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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2022-04-19 Work Session Item#1. Meridian City Council Work Session April 19, 2022. A Meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 4:30 p.m., Tuesday, April 19, 2022, by Mayor Robert Simison. Members Present: Robert Simison, Joe Borton, Luke Cavener, Treg Bernt, Jessica Perreault, Brad Hoaglun and Liz Strader. Members Absent: Jessica Perreault. Also present: Chris Johnson, Bill Nary, Caleb Hood, Bruce Freckleton, Mark Ford, Joe Bongiorno and Dean Willis. ROLL-CALL ATTENDANCE Liz Strader _X_ Joe Borton _X_ Brad Hoaglun _X_Treg Bernt Jessica Perreault _X Luke Cavener _X_ Mayor Robert E. Simison Simison: Council, we will call the meeting to order. For the record it is April 19th, 2022, at 4:31 p.m. We will begin this afternoon's work session with roll call attendance. ADOPTION OF AGENDA Simison: Next item is the adoption of the agenda. Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Hoaglun. Hoaglun: I move adoption of the agenda as published. Bernt: Second the motion. Simison: I have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda as published. Is there any discussion? If not, all in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it and the agenda is adopted. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. CONSENT AGENDA [Action Item] 1. Approve Minutes of the April 5, 2022 City Council Work Session 2. Approve Minutes of the April 5, 2022 City Council Regular Meeting Page 4 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 19,2022 Page 2 of 23 3. LDIR 2021-0001 Water Main Easement 4. Final Order for Skybreak No. 1 (FP-2021-0058) by DevCo, LLC, Located at 3487 E. Adler Hoff Ln. and 7020 S. Eagle Rd. 5. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law for Denial of Jamestown Ranch Subdivision (H-2021-0074) by Walsh Group, LLC, Located Near the Southeast Corner of the N. Black Cat and W. McMillan Rd. Intersection at 4023 W. McMillan Rd. and parcels S0434223150, S0434212970, S0434212965, and S0434212920. 6. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law for Aviation Subdivision (H- 2021-0096) by Jadon Schneider of Bronze Bow Land, Located at Parcel #S1210325951, Near the Northeast Corner of N. Black Cat Rd. and W. Franklin Rd., North of Compass Charter School 7. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law for Friendship Subdivision (H- 2021-0083) by Mike Homan, Located Near the Southeast Corner of N. Meridian Rd. and E. Chinden Blvd. 8. Development Agreement (ACHD Maintenance Facility H-2021-0029) Between the City of Meridian and Ada County Highway District for Property Located at 3764 W. Ustick Rd., Approximately 1/2 Mile West of Ten Mile Rd. on the North Side of Ustick Rd. 9. Lease Agreement Between City of Meridian and Daisy's Italian Ice & Gelati, LLC for Concessions Operations at Discovery Park for the Sum of 20% of Gross Sales 10. Lease Agreement Between City of Meridian and Daisy's Italian Ice & Gelati, LLC for Concessions Operations at Meridian Settler's Park for the Sum of 20% of Gross Sales 11. Resolution No. 22-2321: A Resolution Approving a Lease Agreement Between the City of Meridian and Daisy's Italian Ice & Gelati LLC for Lease of City's Concession Building at Discovery Park, Located at 2121 E. Lake Hazel Road, in Meridian; Authorizing the Mayor and City Clerk to Execute and Attest Said Agreement on Behalf of the City of Meridian; and Providing an Effective Date 12. Resolution No. 22-2322: A Resolution Approving a Lease Agreement Between the City of Meridian and Daisy's Italian Ice & Gelati LLC for Lease of City's Concession Building at Meridian Settlers Park, Located at 3245 N. Meridian Road, in Meridian; Authorizing the Mayor and City Clerk to Execute and Attest Said Agreement on Behalf of the City of Meridian; and Providing an Effective Date Page 5 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 19,2022 Page 3- — Simison: Next item is the Consent Agenda. Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Hoaglun. Hoaglun: I move approval of the Consent Agenda and for the Mayor to sign and Clerk to attest. Bernt: Second the motion. Simison: I have a motion and a second to approve the Consent Agenda. Is there discussion? If not, all in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it and the Consent Agenda is adopted. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. ITEMS MOVED FROM THE CONSENT AGENDA [Action Item] Simison: There were no items removed from the Consent Agenda. DEPARTMENT / COMMISSION REPORTS [Action Item] 13. Ada County Sheriff's Office: Updates from Sheriff Matt Clifford Simison: So, we will go on to our Department/Commission Reports. So, the first item is Item 13, which is the Ada County Sheriff's Office and update from Sheriff Matt Clifford. If you would like to join us at the podium. Welcome. Clifford: Thank you, Mayor, Council. Ada County Sheriff Matt Clifford. I just kind of wanted to meet with you today--the more I go around the county the more I get questions about what does the sheriff actually do, aside from seeing deputies out in patrol cars, there are so many things that we do that I just wanted to make it accessible to your citizens how the sheriff's office affects them, even though they don't live in unincorporated Ada county. So, we will start off with just a couple little facts here. We are the largest law enforcement agency in Idaho. We patrol about 1 ,060 square miles of land and about 3,030 miles of roadway. We patrol in unincorporated Ada county and we contract with the cities of Star, Eagle and Kuna. So, when you see city of Eagle police department that is their own police department that the sheriff's office provides to them. The chief of police is appointed by me and the Mayor in those cities and they work closely with the Mayor to provide services that are tailored to those communities and as long as the -- and with a goal of staying true to the Ada County Sheriff's mission, vision and values. So, in our bureau we have over -- we have 800 employees that work across -- across five different bureaus. Of those employees, about 246 of them live here in the City of Meridian. Because we are broke -- we are broke up into five different bureaus, because we do such a diverse amount of things for the community. So, we have our police bureau, our jail Page 6 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 19,2022 Page 4- — services, court services, administrative services and communications and I will go through those really briefly. Police Services Bureau are all of those things that you see in front of you every day. Those patrol cars, people on the side of the road taking crashes, pulling people over, investigating crimes, responding to 911 calls. We also have one of the largest canine units in Idaho and we operate our own crime lab, so we do our own drug testing, we don't send it out to the state. We also have school resource officers and all kinds of the accoutrement that goes along with being patrol officers. Now, we also team up with the City of Meridian police for -- with our Ada Metro SWAT team. We work with Meridian Police Department very closely. You know, I think sometimes -- I have run into other Mayor's that don't realize how often our agencies overlap and work together and I explain all the time everywhere I go that the safety of your community, whether you are in a municipal police department or inside municipality or unincorporated or one of our contract cities, our resources overlap a lot. You find that especially at nighttime when there are limited resources, the City of Meridian helps the city of Eagle, helps unincorporated Ada county and even the city of Kuna, city of Boise. We stay in contact constantly and to help just build a really good safe community in Ada --Ada county. So, jail services -- here is some of those places you don't see, some of the behind the scenes -- well, I hope you don't see. Some of the behind the scenes things that the sheriff is in charge of. By statute the sheriff's in Idaho are in charge of the jails and must maintain the jails. We operate the largest jail in the state of Idaho. Currently we have about a thousand inmates housed in that jail. This number here says 1 ,116 that we can house that much in our operational capacity. We are rated to house over 1 ,200, but that -- we probably would never be able to get to that number, because that means we are stacking them in there like cordwood and you are looking at inmate safety issues and officer safety issues. So, operational capacity means, yeah, you better not go over this number. So, a thousand is not that far off from that number. So, that is one of the -- the challenges we have here at Ada county is the growth. Now, why we still are a safe community with a relatively low crime rate and our crime rate does not seem to be increasing very much, the amount of people that move here that create that crime rate, that number has grown. Not by percentage, but just by the amount of people. So, the percentage stays the same, but the number is bigger. Well, that's an issue for the jail. We have a lot of programs that keep -- that identify people that can be monitored outside our jail and identify people that should not leave our jail. Well, the number of people that should