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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2000 09-13 Meridian City Council Agenda September 13,2000, at 6:30 P.M. City Council Chambers Roll-Call: Tammy deWeerd Cherie McCandless Ron Anderson Keith Bird Mayor Robert Corrie Aaenda 1. Continued Public Hearing: PFP 00-002 Request for preliminary / final plat approval for proposed Presidential Subdivision by Developers Diversified / Dakota Company with three building lots on 10.99 acres in an I-L zone - southeast corner of Presidential Drive and Eagle Road at the Meridian Crossroads C-enter: Attorney to prepare Findings of Facts and Conclusions of Law for approval 2. Continued Public Hearing: VAR 00-020 Request for a variance for the reduction of landscaping requirements to allow new construction site to match existing and as typical for the area and subdivision for Seven Gates by Daro) Forsythe / Seven Gates Properties - Lots 8, 9 and 10 of Block 1 of the Layne Industrial Park: Attorney to prepare Findings of Facts and Conclusions of Law for denial 3. Continued Public Hearing: VAR 00-019 Request for a variance of the required size and number of trees from 37 three-inch Caliper trees to 27 two-inch Caliper Trees for The Bower Street, LLC - southwest corner of Bower Street and East 5th Street: . Attorney to prepare Findings of Facts and Conclusions of Law for approval 4. Continued Public Hearing: Proposed change to the Notice of Mailing Ordinance by the City of Meridian: Attorney to prepare Ordinance 5. Continued Public Hearing: Proposed changes to the Landscape Ordinance by the City of Meridian: Continue Public Hearing to October 3,2000 6. Tabled from September 5, 2000: FP 00-017 Request for Final Plat approval of 3 building lots on approximately 18 acres for proposed Meridian City Council Agenda - September 13, 2000 Page 1 All materials presented at public meetings shall become property of the City of Meridian. Anyone desiring accommodation for disabilities related to documents and/or hearings, please contact the City Clerk's Office at 888-4433 at least 48 hours prior to the public meeting. Worden Subdivision currently in an Ada County RT zone by Randy and Linnea Worden - Amity and South Locust Grove: Approve 7. Discussion: Sale of Old Fire Station Property / Notice to Accept Bids: Continue discussion to September 19, 2000 Meridian City Council Agenda - September 13, 2000 Page 2 All materials presented at public meetings shall become property of the City of Meridian. Anyone desiring accommodation for disabilities related to documents and/or hearings, please contact the City Clerk's Office at 888-4433 at least 48 hours prior to the public meeting. Meridian City Council Agenda September 13,2000, at 6:30 PaM. Roll-Call: City Council Chambers J Tammy deWeerd 0/ Cherie McCandless .j Ron Anderson v Keith Bifd ~/ Mayor Robert Corrie Aaenda 1. Continued Public Hearing: PFP 00-002 Request for preliminary I final plat approval for proposed Presidential Subdivision by Developers Diversified I Dakota Company with three building lots on 10a99 acres in an I-L zone - southeast corner of Presidential Drive and Eagle Road at the Meridian Crossroads C~nter: /tf~ - Ikttur -to t?u-P~ rP 'f GL- Continued Public Fiearing: VAR 00-020 Request for a variance for the reduction of landscaping requirements to allow new construction site to match existing and as typical for the area and subdivision for Seven Gates by Darol Forsythe I Seven Gates Properties - Lots 8, 9 and 10 of Block 1 of the Layne Industrial Park: / DeM - IH-Iu-. fo ~~ PF If vG Continued Publ'ic1Hearing: VAR 00-019 Request for a variance of the required size and number of trees from 37 three-inch Caliper trees to 27 two-inch Caliper Trees for The Bower Street, LLC - southwest corner of Bower Street and East 5th Str.1:!: . ~0Zft - !}l!vJ--, / {/ 01J-'l?~ PF f C L- Con'iirfued Public Hearihg: Proposed change to the Notice of Mailing Ordinance by t.he City of Meridian: -L~ i q/ ....-'1 IJ /IfI-rntv "';0 f}ru.f)ttA.iJ O/lt:t.A-r1 Cl-rI ~ /lJV ! (q ~UJ U'~ Continued ~blic'. Hearing: Proposed changes to the Landscape Ordil};'nce by the City of Meridian: r;~ /1LI...L. PIli to (0-/7-00 Tabled from September 5, 2000: FP 00-017 Request for Final Plat approval of 3 building lots on approximately 18 acres for proposed Worden Subdivision currently in an Ada County RT zone by Randy and Linnea Worden - Amity and South Locust Grove: !+pfJ:UW! - 6 ~ 6 /-0 (tfNhLcf- ~. DisclWsion: Sale o!:eld Fire Station Property I Notice to Accept Bids: r.;Ohft 11,(A..1- IJ /S' U{ r r-?~ Tb Ocfv h-e1r 3) 2000, Meridian City Council Agenda - September 13, 2000 Page 1 All materials presented at public meetings shall become property of the City of Meridian. Anyone desiring accommodation for disabilities related to documents and/or hearings, please contact the City Clerk's Office at 888-4433 at least 48 hours prior to the public meeting, 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. ;at <!C Q g e ~ : I ~ - ~ I ~5 ~ I- W W :I: zen <(Z - - I Cz -(!) 0:::- wen ~(!) LL.~ o~ < ~~ -u u_ ..J .OJ ::> a. ... ~ h (j UJ ~ o Wg: J- et C ~ .S c ~ I:E ~ C!)~ ZCC -Q I-LlJ W1C/j Wc:t ~~ Q "' 1 '( \ ~ () ~ ~ i "< " UJ <: o :t: a.. /) ~ \ \.><0 ~ ~ '" Cf) lJ.J ct Q Q ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ "" ~ ~ '\J ~ ~ ~ z, Qg. YJ (::) ~ ('J ~ ~ ~' ~ - ~ ;~B I- UJ W :c zUJ <z -- Cz -C) 0::- woo ~C) u.~ oQ:: >-~ ....:r: - (..)U - ..J 'co :J a. I I I I I ! I I I I I I I , 1 I I I I I Meridian City Council Meetina September 13, 2000 The special City Council Meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order by Mayor Robert D. Corrie on Wednesday, September 13, 2000 at 7:30 P.M. Members Present: Robert D. Corrie, Tammy de Weerd:, Ron Anderson, Keith Bird. Members Absent: Cherie McCandless. Others Present: Bruce Freckleton, Steve Siddoway, Dave Bowman, Shelby Ugarriza. Corrie: Okay. I'll open the Meridian City Council's Special Meeting, September 13, 2000 at 7:30 P.M. at 6:30 and weill have roll-call vote. Item 5. Continued Public Hearing: Proposed changes to the Landscape Ordinance by the City of Meridian: Item 6. Tabled from September 5, 2000: FP 00-017 Request for Final Plat approval of 3 building lots on approximately 18 acres for proposed Worden Subdivision currently in an Ada County RT zone by Randy and Linnea Worden - Amity and South Locust Grove: Corrie: Okay, all here but Cherie McCandless. Council, there has been a request from the Planning and Zoning that we move Item 6 to Item 5 and Item 5 down to Item 6 so that the Warden Subdivision doesn't have to sit here. They don't waste too with the Landscaping Ordinance. Is that - anybody object to that? De Weerd: No. Bird: No. Item 1. Continued Public Hearing: PFP 00-002 Request for preliminary / final plat approval for proposed Presidential Subdivision by Developers Diversified / Dakota Company with three building lots on 10.99 acres in an I-L zone - southeast corner of Presidential Drive and Eagle Road at the Meridian Crossroads Center Corrie: So be it. And now, open Item no. 1 which is a Continued Public Hearing, request for preliminary and final plat approval for proposed Presidential subdivision by Developers Diversified / Dakota Company with three building lots on 10.99 acres in an I-L zone - southeast corner of Presidential Drive and Eagle Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13, 2000 Page 2 Siddoway: Mr. Mayor, members of the Council. In front of you on the board is a vicinity map just to orient you with the project. It's an extension of the family center now known as the Crossroads Shopping Center at the intersection of Fairview and Eagle. The proposed subdivision is on the south side of Presidential Drive which gets its name and this would be the Pine Street Extension - still a dirt road not yet constructed on the south of it. This is Crossroads Subdivision to its east. The application is for the combination of a preliminary plat and a final plat combined. These are some site photos taken out at the site. The left photo is taken basically from the intersection of that Pine Street Extension. Looking north, you can see the part of the Family Center Development in the background that's currently being constructed, as well as some of the signs along Eagle Road. Turning and just looking a little farther to the northeast, you can see the Crossroads Subdivision and the property in the floor ground here is part of the application tonight. This is turning and looking nearly due east. Along that Pine Street Extension, you can see the Crossroads Subdivision here on the left. The Middle School property - the new Lewis and Clark Middle School is in this location right here on the south side of the Pine Street Extension. The applicant has submitted a revised plat as per the motion of the Planning and Zoning Commission. They have complied with the motion that the Planning and Zoning Commission made. With it, I would ask that the 20 foot landscape setbacks that are now noted as a note on the plat also be depicted graphically on the face of the plat. The only outstanding issue on this project from the Planning and Zoning Perspective that I know of is that the wall along the Crossroads Subdivision - the staff comments and the motion of the Planning and Zoning Commission state that it is to be constructed prior to issuance of building permits. The applicant has suggested that the wall be required prior to the first Certificate of Occupancy. It's our position that those - the neighbors in the Crossroads Subdivision should have the wall prior to construction beginning and that it should be prior to the Building Permits. There is one other minor issue dealing with the Water Easement that I'll turn over to Bruce Freckleton. Freckleton: Mr. Mayor, members of the Council. At the time Crossroads Middle School was constructed, a water main was extended down what was shown as a dirt road off of Eagle Road. At that point in time, there was coordination with Quadrant Engineers to extend water in two locations to the north end into the proposed subdivision site. In the plat, they show an easement that runs east and west down along that southern end for the connection of an eight inch water main and it's not needed since that water main can simply tie into the two locations that were provided in the construction of the water main in Pine, so that's pretty minor modification but I did want to clarify that. That is all. Corrie: Is the developer or the representative here this evening? Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13,2000 Page 3 Bauwens: Good evening. My name is Tom Bauwens with Dakota Company, 380 East Park Center Boulevard, Boise, 83706. I'd just like to refresh everybody's memory a little bit about the project and where we're at what this application is this evening. The site plan over on the easel to my right is a composite of the entire project as it is today. Wal-Mart is over on the upper right corner. The Shopko / Old Navy complex wrapping around those buildings are about ready to open. Shepler's is now open. Just to kind of give you an orientation, Texas Roadhouse is here. The IHOP is now under construction on this pad right here. Applebee's is here. Arby's was approved here. Carl's Jr. is here. Old Navy, Bed Bath and Beyond, Shepler's, Shapka and the Wal-Mart is here. We have nothing in the works on these areas right here. The subdivision in question is this parcel of approximately 11 acres down here which has always been included in the project. We've put in a subdivision plat to create two one- acre each out parcels in each corner. Presidential Drive has already been improved for ACHD's requirements at this time. I'd like to bring everybody's attention to where we're at with the Highway District in regards to the required improvements to the Fairview Eagle intersection and also on the Pine Road Extension. Yesterday we had a review meeting with the Highway Department over the 75 percent complete drawings for this intersection rebuilt. We're making the review comments from the Highway District. I anticipate that that project will be ready to go out for bids probably around Thanksgiving. We have a Development Agreement in place with the Highway District on the sharing ratios. We intend to start on that project hopefully at this year - the way this public bidding process so - That work is well underway. As far as Pine Street, there is a Development Agreement and a cost-sharing ratio has been signed by both the Highway District and ourselves. The design work is underway for Pine Street. The thirty five percent drawings will be turned into the Highway District this week. It includes a signal at Pine Street. The Highway District is going to contribute the signal. We are sharing the cost of constructing Pine Street. So design work is underway on both of those and this intersection will proceed this. This will be probably be started in February or March time frame. I really ha9 no further comments to the position statement letter that I believe is in your packets. The only question that we now have is - Steve mentioned graphically showing the twenty-foot setback on the plat which I would have no problem with doing. I would only mention that on the record, the subdivision we did not do that. It was just a note but if you prefer a dash line on there we can certainly do that. As far as the timing of the wall construction, we either again request that the wall construction be tied to the first Certificate of Occupancy as opposed to the - prior to the issuance of the first Building Permit or that we be allowed to bond for that as part of the landscaping improvements to get the plat signed and recorded. As far as Bruce Freckleton's comment on the not needed water easement, he's entirely correct. They did provide stubs off of the Pine Street Water Extension. And we'd certainly delete that. It's not necessary. We don't need to provide it. Are there any questions? Bird: I have none. Meridian City Council Meeting September 1312000 Page 4 Corrie: Okay. Thank you. I just wondered if the public would like to issue testimony in this request for Preliminary and Final Plat. Hearing none. I don't think there's any rebuttal that needs to be done by the developer anyway. Council, is there any questions? Go ahead, Mr. Anderson. Anderson: Mr. Mayor, I would move that we close the public hearing. Bird: Second. Corrie: Motion made and seconded to close the public hearing. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor of the motion say aye. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES, ONE ABSENT. Corrie: Council, discussion or questions? Okay. Anderson: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mr. Anderson. Anderson: I just had one comment on the request to postpone the wall between the subdivision and the developer - I think we've heard time in and time out from citizens that part of the reason why they want that wall prior to the construction - it's due to all the construction waste that blows into their properties. My thinking is that that's probably a good idea to get that started early on in the project and not wait until the Certificate of Occupancy on the first one. Corrie: further discussion on that? Bird: I have none. Corrie: Okay. I agree. Any other discussion? I'll entertain a motion on the request for Preliminary Plat and final Plat. Anderson: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mr. Anderson. Anderson: I would then make a motion that we instruct the City Attorney to prepare Findings of Facts and Conclusions of Law and Decision of Order for approval of the Preliminary and Final Plat for the Presidential Subdivision by the Developer's Diversified Dakota Company for three building lots on 10.99 acres subject to staff comments. Corrie: And staff comments. Meridian City Council Meeting September 13, 2000 Page 5 Bird: What about the wall? Anderson: And excluding the developer's request for postponing that wall until the Certificate of Occupancy - I think that that should be done with the start of the project. Bird: Before building permits. Anderson: Before building permits. De Weerd: Second. Corrie: Motion made and seconded to approve the Final and Preliminary Plat of the Crossroads 10.99 acres with the comments of staff included and also to have the wall built before the issuance of a building permit. Any further discussion? Anderson: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mr. Anderson. Anderson: I guess that kind of makes me think of a point of discussion is how can they build the wall without a building permit when they have to have that to start construction on the wall. Corrie: Oh - before they have the issuance of home building permits? Anderson: Well, I guess a building permit on that property - You'd think you have to have that before you could even start building the wall. Bird: That's true. Siddoway: He'd be specific to structural buildings - structural permits. Corrie: Structural - okay. That's what I anticipated. Mr. Attorney, do you got that one? All right. Any further discussion? Hearing none. Roll-call vote please. Roll-call: Bird, aye; De Weerd; Anderson, aye; McCandless, absent. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES, ONE ABSENT. Item 2. Continued Public Hearing: VAR 00-020 Request for a variance for the reduction of landscaping requirements to allow new construction site to match existing and as typical for the area and subdivision for Seven Gates by Oarol Forsythe / Seven Gates Meridian City Council Meeting September 13, 2000 Page 6 Properties - Lots 8, 9 and 10 of Block 1 of the Layne Industrial Park: Corrie: Item No. 2 is a continuance of a public hearing - request for a variance for the reduction of landscaping requirements to allow new construction site to match existing and as typical for the area and subdivision for Seven Gates, lots 8, 9 and 10 in block 1 of the Lynn Industrial Park. At this time, 1'1( open the continued public hearing and staff comments first, Steve. Siddoway: Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. The vicinity map on the wall in front of you gives you an idea of where this property is located. It's at the end of Commercial Street. This is Nola Road that extends into Locust Grove. The railroad is on their southern boundary and surrounding uses are all in that light industrial realm. This is an application that you've acted on before. I guess they're proposing somewhat different, but there has been a variance to the landscaping which you have already approved. I'll kind of go through the history of this a little bit. They went through a Preliminary and Fin.al Plat several months back. They have three lots and they have three buildings already constructed. The lot lines run directly through some of these buildings. As a condition of approval on the Final Plat, one of the conditions was for 68 total trees between the three - now going to four sites - that they would have a 1 a-foot minimum landscape setback going around the perimeter of that development and this hatched area. Placing trees 30 feet on center would give them a total of 68 trees on the site. They came before you with a variance. They originally were showing the building footprint offset from the property line for the new building that they wish to construct. Landscape setbacks along the property line on the west, as well as continuing the existing one that is on the east and then along the south - during the variance process, this was the plan that got approved. It shows the building footprint along the property boundary itself. There was no landscape setback along this western side. They increased the size of the buffer along the south and they did not extend the buffer on the east down. This provided a total of 66 trees - only two less than the plat suggested. It is 11 less than the ordinance. I point out that the site has 114,800 square feet of asphalt between what shows up on here as four lots. The plat has not been recorded. Legally, there is three lots in this location, but that would require 77 three-inch caliper trees. The variance that was granted allowed them to go from 77 down to 66, a reduction of 11 trees and they were required to have three-inch caliper minimum or six to eight foot Conifers. The plan that was submitted with this application shows only what is now the proposed western-most - what I call the fourth lot. They are showing none of the landscaping along the southern property line and adding a few trees in here - a total of 14 new trees out along Commercial Street. Those trees are 8 - 12 feet on center. They show them as three-inch caliper, but there are no landscape buffers on the side or the rear of the property. This would represent a reduction of 43 trees less than the ordinance requirement. Staff recommends denial of this new variance and suggests that the variance that has already been approved should stay in effect. Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13,2000 Page 7 It is already 11 less than the required 77 and the applicant has been told on numerous times that he needed to bring that site into compliance with that ordinance. As one place I see that we could come down and compromise, is on the size of those trees. I do know that it is nearly impossible to find three-inch caliper trees. You'll see they are proposing a reduction in that size in the new landscape ordinance later tonight. I would recommend that the number of trees should stay the same as the variance that was already approved, but we could reduce the required size from the three-inch caliper down to a two-inch caliper minimum. I would just point out that this variance and the application is tied to all three of the existing lots - the four proposed lots and not just the proposed fourth lot. That is all one project and the entire site needs to be brought into compliance. That's all I have. Corrie: Okay. Is the applicant here this evening? Dane: I'm Russ Dane, 6328 Chris Park Lane, Boise, 83703. John Forsythe couldn't be here this evening. He is out of town on business. I think - do you all recall the history of this or do you remember it coming before you fairly clearly? Because I have kind of jumped in on this and if Steve's - Can you show me the other - Thank you. We don't know how this plan got into the package, but it did get approved that evening - that this body voted on it. One of the problems that the applicant has with this approval is that all of the landscaping that would be required along the southern part there - along the railroad corridor, actually takes away a property that has been used by the existing tenants for the past five years in the day-to-day operation of their businesses which would be an extreme burden on the tenants. The applicant has - those are the original tenants out there since they moved them out from the - Mr. Forsythe used to be over by the airport - the Boise City Airport. I don't want to get into how this drawing got into the package and got approved. The other drawing - this original drawing which is in the package but didn't make it in front of this body was what they wanted originally approved with a reduction in landscaping. Mr. Forsythe has made a proposal to me and asked me to present it to you. He would be amenable to making a cash contribution to Parks and Recreation. I spoke to your Parks and Recreation Department about purchasing trees to be installed at their discretion - either in new parks or other parks. Again, at their discretion. The burden to the existing tenants in the existing buildings is just so cumbersome in their day-to- day operation. The reason he wants to build this fourth building is because the tenants are demanding more space to grow into. Originally, that is why that fourth pad site was designed into this entire project. Steve, perhaps you can answer this. When they went and got the new subdivision, then were the new landscape requirements applied to that - or were the original landscape requirements from five years ago applied to that? Siddoway: I don't know the date of the original plat. The ordinance was 1 three- inch caliper tree per 1500 square feet. That was the ordinance requirement that has always been applied to it. Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13,2000 Page 8 ( Dane: Since back in 1995? Siddoway: Yes. Dane: I think if you drive down that street today, and you look at the properties, you won't see any difference in landscaping. You'll drive down and you won't say "Where is this person's trees?" They tried to get designed in as many trees as we could up in front there and on the side. This is the original drawing that they had wanted this body to review and approve initially. Bird: Steve, flip back to that last one. Now, that's the one you said that you don't know where it came from? Dane: Right. It was a drawing that was produced for some reason. I tried to find out, but it was just getting too - find out how it got put in the package versus their other drawing. In the package, you'll see that other drawing in different places, but it never got in front of you here. Bird: This is the drawing that we had in our packet. Dane: But if you look at the file, you'll see that other drawing in there also. This is the one that you voted on, but this was not their intent. Mr. Nichols - I read the minutes of that meeting. Mr. Nichols did have it right on the head in that he said you want 66 trees and so many - whoever was speaking that evening for them, said, "Yes, that's correct." The meeting continued and it got lost and they went on into this meeting and referenced this drawing by the date that's on it and that's the one that got put in and approved. But again, if you go out there - I physically took Darryl and John out there and I said, "How would that impact you?" We went back there and met with the tenants. They just use that space ~or day-to- day operation. They process inventory through their buildings. It's stockpiled back there and they move it through. Trucks - it's designed to have semi-tractor- trailers come between the buildings and actually do U-turns and go around the buildings and out the other side so that they don't have to back up. Bird: In other words, that's not parking space that is shown there. Dane: There is in between the buildings. Bird: On the south end. Dane: Correct. Nobody parks back there. That's all product that's inventoried back there and stands back there. Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13,2000 Page 9 Anderson: What's the width of that landscape buffer in that drawing there on the back portion along the railroad? I think it's wider at one end, but what's the long and skinny part? Dane: I believe it's 20 feet. We measure 20 feet and took it off there from the back fence just to make sure that trucks could get through and make the U-turn taking that - De Weerd: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mrs. de Weerd De Weerd: So, the issue - and I wasn't on Council when this came in front of it. I wasn't on - I missed the Planning and Zoning meeting when you were in front of us, too. I believe I recall the issue was that the landscape was - you were not in compliance at the time you brought this in. It was a requirement that never was done. Dane: The applicant will argue that point back and forth - that they have complied. If you drive down the street, it looks like everybody is either in compliance or out of compliance because all the landscaping is the same. There is no landscaping along the rail corridor anywhere almost between Meridian and Boise. The only landscaping that I saw is behind the new elementary school. They have Conifers about every 30 or 40 feet. Then there is deciduous trees about every 100 feet over on Emerald in Boise where some of those retail stores are. De Weerd: But originally, you had a Conditional Use Permit and it was a requirement in your Conditional Use Permit. Dane: Landscaping. Correct. De Weerd: But they just never did it. Dane: Well, again, the applicant will argue that point - that they met - Mrs. Stiles came out and said, "This is fine and we approve." Again, without going through all the records, I can tell you that if you drive down that street, you won't think that they're out of compliance. It looks the same as every other property there. De Weerd: So what does it currently look like? We just have a drawing of the one side. Dane: If you take the far west lot and remove that landscaping out in front, everything else going east is there. Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13, 2000 Page 10 ( De Weerd: So you don't have anything on the south side, but you have that landscaped area on the east side? Dane: Correct. There are trees in there on the east side, aren't there, Steve? Siddoway: Yes. They currently have trees in these three planters along Commercial and along the side here. That is the existing trees. Dane: And if you look down the rail corridor, you'll see no one has landscaping along the entire subdivision. Everybody stockpiles their inventory or product. They start at the back fence and move toward the building until they can't drive the trucks through there anymore. De Weerd: But could you not do at least landscaping on the fourth lot, on the furthest west side, which is not yet developed and no one is using that right now. Is that correct? Dane: Right. Well, what they did - they did as much as they could. They brought in some road mix and compacted it so that they could get some of the trucks that are parking on the street to park on the lot. That's what they have done so far. In this design, they show the building up against that property line and they have a two-foot drain curb that runs down that entire west side so that all the runoff from the roof will drain into that curb and run into the south end of the property. They plan on making that a drainage swell back in the south side of that fourth lot to control drainage. There's also drainage that comes off of some other lots that dumps into there. Anderson: I think what Tammy is asking is can those building, if they're not built yet - Can they be moved over wide enough to accommodate a landscaping strip. down that west side of the property? Dane: I'm not sure what we'd need for a landscape strip. What do you think, Steve? Can you do that in like 5 foot or plant trees down that side? Siddoway: It depends on if you're doing Conifers. I would recommend at least 1 O. That's what we had recommended originally with the Preliminary and Final Plat. Anderson: What's on the east side? How wide is that? Dane: Well, they have parking on that east side. Anderson: No. On the far east. Dane: Oh. Way over there - I'm not sure. Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13, 2000 Page 11 Siddoway: It's 20 feet existing right now. Dane: And that was designed with those buildings, but now we're at the last lot and trying to meet fire requirements. I don't know if that's why that is designed that way, but I know Fire did have something to say about the previous landscaping. As far as purchasing trees for Parks and Recreation to be applied toward other - I kind of see that as kind of like wetlands mitigation - where you take some wetlands and you have to replace it somewhere else. Anderson: The idea behind the ordinance is so that we have beautification of the City. If all you have is in one area is an asphalt jungle and you're allowed to buy trees to go somewhere else in town, that doesn't do anything to beautify that particular area. Dane: I understand that, but I do want to make clear that in the entire subdivision along the rail corridor, there is no landscaping on the south side of any property. Siddoway: Mr. Mayor, may I respond to that? Anderson: They must have distance in the front or something to be meeting the landscape requirement. Dane: Right - like they do here. You'll see that it looks the same if you drive down there. Siddoway: Mr. Mayor and Mr. Dane. In response to the issue as to whether or not there is landscaping along there, I can tell you that the - there's an industrial subdivision east of this one - Commerce Park Subdivision and Albertson's Sundries is currently working with us to maximize their landscaping. The Micron Crucial Technologies application, which was before Planning and Zoning last night and coming to this body next month - they are buffering up along the railroad corridor heavily in that industrial subdivision. In Railside Park, which is west of this and also butts up against the railroad tracks - there have been two recent applications, both of which are putting extensive landscaping along that corridor. I do not doubt that there are other lots in this subdivision that are out of compliance. With every application that has come through us, since I have been here, we. have been requiring them to bring it up to code. I don't think that this one should be any different. All of the applications that have been made of other lots that are out of compliance, we've been working with them to either bring it into compliance or to maximize it as much as they can and get a variance for the remainder. We had worked with the original applicant's representative to try and work out a scenario where we felt that they had maximized what they could reasonably do on the lot and it still didn't meet the ordinance requirement. We felt like it was the best compromise and that was what we came up with. We see that railroad corridor as being a future transit rail line as well as multiple use Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13, 2000 Page 12 pathways, et cetera. We would like to see this dressed up - not only here, but to continue along as other applications come through. That's all. Dane: We did approach UP trying to see if we could plant trees in the right-of- way, but at this point in time, they're not too receptive to that. We thought, "Well, if we could just put them in the corridor because there's at least 100 feet between the back fence and there's a large right-of-way there. Again, they weren't receptive. We're trying to accommodate the landscape requirements, but in the same token, trying not to irritate the tenants so much that they go somewhere else. They've already requested Darryl to build that building because they need to expand into that space. Again, that was the original design. You could see it's always been designed that way since its inception. Bird: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mr. Bird. Bird: Steve, is this a zero lot line clearance in this zone. Siddoway: Yes. A lot of side-lot lines can go to zero with the Fire Department's approval. It has to meet their requirements for firewalls, et cetera. But as far as the zoning setbacks are concerned, it can go to zero. Bird: Thank you. Siddoway: I would also just like to point out that the variance does need to be specific to the landscaping. The building footprint and the parking needs to be - this isn't an approval for that tonight. We need to deal with that at a separate time when we review it based on the use. We have no idea what the parking requirements or if the parking that shows here complies with what the use of the building is. The other three buildings, they are severely under-parked. When they got approved for those buildings, they had stated that they were nearly all warehouse and they're not just warehouse. They have cars parking up and down the streets. There's not enough parking as it is. Chem-Lawn is in one of them and we just - I want to make sure that the use and the number of parking spaces and that sort of thing - that's not part of this approval tonight. The issue is what's required in terms of number of trees and the size of those trees. The use will be dealt with at a later time, when they come through for a Certificate of Zoning Compliance. Dane: The other user is a Moving and Storage Company. One of the reasons they need more space is for overseas storage of military containers for military personnel. They would move in from Building NO.3 and they would take over the back half of Building No.2 and the current tenant would jump over into the new building. Meridian City Council Meeting September 13,2000 Page 13 Bird: Where are they going to store these overseas containters? Dane: Inside. They have to. They're their personal belongings. They just containerize them and just keep them there for two or three years until the personnel comes back to the states. Sometimes they just ship them over to Germany or whatever base they are at. Bird: Well, then why do they need the south end for inventory? Dane: Well, that tenant does not, but Darryl and the woodworking shop - they keep their inventory back there. Chem-Lawn - I think they're pretty self- contained on that first lot. That entire building was a special design just for them. Bird: Well, how do they stack it back there? Do they got racks or do they just lay it down on the ground? Dane: Yes. It's just on the ground. They'll work it with forklifts. Bird: And it's not fenced or anything? Dane: Not in between - one of the buildings - I think there is a fence. Bird: I mean along the south end there. There is a fence between the corridor? Dane: Yes. And if you looked down there, you would see all the companies do that. They stockpile stuff back against the fence. Bird: Well, the ones across the street certainly don't. They've got landscaping all the way around. The ones on the north side of the road - and I can't figure out why the south side of Commercial Drive needs to be any different. Dane: I'm just trying to - Bird: I understand that, but I don't know why one side is required to go all the way around with their landscaping and make it look nice and yet we're not - on the south side of the same road - we're not making it happen. I realize that none of us sit on the Council. This is the first one on Commercial Road that we probably even voted on. Dane: It's difficult. I know. Bird: Two wrongs don't make a right. Dane: It's difficult, though because it's existing. They've been there for five years using all of that property. De Weerd: But it's existing that required it. They just never did it. Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 1312000 Page 14 Dane: Well, again, the applicant would argue that point. De Weerd: Well, it's all part of the condition. So whether - you know - then it would have been deleted if it had been waived or a variance would have been requested at that time, and it wasn't. Dane: I wish I could speak to that. I wish I was there when that occurred but all I hear is this side and that side. Well, if we can push that building over and get a 10-foot strip down there and plant trees - Mr. Forsythe - He understands the value of landscaping. Bird: Well, I don't understand where you're coming from. Steve, how come we're - Is that their plan to come make it about 50 feet at the southwest corner - the landscaping there? Siddoway: Yes. That was their own design. Staff had nothing to do with that. Dane: This was the drawing we didn't want you to see. I really don't know why the builder that was working with us had that drawn up. I don't know what generated this drawing. That 50-foot back there is actually currently a swell that's lined with River Rock and it's the on-site drainage swell for the entire four lots. They were going to put in a special drainage system in there to handle everything and put parking over that. That's why they didn't want landscaping in that large section. They were going to go to the expense of creating a special drainage system. They have it engineered already. So they could have parking over the top of that to alleviate some of this parking. Bird: The lot that butts up to you there on the west - Do they have landscaping down their east side? Dane: No. Just a fence between the properties. Bird: Just a chain-linked fence. De Weerd: But as Steve mentioned, as these applications are coming in, they're being brought into the current code. Well, I wouldn't be opposed to just bringing that 20-foot clear to the western border and knocking out a couple of those trees, but- Corrie: Okay. Do you have anything else that you want to add? Dane: It just seems like we're kind of caught between landscaping and parking and trying to accommodate the tenants' requests of more space. I don't know if we can move that building over and get some trees down that west side along the fence line. I just don't know. I just know the impact that all of the Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13,2000 Page 15 landscaping on the south side would have on the tenants. The parking, again - that's why they improved that lot - was trying to just get the trucks off the street. Bird: The thing is that you are not parking back there. You're storing inventory back there. Dane: Correct. On the fourth lot, that is supposed to be parking. Bird: I could see you going up to the lot line with that future building because if you have to bring it over ten feet or so, you're not going to meet the parking requirements. You're not going to have enough room between the buildings. I think that along the corridor there - It would be interesting how we got this - how this is the one we approved. Dane: I talked to the City Attorney and tried to decipher that but there was no - Bird: That was the one we saw. Dane: This is the drawing that was approved, but it clearly wasn't the one that the applicant wanted you to approve. Anderson: But the representative didn't say that. Dane: No. He didn't catch that when everybody got off of that. Like I said, when Mr. Nichols had pointed out you want this and then the conversation went somewhere else. That was very unfortunate, but again, it's the existing use and the fact that all of the current users out there in Layne Industrial Park - they use the back portion all the way to the fence also. Corrie: Okay. Anything else. Bird: I have none. Corrie: We have still got - I don't know. Maybe somebody in the audience wants to - Morrow: Mr. Mayor and Council. Walt Morrow, 2340 West Franklin Road. I am an owner of 2188 Commercial. We would oppose the granting of this variance for the following reasons. The hardship that was created here was created by the owners. It was further compounded by the Council's action in allowing a re- subdivision of the three existing lots to begin with to create yet a fourth lot and with a