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Jonathan Kahnoski - 7.251 C.Jay Coles From:Luke Cavener Sent:Tuesday, July 25, 2017 5:29 PM To:CenturyLink Subject:Re: Comments in Opposition to the Proposed Changes to Meridian's Comprehensive Plan for Linder Village Follow Up Flag:Follow up Flag Status:Flagged No need to apologize, I appreciate hearing your comments. Just didn't want you to feel like you were being ignored if you didn't get a response. The PZ hearing is a public hearing. Each person gets 3 minutes. If you coordinate as an HOA your HOA rep will get 10 minutes. The city Clerk can provide more information, if needed. Their number is 208.888.4433. Thanks! Luke Sent from my iPhone On Jul 25, 2017, at 4:54 PM, CenturyLink < jmkahnoski@q.com > wrote: Good afternoon, Luke, I apologize if we shouldn’t have sent our comments to you, on the city council. The deadline for comment was fast approaching and the group leaders didn’t have the email addresses of the members of the Planning and Zoning Commission. We didn’t expect you to comment. Rather, we addressed our comments to all the members of the city council to make our opinions known and in hopes you would share them with the Planning commissioners. Yes, our questions were rhetorical, intended to communicate our thought processes in a way that reads easily and interestingly. And maybe to trigger some thought on the part of the readers. My wife and I plan to attend the meeting on the 3rd. I would like to speak, if there is time. Thanks for your kind reply. Best, Jonathan Kahnoski On Jul 25, 2017, at 1:58 PM, Luke Cavener < lcavener@meridiancity.org > wrote: Jonathan and Betsy, Thank you for your very thoughtful and articulate email. I appreciate hearing from our community on the issues that matter most. 2 You have posed a number of fair and thorough questions while they appear to be rhetorical in nature I still wanted to respond. :) Unfortunately, because this is an open application, the City Council is prohibited from speaking on this issue while not on the public record. This frustrating rule ensures that all comments are heard in a public forum for the betterment of all impacted parties. That said, I have read your entire email and appreciate you making your feelings known, I'd also encourage you to attend the public hearing and make your voice heard. Best, Luke Sent from my iPhone On Jul 25, 2017, at 1:51 PM, CenturyLink < jmkahnoski@q.com > wrote: Ladies and Gentlemen, My wife and I offer the following comments concerning the subject matter to be before the Planning and Zoning Commission on 3 August. For your convenience, I have included these comments both below and in an attached MS Word document. We hope you find our comments both thoughtful and persuasive. Thank you for your consideration. Sincerely, Jonathan M. Kahnoski My wife and I write to ask the Meridian Planning and Zoning Commission, and the City Council, to reject the changes to the city’s Meridian Comprehensive Plan and Future Land Use Map as proposed by the developers of Linder Village. We do so for a number of reasons as discussed below. Quality of life in Paramount My wife and I moved to Paramount going on four years ago from Central Oregon (Sunriver), where we lived in the peace and quiet of a national forest. Since moving here, we have commented how quiet the neighborhood is, especially in the evening and on weekends. This is one of the qualities of Paramount we treasure. We have good recreation facilities, wonderful neighbors who look out for each other, and interesting architecture. In short, we have a lovely neighborhood, and we wish to protect it. 3 On the negative side, we have our suspicions about how many cars we see on our streets Monday-Friday mornings actually originate inside Paramount and how many are commuters using our streets to bypass traffic signals on Chinden at Linder and perhaps even Meridian. We are concerned traffic is getting worse, and are concerned that the ACHD is not planning the needed improvements soon enough to prevent worse congestion. Beyond Paramount, we like that around us there are smaller retail services for the local neighborhoods rather than big-box retailers that attract shoppers from afar. Something went terribly wrong with development along Eagle (the concentrated retail and services at the Village at Meridian being an exception) and we would hate to see the same thing happen to Chinden. Concerns of Others My wife and I share the concerns others have discussed and, no doubt, brought to your attention. These concerns include the impacts of the proposed Linder Village on: • Traffic on Linder, Chinden, and in our neighborhood. We believe permitting a huge shopping district on our doorstep will create a significant increase in traffic on roads not designed for such a load. We also believe the proposed traffic signal at Chinden and Bergman is a particularly bad idea, as it only will worsen traffic flow on what the ACHD has designated as an “expressway.” Rather than adding a traffic signal, we would be willing to give up the traffic signal at Fox Run, even though that would divert more traffic seeking to egress from Paramount to Director, near our home. • The quality of life in Paramount, Foxtail Estates, Lochsa Falls, and other nearby neighborhoods. The presence of big-box stores, one of which is adamant it must operate 24/7, can’t help but increase noise, crowding and congestion. Some may think close proximity of such desirable shopping will increase our property values. We believe any advantage of nearby shopping will be overwhelmed by the negatives of noise, congestion, litter, etc. As our streets become short cuts to reach Linder Village from the south and east, they become less safe for the many children who live in Paramount. My wife and I want to focus your attention on some other issues, namely what happens to the City of Meridian if the Planning and Zoning Commission and the City Council approve the radical changes being requested by the developers. These include: • If the changes the developers have requested are approved, what happens to the credibility of the city’s Comprehensive Plan and Future Land Use