not leave our jail is growing, not because of the crime rate, but just that percentage is growing. So, I always use kind of the slang term that our jail population is much hardened than it used to be. Now, that's a challenge, because there is finite space and it's all what we would call hard space. So, you don't just go out and build a structure on -- and put people in. It's very specialized, you know, brick buildings and concrete and places meant to keep people in. So, that's something we are going to have to really look at in the future is how do we expand upon that. Do we run for a bond? Do we find some other way to pay for it, because it will be in the -- probably upwards of 60 million dollars to get the adequate add on. A thousand inmates means 3,000 meals a day have to be cooked in that jail. It's just like a little city. It's bigger than the town I came from, actually. So, you have warehouse, you have laundry, you have medical. We have to provide medical to a lot of people that, quite frankly, either didn't seek medical and needed it when they are outside our walls or didn't know how to get it when they were outside our walls and, then, they land in our laps Page 7 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 19,2022 Page 5 of— and we have to provide it for them. So, we operate a sizable medical unit, about 33 nurses. I wish I could say we had 33 nurses, but I can't pay them 110 dollars an hour, so -- so we do have kind of a nurse shortage, but we are working through that. It also means that you have all kinds of other people to help -- have -- have to run that facility, like security control specialists that open and close doors, specialized deputies that have to classify inmates to say these inmates can be together, these inmates cannot and those types of things. We also have educational opportunities for them inside the jail, so that we can help reduce recidivism. That has worked against us just a little bit, because those programs are really quite good, so a lot of judges will sentence you to Ada County Jail until you can complete our programs and, then, they will let you out. So, it's a great thing, but, you know, we have done such a great job that now inmates are sentenced to our programs, instead of just the transient population coming in and out attending them. So, our Court Services Bureau is quite unique. We provide all the --all of the security services for the Ada County Courthouse. So, anytime there is an emergency at the courthouse, the sheriff's office is responsible. We have a whole team of deputies and other personnel that are, quote, unquote, housed down there to deal with any situation that comes up and also in that Court Services Bureau is a transport team. It's about 28 deputies that do nothing but transport inmates all over southern Idaho, mostly Ada county, but I used to -- I like to say at any given time about -- between 8:00 and 5:00, Monday through Friday, there is probably a deputy out in the community somewhere, maybe Meridian, maybe Boise, with -- with a detention officer attached to them. Did I say deputy? There is an inmate somewhere with a deputy attached to them, so that they can attend specialized appointments and go to specialized meetings, because though we have a good -- a good medical system in the jail, we -- we don't do surgeries, we don't deliver babies and all those things you don't really think of when you think of people that are sitting in jail awaiting a court date. So, we actually have deputies that -- depending on the level of the inmate have to go in and go into surgeries with certain inmates -- not all of them, but sometimes they have to go in when inmates are having babies. So, it's kind of an interesting assignment. They also fly all over the United States to pick up -- pick up inmates from other counties, anywhere from Florida to New York to Hawaii, but people that need to stand -- stand trial here in Ada county, they will go out and pick them up. We also have misdemeanor probation and -- and our pretrial release program. So, basically, the pretrial is how you identify those inmates that are eligible to be supervised outside the jail and, then, misdemeanor is, obviously, supervising them once they have been sentenced. So, if you look at all the services we provide that monitor people outside the jail, it's about 2,500 people. So, that's 2,500 people that are not in our jail and about a thousand that are. We also by statute are -- are required to provide all civil services for the counties, so garnishments, evictions, serving writs, all those types of things. So, municipalities don't do that, only the sheriff's in Idaho do that. So, our administrative services, this -- you know, this is kind of all the brains of the operation that keeps everything running. Our records department, which, you know, processes no contact orders, protection orders, all kinds of different court paperwork, kind of the beehive of the agency where all information comes in and they have got to figure out where it goes. We have a data analytics team. Fleet services. We operate a lot of vehicles to do all that transports and patrol. Human resources and, then, finance. I bring up finance, because a lot of people don't know that in the state of Idaho sheriff is personally liable for budget Page 8 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 19,2022 Page 6- — shortfalls. So, if I -- the commissioners come to me and say, Sheriff Clifford, you have overspent your budget by 100,000 dollars at the end of the fiscal year, then, Matt Clifford owes the county of Ada 100,000 dollars. So, love my finance team. They are really great. And they are very excited, because we are in budget time and I'm really glad that they are excited about that, because I am not, so -- Emergency Communications Bureau. We operate the largest 911 dispatch center in the state of Idaho. They took almost 400,000 calls for service last year and this is kind of -- they operate -- they operate with Meridian city, Boise city, Garden city, all of our contract cities, fire and EMS. So, when you call 911 anywhere in Ada county you talk to an Ada County Sheriff employee and, then, they-- the computer tells them who they will dispatch the call to and, then, an Ada County Sheriff dispatcher will dispatch your municipality. We had some big wins with -- with dispatch this year where we brought them into what we call Rule of 80. 1 mean you are all aware of PERCI and the Rule of 90 and emergency services are Rule of 80. Idaho statute defines them as first responders and so we went in front of the legislature and asked them to include them in the Rule of 80, so that they could live a quality of life after retirement. They deal with a lot of strange things over the phone and they deal with them rapidly, so they may be delivering a baby on one call, dealing with a neighbor problem on one call, they -- they deal with kind of death and destruction over the phone and the call ends and they go right on to the next one. I went to dispatch last week and we have this puppy there that's being taken care of by -- that -- that's on loan from the Humane Society through the foster program and I showed up and the dispatcher was out front with the dog, just letting the dog use the bathroom and she said my first call -- first call of the day she ran out of the dispatch center crying and she's been a dispatcher for a lot of years. It's hard on them and some of the mental anguish they go through causes them some physical issues as well. So, we were happy to at least get them into Rule of 80 so they could help -- help finish out their careers. So, the last thing I want to talk about is our mission statement. The Ada County Sheriff's Office Mission Statement is we make safer places for you to live, work and play and when we -- I shouldn't say we. A few sheriffs ago this mission statement was developed and I really loved it, because, A, I could memorize it really easily; right? But I went to a -- an advanced field training officer course when I was a deputy and there were all kinds of -- there were all different agencies there from across the valley and if you know anything about -- especially yester-year's mission statements, they were multiple sentences long, they are filled with all kinds of fun buzzwords, and they lose their meaning when you ask your employees to memorize them and the instructor at that class said who here can say your mission statement right now and I was the only person that raised my hand and he said, okay, what is it and I said we make safer places for you to live, work and play and everybody looked at me and said that's not your mission statement, that can't be your mission statement. I said, yeah, it is and the instructor was ecstatic and he said it's short, it's to the point, it tells the public exactly what you want to do. It tells your employees exactly what you want them to do. They will remember it and won't lose the meaning and the memorization part that you make them do. Plus if it's on a postcard and just about anywhere you want to put it. One of the other things -- another thing I will end with is our vision statement. We strive to be the agency of choice for criminal justice. Now, when that came out when I was a young deputy I laughed and said, yeah, that -- that's ridiculous. You don't