Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2006 08-14 Joint Ada County Meridian City Council Special JointIWorkshop Meeting August 14. 2006 The Meridian City Council Special JointIWorkshop Meeting was called to order at 11 :00 A.M. on Monday, August 14, 2006 at the Ada County Courthouse by Mayor Tammy de Weerd. Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Keith Bird, Shaun Wardle, Charlie Rountree and Joe Borton. Staff Present: Len Grady, Brad Watson, Matt Ellsworth, Anna Canning, Bill Nary and Will Berg. Ada County Commissioners Present: Rick Yzaguirre, Fred Tilman, Judy Peavey- Derr. Others Present: Frank Thomason, Scott Cook, Ax Yewer, Pete Friedman, Richard Cook. Item 1. Roll-call Attendance: Roll call. X Shaun Wardle X Charlie Rountree X X Joe Borton X Keith Bird Mayor Tammy de Weerd Item 2. Adoption of the Agenda: Yzaguirre: Thanks again. This is a joint workshop between Ada County Commissioners and the City of Meridian to talk about expansion of impact area. Mr. Cook do you have any opening thoughts as to what the process is here in the area that we are discussing? R Cook: Thank you Mr. Chairman. This is simply the first meeting between the City of Meridian and Ada County, Board of County Commissioners to initiate the renegotiation on Meridian City's area of impact boundary. It is my understanding and I guess we will get clarification from Mayor De Weerd and Council that they are looking at a four square mile area that is west of McDermott Road to the Can Ada Road and on the south side of Chinden Boulevard. Also, there is another area just on the north side of Chinden Boulevard that encompasses approximately two square miles and that is to the west of Linder Road and over to approximately Black Cat Road and north to the Canal. Other than that this meeting is simply to satisfy the legal requirement (inaudible) the state statute and we will proceed with the requests from the City of Meridian and we have provided Meridian City Council Special JointIWorkshop Meeting August 14,2006 Page 2 of 12 the City of Meridian with a letter letting them know what all the county staff would have to have in the way of material to evaluate their requests. Tilman: Mr. Chairman. Richard I want to make sure I understand this - two pieces - a piece that is (inaudible--) north side of Chinden Boulevard? R. Cook: That is correct. Tilman: Have they already made a request to expand the area of impact for that piece of it - lead to this meeting? R Cook: Mr. Chairman, Commissioner Tilman, we have had some discussions on that, but I don't know that we have actually received any formal request. I know there is some discussion between the City of Meridian and the City of Eagle and there is some conversation about the City of Meridian annexing into their city limits. So I don't know exactly where that particular piece of the puzzle stands right at the moment. Tilman: Mr. Chairman, can somebody answer that? De Weerd: Mr. Chairman I guess not being prepared knowing what this meeting was all about, I am a little disadvantaged, but we did (inaudible) a letter on February 17, 2005 to refer - actually ours is March 4, 2005 responding to the February 1 ih letter from your staff. They detailed the processes of the area of impact piece. We responded to Mark Pechinino's letter and told them that we had met with the City of Eagle, the (inaudible) with neighbors. We had started the process to do a comprehensive plan amendment and also identifying trade areas with the geographic factors to it. We had followed up with a letter in July to yourselves that talks about what we have all done to get to this point. We had already met on the area to the north of Chinden. That was in 2004 and the four square miles to the west of McDermott came out through the public hearings from those property owners. Yzaguirre: Can you give us your name for the record and you, too, sir. Canning: Anna Canning, Planning Director for the City of Meridian. Ellsworth: Matt Ellsworth with the Meridian Planning Department. Yzaguirre: Do you want to give us an update? Canning: Yes and the Mayor has articulated it quite well. We didn't exactly know we were going to do it the first time we met with the Board of County Commissioners, however, I do remember discussing that we were considering it and that we would talk to those affected property owners through the comprehensive plan amendment process. We did talk to them. The majority of Meridian City Council Special JointIWorkshop Meeting August 14, 2006 Page 3 of 12 them were interested in being part of the City of Meridian comprehensive plan so we did include them_ Yzaguirre: Now wasn't part of the thinking to do these jointly and kind of synchronize them? Canning: Yes, it was all part of the North Meridian comprehensive plan amendment, so we did do them all together. Peavey-Derr: Mr. Chairman to answer Commissioner Tilman's question - (inaudible) not make formal application on the property north of Chinden Boulevard, is that correct? Canning: The property north of Chinden, yes we have. At that time when we talked about the property north of Chinden, we mentioned that we may be including this within our updated comprehensive plan for the North Meridian area plan. We weren't sure that we wanted to base this on the thoughts of those property owners. So, we