HomeMy WebLinkAbout2007 05-15 Pre
Meridian City Pre-Council Meetina
May 15. 2007
The Meridian City Pre-Council meeting was called to order at 6:00 P.M. on
Tuesday, May 15, 2007 by President Councilman Joe Borton.
Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Keith Bird, David Zaremba, Charlie
Rountree and Joe Borton.
Staff Present: Ted Baird, Anna Canning, Keith Watts, and Will Berg.
Item 1.
Roll-call Attendance:
Roll call.
X David Zaremba
X Charlie Rountree
X
X Joe Borton
X Keith Bird
Mayor Tammy de Weerd
Item 2.
Adoption of the Agenda:
Bird: Mr. President.
Borton: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move we adopt the agenda as published.
Rountree: Second.
Borton: It has been moved and seconded to adopt the agenda as published. All
those in favor say aye.
ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED.
Item 3.
View Stone Sample Types for New City Hall Building at
Construction Office:
Borton: So Council we have had an opportunity to go over and look at some
stone sample types of block face and brick selections over at the Construction
Office and so we will open it up for discussion on the record. If you are looking
for direction on preferences of any of the components.
Zaremba: I expressed an opinion while we were all standing there that I have
now changed. I went and walked down the street a little bit and looked at them
from the backside where the sun was shining on them and my opinion is now that
my preference would be the set that was on the north or as most of us was facing
on the right side.
Meridian City Pre~Council Meeting
May 15, 2007
Page 2 of 10
De Weerd: Mr. President.
Borton: Madame Mayor.
De Weerd: I didn't look at them from the other side because there was too much
mortar sticking out, so I liked the bottom on the left and the two other layers on
the right.
Rountree: I will second that.
Borton: The tally so far sounds like three for the two brick selections that were
on the right side facing, I guess west. Then the block facing the bottom - I guess
it is two to one.
Zaremba: My opinion of the bottom blocks is not strong enough; if we are going
that direction I would make it unanimous for the rest.
Bird: The only thing that I am hung up on is I want the bottom left (inaudible)
stone and I just want a decision and get this stuff ordered so we can get going.
Borton: Council, I as well like the brick presentation on the right with the
contrast, block on the base; the left is fine. It sounds like that is minimally
incorporated into the current design as it is.
Zaremba: The left base and the two right bricks, is that what we --?
Borton: (Inaudible--). Councilman Rountree has to throw his two bits in.
Rountree: Well, I second the comments from the Mayor that I liked the simulated
rock on the left for the bottom and the top two courses of brick on the right. But,
maybe we could get the product names and we could site the product names in a
motion to approve that or do we have that?
Bird: Mr. President.
Borton: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I believe that if I am not wrong this is what was specified wasn't it in the
bids, Keith?
Watts: The stone on the left is also going to be - they have come down in their
price, they will match the other prices as well, so there won't be any more
expense going with the actual stone.
De Weerd: Oh, we love competition. Good job.
Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting
May 15, 2007
Page 3 of 10
Rountree: So what is that?
Watts: That is the aristocrat, which is what was specked.
Rountree: What is the brick?
Christianson: This is Steve Christianson with LCA Architects. One is mutual
materials and one is interstate and I want to say the one on the left was the
interstate and that was the one that was specified. I think that if Council can say
that they prefer - so we don't get confused on who made what brick; if you can
go ahead and make a motion indicating that you prefer the alternate bid on the
brick and then that will be clarified. Because I honestly don't know which one
was interstate and which one was mutual materials brick. But, we clearly do
have an alternate bid and a base bid. If the Council recommends that they prefer
the alternate bid on the brick -
Berg: That is the brick on the right.
Christianson: That would be the brick on the right; that is correct.
Rountree: Mr. President.
Borton: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: I move that we approve the use of the aristocrat stone and the
alternate brick courses for the exterior of the new Meridian City Hall.
Bird: Second.
Borton: Okay it has been moved and seconded to go with what Councilman
Rountree just specified. Any discussion? Mr. Berg, roll call vote.
Roll Call Vote: Rountree, aye; Bird, aye; Zaremba, aye; Borton, aye;
ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED.
Item 4.
Discussion of Meridian Development Corporation Streetscape
Design Guidelines:
Borton: Item 4 is a discussion of MDC's streetscape design guidelines, which
were adopted by MDC late last week and tonight's presentation will be brought
by MDC's administrator, Mr. Wardle.
