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HomeMy WebLinkAboutDecember 7, 2006 P&Z Minutes Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 29 of 90 to the regularly scheduled meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission of December 21 st, 2006. Could I get a motion to that effect? Zaremba: So moved. Moe: Second. Rohm: It's been moved and seconded that we continue item MCU 06-004 to the regularly scheduled meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission of December 21st, 2006. All those in favor say aye. Opposed same sign? Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Item 9: Item 10: Continued Public Hearing Public Hearing from October 19,2006: AZ 06-031 Request for Annexation and Zoning of 290.87 acres from RUT to an R-8 (Medium Density Residential (115.91 acres), R-4 (Medium Low- Density Residential) (69.92 acres), TN-R (Traditional Neighborhood Residential) (51.36 acres), TN-C (Traditional Neighborhood Center) (34.65 acres) and R-2 (Low Density Residential) (26.02 acres) for South Ridge Subdivision by James L. Jewett - south side of Overland Road between Linder Road and Ten Mile Road: Continued Public Hearing from October 19,2006: PP 06-031 Request for Preliminary Plat approval of 233 lots including: 206 residential lots, 11 commercial/other lots and 16 common / open space lots on 290.87 acres in the proposed TN-C, TN-R, R-8, R-4 and R-2 zones for South Ridge Subdivision by James L. Jewett - south side of Overland Road between Linder Road and Ten Mile Road: Rohm: At this time I'd like to open the Public Hearing on AZ 06-031 and PP 06-031, both of these items related to South Ridge Subdivision and begin with our staff report. Moe: Mr. Chairman? Rohm: Commissioner Moe. Moe: Due to the fact that I actually work with a couple of folks that are in opposition in this hearing tonight, I am requesting to be -- to recuse myself from this hearing at this time, as I am a little bit concerned of my own conflict of interest. Rohm: That is certainly your prerogative and I accept that recusal. Moe: Thank you. Rohm: Okay. With that, can we get the staff report, please? Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 30 of 90 Hood: Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission. This item is not a new one to you; it has been on two previous agendas. Most recently the October 19th Commission meeting, at which time the Commission did direct the applicant to hold another meeting, a neighborhood meeting, receive comments from ACHD, and give city staff new calculations and configurations for this project. At the two previous hearings there has not been a staff report given really describing the project and what the applicant is proposing. I am prepared to do that this evening. It may take awhile, it is 290 plus acres, but I am going to run through the project just as quick as I can and highlight some of the issues, concerns that we have, issues and concerns from other agencies, departments, and the like and just kind of run through the time on everything that's happened in the past six months or so when this application was submitted back in July. The project, as you can see on the map, is everything in blue. It is a little bit misleading. There is an out-parcel right here. It looks like it's outlined in blue, but that, in fact, is not part of the subject project. But everything else between Linder and Ten Mile, Overland south is. There is another out-parcel right here as well and one right there. So, there are there out-parcels. I should probably point out this one, although it's not in the middle of the project, but that is, too, an out-parcel. That's also not a part of the project, As I mentioned, 290 acres. They are requesting R-2, R-4, R-8, TN-C and TN-R zoning. Staff is additionally recommending an L-O zoning designation for just a little piece of property. I will get to that in a little bit. There is a preliminary plat also associated with this project. There are 186 residential lots, 11 commercial or other building lots, and 16 common lots. Of the 186 residential, nine are mega lots that are going to be re-platted. I'm going to stop there for just a second. You can see some of these areas here. On this plan here this is mega lot four, I believe. I can't read it from this far, but I think that's mega lot four. Here is another mega lot. This is a mega lot. There is one there. There are nine of those throughout the project. Here are a couple here. The applicant intends to annex this into to the city with this project, actually record a final plat on them, with the understanding that they cannot develop any of those until they come back for another preliminary and final plat approval by the city, at which time they can, then, develop the project. But everything is included within the development today, as the mega block. Now, there is another exhibit that the applicant prepared today, I think it's in his PowerPoint presentation, that shows a phase line that does something like this. It encompasses the park, goes around and takes in everything and calls this phase one. So, this will all be completed with what he's calling phase one. These future phases -- and I will get into this a little bit further. Aside from being recorded in a final plat and having a non-build note placed on the plat, staff is making a further recommendation, basically anything west of that first phase not be constructed until the alignment of Overland Road is determined by the City Council and ACHD through the public hearing process of our Ten Mile area specific plan. Again, I will get into some details on how some language how I exactly propose, but you forward on a recommendation that has that stipulation in it. Let me go back to the project a little bit more. So, your office and retail lots are up along Overland Road. There is also a future public library site, an elementary school site. These are alley loaded units here along this collector roadway that feeds into the development. Some more alley loads and, then, you kind of get into less dense areas there. There is some R-4 in this area -- maybe I will toggle over to this one. This actually shows the zoning. So, this is the Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7, 2006 Page 31 of 90 master concept plan, but it kind of helps to fill in those mega blocks and the idea of how they will develop in the future. You can see that's kind of where the alley load stops and you got some R-8 here, some R-4 and, then, there is R-2 down along some of the existing R-5 lots that are over here in Val Vista and Ariel and I believe this is R-4. but some larger lots and those exact lot sizes have not been proposed, staff has not evaluated these lot sizes. These ones that are in the first phase we have looked at. They do meet the dimensional standards of the requested zone. In fact, all of the lots within the development first phase have been reviewed by myself and do comply with the minimums for the zone, as far as square footage and frontage and the like. There is a park site, a city park site proposed here. This is a little clubhouse area. I'll let the applicant probably -- he's got some better depictions, some more details than I have. In fact, I haven't even seen how this park is going to be developed. Doug Strong -- I did have a conversation today with Doug Strong, the Parks Director, their commission has already reviewed and approved a design for this city park. There is a pond somewhere in there and it's a terraced park, supposedly three levels. Again, I haven't seen the details of how that works, but the parks commission has taken some action and a recommendation for how this park should look. Again, maybe the applicant can fill you in on some of the details there, but there is a city park as well. And conceptually there is also shown a fire station over here near Ten Mile Road on the south side of -- on this concept plan Overland Road realigned and I kind of just -- we talked about it last time, but Overland Road is proposed to be realigned in this location. Let's see. So, what we have submitted is several iterations. in fact, of a master -- master concept plan and a preliminary plat. The main changes that have occurred are -- the first original submittal just showed Overland going straight. There was some local collector streets that kind of went through and serviced the rest of this area, but that has changed due to the outcome of the Ten Mile area specific planning charrette and the Comprehensive Plan map that city staff, our Comprehensive Planning staff, is getting prepared to submit next week to meet our December 15th cutoff for a Comp Plan amendment. It is true that the City Council has not officially acted on this, this being the Ten Mile area specific plan. They have been aware, though, however, through pre~councils and a lot of them, if not all of them, attended some aspect of the charrette and know what's going on here. It won't be a surprise when it gets to the Council, at least, you know, in concepts that, hey, it's talked about that Overland Road may be realigned. That's the outcome of the charrette. So, that's one of the biggest changes. The applicant did make that change at city staffs request. He would not have had staffs support if he would have tried to push his original project through, it just -- it wasn't consistent with where staff envisioned the Comprehensive Plan going, it was out of date by the time it got to here and he was good enough to actually change his plan and show this road to avoid the ugly situation it would create at the Ten Mile - Overland current intersection if it's an arterial-arterial intersection within the interchange. I do also want to point out that as I mentioned there has been several -- three or four, anyways, different plans that have been submitted to me. However, the east half of this project has had very very minor changes. In fact, it's been -- in my estimation for a project this large, it's been the same. The only thing that's changed is there were some changes to an alley, a slight variation to an alley. The alley is essentially the same. I believe this is Block 5, but maybe -- maybe my memory is failing me. But very very slight modifications. This roadway right here has changed a Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 32 of 90 little bit. There was a condition in the original staff report to give access to this parcel, so they didn't have direct lot access in the future to Linder. They have moved that road now, so it does snug up to it and they can take access to this road, rather that direct access to Linder. Some other minor tweaks, but, again, this side of the plat hasn't changed too much and all of the changes have been at staff's request. There have been some other changes that we have worked with the developer on that we have tried to get it consistent with the Ten Mile area plan and how we anticipate the land use designations in this area to fall. Staff is generally supportive of the most recent plan and when I say most recent plan, I actually received a revised revised plan at 4:30 today from Mr. Jewett. I have not had time to do a thorough analysis of what's changed, what hasn't changed, but just on the face of it, just spending ten minutes looking at it, it looks to be not only consistent with the previous version, but it cleaned up some things and he's now showing a new phase line. That's probably the biggest thing that stands out. He's actually -- there is a dark line and, then, his presentation -- it was so late I didn't get to scan it in, but in his presentation he has a dark line showing what that phase one is and that's important as we talk about the development agreement provisions that I'm going to ask you to modify here in just a little bit. We talked about Overland Road. That's a huge huge deal with this project. We are asking the Commission and City Council, if it's appropriate, to realign this major arterial. Just a little bit of background with that. It does intersect Ten Mile Road approximately 2,100 feet south of its current location. So, there is about 2,000 feet of a relocation there, so it's not a slight modification. it is a significant change to the existing location of the road. ACHD previously acted on South Ridge when Overland Road continued in its existing alignment. I do have those conditions as well handy, because those are not in the staff report. What I scanned into the staff report and gave the Commission was their condition should the council -- or commission yesterday approve the project with the Overland Road realignment. At the ACHD commission yesterday they did vote to remand the revised South Ridge design back to their staff with no definite date to reschedule the item. The commission determined that acting on the revised plat with the proposed Overland Road realignment was premature ahead of the city's adoption of the Ten Mile area plan and the interchange design. So. that was one of the major reasons that you all continued this here on -- from October 19th was to get some action from ACHD. The ACHD's action in this case was no action and they didn't say that they are going to have one, you know, just here in the near future, they remanded it back to staff and they said we don't know when we will act on this again. City, the ball's in your court, you tell us if you like this or not, go through your Public Hearing process, take into consideration all the public's testimony on what they think about Overland Road, explore, you know, options, potentially, of where Overland should come out. Once you have your plan adopted we will consider this as well. But they, essentially, want veto power. I believe right before the motion was made one of the commissioners said something to the effect that, you know, we have authority over the roadways and we are not going to, you know, allow a developer or even the city -- and I'm maybe -- I'm paraphrasing here a little bit, but they wanted to hold off on any decision until they new for sure what the city wanted to do and didn't want to have conflicting approvals. If they approved it and the city didn't like it or vice-versa, they really want the city to act first and be the catalyst for that public input to see where Overland Road should align. So, Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 33 of 90 that's kind of a summary of their meeting yesterday and I know there are a bunch of folks in the audience here, I know there are a bunch of folks that were there yesterday, I don't know if they are all here in the audience or not, but that's what I came away with was they are really looking for the city to have some type of public testimony regarding how Overland Road should function. There are other concerns as well about the Ten Mile interchange, obviously, that's -- that's in this area, it will have an effect on how this area functions when it's constructed here in the next few years, hopefully, but they do -- they do want to know how the city feels about this. So, my recommendation to you -- and this is like a punch line I guess here right in the middle of my staff report, I would prefer that you make a recommendation this evening and whatever recommendation that is, that's up to you, but we need to get this ball rolling. We have asked ACHD, you know, we want the comments from ACHD before you forwarded on a recommendation; they said we are not going to do anything before the city does something. I believe the ball is in the city's court now to tell ACHD what we want and which I think can be a positive thing, we can tell them exactly where we want it and they know where we stand and I'm not telling you what -- what your recommendation should be, but I think the applicant at least deserves some recommendation tonight to get before the City Council, so that City Council can tell ACHD how the city thinks that this area should function. So, I'm going to jump back into the project itself, but that's a huge -- a huge aspect of this development. Zaremba: Mr. Chairman, could I add a comment just to that specific subject. I am on ACHD's capital investment citizens advisory committee and I have the opportunity to talk to commissioners -- ACHD commissioners at various times. They in the past have been strongly dinged from making early decisions that are interpreted by cities as being land use decisions, as opposed to roadway decisions, and my feeling is the signal that they are sending to us is they don't want to flop back and forth of where the roadways ought to go, they want Meridian to make the land use decision and, yes, they are the final authority on roads, but they have participated in the charrette as well and I don't think their remanding it back to their own staff should be seen as a negative on their part. They participated in the charrette, they have seen this. they are trying to be very sensitive to let the cities -- in this case Meridian make the land use decision first and, then, they will decide the road. So, I don't want ACHD to come off negative on this necessarily. Thank you. Hood: And I wouldn't either. I would add to that, we -- as you mentioned at the charrette and in between -- I mean it's been almost two months now since the charrette has been complete. We have been in constant contact with ACHD staff on this very issue. They reviewed this, they provided a staff report to their commission, their commissioners were just not comfortable with the process in approving a major change like this without having, as you mentioned, you know, comments back from the city on where they want to be. So, I appreciate that. I am going to switch gears here a little bit and talk about the Comprehensive Plan, because that also ties in with the development and the land use aspect of the development. So, I will get away from the roads a little bit, but the property is currently designated a mixed use community and medium density residential on the current Comprehensive Plan future land use map. There is a Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 34 of 90 neighborhood center, half circle neighborhood center location, something like this, on the current Comprehensive Plan map and, then, the rest of it is shown as medium density residential. However, staff is preparing to submit a Comprehensive Plan amendment for the Ten Mile area, as I mentioned earlier. This application for a map amendment has an impact on the land use designations for this property. The map amendment will propose for this property a mix of mixed use commercial near Linder Road and Overland Road intersection, medium high density along the south side of Overland Road, and medium and low density further south. Civic areas are shown as the elementary school site near Linder and fire station near Ten Mile Road. Open space parks are shown along the Ridenbaugh and the natural gas pipeline and mixed use employment areas are shown on the north side of Overland Road. On the map currently the mixed use areas shown in the middle of the section between Linder and Ten Mile and medium density shown on either side. as I mentioned. The proposed development and zoning reflect more of the mixed uses at the Linder Road - Overland Road intersection and along the Overland Road frontage. Staff is generally supportive of the proposed zoning designation as they are generally consistent with both the current map and the map amendment that will be proposed, except for a couple of areas. I'm going to jump to the concept plan now, because this does have the zoning designations on it. And I do have as well the map that we are prepared to submit this next -- by this next Friday to amend the map, but, basically, staff is supportive of the proposed zoning district as shown on his exhibit, except for on another plan previously there was a -- this was made a four legged intersection. The Ten Mile area plan that we are preparing to submit shows this area as being -- where did it go? Mixed use employment. I asked Anna what zoning designation corresponds to mixed use employment, because we don't have a designation like that currently on our Comp Plan map. She said L-O would be the closest thing we have to mixed use employment. What it really is going to be is an employment sanctuary, you're looking for major office employers in that area. So, L-O is the closest zoning designation we currently have that corresponds to the future land use map we are anticipating for that area. So, that is a change staff would like to see would be for this area to go to L-O and staying in that same area, the applicant's proposed some TN-C here. that's a traditional neighborhood center. There are more commercial uses allowed in this proposed zoning district than the Ten Mile area specific plan has envisioned. It envisions this area being medium high density residential. That would correspond more closely to the TN-R which is proposed on the east side of Overland realigned. Or R-15. They are both pretty consistent. R-15 allows up to 15 dwelling units an acre, medium density residential is up to 15 dwelling units an acre. So, both of those designations, either an R-15 or a TN- R in this area with L-O there. Except for those changes, everything else -- the zoning designations are generally consistent with the map that city staff is prepared to submit to the city. You won't actually -- just because we acted on our last CPA map amendment in -- I want to say October sometime -- we have to wait six months, so we are looking at April, I think, is the earliest it can get for you to make a recommendation on, but we have to have it submitted by the 15th of December, but that's what you will be seeing here later on this next spring is will be -- at least a small portion. The Ten Mile specific area plan is a huge area, but this -- that's -- relative to this project, that's what the map will look like. I do have several development agreement provisions that I Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 35 of 90 would ask be modified, just -- my staff report, you know, went to print -- should have been Friday at 5:00. I took it home and worked on it this weekend, I got it to the clerk on Monday. ACHD's commission Wednesday, I needed to have -- to make -- I request that you make some changes to our -- to the development agreement provisions that I wrote on this last weekend regarding this project. I can give those to you now, I guess, is probably a pretty good time. I don't have a hard copy of my staff report, but I did make some notes on here, so I don't know what page this is on, but it should be near the middle of the staff report anyways. Development agreement provision number one - - or number three. Zaremba: Modifying Exhibit B, is that -- Hood: Does Exhibit B have the development agreement provisions in it? Zaremba: I think it mentioned it. Exhibit B begins on page 40, if that helps. Hood: Yeah. I did put it -- it's both in the analysis and in Exhibit B. So, Exhibit B, page one. Page four, probably, on your computers, but -- so number three there, there is the highlighted R-15 in the second sentence and it reads that all TN-R zoned lots and uses will comply with the recently adopted TN-R standards adopted in the UDC. That the R- 15 zone area -- now, that was a change I was recommending, but based on the Ten Mile area plan. TN-R is -- yeah. TN-R is more appropriate there and then -- so, I'd ask that you delete the R-15 and replace that with TN-C. Let me show you what that is referring to. There is -- this area here, TN-C, on the original master concept plan multi- family was shown in this -- in this area. Staff is saying that the TN-C area needs to have those original concepts that were shown on that original concept plan as part of the development agreement, so -- and the way it continues on is at least 20 multi-family dwelling units, with the dwelling units being located primarily between Overland Road and any surface parking area, so you had the units out near Overland Road, not a sea of asphalt, not just a parking lot out here, but the buildings are actually pulled towards the street and at least 20 attached single family dwelling units and/or townhouse units and that usable common open space area be provided on site. So, again, that's consistent. It doesn't show up on this reviewed plan, but the original master concept plan did show multi-family, higher density, and open space for folks in there. So, as part of the development agreement I would ask that that be also included in future -- in the future development of this property. The next requested change is on number four on the same page. The R-15 zoning designation, the applicant is actually -- if you look on this map, there is no R-15 proposed. As I mentioned just a minute ago, R-15 and TN-R are similar zoning districts. They aren't the same, there are some differences. You can do some vertically integrated stuff in a TN-R, you can't in the R-15. but they are really similar. They are the medium high density districts of the city, so -- but R-15 is not on the table now, so I'd ask that just the R-15 be just completely removed from that provision. And, then, in the fourth sentence on there, after the colon -- let's see. And it says except that the areas proposed as -- I guess that's all that can be removed. I'm sorry. This is a little bit -- this condition gets a little hairy. The L-O is the only change that really needs to happen in that. So, it's the last part of that sentence, except for a Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7, 2006 Page 36 of 90 small pocket located on the northeast side of local intersection, that L-O pocket needs to be rezoned. That's the zoning designation that staff's proposing. And, again, that's the area I talked about earlier, this kind of triangular shaped area here should be zoned L-O, consistent with the plan. I'm going to jump down to 13 now, which is on the next page. It says currently that the applicant agrees to construct continuous public streets from Ten Mile Road, Overland Road, and Linder Road that connect with each other as part of the first final plat as proposed. This one I'm asking you to totally strike based on ACHD's comments. ACHD will not let the applicant construct Overland Road as proposed from Linder to Ten Mile. The way I would ask you to modify that condition -- or strike and totally replace that condition would be no development shall occur west of phase one, as shown on the master concept plan, and then -- and it goes on to say mega lot -- or regarding the mega lots, until such time as the Ten Mile area specific plan is adopted by the city. Now, I don't expect you to write all this down as I'm saying this. I can give this to you if you want me to restate it or whatever, but the way that the provision will read is you cannot -- aside from that phase one, the applicant cannot construct any homes, any roads, over on this half of the development, except for the park, I'm sorry. I should have went around the park. Until the City Council adopts the Ten Mile specific area plan and where ever Overland Road falls -- if Overland Road falls straight, if that's what they say is best, that's where Overland needs to go with this project. If they say it dips down here -- obviously, the applicant can't construct it through someone else's property, but they would have to construct it down here and, then, this person picks it up to align. That was something that was talked about at ACHD yesterday. It was aligning with the street across at the half mile as an option anyway. So, however that falls, this provision will say you need to construct Overland consistent with that Ten Mile area plan as determined in the future. And, then, the final -- I'm sorry, I have two more. Provision No. 19, it says with the first phase construct a multi-use pathway from Linder to the park site. It should be from Linder to the park site, instead of -- currently, the development agreement provision is worded that with the first phase that applicant can either construct a ten foot wide multi-use pathway along the Ridenbaugh Canal all the way to Overland Road. Again, based on staff's recommendation tonight, they may have stopped that short and come back and terminate it into the park. Now, it will be useable for the forks that have -- it will give them a good segment to start with. And it will terminate at a park, which seemed pretty reasonable. When these mega blocks come in, that multi-use pathway will eventually be tied back in and this is also the easement for the natural gas pipeline and it will probably actually cross Ten Mile Road with Overland to make a safe pedestrian crossing, so they can cross at a light. So, it will generally follow the Ridenbaugh and, then, come down to cross Ten Mile in the future, but that needs to be modified, because that multi-use pathway should only be constructed to the park with the first phase. And, finally, there -- in number 23 -- and it currently reads that the applicant agrees to construct a development and public street system on this site that is generally compliant -- generally in compliance with the submitted master concept plan prepared by The Land Group labeled sheet M10, dated 4/15/06, with provisions mentioned above. And, then, in parenthesis it says detailed approval of the internal street systems will be reviewed and approved with the re-subdivision of each mega lot. So, again, staff has reviewed the street system in here for the first phase. The street system here has not Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 37 of 90 been reviewed. So, we haven't said, you know, this block looks awfully long to me. I don't know if it meets our standards for block length or not, but that's something we will look at in the future when this mega lot develops. Now, that being said -- and this is where I -- if I had any friends in the audience this is where I lose them, because I am requesting that the Commission also add a provision that a stub street be provided to one of the -- not today, but there be a development agreement provision that says when this mega lot redevelops, a stub street be provided to one of the five acre lots in Val Vista Subdivision. Now, I will show you kind of -- and this -- this picture here kind of shows the general area and I'm sorry it doesn't go out any further, but this being 300 acres it's hard to go much further out and still be able to see what's going on. This is Val Vista today and it currently cul-de-sacs. It's about 2,500 feet long. With the subject proposal, an elementary school, a public library, a city park, all these new folks that are going to be living in here and, hopefully, you know, everyone's neighborly and they can make new friends and want to, you know, communicate with each other, if, in fact, that happens, someone living in anyone of these lots have to jump back out on the arterial, Ten Mile, jump on another arterial Overland to get on the local streets within the development. If a stub street is provided -- and it doesn't -- it doesn't get extended until whatever parcel it gets stubbed to redevelops. But it allows folks -- I mean the road goes both ways. It allows folks in -- kids in here to walk to school on local streets and not have to take the bus out on Ten Mile or walk down Ten Mile on streets. It allows the fire department a second way into this area. Right now they have one access and if this -- if this access gets blocked, there is no way to get back to those homes. So, it really is a provision looking forward to the potential of these lots redeveloping in the future. It's the interconnectivity that we -- that we typically require with projects of this size. The applicant has acquired, basically, all the other -- all the other parcels here, so that's -- and the Ridenbaugh serves as a pretty good barrier to have any, you know, stub streets to any of these parcels or anything, but I thought I would save -- I know -- we have gotten a lot of public testimony, a lot of e-mails, I appreciate people's input -- you know, I do consider those things even when making my recommendation on things like this, but I feel it's my job to at least bring that issue out before the Commission and Council for your action, but that, I believe, is in the best interest of the city long term to have a public street there that will be extended in the future at such time that that lot develops. So, just going to quickly check my notes and see if I have missed anything here. I guess my -- the final, in closing -- you know, we are recommending -- it's kind of a partial approval. It's approval of the annexation and zoning of this property, but no construction, basically, for over half of the development. There are some other things that are in the motion specifically prepared for you that I would also like the applicant to -- the landscape plan has not been updated since day one and I would like to see a new landscape plan that shows the park. I have not -- yet to see how the park is terraced. Doug Strong has told me about it. I'm trying to envision this. But I would like to take those types of plans back to our agency meetings and get any additional comments that they may have based on the revisions that were made this evening and have those available to the City Council. I do not -- I do not envision any major changes to the comments you already have from fire, police, sanitary services, but I just want to make sure that they don't have anything that they need to add to this as well. The other -- the other thing that I would ask is that you require the applicant to prepare -- or hire a Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7, 2006 Page 38 of 90 surveyor to prepare new legal descriptions for the property. The legal descriptions have changed. They are generally, as far as acreages go, generally the same, but the lines, because -- because of the Ten Mile area plan, have changed based on that outcome. So, with that I will stand for any questions. I think I -- hopefully I touched on all the main points and if not I may jump in and say, oh, I forgot to add this as well. But J'm finished. If you have any questions I will answer them. Rohm: Thank you, Caleb. Any questions of staff? Zaremba: Mr. Chairman, I would ask one. And can you go back to what probably was the display just before this one. No. There. Back. There you go. Well, that may not be it, but I can use it. In this area up here which applicant is proposing as TN-C, I believe, or TN-R -- TN-R, you commented that this was no longer a roadway that connected over to Ten Mile. I will have to state that that change is very attractive to me. I like not having that intersection there, because it's an extremely difficult terrain and __ but are you suggesting if the applicant is willing to make the change to -- what did you ask for? L-O in that area? Hood: Yes. Zaremba: Would it be all right to sort of cul-de-sac into it from here, as long as it doesn't connect over to Ten Mile? Hood: Mr. Chair, Commissioner Zaremba -- and I wasn't -- this does not have to be a public street. I am just saying a four legged intersection, if it wants to be a driveway and, then, serves as a master campus for some office complex, that works, too. Zaremba: But it's still not connecting over to Ten Mile at that point. Hood: And that -- and that's a provision -- I guess I would clarify, though. What is not __ what the applicant is not proposing to do with this application at all is to change the current intersection with Ten Mile today. That's a two lane roadway and he does not have an interest in this property -- he's probably interested in the property, but he doesn't have an interested in this property and does not have the ability to terminate Overland Road short of it's current intersection with Ten Mile. There are some other properties that currently take access to Overland. And this Is one of the things, too, that kind of muddies those waters on the realignment and how do you get folks up there accessed back to the arterial that should be addressed, you know, with our plan, with where ever Overland Road runs and I know the applicant has a plan to do that. And, in fact, he can correct me if I'm wrong, but he owns one or two of these parcels on the north side of Overland -- it may even be that far. I don't see the parcel lines very well. I see one there, so -- but he does -- if not owned outright, has an option on this today, but what is not included in the staff report is something that says Overland Road has to do this today, it will continue to function like this, until where ever Overland get realigned to happens and at that point I do envision it cul-de-sacing or something else that was talked about and I don't know where this will go -- there may be an on -- this leads to the Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 39 of 90 on-ramp somehow or there is a bunch of fill and maybe I will let the applicant talk about this, because this is getting into some waters where I haven't had contact with ITD, it's kind of hearsay stuff that I have heard and maybe this can happen, maybe that can happen, but I wasn't -- the intent was not to have this four legged intersection feed back up into Overland Road and -- right there. So, that's -- that wasn't my intent anyway, so -- Zaremba: Thank you. Rohm: Thanks, Caleb. That was a lot of work. You did a good job. Would the applicant like to come forward at this time, please? Jewett: Mr. Chairman and Commissioners, my name is James Jewett, my address is 1560 Carol Street here in Meridian. First off I'd like to do just a little housecleaning here The Commission at the last meeting asked me to hold another neighborhood meeting. I did on Tuesday of this week hold a neighborhood slash open house meeting at my office, a little different concept where people could come at their leisure during a set time frame, be able to ask questions, and I specifically put out comment sheets where I asked them to comment and I made a response to all those comments and I'd like to enter into the record all the comment sheets we received, as well as the neighborhood list that we put out and all the people who attended. I will just give those to you. The way I'd like to proceed tonight is I will -- what I'd like to do is I will just give an overview and kind of our vision of what we are looking at and, then, I have Phil Hull here from The Land Group, to talk to you about the park and the pathways and the landscaping. I have Jason Oensmer here from The Land Group that can talk to you about how we laid out Overland Road and why it's in its current location. He's the engineer. I have Dan Thompson, who is our traffic engineer, to talk to you about traffic and how -- the pros and cons of how that would work. And, then, I have Joe Atalla that will talk about our housing types. So. if I can indulge the Commission to allow my people to come up subsequent to me, I'll get going here. Zaremba: Mr. Chairman, due to the size and the complexity of this project I would suggest that we allow the applicant more than the typical 15 minutes to provide his presentation and those of the others. Do we need a -- Rohm: Yeah. 1-- Zaremba: -- vote on that or just an opinion? Newton-Huckabay: I would agree with that, but I would ask that we not leave that an open-ended time. Jewett: I believe that we can all be very prompt here. I know a lot of people want to testify and there can be an opportunity for rebuttal, but if I miss something, we can carry it. I think that everyone wants to get this moving, so I think that we won't have to have a tremendous amount of time. I will be fairly brief, but I do appreciate the -- okay. I have Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7, 2006 Page 40 of 90 a copy -- a color copy of our PowerPoint, so that you can have it and, then, as I go through it if you want me to refer back to any slide, these are copies of them, so that it will help you. The first thing I want to do is -- because I know that this is a question that came out on the comments sheet -- was why the mega lots and I'm going to explain first and foremost why we did the mega lots. The mega lots gave us a tool in which we could put all this public infrastructure in without having to particularly preliminary plat those mega lots. If you look at our original mega lots, all our roadway system that we were proposing to build for the original construction all fall along with mega lots. ACHD doesn't specifically allow a developer to dedicate right of way unless it's part of a preliminary plat. So, we would have had to do just a massive preliminary plat or just a large preliminary plat with large mega lots. That's the driving force of why we did this. Secondly, it gave us the ability to find tooth those preliminary plats that came at subsequent dates based on what we learned from our previous plats. If a lot needed to be two feet wider or one foot narrower or how we can reconfigure that to best address the type of housing we are going to put in there. So, that's why we did that. My vision for this plat, as you can see, is a quite diverse amount of housing and you can see that in our zoning, all the way from an R-2, a large lot, down to R-8 for single family, to TN-C and TN-R. We wanted to create a village center that is kind of anchored by the new proposed library, that would want not only the residents of this subdivision, but anyone within the close proximity to want to come to this village center to use whatever retail or commercial uses that would be in there, the cafes, the coffee shops, the small grocery, to make it as viable as possible. We also, by incorporating the elementary school right behind that village center, we kind of utilized the library and the school in conjunction. The proposed library would have an outside amphitheater that would be jointly used with the school district for outdoor events, outdoor reading, outdoor plays. And, then, for events at either the library or the school, the overflow parking would flow between their two parking lots. So, in the general elementary where you would have a Christmas event, because we are in that season, you would have parking all over the streets. Well, in this configuration we have a -- we have a lot of parking right in here and, then, there would be a foot bridge back over to the school, so we would accommodate that extra use of parking. And, then. we -- there is -- we gave a little extra large area -- just a little bit larger elementary school than normal by about two and a half acres to accommodate a Ijttle bit more sports complex in this area. So, if a soccer event was going to occur, again, that parking could be utilized within the library. Our whole envision for this village was not only to serve this area, but to serve the general area as far as Bear Creek and Meridian Greens, to the east. We don't have a whole lot of development south yet, but as development happens south, this is where they will come for their general services and promoting a lot of pathways. As we move out from that, we have put our most dense development within the closest proximity to that village center and as we radiate out we try to increase our lot sizes and decrease our density to try to allow for that diversified housing. I don't know how many of you are -- know the site to know the topography of the site, but by moving -- this is the flat areas on the corner. As you move away you come up a ridge to the Ridenbaugh Canal that continues up, so as we get up on that ridge we try to utilize the vistas and the views creating up slope lots, creating down slope lots and, again, Joe will talk about how the housing types will fit on those up slope and down slope lots. And again -- and, then, as Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 41 of 90 we move that we put a centralized park with our clubhouse for our community up on top of the hill there and, again, that was to create vistas. This park will have the best vistas of any park in Meridian, generally, because it's going to be up on a hill and most of the parks in Meridian are flat. Most of Meridian is flat. This is unique about this site. And we are supportive of everything that staff has said. We appreciate the effort that staff has worked with us as this has been a trying experience for all of us. We are supportive, we would like to go forward with a phasing plan -- if you want to go to the next slide and see where we are. Go one more. One more. One more. Okay. You can see this dark hashed -- dashed line right here, this is the phase. Everything on this side is what we would plat as phase one. And we would be agreeable to what staff conditions, that everything on this side be left until this Ten Mile area charrette. We are very supportive of what came out of the Ten Mile charrette and I think my engineer will show you -- can show you why we are supportive of that. I do have a lot of information regarding ITO and the alignment, I have gone to all the meetings, I sat on the advisory committee, if the Commission has any specific questions regarding that, I could help answer. We are supportive of everything that's in the staff report and with that I would stand for any questions and, if not, I will let Phil go ahead and come and go ahead and talk about the parks and the pathways. Rohm: Okay. Thank you. Hull: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission, my name is Phil Hull with The Land Group, 462 East Shore Drive, Eagle, Idaho. I will just kind of give you a brief overview of the park site design and amenities to get you a little bit familiarized with it. The main entrance to the park is located here and we have got two separate parking lots. The left side for the clubhouse and the pool area. You actually have to make a conscious effort to take a left at this intersection and drive into there, so that when you drive straight in you feel like you're more in the city park parking lot. Got restrooms, a shelter faCility here, with a hard surface plaza space here, tot lot, sport court, barbecue area and picnic tables, that kind of thing. And we got walking paths around the park with an open space play field that's got a little bit of terrain to it and a pond system. We have got an up pond here and a walkway and a foot bridge going across the waterfall here to a lower pond and, then, that is connected via a bridge across the Ridenbaugh to a lower section down here. We have got roughly seven acres of park site up top and an acre down below for roughly an 8.2 acre park or so. We have met with parks and rec committee a couple of times and we have made quite a few modifications over the last three or four months to get to this point and to gain their positive recommendation on this park site design. A couple of revisions that they have asked for include an access point be added right here to this back side here, just for safety concerns on the back side of the pond, so we don't have any problem with modifying that plat to add that little 20 foot access aisle there for safety. And they have also asked us to revise the shape and size of this pond here by a little bit to gain just a little bit more of the green space and to make it a little bit more of an oval shape, so that there is no back corners tucked in there to have problems with no flow of water. And I believe that touches on all the park site area design. If there is any questions I'll stand and we will see -- oh, pathways. Yes. There is one more slide on the pathways. This slide shows the interconnected pathway Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 42 of 90 systems through the site. The red dotted lines show the continuation of the ten foot wide Meridian pathway system from Bear Creek here all the way through the site along the Ridenbaugh and, then, it comes up the Overland Road extension and, then, dives onto the gas line pipe line east of there. So. that gets the major pathway system to and through the site. And, then, the blue dotted lines show all the connections from the commercial area and the school and the library, all the way up through the site and connections up to the park site and around the park and just shows all the ways that this site can be accessed by the pedestrians. With that I will turn it over to -- Zaremba: Mr. Chairman, I would ask a question while we are on the subject. Hull: Sure. Zaremba: And it is just a question. Somewhere -- and if I remember correctly, maybe Settlers Park -- there is a handicap accessible play area that, apparently, has been very successful. Did the parks department mention anything to you perhaps including that? This is some distance from that park. There might be some need in this area. Has that been talked about? Hull: That hasn't come up. We were very involved in that Adventure Island at Settlers Park -- Zaremba: Yeah. That's what it is. Hull: And the tot lot design in this park will have accessible features on it, but it's not going to be nearly as elaborate as that one. Zaremba: Cool. Thank you. Hull: You bet. Thompson: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission, my name is Dan Thompson with Thompson Engineers. Business address is 181 Zinnia Street in Garden City. I prepared the traffic impact study for the development. And just for a little bit of history, I also authored the preliminary concept report for the Ten Mile interchange with a previous company, so I do have good familiarity -- Zaremba: Sir, could you pull the microphone a little closer. Thompson: Excuse me. Zaremba: Thank you. Thompson: When we did this -- this is a very large development within the -- pretty much anywhere in the valley. It was a major undertaking for the traffic impact study and we prepared it for ACHD and went through their review and I was very very pleased, we Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 43 of 90 had very little issues with ACHD with the traffic impact study. One of the big advantages of this development is they are actually putting a development near where we are building the infrastructure for this as far as transportation is concerned. Next December they are going to be -- actually, next month -- this month they are going to be starting construction on Overland Road, widening it to five lanes, including the intersection of Linder Road here. And that will take it to five lanes all the way down to Eagle Road. In addition, of course, there is the planned Ten Mile interchange and that is going to be, obviously, a major transportation facility that will affect traffic patterns and we included both of these in our study both with and without the Ten Mile interchange. I guess one thing to come up is is this interchange actually going to get built. I guess my opinion is that if anything in this valley -- any transportation improvements do get built in this valley, it will be the Ten Mile interchange. That would be a very high priority. The third thing is you have got a developer that recognizes that you don't put a development of this size anywhere and not have impact and he understands that and he's willing to participate in mitigation of that. This is not the case in a lot of studies I have done. I have done a lot of studies throughout the valley, I have done over 50 this year, as a matter of fact, and they are putting a lot of very major subdivisions out on two lane country roads and just really have no really plan about how they are really going to deal with the transportation. This is a case where we already have a plan in place to deal with this. One other big advantage of this development is the mixed use aspect from a transportation standpoint. We had one area of disagreement with ACHD with the amount of trips that we believe are going to get captured by the mixed use_ ACHD wanted us to lower it and lower it and lower it. I believe we are going to get a much better capture rate than what we had agreed to go with with ACHD. We went with ACHD's numbers, just because we found out we could handle the traffic, so it was easier just to not argue with them, rather than to try to prove that we were right. And I think if we could -- have been dealing also with Ada County Development Services about a couple of the planned communities. They believe that the numbers that we were proposing are much more in line with what they are going to get. We do have a difference of opinion. In this one in particular I think it's good, because we have just a good variety of mixed uses in here. We have several densities of houses, which helps in that regard. We have got about 90,000 square feet of office space, about 100,000 square feet of retail. We have got a school and we have got a library. When you bring in a library that provides a real community center for a community. That allows people to congregate and a place to go, which allows them to use the retail facilities, it encourages office developments, it will really be a magnet for that I think we will get well beyond even what I was originally projecting for capture. It provides a lot of advantages to that. I guess one advantage that is really being brought about is the size of this development, that it does allow them to develop this area in that manner. If you look back at some of the original ownership maps up here, there was eight or nine very large parcels. If Mr. Jewett had not brought them all together for one development, quite possible, especially with the Ten Mile interchange coming, you would have had eight or ten different smaller developments with very little overall planning for mixed use and interconnectivity. Saw a very nice display of the trail -- in fact, it's still up there. And that also was going to help with the transportation, allowing a much better alternative than the automobile to get to some of these other facilities and allow it to reduce the trips that Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7, 2006 Page 44 of 90 we are taking here. The final thing I want to -- I'd like to talk about is the Ten Mile interchange. I have seen some of the preliminary designs that have been developed, since I worked on it, too, and they look awful familiar. They look a lot like what I was working on when I was doing those studies. One issue we had with a lot of our alternatives when we were looking at it was what do we do with Overland Road. It always was a problem. In addition to the topography that we have got out there with the canal and some of the other facilities, we have also got Tasa Drive, which is really going to be impossible to relocate and causes us some real alignment problems. Basically, we looked at just about everything we could do with it. This wasn't even on our map at that time. So, the question is I mean how does -- moving this -- moving Overland Road affects it. Well, it really doesn't take any of the alternative off the board. It still works with anything that they could possibly come up with as far as a footprint to the Ten Mile interchange. If you ended up moving it to the north, that would probably eliminate a couple of possibilities for interchange design within the -- of the interchange. You do need to keep separation. We have about 1,200 feet between Overland Road and the freeway. If we bring the off ramps to the south it tightens it up. If you move Overland to the north it creates problems and it becomes very difficult to handle. The other option __ the other advantage that I want to touch on is we are dealing a neo-tradltional type neighborhood design here, that does improve the opportunities to incorporate transit -- I don't mean to this development, but make it work as a city and it's something that you really have to look at as far as looking ahead at our transportation problems in the county and the whole area. That's really all I have to discuss. I would be happy to stand for any questions. Rohm: Thank you, sir. Thompson: Thank you. Densmer: Thank you. Mr. Chairman, my name is Jason Densmer; I'm a civil engineer with The Land Group. Our offices are at 462 East Shore Drive in Eagle. I'd like to discuss with you for a second -- we have already gone through some of the traffic benefits that a realignment of Overland Road will have and I'm sure you're familiar with the outcomes from the planning charrette that looked at many different options for this area and identified a realignment of Overland as being desirable from a community planning standpoint. Since I'm the guy who has to make it turn into reality before I allow Mr. Jewett to modify the master plan and present a modified Overland Road, I wanted to make sure that I could design something that could be built. There are numerous challenges with this site in particular from a topography standpoint. It's on a hill, it crosses the Ridenbaugh Canal, and I wanted to assure ourselves that I wasn't presenting something to you in preliminary plat format that later we'd have to come back and modify, because functionally it couldn't be done. So, we, actually, went to the level of detail of conceptual construction drawings that have been presented now to ACHD staff and they have reviewed them favorably, showing how Overland Road could be realigned and designed to AASHTO requirements for a 55 mile an hour design speed and meet all of the requirements of the highway district for this major arterial. I was quite pleased at the staff's report. The only condition that they have relative to a Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7, 2006 Page 45 of 90 realignment is that we adjust the location of its intersection with Ten Mile south by ten feet. In my line. a realignment of that scope, being off the mark by ten feet is pretty doggone good. I'd take that any day of the week. What we have done for this exhibit here is model how Overland Road could be constructed. how -- as we go through it all I'll touch on a couple of the different design elements that it incorporates and, then, lastly, kind of run you through how we have overcome the topographic challenges that we are faced with. By requirements at ACHD, an arterial is, generally, a five lane section, two lanes either side of the road, plus a center turn lane. There are refuge areas on the sides of the lanes as well for vehicles that, you know, just die. And we generally have been consistent with that roadway template throughout this section here. We are using a full five lane section entirely in this area here and entirely at the bottom. We are incorporating a landscape median island in the center of Overland for a majority of its length, but we do eliminate that particularly through these serpentine curves here where topography is an issue. We have also eliminated the center lane entirely. Not only did we eliminate the island portion and the landscaping, but we eliminated the center lane to a four lane section -- pretty much from right in this area here -- essentially, we have eliminated the center lane for the area of the hill where it's challenging. Thank you. From about here to about here we are using a four lane section. There aren't any interconnecting side streets at that area, so there is no need for turning lanes and. that kind of an operation and by skinnying up that stretch of the road, we are to cross the Ridenbaugh with less impact and to have less impact on the hillside grading through that stretch as well. So, overall. the models that we have prepared show how Overland can be realigned, meet AASHTO criteria and ACHD requirements and from a designer standpoint I'm very supportive of that realignment over leaving Overland in its existing location. Do you have any questions? I know I kind of breezed through some highly technical stuff at great speed, but -- Rohm: Thank you. Atalla: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission, my name is Joe Atalla and I will be talking about the architecture. My address is 6223 North Discovery Way in Boise. As you have seen so far, this is a very well thought out community and not a typical subdivision. Our goal for the architecture is to create a cohesiveness throughout the community and timelessness and not be just a typical subdivision that's homogenous like we see in some areas. To reach that goal what we are doing is we have got the variety of lot types, as well as a variety of architectural styles and to kind of pull all of it together we will be drafting a comprehensive set of design guidelines that will explicitly detail each lot type's needs to design for what elements make up the certain architectural style, so that everything remains true and cohesive. I'll quickly go through the architectural styles and, then, I'll go into the lot types. First is the American Farmhouse. We have tried to stick to traditional American architecture as much as we could, so get what you might see in a lot of areas already in Meridian. Next slide, please. Then a Craftsman. For the Craftsman we are trying to get away a little bit from the typical Craftsman you see here and move more towards the historical style, the more Craftsman Bungalow that you might find in the north end and other historic areas of the region. Next slide. American Frontier. This style is a little more rustic and Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 46 of 90 incorporates larger wooden themes and members. The Pacific Northwest, which is a little more in keeping with what you might see in the Seattle area, as well as elements from the picture on the right, elements from Jackson Hole. Again, more rustic, more northwest than some of the styles. Next slide. And, then. finally, the Tuscan Farmhouse, which allows us to bring some variety, but still has some of the stone elements in massing forms of the other homes. Next slide. Now, I'll go through the lots. It's difficult looking at a plat and seeing a 35 foot wide lot and trying to envision what is that house going to look like and I think you can see here this is an American traditional alley loaded house that the great thing about the alley loaded is you get more house and no garage to look at. Next is a different lot configuration. One thing that we are trying to do in this community is minimize the garage as much as possible. So, this configuration here, even though it's a tighter, narrower lot, allows for the garages to sit even with each other and it gets one of the front loaded garages off of the street and more to the back of the house. Here is another lot. This is an American Frontier elevation. Next slide. And as the lots get larger it allows us to hide the garages more -- side turn garages that don't face the street. Next slide. And, again, you can see that here, the Pacific Northwest style. So, either side turn garage or the garage is set in the back of the lot with a large auto court. And, finally, more of the custom type home. Again, the garage is set back from the house. I believe that's the last slide for the architecture. Oh, I'm sorry. Hillside lots. This community does have a variety of lots, not just flat, but also sloped lots, and to kind of put some perspective and what it might look like, a down slope lot, kind of a no brainer, basically you have a walk out basement and you get less profile on the street. The up slope is a little more complicated and as you can see in that section we are trying to minimize the grading on the lots and work with the contours of the slope and so we have a tuck under garage and most of the living would be above that. Next slide. And that's what some of the architecture might look like on some of the up slopes. You have a variety of side turn garages, front loading garages, so that they are not all right on the street. And that's the last slide for the architecture. The most important thing that we want everybody to realize about the architecture is with the set of design guidelines that we will be drafting for the community, it really will help control all future development, no matter who is building in the community, the community will still have a cohesive and timeless feel. That's it for me. Do you have any questions? Rohm: Could you talk a little bit more about those 35 foot lots. I have a hard time visualizing if -- it sounds like they are going to be stacked pretty close together there and I -- Atalla: Yeah. I guess one good example in the area for those 35 foot wide lots is the Mill District in Harris Ranch. Those are very narrow, alley loaded lots and it's a great feeling as you drive through there. That neighborhood was set up to feel like the north end, you know, historic architecture, closer together, and I think they did a great job. That's one local example that I would point out. I don't know of that answers your question. Rohm: So, is there a five foot lot line -- Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 47 of 90 Atalla: Setback. Rohm: -- setback, so if you have got 35 foot, your house is 25 foot wide? Atalla: Right. Rohm: Okay. Including the alley loaded garage that was-- Atalla: Right. So, yeah, you can see here -- he's got the setback on the front. Here is the front of the house. Here is the alley back here. And try to get a porch up on the front, so that, you know, you get more connection to the street. I don't know exactly how -- what -- Rohm: I guess I was just -- I was having a hard time visualizing what the stacking would be. Atalla: As a street scene? Rohm: As a street scene. Newton-Huckabay: Mr. Chairman, have you been out and looked at the Heritage Commons on the green there and the new development at Quenzer Commons? Rohm: I have. Newton-Huckabay: Those are five foot lot lines, aren't they, between those -- yeah, a five foot -- there is ten foot between each home. Atalla: And I believe right now the way the utility easement is it's a five foot easement, so we have to stick to a five foot setback. Rohm: Okay. Thank you. Newton-Huckabay: These to me look to be -- I mean it's the same concept. Rohm: Thank you. Jewett: Unless there is any specific questions for me, I think the public can start in. Rohm: I guess we will go there next. Thank you. Jewett: I will leave this PowerPoint copy here so if any of you want to look at it as they come up here. Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7, 2006 Page 48 of 90 Rohm: Okay. Now, kind of like our previous project that had a lot of audience interest, the same thing may be available to us here. Is there a spokesman for a subdivision in this development that can speak for a larger group? And if there is, I'd like him to come forward. But, then, I'd also like to see a show of hands for those that feel comfortable relinquishing their time at the microphone to this individual and the reason why I ask that is because if we are going to get through this tonight, we are going to have to limit these to three minutes each if each individual wants to speak for themselves. And, then, the second thing is if, in fact, a specific point that you wanted to bring out has been brought up by a previous speaker, it doesn't enhance your position by restating it over again. And so if you have -- if somebody has brought that to our attention, all you have to do is say my point has been made. With that being said I -- Newton-Huckabay: Mr. Chair, I want to mention, too, we have read through the comments from Mr. Jewett from the neighborhood meeting, as well as received multiple e-mails and letters that have been written and I think we all have heard loud and clear regarding the stub street to the property to the south. I just wanted to point out that we have all of the letters and e-mails that we received and the comments that were turned in at Mr. Jewett's neighborhood meeting and I was just advised to say we have heard loud and clear regarding the desire not have a stub street to the five acre parcels on the south. So, that was my comment. Rohm: You're on. Fawcett: Good evening. My name is Kenneth Fawcett and I live at 2755 Val Vista Court and have since 1992. Rohm: Okay. Now, is there -- is there anybody here that is willing to say that this man is speaking in their behalf or -- we have got one. What we are going to -- because there are so many people that have signed up, I'd like everybody to keep their comment to three minutes and, hopefully, there is some -- we will keep from having redundant testimonies here, so -- we want you to be heard, but, please, keep your-- Borup: I don't think one person merits a longer time. Rohm: Well-- Zaremba: My question, Mr. Chairman, would be are you representing a homeowners association of people who did not come because you were coming? Fawcett: I am here as a resident of my subdivision and not as a member of the board of our homeowners association. Zaremba: Okay. Rohm: Yeah. And I think because of the nature of this development, we are going to give you a little bit of leeway, but we have got a significant list of people here and I just Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 49 of 90 ask that each of you take into consideration when you come forward that if you have actually already had your point brought up, then, we will move onto the next. And with that let's just get started. Fawcett: Okay. Thank you. And to your point I'm going to delve right into the stub street issue and hope to bring some other comments to light, in addition to those that Mr. Jewett received during his meetings the other evening, which I have had no ability to read. So, hopefully, there is no redundancy there. As you know -- or I would like to first of all express my opposition to the staff recommendation on page eight of their report concerning the stub streets to the adjacent subdivision. In that paragraph it's indicated that Mr. Jewett had proposed a stub street to the five -- to a five acre parcel in Val Vista Estates to connect with Val Vista Court. The report indicates that staff is supportive of this and connections to adjacent subdivisions. I am not supportive, again, of this plan and for the following reasons. First of all, the five acre residence referred to in the paragraph is no longer under purchase contract by Mr. Jewett, therefore, there is really no right of way into that -- into Val Vista Subdivision at this point in time. So, unless, the City of Meridian is prepared to secure a right of way through Val Vista Subdivision with more onerous means, there is no right of way to make that connection, again, at this point in time. Mr. Jewett, in conversations on at least two different occasions has indicated that the stub street is being required by ACHD. In a document that we have written by Mindy Wallace at ACHD, she states to the contrary that ACHD has no requirements for this stub street and, in fact, have only seen it on a conceptual plan and no preliminary plat. And so they have no comment or consideration on this -- on the stub street. Mr. Hood of your planning staff has indicated to several residents of Val Vista that the stub street should be good for everyone in our neighborhood and that he believes that it will have very little traffic impact on the residents of Val Vista. Given that ACHD has never studied the proposal, his claim simply cannot be substantiated with any ACHD traffic analysis data. So, in effect, I feel that his endorsement of this proposal is based Simply on his best guess and, therefore, premature. Should your planners continue to push for this stub road, I would like you also to consider some of the following safety concerns. Connecting South Ridge to Val Vista would, in fact, turn Val Vista Court from a rural residential street servicing the 13 residences of Val Vista Court Subdivision into a collector servicing South Ridge Subdivision and up to half of those residents in South Ridge and this is particularly true if the interchange is built that would give them a much more convenient method of getting to Ten Mile to get to that interchange, than trying to make left turns onto Overland Road. Val Vista Court has no sidewalks, no curbing, there are ditches on either side of the road, which are routinely filled with irrigation runoff during warmer months and are snow filled and icy in the winter months. This creates the need for pedestrians to routinely traverse on the road surface itself. Meridian School District school bus stops for the children in Val Vista are at the intersection of Val Vista and Ten Mile Road. This puts children directly on the road surface of Val Vista Court twice daily getting to and from those bus stops in the dark in the mornings. Even at fair time we even have 4-H kids walking their animals down Val Vista Court. Adding collector traffic to and from South Ridge into Val Vista Court to me creates an unacceptable risk to those pedestrians and those kids. Also, connecting South Ridge to Val Vista would, unfortunately, result in creating a Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7, 2006 Page 50 of 90 convenient bypass for impatient motorists looking to avoid the eventual congestion that will build up at the Overland Road - Ten Mile Road intersection, where ever that happens to wind up after the intersection or the interchange opens up. This simply has the -- Newton-Huckabay: Mr. Chairman? Rohm: Just let him finish. I think that he's bringing up the points that many of the people in the audience-- Borup: It's all the same points that we have already read in all these e-mails and letters. Exact same points. Rohm: On the public testimony here tonight -- wind up your comments, please, and we will move on. Fawcett: Okay. All right. Well, let me just say that in conclusion Val Vista services the needs of the residents of Val Vista quite well as it exists today, but because of no right of way and these numerous safety concerns, which you, obviously, have plenty of and lack of any real traffic analysis and planning project -- process for this stub road, I would ask that you remove this stub from any further consideration when you're working through your process. Rohm: Okay. Thank you. The comment that I want to make to this stub road, the stub road does not enter your subdivision at all. All it does is it takes the roadway within their development to the edge of their property line. If nobody within your subdivision ever redevelops, quote, unquote, then, that stub street is going to stop right there and it's never going to go any further. And I think that it's really -- it isn't these people that will ultimately redevelop that will effect your roadway, it's somebody within your own development, because that's -- this road that -- that the City of Meridian requires the developer to put in is at the convenience of the city, not specifically the convenience of the developer themselves and I think that there may have been some confusion along those lines that the developer is trying to get a stub street to the south and I don't think that that's really the case. I think it's the City of Meridian -- we desire so that there are -- the traffic flow is internal to the developments, rather than coming in and out off of the major roadway. So, that just adds a little clarity to how stub streets are formulated in the first place, but thank you for your comments. Fawcett: All right. Thank you very much. Borup: I might also mention, Mr. Chairman, that there is no preliminary plat for this area, so I think the staff comment was to plan for that in the future when a preliminary plat is done. A preliminary plat in this whole area still is going to have future hearings. So, there is no road alignment or no specific location for a stub street at this point. Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 51 of 90 Rohm: All it is is ultimately it's always the desire of the city to interconnect parcels of land and that's -- it doesn't have anything specifically to do with this development, as opposed to some other development, if you have a parcel of land that's to be developed, the city wants to have interconnectivity between that parcel and the adjacent and we do have consistently with every development that comes forward and so it's something that -- it ultimately provides for ingress and egress to adjacent properties and, who knows, it may be 30 years before anybody along that roadway decides that they want to redevelop, but the point is if you don't plan for it now, then, it will never happen. So, with that being said let's try and move on here. Susan Stone. And, again, please make your comments germane to something different than what has been spoken earlier. Stone: Okay. I live at 2530 South Del Ray Lane. My concern tonight, since we are just looking at phase one, is putting a park in or planning a park with a canal that is not secure, because there is a lot of special needs children in the area and if there is a park and that Ridenbaugh Canal is not secure for several hundred feet near the park, then, I don't think there is any business building a park where children are going to be. That's- - and so with the park -- I know you have to review the park, but there needs to be a handicap access to the ponds or there is no use for special needs or the elderly. Rohm: Okay. W.O. Weiss. Okay. From the audience Mr. Weiss says he didn't come to speak, just basically will -- I don't think that we have a spokesman for a specific land use group. If, in fact, you have been designated by -- come forward. All right. You need to tell us who you are speaking for. Hewett: This is very short. Rohm: And what is your name? Hewett: I'm Lorna Hewett. I live at 2944 South Francine off of Victory. Rohm: Okay. And whom are you-- Hewett: Majestic View Estates Homeowners Association and you have a letter from us signed by 30 plus homeowners or probably 15 homeowners, 30 plus signatures. And I just want to stand -- I want to be on your records as representing our neighborhood with their major concerns that's in the letter is the proper order of things. We need to make sure that proper approval the right order of things, we are concerned with the Overland Road project before the Ten Mile interchange project is even decided on and so -- Rohm: Okay. Before you start your testimony here, I'd like a show of hands of individuals in the audience that she's speaking for. Okay. Thank you. Hewett: That's, basically, it. Our major concern in the letter was the proper order, rather the development being forced through or pushed through according to the developer's agenda and that's it. Thank you. Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 52 of 90 Rohm: Thank you. Emma Leonard. Ebling: I guess they are going to nominate me to speak, so I guess I'll come on up and get it over with. My name is Keith Ebling and I live at 2150 Aspen Cove Drive. I'm just beyond this -- where is the pointer. Figure out how to operate this. I live just beyond this turn in the Ridenbaugh Canal here. I have here a letter that we sent in before the October meeting. It has -- like the previous lady, it has 60 some signatures representing over 30 homes in the area that I talked to that are opposed to this subdivision and this project, based primarily on the density of the project and the traffic that it will create. Now, I have heard some things about the traffic that have eased some of my concerns and I agree with the lady that was here previously that we need to get some of this infrastructure in place prior to letting the completion of this subdivision. Now, my take here is that if this was going to be a Meridian Greens or another Bear Creek, there probably wouldn't be anybody here right now, because when I looked at the map that was produced in the future development of this area and it was last amended in April and I now understand we are trying to amend it again -- it called for low to medium density in this area. It didn't call for any commercial in the area and now -- and I'm not even opposed to the commercial along Overland Road. But I think most everybody in our community is really upset about is those bloody 35 foot lots, because they are nothing more -- you can call them alley homes, you can talk about five foot easements on either side, but drive down south San Francisco, they are row houses. That's exactly what they are. And they have the same effect on a neighborhood as a row house does. This gentleman here said he wouldn't want to look out his window and see a vacant house next door. I'm going to have to look out of my window and look down on south San Francisco. And I don't think that's what I moved here -- I have been here 20 years and I have lived in that area 20 years and if you will look at this property south of that line that's on the map, the other half of that section, the other 300 plus acres, there is less than 100 homes there. They are all on five acres, two and a half acres, one plus acres. And this was the disturbing thing. Now all of a sudden we are going to make this look like downtown San Francisco and I came to Idaho to get away from that type of environment and I think most of my neighbors agree with me, that we shouldn't have to have row houses in our area. I called the head of the planning staff today to talk with them, I said tell me of another of these -- and I love this term -- traditional neighborhoods. I said tell me of another traditional neighborhood. Well, there is one I understand that's been developed over off of McMillan, maybe that's the one you were referring to. And that particular neighborhood sits right behind a commercial shopping center and there is another one in development and I don't know exactly where that one is located, but you look at everything south of 84 and there is no development like this. And, sure, we can have some retail in this area, we can have some commercial development along there. I think what we really need to look at and I think what planning should be pushing for is a buffer zone along there of R-2 lots, then, another buffer zone of R-4 lots, then, moving down to the R-10s and R-8s and throwing these -- I think there are -- how many homes are in the alleyway situation? He can't answer? Oh. Meridian Planning & Zoning Decem ber 7, 2006 Page 53 of 90 Rohm: He will have every opportunity to answer after -- Ebling: Well, my best guess is there is 125 down there and I don't know whether that's an exact count or not, because on this plat map I got they are so bloody small I can't count it. I need for you folks to understand that this is degrading our area, our way of life. We have seen what happens when you put these thin, narrower houses in Boise. There was an article in the Statesman, there is parking problems, there is crime problems, the property value gets degraded and I'll tell you what will happen to these houses, as soon as they are built the California investors and the out-of-states will come in here and they will buy them 30, 40 at a time and they will turn them into rentals and after they are rentals for about six months there will be two and three families living in those things, half a dozen cars parked out front and that's how this neighborhood will deteriorate. And maybe not in my short lifetime, because I'm an oldtimer, but, you know, there will be gangs, drive-by shootings, and if I'm out mowing my lawn I'll probably have to wear body armor. But this -- sure I'm being humorous and I'm being ludicrous, but when you have this kind of development, this is the kind of thing you're setting yourself up for. And the only nice thing I see about it is that it's an ideal place for the drug dealers to go and they will be really close to the school, 50 they won't have to drive to work, they can walk right across the street and sell it to our kids. You have to take this into consideration. I know this gentleman is trying to make a dollar, but he's also messing with our lives and I think you people have the opportunity to say this isn't the Idaho that we have come to know and enjoy and the previous gentleman talked about the quality of life. He talked about your mission statement. Now, you tell me what your mission statement is. Is it not to preserve a quality of life? That don't look like it to me. So, I'm asking you, as a concerned citizen, to take this into very consideration and the other thing is to look at the impact of this -- in a city where you have public transportation you can afford to have housing like that. We don't have any public transportation south of 1-84. If we do I haven't seen it. I don't even know if there is plans for it. Does anybody here know about that? I mean it's -- so, this is my point that I'm trying to point across to you folks is that I think it's something that we need to take a longer look at than just, oh, yeah, it's all in the TR, traditional neighborhood concept, which wasn't even part of our plan six months ago. Borup: Yes, it is. Ebling: It was? When was it amended? Borup: 2002. Ebling: Well, there was an amendment -- the map I had it was a 2006 -- amended in 2006 that showed it. Maybe the printing on it was bad. I can bring you the map I got at home if that would help you make a decision. Rohm: Sir, I think one of the things that -- typically that is incorporated into any development is if -- here is your five acre parcels along here -- Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 54 of 90 Ebling: Sure, Rohm: -- and as the development goes -- and mind you that all of this is conceptual right here. The only part of it that is being requested right now is just this point. Ebling: I understand that. Rohm: But the point is as the development moves closer toward your larger parcels, their parcels get larger as well. And I think that, typically, not just this development, but typically developers are cognizant of their neighbors' desires to have larger parcels adjacent to their own parcels and I think that if you're to have these right along your five acre parcels here, that would be less desirous than having it further away from that which you're trying to preserve. But just trying to respond a little bit to your -- Ebling: Oh, I understand what you're saying and there is a buffer, but a very thin one and I would prefer there not even be those type of homes in that area. Rohm: Thank you, sir. We are kind of jumping around here a little bit, just due to trying to accommodate the desires of the audience here, so I'll just move on down the line here. Bonnie Brenner. Theresa Ball. Ball: I'm Theresa Ball. I live at 3503 West Lamont. Lamont is the road that comes out at the south side of this subdivision and I ditto what was said by the gentleman previous to me, I totally agree with his comments about density. My recommendation and concern tends primarily to do with density and would recommend that the south and west side, not the R-8 or R-15, which was a copy of the document that I received on Tuesday at Mr. Jewett's open house, and, rather, be at least R-4 or R-2, 50 that the entire outskirts of the subdivision are R-2 or R-4, especially on the south and west side, so that there is a transition to the acreages and the environment and rural lifestyle that those of us that live there want to retain. So, the north and east side where there is a little village and some of the higher density may be an appropriate place for higher density if it's not those row houses, but I believe that the south and west side needs to be lower density, either R-2 or R-4 and this indicates R-8 in that triangle to the left. The copy I got Tuesday night said R-15, which would be apartments, and we do not want apartments next to our five acre lots off of Ten Mile. So, I'm very opposed to having an R-15. So, I'd like clarification of whether that's being proposed as R-15 or R-8, but my request would be that it would be at least R-4. I think there is significant opposition to this development, especially to the density, and I think you have seen many people, both from this meeting, the October meeting, the ACHD meeting and many had to leave because this meeting is so long. So. there is significant opposition from the public. Regarding Overland Road, on behalf of my neighbors down Lamont and Nova Lane and Silver Terrace, many of them were at the ACHD meeting yesterday, because it was denied they did not come tonight. So, based on staff's recommendation that we give our feedback, on what we want to see on Overland Road, I don't think we are prepared to do that, because many of those concerned people are not here due to the result of Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7, 2006 Page 55 of 90 yesterday's meeting. My opinion on that would be that I do not want it to go down Lamont Road and have Lamont become Overland. Rohm: I'm curious, may I ask you do you think that the existing location of Overland Road is in the best interest of the community as a whole? Ball: I don't -- I think it -- probably curving makes sense. I don't know if it's in the exact right spot. My concern being on Lamont is how am I going to get off Lamont onto Ten Mile, turning left with no stop light, because the stop light is at Overland just several feet down the road. So, that would be a huge issue, especially after the Ten Mile interchange. So, we won't be able to get off our road onto Ten Mile. I don't know how we will do that. So, that's a concern. I don't know -- the concerns that I heard from my neighbors lie more about the extension of Overland to Black Cat. Rohm: Points west. Ball: Right. More so than maybe this area right here. So, a significant concern, if it were to extend further, that I have heard from my neighbors, I don't know if this is the right place for this Overland Road. My concern would be accessibility to the traffic for the Ten Mile interchange and the subdivision to be able to get off of Lamont to Val Vista or those side roads onto Ten Mile. The biggest concern is that we balance the quality of life that we have out there, we live there for a reason, we have lived there a long time, we don't want the transient environment of row houses or apartments on Ten Mile and buffering that with lower density would allow a smoother transition to the rural environment on the perimeter of the subdivision. Thank you. Rohm: Thank you. Robert Carlson. Carlson: Commissioners, my name is Robert Carlson. I live at 2300 Aspen Cove Drive. I won't repeat the things that Keith Ebling said, other than that I would like to say it's a shame to take such a beautiful plan and surround a library and elementary school with a slum area. You know, it's all right you're going to have some nice -- nice hopefully commercial area along there. All right. The other thing I'm -- to try to get through that area and walk down to that area through that, it's surrounded, it just will be a mess. I had some questions about the timing. To put that kind of density in there all at once now, if you, heaven forbid, let that happen, before the Ten Mile interchange takes place, would be a disaster. We are already backed up to Linder Road in the mornings. The five mile -- the five lane highway will help that a little bit, but the density and the confusion and the mess that that's going to cause until that Ten Mile exchange -- we are getting traffic all the way from Nampa trying to -- to the other side of Meridian, the other side of the freeway coming across Ten Mile coming down there trying to get on the freeway, because of the congestion. We need that before this development happens, not after, so that we have to have the Ten Mile exchange in first, in my opinion. I'm also concerned about where the water is coming from for those ponds and the plan for that. I'd like to have that answered. And also the danger of the concern about Ridenbaugh Canal and is that adequate -- adequately shored up and properly designed to have Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 56 of 90 housing in that -- below that area. I know we have trouble with our rodents and that digging holes in the -- in where we are at now and I think that's a very dangerous situation. So, anyway, very opposed to the density and the timing. Thank you. Rohm: Thank you, sir. David Benaduchi. Steve Presbus. Presbus: Steve Presbus. I live at 2530 South Del Ray Lane. And it starts right -- if I can get this thing to work. It starts from here, comes down and goes here. So, I'm one of the major players in this subdivision. It's hard -- it's hard to defend myself right now, because of these mega blocks, because as you can see that's probably going to be heard again down the road for that mega block. Now, I don't understand why he can't do a conceptual plan and show everybody what it's going to be and just -- if it's going to be approved, approve it as one and instead of having to come back nine times. I'm sure you don't want to hear me talk nine times. That's my concern, because what I have to say about my property, it's really not even a concern right now, because he's only doing, according to Caleb, just that little section of the southeast corner. I want to touch just one thing on a stub road is -- is on this plan he already shows a stub road through with houses, nine lots in our subdivision. And a week and a half ago he had it -- he had it surveyed, the property. There is marks all over the place. That's one of the big concerns about the road. Now, I guess I can touch on -- you know, he talks about these majestic views that he will build for some of these houses. What about our views that we have been here for so long? I mean do we lose those? Are we not considered, you know, one of the better people? I mean, you know, that's something that needs to be answered. You know, I'm asking for single story houses behind my house and down. There is only four houses affected in Val Vista that have views and I'm asking for a height of 22 feet and 17,000 square foot lots back there. Also, I'm asking for larger rear lots than a 15 foot setback. And, also, I asked them the other night about what are you going to do for fences and he said a wrought iron fence. Well, I don't want to go out in my backyard and look into somebody else's back yard. For years now I have been looking out at animals and wildlife and stuff, I don't want to look at kids' toys or garbage or whatever is going to be living behind me. So, I ask that there be some kind of -- not cheap wood fence, but a substantial fence put in along that area. That's all I have to say. Rohm: Thank you, sir. Milt Shoemaker. Shoemaker: Oh, I thought you were -- Rohm: No. No. You're on. Shoemaker: Milt Shoemaker. I was just waiting for you -- Rohm: Oh. And state your address, please. Shoemaker: 1620 South Ten Mile. Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 57 of 90 Rohm: Thank you, sir. Shoemaker: And that is right -- can I walk over there and point to it? Needless to say, this guy is going to put a major serious impact on our lifestyle. We have -- we raised livestock on that property, we have been there for a long long time, and -- and I'm against the density. I'm not going to go into all that for the various same reasons that these guys are, but one other thing that's going to happen with this Overland Road new proposal they got, now it's going to turn everything down Ten Mile, instead of dispersing what was on Overland Road before to the north, it's going to bring it up and all down Ten Mile and that's a bad deal. That's a bad deal for us. And one of the proposals for the interchange -- and this is why ACHD I think put the binders on yesterday -- one of the proposals for the interchange is to come this side of our property. I don't run one of these things very good. I'd like to go over there and look right at it, but to come right up through here -- come right up through here and, then, out to Ten Mile. Right now you have the people at Davis Drive that I don't know how they'd ever get out on there. I don't know how we would get out on there. I don't know how our neighbors could get out on there. I don't know how the people right here would get out on there. I don't know how Tasa would get out on there, because they are estimating that with the stop lights here at the interchange they are going to have stacking clear back to here. So, if they were to put that interchange over on this side and come up around, it would not disturb the neighborhood in here. And I don't what you said yesterday. Newton-Huckabay: Mr. Shoemaker, can you speak in the mike. Rohm: I think that in response to -- Shoemaker: I also have a letter -- Rohm: I think in response to your comments, Ada County Highway District specifically remanded this whole thing back to the City of Meridian, so that we could go through this process that we are going through tonight. I mean that's the long and short of it. Ada County doesn't want to decide where the road goes specifically until we figure out how we want to use the land and so I don't think that there is anybody at Ada County that is specifically against finding the right location for relocating Overland or the Ten Mile -- I mean the Ten Mile interchange is going to happen. I mean it's just -- it's going to happen. And the -- all we are trying to do here tonight is try and help with the land use that's surrounds that Ten Mile interchange, so that it all works well together and that's why we have these hearings is so we can take public input and come up with answers that are most beneficial to the public at large. Shoemaker: I totally understand that, in addition to Meridian's input, they also want the interchange input. That's what my ears heard. Rohm: Okay. Thank you, sir. Sharon Shoemaker. From the audience she says she's been spoken for. Lyle Larkin. Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 58 of 90 Larkin: Thank you. Lyle Larkin, 3030 South Francine. I'm well passed my bedtime, so I will make it short. Density too thick. Next to five acre lots why can't we have one acre lots on the other side of the five acres and, then, two acres across the street -- or two to the acre across the street. R-1, R-2. We keep hearing library. That's going to be shoved down our throats just like the school district bond election until it gets voted in. It was voted down, so we are still keeping land for a library. Is he going to build us a library? It was voted down. So, the library is out. How long has it been since the City of Meridian's got a large grocery store to come into this town? He's saying a small one. A small one for that many people? What are we talking, a 7 Eleven? We need a grocery store out on this side of town. Need you folks to go out and bring them in. I mean we have got how many homes on the north side and they haven't had a grocery store put out there since Albertson's on Ten Mile. So, density and like the other man, Mr. Presbow saw that stub drawn in there with ten -- so you're telling us there is not going to be a road coming, but yet he's got home designed to be on the lot in Val Vista Subdivision. He's showing a road with home lots on it. Other than that, that's all I have got to say. Density is too high, especially against Val Vista. I know -- from what I saw yesterday, ACHD said study, study, study, they want public input, public input, it sounds like they have had enough of this, people coming back on them, because they didn't have enough public input. Curtis Road. So forth. So, this redesign is going to take awhile. It sounded like it was going to be a year to me at least. So, that's all I have got to say. Thank you. Rohm: Thank you, sir. Mrs. Larkin. From the audience she says that she's been spoken for. Susan Carlson. S. Carlson: President and Commissioners, thank you for this opportunity. There have been many issues that have already been addressed and so I won't go into detail about those. I do have concerns about the density, about the traffic and about the whole project in general. Before I say anything about that, it was my understanding yesterday at the ACHD meeting that also they needed to know what was happening with the Ten Mile interchange, because there are -- because I went to that meeting and there actually are some proposals that go to the north side of the freeway, so that's an important part of the equation to know what they are doing with the interchange before they can decide what needs to be done with which roads. So, going onto my concerns, I live right here on Aspen Cove Drive. My name is Susan Carlson, 2300 Aspen Cove Drive, and my concern is -- is make sure that you know that this is basically half of a square mile and as said that they are mostly five acres and they are higher up, so our view is down, but I want you to know that I'm aware that development is part of progression and I fully am aware of that and I'm in favor of that and if it was a subdivision that was lower density I would be fine with that. A Meridian Greens -- it's just that it's such a contrast to what we have. The other reason why I have questions about this whole project, like I said, the traffic has already been dealt with and I won't go on anymore about that and the density, but it's because of the reputation of the developer has preceded himself regarding him finishing projects, his regard for neighbors, and his dishonesty. If I understand you Commissioners, there were some of you commissioners on the last issue that were affected by the public opinion, there were numerous people who -- dozens and dozens Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7, 2006 Page 59 of 90 who came to the last meeting in October, there were several who came yesterday at noon hour who couldn't stay for the whole meeting with the ACHD meeting that -- I mean most of the whole area is concerned about the issues that you have been hearing about. Thank you very much. Rohm: Thank you. Phil Gardner. From the audience he said he's been spoken for. Wayne Meane. Meane: My name is Wayne Meane. I live at 2155 West Overland for the last 46 years. All my life. Which is that spot. Mr. Jewett seems to be pretty free with wanting my easement and thinking that I'm going to be part of his development for South Ridge. I'm here to tell you I will not be no part of it. Thank you. Rohm: Well, that is pretty clear. Lorna Hewett. Okay. Sorry. Julie Gould. Diane Eberling. Okay. Boy, that's a mystery. How about that one? Is there a Pat Warren? Pat Marin. Marin: Pat Marin. I live at 2524 Ariel Lane. And most of the things that I am concerned about have been spoken for tonight. The traffic is a major problem. It's a problem right now. I hope that before he's allowed to do any developing that something will be done with the roads, because it's a problem right now, the traffic coming out of Linder I'm backed up every morning going to work and I have a terrific problem with the density. I live on five acres and I think the amount of homes that's going in this -- in this huge subdivision is way way too many. That's alii have to say. Rohm: Thank you, sir. Was your wife also signed up? Marin: Yes. She's okay. Rohm: Okay. I couldn't read the first name, so I -- so, you're the one I skipped. Okay. Thank you. Christina Postileau. Probably butchering this, but -- Postileau: Christina Postileau. I live at 23 South Ten Mile -- 2360 South Ten Mile. This is my property right here. So, I'm one of the people that might be driven through, depending on how the road reroutes. So, I have been well spoken for on a lot of my concerns. The only thing I'd like to say is that it's pretty difficult as homeowners and people -- you know, we have all these things going on in our lives to keep track of all of this stuff, especially as much as it's changed and that's -- I think that's the hardest thing for everybOdy is that every time we come in it's reworked, I'm sure it's very frustrating for you guys as well, but you have got half of us thinking it's one thing that it's not and that makes it difficult for us to become organized and come in here with some recommendations and some ideas of how we can see this thing going down. I think we are all aware that It will happen, development is vital to Meridian, and understand that, but we just want it to be done smartly and in a manner that -- I don't know, it's just -- it's huge and to push it through and rush it through so quickly, it may not seem quick to the developer, but it is because of the scale and the type of project and how many changes Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 60 of 90 are going on and the different impacts. And so, you know, it's -- we come in tonight and now -- now maybe instead of even evaluating the subdivision, we are talking about how we are going to reroute Overland Road. Well, we don't know that until we get here. So, that makes it problematic for us as concerned neighbors and citizens. And, then, the only other thing I wanted to touch on was the Overland Road reroute -- you know, since we are going to talk about that tonight, I don't think there has been enough time to really evaluate how that road is going to flow through. We have had some presentations from Jewett's staff on that flow and it seems kind of -- it seems like to be a lot of contradiction. You have got we want to keep everybody in this neighborhood and we have this little -- this nice little park and the school and we are going to have some plays and we are going to have all this and, then, we are going to have a 55 mile per hour road going through over here and, you know, we want to have all these pathways and walkways, it's going to be lovely, and a 55 mile per hour road, and I think that -- it just seems to be a lot of contradiction in the planning and I would like to see these things get smoothed out and a little bit more -- a lot more consideration for everybody's concern in zoning and density and how this is going to impact their quality of life and that's all. Thank you. Rohm: Thank you very much. Appreciate your comments. Dan Thompson. Oh. Okay_ Gary Liddell. I appreciate you spelling that out. Liddell: My name is Gary Liddell. That's L-i-d-d-e-I-1. I live at 2118 Aspen Cove Drive. First of all, I have got to thank the members of the Commission. You guys have an awful lot of patience. This seems to be the most -- so regardless of anything else, thank you for your patience and the amount of time you guys spend doing this. It's amazing. Succinctly, I object to the density of the matter. I know that's redundant, but if you said it -- if it was said a thousand times it wouldn't adequately reflect how people feel about the masses of the 35-foot wide houses. I would suggest any of you, as an experiment, try to see if you and a husband or wife can turn your cars into the left or right angle to park two cars in a two car garage. I have lived in different towns and I have been in this house for 15 years, we enjoy the space, but people are going to park on the streets, they are going to buy boats, their kids are going to get a car, this is just not going to work for a good social environment. People are going to be upset, they are going to fight with each other, and they are going to be calling the Meridian police department, it's -- all those neighborhood disputes are engineered into this program and I think the architect did a fine job drawing the plans, but it's -- I think anybody can -- I see that 35 foot wide -- 25 foot wide houses are going to create a problem, 13,000 at least, vehicle trips a day for this discrete area is severe. Further development is going to go on to the south. I would ask that you consider somewhat the long term. I know Meridian is going to keep growing, we all accept that. It's going to continue growing to the south, not only are there going to be 13,000 people -- if we broaden it just a tiny bit and know that there is going to be 13,000 more people on these 40 acres -- or 200 acres a little bit further south and a little bit further south there is going to be another 300 acres developed, within a very short period of time we are going to have -- traffic is going to be maxed out again, so I would simply ask that you consider the density issue, not only for this discrete area, but in terms of future growth in Meridian. I'd like to see a place where Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 61 of 90 everybody would -- we'd all like to live, rather than become synonymous with a town that's 35 foot wide houses and heavily trafficked and the kind of neighborhood problems that occur. So, anyway, for the redundant part I apologize, but thank you again. Any questions? Rohm: Thank you, sir. Curtis Elton. Elton: Curtis Elton, 2906 West Val Vista. It's hard to come up with something new, but I do want to take a bit of your time. Mainly my concern is the transition from five acre parcels to dense housing and a dense subdivision, putting all that -- all of that subdivision right up against ours. Remember, we got horses literally off the back of ours and that's going to be within feet of theirs and I think there should be somewhat of a transition and our majestic view is going to be shared with all of them -- that subdivision now and, therefore, I'd like to see houses in the back up against the border of Val Vista to be a minimum of -- or I should say a maximum of one single level, so that it doesn't totally block out our view and that we have a barrier between the two subdivisions that separates the subdivision. Again, we have animals -- basically Val Vista is pretty much a horse community and we aren't going to really coincide with a nonhorse community, because there are several animals there and there is going to be somewhat of an overlay of lifestyles. Therefore, if we take and have a good barrier, a good setback, and share the view, instead of getting it wiped out with two story houses and if they are one story we would still have somewhat of a view and retain some of the lifestyle that we have. Another thing I'm really concerned about is the sequence of development, that the housing and the construction isn't started and worked on where we get an extreme amount of congestion, more than we have now when these houses are developed, so that the roadway is developed so that it can be used for construction, not developed after construction is done and the houses are being sold, because, otherwise, we have to put up with all that right now and that construction is going to go on for I'm sure for years. Therefore, the roadway should be planned out and developed before the construction and the housing development starts. The traffic is a problem now and I just can't imagine developing this many houses in this small an area and, then, running a 55 mile an hour road through it. It just isn't logical. You're going to have kids from one side of the road going to the park, you're going to have pedestrians crossing, so forth, and you're going to run a 55 mile an hour -- 55 mile an hour highway through the middle. I seriously consider that you think about that in relationship to the safety for the community. Thank you. Rohm: Thank you, sir. My only comment to that 55 mile an hour roadway is it isn't 55 miles an hour from one end of Overland all the way through to my knowledge. I can't think of -- that's my point, is if it's -- if all of it that is developed right now is less than 55, I can't imagine that it will be 55 through this one acre -- or one mile stretch, but I may be wrong. Borup: I think they said that the road was designed that it could handle that; isn't that correct? Not that it would, but that it could. There is a difference. Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 62 of 90 Rohm: And design and operation are two different things and, you know, I'm just thinking, you know, I have driven Overland -- I, too -- I was born in Boise a long time ago and I have driven Overland my whole life and I don't believe that -- I don't believe that that section will be 55 any more than the rest of it is. But that's just -- that's just because I have lived here forever. Anyway, moving on. Right. Designed to 55, but I don't think anybody is going to post a 55 mile an hour speed limit. Joe Granika. He's been spoken for. I probably butchered that name pretty well. Patty Zunika. Zunika: I'm Patty Zunika and I live at 2102 Aspen Cove Drive and most of my concerns have already been addressed. The main things are the traffic and the density that I have concerns about and I just wanted to let you know that when I commute to work in the morning, like other people have said, the traffic is often backed up to Linder and that's nine-tenths of a mile from Meridian and it takes longer to get from Linder to Meridian now than it does to get from Meridian Road to downtown Boise where I work and if we have a whole other neighborhood going in with Bear Creek and, then, we have this high density where we are talking about here, I just -- I can't imagine what the traffic is going to be like even with the increase -- increased lanes on Overland and -- and, then, the other thing is just like the 35 -- 25 foot wide houses -- it sounds to me like it's, basically, a trailer park and just -- I just -- I guess I want to think about whether Meridian really wants to have a reputation where they maybe have the crime that may occur here and do we want to be like some of the other towns where you have the reputation of having drive-by shootings and drug sales and things like that. So, even if you don't live right on our neighborhood, if bad things are going on as a result of this, it could affect your reputation, too. That's it. Rohm: Thank you. I think that's specifically why that Ten Mile interchange is going in, though. I can tell you that there is no easy way -- I live on Franklin Road west of Ten Mile and you can either drive in on Franklin and, then, fight your way to the freeway in town or you can cross the freeway at Ten Mile and fight your way down Overland. I mean either way it's a struggle to get to Boise and you're exactly right, the first two miles takes longer than the balance of the trip into town and so you're absolutely right, but the Ten Mile interchange is going to that and it's going to make our community better as a whole. Zunika: One other question that brings up with the interchange, at the ACHD meeting yesterday one of the commissioners made a comment that there could be some issues where it might be as long as 2015 before the interchange was built. Does anybody else remember that comment? So, that might be something that you guys would want to follow up on. Well, that's what some people are saying, that maybe it would be 2009, but she also did make a comment that it could be delayed, depending -- it has something to do with Overland; right? And if they move Overland it would be too far away and feds -- federal agencies might have some problems with that. So, I think that might be some -- a questions that should be followed up on. Rohm: Well, I guess the only thing that I'd respond to that is everybody from the City of Meridian's perspective is doing everything we can -- and as a matter of fact, that's part Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7, 2006 Page 63 of 90 of why we are here tonight is to help get that Ten Mile interchange in, which will help everybody in this room, in my opinion, having that Ten Mile interchange in there, so -- and tonight's hearing is not about that specifically, but that in itself will affect all this as well. Thank you for your comments. Nancy Darr. Darr: Very short. Nancy Darr, 2112 Aspen Cove. I mean just density again, but I'm going to read -- it says now the proposed elementary school is not part -- if I got this right here ~~ not part of the upcoming school bond. According to the Meridian School District the final school to be built as part of the current 2005 bond will be built in 2008 in the Paramount development. The bond plan in 2007 includes the elementary school on the corner of Eagle Road and Amity in the Tuscany development This school was already built by the time the proposed development opened. Additionally, no agreement has been -- this was done about a month ago -- has been reached with the school district as to the price of the property or even if it is what happens in the future if the bond does fail. Instead of further crowding existing public schools, lower density housing could help keep the number of new students down, giving all the city's public schools a better chance of having the lower thing. That's just another segment of by bringing the density down, especially with the rural houses that's -- I mean you build that one little section, that's the first section, and I understand that he wants to get started, but you build that density in there. The schools that aren't even coming to accommodate that number of -- those aren't accommodating people with first time homes. I'm not sure he was saying there would be about 300 to 350 thousand dollar homes, I'm not sure, that's the last I heard. That's going to be -- you know, these are first time home builders and there is going to be a lot of kids -- they can't even afford that maybe, but if he brings It down, I'm not sure what's happening, because this thing has changed so many different times, you're going to have crowded schools and it's not even in the bond situation until way down. I'm just -- maybe come back and tell us a little bit more, but I'm really concerned about our children being just crowded in with all the developments that are coming and the schools are not here. We are supposed to be planning for our children also. Thank you. Rohm: Thank you for your comments. Just to speak to the school -- not to you specifically, but to speak to schools a little bit, the school district takes a look at every single development that comes to us and has an opportunity to provide Input and I think that, basically, the larger the development the more interest there always is in garnishing a portion of it for a potential school down the road and that's not to say that that specific school is the next one that's going to be built, but it's better to plan for a new school as our population base expands than it is to have an expanded population and no place to put a school and it's -- I don't know if it's the cart before the horse or what it is, but that's the process that every single development goes through, the school district has an opportunity for input and we try to work with the school district to address their concerns over time as well from a city's perspective and the developer ultimately get pulled into the fray. Moving on. Clark Leonard. Oh, Mr. Eberling spoke for him. Mike Cleffner. From the audience he says he's been spoken for. And Mary Cleffner. And she's been spoke for as well. That's the end of the list of people that have signed up to speak, but if I missed somebody certainly please come forward. Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 64 of 90 S. Fawcett: I did not plan to speak. My husband spoke earlier. My name is Sherry Fawcett. Iljve at 2755 West Val Vista Court. One of my concerns is the school district. I think it's wonderful that there is an area for an elementary school. My children have lived there for 14 years and when Bear Creek went in we got the school districts redrawn, we moved schools, because Bear Creek came in, put too many kids in the school district, our kids had to change schools. The issue now -- my children are in middle school and high school, there are no properties -- there is a middle school property south of the freeway, there is no high school property south of the freeway. I have gone to the boundary meetings at the school district, it's great they are giving elementary. No developer is going to give them high school property, it's too big of a land area, there is not an area for that and Mountain View High School, if you guys have children going there, it's way too overcrowded and nothing is coming on for a bond to alleviate that. This density is going to push that -- that much more overcrowded. The other issue I have a lot of concern about tonight is the interpretation that the city planner had of Ada County Highway District's proposal on the Overland Road realignment. Do you guys have a copy of what City of Meridian planning department received? Because the way the city planner interpreted it that it was turned over to the city, that is not the way I interpret the same document that I received from ACHD. It says -- if I can just read part of it, is that after hearing testimony that they determined that a different public involvement process would be necessary for such a major realignment of a principal arterial roadway. I don't see that as saying we are turning that over to the city to make a decision tonight on. ACHD also determined that acting on this proposed application would be premature due to the fact that the City of Meridian has not completed the public process for Ten Mile area plan and has not yet formally adopted the plan. That is the city's deal, but, again, it hasn't gone through public -- they feel it has not gone through the public process. In addition, it's critical to know the interchange design selection for Ten Mile prior to acting on realignment of Overland Road. The revised South Ridge Subdivision proposal was remanded back to district staff with no definite date to reschedule the item back on the commission agenda. And maybe that's interpretation, but I don't necessarily agree with what the city planner said, that they turned it over to the city to decide that. I think they said there needs to be a lot more public involvement in that process, because it's a very large project. Thank you. Borup: And I think that's what staff did say. They wanted the publiC process to be completed and that means getting the final results on the Ten Mile plan. Newton-Huckabay: Can we take a five minute break? Rohm: Yes, we can. We are going to take a five minute break. Thank you for all your input. We need a short break. (Recess.) Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7, 2006 Page 65 of 90 Rohm: Thank you for allowing us to take this short break and at this time we will reconvene and we have taken all the public testimony and I -- oh, excuse me. I went through the entire list and -- okay. Well, you certainly have -- state your name and -- Smith: Donald Smith and I live at 2141 Aspen Cove Drive, Meridian. And I was at that meeting yesterday and I think the concern here was putting it back and knew what to do with Overland. Now, also was concerned -- they had -- if -- right now there was no money appropriated any further than Overland and Ten Mile, if the freeway came off there. If it went any further down Ten Mile to where he wants to put in a new road, they was concerned who was going to pay for that, where there was no federal money as of now to pay for that additional roadway. Rohm: Would you restate your name for the recorder, sir. Smith: Oh, yes. Don Smith. Don Smith at 2141 Aspen Cove Drive. Rohm: Thank you, sir. Smith: And everybody heard this and I was just concerned why this didn't come up earlier from staff that -- was Meridian going to come up with this money to build that 2,200 foot of road? Do you have the money for that? Because there is no federal money as of now appropriated for any further than Overland and Ten Mile. Rohm: Thank you. Smith: Thank you. Rohm: Okay. I believe that that concludes the public testimony and at this time we will give the applicant time for their response. Jewett: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Commissioners. I will be as quick as I can here. I could spend quite some time, but I think in light of things we can move very quickly. First of all, there was a statement made very early on about potential of fencing around the park in regards to the canal if the park was built in the first phase and I think that was a very good comment and I think that that would have to be addressed by some temporary fencing around the park, not only for the canal, but for the construction that would occur in future phases. So, I think that we would have to work with the parks department to come up with some temporary fencing to make sure that the park is protected both way, going in and going out. Secondly, I think a lot of the issues surrounded density and traffic and I'm going to do the best I can to address how we came up with what we did and how we as developers address the traffic. Having been in this part of the county and lived south of the freeway for, you know, most of the last 16 years, I recognize what Overland is, I recognize what Meridian is. We have finally gotten Meridian rebuilt here a few years ago and Overland now from there to Eagle Road rebuilt within the last couple of years as well. And the next component of that -- that contract was let by ACHD last Wednesday for the completion of Linder Road from Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 66 of 90 approximately my entrance -- actually, you know, west of Linder, from my entrance back to Meridian Road, including seven full lanes across Meridian Road in all directions to help with that turning. So, I think that relief is coming. That's one of the driving forces as far as the timing of our project. We recognize that a transportation corridor needs to be there, that dumping all this traffic on a rural two lane road doesn't work. So, that's coming. We also -- the timing of our project is predicated by Meridian bringing their sewer across the freeway. Our project was -- our project has been in the planning for several years now. The sewer is coming across the freeway this winter, it will be at our front doorstep probably by January or February, so that's the other public works project that's fueling the moving of this project along. As far as density, when we first started this project a few years ago, we looked at the entire mile surrounding this -- and if we can get an aerial up there I will show that, but when we looked at that mile and we looked at the Comp Plan that Meridian has had in place for as long as I have been here, 17 years, we saw that because of some of the subdivisions south of -- south of us here, Aspen Cove and Majestic View, and which I compliment those neighbors who live in there, they have very nice homes, they have very well kept homes, and it's a desirable neighborhood to live in, but recognizing that the urban-rural nature in which they were developed, if Meridian is to achieve the densities that the Comp Plan envisions, it has to go somewhere and when you have major transportation corridors like Overland that's being reconstructed and Ten Mile off ramp that's going to be built, the most logical area to place density would be along those corridors. That will help preserve those rural lifestyle, because the more we build larger lots, the faster we grow out, the more we build urban lots the slower we grow out, the more we keep that transportation and that traffic condensed to the areas in which the infrastructure is being built. So, I know it's hard to comprehend for some people, but this type of development helps them in maintaining their rural lifestyle. It doesn't take away. And because that transportation corridor is being built now and most likely will be completed by the time our first homes are ever built or around the first time our homes are built, that will exist. Secondly, we recognize that the need to build Overland from here -- from here to here needed to be done as well and not being a funded ACHD project or not even in their five year CIP, we were a strong force the last year and a half in asking the city -- this city to ask ACHD to put that on. Now, as of July that has been added to the CIP. It is now a project that is in the works and because of that we could offer ACHD to construct Overland Road for them in an impact free agreement and as you will see in the staff report that is a component that ACHD is going to work with us so we can complete as much of Overland Road as we can, pending the final disposition of where it's going to be. But where it's not going to move, we are committed to ACHD to enter into a development agreement to fund that portion of the construction at the same time their portion of Overland is being constructed from Linder back to Meridian Road. The 35 foot lots. I think there was a lot of questions about the 35 foot lots. The way we can derive at diversity in a plat is to have large lots combined with small lots. I can give you numerous examples of alley loaded 35 foot lots in this town, in Boise, and in Meridian -- I mean in Eagle that have all been successful. Some I have been involved in, some I haven't been involved in. It's just a different type of living, but there is people that want that living. It's not row housing in the sense of a negative. Yes, it's row housing in a general term, but it's not slums. It's good quality housing, it's housing that fits a different Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7, 2006 Page 67 of 90 lifestyle and we have people that want that lifestyle, especially next to the -- the things that we want to bring to our village center, the library and some cafes and retail and that's important, so -- but that 35 foot wide lot allows us to do these 17,000 square foot lots at the lower end. It's that diversity. It also allows us to have a complete diverse nature within that plat. Families start at that alley loaded lots and 30 years from now live on the back lot. They can simple progress through that subdivision as they progress in life. So, it does offer a lifestyle of a lot of other subdivisions. Now, you have heard the word cookie cutter. If I took the 35 foot wide lots and you took the other big lots and that's what you'd have, you'd have a cookie cutter of 8,000 square foot lots and that's not what we set out to do and I think what we have set out to do is what you see, is a diverse nature of lots from anywhere from 35 foot up to the estate lots, which would be 90 foot and wider up on the bluff. There was a couple comments regarding -- it was R-15 showing on the plat. There was an error made on the plat and we corrected that today and gave it back to the staff. We did display an area on the far west that showed R-15, that was in error, that has been corrected. There has also been a couple comments about me showing a stub street and some lodging in that. I'll take 30 seconds to explain that. During this process that property came up for sale, I did place an offer on it, I did do a conceptual layout so everybody could see what that might look like. I, as well as you, got the message and so I am no longer in contract to buy that property and no longer interested in any property along the Val Vista boundary. I got the message. I heard loud and clear. The one comment about the row houses would become rentals. Because of our design guidelines, because of the way we want to promote the subdivision, that's not what we want. We will have in this plat long-term build out apartments along Overland Road, but not this type of housing. This is not going to be rentals. This is going to be for people to live. And the last thing I want to touch on is schools. I'm happy to say that in several of my projects across the valley I have schools located in them and I'm happy to say that some of those school sites I have donated to the school district and some of them I sold them at a discounted rate. I'm happy to say I think that I have done as much as I can as a developer in pushing forward to have promotion of schools. I have children that are eight, nine, and 16, that are at all schools right here that everybody mentioned, Mary Mack, Mountain View, and I do recognize the need for a high school and I know that I have talked to the school district and they have asked me if I know of a property that they -- that I could steer them to for a high school -- another high school south of the freeway. I know it's an important thing and I know the school district is moving towards that. This school land purchase was in the last bond and the construction of this school will be in the next bond in I believe 2007 or 2008, I don't recall when the next bond is going to be. So, with that I would stand for any questions. Rohm: The first question that comes to my mind is in your -- as this develops out there were a number of people that spoke to the elevation of the structures adjacent to that south line. Jewett: And if you will notice the comment, there was a lot of those comments in the comments I responded to. I'm not objectionable to single story homes against the boundary of those properties. I recognize, as I put in my comments, that they have a Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 68 of 90 view and they have had a view for years and if there is something we can do by bigger lots, by greater rear setbacks, or for lower story homes, if the P&Z is -- that's their desire to place that upon that -- those lots, I'm more than willing to accept that. Rohm: Thank you. Are there any questions? Borup: Mr. Chairman, yes, I -- just a couple. One of the questions was on where the water for the pond's coming from, Jewett: Very good question. I'm sorry I forgot that one. Can you switch over? What our proposal to the parks department is -- that these would be lined ponds and what they would do is they would derive their water to irrigate their park out of those ponds, so they wouldn't have to mix with ours and they could water when they wished. Our pumping station is located right there and that's Nampa-Meridian pumping station. So, what we would do is Nampa-Meridian would pump right out of the canal to service the entire subdivision. Their water would come from our existing source up here at Val Vista and it would feed into these ponds. They are lined, so they would be able to control the amount of water they put in, versus what they apply out. So, it's their own water. It would be the water that would be assigned to that -- all park site that would be given to the -- to the parks department upon transfer of the park to them. So, it's their own water. Borup: Okay. Jewett: And they are lined. As long as they control them at the end of the year they should be able to keep maintaining them. The only loss they would have over the winter would be the evaporation. And, hopefully, the rainfall would equal out the evaporation. Borup: Okay. Then, another question on -- I realize we are only looking at platted lots on this eastern portion, but other than the mega lots, but with -- do you have an approximate number of total lots -- Jewett: I do. Borup: -- for the entire future subdivision? Jewett: I do. In the existing preliminary plat we have 260 dwelling unit lots. With the 295.04 acres, utilizing densities that we have shown, the TN-R, the R-8, the R-4, the R- 2, calculating that density against the acreage, the maximum total of units would be 1,252 or 4.24 units to the acre. Now, that's based on a maximum density. That's eight units are R-8, that's 15 on TN-R. And I think we all recognize that those levels are usually about 60 percent, because you just simply, because of the roads, don't get that. So, our original count, based on the master planning we did, we are around 960 to 970 lots, which would be the density at around 3.5 units gross. Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 69 of 90 Borup: So, you're saying less than 1,000, probably. Jewett: Less than 1,000. That includes the multi-family. Borup: Right. Okay. Thank you. Jewett: There was one other question. How many of the alley loaded lots. I had my planner count them, there was 105. So, approximately, ten percent of the overall plat would be alley loaded. Or the 35 footers. Rohm: Any other questions? Newton-Huckabay: Mr. Chair, I was just going to clarify, so the development agreement or your endeavor to enter in with a ACHD development agreement for the remainder of Overland from Linder to as far as you can go on your property, would be -- take place as you develop phase one? Jewett: Can you go back to a map that shows that. Right now my -- the conditions of approval with ACHD allows me to enter into an agreement to go from approximately here where the terminus of their constructions -- Newton-Huckabay: Right. Jewett: -- to about right here with a development agreement. This area here, if relocated, would have to be worked out. So, right now there is two thoughts. We can either come to our first plat level and stop the improvements here or come to this half mile line where there would not be any deviation regardless of what plan ends up in the long term. Newton-Huckabay: So, if -- and that agreement would be taking place during phase one? Jewett: That's correct. Newton-Huckabay: And when did you say the Linder-Meridian Road project -- Jewett: That contract was -- was let out to the contractor last Wednesday and they anticipate starting the relocation next month. Rohm: Let's just get Overland all the way to Ten Mile. Jewett: You will see that was my original proposal and I still think that potential exists. I think there is a process we have to go through over the next four to five months that involves this city, it involves ACHD, it involves lTD. I won't be much farther down the road in five months than I am right now, because it is winter. So, I think that opportunity Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 70 of 90 still exists. I encourage any comments that this Commission can offer myself, the public, and your own staff as to what you would like to see for Overload Road. Rohm; Thank you, sir. Okay. I think we have concluded with the public testimony here. Is there anyone that would like to make a motion to close these hearings? Newton-Huckabay: So moved. Zaremba: Second. Rohm: It's been moved and seconded to close the Public Hearing on AZ 06-031 and PP 06-031. All those in favor say aye. Opposed same sign. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Rohm: Okay. Discussion? Commissioner Newton-Huckabay. Newton-Huckabay: Can I ask staff a couple questions? Rohm. You're darn right. Newton-Huckabay: I just want to get a few things straight here. On the order of what's going on -- so we have a couple things going on with the city, we had the -- we had a charrette and we had one other Ten Mile meeting prior to the charrette, didn't we? Hood: Mr. Chair, Commissioner Newton-Huckabay, I'm not aware of the one prior to the charrette. There were several staff meetings that we had in preparation for getting ready for the charrette. The most recent one that I can think of was we did bring the results of that charrette to the Council. I'm not sure how many of you all attended that. It was a joint meeting with the Commission, and kind of outlayed that plan before you and so this is what we are looking at doing and got comments back. But that's -- before all that I'm not sure what -- Newton-Huckabay: I may have had two invitations to the charrette. That could have been, so -- okay. So, we had the Ten Mile area charrette and, then, we put together the Ten Mile area plan, we reviewed that before which -- with the City Council a couple weeks ago. And that is the proposal that's coming before -- or being turned in now or later this month and that concludes Meridian's -- or our preference for the interchange? I didn't get a copy of it. Hood: It doesn't include our proposal for the interchange. That's ITD and that's a separate -- the Ten Mile area specific plan is going to have to be molded a little bit to conform with where ever this -- the touchdown lands and the SPUI or moving it further to the west or whatever they decide to do north or where ever. So, right now the way that the Ten Mile area is, there is just some general land uses around the interstate and pretty generous, in my opinion, of, you know, an area that is -- mayor may not be used Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7, 2006 Page 71 of 90 for the actual interchange, but there are land uses shown on there that go out further, that if it goes one way or the other it really doesn't change the plan too much. Newton-Huckabay: Right. Okay. That answers my question. Thank you. Hood: And that plan is a working document, too. So, next spring -- I mean if there are - - by, then, hopefully, they will at least have a design and maybe we do need to tweak something here or there or change some ratios of some different land uses proposed, but, generally, I think it's a pretty solid plan and probably will move forward. There will be some changes I'm sure. Newton-Huckabay: Well, I like the plan, I just hadn't -- like I said, they didn't get us a copy if it that day. Did we resolve the stub -- understanding of the stub road? Rohm: Let's put it this way: I explained it to the best of my ability, but the fact of the matter is there are a number of people that don't want a stub to the south on the west end of the project, but the point is is just because there is stub there doesn't mean that it actually goes into their development, I don't know what more we can say about that. Newton-Huckabay: I can't imagine that this plan will pass through City Council without some south stubs somewhere -- Rohm: I agree a hundred percent. Newton-Huckabay: But-- Rohm: And I don't think that it's going to leave this body without a stub to the south. Newton-Huckabay: That was all my questions I had. Rohm: Commissioner Borup, do you have some final thoughts? Borup: Well, just -- I guess one of the things I'm looking at strongly is we have had a Comprehensive Plan for this area since 2002. That plan has designated this area as medium density, which is up to eight units per acre. I'm not sure how long this applicant has been looking at this property, but I'm sure that's the assumption he went in when he -- when he worked at acquiring it is that he would be able to follow the Comprehensive Plan. Eight units per acre for the residential area that I calculate would be over 2,000 homes. He's stated that it's going to be under a thousand. So, that's well within the maximum and if you want to take the Comprehensive Plan literally, the R-2 lots wouldn't even be allowed in this area without asking for a step down in zoning, which I don't think we -- is this a planned unit? No. Did we need to ask for a step down or is that just -- was it a given? Hood: There is a request, Mr. Chair, Commissioner-- Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 72 of 90 Borup: Okay. Hood: There is not a formal request for that step down. That was one of the things that has changed since the first -- Borup: Right. That was a staff -- that was some of the earlier negotiations. Hood: It's based on the charrette. It's based on comments from a lot of the neighbors. Borup: Right. I think it's a good thing. I think it does make good transition to go to the R-2. I mean if you didn't understand what it's saying there, normally that wouldn't even be allowed in this zone without a special request and so they are requesting that to allow that transition to the following neighbors. Some of the same comments I have heard here are exact same comments I heard when Heritage Commons went in. After we approved that I was approached by some people that said what are you guys thinking allowing those little low income trashy homes to go in there. A year later after they were built someone said have you seen the price of those homes? Nobody but rich people can afford them. They are talking about the exact same subdivision, only a year apart. And that -- that's more than likely, looking at the design, the same thing happened here. The only thing I would comment on design is -- well, no, we saw the designs. So, with an alley loaded you can have a nice exterior on the front, because you don't have that garage there interfering with that. Thirty-five is probably a pretty minimal, forty would be nicer, but -- on designwise, but it looks like they have already thought through that. That's all the comments I have. Rohm: Thank you. Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: One of the things that we consistently talk about is wanting to have interesting projects. The applicant mentioned cookie cutter and that's a horrible thing. You know, we don't want those. We have asked applicants over and over to provide us with some creativity and some variety and I see that here. The applicant -- the overall average density not only meets the Comprehensive Plan, but it is even a little bit low for the Comprehensive Plan for this area, which went through a lot of public hearings. This is not something that was done in a hurry or in a secret. It took years. Within those limits the applicant has brought us some creativity that I think that's useful. The applicant mentioned that the likely scenario is that people would move into the smaller homes as starter homes, and, then, move up, but they don't intend them to be cheap homes. I'm getting of an age where I'm thinking the other direction. I live in a bigger home now and I could be seeking one of the smaller homes. I don't want as much to care for anymore. So, we have learned in other communities and even within Meridian some of the more recent developments that have provided a variety of sizes that people appreciate being able to live in the same community, even if they move from a big house to a small house or a small house to a house, without leaving the neighbors or their kids or grandchildren, they don't change schools, I realize with the growth that's going on sometimes there is other reasons why a school gets changed, but they stay in the neighborhood, get a sense of neighborhood and whether they live in a big house or Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 73 of 90 a small house, or move from one or the other, they are still there. In the overall picture of the Ten Mile interchange area plan, which this is on the edge of and just below, the re-alignment of Overland solves a whole lot of problems that people have been tearing their hair out about for a long time. I think that is an excellent thing to do. The charrette got buy~in to that from a lot of people. That was also a well publicized public process and there were a lot of people that attended it. Whether or not this is the exact location within ten feet or a hundred feet to me isn't the issue. That concept is, eventually, going to make such an improvement for the overall use of Meridian that it needs to end up something like that. I guess what I'm saying -- I realize the mega lots are not permanent yet, but I also understand the roadways can't be put in unless there is some platting done. The mega lots probably aren't going to be replatted for years. Maybe if the market moves along it will happen sooner, maybe not. But I agree that the Ten Mile interchange will probably be there before most of this is built. The realignment of Overland needs to be a solution to some of the problems that the current alignment -- there is no way to solve them without doing something like this. So, I'll have to say I appreciate the creativity. I don't think the density -- overall density is any problem in relation to the Comprehensive Plan. I think this is a good thing for Meridian. Rohm: Thank you. I guess my final thoughts on this are -- we as a Commission are about planning and from my perspective this development is occurring via a plan. I mean there is a Ten Mile interchange that's coming. The sewer is crossing over to the south side of the freeway. Overland Road is continuing to be developed to its potential. All of these things work together and I would be the -- I would agree that it's scary, because it's changed and there is still some unknowns out there, but all of these things working together, I think we are going to end up with something that is going to be beneficial to all of us. The Overland Road where it currently dumps into Ten Mile, that's an accident waiting to happen. I'm surprised that there is not something there on a weekly basis. That's a dangerous intersection. And moving that up to the top of the hill, getting it away from the Ten Mile interchange, that's the only right answer from my perspective and I don't know the specific location of it any more than the next, but I think that we all would agree that you can't have it dumping into Ten Mile a hundred feet from the -- from the interchange itself, it just -- it won't work that way. In any case, in conclusion, I seriously appreciate everybody's comments here tonight and I think that this development is better for the comments that have been provided that has changed the lay of the plat over the last six months and the bottom line is we got nine mega lots that are yet to be fully developed out and you will have every opportunity to -- for input on those as they come, but I would venture to say that Ten Mile interchange is going to be in before they get all the way through this whole project, but I guess we will have to wait and see. So, that's my comments and thank you all. And so with that being said, I'd entertain a motion if somebody's ready to move forward with that. Zaremba: Mr. Chairman, I would attempt it. Rohm: Okay. Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7, 2006 Page 74 of 90 Zaremba: After considering all staff, applicant, and public testimony, I move to recommend approval to the City Council of file numbers AZ 06-031 and PP 06-031, as presented in the staff report for the hearing date of December 7, 2006, with the following modifications -- and I would ask Mr. Caleb Hood to read into the record modifications for Exhibit B, paragraph four, paragraph 13, paragraph 19, paragraph 23 to be inserted into my motion, if you can do that, Mr. Hood. Didn't mean to spring that on you. Hood: In Exhibit B, conditions of approval, item number four, it should read that prior to annexation ordinance approval new legal descriptions for the R-2, R-4, R-8, TN-C, TN- R, and L-O zones be submitted. That said legal description should depict zones consistent with the master concept plan, except the TN-C located at the northwest of Overland Road, north of the canal, should be zoned TN-R and except for a small pocket located at the northeast side of local street intersection with the Overland Road_ This area should be zoned L-O. Provision number 13 shall be deleted in its entirety. And provision 14 shall be modified to read that except for mega lot four, the city park lot, which shall be included within the first final plat phase of this development, all other mega lots shown on the master concept plan west of the first phase shall be annexed and recorded, but no home or road construction shall occur in this area until such time as the Ten Mile area specific plan is adopted by the city. After such time the mega blocks may be developed if they -- if the new preliminary and final plats are consistent with the adopted Ten Mile area specific plan. And 19, I believe you said, should read that with the construction of the first phase prior to any occupancy being granted, a ten foot wide multi-use pathway shall be constructed on this site generally on the north side of the Ridenbaugh Canal from Linder Road to the city park lot. And in parenthesis, temporarily terminating at the city park, with the remainder out to Ten Mile Road to be constructed with future phases. And it goes on -- that a future phase are -- that as future phases are brought in for replatting, the city will require additional multi-use pathways along the Ridenbaugh Canal and/or within the northwest pipeline easement. And, then, 23, excuse me, should read that the applicant agrees to construct a development and public street system on this site that is in general compliance with the submitted master concept plan prepared by The Land Group, Inc., labeled sheet M1.0, dated 4/15/06, with the proviSions mentioned above, in parenthesis, detailed approval of the internal street system will be reviewed and approved with the resubdivision of each mega lot. And this is what I added as a stub street to at least one of the five acre lots in Val Vista when mega lot two develops shall be shown. That was all the changes that you asked me to read as part of your motion, Commissioner. I did have one more on three and it's -- Zaremba: I'm sorry, I didn't know I missed one. Hood: -- an easy one. Zaremba: Go ahead. Hood: It was just to change the R~15 that's bolded to TN-C. There is no R-15. So, that to TN-C. Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 75 of 90 Zaremba: I include that as well. Then I would add a paragraph 24 in that area that says the applicant has agreed to limit the height of homes on his southern border shared with Val Vista Subdivision to single story and to consider a larger than 15 foot setback. Are you agreeing to do it a little farther east than that as well? The applicant is nodding his head. Homes along his southern border farther east can also be restricted to single story. Borup: I just -- I guess I need a comment. I'm opposed to height restrictions. Newton-Huckabay: Are you saying farther than a 15 foot setback up against a five acre parcel? Zaremba: The applicant agreed to it, so -- he didn't agree to a hundred foot setback, but he agreed to restrict them to more than the standard setback, which is 15. Newton-Huckabay: Okay. Zaremba: I think we should take him up on that. Rohm: Okay. We have a motion -- Zaremba: I'm sorry, the motion is not complete. Rohm: Oh. Okay. Zaremba: I'd further move to direct the applicant to submit, first, new annexation and zoning legal descriptions for each zone prepared by a licensed surveyor prior to the city clerk sending out notices for this project for the City Council review. And, second, ten full size, plus one eight and a half inch by 11 inch, plus one pdf and one jpg, jpeg, copy of the revised preliminary plat and landscape plan that includes all changes listed in Exhibit B to staff by Thursday, December 14th, so agencies and departments within the city can comment prior to the City Council hearing. There is an agency department meeting scheduled for December 15th. End of motion. Hood: One point of clarification for the maker of the motion. Is that in addition to 15? Did you have a number in mind? Is it 16 or does it just have to be more than 15 or 20 or Zaremba: Can we say work with staff on that? Hood: If you work and he shows a 16, that's consistent, so I'm just -- Zaremba: We are discussing a future subdivision of the mega lots, so we will get a chance to talk about this again, but -- Meridian Planning & Zoning December 7,2006 Page 76 of 90 Hood: We can word it that way. Zaremba: I just want it on the record that we have agreed to more than 15. Because those lots aren't etched in stone. They are not even platted yet. Just so we know that discussion's coming. Rohm: Okay. We have a motion. Zaremba: Is that satisfactory? Rohm: Could I get a second? Newton-Huckabay: I will second it. Rohm: Okay. We have got a motion and a second. It's been moved and seconded that we forward onto City Council recommending approval of AZ 06-031 and PP 06-031, to include all staff report amended as stated. All those in favor say aye. Opposed same sign? Borup: No. I need to say I'm in favor of the motion, but I am opposed to a height restriction. Rohm: Duly noted. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Item 11: Public Hearing: AZ 06-056 Request for Annexation and zoning of 5.2 acres from RUT to R-4 zone for Clearsprings Subdivision by Mike Hill - 1035 E. McMillan Road: Item 12: Public Hearing: PP 06-054 Request for Preliminary Plat approval of 11 residential lots and 2 common lots on 5.2 acres in the proposed R-4 zone for Clearsprings Subdivision by Mike Hill- 1035 E. McMillan Road: Rohm: Thank you all for your input and thank you coming in. All right. We have -- I have been told that the last two items are going to be very short. With the cooperation of the balance of the Commission I'd like to open the public hearing on AZ 06-056 and PP 06-054, both items related to Clearsprings Subdivision and begin with the staff report. Lucas: Thank you, Chairman, Commissioners. I think we are in the process of trying to get our presentation back up here. There. All right. I believe we are ready to begin. As was stated, this is the Clearsprings Subdivision. It's located on the south side of McMillan Road approximately 3,300 feet east of the North Meridian Road, right in this area. The application includes annexation and zoning to R-4, which is medium low density residential for approximately 5.2 acres of property currently zoned RUT in Ada