get a choice. You call 911, it goes to the Sheriff's Office. If it's a call in Meridian, they get Meridian. If you have Page 9 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 19,2022 Page , - — to go to the jail, you go to the Ada County Jail, you don't get a choice. As I matured, realized that that statement wasn't necessarily true. While all of those statements I just made were true, the sheriff's office, being one of the largest law enforcement agencies and some -- all the diverse types of things we do, we are the agency of choice all over the state of Idaho. I'm part of the Idaho Sheriff's Association and I have never gone to an Idaho Sheriff's Association meeting and not had another sheriff come to me and say, hey, I need your help. Hey, I have a question for you and they seek out the Ada County Sheriff, because we have a lot more resources and, quite frankly, we do things and have experienced things that a lot of these smaller agencies do not and have not experienced. So, we do pride ourselves with that. It sounds a little bit, you know -- maybe a little bit pat on the back, but that's kind of what we strive for is, you know, if -- if we are going to team up with somebody, we want Meridian Police Department to say, well, we are going to team up -- team up with Ada county. That -- that's a better way to put it. We want to work with your agencies, they want to work with us, and we want to keep it that way. So, with that I would stand for any questions if you have them. Simison: Thank you, Sheriff Clifford. Council, any questions? Borton: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Thanks for being here, Sheriff Clifford. That was very informative and it's appreciated. One thing that struck me when I joined City Council was if you look at a map of Meridian there is kind of like a Swiss cheese effect. Clifford: Yeah. Strader: Yeah. We won't force annex people into our city, so we have these little like kind of county enclaves and I'm just wondering about, you know, kind of how do you coordinate with the Meridian Police Department and try to make sure that service is delivered as efficiently as possible. If you get a call regarding a county property, is there a way we have agreed on that we handle that and -- and just curious if you could tell me more about how you are approaching that. Clifford: Sure. It's -- it's not an MOU, it's more of a gentlemen's agreement and we have done it for years and years and years. It's always looked that way. It's always been described that way. It's as simple as Meridian and the Sheriff's Office working so closely together -- and Meridian knows their territory and the deputies will generally know that those little parts of Swiss cheese are in there and Meridian pays attention to what we are doing and we pay attention to what they are doing and it -- 99 percent of the time a Meridian officer will just simply respond there until a deputy can respond and vice-versa, because sometimes we are very far out from things that are on the fringe of the county, up next to the city limits, so it's really -- it's simpler than you think just to -- it's easy to say, hey, a Meridian officer is on their way and we will be there as soon as we can to take the report, but I have said for years people don't care what color your shirt is or what shape Page 10 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 19,2022 Page 8- — your badge is, they just don't. They want service and Meridian police understand that as well. They know that when there is an emergency now, -- if your mailbox got hit last night Meridian doesn't need to respond; right? We will -- we will -- we will come get -- take that, but they know if there is a threat of violence or something that's happening right now, they know those people need service and Meridian police will show up and take care of business and when we show up we will work it together and we will take a report and make sure that we can get them back to the city as soon as possible. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Yeah. I -- I appreciate that coordination. I think it makes a lot of sense. One thing I'm curious about -- and maybe just like a follow-up thing. I guess I'm -- I'm curious about the number of calls that sort of fit into that category and if that agreement should be formalized more in a way or if we feel like it's actually a small number of calls and relatively speaking and it all just kind of works out. I'm looking at it more from a resourcing perspective. It -- it seems to me like, you know, the Meridian Police Department has a really good grip on things happening, to your point, within the core of the city. To your point things on the outside, like maybe in our area of impact, maybe that makes more sense for you. I guess it's just something that really struck me. Originally it was like, well, how do we handle it when there is this like a tiny little pocket in the middle that calls? So, it's just -- it's an area that I'm just interested to look at a little bit more. Clifford: Sure. You know, I wouldn't -- I have no idea what those numbers are right now, but I have worked for the sheriff's office for 22 years and there are gentlemen sitting back by -- behind me that we have worked together over those years and it's -- it's probably every day, you know, working both ways. We have had plenty of times where Meridian has been busy and your citizens need service and we just help out when we can. It really works both ways. So, I would be interested to see what that number is, too. But you kind of get to be one big team and it's very helpful for -- for unincorporated and your citizens. Strader: Thanks. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Sheriff, really appreciate you being here. I think in the eight years I have been on Council we have never had a sheriff come speak to us and give us an update. So, appreciate the time. I know your time is valuable and I appreciate your presentation. Kind of dovetailing -- dovetailing a little bit off of Council Member Strader's question, is really about staffing and, obviously, the Meridian Police Department has grown leaps and bounds as our city has grown. I'm curious as cities like ours grow does that also require your department to grow in additional staff? Is it more in the sworn side or is it more in the support side? How does our growth impact your growth and I guess maybe following Page 11 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 19,2022 Page 9 of— up on that what your staffing model is and how you make the determinations about where to grow your staff and for what reasons. Clifford: The biggest impacts that city growth has on us are going to be in our jail and civil service -- actually, it's -- it's not in our patrol services. I will say that. It's going to be in all of our other bureaus. While our Patrol Services Bureau has grown over the years, because people still move out into the county, even as cities annex we still have growth in the county, so we have continued to grow our patrol services, but when you increase population in the city -- because I mean you are annexing places that are growing out, you are annexing farmland; right? That means more people are moving here, which means I need more jail staff. I need more court security, because more people are going to court. I need more misdemeanor probation officers, because there are more people on probation, so it's the -- it's -- it's -- it's all of the bureaus really, but not -- not as much the patrol services, if that makes sense. But it's all equal. As the commission grows, our support staff grows as well, because you can't have, you know, commissioned deputies that are filing their reports all night, like records should do, so -- now I'm growing my patrol staff means more reports, means I need more support staff. So, it all kind of grows together organically. Simison: Council, any additional questions? Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: No other questions. I was talking to our chief today and he said to give you a hard time. Clifford: Yeah. I bet he did. Cavener: So, I can't -- I can't get off -- so I was thinking what would be a hard question for the sheriff to answer and I got one. What's your favorite high school in the county? Clifford: Favorite high school in the county? Just so you know, I didn't go to high school in this county. Cavener: I just -- I figure that's the hardest question I could ask the sheriff to -- to put you on -- on -- on the hot seat. Clifford: I would probably say that -- my daughter attended Borah High School, so I have to go with Borah. That probably makes a lot of people cringe, even in -- in Boise, but my daughter went all through high school to Borah High, so I have to pick that one. Cavener: Appreciate you being here, sheriff. Clifford: Yeah. Thank you. Page 12 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 19,2022 Page 10—— Simison: Thank you, Sheriff Clifford. Clifford: Mayor and Council, thank you very much for having me. You have a good night. 