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HomeMy WebLinkAboutJune 9, 1998 P&Z Minutes PLANNING AND ZAG COMMISSION JUNE 9, 1998 PAGE 37 8 Nelson: I have no further comment. MacCoy: Okay, I'm going to close the public hearing at this point, and commissioners, I'd like to hear statement as to what we should do. Nelson: Mr. Chairman, I'd like a motion that we have the city attorney prepare Facts and Findings for Item number 12. Smith: Second. MacCoy: Okay, all in favor. MOTION CARRIED: All ayes. ITEM NO. 13: PUBLIC HEARING: REQUEST FOR AN ACCESSORY USE PERMIT FOR HOME CHILD CARE BY KRISTI RICHMOND - 2311 MONACO WAY: MacCoy: Is the applicant here? KRISTI RICHMOND 6857 MAXWELL LANE, BOISE WAS SWORN BY THE CITY A TIORNEY. Richmond: My husband and I are working on a lease to purchase at 2311 Monaco Way, and it is pending right now. Prior: Hold it. Before we get into that, why don't we swear you in. I didn't anticipate you going through that oratory. Richmond: Anyway my husband and I are working on a lease to purchase at 2311 Monaco Way, and it is pending on this accessory use permit. Before we even started the paperwork on the home, I did go door to door and spoke with all the neighbors that were around the home, and there were no complaints. All the neighbors were fine with it, and so we did pursue because it would be optimal for me to work out of my home. I'm a teacher. I work at the Children's School. My background is in early childhood. It would be optimal for me to work out of my home. It is for five or fewer children. It's not large. The complaints were noise, traffic, and devaluation of property. 2311 Monaco Way is right by an elementary school; a block and a half practically. As far as noise level, I have been in the neighborhood a lot working, my husband and I have been working on the lawn, working on the house, and we did hear some noise just coming from the school. She might be worried that more noise level will come from five more children, but with the fencing and the trees, I don't believe that would be problem. As far as traffic, we have a good parking that is available for parents. It wouldn't be out in PLANNING AND ZAG COMMISSION JUNE 9, 1998 PAGE 38 8 the street, and there definitely wouldn't be a devaluation of property. We would like to do a lot of work in the house and that's all I have to say. MacCoy: Any questions of the applicant? Nelson: Yes, I have a few questions, Mr. Chairman. Do you have any children of our own? Are they part of this five? Richmond: No. Nelson: And what's kind of the target age group? Richmond: It's birth to two and a half. It's infant toddler program that I'm working on. Smith: What do you anticipate your hours of operation be? Richmond: 7:30 to 6:00. Smith: That's all I had. De Weerd: I have a question. Does that have an apartment in the basement? Richmond: It's just a house. It's split level. So we would be living upstairs, and I wanted to separate the infant toddler program downstairs. De Weerd: So have you read the comments by the fire chief? Richmond: What's that? De Weerd: Have you had a chance to read the comments by our Chief of the Fire Department? He states that all code will need to met, smoke detector, fire extinguisher, no children can be on any upper floor. If the house has a basement and any children are located in the basement. there will need two exits. Only that exit outside directly. Richmond: There are three exits downstairs. De Weerd: Downstairs, okay. Richmond: Right when you enter the house, there are stairs going down, stairs going up. That's one exit. The garage was made into a great room, so there's an exit there, and there's also another exit towards the backyard. Prior: (Inaudible) PLANNING AND Z.G COMMISSION JUNE 9, 1998 PAGE 39 8 Smith: She stated that it was a split level. I don't know if that would be technically considered a basement or not. Prior: I just want a clarification. Is there a basement in this house? Richmond: It's split level house. Smith: Mr. Prior I don't know that a split level home, the lower level would be interpreted as a basement by code. I don't think it is. MacCoy: No, a basement is a separate story. Split level is just what it states. Smith: This is a separate story, but it's not - De Weerd: I just have one further question. You are pursuing licensing? Richmond: Okay, thanks. MacCoy: Any other questions from the applicant? Okay, you can sit down. This is an open public hearing. Anybody here would like to make a statement? MARSHALL WILLIAMS FOR 2281 MONACO WAY WAS SWORN BY THE CITY ATTORNEY. Williams: The applicant has come over and talked with my mother. Her concerns, of course, are the increased traffic. If anybody has been on Chateau Way and Monaco, they will realize why they needed a light at Linder and Chateau, and the timing of when this operation will commence. The hours, things like that, you have already addressed in the prior conversations, and then also the number of children. Anytime it's up to five, that means that there's going to be five more vehicles early in the morning and five more vehicles later that evening. The traffic and noise, and it's not just perhaps maybe the traffic going by but the slamming of the doors, the starting and stopping of vehicles. It cause more noise than just a car driving by. The concerns of the time of day, possibly to a senior citizen, 7:00 in the morning is the middle of the night. So there is an aspect there that my mother being a senior citizen and her hours, sleeping in, possibly the noise across the street is not going to be something that is very attractive. The devaluation of property, it's not likely that she's wanting to move, but who is going to buy a home that has a daycare next door? We've heard that from the previous people that it's not likely wanting to move because of the noise in the neighborhood. So there's concerns there that seem to me that there are- possibilities of causing disturbance in the neighborhood by just the scheduling of the hours and the traffic problems. And then we've also answered a question on how it's regulated and monitoring of this. It's five or fewer. Well, is someone PLANNING AND ZAG COMMISSION JUNE 9, 1998 PAGE 40 8 going to sit out there and actually see how many people come and go? And are these hours where their children are is it going to be two people come at noon and pick them up and the other three come later? So you have a concern there of what is the traffic problem, the noise. And she lives right across the street, so it's not like those cars are going to be just passing by. So that's our concerns. MacCoy: Any questions from the commissioners? De Weerd: Well, just a statement. I understand your concern. I do know Monaco is going to be extended into a new subdivision going in behind it, so I think the child care traffic is not going to add as much as that subdivision will. I think that improvements already have been made on that house. We do live on W. Chateau, and I am please to see that things are starting to look better on that corner. We can hear the elementary school from our home, and so I do not think that kids from birth to two and a half are going to make that much more noise than what the elementary school is already making. So I do understand your concerns for your mom. But at this point, we can only look at the accessory use permit, and if they comply, and it's good that they are going through this process and not doing illegally. Williams: Well, the age of the children is not the concern because the traffic, it doesn't matter what age it is, there's going to be a car coming by and picking them up and take them away, whether they are six months or five years old. MacCoy: Any other questions? Okay, thank you. Is there anybody else here who would like to make a statement. TROY RICHMOND 6757 MAXWELL LANE, BOISE, WAS SWORN BY THE CITY ATTORNEY. T. Richmond: I just wanted to say that traffic is a problem on that road. We've been out working on the yard. That's one of the things, I don't know if this is a planning and zoning issue or a city council issue, but they need speed bumps, and that's one of the things we are going to try and get because we know that having kids, we don't want our neighbor to think that we are going to come in with a bunch of kids. That's not our objective. We are just going to run the five or fewer children. Like Kristi said, and make improvements on the place. We don't want any problems, and we're not looking to grow a big business or anything there. As far as the traffic goes, we're talking only four cars in the morning and four at night, and we've actually had four people that want child care there, quality child care, because my wife, she's educated, she has two degrees in this. It's not a fly by night thing. She knows what she's doing, and mostly I just want to address that it's not going to be a big unorganized type of deal and to have four cars in there in the morning and then four cars at night is better than some other alternatives that are out there. I had the police over at my townhouse the PLANNING AND ZAG COMMISSION JUNE 9, 1998 PAGE 41 8 other day. Three of them because our neighbors deal drugs, and child care is not that bad. So, that's all I got. MacCoy: Good statement. Anybody else want to make a statement. GORDON SCHOENFELD 2311 MONACO WAY WAS SWORN BY THE CITY ATTORNEY. Schoenfeld: We're presently living there and like you said we have done a lot of improvements on the house. When we were first in, it was a mess, and since then we have done a lot of improvements. I think that that has helped in that type of neighborhood as far as the property value of the house. We've been by the house just recently before we came to the meeting and saw that the improvements that the people have done on that house too. We're also concerned about the property value and I had Ashley Seymour with Realty Center do a study as far as other daycare centers that have gone into areas. And would it be, have him come up and state what he found as far as property values with other daycare centers? Is there any complaints? Prior: After you are done speaking, if he wishes to address the commission, he's more than welcome to do that. Schoenfeld: As far as the noise traffic, like you said, there is an elementary school there, and I see as far as four more cars, I don't know if really that would cause any more than that, because we used to live there, and early in the morning you can hear the kids walking up and down the sidewalks yelling and screaming, you know, it's hard to control kids walking up and down the sidewalks. There is another subdivision going in there, any more traffic, four