HomeMy WebLinkAbout2018-11-07Meridian City Council November 7,
2018.
A Meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 6:09 p.m., Wednesday,
November 7, 2018, by Mayor Tammy de Weerd.
Members Present: Tammy De Weerd, Joe Borton, Ty Palmer, Anne Little Roberts and
Treg Bernt.
Members Absent: Luke Cavener and Genesis Milam.
Also present: C.Jay Coles, Bill Nary, Bill Parsons, Sonya Allen, Clint Dolsby, Jeff Lavey,
Charlie Butterfield, Steve Siddoway, Cameron Ariel, Bruce Freckleton and Dean Willis.
Item 1: Roll-call Attendance:
Roll call.
X__ Anne Little Roberts X _ _Joe Borton
X__ Ty Palmer X__ Treg Bernt
______Genesis Milam ______Lucas Cavener
__X_ Mayor Tammy de Weerd
De Weerd: Thank you for your patience. Sorry for the slight delay in starting our
meeting, but welcome to our City Council meeting. For the record it is Wednesday,
November 7th. It's ten minutes -- it's nine minutes after 6:00. We will start with roll call
attendance, Mr. Clerk.
Item 2: Pledge of Allegiance
De Weerd: Item No. 2 is our Pledge of Allegiance. If you are all rise and join us in a
pledge to our flag.
(Pledge of Allegiance recited.)
Item 3: Community Invocation by Troy Drake of Calvary Chapel
De Weerd: Item 3 is our community invocation. Tonight we have Pastor Troy Drake
with Calvary Chapel. If you will, please join us in the community invocation or take this
as an opportunity for a moment of reflection. Thank you for joining us.
Drake: You bet, Mayor. Would you join me in prayer. Oh, Lord God in Heaven, I just
want to first acknowledge your grace. Thank you for your grace and the life that you
have given all of us and the way that you have clearly expressed the way to eternal life.
We appreciate you, God. We -- we also appreciate this country that we live in, God,
these elections that we have just had. I know, Lord, that you want people to live free
and, Lord, we just pray for the people that have been elected at the national and state
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and local level, that they would remember those things, God, and they would do it as
unto you. Lord, you said that righteousness exalts a nation and, God, I pray that that's
who they look to. They look to you and -- and you would bless them, Lord, give them
lots of wisdom and that they would carry out their duties in a way that would serve the
people. And, Lord, we also thank you so much for Meridian and what we have here and
it's such an awesome place and we just pray for this group of people, that the City
Council and the Mayor, Lord, that you would help them to listen to the people and that
you would give them lots of wisdom to make the decisions that they need to do and we
appreciate them, God, and pray that you would show them lots -- lots of grace and so I
would pray that you bless this -- this meeting tonight and that we would honor you in all
ways and it's in the name of Jesus we pray, amen. Thank you.
Item 4: Adoption of Agenda
De Weerd: Thank you. Item 4 is adoption of the agenda.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: We have a couple of -- a couple of changes. On the Consent Agenda, Item O,
we left a zero off. It should -- it should read 300,000. A little typo. So, add the zero at
the end of that. And Item --
De Weerd: 8-H.
Borton: -- 8-H, when we get to that, that will be requested by the applicant for a remand
back to P&Z. And, then, we are going to add an Item 11 , that will be an Executive
Session, pursuant to Idaho State Code 74-206(1)(a) and with those amendments I
move we adopt the agenda.
Little Roberts: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to adapt the agenda as amended. All those
in favor say aye. All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. TWO ABSENT.
Item 5: Future Meeting Topics - Public Forum (Up to 30 Minutes Maximum)
De Weerd: Mr. Clerk, anything under Item 5?
Coles: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Kara Lilya has requested to address the Council.
Discussion topic is unsafe school walk zone by Hillsdale Elementary School.
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Kara. Good evening. Thank you for joining us.
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Lilya: Thank you.
De Weerd: If you will, please, state your name and address for the record.
Lilya: Yes . My name is Kara Lilya and I live at 2122 East Mores Trail Drive in Meridian.
De Weerd: Thank you, Kara.
Lilya: Do you want them to -- can I introduce them as well?
De Weerd: If they will each be providing comment I will ask them to do it as they come
forward.
Lilya: Okay. Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, good evening. I am here on
behalf of hundreds of Sky Mesa, White Bark and Black Rock children --
De Weerd: Kara, can I ask you to get closer to the mic.
Lilya: Yes.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Lilya: Okay. I'm here on behalf of the children of these neighborhoods, hundreds of
children who have had a bus to provide transportation to Hillsdale Elementary for the
last several years. Recently they have put in other safety measures and taking the bus
transportation away from our children. It recently was deemed a walk zone and they
are within the more than the 1.5 miles they have to -- they can ride a bus, but less than
1.5 miles they are within the walk zone. Our neighborhood is currently experiencing a
tremendous amount of construction. We have nearly 300 new homes that are being
built right now. The construction traffic of use on Taconic where our children walk to
school is heavy. The construction workers speed through the -- the road. They are
oblivious to children walking down the road and there is thousands of homes in the area
that feed into this connection between Eagle and Taconic. They are working while the
kids are walking to school and they are disruptive for the children. Once the children
navigate through this heavy traffic area they -- they reach Eagle and Taconic where
there is a HAWK signal. It's a recently installed HAWK signal and it's new to traffic.
People are unaware that it's there and they don't pay attention to it. They recently
reduced the speed limit to 45 miles per hour, it was 50, and people are still unaware of
the speed limit reduce. It was taken down two weeks ago. This week alone -- so, they
have provided a crossing guard for us as a safety measure for our children walking
between Eagle and Taconic. This week alone I have driven my children to school,
because I don't feel like it's safe. There was first day no crossing guard. The next day
there was a crossing guard wearing a black hoodie who had no stop sign and no vest to
identify her as a crossing guard. This is unsafe for our children. She can't be identified
by children or traffic. The third day the crossing guard was vaping in her car. Today
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there was no crossing guard. It's so inconsistent, we cannot trust our children can
safely cross Taconic Road on their way to and from school. The City of Meridian
Comprehensive Plan ensures safe routes to school. Several of us have made repeated
contacts through the proper channels, including the Hillsdale Elementary School
president Khristie Bair, the ACHD, West Ada School District and the Cascade Student
Transportation. We have talked to all of these people repeatedly trying to get something
done to ensure a safer route to school. Because the school district has deemed our
house in the walking -- in the walk zone, we have kindergarteners and first graders, they
are encountering life threatening routes each day to and from school. We are
convinced that a terrible accident may happen to our children. Like our cities own
accident that happened in Lochsa Falls several years ago when an eight year old boy
was killed on his bike in the neighborhood, we don't want to be a case study. We want
to find a way to stop this before it happens. During the planning of our community this
Meridian Southern Rim Coalition testified under the assumption that busing would be
eligible for all of the kids in our neighborhoods. It's no longer eligible. One of the
Southern Rim Coalition representatives Susan Karnes witnessed a near miss accident
where a child was riding his bike through the HAWKS signal last week. A car came 50
miles an hour and slammed on the brakes and almost skidded into the child. This is just
one scenario of what could happen.
De Weerd: Kara, I'm sorry, your three minutes are up. Does one of the other of you
want to take it from there?
Aguilera: Hi. My name is Sara Aguilera and I live at 2003 East Mores Trail Drive.
De Weerd: Thank you, Sara.
Aguilera: Good evening, Madam Mayer and Members of the Council. As the founder of
our community Facebook page and the liaison to Meridian Police Department for our
neighborhood watch program, I was designated at the beginning of the school year
when we first heard the bus would be removed and was successful in retaining the bus
for what I was told would be until the sidewalk on the north side of Taconic was
completed and a crosswalk was put in place. I have a photo -- Mr. Coles, are you able
to put that up?
Coles: You can use the mouse there.
Aguilera: Oh. Thank you. So, is that -- can you see that? These photos demonstrate
the newly added crosswalk between Taconic and as you can see it is very reminiscent
of a speed bump, a normal typical speed bump. There is in no way any indication to
traffic or children that it's a crosswalk. There are no flashing lights, no reflectors, no
signage at all. The signage that does currently exist is a sign put there for construction,
an orange sign in the shape of a diamond, that says bump, which is exactly what this
looks like. It is not an effective crosswalk at all. I personally wrote ACHD about this
asking if they would consider reflectors and flashing lights and was told that it was not a
concern, because our children are not walking to school in the dark. I think that this
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crosswalk is grossly negligent in providing a safe route to school for our children and,
again, we are all here on behalf of many, many, many parents in our community who
are really wanting to fight for a safer way to school. Our kids deserve it and, like Kara
said, we don't want to be a case study, we don't -- want to take something serious and --
and definitely to get this addressed. Thank you for your time.
De Weerd: Thank you, Sara.
Murray: My name is Dawnise Murray and I live at 2133 East Mores Trail Drive. My
primary concern is just like the fellow moms up here who are talking about the safety
and welfare of our children. They are being asked to walk well over a mile to and from
school each day and that distance becomes an additional hardship and possibility for
children with various special needs and I'm coming to you with that situation. My child
has hypotonia and that distance is far beyond what is capable and we moved into a
neighborhood that since the school opened we have been serviced with a bus and now
that bus is being taken away and an undue hardship and an unsafe situation is being
presented to our children. So -- you want to close?
De Weerd: Thank you.
McCumber: Hi. I'm Michelle McCumber. I'm at 2355 East Lodge Trail Court. I think -- I
think the number one priority that -- that we are here for is that we just feel unsafe and if
there was a way -- I don't think we are here to whine and complain about the mile and a
half. I get it. Everybody's walked to school at some point in their lives. But I think the
fact that our five year olds are being asked to cross Eagle when there could or couldn't
be a crossing guard is really the concern. I think the Eagle Road aspect of it is the
number one priority. I didn't even know until we were sitting here that the speed bump
in the neighborhood was a crosswalk. I had no idea. There is nothing that -- I just
thought it was to slow the traffic down. But, regardless, I think the number one priority is
Eagle Road. I have actually crossed the street with my children on bike and I have had
the crossing guard just in chatting tell me that she has been in the middle of Eagle Road
with the 20 mile an hour blinkers going with the red solid people are crossing light with
her full crossing guard uniform, stop sign, in the middle of the road and she's like -- and
I have had cars whizzing by me at 50 miles an hour. That as a parent makes me want
to throw up. I looked at her and I said what are you talking about and she's like I don't
have to tell you, she's like -- there is the lights, there is the blinking lights, there is my
sign, there is my outfit and I have had cars whizzing by me -- I don't know if it's on a
daily basis, but, regardless, I would never allow my child to walk or ride their bike
without me present, just to sort of have more eyes. Nonetheless, I have also in the past
three, four weeks, as well as even since the beginning of the school year when our kids
did have a bus, witnessed no crossing guards at the three different allotted crossing --
Eagle, Taconic, and Stockenham and there just isn't anyone there. I don't know if it's a
problem with the school district, but it's a problem with me as a parent feeling unsafe
and I think that's what we are all here for.
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De Weerd: Thank you. We appreciate you bringing it to this -- our future meeting
topics. We can't have a discussion with you, because it hasn't been posted for the
agenda, but we will have our police department follow up with you and give you some
ideas of what maybe we can help facilitate and we will -- we will take it from there. If it
is an item that is placed on a future agenda, we will also let you know that as well and
certainly Council can request that additionally. So, we appreciate you bringing this to
our attention. We appreciate your time and your concern. Thank you.
Coles: Madam Mayor, just for the record, there were two other individuals that had
signed up. However, they referenced a public hearing later in the meeting, so when we
get to that item I will call them up at that time.
Item 6: Consent Agenda [Action Item]
A. Approve Minutes of October 16, 2018 City Council Special
Meeting
B. Approve Minutes of October 16, 2018 City Council Regular
Meeting
C. Approve Minutes of October 23, 2018 City Council Regular
Meeting
D. Baraya Subdivision No. 3 Pedestrian Pathway Easement
E. Blakeslee Commons Subdivision Pedestrian Pathway
Easement
F. Caven Ridge Estates West No. 1 Pedestrian Pathway Easement
G. Movado Subdivision No. 4 Sewer & Water Main Easement #1
H. Pathways Agreement (Master Pathways Update) Between the
Nampa & Meridian Irrigation District and the City of Meridian
Regarding Caven Ridge West #1
I. Findings of Fact, Conclusion of Law for Calderwood Business
Park (H-2018-0103) by ALC Architecture, Located at the SE
Corner of S . Meridian Rd. and E. Calderwood Dr.
J. Findings of Fact, Conclusion of Law for Costco Wholesale
Store
H-2018-0066) by Costco Wholesale, Located at the SW corner
of
W. Chinden Blvd./SH-20/26 and N. Ten Mile Rd.
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K. Findings of Fact, Conclusion of Law for Verado West (H-2018-
0085) by DevCo Development, LLC, Located at 3090 N. Locust
Grove Rd.
L. Final Order for Bainbridge Subdivision No. 9 (H-2018-0111) by
Brighton Investments, LLC, Located off the SW corner of N.
Ten
Mile Rd. and W. Lost Rapids Dr.
M. Resolution No. 15-1065A: A Resolution Modifying The
Larkspur
Subdivision Plat Notes #4, Note #6 And Note #14, As Well As
The
Buffer Width On The Face Of The Plat. Subject Property Is
Located On The Southeast Corner Of S . Meridian Road And E .
Calderwood Drive In The NW ¼ Of Section 19, Township 3
North,
Range 1 East, Boise Meridian, City Of Meridian, Ada County,
Idaho.
N. Idaho Opportunity Fund Agreements with Idaho Department of
Commerce and Paylocity
O. Budget Amendment for Paylocity Idaho Opportunity Fund
Grant
Not to Exceed $300,000 (Net Zero)
P. Professional Services Agreement with Treasure Valley
Children's Theater Not-to-Exceed $6,000
Q. Award of Change Order No. 8 to JC CONSTRUCTORS , INC. for
the WRRF Liquid Stream Capacity Expansion” project for a
Not- To Exceed amount of $105,572.33.
R. Award of Change Order No. 9 to JC CONSTRUCTORS , INC. for
the WRRF Liquid Stream Capacity Expansion” project for a
Not- To Exceed amount of $327,137.91.
S. AP Invoices for Payment 10/31/18 - $689,649.57
T. AP Invoices for Payment 11/8/18 - $1,095,093.35
De Weerd: Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Okay. Item 6 is our Consent Agenda.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
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De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: We have added the -- the extra zero on Item 6-O and with that previous
amendment I move we approve the Consent Agenda as published and for the Mayor to
sign and the Clerk to attest.
Little Roberts: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and second to approve the Consent Agenda as amended.
Mr. Clerk, will you call roll.
Roll call: Borton, yea; Milam, absent; Cavener, absent; Palmer, yea; Little Roberts, yea;
Bernt, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. TWO ABSENT.
Item 7: Items Moved From The Consent Agenda [Action Item]
De Weerd: There were no items moved from the Consent Agenda.
Item 8: Action Items
A. Request to Provide Water and Sewer Service to Un-annexed
Property at 5233 W. Franklin Rd.
De Weerd: We will move to our Action Items. For those of you who are new this
evening to the Action Item and public hearing process, I just wanted to give you an
overview of what that public process is. It also is described in your agenda. We do
have staff make the initial presentation for the public hearing, giving some background
information and information about the application that is in front of the City Council. The
applicants will present their -- the details and it was, then, open up to public testimony.
We do ask that you provide -- you keep your comments to three minutes and on the
screen that will be in front of you when you are at the podium there is a little time clock
on there, so you can kind of see what we see in terms of that time. At the end of public
comment the applicant has the final word. They are asked to respond to testimony and
answer any questions that our City Council might have. Then it really is opened up to
our Council discussion to ask questions of staff, applicant, or any of those that provided
testimony, that they may need further information from. I will also let you know that the
public record is in the agenda item on our website. There is oftentimes you see the tip
of the iceberg here at the City Council meeting, but there is a lot of information that --
from former Planning and Zoning minutes, applicant comments, written comments, that
City Council has reviewed prior to coming to this meeting as well.
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De Weerd: So, with that said I will go ahead and -- and get into our Action Items.
Action Item 8-A is a request for water and sewer services. Mr. Nary, are you providing
that? Or Clint?
Nary: I believe it's Public Works.
De Weerd: Okay.
Nary: Yeah.
De Weerd: Clint.
Dolsby: Thank you. Madam Mayer, Members of the Council, what you have in front of
you is a request that was submitted to Public Works to provide water and sewer service
to an annexed property with no current annexation path and it's located at 5233 West
Franklin Road. Public Works reviewed this request and water and sewer services
currently reside in front of the subject parcel and are available to connect to this parcel.
Public Works does recommend and it's kind to outlined in the letter that we -- that's in
the packet and that we sent to the applicant to work with Community Development
Department to make sure they comply with all the ordinances and requirements of that
department and we had a few other concerns in the letter as well that we would like
them to comply with prior to connecting to water and sewer services. So, with that I
would stand for any questions.
De Weerd: Council, any questions for Clint?
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: Clint, the conditions you are referencing are the four in your memo?
Dolsby: Correct.
Borton: That's it? Okay. Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: A question for Legal. I don't -- what's the mechanism to ensure the consent to
annex when contiguous is acted upon? That's one of the conditions, so how do you
make sure that happens?
Nary: So, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Council Member Borton, so in the
past on these types of things -- there is kind of two things happening here. One is in the
request for services we will prepare an agreement that will include the requirement for
annexation upon being contiguous to the city. So, we will -- but the piece that's missing
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that I think is a future discussion topic with the Council is in all other aspects of receiving
city services, if you are an annexable, you go through Planning. Planning, then,
requests from Public Works is it serviceable. If you're not annexable you go to Public
Works to find out if you're serviceable and you have no direction to go to Planning and
so it may be incompatible with future uses and we need to be aware of it, it may be
incompatible with the comp plan or our ordinances or whatever. So, it -- I think a future
topic for the Council will be to redirect our ordinances to put everything towards the
Planning and Community Development side with the input from Public Works still
relevant as to whether it's serviceable or not. So, that's one piece of solving this for the
future, because we have three to four of these come up yearly where they are not
annexable, but they want services now and, then, on this particular one we will -- as we
have done in the past -- we -- we did one in the last year and a half or so off of Black
Cat just on the east side of Black Cat was a home that had a garage mechanic facility
behind it, we required that they -- as soon as they were annexable to the city they were
required to annex and we annexed them as part of that. So, we will create an
agreement to trigger that when it is -- when it is able to be done.
De Weerd: Okay.
Parsons: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, if I could just speak on behalf of the
Community Development Department. So, the Planning Division manager and I
discussed this this evening before we started the Council meeting and we would
request that before you ratify any kind of agreement with these property owners that
they do submit their site plan and elevations to us, so that we can bring back some
considerations or some future DA provisions for you to take under consideration as you
enter into agreement with the property owner. This is part of our Ten Mile interchange
specific area plan, so we do have a little bit of different standards out in that area and
we want to make sure we are on solid ground as we allow them to move forward and
develop in the county.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: To accomplish that is it appropriate to table this a week or two to allow that to
happen? I don't know why we would approve something contingent upon that future
review. Why not have the review happen?
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Council Member Borton, I think what you
can do is direct that action to occur as we develop this agreement with the requester to
get that done and bring that agreement back in front of you, because we don't have an
agreement yet.
Borton: Are we saying the same thing? Madam Mayor?
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Nary: Sort of. I think you were just asking for that to be part of your direction that we
include the Planning -- or Community Development as we develop this agreement with
Butte Fence to bring this forward.
De Weerd: Well, Council, do you need further information from the -- the applicant or
the requester's representative or do you want this to come back in a different form on
your agenda?
Palmer: Madam Mayor? I mean we are here, if they have got something to say I would
like to hear it.
De Weerd: Okay. Good evening, Becky. If you will, please, state your name and
address for the record.
McKay: I think you already did.
De Weerd: I didn't give your address or your last name.
McKay: I think it should just be like, you know, typed out already. No. That's a joke.
Becky McKay. Engineering Solutions. Business address 1029 North Rosario, Meridian.
I'm representing Butte Fence on this particular application. I would just like to tell the
Council Butte Fence has been a business in the City of Meridian just south of Fairview
for many many years. Jared Bell, the owner of Butte Fence, has been for the past two
years looking for a new site, because they want to expand their facility and their current
location does not allow that and so I have looked at multiple parcels for him to try to
figure out if it could accommodate their needs, if it was an annexable, serviceable and
so we have gone through different parcels that they have passed on due to access
issues, serviceability issues. Mr. Bell brought this particular parcel to me. We kind of
evaluated it. We met with the staff. We did do a pre-application conference. It's quite
obvious it is not contiguous with the city limits. However, you do have sewer and water
facilities that are right in front of this property. This property is designated to go into that
sewer shed where that service line is in front of it in Franklin Road and water is
available. We did receive an e-mail from Warren Stewart saying that he had evaluated
it and had determined that with the Council's approval the parcel could be serviced.
However, obviously, we cannot be annexed due to the fact that we are not contiguous.
I know that the Council has granted serviceability to another property for an industrial
type we use north on Black Cat from Franklin and so Mr. Bell is agreeable to submitting
elevations. We talked to staff in length about the Ten Mile specific area plan. The
requirements of, obviously, that their office be oriented to Franklin. We provide
landscaping. We provide articulation. The manufacturing facility will be south of
Franklin behind the office facility. Their yard will be even south of that. The site is six
acres, so it gives them room to expand in the future and continue their operation within
the City of Meridian and that has been their goal from the very beginning. They said --
you know, Jared told me I don't want to leave Meridian. We love being -- having our
business in Meridian. I don't want to have to go to Nampa or elsewhere. We just need
to find the right parcel. And so based on the configuration, access, we have -- we have
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met with ACHD, they will provide access to Franklin and, like I said, Warren has
indicated that it is serviceable. So, therefore, we submitted application to you for a
waiver, so that the City Council would allow us to have sewer and water facilities and,
then, agree to compliance with the Ten Mile area specific plan and its designed review
guidelines that are applicable and enter into an agreement with the city that at such time
as the property is contiguous to the city limits that we will connect and we will pay all
applicable fees for hookups and that apply to the city. But we will have to go to the
county. I did do a pre-app with Ada county. Ada county said, you know, it's mixed
employment, low density employment. They would allow us to go to an industrial zone,
because they felt it was in compliance. Light fabrication is exactly what we have with
the office as an accessory use. So, the county said we are supportive of this
application. However, do not submit to us until the City of Meridian reviews the waiver
for central sewer and water. The past sites that we looked at would have required like a
septic system or a well and I told Jared, you know, that's just really, you know, for -- for
commercial industrial type use it's better off if you can find a parcel that has central
services to it, that has the ability to be annexed into the city and be served by Meridian
services in the long term. So, that's what we are before you today. I mean this is kind
of their last ditch effort. He's exhausted all other avenues and he wants to stay in
Meridian, because it's important to Butte Fence to be a part of Meridian and continue to
be a part of Meridian. So, we ask that you support this waiver and -- and request that
your attorneys draft an agreement and we will submit -- we have elevations, we have
site plans that we will attach to that agreement, so that staff can be assured that we
meet all the requirements of the Ten Mile specific area plan and its design guidelines.
Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you, Becky. Council, any questions for Becky?
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. B orton.
Borton: Becky, I appreciate the detail. That's very helpful. Procedurally do you think it
would be appropriate to -- to continue -- I'm supportive of -- of what you're asking for. In
light of all of the conditions and processes you have just described, would it be
appropriate to make the determination on the request at the same time we are
approving the terms of that final agreement? The devil is in those details that we would
need to see. You have described them very well. It doesn't seem like it would delay
any part of the process, but it would allow us to -- to make a -- kind of a more holistic
decision on the waiver and the terms and conditions that go with it all at the same time.
The reason I bring up that concern is if we approve, for example, a waiver right now
and, then, we see terms and conditions that --
McKay: May not --
Borton: -- maybe they go sideways --
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McKay: Sure.
Borton: -- so --
McKay: He is acceptable to a deferral in order to provide additional information and --
and have an opportunity for your attorneys to draft acceptable agreement that gives the
Council that comfort level with moving forward with the waiver. Yes, sir.
De Weerd: And I think you could probably do it concurrently.
Borton: Yeah. Madam Mayor. And that's the thought is -- I don't -- I don't think it
creates any additional delay, because you couldn't take conduct until the agreement
was done anyway.
McKay: No, sir. We cannot submit to Ada county. They told us not even to submit until
we had something in writing from the City of Meridian stating that an agreement is in
place.
Borton: Okay. That's helpful.
De Weerd: Okay. Anything further from Council?
Borton: Madam Mayor? Is there a ballpark time frame that you think would facilitate
that discussion and drafting?
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, since next week would be tomorrow, it
would probably be the following week at the earliest.
De Weerd: Okay.
Borton: 20th or 27th?
Nary: Yes.
De Weerd: The 20th?
Nary: Yeah.
De Weerd: Okay. Does that work, Bill?