14. Ada County Impact Fee Discussion Simison: Thank you. So, continuing that question on growth and services for the sheriff, I would like to move on Item 14, which is the Ada county impact fee discussion. I don't know if -- Steve, are you going to be presenting this one? Rutherford: Steve Rutherford from the commissioner's office. Thank you very much for having us. I have got two very qualified people and the sheriff, who we are stumping for, is -- is leaving. But Leon Letson is here and, then, we have got Richard Beck from Development Services to answer any questions you have. So, thank you. Simison: Thank you. Letson: All right. Good afternoon, Mayor, Council Members. Thanks for having me. Leon Letson, planning manager with Ada county. Yeah, you know, the sheriff left probably too early, probably would have liked to have him hang out and advocate for why we are trying to collect impact fees, but just give you a brief overview of what we are trying to do here, what we have been engaged in well before my time with the county, but -- yeah. So, an overview. In 2019 we began exploring our ability to collect development impact fees. The county has yet to do that in its history. In 2020 we hired Galena Consulting, who I don't know if she has worked with Meridian in the past, but Anne Wescott, she's kind of a well known name around the valley, has worked with many of the jurisdictions, worked with us to develop our capital improvement plans for Ada County Sheriff, jail, coroner and paramedics, as well as the associated impact fees. In the spring of 2021, those CIPs and the fee structure was completed and recommended for approval by our impact fee advisory committee. In the summer of 2021 we contacted our city partners to review those CIPs and the impact fees as well and talk about those next steps that we would need to take in order to partner with you to collect those fees. Fall of this year to the present we, again, were kind of engaged in this conversation about are you okay with us approaching you with an ordinance that would allow you to collect those fees on our behalf and -- and -- and that sort of thing and so that's kind of where we are at. Here is the list of the impact fees and we -- I will show you a website link at the end that, you know, details these a bit more and also has links to the different capital improvement plans that -- that we have had drafted. But in a nutshell the new impact fees within city limits, which wouldn't include our sheriff, but they would include the jail, paramedics, and coroner, would total approximately -- for a new single family home, which is kind of one of the better metrics for figuring out what a builder is going to pay, right about a thousand dollars per unit. Commercial is, obviously, on a cost per square foot basis, which is always -- also included in those impact fee plans and -- and the proposed structure that we have. So, our next steps, again, we are in front of our city partners. You know, it's an interesting thing as election cycles change we -- we -- we want to hurry up and get a project done, because, obviously, there is new perspectives that come to the table that, you know, Page 13 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 19,2022 Page 11 —— maybe they didn't have a chance to review these the first time, so I think a lot of this leadership is familiar with -- with impact fees. I know Meridian also collects them. You know, we are attempting to do the same thing again for those essential services that -- that we offer, so we would be asking you to adopt into your Comprehensive Plan those CIPs, as well as establish an ordinance to collect those and, then, we would formalize interlocal agreements for how the -- the collection of those fees would occur and that's the more detailed nuts and bolts of who is collecting the fee, are you requesting any exemptions, different things like that. So, that's basically it. I would be happy to answer any questions. Happy to provide you any additional information that I can. If it's specific services and levels we will probably have to do a follow up with some of our providers to give you those details, but -- yeah. In the end we can also look at those CIPs and -- and the fees themselves. So, with that I will stand for any questions and thank you for having me. Simison: Thank you. Leon, could you just touch on a few of the projects that would be -- that the county is looking to fund with these impact fees. Letson: Yes, Mayor. Of course. Let me go to our website real quick. We can open one of the CIPs. You know, some of the major ones -- the jail expansion or jail -- whatever we are doing next. Obviously, that's something that the Board of County Commissioners is kind of behind and -- and the sheriff as well and it looks like we are -- this is frozen. I'm not sure. That is a major one. We also have some --you know, impact fees are, obviously -- sorry. Johnson: I will grab it up for you over here. Letson: All right. Thanks. You know, it's -- it's for facilities and equipment that these impact fees can be used for. So, a lot of what you just heard from our sheriff is more about his staff and, unfortunately, impact fees can't be used towards staffing, but they can be used for, again, the facilities and the -- and the equipment necessary, such as, you know, ambulances, vehicles, different things like that. They also have to be attached to the new growth, so you can't, unfortunately, use impact fees to pay for a building you wanted to build 20 years ago and you just never had the money to do. Unfortunately, once the impact fees are established it has to be new growth and a proportionate share of that directed to any new facilities or if it can be argued that that previous facility also supports the new growth and a proportion amount of that can -- can provide it. So, I will open the sheriff and jail first, since we are on the -- we have kind of been running with that theme during your work session here, sheriff-related stuff, and let me find the actual project list here for you. All right. So, here is an example of the jail. The impact fees specific to the jail and so what you can see there is some additional pods for the jail. Vehicle maintenance facility. We also have down below under additional vehicles and equipment -- just additional vehicles related to servicing that growth. Replacing any of those -- those vehicles, so that's -- that's really what we are able to capture with the jail fee specifically and, then, I don't want to show you any sheriff ones, because, obviously, we are not asking you to collect those for us. Happy to walk you through maybe the paramedic here. All right. So, it should be noted also that, you know, there is additional Page 14 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 19,2022 Page 12—— facility planning that needs to occur for--for perhaps the paramedics. You know, we have talked about co-locating with different fire stations, different things like that, to create efficiencies or economies of scale, but there have been some additional stations identified as needed for the -- the paramedics. Again, additional ambulances are -- are something we are going to need as -- as we continue to grow, but I don't know if that's more -- as specific as you need or if you would like more detail than that. Simison: I think just so we get a sense, at least in this conversation, that way they know if they need more information brought back to them about what is being proposed. You know, you got a coroner building that's already under development. Are you using the impact fees to help fund that or you got additional projects that -- Letson: Yeah. No. Great question. That has been an interesting one, because that kind of came online right as we were embarking on this process and so let me show you the CIP associated with the coroner. Unfortunately, I think only a limited amount of the impact fee is available for that facility. Sorry. Simison: Council, while they are doing that, if you have any questions -- Council Woman Strader? Strader: Sure, Mr. Mayor. And I don't know if it's a great time to delve into the -- into the paramedics specifically. You know, that's an area where our services, unfortunately, have had to overlap with your services, so our fire department, you know, provides paramedic and EMS services and, you know, I have heard about some response times that I have concerns about from the county's perspective and so I guess a question I have is, you know, a little more detail on your expansion plans and is that an area where -- you know, I talked about the Swiss cheese concern with the sheriff. I probably have even more of a concern about overlapping services on that front. So, you know, that's something I want to understand if we need an exemption for Meridian for that, because we are already providing that service and we need to enhance our level of service or if you are at the county planning to really enhance your level of service, I think I would -- I would personally as a Council Member want a lot of detail behind those plans. So, I didn't want to start -- open a can of worms, but I just wanted to be open, like that is a concern that I have on that one. Letson: Yeah. No. Thank you. And I think I probably would defer to Steve here to maybe answer what we are doing on that front and maybe figure out what a follow-up conversation looks like. I'm certainly not a paramedic. I'm a planner. But -- yeah. Rutherford: Mr. Mayor, Councilman -- Council Woman Strader, great question. We -- quite frankly, it's a -- it's a little bit of a pickle with the -- the paramedics, because of the way the -- the levy was set in 1997, about the time the three percent came in, and the the board at that time set the levy for -- for what their need was then and so it's been -- it's been a chore and so, you know, having the ability to -- to partner and co-locate, those sorts of things will help us get there. There was some legislation this year, which will generate additional revenue, allow us to collect some more from Medicaid that -- that -- Page 15 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 19,2022 Page ——— that we haven't been able to collect. That will take some time to get in place. But our -- our goal, really, is to -- to address the -- the response times. Trying to do that in cooperation through that, you know,joint powers entity that we have to try to work together to -- to -- to use the resources we have got. But your -- your point is very well taken. We can get Shawn Rayne, who is our director over here, to answer questions and kind of how -- how it would work going forward, but co-location is -- is -- will allow us to save some -- some capital expense from building a whole station by ourselves. That -- that should change the game a little bit, but I know those -- those discussions are just starting to happen. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Yeah. Just a follow-up comment and thank you for that response. Yeah. I think -- you know, my -- my concern always in any situation where we have overlapping services is efficiency operationally and efficiency for the taxpayer. So, I start to get really worried where Meridian taxpayers, through our Fire Department-- like the City of Meridian feels a need to provide an enhanced level of service and paramedic service to deliver what we feel like is a fair standard for the people living here and, then, at the same time you will be charging an additional impact fee that will also enhance those services and so for me I just want to make sure from a City of Meridian taxpayer standpoint that they are paying for something once and they are not paying for it twice. It is tough. That's a tough -- a different conversation probably, but I don't know, that's -- that's just sort of the -- the worry -- I guess a worry that I have. Similarly I just want to double check with -- for example, like the jail, that makes tons of sense to me. You are the only provider of the jail. We need jails. I get that one. That one's easy. Similarly with -- with the sheriff's department, right, and all about spirit of cooperation, but want to make sure we are doing things in the most efficient way possible. So, if there are parts of Meridian that the Meridian Police Department should just cover and those taxpayers that live in Meridian should be exempted from paying that twice. Just want to make sure we are not providing duplicative services. It's hard to get to the right answer, but it's just a concern that I have. Thanks. Letson: Mayor, Council Woman, just maybe one response to that, you know, impact fees are associated with new growth. So, existing taxpayers, you know, technically aren't being -- we are not double dipping there. It's for new people coming to the area. It's -- it's growth related. It is the alternative to paying taxes as a revenue source for public entities. So, you know, from that perspective it does kind of keep those two things separate. But I think there is the bigger comment of figuring out the joint powers thing and how those services are better provided to the existing community and the -- and the new members of the community. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Page 16 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 19,2022 Page ——— Strader: Yeah. I totally get that and it's a great point operationally and from a staffing perspective, but it applies for capital expenses as well. So, like the -- the cost of a home will go up if you have to pay for impact fees; right? That makes something in an affordable housing market even more out of reach for people and if you need to locate a paramedic station in the middle of Meridian, but, you know, we feel like we are already having to provide that service because we think there are some standards that need to be met, like that gives me a concern. I know we have offered in the past to co-locate and I thought that made a lot of sense at the time. I just feel like any kind of capital expense like that -- I mean it applies to anything. It applies to ambulances. It applies to any capital expense that's eligible for impact fee reimbursement. So, I get what you are saying, but I don't -- unfortunately, I don't think it's that simple, but thank you. Letson: Thank you. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Appreciate you bringing this update to us. For the record I share a lot of the same concerns as Council Member Strader. I appreciate -- I didn't -- wasn't aware of -- of your website that kind of walked through some of the methodology. So, I have got some homework ahead of me to kind of explore some of that. You know, when -- when the City of Meridian -- we do impact fees, we have got a committee, which sounds like that you guys have as well, which is fantastic. Once that's done I think our staff kind of go on a little bit of a road show and try and engage stakeholders to get their feedback and their understanding. Is the county doing something like that similar and maybe walk us through kind of how you have engaged, you know, partners and stakeholders in the county around this proposal? Letson: Mayor, Council Member, yes, that has kind of been part of our process as well. This is part of that process, talking to our city partners on the collection of these fees. We have talked to the -- the contractors board that -- you know, we see them as a major partner, because they are largely, you know, either paying those fees or working for somebody who is going to pay that fee to build the new housing or new business in our community. So, we have had a lot of conversations with them. We actually have some of the members from the BCA on our impact fee advisory committee, because we highly value their, you know, perspective on things. We are also going to be engaged in the public, just -- we have had general outreach, but there will be kind of an additional open house that will go along with the comp plan amendment and ordinance that we seek to establish and, then, yeah, you know, not to punt to your planning team, but each city will, then, have to also adopt that comp plan and establish that ordinance. So, there is the public hearing process associated with that that would give people the opportunity to weigh in as well and Ada county would make itself, obviously, available to help your staff answer any of those questions about the impact fees we want to collect. But that's what we are looking at. Page 17 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 19,2022 Page —of 23 Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Hoaglun. Hoaglun: And into to that, what -- what does that time frame look like in -- in your perfect world, because you herding cats -- a lot of cats here, but what --what would that look like if you could control it? Letson: Oh, yeah. Sorry. I think we have the document open finally. All right. So -- all right. So, as you can see the new coroner's office, which you brought up, Mayor, only a small percentage of that can be -- is impact fee eligible based on kind of the planning associated with that facility and when this is coming online. But beyond that it's largely vehicles and equipment that we would be looking to use those impact fees towards if they were established. Simison: Thank you. Council, any additional questions? Okay. Well, yeah, I -- I think that, you know, for Council and myself the conversation will be -- you know, we -- are -- are we questioning the use of impact fees for these purposes that we would want to do it or the -- the -- what you are asking for, are we supportive of those elements in order to move those forward and it sounds like that's where the conversation will -- will need to go and maybe more the subject matter experts, even about the service delivery models, for some of these related to the county. So, we will follow up and be in touch if there is additional feedback or dialogue or discussion related to these items and so I will take that as the ball is in our court for right now and you guys can move, you know, as you move forward on your side, you know, and get to the point in time where it is our turn, so we will know. Letson: Yeah. I appreciate that and I think those are great conversations to have, so I will look to Steve and -- and some of our other service providers to engage in those with you. Rutherford: Mr. Mayor, if I get Shawn Rayne in -- in front of you in this sort of venue, I'm happy to bring him in and have you guys pepper him with questions. Simison: We will be in touch on the appropriate way to have the conversation and what it needs to look like and -- Rutherford: Okay. Simison: -- and go from there. I mean there is Station 7 that's listed in there, but we are already building Station 7, so I don't know what that even means from your impact fees -- from your impact fee element, does that mean that you are providing that -- that portion