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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2007 02-06 Meridian City Council Meetina February 6. 2007 A meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 7:07 P.M., Tuesday, February 6, 2007, by Council President Joe Borton. Members Present: Joe, Borton, Keith Bird, and Charlie Rountree. Members Absent: Mayor Tammy de Weerd and David Zaremba. Others Present: Bill Nary, Will Berg, Anna Canning, Len Grady, Gene Trakel, Joe Silva, and Dean Willis. Item 1: Roll-call Attendance: Roll call. o David Zaremba X Charlie Rountree o X Joe Borton X Keith Bird Mayor Tammy de Weerd Borton: Welcome. We will go ahead and begin. Tuesday, February 6. Sevenish, 7:07. We will begin the regular meeting with roll call attendance. Mr. Berg. Item 2: Pledge of Allegiance: Borton: Thank you. Item No.2, the pledge of allegiance. Jesse McDaniel with Troop 306. Please lead us in the pledge. (Pledge of allegiance recited.) Borton: Thank you, Jesse, for leading us in the pledge and Mayor de Weerd is not here, so I get to be the Mayor for the meeting, so we give a little something to those who do the pledge, so I will give you a choice. So, come on up if you will. You get a Meridian pin or Mike and Ikes. That's my man. There are lots of scouts in attendance. Thank you, Jesse. Item 3: Community Invocation by Mark Botsford. Borton: Item No. 3 is the community invocation. We will be led tonight by Mark Botsford. Would you, please, join us. Mr. Botsford, please, come forward. Botsford: Will you pray with me. Our Father in Heaven, thank you for this fine place Meridian, Idaho. I pray, Father, and I thank you for all those individuals who give up time from their families and other important duties in life to come and serve this community. I would ask, God, that you would give our Mayor and our Council discernment, wisdom. And I pray, Father, for the safety of our citizens. I pray, especially, Father, for the safety of our nation and for those men and women in uniform Meridian City Council February 6,2007 Page 2 of 76 that serve us both at home and away from home. We thank you, Father, for your grace in our lives. We pray tonight that you will be pleased with the meeting, in Jesus' name that we ask this. Amen. Item 4: Adoption of the Agenda: Borton: Thank you very much. Item No.4, adoption of the agenda. Bird: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move we approve the agenda as published. Rountree: Second. Borton: It's been moved and seconded to adopt the agenda as published. All those in favor say aye. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Item 5: Consent Agenda: A. Approve Minutes of November 28, 2006 Pre-Council Meeting: B. Approve Minutes of December 12, 2006 Pre-Council Meeting: C. Approve Minutes of December 19,2006 Pre-Council Meeting: D. Approve Minutes of January 2, 2007 City Council Joint Meeting: E. Approve Minutes of January 16, 2007 City Council Regular Meeting: F. Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law for Approval: PP 06- 055 Request for Preliminary Plat approval of 8 lots on 39.28 acres in existing I-L zone and C-G zones for Sevam Subdivision by Ronald Van Auker - 3660 East Lanark Street: G. Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law for Approval: AZ 06- 031 Request for Annexation and Zoning of 290.87 acres from RUT to an R-8 (Medium Density Residential (115.65 acres), R-4 (Medium Low-Density Residential) (50.17 acres), TN-R (Traditional Neighborhood Residential) (65.60 acres), TN-C (Traditional Neighborhood Center) (20.71 acres) and R-2 (Low Density Residential) (35.21 acres) and L-O (Limited Office) (3.48 acres) for Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 3 of 76 South Ridae Subdivision by James L. Jewett - south side of Overland Road between Linder Road and Ten Mile Road: H. Findings of Fact and Conclusions of law for Approval: PP 06- 031 Request for Preliminary Plat approval of 224 lots including: 189 residential lots, 11 commercial/other lots and 8 Mega lots (to be developed in the future) and 16 common/open space lots on 290.87 acres in the proposed TN-C, TN-R, L-O, R-8, R-4 and R-2 zones for South Ridae Subdivision by James L. Jewett - south side of Overland Road between Linder Road and Ten Mile Road: I. Development Agreement: AZ 06-048 Request for Annexation and Zoning of 32.75 acres from RUT to a C-G zone (8.74 acres) and I-L zone (24.01 acres) for Creamline Park Subdivision by Creamline Associates, LLC - 1200 West Franklin Road: J. Development Agreement: RZ 06-010 Request for a Rezone of 2.20 acres from I-L to a C-G zone for lanark Property by Ron Van Auker - Northwest Corner of Eagle Road and Lanark Street (Lots 1 & 2, Block 1 of Olson & Bush Industrial Park: K. Development Agreement: AZ 06-034 Request for Annexation and Zoning of 2.95 acres from R4 (Ada County) to L-O (Limited Office District) zones for Ashtyn Park Annexation by David N. Price -- 201 West Ustick Road: l. Sanitary Sewer and Water Main Easement Aareement for Sparrowhawk III by David Waldron, Douglas Keith, and Russell Curtis: M. Water Main Easement Aareement for Meridian Villaae by A&H Investments: N. Water Main Easement Aareement fer Sevoy Antiaues by Paul Sevoian: o. Sanitary Sewer and Water Main Easement Aareement for Sevey Antiaues by Fairview Terrace, LLC: P. Water Main Easement Aareement for Precision Loa Homes by Precision Craft Log Homes: Q. Chanae Order No. 1 of Contract with JUS Enaineerina for Design of Water & Sewer Improvements in Conjunction with ACHD Ten Mile, Franklin to Cherry Project for a Cost of $5,000.00: Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 4 of 76 R. Public Works Chanl:le Order No. 4 for Water and Sewer Improvements in Coniunction with the locust Grove Grade Separation for a Cost of $56,652.00: S. Public Works Chanl:le Order No. 2 for the Pine Interceptor Sewer I Ten Mile Sewer Proiect with Bodiford Construction, Inc. for $75,650.80: T. Task Order #0664 with Civil Survey for Desian and Construction Oversiaht Services for Cherry Lane Mobile Home Parks Water System Uparades for $15,135.00: u. ReQuest for Reduction in Sewer Connection Fee for Bill & Lynn's Place at 229 West Franklin Road: v. Approve Award of Bid I Aareement for #CH-07-001 Well Abandonment to Mcleran Well Drillina. llC not to exceed $65,000.00: W. Maintenance Aareement for 01 System at Wastewater Treatment Plant lab with Siemens Water Technoloaies: x. Hold Harmless Aareement for Participation in Activities And I Or Use of Facilities with Joint School District No.2: Y. Approve Contract for the Canal Crossinas for the Bitter Creek Lift Station and Pipelines with H2 Excavation, Inc. for $36,713.02: z. Amendment No. 3 to the Bitter Creek lift Station and Pipelines Proiect with CH2M HilL for $53,100.00: AA. Approve Contract for the Meridian Water Department Well Drawdown Meters I SCADA Maintenance with DC Engineering, P .C. for $23,227.00: BB. Approve Contract for the Task Order 2 with HDR Enaineerina. Inc. for $10,000.00: Borton: Item No.5. Consent Agenda. Bird: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Bird. Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 5 of 76 Bird: I move that we approve the Consent Agenda as published and for the President to sign and the Clerk to attest on all papers. Rountree: Second. Borton: It's been moved and seconded to approve the Consent Agenda as published. Roll call, Mr. Berg. Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, absent; Borton, yea. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Item 6: Department Reports: A. Public Works Department 1. Broadway Water and Sewer Project Update: Borton: Thank you. Item No.6, Department Reports. Public Works Department. Broadway Water and Sewer Project update. Radek: President Borton, Council Members, my name is Kyle Radek, I am a staff engineer in Public Works. I'm the project manager for the Broadway Avenue Water and Sewer Project. I'm here to ask for some guidance from Council. We originally specified that work in the intersections of Meridian and Main Street on Broadway would be done at night in this project and the contractor is requesting that we allow them to accomplish the work by closing the intersections on weekends. After discussions with Public Works director and ACHD staff, our conclusion is that allowing weekend closures would be safer, faster, and save us money and so I'd like to offer this topic for discussion of the Council to see if the Council had some opinions on the closures of the roads during the weekends versus doing night work and the value of that to the citizens of the community and to offer, if appropriate, concurrence on our decision. Borton: Thank you, Kyle. Bird: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Bird. Bird: ACHD is fine with it and I don't see anything wrong with it. I think it's probably better to do it then than at night, because you have still got traveling at night and quite a bit of lighting up, so if that will save us some money I'm for it. I don't think it will tie the traffic up too bad. Rountree: Mr. President? Meridian City Council February 6,2007 Page 6 of 76 Borton: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: Question for Kyle. What kind of time savings are we looking at? Because it seems to me that would be the significant element of this. Radek: Councilmember Rountree, President Borton, Council Members, our contractor estimates that doing the work only during nights during the week, which is what we had specified, would take an additional 30 to 45 days. Rountree: Thank you. Mr. President, if staff's seeking guidance, my guidance is to move forward with the weekend closures. How about the rest of you? Borton: I agree. Rountree: Time saving is a deal. If it didn't save money, it's that much less inconvenience to the traveling public. Radek: What I'm hearing is that you concur with our conclusion. Borton: Yes. Radek: We will go ahead and move forward with that. Borton: All right. Thank you. Radek: Thank you. Item 7: Items Moved from Consent Agenda: Borton: There were no items moved from the Consent Agenda. Item 8: Reauest for Reconsideration of Denial for Annexation and Zonina and Preliminary Plat for Portico Place Subdivision by Portico Place, LLC: Borton: Item No.8, request for reconsideration, Portico Place, LLC. Anna. Canning: President Borton, you received a letter. Typically we don't give any additional testimony, other than what's on the letter. So, it's -- we just await Council's decision. Borton: Thank you. Council, any comments or action, if any, on the request? Hearing none. Mr. Rountree. Rountree: Mr. President, I think one of the issues were the design, the drawings, the street elevations. I think we have seen this particular product three, if not maybe four times, and there is an indication that elevations will be changing. They also had some Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 7 of 76 issues with some buffer zones and it appears they have addressed those. So, I would be willing to reconsider this particular application and so move. Bird: I would second it. Borton: Okay. Ifs been moved and seconded to approve the request for reconsideration by Portico Place. Mr. Berg, if there is no further discussion, please, call ro II. Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, absent; Borton, yea. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Item 9: Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law for Denial: AZ 06-052 Request for Annexation and Zoning of 5.17 acres from RUT to an R-8 zone for Portico Place Subdivision by Portico, LLC - 1780 E. McMillan Road: Item 10: Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law for Denial: PP 06-053 Request for Preliminary Plat approval of 26 single-family residential building lots and 3 common I other lots on 5.17 acres in a proposed R-8 zone for Portico Place Subdivision by Portico, LLC - 1780 E. McMillan Road: Borton: Thank you. That -- Mr. Nary, that renders Nos. 9 and 10 moot? Nary: Mr. President, Members of the Council, since you -- you could vacate Items 9 and 10. If ultimately the decision after now resetting this hearing to deny it, they would still be available, they could be done. But simply vacate those items tonight. Borton: Okay. Bird: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move we vacate AZ 06-052 and PP 06-053. Rountree: Second. Borton: Okay. It's been moved and seconded to vacate Items 9 and 10. All those in favor say aye. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Meridian City Council February 6,2007 Page 8 of 76 Borton: Mr. Nary, do we need to get a new date set for Portico Place now or have the applicant work with staff? Nary: Mr. President, Members of the Council, you don't have to select a date now, you can certainly work with them and, then, they will have to pay for the noticing as our standard practice is. There is a noticing charge for re-noticing this and they will just work on that and get that done in the next few weeks. Item 11: FP 06-054 Final Plat approval for 26 single-family residential building lots and 6 common lots on 10.59 acres in an R-8 zone for Southwick Subdivision by Gemstar Development, LLC - 1255 West Ustick Road: Item 12: FP 07-001 Final Plat approval for 41 single-family residential building lots and 5 common lots on 11.85 acres in an R-8 zone for Bellinaham Park Subdivision No.4 by Bellingham Park, LLC - Locust Grove Road and approximately 12 mile south of Victory Road: Borton: Okay. Thank you. Item No. 11, FP 06-054, the final plat approval for Southwick Subdivision. Mrs. Canning, any concerns? Canning: President Borton, Members of the Council, we have letters from the applicant stating they are in written agreement with the conditions of approval for both Item No. 11 and No. 12. Borton: Thank you, Mrs. Canning. Bird: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move we approve FP 06-054, final plat. Rountree: Second. Borton: It's been moved and seconded to approve Item No. 11, FP 06-054. All those in favor? MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Borton: Thank you. Item No. 12. Bird: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move we approve final plat FP 07-001. Meridian City Council February 6,2007 Page 9 of 76 Rountree: Second. Borton: It's been moved and seconded to approve Item 12, FP 07-001. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Item 13: MFP 06-006 Request to modify the approved fencing, landscaping and amenities for Madelvnn Estates (aka Basin Creek) by Pacific Landmark Development - 5603 North Locust Grove Road: Borton: Item 13, MFP 06-006. Canning: President Borton, Members of the Council, this is the Madelynn Estates project. The request before you tonight is for a modification to the approved landscape plan on the final plat. It's located at 5603 North Locust Grove Road, which is on the west side Locust Grove about a half mile south of Chinden Boulevard. It's currently zoned R-4. The requested modifications include the following: On the east side of the property along Locust Grove Road they are requesting to change the fence that was approved, which was a six foot high masonry wall and, instead, they would like to put a six foot high ornamental iron fence with decorative rock, veneered columns spaced every 40 feet. They have also requested -- that is the primary one. The other one, since they were requesting a change, are included, but they want to, instead of putting sod down, for 60 percent of the area, they are asking to do seeded lawn. They are also asking to reduce the size of the approved picnic shelter by about 40 percent. It's still 20 feet by 30 feet, so it's still a large picnic shelter. They are also asking to reduce the size of the seating surrounding the basketball courts by approximately 50 percent to allow better access to the basketball court. They kind of had almost amphitheater like seating around over half of it and they are trimming that back. And, then, there is a slight modification to the driveway location for the existing home on the site. Normally, staff can approve minor modifications to a landscape plan if it's consistent with the Unified Development Code and if it was not the subject of discussion at the Council hearings, either for the preliminary plat or the final plat. In this case none of these items were specifically mentioned or discussed in length at the hearing, but they -- change going from the six foot masonry block wall to an ornamental open vision fence, staff felt that that was considerable, especially given its location along Locust Grove Road. So, we didn't feel confident in making the determination that this was something staff would approve and that's why it's before you tonight. And with that I will answer any questions. Borton: Thank you, Anna. Council, any questions? Rountree: Mr. President? Anna, was there any specific reason why they indicated they wanted to do a masonry fence? Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 10 of 76 Canning: Not that I'm aware of. Typically -- or sometimes we do see them along the arterials just for the sound buffering aspects of those walls. Again, it was -- we did check the minutes and it was not an item of discussion at any of the hearings, but it was part of the original proposal. Borton: Anna, in the final plat modification there is -- is there any notice provisions done for neighbors? Canning: The clerk may be better able to answer that question. I don't believe so, because it's just a public meeting, it's not a public hearing. So, it's placed on an agenda two weeks prior, but I don't believe any notice is sent out. Berg: Mr. President, Members of the Council, there is no formal noticing process, other than just putting it on the agenda. The final plat usually conforms with the preliminary plat, so the assumption is that it's just brought to you as the same plat. Borton: Unless modified. Berg: Yes, sir. Borton: Thank you, Anna. Council, any other questions of staff? Rountree: I have none. Bird: I have none. Borton: Is the applicant here? Care to comment? Okay. Rountree: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: I move that we approve the request in Item 13 for landscape and amenities modification to the final plat, but retain the masonry wall fence on Locust Grove. Bird: Second. Borton: It's been moved and seconded to approve Item 13, MFP 06-006, with the one amendment of retaining the masonry wall -- Rountree: Fencing. Yeah. Borton: -- along Locust Grove. Any discussion? Bird: I have none. Meridian City Council February 6,2007 Page 11 of 76 Borton: All those in favor say aye. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Item 14: Continue Public Hearing from January 23, 2007: RZ 06-008 Request for a Rezone of 8.96 acres (Lots 41-45, Block 49, Lochsa Falls Subdivision No. 12) from R-4 to C-N zone for Lochsa Falls Office I Commercial Addition by Farwest, LLC - south of Chinden Boulevard and west of North Linder Road: Item 15: Continued Public Hearing from January 23, 2007: MCU 06-002 Request for Modification of the approved Conditional Use Permit / Planned Development to remove the requirement for detailed Conditional Use Permit approval for development on Lots 41-45, Block 49, Lochsa Falls Subdivision No. 12 for Lochsa Falls Office I Commercial Addition by Farwest, LLC - south of Chinden Boulevard and west of North Linder Road: Borton: Thank you. Item 14, continued Public Hearing on RZ 06-008, Lochsa Falls Office / Commercial addition by Farwest, LLC. Canning: President Borton, Members of the Council, this is the Lochsa Falls Office / Commercial Addition. It's on the north end of Lochsa Falls just south of Chinden, so it's these subject lots just to the east of the L-Q zoned property. The applications before you tonight are a rezone and a conditional use modification. The applicant requests approval to rezone Lots 41 through 45 from R-4 to the C-N, so that the zoning will reflect the future commercial uses. Four of the subject lots -- and those are the western four -- were approved -- or conceptually approved for commercial -- for office uses with the original planned development. At that time staff was not trying to get zoning consistent with it. They kept their residential zoning, even though the planned development allowed additional uses. So, the four western lots were approved for office uses and the one eastern lot, Lot 41 , was approved for a commercial use. In addition to the rezone application, the applicant is asking to modify one of the conditions of approval that was in the Conditional Use Permit -- or the planned development and that requirement was that each individual lot receive conditional use approval prior to release of building permits. We do have some elevations. You can see the surrounding properties. There was Knight Hill or Knight -- one's Knight Hill and one's Knight Sky, but there are commercial uses approved to the north of this one and to the east. Here are some sample elevations that the applicant has provided in the hopes of removing their conditional use requirement. These are actually the office elevations on the Hastings Subdivision, which is the L-O zoned property just to the east. So, two of the lots have come in for the L-O zoning previously, as allowed through the original planned development. Okay. The Commission is recommending approval. They held their hearing on December 21 st. Brian McColl, the applicant's representative, spoke in favor of the application. No one spoke in opposition. Jay Anderson, who is a representative for the Challenger schools, did comment on the application and they own Lots 41 and Meridian City Council February 612007 Page 12 of 76 42. So, those would be the two eastern ones, I believe. Yes. The key issues of the discussion by the Commission were the cross-access to the property to the east, which is the Knight Hill Center Subdivision. You may recall there is an access road coming off Linder, then, wraps around the building and connects with this private drive. Also, a key issue of discussion was the building setback from the centerline of Chinden Boulevard, which is currently at 135 feet. So, that would include the landscape buffer. The key Commission changes to staff's initial recommendation were to provide a cross-access to the east. And the outstanding issues from City Council that we are aware of were the building setback from the centerline of Chinden. The other issue is that the applicant is proposing C-N zoning on the whole property. That was their original proposal. Staff has geared the conditions and is recommending that this lot to the east be C-N, but that the other lots be -- have L-O zoning, consistent with their original planned development proposal. If Council decides to go forward with solely C-N zoning, then, they do need to -- the applicant does need to modify the development agreement to change those uses, because the development is pretty clear that -- or is clear that only this lot would have commercial uses, the others would all be office uses. And with that I will answer any other questions you may have. Borton: Thank you, Anna. And, for the record, we have opened the Public Hearing on Item 14 and 15. Considering both. Any questions for staff? Rountree: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: One comment from staff was to provide cross-access to the east. Point that out for me, would you, please. Canning: That would be through the Knight Hill Subdivision property. They were going to provide cross-access going this way. It's just kind of a reciprocal cross-access, because this is not a public street, it's a private street. Rountree: Thank you. Canning: There was -- I should mention in appreciation of all those that have been developing along here, when the original project went through there was discussion about putting a sidewalk on one side of the street. For whatever reason a lot of the conditions of approval for Lochsa Falls never made it into the approved Findings. There is like six conditions of approval for those subdivisions, so -- and one of them was that sidewalk. But all the applicants have been more than willing to put a five foot sidewalk adjoining the north side of the private street, so that helps to make that a functioning street. So, I wanted to point out just in appreciation of all those folks that have met that requirement for us. Borton: Thank you, Anna. Any other questions of staff? Meridian City Council February 6f 2007 Page 13 of 76 Rountree: I have none. Borton: Would the applicant like to come forward? McColl: My name is Brian McColl, 420 West Washington, Boise, Idaho. 