HomeMy WebLinkAbout1999 11-16 Pre
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MERIDIAN CITY COUNCIL PRE-COUNCIL MEETING NOVEMBER 16. 1999
The Pre-Council meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 6:40
p.m. on Tuesday, November 16,1999, by Mayor Robert Corrie.
MEMBERS PRESENT: BOB CORRIE, RON ANDERSON, KEITH BIRD,
CHARLIE ROUNTREE
OTHERS PRESENT: SHARI STILES, BILL GIGRAY, KENNY BOWERS, WILL
BERG, TOM KUNTZ
Corrie: It is 6:40 to discuss the Parks and Recreation Master Plan, Norm
Landerman-Moore, and that we will have an APA discussion presentation by
Charles Trainor. So, if you would like to start, Tom.
Kuntz: Mayor and Council, it's my pleasure to introduce Norm Landerman-Moore
,who is the consultant who has been conducting or putting together our Parks and
Recreation Comprehensive Plan which hopefully will be a component of the
revised City Comprehensive Plan. Norm has a draft with you tonight; wants to
spend about a half an hour with you. He'll be back on December 2nd for a
meeting with the public, and at that point, we'll bring a more final draft with maps
included for you to review during the month of December, and then we'd like to
get some comments back and plan a public hearing in January at one of the
Council meetings and have the Council adopt the Comprehensive Plan.
Corrie: Norm.
Landerman-Moore: Good evening. It's a pleasure to be with you this evening
and talk about the Comprehensive Plan. Landerman~Moore Associates, as you
know, probably, is planning an economic research for recreation, special events,
and fairs and expositions industry about 30 years in business in the western
United States primarily. In our work, we're also privileged to be part of the
National Recreation Parks Association, a revenue school program in Colorado
and San Diego, and we participate in policy development on recreation planning
and community planning throughout the United States. So we enjoy this work.
We have a commitment to it, and we have worked with many small communities
in dealing with the issues of recreation. The plan that we have been working on
with your community and with your people has had the - a certain level of public
participation and through a workshop procedure that we established and
structured to gain input, some of you, I believe, we in attendance of one or more
of those workshops, and we, in that process. did an evaluation of an inventory of
existing public and private recreation facilities and programs. We did a forecast,
also, of demand and needs for future Parks and Recreation services. We did
estimates of costs for improving and maintaining existing and future recreation
facilities. We made recommendations in the draft of development and service
standards for existing and future facilities in recreation programs. The graphic
Meridian City counM..ling -
November 16, 1999
Page 2
portions with the draft tha~ou have in front of you are still being prepared and
will be in the December 2 package. There is an implementation and action
program, and this plan is 2010 plan, 10-year planning horizon, and there's a cost
and funding implementation program designed into the plan for the
improvements that are projected, and also, a set of policies and standards to
guide the development and administration of the Parks and Recreation services.
In the small introduction summary that I handed you, on Page 6 of that, you'll see
some of the basic information that we discovered in this process, and that is one
that the City of Meridian has experienced, as you well know, a significant
population growth during the 90s and that appears to be continuing, and there is
a projection of population by 2010 of more than 48,000, and there are two or
three different projections depending on who you're talking to about build-out
population, but it no doubt will exceed 100,000 in population. Quite obviously,
you'll become a large community and with all of the challenges that larger
populations bring to a community. At present, the amount of park land available
to the residents of Meridian is about 64 acres which includes the 39 acres owned
by the City and 25 acres owned by a special district. A current level of service for
Parks and Recreation in the City of Meridian is about 1.7 acres of park land for
every 1,000 residents. To give you sort of a thermometer or measure device for
that level of service, we're seeing acres per thousand ratios of anywhere from
six, seven. eight acres per thousand ratios in terms of design standards for
modern populations. The current planning provides for the design of 56-acre
community park and the expansion of Chateau Park, a five-acre site, and new
park land needs for the 2010 horizon that we have designed into the plan is 152
acres beyond what you have now available within the community. That will
provide for ten new neighborhood parks and four new community parks beyond
those that are in the current planning status. For the long-term, as I mentioned,
39 acres of operational city parks, there will be an additional 61 acres of
operational parks after completion of the 56-acre community park and also
Chateau Park, and an additional 152 acres of park land will bring the total to 252
acres. There will be a need to acquire an additional 96 acres for long-term park
development and achieve the directive of a parks (inaudible) 348 acres of
operational park and for the future as you continue to grow. Using the 1999
dollar values, in terms of land acquisition, we have some discussion, by the way,
in the Commission meeting last night about information that we had received
from your local real estate organizations with regard to institutional land
categories and their pricing values, and those pricing values were given to us at
somewhere between five and ten thousand dollars an acre. That value, as we
discussed it in Commission and also with a gentleman participating from a school
district, Jim Carberry, yeah. We - Jim mentioned that the School District is
paying far in excess of that for the land that they're acquiring, and they're
probably doing about as good as anybody can do in terms of land pricing. So we
re-evaluated the valuation of the institutional land, and that's been adjusted, and
so the 152 acres using 1999 dollar values could be anywhere from 3.8 million to
4.56 million. The important thing to recognize there is that the plan itself does
not suggest that you go out and acquire land and use, you know, in the sense of
... III
Meridian City Councmeeting
November 16, 1999
Page 3
on-the-market value, but there are other methods in terms of acquiring land or
property that should be looked at and also that you should consider moving with
a joint program with the School District or Police Department or others to secure
land suitable for neighborhood community parks. Using the cost per acre and
classifications and number of (inaudible) needed for the 2010 development
objective identified in the Comp Plan, the (inaudible) facilities development costs
could range from 15 to 35 million dollars. Again, that's not something that is
suggested in the Comp Plan that you go out and try to spend today or tomorrow
or try to create a bond program to do today or tomorrow. There's other methods.