Parsons: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, it will have to work, because Caleb is
not here to say if it's going to work for him. But, yeah, that should be sufficient. I think
looking through the packet there it looks like we do have the site plan and elevations, so
if we get that in front of the team we can certainly get working on that and work with
Legal on that and bring something back to you on the 20th.
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Borton: That works.
McKay: And, Madam Mayor, we did submit a site plan and elevations to the staff with
our waiver request, but my understanding from Mr. Bell is that they have since refined
that and so we can give Bill even more additional information prior to the 20th.
De Weerd: Perfect. And that was in our packet, so we did have the initial one and look
for the update. So, the 20th works?
McKay; Yes , ma'am.
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you.
McKay: Thank you.
De Weerd: And thank you, Jared. Mr. Nary, do we need an official motion to put it on
the 20th?
Nary: That would probably be better, Madam Mayor. Sure.
De Weerd: Okay.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: I would move that Item 8-A, the request to provide water and sewer services to
unannexed property be continued to November 20th to come back to us for final
decision, along with the agreement that was described in the meeting and the terms and
conditions that Mrs. McKay had it set out, that will be drafted and provided for our
review.
Palmer: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second on Item 8-A. Any discussion? Hearing none,
Mr. Clerk, will you call roll.
Roll call: Borton, yea; Milam, absent; Cavener, absent; Palmer, yea; Little Roberts, yea;
Bernt, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. TWO ABSENT.
B. Final Plat for TM Crossing Subdivision No. 3 (H-2018-0114) by
SCS Brighton, LLC, Located at the NE Corner of I-84 and S.
Ten Mile Rd.
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De Weerd: Item 8-B is a final plat on H-2018-0114. Staff.
Allen: Madam Mayor, Council, staff did receive a response from the applicant in
agreement with the staff report after the timeline allowed for the Consent Agenda.
Would -- would the Council like me to go through it or is that -- is that good for you?
De Weerd: I think if the applicant agrees with staff comments -- Council, any questions
regarding that? Would you like staff to walk through it? I think we are -- we are good. If
you're good, do I have a motion?
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: I move that we approve Item 8-B, the final plat H-2018-011 4.
Little Roberts: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve Item 8-B. Mr. Clerk, will you call
roll.
Roll call: Borton, yea; Milam, absent; Cavener, absent; Palmer, yea; Little Roberts, yea;
Bernt, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. TWO ABSENT.
H. Public Hearing Continued from August 21 & October 2, 2018
for
Bainbridge Franklin (H-2018-0057) by Steve Bainbridge,
Located at 2075 and 2155 W. Franklin Rd.
1. Request: Annexation and Zoning of 3.68 acres of land with a
C-G zoning district
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: I meant to do this earlier, but Item 8-H, which will be continued, it's kind of
buried down deep in the agenda. If it would be okay we could take up Item 8-H, open
the public hearing, continue it -- or, excuse me, approve a remand or at least take action
on the remand and check it off the list.
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De Weerd: Okay.
Borton: Do we need to amend the agenda to do so or just take that item up?
De Weerd: We can take that item up. Item 8-H is H-2018-0057. I will open this public
hearing. The request has been to remand this back to the Planning and Zoning
Commission. Is there any member of the public that is here on this item? Okay. I know
the applicant is here. Council, any questions on this request for a remand? If not I
would need a motion to remand this 2018-0057 back to Planning and Zoning.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: Seeing that nobody is present here to provide any testimony on this application
and it is a request from the applicant for this remand, I would move that we remand Item
H-2018-0057 back to the Planning and Zoning Commission.
Little Roberts: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to remand Item 8-H to the Planning and
Zoning Commission. Mr. Clerk, will you call roll.
Coles: Before I do that, Madam Mayor, I know that I had spoken with Planning and they
did have a request to have this project renoticed for when it is remanded back to the
Commission. Just wanted to make sure that when we set that hearing that that is
included and whether or not that comes at the cost of the city or the applicant to
renotice the project for the Planning and Zoning Commission hearing.
De Weerd: Okay. I would imagine it is at the cost of the applicant. Does that need to
be included in the motion? I think just because you stated it on the record -- if Council
agrees.
Borton: Motion would so include.
De Weerd: Okay. Second agrees? Okay. Thank you, Clerk.
Coles: Thank you, Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: Will you, please, call roll.
Roll call: Borton, yea; Milam, absent; Cavener, absent; Palmer, yea; Little Roberts, yea;
Bernt, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes.
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MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. TWO ABSENT.
C. Findings of Fact, Conclusion of Law for Owyhee High School
(H2018-0075) by West Ada School District, Located at 7020 W.
Ustick Rd.
De Weerd: Okay. Item 8-C is the Findings of Facts and Conclusion of Law for H-2018-
0075. Council, in front of you you do have the findings for this. Are there any
comments from staff?
Allen: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Council. The findings for this project were placed on
the regular agenda for Council's review tonight in order to ensure the accuracy of such
prior to approval. Two different versions of the findings were prepared. One from staff's
interpretation of the motion and another from the school district's interpretation of the
motion. We were not clear what Council's intent was. So, the findings that you have
before you from the school district should be labeled as such at the top. The school
district did submit revised -- revised context site plan and a revised conceptual roadway
plan that depict the east-west local street stubbing to the Flowers parcel and an
easement for future right of way dedication over the school property to the east of the
Flowers parcel to the Woodside property, which does leave a gap in between that relies
on easement from the Flowers to complete the road, as you can see right here in this
little area between the purple and the green. If this was Council's intention in their
motion then, should approve the findings marked with the school district. If the intent of
the Council was for the school district to provide a local street to the Flowers property
with an easement to the Woodside property across the school property for connection to
the north-south collector street in its entirety, staff is recommending the other set of
findings that are considered. If that is the case to ensure the intent of this condition is
realized, staff recommends the condition is modified to include the text there in your
hearing outline. Further an easement shall be provided over the portion of the subject
property to the Woodside Avenue Investor, LLC, parcel for future right of way dedication
and construction of a public street from the Woodside property to the north-south
collector street. Was very confused with the motion, so if you have any question for
staff I'm happy to answer them. Otherwise, it's all you.
De Weerd: Thank you, Sonya.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes , Mr. Bor ton.
Borton: So, you reference findings of fact, which we have got an individual single
version of that. We have multiple -- two versions of the DA.
Allen: Yes.
Borton: Not the findings.
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Allen: An exhibit to the findings.
Borton: Okay.
Allen: The exhibits.
Borton: So, the language you were reading just a moment ago, what's the -- give us the
section you are reading from, so we can track it.
Allen: Sections -- excuse me. Yes . Sections 1.1.8 were noted by the applicant and
2.1.6, which is now shown as 2.1.5. I'm sorry, there was a discrepancy in the
numbering. So, the ones before you will be 118 and 215.
De Weerd: Council, any other questions for staff?
Allen: And just as a side note, Madam Mayor. Public Works was okay with the
applicant's change to 2.1.5.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: Madam Mayor. Sonya, so it just comes down to whether we intended for an
easement to be provided for the rest of the way eventually when it's across the canal;
right? Okay.
Allen: Yeah. I was under the impression at the hearing -- and I made a comment on the
record that I was very concerned with -- with Council approving the plan as shown
without some kind of resolution on how that connection was going to take place to the
Woodside property. Council ended up moving forward with the motion without that
clarification and this is -- this is what we ended up with. So, I -- that's -- that's the big
issue is did you intend for this connection to be able to happen in its entirety or did you
intend for this gap to be left here?
Bernt: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bernt.
Bernt: If I'm remembering the motion, I -- I believe that we were -- the motion was to
stop at that property line and provide a stub, if I'm remembering correctly.
De Weerd: So it was -- it did create a landlocked parcel.
Bernt: Madam Mayor, follow up. So, basically, if I'm remembering correctly -- and
maybe Mr. Borton should be speaking instead of me, because he made the motion, but
I think that we were going to stop right where that green -- where the green stops and
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create a stub street and, then, we left open the negotiating part between Flowers parcel
and the applicant and Woodside about how they are going to connect to the purple.
That would -- that would -- that's the open part that was never discussed.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: Yeah . I -- I mean I don't believe the motion specifically mentioned the purple
line. However, the bulk of the discussion was whether we should force the district to
build the bridge or not, understanding that that's probably the route that the road is
going to take and it appeared that the district didn't have any complaint about the road
going there, they just didn't want to construct the -- the rest of the road or the bridge.
So, while it wasn't specifically mentioned in the motion, I totally believe that the intent
was to provide the easement should the road need to be crossed the canal at that point
and take place on that property, rather than on the Flowers' property.
De Weerd: So, provide the easement, but not to have to construct the bridge or the
roadway.
Palmer: Right.
De Weerd: Okay. So, as the motion maker, Mr. Borton.
Borton: Madam Mayor, I -- not my favorite way to try and address this.
Allen: Nor mine.
Borton: And, frankly, I think the minutes should reflect exactly -- I think the west -- the
version that you have marked school district and it's depicted on the right, is the version
that was approved at the meeting. And I agree with Mr. Bernt. I think that's what he
was saying as well. That's my recollection.
De Weerd: Yeah. So, it -- it would be rehearing of an issue that was -- was decided
with -- with the motion as I was. So, it was essentially creating a landlocked parcel.
And some -- some might frame it that way.
Palmer: Without the easement.
De Weerd: Without the easement.
Allen: If that's the Council's decision, then, that would be the exhibit to the findings
marked WASD.
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Borton: Madam Mayor, if those are the -- those are the conditions that reflect the
motion and decision that was made the evening, then, those are the conditions that
should go forward and be approved tonight.
De Weerd: And I think what staff is saying is it wasn't clear to them. So, Mr. Nary, what
options do we have in -- in coming to a conclusion on this?
Nary: So -- so, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, in reviewing the discussion --
that's why there is two alternatives. In reviewing it, Planning did raise that concern. I
would agree with Councilman Borton, I think what I heard in listening to the hearing and
watching the video of it, is what the school district has proposed is what the motion was
that was approved. There was a substitute motion to do what -- what is the alternative
here and that did not receive a second and, therefore, the vote was as this depiction is,
that the requirement was -- and I believe I asked the question, is the requirement to
build the roadway to the edge of the property of the school district and the answer was
yes. So, I believe what the school district has -- has recommended as what they
believe the findings were was what I heard. But, again, it wasn't very clear. So, it really
is on -- on all of you is this what you believe you made the motion on based on what we
reviewed -- again, it's very -- it's very muddy the way it was. We tried clarifying it that
night and even as we looked at it again last week it's still a little murky. But it's your
motion and that's why we are asking -- you get to approve the findings. Is this what you
intended. If it -- if -- if what you said, Council Member Borton -- what I heard was what
is on the screen, is that portion that requires, then, someone to acquire that easement.
It is not on the school district to do it.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: So, my -- my substitute motion I had made imagining this is count -- the
revised conceptual roadway plan here as Councilman Borton motion's intent and my
substitute motion was to require that the district construct the bridge and provide the
easement. That's why I was happy to approve it, otherwise, because the only thing that
was being taken out of my substitute motion was the bridge -- with the rest of it. So,
that -- that's my interpretation of the intent and the reality of the motion, even though it
may not have been specifically said, the easement is -- I feel like that was the intent all
along.
Allen: Madam Mayor, may I -- staff took that to mean stub to the Flowers' property with
an easement to the north and over to the Woodside property and that may have been
incorrect, but that was what staff understood. That is not what's depicted on this plan
before you. So, that -- that was the issue of clarification for staff and that's the reason
for my comment at the last hearing was if -- to avoid this.
Bernt: Madam Mayor?
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De Weerd: Mr. Bernt.
Bernt: I feel like we are getting in the weeds a little bit. I don't -- I don't know if it's
appropriate -- although I would love to discuss it more, but I don't feel it's maybe
appropriate to discuss anything that was outside the bounds of what the motion was
and what was seconded and what was voted upon. So, if the minutes -- if there was a
word that said easement, then, we are -- then it should be included. If not, then, it
probably wasn't. I think that's the crux of the problem, though, is because it wasn't
specific to the motion that gave the -- the gray area that we are trying to get clarification
on so you're voting on the correct findings.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: Okay. Sonya, so your -- the green and purple is what the district is proposing
and -- okay. I thought -- they weren't wanting to provide the purple line, the easement,
so the problem is where we are just saying whether they need to go northwest a little
bit.
Allen: Yes . Madam Mayor, Councilman Palmer, and the plan before you was the plan
that was shown at the hearing that night. As you can see there is -- there is kind of a
stub that goes up over here. So, either way there was an easement across the school
district property to the Woodside property. The -- the entire issue is -- is as you can see
here, this doesn't cross the Flowers property necessarily. This -- this plan here is reliant
on an easement or right of way dedication across the property that's an out parcel of
this application.
Borton: Madam Mayor? I think the only real option we have is to table it a week and go
review the minutes and listen to the audio. It would be inappropriate for us to try and, in
essence, we hear it right now, if it -- if you're of concern that it wasn't necessarily, then,
we got to go review those minutes and make that determination.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: That I really understand what I'm saying here, to me it's -- it's a no brainer,
because why would the -- why would we have any interest in there being an easement
at all if -- it's kind of pointless there where it is if Flowers has got to be on board anyway.
So, if the intent is to have an easement connecting to the northern property, the point is
that the easement access is the road that's going to be constructed, that's what we were
talking about is -- is they didn't want to build a bridge so, okay, at least, then, provide the
easement to connect to the road that you are going to build, so that Flowers doesn't
have to be a relevant part of -- of being able to connect to anywhere. So, I -- I am
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extremely comfortable in approving or -- a version that pushes that easement all the
way to and over the canal there.
Bernt: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bernt.
Bernt: I would love there to be a bridge built, too, along the way, but, unfortunately,
that's not how that was discussed in that -- I don't believe in that -- in that motion and so
I -- if there is confusion -- I mean we could talk about this all night long and, you know,
there is a bunch of people out here waiting to talk -- you know, listen and to discuss
other applications. I -- I'm with Mr. Borton, we just need to listen to the minutes and
know exactly what was said and what we need to do and I think it's the only way that we
can -- and I'm sure the other Council Members here that would like to pipe in as well.
So, I agree that we probably should table this, listen to it, figured it out and make a
decision next week. That's the prudent thing to do.
De Weerd: Okay. I would need a motion to continue this to a date certain.
Bernt: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bernt.
Bernt: I move that we continue this is -- what is it -- is it 8-C?
De Weerd: Uh-huh.
Bernt: Until next Tuesday to discuss further the conclusions that we find on the audio in
relation to what was said during this application.
Borton: Second.
De Weerd: Okay. I have a motion and a second to continue this. Any discussion? Mr.
Clerk.
Coles: Madam Mayor, just to be clear we don't typically handle land use items on a
workshop Tuesday. However, it is Council's purview to -- to do that if Council wishes to
do that, but just as an FYI, next week is the workshop meeting.
De Weerd: Thank you. And it -- it is kind of finding of fact and -- and we will -- we will
see where next week takes us. Okay. So, the motion was to continue Item 8-C to next
week. All those in favor say aye. All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. TWO ABSENT.
D. Public Hearing for Timber Creek Recycling (H-2018-0042) by
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Michael Murgoitio, Located at 7695 S. Locust Grove Rd.
1. Request: For the sole purpose of reviewing and considering
conditions of approval in the matter of the request for a
Modification to the Development Agreement
De Weerd: And so I assume Council will have the opportunity to review the minutes
and come back with your opinions next week. Okay. Item 8-D is a public hearing for H-
2018-0042. This request was for the sole purpose of reviewing and considering
conditions of approval in the matter of the request for a modification to the development
agreement. Mr. Nary, is there anything you would like to add to open this for
discussion?
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, when we continued this a couple of
weeks ago staff had prepared conditions that could be considered for inclusion into the
modified DA. There was an opportunity now for the applicant to provide input about
those conditions, because they hadn't seen them for a very long period before that
meeting. They have now provided -- it is in the record and their feedback in regards to
that. There is also another memorandum that was provided today by Josh Leonard and
representing some of the neighbors in this area as well. What we discussed when this
was continued was this was continue not to -- not to reconsider the decision, but simply
to -- to consider the addition. So, any testimony is taken is only relevant to the
conditions that are being proposed, not to the decision that's already been made. So, if
whatever public input there is has to be narrowed to that and that was all that it was
continued for and you have, again, staff 's original conditions and you have both -- or
both the applicant, as well as at least one Council that has provided some feedback on
those specific additions.
De Weerd: Okay. Since this is the first type of public hearing of this, how do we go
about it?
Nary: I think, Madam Mayor -- I think from the staff standpoint if you want -- I mean
Sonya could walk through what was provided. I think we just -- I thought we discussed
that two weeks ago, but maybe I'm wrong. It gets a little fuzzy after a while. We walked
through what was -- what was submitted by staff and what the basis of that was and
then -- and, then, the opportunity for the applicant to, then, comment and, then, the
opportunity for others to comment. I think, again, as long as the comments are
narrowed to just these conditions and that's all we are discussing tonight, I think that
would be the -- the gist of the hearing.
De Weerd: And it was brought back because the staff report was for denial and so we
had not done the evaluation for conditions of approval, which is what that discussion is
about tonight.
Nary: Yes.
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De Weerd: Okay. So, Sonya, I will turn this over to you if you want to walk us through
what those conditions of approval were.
Allen: Madam Mayor, Council, do you have a copy of the staff recommended DA
provisions -- or modified provisions before you?
De Weerd: Yes . Maybe it's easier to ask Council if they have any questions.
Allen: I think -- Madam Mayor, there is -- there is a long list of recommendations.
De Weerd: Council, at this point any questions for staff on the staff recommendations?
Is the applicant here? I know you're not the applicant to the topic that is being
discussed on conditions of approval, but you are the applicant of the proposed
modifications. So, if you want to walk us through some of your concerns about the staff
conditions that have been proposed.
Murgoitio: Okay. Thank you. My name is Mike Murgoitio. I'm the managing member
of Timber Creek Recycling, LLC. My business address is 7695 South Locust Grove,
Meridian, Idaho. 83642. Madam Mayor, Members of Council, I want to thank you guys
for giving me the opportunity to go over some of these recommendations with you
tonight. Pretty proud of our team that we have kind of put together with staff and trying
to put a combination together that pleases the neighbors and something I think the city
will be pretty happy with. Let's see here. So, this is kind of our landscaping plan we
have put together. The only thing that staff recommended was a ten foot berm and if
you look in the red up there on this little corner right here, we did just that. That berm
will be ten feet higher than center line of road, which I think is a requirement and we
tapered it down -- kind of down in this area right here, because we have some
structures here and some easements with the irrigation district that we really couldn't,
you know, keep it at that height and width. It's three to one slope. So, we kind of taper
that down. We also add an additional berm here along this tree line and we did that so
we had two forms of berms and buffers and that tree line is kind of going around the
entire perimeter of the property. This room right here is ten feet higher than center line
of the road right here. There -- this one here is not, it's only four feet, and we did that,
because we wanted to kind of keep it safe for truck traffic going in and out, can have a
visual both left and right, for a safety issue. One of the other recommendations from
staff was the crushed asphalt and dustless material. We agreed with that. We thought
that was a very good idea. So, we put kind of a crushed asphalt roadway in here
around the retail area and our offices and where some -- most of the traffic will be going
around. But we did not want to put the dustless material kind of around in this area
where the recycling happens, nor did we want to take out the 4,000 gallon tank. We felt
like the dust -- or the -- the wood material gets down on the -- the floor of the ground
and it kind of becomes a dusty material that has to be watered. So, we didn't really see
the point. We have seen other sites that did this and it gets immediately covered up
and you can even see any of that there. So, we felt like it was kind of a moot point. I'm
probably going to turn it over to my attorney for the rest of the remainder.
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Cranny: Mayor and Council Members, Justin Cranny. Hawley Troxell. 877 Main Street,
Boise, Idaho. Thank you for having us today. It's been -- we are grateful for the
additional opportunity to come before you with additional time to review the conditions.
It was kind of a surprise at the last hearing to have those and not really have time to
contemplate and think about the impact they may have on the proposed use of the
recycling property. Having spent more time, we met with city staff and the city attorney
to talk through some of the conditions, some of the real concerns we had about these
conditions and how they would or would not work -- to start off just run through some of
the highlights. I mean we -- I submitted a memorandum which outlines the majority of
our arguments, but a couple are worth mentioning in detail. The first is the year
limitation. We were quite surprised to see that limitation, specifically because that was
extensively discussed by City Council and ultimately rejected in the approval, as it was
a very key point in the approval as it was -- we feel that having the condition added
questions the approval itself. As such we really dispute having it added, because it will
go towards the approval of the actual development agreement. The nuisance language
that was added -- we understand the nuisance obligations apply. We don't feel it's
appropriate to add it to the development agreement. Should the Council feel they would
like it there for informative purposes, so that people really know that it does apply, we
have proposed some language that we believe will fit with both the spirit of the nuisance
law and also protect our interest. As for the jurisdictional question, we are fine with
having any entity that has jurisdiction has jurisdiction. The DA -- amended DA will not
change that. If they have jurisdiction, it's there. If they don't, it's there. What we did not
want was to have the city put in the position of having to potentially review, interpret,
and enforce a rule or regulation of say the EPA . I don't think you want to do that. We
are fine with complying with it to the extent the EPA requires a compliance. So, in
discussion with city -- City Council, what we pulled out of our meeting was, listen, if
there is a rule or regulation that's enforced, you comply with it. Great. If it's a rule or
regulation of the EPA, for example, has no interest in pursuing against this use, we are
not going to be the one to take that step. So, the proposed revisions try and clarify that
point -- bring that point out. As for the landscaping, just to clarify what Mike said, when
we met with staff they said, listen, you know, maybe a good compromise here is what
the city requires next to state highways is a ten foot berm above center line of the
adjacent highway. Well, Mike, as required as part of the tier two designation, has to put
berms essentially around a majority of the recycling area. So, he went out and shot it.
We are happy to have people go out and verify that, but a large portion of the existing
berm does meet that requirement. So, it's in compliance with city code at this point, but
where it does not, the landscaping is going to make sure that that is also screened.
Returning to the dust abatement. Again, it was -- we were surprised to see that the
whole hundred move -- or the whole removal of the proposed dust abatement was
proposed as Mike stated, would remediate and keep the dust issues to a minimum.
Putting down an asphalt surface as in the proposed conditions require not only on the
roads and the driveways, but also everywhere there is driving, which would include
where the comp -- where the grinding goes on, which would, in essence, cause the dust
to fall on that, which the water would not be able to get properly wetted down and keep
it wet long term, because if it's on asphalt in the summer that water will dry up really
fast, create more dust issues.
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Bernt: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bernt.
Bernt: Justin, I don't want to interrupt, but I don't remember anything that stated
anything about asphalt. Was there -- I mean does it -- does it have to be asphalt?
Cranny: It doesn't have to be asphalt.
Bernt: Do we give them multiple options as to what -- I don't -- I don't remember even
asphalt being one of the options.
De Weerd: I don't know. And that's the problem with not having conditions of approval
is you don't know specifically what you need to -- to have a discussion on. We do have
an ordinance in the city that addresses that we have to have dustless surfaces and
pavement is usually always recommended, so --
Cranny: So, you are correct that we did not only require asphalt. There was a list of
potential dustless materials, but as Mike pointed out, gravel, rock chips, plant vegetation
-- A, the plant vegetation will not survive. B, the gravel, et cetera, will get buried. It just
-- the water is the best way to remediate the dust and keep the impact down. So, we
are -- as Mike stated, the proposed language that -- condition that we are submitting
says we will do the dustless material on the entrance, on the roads around the offices
and into the retail area. For the balance they will stay with the wetting or the water with
water trucks, the sprinklers, et cetera, to keep the dust down.
Murgoitio: There is a landfill in eastern Idaho that lays down a dustless material and
they have a lot of dust from their track out. Now, we will have conditions in there for our
erosion control and -- and, you know, plans for controlling track out, but, you know, if
you have your equipment going over -- run over compost and different things, you're
going to -- it's going to be everywhere. So, you're just really going to want to water it
down, instead of trying to, you know, put a dustless material down and have a future
problem.
Cranny: Just one last point I think is worth bringing up. The disposal -- one of the
conditions was drafted in a way that if strictly read could, essentially, prohibit the use
granted under the amended development agreement. Essentially said you can't bring
recycled materials to be disposed of on the property. Well, there -- or process. And so
-- or buried. I'm sorry. Buried. Well, we choose being brought in, for example, leaves.
They are being processed and potentially will be buried, because they are a soil
amendment and so that -- that condition simply did not work with what the approved
amended development agreement allowed. So, we have agreed that there will be no
burning or incinerating, but that the recycle -- recycled -- process recycled materials
could be buried and -- my mind went blank. I apologize.
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Murgoitio: Talking about the -- the equipment.
Cranny: Oh. No. So, the language is in paragraph 12. So, with that I think the
memorandum provides kind of our position and proposed conditions that Timber Creek
would find -- or as proposing find acceptable and be happy to add as conditions to the
amended development agreement. I stand for any questions you may have.