to the build? I know that was a conversation once before, but I had heard that that had gone away. So, there are some definite conversations that need to occur about even the proposed items that are in the CFP, so we have an understanding on our end from that, so -- 18 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 19,2022 Page 16 of— Rutherford: Sounds good. 15. Community Development: Attainable Housing Discussion Simison: Okay. Thank you. With that we will move on to Item 15 Community Development attainable housing discussion. Turn this over to Mr. Hood. Hood: Thank you, Mayor, Members of the Council. So, this topic before you -- I'm largely going to rely on the staff memo that was provided in your packet. I'm going to highlight some things. I'm not going to read it to you, but I am going to read some portions of it to you. I plan on -- on going through at the end of my brief presentation kind of the -- the -- the punch line or the real topic of discussion is the list of tools that we have provided for you. It's not an exhaustive list of all things that we could do or that all communities do to address affordable housing or titling it attainable housing, but we have put together a list of what we believe to be somewhat feasible for Meridian to -- to look at going forward. So, again, like I just mentioned, using the term attainable, so it's not confused with affordable, because that does tend to have a true definition, especially when you look at funding some of these projects. There is tax increment financing and -- and some other tax implications and grants that can go for affordable housing projects. Really when I say attainable housing, I hope we are on the same page with the implied goal that housing is to be available to meet the needs of the community and what I really mean by that is that we don't want anyone to be homeless, So, affordability is relative -- can be relative to each family and individual, but the attainability and someone being able to live somewhere I think is the common shared goal, at least I hope we are all on that same page, but -- so, that's really what I'm focusing on here. It's not an income range, it is that we are providing some housing choice for everyone in our community and the -- and the city does play a role in that, but this problem certainly is bigger than the city, the region, or the state. So, anything we do to positively impact this issue must include partnerships and collaboration, so you will kind of see that as a theme throughout, even in the table, we have to have partners in a lot of these things and there are many variables that tend to drive the prices higher; right? So, supply and demand are kind of the economics 101. Cost of land. Availability. Cost of building materials and labor to build, which the city has little to no influence over most of those things. I'm a little bit proud of this. I don't want to say it that way, but I have kind of labeled it this way really -- it's -- it's land, labor, lumber, and laws. So, lumber isn't just lumber; right? It's everything to build your materials and, then, the -- the piece of that we really do have the biggest role in is the laws portion. The ordinances, permits, and those processes, because time is money. So, that is really where we can sort of impact that supply chain. But, again, we don't affect the cost of land. We don't affect the cost of labor or the lumber. So, really, tweaks are going to be on the policy level and things we can do to maybe partner with developers. So, that -- and that's just the market on the supply side; right? So, I don't want the -- the -- and the -- the table doesn't dwell on -- or-- or doesn't rely on changes to state code, but, instead, again, puts forth some viable options that staff agrees with. I think what we are looking for at the end of the day is some direction from you. We can't do all of those things either; right? So, kind of maybe if you can help pair that down to things you would like staff to pursue further that is really the request. So, the table does have some tools that we are Page 19 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 19,2022 Page 17—— currently using. Some tools we are not using, but could potentially use. So, that's really kind of staff's recommendation in that second tier of projects would be, hey, there seems to be some real potential here. Do any of those look interesting to you? And, then, the third column is really kind of longer term or pending things that maybe in the future the city should explore further. I want to -- just a little bit more background before we jump into the table if you don't mind. So, kind of like Leon's not part of EMS, I'm not a housing expert, but I'm learning more all the time and so there has been a lot of effort just in the past year even on trying to gather and understand what the issues are and what other jurisdictions are doing about it and, again, trying to maybe envision those even playing out in our community and what may be appropriate for -- for Meridian. So, webinars, some periodicals -- in fact, I want to read to you just a quick quote from -- this is one actually Bruce gave me from the Urban Land Magazine this past month. It says the cost of housing is a driver of where people want to go and increasingly where people want to go is where businesses have to go. If you want your cities to be successful you need to have housing at all levels that people can afford and certainly housing at levels that people can afford with the jobs they are performing. That's really a critical factor for the success of a city and I think it's become even more so over the last five to ten years. Housing is getting more and more expensive relative to incomes. Just one more quick one and these are some quick blurbs from these housing experts from -- throughout the country. I think we as the ULI governing trustees can help highlight for our members how necessary attainable housing is for the health of a city. Tech workers with 150,000 dollar jobs can easily find housing. However, it's the support workers who make it possible for those highly skilled, highly paid workers, to have a good quality of life who can't afford housing. They are the ones who lack attainable housing options and they are the focus for housing authorities across the country. So, that can even be framed a little bit differently. Some call it the missing middle -- middle class families, you know, making -- and that even can vary by definition, but 60 to 80 to a hundred of average median income. It's tough for those people that are just making those wages to afford housing in this market currently. So, again, a wide spectrum, but kind of even the missing middle to me is a -- a piece where in Meridian there seems to be a real need to address. News stories or other things, you know, the media -- I -- I -- I don't know that I can turn on the news now and not hear a story about housing. The Statesman hosted a brown bag -- virtual brown bag lunch a couple weeks ago. Listened to that with some developers. Had a city of Boise council person on there. We had a discussion just with Treasure Valley planners. What is everyone else doing? Information sharing. You know, Boise, their -- even their code rewrites has been in the media quite a bit recently what are they doing? What are some pilot projects that they are exploring to see how some of this may work in our area? ACHD is exploring impact fee waivers for affordable housing projects. Just mentioned that Boise asked Ada county to waive impact fees for their affordable housing projects. Public- private partnerships -- and I will just give a quick plug. Did talk to Council President Hoaglun. We will hear this next month -- hear from some experts on financing of these projects, so that will, hopefully, give a little bit more of the information to you on what that could look like for gap financing and, again, some of those housing tax credits, fee waivers, and those impacts, and those types of things, so -- and that's coming. Also at a regional level COMPASS has set up a housing affordability task force and so we are working -- and, actually, working with two classes at Boise State, they are advanced level Page 20 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 19,2022 Page 18 of— classes. I think one of them is a graduate level. They have --there is four different studies that they are looking at. There is an affordable housing financing group. That's also -- that's digging in the House Bill 701 that was recently passed, so the housing trust fund at the state is looking to be funded and so what are the implications? How is that going to work? So, they are going to do some analysis on that and -- and what that means to Idaho communities. Adaptive reuse. So, you get a big box that goes out of business. How can that be transformed into workforce housing. Again 701. So, what are -- they are going to come up with like a score card. What makes a good project? If you had a formerly commercial constructed building that you wanted to reuse for housing purposes, what are the things that factor in to make a good candidate for that. Transitory housing. People living in RV parks or in RVs on someone else's lot because they don't have anywhere else to go. Some things like that. And, then, again, middle