building to be planned for the fourth lot. Having said that, we all, when we bought our properties, knew what the rules were. We knew what the subdivision requirements were and knew what the ordinances were. We landscaped our properties to meet those. We did not create hardships, nor did we approach you for variances. We followed the covenants and the restrictions of the subdivision, Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13, 2000 Page 16 the City Ordinances and built buildings consistent with that. A variance requires a hardship created not by the owner. In this case, the hardship that's created here is self - *** End of Side 1 *** Morrow: -- has nothing at all to do with any other entities actions nor any other members of the subdivisions or the property owners of the subdivision. Clearly, to me, the amount of money to be donated for landscaping at another site is unacceptable because the issue is that we are trying to create a subdivision that is attractive and that retains clients because they like the atmosphere. Maybe the proposed Landscape Ordinance or the landscape rules that we have now are a little bit onerous. Those things can be adjusted. Nonetheless, in this particular case, they're asking for a massive change that takes away from the character of the other buildings within the subdivision that we all met those requirements. So, for those reasons, it appears to me that the variance should not be granted and they ought to live somewhere closely to the same rules that the rest of us live by so that our subdivision is an attractive subdivision and it retains its character in terms of when it comes time to release that we get good quality tenants. Once you get into a position where you have a declining subdivision, then you also have declining tenants and declining properties. Therefore, you have declining tax revenues to the City of Meridian. Currently, this particular user dominates the end of the street with all types of vehicles, moving vans - parking - it's a virtual gridlock to try to go to the end of the street and try to turn around as it is. So clearly, you have a problem here with parking and landscaping both and it seems to me that it's not contingent upon the City of Meridian to compromise its requirements for a hardship that was created solely by the owner. That would be our position in terms of us as owners of 2188 Commercial. Questions? Bird: I have none. Morrow: Thank you. Corrie: Anybody else issue testimony? Okay. Do you have rebuttal on the opposing testimony? Dane: Not much rebuttal. Again, clearly, I would invite you to drive down the street and it would speak for itself. If you were to drive down the street, you would not see any difference in Mr. Morrow's property or Mr. Forsythe's property or anyone else's property. It's not some - It just wouldn't be glaring and you wouldn't look behind the buildings trying to say, "Gh, look. There's trees back there or there's not trees back there." I understand the City of Meridian in the beautification plan. The existing use out there and it has been existing for five years on that side of the street - on the south side against the rail corridor demonstrates that there is no landscaping there and that the current tenants have used that portion of the property for the day-to-day operation of their Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13,2000 Page 1 7 business. We're trying to alleviate the parking by spending additional funds in designing the drainage system so that we can cover it and create parking back there. I would just say that none of this space is speculation warehouse space. We won't be competing with Mr. Morrow's space. It's already spoken for by the tenants. Corrie: Okay. Any other questions, Council. Bird: I have none. De Weerd: I have none. Corrie: Steve, I'm not going to get to vote here, obviously. I do have a question. Is that on the Conditional Use Permit like Mrs. de Weerd said. Is that already on . the south side part of their Conditional Use and they haven't done it yet. Siddoway: This landscape plan that you see before you is part of a variance that was already granted. This is the approved variance that is already in effect for the property. Bird: Mr. Mayor. This is what we voted on the last time. This is the plan we voted on. It doesn't have anything to do with Conditional Use or anything. This was a variance that he asked. We allowed him from 77 to 66 trees, but this is the plan that we voted on. Siddoway: There was no Conditional Use Permit application. It was a Preliminary and Final Plat application. Bird: That's right. Corrie: Okay. Thank you. Any other questioning? Questions, Council. Anderson: I have none. Corrie: I entertain a motion to close the public hearing. Bird: So moved. Anderson: Second. Corrie: Motion made and seconded to close the public hearing. All those in favor of the motion say aye. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES, ONE ABSENT. Corrie: Discussion. Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13,2000 Page 18 De Weerd: I have none. Bird: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mr. Bird. Bird: If we don't have any discussion, I would move that we have the attorney draw up the proper papers showing denial for the variance in the reduction of the landscaping requirements to allow a new construction site to match existing and as typical for the area and subdivision of Seven Gates by Darryl Forsythe - Seven Gates property lots 8, 9 and 10 of block one of Layne I ndustrial Park. De Weerd: Second. Siddoway: Mr. Mayor. I would just like to ask if you would - about the reduction in size from three-inch to two-inch because I know that even with this plan, that's going to be an issue. Bird: What is out there right now is that plan right there with three-inch trees. The variance that I just made a motion to deny has nothing to do with that. If we want to change the caliper- Siddoway: I just bring it up. Bird: The only thing I was thinking, Steve, and maybe Bill can answer this - if we deny this variance, what we are doing is denying the variance. Then if we want to change the caliper, that would have to be another motion, wouldn't it? Anderson: You would have to go back and amend your other variance. Bird: You'd have to go back and amend that variance. Corrie: Mr. Nichols. Nichols: Mr. Bird, Mayor, members of the Council. Let me find my copy of the application really quick. In reviewing the variance application that's on file, it doesn't specifically address the caliper of the trees; however, if the Council so chose because of the impossibility to find three-inch caliper trees - I don't know if it's impossible, but it's impractical to find them. A reduction from three-inch to two-inch would fit within this variance application. In other words, you could say to stick with the previous one, but simply reduce the minimum caliper from three- inch to two-inch. Bird: We can make that in this motion along with that - along with the denial of this variance? Meridian City Council Meeting September 13,2000 Page 19 Nichols: What I'm trying to do here is to see if you could - maybe I'm trying to shoehorn something that won't fit. It would seem to me that if it's naye impossible to find three-inch trees, that's a hardship to anybody that's trying to satisfy these landscape requirements. Corrie: Mr. Counselor, we're denying the whole thing. So, I think you're right. think you're shoehorning too much foot in the shoe at this point. Bird: My question, Mr. Mayor, is that we're denying the change of this variance. Now, that's the variance that we approved. If they want to come back and ask for a variance in caliper of trees, I don't know why that would have to even come before the Council. If it's hard to get, that should be a staff deal. Staff should come back and say something. Siddoway: Well, the Findings of Facts and Conclusions of Law for the variance state three-inch caliper. Bird: I don't know how we can shoehorn that in there. So I am going to stand with my motion. De Weerd: I am going to stand with my second. C9rrie: Motion made and seconded to deny the request for Variance 00-020. Any further discussion? Hearing none. Roll-call vote. Roll-call: Bird, aye; De Weerd, aye; Anderson, aye. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES, ONE ABSENT. De Weerd: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mrs. de Weerd. De Weerd: Could I ask the City Attorney then, what step do they need to take for us to correct it to a two-inch? Nichols: Councilwoman De Weerd, Mayor, members of the Council. Perhaps I can ask a question of Mr. Siddoway. With regard to landscaping requirements and any pending applications that are to come before this body, with regard to tree size, are you still requiring or recommending three-inch minimum or are you reducing that to two-inch minimum? Siddoway: We are recommending three-inch minimum based on the ordinance. You have a new landscape ordinance before you tonight that will propose to reduce that to two-inch, but in compliance with the ordinance, we recommend Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13, 2000 Page 20 three-inch caliper trees. As a policy, if the applicant can demonstrate to us that they have looked high and low and no three-inch caliper trees are to be found, we have allowed them to reduce it to two-inch caliper trees if they meet 110 percent of the total caliper-inch requirement on the site if they were three inches, which roughly doubles the number of trees. I don't see that as a possibility here, so that policy wouldn't help them at all. The ordinance is 1 three-inch caliper tree per 1500 square feet. That is the recommendation that is made on all current applications. Corrie: Mr. Attorney, I think we're going to have to have a cut somewhere and we might as well cut it right as soon as we have the landscaping ordinance if it goes through. It'll be cut and then the others will go to be a two. Personally, I would say somebody is going to get it. Mrs. de Weerd, that doesn't answer your question. Nichols: Mayor, members of the Council. What I would say then, is the ordinance now requires three-inch. If it's impossible to find three-inch, then I guess there's another variance application. I don't propose that to Mr. Dane just to make him jump through some other hoops. The Planning and Zoning Commission has looked at the Landscape Ordinance so it's had its hearing there. We have the Landscape Ordinance for public hearing here tonight and I would expect that some action will be taken on that in the near future. De Weerd: How does that affect existing applications, though? Nichols: The way the existing ordinance is if it requires three-inch, then that's what the existing applications have to meet it. Siddoway: In the Findings of Facts and Conclusions of Law are specific to three- inch and if they're Conifers, six to eight feet. De Weerd: Thank you. Siddoway: If they want to change that, I guess they'll need to reapply. Item 3. Continued Public Hearing: VAR 00-019 Request for a variance of the required size and number of trees from 37 three-inch Caliper trees to 27 two-inch Caliper Trees for The Bower Street, LLC - southwest corner of Bower Street and East 5th Street: Corrie: Item No. 3 is a continued public hearing - request for a variance of the required size and number of trees from 37 three-inch caliper trees to 27 two-inch caliper trees for The Bower Street, LLC - southwest corner of Bower Street and 5th Street. So I will open the continued public hearing with staff comments. Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 131 2000 Page 21 Siddoway: Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. This also is a variance on the Landscape Ordinance. The location of this is at the extension of Bower Avenue where it intersects with East 5th. There are two lots in this location right here that are the subject parcels of this variance. Unlike the variance that we just considered, this variance does have hardship that was not required by the applicant. There are Nampa Meridian Irrigation District easements on the north and west sides of the property. Just the west side? Oh, that's right. Mr. Morrow has presented a landscape plan which staff feels does maximize the landscaping on three sides. He is not able to add additional landscaping along this side due to the easement. He has requested a reduction from 37 to 27 trees and also reduction from the three-inch requirement down to a two-inch caliper requirement. You have the staff comments prepared by Brad Hawkins-Clark and Shari Stiles dated September 1, 2000. We see that this is a clearer case of hardship and we can support this one, so we recommend approval of this variance with the comments noted in the staff report. Corrie: Steve, just for correction. You said 37 to 27. I think it was 37 to 25. Is that correct? Siddoway: Is it? I'm just reading off the transmittal. It says 27 on the transmittal, so I'll have the applicant clarify that. Corrie: Okay. Is the applicant here? Morrow: Walt Morrow, 2340 West Franklin Road, Meridian. I'm here representing the Bower Street, LLC. The request that you have before you is a variance from 37 - 25. If you will look at your application summary, the bottom line in parenthesis, states from 37 -25 and in size from three-inch to two-inch caliper. I want to address the issue of the three-inch to two-inch caliper first. When I became aware of a potential shortage of three-inch caliper trees, I spoke directly with my landscaper, Mr. Loring Evans, who is here tonight as a representative of Montgomery Landscaping. He indicated to me that those trees were difficult to get. At the same time, we are just completing a residence in Highland Woods for Jim Dallas. Jim Dallas is a co-owner of Baxter Nursery. Some of you that have been in Meridian for any length of time will recognize that Baxter Nursery formerly was on Black Cat Road and the ground now is covered by the golf course and by Ashford Greens. Baxter Nursery moved to Emmett when we started the Dallas' home. I toured Baxter Nursery. It's a 240-acre site. In terms of trees, they grow only deciduous trees. They eliminated Conifers. I spoke directly with Jim concerning the three-inch issue. The reality of the three- inch issue is that they know longer produce three-inch caliper trees. It takes one year to grow a tree from a two-inch caliper tree to a three-inch caliper tree and the net return to them is $20. Therefore, they eliminated three-inch caliper trees. Baxter Nursery is a major supplier of trees in the Pacific Northwest. So this amounts to a no-brainer. There should be no increase in two-inch trees required to offset three-inch trees. Two-inch trees would grow to three-inch trees on site Meridian City Council Meeting September 1312000 Page 22 within a year to a year and a half properly cared for. The Council should, as quickly as possible, do away with the requirement for three-inch caliper trees. Allow the staff to make those adjustments on all applications. We're doing the application through the variance process because we also had to have the variance to reduce from 37 to 25. That's an explanation of what the issue in the private sector is with respect to three-inch and two-inch trees and how the government should respond to that, given that they are no longer produced here - or by the dominant supplier that is producing trees here. The second issue is the hardships. As you will see on our site, across the back of this property is a 40-foot Nampa Meridian Irrigation District easement. De Weerd: Well, we need you to speak into the microphone. Morrow: As you will see across the back of the site is a 40-foot Nampa Meridian Irrigation District easement. That easement with Nampa and Meridian for here precludes any building, any trees, any type of landscaping within their easement. That easement extends all the way into Bower Street. As a point of information for you in terms of Bower Street - Bower Street is an original township street with an 80-foot right-of-way. If you go to this site, you will see that the houses to the west are in that right-of-way. Building and building improvements to the east are in that right-of-way. The fact is that where the curb, gutter and sidewalk on Bower Street are - behind that is another 20 feet of right-of-way that ACHD owns due to the original Township Roadway Right-of-Way. There is an existing 10-foot easement given to ACHD for their drainage system for these drop-inlet boxes right here that take the street drainage. That entire area can have no trees and no shrubbery - simply lawn. So both of those easements in terms of the west side and the north side limited dramatically the amount of trees and landscaping that we can do. We can't comply with the ordinance because of other governmental easements. If this project would have been forced to take more additional land for landscaping, this project would not have gotten built in Meridian, Idaho. This is a 1.2 million dollar project. It's a clean warehouse type of project. In this particular case, we have to have the landscape variance to be able to have the building, have it work, honor the existing easements of Nampa / Meridian and ACHD. Any questions? Bird: I have none. Corrie: Thank you. You did an adequate job, Mr. Morrow. Morrow: Thank you. Corrie: You sound like you have been on the Council. Is there anyone else from the audience that would like to issue testimony on this? Hearing none. I entertain a motion to close the public hearing on Item 3. Bird: So moved. Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13,2000 Page 23 ( De Weerd: Second. Corrie: Motion made and seconded to close the public hearing on a request for variance on Item No.3. All those in favor of the motion say aye. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES, ONE ABSENT. De Weerd: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mrs. de Weerd. De Weerd: I move that we instruct the City Attorney to prepare Findings of Facts and Conclusions of Law and Decision of Order to approve the request for a variance of the required size and number of trees from 37 three-inch caliper to 25 two-inch caliper trees for the Bower Street, LLC. Bird: Second. Corrie: Motion made and seconded to have the attorney draw up the Findings of Facts and Conclusions of Law to approve the request on the variance 00-019. De Weerd: And to include staff comments - sorry. Corrie: With staff comments. Any further discussion? Hearing none. Roll-call vote please. Roll-call: Bird, aye; De Weerd, aye; Anderson, aye, McCandless, absent. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES, ONE ABSENT. Item 4. Continued Public Hearing: Proposed change to the Notice of Mailing Ordinance by the City of Meridian: Corrie: Okay. Item No. 4 is a continued public hearing. This is a proposed change to the notice of mailing ordinance by the City of Meridian. )'11 open the continued public hearing. Is there anyone from the City that wants to say anything on this? Do you have anything on this - probably the City Clerk but - De Weerd: Probably the City Clerk and Planning and Zoning. Corrie: Is there anything you want to sayan this one? Siddoway: The Notice of Mailing Ordinance? Corrie: Yes. Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 1312000 Page 24 Siddoway: I would just state simply that this is a proposed ordinance change. Currently, in all of our applications for Conditional Use Permits, annexation and zoning and plats, et cetera - the ordinance requires certified mail. We have a lot of certified mail returned to the clerk as undeliverable because someone has to be at the house to sign for it. The postman cannot leave it in their mailbox. People don't go to the Post Office to pick it up, et cetera. We see this as a way to actually be better at reaching the public by changing the requirement from Certified Mail to First Class Mail. That way, the same notices will go out, but they'll just be delivered in the mailbox and they won't have the problem of requiring someone to be at the door to sign for it. That is all. Corrie: Okay. Thank you. Anyone from the audience that has testimony? Okay. Hearing none. I'll entertain a motion to close the public hearing. Anderson: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mr. Anderson. Anderson: Before we do that, I guess this would probably be an appropriate time as any. I would like to discuss a little bit more about our notification process and our posting process. I guess this Valeri Heights deal has kind of brought this to my attention a little bit more, but I would like to see us maybe look into a better method of posting properties too, besides just the legal requirements for mailings to make those more legible and easier to read for the public. I guess it was brought to my attention very vividly recently. When I am driving through Eagle and I look at a big, open field there that a subdivision plan is for and there's large plywood signs that were easily visible about a public hearing as I drove down the road. I didn't have to drive off into the Borrow Pit to be able to read these. As I drive home every night and I go down Pine and Ten Mile, I look at the area where Valeri Heights is. I look at the little signs out there and if I had a really powerful spotting scope and could stop and pull over on the side of the road there without getting ran over, I might be able to read that sign. I think we probably ought to - at some point in the very near future, address our posting procedures and come up with some requirements about size of the sign and legibility and things like that. I think it would be appropriate. I am going to put that plug in. I know it has really nothing to do with this particular one. At that point, I would make a motion to close the public hearing. Bird: Second. Corrie: Okay. Motion made to close the public hearing. All those in favor of the motion say aye. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES, ONE ABSENT. Meridian City Council Meeting September 13, 2000 Page 25 ( Corrie: Deputy City Clerk, if you will read ordinance - what this ordinance will be. Do you know? Ugarriza: It's not ready to be read as the Ordinance now. We're still in the public hearing stage. Corrie: It's at an ordinance state right now. Ugarriza: We're still on the discussion of it. It's not ready to pass as a formal ordinance yet. Nichols: Mr. Mayor, members of the Council. It's in the proper form. However, it's not noticed on the Agenda as a possible passage. It's just simply the hearing. Corrie: Okay. Bird: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mr. Bird. Bird: I would move then, that we continue this notice of mailing ordinance to September 19, 2000 for approval at that point. Anderson: Second. Corrie: Motion made and seconded to move the proposed ordinance to September 19, 2000 for approval. Any other discussion? De Weerd: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mrs. de Weerd. De Weerd: Why? Bird: Well, it isn't noticed to be voted on tonight. It's just a continued public hearing. De Weerd: Don't we vote on it under the Consent Agenda and then move it onto the regular one? Nichols: No. Councilwoman De Weerd, on an ordinance, it has to be by a specific roll-call vote on that specific ordinance. The problem is up until last meeting, we haven't had time to address some of these ordinances other than the annexation and zoning ordinances. This has to be a specific Regular Agenda item listed as such for an up or down vote by the Council. Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 131 2000 Page 26 De Weerd: But it needs to be a continued public hearing. Nichols: No. It just needs to be put on that agenda for vote. De Weerd: Thank you. Corrie: Any other questions? Okay. Motion is made to move it to the September 19, 2000 meeting. All those in favor of the motion say aye. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES, ONE ABSENT. Item 5. Tabled from September 5, 2000: FP 00-017 Request for Final Plat approval of 3 building lots on approximately 18 acres for proposed Worden Subdivision currently in an Ada County RT zone by Randy and Linnea Worden - Amity and South Locust Grove: Corrie: Item No.5 has been changed to 6 and No.6 to 5. This was tabled from September 5, 2000. It's a request for Final Plat approval of 3 building lots on approximately 18 acres for proposed Worden Subdivision currently in an Ada County RT zone by Randy and Linnea Worden - Amity and South Locust Grove. Staff, comments on this request? Siddoway: Yes, Mr. Mayor and Council. This is a county application. It's not in the city. It does meet our required minimums for the five-acre lot size. We do recommend approval, but there is one missing item that we need per our Comprehensive Plan and that is a re-subdivision plan. The applicant has stated that they have submitted one to the County, but I am not sure if they were thinking of the plat, which I will show you here. This is just a three-lot subdivision at the corner of Amity and Locust Grove down in the southern portion of our impact area. We need a re-subdivision plan per the Comprehensive Plan and we would recommend approval subject to staff approval of the re-subdivision plan. Corrie: Okay. Any questions, Council? Bird: I have none. Corrie: Council, what's your pleasure on this one? The applicant is not here tonight, is he? I didn't think I saw him. Siddoway: Mr. Mayor, just by way of information for the Council, the re- subdivision plan that we are requesting is one that demonstrates how they will propose to take the five-acre lots to urban density size lots - be they are for our eight - at the time that the City Water and Sewer Services become available, we need to demonstrate that we have a plan that shows how these properties can be resubdivided when urban services become available. Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13, 2000 Page 27 ( i De Weerd: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mrs. de Weerd. De Weerd: I would recommend approval of this and ask the staff to write a letter to the County to reflect our approval for the request for the Final Plat of three building lots on 18 acres for Worden Subdivision in an Ada County RT zone. Bird: With staff comments? De Weerd: With staff's verbal comments. Bird: Second. Corrie: Motion has been made to approve the request for the Final Plat of the 18 acres in Item No. 6 and the Planning and Zoning draw up the final verbiage and subject to staff comments. Any further discussion? De Weerd: I have none. Corrie: Okay. Roll-call vote, please. Roll-call: Bird, aye; De Weerd, aye; Anderson, aye; McCandless, absent. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES, ONE ABSENT. Bird: Mr. Mayor. Could we have a 10-minute recess before we go into the - if that's agreeable with everybody. Corrie: Okay. We'll take a 10-minute recess until 8:00. Thank you. (Meeting reconvened at 8:00 p.m.) Item 6. Continued Public Hearing: Proposed changes to the Landscape Ordinance by the City of Meridian: Corrie: Okay. Let's open the meeting back - to order from the recess. Steve? Siddoway: Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. It is my pleasure to present you tonight a proposed Landscape Ordinance for the City of Meridian. I am going to walk you through the various sections of the ordinance. You should have a copy of the ordinance. It should be labeled Draft Three - the revised ordinance from the date of August 28, 2000. It is also my hope tonight, that as I go through this, you'll see that we've tried very hard to be conscientious of all sides of this issue balancing the needs of the community as well as the needs of Meridian City Council Meeting September 13,2000 Page 28 the developers. The process on this ordinance development has been well over a year now. In fact, it exceeds a year and a half now. As a committee, we gathered several sample ordinances - both local, from other cities - Nampa's, Boise's, Eagle's, Ada County's, as well as ordinances from across the country for samples. We met weekly. Each week had a separate topic. We invited guest experts to meet with us each week on those topics and then based on that, you prepared our first draft. That draft was sent out to over 54 stake holders. You should have a memo that was - should've been given part of your packet again. The originally received on August 5, 1999 - that list - the 54 people who originally received copies of the first draft - of those - we also had several walk- ins - at least a dozen that also received copies - other builders, developers, people who are wanting to know about the ordinance that were in addition to that 54. Over the next two to three months, we compiled all the comments that were received and then met as a committee and reviewed those comments. We prepared our second draft based on the comments received - many of which were very good in helping to make it a stronger ordinance. That second draft went through - Planning and Zoning held two hearings on this ordinance. Based on their motion and the comments that were received during those two hearings, the ordinance has been revised a third time and that third draft is what is before you tonight. The purpose and intent of this ordinance is to address some of the problems that we have such as unscreened non-shaded parking lots, hot streets and buildings in the summer - unscreened loading docs, air quality issues, noise reflection and erosion. I just want to speak briefly about the benefits of the landscape ordinance. The aesthetic benefits are obvious. It's the one that most immediately comes to mind. But there is much research about the economic benefits of landscaping in commercial areas. It actually spurs additional economic development and redevelopment. Of course, there are also environmental benefits that deal with air quality and noise reduction - improvement of the soil, et cetera. The base requirement of this is a landscape plan with all applications - Conditional Use Permits, Preliminary Plats, Final Plats and Certificates of Zoning Compliance. I point out that the contents of those are more conceptual in nature for the Conditional Use Permit and the Preliminary Plat and detailed in nature for the Final Plats and the Certificates of Zoning Compliance. We have allowed them to be more conceptual when they are at the Conceptual Planning Stage and coming through for preliminary approvals, such as the Conditional Use Permit and the Preliminary Plat. One of the hottest points of contention has been the issue of the planned preparation - basically whether or not to require a stamp of a landscape architect on the landscape plan. Emotion of the Planning and Zoning Commission is what is on the screen. They would like to see us require a stamp of a landscape architect on all landscape plans for commercial, industrial and office projects that are over one acre in size. All subdivisions over 5 acres in size - to have that stamp. Just to speak briefly on this, they wanted to have an outlet for the small person that has a small site to not have to go through the additional expense of acquiring that stamp as long as they are able to find someone able to prepare a plan that meets the conditions of the ordinance. There was a lot of testimony that all plans, regardless should Meridian City Council Meeting September 13, 2000 Page 29 require a stamp because the number of issues on a site that landscaping is involved in with the easements and the building and the spacing and the various considerations that need to be made are sometimes even greater on the small sides. But nonetheless, they wanted that outlet for the small property owner. They did want to see the professionalism of the plans enhanced and felt that requiring a stamp on those sites as listed would do that. For plan modification, we do require plan modifications to be done in writing and approved. This is a sample of the plans that we get today and you've probably seen many of them in your packet. We're trying to - the one in the center is one that was prepared by a landscape architect. We received several that are just scribbled out on a piece of paper. That is what we are trying to avoid. We're trying to get thought put into these landscape plans so that we can know that the plans are going to be functional as well as beautiful. For design standards, we have proposed a list of approved and prohibited plant material. It's back at my desk, but you should have a copy of Boise's Street Tree Planting Guide. That booklet is what we're proposing to adopt through this ordinance as our list of approved and prohibited plant material. Minimum plant sizes come up several times tonight. We are trying - in the benefit of the developer - to reduce the required minimum size from three-inch as it currently sits to two-inch. Species mix is simply if they have a lot of required trees, we want to see a mix of species and it's spelled out in the. ordinance so that if disease infests one species, the whole site isn't wiped out. There are plant quality standards based on ANSI, the American National Standards Institute. They are national standards. We are just proposing to adopt those. Staking is not required. Mulch is required to be organic in nature - bark, bark dust, et cetera as opposed to gravel for reasons spelled out in the ordinance such as heat stress to the plants, the greater water retention with the vegetative and not the rock mulches. There are curbing requirements to require certain distances of the trees and curbs to prevent them from being hit by cars. We address utilities. We want only small trees - plants and under overhead utilities - they're now called Class 1 Trees so that we can avoid the scenario of always needing to cut back the tops of the crowns of the trees to allow the power lines through. We address erosion control. Berms are encouraged, but not required. We do address the water efficiency. Irrigation is currently required and this simply reinforces that. In our first draft of this ordinance, we were proposing to require irrigation plans with the landscape plans. Upon further review of that, we found that that would be quite a cost to the developer and that, in reality, most of the design build scenarios are able to handle that. Really what's needed - we just need the performance specs, which it can be broiler plate for all the landscape architecture firms - have them - Engineering firms have them. We just need to know where the water source is and the PSI - There are things that are written in the ordinance that they need to provide us. Basically, with those performance specs, it gives us some surety that this is going to be a functional system. We don't think we need to go the extra length of actually seeing a full side of plans. I think we have the specifications that were covered enough. Section Six deals with site triangles. There are many problematic site triangles currently in our community. This being just one at the intersection of Chateau Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13,2000 Page 30 and Locust Grove - It is difficult to see the oncoming traffic until it is right at the intersection because of the landscaping and the trees have been placed. It's only going to get worse in that location because those trees are young and they're going to get bigger. We are proposing 40 X 40 site triangles at all road- road intersections or road-railroad intersections. This is right in line with Boise's requirements and ACHD. Road-driveway intersections - we are requiring 10 feet back from the property line and 20 feet along the street - measured on the property line and then those two points connected and extended out to the curb. That sign that you see there at Winger's is one that does just meet this requirement. So that gives you some idea of - the property line is two feet back from where you see the sidewalk and that sign and the driveway that you see adjacent to it is right on the edge of that. We have planting standards - we don't want - the trees need to be pruned up if they're in the site triangles - no Evergreen Trees, no Class 3's which are the very large ones. Then we have maximum heights of three feet again for visibility. Then we have a provision for public safety and enforcement if there is something blocking that site triangle. Section Seven deals with street buffers and this is inline with what current standards are. You know that in most of our staff comments, anything that's an entryway corridor requires 35-foot landscape setbacks. We're requesting that arterials that are not entry way corridors would be 25 urban collectors. 20, such as Pine Street and local streets 10. I would point out and it's written in the ordinance that this does not apply to residential, so when you see local streets, don't worry that we're requiring street buffers and residential subdivisions. This is applying to those commercial type projects only. If there is a small lot, we have a provision for a hardship written in for the developer to be able to petition at a staff level to reduce the width of the street buffer to no more than 1 0 percent of the depth of the lot. For example, we have a lot that's only 100 feet deep. They would only be required to have a 10-foot street buffer. Even if they were on a an arterial, it would have required 25. The requirement would be one tree per 35 lineal feet. The trees that you see there in the photo are actually closer than that. I'll show you some photos of what that actually looks like in just a moment. We want to make sure that the spacing is no more than 80 percent of the mature width so that the trees are healthy when they're mature and not crowded. We also want to see the provision of parkways, which is basically detached sidewalks and planting areas between the sidewalk and the street - on arterial streets, on the fringe as we grow outward. I don't know if you've ever been out here on Eagle Road, but being on that sidewalk right up against it is very uncomfortable. If we can start providing detached sidewalks on these arterial streets as we expand outward, I think it will be a much better scenario for citizens. We also have a provision for landscaping in the right-of-way and if that unpaved, undeveloped right-of-way is greater than 13 feet, then we want - and the widening of that street is not in ACHD's five-year funded plans. Any widening project is a minimum of six years out. Then, we want them to maintain a 10-foot wide gravel shoulder so that people could pull out - *** End of Side 2 *** Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13, 2000 Page 31 Siddoway: -- display pads in the required setback. They need to be behind that required setback. The berms are encouraged. They have maximum slopes if they have grass at 3 to 1. They can go steeper than that if they do not require mowing, down to 2 to 1. Storm water detention can be incorporated into the required landscape buffer as long as they meet design standards which we'll go over when we hit that section. Here's some samples for you to get an idea of what we're requiring. This is Micron on Watertower Lane. This is a 15-foot wide buffer. The trees here is what I want you to see. They are 30-foot on center. So our requirement for 35 - one per 35 feet is actually farther spacing than you see that. We're trying to write into ordinance here the minimum standards. They can always go beyond them. The trees that you see at the bottom are at that same parking lot, but those two are 40 feet, so it's between those two. This landscape buffer at the Key Bank site at Fred Meyer at Fairview and Locust Grove is a 35- foot wide buffer. So if you can picture in your mind what that looks like, that is a perfect example of the width. It does have a short berm and is lacking in trees. We now, under this proposed ordinance, want to see trees at least every 35 feet along there. This is on Commercial Street - an industrial sub. They actually have trees 20 feet on center - 20-foot on center and that's what that looks like. In Railside Industrial Sub, this is a 25-foot wide buffer that would be required on an arterial. This is actually on a local street. They have done quite a bit more than we require. The two trees that you see - the one all the way on the left and the next one closest to it on the right - those are 35 feet apart. Subdivision buffers - this is an example along Locust Grove. It's kind of a mono-culture with just one type of spruce trees. We want to see additional trees, but I wanted to point out that where is in other street buffers, for safety considerations, we do not want Evergreen Trees used in the street buffer. We do allow them in the buffers along subdivisions to give them additional buffering from the road noise and things. This last example is out at what is now The Landing, Sub. No. 11, right up against the freeway. There is a berm between me and the truck. It is eight feet high. A 50-foot wide buffer along 1-84 which we're proposing is the minimum width that's needed to hold an eight-foot berm at a three to one slope. The buffer at home depot is quite a bit wider than 50 feet. Section 8 deals with parking lots. First requirement deals with the perimeter. We want five feet on all interior lot lines that are next to a vehicular use area. If it's not next to a drive isle, et cetera parking lot, there is no requirement for the perimeter landscaping there because the intents to buffer from vehicular use areas - it does not preclude - The intent here, if you have several - if you'll picture several developments adjacent to one another, all with just an expanse of parking lots, this is to provide some break-up visually of those parking lots and does not preclude access between the two and states so in the ordina~ce. We do have requirements for internal landscaping islands. There is a percentage of the parking lot that must be in landscaping. It's a sliding scale. It increases as the number of spaces increases. There is a minimum planter size. We require no more than 12 spaces in a row. In the original draft, we had 10. Boise's Designer Review Committee requires 10. After reviewing that requirement, in light of several applications that we received. We Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13,2000 Page 32 ,. i i, continually tried to test this. We thought that 10 was a little much in some