HomeMy WebLinkAbout2005 06-07 Special
Meridian City Council Special Meeting
June 7, 2005
The Meridian City Council special meeting was called to order at 5:00 P.M. on
Tuesday, June 7, 2005 by Shaun Wardle.
Members Present: Mayor Tammy De Weerd, Keith Bird, Christine Donnell,
Shaun Wardle and Charlie Rountree.
Staff Present: Ted Baird, Anna Canning, Brad Watson, Joe Silva and Will Berg.
Item 1.
Roll-call Attendance:
Roll call.
X Shaun Wardle
X Charlie Rountree
X Christine Donnell
X Keith Bird
Mayor Tammy de Weerd
X
Item 2.
Adoption of the Agenda:
Bird: Mr. President.
Wardle: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move we adopt the agenda as published.
Donnell: Second.
Wardle: It's been moved and seconded to adopt the agenda as published. Just
a point of clarification, Mr. Berg, on the published agenda, Item 4 skips Item 3,
would you like to change that?
Bird: Well, yeah, I should say that we don't have a four we have a three.
Wardle: With that change, all in favor of adopting the agenda as revised.
ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED.
Item 3.
Presentation I Introduction of the New Unified Development
Code:
Wardle: I will have our Director, Anna Canning, open this up for discussion.
Canning: President Wardle, Members of the Council and Mayor my intent tonight
is just as it kind of states introduces you to this document, I am just basically
going to be going through the table of contents. I have to warn you I have a
horrible sore throat so if I take frequent drinks and like pop things in my mouth
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June 7, 2005
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that's what is going on. So, hopefully, my voice will last for two hours. So, I will
go through quickly and then my intent is to just kind of explain the organization as
we go along. I explain what's a big departure from our existing ordinance. I do
have the existing ordinance here if you have some specific questions, but in all
honesty I don't think we are going to have time to do much other than just kind of
leaf through 242 pages, which isn't bad for a zoning ordinance really. Okay, the
first few pages are just the table of contents, so as you see there one of the big
ideas was to get this organized, there is a definite lack of organization in our
existing code. So, the first chapter goes through some general regulations.
Those are kind of more of the legal mumbo jumbo, if I could call it that and then
we go into the Chapter 2, which it explains the regulations by district, so that's
the residential districts, commercial, industrial and some new categories, which
we call the traditional neighborhood districts. The Old Town is one of those and
we have added two new districts. So, those will be a big new departure.
Chapter 3 is regulations applying to all districts, so this would mean no matter
which district you go in, these standard regulations apply. As you can see, the
Article A list the number of those. Article B goes into landscaping and then off
street parking, then signs, then temporary use, private streets, common open
space and site amenities and then there is one other, Article H, which is
regulations that is not on the Table of Contents and that one is regarding
development along state highways, so it was fairly new add and I missed it in the
Table of Contents there. The specific use standards - what this does is instead
of looking at the district, it looks just at the use, so there may be a use - a
particular standard that just applies to that use no matter what district it's in or
regardless of what district it's in. This is what's giving us the ability to have more
principle permitted usage rather than relying on the conditional use process.
Chapter 5 is administration of the ordinance so that explains how we process
applications and make decisions and Chapter 6 is the subdivision regulations so
this combines Title 11 and Title 12, so we have taken those subdivisions and
added them in here. Then Chapter 7 is planned unit developments. Okay,
moving onto Chapter 1, general regulations, really, this hasn't changed much at
all other than it is just all brought together. It's pretty standard stuff regarding
language and measurements, conflicting regulations, preservation of property
rights is required by state law so those are all pretty normal. One of the great
additions, we think, to this is Article A the definitions - we have gone through and
really defined exactly what we mean by a number of terms. So, those are a
lengthy section there as you will note, but really the ease of administering a good
zoning ordinance is having a good set of definitions, so I think this will really help
us and being able to be precise with folks about what is required of them. One of
the other things we have done is we have said if the use doesn't exactly match
up with the definition, but it's within three classifications in the north industrial
classification code, which is what the U.S. Census uses then we can make a
determination that it's similar. So, as you read through some of these definitions
it will have a little NAISC Code 61 and that's what it is referring to is that National
Industrial Classification system, so that gives us an ability to make some
determinations there and have something to base them upon. Okay, I am going
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June 7,2005
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to leave definitions. There are a couple of figures at the end of definitions. One
is the types of dwelling units, whoops, I missed the first one. The first one is
setbacks required yards and property types just as a clarification tool and the
other one is types of dwellings. These figures, some of them are just in draft
form, I got the revised ones after I had sent this over to the Clerk's Office, so
some of those will be cleaned up a little bit. Nonconforming use or property use
or structure, this is much clearer than what we have got right now. This just lays
the groundwork for how to deal with nonconforming uses, non-conforming
structures and non-conforming properties separately. Right now it's all kind of
jumbled together and you are never quite sure what to do. Okay, now we will get
into the district regulations, as you can see we have lumped all the residential
districts together and then all the commercial, industrial and traditional
neighborhood. This just gave it an easier way to turn to one section for folks so
that they can compare for our own purposes to handout to the public. We will
have an overall matrix that combines all districts and all uses just as a handout,
but it won't be codified, so part of the reason is that we found that the codifiers
don't deal with tables really well and the bigger the table, the worst they deal with
it. So, this is a way to keep the tables fairly simple and a little easier for them to
put on the web when they codify it. Going into residential districts, we spent a lot
of time - oh, I forgot to make an announcement, I am sorry, I just got word today
that as you know we spent time with the process improvement groups doing this
draft and taking it forward to Planning and Zoning Commission and as part of the
Association of Idaho Cities, their city achievement awards we submitted just that
process of having this group that consisted of developers and civil engineers and
developer wraps and architects and city staff and we submitted that for an award
and I just found out today that we won. So, we will be receiving an award next
week. Back to the task at hand. What I was going to say is the PIG spent a lot
of time going over the uses and what should be allowed and what should not be
allowed. We spent almost three weeks - many, many hours going through the
used tables combined, really just trying to come up with a logical and consistent
manner of treating these uses as to whether they are principle permitted
conditional or accessory. So, as you see there is a fairly simple table of what is
allowed on the residential uses. If it's not listed, it's prohibited so - and also if
you see a little hash lines, those are prohibited as well. Then we have a number
of standards, minimum property size, just some general things there - minimum
street frontage, encroachments allowed in any setback, maximum height limit
and things like living space, roof design and drainage. So what we try to do is
have everything pertaining to that district in this section. So, you will see some of
these duplicated later, but we thought it was important just to be able to just hand
somebody the whole residential use section. I do want to point out that other
than - we took out the minimum house requirement for some of them and as you
go to page 5, you will notice that there is minimum living space in the R-2 and the
R-4, but not in the R-8 and the R-15, so we felt it was important to protect kind of
that minimum living size for that (inaudible) that sacrosanct R-4 district, which
really is reserved as a strictly residential district and how that house size was
important and that's what we had most of. We left those there, but there is not a
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June 7, 2005
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minimum living space in the R-8 and the R-15. You will also note if you go back
and compare it to the existing districts that the frontage size is significantly
smaller as is the lot size. We took a lot of advice from the development
community on this. It's really getting it at what they have been looking at with
their PUD's and the kind of minimums they have been establishing or asking for
as part of their planned unit developments, it's just kind of a preview of one of the
later sections. We basically bumped up the open space requirements as well.
