2019-05-15 Kendra Neely (Three Corners Homeowners Association Board 5-14-2019 goes with video submitted same date1
Charlene Way
From:Kendra Dean <kendradean@hotmail.com>
Sent:Wednesday, May 15, 2019 2:25 PM
To:Meridian City Clerk
Cc:Sergio Trevino; Deborah Gober-Beneze; debbie lewis; aaadinolfi@live.com
Subject:Three Corners Ranch MPP19-0006/ H-2019-0006
Attachments:7E6C19BF-06F4-4EA2-AF36-6988ACFCD9C9.TRIM.MOV; ATT00001.txt; Meridian
5.15.19.pdf
Please consider the attached with reference to Three Corners Ranch MPP19-0006/ H-2019-0006.
Also, please include as part of the testimony submitted and provide to the Commissioners if possible.
Thank you,
Kendra
Kendra Dean Neely
Phone : 208.375.8580 ext # 111
Cell : 208.559.4006
Fax : 208.375.8588
May 14, 2019
TO: Stephanie Leonard, Associate Planner
Bruce Freckleton, Development Services Manager
FROM: Three Corners Homeowner’s Association Board
SUBJECT: Three Corners Ranch MPP19-0006/ H-2019-0006
On behalf of the Three Corner’s Homeowners Association Board, and the homeowners, I respectfully submit the
following points for consideration on why the Commission should approve the Developer’s plan as it was
submitted with the ACHD approved road plan:
I.
APPLYING A POLICY IN A WAY THAT VIOLATES
THE STATED PURPOSE FOR HAVING THE POLICY IN THE FIRST PLACE
A. QUESTION PRESENTED
What happens in the rare instance when the common application/interpretation of a policy violates the
written purpose behind having the policy in the first place?
B. RELEVANT LAW/RULES
The Staff Report cites the City of Meridian Comprehensive Plan (Comp Plan) as the basis for its
recommendation.
The Comp Plan states “The purpose of the City of Meridian’s Comprehensive Plan is to integrate the
concerns and expressions of the community into a document that guides the City on how to grow and
develop.”
If a guideline doesn’t integrate the concerns and expressions of the community impacted, then by the
very text Comp Plan, it should not be applied. The common application/interpretation of a policy should
not become applied in a way that causes the unattended and negative consequence of not serving the
stated purpose of having the policy in the first place. The policies were only meant to be applied when
they integrate the concerns and expressions of an impacted community.
C. APPLICATION
In this case, staff has a default position that connectivity is king and always the best option.
This situation is truly an example of “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” The connectivity
policy is meant to enhance impacted communities. It was also written in a vacuum envisioning a situation
of woefully inadequate connectivity. Staff has a mindset that you must connect wherever you can without
exception, not that the people who drafted the policy would have been pleased with how much
connectivity is already present.
At a certain point – you hit the point of not only diminishing returns, but you start to cause more real
damage than any potential or implied good. In this case, you WILL create defacto collector roads that were
never intended to be used in that fashion. There is a light at Eagle Road that is going to make a collector
street in Bristol to Stafford and the direct Three Corners route very appealing to anyone with a GPS or
mobile device, and a desire to avoid Chinden - especially when they start to expand it next year.
This is not going to connect anyone in the community to anywhere they want to be connected to. The
majority of the community impacted is strongly saying “no, we don’t want this.” Staff is not “integrating
concerns or expressions” by applying their interpretation of this policy. They are doing the opposite.
Another reason it was difficult to get staff to overcome their default position is they may have an
inaccurate perspective of how many community members currently support the ACHD approved road
plan.
It’s common sense, but the people who are opposing something tend to be the loudest. Based on our
conversation with staff, they seemed to genuinely believe that support of the ACHD approved plan was
split 50/50 among the communities impacted, including Three Corners. This was what we found in our
subdivision alone:
89% supported the ACHD approved plan (blue) while 11% did not (orange). (NOT 50/50)
We do understand why staff could get the impression of 50/50 when this is clearly not the case. At the
ACHD hearing, several people who attended came up after to show support for the ACHD approved plan
but were not willing to speak at the hearing, while every person who showed up to oppose the
development did speak. It is not intuitive for people to offer testimony for something that they are ok
with. However, our homeowner survey better represents the wishes of the community effected by this.