cases and 12 is more reasonable. I'll actually show you photos of this, too in just a second. To provide design flexibility to the developer, we have a provision that allows them to transfer 50 percent of their required internal landscaping to the perimeter if it interferes with the designing of their function of their parking lot. Industrial storage and loading areas are excluded from internal landscape requirements. So, on that Seven Gates application that you saw earlier this morning, they would actually be required to have significantly less trees under this new ordinance than the 77 that they're required to have at one tree per 1500 square feet. It would simply be, in their case, one tree per 35 lineal feet around the property lines. For existing parking lots, if they're simply restriping or only replacing up to 25 percent, that we don't require any new of these new standards. If they're doing up to half of the replacement, then we'd want to see at least the perimeter, but we don't require the internal islands. If they're redoing more than half of the parking lot, we want them to include the perimeter and the internal landscaping requirements. The Planning Director is given flexibility to deal with this on a staff level on these existing parking lots if these standards simply are not attainable. Here's some photos to help you picture this. All of these are out at the Roaring Springs Site. The top photo shows 15 stalls in a row between landscape islands - still is quite an expansive asphalt. The lower one is 10 stalls in a row. We picked a number 12 that is between those two. This shows a street buffer on the top that has no internal island bump-outs. On the bottom one, you can see one along one of their other property lines that does have those internal islands. The two there are 10 stalls apart. We would only require them every 12. This is what a 5-foot wide internal landscape island looks like. We also require two trees per double row, which this has and if it's one that's a single row, it would just have one tree. You can ask me questions if you want to, but I am just flying right along to get through this. Section 9 deals with buffers between incompatible land uses. As you know, the current ordinance simply requires 20 feet between incompatible land uses and is left up to interpretation and doesn't vary between various uses. We have drafted an ordinance that deals with these buffers between incompatible land uses where the responsibility for the construction of those is on the higher intensity use unless an existing higher intensity use is already existing and somebody is proposing a low-intensity use next to it. In which case, they would be required to put it in. There's a requirement for a mix of materials. We want it to be - we have a statement on effectiveness - 60 percent in three years. We want those adjacent less intense, be they homeowners or the developments to have some effective buffering within a reasonable amount of time. It gives the City the ability to require walls where they deem necessary and prohibits chain-link within the buffer itself, but they may be used on the inside edge as their own fence. You have a table, and you should have a copy of a memo which just came out the day before yesterday. We are proposing some changes to the minimum buffer widths. We actually went through this and it did not come up as an issue during the Planning and Zoning meetings. But since then, we've been trying to apply this or see how it affects plans that have been brought in. We felt that some of Meridian City Council Meeting September 13, 2000 Page 33 these that we have in the draft are too large and too onerous on the developer and too costly when you're looking at land prices. So, you have a memo dated September 11 th that reduces several of those proposed buffer sizes. If there is an existing partial buffer and someone goes in next to them that would be required to have one, they only need to put in the remaining amount, not the full size and the parking lot perimeter - this came up. If it was an addition to it, and it is not - the buffer between land uses - they do not add another five feet to that if they have met that buffer between incompatible land uses. Here is a sample to help you picture it. There is a buffer between the AES Mini-Storage in Rodge Meadow Sub. That buffer that you see between that building and the fence is 15 feet. In the front view, you can see where the road ends. The distance from that sign marks the end of the road to the building. That is a 20-foot buffer. There's 20 feet there. In many cases, we felt that that simply was not enough - especially in the case of heavy industrial use going into - next to a single-family residential subdivision. So you'll see that we've increased the required sizes there from 20 to 35 to get some additional distance between the uses. Section 10 deals with existing tree preservation. We don't have a lot of trees in our areas, but we have, we would like to see them keep instead of just plowing them over. The landscape plan has a requirement that they show all existing trees greater than four inches in caliper. If they're smaller than that, basically, we're willing to give them up. They're small and feel like they can be plowed under. Those trees that are large and greater than four inches in caliper, we want them shown and we want them protected. We require protection inside the drip line for paving, grade changes, compaction and the provision of utilities. If existing trees are removed, we simply require that equal caliper inches lost - I think that Eagle requires double caliper-inches lost. Most of the ordinances we looked at required more than equal caliper-inches lost, but we're not trying to be hard-nosed. We simply want what was removed replaced. If the tree is a prohibited tree in our ordinance - a dead tree or a dying tree or diseased - and that condition is to made by an arborist hired by the Parks Department and they currently have. Then they do not require mitigation. If they save trees, they do count toward the required landscaping. If they are mitigation trees, then they are in addition to the required landscaping. There's an incentive built in that if they do save existing trees, they can petition for up to a 10 percent reduction in the parking standards. Section 11 deals with storm water integration. We're trying to be friendly here and allow the integration of the storm water facilities into the required street buffers as long as they're able to meet design criteria. Those street buffers are meant to enhance the area. We certainly don't want what you see on the lower right, which is just a pit full of gravel. We -- if they are vegetated - if they do not interfere with the required trees at one per 35 lineal feet, and if there is no expansive gravel or cobble - in other words, we don't just want a pit of gravel, but if it's like the upper right one that you see where it is designed as a design feature, it's actually their storm water. It functions quite nicely and it's aesthetically pleasing. Those types of designs could certainly be integrated into the required street buffers. If they do not - there was a concern out raised at the Planning and Zoning hearings that - Well, great. Now we have to make not only Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13,2000 Page 34 Ada County Highway District happy but we also have to make the City of Meridian happy. My response is that's only true if you're doing it in a required landscape buffer. If you do it anywhere else on site, design it how you want. These conditions apply when you are putting it in the required street buffer. Section 12 deals with pathway landscaping. These are micro-paths that you see in subdivisions from one street to another where there are long blocks and no connections between them, or they can connect from the subdivision over to the pathway along the canal, et cetera. Our proposal to require five-foot wide planters on each side with a five-feet wide minimum pathway - the same one tree per 35 lineal feet and none of the Evergreen trees or Class 3 trees, which are the very large ones to prevent hiding places. They do have to be vegetated. The branch height and the maximum shrub height - all of these are to provide open vision and clearance and also to dress them up and make them amenities to the neighborhoods that they are in. The fences that are along them are required to be see-through if they are six-foot or a maximum of four feet if they are solid. Here's some samples to help you visualize it. This is an existing micropath in the Cougar Creek Subdivision. This path is actually 15 feet wide and has three-foot planters if you can call them that, with a few shrubs, but no trees. It does have a six-foot see-through fence. Down below, you see what they look like with a solid fence. They tend to get ratty, not cared for. There's no landscaping in that one. The one on the bottom right - I believe that's the one in Mirage Meadows Subdivision that the Council recently granted a vacation of that one due to constant vandalism problems because th~ey had the six-foot solid fences. There's no vision into it and they were having vandalism problems. If they were solid fences, we want them kept lower. If they want to go the full six- feet, we are requiring them to be see-through. This has a big red "x" through it because this was actually part of the Draft 2, but it's not in Draft 3. We were modeling this section of our ordinance after the City of Nampa. They have an ordinance that requires - well they write it as one tree per so many thousand square feet of a lot. So we were building on that. It has been quite successful for them and we were proposing to require two 1 ~ inch-caliper trees on every residential lot and that would be part of the occupancy - check that the building inspector would do and it would just be one item on his list. Two things. The Planning and Zoning Commission felt that it basically isn't a problem in Meridian - that the existing covenants and things that are being imposed by the developers within our subdivisions are generally requiring trees anyway and I also saw it as quite a bit of paper work and tracking on the City's behalf that we would have to do. So they just included in their motion to omit this section of the ordinance. Section 13 deals with residential common open space. We are proposing a requirement of five percent of the gross land area of a single-family subdivision to be put into open space. Multi-family developments, such as apartments - we want to see that increased because the need for that open space is greater because those people don't have yards. The definition of that open space includes street right-of-ways, buildings, parking and the required street buffers. One of the questions that came up is what about along residential collectors? If the developers is trying to make a nice pathway system along a Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13,2000 Page 35 residential collector in a large subdivision, would that count? The answer is yes, because there are no required street buffers along residential collectors. They may include storm water facilities if they're designed properly. I know that this is one of the points of contention that the Building Contractor's Association has. The "if' is a question mark. It's written very general. I don't know - I have sent you a memo this week addressing this issue. It was written general basically because there are so many design scenarios that could be incorporated to make functional open space in the storm water facilities that we don't see a way to legislate at all. We left it up to the Planning Director's discretion. The flip side of. the coin, I think is that the builders may be concerned that favoritism or arbitrary application of what's allowed here and not there could happen. I would point out that if the developer feels that that is happening, they have the appeals process. Second of all, they have the opportunity to propose it how they want to in their plat and we will prepare our comments as staff as to why it should not be and they can make their case to the Planning and Zoning Commission and to Council as to why it is a functional site. Our intent is really not to be tight-fisted on this, but to allow more flexibility is really what we're trying to do. I'll show you some examples of this in just a minute. We have minimum improvements for this open space. It's basically one tree per 8,000 square feet and lawn. That open space can take the form of pathway (inks to adjacent plan trails that show up in our Comprehensive Plan. We'll ask for them if a plat goes through and we do have a plan trail. We want to see links to those. That open space can be maintained and usually will be maintained by the Homeowners Association or if it's a large enough size, it may be conveyed to the Parks Department according to their policies. There was a provision for design flexibility for some of these small ones to pay a fee equal to the value of the land of the trees to develop park land elsewhere. There has been some question as to whether or not that's a good thing. The developers have been in favor of it because it gives them more flexibility. Here are some samples. On the top, there's an open space park. It's developed. It has tennis courts. That would be the high end of something that would certainly count toward this open space requirement. The middle one is actually a storm water detention facility. It's in Meridian Greens. It has basketball court and volleyball court. It functions great for recreational purposes as well as storm water when the runoff from the snow and heavy storms happen. The bottom is simply an example of what the minimum requirements are - lawn and a few trees. To try to give you an example of what five percent looks like, I decided to take a sample residential subdivision. This is the Preliminary Plat. It says Danbury Park Subdivision. Since then, it's name has been changed to Waterbury Park. It's off of Meridian Road about a half mile north of Fairviewand Cherry Lane. They have two large open spaces in the center that by themselves equal about eight and a half percent of the open space of the gross land area. Our requirement would be for five percent again. They have open space along the west side and if you add that in, it's a total of twelve percent. They also have open space along the north where the south slue runs and have provided a grass walking area along that open ditch. There are also micro-paths that connect into all of these centrally located open spaces which takes the total up to fifteen and a Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13, 2000 Page 36 half percent. You'll notice up in the front, along Meridian Road, there are landscape buffers. Those would not be included and are not included in this calculation. There is a storm water detention facility in the northwest or northeast corner. It's actually not part of this plat. I just bring it up simply to show that if it were and if it was designed as usable open space, it could be included, but in this case, it also is not included. That area right there that you see in green represents of the total - the minimum that would be required by this ordinance at five percent. Section 14 deals with landscape maintenance. Basically we are requiring that they maintain their required landscaping and healthy condition. We don't want to see topping of trees, which is that bottom photo. There are other provisions in there dealing with the maintenance - deadens these trees in some enforcement provisions. Section 15 is our acknowledgement that we can't legislate everything in a design world and provides the developer what we call Alternative Compliance. This is our way of trying to encourage creative solutions and maybe actually vary from the ordinance. It acknowledges that we cannot anticipate all possible situations. It has a list of conditions and a person can only apply for alternative compliance from the ordinance when one or more of those conditions are met. Otherwise, they will' need to apply for a variance. There are submittal requirements. One of the concerns was that there was not a response time for the Planning and Zoning Department to respond to the applicant if their proposal for Alternative Compliance is acceptable. We have since written one in to the draft that you have. Section 16 deals with Certificates of Occupancy. It basically says that the required landscaping must be in prior to getting one. They can get an extension for up to 180 days if they provide a letter of credit or a cash escrow in the amou nt of 11 0 percent and provide a bid. That is my presentation of the Landscape Ordinance. Thank you and I'll stand for any questions. De Weerd: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mrs. de Weerd. De Weerd: I would just like to thank Steve for all the time and effort he put into this. This was very professionally done, very well thought out and he really did attempt to cover all of his bases with the first draft in getting it out to a lot of stake holders, the Chamber of Commerce, Economic Development Committee and several other largely representative groups. Steve, I would like to thank you for the hard work that you put into this. Corrie: Thank you, Steve. Very good. Anderson: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mr. Anderson. / Meridian City Council Meeting \ September 13,2000 Page 37 Anderson: I would echo that. I appreciate the work, Steve. I do have a couple of questions on it. How many of the other cities in this local area are requiring that the landscape architect's stamp of approval? Siddoway: That is a good question. Boise is talking about it. We met with Temper Wilson from their Design Review Committee. They're actually wanting to revise their landscape ordinance requiring a stamp of a landscape architect is something that they are looking seriously at, but I do not believe they currently do. The City of Eagle - I can't remember. I do not think so. I do not know of one that does right now. I know that they are considering it. Anderson: So possibly nobody in this area is requiring it. Bird: I don't believe anybody does. Anderson: And then, my second question is about this book. I guess I'm going to relate a horror story in the Fire Service that we have a State Certification Program and there was a manual published by a company that's still in business, but they choose not to publish a certain manual anymore and so we have firefighters who are required to test out of this manual and the only place we can find this in the western United States is there's two copies in a library in Anchorage, Alaska. This being a book that's published by the Boise City Department of Forestry, at any point, I'm assuming that they could decide they're not going to publish this anymore but we have an ordinance that's tied to a manual that may not be readily available. Is there any other criteria or book or manual that would be a more reliable source or can we write the requirements that are in here into our ordinance so that if this goes away at some point in the future, that we still have something as a point of reference. Siddoway: First of all, we could simply just write the tree selections that are in there into the ordinance of our own. I see adopting the book as a better solution for many reasons. It has a wealth of information as to the requirements of the trees - whether they are able to be planted under power lines, their drought tolerance requirements - many things. It has been in existence for several years. They have updated it. I have Copyright permission from the City of Boise to adopt it. They don't foresee doing away with it. If they did, we could simply just make photocopies of it and sell those. We have permission from the Boise Parks and Recreation Department to use this document in our city. If they stopped publishing it, then I think that we could just make copies of it or we would amend the ordinance at that time and either come up with our own or write something in ordinance, but for the time that is foreseeable down the road, I don't see this going away. They've had it very well accepted. It's used across the state and not just in Boise. I think they plan to continue to update it and have it as a racehorse. Meridian City Council Meeting September 13, 2000 Page 38 Anderson: I guess the last comment I have is really not a question, but a comment. I guess what I've seen here and in the ordinance, it all sounds really doable and it looks good on the surface. I guess what my observation has been since being on the Council is that if every street ran perfectly straight and if every lot was a certain size, these ordinances would work great, but unfortunately, they don't. That's where the problems come in. When a lot is too small for a project they're trying to fit on and we've got set amounts of landscaping things, we have not been very flexible. You kept talking about that this allows you to have flexibility, but it's been my experience in the last two and a half years that there hasn't been any flexibility on the