83702. I really don't have very much to add. The applicant in this case is Farwest, LLC, the owner of three of the lots -- the most easterly lots is Lochsa Falls, LLC. Lochsa Falls has sold to the Challenger school. The other two lots we have been working with Challenger school. The applicant has no difficulty in changing the request for rezone to L-O on the four westerly lots, with the C-N zone on the easterly lot, as staff just recommended. No difficulty with the suggestion or requirement of the sidewalk and the cross-access -- actually, we have been approached by the development on the corner there, the Knight Hill to have access to the private drive and -- well, we haven't finalized the agreement. There will be a cross-access between the two parties. The only thing that's left and continues to be a small issue is the so-called setback requirement. The zone, should they be granted, have a setback of the building of 20 feet from the property line. IDT has sort of at the last moment, because they didn't insert this at the preliminary plat or the annexation and original rezone application, nor at the final plat for phase 12, but at the last moment have come in and said, wait a minute, we want to have the building setback 135 feet from the center line of Chinden. Current status is there is a 40 foot right of way from the center line. When my client developed phase 12, although that map doesn't very clearly show it, they reserved an additional 30 feet. That takes you to 70. Then they platted a landscape buffer lot of 35 feet, which takes you to 105. And, then, we have got the zone setback of 20, which takes you to 125 and we just think that that's enough. We don't think it's necessarily the job of this Council to sort of -- I don't know, impliedly do a condemnation by saying, well, now lOT wants 135 with setbacks, so we are going to impose that. Anyhow, that is I suspect the only issue and I will stand for questions if anyone has any. Borton: Thank you, Mr. McColl. Council, any questions? Rountree: I have none. Bird: I have none. Borton: Thank you. This is a Public Hearing. Is there anyone of the public who wishes to offer comment or testimony? Nobody signed up to do so. Anna, any final questions, comments? Canning: No, sir. Rountree: I think Mr. Bird has a question for Anna. Canning: Yes, sir. Bird: Why are we asking for 135? Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 14 of 76 Canning: Well, I believe -- Bird: Or why is ITD or whoever it is. Canning: Part of it is the change in our code that says setback shall be as determined by lTD. That's generally in regard to new development. This one's a little further along. But they have changed their thinking. Instead of 140 foot right of way, they are looking for a 200 foot right of way. So, that's where the extra 30 feet come in. And, then, it is an entryway corridor, so we have the 35 foot landscape buffer. So, if we were to not accommodate for that 30 feet, if ITD came in and took the additional 30 feet, then, you would have a five foot landscape buffer between the state facility and the structure. Bird: Thank you. McColl: Staff can correct me if I'm wrong. It's my understanding that the Hastings Subdivision that picked up those two lots to the west did not have that imposed upon them; is that correct? Bird: They did not. Canning: You're correct, sir. It doesn't appear to from this line and it does show all the Hastings Subdivision in there, so -- McColl: So, I suppose for consistency we'd ask that this particular rezone not be encumbered with that additional setback. Bird: Additional ten feet. McColl: That's correct. Bird: 125 to 135. McColl: It would be 125 to 135. Yes. That's right. The buildings and stubs, of course, would already be 25 foot -- 20 feet back from the property line. Bird: Okay. Canning: Sir? Mr. President. I think -- ITD did change its thoughts on the necessary right of way recently. As part of the ongoing 20-26 corridor study they are now looking at increasing their right of way from 140 feet to 200 feet and they have been talking with the property owners out there and this isn't the only one that's resisted. None of them are particularly keen on the idea. The idea here is that there are very few structures currently built here. I mean there is -- as you can see, there is nothing up to here. We are just getting these started. This lot is still free of any structures and there are a few homes there. But they are trying to pro-actively work toward that additional right of way, Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 15 of 76 but it isn't a finalized document either, so they are trying to leave that open at least as a possibility. Borton: Any other information, Council? Rountree: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: I would move that we close the public hearings on Items 14 and 15. Bird: Second. Borton: It's been moved and seconded to close the public hearings on Items 14 and 15. All those in favor? MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Rountree: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: I move that we approve the request to rezone 8.9 acres from R-4 to L-O for Lots 41 through 44 and C-N for Lots 45 in Lochsa Office Commercial Addition. Is that correct? Bird: That's the wrong numbers. Canning: Mr. President, it would be C-N for Lot 41 and L-Q for Lots 42 through 45. Rountree: Just swap the end with the -- Bird: Second. Borton: It's been moved and seconded to approve Item 14 with the modifications mentioned by -- within the motion. Any discussion? Mr. Bird, will you, please, call roll. Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, absent; Borton, yea. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Borton: Council? Rountree: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Rountree. Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 16 of 76 Rountree: I move that we approve the request for modification of the Conditional Use Permit for Item 15. Bird: Second. Borton: It's been moved and seconded to approve Item 15, MCU 06-002. Any discussion? Rountree: I have none. Borton: Seeing none, Mr. Berg, will you, please, call roll. Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, absent; Borton, yea. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Item 16: Public Hearing: AZ 06-045 Request for Annexation and Zoning of 7.556 acres from RUT to an R-4 zone for Eastwood Subdivision by Wirt Edmonds - 4515 South Locust Grove Road: Item 17: Public Hearing: PP 06-047 Request for Preliminary Plat approval of 24 single-family residential lots and 3 common lots on 7.556 acres in a proposed R-4 zone for Eastwood Subdivision by Wirt Edmonds - 4515 South Locust Grove Road: Borton: Thank you. Item 16 and 17, public hearings for AZ 06-045 and PP 06-047, the Eastwood Subdivision. We will begin these applications with staff comments. Canning: Mr. President, Members of the Council, this is the Eastwood project. It's located on the west side of Locust Grove, approximately a fifth of a mile north of Amity Road. It is an annexation and zoning request, as well as preliminary plat approval. The annexation and zoning would be for 7.56 acres to R-4 and, then, the preliminary plat approval of 24 single family residential lots. The applicant has set aside 5.15 percent for usable open space, including a centrally located common area, as seen there. The density is 3.1 dwelling units per acre. This density does exceed the range outlined in the Comprehensive Plan. It is currently shown as low density, which would be up to three units per acre. So, they are requesting a step up to medium density for the site. And they do have to justify that to Council. That is Council's prerogative to allow them that step up in density. Staff has proposed a development agreement. That development agreement includes the following: That they -- that only detached single family homes and allowed accessory uses of the R-4 be allowed on the property. That there be a maximum of 24 units. That all homes within the subdivision shall contain at least 1 ,200 square feet of living area and all homes on Lots 11, 12 and 13, Block 1, shall be restricted to a single story and be subject to at a minimum a 20 foot rear setback. I believe that's these three numbers. We are checking on the numbers. I Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 17 of 76 apologize, I forgot to check on that, but I believe it's those three lots. And the applicant, I'm sure, will be able to identify those for you. I apologize. Also in the development agreement is a requirement for a five foot sidewalk and a 25 foot landscape buffer constructed to city code along Locust Grove Road, prior to occupancy of any new dwelling units. The Commission held their hearing on December 21 st and they have recommended approval. Becky McKay spoke in favor of the applicant. No one spoke in opposition. Pat Sturgis commented at the hearing and also Pat and Jim Sturgis provided written testimony and I believe they are the property owners of this lot that is affected by several of the lots to the north. Yeah. It's 11, 12, and 13 are these three lots. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. The key issues of discussion by the Commission were what is an appropriate transition between the lots on the south property boundary and those with the East Slope Subdivision to the south. I think this is one of those cases where we have got an unusually wide lot to the south there that presented some different circumstance than we usually see. That was the key issue of discussion. The key changes to staff's initial recommendation were the -- that the applicant would be required to enter into a development agreement with the city. That there be a maximum of 24 units. And, as I mentioned before, that those three homes have single story houses and a 20 foot rear setback. And the west lot line of Lot 14, Block 1, shall be adjusted to align with the west lot line of Lot 17, Block 1, East slope. So, Lot 14 is that one there. So, the idea was to move this line, so it lined up with that one. Outstanding issues before City Council would be the proposed density and transitioning of lot sizes and the height of the home allowed near lots bordering the East Slope Subdivision. I think we have resolved it for the Sturgis property. Another neighbor came in today and I believe they are going to provide testimony tonight regarding the lots adjoining their property. So, they did just come in this afternoon. We have no written testimony that was not included in your staff report, though. With that I will answer any questions you may have. Borton: Thank you, Anna. Council, any questions? Bird: Not at this point. Rountree: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: For Anna. Mrs. Canning? Canning: Yes, sir. Sorry. Rountree: What's going on here? Canning: That's a required landscape buffer and it looks like -- it appears to have some drainage in it as well. Rountree: Okay. That's a drainage basin? Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 18 of 76 Canning: Up north at the end. Yes. And just to the north of this project is the proposed Reflection Ridge. It's not showing up as platted or preliminary platted, but that is immediately to the north of this project. They will take access from that subdivision, as you can see. Oh, I'm sorry, Public Works had a letter that they have submitted to the President and -- regarding an additional condition of approval. Grady: Mr. President, Members of the Council, it's a little bit late in the game, but we did decide we needed a second water connection for this subdivision. It is out on the peripheral of the development and because it is so far away from a water source, we just require a second connection. Borton: Council, any questions? Rountree: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: Question for Anna. On this lot line adjustment, what do you end up with for Lot 14? Or is that eliminated as a common lot? Canning: I don't believe they addressed that fully. So, I think they left it up to the applicant to see if they can maneuver those lines around and they may be able to provide some additional information. Rountree: Thank you. Borton: In the staff memo it makes reference to the 20 foot wide placement in the common lot. Is there a location for the second connection already suggested? Grady: No. But we will work with the applicant to make sure we can come up with something. Borton: Okay. Would the applicant like to come forward? Stiles: Sheri Stiles, Engineering Solutions, 1029 North Rosario in Meridian, Idaho. We had initially come in to the city requesting an R-8 for this property and staff had indicated in that meeting that they really couldn't feel comfortable with anything more dense than the R-4 would allow. So, we did redesign the project and come in with the request for R-4. We also had a stub street coming out onto Locust Grove that Ada County Highway District was not in favor of, particularly since there was access to another street just to the north of this property. So, we thought it was a good opportunity to eliminate an access onto an arterial street. Also, the existing home that's there will be able to be accommodated through the new street system. They will be able to access their garage from the interior streets and not require an access onto Locust Grove. Anna is correct in that we did -- we did agree that those three lots would Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 19 of 76 be restricted to the single story and also that they would have a 20 foot rear setback. This lot is probably -- it's very wide and -- well, it's about 143 feet from here from side to side. So, it's hard to buffer. We did do our best in keeping that to three lots and did agree to skew that lot line and make it up through these other lots, these around here, so that they would not be impacted by an additional residential dwelling adjacent to their property line. There is not a whole lot you can do with these projects this size. It's really hard to make them pencil out. I don't believe the project will gain anything as far as being desirable by eliminating a lot on the south. It will leave the remainder some kind of odd lots and we would request that the step up for this particular project be approved. I don't know if you have any other questions. 1-- Bird: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Bird. Bird: Sheri, in that lot -- why can't we eliminate Lot 14 and put a line down there and 13 and 15 just become little larger lots? I know it eliminates one lot, but we are going to line up -- if you don't do that you're going to have an awful small lot there. Stiles: Councilman Bird, Councilmen, Becky has laid this out to show that -- the way those lot lines would change and it's just that the -- being such a small project, you know, if it were a 180 acre project, taking out a lot or two wouldn't be a big deal, but in this case a seven and a half acre project, one lot can make a significant impact. That's four percent of the project. Borton: Sheri, to follow up on Councilman Bird's question, is the idea, then, that the -- that lot line between 13 and 14 would move to the east and the eastern lot line of 14 would not move? Stiles: This line would also be moved. All three of these lot lines would be adjusted slightly. Borton: And 16 is an existing house. Stiles: Yes. But we could -- we would still be able to meet setback and configure that a little differently there to -- to make a nice lot and not encroach on their area that they want to retain. Bird: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Bird. Bird: Sheri, by taking that -- going back in, I misunderstood you. I didn't know you was going into 16. Are we still going to -- are we still going to maintain the 8,000 square feet, R-4 lots? Meridian City Council February 6,2007 Page 20 of 76 Stiles: Minimum, yes. The average lot -- actually, the average lot size -- Bird: And the frontage? Stiles: I'm sorry? Bird: And the frontage also? Stiles: Frontage, yes. All that will meet the R-4 zone. The average lot size is 8,953 square feet. Bird: So, you will take out of the existing lot six feet? Stile: It will probably have to be adjusted just slightly, yes. Bird: I don't have any problem, then, if you can do that. Borton: Council, any other questions of the applicant? Bird: I have none. Rountree: I have none. Borton: No. Thank you. Stiles: Thank you. Borton: This is a Public Hearing. A number of people have signed up to provide testimony. When I call your name if you will, please, come forward. Scott Stewart. Signed up neutral. Stewart: My -- I am in -- well, by Lot 10 and 11. This is my property right here. Nary: Can you use this mike, sir. Stewart: Okay. So, this is my property right here. And I just want to go ahead and also request that -- Borton: If I could have you state your name and address for the record. Stewart: Oh. Okay. My name is Scott Stewart. I'm at 1360 East Pitkin Avenue. Borton: Okay. Thank you. Meridian City Council February 612007 Page 21 of 76 Stewart: So, my request would be that in addition to Lot 13, 12 and 11 having the one story requirement, that also Lot 1 0 would also have that same requirement, so as to minimize the impact on my home also. Borton: Okay. Thank you. Bernie Fisher is signed up, but it looks like it's scribbled across. Okay. Sheri Stiles signed up for. Thafs everybody who signed up to provide testimony. This is a Public Hearing. You bet. De Weir: Amy De Weir, 4550 South Ramona Street. Borton: Thank you. De Weir: And I live next to the man who just spoke and I would just like to reaffirm his request for a single living dwelling on Lot 10, not to have a double -- single story. Sorry. Single story. Borton: And are you the lot just to the north? De Weir: I'm not on there. I could point to where I would be if I was. I'm right beside him. Borton: You're going to have to use the microphone right there. De Weir: Okay. Yeah. I'm that one. With the red dot. Borton: Thank you, Anna. Okay. De Weir: Thank you, Councilmen. Borton: Okay. Thank you. Anyone else from the public who wishes to provide comment or testimony? Would the applicant like to come forward. Stiles: Sheri Stiles with Engineering Solutions. It would be a difficult layout on that Lot 10, because of how far you have to go back. I'm not sure that they could have -- put a nice single level house on that particular lot. The applicant would not like to be restricted on that lot as far as a single level, because of the configuration. It's going to be a little more difficult to build a house on that lot. Bird: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Bird. Bird: Sheri, tell me what the difference between 11 -- 10 and 11? If you can do it on 11, why you can't do it on 10. Meridian City Council February 6,2007 Page 22 of 76 Stiles: I believe that they'd have to look at it and see if the -- some of the plans that they are using, where they would meet that -- where they would -- how far back they would have to set that house and how big of an area they'd have left to actually build the house because of the setbacks. Ward Edmonds is here. He may be able to explain it better. Bird: I would like an explanation, because it looks like ten has actually got more frontage than 11 does, if -- and, you know, I don't know how close that is to scale, but -- Borton: Councilman Bird, I've got the same question, so I'd like to hear an explanation. Edmonds: My name is Ward Edmonds. 2297 North Chandler Way in Meridian. I was just talking to the lady that came up here -- Nary: Can you pull the microphone closer, sir. Edmonds: I don't know without looking at the -- that the frontage and how big that is and what I was thinking about, to put a nice home on there, to get a single level and a 20 foot setback, it may be possible, but I would have to look at it, but you'd get -- you got to make the house so long and come so far back from the road to get it the width to do the side setbacks, so I don't know what size house you can get in there without looking at it. But we don't have any objections to having another single story house there, you just might play with that backyard a little bit. I'd just have to look at it to see. Bird: Yeah. Mr. President, I don't have no problem with the setback, as much as just a single story, I don't -- but I just -- it's beyond me how you could agree to the terms on 11 and not 1 0, because 10 actually looks like a larger lot to me. Edmonds: It looks like it and -- Bird: But I don't know how close that is to scale. Edmonds: Yeah. I don't know either, but it looks like it would be real easy to do, but what I'm saying is -- and I was telling the lady, maybe if you had -- would allow two story or just one or the other, you might end up with a lot nicer house there than you would if you just left it alone. But we are happy to do that. Bird: You're happy for a single story with no setback. Edmonds: Right. Right. Bird: Without the 20 foot setback. Edmonds: Right. And if he wants to just leave it and it might end up single story anyway, just leave the setback alone. One or the other. It's hard to say without looking at size of the lot and laying a house on it, you know. Meridian City Council February 6,2007 Page 23 of 76 Bird: Yeah. I agree with you. Okay. Edmonds: But we are okay. We will work either way. Bird: Okay. Thank you. Edmonds: Make the neighbors happy. Borton: Any final comments from staff? Canning: No, sir. Borton: I'd entertain a motion to -- Bird: I move that we close the public hearings on AZ 06-045 and PP 06-047. Rountree: Second. Borton: It's been moved and seconded to close public hearings on Items 16 and 17. All those in favor say aye. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Bird: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Bird. Bird: Hearing no more discussion -- Rountree: My comment, Mr. President, is that it seems there is some confusion with the preliminary plat on this particular item, so if we move forward with Item 16, I would like to continue the hearing on the preliminary plat to see the final lots -- lot splits and dimensions to make sure that they are consistent. Bird: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Bird. Bird: I would -- I would prefer that we open up both -- reopen and, then, continue both public hearings. Borton: I will second that. I tend to agree with Councilman Rountree's concerns to see those revisions. It's been moved and seconded to reopen the public hearings on Items 16 and 17. All those in favor? Meridian City Council February 6,2007 Page 24 of 76 MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Bird: Mr. President? Borton: If I can get a motion to continue. Mr. Bird. Bird: I move that we continue public hearings 16 and 17 to February 13. Is one week going to be enough, Anna, for you guys or do we need two? Canning: President Borton, Members of the Council, if you want a revised preliminary plat, I suspect that one week is not enough. If you want the concept of how that plat will be revised, then, you will need to go further out, probably, to allow staff time to review the applicant's proposal. Rountree: Mr. President, my lip reading tells me that we will have it tomorrow. So, one week would be enough. Bird: Okay. I move that we continue public hearings AZ 06-045 and PP 06-047 until February 13th, 2007. And this is one Councilman that when -- I want to see a preliminary plat and also an answer on Lot 10, if it's possible to be like 11, 12 and 13. Rountree: Second. Borton: It's been moved and seconded to continue Items 16 and 17 with specific directions to February 13th. Nary: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Nary. Nary: Just to make it clear with the maker of the motion, is the intent, then, to limit testimony only to those issues on the hearing -- the continued hearing to the 13th? Bird: Just on the preliminary plat and the issue on Lot 10. Nary: Okay. Borton: Second agree? Rountree: I agree. Borton: Okay. Without any other discussion, all those in favor? MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 25 of 76 Item 18: Public Hearing: TE 07-001 Request for an 8 month Time Extension to record the final plat for Secret Garden Subdivision by Oliver Cleaver - 2490 North Locust Grove Road: Borton: Item No. 18. Public Hearing on TE 07-001, a time extension request for Secret Gardens Subdivision. Open this Public Hearing with staff comments. Canning: President Borton, Members of the Council, this is the Secret Gardens project. It's on the east side of Locust Grove Road approximately a half mile south of Ustick. It's a smaller project. It included one commercial office building lot, one common area lot on about one acre, with R-8 and L-O zoning. The applicant now needs a time extension. They state that the only remaining items are to submit water and sewer easements, along with shared parking, cross-easement, and to finalize the CC&Rs that are currently in the final draft form. You may remember it's an office lot out in front, with a shared access to some townhouses in the rear and, then, they left a stand of trees on the lower common lot, some large trees. So, they have received one time extension that was -- that I approved. Their original approval was in January 4th of 2005. So, in 2006 they applied for a one year time extension and I granted that. But any additional time extensions do need to be approved by Council. They did submit their time extension request prior to the expiration of that time. So, everything is in order, it just requires Council approval. And with that I will -- there are no outstanding issues to our knowledge, so I'll answer any questions you may have. Borton: Thank you, Anna. Council, any questions? Bird: I have none. Rountree: I have none. Borton: Would the applicant like to come forward? Is the applicant here? Anna, have you heard? Canning: No, I have not. He may not have been aware that he needed -- that this was a testimony, instead of a meeting. There are no conditions of approval, it's just a time extension. So, there is nothing for him to agree to or disagree with. If that influences Council's decision. Borton: Okay. Bird: Mr. President? Borton: Council? Mr. Bird. Bird: I move we close the Public Hearing on TE 07-001. Rountree: Second. Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 26 of 76 Borton: It's been moved and seconded to close the Public Hearing on Item 18. All those in favor? MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Bird: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move we approve the TE 07-001, an extension request for an eight month extension of the final plat for Secret Garden Subdivision by Oliver Cleaver. Borton: Second. It's been moved and seconded to approve the request for extension, Item No. 18. Any discussion? Rountree: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: This will be number two and our history tells us that there could likely be number three coming in eight months and we do have -- and have in the past looked at -- favorably one year extensions, but not multiple year extensions. So, 11m not going to be in favor of this particular motion. Bird: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Bird. Bird: While making the motion and going to back it for eight months, I will state that I don't want to see it before us again. Borton: Okay. Any other discussion? Bird: Call for the question. Borton: Mr. Berg, if you would, please, call roll. Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, nay; Zaremba, absent; Borton, yea. MOTION CARRIED: TWO AYES. ONE NAY. ONE ABSENT. Borton: Thank you. Items 19, 20 and 21 , continued public hearings -- Canning: Sir? Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 27 of 76 Borton: Oh. Canning: Before you open those public hearings, I believe the applicant has a timing request, if you're willing to consider it. I couldn't take the time to find out exactly what it was, because I was in the middle of the last hearing, so -- Borton: Okay. Wildwood: Thank you, Mr. President, Members of the Council. My name is Susan Wildwood. I'm an attorney and I'm here on behalf of the applicant. I was wondering if you could take any of those ordinances ahead of this case. We are waiting for Becky McKay, who is driving, hopefully at the speed limit, from the city of Star. So, if we could have a five minute delay. If not, then, we will just proceed without her. Thank you, sir. That's the request. Bird: Shall we do the ordinances? Rountree: Let's do the ordinances. Borton: Sure. Bird: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move that we continue the public hearings on 19, 20 and 21 until atter Item 27, our ordinances. Item 22: Item 23: Item 24: Item 25: Ordinance No. 07-1290 : AZ 06-055 Request for Annexation and Zoning of 1 .12 acres from RUT to an R-4 zone for Gene and Freda Babbitt by the City of Meridian Public Works Department - 2570 South Locust Grove Road: Ordinance No. 07-1291 : AZ 06-053 Request for Annexation and Zoning of 2.0 acres from RUT to a L-O zone for Ada County Hiahwav District locust Grove Road Pond by Ada County Highway District - 1280 North Locust Grove Road: Ordinance No. 07-1292 : AZ 06-048 Request for Annexation and Zoning of 32.75 acres from RUT to a C-G zone (8.74 acres) and I-L zone (24.01 acres) for Creamline Park Subdivision by Creamline Associates, LLC - 1200 West Franklin Road: Ordinance No. 07-1293 : RZ 06-010 Request for a Rezone of 2.20 acres from I-L to a C-G zone for lanark Property by Ron Van Auker Meridian City Council February 6,2007 Page 28 of 76 - Northwest Corner of Eagle Road and Lanark Street (Lots 1 & 2, Block 1 of Olson & Bush Industrial Park: Item 26: Ordinance No. 07-1294 AZ 06-034 Request for Annexation and Zoning of 2.95 acres from R4 (Ada County) to L-O (Limited Office District) zones for Ashtvn Park Annexation by David N. Price -- 201 West Ustick Road: Item 27: Ordinance No. 07-1295 : AZ 06-056 Request for Annexation and Zoning of 5.2 acres from RUT to R-4 zone for Clearsprinas Subdivision by Mike Hill- 1035 East McMillan Road: Borton: Ordinance starting with 07-1290. We would ask that the clerk read these ordinances 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 and 27 by title only. Berg: Everybody's exited here. Thank you, Mr. President, Members of the Council. We will start off with No. 22, Ordinance 07-1290, an ordinance for annexation of property being situated in a portion of the northwest quarter of Section 8, Township 3 North, Range 1 East, Boise Meridian, Ada County, Idaho, as described in Attachment A and annexing certain lands and territories situated in Ada County, Idaho, and adjacent and contiguous to the corporate limits of the City of Meridian, as requested by the City of Meridian, establishing and determining the land use zoning classification of said lands from RUT to R-4 in the Meridian City Code, providing that copies of this ordinance shall be filed with the Ada County assessor, the Ada County recorder, and the Idaho State Tax Commission, as required by law, and providing for a summary of the ordinance and providing for a waiver of the reading of the rules and providing an effective date. Berg: Ordinance 07-1291, Item 23, an ordinance for annexation of property being situated in a portion of the northwest corner of Section 8, Township 3 North, Range 1 East, Boise Meridian, Ada County, Idaho, as described in Attachment A and annexing certain lands and territories situated in Ada County, Idaho, and adjacent and contiguous to the corporate limits of the City of Meridian, as requested by the City of Meridian, establishing and determining the land use zoning classification of said lands from RUT to L-O in the Meridian City Code, providing that copies of this ordinance shall be filed with the Ada County assessor, the Ada County recorder, and the Idaho State Tax Commission, as required by law, and providing for a summary of the ordinance and providing for a waiver of the reading of the rules and providing an effective date. Berg: Ordinance 07-1292, Item 24, an ordinance for annexation of property being a portion of the west half of the southwest quarter of Section 12, Township 3 North, Range 1 West, Boise Meridian, Ada County, Idaho, as described in Attachment A and annexing certain lands and territories situated in Ada County, Idaho, and adjacent and contiguous to the corporate limits of the City of Meridian, as requested by the City of Meridian, establishing and determining the land use zoning classification of said lands from RUT to I-L and C-G in the Meridian City Code, providing that copies of this Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 29 of 76 ordinance shall be filed with the Ada County assessor, the Ada County recorder, and the Idaho State Tax Commission, as required by law, and providing for a summary of the ordinance and providing for a waiver of the reading of the rules and providing an effective date. Berg: Ordinance 07-1293, Item 25, an ordinance finding that Ronald Van Auker, the owner of certain lands -- real property made a written request for rezone of zoning classification for real property being situated in Lots 1 and 2 of Olson-Bush Industrial Park and a portion of the public road adjacent to the lots lying in the southeast quarter of the southeast quarter of Section 8, Township 3 North, Range 1 East, Boise Meridian, Ada County, Idaho, as described in Attachment A of this ordinance and rezoning certain lands and territories situated in Ada County, Idaho, and within the corporate limits of the City of Meridian, and rezoning the land use zoning classification of said lands from I-L to C-G in the Meridian City Code, providing that copies of this ordinance shall be filed with the Ada County assessor, the Ada County recorder, and the Idaho State Tax Commission, as required by law, and providing for a summary of the ordinance and providing for a waiver of the reading of the rules and providing an effective date. Berg: Item No. 26, 07-1294, an ordinance for annexation of property situated in a portion of Lots 3 and 4 of Strausser Farm Subdivision No.2 as shown on the official plat thereof on file in the office of Ada County, Idaho, recorder and adjoining public right of way being situated in Lots 1 in Section 1, Township 3 North, Range 1 West, Boise Meridian, Ada County, Idaho, as described in Attachment A and annexing certain lands and territories situated in Ada County, Idaho, and adjacent and contiguous to the corporate limits of the City of Meridian, as requested by the City of Meridian, establishing and determining the land use zoning classification of said lands from RUT to L-O in the Meridian City Code, providing that copies of this ordinance shall be filed with the Ada County assessor, the Ada County recorder, and the Idaho State Tax Commission, as required by law, and providing for a summary of the ordinance and providing for a waiver of the reading of the rules and providing an effective date. Berg: Item 27. Ordinance 07-1295, an ordinance for annexation of property located in the north one half of the northeast one quarter of Section 31, Township 4 North, Range 1 East, Boise Meridian, Ada County, Idaho, as described in Attachment A and annexing certain lands and territories situated in Ada County, Idaho, and adjacent and contiguous to the corporate limits of the City of Meridian, as requested by the City of Meridian, establishing and determining the land use zoning classification of said lands from RUT to R-4 and providing that copies of this ordinance shall be filed with the Ada County assessor, the Ada County recorder, and the Idaho State Tax Commission, as required by law, and providing for a summary of the ordinance and providing for a waiver of the reading of the rules and providing an effective date. Borton: Thank you, Mr. Berg. You have heard these ordinances read by title only. Does anyone wish them to be read in their entirety? Other than Mrs. Wildwood, perhaps. Seeing none -- Meridian City Council February 6,2007 Page 30 of 76 Bird: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move we pass ordinances 07-1290, 07-1291, 07-1292, 07-1293, 07-1294, 07- 1295 with suspension of rules. Rountree: Second. Borton: It's been moved and seconded to approve Ordinances Items 22 through 27. Mr. Berg, if you'd, please, call roll. Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, absent; Borton, yea. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Item 28: Executive Session per Idaho State Code 67-2345(1)(c) - (to conduct deliberations concerning labor negotiations or to acquire an interest in real property, which is not owned by a public agency) and 67-2345(1)(f) - (to consider and advise its legal representatives in pending litigation): Bird: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Bird. Bird: I would note -- move that we remove Item 28 from the agenda. It is no longer needed. Rountree: Second. Borton: It's been moved and seconded to remove Item 28 from the agenda. All those in favor? Item 28 is gone. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Borton: Mr. Nary, we might take a short recess here in a second, but I had a question on Items 19 and 20 and 21. Would it be appropriate to open Item 21, the annexation issue, by itself or open all three of them at the same time? Nary: Mr. President, Members of the Council, you had granted the request for reconsideration of Item 21. When you had originally heard these items you had heard them all together and had continued 19 and 20 for, essentially, the Findings consistent with the decision that was granted on 21 previously. Tonight you only have to listen to 21 and, then, make a decision on whether the Findings are appropriate for whatever decision the Council makes. If not, you may need to open that to continue it to have Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 31 of 76 Findings redone, if necessary, or to gather more information, but you certainly could only hear 21 if you wish. Canning: I hate it when I have to disagree with our attorney, but we don't actually have Findings for Items No. 19 and 20. What you directed us to do was to get conditions of approval for the preliminary plat. So, those we are going to present -- be presented to you in a Public Hearing format. So, I guess as far as -- one option that I would like you to consider is just to open up the annexation, make a decision on that one and, then, move forward to the other two. But we do need input either on -- we need input on the preliminary plat and it's still a Public Hearing. I'm sorry, I'm stuttering, but there is still open public hearings on Item No. 19 and 20. Borton: Thank you, Anna. Council, are you ready to proceed forward or -- Bird: Is Becky here yet? Shall we take a five minute recess? Borton: We will go ahead and do that. We will take a five minute recess and come back at 25 after. (Recess. ) Item 19: Item 20: Item 21: Continued Public Hearing from January 9, 2007: PP 06-045 Request for Preliminary Plat approval of 73 residential building lots consisting of 46 attached single-family units and 27 detached single-family units and 6 common/other lots on 20.51 acres in a proposed R-8 zone for SpurwinQ Patio Homes Subdivision by Spurwing Limited Partnership - Northeast Corner of North Ten Mile Road and West Chinden Boulevard and west of North Spurwing Way: Continued Public Hearing from January 9, 2007: V AR 06-020 . Request for a Variance to exceed the maximum block length allowed under UDC 11-2D-3C for SpurwinQ Patio Homes Subdivision by Spurwing Limited Partnership - Northeast Corner of North Ten Mile Road and West Chinden Boulevard and west of North Spurwing Way: Public Hearing: AZ 06-043 Request for Annexation and Zoning of 20.51 acres from R-R to R-8 zone for Spurwina Patio Homes Subdivision by Spurwing Limited Partnership - Northeast Corner of North Ten Mile Road and West Chinden Boulevard and west of North Spurwing Way: Borton: We will go ahead and get started and we will open the Public Hearing on Item 21, AZ 06-043, and we will begin this Public Hearing with staff comments. Canning: Thank you, President Borton, Members of the Council. This is the Spurwing project. It's on the north side of Chinden and northeast of the Ten Mile - Chinden intersection as shown on the slide for you. The three full applications that you will hear Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 32 of 76 in order are annexation and zoning, preliminary plat and variance. Just to briefly remind you of the project, there are 35 lots proposed to be attached patio homes and 30 for detached homes. Access is from North Spurwing and, then, onto Salata Court and, then, it would take access from those two facilities, both in unincorporated Ada County. And, then, there would be an emergency access proposed out to Chinden at the Ten Mile intersection, basically. And that also serves as their annexation path. So, this emergency access that comes from about the intersection of Ten Mile and Chinden Boulevard, it's an L-shaped leg and, then, it would provide access to this parcel. And they are not providing direct public street, it's just emergency access. Then, to the north are the Spurwing one acre residential lots. On all other sides are the Spurwing Golf Course lots. So, where we left off is you did approve the annexation on December 12th with split zoning of R-4 and R-8. R-4 for the detached homes, R-8 for the attached. But you have not yet adopted those Findings and subsequent to your approval JoAnn Butler, representing one or more of the neighbors, has asked you to reconsider. You granted that reconsideration, so all those items were held over to tonight. Where we go from here, we will just, for the benefit of the public, we will -- to summarize, we will hear from the applicant, which is still the Spurwing corporation on this matter, because it is the original annexation and, then, you will take other public testimony, make a decision on the annexation, presumably, and, then, we will move on to the other applications as appropriate from there, just for those in the audience, because this is a little confusing on this one. So, with regard to the annexation, the staff report does note the fact that this is kind of a reverse enclave. It would be a city enclave in the middle of the county, with subsequent annexations or development of the adjoining properties not likely to occur given that there are large estate homes on the one acre lots and the golf course development surrounding the property. Staff originally brought this to Council asking if that annexation path was enough. The answer was, no, it was not enough. I told the applicant that they should consider additional property. They proceeded with the property as you see it tonight. But that was an original question I asked before I accepted the application. Staff is proposing a development agreement with this annexation. The issues addressed by that are as follows: That the applicant shall complete a record of survey for the property boundary adjustment. There was one necessary on the west end of the site and I believe a small portion on the east side, if I'm not mistaken. It's been awhile -- that are currently -- so, currently, portions of the subdivision as shown are not -- are parts of other lots in Spurwing Subdivision. So, they need to complete that property boundary adjustment and submit a copy of that record of survey to planning staff. And, then, prior to annexation ordinance approval by the City Council, the applicant shall submit recorded warranty deeds to the planning department to reflect the current boundary of the proposed annexation and plat and secondary access to the subdivision as provided on the preliminary plat and the southwest corner of the property from Chinden Boulevard shall be gated both at the Chinden access and the internal subdivision access in accord with the police and fire department requirement. Okay. Thank you. Sorry. I wasn't speaking into the microphone. With that those were the primary issues in the staff report that addressed only the annexation. And I'll answer any questions you may have regarding those particular items. Meridian City Council February 6,2007 Page 33 of 76 Borton: Thank you, Anna. Council, any questions of staff? Bird: I have none at this time. Rountree: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: If we could have just kind of a run through of the procedure for clarification. It would be nice if we had a slide that would say this is what we are going to do now and how we are going to proceed this evening. Obviously, it's a major interest to a lot of folks. Canning: Certainly, Council, for your benefit it is on the notes I provided you under staff recommends where we go from here. But to address that again for the benefit of the audience, you will conduct a new hearing. This is a brand new hearing, essentially, on the annexation, but only on the annexation question. So, if folks have comments on the preliminary plat, they should hold off on those until later in this hearing. Right now Council has decided to only hear the annexation. Because of the request for reconsideration, this is considered a brand new hearing. I have provided my staff input on that -- just the question of the annexation. The applicant would normally be allowed to go next and, then, followed by any public testimony. After Council is comfortable that they have received all the public testimony they require, you would normally close that Public Hearing and take an action. Once you take an action on that, we will open up -- or you will open up the preliminary plat and the variance application and take testimony as appropriate. Does that summarize it enough, Councilman Rountree? Rountree: Mr. President and probably for Mr. Nary, a point of clarification for me and maybe some of the folks. Does the previous testimony that's on record convey to this hearing or do we take all new testimony concerning this subdivision? Nary: Mr. President, Members of the Council, although it is part of the record, because you have granted a new hearing, then, you would need to hear new testimony. Rountree: Thank you. Borton: Any further questions of staff at this time? Canning: Sir? Mr. President, that only applies to the annexation. I just want to make sure everybody is clear on that. Borton: Right. That's the only Public Hearing that we have opened at this point. Canning: Okay. Borton: With no further questions, would the applicant, please, come forward. Meridian City Council February 6,2007 Page 34 of 76 Wildwood: Good evening, Mr. President, Members of the Council. For the record my name is Susan Wildwood. I'm an Attorney, 11m here on behalf of Spurwing Limited Partnership. We are going to bifurcate the first part of this presentation. There were legal issues that were raised. lid like to address those. Mrs. McKay has arrived. Thank you very much for your consideration in letting us go just a little bit out of order. And she will address the bulk of the factual matters. And if I may start, then, with regard to this annexation -- Anna, could you, please, put up the former map that showed the outline? Thank you very much. I would like you to take a long hard look at this map, gentlemen. We are actually talking about annexing what was a previously platted lot in a county subdivision. So, this is an actual platted lot in a county subdivision that we are considering tonight. So, it's not a stand alone, it was not created for purposes of this hearing, it was actually platted in 1995. I provided for you some documents, one of which is the -- actually out of the restrictive covenants, master declaration of covenants for Spurwing, in -- on the second page under item 17, the restrictive covenants clearly indicate that the remainder of any of the platted lots in the Spurwing Subdivision may be developed at anytime in the future without any representation as to the total number of houses, whether or not they would be patio homes, et cetera. So, anybody purchasing would have received a copy of those restrictive covenants and they specifically indicate that that lot and -- which was never developed with the golf course, would have been subject to additional development. I also have available for you, although I don't have additional copies, so I will provide this to you, of a copy of the standard purchase and sale agreement used by the Spurwing Limited Partnership. This specifically indicates that buyers acknowledge -- and they are required to sign this document saying that they have received these materials -- that certain of the real property tracks located in Spurwing Subdivision remain undeveloped, but may be developed for anything, including residential condominiums, townhouses, or commercial uses. All of the individuals who purchased in Spurwing -- and I would like to hand this to you, Mr. Council President. Borton: 1111 hand it to the clerk. Wildwood: -- were fully aware at the time they purchased that this platted lot would be redeveloped in the future. Also, with regard to the plat notes indicating that there would be a moratorium on the property, that's not entirely correct. There was a plat note that said that certain of the common areas had to be utilized and as common areas as defined in Ada County code, specifically Section 8-48-7. That has been since amended and there is no time restriction in the Ada County code on a non-farm subdivision, it merely requires an annexation. I would point out that the City of Meridian has previously annexed properties and developed them with the identical plat notes. The Council considered in 2005 and '6 Dartmoor Subdivision that was previously developed as a non-farm subdivision with an identical plat note. It was subsequently annexed into the city and approved as -- please forgive me -- Kingsbridge, I believe, is the name of the amended plat. So, this is something that the city has done in the past. It's not an unusual sort of thing. When one -- when the city looks at annexation, they -- items to be considered as pointed out by Attorney Nary are three things. One is it contiguous to the Meridian City Council February 6,2007 Page 35 of 76 city limits. In this particular instance it has -- there is this area of land that was platted originally offering access theoretically in the future out onto Highway 20-26. At this time I can represent to the City Council that ITD is not approving access points anywhere between the mile or the half mile line. So, it would be impossible to get any sort of access through the golf course out along Chinden Boulevard. The only access points that would be available, based on approvals from ITD, would actually be what is proposed to you right now along the Spurwing entrance out onto 20-26. This section of Ten Mile that might have been developed cannot be developed because of the development approvals for West Wing, which is a county subdivision as well. Ten Mile will not be extended immediately to the north in that location. This piece of property is -- that would constitute the pathway of annexation is a usable piece of ground as pointed out in my letter. You could actually separate out this lot alone and you could place a residence meeting the R-4 zoning on this piece of ground immediately as is presently constituted. Therefore, it is not a shoestring annexation, would not be a mere strip of ground as the case sited by Mrs. Butler, five feet wide and three miles long. That's not the case. The last thing that I would point out to you before I answer any questions of the Council, I would note that in Mrs. Butler's letter today to the City Council she's provided a copy of the future land use map adopted by the city. There is a red arrow on that particular map illustrating that this property is shown in the newly adopted Comprehensive Plan area of impact plan for the city. The city completed that process in March of 2006, indicating its interest in extending services across 20-26 to provide for a future annexation off this golf course property. At this time the golf course properties -- the open space area that are developed as the golf course, are in a long-term lease with the Spurwing golf course corporation, although Spurwing Limited Partnership retains ownership, that lease affects whether or not this property can be annexed, which it cannot be annexed under the lease term without permission of the corporation and the corporation has declined to go ahead and annex these additional properties. Whether or not this will develop in the future for residential lots is something that none of us either could have foreseen in 1995 when it was platted as a county subdivision or even today. This is an appropriate annexation bringing in, as I said, a previously platted lot originally intended for development as soon as city services would be available. It provides for a reasonable path of annexation to pick up these properties. Although the suggestion by both staff and Mrs. Butler is that because the golf course itself cannot be annexed in, it would not be an appropriate annexation, because the golf course is not going to be developed with residential housing, the only purpose for annexing the golf course would be -- and I can't say it's a bad idea -- but additional taxing revenues to the city, but it could not be developed for residential housing. And I believe those are the legal issues that were brought up by Mrs. Butler and I would be happy to stand for any questions. Thank you, Mr. President, Members of the Council. Borton: Thank you. Mr. Rountree. Rountree: Mr. President, Mrs. Wildwood, you represented the lot off of Chinden into that particular parcel as a build-able lot. Would you describe that to me dimensionally, indicate to me whether or not that is a separate lot, or is that part of the original lot that was subdivided out in this particular application? Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 36 of 76 Wildwood: Thank you. Mr. President, Council Member, it is not a separate lot. It was originally part of that platted lot. It was designed to provide access to Chinden at that time, sir. The diagram that I provided you was simply to -- which said that if it was a separately platted lot we could actually comply with the R-4 zoning setback and that was the purpose of that diagram, sir. Borton: Mrs. Wildwood, I have got a question and it's your -- your analysis sort of begs the question on that. You make reference to the R-4 in comparison that the square footage of this particular parcel, which creates the contiguous connection. Your letter listed it as 17,500 square feet for this particular parcel and perhaps that might be justification that there is legal and proper contiguity, for lack of -- if that's the term. But the case that's most often cited that strikes down, quote, shoestring-type annexations, utilizes -- I think it was a five foot wide strip that was three miles long, which using your analysis would be, actually, a larger parcel than this particular piece. So, if you could use your total square foot argument, how do you rectify that distinction? Wildwood: Thank you, Mr. President. All the jurisdictions that I'm familiar with, Eagle, Kuna, Caldwell, et cetera, when they look at whether or not a parcel of ground would constitute a shoestring piece of ground, they do not look at the total square footage. That was an original look at the five feet wide and three miles long, if you crunched it all together would, in fact, make a build-able lot. Instead, the jurisdictions look at whether or not the parcel of ground provides the contiguity, if our -- again, I agree with you if that's the correct word. They look at whether or not the way it is presently constituted could you actually place a building on that piece of ground and made all of the setbacks. So, that's why we took the actual piece of ground as it exists today, taking it at its narrowest part. So, we looked at whether or not it had frontage along Chinden Boulevard that would comply with the R-4, which it does. That would be 60 feet, it has 69. Then, we took the actual width of the piece of ground, which is 50 feet, put what would be a minimum square footage house, 1 ,400 plus square feet, in the center of that and, then, determined whether or not it could meet the side yard setbacks, which, in fact, it could with two feet to spare. And so as the jurisdictions -- other jurisdictions that I have worked in, they look at whether or not you can put a building on it today and meet all of the setbacks and frontage requirements and that's what they look at, not can we scrunch all the footage together, but could we place a building there if it was a separate lot, hence the diagram. Borton: Thank you. Wildwood: Any other questions? Rountree: I have none. Bird: I have none. Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 37 of 76 Wildwood: Thank you. And, then, I would turn the time over to Becky McKay. Thank you, sir. Borton: Thank you. McKay: Good evening, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Council. Sorry for my late arrival, but I had to go to Star city council tonight and they went a little slow. So, I ended up getting deferred over there. I hate to, you know, rehash what we have discussed in length in past hearings, but I'll try to just kind of be as brief as possible, but yet summarize, you know, what has transpired. And I won't, obviously, repeat what Susan already went through. This particular property, as we had previously stated, was a platted lot within an existing subdivision, with the exception of a sliver over here and a small sliver over here. The staff asked us to submit application to Ada County for a lot line adjustment prior to annexation or adoption of the ordinance officially annexing the property, if that were the case, in order make this a legal parcel. We had -- we have frontage out to 20-26. I have talked with Joe, I have talked with the police department, that would be used for emergency vehicle access and would be double gated, one on each end, but allowing enough offset off of Chinden so that emergency vehicles, if need be to get in there, would have the room to pull their trucks out of the right of way and not create any hazard. We have one access here onto Salata Court. Now, your Comprehensive Plan is designated medium density residential. As you well know, three to eight dwelling units per acre. With the modifications that we have made and based on input from the Council, we are at 3.17 dwelling units per acre. We went from 73 total units with 46 attached, 27 detached, down to 65 units where we have 30 attached and 35 detached. So, basically, that was a reduction of eight lots or almost an 11 percent decrease in density. And we did that willingly in order to try to mitigate the impact upon the Spurwing neighborhood. We revised all of these lots to be 10,000 square feet, which was what was staff's original recommendation. If you looked at this original staff report, the application for the R-8 met the intent of the requirements within the Comprehensive Plan. In order to try to find some middle ground, we did agree to a split zone. I submitted a plat for the Council, for the staff, so that all of this area here and here would be R-4, the R-8 would be isolated right here, as the Council in past applications has been more comfortable with that R-4 designation when we have large estate lots. And so we were comfortable with that. I believe that we have addressed all of the concerns on this application. Susan has done a wonderful job analyzing the issues that were brought up in Mrs. Butler's letter and I think that this application meets the test as far as annexation is concerned. Your urban service planning area, our area of impact, all of that -- that movement to the north was done in 2006. This was designated medium density residential at that time. Obviously, Spurwing was preexisting. All the other uses out there are the -- the estate lots were preexisting, so the Council, the staff, and everyone was quite aware of what type of development medium density would bring and what this adjoined. This is compatible. It is residential against residential. When we look at what the Council has approved on other applications, Irvine Subdivision right across street, which is our point of being contiguous here at 20-26, you zoned and annexed R-8. It has considerably higher density than what we have. Knight Sky to the east, you zoned it R-4, R-15, and a Meridian City Council February 6,2007 Page 38 of 76 commercial designation. Along this corridor for Chinden we are going to see some mixed uses. I think your comprehensive land use map has done a good job of delineating that and taking into account the fact that 20-26 will at some point in time be a five lane major state highway. This is isolated with the golf course wrapping around it on the three sides and I think what we have done here with the larger lots, we still left a considerable amount of open space in there trying to maximize that transition, that buffering as recommended and promoted in the Comp Plan and in the ordinance. Mr. Hewitt's agreed to a block masonry type wall. He's met with some of the neighbors, talked to them about landscaping, about the wall, and I think this project is a good project. And, like I said, many times before this is not inconsistent with the developments that we see around golf course facilities. We are trying to provide a mix and at the time Spurwing was done it was a non-farm was the only available option for development and the golf course, the clubhouse, the estate lots, it's a beautiful development and I believe what we are proposing here at the time 3.17 dwelling units per acre will compliment that. Do you have any questions? Borton: Thank you. Council, any questions of Mrs. McKay? Rountree: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: Mr. McKay, you indicated that the applicant had met with neighbors. Could you elaborate on that? Were there -- I see the list of people wanting to testify and the letters we are receiving and it seems that the residents not only in this neighborhood, but now in adjoining neighborhoods, are not pleased with what information they have. I'm not sure what their issues are, because this is a new hearing where we have to hear all new testimony. But has there been an effort on the part of the applicant to bring the neighborhood together and discuss these issues and resolve issues that can be resolved and bring issues that can't be resolved to the Council so we can make a decision? McKay: Mr. President, Councilman Rountree, we held -- we had a neighborhood meeting where we did notify everyone within 300 feet of our application. It was held at the country club, so that it was convenient. Lunch was served. We kind of had a roundtable discussion. We got some input. At that first neighborhood meeting the overwhelming input that we received, with the exception of a few dissenters, seemed to be positive. Comments that we received were we think this will be a nice addition to our neighborhood. We knew this application at some point in time would happen, based on the fact that the sewer and water and Meridian annexing out to Chinden Boulevard. Some people even expressed an interest in selling their acre lot and possibly buying one of the patio homes, just due to the lower maintenance and change in lifestyle. So, I was quite surprised the first neighborhood meeting we had. We also, then, had a second neighborhood meeting at Spurwing country club again. We did notify everyone within 300 feet. There was just a handful of gentlemen that attended. Most of them, I believe, were people that did not attend the first meeting and, then, they wanted to see Meridian City Council February 6,2007 Page 39 of 76 what the application was going to look like. I did receive, I think, a couple of phone calls. I discussed with the people on the phone what changes we have made and, then, I know that Mr. Hewitt has met with Jerry Frank, who lives in the end lot, and based on, obviously, the transportation system here is probably the one most impacted where we wrap around two sides of his estate lot. So, I know that Mr. Hewitt has met with him and talked about landscaping and setbacks and buffering and got input from him. Then, he's talked to some of the other neighbors. I was not involved in those meetings and talked about buffering and what their thoughts were, any recommendations they had. You'd have to ask him the question. So, there have been quite a bit of communication and this application is evolved through the hearing process, too. Obviously trying to mitigate that impact. Rountree: No further questions. Borton: Thank you. McKay: Thank you. Borton: This is a Public Hearing. There are a number of people who have signed up to provide testimony. When I call your name if you will, please, come forward and state your name and address. Kathleen Rudeen. Signed up against. Nary: Mr. President, I don't know if you -- Mrs. Butler may be representing a number of people that might assist, if you wanted to allow her to, if she's representing a bunch of folks, and we have done that in homeowners associations. I think it's your decision as the chair, I just put that out. Borton: That would be fine. Mrs. Butler, if you want to come forward and I don't know who you speak for and who you don't on the list that I have got, but I'll let you go and -- Butler: And we will try to not make the testimony redundant and I hope you can indulge me a few extra minutes. JoAnn Butler, 251 East Front Street, representing several of the property owners adjacent to and in the vicinity of this proposed development. We are talking about the annexation right now. I know you have had a great deal of explanation on the plat and so on and the merits of the project. Right now what's before you is the public matter of annexation, not the private restrictions on the property under the restrictive covenants, not what the lease says and so on, but the -- and focus on the private matters that have been raised so far may be due to perhaps not as many helpful facts as you might need to support that public matter, which is annexation. But we are asking you to, please; separate out the private from the public -- the private from the public. Mrs. McKay has done a yeoman's job of trying to demonstrate the merits of this project, but the plat and its landscaping and so on don't go to the heart of the matter that's before you right this minute and that is should this property be legally annexed. And I know you're going to rely a lot on your city attorney here tonight, because these are legal issues and so just to address some of the issues. This is a platted lot in a subdivision that was approved in the county. That's true. That doesn't mean that it Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 40 of 76 should necessarily be annexed legally. The CC&Rs indicate that lots can be subdivided and so somebody has said that that means people were aware. That still doesn't answer the question of whether or not this should be annexed into the City of Meridian. And, of course, as we have argued before, people were aware that there is a plat note that says development won't happen for 15 years. And so possibly what we have here is just prematurity. The fact that you have may have annexed in and avoided that 15 years in other subdivisions, again, that may be true, that does not necessarily make it legal. But that's a private issue and I'm not asking you to opine or make a judgment on that 15 years, because I do think that's a private issue. The mere public issue that's before you is is this appropriate for annexation. We talked about contiguity. Somebody mentioned that the lease evidently indicates that the tenant does not want to annex. Obviously, the tenant could annex and that would -- and if that's what it takes for contiguity, so that you have the ability to annex legally, perhaps that's where we need to be looking. It appears from the letters going back and forth that the issue for Mr. Hewitt and our clients is for both of them, whether the annexation requested is reasonable and orderly. Mr. Hewitt says yes and our client says no. We hope with the letter that we were able to provide to the city today that we have been able to help the Council come to grips with that decision that you have to make tonight. You have to make that decision whether the contiguity is merely a shoestring that leads to disorderly development at this time at least for Meridian. And, of course, state code says that the city council has the power to declare such land annexable, so long as it is not connected only by a shoestring or, on the other hand, by a strip of land which comprises a railroad or a highway right of way. Borton: Mrs. Butler, can I interrupt you on that -- Butler: Sure. Borton: -- that point. I'm curious as to your response to Mrs. Wildwood's analysis on being able to place a building lot within this particular parcel. Butler: Yeah. The -- thank you. The argument has been made that this shoestring can be used. Any property can be used, but that really doesn't go to the heart of the matter. That's not the question. It's true that there is a diagram that you have been provided that a house might be able to be placed in this area. Something could have been done with a long extended shoestring that the case law -- the little bit of case law that we have in Idaho demonstrates. What the issue really comes down to is it -- and it's not platted as a house, it's not being used like that, it is being used merely as a private shoestring. And so I think that begs the question. Any property can be use for anything. And it was a question or a comment was made that other cities -- Mrs. Wildwood has the experience that other cities do or don't do -- what they do regarding shoestrings and evidently she's had the experience that other cities do an analysis maybe like she's demonstrated here, maybe it's been at her behest, but what's appropriate for Meridian is not what other cities in Idaho do, but what does the statute say and what does the law guide you and your city attorney towards being comfortable that what you are doing is creating orderly development. Because contiguity, this Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 41 of 76 touching, has become a stand in for the real question, which is is the particular annexation -- does it allow for a well organized city. And if not, then, the annexation should be rejected, because it tends to create a very crazy quilt kind of look to the borders of the city, making it difficult for your city to provide services. And I know you have heard that from both your police department and your fire department in terms of servicing such as area. And, again, this is a city -- this would be city property surrounded totally by the county. You know it's a legislative session and you're probably very much aware that there are people looking at possibly trying to curtail the city's ability to annex property and it's precisely because of this thought that annexations are occurring kind of willy-nilly and in an disorderly fashion. And so with that in mind and with our legal analysis in mind, we are asking the Council to look at what we think is at this point in time a crazy quilt kind of way to annex into the City of Meridian of look at that -- look at that and say that it is premature. At this point I think that -- I have addressed the annexation issues. I hope that you will rely on your city attorney and 1111 save -- although we did hear a lot about the plat just now, I'll wait until that's actually up if we have to get there. And, of course, I really would appreciate it if you have any questions. By the way, I would mention that the notice to the 300 folks -- that may not be really the issue here, but you were asking has there been an attempt. Possibly some folks in the audience will tell you, because they were there, but there was no -- you know, I guess out to 300 feet. As you can see from the size of lots in the vicinity, that that notice doesn't get very far and, obviously, as somebody raised the CC&Rs, this group of lots would be under the same restrictive covenants that all these other lots are under. It's a neighborhood issue. And, unfortunately, the first meeting was held in December 2005. At that point a very different project was presented, sort of a double gated use. It will have its own access to Chinden. It -- I would beg the question as to whether enough conversation and working together has been done at this point. And with that I will stand for any questions that you or your Council has and leave the rest to others who may be before you. Borton: Thank you. Council, any questions? Rountree: I have none. Bird: I have none. Borton: Mrs. Butler, I have one question. I can't resist. Would your opinion or analysis be different if this hole number two, the southern property, were included? Butler: I have to say -- I mean I -- given what I have seen from our case law, it looks like the length there and the contiguity would be such that you would strictly pass that legal test. Now, that may seem silly to you, that why should we just go through that exercise, but I think that exercise deals with precedent and a desire for our legislators and our court to try to make sure that we aren't touching by a mere shoestring. Borton: And the reason I ask the question is whether or not, you know, hole number two in this analogy is included. It seems to solve this physical restriction on the Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 42 of 76 geography, but it doesn't -- in this particular case it wouldn't change the city's ability to provide any particular service. You make reference to fire and police access to the lot, including number two, it says alleviate the annexation concern. It, actually, doesn1t provide the city any additional means to provide those services. Butler: What you bring up is the fact that our annexation statute raises a number of issues. It talks about not annexing if you have got a shoestring, that's mere contiguity, but it also asks that -- the main question: For orderly or disorderly development. That you need to strive for that orderly provision of services. So, yes, that lot -- or that golf course lot being added would negate the contiguity argument. It still would not negate the argument under state code and the cases that the delivery of services to this area is still not appropriate for annexation. Borton: Thank you. Council, any other questions? Okay. Now, I have got the list of people who signed up. If Mrs. Butler was speaking on your behalf, just let us know. We will go through it for the sake that we don't want to omit anybody. So, when I call your name, please, come forward and state your name and address. Kathleen Rudeen. Against. Signed up against. Mrs. Butler's -- okay. You don't have to. I'm just going to give everyone an opportunity to either testify or indicate if someone has spoken on their behalf. Gina Ingle signed up against. Ingle: Good evening, gentlemen. My name is Gina Ingle. I live at 2819 West Balata Court in Spurwing. I would like to speak to the issue of the meetings, which I think Mr. Rountree brought up. Recently we were scheduled to have a homeowners meeting in January. The homeowners association. We were directed not to have the meeting, because Mr. Hewitt told the president of the association that he didn1t want anyone talking about the Spurwing development at that meeting. Therefore, he requested that it be canceled. So, we did not have in the past or at that canceled meeting, an opportunity to speak with him about landscaping or any other thing connected with that development. And he has not showed any inclination to speak to any of us since the last meeting in March of 2006. And most of us here this evening are represented by JoAnn Butler. Thank you. Borton: Thank you. Bird: Mr. President, I got a question for her. Borton: Mrs. Ingle. Bird: Does Mr. Hewitt run your homeowners association that he can call meetings or cancel meetings? Ingle: Apparently he does. Bird: Don't you have elections and don't you have officers? Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 43 of 76 Ingle: Yes, we do. But our president -- Bird: And bylaws and everything? Ingle: Yes, we do. Our president called off the meeting at his instructions. Are there any other questions? Bird: It don't sound -- I think I'd check into my homeowners association. Ingle: Yeah. Well, we did. Borton: Thank you. Chris Ingle signed up against. Okay. Thank you. Rick -- is there a Rick here? Any Ricks that would like to provide any testimony? I can't read the last name. I apologize. It looks like a Lori and Rick -- seeing none. I apologize for mispronouncing names. Brian and Beverly Brown. Or Beverly. Mr. Brown? Okay. Thank you. Bernie Fisher signed up against. Okay. Andrea Nist signed up against. Okay. John Flagherty. Okay. Chuck Compton sign up against. Brian Black signed up against. Black: Brian Black. 7061 Penncross Way, SpulWing Subdivision, Meridian. I'm also with Mrs. Butler and the rest of the neighbors. As far as the notification on the -- with the homeowners association, we do have elections with the homeowners association. We do have a board of directors. The way the CC&Rs are written there is some ambiguity there that Joc still controls and has all the say and can appoint or unappoint board directors, as long as he controls one lot within the subdivision. So, we are, as a homeowners organization, a majority against, but have no representation legally as that entity. And that is -- that's another private matter that we haven't addressed yet, that we haven't had the opportunity -- we have been addressing these matters right now as a group of lose knit individuals that are opposed to it, but we are the -- a very large percentage of the neighborhood. And the meeting was called off last week -- or it's been two weeks now -- for those reasons. And as -- one other comment. Have we been notified as a neighborhood? No. The people within the 300 foot limitation were. We live just around the corner to the east of the development, just passed the clubhouse, would fall outside of that 300 feet. Our lot is approximately 200 feet deep. Through a fairway in between. We are adversely affected by all of the development, the traffic, some of the other issues that go with it and to not be notified or included means - - it seems foul play. That's alii have. Borton: Thank you, Mr. Black. Holly Katowski signed up against. Okay. Thank you. Joy Compton. Signed up against. Compton: Good evening. Joy Compton. 7014 North SpulWing Way. Canning: Ma'am, can you pull the microphone down a little bit. Thank you. Meridian City Council February 6t 2007 Page 44 of 76 Compton: Good evening. Joy Compton. 7014 North Spurwing Way. It appears that we are able to bring up things other than the annexation at this time, because other people have been speaking to issues of notification, because my comment is not related to that. Nary: Well, ma'am, I mean the notification is still related to the annexation question, so -- Compton: Okay. All right. So, here is what I'd like to say, because it was mentioned by the applicant's attorney, that people had signed a paper saying that they were well aware that this piece of property could be developed into anything practically. I mean no holds barred. Many of us remember in our verbal dealings with the developer when we were making our agreement to purchase property, that numbers from 30 to 35, tops 40 -- most people remember it in the mid 30s for the number of dwellings. No mention of connection, no mention of stacking, nothing like that was ever mentioned to any of us. We all came in there knowing that, yes, that piece of property was going to be developed, it was going to be up scale townhouses patio homes type things, whatever the dictionary -- however that might be legally defined, it was made clear to us that those would be single family up scale, very much in keeping with the homes that we were all planning to build and we did build under the CC&R restrictions. And so I think it's very unfair to say that we signed on to something. We took a gentleman at his word and that's why my husband and myself purchased our property. Had we known that this was going to happen later, I can tell you we would not have done so. Thank you. Borton: Thank you, Mrs. Compton. Dolores Ashley signed up against. Ashley: I'm Dolores Ashley. 6951 North Penncross. I sit on the infamous board of directors of Spurwing Country Club. And, yes, we have tried, what has some days seemed in vain, to represent the homeowners with regard to their concerns about what's going on in the neighborhood. And, yes, what Mr. Black said is perfectly true. We serve at the pleasure of the developer, as long as he -- and he currently has two unsold lots on the one street. So, there you have it. That's our pickle. Thank you. Borton: Thank you. Jim Johnson signed up -- all right. Sheri Stiles signed up in favor. Amy Jorgensen signed up against. Okay. Thank you. Is it Dee Ashley? Ron Ashley. I apologize. Okay. Thank you. Susan Wildwood. Becky McKay. Both have provided testimony. Claire Treerice. Okay. Thank you. And Bob as well? Stephanie Stevenson. Signed up against. Stevenson: My name is Stephanie Stevenson. I live at 3075 West Balata Court. In regards to Councilman Rountree's question about whether we were approached about the fence -- or the wall, I live at the very last house that this -- on the end there and I have never been approached. My husband nor I have never been approached about it -- about what would -- the wall would be designed about, how it affects our backyard, which is fairly large, because we have that cul-de-sac. And in regards to the first meetings that we had about this, I don't remember it being quite that glossy and happy. Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 45 of 76 I remember a lot of people with questions and not being very happy about it. And the second meeting, if I remember correctly, was held on the Fourth of July weekend, so many people couldn't attend. So, that's alii have to add. Borton: Thank you. Richard Moritson. Okay. Thank you. That's all of the people that have signed up to provide testimony. Is there anyone in the audience who hasn't signed up who wishes to provide testimony? Please come forward. State your name and address for the record. Barrea: I'm Frank Barrea. We live at 6905 North Spurwing Way. And two items. First of all, we were never notified of these meetings, so the 300 foot requirement that they have for notification certainly didn't reach us. And as recently as -- my wife Cass and I just bought our home a few months ago, but prior to that we were considering building in Spurwing and we had called on one of the two lots that Hewitt still had available for sale and during that conversation we were told that they were going to be developing this area, they would be putting in some patio homes, and there would be about 30 to 35. They would be very nice homes and we might want to consider those as well. So, as recently as a year ago that's what we were hearing directly from them. So, those are my two comments. Borton: Thank you very much. Any other comment from the public? Hewitt: My name is John Hewitt. I live at 7212 North Spurwing Way and I'm the developer of this project and, apparently, I'm the big bad wolf. Alii can say is, first of all, regarding the homeowners meeting. I never gave any instructions to cancel any meeting. I was approached by Mark Hardwick who told me that a number of the homeowners wanted to add items to the agenda that the board did not approve to be added on and that these item would not discussed at the meeting. That's what I was told. I never told Mark that he was going to cancel the meeting; he wasn't going to have a meeting of any sort. I never issued any documents or whatever. I do have control of the majority of votes. I haven't involved myself in the affairs of the homeowners association during all these years, because they have, up to this point I think done a pretty good job. But I think that there has been a little bit of confusion about what the responsibilities of the homeowners are, as opposed to what the wishes and desires of some of the homeowners outside of the association are. And so that's about all I can say to that. But what I want to say just briefly is that this property has been in our family since 1887. This project here is well designed and well thought out. The master plan was done by Bill Robinson who has about 45 years in golf course and golf course community development. He's also the master plan designer of the golf course and we are beginning some new improvements on the golf course starting next Tuesday. This project here is in harmony -- in fact, it's right out of the play book for golf course communities and to put some numbers in perspective for you, typically with an 18 hole golf course community you have anywhere from three to five hundred units. At the most we are planning here is not even half that. So, the density issue we are way under that. But this plan here is in harmony with the club and it's also in harmony with your Comprehensive Plan and it deserves your unwavering support. Thank you. Meridian City Council February 6,2007 Page 46 of 76 Borton: Thank you. Hewitt: Any questions? I would be glad to answer. Borton: Council, any questions? Thank you. Rountree: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Rountree. I guess there is one question. Rountree: I do have a question. And it keeps coming up and it's come up again this evening. People have relied on verbal communications, what they took away from those verbal communications. So far I haven't seen anything in writing. But that they were led to believe that there would only be 30 to 35, maybe 40 patio homes. I don1t know in what context that mayor may not have been given, but other than one end of this particular annexation we are talking about patio homes; is that correct? Hewitt: I'm not sure I understand your -- are you talking about the R-8 versus the R-4? Rountree: Yeah. Hewitt: Yeah. The patio home section and the others are, essentially, two unit condominiums. But anybody that has inquired about this -- of course, you always remember what you want to remember, but until the project and the property is planned out and it's put down on paper and ifs in harmony with what Meridian's master plan is, we really don't know what the number of units are per see But in everybody's purchase agreement that purchased their lot from the developer, myself, it says in there quite clearly that this lot may be developed into townhouses, condominiums, patio homes, whatever. And so it's quite clear not only there, but also in the homeowners' declaration. Rountree: Thank you. Bird: Mr. Hewitt, I got a question, too. Mr. President. Now that you brought it up. The annexation lot that's coming through there, between the green on two and the tee box on three, you have got a cart path and stuff. Now, is that part of the lease with the -- with the golf course or -- existing lease with the golf course to have that area, the right of way through there for their golf carts -- the golf path? Hewitt: They will -- they will have access to run their cart path across the emergency vehicle access. We also -- if I may. Canning: Mr. Hewitt, there is a laser pointer at that podium if you want. Bird: Grab that mike and talk into it and you're okay. Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 47 of 76 Hewitt: Okay. The clubhouse area is here and this is where all the golf carts are staged. The first tee box is right here, so as the daily play goes on I mean everybody drives right across Spurwing Way here. And as they continue around here, then, this path here will cross an emergency vehicle access. We have another emergency vehicle access up here, which connects the end of Salata Court here over to Spurwing Way and that also doubles as a cart path, so nothing unusual. Bird: Sut, sir, what I'm getting at is that is -- that is either leased -- that property is either leased by the golf course or you1re -- when -- if we do the annexation through here, that property does not have anything to do with the golf course and you're giving them a right of way through there? If you -- and we were told that you could put a -- it's an R-4 lot. What if you sell it? Is it going to be part of the sales agreement that they have to provide a right of way through there for golf courses -- or for golf carts? Hewitt: Well, this parcel right here, of course, is a part of this lot and this is not part of the ground that's leased to the golf course. So, the golf course does not lease this parcel here. Bird: No. I understand that. Hewitt: And so what I will do is I will give the golf course access across here so the players can move on to the third hole and that shouldn't present any problem in any way, shape, or form. If this is used strictly for emergency vehicles, if somebody has to come in or out of this for any reason, I mean it doesn't present any problem, because, you know, as you're operating your golf carts you got full view of everything there. And the same thing up here. You know, when we have had various emergency vehicles coming this way and it just really doesn't present any kind of problem. Bird: Yeah. And I don't -- I understand that. Thank you. Hewitt: Anymore questions? Borton: Thank you. Would the applicant come forward for final comment? Wildwood: Thank you, Mr. President, Members of the Council. Again, for the record my name is Susan Wildwood and a couple of different things. I know that there has been comments by the public on 30 to 35 condominiums or attached houses. In fact, that's what this project actually has. It has 30 condominiums, attached houses, plus other single family. There has been absolutely no misrepresentation anywhere along. It's a question of how many townhomes. That's exactly what they were told and that's what's proposed. With regard to Councilmember Bird's question, this is a platted lot only for purposes of emergency access. It's not a residential lot. The example I used was simply dealing with the question of contiguity. My comments about what other jurisdictions do has -- with regard to deciding whether or not a piece of property is contiguous. The requirements under Idaho Code are before annexation can occur a Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 48 of 76 class A is -- the property must be contiguous to the city. They don't say what that means, but they are all very clear that as a mere strip of land or a highway or a railroad does not constitute contiguity. The question becomes for the jurisdictions around and I think Meridian has used the same analysis as well. Is it a usable piece of ground. If it is a usable piece of ground and it is contiguous to the city limits, it, then, constitutes contiguity. The courts -- we don't have a lot of precedent, that's why Mrs. Butler had to go outside of the state to look for other cases. The only case on strip annexation has to do with the five feet and three miles long and that's a radically different point than what we brought to you. Mrs. Butler ignores the fact that she brought these issues up in her letter and that's why we address what the issues were as far as contiguity, is it a usable piece of ground. In this case the applicant has requested the city annex the property. So, two of the tests are met and the city makes the decision whether or not it determines that this is a piece of ground they want to have annexed into the city. The impact area map shows this property within the proposed area of annexation, proposed services, and we have gone through that process as recently as March of last year. The issue about disorderly growth I don't know of a single city anywhere in this valley or any city I have ever been acquainted with where it grew out like a sunflower does, evenly around all the edges. Annexations virtually always occur in sort of a lopsided way. That's how cities just simply tend to grow. The issue for the Council is all of the indicators are the city intends to grow this way. The property is contiguous by a usable strip of ground. There would not be any other access points out. Annexing the golf course doesn't bring -- as the president pointed out, it doesn't have any change in the provision of services to this property. Even if you annex the golf course, the point of it all is you still have to come in onto Spurwing or on the emergency access that's currently available. And I would also point out that the police department has looked at this, the fire department has looked at it, they provided their comments, we believe that the property is legally annexable and that you would not be challenged in district court on this annexation, because you do meet the test in the statute and that it is reasonable and necessary for the city's growth. You're not going to have anybody in the golf course even approach you for an annexation ,even if they want to until the property is contiguous to the city. So, you may have one or more of the property owners that eventually would want to have annexation into the city. With that, Mr. President and Members of the Council, thank you for your patience on this annexation. It's going back over other ground. So, I would be happy to stand for any questions. Borton: Thank you. Counsel, any questions? Thank you very much. Wildwood: Thank you, sir. Borton: Any other comments from staff? I have got actually one question for Mrs. Butler again. And I pick on you, because you're representing a group. I'll ask the question with regard to the annexation in sort of the short crude form of why do you care? And the reason I ask it that way is if by way of example this was designed to be, you know, five parcels the entire annexation, with regard specifically to the annexation, what about that that you and your homeowners care about? I mean I see the concern Meridian City Council February 6,2007 Page 49 of 76 about how it's developed and density and access, but the annexation in and of itself, why is there a concern with that? Butler: I don't want to stick my foot in everybody's mouth that's behind me, but I think I can answer that a little bit. I think we care for a couple of reasons. One is a philosophical legal issue and that is that -- and this is me and -- but as it relates to my clients. Disorderly annexation doesn't help anyone and in terms of the delivery of services and in terms of the perception that people have of a city and in this particular case people may be remembering correctly or not correctly, 30 or 35 or 45 homes. Knowing the planner that worked with Mr. Hewitt back when Spurwing was developed, Chris Corty, I suspect Chris very correctly assessed how well or to what degree this property could be developed strictly under subdivision code and would have probably conveyed something like that amount of lots and that became the pattern. Frankly, we think that the city is being used. This is to -- to kind of gerrymander to come in here and at the same time, which we will get at, if we reach the plat, and, then, ask you to vary, which is a very hard thing to do under our state code, but to vary your regulations to insure that somebody has a much longer street throughout this entire lot, so that they can have more design flexibility, let's put it like that, which is everybody would like that. But we think that the city is prematurely being misused by being asked to annex this gerrymandered parcel and, then, on top of that, being asked to willy-nilly just give up your legislatively enacted regulation on the plot. So -- and, personally, I am very concerned and in working with the cities and with others on annexation legislation, because it is an issue for the city and it will continue to be an issue to the cities and I think it incumbent upon the cities to try their best to be as rational, as orderly, as reasonable as possible with their annexation, so they don't -- so that they can claim that a rational and reasonable and orderly, so that when people look at -- try to truncate your rights to annex, it's -- they don't have much of a leg to stand on. Borton: Thank you. Would the applicant -- yes, a finger raised there. Index finger. Mrs. Wildwood. Wildwood: Thank you. Mr. President, Members of the Council. Get the old last word. I appreciate your question, Mr. President, why do they care. In fact, nobody has really talked about the annexation, other than Mrs. Butler. They all want to talk about how it's laid out. The issue on annexation, disorderly growth, I don't believe this is a city that has grown disorderly. I've had cases where I have requested annexation and you felt that it was incorrect, inappropriate to move, you were not ready to expand your impact area. You have expanded your impact area. This is not disorderly growth. Provision of services will -- will be identical and if the city -- sort of if the city had no intention of coming north of Chinden, north of 20-26, you went through an awful lot of work in your impact area adjustment in your Comprehensive Plan, you designated density in this area, that was a matter of a lot of public hearings when this property was designated to go into the impact area and to have that particular zoning. You're not going to get every piece of land in a square. You will find pieces of property that come in, potentially West Wing, that other portion that is to the west of Double Eagle, will come in. It mayor may not touch on a very small area. An issue on annexation is reasonable growth of the city. Meridian City Council February 6t 2007 Page 50 of 76 You had stated your intent to grow in this direction, to, in fact, take in this golf course property. It is actually a logical move for the city to move over and to begin its development plans across 20-26 and to have the city grow application by application. This is a very intelligent board and you have looked at many many different issues. I would, again, thank you. I would say that this city is rational and reasonable, has looked at all the issues and we would request your affirmative nod on the annexation question. Thank you, Mr. President. Borton: Thank you. Canning: Mr. President, I need to follow up on one thing -- Borton: Yes. Canning: -- the applicant's representative said. She just said that they don't care about the annexation. I believe that everyone's testimony that was on your list was that their concerns had been represented by Mrs. Butler, not that they didn't care about the annexation. So, I just wanted to make that -- Borton: Thank you for that clarification. Council, anymore information needed on Item 21? Rountree: I don't have any. Bird: I don't have any. Rountree: .Okay. Hearing no comments, Mr. President, I move that we close -- well, I'm going to check before I do this. Would Anna and Bill -- we just have the one hearing, Item 21 open; correct? Bird: That's right. Rountree: Mr. President, move that we close the Public Hearing on AZ 06-043, annexation and zoning Spurwing Patio Homes Subdivision. Bird: Second. Borton: It's been moved and seconded to close the Public Hearing on Item 21, AZ 06- 043. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Rountree: Procedural question, Mr. Nary. This is a hearing on the reconsideration; correct? Nary: No. Meridian City Council February 61 2007 Page 51 of 76 Bird: No. Rountree: No. This is a hearing on the annexation. Nary: Yes. Rountree: Okay. So, we have already made one decision on the annexation. Nary: Correct. Rountree: And I'm trying to remember how the votes fell, if there was a motion to deny the annexation. Was it unanimous? Nary: Mr. President, Members of the Council, Councilmember Rountree, at the prior hearing, which has since been reconsidered, so that decision is now void. Rountree: It's void. Okay. Nary: And that's why that's in front of you. The prior motion, if just for edification purposes, I believe was to approve the annexation request. You also have as part of your record the Planning and Zoning Commission's recommendation, which was to deny. Rountree: Deny. Nary: If -- Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Nary. Nary: If it would be of any help, at least for the purposes of the public record -- and I'm not in the habit of giving legal support or argument to either side, the decision is this Council's discretion to -- I guess both of the attorneys that have spoken before you tonight are both correct and that's the nature of the law business sometimes is they are both right in a lot of ways. Courts have used the analysis that Mrs. Wildwood raised of whether it's a developable, usable piece of property in trying to determine what a shoestring is. The legislature, unfortunately, in their wisdom hasn't told us what they think it is. I recently attended a seminar and a deputy attorney general said a shoestring is something that you know it when you see it. If it looks like a noodle, then, it's a shoestring and if it doesn't, it isn't. So, we haven't had a tremendous amount of guidance and both of the attorneys have raised points that are very valid from both of their perspectives. But ultimately the decision is yours. If there was a legally impermissible reason for you to be able to annex this property, I would be the person throwing myself on that grenade for you, but there isn't. It is not crystal clear either way. They both have valid concerns they have raised, but, ultimately, the decision in the state code says that the purpose of annexation is to allow efficient and economically viable Meridian City Council February 6,2007 Page 52 of 76 provisions of tax supported and fee supported municipal services. As the elected officials of this city that's your responsibility to decide if that's what this would allow. To enable the orderly development of private lands, which benefit from the cost effective availability of municipal services in urbanizing areas. Again, that's within your discretion to determine if that's what this particular request would do. And, finally, it says to equitably allocate the cost of public services and management and development on the urban fringe. Again, that's within all of your discretion as to whether or not this makes sense at this time, whether it's in the best interest of the city, which is the more common phrase we use in annexation, whether the orderly development of our city can be accomplished by this project and whether it makes sense today to do this. Whether other issues are of concern to you, all I would ask you from the record standpoint is that whatever your decision is that you simply let these folks know, as well as the district court where we may be next, know what your reasoning is. The courts have in the past given great deference to the decision making bodies of cities in making these decisions on annexation. They have over the last couple of years been less inclined to do that and decided sometimes to legislate that themself. Merely an observation, not an editorial comment on the court system, but they seem to sometimes maybe want to at least see what you're thinking in making those decisions and, then, making a decision whether that agrees with their sense of what the law says. I wish I could give you better advice or assistance as to what the ultimate question of is this a shoestring or not. We certainly spent a lot of time talking about it, but I don't think we have anything crystal clear either way, but certainly the issues of the orderly growth of the city and the future benefit to the city are probably as significantly important to this question than just the issue of is that a shoestring piece of ground or not. I don't know that that's any guidance. I was hoping to vamp to give you a little more time to think of what you wanted to do. Rountree: Thank you, Mr. Nary. Borton: Mr. Nary, I have got a question that may well have been brought up or should have been brought up a couple hours ago. But it's with regards to the final plat and variance, which aren't open for Public Hearing now. And I'm curious of your thoughts as to -- and, again, we are not too late in proceeding on any of this stuff -- if those two items should be opened to consider this insofar as -- and we have seen in other instances where an applicant has a particular, you know, plat or variance request and to the extent that if those wouldn't be approved, then, the annexation request wouldn't be requested and -- you get my chicken or the egg concern? Nary: I think I do, Mr. President, Members of the Council, Councilmember Borton. Certainly it's not uncommon in applications for annexation that the whole application is in front of you at once. And the original hearing in this, that's the way you heard it was all at once and it's -- part of the reason -- although it's not required that applicants advise cities what their intentions are to do with the property at the time they choose to request to annex, this city, as well as many cities, are not very inclined to annex without it. They want a sense of what are they going to do with it before they choose to annex and it tends to work both ways, it benefits the city and the Council in making a decision Meridian City Council February 6,2007 Page 53 of 76 of is this the appropriate time to be annexing this property in light of what they intend to do with it if we choose to do that. Secondarily, it gives information to both the applicant, as well as the public, as to what the sense of development is going to be and that if in the applicant's eyes that without the approval of the remainder of the request they are not interested in annexation, then, that allows them the opportunity to have that discussion with you as well. Just as an aside, there was an article in this morning's paper, another city made the decision to annex and not grant the approval of the application and that was the first response by the applicant that they were probably going to withdraw their request to annex for that very reason. So, it's not unheard of, it's certainly, actually, more common to do it that way. It's within this prerogative of this -- of this Council to hear the rest of it if you want to. I don't think there is anything that prohibits this. We try to be true to the request and keep the annexation separate. Part of -- as we discussed earlier, part of the reason they -- we ended up in this fashion is because originally there weren't findings that were -- that were able to be had. You had requested they be brought back and that's why they got separated. But you can certainly do that, if this Council is not comfortable making this decision on just the annexation and wants to hear the rest, I don't think you're prohibited from doing that. Canning: President Borton? Borton: Mrs. Canning. Canning: Perhaps we could have someone check on the minutes. I believe the two other applications, that they were only left open for public testimony with regard to the conditions of approval that would be brought back forward to you tonight. So, I don't believe that they are open for general comments. You have had public testimony in a public hearing on those two items. Borton: Mr. Nary, does that mean that for considering this we can consider the elements of the plat variance as well? Nary: President Borton, Members of the Council, no. What I think what Mrs. Canning is saying -- and I guess to make sure we are on the same page, what she's saying is what you had left open for -- back in January when they were continued was to bring back Findings based on the recommendation of the Council regarding annexation and the testimony that you heard. We didn't continue them tonight for further testimony. So, these folks that came tonight didn't necessarily come prepared to provide you information about that. So, if you wanted to open the hearing to hear everything together, you would have to continue it to another day to do that. But you can't consider the fact of the hearings that were previously held until you have made a decision on this annexation, because, again, you haven't -- you haven't made an ultimate decision on the annexation now. So, that's sort of -- by the nature of how we have done this, we have sort of put those in limbo at the moment. Mrs. Canning doesn't mind disagreeing with me, so if I said that wrong -- I think that's how we are having to hear it at the moment. Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 54 of 76 Canning: President Borton, yes, except that -- I mean I don't know if you need to continue it to a date certain. Certainly you could. But at a minimum you need to reopen the -- fully reopen the hearings, rather than just -- well, you haven't opened them yet, so -- but the intent was to just come back and as Mr. Nary said, I'm not sure people are prepared to talk about the plat again, although it's still the same plat that you had at the last hearing. It has not changed. They have only changed it to reflect your comments and your requests. Nary: Mr. President, again, I'm not trying to just get the last word, but part of the issue is is that the -- part of the issue is on those -- on those items is that the Findings that were in front of you were based on the testimony regarding this annexation at the last hearing, not this hearing. So, there may be issues raised by this hearing tonight that may affect those Findings. So, I agree with Mrs. Canning we would need to open the hearing. To be fair to everyone involved, if you're going to do that, then, you should continue them all, because there may be something related to tonight that someone would want to address in relation to the plat and the variance. Bird: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Bird. Bird: I think I understand it finally. This is -- you know, I have sat here for eight years, nine years. I think this is the worst one I have -- or the most confusing one that I have ever had, because I got a lot of respect for everybody in this room, both for and against and everybody that -- in here I think you could go to the bank on their word and we are getting so many different stories that it gets real confusing. I'll let you two talk, too, but I'm for getting it solved tonight, quit dragging it on one way or the other. It's not fair to the applicant, nor is it fair to the homeowners in that area. There is some things in that area that I can't believe, knowing a lot of the homeowners in there, ever let get going -- or let get gone. So, I will let the other two talk, but I'm not for dragging it on. Let's -- I'm ready to take a vote and take my beating one way or the other. Rountree: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: I, too, agree with -- at least a portion of your comments, Councilman Bird. I do have a great amount of regard for the applicant and the citizens that have come out to let us know what they believe their issues are and what they believe the legal implications are. We will be the first level judges on this one way or another. It seems to me that I'm not sure that -- which ever way we go that it will be a final decision. From the city's perspective, at least in the efforts that we have undertaken in the past three years, we have gone through a rather lengthy, laborious process to include the area north of Chinden in our impact area and we have gone through considerable time and expense and public process in that, as well as the Comprehensive Plan amendment process, to and including identifying what we anticipate the highest and potentially best Meridian City Council February 6,2007 Page 55 of 76 use of parcels of property in that Comprehensive Plan and impact area. We have done that and we have included this particular parcel that's being heard today or was heard tonight in this annexation request. I did not find an argument -- and I'm not going to put on a lawyer hat, because I don't have one and I'm not going to put on a judge's hat, because I donlt get paid enough, but from the arguments I have heard this evening I donlt believe that this annex -- this requested annexation, if we were to approve it, goes against what state statute provides for and what the city has done over the past three years for this particular piece of real estate north of Chinden, from points west of -- or just at Linder to Black Cat. I, too, agree with Councilman Bird, I would like to see this resolved this evening and at this point 11m inclined to be favorable to the annexation request, as I was previously. Borton: The reason I asked the question to Mr. Nary with regards to the annexation request and the other parcels -- and I might disagree with Councilman Rountree and Bird, is my gut reaction is to delay it and I will tell you why. I think perhaps local politics is supposed to be messy and sometimes slow to get to the right result and it's not easy for anyone in this room to have to go through it. Like the other Councilmen, I appreciate the time and consideration on both sides. From my perspective, I agree with Councilman Rountree and perhaps Bird. With regard to the annexation and the arguments posed and -- I don't have a problem finding -- approving this annexation to be consistent with the City of Meridianls orderly growth and development. I think the unique circumstances of this application support including it. The concern that I have got -- and maybe the question might go back to Mr. Nary, is a lot of the comments from the public weight heavily on me and the way this particular parcel might be developed, the plat and variance issues could be of great concern to me and the reason I bring up the question about perhaps delaying it, perhaps having an open Public Hearing on all three of those things, isnlt necessarily to say it's a clean slate and, you know, I haven1t made up my mind and want to hear all of the same testimony again and take up your time, but perhaps to hear the comments from the application and those types of issues -- if I could echo the concerns I have with the plat, the variance, which I think is consistent with lots of the concerns of the general public, that might have an impact on the applicant's desire to pursue the annexation request. The converse would be if -- at least speaking only for myself, if this annexation went forward, we went and reviewed the preliminary plat and the variance and through that discussion it was determined that any modifications or requests this Council made the entire annexation not a desirable process, that we have precluded them from, you know, not completing that annexation -- I mean are the Findings at a future, which, then, could be withdrawn? 11m just trying not to create a situation where we canlt unring the bell, approve an annexation, have a development that nobody agrees with and at least for me I'd rather wait, slow down, and make sure that the entire project is something that fits with the City of Meridian. So, is that an option? Nary: Mr. President, Members of the Council. Councilmember Borton, you know, the -- I mean you raise the problem that can be problematic and we don't run into it very often and at least in my experience a number of -- a lot of cities don't run into this, but there are requirements -- time requirements if they request to annex and an annexation is Meridian City Council February 6,2007 Page 56 of 76 approved, that that process -- that that action has to be completed and that's part of the reason why -- at least locally. Again, I don't know about other areas of the state, but locally why either an annexation request comes in front of you and although the developer may know exactly what they want to do, they may tell you we are not totally sure yet. We just want to annex. We are comfortable with the zoning that you're willing to do with it and we can design within those guidelines and deal with it when we decide exactly what we would like it to be. Or the common one that we see mostly here is they bring the whole enchilada together and say here is our annexation, here is our plat, here is whatever -- whatever variances or whatever is necessary to do that, we are going to bring it all to you together for that very reason. If you don't want what we are ultimately going to do, then, just don't annex this at all and we are fine with that. So, you raised a concern that's very legitimate that if you were to move forward on the annexation and agree to that and, then, have another future hearing over those Findings and those particular concerns that are raised that have not truly been vented tonight, you may have a problem in that you may wish -- or this Council may wish to change it to the point that the applicant no longer wants to be annexed or isn't comfortable with the zoning that's attached to the annexation that is being requested, that now maybe needs to be different. So, yeah, that is certainly a problematic issue and I don't have a solution for that, other than your original thought of continuing this matter to hear those other issues and, then, making an ultimate decision on all of it. Again, I don't know if Mrs. Canning has a different perspective, she's certainly worked in lots more jurisdictions, but I think you have raised exactly what the horns of the dilemma are. Bird: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Bird. Bird: I -- you know, regardless of how I vote on the annexation, there is no guarantee that I'm going to go for the variance and the preliminary plat as it stands. But I think right now before we make the applicant go through anymore, we decide one way or the other are we going to bring it in or are we not going to bring it in. Then, I truly believe that, then, we open up the preliminary plat and I'm like Mrs. Canning, I don't think we need to do that tonight, I'd like to see them continue and like to get things taken care of. But I think we are being -- not doing justice to our applicant, nor to the neighborhood out there by delaying this annexation any longer. Borton: Mr. Bird, in response to that I guess I can give some guidance. I'm in support of the annexation and I can tell you right now I am for the reasons delineated. I'm mindful of the concerns on both sides. I don't necessarily have to vote on it right now. I can tell you I have heard everything and all considerations necessary to feel comfortable that this particular parcel will continue the orderly development of the City of Meridian. Having said that, I'd feel most comfortable continuing the annexation official decision until it's joined with the Public Hearing on the preliminary plat, the variance, hear all three together and to the extent that we as a Councilor I individually might muddy the waters and muck it up so much that the applicant would say, the heck with it, as Mr. Nary indicated, perhaps a desire to be annexed no longer exists. I'd Meridian City Council February 61 2007 Page 57 of 76 rather do that and as much of a delay causes a hardship to the public who testifies, to the applicant, and everyone involved, I think it equally creates hardship to the applicant and everyone involved if we go forward with an annexation only to come out -- come to find that we don't like the particular plan and now we are left with a parcel that, as the City of Meridian, we don't feel comfortable with. So, when I talk delaying it, at least from my prospective, you know, as soon as -- as soon as it can be legally noticed to allow us to come back in this forum and discuss those issues all at once. If that's next week, that's -- or as soon as possible. Bird: Mr. President, let me ask a question. If we continue this, they don't have to be re- noticed, any of them, do they? We just continue the existing public hearings. They have already been noticed. We are just continuing the Public Hearing to -- Berg: Mr. President, I think the issue is when you continued two of the items, you continued them only for a certain reason. If you wanted to have some other -- Bird: If you want to open it up again. Berg: -- other information, I think -- and you would have to ask the attorney, but we may have to re-notice, because the only reason you continued them was to get a certain amount or small input. Canning: Mr. Berg, do you know the date of the original hearing? Mr. President, can I ask Mr. Berg -- Borton: Sure. Rountree: January 9th. Bird: Yeah. The 9th. Rountree: January 9th. Nary: No. That was the one it was continued to. It was before that. Mr. President, if you'll give me a moment -- I just -- Mr. Clerk asked a question about the purpose of the continuance. I have the December 12th minutes up. Borton: We appreciate your patience as we try and muddle through some of the procedural steps. Nary: I got them here. Mr. President, Members of the Council, the ultimate motion, according to the minutes that I have in front of me from December 12th, which is when the original Public Hearing was held on the preliminary plat and the variance request, was to continue the -- Items 11 and 12, which were those two items for additional input from the review agencies for the preliminary plat and the variance, because no Findings had been prepared and gotten comment from those agencies about that. You had Meridian City Council February 61 2007 Page 58 of 76 received public comment at the time, but because the original request -- or the original recommendation was denial there wasn't any information from any of the agencies regarding an approval. Rountree: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: I don't know where we are going with this, but it seems to me -- it's clear to me that -- and thank you, Mr. Nary, for reminding me where we were. That we had a preliminary plat that wasn1t particularly finalized, it had been recommended to be denied by P&Z, had not gone through review process from ACHD, ITD, and some of the other entities that typically review a plat. The plat was -- preliminary plat was finalized in terms of a drawing. I believe it's been submitted for review. We have had an opportunity to have those comments. Tonight we -- we have yet that same preliminary plat scheduled as a continued hearing for that information and for consideration of that information at some point in time. The question is do we or don't we annex, do we or don't we open a hearing on the preliminary plat, and do we or don't we open up a hearing on the variance. I believe those were continued, because of procedure and requiring additional input from agencies. I guess my recommendation is that we move forward with a motion one way or another and if there is no further discussion, I'm willing to take a first stab on Item 21. Canning: President Borton? Borton: Mrs. Canning. Canning: One very quick comment. I did want to remind you that staff is proposing a development agreement, so that's also an opportunity to perhaps address some of your concerns. I just wanted to remind you of that. Rountree: Apparently there is no comments from Council. Mr. President, I move that we approve the annexation request for Item 21, subject to comments from staff on the annexation request and the testimony received this evening. And the development agreement would be included. Bird: Second. Borton: It's been moved and seconded to approve Item 21, AZ 06-043, to include staff comments in a development agreement. Canning: Mr. President? Borton: Mrs. Canning. Meridian City Council February 6,2007 Page 59 of 76 Canning: If the maker of the motion -- I haven't heard any commitments tonight to include in the development agreement, so if there are particular portions of the testimony that you want included, I -- in that development agreement, I didn't hear anything. So, I just want to make sure that 11m not -- I haven't missed something. Rountree: Mr. President, by way of discussion, I think there was some information provided by the applicant as it related to ownership or leasing of the connection to Chinden, the idea that it was a -- as a portion of a larger lot could be developed, that it would provide emergency access, would be double gated, those sort of things provided in testimony this evening. The masonry fence. Borton: Second agree? Bird: Yes. Rountree: Does that help? Canning: Mr. President, 11m sorry, but wasn't -- wasn't the masonry fence discussion on a different item? I'm sorry. Rountree: Yeah. They --' Canning: No, they have -- okay. And I missed that. I'm sorry. Okay. Rountree: Mrs. McKay mentioned it in her testimony. Canning: Okay. I'm sorry, sirs. Rountree: It's getting late. Borton: Any other questions, Mrs. Canning, on the motion? Canning: Better stop. No more questions. Borton: Okay. It's been moved and seconded to approve AZ 06-043. With no further discussion, Mr. Berg, would you, please, call roll. Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, absent; Borton, yea. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Borton: Mr. Nary. Proceeded on Item 19 and 20, continued public hearings -- open public hearings -- Nary: Mr. President, Members of the Council, certainly those items were continued. You can certainly open them now and if there is an issue raised about time and Meridian City Council February 612007 Page 60 of 76 adequacy -- I mean in reviewing your minutes further, I mean in the December 12th hearing most of the testimony was around annexation. Very little was on the plat itself, other than the number of units. So, there hadn't been a tremendous amount of testimony. It was continued for the purpose of agency comment, but I don't know if the public testimony may have some relation to whatever the agency comments are. I don't know if we have agency comments completed. The only thing I do know is the courts have said you can't over-process people. So, if you give them more process than they would prefer, the courts have still said that's okay. But I don't know if we have agency comments that were discussed back in December and whether or not we have public testimony in relation to those. Borton: Mrs. Canning. Canning: Mr. President, Members of the Council, we do have agency comments and conditions of approval for you tonight, but the process that this has taken thus far was staff recommendation for approval, so we include all the agency comments in that initial staff report and, then, recommendation for denial by the Planning and Zoning Commission, so we pull all those out. A request for conditions of approval from the Council, so we went back to the original staff report, got those conditions of approval, and brought them forward. So, we do have the agency comments for you. It was taken to a comments meeting. They have gone through a full round of staff reports and this would be the second time all the conditions of approval have shown up on the staff report. So, they have been around. And I can give a summary of the last public hearings and where you stood on those two items or at least the discussion thus far on the public -- from the Public Hearing on the remaining two items, if that's Council's desire. Borton: We will go ahead and open the Public Hearing on 19 and 20, PP 06-045 and V AR 06-020 and begin these continued public hearings with staff comment and if you will, please, go through the updated items you just made reference to. Canning: Okay. President Borton, Members of the Council, you do have a revised staff report before you that does have all the conditions of approval recommended by staff at this point for your consideration. To refresh your memory on the December 12th hearing, the Council requested that the lots along the north boundary have a minimum lot size 10,000 square feet and they also requested that staff prepare the conditions of approval. So, we have done that and pending your decision tonight we will prepare Findings under the usual process. You don't have Findings before you tonight, but we will prepare those pending your action tonight. So, the applicant has submitted a revised plat consistent with your request at the last Public Hearing. That plat you see on the board before you reflects your desire to have the 1 0,000 square foot lots along the north boundary and the split in the R-4 and the R-8 zoning, as discussed on December 12th. And that is the plat that is included in the staff report before you tonight. With regard to the variance and the preliminary plat, Council had not given much direction on anything they wanted to see specifically included from the developer's commitments, so as it stands those items that were discussed with the Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 61 of 76 annexation approval may need to be included in the preliminary plat approval as well or it would be wise to include them there as well, I suppose. With regard to the variance, the variance -- just to refresh you -- your memory, was for block length and because of the configuration of the parcel and because the emergency access is not being proposed as a public street, this becomes a cul-de-sac street that exceeds the -- our standard length. You will notice all of the Spurwing Subdivision has rather long cul-de- sac roads. So, currently for all the homes in Spurwing there is just the one access. Staff was in an unusual position -- sorry. I'm re-testifying. That's the update on the variance, but there was testimony in the annexation hearing tonight about planning for the area that I did want to provide additional information, if I'm allowed to do that at this point. I don't know. But there was talk about how this is in the Comprehensive Plan and we are planning for this area. The 20-26 corridor study is going on and they have shown a connection where this -- this proposed emergency access is. Now, it's not a finalized document and when this project started off it wasn't drawn on a map, but it is now. The police department, through the original round of staff reports, wanted another connection in here -- wanted a street connection, but there is no way staff can ask for a street connection, because as soon as we ask for that leg to be a street, then, they are no longer annexable. It's a -- kind of a full circle thing about all the stuff we talked about. If it becomes just right of way, then, it isn't contiguous for annexation. So, we couldn't ever ask for that to be a street for that very reason. And so it goes in circles. But with regard to planning in this area, if you're talking about good planning, there should be a second access here, but we haven't been able to ask for it at this time. So, it was brought up at the hearing about good planning, so I felt it was appropriate to put my two cents in about good planning, at least not having the opportunity before. And with that I will end my summary, if you can call it that, of the last hearing. I can read all the names of the testimony. In favor was Becky McKay, Joc Hewitt, Ed Davis, Larry Harp, Tina Rice, Bailey Nix, Debbie Kelly, Monte McClure, Paul Segmeir, Brent Kelly, Joe Olsen, Jim Johnson, Morton Hardwood and Charlene Hewitt. In opposition was Ron Ashley, Chuck Compton, Stephanie Stevenson, Andrea Nist, Amy Jorgensen, Alexa Gillahan, Nate Jorgensen, Ed Duke, Gerald Bailey, Ana Mae Bailey, Claire Treerice, Bob Treerice, Rick Moritson. Neutral was Gary Eggery. No comment was Richard and Marie Crisp. Commenting was Brian Brown. We received written testimony from Rick Moritson, Chuck and Joy Compton, Patrick House, Carol Scott, Nichola Black, Gina Ingle, Donna Larsen, Andrea Nist, Holly Katowski, and Kathleen Rudeen. And I believe all of that was in opposition. There was some written testimony not included in the staff report that included Robert and Claire Treerice submitted an objection letter dated December 15th. Key issues of discussion by Council that night were the annexation path, the split zoning for protection of density, transition to existing residences and the question as to whether to remand back to the Commission for review of the revised plat and the split zoning. With that I will end my review and answer any questions you may have. Borton: Thank you, Anna. Council, any questions? Bird: I have none. Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 62 of 76 Borton: Would the applicant like to come forward. McKay: Thank you, Mr. President, Members of the Council. Becky McKay, Engineering Solutions, 1029 North Rosario, Meridian. I guess just, you know, to kind of give everybody an idea of how this project has evolved, I know there is some neighbors that I notice weren't at the last meeting, so I'd just kind of like to go through that. If the Council recalls correctly, this was the preliminary plat that the Planning and Zoning Commission reviewed initially. We had one public -- the first Public Hearing at the Planning and Zoning Commission the staff -- we had a staff report recommending denial. The staff report stated that their issue was that these were attached units and the size of the lots were not 10,000 square feet and that in past actions by the Council, recommendations by the staff, it was preferred that the 10,000 be utilized as a proper transition from larger estate lots. The Planning and Zoning Commission heard the public testimony and wanted to recommend approval to the Council. The staff indicated they had not prepared any conditions of approval and that the item would have to be deferred. So, it was deferred. The public record was left completely open. When we came back to the Planning and Zoning Commission, then, we had substantial number of neighbors that did not attend the first hearing and spoke in opposition. The Planning and Zoning Commission reversed their position and, therefore, recommended denial to the Council. Between the time of the Planning and Zoning Commission hearing -- second hearing took place and about two and a half, three weeks prior to the Council meeting, we worked our plat over trying to address some of the concerns that staff had, some of the comments that we received from the Planning and Zoning Commission. They liked the project, the Planning and Zoning Commission, they were just trying to figure out how to reconcile the estate lots and the attached type units. Based on that type of -- that input, we came -- we submitted this drawing in advance of the City Council hearing. It was submitted I think approximately two and a half, three weeks, so that staff would have an opportunity to take a look at it and when we had our first Public Hearing this was the drawing that we showed the Council. We had increased all of these lot sizes up to 10,000 square feet and these all became detached. We kept this remaining linear open space here as a separation. We still propose the masonry wall as another additional buffering to the estate lots. And we had a small pocket of attached units here. I believe there were eight. We rotated the attached units around the bend here. I think our overall number of lots dropped by two. We had our public hearings. The Council came back and they stated that -- In fact, I got my notes here. They indicated that they liked the project. It is consistent with other types of developments that they have seen around golf courses. I think Cherry Lane Golf Course was one that was used as an example where you guys have attached, detached units. So, it was determined that this is a compatible type subdivision and you requested specific changes from me. Those changes -- I'll have to go by memory. I can't find my sheet. Remove these attached units here. Make all lots along the north boundary 1 0,000 square feet. Delineate an emergency vehicle access gate at the 20- 26 access point and a second one at this interior local street access. And I think those were the primary modifications that we made. We resubmitted that revised drawing back -- it was coming back to the Council with accompanying conditions of approval from your staff and any comments. What -- this application now looks like this. These Meridian City Council February 6,2007 Page 63 of 76 are just two examples of what the dwelling would look like. All of the units are single family, single level. Even the attached. We have provided some examples of those dwellings. If Anna could put those up. We also have boards. I know she likes to put them up on the screen. Canning: The ones on the picture? McKay: Yes. Mr. Hewitt went to a designer and wanted to, obviously, come up with a style for this development. He will be building all of these and have architectural control. He wanted consistency and other coloring schemes, stucco, tile type roofs. This was his example of the attached unit. As you can see from the street profile it looks very much just like a single family dwelling, except you would have two garages coming in that type of fashion. It is single level. So, from a bulk perspective it's not much different than a single family home. This was his first version. He also indicated that, you know, he wanted to add some additional fluff and jazz to that. That was just the first rendition. Secondly, this is the style of the single family detached dwellings. They also would be single level and this will be what we consider a luxury type development. These units are going to be probably anywhere from the 350 up to I think 600, 700. Mr. Hewitt may -- he can address that. I'll wait for him. So, we are not talking about a hodge-podge type development here. We are talking about something that is, obviously, going to look consistent in style and materials and colors and be controlled. These lots aren't going to be sold to every Tom, Dick, and Harry builder to come in and build their own rendition of what they think should be in there. We have substantial open space in the -- this is kind of a pocket here. There is a water feature with cascading water over rocks. We agreed for the police department's visibility concerns that this would just be like a wrought iron fence or no fence at all, so that it's almost an extension of these rear yards and it's an amenity, basically, you know, for this particular block of lots here. We have got this linear open space here with -- they wanted us to improve the visibility through this corridor. We moved our lots to the south and opened up a view corridor here and did so here. That was -- that was one of the other concerns that the police department had. There is a substantial amount of existing trees along our north boundary. These are the ones you see that are kind of shaded. Those are taken off of aerial photos, so we do have -- and we also had the homes added from the aerial photo you can kind of see the separation that we have here. There was substantial amount of separation in a lot of these homes. I looked at the aerial photo over here and looking at the West Wing Estates. This distance of this fairway here at the narrowest point is 200 feet. Up here it's about 350. And, then, those homes are in excess of 130 feet, approximately, and up off of their east boundary. So, you will have, you know, 330 feet at the closest point as far as the distance or separation between this property line here where the units would begin and, then, over to those buildings -- existing homes. Sorry. I think I have already discussed the fact that we are down to 65 dwellings, 30 attached, 30 detached. It has always been the staff and the Council's position that they like to see us come in with different types of products, not just one single type of home. The Comprehensive Plan speaks very strongly toward promoting diversity in lot sizes, diversity in home sizes, and providing all kinds of lots for differing lifestyles. Mr. Hewitt intends that a lot of these people will be Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 64 of 76 retired, especially the ones in the attached units, looking for a lower maintenance type of lot, spending only a portion of the year in that home, taking advantage of the golf course and the large clubhouse that currently exists. You know, when we look at the open space there is an immense amount of open space that's out there. In that golf course itself I think there is 200 acres or in excess of that out there. I mean it's a beautiful thing and I think that what we have done here is something that's always kind of been an idea, was put on paper in a draft form and, then, we massaged it and tired to mitigate the impact to the existing residents and to address any concerns that the agencies have had. Ada County Highway District -- I think we submitted at the last meeting. The traffic that we are going to generate is within that threshold. You have got Spurwing Way, which is built as a collector-type roadway and, then, Balata Court is a local. There is capacity on there. We, from a planning perspective, like to keep our trips below 1 ,000 vehicle trips per day on the local street. When we look at Salata Court there is approximately 170 vehicle trips per day on it now. So, the existing available capacity is 830. We will be adding 622 and that was -- that number was based off of the -- I think the eight lots that were removed. So, those number of trips is going to come down. So, obviously, there is capacity on that and as you well know with the collectors they can handle anywhere from six to eight thousand vehicle trips a day. What's out there now, there is an excess capacity on Spurwing Way of approximately 4,033 vehicle trips. So, it's underused for the size of that roadway. I think as far as the variance is concerned, it's quite obvious when you have a golf course wrapping around you on three sides, you can't break it up with a stub street. We see this time and time again when we adjoin a canal, such as the Ridenbaugh. I have asked for block length variances where it was just not practical or feasible to extend a roadway. As you know, 20-26 has access restrictions. The emergency vehicle access was the best that we could do. We only go just to the center lane of Ten Mile, so I could not align a street. It is not possible based on the property boundary. So, the secondary access was the best that I could do. In talking with the fire department and the police department, they did welcome the secondary access, because it does provide a safety factor for the existing residents as a second means of access in the event that Spurwing Way is blocked for whatever reason. So, this will be bringing in some added access from an emergency perspective and, then, central sewer and water. Do you have any questions? Borton: Thank you. Council? Rountree: I have none. Bird: I have none. Borton: Thank you. Mr. Nary, if this was a continuation of these two matters, for the purposes of Findings -- creating Findings for approval, is it the -- as you mentioned before, an open Public Hearing for testimony from the public, what parameters, if any, are there on our receipt of additional testimony on these matters we have already heard? Meridian City Council February 612007 Page 65 of 76 Nary: Mr. President, Members of the Council, I mean they were just continued for those particular comments. That was what the record reflects as to what this Council's direction was. I don't know if you have received any comments from the public in regards to any of the -- both the agency comments, the staff comments, or any of that. So, I mean I guess I would always hesitate to want to error on the side of allowing testimony, rather than limiting more testimony. I recognize it's late, but I don't -- I don't think you certainly would be at fault for allowing testimony, at least limited, again, to the plat and the variance that's being requested and why, because I don't believe this Council has got any testimony in the record from the public on those issues. Borton: Okay. We will proceed forward in that fashion. The list that I have got signed up, we are going to run through again. To the extent you want to offer testimony or if you're speaking on behalf of a group, please, make that known and come forward. And, Mrs. Butler, we'll have you start it off speaking on behalf of several of these individuals. Butler: Thank you. And -- JoAnn Butler, 251 East Front Street, representing residents in and around -- in the vicinity and adjacent to the property that's under consideration. And I just might mention under the minutes it's correct that the public hearings were continued to -- as the motion said, to receive additional input from reviewing agencies, but as the discussion on the few pages before that goes on, as Mrs. Canning mentions to the Mayor and Council, at that time there were no conditions for approval, you didn't have the ACHD staff conditions, the standard conditions, nor the Findings and Conclusions. So, not only were the agencies needing to comment on the information, but the public also I think was in need to comment and now we have that -- those items to comment on. People in the audience will have their own -- some particular separate things from what I'm going to talk about, but I am going to focus on the variance. I said earlier that people have spoken about the fact that they remember hearing 20, 30, 35, 40 homes were to be built in this area and I said that under planning principles somebody at that time would have looked at this property, known what the constraints under your subdivision and other ordinances were, yours and just in general, and would have known that without any variances, without any dispensation from this Council in moving away from the standards, that's probably the number that would have been built in this area. We are going to suggest to the Council tonight very strongly that the Council must deny the variance requested, because any other course of action would be beyond the authority of the Council. The Council, as you know, derives its authority to grant variances from Idaho Code 67-6516 and that authority is expressly limited to the items listed in the statute and I will just repeat. This is from the statute. A variance is a modification of the bulk and placement requirements of the ordinance as to lot size, lot coverage, width, depth, front yard, side yard, rear yard setbacks, parking space, height of buildings, or other ordinance provisions affect the size or shape of a structure or the placement of the structure upon the lot or the size of the lot. The item requested to be varied here, the length of the block face is not itemized in the statute and it's not governed by Idaho Code 67-6516. Unfortunately, the Council just does not have the authority to grant the variance requested. I have no doubt that the Council has issued variances other than those that are itemized in the statute and I have no doubt that you probably have not been challenged on that. But you know that when you go outside the Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 66 of 76 bounds of your authority the statute -- really, the one way that you're on solid ground is to change that statute. And that's not what we have here today and that's not what people are asking for and the statute is what the statute is. Really, the variance discussion should end here. Without that authority to grant the variance -- and I'm just going to repeat a quote from case law that was reiterated in 2000. The concept of variance is narrowly treated by 67-6515. It is limited to adjustment of certain regulations concerning the physical characteristics of the subject property. So, with that in mind, again, this discussion should end there, assuming, though, that the Council had the authority to issue a variance. If the Council had that authority you know that that's not a right or a privilege that anybody can just walk in and ask for, it can only be granted if there is a showing of undue hardship because of the characteristics of the site and usually that's a topographical consideration or the variance is not in conflict with the public interest. Undue hardship as defined by the courts centers on whether the hardship claimed is really specific or peculiar to this particular property in general or is generally applicable to all properties. If the property -- or if the hardship is truly specific to this one lot alone and ifs not created by the applicant, another important factor, then, perhaps a variance is in order, but this isn't the case here. The applicant created the circumstances and understood what they were creating with their planners back in 1995 and without this variance the design alternatives would be limited and that's just the case. Even if you had the authority to grant the variance, Meridian is being asked to ignore its legislatively approved health and safety regulations reflected in your block length requirement, so that this particular property owner can ask for greater flexibility. That's not peculiar to this property. Any applicant could, then -- and you can imagine the precedent that would be set -- any applicant could come in and ask for a variance, because it would offer them greater design flexibility. So, this issue is not peculiar to this project, it could happen or apply to any property anywhere. It's not appropriate here and, again, I think it opens the Council up, the city up to a precedent that it does not want to set or should not want to set, I hope. So, we are strongly requesting that the variance be denied as being outside the authority of the Council and contrary to the public interest. Thank you. Borton: Thank you. When I call your name, if you would, please, come forward or indicate if someone is speaking or has spoken on your behalf. Kathleen Rudeen. Some people have left, so we will keep going through the list. Gina Ingle. Chris Ingle. Thank you. Lorie and Rick Gierlaw. Okay. Brian and Beverly Brown. Thank you. Bernie Fisher. Signed up against. Fisher: My name is Bernie Fisher. I live at 6883 North Spurwing Way. I want to make one point clear real fast. I'm not against this development at all, but I feel like I have been misled as to the amount of homes that are going to be built in this development. When I saw the new plat with the 70 some homes, I was, then, told that don't worry about it, we have an access going out that shoestring or whatever you have been talking about earlier. So, I said, well, that's fine, we can -- we can move the traffic out that way. Now, I found out, though, that's going to be an emergency exit only. So, that -- I'm looking at everything and I'm saying every vehicle that goes in or out of Spurwing has to go by the clubhouse. There is no other way in or out. It has to go by the Meridian City Council February 6,2007 Page 67 of 76 clubhouse. We have got golfers coming out of the clubhouse on golf carts going across. They have to cross that main road there to get over to the number one tee box and some of them are getting up in years like I am and maybe it's like a second childhood and you don't see as well, you don't -- or you don't really look like you should. That is one of my main concerns. Now, I heard these figures of how many cars can go by a certain point in a day, but we are considering here a clubhouse, a golf course with these cart carts going back and forth across that road. My home is just two blocks -- or the second lot passed the clubhouse and when I'm out in the yard working I observe that traffic goes by that clubhouse many times at 40 and 50 miles an hour and they can get a pretty good run on North Spurwing Way is that when they hit the clubhouse they are moving along. Our speed limit in the area is supposed to 25 miles an hour but they don't adhere to that. So, this is my point. I think that we have been misled on this thing. I think that if they would back off on the amount of lots that you put out there you're gong to help the whole community and we are going to solve a lot of problems that we have been talking about. Thank you. Borton: Thank you, Mr. Fisher. Andrea Nist. Signed up against. Nist: Against. My name is Andrea Nist, 2932 West Salata Court, and you guys have heard all the testimony from our neighbors over the last couple of meetings. We have over 30 neighbors that are actually against this and all 30 neighbors plus -- I'm averaging. Not less, but probably more, no one has ever been told more than 40 patio homes. I have never heard someone come in here and say we have been told more. Forty patio homes, it would be done. We have tried through various people to contact him. We would love to have 40. We would take it in a heartbeat. We know this is going to happen. We ask you to consider -- this is not just a side neighborhood, this is a neighborhood within our neighborhood. The property values within our neighborhood do not -- cannot take a 70 home development. There is no guarantee that these prices will actually be what he says. And to have 70 of them in there and have them to be two to four hundred thousand dollars will adversely affect our neighborhood. The developer has promised numerous things throughout the years and I can say through many homeowners there are many things that were not -- were not -- never turned out that were promised to us. Thank you. Borton: Thank you very much. The comments -- comments from the public -- the reason that the hearing was continued was to receive agency comments, so we will limit our public testimony to your response to those -- or questions on those comments. John Flagherty. Butler: If I can -- I don't know if I can -- but just procedurally if I could ask a question. JoAnn Butler, 251 East Front Street. I do know that that was what the ultimate motion was when you -- when you continued the Public Hearing, but at that time you also said in discussion that the review agencies and the public did not have access to either the Findings and Conclusions, the conditions of approval, or the agency comments. And so, consequently, not only didn't the review agencies have access to that information, but the public didn't either. So, I guess I'm asking that the public be able to comment on Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 68 of 76 the plat, because they had not had a full report before them at that time. It wasn't drafted for public review at that time is my understanding. Thank you. Borton: Mr. Nary? Nary: Mr. President, Members of the Council, Councilmember Borton, Mrs. Butler is correct in the sense that they -- also the direction from the Council at the time in December was for some changes in regards to the plat and those are, then, included in the staff report of January 9th that Mrs. Canning's office has filed and there hasn't been an opportunity for any comment on any of that until tonight, so -- Borton: Okay. Nary: So, I don't think it's out of order to accept testimony in regard to those specific p I at -- Borton: Then we will do so. John Flagherty. Okay. Chuck Compton. Thank you. Brian Black. Holly Kachinsky or Katowski. No. Jay Compton signed up against. Okay. Dolores Ashley. Okay. Jim Johnson. Signed up in favor. Sheri Stiles. Moving right through it. Amy Jorgensen. Signed up against. Okay. Thank you. Dow Ashley. Ron. It looks like Dow. I apologize. Ashley: I didn't go to school very long and I didn't do a real good job. I'm Ron Ashley. 