Bernt: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bernt.
Bernt: One question that I had, Justin --
Cranny: Yes.
Bernt: So, in -- in the memo, in section four, it states that -- it says the recycled material
is both before and after -- this is section four. Did I state that? I apologize if I didn't.
Recycled materials both before and after processing, may be stored on the recycling
property and on the balance of the property. So, what -- so, what is the balance of the
property?
Cranny: The property is defined as everything the amended development covers. It's
the portion north and south of the recycling area.
Bernt: So, we are not talking about like another -- because I know the Murgoitios own
and use other -- we are just talking about like maybe another spot within this --
Cranny: Yeah. So, a pile of compost will sit out on the field just north, for example, of
the recycling. So, if you look at the map that's up, there is that blue line on the northern
edge. It might sit on the other side of the canal, just a pile of compost.
Bernt: Madam Mayor? But within the blue -- within the confines of what you are -- with
what you are representing, though, right? You 're not going to go beyond that?
Murgoitio: We are not going to process beyond that. So, like if I want to apply compost
to my fields to the north, I want to be able to do that, and if I -- if I amend it to just this,
then, I wouldn't be able to apply it.
Bernt: Madam Mayor? I -- you know, applying your compost on your field is fine. What
I have issues with is a big pile of whatever that's outside of the compost -- was outside
the confines of what we are talking about. So, if you're applying the compost to better
your fields and your farming, that's -- I don't -- I don't presume a problem. I think it's
fantastic, but -- but to put like a big pile of leaves or something that's outside of the berm
area that's being protected, you know, from -- from passerbys or from homeowners that
are nearby, I think that wouldn't be appropriate.
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Murgoitio: I agree. I agree. So, we can limit it to just process material or just limit it to
applying as a soil amendment, something of that nature would be fine.
Bernt: So, what you're saying is that we need -- we need to make -- to make an
amendment to section four saying that only recycled material will be used within your
farming, you know, applying it to better -- better your farming needs, not a storage
facility of excess waste that may be used in future recycling.
Murgoitio: Okay. For -- for this property. So, I would still be able to store it on my
feedlot for storage for bedding, so when it's wintertime I can still store it and use it on
site; right?
Bernt: Yeah .
Murgoitio: Yeah. It's further north. I just don't want to get into a -- into a thing to where,
you know, I missed stated one thing and I -- because we do store a bunch up there for
immediate use.
Bernt: Right, I -- yeah. Yeah.
Murgoitio: So, I don't mind not doing it around that property. So, the property at hand I
don't mind not storing outside that blue line, that's fine, but up there at the feedlot I
would prefer to have my -- my mulch right there.
Bernt: Madam Mayor. As it currently stands you're not going to be adding to the
northern property with bigger piles of whatever, it's just what you currently do.
Murgoitio: Uh-huh. Yeah.
De Weerd: What is currently allowed in your DA? So, why call it out at all?
Murgoitio: Say -- say that again.
De Weerd: If it's already being done and it's currently part of the conditions that you had
prior to -- or when you annexed, then, why are we changing the language?
Murgoitio: We don't -- we don't have to, it's just one of those conditions. If the -- if the
Mayor and Council wants to, you know, adjust or surrounding neighbors think that might
be a negative impact on them, we are -- we are here to kind of work with you to -- to
make a -- you know, a fair deal for everybody. But, yeah, currently our DA says we can
stockpile, you know, on ground, ground -- it doesn't matter, anything on this section of
the property. So, we -- you know, how we have been operating is we were going to
keep everything processed in the confines of the recycling area and, then, unprocessed
-- or once it's processed and ready to go, we are going to have the option to extend it
out. But if we don't want to -- if you guys don't want to do that we don't have to. It's not
like we are lacking for space on this property here.
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Bernt: Madam Mayor? I don't have a problem at all with -- with what you're doing on
the north. You know, those tortillas as we are talking about, where you put the tortillas
and you recycle that into like, you know, better feed for your animals. No big deal.
That's been going -- I believe -- Madam Mayor -- you have been doing that for a long
time.
Murgoitio: Yeah.
Bernt: It's no big deal. But it has to do with your -- your operations with your farming,
with your ranching, not your recycling. I guess my only concern is leaving piles of
whatever that will be in a different location other than what's specified for future recycled
use that you may or may not be selling or using in your business.
Murgoitio: Okay. Can I get a little more clarification on that? So, you're saying you --
you are -- so, like let's say the example of our -- my -- my cattle bedding that's stored
right up there at the feedlot, right --
Bernt: Right up to the north?
Murgoitio: Yeah. Up there on another complete section of property around 5985 South
Locust Grove.
Bernt: Oh, no. I'm familiar.
Murgoitio: That would be the only thing that -- or you don't want me to store my mulch
up there for my -- my bedding there, is that what you're wanting to do or --
Bernt: If it -- if it -- Madam Mayor. If it relates to your farming --
Murgoitio: Yeah.
Bernt: -- and your ranching --
Murgoitio: Yeah.
Bernt: -- that's what you currently do.
Murgoitio: Yeah.
Bernt: No problem.
Murgoitio: Yeah.
Bernt: But as it relates to your new business that you are creating --
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Murgoitio: Oh, yeah.
Bernt: -- that's what I'm talking about.
Murgoitio: I agree. Hundred percent. Yep. This one down here.
Bernt: Okay.
De Weerd: Yeah. Let's just keep the comments about the property that -- that this
application or DA modification is about, because I don't know what you just talked about,
what that property is, and I think that that really collars this conversation, because now
I'm curious to where that is in -- in relationship to this and it has nothing to do with this
modification.
Murgoitio: It doesn't. It's a feedlot operation that operates -- we feed cattle there. We
farm there. It's where we -- all of our feed goes that we harvest it goes to that location.
We feed cattle and --
De Weerd: And that's all annexed as well and --
Murgoitio: Yes.
De Weerd: -- under its own DA and you're not --
Murgoitio: Yes. Correct. It's not part of the --
De Weerd: -- intensifying the use of that.
Murgoitio: Nope. No.
Bernt: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Okay.
Bernt: They spoke about this in the original -- I remember talking about the tortillas and
stuff or -- you know, when -- in a -- in a past presentation and so I don't think what we
are talking about is anything new.
Murgoitio: No.
Bernt: Maybe forgotten, but nothing new.
De Weerd: Mr. Nary.
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I -- and I think it's -- I think it's okay. I
mean I don't think we should go further afield than we are. I think we are just trying to
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make sure we separate the existing use for -- towards this expanded and I think that's
where Council Member Bernt was going, was that we just want to make sure we are not
going to spill over into the existing uses with this expansion.
Bernt: Right.
Nary: And so I think that's where the separation we were trying to draw the line
between, not redefine it or reopen it to other discussion.
De Weerd: Okay. Any other questions from Council?
Murgoitio: Thank you very much for your time.
De Weerd: Thank you. Mr. Clerk.
Coles: Thank you, Madam Mayor. We have David Bennett signed up, would like to
address the Council on this issue.
De Weerd: Okay. Good evening. If you will, please, state your name and address for
the record.
Bennett: Good evening, Mayor. My name is David Bennett. 1398 East Mallory Lane,
Meridian, Idaho.
De Weerd: Thank you, David.
Bennett: Great. Thank you, Mayor, Council. First response is to thank you for what
you do as well. My wife and I just recently moved here a few weeks ago from out of
state.
De Weerd: Can you pull that up a little closer? Thank you.
Bennett: Yes . My wife and I moved here recently a few -- a few weeks ago and we live
just a few miles down the road and I'm very concerned about what I'm seeing going on
here, especially with concern of regulation. I'm the president and CEO of Applied
Science and Technologies, Incorporated, ASTI. We are an environmental company that
does environmental modeling and simulation and monitoring for the Department of
Defense, DHS, FEMA, and EPA . We are one of the most heavily regulated industries in
the world and my concern is without proper regulation being provided here we will
create some existing problems that will impact this area in the future and I strongly
recommend that the Council adopt what the staff is trying to do with regulations and
listen to the community, because I think we are at a great risk of creating a future
problem that may be impacting health and the welfare of this community. That's all I
have. Thank you for your time.
De Weerd: Thank you.
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Coles: Patty Hagler would like to address the Council.
De Weerd: Good evening. If you will, please, state your name and address for the
records.
Hagler: Patty Hagler. 7200 South Locust Grove, Meridian.
De Weerd: Thank you, Patty.
Hagler: I support adding operating conditions to mitigate the negative environmental
effects caused by the industrial operation in a residential area. However, code
enforcement officers have told us they can't enforce conditions in terms of a
development agreement and they can't enforce city codes, because they see the
operation as agricultural. So, what I'm asking is that language be added to confirm that
code enforcement will enforce the conditions of -- that are included in the development
agreement and confirm that it's an industrial operation, so it is not exempt for ag. So,
I'm asking that language be added. I did send a letter that addressed conditions in
detail, but just to touch on a few, the termination date condition, I agree it's critical to
define a termination of the industrial approval to allow the residential development to
occur in this residential zoning. At the last hearing statements were made by Council
Members that termination would naturally happen with development and Mike Murgoitio
was asked if he owned the property within a thousand feet of the industrial operation,
because that's the distance that issuance of a certificate of occupancy would terminate
operations. He responded no. However, the fact is the Murgoitio family does own all
the property and within a thousand feet of the operation. So, the effect is that they have
complete control over when residential development will happen in this area of the city
that's zoned R-4 zoning and it's next to the city park. As long as they are profiting from
this industrial operation they will not pursue residential development. So, to mitigate
this control I request the termination date be revised to five years, which is more
compatible with the targeted residential development plan of the city, because that's the
only way this is going to terminate. The comment was also made that industrial
operation expansion was good for the residential area, because the regulation was at a
higher level through DEQ, but DEQ only regulates dust and odor pollution. So, it's
important that city code enforcement have conditions for the visual and noise, because
they are the only ones that enforce it. Pertaining to the visual push and condition, I
support the requirement of sufficiently blocking the view of the facility and stored
materials. However, this is going to require a solid structure. Trees are not going to be
tall enough or dense enough to sufficiently block that view year round. So, I request
that the solid structure requirement be in place and landscaping and the trees be
required on the outside of that to make it aesthetic to the -- to the area. Currently these
junk piles are very visible from the front of my property and they go way above that ten
foot berm. So, when visitors come to my house they see them and ask what it is. The
other thing that came up is this mentioned this -- everything changes all the time with
this application. Just mentioned that piles will be put north of the canal. That isn't
anywhere near the feedlot and that is a whole new thing and that would be completely
outside the berm and it would be much more visible. Is that my bell?
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De Weerd: Thank you.
Hagler: Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you. Chief, can you -- and that's Chief Lavey. Can you tell us that --
if you have any concerns about this DA agreement and if there is anything you feel that
you can't enforce?
Lavey: Madam Mayor, I talked to the lieutenant that reviewed this case. He's informed
us that code enforcement has provided Legal all their comments and addressed those
with Legal. We will enforce anything that we legally can enforce. So, I'm going to have
to defer to Mr. Nary for maybe some clarifications on those discussions that's been
occurring between his office and my office.
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you.
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, so these new -- these additional
conditions were developed with -- both with planning and -- and with code enforcement
in trying to create that specificity. The concern in the original development agreement is
it related to things like truck trips and things like that that are really very difficult. Here
we are talking about more specifics that can be dealt with. There are issues that come
up that are much more complicated and they are everywhere in the city, not just for this
-- this property. Noise and types of complaints are very difficult to address no matter
where they are. So, that's -- that's a common complaint that code enforcement has to
deal with is noise. But here we tried to create some things that were much more
concrete. Berm heights, the type of things in locations or where they can be, the time
period that this can operate, those kinds of things. The reason for the recommendation
of including those provisions regarding nuisance and such is it provides an additional
tool to the city in addition to code enforcement, rather than creating that the code is the
exclusive remedy, which is what was being requested by the applicant. The reason
staff had requested to include in the DA was that you have both the code to use and
there is a standard for that in the criminal court, but they have -- it's also part of the DA
that's an additional tool that the city has to enforce these provisions that has a different
legal standard. So, that was the reason why it was included in the DA was because
there is two methods in which enforcement could occur and it really depends on the
severity of the violation or the complaint. Same thing with the requirements of
complying with the other agencies. The city isn't in the business of regulating other
agencies or reinforcing their regulations, but we certainly have the ability to know if
other regulations are being violated and using that as a method to use enforcement of
our own development agreement. So, it isn't the intent of the city to enforce DEQ or
EPA or anybody else's regulations, but if we become aware that they are in violation,
then, the city has a tool in which to address it in our own DA. So, that was the reason.
We didn't want to create this exclusivity of -- let -- let the other agencies deal with it and
we are out of it, let the criminal courts to deal with it and we are out of it. We felt
because it's a development agreement the intent was -- is there may be more than one
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method in which enforcement could occur. And, again, we have discussed these with
code enforcement. I'm not going to tell you it's cut and dry, there is nothing in code
enforcement that is black and white, one size fits all, here is your ticket. It doesn't
happen that way. There is always going to be a discussion with folks, but I think we
have tried to create a template that could be more enforceable than other types of DA's
that we have dealt with. But I recognized there is still going to be concerns.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: Madam Mayor, Mr. Nary, so in -- in their proposed adjustment to the language
in section five, do you have any objections to the way that they kind of reworded it and
adjusted it there?
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Council Member Palmer, I do. I think
the -- the reason we wanted it to be another method of enforcement, rather than saying
it is the only method of enforcement is through code enforcement, because, again, it's a
criminal charge, it goes to criminal court. The standard -- the legal standard is different
and because of that we felt the standard that you may have to reconsider the
development agreement requirements and whether you would choose to de-annex the
property as a tool or some other thing you want to put in here as a tool that you can
consider, the standards are different and we would prefer to have both options. So, we
are in agreement with what they are requesting.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: Now I catch the may. I was trying to figure out really what the difference was,
other than move -- words move around, but I do see kind of the difference there with the
may and the shall.
De Weerd: Mr. Clerk.
Coles: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Next is Josh Leonard would like to address the
Council.
De Weerd: Good evening. If you will, please, state your name and address for the
record?
Leonard: Sure. Thank you. Your -- I was going to say Your Honor. Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Leonard: Joshua Leonard. 4199 Bavaria, Eagle, Idaho. Speaking today on the limited
topic of additional conditions that may be applicable in this application and to the
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expansion of the applicant's heavy industrial use. This doesn't waive the objections I
have against the development agreement or the proposed expanded heavy industrial
use or the proposed amendment. I reserve all those, speaking specifically about the
limitations. The conditions I'm going to discuss today and the ones that I included in my
memorandum this afternoon are -- are not in negotiation, they are required by the city
code. One of the benefits of having them in the city code and requiring them as -- as
Madam Mayor, you said is that they are -- they are not subject to negotiation with the
applicant. Either the applicant complies with those conditions or he doesn't get the
expansion of his use. As you heard from the applicant, he is okay with or -- or not okay
with certain of these conditions and that's just not the way it works. In order to mitigate
the negative effects on the surrounding neighbors and on the residential properties
that's around this -- this area, these are required conditions and they are required in a
couple of different places. The first of those conditions -- and it's stated in the code -- is
that he must also obtain a conditional use permit. As I have said several times from this
podium already, absent a conditional use permit this -- this can't happen. The
amendments to the development agreement deal with a contractual relationship
between the applicant and the city. They don't substitute for the requirements of code to
obtain a conditional use permit. The next is site screening. The city code requires
masonry or concrete, not -- not berming. Also require the applicant to be held
responsible for maintaining, as Mr. Nary said, to avoid a public nuisance. Perhaps most
important, all mechanical equipment and operations, power driven -- power driven
processing equipment and operations, shipping and delivery areas and other activity on
the site must be kept and operated a minimum of 300 feet from abutting residential
districts. In this case it's all abutting. It doesn't draw a distinction between city
residential districts and county residential districts, it says residential districts. All of this
is. I'd like to jump -- the other conditions are in my -- in my memorandum, but I would
like to jump for -- for just a second. I appreciate Council Member Bernt's catch on -- it
provided an example of how in this process the applicant has -- instead of taking the
opportunity to embrace the neighbors and listen to their -- their concerns, has gone
backwards. Instead of coming forward and saying this is what we are proposing to
mitigate this, he comes -- comes out and says, yeah, and we are going to stack stuff on
another property that's not the subject of this and puts it right out there. This is the kind
of stuff that these neighbors have been dealing with from the beginning. Instead of -- of
taking the opportunity given by the city to reach out and to rebuild trust with the
neighbors, additional things change, including the conditions on the temporary -- or
on the certificate of occupancy. We would ask that that go back to -- or that that be a
requirement that it stop operation upon issuance of a certificate of occupancy by any
jurisdiction, not just by Meridian City. Stand for questions.
De Weerd: Thank you. Council, any questions?
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts.
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor. Josh, did you say you sent an e-mail this afternoon?
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De Weerd: I don't see it.
Leonard: A memorandum. Council Member Roberts, it was a memorandum submitted
early this afternoon, I believe, to the city clerk and was included in the packet.
De Weerd: Okay. Any other questions from Council? Thank you.
Coles: Jim Cox is next. Would like to address the Council. Sheila Miller.
De Weerd: Good evening.
Miller: Good evening, Madam Mayor and Council. I'm Sheila Miller. 4170 North Azalea
Lane, Boise, Idaho. And I have been to all of the Council meetings. I know everyone's
tired of hearing about everything and I would just ask everyone who is involved in the
final decision making to listen to what your fine staff has put together in terms of
mitigating and making this an enforceable situation and also your own Legal
Department as well.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Coles: Madam Mayor, that is all that indicated that they would like to provide testimony.
De Weerd: Okay. Those are the names that signed up in advance. Is there any further
testimony? Yes , ma'am.
Gibbons: Hello.
De Weerd: Hello. If you will, please, state your name and address for the record.
Gibbons: My name is Stephanie Gibbons. I live at 8350 South Jardine Lane in
Meridian, Idaho. Directly across the street from this proposed new expansion. I have
been to all three meetings, this being the third I believe. I have listened to lots of my
neighbors come up here and speak, I have listened to all of you people have your
comments about this, and I just want to say a couple of different things. In the last
meeting there was the matter of the public trust brought -- brought up and different
people said different things about that. I have been always taught that being part of the
process it -- you can get results. I have also been told you can't fight City Hall. You
have heard -- we have all heard all of those things. The public trust in the process, you
have a Comprehensive Plan that people spent hundreds of hours on putting together.
You have a staff of people that looked at this proposal originally and just tried to give
you their input. You have listened to more than 50 of the people of the neighbors --
De Weerd: And, Stephanie --
Gibbons: Yes.
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De Weerd: -- I don't want to be disrespectful, but I would appreciate if you can talk to us
about your feelings about the conditions that staff put together, because that is --
Gibbons: Yes.
De Weerd: -- really what the conversation is about tonight.
Gibbons: Well, I wanted to talk about the trust, because the trust that has been placed
in this Council has been -- we have heard that there -- we heard something from the
lady who is not here tonight about -- that he did us a solid. The public has come out
against this, your staff came out against it, and now somehow it got passed through
and, then, there was all of this -- what's -- why we are here tonight, because the
conditions didn't meet the criteria. The original development agreement said that it
could not be changed or amended, that -- if it was going to be changed it would have to
have a conditional use permit. That's what's needed in order to make sure that this
process goes the way that it needs and that we have the enforcement capabilities.
There has been a lot of ex-parte communication with members of this Council, things
that happened before the -- the -- the change was even proposed. So --
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
Gibbons: -- I would just ask --
De Weerd: If you will hold I will let Stephanie finish her comment.
Gibbons: I would just ask that we reconsider all of the items that have been brought up
tonight have to be addressed and that you go back and look at what's in the best
interest of everyone here. The neighbors are not going to give it up. We are going to
go to court on this if that's the way it has to be. You guys get to decide. You are going
against your own Comprehensive Plan. Okay. Did you have a question?
De Weerd: Thank you, Stephanie. Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: Madam Mayor. Ma'am, if -- if you are going to accuse us of ex-parte
communication, would you mind citing the situations that that's taken place?
Gibbons: There have been -- the request for public records was put out there -- or
given to some of the neighbors and there was communication -- e-mail communication
between Members of the Council and the applicant before the application was brought
to the Council and since that has also as well. So, it's in your public record. Take a look
at it if you -- if you wonder. Any other questions?
De Weerd: Thank you.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
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De Weerd: Mr. Palmer, I will ask Mr. Nary --
Palmer: Okay.
Gibbons: Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you. Mr. Nary, I know the city takes ex-parte very serious and -- and
your office in particular, you try and keep us out of trouble. I -- we had not been aware
of any issue on this application. Can you perhaps comment to that?
Nary: Yes , Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. There have been a number of
public records request. We have responded to all of them through the clerk's office. We
have reviewed all of them. I don't have the results in front of me, but I know in
discussing it with my staff who reviews all the public records, there was not a concern
about ex-parte in relation to land use applications, which has specific legal ramifications.
Correspondence with the applicant prior to an application being made, I'm not aware of
any subsequent to the application or subsequent to the decision, because it's still -- it's
still pending, but we have responded. There is not an issue -- from a legal perspective
there is not a legal issue right now in regards to ex-parte or bias or anything else. There
is not purely a legal issue here that we have. Without more specific information I don't
have a better way to answer that, but we have reviewed that. I don't have an issue with
that today.
De Weerd: But you have investigated anything that we have been asked about and you
have not found any ex-parte.
Nary: That is correct.
De Weerd: Okay. Anything further? Is there any further testimony on this item? Okay.
Would the -- yes, ma'am. Good evening.
Cox: Good evening. I'm Angie Cox. I live at 1305 East Columbia Road, directly across
from the facility, and I'm not really prepared to speak in any eloquent way, I just wanted
to try to stick to your request on the provisions and what we are -- I think what's hard for
a lot of us is what we are discussing tonight is not what we feel is the foundational
issues, but wanted to reference number two on the screening topic. My home is straight
across from the facility on Columbia Road and I would want to trust Mike that he would
follow any things that are put forth in this provision, but it is not possible to screen what
is happening on this site. He is up on a hill and it's not possible to screen that I don't
believe. I really feel for the folks on Locust Grove and what they are looking at. Every
time I come that way it is a pile of trash. From our side we are looking at the big grinder
and the piles of accumulated finished material and Mike has tried to reach out as far as
what -- what trees, those sorts of things. I don't think it's possible to screen this and so I
know from our home we are looking at, you know, grinders and, then, we are looking at
piles of finished material. I don't fully understand the 300 feet rule, but to me if you are
doing finished product it's not just the grinders and the -- the operation of it, but the
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finished product, what you had -- Councilman Bernt had kind of been asking at first
about where these piles are gone. Right now we are looking at just lots of piles of --
very tidy. It looks like mulch. It looks like finished product, but it's -- that's the berms we
are looking at is -- is rows and berms of finished material and I -- I'm not real good with
numbers, but I'm sure it's closer to our house and that and so I think the finished
material that neighbors, people, passersby are looking at is also a topic, not just the
equipment that's operating and definitely the trash piles on Locust Grove, it just -- I don't
know how you -- I don't know how it will be screened I guess is my main point. Not that
Mike wouldn't follow the rules of the agreement, I just think it's going to be very hard --
it's going to take ten years for a tree cover it, unless he's going to go with real big
mature trees and the expense of that. So, I think that's all I have to say.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Cox: Thank you.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: Madam Mayor and Sonya, is staff comfortable with the comments and
language that was put into their memo on this topic about the maturity of the trees and
whatnot?
Allen: Madam Mayor, Councilman, we just -- we just received this yesterday. Staff
hasn't had a long time to really look into this in great detail.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: And maybe for the audience's benefit as well, their -- their comments on this
section -- I will just read them, so that -- they quote the -- the condition and, then, they
add some comments. They quoted as the property shall be screened sufficient to block
the view of the processing facility, including all material stored on the site from South
Locust Grove Road and West Columbia Road prior to commencement of the proposed
expanded use and, then, their comments as follows: Timber Creek raised those
conditions to require that all landscaping shall be installed and trees and plants be
installed -- and trees and plants of sufficient maturity so the recycling property is fully
blocked from view. Timber Creek opposes this language as having the trees and plants
reach sufficient maturity to fully block the recycling property could take years or
decades. Staff clarified at the meeting with Timber Creek that the full growth was not
expected, but that the trees and plants should be planted and berms constructed prior
to engaging in tier two composting. Timber Creek is open to this clarified condition,
provided that pilot programs for obtaining tier two designation as designated the DEQ
are exempt from this condition.
Nary: Madam Mayor?
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De Weerd: Mr. Nary.
