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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2007 01-08 Joint ACHD February 9, 2007 MERIDIAN CITY COUNCIL MEETING February 13, 2007 APPLICANT ITEM NO. 7 - B REQUEST Approve Minutes of January 8, 2007 City Council Special Joint Workshop AGENCY COMMENTS CITY CLERK: CITY ENGINEER: CITY PLANNING DIRECTOR: CITY ATTORNEY CITY POLICE DEPT: CITY FIRE DEPT: CITY BUILDING OEPT: CITY WATER DEPT: CITY SEWER DEPT: CITY PARKS DEPT: MERIDIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT: ADA COUNTY HIGHWAY DISTRICT: SANITARY SERVICE COMPANY CENTRAL DISTRICT HEALTH: NAMPA MERIDIAN IRRIGATION: SETTLERS IRRIGATION: IDAHO POWER: US WEST: INTERMOUNTAIN GAS: MERIDIAN POST OFFICE: OTHER: ~vY Contacted: Emailed: Date: Staff Initials: Phone: Materials presented at public meetings shall become property of the City of Meridian. Meridian City Council Special I Joint Meeting January 8. 2007 The Meridian City Council Special/Joint meeting was called to order at 12:00 P.M. on Tuesday, January 8, 2007 at the ACHD Auditorium by Mayor Tammy de Weerd. Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, David Zaremba, Charlie Rountree and Joe Borton. Members Absent: Keith Bird. Staff Present: Bill Nary, Kyle Raddick, Pete Friedman, Shawn Wardle and Will Berg. ACHD Commissioners Present: John Franden, Dave Bivens, Rebecca Arnold, Carol McKee. ACHD Staff Present: Susan Slaughter, Jay Schweitzer, Mike Brokaw, Bruce Mills, Terry Little, Katie Levihn and Gary Inselman. Item 1. Introduction of New City Council Member & General Introductions: Franden: -- we have known Dave for years on our obviously on our (inaudible) committee, whatever that means, but he certainly has been a wonderful representative on that committee. De Weerd: He has served six years on the Planning & Zoning Commission and I think David was the logical choice in terms of the new concentration and commitment that we have in integrating land use and transportation. David has already showed his commitment to the City of Meridian through his volunteer (inaudible) of the Planning & Zoning Commission, so we are thrilled to have him on board and we know that he is still very interested in serving on and continuing with the committee that he is committed with Ada County Highway District as well. McKee: Good deal. Welcome. Zaremba: Thank you all very much. Franden: We believe there is never reason for him not to serve on our committee. Meridian City Special/Joint Meeting January 8, 2007 Page 2 of 20 Zaremba: You did reappoint me a couple of weeks ago and I appreciate that. That was within days of the announcement that I was being appointed and appreciate both the city for giving me this opportunity and the ACHD Commission for allowing me to continue with the previous committee that I was on. Franden: Okay, well great and welcome Dave. De Weerd: Mr. Chairman just for the record, we have Councilmen Rountree, Borton and Zaremba and myself present. Franden: Oh, I am sorry you needed to do a roll call. Item 2. Update on Ten Mile Interchange Specific Area Plan: Friedman: Thank you Mr. Present, Madame Mayor, Commissioners and Council members. I just want to give you a brief overview on the Ten Mile Interchange Specific Area Plan, its current status and where we are going at this point. As you - actually all of you have participated in one form or another up to this point, but the city actually kicked this process off in August. We are doing this in anticipation of the construction of the Ten Mile Interchange and in adopting the word program for this plan the Mayor and the Council saw this as an opportunity to take our comprehensive planning to a different level and in a new direction - actually wanting to develop some vision for the area prior to growth occurring rather than reacting to the growth, so in addition to including your standard land use and transportation elements, Council also had directed as part of our development of the RFP to include a design element because we want to get ahead of the development and we also want to start to foster quality growth in the area. The plan has an emphasis on - as you will see on fairly intensive commercial and employment opportunities and centers on medium and high density residential as well as future transit compatibility. We felt that it was important to identify a unified collector system that hopefully we can find a way to either get built or get coordinated prior to development rather than along side of development and we also wanted to move beyond just a traditional land use designation and move into some more qualitative standards, design standards and some policies that would at least provide us the basis for developing design guidelines in advance of development actually coming to the city. One aspect of the plan as you will see that is currently getting some attention is proposed relocation of Overland Road and I am going to be real cautious here and real brief on that. I know that the Highway District Commission has already seen a proposal that you deferred action on that. The City Council is about to receive in a few weeks a development application that has a proposed relocation of that, but given the current status of that application I think that is about as much as I am going to say about it. We will just let the two bodies work through the process in terms of getting back the appropriate responses from the city to the District Commission. So, with that I am going to just jump into a real brief Meridian City Special/Joint Meeting January 8, 2007 Page 3 of 20 presentation and then allow you to get on with the rest of your agenda. So, this is our study area for the Ten Mile Specific Area Plan. You can see that the railroad tracks form the northern boundary, pretty much that is Lamont Road on the south, McDermott on the west and on (inaudible) of Linder on the east. We are at the end of phase four; we are just moving towards the adoption and implementation element of the plan. Staff has already made a land use map amendment application to the city and we are finishing our review of the text of the plan and hope to have that back from our consultants by the end of this month. As you all know, a designed charrette, which is an innovative process between public stakeholders, property owners, city officials, elected officials was really one of the hall marks of this process. It was a four day event that occurred at the end of September. During that event we reviewed land use and transportation alternatives. We refined them. We had design alternatives. We tested them against with people when they walked in, we had focused stakeholder interviews and out of that process we developed a draft plan. As you can see we are above working on land use and transportation simultaneously. The land use plan is built upon a continuum of