Sort of a ramping up process is designed into the plan that addresses that on an
on-going basis. The total parks acquisition, development program identified,
would range anywhere from 18.8 million to 39.5 million. Now, if we can turn to
Page 44 of the document, the blue-covered document that you have in front of
you which is Camp Plan, and you look at on Page 44, the chart or table, I should
say, that is called the Parks and Recreation Development Program for 2000 to
2010, in the planning process, we begin to define the neighborhoods and the
population centers and growth of population, not only throughout the City, but
within the areas that are defined as urban growth boundaries or urban growth
areas. In looking at these as well as the street locations, the neighborhood
patterns, population, popular types of population and so forth, we begin to define
these recreation service areas of which there are six that are designed into the
plan. These recreation service areas then would contain a certain number of
recreational assets that would develop community parks, neighborhood parks, so
forth. You can see by that chart how the distribution of these assets throughout
the community would begin to occur. We also within the plan identified a number
ofthings with regard to organization if you turn to Page 46 and 47, you can see
two organizational charts side-by-side that deal with the administration and the
operations, maintenance of the parks system, and what we have on 46, on page
46, is an existing organizational structure. What we have on Page 47 is an
organizational structure that begins to more effectively deal with the management
and the operations and maintenance of a Parks and Recreation system as it
matures. Now, one of the things that we found in the research and in the
analysis is that the weakest area of recreation services that we have is in
recreation programming. That is in the actual programming of recreation
classes, recreation activities and so forth throughout the community. A key to
that, and one of the keys to that, one of the most effective tools to have in place
to support that kind of activity is a community recreation center or community
recreation centers. There's two different levels to be looked at in that regard.
One is a more larger unit which is in very high demand as expressed by the
public here, and something very needful expressed by the public here, and also
in our own analysis, it shows statistically, that without a recreation center or a
fairly large recreation center, you are really not able to effectively serve the year-
round recreational needs of the population. Those recreational needs in the
wintertime especially become important to the population because of the climate
conditions that exist in the wintertime and the indoor recreational opportunities
that a recreation center would provide. There is a second level of recreational
Meridian City Counfl!eIing 11II
November 16, 1999
Page 4
center which is much smaller, more (inaudible) type of recreation center. It still
gives indoor space capability, but outdoor space capability as well for year-round
utilization. So, as this organization begins to develop and we look at recreation
services and recreation programming, turn to Page 49, 48 and 49, and based
upon the recreation categories and the needs for recreation, the type of
recreation programming within the department, the organizational structure will
really need to focus on this very aspect of the City's services. Not only for the
benefit of the community of Meridian, but certainly for all those who -
associations and private non-profit organizations, church groups and other
organizations within the community that participate in recreational activities. So,
recreation management and recreation program services in the community will
take on a much more weighty role in the overall Parks and Recreation
Development Program. I'd like to draw your attention, very quickly, to Page 81.