On the larger projects because we felt like we were losing a little bit of that by
them not having to come in for a planned unit development any more, we were
afraid we were going to lose some of our open space amenities, that we see on
some of the larger projects, so we do have some kind of a sliding scale now for
open space amenities, but I will touch on that again as we get there. Going on to
the - I have a section that got put in backwards. Commercial district should be
next. We spent a lot of time - we means the PIG for future reference. We spent
a lot of time talking about the purpose - the allowed uses and the proper location
and then again, the allowed uses within each district. We really tried to take a
good look at them and make them consistent and make them reasonable. You
will see those allowed uses. C-G was left as the major retail zone with a highway
serving commercial. The L-O on the other end of the spectrum was really kept
as something that was a real good buffer to residential. Again, you will see the
encroachments allowed in the setbacks - oh, on the dimensional standards, we
cut way back on the dimensional standards particularly in the kind of the pure
zones, the C-N, the C-C and C-G that weren't meant to be a buffer. What we did
was there basically a real minimal setback unless you're next to a residential
district and then you have additional buffer requirements and this wasn't true of
industrial as well. So, you will see that landscape buffer to residential uses, so
this gets away from what used to be in the landscape ordinance with the matrix
of different uses and the required buffer, so this just gets all those street buffers,
all the landscape buffers, all the setbacks all in one table is what we were trying
to do there. Then you have got those other standards. Then we go into
industrial uses. Pretty much the same thing. We spent a lot of time working on
the list of uses and the appropriate location. We do have a new zone, I-H, this
would be available for the heavy industrial uses, and so we are proposing that as
a new zone. That was something that was recommended or suggested as part
of the comprehensive plan process, so this was to separate and make that
distinction between the light industrial and the heavy industrial. As I said before,
we have got landscape buffers there from residential uses. There is no buffer to
commercial uses, it's just to the residential uses.
Wardle: Anna, if I could just break for just a moment and invite, Councilman
Rountree at 5:20 P.M. Thank you.
Rountree: I would have been here on time if it weren't for Sue's Interstate out
there.
(Inaudible discussion)
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June 7, 2005
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Canning: I do want to point out that the high limit, we did some modifications to
the maximum height limit and both the commercial and the industrial districts and
what it basically was if the director could approve up to a 20 percent increase in
height, if you meant some alternative compliance, standards and anything over
20 percent would be a conditional use permit rather than a variance. Okay, on to
the traditional neighborhood districts. We have got the Old Town, which
everyone is familiar with and then we have the traditional neighborhood center
and traditional neighborhood residential district and the intent of these two new
districts was to give an option to folks where they are located with those semi
circles from our comprehensive plan on their property or if they wanted to do a
traditional alley loaded neighborhood to provide a different set of standards to
work from rather than the standards that are in like the R-15 district or the R-8
district. So, they focus more on the relationship to the alleys and the relationship
to the street as different than it would be in the standard residential districts. I
should also point out that the PIG has recommended a reduced street section
that is consistent with ACHD policy, but it is inconsistent with the standards of the
Fire Department at this time. But, I am sure that will come up during the public
hearing process. Some other unusual things, there is a minimum number of
stories in the traditional neighborhood center and that's is similar to the Old
Town. We are relying on design guidelines for this district as well, so the Old
Town design guideline should be coming forward to you shortly upon the heels of
this and then we have kind of modified those a little bit for the traditional
neighborhood center and loosened them up quite a bit from what's in the Old
Town because we weren't as concerned with architectural character there, we
were more concerned with just the massing and the relationship to the streets, so
we kept those aspects of the Old Town design guidelines for that section. Okay,
if you move onto that dimensional standards that's where the street is, where it
says street 29 feet with parking on both sides of the street or private drives.
Donnell: Excuse me, Anna, what page?
Canning: We are on page 6, Chapter 2, Article D.
Bird: Mr. President, can we ask questions as we go so I don't forget?
Wardle: Sure, Mr. Bird.
Bird: Are you saying this is where we go into the 29-foot street?
Canning: Yes, sir. Where it says dimensional standards by type of dwelling unit
and it says street, it's not really by type of dwelling unit, is it? There it is. It's got
the street and then the alley.
Bird: You know we are killing our Fire Department. Those trucks are - they are
not little trucks that are going through there. You take 14 foot out of that 29,
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June 7,2005
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what's that leave you, if you are parking on both sides? If Christine taught me
right that comes to 15 feet. I wish she would have been my teacher.
Canning: Councilman Bird, I understand the issues and there are arguments
both ways. I guess I didn't come prepared tonight to do much more than brief
through things, but I do know that that's a concern. I have talked to Joe a lot and
this is only in this one type of district and the (inaudible) district, so it's not likely
to be all of over. Quite frankly, it's just a decision that you all have to make
regarding how you want to go with these.
Bird: And I agree with you, Anna, we are not here to argue that, but I think it's
just something that we really can't let slip by on us.
Canning: I am really trying to point out all the hot spots as we go along and there
will be a few. Okay, standards, and regulations in all districts, accumulation of
junk - that is to just keep things from being a junkyard. Bikeways, again, some
of these are standards that relate more to - used to be more in the subdivision
section, but then we couldn't get them when there was - we couldn't necessarily
require the same thing when they were just coming in for Certificate of Zoning
Compliance, so by putting them in this section we were able to get them for every
development that comes through. Clear Vision Triangle here are some of our
drawings that have been added. I think I am going to number each of those
separately. Right now they are all under one figure. You probably didn't care
about that sorry - all right - then nothing has changed there. Ditches, laterals,
canals or drainage courses - we tried to clean that up a little bit like make it a
little easier to understand. I don't think there was a big change in policy as I
recall. It was just trying to make it a little more understandable. Fences - gone
is the fence committee, gone is the director determinations regarding fences.
These are the fence regulations. What I did was for the corner lots we - if you go
back - if you go to Page 7. This figure is one of them that is being worked on
because it is a little hard to read. Basically what we have said is if you have a
corner lot you can come to 10 feet on the side instead of having to stay at 20 and
then you angle back just - that's what we've pretty much done as the Fence
Committee and what I have done as the - my fence administrator as one. We've
just gone ahead and codified it and gotten rid of that process. Glory glory
hallelujah.
Bird: Hallelujah.
Canning: Multi-use in micro pathways - nothing really new here. It's just that it's
pulled into the general standards rather than the subdivision. Natural features
that's just kind of a blanket statement. Noxious uses these are from the existing
ordinance. Outdoor lighting. As you'll notice this is a fairly beefier section than
we had before. Basically what it's doing is requiring down shielded lights where
the bulb is hitting. Not only shielded but also where the bulb is hitting so it
doesn't create glare. Once you get above a certain lumens that is required and
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to enforce this we've set it up in a way that basically if we get the light specs from
the developers we can review this and see whether or not it complies. Then
there are some examples of full cut off shields and no light trespass is allowed.
Again we can do this from the photo metric drawings provided by the
manufacturers of the lights. Outdoor service and equipment areas. This came
about - a lot of this because of the - just trying to make industrial uses and what
not compatible with residential uses. We found that we kept on adding it to our
specific use standards and instead we moved it here so that it was a little more
an overall standard. Same with outdoor speaker systems and outdoor storage.
A lot of different uses have these things so if you had these outdoor kinds of uses
particularly near a residential district you had to make sure they were compatible
basically. Pressurized irrigation systems that's another one from the existing
subdivision regulation. Self-service uses. This was kind of a new one. We
worked a lot with the Police Department on this where you have other tended self
service uses like laundry mats, automatic teller machines, vehicle washing
facilities, fuel sales facilities, storage facilities all of those kinds of things. We felt
that there was some particular security issues we needed to address and that's
what those are. We basically made them more visible so that people don't get
accosted. Sidewalks and parkways. Parkways was kind of a new one and we'll
probably be recommending something other than what's in here as staff. This is
what came forward from the PIG and then from the Planning and Zoning
Commission. ACHD has been working on a minimum parkway with - right now
we've got 5 feet and I think the cities and ACHD are going to agree on kind of a
compromise of eight feet. You'll probably see that that gets bumped up. We
were -
Donnell: Mr. President.