And it is illustrative of the majority of other subdivisions in the area.
Drilling down further, when we asked those who opposed the ACHD approved plan why they didn’t
approve of it, the only answer we got was that they “did not want more traffic”. So, we then showed them
the plan recommended by Meridian staff. It has been extremely clear in each and every case that the
ACHD approved plan was presented alongside the Meridian staff recommended plan, 100% of
respondents choose the ACHD approved plan. Accordingly, we could not find that the Meridian staff
recommended plan was responsive to community concerns in any objective way.
Survey
Support ACHD approved plan Do NOT support ACHD approved plan
For this reason, we respectfully and in the stronge st possible terms urge the Commission to ask our
community members which road plan they would select: the ACHD approved plan, or the Meridian Staff
plan. Our own survey results found that there are community members, just as there were several at the
ACHD hearing, who are simply opposed to any plan, any new traffic, any development. Our neighbors
don’t always understand that simply opposing everything isn’t productive because it assumes that you can
take away someone’s right to use their property. When they understand that the development will happen
no matter what, and that they can minimize negative impacts by using their voice to express a preference
of one thing over another– then you get down to whether a recommended change is really addressing
their concerns. Everyone has a right to express their opinion – but that opinion should not be taken out of
context and cited (for example) as support for Meridian staff recommendations when in fact that person
would not support anything beyond keeping the land in its current bare state.
We also respectfully ask that the Commission remember that a developer’s plan should not be denied or
altered, because staff is listening to the loudest few, instead of the community as a whole. After all, the
Comp Plan only exists to be a tool to “ integrate the concerns and expressions of the community into a
document that guides the City on how to grow and develop.”
D. CONCLUSION
The Commission should not follow Staff’s recommendation to change the ACHD approved roadway plan
and should approve the ACHD approved plan on the basis of the Comp Plan language alone:
• While a small group of people have been the most vocal in speaking out against the plan as a whole,
many of these objections would be voiced with regard to any plan and were not directed toward the
ACHD approved roadway plan;
• It has been extremely clear in each case that the A CHD approved plan was presented alongside the
Meridian staff recommended plan, 100% of respondents choose the ACHD approved plan even when
they initially opposed the ACHD approved plan;
• If there are community members that prefer the Meridian proposed roadway changes over the ACHD
approved plan, they are an extremely small group and certainly not representative of the community
as a whole;
• The Comp Plan clearly states that its purpose is to “integrate the concerns and expressions of the
community into a document that guides the City on how to grow and develop”;
• Since the majority of the communities impacted are strongly saying they do not want the Meridian
Staff recommended changes because they are satisfied with the extensive connection network
augmented by the ACHD approved roadway plan, and because they are concerned about the problems
and real damage being caused which far exceeds the “potential” good, the ACHD approved plan should
be approved on that basis alone.
II.
THE DANGERS AND PROBLEMS WITH CUT THROUGH TRAFFIC
A. SAFETY
Google “child hit by car near school”. You will get 456,000,000 results in .46 seconds. We understand not
every result is an incident, but it is shocking how many incidents you can find.
When I originally looked this up in March 2019, this is what I found for local examples:
• Only one week prior, a teenager was hit in a crosswalk with flashing lights near Nampa High school at
7:40am.
• In December, a Boise 3-year-old was hit and killed in her own neighborhood.
• Also, in December, a teenager was hit near Timberline in a crosswalk . Driver cited for negligent driving.
There is always a risk of this happening, but the East Three Corners Drive and Locust Grove intersection is
the perfect storm of high-risk factors making it a terrible public safety decision to send any more traffic
that way.