What we found in our research and our working with Tom and his staff and also
with the Parks and Recreation Commission is that the Advisory Commission itself
is not really functioning with a set of policies. The policies are essentially non-
existent in terms of directing the future and guiding the day-to-day practices of
the Commission to the extent that they address specific issues in Parks and
Recreation; for instance, park land acquisition policy is a very critical policy to
have in place not only a policy, but specific guidelines to have in place. The
reason for that is it protects you as Council members, and it protects the
Department, and it protects the Commission against those people who, for
whatever reason, may want to try to influence anyone of you in terms of going
about a property acquisition process outside the bounds of a public process; in
other words, they want to try to do it privately. It gets you into strange waters as
it were, for the legal standpoint and also not really meet the public interest as
defined in the Comprehensive Plan and so we feel that it's very important to
establish a park land acquisition policy and the guidelines specifically designed
into your policy procedures to gUide that acquisition process. A park facility
improvement policy needs to be in place where it looks at the opportunities with
the School District, it looks at opportunities of developing joint programs as well
ADA barrier free and ADA compliant. In terms of access, recreation programs
and services policy, which is defined, and all of these policies that are included in
the pages in the - through the 80s there, 81 on through 84, 85, are all policies
which give you the what we call the umbrella policy structure in which saying
some of these policies there may be specific guidelines, specific detail,
procedural statements that are adopted as well in order to address a particular
matter. I'd like to draw your attention to 85, Page 85, to 5.1 E. That is an
economic performance and finance policy. Language there becomes self-
evident in terms of what is trying to - the intent of this policy, the City will identify
and participate in growth impact related public service fees and organize
assessment in such as - you'll see the word "benefit assessment." Now, the so-
called developer fee which was supposed to be the answer to all of our problems
in terms of land or acquisition of property for Parks and Recreation services, not
only in this state or in this community, but throughout the western United States
is just simply not working. It's not effective enough to really develop the
... 11II
Meridian City Coun~eting
November 16,1999
Page 5
recreational assets to support the populations generated by the populations
created again in those developments. Their needs are not being met, nor can
the cities or counties that are dealing with the growth management or developer
impact fee policies effectively carry out a program of recreation services at a
level to sustain the recreation demand that's created again by the population
generated. A benefit assessment structure designed to create a benefit
assessment district and base that upon an equity formula that is on a per cap
basis or per parcel basis, not on land values. There's a very important tool to
begin to consider utilizing. What it does is create the project, the plan, the
Comprehensive Plan. It creates the policy document for the project. The 56-
acre, for example, park which is now being master planned creates a project
definition. It's designed, its costs are understood. That is a benefit that the
public then understands in relationship to what they're bidding, what they're
paying for, what they're buying. And then the benefit is disbursed throughout the
entire city. The city itself becomes the benefit assessment district because that
park perceivably being of its size and nature serves the entire community's
needs in one fashion or another, and so the equity - it's not tied to property
values, again. Property values as a matter of fact, have nothing to do with
recreation whatsoever. Nothing. If I have a home with a half a million dollar
house and my wife - myself only, and our attorney here has 50,000 with eight
kids, guess who's going to place a greater demand on the park. Yet, his
payment in terms of the (inaudible) resource values is far different than mine, and
I may never use the park.
(inaudible)
Landerman~Moore: I doubt if I'd ever use it. The fact is, yeah, I'd probably have
more time to - I don't know about that. We consultants and attorneys both stay
pretty busy fellows, but the fact is that a benefit assessment structure becomes a
lot more valuable tool. What we had done is we've given Tom some legal
language to consider there to advance through City Council to legal counsel,
begin to discuss how you would effectively organize benefit assessment structure
for this community. There are a number of other policies and standards that are
designed to the Comprehensive Plan to take it forward. Now, when we look at
land acquisition, it's, I think, recognized by everybody that if you wait until all the
properties are developed, if you wait until all the community development actions
have taken place, and there is not a land banking process in effect, then by the
time you get around to building a park, just like the School District testified to last
night, there's no land. Either that or the land is so expensive that there's no way
that you could ever accomplish what it is you intend to do in terms of providing
public service. So we suggest very strongly in the Comprehensive Plan that you
move forward with the land acquisition development program on a city-wide basis
in these various service areas that are defined, six areas defined and get ahead
of the curve, if you will. Try to get ahead of this process so that you're working
more closely to land as it is being developed and then working with the
developers and the builders to consolidate land areas or dedication of fees to
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Meridian City Council Meeting
November 16,1999
Page 6
acquire land in areas so you can create a neighborhood and community parks
that are going to be necessary. There's one thing about the economics and the
benefits of recreation that we have learned both at the national level and local
levels, and I'd like to pass that on to you, and I'm sure you recognize it. The
statement that I have made before in the workshops and I'll make here as a
matter of record is that you have a clear choice in today's society is to how you
treat the investment value of public dollars in public services when it comes to
recreation. It can either recreate or you can incarcerate. I'll certainly wager that
anyone of you could measure in your minds the cost of incarceration as
compared to the cost of recreation. When we look at the load on public services
in terms of dollar values and we look at recreation as a benefit, there is a real
and factual benefit has now been defined quite well by National Recreation Parks
Association and by other organizations including police officer organizations in
this country that has to be taken into consideration. So the value of that
recreation development program, I think, has dividends and payback capability
that go beyond the hard cash payback. That's just a very brief overview of the
Comprehensive Plan as Tom has mentioned. What we're going to be doing is
including the graphics, setting in the - some additional changes and
modifications there, the Parks Commission is meeting on the second, and again,
to review this document. They're going to have their responses back to me right
around the 15th of December, and then right after that, we will look forward to
your response as well, as well you will have copies of that same document in its
more final form, and then in January, we'll be holding a public meeting as well on
the second, and then in January, we'll come back to review this with you in a
public hearing and submit it for your acceptance and eventual adoption. I'd like
to say that there's - in closing, before we go into Q & A, there's a fairly good
response, I think, in the workshops from the public. We measure the response in
this kind of work not simply by numbers, it's the quality of input that we look for.
We have subsidentive (sic) quality input in those workshops. There were number
of interest expressed, views, (inaudible) views in some cases, but or (inaudible)
views in some cases, I should say, and then -I think overall we had good quality
input. But independent of that, we have been doing a lot of .research and a lot of
analytical work as manifest by what you're seeing in this Comprehensive Plan to
get to the participation rates and get the kind of detailed data that we need to
make critical decisions on and make recommendations on in this Comp Plan.
