Sarah Haynes 7-251
Barbara Shiffer
From:Sonya Allen
Sent:Tuesday, July 25, 2017 3:23 PM
To:Sarah D. Haynes, Ph.D.
Cc:Barbara Shiffer; C.Jay Coles; Charlene Way; Machelle Hill
Subject:RE: Comments on the proposed Lindner Village application: Please deny
the Meridian Comprehensive Plan Amendment H-2017-0088
Sarah,
Thank you for your comments in regard to this application. Your email will be entered into the public record as
testimony.
Thanks,
Sonya Allen | Associate City Planner
City of Meridian | Community Development Department
33 E. Broadway Ave., Ste. 102, Meridian, Idaho 83642
Phone: 208-884-5533|Direct: 208-489-0578|Fax: 208-489-0578
Built for Business, Designed for Living
All e-mail messages sent to or received by City of Meridian e-mail accounts are subject to the Idaho law,
in regards to both release and retention, and may be released upon request, unless exempt from disclosure by law.
From: Sarah D. Haynes, Ph.D. [mailto:medicalphysics@mac.com]
Sent: Tuesday, July 25, 2017 2:45 PM
To: mayortammy; Keith Bird; Genesis Milam; Joe Borton; Luke Cavener; Ty Palmer; Anne Little Roberts; Sonya Allen;
Caleb Hood; Bill Parsons
Cc: Mayor Stan Ridgeway; Council President Jeff Kunz; Councilman Stan Bastian; Councilwoman Naomi Preston;
Councilman Craig Soelberg
Subject: Comments on the proposed Lindner Village application: Please deny the Meridian Comprehensive Plan
Amendment H-2017-0088
DATE: July 25, 2017
TO: City of Meridian City Council and Planning Staff
RE: Comments on the proposed Lindner Village application:
Please deny the Meridian Comprehensive Plan Amendment H-2017-0088
Good afternoon, my name is Dr. Sarah Haynes and I’m a resident of Foxtail Estates in Eagle. I’m writing in
opposition to the proposed Meridian Comprehensive Plan Amendment H-2017-0088, commonly referred to as
the Lindner Village proposal. Although not a Meridian resident, the proposed development extends across the
Bergman and Chinden intersection and directly impacts Foxtail Estates in Eagle. Since our only point of
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ingress/egress is this intersection, residents here are among the most negatively impacted by this proposal.
Consequently, I respectfully request that my comments not be discarded because of an Eagle return address.
I relocated to Idaho from the Seattle metropolitan area for quality of life reasons. I was attracted to this
neighborhood because the scale of development was consistent in matching small city life with the available
infrastructure. Fully cognizant of the intense local growth pressures, I reviewed the comprehensive and land-use
plans for both Eagle and Meridian before buying a home here. I felt the protections afforded by these two plans
were sufficiently robust to protect both my quality of life and property value. Distressingly, I now must
contemplate that the City of Meridian might actually gut the protections promised in the Meridian
Comprehensive Plan. It’s not difficult to recognize the proposed Lindner Village is significantly out of
proportion with the character of our residential neighborhoods. Competent reviewers easily discern the
wholesale incompatibility of this proposal when the intentioned goal is to protect our neighborhoods’ quality of
life, safety, or providing adequate traffic infrastructure - now, in decades, or ever.
Rapid growth is inevitable here and I’m certainly not opposed to rational growth. However, this proposal flies
like a cannon into the face of any well planned growth threshold. City planners are obligated to restrict and
constrain the type of growth allowed to be consistent with, and adhere to, the preexisting City Comprehensive
Plan, a growth plan designed to provide certainty to residents while simultaneously encouraging and directing
responsible business growth. There is absolutely no obligation to accept any developer’s application that
obliterates the Comprehensive Plan like this proposal does. Any responsible land use review should singularly
insure that the type and scale of residential and commercial uses allowed are consistent with the Plan and the
City's current mixed use community designation. Any developer requiring the current land use zoning and
mixed community uses to be changed for private financial gain undermines and abrogates the City’s and
Community Plan’s promise to Meridian residents, is contraindicated, and is clearly grounds for denying the
application outright.
Big box stores/superstores are attractive when located in appropriate non-residential locations with the required
infrastructure in place. However, these giant stores are inappropriate when sited deep within Chinden/Lindner's
residential neighborhoods where the existing traffic is already choking the life out of our area. Despite the
magically optimistic, cheerful prognostications portrayed by the developers, their promises are composed of
wishful thinking suffused and imbibed through the generosity of smoke and mirrors. The reality is nowhere
close to their rosy scenarios regardless of the sophistry presented by their assurances and slick PowerPoint
presentations. Neither Meridian nor Eagle controls the State and Ada County road project infrastructure, nor
their budgets. It would be a fool’s paradise to pretend a utopia exists that would provide adequate road capacity
for these big box stores when there is a zero percent chance of it actually occurring in my lifetime, or yours.
Zero, a whole number and a defined integer. Zero.
In conclusion, as a nuclear physicist in medicine whose life is constrained by factual data, it is unfathomably
difficult to contemplate how the current Lindner Village proposal could EVER be morphed into malleability
sufficient to transform it into compliance with Meridian’s Comprehensive Plan. I urge you to reject it and insure
that responsible growth occurs which protects M eridian citizens, as defined in the Plan. Hundreds, and hundreds
of Meridian residents volunteered their time and expertise in generating the Comprehensive Plan. I urge you to
respect, oblige, and implement their efforts, and the explicit promise made to them, by requiring any proposed
development be consistent with Meridian’s Comprehensive Plan and current land use zoning/mixed community
use documents. Please deny this application forthrightly.
I sincerely thank you for this opportunity to comment on this proposal. With appreciation,
Respectfully submitted,
Sarah D. Haynes, M.D., Ph.D.
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Diagnostic Radiological Imaging
2947 S. Fox Troop Place
Eagle, Idaho 83616
cc: Eagle City Council and Mayor