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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025-10-21 Regular Meridian City Council October 21, 2025. A Meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 6:02 p.m., Tuesday, October 21, 2025, by Mayor Robert Simison. Members Present: Robert Simison, Luke Cavener, John Overton, Doug Taylor, Anne Little Roberts and Brian Whitlock. Members Absent: Lis Strader. Other Present: Chris Johnson, Bill Nary, Bill Parsons, Sonya Allen. Berle Stokes and Steve Taulbee. ROLL-CALL ATTENDANCE Liz Strader X Brian Whitlock Anne Little Roberts X John Overton _X_ Doug Taylor _X_Luke Cavener X Mayor Robert E. Simison Simison: Council, we will call this meeting to order. For the record it is October 21st, 2025, at 6:02 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: Council, next up is our community invocation, which tonight will be delivered by Rajan Zed, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism. If you would all, please, join us in this prayer or take this as a moment of silence and reflection. Zed: It is an honor to read the invocation in this great hall of democracy of the great City of Meridian. I shall be reading from ancient Hindu scriptures, some as old as 1500 BCE in Sanskrit then interpreting in English. May all rise, please. We meditate on the transcendental glory of the duty supreme, who is inside the heart of the earth, inside the life of the sky and inside the soul of the heaven. May he stimulate and illuminate our minds. Lead us from the unreal to the real. Lead us from darkness to light. Lead us from death to immortality. Strive constantly to serve the welfare of the world, while devotion to selfless one attains the supreme goal of life. Do your work with the welfare of others always in mind. May we be protected together. May we be nourished Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 2 of 60 together. May we work together with great vigor. May our study be enlightening. May no obstacle arise between us. United your resolve. United your hearts. May your spirits be at one that you may long together dwell in unity and conquered. Peace. Peace. Peace be unto all. Thank you. ADOPTION OF AGENDA Simison: Thank you very much, Rajan Zed. Appreciate it very much. And best of luck on your commute to Star. Council, next up is adoption of the agenda. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Move we adopt the agenda as published. Overton: Second. Simison: Have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda as published. 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. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. PUBLIC FORUM — Future Meeting Topics Simison: Mr. Clerk, anyone signed up under future meeting topics -- or public form? Johnson: Mr. Mayor, there is no sign-ups. RESOLUTIONS [Action Item] 1. Resolution No. 25-2538: A Resolution of the City Council of the City of Meridian Appointing Hailey Stewart to Seat 4 and Harold Wilson to Seat 5 of the Meridian Historic Preservation Commission; and Providing an Effective Date Simison: Okay. So, with that, Council, we will move on to Item 1, which is Resolution No. 25-2538 bringing forward to you two new members to our Historic Preservation Commission. Had a lot of interested applicants in this open call for people to serve and -- but there -- there are a little bit of similarities in I think some of the outcoming purpose, but with all the great people who applied we -- I didn't -- I always give preference to people from our community first and foremost and I think that -- that was an important component to -- because we had several people applied that were in the area of city impact or in Boise that want to come serve in this -- in this role. But these were two Meridian residents. I will start with Harold Wilson, who has a long time Meridian Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 3 of 60 connection and really, you know, he -- he wants to protect the memories of his childhood. I think that -- that's an important part of what he wants to bring to the table. You know, loves history. He is an assistant Dean of General Education at the College of Western Idaho. A teacher. Been involved with Friends of Meridian Library. So, you know, that library connection is actually a great one as we continue to transition our historical collections to the library and so having a little bit of that interest in their really showcase his interest in this area. The other one was Hailey Stewart. She's just looking to get engaged in her community, but also believes in learning from the past and really wants to focus on how do we get our younger generation involved. I think that was kind of probably a little theme in my -- in my engagements this time around was when does history really start, you know, for people. You know, I -- I -- I try to imply that we make history up here every week. Good. Bad. Relevant. Irrelevant in some cases. But, you know, is history 50 years ago, 20 years ago, five years ago, so how -- how do you really look at that and I -- I think that Hailey really kind of talked about, you know, sometimes you have to get younger people involved with relevant history and not just looking back on things that they can't really connect to through that. But they all expressed an interest and willingness to be involved and engaged, whether it's helping lead the -- the tours or rolling up their sleeves and trying to apply their -- their trades where Hailey's a senior communication specialist and -- and how to help grow the work that their Historic Preservation Commission is doing. So, with that I'm happy to answer any questions. Otherwise, I would consider a motion on these two individuals. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: First credit to you and HPC for continuing to attract such great candidates. Just -- it's really just great to see how -- how HPC is continuing to flourish and grow. So, Mr. Mayor, I'm happy to move that we approve Resolution No. 25-2538, appointing Hailey Stewart to Seat 4 and Harold Wilson to Seat 5 of the Meridian Historic Preservation Commission. Taylor: Second. Overton: Second. Simison: Have a motion and a second to approve Resolution No. 25-2538. Is there any discussion? If not, all in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it and the resolution is agreed to. So, congratulations to our newest members of the Historic Preservation Commission. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. ACTION ITEMS Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 4 of 60 2. Public Hearing for Fairbourne Subdivision No. 4 (H-2025-0036) by Rodney Evans + Partners, LLC., generally located at the northwest corner of W. Chinden Blvd. and N. Black Cat Rd., at 4837 W. Waverton Dr. A. Request: Combined Preliminary/Final Plat consisting of one (1) buildable lot on 5.2 acres of land in the C-G zoning district. Simison: Okay. With that we are going to move on to our Action Items this evening. We got a -- a busy -- busy evening together. But first item up is a public hearing for Fairbourne Subdivision No. H-2025-0036. We will open this public hearing with staff comments. Allen: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council and the first application before you tonight is a combined preliminary and final plat. This site consists of 5.2 acres of land. It's zoned C-C and it's generally located at the northwest corner of North Black Cat Road and West Chinden Boulevard. In 2018 this property was included in a rezone, preliminary plat and a development agreement modification application for Fairbourne Subdivision, which included the adjacent residential subdivision to the north and the west. A new development agreement was approved with the modification, which governs future development of the overall property. Final plat applications were approved for all of the property included in the preliminary plat, except for this last remaining area, which was intended to be included in the last phase. However, a final plat application was never submitted, a time extension was not requested and the preliminary plat has since expired. The Comprehensive Plan future land use map designation is mixed-use community. A combined preliminary and final plat is proposed consisting of one buildable lot on 5.2 acres of land in the C-C zoning district. A conceptual development plan was submitted as shown there on the left that depicts three commercial building pads for retail and office use. The largest Pad A is proposed to be a grocery store at 25,623 square feet. Pad B is 11 ,234 square feet and Pad C is 4,964 square feet. The proposed development plan is consistent with the provisions in the development agreement. Access is proposed via one existing full access driveway from West Waverton Drive and one right-in, right-out access driveway from North Black Cat Road. No access is proposed or allowed via West Chinden Boulevard. An emergency access exists to this site by a blanket easement across Lot 17, Block 7, in the abutting Fairbourne Subdivision No. 2 to the west and that is -- if you can see my cursor right here -- through that common driveway right there. Detached five foot wide sidewalks exist on this side along Waverton and Black Cat. A ten foot wide detached sidewalk and pathway exists in the street buffer along Chinden Boulevard. ITD submitted a letter requesting the developer contribute a proportionate share toward installation of a westbound right-turn lane at Chinden and Black Cat as required with the original Fairbourne development, which has not yet been constructed and that is in that little area there shown in -- shown in red. Street buffers exist on this site along abutting streets that were installed with the adjacent subdivision improvements. Additional landscaping and design features are needed in the buffers to comply with UDC standards. A 25 foot wide buffer to residential uses also exists along the west boundary Meridian City Council October 21,2025 Page 5 of 60 of the site with a six foot tall closed vision fence. Conceptual building elevations were submitted for the proposed grocery store as shown on the right. Final design is required to comply with the design standards in the Architectural Standards Manual. Loading docks are prohibited in commercial districts along collector streets, which is Waverton and Black Cat or arterial Chinden Boulevard -- streets per the Architectural Standards Manual. The Commission recommended approval of this application to City Council. Ben Semple, the applicant's representative testified in favor. There was no opposition. Paul McLaughlin, Larry Walker, Bob Misko and Jessica Pirc commented on the application and there was no written testimony that was submitted. Key issues of discussion were as follows: The access and traffic concerns pertaining to vehicles turning left into the development and stacking issues that may occur. Safety concerns pertaining to traffic and children in the area. Belief that the Chinden and Black Cat intersection needs to be rebuilt for safety reasons to accommodate the high volume of traffic in this area and concern pertaining to landscaping between the site and the abutting residential neighborhood to the west to ensure residents aren't looking at a parking lot. Key issues of discussion by the Commission were traffic generated from the proposed development and the use and zoning -- just a statement that the -- the use and zoning are not the subject of this application, just a reminder that this is a subdivision application. The Commission did not make any changes to the staff recommendation and there are no outstanding issues for Council tonight. There has been written testimony since the Commission hearing that's been received from Christy Keller. She has concerns pertaining to traffic and inadequate infrastructure for the development of a grocery store on this site and from Jessica Pirc, opinion the proposed -- or, excuse me, the existing landscaping and fence height along the west boundary is inadequate to buffer the adjacent residential neighbors from noise, lighting and traffic impacts from the proposed development. Concern pertaining to increased traffic in the area and children's safety crossing Waverton Drive to reach the school bus stop. Request for taller fencing and more robust landscaping to be provided in buffers with mature trees and shrubs. Reevaluation of access points to minimize traffic being funneled onto Waverton and greater consideration of residential impacts, particularly around school routes. Both of those folks submitted written testimony. Jessica did submit some videos as well that were included in the public record and staff will stand for any questions. Simison: Thank you, Sonya. Council, any questions for staff? Okay. Would the applicant like to come forward? Good evening. Semple: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Members of Council. Ben Semple with Rodney Evans and Partners. 1450 West Bannock Street, Boise. 83702. If I can get this speakerphone to cooperate. Sorry. I had my presentation on my phone and it's trying to make me do something different here. Okay. So, yeah, I want to first of all thank Sonya for the presentation. She did a good job encapsulating what the -- the application is here before you tonight. Again, Fairbourne Subdivision No. 4 at the northwest corner of West Chinden and Black Cat Road. Just to reiterate, the vicinity map, the area of the future land use as mixed-use community and the current zoning is C-C. This is the original pre-plat as shown from 2018 for the overall Fairbourne Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 6 of 60 Subdivision. In red is the lot in question. As Sonya stated this was the final phase of this multi-phased project and this was with the original pre-plat and zoning and annexation was assigned to C-C zone with the intent of this developing with commercial uses per the approved development agreement. The current pre-plat you can see on the upper right there, basically the same, just a single lot preliminary plat and, then, the final plat is representative of that single lot final plat. The landscape plan is on the left here demonstrating some upgrades along the road frontages for landscape buffering. The western landscape buffer currently meets the UDC standards, but based on comments from neighboring residents to the west there I'm working -- I'm the landscape architect on this project and will be for the upcoming actual site development package that gets submitted for review and intend to work on, you know, adding some additional buffering, filling in some gaps. There is some lawn over there that's kind of on a berm, but the fence doesn't actually sit on the berm, so it's kind of an interesting situation where the -- my client would like to make sure that he is being a good neighbor and provide some additional buffering to -- to those users. Additionally the site plan was developed to ensure that most of the -- the use is as far away from the residents as possible. There is parking that's there, but that is outside the 25 foot landscape buffer that's required and if you have gone to a grocery store, which I'm sure you all have, you try to park as close to the store as possible, so anticipate that that western side probably ends up with some employee parking and I'm going to be talking with that developer about that option of maybe setting those aside for employees, so that there is not car doors opening and closing next to residential that way. Just an aerial photo of the existing landscape that's there on the site right now. The conceptual building elevations are still in process of being developed. These will get more fleshed out as we get through this process. The issue we have here is that because this was never final platted. My client can't submit an application for this building or a site plan until we have a legal lot to be able to submit to the city. Upon that submittal, you know, we are going to have another neighborhood meeting, we are going to work with -- I have been talking with the Fairbourne Subdivision HOA president pretty extensively trying to set up a meeting, not only with the Fairbourne Subdivision, but Modern Craftsman and Spur Wing also feed into this area in terms of traffic -- have expressed some desire to get some feedback and kind of provide some feedback to us on this plan and so I'm working with my client to set up a time after he has a more fleshed out development plan here for the -- the actual site. The two pads that are up by Chinden are intended to be kind of a build to suit. They could be retail. They could be office. None of them are drive- through restaurant. You know, trying to stay away from some other drive-through establishments that have come through and I wanted to point out to the conceptual site plan, which is based on those pad sizes -- at least the ones on Chinden and, then, on the building size and use that we are anticipating for the grocery use. The total parking required for those three uses would be 85 parking spaces. What we have shown here right now is 216 parking spaces. Just the grocery store use alone would require 81 -- oh, I'm sorry. We would be 81 above the requirement that is for that use and that was driven by the potential user Boise Co-op that really wants to make sure that they have adequate parking for their customers, as well as, you know, to buffer any issues, if you have been to some other smaller grocery stores where they have some smaller parking lots, we want to avoid that, too. And, finally, I guess -- or we are in agreement with all of Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 7 of 60 the terms and conditions of the staff report. All the agency comments here are -- are kind of our responses to those conditions. We have made some adjustments already or will be making adjustments to the final plat before it's submitted for signature and, then, we will supplement the landscape as I discussed. I did want to mention that a lot of what is -- a lot of the concern here with traffic parking, access we want to address as well. My developer shares some of the concerns from the neighbors in the neighborhood regarding those things. Safety being one of those. And we can't get formal feedback from ITD or ACHD until they have a use application, so that they can base their numbers and their traffic generation numbers on the actual use and, again, we can't submit that application for the use until we have this final plat approved for a lot. So, tonight, as Sonya stated, this is about the single lot subdivision. We have -- we share concerns with traffic and -- and look forward to addressing those as we get through ACHD and ITD submittals and feedback. I would stand for any questions that you may have regarding the application. Simison: Thank you. Council, any questions for the applicant? Whitlock: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Whitlock. Whitlock: Ben, thanks for the overview and long before this application came over there have been concerns about the traffic on Chinden and -- and Black Cat and as you drive by the turn signal seems to be right where a turn lane would -- would be. So, there definitely are some mitigation efforts that need to go into this. You have seen the ITD letter and I -- I understand the -- the explanation that you need to have the use permitted before you can have those -- a traffic study I would imagine and, then, clearance to move forward from ITD and ACHD on -- on Black Cat. One of the concerns is just if -- if that traffic study comes by -- comes back and indicates that not only do you need an enhanced right turn off of Chinden to go north on Black Cat, but also from Black Cat to turn westbound onto Chinden, is that something that you would participate in with ITD? Semple; Mr. Mayor and Council Member Whitlock, yes, we anticipate getting a lot of feedback from ITD regarding all of those situations and ACHD not only turning off of Chinden, but onto Chinden, potential acceleration lane along Chinden. We do anticipate a lot of road improvements that will be generated once we can get an application in front of those jurisdictions. We have also -- we will be talking to them about how do we mitigate for some of the traffic on Black Cat between Chinden and Waverton. There is kind of a short run there. There is a center median that prevents a left turn off of Black Cat into this site. But we also want to be sensitive to the residents within the neighborhood to the north that Waverton is a -- while it is a residential collector there is a lot of pedestrian activity along there, a lot of kids walking around there, too. So, working with ACHD on how we mitigate -- you know, do some traffic calming, something like that, to help address that as well. So, I -- I guess that's a long answer to, yes, we plan to participate with all of the jurisdictions to improve this area. Meridian City Council October 21,2025 Page 8 of 60 Whitlock: Thank you. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Could you just, then, give us a sense for -- you -- you talked about the neighbors to the west and that you would work to kind of mitigate some of the -- maybe deficiencies, my word, for that barrier. Can you give me an idea what you are actually wanting to do and how that would look? Semple: Yeah. Mr. Mayor, Council Member Taylor, right now there is some smaller deciduous flowering trees that are along there. There is kind of an alternating series of those with some smaller evergreens. I think as the designer and hearing some of the neighbors' concerns, I'm looking at filling those gaps with some larger evergreens. I think removing some of that lawn area would allow for an expansion of the planter bed, so that we can get some larger plant material in there to really buffer not only sound, but site. And, then, obviously, any lighting that goes in the parking lot around the building, full cut-off shields, making sure there is no light trespass as well. Taylor: Mr. Mayor, quick follow up? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: A lot of times we see berms with a fence on top of the berm to give you that extra height. Some of the videos I'm seeing that's not how it looks like it's laid out. Probably can't make any changes there because of property ownership, but I'm assuming you wouldn't be changing any fence lines, you would just be working to add more vegetation and sort of, you know, creating a shield there with just natural vegetation; is that -- is that right? Semple: Yeah. Mr. Mayor, Council Member Taylor, that's correct. We can't move the fence and when they built the subdivision it looks like they built the fence on the property line and, then, put a berm on this property side, so -- I mean we may -- there is opportunity maybe to grade that down a little bit, but, you know, we are -- we will work with our civil on grading design just to keep that area, as you know, plantable as possible I guess. But, yeah, that's the intent. Plant material. You know, we can talk about fence height. It's a six foot fence. I don't think that we can go any higher based on code right now, but anything we can do to help alleviate some of those concerns we definitely want to look at. Simison: Council, any additional questions for the applicant? Okay. Thank you very much. Semple: Thank you. Simison: Mr. Clerk, anyone signed up on this item? Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 9 of 60 Johnson: Mr. Mayor, yes. First is Paul McLaughlin representing an HOA. Simison: Good evening. State your name and address for the record. McLaughlin: I'm sorry? Simison: State your name and address for the record. McLaughlin: Paul McLaughlin. 6811 North Maplestone in Meridian. And like was mentioned I'm the president of the HOA for Fairbourne. I did have a chance to talk to Mr. Semple before this meeting tonight and he was able to answer some of my questions. There are other things that he brought up that would obviously make some of my questions moot, because, again, until things go in the right order and they get the -- the use permit, then, traffic studies come after that, but, you know, right now traffic is the biggest concern with the residents, not only of Fairbourne, but of Spur Wing and of Modern Craftsman, because that -- that road is already insufficient at certain times of the day or certain times of the week. I think we brought up before that Rock Harbor Church pours out onto Black Cat on Sunday and they have services all day. There is -- there is a total of I think -- I think they are up to six services on -- on a typical Sunday now and on holidays they have Saturday services and, like I said, it just pours out of there and the concern with the traffic coming in is, first of all, there -- I wanted to bring to your attention there is a note on one of these -- on the city agency comments that says if ACHD allows the proposed access via North Black Cat, which I don't know who is proposing that, because Mr. Semple has indicated he is only looking for a right turn in and a right turn out, but I just want to get it on the record, since I don't know if I'm going to get another bite at the apple, that we absolutely would not be able to back up traffic to allow people to turn left from Black Cat into there, but if you go farther up -- if you go far enough north towards Waverton there is that center divider there and at the most you are going to get four to maybe five cars that can get in that left turn lane and with traffic coming out, you know, from Rock Harbor, because Waverton doesn't line up with Tree Farm, so you get all these people turning left out of Tree Farm and we have been watching the traffic the last several Sundays and people don't stop to allow people to turn onto Waverton, they don't allow people to come from Waverton into the Modern Craftsman and I just want to make it -- put it on the record that, again, any access -- at least left from northbound on Black Cat is going to be disastrous there. A right turn in, right turn out I don't see any issues with that. You talked about -- somebody talked about right turn lanes, you know, coming out of -- off of Black Cat. Again, we are already at the point where, you know, that's a long signal. They -- they have shortened the signal cycles on Sunday to favor the people coming out for the church, but the rest of the week you got people that are wanting to make a right turn and you got to wait a whole signal cycle there because that light is so long. It says here, you know, modify the note -- note number six to not prohibit access if that's approved and that note number six says direct lot parcel access to West Chinden and North Black Cat is prohibited. Access shall be from West Waverton at the previously approved and constructed approach and that was another concern that was brought up by the residents of Fairbourne at least was that Waverton doesn't appear to be -- it -- it doesn't Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 10 of 60 have any center divider. So, I don't know how people -- the majority of the traffic is going to be coming off of Chinden onto Black Cat and onto Waverton, which is going to require a left turn onto Waverton and another left turn into the lot and it's -- you know, again, that street isn't -- has no lines on it. I don't know if it's even wide enough to put a center divider there. It was also brought up by Mr. Semple about the concerns, but -- the fact that everybody south of Waverton has to cross Waverton to get to their bus stop, the kids in the morning, and ever since they put the signal in west of us into the subdivision that they are working on it's -- we are getting an amazing amount of traffic coming through there now, because people are just using it as a shortcut. So, that was, again -- you know, Mr. Semple addressed to the degree that he could. My other concern is about -- was about the right turn lane from Chinden onto northbound Black Cat. You know, what I was reading -- and I apologize I had notes on my phone and it was in an app that locked me out, so I can't get to it, but what it essentially said was that the Fairbourne developer was required back in 2018 to put that right turn lane in when this was developed and even now today this -- these current documents say that Fairbourne is responsible for that, but if he's selling that lot -- you know, there was something in there that said that because he was required to do it and he has yet to do it, that this development would not be held up because of that right turn lane and, again, we are having problems there where people got to come from 55 miles an hour down to nothing to make a very sharp turn, because, again, that's been brought up before that that intersection is not sufficient to handle the kind of traffic it's already getting and now we are going to add a -- you know, a grocery store in there and a couple others that are going to, you know, significantly add to the traffic. So, there -- one other concern that was brought up and I don't know if it's anything -- I can probably discuss it with Mr. Semple. I forgot to talk to him about this, but somebody was asking about possibly putting a short fence in front of the berm on the parking lot side that would prohibit people from -- or at least, you know, deter them from walking up on that berm, because they are going to be selling ready to eat food that -- the concern is people are going to go sit up on that berm and maybe eat something from the -- the deli inside and -- and if you are sitting on that berm -- even sitting down you can see right down into those backyards and we have eight residences that are going to be impacted by that, so -- as far as lowering that berm I don't know if there was some sound issues that were taken into consideration when it was put in and if you are increasing the privacy by reducing the berm, are you lowering the -- the sound mitigation? I don't know. But those were, again, concerns that were brought up by some of those homeowners that live -- that back up to that lot. So, the main thing I wanted to get across is we -- I just want to make sure I put it on the records -- if I don't get another chance to talk about this -- that we absolutely need the right turns coming in off of Chinden and coming out onto Chinden from Black Cat and that we got to do something about how we are going to get -- you know, depending on what the traffic counts are going to be, how we are going to mitigate this traffic with these two left turns to get into that -- that shopping center, especially with all that Sunday traffic. So, that's all I had. Anybody have any questions for me? Simison: Thank you. Council, any questions? Maybe just a comment. On an unrelated issue to this, we did have a meeting yesterday that involved ITD and we were Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 11 of 60 informed that they were putting in their plan -- this decal lane for right-hand turns at this location. McLaughlin: Sorry. What? Simison: They are putting in their normal plans for construction of a decal lane at this location. It's not in a year yet or funded, but it is on their to do list to -- to make that happen, Whether it's through this development or through their own processes in the not -- I don't say -- I won't -- I won't give a time frame, but -- McLaughlin: Well, and -- but the concern is, like I said, that this -- we are already way past the point where this is needed. It's really -- Simison: I'm just -- McLaughlin: -- harrowing to have to slow down and watch a rearview mirror when you are -- Simison: Correct. I'm just informing you that they informed me yesterday that they are making that -- they will get to making that put in. McLaughlin: Okay. I appreciate it. Simison: Yep. McLaughlin: Is that it? Simison: Yep. McLaughlin: Okay. Thank you. Simison: Thank you. Johnson: Mr. Mayor, next is Ray Pirc. Simison: Good evening. State your name and address for the record, please. Pirc: My name is Ray Pierce -- or Pirc. Either way. I go by both my whole life and live at 6560 North Oakstone, so I'm one of the lots on the west side that will back up to this development. One, I did want to focus on a couple of the positive. Some of the conversations with the developer we have had is, you know, the Co-op is the proposed tenant. The delivery hours was a big concern, but the delivery hours at the Co-op leverages is during normal working hours, not semi-trucks at night coming through, which would not even be able to fit into the slots to begin with, but that was a positive and it does meet a need. You know, they talked about in this area nothing like this around. So, I do think there is, you know, some positive sentiment from me and some Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 12 of 60 of the other residents in the area. But, again, some of the concerns -- so, the privacy aspect. The video that my wife submitted I think you have that. I'm -- that's from our backyard. So, it does highlight, unfortunately, for me, my doctor's chart, I'm just below six foot and that video highlights that the fence is not quite six foot, but even I can stand and just see over the berm, which would be a parking lot, which is an eyesore, you know, to me as a homeowner. I understood this would be developed originally, which I know is not up for debate. We were told when we purchased it would be Monday through Friday appointment-based businesses, such as doctor's offices and now we are talking about a grocery store, which, again, fits a need, but different plan to be looking out your back door to and, then, also as highlighted, if you walk up on that berm you can see straight down to our lawn and so my two young children sitting in the back playing, you know, people just being able to peer into our backyard like that and the rest of the lots along that way over half of them have small children as well. So, that's been a concern of privacy for that -- the other traffic aspect, which has been talked about a lot and extensively, you know, one is Waverton on the north side. You know, we were told that's a public road, so, you know, when we talked about it being in a subdivision, it's a public road was the -- the term we were given during one of the original meetings, but it was approved by the city to go through a subdivision and as he mentioned my sons walk across Waverton to their bus stop. All of the other kids, which in that section of the neighborhood there is a high number of kids all around the same age, that's how we walk to our community pool, to our community playground, to their friends' houses. So, we talked about, you know, would the developer be willing to pay -- put in a lighted crosswalk. We were told speed bumps weren't an option. But, again, this is a -- a road that goes through a subdivision with amenities that we -- the residents pay for and as mentioned further down Chinden at Levi, I believe, there was a -- a light recently put in. Since that has been put in there is more traffic that detours through Waverton to bypass the traffic on Chinden and the cars do not follow speed limit, some of them 40, 50 miles an hour. There has been some close calls with some residents and so putting a grocery store in here, increasing traffic on that, people taking Waverton from the grocery store because the right turn and, then, right turn onto Chinden will back up and, then, again, the Rock Harbor aspect -- I go to Rock Harbor. Love the fact that there is such a demand for people to go to church, but we have seen the traffic back up beyond Costco going down Chinden during service hours have been coming back from Fred Meyer and there is people -- if you look on the map there is like a dirt where they would turn into the grocery store on. Sundays from my backyard I watch people park along there and, then, walk to Rock Harbor. So, I -- you know, from the developer that on Sunday he will likely have a parking lot full of people walking to Rock Harbor, which I just think further highlights there is some congestion. So, again, it meets a need, but one that we want to ensure protects the safety of -- first of all our children, but the residents as a whole. Thank you. Simison: Thank you. Council, any questions? Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 13 of 60 Cavener: It's Ray, right? Pirc: Yeah. Cavener: Thanks for your testimony. Pirc: Yeah. Cavener: Help me understand you and your wife at the Planning and Zoning Commission, we have got her e-mail, your three videos. I appreciate our clerk putting them up so everybody could see them. The request before the Council tonight is very narrow. Pirc: Uh-huh. Cavener: What is it your -- what is your hope that the Council does tonight based on what -- what is requested before us this evening? Pirc: So -- well, we understand that there is a grocery store proposal and that it would be to approve this development to, then, go to considerations for the traffic. Is that -- that -- okay. Cavener: I -- and I -- I think if -- it would be helpful and -- and I -- I know that they probably touched on this a little bit at Planning and Zoning. I didn't watch it. I just -- I read the minutes, but it seemed that maybe they moved past that a -- a little bit more quickly. Pirc: Okay. Cavener: A decision about a -- a grocery store is not a decision that's before the Council this evening. What we are really looking at is -- is a lot line and a -- and a property adjustment and so it's not a case of do we want grocery stores, do we not want grocery stores, should this come in as -- as retail or as commercial or something different, it's -- we are -- we are really at a -- at a preliminary and a final plat stage and so that's -- I just -- I want to make sure you and your -- your family have invested a lot of your time -- Pirc: Yes. Cavener: -- to participate in the process -- Pirc: So -- Cavener: -- and so trying to make sure that we are -- I -- I want -- I'm -- I'm hearing everything that you are saying -- Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 14 of 60 Pirc: Yes. Cavener: -- but I'm also trying to wrestle that with what decision I, as a Council Member, can and cannot make this evening. Pirc: Could you provide more clarity, then, on the decision tonight? Cavener: What I would like to do -- sorry, Mr. Mayor. Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Is -- Ray, if you are comfortable is -- is let's get through the -- the rest of the public testimony and, then, I will ask our -- our staff -- our planning staff, so I don't screw itup -- Pirc: Yeah. Cavener: -- to lay out, again, specifically what the decisions are before the City Council this evening, just so we -- we are hearing the same information that you are hearing at -- Pirc: Yeah. Cavener: -- all at the same time. Pirc: Okay. Well, I mean to be clear the decision made about the lot and we are expressing concerns about a proposed plan, so -- Cavener- I appreciate that. Thank you. Simison: Council, any additional questions? Okay. Johnson: And, Mr. Mayor, we have Mason Pirc. Mason Pirc. Sorry, Mason. You can pull either of those microphones down to you. M.Pirc: Hi. My name is Mason. My dad -- I'm living in the same house. Just one of the things all my friends come over to my house and we hit the baseballs over the fence and we hit everything out of the fence and like people are parking, like what would we do if we shattered a whole entire car? Like what would we do if that happened? So, it's like can we higher a fence or anything or like -- I don't know. Like what to do. Like it's like all my friends -- like I'm going to the bus stop and, then, right after school I'm walking back and there is some cars just rolling and I'm trying to cross back to home and they are probably going like 60 miles an hour and it just scares me. Like I don't know if I'm going to get hit and there is some traffic like -- we go to this gas station over here. It's pretty far like when it's -- when the building is like open like and on church days we probably go sometimes, like what -- like I just want to know like how are we Meridian City Council October 21,2025 Page 15 of 60 going to just transfer -- like all of these places we go and there is about like 20 kids in our neighborhood that just hang out and all that stuff and I just don't know what to do with my friends and just like get -- if they are hurt and that happens sometimes when a car almost hits us and it just scares me so bad. Thank you. Simison: Thank you very much. I think it's going to start with a whiffle ball bat for Christmas will -- will be the first things, because you are just going to get bigger and hit that ball further. So, we are going to have to cut down on that. Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Mr. Mayor. Mason, how old are you? M.Pirc: Eight. Cavener: Eight? M.Pirc: Uh-huh. Cavener: Third grade? M.Pirc: Uh-huh. Cavener: Listen, Mason, I have been sitting up here for almost 12 years and we hear a lot of testimony. You have done some of the best work I have heard from anybody who has ever provided public testimony, so in ten years when you are ready to run for City Council you give me a call I will be happy to make a donation to your campaign. You are doing a great job being a great advocate for your family and your neighborhood. I appreciate you being here. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Just ask a question. I don't know if there is a fence that could keep your balls in, but how high of a fence would we need to keep those home run balls in your yard? Twenty feet? Thirty feet? What do you think? M.Pirc: Twenty would be fine. Taylor: Okay. Good. Put that on the record, please. Simison: Thank you, Mason. Appreciate it. Johnson: Mr. Mayor, that is everyone that signed up in advance. Simison: Okay. Is there anybody present who would like to provide testimony on this item, either in the room or online? If you are online use the raise your hand feature and Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 16 of 60 if you are in the room go ahead and come on up to the mic. Seeing no one raising their hand online or coming forward, would the applicant like to come forward to close. Semple: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Members of Council. Ben Semple with Rodney Evans and Partners. 1450 West Bannock Street, Boise. It's a hard act to follow there. I -- really appreciate that feedback, you know, and -- and I -- I started the -- at the top here with -- with Paul's questions and comments. I just want to reinforce we are not proposing changing the access on northbound Black Cat. We are not proposing a left in off of northbound Black Cat. That would cause some major issues with backing up into that intersection at Chinden. I will -- we will be talking with ACHD about -- it looks like there is room to widen Black Cat slightly, especially as you approach the intersection there and, then, we will also talk with them about the light timing. I know that when they develop intersections that have more development around their intersections, the light timing -- they work on that to help move traffic a little more efficiently. So, hopefully, that light cycle isn't as long, so there is not as many people stopped stacking to turn. Definitely be talking to them about striping on Waverton, primarily for traffic movement, so that customers for this development, as well as residents have a little bit more visibility of how they should be navigating that area and happy to talk to them about a crosswalk. You know, safety of -- of school kids here is paramount. You know, we -- I raised both my kids in -- in the Treasure Valley and, you know, I -- I would not want them to have to deal with, you know, almost getting hit by a car. That -- that would scare me, too. The DA that is currently enforceable includes uses -- restaurant, retail sales, store, including grocery, personal service office, professional service office, healthcare services or financial services. None of those are off the table because of this and so there could be that these two other pads are appointment 8:00 to 5.00. 