6851 North Penncross Way, Meridian. Spurwing. My concern is -- big concern is the traffic. You're going to double the traffic in there. Plus the members that don't live there during the golf season, it's a lot of traffic and you're going to double it here. This project looks like to me that it's going to be -- it's going to raise the value of the condos, because they are going to be in Spurwing. It's going to devalue our homes, there is no doubt about it. It's going to drag things down. You guys can kid yourself or not, but that's what's going to happen. So, he's getting an advantage on this deal, because of the existing homes there and we are going to be disadvantaged. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Borton: Thank you. Susan Wildwood. Wildwood: Thank you, Mr. President, Members of the Council. Again, for the record, my name is Susan Wildwood, I'm an attorney. I'll direct my comments primarily to the variance comments by Mrs. Butler. I think that this is very clear that this Council has the authority to grant variances from ordinances that it has adopted. There is a municipal code, you're authorized under Title 50 to adopt ordinances, to review those ordinances, and to offer any relief as appropriate off those ordinances. What we are really talking about is a variance from the block length and Becky referenced it. I would like to point out again the -- we are talking about on the variances from the block length and in looking at the site constraints, these are site constraints that are unique to this piece of ground. So, it does qualify under the case law. The constraint is the length of this road is wrapped by the golf course. Interestingly enough under the ordinance Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 69 of 76 requirements in the residential districts no block face shall be more than 750 feet in length without an intersecting street or alley or no block shall have a length greater than 1 ,300 square feet without a pedestrian connection. We have made every attempt to try to offer those kinds of things given the site constraints, but we still need the variance. Here is the pedestrian walkway out into the golf course and we have the emergency access. It's not an alley and it's not an intersecting street. This loop also provides as close to an intersecting street. So, what we have done is we have given you a roadway, given the narrowness of this particular lot that comes in, we have a loop here, we are offering safety for a turnaround. We have pedestrian access out into the golf course. We have this loop that provides an intersecting street. We also have this area coming out here. So, that we have addressed the comments by the police department and by the fire department as far as offering safety, secondary access, so that they can come into these areas, it's simply the block face of that road length that we have asked the variance for. It falls squarely within the authority of the court and within the city. The city has acted with authority in the past and they would be acting with authority in this instance. Although Mrs. Butler suggested the city is without any authority to do so, it is not either contrary to the public interest, not contrary to the cases, and, again, falls under the city's right and responsibility as a municipal corporation to offer a variance from its own ordinances. With that, Mr. President, I would be happy to stand for any questions. Borton: Thank you. Any questions? Thank you. Wildwood: Thank you, sir. Borton: Thank you. Claire Treerice. Canning: Treerice. Borton: Sorry? Canning: Treerice. Borton: Not here. Claire or Bob Treerice. They left. Okay. Sorry. Stephanie Stevenson. Okay. Richard Moritson. Richard. Moritson: My name is Rick Moritson. I lived at 3028 West Balata. I'm on the north side of Balata there. First off, I'm very -- President, Members of the Council, I'm very disheartened with the communication between the developer and the neighborhood to date or the homeowners association. After all, there is only about 60 of us in the whole development as it stands. I think that's a reasonable number of people to try to get together. We are not talking about thousands of people here for neighborhood meetings, et cetera. And within 300 feet of the development there is probably only ten houses. I don't know what the exact quantity was, but that's -- the neighborhood meetings that we have had I don't think sampled the neighborhood. With that said, I think a lot of the concerns that I have of the development are regarding the planning Meridian City Council February 6,2007 Page 70 of 76 and zoning issues that have already been stated. I don't feel the density fits existing open space esthetics that the subdivision has. The developer said that it's typical -- is typical for an 18 hole course. I want to keep in mind that all the development is around six holes, six fairways here. So, what's typical for an 18 whole golf course, this, really, is around six. The traffic is a five to six X increase, if I heard correctly on Balata, going from a hundred plus to six hundred plus trips a day and I'm concerned about all the traffic at the head of Salata there, in addition to the traffic exiting out through main Spurwing Way as already stated by others. I'm also concerned that there is going to be a separate homeowners association regarding this development and how its covenants will be in regards to maintaining the high standards we have within the existing development. I'm also a little concerned with the -- how this development is going to use the common roads, common lighting, common landscaping, et cetera, that's already part of Spurwing, you know, in regards to maintenance and so forth, but that's legal issues I'm just not familiar with. Also, if they are going to be using our irrigation pumps that we maintain for irrigation, et cetera. While I'm in favor of the whole patio home concept, the current plan seems disorderly and crowded for the reasons stated previously. My preference or suggestions for improvement would increase the lot size. The stand-alone lots taking from a minimum size of 10,000. Right now they are around nine to 12 thousand square feet, taking that up to about 15,000 square feet and taking the shared lots from five to six thousand square feet up to ten. I'd like to see more open common area between Salata lots and the new development. There is some common area along the first stretch there on the right, but as it extends up there is no actual common open space in there between the lots and that kind of goes back into the open space esthetics. If you back off a view of the whole subdivision, there is a lot of open space in there provided by the golf course and, then, you're crowding at this corner. So, I'd like to see more open space there. And I'm also concerned with that block length as JoAnn and others had mentioned and, you know, possibly would like to see the removal of that loop on the end, make it just one street through there. But I think that wraps up my concerns. Any questions? Borton: Thank you. That's all -- that's the entire list of people who have signed up to testify. Would the developer like to offer comment? Mr. Hewitt. Hewitt: My name is John Hewitt. I reside at 8212 North Spurwing Way. I really don't have any additional comments or can provide you with any information I think that you haven't already heard, but I will avail myself to any questions that you might have. Borton: Thank you. Any questions, Council? No. Okay. Thank you. Would the applicant like to make any final remarks? McKay: Mr. President, I will be as brief as possible. I did recalculate the number of trips that will be generated by the reduced number of lots. It would be approximately 554 vehicle trips per day. That's based on the formula that ACHD was using of 8.52 vehicle trips per dwelling unit and that's due to the mix of attached and single family. So, 554 vehicle trips a day. There is 70 existing single family dwellings out there now Meridian City Council February 6,2007 Page 71 of 76 on acre lots, because that was the minimum lot size at the time the Spurwing was done in 1995. And they are generating 700 vehicle trips a day. I consulted with WGI, they indicated that a golf course of this size, with the clubhouse, generates approximately 645 vehicle trips a day. So, the existing traffic out there is 1 ,345. And Spurwing Way is built as -- like a residential collector. And I brought an aerial to kind of demonstrate that. It has a split median. As it comes off of Chinden there is a split median. It's a large no front-on housing. It comes up here to the clubhouse. Still no front-on housing. This is Salata Court. So, we are right here at that first -- this is one inch equals a hundred feet. We are one -- we are right up here, it's about the first 200 feet of Salata Court. The homes start right here and here. Those are the first two homes. So, as our traffic exits Balata it will come right here and, then, go down the collector. Borton: Becky? McKay: Yes. Borton: Can I have you show it or make that representation so the public can see where you're pointing and making reference to? Thank you. McKay: This is just an overlay. We have overlayed -- you can see it at a distance, but we have overlayed how we intersect into the development and this is showing existing homes, the collector roadway for Spurwing here, and, basically, demonstrating that we are not dumping at the end of Salata and creating a bunch of traffic in front of these homes. We will be existing right here where it -- shortly where it dumps into the collector roadway. The gentleman made the comment he lives I think two lots north of the clubhouse, so that would be -- on Spurwing Way would be up here, so this traffic would be coming out just south of him. As far as the block length, it -- the staff recommended that variance on the block length. Obviously, they believe that that was the appropriate application to deal with that. It is in the ordinance. It does give us options. We break blocks with ped paths, alleys, streets. We have had to do variances on block lengths where we had site characteristics which prohibited us -- or it was not reasonable to make a second public street type connection. Thousand Springs -- I mean I could name probably five at least over the past few years that we have done. So, this is not inconsistent with what the Council has done in the past. The only other thing I need to mention is the fact that the Council ask us to delineate a split zone. We originally asked for all R-8. We did provide a legal description of the partial R-4, partial R-8. The R-8 is delineated on the revised preliminary plat that we submitted. As far as Ada County Highway District is concerned, the number of vehicle trips has been reduced. Our primary access point and configuration of our street network with our emergency vehicle access is identical to what they reviewed originally. As far as ITD is concerned, we will be required to, obviously, get a permit -- a right of way permit for the emergency vehicle access. We will have to provide them with a design. So, regardless of which plat we are talking about, there is nothing that is changing in that manner. This is a good project. We have provided a substantial amount of open space. We have 16 percent common area, which is relatively high. A lot of these subdivisions, especially the small ones, are coming in just with the bare minimum, because that's all that they Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 72 of 76 can do. Obviously, this project, in order to compliment this neighborhood and to provide luxury homes like Mr. Hewitt wants, he's going to have to make this top notch and that's exactly what I believe he's going to do and I ask the Council to, please, support it and approve the application. Thank you. Borton: Thank you. Council, any additional information? One question of staff, both police and fire with regards to this plat, on the variance request. Are there any specific concerns about the city's ability to service this area? Trakel: Mr. President, Members of the Council, are you asking about the variance itself for the block length? Borton: Either. Yes. Trakel: Okay. It wasn't that we welcomed the secondary access, it was more that we demanded it. This is not the optimum that we like. We would prefer a second street going in. The emergency access has bollards in two different locations, which does prevent a quicker response into the area. This number of dwellings, residences, creates quite a few calls that we would imagine would be going in there and in an emergency one access does two things. If that access gets blocked by -- for whatever reason, a fire, an accident, whatever, we would be required use the secondary access, the emergency access, which now we have to take time to remove the bollards and that creates a concern. However, like I said, it wasn't -- and we agreed to it grudgingly and, then, the second and probably even just as important reason if from a tactical standpoint regarding a police response, with one way in, one way out, if we have to make a tactical response, they know where we are coming from. So, that is our concerns as far as emergency access. The variance, the long block length, they do create kind of a drag strip type mentality with some people and the long straight pathways or roadways, speed can get up on them and create a hazard. There is also another concern that we have and that's the exit or access point into Spurwing off of Chinden and with that there is a light that is just east of the intersection -- and I don't know what the name of that street is right offhand, but that means that the possibility of a light going in at the Spurwing access really is not going to happen and creating that many vehicle trips in and out will create a hazard and that's not just the people that live in that Spurwing development, but it's also the members of that club that go there during the golf season. I believe someone even mentioned it earlier. So, that creates even more vehicle trips into the area. So, that's the police department's concerns with the roadways as they sit and the amount of residences in that area. Borton: Thank you. Silva: President Borton, Members of the Council, our concerns with this -- well, first of all, I'll start with the entryway. When you have 133 homes that are serviced on a single access point, as you well know most typical -- if a street is going to be placed out of service in Meridian it's probably placed out of service for some sort of water, sewer improvement or street improvement. So, that's typically what takes the primary Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 73 of 76 response route out of service. So, with that -- anytime we have over 50 homes we require a second point of access. In this case the developer has provided an emergency access point off Chinden directly. Unfortunately, we have got to go through two sets of gates to get completely into the project, which is a time delay and time and minutes and seconds are critical anytime in an emergency response. Secondly is that we do have a dead end street that exceeds 750 feet in length and with that thought in mind we typically require a wider street section to accommodate speed, we may have to go down the street a little bit quicker in order to reach the most remote part of that dead end street. However, in this situation, it depends on how you view or define a dead end street. That dead end is really not truly a dead end, because now you have an emergency vehicle access and now you can conceivably access it from two different -- two different points. So, with that that's why we didn1t require the increased street width section as part of the comments from the fire department on this particular project. So, with that I'll stand for any questions, Mr. President, or Council. Borton: Mr. Bird. Bird: Either one of you can answer it, police or fire. Instead of bollards, have you -- have we ever had a swinging gate that would be operated electronically off our Opticom system like we do the lights? Do you know of anything like that? Silva: Mr. President, Members of the Council, Councilman Bird, yes, we have had -- we have had some problems associated with those type of Opticom sensors that open electronic electric gates. The sun will shine in there or they will be -- sometimes there is a problem with the shadowing on them or sunlight directly hitting them and they will not operate and thafs been troublesome. So, what we do is we ask for a key override or we just -- the firefighter steps out and puts a key into a switch, turns it, and the gate opens and remains open throughout the duration of the emergency. Bird: But you can, basically, use that and you can't -- you can put covers around I think to block -- because in automatic swinging and sliding doors we have had that problem before, reflections and stuff, and you can usually put a cover of some kind that will keep that from happening. I have to agree with you guys on this, that the bollards is -- you may as well go -- I don't know, you know, you're going to waste time getting through there if you have got a real emergency, you know, if it's a fire, if you're five minutes, the fire is -- five minutes has jumped ahead. So, I think that the only way I -- that we could do it is with a swinging gate operated electronically with a key override. I agree with you. Police agree to that? Trakel: Councilman Bird, Mr. President, we would agree with that. We do not have Opticom on our vehicles, so we would need some type of key override. Bird: I might have outspoken. You know, there is other types of things that just -- like garage door openers and things or something. It don't have to be -- I just threw Opticom out there, because I thought you guys had Opticom, too. Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 74 of 76 Trakel: Not yet. Borton: Thank you. Any other questions of staff? Rountree: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: I would ask a question of Mr. Nary. I was a little taken aback by the fact that we can't do what we have done in the past. Could you enlighten me a little bit there? Nary: Mr. President, Members of the Council, Councilmember Rountree, I guess I'd respectfully disagree with Mrs. Butler that the statute bars us from making -- the city from making this decision. I guess I don't read it in the same way that she does. I think there is the ability of this Council to make Findings based both the statute and its own ordinance. I think -- as Mrs. Wildwood pointed out, it would be an absurd result that we make requirements in our ordinances for block lengths, lot sizes, building heights, and a variety of other things, some that are covered by statute and some that are covered by ordinance and, then, not allow relief from those very ordinances. So, I don't read the state statute as strictly as Mrs. Butler does, nor do I think our ordinance is void by allowing also variances from our ordinance. So, I don't think you're barred from doing it. Borton: Any additional questions? Bird: Mr. President, one clarification for Anna. The rezoning from the part that's R-4 and the part that's R-8, is from TD Land Surveying, dated December 19th, 2006; is that right? The legal descriptions? Canning: Mr. President, Mr. Bird -- Councilmember Bird, Sonya had those legal descriptions when she prepared these conditions of approval, so they should be listed correctly in here. Rountree: They are in there. Canning: That would have been part of the annexation request and they are included in Exhibit C -- hold on. Bird: That's right. That's it right there. Canning: Yes. Dated December 19th. Bird: Just wanted that on the record. Borton: If no further information is necessary, I'd entertain a motion to close the public hearings. Meridian City Council February 6,2007 Page 75 of 76 Bird: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Bird. Bird: I'd move we close the Public Hearing on PP 06-045 and V AR 06-020. Borton: Second. It's been moved and seconded to close the Public Hearing on Item 19 and 20. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Rountree: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: I move that we -- first off a question for Mr. Nary. Preliminary plat. Variance. Variance. Preliminary plat? Deny one -- Nary: I think you have to grant -- Rountree: We'd have to grant the variance first. Nary: You'd have to grant the variance first. Rountree: Or deny the variance. Nary: Or deny the variance. Rountree: Mr. President? Borton: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: I move that we approve the request for a variance, Item 20, VAR 06-020, based on the uniqueness of the particular piece of property, the ability to provide pedestrian access and the ability to provide a secondary safety access into this particular lot. And include the Findings -- preparation of Findings. Borton: Second. It's been moved and seconded to approve Item 20, VAR 06-020. Any discussion? Seeing none, Mr. Berg, please call roll. Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, absent; Borton, yea. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Rountree: Mr. President? Meridian City Council February 6, 2007 Page 76 of 76 Borton: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: I move that we approve Item 19, PP 06-045, preliminary plat, Spurwing Patio Homes Subdivision, subject to testimony received this evening, staff comments and conditions in their final report, and the preparation of Findings. Borton: Second. It's been moved and seconded to approve Item 19, PP 06-045. Any discussion? Seeing none, Mr. Berg. Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, absent; Borton, yea. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Borton: Thank you, everybody, for your patience and endurance. That brings us to the end of our regularly scheduled agenda. If I can get a motion to adjourn. Rountree: I so move. Bird: Second. Borton: It's been moved and seconded to adjourn. All those in favor? MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 11 :29 P.M. (TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) \\\\\ tt I' IIIIII} \\\ . III ,\\\~ of t-;JtE~~rll/J' . ,> ~"' ,~ ,of"".... NT JOE BG~'i'O~?POR..q ~o ~ "\ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 3 I b I 07 DATE APPROVED