tentatively talked about it, but it wasn't - Peavey-Derr: But, the piece that we are interested in - the question was north of Chinden and you have made formal applications of that? Canning: To you all over a year ago. Tilman: Mr. Chairman you might want to make sure that, Richard, we do have formal applications on file. R. Cook: Mr. Chairman, Commissioner Tilman it is not an application per se it is a request and I will have to get with Mark Pechinino and see if he has that. Tilman: I am trying just to at least establish because I hear all kinds of talk around and (inaudible) do we have a formal request for that piece north of Chinden Boulevard? R. Cook: As far as I know yes sir we do. Tilman: So, then it seems to me that what this meeting is for, if we do have one for the piece north, you are formally requesting now for us to include in that request that the (inaudible) four square mile (inaudible) right? So, we could look at them both at the same time. Canning: We could certainly do that, yes. Tilman: Okay that is kind of what I take as the purpose of this meeting is to say whether we agree to accept formal application to include this in the whole decision? Meridian City Council Special JointIWorkshop Meeting August 14, 2006 Page 4 of 12 Canning: We have a file number already started. So, to me that would seem there is a formal application and we are just asking that this be included in that. Tilman: Well, our legal counsel is always careful to (inaudible). It is not really an application because it is a negotiated process, so you have requested for us to negotiate with you. If you say formal application many people get confused and you have got all of the timelines as if it was a land application. Yzaguirre: So, the request is before us. Anything else that you want to share, Anna? Canning: Matt Ellsworth prepared the agenda and he has all of the materials to present it to your staff for review today of whatever timeline you would like on the agenda and I apologize for being a couple of minutes late. Ellsworth: I apologize too for being late. (Inaudible--) that conversation between staff (inaudible--) certainly would be interested in today. Tilman: I have one other question on the part that was north of Chinden Boulevard. When we first met there was some discussion about whether or not Eagle was interested in having for their area of impact and it was my understanding that you guys had visited and they agreed that it made sense for it to be in Meridian. Is that the way you understand it? Canning: Mayor did you want me to answer that or do you want to? Yes there were a couple different meetings that went on. The first was a meeting between Mayor De Weerd and Mayor Merrill. We discussed this area here as not being with our comprehensive plan and we dropped that from our comprehensive plan fairly early on and then the joint Councils met and they did discuss the area north of Chinden and they mutually agreed that it made more sense for that area to be served by the City of Meridian. Tilman: Has that area north of Chinden already been annexed into the City of Meridian? Canning: There have been annexation applications approved for a portion here and here and then another portion that routes around here and goes up to about there. (Inaudible--). That was the one that (inaudible--). So, there are portions of that that have been requested. Tilman: Okay, but not annexed as yet? Canning: I don't believe that any of the annexations are (inaudible). Do you remember, Bill? Meridian City Council Special JOinUWorkshop Meeting August 14, 2006 Page 5 of 12 De Weerd: They have come through Council. Canning: Right, they have been approved. I am not sure that the ordinance has been adopted yet. Well, you seem to be asking about that overlap area and given the recent conversation through the article in the paper and that conversation, I did want to point out that the original Star request also had a small overlap right at McDermott, but my understanding was that it was stated in the Star hearings that they would not include that - that they were not interested in pursuing that and that that would be part of the City of Meridian as well. De Weerd: And, Mr. Chairman, they did have (inaudible) areas that went to both Star and Eagle's area of impact hearings and discussions. Star did fill out the requested property upon the property owners' request. Eagle did not and that is what triggered the meeting between Meridian and Eagle. There are additional properties in the immediate north of that area shown, but the property owners, the majority not every single one of them would also like to be included. We did not (inaudible) in Meridian. We did not include that in the application because it came up during the process and we did not want it to delay it, but it is not an area that we have had a joint meeting with Eagle, in fact, that is (inaudible). We will be meeting with them next Wednesday to talk about the property to the north of what you are seeing on the map. Tilman: That is along the river? De Weerd: Yes, between the river and the canal there. R. Cook: You would also take that into your area? De Weerd: We are not requesting that at this point. Canning: At the joint hearings among the property owners testified (inaudible--). De Weerd: Yeah, it is not part of the (inaudible). (Inaudible discussion) Peavey-Derr: Mr. Chairman I have a question for legal. We have created an overlap for the Star and Eagle piece and did it include the piece that Star is now withdrawing? Is that --? Yewer: You know I would have to look at the map to figure out where Star's boundary is and quite frankly this corner. Probably whoever did Star's (inaudible- -). I am just not up to speed with the exact map boundaries. Meridian City Council Special JointIWorkshop Meeting August 14, 2006 Pane 6 of 12 Peavey-Derr: I guess my question is what kind of process does this cause, then? I mean is that a timeline here that we have created an overlap and now can Star effectively if it is in pull it out and how does that all work? De Weerd: Mr. Chairman. I believe they pulled it out -- I know I was at your Planning & Zoning Commission hearing and they pulled it out then. Peavey-Derr: Can they do that? De Weerd: I don't know. Peavey-Derr: I don't know that they can do that. That is the thing. (Speaker unknown): I think, potentially, I mean as we kind of talked about this overlap that (inaudible) ultimately was to go forward in the application when we created the overlap the City of Meridian and the City of Eagle would have the opportunity to adjust the common boundary within the areas of impact, but if for whatever reason they couldn't accomplish that then we would be in kind of the same situation that we are going to find ourselves with Star and potentially that area could go - could be an election of those property owners and then (inaudible ). R. Cook: Mr. Chairman and Members of the Commission I know (inaudible--) Eagle overlap as the example, one of the final letters that went out to them to their respective cities after the Committee of Nine decision was that they try to negotiate one more time between them to see which lands they were willing to give out essentially and how to adjust the boundary to try to reach a resolution without going to the vote. De Weerd: Mr. Chairman I do know that Eagle was, I believe, counseled by your staff that they could not pull this piece out because they were going to do that out of their requests, but we were told that if they did so they would have to reapply and they weren't going to do that. So, that created that overlap, so I am not sure how this Star piece went because - Peavey-Derr: I think it would follow the same way. De Weerd: I don't think Star was told at that time, Eagle was. Peavey-Derr: Okay. Well, I think we would have to clarify that point before we go too much further on at least the piece north of Chinden. De Weerd: I think like staff has pointed out, probably half that piece right now has already been annexed, not by title ordinance, but (inaudible) through the pieces of our public hearing process. Meridian City Council Special JointIWorkshop Meeting August 14, 2006 Page 7 of 12 Yzaguirre: Is there any discussion? It looks like we have accomplished what we needed to today. Tilman: Mr. Chairman I don't know if we need a formal adoption including what is it, two square miles? Yzaguirre: Four square miles. Tilman: Four square miles into this negotiated process, is that what you are looking for officially accepting your request that this be added to that negotiation? De Weerd: I think that is what we would like go with- Peavey-Derr: Just a second, Mr. Chairman. You do have, Anna, all the required maps, justifications, etc., to present to the staff at this time for discussion? Canning: Yes, we do. Peavey-Derr: All right thank you. I am fine. Yzaguirre: Okay. De Weerd: Mr. Chairman if you have any questions of our Public Works, they have done all of the modeling for that area and we are able to serve those in every regard. Yzaguirre: (Inaudible) do you think we need some kind of action of the Board at this point? (Speaker unknown): No, I think (inaudible--) re-negotiate is all you really need to do. Yzaguirre: I believe we are fine. Bill are you okay with where we are? Nary: Yes. Yzaguirre: Any other discussion points on anything? (Speaker unknown): Mr. Chairman the process all along has appeared rather murky to me. There is really not a place to put a finger on it, but it seems to me I would like to leave here with some kind of sense of a timeline. Can you speak to that Richard? R. Cook: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Board and Meridian Council. The code does not have an established timeline. This first negotiation meeting is the only timeline required by state statute. Once the request is received then we have 30 Meridian City Council Special JointIWorkshop Meeting August 14, 2006 Page 8 of 12 days to (inaudible) to have this first meeting and afterwards there are no set timelines, however, we will try to move it along as quickly as we can. It may take up to 12 months; I don't know it just depends on the amount of information that has been given to our staff. It looks like he has got a fairly comprehensive plan put together already, so that expedites things and the other thing that helps is that it does not appear at this point to be surrounded by controversy, so hopefully that will move it along a little bit quicker. Peavey-Derr: Mr. Chair. How quickly, Mr. Cook, can we get with legal staff and Mr. Pechinino and establish whether or not there is an overlay or a boundary problem already