Wardle: Ms. Donnell.
Donnell: Anna is there a separate area in here that we haven't gotten to that
addresses ADA. I'm talking about with the sidewalks for wheelchairs and those
kinds of things or is that included in this section.
Canning: I think there is a general - somewhere I had a general statement you
know that the developer is responsible for - the applicant is responsible for
meeting ADA requirements. I have in all honesty avoided mentioning it too much
because my staff can't interpret those ADA requirements so I haven't wanted to
do that. What we do is a standard condition of approval. We say it is the
applicant's responsibility to make sure that this complies with ADA. I felt that that
way I was protecting the city kind of giving them a heads up but not getting me
involved at all.
Donnell: Thank you.
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June 7, 2005
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Canning: It was a definite lack of wanting accountability. The other thing we did
is for those - in order to encourage detached sidewalks particularly with trees in
the median. We have allowed them to count that as open space for their open
space requirements. I think that that has - in the PIG group we all agreed that
that has a lot more impact on how green the neighborhood looks rather than an
8,000 square foot little thing over to the side. We've really tried to encourage
these detached sidewalks. They would have to subtract curb cuts if it's not alley
loaded they get the full width if it's alley loaded. That will be particularly
important if that goes up to eight feet because I think you'll see a lot of people
just - that that will probably fulfill their open space requirements just that
parkway. Storm drainage that's a standard one. Structure subject to design
standards. This is not design review I'll make that clear. Rather than having a
maximum kind of building size we felt that it was more appropriate to say okay if
you're going to build something bigger than like 7500 square feet in the C-N
district we need to start thinking about the mass of that and how it relates to the
surrounding properties. Conversely if you're in the C-G district we need to start -
and you want to go over 200,000 square foot for your footprint we need to start
thinking about that. Those are footprint sizes - no it says structure sorry. You
know we just wanted them to look at some at breaking up some of the mass
once they hit those targets and dealing with the parking lot in a little better way a
little more pedestrian friendly way once they start getting up there. Basically it's
up to staff to approve this. If they disagree with this it comes up to Planning and
Zoning for their decision. I'm pretty sure that's how it works. I have to check
now. If they want to do something different then it's by the Conditional Use
Process. We've used that out kind of on several things. It's like okay if you want
to play by our rules that's fine we can do it at staff level. If you want to do
something else that's fine but you have to go through the Conditional Use
process to do it. Okay traveling sleeping quarters that's just to keep people from
using 5th wheelers as homes and utilities that's just basic utility stuff from what's
now in the subdivision ordinance. Landscaping this is Article B. It's basically the
same the only thing we did was take out the buffer to land uses requirements and
the buffer to street requirements and we moved them to the district regulations.
Then the parkways standards we moved to that section I was just going over
earlier. We've taken some things out and shuffled them around but they're
basically the same. I'm just kind of thumbing through it. If you get to Chapter 6 it
describes the landscape buffers along the streets but the width of that buffer was
in the district regulations. Parking lot landscaping is the same. Buffer between
land uses. We may need to re-title that now that I think of it. It probably should
just refer to buffer to residential uses so I'll look at that. Okay tree preservation
that kind of stuff is all the same. Okay off-street parking. We had several
interesting discussion on this as far as you know what's the appropriate number
of parking spaces per - by use and how do we best go about this. In the end, we
figured that this was one of those things where maybe we didn't need to get
involved. In all honesty, almost everybody that comes in either provides more
parking than they need or they provide what they need and then they have to
come ask for a variance because they're in old town. Now it had already been
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June 7,2005
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talked about for the Old Town District to rely on MDC to provide some of that
parking or some alternative but - and there's kind of a new buzz in planning
about some of the parking requirements. The big thing is that the parking
requirements that planners use are based on nothing. They have just been
copied from one another over the years. It's really kind of bad. It depends - it's
not necessarily a retail use that generates the kind of parking it's like your
specific retail use. If you're selling furniture you basically know what your parking
requirement is. If you're selling candles you know what you're parking
requirement is. We generally see that people come in with the amount of parking
that they need. They are actually usually way over parked by our standards.
After a lot of our discussions with the PIG and several emails going around we
basically - we kept the residential ones because we felt it was important that we
have at least two residential spaces per - or two parking spaces per residential
unit. Basically, didn't require anything for commercial. There is one of your
major hot spots to think about.
Donnell: Mr. President.
Wardle: Ms. Donnell.
Donnell: Anna what about for public buildings schools, churches?
De Weerd: And they happen to have a tree every other parking spot.
Rountree: They shouldn't be allowed to have them.
Canning: Nothing.
Donnell: There's nothing.
Canning: There's nothing but the one out is if it's apparent that they're not
providing anything of what they need. If they come in with a 200,000 square foot
use and 10 parking spaces then it's pretty obvious that they're not doing what
they need to do. I have to - I forgot to tell my babysitter something. You had
something important you were asking me oh about the parking. If it really looks
like their not providing enough then I have that ability to deny their parking plan
and they have to come figure it out with the Planning and Zoning Commission I
believe.
Donnell: Thank you.
De Weerd: Anna. I don't know if it was discussed and maybe it's being
discussed at the MDC level but in parking downtown I know that the expectation
is our Urban Renewal Agency will provide the parking so variances seem to be
more the rule than not. How - I think there's going to be a discrepancy in the
timeframe of when the MDC can afford parking versus - and to provide it versus
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June 7, 2005
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when the buildings go up. So, that certainly is going to need to be visited
because these things come in front of us not in front of MDC and we need to
know what the parking plan is.
Canning: In all honesty, I think you'll really find that the developers of those
properties will do it themselves. I think Buich that property owner is
reconsidering some of their design aspects based on the fact that they felt they
didn't have enough parking. I think you'll find that other people that are looking at
like the Double D site for instance are reconsidering what they want to do based
on their parking needs. It really does seem to be a self-regulating issue. Are
there going to be abuses probably but you know I'm not sure it's going to be all
that much of a problem. The one thing I see in Old Town that may be a
detriment is sometimes when you want to collect additional fees for a parking
structure it's based on an in lieu fee of providing parking. That would be the one
thing that we're missing here.
De Weerd: And I agree.
Wardle: And Anna that was one of the things I was going to follow up on. Would
an in lieu fee come forward as part of the Old Town design standards or is that
something we need to consider as we take this code forward.
Canning: If there's no requirement then there's no in lieu. So it's something you
need to consider as you take this forward.
Bird: Mr. President.
Wardle: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Anna now we're requiring two parking spaces for each residential does that
include condominiums?
Canning: On condominiums it's based on the dwelling unit not on the form of
ownership. If it's a house that's under condo ownership it will be two units.
Bird: But yes what if you build a townhouse or condos and you lease them out
but you don't sell it. The owner of that building has to provide two dedicated
parking spaces right?
Canning: Right. It's based on dwelling unit not lot. It doesn't matter if it's a lot
ownership or a condo ownership it's just based on that dwelling unit.
Bird: See that's the best thing that will happen if all these downtown dwellings
will put condos on top then they will also supply more parking.
Donnell: Mr. President.
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Wardle: Ms. Donnell.
Donnell: Anna I notice on Page 3 in that section. Chapter 3 Article C off street
parking that you have stated it's the responsibility of the applicant. I'm going
back to my original question -
Canning: There it is I knew it was somewhere.
