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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025-01-14 Regular Meridian City Council January 14, 2025. A Meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 6:00 p.m. Tuesday, January 14, 2025, by Mayor Robert Simison. Members Present: Robert Simison, Luke Cavener, Liz Strader, Doug Taylor, Anne Little Roberts and Brian Whitlock. Members Absent: John Overton. ROLL-CALL ATTENDANCE X Liz Strader X Brian Whitlock _X_Anne Little Roberts John Overton _X_ Doug Taylor _X_Luke Cavener X Mayor Robert E. Simison Simison: Council, we will call the meeting to order. For the record it is January 14, 2025, at 6:00 p.m. We will begin tonight's regular City Council meeting with roll call attendance. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE Simison: Next up is the Pledge of Allegiance. If you would all, please, rise and join us in the pledge. (Pledge of Allegiance recited.) COMMUNITY INVOCATION Simison: Up next is our community invocation. Is Cindy here? Oh, sorry, you're hiding behind somebody. If you would all, please, join us in the community invocation or take this as a moment of silence and reflection. Cindy: Our Heavenly Father, we come before thee this night with open hearts and minds. We ask thee, Father, a special blessing upon our cities and counties, our states and our nation and especially upon the world at this time when there is so much turmoil. Please allow each of us to have an open heart to the direction that thou would give to us in our daily lives, in our interactions with our neighbors. Help us to be peacemakers, help us to be kind, help us to be more patient, help us to be good stewards of the jobs that we have been put in place of and we say these things and give thee thanks for all of our blessings, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. ADOPTION OF AGENDA Simison: Thank you. Two for two on invocations to start out 2025. It looks like it's going to be a good year. Up next adoption of the agenda. Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 2 of 81 Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Not seeing anything that we need to maybe change or modify, so I move that we adopt our agenda as presented. Strader: Second. Simison: I have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda. Is there any discussion? If not, all in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it and the agenda is adopted. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. PROCLAMATIONS [Action Item] 1. Community Risk Reduction Week Simison: So, first item up is a proclamation. So, we will go ahead and move down to the podium and Carly, Brad, Chief, anybody else that you would like to join us at the podium as we do Community Risk Reduction Week. All right. So, I will go ahead and do the proclamation. I will turn it over to the real experts to actually talk about what this really means here in our -- here in Meridian. Okay. So, whereas every 23 seconds a fire department in the United States responds to a fire somewhere in the nation and responds to a growing number of medical calls for service, surpassing 80 percent of total call volume in some jurisdictions and whereas community risk reduction is a data informed process to identify and prioritize local risks, followed by integrated and strategic investment of resources to reduce their occurrence and impact and whereas the value of community support from local, state and national partners to address community risks is recognized to meet the demands on paid, combination and volunteer members of the fire service. And whereas the goal of community risk reduction is to reduce the occurrence and impact of emergency events for both community members and emergency responders through deliberate action in the areas of the five E's of education, engineering, enforcement, emergency response and economic incentive and whereas the City of Meridian supports the community risk reduction efforts to help keep our community safe and thriving. Therefore, I'm, Mayor Robert E. Simison, hereby proclaim January 20 through 26, 2025, as Community Risk Reduction Week in the City of Meridian and call upon the citizens to join this grassroots initiative of fire service professionals across the nation to raise awareness of the importance of community risk reduction in the fire service community and opportunity to make communities safer, dated this 14th day of January 2025. So, with that I will turn it over to whoever is going to be speaking. Carly? Okay. Shears: Thank you very much. Do I face this way? Okay. I just want to take a minute to thank City Council and Mayor Simison for this opportunity to raise awareness around the value and importance of community risk reduction. The community risk reduction Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 3 of 81 initiatives are vital in enhancing the safety of both the community and the fire service personnel. So, I want to start talking about community risk reduction by sharing a brief parable from a book that really highlights what community risk reduction actually is. Okay. So, here is the parable. You and a friend are having a picnic by the side of a river. Suddenly you hear a shout from the direction of the water and you see that a child is drowning. Without thinking both you and your friend dive in, grab the child and swim to shore. Before you guys can recover you hear another child cry for help. You and your friend jump back in the river to rescue them as well and, then, another struggling child just into sight and another and yet another. The two of you can barely keep up with these children that are floating down the river and suddenly your friend decides to go running up river and you say to them where are you going? I need your help. And he says I'm going to find who is throwing all these kids into the river. And that's really the whole idea of community risk reduction is we want to get ahead of the calls that are coming in. How can we reduce the amount of calls that we are seeing in Meridian. How can we empower people to be better prepared for when they do experience these emergencies? So, what is community risk reduction and how does the Meridian Fire Department utilize community risk reduction in our service delivery? So, the community risk reduction division of Meridian Fire Department we are heavily involved in public education, which involves a lot of different programs. Like we have a CPR program. We have a smoke alarm program. A car seat program. We teach fire extinguisher training. We offer sudden cardiac arrest screening for student athletes. We provide fire and life safety visits into schools, businesses, homeowners association groups, church groups. We also do career day presentations. We are involved in community events, such as Public Safety Day, which I'm hoping some of you have been able to come out and be a part of. National Night Out, Trunk or Treat and the list goes on and on. So, while that's heavily focused on public education, like Mayor Simison said, there are actually five E's to community risk reduction. Some of the areas that we could improve in community risk reduction in our community -- we have the opportunity to get more involved on a more granular level with our residents in both preventing emergency incidents and, then, better preparing them like I mentioned. So, the opportunities that we have as we continue to grow our community risk reduction division are monthly meetings for the new certificates of occupancies for all of the businesses that come in Meridian and I don't know if you guys keep track of that, but we get quite a few COOs every single month. So, as these businesses continue to come in we can provide that education around fire protection for their business. We can get involvement with the refugee placement agencies in Meridian. I don't know if many of you are aware, but there is two refugee placement agencies in Boise and we actually house quite a few of them in Meridian. While that's a great thing, we have these people that are coming over from another country that don't know how our stove tops work, that don't know how smoke alarms work and we are beginning to find some problems where they are living with, you know, smoke alarm tampering or cooking fires and all because they don't have this education and awareness. So, being involved with some of those groups. Monthly apartment managers meeting. We can have increased involvement with the residential assisted living facilities, senior centers, residential knox box program. I mean the list is really endless as far as ways that we can get involved, help the community, prevent 9-1-1 calls and better prepare them for those unpreventable emergencies. Community risk reduction is recognized both nationally and Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 4 of 81 locally as an important and very necessary component of the fire service. Effective CRR is an essential component in different things in the fire department and the city, such as our ISRB rating. As we get a lower ISRB rating our insurance premiums go down, which is a great thing. Having a robust community risk reduction and fire prevention program helps with that. We are also an accredited fire department. We became accredited last year, which is a nationally recognized award or a status for fire departments that are willing to really look at their service delivery and figure out ways that they can make it better for their community. So being an accredited fire department community risk reduction is a huge part of how we provide that service to our community. So, it's an -- it's an essential component of -- of accreditation as well. Overall the city has invested in a number of initiatives to help the fire department provide better safety, provide better preventative measures, faster response times and ultimately programs and initiatives to save lives and property and reduce business interruptions due to the consequence of fire and other hazards. Vacancies in the Community Risk Reduction Division have limited our ability to fully utilize and strategically integrate all of these resources that the city has invested in. In -- in that we, then, have to rely on outside vendors to develop things like our community risk assessment, standards of cover and to help us with accreditation. If we have a robust community risk reduction division we can do all of that internally within the fire department. So, one of our most utilized programs in community risk reduction is our smoke alarm program. Are any of you familiar with the smoke alarm program that we offering in Meridian? Yeah. So, it is very highly utilized. In 2024 the community risk reduction division responded on over 500 calls for service and the line personnel responded on over 300. For smoke alarms only. These are things like changing out batteries because it's chirping. So, we are sending fire crews, four person apparatus, to these chirping smoke alarms when, you know, if we have a robust community risk reduction division we can really help the community with those. When we didn't have staffing in the community risk reduction division, there was about six months where the division was completely understaffed, the program -- the smoke alarm program kind of went by the wayside for a little while. We weren't able to offer that service to the community and we heard about it from the community. This is an expectation of the community and the citizens of Meridian is that we provide these public education preventative measures and so it was -- it was readily recognized that we need to get back involved in the smoke alarm program, educating the community members about how smoke alarms work, what the different sounds mean and ultimately that will help reduce the amount of fire injuries and allow people to better evacuate their homes when they do experience a fire. One thing that we are wanting to work on -- that we are working on in 2025 is addressing the number of falls and lift assist that occur in Meridian. So, I don't know if you heard in the proclamation, but for fire departments around the nation, EMS, Emergency Medical Services calls, typically account for 80 percent of their call volume. So, that leaves fires, motor vehicle collisions, that's more at about 20 percent. The majority of the calls that we run are EMS calls, medical calls. Well, out of that 25 percent are for falls and lift assist in our community. That's a very very large number. It's over 1,200 every year of our call volume and so if we can figure out why are people falling, you know, it's happening in the elderly population, the geriatric, typically 65 plus, sometimes at assisted living facilities or nursing homes. We really need to recognize why are they falling. We look at the data for that and, then, we can provide intervention programs that Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 5 of 81 can help reduce those amount of calls. So, you know, we are getting multiple falls, multiple lift assist calls, and sending engines to help, you know, these people up off the ground, but if we could have an effective CRR program that works with these facilities, that works with these residents to prevent these falls and these emergencies from happening in the first place our engines and our resources can be freed up to respond to cardiac arrests, structure fires, motor vehicle collisions. So, again, I just want to thank you guys for your time and the commitment towards CRR and how important it is in the fire service and for the safety and resilience of this community. So, thank you very much. With that does anybody have any questions? Simison: Council Woman Strader? Strader: Yes, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Hi, Carly. I'm sorry. It feels weird to talk to your back. Shears: I know. Strader: I will just look at you on the screen here. Thank you so much for explaining a little bit about you. I have always been a really skeptical person when it came to community risk reduction, because -- and I probably always will be a little bit, just because there is no end to like the bad things that can be prevented -- Shears: Uh-huh. Strader: -- but I think what really got me thinking was discussing with you and understanding -- and Ann was there in that meeting as well. Just understanding the data- driven approach that you are using was just really eye opening to me that, you know, focusing on senior care facilities, working with those facilities to try to stop all these falls, where we are spending like 25, 30 percent of our time. So, I just wanted to compliment you that in like a 20 minute conversation with myself and Council Woman Little Roberts, like we were blown away understanding what you are focusing on. So, I just wanted to compliment you and, obviously, Brad as well and just say thank you so much for everything you are doing. Shears: I appreciate that. Thank you. Simison: All right. With that let's do a quick picture. Chief, it looks like you are the photo -- photog for the event, but -- -trader: Mr. Mayor, I'm going to -- because maybe my mic is still on, I will just maybe put in a plug for Carly. Be great to have her come back at some point for like a larger presentation. Cavener: I would love that. PUBLIC FORUM — Future Meeting Topics Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 6 of 81 Simison: All right. All right. With that we will move on to our -- well, actually, anything -- anyone signed up under public forum, Mr. Clerk? Johnson: Nobody's signed up. ACTION ITEMS 2. Public Hearing for 3970 E. Overland Rd. (H-2024-0053) by Dominic Pera, JGT Architecture, located at 3970 E. Overland Rd. A. Request: Annexation and Zoning of 1.120 acres of land from the R- 1 zone in Ada County to the General Retail and Service Commercial District (C-G) zoning district for the construction of a 4,950 sq. ft. multi-tenant building with one side being used for a restaurant. Simison: Okay. Then we will move on to our action times. First up is Item 2, public hearing for H-2024-0053. We will open this public hearing with staff comments. Ritter: Good evening, Mayor and Council. Happy New Year. It's my first meeting in front of you for this new year. So, tonight we will be discussing a request for annexation and zoning of 1.120 acres of land from the R-1 zoning district in Ada county to General Retail and Service Commercial District, C-G zoning, for the construction of a 4,800 square foot multi-tenant building with one side being -- being used for a restaurant and it's at 3970 East Overland Road. This is the boundary of the annexation. So, the current use of the property is residential with several existing buildings on the property. It consists of one home and two outbuildings. All structures will be removed and the existing welling and septic will be abandoned as required. The applicant will need to submit a certificate of zoning compliance and design review for review and approval prior to building permit submittal. So, there is a single family residence to the north and east and they will be required to be screened with a 25 foot landscape buffer and a six foot privacy fence. The applicant is requesting Council waiver to reduce the 25 foot buffer adjacent to the property to the north and the east. The property to the north is in probate, therefore, staff cannot verify a letter that was received authorizing the landscape buffer reduction. The applicant is requesting a waiver from Council for this reduction, because if they don't get the waiver they would have to request it from the probate court and that would just prolong things for the applicant. So, the applicant did submit conceptual building elevations for the proposed structure. The building and materials consist of stucco, stone, wood, metal accent. So, in the final design review for this will be -- will have to comply with the city's design standards and for the purpose of this development the Comprehensive Plan goal is to require appropriate building design and landscaping elements to buffer, screen and beautify and integrate commercial, multi-family and parking lots in existing neighborhoods. So, this is within an existing neighborhood off of Topaz Avenue. This did go before the Commission -- Planning Commission and they did recommend approval. We had a couple of people that did speak at the public hearing, but they were not in Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 7 of 81 opposition of the project. There were no changes to staff recommendation from the Commission and there were no outstanding issues other than the waiver for a reduction in the landscape buffer. There were no written testimonies since the Commission hearing and with that I will stand for any questions that you may have on this application. Simison: Thank you, Linda. Council, any questions for staff? Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Linda, can you just speak a little bit more on the status of the property to the north that's in probate? I just want to understand if we grant the waiver for the 25 -- the reduction of the -- the buffer and that we haven't verified the ownership of that property, what does that mean in terms of any action we may take tonight? Can you just talk to that a little bit more? Ritter: Yes. So, the property owner passed away, but the applicant spoke with the property owner prior to her passing. There was a letter that was submitted saying that they had no issue, but because the property owner is not there anymore we can't really - - it's not really required, but we do like to have something from the property owner saying that they are in agreement if a reduction is being requested and -- but he did have a letter. I didn't have a way to verify it, but I do remember at the Commission hearing that one of the neighbors said she did speak to that neighbor, she had no objections to this development, so with those words I'm pretty confident that she did provide that letter. Taylor: Mr. Mayor, quick follow up. Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Do we have that letter and is -- if the property owner passed away is the property being held in a trust or who -- who has legal -- Ritter: It's with a family member right now. In probate. As most properties are when people pass away. Simison: Council, any additional questions for staff? Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Probably more of a question for Mr. Nary just -- if he has any concerns. Is there anything that we should do differently? I think along the lines of exactly what Councilman Taylor is asking, but is there some further step that we should take at this point to get into touch with whoever is likely to inherit the property or is it just something that we are not going to worry about in this kind of example or situation? Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 8 of 81 Nary: Yeah. Council Member Strader. Members of Council, you know, that's -- I mean it's a great question, but, again, it would be very difficult to be able to get even that if the person is not appointed yet as a representative. We wouldn't really have -- they wouldn't have any more authority really to -- to make a decision for that property owner anyway. So, I do think -- I mean, again, the best information that you have is what you have and think that's probably the best you can rely on. Strader: Thank you. Ritter: Mayor, Council Woman Strader, so the person who signed the affidavit of legal interest to proceed with this was the property owner's relative. So, they are aware of this. Strader: Thank you. That's very helpful. Simison: Any additional questions for staff at this time? Would the applicant like to come forward. Wallgren: Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Council. My name is Jarrod Wallgren. I'm with JGT Architecture, 1135 12th Avenue Road in Nampa, representing the applicant for this request. The -- the main purpose of which is to ask that this parcel be admitted for annexation into the city as a commercial zone. The applicant is the owner of a successful Vietnamese restaurant in Boise and he would like to acquire this property to build himself a building and construct a restaurant on this parcel that will occupy the -- the main square footage of the space. The balance would be a --for tenant lease space for a future tenant. As discussed the second part of our request is that reduction in buffer. The code requires a 25 foot landscape buffer. We are proposing to reduce that by ten feet down to 15 feet in total due to the configuration of the site. The neighboring property has a development agreement that requires cross access. We have a fairly substantial required buffer along Overland. That large buffer along the north would adversely impact the -- the depth of the building and the amount of parking to have a viable project. So, we are requesting that reduction. To kind of balance out the reduction we are proposing additional trees above and beyond solid fence. Really going to create a -- a buffer that will act the same. I think that -- that reduction by ten feet is somewhat inconsequential and we will -- we agree with everything else in the staff report and we will work with them through the design review and zoning compliance process on -- on the building design and any concerns they might have and we are excited to have this as a project in the city and with that I would stand for any questions. Simison: Thank you. Council, any questions for the applicant? Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 9 of 81 Taylor: Jarrod, thanks for the presentation. Just a one pretty simple clarification. If we did not receive the -- if you were required to provide the 25 foot buffer still how would that change the layout of this design? Would you reduce parking? The building be small? I mean what -- have you proposed what you would do if you didn't receive that waiver? Wallgren: Councilman Taylor, there would be a couple of options. One would be to eliminate that entire role of parking along the north, which I think at that point puts us below the code required amount of parking and it puts it a level that's just not viable for the project or reduce the building by that amount, at which point it would be impractically narrow from front to back. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: It looks like you have a stub street to the east. Is that, in fact, what -- what that is? Is it for cross-access or can you just point out any place here on this site plan where your cross-access is? Wallgren: Council Woman Strader, that's correct. We are -- we are providing an access point -- that that property when it was approved required cross-access at that location and so that's what we are connecting to. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: And just because, honestly, you are a victim of a hot topic, because it's been a hot topic lately, but I was curious if you and staff considered cross-access to the north. If not why? And just generally was curious about what's kind of going on with your -- the context of the surrounding properties when it comes to cross-access. Wallgren: You know, we had not considered cross-access to the north. It was never raised. I think the way we have had to lay out the trash enclosure access and the backup space along that east side -- I mean that could be a natural spot for cross- access if it were desired by the city. You know, that -- that property to the north is currently in the county. In the Comprehensive Plan it is a mixed-use commercial designation. So, presumably if it were ever annexed at some point it would be a commercial zone in which that 15 foot set back would be more than adequate at that point. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Yeah. I'm not so concerned about the adequacy of the setback, more of my concern was whether it made sense to require a stub street -- right there, yeah, where Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 10 of 81 the cursor is to the north and part of the reason you -- and you have like a one acre project. So, it's -- it's kind of an in-fill project. I think we didn't want to overly burden you I'm guessing, but at the same time this whole area is commercial. I think for it to function well cross-access is probably important. So, maybe that's something that staff could touch on, Mr. Mayor. I don't know if that's possible at this time or if you want to wait, but it's just something I'm trying to think through. Simison: Any additional comments you would like to add towards that? Parsons: Mayor, Members of the Council, happy to -- to provide some commentary on that topic. Certainly I think Council Woman Strader hit it on -- nail on the head. It's a small site and the applicant's trying to -- to do the best that they can with the constraints that they have to deal with. In looking at our GIS map, the --the city and both ACHD have what's called a Master Street Map and along the north boundary of that site will be a collector road somewhere in that location. So, in staff's opinion there is plenty of connectivity in the future for that site, so there really was no benefit to get additional cross- access to the north. The bigger concern for us was getting cross-access to the east, because those lots fronted on Overland Road, which is the more impacted roadway with congestion. So, that's why we really push for the applicant to demonstrate compliance with cross-access to the east and not necessarily to the north. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Just to pull on that thread a little bit, would the Master Street Map encourage us to limit connectivity to that collector street? I guess what kind of -- where I was going -- trying to put myself into the shoes of a business owner in this instance. It feels like if you never know. Sometimes these collectors actually can -- can generate a lot of traffic. I wonder if it wouldn't be advantageous to sort of extend this little piece of the parking lot here in kind of the northeast quadrant of your site plan to create a stub street. Just -- I -- I don't think you would lose any parking spaces necessarily by doing that, but it might -- I don't know. If staff thought that was a poor idea or -- Parsons: Mayor, Members of the Council, Council Woman Strader, not necessarily. I think long term vision it probably makes sense, but currently Topaz is a local street and our code does not prohibit access points to local streets. It will be a collector in the future when other properties develop that and the trips warrant it being reclassified from a local to a collector. So, again, a lot of unknowns at this time, but currently that road is a local street, which does not really require them to grant cross-access to that northern property under current code. But it is -- it is annexation. Strader: Thank you. Simison: Council, additional questions for the applicant? Okay. Thank you very much. Mr. Clerk, anyone signed up on this item? Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 11 of 81 Johnson: Mr. Mayor, yes. Lynette Adsitt. Simison: And when you come forward if you can state your name and address, be recognized for three minutes. Adsitt: Mayor City, Council Members, my name is Lynette Adsitt. I live at 1360 South Topaz Avenue. My concern is the traffic flow. They are wanting this to go out onto Topaz, which is the street I live on and Overland is so congested it took me ten -- 11 minutes to get from Topaz through Eagle and I was already on -- I was able to get onto Overland. The rest of the trip to get here only took me eight minutes. The night before it took me 12 minutes. So, there is a huge bottleneck right there and I noticed, if I'm looking at this correctly, the ACHD did not do a traffic study on this and I just would like to know what are our options of being able to get out on this street. Additionally, turning left is really hard, because you have to get into the turn lane median and usually cars are there turning -- turning left, so you can't get out that way at all. They did put up a sign two weeks ago that says do not block interstate -- or intersection. There is no white lines. I have noticed that traffic is really courteous about letting us out, but it's that movement between Topaz and Eagle. Like I said, ten to 12 minutes between -- one time was at 5:10 and tonight was at 5:30. 