Wardle: Thank you Mr. President, Madame Mayor and Members of the Council,
for the record, Shaun Wardle and I am the administrator for the Meridian
Development Corporation. It is great to be back here at your Tuesday evening
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May 15, 2007
Page 4 of 10
City Council meetings, I can tell you that I wholeheartedly miss them every
Tuesday and think about you repeatedly. I am here this evening to discuss a
project that has been going on for some time and I am happy to announce that
the Meridian Development Corporation has adopted a set of streetscape design
standards. I am going to briefly go through a quick history and show you a little
bit of the information that you have, give you some next steps and then take any
questions. As you can see from the history in this process, the project began in
1928 with E. 1st Street being paved as part of the Highway 55 designation. In
1979 the Chamber of Commerce Committee formed to discuss the first
improvements to E. 1 st Street and through the years of 1982 and 1989 with a
promise of a matching grant from then West One Bank, the Chamber of
Commerce began to discuss making the current - what we see currently in Main
Street a reality and so the City Council approved an LID, which is a local
improvement district to finance 22 percent of the project. November of 1990 the
City raised $905,000, applied for a grant which they did not receive, however, I
note in July of 1991 that the City convinced the Idaho Transportation Department
and the Ada County Highway District to increase their participation levels after
moving the Highway 55 extension to Eagle Road. So, in March of 1993 it was
built, the E. 1 st Street improvements that we see today, which are now Main
Street. So that is a little bit of the history behind the current improvements. We
have had a number of meetings both through the community, public hearings for
the Meridian Development Corporation as well as presentations to the Chamber
of Commerce as well as other community groups and have had quite a bit of
information. Part of the committee was the Parks Department, a very integral
part of this process as well as the Planning Department; the Ada County
Highway District was involved both at an administrative level as well as the
technical and engineering level, the Transportation Department and a number of
other players including the Chamber of Commerce and local businesses. We
have had quite a bit of revision from the original draft and the product you see is
really a byproduct of great community involvement and organization. The scope
of this project is bound on the north by Carlton Avenue; on the west by Meridian
Road; and on the south by E. Ada Street and on E. 3rd of the east. So, that really
is the scope of what we are looking at for this project area for this streetscape
design guidelines. Block prototypes - you have seen this before in a number of
presentations, but I will just briefly describe - there are two block treatments, one
being east and west and the other being north and south and they are
differentiated by their type and use and essentially the movement of traffic. So,
we see here dimensions for the north, south streetscape improvements and you
see an elevation right here. One thing that I will say about this document is that
this document was built to allow developers to have a blueprint for what their
development should look like in addition to some of the demonstration projects
that I will talk about in just a minute with the Meridian Development Corporation.
So downtown developers that would like to purchase a piece of property to
reinvest in their current piece of property really have the opportunity to look and
see what their developments should look like and what treatments that they
would need both in the right of way and within their specific development. It does
Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting
May 15, 2007
Page 5 of 10
allow flexibility for building type, building massing. It does not say that every
building needs to be to the street front. It doesn't say that every single building
needs an outdoor cafe. It allows them flexibility for them to do that, but it gives
them a guideline. East, west streetscape improvements here - the one thing that
it does and I am just going to scroll down to the call outs because the difference
in this specific plan is that all of the call outs are dimensional as well as site
furnishing street, trees and landscape improvements have all been denoted by
our consultant the Land Group. As you can see there a number of items that can
and will be allowed in the right-of-way and in the sidewalk -- bike rack, recycling
and trash receptacle, standard tree, great drinking fountain, standard streetlight,
bench seating, planter pots, ADA ramp and decorative ballards. We don't expect
to see all of those elements in every single street phase; however, if those
elements are included we have called out each specific individual type. In
addition to that one of the items that the Parks Department was very integral in
helping out with is a paver plan and we went round and round on the number of
issues and I will real quickly there is a special addendum here to the specific
concrete paver plan. As you can see it is very technical in engineering
specification. This is designed to allow for the maximum stability of the pavers as
well as allow for ease of maintenance within the downtown core. Street lighting
standards - there are a number of heights that are specified. The difference
between the east, west and the north, south corridor treatments, but each of
those is specific to a lighting standard type. As we see here banner arms only
three options specified for the specific banners. I will note that you see today as
the Mayor has probably made you aware of the banners along Main Street with
the Meridian's Promise, those look fantastic and we expect to see more banners
of that type celebrating events and groups within our community. These lighting
standards will allow that to happen. Tree grading - this is a current tree grading
plan that we see. One of the things that it addresses is that this has been
adopted by ACHD as their standard. The city is incorporated into their specific
requirements. The one thing that it does is that it allows a tree box to be a
certain number of feet down so that you don't see the root break up above the
pavers, which we currently have in some of our city blocks and so this is
attempting to really control the tree growth and the tree spread within that
specific area. We see a specific landscape design standard as well as irrigation
standard. One of the other issues is and that I know that the Parks Department
has found when replacing some of the irrigation boxes downtown is they are not
necessarily standardized from block to block, which creates some maintenance
issues. This will allow them to specify those improvements. We have here, after
a number of - after quite a bit of public input, the preference for recycled material
within the bench standards as well as in material which was not metal. One of
the discussions for the bench standards was the ability to utilize this recycle
material, which does not heat up as much in the summer time as some of the
standard complete metal even though there was some discussion about
skateboards and other issues as far as maintenance this was a preferred area.