So, as far as I can tell, it's subsidentive. It has good factual basis data. We have
some problems with the demographics, trying to get that settled down, after we
discovered a number of flaws in the demographic recording in the county and the
state, we needed to really tighten up on that, so we went to work through our
company out of New York and who did some additional demographics analysis
for us so that we could better understand the profile of the community and people
in Meridian. With that, I'll certainly open up to discussion at your pleasure.
Corrie: Thank you, Norm. Questions?
Bird: I have none.
Meridian City counfteting
November 16, 1999
Page 7
--
Corrie: (inaudible) Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: Table 3, there's two - (inaudible) reference to the Recreation
Services. I have not had an opportunity (inaudible) to read this. (inaudible) map
that demonstrates where those -
Landerman~Moore: Yes. That-
Rountree: Is there a narrative that explains those?
Landerman-Moore: Yes, that is correct.
Rountree: Is that in here?
Landerman-Moore: No. The narratives and the map will be forthcoming as a
part of tied to the map. There'll be several maps, in fact, back in the beginning
of right after the list of tables in the very front or just before the list of tables in the
very front of the document, you'll see a list of illustrations. In the needs
assessment, 2-1, Section 2, you'll see the Meridian Recreation Service areas,
and they'll be - Mr. Rountree, there will be a map in there, there will be a
description of the map as justification. Of course, there will be several other
models and maps which will be included in the report. That, by the way, that
Table 3-2 is really the core map of how to allocate the assets throughout the city
to better serve the community on a more balanced basis
Rountree: We'll be seeing those about when?
Landerman-Moore: Second. Second of December. We would have had them
now, but the fellow working on the computer had a death in the family, and there
was an interruption of work flow and this was hot off the press when I left
yesterday, and so - we didn't quite have (inaudible). I apologize for that.
Rountree: Procedural question, Mr. Mayor, if we have comments and conditions
and whatever on the graph that we have now (inaudible)
Kuntz: Yeah. That'd be preferable on those questions through you.
Corrie: Okay. Anyothers? Mr. Gigray.
Gigray: I would just recommend that you might consider having us review a copy
of this before you go to the public sector with it because as you may well know,
Idaho has some very severe restrictions about what local governments, units,
can do with regards to raising funds, and unless there's expressed statutory
authority for taxes which if it isn't a fee generated on the basis of the providance
of the service, if it's for general revenue purposes, it's considered a tax under
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MERIDIAN CITY COUNCIL PRE-COUNCIL MEETING NOVEMBER 16.1999
The Pre-Council meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 6:40
p.m. on Tuesday, November 16,1999, by Mayor Robert Corrie.
MEMBERS PRESENT: BOB CORRIE, RON ANDERSON, KEITH BIRD,
CHARLIE ROUNTREE
OTHERS PRESENT: SHARI STILES, BILL GIGRAY, KENNY BOWERS, WILL
BERG, TOM KUNTZ
Corrie: It is 6:40 to discuss the Parks and Recreation Master Plan, Norm
Landerman-Moore, and that we will have an APA discussion presentation by
Charles Trainor. So, if you would like to start, Tom.
Kuntz: Mayor and Council, it's my pleasure to introduce Norm Landerman-Moore
iwho is the consultant who has been conducting or putting together our Parks ~nd
Recreation Comprehensive Plan which hopefully will be a component of the
revised City Comprehensive Plan. Norm has a draft with you tonight; wants to
spend about a half an hour with you. He'll be back on December 2nd for a
meeting with the public, and at that point, we'll bring a more final draft with maps
included for you to review during the month of December, and then we'd like to
get some comments back and plan a public hearing in January at one of the
Council meetings and have the Council adopt the Comprehensive Plan.
Corrie: Norm.
Landerman-Moore: Good evening. It's a pleasure to be with you this evening
and talk about the Comprehensive Plan. Landerman-Moore Associates, as you
know, probably, is planning an economic research for recreation, special events,
and fairs and expositions industry about 30 years in business in the western
United States primarily. In our work, we're also privileged to be part of the
National Recreation Parks Association, a revenue school program in Colorado
and San Diego, and we participate in policy development on recreation planning
and community planning throughout the United States. So we enjoy this work.
We have a commitment to it, and we have worked with many small communities
in dealing with the issues of recreation. The plan that we have been working on
with your community and with your people has had the - a certain level of public
participation and through a workshop procedure that we established and
structured to gain input, some of you, I believe, we in attendance of one or more
of those workshops, and we, in that process,did an evaluation of an inventory of
existing public and private recreation facilities and programs. We did a forecast,
also, of demand and needs for future Parks and Recreation services. We did
estimates of costs for improving and maintaining existing and future recreation
facilities. We made recommendations in the draft of development and service
standards for existing and future facilities in recreation programs. The graphic
Meridian City counMeling -
November 16, 1999
Page 2
portions with the draft that 10U have in front of you are still being prepared and
will be in the December 2" package. There is an implementation and action
program, and this plan is 2010 plan, 10-year planning horizon, and there's a cost
and funding implementation program designed into the plan for the
improvements that are projected, and also, a set of policies and standards to
guide the development and administration of the Parks and Recreation services.