part of Planning and Zoning. It's been - that's what our ordinance says. It's in black and white. Comply with it. I, too, would share some of the concerns of the development community in interpretation and who is liked and who is in good graces with Planning and Zoning and who is not. I would like to take as much subjectivity out of it and I concur with your thoughts. It's very difficult to anticipate all of the different things that could be out there. But I see that as a real hurdle and an obstacle for us to try to overcome with any ordinance of this type. Siddoway: In response, I would simply say that we agree and that's in order to write into the ordinance - that flexibility - we have that section in alternative compliance so that if a lot is too small, oddly shaped or roads don't run correctly, et cetera - they have - or other government agencies such as Walt Morrow's situation tonight where he had easements along his property. We would allow under the provisions of an alternative compliance section - for the applicant to propose something else that staff could support and not necessarily require them to go through a variance. It's intended to provide that flexibility for those odd parcels. Corrie: Any other questions? Bird: I have none. Corrie: Thank you, Steve. Nice Job. Okay. This is a continued public hearing, so we have anyone from the audience that would like to issue testimony. Evans: Mr. Mayor, members of the Council. I'm Loring Evans, 3900 North Croft, Eagle, Idaho. I'm a landscape architect in the state. I have been since 1980. In my world, there are opportunities as a landscape architect to choose simply the design end and then there are those that choose design and create that which they make. That is the direction that I have chosen over the many years. I have had the opportunity to build parks and common spaces and road entries in Boise, Eagle, Meridian, Nampa and Caldwell. Some of the concerns that I have - I suppose that the idea of having a landscape architect stamp be the demanded requirement for the plan is good for those as myself to have a stamp. However, I think we have to respect that in some cases, unless it's a safety issue or something that truly defines our expertise, we have to give respect to the Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13, 2000 Page 39 younger companies that perhaps don't have a licensure - that truly have the design capability and I think as long as the plan meets the compliance and meets the requirements that we're calling out as a community to make a beautiful space - why we should inhibit those younger companies that maybe perhaps are not licensed and keep them from having that design opportunity and growing in their capabilities, I disagree. Another issue that I'm concerned on, on the issue of the tree placement - and again, I very much respect Steve's desire to create an established ordinance because I think it's imperative that we have that. But in the spacing, if we set ourselves a standard - for example of a minimum of 80 percent of the mature tree for the health and safety - well, I'd like to question. that. I was raised in New England. In New England, when we built subdivisions or street ways or common space, areas were cleared for ball fields. Areas were cleared for homes, but they were sections of the forest that were left to remain. And when the trees fell, the leaves fell. They were beautiful spaces. They were created spaces for wildlife habitat and I grew up in areas where trees were 150 feet tall. Some of those Maples and those Oaks that by themselves that would grow to a 60 foot spread. We're six feet apart - eight feet apart. Some are three feet apart, but they grew in harmony with each other. Trees have a way of having their space. I ask you to go by the river. I ask you to go to McCall. Go to the forest and recognize that a Ponderosa Pine by itself can be 40 feet wide, but in the wilds, they are together. To say and establish a requirement that we have that minimum spacing, it takes away from our ability to create those wooded settings. My Riverside Village - I ask you to perhaps drive through that. Go through Eagle and see that even across from Monroc, I build great sky. I build it a forest in there. I did that because I wanted that private separation for that development from the corporate structure of Monroc. So I think that we have to look at those areas. I think there are some other issues - even the fence. Again, I understand the idea of having an open fence against these common walkways because of the concern of vandalism, but I think my question to that is we have to look at the value of those individuals living along that space. Sometimes, backyards - I am very found of people, but sometimes the last thing you want to see when you come home is more people. If you only restrict just an open fence requirement, you have to think about all those people that live in those spaces adjacent to it. If our concern is the degeneration of the Redwood fences or the wooden fences, I personally struggle with the look of a chain-linked fence. Now, others might find it magnificent. To me, it looks like a stockyard - like a barricade or like a prison wall. I'd rather look at a decomposed wooden fence over a chain- link. It's a personal preference. There are so many other alternatives of solid - there's vinyl fencing. There's a combination of both. There's concrete and wood. There's so many elements that can go into separation of space that perhaps allow us to create these areas, but to establish a four-foot minimum solid fence or a six-foot high, what about those that want that privacy? It's lost. We can perhaps pick it up as some kind of vegetation barrier in the back, but creating that restriction limits the needs of the people that live there. In a couple of the little areas, even the concerns of the Evergreen trees in the parking lots - if you go through and you study a little more, we've isolated ourselves. We can't do the Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13,2000 Page 40 Evergreens. Well, sure there is the concern of ice and the branching structure as it grows out, but I ask you again to go back and think about driving to McCall or going to Bend, Oregon where the Conifers are there and they're 50 feet tall. They're in the planting islands. What is taking place is as the trees develop and gain maturity, they can be high-branched. Again, I return to my New England roots. This is what we had. If you start to think about some of t~ese things - look at Morrison-Knudsen. All that revision that was done years ago in front of MK where that forest was built in there - you take that requirement and all that's gone. Break out the chainsaw and tear it down. The concern that I have is what to me brings beauty - it's not - and again it's a personal preference. Some people perhaps love the linear nature. To me, what makes beauty and what makes nature beautiful is it's sporadic. It's random. There's opportunity to change from one place to the next. If we place to many restrictions, what will happen is we'll just have a very long, linear plane. In respect to the mulch versus gravel - What of the Contemplated Gardens of Japan where the gravel was raked. Why not look at an opportunity that maybe somebody sees an entry space in his future where they don't want to have a lot of water use. Maybe their main element is more stone and element where they're coming away. Maybe they want to go to Ovarian colors and match their trees to a different area. All of these things are minute, but have to be considered. Even, maybe no mulch at all. Sometimes if you're going to mash your perennial ground covers and your flowers, you're better with potting mix. The mulch - the Petunias don't grow well in a high acid soil of mulch. I think before we accept perhaps the ordinance as drafted, we have to look and even what was brought up - I respect the idea of review on a variance, but we do have to recognize that these minimum setbacks and minimum standards all affect the marketability and capability to build space. We have to - maybe if a 40-foot setback is that optimum, well I don't know. Sometimes a 20-foot space - again going back to wooded section - if it was planted with a tight enough massing, it can create that same buffering within that confine. So my only request to this - I respect the need and I know we have to have an ordinance, but I think we need to just maybe revisit these areas and look at all the various people that will be impacted long term and then also the aesthetic impact long term before we make our decision. Thank you. Corrie: Thank you. Richard. McCaughy: Mr. Mayor, members of the Council. My name is Richard McCaughy. I'm the governmental affairs director for the Building Contractors Association. He should have my job. That was an excellent presentation about some of the tough issues that when you get into trying to codify design issues. It's what you run up against. What we used to say back at the city I used to work for with design guidelines, it was like nailing Jell-O to the wall. Very difficult. Unless you folks are interested in a nap, I don't think it's really necessary for me to read the entire four pages that I gave to you if we can consider that to be read into the record. This is mostly a compilation of comments that have been made. My comments were made at the previous public hearing by the Planning and Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 1312000 Page 41 Zoning Commission. Most of the requirements here really have a more dramatic effect on Commercial and Industrial types of development. Frankly, I would agree. That has been the area of development where we have seen some really ugly results. Acres and acres of pavement and concrete without a bush to be seen. So it has really minimal impact on the residential, but as was pointed out by the previous speaker, the requirement for a landscape architect, particularly with a threshold of five acres, we think is somewhat onerous. I think the gentleman's points were well taken and considering that no other jurisdiction around here does that. Simply if you're going to have these standards codified, then it's very simple for somebody that's at least knowledgeable in that business to comply with those standards and put together a landscape plan that meets the requirements. I think that should seriously be rethought. If it is considered by this August body to be necessary that that threshold reflect something - five acres or less. Those are not the kinds of projects that major development interests in - are involved in. Those intend to be individual land owners who are subdividing some piece of agricultural property or something like that. They simply don't have the resources of a large corporation - their permanent business is land development. I think that could create a hardship on a lot of these smaller properties that are slowly but surely being forced out of agriculture and into some kind of development so these people can retire and head off to the sunny climates with a little something in their pocket. I do appreciate Steve's comments and I do appreciate him faxing over to me the response on - it forced me to take a whole section out of my comment section on the minimum buffer widths because it pretty much - the changes that he proposed, pretty much addressed our concerns. We do, however, have a major concern with - as this ordinance is written. There is still a tremendous amount of subjective language in it and I think the City Attorney will make note of that in a review. I think those things are easily remedied. But you always run into the issue of if you're designing flexibility, you also create the possibility of arbitrariness. That's what we're concerned about particularly - particularly in the area of open space and storm water retention requirements being combined. We had the same issue with the Ada County Zoning Ordinance. They were flat out prohibiting any storm water retention and required open space. After we testified on that particular ordinance, that provision was removed. We realize - right now Boise City is under the NIPDEZ requirements of EPA and storm water retention is getting to be a bigger and bigger and testier and more expensive situation. It's not going away. We just went through a year's worth of negotiation on the storm water requirements for Boise City. That's coming this way. It's moving west because eventually this entire Metropolitan statistical area is going to follow under those EPA requirements. That necessitates some creativity in this area. If you're asking a developer to really invest substantial money - because when you are talking about integrating storm water detention facilities, and some are absolutely useless as open space. Yes, the hole with rocks at the bottom in no way, shape of form should be considered open space. But I've certainly seen some beautiful examples of storm water retention facilities that are beautiful open space - particularly in the subdivision I live in - Columbia Village. There are some open Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13,2000 ' Page 42 areas that are big grassy swells that are slightly graded and they've actually planted and they irrigate wetland type of plants at the end where the water does collect. This is a whole huge area that sets back from the street and separates some houses. I see mothers and their kids and people and their dogs and kids throwing Frisbees and just goofing around in there all the time. It's usable open space, yet it's a storm water detention facility. I think we need to promote creativity, but the development community needs at least some guidelines. For example, if you're going to have - you have got to comply with the irrigation ordinance, which is already in place and I think should simply be referenced in this ordinance. You don't need to duplicate irrigation requirements in this ordinance. You just incorporate it by reference those requirements that you already have. But if you're going to be designing storm water facilities, they generally require engineering. That puts the developer in a difficult situation to go and invest all that money and not having a clue as to whether this is going to meet some flexibility standard as proposed by the director of Planning and Zoning. We appreciate flexibility, but tremendous amounts of money are invested from the get-go in any land development project. *** End of Side 3 *** McCaughy: If you're going to render a lot of the effort and money expended by the development community, virtually moved from the get-go, it's - well, I'd just like to say we have some problems with that. I don't think it's impossible to incorporate some guidelines for minimal requirements to be able to count storm water detention facilities as open space. I think this is going to be more and more of a pressing issue. I don't know how many of you read the paper today. The governor's task force on housing is meeting and there is an interesting article on the situation we're now facing in Idaho which is we're in the tail end of places like Portland and Seattle and all of California which is the most unaffordable housing market in the country. The National Association of Homebuilders - the top five least affordable housing markets in the country are all in California and they've got eight of the top ten. Portland has gotten up there right now. We just keep driving costs up, and this is an indirect way for example, of not allowing storm water detention to be counted as open space further reduces density. By doing that, you increase the cost of lots. There's an ongoing requirement to any new home buyer that buys into a subdivision with expensive and extensive landscaping and the irrigation requirements that they bear that burden for as long as they live there and they own their house through their Homeowners Association fees. We've got to be really careful on that score. We can't have conflicting goals. If we're going to attempt to reduce sprawl, density is just one arrow in that quiver. Things that are counter-productive or that lead you off in a different direction I think have got to be looked at closely. I really don't have much more to say. I hope you read what we submitted. I commend the City for undertaking this very difficult task because one of my main bugaboos in life is the huge parking lot - mostly commercial. You can drive around Boise. I site a specific example of trying to look for an older subdivision ( Meridian City Council Meeting \ September 13, 2000 Page 43 that was built more or less along the guidelines at the standards that are in place now, which still discourage alley loaded garages and things of that nature to present a better streetscape. But if you go up in that subdivision that was developed about 15 years ago - north of McMillan between Oayson and Mitchell. The house designs and the street layout are essentially what is being built today with some minor changes in style and architecture. But the basic layout is the same. But the landscaping, in that particular subdivision, without anybody holding a hammer over those folks head, has transformed that subdivision into something lush and beautiful. I used to work in the nursery business and we had a saying. The best time to plant a tree was ten years ago. Th-at's to a great extent what we're dealing with here. We want these new subdivisions to look like they have been in place for ten or fifteen years. You can do it, but you'll see 1300 square foot houses going for 6 and $700,000. I don't think that's where we want to go. So I would just ask you to carefully consider our comments and I'm sure this is not over. I'm sure we'll be back up here again. I do appreciate the time. Thank you very much. Any questions? Bird: I have none. Fuller: I'm Norman Fuller, 1167 East Saint Lucia Orive in Meridian. I have got a couple of things that I'm quite concerned about. I agree with what Ron said too, but I don't think that five percent should pertain to one shoe fits all. I think that if you've got one-acre tracks or you've got half-acre tracks versus an R8 or apartments that they should have to have five percent on the one-acre tracks of open space the same that you would on an R8 or whatever. Then also, I wonder about how this fits with the American Disabilities Act. For a really good example, we've got rid of two places because of Evergreens. I'm allergic to Evergreens. My wife has asthma really bad and we hope that someday where we are at now, there isn't an Evergreen on the place. I bought a big lot. We hope someday, if we're lucky enough to get old, with this deal they got proposed out of Saint Luke's sounds really good to us. But if I can't move out there because they've got Evergreens and it's against the law for me to take it out, I'm going to be pretty upset. I think you ought to take that into consideration. Corrie: Thank you, Norm. Good point. I haven't thought about that. And you'll never get old Norm. Anyone else? Morrow: Mr. Mayor, Council. Walt Morrow, 2340 West Franklin Road in Meridian. I need to say that I'm generally supportive of a need of a landscape ordinance that defines what it is that we're after in terms of landscaping. I will say this. As this landscaping ordinance is written, it's very ambiguous and it's very difficult to objectively administer. I can see in the cases of the two issues that I spoke on earlier, everybody here seems to be talking about developers. Well, the reality is that developers create the external subdivisions - be they commercial, residential, or industrial. The problem with this ordinance and in those two examples that we addressed earlier - we're talking one acre for a Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13,2000 . Page 44 landscape architect. It makes no sense. Certainly with no landscape architects anywhere in Treasure Valley - it makes no sense to have that as a feature. The issue is - in terms of the variance that we were granted earlier, underneath the new ordinance as my understanding is - given the fact of those two easements would require us to supplement more landscaping in place of those easements which would render the lot too small to effectively build the project. The net result is the project would not be built in Meridian because we don't have a viable lot to build the project on. If you look closely at the industrial commercial subdivisions that have been approved by former Councils and by this Council, the vast majority of the lots in those subdivisions - be it Layne Industrial Park, be it Medimont, be it Railside are all over the acre threshold. The issue here is that when we're doing commercial industrial subdivisions with one-acre, two-acre lots. We have to have enough of the lot left to make it usable for those people that occupy those buildings. The danger of this ordinance is it will render those lots not usable. You also have to consider the other governmental entities that have requirements and the burden of all those requirements coupled with these requirements can be so overwhelming that nothing gets built. Currently one of my pet peeves is that we spend