Map? The developer isn’t 4 requesting just minor tweaks in the existing plan and zoning. Essentially, they want to tear up the existing plan and replace it with their own. We find this arrogant in the extreme. They seem to believe their project is so desirable the city will acquiesce to any and all changes to accommodate it. We find this offensive, and would like to see the Planning and Zoning Commission and the City Council take a strong stand by rejecting the entire development as proposed outright. Perhaps, the developers are making such outrageous requests to establish a bargaining position. If so, the best way to demolish that strategy is to reject it completely, advising the developers to propose something more in line with the current zoning or take their project elsewhere. • Certainly, any city acceptance of the radical changes the developers propose will indicate that whatever plan the city develops and adopts is vulnerable to radical change or even being overturned. Failing to deny these developers’ application makes it all the more difficult to deny the next set of developers when they want to re-write our zoning. Two or three such surrenders to developers’ wishes and we no longer have a comprehensive plan; we just have the whims of developers and acquiescent commissioners and councilors. At that point, we don’t need a planning department and can dispense with developing plans. • As discussed above, failure to defend the city’s Comprehensive Plan and Future Land Use Map puts the city’s planning process in jeopardy. It also calls into question the Planning and Zoning Commissioners’ and City Councilors’ commitment to this plan, or even any plan. Commercial developers from around the state, region, even the country may well conclude the City of Meridian is for sale – offer a development with a huge impact on property tax revenue and city officials will re-write any plan to accommodate them. Is that the reputation we want for our city? • We have made only a quick review of the city’s comprehensive plan; but, even that cursory review shows the city wants to keep dense commercial development closer to the city’s core in downtown Meridian. The plan shows several small islands of commercial that can provide localized or neighborhood retail services, but nothing on the scale of Linder Village. The plan appears to be a reasonable mix of commercial/retail and residential land uses, and should be adhered to, with only minor adjustments. • What happens to the future quality of life in North Meridian, in particular? Currently, North Meridian is zoned for residential and smaller-scale commercial development. This creates a more tranquil environment that enhances the quality of life of 5 the residents. The proposed development will disrupt, if not destroy, the tranquility we currently enjoy. It will create a regional shopping center drawing shoppers not only from north, east and west of the Linder/Chinden intersection, but also from central Meridian to the south. Where we have been a quiet, generally residential area on the city’s periphery, we will become a retail shopping destination more akin to being in downtown Meridian than on the outskirts. • What happens to traffic flows in Meridian? As an example of what not to do, we offer the city of Bend, OR, in Deschutes County (Central Oregon). This society is not quite as large as Meridian, by population, and is not part of a major metropolitan area. Over time, it has allowed major retail developments scattered around the city: a Fred Meyer complex on the south end of town, an older indoor shopping mall (Bend River Promenade - Sears, Macys, Kohl’s) just north of downtown, a major big box retail (Forum Shopping Center. - Costco, Safeway, Whole Foods) development on the east side, another major retail and restaurant development (Cascade Village – including Home Depot & Lowe’s, Michael’s) at the north end of town, and a newer, more upscale retail development (Old Mill District) just south of downtown, all in addition to a downtown of unique shops, restaurants and boutique hotels. We urge city-planning officials to review this situation, how retail is decentralized to a point where any mass transit system is impossible because there is no central core. Shoppers go north for one store, east for another, and south for another. Allowing the Linder Village to go forward as proposed starts Meridian down the path to becoming Bend. Please do not allow this to happen. • What happens to the future quality of life in Meridian, in general? For a city to have a character, a “there there,” it has to have a central core of commercial and industrial zoning, with surrounding residential and smaller retail areas. The city has started the process of developing such a core with its master plan for downtown. Unfortunately, less thoughtful growth in the past has left Meridian with decentralized retail corridors such as Eagle Road and Fairview/Cherry, etc. I-84 separates the south side of town from the rest of Meridian, constricting traffic to those roads that have overpasses over the interstate highway. What the city does not need is to further decentralize major shopping by approving the proposed changes to the city’s Comprehensive Plan and Future Land Use Map to accommodate the Linder Village development. Such approval will be bad not only for North Meridian but for all of Meridian. Conclusion 6 We sincerely and strongly urge the Meridian Planning and Zoning Commissioners and the City Councilors to reject completely the proposed re-write of the city’s comprehensive plan as it applies to the property on the southeast corner of Linder and Chinden. We request city officials inform the developers that the city welcomes development proposals for the southeast corner of Linder and Chinden that meet the current planning and zoning restrictions, and that the city is not interested in major changes to those restrictions. We thank you for listening. Jonathan M. Kahnoski Betsy M. Kahnoski <Comments re Lindner Village.docx> City of Meridian 33 E. Broadway Ave., Meridian, Idaho 83642 Phone: 208-888-4433 www.meridiancity.org 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.