• Ambrose School, a K-12 regional school without a bus system and 500+ students and staff/faculty
• The Ambrose School is expanding their campus at the primary choke point of the Three Corners
neighborhood and will have increased car and pedestrian foot traffic back and forth across Three
Corners Drive between both campuses (so cut through traffic will flow from the Eagle Road light to this
choke point between the campuses or vice versa). Map Below.
• The choke points at the entry/exit point of the Three Corners neighborhood are narrower than
Dunwoody and already handle significantly more traffic due to the school.
• Given the Ambrose School is K-12, a large number of driving age students enter and exit by car
throughout the day as well as park alongside the roads.
• During high traffic times (morning and evening commute times in the area), traffic from Chinden
already backs up well passed the entry/exit point to Three Corners and often blocks access to and from
our neighborhood as it is, even with the “do not block signs”.
• The Ambrose School has an agreement with Valley Life Church across Locust Grove for a home-
schooling program and you see children going back and forth across Locust Grove for this program.
That is not to say Ambrose isn’t being safe. You se e them ushering children back and forth with flags or
even using a truck as shields to protect the children from potential injury. But if a child can get hit in a
crosswalk with flashing lights, it should tell you there is only so much you can do when a road, or two,
runs directly through your school operations.
• Additionally, there is another school directly across from the existing Ambrose campus – Central
Academy. This brings the total to four (4) separate campuses in a very small area – all abuzz with
children and the related activities.
• After hours, many of the children in surrounding neighborhoods will play on Ambrose’s playground
equipment, run with their dogs, or kick a soccer ball in its field. It is the de facto park.
Based on what we have personally experienced and based on the complaints and concerns that the Board
(and the City of Meridian) has received, the Board firmly believes it is bordering on negligence to send
more traffic to that intersection.
By far, the top complaint we have received as a Board since the inception of the Board has been issues
related to traffic safety around the school. Currently, there are children and parents darting across East
Three Corners Drive to get to the school. I have, personally, had no less than four close calls where people
were in a rush and simply did not look before they walked across East Three Corners Drive. This is not
limited to drop off and pick up – it happens during functions like games, plays, etc., - or simply a parent in
the middle of the day going to volunteer. Some of these individuals are pedestrians, others have parked on
the north lot because the school simply does not have enough parking and they are parking in the
overflow area.
The demand to connect Eagle Rd to Sweet Valley for no other reason than it has become the common
practice in applying this policy is ill-conceived and dangerous, and it ignores legitimate public safety
concerns presented by the community. It is not if but when a child will be injured, or worse.
The concerns of the community should trump the blind application of a policy, especially when the stated
purpose of having the policy in the first place is to integrate the concerns and expressions of the
community . To be clear, our community does not want this, and the majority of the other communities
directly impacted also voted against it. There is no objective way to justify this connection.
B. SCHOOL GENERATED TRAFFIC
While safety is the top concern, it goes without saying the traffic generated at these two schools is a
nightmare and particularly in the morning, will not provide any relief for congestion.
Photographs have been provided by homeowners direct ly to the city, but we have attached a sampling of
the parking along both sides of the streets which greatly congests the streets. This is also easily observable
during drop-off and pick-up times.
C. BACKED UP TRAFFIC ON LOCUST GROVE ROAD
Again, while safety is the top concern, most of the time you cannot turn left out of Three Corners Drive
due to the traffic backed up from the Chinden light, which is only 1/10 mile away – and this will shrink
even more when Chinden widens. Turning left into Three Corners is a challenge for the same reason. This
is already an over-congested area, so to add more traffic seems like a counter-productive move.
Photographs have been provided by homeowners direct ly to the city. Additionally, drone footage is being
attached to show the back-up traffic. This is also easily observable, especially during morning and evening
commute times.