jobs, housing, more jobs, open space and transit. That formed the basis of our work with the property owners and the stakeholders in the area. The plan as we received it has three key elements. A land use element that as I said earlier really focuses a lot on mixed use and higher density residential and when I say mixed use that is not only mixed use residential and commercial, but mixed employment opportunities as well as higher density employment opportunities. We have a transportation element that focuses on connectivity, combining accesses; one of our implementations recommendations is to find a mechanism to try to possibly get sections of the plan, which I will show you in a moment, built in advance of development and we are having some ongoing discussions with District staff on how we might accomplish this and then there is a design element which looks at the more qualitative aspects of development and will provide us for sort of the basis of developing future guidelines so that as development comes to the city we can give them some direction on those types of (inaudible) features that the city through the Council would like to see in the area. Again, there is our land use continuum that moves from low density residential primarily south of the freeway and builds as you move north through the high density employment and into medium density residential, higher density residential as well as a life style center located on the east side of the road. Just briefly working from west to east this designation is industrial - the railroad tracks up here to the north, McDermott Road right over here to the west. Here we have mixed office or mixed employment as it is called in the plan - low density office - high density residential, the yellow is medium residential - the lavender colors are civic sights. We have a transit site located at - or a future transit station located adjacent to the railroad tracks up here in the northeast section of the plan. These that are coming out that are kind of the lighter brown areas are community commercial; the darker brown area is a life style center which is sort of a regional shopping area that would be a mix of entertainment, retail employment, possibly some housing arrayed in a format that is different than a traditional mall. Here is more Meridian City Special/Joint Meeting January 8, 2007 Page 4 of 20 high density residential, medium density residential. This is the high density employment, sort of the corporate headquarters concept for thinking probably five, six story office buildings and then transitioning back to the mixed employment. To the south we are just respecting the single family nature of the area down here, looking at possible medium density residential north of the gravel pit and then of course over here to the east we have more mixed employment opportunities with a commercial element serving this neighborhood as well as a medium density residential and finally lower density residential down below and this was the proposed relocation of Overland Road. This is just a little bit more detail on the land use map as it stands that was presented a moment ago. That is the industrial and the employment areas in the northwest and a little more detail on the south. Of course, the transportation element which I imagine is a critical importance to this group - this map was one that we started working on and while this map was being developed the consultants were also running transportation model forecasts and found that some of the circulation as it has been proposed will come up with intersections that have reasonable levels of service. This is the proposed circulation plan for the area. The purplish colors are the collectors - that more pink color is the arterial. You will notice north of the Interchange shows an intersection fairly close to it and that is actually an underpass that the consultants are proposing, so that we would really be looking at two intersections between the Interchange and Franklin Road and we think that the real key for connectivity is going to lie in that central portion north of the interstate and it is going to be critical to find a way to get that built or coordinated either before development occurs and then we received a lot of thoughtful and helpful comments from District staff and are going to be revising a few of our graphics to be more in alignment with the designs that the District has adopted. As I mentioned earlier our consultant has been running transportation models for the intersections in the area and this is just a possible main street orientation to the east of Ten Mile Road within the life style center that is one of the design proposals that is included in the plan. Finally we get down to a design element - the consultant did provide us with some general guidelines and the ideas about how we would want to see development to occur throughout the planning area and we are going to be working to refine those and turn them into actual guidelines. So, currently where we are at is that we (inaudible) applied for a map amendment to our land use map of the Comprehensive Plan that was submitted in December. The actual text amendment will probably submitted by the end of this month. We are anticipating Planning & Zoning hearings in March or April and move onto City Council for hearing and adoption in a Mayor June timeframe of this year. So, if there are any questions I would be happy to answer them or feel free to contact me any time. I can also make any of this material available to you electronically. Franden: Questions for Pete? Pete I have got a question. (Inaudible) in this transportation area are you paying attention or doing anything special in your land use planning as it relates to some day if we ever have light rail and then also to service public transportation? Meridian City Special/Joint Meeting January 8, 2007 Page 5 of 20 Friedman: We are trying to get the densities there. We are trying to establish fairly high densities and make walk ability and access one of the key elements of this area in addition to planning that transit center in the north section of the plan; so clearly we are looking to the future and looking for potential public transit in this area. One of the things is that we would like to see rather than to be able to either to walk to some of it either commercial areas or employment areas or have the ability to take public transit when it is available. Obviously through (inaudible) and some of the other processes that are going on, those are going to be evolving standards that I think that will have to be married into these processes. Franden: And then has the design of the Interchange been finalized yet? Friedman: No, the design of the Interchange - they are - the state is still working on that. I went to a meeting about a month ago with the public stakeholder