established with the process that has taken place? R. Cook: Mr. Chairman, Commissioner Peavey-Derr I will get a hold of Mark immediately after this meeting and see where that lies. Peavey-Derr: Okay. I guess then that we will need to communicate that to Meridian. R. Cook: Whether or not there is any problem with the overlay? Peavey-Derr: Yeah. (Inaudible discussion) R. Cook: I might say that there are things that we have to consider and that is amendments to how our comprehensive plan and how often those things can go to public hearing. We are restricted by the once every six month rule and as you know we have got some other things in the works right now, so we will get it scheduled for hearing as soon as we can. (Speaker unknown): Mr. Chair. Thank you and that does help, but my concern is that six months from now, we all of a sudden learn that we need just a little bit more of information that's already in the desk drawer today - that happens on all sides of the street. Yzaguirre: Yes it does and thank you for your point. I think the whole idea was to synchronize both of these so they were in that six month window is my recollect. (Speaker unknown): Mr. Chair, Mayor, Council Members, Commissioners right now our comprehensive plan, as you know (inaudible). Our schedule so far is we are looking at a work session before P&Z on September 28th, possibly a hearing in October and once we get into the hearings, I don't know how long it is going to take. So, we are trying to kind of move that through the fall and onto the Board depending on how long we are in P&Z. (Inaudible--) outline is a work session and hearings at P&Z and then duplicating that with the Board. So, another work Meridian City Council Special JointIWorkshop Meeting August 14, 2006 Page 9 of 12 session on the plan with the Board and (inaudible). Ideally, the end of the year. That was our goal. Once we get into the public hearing process, you would (inaudible--) tied with (inaudible) and that sort of thing. Yzaguirre: Anything else for the good of the order? (Speaker unknown): A couple of questions. While I am at it, does the pending (inaudible) with the counties comp plan delay or stay any review of the city's amendment request? Is there any requirement that the county complete theirs first? (Speaker unknown): Well, ideally we have to analyze the work load of the staff and (inaudible) would be nice to be able to move them forward together. (lnaudible--). We will just have to be able to see because the area of impact expansion - I know we have a series of a couple of town meetings as well as the actual hearings before the P&Z and the hearings in front of the Board. (Inaudible--). (Speaker unknown): To answer your question a little bit, that six month timeline that is outlined in state code is based on the Planning & Zoning Commission recommendations or a map change. Borton: Mr. Chairman one other question and (inaudible--) February's 2005 letter from Mark Pechinino (inaudible). He makes a nice listing of the process summary and as I go through this, I am just trying to get a feel for where we are on it. (Inaudible) number one, the initial meeting between the Board and Meridian City; two the ongoing negotiations and staff review of the documents; three is the Ada County staff report to the Board. The prerequisites to starting that process were provided in the Mayor's response in the spring of '05, I am trying to get a sense of where we are as - are we at the initial meeting right now, number one between the Board and the city? Are we (inaudible) Board yet? Yzaguirre: In my mind this is a (inaudible--). (Inaudible discussion) De Weerd: Mr. Chair. Yzaguirre: Yes. De Weerd: I guess the initial meeting was the original piece north of Chinden and this is the initial meeting, I guess, on the four square miles to the west of McDermott. What I would like to ask as we are looking at the south Meridian area, we are going through public meetings and working with the property owners down in that area to try and determine logical request boundary. What is the process? Do we take this - so we make this a little bit more (inaudible) than Meridian City Council Special Joint/Workshop Meeting August 14,2006 Page 10 of 12 we have in the past just to know the appropriate steps so we can do it in the appropriate manner for requesting the south side? Yzaguirre: If you want to continue onto the south after your meeting next week with the City of Eagle and you decide that - De Weerd: No, this is for the south side of the Meridian area. This would be a new request. I am just trying to figure out (inaudible) what Borton said you know what we would like to really establish is what are the appropriate steps? We have been working with your staff on the south Meridian area as well as Kuna's staff, but once those public pieces are commenced, finished what is the process to start moving that piece forward as well? Yzaguirre: Well, wouldn't it be those steps in that letter? R. Cook: Correct. Mr. Chairman, Madame Mayor, we would just start the process unless you wanted to hold off on this until you decided what areas to the south - De Weerd: No. R. Cook: Okay that is my understanding so we will move forward with the two (inaudible) pieces that we have now and get that done and then whenever you are ready, just submit the