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03-29 Susan Fillman1 Christopher Johnson From:Morgan Andrus Sent:Thursday, March 29, 2018 4:33 PM To:C.Jay Coles; Charlene Way; Christopher Johnson Subject:FW: Lost Rapids/Brighton/GFI/Costco From: Susan Fillman [mailto:SueFillman@live.com] Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2018 4:32 PM To: mayortammy Subject: Lost Rapids/Brighton/GFI/Costco Dear Mayor: I am, sadly, unable to attend the City Council meeting on Tuesday, April 3, so I'm forwarding this to you in lieu of my testimony asking that the Lost Rapids application be denied. Three years ago this month, you and City Council agreed with the residents of our community (SpurWing Greens) that a rezone application was not compatible. In fact, in your words, this is a "premier community". The developer, David Turnbull, testified that this was marketed as a country club community, with great care and tough architectural controls. It is still that same country club community but now with a proposed warehouse to be built adjacent to it. How is THAT compatible with a country club community? Another of Mr. Turnbull's developments, BainBridge, nearly surrounds the project area. Brighton, GFI, and Costco wish to change the City's Comprehensive Plan from medium- density residential to medium-high density residential and a large commercial space to accommodate Costco. The nearly two hundred families who have already purchased homes in BainBridge bought with the expectation from the marketing materials that more homes would be built (and a small area was to be commercial on Chinden). They did not anticipate this commercial development that will bring about 11,000 additional trips into the middle of their community, driven by a warehouse operation and 24 gas pumps that will open at 6 a.m. I've witnessed homebuyers in tears at meetings who just purchased their homes with no idea this was on the table. The City's comprehensive plan offers this criteria for reviewing development applications in MU-C areas and their project does not meet these guidelines: Development should comply with the general guidelines for development in all Mixed Use areas. All developments should have a mix of at least three land use types. Residential uses should comprise a minimum of 20% of the development area at densities ranging from to 15 units/acre. 2 Non-residential buildings should be proportional to and blend in with adjacent residential buildings. Vertically integrated structures are encouraged. I would like to point out that ACHD's staff report identified all adjacent properties to this site as R-8 or one R-15 (with the exception of the LDS Ward on Ten Mile Road). This warehouse structure is not proportional to and would not blend with ADJACENT residential buildings. The report refers to adjacent properties to the east, the west, the north, and south, which pretty well covers the area I would think. Many of my neighbors believe that this is a done deal, that there is nothing the residents can do to stop this change. They believe that back room deals have already been made. My expectation is that our elected officials will give great weight to our testimony and to the concerns of the homeowners who invested hundreds of millions of dollars in these Brighton residential developments. How ironic it is that our developer, who marketed these homes as a country club community, and whose BainBridge homes are frequently selling for over a half million dollars, is the same developer trying to force this incompatible development on us. This project will not send these thousands of cars through my neighborhood as it will into BainBridge. But, it will worsen traffic for us and will probably impact our property values. No one will buy a house in here because of a Costco next-door but I can cite examples of those who won't. In addition, RockHarbor Church expects to begin construction shortly and that will bring several hundred cars in/out of our ONLY entrance on Sunday. The traffic impact study does not cover Sundays. Neighbors attend services and recently counted 355 cars at 9:30 am. There are four services. That traffic isn't going to help our home values either. I've looked at the Kittleson numbers and most of the traffic to this store is expected to come from the south. A huge percentage, actually. So they don't need to build in this location to serve their customers. There have to be better-suited sites where it fits better, like the area surrounding the store in Nampa. When I see that parking lot and the cars queued up for gas, I am horrified all over again at the thought of putting this in BainBridge. It is NOT compatible. This would be a very poor land use decision. This could harm all of us, in many ways, who have to live with it on a daily basis. We homeowners were here first. We bought into the City's vision and the marketing materials from Brighton Corporation. Please, deny this application and protect the rights of the citizens who chose to live in this community. Have that property developed according to the Comprehensive Plan - there is a shortage of homes on the market you know! Sincerely, Sue Fillman Meridian 3