group and they were sort of winnowing down the alternatives and no decisions have been made, but I think that if you started looking at the matrix, it is kind of coming down to either the single point urban interchange, the (inaudible) or possibly just a diamond interchange. Those seem to be the ones that were most effective in terms of cost, land consumption, environmental impacts and that sort of thing. Franden: Carol. McKee: I just have a comment. That is a beautiful plan. (Inaudible--) gorgeous. Franden: So, at full build out, have you had a chance - is there anyway to estimate what the population could be in that area? Friedman: We haven't done that yet. I have got to go back through the plan and pull that out once we settle on the numbers and the densities there, but I think it is significant to say that it will be a fairly dense populated area. I think we are looking at oh I would say a minimum of possibly 30,000 people living there and quite a few jobs also. So, you know if it all comes together it will be a fairly dynamic afea with a lot of rooftops to support a lot of commerce and a lot of jobs hopefully. Franden: Further questions. Dave. Bivens: Pete is that area that you have in the study is that currently within the Meridian city limits Of is it in the impact area? Friedman: Quite a bit of it is in the impact afea right now, which buys us the time and the opportunity to be able to sort of time the development and the provision of services in that area as well as being able to work with property owners as they approach the city expressing an interest in annexation to be able to lay the plans out with them and say this is the Council's vision, this is the direction that Meridian City Special/Joint Meeting January 8, 2007 Page 6 of 20 we want to go and having that sort of annexation card really helps us further the city's vision. Franden: Mayor, Pete when you first started was talking about something that we have been talking about a lot too and that is trying to get ahead of the curve and to not have development come in and then we sit back and figure out what to we build, but most specifically how do we pay for it and so my question is what commitment does the city have in relation to doing a development, I mean a growth area like this and having adequate public facilities, specifically the transportation facilities placed certainly as we move along, but not getting caught in the age old problem that we have always gotten caught in of trying to provide the transportation system after we have built everything. De Weerd: That has been a discussion. They have looked at different possibilities, I think an LID; there is legislation coming up; a CID this year, similar to the PID that - what a bunch of acronyms, huh? Public infrastructure district and then community infrastructure district, so I don't know if the LID is really the ideal situation because it is a little bit broad scope. But, have you gotten further with that? Friedman: Mayor and Mr. President, Commissioners, Council members, right now the draft plan has a series of implementation recommendations for the transportation element and as the Mayor indicated one of them, the LID - one of them is utilizing whatever legislation might come out of whether it is a PID or something similar. Another one is something the consultant came up with which is just cost share trying to get all of those property owners and developers to sit down together and just say okay pony up all of you and let's see if we can get this built. We think that really one of the critic layers is just going to be that central area. We think that some of the development will actually be able as you know to put in some of those transportation facilities in some of the other quadrants of the planning area, but that (inaudible) area is going to be one of the key areas. We also know that in other parts of the planning area or other locations we only have one or two developers that the city will be dealing with, so we are pretty confident that we will get the road networks put into those areas as needed. But, it is challenged and when we met with District's staff and we talked about LID's at first some eyebrows went up, but I think there is - you know if we can focus the area and if that is an option that we all agree upon - that there is a wealth of knowledge that we certainly want to tap into and work closely with you on. De Weerd: Mr. Chairman staff has been communicating that to the people that have come in that own property and looking at development around there that infrastructure there that there is a key piece that it is expected without (inaudible) going in and so there have been questions about that. We are hoping that the adequate public facilities (inaudible) that is expected out of the Blue Print for Good Growth is and will play into the plan. Meridian City Special/Joint Meeting January 8, 2007 Page 7 of 20 Franden: Okay, anything else? Thanks, Pete. Katie. Item 3. Update on ACHD's Five Year Work Program: Levihn: Okay I have handed out a memo that is from our shop and your Matt Ellsworth provided the longer sheet with the summary from the five year program draft date. First of alii want to say I hope you all had a happy holiday. Secondly, I want to say that it looks like the agenda is very nicely ordered. I get to tell you the bad news on the five year work program. Mike gets to tell you the news on our impact fee collection and then you get to talk about increasing revenues. So, I will set the stage there. First of all the draft "a" was just getting to the Commissioners slightly before Christmas so they have not commented on it. We are (inaudible) having a discussion with them this Wednesday, so it is a very preliminary draft. Nothing is set in stone. You can read right there at the top of the memo, the bad news is I think you have all been aware of the really significant increase in construction prices. We have been struggling with it for the last five or six bids, most of them all coming in much higher than we expected, so in this five year work program on average construction costs were increased about 20 percent to begin with. We have had a number of discussions with Associated General Contractors and our right-of-way people and typically we escalate the project in the five year work program about 2 Y2 percent - it has been such a way off factory increase that you can see at the bottom of the table that this is what we are proposing using ranges from the 2 ~ up to 8 percent for just the one year, so that also had the factor because obviously projects in the out years by the time we get to them are going to increase a significant amount. We have a decrease in revenue projections, mostly about 15 percent per year in impact fees at least 3 million and Mr. Brokaw will talk in more detail about that after I am done. Then