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, so understand the discussion, what was
discussed with -- with the applicant with myself and with Ms. Waters from Planning -- or
Ms. Allen from Planning is the intent of the condition is to have a finished berm, to have
something that doesn't appear to be the material used as a berm, but was actually a
finished berm. In all of the other ones in the city that we have berming, they -- we do
have a reasonable expectation that they will plant trees enough that will cover it, but we
recognize there is a time period in which that takes place. Now, the difficulty in this
case is you're -- you're having a use that has a time period in itself. Most of those are
berms around residential subdivisions that are going to have houses behind them, that
aren't going to disappear in ten or 15 years and so the intent is that the trees over time
will expand. Here what the discussion was was that we recognize there is a challenge
there and tried to use vegetation and that's why the intent was -- is to use finished
material. Again, a berm that was that -- was intended to be a screening instead of
material that's simply being used as a holding area for that and that's the screening.
That's -- we really want something that was finished and completed, looked intentional
and that had some vegetation on it, so it didn't look like just another pile of dirt. So, that
was really what we were trying to get across. We recognize there has got to be a little
flexibility. We know trees don't grow immediately. We recognize growing grass and
mowing grass out there doesn't make a lot of sense. But trying to create something that
looks like a finished product to create actual visual screening from the roadway.
De Weerd: Did that help give you clarity?
Palmer: Madam Mayor, I think so. And the -- the next paragraph I'm not going to read
the whole thing, but it also talked about the mix -- mix of evergreen trees and shrubs,
whatnot within their comments, kind of went around that they are opposed to the mix,
because I guess they found some trees that will provide a more fuller screening sooner
than if they were to have to try to mix some stuff in. So, I'm sure they will comment on it
when we get to the end, if we get to the end.
De Weerd: Okay. Would the applicant like to make closing remarks?
Cranny: Thank you, Council -- or Mayor and Council Members. Just want to take a
step back. I realized my first discussion or approach may have been less clear than it
should have been. Timber Creek is not opposed to the conditions. We understand the
conditions are imposed and proposed to mitigate the impacts that were not properly set
forth in the approved amended development agreement. We are fine with those. We
want to make sure there are conditions to make the neighbors happy. But, for example,
with the landscaping, as the language was proposed it simply did not make sense. As
we read that language it said you have to have full mature trees before you can start
doing any of the tier two composting. Now, again, that could take decades. So, in our
minds that simply -- it wouldn't work or allow for the use before the ten, 15 year time
frame expired and we are out. So, we plant trees and we would sit there and wait and
wait, oh, ten years, 15 years we are up, they have come within a thousand feet or
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whatever -- or they sold the property and we are out and the trees are still not full, they
are still not fully grown. It didn't work for what the amended development agreement
permitted to do on the property. So, we tried to propose language that would meet with
the spirit of the conditions that were proposed and yet work with the -- a limited time
frame that Timber Creek will be there and still provide the mitigation that the Council
seeks and the neighbors seek. So, I mean we have mentioned the landscaping. Modify
-- if we look at number two. This is Exhibit B. It says modify provision 5.2.2 to -- to say
the property shall be screened. Well, as mentioned in the memo, Section 5.2.1 doesn't
discuss screening of, i.e., blocking the view, it's screening separating by size. It's
describing the recycling process. This is something that will happen. It's allowed. Bring
the recycling materials in, process them, and screen them to separate them out by size,
quantity, et cetera. So, the objection to that revision was not that we don't agree with
the -- what some of the provision -- some of the proposed languages is, it doesn't fit
there. So, if you look at Section 3. -- or 6.3.2, we said, hey, let's take the comments
from Condition 2, pull into the Condition 6 and let's propose some language that works
for all of us. Again, going back to the dust. We want to mitigate dust. We are required
to mitigate dust. We want to make sure that happens. What was proposed again with
the limited time there it didn't make a lot of sense to have to put down some type of
material and they say vegetation, which doesn't make sense on a drivable surface.
Asphalt, pavement, rock, concrete pavers, bricks, et cetera. The dust issue that Mike
explained will still exist on all those and so you put it down, it's going to be covered in
dust and we will still have to water. So, again, it doesn't really make a lot of sense. We
understand the dust mitigation has to happen. We want to mitigate dust. How this is
proposed doesn't help it. In fact, we think it will make the problem worse. The leaching
pond. The leaching ponds on the map are to not be standing permanent bodies of
water. The ordinance section cited in the condition states if there are standing bodies of
water that are permanent, you need to recycle that, so there are not mosquitoes. Great.
We are happy with that. These leaching ponds will not be permanent. It's intended that
when there is a large rainwater -- or large rainstorm runoff stops. It doesn't go into the
canals. It doesn't go into neighboring properties. It stays within the confined recycling
area. Now, some of that water may pool. It's going to be there super short period of
time, but they are less. If it's there any longer the language we propose is Timber Creek
will do everything necessary to make sure there are no mosquitoes. That's what this
language is proposed to do is to mitigate any potential impact from mosquitos. We are
happy to do that. But what was proposed is if we put a system to circulate the water it
will operate ten minutes once every couple months. It's just -- in the proposed use it
doesn't work. The mechanical equipment and operations shall be limited to the
property. Now, this, again, comes down to the property versus the recycling property.
Now, if you read this strictly, if Mike was to want to plow the property here on the
southern edge of the -- of the recycling area, that little triangle shape, if he wants to
plow it, that language prohibits it, because it is a mechanical operation. He will have to
break out the horse and the plow and go behind the horse. We understand the need to
mitigate that impact, but that language just simply doesn't work. What we propose is,
hey, let's keep with the spirit of the thousand foot barrier. Thousand foot for the grinder
to a residence. We will do 300 feet from the edge of the property or -- from the use
in the recycling area to our residents. It's just -- we are trying to keep the same
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standards. We have almost four or five different standards on when things can happen.
But we are happy with, you know, what -- we can't do these within 300 feet of a
residence. Great. We are happy. If it relates to the recycling activity. If it's agriculture,
which this would prohibit, it doesn't make sense. So, the language that was proposed
was simply to try and make it fit with the -- the additional use that you had -- that
Councilman Bernt had talked about earlier. If it happened before, it's agriculture, we
don't care. What we are trying to get here is it relates only to the tier two composting.
Yes .
De Weerd: You 're suggesting that this is agriculture and not an industrial use?
Cranny: No. No. No. No. No. What I'm trying to say is the language that was
proposed in Condition 10 -- if you look at Exhibit B, Condition 10, it states: Add
provision. All mechanical equipment and operations, power driven processing
equipment and operations, shipping and delivery area and other outdoor activity on
property, which is not just the recycling within the -- within the berms, it's the entire
property subject to the development agreement, shall be located at least 300 feet from
abutting residential districts. So, strictly read, there cannot be a single mechanical
operation -- a tractor, a truck, anything that goes within 300 feet. As was testified by the
neighbors, that little triangle south of the canal is within 300 feet. So, he can't farm it
with a tractor. He would, again, have to break out the horse and the plow. That's what
we are trying to prevent. We want to make sure it works. Comment?
Bernt: Thinking about it.
Cranny: Okay. So, revise Section 10, for example, to limit it to the recycling activities,
because that's what this additional tier two process is. It's not to DA use, it's to bar the
recycling activities and that's what the proposed language purports -- we believe
purports to do. Add a provision -- this is number 12. Burning, incinerating, burying and
any -- or any other manner of disposing of solid waste or recycled materials is prohibited
on the property. Well, the development agreement says we can bring it on, now we
can't. So, again, it's kind of the -- we have an approved development agreement, let's
add a condition that makes the whole thing illegal. So, if we tweak this to make it so
that there is no burning or incinerating, happy with that. But we would like to be able to
continue -- let's say we take the leaves that have been processed -- well, we can't do
any -- we can't bring them -- under this language we can't bring them on, but if we could
we can't dispose them. We couldn't put them in the soil. We couldn't bury them. So,
it's not that we are opposed to conditions, it's just these don't work. We have an
approval to do one thing and the condition says never mind. I don't think that's what the
intent is and so we are trying to push it back to clarify, hey, this needs to be narrowed a
little bit, so that it works and doesn't bar what's allowed right now or under the amended
development agreement which is approved and, then, add Timber Creek shall adhere to
all applicable federal, state, local laws and regulations. That was addressed in the prior
ones. We simply said we don't need to have them. So, I don't think we are here to say
no, no, no, it's we want conditions, let's make them work.
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De Weerd: When you use language like you oppose, it does sound like no, no, no, no.
Cranny: It does. And I apologize for the tone of this memo. It was more of a -- that
doesn't work as proposed. We oppose the proposed language. We like the alternative
that we are proposing below to try and meet the spirit. I mean if we flat out didn't like it
and we said, no, we are not going to meet with the city, we are simply saying no -- we
met with the city to try and find out what's the spirit of the intent or the spirit of the
proposed condition. Okay. That's what the spirit is. We see what you're trying to do,
let's tweak this, so that we can meet that spirit, but allow the use that -- that was
approved under the development agreement.
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts.
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor, it seems like maybe we -- because there is two different
operations going, the farming and the recycling, and it sounds like maybe just some
wording needs to be changed, but maybe we are not going to get -- get to agreement
tonight. It sounds like maybe working with the city attorney would -- we get the farming
aspect out of what's been captured.
De Weerd: Mr. Nary?
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I mean I think we are very close. I
would agree with Mr. Cranny, there is probably a few things we are trying to do to fit into
our code. I will use the burying for example. In looking at the code in regards to
burying is to make sure people don't bury garbage in their backyard. That's the point of
this code. This is not what they are doing; right? So, they are -- they are recycling
material, they are processing material, and he's talking about using process material on
site. We don't prohibit people from mulching their own material on site at their house
and using it in their yard. They are not burying garbage, they are recycling, creating --
whether it's compost or whatever. So, trying to find that sweet spot between those I
think we are very close. So, I think, you know, again, this was an opportunity for the
applicant to give us their feedback. I think we have gotten a lot of their feedback. We
have heard the -- the public's feedback as well. I don't know if Mr. Cranny has any
comments in regards to those. I think we can have maybe a final product that everyone
can -- at least the applicant and the city can be agreeable to in two weeks, if we have
some time to do that. Again, next week is tomorrow, so I don't have it by tomorrow. But
we probably could have one by the 20th. I think I get where he's going and if the
Council is okay with that, if you have any specific concerns about what they have raised
or what we just said, that we would just like that direction from you.
De Weerd: Any further questions for the applicant at this point? Any further comment?
McKay: Becky McKay. Engineering Solutions. I have been working with the applicant
on this for months now and -- and the attorney and, you know, I read through staff's
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Exhibit B and I had some of the similar concerns that Justin had as far as the wording
and -- and I think, you know, from our perspective as far as inclusion of provisions that
says that we don't create any hazard, nuisance, odor, vapors or create any risk to the
environment or public health, we are in favor of that. I mean, obviously, that -- that is an
applicable condition. The conditions that any federal, state, or local requirements
applicable to their recycling facility or applicable, we are in agreement with that. The
problem that -- that I kind of saw was where it talked about as -- as Justin indicated, the
screening, the property shall be screened sufficient to block the view of the processing
facility, including materials stored on site from Locust Grove and Columbia prior to
commencement of the proposed expanded use. I mean that almost implies that
instantaneously you shall be able to block all view. Well, obviously, we know when we
plant trees and we build berms there is a certain time frame for maturity of that material
and so there -- it was just kind of the -- the wording that -- that bothered me and as far
as the driving surfaces -- and I will wrap up real quick -- you know, my husband's had a
construction company and the worst thing you can do is have a piece of equipment, like
an excavator or it has tracks and try to run it on asphalt, bricks, concrete. That just
doesn't work. And we dealt with that with his -- his facility that's in Ada county that, you
know, you have to have a material that is more of a gravel dirt base, otherwise, it just
tears it all up and, then, staff eliminated all of the -- the water and dust suppression,
which is also included as far as our fire suppression, as far as the water tank, the
sprinklers, the hoses, all of that was part of our fire suppression plan that's integral to
the system and -- and as far as the operation is concerned and staff basically eliminated
all of that. So, that needs to be included. You can't eliminate that portion. And we have
got to, obviously, have a surface that's maintainable, but yet doesn't create any hazard
or nuisance. You know, as far as leaching ponds, there is no plan for any leaching
ponds and the mechanical equipment I was concerned about that --
De Weerd: Becky, you said you are wrapping up.
McKay: I'm wrapping up. So, I think working with your staff I think we can refine these
so it protects the public, protects the city and you have enforceable conditions.
De Weerd: But I think some of your points are what is at the heart of this problem is this
is an expanded nonconforming use that typically isn't allowed in the city and -- and so
you're getting city conditions, because that is the expectations for industrial uses and --
and that's where I think Mrs. Little Roberts said we need to find that clarity between
where it is agricultural and where it is the expanded recycling composting use that is
industrial and how do you delineate the conditions for that and -- and if staff feels that
they are getting closer, that's good, but some of those issues that you -- you bring up is
exactly I think what Council was trying to -- to find some agreement to, so that the -- the
neighbors have something dependable that is enforceable by our code enforcement,
that -- that it's clear.
McKay: And, Madam Mayor, we are in total agreement with exactly what you said.
Total agreement. And I think with Mr. Nary's help and with your staff's help and, then,
our legal team here, that we can come to an agreement on conditions that make
everybody feel comfortable with what's happening here and we delineate and define the
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difference between the agricultural and the existing nonconforming use. I think it is a
doable thing.
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Any further questions from Council? It sounds like this
needs to be continued for further clarification -- or not.
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts.
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor, I move we continue the hearing for two weeks to get new
verbiage on the conditions. To November 20th.
De Weerd: Okay. So, I have a motion to continue this until November 20th to further
clarify the amendments and the conditions for this DA.
Borton: Second.
De Weerd: And I have a second.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: For what it's worth, this is -- this is the -- the very concern that in large part led
me to oppose the original application. I thought the concerns from the public just
weren't yet properly addressed and while the parties were trying to make something
work and appreciate the motion to give that a chance, but that was one of the reasons
that I originally didn't think it should have been approved in the first place. Hopefully
things go well in two weeks.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to continue to November 20th. All those in
favor say aye. Any opposed say nay. Okay. Motion carries.
MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. TWO NAYS.
De Weerd: I'm going to call a recess for ten minutes.
(Recess: 8:15 p.m. to 8:27 p.m.)
E. Public Hearing for Smith Rezone (H-2018-0097) by Scott Smith,
Located at 1321 & 1323 Main St.
1. Request: Rezone of 0.73 of an acre of land from the C-C to
the OT zoning district
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De Weerd: Okay. I'm going to go ahead and get this meeting back on track. Okay.
Item 8-E is a public hearing for H-2018-0097. I will open this public hearing with staff
comments.
Allen: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. The next application before
you is a request for a rezone. This site consists of .73 of an acre of land. It's zoned C-
C and is located at 1321 and 1323 North Main Street. There are two existing structures
on this site. The one at the -- actually, let me go to the aerial real quick here. This is
the -- the property right here. The structure at the front of the property here was
constructed in 1937 as a residential dwelling and was converted to a commercial
structure in 2001. The structure here at the rear of the property was constructed in
1983 and converted to a commercial use in 2001. The Comprehensive Plan future land
use map designation is Old Town. A r ezone of .73 of an acre of land from the C-C to the
Old Town district is requested, consisting -- consistent with the Old Town future land use
map designation. Two existing structures on the site are proposed to remain. The
structure at the rear of the property houses the Calico Cattery, primarily a retail store
with ancillary cat boarding and the front structure is proposed to be converted from
commercial back to a residential use. Access is provided for this site via to one-way
driveways to and from Main Street. Staff and ACHD recommends these accesses
remain with no changes. When and if the property redevelops in the future with a more
intense use, access may be restricted to a single access and cross-access easements
may be required to adjacent properties. The UDC requires off-street parking to be
provided based on the square footage of nonresidential structures and the number of
bedrooms and dwelling units. Based on the square footage, 1,560 square feet of the
commercial structure and the number of bedrooms proposed in the dwelling, which is
three, a minimum of seven spaces are required total. There are currently six parking
spaces for the shared use. An additional space is required to be provided on the site in
accord -- in order to comply with the minimum UDC standards. The Commission did
recommend approval of this application. Scott Smith, the applicant, testified in favor.
There was no opposition or commenting testimony and no written testimony was
received. The Commission was in favor of the proposed residential use and the existing
access remaining. There are no outstanding issues for Council and no written
testimony since the Commission hearing. Staff will stand for any questions.
De Weerd: Thank you, Sonya. Any questions from Council? Is the applicant here?
Good evening. If you will, please, state your name and address for the record.
Smith: Yeah. Scott Smith. 2286 North Glenfield Way, Meridian, Idaho. 83642.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Smith: 646. Okay.
De Weerd: 646.
Smith: Yeah.
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De Weerd: Okay. Do you have any comment, anything you want to add to the staff
comment?
Smith: You guys, you will be proud to have the property on Main Street. It's going to
look fantastic and I can't wait to get started.
De Weerd: Well, we look forward to it. Council, any questions for Scott? Thank you.
Smith: Thanks.
De Weerd: Mr. Clerk.
Coles: No one signed up, Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: This is a public hearing. Is there anyone who wishes to provide testimony
on this item? Okay. If staff and the applicant have no further comments, I will --
Council, if you have any questions.
Bernt: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bernt.
Bernt: I move that we close the public hearing for H-2018-0097.
Little Roberts: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to close public hearing. All those in favor say
aye. All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. TWO ABSENT.
De Weerd: That was an enthusiastic vote, wasn't it.
Bernt: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bernt.
Bernt: I move that we approve the Smith rezone, Item 8-E, H-2018-0097.
Little Roberts: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion to approve and a second. Any discussion? Hearing none,
Mr. Clerk, will you call roll.
Roll call: Borton, yea; Milam, absent; Cavener, absent; Palmer, yea; Little Roberts, yea;
Bernt, yea.
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De Weerd: Thank you for that enthusiastic vote. Thank you, Mr. Smith.
MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. TWO ABSENT.
F. Public Hearing for Westbridge Subdivision (H-2018-0088) by
Jane Suggs, Located at 5745 and 5865 N. Black Cat Rd.
1. Request: Annexation and Zoning of 12.84 acres of land with
an R -4 zoning district; and
2. Request: Preliminary Plat consisting of 30 building lots and 9
common lots on 12.71 acres of land in an R -4 zoning district
De Weerd: Item 8-F is a public hearing on H-2018-0088. I will open this public hearing
with staff comments.
Allen: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, the next applications are a request for
annexation and zoning and a preliminary plat. This site consists of 12.71 acres of land,
zoned RUT in Ada county, located at 5745 and 5865 North Black Cat Road. The
Comprehensive Plan future land use map designation for this property is medium
density residential, which is three to eight units per acre. The applicant is requesting
annexation and zoning of 12.84 acres of land with an R-4 zoning district and requests
Council approval of a step down in density for medium density to low density residential.
The proposed residential use and zoning is compatible with either the low density
residential or medium density residential future land use designation. However, the
proposed density at 2.4 units per acre is slightly below the minimum three units per acre
desired in the medium density designated area. The step down in density is requested
because adding more lots will require a secondary emergency access to be provided
and only one access is available and fire flow would need to be addressed differently.
The geometry and characteristics of the site, i.e., the location of the McMullan Lateral
along the northern boundary of the site and the necessary public streets impact the
available building area, resulting in a lower density than desired in the Comprehensive
Plan. A preliminary plat is proposed as shown, consisting of 30 building lots and nine
common lots on 12.71 acres of land in the proposed R-4 zoning district. The proposed
lots range in size from 8,096 square feet to 13,570 square feet, with an average lot size
of 10,060 square feet. There are two existing homes on the site. The one at the west
end of the site will remain on a lot in the proposed subdivision. That is on this far west
slot right there. The other home and accessory structure will be removed. One access
is proposed for the development via North Black Cat Road. Two stub streets are
proposed, one to the north, North Willowside Avenue, and one to the south, North
Oakstone Avenue for future extension and interconnectivity with adjacent future
developments. A 35 foot wide landscape street buffer is proposed along Black Cat
Road, an entryway corridor, in accord with UDC standards. There are several existing
trees on this site that are proposed to be removed that do require mitigation as
proposed. The UDC requires a minimum ten percent qualified open space to be
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provided with development and a minimum of one qualified site amenity. A t otal of 1.6
acres or 12.5 percent of qualified open space is proposed with a segment of the city's
multi-use pathway system and micro path to the future school site to the west and a tot
lot with play equipment in accord with UDC standards. Conceptual building elevations
were submitted as shown for future single family residential detached homes in the
development. Building materials consist of a mix of siding materials, with stone veneer
accents. The Commission recommended approval of these applications. Jane Suggs,
the applicant's representative, testified in favor and no one testified in opposition or
commented. Written testimony was received from Jane Suggs, the applicant. The
Commission was in favor of the larger lot sizes and decreased density with the step
down in density requested by the applicant. There were no changes made by the
Commission to the staff recommendation and there are no outstanding issues for
Council tonight and there has been no written testimony received since the Commission
hearing. Staff will stand for any questions.
De Weerd: Thank you. Council, any questions at this time? Okay. Is the applicant
here? Good evening. If you will, please, state your name and address for the record.
Suggs: Good evening, Commissioners and Mayor. I mean -- excuse me. Mayor and
Council. Jane Suggs and I work at WH Pacific, 2141 Airport Way in Boise and I'm here
representing the Westbridge Subdivision. If you will put the landscape plan back up for
me I would appreciate it. There you go. Well, actually, we are very pleased tonight to
present to you the annexation, rezone, and preliminary plat for Westbridge. I think
Sonya did a really great job of going over the details of the site. Of course let me begin
by letting you know that we agree with the analysis by the staff and also agree to all the
conditions of approval. In fact, you will see if you look through the staff report there is
some mark outs concerning the landscape plan that we have already made the changes
and resubmitted a landscape plan, so we meet the approval of the code for the
landscape plan. We certainly appreciate unanimous approval by the Planning and
Zoning Commission and as Sonya noted we are requesting an annexation of 12.7 acres
into the city, with a zone of R-4, which is supported by the Comprehensive Plan. We
are asking for a step down in density. My first time ever asking to actually step down in
density. This will allow us to build just below the three units per acre that's in the -- in
the medium density residential. It gives us 2.4 units per acre. We think this is a really
good opportunity to put in some -- some good size lots. There is some higher density to
the south of us and there are some larger lots to the north of us, one which is actually
about five acres that probably won't be developed, because it is the tree farm, if you
have ever been down the street there, which you see the big lot with the tree farm and I
was told that it was a carbon sequestration -- is that how I say that? -- location, that that
has been set aside as a special undeveloped -- or probably not developed piece of
property. Again, as Sonya mentioned, there is the geometry of the site here. The
McMullan Lateral that will be piped along the north boundary of this transition of lots
from the higher density or at least the zone of higher density below us to the south of
us, these larger lots to the north. We think that we have designed a really nice
transition property here. We are, of course, meeting all the lot dimensions that are
required for the R-4 zone and we are providing some significant landscaping. As you
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drive in you will see medians, a landscape area to the right. We are providing a part of
the pathway system along the right of way of Black Cat and specifically providing a
separated sidewalk along the south side of Vanderbilt to go through and provide a good
access to the school site. The school site is located to the west of this site. So, you will
see a little pathway there that allows the kids to walk across the street even and go
down to the potential school site. I believe that's a middle school site. Let's see. We
did have a neighborhood meeting. It was fairly well attended and most of the comments
that we received were from folks that wanted to make sure that the irrigation system
would continue to operate during the construction. Of course that's state law, so, of
course, we will and just the schedule for development. I don't really have a whole lot to
add. I would like to stand for questions, but I do respectfully request your approval of
the annexation, the rezone, and the preliminary plat for Westbridge.
De Weerd: Thank you, Jane. Any questions from Council? Thank you.
Suggs: Thank you.
De Weerd: Mr. Clerk.
Coles: Thank you, Madam Mayor. No signups that indicated they would like to provide
testimony.
De Weerd: Okay. This is a public hearing. Is there anyone who -- yes, ma'am.
Bagley: Hi.
De Weerd: Good evening.
Bagley: My name is Libby Bagley. I live at 5000 Larry Lane, Meridian, Idaho. 83646.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Bagley: Madam Mayor and Council people, is there a way to go to the larger view
where we see the lots? There. Thank you. I am one property owner in a subdivision
that actually has five lots. We are to the north of the proposed area and people in our
subdivision have lived in the area on the average of 20 to 30 years. We recognize
growth is coming. We recognize growth has invaded us quite a bit from the east. I am
in favor of the lower density proposal. My personal want would be to go even slightly
lower rate. Now when we walk down the road we see two houses. Now you are asking
us to see 30 houses in the same area and as a transition area from high density to low
density it doesn't feel like we have got a transition quite yet. I think slightly lower density
would be what I would be in favor for. Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you so much. Good evening.
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LaFever: My name is Denice LaFever. I'm at 6706 North Salvia Way, Meridian, Idaho.
I actually like this project. I think it's great they are doing a step down. I think it's
wonderful they are bringing in bigger lots and it's really nice to see cul-de-sacs, instead
of these shared driveways. I think they did a great job with the landscaping in it. So, I
think this is a great fill in product and I think it's a really nice transition going from the R-
15 over to the larger lots. So, I think it's a -- it's a go. It's a winner.
