HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024-09-24 Regular Meridian City Council September 24, 2024.
A Meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 6:00 p.m. Tuesday,
September 24, 2024, by Mayor Robert Simison.
Members Present: Luke Cavener, Liz Strader, John Overton, Doug Taylor, Anne Little
Roberts and Brian Whitlock.
Members Absent: Robert Simison.
Other Present: Chris Johnson, Bill Nary, Bill Parsons, Steve Siddoway, Brian Caldwell,
Kris Blume and Dean Willis.
ROLL-CALL ATTENDANCE
X Liz Strader X Brian Whitlock
Anne Little Roberts _X_ John Overton
_X_ Doug Taylor _X_Luke Cavener
Mayor Robert E. Simison
Cavener: Okay. Council, it is Tuesday, September 24th at 6:00 p.m. The time noticed
for our regular City Council meeting. Begin tonight's meeting with roll call attendance.
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
Cavener: Great. Everyone is present, ready for business. We will move on to our next
item on the agenda, which is the Pledge of Allegiance. So, join me in the pledge.
(Pledge of Allegiance recited.)
COMMUNITY INVOCATION
Cavener: The next item on our agenda is the community vacation. We are joined this
evening by Nick Armstrong. Nick, welcome. We would like to ask everyone in the
audience to join us in a moment of prayer or take this as an opportunity for silent
reflection -- reflection. Nick, thanks for being here. We will turn the time over to you.
Armstrong: Father, thank you. You are Lord of heaven and earth and holy and we just
-- you have given us dominion over all of this and we pray for wisdom for our Mayor, for
our Council, for our department heads as they administer the well-being of the city,
requests of use of land and just that we would be continued to be that place that's a light
on the hill, that we would hold up your name and I pray, too, as we come on elections
and they are so contentious. So, many issues that many of us don't agree on that we
could find a place for reasonable discussion and that we continue to enjoy our freedom
to vote and to decide how we will run the city, the state and this country, in Jesus' name,
amen.
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ADOPTION OF AGENDA
Cavener: Thanks, Nick. All right. Council, next item on the agenda is the adoption of
the agenda. Do I have a motion?
Strader: Mr. Council President --
Cavener: Council Member Strader.
Strader: -- move that we adopt the agenda as published.
Overton: Second.
Cavener: It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion? Mr. Johnson, please, call
roll.
Roll Call: Cavener, yea; Strader, yea; Overton, yea; Little Roberts, yea; Taylor, yea;
Whitlock, yea.
Cavener: All ayes and the adoption is agenda — agenda is adopted.
MOTION CARRIED: ALLAYES.
PUBLIC FORUM — Future Meeting Topics
Simison: Next item on the agenda is public forum. Mr. Johnson, has anyone signed up
to provide any testimony this evening?
Johnson: Mr. President, nobody has signed up.
ACTION ITEMS
1. Parks & Recreation Department Director's Report on Transfer of
Western Ada Recreation District Assets to the City of Meridian
Cavener: Okay. Nobody on the public forum, so we will move to our Action Items.
Action Item No. 1, Parks and Recreation Department director report of a transfer of
Western Ada Recreation District assets to the City of Meridian. Director Siddoway, we
will turn the time over to you. Good evening.
Siddoway: Thank you, President Cavener, Members of the City Council. It's my
pleasure to be before you tonight. We are here tonight to complete the transfer of the
remaining assets from the Western Ada Recreation District or WARD. We have been in
front of you several times over the last couple of years, most recently for formal action
back in April when we brought forward the agreement that kind of laid out all of the — the
next steps through the summer that we have been following with -- with legal and -- and
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with WARD. I want to take a moment just to recognize Emily Kane, who is -- should be
online tonight, as well as Shaun Wardle, president of the Western Ada Recreation
District Board and all -- all the -- the board members that have been part of making this
happen. Previous actions that this Council has taken had us taking over the operations
and maintenance of the pool, the golf course, maintenance of the little park on Tammy
Street, notice of Settlers Village Park. Tonight those assets formally transfer to -- or are
approved to transfer. Our closing date -- our agreed upon closing date for all of the
agreements will be September 30th, in about a week, so everything is lined up for that.
If approved the -- the -- the agreements that are on your agenda tonight will convey the
Meridian community swimming pool, which is -- feels like it's in Storey Park, but it's
actually on its own little piece of property. The Settlers Village neighborhood park,
which we call Tammy Street Park, because we already have a Settlers Park, but Settlers
Village is the name of the subdivision that that parcel is in. It also transfers the
leasehold of the Lakeview Golf Course. The city already owns and has owned the -- the
golf course land itself, but the -- the Western Ada Recreation District purchased the --
he leasehold on the operations and, then, we have been operating it for the last couple
of years and, then, finally, all the personal property associated with those locations and
facilities. As per the April 2nd memorandum that was approved by the Council and the
WARD board, the -- WARD will be entitled to a consider -- consideration in the amount
of one dollar and finance is all queued up and ready. We have received the invoice for
that. So, that -- that's ready to transfer on the 30th, which is our -- our closing date. For
the record legal notices for this meeting were published as required by law on
September 10th and September 17th. So, our requested actions tonight are the next
items on your agenda, which are Resolution 24-2474 and it is -- and, then, after that the
agreement for transfer of the personal property. With that I would like to turn some time
over to Shaun Wardle, president of the Western Ada Recreation District, to make a few
comments and I would like to close my remarks by just expressing my -- not only my
appreciation, but our commitment to these assets. They have been kind of a treasure
for the community over -- over the last several decades and we have kind of -- as the
department outgrown the offerings of Parks and Recreation for the city and we will take
these under our wing and look forward to serving our citizens with them into the future.
So, Shaun.
Cavener: Director Siddoway. Mr. Wardle, good evening.
S.Wardle: Thank you, Steve. I appreciate that. Members of the Council, getting a
pretty good deal for a dollar here. So, Shaun Wardle, the chairman of the -- the
Western Ada Recreation District. I would like to take just a moment of time to tell a little
story about the community and -- and -- and what Western Ada Rec is, because a lot of
people don't really know and -- and may have even contacted you about these
transactions. So, I will just get on the record real quick. I know you have got a busy
meeting tonight. I'm here on behalf of our current board, which is comprised of Colin
Moss and Tyler Rountree. So, in the 1970s the community wanted to create an asset,
but the city was very small back then. Several thousand people. And so levying a — a
levy on that community really wouldn't have created the tax revenue needed to -- to
build the asset and the asset was the -- the community pool and community pool was
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requested for recreation purposes, but also for water safety. Here in Idaho we live in a
place with canals and rivers and -- and lakes and so I can tell you that once that
community pool was built we have done more swim lessons in this state -- level one and
level two swim lessons than -- than anyone else in the state of Idaho and -- and the
Parks Department's taken that on and so we really feel strongly about that mission. So,
the district was created 50 years ago. The pool was built and it -- essentially the area of
impact was used as the Western Ada Recreation District boundary and the city, as we
know, has really grown into that and so we really feel it's an appropriate time. Western
Ada Rec has kind of served its purpose for where we are at. I'm going to mention a
couple names. Walt Casey, Gary Smith, Walt Morrow, Jim Johnson, Charlie Rountree
and Heath Van Patten are all former commissioners of the Western Ada Recreation
District. You will -- you will hear a lot of city names there that many people think of as
founding fathers for -- for the local recent City of Meridian and I would like to -- to say
thank you to them, because they really did something that -- that was -- that was
thoughtful, especially while I was a kid. Not just providing me a spot to be able to
recreate, but they saved a lot of money. So, when we were tasked with rebuilding the
community pool -- so, the community pool was built -- and as cosmopolitan as we
possibly could. It was a cinder block building with a couple showers, but it did have a
high dive and that's where I learned how to swim and so it served its purpose for a
number of years, but needed to be rebuilt. Western Ada Rec was able to do that out of
cash reserve and so we rebuilt the existing facility out of cash reserve and even had
some -- some money left over and so when -- when we looked at what are we going to
do with -- with that money left over, we are tasked with improving our assets; right? So,
we also created a partnership with the city over Fuller Park. If you recall Fuller Park,
even though now it's really in the middle of the city and Ten Mile was in -- out in the
county, out in the boonies where we played little league and -- and had, you know,
recreation out there and so the -- we -- we had our own parks department and we
approached the Parks Department of Meridian, which had at the time over 20 parks,
and said, you know, it does -- the reciprocity doesn't -- doesn't make sense; right? So --
so, we -- we gifted and granted the -- the -- Fuller Park to the city. They created a lot of
improvements and have done just a wonderful job with that. Charlie Rountree Field out
there as -- as a championship field is awesome. So, have done a really good job there.
And, then, Mayor Simison and 1, after his first election, you know, started talking about
what -- what is Western Ada Rec's future; right? We -- we have got one asset that the
city is now managing, could they do others? And we looked at some opportunities and
one of those opportunities is the golf course creates significant revenue and a pool
generally speaking is a hole that you throw money into; right? So -- so, could we match
those up and could we -- and could we make a difference there. So, as we talked with
our respective boards in the community, it -- it -- it became kind of a logical step for us to
-- for Western Ada Recreation District to at least engage the current golf course
operator and a little additional history as a — as a young energetic council member I had
some -- one of my first initiatives was -- that was gifted to being by -- by the current
council, of which Mr. Nary served, they said let's figure out how to take this -- this
current operator and bring somebody else in and so that worked until it didn't and -- and
-- and the course needed some money. So, Western Ada Recreation District purchased
the lease and the assets from the former operator and, then, we dedicated at least two
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years of our operating budget to -- to the parks department to be able to put together
some of those improvements and -- and I think that we can all agree that we are -- that
that course is in -- is in good shape and has done a good job and it -- and it really is a --
a very nice community asset. The last thing that we — that Western Ada Recreation
District has done is that we had an operating budget of over 800,000 dollars at one
time. We just approved in August our new operating budget. Our operating budget for
the next fiscal year will be 50,000 dollars. That is 11 cents per taxable value to a levy
and so we are -- we are really proud of that. I can tell you that -- that I -- I think I'm the
only politician in Idaho trying to work myself out of a job and -- and have been very
happy to do that. So, this transaction has been a couple years in the -- in -- in process
and so we are here today with -- with the final. I have had the good fortune to be a
steward for these assets for a number of years and -- and many years before that
community leaders have -- have really passed the torch and so now we -- we really feel
great about the Parks Department taking care of the community, serving the mission
and -- and being able to serve the community with these assets. So, I appreciate your
time here today and I would stand for any questions.
Cavener: Thanks, Shaun.
Little Roberts: Mr. Council?
Cavener: Council, any questions? Council Member Little Roberts.
Little Roberts: Mr. President. Shaun, I just -- I don't have a question. I just want to say
thank you. I have watched you through your years of service and, then, spearhead this
project along with Steve and his amazing team and you have just done a fabulous job of
leading WARD and just — and definitely you are leaving your mark on the community as
always. But a sincere thank you to everybody involved in this project.
S.Wardle: Thank you.
Cavener: Any other questions, Council?
Whitlock: Mr. President?
Cavener: Council Member Whitlock.
Whitlock: Shaun, thank you as well. I'm the newest member of the Council, but I --
come at a time when others have built and preserved a great legacy in this -- in this
community. Thank you for that. And, honestly, I was going to look in my wallet and
double your money, but my wife got to it first, so -- but -- but I'm good for it. I will -- I will
-- I will double your one dollar. Okay. Thank you.
Cavener: Thank you, Council Member Whitlock. Any other questions?
Overton: Council President?
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Cavener: Council Member Overton.
Overton: Just a little history. I'm one of those people that had the opportunity as a
teenager to use the pool and use the golf course and I can't believe after this many
years that they are not only still here, but they are in far greater shape and condition
than they were back in -- shall I say the late 70s. I'm really glad that we are doing this,
that we are making this happen, that we will take them over and continue to keep that
legacy moving forward. Appreciate it, Shaun. Thank you.
2. Resolution 24-2474: Ratifying the Conveyance of Real and Personal
Property from the Western Ada Recreation District; Accepting the
Termination of the Western Ada Recreation District's Lease of
Lakeview Golf Course; and Providing an Effective Date
Cavener: Council -- okay. No action on Item 1, so we will move on to Item No. 2.
Resolution 24-2474 for a motion.
Whitlock: Mr. President?
Cavener: Council Member Whitlock.
Whitlock: I move we approve Resolution 24-2474, ratifying the conveyance of real and
personal property.
Strader: Second.
Cavener: It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion? Okay. Council -- Mr. Clerk
will call roll.
Roll, Call- Cavener, yea; Strader, yea; Overton, yea; Little Roberts, yea; Taylor, yea;
Whitlock, yea.
Cavener: Moved and passed.
MOTION CARRIED: ALLAYES.
3. Agreement for Transfer of Personal Property from Western Ada
Recreation District to the City of Meridian
Cavener: We will now move on to Item 3, government transfer of personal property
from the Western Ada Recreation District to the City of Meridian.
Whitlock: Mr. President?
Cavener: Council Member Whitlock.
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Whitlock: I move we approve the agreement for transfer of personal property from
Western Ada Recreation District to the City of Meridian.
Strader: Second.
Cavener: It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion? Council, just real quick a
quick moment of privilege again to thank Shaun and Steve and Emily and our Mayor.
This is a good reminder I think is why the -- the parks tour is important. This was kind of
a germ of an idea that kind of emerged at a parks tour many many years ago to -- to
previous testimony I learned to swim at Meridian pool. It's neat this year that my son
continues to learn how to swim at Meridian pool, play baseball at Fuller. The — the park
at Settlers Village is the park that was in my neighborhood as a child, so that's the place
where I probably got into more trouble than I should and so, you know, we are all here
because of exceptional leadership that came before us that we were able to build upon
and I really like to think that the Meridian Parks Department is able to exist because of
the investment of our citizens in WARD many many years ago. So, this is I think really
coming together with a -- it's a big big win for our community. Just want to thank our
staff that made it happen.
Cavener: With that Mr. Clerk -- actually, Mr. Nary, for an agreement do we need a roll
call?
Nary: We do not.
Cavener: All right. So, moved and seconded. All in favor of accepting this agreement
say aye. Any opposed? All unanimous and the decision is agreed upon. Thank you
again for being here, Shaun.
MOTION CARRIED: ALLAYES.
4. Public Hearing continued from September 17, 2024 for District at Ten
Mile (H-2023-0071) by Ball Ventures Ahlquist, generally located at the
northwest corner of S. Ten Mile Rd. and 1-84
A. Request: Future Land Use Map Amendment to amend the Future
Land Use Map in the Comprehensive Plan to change the
designations on portions of the subject property and adjacent
properties, resulting in a net change in the area as follows: Medium
High Density Residential (MHDR) (+9.26 acres), High Density
Residential (HDR) (+2.66 acres), Mixed-Use Residential (MU-R) (-
10.61 acres), Mixed-Use Commercial (MU-C) (+0.32 acre), Mixed
Employment (ME) (-0.22 acre) and High Density Employment
(HDE) (-1.40 acres) as requested by the Applicant and as
recommended by Staff on adjacent properties if the Applicant's
request is approved.
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B. Request: Modified Development Agreements to the existing
Development Agreements (Vanguard Village (H-2021-0081) Inst.
#2022-049799, Fedrizzi Ten Mile LLC (AZ-11-001) Inst.
#112073618, SJJV LLC (AZ-11-001) Inst. #112073617, Janicek
Properties LLC (AZ-11-001) Inst. #112073616, to consolidate them
into one (1) new agreement, which will replace the previous
agreements (or a portion thereof, as applicable) and include a
conceptual development plan for the overall area.
C. Request: Rezone of 7.48 acres of land from the C-C to the TN-C
district, 12.96 acres from the H-E and R-40 to the C-C district, 9.13
acres from the C-C to the H-E district, 25.97 acres from the C-C
and H-E to the C-G district, and 1 .37 acres from the H-E to the M-E
zoning district.
D. Request: Preliminary Plat consisting of 38 building lost and one (1)
common lot on 108.77 acres of land in the TN-C, C-C, C-G, H-E
and M-E zoning districts.
Cavener: All right. Moving on. Item No. 4 is a public hearing continued from
September 17th, 2024, for the District at Ten Mile. Before we turn it over to staff
always think it's important we have got maybe some new people that have never maybe
been to a City Council meeting before, so I would just to welcome you if this is your first
City Council meeting. The way public land use action items go is staff will present some
updated information, because this is continued. The applicant will have an opportunity
to provide some of their perspective. We will, then, open it up as a public hearing that
will give you as a citizen three minutes to provide your testimony on this item. After all
of our public testimony has concluded the applicant will be able to provide a response.
Council will, then, go into deliberation and they could possibly make a decision. So, we
appreciate you all being here tonight. Public process is so important and we appreciate
our applicant coming back another week in a row. We had a lengthy meeting last week
that was going to go fairly late and I think the suggestion to continue for another week
was well heard. So, with that, Mr. Parsons, I will turn it over to you.
Parsons: Thank you, Mr. President, Members of the -- the Council. As you recall this
was continued from last week's City Council hearing, but I did just want to mention, too
-- I don't think staff will go into the full presentation again. We were able to get through
that last week. But looking at the public record I would note know to the Council that
there was four additional public testimony submitted as of today I saw that uploaded.
And, again, the concerns were around the density, school overcrowding and
transportation, which I'm probably sure you will have some questions on those tonight.