we have actually made some improvements on our programming and introduced kind of quarterly scheduling so we have a better idea of when and how we are spending our money. We are also about a month behind on the five year work program because of all of these factors, we waited to see what a couple of our more recent bids came in at to try and confirm some of these numbers. Typically we adopt the five year work program at the end of January. This year we are scheduled to adopt it at the end of February now. On the next page, the second page of the memo you will see a highlighted summary of changes to the major Meridian projects. With a decrease in revenues and increase in cost and the increase in the escalation rate that has met, we have been able to fit fewer projects into the five year work program. We have tried very hard working with your priority list that you sent over and in discussions with staff to hold key projects or what we presume are your key projects and we like feedback on that. You can see - first of all this is briefly broken down into the Ten Mile projects, Meridian split corridor and then a couple of major intersections. On the Ten Mile projects, most of them have - well the top two, Meridian City Special/Joint Meeting January 8, 2007 Page 8 of 20 Franklin to Cherry and Cherry to Ustick have slipped a year from 2007 to 2008 and 2009 to 2010 respectively. The other three have stayed in what we call the unfunded category, which means they are out in preliminary development with either design and or right-away acquisition in preliminary development, but construction is not yet programmed. Meridian split corridor phase one - in last year it was programmed for construction in 2009, it currently remains the same, but I see Mr. Inselman is here and he could update you more. I know we are in discussion with the developer about up-fronting some of that money and those discussions are in negotiation and are not settled yet to my knowledge. For phase two, which was programmed last year for construction and preliminary development, we have managed to move that up into 2012 or however we are going to call that. We had a difficult decision with these major intersections. The Ustick and Linder intersections was ranked number one on your priority list. We have kept that in and it is going to begin construction in 2008, but later 2008 and finish up in fiscal year 2009, which just means in the fall of calendar year 2008. So, it has kind of in a way slipped about six months from what we expected and that is a lot because some of the projects we have this year are going to carry over into next year and it is an issue of cash flow and funding. Then the Pine and Linder intersection, which was ranked third we have had to slip a year or at least propose slipping it this year. I don't know - your priority list that was number one - number three, we are certainly open to suggestion if you have an idea which one should go first or not. You can see on the next page - the next two pages with all this bright color - just to give you an overall we have just gone through Meridian - all of the projects that are red means they have slipped one or more years. And you can see we have managed to hit everybody in the county, not just Meridian with the projects slipping. I will give you a moment to digest that. It is not good news. I know that the - I am speaking on behalf of the Commissioners here, but I am fairly certain they would be very glad to hear from you if you would prefer to see something not slip and something else slip instead if we have to continue that way and certainly any comments will be taken under advisement. On page one you can see that they do have the work session this Wednesday to talk about this draft. As staff we are going to try to do a very quick turnaround after the discussion this Wednesday we have about a week to get it out for our Commissioners to look at a second draft on January 24th and give us direction on final resolution of any major issues or any input that has come up and then currently we have it scheduled for final adoption on February 28th. That is to give us a little bit of time to try to get some broader public input on this. So any questions? De Weerd: Mr. Chairman. Franden: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: I guess I would like to first address the Council if this could be a discussion item placed tomorrow night - give you a chance to really look at this and any specific comments we can get to your staff Wednesday morning, if that Meridian City Special/Joint Meeting January 8, 2007 Page 9 of 20 works. And Pete, if that is okay, maybe you or Matt could be there tomorrow night? Friedman: Sure. De Weerd: And Will will let you know where we can plug it into the city agenda. Franden: Okay, sounds good. Yeah, it is a lot to kind of digest. Katie does Meridian City Council do they have to be that quick in decisions? They may not be major decision makings, but I don't know that, but I would hate to put pressure on you to make quick decisions that you didn't have enough time to think about. So, the question - levihn: President Franden, Mayor De Weerd and Commissioners and Council members, the first review by our Commission is this Wednesday. So, if you could give any big issues, you know Wednesday morning that would be great, but you do have at least two more weeks after that to review that and then we will be working with your staff to let them know what the major changes were between draft "a" and "b". So, you would still have time to comment after that, probably through the end of January. De Weerd: We will just look at initial reaction. levihn: We are sorry it is so late. We have just been really struggling with what kind of information we are going to use, how we are going to increase the cost. We want to increase them enough to cover it, but keep them down as low as possible in trying to work out the scheduling on this. So, thank you. Franden: Mike, some more good news? Item 4. Status of Impact Fee Collections: Franden: It is kind of like we have gotten used to so much growth - there was really positive dollars coming in specifically from the impact fees and it has just changed - De Weerd: Mr. Chairman. Franden: Yes, ma'am. De Weerd: With the increase of the cost of construction and the increase in your impact fees, are they compensating for some of that increase and construction costs or not? Meridian City Special/Joint Meeting January 8, 2007 Page 10 of 20 Franden: I don't quite understand your question. De Weerd: You just increased your impact fees this summer- Franden: No. De Weerd: -- then you had better look at updating this. Franden: There is not only the cost of those, but then there is the cost ot right-ot- way - it you notice in that one table that it goes over time it goes up quite a bit, too. Mike. Brokaw: Mr. President, Mayor, Commission members and Council tor the record my name is Mike Brokaw and I am the Deputy Director ot Operations and also the Treasurer. So, I am going to give you all of the quick overview of what has been happening in the impact fee collections and Katie gave you a little bit of prelude to this in her earlier presentation. But, the first quarter here is showing that we are behind last year's collections by 30 percent of - and to give you an idea of that, last year we collected approximately $12.6 million, so we are about $1 million behind that right now just in the first quarter alone. So, the first quarter for 2006 we have collected $3.5 million. For the first quarter 2007 we are at $2.4 million and that is fairly significant because we, I believe, had a new impact fee ordinance that went into effect around October 15t that essentially, I think, doubled the majority of the fees particularly in the residential side. So, actually a 30 percent reduction as compared to what we collected last year if you take into consideration the increase fee schedule that it is actually a much larger reduction than that. The original projections for fiscal year 2007 total for the year were $18 million. Right now we are projecting to $14 million, in other words a $4 million reduction, which right now we are going to be watching that again in the next coming months to see what we are going to have to do as far as revising that projection any more and what we are seeing is that in the past three years, primarily residential provided 75 percent of the total impact fee revenue and the first quarter of 2007 and actually this goes back to I believe the last two months of fiscal year 2006. We are seeing that residential is now only 25 percent of the total revenue is coming in. So, commercial is really holding things up at the present time. One of the things that I have heard in some of the economic forecast from some of our predictors here locally is that they are expecting or predicting that the residential will pick up the second half of 2007. I am assuming that is the second half of the calendar year, not our fiscal year. I guess the bottom line of all of this right now is the impact fee eligible projects are going to be affected by all of this. I think you have seen some of that presentation that Katie had on the five year work program - depending on what happens in the coming months and whether or not some of your building permits start picking up we will determine what we are going to have to do to (inaudible--). But, for now we are showing a $4 million reduction in total revenue projection. Whether or not we are going to have to go more than that, I think January and February will tell. Meridian City Special/Joint Meeting January 8, 2007 Page 11 of 20 November and December we are a little more encouraging. We are seeing a 40 percent reduction in impact fee collections, I believe in August and September and November and December it has gotten a little bit better. It is around the 20 to 25 percent reductions. So, that would have arrived at 30 percent for now. So, we will see what happens in January and hope for the best. Any questions? Item 5. Discussion of Revenue Increasing Options: Franden: Thanks Mike. Okay, revenue increasing options that we might have. Well, Mayor you came up with one, increase the impact fee again. De Weerd: Well, you know I know that the cost of construction, the cost of land and that sort of thing. We have had (inaudible) commitment of the city to evaluate our capital improvement plans and evaluate our fee structure annually and you almost have to start six months after you finally had your concluding action, so I don't know how often you look at your fees, but it is something because of the volatile market that we are in, whether it is increasing or decreasing because you find that whether it was a bubble or cost (inaudible--) in line, you are at least not over collecting when it is adjusted back down or you are collecting so that you can do what those impact fees were intended to do. Another thing that came up recently in a Council discussion is what we did in North Meridian and what we have to start looking at the southern part of our community as a lot ot our - a number of developers donated their right-of-way in North Meridian and if ACHD doesn't have any comments, I just don't know how that works. You know we would like to see that donation happen, but then you have the developers say well I don't know, ACHD hasn't said anything about that and they are ready to pay for it. In fact, Dan Woods' project - what road was that on - was that on Amity? I think it was Amity. I asked him it he would be willing to donate the right-ot-way and he said well I know ACHD is prepared to buy it. That wasn't my question and he was really trying to skirt my question too, but if we can be on the same sheet of music on this and suggesting it - otherwise, if we can start saying that it is not even planned for improvement and the only way this will help elevate that is through those kind of practices, we can't ask it, but it might be a reason that they can't get the increase of the increase use because we can't do it on the (inaudible). I guess what we struggle with is the impact of everyone else around this and their growth and what that does to our roads. Because it is not just our developments, so what does ACHD do in terms of impact to connecting corridors? Franden: Let me comment and then staff may have some comments as well. My memory is not - I don't remember a developer that has donated land to right- of-way to us. They may dedicate some right-af-ways as we go, but - and I may be mistaken, but usually what we have ended up doing is we will buy it either Meridian City Special/Joint Meeting January 8, 2007 Page 12 of 20 now or later as we go down the road and that is where the cities are so helpful when they set their piece of properties -- Gary? Inselman: Mr. President we have had some generous developers donate the right-of-ways - the Bridgetower subdivision which is very large covers almost a full square mile in Meridian and they have donated all of their right-of-way along Ustick, Linder, McMillan and Ten Mile. They are actually extending out the Black Cat now with some other developments that they have committed to donate their right-at-way and I believe Mr. Hubble has agreed to donate right-of-way at Meridian and McMillan with his latest development, the name escapes my mind, but we have had some - the Bridgetower developers being the largest and a significant amount of right-at-way because of the size at their development. Zaremba: Mr. Chairman. Gary just to be clear is that a free and clear donation that is not in lieu of impact fees, I mean they are not trading? Inselman: That is correct. It is donated, no charge. They are of course asking our consideration to take that into account when we consider some of their other requests, but we do have the option to offset impact fees as other developers are just a cash payment when we are purchasing the right-of-way. Franden: That is a good question. Has there been a quid pro quo? Inselman: With other developments? Franden: Well, Bridgetower as an example or any of the others? Inselman: No, the standard practices is that we purchase it or we enter into an agreement to offset their impact fees - they basically have a credit until they have an impact fee to pay and we take it off that balance. Franden: So, we have given that credit? Inselman: Well, with Bridgetower it was a free donation to the public tor the right- of-way. The only consideration they are asking is that when they want to build an intersection (inaudible--), get that into consideration when we evaluate that. Franden: The other thing that we have, Mayor is we just increased the impact fees. In some case doubled them, but we could actually - to the best of my knowledge, we could increase them again, but we have to at least take a look at it within three years. So, we have a three year window in which to look at it. De Weerd: Because that is how often (inaudible) CIP? Franden: Right. The thing is is that our registration fees on vehicle registration will be expiring in 2010, so we have two election cycles ahead of us. We can Meridian City Special/Joint Meeting January 8, 2007 Page 13 of 20 only do it at the 2008 and 2010 election cycle to request a renewal of that registration fee authority. De Weerd: So, Mr. Chair, could you consider and maybe your legal counsel would have to give you advice on it, but just to say ACHD would appreciate consideration of any right-af-way donation that would initiate discussion from the Councils on if that is something the developer would be willing to do? If that would be a comment, you know, I don't know if it would hurt or - at least it sets the stage for what our Council can do on our side. Franden: Okay. Steve. Price: Mr. President and members just a follow up with that. Yeah, the historic term is (inaudible--) and we have now come up with a term that we require dedication, just to make it so it doesn't sound so bad. But, we have a lot of ability to require dedication for certain developments as part of the development. We have done a good job, I think, with a lot of public private partnerships. You have Pine Avenue, you have got - and these are all projects that we have done with the developer - De Weerd: -- in Meridian. Price: -- in Meridian, yes and I am trying to get in Meridian. Most of them have occurred in Meridian and we think that that is actually the wave of the future and it gives the developer a lat of control. They can get the project in faster and probably cheaper and we get a project done sooner that is needed for a particular area. So, we try to encourage that through a development agreement because we get out of that historic (inaudible--) illegal exaction rule and the developers are happy with that. There are still other projects that would come along, but we can still require dedications as part of the impact on the system, but the CIP has a little bit of complexity because that goes into a model of what you anticipate for growth. We anticipate the growth on an arterial then our whole impact system applies to that and so then you get into the prioritization and then you get into a credit thing where it is hard for us to require the dedication when we have a program and we have a plan, but the thing that we do as Gary mentioned is that we give the developer credit against the impact fees through the development and that is why I just explained (inaudible--). But, the other thing that we can do is for those areas that we don't have and this relates to local streets, collectors and arterials is that we currently are working on our extraordinary impacting program. So, we had unanticipated growth in particular areas that isn't in our current CIP that is a new pop up that is going to have a significant impact from the transportation system. Then we can require in addition to a regular impact fee, the extraordinary impact fee for those improvements. So, we are just working on that. We have used in other places. We will be flushing that out and we will come to you and explain that program or just creating a road show and come and do that to each of the City Councils, but Meridian City Special/Joint Meeting January 8, 2007 Page 14 of 20 it is an additional funding mechanism that we are hoping to move towards to help us cover those costs. De Weerd: Mr. Chairman. Just a question on the special impact fees or extraordinary - is there a choice where they would be able to donate the right-of- way or due costs that they could pencil it out to what would be less of an impact on them? Price: Well, the one thing about the extraordinary impact fee program is that it allows a lot of flexibility between the developer and ACHD (inaudible) to the kind of components that you are talking about and that you enter into a development agreement with a developer to (inaudible) those system improvements and then reimbursement type of - it is like our impact fee credit program. The developer is still going to be required to go in and make the improvements. It is just that he gets paid back through the collection of the extraordinary impact fees for that area. But, those are items that we negotiate just like we do in our other developments on regular impacting program. We have that possibility. (Tape turned over) Bivens: -- no later than every other year and I think that is where we ran into some problems in the past that it was left stable and we didn't move it up with the cost of everything else - materials, construction (inaudible). I think we have learned that lesson certainly like you say we have got it pretty well pegged no later than three years. Really if we have got conditions like we are seeing, probably we should review it, maybe not take action, but certainly review every year and I don't think it would hurt a thing. A couple of other points that I think are important - the cost of the building materials is definitely down from what it was at a peak, the building materials. But, of course all of the other stuff hasn't dropped like fuel - some - cement, asphalt and these kinds of things. I think one bright shiny point that I saw at the Associated Taxpayer (inaudible) back when Kelly Matthews worked for Wells Fargo, his assessment was quite encouraging - (inaudible--), be prepared it is going up and thefe will be more people. They are coming. So, we will see if he is right or wrong. He has been pretty right. He is in the way upward percentage of his projections have been pretty right. So, we will see how it goes. Franden: Okay, anything else on