request for whatever areas to the south that you are looking at in all this and start the process once again. (Speaker unknown): Mr. Chairman based on (inaudible--) and the way we have treated all of these (inaudible). The first step is that you need to officially ask for a certain timeframe, but we do have to have this meeting before the (inaudible). That is required by state statute, so that would be the process. Once you determine what your next application - well, not applications, but requests would be - then you simply notify us by letter of your intent to that. We have this meeting which then starts the whole negotiating process, you supply the information that is outlined or the area that you are talking about and we just move right into that. Yzaguirre: Anna, you wanted to comment? Canning: Thank you Mr. Chairman, Commissioners and Members of the City Council. I think that when we brought the north part in we wanted to do it before we do the comprehensive plan amendment so that you all were aware and I think that we just want you to know that we are looking at the south of Meridian area. I think it proved difficult for your staff that we hadn't done the comprehensive plan amendment on the north end, so we won't be bringing that formal application to you until we have had the south Meridian comprehensive plan amendment prepared. So, I think it was just a little confusing and frustrating for everybody, Meridian City Council Special JointIWorkshop Meeting August 14,2006 Page 11 of 12 but we were just trying to up the communication lines before we went forward with that because we knew it was in Eagle's city area of impact as well. We will be looking in the south area; we are working on the public participation effort right now. We do have a comprehensive plan amendment initiated by an individual (inaudible) about half of the referral area on the south. (Inaudible--) point so we will pull that on into the larger comprehensive plan amendment for the whole city. Just wanted to let you all know that we are working on that and we have been communicating with staff and inviting them to all of the meetings. (Speaker unknown): What you are referring to is the referral - today that is not considered part of the area of impact. Canning: Correct that is considered a referral area. (Speaker unknown): So, it is officially not an area of impact? Canning: Correct. We will be looking to expand our area. Yzaguirre: And if you think we are off track on the process or we are not moving quickly enough, if there is any confusion that we can help you clear out either on your side or ours please give us a call. Sometimes there are issues out there that we are not aware of. There are issues that we are not aware of and if we know then we can help. Because the timeline seem - just amazing how slow we move. Any other discussion? Tilman: Mr. Chairman if you think you are frustrated with this process, I would welcome any opportunity to sit down with any of the city's representatives and legislatively try and determine a different process, believe me I would be the first to step up to do that. The County's Association as a total association would be very, very eager to do that as well. If you think this is fun for us, it isn't and we know it is a very poorly written piece of legislation when we try to apply it, but I think we have tried - and our thinking is trying to find consistency in how we would treat all the cities the same, but I can tell you it is very frustrating on our part to try and work with this piece of legislation because it is not very well written. I would welcome the opportunity to work with anybody to re-craft it to make it simple and effective, but just throwing that out there for the record. De Weerd: I appreciate that. Mr. Chair I guess just one other statement. Meridian has proceeded with these kind of things with very conservative (inaudible) and we like the process. I appreciate your comments Commissioner Tilman, I know that this is not a perfect system, but we do like it and we have told you that we have done two annexations outside our area of impact. We have never done that before, but we felt that in this case because we had already gone through the comprehensive planning steps, we knew we could serve it, we had the initial meetings with you, we did work with your staff and Eagle's staff and everyone was okay with it and that we felt that it was okay to move in that Meridian City Council Special JointIWorkshop Meeting August 14, 2006 Page 12 of 12 direction. That is not is not the way we like to operate. We do not like to annex outside our area of impact. We do like this process and we like that relationship with the county, we just want to do it right. Peavey-Derr: Thank you. Yzaguirre: We do thank you for following the rules. (Inaudible--). (Tape ended before the adjournment process) MEETING ADJOURNED AT 11 :35 A.M. (TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) APPROVED: ~ 12/1C(/tJ'b DATE APPROVED WEERD MAVOR'I!I!;.'!!,':- , \\\ - ~"'r'" -(I ,,\\ eft. ,,~n;l:rtff, Ii..., ,,"\ A:+{ __..~.~''''''',-~ ~~:';f "."/0.. ~'6\ ,.,,,: ".-..... .'''''-.,~, ""' J~ ..~- ( (~;:~~:VI~~~' JR, CITY CLERK ..:,. ",() '... %I r 1$\ . ,. ,<'t .;.,. ~ ::d '~_......r"'/~" ~... ~~ ...... "a '~ ,"" //1/11 C)()tfr'< ~ .' \,-'" <:.., ~ '////1/11111 i\\\\\\'\"