more cars, I can't see where it's going to do that much more damage. Thank you. MacCoy: Do you want to come before and make a statement? ASHLEY SEYMOUR WAS SWORN BY THE CITY ATTORNEY. Seymour: I'm the listing agent for the Shoenfeld's property. I live at 2604 Odle Way in Boise. I did agree to do a little research on daycare facilities as to what impact they had on the neighborhoods. It was quite difficult to pull up off the multiple listing service, because there was no comments that you could search by daycare center, and in the comments that we normally put into the listing, when I did a string search for anything to do with daycare, nothing at all came up. So I had conversations with my broker, the other selling agent, and a number of other agents that I had contact with, and the consensus was there was no negative impact on it. As I heard Commissioner Nelson speak, he feels it's a desirable and I do also in a neighborhood because as part of one of the things PLANNING AND Z<8NG COMMISSION JUNE 9, 1998 PAGE 42 8 that makes a neighborhood vibrant. You know you don't want to get an over- concentration of a facility like that or almost any kind of facility, but that does give an opportunity for home owners in the neighborhood, you know, they do have small children, the convenience of having someone close by as opposed to always having to drive them across town to a facility that might be quite a distance away. I did have experience on financing a -I used to work at a bank and there was a daycare center on the corner of Ustick and Rugby, which I was a loan officer on about ten years ago, and that was 100 unit daycare center. And it was desirable to have in the area, but also it was not in my opinion the only way or the best way to necessarily take care of daycare needs. Not only would it not have an impact on the value of the house, but again I think just because a small scattered number of daycare centers in a subdivision like that would not a negative impact on the other houses either. MacCoy: Any questions for him? Smith: Just point of clarification. So, you don't have any statistical data to show that a daycare would devalue or improve the value of the homes. That's your opinion, your broker's opinion and the other listing agents? Seymour: I could not find any information that would confirm it either one way or another. They didn't even speak to it, so the (inaudible) information generally is an indication that it's not a significant factor. I mean I could search a lot of features on houses, bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage and lot size, and I could come to opinions as to what impact that has, but when you don't have any information to go on, it's mostly experience, and I've shown and sold houses that had been operated as daycare centers before, and I have not seen any negative impact on the condition of the home, and when I did search through the neighborhood any impact on the values of those homes, so it's in a sense (inaudible). It's just difficult. I couldn't find anything that would support or deny that issue. MacCoy: Anyone else? Williams: There is a - I don't which house it is, but there is another daycare facility down the street on Chateau within a couple of blocks according to the signs that are in the yard and on Chateau and Linder, and so within just a couple of blocks, there is another daycare. I don't know the description of it or anything else, but it is within a couple of blocks over. MacCoy: Okay, thank you. Anyone else? Anything else you want to ask of the people we have had before us? PLANNING AND ZAG COMMISSION JUNE 9, 1998 PAGE 43 8 Nelson: I have no more questions, but I would make comments similar to the previous item in that I support the five children daycare, and without dismissing the weight of the neighbors' concerns, but I do support that. Smith: Nothing. De Weerd: Nothing. MacCoy: Anything else from out here? Okay, I'm going to close the public hearing, and what is our action? Nelson: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion that we have the city attorney prepare Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law for item number 13. Smith: Second. MacCoy: All in favor? MOTION CARRIED: All ayes. MacCoy: It's now 9:00, and we have to take a break for ten minutes and we will be back. RECESS TAKEN. MacCoy: We would like to reconvene now. If you will please. We're on item 14, it a public hearing. ITEM NO. 14: PUBLIC HEARING: REQUEST FOR PRELIMINARY AND FINAL PLAT FOR 2.67 ACRES BY STEVEN K. RICKS - MIDTOWN SQUARE PARK NO.2: MacCoy: Will the applicant please come forward? STEVEN RICKS 1560 N. CRESTMONT DRIVE, SUITE B, MERIDIAN WAS SWORN BY THE CITY ATTORNEY. Ricks: Ladies and gentlemen of the commission, this application is in response to a need for a request by my financing people to split this commercial park into two lots. We first platted this property back in '94 and developed it in '95. It's a office park called Cherry Lane Center on the corner of Cherry Lane and Crestmont here in Meridian. On the construction, however, we phased it into two phases. That has subsequently created the need for this proceeding before this commission. In the first phase, which was the west two thirds of the property, we built two buildings in the 1995 and presently they're nearly full of tenants. We're