In the small introduction summary that I handed you, on Page 6 of that, you'll see
some of the basic information that we discovered in this process, and that is one
that the City of Meridian has experienced, as you well know, a significant
popUlation growth during the 90s and that appears to be continuing, and there is
a projection of population by 2010 of more than 48,000, and there are two or
three different projections depending on who you're talking to about build-out
population, but it no doubt will exceed 100,000 in population. Quite obviously,
you'll become a large community and with all of the challenges that larger
populations bring to a community. At present, the amount of park land available
to the residents of Meridian is about 64 acres which includes the 39 acres owned
by the City and 25 acres owned by a special district. A current level of service for
Parks and Recreation in the City of Meridian is about 1.7 acres of park land for
every 1,000 residents. To give you sort of a thermometer or measure device for
that level of service, we're seeing acres per thousand ratios of anywhere from
six, seven, eight acres per thousand ratios in terms of design standards for
modern populations. The current planning provides for the design of 56-acre
community park and the expansion of Chateau Park, a five-acre site, and new
park land needs for the 2010 horizon that we have designed into the plan is 152
acres beyond what you have now available within the community. That will
provide for ten new neighborhood parks and four new community parks beyond
those that are in the current planning status. For the long-term, as I mentioned,
39 acres of operational city parks, there will be an additional 61 acres of
operational parks after completion of the 56-acre community park and also
Chateau Park, and an additional 152 acres of park land will bring the total to 252
acres. There will be a need to acquire an additional 96 acres for long-term park
development and achieve the directive of a parks (inaudible) 348 acres of
operational park and for the future as you continue to grow. Using the 1999
dollar values, in terms of land acquisition, we have some discussion, by the way,
in the Commission meeting last night about information that we had received
from your local real estate organizations with regard to institutional land
categories and their pricing values, and those pricing values were given to us at
somewhere between five and ten thousand dollars an acre. That value, as we
discussed it in Commission and also with a gentleman participating from a school
district, Jim Carberry, yeah. We - Jim mentioned that the School District is
paying far in excess of that for the land that they're acquiring, and they're
probably doing about as good as anybody can do in terms of land pricing. So we
re-evaluated the valuation of the institutional land, and that's been adjusted, and
so the 152 acres using 1999 dollar values could be anywhere from 3.8 million to
4.56 million. The important thing to recognize there is that the plan itself does
not suggest that you go out and acquire land and use, you know, in the sense of
Meridian City counMeting 11II
November 16, 1999
Page 3
on~the-market value, but there are other methods in terms of acquiring land or
property that should be looked at and also that you should consider moving with
a joint program with the School District or Police Department or others to secure
land suitable for neighborhood community parks. USing the cost per acre and
classifications and number of (inaudible) needed for the 2010 development
objective identified in the Comp Plan, the (inaudible) facilities development costs
could range from 15 to 35 million dollars. Again, that's not something that is
suggested in the Comp Plan that you go out and try to spend today or tomorrow
or try to create a bond program to do today or tomorrow. There's other methods.
Sort of a ramping up process is designed into the plan that addresses that on an
on-going basis. The total parks acquisition, development program identified,
would range anywhere from 18.8 million to 39.5 million. Now, if we can turn to
Page 44 of the document, the blue-covered document that you have in front of
you which is Comp Plan, and you look at on Page 44, the chart or table, I should
say, that is called the Parks and Recreation Development Program for 2000 to
2010, in the planning process, we begin to define the neighborhoods and the
population centers and growth of population, not only throughout the City, but
within the areas that are defined as urban growth boundaries or urban growth
areas. In looking at these as well as the street locations, the neighborhood
patterns, population, popular types of population and so forth, we begin to define
these recreation service areas of which there are six that are designed into the
plan. These recreation service areas then would contain a certain number of
recreational assets that would develop community parks, neighborhood parks, so
forth. You can see by that chart how the distribution of these assets throughout
the community would begin to occur. We also within the plan identified a number
of things with regard to organization if you turn to Page 46 and 47, you can see
two organizational charts side-by-side that deal with the administration and the
operations, maintenance of the parks system, and what we have on 46, on page
46, is an existing organizational structure. What we have on Page 47 is an
organizational structure that begins to more effectively deal with the management
and the operations and maintenance of a Parks and Recreation system as it
matures. Now, one of the things that we found in the research and in the
analysis is that the weakest area of recreation services that we have is in
recreation programming. That is in the actual programming of recreation
classes, recreation activities and so forth throughout the community. A key to
that, and one of the keys to that, one of the most effective tools to have in place
to support that kind of activity is a community recreation center or community
recreation centers. There's two different levels to be looked at in that regard.
One is a more larger unit which is in very high demand as expressed by the
public here, and something very needful expressed by the public here, and also
in our own analysis, it shows statistically, that without a recreation center or a
fairly large recreation center, you are really not able to effectively serve the year-
round recreational needs of the population. Those recreational needs in the
wintertime especially become important to the population because of the climate
conditions that exist in the wintertime and the indoor recreational opportunities
that a recreation center would provide. There is a second level of recreational
Meridian City counl!etin9 11II
November 16, 1999
Page 4
center which is much smaller, more (inaudible) type of recreation center. It still
gives indoor space capability, but outdoor space capability as well for year-round
utilization. So, as this organization begins to develop and we look at recreation
services and recreation programming, turn to Page 49,48 and 49, and based
upon the recreation categories and the needs for recreation, the type of
recreation programming within the department, the organizational structure will
really need to focus on this very aspect of the City's services. Not only for the
benefit of the community of Meridian, but certainly for all those who -
associations and private non-profit organizations, church groups and other
organizations within the community that participate in recreational activities. So,
recreation management and recreation program services in the community will
take on a much more weighty role in the overall Parks and Recreation
Development Program. I'd like to draw your attention, very quickly, to Page 81.
What we found in our research and our working with Tom and his staff and also
with the Parks and Recreation Commission is that the Advisory Commission itself
is not really functioning with a set of policies. The policies are essentially non-
existent in terms of directing the future and guiding the day-to-day practices of
the Commission to the extent that they address specific issues in Parks and
Recreation; for instance, park land acquisition policy is a very critical policy to
have in place not only a policy, but specific guidelines to have in place. The
reason for that is it protects you as Council members, and it protects the
Department, and it protects the Commission against those people who, for
whatever reason, may want to try to influence anyone of you in terms of going
about a property acquisition process outside the bounds of a public process; in
other words, they want to try to do it privately. It gets you into strange waters as
it were, for the legal standpoint and also not really meet the public interest as
defined in the Comprehensive Plan and so we feel that it's very important to
establish a park land acquisition policy and the guidelines specifically designed
into your policy procedures to guide that acquisition process. A park facility
improvement policy needs to be in place where it looks at the opportunities with
the School District, it looks at opportunities of developing joint programs as well
ADA barrier free and ADA compliant. In terms of access, recreation programs
and services policy, which is defined, and all of these policies that are included in
the pages in the - through the 80s there, 81 on through 84, 85, are all policies
which give you the what we call the umbrella policy structure in which saying
some of these policies there may be specific guidelines, specific detail,
procedural statements that are adopted as well in order to address a particular
matter. I'd like to draw your attention to 85, Page 85, to 5.1 E. That is an
economic performance and finance policy. Language there becomes self-
evident in terms of what is trying to - the intent of this policy, the City will identify
and participate in growth impact related public service fees and organize
assessment in such as - you'll see the word "benefit assessment." Now, the so-
called developer fee which was supposed to be the answer to all of our problems
in terms of land or acquisition of property for Parks and Recreation services, not
only in this state or in this community, but throughout the western United States
is just simply not working. It's not effective enough to really develop the
Meridian City coun!leeting 11II
November 16,1999
Page 5
recreational assets to support the populations generated by the populations
created again in those developments. Their needs are not being met, nor can
the cities or counties that are dealing with the growth management or developer
impact fee policies effectively carry out a program of recreation services at a
level to sustain the recreation demand that's created again by the population
generated. A benefit assessment structure designed to create a benefit
assessment district and base that upon an equity formula that is on a per cap
basis or per parcel basis, not on land values. There's a very important tool to
begin to consider utilizing. What it does is create the project, the plan, the
Comprehensive Plan. It creates the policy document for the project. The 56-
acre, for example, park which is now being master planned creates a project
definition. It's designed, its costs are understood. That is a benefit that the
public then understands in relationship to what they're bidding, what they're
paying for, what they're buying. And then the benefit is disbursed throughout the
entire city. The city itself becomes the benefit assessment district because that
park perceivably being of its size and nature serves the entire community's
needs in one fashion or another, and so the equity - it's not tied to property
values, again. Property values as a matter of fact, have nothing to do with
recreation whatsoever. Nothing. If I have a home with a half a million dollar
house and my wife - myself only, and our attorney here has 50,000 with eight
kids, guess who's going to place a greater demand on the park. Yet, his
payment in terms of the (inaudible) resource values is far different than mine, and
I may never use the park.
(inaudible)
Landerman~Moore: I doubt if I'd ever use it. The fact is, yeah, I'd probably have
more time to - I don't know about that. We consultants and attorneys both stay
pretty busy fellows, but the fact is that a benefit assessment structure becomes a
lot more valuable tool. What we had done is we've given Tom some legal
language to consider there to advance through City Council to legal counsel,
begin to discuss how you would effectively organize benefit assessment structure
for this community. There are a number of other policies and standards that are
designed to the Comprehensive Plan to take it forward. Now, when we look at
land acquisition, it's, I think, recognized by everybody that if you wait until all the
properties are developed, if you wait until all the community development actions
have taken place, and there is not a land banking process in effect, then by the
time you get around to building a park, just like the School District testified to last
night, there's no land. Either that or the land is so expensive that there's no way
that you could ever accomplish what it is you intend to do in terms of providing
public service. So we suggest very strongly in the Comprehensive Plan that you
move forward with the land acquisition development program on a city-wide basis
in these various service areas that are defined, six areas defined and get ahead
of the curve, if you will. Try to get ahead of this process so that you're working
more closely to land as it is being developed and then working with the
developers and the builders to consolidate land areas or dedication of fees to
.
Meridian City Council Meeting
November 16, 1999
Page 6
acquire land in areas so you can create a neighborhood and community parks
that are going to be necessary. There's one thing about the economics and the
benefits of recreation that we have learned both at the national level and local
levels, and I'd like to pass that on to you, and I'm sure you recognize it. The
statement that I have made before in the workshops and I'll make here as a
matter of record is that you have a clear choice in today's society is to how you
treat the investment value of public dollars in public services when it comes to
recreation. It can either recreate or you can incarcerate. I'll certainly wager that
anyone of you could measure in your minds the cost of incarceration as
compared to the cost of recreation. When we look at the load on public services
in terms of dollar values and we look at recreation as a benefit, there is a real
and factual benefit has now been defined quite well by National Recreation Parks
Association and by other organizations including police officer organizations in
this country that has to be taken into consideration. So the value of that
recreation development program, I think, has dividends and payback capability
that go beyond the hard cash payback. That's just a very brief overview of the
Comprehensive Plan as Tom has mentioned. What we're going to be doing is
including the graphics, setting in the - some additional changes and
modifications there, the Parks Commission is meeting on the second, and again,
to review this document. They're going to have their responses back to me right
around the 15th of December, and then right after that, we will look forward to
your response as well, as well you will have copies of that same document in its
more final form, and then in January, we'll be holding a public meeting as well on
the second, and then in January, we'll come back to review this with you in a
public hearing and submit it for your acceptance and eventual adoption. I'd like
to say that there's - in closing, before we go into Q & A, there's a fairly good
response, I think, in the workshops from the public. We measure the response in
this kind of work not simply by numbers, it's the quality of input that we look for.
We have subsidentive (sic) quality input in those workshops. There were number
of interest expressed, views, (inaudible) views in some cases, but or (inaudible)
views in some cases, I should say, and then -I think overall we had good quality
input. But independent of that, we have been doing a lot of research and a lot of
analytical work as manifest by what you're seeing in this Comprehensive Plan to
get to the participation rates and get the kind of detailed data that we need to
make critical decisions on and make recommendations on in this Comp Plan.
So, as far as I can tell, it's subsidentive. It has good factual basis data. We have
some problems with the demographics, trying to get that settled down, after we
discovered a number of flaws in the demographic recording in the county and the
state, we needed to really tighten up on that, so we went to work through our
company out of New York and who did some additional demographics analysis
for us so that we could better understand the profile of the community and people
in Meridian. With that, I'll certainly open up to discussion at your pleasure.
--
Corrie: Thank you, Norm. Questions?
Bird: I have none.
Meridian City counfteting
November 16,1999
Page 7
--
Corrie: (inaudible) Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: Table 3, there's two - (inaudible) reference to the Recreation
Services. I have not had an opportunity (inaudible) to read this. (inaudible) map
that demonstrates where those -
Landerman-Moore: Yes. That-
Rountree: Is there a narrative that explains those?
Landerman-Moore: Yes, that is correct.
Rountree: Is that in here?
Landerman-Moore: No. The narratives and the map will be forthcoming as a
part of tied to the map. There'll be several maps, in fact, back in the beginning
of right after the list of tables in the very front or just before the list of tables in the
very front of the document, you'll see a list of illustrations. In the needs
assessment, 2-1, Section 2, you'll see the Meridian Recreation Service areas,
and they'll be - Mr. Rountree, there will be a map in there, there will be a
description of the map as justification. Of course, there will be several other
models and maps which will be included in the report. That, by the way, that
Table 3-2 is really the core map of how to allocate the assets throughout the city
to better serve the community on a more balanced basis
Rountree: We'll be seeing those about when?
Landerman-Moore: Second. Second of December. We would have had them
now, but the fellow working on the computer had a death in the family, and there
was an interruption of work flow and this was hot off the press when I left
yesterday, and so - we didn't quite have (inaudible). I apologize for that.
Rountree: Procedural question, Mr. Mayor, if we have comments and conditions
and whatever on the graph that we have now (inaudible)
Kuntz: Yeah. That'd be preferable on those questions through you.
Corrie: Okay. Any others? Mr. Gigray.
Gigray: I would just recommend that you might consider having us review a copy
of this before you go to the public sector with it because as you may well know,
Idaho has some very severe restrictions about what local governments, units,
can do with regards to raising funds, and unless there's expressed statutory
authority for taxes which if it isn't a fee generated on the basis of the providance
of the service, if it's for general revenue purposes, it's considered a tax under
Meridian City coun!M!etin9 ..
November 16, 1999
Page 8
state laws. I know that those rules aren't as strict in a lot of other states, so I
would just encourage that we ought to take a look at it at some point particularly
if you have funding issues associated with that.
Landerman-Moore: Well, that question was raised last night, and I think it's an
important one to (inaudible) out. You know, and I don't know how you feel about
pioneering, enabling legislation, there's many movements going on I understand
in the state to look at how your legislation is impeding pUblic services and how
the people feel about their needs in relationship to being taxed or assessed in
certain ways; that certainly is an important one to begin to (inaudible) out.
Corrie: Okay. Any other questions for Norm? Thank you for presentation-
Landerman-Moore: Thanks, gentlemen. I appreciate the opportunity to work
with you and look forward to seeing you on the second.
Corrie: Okay.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council members)
Trainor: I'm Charles Trainor with the Community Planning and Zoning
Association of Southwest Idaho, 413 West Idaho, Boise, 83702. Appreciate the
opportunity to be here tonight. I know that some of you have probably seen this
project several times and are deeply familiar with everything that is to be
presented here. Would like to talk tonight about, very briefly, about Treasure
Valley Futures. It's a project that we've been working on at Community Planning
Association for about a year now. We were awarded some funding this May and
have spent the summer getting organized, and now we're out here doing some
outreach on this. This project is land use transportation analysis that's going to
be occurring over the two-county area. We're going to be involved in both
counties, 14 cities and five highway districts and 360,000 at least we're wildly
optimistic about how many people can actually get involved. That's our target.
We're doing this because we're basically, as you experienced deeply here in
Meridian, growth has really been challenging us. We have about 88,000 people
moving into the Valley since 1990, about three percent growth rate, a very high
growth rate compared to the U.S. which runs under one percent. There have
been a lot of changes in the Valley because of that. Those numbers are shown
on the material I handed out to you. Basically, 27 percent increase in housing,
29 percent increase in population, 22 percent increase in drivers, but a whopping
41 percent in the number of registered vehicles in the two counties. However,
we only have about a 14 percent increase in the roadway capacity in the sense
of adding new lanes, aisles of public road. At the same time, there's been about
49,000 acres of farmland lost in the process of this growth. That's one of the
things that we're going out to the communities and saying, well, how much more
farmland is going to be given up to urban development? Today there's about
370,000 vehicles in the two counties, nearly one for every person; we have about
/~.-.. .
.::.:::~:::: ."
Meridian City CounCilMeeting
November 16,1999
Page 9
a third of the population, however, that can't drive. That's becoming more and
more challenges - the communities are getting more and more spread out. Of
course, the big challenge is all that is creating a tremendous increase in traffic on
the road. Basically, a vehicle miles of travel typical measures about twice the
rate of increase of population because you get more people and also living
further and further apart. This has been a real challenge, and basically, in
creating this conflict as the cities grow out, farmland is .chewed up, the farms that
are at the edge of the cities, the developing areas or even isolated pockets of
development sometimes becomes a real conflict between real farming and what
might be called suburban or very low density suburban development. This is a
good time for this project to occur. This is sort of a - we get a chance to look
forward and seek growth and sort of piCk the future of the two~county area. Now,
we got this grant, basically, we had a grant we applied for, 544 proposals were
submitted, we were one of 19 across the U.S. that were funded. We felt very
pleased about that, and one of the reasons we got funded was because we felt
this was a challenging project and trying to bring together some different partners
into the mix to involve more citizens and businesses in this sort of project. There
are five goals in this - under this grant that we applied for. The first is to improve
the efficiency of the transportation system. That can mean basically how you
make roads better, how do you make alternative choices, more people able to
walk or bus to where they want to go. The other thing is to reduce the impact of
transportation on the environment. That can mean cleaner buses, it can also
mean better designed streets so there's less problem from those streets on the
community. So then you're looking at that. We want to reduce the need for
costly infrastructure investments. Showing here the Flying Y project: 70 million
dollar, approximately, project. Already in some of the 1-84 corridor studies
(inaudible) optimistic or pessimist engineer, it looks like that certain section of the
interstate may have to be 12 lanes to handle the traffic in the future. It's my
imposing for the community and certainly imposing for the pocketbook. Finally,
to ensure efficient access or second (inaudible) access to job services (inaudible)
make sure that people can get where they're going as quickly as possible, and
finally, is to encourage private-sector development patterns which meet these
purposes. So those are the wafty goals put out by the general highway
administration in awarding this. They gave it to this area because they felt that
this area has a real opportunity to look and see what could be done in a smaller
urban setting. Basically, we're not Portland, we're not San Diego. We don't have
massive cities. Can we make it work here in communities that are a lot more
typical of what you find throughout the west once you move away from the coast.
We also felt that this was an opportunity to demonstrate effective local control
and hum-drum solutions. We don't want this sort of (inaudible) here's what
they're doing in San Diego and it should work here. We all want to get citizens to
think about what kind of communities they want, and we also believe that the
elected officials are really pumped for this. There is a lot of activity such as the
Treasure Valley Partnership that really provided leadership in getting this grant
that was a very (inaudible) factor in making it happen. The primary objective to
this project, first of all, to educate citizens and elected officials about where and