1 do know residents know not to leave their house at that time or at 8:00 o'clock in the morning. We try to avoid that. I do know that we -- I don't know. I haven't ever done it, but we use Zamzow's parking lot to get to the light on Silverstone so we can turn left and if you are putting more people in here or more business, once they find out that that loop's there, they are going to go through Zamzow's to get to the light so they can get out. So, I just ask is there anything we can do to help with this bottleneck, especially if we are adding more vehicles into the neighborhood. Thank you. Simison: Thank you. Council, any questions? Okay. Was there anybody else present or online who would like to provide testimony on this application? If you are online you can just raise your hand feature. It looks like we have someone who has done that. Johnson: Yes, Mr. Mayor. Mike Blowers. You should be able to unmute. Blowers: Yes. Hi. My name is Mike Blowers. I live on 1325 Rolling Hill Drive. So, I'm not in this neighborhood, but I just wanted to add some more context to what Lynette said and I think it's important what this project that -- it's zoomed out a little bit. To expand on what she's been talking about currently there are seven access points that use that merge lane that do not have an option for a light and I mean I would be more curious for the proposal of this project, how they see someone accessing their project. For -- for sure there is going to be a lot of U-turning around past the project in order to get in here. That there is a light at Silverstone that's backed up all the way to this property entrance and so while it is a traffic issue I think the bigger picture is that it's an actual merge conflict issue and a flow issue. It's insanely dangerous for those who are not familiar with the issue going on right here. Fortunately, we know when and when not to go out. The other thing just to note is probably in two to three months there will be a -- a 19 multi-family project Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 12 of 81 that's right across the street from this one on Topaz that's going to be proposed and so I just want to put that in context of this current project. Thank you. Simison: Thank you. Council, any questions? Is there anybody else present that would like to provide testimony on this item? Then would the applicant like to come forward to close? Wallgren: Mr. Mayor, Council, it sounds like most of any slight opposition of the project would be related to traffic. I can't really speak much to that. That's kind of an ACHD issue. I'm certainly sympathetic to traffic issues and busy intersections. We have limited control over our one acre that we are dealing with and I think everything we have done complies with all of ACHD's rules and regulations and understanding that there is future growth happening all around this area that is sort of a highway district task to take on and ensure that the -- the streets work properly, but I -- I -- I feel like we are doing what we can on this site and it -- it will work well for the area and -- and fit in with the surroundings. Do you have any questions? Simison: Council, questions? Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Yeah, I would like feedback on whether you are open to extending a stub street to the north on your property. I thought the example of the Zamzow's parking lot was a good example. Like all of this interconnectivity is a good thing and helps people try to find ways to avoid traffic bottlenecks and I just would hate for us to lose the opportunity to get some connectivity that it sounds like might make sense. So, yeah, I just wanted some feedback on that. And, then, if you could also -- do you have a -- maybe a map you could bring up or maybe staff could help with just zooming out a little bit, so we could sort of see the surrounding streets and the surrounding properties I think that would really help. Simison: And I don't know if this question is for the applicant or staff, but if a light was ever to be proposed in this area -- is it Rolling Hill? Is it eligible? Is it in the right configuration? Like Topaz is too close to the existing one, but I didn't know if Rolling Hill was far enough away. I'm not saying it's going to be planned, I'm just curious. Parsons: Yeah. Mayor, Members of the Council, actually, if you recall a few months ago we had a project that was denied and the light will be at South Movado Way, which is east of Rolling Hill. So, it won't even be there either. So, neither one of those roads would be a signalized intersection. Simison: Okay. Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 13 of 81 Wallgren: Mr. Mayor, to answer Council Woman Strader's question, this is the first that I have been presented with this idea of the connectivity to the north. My initial thought is if it can occur at that backup space that we have for the trash trucks I don't think there is any adverse impacts to our site. I don't think that would be a problem. I think the -- how we address it at the present moment, whether we extend that asphalt all the way to the property line could be a question of how it impacts that landscape buffer, whether that makes sense or not, but I don't see any issues with it at first blush. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Yeah, I think that's helpful. That was along the lines of what I think staff was kind of indicating with the --with the pointer was in that backup area maybe just extending that stub street to the north, so it would go through your landscape barrier, you know, but that's okay. It's just good for us to get the stub streets at this point in the process as part of the plan, because what we do find is when we don't get cross- access later on it's difficult economically to get existing property owners to extend the asphalt all the way, you know, to the property boundary. Maybe, Mr. Mayor, if -- if you would permit staff to pull up like a Google Maps or something, if that's possible. Like this is kind of two -- there is a happy media or a little too zoomed out. So, that would -- that would be super. Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Yeah. This is very helpful. So, I was just sort of trying to understand -- and I do think it's kind of for the neighbor's benefit, but where there will eventually be -- I think this is what you are asking, Mr. Mayor. Where will there eventually be a signalized intersection along this stretch, if anywhere? Simison: To the right. It's not on -- it's not even a road yet. Strader: Okay. Simison: So, there is no connection from Topaz to Rolling Hill Drive and there is no connection from Rolling Hill Drive to where a road would be and there is really no legitimate connection from Topaz -- you know, Zamzow's has the ability to -- and they do, they close their lot, so you can't -- you can't count on that as an access point in any, way, shape or form when they are closed. I'm not going to say to do it when they are open, but when they are closed it's closed. It's gated. So, there are challenges no matter how you look at it in when and how connections will or won't be made. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 14 of 81 Strader: Yeah. And I -- and I don't think -- like I definitely don't think it would be fair for -- a one acre property owner is not going to solve this comprehensive transportation challenge in this area, but I do think it's important that we have our eyes open, because we are going to continue to see it sounds like more and more applications in this specific area and I don't live in this part of town, so it's just good for me to try to like understand kind of what's going on here. I would -- Mr. Wallgren, I -- I would appreciate if you are open to doing that stub street to the north I think that that could only help no matter what the outcome is in terms of the -- the road network and so I really appreciate you offering to -- to do that. It sounds like that -- you are okay with that. Wallgren: Yeah. Can I make one more comment? My only -- I don't think it really adversely impacts my client's project. The only thing that, you know, as we develop parcels and think about in the future it does sort of handcuff the next person that develops that parcel to the north to have their circulation at that location, which may or may not work very well without seeing a comprehensive design of how that can function. So, if you are considering making that a motion I don't know if there is a way that that could be -- I guess just thinking about future property owners, if that is an adverse impact to that property in that particular location. I -- I -- I don't know. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Question for city staff, Linda and everybody, to just help us here. We are following the -- the Master Street Map, we are following what ACHD's plans are I think for this area. What are the best practices? I know this is probably too small of a project for them I think to spend significant resources on to sort of review for connectivity, but like what would you all recommend from a planning perspective in terms of the best practices of whether there should be a sub street to the north, where it should be located? Do you think that's a good idea or not? I think we are going to have to rely on your professional opinion to a pretty large degree on this one. Of course unless we lucked out and we have ACHD on -- online. Sometimes that occurs, but -- Parsons: Mayor, Members of the Council, I can at least give you my perspective of -- of the ask tonight, since you asked for staff's opinion. I -- I did the original annexation to the property to the east and at that time shared with the Council all they required was cross- access east-west. They didn't require it north either just because of how the current property was operating. It was in -- the gentleman lived in that home and he said he -- he didn't want that or need that. He planned on staying in his home. So, to me that's kind of the -- without knowing what the northern property owner wants in the future it's hard to tell, but I think the applicant brings up a good point, it's hard to set those points when you don't know exactly what's occurring, but I don't want the Council -- Mayor or Council think that we don't have a plan for the area. We do. As I mentioned to you and Linda has the aerial open, if Linda can navigate a little bit, this property -- zoom out a little bit for me if you wouldn't mind, Linda. So, although we don't have connectivity today, if you see where View Circle Court is up there in the upper northwest corner, the road is Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 15 of 81 planned to parallel Five Mile Creek and tie into that collector road network in the future and get people to the future signal to the east. So, again, although cross-access may not happen -- needed with this property, there are other ways for this property take access. But, again, it would require a crossing over the creek or going on to another collector to get access. So, you are not wrong. In the future that property access could be limited if it gets changed to a collector, but we have to give them access to one of the collectors, unless they have cross-access from the adjacent property. So, I don't think it's a bad thing to require. I don't know. But without knowing how that property could redevelop I - - I don't know if that's the right location and that's probably what the applicant is saying is it -- it's a good thing. I think overall all of these properties will probably have interconnectivity at some point, because we need all of them to work together in tandem to integrate and work well for that connectivity, but we just don't have that -- that piece of the puzzle tonight. So, like I said, it's -- it's whether or not Council thinks it's warranted. As I mentioned to you, Topaz is currently a local street and will -- will remain a local street for quite some time. So, although this is a restaurant it does have an impact on the road. The applicant is required to dedicate all the necessary right of way to make sure that Overland is widened and they meet -- Topaz is completed as a finished -- as a complete street with curb, gutter, sidewalk. So, they are meeting ACHD's requirements as part of the annexation request. Simison: So, Bill, I missed this maybe. So, there is an existing cross-access with the property immediately to the east? Parsons: Mayor, Members of the Council, in that DA it specifically says what -- if it redevelops other than a contractor yard or flex space. It's -- so, it's -- it was either -- if it redeveloped something other than it would happen. So, it's in place, but it's not in place currently. Simison: And that's why I was kind of-- I was looking at that. It's like how are they going to put a road through their contracting yard? But -- okay. That at least tells me it's in the future. Okay. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Not really a question, but just as I'm kind of thinking about some of this discussion, I struggle a little bit with the idea of with such a small in-fill project to kind of like be really prescriptive about maybe where we would do that. I think -- I like the idea of having some flexibility. I think if this was a bigger parcel it might be a little bit of a different discussion, but this is, you know, a little bit of a unique area with what appears to be probably I would think many -- or several annexation requests coming forward. Bill, I like to hear that you -- you guys kind of have a plan for some of that, but also the fact that we have a -- we lack kind of a comprehensive plan for what to do with all these county parcels with all these individual owners and how they may or may not want to come into the city. So, I don't -- I don't -- I worry about -- maybe it's not the right term, but sort of holding your property hostage in a way with some requirements that we don't even know if it's a great Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 16 of 81 idea for the next property. So, I like the idea of some flexibility for you for -- you know, I don't have any concerns. I think they have been addressed for the most part with what the application is, but I know you are willing to -- to grant that. I don't think it makes the most sense, because I actually think it might encumber the next property a little bit more than -- than what we are considering. So, it's kind of just some of my thinking right now. Whitlock: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Whitlock. Whitlock: Question for staff and just eyeballing this, if this is a one acre parcel that we are focused on looking to the north and, then, to the northeast, south of Five Mile Creek, are those just two parcels? So, are we really talking about an area where four parcels are and -- Strader: That's a good point. Ritter: Mayor, Council Member Whitlock, it's four different parcels and I think Lynette owns a couple of those parcels back there and so -- and I -- I don't think she's planning on redeveloping anytime soon. Whitlock: Thank you. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Yeah. Maybe just a comment. So, I think I'm coming around on adding a stub street to the north and I -- I understand staff's point and your point about the placement of that is problematic. So, I get that. I think there is kind of just a wider issue, which is this is really developing in kind of piecemeal fashion in this area, which is really challenging. That's kind of just what I'm chewing on. If we are going to see, you know, this area develop in one and five acre parcels, just -- it feels like it will be really a hodgepodge if we are not careful. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Unless there is any other questions for Council I think -- and if there is any further testimony I think I would be prepared to make a motion to close the public hearing. Simison: Is that a motion? Taylor: I'm soliciting my colleagues' nods and winks. Okay. Mr. Mayor, I make a motion that we close the public hearing on File No. H-2024-0053. Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 17 of 81 Whitlock: Second. Simison: Have a motion and a second to close the public hearing. Is there discussion? If not, all in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it and the public hearing is closed. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Some of the discussion -- I have already shared some comments. With respect to the traffic certainly that is -- that is a challenging area and I think Council Woman Strader makes a really good point about what's the future of this area really look like. It - - it could be kind of bad and I -- I recall when Bill mentioned the -- the application a few months ago that was a -- kind of a challenging one just to kind of think through the scenarios and what we ended up doing on that application really was based on the lack of what's the vision for these county parcels to come into the city, which is unique, because it's probably one of the most interesting areas in terms of where it sits in the valley. So, I -- I -- I share Council Woman Strader about -- concerns about parcel by parcel. I think with this -- I'm -- I'm supporting this. I think it makes sense. You know, I understand the traffic, but I -- I'm not sure how much traffic will be produced for a one acre small little project. The design looked like it made sense. I'm okay with the waiver on the buffer. Express my -- my thoughts already on the stub street. Obviously, there is some connectivity we got to work through. I do -- I would at some future point to maybe revisit efforts Council has had in the past with these neighbors about what's -- what does it look like for a plan, but I'm going to support this tonight. At the appropriate time I will -- I will make the motion to do so. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Been kind of quiet on this one. Typically when you look at a one acre commercial it's kind of a -- of a no brainer, but Council Member Taylor has touched on something I think that this Council and I have wrestled with with this part of Meridian; right? It's Meridian, it's county, it's Boise, all within, you know, a half a mile and while I appreciate the concern from the residents about traffic, the ACHD staff report shows, you know, 12, 13 cars at peak hour. Overland's set to improve. So, the basis of my concern about this project isn't really traffic, it really falls for me about what this eventually looks like 20 years from now and it reminds me a little bit of what we have seen like on Eagle Road, like Eagle and Ustick; right? Kind of flipped on its side. We have kind of hodgepodged it, you know, an acre here, an acre there trying to make it work and previous Council tried to make it work and now we have found some real challenges with that area Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 18 of 81 with, you know, how do you -- how do you circulate traffic and previous projects impacting future projects and -- and I know our-- our staff have done -- this is not any of-- of your concerns, but our staff have done a -- tried multiple times to reach out to the residents and say let's work collectively on something that could really be a vision for what is I think a really unique part of -- of south Meridian. I think that's important for our community for years to come and I -- I -- I struggle with having to put future councils just trying to work through a hodgepodge approach like we have been having to work through over the past four or five years, so -- I love Chinese food. It doesn't surprise you from looking at me I love Chinese food, but I can't support the annexation, because I think we need to have a broader plan about what needs to go in this part of town that supports the larger projects that have already come in. So, it's great; right? We are a -- we are a body of five tonight, so there -- there won't be a tie, we will make a decision, but this is not a request for annexation I can be supportive of this evening. Little Roberts: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Little Roberts. Little Roberts: Mr. Mayor, yeah, I have been pretty quiet. I have been totally quiet on this one tonight, because this is an area that I'm in a very regular basis and there are definitely times that there are traffic issues, but my bigger concern is if we start annexing one small lot at a time we are going to end up with a patchwork that may or may not be workable and from what we have seen it makes it very difficult to form it into something that's cohesive and so I'm really struggling with supporting just doing one small segment without a plan to -- to make a -- have a workable solution. I don't like the thought of not letting a future business owner where I just had some requests for more restaurants in that area, but I'm very hesitant to support it at this point. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Yeah. I think I'm kind of in that boat. What I think is very challenging is for the -- the first -- kind of one of the first parcels in here -- this is one of the first parcels in here to kind of move I think in just this very specific area and I think that what makes in-fill development a little less challenging are the ones where we get a one acre parcel that we have a lot surrounding it here. In this case we have a lot of county property here. I think this is kind of setting us up in a way that's not in our long term best interests unfortunately. That that's kind of where I'm shaking out on it. I would love to see this here. I'm sure it's going to be an amazing restaurant. I just -- yeah. I feel awful, because it's -- it's -- you know, it feels very unfair, so that some of these challenges of the roadway network and -- but we have done this before. I mean we are -- we are trying to plan for 50, a hundred years into the future, and I think we have to think that way and this is just really -- to me it's just two piecemeal and I think it's going to create a lot of challenges for us. I -- I think that example was -- was very apt about the Ustick area and Eagle Road and that's just been a complete -- just a complete mess for us. So, yeah, I -- and I will Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 19 of 81 say even if we had, you know, kind of a vision for some of the neighboring properties it would make me feel better, but I just don't feel like we are going to get that. Whitlock: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Whitlock. Whitlock: I guess where I'm coming from is -- is just looking at the frontage along Overland Road and we have already annexed the parcel directly to the east. Go down a little bit past Jade Way and, you know, again, frontage you have got Zamzow's, a car wash, other things that front Overland Road. What I'm hearing is concern about what will be beyond the frontage. This to me seems fairly consistent with what already has been approved. I think the design is -- is attractive to the frontage along Overland. I don't think it detracts from what's already been annexed and approved and built and I -- I guess where I am is I'm -- I'm not hung up on hanging this project up until I know what's going to be north of it, because already we have seen successful development along the frontage of Overland Road. So, I'm leaning toward supporting the proposal and -- because I think it's consistent with what we have already done. But I agree with my colleagues that eventually I would like to know what is going to happen north of this, but I don't think what happens north of it will be swayed one way or the other if one acre is approved that has a restaurant and other businesses in it along the frontage of Overland Road. So, that's where I am. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: So, just some thoughts. I -- I like how Councilman Whitlock articulated that. We are -- we are talking about a one acre parcel that's a frontage on Overland and he did a really good job in really getting to the point of what we are talking about is everything behind it. Connectivity. How this area is going to develop. You know, it -- when we say it feels unfair, I think it -- it is unfair to not allow this project to go forward, because there is nothing that you have done that's not aligned with what we have asked you to do and so I think it is unfair to say, no, you -- you can't move forward with this because of some of those concerns, all of which are -- are really-- really valid concerns. So, maybe I would propose -- I -- I -- I -- I think the sentiment, unless anything that I just said changed any minds, it still seems like my -- my proposal -- or my motion would -- would fail. We are missing a -- a council member and I would submit to my colleagues if this -- and for the applicant as well if we would like a continuance until Councilman Overton returns to have an opportunity to vote, because we are, obviously, very very close to that, I would make that as a motion. I'm not sure if that's something that you would be supportive or interested in and I'm not sure that it changes the outcome, but I would submit that as a motion I would be willing to make as a continuance for several weeks until we have a full body here that can -- can weigh in on that. So, I would submit that as an option and be interested to know if any Council Members would be okay with that approach as well. Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 20 of 81 Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: For what it's worth if that was a motion to be made I would -- I would be seconding that motion. It's appropriate if that's something the applicant would be interested in. But I do believe -- I think we have got a closed public hearing, so we would need to reopen the public hearing to give the applicant an opportunity to respond about maybe if they would support a continuance and, if so, to when. Taylor: Mr. Mayor, can we -- Simison: I guess the question is if you are trying to put it into a three-three, do you want to find out if it's worth the time? I mean I -- I mean -- but you could also hear from the other Council Member who may sway one of the other Council Members to their way of thinking. So, I don't want to preclude where Council wants to have a -- if they want to have a -- more of a conversation with the other Council Member I'm happy to avoid weighing in either way and let this move forward however you would like it to move forward. I have got mixed emotions on this one. Very very much so on both sides of the equation. I used to drive down this road every day when I first -- my first seven years -- six years working here at the city, saw it go from a one lane to a goat trail. The Happy Alterations is a place I always thought I wanted to go, but I never would, because it's hard to get in and out, you know, and -- and so there -- it never once stopped despite always needing to have some work done on some clothes and, you know, being a lot of ways had a previous application been approved I would probably be a little bit more open, because I think it would have set up -- set us up for the future for how you really need to access this area. Without that it -- even though it's on the frontage, it's a real challenge, because those others are equivalent, but the -- but the -- with exception of the ones in the -- on Rolling Hill, the others do have a light access. Every other place along here that's an annexed commercial space has access to out at a light. The other one does not and this one would not either. So, that does put these in a category by themselves along this corridor, which is not an equivalent and as far as I'm concerned Topaz is going to be the hardest part of this area to navigate long term because of this kind of -- it will require at least one, if not multiple property owners to solve the problem for everybody if that's what they want to do and if they don't it's not going to change anything. So, I'm -- I'm not at a place where I can give you a good leaning on which way I will -- would go, but if you want to do that, then, I would be open to hearing what another Council Member says as well. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Yeah. I -- I think we have always -- and I think one thing that's amazing about our Council is even when we personally might vote against a project I think we are always trying to give it a chance for a yes and so I -- you know, in the spirit of that I -- I appreciate Councilman Taylor's idea. Could also be that a continuance might give the applicant an Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 21 of 81 opportunity to brainstorm a little bit. You just never know what might come up in the passage of time. So, yeah, I -- I feel like that might -- might be an okay approach. It's unorthodox, but it's an okay approach. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: I would -- I would be interested in getting feedback from the applicants. So, would like to make a motion at this time to open the public hearing. Cavener: Second. Simison: I have a motion and a second to reopen the public hearing. Is there any discussion? If not, all in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it and the public hearing is open -- reopened. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: I would like to ask the applicant -- you heard the discussion. You have taken it in. Obviously, I -- I would like to know your feedback. You could -- we could either move forward and I'm prepared to make a motion to approve it. I think we kind of know where most of the Council Members feel on the topic. We could potentially have a continuance to the end of the month, maybe January 28th, to allow Councilman Overton an opportunity to be back to review the comments, to -- to do his own due diligence and, then, come back and -- and have more testimony provided, some more questions answered for him. Don't know, obviously, what he may or may not think and, obviously, it could lead to the potential of a three-three vote and we are not sure where -- you heard the Mayor's comment. So, that -- that -- I -- I want to put the ball back in your court a little bit for your feedback, because we do -- everyone here wants to work with you in a way that's productive, but also recognizing we want to do the best thing for the city and the community. So, are you open to a continuance to just see how things may evolve over the next few weeks or would you prefer to have a vote tonight on -- on your application? Wallgren: Mr. Mayor, Councilman Taylor, this is a little unique for me. I -- I certainly appreciate the -- the offer to comment on this circumstance and I think based on the feedback we have been given here it sounds like if it were put to a vote tonight it would fail. I know this is going to adversely impact my client's timing significantly and there will be some things he has to work out, but I think given those two options the continuance seems like at least one step to keep it moving down the road and if it's a huge problem with timing and something falls through it, you know, we can always withdraw the application I assume would be the -- if -- if -- if it's a problem. Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 22 of 81 Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: I think with the feedback, then, I would make a motion we continue -- do we need to -- keep the public hearing open and continue File No. H-2024-0053 to January 28th. Cavener: Second. Simison: Have a motion and a second to continue the public hearing to January 28th. Is there discussion? If not, all in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it and the public hearing is continued. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Wallgren: Thank you. 3. Public Hearing continued from January 7, 2025 for Pollard North (H- 2024-0037) by Brighton Corporation, generally located approximately 1/4 mile north of W. Chinden Blvd. at the north end of N. Levi Ave. on the north side of W. Waverton Dr. A Request: Rezone of 21.95 acres of land from the R-8 to the TN-R zoning district. B. Request: Preliminary Plat for 177 building lots and 26 common lots on 19.76 acres of land in the TN-R zoning district for Pollard North Subdivision. C. Request: Modified Development Agreement (Inst.