revenues? Legislative session - Item 6. Discussion of Upcoming Legislative Issues: Franden: Well, not to my knowledge we don't have any legislation that we are specifically going to be funning. We are going to be monitoring, of course seeing Meridian City Special/Joint Meeting January 8, 2007 Page 15 of 20 what might surface. GARVEE of course will be down there again. I am not aware of anything myself. Cities? Rountree: Well, I guess from my point of view, Mr. Chairman, we need to work together and do a (inaudible) because I know there is a potential for increasing registration fees, title fees (inaudible--). I think all of Ada County need to work together to make sure that we can pass it before the state statute changes it. It may not come this year, but I think are going to talk about it this year. We will find out some time between now and 1 :30. Franden: Well, along that same line we met with the ITD Board jointly three or four weeks ago and one of the things that caught my attention and I don't know where it will go, but ITD would like to share in impact fees that are collected in this county and in other areas in the state. What that - the way the legislation is written right now, according to what I heard at that meeting is that we may share and they would like to have the legislation changed to where it would say that we will share with lTD. Now, what all that means - I asked specifically the question are you thinking that that means that we will share with you with what we are currently or that we will share what is collected above and beyond what we are currently doing under our statutes? They said it will be what is above and beyond. But, you know the proof is in the pudding. But, where that will all go I don't know and then the registration fees as well could be an impact that people felt that they don't want to pay a statewide impact fee and a local registration fee. That could be damaging. De Weerd: Well, the legislation that I had mentioned earlier with the new and improved, supposedly I haven't read it PID legislation that will now be called - it is now more geared towards cities. I don't know what ACHD's positio,n on it was under the PID plan of last year, but it is to pay for off site improvements, to pay for roads like arterials, collectors and those kind of things so that they can be done ahead of time, rather than afterwards. But, we may want to keep an eye on that. We do have a copy of it or you could get a copy from Brian Ballard. Franden: As far as last year and the year before we really had no opposition to it. (Inaudible--). Steve. Price: Actually we participated in drafting one of the drafts last year and support the legislation just from the public policy standpoint and we saw this as a mechanism to make sure that growth does pay for its own. One thing that we included in that was that - the way that it worked was that you would have to go -but, we were afraid that if the city or the county approved a PID in advance of making any decisions on the land use, then you would have some bias issues on legislation. So, we switched that around for a couple of reasons. One reason is that you can only create your PID after you have received your land use entitlements and one benefit of that is this allows the land use agencies and the transportation agency to make sure that we get the right kind of improvements for Meridian City Special/Joint Meeting January 8, 2007 Page 16 of 20 that development and that you would have in terms of bargaining power the developers (inaudible) financed that project. Do you see the point? They bought off on that, the people who sponsored that. So, it is in current draft. I don't know whether it was (inaudible) draft, but we saw with that improvement that that legislation was a good idea for local government. De Weerd: Thank you. Mr. Chair, I know that this has also been looked at at the Blue Print for Good Growth. I think the steering committees looked at it and they are getting comment from them too. I think it will be one of those tools that we can use for the adequate public facilities type of theme. Franden: Okay, anything else on the legislative arena? Zaremba: Actually, President Franden touched on it and that was the subject of ACHD's (inaudible) registration fee that is sun setting in 2010 and just thinking back to the one percent sales tax increase relating to schools and property tax and I think the schools felt that they had been side cut or undercut with the way the legislation happened and my concern is if the state increases the registration fees that the general public understands that that is not necessarily helping ACHD directive and I guess the public awareness or the help that ACHD needs is to figure out a way for ACHD's registration fee, not to sunset it or get it extended without people saying, no we just voted on that. Which is similar to what you just said. Franden: Maybe in another meeting if it fits, we have obviously been doing work on the reauthorization or registration fees. We did a pretty interesting survey 30 or 60 days ago of the public in Ada County to find out how do they feel about the registration fee? Are they willing to support reauthorization, but also an increase and so we feel that we have a pretty good handle on how people feel about it and also at what dollar amount it would be comfortable and if my memory is right, Craig, it is anything over $50 they are not happy about, Craig? Quintana: It goes for a doubling of $15 to $40, fairly hefty - (inaudible) for a 50 percent approval. As soon as we hit the magic $50 mark that is the straw that breaks the camels back. Zaremba: Mr. Chairman are we also asking that they would support that if the state also tacked on some - Quintana: No. Arnold: No, that was just us, ACHD. Bivens: The bad news in the survey it shows that - what was it -- $13.20 is what our $20 is worth today compared to the time when they initiated it. That is the Meridian City Special/Joint Meeting January 8, 2007 Page 17 of 20 bad news. Even though you double it, it's still (inaudible--), but it will help that is for sure. Item 7. Update on Locust Grove Roadway Project Franden: Okay. Locust Grove Roadway Project. Katie. Levihn: I am here to give you an update on the overpass. I wasn't sure if this item is the overpass with Locust Grove, Franklin and Fairview, but we have Dale Carpairs, the project manager to get you that one on Franklin to Fairview. I will do it real quick. The Locust Grove Overpass - that bid was awarded and being done through lTD. The utilities are being moved now. They have been receiving submittals and they say excavation on the bridge is planned to start within ten days. So, you will see dirt being moved out there in about ten days from now. (Inaudible discussion) Carpairs: Good afternoon. On the Franklin to Fairview piece, contractor has