De Weerd: Thank you, Denise. Is there any further testimony? Okay.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: A question for Sonya. Does the center cul-de-sac stub into -- connect into the
R-15 to the south?
Allen: Madam Mayor, Councilman Borton, yes, it is a stub street. It's shown as a cul-
de-sac for fire department turnaround.
Borton: Okay. Thanks.
De Weerd: Okay. Council, any further questions? Seeing no further testimony or
questions, I would entertain a motion to close public hearing.
Bernt: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Unless Jane has any -- sorry, Jane. Mr. Bernt.
Bernt: I move that we close the public hearing for Westbridge Subdivision, H-2018-
0088.
Little Roberts: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to close public hearing on nine -- or 8-F. All
those in favor say aye. All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. TWO ABSENT.
Bernt: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bernt.
Bernt: I personally think that it's just refreshing to see an application where there is less
density. We all know the challenges that we face with growth and I believe this is one
example where smart growth makes sense and thank you and it looks like it's a great
project. With that I move that we approve H-2018-0088.
Little Roberts: Second.
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De Weerd: I have a motion and a second. Any -- any questions or discussion? Mr.
Clerk, will you call roll.
Roll call: Borton, yea; Milam, absent; Cavener, absent; Palmer, yea; Little Roberts, yea;
Bernt, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. TWO ABSENT.
G. Public Hearing Continued from April 24 & May 15, 2018 for
Summertown Subdivision (H-2017-0142) By 745 W Ustick, LLC
,
Located at 745 W Ustick Road
1. Request: Annexation and Zoning of 15.13 Acres of Land with
a TNR Zoning District
De Weerd: Item 8-G is a public hearing continued from April and May in this same year
on H-2017-0142. I will ask for staff comments at this time.
Parsons: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. The next item on your
agenda this evening is the Summertown Subdivision. As Madam Mayor mentioned, this
has been before you a couple times and it has been continued out and the main reason
for the continuance was -- at the time that we brought this forward to Council there was
a property boundary dispute with the adjacent property to the east and the applicant had
to go through a rezone process with the county to get that cleared up, so that they could
process a property boundary adjustment, get that back to that property owner and, then,
come back with you with some revised plans. Staff did prepare a memo for you to kind
of try to capture exactly what we have heard. We went back through the record, try to
see what you guys wanted the applicant to bring back. So, this evening they have
brought back -- it's revised plans to revised elevation site plan, landscape plan, for you
to take under consideration this evening and I will go through that in my presentation
before you this evening as well. So, just to get everyone oriented again as to where this
property is located, it's located on the southeast corner of Venable Lane and Ustick
Road. The applicant is requesting to annex in 15.13 acres with the -- from the RUT
zoning district in Ada county to the TN-R zoning district within the city. If you recall in
our previous presentation -- verbal presentation to the Council, we had informed you
that once this property is annexed and zoned, if -- and they are proposing a multi-family
development on a majority of this site, it does not require additional public hearing
before this body. That's why staff has spent so much time trying to analyze and review
of these site plans, elevations, so that we have it captured correctly and make sure that
it is consistent with our Comprehensive Plan, which is mixed use community. So, again,
going through that memo that we prepared for you last week to share the differences
with you, so on the left-hand side is the previous concept plan. At that particular time
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the applicant had more contemporary design. They were taller structures, more density,
less open space and Commission and Council also had concerns with some of the
transition between the scale of these units. On the right-hand side the applicants
provided a revised site plan that shows less density, so we are going down from
approximately 272 units down to 205 units in the plan to the right and you actually
increase the open space. Now, the amenity package itself is consistent with -- to what
was shown to you at the previous two hearings. So, the primary difference here is an
increase in open space and a decrease in density. The other thing is the differences in
the architecture and I will get to that in a minute, but I did want to let you know -- so, the
previous plan included 20 percent -- 22 percent open space. This plan shows 40
percent. The amenities include a pool, water feature, clubhouse, fitness facility, indoor
play structure and outdoor play structure, a meeting room and a pet park. That is no
changes -- there aren't any changes from the previous plan. Density has decreased
from 18.6 dwelling units to the acre to 13.5 dwelling units to the acre and that is more
consistent with the MUC designation, which -- in which we anticipate dwelling units
between six and 15 units to the acre. Again, the number of units have decreased from
272 down to 205 and that does include the bank of nine single family homes along the
south boundary of the site. And, then, parking spaces have decreased in order to make
way for additional open space. So, the original proposal had 544 parking spaces. The
plan on the right shows -- depicts 404 parking spaces. Again, I will quickly go through
the elevation. So, here is the contemporary design that was brought forth to you on
both of those days and now the applicant's actually providing more of a mix of unit type,
some more of a townhome style, which, again, is oriented towards the street, as we
envisioned in our traditional neighborhood districts and our mixed use community
designations and, then, the larger three story structures are more internal to the site.
Looking at the two designs you can see that the new design architecture blends and is
more cohesive with the surrounding residential developments in the area. I did want to
step back and kind of show you the broader picture, too. So, again, we have some
multi-family to the west and some single family and that's really what the applicant is
trying to do is provide that -- that buffer, that transition that was discussed at both
previous hearings, too. So, again, the townhome units would be along the streets with
the front doors oriented to those roadways and, then, the longer -- larger three story
structures would be oriented interior to the site. So, one -- staff still has some concerns
with the transition. To be honest with you, we still would like to see a better transition
along the southern boundary from the residential lots and the three story structures.
These can pretty -- be large and opposing, so that's something you should take under
consideration this evening. I would also mention to you that we did receive these on
October 29th. We did our best to capture some of the pertinent changes in our memo
to discuss with you, but these are significant changes from what the Planning and
Zoning Commission's Recommendation was made to you and they -- they took -- their
recommendation for approval was predicated on the previous plan and the previous
architecture. This has not been shared with the Planning and Zoning Commission. So,
really, what staff is asking the Council this evening is if you feel this is a substantial
enough change, do you feel it should be reminded back to P&Z for their revised
recommendation to you. If not, if you feel that you can make an informed decision on
this application this evening, we would ask that you continue it out for two weeks. Let
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us make sure that our staff report have the correct DA provisions, because I have
mentioned to you we don't get another bite at the apple. The DA is what's going to
govern the development of the site moving forward. This multi-family development will
only require staff level approval until they decide to subdivide the rest of the property
with the nine -- the nine residential lots on the south boundary. They would have to
come back for subdivision approval. But to develop the multi-family portion, it does not
require additional public hearing. So, again, if you have enough information to make a
decision this evening, again, continue that out and, then, I also want to share with the
Council that we did receive additional public testimony on this application from six
persons -- six residents. We had Karen Bodine, Diane Ryssel, Bill Cassinelli, Tyler
Moss, Susan Littlefield and Genesis Milam all submitted testimony on this application
since it was heard back in May. Again, Planning and Zoning Commission did
recommend approval of, again, a previous plan and different architecture. I will
conclude my presentation and stand for any questions you may have.
De Weerd: Thank you, Bill. Council, any questions for staff at this time? Mr. Bernt?
Bernt: I don't know that I have any questions. Is this the appropriate time to -- you
know, since we are going to continue it it sounds like, I -- I -- my goodness, I apologize.
I remember this application when it was before us before and I was one that made
comments on it back then and -- and I -- and I feel that my -- my thought process with
this hasn't changed and I said this last time, unless something substantially changes
with how dense this is, I have some real concerns with it, especially -- isn't this the --
Madam Chair? Isn't this the application where we found out that kiddos we were going
to have to get bused to another school, because the local school was to -- was full and it
wouldn't be able to accommodate any kids that would potentially live in the subdivision?
De Weerd: Yes.
Bernt: So, I just have some real concerns with the amount of density that's already in
this neighborhood. So, I mean if we want to continue it, that's great, but, like I said
before, I just want to be crystal clear on the record, creating an expectation from this
seat. What I -- what my -- you know, my thoughts and -- you know, are in regard to this
-- this application. I think this application looks great. I think the amenities are fine.
Happy to see more open space. It's just, in my opinion, just the wrong location for it.
So, I just want to be up front. I want to be crystal clear. I don't want there to be any
confusion coming from my purview. So, I just thought I would mention those comments
on the record, since we are going to continue, it sounds like, this application.
De Weerd: Thank you. Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: Madam Mayor, if I may ask a question of Mr. Bernt. You mentioned you want a
significant drop in the density from the original plan. What percentage of a drop would
make it a good project?
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Bernt: I -- I would -- it's not my job to -- I believe to state, you know, someone else's
business and -- but I do believe if -- I just don't like high density period in this location.
Whether it's this or, you know, the previous concept plan that was presented before us, I
just don't like high density -- or I just don't think it's a great spot for it. So, I don't know if
it -- if -- I don't know my -- my thought process would change if you lowered it another
hundred units. It's not necessarily the amount of units that are here, it's just that -- I just
-- I just -- it's just the wrong location for high density period in my -- in my estimation and
that's what I said in their -- in their previous presentation as well. So, I feel like I have --
I have been pretty consistent with that.
De Weerd: Thank you. Any follow up?
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: I mean I remember the meeting pretty clearly. I mean it was amazing --
amazing project to me then. Way higher level of -- of open space and of amenities than
we would typically see in an apartment development. We made a lot of really strong
requests and I think one of the major reasons we didn't just -- was on the edge, but
didn't quite get approved that night was because of the -- you know, the little strip of
property in the northeast corner there complicating it. That's been dealt with and in the
meantime also cut it down by 25 percent of the units, almost doubled the open space,
four times the minimum requirement. We talk so much about don't -- don't do just close
to the minimum. Well, we have definitions of minimums because we believe that's what
would constitute a quality project. This is four times the minimum open space. Major
reduction in the number of units per acre. I mean if -- he's complied with everything that
we asked for and it fits in the map, it's what we have said if you're going to bring us
something, don't bring us anything unless this is what it is. So, to me why on earth
wouldn't we approve this? How can we have any kind of standing not to?
Bernt: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bernt.
Bernt: I don't -- I don't disagree with anything you just said, Councilman Palmer. I -- I
think I -- like I said in my previous statement, I think -- I think what they -- what they did
was -- you know, I think they are going in the right direction, I guess, but if you were to
go back in the minutes, even back then I was opposed to this. In fact, I believe it was
Kent Brown, if I'm not mistaken, was the -- was the person who presented this in front of
us. I do remember that. And even back then I said specifically I don't like this project in
this area. So, I feel it's my responsibility to not waste people's time. You know, I -- and
resources. If the -- if the -- if the developer wants to continue to pour money into this --
this proposed development, then, I get -- that's -- they have every right to do so, but I
have every right to express my opinions and that's the reason why I was elected to
express my opinions and to -- to express my point of view and I have just as much right
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to say that as anyone else does, to be honest with you. If they choose to come back
with high density when I said no high density in this area to me, then, that's not on me,
is it?
De Weerd: Any other questions? Would the applicant like to comment? Good evening.
If you will, please, state your name and address for the record.
Robnett: My name is Shannon Robnett. I reside at 5103 Zamora, Meridian, Idaho.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Robnett: Good evening, Madam Mayor, Members of Council. I hope you had a great
summer. While you guys were in here doing stuff, we were down at the county taking
care of the spite strip that we had and that issue that we had with that. Okay. One of
the things that I -- I'm actually a little disappointed that Council Member Milam isn't here.
When we left the last hearing I -- I heard what -- Mr. Bernt you said and what Genesis
said and I left here and I was puzzled, because I did comply. At that point I had 40
percent more common area than I needed. I had more parking. I had more amenities
and I -- I really left here trying to figure out what -- what is it that I'm not -- what I'm not
doing and -- and I don't want to misquote Congress -- or Council Member Milam, but I
believe she said I like your project, just not here. I see that's how he deals with stuff. I
hope he's not the head of your IT Department. Is that working? There we go. Okay.
So, Bill, how do we click on this and get it going? Are you taking over? So, we did go
down to Ada County Development Services and we did deal with the spite strip. That
was a unanimous decision by both Planning and Zoning and Ada county and that was
based on just the fact that we needed to get the zonings consistent. But, as I said, I
drove through the neighborhood and I just kind of was looking around and I saw what
was going on and -- and I was trying to figure out what -- what is it that I don't comply
with? Because your code says in the -- in your comp plan that this area is to be actually
high density and we are not high density, by the way, we are medium density according
your definitions. But it shows that it's supposed to have that and I heard what you said
about four story and I heard what you said about three story and I heard what you said
about schools and kids and everything like that and I was just driving around, I was
trying to figure it out and I think it was later that week that I realized that what is the feel
of this neighborhood? What is it really saying? What is it really doing? And, then, I
went out to Harris Ranch and I saw what they done out there and I went, you know
what, I get it. I can understand what it meant that we didn't fit the neighborhood. We
are four story and we are contemporary. We are not neighborhood friendly. We are not
like our neighbors. And so what I began to look at was the density that they have in
here and the open space that they currently have and you can see in here is a lot of
alley load houses that have little or no yard and I thought, okay, but we want to be good
neighbors. We want to see how this fits. So, we took our previous rendition here that
had parking all around and it really put everything kind of in at the unit, so you could
park at your front door and walk to that, but that's not really what this is. See, if you go
back to architecturally, this is called garden style; right? And when I began working with
my consultants we figured out that garden style was because you planted the -- the
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building in the middle of the garden and so when you look at what we have designed
here, we have designed in front yards that front Venable and Ustick. We have designed
rear load. We have got garages on a lot of these units. We really have gone a long
way to fit with the neighborhood and so when we look at that and we look at the garden
style concept, you're right, we did take this up to four times what your common area
requirements are, but we planted all of the units in the center. We created walking
paths around that created garden feel, that give the open space that is really what we
were trying to go with when we pushed our units to four story, because we wanted to
get the density, but we wanted to give the openness, too. And so when we did that we
were able to come up with 196 unit apartment complex, with nine residential lots behind.
The residential lots are bigger than any of the surrounding residential lots to act as that
buffer between us and the neighbors behind us. Bill ask the comment -- or made the
comment about the -- the buffer and -- and you cannot -- you will not be able to see the
apartment complex if you're standing on the back patio of the people directly to the
south over the tops of the two story houses that will be built right here on this property
right here. You will not be able to see it. It will be physically impossible. So, you will be
able to look through, you will be able to look around, but to physically see the -- so, I
feel like we have done quite a bit to buffer that. Mr. Borton mentioned that the two story
needed to be on Venable and Ustick and we took that to heart. In fact, if you look at
some of the slides here -- let me back up. Going too far here, but bear with me. You
can see some of these houses are designed to look like three story. Some of my
neighbors are designed to look like three story and we have dropped it down to two.
So, with all of that being said, we hear about the schools and we hear about, you know,
the people that came in -- the very first people that spoke that talked about crosswalks
and the importance of child safety and protection and I completely agree with all of that.
I was one of the ones that voted to raise our registration 18 bucks, so we could have
exactly that. But I look at these neighborhoods and I -- I don't know how much the
public really realizes that development fees build schools. Property taxes don't.
Property taxes are maintenance fees. Not one penny of property taxes goes to build a
school. It doesn't go to build new police stations. That all comes from development.
And when we are done with this project will have built the roads, we will have built the
sewer systems, we will have built the water systems and will have given that back to the
city. Then we will have a property tax that will be 800 dollars a door higher than our
neighbors, mostly because we don't have the homeowners exemption but also because
of the price tag of the project and the density that we put it in. So, you can see here
from our elevations we have designed to have a plaza in the center. So, when you look
at that and you come at the street from the side and you look at it, we have designed in
a plaza that's a drivable, walkable plaza with benches and parkways, so that it connects
that whole thing and gives this community a soul in and of itself. So, that you can sit
down and you can enjoy the community right there by the community center, by the
clubhouse, by the indoor-outdoor play areas, by the pool and you can really have a
sense of what this community means and -- and so when I was sitting there driving
through and I saw what they have done in Harris Ranch, where they have taken this
really high density stuff, but they have given it a real neighborhood feel and I really felt
like that's what we have attempted to do in -- in completely hiring a new architecture
firm, going a whole different direction. We have -- we have reduced by 70 -- or by 25
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percent the unit count. We have increased our common space by over double what we
had even last time. Sorry. Forty percent. We have taken the two stories down, another
thing that you have asked for, and so one of the things that we -- that we want to look at
is just at the actual dollars and cents of it all, the fact that we just picked a random
house, I hope nobody in the audience lives here, but a house at Lot 5, Block 9,
Crossfield Subdivision, valued at 277,000 dollars, generates 1,882 a month -- or a year,
sorry, in taxes. We will be at 2,471 dollars a unit in taxes. We will pay more than our
fair share when we come to the neighborhood. So, when we come in and we comply
with the comp plan you have, when we come in and we bring our design and we work
toward getting what is needed in the neighborhood, we have really asked you that you
approve this project, because it's what we have asked for. The other thing that we look
at is the growth in the marketplace; right? We have got -- we are on the cusp of a curve
and I have got -- we did a market study from a national firm and what we found is that
with -- if you take everything that's been approved in -- in Ada county and look at what's
been approved historically and typically, 40 to 50 percent of projects that you get
approved in multi-family through the City of Meridian actually get built and if you take
that number and you apply it to where we need to be for unit counts to handle the
incoming population, if we build 50 percent, our current conversion rate, which has been
consistent for the last seven years, you -- you do that, you will be a hundred units
annually short in this marketplace. Now, let's just say you let us greedy developers go
nuts and we over develop and we do 75 percent of them, that means you will have a
surplus of 200 units annually in the marketplace. Pretty soon banks will shut down
lending on us, we will have vacancies, that will drive pricing down. Now, all a sudden
you will have affordable housing. But when you really look at what that means, it means
can we really get behind that curve to where we don't have good, sensible projects that
meet the demands of the code, that meet the comp plan, that meet the requests of you
guys, that really do take care of this. We talk about roads and infrastructure. We know
that the road from Meridian into Cherry -- or from Meridian -- from Cherry to Ustick will
be built in the next 12 to 18 months. My project won't be online for almost 24 months.
When I look at the project that I have right here at Penwood, I have a waiting list. The
project down at the Prelude, it opened 64 units full. Every single one of them was
committed. They have another phase coming online in December. Those are all
committed as well. We have got units coming online, but I do not believe that they are
fast enough and so when you look at the things that need to happen and you look at
what the community really needs, you look at what developers bring -- and we do -- we
bring growth. We bring growth to help with the community that's necessary to fill the
need -- that housing demand that we have, because we can't really afford to get into a
crisis situation where we are now behind the curve and we don't have enough. We
already have that to an extent I have not seen in my career. We have two percent
vacancy. We have a less than three month supply of residential housing available in
the marketplace. So, I want to close by -- by letting you guys know that the TN-R
standard, it is about multi-family. It also is about townhomes, which you saw. We do
have townhome style with the two car -- with the one and two car garages that front
Venable and front Ustick that have the front porches on them and we -- we have that as
far as an additional to our mixed use, so we don't just have an apartment style building
and, then, the -- the last thing that I want to bring up is that in doing these projects we
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are talking about a 12 -- or an 18 to 24 months cycle between the time we start now and
the time we finish and in that 18 to 24 months there is a lot that goes on and there is a
lot that happens and what I'm seeing in the marketplace, I don't know if you guys know
this, you probably do, but Ada -- Nampa is planning on passing an impact fee. At the
end of the fiscal year they will probably pass that. That will take effect next year. That
will affect the price of housing in Nampa about 5,000 -- 6,000 dollars a door in cost.
That's going to push more people your way. That's going to push more people into
Meridian, because now the -- the spread that everybody went to Nampa to avoid the
housing costs, maybe to get a little cheaper, maybe went a little farther to Caldwell, it's
going to push them back in this direction. Are you guys prepared for that? So, I
understand my neighbors' concerns. I really do. And I think if you really take a minute
and look at this you will see that we have taken those into consideration. We have
listened to what you guys have said. We have tried to design a project that we can be
proud of, that meets the needs of the community, where you said in your comp plan that
this needs to have a designated area of 16 units per acre, we are now under that with
what we are doing. We are actually less dense than the existing apartments next door.
They are 80 units on five acres. We are less than that. We are less than that. That's
16 units an acre. We are at 13 and a half. So, with that I will stand for questions.
De Weerd: Thank you. Council, any questions at this time? Okay. No questions.
Thank you. Mr. Clerk.
Coles: Thank you, Madam Mayor. John Carver would like to address the Council.
Carver: My name is John Carver. 730 West Claire. I would like to have your
permission to have Doug Taylor speak on behalf. We have several folks that are here
this evening, but we thought that one person speaking for us cohesively would -- would
make it a lot easier for you to know what we are all thinking, because we have all
discussed it. Would that meet with your approval?
De Weerd: Certainly if you have a spokesperson. We have ten minutes that we can
provide. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you for being here.
Taylor: Good evening. Thank you.
De Weerd: If you will state your name and address for the record.
Taylor: Doug Taylor. I live at 2727 Northridge Ridgebury Avenue in Meridian, Idaho.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Taylor: Thank you for the opportunity to address you tonight. Try not to take the ten
minutes. First, let me say thank you for your service. I -- I appreciate anyone willing to
sit in your seats, because you're not with your families and you are serving the citizens,
so I do appreciate it. Some of you I know well, as I have worked in this building for the
last five and a half years as Congressman Labrador's Chief of Staff, but I am also a
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licensed real estate agent and I sell apartments and so tonight I wanted to talk to you
about -- a little bit about this development and share some of my concerns and, actually,
propose some questions for you to consider that I think are really important. I work for a
broker right now and we currently have about a hundred million in escrow and active
listings throughout the region, all in multi-family. So, we study the market, it's our
responsibility to understand what's happening in the market in terms of people who want
to buy these properties, those who want to sell those properties, so we have spent quite
a bit of time studying Meridian and the Treasure Valley. So, I did want to share some
things I think are important that need to be considered. I do appreciate the fact that
there is fewer units. I live in the neighborhood. I am a little bit concerned about that
and I share Council Member Bernt's concerns, the density is extremely high, but I think I
should -- I want to share some facts and figures and I'm not sure where the previous
applicant's numbers come from, I'm sure they are good, but I would like to -- you know,
we have our own source of research that we draw upon, but in the next -- in the last 12
months we have had about 150 units that have come online in Meridian. In the next
year that's going to go up to 1,694. And, then, the year after that it's about 1,165. And
when you actually dive into the numbers, four and five star units, which is what this
would be, a Class A type property, the growth for this year to next year is 104 percent.
When you look at a three -- like a Class B or a three star property, their growth in
Meridian is zero. And, then, when you look at affordable housing, one and two star
properties, it's -- we are actually losing housing and so I do think that there is a concern
about the mix and I do believe we are over developing this type of a property and I
actually think that City Council would be wise to spend some time looking more into a
little more aggressively how can we provide some more affordable housing in the area,
because I do work with a lot of individuals as well who really struggle with housing and
it's hard to find them a place and there is a year plus wait -- waiting list to get any kind of
subsidized housing. So, we do have a housing problem in Meridian and to continue to
bring on over 3,700 new units in the next little bit, all the same type of property I think is
-- is a mistake in terms of looking at the market. And I do -- I do disagree with the
applicant's assertion that we are behind the curve. I actually am concerned that we are
overdeveloping this particular type of property. If you go look at Prelude at Paramount, I
think it's -- I want to say it's 400 -- I don't have it off the top of my head -- 400 units. We
have some new properties coming down on Meridian and Ustick. There is 32 there.
There is going to be another about a hundred down on Linder and Ustick, just about a
quarter of a mile down the road. All the same type of properties and they are all within
one mile radius of this proposed project. So, you're looking at 700, 800, up to a
thousand units of the same -- sort of the same segment people paying 1,200 to 1,400
for a two bedroom, a thousand square foot type of a home. So, I do think that is a
concern the City Council should consider when we are looking at the types of properties
we are bringing on. I also think that there -- I have a real concern that -- where we are
in the cycle with the economy, around year ten of a growth. We typically -- about year
seven things sort of adjust and recent estimates from the two previous Federal Reserve
chairs are suggesting we might be in a recession within the next year to 24 months. We
know interest rates are going up. We are going to have another adjustment in
December, three more next year when interest rates go up to try to control inflation.
You end up really driving the value of these types of properties down, because their
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value is derived from the cash flow and so you have to look at how much it's going to
cost in terms of the owner, what their cash flow is and how you determine the property
when you're looking at a construction loan and, then, trying to convert that into a
permanent loan, once the construction is completed you are looking at a significant
increase. I will give you an example of why I'm concerned about this. We are currently
working with an owner in Montana who is working on a large mixed use property and he
called us because his construction costs went up two million dollars more than
projected, because he couldn't find a framing crew, he had to bring them up from
Denver, and with the rising in interest rates he's concerned he was going to run out of
money in the middle of the project. So, he's asked us to help him sell off part of his
properties to help ensure its finances, so that he doesn't get killed when he tries to do --
get some permanent financing on this loan. So, I'm concerned that at this point in the
cycle we may run into projects that are partially built and, then, they run out of funding
or there is some concerns about where interest rates are. So, that is a legitimate
concern I think we do need to consider. Keep in mind I love apartments, because that's
what I want to sell. That's what I'm going to feed my family with. But I'm more
concerned about having a healthy marketplace. I want to sort of close and I don't want
to drag it on too much longer, but I do think if -- if the -- if the city is moving forward with
some of these -- continues to move forward with these projects, if you do have concerns
where you have a project that's left unfinished, I think it -- it sends a message to
constituents that the City Council maybe is more concerned about the priorities of
developers, as opposed to the concerns of constituents and that would include myself. I
don't think there is any doubt that the applicant's done a really good job trying to -- to
consider what you are asking him and he's made a lot of modifications, which I really
appreciate. I think the drawings are beautiful. They are -- they are really, really nice.