Donnell: -- but this says just parking lot design and I wonder if that same
statement modified a little bit should also be included under sidewalks to
accommodate wheelchairs. I don't see it there and I'm not very good with feet so
I'm assuming that these - that the ordinances accommodate that but once again
if they're going to put in some kind of sidewalk it ought to be ADA -
Canning: I'll add that to the sidewalk section. I knew I had it somewhere. Thank
you for pointing that out I couldn't remember where that was. Okay now that I'm
over my shock factor I'll move on. Off street loading space requirements are
pretty much the same. Sign requirements all we did here was - I finally figured
out what our Sign Code says so I went through and I reorganized it hopefully to
make it a lot clearer. I think there was just a lot of - and it was just organized in a
way that made it difficult to figure out from one place to another. We spent a lot
of time on the plan sign program just making it make sense because we were
having difficulties enforcing it. We did clean up some other little things that we
found enforcement. Some of the temporary sign stuff we did spend a fair amount
of time on and on the temporary signs we moved away from looking at what type
of sign it was. Whether it was a construction sign, a grand opening sign, a civic
sign or rather than looking at the type of sign or what the content of the sign said
we just said okay if you want a temporary sign you get it for so many days that's
it and we don't care what it says. You only get it for so long. That way we're not
working with okay they have a temporary sign for a construction sign now they
want a temporary sign for a grand opening sign and now they want a temporary
sign for this and trying to juggle all of those we just said we lumped them all
together and said this and this is all you get. Hopefully we made that a lot
clearer. We also added a section for subdivision identification signs for
commercial and industrial properties. We didn't really have one before. On that
one the question there became what do we do with the - this came up at
Planning and Zoning not the PIG group by the way. The question was what do
you do when there's a center sign and they also want to do a subdivision sign.
We basically said well you can do both of them but you only get you know like if
you had a maximum of 1,000 square feet for your center sign if you want to do a
500 square foot subdivision identification sign then that's coming off of your
center sign. Basically we gave them the same square footage and said you
choose what you want to do. If you want a 1,000 square foot subdivision sign
you're not going to have a center sign if it's on the same street. Hopefully that
made sense. Again you'll see the temporary signs. Then we have all the tables.
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June 7,2005
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For now we've still left the O-T district and the TNC district under the L-O
standards. I think there was a little miscommunication from staff. The guy doing
the sign section thought that the guy doing the design standards for Old Town
was working on signs and he wasn't. We still need to get back to our sign folks
and resurrect that group and talk about what kind of sign standards are
appropriate for Old Town and then the traditional neighborhood center.
Donnell: Mr. President.
Wardle: Ms. Donnell.
Donnell: Anna is there in here and all of this sign stuff a requirement in terms of
the signs - they're really not the signs but the name of a subdivision. What I'm
talking about because I think that's where you were going but I'm talking about
since there's nice grand entrance to these subdivisions and on each side of
these big rock walls it says Lochsa Falls or whatever. Are those under these
ordinances?
Canning: Yes they are called subdivision identification signs.
Donnell: So they are though?
Canning: Yes and we loosened it up a little bit because we found there was a lot
of more artistic expression going into these recently as you may have noticed.
Some of them you know the height requirement was getting a little - or the
structure height you know and we loosened it up a little bit for those subdivision
signs trying to get it just the sign copy part and not part of the larger structure.
Some of these are going on fairly large structures which don't seem to detract
they just - some of them are just quite odd inspiring.
De Weerd: Artistic.
Canning: And you're missing some of your overlay figures. Those haven't
changed those. I apologize I just didn't have access to those figures when I had
this printed. Okay temporary use requirements. This is the section I've been
promising you for a while so you don't have to do your miscellaneous application.
There are some basic general standards one being time period making sure that
they are temporary. Location, number of structures, caretaker units, parking and
access signs and all of that kind of stuff. Site conditions, noise, unobstructed
sidewalks and then we go into some of the more specific temporary uses that we
are aware of. One is firework stands, subdivision, model homes or real estate
sales offices, construction sites, seasonal sale of agriculture and food products
so basically farmers market. Arts, entertainment or recreation events. This
would be like the October one what is it called?
Wardle: Scarecrow Festival.
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June 7, 2005
Page 13 of 30
Canning: Scarecrow Festival thank you. Then some other ones standards for
vendors not associated with a fair basically and these would be more like the
lunch truck that pulls up and serves food.
De Weerd: The hot dog guy.
Canning: The hot dog guy if he ever left his area but yes. The one thing that -
oh and then the next one is promotional activities in non-residential districts so
this would be like the big car sales events that's the last one. The one thing
that's not here are things like the hot dog vendor. I just could never make a
decision that that was a temporary use when he specifically says he's not a
temporary use. I did what to point out that his use would not be accommodated
underneath these temporary uses.
De Weerd: So, Mr. President.
Wardle: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I don't know if Anna or Ted could answer this but where would it be?
Baird: Madam Mayor or Mr. President, Madam Mayor Members of the Council I
just made myself a note to say hot dog vendor where does it go? I've looked
through this. I don't think that we've created a nitch to put that in yet and maybe
we'll get Anna's thought on that but that's probably something we need to work
on.
Canning: President, Madam Mayor the vendors license that came forward from
the -
**End of Side One**
Canning: -- and really the issue here is this is a person who has a 20 by 20
lease in a retail area who does not move his building and has no indications of
leaving. So, you may have already seen the letter complaining about me but I
have basically said you are not a temporary use. You've got to either be a
temporary use or you have to come into compliance with a Certificate of Zoning
Compliance like everybody else does. Now he raises a couple of things. He
talks about snow cone shacks this does cover snow cone shacks. The snow
cone shack that he mentions has been there for quite some time and I've had it
in mind all along as I did this temporary use. The structure has been there
before I got here. I think it's kind of just a non-conforming use is how I've been
treating that. He mentions coffee shops. They got Conditional Use approval for
their drive up windows is what they ended up going through. I just don't see that
that use is a temporary use.
Meridian City Council Special Meeting
June 7,2005
Page 14 of30
Bird: Mr. President.
Wardle: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Anna when we - when he came before us he assured us there were
wheels on that so it was a temporary deal and there are wheels on it. They've
got skirts around but there are wheels. He could hook up and pull it off so -
Wardle: And Anna -
Bird: -- we didn't tell him he could have half the parking lot.
De Weerd: With his gates and tables.
Wardle: Something that I don't see addressed that would fall under
understanding that a snow cone shack is seasonal use and that the coffee and
such places come under Conditional Use. What about the Emissions testing
vans. Where would they -
Canning: We - I looked at putting them under temporary uses but really the best
fit for them is the public quasi-public use. It's really hard to call them anything but
a public quasi-public use so they would be a Conditional Use Permit.
Wardle: Okay.
Donnell: So I'm - Mr. President.
Wardle: Ms. Donnell.
Donnell: So I'm still not clear Anna, what you're saying about the hot dog stand.
Is it a temporary use a Conditional Use what is it?
Canning: I really think he's a retail use out there a permanent retail use and
should therefore come into compliance just like every other retail use would have
to. Probably what that would mean is setting us - doing some curbing out there
you know providing an area where he actually put his thing with some curbs
around it re-striping the parking. If he wants to have his seating area then he
probably needs to work with some landscaping provisions. The problem is is
he's - what now seems to be a permanent use in a parking lot that is way
substandard for the city and if anybody else were to do anything in that area with
that parking lot they would have to bring the full parking lot into compliance. I
understand it's not likely that he will but my job is to try to keep things fair so I did
- we probably spent too long on this one but I just wanted to point out that Mr.
DiMaria does not fall under these temporary use guidelines.
Bird: I agree.