cleared trees and he is out there working on the piece between Pine and Lanark and doing some other ground work and he is proceeding as planned. Franden: Completion estimated --? Carpairs: Sometime this late summer. Some of the railroad track work has already been done also by the railroads. Five lanes. De Weerd: Okay, we like you much better than the first several speakers. Item 8. Update on Phase 1 of Split Corridor (Two lanes of north bound traffic on Main from Franklin to Pine with discussion of signals at Pine and Idaho): Levihn: I have to apologize the project manager and the technical backup for this project are not here today and did not get the clarification on the agenda item until like Friday. I will do my best on Meridian phase 1 of the split corridor. That contract was let for the design in June. It has been underway. It is a little over 35 percent complete. They have been looking at different concepts. They are close to having picked the final concept and I understand there was some question that maybe Meridian City Council had - (Inaudible discussion) Meridian City Special/Joint Meeting January 8, 2007 Page 18 of 20 Franden: Madame Mayor are you going to allow a former Council person to speak? De Weerd: I guess we will keep him. Wardle: Mr. President, Madame Mayor, Commissioners and Council members this is the first time I got to do that. For the record my name is Shaun Wardle. I am currently the Administrator for the Meridian Development Corporation, which is Meridian's Urban Renewal District and I am here again in the capacity to talk about a plan that planning staff along with ACHD's staff and your consultant showed to us the beginning of December - the issue at hand was something that I as a former Council member and even just as a citizen hadn't seen and that was in the current draft of the plan - the main street after becoming three lanes one way during - in the Waltman intersection continues on two lanes northbound and the center turn lane is eliminated from Franklin to Pine. There was an additional discussion about the removal of signalization at Idaho and the potential relocation of that (inaudible) and I know that is still brought up for discussion, but one of the things that I want is that I know the MDC Board is concerned with and the City Council has expressed opinions in the past - that seems to be at least a change that was worth noting to the overall design plan. Does that make sense? Franden: Comments? Levihn: I know that is under consideration; I am just not quite sure where it ended up since the last meeting. So, was there a concern with it or something that we should be looking at working towards? Friedman: Mr. President, Madame Mayor and Commissioners and Council members, I think one of our primary concerns that Shaun has indicated that - is that that configuration of the two lanes with the center turn lane was a key component of our downtown Meridian transportation plan. The key element of maintaining the walk-ability - well it is sort of that pedestrian atmosphere that we wanted to maintain within Old Town and to move away from that may have the affect of just changing the whole environment within there. So, I think our concern is before we get too far down the road with this design or acceptance of this design is that that is a consideration that we need to bring back to the table and discuss again. Levihn: Just for clarification you wanted to stay two lanes without the center turn lane? Friedman: With the center turn lane. Levihn: With the center turn lane - oh, we thought you were asking for it not to be in. So, okay we will check into that and get back to you. Meridian City Special/Joint Meeting January 8, 2007 Page 19 of 20 Friedman: I think that one of the related concerns with that is - at least what we have been hearing is this as a result of our recent meetings with District staff is that with the proposed design of phase 1 it appears that the intersection of Franklin and Main may fail, although as I understand it now that is based on six mile engineering's projections even though the previous projection showed that it is not failing. So, I think there needs to be discussion or (inaudible) the consultants about the traffic counts and projected levels of service at that intersection. Because I think that is what District staff's intention was in order to keep that intersection moving was to take out that turn lane and send three lanes northbound on Main Street. Levihn: I hear your concern and I will get with Justin who works for me and we will check that out. I would throw out possibly that may be an interim measure because you know phase 2 doesn't come on for a few years and we will have to see how that goes through for the whole thing, but we will certainly take a look at the bulk of traffic projections and that configuration and get an answer back to you, Pete, that you can distribute. Friedman: Yes, and bring to Council and discuss there. Levihn: Thank you we like to hear those things before we are done with the design. Franden: Mayor. De Weerd: One it looks like MDC has seen this, but Council hasn't. So, what would be helpful if it is not unusual practice of unheard of if we could have them come and show Council what they are talking about because I know that Shaun as Council President was participating in those meetings, but the rest of us really haven't seen it. So, if you could do that? Levihn: We would be happy to do that. De Weerd: Okay, that would be excellent. Levihn: And we will work with Pete, too. Wardle: Just for clarification as far as Meridian Development Corporation is going to take a look at this at their meeting, just for informational purposes. I believe one of the discussions that we have had is understanding that the new information is if the intersection fails, do the two lanes northbound need to go all the way to Pine or can they transition at what would be apparently the phase 2 option (inaudible) near Bower Street? Those are just some of the discussions that we wanted to have related to downtown transportation plan that has been adopted by Meridian and the new current engineering that is going on. Meridian City Special/Joint Meeting January 8, 2007 Page 20 of 20 Levihn: We would be happy to do that. I mean, there is no problem I am just wondering out loud you know if this is just an intermediate phase when they say the intersection fails. If it's just because phase 1 is done and phase 2 hasn't come on or if it is looking at the whole thing, but we will take a look at that technically and work with Pete and you Shaun and work on that. Thank you. Franden: Anything else? Nope. Thank you very much. Item 9. Other (time permitting): (TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) MEETING ADJOURNED AT 1 :14 P.M. ;2 I 13 I f) 1 DATE APPROVED ATTESTED:~~~~L~ WILLIAM G. BERG, JR., CITY CLERK