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Home My WebLink About2025-08-12 Regular Meridian City Council August 12, 2025. A Meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 6:05 p.m., Tuesday, August 12, 2025, by Mayor Robert Simison. Members Present: Robert Simison, Liz Strader, John Overton, Doug Taylor, Anne Little Roberts and Brian Whitlock. Members Absent: Luke Cavener. Other Present: Chris Johnson, Bill Nary, Caleb Hood, Bill Parsons, Brian McClure, Garrett White, Shawn Harper and Dean Willis. ROLL-CALL ATTENDANCE X Liz Strader X Brian Whitlock Anne Little Roberts X John Overton _X_ Doug Taylor Luke Cavener X Mayor Robert E. Simison Simison: Council, we will call the meeting to order. For the record it is August 12th, 2025, at 6:05 p.m. We will begin tonight's regular City Council meeting with roll call attendance. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE Simison: Next item is the Pledge of Allegiance. If you would all, please, rise and join us in the pledge. (Pledge of Allegiance recited.) COMMUNITY INVOCATION Simison: Okay. We didn't have anyone signed up under the community invocation. ADOPTION OF AGENDA Simison: So, we will move on to adoption of the agenda. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: We do need to amend the agenda as we stated in our last meeting. So, Item 31 and Item 32 from the work session will become the new Items 1 and 2 in this evening's regular meeting agenda and everything else will just move down. Overton: Second. Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 2 of 62 Simison: Have a motion and a second to amend the agenda by adding Items 31 and 32 from the workshop. Is there any discussion? If not all in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it and the agenda is agreed to as amended. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. PUBLIC FORUM — Future Meeting Topics Simison: Next up is Public Forum. Mr. Clerk, do we anyone signed up under public forum? Johnson: Mr. Mayor, we do. Excuse me one moment. First we have Doug Humphrey. Simison: Good evening. State your name and you will be recognized for three minutes. Humphrey: Yes. Hi. I'm Doug Humphrey. Thanks for letting me speak tonight. I'm trying to get this to the right image. Johnson: Try the arrows on the keyboard. Humphrey: Okay. Hi. Thank you for letting me speak -- Simpson: If you can speak into one of the mics. Humphrey: Okay. Resident in the Paramount Subdivision and this is regarding the Sagarra development at Orchard Park, specifically the Grandview townhomes called the Duette models, which you have heard discussed before, which we understood to be limited to three stories, but which we think is clearly turning out to be higher than that. would like to focus tonight on two questions. One what was approved for this and, two, are they building what was approved for this? The last meeting I saw Council Member Strader shared this exhibit, which I guess is projected now and it was also published in the Idaho Statesman piece last week and I would like to draw your attention to the rooftop. There is a fairly modest structure on the top that's intended to provide rooftop access shared between two units. So, it kind of pushes the three story limit, but not too much. How do I get to the next one here? Johnson: Arrow on the keyboard. Humphrey: Thank you. Anyway, that's not what they are building. The structure now is a lot bigger. That room on the top that was fairly modest in the other image is now a lot bigger. It runs across nearly the entire width of the roof and covers maybe 20 to 25 percent of the rooftop surface. Now, the developer was quoted in that Statesman article that it looks like four stories from that angle, but if you go around to the other side it looks more like three stories, but if you were in a helicopter looking down it would probably look like one story. So, that doesn't help much. Got to get the next image, please. Anyway, Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 3 of 62 that's just getting started. This is from the GrandView website. Now there is a pergola - - a pergola and a pretty big one as you can see. There is an elevator shaft off to the left. A retaining wall looks to be about three or four feet high running around the perimeter. Really nice furniture. Big screen TV on the access wall back there -- access wall in air quotes. So, what's it going to look like when someone decides to put a cover on the pergola and shades or even enclose the size of it -- enclose the sides of it. This terrace is an expensive feature and people are going to want to use it, especially on days like today. It's a nice space. No question. I can see the appeal. But it's not just a terrace. It's a living space. It doesn't just look like four stories it is four stories and that's not what I understand was approved. So, this appears to be a case of* give an inch, take a mile and it bothers us when developers are allowed to play with it. There has got to be some kind of mechanism for holding builders accountable to do what the public was led to expect. That's it. Thank you. Simison: Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Johnson: Mr. Mayor, next Jeanmarie Ambrose --Ambrosio. I apologize. Simison: Good evening. State your name and be recognized for three minutes. Ambrosio: Hi. Good evening. My name is Jeanmarie Ambrosio and the headline of the recent Idaho Statesman article about Orchard Park described it as controversial and that is an apt description. The development of Orchard Park has been problematic from the very beginning. By problematic I refer to the developers submitting applications for approval, obtaining approval based on those applications and, then, returning repeatedly to Meridian City Council to request variances in zoning and building size. Right, wrong or indifferent, the Orchard Park developers reinforced the belief that developers cannot be trusted and that the city allows developers to build whatever they want. From the get go it has been Paramount residents that have been the watchful eyes over what is going on over at Orchard Park. It was Paramount residents who alerted our City Council representative to the height of the under construction GrandView townhouses, the lacks building practices that resulted in property damage to Paramount homeowners, uncontrolled dust, the lack of response to residents' complaints and so on. When a project has a history as difficult as Orchard Park why isn't the city paying a little more attention to what's going on over there? Whatever loopholes may exist currently that allow developers to present one thing in their applications and, then, build whatever they want, they have got to be closed. The onus is on the city of Meridian to monitor what is being built and to keep developers in check so we avoid such situations as what we are dealing with right now with the Sagarra development. It is not the responsibility of the surrounding communities -- in this case Paramount -- to play this role and if it isn't the city's responsibility, then, who does it belong to? The residents of Paramount, we are exhausted by Orchard Park and its developers and, quite frankly, we are fed up. Thank you. Simison: Thank you. Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 4 of 62 Johnson: Mr. Mayor, Shannon McNall. McNall: Hi. My name is Shannon McNall. Thank you for hearing me. I'm not as well spoken as everybody who has been talking about Orchard Park, but I'm here about the dust. I have lived in Paramount for 20 years. We were the second street built in the neighborhood and I have seen construction through every single phase of the neighborhood and every single development around us and we have never seen dust like this at our house and I mean we basically had houses being built behind us and we didn't see dust like this. I will say that I live three rows of houses in, I don't live right behind it and we recently remodeled our home and painted. It is now caked in dust. It's ruined. That's about 10,000 dollars in damage. We have replaced filter after filter after filter, everything in our house from the remodel -- I'm sure that you guys, if you have remodeled your home you know how amazing that is to have something new. It no longer feels new and so what I would like to say is that, please, don't give up and just say -- I know somebody said that it might be a burden on the city, but right now it's a burden on your residents, because I am looking at civil suits in order to think about fixing this. I mean the burden has come to me and it's come to my finances and our quality of life and I would also like to say I know that in the article that it said that there has to be intent. I think the second that I have texted a developer and they said we are looking into it or we are following codes or the day that with the Facebook article -- or not Facebook -- Statesman article that commented yesterday, if you look at that stream, that just says, well, there is not going to be dust for very long. Just relax. That show -- and he works -- he said that he worked for the development. So, that shows you what we are dealing with and the fact that there is intent to ignore the damage that's being done. So, I hope that you guys will not give up on us and possibly come up with some stricter enforcements. Thank you guys. Simison: Thank you, Shannon. And good luck tomorrow. Johnson: Mr. Mayor. And Jen Card. Card: I'm back. All right. Jen Card and I am here to talk about Sagarra and Orchard Park. I want to give you a little bit more of an idea of what people in that neighborhood have been through. This is a picture from my back patio. The one on the left was a common sight. The one on the right shows the berm of dirt that lived behind my house for over nine months that was halfway up my second story. I hope you hear my sarcasm when I say it was pleasant to walk out there and see employees, contractors up there on top of the berm staring at my house. My teenage daughter's bedroom is on that side of my house. Teenagers thinking that camping out there between there was okay. We asked them to leave. They don't leave. They started a campfire. So, we end up calling the police. I mean those are the kinds of things. And every time the wind blew just a little bit. We didn't just get the snow blowing around we got the dirt. So, that's just a little bit of what it was like and I finally got a hold of Tony, who is in that article, and -- after it had been there for nine months on spring break of this year. I said when is it going to go away and he is like I'm working on it. Luckily I came back from spring break and it was gone. But they would move the dirt. They would move the dirt to one side to get to something, Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 5 of 62 they would make it higher, they would cruise over the top with their ginormous equipment and every time that happened dust came our way. It damaged everything. You will love this next one. So, on the left-hand side -- this is the back side of my fence. I just paid over 4,000 dollars to have that fence replaced. You can see heavy equipment moving dirt on a fence like that that's older and, then, having branches stuck up in there literally moved my fence. The center picture you can see where it broke off from the four by four and literally moved back. I was -- well, we will tell that story. And, then, the third picture is where it's literally leaning on my shed. We have had broken boards where you can see where my husband just put a piece of wood up over it to hold it together. I have a rescue dog and I was terrified that if she managed to get out of there I would never get her back. She came from a kill shelter and that just wasn't okay in my mind. So, I started calling everybody. Got a hold of Tony and he is like, oh, yep, got it. And, then, the next time I asked him about it he said, oh, you need to call Taylor Cook. I'm like who is Taylor Cook? And he said, oh, he is the project manager for GrandView communities. Got a hold of Taylor. He is like sorry* that happened I will take a look. Ah. Okay. I have a ton more to say. I will be back and finish it up next week. Thank you. Simison: Thank you, Jen. I said thank you. Johnson: Mr. Mayor, I -- Tyrone Quist. Quist: I am Tyrone Quist and I have lived on the Linder and Chinden area for over 30 years. I have seen the growth in that area my whole life. I remember when it used to all be farm fields. So, the start of the growth there was the Paramount Subdivision. So, would say the Paramount Subdivision development itself was the eyesore to begin with the whole development. But that being said, I agree with the development going on in this area and I agree that you, the Council, you are making the best decisions that you can with what you are given, because there are going to be situations no matter what that are going to be -- someone's going to be mad at this, someone's going to be mad at that, someone's going to like this, someone's going to like that, so I know that in that situation that's going on right now that there is going to be both sides. That being said I would like to know that with that building that's being built were you guys aware of what was actually happening? Was that actually submitted correctly? I feel like it was and that they submitted their plans, but is that something you were aware of or are they actually, indeed, changing stuff along the way? Thank you. Simison: Thank you. Johnson: And, Mr. Mayor, I had a -- never mind. Lois Collum. Collum: Hi. My name is Lois Collum. I actually live at Linder and Meridian, so this is -- McMillan. So, this is actually quite interesting to listen to the Orchard Park situation, but that's not why I'm here. I am a swim instructor and I have a swimming pool in my backyard Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 6 of 62 Johnson: Lois, sorry, this is actually a -- so -- this is what I was going to ask the Mayor and city attorney about. This is related to the UDC hearing later tonight. So, I will let you Nary: Mr. Mayor, that is a -- I mean that is a legislative action that can be commented on, but it might be more relevant when the UDC presentation is, but, again, I don't know if she could be here, so I guess if she wants to put her information record she can. Column: I just want to say a positive thank you for looking at changing the code. Thank you. Simison: Okay. Thank you. Johnson: That's everyone signed up. DEPARTMENT / COMMISSION REPORTS [Action Item] 1. [Added to Agenda] Public Works Fiscal Year 2026 Republic Services Annual Rate Adjustment for Solid Waste Collection Services Simison: Okay. Thank you very much. With that we will move on to our Department/ Commission Reports and we will go to Item 1, which was from -- added onto the agenda, which is Public Works fiscal year 2026 Republic Service annual rate adjustment for solid waste collection services and turn this over to Mr. Freitag. Freitag: Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, thank you for your time tonight. While they are loading that I'm here to talk to you about the FY-26 solid waste fee schedule proposal from Republic Services. Also need to touch on some billing changes we are going to recommend for household hazardous waste as well, so -- good news is this is a very simple discussion tonight. Republic Services is proposing a standard contractual increase this year. There we go. Of 5.46 percent. This is in alignment with the franchise agreement. So, just to remind everybody, our franchise agreement allows for an annual adjustment of 90 percent of the Consumer Price Index each year. This year that measured out at 6.07 percent, 90 percent of that is 5.46. That's how we arrive at that number. The table you see there just kind of indicates that trash and recycling services is what's subject to that. There is other elements that go into the overall solid waste fees. Disposal is one. We will talk about that in just a minute. Household hazardous waste I will address at the end. And there is an alternative fuel tax credit that we will talk about as well. Probably important to note that staff and the Solid Waste Advisory Commission had the opportunity to go through all this data. We presented this to SWAC at their last meeting. They had an opportunity to ask questions and they recommended adopting the proposed fee schedule as it is seen. I know Commissioner Cory is here if you have any questions that you would like to address to him. Republic Services is also available if you have got questions for them. So, looking at what this would do for just an average customer, this table that you see at the bottom is for a standard 95 gallon customer trash container. So, the 5.46 percent increase on the trash and recycling services equates to Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 7 of 62 about $1.19; right? So, your current fee you see in column under the FY-25 add a $1.19 to that, that takes you out to 22.94. All right. Disposal is a pass-through cost. That's determined by the Ada County Landfill; right? And just to give you some background on that real quickly,Ada county just finished a cost of service study for their landfill operations and they are in the process of updating all of their fees associated with that right now. So, the disposal fee, which is what we refer to as the tipping fee up there, is currently 32 dollars a ton. Their cost of service study recommended a three percent increase, takes it to 33 dollars a ton. The 11 cents you see there is what that equates to for the average account. All right. The VTEC that you see there is the energy efficiency tax. Republic Services operates energy efficient vehicles. The federal government gives them a tax credit for that. They share that rebate with us and that is turned around as a discount on the customer's bill, so -- the bottom line here really the most important thing it's $1.30 increase overall to an average customer going forward. This slide just gives you a little more detail on some of the components of the fee. Really talked about most of this. I will address household hazardous waste as a separate topic when we get into that piece and we talked about the landfill. Always interesting to see how we compare. This table just kind of shows you what the overall costs around the valley are. I always hesitate when I show a graphic like this just to remind everybody every single city has different services. Each contract is unique, but it does give you at least a sense of where we fall and whether the rates are competitive or not, so -- and, then, finally, just a look at what we are doing going forward. Not looking for any action on this tonight. This is really just informational and make sure you don't have any questions. So, I will hold there and entertain any questions. Simison: Council, any questions for staff? Simison: Okay. Freitag: Next item is related to household hazardous waste. 2. [Added to Agenda] Public Works Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) Billing Change Simison: We are moving on to Item 2, Public Works Household Hazardous Waste Billing Change. Recognize Mr. Freitag for Item 2. Freitag: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Some background on this. So, prior to this year our mobile household hazardous waste service was part of an overall county wide contract. Ada county decided at the end of 2024 to terminate that agreement, go out and do a new solicitation and went through an RFP process to pick a new service provider. At that time they informed the city that they really did not want to be involved in the mobile site operations, which makes sense. They don't have anything really to do with that. So, it forced the city to go out and contract with that vendor, develop our own contract and kind of manage that process internally ourselves. We participated in the RFP process with the county. Selected Clean Earth -- Clean Earth as the service provider and negotiated a new contract. That took effect at the beginning of FY-25. Today that contract is in effect. Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 8 of 62 They bill the city directly, because we have a direct contract with them. However, we still collect that fee through our Republic Services trash fee. That was something we continued through this year. So, it's something that's always been there. It's an -- it's not a new fee. It's an existing fee. But Republic Services has historically collected that fee for us. The way we handled that this year was we simply short paid them their franchise fee when we -- based on whatever the monthly invoicing was. The process works. It's a little cumbersome. We want to clean it up. So, what we would like to do going forward is we want to decouple that household hazardous waste fee from the Republic Services fee. So, pull it out of what is the trash service fee now. It will become a standalone fee on the utility bill on a monthly basis. The customers will see it and we will not be changing anything in terms of service, location, contract, any of that kind of stuff, but it will just become another city fee, managed like all of our fees, and go through the normal fee process each year. The slide just shows you essentially what it is currently today. The fee is 24 cents. Our contract cost divided by our number of customer accounts is how we determine what the new fee is. It's actually just a few pennies less than -- than what it was before. So, proposing a fee of 21 cents for FY-26. Like I said, not a new fee, but it will show up on the bill and so that will be a change. We do recognize that people will see that, maybe not be accustomed to that, so we do plan on a certain amount of outreach to go through this. This is a list of some of the things that we are planning on doing. I suspect there will be some more as well. But just wanted to make sure that Council was comfortable with that approach. Give you a chance to ask any questions if you are concerned and kind of keep you up to speed on that. So, I will stand for questions. Simison: Thank you, Alex. Council, any questions? Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate you staying here late. Michelle owes you one. 3. Modified Final Plat for Southridge South (MFP-2025-0002) to change the fencing type along the Ridenbaugh Canal from black wrought iron as required by City Council, to black open vision vinyl-coated chain link with posts installed in sleeves for easy removal as required by Nampa Meridian Irrigation District (NMID), by The Land Group, Inc., generally located on the south side of W. Overland Rd., approximately 1/4 miles east of S. Ten Mile Rd. Simison: With that we will move on to Item 3, which is a modified final plat for Southridge, MFP-2025-0002, and we will turn this over to Bill, who is filling in tonight. Parsons: Thank you, Mayor, Members of the Council. You are correct, Mayor, I am filling in for Sonya this evening, since I'm here before you to present the UDC code changes here later on in the evening, but this first item on the agenda is a final plat modification. Typically these aren't in front of you. Usually get put on a consent agenda, because it's just a yes or no, but in this particular case staff wanted to bring this before you, because the issue that would --that is part of this final plat modification this evening was a directive by Council and it has -- specifically has to do with the required fencing along the right Ridenbaugh Canal. So, this site is, again, part of the Southridge Subdivision. So, it's about a quarter mile east of south -- on the south side of Ten Mile Road -- or Overland Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 9 of 62 Road, quarter mile east of South Ten Mile Road. Final -- the preliminary plat was approved in 2021. The final plat was approved in 2022. As this Council is aware, Ridenbaugh is a large canal, so typically within our code we require fencing to be along that waterway for public safety. As part of the public hearing process the applicant had requested that they put up chain link fence to match the existing Southridge development. Council had discussions around that particular topic and they thought -- they wanted a more decorative style fencing and so they had required a condition of approval to put in wrought iron fencing. Since that time the applicant is close to recording their plat, they are in for what we call final plat signature and in order for us to recommend signature on the plat they need to adhere to their conditions of approval and, of course, one of those conditions of approval has to do with the required wrought iron fencing. So, staff cannot recommend the city engineer sign off the plat until we get this issue resolved this evening. So, the applicant has worked with the irrigation district and their fence -- fence provider and the reason why they elected to go with the style of fencing that's currently constructed on the site is for -- Nampa-Meridian wanted the fencing to be easily removed, so they were requiring a fleet -- a sleep fence system, so if they had to get in there, do maintenance on the canal, they could remove sections of the fencing and according to the vendor wrought iron did not come that way, so that's why they went ahead and did the black coated vinyl chain link fencing and the applicant does have a photo of that to share with you just so you can see what's currently constructed if you have any questions about that. So, again, in the staff report in the hearing outline before you this evening there is some -- a recommendation to the change of that condition in front of you. So, again, you made the decision, so if the Council is inclined to reverse that condition and allow the existing fencing to remain, then, staff does have that condition ready for you to take action on tonight and with that I will stand for any questions you may have. Simison: Thank you, Bill. Council, any questions for staff? Okay. So, this isn't a public hearing, so are we open to any input from anybody on this item, Mr. Nary -- as we have reference to the applicant having the information is there any harm? Nary: There is not. Simison: Okay. Would the applicant like to come provide a visual of the information presented? Densmer: Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. My name is Jason Densmer. I'm a principal and civil engineer with The Land Group. Our address is 462 East Shore Drive in Eagle. I have been lucky to work with the developer of Southridge for many years now. We are on the goal line of this first phase of the Southridge south portion of the project and Bill I think did a great job laying out kind of our case. The -- we find ourselves kind of trapped between a rock and a hard place here. The city of Meridian in your final plat approval -- actually I think it was the preliminary plat approval applied this condition of approval for the project requiring the installation of a black wrought iron fence along the pathway on the Ridenbaugh Canal. It was -- having listened to that meeting again just to refresh my memory from 2021, it was largely an esthetic preference it seemed like from Council at that time. We have now completely constructed the project. The -- all of the Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 10 of 62 improvements are complete and signed off by all of the agencies and we would like to get signature on our final plat, which is with the city today. Except for this -- this issue about the fence type. So, what happened was that the contractor tried to execute what was shown on our construction drawings of a removable type fence and they were not able to do that with a wrought iron type fence, because of the -- in order to make it removable they determined that you would have to completely disassemble the fence if Nampa- Meridian needed access to the canal and to do their maintenance and so the contractor looked around and there are many other nearby locations where a black vinyl coated chain link fence had been installed, both along the Ridenbaugh Canal, around some ACHD facilities, all within a quarter to a half mile of the project and so they are very representative of the context that we have here and they went ahead and installed the fence. Now we know that they should have really asked more questions about that and gotten approval before, but that horse is kind of out of the barn. So, I wanted to come tonight and ask for your approval to change the condition of approval to accept the black vinyl coated chain link fence as the condition of approval, instead of the wrought iron fence as the condition states today. Just to maybe give you a little bit more background, I don't know that that would be a significant compromise for you. I have already explained that the Nampa-Meridian requirements are that the fence be removable. Part of that is so that they can complete the maintenance that they do. The chain link fence is also much more durable when Nampa-Meridian is doing that maintenance. The wrought iron fence is truly not wrought iron, they are mostly all aluminum these days and it's not as resilient if the canal were to burn the weeds and do some of the other maintenance activities that companies do. The other thing is that, you know, by being chain link it is much more easily removable, so they can get it out of the way when they do need to do maintenance and, then, lastly -- and this is strictly my opinion, but I do think that maybe the black vinyl coated chain link is more esthetic than wrought iron is. The picture that's on the screen is of the actual installed fence. It's my opinion I guess that the black vinyl coated chain link actually kind of disappears. The fence fabric itself is much more transparent and so as you are using the pathway you can see through it better than -- than a wrought iron fence would provide. All the, you know, numerous pickets on a wrought iron fence are much more prominent. They catch the light. It's my opinion that this really kind of blends in, so you only really see the posts and the top rail. So, that's the best case I can offer. I'm asking for some relief tonight and a change to our condition of approval so we can move forward. Do you have any questions for me? Simison: Council, any questions? Thank you very much. This is not a public hearing, so there is nothing open, nothing to close, said up or down on approval yes or no. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Yeah. I appreciate the explanation. I -- I would -- I would caution you it's always better to come and ask for an approval before you build something, just as a general matter. I understand how we got to this spot. I appreciate that it's vinyl coated. I do think that that goes a long way toward improving the esthetics. So, with that I mean it's driven by the irrigation district. This seems like a pretty straightforward thing that we need to do Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 11 of 62 for practical reasons. After considering all staff and public testimony I move to approve File No. MFP-2025-0002 as presented in the staff report for today's hearing date. Overton: Second. Simison: Have a motion and a second to approve MFP-2025-0002. Is there discussion on the motion? If not, all in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it and the item is agreed to. Thank you very much. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. 4. Proposed Updates to Meridian City Code Title 8 Regarding Addressing Simison: With that we will move on to proposed updates to Meridian City Code Title 8 regarding addressing. Mr. McClure. McClure: Mayor and Council, thank you for having me here tonight again. City Code Title 8 addressing code changes. This is for discussion and asking for approval tonight. Since addressing might be newer to some on Council I wanted to provide some quick context before the changes. Our addressing technicians do code compliance, participate in agency reviews and there is a great deal of technical workflows not just within the city, but multiple agencies. There exist a county wide addressing exchange known as ACX. This is a very high level view of what those interagency systems do. There is complex workflows that exists for Ada county and those serve as prerequisites for much of our work. Examples of steps include recording subdivision plats, street name review and, then, quality control checks back and forth. Most of that is 9-1-1 related. Meridian has its own workflows, but the intent here says to show database function. Meridian's addressing database is known as MEAD. M-E-A-D. Addressing is used by Ada County Assessor's Office and dispatch Google ESRI. It's used for billing and asset management and is a cornerstone of the Accela enterprise permitting system. Back to the purpose tonight. There was a detailed memo on your packet and so I'm going to broadly cover two topic areas and, then, we can drill in any questions if you have any. The first topic area overlaps with Title 11. UC changes on accessory dwelling units. ADU related changes in both Title 8 and 11 are intended to align with building code. For addressing related changes specifically there was also some legal department-led work and this is sort of a follow up to that. We are adding in broad definitions for single, multi and accessory dwellings. High level. We have a term for ADU to serve general communication, to serve for general communication. Lots of things by definition are ADU. Planning and building also have specific standards. We are saying that if you don't meet the standards for an ADU, not just the definition, then, you are non-conforming. You have to meet both the standards and the definition to be conforming. What that means basically is we are trying to define when we will address an ADU. So, if you meet the standards and definitions we will give you an address. If you don't meet the standards and the definitions we will not give you an address. The ADU standards here are generic as are the definitions and, again, this is intended to work with other code -- other title codes. So, Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 12 of 62 Title 11 UDC and, then, building code. The second group is for consistency changes. A big one is removing a section of code from multi-family residential. The United States Postal Service does not want that. We are not allowed to do that anymore, but our code still references it. We used to address multiple buildings on a single lot with letter identifiers, but, again, that's no longer allowed. That system also has a habit of breaking when you have a partial land that subdivides later in the future, you have to readdress everything in that apartment complex and no one likes to go through an address change when they don't want to. There is also some additional code describing the handling of multi-unit -- multi-unit residential apartment buildings and a new figure to help with education and transparency and on that topic of transparency the city's not done a great job of this historically. We have apartments that are numbered in all sorts of ways and we don't -- we don't do that anymore. We are trying to just make sure it's clear why we are doing it and not lose sight of that in the future. The other change is to codify current practice for assigning suites to buildings, so not multi-family, but non-residential units. Nothing has changed here in recent practice, but this codifies it. Emphasis again is consistency. There are many influences in how addressing is done, including USPS, 9- 1-1 association, or NENA standards, fire and building code. Then drill down into the weeds, but the -- in all conditions they usually emphasize consistency. New coding, especially figures, are hopefully helpful to others for better conveying local expectations and practice. We have been much better here than we have for apartments. There are no process changes with any of this, it's all current standard operating process. This is just education and transparency. We sent these proposed changes to Ada county early. The assessor's office drives addressing for 9-1-1 and they also handle street naming and center line data for roads and GIS and we also discussed and coordinated with the fire department. We also presented the proposed changes to P&Z on June 26. Title 8 changes don't typically go to P&Z, but since they do on occasion have to hear appeals for addressing issues and since it does relate to the Title 11 changes you will be hearing later, we thought it was a good idea. They had no -- they had no concerns with any of the changes, but there was one concern -- or one question that seemed to express concern as to whether we tried to retroactively push old ADUs through this new system, this new process. We are not. We will go back through and find recent and a current system ADUs that have been approved and make sure they have an address, but we are not going to shop that. It's just for -- if they come back in for a future building permit of some type. That's the overview. We are hoping to bring this back to you in the future for an ordinance. Then I'm happy to answer any questions or entertain discussion. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Thank you. Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Brian, thank you. I read through your memo. It seemed like it was pretty straightforward. The changes all worked out. But some of your comments prompted just a couple questions maybe for my own clarification. When you were speaking about multi- family addressing that we -- moving away from having same -- letters for buildings, we, obviously, have that in the city. We wouldn't be retroactively going back and saying, okay, you know, Building A, B and C here we are going to change it to an actual number. Is Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 13 of 62 there -- is that part of some of the process or do we just say from this point forward this is how we will be doing addressing for multi-family? McClure: Mr. Mayor, Councilman Taylor, the latter is the correct part. We have to actually hold a public hearing for anything over five address changes and we have no intention of doing that. We actually had projects in the queue that have been in the queue for years and they are still moving forward with those letter identifiers even though the USPS hasn't allowed them for some years now. No, we are not going to change them. Taylor: Okay. Mr. Mayor, one more follow up. Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Can you -- speaking of ADUs, I read through some of the changes and definitions and how the ADUs are oriented to the street and, et cetera, but your comment about standards also needing to be compliance with the standards for ADU, can you just give me a little more clarification by what you mean with what are the standards that need to be achieved for it to qualify as an ADU from the city's perspective? McClure: Mr. Mayor, Councilman Taylor, that's a great question. I'm not super familiar with the Title 11 standards. Bill Parsons is here if you -- if you want to go there. I can say it speaks to some of the building code standards. One of them, for example, is that you have to have fire separation. So, if you are a detached unit you can be an ADU. If you are attached you can't actually have any -- there is a word for this and I can't -- I can't remember right now. But you basically can't have any sort of a doorway. You can't move between those two units at all. They have to be completely separated per building code. That's just standard. So, if you -- if you build a, quote, ADU for like a mother-in-law quarter and it has a door between them, it's not an ADU, it's just an expansion. Taylor: So, Mr. Mayor, quick follow up. So, in that case you just have to have an exterior doorway to access, you can't have an internal doorway between them; is that what you are saying? McClure: To be an ADU and to have an address, yes, you have to have an exterior door and no interior doorway. Taylor: And that's an example of the standard? McClure: Yes. Taylor: I would appreciate, Bill, if you had some more context just to provide on what kind of standards we are talking about. If maybe Brian captured all of it, but if there is any more you can provide that would be helpful as I'm thinking through this. Parsons: Mayor and Council, that will certainly be part of our discussion on the UDC changes. We are having -- we are proposing language changes to that -- the specific use Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 14 of 62 standards, so Caleb will go into that more detail if you could hold off. But, essentially, I think Brian hit it on the head where he is doing -- he is taking his effort to align with building code and we are taking our UDC standards to align with building code. So, it really is kind of a tag team effort between the various community development departments -- or divisions to make it all align and get a better handle on how to approve an ADU -- what constitutes an ADU and what doesn't. So, again, if you can be a little patient tonight we will definitely get into those details with you. McClure: Mr. Mayor, Councilman Taylor, just as one example there is a square footage limit for an ADU. You can't have an ADU that's bigger than the primary residence, for example. Simison: Council, any additional questions for staff at this time? Okay. Thank you. McClure: Thank you. Simison: So, Council, we will move on to our Action Items this evening. Nary: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman -- Mr. Nary. Councilman Nary. That fits. Nary: Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council -- and I apologize, I got some e-mails that came in right before our 4:00 o'clock meeting that I did not see and Mr. Johnson has pointed out to me it's a -- it's a slight error -- not a huge error, but I wanted to make sure we made it clear on the record and I will just make a real quick comment about it that we can make sure the public knows if there was anybody that was listening tonight for this item. But back in May we had an item before you for a public hearing called Latitude 43. It was an item that was a -- on Well Street. It was an application. It was H-2024-0059. It was continued at that meeting to tonight and it was required that we re-noticed it and that the city would pay for the re-noticing. In the interim there was a request by the developer to continue from the August 12th meeting to a later meeting and we hadn't noticed it yet, we hadn't sent any public notices at that particular time when that was requested. So, the decision was made internally to add it to tonight's meeting with the acknowledgement that a later request was made and that we would properly notice for the later date, which I think is in September. Yeah. So, what got missed was it didn't get added to tonight's meeting for that notification to the public that tonight's meeting would be continued. It wasn't noticed for tonight, but it should have been on the agenda for tonight and, then, we would have done exactly what we are doing now, which is just acknowledging that we sent a notice for later, we are going to have it in September. The notices have been sent, the advertising has been done, all of that's been taken care of properly. I don't know if anyone was paying attention to tonight's meeting or intended to be here for that. But, again, I saw some of these right before the meeting started, so I apologize, Mr. Mayor, I should have brought this to your attention, but I thought at this point of the --of the meeting we are right before the public hearing we should at least make note that tonight was originally supposed to be a hearing date for Latitude 43. It is moved to September. It has Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 15 of 62 been noticed for that date. It will be signed properly for that and everything has been done properly for that. But if anyone was either listening tonight or here for Latitude 43 1 apologize it wasn't noticed on the agenda as it should have been, but we are going to move it to a new date and we have addressed that part of it. So, I don't know if anyone is here for that. I want to make you aware, Mr. Mayor, and, again, I apologize we didn't bring it to you sooner. Simison: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Nary. Council Woman Strader. Strader: Mr. Mayor, thank you. Just a point of personal privilege for one moment. I do see the gentleman that addressed us earlier has hung around and I think he would like to chat. We are not allowed to respond --yep. You. We are not allowed to respond to public comments, because they are not on a noticed agenda. But, sir, I wanted to let you know I'm available to meet with you after this meeting if that's helpful if you want to ask your questions. I just wanted to tell you that if there is time, so -- or follow up afterward. ACTION ITEMS 5. Public Hearing for In-N-Out Burger (CR-2025-0002) by In-N-Out Burger, located at 5985 & 6037 N. Ten Mile Rd. A. Request: Council Review of the Planning and Zoning Commission's decision of denial on the conditional use permit (H-2024-0058) for a drive-through establishment within 300 feet of another drive- through facility, existing residences and a residential district on 2.22 acres of land in the C-G zoning district. Simison: Thank you. All right. So, with that we are not opening up any public hearing on CR-2025-0002, but do we need to make a motion to move it or even not even doing that, because it wasn't noticed properly? Nary: Mr. Mayor, since it wasn't properly noticed we have actually done the proper noticing for the next meeting on September 9th. Simison: Okay. So, for those that were here for potentially -- or online for the CR-2025- 0002, there is no comments, conversation or actions on that item tonight either and that will be on the September 12th date is that what you said? Nary: September 9th. 6. Public Hearing for Touchmark (H-2025-0012) by The Land Group, generally located on the south side of E. Franklin Rd. and the north side of 1-84, midway between S. Eagle Rd. and S. Cloverdale Rd. A. Request: Modified Development Agreement to update the conceptual development plan for the overall site, which consists of Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 16 of 62 approximately 121.50 acres of land to consolidate the existing agreements (AZ-99-021 Touchmark (recorded in 2001, Inst. #101048096); April 2001 Addendum (Inst. # 101048097); May 2003 Addendum (Inst. #103137119); AZ-02-018 (Bair Property AZ-02- 018, Inst. #102143308); MI-07-006 (Meadowlake Village North 3rd Addendum, Inst. #108022885) into one new agreement that replaces all previous agreements. Continued to September 2, 2025 B. Request: Rezone of 63.34 acres of land from the L-O to the C-C (55.17 acres) and C-G (8.17 acres) zoning districts. C. Planned Unit Development Modification (Meadowlake Village CUP- 03-005) to update the concept/use plan and include 4.6 acres of additional land, a deviation to the maximum building height allowed in the C-C district from 50ft. to 64ft. for the hotel and inclusion of 2 and 3 story townhome dwellings. Simison: 9th. Sorry. Okay. So, with that we will actually move on to Item 6 --four on the agenda, but six in our knowledge. Public hearing for Touchmark H-2025-0012. I will open this public hearing with -- for staff comments. Parsons: Mayor, Members of Council, the applicant has again requested continuance of this item to the September 2nd hearing is what their -- their date they have requested it to. They didn't have any represent -- representatives tonight available to attend the hearing, but also since the Planning and Zoning Commission hearing there has been quite a few conversations had with the residents living in Touchmark, so I believe the applicant needs more time to address some of those current concerns with the existing residents that live there as they transition to you on hopefully the 2nd. But that's what staff has on this particular item this evening. Again the applicant's requesting continuance. Simison: Okay. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Mr. Mayor, just a question then. Is Planning recommending that we continue this later than September 2nd in order to give the applicant additional time? I just want to understand what that comment was about. Parsons: Yeah. Mayor, Members of the Council, I'm -- I never discussed it with the applicant. All I have seen is the e-mail asking for it to be continued. I can tell you I have received multiple phone calls from the residents and they certainly want to be here on that evening -- or a evening. I did tell them that they are -- requested the September 2nd hearing, but it was, again, your prerogative to pick that date or grant that continuance, but I know we can anticipate some public testimony that evening. Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 17 of 62 Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: I guess a question for the city clerk and so that -- I mean that would give them three weeks to try to work through some things and hopefully -- the one thing I would caution the applicant if they watch this later is we do frown on multiple continuances, especially when there is a public hearing involved and so if they would need an additional continuance or to move this again that it would really be in their best interest to do that sooner rather than later, so that we don't get members of the public very upset because they are attending a hearing that then gets continued again. But with that my question was just for the clerk regarding what the agenda is like on the 2nd and what that looks like, so we know if we can fit that in. Johnson: Mr. Mayor, Council Woman Strader, it is pretty light, so we do have a space for that. Strader: Fantastic. Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: So, with that I move that we continue file H-2025-0012 to September 2nd. Overton: Second. Simison: Have a motion and a second to continue this item to September 2nd. Is there discussion? If not all in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it and the item is continued. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. 7. Public Hearing for Proposed Fall 2025 Activity Guide Fee Schedule of the Meridian Parks and Recreation Department Simison: Next up is a public hearing for the proposed Fall 2025 Activity Guide Fee Schedule for the Meridian Parks and Recreation Department. Turn this over Mr. White. White: Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, thanks for having me tonight. In front of you are our Fall Activity Guide fees and some of the classes that we are planning to provide for the community. We will see some on this -- on the paper there the current fee and the new proposed fee. Some of the increases really are just based on the number of classes per session, if there was five Tuesdays in the month compared to four up and down. So, that's -- that's really the changes there and with that I will stand for questions. Simison: Thank you. Council, any questions for staff? Okay. Mr. Clerk, anyone sign up to provide testimony on this item? Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 18 of 62 Johnson: Mr. Mayor, there were no sign ups. Simison: Okay. Is there anybody present who would like to provide testimony on the item, either in the room or online you can use the raise your hand feature. Seeing no one raising their hand or coming forward, Council, got a motion to close the public hearing? Whitlock: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Whitlock. Whitlock: I move that we close the public hearing on the proposed Fall 2025 Activity Guide Fee Schedule. Little Roberts: Second. Simison: Have a motion and a second to close the public hearing. Is there any discussion? If not in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it and the public hearing is closed. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. 8. Resolution No. 25-2531: A Resolution Adopting the Fall 2025 Activity Guide Fee Schedule of the Meridian Parks and Recreation Department; Authorizing the Meridian Parks and Recreation Department to Collect Such Fees; and Providing an Effective Date Simison: Next item on the agenda is Resolution No. 25-2531 regarding the resolution adopting the Fall 2025 Activity Fee Guide Schedule of the Meridian Parks and Recreation Department. Whitlock: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Whitlock. Whitlock: I move approval of Resolution No. 25-2531 adopting the fall 2025 Activity Guide Fee Schedule for the Meridian Parks and Recreation Department. Little Roberts: Second. Simison: Have a motion and a second to approve Resolution No. 25-2531 . Is there any discussion? If not -- is this roll call? Nary: No. Simison: With that all in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it and the item is agreed to. Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 19 of 62 MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. 9. Public Hearing for UDC Text Amendment (ZOA-2025-0001) by City of Meridian Planning Division, located citywide. A. Request: UDC Text Amendment to revise certain regulations, add new definitions, figures, and update specific use standards throughout Chapters 1-5 of the City's Unified Development Code (UDC). Simison: With that we will move on to public hearing for UDC Text Amendment ZOA- 2025-0001 . We will open this public hearing with staff comments. Parsons: Thank you, Mayor, Members of the Council. Excited to be here tonight. You know every year we come back -- we come before you to present our year round -- yearly code changes before. Caleb and I will be tag teaming this this evening. He will take a portion of some of the changes and I will go over-- highlight some of the -- the other major changes. We don't -- certainly don't intend to go through every one of them line by line with you this evening. But I wanted to -- hopefully you all had a chance to look at these. I know Council President Cavener wanted me to get these to you sooner rather than later and I sent that out as I transmitted this application before the Planning and Zoning Commission so you guys had enough chance to read through all of it. Again there is multiple pages and as I always discuss with you every time I'm presenting the code changes seem to grow. They start out as one focused -- a few changes and, then, by the time I meet with the UDC focus group and other stakeholders it ends up being a lot more robust than what we planned on, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. So, Caleb will tackle the flex space standards for you this evening and, then, also the ADUs and, then, I plan on covering private streets, fencing and, then, the home occupation, since we have somebody in the audience thanking you for that effort and, then, certainly highlight -- there is a few other ones that I want to highlight, because, obviously, you guys directed staff to -- to make those changes based on some public hearings from -- from your previous past. So, without further ado, again, it doesn't have to be such a formal process. If you -- stop me during my presentation if you have questions about a code change. I'm certainly--welcome that and provide you any context on why we landed on that particular code change. I would also mention to the City Council that last -- on August 4th I was in front of the Transportation Commission presenting the proposed drive through changes. It was more informational for them. Obviously they wanted to formulate a recommendation on those changes, but, again, it was information and they didn't feel comfortable doing that since it was new to them, but they-- again, it was shared with them in an effort for them -- because they are dealing with some of these drive through issues that are popping up in our community. So, I did -- did appreciate the dialog with them a week or so ago. So, with that I will go ahead and -- a lot of these definitions were added to just, again, align with building code. Caleb will touch on some of those as he gets to his ADU standards. But at least something that I want to point out to Council tonight is the fence code. I won't go through all of those changes, but it's -- it's unique to this Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 20 of 62 Council. At least it was unique for me is because we are actually repealing and replacing the fence code. So, because there were so many changes it was a -- it was a joint effort between code enforcement, legal and planning. As you guys were aware we were -- as we were -- before we move forward with these current round of code changes we were in front of you asking you, hey, these are things that we are going to be bringing forward to you and fencing was one of those topics and you said, yeah, go ahead and proceed, because we were getting makeshift fences and what constituted a fence and we were getting tarps in people's backyards and all of these weird -- public art in people's backyards that were defined as fencing. So, we were trying to bridge that gap and help our code enforcement partners administer the code more easily and so that's where in our code changes we went through -- again the code -- some new items, but for the most part it's kind of just cleaning up the fence code and, then, restructuring what we currently had and also includes some new exhibits. So, nothing new revenue to -- to share with you. Again there is still maximum six feet in height, eight feet in height in commercial, industrial districts. We do get a little -- we have updated the graphics so people can look at those -- the fencing. Our graphics are dated in the code, so I have to thank Brian for his effort of preparing those new graphics and that will be inserted into the new fence code as well and I will share those with you probably later in the presentation, but I don't want to get into those details too much, but at least it goes -- coincides with why we also changed how we measure the fencing and, then, also the new definition. Another unique definition that we added to our code was the definition of a sidewalk and, believe it or not, I know this Council understands it, but whenever you meet with code enforcement they have some of the oddest stories about how people interpret -- try to interpret codes and so, again, this was another effort that we worked with them on making sure we define what a sidewalk is so that they can have that as an enforcement tool if people are blocking sidewalks with fencing or basketball hoops or whatever else it may be. Trucks. Trailers. There is a mechanism for them to do that. And that kind of segues me down to the one item that I did want to highlight that you asked staff to work with the development community on and that was Item 11-3A-17D. If you recall there was a project in south Meridian where sidewalk wasn't necessarily required by ACHD on one side of the road and we didn't have a mechanism in code to waive a sidewalk on a public street and so you asked us to add that to our list and we did and so you can see here that's been -- been added with the word may. So, it's not a shall. You may ask that and, then, obviously, the applicant has to give you some justification of why it's not required or necessary and, then, I will trans -- I don't know if I will go ahead and stick with drive through since that is a big topic in our community. As you all know I tried to present these to you last year with our code changes and Council said pump the brakes, Bill. Go back, work with the UDC focus group, see what we can do better. As you all know -- we all know drive throughs aren't created equally. Some have a lot of traffic and some have no traffic. It's just depending on -- on how you see it. So, currently the way the code works is if you are within 300 feet of a residential district or another drive through you got to go through a conditional use process, regardless of whether it's a bank drive through or a restaurant drive through. It's an automatic CUP. With the standards before you this evening we are still going to require CUPs in certain instances. It's -- again, if you are within 300 feet of a residential residence, yes, you are going to -- or district you are going to still require that CUP. If you are going to convert an existing drive through to a more intense drive through Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 21 of 62 you are going to -- you are going to trigger a CUP, because, again, if it's a very easy drive through and it's -- didn't -- it didn't have a lot of trip -- say, for example, a bank goes out of business and, then, it's converted to a drive-through restaurant, which has occurred, that's a different use. There is different trips. There is different ways how cars circulate through the site. So, we felt that was appropriate. Again Old Town, you are going to get a conditional use. And, then, also the one thing that I appreciated added to this list was - - if you don't meet the standards you are going through CUP. So, again, we -- we have more express standards with our drive throughs. The other -- I think the Council was aware of the Chick-fil-A that -- that came before you recently and they asked for you to -- on that appeal, because we couldn't approve the drive through, because they wanted to eliminate their escape lane. Like there is no way to do that. And so under this proposal, again, if Chick-fil-A wanted to come back and take that -- have you take that under consideration they could, because this -- this would allow them to do that, because they did not -- they wanted to eliminate that stack -- that escape lane. That's something you can take under advisement as you deliberate on the application. The other thing we did with this particular code change is we broke drive throughs into different tiers and different impacts. So, again, tier one -- I think that's something that the Council really wanted to see. A bank and a pharmacy drive through is not the same as a Chick-fil-A or In-N-Out or Dutch Bros. Again some of the comments -- then a tier two and a tier three, they are primarily restaurants, but just depending on what you need to function at your restaurant. So, it really comes down to the operational needs. It's not really a use -- a change in use, it's just how your operations functions -- how your drive through functions from other restaurant uses. Now, I can tell you when I was in front of the Transportation Commission they were -- they are like what's the difference between one stacking lane or two stacking lanes and there really isn't. A developer -- or an applicant could come in and say I can function with one drive through and they have to prove that up and they have to meet the standards. Again, it's really -- what are your operational needs? You show us what you need to operate and prove it up and, then, we can determine if you are a tier one or tier two -- or tier two or tier three. Excuse me. And, then, what we have also done is have a minimum width for escape lanes and stacking lanes. That's something that we didn't have clearly defined in the code. We also required minimum vehicles to be stacked. So, again, for a tiered one -- so, you can see here for stacking lanes for tier two or tier three, which is your restaurant use, you got to provide a stacking lane for a minimum of six vehicles. So, essentially, that's 120 foot stacking lane for each drive aisle and then provide that escape lane. So, that's three lanes that they would have to provide as part of their drive through to make sure that they are not backing up on the public right away or obstructing site circulation within a commercial development and in that tier one has lesser standards, because the intent is, again, it would have less queuing needs and quicker turnaround for the drive through use like a bank or a pharmacy. And, then, we also went as far as saying that the length of the vehicle. We defined it -- we didn't want them to come in with Toyota Priuses at a 12 foot length vehicle. We said, no, your minimal stacking vehicle has to be 20 feet in length. So, again, I know this body has heard the word queuing. Queuing analysis. What is that? Well, that's a --that's a purview of ACHD and not really the city. They are the transportation authority and I think as I mentioned to you we -- we were going to go that route and require a queuing analysis, but we are not technical experts on that and what does that mean. What we are trying to do is just Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 22 of 62 prevent vehicles from stacking on public right of way and that's where ACHD has that discretion to say we think you are going to do that, provide us a queuing analysis. So, all we have really done with our ordinance is ask for a queuing exhibit, which, again, defines the length of the vehicle and how many you have to provide in your stacking lane. So, that's -- that was our compromise that we made as we worked with the UDC focus group on these changes. So, again, I think these are good changes. They are positive changes. And I know the UDC focus group was -- was very receptive of that and we did look at multiple jurisdictions' codes and kind of meshed that with what we currently had. So, think it will work well and, again, I feel confident in what we have here, but certainly happy to get any feedback from the Council on this particular topic before we transition to anything else. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: I just wanted to compliment actually Councilman Overton. I feel like he really raise the alarm on the need for this and I just am very appreciative of my colleague for helping to work through this and I feel like Planning staff has done a phenomenal job of trying to bring this concept forward. So, I -- you know, I'm very supportive of this concept and I feel like this really takes us in a -- in a great direction where we are differentiating the way that we should. Parsons: Mayor, Members of the Council, I know Luke -- sorry -- Council President Cavener was interested in maybe requiring CUPs for tier three. I didn't know if that's something that you wanted to entertain or if you felt comfortable that -- with the design standards we have if -- if you still want to leave that in that administrative realm if they can meet these design standards and still allow them to go through that staff level approval. Something that I know was brought up as well. Overton: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Overton. Overton: I was lucky enough to sit in on the meetings with the stakeholders and we went over this and I appreciate what staff has done. I can't help but be just a little -- I still have unanswered questions. For example, it just looks to me by the amount of land that's required between a tier one and a tier three that we have got situations where we are going to have pads approved on our development where the applicant is going to want to put in a drive through and are we going to have the tools to say we are going to approve that for a drive through establishment, but it will only be approved for a tier one or tier two. But the pad's not big enough for a tier three. Are we going to have some additional guardrails so when we see an application coming for us for a drive through on a parcel, as opposed to the actual business coming in, are we going to have any of that additional information just because the way these are structured for the type of businesses that could come in -- to me it's kind of like having a roundabout versus a traditional signal. The tier three is going to take up a little bit more real estate than a tier one and I want to Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 23 of 62 make sure that we have some sort of parameter set as we go through and look at applications. The other thing that concerns me -- and I just want to make sure we are -- we are always thinking about it, because I am going to be a big proponent when it's a tier three when it's one of these drive throughs with the raging fans, I think it still should be a CUP coming in front of us to make sure that we really dot the I's and cross the T's and we are putting it in the right place, but I want to know if we have something in place at your level in planning so if we have someone that might try to squeeze what would normally be a tier three drive through in as a tier one or tier two to fit their location, do you think you have the tools necessary to say, no, you guys are the big dogs, you are not going to apply for a tier one or tier two? Parsons: Mayor, Members of the Council, I think-- I think we do. It's -- like you said there is always going to be -- I think there is always going to be somebody that tries that. I'm not going to sit here on the -- and profess that someone won't try to do that. But, again, like I mentioned to you, if they can't meet that requirement they can go through a CUP and that will -- again that's going to Planning and Zoning Commission, not necessarily City Council, because conditional use permits go to the Commission, not necessarily the City Council. So, that's something that the Council has to be cognizant of or aware of is that's that next level and, again, if it's -- again, that can be appealed up to you if someone doesn't believe -- doesn't support staff's recommendation or City Council -- or the Commission's decision. So, there is still mechanisms in code to allow that. But certainly if -- if someone wants to meet with us and they submitted say, for example, a certificate of zoning compliance or design review for their drive through we are like are you sure this is going to work and we don't feel like there is, then, we ought to at least have discretion in the code to go to the director and say, hey, what do you think, do we have enough information to approve this drive through or should we send them through a CUP and we try to collaborate -- we always are collaborating on those types of discussions as a department. Overton: Mr. Mayor, just a quick follow up. Simison: Councilman Overton. Overton: Bill, I appreciate that, because ultimately the goal -- and I think the goal of everyone on Council is to make sure that we are approving the right drive through for the right location, so it has the least impact on traffic on other collector streets or arterials and it fits where it needs to go. I appreciate all the work you guys have done. Thank you. Parsons: Thank you. Simison: So, just a follow-up on what Councilman Overton said. I know we talked to our UDC group. Have we talked to actually at restaurants that would be subject to implementing these things to get their feedback? Like are these plausible or doable? Do we know anything -- anyone try to lay one out? Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 24 of 62 Parsons: The gentleman that I worked with as part of the subcommittee he has multiple clients that he works with for fast food restaurants. That's why he and I collaborate on it and he felt confident that this could work for them. I would -- I did share this with some other business -- other restaurants in the community that are trying to get established here, like -- because, again, I wanted -- I wanted them to be aware that we are changing our code. Will this work for your business model. And they gave me feedback, but nothing to the extent that this would be earth shattering or wouldn't allow them to conduct business in the city of Meridian. Simison: Thank you. Parsons: I don't remember what the exact comments are, but, yes, I have shared it with others for feedback. Simison: Perfect. Thank you. Parsons: All right. Mayor and the Council, I will go ahead and turn this over to Caleb to refresh you on accessory dwelling units -- or currently called secondary dwelling units in the UDC. Hood: Well, thanks, Bill. That was my thunder you just stole. That's one of the changes. I think you actually already covered some of this earlier. If I can get that mouse. Or you can drive. I know that we need to go all the way back up to the definitions, but that is one of the -- the main changes you will see throughout. We are getting rid of the term secondary dwelling and replacing that with accessory and we are also adding primary dwelling. So, you have a principal or primary to have a secondary accessory, so we are just -- hopefully that's some clarifications in the definition. So, I don't want you to dwell on that too much and that ties in with some of what Brian talked about earlier as well with addressing ADUs. So, we will talk about that. But let's jump into the standards, then, for accessory dwelling units a little bit. I'm not going to read everything that's -- can we fit it all on the screen? Not quite. So, I will scroll. But this is a majority of it and I will be honest a lot of it hasn't changed substantively. We have cleaned it up. I think we have made it better and we will commit to you even before you approve this or don't approve it, is we will continue to monitor this, but the reality is this is not going to solve our housing situation, crisis, whatever you want to call our current situation. Accessory dwelling units are not going to house everybody that wants to live in Meridian. We are trying to make this a tool, though, that can be used more. So, that was kind of the mindset, but balancing that, too, was I think some of that from this Council, but even previous councils, you know, balancing the existing neighborhood character, too. So, I think there has been that balance of -- again, we don't want to necessarily see these pop up everywhere all the time and now you have got parking problems and you have got mother-in-law's quarters in front of-- front yards and things like that. So, the standards I'm about ready to run you through make it easier, but it doesn't swing the pendulum all the way to where anyone can just put up an ADU on their property. So, I'm just being real about that. We tried to balance that. If you want to pull any of these levers and push them a different way or whatever, this is an opportunity, but it's kind of where the UDC focus group and even Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 25 of 62 some of the housing committee that was meeting years prior kind of landed on this is let's make it attainable, but, again, we are not going to be adding thousands of units to our community is reality. So, with all that being said, again, most of the -- the first couple of changes are more, again, administrative in nature. Definition type of a thing. You need to get a permit. This has been talked about a little bit, too, but this coordination with the building department, making sure we are all singing from the same sheet of music when something comes in that kind of looks like a garage with some livable space, is that an ADU? Communication was the word that Brian can come up with earlier. That's where you have a connection between the two spaces. So, if you have got a slider door, window, anything that communicates up the building code term for that it's no longer an ADU. It needs to be stand alone separately-- yes, a separate entrance door, but even if you have one you can't have another one that has an interior corridor that connects or not an ADU. So, again, a lot of this coordination with legal and building and others just to make sure when something that may quack like a duck may not actually be one if you have got some of these design elements. If you don't have the parking -- and we get it kind of both ways. Some people that want it and they want an address and some people that don't and you can't mix and match, you can't have communication, but no parking and not meet the setbacks for an ADU. You have to have all of these things present to be deemed an ADU and, therefore, get an address. If you don't qualify as this and we will look at you, look and review your plans as an addition to the structure or a detached structure. Maybe it's a shop or garage or whatever. But, again, you have to have all these things present to be processed and ultimately permitted as an accessory dwelling unit. The ones I really want to call to your attention -- I will go down on the screen again. I think that we talked about most are the owner occupancy requirement. A lot of communities don't have that requirement. Again, just sort of to neighborhood character and not to stereotype. A lot of times there is -- there is a stigma with renters and not keeping the property up and those types of things. So, ultimately, this is where the group landed with the owner of the property has to live on premise in either one of the dwelling units at least six months of the year. But if you open that up you could open up more -- more housing for -- for someone else to live there and they could live out of state. Location and setbacks. We haven't talked about that so much I don't think together, but in the past I have had conversations with previous councils. You know, this is -- this is a lever where if you said, you know what we are willing to allow these to encroach into side setbacks or be put in the front of structures or things like that, we could get more of them, but it changes your neighborhood character. So ultimately you need to comply with the underlying zone and there is no exceptions, if you will, for that. They would need to comply with where typical structures would be located. Sizing that even came up a little bit earlier. We are not really changing that. Nine hundred square feet. It does vary across the nation, but that's a pretty standard -- you don't want to be necessarily bigger than the principal dwelling. Again, we talked about it, but didn't change that size. Parking is another one of those. Again if you are going to be a dwelling unit we -- as a group just have the parking to meet the requirements. I will just also note on that, though, it is the cumulative number of bedrooms to come up with the parking. So, in the UDC parking is tiered, if you will, with studio and one bedrooms, just requiring one, two and three requiring two and three, four and five requiring the three. So, if you only had a three bedroom and your -- and the -- and the ADU made it four, you may not have to add any parking. You may have enough Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 26 of 62 already on site. But if you have four and you wanted five, you can't just convert your garage to an ADU. You would have to come up with another place for a car park for that ADU. So, just a point of clarification there that we are looking at the site, not for the structure itself if you will, because it's on the same lot. Simison: So, Caleb, do you want us to interrupt now or -- Hood: Whenever you would like, Mayor. Simison: Just a couple comments on these two things before we go away. So, the six month property requirement, Mr. Whitlock is going to build one tomorrow and move next year. Next person -- someone else buys the property. Are we shutting them down? So, I guess I look at the practice -- the practicability of doing their-- some sort of requirement, because it's like who is going to enforce that and how do you prevent that from happening? So, just throw that out there for -- for one thing. And, then, the second one, because you do list ADUs only at two bedrooms. But to your point if I live in a house with two bedrooms, I have got -- on my place I got six garages -- or six parking stalls, three in my garage and three before, you want to limit it to do the use -- need to be limited or do you want to limit it to the parking that's available as compared to bedroom -- you know, every bedroom. I got a two bedroom house. Just food for thought. So, just those were things that came to mind. Hood: And, Mr. Mayor, if you don't mind me just responding to some of those. You know, the six month -- this is one where I -- I get it. This is on the record and it's being recorded and this is one more where we are bluffing a little bit; right? We aren't requiring that you provide proof of that, but if we get a complaint we can investigate that. There are other communities -- in fact, we have a planner on our team that the last community she worked in that was an annual thing. You bring in your taxes or whatever from the previous year to prove you actually lived on site for a minimum of -- I mean we go that way and have that oversight if you really want it. This is to set it clear. This is the expectation. The rules. We didn't dig into that to say -- and every quarter you need to submit us receipts from a local something to show us the actual -- so, I don't want to say it's a feel good ordinance, but that's kind of the intent with that is that's -- that's what people should be doing to do it correctly. We get complaints. We will investigate it. It's the code. But we don't have anything to actually proactively validate that someone is living on site for at least six months of the year, so -- I mean if that's something Council wanted to do to put -- you know, get rid of any potential loophole is if you want to be a legitimate ADU come see the planning department every January, we will prove up on your residency and reissue occupancy of your ADU annually. Could do it. And we talked about it. Just didn't feel appropriate to do that. And, then, the parking -- not quite sure that I'm tracking. That doesn't mean you have to have a two bedroom; right? There is both -- they are both maximums. It's -- we will look at however many bedrooms you are proposing and how many parking you have and make sure that that ratio is -- Simison- What this is is -- it -- no more than two bedrooms. If I have got two in my main house, why can't I do three here if I have got five parking spaces? Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 27 of 62 Hood: Oh. I got you. Again that's -- now which one's primary, which one's accessory? Simison: They can be small bedrooms. I mean you can fit -- in a 900 square foot home you definitely can do three bedrooms with one bath in that space with a small kitchen. But I'm just asking the question if it's about parking, is it about bedrooms, what's the driving force or factor in that conversation? Hood: And, again, I will just say it for I think the third time today. I mean if you want to allow -- and maybe not even talk to better than -- but it's however many want in there. I think that -- you know, it is somewhat arbitrary, again, looking at some of these codes across the nation, too, is like -- again, the intent is for it to be clearly incidental and subordinate to the primary dwelling. Your situation may be a little bit different, but generally these are the standards and clearly I don't have that many, I'm just throwing out the -- if -- does the bedrooms equal the parking or not as a general rule or do you want a limit it to two. Just throwing out a question. That's all. Simison: In the community parking we do that quite a bit with the UDC focus group and Council, too, just in general how we calculate those. Any other comments? Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Hood: Yeah. Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: I had some -- question, Caleb, on the -- the living on site. Can you walk me through the rationale of having any requirement to live on the property? Hood: Yeah. Mr. Mayor, Councilman Taylor, again, similar thought was if you have, you know, on site pride and ownership type of a comment, it isn't just being rented out to two, you know, sets of college kids and, again, it generally comes back to neighborhood character and having -- doesn't guarantee that the property owner is going to do any better job than any renter. That's a stereotype that just doesn't apply across the board. But that's some of the thought process. You have somebody that really has a vested interest in sort of keeping up that neighborhood and the property in particular, renting it out to someone else, but they are at least on premise sometime to sort of keep an eye on things to make sure it just doesn't run amok in general. Taylor: Is there -- Mayor, follow up? Is there any other-- besides that-- and I understand that argument. Is there anything in addition to the argument that wouldn't make us want to have that six months requirement? The reason I ask is just to kind of--where my head is. If I owned a property I built an accessory dwelling unit and, then, three years later I sold it, but I want to keep my home as an investment property to start renting it out, well, now I can't, because I have got -- I don't live on the property. That just doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me. If there is a -- if there is a compelling public safety reason for Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 28 of 62 it or there is -- if it's just for esthetics or -- I understand pride of ownership and keeping track of it, but if I own the home -- I'm the landlord, I would still be incentivized to do it. So, if there is -- if there is more to the reasoning behind six months I would be interested, but other than that I -- I would -- I would rather defer to like allowing us a lot more flexibility and freedom there, because I would personally be interested in -- in something like that if I had these investment options with my own home that I move out of and I can now rent it. Hood: So, Mr. Mayor, and, again, Councilman Taylor, just kind of -- Bill and I -- I don't remember that being in any part of the conversation with the group and I don't think I said it before. This is not -- it's not uncommon across the nation, but it's -- not probably more often than not they don't have this requirement. So, this is one that -- again, it's sort of community preference. What do you want to do? This is not one. This is where the group generally landed, but that's why I'm bringing it up. Like this is something where if you really want to open up your housing supply you could say could -- they could both be rentals, so -- Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Yeah. I feel like the six month requirement is heavy handed and I'm wondering if we could achieve the same thing through just kind of a registration process or something like that where, you know, if someone wants to build an ADU -- we get a point of contact with them at that point and, then, when they sell their ADU maybe there is a way to get an update on who the new contact is. I feel like if anything it's just being able to know who do we call if we -- if we have a problem; right? That's kind of what I was wondering. Is there a different tact we can take? Hood: So, Mr. Mayor, Council Woman Strader, I -- I will just say -- so, you can't just sell the ADU. They got to -- it's got to be both. You got to sell your primary residence and -- if you are selling the property including both structures or if it's attached. But we do have contact information, so I'm not worried about that. We may not have a direct phone or a cell phone for every property owner, but we do -- through the county's records we have contact information and we can send them letters saying, hey, weeds or cars or whatever the code violation maybe. I'm not quite sure what you mean by registration. Simison: As well as our utility billing. We would have contact. Hood: Yeah. We have contact. Simison: I guess my general -- I -- I think you know this about me, others, but I'm not a fan of putting stuff in code that you can't enforce and that's what, unfortunately, this leads me to in too many ways is -- I understand why, but I also don't want to -- don't want to try to enforce this and I don't know how you legitimately can't without creating a new program. Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 29 of 62 Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Make a comment on that and, then, I want to pivot to a different question. I -- it doesn't seem reasonable to have that requirement in there for my sake and I think you make a good point, if we can't enforce it or don't intend to enforce it, then, what's the point? But I do have a question, Caleb, about -- and, Bill, maybe on having a -- requiring a permit for an accessory dwelling unit. Is -- what would be required to get the permit? What are we sort of envisioning why we need the permit? Is it just so that we can ensure that if they want an address that they have followed that or -- I'm trying to understand why we would need a permit for an accessory dwelling unit? Hood: Mr. Mayor, Councilman Taylor, it's pretty much like any other structure, I mean there is multiple things we are looking for; right? We are going to -- we are -- as in planning anyways we are going to validate a site plan with the building permit. So, it's not just the actual square footage of the accessory dwelling unit, but like parking, we need to validate that they have -- whatever the standards are. We are going to review those and, then, work in conjunction with the building department. So, it is sort of a hand-in- glove here where we are looking for some of the elements and they are verifying some of the elements and, then, you can get an address. It's not -- the process -- it's not -- the permit isn't for an address, but part of that process will determine if you get an address or not and let's say you submit something -- a design professional submits something that doesn't meet one of these, we will say, hey, we can't permit you as that, but if you change it we could -- we could permit you as that. Are you okay being this? Maybe you don't care about an address or utilities or whatever the case. Oh, yeah, we are really just a garage, but even garages today, in addition, Planning is still looking at to verify setbacks, heights and those other things we are looking at. So, the permit is just that -- that's pretty standard for almost anything you build or construct. Simison: Anything over 120 square feet. Hood: Right. Simison: And your backyard requires -- Hood: A shed, basically, in your backyard we don't permit, but practically anything else you build you should be getting a permit for. Taylor: It's a one-time permit. It's not like if I sold my property -- Hood: Correct. Taylor: Okay. Hood: Yeah. Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 30 of 62 Overton: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Overton. Overton: Sitting through the hearings of planning staff there is a lot of examples of dwelling units that are on property that we really don't want to see happen in our city and part of why I think you are seeing such a list of restrictions and requirements for what we want to see to be an official accessory dwelling unit, because we want to make sure that we just don't open the floodgates and all of a sudden we have got these all across our city. At some point we also have to, I believe, my opinion, we have to have the respect of the owners of the other properties that live within these developments that we are looking out for their best interests as well by requiring all these steps for something that's going to be put in their subdivision and there was a lot of discussion on some of these points as we went through in the focus group on, you know, how many parameters do we put? What kind of guardrails do we put? I think they came up with a good one. But the six month residency was talked about quite a bit. And I don't think it's a -- it's a hill they want to stake the whole code on, but it was definitely something to try to put some pretty strict standards who would do this, I mean anybody, including me now -- I have an Airbnb down the street in my subdivision and it's been invaded -- literally invaded twice that somebody rented it and I had ten vehicles parked up and down my street -- that for two nights. I mean you really want to try to do all you can to protect you quality of life and your development in the city. There is a lot of stuff we don't have control over. I think we just want to make sure when it comes to accessory dwelling units that we have got a pretty good guidebook listed out on what we want. Simison: I think in this context -- I mean everyone's going to be different. Appreciate you -- you are not building this in my neighborhood. CC&Rs are going to control a majority of these to prevent, you know, so like HOAs, hate HOAs, half to three-quarters of the subdivisions in Meridian won't be able to make this happen quite easily without stuff that's going to go through their neighborhood association. Doesn't mean we should -- you don't think about these things, but it's going to be -- have several limiting factors in my opinion before we see a lot of these being built in areas without HOAs or that -- I don't know. But I still go back to I don't know how the situation changes, even if you were the primary resident living and someone else is in there, you can always end up with things that happen. Overton: Mr. Mayor, I agree with you, but I think you would be surprised how many developments we have in our city that have HOAs that are completely inactive and don't have a board, don't even have any enforcement powers, don't collect any monthly residence fees and if something like this happened they don't have the wherewithal to take legal action against it happening. So, they are going to revert back to us to be that guiding principle for how this occurs. Hood: So, I scrolled a little bit further, a couple other things just to call out -- again not running through all of them, but the design -- and this is another one that's -- I don't want Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 31 of 62 to say controversial, but everyone's going to have somewhat of an opinion. It needs to be generally consistent in design with the primary dwelling. What does that exactly mean? Well, you know, I will tell you when I see it type of a thing, but that's the intent here is that it should match and it shouldn't be way taller or whatever way means or a lot of different color scheme and the materials should generally be the same. So, there is another one that's going to be -- there is -- in the eye of the beholder or whoever is reviewing the permit, but that was the intent is that -- you know. And we are a little more explicit about roof pitch, siding color, materials and window treatments. I did want to call out on a foundation with utilities. So, this is new. So, it's both -- L there and -- where did foundation go? Maybe it's on the end of the section. J? I'm not seeing it, but if you say so. Oh, yeah. Right there. Am I right over it. Constructed on a foundation with utilities. So, I think the other point there -- so -- because we have talked a little bit about that is that you have to be hooked up to utilities. Part of the discussion we had was do they have to have their own meter, though, to be an ADU? And at the end of the day what we are proposing is that you can actually share water, sewer, garbage -- if you want your separate one it can be done, but you can actually use the same electrical service line, however that works, but we aren't requiring them to be totally independent utilities. If you did want to have it where you are a renter or whatever pays you can set it up that way, but we the city are not going to require that, so -- wanted to call that to your attention, because that is not typical of the city for a separate -- this is a -- it's an independent living unit and we are not requiring separate utilities. But it does need to be on a foundation with those services. You don't have that, you know, you don't meet the definition of being this. And, then, the last one is actually what you talked about a little bit earlier and that's back to addressing, communication between them. So, hopefully that's clear, but if we want to talk anymore about that we address it a little bit there with a separate entrance and no openings allowed between the units, so let's -- I would just say if there are changes to these draft standards please take notes and make that part of your motion then. Heard some not quite sure where it's going to land, but if there is any changes, please, just make sure that's clear so we can get it right in -- in the record. If there is nothing else on that I think flex space is up next. So, transitioning, then, to flex building and I think the first place I just want to start is just with the definition in our code and there isn't any proposed change to the definition, but I want to kind of put a pin in that thought, because maybe we do want to change the definition. But today UDC-1143-18, which is a specific use standards for flex based building, says the use of a building or portion thereof for small scale warehousing -- and that was my emphasis -- small scale warehousing -- and/or light industry with associated office and/or retail showroom space. Period. Flexibility and use of interior spaces and low scale attractive exterior appearance characterize flex buildings. So, again, a lot of subjective words even in the definition, but that's what our current definition is. I also did look at other communities. The closest community, our neighboring communities is Eagle actually. In their definition of flex space they actually cap the square footage at 30,000 square feet. You want to be called and qualify as a flex building, it's 30,000 square feet and below. Again, we say small scale, but we don't put a square footage on that. Meridian has Euclidean zoning, so we are basically -- you know, we are beholden basically to the underlying zoning districts and we do generally segregate our land uses. Flex kind of works on that -- kind of bringing those together and allowing more flexibility in what you are allowing in that space and it's not -- we don't have a form base Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 32 of 62 code. Others do. So, it's a little bit of apples and oranges. Like the city of Boise doesn't even use flex in their definition. They have no such term. That doesn't mean anything to them. You know, they do have a wholesale and a warehouse definition and, then, they divvy that up into small and large and they break it off at 100,000 square feet. So, if you are 100,000 square feet it's basically administrative. You go above that it's a conditional use permit in a lot of the zones are in new -- in areas that they have. So, that's not quite the same. And, then, in Nampa it's kind of interesting, they actually do define flex space building as a commercial slash industrial structure that can be modified internally for a variety of land uses, but they don't actually list a flex building in any of their schedule use control. So, they say what it is, but they don't actually say where you can do a flex building. I know we have some industry experts in the audience, maybe they can shed some light on -- and maybe I would think they have done some flex type buildings in Nampa, so maybe there is a -- but when I talk to them there is no correlation again to the definition of what a flex building is and how you actually do that or what zones you can do them in. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Thank you. This is -- this is an interesting one. I have been looking at this and I think what I'm struggling with -- I would like to understand what will we -- like what are we trying to achieve? What is the goal with having a minimum amount of office or retail? Like was it employment that was driving that? Was it the type of -- of flex space we wanted? Like help me understand what the goal was with that? Hood: No. It's a great question. What problem are we trying to solve. We weren't getting a whole lot of flex buildings, because we -- staff even recognizes that in some of those areas it's a pretty high bar to meet. So, we weren't getting a lot of flex buildings. But there is, in my opinion, not a whole lot of margin for error in that. The -- the zones in which you can do a flex building are -- most of them are commercial zones. So, almost like that neighborhood character of residential we were talking about with ADUs, trying to maintain, if not establish the community business district is the C-C zone. That's the name of the zoning district and we are trying to avoid a 200,000 square foot warehouse building going in there with a little bit of an office space and calling it flex. That sets the tone for what's likely to develop around them; right? And even in your question a little bit there, Council Woman Strader, some of the jobs; right? We are typically -- and, again, this is a little stereotyping of some of that industry, but typically you aren't getting as many jobs in a warehouse distribution center as you are in some of these other zones that have, you know, mixed employment. That's the name of the zone. The ME zone is mixed employment and if we have 15 percent of that space being for office or a retail showroom and the rest of it being warehousing, that doesn't -- that doesn't match up. So, that's -- but, again, we recognize that 30 percent across the board in all zones is not the answer. That's why we are proposing a tiered approach. Well, it is still 30 in some, but 25 in your commercial, your 20 and -- you know, so we are -- we are proposing to change that down a little bit. So, is that a problem? We just weren't -- it wasn't getting used enough and so Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 33 of 62 we thought, well, let's open the door a little bit more, but we don't want it to be open so much where, again, we are getting in -- really industrial uses in our community business districts, our retail service districts and having that type of use, so -- Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Yeah. I think what I'm struggling with a little bit -- if I kind of take a step back and sort of put on my commercial real estate hat, this is actually one of the most innovative property types that we are seeing. Hood: Uh-huh. Strader: Like this is -- this is a source of a lot of innovation and it's the source of I think a lot of employment opportunity because of its flexible nature. And so like what I'm kind of struggling with is like what's the right minimum amount of office that makes sense? Where it's like we are kind of meeting the market where it is, because I just don't want to have a standard that's like so high on the minimum that we are just not going to see the kinds of opportunities that make the most sense for us. I understand that are -- well -- and, actually, it would be good to hear like what are our neighbors doing, for example, in Nampa, because that's -- they have a lot of flex industrial stuff going on. Like what do we -- know what their minimum office is? Is this kind of a benchmark? Hood: So, again, just looking at their code, it doesn't have -- it doesn't do what we do. Again, apples and oranges here a little bit. They don't have a percentage. Just in the definition. So -- and this is where I think some -- we can kind of miss each other, too. You can call it a flex building. You can market it as a flex building even. How we permit it, though, is a different thing in our planning department. We are looking at your floor plan and we are going to say, you know, if you are 29 percent we will try to see if there is a hallway or bathroom or something we can include to get you know to 30 potentially; right? But it's -- but it -- we can't -- yeah. There is different -- there is different ways we could skin the cat. The way we have chosen to thus far do it, but I agree with your-- your 30 percent across the board currently doesn't work. So, we are proposing to change that. But other communities don't really do this. They have flex buildings, but they don't call them that essentially. Strader: Right. Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Yeah. Just my -- my instinct on -- on this one is I think we do need to revisit the minimum amount of office and I think we should consider lowering it. I'm just -- I'm a little worried that we are going to suffocate some good opportunities if our minimums are -- are this high. So, I think maybe we need to go a bit further. It's a public hearing. I think we are going to hear from various people on all these matters. So, if the other thing, too Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 34 of 62 -- and maybe just a procedural point, Mr. Mayor, trying to keep track of how far are we going to move the ball forward tonight. Are you --you know, we are going to get feedback. I think we have given feedback on a few things. We have our City Council president who, unfortunately, for great reasons is not with us tonight and we totally get that. I think he has provided some feedback. Are you looking for trying to move items where we do have consensus forward tonight in a piecemeal fashion and, then, revisit some of these other items in a future hearing? I just kind of want to keep us on track in terms of what the goal is for this evening. Hood: So, Mr. Mayor, Council Woman Strader, or as the council, I mean it's an action item. So, if you are comfortable and prepared tonight staff would love that. If we need to come back we will do that, too, so -- but this is -- you know, if there is a continuation, you want us to reevaluate something, I will just say that we have --we have talked about these topics before and gotten some of that direction and back and forth with the UDC focus group, so -- but, again, it -- the ball's -- we are kind of putting it in your court here tonight and you can take action. This is an action item public hearing -- nothing I don't think except for there was a woman here earlier that was going to testify on. So, if you wanted to parse it up and some of it you want to move forward tonight, we can certainly do that. So, if you are not you can put a pin in it and we can bring it back at a later date, too. So, I think, again, options -- got plenty. Simison: I think the question everyone wants to know is there anything that you don't want to move forward as a general rule? And if everything wants to move forward I think even if we have ability to continue it a week or two I don't think there is anything that's time sensitive to have to be approved tonight. So, I would like -- I suggest we try to keep it all together, instead of pulling stuff out if everything wants to move forward. If there is something you don't want that's a different story. Strader: Okay. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: You know, this is -- I -- I'm tracking with the arguments of Council Vice- President Strader. This is really interesting to me, because having flexible space allows us different users over time to use it. So, I want to try not to pigeon hole it too much, but I also can appreciate, you know, there is probably -- let's get back to parking, which drives a lot of what we do; right? If you have some flex space and everyone's retail, then, you have some real parking problems. You know, somebody's wanting to use it primarily for warehouse use versus retail I think there is some big differences. So, I would like to know how much interaction or feedback you receive from people who sort of traffic in this type of product and what have they provided you in terms of like this is what we see works well, we don't like a lot of retail, because we like to have a mix or whatever that is. What kind of feedback did you get? Because I -- I think we need something, but I kind of want Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 35 of 62 it to be as open as we possibly can, so that over a period of ten or 15 or 20 years you can see different users who could use it easily. Hood: So, Mr. Mayor, Councilman -- Councilman Taylor, do have some feedback. In fact, I was going to -- it's part of my notes -- call your attention to that. There is six letters that are part of this. Four of them are from the same two companies, but we do have some comments from industry experts and you have some in the audience that will want to address you this evening. So, I'm not going to put words in their mouth, because they have written them and they are ready to speak them. But we did consult -- and I will also just say this -- it's a little bit of a testament to how our UDC focus group works, because some of them aren't even part of that, but the word gets out to the rest of the industry that there is these changes and we got comments on them, so -- and also just a plug for Councilman Overton just sort of being there and hearing some of this, so -- not that he's the referee or anything, but he gets to hear some of these conversations as well, so -- and I'm not going to even paraphrase, because you have conflicting comments even in those letters. Some that want it approved as is and some that are saying it doesn't go far enough, there is not enough -- as much flexibility. So, that's a little bit of a tough question, but that is the type of feedback we get. It varies. Yeah. I want to just -- one -- one other thing maybe before we jump more into this. I did meet with Will and Adler a couple weeks ago -- three weeks ago and through that conversation I am proposing to even take down -- so, again, 30 is our current standard across the board for any flex building in the districts it's allowed. I still -- I still believe that leaving that percentage fairly high in some of our community districts are high, but we can go from the uncomfortable anyways, proposing to you tonight that we go in -- in the mixed employment from the 30 that it is, we have proposed 25 and that's what Planning and Zoning Commission recommended, but 20 percent even in the ME that at least gives us still -- you know, that -- a fifth of a building at a minimum to be something that's not that and, again, that's the mixed employment designation and I'm not as concerned -- and we had a good conversation I thought anyways in the I-L and I-H, which are industrial zones. A lot of places probably aren't going to -- if you are really warehousing, then, just call yourself a warehouse and you principally permitted. You don't need to call yourself a flex for us. You can market yourself as flex if you want, but we don't -- we don't necessarily need that. But even that we could go down to 15 percent, because you really don't need, you know, that office or showroom component in an industrial district. That's not our concern. Also just finally D we are proposing to leave. It couldn't go the other way. The pendulum couldn't totally swing the other way. You are capped at 25 percent retail. Somewhat for the parking issue, but, again, we don't want it the other way. We don't want all of our -- all of our retail to go in industrial districts and we don't necessarily want all the commercial --you know. So, there is a little bit of both ways -- your minimums and maximums kind of on either side. Overton: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Overton. Overton: I remember when the memo first came out that you are going to come in front of us and that it -- you had most of the people in agreement with where we were going, Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 36 of 62 because I know we didn't have a hundred percent, because anytime you put that many professionals in a room we are going to have some different opinions. But I can't tell you how much I appreciate what you have just said about your willingness to lower those percentages, because I believe that was a major component of some of our stakeholders and when we hear from them later I want to hear how they like those possible lower amounts. I certainly have an unfair advantage on the rest on Council, because I was part of this as it went through, but I would suggest we do not approve this this evening. At least give yourself a couple weeks to chew on it, make recommendations back before we move forward. Hood: I think -- think those -- that's our highlights of the code changes that are before you tonight. Bill, did you have anything else you needed to -- Parsons: Yeah. I will move on to -- Hood: Oh. Okay. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Private streets. Were we going to touch on that real quick? Parsons: Yeah. Mayor, Members of the Council, I'm going to transition to the next couple topics that I want to hit real quickly on this table and, then, we will pull up the other ones. So, again, I appreciate having members of our community here testifying, but I did want to just let you know that the home occupations -- we did modify those standards to allow for outdoor swim lessons. I think that was a directive from City Council, because, again, I think we are all aware there is not a lot of opportunities in our community to get that and to help our children learn how to swim. So, I think that -- that was definitely an add. Staff did take City Council's advice and we did up that to six or fewer to match -- align with the in-house state -- in-home daycares like you had suggested. So, again, they are allowed to operate between -- I believe May and September when it's -- and, then, the rest of the years if it's outdoors you are not going to be doing swim lessons in the wintertime here. So, it's -- it -- there are some months they can operate. There is hours of operation and, again, it's six or fewer. So, those are the highlights for the -- the home occupation. I have been communicating with Lois on a consistent basis, letting her know that we are moving this forward. We haven't forgotten her. Things have just been a little slower than anticipated, but that was on the radar and I -- I did encourage her to come and speak on behalf of this topic this evening and share her support with you. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 37 of 62 Strader: Yeah. I have two thoughts. One is I -- I just want to make a comment. I would love to try to move this component forward tonight if we can, just to give some certainty to those in that home occupation and want to say I -- it really warms my heart that the city of Meridian will continue to be able to teach our kids how to swim in neighborhood pools. That's how I learned how to swim was in a neighborhood pool. That's how a lot of kids learn how to swim. Learning how to swim is really important, really a critical skill for safety reasons and other reasons and the more accessible that it is the better off our community is, so we don't lose a child and I just think that's great that you guys were responsive on that and, then, I was just curious -- Mr. Mayor, do we want to consider stopping to take public testimony on any of the topics we have covered so far or do we want to wait until the end? Because we do have I think some people that are here for specific topics and maybe that would be efficient for their use of time. That was just a suggestion. Simison: I think we are on the last item for staff to share then we can do public testimony on that. Parsons: Yeah. We are wrapping up quickly, so -- Strader: Okay. Parsons: The last --just --just more information for the Council. I think we are all aware of how COVID has transformed the public hearing process. So, currently we do have applicants that still conduct neighborhood meetings virtually and there is nothing in code that allows that, but we -- we have kept that going moving forward since that -- since we made that determination in 2020. So, this time we are actually getting in code that we do allow virtual neighborhood meetings. So, that -- worked with legal on that language as well. So, just wanted -- just more FYI for you that if that ever comes up we do allow -- hopefully with this code change we will be able to say, yes, the code does allow virtual neighborhood meetings. And, then, I will go ahead and transition over to the private street standards really quick. I don't need to go into all of those, but that was one that did come up. It was -- wasn't anticipated to come up on as part of the UDC focus group and that did come up as part of that group, because as you are aware -- and I know there has been instances throughout the years where council's had some heartburn with private streets connecting to public streets and there are some situations where it can work and it doesn't work. We all can -- we all recognize that. That's why we have rules; right? We try to prevent bad things from happening. That's why we have zoning laws and all the rules that we have to follow. But currently the way private streets are today we try to limit them for residential developments, either to a gated community or what we call a MEW community and a MEW is basically homes fronting on common open space with alley loaded units or taking access from a private street. So, again, in our discussions with the UD -- UDC focus group we were -- we were asked by one of our development partners - - developers how can we better use this as a tool, because, obviously, you guys have seen multiple projects recently where maybe ACHD doesn't see a public benefit for a public street or the applicant's trying to do a PUD and they may want gates, they may not or they don't want a MEW, but they still want to be able to control the design of the community through that PUD process or just maybe an in-fill project and it doesn't make Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 38 of 62 sense -- they don't have enough land to really put in a public street. So, like anything, a private street is one of the tools in our tool belt. Is it intended to be every project to have private streets? Absolutely not. But we -- what we have done here is -- and it kind of coincides with Brian McClure's presentation to you aligning that with the street naming committee as well. So, all -- there is a whole bunch of process that goes into naming streets and approving streets that we have tried to share just a bit of it, but it's -- it's more complicated and I think you realize that. So, what this tries to do is it takes our current code, it says you can do private street. We are taking out MEW and gates. You can have those things, but it's not a requirement anymore. We are still going to discourage them in residential developments, just because it's not -- that's not the intent here. It's to be used in certain instances and we are going to use it as a tool to either stress the applicant to go through a PUD process or demonstrate that it's an in-fill project and as part of that is there going to be a justification of why the private streets are better than the public streets in their opinion. So, again, there is -- there is going to be more justification for you and us and the public as to why it makes sense to do public streets and they are going to have to provide that with their private street application. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: I hate private streets. I'm sorry. I have a visceral reaction to them. I hate them. If I could ban them in almost every instance I would. They are -- they have been nothing but a headache for us and I have concerns about how they are going to be maintained in the future. I understand that people want flexibility in the short term, but in the long run they are going to be an albatross for us. My question for you -- very straightforward question, but, okay, you know the neighborhood that's next to the Dutch Brothers off of Ustick. Okay? That is our poster child of bad -- I'm sorry, I'm just being frank -- bad private streets. It's -- it's been a nightmare. Would that project have been allowed to move forward or what would have been different if we used that specific example? That would help me kind of understand what we are proposing. How would that have affected that project, because that one was my biggest example of the one that irritates me the most and I'm sorry to ask it that way, but -- Parsons: Yeah. Mayor, Members of the Council, that -- this code is not going to prevent that. I'm going to be honest with you. What I can tell you --that project had a lot of history and a lot of different ownership changes and it's just -- it's been a mess from day one unfortunately and we don't always control it. It was supposed to be one cohesive, well designed mixed use project, which got broken out and developed by different people and different HOAs, which makes it very convoluted. So, that's why we are trying to put some better book ends on our private streets to try to prevent that from happening. So, in this particular case, again, there is going to be more specifics to our design standards. We want them to build them to ACHD standards. We are wanting sidewalks on them and if sidewalks can't be part of the public street system, then, they are going to have to ask you or present to you the hearing body why there is -- the pedestrian circulation plan is better than having sidewalks along the streets. What makes their project unique or better Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 39 of 62 -- their pedestrian circulation better? So, these are the things -- and we are -- and we are making sure that their engineer certified that it meets ACHD standards, so that way in the future if there is a possibility for those to be turned over to ACHD at least there is ways that we can show that it does meet their standards and there is -- there is hope that they will take it over and, then, of course, we still have the general maintenance. They have to provide us a maintenance agreement, who is going to pay for that and how are they going to do that over-- but it goes back to even Councilman Overton's comments -- HOAs aren't around forever and I don't know how to fix that or solve that. I hear it all the time as well, Councilman Overton, where people are -- they don't have an HOA anymore even though they were required to. But I'm not -- I don't want to belabor that point. The thing is is that Caleb and I, when we met with the UDC focus group, we recognized that we have to be somewhat receptive of -- open to it or at least come up with standards that allow for in-fill to happen, because it's -- if we have common drives that only allow four units or if you have an existing commercial development and there is already a built environment around it and you are trying to add a residential component and you need to name a drive aisle, there is no mechanism -- you got to do a private street for addressing. So, this is the way that we do that. This is the tool we use to get there -- Strader: Mr. Mayor? Parsons: -- and there is a process for that and that's -- that's why -- there is a public safety component as well as more to the maintenance. Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: I get that. I may be off on my own on this one. I know I -- this is a pet peeve of mine, so I'm going to respect my -- what my colleagues have to say and live with that totally. But the -- I don't know how they feel about it yet. But like if this was up to me my feedback to you would be I would challenge you to come back to me with a revision on this that would have stopped that project from happening or that would have created a much higher bar and if it's explicit like you must prove to the City Council that they agree this is preferable to public streets or something like I -- maybe that would give us enough discretion in there to -- to try to find these examples where it is -- it is -- it's something that has to occur, like I get it, there are these cases where it needs to, but I see tons of developers over relying on private streets and at the end of the day I'm worried it's going to become all of our problem and it's just -- that one is a nightmare, so -- Parsons: Madam Mayor -- sorry, Mayor. Mayor, Members of the Council, there is a -- there is a caveat in this code. So, that particular one, the private street connects to state highway. This code -- still current -- the current private streets don't allow private streets to connect to arterials. This code would -- it does have a provision to allow that, but it would require a waiver from City Council,just like any other access to an arterial roadway. So, for example, in that particular case if that particular project were to come forward you could have said, no, we don't want the private street to connect to Eagle Road. You got to redesign your site. Same thing here. Someone comes forward and they have a private street connection to an arterial, that's where they will ask for that waiver and we will Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 40 of 62 provide that to you in our staff report saying, yes, we support it or we don't support it or the applicant has requested a waiver or an access to that arterial and you can weigh in and provide comments on that. But it's not a given by any means. Again, what are they going to do to prove it up? Are they going to have more stacking for vehicles or -- you know, does ACHD want it? I mean a lot of different thing -- factors go into that. But you will have a chance to look at that and say whether or not that's a good idea or not. And, again, one of the findings is does it impact the transportation network? I think in your case that you bring up that probably does. But, again, moving forward we are trying not to create that situation and doing a better job of proving that up, that they need to show how this integrates and still does not impede circulation throughout the area. Hood: Just real quick. The other angle I would have taken to look at -- I almost said prohibiting that project, but at that time would not have qualified for private streets with this code, because it's not in-fill. So, that is actually the provision in this code that would prevent -- now, at the time that business actually went in they would have been in-fill and if they would have proposed a new private street in that location it is in-fill at that time, but when this was originally put in as a private street it wouldn't have qualified. So, that's the angle I would have taken with something like that, where you have 60 acres and you are proposing private streets versus the three-quarters of an acre and I'm constrained and I need a private street. So, that is some of the intent behind -- it is a necessary evil. I will also just say -- and not speaking for Council, but staff is generally of the same opinion for private streets -- it's a tool, they want to use it wisely, because they can backfire in the longer term. Even in the shorter term sometimes. But we are opening that door up a little bit more, but we are also saying in the right circumstances and trying to be clear in that. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: I get it. I want to shut the door and -- and -- and I would love to see a maximum amount of size of property or something, like -- so -- I mean that may be another way to tackle it, like look, if, your project is larger than a certain amount I mean you may have thought of this already, but I just -- I don't know. Anyway, I have talked enough about this. I hate them. Simison: Well, I'm not going to go to that level. I'm going to give a bit contrarian opinion -- and I say it in this light -- I don't know when -- when you get together you say where do these things work? You know, we have got a private street in Tuscany that works extremely well. They basically function as alleys. You know, that's -- that's -- they are your alley loaded, you know, but that's their purpose. That's their function. You know, whereas we can also look around the city and find every place where they function poorly or, you know, have created problems and do that. So, I don't know how-- if you guys can like brainstorm, like think about the -- or the group says where do these things actually work? Because I do think that there are some good places for them being and in the case if the next Tuscany comes in in northwest Meridian you basically said, actually, we are not going to do private streets up there, because that's not an in-fill development, but, Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 41 of 62 quite frankly, as part of a large development it makes perfect sense to incorporate and include them in some parts of it. So, that being said, it still doesn't get away from the homeowner issue in the future the, HOA issue when they -- when they have to be maintained or otherwise, which, again, I don't know how you can get away from that totally, but I think we have seen enough instances where private streets have come back to hurt the transportation network and, unfortunately, this -- any Council up here or any planning and zoning or any staff, you could have a hundred people look at something and miss it and not understand what's going to happen three to five years as other things develop and I think that, unfortunately, that's a challenge, you know. So, if you can find a way to -- like I say only put them in places where they won't become part of the normal transportation network and prove that up to me, that's the basic start. So, again, food for thought. Council, any other questions, comments at this time or would you like to hear from our people waiting patiently? Okay. Mr. Clerk, who signed up first? Johnson: Mr. Mayor. Sorry. First Jared Beal. Simison: Is that Jared? What did you say? Johnson: Jared Beal. Okay. Will -- Will Goede. Is it Goede or Goede? Goede. Well - - okay. Thanks. Goede: My name is Will Goede. I work for Adler Industrial. Our address is 8665 West Emerald Street in Boise, Idaho. First thanks so much for the discussion. Thanks for being open to -- to feedback from the development community. Caleb, thank you very much for -- for meeting and being open to discussion. We didn't necessarily come to, you know, agreement, but it was still a really good discussion. I still really appreciate it. Adler Industrial is the largest industrial owner and developer in the Treasure Valley. We own or manage about four and a half million square feet of industrial space across the valley and about 1.4 million square feet of that is in Meridian across 23 buildings. Our portfolio is a mix of warehouse, distribution, manufacturing and flex space. We agree with nearly all the proposed code updates. The only one that we -- that we disagree with slightly is that staff is proposing 25 percent office and showroom forflex space in the ME and C-G zones. Based on our portfolio, which includes about a 500,000 square feet of flex space, 83 percent of flex tenants want less officer showroom than -- than they are currently proposing. So, what that would mean is that four out of five of our flex tenants would have three options. They would have to apply for a conditional use permit, which most tenants don't want to take the risk and the time during their leasing process to do that. Option two would be they have to overbuild their office and showroom, which results in a less efficient space for them and a higher rent. Or option three is to look elsewhere to any of the other adjacent cities. In our experience a lot of those tenants just take option three. So, what we would propose is not a major change from what staff is proposing, but to appeal to the majority of flex tenants we would request the minimum office and showroom space be adjusted to 15 percent in the ME zone and to 20 percent in the C-G zone. The rest of the proposal we are on board with. To be honest, you don't need any -- any separate level for -- for I-L or I-H zones, because in those zones you would just simply do the warehouse use. So, it's kind of pointless. So, you can leave that in, it Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 42 of 62 doesn't matter, you might as well drop it out. But 15 percent in ME and 20 percent in C- G, I think both of those are about five percent lower where -- than where Caleb is at at the moment. So, we are close. But since this is a minimum requirement, the average office and showroom will exceed these amounts and will be probably closer to 20 and 25. This is just the lower threshold. So, I think that how this will actually develop is very similar to what staff is proposing right now. We understand that mixed employment was envisioned to be a transition, a buffer between industrial and the more public facing commercial and residential uses. As was discussed earlier, adjacent cities don't have this buffer at all. You have residential right against industrial and there are bad examples of 300,000 square foot cross-dock buildings directly across the street from school. But that's -- that's not ideal for anyone. So, I think that I can really appreciate the -- the thought behind this code and the mixed employment zoning. The -- the one more thing that I would add, as I'm out of time and I have so many thoughts on this issue, keeping flex space distinct from warehouse space is key in ensuring that the mixed employment area develops as intended. In our portfolio most of our warehouse tenants have three to seven percent office and showroom. So, as long as the flex requirement is higher than ten percent I think that you are excluding the warehouse and distributed -- distribution tenants that you don't want in your -- certainly in your C-G zone and not even really in your ME zone. So, that's why we thought that 15 percent was still a healthy buffer between what most warehouse and distribution tenants want. Simison: Thank you, Will. Goede: Yeah. Thank you. Simison: I'm sure there will be questions, so don't go anywhere. You can come on back. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. No. Seriously, Will. Strader: I have a ton of questions if you don't mind, sir. Thank you. Simison: Yeah. I was serious. Goede: I will get to the mic up here. Strader: That's all right. We are just notorious for questions. Mr. Mayor, if you don't mind. I thought this was very interesting, this analysis that you have done with the 83 percent. Could you help me understand the context of that, like this is looking out across how many leases? This is an analysis that you did. Could you tell us a little bit more about this analysis? Goede: Yeah. So, for our -- for our portfolio about 500,000 square feet is what we consider flex space. So, flex space is smaller spaces. So, all less than 30 to 35 thousand square feet total tenant size. They typically have a public facing showroom or some sort Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 43 of 62 of a public facing retail component and, then, the -- and office and in the back is typically warehouse and distribution. Across -- so, for our -- this was across the valley. This was looking at approximately 30 to 40 flex tenants that we have in our portfolio. Yeah. So, does that answer your question? Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: I think we are getting there. Give me a flavor for some examples of flex tenants and what space and -- how they use their space, because I think this helps to drive some of the thinking of what we are going to end up with; right? So, I hear -- I hear you. You are saying, look, someone who has actually got a warehouse that's more like three to seven percent is your contention. Help me understand -- like give me examples of what would meet this requirement in Meridian if it was the 15 percent, as opposed to, you know, what is currently proposed in ME? Goede: Yeah. Afew examples. In Meridian 84 Lumber is a -- what we would consider a flex -- flex tenant. They are a building supply company, so they have kind of a showroom component and a warehouse there. They have 12 percent office and showroom. So, they are even a little bit lower. Cota Electric is another building that we built in Meridian. They sell electric supply. A lot of these end up being kind of a construction and building supply related. So, it could be stone countertops, it could be electrical equipment that they also have a delivery. One other Motion and Flow is another one. They are 18 percent office and showroom. Coda Electric was 19 percent office and showroom as well. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Okay. So, Motion and Flow, tell me a little bit about that. So, kind of just I -- if we approved that, it was a while ago and I can't remember anything about it, so -- Goede: Yeah. Brad probably knows all the details, but it's irrigation supply, so I think that they -- if you are installing landscaping a lot of the irrigation components they sell the piping -- the tubings, the irrigation controllers, things like that out of the front and, then, out of the back they have some warehouse and distribution space. Strader: Mr. Mayor, one more. Goede: No? Oh, it's hydraulic hoses. Simison: Council Woman Strader. Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 44 of 62 Strader: Maybe one more. So, what I'm hearing from our planning staff is a big driver of this minimal office and showroom requirement is coming from the perspective of employment. It sounds like a lot of what our staff has been trying to achieve is fostering employment. Certainly City Council loves all jobs, but we love to hear about higher wage, like family wage kind of jobs. How does that aspect fit into what you see in this landscape? Goede: I think that -- I guess in my mind the tenants that we see -- I can understand that they -- that staff doesn't want 100,000 square foot warehouse that has four employees, because it's product sitting there. It's -- it's just -- it's literally storage. It's not distribution. I think that -- I think that in these -- like I said, in flex you -- you can't do that. You are not even close to four employees or 100,000 square foot spaces. That's not -- that's not a flex use. So, I think that -- I think that right now the mixed employment zoning is creating zero jobs. It's not -- nothing's developing in mixed employment zoning. The mixed employment area is either developing as industrial and being zoned as I-L or it's not developing at all. Nothing's really been built in a mixed employment zone. So, I guess one thought is that -- that right now mixed employment zoning is just -- nothing's being built. So that's zero jobs. So, I don't think that's helping. But I do think that having the - -the 15 percent in mixed employment and 20 percent in C-G does -- it does really prevent 100,000 square foot warehouse, because 100,000 square foot warehouse -- they are not going to build out 20,000 square feet of office, right, for their four employees. There is no way that they can justify that. So, I think that the requirements still prevent the use of 15 and 20 percent, prevent -- prevent the warehouse use, which -- which doesn't create a lot of jobs. Strader: Thank you. This is very helpful. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Well, one question just from your experience with interacting with different types of clients who want to lease your space and things like that, yeah, I always think as a general rule my preference would be that we don't try to solicit a certain type of employer or job, but that we approve the uses and allow the marketplace to kind of figure out what -- what are the kinds of jobs that are currently, you know, what the market is asking for at that time. But I'm kind of curious from your point of view as you are interacting with different types of clients and people who want to use your buildings, do you see big changes in the types of users who want the space from one year to the next or is it a pretty consistent demand from you the types of jobs or the types of employment that would be using these types of spaces? And I hope that question makes some sense. Goede: It does. I guess there -- right now we are seeing a large demand for small industrial tenants and a lot of those are a flex style tenant. I think the -- I think that the -- the change in demand is there isn't -- maybe a few years ago or five years ago there was a ton of demand for huge industrial leases. We could -- we could lease a building before we finished building it and we would build as -- as much as we possibly could, because Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 45 of 62 you could sign a 100,000 square foot lease, you know, 50,000 plus square foot lease all day long. I would say those days are gone. The 50 and 100 thousand square foot plus leases are -- are few and far between and there -- but there is still a lot of demand for small, you know, 14 to 25 thousand square foot leases. We -- we are just about full on a building in Boise that all of those leases are 14 to 20 thousand square feet and that's really a sweet spot in the market, a tenant that we want to appeal to. On the -- the other side of that we have three buildings that are finished in Meridian right now by -- by the Tesla building we built, all of which we are struggling to lease because of this requirement and, really, in my opinion it's a better location, but the tenants that we are seeing they don't want 30 percent office or showroom and it's -- like I said they want 15 or 20, but a lot of these are smaller businesses and -- and having to build out an extra 10,000 square feet of office -- or, sorry, a few thousand square feet of office makes a big difference on the overall rent and, then, it just pushes them to a different city. Taylor: Yeah. And I think, Mr. Mayor, a quick follow up. Just maybe a comment. I think that's -- I think you kind of answered the question in a way that makes sense to me, because while I want to make sure what we are not doing is putting requirements in place that are actually making it harder to create something here. Like we don't want to drive them to Boise or Nampa or something where maybe they don't have those requirements. I think -- because this type of space seems like it is sort of the entrepreneurial space of startup opportunities and new businesses where kind of don't know what it looks like today and maybe a year from now it looks -- your business might look different, but I think we would be wise as a city to avoid being too overly prescriptive, because I don't want to accidentally drive those things elsewhere. I don't want it to just be a place where people live, I want it to be a place where people don't just work at a restaurant, but I want it to be a place where people can start up some businesses, so -- and this is -- kind of like you said this seems like sort of the sweet spot of, you know, just getting off the ground, getting started. You know, I'm not going to go lease a Class A office space and I'm not going to go, you know, a big warehouse and I don't want to do it out of my garage, because I -- you know, because of our own requirements there. This seems like we need to have more of this type of flexible space. So, thank you. That helps. Goede: I couldn't agree more. When companies -- when they get large, then, they have a separate office and they have a separate warehouse and distribution. But when you are smaller you don't have the luxury of that. You put it all into one house and you make it fit and work the way that you can. So, couldn't agree more. Simison: This is one of those issues that -- we have talked about this. You know, in that context and I -- I sit there and I -- I look at the -- and I can never remember the name of your buildings, but we will just talk about the one off the Lanark there from Eagle headed towards Boise and you look at the existing wide variety of types of tenants that are in those industrial locations. Just take JST as a starter. You know, when you start putting in -- and this almost goes back to a little bit of the -- you know, ADU comments where you got to see -- meet certain thresholds. So, someone goes into a business -- I realize this is industrial, but JST wants to expand, but they don't necessarily want to expand their office. They need to expand the rest of their building or to meet their customers, you Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 46 of 62 know, bring in other types of things, because they do have a front part that feels like an office flex space where they do their engineering and some of that, but -- but all the -- you don't have the back -- enough in the back to do the work it doesn't matter what that front office is doing. You know, then, you look at the others that I think the -- the filter place, they have got a retail space that you can go in and do something, but most of it is -- you know, it's a small counter, but it provides a valuable service. It's not one that you are walking to, sending your normal commercial area, but most of the things that we go shopping in Meridian are in that context. Yeah, Urban Air. So, that's just like in that area where you got very different variety of stuff. I even touched on a few others that are there and you look at the building to sit down on you don't own, the Sentsy owns it where you have got, you know, K1, Line Pickle and a wood cabinet shop in there. And, again, these are industrial. But I guess my question is when you look around our community what doesn't work? You know, it our -- we -- we really have -- we sound like -- we talk about manufacturing in the traditional sense in Meridian you are not getting what is traditional manufacturing. It all integrates in ways where to your point where the market is really driving a lot of these conversations and, frankly, if there is a desire for a certain type of building with a certain amount of office and an equal 50-50, someone's going to build that. You are going to put that in. You are going to make that happen. But I think the best thing is, you know, being in the center of the valley is to make sure that we have space that's being utilized to meet the demands of our community and not push people further out to try to accommodate certain things because of thresholds. I understand we have zones, we have needs, but I'm a fan of the flex and flex space just as a general rule, whatever that comes out to for counsel viewpoint, so -- any additional questions for Will? Okay. Thank you, Will. Mr. Clerk, anyone else signed up? Johnson: Yes. Mike Wardle. Wardle: Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council, Mike Wardle. Brighton. 2929 West Navigator in Meridian. I came actually just to express support as I had at Planning and Zoning for the private street standards. I feel a bit of a need to do some defense and in that regard, as soon as staff gets a thumb drive in, which I did not use at Planning and Zoning, but -- but we acknowledge the process that we have been through. I think what we came up with in conjunction with staff and the other stakeholders is that we solved some problems, we improved standards and restrictions and we provided clarification for the types of things that can or should be done in a private street setting. That may not be the right one. I -- the wrong -- the wrong thumb drive. But what I do have are some handouts that if you Council Members would like to at least share, I am -- and when I mentioned a specific type of project what you are looking at there in those handouts are Cadence age qualified projects. We have done three. The first page, of course, being the Paramount Director and you will find that as we just thumb through these Paramount being the first, Bainbridge the second, Century Farm the third, these are projects that are -- what I would call self-contained and off system. They are not intervening. They are between and around collectors. But they -- they don't necessarily break the gap of the public street system. They stand alone. They are specific living environments that people find acceptable and I guess I would like to take you to the fourth sheet, which is a project that's being currently held until we come up with a -- the standards that would address Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 47 of 62 the question and this is in our Pinnacle project being subdivided as Apex. North is to the right and if you -- that little intersection circle there on the bottom right corner of that schematic is the centerpiece of our little commercial area with the -- a nice obelisk now that if you have been out there you will see that there is a pinnacle literally there in that street section. This particular project under current standards would require two driveways or two access points on the left in this graphic, two on the right, but would not allow one on the bottom of this particular standard and that particular one coming off Locust Grove is a -- Locust Grove in that location is a minor arterial, but the current code does not allowl access from an arterial into a private street system. If you will just go to the last page of that particular handout you will see the -- the way that the projects have been configured, first Paramount, Bainbridge and Century Farm and the fairly short point of access, but a turning capability for people coming in that can't get through the gate, they can turn and go out. Pinnacle coming off Locust Grove has a much deeper -- 170 foot queuing space, because it's coming off an arterial. We have -- we would have to -- under the new standards proposed have ACHD's approval to do that. So, again, we find that the recommended amendments that are coming forth and that we support actually do address some problems that exist currently. They do improve the standards and I would on the record make certain that you understand that in all of these projects our streets, though they be private, have been designed and constructed to ACHD standards. They are the same streets that you would find in any ACHD project. So, we support the changes, understand the concerns and certainly the world is full of bad examples of all sorts of things, but we -- we don't think that we have provided any bad examples of what a private street system could do for the benefit of the community and the selection of alternative lifestyles that might be available to your residents. Simison: Thank you, Michael. Wardle: But we encourage your approval and the last item -- you have talked about a little bit here -- it sounds like some items may need to be separated out and held for discussion. I would encourage those that you are in agreement with that you move them forward and hopefully this being one. Simison: Thank you. Wardle: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Perfect. Thank you. This is helpful. And again -- so, I have found generally your examples they seem to be working out, but there are other people's examples that have not worked out and so we are -- let's just take a couple of these examples to -- Hood: Mr. Mayor, sorry to interrupt. But I have to. I appreciate Mr. Wardle being here. He has a pending application on one of them, so hopefully one of the examples you don't Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 48 of 62 want to question him on isn't one of their applications that are pending -- upcoming hearings. So, please, don't discuss that one. The other ones that are done fair game. Wardle: I appreciate that. Thank you. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Thank you very much for keeping us on track on that. Absolutely. So, we will just talk in general terms. A lot of your examples that I have seen are more like senior living communities; right? They are gated. They are -- they lend themselves to this and the private streets are not being used to access those arterials. So, if it blew up -- okay, I wouldn't feel like as much the city has to step in and take it over at some point in the future, because it really is the residents kind of self-contained issue. The example I'm thinking of I think -- hopefully you understand what I was talking about. The -- there are -- there is a development off of Ustick Road right over by the Dutch Brothers back behind where we were going to put an affordable housing complex that's not moving forward and that one especially -- it's just turned into a nightmare and so I appreciate you bringing these good examples, but help me understand some of the ways in which we are now preventing the bad behavior that we are concerned about and can you think of ways that we could go further to prevent the bad behavior, while still preserving this flexibility that some people who are doing a nice job would like to maintain? Wardle: Mr. Mayor, Council Member Strader, I'm not sure that I can. We tend to look forward with what we are doing and not -- Strader: Sure. Wardle: --you know, try to solve other people's problems and concerns and -- and I would note that you just basically cited that all of these projects are age qualified. Strader: Right. Wardle: These are a very different product. If, in fact, they blew up and that street system had to become public, it would become ACHD public streets and we could prove by design and construction documents that those streets conform to their standards and there would not be an issue. I can't -- certainly cannot speak to others with that and I apologize for not being able to do so. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: If the purpose of private streets was further narrowed and senior living and -- and some kind of category were created as an acceptable example in a gated community, would that achieve your goals as well or do you feel like there are other instances outside Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 49 of 62 of senior housing, independent living, et cetera, et cetera, where you do need this flexibility? Wardle: Mr. Mayor, Councilman Strader, I think the staff actually added some language and they may have to help me here, but I believe that it limited it to perhaps this type, as well as in-fill. Strader: Right. Wardle: Now, in all cases I can't think of a project that would not come before either the Planning and Zoning Commission or the City Council that could slip through and, you know, become a problem in the future given the awareness that you seem now to have as a group. But I think that, you know, age qualified and in-fill type projects would certainly narrow it down, so that you can't just go out and do, you know, a large scale project stand alone and if you look at -- I guess I better not say it, because it's -- it will be coming forward. But all of our projects that we have done have been components of a larger project and not the project alone. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: I actually feel like that has been part of why it's so successful, if I look at these examples, because the examples I'm thinking of where it's not gone well it's been a project that's been split with split ownership and multiple components, where suddenly what we thought was a coordinated kind of planned master development has now evolved into such differing aims that that overall coordination on the whole site itself has gone away. Wardle: Yeah. Strader: No. I appreciate your insight on this and it does seem like at least these changes are an improvement. I widely acknowledged it is at least an improvement over the status quo. It's just -- I just feel like we have been burned by so many of these that I'm -- I'm just very skeptical of private streets at this point, although I will give it to you I will -- I will grant you that in many of these specific examples where it's age qualified and it's part of a larger planned project they do seem to be working okay so far in those instances. Wardle: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Simison: Council, any additional questions? Okay. Johnson: Mr. Mayor, next is Tyler Munn. We got someone on the line. Amanda McNutt. McNutt: Hi, there. Amanda McNutt. Brighton. 2929 West Navigator. Simison: Yes, Amanda, we hear you. Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 50 of 62 McNutt: Great. Thank you. So, I want to piggyback a little bit on what Mike was saying. We have worked really hard on the private street code. We have worked hand in hand I feel like really well with city staff on these changes and I think it is important to note that there are definitely situations that I'm aware of that are not just about age qualified projects. For instance, if you are -- if you are trying to -- and I think Bill talked about this. If you are trying to put in a small residential development that's in a -- basically already developed area, especially if they are surrounding commercial and especially if it's small, it becomes nearly impossible to put in a public street and there is a variety of reasons for that, but primarily when you are in a commercial area and those development styles, they typically use drive aisles or private streets to serve those commercial areas. So, then, you are trying to connect a public street to a private drive, which ACHD will not allow you to do and, then, you are kind of put into a bubble of how could we potentially move forward on a project that's small and in-fill that actually, you know, fits the zone or fits the future land use map designation of residential, but we can't put in a private street because it's not gated, we have no ability to put a gate there and plus it wouldn't make any sense. So, I think there are definitely other situations where we have run into this and I think there will continue to be more as the city develops where there are just small awkward pieces of property that are difficult to develop in any sort of manner, but especially sometimes trying to connect those to a -- to a public street can just basically kill a project where -- where it's like -- well, there is -- if we can't put in a public street, then, we just can't do anything with it and it kind of just sits vacant. So, that's -- that's something that I -- I just kind of wanted to mention and add to his testimony. Simison: Thank you, Amanda. Council, any questions? Okay. Thank you. Johnson: Mr. Mayor, Tyler Martin. Martin: Good evening, Members of Council. Thank you very much. Tyler Martin. I'm with Cushman and Wakefield. I'm a commercial real estate broker. Address for Cushman Wakefield is 999 West Main in Boise and I just wanted to speak today about updating the code for flex buildings, the requirements for office space and how those affect the economics of development. Pardon me. I'm great in small groups. Public is a little hard for me. Anyways, I really wanted to speak to Council Woman Strader's comments about employment. She had mentioned that innovative jobs, innovative employment. Recently I did a survey of 800 square -- 800,000 square feet of industrial space in the -- in the market and -- sorry, the cameras bother me. I apologize. Anyway. So, did a survey of 800,000 square feet. I door knocked every single tenant space in 800,000 square feet. Had responses from 683,000 square feet. Those 26 buildings in Boise and Meridian and spoke to 68 different tenants of those spaces and my -- my comment was how many jobs come through this space? Because the nature of employment is changing and how I posed the question to these folks was how many paychecks? Because when you go -- look at these buildings, especially small industrial buildings, they may have a small office, but most of their employees are out in the field. They don't need a big space. On average, without cutting out any of the responses, so we have a couple big tile warehouses. Geary Pacific is on Franklin Road. They are more of an industrial storage user. The average jobs was -- each job was -- pardon me -- there was 792 square feet of space per job. So, Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 51 of 62 the worry of having large warehouse spaces with two or three employees on a forklift is - - it's really not a worry in these spaces given the economics of the land prices and the development, but to have a strict office requirement for these users is -- it affects the economics and so these projects, to Will's point, are not being built and so right now as an industrial broker-- and I'm not affiliated with Adler -- a lot of the clients I'm working with right now are looking to be in Meridian. It's the heart of the valley. Highway 16. You are going to be able to service the north side of the valley. You are going to be able to go down into Kuna. We have a lot of folks -- and a lot of times I have no spaces to show them at all. These aren't being built, because the economics, the cost of adding additional office, which is not needed, is making it so these projects are not being constructed at all. The ME zone has its own -- own issues. But I really would --just wanted to focus on the type of jobs that are out there. You go into some of these places -- I went into one on Ralston Street, 8,000 square feet, 55 employees and that doesn't physically work in 8,000 square feet, but outsidel sales staff, outside installation staff, they have small storage - - you know, they are loading the trucks there and otherwise they are sending their employees out in the field. But 55 paychecks through 8,000 square feet. Also wanted to respond to Council Member Taylor, you had asked are the jobs changing? The nature of the jobs. I will make this quick. I have been in town doing real estate for 20 years. For 15 of those years I was an MAI appraiser. Used to travel to New York and DC, go to these big appraisal meetings and folks would say Boise, Idaho, see it The New York Times, what do you all do there? What are the jobs? And I used to joke. We turn farm fields into housing. And, really, that was -- our economy was humming when we turned farm fields into housing and that directly impacted our industrial space. Used to go into our industrial space -- it was a lot of tile warehouses and we still have those, but now as I go around through the valley, you go into these spaces people are building things. There is a lot of CNC machines. There is a lot of high tech construction design, installation and that's what these spaces that we are talking about here with -- with Adler Group and focused more in general on the market -- I want to see more of those in Meridian to bring tenants to open buildings and also another point that several folks have made and Will had made, these guys -- they are coming out of their garage, they are temporary spaces in a lot of cases with the hope to grow, so they will go into 3,000, 5,000 square feet with the hope of growing and employing more people. So, one thing I did want to caution against is relying too much on the conditional use process for each user. Conditional use process is onerous. These users a lot of times don't have a good horizon on their real estate needs, so they are looking 90 days out. CUP takes 60 -- or, pardon me, takes up to six months and the other thing is it's also expensive when they are planning on being in a space for three years. So, I just want to say don't rely too much on that. I'm dealing with a project in Nampa right now currently, which is in the GB-1 zone, I believe, and Nampa will allow this small bay industrial product, but a lot of the uses are going to have to be approved through a conditional use, conditional occupancy process, four to six months. The tenants just aren't planning for that and, then, it's a significant cost hurdle for them to go through that process for, you know, a three year or five year term and, then, that, once again, goes back to the economics of the deal. Developers aren't developing, because when you are looking at income statement, the cost of a property, and, then, you are trying to plan for six months of vacancy every five years just in case you have tenant rollover and now the city said, hey, we will approve these uses, but we need to know what Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 52 of 62 they are doing in there, how they are doing it, how it works and so the developer is looking at an income stream that has a six month gap every five years and all of a sudden that's a big gap to fill this essentially vacant space, because the tenant's not going to pay for it if they can't occupy it. So, I just wanted to caution against too much trying to get hands on with every user, at least from my experience at Nampa, which is one of the examples they brought up. Sorry to start so rough. I apologize. Simison: We are good. Thank you. Council, any questions? Council Woman Strader. Strader: Mr. Mayor, not really a question, just more of a comment. I appreciate that you did that. Like that -- that really does help give us important information that we wouldn't have otherwise had and so I just wanted to compliment you for doing that. I appreciate your focus on paychecks, because I think fundamentally that --that is what we are looking to achieve. You know, I am -- my other -- one of my other jobs I work remotely, you know. I mean think things are changing and it's really about driving the overall employment, not necessarily that we have butts in seats, you know. Martin: Right. And that's how people are filling these spaces is different. Poor Bill's heard me talk about this a lot, but the Ten Mile Specific Plan in particular was written 20 years ago from design ideas and Urban Land Institute ideas from the late '90s, where it was all office and warehouse was different and manufacturing was heavy and so we have evolved through that I mean space is -- really flex is a wonderful word for it. They are flexible spaces and just because it's in, quote, unquote, a warehouse building is -- doesn't mean that we are going to have forklifts and 80,000 square feet with three people running around. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Yeah. No. And I appreciate the context, too, because I think -- or the context that you -- you provided. I think because you sort of emphasized the point I'm kind of thinking a lot about, which is it's impossible for us to -- to really know who the tenants are, but don't think we should try to dictate that too much by the type of use. I think in this particular product type, you know, the more flexibility and the less burdens we can put there the more we are going to see available for different users and the user today in five years could be a different user, because this -- not that this is a high turnover area, but this is the one type of a product where people can move in and out of pretty seamlessly as they either grow or fail or whatever the case may be, but I think we would do ourselves a disservice as we are looking at the types of jobs that we would -- could create in Meridian to be overly restrictive and overly cumbersome with our requirements. Even though they are well intentioned I think we would make a mistake in -- in doing that. So, I appreciate your context in that. Martin: Yeah. Absolutely. And -- I mean so as an appraiser for years we used to value industrial buildings and we would actually take value off for too much office space. So, in Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 53 of 62 all the, you know, couple thousand appraisals, couple hundred industrial appraisals, if you got to a building that wasn't maybe a special purpose building, but you got to a building that had 25 percent office, you were almost deducting value to come demolish that, because the demands of the market at that point -- it's been several years since I did that -- it was about 15 to 18 percent max. Beyond that it's -- it's additional cost that actually comes off, because so many users don't want that much office space and so if we -- and once again as the market's changed trying to sell a building in that -- in Boise right now I have marketed 20,000 square foot building, 11,000 square feet of office on two levels. Every buyer that looks at it says I have to tear all this out and so that's just a -- and it's an old building, but it's just a function of a changing workplace. Those office employees a lot of times now are off site and so if we require it now it's going to change. I think the better way to do it is through design and also just pure economics. These ME projects now -- you look at Franklin Road, industrial land all of a sudden is ten dollars a square foot. So, you do an industrial building, a Class A, project, you have the interconnectivity with the streets, you are putting in ACHD roadways, you are building a good quality project with multiple fascia changes and you are going to limit -- you are going to carve out those industrial -- the large industrial users because they are looking for a rent base under 90 cents, so building -- that project is going to cost much much more than that and so I really think it's going to focus on --on these smaller users. So, the 26 buildings that we surveyed -- I door knocked every single one of them -- 68 tenant spaces without me cutting out -- you know, going through and selecting the data, the average tenant suite was 11 ,782 square feet. That's an unweighted average. Total on those 683,000 square feet reported 1,252 jobs. I did take out one that was Roofing Direct, which used to be FamCo. I don't know if you are familiar with FamCo, but on Ralston Street they used to have a couple hundred employees and 30,000 square feet. They have now stepped back. So, we are just under 800. Open to any other questions, but I really appreciate all your time and I want to say thank you to Bill and Caleb, they have been amazing to work through through this process as I have talked to them. Whitlock: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Whitlock. Whitlock: Just a quick question. I don't think you ever got to a number, but Will suggested that maybe reducing the ME to 15 percent and the C-G to 20 percent. Does that work in what you are suggesting? Martin: Yes. And I will say all these buildings that I surveyed were mostly in industrial zones. Most of them in Meridian. I think that works. I start doing the math on it, like I have a tenant right now I'm working with is a major national and electrical company. One of the buildings they are looking at is the benchmark project, one of Adler's buildings. So, 18,000 square feet, look at 30 percent, that's 5,400 square feet of office. They need 2,500. 1 think we are getting a lot closer. I didn't really want to come and speak to specifics. I just really wanted to say how I had been out in the market just two weeks ago door knocking all these spaces and really wanted to speak to some of the comments about how many jobs are in these buildings and also the lack of supply. Right now when Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 54 of 62 1 have tenants -- so, I just worked with a local group. They wanted to be around Highway 16 or in Meridian. We ended up in one ofAdler's projects at Fry Street. So, 21,000 square feet. They have 36 employees. They are all highly paid employees, but we -- I had nothing to show them in Meridian. Not a single option in Meridian, which was their preferred market. Twenty thousand square feet. They ended up building out about 3,500 square feet of office, so -- do the percentage. But a lot of employees they just don't all sit there all day. So, sorry, I can't speak directly to that. I haven't really looked at that side. I just wanted to share the employee counts. Thank you all very much. I appreciate your time. Simison: Thank you. Mr. Clerk, do we have anybody else signed up? Johnson: Mr. Mayor, that was everyone that signed up. Simison: Okay. Right behind you. Did you want -- I know you came up earlier. Would you like to -- yes. Would you like to -- since you stayed -- stuck around and -- yeah. Collum: May name is Lois Collum. I live in Meridian and I'm a certified swim instructor. I have been working with Bill a lot about, you know, the code about giving swim lessons and I have been fortunate enough to teach two autistic kids and one Down syndrome kid that would never make it in a public swim lesson environment. So, I do private lessons and it's just me and the child and their parent and it's been a blessing for them to see how much they have grown as individuals and just come out of their shell. But I had a career as an account manager and retired and this was the joy of my life when I was a teenager and I thought what better use of my home pool than to do swim lessons and so I do it because I enjoy watching the kids learn and be safe in their pools. So, thank you, Bill. Thank you, Council Woman Strader. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Simison: Thank you very much. Mr. Miller. Miller: My name is Brad Miller with Adler Industrial and I appreciate you taking the time to listen to me. When Will talked it just kind of got me a little bit excited to think about -- I have been doing this for -- I worked for Ron Van Auker for 25 years. Dealt with these guys a lot over here and I have been with -- with Mike since he came to town over six years ago. So, I have personally leased millions and millions of square feet. Every -- every space that Van Auker ever had in Meridian or Adler has had in Meridian -- or has in Meridian I have leased. Just a case in point, today we showed a tool company some buildings. There is a tool company -- I'm not going to say it, because Tyler is going to go and try to steal that tenant from us -- potential tenant from us -- but there is a tool company in Meridian that recently sold and they need to expand, so we showed them our benchmark buildings, the three buildings that we have over there on Franklin and they just need a small office, restrooms, and, then, just an open showroom area without a lid on top, just a wall to surround it. They won't be able to go into the bench -- the two buildings on the south side of the road, because the threshold for office is too high. So, hopefully we are going to be able to take them across the street. They really don't need much at all, but one of the things that we do when people come in our door is we -- we Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 55 of 62 tell them, hey, we are going to show you a menu of options, we got more space in the valley than anybody else and we can do whatever you want. If you want small space, large space. One of our great success stories is Scentsy. We started them out in their first building and we grew them from 42,000 -- that was their first headquarters. It's actually more urban area right now. We moved Orville and Heidi in there and, then, we expanded them into that whole building, which is 142,000 square feet and, then, they contracted down to zero when they moved into their -- to their own campus. So, that's one of the great things we do is we get with these small businesses and we help them grow. I mean there is businesses all over town that we have helped grow. I just wanted to touch on -- on a few of the different tenants that we have that are kind of interesting. We have -- in Meridian. And I will focus just on Meridian. We have a catering company in one of our buildings. Beth Alpaugh, who you may or may not have met. Just this go getter of a person and she has just built this up from her own garage and now we have got her in a nice space. She has about 30 people that work there on a routine basis. She does -- supplied the Salt Lake Airport with all their food and we -- so that's one of the tenants that we got. We got Zamp Racing. They do drag racing helmets and drag racing suits. They are actually doing a new -- for the next F1 race in Miami next spring they are --they are doing new suits for-- I can't remember which team it is, but they have designed them and they have about a half a dozen employees there. So, we have a wide range of employees. We have Bastian Solutions, it's a research and development facility and they do material handling automation) and so we have got about -- we have got about three- quarters of the space is office, but the rest of it shelf space to build that out. So, we have got a wide range of tenants, we have a wide range of needs. Some of them are small, some of them are large. JST I met with them last week, toured their facility. Unbelievable what they are doing there. They are up to about 150 employees and they are running three shifts, so -- I mean we are really glad to be able to support these businesses and we just need to have the flexibility. So, I would strongly recommend a request -- or beg you that we go to 15 percent on the -- on the ME and 20 percent on the C-G. Thank you very much. Simison: Thank you, Brad. Council, any questions? Okay. Is there anybody else that would like to provide testimony on this item at this time? Okay. Council, I think we had a request to take a quick break. Just stretch our legs and, then, maybe figure out how you want to move forward on these --these items or not. So, we will take a five -- eight minute break. We will split the difference, either come back in five or come back in ten or eight. (Recess: 9.05 p.m. to 9.15 p.m.) Simison: All right. I didn't -- I didn't do my math, but I think we are pretty close. Yeah. So, we will start. Everyone's seated and people are maneuvering back around to places, so -- Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 56 of 62 Strader: Okay. I think -- I think we have a good game plan of how we could try to -- oops. I will turn my camera on. How we could try to move some stuff forward tonight, but kind of save a few -- a few of these items that we thought were more problematic. So, I think maybe -- could we do this as like a little show of hands as kind of an informal way of just like -- do people have some buy in on things? That would be great. Okay. So, let's start with flex space. I think chatting with people we feel like the rationale here is that these flex spaces are like our business incubators and it's the closest thing that we have to like little business incubators and that's really important. We want to support our businesses as they are growing. So, I think what we want to propose there that would make sense is ten percent minimum office requirement -- office and showroom requirement in the ME zone and, then, 15 percent in the C-G zone. I think that's where we are going with it. Could I get a show of hands if people are supportive of that? Simison: I don't vote, but -- sure. Strader: Yeah. That's good, Mayor. We want to hear that you are -- you do matter, not just in tie breaking votes. Okay. That's fantastic. With that I think we would like to pull out from this approval the ADUs and the drive throughs. Am I missing anything else that anyone thinks we need a lot of substantive discussion on in the next couple weeks to iron out? Okay. If it's okay, Mr. Mayor, raise your hand, please, if you are okay with removing those two items from consideration tonight to come back in about two weeks or when staff can -- can do that. Okay. Fantastic. Okay. Mr. Mayor, with that -- let's give direction to staff to, please, approve the UDC text amendment -- Simison: Just the process real quick. Public hearing, what -- Strider: Oh, yeah. You are right. Simison: So, we want to renotice it-- close this public hearing, then, renotice a new public hearing with the other things in two weeks. How do we move something forward if we don't have a -- I mean are we just giving this direction to staff to come back with an ordinance next week? Nary: Right. Simison: So, do we want to leave the public hearing open for two weeks and come back Nary: Probably going to be more than two weeks. I don't know what the timing was intended for actual ordinance, especially if you cutting out pieces and parts of it. Hood: And if I can just real quick, trying to just understand even the scope of what we are continuing things to do, that would also impact how long it may take. So, I'm not quite sure of those few things you listed what we are doing in the next week or two. Simison: We will get to that. Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 57 of 62 Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Yeah. So, I think the -- I think the direction -- what we are trying to achieve tonight is I think we want to move everything forward, except for ADUs and drive throughs and the reasons are that ADUs and drive throughs we feel like we would like input from our council president, because he hasn't had an opportunity maybe to fully comment on that. We heard some further concerns about drive throughs. It's kind of a complex topic. I think we are close and I think ADUs is -- is very complex and it feels like the six month requirement -- we have kind of mixed feelings about a need to suss out. So, I think the direction to Council would be please take the next two weeks and if you have feedback, please, for planning, if you have any issue with how those are drafted, please, provide your feedback directly via e-mail to -- to Caleb and Bill and, then, that way they can take that feedback and, then, they will bring those items back on their own at the appropriate time and -- Simison: Reset the public hearing -- Strader: Yeah. Mr. Mayor. And if it's okay we could keep the public hearing open -- or a new public hearing on those items. Simison: I would recommend we close this public hearing, move forward everything else and come back with a separate public hearing just on those two items. Strader: Uh-huh. Simison: Okay. Strader: So, Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Okay. So, with that I would move that we close the public hearing on Item 7. No. I'm sorry. Item 9. Simison: ZOA-- Strader: ZOA-2025-0001. Overton: Second. Simison: Have a motion and a second to close the public hearing on Item 9, ZOA-2025- 0001. Is there any discussion? If not, all favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it and the public hearing is closed. Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 58 of 62 MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: After considering all staff, applicant and public testimony, I move to approve File No. ZOA-2025-0001 as presented in the staff report for today's hearing date with the modifications that we would remove the changes proposed for ADUs and drive throughs and that everything else would move forward as amended. Simison: State specifically the -- in your motion the percentages. Strader: Oh. And noting that the City Council is specifically amending the flex space minimum office and showroom requirements in the ME and C-G zones to 12 percent in the ME zone and 15 percent in the C-G zone. Oh. I'm sorry. You are right. Ten percent in the ME zone. It's getting late. And 15 percent in the C-G zone. Overton: Second. Simison: I have a motion and a second. Is there discussion on the motion? If not clerk call the roll. Roll Call: Cavener, absent; Strader, yea; Overton, yea; Little Roberts, yea; Taylor, yea; Whitlock, yea. Simison: All ayes. Motion carries and the item is agreed to. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Simison: Council, please, if you have any direct comments over the next two weeks get that to Caleb -- actually you and Bill both on these items? Hood: That's probably easiest. Yeah. Simison: Okay. Hood: Thank you. Simison: And, then, we will bring it back around after they taken any of that feedback, so ORDINANCES [Action Item] 10. Ordinance No. 25-2095: An Ordinance (Meridian Food Bank H-2024- 0065) for rezone of parcels of land located in the northeast quarter of Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 59 of 62 Block 5 of the West View Addition to Meridian and also J.M. Anderson's Second Addition to Meridian, located in the north half of the southeast quarter of Section 12, Township 3 North, Range 1 West, Boise Meridian, City Of Meridian, Ada County, Idaho, more particularly described in exhibit "A," rezoning 1.72 acres of land from I-L (Light Industrial) zoning district to the O-T (Old Town) zoning district in the Meridian City Code; directing city staff to alter all applicable use and area maps as well as the official zoning maps and all applicable official maps depicting the boundaries and the zoning districts of the City of Meridian in accordance with this ordinance; providing that copies of this ordinance shall be filed with the Ada County Assessor, the Ada County Treasurer, the Ada County Recorder, and the Idaho State Tax Commission, as required by law; and providing an effective date. Simison: Okay. With that we will move on to Item 10, which is Ordinance No. 25-2095. Ask the clerk to read this ordinance by title. Johnson: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. It's an ordinance related to Meridian Food Bank, H- 2024-0065, for rezone of parcels -- parcels of land located in the northeast quarter of Block 5 of the West View Addition to Meridian and also J.M. Anderson's Second Addition to Meridian, located in the north half of the southeast quarter of Section 12, Township 3 North, Range 1 West, Boise Meridian, City Of Meridian, Ada County, Idaho, more particularly described in Exhibit "A," rezoning 1.72 acres of land from I-L zoning district to the O-T zoning district in the Meridian City Code; directing city staff to alter all applicable use and area maps as well as the official zoning maps and all applicable official maps depicting the boundaries and the zoning districts of the City of Meridian in accordance with this ordinance; providing that copies of this ordinance shall be filed with the Ada County Assessor, the Ada County Treasurer, the Ada County Recorder, and the Idaho State Tax Commission, as required by law; and providing an effective date. Simison: Thank you. Council, you have heard this ordinance read by title. Is there anybody that would like it read in its entirety? If not do I have a motion? Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: I move that we approve Ordinance No. 25-2095. Little Roberts: Second. Simison: Have a motion and a second to approve Ordinance No. 25-2095. Is there discussion? If not, Clerk call the roll. Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 60 of 62 Roll Call: Cavener, absent; Strader, yea; Overton, yea; Little Roberts, yea; Taylor, yea; Whitlock, yea. Simison: All ayes. Motion carries and the item is agreed to. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. FUTURE MEETING TOPICS Simison: Council, anything under future meeting topics? EXECUTIVE SESSION [Action Item] 11. Per Idaho Code 74-206 (1)(c): To acquire an interest in real property not owned by a public agency. Simison: Or do we -- move into Executive Session. Council Woman Strader. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: I think we are past future meeting topics; right? Okay. Sorry about that. I move that we go into Executive Session per Idaho Code 74-206(1)(c). Overton: Second. Simison: Motion and second to go in Executive Session. Is there any discussion? If not Clerk call the roll Roll Call- Cavener, absent; Strader, yea; Overton, yea; Little Roberts, yea; Taylor, yea; Whitlock, yea. Simison: All ayes. Motion carries and the item is agreed to. We will go into Executive Session. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. EXECUTIVE SESSION: (9.22 p.m. to 9.35 p.m.) (Motion - out of Executive session - Strader - second Overton) (Motion to adjourn - Strader - second Little Roberts) MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Meridian City Council August 12,2025 Page 61 of 62 MEETING ADJOURNED AT 9:35 P.M. (AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) MAYOR ROBERT E. SIMISON 8-26-2025 ATTEST: CHRIS JOHNSON - CITY CLERK 8-26-2025