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June 7,2005
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Canning: Okay private streets. This is kind of a new one. You're saying no, we
have private streets. We took them - right now they're in the planned
development section. You can do a private street basically for residential
property and they were the same as the ACHD reduced street sections
essentially. People weren't using them I think because on the whole the city
would prefer that it be a public street rather than a private street anyway so we
shifted the emphasis of private streets to be for public safety reasons and for
addressing reasons. If you can vision Sagecrest Apartment Complex in your
head where you have that loop that goes through the apartment complex. Well
it's just a drive isle so they have no way of addressing from that and it's a real
concern for the Fire Department. So this is one where I was really trying to keep
the Fire Department in mind. Making up for my reduced street section I suppose.
What we tried to do is create a mechanism so that they could have a better
addressing system. This is very similar to the way Boise does it. You can
request private streets so that - so it would be for multi-family developments it
also could be for commercial ones since there is not frontage requirement for
commercial. A lot of times we see these kind of looped drive isles that they could
name those so that they can get people in there a little more easily and efficiently
for industrial ones as well. Now the Fire Department has recommended that I -
when you have Public Hearings on this that I also raise a discussion that if they
feel that they need a private street that they have the ability to require one for
addressing purposes. That's an amendment that I'll bring forward to you at your
hearing time.
Wardle: Anna just a quick question. I noticed under standards Item 4 that gates
or other obstacles shall not be allowed. Did that get any discussion in the group?
Canning: A little bit. I think - I know I talked about it. I'm basically opposed to
gates for the most part and I think there was just general agreement amongst the
group. Believe me there's not much of anything that didn't get some discussion
(inaudible) in this thing. Common open space and site amenity requirements.
This section was kind of neat. I'll tell you how some of this came about. Some of
it's just this from the subdivision landscaping ordinances that you're familiar with
and the other one is from - we had a guest speaker come in for multi-family and
we're like - it was Rich Tomlinson - it was one of the Tomlinson's. He does
really high-end multi-family development. We're like how do we get people to do
apartment complexes like you do them? This man took off - we were all writing
as fast as we could. He had some great ideas and basically he organized them
into kind of different sections. Some of them were quality of life amenities and
then recreation amenities and then I thought there was a third one - oh
pedestrian or bicycle circulation system amenities. He just started rattling off
these different types of amenities that he always put in his project and you know
if it got above a certain size he always felt he needed to add this. So, that's the
kind of open space amenities we have now. You start with kind of a basic let's
see. Let me figure out where it starts talking about this. So for - you would have
Meridian City Council Special Meeting
June 7, 2005
Page 16 of 30
to have at least five percent of the gross area in landscape. We kept that from
the existing ordinance. Then you can - for every 20 acres you needed one
additional amenity. Now there could be another five percent of open space but
after awhile if you get a big enough project obviously the whole thing is an open
space so people got hung up on that You don't have to do another five percent
you could do a clubhouse you could do a walking path you could do things like
that. The bigger the project gets the more amenities you get. This is kind of
what I was talking about earlier as far as the Planned Unit Development.
Because we were kind of reducing all the standards we still wanted to see some
of those open space amenities that we were used to seeing as part of the PUD.
I'll let you just look through some of those quality of life clubhouse, fitness
facilities, enclosed bike storage, public art, and picnic area. Recreation
amenities included swimming pool, children's play structure, sports courts,
pedestrian or bicycle circulation system amenities were - bike routes, pathways
and things like that. Park and ride, transit or other multi-(inaudible). Okay now
we get to probably one of the more controversial ones although I think we came
to an agreement on some of them. This section was added after the PIG group
had a chance to look at it but before it went to P&Z. It came about through a kind
of an informal discussion we had with Sue Sullivan who is here tonight to answer
questions or support other - which is just to let you know she's here to support it.
Sue came to talk to my staff about you know what can we do as far as reserving
right of way along some of these state highways. With those discussions we
decided to go ahead and take to P&Z an amendment for their consideration at
their hearing. So, this is standards that would apply to development along
federal and state highways and in addition to that, we've kind of looked at
McDermott as being the likely extension for Highway 16 so we've been looking at
preserving right of way along there as well until an actual location is chosen for
Highway 16 then it would go to that. For the time being we would preserve along
McDermott. Given that there's no sewer right there it's probably going to be a
pretty easy one to get by for a little while until that sewer line is gone - or I mean
until that sewer line is in the ground. Basically it goes through the existing
approaches would be allowed to continue but if they want to change or intensify
the use then they would have to come into compliance with these standards.
These standards are connections to state highway only at the section line road
and the half-mile mark between the section line roads. Then the P&Z at their
hearing added the quarter mile mark for right in right out only. Basically it's not
written that way here because I didn't think about it until later but I think that P&Z
was more in favor of that if ITD was okay with it. So this whole quarter mile thing
is a big question. Then a backage street kind of somewhere after 660 feet so
that we have frontage to those properties by something other than the highway
and on - there is a requirement for a 1 a-foot multi-use pathway along 20 / 26 and
then noise abatement requirements. As I said, we did this without the PIG
group's input. I went back to the PIG group last week. We had a meeting but
they are going to be proposing changes. I will get those done this week and I will
have those for you Public Hearing when you are ready to discuss it in a Public
Hearing process. The big one seems to be that quarter mile. They wanted it for
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June 7,2005
Page 17 of 30
not just left in or right in right out but they also wanted left in only where there's
medians so it's almost come around to a full access point again which I think will
be a topic of discussion.
De Weerd: I'm sorry Mr. President.
Wardle: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: What did you just say?
Canning: I thought that might get your attention. They wanted left in if there was
medians that would only allow the left in. really the only thing that is gone is left
out from those quarter mile ones now.
De Weerd: I guess Council we need to have a discussion on that. I know that
right now as we're developing along Eagle with the commercial we have
traditionally tried to maintain the access policy that ITD desires and it's to our
benefit as well to limit access. We certainly want a functional transportation
system and we need to at least be on record and discuss this and make our
wishes known as far as those highways are in our area of impact to what we
would like to see implemented and followed. I guess we're just as responsible as
the transportation agencies to maintaining this and it's something that we really
have to find our own policy in what we want to maintain. I guess we've seen an
example of how not to do it and if we don't have strong policies of our own we
leave the door open and we put extra pressure on our transportation agencies
because of that.
Canning: Madam Mayor I would ask - I think it's appropriate for you to do a
policy statement if you want to but it's - you're not on the agenda to make any
decisions tonight. This is a workshop so I just want to cautious you or remind
you that's all.
De Weerd: And I'm not asking for a policy or I'm sorry follow up Mr. President.
Wardle: Yes.
De Weerd: I'm not asking to set anything but I do think that we do need to have
that discussion. Mr. Bird and I were part of a meeting that I have since talked
with him about it as well as our Traffic Safety Committee and I do have a letter
that I was going to bring up further on in our agenda from our Police Department
on a request from Krispy Kremes to allow a right in or a left turn with not
replacing that concrete median. Our Traffic Safety Commission is just as
concerned about having additional access and not following the restrictions that
ITD has suggested along that corridor. We do need to at least voice in our
thoughts on it so that as they consider that corridor from north of Ustick to 1-84 at
least on Eagle and then we have to look at Chinden and perhaps McDermott and
Meridian City Council Special Meeting
June 7, 2005
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wherever else Highway 69 that we just know what our preference is and what we
will be maintaining.
Wardle: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: Mr. President a couple of items. One, Anna on Page 1 of this under
the applicability statement I don't know that the city has made that determination
yet on a preferred location in any formal manner so I don't know that it should
necessarily be stated as such until we do have a policy or a Comp Plan
Amendment or something to that effect.
Canning: I assumed you would discuss that as part of this ordinance.
Rountree: And my second question is for Ted recognizing the conflict I have with
this particular component of our ordinance could I request that this be dealt with
as a separate hearing otherwise I will have to step down for the entire hearing
piece as it relates to the ordinance.
