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Home My WebLink AboutCC - Parks Department Email1 Chris Johnson From:Steve Siddoway Sent:Friday, May 31, 2024 11:44 AM To:Liz Strader; Sonya Allen Cc:City Clerk; Caleb Hood; Bill Parsons Subject:RE: Agenda Packets for June 4 Thank you for the heads up on this issue. Here are my initial thoughts. This is a property that I’ve been potentially interested in for a number of years because it was the last undeveloped parcel in the square mile, as Sonya already pointed out. On the positive side, looking at the interior parcel, it would meet the minimum size per policy for a neighborhood park. The minimum size for a neighborhood park is at least 7 acres. The interior parcel below is 8.7 acres. In the past, we have looked at it with the primary question of whether or not to try to purchase the property in the future. The decision was not to pursue it as a potential purchase for the following reasons. • The is no frontage for the park, in the configuration shown above, making it hidden. We prefer that public parks have as much frontage and visibility as possible. • The property is surrounded on three sides by existing 6-foot fences. If the park was planned in conjunction with the surrounding neighborhood, the fences would shorter or open vision to have more eyes on the park for safety purposes. • With stub streets on the north and south, intended to be connected in the future, the park would be bisected by a road. If we also purchased the front parcel, below, in order to get Meridian Road frontage for the park, we would have to buy a house and outbuildings (with the high cost of doing so) when we have no use for the house/structures and would have to demolish them to make space for the park, access, and parking. 2 Together, the two parcels make 13.5 acres, which would be a nice-sized park, but would be expensive without a donation. Perhaps more importantly, the previous direction from City Council has been that as a Department, we should focus our attention and limited resources on the larger community and regional parks because they serve a larger population with more amenities. The best recent example of that is Discovery Park, phases 1 and 2. Future neighborhood parks are not off the table, but the expectation has been that they would come with a land donation and partnership, often for green- up, etc. The best recent examples of this would be Keith Bird Legacy Park (7.5 acres) and Reta Huskey Park (8.9 acres). Hillsdale Park also falls into this category with its size (9.5 acres) and multiple partnerships, although it is classified as a community park, due to the nature of its programming and partnerships. Additional factors for consideration include that the square mile this property sits in does include quite a lot of existing open space, including an elementary school, which has a playground and fields that are open to the public after school hours. Plus it is just over a mile from Settlers Park and the Heritage Middle School ballfields, which we maintain as park space, are approximately ½ mile away. 3 Several years back, I’m aware of a couple of residents from the area who were interested in seeing the area become a public park instead of being developed. They reached out and had a conversation with our Parks Superintendent at the time and said they would try to get the previous owner, Dorothy Rhodes, to donate the land to the City for a park. No donation offer ever came back. If the property is potentially being offered as a donation, I welcome the discussion. Thanks, Steve Steve Siddoway, CPRP | Parks & Recreation Director City of Meridian | Parks and Recreation 33 E. Broadway Ave., Meridian, Idaho 83642 Phone: 208.888.3579 | Fax: 208.898.5501 Meridian Parks and Recreation: Quality. Community. Fun. All e-mail messages sent to or received by City of Meridian e-mail accounts are subject to the Idaho law, in regards to both release and retention, and may be released upon request, unless exempt from disclosure by law. From: Sonya Allen <sallen@meridiancity.org> Sent: Thursday, May 30, 2024 3:10 PM To: Liz Strader <lstrader@meridiancity.org> Cc: City Clerk <CityClerk@meridiancity.org>; Steve Siddoway <ssiddoway@meridiancity.org>; Caleb Hood <chood@meridiancity.org>; Bill Parsons <bparsons@meridiancity.org> Subject: RE: Agenda Packets for June 4 Hi Liz, I appreciate the early “heads-up” on your questions. I’ll go ahead and respond so that it’s part of the public record. Per the Comprehensive Plan (pg. 3-10), all “future” symbols shown on the Future Land Use Map, including Parks, represent generalized locations based on the best information the City has to date. All such symbol locations are to be considered conceptual and not exact locations. The Park’s Dept. did identify the potential need for a park in this area at the time of adoption of the Comprehensive Plan because it was one of the last remaining undeveloped parcels in the square mile, which has no existing public parks, that is large enough for a City park. The Park’s Director confirmed that an offer for donation of land for a City park on this site was never made by the property owner and the City is not prepared to buy the land with the other parks and projects that are currently planned for the impact fee fund. There are a couple of schools (Paramount Elementary & Rocky Mountain HS) and several HOA parks in the vicinity as well as Settler’s Park 1.5 miles to the south. For these reasons, Staff is not recommending a City park is provided within this development. Please let me know if you have any additional questions. Thanks, Sonya Allen | Associate Planner City of Meridian | Community Development Department | Planning Division 33 E. Broadway Ave., Ste. 102, Meridian, Idaho 83642 Phone: 208-884-5533 | Direct/Fax: 208-489-0578 4 Built for Business, Designed for Living All e-mail messages sent to or received by City of Meridian e-mail accounts are subject to the Idaho law, in regards to both release and retention, and may be released upon request, unless exempt from disclosure by law. From: Liz Strader <lstrader@meridiancity.org> Sent: Thursday, May 30, 2024 12:17 PM To: Steve Siddoway <ssiddoway@meridiancity.org>; Caleb Hood <chood@meridiancity.org>; Sonya Allen <sallen@meridiancity.org> Cc: City Clerk <CityClerk@meridiancity.org> Subject: Fw: Agenda Packets for June 4 Hello all This is an early heads-up that I am going to be asking a lot of questions around why the Pebblebrook subdivision is being proposed when per the comprehensive plan (fairly recent) it's intended to be a neighborhood park. If you can please research this issue before the 6/4 meeting so you will be prepared to answer the context around my question tthat's very helpful. CC'ing the clerk to add my question to the record. Thanks, Liz Liz Strader | City Councilwoman City of Meridian | City Council Office 33 E. Broadway Ave., Meridian, Idaho 83642 Phone: | 208-546-9501 City Council District Information Link From: Chris Johnson Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2024 3:22 PM 5 To: Anne Little Roberts; Brian Whitlock; Doug Taylor; John Overton; Liz Strader; Luke Cavener; Robert Simison Cc: Bill Nary; David Miles; Tina Lomeli; Charlene Way; Barbara Conly Subject: Agenda Packets for June 4 Good afternoon. Agenda packets for next Tuesday’s meetings are available here. The resolution appointing updated city council liaison assignments will be added soon. Have a great week. Chris