Did confirm with the Clerk that we do have an ACHD representative tonight in
attendance for today's hearing if you want to ask questions of ACHD or staff and, then, I
have gone ahead and also prepared some slides to kind of touch on the land use and
transportation elements in the planning, if the Council or -- if the Council has additional
questions on those items as well. I think from the last hearing I was -- it was pretty clear
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that you gave the applicant homework to do and you wanted to hear from them before --
before staff gives you any additional comments. So, I don't know if that's the order you
want to take tonight, Mr. President, if you want the applicant — the applicant to come in
and give you an update based on that homework that you assigned them last week or
would you like staff to dive in on some of those Ten Mile elements and share with the
Council what's kind of transpired the last couple of years, what's in the hopper, what
conversation staff had with ACHD regarding the transportation elements in the plan. I'm
happy to dive into some of those comments as well, if that's the -- the position the
Council wants me to do tonight. So, I'm -- I'm open up to your -- your suggestions this
evening.
Cavener: Bill, I'm seeing gentle head nodding, so I think that's probably the right
approach. Specifically maybe if you can talk a little bit about -- I think there was some
inconsistency in the City of Meridian staff report about the Ten Mile Specific Area Plan
and ACHD's interpretation of that and, then, maybe just for -- for Council, applicant and
public's benefit, you know, Sonya did provide some additional information to the Council
after our meeting last week just so that we were all on the same page. I think that's the
right way to start.
Parsons: Perfect. Thank you. I will go ahead and get to the -- the two slides that I
have prepared for tonight's discussion. So, I know a lot of you -- at least last week we
did get a draft ACHD staff report and, then, this week it did just get finalized. As you --
as you recall last hearing this is a Comprehensive Plan map amendment and the
applicant's come forward with their plan and their changes and staff has recommended
additional plans, but ultimately the -- the topic of discussion at that hearing was that
there is a path forward either way with -- for the applicant to do what they want to do
here. But I think it's still important to -- to touch bases of why we have the Ten Mile
Plan. Yes, I -- I hear from the Council all the time it's -- it's dated or it's -- it may not be
working the way we had expected it to and as -- as a planner it's tough to swallow,
because the plan is a visioning document, it's not thou shalts, but if you look at the
concepts in the plan it was pretty innovative at the time and a lot of those planning
principles still pertain to today's world, whether you are in Idaho or in California or in
Seattle or Portland area, these -- these concepts aren't new, they are --just they are just
done and required in this specific area. So, first of all, I don't -- as -- as you all know
and as Sonya mentioned last week, the applicant is proposing their own design
elements for -- their own design guidelines for this area. The Council has done that with
the property to the west -- or to the east on the Ten -- Ten Mile Crossing project on the
other side of Ten Mile. I can tell you from the implementation of that it's worked very
well. I -- I like that it's nice to get a variety of different design standards, but it also
allows them flexibility to work with staff and -- and get those mix of uses that we
envisioned. So, the only -- the only reason why I bring up this slide is because I just
want -- I know we have newer Council Members and I just want to share with you that in
2002 -- or 2022 we came before you -- at least our long range planning team came
before City Council and we provided you a land use analysis for that area. You wanted
us to grade ourselves. How have we done as a city in that area? At that time we
reported to you that there was 27 percent nonresidential uses in that area compared to
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73 percent residential. As you recall in that document the plan envisioned a 48 to 52
split for nonresidential versus residential units. So, you can see based on that analysis
at the time we were having less commercial than we needed in that area to support the
amount of residential that had been approved and I would also mention that since that
time we have had other approvals, which I have noted down below. So -- and with the
-- the -- the adjustment that this applicant's proposing there is a good chance we are
going to have more non-residential uses occurring in on this property as well, which is
contaminated by the plan and, then, the other component of that -- and you can see
here based on our -- in our code -- or in our land use plan -- the Ten Mile Specific
Interchange Plan there are some design concepts that are in there and this is the matrix
that we use to assess a development when it comes in and to find consistency with that
plan and if you look this particular developer has a lot of its mixed-use residential and
mixed-use commercial and if you look on this -- this matrix you can see those probably
have the most design elements out of all the -- the various land uses in the Ten Mile
area and that was for a reason. Again, it was meant to have a lot of employment, taller
buildings, make it walkable, make it like its own little city; right? It was going to have all
of these things integrated on these uses integrated. But as the applicant testified at the
last hearing, you can still do that horizontally, you don't necessarily need to go vertically.
So, that's -- again that's part of your purview tonight. Do you -- but I just want to at least
let you know that this plan -- this is why staff has made the alternative recommendations
to go commercial and medium high density residential and deviate from those land
uses, because while the plan has some of those elements it doesn't have all of them
and that's kind of in the consistent theme out in Ten Mile area. We have gotten some
things, but we haven't gotten all the things and -- and rightfully so. The other
component of that is the transportation elements -- or at least in the plan. The plan did
contemplate a road network of collector streets and local streets and I will just -- and
that's the -- the graphic here on the right. So, we did -- with all of those land uses that
we planned out there as part of that public hearing process and adoption of the plan, we
set forth a transportation foundation for the area. The applicant is -- is demonstrating
compliance with that. So, I don't want to mislead you that they are not. The difficulty is
and what you are seeing that kind of the discussion in the ACHD staff report is, you
know, those assumptions and those road sections were designed for specific land uses
or more employment or that things would be more self-contained and not draw people
from the outer areas to drive to the area. So, that's why you are seeing a lot of the
impacts on the road is because although we have a lot of residential in the area where
we have supported that, some of the uses that are going in there, for example, a
Scheels, although it provides employment it still draws a lot of traffic to it and that's
where the plan doesn't contemplate it. It contemplates trip capture within itself, not from
the outside areas as much. So, that's why you are seeing some of the roadways out
there with these — this level of service F or why ACHD in their staff reports are saying do
a traffic warrant analysis, do a roundabout analysis, because we got to know when you
are going to trigger these requirements. At least I want to -- and so this slide here goes
to what we are looking for and how it functions. So, I would mention to the Council,
although it was late, ITD has requested that the developer submit a traffic impact study.
I think all of the Council can agree and even the applicant can agree that the Ten Mile
Interchange gets very exact over capacity. A lot of that has to do with these -- the
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landscape island that we have near the interchange. I have been in several meetings
over the years discussing about removing that landscaping that the city currently
maintains in order to allow more stacking on that interchange so cars can go left onto
the interstate. So, that is one way you can mitigate some of those things and we did
encourage the applicant to continue to have dialogue with ITD to try to fix those issues.
I would also mention to the -- the Council that we started this process with the applicant
16 months ago and we have had a series of meetings. I even worked with the
economic development administrator try to -- with the applicant, ITD, ACHD and the city,
we all wanted to partner on a regional traffic study to try to understand how this would
impact State Highway 16. How does it work if we had the Linder Road overpass? How
does it improve the Meridian Road overpass? We wanted to take a broader -- a more
cumulative approach to studying this area and we wanted to understand if we could do
a STARS agreement like we did at The Village to try to get some of those improvements
ahead of time before all the development came on. Unfortunately, that never came to
fruition and, then, ITD has lost a lot of their staff as well. So, a lot of those
conversations we were having with those employees are no longer there and so we had
to start at ground zero and the applicant understood that, although they tried to make
their -- their best effort going forward. So, ultimately, if you had a chance to look at AC -
Cavener: So, I don't mean to -- but I don't want to let that point go past. There was a --
it sounded like a collective effort from the city, the applicant and the highway district to
do a regional traffic impact study.
Parsons: That is correct.
Cavener: So, I didn't -- I didn't fully understand any -- I'm not that bright. So, how come
it didn't happen then?
Parsons: Again just staff turnover. Timing. It was — again it would take us coming to
you and asking you for additional dollars to see if the Council even wanted to participate
in something like that. It's something that we historically don't do or haven't done. It
was a new concept that we were trying to get. We wanted to get ahead of some of
these issues before the application came before you and it is very complex as you
know. And, again, it just never happened. I did have several conversations with ACHD
whether or not a traffic study would be required. They -- they wanted a definite answer
from the city and we never gave them one on the traffic study, because at the time we
weren't sure if we were going to find consistency with the plan and we didn't need one
or if this would be such a significant change from the deviation from the plan that it
would require one, but what I can tell you is I did meet with ACHD staff and we went
through this project and we talked about how the roads — the collector roads were being
extended consistent with the plan. So we knew that. And, then, some of these things
that you saw in the ACHD staff reports were things that would have been addressed in a
traffic study. So, staff felt comfortable that although we didn't get an official traffic study,
all the things that you are seeing in ACHD's staff report with this project would have
been discussed or -- or identified in a traffic study. So, although you didn't get a true
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traffic study, you know, it's -- I think you have gotten the information that we need.
When -- when are the timing for the signals? When do we improve the Ten Mile
intersection. So, again, Ten Mile Road and Franklin Roads are built out. So, at level of
service F it's going to be that way for a while and that's something that the Council will
have to determine if that's -- you want to add -- contribute more to that going forward. I
don't know how you mitigate something that's already built to its ultimate build out. And,
then, as you know, there is -- staff had asked for a phasing plan on this project,
because, again, that is critical to us in our world because we need to know when certain
infrastructure improvements are needed, what is going to trigger those improvements to
those roadways, meaning the signals at Black Cat and Grand Mogul. The
improvements at the intersection of Ten Mile and Grand Mogul. Umbria Hills and the
Franklin Interchange — or intersection -- all of those will require signals at some point in
the future and, then, you can see in ACHD's staff report they have requested that
happen with first phase. So, they want questions -- those -- those questions answered
as well to see what the mitigation will be. So, again, I think the applicant's aware of that.
They have met with ACHD multiple times, too, and they are aware of those
requirements going forward. But, again, I wanted you guys to at least be aware of some
of those conversations and, then, highlight some of those requirements that ACHD is
requiring, because it is very important. If I can go back to my land use, if you can see
the other developments in the area, we have Black Cat industrial, which is on the east
side of Black Cat. That's all -- that's been approved -- conceptually approved for
possibly a million square feet of industrial or flex space uses and you can see Black
Cat's not expected to be widened until 2036 to 2040. That's why that light and that --
those intersection improvements are going to be critical and that's why ACHD has said
we need to understand that. Now, to the applicant's credit they are extending a mile of
collector road into this development. So, they are going to connect from Black Cat -- or
Ten Mile all the way through to Black Cat as part of their phase one plans and that will
be a critical connection for everything that is occurring in this area. Council just recently
approved the Avani development which is that R-8 just near the Black -- the same
intersection just right across the street from Black Cat industrial. South of that is
Farmstone, 389,000 square feet of nonresidential and, then, Meridian 118, which is also
part of this project, but owned by a different developer, was approved with 552
apartments. So, you can see with all of the things that are happening in this area it's --
all of these impacts are just not on this development, it's all of these other ones that will
also contribute to that -- and that's why it's critical from staff's perspective that -- and
what Council -- a letter from Council is we need to understand or look at phasing and
understand how this will all work, because it will be very very critical moving forward. I
would also mention to Council that the applicant has a lot of various approvals in with
the city already for the extension of these roadways, the sewer and water and trying to
coordinate all that with such a complex project has been challenging for us and we are
-- we are getting our hands around it. I actually have a meeting next week to get a
spreadsheet together. We are going to schedule a series of meetings with the applicant
and make sure that we get everything dialed in before we can get ready to issue
building permits for anything out here, because, again, we need to understand those
impacts. So, anyways, that's kind of a long about way to say, you know, I -- although
applicant is here with a project I think it's important that we discuss a lot of these things
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September 24,2024
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tonight, meaning transportation, that phasing and help them answer some of those
questions that you asked them to bring forth to you as well last time. So, I will go ahead
and conclude my comments for this evening and stand for any questions the Council
may have.
Cavener: Thank you, Mr. Parsons. Council, questions?
Strader: Council President Cavener?
Cavener: Council Member Strader.
Strader: Thank you. Thank you, Bill. A question for you. So, it looks like we are sitting
at 27 percent nonresidential uses in Ten Mile versus 48 percent target. Obviously that
has been a challenge for us in a lot of these areas where we are trying to see more
commercial and industrial. A question for you. Taking into account these other projects
that have not yet come to fruition -- so, the Black Cat industrial, the Avani, the
Farmstone, is that -- is that kind of 27 percent pro forma to include those or once you
include those what percentage does it look like?
Parsons: Yeah. Mr. President, Vice-Chair Strader, I -- I don't have that information for
you tonight, but you can see based on the square footages that the applicant's doing
and based on those others here, it's definitely going to help those numbers or increase
that. But they do also have residential as part of their plan. But they are committed to
staying to that 15 units or less to the acre, which is contemplated. So, yes, you could
get townhomes, some higher density there. It's -- I think -- I believe Sonya had
somewhere between 250 and 400 dwelling units if I remember correctly. So, you could
add that to the mix as well. But, certainly, happy to -- to encourage some of those
numbers and -- and get that information to you if -- if you want me to.
Strader: Council President?
Cavener: Please.
Strader: Yeah. No, I -- I was sort of just curious. So, the 27 percent, just to walk me
through -- the 27 percent, right, that was based on our 2022 land use analysis. So -- so,
sort of to be fair to this, which would be a lot of work to try to update and so I'm not
asking you to just do that on the fly, but just intuitively based on what you know of these
projects and this project, do you feel like we are going to be coming closer to that 48
percent when all of those changes are kind of said and done? Not sure no visibility or
it's going to get worse? I guess like give me a direction.
Parsons: Mr. President, Members of the Council, it's -- it's hard to say. As I mentioned
to you it's based on land use. So, if you were to ask me if they had -- if it's all retail,
again, the -- a lot of -- it really comes down to the land use and the type of uses we
were wanting there. If you looked at our staff report we were hopeful for more
employment. So, again, more Silverstone type developments or El Dorado with the
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September 24,2024
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three, four, five, six story employment buildings, which this can have some of that, it --
it's showing as having some of that. That's some of the land use plan that the applicant
showed you -- if I can get there for you. So, they have -- kind of gave you an area one,
area two, area three and so this could definitely get intensified more in the future.
don't -- but in this scenario, yes, I would say you are going to add to that
nonresidential --
Strader: Okay.
Strader: -- total. That's -- it's inevitable. You can see how much they have planned
here for -- area two and three are quite a bit larger than one and, then, also don't forget
that this was part of the Meridian 118 site that will be industrial as well and the farm
zones adjacent to that. So, yes, along that interstate corridor you would definitely be
increasing that nonresidential square footage in the area. What that amount will be in
the future we don't know, but the applicant did propose some square footages on their
concept plan that was submitted with their application. So, I -- again, their -- their vision
is having some of those employment offices -- employment uses out there. Again, they
don't have anyone yet, but that's part of it and that's why you see that on Area Three
here.
Strader: Thanks, Bill.
Parsons: You are welcome.
Overton: Council President?
Cavener: Councilman Overton.
Overton: Bill, just so I'm clear, so the ACHD study at 33 pages is pretty extensive.
There is quite a few notations in here of things that they request that the applicant does.
What I want to know before we get the applicant up is -- is planning in agreement with
what ACHD has put in their report on this area?
Parsons: Mr. President, Members of the Council, those are the -- what Mindy has in her
report are the items that we discussed that she would have in a report. So, I would say,
yes, that's what we talked about and I said, yes, we would appreciate that information in
your report if we are not going to require a traffic study, because we need to understand
those impacts.
Overton: Council President, follow up?
Cavener: Councilman Overton.
Overton: The glaring thing I kept highlighting in here was the fact that there wasn't a
traffic study just because of the number of trips daily that would be generated. If it was
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September 24,2024
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required what kind of -- I don't know about cost so much as time would it take to get that
done?
Parsons: Mr. President, Members of the Council, I don't have an estimated time frame.
The applicant would probably be the best one to -- to -- to share that information with
you. They know the consultants are stretched out there and -- and time commitment.
So, it would have been a significant amount of time, three to four months I would -- I
would estimate is what we have heard on average and that's why, again, we have
elected to kind of -- what would be -- what are some of the impacts and include that in a
staff report and that's what ACHD has done. The other thing to mention to the Council
as well is that although back in 2007 the reason why a lot of times in the Ten Mile area
they ask us if -- if it's consistent with the plan is because back in 2007 a traffic study was
done that studied this area before all the land uses. It was -- it was based on the
assumption of these land uses and that's why you see the road network and all of the
street typologies and street sections that we have in the plan because that's what the
traffic study looked at and that's how we -- we vetted that and came up with that grid --
that layout that I showed you in the plan. So, that is -- that traffic study did that -- create
it. Then, again, this is only the north side of the interstate; right? It's not the south side.
That's also included. But, again, you get the point. The idea is that, again, if we found it
consistent they are going to like -- we are going to just default to that existing traffic
study in 2007 and -- and we are going to be good. But, again, it all comes down to land
uses, if we are changing that -- if we are changing the comp plan and we are making
different assumptions and adding more retail where employment could have been or if
employment -- if it was intended to get those -- capture those trips within the local street
network and not from outside activity, that does have a different impact on the
transportation system. So, again, it's -- it's always difficult when you try to get it -- you
put a plan in place, but you don't really have any users, it's really when you get down to
zoning and you get down to this point in the -- the process it's like how is it all going to
work and that's kind of where we are at tonight. It's like does this all work? Based on
some of the feedback from ACHD and ITT it looks like there is some -- some additional
information they want. They want to see it get proved up and when -- the amount of
trips -- when those things will be required. So, the applicant will continue to work with
those two agencies. But, again, I think ACHD is the same -- same boat we are, they --
they want that information and -- and, again, that comes down to phasing. When can
we get -- when can we expect the timing for these things, because it -- it will be critical.