D. CONCLUSION
The Commission should not follow Staff’s recommendation to change the ACHD approved roadway plan
because the changes create a situation that is dangerous, ill-conceived, and against public policy:
• East Three Corners Drive and Locust Grove Road is a perfect storm of high-risk factors that make safety
of grave concern, specifically with regard to cut through traffic from the Eagle Road light;
• The School generated traffic of a private regional school with no bus system across from another
school with three campuses currently (and a fourth to be built) also creates unique traffic problems
that make connectivity inappropriate;
• The close proximity to the Chinden light adds more traffic back-up that makes the cut-through path
and connectivity unwise.
For the forgoing reasons, the Three Corners Homeowners Association Board (representing the majority of
homeowners) supports the Developer’s application; opposes Meridian Staff recommendation to amend the
road plan; and supports the ACHD approved road plan.
Thank you for your consideration.
Kendra Neely, President
All members of the Three Corners HOA board, and homeowners.
EXHIBIT A: THREE CORNERS SUBDIVISION & MERIDIAN STAFF PROPOSED CUT THROUGH
ACHD Proposed Cut-Through from Eagle to Locust Grove: Goes through Ambrose Campus and comes out next
to Central Academy and Home School program.
ALSO SEE ATTACHMENT: DRONE VIDEO OF CAMPUSES AND PROXIMITY TO CHINDEN LIGHT
Central
Academy
Existing Ambrose
Campus & Parking
Current
Overflow
Parking
Future Ambrose Campus Expansion & Parking
Heavy Pedestrian
Crossing (yellow)
Home School
Program
EXTRA
TRAFFIC
BARRELING
TOWARDS
SCHOOLS/
CHILDREN
EXHIBIT B: PARKING PHOTOGRAPHS
1
Charlene Way
From:Kendra Dean <kendradean@hotmail.com>
Sent:Wednesday, May 15, 2019 9:15 PM
To:Charlene Way
Cc:Chris Johnson
Subject:Re: Three Corners Ranch MPP19-0006/ H-2019-0006
FYI: Since it is a public record, the testimony should be listed as it was signed, which is my legal name:
Kendra Neely.
Sent from my iPhone
On May 15, 2019, at 3:09 PM, Charlene Way < cway@meridiancity.org > wrote:
Thank you for your comments.
All public testimony and comments will be located in the Project files for viewing and can be
Located at the webpage below:
http://weblink.meridiancity.org/weblink8/browse.aspx?dbid=0
HOW TO PROVIDE COMMENTS
Any interested persons wishing to testify are welcome to do so at the public hearing listed on
this notification. Oral testimony may be limited to 3 minutes per person. Written testimony
may be submitted prior to the hearing date either by mail or in person to Meridian City Clerk,
33 E. Broadway Suite 104, Meridian, Idaho 83642 or by email to cityclerk@meridiancity.org . All
written testimony and all materials presented at the hearing become property of the City of
Meridian and public records subject to the provisions of the Idaho Public Records
Act. Applications are subject to change throughout the public hearing process and it is
incumbent on interested persons to monitor such changes by following the process in person,
online, or by contacting City staff. See http://bit.ly/208PH
Frequently Asked Questions
https://meridiancity.org/planning/general/faq.html
Public Hearing Notices
https://meridiancity.org/phnotices/
From: Kendra Dean < kendradean@hotmail.com >
Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2019 2:25 PM
To: Meridian City Clerk < MeridianCityClerk@meridiancity.org >
Cc: Sergio Trevino < STrevino@OMNIPURE.COM >; Deborah Gober-Beneze
2
<dgoberbeneze@outlook.com >; debbie lewis < tdlewf@yahoo.com >; aaadinolfi@live.com
Subject: Three Corners Ranch MPP19-0006/ H-2019-0006
Please consider the attached with reference to Three Corners Ranch MPP19-0006/ H-2019-
0006.
Also, please include as part of the testimony submitted and provide to the Commissioners if
possible.
Thank you,
Kendra
Kendra Dean Neely
Phone : 208.375.8580 ext # 111
Cell : 208.559.4006
Fax : 208.375.8588
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.