So, you see trash enclosures here, planter box types, one of the things that
people mayor may not know is each planter box needs a drain and an irrigation
Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting
May 15, 2007
Page 6 of 10
system for that specific planter box and in here it calls out and you see the ability
to put that within the sidewalk. Additionally we have our bike standards and that
concludes my presentation on the specific engineering documents for the
streetscape design standards. I will briefly go over two items, one of those being
that the Meridian Development Corporation is currently looking at a
demonstration project along Main Street there. We are doing a feasibility of
doing an actual demonstration project on Main Street from Broadway to Idaho on
the north. We additionally looking at combining a project within two budget years
to see if we can get an additional city block somewhere along Idaho has been
discussed that hasn't been an issue an issue that has been decided by the Board
of Directors. In working with the Parks Department on the maintenance issue
one of the things that Elroy has talked about within this specific tree grate
replacement plan that is currently underway. Across the street at the library is a
section that is currently scheduled for replacement and we are working together
to see if we, the Meridian Development Corporation and the city can partner up
to do an entire project within that block area. This presentation has, again, been
before the Development Corporation. I am attempting to get on a schedule with
the Ada County Highway District. They have been involved in a technical level.
We are attempting to get their affirmation at the Commissioner level. Obviously it
is coming before you. The other issue that the Meridian Development
Corporation is in discussion with the city about and I have discussed it with the
Mayor and I am currently discussing with the Parks Department is that without a
local improvement district or another business improvement district in the
downtown core to maintain these improvements, the Meridian Development
Corporation is suggesting that the city, through its Parks Department maintain
the improvements and that the Meridian Development Corporation make the
capital improvements until such a time that a business improvement district may
be formed to take care of the maintenance on those issues. That concludes my
fairly brief presentation and I would be happy to answer any additional questions.
Borton: Thank you, Mr. Wardle. Council any questions, comments? I think the
request of his action is a decision or approval of Council obtaining approval of
ACHD. I presume these then would be applied to our Planning Department as
downtown development proceeds.
Canning: President Borton, Members of the Council I was wondering how we
would implement them. I think there are two different choices. We could
incorporate them into the current design guidelines, which are adopted as part of
our Comprehensive Plan; we can fold them into the design guidelines and
standards that I am working toward preparing - trying to find someone to do that.
We do have a scope of workout for those to try and get some help on that. So
there are a couple different ways - if you wanted to implement them right away,
we could it as a text addendum to the Comprehensive Plan design guidelines for
old town.
Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting
May 15, 2007
Page 7 of 10
Borton: Anna would that replace those guidelines or supplement them? If there
is a conflict between anything that is in there and this, can you - is it simply a
statement that needs control?
Canning: With my - I haven't reviewed these in detail. But it appears to me that
these are all improvements within the public realm so these are overall within
ACHD's right-of-way basically. So there was reference to the edge of the public,
private realm in the design guidelines, but I don't think it details out what needs to
happen in the public realm, so I think we could accommodate these pretty easily.
Borton: By including them in the current design guidelines as an addendum?
Canning: Yeah.
Zaremba: Mr. President.
Borton: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: As I recall, years back we were hoping that when these design
guidelines showed up they would also be useable in the traditional neighborhood
districts. Do you have a sense of whether that is going to work or not?
Canning: President Borton, Councilman Zaremba, probably. We hired Sherry
McKitland to work on those traditional neighborhood center guidelines. I wasn't
thoroughly happy perhaps - it wasn't the product I was expecting, so I think we
had anticipated that when we hired this person to do kind of city wide look at
design standards that will fold those in, but I would think that these could still be
workable, although we don't have the funding mechanism in the traditional
neighborhood centers that we would in the old town area, Meridian Development
Corporation's area.
De Weerd: Are you mumbling?
Canning: No, ma'am, I am not.
Rountree: Just trying to get your attention.
Canning: I will try to articulate more clearly, Council, I am sorry.
Zaremba: I have a technical question to which I don't really need an answer right
now, but somebody does need to look at it at some point. On the lighting, which I
think is very attractive, the description of the top cover is that it would be cast
aluminum, which would make it opaque. The drawing makes it appear that there
are little windows in it, so my question is we need to be assured at some point
that the final product does not allow up lighting - that whatever the lid is, we are
not illuminating the sky since that is a requirement that we put on all street
Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting
May 15, 2007
Page 8 of 10
lighting. I just want to make sure that those are not windows and that the solid
top is all cast aluminum. I don't need to know the answer right now unless you
already know it.
Wardle: Mr. President, Councilman Zaremba I believed that the picture
description is of the cast aluminum portion and so -
Zaremba: Solid-
Wardle: Solid as to prevent the specific up lighting that you are talking about.
Zaremba: Great, thank you.
Rountree: Mr. President.
Borton: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: I guess if ACHD has not acted on this I think it might be premature for
us to start amending our development guidelines. I would hope that they would
give us either a nod that is acceptable to them and their public right-of-way or
any comments that they might want reconsidered or changed and at that point
we then take action to adopt into our guidelines. We don't have to go back and
do it twice and maybe preempt their decision-making process as well.
Wardle: Mr. President, Councilman Rountree the Ada County Highway District
has reviewed this document and made specific recommendations and as I
mentioned they have had a number of pieces of input. I am attempting to get it to
the Commission level to discuss that exact opportunity for them to essentially
give their blessing to our zoning ordinance. There are a number of issues that I
will - there are two specific issues, one which we expect to be resolved very
shortly and one which would be resolved on a case by case basis. If you
remember I believe it would be in the fall, legal counsel for the Ada County
Highway District created a task force to address not improvements, but items in
the right-of-way such as unauthorized bus benches, real estate pamphlets, signs
and to my knowledge they haven't had resolution of those specific items and so
that is something that could be an addendum to this article. Some of those
things are considered within this document, some of them are not. The second
piece to that, which I believe will be on a case by case basis is the licensing of
the specific right-of-way improvement, i.e., sidewalks or additional asphalt for
such things as outdoor cafes or some of the restaurants ability to seat their
people in the right-of-way. I know that they are currently working through some
issues in downtown Boise. We don't expect those specific issues, but we are
waiting for some resolution on outdoor cafes or outdoor seating.
Rountree: Thank you.
Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting
May 15, 2007
Page 9 of 10
Borton: Shaun, do you get a sense - it would be helpful - I think Councilman
Rountree's comments make a lot of sense as far as the timing of implementing
something like this. Would it be helpful in your application and request to get this
to and approved by ACHD a letter of support and I believe MDC was unanimous
support, correct me if I am wrong and perhaps that this Council is of support, not
necessarily adopting them today, but a joint letter from MDC and perhaps the
Mayor urging their approval.
Wardle: Mr. President, my purpose here tonight was not to gain specific
approval from the Council. It is - the Meridian Development Corporation at their
Wednesday meeting approved this after a number of months of discussion and
so my purpose here is two fold. One to give a full presentation; secondly and
maybe more importantly is to let you know that I am working with the Parks
Department to come up with a budget item, which you will then be able to
consider for your budget discussions specifically related to maintaining these
improvements and so it was more important for me to get in front of you before
that discussion at the budget hearing. I will take the proper steps to get that
letter through ACHD and then come back for, I believe what Anna said would be
a text amendment, if that sounds procedurally correct.
Borton: Council if that is the option available is there any - or Madame Mayor
you won't have any concerns going that route in voicing our support for that?
De Weerd: Mr. Chair.
Borton: Madame Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess I think it is important since we would still be the regulatory
agency that this Council would officially recommend adopting it and instruct staff
to take the steps to incorporate it at the appropriate time after ACHD has signed
off as well. Then I would also like - you know I appreciate you going to work with
staff to look at budget for the upcoming budget year, but I would like to have a
sunset on that of a time period that would be turned over to either or to whatever
your establishing downtown to be that operational mechanism for any kind of
maintenance and upkeep. So, I would like to hear a plan at whatever Council's
direction would be, but open ended I don't feel comfortable with that (inaudible).
Borton: Council any other comments, questions and I will proceed forward with
joint letters of support and hopefully Shaun can push this through posthaste with
ACHD and come back with a text amendment after that approval.
Wardle: We will get it done. Thank you for your time this evening.
Borton: Thanks Shaun. Council that brings us to the end of our Pre-Council
meeting. I would entertain a motion to adjourn.
Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting
May 15, 2007
Page 10 of 10
Rountree: So moved.
Bird: Second.
Borton: It has been moved and seconded to adjourn. All those in favor say aye.
ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED.
(TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 7:01 P.M.
APPROVED:
(JJiU r9-
D, MAYOR
6 ,1'1 ,#7
DATE APPROVED
ATTESTED.
WILLIAM G. BERG, J
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