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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2020-01-21 Regular Meridian City Council January 21, 2020. A Meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 6:00 p.m., Tuesday, January 21, 2020, by Mayor Robert Simison. Members Present: Robert Simison, Joe Borton, Luke Cavener, Treg Bernt, Brad Hoaglun and Liz Strader. Member Absent: Jessica Perreault. Also present: Chris Johnson, Bill Nary, Sonya Allen, Kyle Radek, Jamie Leslie, Joe Bongiorno and Dean Willis. Item 1: Roll-call Attendance: Liz Strader _X_ Joe Borton _X_ Brad Hoaglun _X_Treg Bernt Jessica Perreault _X Luke Cavener _X_ Mayor Robert E. Simison Simison: All right. I'm going to go ahead and call this meeting to order. For the record it is Tuesday, January 21 st at 6:00 p.m. We will start tonight's meeting with roll call attendance. Mr. Clerk. Item 2: Pledge of Allegiance Simison: Item 2 is the Pledge of Allegiance. (Pledge of Allegiance recited.) Item 3: Adoption of Agenda Simison: Item 4 is adoption -- or Item 3, adoption of the agenda. Bernt: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Bernt. Bernt: I move that we adopt the agenda as presented. Hoaglun: Second. Simison: I have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda as published. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay. The ayes have it. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 21 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 2 of 62 Item 4: Announcements Simison: Item 4. Announcements. Any announcements from any members of Council? Item 5: Future Meeting Topics - Public Forum (Up to 30 Minutes Maximum) Simison: Okay. We will go into Item 5. Mr. Clerk, anybody signed up under Future Meeting Topics? Johnson: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. It is loading and I apologize. There are no signups. Item 6: Action Items A. Modified Final Plat for Creason Creek No. 2 (H-2019-0139) by CS2, LLC, Located on the East Side of N. Linder Rd., South of W. Ustick Rd. Simison: Okay. We will go into Item No. 6. Action Items. Item 6-A, and I will turn this over to Sonya to talk about the modified final plat for Creason Creek No. 2, H-2019-0139, et al. Allen: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council. The first item before you tonight is a request for a final plat modification. This site is located on the east side of North Linder Road, just south of West Ustick Road. The final plat for this project was approved in 2018. The applicant is proposing to expand the subdivision boundary of phase two to include additional land area planned for development in phase three as shown on the approved, but not yet recorded final plan, and that's the one on the left there, and the proposed modified final plat on the right. The common area where a dog park was previously planned on Lot 1 , Block 1, Creason Creek Subdivision No. 1 and that is the area at the lower right-hand side there -- is proposed to be relocated to Lot 13 and portions of Lots 14 and 15, Block 1, and that is this area right here as shown on the preliminary plat. These lots were previously planned as buildable lots. The applicant plans to resubdivide Lot 1, Block 1, in the first phase of Creason Creek Subdivision in the future into two buildable lots accessible by via Northwest 13th Avenue. The common area of Lot 1, Block 1, Creason Creek Subdivision, consists of 16,183 square feet. The proposed common area consists of 16,268 square feet, for an increase from that originally proposed. The proposed common area will have access by a pedestrian bridge over the Creason Lateral from a pathway on the north side of the lateral and that is shown right here, if you can see my cursor there on the map on the right. Again, from the pathway on the north side of the lateral will be fenced with a six foot tall wrought iron fence. Landscaping is proposed within the common area in accord with UDC standards. The applicant feels the proposed change will provide better access and use of the area. Written testimony has been received from Bob Unger, the applicant's representative, and he is in agreement with the staff report. The staff recommendation is for approval per the staff report and staff will stand for any questions. Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 22 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 3 of 62 Simison: Are there any questions? If not, this is not a public hearing. Do I have any motions?. Allen: Excuse me. Mr. Mayor, this item actually is a public hearing. The final plats after this are not. Simison: Okay. Allen: For clarification. Thank you. Simison: Well, thank you then. I stand corrected. Is the applicant here. Are there any questions for staff first I guess? If not, the applicant come forward. Unger: Mr. Mayor and Council, my name is Bob Unger with ULC Management and represent the CS2, LLC, who is the developer of the property. We reviewed the staff report and the conditions of approval and we are in agreeance with those and I will stand for any questions. Simison: Any questions for the applicant? Bernt: No questions. Simison: Thank you. Unger: Thank you. Simison: Councilman Cavener, did you have a question? Cavener: Mr. Mayor, thanks. Just a question for Legal or Sonya. You indicated this is a public hearing, but it wasn't noticed on our agenda as such, so I'm just making sure that we don't have any issues that we need to cure, because at least the agenda that I have before me does not have Item A listed as a public hearing. Nary: Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, Council Member Cavener, I don't show it as a public hearing either, so -- I don't know why it wasn't noticed on the agenda that way. don't recall other modified final plats being noticed as public hearings, so that's what I -- this is new. Allen: Perhaps I misspoke. Maybe it's a public meeting, rather than public hearing. Nary: The applicant has the ability to weigh in, so it's public in that regard. Simison: Okay. Nary: But not a public hearing for the rest of the public. Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 23 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 4 of 62 Simison: Okay. Allen: Sorry, Mr. Mayor. My bad. Simison: We are all good. We are all learning. With that, since there is no public testimony that's available, are there any questions or is there a motion? Bernt: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Bernt. Bernt: I move that we approve Item 6-A, H-2019-0139. Cavener: Second. Simison: Okay. I have a motion and a second to approve Item 6-A. Is there any discussion on the motion? If not, do this by roll call or voice -- Nary: Roll call. Simison: Madam Clerk, call the roll. Roll call: Bernt, yea; Borton, yea; Cavener, yea; Hoaglun, yea; Strader, yea; Perreault, absent. Simison: All ayes. Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. B. Final Plat for Oaks North Subdivision No. 4 (H-2019-0136) by Toll Southwest, LLC, Located at 6060 W. McMillan Rd. C. Final Plat for Three Corners Ranch (H-2019-0141) by Sweet Land Development, Inc., Located at 1890 E . Dunwoody Ct. D. Final Plat for Verado Subdivision No. 4 (H-2019-0132) by C17, LLC, Located at 3090 N. Locust Grove Rd. Simison: Item 6-B. I will turn this over to -- it's a final plat for Oaks North Subdivision, H- 2019-0136. Start with staff comments. Allen: Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council, the next three items are all final plat applications and we have received responses from the applicants on all three final plats in agreement with the staff reports. Typically those would go on the Consent Agenda if we received them prior to the day last week, but we did receive them late as the staff Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 24 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 5 of 62 reports went out late. Would you prefer to go ahead and act on those or would you like me to run through each of the applications for you? Bernt: Act. Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Bernt. Bernt: Would it be appropriate just to lump all of these action items into one, separately, but like together? Same -- Nary: Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council, yes, you could do that. Bernt: Okay. Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Bernt. Bernt: I move that we approve 6-13, H-2019-0136. Item 6-C, H-2019-0141 . And D -- 6-D, H-2019-0132. Simison: I have a motion. Do I have a second? Strader: Second. Simison: I have a motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion? If not, I will ask the Clerk to call the roll. Roll call: Bernt, yea; Borton, yea; Cavener, yea; Hoaglun, yea; Strader, yea; Perreault, absent. Simison: All ayes. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. E. Public Hearing for Bach Storage (H-2019-0121) by Bach Homes, Located at 2480 N. Eagle Rd. and 3280 E. River Valley St. 1. Request: Annexation of 1 acre of land with a C-C zoning district, and; 2. Request: Conditional Use Permit for a self-service storage facility on 1.92 acres of land in the C-C zoning district. Simison: Item 6-E is a public hearing for Bach Storage, H-2019-0121. I will turn this over for staff comments. Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 25 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 6 of 62 Allen: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council. The next applications before you are a request for annexation and zoning and a conditional use permit. This site consists of a total of 1.92 acres of land between two parcels. The northern parcel is zoned C-C and the southern parcel is zoned RUT in Ada county. The site is located on the east side of North Eagle Road just north of East River Valley Street at 2480 and 2500 North Eagle Road. The C-C zoned property was annexed in 2008 with the multi-family development to the east, Regency at River Valley, and a development agreement was required as a provision of annexation. The Comprehensive Plan future land use map designation for this site is mixed use regional. The applicant is requesting annexation and zoning of one acre of land with the C-C zoning district consistent with the mixed use regional future land use map designation and a conditional use permit for a self service storage facility on 1.92 acres of land in the C-C zoning district. A site plan was submitted as shown that demonstrates how the site is proposed to develop with a self service storage facility consisting of approximately 600 climate controlled storage units in a three story 100,000 square foot structure and 25 traditional storage units in two separate single story structures containing a total of 8,400 square feet to the north and south of the climate control building. A revised site and landscape plan was submitted that reflects removal of a pedestrian connection between the residential development to the east and this property. So, again, this is the original plan right here that shows the pedestrian connection. This is the revised plan that excludes that. Access is proposed by a north- south backage road along the east boundary of the site and that is this road that you see right here and that is for access via East River Valley Street, a collector street to the south. A cross-access easement is required to be provided to the properties to the north and south for access via the backage road to River Valley. And I will just go back for a second here and show you the overview here. This is River Valley Street right here and, then, the backage road goes up to the backside of these properties right here. A temporary access via Eagle Road and State Highway 55 exists on the Great Wall property directly to the north of this site. That is required to be removed once access is available via River Valley Street, which will occur with development of this site. A secondary emergency access is required with the proposed development for the specific use standards for the use. None is proposed, except for that on the Great Wall property that is required to be removed. Because this property is a mixed use designated area and located adjacent to a major transportation corridor, State Highway 55 and arterial intersections, interconnectivity between uses and integration of uses is paramount. Therefore, the Commission recommends the applicant continue to work with the property owners to the east on a cross-access easement and driveway for interconnectivity between uses, which would also serve as an emergency access for the storage facility via North Records Avenue and provide a direct route to the commercial uses from the adjacent residential development without having to go around via the collector street River Valley. The subject property and the property to the east are partially under the same ownership. If a driveway connection is provided on the property to the east it would necessitate removal of three parking spaces and extension of a driveway across the existing buffer. At some point in the future access may be available via the backage road from the north once the property north of the Great Wall Restaurant redevelops and a bridge is constructed over the Finch Lateral, but at this time no other access exists. A 35 foot wide landscape street buffer is required along Eagle Road, State Highway 55, with a ten foot wide multi-use Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 26 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 7 of 62 pathway and pedestrian lighting. A 25 foot wide landscape street buffer is required -- excuse me. Not street buffer, just landscape buffer is required along the east boundary of the site as a buffer to the existing residential development. The applicant is requesting Council approval of a reduced buffer width to ten feet, as there is an existing 15 foot wide buffer along this boundary on the residential property, which combined with the ten foot buffer will total 25 as required. A west side conceptual building perspective was submitted as shown with this application, which depicts building materials consisting of two different colors of the efface, with an accent color on the cornices, glazing and metal canopies over the windows on the single story structures. Final design is required to comply with the design standards in the architectural standards manual. The Commission recommended approval of this application to the City Council. I will just go over a summary of the public hearing. Nick Mason, the applicant's representative, testified in favor. No one testified in opposition or commented on the application. Written testimony was received from Nick Mason, the applicant's representative, and he was not in agreement with staff's recommendation for a vehicular and pedestrian access between the adjacent residential development and the subject property. There was no issues of testimony -- public testimony. The key issues of discussion by the Commission were as follows: The provision of vehicular and pedestrian connectivity to the adjacent multi- family residential development to the east. Secondary emergency access to the site if the existing temporary access on the Great Wall property via Eagle Road is removed as required. Reference to the existing temporary access approved through the variance for the Great Wall property to remain for better -- for better business access and for emergency access as required for the storage facility until such time as the backage road is extended to the north of Great Wall, since the applicant doesn't feel a cross-access easement and driveway for the multi-family development to the east is feasible. Encouragement to the applicant to continue to work with the owners of the multi-family development to the east on a cross-access easement and driveway connection between the properties -- possibly a gated access only accessible by residents to restrict cut- through traffic. Concern pertaining to the impact of proposed three story storage facility will have on the residents' view and the adjacent four story apartments and desire for staff to do a very thorough design review on the structure for architectural appeal and compatibility with the adjacent residential development. The Commission made the following changes to the staff recommendation. The Commission offers their support to City Council of the applicant's request for a reduced buffer with two residential uses from 25 feet to ten feet along the east boundary of the site. The Commission recommended the inclusion of a requirement for strict design review of all four sides of the proposed structures to ensure compatibility and appearance with the adjacent apartment complex to the east. The Commission changed staff's recommendation requiring a condition for the construction of a vehicular and pedestrian connection -- connection to the residential development to the east for interconnectivity to -- to a recommendation for the applicant to continue to work with the property owners to the east on a cross-access easement and driveway for interconnectivity between uses. And, finally, the Commission recommends the existing temporary access via Eagle Road on the adjacent Great Wall property to the north remains until such time as the backage is extended to the north of the Great Wall property and just a note. Because the adjacent property isn't the subject of this application, this isn't a formal recommendation that Council should act on tonight. The Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 27 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 8 of 62 only outstanding issue for Council is the applicant's request for Council's consideration and approval of a reduced buffer width to residential uses, as I previously mentioned, along the east boundary from 25 to ten feet and there has been no written testimony received since the Commission hearing. Staff will stand for any questions. Simison: Thank you. Council, any questions for staff? Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Hoaglun. Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor, Sonya, I just want to make sure I understand the --the cross-access issue. As -- on the -- on the -- with the one recommended cross-access, if we are looking on the south side, access to the facility is via that driveway right there on the south -- Allen: Mr. Mayor, Councilman Hoaglun, yes, it's right here. Hoaglun: And so that -- is it fenced to the right of that -- Allen: There is a fence right here. Hoaglun: Okay. And, then, discuss, then, the -- in the north end that would go out to the Great Wall parking lot and access to that point? Allen: Correct. Hoaglun: Some day that will continue on once further land to the north gets developed. Then for the property to the east, the apartments, does their driveway -- again, they access coming in off of Records and, then, can turn up that and there is parking on both sides. How far does that continue -- that -- their -- their driveway for the apartment complex continue? Allen: Are you -- are you referencing this driveway right here? Hoaglun: Yes. Allen: How far to the north? Hoaglun: Yes. Where does that end up? Is it circular or -- Allen: Yeah. It goes around the structures. Here -- you can see a little bit here. I can -- I can bring up a better map here. Hoaglun: Okay. So, Mr. Mayor, Sonya -- Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 28 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 9 of 62 Allen: This property is right here. And, then, you can see the driveway that goes clear around here and, then, River Valley is right here. Or excuse me. Records I mean. Hoaglun: Okay. Yeah. I just wanted to get a sense of that to see if that -- again, that property's not developed yet, so -- but it doesn't look like that would continue anyway. They have got parking structure or parking lots at least to the north for that apartment complex, so -- Allen: Yeah. Currently -- just a little more information on that subject on the access. When the Great Wall property was developed they were not required to grant a cross- access easement to the property to the north or construct a bridge or a culvert across the Finch Lateral here. When this property came in with a concept development plan, because this property wasn't required to grant access, they weren't either, but this property is coming before you here next week for a time extension on their application and they have been talking about doing a backage road here and a connection to the south. So, if we could get that to occur, then, there will be a backage road from River Valley clear up to the north to this drive aisle right here and this access from Eagle Road. So, that's how our code would prefer it to -- the access to occur instead of the direct accesses that we have got going on here. Simson: Sonya, does the Great Wall have space for a road through their parking lot or was that contemplated? Allen: They have -- Simison: It's hard to tell. Allen: -- a driveway right here. Yes, it gets -- yeah. It could span right across the -- Simison: Okay. So -- Allen: It's right here. Simison: -- there may be space, but really not formulated in terms of -- the one in -- the one in front of the storage units looks a little bit more like a road, whereas this one would be just through the drive space. Allen: It would be from their driveway, yes. So, they would have to agree to this, just to be clear. Simison: Are there any further questions? Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 29 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 10 of 62 Cavener: Sonya, I can't recall seeing in a -- in a staff report the phrase -- or I guess a recommendation from the Planning and Zoning Commission for strict design review. I just want to make sure that staff feels confident in what the Commission was intending with that recommendation. Allen: Yes. Cavener: It seems a little arbitrary to me. Allen: It was -- Mr. Mayor, Councilman Cavener, it was -- it was a little arbitrary, but -- but, yes, staff understands what the Commission is requiring. Simison: Are there any further questions for staff? Bongiorno: Mr. Mayor, over here on this side. Simison: Yes. Bongiorno: If I may. A little clarification on the access requirements. So, in the UDC, excuse me, it is required for storage units to have two accesses. The -- the reason being is -- excuse me -- the fire code. Typically with our storage units they have very large buildings, so with this particular one here it's a three story building, so when you get to three stories you are required to have two different fire accesses for the property. Other reasons would be if you are over 124,000 square feet in -- in building size that's sprinklered, it would have to be two accesses. Sixty-two thousand square feet on a nonsprinklered building. So, that's kind of where that secondary access is required. It's required by the fire code. Simison: So, my question, then, is when the Great Wall's access goes away, what is the secondary access? Bongiorno: That -- that seems to be the topic of discussion, Mayor. The -- that's why we were looking at requiring that access to the apartment complex, because they are tied together is my understanding and so it just made sense to put an access through there. It doesn't have to be a full access for everybody just to drive through. I would be happy with a -- an emergency access with, you know, some bollards -- some knock-over bollards that we would require. So, that would satisfy the secondary access. Simison: So, just to follow up with that, would that work in the place where the Great Wall's access is to have bollards in that location? Bongiorno: Out to -- I'm sorry, Mayor. Out to Eagle Road? Simison: Yeah. Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 30 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 11 of 62 Bongiorno: Yeah. That would be fine also. Yeah. I guess the issue there would be -- is whether ITD or ACHD or whoever would allow an emergency access only in that location. Simison: Is there any further questions? Okay. If not is the applicant here? If you will state your name and address for the record. Mason: Yeah. Nick Mason. 2237 Ramona, Salt Lake City, Utah. So, I am -- I agree with most of the staff report and agree with the -- the four sided architecture review that was talked about during the planning commission meeting. I -- I do understand that this really does come down to the secondary access issue. During the planning commission meeting it was brought to my attention by Bill and agreed to by the attorney -- it was a different attorney. It was a lady. And that -- that the City Council does have the authority to extend the temporary access to the Great Wall property. I think there is -- there is two reasons to do that. One being that we would need the secondary access for safety. And two being that the Great Wall, if they are restricted to having just the access from the south, then, I mean it's a -- they probably will fail. If you can -- if I can go to -- I'm not sure exactly how this works. How can I go to an aerial of this? Allen: Let me drive. Mason: Okay. Okay. So, this -- this helps a little bit, but -- so, if there is no access right here and the way that City Council has approved it in the past, once this back road right here is constructed, then, this will be shut off and so at that point the only access to the Great Wall would be right here. To get there you cannot come down this way and do a U-turn. There is a no U-turn sign there and there is a median blocking a left-hand turn by -- by the county. So, what you would have to do -- and I don't think I can move -- well, I can. They could come right here, drive around this way and into there. So, if you -- I know you guys do understand retail, it's bad for -- for them. I do think that once this access from the north comes about then -- then that problem will be solved. I -- I would encourage you guys to approve this with this right here being the secondary access until the road from the north comes through. If I understand correctly, this -- this road is a -- is a planned road. If you come up north here you can see it come off of the street and it comes through here -- it's kind of hard to see and is designed to continue through there. I believe that you guys probably have the authority to make that happen on the Gossers' application for whatever they are doing. I'm not certain about that. A couple other things. The -- the access through the apartments, while it seems simple, because our company built those apartments and it is not. I have approached the ownership, which is -- we have ownership in it, of course, but there are other owners and their -- their concerns have been the fact that -- and especially when this gets blocked off, that the way to get to the Great Wall and -- would be to drive through our apartments and -- and perhaps to get to a place like the -- the Mattress Firm right here, the best way to go would be to come here, turn into our private roads and through and that will only encourage that to happen. I -- I even talked to them about the pedestrian access going through there and while our portion of the ownership is -- I could say mostly okay with those access points, the -- the -- all the people that we need to agree to that are not -- not okay with it. I understand their concerns with it, especially with the setup of the -- the -- the possible poor access to the Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 31 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 12 of 62 Great Wall. Let me see here. Took a couple other notes. Also I don't know if it was noted, but right here I believe there is an access agreement already in place for traffic to be able to go through to the Great Wall and we have agreed to also put that easement in place for the Great Wall to be able to access their property through that back road. I believe that's that. So, if you have any questions, welcome to answer them. Simison: Council, any questions? Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Thank you, Mr. Mason. I just wanted to clarify -- did the owner of the Great Wall agree, then, to provide this secondary access? Mason: Yeah. He is -- he is worried about that access being shut off. I mean I -- I contacted him early on the -- what we wanted to do is to try to make an application to make that permanent. I mean we have been working on this for -- me personally for a couple of years, but he -- he is concerned. I think he is concerned about -- about how everything is going as is and if something were to happen like that access being cut off there would be a problem. So, he is definitely in agreement with it. I assumed that -- talked to him last about a year ago. It was the same today. I mean I don't know what else -- what else you would want there. And I -- and I understand you guys have the -- the ability to extend that temporary access. Borton: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Borton. Borton: Just a -- Nick, a couple of questions on that. One of the challenges, among others, is that application is not in front of us, so if the existing conditions on the Great Wall, which had the Eagle Road access being temporary until that connection to the south is made and your project makes that connection, the Eagle Road access goes away. So, the application that's not in front of us is a Great Wall application asking to extend that as you suggested. Mason: Well, you can make my approval subject to that and I'm completely confident that he will want that. That's okay. But I don't think you need an application to do that. You could ask the attorney. The application was not made by him, it was a condition put in place by the City Council. Nary: Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, Council Member Borton, the -- you're incorrect. mean they would have to -- they would have to ask -- if their requirement and their development agreement states that they will have to close that access once southern access is available to them, then, they would have to come and ask us. So, that's why the -- it's not a recommended condition for tonight, but you are correct, Council Member Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 32 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 13 of 62 Borton, that by creating this other access for them will trigger that clause and so it will require them to come before you. Borton: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Borton. Borton: With that sequence of events, absent that application, what happens if that's your secondary emergency access -- it gets closed unless there is action with a separate application should there be a desire to keep it open for any reason. It means your-- your secondary access condition couldn't be the Great Wall. We don't necessarily know if that would be approved. Mason: I understand that. I will have to come here to the city to get a building permit, at which time I will have to have that secondary access. So, I would encourage you to approve this subject to having a secondary access. I would be okay with that. Borton: Mr. Mayor. That secondary access. The other alternative would be even if it's an emergency with bollards to the east. Mason: Well, it's either that or it's to the north. I mean we don't have to build this right away. I can wait for the road from the north. I'm saying that I understand we need secondary access and I will not be able to get a building permit or a certificate of occupancy without that and so if you guys place that as a condition on my approval I'm okay with that and I will have to make sure that we have that access. Borton: Even -- Mr. Mayor. Simison: Councilman Borton. Borton: Even if one -- one scenario that could happen amongst those is if it gets -- if there was an approval tonight and it's conditioned on a secondary access and the secondary access doesn't go east, with or without bollards, but the secondary access, if ever, only goes north and that's the condition of approval and, then, at a future application from Great Wall there isn't-- let's just say there isn't a decision to allow that Eagle Road access to remain, now your project and building permit would be stuck until you connect all the way to the north. Mason: I understand that. I need secondary access. I totally understand that. I mean I would ask if you guys are in support of make -- extending that temporary access. We are -- I mean I can be -- I can be back here soon with Mr. Ma to make that application. Borton: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Borton. Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 33 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 14 of 62 Borton: Just a -- I recall the Great Wall application -- the temporary access discussion was truly temporary. The idea was that wouldn't serve any other additional purpose and so there is some risk that there might not be a desire to keep that Eagle Road access open. Mason: Desire by who? Borton: By this body. It might be a desire -- Mason: It could, but I would ask for -- I mean the logistics behind that, I really do think that it's a harm to Mr. Ma once that road's built for him just to get shut off. I mean he -- he likely will go out of business. I don't think that there is an unsafe or extra impact on Eagle Road because of this. I mean if there is a reason why you guys believe that should be shut off right away and not extended, I would like to hear that, but I don't -- I don't see it myself. But I'm open to suggestion. I just -- I think it -- it makes sense in my mind that you would allow that to stay open -- not only for us, but for the Great Wall. Simison: Are there any other questions for the applicant? Thank you. Mason: Okay. Thanks. Simison: This is a public hearing. Did we have anyone signed up to testify? Johnson: Mr. Mayor, nobody signed up for this hearing. Simison: Is there anybody who is here who would like to testify on this item in the audience? Okay. The public testimony -- applicant would you like to come back up and say any final words or would you like the Council to go into conversation further? Mason: I do want to say to Mr. Borton I -- I was genuine in that, but I would listen to reasons you had. I wasn't trying to force anything on you. It just -- it just makes sense to me. I -- I have met with Mr. Ma several times. He -- he is very concerned. There is a language barrier. There was a trust issue at first. And, then, he kind of understood that I was working with him to help him. He didn't understand the situation. So, once we got talking to him about how once we build this that his -- his access will be shut off, then, he was very concerned about that and I hope you can understand that -- I think that it is a natural access to go --go through to the north. I think that's what was intended. It sounds like a cross-access agreement was missed maybe in error. I don't know. But I know that the ordinance off of Eagle Road is to limit those access points and to provide a back road through in order to limit them and so in the spirit of that ordinance I think that you would need to connect these roads. Otherwise, it's just -- what was intended is not happening. But that's it. Thank you. Nary: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Mr. Nary. Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 34 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 15 of 62 Nary: Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council, not to make this real gummy, but as Council Member Borton pointed out, this is not part of the application. There are some triggering effects by granting secondary access to the north here that is incumbent on that property to address. Really trying to weigh in on that now when it's not before you is probably not appropriate. Certainly with that in mind I think Council Member Borton and did -- did identify the issue. Specifically that, obviously, there is an issue of the secondary access and where it's located and what that might trigger. But ultimately it's still your decision. Simison: Thank you, Mr. Nary. If I could ask Deputy Chief a question in terms of -- on the access, if memory serves me correct coming out of there there is a -- coming off of River Valley that tapers into a merge left at that point in time. Right in that -- I don't know how far down that goes, but if that lane instead of tapering were to remain at -- basically a right turn only dedicated into the Great Wall in the future, would that suffice the secondary access from one direction for a right turn only in? Because I think at least from my perspective that's something -- because you almost already have a lane there and we have precedent even further up on Eagle Road where we have right turn dedicated lanes turning into the establishments that doesn't seem to impact the traffic flow. It would be a left -- right out coming out without an accel lane in that area. But would a right turn only in suffice? Bongiorno: Mr. Mayor, yes, I -- it's an access. Simison: Okay. Bongiorno: So, we could -- you could -- we could utilize that and, you're right, that lane does go all the way down to where Firehouse Subs is. But if they cut it short and just made it turned into his property, that's an access. I would be okay with that. Simison: Okay. Thank you. Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor, question for Mr. Nary. Simison: Councilman Hoaglun. Hoaglun: I just want to make sure, Bill, that I understand that -- if we approve with a generic secondary access, we don't distinguish where that is, whether it's bollards to the apartment complex, as opposed to going to the north, but it's my understanding once he connects to the Great Wall that's the access point. Now that is established there is a way into the Great Wall. That development agreement -- and, of course, probably hasn't been looked at. That triggers that closure of his Eagle Road access and then -- of course, then, that brings up -- we are back to the same thing. We need a secondary access for the applicant. There would be a secondary access -- access once that other property is developed, so -- but that, as you said, is down the road. We are not deciding that. We can't make any decisions about that. So, if we provide -- as long as we provide a secondary access and if that is a temporary access with bollards to the apartment complex and there is not a connection to the Great Wall and that remains until that is Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 35 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 16 of 62 connected up and other actions take place down -- down the road, is that -- is that -- am I thinking that through correctly? Nary: Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, Council Member Hoaglun, you are. So, you know, if we want to designate in the development agreement that makes clear that the eastern access -- if the secondary access would come from the east to the adjoining property, it would be -- the emergency access only and pedestrian access. The northern one would be the full vehicular access and just to provide some context maybe to the Council, when the Great Wall was approved those median islands did not exist on Eagle Road at that time, so there was a concern about full turns and left turn ins that have been alleviated to a great extent today. So, it would be a different discussion with them. But it would trigger that -- like you said, it would be incumbent on them to come and request that remain until the northern access were to open or something to that effect. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: I did have a follow up for Mr. Nary. Mr. Nary, do we have the authority to keep that temporary access open as a body? Just understand -- like legally do we have the authority to do that ourselves without any kind of other input from either Ada county or et cetera? Nary: So, Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, Council Woman Strader, no, we don't. So, as the land use authority we have the ability -- authority to designate the use on the property and the access that you would allow, but because the roadway is an ITD facility, it is incumbent on them. Now, again, if the property owner were to get their permission that it would remain and that the only impediment to it remaining open was the city's DA condition, that would be a discussion point for that modification. Simison: So, Council, I think we have the chicken and egg scenario where we can improve the chicken to cross the road, but until a secondary application comes in they can never get across the road, which it sets up -- I think I can understand what the applicant is asking for in this case, approval with the secondary and another application somehow will have to solve this issue and if that never happens, then, it's never moved forward. Borton: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Borton. Borton: To that point, one option -- and the applicant can comment on it -- if the -- the least problematic option would be an emergency access to the east with bollards, that would not necessitate that connection to the north, so the north wouldn't have its second access, so the Great Wall would be able to retain its existing Eagle Road temporary access, because they hadn't yet obtained their new access. This project would -- instead Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 36 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 17 of 62 of using the -- the thing that we don't control -- Eagle Road access as its secondary, it would instead use access to the east with bollards only, pedestrian crossing -- hopefully it's never needed and that provides the two access points for this project and it doesn't eliminate the Great Wall's Eagle Road temporary access, which would, then, go away if and when there is a connection to the north, quite frankly, which could also, then, be conditioned with opening up the whole thing as part of that future application, so -- Simison: Do you have a specific question you would like to ask the applicant to come and answer? Borton: Yes. With that -- Mr. Mayor, with that as one of the options, what do you think of that? Simison: Could you just restate your name for the record. Mason: Nick Mason. So, my understanding is that it's -- what triggers that to be closed right now is not for the road to go all the way through, it's basically for the road to get there. So, once we build our road, the back road to get to our property, it shuts down. Borton: So, Mr. Mayor? That's what I'm -- I'm trying to see if there is scenarios where that wouldn't happen, so -- Mason: Yeah. Borton: So, in this scenario you wouldn't connect to the Great Wall yet. Your secondary access would be emergency only turning sharp east and not connecting. Mason: I see what you're saying. Borton: By not connecting Great Wall doesn't lose its temporary access. Mason: We would probably have to look at that development agreement, ours, and see if that's possible. But my -- yeah. So, it's a good solution if that's possible. Yeah. Borton: Well, Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Borton. Borton: To make that possible you would have to obtain somehow your cross-access to the east, even for emergency purposes. Mason: Yeah. And that will be a challenge as well. So, that's -- that's the thing is that I could go -- I could go to the east, but I need to get permission there. I need to get permission from Ma, which I'm sure that I can. So, that's why I'm saying if we just approve it with the requirement, which is already a requirement that we have secondary access. So, you're just approving the use, then, we will have to get that either through an Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 37 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 18 of 62 application through Ma or a building permit that shows the access going through the east with some type of agreement with the owner to the east. Bernt: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Bernt. Bernt: One question for the applicant. Are you -- are you opposed to having this continued until you have that agreement with Mr. Ma,just to alleviate everyone's concern? Mason: I -- I don't think that's necessary. If you think it's necessary then -- I mean -- guess it doesn't really matter what I think on that, but I -- I would -- I'm not concerned about him agreeing to it, but given the case that it might not go that way, it might go another way to make it required on him -- his approval -- I don't know. Because it might have to come from another area. I mean there is other ways. There could be another temporary access to Eagle Road we could get approved or-- and maybe that's not viable. But there is -- there is several different ways we could get access and so I -- I don't think there is any harm in approving it contingent on that secondary access. Approved by Fire of course. Bernt: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Bernt. Bernt: Just thinking out loud, my only concern is Mr. Ma wanting to keep his Eagle Road access, because if he doesn't keep -- if he agrees to --to your easement or his --whatever to the north, that would automatically shut off his access to Eagle Road. Until that northern property is developed, that is like sudden death for him. Honestly. Even with your access. Because he would have -- people would have to go all the way up and around and over to grandmother's house and beyond to his place and that takes some work. I mean you are really going to want to have some Chinese food. Mason: Oh, I -- I totally agree with that. That's what I was saying earlier. I already have an easement to go through to his property. That's already in place. So, going to Mr. Ma would be him making an application to make his temporary access extended until it comes from the north. Well, it -- where else is he going to get his access though? You know. And so I -- I have his interest in mind. I have worked with him to -- I'm -- I'm concerned about his access. It does happen to benefit us as well at the same time, but I -- I think it could be a problem for him. Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor, question -- Simison- Councilman Hoaglun. Hoaglun: -- for Nick. So, in trying to protect that access off of Eagle Road for -- for the Great Wall for the time being, you know, my thinking is having come in from -- from East Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 38 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 19 of 62 River Valley to your storage unit, an emergency access from the apartments with bollards as a temporary solution until such time the property to the north gets resolved and, then, you would -- utilizing your easement put that through and I would like to see, then, that temporary -- the emergency access for the apartments be closed completely, no longer needed because there will be two access points and, then, his access from Eagle Road will likely go away once that road is connected to the north. So, limiting you from using that easement to go to his property for the time being, to allow that -- that to stay and having that emergency bollard blocked access until such time that property is developed. That -- that's the solution I'm trying to see if that would work. So, your -- your thoughts on that. Mason: Well, it works for me, but I can -- I can't go to them and put an access into their property. I don't -- I don't have the legal right to do that. I don't think the City Council has the ability to put a contingency on the -- on the property to the right that's already as it is. I will definitely -- I would really like to go -- try to get that done. Like I stated, I have before -- there is -- we are not the only owners and there is banks involved, there is -- you know, that's one of the bigger concerns is that the bank is going to look at it and look at the -- the impact on the private roads going through there and they may have a problem with it and so I can't -- I can't say yes to it. I'm not opposed to it, but I can't say yes to it. But I -- contingent on secondary access, I mean I don't think to pinpoint where that access comes from is absolutely necessary. I -- I do have the ability with easements to go and build the road tomorrow if I had to and I wouldn't, obviously, have to wait until either I had the access to the east or from the north. So, I mean there is options out there. Maybe none of them work and, then, I don't build it. I get it. Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Hoaglun. Hoaglun: Question for Mr. Nary. To Nick's point about not having that agreement, if we designate that emergency access with bollards, I mean we know we have to have it for safety purposes. We have to have a secondary access, is that something we can take action on tonight or is that something we have to work through an agreement with property owners to the east? Nary: So, Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, Council Member Hoaglun, so he's correct, I mean they don't have to agree to even an emergency access through to their property, so -- but if that's your only alternative that you give him, then, that's incumbent on him. The only other risk that -- from what you folks have been discussing that's a concern is say Mr. Mason decides to sell this property and the next property owner doesn't care about the Great Wall or care about the impact on their business and says we have an easement, we are just going to build it and it has -- if he has to deal with it, he has to deal with it, it's not our problem. So, I understand where Mr. Mason is coming from. That's not his objective at all. That is a concern. If you just do an either/or, a different developer would probably pick the least expensive option, which is the access they already have. So, you can certainly make it only the east that will restrict this project until such time they Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 39 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 20 of 62 can get that access or they work out with Mr. Ma to have him come in and get his alternative to his development agreement and, then, they can come back and ask you to amend their agreement as well. Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Hoaglun. Hoaglun: A comment on that then. Mr. Nary, that's -- that's good advice. Thank you for dashing our hopes and dreams on that one, so -- Bongiorno: Mr. Mayor? Fire Department over here. Tammy does the same thing. I mean there is one other option. He can reduce the size of his building as well and -- and get under that 30 feet or less. That would eliminate the need for the secondary access all together. Simison: Thank you, deputy chief. And, you know, Council, I'm just going to say I don't know ultimately what you want in this entire stretch. If you agree with the access that currently exists on Great Wall, if that should be there long term or not, but I -- to the point whatever direction you go, even if you do reduce it down, it's still in -- right now I'm guessing it's going to be a cross-access, which would shut that down regardless. So, which it -- it really does come down to which application in the future is going to allow his project to move forward, because I think that that's ultimately where you are -- where you are going to be at. He -- he can't build what he wants to do without another application from somebody else, in essence. Borton: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Borton. Borton: Another question to that point for Legal and -- and hats off to you trying to do this. This -- all of this sausage making is because this was all done out of order and I distinctly remember when this went through and we thought, oh, this problem has got kicked down the road to 2020 apparently. If the access to the north were to be emergency only with bollards, in that condition is it possible that that wouldn't constitute a secondary access, which means Great Wall would not yet have to remove Eagle Road access in their DA? Nary: Yeah. Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council, Council Member Borton, I -- without looking at their DA I can't tell you. Certainly that's a less restricted access, so the likelihood of that triggering that -- but I can't recall -- I don't know if Ms. Allen recalls, this is just like any access or full access. I don't know. Mason: I remember in the DA that it said once access from the south is provided to the Great Wall and that it would shut down -- Borton: So, if it has bollards is that an access to the south? Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 40 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 21 of 62 Mason: Well, no, because if it had bollards, then, he's got no access anymore and if it's got bollards and you shut down the -- Eagle, then, he's got nothing. Borton: And that -- Mr. Mayor? Mason: That might be a way to -- Morton: If-- if it takes time to look at it -- Mason: I would say that I would -- I would try to get that done definitely first, but I don't know if that should be a condition on our approval. Allen: Mr. Mayor, if I may. Simison: Sonya. Allen: Mr. Mayor, Council, that -- that is the condition, what Mr. Mason said, is when access is available from the south, the temporary access on the Great Wall property will be removed. Either way this -- this application has a condition that they have to comply with UDC standards and provide a secondary emergency access. That is a specific use standard and it can't be waived. Even if the Fire Department doesn't need one it is a -- it is a code requirement. So, there is a condition -- if the applicant can't comply with that down the road, then, they can develop their property the way they want to do regardless. It's -- I don't believe it's really necessary for the Council to determine tonight which -- from which direction or by what means that secondary access is provided. Anyway, just staff's two cents on that. Simison: And, in fact, you just said -- I think while I agree that you don't need this week, it sounds like in two weeks you probably should figure that out by -- whether or not you want the access on Eagle Road to remain or not, especially if there is a request for a cross-access coming from the north. Just food for thought. Any further questions? Any further discussion amongst Council or do I have any motions? Borton: Mr. Mayor, just real quick. Simison: Councilman Borton. Borton: Another question for Legal to that point. Do you have concern if there was a condition that merely said secondary access must be provided without designating how, that that could still suffice? Nary: Yeah. Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council, Council Member Borton, that's certainly adequate from an enforcement standpoint that it's going to be required to show where the secondary access is and it does have to meet the Fire Department standards. So, whether it's the north or the east I think we are fine. Again, I'm trying to play those scenarios in my head to see if something else would be provided that would not require Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 41 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 22 of 62 somebody else to apply for something and I still think someone's going to have to apply for something. It would be my opinion that a secondary access that is emergency access only and not a full vehicle access would be a better argument as to why the Great Wall provision doesn't apply yet, because you still can't get there and that was the whole point of it. If you can get there some other way that's why the access is supposed to go away. That's not a means to get there. But, again, that's for another day. So, having a requirement that a secondary access exists, that it can be emergency only, depending on where it's located, but it can't -- or it can be full as long as you understand as a Council that it could go to the north and be only emergency access only and if the intent isn't for that to be a complete backage road, then, that would defeat the purpose of that, too. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: I have another question for Mr. Nary. Mr. Nary, is there a possibility that the secondary access -- I'm just trying to think through the possibilities. Is there a possibility that exists here for the secondary access to disappear? Like what I'm wondering about is if there is a temporary access to the Great Wall and we get this other access through the south and, then, that meets and triggers that agreement that they will close their access on Eagle Road, I mean is it possible that the building could end up being constructed and, then, we only end up with one access in the future? Nary: So, Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council, I think that's what Council Member Borton brought up initially was that without that change in the Great Wall's agreement, then, by connecting that roadway through and him, then, requesting it to remain open and a future Council decides, no, it's not going to remain open and that they are okay with that access, you're right, you're going to have a problem -- you may have a problem on how to get there and the secondary access would go away. Strader: Mr. Mayor, follow up. Just some discussion. I'm okay with the temporary access remaining to Great Wall. I don't personally see an issue with it at this time. I guess what I'm trying to figure out is is that -- is that going to be a decision within Council's discretion completely or is that something that we would need -- like is there any body, like ITD, that could overrule our ability to keep that temporary access open and -- and effectively close it? Nary: So, Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, I -- I don't recall specifically if the Great Wall approval was done that ITD only granted it because we conditioned that it would be temporary, because, again, the roadway conditions were significantly different at that point in time than they are today. So, I don't know the answer that -- that ITD is fine with that access remaining forever and that the only condition that's triggered in it is ours. I can't tell you that today. So, I don't know. But ITD definitely has a role in whether the access can remain. Simison: Council woman Strader. Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 42 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 23 of 62 Strader: Mr. Mayor. Some further discussion. That -- that occurs to me as a significant risk if we haven't established whether we have the authority to keep that temporary access open and so I would think that another condition might be appropriate, in addition to secondary access, which would be an agreement from ITD to keep that secondary access for us and not take some kind of action. Simison: And I think that goes back to the point earlier in the context of like -- if he makes the connection it automatically goes away, unless there is another application some -- in some way to address that issue where you will get ITD to weigh in officially, then, if that connection is made it goes away. There is nothing you can do. And, therefore, a permit would not be issued. I -- it is that chicken and the egg. You take one step and you lose your other access unless another solution is found through another application in the future. Strader: Mr. Mayor, question. Perhaps a question for you, perhaps a question from Mr. Nary, I'm not sure, but is it possible for us to, you know, require someone appropriate to contact ITD to get -- to get their opinion about this or is it possible to require a condition -- some type of further condition before the permit is issued that they have, you know, received that or is it -- what kind of options might we have to establish whether ITD will keep that temporary access open? Nary: So, Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, Council Woman Strader, so I -- my experience has been with ITD -- I think as the Mayor has stated, unless there is an application in front of them they won't commit to a decision. They are unlikely to enter into an agreement with the city to keep the access open. If that access was a problem, the reality is is they could close that access off anytime they want to. They did that further south to The Village and didn't ask the city's opinion about that, they just did it. So, I don't think we can really get an answer to that question without an application in front of us. You know, again, logic says a future council isn't likely to eliminate an access point when it makes logical sense until there is something better in place and so I guess I would trust the Council in the future, even though the application is in front of you today, to apply logic to the situation and -- and would make some sense. Again, the situation requires some action from somebody else. You know, the access doesn't evaporate upon the opening of this roadway, someone's going to have to notify them, there is going to be a process. So, it's not like the day this roadway opens Mr. -- Mr. Ma is cut -- access is cut off. Simison: And I think that goes back to my original question, at least for -- to the deputy chief about a right only in access point at this location, thinking about what ITD may or may not allow if we wanted to have any sort of access along Eagle Road based upon the current infrastructure that exists at that location. What may be likely to remain that they would be not opposed to him with the city emergency services would not be opposed to as well if that was the direction to go, because, otherwise, the resolution is, yes, a north- south frontage road going through all -- through that area, but a right-in at that location allows them get their traffic in. The connection still going back the other direction to get out at the light makes as much sense. So, that's why having an emergency access only for that -- preventing that cross-access doesn't help, especially if you don't allow right- Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 43 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 24 of 62 outs back onto Eagle Road. You know, looking at the overall connectivity through this, what makes sense and what is safe should be an important part of whatever decisions are made by all of the bodies, but everyone has different things that they care about and I can't speak for what ITD will care about at any point in time. I would never try to presume. Borton: Good one. Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Borton. Borton: This is a wild puzzle. So, here may -- this may be a solution and missing application to the -- to the question on the access to Eagle Road, ultimately the large long-term plan is it goes away. When that full backage road is north and south connecting all the way up as has been described. Someday that I mean that -- I mean that was the intent way back. So, if there was a DA modification, application from the Great Wall that that would readdress conditions of that temporary access and what would trigger it going away, at the same time that this application was going, you could make a global solution. So, for example, we would be allowed to, hypothetically speaking, grant a modification to the DA and allow the temporary access on Eagle Road to continue, maybe right-in only -- obviously I guess right-in only. Right-in. Right-out. And it would be able to continue even with a connection to the south through this project, but that temporary access would go away, hypothetically speaking, when the north-south access -- or excuse me -- when the northern access is completed at some point. You place a different parameter on what would make the temporary access go away. If that application was in front of us with Great Wall and if that action was taken, Great Wall would maintain their access, you would have --this project would have its emergency--or its second access, not even emergency access, he would have his second access through the Great Wall. Great Wall continues and wins, this project goes forward as its access, the Regency is not impacted, it doesn't have to go to the east and the DA for the Great Wall could, then, specify here is what happens to the north -- that when that occurs Eagle Road access goes away, which is the end result everyone is trying to get to. It could even require the cross-access to the north, which we don't yet have. But all of that scenario would require this being tabled until a DA modification comes forward, because you don't know what those specific terms would be until you get there. That gets you there. Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Hoaglun. Hoaglun: Yeah. I think that's the cleanest solution is doing that. The only question have, Councilman Borton, is would we have to not take action on this one tonight? Do they have to go in tandem, knowing what our -- our thinking is on this and trying to solve the problem, do we have to take -- do we have to table this -- this decision tonight and wait for the other application to come forward on the modified DA? Borton: Mr. Mayor? Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 44 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 25 of 62 Simison: Councilman Borton. Borton: Only hindsight will tell. Here -- I wouldn't think so, but the bad scenario would be if it gets approved tonight and a Great Wall application comes forward to the future and it has -- here is the new trigger of when the temporary access goes away and the applicant says, no, I don't like that and that's really important to this body, now what? Hopefully that doesn't happen. But if -- if you get to that scenario now we can't come back and -- just don't know. Well, I just don't know what Great Wall would say. Maybe the applicant can comment on it. He -- Mr. Mayor, that's -- that's the unknown. Simison: I'm going to go back to my original comments. I think you can approve this with the condition of the second access and let any other application address these issues without there being harm to the situation. Because, again, if the applicant connects to the Great Wall, the access is automatically triggered, he can build this project. So, you have addressed the -- I don't know that there is a scenario in here where there is not a solution. The solution has to be found somewhere else before a project can be built. Either, A, you are going to make the connection through another agreement through the north and the access will go away and you get a full full blown road or, B, you make an application for a DA modifications, allow that temporary to remain open for a short or extended period of time. Some other council action will have to solve this issue and he can never get a building permit unless that occurs. Borton: Comment from the applicant. Simison: Would the applicant like to affirm or deny what I have said, even though I have heard you say that. Mason: I just want -- yeah. I agree with what you are saying. I don't want this to be tabled in order to get something through the Great Wall, because I don't necessarily need the Great Wall. There is other scenarios where if I am able to go through the east or -- and have a temporary crash gate or whatever to the north, then, I should be able to do that without having to be contingent on -- without having a condition of getting an application from the Great Wall. I also -- I'm not sure the language of an application from someone else is true. If I -- what if I get an easement recorded, there is no application done, I have got an easement to go to the east, I come in with a building permit application, land use application for myself and have that, then, I don't need anyone else there. So, I -- I agree with you that if you approve it subject to secondary access, which is already in your code, then, to restrict it even further -- I -- I know in Utah you can't do that. I don't know Idaho law that well, but there is certain guidelines that you have to go by and you can't be more restrictive than what the state statute is and so I don't -- I don't -- I'm not sure if you can do that. You would know better. I could be completely wrong, because I don't know Idaho law as well. But to approve this -- and I don't even think you need to say it, but condition on secondary access, which I will need, which will trigger in some circumstances an application from someone else, which would address ITD, if they were to need to be addressed, then, that's true and I think we are okay. You know, the other -- the other way is to go to the east. I probably don't need an application from Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 45 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 26 of 62 someone else. I don't know what the likelihood of that is. I haven't talked to them about temporary. Simison: Sonya, does this require cross-access to the north? Because if cross-access is required to the north in this application, unless you remove that, it will trigger once you make connection to Great Wall, whether you get a -- get something to the east or not. That's --that's my point. If cross-access is required you must address Great Wall in some fashion before you can move forward regardless of another secondary access, unless you're going to cut off their -- their access to Eagle. Mason: Well, no, because I come with an application to put a road through there, he gets shut off, I don't have secondary access. Like you can't give me a building permit. Simison: Correct. Mason: So, you make a condition on me having secondary access then -- Simison: Right. Condition for you for secondary access, but if you have secondary access that you negotiate to the east, but you are still required to do access to the north to the Great Wall, once you do that you effectively trigger his ability -- Mason: Yes. Simison: -- you shut off his access. Mason: I know -- Simison: That's what I'm getting to from your standpoint and Council's consideration. Mason: I get that. But that's something that was put in place before me and that I can't do anything about. I do not want to do that to him and I would like to find a way to do it without doing that to them. Simison: Right. Mason: And I don't think we have to do that to him, so -- Simison: And that's --that's why I'm going back to -- I think you guys hopefully understand what I'm saying from that perspective. If you just go to the east and make that as an option, it, essentially, can shut down the Great Wall if no solution is found. Borton: Yeah. And, Mr. Mayor, to your point and to your comment, I think what I -- what I hear the Mayor saying is in every scenario Great Wall is impacted. You said -- there is not a scenario where it doesn't go away. Mason: I agree. Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 46 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 27 of 62 Borton: Okay. Mason: But -- but to restrict my rights on my property because of that is -- I don't think that can be done. Could be wrong. But I -- I mean I give you my word that I do not want to do that. I will look for every option not to do that. I mean for me to have -- to not have a secondary access from the north doesn't -- it's not a good situation. I want to access from the north as well and so -- Simison: Council, what I was suggesting is you want the secondary access to the north unless you want-- because cross-access -- unless you're going to take away the northern cross-access agreement and, essentially, remove that road, you want this to be to the north. Otherwise, you do shut down the access from that standpoint. So, allowing just to the east as a bollard does not get -- is not a good long-term solution for the Great Wall. Mason: How about you make a condition on me -- I would allow you to do it -- that I try to make application first with Ma. I don't even know if you can do that, but I -- I will try to do that. I don't -- that would be my -- the best scenario for us is to have access right through the Great Wall. It would be good for our business, it would be good for ours and, then, once it comes from the north that access off of Eagle Road probably doesn't matter anymore and that's -- that's probably muddying the water to ask -- ask you to do that, but I guess I'm more trying to show what my intentions are, so -- Simison: Any further questions? So, Council, I will go back. Do we have any action that you would like to take at this point in time? Further discussion. Closing the public record. Five minute recess. Strader: Mr. Mayor, question -- Simison- Council Woman Strader. Strader: Question of Mr. Nary. I just want to check with you and get your opinion, Mr. Nary, if we could simply make a requirement that there be secondary access to the north, it seems like the appropriate solution to ensure that interests are aligned to me. The applicant stated he doesn't think we can do that under Idaho law and I was curious what your opinion is. Nary: So, Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, Council Woman Strader. So, what --what the applicant maybe doesn't get, in this scenario -- because this is a development agreement. So, this is a contractual arrangement between the city and the developer. So, if the desire of the city is to require the action to the north, I would agree with him that it really is not certainly in his interest, both from a personal standpoint, but also a business interest, to simply put the access there and, then, not worry or concern themselves with the access from Eagle Road from the adjoining business. Again, we have had many scenarios where these properties don't develop as they intended. You are here a year from now, it's a different business, they don't care about that access, they don't know -- they don't need it or they don't care if it comes out of Eagle Road. So, that's what we are trying to wrestle Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 47 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 28 of 62 with is trying to do that. But, yes, you certainly can direct that the access has to come from the north. You could direct that it simply be secondary access that can be either full access or emergency only. You can basically leave that scenario -- it can only come from the east or the north. So, you probably don't have to designate location. But you can do all of that in this, because it is a contract, it's not just a land use decision. Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor. A question for Mr. Nary. Simison: Councilman Hoaglun. Hoaglun: So, if -- if we authorize moving forward and there is emergency access to the north, secondary emergency access to the north, when -- that keeps the Great Wall access right-in, right-out open, but in the future -- because I don't want to do something now, again, and future council finds themselves in a position when the property to the north develops, the continuation of the road -- the cross-access road is completed and that emergency bollard stays, because, well, you said that's all we had to provide, when the intent is do we need to stipulate that in that -- for the time being emergency access only to the north until such time that cross-access is completed to the north? Nary: Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council, Council Member Hoaglun, yeah, I think that would -- that would probably be the safest way to assure that it would become a through backage road in the future. If you -- again, if you wanted to limit the access now for this purpose and, then, allow it to be open at a future point in time, don't -- the future council will be having this discussion about this property on this very same topic. But, yeah, that would at least make it clear. Simison: Council, anyone like to ask anymore questions? Would you like to hear from the applicant again? Say your name for the record, please. Mason: Nick Mason. Maybe I wasn't clear on what I was saying about your ability to restrict this development. I understand that you can require access through the north, but to require that my secondary emergency access comes to north when I have other abilities another way, does not seem right. If -- if there is a -- if I want to go to the east I should be able to go to the east. If you are -- if you are making condition on having to go to the north and you are restricting me from being able to go to the east, which is not part of a conditional use permit process in Utah. I don't know about Idaho, but I imagine it's very similar. If there is a safety issue, then, I get it, but I don't even think that's there. I just -- I -- I do not want to give up my right to go to the east regardless of what happens to the north. Again, it's not my intention -- I don't even know if I can get it done, but that's -- I should be able to do that. There is already a development agreement in place that has me having to build the road to the north. That's -- that's been put in place by the City Council. That's there. And so I have to do that anyway. If we find out another creative way to go to the east, I should be able to do that and not be forced to go to the north, because by forcing me to go to the north and, then, you're forcing the problem on itself. I -- we have to get secondary access. Why pinpoint where it has to be. There is already a development agreement in place that tells me what I have to do. We can work to try to Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 48 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 29 of 62 do something different. But that -- that development agreement gives me rights to be able to do that, so -- Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor? Mason: Because I don't want to do that to him. Simison: Councilman Hoaglun. Hoaglun: To Nick's point probably a question for Bill again. If that is in his DA and we just require a secondary access, it's up on -- to Mr. Mason to find that secondary access, but at--when that time comes there is the connection to the north, that is still enforceable, then, to have that opened up -- that connection has to be made. I don't want to have a point in time where, then, well, we -- got secondary access, I don't need to do it. But if it's in the DA we can, then, take action, kind of like action has to be taken on Great Wall once this one connection is made. If that north connection is made we can -- we can enforce it, so -- Nary: Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council, Council Member Hoaglun, one thing I'm trying to figure out really quick -- and maybe Sonya could help me. On the annexation that's a part of this application, is there a DA requirement to that point that Council Member Hoaglun just asked? That there -- if there is already an existing northern access on the existing development agreement, but there is an annexation that's attached to this application, is there a requirement that we could put in the DA for that? Allen: I'm not sure I'm following, Mr. Nary. Getting a little brain weary, but -- but there -- there is a condition -- there is a development agreement provision and condition of approval in this application that they provide a north -- a cross-access easement to the north and to the south. Is that -- Nary: Yes. So -- Allen: -- what you're asking? Nary: Yes. So, there is a requirement in the development agreement for the northern access. Mr. Mason just said he already has a development agreement, but that's the part of this; right? Allen: There is a development agreement on the northern portion that's already in the city that was annexed with the Regency At River Valley property to the east, the multi- family development. Nary: Right. Allen: So, there is an existing agreement and, then, there is the -- the DA that's recommended as part of the annexation. Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 49 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 30 of 62 Nary: Right. And that DA-- so -- so I'm clear -- and since I don't have the DA in front -- or the condition in front of me, that that portion that's being asked to annex doesn't have any connection issue to the existing one that's already been annexed. It's not asking for a development agreement to make sure it all connects into one backage road? Allen: Hang on just a second. Let me look at something real quick. Nary: So, the reason I'm asking -- in the condition -- so, Mr. Mason raised a different point, Mr. Mayor, Members of Council. This is a conditional use permit. So, there is a DA attached to the annexation. There is a conditional use permit that's required for the -- for the storage unit. You can condition what that condition -- whatever that is. I mean you can condition it for access from one direction or another. I think what he's --the point he's making, though, is it's not necessary, because whether it's to the north or to the east, makes little difference to the city, as long as it's there. So, you could do that. I think what his point is is there is no need to do that, that if you get a secondary access through the east and that all works itself out, he does only need to produce a cross-access easement, it has to get recorded, and that's all we would need, he's right. We don't need another application for that. Simison: Mr. Nary, I guess my point I was trying to make is I agree -- I agree and I understand, but as soon as he makes a cross-access connection to the Great Wall, their access goes away. So, ergo ergo if they are fine with the Great Wall's access going away just by --just by making that cross-access connection, Great Wall loses their access and that's why I want Council to be very mindful of whatever direction they provide, if they don't require a northern connection to be made as a secondary access -- or once it's a connection that's gone. Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor. However, to your point their access -- he creates that cross-access as required, they -- it goes away, he no longer has a secondary access. Simison: If he goes to the east he does. Hoaglun: If he goes -- Simison: If he goes to the east he's got a secondary access and he's made a cross- connection to the north and Great Wall loses their access. That's the domino effect of the way the conditions are laid out and requirements and I just want Council to make -- be mindful of that. Whatever they want for the future -- again I go back to the overall bigger picture on what you want from a backage or an access on Eagle for the Great Wall and when you want to trigger that. But you don't have a way to stop that right now. Approve with the secondary access to the east, connection made, Great Wall goes away without another application. Unless I'm missing something, that's the way my bouncing balls work. Nary: Mr. Mayor? Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 50 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 31 of 62 Simison: Mr. Nary. Nary: So, Mr. Mayor, you are correct. I think, though, what Mr. Mason has said is because that is the only way he gets his secondary access is through Great Wall, it is incumbent on him to work with that property owner to maintain that access, because, otherwise, he won't be able to get a building permit. Simison: Except for he's talking about going to the east. Nary: Oh, I -- Simison: He gets secondary access to the east and it makes the cross-access --just by default it goes away regardless of his best intentions. Nary: Yes, you are correct. Simison: It ends without another application. Nary: Yes. Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor, if I might ask Mr. Mason a question about the east connection. I mean if they don't want to play ball with you, you are -- you are not going to have an access. Is that my understanding? Mason: Oh, I might not have an access right away, but I can go further to the north through there. I -- you guys have put a development agreement in place with Ma and with us, so can you really restrict those development agreements from this conditional use permit? You would have to go back and amend the development agreements to take rights out of that development agreement. You can't -- you can't use a conditional use permit to restrict those. I'm only saying that, because I'm trying to avoid where this might go, which to me makes no sense. It -- I hope you see where I'm coming from. I -- you know, you approve this condition on secondary access, which you don't even have to do. I need to get that anyway. First thing I'm going to do is go to Ma. I'm going to try to get him -- well, I'm -- he's going to make an application. He already signed an application with me before and I met with staff and we decided not to move forward with it. He's willing to do it. Okay? If for some reason he doesn't, then, that's his choice and, then, I connect the road. He knows what my next step would be and the only other way I could develop it. He's making that choice. He is going to -- he is going to sign that agreement. So, if he doesn't sign the agreement, my next move is to go to Gosser and make sure that -- that that's in his application, because I don't want secondary access through our apartments temporary. I don't want that. I want a good access. I want it to come from the north or I want it on a temporary basis from Ma. I -- I see the concerns, but I -- I think that-- I mean another thing is I could come in for an application for another mattress place and, bam, it's gone. There is no need for a secondary access. We tried to list this property for years and we were not able to sell it and we have come up with the solution to do it Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 51 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 32 of 62 and to make it happen and that's why we are here today. But that is -- that is something to consider. Almost any other use does not require that secondary access. Simison: Thank you. I agree. You are also coming in for annexation. Like I say, this is two pieces. Mason: Well, I -- Simison: So, it's -- that they are coming in tandem together and, yes, you could do anything that you are currently permitted on what's annexed in the city. The other acre you cannot. Mason: I agree. So, it would just be on my piece where that would happen. I get it. And I'm not trying to strong arm or anything, I'm just -- I see what your concerns are and they are my concerns as well and I think that the natural way this would play out would be in Ma's best interest. The way I would do it would be in Ma's best interest. But I do have the right to go other ways with my access I believe. I think we are doing circles at this point, so -- thank you. Simison: Other questions for the applicant from Council? Borton: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Borton. Borton: Move we close the public hearing on Item 6-E, H-2019-0121. Hoaglun: Second. Simison: I have a motion and a second to close the public hearing. All those in favor signify by saying aye. All opposed nay. The ayes have it. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Simison: Is there discussion? Borton: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Borton. Borton: I will be making a motion for-- for discussion where this -- well, I will just make a motion. We have discussed this at length. I move that we approve Item 6-E, H-2019- 0121. Mr. Nary, can we take care of both of these in one motion? Okay. That we move -- or that we approve 6-E, that includes all of the conditions within the staff report for the hearing date of January 21 st, 2020, inclusive of the requirement that a cross-access and backage road be included and constructed north and south as intended and that a Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 52 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 33 of 62 secondary access be provided. How that secondary access will be determined by the applicant, but the applicant has to provide that secondary access. And the condition that allows for the reduced buffer, 25 feet to ten feet be approved as well. Hoaglun: Second. Simison: I have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion on the motion? Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Borton. Borton: The reason -- we have spent a lot of time trying to discuss the challenge that's going to be in front of us relatively soon and where this thing is ultimately going to -- we are going to have this discussion, we just had it early perhaps before the application is in front of us, but, nonetheless, the approval has this backage road and cross-access north and south as intended. That's the long term plan for this area. There will be future applications from -- whether it's the Great Wall or -- or the property to the north that will have adjustments on this access to Eagle Road. If this gets built we know what's going to happen. When the backage road gets built and if there is a consequence to the Eagle Road access, we will deal with that when it shows up and the applicant has readily said here today that he understands there will be future challenges, but, nonetheless, that's the requirement that we always planned for and -- and conditioning an approval that that cross-access north and south occur, then, that still is appropriate. The secondary access requirement still exists. The applicant's afforded the flexibility to try and go east if he -- if he is able to. To the Mayor's point, it doesn't eliminate the obligation to still build north- south and continue that. We will see the Great Wall in front of us sometime soon I would -- I would think and we will address that at that time. But I don't think that it necessitates delaying this. Still is consistent with the long-term plan of what that backage road is intended to do. So, that was the reason why a motion to approve was made. Simison: Thank you. Is there further discussion? If not, ask the clerk to call the roll. Roll call: Bernt, yea; Borton, yea; Cavener, nay; Hoaglun, yea; Strader, nay; Perreault, absent. Simison: The ayes have it. Three to two. Thank you. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. TWO NAYS. ONE ABSENT. Simison: And we were scheduled to take a break at 8:00 o'clock, but we are just going to take a quick little ten minute break before we get into the next application. So, that we are in recess. (Recess: 7:36 p.m. to 7:45 p.m.) Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 53 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 34 of 62 F. Public Hearing Continued from December 10, 2019 for Goddard Creek Townhomes (H-2019-0068) by SI Construction, Located at the NW Corner of W. McMillan Rd. and N. Goddard Creek Way 1. Request: Modification to Development Agreement (Inst. 102012598) to allow the development of SFR homes (i.e. townhomes) instead of offices, and 2. Request: Rezone of 5.03 acres of land from the R-4 to the R- 15 zoning district, and 3. Request: Preliminary Plat for the re-subdivision of Lot 2, Block 1, Goddard Creek Subdivision Consisting of 4.62 Acres of Land into 44 Building Lots and 8 Common Lots. Simison: All right. We are going to call ourselves back into order. The time is 7:45. The next item up is Item 6-F, a public hearing continued from December 10th for Goddard Creek Townhomes, H-2019-0068. I will open this up for staff comments. Allen: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council. The next applications before you are a request for a development agreement modification, a rezone, and a preliminary plat. But there are also applications for a private street and alternative compliance that do not require action from the Council, these are director decisions. This site consists of 4.62 acres of land. It's zoned R-4 and is located at the northwest corner of West McMillan Road and North Goddard Creek Way. A little history on this property. It was part of the Lochsa Falls development approved back in 2002 and received annexation with the requirement of a development agreement, a conditional use permit for a planned development, and a preliminary plat approval. The planned development allowed office uses as a land use exception in the R-4 district under old Meridian City Code. In 1970 -- excuse me -- in 2017 a map amendment was approved from office and high density residential to mixed use community and the property was included as a lot in Goddard Creek Subdivision. The current Comprehensive Plan future land use map designation is mixed use community. A modification to the existing development agreement is requested to allow the development of single family residential attached homes and townhomes to develop on the property, instead of the previously approved office uses consistent with the map amendment to mixed use community and to exclude the subject property from the terms of the existing development agreement and enter into a new development agreement that just governs development of this site and not the larger Lochsa Falls Subdivision. A rezone at 5.03 acres of land is requested from R-4 to the R- 15 zoning district. The proposed development consists of a mix of single family residential housing types, as you can see there on the screen, attached and townhomes. The attached units are the two units that are attached together. The ones with more than two are the townhome units. Which, along with the multi-family development to the north, the single family residential detached homes in the vicinity, and the storage facility planned to the west provide a mix of uses and residential housing options in the area consistent with that desired in the mixed use community designation. A preliminary plat is proposed Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 54 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 35 of 62 consisting of 41 building lots and eight common lots on 4.62 acres of land in the proposed R-15 district. A revised plat was submitted today as shown on the right in response to previous concerns. Access is proposed via private street, West Apgar Creek Lane, via North Goddard Creek Way, a collector street. Direct access via McMillan Road is prohibited. Private streets, 24 feet wide, and common driveways are proposed for internal access within the development. Although private streets are not typically intended for single family developments, because the development is proposing a common MEW through the site design and access via McMillan Road is restricted, staff is of the opinion that private streets are appropriate. Because on-street parking is not allowed with 24 foot wide street sections and parking is a concern in this area due to the existing apartment complex to the north not having adequate parking, the applicant is providing an off-street parking area with 16 spaces at the south end of the townhome units to ensure adequate parking for guests is provided within the development. Although the UDC does not require common open space and site amenities to be provided because the property is below five acres in size, the applicant is proposing approximately 20 percent of qualified open space as shown on the open space exhibit and a tot lot, picnic shelter, and dog park as amenities. Conceptual building elevations and renderings were submitted for the proposed townhome units. Because staff recommended the front of the townhomes are oriented toward the abutting MEW, the elevations submitted do not contemplate this design. However, all structures are required to comply with the design standards in the architectural standards manual. The Commission did recommend denial of this application and I will go through the summary of the Commission public hearing. Scott Noriyuki, the applicant's representative, testified in favor. There were quite a few people that testified in opposition and those are reflected on the record. If you would like me to name them I can. I won't guarantee any pronunciation is correct. But, otherwise, I will proceed. Several people also commented again in the record and many letters of testimony received on this application again in the public record. Key issues of public testimony -- testimony are as follows: Saturation of high density residential in this area. Increased traffic on already congested streets. Proposed architectural element and preference to develop office uses as currently allowed under the development agreement. The key issues of discussion by the Commission are as follows: Continuing the project because parent-teacher conferences were occurring the same night as the October 24th hearing. Differences between townhomes and multi-family developments. Overcrowded schools in the area and the possibility of busing students to other schools. Current thresholds of the roads and impacts of this development will have on them. Shifting the central open space along McMillan Road to the east, as recommended by staff. Uses allowed under the Lochsa Falls planned unit development. Commission's action on the previous Goddard Greek application. Conditional use permit. Denial of the apartments. And conditional use permit approval for the storage units. Shifting the central open space along McMillan to the east as recommended by staff. Office uses provides the third land use in conjunction with the Selway Apartments and storage facility in compliance with the mixed use community land use designation and supportive of the design open guest parking, but wrong location for the development. Commission change to the staff recommendation. Again, as I stated, the Commission recommended denial of the townhome project in favor of office uses as allowed under the current planned unit development and development agreement. There are strike throughs in the conditions of Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 55 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 36 of 62 approval in the staff report, but the conditions are still listed if the Council votes to approve this application. There are no other outstanding issues for Council. Written testimony since the Commission hearing was received from Scott Noriyuki, the applicant's representative. He is in agreement with the staff report. And, again, there were many letters of testimony that have been received since the Commission hearing on this and those are contained in the public record. Staff will stand for any questions. Simison: Thank you, Sonya. Are there any questions for staff at this time? Okay. Is applicant here? Would you like to come forward. Name and address for the record. Noriyuki: Thank you. Scott Noriyuki. Northside Management. 6810 Fairhill Place, Boise, Idaho. 83714. First of all, I want to thank staff. There is a lot of technical aspects to this and there is a tremendous amount of history. I do want to impress upon you the history and how it's changed from the original development and how this entire area -- overall area was planned and how it's morphed with development agreements and conditional uses and changes throughout the years. So, this is dynamically--this area is dynamically different than what the original development agreement and what City Council reviewed and approved years ago and you will see those different aspects that include the -- the large apartment complex to the north, as well as the mini storage that's now since been approved to the west, as well as the tremendous growth farther to the west at the primary entrances. With that said I'm going to kind of try and track, so if you look at the staff report -- I hope you all got my e-mail. If you look at the staff report, page 11, that is the areas want to key into. So, these are all the conversations and I just want to make this about as simple as possible for everybody. So, if we look at section six, decision, and we focus on two key issues of public testimony. Number one, the saturation of high density residential in the area. With the current comp plan as it states that was just adopted, it is desired that we put higher density closer to areas of high employment. You recently have approved the Costco, the Winco, that entire intersection and mass transit. That's a huge employment hub. This makes the most practical sense, because we are sandwiched between a major arterial road, mini storage, which is commercial and a massive high density apartment complex to our north, as well as localized streets, which was -- street, which is God -- Goddard Creek. Excuse me. And it's a mid mile road. This is a perfect feather when we are talking densities. Furthermore, with those densities we -- we are sandwiched between what is entry level rental and, then, we have got a whole bunch of single family detached units. So, within those price brackets we are providing what everybody needs, which is townhouses, which is a first step or a step up product. They are not rentals, they are owned. That allows people to go from apartments into the step up and ultimately to the single family detached, which we are capturing our neighbors, we are capturing our kids, we are capturing -- this is the whole goal of comp plans. So, with that I want to move on. I'm going to try and be as quick as I can. Key issues discussed by the Commission is -- as far as continuing the public hearing because of parent-teacher conference, totally accepted. That just happened. We have -- we have done the best we could. I actually scheduled another neighborhood meeting at Willow Creek just down the street to the north. Following that nobody showed up. So, with that I understand there is some contention, but we -- we have done it about as best as we can to outreach. We did flounder on a couple of them and some of our communications were poor. That's why we Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 56 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 37 of 62 noticed four separate meetings, where typically you just have one. Crowded schools. I want to address this. This is going to be a big deal and I hope you looked at what was e- mailed today and what was provided today. The West Ada County School District Assistant Superintendent Joe Yochum, when he reviewed this project, naturally he gave this troubling letter that suggested denial of the project. I have since reached out to Joe and you should see an e-mail response from him as recent as today and with that said we talked about the timelines. I wanted him to expand upon what is this problem, because if you look in the staff reports and you really read it, we are --those --the schools -- the elementary, middle school, and the high school, yes, they are a bit over capacity. However, our project is not going to be complete until fall of '21, spring of '22. Per demographics and your calculations, we are only going to add a maximum -- excuse me -- of 35 school age children in this area. With that said, in Joe Yochum's response to me today, they have plans for expansions. They have got a new high school coming in. They have got expansion to grade schools and middle schools and in that e-mail I was -- I had absolute clarity that I wanted to make sure when I stand here in front of you I was talking factually. So, on the assumption that my project is not complete prior to summer of 2021 , they will have capacity for us. So, I want to put that to rest. We are not adding to the problem, if you will. It's in writing. Current thresholds on roads and impact. This overall area, Goddard Creek and these private roads and McMillan, all of these items were addressed years ago with ACHD and ITD and the prior P&Z staff and Council for the City of Meridian. This property was always identified that the roads would be built accordingly. Currently, per ACHD and current traffic counts, this intersection is at a level D. Now, I want to clarify when we talk about levels, A, B, C, D, E, F with ACHD and road standards, a D is not like high school where D means you are not doing good. Now, it is acceptable. It is safe. D indicates that you do have a slightly elongated timeline before you can pull out and merge. However, it is not dangerous. E is still acceptable. F is when it becomes dangerous. These roads were built for the capacity of this property and ACHD staff report has reviewed the project and they support it. We agree with all the conditions of approval as per staff. We are not required with this application to provide open space, but I do want to point out we have 27 percent open space. Twenty-two percent is countable, if you will, but 27 percent, when you count all the buffers. We have multiple amenities. We have pedestrian and vehicular connectivity that is extensive. We are above and beyond. And, then, I guess with that, in closing, in reading every aspect of the new adopted comprehensive land use plan, all the goals, everything that you guys want and you worked on, we are hitting every single point of this. Every point. And, then, furthermore, I will defer in rebuttal -- I do have an expert here to talk about the virtues of why light office just isn't going to work here and it has to do with access. It has to do with reality and development and also talking about the demographics of housing, which is a big thing that's been in the news on behalf of Meridian and the entire Treasure Valley. This is a product needed. With that, sorry to be long winded, I will stand for questions. Simison: Thanks, Scott. Are there any questions for the applicant? Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 57 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 38 of 62 Cavener: Scott, Happy New Year. Thanks for being here. Noriyuki: Thank you. Cavener: If I remember hearing correct from staff, that horseshoe loop is a -- is a private street, not a public street? Noriyuki: Yes, sir. It is designed to a public standard. We are 32 feet back to back of curb. So, there is a -- we have parking and it works for the Fire Department and safety. However, I had to go private, because the northern road that provides access to Selway is a private road. So, you can't have a public road that comes off a private road. Does that make sense? Cavener: It does. Mr. Mayor. Scott, so I guess from a -- from a width standpoint to allow on-street parking from a -- from a function, probably not going to allow for a lot of on- street parking with your development. Noriyuki: No. This is actually cool. Thank you. I love this question. Parking. Okay. So, within this project I have 41 units proposed. Okay? They are all single family. They are attached, but they are single family owned. Not rentals. Cavener: Right. Noriyuki: So, with 41 homes, if you look at the last page I e-mailed all you, 41 homes times four equals 164 spaces. What that is is the base requirement for two cars within a garage, as well as two cars in their driveway. Okay? Cavener: Okay. So, first of all, we are taking care of everybody who owns and lives there. Secondarily, we have 16 visitor parking stalls. Because it was -- this is a big thing we heard from the neighbors and we heard from staff. So, we have got the 16 additional parking spaces, which include handicapped spaces. Cavener: Yeah. Noriyuki: Then on top of it our private on-street parking with our 32 feet back to back of curb, which is designed perACHD, that's providing us an additional 22 parking stalls. So, at the end of the day we have 218 spaces for 41 --a 41 home development, which equates to 5.31 spaces and, then, on top of it we are willing to work with -- on the northern portion, because with the Selway Apartments I have heard from the neighbors that parking is horrible and it's pouring over into their subdivision or areas. With that our open space, if you look at this northern exhibit is -- everybody looking at the screen? Cavener: Yeah. Noriyuki: So, up against Selway Rapids Lane that was built as a three-quarter road section. We will go ahead, because it's a private road, we technically don't have to treat Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 58 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 39 of 62 that buffer as if it was a local road. If you would allow me to reduce it, we will go ahead and widen that road to 32 feet, which creates additional parking for Selway and takes the pressure off Kelly Creek. Cavener: Okay. Noriyuki: We are fine with it. We are cleaning up somebody else's mess. Cavener: Maybe. Noriyuki: But we are -- we are happy to do that. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Scott, I'm going to -- I'm going to -- I'm going to push back a little bit, only because you got to enjoy a very robust conversation amongst my colleagues for the past 90 minutes about storage units and there is a reason why we continue to see a lot of storage units in front of us is because people aren't using their garages to store their vehicles, they are using their garage to store their stuff. Your piece about the on-street parking is kind of where my question came from again, is, again, you are the expert, I'm not, but when I look at -- when I look at your elevation, your map here, I see maybe one location where on-street parking is going to be compatible and that's in front of your common open space. Everywhere else I don't see it. So, out -- on the map, use the mouse, show -- show me where -- Noriyuki: I love it. Cavener: -- your residents are going to be able to park. Noriyuki: Okay. So, what you have got -- no. Thank you. This is critically important. So, if we just kind of roll around here, we got one car -- ah. I'm sorry. How do I go back, Sonya? There we go. Ah. Now we are fighting each other. Okay. One car here. One here. One here. Three here. One here. Three here. One here. One here. One here. One here. Here. Here. Here. And, then, the same over there. So, that's where the calculation comes from, because there is no question that where the driveways are together, yeah, you can't have a car parked on the street. So, we have run all the mathematics in that area to prove that out. Now, that's just showing that we are doing more. Now, when we do Selway Rapids, if you guys feel like you want us to clean up the Selway Apartment issue for the benefit of neighbors, that's where this stretch widens right here, because right now there is parking on the north side up against that sidewalk, but there is no parking along here on street. So, we are open to that. Cavener: And Mr. Mayor. Scott, the reason why I'm pushing back on this is because I really think the Selway problem is going to become your new owners problem and that Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 59 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 40 of 62 you're going to have -- Selway residents are going to try to find places to park within your community and your parking spots are going to get full and your on-street parking is going to be full and your new residents who have bought these cool new townhouses are going to be upset at us, because we approved something when you have already -- and you're right, it's somebody else's parking problem, but you are contributing to that by -- by building something that's a little more dense here and so -- Noriyuki: Okay. Cavener: -- I'm trying to solve the problem before it starts. Noriyuki: Thank you so much and all due respect, if we didn't think we were building something that would make money, number one, we wouldn't do it. Cavener: Sure. Noriyuki: Number two, I have spent umpteen hours on this property working with Wright Brothers, who developed the -- the main storages and they just improved the frontage on McMillan. I have been there weekdays, mornings, evenings, weekends and I have to be honest with you, every time I go out there and I update the notification sign, I don't see a parking issue. I don't see overflow onto that entire Selway Rapids. Every time I pull out there -- and you can look at my notify -- notification pictures, I don't see anything. Now, I don't live there. Cavener: Right. Noriyuki: I'm just telling you I have been there Saturday, Sunday, 5.00 p.m., 8.00 a.m., middle of the day, holidays. I -- I think we are addressing it. Due respect. Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Mr. Mayor. Noriyuki: Not being from -- Cavener: A question. And, Scott, your elevations -- I got to be honest, I really value when a -- when a developer wants to build in Meridian they really get creative and we see a lot of diversity in architecture depiction. At least what's been provided to me I don't see a lot of that and so help me understand what you are doing that makes these, you know, units stand out as being unique and not just in terms of color. Noriyuki: No. Fair enough. That's an excellent question. So, I want you to look at the top left-hand and the bottom right-hand. I want you to see -- and sometimes it's really hard with modeling, because -- but the architectural modulation, these -- these particular buildings are dodging back and forth upwards of four, five, six feet and there is multiple materials. Now, I understand that you would like me to have this completely modeled, Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 60 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 41 of 62 but at the onset of entitlement I need to give you an idea and I work with the conditional use and with Sonya or Bill to ensure -- excuse me -- ensure we have got -- we have got the modulation. I realize the lower left-hand side looks pretty bland and we could be conditioned to create some modulation there and I'm very open to suggestions when it comes to architecture. Cavener: Okay. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: So, I had a couple of questions, but I was hoping you could walk us through the timeline on when you acquired this property. Clearly it was zoned as light office and R-4 and what your thinking was -- in terms of what you were going to do with it -- and to me the zoning -- banking on a zoning change is an equity risk. Noriyuki: Agreed. With that said, I have got Taylor, who is going to come up, and I need him to further discuss that. The reasoning is very sound and I want you to hear why light office, in our opinion, as developers, investors, builders, it just hasn't worked out and why the property has come before this body multiple times and no developer is willing to build light office. With that said I will stand back for a moment. Strader: Mr. Mayor, if I could clarify my question a little bit in terms of what I was getting at. I understand from -- from reading the background materials for this application that office is not the highest and best use for the property, but what I'm curious about is, you know, were you intending on achieving a zoning change to this new residential use in order to make the project pencil? Like what was the thinking there and -- Noriyuki: Absolutely. Because what we have come forward with is the highest and best use from a personal investment and development standpoint. It's also a massive need within Meridian and Ada county, city of Boise, that's documented that townhouses are phenomenally wanted, needed, desired and underserved. Strader: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I think I understand that. If there is more detail on the timeline I don't know how that would answer my question differently. Noriyuki: Timeline regarding the history or timeline for completion? Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: What I was getting at with my question -- I was trying to understand if you are not the original owner of the property, the original owner, when they were, you know, working on this entire subdivision and that -- there was kind of a master planning overlay Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 61 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 42 of 62 concept at that time, there was a concept of a mixture of uses eventually and this became zoned with a mixture of uses, so there was a -- there was a use designated already in this area for high density residential and this was clearly zoned as R-4 and light office and what I want understand is did something change, like when you acquired the property -- I mean did you understand -- you know, I'm assuming you understood how it was zoned. Did your thinking change? I mean what was the original intention for the property and did you really just have to pivot into a higher density residential to make the project work? Simison: Scott, maybe if I could help out with this and maybe even ask Sonya to speak in on the concept of neighborhood centers and if I'm not mistaken, that's really where this concept came from and how that was at one point in time the city's viewpoint and how that has since changed. Allen: Yes, Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council, but the Comprehensive Plan land use designation is now mixed use community. The proposed development is consistent with that designation and with the density desired in that designation. Noriyuki: If I may interject. She's absolutely correct. It's a mixed use designation currently within this area, which has morphed over years. Development agreements have changed. The overall designs have changed. The overall uses have morphed to a degree. So, within the mixed use -- correct me if I'm wrong, Sonya -- three different -- distinct different characteristics. So, in this area we are actually providing a fourth. So, we have got single family detached classic subdivision to our east. We have high density, super high density apartments, rentals, to the north. We have -- to the east we have commercial, which is storage, and, then, further -- excuse me -- to the west. I may have said east, but to the west. And further to the west we have a massive commercial center now that you guys have developed, approved, created since this project even came on board and, then, we have a primary arterial road, which is McMillan. So, now what we are doing is we are coming in with a fourth use within the mixed use, which is townhouse, which in the comp plan that was adopted states that the City of Meridian desires and wants and needs a diversity of housing opportunities. In this area there -- in the immediate proximity there are no townhouses. There is -- there is rentals and there are single family detached. That's it. There is no diversity. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Could you expand upon, please -- you were mentioning you're open to widening that -- that road or helping to provide more parking along that road. Could you expand on your thoughts on what you would be willing to do to kind of bridge the gap between the R-4 zoning that you have and the, you know, desired zoning that you are trying to get? Noriyuki: Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. So, number one with the road and, then, I will address the zoning. Number one with the road -- and you can verify and speak to this. He will Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 62 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 43 of 62 give me the head nod. I -- I will design it with a 32 foot back-to-back curb as per ACHD standards, even though it's a private road -- it is a private road, but we have the access easement. So, I already have that in place. I don't have to negotiate it and, essentially, what we do is we take the northern side of our property or, if you will, this southern -- can you bring up the aerial, Sonya, please. Or the southern portion of that road, they are ready -- I'm just making sure everybody's tracking with me and, essentially -- okay. So, when we look at -- thank you, Sonya. So, when we come in here, Selway Rapids -- so, when you look at the aerial photography you can see the northern part of Selway Rapids has curb, gutter, sidewalk. On the southern half of it it's just curb. What we would do is we would come in and we would tear a hundred percent of that curve out and, then, we would take the asphalt and we would widen it by an additional --whatever the dimensional requirement is, whether that be four feet, six feet, eight feet, what have you, put in another curb and put in another sidewalk and what that does is that creates that additional on- street parking. Okay. From a zoning standpoint, I -- I think this is really critical to point out that you are seeing in the application that I'm applying for an R-15 with a DA. So, the DA caps it. All right? Because you only go R-4 -- within your code you go R-4, R-8 and, then, R-15 and, then, R-40. Selway was R-40. I'm -- right now, as I sit I'm at 8.8. I'm almost at eight units to the acre, where I could just do an R-8 and not freak anybody out. But the only thing I can do is go with the R-15, but I'm doing the DA where you guys -- I cut the contract between the land and the city that says, okay, that's great, you get the R- 15 zoning, because you have to comply with your development code. But you capped me -- and Mr. Nary can verify this -- with the development agreement you capped me at exactly what I designed, 41 units. I cannot go above that period. So, that gives assurances that when you give me the R-15 zoning, ideally, I hope, I can't play monkey business and come back and ratchet it up to 15 units to the acre. It is subject to my design and my layout period and my density. I hope that clarifies that. Strader: That does clarify my question. I, Mr. Mayor, have an additional follow-up question. Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: How many -- how many additional parking spots I guess, if you will, would that add to that stream? Have you guys calculated that? Noriyuki: I didn't even calculate it, but if I -- I mean if we just run some simplistic math real quick -- Sonya, can we go to my layout or maybe I can figure out how to get to my layout. Allen: Let me drive. Bongiorno: Okay. So, Mayor, if I can interject while she's looking. Simison: Yes, chief. Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 63 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 44 of 62 Bongiorno: So, Mayor and Council Woman Strader, just for clarification, Selway Rapids Lane right now is a fire lane. So, there is no parking allowed on that lane -- on that street whatsoever. That's why he's never seen any cars there. Noriyuki: Correct. Bongiorno: So, it's -- it's our only way in and out of that apartment complex. Other than there is one emergency access that is in there. So, according to city code all private streets are required to be fire lanes. So, it does give the option, though, in the code that the fire marshal can approve parking on a private street. Noriyuki: Awesome. Thank you. I just ran the math and I could provide -- I'm going to be conservative. I could provide 12 additional spaces on the south side of Selway Rapids, with his blessing. Simison: Councilman Bernt. Bernt: This gentleman that's to your right, he's Deputy Chief Joe Bongiorno. I would appreciate it if you would address him -- Noriyuki: I apologize. I'm sorry. I was aloof. I didn't mean it that way. Simison: Are there further questions for the applicant? All right. Thank you. Noriyuki: Thank you. Simison: So, this is a public hearing and since I didn't go through this beforehand, but anyone else coming up will have three minutes to testify, unless you are testifying on behalf of a group, that is an HOA president or a group, that you will have up to ten minutes and the applicant will have the last word. So, with that, Mr. Clerk, were there any signups? Johnson: Yes, Mr. Mayor. There were eight individual signups. Four indicated they wished to testify. And first as Janie Pollmann. Simison: And when you come forward if you could, please, say your name and address for the record. Pollmann: Hello. My name is Janie Pollmann. I live 5030 North Goddard Creek Way. I'm directly across from the Selway Apartments. So, what I would like to speak on today -- and I have learned that three minutes is not very long -- is the traffic and we -- we all realize that the City Council can do nothing about the traffic. It's ACHD. We understand that. But it is still a big problem for the community. I have here -- I pulled this off the ACHD today about the current traffic counts. Of course the top one is Goddard Creek right there at our T intersection, 3005 cars in a 24 hour period, and the next one below it is McMillan Road, east of Ten Mile, almost 10,000 cars in a 24 hour period go through there. So, I'm not sure where the applicant has been driving around looking. He is Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 64 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 45 of 62 missing all this traffic. I don't -- I don't know how that's happening. But now if I could have the overview, please. Anyway, if we get that, what I wanted to also show about the traffic is that right next door to his portion is -- right there at Goddard and McMillan is a T intersection. Across the street from that is that big canal. Okay. A hundred and twenty- five feet to the east is the intersection of Palatine Road and McMillan Road and that is where the Hunter Elementary School is. So, in 125 feet we have two T intersections with the canal. So, there is nothing anybody can do about the road and we have buses going in and out of there and the traffic is -- is already such a problem for us that live in that area and you can see the traffic count is only going up and up and up in that area. We are more concerned in our area with the traffic than we are his project and that is why we really want the units to stay -- or, excuse me, the zoning to stay to the office. Now, I know that we have heard him before talk about they are going to say how -- how many cars come into a business and da, da, da, da, da. We don't agree with --with what he's saying compared to a family coming and going, coming and going, coming and going multiple times in that area. Between the large apartment complex on McMillan Road and Meridian Road -- I think it's called The Prelude, down to Ten Mile, we have almost 700 units right now without any more being -- being approved and right across from me is the high density Selway Apartments. We just -- this is just not compatible with -- with what is existing and we really are hoping and praying that the Council will not approve this project. Thank you. Simison: Are there any questions? Johnson: Mr. Mayor, next is Pam Fiscus. Fiscus: My name is Pam Fiscus. 2393 West Apgar Creek Drive, Meridian, Idaho. 83646. And I live in Kelly Creek Subdivision. And I live on the corner of Apgar Creek and Goddard Creek and thank you for pointing out the fire lane, Joe. And I wanted to say that the Planning and Zoning is against this project first off. Secondly, I wanted to say that Scott called meetings and never showed up and we weren't sure if meetings were really going to take place. So, the Willow Creek --we didn't know if that was really going to take place, because the meeting before he just didn't bother to show up or cancel with us. We -- when Meridian had a vision, when we first --when I first bought my home -- I'm an original homeowner -- of high density, medium density, low office, commercial, and Kelly Creek and Lochsa are medium density. Selway is very high density and as Janie said, we have a serious traffic problem on Goddard Creek. You can't even make a left out of -- onto McMillan in the morning or at night because the traffic is backed up all the way to Ten Mile and the street can't be widened. I wanted to find out -- I had a question for Scott about fire hydrants, how that he was going to place that in that complex with all those parking spaces, because you have to be 15 feet from a fire hydrant. I don't know if that's something that Council could address to him or maybe Joe could. Okay. When we asked Scott originally about the price points, he said 250,000 dollars and at the last meeting we had in City Hall here he said the sky is the limit. He wasn't sure and if he's talking about families jumping from an apartment to a townhouse, 400,000 dollar townhouse, that doesn't seem logical. We have a lot of townhouses right in the area on the corner of Linder and McMillan and on both the north and the south sides. Back in 2017 when we Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 65 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 46 of 62 approached the Council to stop -- we were for the storage facility, but, then, they threw the apartments in there. I think there was 84 units or something like that. We were against that because of the traffic and the volume and I have submitted pictures to the Council and I'm sure you can see them -- about parking in front of my house. I can't even park in front of my house and guests can't park in front of my house. I have people park in front of my driveway, in front of my mailbox. We have recently lost a small section of Lolo Pass Lane because of something that happened in our association. It's something that's owned by the homeowners, but they went ahead and painted the curbs red, so that took away a lot of parking for homeowners and their extra cars, because some of our homeowners have seven cars, because they have a lot of children. Let's see. We have a private park that -- Simison: If I can get you to wrap up, please. Your three minutes is up. If you can wrap up. Fiscus: Okay. Okay. Real quick. We do have a private park and it's maintained by Kelly Creek and paid for by Kelly Creek, but it's used by the Selway occupants and hundreds of them use our park, even though our signs are posted, and I don't -- if there is not a big area for them to -- some type of common area for this new development that's asking for R-15 rezoning, I feel that our park is going to be utilized by these people also. Okay. Simison: Council, do you have any questions? Fiscus: Thank you. Simison: Thank you. Johnson: Mr. Mayor, next is Penny Fisher. Fisher: Hi. My name is Penny Fisher. I live at 2382 West Apgar Creek. I'm actually just across from Pam Fiscus. I'm kitty-corner from this project. So, I will be directly affected by this project. I do want to put on record that I'm opposed to this project. One, as I said, it's not necessarily about the parking, it's not necessarily about the overcrowding of schools. I understand you guys can't control that. It's about the quality of life. They are saying it's a great feathering. We -- it was proposed previously when they did the storage units to put it there, it was moved over and left this area. They did try to previously put apartments and they did propose apartments. It has been -- it was rejected based on the traffic overcrowding stuff that was --that they are saying that they are. The Selway Creek, where they were saying, is the -- it is a fire road right now. That is the only an entrance into the Selway, which is high density now and according to the original back -- the Comprehensive Plan, they had to put that as the high density. I do know things have changed and things have been updated, but they did still choose, even with this new, to leave the zoning and the only way that this project would be approved is if they change the zoning. But even the Comprehensive Plan over many many times has left it as the R -- the R-4. So, I'm asking for you guys to consider that and not change the rezoning, which would, then, make this project not possible. Again, it will -- he is trying to -- he said Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 66 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 47 of 62 it would feather it. Yes, what he is proposing -- he is saying that our homes -- our home values are higher than what he is trying to make this, because he is trying -- he is saying the apartments or rentals -- who is to say that they are -- do not come in and somebody comes in and buys -- because they are townhomes, whose to come to say that they won't turn into all rentals. We can't guarantee that, which, then, with rentals there is no guarantee that there is only going to be two cars per unit. The other thing is he says there is only going to be 34, 35 kids in a 41 unit. They are two to three bedrooms. I don't know about you, but if I have two to three bedrooms and a 41 unit, that's more than 35 kids and when I spoke to the principal they -- they don't have -- in Willow Creek right there in the mile -- they don't have room for anymore kids. The only way -- option they would have is to bus them. Yes, they do have plans right now. The only thing they have is a high school to be built. They do not have any other plans for an elementary. So, Hunter is overcrowded. Willow Creek is overcrowded. Paramount is overcrowded. So, I do not know where they would put those 35 or additional kids. I was told that they would be bussed. So, I would like you to take that into consideration and also the -- the Planning and Zoning denial -- that they recommended denial for this project. Again, this is the second time they have tried to put it in. So, again, I'm asking you to also decline this and do not do the zoning and decline this project. Thank you. Simison: Any questions? Borton: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Borton. Borton: Can I ask you a question real quick?. Fisher: Okay. Borton: I was going to ask Pam the same question, but -- Fisher: Yes. Borton: -- amongst -- we read all the written materials that come in in preparation for the hearings and your December 5th letter was one of many that we got. Fisher: Yes. Borton: And you reference the petition that was -- Fisher: Oh, yes. Borton: --of the signatures gathered. The two questions are, one, if you know, how many signatures were gathered and -- and, number two, is if you can describe the process of how those were gathered, meaning at the neighborhood meeting, for example, or walking the neighborhood. Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 67 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 48 of 62 Fisher: Okay. So, I'm not sure the final -- it was around a hundred petitions that we got, but we -- myself and Pam went house to house, door to door, with a bunch of other people in Lochsa Falls. We just explained -- we gave them a picture of -- with the card showing the proposed site. We gave them -- we showed them the view of what they wanted to build and we just asked -- we are saying where -- we -- you know, we explained to them this was our community and we didn't think that it was a good use. We asked them if they wanted to sign and we had over a hundred signatures -- or close to a hundred signatures when we did that. Borton: Okay. Fisher: We didn't hit the full entire neighborhood, we only stayed right there close to -- right there in the Kelly Creek -- I mean we only hit probably half of it due to time, but if we could have more time I'm pretty sure we could get more signatures, because I had plenty of people that told me -- because I personally did it myself. That's why I submitted some of those. But we did have plenty of people that said they would have signed it if they had time, but we were told it had to be turned in by a certain time. Borton: Okay. Johnson: Mr. Mayor? Mr. Mayor, Council Member Borton, we do have that in there in the public comments. It says 2019 -- twelve -- nine residents of Kelly Creek petition. So, it isn't the public record as well. The petition that Mr. Borton referenced is in the public record there as well to see those signatures if you choose. Borton: Okay. Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Borton. Borton: I saw attachments to various letters. I hadn't seen a compilation of all of it as one. I must have -- I might have missed it. But I just saw it attached to your letter and to Pam's letter and -- Fisher: Yeah. Because we each went out and did it ourselves and so we -- we kept submitting them as they came in. Borton: Okay. Perfect. Thank you. Thanks. Simison: Any additional questions? Thank you. Fisher: Thank you. Johnson: Mr. Mayor, your last of the pre-sign in is Sheryl Tolman. Tolman: City Council, Mayor, I appreciate your thoughtfulness tonight, making decisions based on existing neighborhoods and what's best for them. Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 68 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 49 of 62 Simison: If I could get you to give you name and address. Tolman: Oh, sorry. Sorry. Sheryl Tolman. 2695 West McMillan Road. I get to deal with the 10,000 cars every day. Yeah. So, please, don't take tonight's attendance as an accurate representation of those in opposition. The sign had the wrong date for the longest time and now it's folded over on itself and it's -- I couldn't read as a passenger in the car, I had to get out and physically read it, but I did look up at the -- on the agenda to see it was tonight instead of last week when it was advertised for a long time. So, I have a few general concerns. First of all, there is a lot -- the fallacy that we need to put in the townhouses here, because Costco is going to need people to work or whatever. There is plenty of open space closer to Costco that hasn't been developed that won't affect existing neighborhoods that could be built on and as was stated who is to say that these townhouses don't become rentals. Years ago I had a concern -- who holds developers accountable? Because years ago at a neighborhood meeting we were promised by the adjacent neighborhood that we would have a right of way in case McMillan got too busy, which we laughed at at the time, because there was ten cars every half hour or so and now we are not laughing. There is a fence blocking it and we -- despite repeated requests and showing them our legal right of way, we still can't access it. So, we are left with this McMillan Road and, please, do not add more cars to it. In the past I have heard arguments like --just like -- it took so long because nobody, you know, wants to develop it or there isn't any -- there is definitely a need for R-4. It's just -- I believe that there is a higher profit margin for higher density. So, that's the route the developers choose to take. But we need the single family homes and their neighbors that don't need to suffer the effects of overcrowding. So, please, don't use the argument that they have already invested a ton of money, because they knew going into it it was R-4 and light office and what about the residents that live there, that have invested time and money in their schools, in their neighborhoods, in their homes, they have put in a lot of stock and a lot -- some of us have lived there for decades and I don't feel that we should always have to suffer at the developers' hand for their profit. So, please, remember the people who tried to be good neighbors, those who volunteer, those who have to deal with the traffic long after the developer moves on. Remember the kindergarteners who are stuck with 20 kids in their class, because growth isn't managed and remember those that have lost their view. Anyway, I appreciate you listening to the residents and I -- Simison: Sheryl, thank you. Were there any questions? Councilman Cavener? Cavener: Thanks for being here. Tolman: Thank you. Simison: All right. Is there anybody else who would like to provide testimony on this application? Please come forward. Your name and address for the record. Schmidt: Sure. Taylor Schmidt. Addresses is 4192 East Esperanto Street, Meridian, Idaho. I do work with the developer, but I'm also a residential real estate agent here in Meridian at Realty One Group Professionals. City of Meridian and the Treasure Valley as Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 69 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 50 of 62 a whole have a high demand for diverse stepped-up housing. We don't want the sprawl. City of Meridian wants the mixed use, vertical residential. Right now there really is a rental apartments and single family detached housing and with how the market's been going prices are soaring. I did a new construction sales analysis and in 2019 in northwest Meridian alone there were 866 new construction homes sold in 2019. Average sales price was over 390,000 dollars. Of those 866, only 11 of them were townhomes. Ten of those townhomes were over the price of 365,000 dollars. Next search I did was all active or pending new construction townhomes and as of today, January 21 st, 2020, and there were only nine townhomes. All nine were over the purchase price of 390,000. Right now it shows that we do need a stepped-up housing and we do need affordability. Goddard Creek Townhomes is a stepped up project. They are attached single family dwellings. Some are three units. Some are two units. Some face a MEW and some are more traditional. But they do have a two car garage and they will be affordable. It does fit the need in between the rental world and the traditional expensive of detached housing. Planning and Zoning Commission touched on this project as being a great project, just not in this location, and they would like it to be office. My last point is this. The developer, he's been developing for over 20 years here in the area and he has -- he does have experience in developing office buildings in the Treasure Valley and I can honestly tell you that if this was a good location for office, he would build it. It's not a good location for office and so I ask that you approve this project, Goddard Creek Townhomes. That's it. Thanks. Simison: Thank you. Any questions? All right. Thank you. Is there anybody else that would like to provide testimony on this application? All right. Would the applicant like to come forward for final words. Noriyuki: Thank you, Mayor, Council. For the record Scott Noriyuki, Northside Management, 6810 Fairhill Place, Boise, Idaho. I'm -- I got a lot of things to cover here that I'm hoping that I can. I do want to clarify that there was -- and these are responses to the public testimony. I do want to clarify that we are not the original developers of the original applications regarding the development agreement modifications or the storage units or the apartment complexes. I just want that clarity. We are fresh blood. That original proposal of the 84 unit apartment complex, that is not us. We are 41 units. Significantly pared down. I do want to point out that with this project we are also providing some -- there were some comments that the only entrance and access point for Selway Rapids is the -- the Selway Rapids Road. With our particular project we did take some advice in our pre-application meeting with the Fire Department and we are providing a secondary egress out to McMillan. Now, that's not going to be an active, it's strictly for an emergency, which does create a relief valve not only for our project, but ultimately Selway Rapids. So, from a fire life safety health standpoint, I feel that's a positive. With respect to light office versus residential. Forty-one residential units. The calculation is 41 units produces 287 trips per day. Light office would produce 600 plus trips per day based off of what would be allowed by City of Meridian code. That's a significant difference. So, I just -- and that is per ACHD and the traffic guidelines and the calculations and what the codes are with the City of Meridian. These are not made up numbers. This is what's in writing. With respect to that, as far as the P&Z denial -- the recommendation for denial, Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 70 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 51 of 62 I'm personally vexed, because we have met all of the code, the comp plan intent or requirements, the architects within the city who put this together and it was signed off by everybody. We meet all those items. So, I guess I can't say anything aside from I -- I'm vexed. I don't understand. As far as meetings missed, there was a neighborhood meeting that I was an absolute no show and that came down to a notification issue and ultimately we were continued. So, ultimately, I didn't show up. That was poor on -- on my end. didn't have phone numbers to call people, it's just -- I have a mailing list. I profusely apologized. That was one of four neighborhood meetings. Per code there is only one required. I have done four. All right. I flaked on one and I will take it on the chin. I'm just being honest. The traffic -- as far as all of the traffic, ACHD has set forth with this and ITD has and they have approved our design, our impact, and they pushed forward with the staff report that is in support of the project. I do want to also point out that along McMillan Road through our project we are -- the actual project is 4.6 acres, give or take, but the actual property is over five and with that we are conveying additional property on the McMillan right of way for the ultimate widening and expansion. However, that doesn't just happen until there is a trigger for ITD or ACHD. Once it hits a point of capacity that's when ITD and ACHD will allocate the funds and they will ultimately widen it. However, we have conveyed -- or are conveying that additional widening opportunity as the city grows. As far as fire hydrants, naturally through the final plat process and the development guidelines we have --we have to put them in. We don't have a choice. One every -- I believe it's 400 or 500 feet. We will absolutely, undeniably, conform to that. Otherwise we would never get a permit or a final plat recorded. As far as price points, thank Taylor for addressing that. We all know that market numbers -- it's kind of like stocks, they change all day long. However, this is high quality and it's needed. I want to thank him -- I want to thank him again as far as diversity. He was very good in the calculations of the need for the townhouses. I do want to point out -- and this isn't going to be a popular comment, but I do want to point out that within Kelly Creek Subdivision those roads that on-street parking, those are taxpayer roads, those are public roads. Everybody has a right to park on those, regardless of how anybody feels it is not private property. It is not owned by the subdivision or the HOA. Those are ACHD roadways owned by the public. Not popular. I'm just saying it. I do want to address open space. There has been concern that -- that the Selway residents have been utilizing the Kelly Creek open space. Number one, I have nothing to do with that. Number two, I cannot police that. That's not something that I can do or should be my problem. Number three, I do want to point out with our project we have multiple open spaces. We have a playground. We have a dog park. We have a gazebo with a barbecue area. We have multiple pathways and just generalized open space to throw a frisbee or throw a ball with your -- with your son or your daughter. We are taking on a tremendous amount of that -- providing a tremendous amount. I want to reiterate we have 22 percent of this project as qualified open space, but the true green area is 27 percent. That's very rare to see that in subdivisions or projects. And I am curious -- no. With that said I -- I conclude and I will stand for questions. I appreciate your time. Simison: Is there any questions from Council? Councilman Hoaglun. Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 71 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 52 of 62 Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor. Scott, I'm trying to -- I was a little confused by Taylor. He gave us some market analysis, but if these were constructed and they were on the market today -- and I realize market fluctuates, what is the price point that you are looking at? Noriyuki: I will defer. Hoaglun: Okay. Noriyuki: He is -- he is the expert on that aspect. Hoaglun: Taylor, same -- same question. Schmidt: Sure. Hoaglun: If they were built today what -- what would the price point of these particular units be? I know there is two bedroom, three bedroom. Schmidt: Sure. Taylor Schmidt. And we haven't comped out exactly what the price frame structure or vertical costs are, but we are projecting the two bedroom to be in about the 250 range and the three bedroom to be under 300,000. 1 mean on market today the average townhomes is 360 and above and we are looking to be below that. Hoaglun: Okay. Thank you. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Thank you, sir. Scott. In your earlier testimony you talked about developing your private street to ACHD standards. I only heard you reference curb and gutter. Is there going to be sidewalks? Noriyuki: Mayor, Council, yes, absolutely. We -- yes, we will have -- on both sides. The only reason why I was referencing curb to curb is that 32 foot wide section from back of curb to back of curb, that is what creates within the ACHD criteria, so that you can have on-street parking. But, yes, absolutely we will have sidewalks -- Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Noriyuki: -- on both sides. Cavener: Scott, here is the reason why I asked. And you have been doing this a long time. This process is all about trust. We as a Council trust the applicant when they come before they are going to be honest to the best of their ability. The public's going to be as honest to us to the best of their ability. Sometimes there is shifting of perspectives, you don't always see eye to eye. The part that really frustrates me when you had a simple Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 72 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 53 of 62 mistake and not show up to a meeting -- in your earlier testimony you went at great lengths about having four meetings when one was required. You reiterated that point time and time again. I took notice of it. I wrote it down as a note, because I was impressed. Then to hear from a member of the public that you don't show up. Didn't have to hear that from them. We should be hearing it from you and we shouldn't be making a joke about it, because it's people's time. Time with their families and their time is important, just like your time is important. But when somebody doesn't volunteer information like that to me it makes me wonder what else are they not volunteering. So, I got to ask silly questions like you are going to put in sidewalks. It's not a good place to be as a council member. It's not a good place for our public to be and I hope that we don't see that type of activity from you in the future. Noriyuki: Absolutely. And I do want to address -- okay. So, A number one, apologies. Apologies across the board. Number two, in the e-mail that-- of clarifications I sent today I did divulge that in my opening testimony I should have, so it's not a bait and switch, I'm taking full ownership. Simison: Any other questions? Councilman Bernt. Bernt: Just a question. Scott? Noriyuki: Yes. Bernt: Do you guys currently own this property or do you guys have an option on it? Noriyuki: We have an absolute option. The actual owner is here in the audience tonight that we are under contract with. Naturally -- Bernt- No, I get it. Noriyuki: Okay. Thank you. Simison: Scott, a question I had. You mentioned your traffic generating numbers. I have always been under the impression that that's about 9.8 per residential unit for a traffic count number, but the number you gave was less than that. Are townhomes having a different calculation from ACHD on your traffic count? Otherwise, you should be about 400 in the number you provided from my knowledge. Noriyuki: That was simply based off of the generations that ACHD creates the calculations with, based upon whether it be a two bedroom or a three bedroom. Not a lot of expertise on my part. That was just me presenting things and looking to experts as far as what their calculation is. Simison: So, I guess maybe my question is for Justin then. Justin, does ACHD differentiate in traffic count numbers based upon type of residential unit? Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 73 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 54 of 62 Noriyuki: Wonderful. Simison: Just so we can be accurate in our numbers for the record. Lucas: Mr. Mayor, thank you. Members of the Council. For the record my name is Justin Lucas. I work for the Ada County Highway District. Business address is 3775 Adam Street, Garden City, Idaho. The short answer is yes. ACHD uses the Highway Capacity Manual. It's a trip generation manual to determine what estimated amount of trips are going to be produced by different types of housing, different types of commercial uses, whatever that may be. All of that information is located in the ACHD staff report, the trip generation numbers which you have, and so I don't have them off the top of my head, but if you're interested they are in the staff report and you can reference those. I don't know if it's exactly what the applicant said or not, I haven't -- I haven't checked, but -- but, yes, we do have national standards we use for those types of -- those type of calculations. Simison: Okay. Thank you. Are there any further questions for the applicant? Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Scott, my -- my opinion hasn't changed from the first part of your testimony that you don't got enough parking for this development to serve your residents. Have you had any conversations with you and your team about reducing the amount of units to accommodate for what I believe is more adequate parking? Noriyuki: Mayor, Councilman, yes, our original design was roughly 48 units. We have since pared that down to make it more palatable, but also we have built several of these projects in several different cities and counties throughout Idaho very successfully and we do have a minimum standard for parking. Otherwise, it will not be a sellable, palatable project and we have been successful with these. I do -- excuse me. I do want to reiterate that per City of Meridian code -- in the unified -- Unified Development Code the City of Meridian identifies for every single family unit that there are two cars parked indoors in a garage and two on a driveway. So, number one, we meet code period. We met code. The code you guys embody. You support. That's the rules of engagement. Number two, we do recognize that there are some on-street parking concerns, because these are tighter units. So, that is where we came in with the additional 16 parking stalls down on the south to ensure that on Thanksgiving or birthdays or Super Bowl Sunday, something like that, people have adequate additional places to park, so as to ensure that we are not a burden, as I have heard that Selway is on Kelly Creek. We are encapsulating all of our open space and our parking and our visitors. Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor. Question for Sonya then. Simison: Councilman Hoaglun. Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 74 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 55 of 62 Hoaglun: What is -- what is our requirement for how -- is it per unit? How many spaces per unit or how do we figure that? Allen: Mr. Mayor, Councilmen, Councilman Hoaglun, parking spaces are based on the number of bedrooms per unit. Hoaglun: Okay. So -- Allen: The analysis is in the staff report. Hoaglun: What I'm -- what I'm reading, Mr. Mayor and Sonya, it talked about 218 spaces for 41 homes. This is Scott's, you know, information he provided. More than double code and helps existing issues. So, I'm just trying to figure out, you know, if we have -- if they have 41 units times four is 164, visitor parking of 16, plus on-street parking, it would appear they do exceed code requirements. Is that accurate? Allen: Yes. Hoaglun: Okay. Thank you. Simison: Are there further questions or comments? Thank you. Noriyuki: Thank you. I appreciate your time. Simison: With that I will sit here until Council has direction they would like to go for a motion. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: I would like to discuss a little bit. Sometimes things move too fast for me and I don't get a chance to get my discussion in. You know, a couple of thoughts. I, you know, appreciate the applicant is trying to go above and beyond on the open space here to meet some of the neighborhood concerns and I appreciate that they are willing to widen the road. I think what I'm struggling with this as a city, you know, we are supposed to provide adequate services to our residents and at this point, you know, it's true that the McMillan Road is not in our control. It is a traffic nightmare. I don't think anyone can dispute that. The schools in this area are overcrowded. We have got this very frank letter from the West Ada District to us recommending denial and we have got a Planning and Zoning Commission -- Commission denial in front of us and to me, you know, an optioned potential owner of this property came into this with an equity risk, assuming that we would upzone this property and I have to say looking at it my own opinion is that I don't think that -- that this neighborhood, especially this area on McMillan, can support any density beyond the R-4. That -- that's my honest opinion. So, I'm leaning toward, you know, denying the application. Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 75 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 56 of 62 Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: I'm always one that I -- Councilman Hoaglun and I were talking a little bit about this during the break. Try to find the yes. And for me if a project contributes positively to our community I'm more apt to support it. Does it improve the quality of life for the people who live in that part of our community. Some ways yes and some ways no. For the residents benefit it wasn't the applicant who brought the numbers about the students, that's the school district's numbers. He relies on their data. The data shows that your elementary is under capacity, middle schools is at capacity, everybody knows Rocky Mountain is over capacity. That will change with Owyhee. From someone who has lived here my whole life -- I remember going on a bus seven miles to a school. Drove past five other elementary schools for a class, 22 kids in my class. So, our community has grown as long as I can remember. So, what I look for goes back to the initial point is how does this improve the quality of life for those that surround it and Selway Apartments contribute negatively to the quality of life in terms of the parking challenges and I tried to give I think the applicant at least a couple opportunities to address it. He feels he's done a sufficient job. I might disagree. You talked briefly -- I don't know if any other members of Council feel the same way -- that the architecture -- there is a lot to be desired in my opinion. I would hope for something a little more of a level up that really appeals to our committee, especially factoring in the price point. So, I'm struggling to find the win for our community with this particular piece, which is always hard for me. So, at least right now I'm -- when it comes to that, I go back to our Planning and Zoning Commission and I read the minutes and watched the video and while not the full commission was there, their comments all rang true to me that this is just not the right fit for this part of town. So, that's where I sit at least as of right now. Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Hoaglun. Hoaglun: This -- this is a -- this is a difficult one. I know neighbors thinks, oh, this would be a slam dunk, the developer thinks this a slam dunk, each from their perspective. But, you know, for what we want for our community, we want to -- we want to grow from the center out. I mean that's -- that's our desire. That's how we want to do it. So, here we have an in-fill project and we could deny. It might go that way. I don't know. It might be improved. But what happens, then, if R-4 is approved two miles down the road and say, oh, that's good, because we are going out beyond the neighbors and building where no one else is and you're going to contribute 700 cars coming down McMillan as they head to Eagle Road and there we are. This place is vacant, but we have just increased the traffic capacity and -- and we are -- we are growing from out and not in growing out. So, that's -- that's one of the conflicts I have. Someone brought up rentals. Very good point. You know, there is no guarantee that -- that someone buys that place and turns it into a rental. That -- that happens in every subdivision. I have got a house just down the street from me, I'm ticked off because it's a rental and you know how many cars are out there? Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 76 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 57 of 62 And one of them's really loud muffler. I'm going to call code enforcement. But anyway. I need the number. So, that -- I get that. That's -- that's -- that's a problem everywhere. It's not unique to -- to just -- just to that situation. Parking. You know, I wanted to make sure it does go beyond the scope and when I look at the issue of-- this is a development under five acres and they are providing open space to -- to a big degree that's not something you are going to get with another one, even if it was a single family home development, that -- that becomes -- they wouldn't have to provide that space. So, are they going to be using the Kelly Creek Park, probably. So, there is -- there is that ying and that yang there of, okay, what -- what does this do. The office issue -- my folks live in a place -- a patio home where there was a strip mall type development behind them and it started out as office and, you know, 9:00 to 5:00 type of thing and, then, other uses came in and other uses were approved and now there is a restaurant and now there is another restaurant and it's horrible. I wouldn't wish that upon you at all. It really is a difficult situation for them and -- yeah. I hear about it from my mother, so -- anyway. Enough said there. So, those -- those are the types of things that --that really makes this a harder decision than I know what each of you -- each of the sides think, because there -- there are pluses and minuses to each -- each side and there could be worse development. The price point is something I pointedly asked, because one of the things I want to see in this community is a variety of price ranges. My kids just bought their first home in Meridian and it was difficult. They looked high and low. Finally kind of stretched and, yeah, mom and dad helped them out a bit, but this price point is not available in Meridian and a three bedroom home would have been perfect for them and -- and so you don't want to have people saying, well, you know, that -- pull up the gangplank, I'm a aboard mentality, we want to have a community that's available to young professionals, people starting families, all the way to people who are retired and wanting --wanting units. So, do we have that available? I'm always looking for that -- for that variety and at the same time -- but it does have to fit the area. It really does. So, as you can see I'm conflicted on this. I go back and forth, because there are qualities on both sides. I understand. And -- and I do like the fact that there is a -- an ownership component to that. I think that makes it good, although the rental thing is -- you can't prevent that, so -- Bernt: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Bernt. Bernt: Like Councilman Hoaglun and those who have spoke before me, I share some same concerns, some of the same potential advantages with this -- with this proposed development. The thing that strikes me the most is when I was on Planning and Zoning Commission before I was elected to this role, one of the very first -- I shouldn't say very first, but one of the applications that we heard was a townhome application somewhat nearby. It was on Linder. Just right around the corner. And the issue, in my opinion, with this area of our city -- they are just -- there is an oversaturation of higher density product. I'm a big believer -- and one of the advantages I believe that this proposed application provides is the price point. I love that price point that you propose. It's something that we need. A diversity of housing is extremely important. And with that I -- I like what I see. Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 77 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 58 of 62 But sometimes in development it's just -- you know, sometimes it's not the right time and sometimes it's just not the right place and sometimes we just need to be patient and I know that's not what you want to hear. It's not our purview in City Council to make sure that things pencil. That's just not something that we -- we -- that is -- you know, dictates at least my decision by -- by any means. But decent -- another thing that I -- that I wrote down -- I have some notes in front -- sorry I'm bouncing back and forth. I know that your renderings -- I get that-- why you may not have provided more specific renderings, but in past applications it's very common for us to receive very detailed renderings in this process and the renderings that I see are quite simple. I think we could have done a better job there. So, those are my thoughts. I would like to gnaw on this a little bit longer, but that's where I stand right now. Simison: Do I have any further comments or is anyone interested in making a motion? Bernt: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Bernt. Bernt: I move that we close the public hearing for Goddard Creek Townhomes, H-2019- 0068. Hoaglun: Second. Simison: I have a motion and a second to close the public hearing. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay. The ayes have it. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Simison: Is there discussion on the motion -- or sorry. Sorry. Never mind. Bernt: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Bernt. Bernt: I move that we deny Item 6-F, Goddard Creek Townhomes, H-2019-0068. Strader: Second. Simison: I have a motion and a second. Is there discussion on the motion? Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: I'm one that always takes pause before denial. I appreciate the comments from my colleagues here tonight. I know in the past Council has not been warm to substitute Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 78 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 59 of 62 motions and I'm not -- you know, that's not where I think we should head necessarily, but I'm -- I'm curious if this Council would be supportive of continuing this for a couple of weeks to give the applicant the opportunity to hear from the feedback from the Council and make some changes, provide those architectural depictions, address the parking challenges before we deny. I don't know if the Council has an opinion or a thought on that. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: I could give you some feedback on my opinion on that. The concerns that I have had -- to Councilman Bernt's point -- is really -- we have some macro level issues in this specific neighborhood that I really think are widespread challenges that we need to tackle with overcrowding in the school district and with traffic on McMillan Road and I don't think that architectural renderings would change my decision and I would hate to waste the applicant's time and money and effort on that. The only thing that I -- I probably would be open minded about -- and maybe that's just a new version of this -- would be a reduced unit count, providing additional parking and a solution to the parking challenges off of Selway -- the Selway complex, but it would also have to meet -- be closer to the R-4 zoning designation. So, I would be looking for reduced density to try to meet somewhere in the middle here and that's a pretty big change to ask for. Bernt: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Bernt. Bernt: You know, at the end of the day for me -- and I -- those who know me I'm definitely not short of an opinion, but I also believe in being honest and forthright and I just -- the -- the -- my concerns that way, the things that I liked about this particular subdivision -- and, honestly, that's just what it boiled down to me. So, I don't want to waste anyone's time. I'm not in favor of this application. So, my vote will be no. Simison: Councilman Hoaglun. Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor. Real quick. One of the things -- it's been a while since I have served and so I'm getting up to speed on things, but I think for this process -- the maker of the motion -- do we have to give reasons for this denial? I would like to ask Mr. Nary if I could about giving legal reasons or -- Nary: So, Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council, Council Member Hoaglun, so it is a -- it is a discretionary decision of the Council, because it's a development agreement. So, you can deny it because it's not in the best interest of the city. What I also heard, though, was you had concerns about the density and the impacts on the surrounding neighborhoods and the impacts of the traffic which, are, although, again traffic is not necessarily fully within your purview, public safety is. So, I have heard all those concerns and if I Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 79 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 60 of 62 understand that, that's part of the reasons it's not in the best interest of the city is the way I took that, then, I think that's adequate. Simison: Is there any further discussion or questions or should we call the question? Bernt: Call the question. Simison: All right. The clerk will call the roll. Johnson: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I have this as a motion to deny. Simison: Correct. Roll call: Bernt, yea; Borton, yea; Cavener, yea; Hoaglun, yea; Strader, yea; Perreault, absent. Simison: The ayes have it. The motion is denied. Or the motion carries to deny the project. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Item 7: Ordinances A. Ordinance No. 20-1871: An Ordinance Amending Meridian City Code Section 1-6-4, Creating Designated Positions in the Mayor's Office and Establishing a Hiring Method, Wage Determination, and Separation Benefit; Adopting a Savings Clause; and Providing an Effective Date Simison: All right. Item 7-A is Ordinance No. 20-1871. 1 will ask the clerk to read this by title. Johnson: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This is an ordinance amending Meridian City Code Section 1-6-4, creating designated positions in the Mayor's Office and establishing a hiring method, wage determination, and separation benefit; adopting a savings clause; and providing an effective date. Simison: Would anyone like this -- like the entire thing read? Okay. Seeing nothing. Cavener: Madam Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Just a quick comment. Applaud you for bringing this to the Council. I think it's a forward looking approach to staff and will serve our city well, both now and into the Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 80 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21,2020 Page 61 of 62 future. With that I move that we approve Ordinance No. 20-1871, an ordinance amending Meridian City Code Section 1-6-4 with suspension of rules. Hoaglun: Second. Simison: I have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Strader: I have a little discussion, please, Mr. Mayor. Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: I think for the benefit of the public, what would be helpful -- I had asked Mr. Nary some questions previously about the guardrails around Council's oversight on compensation and how we make sure that we are not, you know, sort of letting go of our separation of powers and ability to oversee appropriate compensation for these positions and that we have some guardrails around, you know, how that would all be handled and I would like Mr. Nary to comment on that for everybody's benefit. Simison: Mr. Nary. Nary: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, Council Woman Strader. So, the question of separation of powers. This doesn't change anything in regards to that regarding compensation. Council is charged with the budget. This position is in the Mayor's Office regardless of what the compensation they receive or how it's received, it still has to have budgeted money for that. So, no compensation can be provided to an employee without it being in the budget, which is, then, approved by the City Council. So, I don't see any conflict between the executive branch and the legislative branch of the city by granting the authority and the powers that this ordinance does. This really is primarily written for administrative purposes and for some continuity of services and such in the Mayor's Office and it doesn't impact the budgetary responsibilities of the Council. Simison: And if I could just add, these positions are still classified by HR within a range for those positions. Strader: Mr. Mayor, if I may discuss further with some commentary. That is what gave me comfort around approving the ordinance is that we have the guardrails from Legal and HR as well. Not any commentary on you, but thinking of future mayors and future councils that may come across issues. Simison: Are there any other questions? If not, I will ask the clerk to call the roll. Roll call: Bernt, yea; Borton, yea; Cavener, yea; Hoaglun, yea; Strader, yea; Perreault, absent. Simison: All ayes. Motion passes. Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 4,2020— Page 81 of 298 Meridian City Council January 21 , 2020 Page 62 of 62 MOTION CARRIED : FIVE AYES . ONE ABSENT. Item 8 : Future Meeting Topics Simison : Item No . 8 . Any future meeting topics ? Cavener : Mr. Mayor? Cavener : Councilman Cavener. Cavener : I appreciated hearing from SWAC today. It may be beneficial , I will leave it up to you and staff and SWAC to see -- but it may be beneficial in the future for Council to get a presentation about what service offerings the waste haulers in the region provide the jurisdictions they serve , what the cost is for their -- their customers . As we are continued to ask take a look at waste recycling , composting , to have a good understanding as to what the region pays , similar the way finance prepares that around property taxes and impact fees , that type of an analysis I think would be beneficial , either as a workshop topic or an overall SWAC presentation in the future . i Simison : I don 't think that would be a problem . I know they do that annually and keep E that up to date . So , I know it' s information they already possess . If not , do I have any other motions ? I Bernt : Mr. Mayor? Simison : Councilman Bernt . Bernt : I move that we adjourn . Hoaglun : Second . Simison : I have a motion and a second to adjourn . All those in favor signify by saying aye . Opposed nay. MOTION CARRIED : FIVE AYES . ONE ABSENT. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 9 : 21 P. M . DIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS ) I " oe A�� 2. / y 12020 M OR R E T E . 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