The one important element that I like that the applicant may also touch upon is the
underpass that connects to Ten Mile Crossing. To me that will be a critical connection,
because people won't need to go across Ten Mile to get to that other side of that
employment and those -- those services, they can actually go around Ten Mile -- you
know, go underneath the over -- the interchange and, then, get to that other side and
get access over there. So, again, that's going -- I know I'm kind of preaching to the
choir, I apologize, but, again, timing, phasing is all critical and that's why we had asked
for that phasing plan for you this evening.
Overton: Council President?
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September 24,2024
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Cavener: Councilman Overton.
Overton: You know, I know we are doing a lot of talking about ACHD and their partner
in this program as we go forward this evening and I do believe we have Brooke Green
from ACHD remote, so if we have questions as we continue to go we can get that input.
Cavener: Council, any additional questions? Seeing none, invite the applicant up. Mr.
Wardle, again, thank you again for your smart suggestion last week to continue another
week. We really do appreciate it.
Wardle: Council President Cavener, my -- my pleasure. It's always -- always good to
come back to City Council, isn't it? So, we -- and Bill will pull it up here in just a second.
I have answers to your questions and we have reviewed an outline and I -- I want to
start, though, with the point we talked about last week, that the entirety of this property
was annexed and previously zoned. So, this is not an annexation where you are
making those determinations. Those evaluations were previously done. We are coming
to you with a master plan taking those five disparate parcels, bringing them together in a
cohesive whole. If we didn't do that each of the -- those five properties and property
owners could be coming in just with individual development applications and you won't
-- don't have this holistic look and I understand and respect ITD's job, they have a very
difficult job, but, to be honest, I have been telling ITD how we can fix a lot of these
issues in this community for 20 years and they don't work with the municipalities and
they don't work with ACHD on this interface between regional, statewide, interstate
traffic and how it affects locally. So, what I want to do tonight is go through what I -- I
grouped the topics that you gave me into five areas. Project timeline, transportation,
schools, parks, recreational uses and, then, design standards. Project timeline. I know
that when we talk about all of this acreage everybody automatically freaks out, because
we are talking about a big area, but we have to take into consideration how long it
actually takes to bring elements in and you will see how this works with the
transportation planning. But I want to talk about the improvements that are underway
and I appreciate staff's acknowledgement and recognition on the importance of that
through collector, which, to be honest, I don't have any idea what we name it. I have
seen it called ten different things, but it's -- it's the collector that runs from Ten Mile to
Black Cat. Early on we entered into an agreement with the property owners and
developers on the west side with frontage on Black Cat to extend that the full length and
worked with the property owners as we -- we own and control the Meridian 118 property,
but work with the Blacks with the other property here tonight to come up with that. So,
that collector is getting constructed first. You have all seen it, it's out there, we are
putting the utilities in and that collector will be delivered in spring of 2025. 1 mean we
are -- we are almost to the end of September, we have done a lot of work, but
realistically you are just not going to get a mile long collector paved. Now, when we
think about collectors there is one collector in this city that I don't think we recognize its
actual benefit and that's Records. Runs parallel to Eagle Road and provides you the
connection on Ustick and as a former resident of Meridian when I helped get a bunch of
Improvements done on Records Road, I -- I utilized Records Road, because that keeps
your local trip -- that keeps your trips to The Village, to Kleiner Park off of Eagle Road
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September 24,2024
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and as we look through our community we have always had the discussion with ACHD
and with the various municipalities, what do collectors look like and we know that our
residential collectors we don't want people using for through traffic, but commercial
collectors we do and so what this roadway does -- and it's the first road that we are
building and it's a mile worth of road that these three development -- four development
groups have come together to jointly build, because they recognize the importance of it.
Then the second element will be the connection of Umbria to the north and, then, to the
south and the 118 plat, the purple segment that you see there, we will build that element
as part of the Meridian 118 Vanguard Village parcel. That is a collector. And, then, that
will at some point connect over to Ten Mile Crossing with the infrastructure that was
originally built. So, with the forethought that everybody had, recognizing the desired
intensity of development at Ten Mile Crossing and on this side of the road as well, we
have mechanisms in place so that local Meridian residents that are shopping, working,
doing whatever in these developments will not have to access Ten Mile Road. They can
do it from the connection to the collectors east of Ten Mile Crossing and to the west of
us on Black Cat. Now, the question was posed to us, you know, what improvement --
what -- what uses are coming. So, I shared with you that we do have under contract for
the 118 property several uses and the first two uses that are going to occur are light
industrial, light industrial warehousing, flex-type space that Adler Group is bringing in on
the western portion -- the western 20 acres that we have of that, as well as a daycare
facility that we have been working with that will be located there. Those are the first two
farthest along in terms of conditional use permits and permitting. We, then, have under
contract a hospitality user that's proposed two hotels and a recreation facility user. Now,
when do those move forward? Well, having negotiated those contracts and the six plus
months that it takes for us to negotiate those contracts and, then, the years' worth of
due diligence that happens and you back into those, those two users at the earliest are
probably summer of 2026 for a hotel operator out there at the absolute earliest and
sometime in 2027 for the recreational use operator. So, those are the first four uses.
You are -- you are thinking about maybe 200,000 square feet of flex space, a large
daycare facility, some hotels, a potential recreation user and I know what everybody
always wants to know is, well, when is the retail coming? Well, the absolute earliest that
you would see any of the retail, which, then, starts to implicate those concerns about is
this a regional draw, is this a local draw, the absolute earliest would be the first quarter
of 2027 and, to be honest, I don't think my people are realistic with their timing, because
let's look at what it's taken for us to do the 118, go from a preliminary plat to a final plat
and all of that. We are a year. And here we are still going to have to come back when
we are done with this, if you approve the applications in front of you, we still have to
execute the development agreement and finalize the development agreement. Your
counsel and I are going to take months -- three, four months on that probably. We still
have to do the zoning ordinance amendments. That's still a process we -- we are going
through of this and it's sequential, but this is not 200 acres you approve tonight and we
are pulling permits next week. This very much is when we look at Ten Mile Crossing,
which is the first phase of Ten Mile Crossing with the office buildings is probably 80
percent done after what? After eight years. We look at Eagle View Landing, which we
have worked on for seven years. Eagle View Landing is 50 percent done after seven
years. The beauty here is you get to see how all of this comes together on the front
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September 24,2024
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end. So, when we talk now about transportation -- let's talk about the elements and let's
talk about timing. The purpose of a traffic study is to evaluate and identify what
mitigation measures are needed in light of fundamental changes in a land use situation
where we are going from unannexed, unzoned property to something else. Now -- and
we will get to the land use a little bit further, but are we proposing slightly more
residential than what is already zoned? Yes. We are proposing an additional nine
acres of residential zoning at that 15 unit to the eight to 12 -- either R-15 or TN-C. So,
you take the nine, you multiply it by eight -- we are talking maybe 70 additional units.
When we look at the overall site this is an intensive commercial unit and commercial
development. Now, what's the consequence of that? Well, the residential
developments that you have already approved in this area they need commercial
services. They need the medical office. They need the retail. They need those things.
Because where are they going now? They are either going to Ten Mile Road for the
little bit of retail that we have there now. We will have more in the future. And, then, on
over to Meridian Road or they are going out Franklin back towards Nampa or Cherry --
the Cherry Lane area. When we create that connectivity we minimize those types of
trips and so that's why, you know, yes, ACHD said there is nothing programmed for Ten
Mile. Why is there nothing programmed for Ten Mile? Because it's totally built out and
the interchange has been constructed. But what is IT -- ACHD telling us? We need to
construct the collector system, which we are. We need to do signal warrants and those
signal warrants will be triggered as we do plats, because we obviously can't build
anything here until we have platted these lots. So that's where they do it. On this map
you see the three yellow stars, those are the signal warrants where ACHD wants us to
test stuff in the future and build when warranted signalized intersections at those
locations. The orange is the one that we have already committed to as part of the 118
and enhancing that with Ten Mile Crossing to the east. So, let's -- those are the
developer elements. We have the commercial collectors. We have the signal
improvements. We have the additional signals when it's warranted on Black Cat. You
will see some developer -- additional developments by other developers, because we
don't front on Black Cat, but you have approved other applications that will have
improvements on Black Cat and they have those same warrant requirements. If they
push it over the need for a signal before we do somebody's going to have to do that.
So, those are the elements that we implement and how we do it. Now, let's look at
ACHD's plan. ACHD, as I indicated, has development improvements on Black Cat with
the various applications that are coming in. We also have the CIP and their work plan.
Now, I know that there is some concern that they are -- you know, that -- and -- and Bill
addressed it that the segment south of Franklin on Black Cat is not programmed in the
near five year period. It is more of a ten year period. But when we look at the actual
five year work plan and ACHD's updating the five year work plan tomorrow night and
approving it, so I have pieces here from the current one and the -- and the coming one,
you do see there is the star, that's yellow, that's where the project is, but those
improvements over on Linder are programmed to occur in that 2025, '26, '27 horizon,
the time period that it will take for us to start seeing the impact from our improvements
and you will also see that, you know, in the current Ten Mile -- in the current Linder plan
they have the engineering and the right-of-way acquisition and in the fourth coming one
the intention is to add construction in '26, '27. Why is that important? Well, the purpose
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September 24,2024
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of that Linder connection is to provide an additional alternative connection for Meridian
residents traveling north-south not having to go out to the interchanges and reducing,
then, the traffic on Meridian and Ten Mile, which as we know, is what we saw when the
Locust Grove overpass finally was constructed many years ago, that it eliminated some
trips that were going out to Eagle Road as the closest way to get across the interstate.
Now, longer term, yes, Black Cat and Franklin we see in those improvements to the
north of that intersection -- the west of that intersection are programmed, but to the
south that is -- that is still out there. It's in the Capital Improvement Plan, but it's not yet
programmed. So, let's talk about ITD and what the timing is, because State Highway 16
as we know is -- is -- it has been a blessing and a curse, that we have -- we have now
gone through essentially two recessions with this -- with this project. We did the -- the
first part in the great recession and the -- the post 9/11 recession and now we are -- we
are on to the next part and we made a mistake -- we made a mistake doing that as part
of a project and not a whole project. Why did we make that mistake? Well, it's a
mistake because you are taking all of those vehicles off of Highway 44, off of Highway
16, dumping them on 20-26 and we, then, improved Ten Mile Road with an interchange.
So, all of that traffic that looks to go east on the Interstate we know is traveling that
segment of Chinden and, then, on down Ten Mile Road and that's why we see the level
of service F in the p.m. peak hour. Well, Highway 16, by making that connection, will
greatly improve that and we know that the first phase of Highway 16, which will be open
and permit its use all the way from Highway 20-26 to the interstate will occur sometime
in 2026. Now, in the future ITD will be making some additional improvements. They will
be building some additional -- additional segments, some additional overpasses to
address that, but it will open in 2026. So, the next question -- and we can come back to
that. The next question just is as we think about what the transportation system is -- I --
I drew you these maps, because they are just kind of the traffic sheds. The traffic shed
we see today takes all of that state highway regional traffic and puts it on Ten Mile. Our
local traffic all gets put on to Ten Mile. But between now and the time we start actually
building you are going to see that a lot of that local traffic will no longer have to come to
Ten Mile. That regional traffic will not have to come to Ten Mile. So --
Cavener: Mr. Wardle, your time has expired --
Wardle: And we have only covered two --
Cavener: We have a question or two, so I'm going to at least open the floor for
questions if Council have additional questions of the applicant about anything they have
or have not covered that you have an interest in.
Strader: Council President?
Cavener: Council Member Strader.
Cavener: Yeah. I think it would be great to -- I think you got most of your points about
transportation out there. I think if you want to touch on schools that would be fantastic.
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September 24,2024
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Wardle: So, as indicated, we have requested, essentially, an additional nine acres of
multi-family. Everything that you see there west of that curved road, Umbria Hills Drive,
is already zoned TN-C, already contemplates residential. We did that because we feel
it's appropriate to have a -- a better buffer, a better transition and it's more consistent
with -- we think with the area that the -- the plan comprehended for a mixed-use -- with
both mixed-use residential, mixed-use commercial, it contemplates more. But at the
acreage, with the density that's permitted, at most you are going to see 400 units. Per
the West Ada School District's analysis, as confirmed by your staff, who have done it as
well, that potentially generates 53 additional students. Now, Chaparral Elementary is
the most critical and -- and certainly at the highest when we look at those -- those other
ones there. The thing about this is this residential element is going to require
significantly more and future approvals depending on whether you designate it as TN-C
or you designate it as R-15 a developer -- and we are not a group that does this type.
We are -- we are going to have a development partner -- somebody else is going to
come in and be presenting that to you at some point in the future. But for a 200 acre
application we are talking about 50 students and we are talking about 50 students who
will come to our West Ada School District from a development that because it is so
intensively commercial you -- and because we don't have exemptions on the
commercial side of things, this project is going to more than fund the proportionate
share allocable to it. So, when we think about those 53 students -- I mean that's based
upon the analysis that we have, we recognize that Chaparral is the one that's closest to
full. It's not beyond where we see and we see the West Ada School District has
identified, you know, their standard conditions here and we think that as you look at the
time that it's going to take to develop this with the commercial elements that that is not a
concern. The -- the concern over density that you have heard and -- and more housing
from the public I think just doesn't reflect what's actually been proposed. We are not
talking additional single family residences that are going to have a higher number of
children and we are -- we are focused on what is already entitled and what's
contemplated. So, yes, out of 200 acres we have requested an additional nine be
rezoned from the C-C zone to the TN-C and, you know, staff has indicated an R-15
would be their preferred zone. We are ambivalent, because the densities get you to the
same place and so do the same style.
Cavener: Council, any additional questions?
Whitlock: Council President?
Cavener: Council Member Whitlock.
Whitlock: Could you also just touch on the -- the parks and -- right next to Chaparral
you have got Fuller Park and that there was some concerns from the public about the
impacts there.
Wardle: Okay. So, as we indicated, you know, the -- the -- the point was raised last
week I believe by you Council Member Whitlock, you know, what is the activity space
within this more dense residential element going to look like? And to that -- I don't know.
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September 24,2024
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1 don't have a site plan for you. We are not here with a conditional use permit, but we
can tell you a couple things. First of all, that element and what you see there in green --
we have not fully tiled the Purdam Drain. Why? Because there is the recognition that
with the right of way that goes with the Purdam Drain that is an appropriate place for us
to either evaluate using it as an amenity or using it as park space. So, that's what that
green area that you see there is the Purdam Drain, 85 feet wide, hundred -- 1 ,500 feet
long. So, that's an area that you are not going to be building on top of. We also
recognize that under your current code there are very specific requirements about the
amount of active space that's available and the amenities and we don't need to go into
that, because somebody else who likes doing that will be back either to Planning and
Zoning or you to deal with that in the future. As to the rest of the project staff hit on this
previously and showed you this slide, but when we look at the commercial piece -- and
this is just the commercial piece that's not the 118, 15 percent is required to be qualified
open space, but we are providing 27 percent in that area. Now, there are a couple other
elements that are not fully included in that analysis, because they are in the 118
approval and what is that? Well, I would direct your attention to the Williams Pipeline,
which is that line that slashes down through the -- the property on the lower center. The
Williams Pipeline parcel is a common parcel on the 118 Vanguard Village plat that will
be a common lot that's 2.88 acres and under your code we have to improve a 50 foot
buffer with pathway along the Interstate. So, you have those significant facilities and,
actually, those are both the -- the plans for those are included with the preliminary plat
that those will be constructed now. So, I recognize that there is not a Storey Park
included in this project. There is -- there is not that type of park facility, but I have spent
time reviewing, you know, your park master plan and this area doesn't contemplate that
type of community park, I think in part because of the significant amount of commercial
and industrial use that's planned in the Black Cat area. So, will there need to be play
areas and active areas in the residential elements? Absolutely. If your Parks
Department did think that this was an appropriate location for some type of community
park -- I mean we can have that conversation, but I think the concerns that were
articulated by members of the public last week didn't appreciate the limited scope and
the nature of the residential elements and certainly didn't -- didn't appreciate the
significant amount of -- of light industrial commercial and industrial property west of
Black Cat. So, this is an area that probably is underserved with park space, but the
locations for those parks really should have been closer to Franklin Road where the
residences are. Because it doesn't make a lot of sense to put those down, you know,
next to the freeway farther away and with those more intensive commercial uses. So,
we think it meets all of those requirements. The concerns about the multi-family will be
addressed in the future when that application comes forward with a specific design and
we think that the pathway elements that are proposed here again integrate with the
pathway improvements to the east on -- on Ten Mile Crossing. So, you are going to end
up with -- you know -- well, when we are done here and, then, when the Corey Barton
project comes in you will have almost a mile and a three-quarters of pathway between
Ten Mile Crossing and the district.
Taylor: Mr. President?
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September 24,2024
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Cavener: Council Member Taylor.
