone or another mapped hazard area must clear the county's geologic review before the planning division will process a building permit, and the cost of the required study falls on the developer under § 108-22-6.