1 also know in talking with the Co-op individuals -- and I was glad to hear the neighbor had -- had heard that, too, is that their deliveries are primarily daytime hours, operating hours and they use mostly sprinter vans. So, smaller vehicles. They might have a smaller trailer truck that comes there periodically, but that is not their primary deliveries. The ITD turn lane, once we submit, will be provided with here is your proportionate share for this and, hopefully, with that funding maybe ITD can accelerate their time frame for installing that right turn lane at minimum. So, you know, again, planting trees to help with that buffer along there, I will try to get some tall trees, you know, over 20 feet tall. I will get some varieties that are pretty dense, so stop some baseballs at least for now. Yeah. And -- and, again, just really work with these jurisdictions out here on safety in this area, you know, vehicular and pedestrian safety and, then, one other thing briefly that Paul mentioned, definitely be working with my client about a secondary fence on that berm. It would -- it would be open vision, because I don't want to propose something that creates this tunnel that people could hide behind, but open vision fencing to prevent people accessing that berm or that buffer area. I also know that the Co-op intends to have an outdoor space immediately adjacent to their building and the space where they do the ready to eat food that will include a patio space, as well as some landscaped areas so people could sit there rather than right next to somebody's fence. Ultimately really feel good about this project. I know that's just the preliminary-final plat tonight, so there is going to be a lot of other opportunity. I believe we have a neighborhood meeting with CZC for something like this and so I will be working with my client, his Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 17 of 60 architect and everyone else to -- to keep working with the HOA and neighbors to really hopefully make a great addition to their neighborhood, so they don't have to walk as far to a gas station or -- or some other, you know, business to get what they need. I'm happy to stand for any additional questions you might have. Simison: Thank you. Council, any additional questions for the applicant? Whitlock: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Whitlock. Whitlock: I don't know if we can call up the Google map, but I'm -- I'm looking on Google map and can you just help me understand -- and I'm going to butcher this, is it Carrigana Street -- is that intended to be a through street through this parcel from the neighborhood to the west from Fairbourne? Semple: Mr. Mayor, Council Member Whitlock, no, that's an emergency only access. It's bollarded at the west side at that fence line that goes into that neighborhood. That's their secondary connection, because they -- I believe they have over 30 lots in there. So, they needed a secondary point. That emergency access will remain open and accessible by emergency services now, during construction, after construction, nothing to impact the ability if -- if something happened that needed to be accessed that way. Whitlock: Okay. Thank you. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Not really question as much as a comment, but I -- I really appreciate you -- your comments about working with the HOA, the neighbors on some of the privacy concerns with those neighbors on the west. I would strongly encourage you to work directly with even the neighbors and take some of their input as some of their ideas, not just what you think would be best, but kind of incorporate some of the ideas that they have I think would be well received by them to ensure their privacy. Because I would -- I could -- I'm certainly sympathetic. If I lived there, the ability for someone to walk up on a berm and look down on my kids -- I have got four kids, I would not appreciate that either, even though I understand living in a -- in a community. So, strongly encourage you to do that. It sounds like you are and I appreciate that. Semple: Thank you. Simison: Okay. Thank you very much. Semple: Thank you. Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 18 of 60 Simison: Sonya, would you like to answer -- answer Councilman Cavener's query for him and the audience? Allen: Yes, Mr. Mayor, Council. So, a preliminary and final plat is basically a survey document. It subdivides the land. In this case all of the land around it was subdivided through a final plat recorded, which left this remnant piece, which was not a legal division of land and we couldn't issue a building permit for it because of that. So, this is just a -- a way to basically subdivide the property and -- and make it a legal parcel for development purposes. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Allen: Oh, if I -- let me -- let me expand just a little bit more on the uses. So, with the previous Fairbourne development at that time that's what gave the property the current zoning, which allows for the proposed uses as principal permitted uses in the zone. So, as such the proposed uses won't be back before you through another application. It will be a staff level approved application, so the -- the use is not in question tonight. That use was essentially approved with the zoning of the property several years ago. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Not saying this, but if I were to say, man, I -- I don't like a grocery store there, not a decision for the City Council to make tonight; correct? Allen- That is correct. Cavener: Thank you, Sonya. Appreciate it. Allen- The time to consider that would have been when the zoning was approved for the property. Thank you. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Not seeing anybody asking for any additional questions, so I will move that we close the public hearing on Item No. 2, application H-2025-0036. Overton: Second. Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 19 of 60 Simison: Have a motion and a second to close the public hearing. Is there any discussion? If not, all in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it and the public hearing is closed. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: For some quick deliberation, I appreciate when neighbors get involved in the process and it's -- I know it's frustrating when you want to come and say we would like X to occur and it's not a decision that the City Council can -- can necessarily make on this particular evening. I -- I am reassured that we have got a great applicant who has a -- a pretty good track history in Meridian about following through other things that they say they are going to do and so, you know, can't promise, right, that every -- every request -- no -- no -- no Green Mile in North Meridian is going to be built, but I really trust that the applicant's going to do their best and we have got a good community partner that wants to build here. So, because of -- of what is before us, Mr. Mayor, I'm going to move that we approve application H-2025-0036 as presented in the staff report on the date of October 21 st, 2025. Include all staff, applicant and public testimony. Overton: Second. Simison: Have a motion and a second to approve Item 2, which is H-2025-0036. Is there discussion on the motion? If not, clerk call the roll. Roll Call: Cavener, yea; Strader, absent; Overton, yea; Little Roberts, yea; Taylor, yea; Whitlock, yea. Simison: All ayes. Motion carries and the item is agreed to. Thank you very much. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. 3. Public Hearing for Pine 43 Mixed-Use Subdivision (H-2024-0071) by DRB Investments, LLC., generally located on the north and south sides of E. Pine Ave., between N. Locust Grove Rd., and N. Hickory Ave. A. Request: Modification to the Development Agreement (H-2017- 0058 - Inst. #2018-000751) to update the conceptual development plan for the 36.58 acres of land that lies south of E. State Ave., to allow for the development of 904 new residential units consisting of a mix of townhomes, multi-family apartments and vertically integrated residential above ground floor commercial, 481 ,020 sq. ft. of commercial space including a 128,880 sq. ft. hotel and 71,800 Meridian City Council October 21,2025 Page 20 of 60 sq. ft. of other retail/restaurant commercial space, 221,340 sq. ft. of office space - 90,000 sq. ft. of which is intended for med-tech uses, 59,000 sq. ft. of commercial/office in the vertically integrated residential buildings, and 8.3 acres of private and public open space; include additional land area (i.e. 1.92 acres); and update certain provisions. B. Request: Annexation of 7.21 acres of land with I-L (5.29-acres), C- G (1.36-acres) and R-15 (0.56-acre) zoning districts. C. Request: Rezone of 3.08-acres (0.91 + 2.17) of land from the C-G to the R-15 zoning district. D. Request: Preliminary Plat consisting of 41 buildable lots and 3 common lots on 36.58 acres of land in the R-15 and C-G zoning districts. E. Request: Conditional Use Permit for a multi-family development consisting of 139 units on 2.87-acres of land on Lot 2, Block 1 in the C-G zoning district with a request for alternative compliance to UDC 11-4-3-27B.3, which requires a minimum of 80 square feet of private, usable open space to be provided for each multi-family unit, to allow studio units without such space. F. Request: Conditional Use Permit for a multi-family development consisting of 132 units on 3.41-acres of land on Lot 2, Block 3 in the C-G zoning district with requests for alternative compliance to UDC 11-4-3-27B.3, which requires a minimum of 80 square feet of private, usable open space to be provided for each multi-family unit, to allow studio units with no such space; and to UDC Table 11-213-3, which restricts building height to a maximum of 65 feet in the C-G zoning district to allow a maximum building height of 76 feet. G. Request: Conditional Use Permit for a height exception for a vertically integrated residential building on Lot 2, Block 2 from 65- feet to 87-feet in the C-G zoning district, by DRB Investments, LLC H. Request: Alternative compliance is requested from the Director to UDC Table 11-213-3 to allow an increase in the maximum building height in the C-G zoning district from 65 feet to 76 feet on Lots 1-3, Block 4 (hotel & two vertically integrated residential buildings); and to UDC 11-4-3-41 G to allow a decrease of private, usable open space for studio units in vertically integrated residential from the minimum 50 square feet to zero (0). Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 21 of 60 Simison: Next item up is Item 3, which is a public hearing for Pine 43, mixed-use subdivision, H-2024-0071 . We will open this public hearing with staff comments. Allen: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council. There are several applications associated with this next project and I will just go through those. The first is a combined preliminary and final plat, a development agreement modification -- excuse me. I think that that is -- thank you. That -- I don't know how that got on my outline, but that is not correct. So, disregard that. Development agreement modification, annexation, rezone, preliminary plat, conditional use permit for a multi-family development on Lot 2, Block 1, with alternative compliance to UDC 11-4-3-27-B3, conditional use permit for a multi- family development on Lot 2, Block 2, with alternative compliance to UDC 11-4-3-27-B3 and to UDC 11-2-133 and conditional use permit for a height exception on Lot 2, Block 2. Additionally, alternative compliance is requested from the director to UDC Table 11-2-B3 to allow an increase in the maximum building height in the C-G district from 65 to 76 feet on Lots 1 through 3, Block 4, and Lot 2, Block 3 and that's the hotel, the multi-family residential building at the southwest corner of Webb and Pine and two vertically integrated residential buildings and to UDC 11-4-3-41G, which requires a minimum of 50 square feet of private usable open space per unit for the vertically integrated residential developments to allow studio units without such space. The director has tentatively approved the alternative compliance requests for increased building height contingent upon City Council's approval of the associated land uses, including building height. So, the -- the alternative compliances that are before Council tonight are the ones associated with the conditional use permit. The other ones are director level decisions. This site consists of 36.58 acres of land. It's currently zoned R-8 in Ada county and C-G in the city. It's generally located on the north and south sides of East Pine Avenue between North Locust Grove Road and North Hickory Avenue. This property was annexed with C-G zoning back in 2008 with a preliminary plat for Pine Bridge Subdivision, which consists of approximately 170 acres of land. A development agreement was required as a provision of annexation. The conceptual development plan for the site depicted three million square feet of commercial, light office and multi- family residential uses and a medical campus and included the property that is now the Scentsy Commons campus located east of North Machine Avenue. Subsequent amendments to the development agreement were approved in 2011 and 2021 , which each removed portions of the 50 acre Scentsy property east of Machine Avenue from the agreement. In 2017 another amendment to the development agreement was approved, which updated the conceptual master plan for the site and certain provisions in the agreement, along with a rezone of 59 acres of land from the C-G to the R-15 and R-40 zoning districts on the portion of the site north of State Avenue. The updated plan included commercial components of office and retail and a variety of residential housing types consisting of single family residential detached and attached homes, townhomes and multi-family residential apartments on 120 acres of land. The Comprehensive Plan future land use map designation for the Pine 43 site is mixed-use community and it is general industrial for the HPC buyer site. Annexation and zoning of 7.21 acres of land is requested with I-L zoning, which consists of 5.29 acres and C-G zoning, which consists of 1.36 acres and R-15 zoning, which consists of .56 of an acre for the property surrounding the parcel at the northeast corner of Locust Grove and Pine. So, that is this Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 22 of 60 area right here with the hatch line. The future land use map designation for this property is General Industrial. Because future land use map designations are not parcel specific and adjacent abutting designation when appropriate and improved as part of a public hearing with a land development application, may be used as long as it doesn't apply to more than 50 percent of the land being developed. The applicant is proposing to use the abutting mixed-use community designation on 1.92 acres of the north and northeast portions of the annexation area where R-15 and C-G zoning is proposed. Staff is supportive of this request, as it's less than 50 percent of the land being developed and will accommodate the proposed development plan. The HPC buyer applicant owns the property and business, Harvey Performance Company, located at the southwest corner of the annexation area and plans to eventually expand the business into the 5.29 acre portion of the property to be zoned I-L. The remaining 1 .92 acres is planned to be incorporated into the adjacent Pine 43 development through a future property boundary adjustment once the property is annexed, which will resolve a deeded parcel split that occurred previously between the subject property owners that didn't go through the proper process. A conceptual development plan and phasing plan and building elevations were submitted as shown that show how the existing industrial business on the abutting parcel is eventually planned to expand into the I-L zoned area in the future. Four phases of development are proposed with a parking area and access driveways via Pine Avenue and Locust Grove Road and a shared access via Pine with the adjacent property to the east. The concept plan also shows how the areas proposed to be zoned R-15 and C-G will integrate into the adjacent development. Access points to adjacent streets are not approved with the concept plan and will be evaluated with future development applications. To ensure future development is consistent with the proposed plans. Staff recommends a development agreement is required as a provision of annexation of the property proposed to be zoned I-L that includes the provisions noted in the staff report. The 1.92 acres proposed to be zoned R-15 and C-G will be included in the proposed amended development agreement for Pine 43. A property boundary adjustment application should be submitted and finalized prior to City Council approval of the amended development agreement to create the parcel subject to the development agreement and to transfer ownership of the property. A rezone of 3.8 -- 3.08 acres consisting of two parcels .91 and point -- excuse me -- and point -- geez, I cannot talk tonight -- 2.17 acres of land from the C-G to the R-15 district is proposed for the future development of 17 townhomes. The proposed zoning, use and density is consistent with the mixed-use community development guidelines. The overall density of the area proposed to be zoned R-15 between the annexation and the rezone applications, which is 3.59 acres, excluding right of way and developed with 30 dwelling units is 8.36 units per acre, which is consistent with the desired density of six to 15 units per acre in MUC designated areas. The development agreement modification concurrently proposed with this application will include the subject rezone area. A development agreement modification is proposed to amend the existing approved conceptual development plan shown on the left for the undeveloped 36.58 acres of the site located south of East State Avenue, depicted as areas E, F and G and that is the dashed red outline areas and it does include the areas that are just outlined in red, which have already developed with nonresidential commercial uses. This area is currently entitled to develop entirely with commercial uses. An updated concept master Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 23 of 60 plan is proposed as shown on the right. The applicant proposes to develop a large portion of the commercial area with 904 new residential dwelling units consisting of 30 townhome dwelling units, a total of 270 multi-family residential apartment units and a maximum of 604 vertically integrated residential units above ground floor non-residential space. This is an increase of 880 dwelling units over what is currently entitled to develop in Pine 43 and that is already built out. The remaining area is proposed to develop with 481,020 square feet of nonresidential space, including a proposed 128,880 square foot hotel, with a restaurant, lounge and a conference area and 71 ,800 square feet of other retail and restaurant commercial space, 221,340 square feet of office space, 90,000 square feet of which is intended for med tech, i.e., medical office research and technology uses and 59,000 square feet of commercial office in the vertically integrated residential buildings. This is an increase of 134,020 square feet of nonresidential space over what is currently entitled, which is not yet built out in Pine 43. Conceptual renderings of the overall development were submitted as shown. I will just go through those and let you look real quick here. A revised overall open space exhibit was submitted as shown that depicts a total of 9.23 acres or 25 percent of the site of private and public open space, including developed green spaces, amenities and a 41,464 square foot centralized public plaza. A pedestrian connectivity plan was submitted as shown. Staff is generally supportive of the portion of the proposed concept plan north of Pine as it provides a mix of uses as desired for mixed-use community designated areas. However, staff -- staff is concerned the proposed amendment would substantially reduce the amount of land designated for employment generating uses, which may, in turn, limit future opportunities for family wage jobs in the area. Staff and ACHD have significant concerns pertaining to the traffic impact the proposed changes to the concept master plan will have on the surrounding transportation network beyond what was originally anticipated. The applicant's traffic engineer submitted a memo that includes additional and updated analysis for the proposed development. A comparison of trip generation between the previously approved land uses south of State Avenue from the approved 2017 traffic impact study and the proposed land use changes are included in the memo and those are in the public record and included in the staff report. For these reasons it's staff's opinion the previously entitled development plan for commercial uses in the area south of Pine where multi-family residential and vertically integrated residential uses are proposed is in the best interest of the city to retain, as it provides needed employment opportunities and services for nearby residents, while also reducing vehicle trips and supporting trip capture. Additionally, it's staff's opinion that vertically integrated residential use on Lot 1, Block 1 -- I will just back up to the concept plan here and that is on this lot here at the southeast corner of the development. Staff's of the opinion that it's not compatible with adjacent industrial uses and operations to the south. Industrial operations typically produce impacts, such as noise, vibration, light pollution and emissions, which can negatively impact health, safety and overall livability of nearby residential environments. The Commission did not agree with staff's recommendation and did recommend approval of the proposed development plan with no changes. A preliminary plat is proposed consisting of 41 buildable lots and three common lots on 36.58 acres of land in the R-15 and C-G zoning districts. The plat is proposed to develop in eight phases as shown on the phasing plan on the right. The northwest portion of the preliminary plat Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 24 of 60 includes portions of the existing county parcels that will be included in a future property boundary adjustment application with adjacent city zone parcels once the property is annexed with this application. If a property boundary adjustment isn't approved and a record of survey recorded this would create an illegal division of land if a final plat were recorded. For this reason staff recommends approval of the preliminary plat is contingent upon final approval of a property boundary adjustment application for the realignment of property lines between the HPC buyer and the DRB Investments properties as shown on the preliminary plat. A final plat application should not be submitted to the planning division until a property boundary adjustment application is finalized and a record of survey is recorded that matches the configuration of the property shown on the preliminary plat. In the event a property boundary adjustment is not finalized a new preliminary plat application would be required that excludes the land anticipated to be included in the property boundary adjustment. The conditions of approval in the staff report currently cover all of this, so no worries on including any of that in your -- in your decision. A landscape plan showing required street buffer landscaping for the development was submitted as shown. Two conditional use permits are proposed for a multi-family residential development in the C-G district on Lot 2, Block 1, and Lot 2, Block 3, and, let's see, I will go back to the concept plan real quick and show you which ones those were. So, it's this one here at the southwest corner of Pine and, then, the other one here on the south side of Pine and just west of Machine Avenue. The one on Lot 2, Block 1, includes 139 units on 2.87 acres of land and the one on Lot 2, Block 3, includes 132 units on 3.4 acres of land. Between the two developments a total of 271 apartment units are proposed in the area currently entitled to develop with commercial uses. Alternative compliance is requested with the conditional use permits to UDC 11-4-3-27-B3, which requires a minimum of 80 square feet of private usable open space to be provided for each multi-family residential unit to allow zero for all studio units. As alternative compliance the applicant is proposing private rooftop amenity decks, which will be available to all residents in the buildings, but will likely be used the most by residents of studio units, since they have the leased space to host groups of visitors and those are shown on the color drawings there before you. This request is to be considered by Council as part of the conditional use permit request. A similar request was submitted to the private usable open space standards for vertically integrated residential units, which requires a minimum of 50 square feet of private area, which the director has approved contingent upon Council's approval of the proposed development plan. Alternative compliance is also requested to UDC Table 11- 2-133, which restricts building height to a maximum of 65 feet in the C-G zoning district to allow maximum building height of 76 feet on Lot 2, Block 3. Again that was the building at the southwest corner of Pine and Webb. An additional ten percent of the building square footage is proposed to be provided an open space courtyards, patios or other usable outdoor space as required for such requests. This request is to be considered by City Council as part of the conditional use permit request. Conceptual building elevations were submitted for the proposed multi-family residential structures as shown. A conditional use permit is proposed fora height exception to UDC Table 11- 213-3 for the vertically integrated residential building on Lot 2, Block 2, as shown at the northeast corner of Pine and Webb. To allow -- or excuse me -- to exceed the maximum building height allowed of 65 feet in the C-G district to allow maximum height of 87 feet. Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 25 of 60 This would be an increase of 34 percent in the maximum building height in the C-G district. The applicant states additional height is needed to accommodate vertical integration of uses and the appropriate urban density to support mixed-use and sustainability by allowing for urban density that can support the commercial and office uses in the development consistent with the plan. Staff is generally in support of the proposed height exception as justified by the applicant and is of the opinion it's appropriate for the proposed development and is consistent with the Comprehensive Plan. However, the City Council should consider if reducing the number of residential units proposed above the first floor is necessary in order to accommodate more employment and service uses to support residential uses in this area and to reduce vehicle trips and encourage more trip capture as conditions of approval. The Commission did recommend approval of the subject applications and I will go through a summary of the Commission hearing. Deborah Nelson, Givens Pursley, testified in favor. She's representing the applicant. Tammy De Weerd, Ian Tompkins, Danielle Strollo Givens Pursley, Doug Henderson-Begg from Harvey Performance Company all testified in favor of the application. Garrett Schultz and Brian Farnsworth commented on the application and there was no written testimony. Key issues of public testimony was as follows: In favor of the proposed mix of uses, but against the scale of the development as it's way out of proportion for this location and with the residential homes to the north. Against the proposed height of structures in the development and the transition to existing single family residential homes to the north. Desire for a shadow study to be conducted to determine the impact of the height of the proposed structures on the adjacent single family homes. Concerns pertaining to the amount of additional traffic the development will create and the light and noise pollution impacts on the residents to the north. Opinion that proposed mixed-use development provides benefits of walkability, viability and long-term economic strength and contributes towards a diverse housing stock, employment, supported uses of pedestrian infrastructure and high-quality public spaces, which aligns with the Comprehensive Plan goals. In favor of the proposed development, including building heights. Question pertaining to if the proposed development would be part of the existing homeowners association. The answer was no. HPC is in support of the housing and hotel uses proposed that will help their employment base, as well as nearby commercial opportunities the development will provide. Key issues of discussion by the Commission were as follows. Proposed building heights and transitions to existing single family residential homes to the north and proposed townhome units within the development along State Avenue. Opinion that proposed development fits well in this area and will provide nice amenities. Contemplated the type of commercial uses in the vertically integrated residential buildings specifically in Block 1. Transition to the south between residential and industrial uses and specific mitigation plans in place for noise. Transition in height from the residential homes to the north across State Avenue to the proposed development to the south. Specifically the vertically integrated residential building on Lot 1 , Block 4, to provide greater privacy to the residential lots to the north. Not comfortable with the fire department's response that they can't adequately provide service for the proposed development, although the structures will be sprinklered. Not in support of removing the condition that requires the Animal Farm plat to be recorded prior to submittal of a final plat application for this development and, lastly, although residential uses are proposed Meridian City Council October 21,2025 Page 26 of 60 to increase in this area so are commercial uses. The commercial -- excuse me. The Commission made the following change to the staff recommendation. They were in favor of the residential uses south of Pine and requirement for the shadow study to be submitted prior to the City Council hearing. Approval includes requirement of enhanced construction materials for sound mitigation as offered by the applicant for the vertically integrated building on Lot 1, Block 1, and include conditions of approval of conditional use permit. They weren't originally included, because staff was recommending denial of the conditional use permits for multi-family and meet open space standards for multi- family residential buildings at the southwest corner of Pine and Webb on Lot 2, Block 3, for an increase in the building height. The applicant has submitted an updated open space exhibit for that lot that does comply with the extra open space that's required for the additional building height. The applicant has also submitted an overall exhibit for the public and quasi-public space for the overall development, as well as just that portion south of State and they are demonstrating compliance with the guidelines in the Comprehensive Plan. They have also submitted an exhibit as shown here for the vertically integrated residential building next to the industrial uses at the southeast corner of the development. They are proposing a ten foot wide landscape buffer with dense evergreen trees along that boundary and an eight foot tall wall and they have also submitted a shadow study at different times of the year. I will just run through those. So, that's the most impactful here at winter solstice time. Outstanding issue for Council. It's really not an outstanding issue, just a comment, that the director will issue findings for the alternative compliance request for the building height based on Council's action on the increased building height in the discussion at the public hearing tonight. Written testimony since the Commission hearing has been received from Kathy Crowley. She is opposed to the proposed development. Her letter is in the public testimony file. Staff is recommending at the applicant's request that Council remove condition number 3-F requiring the final plat for Animal Farm to be recorded prior to submittal of a final plat application for any phase of this development. The reason why is because the final plat for Animal Farm has been approved by Council. City engineer has signed the plat and it is just waiting to be recorded. We are hoping that the applicant will go ahead and do that. I have reached out to them. Don't think I received a response back on that. But they were checking with the owner to see when that would be done and if there was a -- what the hold up was on it. So, hopefully, we can get that taken care of quickly. That concludes staff's presentation. Staff will stand for any questions. Simison: Thank you, Sonya. Council, any questions? I know that was a lot. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: This is the kind of question for maybe fire. Do we have any concerns with the exceptions we are requesting on the height of the buildings? Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 27 of 60 Taulbee: Mr. Mayor, Councilman Taylor, I don't -- I don't have any concerns specifically with the -- the high exceptions. Prescriptively they would still have to meet the building and fire code once it -- once it was submitted. Simison: Council, any additional questions for staff at this time? Cavener: Mr. Mayor, no questions. I just -- I have got a quick comment before we hear from the applicant. Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Council, just want to make you all aware -- it's probably a year or two ago Mayor de Weerd reached out to me to ask me to meet with the applicant to talk about their new visioning for the area. I can't recall if what is before us is -- exactly matches what they provided. They had no open application at the time. During that course the conversation I conveyed feedback from our public about concern about impact on schools, roads and just maybe the general feeling from our community about too many multi-family, too many apartments in Meridian. They didn't have an open application at the time. I'm prepared to participate this evening, but if anybody on Council feels it would be best for me to recuse myself I'm happy to do that as well. Little Roberts: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Little Roberts. Little Roberts: Mr. Mayor, I should -- and, Council, I should also disclose that I met with Mayor Tammy and went over the plan and the plot as well. To be honest with you, it's been close to when I was just back on Council and honestly couldn't tell you if there is any changes between or not. And I'm happy to recuse if we need to as well. Overton: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Overton. Overton: To make it a majority of our Council this evening, I did -- was contacted by former Mayor Tammy de Weerd and asked to meet with the applicant to look at this post project somewhere in the future and that was at least I want to say over a year ago and it was so big at that time I can't tell you exactly if it's what we are looking at tonight, but it was long before anything was submitted to the city officially. Whitlock: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Whitlock. Whitlock: Shortly after being appointed to the City Council I sat down with former Mayor de Weerd and just talked concept at the time. There was not an application before the Meridian City Council October 21,2025 Page 28 of 60 city, but just a discussion about what possibly could be envisioned here. So, that was the extent of the discussion. Simison: I -- I, too, sat down with the applicant before this was submitted to the city and so I'm familiar with the concept, but unless something really weird happens tonight and I -- I won't be involved in any decision making process one way or the other, so -- Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Left out. I was not contacted by anybody. I guess I get to make the decision tonight. Simison: All right. With that would the applicant like to come forward. Nelson: Mayor, before we begin may I have 20 minutes? As you can tell there is a lot going on here. Simison: You may. Nelson: Thank you. Simison: We will go ahead and take a break for 20 minutes and reconvene at 7:45. Oh. Oh. You want 20 minutes of time -- Nelson: For the presentation. Simison: Yes. With -- yes. Sorry. I -- I thought you needed 20 minutes to get your paperwork in order. Nelson: Thank you all for that accommodation. That was nice. Simison: Yes. We will probably want to break after you are done. Nelson: Probably. Okay. Great. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Members of the Council. My name is Deborah Nelson. My address is 601 West Bannock Street in Boise. I'm a land use attorney with Givens Pursley here on behalf of the applicant. We have many members of our applicant team here tonight and available to answer your questions. Much thanks to Sonya. You can tell from her recitation of the applications this is a very complex, involved project and it has taken a lot of work from staff to work through application details and issues and we are very appreciative of their efforts. Dennis and Matt Baker and the entire DMV Company's team have been planning this project for four years and they have put their heart and souls into it. They look at this as a legacy project and they want to leave something lasting and quality in Meridian. As Sonya summarized everything very well, so I'm going to try to focus on the highlights of Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 29 of 60 the new Pine 43 design and what is different from what is approved now in the 2018 approval and how we meet the Comprehensive Plan. Just briefly, the site includes 37 acres around the intersection of Pine and Webb. It's close to downtown and The Village and the application brings forward a vibrant, integrated, mixed-use urban community to this -- this strategically located site. The in-fill location provides for the efficient delivery of services and minimizes vehicle trips. There are multiple parks, schools, libraries, healthcare facilities, retail, grocery, churches, fitness studios and daycares in the area. Just within a one mile radius, which is shown within the red circle, there are two grocery stores, four daycares, four schools, multiple healthcare facilities, multiple fitness facilities in Centennial Park, plus many others just outside that mile radius. Utilities are stubbed to the site. The developer has already improved the surrounding roads with prior phases and Fire Station No. 1 is less than one and a half miles away and is equipped with a ladder truck. The site supports dense development here, because it's close to two activity centers and it's served by existing transit with an active bus route through the site. In addition, the rail corridor shown in the dashed orange here is just to the south, which is planned for future passenger rail. This application changes what was effectively planned as a surface parked single use office park on 37 acres, now a very dated concept and it's changed into a thoughtfully planned and modern mixed-use community. By going up we can add a range of needed housing, including executive homes, workforce housing, student housing and vertically integrated spaces, while also increasing and maintaining nonresidential uses and space. This mix of housing is missing in this area and this project will fill the void left by nearby developments like The Village„ who initially envisioned vertically integrated housing, but didn't deliver that. Pine 43 is supported by major med tech players. ICOM, ISU and the Meridian Chamber are behind this project, because the mixed-use nature and quality design of Pine 43 will help attract med tech businesses and the talent that they need to succeed. These images really showcase why the P&Z commissioners referred to this as bold, different than the usual application and the crown jewel. It's beautifully designed. There is no sea of asphalt thanks to the developer's significant investment in underground and podium parking. It features a signature public plaza, tree lined pathways, numerous public and quasi-public gathering spaces, upscale amenities and activated street fronts. Exactly what the city has said it wants in its urban core. The project meets COMPASS and Comprehensive Plan goals, in-fill, transit, mixed-use, jobs, housing, sustainability and connectedness and it builds on existing quality. It is located near some of the highest quality development in the city, with Scentsy and Blue Cross and the medical corridor and this project doesn't dilute it, it extends it with more services to support those existing uses. This application modifies what was originally called Pine Bridge and was approved in 2008. So, this has been a -- a long project in the making. Pine Bridge covered 170 acres and included a mix of residential and nonresidential uses. It included the 50 acre Scentsy campus in the southeast. Since, then, Scentsy has built 567,000 square feet of office and manufacturing space with room for more expansion. The DA was modified in 2018 to introduce a new concept plan on the remaining 120 acres with changes in the residential and nonresidential uses to meet then market demand. The area of north of State Street is largely built out now. Market support for the Pine Bridge uses has continued to evolve since that 2018 DA. Housing demand has dramatically increased and while demand for general office parks has declined, Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 30 of 60 demand is high for urban style mixed-use development that combines commercial and office spaces with conveniently located housing beyond the traditional single family detached homes. So, that brings us to today where this application reimagines the unbuilt 37 acres south of State into an integrated mixed-use community with 904 residential units and a variety of residential products and 481 ,000 square feet of nonresidential space, including commercial office, med tech uses and a hotel with integrated lounge, retail, restaurants and conference area. This table summarizes the history that I just described. The highlighted column in the center shows what is approved now within the original 170 acre site. The highlighted column on the right side shows the total uses if you approve this application. The difference is shown in red at the far right. This application adds 880 residential units to the existing approval by adding vertically and it also adds 134 thousand square feet of nonresidential square feet made up of a slight increase in commercial, a slight decrease in office, new nonresidential space in the vertically integrated buildings that could be commercial or office and a new hotel use. So, rather than replacing nonresidential with residential, it's additive of both by adding vertically and densely. I want to highlight just some features of Pine 43, starting with the well-designed open space throughout the site. The project signature design feature that I mentioned is it's 41 ,000 square foot, nearly one acre public plaza. This unique space provides a gathering area for residents and employees within this development and the surrounding area. The plaza includes seating and public amenity space and is surrounded by restaurants, the hotel and other residential uses in the first floor of the vertically integrated building. Open space and site amenities are provided to meet residential requirements for the townhome lots and for the multi- family uses. Pine 43 provides approximately 260,000 square feet or nearly six acres of common open space for residential units in the multi-family and vertically integrated buildings and offers residential amenities, including fitness centers, six pools, outdoor kitchens, barbecues, picnic areas, bike storage, EV parking, sports courts and green open space. Over ten percent of the site includes public and quasi-public space to serve the community. These spaces will contain seating areas and art features providing for social connection interaction, plus intentional landscaping for connection to nature in an urban space. These are some of the examples of design features for these spaces reflecting the project's emphasis on placemaking to make residents and employees feel more connected and to really activate the streetscape and the uses. Pine 43 extends and enhances the city's premier Pine Avenue bike corridor and adds new connectivity for bikes and pedestrians in and around the site. Pathways and sidewalks are included throughout, providing connections among the multiple uses in the project. The red circle here depicts a quarter mile radius from the plaza in the center of the site illustrating the walkability of the development. Pine 43 includes extensive parking, 174 spaces more than is required for all of the uses within the site. Remarkably this includes over 500 spaces in an underground parking garage that covers most of Block 4 and serves the hotel, restaurants and residents in that block. Additionally, the vertically integrated and multi-family buildings in the other parts of the project include podium parking, all to avoid a sea of surface parking and at significant expense to the developer for incredible quality and urban design. Pine 43 also provides extensive bike parking amounting to 50 percent of all vehicle parking. The applicant met with ACHD about the proposed changes in this application and ACHD determine a Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 31 of 60 new traffic study was not needed, because the change in trip generation is not significant. All levels of service continue to be met on surrounding roads and the developer already made the required road improvements around the site, with earlier stages of the development. ACHD did require additional pedestrian improvements which have been included. City staff requested additional traffic analysis of the trip generation for the new uses, so the project traffic engineer Kittelson prepared a technical memorandum summarizing the change in trip generation, which now incorporates comments from ACHD. The study with ACHD's comments shows that the net change in peak hour trips with this application over the 2018 approval is 130 more a.m. trips and 165 more p.m. peak trips. So, to provide context for these numbers, Kittelson points out that the changes associated with this application are less than ten percent of the total volumes entering the site and well within the typical variation of traffic volume from day to day. Pine 43 is aligned with the Comprehensive Plan in multiple ways. The mixed-use community designation calls for three different land uses to be functionally integrated and calls for residential uses at a minimum of 20 percent and up to 65 percent for sites next to transit as this one is. Pine 43 three checks all of the boxes on the MUC designation with the mix of uses, including residential within these ranges, true horizontal and vertical integration of those uses, all incorporated within a common design scheme with limited surface parking, public gathering spaces and multi-modal transportation. Staff's recommendation to remove residential entirely south of Pine would segregate uses, not integrate them as called for in the comp plan and the Planning and Zoning Commission rejected that recommendation and was supportive of the density, because it supports transit and because it supports area businesses and it supports the needed commercial. Pine 43 is aligned with the -- the Comprehensive Plan specific housing goals in the plan by providing multiple housing types for diversity and density adjacent to public transit, downtown and employment centers and we are aligned with the specific Comprehensive Plan goals related to mixed-use by providing a mix of employment and retail uses to serve residents without the need to get in their car, creating a livable and walkable village within a city. Vertical integration of uses adds significant value because it maximizes the use of land adding needed residential without giving up non-residential. The vertical integration also builds into the -- in the complementary uses that are needed for success of the project. Without dense residential you don't get commercial and without residential and commercial you don't have successful office. Pine 43's mix of uses leads to a higher level of trip capture than in other developments and the urban density and mix of uses is compatible with and supports the surrounding light industrial and office uses and provides new commercial uses to serve surrounding residents. Staff raised concerns with compatibility to the adjacent light industrial uses. As was mentioned again tonight, the Planning and Zoning Commission accepted input from the developer regarding that particular southeast area, including to add additional glass protection for noise and to add an eight foot wall masonry fence in that location and significant landscaping and so -- and -- and also when we pointed out the distances of 105 feet between the two buildings and the type of uses that were to the light -- in the light industrial zone just south of that vertically integrated, the Commission was satisfied with those -- with those comments about compatibility. We have significant support from our area organizations, educational institutions. Pine 43 has received several letters of support from the -- the Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 32 of 60 entities that are listed here. They support the addition of a hotel and a convention space in their area. They recognize the need for an attractive mix of housing and commercial uses to help them attract and retain employees and they believe this project will support the emerging med tech corridor. The Planning and Zoning Commission was -- made a unanimous decision to recommend approval following two hearings where the applicant responded to their questions and requests. A couple of comments I will highlight. Commissioner Stoll said this project does support the bus line on Pine that the city has invested in and would provide potentially the needed ridership that line needs and we are getting from my viewpoint the best of both worlds and that we are addressing the housing crunch in Meridian, as well as across the valley, but we are also getting commercial space. Commissioner Rust said there is a ton of community value here for residents, for those that will come in and appreciate the public square and everything else that's happening here. This is very different from other multi-family projects we see and we are not going back to the pre-COVID era of these suburban office parks and everything that happens is -- really is more about that lifestyle. My generation wants village-type living, working and playing spaces and this provides that. In all we believe that this is a needed and desired and anticipated project for the City of Meridian. It is functional. It's ready. It's beautifully designed. It's an in-fill project that will bring jobs, housing, transit and sustainability together. It reinforces COMPASS and Comprehensive Plan goals and we are in support of the conditions in the staff report as described by Sonya this evening. We would ask for your approval and stand for any questions. Simison: Thank you. Council, any questions for the applicant? Little Roberts: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Member Little Roberts. Little Roberts: Mr. Mayor. Council. Deb, thank you very much. Appreciate your presentation. Do you have kind of a timeline and segments that are kind of the order of the project? And I know that's like what -- you know, how's your -- how's your vision into the future? But at least I know that there is one there if you could share it with us. Nelson: Yeah. I have brought some extra slides in case you had questions, including a phasing plan. So, Mayor and Council Member Roberts, the -- the time frame is expected to be approximately ten years. Might be ten to 12 or other time frame as driven by market conditions. The phasing will also be driven by market conditions. But they have thought about this for quite a while and have an expectation of the order that they intend to proceed in and that's shown here in this phasing plan. Generally proceeding from the northeast corner and south first and, then, moving over to the west side on the north and so -- and these numbers are a little hard to see here, so -- I can describe that a little more completely. The current -- the current thought on the west side is to go to Block 4, which is the vertically integrated in gray there and, then, to the west of that where the hotel and in -- in the turquoise there and, then, up further to the Meridian City Council October 21,2025 Page 33 of 60 west and, then, move down into the southwest quadrant. So, for that second phase. So, that's the contemplated phasing at this time. Thank you. Little Roberts: Follow up. Simison: Council Woman Little Roberts. Little Roberts: Deb, I think -- is Block 4 one of the ones that's got the height variance request In it and whichever block that's in? I'm sorry, my -- my allergies are kicking in. Because we have just gone through a -- kind of a situation where we gave a height variance and, then, the added amenities on the top basically looked like another -- that we ended up with an even taller building than we had anticipated. So, any access to like a patio or anything on the top? Wanted to make sure that that was included in the heights that have been requested. Nelson: Mr. Mayor, Council Member Roberts, that building in Block 4 is not subject to the height request for the conditional use permit. It is one of the buildings that is requested of the planning director, though, for a height exception, because it falls within the percentage over the allowed height that is within the discretion of the planning director. So, we have that building with -- is proposed at 76 feet and that is inclusive of the amenities and all of the architectural features to address your specific question. The only building that is subject to the conditional use permit level of height exception is to the east of that on Block 2 and so further to the -- closer to the central part of the site and that's proposed at 87 feet. Little Roberts: And includes -- Nelson: And that includes all architectural features and amenities. Little Roberts: I just want to make sure. Thank you. Simison: Council, any additional questions for the applicant? Okay. All right. Nelson: Thank you. Simison: Thank you. Council, would you like a break or do you want to keep on going through our public testimony? Little Roberts: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Little Roberts. Little Roberts: Excuse me. If we could at least do one more testimony before we take a break. I would like one of our firefighters -- maybe our senior firefighter to come up and kind of share his thoughts if he wouldn't mind. Meridian City Council October 21,2025 Page 34 of 60 Simison: Should we take that through the public testimony normal process? Have a seat for now. We will see if anyone signed up in advance. Mr. Clerk, anyone signed up in advance? Johnson: Mr. Mayor, yes. Charli Anderson. Simison: Good evening. State your name and address for the record. Anderson: Yes. My name is Charli Anderson. My address is 2005 East Presidential Drive, Meridian. Just put my phone away, which has my little speech, so -- I apologize. So, where I live is directly north of Block 4, Lot 1, the -- the vertically integrated building in question from earlier and I have been to multiple meetings that the developers have had along with the previous meetings here and I want to reaffirm my support for the overall Pine 43 development, the benefits that it's going to bring to the city of Meridian. However, I would like to voice my concerns again just for that building specifically at Block 4, Lot 1, and the height of that and the relativity to those homes directly to the north. I know that was brought up by another homeowner in the previous meeting. It's been brought up by me multiple times and my neighbor as well and I just want to ensure that that is heard with your consideration. One of the new documents that was submitted was the shadow study which again worries me some, because I just installed solar panels on my house and now the -- a lot of time is going to, you know, block the sun that will directly impact my energy usage, my cost of living and my overall quality of life, because one of the reasons I bought that home was because It faces south in the sun. I'm a sun lover. You know, this is my forever home. I had a custom built after saving 15 years for a down payment on it. I'm a single homeowner -- or a single individual, you know, I'm by no means, you know, a wealthy individual. I'm not asking to halt or derail the broader development and I understand how long that this has been in the works, but, you know, given that this project is being developed in phases I just respectfully ask DRB Investments and the Council to consider the design of that mixed- use building to respect the privacy, sunlight access and concerns of the homeowners to the north of that development. That is all. Thank you. Simison: Thank you. Council, any questions? Thank you. Johnson: Mr. Mayor, is Tammy de Weerd. De Weerd: Tammy de Weerd. 2621 North Miranda Avenue. It's weird being on the side of things, but thank you for your time this evening. I'm excited to support this development. I first heard it as a citizen and I testify tonight as a citizen. This project is ambitious. It's not another subdivision or it's not a strip mall. It's a thoughtfully planned, vertically integrated, mixed-use community that really does bring the city's Comprehensive Plan to life, not just in concept, but in execution. Over my tenure with the city it's a development that we had always hoped for. Input and -- input and feedback was sought from community, business, education and health science leaders. So, we got this right prior to our application. Pine 43 reflects the city's vibrant and connected vision themes, where walkable streets, rooftop amenities and public plazas Meridian City Council October 21,2025 Page 35 of 60 create a strong sense of place. Our buildings are pulled up to the street, not surrounded by a sea of asphalt. Parking is integrated. Sidewalks connect to open space, office, dining and transit that already exists today. They are not a concept. They exist. This is an in-fill project alongside, in between designated activity centers where density is encouraged, where job services, transit and infrastructure already exist. The project includes professional and med tech office space and I think those of you who know me that is something that I have really been a proponent for and have pushed for. It's in our Comprehensive Plan and it's what the core targets essential to our economic future. It brings over eight acres of open space into the heart and creates a civic plaza. It offers housing that meets the needs of remote workers, professionals and families and not all of -- it's not existing here today. It's within walking distance of the -- The Village, transit and a future rail corridor. This isn't just a cookie cutter development. It's complex. It's a complete neighborhood. It's a gateway to our downtown, which is essential to the vibrancy and economic feasibility of our downtown and what we are trying to do in our downtown. It's a catalyst for quality economic development and built to stand the test of time. I want to thank you for your leadership and the vision that creates the possibility for a project to be considered like this and I would stand for any questions. Simison: Thank you. I think you got a hometown crowd on that one, because they stopped the timer on you right before it went off, so -- De Weerd: Woot. Woot. And -- and that is an unusual occurrence. Simison: I was getting ready to gavel you down. So, I don't know -- Council, any questions? Thank you. Taylor: I have a quick question. Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: This is a really fascinating project with a lot of things that have long been ideas that the city's talked about going back when you were mayor, obviously, with some of these priorities. I'm just kind of really fascinated with how it kind of came together. You know, how did -- were you able to share some of your thoughts with the applicant? You know, obviously, you had some conversations with them. Were you able to kind of work with them to help them understand some of the longer vision or the big picture items that the city's long prioritized going back, you know, years ago when you were mayor and kind of coming forward, because this is a project that's obviously been years in the making in some way. So, just kind of curious kind of how things sort of came to where they are today with this really kind of interesting project and sort of your perspective with -- with the applicant with that. De Weerd: You know, as you probably read in the testimony I gave at Planning and Zoning, I -- I had the opportunity to participate in the city's first comprehensive plan when I was on Planning and Zoning and to see it evolve and see the updates that we Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 36 of 60 have and how we wanted to -- how it went from a small town into a growing city and now into an urban environment and many of the things that we tried to put into the current comprehensive plan was to consider these urban elements and how we can develop for markets in the future and that would be sustainable. When I walked into their office on -- at their invitation I thought I was getting a free lunch. They wanted my input and I was super excited, because as I mentioned earlier this is exactly what we have been hoping to see, with the buildings pulled up to the streets, with the vertically integrated, the mixture of uses in a building as well, with rooftop amenities. I would say -- my -- my daughter lives in South Africa and for a number of years she lived in one of those high rise buildings that had high amenities just like it is today. She's a remote worker and it's something that I could envision her living in and maybe even keeping her here. I don't think I will get her back now, but that's another story. This is what is responding to a lot of the need and, in fact, one of those business neighbors that we talked to had a new executive that joined us at the meeting and she said I want to sign up. I just came from Chicago. This is the kind of -- of home I'm looking for. You know, when is it going to be ready. It shows you that there is a need and in the past one of the things that our staff and -- and leaders grappled with is in order for our citizens or those that worked in our community 8:00 to 5:00, they had to go to another community to find it. This will close that circle and -- and allow those kind of opportunities here in Meridian so we can keep our citizens here. Simison: Thank you very much. De Weerd: Thank you. Johnson: Mr. Mayor, that's everyone that marked they wanted to speak. Simison: Okay. Is there anybody else that would like to provide testimony at this time? Good evening. Tompkins: My name is Ian Tompkins and I live at 1018 North Webb Way, Apartment B105. That is the apartment complex directly north of State from Block 2 and before I continue on I would like to thank the firefighters who are here for their service so far and for as long as they decide to stay firefighters. I'm here to continue on my support fully for the project as it currently -- at current requests from the applicant. Meridian is -- and the valley as a whole is in bad need of additional -- additional residential, especially when it comes to apartment level residential of the studio single and double bedroom variety. Currently -- the current average prices per month for apartments sit between 1,400 and 1 ,500 dollars a month for a single bedroom of about 750 square feet. That is shockingly high and is almost 500 dollars more than what it was just before the pandemic and is at the point where before taxes are taken out of wages an hourly -- hourly worker would need to work between 16 and 18 dollars an hour to afford to live at that monthly cost and that includes -- and that would also include any -- insurance, car, Internet, because most apartments don't include Internet, so apartments don't even include lighting, power, so that -- taking all that into account it would have -- the cost of apartments has gotten to -- in the valley and in Meridian to very high levels and anything Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 37 of 60 we can do to maximize the increase to apartments is badly needed. This place -- it also has great walkability. Currently the only way to walk from the -- what is currently there for Pine 43 to the southwest corner of Eagle and Fairview where Red Robin and Krispy Kreme are is you would need to walk along the sidewalks along Pine until you reached the intersection of Pine and Eagle and, then, either walk through the Blue Cross Blue Shield development or cross across over as there is no complete sidewalk on Fairview, nor there -- is there a complete sidewalk on Hickory, so having this additional commercial within walking distance of what's currently there for Pine 43 is highly desirable and, honestly, I'm hoping that whatever additional traffic it does bring causes ACHD to reset the lighting at Pine-Eagle as currently it is the shortest cross light compared to its neighbors. Thank you. Simison: Thank you. Council, any questions? Cavener: Hey, Ian. Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Ian, thanks for being here. We -- we don't get a lot of apartment residents who come and testify. So, I appreciate you being here and so I -- go back to like the decisions I made when I lived in an apartment. That was a long time ago. So, help me -- what were the deciding factors on what made you choose the current apartment that you live in? Are you -- are you from Meridian? Did you move here from somewhere else? Help me -- help me look at a little bit inside of your psyche as to what helped to make those decisions. Tompkins: So, I was born and raised in the Treasure Valley. I was born in the St. Luke's downtown and, then, I have lived in Meridian my entire life. I chose what was at the time Jasper Apartments in -- during the pandemic of 2020 as they were newly under construction and they were sitting on Pine, which is a direct ten minute route to work. So, it made simple sense just for driving. It's close to -- close driving time to nearby commercial, which made sense to me and at the time it was sitting -- I want to say between 1 ,100 and maybe 1,200 at max rent per month at the time and so while I knew that rental prices had gone up from when I was in college back in 09/2010 when I was first looking for apartments before I decided -- I was living in -- I was going to Boise State and, therefore, could live at home. That level of increase didn't seem too bad, but the level of increase we have seen since then is shocking as year on year increases and dovetail does not allow for any increases of time beyond one year. So, you always renew every year. You can't do anything longer. The cheapest increase of cost per year has been 80 dollars and, unfortunately, my wage has not increased enough per year to create enough of per year to create enough of a barrier for me to think about moving elsewhere and that was before this. If I were to move elsewhere it would likely be somewhere else within the Pine 43 development into one of the townhomes potentially or one of the houses nearby in order to be -- keep walkability with the upcoming commercial that would be coming in with this. Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 38 of 60 Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Thanks. I really appreciate your comments and -- and I really value your perspective this evening. Thanks for sharing it with us. Tompkins: Thank you. Simison: Thank you very much. Mr. Nelson. D.Nelson: Can we get Mason back in here, please? I would like him to do this for me. Should have started this when I was eight years old. Wouldn't be quite so nervous, even though I have talked to you guys plenty of times. I should also disclose I was hired by Mayor de Weerd, so I don't know if that means anything. I was there when we got our first truck that we spoke of, so I can appreciate all this. We should put that out there. Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council, thank you for the opportunity to speak here again. I have neglected doing this more often. I would probably be a lot better at it, but I'm here today representing the 130 plus members of the Meridian Fire Department as the president of the union -- Simison: And your name is -- D.Nelson: Oh. Simison: For the record. D.Nelson: Right. For the record. Derek Nelson. No relation. Do I know Deb. Share last name. I live at 323 West Rescue in Boise, Idaho. Now, you know, I wanted to at least get up here tonight and provide you guys if nothing else for a little bit of perspective from the line personnel who are going to respond to emergencies in a development of this size. I agree -- everything I have heard tonight I -- I actually hadn't dug into some of the details. Great to see some of the things they were doing. I, having recently broken my neck, appreciate some walkability to be able to get around when one's kind of pent up, but -- so, seeing the development itself the Fire department doesn't have really any issues with it I wouldn't say. I don't think the line personnel would have any issues with it, but I do want to provide some perspective and I know this is some of the stuff that we have been talking about for quite a while and now certainly -- Simison: Stay on the microphone, please. D.Nelson: Sorry. What's that? Simison: Stay on the microphone. Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 39 of 60 D.Nelson: Oh. I'm sorry. I -- it certainly relates to the ongoing levy conversation that we are having that we put in for the voters and I think -- I almost feel like I want to turn this dais around and speak to them directly, because I think this is what -- what gets us to that vote -- or -- or this is -- things like this is what gets us to that vote is that even with where we are at today we are still behind and developments like this put a strain on those numbers. We are already struggling with -- our numbers are less than what they should be to meet the needs of this city. The city has grown so fast and numbers have grown so fast that our department hasn't grown to meet it. Even with the bold action that you guys took to secure the SAFER grant that got us to where we are today, we are still technically behind. A development of this size -- and, you know -- and even that -- the multi-story going up 86 feet and that number of people being housed in -- in a structure that big requires numbers and for us the math wouldn't math. It would require this entire department of our city -- if an incident was there -- a large scale incident would use all of those people -- 32 of them right now on any given day, plus a battalion chief. That would ask our neighbors, then, to fill in. So, I guess what we are -- the perspective I want to provide for you is, you know, kind of some ask -- you -- we have to kind of ask ourselves some questions. So, if we are going to continue doing what we are doing is like what does that mean, you know, to -- to our community, what does that mean to our people. If we are at a large scale incident like this where it drains our entire city, we are, then, asking our neighboring cities to help us provide service to those areas we can no longer get to. We can no longer meet the needs and we already struggle to do that. The -- the truck which Mayor de Weerd was so instrumental in procuring for us, has a 68 percent response rate, meaning that it -- one quarter of the -- out of -- for every four calls one -- one time they are -- they are not going to -- they are not going to be available. The nearest engine company at Station 3 has about an 80 percent reliability rate. Reliability rate. Not response rate. Sorry. Meaning that, you know, out of five, you know, there is -- out of five calls there is one time they are not going to be there. So, our reliability is already limited. Our numbers are already too small. So, as we move forward -- and I know this is a ten year plan, but these are those things that we have to continue to talk about and continue to consider. Is it numbers have to make sense. Numbers have -- the math has to math. We need the people to, you know, serve the people that we have already here. I just want to provide that perspective. Thank you very much. Simison: Thank you. D.Nelson: Questions for me? Simison: Questions? Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Mr. Mayor. Derek, thank you. I was just kind of reading the P&Z notes, some of an exchange that Deputy Director Taulbee had with one of the commissioners and I guess the question I have is -- talking about numbers, but what we are really talking about with a development like this is it's the complexity of what you are seeing, not so much maybe the number of people that are there. So, if I'm -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- the way I'm thinking about it is I can look at a -- a residential development of Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 40 of 60 similar size that's not going to be as challenging in terms of the technicality or the complexity of any response when I'm looking at something that's above five stories and that's kind of why I asked the question initially is I -- I do recall a conversation a couple years ago before I was on Council listening and on -- you know, the higher you go the more complex the response gets. So, could you just kind of put a finer point -- maybe both of you I would be appreciative of some perspective. Can you explain the -- how the complexity of responding goes up so much once you -- in a project like this or above -- you know, was it four or five stories? It's -- kind of trying to get a better sense of that. D.Nelson: Well, certainly, as you can imagine -- and Chief Taulbee, you can jump in if you would like. Square footage is just people. So, if you put a whole bunch of square footage that takes that many more people to provide, you know, A, just that initial response. You got search we have to think about. You know, how are we hitting all of our benchmarks, you know, within there. So, whether you go, you know, just sheer square footage, like if it's a million square foot, you know, warehouse facility or it's, you know, a multi-level, multi-family facility we just need people to meet the square footage. Then you add in a human component. If there is people living there, that's a whole different from a rescue, you know, perspective and that -- that just requires people. People require people. Square footage requires people. Taulbee: Mr. Mayor and Councilman Taylor, just going back -- and I do apologize, didn't elaborate much on your earlier question. However, it wasn't necessarily looking -- height is a -- is, obviously, a considering factor, but it's the overall scope, size and the use of the property. So, again, if we had a -- a mid or high rise office building those individuals they leave at the end of the day and where these individuals are -- you know, they are -- they are sleeping, so they are not alert, they are not oriented and so our response capabilities to that property would -- obviously, the initial assignment and, then, we would have evacuation, we would have our operational and, then, that's just showing up on the initial response. So, if there is actually a working incident to get this amount of people down stairwells and into certain areas and provide fire and EMS support it's just a different complexity. Taylor: Mr. Mayor, quick follow up. Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: So, really, if -- and I'm putting words in your mouth, but tell me if I heard it wrong. It is more complex. There is more challenges as you highlighted. More people -- it's a manageable challenge, but it's a -- it's a people on people sort of response. Like you are concerned that you don't currently have the staffing levels to respond to a high capacity like incident here with the current numbers that we have, is that an accurate reflection of what you are -- D.Nelson: Yeah. That's an accurate -- certainly we haven't -- you know, the explosion at the rate at which we have grown we don't have, yeah, straight up numbers of people. We don't have even, you know, a standard written, you know, guidelines on how to Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 41 of 60 handle something that big. So, I mean we are still struggling to catch up as it is. I mean, Luke, you know, you were -- excuse me. Councilman Cavener joined us at our most recent union meeting in which we -- we -- one of those questions that was directed right at -- actually was like where do you think we are realistically as a city and you were like -- or a department that is and you said about three years behind, you know, and so here we are talking about, yes, this is ten years out, but -- so, this is things we need to be thinking about if we are going to grow -- continue to grow like this is it make sure it's, you know, across the board departments as well to meet that need. Overton: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Overton. Overton: Derek or for either one of you, to assist in a -- in a unit this large, I mean, obviously, all the units are sprinkled, but is there also a requirement on the two tallest buildings that a -- is -- I think it's called the FARS system is installed. Is that required on these two in this application? Taulbee: Mr. Mayor, Councilman Overton, based on the scope of what I have seen proposed as far as what would be required, again, that's just conceptually what -- from what I have looked at so far. In addition to the other fire protection systems that would be required for this type of building. Overton: Thank you. And would you elaborate for everyone that doesn't know what FARS is this real quick? Taulbee: Yes. Mr. Mayor, Councilman Overton, so FARS as is the firefighter air replenishment systems that was adopted by ordinance by city -- city council that's currently in an appendix to our 2018 IFC and there are certain restrictions when buildings are built more than five stories, square footage requirements or so many store -- any level below grade and that's essentially what that system provides as capabilities for our firefighters. When we go into rehab during firefighting operations, if we don't have an air resource availability we are able to connect into a system and replenish our SCBAs or self-contained breathing apparatus and continuing our firefighting operations. So, it makes things more effective and efficient for what we are doing in these larger style buildings where we would have operations for hours, depending on what we have working. D.Nelson: In theory it allows us to stay there versus exiting, coming back recycling more people. So, maybe they are -- you know, those individuals are staying in the fight longer to say. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Meridian City Council October 21,2025 Page 42 of 60 Cavener: Thanks for being here. No reason to be nervous. We are all -- we are all friends and neighbors here. I just -- I want to touch on something to make sure I heard right. You kind of were initially -- with your initial comments, which is right it's not lost on us, we have got -- we are asking the voters to support a public safety levy here in a few weeks, but it sounds like what I heard from you is whether the voters support that or not I was right, because not -- not changing anything, we are maintaining status quo if this passes, that -- that your opinion is that you have got concerns about the ability for you and your colleagues to be able to support a large scale -- I mean for lack of a better word a disaster or something -- you know, something we hope never happens; right? We have to often wonder what if. But you would have concerns for -- for the department to be able to respond in an effective manner. I mean it doesn't sound like it's more of a -- it's not a timing issue, it's about the ability to be effective, not just here, but across the rest of the community without mutual aid, is that kind of what you were trying to -- D.Nelson: I mean I think that's -- sure. Yes. That is correct. Cavener: Mr. Mayor, just a quick thought. Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Mr. Nelson, how often does the city require or request mutual aid our neighboring agencies? Does this happen on a monthly basis, a quarterly basis, a weekly basis? Help me understand who is -- who is not in your industry. D.Nelson: So, I mean that -- that's where those numbers or those reliability ratings come in. So, when we have, yeah, apparatus that are not able to meet their calls 80 percent 68 percent as it is with Fire Station 1, that means another district is having to fill in behind them. Now, is that a district within the city of Meridian or is that, you know, another agency from outside? I can't speak to the exact numbers. If we had, you know, Chief Butterfield can speak to that better being that's his -- his -- his bailiwick is those numbers, but I mean frequently -- when we -- we provide the same service to our neighboring agencies as well, but, yeah, I mean that's -- Cavener- Okay. Thank you. D.Nelson: We are asking other agencies. Simison: Mr. Nelson, that's where I was going to kind of touch on -- D.Nelson: Yeah. Simison: -- the role of mutual aid and how we have used that here in the valley for everything. Boise just built in a 22, 23 story. Did they go add a bunch more firefighters for -- I don't think so. I mean do -- do they -- if they had two fires in two of their downtown buildings do they have enough people to staff two mutual things going on at Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 43 of 60 once? Even if there is one we are covering their flanks more than likely. This is a common occurrence in how we are set up in the Treasure Valley. The expectations. I'm not going to say we -- we live by their standards or they live by our standards, but I don't know anybody that can sustain a large -- even a two story, three story unit of significant breadth could be enough. D.Nelson: Yeah. I mean I -- when I started here I -- my -- my first experience was the Oregon Trail fire. I was I think fresh out of the Academy at the time that that happened and so -- I mean that drained the entire valley and now when we had -- granted we were much smaller at the time, all the departments were, but I mean even as we are now you just look at -- around us, it's not just us that have grown. I mean, you know, our Star, Middleton has grown. Everyone's growing. You know, our neighbors to the west are growing and so we are all asking a lot of, you know, of our agencies, of our departments, of one another, you know, for that cooperation. I mean worst case scenario, yeah, there is not enough people to -- to deal. We are going to be calling on, you know, other states as they do, you know, when they have large scale incidents in, you know, California where they ask us for their support. So, yeah, we are always going to -- that's always going to be there, but it's more the perspective is in this conversations that we have been continuing to have is that, you know, we have to still attempt to meet what we have, you know, and we are -- we are still a little -- we are still behind that. Simison: I -- I get that. D.Nelson: Yeah. Simison: The other -- D.Nelson: And we are looking at a ten year project here. So, like let's be thinking ten years from now and this is complete. Simison: Correct. And I think the other part of that is, you know, people often will say cities are chasing the dollar, that we are trying to grow for the tax revenue, but in-fill actually does provide tax revenue to help in some cases. This would actually -- if the levy doesn't pass when you -- when you have additional revenue and you don't have to add more stations on the outskirts you can put the resources more into your internal locations to provide those, whether it's a fourth person on an engine or a second engine company and, you know, takes away some of those costs. So, sometimes in-fill actually helps us get to where we want to go more so than other types of development on the edges, which just stretch the resources because of time distance travel. I'm not -- I don't know what the right answer is. It's just perspective. D.Nelson: Sure. Yeah. And those are the considerations or where it is asking. I mean I think, again, if we are going to dig into numbers, whether it's a reliability rate or it's even our response times, I mean with the added traffic, the -- I mean the very first development we talked about I mean, you know, getting on and off Chinden now is a hassle, you know. Eagle Road is a hassle. It slows us way down on our ability to get Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 44 of 60 to, you know, emergencies in a meaningful, you know, period of time and -- and, you know, if people knew what -- how long it's really taken us it's -- it's -- you know, it's not great. Simison: Okay. Thank you. D.Nelson: Thank you. Simison: Is there anybody else that would like to provide just -- come on forward. Baker: Thank you, Mayor, Council Members. I'm Matt Baker. I'm co-owner with Dennis Baker and DRB Investments LLC, the applicant. I just thought after Council Member Taylor you asked Mayor Tammy de Weerd kind of the personal side of the project, so I thought just really quickly I would give a little background. You know, Dennis, my father, has been a developer in the Valley since the late '60s. Really started out in west Boise. Went to southeast Boise. I was the youngest of five kids. Drove my mother crazy. She got me out of the office, threw me in his office and started doing this with him since I was five and he eventually knew heading out towards Micron things were going to end, so he acquired this property mainly in the early '90s. He was developing Danbury Fair Subdivision, you know -- you know, across the road there on Locust Grove in the late '80s and early '90s with Mr. Torfin behind me and as we acquired this property, we are doing things in Eagle as well, we kind of knew we needed to get Pine Avenue. Dan -- Dennis started working with Mayor de Weerd. We got Pine in. Had acquired all of the property kind of from Locust Grove to Eagle Road north up to Fairview and as you have seen the different applications and modifications that Sonya mentioned earlier, you know, we have Pine 43, the subdivision, phases one, two and three. Then we are now doing the Shops at Pine 43 up front. We have got five of the buildings in there now on the east side. We have started construction on the next two buildings on the west side you see under construction now. So, three and a half years ago we came to Dan, say, okay, Dan, 33 and a half acres left, this has become in-fill. When we buy it it was suburbia. We need to figure out what's the highest and best use. That's when we got with Mayor de Weerd, we have such respect for her, we sat down with Andy Erstad and the team and we really started brainstorming, what can we do that's really bold and unique. At 89 now Dennis is still there every day. He didn't come tonight. He just told Dan and I not to screw it up when we left and, essentially, we put three -- last three and a half to four years working with this great team behind us to come up with a one-of-a- kind project for the valley, but especially from Meridian and the community around there. So, this is something that we look at as a legacy project. This is something that if we are fortunate enough to get this entitlement we are asking from you guys we are probably a year, year and a half for sure going through the design process on the first building or buildings. At that point you get through design review, you get to construction drawings, then, we bid it out, then it's a -- it's a -- you know, we are three and a half -- three to three and a half years from today if we were fortunate to get this from you. We would be three to three and a half years before either we have an occupancy permit, both for the -- for the office, certainly the retail or let alone the residential. So, this is something that's going to take time to get there. But it's just Meridian City Council October 21,2025 Page 45 of 60 really -- we are really excited. We have put a lot of time and effort. We are appreciative for all of the time -- the staff, everybody's come together. Fire. We understand there is - - this is a very big project, but it's something we are very excited and we are going to put absolutely everything we can to make this one of a kind. Simison: Thank you. Council, any questions? Councilman Whitlock. Whitlock: Mr. Mayor. Yeah. Matt, thanks. Baker: Yeah. Whitlock: As long as we are getting personal. Baker: Yeah. Whitlock: I ride my bike up and down Pine all the time -- Baker: Yeah. Whitlock: -- and so I have -- I have coveted your property. If -- if I were to ever win the lottery I -- I would love to buy one of those parcels and build a compound and live there forever. I -- I think it's probably the most prime real estate in the City of Meridian. So, I applaud you for your vision. I applaud you for coming forward with something that truly is bold. Having said that you have also heard tonight concerns from a neighbor who has installed solar panels. Any mitigation that you might consider there with this project? Baker: Yeah. And we are -- I appreciate that question, Councilman Whitlock. We spent time with Erstad on architecture on the stair step. So, if you look at that building and -- you can see as we stair step down, then, we went to the buffering of just the townhouses along that area. For the first section -- I don't know if that slide's up there. If they can put that up there. But, you know, we have got the sports court and I think the pickleball court, then, there is about four houses in there I think that really have some component of impact there. On the shade study you are -- you are going to have different periods throughout the day and I -- and I understand you -- I drive there, because as you guys -- I think you know we built our office up there against Locust Grove. We put the surgery center right across the parking lot there. As I drive that up and down all day long you are going to see different sections at, you know, 10:00 a.m., noon, 2:00 p.m. So, we are aware that there is going to be a component of shade, but there is going to be a -- you know, during wintertime that sunset's more to the northwest, it's going to be different throughout the year. So, it's a factor of -- to be able to create that plaza, that crown jewel, that residential area in there is just so -- such a key driver to be able to make the viability of all that commercial and that crown jewel work. So, what we tried to do was be able to keep the amount of residential, but stair step down and create so that we didn't have it just looming. I think that -- I think the distance between the backyard to us is about 65 feet, Dan? Was it 65 or 70? Ninety. Ninety. Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 46 of 60 Yeah. So, 90. So, if you get out and you do 90 feet, we feel -- we feel really comfortable that that's a really strong buffer between that neighborhood -- those four or five houses and what we are proposing there with that building. Along with the fact that I think we have -- you know, if you know Dennis, he lives to landscape. I think he does it more to landscape than they actually worry about what money he makes and he is going to tree line that thing more than Rodney Evans could ever imagine just putting on -- on a design application. I mean he is -- he is going to make this place look like nothing else and so we will buffer that in there so nicely that it will look as -- anything you see that we have done in there this will be to the highest level we can do. I think it was chair -- is it Chair Lorcher on the P&Z? You know, after she -- she knew that we had built the Arbor Farms nursery and left Nampa and brought it over to Meridian on -- off of Black Cat in Franklin and so he has got the nursery over there at Arbor Farms and he said, please, let anybody know, I'm just dying to landscape it. If they want more I will give them more. So, we are planning on making sure that's a beautiful buffer on each side of -- or on that side of State Avenue with that building. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Matt, I always love your enthusiasm, man. It's hard to not get excited when you start talking about a project. So, I'm always enthusiastic about Pine Avenue. I just think it's a really -- really unique corridor in Meridian and, you know, it's -- it's not the same Pine Avenue it was, right, when we were kids. Baker: Sure. Cavener: It's grown. Our city's grown. But I'm -- I'm looking at where your project is going to go and -- and this is going to be one of my larger concerns is you have got both Locust Grove and Pine rated better than E right now by the -- by the highway district, with no plans for improvements in at least five years. So, how do we -- how do we support the transportation needs of our current residents, as well as your future residents, on kind of an intersection that's really close to being constrained already and no plans in place to improve? Baker: Well, my personal opinion -- I can get Jamie Markosian up there and he is really going to be able to answer that better than I can. What I can tell you, though, is that I drive that road ten, 12 times a day. State Avenue. Webb to Fairview. Webb down to Pine. Pine to Eagle. 8.00 in the morning 10:00, noon, 2.00 -- I think now and going forward, especially with the trip capture of the multi-family with the retail and the office, we are going to capture so much -- everyone's going to stay within that predominantly and I just don't believe that you are going to have the -- over the next 12 years -- let's say the buildout is over 12 years, that ability to service that -- I haven't hit a time yet where I have had any problem being able to navigate those roads at this time, let alone as we build that space out with the office retail, hotel and multi-family. So, I personally Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 47 of 60 just believe we have got plenty of infrastructure there to handle that between Locust Grove, Pine, Webb, State to Eagle. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: A follow up. Council's been asked kind of by the highway district -- we are going to discuss this, you know, corridor prioritization and I'm -- I'm on that road a lot and so if you asked me I would say we should be prioritizing Locust Grove over Meridian Road. What's your perspective and the -- the highway district was asking the City Council which corridor that we should prioritize. If you don't -- if you are not concerned with Locust Grove should we be prioritizing Meridian Road, then, instead or should we be prioritizing the corridor by this potential development? Baker: When you say prioritizing for Locust Grove, can you -- Cavener: Prioritizing in terms of -- it's more important for the City of Meridian when we go to the highway district for what we think they need to be investing in. They are kind of looking for us to say do you want us to prioritize Locust or do you want us to prioritize Meridian. Now, I -- I would have walked in tonight and said Locust Grove all day long. also -- you're a subject matter expert and you are on those roads a lot, would you encourage the Council to continue to prioritize Locust Grove or because you are concerned about the ability to capture all this traffic should we focus on Meridian Road? Baker: I -- I mean I would -- for us Locust Grove -- Cavener: Okay. Baker: But I still think there is room. But, yes, I would say Locust Grove for sure. Cavener: I appreciate -- appreciate that. Thanks. Baker: Yeah. Simison: So, two -- two questions, comments'ish is I drive that road pretty frequently as well. I go to Arby's a lot. It's well known. But I think that that intersection at the end of the day, of Locust Grove and Pine, that -- that -- that's -- that's when it fails. I don't see any really end of the time during the day. So, I think there are some impacts that people need to really consider, because people are backing up almost to the roundabout trying to make a left-hand turn right there onto Locust Grove. It's not so much going straight, not so much going right, but that left-hand turn. So, I don't know how that impacts in the traffic, so just that -- the other component that -- when I -- since we did disclose our conversations, I'm hopeful that there would be a condominium project as part of this. Is there -- if the state law allows condominiums to maybe be a little bit more protected, do Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 48 of 60 you see a condominium project maybe replacing some of your apartments in this project? Baker: Yeah. We will absolutely look at that and -- and evaluate that as we -- as we go forward, just depending on kind of market conditions and where we are at. But that is certainly something that we have had a lot of discussion and will continue to have discussion on. Simison: Okay. Thank you. Baker: Yeah. Simison: Thank you very much. Baker: Thank you. Simison: Is there anybody else that would like to provide testimony on this item? Come on up. Markcosian: Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council. My name is Jamie Markosian of Kittelson and Associates, traffic engineer for the project. I'm at 101 South Capital Boulevard in Boise, Idaho. Just wanted to come up here and offer some perspectives from a traffic -- you know, traffic component. You know, this project has been before you for a long time. We have -- we have been careful to adjust and -- and identify opportunities within the work where traffic is less of an issue and to answer Mr. Cavener's question, I think from a -- from an operations perspective we have looked at not necessarily traffic operations, so, in other words, how well the traffic signal performs or how well the roundabout performs, the levels of service on these roadways, we have looked at the amount of trips that are going to be produced by this type of a development and through those findings we are -- we are -- we are calculating based on nationwide data that these trips that we are producing, while they are more and exceed the -- the values of the 2017 approved traffic impact study, they are well within the ten percent buffer of a typical daily traffic volume that may occur and so when we think about operations on site and within the site we have built out facilities. We have a five lane roadway on Pine Avenue. We have got turn lanes. We have a nice roundabout and we have a traffic signal that has opportunity and room for improvement in the future in terms of traffic signal timing improvements and adjustments. There are components of additional capacity, but our findings have not indicated the need for those additional capacity in relation to the ACHD standards of operations and levels of service. So, think holistically we are taking a comprehensive look at what the impact of our development is from a trip generation perspective and -- and adding that to, you know, the capture of those trips because of the intended uses, keeping the majority of those trips on site, as opposed to, you know, making a single trip for one purpose. They are able to make one single trip for multiple purposes thereby reducing the total number of volume that's actually moving to and through these intersections and streets. Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 49 of 60 Simison: Council, any questions? Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Thanks for -- for being up here. In the ACHD staff report, you know, it says that the proposal doesn't -- the proposed development requires revisions to meet ACHD policies. Can you walk Council through what those revisions are in order for you guys to meet ACHD policies? What all that you guys are having to do? Markosian: Mr. Mayor, Council Cavener, I cannot off the top of my head. If I was looking at it I could walk through it with you without problem. I know that -- I know the staff report grants us access and creates those -- those locations for which access is approved by ACHD. We have also, you know, already, as been mentioned, have developed these roadways, such as Pine Avenue, the Webb roundabout and in discussions with ACHD the additional traffic infrastructure that was requested or required by their standard would be enhanced pedestrian safety measures, which have been installed as a RFB treatment for crossings of that -- of that roundabout intersection. Simison: Councilman Cavener, we do have -- Cavener: I plan to -- to chat with them here in a second. I just didn't see that up. I -- appreciate it. Help me -- then one more, Mr. Mayor, if I can. Because, again, not a traffic engineer; right? And -- and rely on subject matter expertise and sometimes I challenge that subject matter expertise, because I'm not smart enough to understand; right? When I -- when I see on an ACHD staff report Pine and Locust better than E, it's not great. I -- I -- again, I -- I look at this as a -- as a resident; right? As a citizen, as a -- as a commuter who is on that road a lot. Markosian: Sure. Cavener: And if -- if I see, man, City Council's approving 900 more residential units and expanded commercial on roads that are rated better than E, somebody's going to say City Council's not paying attention to listening to our community. So, help -- help me understand where I'm erring and -- and why, you know, you think that this enhances our transportation network. Markosian: Mr. Mayor, Councilman Cavener, the -- the verbiage of better than E is challenging. I agree with you. I think when you look at the -- or the arterial classification of these roadways, though, they are -- they are built and their intention is to move large volumes of traffic. They are both five lanes in nature. They have multiple lanes east and west and north and south, depending on the roadway that you are on and they are classified by ACHD to capture a level of traffic volume that will fit within those lanes. Now, to improve operations there is certain measures that we can take as transportation engineers, as local governments and agencies that have jurisdiction over the roadways. Those might include widening the roadway, which may include buying people's properties or displacing residents. It may include adding additional types of traffic control; right? Enhancing the signalization properties of that intersection or creating -- Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 50 of 60 creating opportunities with the traffic signal that exists it may include building a large scale roundabout, which can process more vehicles and -- and kind of add to that that -- that puzzle. So, there are a few opportunities that we have in our tool belt, so to speak, of how we could get to better than D, for example, or better than C. But when you look at the functional classification of these roadways, both of them are arterial in nature. They are moving large -- large volumes of vehicles and that measure of service E is related to delay. No -- no shadow about that. No doubt about that. You know, that is indicate -- indicative of the time spent waiting at that location if you were to arrive when the light turns red and have to wait there until it turns green for you to go; right? And so that LOSE is also sort of a snapshot in time and so when we look at the 24 hours throughout the day you might experience that level of delay or that -- that period of LOSE or -- or, you know, nearing that, 15 minutes of the day, 30 minutes of the day and it might not be all right back-to-back and so we are taking these things into consideration both from ACHD's perspective and from my perspective as a -- as a consultant and somebody who studies this for a living, the -- you know, these -- these periods of time are -- are small. We are looking at a holistic category of a roadway and the amount of volume that it processes or is able to process over the course of the day and that's really the -- the kind of guiding direction that the agencies are using, such as ACHD, ITD and, then, that's really what we follow as traffic engineers who are consulting with folks like DB Investments and other people around the valley. Cavener: Maybe just one more real quick. Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: And I guess this is the -- the hard part, right, is the -- the highway district isn't asking you to make no improvements to -- to Locust Grove. They are not asking to make improvements to Pine and so I -- I recognize when our roadway authorities saying this isn't it. They are not asking you to fix -- mitigate any of those, it's hard for you to say, well, we are going to mitigate, you know, problems. So, I -- I appreciate you kind of giving me a little bit more insight and I appreciate your perspective. Thanks for being here. Markosian: No problem. Thank you. Simison: Thank you. Council, any additional questions? Thank you. Good evening. Henderson-Begg: Good evening. Dugan Henderson-Begg, General Manager of Harvey Performance Company, 1410 East Pine Avenue just down the road. So, staff did a great job of kind of summarizing our support for this project. I just want to stand up here and add, you know, as we grow -- an international company growing very quickly, this is the sort of pioneering development that we need in this area to help us bring people in. Nobody does what Harvey Performance in Meridian does, making some car -- solid car by cutting tools and so we have to go to larger cities to bring people into the area and attract them in here. So, having these types of developments, these types of housing helps us develop and bring people into the environment. We did Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 51 of 60 a study of our employees, all but five live within seven miles of the facility and so it's super important to have people able to get to work quickly, make those short transitions to work and the overtime and things that we do. So, we are really supportive of this program, having people close, having people able to get there and I wanted to be here just to support this and make sure we can answer any questions maybe relative to Harvey Performance as a company in the Meridian area. Thank you. Simison: Council, any questions? Thank you. Appreciate it. Erstad: Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Andy Erstad with Erstad Architects, 310 North 5th Street, Boise, Idaho. I'm wondering where that break we were going to have has gone, but thank you for staying here. I just wanted to touch base quickly on the -- the issue of design and fire. Fire wise design and safety -- life safety. We live in the world of life safety. Anything we do, any building we build comes with the -- with the moniker that we must be designing structures that include all of the life safety protection components, so -- and we met -- we met with the fire department and really appreciated it. We have done a number of rather large buildings, multi-family, mixed-in - - mixed-use facilities and as there is a concern with the fire department about the ability to staff and the ability to respond to multiple incidents, the -- the thing that I think is not really being spoken about much is the fact that we are -- we, like the fire department, are guided by the fire codes. We are divided -- we are driven by the International Building Codes. We -- we deal with NFPA, which is the National Fire Protection Association's model code, which is NFPA 13, NFPA 14 and the list goes on and on and on. But -- but they have very specific design guidelines for multi-story buildings. One story, two story, three -- you go up. We are at 15, 16 stories in some of our structures. So, it's great to know that the City of Meridian has adopted codes for fire -- fire air replenishment systems, particularly underground and whatnot. But all of those -- all of those components become part of the design process and so the building types, the construction types, the -- the ratings, which are based on -- based on how long a structure basically stays standing if -- if there is a -- if there is an incident. With a fully fire sprinkled building the design of those structures is to -- is to basically preserve the structure, suppress the fire and give the fire department safety as they go in and -- and manage the -- the incident. So, we are -- we are here to just let you know that as we design these buildings we have very much at the top of our -- of our thought process what life safety is and it's not just the residents, it's the -- it's the people that are the first responders that come in and -- whether it's a heart attack, a fall, a kitchen fire, the -- the systems are designed for, you know, protecting life and -- and making the access easier. So, thank you very much. Simison: Thank you. Council, any questions? Erstad: Okay. Thank you. Simison: Thank you. Is there anybody else who would like to provide testimony on this item at this time? Seeing no one else coming forward, Council -- Councilman Cavener, Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 52 of 60 do you want to ask anything about ACHD or would you like the applicant to come forward? Cavener: Mr. Mayor, I guess I'm -- in light of the -- the comments and -- I need to use the restroom, so I -- I guess I'm -- I'm -- I'm -- I'm respectfully asking for maybe a ten to 15 minute recess if I can. Simison: All right. Let's go ahead and take a break until 9:00 o'clock and, then, we will come back and maybe ask ACHD some questions or let the applicant come forward. Cavener: Thanks. (Recess) Simison: All right. Well, everyone who seems to be here and got quiet, so we will go ahead and continue. Councilman Cavener, would you like to have any questions for ACHD? Would you like the app -- okay. Mindy, are you there? Wallace: Hi. I'm here. Yes, I'm here. Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Mindy, thanks for being here. Thanks for sticking with us. Johnson: Councilman Cavener, can you grab your microphone. Cavener: What's up? Check. Check. Okay. Got it. Thanks. Thanks. Mindy, can you hear me okay? Wallace: I sure can. Thank you. Cavener: Thanks for sticking with us late tonight. I guess my -- my question kind of dovetails a little bit off of the -- the question I was kind of asking Matt earlier, which is really about Locust Grove and Pine both being rated level of service better than E. At what point -- how many -- how many trip count or -- or what is the threshold for when that designation of being better than E moves to F? Wallace: Mayor and Councilman Cavener, that's a -- that's a good question. On that did do some math while I was sitting here. So, I know that it is hard -- better than E is hard, but I think this may help put it in perspective. So, based on our current traffic counts Pine Avenue is using about 56 percent of its available capacity. So, 44 percent of that capacity is still available before we -- we would be hitting that F threshold. Cavener: Okay. Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 53 of 60 Wallace: And, then, on Locust Grove it's currently at about 60 percent capacity. So, we are looking at about 40 percent of available capacity before we would get to that F threshold and what we use for our level of service threshold for a five lane minor arterial, which both roadways are classified as, it would be 1,540 vehicle trips per hour in the p.m. peak hour and that's a little bit confusing. So, I think it's easier to talk about it in terms of the percentages. Cavener: Yeah. So, Mr. Mayor -- Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: -- quick follow up. And so 57 -- 56 percent capacity on Pine, 60 percent'ish on Locust, should this project be -- receive its approval tonight what does that do, then, to the capacity of -- of both? Does it move Pine from 56 to 58? Does it move Locust from 60 to -- to 80 percent? What are -- what are the impacts of those on -- on the capacity of those roads? Mindy: Madam Mayor and Councilman Cavener, I did not do that math, but we would still be below those capacity thresholds if we are looking at probably about a ten percent increase in each we may go up to probably between a 60, 65 and a 70. So, we still would have capacity based on our level of service standards. Cavener: Okay. Thank you. Simison: Any other questions for ACHD? All right. Would the applicant like to come forward to close out. Nelson: Thank you, Mayor and Council. If I could use a couple slides from our presentation to address some of the comments. I want to first address Ms. Anderson's comments about worries about the -- the building height near her and impacts on -- on solar for her property. You know, first just a couple of -- of comments. We have got -- set me get to the right slides here if I could. Might be before this. Yeah. I will walk through these solar study slides to show this. So, first of all, this building -- and this was part of our discussion earlier and my response to Council Member Roberts questions, but this -- this building of -- at issue here is -- is 65 feet allowed of right in this zone. We are adding 11 additional feet with the alternative compliance and so this isn't part of the conditional use permit, but -- and so it's 11 additional feet to bring it to 76 feet. So -- and this height is necessary. Matt mentioned this to accommodate the view units for the residents. It provides significant financial support for being able to do things like underground parking and podium parking, a point that Commissioner Rust acknowledged in the P&Z hearing and -- and it provides that diversity of housing that's very valuable to the overall development. The applicant has offered to install significant landscape screening that you can see in this perspective and rendering here to soften that appearance. The building depth there is at closest 90 feet to the closest townhome and a hundred feet to the others that move further east. Most of the height of the building, because it does step up as was mentioned already, the taller portion of the Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 54 of 60 building is largely in front of the amenity. The sports park of the development with only a selected number of townhomes that are impacted and, then, they are only impacted for a portion of the year with the shade and that's -- here you can see that sport court and the distance is there and, then, we did the solar study in response to comments and looked at the equinoxes to just take kind of the extremes of the weather and -- and -- and sun conditions and so there is also different times of day that were studied and so you can see that as staff pointed out it's really not until you get to the -- the wintertime that you have impacts. This is the worst day of the year. So, we wanted to show you that worst case scenario and you can tell here with different times of day there will be sunlight on these townhomes. This -- it's only a portion of the day that there is impacted. So, the neighbor testified has the seventh house in when you count from the east to west and so just really just to the west and north of that drive there and so is only impacted by the 10:00 a.m. darkness at the peak of winter and so you are not getting a lot of solar power on your solar panels during the winter anyway, but it will only be partial day in the extreme times of the winter. Maybe the more important thing to point out about this slide is that the 65 foot building allowed of right, which is the shade is shown in that solid line, covers the townhomes in the same way and so the additional height we were asking for with those 11 feet does not extend further across their homes, instead it further extends into the sport court further or in -- in front of the -- the street in front of their homes. So, there isn't a difference in the impact on their homes from this -- the extra 11 feet that's requested in the alternative compliance. Also wanted to touch on fire briefly. Andy was able to cover this from a design perspective to point out that these buildings will be sprinkled, they will have stand pipes, they will have all of the design requirements that are required by the International Fire Code and the building code. Also want to point out that these are not high rise buildings. These are mid-rise buildings and they are comparable to and in some cases less high than existing mid-rise buildings that are in your city, such as the Bri, Scentsy, Scheels, BVA, the ICCU component building and others, that all currently and will continue to receive city fire service. So, they are -- they are designed to be fire protective and they are consistent with other buildings -- mid-rise buildings in the city that receive that service. As -- as the Mayor touched on, there is also a benefit of having this dense in-fill development and we touched on this in our presentation as well. It's a more efficient delivery of services and you are also concentrating significant property taxes here with this scale of development that will help fund those needed services and -- and, then, I just want to wrap up with some points to remind the Council about why we are here, why the Commission was so supportive of this. Your comprehensive plan calls for this type of development in this location. They call for residential at the density that we are providing. They call for -- it calls for a mix of uses and it calls for dense development along transit and near the city's core and this is a great opportunity. It's been commented a number of times. Council Member Whitlock you noted it's a great use of that land. It's prime real estate. Your Comprehensive Plan calls for maximizing land and you call for dense development in those locations, because you don't have very much of that kind of land. You want to maximize the opportunities where people can take advantage of -- of transit, as Commissioner Stoll noted the benefits of, and also to get that great quality design that the Bakers have come forward with is a unique opportunity. So, we hope we will -- you will see the -- the benefits of this. We Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 55 of 60 appreciate the support we have received and we hope we have addressed your questions and concerns and would stand for any further questions you have. Simison: Thank you, Deb. Council, any additional questions for the applicant? Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Deb, I just want to make sure that my assumption is correct. If this is approved this would be those mid-rise, high-rise, the largest residential unit in Meridian, though; right? I think all the other buildings you cited were all commercial in nature; right? Nelson: Not the Bri; right? Isn't the -- Cavener: Bri is residential. Nelson: Bri is residential. Cavener: Thank you. I appreciate that clarification. Nelson: Thank you very much. Simison: Thank you. Overton: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Overton. Overton: I don't see any more members of the public wanting to come forward and testify. If there is no more comments I would like to move that we close the public hearing. Little Roberts: Second. Simison: Have a motion and a second to close the public hearing. Is there any discussion? If not, on in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it the public hearing is closed. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Overton: Mr. Mayor, I would like to start off with my comments first. Simison: Yes. A little closer to the mic. Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 56 of 60 Overton: You know, I can't help but remember the past in this area that we are talking about. When you grow up here and you ride a school bus around that corner of what was Locust Grove and Pine and it was all farmers that used to get on the school bus and their kids, we have come a long way and we get asked as City Council to not just remember the past, but try to look into the future and what impresses me with this is what a job has been done by this team. I mean I don't have one person sitting in that front row. It's a team sitting in front of me that has done such a great job on this project. I live the closest to this project. My district. I drive Locust Grove and Pine almost every day and I do that because, well, Eagle Road is also in my district and I avoid it at all costs. With that said the transportation part to this was what first impressed me. The collector streets were all in. Locust Grove and Pine were already built out as far as we know they are going to be built out to handle the traffic. VRT runs right through the middle of where this project is going to be and the number one option for east to west travel from Caldwell, Nampa through Meridian to Boise, which has been determined by COMPASS, will be light rail at some point in the future and that future -- when we say the term ten to 15 years, well, it kind of resonates with kind of the same thing we are talking about here tonight. So, we are very close to where light rail would be coming through. We are already on top of where Valley Regional Transit comes through and we are in a situation where the roadway system is already built and working well. I remember when I first heard the words from Mayor Tammy about a medical corridor, because I was having a house built right in the middle of it and watching as things were happening around me and although we don't use that terminology much anymore, I -- I do from time to time talk about how that was still the dream of that area to be that medical corridor. Now, with all the partners that have stood behind you and supported this project and the fact that we have ICOM and we have another big project that could take the next 30 years and Idaho State University bringing in a campus just down the road, there is going to be a significant need for the housing, the residential and the commercial to support all of that. I do have one area of caution and I say this in a mixed way. It's the baseball season. We are getting ready for the World Series and I want to say that as I stare at a group of you out there you guys really hit for the fence. When we see a lot of projects that are just residential or a commercial and this has got so many different aspects that benefit this community. I mean you have really really hit this out of the park. But in so doing I need to tell you that you are competing against over 6,000 multi-family in this city that have already been approved. So, you need to keep hitting it out of the park and keep building the most premier product that we can see, because with 6,000 and most people don't know that. I had that updated for me this afternoon. That's a lot of other multi-family, some of it approved as long ago as 2020, shovel ready, but no shovels hitting the dirt. It makes it hard for us to plan what our community needs when we approve so many projects to see the city move forward, only to not have them take that action. So, I'm kind of depending on Mayor Tammy to hold your feet to the fire as we move forward, assuming this project is approved, to keep you on track to build this project and bring it to our city. It's a pretty amazing way to take care of a lot of in-fill in our city and in -- if you didn't do a project like this I'm not sure what that -- all that land would look like, but watching how you have developed the rest of it over the past ten to 15 years has been pretty remarkable. But I don't know that I need to say it, but, obviously, I will be supporting this project. Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 57 of 60 Simison: Council, any additional comments, motions? Overton: Mr. Mayor, if there was no more comments -- Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Appreciate Council Member Overton's comments. I -- I share some of them. We -- we haven't discussed a lot tonight about the -- and the various requests for height on some of these buildings. I think for me that is -- that is the piece that I'm -- I'm most concerned about. What sits with me as a -- is a comment that was made by one of our Planning Commissioners. I wasn't talking about the architectural design, which I think the applicant has addressed. Everything that they do from the design of the building is built around safety. But it's really about just the size and scope of this project and concern that our -- our chief reinforced the Planning and Zoning Commission is really our inability to effectively staff a project like this and I -- I look at it, like sewer, like water; right. Except for if -- if we heard from our water department we weren't going to be able to provide accurate water or sewer services we would work with the applicant and say, hey, I need you to build a lift station. Extend the line; right? Those are easier solutions. This one I can't -- I can't wrap my head around and so I'm -- that's the piece that I'm -- I'm struggling with, but I don't want to belabor the conversation if the rest of Council is satisfied with the responses from the applicant and feel comfortable moving forward and I could go on and on about the things that I like about this project and there are many and it's weird, because this is -- it's not quite an industrial area, it's not quite a residential area, it's not quite a commercial area, it's kind of a hodgepodge of all three and I -- I do think that the -- many of the things that the applicant is asking for I'm supportive of, even if it's contrary to staff's recommendations, but the -- the building height is the piece that I -- and maybe it's that I'm getting old and I just -- I worry more. My kids tell me I worry all the time. But I -- I worry about our ability to respond in that thing that you hope never happens happens and I hold the feedback from our chief and from our local -- it's first time I think in 12 years the local has ever came to testify in an application. I thought they were as diplomatic as Derek can be, voiced concerns and said, listen, they will respond and they will rely on other cities to cover for us and we know that that happens more already than it should and if I had a crystal ball as to what our staffing levels would be when this is built that would probably calm that -- that concern. So, that's -- that's the piece for me that I'm -- I'm really hung up on and, again, I probably said more than enough, if -- if Council is ready to move forward I'm happy to -- to get out of the way. But I think this is a big piece that I -- I think requires some strong deliberation, some additional feedback from our fire department and from our planning department. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 58 of 60 Taylor: I think Councilman Cavener brings up a really good point. I -- you know, some of my questioning showed I was a little bit fixated on the height and the fire response and kind of what that meant and the complexity of the -- of the challenges. Of course as I was kind of considering the height and some of the reasons behind it, it -- you know, a lot of those to integrate some of the parking and to allow for a little bit more density and so you had an aesthetically pleasing development. You didn't have big parking lots. You had more development and -- and I -- I think to me that -- I'm okay with that I think in terms of the -- needing those -- to have a little bit of a higher building to accommodate some of the design elements to make this project work. You know, as this area is kind of developed over the last few years it's been very nice. It's been very attractive. It's brought some really nice patrons and some housing that's there. I have driven through it a few times. It's -- I have been -- I have liked what I have seen. I think it's been a really nice addition and, you know, I -- I'm still a little bit unsettled about some of the response and the fact that some of the comments that I read in the P&Z and -- and hearing the local talk about it a little bit, does make me pause a little bit more than I typically do on a project like this, but I have yet to see an incident in the valley that hasn't been adequately responded to and it may -- while the City of Meridian may not have the ability to respond to all these things if there is an incident, surely Eagle, Boise, all these other -- we all come and -- you know, I -- I don't -- I don't doubt the ability for the collective value to respond to major crises if that's -- if that's the case. So, that -- that's what helps me overcome some of the concerns I do have that were raised with the fire department. I -- I am a little bit more unsettled with this project than I have been with many other projects I used -- I really like what we are seeing here. So, valid concerns. I think I don't need to discuss it anymore myself personally, but would be open to that if the rest of the Council wanted to -- to take another shot at that. But I think I would be supportive of this application tonight. Little Roberts: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Little Roberts. Little Roberts: Mr. Mayor, Council, I think that -- I mean height was obviously -- I brought it up so many times was obviously a concern that I had. We have had issues with it recently about getting clarification about the height is the height. It's not going to have something on top that makes it even taller and, obviously, with fire it's been a concern. So, I was very pleasantly surprised to hear that the architect had sat down with fire and had had these discussions about making it safe and so I know that that's definitely the intent and I'm familiar with Andy's work and so very pleased to know not only is he the architect, but went the extra mile to make sure that -- that safety within his power -- I guarantee that everything is done. And so that was a really pleasant surprise for me. So, I had come kind of in with -- with the intent of can we make these buildings a little shorter, but with all that we have heard tonight I'm good with the project moving forward and will be supporting it. Whitlock: Mr. Mayor? Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 59 of 60 Simison: Council Whitlock. Whitlock: I will just piggyback on the comments that you had made as well. I think this is a high value project and it will generate tax revenue. It will be good for the city. I think it's high quality. In fact, I might move there, except I would be in Councilman Overton's district and I'm ready to proceed tonight. I -- I know that there are some -- some concerns, but, you know, not too far from this location we have -- we have got the Scentsy building and not too far from that we have got St. Luke's and if something went terribly wrong at either of those facilities we would -- we would have the same kind of concerns that -- that we are talking about tonight. So, I don't know that you can discount anything from ever happening, but at the same time I think we need to press forward and rely on the fact that the design has incorporated all the best standards and that we will move forward in a -- a safe and efficient manner. So, I'm ready to move forward tonight. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Just, then, maybe one quick request for whoever makes the motion. There have been some kind of specific requests from staff particularly related to some of the director discretion. So, I'm -- I'm not going to be supporting the motion and so I won't be making that motion, but I would encourage -- just to provide a very clean, very clear motion that touches on a lot of the feedback that we heard from staff and I know Sonya and Bill will keep us accountable if we miss something, but just wanted to make sure that we are providing as much clarity as to what Council is intending on this particular motion. Overton: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Overton. Overton: To Council President Cavener, I did go over that with staff ahead of time. And if there is no further comments I would move forward. After considering all staff, applicant and public testimony and removing condition 3-F, I move to approve File No. H-2024-0071 as presented in the staff report for the hearing date of October 1 , 2025. Little Roberts: Second. Simison: Have a motion and a second to approve the item. Is there discussion on the motion? If not, clerk call the roll. Roll Call- Cavener, nay; Strader, absent; Overton, yea; Little Roberts, yea; Taylor, yea; Whitlock, yea. Meridian City Council October21,2025 Page 60 of 60 Simison: Four ayes. One nay. And the item is agreed to. Did I do the math right? Thank you. Yes. So congratulations. Look forward to seeing what you are able to bring forward to the city to make that vision a reality. MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. ONE NAY. ONE ABSENT. FUTURE MEETING TOPICS Simison: Council, anything under future meeting topics or a motion to adjourn? Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Move we adjourn the meeting. Little Roberts: Second. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 9:23 P.M. (AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) MAYOR ROBERT E. SIMISON 11-5-2025 ATTEST: CHRIS JOHNSON - CITY CLERK 11-5-2025