Taylor: Mr. Wardle, on this slide that's up the -- near the top there is the red outlined
area kind of where your residential is proposed, what you are suggesting if I'm just
tracking it correctly is that hard to define what that may look like depending on what the
development proposal actually is when your development partners or whoever is
coming to develop the residential; is that correct?
Wardle: Correct. But with the caveat that -- that -- that red piece up top, that is the
Purdam Drain right of way. So, you are going to have green space of some type in that
area.
Taylor: Okay. And, Mr. President, quick follow up? I -- I wrote down when you were
talking at the beginning of your presentation when you talked about adding nine -- nine
acres of residential. I wrote down maybe 70 units. I thought that was what I heard you
say. And, then, just a second ago you said at most 400 units. I might be
misunderstanding where you are talking about what. So, could you just tell me kind of
holistically what you -- you think may be developed there with the residential? Are we
talking 70 units on top of what's allowed or -- and, then, 400 is the total maximum? Is
that -- am I understanding that right?
Wardle: Mr. President, Council Member Taylor, yes, you are. It's considering that right,
that we are -- we are talking about 30 -- 34 acres at eight units to the acre where -- eight
plus units to the acre, which are going to put you at 400. Now, right now we have
approximately 24 acres that are already zoned TN-C at that density and what we have
requested is the additional nine. So, the additional nine is where you get the 70 from.
So, it would be 400 minus 70 would be the upper limit if -- if that sliver east of Umbria
were not rezoned.
Overton: Mr. President?
Cavener: Yes, Council Member Overton.
Overton: Mr. Wardle, I want to make sure that I understand that you are in compliance
-- in agreement with the ACHD study when they request that you will work with them on
all of the signal analysis, roundabout analysis, as this whole thing proceeds. Is there
any part of it that you are not in agreement with?
Wardle: Council President, Council Member Overton, no, we agree with the ACHD staff
report and we support it and we are -- we are fine with signal warrants, because those
are the types of things that we expect in -- in the types of developments in fluid areas.
So, we appreciate ACHD's work on this. ACHD has been here with your staff, with us
for the 16 months that we have pulled these five parcels together. So, yes, we support
the staff report.
Overton: Thank you.
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September 24,2024
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Taylor: Mr. President?
Cavener: Council Member Taylor.
Taylor: Just another question on the residential. Can you just kind of walk me through
again why you are wanting to propose a little bit more residential than maybe previously
contemplated versus the employment? Is that just sort of looking at the market
conditions, making this pencil out or are there other reasons? If you could just walk me
through that a little bit.
Wardle: Sure. Council President, Council Member Taylor, so this is the residential
parcel. When you look at the current Ten Mile plan, basically everything north of the
Purdam Drain is designated as mixed-use residential. Now, that mixed-use residential
band is north of the Purdam Drain, but what got zoned as TN-C for commercial is that --
essentially that portion west of Umbria, that -- that main north-south drive there. So, as
we looked at this, to be honest, I wouldn't say it's driven by market conditions, because I
don't think anybody in their right mind would be doing additional multi-family right now.
It was more a planning consideration that as we look at the already zoned C-C, retail
general commercial type property that's to the east, that it makes sense to have a buffer
and a more dense multi-family product probably made sense as the buffer right there,
so that you do something with the townhouses as depicted here or those elements as
you get to the -- the less dense single family residential property to the north and the --
the medium density to the -- the west. So, why did we do it? We did it because we felt
from a planning perspective it provided additional -- additional integration and
separation from the single family to the -- the multi-family to the retail and, you know, it
-- I don't think our design guys necessarily liked the abruptness of having a residential
use on one side of a collector and a -- and retail immediately on the other side. I think
they felt that that would encourage it to function through Umbria like a Records as
opposed to a little more residential and residential serving. So, that's -- that's the
rationale. Again, it's -- it is nine acres and out of the 200 acres it's part of the
application. It's one of those where we can work with it, we can work without it, it's just
a recognition that as we have worked to try to keep the rough area of the land use map
designations, as we reorient those to implementation, that we wanted to keep those
roughly the same and so that's part of it, too, is the direction I gave from a legal
perspective is we know we need to reallocate and move some of these land use
designations to support zoning based upon where the collectors actually are going to
get constructed, but we don't want to change the overall ratio of the mixed-use
residential, mixed-use commercial, high employment, because that's what all of the
traffic analysis has been done. That's what the planning's been done previously. I
really -- you know, the -- the nine acres has caused more conversation on stuff related
to this application than I ever anticipated.
Taylor: Mr. President, I would like you to address the design standards, because that
was a question I had, because I'm thinking about your previous application we had a
few months ago in this area where we had a long discussion about design standards
and were they outdated. However, recognize that such a large thing -- instead of the
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September 24,2024
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city kind of deciding what do we want to see, we are almost allowing you to decide what
those design standards are if we are to --
Wardle: Sure.
Taylor: -- I would like to hear --
Wardle: Yeah. So, I will -- I will address that really briefly. As staff indicated you have --
you have gone through this exercise before with the integration of the three
development agreements across Ten Mile at Ten Mile Crossing and the Ten Mile plan
contemplated that for larger master planned areas within the Ten Mile plan that -- that
the private sector should be encouraged to come forward with what their vision is. So,
we looked at what we know well with our retail team and with our office team, we looked
at lessons to be learned from Ten Mile Crossing and, you know, the Ten Mile center
development plan and design guidelines were put together and, to be honest, since my
dad worked extensively on that, I told my guys to plagiarize it. I said just go look and
see how my dad did that because it makes our job much easier when your staff has a
model that works. So, our design team took that to heart and structurally went and said
-- and talked with staff about is it working at Ten Mile Crossing? What is the process?
How do we do it so that you are not having different processes. So from a process
perspective we have modeled what we learned from Ten Mile Center. From a design
perspective ours is a little bit different because the first thing that our team did is we
have put together -- and it's in the packet and I don't anticipate that you read it, but a 33
page narrative of what the standards are and what the goals are that we are trying to
implement, as well as identifying how we take the elements of the Ten Mile plan and
actually put them into effect. So, this gets put into effect with the process that's spelled
out in the document. The development agreement gets recorded, it's integrated with it
and we now have a narrative that provides standards and directions to all future users in
a variety of design elements with specific analysis of how to implement it for uses. So,
don't think we have as many pictures as Ten Mile Center, because I think part of the
rationale is that we want to give -- describe for people what we want, have a mechanism
to review and approve it and, then, come forward. Now, one thing I'm really proud of
with this is I did search it and the word earth does not appear once. So, it gives us
much more flexibility if people want to be creative as to colors and materials. But here
is an example of the street frontage section. Identifying where we are going to do street
frontage is contemplated by the Ten Mile plan, examples that our team has used
elsewhere to guide people so that there is that flexibility, but, then, identify how we
implement that and the same with architectural standards. Again these are buildings
that we have either designed or worked on in various contexts and we are not trying to
replicate the standards, the actual standards of what things look like are not what's
across the street at Ten Mile Center, but the process by which we get there will be very
similar and I think it is workable for your staff, because it -- it makes sure that any user
knows exactly what they have to do before they come pull the CZC.
Cavener: Council, any additional questions?
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September 24,2024
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Whitlock: Yeah.
Cavener: Council Member Whitlock.
Whitlock: Mr. Wardle, first thank you for responding to the questions and preparing this.
It's -- it's helped ease some of my concerns. I think I mentioned last week I live off of
Black Cat, so I come up Black Cat and Franklin and Ten Mile to get on the freeway and
go downtown to work every day and that Franklin-Ten Mile piece is -- takes almost as
long as getting on the freeway and getting downtown. I'm concerned about --
appreciate what you said about Highway 16 and the Linder overpass and that's eased
some of my concerns that it will disperse some of that traffic on Ten Mile, but at the
same time as we develop and backfill into this it will add more cars. So, I -- I just
wonder in the timeline and the phasing that you did talk about, if in '26 or '27 or '28 we
are going to find ourselves really at LOS F again or still with no improvements. The
other question I have for you again on the -- the -- the traffic lights -- again, if I try to
come home anytime between 4:00 and 6:00 o'clock at night I'm stacking on to 1-84 and
sitting on the freeway trying to get off onto Ten Mile to go north on Ten Mile, my concern
is if there is another traffic light at -- at Ten Mile Crossing that's going to stack even
further and cause more backup I believe coming off the freeway trying to go north. Can
you respond or talk to that?
Wardle: Council Member -- President, Council Member Whitlock, I think when we talk
about that signal you already have part of a signal there at that intersection. So, it's
about the improvement of the rest of it and the construction of the rest of it. I recognize
the concerns about Ten Mile Road. I recognize that ITD -- ITD probably should have
had some more forethought about what they did there, but there is not an immediate
solution and I do think -- and I appreciate staff, because the conversations that we have
had is, okay, how do we address stacking to get off of Ten Mile and onto the interstate?
How do we do that? So, the whole issue of signal warrants is enhanced signals do not
happen -- although that signal will happen as part of the 118 application and the plat,
just because that was part of the requirements and -- and it's already there, but signal
improvements for something we know that we have to address with -- with ACHD and
we have to be reflexive and responsive as to timing. I wish I had a better answer for
you, but I can't wave the magic wand and fix that and I don't want to seem like we don't
care, because people coming here are our customers, our clients, our -- our users and
their experience is important as well. We think with the mix of uses that we are trying to
put here that this is very much focused on being a neighborhood serving use, not a
regional commercial serving use and, obviously, Scheels is a very unique user across
the street. The types of uses that we are talking about or the types of neighborhood
serving retail and -- and type of office that we have done elsewhere. So, that's not a
good answer. I don't have a good answer for you. The answer I do have is that we all
have to work together and we have to recognize that the -- you know, if the landscape
island is part of the solution, then, yes, we will work on that with you and do it. Where
our discomfort with ITD is is once again ITD is at the party too late. I mean ITD — ITD
has known that these parcels have been zoned this way for years. ITD has known that
this is going to develop. It's consistent with your plan. ITD has known the importance of
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September 24,2024
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Linder overpass that you all have been trying to get ITD to focus on and cooperate with.
So I appreciate what ACHD has done and I recognize and I think -- I think the way that I
wrap this up is we are about implementing the Ten Mile plan. I think the Mayor said it
really well last week, that part of the reason that we haven't gone back and revisited all
the Ten Mile plan is there is very little still to be annexed. So, now it's about
implementation and implementing that plan means there are certain things we have to
do to get the functioning commercial collectors. There are certain things that we have
to do to get the impact fees that are going to pay and move some of these other items
farther up the schedule and I think Black Cat Road is a prime example of south of
Franklin to the interstate is a segment which with the development that's going on there
that segment in the next iteration of the CIP probably moves up much much higher,
because it becomes so critical to that north-south connectivity here in Meridian. So it's
-- we, unfortunately, live in an auto centric world and the way we solve that is we have
to make certain choices. Is the Ten Mile interchange -- you know, as we look back at
the Ten Mile plan, you know, the density of residential development probably isn't what
was necessarily contemplated and we have seen more residential, but the other thing is
that we -- we all get in our cars and we go to work. That is two trips a day. The other
seven trips a day that our households make are those local trips to run to school, run to
practice, run to those other things and, you know, for the longest time we talked about
trip capture. We are going to have trip capture. It's not really trip capture, it's trip
shortening and, to be honest, as a resident of Meridian my wife found that our trip -- her
trip shortened when we moved to Meridian in part because we waited to move to a
neighborhood where I had done the commercial development and she knew the
benefits to that and she was like this is great. I only have to drive, you know, five
minutes for what I used to have to drive 15 or 20. So, that's what we have to think
about. I don't have a good answer. I think we have to work on it collectively, but we
also have to recognize that his ship has largely sailed, because we have implemented a
plan by zoning and annexing properties that we now need to move forward with.
Strader: Council President?
Cavener: Council Woman Strader.
Strader: Thank you. Just a couple quick ones. Can you -- and I realize sort of a
sensitive topic. Can you talk a little bit more about your recreation user and more from
the concern — I am concerned about what that could be if that's going to become a
regional draw what -- what that could look like. I don't know if you could talk around it
generally, just kind of wanted to open that up, so you can weigh in on it.
Wardle: I don't think it's a regional draw. I think it's a recreation user that -- that focuses
on, you know, a neighborhood -- a neighborhood draw. I can't get real specific, but you
can see there that they contemplate a pool and a large -- a large facility and some
pickleball courts and it is a -- a private recreational operator.
Strader: Okay. Okay. And, then, just one more thing -- and I feel like, you know, some
of the challenges here -- you are correct. This was -- these properties were annexed;
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September 24,2024
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right. At the same time I think -- I think part of what is a little bit of a headwind in this
case is that you have a very large development. In many ways I am one of the types of
people that would rather have this broken into digestible pieces. I feel like because you
are coming out the gate already addressing a lot of high level concerns that sort of kept
you from maybe just focusing on the project, I do want to give you an opportunity to take
like maybe two minutes just to talk about the highlights and the things that you think this
adds to the community, just because I feel like the way that these hearings are playing
out it -- you kind of come across on the defensive by nature of the testimony and
everything. So, I do want to give you a chance to talk about the positives, because
think, you know, we are going to hear public testimony and -- yeah.
Wardle: Well, Council President, Council Member Strader, I'm going to take 15 seconds
and, then, I'm going to invite Tonn Peterson, because part of the problem here is being
the attorney you were in the weeds on the technical issues. So, as to your comment
about wanting to see it in digestible pieces, recognize that you will be seeing elements
in digestible pieces, that this is the development agreement for the entire site and, you
know, I have had criticisms of other big projects I brought in where people are like, well,
we would really like to see this piecemeal. Well, great. If you want to see it piecemeal
recognize that there are elements and things you don't get.
Strader: Council President Cavener?
Cavener: Please.
Strader: Yeah. I want all the things.
Wardle: Yeah.
Strader: So, like I actually want both.
Wardle: You want both. But it's like -- if -- if the five properties that are subject to these
five separate development agreements came in individually you do not get the collector
in phase one. There is federal mechanism — no mechanisms.
Strader: I don't think we want to start a debate, because I was a debater in college and
do love to engage in that, but let's not -- I -- I -- I love that we are getting a high level
view, which I think is appropriate for a planned development of this size. I just think, you
know, it couldn't hurt to have an effort to sell us on what does this add to the community;
right? Like just really high level. What does this add to the community positive for —
Wardle: Well, I'm going to invite Tonn to come up and -- and do that so that we are not
just dealing with --
Strader- Perfect.
Meridian City Council
September 24,2024
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Cavener: Tonn, you want to come up here and at least introduce your name and
address for the record, please. And the time is yours, sir.
Peterson: Yes. Thank you so much. Council, Tonn Peterson. 1144 South Silverstone
Way. I'm the chief development officer and legal counsel for -- for Ahlquist. I'm so
excited to answer that question, because I couldn't agree more. Council — Council
Woman Strader, this is — this is the moment I have been waiting for. It feels a little bit
like we have been on the defensive, just because of the nature of what we are dealing
with. Let me answer your question directly. So, if you can imagine we have been -- we
have been focused on nine additional acres of -- of residential, but this is a 200 acre
development that will be the -- the crowning jewel of everything we do and potentially for
Meridian. This is walkable retail and restaurant. This is a destination where you can in
a truly mixed-use environment you can work, live and play and we slapped that label on
everything; right? You see it all over. But this is it. This is the -- the example of it where
you can -- you can work there -- I want to just mention that moving from south up from
-- yeah. There we go. So, starting down along 1-84 -- just to put this into context, the
jobs and the employment we are bringing here -- and we mentioned this at P&Z. If you
can picture in your mind our Eagle View Landing development where Topgolf is, we will
have more square footage of office at this park than we will Eagle View Landing. This is
an office park where we are going to have opportunities to bring in employment. That
cannot be overstated. As -- and it won't be the same as Ten Mile Crossing, it won't be
the same as Eagle View Landing, it will have its own identity. But for context we will be
-- we will have more square footage -- over 500,000 square feet of office -- true office in
this development. Then as you are moving up, as you get closer to -- to Franklin you
will have medical office, you will have the -- the ancillary and much needed hotel and
hospitality that's going to really benefit those and that -- especially that medical office
community, when you think about going under the underpass and connecting with --
with Ten Mile Crossing and the medical offices are there, this is going to be a cohesive
medical office destination. Then — and we have called it Innovator, we have called it
Bellagio, it's the collector -- whatever that might be. Then you get truly into the
neighborhood retail-restaurant feel. Our partner on this development is EPC, the
principles of whom are the former CEO and his executive team with CenterCal, who
brought Meridian The Village. They are helping us. Their fingerprints are all over this —
to learn from what they did in the past. There is some good things. It's not just The
Village that they have done, but they have done those types of developments all over
the western United States and all of that they have learned and right before retirement
they said let's do it, taking all the lessons learned and do it right here. It's walkable. It's
scalable. It's -- it's entertainment oriented that a family can come down and spend the
time going through the -- the micro parks, the playgrounds, going to a movie, perhaps,
you know, eating at a restaurant, having entertainment and perhaps walking back to
their home. But whatever it is it's a neighborhood feel that's really really -- and -- and --
and I wish we could and I would probably -- Tom Ahlquist would come running in here if
I started telling you, you know, who we have under contract, but it is -- it is going to be
just the absolute paramount project that we have where the highest end retailers are
coming in and bringing it, so that we have -- we are not now going I think that solves the
traffic problem in part. We are not being on the road to go to -- to -- to The Village;
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September 24,2024
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right? On this side of Meridian you can stay here. We have a collector system that we
work through that goes from Ten Mile over to Black Cat. From Franklin you can take
Umbria down and go over to Ten Mile Crossing. So, I hope that provides some answer
to the question to really bring this to life of what this development is. There are nine
additional acres of residential, but that is largely, you know, shadowed by the -- the
almost 190 acres of true office -- medical office, hospitality, retail and restaurant that this
site will bring in, all of which has been zoned accordingly and we are mixing those
zones to fit. I will say in conclusion I cannot say how much we appreciate staff. I
cannot even -- there is no way to comprehend -- we have worked in countless meetings
with them for 18 months and we agree with the recommendation. It gets us to the same
place and we think that it's a great recommendation that they have made and we are
appreciative of them and we are appreciative of you for this process. I stand for
questions.