Baird: Mr. President and Members of the Council it occurs to me that this is
legislative and different rules apply. You're not making a determination that's a
particular application and in fact your particular expertise might be of use to the
city as we set our standards. I'm thinking off the top of my head here but I'll chat
with Bill Nary and we'll come up with a strategy.
Rountree: Could you clarify that for me?
Baird: Absolutely.
De Weerd: Mr. President.
Wardle: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: Certainly when this gets to the Public Hearing there is no reason why
we could not at least separate this chapter and put it at the tail end or in another
fashion so we can accommodate Councilman Rountree and the conflicts that he
has.
Bird: Excuse me Mr. President.
Wardle: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I believe that I'm like the Mayor I think we can - if Ted finds out that it is
kind of a bit touchy and this would be Charlie's call too but I would want him
involved with the rest of it. We can take three out and do it by itself.
Meridian City Council Special Meeting
June 7, 2005
Page 19 of 30
Canning: I'll work with Ted and Will to make the agenda work for what's ever
decided.
Wardle: Thank you Anna.
Canning: Okay now onto Chapter 4. Thank you for that nice break. I got more
water and a throat lozenge. I also wanted to point out from Tricia Nielson from
COMPASS also came here in kind of support of that section. Just so you know.
Rountree: Thank you.
Canning: Poor Tricia was with me the last time I did a Zoning Ordinance. She's
had to go through this twice with me now. I think the last time I had a horrible
cold too. As you can see as you flip through this we've got animal care facilities,
arts, entertainment or recreation, artist studios it's just one or two standards for
each for the most part that just allows us to address those particular concerns.
As you get to daycare facilities you'll see more. This also addresses adult care
and so there are some additional standards for those that are serving children
but daycare does include adults and I just wanted to make that distinction known.
Drinking establishment, drive-thru establishments. Drive-thru is one of those in
the use standards we talked about it a lot it's an Accessory Use if you don't
adjoin a residential district so then you don't have to go through that Conditional
Use process. You only get kicked into that if you would join a residential district.
Just so you know we did that with this as well as a number of other things that
kind of got kicked into the Conditional Use if it was next to residential.
De Weerd: Mr. President.
Wardle: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: Is there a restriction on how many in certain proximity they can have?
I guess for example, off of Eagle Road over just south of Krispy Kremes where
the Kinkos and Starbucks and all of that there was a discussion during that
Conditional Use Permit and that we didn't want anymore drive-thrus that two was
enough. Maybe there is a bank building there too. It just seems that there needs
to be a consideration of how many in one area.
Canning: President Wardle Madam Mayor there is not. The only thing it says is
that there shall have sufficient capacity to prevent obstruction to the public right
of way by patrons. We did not include anything like that. I'm not sure how we
would do that other than kicking them all into a Conditional Use process again.
I'm trying to think and I'm not sure they could be close by one another as long as
it was designed properly. It's one of those tricky design issues where if you've
got somebody that's doing a poor job of coordinating these things then yes it
could be a problem.
Meridian City Council Special Meeting
June 7, 2005
Page 20 of 30
Donnell: Mr. President.
Wardle: Ms. Donnell.
Donnell: A good example Anna, too, besides the Krispy Kreme area there is the
Kentucky Fried Chicken, Bolos, Taco Bell area there. Have we done any kind of
statistical gathering of numbers of accidents that have occurred in those areas?
Canning: I haven't heard of any.
Donnell: Perhaps the Police could respond to that better than - but it just seems
interesting to me that it isn't well designed and we ought to have some control
over that as a city.
Bird: Mr. President.
Wardle: Mr. Bird.
Bird: On the Kentucky Fried deal we turned that down. I hate CUP's but I think
sometimes with drive-thrus you need to have CUP's because there is owners out
there that's going to benefit themselves regardless of what it does to the traffic or
to the other people. I think you've got it pretty well written in here that it is
protected by a CUP.
Wardle: And Anna I would say just for if you're going to look before you bring
this forward for some clarification I agree that the majority of the bank buildings
and dry cleaner buildings and things like that that we're talking about that do not
abut residential properties should be permitted uses. I think that the - some
language could be crafted as far as density of drive-thru -
Canning: Just thinking I'll have to figure out a number for this but maybe like if
there's another one within SOD feet or something like that. I'll try to think of some
of - I'll go to some of those places that you've talked about and we'll pace it off
and we'll try and figure out what's too much. When we have them right up
against each other it's kind of obvious but sometimes we get two in one building.
Wardle: Well and certainly and that's where a reasonable standard needs to be
taken into place where again I think the residential buffering and the abutment of
the residential property is the key distinction as to whether they're permitted and
then potentially some either density or number of feet between the next drive-thru
establishment could be established.
Canning: And the other thing I might be able to look at because really it just
seems to be on the food ones that we have the problem. I don't know if we can
discriminate that way or not. I'll try and work with Ted but that seems to be really
Meridian City Council Special Meeting
June 7, 2005
Page 21 of 30
the only problem. The bank ones isn't a problem from what I know. If you could
shine in on that that would be helpful.
De Weerd: Mr. President.
Wardle: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess a recent application that was in front of us was the bank that
was being proposed just west of Albertson's on Cherry Lane and Ten Mile and
the sharp corner you had to turn in order to get into that area then to get to the
drive-thru. I don't know who designs these things but -
Canning: No one did on that (inaudible).
De Weerd: - probably the same person that designed the parking lot out at Home
Depot. You know there has to be some reason to it as well. Like Council
Member Donnell mentioned Starbucks and Wendy's that can be a mess over
there too. I guess I don't like CUP's anymore than Councilman Bird does but
there needs to be something that would trigger that if they don't like your
determination that they can appeal or I don't know but good luck.
Bird: Don't you know who designed that? The same one that designed the split
corridor down here.
Wardle: Thank you Anna. We'll wait for any thoughts that you may have forward
to the hearing.
Canning: Okay moving on. We better move on or we'll start talking about the
speedway I'm sure. Secondary dwelling units this is a new one. This is
something that actually Dave McKinnon had started to work on before he left so
it's been kind of in the pipeline for a long time. I pretty much scrapped what he
had suggested and kind of just came up with new stuff. Not to bad mouth Dave
but this was more consistent to the model I had been working with. Do I need to
explain what these are? These are basically granny units or granny flats or
apartments that you let out to your teenage son or your college son that's come
back and hasn't found a job yet or whatever.
De Weerd: Doghouse.
Canning: Doghouse yes. Guesthouse and things like that. They would be a
maximum of 700 square feet in size. They would have to have one parking
space and only one entrance door to either the single family dwelling or the
second dwelling unit shall be located facing anyone's street. You wouldn't want
to be able to see both front doors you could only see one front door for each
elevation. The idea is to have it blend in with the surroundings.
Meridian City Council Special Meeting
June 7, 2005
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Rountree: Mr. President.
Wardle: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: So my question is this could be a 15-foot camper trailer with wheels
taken off of it?
De Weerd: No that's prohibited.
Rountree: That's prohibited in there okay.
Canning: Yes manufactured and mobile homes and recreational vehicles shall
be prohibited for use as secondary dwelling units. It basically has to be a stick
built.
Rountree: Okay.
Canning: Most of the manufactured homes would be too large. They wouldn't
qualify based on size. These are allowed as a right the way we've got them right
now. Part of the idea was to - this is a great way of saying that you're
addressing the density issue. These basically double your density in any given
zoning district. Now is everyone going to elect to do one no. Can everyone fit
one on their property given their current setbacks probably not but this allows
that opportunity and especially with an aging society that we have I think these
granny units will become more and more important as the affordable housing
option when they need some extra help taking care of things. There's my
socialistic statement for the night. No slams against capitalists. Not that it was a
slam it was just - never mind. Okay educational institutions. We had Wendell
come in for this one and we talked to him a lot. They're principal permitted until
they get a certain size and they become conditional. That size is in excess of
250,000 square feet within a residential district or if they have lighted fills
adjoining or within a residential district or if they feel it's going to generate an
excess of 1500 vehicle trips per day. If it takes access from a collector arterial
street and there's not a safe separate pedestrian and bikeway access between
the neighborhood and the school site then it would be a Conditional Use Permit.
Otherwise they would be principal permitted uses. This was a - this is quite a
few more standards than what we currently have but I'll make a note to make
sure that Wendell gets a copy of this. I'm not sure that he's seen this recently.
Donnell: Mr. President.
Wardle: Ms. Donnell.
Donnell: Anna I think there probably ought to be some consideration I guess or
at least some thought provided to the idea of Charter Schools as well. I know
educational institutions covers that but I think there were going to be seeing
Meridian City Council Special Meeting
June 7, 2005
Page 23 of 30
some requests for uses - facility uses for charter schools that would not meet the
same standards as the school buildings.
Canning: And I think our intent was that if you're an elementary school whether
you're the School District Number 2 or whether you're a charter school then you
should be playing by the same rules. So our intent was always that whether it's
public or private if you're an educational facility then you meet the same
standards.
Donnell: With the exception Anna, that charter schools often are K-12 so they
are not an elementary, middle or high school. Or at least they start out as K-6 or
8 with the intent of going all 13 grades.
Canning: I think we're okay because we set out some different allowances for
the different schools. Then there are some desirable institutional sizes but
they're not really - it's just a desirable it wasn't a real standard. Then there are
some exemptions for ones that have fewer than 150 students that basically have
fewer than 150 then you kind of get to slide on a few of the standards. So that
may help them in some way.
Bird: Mr. President.
Wardle: Mr. Bird.
Bird: The thing I think is on the size Anna. You've got 61 to 71 for elementary.
Middle is 120 to 130 and high school is 250 to 260. I think what Council Woman
Donnell is saying is where does the K-12 fit into that. You've got an elementary,
you've got a middle and you've got a high school. What square footage are we
going to - so basically we do need at least a square footage? The student
population is no big deal I don't think but the size is a deal because you can't - a
charter school doesn't have to have the square footage that a standard public
school has because you've got less students even though you're taking all 13
grades you've got less students. They're just specialized. So, I think we need to
add - you need to think about it Anna and add for charter school anything from
K-12 a size there and get with Christine and stuff. She would have - I'm sure
would have a perfect idea of what that square footage would be.
Canning: President Wardle.
Donnell: Particularly - oh excuse me Mr. President.
Wardle: Ms. Donnell.
Donnell: Particularly the charter schools that have come forward mostly that are
outside of those sponsored by the district are looking at 220 to 240 students so it
doesn't even fit within this less than 150 because they want more than that.
Meridian City Council Special Meeting
June 7, 2005
Page 24 of 30
Wardle: And Anna as weill think maybe - I think what we're trying to tie this to in
reality as far as building sizes is student population is the number of students. In
addition, one of the things, which brings up within the charter school is eventually
not maybe in the near future but eventually we might also see education
institutions come forward in non-traditional neighborhood zones. There should
be some sort of consideration within some of those zones to facilitate those
needs.
Canning: President Wardle if I could follow up on a couple of things. On that
size one, one of the things I'll suggest when you have your Public Hearing is to
just remove that because it's not even a standard and that takes care of the
problem right there so I will remember to remind you about that because there's
no need for it to be there it's just filling up space. That takes care of that whole
issue. Regarding the allowed uses they are allowed in other districts. It was -
we only felt that we needed the Conditional Use Process within the residential
districts. Again, it's that compatibility issue so they are allowed in the commercial
or some of the commercial and even the industrial districts as you look through
those use charts. Then portable classrooms you know as long as we know about
them beforehand then they're there they're there. Okay I'm going to have to
speed up aren't I?
Donnell: Oh I'm sorry Anna one more. Mr. President.
Wardle: Ms. Donnell.
Donnell: H on Page 7, I don't know that there are any minimum site area
guidelines for the State Department of Education any longer.
Canning: Okay I'll remember to remind you to take that one out too.
Donnell: But this is in terms of course that you're talking about private. I think
those rules were sunset at along time ago.
Canning: Okay. Adult entertainment this sets up a buffer requirement of 1000
feet. We did run maps on this so it needs to be within or outside of a 1000 feet of
another adult entertainment establishment a church, schools, we probably need
to change C just to be schools because I don't know where all the school bus
stops are so I can't do a buffer from that one. Then parks or residential districts
so we did set up those buffers. Signs it basically says they have to follow the
other ones. Flex space that's only significant in that it's a new category that we
hadn't had before. Home occupations we opened this up quite a bit. Basically if
you've got a home occupation where you don't have clients and you don't have
customers just do it don't even bother coming to us. If you've got some
customers and you've got some clients then you need to come through and get it
administratively and this just sets up some parameters for that. Multi-family
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June 7, 2005
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development skipping over to Page 11. Again, a lot of this came from that
discussion with Mr. Tomlinson and it looks very much like what you saw in the
open space requirements. Moving on - most of these are pretty self-explanatory.
Not a whole there to talk about. Just if like I said a few standards here and there
to address some of the more intense uses so that they can just be principal
permitted uses. The - on Page 22, I want to point out the vertically integrated
residential project. This is a new one. This is basically zoning by layer of
building rather than zoning by land so this is where you've got your retail, then
your office then your residential similar to that Buich property. This just allows
that type of project. It gives us a tool to recognize that it's multiple uses going on
in a single structure. Then wireless communication facilities this is basically what
you approved a little while back with Mr. McKinnon's ordinance amendment.
Moving on to administration. The duties and authorities are pretty much the
same but if you turn to Page 3 I think this is the big one. You'll see that table 11-
5A-1 so what you've got is like an Accessory Use the recommending body there
is none. Decision making body is the director and the process in N, which is
administrated with public notice. There are some Accessory Uses like home
occupation with no customers or clients where the process is just administrative
so you'll see an A there. So now let's go down to Planned Unit Development.
The recommending body would be Planning and Zoning Commission and the
decision making body is the City Council and it's a Public Hearing process. So
this clearly lays out who is recommending, who is making the decisions and what
kind of process they go through. There are ones where Planning and Zoning is
the decision making body as you'll see Conditional Use Permit is the big one.
That's it actually. Then there's a number where the director is the decision
making body. Vacations we change that one quite a bit not that you really care
we care because we get tired of processing them when they really should be
slam dunk so we just made them slam dunks basically. That will be an important
one. Modifications to an approved permit just goes back to the same decision
maker and processes the initial approval. The other one is if you have
concurrent applications then whoever is making the last decision makes all the
decisions. So like if it's something that involves and administrator decision and a
P&Z decision and a City Council decision you guys make all the decisions that
way it's not broken up along the way. Okay then all the Public Hearing process
stuff is all the same. There's nothing different there it's just all in one section now
so that it's easy to find and easy for people to follow. The fees we have not put
in the fees we're just saying that you need to pay them basically and what to do if
you want to waive them. Then as you get to Article B it goes into more detail on
Certificate of Zoning Compliance, Unified Development Code Text Amendments,
Annexations and Rezones and this where you'll find required Findings is in this
section. So you'll notice on annexations and rezones right at the end there Page
3 required findings and then they're on Page 4 same with Variances. You've got
the standard and then the required findings for each one. On Page 5 is the
alternative compliance section. As you'll see, we added a lot of alternative
compliance. This you should consider carefully because this just reflects how
much you want to trust me in making these decisions is really what it is. You
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June 7, 2005
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should be comfortable with these because these are where the wiggle room
comes in and whether or not you feel comfortable with that will be important to
know. I won't be offended if you take some of them away from me. There are
standards and findings for that as well. Conditional Use Permits basically
process standards findings and then time limitations and extensions. This one is
a little longer because it does talk about Time Extension and this has the
termination clause and multiple phases, transfers and modifications, revocation
and then an aggrieved person so CU's that section is a little bit longer than the
others. Surety Agreements we just cleaned this up. We did take out bonding.
We've basically limited it to letters of credit and cash because that's all we ever
wanted to deal with. We didn't want to deal with the bonds because they're not
very easy to work with so most everybody seems agreeable with the letters of
credit so we felt that that was pretty safe. Okay subdivision if I can get through
this we'll be almost there. The subdivisions regulations have been trimmed down
significantly to only have subdivision stuff in there. My goal was to get all the
standards out of it basically and just leave the stuff that really pertains to
subdivisions in there so that's what we have. I want to point out a couple new
things. We have the Preliminary Plat process and Final Plat process that you're
all familiar with and then we have combined Preliminary and Final Plat process
which is still the same it's just not exceed 4 lots and that's excluding landscape
lots we made that clear in this one that those weren't counting against them.
Then we have a short plat. This is a new one. This is an attempt to deal with the
industrial and commercial projects where they come in and they don't really know
what they want and they end up wanting to do resubdivision and things like that
so this is an attempt to address that. Basically what it says is that you can qualify
for a short plat if you're within an industrial commercial TNC or Old T District and
if it's an original parcel of record or if it's a lot in a recorded subdivision. As long
as it has not been the result of previous short plat so we didn't want people doing
a short plat, then a short plat and a short plat and that kind of thing trying to
bypass you so it has to not to be the result of a previous short plat. Then the
proposed subdivision does not exceed four lots buildable lots on a previous
platted property - there's my tongue twister for the day or does not exceed two
lots on a parcel of land. Or if it's a condominium plat. So a condominium plat the
development has already been approved you guys don't need to see it basically
yet. If it's a lot in a subdivision and they want to make four lots out of it and you
guys saw the lot that it was created from you guys don't need to see it again I
can just go through the administrative process. If it's a parcel of ground and they
want to go to two lots then you guys don't need to see it so it's kind of codifying
the reduction in platting requirements that you've been seeing already.
***End Of Side Two***
Canning: -- term of permits is the same so even though that short plat - even
though you don't see it it still gets signed by all the same people so it will be a
recorded plat. So it will be more than what we're getting now with our reduction
in platting because that's really just a survey that this will be an actual plat it just
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June 7, 2005
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won't go through the Planning and Zoning and City Council hearing process.
Property boundary adjustments we changed a little bit. We made it so that you
can actually reduce the number of buildable lots with a property boundary
adjustment and that you can do it on parcels not just on lots. The improvement
standards are pretty much the same. The only ones that are different are the
block lengths for the TNC and the TNR district we were made sure that these
were very short blocks because we have that reduced width we wanted very
short blocks to make sure that they had another way to get there. So even
though they're narrower roads there's one every SOO feet basically so you can
get in there through an alternate means so this was one of the compromises on
the narrower streets or an attempt at it anyway. Planned Unit Developments big
change here is no more use exception. I want to make sure that sunk in no more
use exception or use variance as one might call it. The Comp Plan has a
designation that's the designation you go with so no more commercial in an
industrial area that would require a Comp Plan Amendment from now on. The
PIG was quite comfortable with this actually. The one thing we did allow
regarding uses for the Planned Development if you had a Planned Development
and say daycares were - well no daycares aren't a good example. Say
townhouses were a Conditional Use in the district that you've got and you wanted
them to be a principal permitted use that would - you could ask for that to occur.
So if there were uses that were normally accessory or conditional you could ask
for them to be principal permitted uses through the PD process. Okay we hope
to see less planned developments just for the sake of having reduced standards.
Hopefully we have those standards at the place where they feel comfortable now
and they can meet those standards rather than having to go through the PD
process. That was really the intent there was to make this PD for unique projects
that should be Planned Unit Developments. One where you've got a large
clustering around a natural feature or something like that. Really the intent was
to limit the number of these we see and really have them meet the adopted
standards. With that, I'll end my presentation other than to ask when you would
like to have this before you again. Would you like another workshop, would you
like to just go ahead and schedule hearings? We will need a couple of weeks
before you can have your first hearing because there is some special noticing we
need to do.
Wardle: Thank you Anna and I would like to thank you individually for all the
work that you've done on this and your staff and all the volunteers. It's wonderful
and certainly has been a taxing process but one that will help our community.
With that, would the preference be to read it individually, have another workshop
or just bring it to Public Hearing Council?
Rountree: Mr. President.
Wardle: Mr. Rountree.
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June 7, 2005
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Rountree: I would like an opportunity at least to read a couple of chapters in
here and look at some of the little hot spots that Anna pointed out. Once that's
done then I would expect it in two weeks. That would be sufficient to do that then
schedule it for a Public Hearing.
Wardle: One of the questions I have Anna, in the meantime, knowing that from a
number of individuals and a number of groups that this was coming to the
Council tonight for a workshop session waiting for it to be presented and out in
the open so everyone could comment. Who is going to be taking any interim
public comment before it goes to Public Hearing? Does that make sense?
Canning: Yes I've been taking those.
Wardle: Okay.
De Weerd: So comment from Council?
Canning: Yes.
Wardle: Comment from outside sources. People that have been expecting the
new code and those kinds of things. Other - I guess public comment public
testimony.
Canning: Yes. This is similar to any application this is an act of application. The
Planning and Zoning Commission has recommended approval of this document
to you so the Clerk's Office and / or my office will take the public comment and
then we'll be sure to present that to you at your first Public Hearing.
Wardle: Thank you. Council take under advisement that we would like to review
this individually and then our next regularly scheduled meetings is two weeks. At
that time I believe we could either set an additional workshop or recommend it to
come for a Public Hearing. Is anyone comfortable having two weeks to review
that and then to make a timeline?
Bird: I feel comfortable Shawn.
Wardle: Again Anna thank you very much.
Canning: Sir, I need to ask for clarification. So are we having a Public Hearing
in two weeks?
Wardle: No the direction is to allow us two weeks to digest the information and at
the two week marker to either request an additional workshop or direct staff to
notice it for Public Hearing before the Council.
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June 7, 2005
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Canning: So at a minimum it will be just so you're clear like a month before your
first Public Hearing because it takes us two weeks lead-time on the Public
Hearing.
Wardle: Right. Yes.
De Weerd: Mr. President.
Wardle: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: Anna are you going to be doing fees at the same time?
Canning: Yes I'm trying to wrap up both the Old Town design guidelines and the
fees, new application forms and all that so we will madly be working on that for
the next month yes. I guess they would need to come with this depending on
how many hearings you think there will be we can try and have the fees ready for
that first Public Hearing.
De Weerd: Would that be the preference of Council?
Rountree: That would be my preference.
Wardle: My preference as well. All right. Council that brings us to the end of our
Special Meeting Agenda. I would entertain a motion to adjourn.
Rountree: So moved.
Bird: Second.
Wardle: It's been moved and second to adjourn our Special Meeting for June ¡tho
All in favor. Adjourned at 6:30.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 6:30 PM
(TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 6:50 P.M.
APPROVED:
g / /b /tJS
DATE APPROVED
., Special Meeting
Meridian City CounCI
June 7, 2005
Page 30 of 30
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