missing housing, which roughly defined is middle densities, middle income, again, that AMI, 60 to 80 or even a hundred percent, which around here is about 60,000 dollars a year. Duplexes, triplexes, kind of that -- you know, we get a lot of the really dense stuff and the single family home, but it's a lot of those duplexes and triplexes, things in the middle. I'm also looking at -- and here is -- this is really a big issue that I wasn't overly keen or aware of, but the ratio of investor-owned properties is -- has skyrocketed over the last 15 years. So, major corporations owning and holding and leasing -- renting housing units versus them being for sale has gone something from like three or four percent up to 20 percent, so that has a huge impact on your rent costs then, because more and more of that is controlled by corporations, quite frankly, and the opportunity to be owner occupied, then, lessons, because the housing stock is being built by investors. So, anyways, probably enough on that. I do want to allow some time to go through the -- the table and get some direction from you on this topic. There is a lot and I'm sorry I'm talking fast and there is a lot to this, right, and I know time is limited today, but certainly willing to come back with some initial feedback on things, again, that you believe staff should explore. I thought Chris said he had my memo here, but -- I was going to put the table up. So, this one -- in here, though. Not before I share it then. Sorry. One second. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Maybe a question while Caleb's getting that pulled up and -- and I'm not sure who this question is for. If it's for you, Mr. Mayor, if it's for Caleb, Bruce, Bill. We talk about housing attainment. Are we talking just about housing in terms of rentals versus purchases. Is it one? Is it the other? Is it both? I mean what's -- what's the intent that we are -- that -- when we are talking about that, what are we focused on? Hood: So, good question, Councilman Cavener. Thank you. And Mr. Mayor. So, again, for me it's very broad at this point. It is my-- my intent with this conversation is -- the goal is to -- for everybody to have a home; right? The opportunity to afford it. Whether it's rental or -- or owner-occupied, apartment, single family that isn't necessarily even part of the conversation and I will say this isn't necessarily your question, but we also have through our CDBG program, going to be coming, right, with affordable housing projects Page 21 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 19,2022 Page 19 of— that are -- it's related, but that's not what I'm necessarily focused on. This isn't solely and only affordable housing projects; right? This isn't 20 percent of LMI or very very low to moderate income type of -- certainly there -- there is concern there, too, but this is a broader -- what can we do to even up the inventory of the housing stock and of the availability of housing that people that want to live in our community. We can get -- we can define it more like you just did, if that's what you want, but at this point it is just starting that conversation of generally there appears to be a housing problem, a supply shortage, a concern about the rising cost of housing relative to incomes and that being a higher percentage, essentially, of a family income; right? Historically banks are 30 to 35 percent of your income is what you can afford for a mortgage. People are spending twice -- twice that to afford something in our market today. So, what can we do? What should we do, if anything, to make that more, quote, unquote, affordable. Simison: And I think Caleb just hit the -- at least from my perspective, since you -- is knowing what tools we have, what's being -- what can be implemented and if Council thinks that there is more that needs or should be done. You know, I think one of the most interesting ones that's on the list, for example, is the fact that you already can do accessory--or dwelling units on stuff, but I would imagine most of our HOAs have CC&Rs which prohibit them, you know, so there are limitations. It's good that we have that on paper, but what -- at that -- after that what does it really mean? So, just getting everyone on the same page for information is kind of the starting point from today. I don't expect we are going to solve this or even necessarily give immediate direction. In fact, you know, one of the Council Members I know would really like to engage in the conversation, so I think at this point in time, the best we can do in our -- in our limited time is if there is anything that you feel strongly that you would like to convey to Caleb right now, let's do that, so that he can figure out where to take this next in the next conversation or offline conversations and -- and the one thing he left out -- and you have to get Council Woman Strader's help is his five Us. I don't know where you put profit into that. We need to find an L word where we can associate with profits to help Caleb with his -- his element of that -- because that is -- that is part of it as well. No one builds these for cost. At least I'm not aware everyone just builds them for cost as a general rule from that standpoint. Hood: So, to the Mayor's question, I will -- I will stand for any comments you have on this initial list and while you are thinking about those, I will just kind of kick us off a little bit there with the accessory secondary dwelling unit. So, Mayor, I did actually have as part of the UDC focus group we are talking about some of these and so I brought it up to Brighton, who has put some dwelling units in our community and I said, hey, out of curiosity do you guys restrict this -- as a general rule how many of your CC&Rs do you restrict accessory dwellings and Jon Wardle said they don't. He said, really, what the problem is is that the lots don't accommodate them; right? Because you are building your home to maximize -- a lot of your building footprint you just can't fit it on, so it's not that the CC&RS -- it's that your home already takes up a good chunk of the land and so they are -- you know, not too many people have 20,000 square foot lots where you can fit another dwelling unit on. So, really, that's the -- but I did ask a question that is good, it just doesn't sound like the standard template for at least a couple of our developers is not to outright prohibit them. Page 22 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 19,2022 Page 20 of 23 Simison: Okay. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Thanks a lot, Caleb, for putting this list together and I think out of -- out of this list the things that I am really interested in to explore more that I think could move the needle would be -- and I -- and I think it actually would fit in with kind of density bonuses or an incentive along those lines. Probably the most successful thing I have seen in other cities has been where developers have the opportunity to set aside like ten percent of their units in the case of multi-family or a certain percentage of their units as more affordable and, then, there is some type of a trade off, whether it's, you know, diminished open space or something that makes it economically more feasible for them, so that the project will pencil, but I think it's important to create a community where people of different incomes can live together and have buildings where people are integrated together so you don't have situations where you have one building that has kind of a reputation of being a low income building and, then, another building that's, you know, different. I -- I -- I think it works better, actually, if a certain percentage of the units get set aside, so that, really, we are providing a mixture of housing opportunity without stigmatizing people and putting them together in one place. So, that's one comment that I had. Something else that I'm interested in, it's -- it's not for a time like this, but for the time of a downturn. So, if we ran into a bad recession or we ran into a situation where we had a lot of blight or we saw opportunities where we said, wow, that property is really keeping us from moving this area forward, we think there is an opportunity to acquire that property from the city's perspective. So, I think right now is a terrible environment to do that, but I think in a really bad economic environment there could be opportunities if we had the financial wherewithal to do it. So, that was two comments. And, then, finally, one thing I don't see on here -- and we may not be ready for it -- there are innovations in building and, you know, there are 3D printers that people are starting to use to build houses and there are some pretty exciting innovations coming and I wonder if there are ways that we could be really forward thinking on including those in our building code or finding a way to be at the forefront of including the ability for people to use those tools here. That's just three thoughts, but I -- I think the list of things we are doing already we could expand. I was supportive of most of those and I thought, you know, talking about all of the ones that could be used I thought made sense, but those were the three that popped out to me. Simison: Council, any additional questions, comments, thoughts? Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Hoaglun. Hoaglun: My -- my initial thought when I first went through this in the packet was there are no silver bullets here. There is -- there is a lot of, you know, medium low effort, low benefit, but -- I guess small benefit I think the words were, but, you know, sometimes we Page 23 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 19,2022 Page 21 —— just have to pick up those small benefits and, hopefully, they add up over time and -- and different things. You know, affordable housing projects, you know, were --we can't require anything, but it doesn't hurt to ask developers and just say, hey, can you set aside some projects for affordability? What -- what can you do and ask them to -- completely voluntary, but -- it never hurts to ask. So, I -- I think -- like I said, as I went through this there is -- there is nothing that's going to be, ooh, let's do that, because that's going to be a big chunk of the problem. It's not going to happen, so, I -- I think we just have to pick and choose those things that we think will have an impact and they fit our abilities to do and -- and just kind of move forward in -- in that effort, so -- unfortunately, that's the best I came up with. Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Mr. Mayor, thanks. So, I think we -- there is a lot of different ways that we can tackle this and there is -- there is a lot of there there, is kind of what I keep saying about this. There is a lot of different ways we can approach this. For me if -- if we are going to laser focus on -- on one or two items to me I think it's important that we focus on home ownership. I think that being focused on people that are going to become permanent residents of our community or long-term residents of our community is where I would want us to go. I think that the work we have done with CDBG, with rental assistance, and stuff like that, we can continue to do that, but if we are going to focus as a Council, I want to focus on people who want to live here permanently and I -- I believe wholeheartedly in diverse housing and apartments have their role in our community. Townhouses do. But if we are going to talk about attainable housing, for me it's -- it's home ownership. So, to that note, you know, some of the suggestions around weird lots, density bonuses, I'm interested in learning more about that. One that I would like -- and I don't know if it's -- it's a memo or an updated presentation, the staff comments about a set aside, but generally speaking this concept is currently not allowed by state code. I would like to get a little more information about that and -- and what can we do, what can't we do? To Councilman Hoaglun's point, sure, we can always ask, but we probably would want to develop a framework that if we ask this is how we would want it to follow. The other piece that I didn't see on here and -- and maybe I missed or maybe it's captured somewhere -- is opportunities around tiny homes and I know that there is a really thin line between creating a trailer park community, which maybe is not something that we would support, versus, you know, tiny homes that have emergent and goes along with what Council Member Strader said about what are these innovative changes and how can we embrace that to create opportunities for people to own their home in our community. Bernt: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Bernt. Bernt: To go -- to piggyback on past comments from fellow Council Members, I -- you know, I will just be frankly honest. I -- I don't know a ton about this. I would like to learn more about how a local government can effectively get involved in something like attainable housing. I just don't know what that looks like. You know, I -- I always feel like Page 24 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 19,2022 Page 22 of— limited government is always the best way to go, but people need help and -- and -- and I -- I would just like to learn more. I just don't know enough about it to -- to -- to -- we will have -- have a real grasp on which way to go that -- that this -- this presentation is so vast and there is so much information in it, it's just really tough to wrap my arms about which way is the most effective way to go. So, I would -- I just like that -- you know, maybe some material, you know, maybe some -- some -- some ways in which I can learn more about just this subject in general, other than just Google searching it on my computer. Hoaglun: And Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Hoaglun. Hoaglun: Yes, we have -- we have had those discussions with staff, as Caleb alluded to, and, in fact, we have one coming up on finance and housing credits and all that stuff that all of Council Members except Council Woman Strader's head will be spinning afterwards I'm afraid, but -- because it is complicated, there is so much to it, so many levels and, I agree, we are going to be trying to dive into this, taking it in bite size pieces and -- and move forward and -- and see what we can do and what we can learn, because we are -- we are at square one, so we will go from there. Hood: Mr. Mayor, if you don't mind and I -- and don't take anything that I do forward to you, e-mail, but I get probably once a week to some -- to listen in or participate in some webinar. I can share that information. Don't take it as I'm -- you know, it's one of the disclaimers when you get the -- you know, early morning they are trying to sell you something. Not an endorsement by me, but I will share it and if you want to participate and learn there is an opportunity. So, don't think of it as spam, I'm just sharing and you can delete it if you want, but I will try to share periodicals and stories, articles, whatever to just give you the information I'm seeing anyways, so -- if you are okay with that. Simison: Councilman Burton. Borton: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yeah. Good thoughts to consider. I just -- listening to everyone's discussion and -- and Caleb's good work. I might challenge and -- and disagree a little bit. I think that the -- the non-homeowner resident of our city very well is a lifelong resident. I think when we -- when we try to explore tools to address the issue, I don't think home ownerships is the sole focus. There is a very large segment of our population that will be here for life and they may -- very well may be renters for life, but they are devout Meridian residents. So, we don't want to exclude them and -- and to dovetail on that I think exploring tools that are provided by outside agencies can be an efficient way to address some of that concern. There are some organizations that do that. I know we are aware of many of them, but if you are exploring all options that might be another way to address and provide some solutions, perhaps to homeowners, but also perhaps to those who are fortunate enough to be able to purchase their own home, but choose to make Meridian home as a renter for life. Page 25 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 19,2022 Page 23 of— Simison: Thank you, Councilman. Okay. Caleb, the thing that I would add -- and this is the struggle, because I -- I have heard this from friends out in the community, said, well, if we just increase supply we are just going to be great, but we know the impact that that has on our partner agencies, our roads and I think that's something that I think is really tricky balance to walk about our growth rate and, you know, is increasing supply beyond what we are currently doing -- it has an impact on our staff of trying to do the work and so their cumulative impacts for some of these directions, if supply was our go to, we are going to drive down cost, make it more affordable, because we are going to push up supply. So, there is some balancing and things here that impact a lot more as we look at the cost of housing in our-- in our city and bringing on more housing and what that means or does. So, just food for thought that that's where -- one area where I'm concerned is about growing faster than our current growth rate by increasing supply in the market. I think we are doing a fine job on our side of supplying the market, but if the market is over -- asking for more, I don't know that we are the -- that's the silver bullet to our solution. Again, many things. So, just food for thought as -- as we look at this going forward, because more housing has more impacts on every service provider in the city and our partners, including the jails as we heard, so -- all right. Council, unless there is anything else -- if there is anything different or more, just get it to Caleb and he will bring back some of this for a refined conversation. I'm sure we will hear from Council Woman Perreault, maybe have a one off with her, so you can bring her thoughts into this before the next conversation. Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Hoaglun. Hoaglun: I move that we adjourn our work session. Simison: I have a motion to adjourn. All in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it. We are adjourned. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 5:41 P.M. (AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) MAYOR ROBERT E. SIMISON 5-3-2022 ATTEST: CHRIS JOHNSON - CITY CLERK 5-3-2022 Page 26