Cavener: Thank you. Council, any questions?
Taylor: Mr. President?
Cavener: Council Member Taylor.
Taylor: I have just one quick question. Speaking about the -- the office space and kind
of describing that. In the staff report it talks about desire to have a variety of flexible
spaces for small, local or start-up businesses, in addition to some of the larger regional
enterprise entities. Could you speak to like what your vision is to kind of encourage or
promote those types of environments or is it just -- you will make the office space, let
people lease it, along that lines. I'm just kind of curious the variety of office space that
you are envisioning being at this location.
Peterson: Yeah. Council Member Taylor, and -- and -- and, Council, wonderful
question, and the way to answer that is to look at our past history on that exact point. If
you look across the street or you drive down the street to Eagle View Landing you will
see we have big national tenants. You will also see Kiln, for example. You will see --
you will see the more kind of not mom and pop, but the -- the -- the grassroots. That's
what our buildings are filled with. There is this mix that our team has -- you know, long
before I joined -- I'm an attorney by trade and in the five years I have -- I have -- I have
learned some of this, but our team -- if you go just -- just across the street to Ten Mile
Crossing and look at the tenant mix that's what you will see. You need those big anchor
tenants to -- to bring the building online and, then, there is a deliberate path to bring in
the -- the local businesses, the startups and -- and, really, if you look at, you know,
Travis Hawkes and what he is doing across at -- at Ten Mile Crossing -- and that's a
perfect example and that's -- that's our bread and butter, that's our pathway, that's our
business model what you have just described.
Strader: Council President Cavener?
Cavener: Council Member Strader.
Meridian City Council
September 24,2024
Page 30 of 56
Strader: How -- how are you -- how will this be positioned relative to The Village? You
don't have to speak to that, I mean that's really your inner workings, but I'm curious.
And you don't have to talk about it, but if you want to -- I mean there is a concern about
whether this town could sort of support two large lifestyle centers, whatever you want to
call it, kind of in close proximity to one another. So, just curious how -- how this would
be positioned in light of that?
Peterson: Yeah. Thank you very much. So, Council, another really good question that
-- that I'm glad I have the opportunity to speak on. The -- the public comment last time
was a real good one. I probably would have made it myself. The question being are we
just building another Village? Is this Village 2.0? The answer is no. It has design
elements. It has functionality. Lessons learned from those who have done it before. It
has an integration component. In other words, those -- the -- the brainchilds of -- of who
were able to do The Village are able to say this is what it can look like, but by no means
are we trying to either compete with or -- or create an alternative -- a 2.0 version. That's
-- that's never been the -- the -- the design and I would -- I would be happy to — to tour
our site with anyone from the public to be able to demonstrate to them this is a much
larger site. It can't be that. By definition and by -- by default it simply can't be that. But
what it can do is it can provide integration, it can provide walkability, it can provide the
same family feel, the same safety environment where someone says I -- I live here and
now I don't -- I don't necessarily need to go to Nampa to Boise, because I have
restaurant, I have retail, I have -- you know, I have fitness alternatives that I can go to
and -- and so I hope that also answers your question, that we are -- we are taking the
best of what the lessons have been learned and incorporating that in a much different
and separate and distinct development. And -- and I would also add that the main -- the
main difference being that this is the anchor of it. I mean literally from a physical
standpoint the anchor of it along 1-84 is a business park and so it has by -- by just that
own definition a very distinct feel to it.
Cavener: Council, any additional questions? Tonn, I have got a couple. Maybe -- or
Mr. Wardle and, one, I appreciate your passion and enthusiasm for the project from both
of you. It's very infectious. But I think my question boils down to something that I
learned from staff this evening, which was that there was at least -- at least initially
contemplated a collaborative effort for a regional traffic impact plan -- traffic impact
study and I didn't get quite a clear answer from our staff as to why that -- why that
process never began, because I will speak to it. You touched on what I think is the big
crux for me. I actually think this is going to function like a -- like a mixed-use regional
location; right? You said it. Families are going to come down here. I think families not
just that living around the area, but families from across Meridian, across the valley,
Kuna, Star are going to be attracted to this area and so to me it's looking at because
this is now going to be the critical mass for traffic impacts across the valley, right there
at the -- you know, the -- at your location at 8:00 and 9:00 in the morning when people
are trying to get off the Interstate and there, again, at 5:00 and 6:00 when people are
trying to get home, so why not take a look at how this project would impact a more
regional approach to traffic, so that Council can feel confident when Mr. Wardle says,
hey, with Linder Road overpass you are going to see relief. With Highway 16 you are
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September 24,2024
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going to see relief. And how we contemplate that with kind of to your point some of the
big users are going to come two or three years from now. I don't anticipate traffic's
going to get any better necessarily in a measurable way in those two or three years, so
that -- I think that for me is my big hang up is trying to understand how the additional
transportation investments that the city and the county and the state are making, how
those are going to be impacted by this project -- not by this project as well as ongoing
users. I realize that's a lot to throw at you at 8:00 o'clock at night, but it's a piece that for
me I -- I continue to wrestle with.
Peterson: Thank you, Council President and Council. I think the most pertinent
question of the night has just been -- been asked and I -- and I can answer that. I
applaud ACHD. The reason that we don't need a traffic study is because we have their
staff report that probably gives us more than a traffic study would. ACHD has not
required a traffic study. What they have is they have given us a 30 page report that six
months from now when we get the first draft back and another six months from now
when we get it approved -- because that's how long it's taking -- we would have exactly
what we have now. Ten Mile has been built out. Franklin's been built out. The Ten Mile
-- excuse me -- the -- I can't see a thing without my glasses. Ten Mile has been built
out. Franklin has been built out. We have the Highway 16 overpass program, the
Linder over -- overpass program. We have a collector system that we have already
started on that would be in a traffic study. ACHD would say, hey, we need -- we need
connectivity between Ten Mile and Black Cat and that's why 18 months ago working
with staff and ACHD we said we will go procure that land now and we will start on it,
because we know it's going to be needed. We know that collector would be required
from Umbria to go -- excuse me -- from Franklin that taking Umbria down to Ten Mile
that would be required by ACHD and they would require the -- the signal warrant
analysis at all three -- analyses at all three locations. In other words, we have got it.
We have the entirety and the totality of it. I applaud -- and -- and as Mr. Wardle had
indicated, we are in full agreement with the staff report that was generated through 18
months worth of work with staff, ACHD and us. I would -- I would venture to tell you —
and based on the work that we have done with ACHD and other jurisdictions, both in
Meridian and Boise, more work has gone into this analysis than when we get a full
traffic study and — and I think the reason that ACHD has said we don't -- we don't
actually need a traffic study, because they had one, they have a base traffic study from
2007, that was a base model, so it's already been done and Mindy Wallace and others
have said, well, these are the things, A, B, C, the ones I just went through, that we are
going to need. So, we don't need another traffic study to tell us that, let's work on doing
those things and we said absolutely, let's do those things for the betterment of our
project and the betterment of the community.
Cavener: Tonn, I guess it's less about Ten Mile and Franklin and your collector, it's also
about the interstate and to me I think that -- that is an important piece. I mean that's
where I really mean that you guys are kind of Ground Zero for traffic and -- and I would
like to go back and look at the — at the staff report. I was kind of under the impression
that ACHD didn't require a traffic impact study, because there was maybe some
miscommunication with the highway district and the city about if we thought one was
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needed or not. So, that if we can -- if we need to take a break for it a little bit, too. I'm --
I'm fine. Those are just -- I just want to be up front with you. Those are the things that I
-- I'm struggling to be able to overcome.
Wardle: Council President Cavener, having been in those meetings -- and, again, I'm
not here to argue with you guys. I'm not here to debate. But the fact of the matter is
ACHD, ITD and your staff and us were there at the table 15, 16 months ago and where I
get frustrated with the public agencies in this valley is it is not for the private property
owners to drag them to the table, force them to cooperate, so we can go forward -- so
that we can move forward with the rights that we already have. Also what's
disconcerting and what is really aggravating at this site with respect to ITD is where was
ITD when you approved Ten Mile Center across the street doing the exact same thing,
integrating these development agreements and taking what had been approved
conceptually and turning them into one master plan? It's disconcerting that property
owners get pitted against each other to see who gets first to the market with their
building permit, so that they are the ones that don't have to do these things. So, I don't
disagree, Council Member Cavener, these are legitimate concerns, but we as the
developer, as the property owner, who have been working with your staff, it is not for us
to compel ITD to do its evaluation. It's not for us to compel ITD to think about its
interstate highways. It's not for us to compel you to stop development elsewhere.
Because the fact of the matter is with commercial uses what do we know? Commercial
uses are uses where people come to work, shop, do the other things. They serve the
houses. The reason that commercial always comes later is because you have to have
that massive housing and what we see over and over and over again in this valley is
municipalities approve housing and, then, when the commercial developers and
commercial users and commercial property owners come forward everybody rings their
hands and goes, oh, we have got to deal with traffic. We pay impact fees too. We are
going to contribute those impact fee dollars. We get exacted just like a residential
developer, but the fact of the matter is that that -- that main -- that main commercial
collector — if this were in north Meridian and we were talking about a director or a
producer, you know, those collectors in -- in Paramount or over -- some of the other
projects, those types of collectors would be much smaller. Those would be residential
collectors that have a narrower profile and don't have the stuff. So -- so, this is one
where we sat there in the meetings, we had the conversations and, you know, I'm not
just dumping on your staff and your city, because I have seen it elsewhere. I have seen
the city of Boise go, oh, ACHD, we need to do this. Great. We as the development
community will be here to help you, but you have to lead, because you can't put the cost
in terms of dollars and time back on developers who have — and property owners who
have property that's zoned. If it's annexed I get it. If it's not annexed I get it. You know,
hold off until you get there, but these were decisions that were made. So, if ITD needs
to stop parachuting in on individual single projects where they go, oh, you are going to
need that -- because the other thing, too, is that when we deal with these types of
development applications ITD's mitigation requirements are wholly inconsistent with
what you as a municipality recognize are constitutional limits of exactions and ACHD,
ITD has no qualms whatsoever of taking your traffic study and go, you know, you really
need to go do something off site that serves these, not people who are coming to you
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September 24,2024
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but solves their problems, so -- I mean Council President, I understand the concern,
because you get the phone calls, you get the phone calls, where he goes, oh, the traffic
is bad. But what is level — it is. But it's level of service F and if we want better than
level of service F, then, our agencies have -- and municipalities can't approve all the
projects you have approved. That's the consequence is that you -- when we come in
trying to implement the plans that municipalities adopt, we can't get crucified for doing
what we were told you wanted.
Cavener: Mr. Wardle, in -- in fairness Ten Mile doesn't just serve Meridian residents, it
serves Star, it serves Middleton, it serves Emmett, it serves many other cities. So, we
also are taking the growth and the decisions of other cities. We are in that position
where we have to make a decision what's best for our community and deal with all the
other traffic impacts and all the other traffic decisions of other municipalities and to say
we have made these decisions is yes, but that does not mean that we should continue
to make other decisions that could continue to drive up the major challenges of traffic,
not just in our community, in the region. So, I hear what you are saying and I -- and
agree with you, quite frankly, on a lot of it and I would be incredibly frustrated to get a
letter from ITD 24 hours before you -- before us to say, hey, by the way, a traffic impact
study is probably warranted. Would have been nice to have heard that 16 months ago
-- six months ago.
Wardle: Absolutely. They were at the table, we had the conversations and if they
wanted to have that fight -- and that's why I don't really want to talk about the ITD, you
know, request for a traffic study, because where have they been? We have done what
you have asked. We have done what your plan says. We have done what your staff
has asked. We have done what ACHD asked us to. And at the 11th hour and 59th
minute, after we have worked through all of this stuff, ITD comes and goes you got to
solve our problem. Well, I totally agree. I agree we have problems and, you know what
the problems are, the problems are people move here and we have no way of really
capturing that new growth. Everybody that moves here from Arizona and California we
don't have a way to do that. We don't have a way that those of us that have lived in this
community and paid the taxes and done this, don't have to stop at Franklin. Why?
Because the newly arrived person from Scottsdale who is here as a political refugee,
you know, wants it better and, then, what do they do? They complain about traffic. You
don't get it both ways and -- you know. And not to -- not to be abrasive and take it out
on you, but the fact of the matter is they all show up, they all want big nice new houses
out there and, then, they complain, well, where is the retail? Where is the commercial?
You know. And we have got to deliver that. And so I don't disagree -- I do disagree with
the fact that when you are bold enough to come in and go, okay, we are going to take
five development agreements and put them together that we get held to a higher
standard, because, unfortunately, when you do that -- we do and everybody goes, oh,
that -- okay. Great. The four acre parcel here will come in and you know what you are
going to get with the four acre parcel that's not part of a larger development agreement?
You are going to get a Fast Eddies and a car wash. That's what you are going to get,
you know. That's the consequence of these decisions. That's the consequence of what
are you going to get? You are going to get a little Mattress Firm anchored strip center
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September 24,2024
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like the one down between Franklin and the train tracks on Eagle Road. That's what
you get. And what causes worse traffic? All of those separate curb cuts and all of
those, you know, uninter -- interconnected parking lots and all of those little property
owners that, you know, take umbrage when you tell them that you have to provide
connectivity to your neighbor and they are here yelling at you about that, not
recognizing that there is a benefit to that -- that connectivity.
Cavener: Mr. Wardle, I don't think anybody comes and yells. I think people like you and
I bring enthusiasm for the things that we care about. I don't think you are yelling at us
tonight either. So, I appreciate your passion and enthusiasm. Any other questions for
Mr. Wardle? All right. Thank you.
Wardle: Thank you.
Cavener: All right. Council, it is now the public hearing portion. Mr. Johnson, do we
have anyone signed up to provide testimony this evening?
Johnson: Mr. President, we do. First is Heather Christensen.
Cavener: Heather, if you would join us up here. You can pick either microphone.
Sometimes you got to eat it a little bit, but you have three minutes. If you could start by
introducing your name and your address for the record.
Christensen: Thank you. My name is Heather Christensen. I live at 1469 North Deep
Creek Way, Meridian, Idaho. 83642. 1 would just like to start off with something that the
applicant said was the ship has sailed. But as you and I all know, the Titanic did sink
and it was the unsinkable Titanic. This actually directly impacts me and my family and
my community. So, as a citizen I would like the traffic study, because I live there and I
drive there. I have to drive from the interstate up to Cherry. My house lives just down
the street from Fuller Park and from Chaparral. I see the traffic, I see people cut into
our neighborhood all the time off of Ten Mile trying to get past the Ten Mile intersection
on Cherry and Ten Mile. I feel like a lot of tonight has been focusing on people we are
trying to get here and not the people that live here. So, I don't think ITD is too late. I
think that study would be very helpful for the residents that live here. I'm not opposed to
growth. My husband and I have a small business. It's a family-owned business that we
run and we serve all of Treasure Valley. So, my husband's constantly traveling, our
employees are constantly traveling. I feel like the thing that drew us to Meridian was
that it was a community about families. It was a community that was -- had this small
feel and we focused on keeping it that way. We focus it on community, family oriented,
and I feel like this district -- I know that it's already been decided that this district is going
forward, but I feel like we could still change direction on the district. I feel like our focus
should be more on what things the citizens and the residents that already live here
need. I have a daughter who struggles with mental health and we do not have any
facilities in Idaho that have -- in residential places for these teens that go into mental
hospitals. So, we have mental hospitals, but we have nothing in our community that
serves teens and children that struggle with mental health outside of the hospital and
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September 24,2024
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so, then, we have parents who struggle figuring out what to do and in our case we sent
our daughter down to Utah. I feel like as a community and if we are going to do a
district I feel like it should focus on what the needs are. We don't need more shopping.
Most of the residents that live in our area we have what we need. We have a Costco
down the street. We have a Walmart across the freeway and up the street. We have
Winco. We have everything we need. We have hospitals within like just miles of us.
We have office buildings everywhere. But I think things that we could focus on are
things that could help our community. Is that my time?
Cavener: If you could wrap up your comments and, then, if Council has any questions
for you.
Christensen: That's pretty much what I -- I feel like we could focus on. If you want
something where people can eat, live and play I feel like we could do a -- a -- like a
residential place for seniors who are trying to go into retirement, like a senior living area
for like 55 and older. We could do a pond where like there could be like places for
people to go around. It doesn't have to be set in stone, the district. It could be
changed. I know it's going in, but I think that if we could redirect it it could help both
traffic and it could help the residents that already live in this area.
Cavener: Thank you for your testimony. Council, any questions? Heather, I thank you
for being here this evening. Mr. Johnson.
Johnson: Mr. President, Colin Ronard.
Cavener: Colin, welcome this evening. If you would, please, state your name and
address for the record, the time is yours, sir.
Ronard: Good evening, Council. Colin Ronard. 332 North Broadmore Way. I'm with
Ardura. We are working on engineering with the -- with the applicant. If the only thing I
say tonight is I just want to again thank staff. Ardura, has worked directly on this project
since 2019. Bill and Sonya at planning have been awesome to work with. Bruce in
Public Works. I extend that thanks to ACHD, Mindy in planning, Casey in engineering
and all those folks down there that have been awesome. I'm here to stand in to us -- or
stand to answer any engineering specific questions you may have. I know that a lot's
been discussed, so if anything -- if I don't say anything else I just wanted to thank staff.
Cavener: Thank you. Council, any questions? Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Mr.
Johnson.
Johnson: Mr. President, online we have Natalie Purcell. Natalie, I'm allowing you to
unmute. Oh, you are here. Well, I'm so sorry. I'm glad you are here.
Cavener: Real quick as Ms. Purcell is making her way up here, I think it's important to
note for the record Ms. Purcell's son and his Jaguars football team ran a clinic on my
son and his team on Saturday. I haven't talked to legal, but I feel I can remain impartial.
Meridian City Council
September 24,2024
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But it's nice to have you here this evening, Ms. Purcell. If you could state your name
and address for the record at the time.
Purcell: Thank you. Natalie Wixom Purcell. 3848 West Park Creek Drive. So, I think
this last week and this week we have heard some comments about -- from the citizens
of Meridian expressing concern about the high density housing developments that have
occurred on Ten Mile. Drawing attention to the Council's ongoing approvals and
continued exceptions that have allowed over 300 high density housing to already be
built or approved in that area. This doesn't count the thousand more that are currently
in Planning and Zoning this week and next week. So, there is up to 4,000 already to be
set to be approved. By allowing this over building of one housing type we have been
pointed out that this has deviated from the city's master plan. My concerns began about
a year and a half ago as I witnessed an influx of apartments being constructed and
towering over our cities and neighborhoods and schools, all while our commute times
increased substantially, our parks were overflowing and our students class sizes kept
growing. I went to the school -- Chaparral actually — and I said, hey, there is all these
new apartments right across the street. Literally their balconies look over into my
children's playground, which is another safety concern. We can talk about it at a
different time. And I said what's the plan? And they said when you find out let us know.
We would love to know. So, I reached out to the City of Meridian. I reached out to
Council Members, I reached out to the Mayor and I met with Mayor Simison and I met
with the school board and I hate to say that I found that Meridian schools were not in the
top priority for any one of those. As members -- and as citizens of Meridian the quality
of life was not in any of these considerations as high density housing overtook our town.
I would like to point out that we just had a perfect example of where the developer
stands on our school as he said, quote, it's not a big deal that our schools are over
capacity. He had the chart up with my son's school, my daughter's school, and said it's
fine as it's over capacity. I had -- he had 37 kids in his class. Is that the education that
we want to provide for Meridian citizens? We just showed and had the attitude of what
is happening in Idaho and what the developers think about our children's educational
environments. In recent years it seems that the needs of developers have taken
precedent over the well-being of Meridian citizens. Education has taken a back burner
in our city's planning and our children are now the collateral damage. We have had
flippant comments from City Council Members saying, quote, the schools will do what
they always do and figure it out and, quote, as they approve high density housing that
are overburdening our schools, our streets and our parks. The schools just figuring it
out for my family as I have stated is 37 kids in my son's fifth grade classroom
educational quality is dropping, overworked and overburdened educators. The
developers nonchalantly like to point out that it's not that big of a deal. It's just a few
acres. It's not going to add that much. But for my family it is a big deal. My son
attended Chaparral from kindergarten through 5th grade. I have two more kids there
and I will have another one there in a year. So, it is a big deal for us and our family and
the educational environment for my children. It's -- I will just wrap this up. Homeowners
who have been here for years and help build a quality of life are being stripped away
from their city acre by acre as more exemptions are made. It doesn't matter if it's nine
acres he says. It matters to me and it matters to my family. We need answers to roads.
Meridian City Council
September 24,2024
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It's not okay for the answer to be it's going to stay at an F for a while when you are
talking about my commute times. The parks will have some green space. That will be
enough. Is that going to help alleviate the problems that we have with sports teams
trying to find practice areas or our neighborhoods being overflow parking every evening
and every weekend? No. And schools being over capacity, that is not okay. It is not
okay for someone to get up here and say that's not a big deal. That is. That's our
children. That is the educational environment we are providing and for them to say it is
not a big deal it's not okay. So, what we need is we need to create communities where
residents want to build in and buy in and be here for the long haul. We don't need these
stop in shops where they go live there for a little while and, then, transient move
somewhere else. We need to build communities where we are building strong ties,
where we are building places where we want our kids to go to school, where we want to
go to the parks and we are not being overburdened and we are not telling us that it
doesn't matter. It's only nine acres. It does matter. Thank you for your consideration.
Cavener: Thank you, Ms. Purcell. Any -- any questions from Council? Natalie, I — oh,
go ahead, Council Member Strader, if you have a question.
Strader: Natalie, I just -- I want to make sure I heard tonight -- your testimony tonight
was that your son is one of 37 kids in his classroom?
Purcell: There was 37 kids in his 5th grade class at Chaparral last year. They lost their
computer lab. I -- I could go on for hours about this, but they currently don't have an OT
room. They do occupational therapy for students that need help in the hallways and I
would like to point out -- they have to pay zero impact fees to our schools. So, it does
matter, because I get to pay for this development. It's my property taxes that go up to
pay for new schools, not them. They don't have to pay anything in Idaho. Zero. I have
to pay for this development.
Cavener: Thank you, Natalie. Council, any additional questions?
Strader: Council President?
Cavener: Council Member Strader.
Strader: I appreciate your passion and I share that passion for my children and -- and I
know all of us do. I am curious. So, your number one concern is students' education or
building of apartments. If this application did not include any residential component
would you still be opposed to it?
Purcell: Until traffic was looked at, yes. I think that we could easily wait until Highway
16 was in place and, then, do a traffic study and if it's no longer enough I would
probably support something that did not include residential. But if they cannot prove to
me that my commute times wouldn't get longer, no, I wouldn't then.
Strader: That's helpful. Thank you.
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September 24,2024
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Cavener: Natalie, just for I think your own benefit -- and, again, I have been guilty of
more than one time of, you know, caring maybe too much up here and so I appreciate
your enthusiasm around this work. I do think it's important to know you have got
Council Members with kids in West Ada. We are all neighbors. We are all part of this
community and I hope you have seen at least in some of your conversations with
Council in here tonight we take applications large and small seriously and we do look at
the impacts in our classrooms, on our streets and roads, on our parks, on our Police, on
Fire and so I know that sometimes we get to look at just one application before us, but
just, if anything, I want you to know that this is a Council of people who -- it's different
than maybe the councils of the past where we have got kids in our schools and we are
driving on these streets and roads. I — I am a contributor; right? I live in south Meridian
and my son goes to school in north Meridian and so I'm -- I'm on Ten Mile, which in one
sense I contribute, but in the other sense I -- I see the challenges that you see in your
neck of the woods as well. So, I appreciate you being here and sharing your feedback
with us this evening.
Purcell: No. I appreciate that and I just would like you guys to consider that it's going to
be the citizens your constituent needs, not Tommy Ahlquist and I hope you take that into
consideration, that it's your constituents and the citizens of Meridian that need to be
answered to and it's not Tommy -- Tommy's project, if it's not going to contribute to our
community, if it's going to be worse for our constituent -- for your constituents, it's going
to be worse for our community, for our roads, for our schools, for our parks. Is it better
for Meridian? It's not.
Cavener: Thank you.
Purcell: Thank you.
Cavener: Mr. Johnson, anyone else on our list?
Johnson: Mr. President, you have Ryan Manwaring online. Ryan, you should be able
to unmute yourself.
Cavener: Ryan, good evening. If you can hear us, please, state your name and
address for the record and you have three minutes to provide public testimony to the
Council.
Manwaring: Thank you. Ryan Manwaring, registered agent, address of 784 South
Clearwater Loop, Suite D. 83854. Thank you so much. Can you hear me okay?
Cavener: I can hear you great, Ryan. Thank you.
Manwaring: All right. Thanks. Yeah. I -- thank you. I appreciate what Ms. Wixom
Purcell and Ms. Christensen said. I agree with them. I'm a healthcare provider in
Meridian, I -- and I also see some other concerns about the infrastructure here. Do you
guys know what the -- the per capita income of Meridian is?
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September 24,2024
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Cavener: So, Mr. Manwaring —
Manwaring: Yes.
Cavener: -- typically in a -- in a public testimony we don't necessarily get -- we want you
to be able to use your full three minutes to your full capacity and so if that is a question
that you would like us to maybe answer and address at the end of your testimony I think
probably we would be able to provide that, but I would just hate that you would give up
your three minutes to -- to ask some of these questions, if maybe you want to speak
what's a little more germane to your testimony this evening.
Manwaring: All right. Well, I hope that that -- statistics like that have gone into this
decision, but this number, judging -- looking off census records, if you Google it you are
going to get the median income and that's not an accurate representation, because a
median is very -- it becomes very swayed when we have a lot of affluent people moving
in here from out of state, which -- which has been happening and so when you are --
when the median income moves farther and farther from that per capita income, we see
this rift and it's concerning that we are seeing that in Meridian. So, per capita we are
looking at around 54,000 per year of income and so it's hard to imagine how the -- if
that's the per capita income how -- how this meets the needs of existing residents,
which is the wording in the Comprehensive Plan that all the development needs to -- to
keep that in mind, meeting the needs of existing residents, our existing residents are
going to be able to, you know, afford -- like I just don't see affordable housing in this mix
here. I guess it depends on what your -- your definition of that, but I'm saying what --
I'm saying what all the stuff that's going in this is not affordable for a lot of the situations
that, you know, I'm working with. I'm concerned about the development really outpacing
infrastructure and I know when you look at infrastructure there is a lot of talk about
traffic, but we don't talk enough about schools when they are calculating that, like
actually planning and putting numbers into schools like Ms. Purcell was stating. There
is also some other indicators we can look at that says like we are setting Meridian up for
failure. So, if you have ever been to a food bank in Meridian I would encourage you to
get out like -- like maybe try and learn or -- or show up to one of these, kind of get an
idea of -- see how long this line is wrapping around a building, because when finance --
when -- when this group of -- you know, when a per capita income of 54 grand a year,
you know, residents are really already stressed out and when we get an influx of even
more people coming in from out of state to live in these residences, they are also taking
up resources, like healthcare providers, you know, some of them food banks. We have
to -- and a lot of these people kind of get pushed out of their other areas of service. So,
we got to look like, you know, food banks which are already really strained. Another
thing that's strained is domestic violence resource centers in this area, all under a lot of
pressure. Like we don't have the resources to support development. We have to make
sure that the infrastructure is — it has -- is accelerating.
Cavener: Great. Thank -- thank you. Mr. Manwaring. Council, any questions? Mr.
Manwaring, I -- I do have one for you, because you -- you provided I guess a unique
perspective. Is it your testimony that you feel the Council should be opposed to this
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September 24,2024
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change because the -- the economics of our region couldn't support a development of
this kind?
Manwaring: Yes.
Cavener: Great. Thank you. I appreciate that. And just for your own well-being you
have got a couple Council Members that are up here that are former Meridian Food
Bank board members and -- and active Meridian Food Bank volunteers. So, I think we
bring a good perspective as to what's occurring in our community and just want to share
that with you for your own well-being.
Manwaring: Thank you. Thank you for serving there.
Cavener: Thank you for your testimony this evening. Mr. Johnson, is there anyone else
that is signed to testify?
Johnson: President Cavener, that's everyone.
Cavener: All right. Is there anybody in the room that hasn't had an opportunity to
provide public testimony that would like to do so at this time? Okay. Council, here is
what I would like to do. We have -- we had a full workshop and a full executive and a
couple hours of very spirited testimony and conversations. I would like to take a ten
minute recess, give people an opportunity to get a drink of water and check in with your
families and, then, we will reconvene -- how about at 8:25 to give the applicant an
opportunity to respond? We are at recess.
(Recess: 8:15 p.m. to 8:25 p.m.)
Cavener: Come back from recess. Mr. Wardle, you want to come back up? Got an
opportunity to provide a response, some of the feedback and questions you have heard
this evening. You have got ten minutes. The time is yours, sir.
Wardle: Thanks. Mr. President, Members of Council, I want to start by clarifying
something that was really important. You know, my dad attended West Ada schools
back in Meridian School District back in the day. Two-thirds of my children graduated
from Rocky Mountain High School in those classes with 40 kids when -- before Owyhee
got built, taking that pressure off. One hundred percent of Tommy Ahlquist's children
were educated in the West Ada School District. A hundred percent of the management
team at Ahlquist's children are educated in the West Ada School District. Now, I no
longer live in this fine city. Did for ten years. But when my children graduated, you
know, it was time to make some lifestyle decisions and I don't know what our ultimate
decision is, but I rented an apartment and my wife and I are happily living in 1 ,400
square feet that is close to my office. I can bike to work. It takes me ten minutes to
drive and my house is now ready for another family with three or four or five kids to live
in it. Now, Meridian is a community of families and I think we have lost sight on this
application that this is really about what does this commercial setting get developed
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September 24,2024
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like? And I disagree with some of the comments that were posed, because you know
why commercial is so important? Because commercial provides the jobs. The jobs that
our kids can work, the jobs that we can work, the jobs that our aunts and uncles and
nieces and nephews and cousins can work. Jobs are important and with the Ten Mile
specific plan a decision was made at this location at Ten Mile, south of Franklin, that this
is going to be a jobs center. Ten Mile center on the other side of the road that we were
involved with the Ten Mile Crossing office and -- and medical office is a job center.
That's what we do and that's what we contemplate for this site. But what we have to
think about is what is a complete community? A complete community is one where
everybody who wants to live there can find housing that meets their needs. They can
find employment there that meets their needs if they choose to. They can shop and
recreate and do those other things in that community. Now, the original Ten Mile master
plan -- what was this designated as? Across the street was designated as a lifestyle
center and when the decision was made to approve the -- approve The Village there
was the acknowledgement that that is your lifestyle center. I mean we certainly are not
trying to replicate The Village, but there are lessons that have been learned from the
retail team that have done The Village and from the office team that has done Eagle
View Landing and Ten Mile Crossing and from our multi-family partners that have
advised us on things. So, let's take a step back and, again, start with where we were
with this application. You have in front of you a comp plan amendment. Now, if you
remember reading at the beginning of my analysis and the lengthy document we put
together, I have taken the position that a comp plan amendment is absolutely
unnecessary, because your comp plan contemplates a variety of uses within the
underlying and that we did that at the request of your staff. Your staff said it would be
easier if you came in and asked to modify the comprehensive plan as we go through
these development agreements. We acquiesced. Again, I don't think it's necessary,
because the underlying zoning and the zoning we request can be consistent with that.
We don't have to change the boundaries in the Ten Mile plan of the land use areas,
because it's flexible. We can work through it. We can do it. But we have agreed to do
that. We have made a couple requests as to changes in zoning. Is there anything
nefarious about that? No. It's really driven by three factors. One, the current zoning
boundaries do not conform to where the infrastructure is. You know, a zoning boundary
ideally is not going to cut through the middle of a parcel, it's going to follow the road or
it's going to follow a property line. So, part of the reason that we requested a change in
the zoning was to take that -- that C-C, that general commercial, and bring it down to
where it connects over, because that makes sense. Then we reconfigure the H-E,
because we know that office is important and that's why we are interested in this site.
That's why we are involved with this site. So, we reconfigured that. On the west side
we take the M-E, which is mixed employment, we are not touching the ten acres to the
west where Adler is moving forward with their warehousing element that's come
through. But, again, we took that M-E and we go, okay, that was just a line on a map,
let's conform it to where the Williams Pipeline is and where the connective roadways are
and, then, as we talked with our retail team, the suggestion was made that rather than
have Umbria be a hard defining boundary between what's already zoned residential and
the existing commercial, that let's go ahead and put residential on both sides of that, so
that Umbria functions and looks like a residential collector for the benefit of those
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September 24,2024
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property owners to the north. So, that's what we have done. At the end of the day --
and, then, yes, there is a change. We did ask for some C-G, because there are some
C-G uses that have been brought to us that it's kind of that M-E, H-E use, but it just
doesn't quite fit. So, that's why we said, okay, let's reconfigure this just for there. But at
the end of the day the property is already zoned C-G, TN-C, H-E and M-E. So, that's
what we are asking. That's where we are talking. Now, I disagree that this is high
density residential, because your comp plan and the zoning designations that we are
talking about here are less than 12 units to the acre. That is not high density residential.
That's a medium density residential. Now, we know -- and from the hearings we have
heard people are really uptight and upset about the prospect of more multi-family
residential. But the thing I would point out is who lives in multi-family residential? My
Air Force pilot son lives in multi-family residential in Spokane, Washington. My
registered nurse daughter who works at the University of Utah Behavioral Health
Hospital lives in multi-family residential. My college son lives in a townhouse that's a
condominium that we purchased so that our children could have a place to stay and we
didn't have to deal with the college things. So, every single member of my family are
residents of multi-family zoned properties. Now, multi-family is important because it
provides a degree of flexibility. It provides the opportunity for the family or the young
professional that moves here to come start the job, figure out what you are going to do.