So, there is no disagreement there. But I just also agree -- I'm not sure this is the right
place for that, but I would propose a bigger question that I think you should consider --
consider longer term, which is, you know, at this point is it wise to continue trying to
push as many projects into the pipeline that are just fitting what I consider a -- you know,
a -- there is a need there, but I think we are overdeveloping in those four and five star
communities. So, I would just -- I think we should recognize our economy is changing,
recognize the City of Meridian is changing quickly. Nobody knows that more than you,
but I do believe it would be wise to be careful, to be thoughtful, and be fully informed
about these decisions, because of the -- the reasons I stated earlier. So, I appreciate
your time and that's all I have for tonight. So, thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: If I may harass Doug for a second. Doug, my friend.
Ta ylor: Yes .
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Palmer: I have a hard time believing that you think that government, this board of six
people, should be making investment decisions on behalf of people willing to invest
money in our city and, then, instead, asking them to bring government subsidized
housing.
Taylor: I didn't say that. I didn't say that.
Palmer: You said, well, we need more of.
Taylor: Affordable housing. If you look at the -- if you look at the numbers you can't
deny the fact that we have a major problem with affordable housing in Meridian and I'm
not saying government built housing or subsidized housing, we do have a problem
there, and that's -- that's just a fact. I mean you know me, you know where I stand
politically on this stuff. I'm like the applicant, I actually voted for the registration fees,
which is the first time I will ever admit to being okay with a tax increase, but it's needed.
It's needed at this time, so -- and I'm not -- this City Council, that's what you are here to
do is you make decisions on zoning changes. So, you can't say that I'm -- I'm trying to
make an argument that we should have more government telling developers what to do.
That's what you are -- you have to do that. You 're city council. To you that's part of your
duty. So, I'm just saying when you are making those decisions you should consider not
just a specific project and whether or not they are meeting the specific requirements that
you're making, you need to think about the city, the bigger picture of what's happening
and that's -- I mean, you know, I'm not making up the numbers. These are the numbers
I pulled from the research that we use to inform investors that we have throughout the
entire Intermountain West on making decisions when they are buying apartments.
Palmer: Thanks.
Taylor: We can continue later if you want.
Palmer: Okay.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: If I could ask one question on that. If the underlying market data were different
with regards to the supply of this type of product, would you be here testifying in support
of it at this location?
Taylor: Well, in this location I just think it's extremely dense and I just overall have a
problem. Now, of course, I'm a citizen and I'm concerned about that. I live in this
neighborhood. So, I will admit there is a little bit of, you know, not in my backyard kind
of syndrome, but the fact is like kids are crowded with schools, you know, trying to get
on Meridian Road, it's not being widened, but, then, you know, the vacancy rates that
I'm projecting in the next few years are going to be over ten, 11 percent. You know, we
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are averaging five percent, which is where most people like to have it. So, I still think I
would have the same concerns about this specific area. I do believe we do need a lot of
development in Meridian. We are growing quickly. When I moved -- I'm from Idaho
Falls originally, but when I moved here in 2013 I think the population was like 76,000 or
something and it's a real challenge that you have to stay in front of these needs. But we
have space. Trying to cram a project like this into this area I just -- I just do have
concerns and how I -- I think it's a beautiful project and I -- I like it, I'm just not sure this
is the right place for it. But I am concerned about overbuilding in general and I have the
same concerns with Boise and Canyon county as well. I mean the numbers are --
indicate the same concerns with overbuilding in these particular types of properties.
Frankly, you make more money. I mean no one's building affordable housing, because
you're not -- it's not, you know, making a lot of money. You 're not going to build a class
you know, a Class B apartment because there is -- there is more money in these more
higher end, because you can charge more in rents. But you're not going to be able to
charge more in rents if you continue to have a overdeveloped and have some higher
vacancy rates, which, you know, again, I -- I guess we could probably argue with
numbers over the applicant's and mine and we might find some commonalities, but I do
think that's a concern that -- that you should be thinking about, mostly because just
things are changing with the economy. It's not -- you know, two or three years ago
maybe the numbers make more sense, but I think now you -- you know, I think it makes
sense to slow down just a little bit.
De Weerd: Thank you, Doug. Any further questions?
Bernt: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bernt.
Bernt: You know, I -- it's been a concern of mine for a long time as well. I don't think it's
any secret that I'm in the flooring business and so my -- my business is totally
predicated upon growth. You know, if we stop growth I might become a realtor. I have
no idea. But I will say this that the days of considering affordable housing at 160, 180
dollars a square foot is absolutely asinine. It's crazy that we -- that we come and talk
about affordable housing is so expensive and I said this two weeks ago, I mean I
remember my first house had laminate countertops and all of a sudden nowadays
laminate countertops are like -- like -- it's like stay away from the laminate countertops.
I mean like it's unbelievable. And so I -- I -- I totally agree. I mean the discussion in this
Council and in this city should be -- and I'm not talking about government subsidized
housing, I'm -- I'm just talking about less -- more -- more affordable housing, you know,
where people can work and -- truly work and live in Meridian, because as we -- I am -- I
have a bunch of subcontractors that work for me. Very few of them live in Meridian,
because they can't afford it. They can't afford to live here, because to buy a house is
180 bucks a square foot, you know. It's okay to -- it's okay to -- I'm not anti-builder, I'm
not anti-development, my -- again my business is predicated upon this. I just think that
we need to start talking about affordable housing and how it can affect the living of -- of
the citizens of Meridian and get serious about it, because I think it truly is a big problem.
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Taylor: Yeah. And if I may, I think what you will find -- I worked -- I used to work in the
Senate and we had an issue in Sun Valley -- and I know it's a different world, but they --
they -- they had such a problem with affordable housing that they had no other option
but to have fully subsidized government housing that you're concerned about. We don't
have to have fully government subsidized affordable housing right now, because if we
are strategic and smart there is ways we can go about it. However, if you don't address
it, then, you really are left with very few options and the pressure to like use taxpayer
money to build affordable housing will be tremendous and that's what everyone wants to
avoid.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Taylor: Thank you.
De Weerd: I'm starting to feel like I need to apologize because I have Formica in my
house, so -- true confessions. I have Formica. Okay. Mr. Clerk.
Coles: Thank you, Madam Mayor. David Ledford is next.
De Weerd: I think I'm going to be asking people their name, address, and if you have
Formica or not. You don't have to answer that. If you would just state your name and
address for the record.
Ledford: My name is David Ledford. I live at 670 West Claire Drive here in Meridian,
Oregon. Just to kind of look to -- Idaho. I'm sorry.
De Weerd: That's all right. It's 9:30. It's getting late.
Ledford: You will understand here in a moment.
De Weerd: Okay.
Ledford: I just moved here from Oregon. I have spent the last 11 years up in Alaska.
Several years ago my wife and I decided we needed to start looking for a place to retire.
In 2011 we decided on Meridian, Idaho. It was purely by accident. We came up here
and loved the place. I mean it was -- it was where we wanted to be. When I got this
information -- this is the previous concept and I don't see the change that I would like to
see on the new concept. I would like to bring something to your attention. Everybody
talks about --
De Weerd: Sir, can you talk closer -- yes. Thank you.
Ledford: Move over here. Everybody has talked about different things. I want to add
just -- just a couple of things. First of all, accessibility to this property and where is that
traffic going to go? We are down to 192 houses. I'm looking at probably 200 to 250
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cars going to work every day and coming home every day. If you look at the way this is
set up, you have got one road going in and out of this thing. It all dumps on to Ustick.
Okay. It's one lane going out or coming in that 250 cars are going to have to get in and
out of there fairly quickly. Look where they are going to go. They are going to go into
the existing subdivisions. They are going to go into my subdivision. They are going to
go into the subdivisions off to the west. Those cars are going to impede on my livability.
They are going to impede on the people that are here, their livability. Some of those
kids that are going to school every day are going to have to be watching out for cars
because of the high density. Okay. That's a concern to me. That's -- that's our livability
and we have a right to talk to you about it and that's what I'm doing. So, that is a big
issue to consider. Please consider that. Okay. The next thing is -- is roots. I came
here to set down roots. This is my retirement. This is where my grandkids are going to
come. First time in 11 years I'm going to see my grandkids at Christmastime. That's
important to me. I want those kids to be able to go out and play without dodging cars.
The roads that are in my subdivision were not meant for that kind of traffic. There is no -
- there is no crosswalks. There is nobody there watching this -- this traffic. When these
people decide they are going to go to work and they have to deal with the rush hour,
then, what we have got is we have got frustrated people coming through the
subdivisions and we have got kids going to school at the same time. I got one second.
Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Coles: Patricia Bainer is next. Very good. Catherine Garcia.
De Weerd: Good evening.
Garcia: Good evening. Catherine Garcia. I live at 2970 Northwest 8th Avenue,
Meridian, Idaho. I'm the little corner house there between 8th and Venable, right on
Stanhope. Right there. So, I will be literally backing up to this. I appreciate Mr. Robnett
that he has taken into account everybody's situation, everybody's input. Given
everything that's going in -- between what's going in on Meridian and Ustick, between
what is being proposed -- actually 160 units is being proposed on the corner of Ustick
and Linder and now this, so that's easily 500 units within a one mile stretch. When I go
to take my boys to school in the morning there is easily five or six bus stops that come
through, because of all of the different schools that the children have. They can't go to
their home school, so we have got houses that their kids go to multiple elementary
schools even and that's not even including all the various charter schools that there are
here that get picked up and they get picked up in the dark and they get picked up on the
corner of Blairmore and Ustick right there and they all get picked up there in the dark
and so this is going to add traffic to that. That's not taking into account the bus stops
that there are on Meridian and what that impact is going to be with that when it becomes
a four lane road with -- I have literally watched on the way home from picking up my
boys the bus stops, the stop goes out, kids are in the middle of the street, the kid
realizes he forgot his backpack and doesn't pay attention to see if there is any other
cars coming and books it back across. Thankfully nobody was -- thankfully everybody
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was paying attention, so the little kindergartener wasn't on, you know, the 6:00 o'clock
news. But that's happened. People don't pay attention. That's happened recently that
kids have been hit getting onto buses. This is going to -- when the development goes
through with the houses that will dump the roads down into there. People will filter
through there to get over to Meridian, because we want to take the shortest route
possible; right? We don't look for the longest route, we look for the quickest route
possible. We have got ways installed on our apps on our phones and where is the
traffic and where is the blocks and we are how can we get through. This will filter
through. On my little section, my little road, now that everybody is moved in, on any
given afternoon it's fantastic. There is easily 15 to 20 kids playing out in the street,
riding scooters, riding their bikes, playing football -- it's fantastic. I don't want to have to
tell my boys, hey, you can't go play, because some idiot from the apartments isn't
paying attention. This is too dense. This is too much going in. You 're approving
apartments already. Things are already coming online. This doesn't take anything into
account of what's going in off Franklin, what's going in off of Overland, what's already
going in off of McMillan. All of that. So, thank you for your time.
Coles: Jennifer Kettle is next.
De Weerd: Good evening.
Kettle: Good evening. My name is Jennifer Kettle. I live at 377 West Sedgewick.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Kettle: And -- thank you. I'm afraid I might jump in with the time that was allotted
elsewhere, but I just wanted to share in terms of traffic. I work in healthcare. I have a
30 minute response time to get to the hospital. When this happens you only get so
much traffic. I'm concerned about the -- the density of the traffic, but also if you have
ever read about the -- the stories or the -- the studies that they have done on the rats,
these people are getting more and more upset and there is so much road rage, even on
Meridian Road during the -- the biggest parts of the traffic. It's just really concerning. I
just really feel like Meridian is becoming so dense in this area that it just isn't the same
neighborhood anymore. You know, people aren't -- people aren't treating one another
with respect like their work and I feel like the density is really entering into that problem,
so --
De Weerd: Thank you.
Coles: Bonnie Kettle.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Coles: Tammy Emerich.
De Weerd: Thank you for sticking with us.
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Emerich: Good evening.
De Weerd: Good evening.
Emerich: Madam Mayor and Council Members, my name is Tammy Emerich. I live at
692 West Sedgewick Drive. My backyard backs up to the beautiful field that is going to
be replaced -- or the request is to be replaced by this unit. The lady earlier stated that
she had to see 30 units and I look at the density that I'm going to have to see out of my
backyard and it doesn't quite compare to 30. I would be happy with 30 units. I drive
into Boise every day to work. I come home on Meridian Road after work and
sometimes it takes -- from the time I hit city -- City Hall to getting to my subdivision
easily 20 to 30 minutes on a busy day and that's very concerning as we keep adding
more growth. Councilman Bernt mentioned smart growth and I think we really have to
consider smart growth. Do we have the road infrastructure to support the big apartment
complex going in. The Prelude at Paramount, that's over 400 units, and you can
imagine how many cars are going to be -- are hitting Meridian Road. They are not
widening -- widening Meridian Road all the way to Chinden and so that's a big concern,
even if they widen from Cherry Lane to Ustick. We have six-plexes and there are four to
six-plexes going in there on the corner of Meridian and Sedgewick and I think -- I'm an
educator, I have been in education for 30 years, and I think about the kids and the
infrastructure and I -- I don't teach in Meridian or West Ada School District. I did in the
past. That's why I said Meridian School District. But I always feel very badly when I
think of West Ada and the number of students that they have in classrooms and how
those students aren't getting the education that they need, because we keep building
and building and building and we can't keep up with that and so I would ask that you
really consider that density. I would ask that you really look at do we have the roads
and the infrastructure to support this type of building that's going on in -- in this area.
Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Coles: And, then, Mike Emerich.
M.Emerich: Good evening.
De Weerd: Good evening.
M.Emerich: Mike Emerich. 692 West Sedgewick. Married to Tammy. Yeah. Well, I
think a lot of the concerns that have been brought forth are concerns of mine. I do
worry about ingress and egress here. I just do not see an easy flow in and out of -- of
this proposed development. I think we are going to see a lot of this traffic being pushed
into Vallin Courts and, then, on out into Meridian Road, which, if anybody drives that you
know that it doesn't have the capacity. The other thing about the Vallin Courts
Subdivision is it's -- it's very much a serpentine now and I just see a lot of people
snaking through that and really having no other option. I know that we talk about roads
getting widened and, you know, all of these great things that are going to happen to
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accommodate the traffic, but the truth is there, you know, really isn't money for that and
so we don't really know when those timelines are. When I drive around this area now I
see a lot of apartments. I see a lot of apartments that have been under construction for
years and I began to think that why are we -- why are we doing all of this here? There
is going to be so many people out that way and we just don't have the infrastructure for
it. Why do we need all that high density, you know, building there? It just doesn't make
sense. The other thing that I do have -- and maybe it is for the applicant, because I see
these -- these are -- these are supposed to be single family residents here in the yellow
area? Okay. Now, is that -- this area here? So, that's the same area? That's -- that's
part of your -- your development stuff.
De Weerd: Sir, if you can direct your questions through me.
M.Emerich: Oh. Okay. So, the question I had were these the single family homes that
were to be in the Summerville --
De Weerd: Yes.
M.Emerich: Okay. It just looked a little different than -- than that. So, that's -- that's my
concern. I think it's the traffic. I think it's getting overbuilt. It's too dense. And I do
compliment the developer, because I do think this -- this is a better rendering. I still
think it's too dense.
De Weerd: Thank you.
M.Emerich: Thank you.
Coles: Igor Osipchuk.
De Weerd: Good evening.
Osipchuk: Good evening. Igor Osipchuk. 2878 North Ridgehaven Way, Meridian,
Idaho. 83646. I wasn't going to come up and say anything, but I'm still concerned -- I
like it, the redesign, but I think the redesign is better where it used to be. I'm still against
the apartment complex. It's -- it's right directly from my house where I live. Not
something you want to see. I agree with everybody who said anything about the traffic.
I see it all the time, even though it's my subdivision or not, because it's a dead end
subdivision, but every time they clog the road on Ustick or anything, everybody's trying
to go through that subdivision trying to cut across to get back onto Ustick and as soon
as they open this I am pretty sure everybody is going to cut the traffic and try to make it
to -- to the other end. That happens all the time. I live on a dead end street. Every
time people turn around on my street -- on my driveway, so -- and I'm pretty sure that's
going to get even the worst once it opens. So, I mean everybody is going to go through
there. I don't like three story apartments in there. I don't think it fits. Two story fits a
whole lot better. So, if this project to be continued I think two story would definitely
complimentary a whole lot better than three story and I do agree with staff that even
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though they continue with a three story, there should be more transition to those two --
three -- couple buildings that come out to the other houses that plan to build. I think
they should be reduced to two stories to transition a little bit better. That's all I have.
Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Coles: That's all that indicated they wanted to provide testimony.
De Weerd: You can give it to our city clerk. Sir, I'm sorry, you can't give walking
testimony. If you will, please, state your -- state your name and address.
Carver: I'm sorry. John Carver. 730 West Claire. What was originally presented to you
-- the original showed Ustick before it was even finished in its construction. What was
going on on the side on Venable was not shown and I don't think it shows anywhere the
real connection of where you have to go when you leave that area. If you want to get
out onto Meridian Road the only way you can do it is to go through my subdivision and
there is no speed bumps, there is no -- there is a couple of stop signs. There is nothing
that's going to stop people from zooming around and going up Indian Rocks. There is
nothing going to stop folks and I know that if I lived in those apartments that's exactly
what I would do trying to get out of -- get out of what there is there. They -- get out of
that neighborhood. So, if -- if you can just consider that or at least these folks can come
up with some way to stop that traffic from coming through our area. Speed bumps
perhaps. Something at their cost that they could do to mitigate that additional traffic that
will be coming down. Just an awful lot of kids. Awful lot of kids.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Carver: Thank you.
De Weerd: Okay. Is there any further testimony?
R.Garcia: Good evening. My name is Richard Garcia. I live at 2970 Northwest 8th
Street, Meridian, Idaho.
De Weerd: Good evening. Thank you for joining us.
R.Garcia: Thank you. If we could go back to the photo that has the -- the proposal --
that has the two plans. Thank you. I have a big concern on the south -- southern two
exits there. The exit that exits to the west -- at the southwest there to Venable. There is
already a street there, but this street is not aligning with that street and the street that is
exiting the proposed apartments is exiting right into people's backyards and I have seen
too many times here in the short time that we have lived here that people during these
winters that we get slide off the roads and I'm concerned that they are going to slide
right into those backyards and I know that those houses that are there have children.
Why can't we have a proposal that goes with the existing roads that are there? That's I
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guess my question and the concern that I would hope you guys understand where I'm
coming from.
De Weerd: Thank you.
R.Garcia: Thank you.
De Weerd: Can you put that -- that photo up again?
Bailey: Madam Mayor, may I speak?
De Weerd: Yes . Okay. Good evening.
Bailey: I'm Eva Bailey at 706 West Indian Rocks, Meridian, Idaho. And I have lived in
Meridian for a long time. My brothers fought boxers at the old Meridian High School, so
I'm used to it. But high density in a very small area, we can't stand anymore in our
neighborhood. We can never hardly get out. Meridian Road you might as well plan
high time, because you will not get out. It's dangerous. People are darting out. And as
a retired nurse I think with -- you can see by this map it's very high density. If there is
emergencies -- police emergencies, anything like that, it's going to be almost impossible
to get into these areas. We have to stop the density. We need to develop, because this
is a beautiful place for people to come, but not stuck together like we would be in the
inner cities in New York or San Francisco and I -- I really hope and pray you will
consider this. Developers need to build, but not on a little lot like that to put so many
families. I think it would be a very wrong thing to do for Meridian. Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you. Is there any further testimony? Well, you have all changed
your mind about giving your -- your time up, didn't you? I guess that is your prerogative.
Sobolewski: Hi. My name is Charlie Sobolewski. I live at 2651 North Ridgebury
Avenue and there has been a lot of great testimony here tonight. I think the applicant's
got a good plan. I agree with Councilman Bernt, a square peg, round hole. You look at
this map right here, we kind of cracked open the bottle a little bit to the west, some high
density went in and now the dam has broken and we are looking at more and greater
and it's just flooding. So, I just wanted to reinforce everything we talked about here
tonight, saying -- let's be thinking about what we are doing. Look at what's there.
Everybody's bought into what's there. They like what's there. They would like to see
more of that grow there, not this square peg in a round hole. Thanks, guys.
De Weerd: Thank you. Any further testimony? Well, at this time I will ask the applicant
to come up and respond to some of the testimony and -- and give wrap-up remarks.
Robnett: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council --
De Weerd: If you can restate your name for the record.
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Robnett: My name is Shannon Robnett. I live at 5103 Zamora, Meridian, Idaho.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Robnett: I brought a copy of this for each one of you. This is part of the market study
we had done by a national firm that highlights the area. So, I have got a copy for each
of you and while I don't disagree with a lot of what Doug said, I think it's very important
to understand that what Doug's talking about his proposed projects, not actually
permitted projects. We are very well aware -- and if you turn to the -- let's see. It's the
first, second, third, fourth -- fifth page, you will see that there is a graph there -- right
here in this corner -- that shows that there is 1,235 units being proposed roughly every
year for the potential future pipeline. But, then, you have to apply that 50 percent
margin. So, then, you wind up with about 700, 750 that get built every year. We also
show that that's roughly the demand that's being absorbed. So, I get that. But I also
understand that capitalism does work and supply and demand would definitely take care
of affordable housing. So, you can downgrade a five star to a three star by changing
the interior finishes, doing some other things to get it done, but you can never upgrade a
three star. I would have never thought that you could come in here and propose
affordable housing in this area. It would have never flown with the neighbors. So, while
I understand that and I get that, I just don't think it's possible. So, downgrading would
be a possibility should the market change on us. I think we could do that. But we also
might be part of that 50 percent. We might get approval tonight, we might not develop
here for years. The other project I'm working on right after this one is 225 units in the
area that's been developed and proposed and ready for a set of building permit plans to
be submitted to the city with no development agreement -- or with a development
agreement, but no plans have been drawn since 2012. Still not built on. Ready to go.
We did provide in our last go around back -- gosh, first part of the year -- an e-mail from
the superintendent of schools that said that they did have capacity for the schools in the
immediate area to house -- to take care of the children. We do have that in the records
if you would like to look at that. We also did a traffic study that showed that we are at
less than 50 percent capacity on Ustick Road after ours. We also in that traffic study
showed that less than one third of ours would choose to go through -- not that nobody
would choose to go through the neighborhood behind us, but we would have more of
their traffic come forward onto Venable than we would produce traffic into their
neighborhood. So, that traffic study was done by a professional, not a buddy of mine,
and that was submitted to staff and that was part of the -- of the record and it does show
that we are under capacity on those roads by a long shot, even the Indian Rocks Road,
the piece being mentioned, and that subdivision back there. If you guys will remember,
those of you that were here in 2007, school coffers were full. When we were building
Mountain View school it wasn't the struggle that it is now to get schools built and that's
part of the development cycle. As things happen, permit fees are generated, monies
come forward and things begin to happen and that's part of what that cycle is and,
unfortunately, we are at the bottom -- we are at the upswing of that cycle again, so
those things have to be happening and it's unfortunate, but my kids are affected by that,
too, because they go to Rocky and they go to Heritage and I'm -- I'm in the area. So, I
understand this as -- as well as anybody here does. Also -- can we go back to the
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elevation -- or the -- the picture that the nice gentleman brought of the surrounding
area? I keep doing that to you, C.Jay, about the time you think you are done. So, let's
see. If we orient ourselves here. So, if you look here where they had talked about our
road not lining up and being offset to 8th Street, the real reality is if you look to the east
there are two other roads -- three other roads that we have to line up with in the future
and we can't do that if we go straight on with 8th Street. We cannot -- we don't provide
a logical intersection at the property directly to the east and, then, it creates a very
small, almost unusable lot on the property furthest to the east that, then, abuts the
development again. So, our proposal with staff was worked through with ACHD and
they felt that to meet the Meridian code about the road offsets, this would be the best
way to do it moving forward. So, those are all great points and I really appreciate what
the neighbors had to say. We did try and address those and these are how -- that we --
we have come up with this and literally been working on this from the very beginning
and -- and have done -- I think we have done a great job and so with that I will conclude.
Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you. Council, any questions?
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: I don't -- I don't see the -- the school district letter.
Robnett: It was in the -- our previous slide presentation that we did last time. It was
that pdf presentation that we gave you, Bill. Was that part of the public record? Can
you pull that up?
Coles: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. So, it would be part of the public
record in the minute book for that particular meeting. Not necessarily if he --
De Weerd: Yeah . I was looking for it, too.
Coles: I think he presented it during his presentation it's part of the minute book.
Borton: So, Madam Mayor, I guess we know where -- where it is, but it's not in the
packet itself. It's in the minutes. Same thing with the TIS, it's not in the packet. I don't -
-
Robnett: The CIS?
Borton: The traffic impact.
Robnett: Okay. Yes.
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Borton: So, ACHD in December of '17 indicated one would be required at a future point.
It sounds like you have done one now, but --
Robnett: That's correct. And that --
Borton: I don't see the study in there.
Robnett: It was turned into staff.
Parsons: Madam Mayor, Members of Council, I don't see the traffic study on Laserfiche
either as part of the record. I just saw ACHD's comments that they would require one.
Robnett: And we -- we are required to do that and we are required to turn it in with our
application.
Borton: So, a little disconnect, but we probably could figure that out, if you had
submitted it, but we can't find it.
Robnett: Well, in Bill's defense we submitted it to Josh.
Borton: The city though. All right.
De Weerd: Did you submit it when you turned in this updated plan?
Robnett: We submitted it with our original application.
De Weerd: Oh. Okay.
Borton: Impact study?
Robnett: We are required to.
Parsons: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, if my memory serves me correctly,
this started back in November or December, this project, of 2017. Typically ACHD will
not require a traffic study with an annexation request. That usually happens with a
subdivision or something that generates trips. I don't -- I'm not saying Josh may not
have received that are not, I'm just saying I have never seen a traffic study for this. I
know when we met with the applicant back sometime in December they were in the
process of doing that. I know they had a consultant they were doing that work, because
ACHD wanted to see some of that analysis. But, again, with an annexation they don't
really have a lot of authority at that point. They are mostly -- their authority is with plat
and subdivisions. So, a lot of times if we don't capture their requirements in a
development agreement, you know, we don't get comments until the property is
subdivided and they hit those thresholds. Again, in this particular case I would imagine -
- I don't -- I don't know what the thresholds are going to be as part of this development.
Again, we lean towards ACHD for that. I don't even see an updated staff report, which
is strange to me, because I remember working with ACHD on the alignment of
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Stanhope and 8th Street and we all agreed that it would be offset and it was a safer
situation and if my memory serves me correctly, Kent Brown even testified to that was
before you as well. Those were things that were -- ACHD had changed their original
recommendation. So, let us -- let us get to the bottom of this and try to get the right
information for you. But right now none of that information, from what I can see -- I'm
looking at the public record, I don't see it either. Bill, if you will remember, I believe
when we originally submitted this we submitted this as a -- as a subdivision, because
we had to have a will serve letter and we had to draw up the subdivision lots, that's what
brought that along on the back and at that point ACHD did require us to do that traffic
study.
Parsons: Yeah. I will pull up the application and see what you submitted, because I'm
seeing 25 pages and usually a traffic study is more than 25 pages.
Robnett: Yes , it is. It's still about 35 bucks a page. Any other questions?
Borton: Madam Mayor? I guess while he's looking for that, what -- what kind of
sparked all of that, I wanted to make sure we are -- we are seeing everything, but the 20
-- the December 2017 ACHD staff report that's here, is that the only one -- is there only
one?
Robnett: There is only one that's been done. Yeah.
Borton: Okay.
Robnett: From there we have reduced the number of units and reduced the impact on
the area, so --
Borton: So, Madam Mayor, there is a comment on this last page of that staff report that
makes reference to a significant change in the land use design may necessitate a
review by ACHD. Did you visit with them once redesigned? You have made drastic
changes.
Robnett: Well, I think that -- I don't think ACHD would be too upset at us if we dropped
our density by 25 percent, but we would definitely do that. Our direction when we left
here last was to go solve our problem with Ada county, come back here, see if we were
going to gain approval. If so, there is no problem with that being a condition of the
approval. But I -- I would find it very, very, very surprising that that much has changed,
that dropping it by almost a hundred units would impact ACHD's recommendation. I
would struggle that they would be that short-sighted that 12 months would change that,
especially with a reduction and they had already seen the traffic study.
Borton: Fewer trips for sure.
Robnett: Say again?
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Borton: Fewer trips.
Robnett: Yes . Exactly.
Borton: Okay.
De Weerd: And this does say that River Valley is not at capacity, but River Valley is two
miles from this location.
Robnett: That's the school that we were told serves this area.
De Weerd: You stumped me on that one.
Robnett: That's why I asked this -- the person that we asked at -- we asked Joe over
there, because he knows about that. I didn't know about that. So, we just asked him
how -- how -- how the school was doing.
De Weerd: Is -- is it because the schools closer by are at capacity and so this is the
next option?
Robnett: Either that or I don't know how the district was ever laid out that maybe this
area was never designated to go to those schools. I know that my daughter lived right
across the street from a school and was going to a different school that was -- she was
never -- we would have never been in that district across McMillan for her to ever have
gone to that school. It just was never designed that way, so --
De Weerd: Okay. Any other questions for Shannon? Bill, did you have something
that --
Parsons: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, yes, I wanted to provide clarification.
So, the applicant applied for annexation only and per our checklist there is no
requirement for confirmation from ACHD that a traffic study is required, so we do not
have that as part of the application submittal.
Robnett: Okay. Thanks, Bill.
De Weerd: But you did submit a traffic study --
Robnett: Yes, we did.
De Weerd: -- and so we will want to find that. Council, any -- any further questions?
Thank you.
Robnett: Thank you.
De Weerd: Okay. At this point, Council, if there is no further testimony and I see that --
if you want to have discussion, if you have further questions for -- for staff. I know they
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have not had time to do a full evaluation with this updated plan, so we are looking for
your direction on this.
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts.
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor, I really don't like the thought of continuing another one,
but, yet, it seems like we don't have all the information that we need. So, I feel like we
need an updated staff report, as well as a traffic impact study of one -- if we have one.
So, anybody else weigh in with that, if we should think about waiting until we have full
information?
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: I agree with you. Sometimes that might be necessary to make sure we have
got an ability to make the right decisions, so --
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: If the traffic study was the concern, wouldn't we be safe approving it with a
condition that ACHD also be cool with it?
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: Perhaps. I know compliance with all conditions from ACHD is one of the
conditions that he would be agreeing to as part of this application, but I think it was
some of the opening comments from staff that said if -- if this were to proceed to be
considered for approval staff needs additional time to vet the changes. Just doing it's
due diligence. If there is any -- if there were any concerns it would be probably helpful
to the applicant, too, to be made aware of them before we made decisions. So, the time
affords them the ability to do that. It seems to be prudent.
Bernt: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bernt.
Bernt: One of the options we spoke of is a possibility of sending it back to P&Z. The
changes were significant enough to have them look at it one more time. Just -- not
saying I would support that, just an option to talk about.
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De Weerd: You have all kinds of options.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: I'm going to -- I'm going to make a motion to continue this. I'm doing it because
I'm not of the mindset that -- let me -- let me start over. I don't think there -- this is an
insurmountable problem. I think my -- some of the concerns that I expressed last time --
I think the applicants addressed the lion's share of them. We are looking at this still with
the landscape of -- of, you know, a mixed use community designation on our comp plan
that has contemplated this type of density at this location. The future land use map is
consistent with that, too. So, the requested zoning designation is consistent with what
was planned for and what's been incorporated into the school district's planning, the
highway district's planning is all been made well aware of how dense this would -- would
be. So, the -- the changes that have been made are well received at least by me. I
think the applicant's gone a long way to try and scale this back, both in its design and in
its density to meet in the middle and still be compliant with what we had expressed to
the applicant to be the intent for this location. So, I think additional time with staff can
help avoid any snags, should we be missing something, but I'm generally favorable and
hopeful that this might be able to proceed after staff gives it a second look. I'm open to
any other comment. Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: If there is no other comment, I would move that we continue H-2018 -- excuse
me. 2017-0142 to November 20th.
Bernt: Second.
Parsons: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, if -- if I could. If you would allow time
-- adequate time to analyze the changes I would propose at least at a minimum
December 4th.
Borton: Let me restate that, Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: Okay.
Borton: I misspoke. I meant to say December 4th.
Bernt: Second.
Borton: And just a quick comment.
De Weerd: Okay.
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Borton: As part of that. The comment from -- the comments that we have received from
the public, both here at this meeting and the prior meetings and in writing as well, I think
have certainly been considered and reviewed and -- and the review of the revised
application, take those to heart as well to make sure that to the extent those can be
addressed that they are.
De Weerd: And so some of those documents you're looking for is maybe an official
letter from the school district and I thought they had one at one time, but if not -- they
usually weigh in on these.
Coles: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, sometimes they do, sometimes they
don't. I think what the applicant was referring to, though, in that letter was what we were
able to pull up onto the screen during your discussion.
De Weerd: If we can request that and if the school district can perhaps comment on
why Discovery -- or River Valley is the home school for a development on the west side
of Meridian Road would be interesting. The traffic impact study -- and that -- certainly
the impact study was for a higher density, as I understand. Staff comments on
conditions of development updated to this current plan. Anything further, Mr. Borton?
Borton: No. Unless there is something else from Council to add to it.
De Weerd: Okay. Okay. So, the motion is to continue this application to December 4th.
All those in favor say aye. Okay. All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. TWO ABSENT.
I. Public Hearing for Burlingame Subdivision (H-2018-0079) by
Yuriy Mukha, Located at NW Corner of West Cherry Ln. and N
Black Cat Rd.
1. Request: Rezone of property from R -4 (18.994 acres) to R -
8; and
2. Request: Preliminary Plat consisting of 74 single-family
residential building lots and 14 common lots on 18.994 acres
of land in a proposed R-8 zoning district; and
3. Request: Modify an existing Development Agreement to
allow for additional residential and common lots, to allow for R -8
zoning and to change certain other provisions of the
agreement
De Weerd: Thank you for hanging in there with us. We appreciate that. Okay. Item H
was remanded back. We already took action on that, so Item 8-I is a public hearing for
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H-2018-0079. I will open this public hearing with staff comments.
Parsons: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. Next item on the agenda
is the Burlingame Subdivision. The site consists of 18.99 acres of land currently zone
R-4 in the city limits and it's located near the northwest corner with Cherry Lane and
North Black Cat Road. In 2017 the City Council approved a previous preliminary plat
and development agreement modification to allow the applicant to develop 60 single
family lots consistent with the previous approvals. The current Comprehensive Plan
designation for this particular property is low density residential, which is three or less
dwelling units to the acre. The applicant is here this evening to discuss a rezone, a
preliminary plat and, again, another development agreement modification to develop the
property with 74 residential lots in a proposed R-8 zoning district. Because the
applicant has increased the number of lots over the previous plan, the applicant is
requesting a step up in density from City Council this evening. There is an existing
home that is part of the development agreement. I believe Council probably remembers
that discussion. It's located here in the southwest -- or, excuse me, the southeast
corner of the development along Cherry -- Cherry Lane. Again, the conditions that were
placed in that development agreement will run -- run with this land and still remain in
place for this particular property. It's just not a lot and block within the subdivision. So,
the preliminary plat on the left-hand side is what you approved last year, which had the
60 lots and the new preliminary plat is the 74 lots right on the right-hand side. So -- so,
just for your information, density is increased approximately from 3.1 dwelling units to
the acre to 3.9. So, not a large increase in density, but there is an increase. The
applicant is proposing to extend a stub street from the north from the Turnberry
Crossing Subdivision, like the previous plan, more roadway with this particular plan.
One access is proposed at the south boundary to Cherry Lane and there is a stub street
to the west and east boundary in accordance with ACHD's policies and our
Comprehensive Plan. The -- the positive aspect of this particular project over the
previous one is your -- the applicant's actually proposing more open space than the
previous plan, along with more amenities. So, along with that request for a step up, the
applicant does have interconnected pathways, a tot lot, a pond and a segment of the
multi-use pathway as part of the master pathways plan. The applicant is also
requesting a waiver from Council to tile two of the laterals that are running along the
north boundary. So, we have Settlers Canal and, then, the Stafford Lateral along the
north boundary here. Those are large facilities and they are asking for your waiver this
evening. The applicant did provide some conceptual building elevations for you to take
under consideration. These are, again, required as part of the development agreement
for them to comply with. Complimentary building materials to what's actually in the
surrounding developments. We have a mix of wood siding, corbels, covered porches,
two and three car garages. Staff is amenable with the proposed subdivision and the
elevations before you this evening. Planning and Zoning Commission did recommend
approval at their hearing. Speaking in favor we had Becky McKay. In opposition we
had Kerry Donahue and, then, commenting on the applicant was William McHugh and
Kerry Donahue and, then, Jeanette O'Brien provided written testimony on the
application and Josh Beach presented the application at P&Z hearing. So, key items of
discussion was -- with the subject application was the depth of the sewer to the property
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to the east of this development, located I believe as 521 -- 5120 West Cherry Lane and,
then, there was concerns about increased traffic through the Turnberry Crossing
Subdivision to the north. Key issues of discussion by the Commission. The
improvement in the design in open space over the previous plan. They like this -- the
new plan better from the previous and they were also open to more open space and
better amenities. Key changes from the Commission. There weren't any. And, then,
again, the two outstanding issues for you this evening as whether or not you support the
step up in density. The slight increase in density and, then, also the waiver of the
irrigation facilities. I will conclude my presentation and stand for any questions you may
have.
Borton: Thank you, Bill. Council, any questions? Bill, can you show on the plat real
quick where those irrigation facilities are?
Parsons: The canals run along the north boundary of this subdivision in between
Turnberry Crossing along their -- north -- or south at Turnberry Crossing and, then, north
of this proposed subdivision. So, it's this large area here between the two
developments.
Borton: And it's a -- it's a waiver of two different facilities?
Parsons: Correct.
Borton: Okay.
Parsons: That is correct.
Borton: Okay. Council, any questions from that? Would the applicant like to come
forward and welcome.
McKay: You just can't get rid of me and I sorry about that.
Borton: Ongoing.
McKay: Becky McKay. Engineering Solutions. 1029 North Rosario. I'm representing
the applicant Yuriy Mukha on this particular application. There we go. As Bill indicated,
this property is 18.99 acres. It's a consolidation of multiple parcels. There are two
existing homes on the property. It's located just north of Cherry Lane and west of Black
Cat Road. The property initially was annexed and zoned into the City of Meridian clear
back in 2006 and a development was approved and construction plans were drawn on
the property and it was called Incline Village. That preliminary plat approval expired.
The project was never built and, then, Yuri y purchased the property and brought it
through and had approximately 60 lots on the parcel and request -- and the existing
zoning of R-4. After his -- this kind of gives you an aerial of the -- of the property, so
you can see the existing homes. There is an existing home here, an existing home
located here and, then, this is the out parcel that they did a record of survey that was
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initially split off right here and so the parcel runs up here. This is the Safford Lateral on
the north side under Nampa-Meridian Irrigation District. On the south side is the
Settlers southern canal and, then, it's piped right through here. We have an existing
stub street to Turnberry Subdivision located at this location. This is the project that was
approved. I did read through the minutes. The staff report. There was a considerable
amount of discussion on the fact that the primary open space was clear down here on
Fairview -- or Cherry Lane and the fact that the project just was kind of disjointed, not
really neighborhood friendly. There was inadequate area allocated for the two
waterways and so there was some issues that they ended up working through. They
did get approved. After obtaining approval, then, Yuri y went in and -- and met with
multiple real estate agents and developers, builders and they basically critiqued the
project and -- and he didn't get that warm of a welcome. So, he had seen me at the
hearing at Sky Mesa and so he came -- ended up on my doorstep and said, you know,
could you take a look at this. He said, you know, I just -- I just think that something
better can be done on this property and, you know, a lot of people have -- have
critiqued it and they have said they don't like this or they don't like that. So, I kind of
took a look at it and my recommendation was, one, they -- they basically scrape the
home that they were trying to work around at this location and that this was the nicer
home that was located on the property and -- and that could be retained, but if they got
rid of the second one, then, that would, obviously, open up the project to a lot better
layout. So, what we did is we evaluated it and -- and looked at the market conditions
and as we were evaluating it prices were escalating rapidly in the City of Meridian and
so, you know, the big -- the big question that -- that we all look at is affordability, you
know, where are these prices going, where are they going to stop and so in looking at
the project, you know, I -- I told Yuri y, you know, it's kind of an in-fill parcel and based on
the shape and -- and the -- what we can do with our amenities if we reduce the lot
sizes and went for an R-8 designation, which would slightly increase the density from 60
dwelling units to 74, so there is an increase of 14 dwelling units, then, that would give us
a little better flexibility in creating pathways. So, they had an open space back here, but
there was controversy about their pond. There was intermittent water delivery to this
property from Settlers and so I told Yuriy, you know, we have got to pipe water to the
north across to Cherry Lane to the adjoining property. My recommendation would be to
put your irrigation pond located here at the entrance. So, one, it's a passive amenity.
It's aesthetically pleasing, but it also has a functional purpose. There was concerns
from Turnberry about the pump station being located back by them and the noise
associated with it, so here, obviously, being up at Cherry Lane that would eliminate that.
I added an island at the entrance. Landscaping here. We have an access for -- to take
this existing home, so that it can connect to -- we have a sewer stub, a water stub and,
then, an approach. So, it can eventually eliminate that access to Cherry Lane in the
future. The original stub street to the east was located here. I talked to Mr. McEwen,
who owns this property here, and he asked me -- he said, you know, from our
perspective we would prefer that you move the stub street south, because that would
better serve the redevelopment of our property, because we are contemplating the
possibility of a Montessori school and I told them I would be glad to do that, because a
stub street is for your benefit, not ours, and so I did relocate that stub street. We have a
stub street going to the west that will eventually serve these properties as they
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redevelop. Our sewer service is here. There is an existing -- there is an LDS church
and another church located here. This is zoned L-O. It's R-4 to the north. R-8 to the
south. The sewer line we will connect and extend through here. So, I have a
pedestrian access and, then, a multi-use pathway and landscaping. These are existing
trees that are on the property all along the north and east boundary, so we are going to
retain those and, then, that multi-use pathway will go along the Settlers Canal, then, we
drop it back into the project through this micro path here. So, basically, creates a loop.
To address the concerns of the Council, staff, the Planning and Zoning Commission
from the original proposal, we created this 14,000 square foot common area here with a
playground and a gazebo and landscaping and, then, we put another pedestrian
pathway that comes down and, then, links to the stub street here. So, initially, you
know, we have a piece of property that has been sitting there annexed and zoned for 12
years and has not developed and so, you know, I took it upon myself to -- to figure out
something that I thought would be more marketable and would develop and be built as
proposed and we increased the density, but we also increased the open space. The
initial open space was just barely at ten percent. It also had some flaws in it as far as
their pathways, their allocation of their common -- or their -- or separate lot for the
waterways and we boasted that to almost 12 percent. This particular design we feel is -
- is what we call a more walkable design. We have lots that range in 5,600 square feet.
Our largest lot is this existing home, which is 34,000. But our average lot size in this
project is 7,152 square feet. We also have lots that vary in depth from approximately
102 to 150 feet and that's just kind of how it worked out, but it does provide alternatives
to different lifestyles. The second -- the -- this pocket park, as I indicated, is 14,000
square feet and, then, down here we have 26,000 square feet here. So, we feel will
have a nice -- a nice aesthetic look and, like I said, this is a passive amenity as you
come in. Our active amenity is up here internally and located in -- kind of in the middle
of the project. Water service. There is a 12 inch water main that's located in Cherry
Lane that will connect and extend. Then there is also an eight inch water stub here
that's in Turnberry. Turnberry years ago put in trust a certain dollar amount for the
crossing here of the Safford Lateral, but it will be our responsibility to construct this
bridge or pipe across these two waterways and we think, you know, what's before you is
superior to what was approved. Yuri y and I, like I said, worked -- worked for quite a
while to come up with the amenity package that we think will, obviously, make this
attractive. We are looking at kind of empty nester types. But even empty nesters have
grandkids, so I encouraged him to have playground equipment and that was one of the
things I read that in the Planning and Zoning Commission comments that they would
like to see a playground in his development and, then, we have the gazebo, the
retainage of the existing spruce trees, and our interconnecting path and pond. This kind
of shows you the -- a blow up of the pond area here at the entrance. So, we -- you
know, we have a lot of extensive landscaping and, like I said, it's going to have a nice,
clean feel as you drive into it and our first lots are here. The sewer, basically, when we
reach this point, is coming right at its maximum -- or not maximum, it will come out of
the ground if I extend it any further south. You can see here is our pocket park here,
with the pathways, the gazebo, and the playground. This is the existing home. It's
located on the eastern side. Like I said, we are providing a sewer and a water stub and,
then, an approach to our street. Currently the property has a garage, which is oriented
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to Cherry Lane. There is in the development agreement, as Bill indicated, a 25 foot
landscape easement. There is landscaping there. But it will be encumbered by the
original requirements. Here is some elevations of the homes that we intend to build on
the lots. They are primarily -- there will be two story and -- and single story, with two car
garages. You know, some will be -- you know, like I said, empty nester type homes with
the smaller yards, others we have deeper lots that will accommodate larger homes and
for family life. As far as sewering to the property to the -- to the -- to the south of us, this
driveway here -- there were staff comment that the driveway exceeded the maximum
length, that a turnaround will be required based on the fire department. We did contact
the fire department. The drive -- shared driveway will terminate right here at this lot.
This will just be an easement for the sewer to stub to this property located at that
location. So, we will not exceed that 150 foot maximum length. We think we have a
good project that's before you and -- and, like I said, you know, it's our job to, obviously,
you know, come up with plans that are marketable and this particular property has gone
through a couple of renditions that have not been successful, but we believe that what
we are -- what's before you this evening will be built and will, obviously, contribute to the
housing needs of the City of Meridian. Do you have any questions or can I answer any
questions?
De Weerd: Council, any questions? Okay.
McKay: Thank you.
Coles: William McEwen signed up to testify.
McEwen: Good evening.
De Weerd: Good evening.
McEwen: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, thank you so much for your time. I
know it's late. I'm going to make this very brief and I'm going to make it very pointed, so
that everybody understands exactly where I'm coming from. As she pointed out, I live
on the five acres that is west and north of this project and on the south side is Cherry
Lane. My address is 5120 West Cherry Lane in Meridian, Idaho. Did I give you my
name?
De Weerd: I don't think you did.
McEwen: William McEwen. William McEwen.
De Weerd: Thank you.
McEwen: Okay. So, they are asking for a change from R-4 to R-8 and Bill Parsons --
Mr. Parsons, that was -- the smaller lots was because they are going to be marketing to
55 and older; is that correct? Is that what the -- what the original meeting was with the
Planning Commission?
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De Weerd: How was it projected at the Planning and Zoning Commission?
McEwen: That was the reason for the increase in density; correct?
Parsons: Well, their -- their proposal is that's what they think the market is looking for.
McEwen: Okay.
Parsons: So, that's why --
McEwen: All right. Just wanted to make sure there was clarification there. I'm in the
county and so is my neighbor right here, Mr. Kent Blake, and we are RUT, so we are
going from an RUT to a proposed R-8 and we would expect a little bit of a transition
zone, just like you want to transition zone off of streets to projects of yours, we would
expect a transition zone from our product, our property to this project and a transition
zone or buffer or whatever you want to call it and we love our current country living and
lifestyle and would like to be able to maintain that as much as possible without causing
any kind of hardship for this project. I know that they spent a lot of money and time on
this. I am totally open to -- to moving forward and progress and all that good stuff, but
we need to do it smart. We own a Montessori school. We are looking at expanding that
Montessori school and so we have little children right around on our property and it's
with that that we are asking that there is -- be no two story homes placed on the border
of our property or at the very least no two story windows facing our property and we
talked about a buffer zone, we talk about transition zones all the time. We are asking
that people cannot look down into our playground, cannot look at -- down into our
existing pool that we have and because they are marketing to older -- to what they
believe is going to be the older people, they don't want two story homes anyway and so
it just makes sense that we stamp that, make sure that we don't have people looking out
their bedroom windows down onto our playground. That's -- that's what we are asking.
There is one more issue and that's with the fire hydrants. If you drive down Cherry Lane
you will not see one fire hydrant anywhere. Off of Black Cat and Cherry Lane. And
because they are putting in this project we think it would be a very good idea if they
were to install a fire hydrant on this -- on this stub, so at least my property has a fire
hydrant next to it and it can be run across to Kent's place as well. I realize this is an
imposition and we would be willing to pay for that. It just makes sense to put it in at this
time. Do you -- does anybody have any questions for me?
De Weerd: Thank you. Council, any questions? We appreciate you being with us
tonight.
McEwen: And what I'm asking for sound reasonable to you?
De Weerd: I think you need to look out for yourself and ask for what you need.
McEwen: That sounds like a very good political answer.
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De Weerd: I don't think it's my call, so --
Coles: No other signups indicating testimony, Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: Okay. Denise. Good evening.
LaFever: Denise LaFever. 6706 North Salvia Way.
De Weerd: Thank you.
LaFever: Meridian, Idaho. I personally am not fond of this project. This project has
come before Council before. It was annexed at 60 properties and, then, 64 last year is
what they asked for an increase and now we are asking for a step up. A step up merely
to get smaller lots, more density. The largest feature on this property is a holding pond
used for holding irrigation water. We went from cul-de-sacs to shared driveways. The
transition that's on here that goes up against the five acres, those are smaller lots. It
would be nice if those were bigger lots on the back side of that. It also isn't compatible
with the other neighborhoods around it. The other neighborhoods around the area are
R-4s. This is an R-8. So, you know, one of these things, too, is I would like to see them
be able to build this in an R-4 configuration, the way that it -- the way that it should be
and the amenities on here I would like to see real amenities and not holding ponds.
De Weerd: Thank you, Denise. Council, any questions?
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: Denise, you mentioned the cul-de-sacs to shared driveways. Do you see
shared driveways as diminishing the quality of the development?
LaFever: Yes . I live next to a shared driveway and they are nothing but a headache.
They -- when you go back and you pull out your trash cans, you have an issue now,
because there is not enough room for trash cans to go out. You have an issue when
somebody goes back and does land -- if this is really being sold to -- on older people, 55
and older or empty nesters, they are not going to necessarily do all the landscaping
work themselves. My neighbors don't. So, now you have them blocking your driveway.
It's nothing but a headache. And, then, you have the responsibility of who is taking care
of it. I personally don't like seeing shared driveways. I don't see where it increases the
livability or neighborhood. Cul-de-sacs are great. You can park a car in the middle.
There -- they move around. They are a much better quality of life, so --
Palmer: Madam Mayor? I mean looking at the shared driveways on here it looks like
there is ample opportunity for trash can placement. In the southeast one probably
would have to go across the street, but, then, the other one is right there against that
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other green space. I have owned two homes in my life. My last house was in a cul-de-
sac. Lots of turnarounds, including fire truck, back and forth a hundred times. So, I
understand. That's the way it is. Now I live on a shared driveway and I love it. Right
next to Morgan. I don't know if she's commented on it. The reason for me -- we talk a
lot about children's safety. We have had a lot of people testify tonight about, you know,
my kids are playing in the street and they won't be safe, because there will be more cars
on the road. Well, no kidding. Roads are for driving. Driveways -- the word would
insinuate driving, but our shared driveway, because we are all right there, we are all
each other's neighbors, there is nobody else using our shared driveway. We all know
each other's kids. We know each other well enough to know that we all need to pull in
very slowly. So, all of our kids are always out in the shared driveway and none of us
ever worry at all about it. So, there is my rant on --
LaFever: So, we will just -- we will just have a difference of opinion.
Palmer: -- on my difference between cul-de-sacs and shared driveways.
LaFever: I hate shared driveways. I'm just very blessed that I love my neighbors. I
have wonderful neighbors. So, that it makes it much more enjoyable. But I hate the
shared driveway. I would never buy another shared driveway ever again, so --
Palmer: Thank you.
LaFever: Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you. Any further testimony? Okay. Becky?
McKay: Becky McKay. Engineering Solutions. Madam Mayor, Members of the
Council, as far as the shared driveways, we only have two. We have this one that
benefits basically these two lots and, then, we have one here that benefits these two
lots. So, it's not like, you know, we have incorporated a significant number of shared
driveways. This shared driveway -- the one reason that I did it that way is because we
need to get the sewer to this point for future sewer service ability of these properties.
So, say your staff likes that to either be in a public street or in some type of paved type
surface and so this one is kind of -- ended up being out of necessity, because I didn't
want to pull the street down there, because, then, it would -- it would severely encumber
the redevelopment of this lot if you had multiple stub streets to it. Secondly, the
question on the lot sizes. I mean like I indicated, you know, our lot sizes -- our average
is over 7,000. My largest lots are next to this five acre lot, Mr. McEwen's. This
particular lot here is 10,000 square feet. These are ranging from 74 to 75 hundred
square feet. I did consider the fact, you know, his house is oriented down here next to
Cherry Lane. So, back here it's basically just the pasture. One of the reasons that I put
this 20 foot landscape strip here was to create that buffer. So, this will be a 20 foot
landscape buffer with just a five foot pathway that leads here to our amenity and, then,
the depth of these lots is 135 feet. So, you add in the 20 feet, the 135 feet, that's 155
foot depth, a significant separation when you figure the driveway is going to be only 20
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feet into the lot. So, I didn't want to lay houses and have, you know, just a hundred foot
depth right next to him. So, we have done, you know, what we can. I did the same
thing over here to the west side. My largest lots ranging in the 7,000s and -- are up in
this particular area here and the -- the smaller lots are localized internally. You also
have to consider we have two churches that adjoin us. The two churches -- we have
this -- this drive here. I see a lot of these people walking to church. I think we see a lot
of elderly people that want to live near their churches, especially the LDS churches, and
this project it's -- you know, it's an unusual shaped property and I think we have
basically done everything we can to make it as attractive as possible and add these
amenities and add the pathways and compensate for the increase in density. I wouldn't
be before you this evening asking for additional lots and increase in the density if I
hadn't done what I felt was appropriate to increase the open space and incorporate
more amenities and that's what we have done. As far as the hydrant back here for Mr.
McEwen, I think that's probably your Public Works staff. We show a hydrant located
here and, then, another one about 400 feet away. If staff determines that it is in the
best interest of the city and for future service ability what I told Mr. McEwen on the
phone then, obviously, we will be required to put that hydrant in. I mean fire safety is
important to all of us and, you know, I'm -- I'm stubbing the water, I'm stubbing the
sewer, I'm doing everything that I can. We will be building a ten foot pathway along
Cherry Lane, because that is a multi-use corridor and, then, this will be ten feet along
here. So, we think we have got a good project and we have worked diligently to get to
this point and, like I said, we have got something that's approvable, buildable and
marketable and I think that's -- that's our goal and -- and that's what we have here. We
-- the parcel is unusually shaped, but we have done I think a better job than what was
approved previously and I ask that you support it. Thank you.
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts.
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor. Becky, would you mind -- like can you point out where
the school is? He mentioned that he would prefer to not have any two story homes, but
I -- also it looks like it's a pretty safe distance away.
De Weerd: After -- yes, we will ask for further detail after she responds.
McKay: Madam Mayor, Councilman Roberts, I -- I think I did ask Mr. McEwen for a site
plan and I don't think he sent me one. He did not send me one. I guess based -- the
only thing I can go off of is based on our phone conversations that they would utilize this
-- this stub street here and that's why it was in their best interest that I move it south to,
obviously, retain as much of this area north of his home, so that that school could be
located in -- right here. That's my understanding.
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: I think -- yes.
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Little Roberts: Sorry. Follow up. So, it's -- it's -- the school is a concept, it's not -- or
maybe I should reserve it for Mr. McEwen.
McKay: There was no site plan provided to me. I did ask if you have a site plan I would
be -- you know, if you could send that to me, then, I could input it into -- to our plan and
-- and, obviously, look at it, but -- but they hadn't gotten that far. I think, you know, his --
his -- his intent was to make sure infrastructurewise, public streetwise, that what we are
doing will facilitate the possibility that he could construct that Montessori school and --
and we are not opposed to that and, like I said, I have worked with him, you know, trying
to accommodate his needs. Thank you.
De Weerd: And I certainly would -- would ask the property owner if he would like to
weigh in, since the question was specific to your property.
McEwen: William McEwen. The Montessori school is approximately right here. I
apologize. I don't remember Becky asking me for a site plan right there, but Ada county
does have one and so does the CDHC. But it's -- it's right in here and so as -- we will
extend this road out, do a turnaround for the fire department, and we will have our
school right here. Does that clarify it for you guys? That's the plan anyway. We are
going through Ada county, obviously, with that.
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Yes. You can't provide testimony from back there. You
can come and -- and wrap up your remarks.
McEwen: We are currently running a Montessori school, we are just running it out of
our -- our of our current home and we are working on getting another building.
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Yes , sir.
Blake: Kent Blake and I live at 4920 West Cherry Lane.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Blake: So, my -- just one question. Was -- I see the -- the way the stub street comes
through. Oops. Sorry. The stub -- the stub street that comes through where the sewer
is to come down into these properties here --
De Weerd: Uh-huh.
Blake: -- it looks like it would just come into my neighbor's property, but not into mine.
Does -- how does that work? I would have to come through his property to access that
in case I ever wanted to go to the city and have sewer service?
De Weerd: Yeah. They stub it to the edge of their property and if redevelopment occurs
that development would bring it to your own.
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Blake: But if I were to develop or do something with my property before that, I would
have no access to the sewer until the property next to me is developed the way that --
the way that stub street is, because it's right on the -- on the other side of the borderline.
Does that make sense what I'm saying? Right --
De Weerd: I would need to have --
Blake: So, here the borderline --
De Weerd: -- staff answer that question. Clint.
Dolsby: Could you point to your property?
Blake: Okay. So, my -- my property is right here and I'm seeing the borderline is right
there.
Dolsby: Does it front Black Cat Road by any chance or is it --
Blake: Black Cat is over here.
Dolsby: Yeah. I know. There is this -- this property right in there about where you are
pointing that goes out to Black Cat. Like right there.
Blake: That goes out to Black Cat?
Dolsby: Yes.
Blake: So, that's my property.
Dolsby: So, if you front Black Cat Road there is sewer existing in Black Cat that you
could tie into at any time.
Blake: So, I can go that way or the other way?
Dolsby: Yeah.
Blake: Okay.
Dolsby: Correct.
Blake: Makes sense. Thank you.
De Weerd: You are welcome.
Bernt: Madam Mayor?
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De Weerd: Mr. Bernt.
Bernt: Mr. McEwen, did you say that -- that Ada county has a site plan that you have
given them?
McEwen: We are working with Ada county. I permitted -- I submitted a site plan to
CDHC for the septic permit that we have just been approved for and we have been
talking with Ada county and we are in the middle of having an architect draw it up for us
right now.
Bernt: So -- so, you do have a site plan that you have given to another stakeholder
that's -- that you are working with?
McEwen: Yes .
Bernt: I guess I'm confused. Why -- why wouldn't you just give one to Becky?
McEwen: I don't remember her asking me for one. I certainly would have sent one over
there. I do have a scanner and a computer, I would have been more than happy to
send it. It was not -- not an issue.
Bernt: It would make our decision a little bit easier. We would have more information to
make a better decision as to --
McEwen: And, Councilman Bernt, I am -- I am -- I don't remember her asking me for
one. I certainly would have sent it over to her. She's been wonderful to work with.
Bernt: Okay.
McEwen: But I can tell you that it is approximately just north of the stub in street that's -
- that's in there.
Bernt: Okay. Thank you.
McEwen: Okay.
De Weerd: Becky, any other comment? Oh, how about a fire hydrant?
McKay: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, yeah, in my conversations with Mr.
McEwen I asked him why he wasn't requesting annexation and development with the
City of Meridian.
De Weerd: I was actually kind of thinking the same thing myself.
McKay: Because I made the comment to him on the phone that we will be stubbing
sewer and water to him and, obviously, the city ordinance requires that you request
annexation if you are contiguous in order to utilize those services. He indicated that it
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was his desire not to annex into Meridian. However, he wants the benefit of the
hydrant, but, you know, like I said, if fire safety is an issue, you know, I won't buck that.
Obviously, you know, your staff will determine when we submit plans where those
hydrants go. What we show on the preliminary plat is just conceptual in nature and just
meets your standard 400 foot offset, but as far as that hydrant location, if that is
appropriate, then, you know, we would not object to that.
De Weerd: Yeah. I'm kind of surprised that Central District Health approved the septic
permit right next to an annexed piece. Odd. Any questions for Becky? Thank you.
McKay: Thank you.
De Weerd: Council, any further questions?
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: I move we close the public hearing on Item 8-I.
Little Roberts: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to close the public hearing. All those in favor
say aye. All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. TWO ABSENT.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: I move we approve H-2018-0079 as presented with including the waiver to --
from the tiling of the two canals.
Little Roberts: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve Item 8-I. Any discussion from
Council?
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: Just to make sure that there is no confusion with anything, not requiring that
any of the lots have to have single family -- or single level -- single family, but not single
level homes.
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De Weerd: Okay. Does second agree?
Little Roberts: Yes.
De Weerd: Okay. Any further discussion? Mr. Clerk, will you call roll.
Roll call: Borton, yea; Milam, absent; Cavener, absent; Palmer, yea; Little Roberts, yea;
Bernt, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. TWO ABSENT.
J. Community Development Mechanical Evolution Plan
Discussion
De Weerd: Item 8-J is under our Community Development Department.
Freckleton: Good evening, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council.
De Weerd: It's still evening. It's not morning yet.
Freckleton: We have had a big day. Before I get started I just wanted to take a minute
and just -- a couple of personal notes I wanted to throw out and I just wanted to -- first of
all, I wanted to just express my sincere appreciation for today's event. The first annual
all employee meeting. The feedback that I have received following that event was -- it's
just amazing. I mean our employees are stoked about it. So, kudos to you. Kudos to
the -- to the senior leadership team. There was a lot of planning, a lot went into that and
I'm so glad you are here.
De Weerd: I'm so glad you are here still.
Freckleton: On a second note I just wanted to -- I wanted to just express my
appreciation for your support -- your continuing support for our evolution in the Building
Department and Community Development. So, we are making great headway. The
hiring process is slow, but we have got a good team on board so far and we look
forward to filling out their roster and getting to where we all have put the -- put the target
and so we are having fun. It's exciting.
De Weerd: I'm glad you're still having fun.
Freckleton: I keep reminding myself of that, so --
De Weerd: I think you were listening today.
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Freckleton: Where are we at, C.Jay?
De Weerd: It looked familiar. I knew it wasn't a TI.
Freckleton: That looks better. Okay. So, let's -- let's launch into this. So, this is the
ground that we want to cover tonight in this presentation. I won't read these, but I will
touch on each of these topics as we go along. So, the -- the vision and principle, you
know, it's continuing based on the vision statement we have for the city. Our guiding
principles. It's a new venture for the city. We are committed to building the best
possible program we can and, again, you know, your support is so critical to that. Just a
little bit of the history status of our mechanical program. You know, we have -- we have
always historically contracted out these services for planner doing inspection services.
As you know in 2013 we -- we conducted an RFQ and transitioned from a private
company providing these services over to the public sector with the Idaho Division of
Building Safety. On June 6th of this year IDBS delivered notice a termination for the
mechanical plan review and inspection program due to upcoming demands in their
program and not being able to handle Meridian's volume, as well as the new programs
that they are doing. Since -- since that date our contracts did expire on September
30th. We did negotiate a
short-term contract with them to take us out through the end of the calendar year.
Through that negotiation they did reduce the number of inspections that they will
perform for us. They set it at 50 mechanical inspections per day until the end of the
year. However, with the progress that we are making getting this conversion done, they
have expressed some willingness to work with us and so we have got a good
partnership with them and they are -- they are at least willing to take a look at that. We
immediately -- when we got the termination we started the process of doing an RFQ,
again similar to what we did in building and electrical, we wanted to have a Plan B. We
wanted to be able to have a safety net there. So, unfortunately, we did not get any
responses for mechanical inspection. We got one respondent for our RFQ and their
response was for the planning review portion of the -- of the task. We are working -- we
have already worked up the master agreement and the task order for that contractor to
provide the plan review services, we just need to get past this step tonight to get -- to
get a budget approved, so that we can move forward. So, again, no RFQ response for
mechanical inspection services. Therefore, we are in front of you for this budget
amendment. We wanted to give you just a little bit of a snapshot here of our permit
volume. There is three years' worth of volume. Kind of gives you an idea of how many
per day our inspectors are dealing with. 2018, you know, we have had a -- we have had
a very strong year. They are conducting about 51 per day. DBS has used five FTEs to
serve Meridian in those three years. Our proposal right now as we stand is for one
mechanical inspector supervisor and four mechanical inspectors. We have talked -- we
have talked a little in the past about the organization as a whole in community
development. So, this is a snapshot of our current state organizational chart for -- for
our department. I'm calling this phase one community development reorder, because
with this budget amendment we are proposing a couple of -- a couple of adjustments to
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help take away some of this flatness we have in the organization in the level that this
arrow is pointing to. The adjustments we are asking for are to take two -- we have two
existing vacant positions that are funded and we want to enhance those positions and
put them into supervisory roles, so that we can help get a little more vertical span of
oversight in the department. So, the area, again, in this -- this slide you see these are
all the individuals that are under the building official. He has direct oversight and
responsibility for -- for them. With our proposed model it flattens out to four individuals.
We have taken the permit technician staff, who not only serves Building, but they also
serve the Land Development Division, Economic Development, as well as Planning.
So, we have -- our vision is to create an administrative services supervisor that would,
then, have oversight of the permit technicians, since they are more global in the
department, as well as the existing admin two and an admin one that we have in the --
in the department and the customer support specialist that's -- that's right here as well.
So, again, the budget amendment is for this position to add to what we already have
approved for budget and, then, it's also to take our existing permit tech two position and
enhance it to be a true supervisor. Right now the approved position for a permit tech
two is a lead role and in a lead role they don't have -- they don't have -- they don't have
hiring and firing role, they don't have -- they don't do performance evaluations. They
are there for, you know, the guidance day to day. They are the person that you can go
to -- to ask questions and that sort of thing. They are just a lead role. So, that is, again,
phase one of the work. We do plan on coming back with
a bigger look at the whole department to help take away some of the other areas where
we have very flat oversight in the department. So, this slide -- just wanted to give you a
snapshot of -- I took Todd Lavoie's projections -- this is the historical and the projected
mechanical revenue and the blue line you see and as we have talked before, you know,
Finance does project that we are going to have some sort of a turn down sometime
2019, 2020. That's a crystal ball thing. I wish we knew how deep that was going to go,
whether it would be drastic or whether it's going to be more of just a market adjustment
type of a taper off, but what I'm also showing on this graph is the dashed orange line is
the expense that we have had with the Idaho Division of Building Safety up to where we
currently are and, then, with our ongoing expense for FTEs, that's what you see in gray
and so carry that on out, this is, as you know, a hybrid model. We are proposing to hire
FTEs for the inspection services, but contract out the plan review. So, you know, we
feel that the FTEs certainly are fairly static expense. The -- the expense for the contract
for plan review, obviously, is going to fluctuate with the permit volume and so it kind of
builds us a little bit of a buffer, because as things start tapering off their expense also
drops and so that I think is -- is something that is going to help us in the long run. Last
slide is just a summary of our budget amendment proposal. You see the ongoing and
the one time expenses for FTEs and vehicles and technology and the total amount in
the lower right corner for the full budget amendment. So, with that being said I will
stand for any questions and I will ask for your approval of the following budget item -- or
budget amendment agenda item.
De Weerd: Thank you, Bruce. Council, any questions?
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Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: Just one. Is the plan review that would be contracted out different than plan
examiners? If I heard you right you said --
Freckleton: Did I use two different terminologies?
Borton: Well, you indicated plan review would be contracted out. This org -- this org
chart shows employees as doing plan examiners. Is that a different role?
De Weerd: Well, it will be contracted out until we get employees in house, as I
understand it.
Freckleton: Correct.
Borton: So -- Madam Mayor. So, when I look to the column to the right of the yellow
where they are all described as assorted plans examiners --
Freckleton: Okay. So, the plans examiners in this chart that is building plans
examiners, not the mechanical.
Borton: Building and electrical.
Freckleton: Yes .
Borton: Okay.
Freckleton: Yeah. And, then, what you see in yellow is the inspection crew.
Borton: Right.
Freckleton: The inspectors that we are asking for in the -- in the budget amendment.
So, the plans examining for building and electrical, yes, it's different than -- it's a plan
review that would be -- that we are currently contracting out under short-term contract
for the mechanical. I hope that makes sense. It gets -- it gets kind of confused, so --
Borton: So -- Madam Mayor? Is it -- is it accurate to say that plan review for building
and electrical will be in house or is in house now. Plan and review for mechanical is out
of house, but will someday soon become in house as well and, then, be added to this
org chart somewhere else?
Freckleton: You are spot on.
Borton: Okay.
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Freckleton: The building and electrical are -- are in house. We are building that team
now.
Borton: Got you.
Freckleton: We are supplementing -- as we were trying to fill the roster we are
supplementing with -- coincidentally the same contractor that submitted for doing plan
review for mechanical --
Borton: Okay.
Freckleton: -- they are supplementing, but as we build our team and take off more of
the load, we are sending less and less to them. So, we are going to phase them out for
building electrical.
Borton: Thanks.
K. Community Development Mechanical Evolution Plan Budget
Amendment Not to Exceed $727,108
De Weerd: Okay. Any other questions? Okay. Well, then, we will ask for any
questions to Item 8-K, which is the Community Development Mechanical Evolution Plan
Budget Amendment at a not to exceed. Any questions?
Bernt: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bernt.
Bernt: I move that we approve the Community Development Mechanical Evolution Plan
Budget Amendment, not to exceed 727 hundred -- 727,108 dollars.
Little Roberts: Second.
De Weerd: Can you say that again.
Bernt: Seven hundred and twenty-seven thousand -- 727 thousand --
De Weerd: Thank you. The second agrees with that? If there is no discussion, Mr.
Clerk.
Roll call: Borton, yea; Milam, absent; Cavener, absent; Palmer, yea; Little Roberts, yea;
Bernt, yea.
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De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. TWO ABSENT.
Freckleton: Thank you very much.
Item 9: Ordinances [Action Items]
A. Ordinance No. 18-1764A: An Ordinance (H-2017-0104 – Movado
Greens Subdivision) For The Re-Zone Of Two Parcels Of Land
Located In The Nw ¼ Of The Ne ¼ Of Section 21, Township 3
North, Range 1 East, Boise Meridian, City Of Meridian, Ada
County Idaho; Establishing And Determining The Land Use
Zoning Classification From C -G (General Retail And Service
Commercial) Zoning District To R-15 (Medium High
Residential) Zoning District In The Meridian City Code; Providing
That Copies Of This Ordinance Shall Be Filed With The Ada
County Assessor, The Ada County Recorder, And The
Idaho State Tax Commission, As Required By Law; And
Providing For A Summary Of The Ordinance; And
Providing For A Waiver Of The Reading Rules; And
Providing An Effective Date.
De Weerd: Thank you. Okay. Item 9-A is Ordinance 18-1764a. Mr. Clerk, will you,
please, read this by title.
Coles: Thank you, Madam Mayor. City of Meridian Ordinance No. 18-1764a: An
Ordinance file H-2017-0104, Movado Greens Subdivision, for the re-zone of two parcels
of land located in the NW ¼ of the NE ¼ of Section 21, Township 3 North, Range 1
East, Boise meridian, City of Meridian, Ada county, Idaho; establishing and determining
the land use zoning classification from C-G (General Retail and Service Commercial)
Zoning
District to R-15 (Medium High Residential) Zoning District in the Meridian City Code;
providing that copies of this ordinance shall be filed with the Ada County Assessor, the
Ada County Recorder, and the Idaho State Tax Commission, as required by law; and
providing for a summary of the ordinance; and providing for a waiver of the reading
rules; and providing an effective date.
De Weerd: Seeing that there is no one who would like to see it -- hear it read in its
entirety, I would entertain a motion.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: I move we approve Ordinance 18-1764a with suspension of rules.
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Little Roberts: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve Item 9-A. If there is no
discussion, Mr. Clerk, will you call roll.
Roll call: Borton, yea; Milam, absent; Cavener, absent; Palmer, yea; Little Roberts, yea;
Bernt, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. TWO ABSENT.
Item 10: Future Meeting Topics
De Weerd: Anything under Item 10, future meeting topics? Okay. Just a heads up on
the Veteran's Day ceremony that's on Sunday, November 11th at 11 :00 a.m. at the Rock
of Honor and City Hall is closed on Monday, November 12th.
Item 11 : Amended onto agenda: Executive Session per Idaho State Code 74-
206(1)(a): To consider hiring a public officer, employee, staff member
or individual agent, wherein the respective qualities of individuals
are
to be evaluated in order to fill a particular vacancy or need .
De Weerd: With that I would entertain a motion to go into Executive Session.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: With great enthusiasm I move that we go into Executive Session pursuant to
Idaho Code 74-206(1)(a).
Palmer: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to adjourn into Executive Session. Mr. Clerk.
Roll call: Borton, yea; Milam, absent; Cavener, absent; Palmer, yea; Little Roberts, yea;
Bernt, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. TWO ABSENT.
EXECUTIVE SESSION: (11:16 p.m. to 11:25 p.m.)
De Weerd: I would entertain a motion to come out of Executive Session.
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Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: I move we come out of Executive Session.
De Weerd: Do I have a second.
Little Roberts: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. TWO ABSENT.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: I move we adjourn.
Little Roberts: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to adjourn. All those in favor?
MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. TWO ABSENT.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 11:25 P.M.
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