thousands of dollars on landscaping. We spend hundreds of dollars annually on maintenance and 50 percent of the city is covered in weeds from two to six foot tall immediately adjacent to our properties burying us in weed seed so we have to do special treatment of that. The City has within its power ordinances on the books to keep those weeds down, but nothing happens. So in Meridian, we have some landscaping - the majority of landscaping is early American weeds. The issue then becomes that if you can't enforce those ordinances and deal with that, how can you take an ordinance like this that's proposed with all of its gray areas and arbitrary areas and spend substantial amount of Council time within the variance process, because it will create that. Clearly here is an ordinance that was designed to be idealistic, but doesn't have elements of common sense. It doesn't allow for flexibility. It has no clear path within the staff as to how decisions can be made and alternatives can be explored. That is not potentially arbitrary. So, it seems to me that the better way to address these types of ordinances is to do it by committee that Bob Corrie and I served on as Councilmen with the impact fee. Then Mayor Kingsford appointed a committee with two Councilmen. It had two people from the development community, two people from the construction community, two general citizens. With that group came common sense into the proposed impact fee ordinance. The ordinance that you have today in terms of the Park Impact fee was crafted by that committee. It also had some legislative characteristics. It required continued review and updating which makes sense. As a City, you could do that also. If you adopt an ordinance in this fashion that is before you tonight, it seems to me that the trial and error process, in terms of trying to get an ordinance that will ultimately work fairly will take several years and much Council time to get refined to the point that it actually works very well. It seems to me that the better way to approach ordinances of this kind is to have the folks that have to deal with it on a daily basis. Be part of the process and that is not only the developers but the builders that have to build on the lots that are left. I would Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 131 2000 Page 45 suggest to you that as this is written, there are many fine elements in here, but it does need to be refined so that it has a common sense approach to the problem and so that the arbitrariness can be taken out of potential conflict so that there is a clear path of appeal and from the Council's standpoint, it will seem to me that you have a vested interest in terms of your time frame to minimize the amount of appeals. You minimize the amount of appeals by having a common sense ordinance that is fairly simple and fairly easy for everyone to understand. So from my perspective, in terms of the three subdivisions that we talked about tonight, most of those lots given all the other governmental entities in this landscape ordinance would end up that we would have buildings that could not support themselves and consequently would not get built. So these are some of the things that as a Council and Mayor that you need to look at when you consider an ordinance. Clearly the intent is here. The desire is here to have a good landscape ordinance. It must also be a common sense functional ordinance. I would suggest that you take a look at each of those items within this proposed ordinance - run it through the system and see does it work or doesn't it work. Allow some of the things and flexibilities that have been talked about here earlier this evening, but it seems to me you need to revisit the whole thing to be able to make that thing work. Any questions? Corrie: I have one. Have you had a chance to see this ordinance? I'm sure that you have. McCaughy: The (inaudible) that I had was available last week. Corrie: My question is are we on the right track as far as the alternative compliance is concerned? Are we on the right track? I'm not asking if you agree with it, but- McCaughy: There needs to be alternative compliance. In the example that we did the variance earlier tonight, because of the easements. If the proposal comes back that we need to have alternative compliance with the Landscape Ordinance - on that particular project where you're taking a certain percentage of the easement ground and then putting it back into your project, that project could not have been built on those lots because the customers need 25,000 square feet of building space and 6,000 square feet of office coupled with semi-turning movements to be able to go around the entire building. In a warehouse situation as that is, there is a lot of asphalt. There's a lot of parking spaces required. The reality is that that amount of parking spaces never gets used in a warehouse type situation or subcontractors and suppliers come and pick up the materials that are distributed by that warehouse and the fact of the landscaping and the amount of trees required by virtue of the asphalt - and the asphalt is there to keep dust down and assist in the movement of materials, then you run into a conflict. If you're going to take part of that asphalt with additional landscaping because of the easements, then you have a facility that won't function. Consequently it Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13, 2000 ' Page 46 either goes to another area or has to buy more land than it really needs. The problem becomes compounding. Corrie: Anyone else? Yes. Yorgenson: Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. My name is Dave Yorgenson from Capitol of Elmott (sic). My address is 2304 North Cole Road in Boise. I worked for a development company. I have been there for about four years now. Many of the developments - I guess our business has been in business for about 23 plus years - many of which developments we have developed not only in the fine City of Meridian, but also other surrounding communities. Interestingly enough, one of our developments was the one shown on the slide - Danbury that's now called Waterbury Park Subdivision. This was one of our developments. I don't really want to go into great detail with regard to the details. I just want to stand primarily in support of much of the comments here tonight. I do want to specifically express my appreciation to staff for their time and commitment over a year plus. I can understand that an ordinance of this magnitude does demand and need that level of time and commitment to prepare. I would want to suggest and underscore a couple of items that I do believe need additional attention. One item mentioned was regarding enforcement. As I think about this ordinance, one question comes to my mind. How do we as a City, enforce this ordinance. Does that mean hiring several more staff to enforce and actually have additional inspectors. One item I thought of was the actual mulch - the depth of mulch required for the tree rounds was three inches if I remember correctly. Does that mean an inspector needs to verify every three ring has three inches of mulch. Well, I suggest three inches of mulch is at least appropriate. We encourage more in our subdivisions. However, something so specific as that may lead to some questions of how is this City going to enforce this level of detail? Additionally, I know some other areas around the city of Meridian and other parts of the valley that use Perma-Bark rock. I wouldn't suggest gravel, but Perma-Bark rock is a nice way also to decorate your landscaping areas, which I believe is not allowed as the ordinance is currently written. One other comment, if I heard the testimony correctly, I think the comment was that Evergreen Trees - I think the words were not allowed along the buffer areas along arterial. I don't know the definition of arterial. I probably ought to go back and reread the books on that. One of our subdivisions that we have done which we are quite proud of is Bristol Heights on the corner of Eagle Road and Chinden. Most of our landscaping is pretty nice - Colorado Spruce Trees, which do provide color in the winter time when all the deciduous trees do loose their leaves. I hope that that is not excluded from flexibility. We currently are in the process of submitting another application to the City for another development. Also we will have another application in the next few months to the City of Meridian - both of which subdivisions will be similar to Bristol Heights. One other comment that I would like to share is regarding storm water detention. One of the great challenges that was stated earlier tonight, was storm water detention is becoming a greater challenge to enable solutions. One Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13,2000 Page 47 of the struggles we have - I know the City of Meridian is the high ground water table we have here. There are only two solutions I can come up with right now. One is above ground water solution with above ground water detention ponds and the other is large ponding - lake-like ponds where the water actually infiltrates and then goes through the system. We are constantly looking at other solutions. My father was in Portland just this last couple days ago looking at additional solutions where they have more water and larger city. Therefore, they have greater demands and will be coming this direction someday soon, I am sure. I think the solution there - I hate to suggest more detail, but I think if there is a little more specifics around the guidelines, that can alleviate the potential challenges. We present applications in front of the Planning and Zoning Commission and in front of the City Council. It will eliminate some of the appeals and variance process that we think makes sense for a nice looking development and allow the staff to have the authority to make decisions at a staff level. Getting to that level of decision, however I don't know how to get there other than maybe as was suggested by the prior gentleman actually sitting down and having some work group sessions with some existing communities. We could suggest could suggest one in Star that we think works pretty well and there are other communities as well. Finally, as I think about the appeals process, that was stated as one way to overcome the variance - or achieve a variance to the conditions - every time we spend more time on the subdivision - every time there is a longer process of appeals or a longer process of hearings, we appreciate input and we want to always have a better subdivision than what we can even think of. However, as more time is postponing the development, more interest is built up into the development cost, which does actually add to the cost of development. It just means that more of your time is scheduled such for these types of hearings, including special hearings and hopefully you can focus your special hearing time on actual, more productive time in my opinion. Those are my general comments. I would certainly be willing to answer any questions that you have at this time. Corrie: Any questions? Bird: I have none. Corrie: Anyone else? Okay. Council? De Weerd: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mrs. de Weerd. De Weerd: I would like Steve to comment on some of the- Siddoway: Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. I'd be happy to. On the issue of the spacing of the trees in 80 percent, I agree trees can live at reduced spacing, even if they are six feet apart. If you've seen those trees, they are very Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13, 2000 \ Page 48 narrow and unless they are planted in a forest-like setting, which at one tree at 35 lineal feet, we are not, then in order to have a good size healthy crown, that 80 percent is a good rule of thumb. That provision was reviewed by other landscape architects including Jensen Belt, the Landing Group, Tom South Architects and others who suggested that that was a good provision to have, especially when the trees are put in without thought to the size that they are going to become. Related to the micro-paths - De Weerd: Steve? Siddoway: Yes. De Weerd: Before you move on, isn't there a provision in there up for groupings of the trees - Siddoway: Yes. There was an illusion made to the fact that this ordinance is going to require just long, straight boulevards of trees and that's not true. The ordinance does not require the trees to be 35 feet on center. It requires the number of trees to be based on one per 35 lineal feet and they can be grouped as the developer wishes to provide open spaces, clusters, et cetera. We put that eight percent in to say that you can cluster them, but we'd like you to keep them at least this far apart based on the size of the trees that they're going to get. They want some thought put into that as they are designing it. If the designer wishes to make a linear row of trees, they're welcome to do that. If they want to have some open spaces to create views into their site and cluster it within that street buffer, they can do that as well. So, yes. On micro-paths, there was some comments about the open fence requirement. The effect on the homeowner's privacy. You'll see in there that we have required those fences be put in by the developer and the note placed on the plat so that before someone purchases a lot to build a house on it, they know that it comes with that requirement. So that open vision fence will be in place - or the smaller closed vision fence depending on the developer's discretion. I think most likely, we are going to see the open vision fences - will be in place before someone buys the lot so that they know the conditions that that lot comes with. He also talked about how chain-linked fences aren't that great. I would agree. He mentioned several other alternatives and I would agree. The ordinance does not say chain-link. It says open vision and the vinyl fencing and the block and the columns with rails, et cetera are all options under an open vision fencing scenario. The photo of the chain-link fence was just simply an example. I would point out that the fence requirement is what Boise requires. It is Boise's ordinance along these micro-paths. It is for safety and for visibility into those to prevent vandalism, hiding places, et cetera. Comments were made about not allowing Evergreens in the parking lot. I would still say that that should remain. It becomes site obstructing trees and he said - like he said, they can be limbed up. We can't be out there enforcing every parking lot that has Evergreen trees and making sure that they are limbed up when they become a site impediment in the parking lot. Much simpler, Boise has this exact same requirement that within the parking lots, because of the fact that Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13, 2000 Page 49 you need to be able to see around the corner and oncoming traffic where those islands tend to sit at the end of isles, you need open vision in open vision and those Evergreen Trees simply don't work. On the mulch versus gravel issue, I would say that that is a requirement in these required landscape areas. They want to do their rock mulch up against their building, that's fine. We are stating that - Well, quite frankly we think usually they put in gravel as mulch in some cases and it's ugly. We want to get away from that and have them be vegetated. The whole point is to have these street buffers vegetated. If they want to use that internal up against their building, et cetera where it's not a required landscape area - we're only talking about street buffers, perimeter buffers and parking lots, and that's fine. There was another reference to the setbacks. 30 feet mayor may not be good, et cetera. You'll see a provision in the alternative compliance that includes someone trying to design a site using Neo-traditional design standards or - there's a big push for Commercial to come up to the street front, like we have here in old town. That is one scenario under which someone can apply for alternative design, if they are trying to do something creative or innovative. The street buffer simply doesn't make sense with the design that they are trying to achieve, they can apply for alternative compliance. Mr. McCaughy talked about storm water and the need for creativity in the fact that there's all these requirements coming down the pipeline that are more and more going to be requiring on-site detention and these MPDES standards. We're trying to be friendly to that. That's the whole reason that we're saying that they can incorporate storm water facilities into the required street buffers if they are designed properly. Dave Yorgenson talked about greater challenges with it and wanted specific guidelines. Well, I'd point out that 11.2 is just that. We state that they - our guidelines - if they are going to be incorporated into the required street buffer are that we have to accommodate the required number of trees. They may include a small rock sump. The inlet may not exceed any more than 5 feet in any horizontal dimension - inlet structures not to exceed two feet in any horizontal dimension. Expansive gravel, rock or cobble facilities are not permitted but they can be incorporated if they're a design feature - plant materials, et cetera. I don't need to read the whole thing, but I would point out that we worked extensively with our own Public Works Department and Boise City's Public Works Department who has been working on the storm drainage issues quite a bit in developing this. We've tried to come up with something that is as flexible as possible for the developer and still get something for the City that has vegetated and aesthetically pleasing in those street buffers. Of course, they can - if they're doing it elsewhere on site and it's not in a required street buffer, they don't even have to meet those. These are the requirements if they're going to do it in a required landscape area. Questions about that? De Weerd: Steve, so there are additional guidelines in a different ordinance that deals with more specifics - Siddoway: This isn't a storm water ordinance. There are many options for storm water facilities, be they swells -- We're just trying to provide the flexibility to say Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13,2000 Page 50 "Yeah, you can incorporate them into your required -" so you can get double use out of these required areas. Yes, they function as a required street buffers. They can also be - since they are already required to be open space, go ahead and use them as storm water facilities if you design them as vegetated swells that are able to maintain the trees, et cetera. De Weerd: So this is only when it's used within the buffers or the landscaping? Siddoway: Correct. If it's used elsewhere, they have many other options. De Weerd: You may want to do a cross-reference then, to refer to the storm water guidelines. Siddoway: Well, I don't know that we do. I think that there would need to be a storm water ordinance because we're not trying to mandate specific design solutions. We're just saying that the gamut is out there. Use what you want if you can meet these criteria. The minimum inlet sizes and things were given to me by the Public Works Department and say that they should never need to exceed those sizes. Mr. McCaughy also talked a lot about those storm water facilities in subdivisions and I can only echo what he said. I would say the same thing he did. He was saying that we want to have these counted as open space. I would say the same thing. We want to count it as open space. So if we count it as open space, it needs to be usable. That's what he was talking about. He's talking about the subdivision where he lives where it's slight slopes and it's green and they have welling areas. We would certainly accept that and promote the scenarios that he was describing as usable open space. I do have some guidelines in the memo I wrote this week that could be incorporated into the ordinance. Actually, they are already in the ordinance elsewhere - things like "slopes no greater than 3 to 1 - that it must accommodate the trees - has to be ADA accessible." I had a question there about a minimum size of a flat space because it really depends on the use that it's intended for. That would be getting to specific to me. It's this balance between being too specific and too general. We've been playing that game all along. I would just say in response to the general notion of what is - Qf the generality of some of the language that's in there. It is intentional in every case. If something was - if there was an issue that we felt we wanted something as a minimum standard, we put "shall" in the ordinance. If it was something that we were willing to give up but wanted the designer to think about, then we put "encourage" or "discourage." Those parts that say "encourage" or "discourage" are simply that. A project could not be denied and would not be denied or recommended for denial simply because they were not doing something that we put "encourage" on. For example, the large expanses of grass areas was one thing we were talking