#2019-060655) for a new agreement for the residential portion of the development with an updated conceptual development plan. Simison: With that we will move on to Item 3, which is a public hearing continued from January 7th for Pollard North, H-2024-0037. We will continue this public hearing with staff comments. Allen: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council. The next application before you tonight is a request fora development agreement modification, a rezone and a preliminary plat. This site consists of 19.76 acres of land. It's zoned R-8 and it's generally located a quarter mile north of West Chinden Boulevard at the north end of North Levi Lane on the north side of West Waverton Drive. The subject property is part of a larger area annexed with R-8 zoning in 2019 and included in a development agreement and preliminary plat for Pollard Subdivision. The property was approved to develop with 74 building lots, four conventional single family residential homes, independent living units for 55 and older and an 88 bed assisted living facility. The Comprehensive Plan future land use map Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 23 of 81 designation is medium density residential. The applicant is requesting City Council approval of a modification to the existing development agreement for a new agreement for the residential portion of the development with an updated development plan based on the proposed TN-R zoning. Currently the development agreement incorporates this property, as well as the property to the south and east -- well, it's actually just to the south of this I guess that's future commercial development. The original proposed plan submitted with this application and presented to the Commission was for 177 building lots for single family residential detached and attached homes, shown there on the top, which the Commission recommended -- actually -- excuse me -- shown on the bottom. The Commission recommended denial of to City Council. After the Commission hearing the applicant submitted a revised plan, which decreased the number of units by 20 to 157. A rezone of 21.95 acres of land is proposed from the R-8 to the TN-R zoning district. The TN-R district is traditional neighborhood residential and the rezoned to TN-R allows more lots to develop on the property as there is no minimum lot size or street frontage requirement in the district and a lesser setback is allowed, as opposed to that in the R-8 district. If the rezone is not approved the plat will need to be revised and the number of building lots will be significantly reduced to comply with the minimum dimensional standards of the R-8 district. The revised preliminary plat is proposed consisting of 157 building lots and 29 common lots on 19.76 acres of land in the TN-R zoning district. The plat is proposed to develop in two final plat phases with the eastern portion in the first phase as shown on the bottom there. The minimum lot size proposed is 2,238 square feet, with an average lot size of 3,268 square feet. The gross density of the development is 7.15 units per acre, with a net density of 13.33 units per acre, which is consistent with the medium density residential future land use map designation and the proposed TN-R district. A mix of single family residential detached and attached units are proposed with front-loaded and alley-loaded options. Conventional front-loaded detached homes are proposed along the perimeter boundary to the north and east, which will transition to existing and future homes, with alley loaded attached and detached units internal to the development and along the southern boundary of the site. The applicant is requesting a waiver to the block face standards in the UDC for the TN-R district to extend the face of Blocks 1 through 6 along West Flat Rock Street and West Waverton Drive beyond the 500 foot standard. Seven hundred and fifty feet is allowed with a pedestrian connection and they want to do two -- or, excuse me, 620 feet to 875 feet in length. A 20 foot wide street buffer is required along the portion of West Waverton Drive designated as a collector street east of Levi Avenue. Off-street parking will be required based on the number of bedrooms per unit. On-street parking is also available along internal streets. A minimum of 15 percent or 2.96 acres of common open space is required to be provided with development that meets the quality and qualified standards listed in the UDC. The applicant proposes a total of 4.2 acres or 21.26 percent qualified open space consisting of several open grassy areas exceeding 500 -- or, excuse me, 5,000 square feet in area, linear open space, the street buffer along the eastern portion of West Waverton Drive, a collector street, and parkways along local residential streets as shown on the open space exhibit, which complies with and exceeds the minimum standard. Amenities totaling a minimum of four points are required to be provided based on the area of the development. The applicant proposes a small 3,900 square foot dog park with a waste station and a picnic area on a site 5,000 square feet or greater in size from the quality of life category Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 24 of 81 and a tot lot with benches for seating from the recreation activity category, which complies with and exceeds the minimum standard. The amenities are required to comply with the associated standards for such in the UDC. Several conceptual building elevations were submitted for two-story detached and attached single family residential homes as shown. A variety of materials are proposed, including vertical and horizontal lap siding, board and batten siding, stucco and fenestration with masonry accents in a variety of colors and design elements and features with varying roof profiles and wall modulation that demonstrate the high quality of development proposed. All single family residential attached structures are subject to the Residential Design Standards in the Architectural Standards Manual. The Commission heard this application and did recommend denial of the project to City Council. I will go over a summary of the Commission public hearing. Eli Benski and Jon Wardle, Brighton Corporation, the applicants, testified in favor. There were several neighboring folks that testified in opposition as follows: David Hitz. Jacob Jensen. David Dorough. Scott Willoughby. Kyle Enzler. Jade Enzler. Leah Taylor. And Chase Taylor. Written testimony was received from Eli Benski, Brighton Corporation, in agreement with the staff report. Key issues of discussion were as follows: Concern pertaining to higher traffic volumes and resulting traffic safety concerns for area children due to the proposed increase in the number of homes planned for this area. Proposed development seems inconsistent with what was planned for this area, i.e., lower density residential. Opinion that proposed density is too high and doesn't provide an adequate transition and site design that is compatible with existing and future development to the north. The proposed TN-R zoning allows a higher density due to lesser setback requirements than the existing R-8 district. Concerned that the proposed open space isn't adequate for the density and lot sizes proposed, resulting in residents using the common areas in adjacent developments. Opinion that it would be unfair to adjacent residents to change the development plan for this area from what was previously approved and anticipated for this area to a much higher density development. Not in favor of the changes to the development plan as the previous plan, which included an assisted living facility, was much less dense and would result in much less traffic in the area. Concern that the higher volume of traffic generated from the proposed development will be pushed through the adjacent development to the east, Fairbourne Subdivision, for access to the signal at Black Cat Road. The key issues of discussion by the Commission were as follows: Not in favor of their proposed zoning and development plan, opinion the density is too high and not appropriate for this area and will adversely affect area neighbors. Preference for the existing development plan and density. Inadequate transition to the existing and future residential properties. Waiver to block face standards wouldn't be needed if existing zoning is retained and the higher density will create more traffic impacts on area roadways, more impacts on area schools and create more demand for services. Preference for the R-8 zoning to be retained with revisions to the development plan to replace the assisted living facility with single family residential building lots similar in size to those approved with the preliminary plan. No issue with TN- R zoning if the development plan reflects compliance with the associated development provisions, including block face length. In favor of the variety of housing types proposed with smaller lot sizes, which may provide opportunities for people to be able to afford a starter home and, finally, in favor of keeping the same general proposed plan, but reducing the number of units, which would address a lot of the concerns noted by Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 25 of 81 providing a better transition to the north, compliance with block face standards and the provision of additional open space and site amenities, including pedestrian accesses for the development. Again the Commission did recommend denial. The reason noted with the recommendation was the proposed rezone creates too much density for the area and the transition to lower density development to the north is not enough. The outstanding issue for Council tonight is the applicant's request for a Council approval of extended block faces beyond the maximum length standard of 500 feet or up to 750 feet with a pedestrian connection in the TN-R district. The UDC allows Council to approve a block face up to 1 ,200 feet in length where a block design is constrained by certain site conditions, none of which exist in this case. Therefore, a waiver to the block face standards cannot be approved by Council and revisions to the plan to comply with the standards don't appear to be feasible. If Council wishes to approve the project staff recommends consideration of the following: Retention of the existing R-8 zoning for the development, which allows a maximum block face of 750 feet without an intersecting street or alley and a block face up to 1 ,000 feet when a pedestrian connection is provided. All of the block faces would comply with the minimum standards if pedestrian connections were added in Blocks 2 and 3 along the northern boundary. In this scenario the number of buildable lots would need to be reduced in order to comply with the minimum lot size and street frontage requirements of the district. Alternatively, the existing R-8 zoning could be retained for Blocks 1 , 2 and 3 along the northern boundary of the subdivision. The proposed lots comply with the dimensional standards of the R-8 district and the block faces would comply with the minimum standards if pedestrian connections were added in Blocks 2 and 3. The southern blocks, i.e., Blocks 4, 5 and 6, could be rezoned to R-15. The proposed lots comply with the dimensional standards of the R-15 district and block faces comply with the minimum standards as is with the proposed pedestrian connections. Staff did discuss this option with the applicant and the applicant is in favor of this option. The R-8 zoning would provide a good transition between the lower density residential uses to the north and the R-15 zoning with smaller lots and higher density would transition well to the future commercial uses to the south. Staff discussed this with the city attorney and it was determined to change to the zoning request would require the project to be re-noticed and the project either continued to a future Council hearing date, which would be February 11th or later. I did note that a week earlier on your outline, but that is not feasible at this point. Or it would need to be remanded back to the Commission for review of the revised plat and the new zoning request and that I understand is under your purview tonight. There has been some written testimony submitted since the Commission hearing. Eli Benski, Brighton Corporation, the applicant, testified -- or submitted an e-mail I should say not in favor of providing pedestrian and vehicular connections to break up the block faces to comply with the minimum standard in the TN- R district in lieu of a waiver. That was submitted previously to staff discussing this -- this latter option, so -- and, then, we did receive three letters from area residents. Aaron Tomosky, a resident in Fairbourne Subdivision to the east. He is against the proposed rezone to TN-R, as he feels it's inappropriate for the area as it will increase the density in this area and may result in a rental community like the one to the east. Preference for R- 8 zoning to be retained. Concern the proposed rezone will result in increased traffic and congestion in the area, which is already backed up at times from the high volume of traffic from the adjacent church and rental community. Benjamin Grayson. He is also a resident Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 26 of 81 of Fairbourne Subdivision. Against the proposed rezone and development plan, which will increase the number of single family residential dwelling units by 83 additional homes. Request for R-8 zoning to be retained. Opinion the proposed development will burden community and resources and have a negative impact on home values and, finally, Karen Ernest, property owner directly to the north. She's opposed to the zone change from R- 8 to TN-R. Staff will stand for any questions. Simison: Thank you, Sonya. Council, any questions for staff? Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: I'm intrigued by your second suggestion about the R-8 and R-15 zoning. I guess my concern would be if we went down that path and encouraged R-15 zoning, what else could we see if for some reason this applicant wasn't the one to eventually develop this project? What else do you think is realistic to prepare ourselves for in light of the site and its layout and the R-15 zoning, would we see potentially a large multi- family building or a series of buildings? Like what -- what do you think could go there? Townhomes? I'm just curious for a flavor. Allen: Well, we could certainly compare the uses between the -- the zoning districts, but you -- with this application it would require a new development agreement, which would lock it in with this development plan. So, that's -- that's really right there the assurance that it would develop as proposed. The only way the applicant could change that is to come back before you with a request for a modification of that agreement. Strader: Uh-huh. Yeah. Thank you. Allen: The uses are very similar between the two. We could certainly look into it here and provide a response, though, on that if you'd like. Strader: I think that would be great. It doesn't have to be right now. Thank you. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Sonya, just double checking my work. I didn't see any letter from West Ada, nor any updated school data in the staff report. There is a letter in there from Heather? Oh, I missed it then. Okay. Okay. From Heather. Okay. I will do a little bit more homework, then, on my end. Thank you, Council Member Strader. Thank you, Sonya. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 27 of 81 Taylor: Sonya, just to correct my -- correct me here, make sure I'm thinking correctly with the proposal to retain the R-8 zoning possibly. That's largely due to the fact that because certain conditions don't exist to grant the waiver. We can't -- per our UDC code we can't, as a Council, grant that waiver. We might -- I hope I'm saying that correctly. We are constrained to give the waiver because certain conditions don't exist on the property to grant that waiver for the block faces; is that correct? Allen: Yeah. Mr. Mayor, Councilman Taylor, that is correct. You are -- you are not able to grant a waiver, because they don't meet the conditions for such. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: On the schools specifically there was a letter from community development, but it was just labeled in a way that I think it wasn't clear it was regarding schools. So, I think that's part of the confusion. I have to compliment Heather, though, that this is one of the best letters and like one of the best analyses I have ever seen us do on what's going on with the schools. Private schools, public schools, projections -- I mean it was really comprehensive, so I just want to compliment the team on that, but I am concerned just -- and maybe the applicant could address this actually in their comments, but the Pleasant View Elementary I believe is elementary school zoned for this project, but it's all the way across Chinden. So, I was kind of concerned about -- and that there were other schools listed as options, but it wasn't really clear to me. Is there another school that would actually be closer or that wouldn't require a bus to cross Chinden? Because I was just trying to figure out how this would all kind of play out trying to get the kids to Pleasant View, which is already an over-capacity school. So, I don't know, I'm just throwing that out there. Maybe the applicant can kind of try to address that, but I don't know if staff had any comments further about the school situation. Allen: Mr. Mayor, Council Woman Strader, I really don't know. I will pass those -- those comments along, though, to Heather. Thank you. Simison: Yeah. There is no school north of Chinden and under West Ada's policy every student would be bused to any school anywhere, no matter where they go. Okay. Is there any further questions for staff? Then would the applicant would like to come forward? Wardle: Good evening, Mayor, Council. Happy New Year to you. Hello, my name is Jon Wardle. 2929 West Navigator Drive, Meridian, Idaho. 83642. Appreciate the opportunity to be before you tonight and also be able to address a few things that we -- we have responded to based on both feedback from neighbors and from Planning and Zoning Commission. So, I think a few of the questions that have already been posed or items I can pick up through my presentation for you tonight, so -- the area that we are talking about is what's highlighted here in yellow. Previously back in 2019 we brought forward to Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 28 of 81 the city a project called Pollard. It was about 72 acres in total. It was a rezone on this property and the property to the north that we are talking here is the 19.7 acres. Everything south of the 19.7 acres was rezoned to C-G and so everything north was the residential piece. A little bit more specifically as it compares to how things exist today from the plan, again, everything to the south has been improved. There are some super pads. There is an area off here to the side that St. Alphonsus has purchased with their goals for both medical office and a future hospital. We have some services that are coming and we are also working on some other items here. Just a note there is a little corner here, which doesn't show up on our master plan, but we own that now. It is one of those parcels -- one of those one acre parcels that's on frontage, but our intent is that we will bring that back to the Commission and the Council. There will be a development agreement modification to bring that in, but the access to that parcel will be internal, not out to 20-26, with the one note that ITD has been working with us on the potential for a right-in, right-out somewhere in that location with those uses. This is the future land use map showing the -- the property, highlighted in this case in blue. You can see that there is mixed-use interchange to the south, mixed-use community to the east and, then, a medium density residential to the north and low density residential north of our boundary. This is the current zoning of the area. The -- the property to the south, as I mentioned, was zoned C-G. Our property in question was zoned R-8. Waverton is kind of the line in between both of these. Waverton is the -- an east-west parcel collector and I say parcel collector is it's a collector from Levi Lane to the east and it is a local street from Levi Lane to -- over to Pollard Lane. So, basically, where the R-8 is here on your screen, if you split that left and right you have a collector going over to Black Cat and you have a local street going over to Pollard with Levi Lane being the dividing point between the two. One of the items that we discussed late this afternoon, as noted by Sonya, was -- was the project and I will get into some design things we have already considered, which will be before you, but this relates to this question about the TN-R zone and how do we transition. So, our proposal based on the conversation truly late this afternoon was to retain on the perimeter of the property adjacent to both Alden Ridge, which has been already annexed and zoned and brought in the city and Fairbourne to the east, retain that as R-8. In the interior piece -- and this will make more sense when we get -- look at the site plan. The interior, instead of doing a TN-R, we would do an R-15. We --there were some items that Commission or Council Member Taylor mentioned regarding the block face and that was not an item that was really brought up to us, although the discussion of block faces were brought up, the -- the way that the code is written on the TN-R it doesn't work. There is a reason that we have designed our project the way we have and I will show you based on existing roadways that were approved and negotiated and also slightly modified when Alden Ridge came through. So, currently what we have done, based on the feedback from both the Commission and the neighbors, was, you know, this question about the overall compatibility to the adjoining neighbors. We did make a decision to go ahead and let's reduce density. I will show you how this will -- this works as the overall plan. But effectively the density by reducing down to 157 homes instead of 177, we fit within that range of R-8 as an overall, regardless of what the zone is, whether it was TN-R or R-8, R-15, that would fall within the R-8 zone guidelines of three to eight. So, we are within that guideline. We have also -- one of the things that was mentioned was the open space. We previously, with our submittal that we did with the application, we did meet and Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 29 of 81 exceeded the open space requirements, but we went back and looked at that and have added additional open space. Now, we are 4.2 acres compared to three -- three and a half I believe and it's over 21 percent of the entire project is qualified open space for here. There are still four carriage lanes or alleys and, then, one common drive, which is down here in the corner, which is a little unique, but there is a common lot that we are connecting to over by Fairbourne and that's the reason for that. Just a comparison, the top part of the screen here is what we had submitted. This is what the Planning and Zoning Commission saw. The bottom screen is the revision to it and I'm going to go to one more section here and go through these one by one. Along the top. So, directly adjacent to Alden Ridge and the -- the Ernest Painter ownership, we actually eliminated five buildable lots along there. The lots were previously 50 feet wide. We have increased those to 60 feet wide. In the section of area two we have actually eliminated seven buildable lots. They were paired homes. We have made them detached homes and also added green space as you can see through the middle here. Section three we did eliminate some additional homes, widen the common area on both sides and added pedestrian connections through. Four has pedestrian connections through. We eliminated lots along the frontage here. Two lots there. And, then, over here there is number six. We also eliminated two buildable lots and added a common area and a pathway connecting from Flat Rock down to Waverton. So, these are the structural changes that we made to the plan in response to both neighbor comments, as well as the Planning and Zoning Commission. Here is a couple of things of site considerations to understand. Pollard Lane is existing. We actually over -- over the time of this project there were some revisions made to how people connected to Pollard Lane, but Pollard Lane is existing. In working with Alden Ridge they came in after us -- or actually our property line was -- our -- our road was actually moved a little bit to the west, because there were two owners up here originally, Westucci and Hayes and the ACHD wanted us to land on one side or the other, so that property line where the -- the roadway actually moved over there, but when Alden Ridge came -- came in with their application we worked with them about this alignment and their property -- this will be one of their two access points would be through us and so that is a connection to them. Same thing over here. The Schwenkfelder. We are not straddling the properties, but we are coming in on the Schwenkfelder property, which is right adjacent to the Ernest Painter property and these boxes here represent improvements that have already been made. When we built Pollard No. 1 we installed these access points here and because Waverton is a collector going to the east, we do have some separation issues and there is another access over here, so we didn't put any more roadways here and same thing here, we didn't put any more roadways here, with the exception of the road that's coming up at Alden Ridge and the connection over to Pollard. Waverton, Levi Lane, Pollard all those roads exist and they were already pre -- they had already been built. Just to give you an idea as it relates to our project design, you can see down below the -- the block length or faces with a request or if you approve the rezone to R-8, R-15, no longer comes in play. Regardless, we are still proposing to do some slowing of traffic along Flat Rock to the north. We would do chokers in red where pedestrians -- where the road comes together, people can access across, the road is not quite as wide and at the intersections where both these properties to the north as one develops and the other one will come through, as they will come through the property we have also added chokers there to slow traffic down as it will come through our project to Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 30 of 81 Waverton. Amenities for the project. As mentioned, we have a dog park. We have tot lots. We have picnic areas and pedestrian walkways throughout. As you can see there is a lot of connections north to south by pedestrians. There are adequate connections for cars to get through and the amenities and open space are actually central to almost every single neighbor regardless of where they are. It's not just located in one spot, it is throughout the entire project. We are offering still a variety of home and living types. We have four home types and -- over the 157 homes. This kind of shows you where the different homes are and what we have -- what we call Conventional A, which are front- loaded, a Conventional B, which are also front loaded, but a little bit wider. And, then, we have Carriage Lane B and those are paired homes, duplex style and, then, Carriage C are single family detached and the --the colors here represent where those different home types are in the community. Just wanted to give you a little bit of flavor for the -- the style that we are -- are going to do here. All these homes will be built by Brighton. We are the ones that are proposing the project. We are the ones that are asking for a development agreement to -- to lock this in and this kind of shows you in these little red arrows down here the different locations of these. This would be your Conventional A, which would be front loaded, kind of the pink over here and Conventional D, which would wrap around along Schwenkfelder, as well as along Fairbourne. So, in summary, the items before the Council tonight, based on our late conversation with staff would be to retain the perimeter as R-8 zoning. There would be no change to that zone. The project as -- as shown to you works with that zoning. We would rezone the interior to R-15 to -- and we would not move forward with the TN-R zone. The overall density reduces down to 157 homes instead of the 177 and also the open space increases to 4.2 acres or almost just a little over 21 percent. So, we do concur with staff's recommendation. We also are -- concur with their suggested modification with the R-8 on the perimeter and their second alternate of doing the R-15 on the interior and the issue of the block length under the scenario would no longer be in question, but we would still maintain the pedestrian safety and crossing and breaks throughout that area. We request City Council approval for Pollard North, which would be the rezone, the preliminary plat and development agreement that's in front of you tonight. So, I can stand for any questions you would have. Simison: Thank you, Jon. Council, any questions for the applicant? Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Quick question and thank you for the presentation. This -- you know, the staff presentation had a lot of moving parts and a lot of interesting detail. Can you just either refresh my memory. Originally did you have an assisted living or a senior living facility here and that's no longer now part of your application area proposal? Is that -- am I understanding that correctly? Wardle: That is correct. If you give me just a second here to get to a different slide. So, in 2019 this was this -- the top half of this slide here was what we had proposed to both the Planning and Zoning Commission and the City Council. As mentioned we -- we have Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 31 of 81 built two other assisted living facilities. We had a third approved in south Meridian. We had this one approved as well. They are -- COVID changed things and the dynamics and operational for that just no longer worked for us. With that we -- we looked at what we would do for revision and -- and so that is why we have our proposal back in front of you in part because that change regardless changes the preliminary plat. We would have to come back through -- it would be per the preliminary plat that was just a super block. It didn't have individual platted lots. So, regardless we would be back here in front of you. So, yes, that did have assisted living and this also showed you a little bit more of where the roadways were -- sorry. A little touchy. The roadways were -- were originally with Westucci, Hayes, Ernest and Schwenkfelder and how we brought those roads up. There was a slight modification down below with Alden Ridge where we moved that over, but that is representation -- representative of what the project was in 2019 and what was in - - what is in the development agreement today. Taylor: Thank you. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Actually, if you wouldn't mind if you could just go back to that slide ahead of 2019 versus now. Thank you. So, something I'm kind of struggling with -- I think what made sense to me about this before and just the plan for the -- the whole area was you had the hospital co-located with assisted living. Made a lot of sense from that perspective and I was curious are you considering age restricted housing here? Is that something that you guys looked at -- and part of my concern, just being very open -- and we have had this conversation so many times over the years, but the schools continue to be a concern. I think that concern is being solved through a number of different things at a state level and -- and other things, but Pleasant View Elementary School and some of the other schools are -- are pretty overcrowded from what I understand looking at the letter we generated internally and I -- I just want to make sure I'm kind of doing the right math. So, previously there were 74 single family residential homes in 2019 and 88 assisted living units. I wasn't clear on -- you will have to refresh my memory if there was a separate aisle component to that, but I was just kind of trying to figure out kind of what the trade-off was in terms of just number of people we are looking at at the site overall from 2019 to what you are proposing now under the revised plan. Wardle: Mr. Mayor, Council Member Strader, appreciate the question. If I can start with schools, as the Mayor did indicate there are no West Ada schools north of Chinden -- between Chinden and the bench and there really are only two ways to get out of these properties -- really one way if you are going to 20-26, Chinden Boulevard. I do know that West Ada is currently programming Star Elementary -- another Star elementary school. They are designing that. It's in process. We have had conversations with the district. I believe their goal is to have that open fall of '26 in their current time frame and so we know that with any school that opens boundaries change and they would look at that. So, I can't speak as to what the boundary changes would be, but I can assure you Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 32 of 81 that they would look at all of their schools and look at how to best distribute that and so, unfortunately, we have a bench to the north, we are not crossing the bench. We have Highway 16 to the west -- not crossing Highway 16 and we have Chinden to the south and so any schools at any grade level will be leaving this project and going to the south. So, I can't resolve that other than I do know that this -- West Ada has funding for that additional school site, which is in their program for 2026. You know, as it relates to the assisted living, honestly, it was something that we had looked at pretty hard. There were some synergies at the time we thought between the assisted living and the future medical that would be there. Honestly, just -- it does not work and so that's why we are here and that's why we are asking for -- for this request. I also want to note that in 2019 ITD did not have any funding for State Highway 16. They were still working on acquiring properties, they were working on their environmental study and, then, in '21 and '22 they all of a sudden got money to start that work. So, things did change pretty dramatically. That corridor is happening much faster than they had anticipated, because there was all of a sudden funding available from State Highway 44 all the way to Interstate 84. It's my understanding that the interchange here at Highway 20-26 or Chinden and State Highway 16 is programmed for a completion in '26. There are other segments along that corridor as they move towards 1-84 that will be what they call, you know, a future phase, some other flyovers and things like that, but they are intending to make that connection. Once they make the connection to Chinden they will make the connection, they will be able to connect it all the way to 84 and they will be continuous with some future improvements along the way. In 2019 there were no plans by ITD to make -- or advance those improvements here and so we kind of step back and we looked at it a little bit. I -- you know, we were -- there was that question of, well, what happens if they change their mind and do something different? We are currently under a preliminary platting development agreement with you. We are here tonight, we are discussing that with you. If there is anything that's different than what we are showing you tonight we are coming back and having a discussion again with you, with the city, with the neighbors. So, it is a process. We -- we are accused pretty hard of just doing bait and switch. That's our standard. And I want to just, you know, kind of dispense of that comment. Things change. Other people change. There are things that happen along the way. We are being very transparent with what our request is. A bait and switch would be in the middle of the night, throw a cover over it and not let anybody know what we are doing. That's not what we are doing. That's why we are here. We do feel like there are some opportunities here I think since we are looking at this slide I want to just focus in on this a little bit, but specifically I want to focus in on the lot configurations. In 2019 along -- this is what we showed. This is what we proposed. We had eight and a half lots along the Ernest property. We had 14 lots along Schwenkfelder and seven lots along Fairbourne. Today we have six lots now along Fairbourne. We have 13 lots of along Schwenkfelder. We have six and a half lots along Ernst Painter. If we go and we look at Alden Ridge, Alden Ridge to the north of us, which is separated by a common lot, there is a 30 foot common lot between us and them that was on their design, which I think was accommodation of the old school lane which serviced Ernst Painter and Schwenkfelder. That's how they got their access to there. Until other access like the road we are proposing here they would still have to continue through there or other ways. But as it shows right now we have ten lots in our new proposal against 12. We have seven and a Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 33 of 81 half lots against nine with a 30 foot landscape buffer. We have made accommodations to not only look at what we are against, but we have also reduced some density away from that in terms of lot widths and sizes. So, I don't want that to be lost either, that there is a -- there is not a transition here. I have been at a number of meetings with the Council where you were dealing with large lots and there is no transition at all. Schwenkfelder and Ernest, they -- you know, they still are in the county, but this is not different than what we showed them when this was previously approved and locked into the preliminary plat. In fact, today we are reducing the number of lots of both -- against both of those homes and properties than what was there previously approved. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Strader. Strader: Maybe we can kind of focus in a little bit. So, part of what I was trying to just -- am I correct -- so, in 2019 there were 74 single family homes and, then, there were 88 assisted living units. Am I missing anything? Were there any separate aisle units that were different than that? Okay. So, you -- so, in 2019 you had 162, of which roughly half were definitely going to be seniors in the assisted living facility. Wardle: Yes. Strader: Now you have revised your plan, now you are at 157 total units, but, again, market units. No restriction. So, I -- there is a little bit of a trade off in terms of the composition and part of where I'm going with it -- what I thought was appealing at that time was seniors are not going to be driving as much on the roads. They are not going to be using up capacity in the schools. So, it's a little bit of a change. I do -- I do give you credit, though, for your transition to the neighbors certainly and I'm not saying I'm against the project yet at this point, I'm just really trying to take stock of where we were and where we are. I think what might be helpful -- I had one other question if you don't mind, Mr. Mayor. Just -- I wanted to understand what the current plans are with ITD in terms of access to the new Highway 16. Will there be an on ramp off of Chinden? How will that piece work? Because that's the new piece now that I think we are all trying to kind of wondering about. What I was trying to figure out was would people come on to Chinden and, then, they could just get right on the Highway 16 or how -- how will that work? Wardle: Mr. Mayor, let's start with the question regarding the -- the previous proposal. We are not proposing to restrict any of the homes to a 55 plus. So, I just with -- when we were doing the assisted living it looked like there were maybe with some of those smaller lots you could do some of those as kind of a cottages, but we are not proposing that now. I think one of -- one of the things that we -- like I mentioned did focus on was how is the area now developing with these changes? This is a little dated, but there is actually another hospital user that's purchased across the south from us. This is Prescott Ridge. I know there is a project that came over here that I believe was -- did not get approved, but the West Ada has a school site over here as well for the future, as well as the rest of what's going on. Relating to the transportation -- and I -- I could go back and I was looking Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 34 of 81 at earlier and we could pull up the exhibits, but ITD has a very good website showing what's part of the phase right now and what's coming. It is my understanding that in the current phase they actually are working on the fly over, so State Highway 16 would be flying over Chinden and the Chinden east-west traffic will go through -- if you want to get on to Highway 16 you are going to be making this movement going north. I can't remember if it's a cloverleaf coming here or if it's a left coming in and connecting. I think it's probably a left under the overpass and heading south and same thing here, if you are coming off of State Highway 16 you would be here and you would make a -- a turn going the other direction underneath the overpass. So, that's what's happening there. I do want to note as well that we actually have been working with ITD on the improvements and have -- our frontage is already improved all the way back to about this point. Call it, you know, 500 feet east of Levi Lane. We have actually built out Levi Lane as a five lane road. We have paid for the signalization. The signals are not there until ITD gets this in a situation where they are not restricting flow back and forth, but as soon as this is operational that signal goes in at the same time. So, there is a signal that we have already paid for that we have built with phase one. We put up all the conduits in. No other developers out here have participated in that signal. Not Prescott Ridge, not Alden Ridge, not Fairbourne. That was something that we have already taken care of and that will resolve some access out to 20-26. So, I don't want that to be lost either, that that is approved, paid for, just waiting for ITD to finish their improvements at State Highway 16. Strader: Thank you. That's helpful. Simison: Council -- Whitlock: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Whitlock. Whitlock: Mr. Wardle, thank you for the presentation and I kind of came into this with the same mindset that you have just heard from Council Member Strader. I -- I didn't see this as a reduction from 177 to 157, 1 saw it as an increase from 74 to 157. 1 appreciate the explanation about what happened with COVID. I can attest that there have been over 30 assisted living facilities across the state that have closed since 2020. So, thank you for mentioning that and -- and reminding me of the challenge with making a facility like that cash flow and -- and work for you. So, I -- I completely understand that. As I reviewed the Commission testimony and the comments that were made there there was some reference in support for potentially starter homes in this subdivision. Do you concur that these would be starter home -- type homes and -- I'm just struggling to -- to see starter homes associated with what I have seen on Tree Farm Lane and SpurWing and everything to the east. Wardle: Mr. Mayor, Council Member Whitlock, I want to make just one comment regarding the assisted living and why we did not move forward with that is just level of care, level of service, that that is a -- that is a -- a group of our community that requires a high level of service and so for us we felt like beyond the two that we have already built Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 35 of 81 in the valley it didn't make sense to move forward with any others and, like you said, there have been numerous that have closed, gone out of business, consolidated during COVID. It was very hard on everybody. Related to, you know, the comment about, you know, yes, we are changing. Our current zone is R-8. Could we demonstrate something that complies specifically with the R-8 with no modifications? We looked at a mix. One of the things that we have found, Council Member Whitlock, is that when they are all the same, there is no variation either in type of homes or there is a little variation, but there is even less variation on the opportunities of attainable housing. We need more of every range in our community. So, starter homes, I think that's kind of subject to what anybody might describe that and maybe it's a price point or maybe it's a reduced level of finishes and standards. I will tell you that Brighton is committed to building to the Brighton standard. I think one of the things that we have done regardless of our community as we have looked at not only the overall plan, but what is the long term value for those that will be there after and so we have taken that same approach here. That's why we have given you upfront plans of what we want to do. I think there are -- there is greater opportunities to provide homes at a lesser price point, but sometimes that trade off is a smaller owned lot and in this case we have attached duplex, which is very similar to what we have done out in south Meridian at Pinnacle. We have detached alley homes as well and, then, we have different types -- two different sizes of homes on front loaded conventional and that mix gives us an opportunity to provide a broader range than just all being the same. So, we wanted to come in with a plan that offered variety. So, I don't know that I can address specifically what a starter home is, but we do have an opportunity with these homes to have a broader range, a wider range of home purchasing options in this area. Simison: Okay. I have got an easy question for you. Super easy. The chokers. Is there a reason why it's not all choked down? Why you have two -- at least on the thing that shows choker expansion, choker against, you know, just curious. Wardle: Mr. Mayor, we do bulb out at intersections, because that's -- you need to get -- basically you are moving people four different directions at those intersections and so this is -- this is a design that we have been doing a lot in all of our communities, but it brings -- as cars are coming into that intersection we were able to slow them down and bring that pedestrian a little bit closer to the street in a safe way. Regarding the chokers is the street section remains the same, but it's also the same concept is -- and it kind of shows here on the right hand one where when we do a choker here we bring the curb line out and we can bring that -- the pedestrian has less asphalt to crossover in a very safe place. It also shows you that we aligned those so that they were connecting directly into common areas and so it was intentional. Simison: I guess my question is why would -- if this is what it's actually going to look like why would there not be a choker the entire length of-- between the two red boxes? I -- I -- I mean I don't know if you connection point there -- I'm just curious if it's -- why that other choker is there. Wardle: So, you can see -- yes. Perhaps that was a bad example, because I wanted to -- we wanted to show you as they are currently built on the ground today. This is in Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 36 of 81 Pinnacle. This is I believe on a road call Crescendo. Coming right here this is a -- this is a collector--future collector called Apex. So, we wanted to slow some traffic down there. We -- you wouldn't necessarily need to do that, but in the cases of our project, the spaces in between are where -- and we -- this allows on-street parking. Our roads meet the on- street parking requirements, although we are not using that as our calculation, but these choker locations were intended to narrow it down where pedestrians would come across and not obstruct multiple homes and particular driveways with that element. So, no, we would not do a continuous choker along the entire way. It really kind of provides a safe place for vehicles to park in between and not be on top of the pedestrians either. Simison: All right. Thank you. So, Councilman Cavener, anything you would like to add? Cavener: Mr. Mayor, I know we are going to move now likely into the -- the public testimony portion of tonight's agenda. Just for a show of hands are there people that are here to testify on this application tonight? Great. So, I think for everyone's benefit, as you may have heard from our staff early on, this is initially a request for TN-R. The applicant is making a request. We as a city need to properly notify our community about this change. If you hadn't of come tonight you wouldn't have known about that and so there is two paths for Council. We can continue this to a later time or send it back to the Planning and Zoning Commission. You have given up your time. You have sat through the City Council meeting. We love public testimony and so we want to hear your testimony. We want to give it a caveat that we are not going to take an action this evening. We likely will either continue this for a later point in time or send it back to City Council, just -- I like to -- pardon? Planning and Zoning. Sorry. Thank you. We made it back to the City Council. Thank you. We just -- I wanted to forecast for all of you just so that you have got clear expectations. I also have another agenda -- lengthy agenda item later on tonight. We will talk a little bit about that here later on. But just, Mr. Mayor, appreciate giving me an opportunity just to make sure that our -- our citizens who are here tonight kind of understand what next steps would be. So, with that, Mr. Mayor, I will turn it back to you if we want to move into any public comments. Simison: Okay. Wardle: Thank you. Simison: Thank you very much. Well, I'm going to turn to legal and a little bit -- at least get guidance on the value of taking public testimony on something that we have to re- notice and/or remand. Nary: So, Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council -- and it's a valid question and certainly as you heard from staff and -- because there is a lot of changes in the other part that I think the planning staff hadn't -- hadn't really made clear, but I don't know how adequate a time they have had to evaluate what's being proposed as well. I know they were -- they have made the suggestion, but I don't know if they have looked at all of the requirements to meet the R-15 standard. So, there is a -- another reason to continue. But, anyway, to answer your question, I guess these folks have come, they certainly have -- are entitled to. We did notice this as a public hearing. But I agree with you and I agree with the Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 37 of 81 sentiment what Councilman Cavener said is there probably will be more information that they may want to provide after it's been fully viewed and have them have an opportunity to view what's been proposed tonight that they haven't probably seen before tonight. So, likelihood we wouldn't hear it twice, so I think that may be the caveat from the Council is if you are going to testify tonight I don't know what's going to change between now and then, but it might be wiser to wait, but I don't want to dissuade people that they came. We did notice it. They certainly have a -- have an ability to testify, but it may not be as valuable to the Council to do that and, then, comeback in two or three weeks or whatever. It would be -- and, then, hear it -- either hear it again or recall what we talked about. So, again, -- I'm certainly not going to tell you -- say that you couldn't hear it -- from the public if you wanted to, but they need to understand the value may not be quite as valuable as waiting until we hear it a second time. Simison: And I guess part of my question was, you know, not -- I'm not an attorney, but taking testimony on an item and, then, sending them back for re-noticing, how that plays in the quasi-judicial role where you are taking testimony on something that is going to be re-noticed and all reconsidered without officially -- if it's part of the record and there is no worries, I don't care, I just want to make sure that we are not wasting people's time if this ever goes down the road and someone wants to do something it's like, well, that was really done before the notice on that decision was made. You know, does that get included or considered? Nary: Mr. Mayor, this is a very valid comment and -- and the concern could be that based on information provided tonight a decision could be relying upon that, yet it may change by the next one and that would make the -- the record a little messy from a district court's perspective as to what was it based on, was it really based on tonight's testimony or testimony later and so, yes, I would agree it could be messy. Again because it's -- the changes have at least been put out there now, again, I wouldn't say you couldn't hear it, I would strongly -- I would think it would be wiser to wait and let everybody speak on it one time after it's been noticed properly, so that everybody can -- can have the same information to be able to provide testimony of other neighbors that maybe didn't know to come tonight because of the change. Simison: And the last thing I will just kind of mention is just, you know, really I think from a -- if it's renoticed or remanded the applicant is going to be entitled to ten more minutes to go over the property I assume? Nary: Yes. Simison: That -- that would be an expectation, unless they waive that expectation. Nary: Yes. Simison: So, I guess I will say this. I'm happy to take testimony if you want to testify in the original application and give those comments in the light of what you also saw, but I think if you are going to want to include it on the future project I will ask you to probably Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 38 of 81 come back and also give those comments just in the future on what was also presented. So, it's kind of a little mix, but I would encourage you to plan on coming back if there is an element that you want to have considered, but I'm happy to take testimony on what was noticed and what was -- what was presented. But I just -- well, I don't want to -- I want to keep it clean on both sides. So, with that, Mr. Clerk, do we have anyone signed up? Johnson: Mr. Mayor, we do. First is Kyle -- or, sorry, first is John Schwenkfelder. Simison: Okay. If you want to come up and testify you are more than welcome to do so. Okay. Johnson: Kyle Enzler. Enzler: Good evening, Mayor and Council Members, Kyle Enzler, 5720 West Old School Lane, Meridian, Idaho. 83646. Also here representing Alden Ridge Subdivision, so it includes a couple other parcels to the north, which had been spoken of. This is a little confusing. So, first of all, I just want to express my gratitude to you for your public service. Also I loved how the meeting started. We didn't really get to clap for that presentation from the fire department, but I was just sitting there thinking there is nowhere I would rather live than here and despite the fact that we sometimes have different views I know that as public servants you have the best interest of the community in mind and -- and I appreciate that. So, obviously -- there is a couple things I want to state that initially just - - that aren't directly what I had prepared, because of the changes and I -- and I just want to state that for public record, because I do think that the process maybe is a little bit unfair to the public. So, the --the -- the Commission -- the application that was presented to the Commission was one application that was recommended five to one for denial. It was then -- a meeting was set up for this evening for City Council and, you know, less than maybe a week ago the plan was, then, changed -- still TN-R, but a change -- a reduction of lots, which is very hard to track as a public. There is -- the city has done a good job of making links available, but not everybody is -- understands how to -- how to get to those and, then, I -- you know. And -- and so all that's understandable, although that's not renoticed. So, you really have to go and look for it and, then, you have a week to try to prepare of like, oh, okay, now if there is another change that's different from Commission how do I respond to that? And, then, I think what's -- what's really unfair is if -- if there was a planning -- a change in zoning that was 11 th hour and -- and I love our planning department. I think we have one of the best planning departments in the state. But I think that that shouldn't--that should have stopped the hearing at that point, because of the 11 th hour now you are coming in with a whole new zoning. Now, I understand and I appreciate Mayor's sentiment that we are -- this has to get recommended back to Commission and we go through this process again, but I feel like if Brighton had an opportunity to present for an hour and that influences Council's decision and, you know, and we are not even privy to that prior to showing up tonight. So, I would really prefer that if the -- if it was a change from the notice that we received a week ago, which was still TN-R, but 20 lots less, that that would have been recommended back to Planning and Zoning. So, I think I have -- is that eight minutes. Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 39 of 81 Simison: Three minutes. Enzler: Okay. So, I'm here for the Alden Ridge Subdivision, so I believe I get a little bit more time. Simison: Okay. Enzler: Sorry. So, you know, I just -- I will -- I will touch on just a couple historical context as I think this is -- this is relevant regardless if it's a TN-R or a split zoning of R-8 and R- 15. The change in density is really what we are talking about, that either a TN-R allows through different dimensional standards or that the split zoning allows. There are additional uses that also are permitted in the R-15 and the TN-R that aren't permitted in the R-8 and multi-family development, four-plexes and larger are part of that. Now, understand that Brighton's intent today is to move forward with the plan that they are presenting, but in 2019 that intent was different and so in 2019, after a lot of public testimony, a lot of opposition, concessions were made. Part of those concessions were that this particular strip was to be an R-8 zoning. That concession also allowed for the approval of the entire mixed-use development. So, now six years later all we are talking about really is this R-8 sliver and whether or not their current plan adheres to the medium density residential FLUM and is a well-designed subdivision. But I think that that negates the conversations, the public testimony and the decisions that were made back in 2019. There is another inconsistency in the plan. So, essentially, on the north boundary between Brighton and Alden Ridge and Karen and -- and Bob and Bonnie's place, the previous plan had a landscape buffer. So, if you look at what Brighton's planned it shows landscape to the north, but that's actually our landscape, because in Alden Ridge we matched as -- from recommendation from Planning we matched what they were doing on that north side. So, we -- we included a landscape buffer like they had proposed and we -- we -- we also included an R-8 zoning to match their R-8 zoning on that side. We matched lot for lot. So, this current plan eliminates that landscape buffer. It eliminates the berm and -- and -- and, really, the net difference is about 50 more houses -- 55 more houses and there is some other comments that I'm sure I will be able to weigh in on, but those are -- those are some of my concerns this evening. Thank you. Simison: Council, any questions? Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Real quick. Mr. Enzler, thanks for being here. I probably say this every time we have got somebody who represents an HOA. Thank you. It's the most thankless job in politics to represent a homeowner association, so I appreciate you being here tonight. It's hard for the Council to kind of respond to some of the back and forth on some of your concerns about the process, recognize we are neighbors, we are residents. Do we sometimes share some of those frustrations? But I -- to your point about our Planning Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 40 of 81 Department being the best in the state, the best in the country, I think they would be also happy to chat with you and give you some more of a -- of a dialogue and back and forth. So, just because they are here tonight doesn't mean they are not available during also regular business hours if you or your neighbors have questions and I feel real confident - - I don't like to speak for our staff, but -- because I know their heart, I -- I feel real confident they would be happy to chat with you and give you a little bit more context about some of the whys behind that. Enzler: Yes. Thank you, Council Member Cavener. I do want to say -- hopefully what said didn't come across the wrong way. Planning has been great. I have worked with planning personally a number of times. They have been great. Sonya did a great job communicating a week ago. My concern is not with Planning, it's with the process of -- there was a suggestion made at some point to go from TN-R, which this meeting was about this evening, to a split zoning of R-8 and R-15. That happened at the 11th hour without us notice -- being noticed or without documents being uploaded with the changes for tonight and I know that the documents being uploaded a week in advance of the meeting is part of the process that you have to adhere to and so my concern is because that didn't happen we still allowed a presentation to go on for about 45 minutes and -- and so that has nothing to do with Planning, that has to do with my concern about the process and how that affected us as neighbors. Thank you. Simison: And I think that's -- you know, the way I looked at it is it's not uncommon for us to get into a hearing and someone come up with a better idea. This is -- we got to go back to the drawing board. That--that happens and I think very common within a meeting where, you know, someone -- when you are trying to design on the fly in a public hearing Council will often pause and send it off to go be worked on. I got the impression that that's what was similar to this. They had an idea on the fly that they, yes, it made it into the conversation, that's also why we are not taking action. If we are going to take action and Council could make the decision not to consider-- consider the underlying application and move -- and act on that. That's why I'm trying to keep our testimony focused on the underlying application and not necessarily what was presented, so that if they do decide to take action it's clean. That's what my -- that's probably the best way I should have said my comments before, because, otherwise, it all goes back to somebody else or it comes back to them with their re-notice with all that taking place to allow the conversation to be about that application compared to people testifying about another proposal that's not even technically in front of Council. So, trying to -- I'm trying to keep it clean, but also trying to be -- to the people that showed up tonight feel like they get their value of being here as well. Enzler: Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Allen: Mr. Mayor, excuse me, can I make some comments in -- in regard to some items that have been discussed, just some things I'm sitting here thinking about that I think the Council should consider. In light of the Commission's recommendation of denial and the reasons for such tonight I think it's under your purview tonight to decide if you are with the Commission on their thoughts in regard to too much density for this site and if you are that would relate back to two of the options that staff presented, staying with the R-8 Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 41 of 81 district, which is a consideration, or going to the other alternative of R-8 and R-15. 1 think maybe accepting testimony tonight on that app -- on that -- that information would be helpful in determining your direction to the applicant going forward of whether you want the applicant to redesign with R-8 zoning, which would be less lots, or proceed forward with R-8 and R-15, which is what they prefer to do tonight. If-- if we go R-8 and R-15 the proposed development plan complies with those standards as is. The dimensional standards. So, the layout that they are proposing tonight would not change in the future. The zoning district would change, but the -- but the lot layout would not. So, that is important to the neighbors and that is important to their testimony tonight and proceeding forward with this. So, anyway, I just wanted to add that and hopefully that provides some information for Council and it would be good if Council's direction tonight, whether they choose to continue or remand it back, to provide direction to the applicant of which of those two options or possibly another option that you would like to see. Thank you. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Yeah. I think this is getting pretty messy and I think everybody can see that. think the way we have always handled this is the applicant is in the driver's seat in terms of what they are requesting. I believe they are now requesting something new that wasn't noticed; right? So, we are going to take public testimony on what you have seen and, please, just realize it's very likely that this could go back to the Planning and Zoning Commission and so you are going to have more time, but it's going to be important for you -- if I were in your shoes I would testify again once you have a chance to review that information. I think that's going to be really important and I think you made a good point, sir, about the process in terms of -- we do really try to highly discourage these types of last minute changes, but at the same time now having been in this -- these processes for about five years this does happen where a new idea is -- is kind of landed upon, but I do think from a process perspective the -- the right thing to do is going to be -- if you have something to say tonight, please, go ahead, try to focus as the Mayor said on -- on the previous application, realize you are going to need to testify again when this goes through Planning and Zoning. Most likely. We don't know that yet, but most likely that is what will occur. I -- I believe -- I will just now I believe that is what should occur and I think that's good -- that's a good thing for our Planning and Zoning Commission and we really value their feedback. They haven't had an opportunity to get their own heads around this new idea. I think sending it back to them makes a lot of sense and, then, certainly it's possible that it will come back to us again at that point. You will be able to testify again even -- you will get a third -- a second -- depending on how you look at it, a second bite at the apple at that point. So, I -- I feel good about more of that approach and I do think on the -- on the density point -- actually I don't want to really respond to that. Sonya made a comment about that. It really depends on how you look at it. It depends on whether you look at the density in terms of the absolute number of people that will be here or units or households that will be here or whether you are looking at it in terms of the density calculation on acreage. So, it -- it really depends on how you are looking at that. So, I -- I really don't want to respond to that, it actually kind of makes me uncomfortable to provide Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 42 of 81 that feedback to be honest. I think at this point the best thing to do is just allow the public to continue to testify on what they have been noticed about and, then, we will kind of move from that point. But I -- I actually don't want to provide that feedback at this point, because I -- I think it's actually a lot muddier on that depending on how you look at it. Simison: Okay. Mr. Clerk, next on the list. Johnson: Mr. Mayor, next is Jacob Jensen. Jensen: Mayor, Council, Jacob Jensen, 5011 West Caragana Street. Neighbor in Fairbourne community. Appreciate that's -- it's really eye opening to come to these meetings and see the time and care that's put into each one of these decisions. So, really appreciate you all and all that you do for us as a community. I have children ten, seven, four and one and looking at the plans that were described I am very concerned for the school. My ten year old is in a class of 33 students and my four year old is in a class of 33 and my seven year old is in a class of 31 . So, extremely full. Pleasant View Elementary already has portables outside there and it's -- it's overcrowded. So, seeing this increase in density is very concerning from that standpoint. It's also concerning Waverton is that through street to Black Cat. Fairbourne is a community that has -- it's divided by Waverton and a lot of the kids will walk over to the common area there and I can just see already with this increase in density the amount of people that will turn in on Black Cat and use Waverton as a through street to avoid the Chinden traffic, the 20-26 traffic, and as a parent that's concerning for my comfort and letting my kids go to a community where they play with -- with friends and enjoy that as is and so those are kind of my main concerns. The -- the stress that this will put on the school system, as well as the safety that adding 70 more homes with -- with that many more cars would put on our community in Fairbourne. Thank you. Simison: Council, any questions? All right. Thank you. Johnson: Mr. Mayor, next is Jacob -- or, sorry, David Hitz. Hitz: Mayor, Council -- Council people, Councilmen, David Hitz. I am at 6669 North Elmstone in Meridian. My backyard is right up against Waverton, so I am very familiar with what goes through there, what traffic looks like and along with Jake I am very concerned. I also have four kids, very similar in ages, and one of them actually came with me, who has sat very patiently for this and still go back to the drawing board. I'm happy to come back. I will come back as many times as needed, but some of my concerns -- I will own the fact of what Jon called a bait and switch, as I brought that up last time and part of that is actually history of Brighton as a builder having part of their -- their -- their growth trajectory is through expansion based on rezoning. It happened with Pinnacle, it also has happened with Paramount. So, bait and switch is a little dirty, it's not how I mean it and I'm happy to have a conversation if I need to to kind of heads up Brighton. So, for me it is all of the planning around the communities, Fairbourne, Alden Ridge, all of that was on R-8. The area, the schools, the traffic, all of that falls in line with that and under R-8 you still are allowed some mixed density. You can have, you know, Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 43 of 81 duplexes, four-plexes, you can have multi-family and have some of those starter home scenarios that were requested from the Council within that. I don't think that we need to increase the density any more than that and by increasing any more to R-15 or anything above R-8 is going to cause a lot of undue worry, stress and some potential harm for all of the neighborhoods, especially with the kids. So, those are my biggest concerns. It doesn't match, it's not going to flow and traffic will become a nightmare, which means it comes right through my backyard. Thank you. Questions? As you grab for the mic. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Yeah. Thank you. I do have a question and I think it's a fair question, because sort of your comment about traffic I think was interesting and it sort of applies no matter - - no matter how it proceeds. I'm curious, though. So, where -- with the whole development they are putting a light in and so it seems like if I were a driver living in this subdivision, the most direct way for me to get anywhere would be just to go down Pollard I believe is it -- or is it Levi? Simison: Currently Levi. Strader: Yeah. Levi. And then -- and, then, at that point there's a signal and so then there is a lot of I think optionality. How do you feel -- like I guess I'm a little confused about how you feel that the traffic impact will be so detrimental to the neighborhood. Hitz: Yeah. Thank you for the question. So, the way that it is right now between Tree Farm -- is that -- right there at SpurWing and, then, as you move forward to Black Cat, the way the traffic starts stacking up people are very quick to either cut through that Tree Farm and, then, go through Waverton or get to Black Cat in turn, because as it starts stacking the closer you get to Highway 16 people want to get off, they want to avoid the traffic, they would rather keep moving even if they don't get there any quicker; right? If we were to do like a meta analysis you probably won't get there a whole lot quicker, but you feel like you are because you are moving, so you turn off and go through the neighborhood and that's what we have seen now. It was really bad with the construction, but it still happens even as that's lightened up. Does that make sense? Strader: Yeah. I think it would be helpful -- I don't know if staff has a Google Maps view or satellite view or even just a different slide that maybe just better shows all the surrounding streets to help us, you know, to kind of follow your testimony a little bit better. I wish we had some elevator music at this time. Hitz: Yeah. So -- does this -- does this move? Sure enough that is really touchy. So, you have Rock Harbor right here, which is fantastic, but on Sundays gets very very very crowded about four times a day. I think that's how many services they have. And so typically they are cutting through any which street they can specifically Waverton and, then, they all are -- yeah, really anywhere they can. So, right now with Black Cat right Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 44 of 81 here traffic starts backing up right in front of Rock Harbor and so people will turn off on Black Cat to come back over here with this development, because instead of sitting in traffic to wait to get to Levi further up, they would much rather keep moving. The way that it is right now is as it starts backing up at Rock Harbor or even before you start to see that traffic and so you will turn in right here and go around to then continue. There is my house. And keep going. It feels like right behind my backyard. Strader: Yeah. Hitz: And so it's one of those where, again, it -- it may not actually save you any time -- Strader: Right. Hitz: -- but you are going to take it and that's what we have seen. Strader: Mr. Mayor, if you don't mind a quick follow up. Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: So, is this mainly a Sunday issue? I -- Hitz: No. Strader: Okay. And is Rock Harbor -- Hitz: It gets worse on Sunday with Rock Harbor. Strader: Yeah. But is the stacking issue -- I guess I'm just curious if you feel like that stacking issue is occurring all the time. I live near here and I don't see that necessarily. I see it more when Rock Harbor is in session and for sure it's a -- it's a zoo, but I'm not sure that I have seen it back up that much and I wonder how much the Highway 16 coming through is going to affect things as well. So -- okay. This helps me understand, though, your point. Thank you. Hitz: I don't have all of the answers. Just observations. Strader: Thank you. Simison: Just one question the -- and it kind of goes to the question -- you know, they showcase what their zone -- you know, their units per acre is that is -- I know if you went to R-8 dimensional standards you may not get as many, but the -- roughly the house per acre number is around that R-8. So, help me understand do you think it's going to go down like five, ten units or what's the end result hope of R-8? Hitz: Yeah. So, the R-8 still has the parameters of up to eight per unit. So, in here giving definitions says the zoning designation allows for various housing types, including single Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 45 of 81 family homes, townhouses and small scale multi-family, provided the overall density does not exceed eight units per acre. My concern is once you get above that eight your traffic is going to come in, your schools are going to be overrun, overpopulated more than they are and that's going to put a burden on the community. So, for me the R-8 still stays in line with what the rest of the community has planned: right? And -- Simison: My -- my question was what you showcased was that the current development is under that in zoning units -- Hitz: Where it is right now? Simison: Yeah. Hitz: It is R-8 currently. All of it. Simison: I think that's what the -- what the -- Hitz: The proposed is R-8 with a split of R-15. Simison: Right. Hitz: Only R-8 along the border. Simison: But overall it still meets under the R -- that's what I'm trying to understand. It's what -- okay. I don't want to -- and I'm not sure if I'm talking about which version, but at least when he showcases it was 7.83, 1 think somewhere around that area. So, that's why I'm trying to understand. It's like -- even though they are showcasing it at the number, if it's something different about the end result, because I don't know if it's dimensional standards or different -- that give a different side, front feel ultimately and I don't know how that impacts the actual number. You can't really get an R-8 under the standards. I just didn't know what it would drive it to in theory under the scenario and how that -- if it was seven compared to the 7.8, does that change your -- your viewpoints on -- if it's all R-8 you are okay? Whatever the number is. Hitz: If it stays R-8 I'm cool with it. Simison: Okay. Hitz: And all of the requirements that fall within R-8. Simison: Okay. Thank you. Allen: Mr. Mayor, may I -- may I clarify some information? Simison: Yes. Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 46 of 81 Allen: So, that the zoning district is not -- the number does not mean the number of units per acre. I just want to clarify that information for the public. The future land use map designation of median density residential is what applies to the future development and the density for this property and that allows for a range of three to eight dwelling units per acre gross density. The R-8 district has the -- the zoning districts have dimensional standards that they have to fall into, but they can't exceed that units per acre that the comp plan calls for regardless of the zoning district that they -- that they choose. The R- 8 zoning district requires a minimum lot size of 4,000 square feet and a minimum frontage of 40 feet. The R-8 -- or, excuse me, R-15 district that's been discussed is a minimum lot size of 2,000 square feet and it -- it has no minimum street. frontage. But the density still can't exceed eight units per acre. With the revisions to the plat that the applicant recently -- recently submitted they are at 7.15 per acre gross. Thank you. Simison: Thank you. Okay. Johnson: Mr. Mayor, next is David Woodard. Woodard: Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council, thanks for the opportunity to share tonight. 4867 West Canaston, also directly back up to Waverton. Also a member of the HOA -- HOA board for Fairbourne. Not really here to speak on behalf of all Fairbourne, I will just say a general sentiment of just the neighborhood is -- is concerns of density. Also a lot of confusion of do we come last week, do we come this week and now do we come back; right? So, just I will -- I will speak on behalf of the community. More prepared for a personal testimony. It really comes down to density and I think some of the conversations that you had -- even outside of this tonight is really thinking about like what does the future of northwest Meridian look like; right? Like what does it look like to have more people in northwest Meridian because of the access because of -- of -- of -- of 16 being extended all the way down to 84? What does it look like when a hospital, and medical items are put in there and that's just going to be more and more and more people and I think that's a lot of what we talked about, a lot of what my neighbors and -- and other neighbors in the general vicinity, Alden Ridge, the concerns are -- are around the people there. I have kids, three, one and one on the way. You know, thinking about the --the future of Pleasant View is certainly very concerning. I think it's --you know, tonight we mentioned a -- a new school in Star. I think it's probably not great for the City of Meridian to rely on a future school in Star eventually help relieve this and I think it's probably also not realistic to think that there will be another school probably east of 16 that will be an elementary school that -- that would really service this area outside of Pleasant View. You know, I mean eventually, you know, further south or something, but where Pleasant View is there is nothing else probably to add in that northwest corner. So, I think that's a very concerning thing and anything increasing density here is going to be very concerning. It sounds like we are moving away from what would be the max density to -- to what may be -- and -- and I'm not a zoning expert, so I know she just clarified some things in R-15 versus R-8, but I think there is still some general concerns there. I think, again, R-8 is what currently is zoned for us. Obviously there will be so much we can only speak to there. The density and people are -- are going to increase to -- to some extent, if there is no moving forward with a -- you know, 55 plus community and a senior living home, so -- so, the people are Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 47 of 81 coming, but I think there is a lot of things to consider with all the people that already happened and all the impacts it's going to have on traffic. I think what -- what my -- my fellow David and -- and Fairbourne neighbor said about Waverton and in the way that people will -- you know, do I use Tree Farm or do I use this or-- and, then, eventually now do I use Levi and, again, we are already seeing that, right? The roads have been completed and people now can cut through Waverton and -- and, you know, I myself personally, if I'm driving I would rather continue to drive than -- than stop at a red light; right? So -- so, you know, there is multiple options to get into the neighborhoods and -- and that's only further extending, that's already there. But I think the amount of people we allow to be living there and in there, because once you have more people there people spread out, you have more kids in this neighborhood, that's going to be more kids in the roadways. That's more kids going into Waverton, that's more kids around a hospital area, which could be very busy and -- and could be, you know, meeting immediacy of traffic. So, there is a lot of things to consider here, but I think there is a lot of people in the northwest Meridian, there is a lot of people around Pleasant View Elementary and I think we just need to be very cautious about how many people we are going to allow on this. I also do want to say that I think Brighton has -- and I will just say this last thought -- is I appreciate that Brighton looks like they have come to tonight's meeting with thoughts and feedback that was already received from both the -- the Council and from the neighborhood and I really appreciate that. So, I will end on that. Thank you. Simison: Council, any questions? Okay. Johnson: Mr. Mayor, that's everybody that signed up, but I do know at least one other person wanted to speak. Simison: Okay. You will -- you will get an opportunity. Don't worry. Blencoe: Mr. Mayor, Council Members, thank you. 5111 West Oakford in Fairbourne. Elizabeth Blencoe. Sorry about that. I did sign in. Those children of his are my grandchildren. My concern actually has to do with Waverton and it's something that hasn't been discussed per se the way I'm going to talk about it specifically. I'm not sure what the Planning Department -- their recommendations for the size of Waverton. Excuse me. I walk that property every single day all around it and I want to thank Brighton for putting in the sidewalks so I don't have to walk in the street. That's my path around there. It's three miles in and out and everything. I see the traffic already from the business that's back there, is from the homes that are back there already. Waverton is not very wide. It's not going to be -- I'm concerned that it was built at the time and maybe designed for the original proposal, which was kind of along the lines of a lot of these people may not be driving. Then, secondly, we don't understand necessarily how all this commercial property is going to get built out. We know hospital, medical center, but, you know, all the rest of the retail and all like that, development plans are probably still in the works. Also right there on Ten -- on Black Cat and Chinden is a couple acre property for sale. Commercial. There will be businesses in there, too. So, similar to the number two agenda item I guess, here we are again looking at something without having a full understanding of the whole picture and specifically I would ask the planning department to make sure Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 48 of 81 that they remember the size of Waverton and the amount of traffic that's going to be going on that -- even if it's to go out to Levi and turn at that light, which people won't do, we know that, that is not a very wide street at all and if there is parking allowed on that -- and I was a little confused as to whether that would be allowed or not. If there is parking allowed on that for either the businesses or for the residents in those duplex homes or whatever they are that are so stacked and they are very dense, that the street is going to be a disaster and the fire department is going to be out there all the time instead of doing what they need to do, because they will be picking people up off the street. So, any questions? And I would be happy to come back and testify the same thing again. Simison: Thank you. Okay. If there is other people, please, come forward. C.Taylor: Mayor and Council people, thank you for having us tonight. Wow, that-- I broke your thing. My name is Chase Taylor. 7000 North Pollard Lane. I live just north of the proposed zoning change tonight and I did have a ton of notes and I was prepared last week and there was a continuance and, then, came tonight with the TN-R. So, I -- I also expressed my-- my sadness that, you know, we weren't able to do the whole thing tonight, but I did sit and watch the meetings from 2019, not like super interesting stuff, not must watch TV, but I did get a lot of context for -- for this development and want to echo what Kyle said earlier where there was a lot of concessions made for neighbors. There was a lot of things promised and here we are many years later and -- and I feel like a lot of that stuff is just out the window. There was -- there was a proposed berm -- or a promised berm on the north side of this property. It was going to also have a privacy fence on top. So, not only was there going to be a transition with 77 homes with a berm kind of separating from that lower density properties to the north where we have people with one acre all the way up to five acre lots, but now also they are bumping it up to 157, which leads into my next point. I have six kids. We have a kid in high school. We have little ones that go to elementary school. Our kids do go to Pleasant View and that was kind of our first thought, too, like so for our kids to get to the bus stop -- they bus them across Chinden, but they have to get over to Fairbourne. So, it's about a mile walk for them -- we will say it's a mile uphill and back, but -- so, they -- they ride their scooters along Waverton and they get to the bus stop, they leave their scooters, then, they -- they do the trip back. So, my concern for my children is making it to the bus stop in the mornings when all this density that's going to be coming will be exiting and trying to get to work. I agree Waverton is actually quite narrow when you start to consider all that's coming in. We are going to have kids going up sidewalks, people exiting that -- that development. My prediction is Levi Lane is going to be gridlocked until the light changes and Waverton's going to be gridlocked trying to get out on that light and they are going to have people going through the neighborhoods. So, that's kind of my thoughts on that. But I will -- I will be coming back. Usually about this time I'm winding down, watching a show, but think this is important. So, I appreciate you guys' time and thanks. Simison: Thank you. Council, any questions? Okay. L.Taylor: Hi. My name is Leah Taylor. I live at 7000 North Pollard in Meridian also and I also wanted to say thank you for all of your service. I know it's a really important part of Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 49 of 81 the democratic process and not everyone always wants to do this job, so I appreciate everything that you guys do. I am also against the zoning change for this property. I know it's typical and expected for residents to resist change when a builder comes in to develop and to resist more people moving in. It's human nature to choose your place and, then, not want it to change. However, I do not want to be roped into that camp. I recognize that growth is inevitable. What we are resisting is a drastic change in the plan for this little community that will affect the property values of the homes that are currently there, overrun the roads and green space and add to traffic issues in the area that already exists on Chinden. We aren't out here fighting for no growth or change. We are out here requesting that you stick with the original plans for this area, which is an R-8 zoning. I listened to the thoughtfulness of the Council men and women on the earlier agenda item and noticed how strongly you all value the planning ahead and big picture thinking that you have done in the past and I'm sure -- and I know that much thought and research and discussion went into those decisions in 2019 when the R-8 zoning was originally approved. I urge you not to throw that discussion and opinion out the window. Do not allow Brighton to do what they have done in other areas, which is to make a drastic change in a way that is tactical, calculated and can sometimes be unfair in regards to continuing the meeting, changing it, last minute changes that feels at the whim -- it's like -- it feels to us as residents -- or to me that it's a game that they know how to play, but we are just trying to catch up and figure out what's -- what's going on and having to come multiple times. Last week I had rescheduled an important meeting for tonight and arranged childcare. That meeting couldn't happen. I had to reschedule it again tonight, arrange more childcare, and I know that some of that is part of the process, but it also feels like a little bit calculated. They know that there is no way that this zoning request would have been approved in the past or at the very beginning stages of this project and they know that they have a much higher chance if they are able to ask incrementally. My worry is that they will request a zoning change and, then, come back again in several months to make even more dense housing than the current proposed plan, because at that point you already approved it by changing the zoning. The Commission voted against this change in a majority vote. As elected officials I hope you will recognize their opinions and discussions and lean on their expertise and recommendation. And please -- please cast your vote in the best interest of the community, which is against the zoning change. I know you are not casting a vote tonight, but that's all I wanted to say. Thank you. Simison: Thank you. Council, any questions? Okay. Is there anybody else that would like to provide -- come on up. Cavener: I got a question. Simison: Maybe you can state your first name. Z.Hitz: My name is Zeppelin Hitz. I live in 6669 North Elmstone Way. I think. So, I'm against this,just like my dad, and so I don't know-- my notes are kind of all over the place, but it's just -- this traffic will just be so annoying. Getting back to the bus I have things that I need to do after school and, then, more than likely I'm going to be late for those and I'm going to be kicked out. No. I'm kidding. And also it's just with all that construction my Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 50 of 81 sisters will probably not be able to sleep. I have a newborn sister, a toddler who when she does not nap becomes very scary and this -- also with all that construction there will just be -- oh, no. Actually, scratch that. Also with all that traffic just the air quality has not been very good lately. So, it will be even worse just in my neighborhood area, because people will just be cutting through and since people already take shortcuts that's just going to make it very congested. Yeah. Simison: Awesome. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Questions for you. Z.Hitz: Okay. Cavener: Exceptional testimony. How old are you? Z.Hitz: Eleven. Cavener: Eleven? Are you in 5th grade. 6th grade? Z.Hitz: Yes. Cavener: Do you do social studies? Z.Hitz: A little bit. Cavener: A little bit. So, tomorrow you should go to your social studies teacher and say you should deserve some extra credit, because you had to subject yourself to a City Council meeting until 9.00 o'clock at night and to your testimony -- you got things to do and you put up those things to come and testify for us. So, I appreciate your testimony, sir. Thank you for joining us. Thanks for sticking with us tonight. I'm going to put a candy dish that's up here. You can talk to your parents and either for later on tonight or tomorrow you can help yourself. We appreciate you being here tonight. Nice job. Simison: Good job. And, Jon, you may want to think about putting somebody on retainer for future testimony. Just saying. All right. So, Council, I think we are at the end of those who wish to testify to my knowledge. Based on where we are, the applicant, would they like to make any comments before Council makes any directive statements on next steps? Wardle: Yeah. Mr. Mayor, for the record again Jon Wardle with Brighton. I guess I would want to know what direction you are going, because it sounds like, you know, if we are, one, being continued to a future date, so this can be re-noticed through the process there Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 51 of 81 would be that part of it. If we are doing a remand there is that part of it, too. There is -- there have been very good comments made. This is a change. We know that. We are here presenting that plan. I think we do need to be careful in terms of a last minute -- that there was a last minute change here. Yeah, we had a conversation at 5:00 o'clock. So, I'm first to acknowledge that -- that, yes, we -- we had a conversation with staff on how to maintain an R-8 zone against the boundary and, then, transition towards the commercial and that seemed to be an approach. We are happy to have that conversation or, you know, evaluate that a little bit further down the road. There are also some things that were -- probably require a little bit more clarification, but, yes, there were previous commitments made about landscaping and berming. One of those -- and it was a 15 foot landscape easement on our side, 15 feet on the other side. Part of that was over the old school roadways that went away. Alden Ridge came along and they planned a 30 foot landscape buffer. So, there is still some details that need to be discussed there on -- on transition from, you know, one project to the next and what we have here to there and that, obviously, can be discussed in the future. There are probably a number of other things that could be discussed. It feels like we are going to have a follow-up conversation at some point and so I think I would just leave my comments to that and we can provide additional context as a public hearing is reopened down the road. I do want to make just one note on Waverton. Waverton is a collector from Levi Lane to the east over to Fairbourne. We did match the right of way width of Waverton of what was built through Fairbourne. That was done in concert with ACHD. We actually designed Levi Lane. Levi Lane was only going to be a collector, so three lanes was all the requirement was. We actually proposed a five lane road with additional turning movements at 20-26 and Chinden and so we made that wider than it needed to be, because we were anticipating there would be traffic, not just Pollard traffic, there would be traffic to the north, there would be traffic from the east from Fairbourne. We get it. We know that those things are going to happen and people do take the fastest route, but we did design Waverton and Waverton was modeled afterACHD's plan for a collector that would parallel 20-26, so -- Simison: Any questions for the applicant or comments or direction that you would like to provide and get any immediate feedback? Cavener: Mr. Mayor, I appreciate just asking the question, not -- for Council, just for your benefit, I think once this process is concluded I intend to make a motion to send this back to the Planning and Zoning Commission for a couple reasons. I think, one, they recommended denial, seen it --what I would view as a substantial change from what they have seen in terms of -- of the zoning and -- and we value our Planning and Zoning Commission's feedback. I also think that from a -- a government -- transparency in government isn't just a bumper sticker; right? It's something we really try and do here in our community and so I think to allow for this process to play out in very transparent and straightforward, but maybe less efficient to some of our residents, I think it is the right approach. So, at least that -- that is my intention after we have included any comments that I would close the public hearing that I would make a motion to continue -- or excuse me -- not to continue, but to remand it back to the Planning and Zoning Commission. Simison: Does the applicant have any questions or comments to feedback to that point? Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 52 of 81 Wardle: Mr. Mayor, Council Member-- Council President Cavener, apologize for that. No. I mean the reality is that we -- this is a process and the process is that when -- you, as an applicant, bring in a preliminary plat and a rezone that that is regardless of the determination of Planning of Zoning Commission, it comes to Council and I guess what I want to just restate on the record was we heard what the Planning and Zoning Commission said, we heard what the neighbors said. There was this, hey, you comply with a density related to an R-8 zone. When you look at a future land use map it is a three to eight and so we did make some tweaks, we made some adjustments, we listened to that. As it relates to this process we were going to land here regardless. If it is the Council's wish for us to go back to Planning and Zoning Commission we -- we can do that. That's fine. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: I'm going to support that motion, too, and I think for a couple of reasons, not to duplicate too many statements that were made, but I --there was nothing untoward I think with the applicant's changes. I think this was their effort to respond to the feedback and taking the advice from staff on how to figure out how to get there. So, I don't think there was anything intentional or calculated with that. This is common as they try to work through some of the challenges. We as Council sometimes ask for those changes to be made and sometimes there is a continuance to go and work --work out some of the kinks. But I was a little surprised myself to come in and see the -- the -- the rezoning changes that were suggested as being new to me and so that was probably one of the bigger changes or new things, even though I know that's not a surprise. So, I do think there is a -- I agree with Councilman Cavener's suggestions about sometimes the processes are a little cumbersome and long, but I think the due diligence and the transparency and good faith effort to do it the right way is -- is -- is a worthy goal. So, I'm going to support that -- that motion tonight. Simison: Okay. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: I move we close the public hearing. Taylor: Second. Simison: Motion and second to close the public hearing. Is there any discussion? If not, all in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it and the public hearing is closed. Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 53 of 81 MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Cavener: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I move that we remand application H-2024-0037 to the Planning and Zoning Commission based on zoning changes and what I deem are substantial change to the application that was previously presented. Taylor: Second. Simison: Have a motion and a second to remand this item to the Planning and Zoning. Is there discussion on the motion? Cavener: Mr. Mayor, real quick maybe just a couple more comments if I may. Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: I want to appreciate the neighbors for -- for coming out. I know this process can be clunky and cumbersome. I think it's important to all of us that are up here have sat in those chairs at one point or another and so, you know, part of our job -- you hire us so that you don't necessarily have to sit here each week. I appreciate your comments. You got better things to do, shows to watch. So, we appreciate you support us. To Council Member Taylor's point, sometimes a continuance request, even though it come in the last minute, are a sign that the -- the applicant is responding to the feedback from the neighbors and we ultimately land with a better project. So, while, yes, cumbersome, we are always trying to work to -- to compromise and find what's best for our community. So, we appreciate you sticking with us tonight. It's not always our intent to make you feel like you are--you are going through the motions and you have to come back. I can appreciate just because I sat there to feel like, oh, the applicant's trying to move the ball to maybe wear me out -- that rarely happens, but it does. I feel good. The sense sometimes that does happen with applicants and that's part of our job is to sniff that out and hold them accountable and that's not the case I think here tonight, but just rest assured when those rare occasions do happen this Council has been pretty quick to --to sniff that out and hold those folks accountable. So, appreciate being with us tonight. Mr. Mayor, with unless there is any other comments, I'm happy to call for the question. Simison: Question has been called. All in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it and, Mr. Nary, we don't need a roll call vote or do you want one? Nary: No, sir. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Simison: Okay. All right. Then we will continue. Council, do we need a break before we get to the next one? Cavener: Mr. Mayor, just maybe a couple -- I know I'm talking a lot tonight. I apologize. But maybe some comments for our next application in lieu of a break and for those that Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 54 of 81 are sticking around for our other application, I don't know if there is anybody that is. We -- we try to end our meetings around 10:00 o'clock'ish. It looks like everybody here is for the other one. So, it may not be as impactful. But if you are here for the next application we will take public testimony, but it's possible we may not render a decision tonight. Simison: I think everybody's leaving but the applicant. Cavener: Okay. Well, that makes it a little bit easier. Thank you all. Simison: We will take a short break. As soon as I get the Council back in the seat we will kick them up again. That tells me you are ready to go. So, we are in recess for now. (Recess: 9:04 p.m. to 9:12 p.m.) 4. Public Hearing for Apex Zenith (H-2024-0052) by Brighton Corporation, generally located at the southeast corner of S. Meridian Rd. and E. Lake Hazel Rd. A. Request: Rezone of 71.44 acres of land from R-4 (Low to Medium Density Residential) to C-G (General Retail and Service Commercial District) zoning district. B. Request: Annexation of 77.71 acres of land from RUT zoning in Ada County to C-G (19.19 acres) and R-15 (58.52 acres) zoning districts. C. Request: Modified Development Agreement to replace the current Development Agreement (#2016-007072) to include a general concept plan and transportation network in a new Development Agreement. Simison: Okay. With that we will go ahead and move on to Item 4, public hearing for Apex Zenith, H-2024-0052. We will open the public hearing with staff comments. Napoli: Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council, next item on the agenda is the annexation, rezone, develop -- and development agreement -- a modification for Apex Zenith. The applicant requests to rezone 71.7 acres from R-4 to C-G, annex 77.71 acres with the C- G and R-15 zoning districts and a development agreement modification to develop the subject property with a mixed-use development consisting of approximately 446,000 square feet of commercial, 100,000 square feet of office/employment and residential uses. The total site consists of 149.41 acres of land, generally located at the southeast corner of Meridian Road and Lake Hazel. As shown on the screen the current zoning is R-4 and RUT in Ada county and the FLUM designation is mixed-use regional and medium to high density -- high density residential. There is the annexation exhibits for the -- what are eastern portion of the site and there is the rezones exhibit for the western portion of the site. The two parcels fronting South Meridian Road were annexed in 2015 with the Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 55 of 81 south Meridian annexation. These properties were given the placeholder zoning of R-4 until future development. Due to these properties being in the mixed-use regional FLUM designation the request for a rezone to C-G is consistent with the Comprehensive Plan. The applicant has submitted a high level concept plan for the entire development. Phase one focused on commercial retail and medical office/ employment uses, while phase two includes commercial and residential components. The concept plan proposes to float the mixed-use regional designation into the medium high density area along East Lake Hazel Road frontage, covering approximately 19 acres. However, the concept plan lacks sufficient detail and does not demonstrate with essential mixed-use development -- development elements. Staff has expressed concerns with this approach -- may result in critical mixed-use components being overlooked. To address these concerns staff has outlined a path forward by incorporating provisions in the development agreement by requiring these comp plan elements during phase two. While staff is open to deferring key mixed-use elements, comprehensive master concept plan for the entire development is essential. This plan ensures the alignment with the Comprehensive Plan and supports the justification for floating the mixed-use regional designation along East Lake Hazel Road. The applicant has acknowledged the importance of these elements, but intends to provide detailed plans during phase two through a future development agreement modification. The Planning and Zoning Commission and City Council shall determine if deferring these key elements is appropriate at this time. Key elements requiring consideration include plazas connecting commercial and residential uses, active and shared open spaces, a mix of-- at least three distinct land uses, eight foot parkways with on-street parking and bulb outs, functional integration of uses, purposeful open space design and design integration. The applicant is also requesting the approval to obtain three building permits during phase one, which includes floating the proposed C-G zoning along East Lake Hazel Road for employment uses. Additionally they plan to reconfigure the property through a future property boundary adjustment application. This adjustment would allow them to construct on the identified parcels before remaining -- before the remaining property is subdivided as part of phase two. For mixed-use developments at least 40 percent of buildable frontage must be occupied by building facades or public space per the UDC. The current concept plan says it shows no building frontage along Meridian Road. To satisfy the 40 percent requirement for phase one the applicant should relocate the building on the Meridian Road frontage. Staff recommends sliding this building to the west portion of the site along Meridian Road. However, after discussing with the applicant they would like to defer the 40 percent building frontage to phase two with the remainder of the entitlements and staff has talked with the applicant on this plan and is something that we are comfortable moving forward with with phase two. Qualified open space and amenities will be determined with the future development agreement modification for phase two. The landscaping will be evaluated at the submittal of the certificate of zoning compliance. However, staff is recommending the landscape buffers be included with phase one of the development. However, during the Commission -- during the Planning and Zoning Commission hearing the Commission approved the applicant's change to the staff recommendation as shown on the screen. So, that would be the first condition. That would be H-2. To install -- we had it as installed -- the landscape -- the entirety of the landscape buffers along all the street frontages and instead they wanted to re-install landscape buffers as shown in the exhibit and this is the Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 56 of 81 exhibit. It shows a phased landscape plan -- really where -- in the green and orange will essentially be done with phase one. It's just at different times. One will be done during - - before the CZC component in the green, that will be done right away essentially. The orange will be done with the CZC and, then, the blue is, you know, a buffer that will be in place with the future final plat for phase two. So, essentially, the green and orange will be phase one and blue will be phase two. Access is proposed for five different access points across the development. Three of these access points are off of Meridian Road and two of them are off of East Lake Hazel Road. The three access points of Meridian Road include the half mile collector, which is shown here at the bottom as Aristocrat Drive. The quarter mile collector as Spire Street and the Eighth Mile Street -- or I apologize, it's not a quarter mile collector, it's quarter mile street as Spire Street and an Eighth Mile Street as a private drive aisle. Staff is supportive of the half mile access, but is not in support of the two additional right-in -- right-in, right-out access points as it does not meet the UDC standards. However, ITD has approved all three access points with a quarter mile being full access and the other two being restricted as a right-in, right-out. With ITD's approval the City Council may grant access waivers. Additionally, the applicant has been coordinating with ITD on a STARS agreement to address transportation improvements along State Highway 69 and accesses along its frontage. Staff is supportive of this approach and is recommending the applicant enter into a STARS agreement with ITD prior to commencing the development of phase two. The applicant has also entered in a completed -- has -- has entered into and completed a cooperative development agreement with ACHD to fully build out Lake Hazel to five lanes. With the construction in 2024 both the quarter mile collector Prevail and the eighth mile right-in, right-out driveway to Lake Hazel were designed, approved and constructed. The applicant is seeking Council waiver for the additional access point to East Lake Hazel Road, which will be the Eighth Mile Road as shown here on the screen and with the spread circle on it. Staff does not support this right-in, right-in -- out access to Lake Hazel as it does not meet the UDC standards. On the screen are the DA provisions that accompany a lot of those comprehensive plan elements that are not present at this time and I can go back to any of them. There is quite a bit if you guys would like to see more of them. You know, staff is recommending approval and so is Commission on this and we have received written testimony from members of the community since the Planning and Zoning Commission hearing. We received comments from Star Jordan, Sharron and Gerald Carlson, George Huttenhow and Amy Packer. All the citizens have concerns about traffic congestion, noise and safety in the area, more specifically about turning on and off State Highway 69 in the -- and the ability to be able to walk along these roads. I actually had several lengthy conversations with members of the community that submitted this. These are testimonies. They called me to make sure that they were received and I had some significant conversations with them. From my -- from talking with them I really found that the key concerns that they have are deceleration and acceleration lanes off of State Highway 69. Many of them actually live on Lake Hazel -- to the west of Lake Hazel that provided comments. So, in the area of Lake Hazel that's not been improved and they have to make a right off -- a right-hand turn off of State Highway 69 on to Lake Hazel and they say it's very dangerous right now and I did mention that -- you know, that Brighton was willing to -- or potentially willing to work with ITD on a STARS agreement and these are potentially some of the improvements that could be included with that. It's just some Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 57 of 81 back story I wanted to give you guys with my conversation with some of the community. And I will stand for questions at this time. Simison: Thank you. Council, any questions for staff? Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Appreciate you presenting. Can you go back to maybe one of the site plans that shows the -- the right-in, right-outs? We have got some -- some private drives and, then, the --the Spire Street that's right-in, right-out. Nick, if I heard you correctly you don't support either the right-in, right-outs on the --the private drive, as well as the one on Spire Street; is that correct? Napoli: Mr. Mayor, Members of Council -- or Council President Cavener, you are correct. As far as the UDC talks to restricting accesses to arterial roadways and more specifically state highways. As far as these access points at the signals, staff feels that those are adequate. However, we did receive a memo from ITD. We haven't gotten their full -- their full staff report at this time. I have been in contact with Kendra quite a bit on that at ITD. They provided me a memo saying that they did approve the three access points, which, then, if you -- they -- since they were granted approval through ITD you guys can issue a Council waiver if you choose. Cavener: Mr. Mayor, follow up. Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Sticking with the -- the -- the private drives, can you tell me where are some spots in Meridian that we use private drives into commercial? Here is -- again, not the smartest person up here for sure, but when I --when I think of a --of a regional commercial use it's going to generate a lot of traffic accessing off of private drives that have smaller dimensional standards than traditional streets and roads, that causes me a little bit of pause and concern. Help me kind of understand how staff looked at that. Am I -- am I being overdramatic about this? Is this something that we should be worried about? Just give me some flavor about how you as a -- as a -- as a planner looked at that and -- and any concerns that it may have caused. Napoli: Yeah. Mr. Mayor, Council President Cavener, that's a great question. As far as when looking at this specifically in the UDC and off of State Highway 69, we haven't been in -- we have told the applicant from the start that we wouldn't be able to support these two accesses off of Spire and the drive -- the private drive aisle. You know, they still will need to meet the dimensional standards, even though it is a -- a private drive aisle it would still need to meet, you know, the roadway standards per ACHD and the city for -- depending on if they have on-street parking and those are some of the elements that we haven't seen at this time, how those are going to be designed as far as are they going to Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 58 of 81 have on-street parking, are they going to have bulb outs, those type of things and I know that Brighton is committed to doing some of those things. They have relayed that to staff. But that is part of the reason that we are not in support of these access points is our concern that, essentially, we don't want Meridian Road to turn into Eagle Road -- Cavener: Yeah. Napoli: -- with all of the access points. I think that that is ultimately what we are looking at. In my staff report I did mention that the -- the intersection of Meridian Road and Lake Hazel is going to be similar to the intersection of Fairview and Eagle, you know, in the future as far as full build out. East Lake Hazel is going to be a pretty big mobility corridor in south Meridian in the future and, honestly, for the whole Treasure Valley. I kind of look at it as almost like the future Chinden of south Treasure Valley. So, if that answers your question, yeah. Cavener: Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Parsons: Mayor, Members of the Council, if I could just add a little bit finer point onto Nick's commentary to you. So, you are correct, we -- we -- The Village is an example. I know there is the road -- the first right-in off of Eagle Road and they have that boulevard on the bulb outs and the -- the parallel parking. That's type -- the type of flavor we are going to see in this particular development. So, even though Nick says that's a private drive aisle, it's really a commercial drive aisle, but what reinforces how it's going to be designed is the pedestrian plan that you see on the screen. So, you can see here the applicant intends to build it as if it would be a street, even though it will be an easement on -- on the -- on private property. So, it will have the sidewalks, it will provide that pedestrian connectivity like it's envisioned in a mixed-use areas, but it will not be dedicated as public right of way. That's really the difference here. Simison: Yeah. And I -- I was going to follow up. I believe that the access into a very similar type development at Ten Mile off of Chinden is a private drive aisle right there next to the -- so, I think that they are actually currently in use on state facilities at the same location in other exact developments of this type in Meridian. Whether you like them or not is a different story, but I don't think it's not being applied or utilized on state highway facilities. Sorry. Additional questions for staff, who -- who -- I didn't know if others were going there. Okay. Then would the applicant like to come forward. Wardle: Mayor and Council, good evening. I guess I could say Happy New Year again. Jon Wardle. 2929 West Navigator Drive, Meridian, Idaho. 83642. Representing Brighton. Appreciate the opportunity to -- to talk about what we are referring to as Apex Zenith and let me -- I just have a few things here to show you and follow up on what staff has presented. I also want to recognize -- I should have done earlier, but Eli and Amanda McNutt are here as part of the Brighton team and have been intimately involved in both of the projects that have been in front of you tonight, so appreciate their efforts as well. Simison: Jon, I don't want to disturb you, but I think you lost one of them. Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 59 of 81 Wardle: Oh, good. She -- Eli -- she has a high school student living with her, so they needed to get home. That's good. Let me move forward here. So, Apex Zenith is approximately 150 acres at the intersection of Lake Hazel and Meridian Road. I know that you have seen this area specifically with other applications that come through, but the area that is kind of bounded here in yellow is what we were referencing tonight. In context with the overall Pinnacle project -- and when we say Apex and Pinnacle, it's the same thing. It is a county surveyor issue that we can't use the Pinnacle name on our plats, so a lot of them have Apex. But Apex and Pinnacle are the same. This is -- the corner, like I said, at Lake Hazel and Meridian Road, Highway 69, and this is viewed as a regional mixed-use area within the city. This also highlights some of the other projects which have either been approved or are in process with the city, a Northwest, Southeast, Vertex Farr, West, Phenomenal and we have another project which would be Cadence which is coming forward. I do think it's important to note that this particular roadway section of Lake Hazel from Meridian Road almost all the way to Eagle Road has been improved by us through this process. Those have been done in conjunction with ACHD through cooperative development agreements where we have funded the improvements and we do receive reimbursement from impact fees that are collected. But, you know, we are talking, you know, close to eight or nine million dollars'worth of roadway infrastructure that has been built out here. Typical in the valley is that we build developments and we don't build the roads adjacent to them to their ultimate capacity. This is different. We have been fortunate to be able to do this. So, this highlights -- the first one we did was Lake Hazel and Locust Grove. The second one was from basically Boom -- Boomerang through the frontage of the city park, Discovery, all the way over to where the fire station is. Like I said, close to, but not quite to Eagle Road. And, then, the third one we just completed was three-quarters of a mile from Apex Avenue all the way out to Meridian Road. Lake Hazel was built as a five lane road with a dual lane roundabout at Locust Grove and the parts that are directly adjacent to our property we also have created deceleration opportunities and there is turn lanes and that type of thing. You can kind of see here at the bottom of the picture here, it kind of gets lost here, but that is effective -- that picture is as of November of '24 and this is showing all the improvements that have occurred between Locust Grove and Meridian Road which directly is adjacent to this. A couple of the things that have happened out here, which are -- are unique is Gem Prep School opened up in '22 about the time that our first residents moved in. The Meridian Library opened up as well. And so we have made an investment to the community for both infrastructure services and transportation and so I just wanted to highlight those for you. Specifically the site on the future land use map is designated as mixed-use regional, which is the brown and, then, medium high density, which is kind of the orangish with the marks on them. We are not proposing any changes to the future land use map. The west half of Apex Zenith was brought into the city in 2016 into a holding pattern. The history there is the city was making a -- an effort to expand sewer in exchange for that properties needed to be brought into the city and so we were part of that in 2016 when that first began. The properties were all brought in as a holding zone, knowing that -- that wouldn't necessarily-- it doesn't lock in a preliminary plat, but it brought into the city and that future applications would be viewed in context of the Comprehensive Plan. So, before you tonight, just to give you a high level and, then, I will get into some details here. We are Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 60 of 81 requesting a rezone of the R-4 in an annexation of the area that's shown here in white. So, the yellow part is what's in the city, the white part is not. Approve a new development agreement that would supersede the one that was done in 2016 for the entire 150 acres and also approve the access points to Meridian Road and to Lake Hazel under waivers by the City Council. We are -- will be in the process of doing some property boundary adjustments on the property that will happen after these applications are reviewed and approved by the city. As Nick presented to you, we did -- we did provide context of what this area will and could be developed as. The reason that that's important is we have also built a transportation study that has been -- that is in process being reviewed with both ITD and ACHD that encompasses these uses. Encompasses what the future demands would be. Encompasses what the improvements need to be on the adjoining roads. And so maybe one of the unique things here is we have been in conversation with the city -- or with ACHD and ITD for quite a long time to ensure that we are meeting the intent of the transportation plan. So, we are looking at regional commercial in the C-G, which would be a mix of retail, office, medical. Down below there is opportunities for more retail and perhaps a multi-family and, then, in the tannish color, medium to high density, which would vary between eight to 15 units per acre overall. We are noting here as well that Prevail, which is the north-south road, which is the quarter mile east of Meridian Road, would be public, as well as Spire, as well as Aristocrat. Aristocrat is the half mile, Spire is the quarter mile and Prevail is the quarter mile off of Lake Hazel and these all have been reviewed with both ACHD and ITD respectively. So, like I said, we are rezoning the R-4 to C-G with -- as well as the frontage on Lake Hazel over to and including the Rawson Lateral. The Rawson actually takes in quite a bit of our property and so while it is a full like 19 acres rezoned, the net effective or usable area is probably more in the range of 15, but we are rezoning all of that and the balance of it would be R-15. And this kind of demonstrates what the zoning map would look like if approved by the Council. So, we have a two step process here, like Nick -- staff had mentioned to. The first step would conclude with two regional commercial and medical office sites being approved with the adjacent roadways. The second step would be detailed planning and plotting for the rest of the property that we would bring back to Council under a future process and development agreement modification, which would be very similar -- and what we did in terms of presenting to you and with Ten Mile in some of those aspects -- and I will show you here in just a minute what that means. Currently the Prevail intersection is complete, as well as all the conduit for future signal there. The right-in, right-out location is also approved off of Lake Hazel. You will notice that both of those have deceleration coming into it, so the traffic is not being stuck in a -- the two lane through lanes, but there are decelerations coming into these. These sites were approved and built with ACHD's approval anticipating this and this was part of the CDA. You can also see that there was quite a bit of work on island configuration for property owners to the north, so that they would have access in some configuration, as well as a property that you looked at as well, we built the culvert and the access up to -- I think it's called Sky Ranch. That was part of the CDA project as well. This shows you what we are planning to do with this project and we say step one, step two, these improvements are within step one, but we are breaking it up into two parts. So, Phase A or 1-A would be the public access coming off of Lake Hazel and the internal drive aisles and staff was correct, we are actually building those as if they were public roads with detached sidewalks on both sides, sufficient movement Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 61 of 81 to get cars in and out. So, we would build immediately upon approval these blue and green. And the reason for that is we have been in discussions with a user that would like to move forward and these two access points, including the underlying utility work, allows them to move forward in the process. The rest of it, the orange, we would have complete prior to any certificate of occupancy. So, we kind of need to split up some of these improvements. Part of that is we are building here another mile of roadway and turn on here and we need to get utility signed off, so a building permit process could begin and that's what's represented in the blue and green and the rest of that would be done as it relates to the rest of it and we would have that completed prior to that regional user opening. We do concur with the staff site specific conditions with the modifications recommended by the Commission. One of this was to install the buffers as -- on the exhibit and I can bring that up if you are interested. We really are going to complete most of it, but there is a little bit of work related to Meridian Road between Spire and Aristocrat that really needs to wait until that site is developing and the other one is just a simple modification of the second one, which would be to look at traffic calming, which could include such as street parking and bulb outs. The request we made on that was just simply to allow us to work with ACHD to determine what the appropriate things should be with on-street parking and bulb outs. We agree with that, but we just need a little bit of - - kind of deference to ACHD. So, with the first step we are asking Council approval of the rezone of the 71.7 acres to C-G. An annexation of the east property to include both C-G and R-15. A new development agreement for this entire area that would lock in what these uses are, including the recommendations by staff, which give you the step one, step two, and approval of the Meridian Road and Lake Hazel access points. Like I mentioned we are -- will be in process of a parcel boundary adjustment that would come back to staff for their -- their review and approval. And with that I stand for any questions you have regarding Apex Zenith. Simison: Thank you. Council, any questions for the applicant? Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: I have lots of questions. I also just think we normally don't go past 10.00 p.m. I'm not sure we are going to -- we are going to get through this one completely tonight. And I also would just encourage us to take our time, because a development of this size I think deserves a proper discussion. I did have a few questions. Maybe just starting with -- do you have an update on the timing of the ITD staff report? And, yeah, maybe we just kind of start there. Wardle: Mr. Mayor, Council Member Strader, we have been working with ITD it feels like a year and a half. Strader: Okay. Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 62 of 81 Wardle: We have meetings with ITD every other week to go over this and they have been -- ITD -- and I will mention ACHD as well -- have been very responsive to the process and as you can imagine it's iterative. The TIS is over 1 ,400 pages. Strader: Oh. Wardle: So, not all of that would be things that we would want to read, but just the nature of it and so, yes, we have submitted it. We are talking about it. ITD has made --based on what they have and their comments, especially as it relates to the connections to Meridian Road, they have said these things work and they actually do need to work, otherwise, we end up overloading Lake Hazel, which we don't want to do. Prevail is acting -- if you wanted to look at another similar project, we are not of that size and scale, but it is regional in nature. The Village. The Village has Records, which is acting as a backage road. That's Prevail. We have Aristocrat, which is similar to River Valley, which is the half mile point. And, then, you have other roads or connections that work to make that site work. This is the same two agencies we are dealing with, which is ITD and ACHD, and so they have reviewed this in context. I put that out there is that we -- because we are communicating and talking with them so frequently they have made additional requests on some information. There has been, you know, something that has been designed -- it doesn't show here, but looking at doing some sort of roundabout at this connection point here to work on some traffic circulation. So, my expectation is that the report is forthcoming or there -- I would say their acceptance of it is, but the key points related to the overall size of the project, what we are proposing here, they are intimately involved in those details and we are making the pieces that you see in front of you here are consistent with what they are telling us will be needed for the project. Like we had mentioned, we have -- one of the things is not just coordination on how we connect to Highway 69, Meridian Road, but there are other things to be considered and so as staff mentioned we have been in conversations with ITD on a STARS agreement here that would not only address things here, but also in some expanded areas. There are some -- what's the right word? Bumpers, guardrails, with a STARS agreement. Part of that is, you know, how -- how and when you enter into it and because we have had discussions that's -- we are all on the same page, but there is also -- how do you phase improvements? What is the timing of improvements. So, we want to make sure that we are addressing what is needed for that type of use, which also includes -- the comment was made by staff of some deceleration lanes and those are already anticipated on Meridian Road. Those are into the design. We actually are designing Meridian Road right now on our section of Meridian Road between Lake Hazel and Columbia, but specifically down to Aristocrat. We are already designing it for a seven lane road. We would build it to a seven lane road. Now, that gets striped off until there is receiving pieces on each end and part of that is some -- some of those things we can address and -- within that agreement, but we are anticipating what the final full build out will be of State Highway 69 and making those improvements to our project at the very beginning. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 63 of 81 Strader: Yeah. So, curious how the timing would work with us as decision makers at what point do you expect your STARS agreement to be ironed out and I -- let's just start there. Wardle: Since we have been in this process with them for over a year, you -- there is also discussions that they are looking at because there is projects in process already that have -- have or will have to commit to certain improvements or ACHD has improvements that are part of their five year integrated work plan, which they have already funded and so we are trying to find that place in between and so that's part of the conversations of what improvements could be made within the guardrails of the STARS agreement. Our hope would be that the STARS agreement would be executed, assuming we can find the projects that make sense within this project and for them and for ACHD, within the next six months. Regardless, the improvements that we are making to this project were beneficial from day one and we have also put in -- and staff has noted in here that before we come to you with anything else is that requirement is in place before we come back for phase two and so I just make that note to you that there is more work to be done, but there is a chicken and egg here and we are telling you we are committing to these improvements that you are seeing here. We do not intend to -- to do what is directly adjacent to us as piecemeal and let somebody else deal with it. There are just other elements of the STARS agreement -- because you only get to do one per project and so we need to get all those components together and that's why that's just taking more time. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Yeah. I understand. I'm just -- because I think a lot of the concerns around Meridian Road are definitely going to be having the decel lane and having everything kind of ironed out, so I guess --just so I understand, your request is for the Council to go ahead and approve the first step, but the STARS agreement really wouldn't be in place yet. So, I just need to think through that. There is a lot of moving parts there. Wardle: Mr. Mayor, if I can just like highlight the one point there with Council Woman Strader. We are -- in addition to the road width that would be needed for the three lanes, we are adding the deceleration lanes on our frontages and so there would be deceleration coming up to Lake Hazel. There would be a deceleration lane coming up to this right-in, right-out. There is a deceleration lane coming up to Spire Street. There is a deceleration -- a little bit of a deceleration coming up to Aristocrat. So, we are not just trying to do a little Band-Aid on it, we want those improvements complete as it relates to this project and that -- that's what we are showing you here as part of the step one, while some of those other elements, which are not directly adjacent to us, which we can't completely control, but we will be able to continue that dialogue with ITD. Strader: So, all -- but all of the deceleration work along Meridian Road would occur with your first phase; is that correct? Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 64 of 81 Wardle: Mr. Mayor, Council Member Strader, directly adjacent to us, yes. Strader: Right. Okay. Wardle: We -- we do have a little bit extra work that needs to occur at the intersection of Lake Hazel and Meridian Road. We just rebuilt that intersection. We actually built it so it fits the ultimate capacity. There will be a little bit of changes with pedestrian ramps and things like that. What we don't control is that other corner where there was a comment about some deceleration, but we are hoping that with an existing right of way that that could be accommodated. There is additional width that can be there. There is just some ultimate build up may -- on that side may require that developer to participate either from a donation or dedication of right of way or bring a project forward. But we are intimately in the details on this and committing to improving directly adjacent to this project. Strader: Okay. All right. I will -- I have a few more, but I will hold off. There may be other Council Members asking the same questions. Thank you. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: President Wardle, this is a big project -- really -- really a very large project and I was thinking a little bit about, you know, 20 years from now if you live in south Ada county this is almost kind of a -- a gateway entrance into -- into Meridian and so I am going to need some time to really kind of process this big of a project. I just want to kind of be up front with you. But one of the things that -- that would help me is if there was kind of a -- feel like a better word -- again, that --that comprehensive master plan that kind of outlines kind of the --the overall goal. I know you have provided something that's high level. Staff was looking for something more comprehensive. Help me understand where is -- where is that disconnect coming from? What's -- what's prohibiting you and -- and -- and part of that is -- Mr. Wardle, is there is going to be a lot of different uses and -- right? When we --when I look at the multi-family portion, understanding phasing and timing, right, because while some of the schools that would support this development today are over capacity, that may not be the case six years from now, but -- but we are granting some entitlements today and -- and I want to have some good assurances of a phasing plan probably built into the DA that guides where we are headed. So, I know it's a lot to throw at you late at night, but help me kind of get caught up to where you are where that maybe you didn't think that that was quite needed for this type of a project. Wardle: Mr. Mayor, Council President Cavener, great questions. We really started with the building blocks of what does the long range infrastructure need to be and not make that an afterthought and so we really started with what -- what is -- what's the right way for us to plan for transportation, as well as the connectivity pieces which are super important as well, but high level of service transportation and so that's what really we looked at here. We are asking for some leeway in terms of starting and, then, bringing Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 65 of 81 back to you the full plan. When I said earlier that we -- this is very similar to Ten Mile. The reason I say it's very similar to Ten Mile is if you recall we came back to the city after entitlements were well under way and provided a full set of design guidelines and this only represents four pages of an 80 page document that we intend to do here as well. So, we are asking for an opportunity to start, but with the commitment that what you see outside of red here, that's on hold until we bring you the details. We have a fairly significant investment to make and I think we have demonstrated that our investments are forward thinking. If you look at Lake Hazel as a whole, ACHD's commitment is just extend or expand the right of -- a little bit and we will figure it out sometime else. We didn't want to do that here and so we are -- we are committing to some roadways already right off the bat. We are -- but we are asking for that consideration and for that consideration putting that into development agreement that beyond phase one we need to have that overall plan. We are -- we are not far off with what staff is asking for. I will tell you that we do want to have a master plan that is malleable and the reason I say that is if the master plan is so rigid with building types, road layouts, that are in these super blocks, it always has to come back for a development agreement modification and I think because we are going to be coming back to you for development agreement modification we can give you a lot of the information on those other properties and we are not asking for those approvals today from a platting or entitlement --well, from a zoning perspective, yes, but they would still have to come back for preliminary plats and I would expect that there probably would be some additional modifications to development, which would include the overall design guidelines for this project. Cavener: Mr. Mayor, maybe just one -- Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Mr. Wardle, I'm going to -- I'm going to be selfish a little bit for a minute. If the Council were to take some action tonight the likely user for this product will be reported tomorrow and people in south Meridian that I represent in District 6 are going to call and ask me what's the plan. I don't think that I can convey to them what the long-range plan is for this, outside of the entitlements that we have given. So, it's -- it's hard for me on a project that is this large in scope and use and is going to be wickedly successful. I had to educate my wife multiple times about ex-parte communication, because she reads in the newspaper what the use is. She wants to talk to me about it. There is lots of excitement for this and I -- and I share that. I just am very reluctant to be supportive recognizing your organization's reputation and not concerned that you aren't going to do the things that you say it is that this is a project that is large in terms of its user and its impact in south Meridian and I really feel that I'm going to need some greater detail in terms of planning and timing before I -- I can get over that hurdle to be supportive in terms of an action tonight. Conceptually, yeah, I'm there. But in terms of granting entitlement and use, I -- I need to see more. I need to see how these mix of uses are going to interact and support each other. I'm going to need to understand when each piece is proposed to come online. You have given us a great mile marker for the large user and that's exciting, but I look at a little bit of a similar type of project, right, at Ten Mile and Chinden where there were things that, man, if-- if we had all of that before us at the start we -- we Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 66 of 81 probably would have moved some things around, so it's -- it's better for our -- our community in terms of our -- our residents, as well as those that are visiting. So, it's just -- it's feedback and it's also -- I recognize it is -- it is late and I do tend to get a little rummy after 9:00 and so I apologize for my -- my ramblings, but I'm also trying to convey that I am supportive conceptually, but I don't quite think that I'm there to be supportive in terms of an action this evening. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: I do have one question and I'm going to contextualize it a little bit with a comment that was made. We are sensitive to creating another Eagle Road here. I can see -- I think, you know, we will -- you will be very successful. You guys have done a lot of good things. I can see Meridian Road from the 1-84 down here becoming -- there is going to be a lot more traffic, a lot more demand. We obviously see what's going on in Kuna and their tremendous growth. We could very well have another Eagle Road scenario. So, know I need to personally start to look at the whole stretch of Meridian Road and kind of the plans. I would like to see what ITD -- some of their -- some of their comments or plans. So, could you do two things. Speak to, if you have it, in the traffic impact study does it kind of evaluate that stretch from 1-84 to your property at all in terms of -- of that and does it kind of consider, you know, the future land uses that have already been approved and kind of the future land use that we have and, then, also how -- how do feel better knowing that some of these access points along here don't just look, again, like kind of Meridian Road with all these access points. Just if you could make a few comments to that. Wardle: You bet. Mr. Mayor, Council Member Taylor, great questions. When we started the process with ACHD and ITD we put together a scoping memo. The scoping memo looks at intersections of interest. We went as far north as Overland. We went as far south as Deer Flat. We went all the way over to Ten Mile and we went all the way over to Cloverdale. So, those were all modeled in the exhibit. There were some considerations made, for example, on Overland and Meridian Road. That is a -- it's an interesting study area and ITD and ACHD said that's ours. Look at the other ones. And so you start looking at thresholds. So, we look -- that was where we started. The transportation study was really broken into four parts. What exists today with the approvals that already are there today. Step two was what are those, plus our phase one, which is what's -- sorry. I'm directionally challenged tonight. That phase one is what's in red. Then they run out to 2035. They have in their model all of the transportation projects that they anticipate that will happen. That's called background, which also includes our phase one, and, then, they look at the rest of our project on top of that and so there are improvements with the background, plus our first phase that we are anticipating dealing with with this first phase. If you -- it would be making sure the Lake Hazel is a minimum five lane intersection with the turn lanes, which we have. We have already done that. There is some stuff that needs to happen on the other side. Make sure that we are building out to a seven lane road in this section. So, those things are all modeled into there and, then, they start Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 67 of 81 looking at some of the other things that will happen long term. So, there is some other projects that are potential, but in reality I think that the long range improvements that will be -- that we will be able to affect is what falls between Columbia and Amity and making sure that that section of mile and a half to two miles of road can function as best as possible. There is still this negotiation. We need to look at that. ITD -- there might be some right of way that needs to be acquired and they -- because it will be a STARS agreement that would be them. But we would be the ones that would work through the ultimate improvements on this type of project. So, when I say the first step here, the -- this part that's in red, that's modeled into what the improvements we are showing you. With the background as it exists today and projects that they are already seeing, as well as what our first phase would be. I do know --just -- sorry. You are going to have a follow up. ITD continues to refine their improvements on State Highway 69. The company has changed, but previously it was called Six Mile is their consultant doing all of the design work from -- it's really south of Overland Road. Somewhere between Overland and Victory is what they are really looking at. All the way to Kuna. So, they have mapped that out and they are looking at a six to seven lane road through here and they are also saying that likely there are -- where signals would happen would be at the half mile and where there are commercial uses, things like we are showing here, the quarter mile or the eighth mile connections are needed, otherwise, the surrounding roads -- in this case Lake Hazel or the other arterials -- become so overwhelmed that those systems fail. Let's get people in, but, then, get them out a different way without pushing everybody back to Lake Hazel. So, that's all within what we are already modeling with ITD. Taylor: And, Mr. Mayor, just one quick follow-up. Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Is all this wonderful stuff in this 1,400 page TIS that we will eventually have at some point to review? Wardle: Yes. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Couple quick ones. There is, obviously, some tiny little county parcel here I'm worried about. It feels like a Big City Green situation. I don't know if your kids ever watched that cartoon, but there is like a little farm and it's surrounded by skyscrapers. Just curious real quick. What's going on with that? That was a quick question. Wardle: Mr. Mayor, the parcel that Council Members Strader is referring to is this little white parcel right there. That's the Davises and we have met with the Davises. They actually came to the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting. We have had a lot of conversations with them. Trying to see if I have got a good aerial here. I probably do not. I will just stick on that one. They currently have -- if you can see my cursor here, but they currently have a private drive that comes across our property and comes in about right Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 68 of 81 here just south of what Spire would be. Our conversations with them is we would give them direct access. We would build them a new access coming down to Aristocrat, so that they are--we would remove an uncontrolled intersection on Meridian Road and move it up to Spire, but, then, give them full access here at this road. They are not -- well, won't speak for them, but we -- they wanted to stay there and so as we come through with our future plans, which we are not proposing anything other than making the connection for them, if they are residential use and we are commercial around them we do need to consider the buffering for them and we have already committed to that. So, as well as, you know, giving them a path by which they could come into the city in the future and have access to the utilities that would be at their back door literally. So, we made the commitment to them. I made it on the public record and we will continue to meet with them and commit to that, that we will buffer them if -- if they remain and make sure that their access gets them down to Aristocrat in a very safe and meaningful way. That access likely becomes an internal drive aisle for us as well north to south between those two. As you know that you -- you front commercial out onto the Meridian Road with making sure we have access back behind, but we would make sure that they had access between both of those roadways in the future. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: It's obviously not an ideal situation. Would -- would be best if -- if their plans were different and kind of aligned, so that you could pick up that parcel, but at the same time we have to respect, you know, their way of life and -- and everything and that they are doing, so I think having some detail around your thoughts there would be helpful. I think that it -- it's really hard with -- I think trying to sort of approve a bubble plan, you know, for something this complex. I think that this is the start of a great conversation, you know, and -- and we will continue the conversation and I think, you know, hopefully -- hopefully as -- as that process kind of continues you can -- you can come back to us with as much information as you have available. I think that could only help. But I do worry - - again, you know, we don't want to create a little island there. So, we want to make sure that that -- that we treat those folks with respect and that -- that there is a way to, yeah, get them connected to utilities and, again, I don't want to see a Big City Green situation created in Meridian, so -- I don't know. I'm a little worried about that. I would love to see the -- I -- I would love to see the TIS or at least more information from ITD would be very helpful. So -- I don't know. It's a lot to think about. One more question for me just why the private drive approach? What benefit does it provide the project? Wardle: Mr. Mayor, Council Member Strader, honestly, it -- it really comes down to a function of what ACHD really allows to connect and if you look at the intervals here, quarter mile, half mile are those public type roads that connect. The intervening between those, those end up being drive aisles and just point of reference, The Village has those, both on Fairview and Eagle Road, in addition to some public roads, but they have these drive aisles that come in. Winco on Linder and 20-26 has these. They have a backage road, but they also have a couple of drive aisles coming into the site that allows some Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 69 of 81 movement. The Costco project has this as well. Even at Ten Mile. We have some of this as well. So, it's not uncommon. If we don't have the drive aisles coming in -- and they won't be public, but if we don't have the drive aisles coming in, then, Lake Hazel has no chance of functioning. Strader: So -- so, is it really because of the bureaucratic structure of ACHD and ITD basically? If it's not a quarter mile or a half mile it just has to be a private drive aisle, because it just doesn't work according to their policies? Is that kind of what you are saying? Wardle: I -- I would -- Mr. Mayor, Council Woman Strader, I -- their policies typically on corridors like this would be to limit them and it would be at that spacing, quarter, half mile, three quarter mile. They have indicated -- and I think there will be some clarity, but the residential uses that could and would happen would be pushing to the quarter and half mile and those likely would not have the right-in, right-outs, but these commercials really need them. They don't -- they do not function -- and, then, you have another iteration or round of conversations as that traffic pushes out into neighborhoods. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Thank you very much for indulging me. I -- I -- I -- just one more comment. I think for me I think it's great that we have already been through a Costco together, although I wasn't on the Council at the time, but a couple of my colleagues were. I -- I think that's great that you have all that feedback from that project, from neighbors, because I would hope that at least you could look at how the kind of feedback you got on the Costco in north Meridian -- I think you can hear from folks -- and even the Winco as well and sort of look at what some of the feedback was on where they wanted delivery trucks to go and the nice thing is you are here first, so anybody that moves in residential knows what they are getting into, so it's a little bit different--a different order of operations which I very much appreciate. But I guess I would just encourage you to kind of go through that feedback again and just make sure, because I think a lot of the feedback from the neighbor has really improved those projects and a lot of it had to do with, you know, where trucks were delivering things, what time they are delivering it. I don't know if you have to go to all that excruciating detail, but I thought there was a lot there, so that's just a suggestion. There is a lot here. I'm -- I'm going to need to mull it over a bit more, but I think I'm similar to Councilman -- Council President Cavener in the sense that I'm looking for a bit more. Maybe there is a -- maybe there is kind of a compromise between a bubble plan and something that's, you know, a level -- I don't think we need an excruciating level of detail either, but I think there needs to be a bit more meat on the bone for something of this size is just my general feedback so far. Wardle: Mr. Mayor, Council Member Strader, I do want to highlight that this has been -- this request has been done. I'm going to see if this works, but we came in in 2019 with a bubble plan showing how we would make connections. We gave you a zoning plan, we Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 70 of 81 gave you details of how we would make infrastructure happen at quarter miles, half miles, that type of thing, but we only brought in two pieces and everything that we have developed since then has been within the context of that approval and we have brought those back to you. We need some -- we need an opportunity to provide you more details and we are committing to do that, but we do need to commence with what we are showing you today, so that we can make improvements regardless of who the user may or may not be -- or users out here. These things are -- they take time and we -- that's what we are asking for. But our time is also backed by a significant investment to improvements. It's not like, hey, we will do it at some point. We are telling you we are doing them -- we are going to do them now, but we need to do this in a two step process. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Yeah. I get that. And I think because of how you have delivered on other improvements for similar projects than community, I think most people will give you a fair amount of leeway to accomplish that. I just want to maybe express my biggest fear. My biggest fear is saying please go ahead and we do it based off this bubble plan and, then, I think the biggest thing that we could screw up to me would be if we don't have clear communication from ITD, because that has been a -- a stumbling block for us on certain projects in the past where they do take a lot of time and, then, suddenly they come back to us like with the last piece of Ten Mile is just one example with significant feedback that they, then, want to provide. I just -- if there is any way to get ahead of that and get more from them, even if it's not the full report, even if it's just -- I think the biggest concern so far would be the number of access points along Meridian Road, for example, and understanding the timing and commitment on the deceleration lanes. Like that for me is kind of the -- the biggest piece that I just -- I want to make sure that ITD is in this conversation with us to a greater degree. I don't know how -- how else to convey that, but -- Wardle: Yeah. Mr. Mayor, Council Woman Strader, it's a -- it's a fair request. All I can tell you is they are intimately involved in the details here and they have given you a letter stating they do agree with these access points based on what they see this project to be, the access points that we are requesting at Aristocrat, Spire and, then, that eighth mile work for them and that's not with arm twisting, that's just a function of working through an overall plan, talking through details on where cars and people will go and what will be needed for this development. Simison: And if I could add in, because I think -- I don't want to confuse two things, but I also want to make them -- you know, we are talking about two different things in a lot of ways. We are talking about what would be ordinary and necessary for the development to function and, then, we are talking about a TIS, which is about how they want corridor improvements to be done, which are irrespective of whether or not this project moves forward. You know, it's the -- the user that you are -- you are talking about going here is not dictating what happens at Deer Flat, what happens at Amity, how they want to have Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 71 of 81 access controlled along this corridor, how they want to be seven lanes ultimately. You know, what you are talking about doing is accelerating those improvements that they want to have done long term through this process, but not necessarily because of your development and so there is a bifurcation there in the context of what the TIS says versus this development, this application. Really what this development -- this application is -- is only about the deceleration and the access points really the -- make them function, which is what ITD has referenced. Everything else is above and beyond. I think that Costco up north was a little different scenario, because you didn't even have adequate capacity at that point in time on those roadways, so it was necessary, but we are not -- we are not at the capacity issue on -- on either of these roadways in the functionality in this part of the community. Maybe at Eagle and Overland, but not generally as it pertains to this issue. So, there -- there is that one part of it that's not -- they are not totally tied together in my opinion. You may want it, but I don't know that it goes to the application. The one -- the one thing I do want to at least highlight to say, you know, from the right-in, right-out issues, I think the biggest mix at Chinden and Ten Mile is the fact that you don't have the right-in, right-out before you get to a full access that clogs down that drive aisle, because you have -- you never have a break and you don't have an easy way for people to get out. So, I think they are right-in, right-out -- as I sit here and I have been like mentally going through my head I look at, you know, Eagle and Overland with Silverstone where you have got 1/8th, 1/8th, a little side road to cut through. You look at Ten Mile and Franklin, you have got 1/8th and 1/8th around the bank right there., So these 1/8th, 1/8ths I think that they exist throughout our community in a lot of ways for these right-out -- right- in, right-outs to make sense and, honestly, the one on Eagle and Overland by the Lucky Perk, because you would probably become a right-in, right-out, instead of a full access, because you are crossing two lanes, plus the left-hand turn lane, plus the center turn lane and so it's -- you know, my -- my point is what you are proposing through this -- what ITD has said and what ACHD has said, these are principles that we are applying throughout all of our cities, larger commercial or developments that I can mentally see in that context and I think that we are getting a better outcome with the multiple right-in, right-outs without blocking people into other areas of this development that can get really bogged down when you don't need them. Again, I don't know what's going to go up front. I don't have any idea what these users are and, you know, if-- if it was a fuel center and one hundred percent right-in, right-out, get them in, get them out, because not everyone must go into the store, but I don't know that that's what this -- is going up there. I have no idea. So, I just want to say that. I think that these are smart traffic investments in this property, as well as everything else, and, you know, I know I have -- I have had the luxury of sitting down with ITD and talking about this. I feel like I'm in a different place than probably Council is in that context and I know that they are working together and they are -- they are trying to solve challenges that have also been created further down this corridor with other entitlements to developments that you can't limit it to half mile, because you have -- they have already been entitled for other things. So, half mile is not necessarily the case anymore. So, I don't know if I hurt or helped or whatnot, but I just want to say thank you. At the end of the day whatever Council does tonight or moving forward, these are noticeable improvements, long track record, good -- good things that are going to happen and even the last application that was approved was predicated on what you are proposing and so I don't think anyone's questioning whether that makes sense, because Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 72 of 81 we did single family in a lot of ways understanding the multi-family- commercial was coming to this part of this project, at least in my head, and I can't say what was in Council's said. I will shut up. We do have one other person on the line. I don't know if she is waiting to testify. If the individual online is wanting to testify could you use the raise your hand, so we can know -- we can at least get that in before any -- yes, they are looking to testify. So, Council, do you mind if we -- okay. Well, then, everyone had an opportunity to ask questions, so we will go ahead and invite Julie speak. Or provide testimony. Edwards: Hello. My name is Julie Edwards. I live at 1310 East Mary Lane, Meridian, Idaho. 83642. So, I guess I'm a little confused when we are looking at just the overview map of that intersection, what it sounds like to me is he is wanting to get those 8th, 8th roads, 8th streets approved is one of the things, but I thought in -- in one of the other slides the building that was going in there was along a south road. I can't remember if that was Spire. I think it was Spire. And in reading some of the back story about it there was supposed to be a certain amount of building frontage along Meridian Road, so I guess -- yeah. So, where it says Building A, I guess it was requested that Building A be moved along Meridian Road. That was my understanding. So, I'm kind of confused why we are worried about these 8th --what do you want to call them? Eighth mile roads, if the building will have to be relocated anyways. Like that -- to me that kind of seems like a moot point, that Spire and Prevail would just be the entrances and exits and Aristocrat and whatever else is coming to the east of that development. So, that's one thing, if that makes sense. The other one is with Lake Hazel now being a -- you know, soon to be a future through street to the highway, why we are going to put in a stoplight a quarter mile in from Meridian when we have already put in a roundabout at Locust Grove and Lake Hazel, another roundabout going in -- I believe at Eagle and Lake Hazel and so why we are just doing that stoplight at Meridian and Lake Hazel -- stop light at Lake Hazel and -- not sure what -- Prevail, when we want traffic to keep flowing. It just seems like that's a -- a poor stopping point. Let's see what else? Just another option -- I know you want right-in, right- out if it does come to that, but is there anything -- when you just have a right-in and not a right-out, because if you are on Locust Grove -- if you can picture it just south of Fairview, there is a D&B right there and everybody exits through a subdivision behind D&B and the back way out of D&B onto Locust Grove, which I don't know if that's an eighth mile south of Fairview. Probably not. But people pulling out there onto Locust Grove -- it's a nightmare, especially when they want to go left, yes, that's a problem, but when there is rush hour traffic or just regular day traffic, sometimes you can't even get out right and so, you know -- I don't know. It just seems like it will be a very congested corner with -- with all of those entrances and exits and, yeah, that's -- I have plenty more to say, but -- I have got random notes on my page, so that's what I have for tonight. Simison: Okay. Thank you, Julie. Council, any questions? No question. I just will share in that area it -- I mean trust me, I -- I have -- I have been very critical of south Meridian where we go roundabout, light, roundabout, light. Lake Hazel is currently -- we do have roundabouts and the Eagle, Lake Hazel, will be a light. We do have a light coming out of the park on the other side of the roundabout. So, lights and roundabouts are currently intermixed and -- and developed in this corridor. So, it's not going to feel free flowing in every aspect, that that is how they are existing currently with the plans. Council, any Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 73 of 81 additional questions, comments? I know we have kind of paused and I don't know if others have questions that they want to get out to Jon at this point in time. Okay. Jon, would you like to come back up and make -- I'm not sure what's -- if they are going to want to continue, if they are going to -- what they are going to do. This is technically your closing comments, but I'm going to give you the last word and see what happens. Wardle: Give me just one second here. Nick, can I re-share again? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Sorry about that little technology issue. So, I appreciate the opportunity just to kind of talk through what our -- again what our request is before you tonight. We are making a -- or requesting to make a substantial infrastructure improvement from day one, which is represented here. These roadways that we are showing here would all be complete prior to the opening of whatever user would be coming out there, including the frontages along Meridian Road, which touch our property and so part of that request is, you know, what does the rest of the project look like and we have tried to be as -- as specific as we can at this point in time, showing you how the roadway system works, what those uses would be, how those uses have been captured within our -- our studies and what would be forthcoming through future approvals to you. One of the -- one of the items that was just mentioned regarding, you know, frontages and how things would be. As we look specifically at whatever this user could or would be and how they would be orienting that specifically to Meridian Road, becomes problematic from loading trucks and that type of thing, getting them on these public roads, specifically the loading for this would be against Prevail. There would be an access coming in in front of here and also off of Spire Street, kind of two sides of what we -- what we think would happen. That's why that one has been oriented that way. The rest of it, though, we do have the opportunity and will work with the mixed-use designations of orienting those buildings and like I have over here on the right-hand side we have a lot more frontage on Meridian Road and other roads where those would happen. But as it relates to this specific one that's shown on parcel one, that's how that one would be laid out. Again, we are doing a two-part process here. One is we are asking for the Council to agree to the rezone and annexation as proposed, allowing us to move the process forward, so that we can work on adjacent roads and, then, continue to refine and bring to this Council and the Planning and Zoning Commission, for that matter, and, then, this Council more details related to phase two. So, that's our request of you tonight and we would request your approval as proposed. Simison: Thank you. Questions? Little Roberts: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Little Roberts. Little Roberts: I just feel like I should put it out there, considering what we have gone through with other projects and how long they take and how long you have already been working with them. I'm actually very comfortable with -- with where things are and would move forward tonight. I know I knew more about a previous STARS project and, you know, they do kind of tend to work themselves out as you are working through things. So, I also don't have a problem that they are still working that out. That just kind of comes -- Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 74 of 81 tends to come -- not always, but tends to come along as -- as bigger projects are happening. So, however comfortable everybody else is, I would suggest we proceed. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: This is good feedback, because I think that's probably why I feel a lot of discomfort, size of the project, the complexity and I don't think I have been through the - -the same process with the STARS agreement. I joined the Council after those approvals were made on the other projects I'm thinking of. But I have seen -- like I think part of the reason I have the sensitivity around it and I wish ITD was kind of in the room with us just to provide more confidence, because I have seen where deceleration lanes were missing and there were some -- you know -- and -- and they are not huge misses, but there have been some details on the execution of those that -- that was a little bit problematic. You know, I -- I -- I do get a lot of confidence from -- from who this group is, you know, and -- and I guess, you know, maybe it's -- I think I could -- I could wrap my head around the phase one if there is a commitment to come back maybe with a lot more -- a lot more detail in -- in a shorter -- in a shorter time frame. I -- I just wouldn't want us to get to where it's like this is zoned and so, you know, there is going to be a huge gap between when -- when you would come back to us. I kind of wish you could just almost come back with -- even if it's like a six month status update or -- or whatever, something maybe even shorter than that, just as the information comes, particularly from ITD and I think I'm just -- and I want to be respectful of our partners at ITD. I know they work very hard and they have a very complicated job. They are under resourced. At the same time, though, we have had a couple of recent examples where we are suddenly getting feedback on a huge area of the city and it's really delayed and too late to do anything. You know, I would just feel much better if they were further in this conversation than just that letter. Parsons: Mayor, Council, if I can give you some context. I have been working with Brighton and Nick. Thank you, Nick, for your assist on this, because he and I have been working closely on it. But originally Brighton's plan was to come in with lesser property. Just come in with the annexed piece and figure out the details of the annexation. But as staff we felt very adamant about coming in with the entire thing, so we could share the picture with all of you at the -- at the very front end, rather than coming back through multiple amendments like we have done on these other bigger projects. It's just easier to disclose it. We are going to rezone this. We are going to annex this. And that's why staff also supported the float, because that way we can show you that, hey, they are meeting the intent of those mixed-use regional guidelines by adding the employment that we need in this area. So, again, a lot of things happening behind the scenes, but I wanted to let you know that this was -- a lot of this was meeting with the applicant and talking with them that it may be in your best interest to come forward with the entire property and your plan, so that hopefully anyone out there that had concerns with it would know ahead of time rather than going two years from now saying we didn't know this was happening, because it wasn't disclosed when we bought our properties. Like that's why we are here tonight, Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 75 of 81 we wanted to disclose it and I think it's worked well. I know there is nobody out there at this time, but I think that was really the driver of why you see a bubble plan tonight with some of the details and not all of the details. So, I just wanted to let Mayor and Council know that it really was kind of an effort between both parties to make sure that we were trying to be --as most--as transparent as we possibly could, at the same time recognizing that more details are needed and that's why in the DA provisions that we provided in front of you this evening we have required the applicant to come back and give us those details. You will get another bite at the apple. Simison: Maybe to that point, between you and the applicant, when -- when -- when do you think you would have the next time you would come back with any element to Council? You know, obviously, based -- I'm not sure how much you can do based on what your time frames were where you are hoping to have certain things done by 2026. What would dictate the next time you show back up here? Wardle: Mr. Mayor, good question. My -- Council Member Strader suggested, you know, a check-in point. I -- I'm -- I'm happy to do that. I'm happy to come back if you want in six months or as -- if things progressed prior to that we could even memo staff on what's going on. In fact, it may not be out of the realm of having your staff involved in those weekly check-ins or biweekly check-ins with ITD as well, so they are in the loop of that process. So, I would be happy to come back in -- if you felt like three months -- I don't know that I would have an update in three months, but no longer than six months. If you would like to see us provide you a written update as to what's going on and, then, if you want me to come to Council as well and discuss that, happy to do that as well. So, we can commit to a update in whatever frequency and willing to come to Council and discuss that. Simison: Well, maybe my question was more not an update, but when will your next development application of some sort that would have Council input -- of -- of rational -- I mean, again,just trying to get an understanding, what--what-- how far can you go before you have got to come back here with something officially? Wardle: Mr. Mayor, we -- we have the properties outside of what we showed you in red require a platting process, so we need to come back to you fairly soon to discuss all of that. Simison: And that's where I was going -- Wardle: Yeah. Simison: -- you guys have a time frame in mind where that -- Wardle: I would like to be back with full applications on all of that no later than October of this year and part of that is we -- you know, it -- there is a preliminary plat associated with it. Lot lines. We have got to work out some things. But that would have also -- that would be part of the phase two and we would have design guidelines and other things Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 76 of 81 like that altogether. So, it would be late this year I think more applications would be in front of you related to that. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Do you have a timing issue if a decision is not rendered this evening? Do you have like a contract issue or something? I -- I think that would be helpful to understand. Wardle: Mr. Mayor, Council Woman Strader, we do. We do have some commitments and obligations we are trying to fulfill and part of that is this entitlement process. And this entitlement process we have in front of you tonight allows us to move forward with improvements that we are demonstrating we want to do at the very beginning. So, a delay does have a cascading effect. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Yeah. I think the concept of sort of the -- never heard it used before, the bubble. It's kind of intriguing and I actually when you hold out your little finger and your -- your red line, as I was thinking about how that has developed over the years, kind of gave me a little higher level of assurance that I could see your -- your thinking here in terms of like the need to be able to move forward, but because of the scope and size it's really challenging to put some specifics to it. I do think it would be concerning had we not seen something like this in the city or, you know, in the valley before, but we have, we have seen it. We know the track record here and I think there is a high level of confidence, so -- I do -- my only hesitation is sometimes I'm not sure ITD learns their lessons on -- on things and so -- so, you know, I still wonder a little bit if Meridian Road becomes a new Eagle Road in terms of that, but I know that there is a lot of roadway there, it's not just your project, but I also think that this has the potential of being one of the sort of real landmark developments in south Meridian that's going to spur a lot of activity down there. But I'm pretty comfortable I think from where I started to where I'm at with moving ahead with that tonight, if that's the will of the Council and I would support a motion to approve this tonight if that motion is made. Simison: So, it's -- it's kind of funny,just to share a story. I was driving -- doing my normal drive up to Tamarack this time of year and driving down Eagle Road and it just kind of hit me this last time that between Fairview and Ustick it is basically three lanes all the way down, with except, you know, that you have decal lanes that are in lieu of third lanes for a majority of the way in that context and I think that there is five or six access points between Fairview and Ustick on the right-hand side of that road and, again, I'm not saying -- but my point is more the traffic actually doesn't get interrupted by right-hand turning movements into those commercial spaces generally. It does get backed up at the lights and other things, but I rarely see the right-hand turning movements Impacting Eagle Road. Maybe trying -- people get over from the left to the right in some regards that can Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 77 of 81 slow things down, but say what we want about Eagle Road in a lot of ways and the challenges of lessons learned, I think ITD really is trying to do lessons learned and consolidate as many of these locations as they can, but the right-in, right-outs, which maybe we wish we had a few more and you may see that request on Chinden to solve some issues up in north Meridian in the future through other conversations that we will have with ITD and people. But the right-in, right-outs on these -- or the decel lanes on these things are crucial to the moving traffic and the success of the areas is what we are observing or I think ITD is really pushing towards. Especially, when people own all -- a half a mile of property and they have the willingness -- the ability to get full build out and necessary improvements. Little Roberts: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Little Roberts. Little Roberts: Mr. Mayor and Council, unless someone else has something they would like to add, I would like to proceed with a motion. I move that after considering all staff, applicant -- Simison: That we close the public hearing? Little Roberts: Oh. Do we need to do that first? I would like to put -- close the public hearing. Strader: Second. Simison: Motion and second to close the public hearing. Is there any discussion? If not, all in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay. The ayes have it and the public hearing is closed. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Simison: Council Woman Little Roberts. Little Roberts: Mr. Mayor, after considering all staff, applicant, and public testimony, I move we approve File No. H-2024-0052 as presented. Taylor: Second. Simison: Have a motion and a second. Is there discussion on the motion? Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: To speak to my -- my vote. Appreciate the applicant and your team. Again, you guys do a great job. My concerns still remain. I know this will be ridiculously Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 78 of 81 successful and a big win for Meridian. I see where the votes are going. Supportive of -- of where our body is moving forward, but my vote -- I will still remain a no. Simison: Okay. Is there additional information in the motion that the staff is looking for? Napoli: Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council, I just want to clarify you guys will be adopting the Commission's recommended changes; correct? With this motion? Perfect. Thank you. Simison: Motion maker says yes. The second concurs. Okay. Is there further discussion on the motion? Nary: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Mr. Nary. Nary: Just to be clear, I know it's in the -- the -- I believe it's in the motion, but there was a specific request for the access that ITD is looking for and I just wanted to make sure the motion maker was also wanting that to be part of that as well. Little Roberts: Yes. Nary: Okay. Thank you. Taylor: I concur. Simison: Okay. Motion maker and the second concur on those comments by Nary. Seeing no -- nothing else, ask the clerk to call the roll. Roll Call- Cavener, nay; Strader, yea; Overton, absent; Little Roberts, yea; Taylor, yea; Whitlock, yea. Simison: Four ayes. One nay. And the motion is agreed to. MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. ONE NAY. ONE ABSENT. Simison: Okay. We look forward to working with you and I think we will have a conversation about what makes sense in a workshop coming back and talking about the work with ITD and maybe together at the appropriate time would be an important next step and anything else that could be relevant. Okay. All right. Council, we have reached the end. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Mr. Cavener. Meridian City Council January 14,2025 Page 79 of 81 Cavener: I want to commend Council tonight. These were some meaty issues and we could have punted on -- on this last one and I just -- I want to credit the body with sticking with it and working through it and making the right decision. So, with that, Mr. Mayor, move that we adjourn tonight's meeting. Little Roberts: Second. Simison: Motion and second to adjourn. All in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it. We are adjourned. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 10:46 P.M. (AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) 1 / 28 2025 MAYOR ROBERT SIMISON DATE APPROVED ATTEST: CHRIS JOHNSON - CITY CLERK