I don't know what my wife and I are going to do, but we will figure that out at some point
in the future, but that's why we have multi-family and what's proposed here is for a
density that provides for townhouses. It's something else. It's not high rises, it's not
projects, it's not those things. Now, I want to circle back to schools, because I apologize
if people think that I minimized the issues and concerns of the Meridian School District,
because I didn't. The West Ada School District -- we know the struggle. You are here
regularly. I'm here regularly. My firm has been heavily involved in helping the Meridian
School District and you all get to this point. That's why we have it. And when we look at
this site at full maximum build out we could theoretically add 50 kids and if all 50 kids
were age seven and in one class together that would be problematic. But that's not
what happens. There is a variety of those ages and I agree I was the author of the 20 --
of the 2002 amendments to the impact fee statute and people have come back to me
and go shouldn't we add schools and I go I don't have any qualms if you add schools.
Add schools if you do a capital improvement plan and you are a high growth district and
you want to charge impact fees, great. But I want to point out that no one pays impact
fees for schools. How do we fund schools in Idaho? We fund schools through property
tax levies and who pays property tax? Every single property owner, residential or
commercial. The difference is on the commercial side there is no homeowners
exemption. So, we will be contributing to schools. We have educated our children
here. We value this community. Before you you have a series of what are
unnecessarily complicated applications, because at the end of the day we are talking
about how do we take a zoning decision that was made years ago and make it better.
We are amenable to all the conditions that staff has recommended and we are
amenable to the revised solution that staff has identified of changing the zoning and
changing the land use plan to match theirs. We get to the same place. We ask for your
approval. Thank you.
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September 24,2024
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Cavener: Thank you, Mr. Wardle. Council, questions for the applicant? Seeing none,
Mr. Wardle, but I would not move too far. I'm sure something may pop up -- you are
welcome to sit down, but, Council, I may at least suggest perhaps some questions for
staff, maybe some deliberation before we close the public hearing in case you need to
invite the applicant or anyone else up for some subject matter expertise.
Taylor: Mr. President?
Cavener: Council Member Taylor.
Taylor: It's probably a staff question for Bill. Comment was made during some of the
testimony about 4,000 units having been approved within the immediate area and I was
looking at the staff report and all these wonderful colors and graphs that I have been
asking for and if I understand it correctly just within the one mile radius on the existing
condition matrix -- I'm trying to make sure I'm understanding the correct area where I
would like to look at the units that we have approved within a mile that are not existing
but have been approved. Would that be the conditional use permit graph where it says
we are about 800 single family and, then, you know, about 2,900 multi-family. Is that
the right graph or -- or can you just kind of point me in the right direction?
Parsons: Yeah. Mr. President, Members of the Council, Councilman Taylor, that is
correct. That's the graph. And keep in mind that that measurement goes from the
center line of that section. So, it may not capture quite all of what's already been
approved out there, but I can tell you there has been several thousand approved out
there.
Taylor: And, then, as a follow up, Bill, and I -- I wish maybe -- I was looking through
some of the -- the comments in the letter. I was looking to see the -- to understand the
impact on the schools with respect to these proposed conditional use permits for the
multi-family and -- and single family. Those impacts on the school, because I -- I agree
with the argument if we are looking at the matrix of maybe 53 for this, that doesn't seem
to be largely concerning. However, I -- what I'm not sure I'm seeing in terms of the data
in front of me right now is with those other already approved housing types and the
impact on the school, I haven't gone back and looked at all the different letters that West
Ada has provided, so is there any way that you could -- we could understand the
impacts of all of these units that have yet to be built that have been approved, what that
would do to the schools, because I think that's probably the bigger question I have on
this application with respect to schools. This particular application doesn't seem to be a
dramatic impact, but when you are looking at the cumulative effect within — in close
proximity I just can't find that. So, I don't know if you can -- I'm not sure the best way to
go about finding that or if that's something that's just going to hang out there as a -- kind
of a best guess without actually knowing. I don't know if you can answer that question,
Bill. Sorry.
Parsons: Council, it's -- it's -- you are correct. The -- the staff report that we do is not a
cumulative effect. It's basically we work with the school district. They give us
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September 24,2024
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comments on -- on each project. If it's -- so, for example, if this was an all commercial
project the school district would be like no comment. We don't have any residential.
And in this particular case -- and, then, as you are aware when the school district gives
us a letter they base it on the -- the residential units, whether it's multi-family or single
family and, then, they use a different factor for the number of children they anticipate
based on that land use or that type of dwelling unit. So, historically or typically a multi-
family will have less children to -- impact to the school district is what I have
experienced than a typical single family. So, that's the best way to answer your
question. But yes — and without going to every one of those projects and looking those
up and looking at the -- adding those cumulative impacts to you, it would take some
time to do that for this evening. But certainly happy to maybe address that with the
larger group and see if there is ways that we couldn't incorporate some of that data --
into especially if we know that is a topic that the Council wants us to bring forward and
discuss more.
Taylor: Yeah. Council President, just to follow up on that, I -- probably a good matrix --
because looking at it in a silo is one thing, but looking at it from the big picture is really
important when we are talking about -- about that. So, thank you.
Cavener: Bill, just real quick, Council Member Strader, if I may. Bill, to that end --
know I had asked and I know Heather's not here, you are our planning representative
tonight, so apologies for putting you on the spot, but Heather was working to get kind of
an enrollment total from each school for West Ada with new students. Circumstantially I
have been told that it's trending down, particularly when you look at, you know,
kindergarten, first grade classes, they are much smaller than what we have seen five or
six years ago. Do we know -- has West Ada been able to provide that to us yet? Have
they completed that and provided anything? I know it's not necessarily germane to this
application, something separate, so I -- I just don't know if we have received anything
that's final yet from -- from the district.
Parsons: Yeah. Mr. President and Council Members, I -- I don't have an answer for
you. I'm not aware of it at this time, but certainly happy to get an update on that and
share that with all of you.
Cavener: Thank you, Bill. Council, what's your purview then?
Taylor: Mr. President?
Cavener: Council Member Taylor.
Taylor: Unless any other Council Members would disagree, maybe I think it would be
appropriate to close the public hearing and begin to deliberate, unless you want to leave
it open and have some other questions answered. We have already continued one —
one meeting. I'm not sure that -- that that's what we want to do, but I'm open to that,
making a motion to close the public hearing if -- unless there is some open-ended
questions that need to be answered.
Meridian City Council
September 24,2024
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Cavener: Was that a motion?
Taylor: Mr. President, I make a motion that we close the public hearing.
Overton: Second the motion.
Cavener: Motion and second. Any discussion from Council? Seeing none, all in favor
say aye. Any no's? All right. The chair is an aye as well and the motion passes.
MOTION CARRIED: ALLAYES.
Taylor: Mr. President?
Cavener: Council Member Taylor.
Taylor: Since I can see there is a lot -- they are very eager to get started, I will jump in.
Very interesting testimony. I appreciate all the applicants that have come. I watched
the Planning and Zoning hearing. I watched last week's hearing, because had I missed
it, so I do appreciate -- I read all the letters. Probably spent more time for sure on this
application than I have any other. Really grappled with this. I have a sister and her
three kids that live very very close, so, you know, I have four kids in West Ada. My kids
would be impacted by this at Meridian Middle School and Meridian High School, so
certainly feels it's really personal in -- in many ways. What I look -- what I see here is --
this is the center of the valley. In my mind I think when we see the way we are growing
clearly this Ten Mile area with Highway 16 -- it just seems like it's going to be kind of the
center of -- of the Treasure Valley in a lot of respects. So, when I consider that I ask
myself the question how do we want to go about developing this? Certainly I have -- I
have had a lot of people close to me, talk to me, all the e-mails we have received, I'm
just going to kind of go through and address some of the issues that we have all talked
about and just share my thoughts. Let me start with the traffic. I actually agree that I
think Ten Mile is a funnel for all the other developments in Star, Middleton, even Emmett
where we are seeing a lot of growth. If you have been out to Star lately you have seen
just a lot of growth. So, I do agree -- I think once Highway 16 is done you are going to
see a lot of that pressure coming off -- certainly it -- I -- you know, without a real analysis
and study we won't really know what the impact will be when 16 is done. Certainly
share your frustrations with ITD and it's -- it's sometimes a very challenging agency to --
to work with or get answers from, but I actually do agree that Highway 16 and Linder
overpass is going to alleviate a lot of the pass through traffic that we see north to south
to the freeway. I'm still unsettled about whether or not I think that we need a traffic
study, kind of a leap of faith to move ahead without one, but it's probably the one issue
that I'm not most settled on is whether I think we need to have that first. I want to talk
about schools. Again, really appreciate those of you who have come, it's almost 9.00
o'clock, I know it's a lot of time, you have kids at home and certainly appreciate that.
think that if we look at just this application only, I don't think it's going to be drastically
negatively impacting the schools, because the amount of housing there is not
significant. However, the one unanswered question I have is -- I would really like to look
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September 24,2024
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at all the approved projects and understand what the impact is. Now, I have been
looking at enrollment patterns and the truth is with first graders it -- we were down
significantly from where we have been, so -- now that's going to take several years for
those impacts to kind of make their way through, but the trend in West Ada is flat to
decreasing. That doesn't mean that in the next little bit it's not going to be painful; right?
We -- my kids are in the schools right now, so I do -- I live this every day and I
understand it. I was really captivated by some of the design standard discussion
particularly, because several months ago we had an application where I made the
argument that I thought that the Ten Mile plan was outdated. I thought that rejecting the
application because of the design standards and not conforming with that didn't make a
lot of sense. Now, I also think by approving this application we are kind of handing the
keys of the design elements over to the applicant. Now, if we didn't do that and we did
just move ahead with it piecemeal, I think what you would find is -- I would actually
make the argument we should, then, go back in as a city and update the plan, get it
aligned with what we want. So, I'm not opposed to the -- the design standards kind of
laid out, I think what we see currently there would certainly inform what we have, but,
you know, I think having good partners in the development community and we have
seen the good work that's been done, I think there is a high level of confidence that we
have an idea what would -- what we would be seeing there. With the housing density,
actually agree with what's being proposed. I think we do need a variety of housing in
the valley. We are not all single family homeowners. I actually like the transition that
you have proposed. I think that actually makes some sense with moving from a heavy
commercial and unemployment center to having that transition. I actually like that
proposal in this application. I think when you look at the -- you know, Council
administrators made this comment a few times about property rights. The properties
are going to be developed. If you own the property -- if you are following what's been
laid out by the city you are going to develop it. It's going to be developed. So, the
question isn't if we are going to allow it to develop, it's how and when. So, with this
application I see more of a holistic approach that we are incorporating here. I typically —
I'm a little bit concerned about large applications, because there is just so much to
consider and certainly there is things that we could overlook accidentally just because of
the size of it. But I think what we are going to find is that we are going to get a better
development by having this more of a holistic approach here, instead of sort of
piecemeal, again, unless we went back in and updated the Ten Mile plan, which would
take quite a significant investment of time and resources. So, the compelling question
for me is do we have -- this seems a bit more of a coordinated approach to developing
what I consider a very unique opportunity in the center of the valley and I -- it's either a
coordinated approach or a bit more going back to a piecemeal approach, which I don't
really like and I agree with the comment -- I -- I would not approve this project for any
one particular person, especially Tommy Ahlquist, but I -- I think tonight I would support
this proposal as it's written. I think it makes some sense. I do have a couple of open-
ended questions, but I do have a measure of confidence that we will work through some
of these challenges, given the time frame it's going to take to actually move ahead with
all of the intricacies of this development. So, again, I'm just kind of starting my
comments. I may have some more later.
Meridian City Council
September 24,2024
Page 47 of 56
Cavener: Thank you, Council Member Taylor.
Parsons: Council Member -- I'm sorry. Mr. President, Members of the Council, I did find
that letter. So, Heather did prepare that document, the cumulative impacts for schools
here. So, it's on your screen if you want to take a look at that. So, you can see she is
predicting some increases in the area for sure.
Taylor: Bill, is that in the staff report or is this a separate —
Parsons: Oh. You know, it's under the agency comments. Yeah. So, I wanted to at
least get that in front of you and have you digest that. So appreciate you bringing that
to my attention.
Overton: Mr. President?
Cavener: Council Member Overton.
Overton: I will go second here. You know, I can't help but be struck by -- if this was the
first application in that Ten Mile area we would have been done last week, but the fact is
you are like one of the final big pieces coming in and everywhere I have seen
development happen it's the guy stuck with the last piece that seems to have to try to
make that puzzle piece fit and has to deal with all the issues and all the complaints that
have arisen over time, because of everything else. My main concern at the very
beginning was traffic. I stress a lot every day over all the traffic on Eagle Road and
what we can do try to reduce it and make it better than it is today. The 33 page ACHD
report -- I went through that whole thing and I probably spent more time on it than I
needed to now that I understand that you are in compliance and agreement with
everything listed in that report. That report was very very descriptive on everything that
needed to be done to try to alleviate as much traffic. The main reason I like this project
as a big puzzle piece fitting into this end has the most to do with the fact that you are
going to be able to go in and complete all of the collector street connections both to the
west, to the east, Navigator underneath Ten Mile, the ones to Ten Mile and the ones that
are going to go north of Franklin Road. If we were in that piecemeal approach that
wouldn't be happening. We would be fighting for every piece of that to try to make
those connections happen and we have dealt with another application here, I don't
know, six months ago had the same issue when we brought a small piece -- they
brought them all together and that's the only way that we got those collector roads
brought together that gave us that connectivity that gives people different ways to get in
and out of a project. It's been mentioned that Highway 16 is going to give relief. I think
we are underestimating the amount of relief Highway 16 is going to give to Ten Mile
and the reason why I say that is because we can take other roads and say we are going
to -- we are going to put an overpass at Linder, which is an existing road and that's
going to get some traffic. But Highway 16 is going to be a brand new, never used
before, limited access highway that anybody and everybody that's on the other side of
the river would not want to be on Ten Mile with all those traffic signals, they are
absolutely going to want to be on a limited access highway that's going to take anybody
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September 24,2024
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from Star, Middleton, Emmett everywhere. If you build it they will find the quickest way
to get through the valley and that's one of the reasons -- I mean it was almost 19 years
ago when that was first proposed and it has taken this long for us to see the Highway 16
coming to fruition. The Linder overpass will help. I don't think it will be as -- as big of
relief as some think it will. I think it will help. I think it will help Ten Mile a little bit. I think
it will help Meridian Road a little bit. But I think Highway 16 is going to be the big relief
valve that's going to take a lot of pressure off of Ten Mile. You know, we talk about
partners all the time that we have as we sit up here on Council and everybody has to
understand West Ada is one of our partners. We have done joint meetings with them.
We talked to them about how best we come up with solutions for them. We ask them
should we stop and the last time I asked that question the answer was no. We will
figure it out. So, I have a hard time sometimes when I have people in the community
wanting us to stop projects because of the school district when the school district
themselves doesn't say that and we communicate directly with them. We get the
reports back. They have a special -- they have one person who her whole -- sole job is
to look at this and send us these letters and I know she is good, because she used to
work for us and she works for them now and that's her job and she specifies what they
can do. You know, they don't know exactly what their needs are going to be and neither
do we. But we have to base a lot of our decisions on exactly what West Ada tells us
and where they see it and they know they have rezoning issues they have to do with
their schools. It's unpleasant and nobody likes it, but they realize as they have got
schools that are underpopulated they need to do rezoning within their district. We set
those partners up so that we can look like we are a team. We sit down with ACHD and
we don't sit down with ITD too much. I mean I think that's been the theme of the whole
room tonight. But we do with ACHD and I consider them a very good partner when we
talk about road projects and how we set up the five year work plan for what's important
for Meridian and what's important for everybody else and I have been happy with how I
have seen a lot of those projects. You know, we are always fighting for Meridian. That's
our job. We want to see those projects happen. Ten Mile got built out all the way.
Franklin Road is now built out all the way back into Meridian. There are so many
projects underway. Eagle Road is getting built between Lake Hazel and Amity right
now. There are so many projects going on in the city that are all going to help alleviate
some of our traffic concerns right now. I think with the amount of connectivity that you
have promised in this project to help alleviate traffic through this, I think we are going to
see a viable project at Ten Mile, remembering that a lot of people that may be coming to
this as a destination I think are coming straight off the Interstate and we may be having
people coming from places that aren't here in Meridian coming here, just like they do to
The Village that are going to come off the interstate, they are going to enjoy the
amenities and the stores and the retail and they are going to get back on that interstate
and they are not to be jamming up Ten Mile to the north. That's my thoughts. I started
looking at this I was not that favorable, but as more and more I'm digesting everything
that's happening and the way that this project looks to be going, the way that you are
taking the whole project and breaking it up into its major parts and components, I truly
believe that's the smartest way to build this. I think it's probably the best way to have all
the pieces fit where they are instead of being a complete area of mixed uses throughout
that 200 acres. We get tired sometimes. I will be the first to admit when I see a lot of
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September 24,2024
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medium density and -- and mixed-use I -- I live for the days that I can see low density
again. But there was never a point in time that this area of Meridian was meant to be
built for low density. That was not ever a topic. If we don't do a project like this today I
think we are all going to be back here with a project that we like even less in the future
and that's what worries me about a lot of projects is the idea is we don't accept it, we
don't accept it, well, wait until you see what comes next. So, with that I'm at a point now
that I'm in favor of this project moving forward.
Cavener: Thank you, Council Member Overton.
Little Roberts: Mr. President?
Cavener: Council Member Little Roberts.
Little Roberts: Mr. President. Wow, this one's got a lot of moving parts. I think for me
it's made it maybe a little harder to wrap my head around with starting out with so many
and, then, trying, but I -- I think as we go through last week and this week that I think
Councilman Taylor had a great word with holistic and I think that being able to look at it
in a complete 200 acres, instead of piecemealing it -- the more that we talk about it the
more that I am liking that we have got that impact and -- and I think that 16 is going to
take significant pressure off of Ten Mile. We have -- we have counted on that all along.
So, I think that it's going to come to fruition. One of the things that I'm kind of really
focused on, because we started really working on Ten Mile when I was running the
Chamber is the business aspect that this is going to bring to that area. That is one thing
economically we have counted on it raised our -- I was kind of trying to run some
numbers here. It -- having the Ten Mile area from what -- the numbers that I have had, I
mean it has raised our median income over the years, the businesses that have been,
you know, selected that area. Good heavens, we got Paylocity that moved to Boise,
then, moved to Ten Mile. You know, with a significant increase for our -- our millennials
that we were looking at being able to keep. So, I'm in support of this project. I think it
will be -- it's going to take time. We are going to get to watch it evolve as it comes to
fruition. It's not going to be built in a day and so I think that it's going to fit in as it is
completed over the years. But I think that it's a good project for that area.
Cavener: Thank you, Council Member Little Roberts.
Whitlock: Council President?
Cavener: Council Member Whitlock.
Whitlock: Council President and Members of the Council, I -- I live this every day. I
think virtually everybody that's testified -- if I think on their addresses that they stated,
they are within a stone's throw of where I live. So, this is my neighborhood, this is my
life, this is what I live every day. So, I share some of the concerns that have been
expressed. I think the applicant has done a good job tonight addressing some of those
concerns that I had. I think last week we talked about concerns over phasing on this
Meridian City Council
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and not offering up how this would be phased, but I think Mr. Wardle has addressed
some of that and given us the opportunity to -- to contemplate that -- as Council Woman
Little Roberts said, this -- this doesn't happen overnight. This is a phased approach.
But I think staff probably asked the 64,000 dollar question right off the bat here and, Bill,
you asked does this all work and that's the question that I had when I first read the
application. It was the question I had as I read the public comment, was the question I
had as you presented your materials tonight and as the applicant and -- and those who
came to testify shared their thoughts and feelings with us tonight. Does this all work?
And, candidly, as somebody who lives in this area and will have to live with whatever
happens there, I'm -- I'm coming down on the side of I believe that this can work. I think
that the work so far to build the connector and -- and provide some of that critical
infrastructure will help alleviate some of the concerns that I had as I listen to what's
planned and light industrial and flex and warehouse and even a daycare, a hotel,
recreation user I'm -- I'm thinking more and more that this could be a place that does
work. This could be a part of our community that -- that we can be proud of if it's done
right and we will have more bites at the apple, we will have opportunities to review those
applications as they come to us, but I do like the idea of combining those five
development agreements into a single one. I -- I like the idea of a larger view and a
bigger approach to something that really can be a -- a center point for our community
moving forward. So, again, I appreciate the concerns that have been shared by all who
have testified. I appreciate that the applicant has worked hard to address the questions
that we had and also the concerns that have been raised and, Bill, thank you for putting
a finer point on all of this of does this all work and I think at the end of the day I think we
-- we probably have an application that can work and something that we ultimately can
be proud of.
Cavener: Thank you, Council Member Whitlock.
Strader: Council President?
Cavener: Council Member Strader.
Strader: I have been kind of quiet and part of the reason is I have been trying to decide
how -- how to sort of handle something, because I think we did ourselves a disservice
by not updating the Ten Mile Specific Area Plan and maybe taking an opportunity to -- to
refresh that, so I'm -- I'm kind of trying -- what I have been wrestling with is do I -- do I
sort of oppose this on principle, because I believe that is the decision we should have
made or do I kind of just acknowledge where we are today, which is I think where I'm
going to go. The Council has already I think set the precedent of -- I -- I will say a more
lenient interpretation of the Ten Mile Specific Area Plan. So, that's something that I'm
kind of struggling with. I think it would have been better to continue to update that plan,
but I -- I will kind of put that concern aside. Some of the things that have been a
concern for me -- traffic has been a concern. I do agree that the Linder Road overpass
and Highway 16 will help significantly with some of those concerns. On the school's
front, you know, I -- I share a lot of Councilman Overton's comments. At one point we
paused -- not formally, but paused many of our residential developments for over six
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months to work with the West Ada School District to — to help receive updated
projections from them and to understand and I was one of the people that did a deep
dive on their projection model and trying to understand the methodology that -- that
went into that and one thing that was clear from that exercise was that in the big picture,
in the very long term, they did not expect enrollment to exceed their ability to serve the
students. Certainly at times we have very acute situations throughout the city, but they
have continuously told us over and over that -- that they are prepared to address those
challenges through changes in boundaries, through portables and people don't love
those approaches, but, again, it's like another agency is providing us with that feedback
and I had asked them the question directly should we hold off, should we do a
moratorium on residential development, so that you can get your arms around this and
the answer that's come back very clearly is, no, we don't want you to do that. That they
-- that they have got that. So, I share that concern, but at the same time I have an
agency that -- that's providing that feedback. The -- the design standards, again, I think
if we were sticking closer to our Ten Mile specific plan that would make more sense, but
in light of the fact that we have provided exceptions to that, I -- I think an exception here
would make sense and the design standards that they are following are very similar to
the development across the street. So, I don't have as many concerns there. It -- it's --
for me it's just -- what it comes down to I think is that -- I believe that the -- that the
commercial and employment generation coming from this project and the benefits of
that far outweigh the risks that come from traffic. I think that this is going to be a driver
of economic opportunity for the city in a very significant way and I think that that is the
most important aspect. When it comes to multi-family development and, you know, the
-- the question of overbuilding versus underbuilding, I think the market is going to
resolve that question. If I was a multi-family developer in this interest rate environment
coming into this situation I think I would have to take a hard look at all of the multi-family
developments that have been approved and really consider that strongly whether it
makes sense to develop this or not. But, again, that's not the City Council's role to
determine that. That's really a, you know, change in the market and -- and for that
developer that ends up bringing that forward. I also think we will get a bite at the apple
on the multi-family piece and that for me is kind of what I'm hanging my hat on. So,
ultimately, I am in support tonight, but with the reservations that I articulated.
Cavener: Thank you, Council Member Strader.
Taylor: Mr. President?
Cavener: Council Member.
Taylor: Thanks to Bill pointing it out, I -- I have answered my own question on the
schools, but I think it's worth noting on the records and some data points, specifically
with the schools being impacted here Chaparral and a few years ago was at 557, last
year 546 -- or, actually, the year before. So, 557, 546, 534. The architectural capacity
of 700 and, then, when I went to the schools just to look at the enrollment by grade
district wide, first grade enrollment is down by almost 500 students from 5th grade. So,
the trend isn't larger class sizes in first grade and -- and I don't mean to be disrespectful
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to any of the concerns raised tonight, I'm just citing the data from West Ada. And, then,
when you look at overall school district enrollment, the trend is down by about 700
students overall in the last few years. So, again, I think just kind of reiterating to me --
even considering all the -- the conditional use permits that have been permitted here, I
have a pretty high level of confidence that it's -- we are going to accommodate. Now,
the question of educational holistically and overall it's another bigger debate and
question that we can have, but I think in terms of -- I just thought it was important to
quote those -- those data points as we are thinking through that, because that's a
question that I raised, so -- and I actually really really agree with Council Member
Strader's opinion on the Ten Mile plan. If -- probably could have -- would have been a
worthwhile exercise to have gone through, but we are where we are and I think the point
was if we denied this application we probably really ought to take a hard look at that, but
I don't think that that's where we are.
Cavener: Thank you. Council, I have been very uncharacteristically quiet tonight.
That's probably why we are further ahead of schedule than typically. And trying to keep
the meeting moving I have kind of kept my comments to myself. A couple things I think
just a point of clarification I think is really really important with West Ada that we are
learning, particularly in our elementaries. There is architectural capacity and program
capacity. Architecture is how many students that building can hold versus how many
they can accurately teach and I think that shift in those letters being able to see that
helps me understand things a lot, because they aren't always the same. A couple
comments and, then, maybe some -- just some ideas to throw out there. One of the
hardest parts I think about our job is relying on other agencies to help us make a
decision; right? We never get people who come here and complain about Fire
response times. We don't get people who come here and complain about Police
response times. I don't think we have ever had somebody come here and say, man, we
don't like your parks; right? People know when they flush the toilet the water they
knows it goes away. When they turn on the sink the water they want is there. The
infrastructure that we are in charge of we do really really well. But there is other
infrastructure that as a result of decisions we make and people wanting to come here.
Again, we looked at the citizen survey tonight. Number one thing that our citizens are
concerned about is traffic. Something that we don't have a lot of control over. And it
gets exacerbated when an applicant gets a letter 24 hours to say you have got to do
blank, something they should have done 16 years — or 16 months ago. It's also equally
frustrating when we go through an exercise of ranking our priority projects, only to see
the highway district change our priorities and what is and isn't in the integrated five year
work plan. That's frustrating, because we make decisions with consistency and, then,
suddenly when we get the answers they go and change the questions, which is why I
have pause about this. You look at Eagle Landing. Eagle Landing works. The Village
works. For years Eagle Road and Fairview, busiest intersection of the state. It's not
that way anymore; right? In part because of the STARS agreement we have expanded
the roadway there. Traffic has moved to other places. So, I don't have a lot of concern
about the applicant's ability to try and mitigate what they can. The conversation about
design standards for me is the least of -- I think of my concerns about this project and I
-- I went back to -- for a very brief moment in my life I was a newspaper reporter and we
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add this phrase in our office that says if your mother tells you she loves check your
sources. And what that means is there is -- I -- I believe that Highway 16 is going to
reduce traffic on Ten Mile. I believe that. I actually think the Linder Road overpass will
do that as well, but I can't say how much and I can't say if it's enough to move it away
from F and I don't think that if this was an annexation project and Ten Mile was listed at
that that I would support it. I don't know if I could support it at D. So, that's hard for me
to say, yeah, I'm going to be okay with this when -- when -- when I -- what I believe to be
true I need some proof on that. I love that the school district has started to update some
of their numbers. I would like to see a trend analysis report that Heather had a chance
to provide for us, so that we can look to our constituents and say we made this decision,
because we -- we have seen data from the district that enrollment is down. Enrollment
is down not just in this school or that school, but across the board and, then, something
that we haven't talked about that I -- I do think is -- is important. We started talking
about the Ten Mile project, particularly with the URD side, there was a lot of
conversation about how this part of Meridian is special and I really believe that it is. It's
a part of the area where I -- I grew up as a -- as a kid and I think that if a project of this
magnitude is going to go in we need to be able to demonstrate some public amenity that
is meaningful that our citizens can rally behind. It's not just the shopping and the great
restaurants and the pathway and the walkability. I think it is a greater emphasis not on
the amount of open space, but how that space is to be used and so something else -- I
guess I would encourage is that maybe we don't make a decision on this tonight, but I
support the body. But to give the applicant an opportunity to look at a regional traffic
plan on how this project impacts not just their surrounding roads, but the region. An
enrollment report from West Ada. And a -- and a recreation plan that we can
memorialize within a DA. Those are things that I would want to see to be able to feel
confident and that supporting this project is a win for our community and is not going to
exacerbate what I believe is accurate is a -- is a really really challenging problem right
now.
Taylor: Mr. President, could you just restate those times again?
Cavener: Council Member Taylor, happy to. Give me a chance to take a breath. The
three things that I would -- I would like to see is -- is a -- is a regional TIS and I -- I think
this is important. I wish this would have happened 16 months ago. If I would have
known -- if I would have been asked if you needed a budget amendment, man, we
would have found the money on this. This is something that I think that -- it's not just up
to the applicant, the last one in, to cover the cost, this could be a combination I would
hope between state, the highway district, the city and the applicant, a collaboration.
would support that. So, that's one of regional TIS. Second, a -- a holistic -- to use that
term again -- enrollment report for West Ada, talking about what trends are in the
classroom size and student enrollment and -- and I would like that ideally to come -- I
know our Mayor's not here, but that's something that I would like to maybe be produced
in conjunction with West Ada and our staff. I think there is some good partnership there.
Then the third is a -- a proposed recreation plan of how recreation or outdoor space
would be used if this project were to come online.
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Taylor: Mr. President?
Cavener: Council Member Taylor.
Taylor: Curious what the applicant's response to those -- those three requests would be
for, you know, the traffic impact study to be done still, a report, and kind of a plan. Do
you have any comments about --
Cavener: So, Mr. Taylor, we can absolutely do that. I just would need a motion to
reopen the public hearing.
Taylor: I'm not sure I'm there yet.
Cavener: Okay.
Whitlock: Council President?
Cavener: Council Member Whitlock.
Whitlock: Thank you for your -- putting your thoughts into that and -- and some options
to consider. 1, too, read the 30 pages from ACHD and I -- I do think it answered a lot of
the questions. So, I'm -- I'm in agreement with Councilman Overton that we can spend
some time and some money and probably come up with some additional ideas, but I
think the -- the base and the foundation for how to move forward on traffic is in those 30
plus pages from ACHD is -- is my take on that. I appreciate Bill finding that memo. I
had missed that. But I think that does start to show us some of the trends or at least
what we are seeing in terms of enrollment in this area and -- and the applicant in their
testimony talked about what this -- what this development would be and I was the one
that raised the question about open space and recreation last week and asked them to
address it and I -- I think with the number of housing units that are there, I think with the
walking paths and -- and other things that are incorporated into this, that they have
addressed at least my concern that there won't be a push from this particular
development into our parks to the north, particularly Fuller Park. I would like to see a
greater emphasis on open space and opportunities. I think that's -- I mean we ask for
amenities on -- on lots of our developments. So, hopefully, when we get that bite of the
apple in the residential piece of this that there will be adequate space for those
residents. But as far as a recreational plan for the commercial uses and the
warehouses and -- and other elements that are part of this, I -- I don't know that I'm
willing to put this on hold to develop a recreation plan for something that probably isn't
conducive to what I envision as part of a recreation plan. Then the last comment I
would just make is I -- you know, as I drive by this and as I think about Umbria coming
out at Franklin -- just to the west of that you already have multi-family units --
apartments that are there and to the west of those apartments you have single family
units there and so there is a bit of a transition that's already in place in the north central
part of this square mile and so I -- as I'm sitting here thinking I don't know that the 400
units that ultimately would be proposed it would be out of character with what's already
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there in that particular section of -- of the Ten Mile area. So, just some additional
thoughts. I'm -- I'm -- I'm hesitant to put this on hold and -- and wait another six months
or however long it takes to do the studies. I think we have what we need to go ahead
and make a decision and we -- we have what we have in front of us. Thank you, Mr.
President.
Cavener: Thank you.
Taylor: Mr. President?
Cavener: Council Member Taylor.
Taylor: Unless any of my colleagues would like to make any other further comments,
would be prepared to offer a motion at this point. I do want to make sure I get this right,
Bill, and make sure I'm understanding of noting in this dialogue here that if we are to
move ahead approving this proposed development plan we would want to change the
future land use map to include what's here, the medium high density residential and R-
15 zoning in property area one and commercial and C-G -- C-G zoning in areas two and
three. Is that the only changes that we would need to kind of accommodate your
concerns and that the -- I think -- as I understood from the testimony the applicant was
acceptable to those.
Parsons: Mr. President, Members of the Council, that is -- that is correct.
Taylor: Okay.
Parsons: And, then, also Sonya sent out a revised staff report with some changes.
Those have already been included and updated on the website. So, there is no
additional modifications that you need to add to the staff report and they have already
been added. Should be ready to go.
Taylor: Mr. President, I move that we -- after considering all staff, applicant and public
testimony that we approve File No. H-2023-0071 with the modification that we make
reference to the future land use map designation to include the following: High density
residential and R-15 zoning for the property in area one and commercial and C-G
zoning in areas two and three.
Overton: Second.
Cavener: It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion? Seeing none, Mr. Johnson,
please call roll.
Roll Call: Cavener, nay; Strader, yea; Overton, yea; Little Roberts, yea; Taylor, yea;
Whitlock, yea.
Cavener: Motion passes. Five in the affirmative. One in opposition. Motion passes.
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MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE NAY.
FUTURE MEETING TOPICS
Cavener: Next item on the agenda is Future Meeting Topics. Council, any future
meeting topics? Seeing none, do I have a motion to adjourn?
Little Roberts: Mr. President, I move we adjourn.
Cavener: So moved. All in favor say aye. No opposition. We are adjourned. Thank
you everyone.
MOTION CARRIED: ALLAYES.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 9:22 P.M.
(AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
COUNCIL PRESIDENT LUKE CAVENER 10-15-2024
ATTEST:
CHRIS JOHNSON - CITY CLERK 10-15-2024