about when we were talking about water efficiency. We use the word "discourage." We don't want to prohibit that. We don't want black and white thinking. Lots of places where a big grassy area is quite nice, frankly. We just want them to be thinking about water conservation. We want them to be thinking about these issues. So whenever there was an issue that we felt needed to be black and white, it is. The Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13, 2000 Page 51 ordinance is full of them, such as the one tree per 35 lineal feet, the specific setbacks, the percentage of the open space required, et cetera. Those were issues that we felt like needed to be specific. Mr. Norm Fuller talked about the five percent and one-acre tract and it shouldn't be required. I point out that it's not. The ordinance makes it required on five acres or larger. With five acres at five percent, you would be required to do a quarter-acre, I believe it is. That was the smallest area that we thought was usable as open space. If an area smaller than that - the requirement does not apply. Mr. Morrow's comments - he talked a lot about the onerousness (sic) of the ordinance and how it makes lots unbuildable. He sited examples in industrial subdivisions. I would state that just the opposite is true. This ordinance will require less of those properties than the current ordinance does. We simply require the perimeter landscaping. There's no internal requirements on those storage and loading areas. Intent is certainly not to make properties unusable. It is intended for beautification and to enhance the commercial viability of these areas. He talked about the standards being idealistic and I would refute that as well. We were very careful in talking as we developed this ordinance as to what we would like versus what we thought were minimum standards. What is in the ordinance is what we saw as the minimum standards - not the ideal. We are not legislating the ideal scenario here. We are legislating what we see as the minimum. We can always do more, but we're not legislating the ideal and I think that you can see that. He also talked about a design review committee which I really don't have response to. It could be a good idea, but this ordinance would function under the current structure that we have. Dave Yorgenson talked about enforcement and how it would happen. Would it need additional staff? We need additional staff now, but anyway - the answer is no. We go out and enforce the current ordinance. Every time we go out and review a site for occupancy, we check the number of trees, the sizes of the trees, based on their site plan. We count the parking spaces. We measure them. It's all part of what we already do. I don't see this as requiring additional staff. He talked about Bristol Heights and thought that Evergreen Trees were not allowed along arterials. That is not true. On all subdivisions, we allow the incorporation of Evergreen Trees as well as deciduous trees and encourage a mix of them - and the timeline. He spoke to the timeline and talked about the cost of this and how this may draw out procedures. I would just simply state that we can do this ordinance and the provisions in it within the current time frame. In other words, the deadlines would still be the same. At the first of every month for applications - it would be processed - staff would prepare our comments about the proposed plan within the same time frame. Then we go through hearings on the same time frame. The only possible extension would be - right now we're trying to get Certificates of Zoning Compliance out in three days. It's becoming more like a week already and I would see that being more like a week to do a full review on a Certificate of Zoning Compliance. In terms of length thinning out the platting process - the Conditional Use process, et cetera, it won't. That is all I have. Corrie: Any other questions of Steve? Thank you, Steve. Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13,2000 Page 52 De Weerd: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Yes. De Weerd: I guess I do have one for Steve. Have you been able to review the letter that we received tonight? Siddoway: No. I received it tonight as well and I've been busy doing presentations. De Weerd: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mrs. de Weerd. De Weerd: I think that we need to allow staff to have a chance to review this and maybe we can continue this until the 19th. Bird: How about going to October 3rd? If we are going to have a report back by the staff, I'd like to see it stay as a public hearing so there can be other comments from outside people, too - not just staff report. In fact, I would make a motion to continue this public hearing until October 3, 2000. Siddoway: Mr. Mayor. October 3rd, I am in Coeur d'Alene for an Idaho Planners Association conference. I can present my response in writing to you, but I wouldn't be able to be at the meeting. Bird: Should we go to October 17th? Siddoway: That would be fine. Bird: Okay. I move that we continue the public hearing to October 17, 2000. Anderson: I second it. Corrie: Motion made and seconded to continue the public hearing to October 17, 2000. Any further discussion? Anderson: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mr. Anderson. Anderson: I guess I'd just like to add a couple of comments. I know that Steve gave us a really good history on how the committee was put together and the length of time and' all the meetings that you've had and develop in this draft ordinance in this point. I think that's been very good and I think that it's been my Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13, 2000 Page 53 experience that every time through the process - every time you involve another group, you get a little more input and things get a little bit better. Typically, yes, everybody has had an opportunity. There's been builders and contractors and landscape architects on the committee, Every time it moves a little further along in that process, it's another opportunity for more people to comment. I guess I would prefer that you don't view this as holding it up or anything like that, but I think this would be a worthwhile opportunity and to go off of the comments that Walt Morrow made - that I think we could refine this ordinance even more because one of the things is - this group of people that's setting out here in the audience tonight are going to be a lot of the same group of people that are going to be submitting plans. They're going to be the ones that you're going to deal with on a daily basis. If there is problems with this ordinance, then they're going to be the ones bringing the variances to us, so anything that we can work out at this point - and if they think that the language is too ambiguous right now - that there's some things that maybe we could get a couple representatives from their group to sit down and meet with you. You could take it back to the group that's worked on this. Any of those things that we can work out now as far as details to make it so that it will be more harmonious - less things will have to come before this Council as we implement this ordinance and go later on. So I would rather take a little more time right now, and if we have to postpone it until the middle of October to make sure that we can get some of those things resolved ahead of time. I think that would be a good idea. Corrie: I want to thank all of you for your input tonight. This is where we're going to and coming from is you're the guys out there that are building the subdivisions, and like he said, we need all the input we can so that we don't have later have controversy that comes up. It drags out and anytime we drag something out like that, it costs you money. Our time is here. That's money. That's the pocketbook. Very good. Anymore, we'll still have an opportunity to talk, but I don't want to go too full with this tonight, but be sure and be here the 19th. Bird: 17th. Corrie: The 17th. I had the 19th down here. De Weerd: Mr. Mayor. I guess I would encourage anyone who might have an interest in working with Steve to let him know. That way we can get this done before we next meet and have your comments incorporated into that. Corrie: Okay. Then the last item we have here - Bird: We have got to vote on the motion. Corrie: Oh, I'm sorry. There is a motion. I get a senior moment at 10:00. Motion on the floor is to continue the public hearing until October 17, 2000. Is Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13, 2000 Page 54 there any other discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor of the motion, say aye. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Item 7. Discussion: Sale of Old Fire Station Property / Notice to Accept Bids: Corrie: Okay. No. 7 is the scheduled sale of Old Fire Station Property and notice to accept bids. I believe we discussed - I don't think Ron was there, but - discuss it to access the Old Fire Station property as excess property and have the attorney draw up - somebody to give us the estimate of the property value, and then accept bids accordingly. Comments. Nichols: Mr. Mayor, members of the Council. I think the process is set out in the state statute and Councilman Anderson probably viewed a similar sort of thing and his attendance at Nampa's meeting in connection with that Calibus Building, there are certain statutory requirements if this Council were to declare the former Fire Hall surplus property, then we would jump through those hoops and have an appraisal. Then it has to be offered at public auction with the minimum price being what that appraisal is. Then, if it does not sell, you can negotiate with other parties with regard to selling it to them. Anderson: I would like to comment on this. I really don't have an opinion at this point one way or another, but I do think the sale of that property can have some significant impact on things that this city does in the future. I don't personally feel like there's been enough open discussion and dialog about all of the future needs and the possibilities. I think that we've got a request in from somebody who wants to buy it and I almost feel like there's a rush at this point. I understand that they're under a time frame gun. I almost feel at this point, before I could make a good decision, I need to have some more discussion about what all the options to the City are out there. We've discussed things from Boys' and Girls' Club to a new City Hall. The list goes on and on. I'm not sure how this piece of property fits in - what the sale of that would do - all of those types of things, but I would like to have some more dialogue just about selling that property before we come to a decision. Bird: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mr. Bird. *** End of Side 4 *** Bird: -- we could have kept it for that. I don't think the City should be in the business of owning property that we don't need. I think that's something we don't need. It's probably a $600 a year - well, let's put it this way - the appraisal that Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13, 2000 Page 55 we got when we bought it when we took the half from the rural district, it puts - I know it's not very much, but it's about $620 or $630 a year on the tax rolls for us. The building is of such, I don't know what - I mean, I don't know what you'd use it for within the City where it would be big enough to put one department in or anything else. I just - if we can get rid of it and put - get that money back in, that would - what we get out of that would probably pay for a third of a Sub Fire Station. Perhaps we can use it for that - have a new Sub Fire Station. Corrie: Okay, 6 - we approved it and have the Planning and Zoning people to write up the approval to the Ada County. We did that in place of 5. We moved it up so that people wouldn't have to wait on the landscaping ordinance. Any other comments? Anderson: Can we discuss anything? I mean - De Weerd: Well, I don't think that - well, I know the party that's interested in bidding on it has no plans for the building for a couple of years, so they would be willing to work with whatever group would need to use it. I appreciate their willingness to do that if they are the successful bidder. I guess that was my concern or interest. Anderson: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mr. Anderson. Anderson: I guess the other thing, to me - We've had a couple of small discussions and so far, those, to my knowledge, have just been limited to the Council members. Nobody has really thrown this out to anybody else. Our department heads haven't been asked for suggestions. Nobody in the community - I have concerns about the sale of that property and I don't particularly think there's near enough parking around this building as it is when I come through here in the daytime or there's meetings and the other employees might be able to park at the little parking lot behind Dan's Shell, but does that even still leave enough parking here or are there some other needs in the City that that building could fill? I don't think there's been enough discussion and enough exploring of what all the options are at this point - what we're going to do with that. I think everybody likes the people that want to make an offer on this and so it's like "Well, yes. Let's sell it." Nobody has put any thought into what that building could be used for. Bird: What suggestion have you got, Ron? If you put it in any building, and if you go by our code, over 2 people isn't going to be able to occupy it because you won't have parking and by the time you landscape, you won't have any parking. If you were to - Meridian City Council Meeting ( ,September 13, 2000 Page 56 Anderson: I don't really know that we would use that building. I am just saying the property in general - the land, the parking lot that goes with it on this side, the building - all those things. I don't know. I just don't think we discussed it. Bird: Is it large enough for us to for any department or anything that you can see within the City? Anderson: The building or the land or- Bird: The whole thing. Anderson: I don't know. Other than the three or four of us that's talked about this briefly, how do you know? Corrie: It's a Council decision on what they wanted to do - if they decide it's excess property. I could see what you're saying, but I also know that the Council has to make that decision. Aoderson: Yes. Ultimately, I feel if it's our decision - but I just don't feel like I have enough information at this point to make that decision. De Weerd: I might make a suggestion that we visit this the first meeting in October and ask the mayor to put a memo out to all of our department heads to encourage comments and make this a public hearing that we would encourage public comments on at that meeting - or just public notice. How would you do it? Corrie: I don't think it's necessary to have a public hearing on what we decide is excess property. But, Council, I would agree that in this chair, we could postpone it until the 2nd to get some thoughts. If you want to have thoughts from the department heads, I'm not opposed to any of that. I am opposed to a public hearing on deciding whether it's the excess property. I've never had it happen before, but that's what I would suggest. If you want me to make a memo out to the department heads saying, "Okay. Your input of what you'd like to see that or do you have any ideas of your own? Have them back to us -" Actually, you're going to have it back by the 29th of September. I certainly will do that. In fact, I'll do that tomorrow. There will be a couple of department heads who won't be here until Monday. Bird: How many square feet is that? Corrie: I don't know. Bird: Maybe we can save ourselves some good money and move Planning and Zoning over there if it's big enough. I'm not being (inaudible). They don't require that much parking. We can turn around in the back here, if it's viable. Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13,2000 Page 57 De Weerd: But they need to be with Public Works. Let's put the City Attorney- Corrie: Okay. I will - if you'd like to do that, I need to have another motion, or I'll go ahead and take care of it. Bird: This is just the discussion. Corrie: Right now, it's a discussion, so - Bird: If you want to bring it out, that's fine with me. I don't care. Let the public, and then that time Ron can talk to people. We can all talk to people and see if they got any viable ideas. I just don't feel that the City needs to be in the business of owning stuff. If we can use it, that's fine. I just don't see any - off hand, I don't see anything we could use it for. Anderson: Would that be an option to maybe - I don't know. Is there enough land there that you could flatten existing fire station and build like office complex that could house Planning and Zoning and the Building Department. De Weerd: Well, Ron, that doesn't make sense if at some point, we're going to build at City Hall and try and put everyone under the same - Anderson: Where is that going to happen? When is that going to happen? Those are all questions that, to me, they could relate to. I mean, if we don't sell that, and Farmers and Merchants moves out, is that property going to be available - if we buy all the property and we own most of the block, can we do a City Hall in this block? Bird: Are you going to make variances for your parking and your landscaping and stuff for a 45,000 square feet building, which you need. I don't think so. I don't think we can do it. The only thing I am saying, Ron, is that is such a small piece of property to build an office building. Anderson: But if you add it with this piece of property - if you vacate the alley. Is it a big piece - Bird: You don't own enough of the ground. You don't own the ground behind us. Anderson: If we bought that ground? Bird: I don't know. I don't think they'd ever sell it. They would keep the branch there and all we'd do is lose their main park. And I don't know if we will. I'm not worrying about one buyer. It goes to the highest bidder. One buyer don't get it. They might not be the - I just don't think we need to be owning a bunch of property. You guys are talking about raising the mill levy to a 4.0, right? Why not get six hundred and something dollars on the tax rolls that we don't need? I Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13, 2000 Page 58 f ( know that's small, but that - Why keep it off the tax rolls when we don't use it? I don't disagree. If we don't need it - if that's what we decide, then we don't need it - but in the first place let's decide whether we need it. Let's not sell it and then in a year say, "We should have kept that piece of ground. We could really use it." I just think we're shooting from the hip awful darn quick on this thing. Corrie: Okay. You would like to have this continued discussion on the 3rd of October? Bird: Sure. Corrie: The 19th is going to be pretty full. We could have this continued discussion on the 26th, too. Bird: If we're going to have that, but let's set it for the 3rd. It gives us time, and let's make a decision one way or the other. We either keep it for a year, or we sell it. This piddling around is not cutting the mustard. Corrie: Okay. Do you want me to ask the department heads what they think? De Weerd: Yes. Anderson: Okay. If they have any input on what that building might be used for - if not, the City Council is considering disposing of it as surplus property. Corrie: Okay. We'll do it and have it for October 3rd for a continued discussion. Okay. I did talk to you about the Hell's Canyon flight. Bird: 1'(1 try it. Let me let you know. Would Monday be soon enough? Corrie: Yes. I have got to let them know - if there are going to be any seats left. There's eight seats. We can take five of them. I'd probably take up two of them, though, in those little planes. Anderson: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Yes, Mr. Anderson. Anderson: Could I request a quick executive session to discuss personnel? Bird: Yes. I'll second it. Corrie: Okay. Motion made and seconded to go into executive session in accordance with 67-2345. All those in favor of the motion say aye. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES, ONE ABSENT. Meridian City Council Meeting ( September 13, 2000 Page 59 (Regular meeting reconvened at 10:55 p.m.) Bird: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move that we come out of the executive session at 10:55 p.m. De Weerd: Second. Corrie: Motion made and seconded to come out of the executive session. All those in favor of the motion say aye. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES, ONE ABSENT. Corrie: Let the record show that no decisions were made of nature to anything. With that, 1'1) entertain a motion to adjourn. Bird: So moved. Corrie: Motion made and seconded to adjourn. All those in favor of the motion say aye. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES, ONE ABSENT. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 10:55 P.M. (TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) APPROVED: