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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2026-05-07 Meridian Planning and Zoning Meeting May 7, 2025. Meeting of the Meridian Planning and Zoning Commission of May 7, 2026, was called to order at 6:03 p.m. by Chairman Maria Lorcher. Members Present: Commissioner Maria Lorcher, Commissioner Jared Smith, Commissioner Jessica Perreault, Commissioner Dom Gelsomino and Commissioner Matthew Stoll. Members Absent: Commissioner Matt Sandoval. Others Present: Tina Lomeli, Kurt Starman, Bill Parsons, Linda Ritter, Carl Anderson and Dean Willis. ROLL-CALL ATTENDANCE (Vacant) X Jessica Perrault Matthew Sandoval X Matthew Stoll _X Sam Rust X Jared Smith X Maria Lorcher - Chairman Lorcher: Good evening. Welcome to tonight's Planning and Zoning Commission meeting for May 7th. At this time I would like to call the meeting to order. The commissioners who are present tonight for this meetings -- evening's meeting are here at City Hall. We also have staff from the city clerk -- city attorneys and the city clerk's department, as well as the city's planning department. If you are joining us on Zoom this evening we can see that you are here. However, your observe -- you may observe the meeting, however, your ability to be seen on screen and talk will be muted. During the public testimony portion of the meeting you will be unmuted and, then, be able to comment. Please note that we cannot take comments until the public testimony portion of the meeting. If you have got a process question during the meeting please e-mail cityclerk@meridiancity.org and they will reply as soon as they can. If you simply want to watch the meeting we encourage you to watch it on our city's YouTube channel and you can stream that at meridian city.org/live. With that we will begin with roll call. Madam Clerk. ADOPTION OF AGENDA Lorcher: The first item on the agenda is the adoption of the agenda. There are no changes to tonight's agenda. Could I get a motion to adopt tonight's agenda? Stoll: Move to approve as presented. Gelsomino: Seconded. Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 2 of 52 Lorcher: It's been moved and seconded to approve tonight's agenda. All those in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. CONSENT AGENDA [Action Item] 1. Approve Minutes of the April 16, 2026 Planning and Zoning Commission Meeting Lorcher: The next item on the agenda is the Consent Agenda, which are to approve the minutes of the Planning and Zoning meeting from April 16th. Could I get a motion to accept the Consent Agenda as presented? Smith: So moved. Gelsomino: Seconded. Lorcher: It's been moved and seconded to present -- or to accept the Consent Agenda. All those in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. ITEMS MOVED FROM THE CONSENT AGENDA [Action Item] Lorcher: At this time I would briefly like to explain the public hearing process. We will open each item individually and begin with the staff report. Staff will report their findings on how the item adheres to our Comprehensive Plan and our Unified Development Code. After staff has made their presentation the applicant will come forward to present their case and respond to staff's comments. They will have 15 minutes to do so. After the applicant has finished we will open the floor to public testimony. Each person will be called only once during public testimony. The clerk will call the names individually for those who have signed up in advance on our website. You may come to the microphones in Chambers or you will be unmuted in Zoom. Please state your name and address for the record. You will have three minutes to address the Commission. If you have previously sent pictures or a presentation for the meeting it will be displayed on our screen and our city clerk will help you run the presentation. If you have established that you are speaking on behalf of a larger group, like an HOA, where others from that group will allow you to speak on your behalf -- on their behalf, you will have up to ten minutes. After all those who have signed up in advance have spoken we will invite any other people on Zoom or in Chambers to testify. You may press the raise hand button on Zoom, you may come to the microphone in Chambers, or if you are on a telephone please press star nine and wait for your name to be called. If you are listening on multiple devices, such as a computer and a phone, please be sure to mute those extra devices so we do not experience feedback and we can hear you clearly. When you have finished if the Commission does not have questions for you you will F Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 3 of 52 return to your seat in Chambers or be muted on Zoom and no longer have the ability to speak. And remember we will not call upon you a second time. After all testimony has been heard the applicant will be given another ten minutes to come back and to respond to public comments. When the applicant has finished responding to questions and concerns we will close the public hearing. The Commissioners will have an opportunity to discuss and, hopefully, make final decisions or recommendations to City Council as needed. ACTION ITEMS 2. Public Hearing for Ustick Commercial (H-2025-0059 & H-2026-0007) by Hawkins Companies, located at 5900 W. Ustick Rd. A. Request: Comprehensive Plan Map Amendment to change the Future Land Use Map designation on 4 acres of land from Medium Density Residential to Commercial (H-2025-0059). B. Request: Annexation of 4.31 acres of land with a C-C zoning district. (H-2026-0007) C. Request: Preliminary Plat consisting of four (4) building lots on 4 acres of land in the C-C zoning district for Ustick Subdivision (H- 2026-0007) Lorcher: The first item on the agenda is Item 2026-0007, Ustick Commercial at 5900 West Ustick Road for annexation, preliminary plat and a Comprehensive Plan amendment. I spoke with our city attorney today, because me personally as a citizen of Meridian, but also a member of this commission, I live at 6330 West Ustick, which is less than a quarter mile away from the proposed property and in the statute it does say that if there is an immediate or direct economic impact of any planned use for land that I need to recuse myself and because this may increase or decrease the value of my property being so close to this area, it's in the best interest of the city that I recuse myself. So, I'm going to hand this to Jared, who is the vice-chair, and he will take it from there and when this application is done I will come back. Thanks. Smith: Thank you, Madam Chair. We will just wait one moment and, then, we will begin with the staff report. Parsons: Thank you, Commissioners. Presenting the first item for you this evening as President -- or president -- Madam Chair Lorcher has mentioned the first item is the Ustick Commercial and Ustick Subdivision application before you. The request are a comp plan amendment, annexation and a preliminary plat. The reason why you see the applications broken up the way they are is because as you are aware with Comprehensive Plan map amendments the city processes those twice a year. This particular application was the -- the comp plan amendment was submitted prior to the December 15th, 2025, deadline and later the annexation and the preliminary plat came F Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 4 of 52 after that date. So, that's why you have a 2025 application number for the comp plan amendment and, then, a 2026 application number for the plat and annexation. You can see here on the screen that future land use designation for this particular property is currently medium density residential. It's currently in Ada county, zoned RUT and it's -- it does have a county residence on it and the site is approximately four acres and it's located at 59 -- 5900 West Ustick Road and that's roughly the northeast corner of McDermott bypass and Ustick Road. So, the first application I will spend some time on is the comp plan amendment and the reason why I want to at least spend the most time on this is, as you probably are aware, staff is recommending denial of this particular application. You can see here the applicant is proposing to change this four acres from MDR to commercial. As part of the application submittal the applicant did provide written justification as to why they felt commercial made more sense on this particular site. As part of the comp plan -- and I will get into the -- the -- their justification a bit in my presentation. As part of the Comprehensive Plan map change staff also requested that ACHD require the applicant to go through a full traffic study. Typically a development of this size -- we wouldn't do that, but because of the transportation impacts in the area or all the transportation improvements in the area we felt that it was warranted given the fact that our current Comprehensive Plan, as you can see on the excerpt on this slide, we are trying to minimize access to those -- to Ustick and we are also trying to minimize intensive land uses next to the State Highway 16 interchanges and so that's why it was critical for this applicant to provide justification. So, this graphic that I'm showing you now shows the -- the chip -- the trip generations between the proposed use and the current use. You can see based on numbers that ACHD provided to staff the commercial would have significant increase on the adjacent roadways in the area and that was one of the primary reasons why staff is recommending denial of this particular project -- or the comp plan amendment I should say. So, here is the -- the applicant's justification. Again this is -- is paraphrased from their narrative. The narrative itself contained five pages and it's part of the public record. You can see the applicant has three -- three themes to his justification of why commercial makes sense on this site. One is why, two is why residential doesn't work here and, then, timing of development. I think some of the Commission's also aware that there is an adjacent development next to this property, so the applicant has also been working with other developers in the area for the coordination of utilities to this particular property. I think the Commission is aware that ACHD is -- is currently or in the process of widening Ustick Road in conjunction with the Owyhee High School when it went in. That's one of their requirements and also with the State Highway 16 project. And so as you know when the new road is finished ACHD will limit the amount of curb cuts you can have under that road for the utility extension. So, when Dayspring Subdivision to the south of this particular development came in the developer was able to work with the city on a cooperative development agreement for the extension of the sewer -- the McDermott -- McDermott sewer trunk line from McDermott Road all the way down through Ustick to serve not only their site, but also other developments in this property and so the applicant wants to make sure that if that is happening that utilities can be provided to the site. Here you can also see in this graphic the Durango development, which is -- will be in front of you on May 28th. I won't go into too many details regarding that project, but in our staff report we did note that this does have an Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 5 of 52 impact as to why the -- the applicant is proposing commercial on this site is because they are coordinating with them in that effort as well. So, quickly, I -- I won't go into all of staff's reasons for denial, but basically primary reasoning -- reasoning is timing. As we mentioned in the staff report there is quite a few -- a lot of commercial planned in the area. There is a node next to Owyhee High School as part of the mixed-use regional area. It's about four acres as the applicant did note and that has not developed yet. The multi-family portion of it is nearing -- or under construction, but the applicant has no tenants or anybody slated for that particular development. As I mentioned to you there is Dayspring to the south of this development right along the same Ustick corridor. They were part of a mixed-use neighborhood on that side -- south side of the road. They had a commercial component as part of their development. Now, again, the reason why we don't see it is because sewer isn't available yet. That's really the -- the timing component of this. So, in staff's opinion waiting until all of this come to fruition and services are available is probably the best course of action from staffs perspective. And, then, of course, the applicant did provide a concept plan and I will get into that a little bit more, but a lot of the uses on those -- that concept plan are auto oriented uses. So, it didn't seem like it blended in well with the surrounding residential development in the area, given the fact that the comp plan does -- and the UDC limits access to those major highways -- major roadways like Ustick and trying to maintain the integrity of the interchange there at State Highway 16. So, as I mentioned to you, the applicant is -- if the comp plan amendment is not approved and, then, the annexation and the plat will also not be approved, because the project is predicated -- annexation and the preliminary plat are predicated on approval of the comp plan amendment. But I did at least want to highlight some of the -- the work that the applicant's provided on this application. So, again, commercial comp plan designation is what is being proposed and to go along with that is the annexation to rezone 4.3 acres of land to the C-C zoning district. This is the legal description that the applicant provided with the application. As part of that they were also required to provide a proposed concept plan. Again it shows the -- the potential for development of a C store and a fuel facility at the hard corner. The coffee kiosk and, then, an oil changing -- a lube facility located in this area here. And another drive-through business as well. So, again, you can see here a lot of drive- through activity and auto oriented type uses, which didn't seem to fit the vision for the property in our opinion. Additionally, as I showed you with Durango coming around this, there is a potential for a stub street to this property to the north. You can see here the applicant has provided a pedestrian connection there, but with the -- the width of the Sky Pilot Drain staff is unclear how that will provide adequate transition to the adjacent subdivision as well and so we don't believe that these uses are compatible with the adjacent subdivision or future development as well. Again here is the proposed preliminary plat. The applicant is proposing a four lot subdivision. You can see here one access is proposed off of McDermott bypass, which is currently under the jurisdiction of ITD and will -- staff does not know when ACHD will take jurisdiction over that roadway. And, then, you can see here the applicant is proposing a right-in, right- out onto Ustick to be shared with the adjacent property owner. Based on ACHD and city policies ACHD is not supporting the right-in, right-out access to ACHD, nor does our city policy allow for that access point. ACHD did state that they are open to the McDermott bypass access, because it's a lesser classified roadway than Ustick is. So, Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 6 of 52 this will be a future collector potentially is what this will be designated as and Ustick is an arterial. So, again, if the -- if and when ACHD gets this and the applicant is successful with their project, then, they would have to work with ACHD in the future as ITD has said no to the access currently. And, then, of course, with the development of the property the applicant will be required to put in landscape buffers along both Ustick and McDermott bypass roadway. The applicant's also provided conceptual building elevations for the proposed structures on the site. And I also wanted to step back to one -- that Durango graphic here, too, and also I wanted to mention that the applicant is required -- or would be required to -- is working with the developer to get cross-access across these lots here to tie into the local street network as well and that's why ACHD was supportive of that access and felt that this access alone could be supported by the commercial development if it's approved. So, I had a chance to look at the public record. Staff has not received any written testimony on this particular item. Again staff is recommending denial of the Comprehensive Plan map amendment. Therefore, that subsequently denies the annexation and the pre-plat. With that I will conclude my presentation and stand for any questions you may have. Smith: Commission have any questions for staff? Gelsomino: Mr. Chair-- Mr. Vice-Chair. Smith: Yeah. Commissioner Gelsomino. Gelsomino: Bill, quick question. Has ITD provided any written comments on the application yet? Parsons: Mr. Vice-Chair, Members of the Commission, they did after the print date. They are -- they are right -- their comments are in the -- in the record and, again, they said no access to the bypass, but they had no concerns with the development. Gelsomino: Thank you. Smith: Would the applicant like to come forward? And if you would, please, state your name and address for the record. Mansfield: Thank you, Commissioners. My name is Ethan Mansfield with Hawkins Companies. 855 West Broad Street, Boise, Idaho. 83702. 1 would love -- I just want to thank Bill for presenting kind of the nuts and bolts of the application. It certainly is auto centric and I'm going to spend a lot of my time tonight kind of explaining a little bit about why that is. So, as you know here is the project. It's located on the northeast corner of McDermott bypass and Ustick Road. It's about a third of a mile east of the State Highway 16 on ramp, between the on ramp and -- or, sorry, between McDermott bypass and the on ramp is mixed-use interchange and that's the area that the city has decided to reserve for non-intense uses. Just to be clear, that area is on the left side or west side of the McDermott bypass, not on the right side of the McDermott bypass. So, here is our conceptual plan and I do want to be clear, we have had interest from multiple Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 7 of 52 users -- more users than this site could support. So, what this Comprehensive Plan -- or concept plan shows is the most likely scenario for the development of this site and I will talk to you about why we chose these users momentarily. So, a couple notes. We do plan to add a landscape buffer per UDC 11-3B-9C along the south side of the drive aisle or north side of the development. We coordinated with Nampa Meridian Irrigation District. This is the way the easement has to look. They are okay with the road in there, but they will not allow vegetation other than grass and -- they won't allow trees. They will allow vegetation, not trees, in the easement. So, we thought this would be a good solution to allow them an access road and access to our development and we will put the buffer on the south side outside of the easement, so we can actually plant trees. And this is what we are proposing, Comprehensive Plan amendment to commercial, annexation and zoning to C-C, community commercial, and a four lot preliminary plat. Another thing I would like to add quickly before I move on is when we received the ACHD correspondence we are in agreement with the removal of that access to and from Ustick. So, access would be taken solely from the McDermott bypass and I have spoken with Kendrick extensively at -- at ITD and I have spoken with Don, Mindy and Kristy at ACHD and everyone's kind of rowing in the same direction with the transfer of the McDermott bypass to ACHD and it will begin in three -- the process will kind of begin in three or four months, which aligns perfectly with our timeline. We are not going to be able to start construction on this for quite some time. So, we are not concerned so much about the timing. We are -- we are very much aligned with ITD and ACHD about that. So, let's talk about the uses. So, we are proposing auto centric uses and we are proposing auto centric uses because State Highway 16 is an auto centric corridor. We -- we, the community, spent almost up to 700 million dollars in vehicular transportation infrastructure for this corridor. We are literally building a river for cars and we are expecting up to 110,000 vehicles a day by 2045 and I double-checked ACH -- or ITD study from 2020, 72,000 vehicles per day is expected in front of Ustick Road. So, like along IT -- along State Highway 16 on the Ustick bypass. So, 72,000 vehicles. In addition, we have Ustick Road. ACHD is widening Ustick to five lanes, two in either direction, with a single turn lane in the middle. Ten million dollar investment, again, in vehicular transportation infrastructure. The -- the stated goal of these -- these improvements is to move cars quickly from one place to another. It's -- it's -- it's to make commuting better. It's to make car driving a better experience. This is expected to serve 35,000 vehicles per day. So, I think about it kind of like this. If I'm building -- if I'm investing 600 million dollars in an office park, I'm anticipating office uses. If I'm investing 700 million dollars in a vehicular transportation corridor, it would make sense to anticipate vehicular uses along this corridor. Because cars require gas, they require lubrication, they require cleaning, they require -- people driving them require coffee and so if it were not for a 600 or 700 million dollar public investment in -- in this vehicular transportation infrastructure, this area probably wouldn't be under consideration for development at all. It probably wouldn't even be for sale and you will hear from the person who is selling about why they are choosing to put it up for sale and move. So, as I said, you know, it should come as no surprise, based on our priorities as a community and where we are investing our money, that this would develop with auto centric uses. In addition, neither ACHD, nor ITD, requested a traffic study for this project. It was requested solely by the City of Meridian and ACHD approved the project Flo Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 8 of 52 with standard conditions. Hawkins is planning to pay for the ten foot pathway -- detached pathway frontage improvements along Ustick and along McDermott and it's going to be constructed in concert with the Ustick Road widening. So, we will pay ACHD. We will pay the road trust deposit. ACHD says no mitigation is required and no alternative mitigation is required. Again it seems like we are all anticipating this sort of use along this corridor based on our investment priorities. So, next I would like to spend a little bit of time talking about auto centric and their impact on the -- on the surrounding road network. You know, the staff report suggests -- and I think there is a widespread assumption that auto centric uses means there is more congestion, more trips, increased vehicle miles traveled, more negative impact on the community and this simply isn't true. Like if you look at the -- the data you can see that 65 -- that's two- thirds of customers visiting this site, based on our traffic analysis, are pass-by trips. What that means is they are already driving past the site. They are already driving past the site. They are already on the roadway. They are already in the area and they are turning right into our development. Only a third of the trips are actually new trips added to the network as a result of this development on this corner. So, it's important to consider that, that while you might have 2,950 trips coming in and out of the driveways, 1,900 of those were already going to be on the roadway anyway. Another way to think about this is impact fees. Impact fees that are assessed by ACHD literally measure the impact of the development on the public roadways. Impact fees fund the construction of new or expanded roadway infrastructure needed to accommodate the traffic generated by the development. It's -- in other words, it's the proportional cost of roadway capacity that new development is expected to consume. So, when we look at impact fees it gives us a really really good idea about how impactful the development will be to the roadway network. So, what it does is it avoids double counting; right? So, we are not counting trips that start somewhere and end somewhere else, but just stop by and that's important, because those trips are going to exist anywhere -- somewhere at -- anyway; right? They are going to exist. Maybe just not on this particular place. But what that means, just really quickly, is that if they are not stopping here those trips are stopping somewhere else, which means, just inherently, just in the way people make decisions, they are traveling farther than they normally would. So, you are actually increasing vehicle miles traveled and I will explain that a little more in a minute with a map, but I would like to just talk about impact fees associated with our proposal, the Durango commercial and, then, the Dayspring commercial to the south, just so we can compare and understand the true impact. Our proposal is shown here. Here is the table of impact fees up at the top. Just so you know I'm not blowing smoke, our proposal would generate 191,000 dollars of impact; right? Impact to the surrounding roadway system. Per acre that's 47,750 -- 47,750 dollars. The Durango commercial, which includes no drive-throughs and a 32,000 square foot area of, you know, shops that could be restaurants, salons -- the important thing is it's retail without a drive-through. Per acre generates 104,493 dollars in impact per acre. Now, again, this isn't like revenue to ACHD, what this is is ACHD collecting money that reflects the impact of the development. So, if you look at Dayspring, which was recently approved to the south, they are proposing 60,000 square feet of shopping center. No drive throughs. No gas stations. 97,962 dollars per acre. So, truly -- truly based on math that ACHD engineers are doing, the impact on the surrounding community on the roads is double for those F-11 Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 9 of 52 uses. Here is a quick comparison between three different restaurant categories. In case you don't believe me ACHD is charging more for the impact of fast food with no drive through and fast casual than they do with food with drive through. So, again, these are just math equations that represent the anticipated impact of these different uses on the road. And because we are asking for a Comprehensive Plan amendment away from medium resident -- residential density -- medium density residential, excuse me, to our proposal, commercial, I just wanted to do a quick comparison there of the impact fees associated with each. Eight units per acre of medium single family homes is 46,424 dollars per acre in impact. Our proposal, barely more than that, and, again, that's because of the pass-by trips. That's because there is already going to be thousands and thousands of trips on this network that we are building to accommodate vehicles and you can see with this square -- this square outside of -- outside of this there are no -- I should say there are no gas stations inside of this square. There are no coffee shops with drive-through inside of this square. They are all on -- to the right on that name of that road escapes me, but they are not within this square. So, any trip any trip that originates or ends in this square and is driving to Highway 16 to get gas or driving to Highway 16 to commute, if they get gas anywhere but here they are increasing the vehicle miles that they would travel to do it. They are adding more stress to the roadway somewhere else. That's why you see gas station -- that gas stations at the intersections of state highways, state freeways, because that's where the most cars are getting on and off using the transportation infrastructure. It makes sense to put auto-oriented uses here, so you get fewer of them other places. So, let's just talk a little bit briefly about the impact of noise, light and odor on residential development. You know, medium density residential would suggest -- the current land use map which suggests that you should put medium residential up on Ustick. That's 35 feet. There is a 35 foot buffer requirement from the edge of Ustick pavement. There is 35,000 vehicles per day anticipated to be driving up and down Ustick. It truly may not be the most appropriate place for residential. Single family homes. Alternatively, we could put commercial here to the north, we could put residential. Those residences would be subject to 4,580 vehicles per day and they would be 61 feet from that with a buffer provided by the Durango Subdivision to the north and they would be 183 feet from our closest building. As you will see momentarily, as well as our -- as well as our landscape buffer here and you will see momentarily that this is reasonably common. Actually, this is much much farther than the distances provided in many other residential developments as a buffer. You know, here is Dayspring. You can see the nearest roadway is 31 feet from the fence. The nearest building is 65 feet from the fence. Here is a few other buffers. Eighty-four feet from car wash to building, 38 feet from coffee to building, 70 feet from building to Walmart, 140 feet from this building, but there is two drive-through lanes between it. Sixty feet from building to gas station. Fifty feet. Seventy-five feet. So, this is not -- it's actually -- it's a much greater distance than most of these. So, finally, you know, we are looking at, you know, where is the appropriate place to put residential. It's probably not on the corner where you have 35,000 vehicles stacking at a lighted intersection throughout the day and throughout the night. It's probably much farther north where you are buffered by commercial uses and -- and you can look and see that the number of vehicles is substantially similar -- there is a couple hundred more when you -- when you combine both ours and -- and Durango's, but not 12 Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 10 of 52 more than -- but not more than Dayspring to the south. So, I have done the market analysis. In summary, auto oriented investment drives auto oriented uses. The uses that we are proposing are less impactful to the roadway network than other commercial uses and similar in intensity to residential uses. Residential units on Ustick would be far more negatively impacted by noise, light and odor than where they are currently proposed and we have interest from more tenants than we can support on this site and each of these users has performed an extensive amount of market analysis to optimize site selection. So, with that I will just respectfully request approval -- or recommendation of approval for 2559 and 2607 to City Council. Thanks. Smith: Thank you. Are there any questions for the applicant or staff? Commissioner Perreault. Perreault: Thank you. So, I pulled up the city of Nampa's future planning and current applications and whatnot and I don't see that there is anything actively going on there on -- on the other side of McDermott -- on the west side of McDermott. Have you reached out to them? Do you have any idea kind of what the intention is? Because, obviously, we have Nampa, Meridian and Eagle that are all going to have access to 16 and be invested in Highway 16 financially and I'm just wondering, you know, if -- is this the place for this to go if-- if we have -- I mean should it be in the city of Nampa and not in the city of Meridian or, you know, and -- and Eagle, you know, the -- the -- where they are developing that's a little too far north for kind of the central area, but curious if you had looked into that or not. Mansfield: Yeah. Actually, Commissioner Perreault, Commissioner Smith, I -- we have actually spoken with the city of Nampa a little bit. This corridor is in a Highway 16 specific plan in Nampa and it is designated for mixed-use. I can't remember the exact terminology, but basically multi-family and neighborhood serving commercial uses. Does that -- Perreault: So, you didn't see any commercial designations? Mansfield: No commercial designations there. Correct. Perreault: Okay. Can you talk to us a little bit about the timing of this hearing versus waiting for the Durango hearing and why that decision was made? Mansfield: Yeah. Certainly. So, I did not schedule the hearing. So, I was hoping that we could be heard concurrently with the Durango. I actually recommended that to staff when we made our application, just because I thought it would be helpful to see how the two commercial areas interacted with one another. One of the reasons that Durango was deferred from June or July was because we brought to their attention a cross- access opportunity for their portion of the subdivision that was north of the Sky Pilot -- south of the Sky Pilot Drain. I'm sorry. So, that roadway that runs across there, that was originally proposed kind of to isolate our four acre piece and we said, well, why don't we just do a -- do cross-access so that it creates like a cohesive commercial 13 Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 11 of 52 corner that doesn't interact negatively with the residential. So, we were really hoping that they could come in together actually. Perreault: I didn't see on the concept plan for the commercial buildings any kind of pedestrian connection to the east. What would that look like if that develops as office right there directly to the east? What is -- is there anticipated to be coordination for movement? Mansfield: Commissioner Perreault, absolutely. So, we have a few connections to the east, as well as -- we have kind of committed to straight -- straightening out this connection to the north. It currently has like this little jog that looks like this. So, I just really quickly wanted to mention that we are committed to straightening that out to make it a real easy pedestrian connection into the neighborhood to become like a corner store amenity for that neighborhood. On the -- on the east side we have the main sidewalk that runs south of the drive aisle. We have one shown in the middle here and we have one shown south of Building D, as well as the ten foot pathway along the frontage that's going to be required of -- you know, it's going to be constructed with Ustick. So, we can absolutely commit -- and we have already started -- we are still very preliminary site planning; right? Because this is a hearing about use. But we have absolutely committed to planning for connectivity there. We are not going to build a sidewalk into the back of a building. Smith: So -- so, kind of following the question about Durango, Bill, we do CPAMs twice a year; is that right? So, I think, then, this is our first one this year. So, obviously, I understand the time value of money and you want to get things done sooner than later, but is there any reason why you have Durango getting pushed back? I -- I will kind of lay my cards on the table. I also agree that this doesn't -- I don't have maybe the same problems as staff might with automotive or commercial uses here, but I would like to see, you know, the existing commercial, how that's going to look first. I don't want to take anything for granted. All that kind of-- given all of that is there any reason why you didn't say, hey, let's wait for that second CPAM once Durango is through? Mansfield: Commissioner Smith, that's a great question. We wanted Durango to come in first, but they were held up because of the sewer and also because of this little cross- access situation that we -- we in a way kind of accidentally helped them up, because we wanted to have cross-access here. So, the sewer was the biggest thing, though; right? And so what we have done is we have chatted with Toll Brothers to understand the timing of the sewer. The timing is essentially now. They are starting to gear up to install it. So, really, the sewer access to this area is what is now triggering so much interest in it and the people who understood that sewer would be coming are the people who got ahead of it, tried to entitle it, worked on entitling it like Durango. So, really, I would be interested to know from staff why Durango hasn't been scheduled earlier, because we really truly wanted it to be scheduled with us. The reason we didn't wait is because we felt like it had already been submitted. Everything had been applied for. They weren't making changes to the application. As far as waiting to see how the area developed, I would like to just point really quickly to the regional mixed-use that Bill was F14] Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 12 of 52 speaking about and just talk a little bit about that development trajectory there. I think it's important. So, the regional mixed-use that Bill's referring to exists here. You can see that it is completely bisected by Highway 16; right? So, that's where -- I -- I was under the impression that that's where the city has communicated that they do not want intense uses to go as immediately adjacent to Highway 16. So, I'm a little confused by why the regional mixed-use exists over Highway 16. However, my main point is all of this, with the exception of a small, I don't know, maybe four acre piece has developed into residential. So, there is four acres of commercial. It has been -- we know the broker quite well. He is actually Bronson's brother. We have been communicating with them and we even looked at purchasing it. The access is so -- so challenging. It's literally the off ramp to that -- to -- to the -- from the State Highway 16. So, the access is -- is bad. When we speak about, you know, where do users want to go, we have seen so much interest in this corner and they have been trying to lease the mixed-use regional corner with bad access for two years. So, we know we can get leases on this one. Nobody wants to go on that one. To us that says something. To us that says this is the right place. That place may not be right. Smith: Commissioners, any other questions? Commissioner Stoll. Stoll: So, I would be interested in hearing from staff on the potential of hearing the Durango one at the same time as this one. Parsons: Yeah. Commissioners, happy to give you context on that. As applicant's mentioned, there is a lot of moving parts here. When the applicant first started working with us we actually introduced them I think to Durango and said, hey, if we are going to do something let's, let's work together and try to make it and piece it together. So, have to give the applicant kudos for reaching out to them and -- and starting those conversations, because they were in quite a lot earlier than what they had anticipated and so they went back to the drawing board, but part two of Ethan -- the applicant -- applicant is correct. The -- was the sewer. We met with the applicants -- Design Professionals for Durango. We said, you know, we can go forward, you are contiguous, there is nothing that says we can't annex you and do your plat, but more than likely until we know how this cooperative development agreement works out for sewer between Toll and the city, more than likely you may get a recommendation for denial, because you don't have services available to you. So, they were gracious enough to pause their application, go back to the drawing board, try to add more office to their -- their development, work with the applicant. Unfortunately, when the applicant had to meet their deadline to get a comp plan amendment in they were forced to meet that December 15th deadline and Ethan was very quickly reminded of that your pre-app said we wanted annexation and a pre-app to go concurrent and at that time his property wasn't contiguous to the city limits. He could not apply for annexation and so staff extended some grace to the applicant on this application and that agreement got recorded and to and behold Dayspring to the south was annexed in February -- mid February and at that time Durango wasn't quite deemed complete yet either. So, again, as you know, there is always a timing component and things required and, unfortunately, it got close, but we didn't get close enough. So, we were -- we were three 15 Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 13 of 52 -- three weeks apart and that's why we scheduled the special meeting for May 28th, because the likely -- there may be an opportunity to get Durango caught up to this applicant at City Council, but at this point that's kind of what's happened between the two applications and why they aren't coinciding or going together and that's why you have all of the comp plan amendments grouped up tonight, because we try to take all those together at one time. So, we are trying to -- to meet internal policy, also meet application requirements, deadlines and -- and also making sure things are happening and properties are contiguous. So, there is -- as you know, again, a lot of moving parts here to try to make that all work. Stoll: Mr. Chair? Smith: Commissioner Stoll. Stoll: Bill, just to confirm. So, May 28th we are going to be hearing Durango? Parsons: Yes, you are going to be hearing Durango. Stoll: Okay. Smith: Commissioners, any other questions? Stoll: Possibly one more. Smith: Commissioner Stoll. Stoll: Ethan, when did you -- you said the construction is going to happen somewhere in the distant future. When do you expect it to start? Mansfield: Yeah. This is a great question, Commissioner Stoll. It relies kind of upon infrastructure improvements arriving at the site, as well as our preliminary plat. So, I anticipate, you know, that we could start -- you know, if all goes well here could start moving dirt, you know, as early as this fall. I -- we would like to. But, again, there is so much contingent upon others and -- and the preliminary plat progressing through the system that -- I don't want to predict opening dates or anything. Stoll: That's fine. Smith: Any other questions? Mansfield: Thank you. Smith: At this time we will take public testimony. Madam Clerk, has anyone signed up to testify? Lomeli: Thank you, Vice-Chair Smith. I have Cory Thacker and he has a presentation. 16 Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 14 of 52 Thacker: Cory Thacker. 5900 West Ustick. Property in question. Lomeli: You can use the arrow on the keyboard to kind of toggle through your presentation -- Thacker: Okay. Lomeli: -- up on the screen. Thacker: I actually had an entire presentation with all of this, but Ethan did a pretty darn good job. The thing that I want you to take a look at -- this is what I bought. This is what happened in 2011. McDermott wasn't even next to my property. There was no Highway 16. There was no neighborhoods encroaching. It was -- it was heaven. It was exactly what I wanted. Property away from everything. Traffic was just minimal. Nothing there. Quiet. Then without asking people based -- I mean they had their hearings, but no one cares my opinion. They put in McDermott right next to my property. Then, of course, what they did is they put in Highway 16. Then what they did is -- you know, contrary to the Idaho State Constitution, ACHD used the 2005 U.S. Supreme Court to say now we are going to steal some of your property. I got six horses. The increase, the changes, what it's done to me. I have had one horse already killed by being hit by a car. I have had one horse, because of the -- the McDermott bypass, that -- that they sprayed something and it got into my pasture. I come home and she is laying down and she can't even move. I had to put her down. I had another horse, after the increase in traffic, that -- it had to be a bullet hole, because I can't explain what the hell it was. I have had all this kind of impact and now what -- if I'm forced to stay any longer -- if I'm forced to stay I'm confronted with -- out my front door a shopping center. I'm confronted with being surrounded by -- I think what is it 1,400 houses across the road, 700 houses behind my house, you know, it's just kind of one of those things where it's like I no longer have my peace. It's been taken from me. And so I sit there and go, hey, let's look at the other factors. It's like, all right, with Owyhee being built after I had bought that property -- well, in the mornings when Owyhee is in business basically I can't even get up my own -- my own driveway. There is a 300 foot code. If I build a house I have to have a driveway 300 feet away from the intersection. But, guess what, ACHD, they didn't care. My driveway is 242 feet. They built their intersection inside the code and their resolution is for me to take away more of my pasture by moving my driveway. What? Where is my rights? Where is my consideration? Who is asking me what -- what happened to me? Because I didn't ask for any of this. I wanted my -- I wanted my peace. My heaven. This. I wanted this. But I'm not going to have it. In a year or two I'm going to be just absolutely stuck, so if you guys don't actually give me what it is that I'm begging you for, make it commercial. It only makes sense that it's commercial. I just sit there and I watch the traffic every single day. I watch everything going on every single day. It's not a residential. Even if we put more houses on this it is not residential. It's not safe. This is a commercial property. The state has turned it into a commercial property. So, please. F17] Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 15 of 52 Smith: Thank you. Commissioners, any questions? Thank you very much. Madam Clerk, is anyone else signed up to testify? Lomeli: Thank you, Vice-Chair Smith. We have Rachel Thacker. Smith: And, then, likewise, if you could just state your name and address. R.Thacker: Good evening, Commissioners. My -- my name is Rachel Thacker. I reside at 5900 West Ustick Road, Meridian, Idaho. 83646. And I hear you all saying improvements. But, again, I -- I am on the same page. It's not improving my quality of life at all. When we bought our property 15 years ago it felt like an oasis. It was peaceful. Traffic was light enough that my now 18 year old was four years old and could walk safely across the road to our neighbor's house -- to Ralph and Julie Powell's house. This was the kind of community this was. It was safe and it was quiet and it was connected. Over the years, especially after Owyhee he was built, everything changed. Traffic has increased substantially. What used to feel like a rural residential area now feels like a dangerous corridor. Sorry. I had this part -- when my children rode the school bus I lost count of how many drivers ignored the flashing stop sign on the school bus and sped past the bus while my kids were trying to get on and off safely. Every parent here knows that moment of fear, wondering if today is the day that someone doesn't stop in time. This year is the first year I don't have someone driving the bus or riding the bus and it's been amazing, except now my teenagers are driving themselves to school. One of them turns left to go to Meridian. One goes to Owyhee. To turn left out of our driveway every morning I sit there and wonder if today's the day they are going to get smacked by a car that they didn't see coming, because the string of cars in front of our house in the morning -- insane. The traffic is already there. It is not coming. It is there. We invested -- we bought this property believing that it would be our forever home, like many families here. We intentionally chose not to live in the middle of the city or next to major traffic routes. We invested in peace, safety and quality of life, but little by little those things have been taken away. This is no longer the environment we purchased. It is no longer conducive to residential living. The safety of my family and our animals have been compromised more than once because of the increased traffic and development around us. That is heartbreaking for families who never intended to live in the middle of a high traffic commercial corridor. We built our lives here believing this was where we would stay and the hardest part is this. Many of us now feel like we are being pushed out of every -- out of the very homes we worked so hard to build our lives around. My kids have friends close. We have -- everything that we have -- it's all been right there. Growth is inevitable and we understand that, but growth without thoughtful planning, without consideration for the people already living here, comes at a cost and right now that cost is being paid by the families who called the area home. I'm asking you to remember that behind every road, every traffic study and every development plan are real people, families, children, homeowners who deserve to feel safe where they live, because the community should not grow at the expense of the people who are already a part of it. At this point the reality is that the only practical future use for this property is commercial and not residential. Placing the 18 Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 16 of 52 proposed businesses on this parcel will not increase traffic, it will simply serve and capture the booming traffic that is already here. Smith: Thank you very much. Any questions, Commissioners? Thank you. R.Thacker: Thank you. Smith: Madam Clerk? Lomeli: No one else has signed up. Smith: Is there anyone online that would like to testify? Is there anyone in the audience or room tonight who would like to testify? Okay. Then would the applicant like to come back forward. Mansfield: Thank you, Commissioner Smith, Commissioners. I guess just a couple points. You know, as you can see there is clearly the investment in vehicular travel impacts those on the corridor and I think, you know, it -- it makes sense to create uses there that capture some of the trips that are generated by places further afield. It makes sense to not be a destination, but a service pass-by. So, maximizing pass-by trips is actually probably one of the best things you can do for this corner, as opposed to either creating more houses immediately adjacent to some of the concerns these folks were mentioning or creating sort of destination commercial where people are trying to get to it and I think there is a very distinct difference between those -- those two types of commercial uses and as you saw by the traffic study these are very different things. This is much more of a pass-by use and I think that's truly what the city actually wants here based on their investment decision -- not the city's investment decisions, but the community's investment decisions in these major roadways and, then, I would also just like to just touch a little bit more on the coordination that we have done with Durango, since Bill mentioned it. I just want to stress that we have, in fact, really been coordinating very intensely with Durango. We share the same engineer, KM Engineering and Stephanie is here not representing anybody from Durango or us tonight, but she is with Cam and we love working with them. And I -- yeah. So, we have the same engineer. We are coordinating to pipe the canal. We have already spoken with ACHD extensively about the routing of the canal. Nampa-Meridian wants us to pipe the canal. The canal serves as a nice buffer between the residential uses and the commercial uses. There is just a lot of things that make sense here from a timing perspective. I think this truly is the right time. The roadway will be torn up while we are constructing utilities. We don't have to go back and cut into the five year pavement moratorium, which would happen if this was to wait three years, then, you go cut into a brand new roadway, you make a giant cut, not only is it more expensive, it's less efficient for the community, because you have to shut down roads. So, truly this is kind of the time when this area is initially developing to initially develop with it and we are really looking forward to that opportunity and we really would appreciate that opportunity and we can commit to providing something that I think the community can be really proud of. Thank you. 19 1 Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 17 of 52 Smith: Thank you. Commissioners? Perreault: Mr. Vice-Chair? Smith: Commissioner Perreault. Perreault: So, can you walk me through the buffering again there on the north side? If I remember correctly the intention is to have all that buffering on your property and, obviously, because nothing can be -- can be added to that easement, so can you kind of talk me through what you expect that to look like or is there going to be any actual standing structure or is it just meaning a fence, a wall, something or is it just space? Mansfield: So -- Perreault: Or distance. Mansfield: -- I will start -- Commissioner Perreault, this is a great question. I will start from the north side where the fence is at the neighbor's house and, then, kind of walk southwards so we can get a full cross-section. I think -- would that be helpful? Perreault: Yes. Mansfield: So, on the north side each of these homes will have fences, obviously, associated with them. You can see the residential buffer in this picture here. They -- the fence is on the edge of the canal easement. So, within that they can't build trees, but they have gotten permission to build shrub -- or to build -- to grow plant, shrubs, that are a max height of six feet, as well as some additional shrubbery in the seven foot planting bed. Then there will be a five foot pathway kind of right -- you know, basically seven feet from the fence and, then, there will be 38 feet of open space to the property boundary. Then there will be an additional whatever -- 38 plus five plus seven -- 61 minus 38 plus five plus seven is between the property boundary and our street. Then there will be a buffer -- like a landscape buffer, but no trees, a sidewalk, and that's where we can, then, plant trees and we are not considered -- we -- here is what I will say. If a wall or a fence -- if a fence is deemed appropriate we can construct that. What we don't want to do is give the feeling of like -- this like weird little fenced corridor with nothing in it. We -- we can still build a fence, but we just didn't want to like create like a road with two fences on either side of it. But we can if that's of interest. But the fence cannot be constructed within, it has to be constructed outside of the easement. We can also consider looking at placing evergreen shrubs in the easement, although I'm not sure exactly how close we can get to the pipe with those shrubs. Perreault: Mr. Vice-Chair? Smith: Commissioner Perreault. F20] Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 18 of 52 Perreault: Thank you for going over that again with me to get more clarity on that. So, has Nampa-Meridian Irrigation said anything about having a fence on -- I mean I assume there is going to be a subdivision boundary fence on the north and, then, if there were to be a fence -- or excuse me -- on the south of that -- of -- of Durango and there were to be a fence on the north side, is there concern that they would have in terms of like security, safety, access? Mansfield: Commissioner Perreault, I can't speak for them, but I would imagine that as long as that roadway was not obstructed by a fence between the road and the actual pipe they would be okay. Perreault: Okay. Thank you. Smith: Commissioners, any other questions? I have a question that I have learned my lesson not to close the public hearing and, then, reopen this. I have a question I guess for staff regarding the timing. Actually, before I even get there. Question regarding Durango. There is something you mentioned that do -- do they -- are they required to have a CPAM as well? They are not? Parsons: No. Commissioners, they are not. Smith: Okay. So, I guess my question is if we were to continue this, for example -- because I'm -- I'm not -- we -- we don't have the conditions for approval to -- written tonight. So, if we were to approve it we would need to continue. Ideally in my head -- and I'm asking this because I also would like your input based on what staff has to say, regarding the timing of getting the CPAM in, you know, before City Council. Like what -- what are the cutoff dates there? I'm thinking theoretically, if we are hearing Durango on the 28th, could we first week of June hear this with that additional context? Would that work in the timing? Oh, we don't have that meeting -- Parsons: Yeah. Commissioners, that -- that -- Smith: -- third meeting. Third week. Parsons: So, there is a couple things in code. One is the submittal of the application and, then, two, the Council has to act -- can act on them no more than twice a year. So, that's why we try to bundle them up and take them all at one time, so -- but the reason why we are having the May 28th hearing is because the June 4th has -- has to be cancelled due to Public Works Week and so the next soonest -- if this were to be continued, then, we would have to coordinate the other ones with -- with this one at City Council and, then, Durango would have to catch up with all of that as well. So, may not be impossible, but just know there is also a provision in code that we have to get applications from planning. If you make a decision on application we have to get that in front of City Council within 70 days is -- is what the code reads, so -- Smith: Within 70 days of-- 21 Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 19 of 52 Parsons: Your decision -- Smith: -- a recommendation or -- Parsons: -- your recommendation. Smith: -- it appearing? Parsons: Your recommendation I guess. Smith: Okay. Okay. So, is there a date, you know, the City Council has to act on a CPAM by or is it just we tend to phase it twice a year midway through the year? Parsons: Yeah. Commissioners, we try -- we try to phase them and keep them close together, like -- like we are doing tonight. That's the intent. And I guess regarding continuance on the process side, again, we -- we don't have the conditions of approval here. On the continuance side of things if -- you know, in the worst case scenario is there -- is there a substantive difference between when this could come back between if it gets recommended for denial or if it's continued and say the timing doesn't work out they can withdraw or pause. Is there a material difference for the applicant? I want to also be fair to -- to you, because it seems like we are all kind of in a bind here around timing. Smith: To be candid I guess where I'm at is I don't think there is a way that I could support approving this tonight without having staff have time to look over additional conditions and things like that. So, I'm trying to find the -- you know, trying to find the needle or thread the needle. Parsons: Yeah. Commissioners, I'm not trying to advocate one way or the other either. I'm just giving you kind of the lay of the land, but -- and certainly we want you to have -- know what you are approving if you were to go that direction. But just give you a peek behind the curtain, we do have draft conditions of approval drafted up just in case this were to change. So, we typically kind of think outside the box when that happens, because we just don't know where everyone's going to land on an application. So, it's -- we are writing staff reports, so we might as well do some of that extra work, too, just in case and be prepared for these types of situations. So, I don't want you to think that I don't want to circumvent your decision in looking at them. But, again, if you feel comfortable taking that approach you can certainly say work with staff on appropriate conditions of approval and, then, we could take those up with City Council. I know it's a little unorthodox for you guys to do that, but just want you to know that we do have something drafted up and we would certainly work with the -- the applicant. Smith: Would you -- do you have any comments or thoughts? Mansfield: Commissioner Smith -- 22 Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 20 of 52 Smith: Yes. Mansfield: -- I have a lot -- I always have a lot of thoughts. Thanks for asking. So, our strong preference would be not for a denial and, then, a reconceiving of this project. Our strong preference -- our strong preference would be for an approval and working with staff through conditions. If that is uncomfortable, then, I have no issues going with being heard at Planning and Zoning with Durango concurrently. I also have no issues with -- if it makes sense -- I mean that would be our second preference is to wait and be heard concurrently with Durango. Third, I don't think we would throw a fit if we waited until after Durango. I'm not sure how it works if the -- you know, with city process. I think city process is in place to protect everybody, but I think if we all mutually agree that it's -- if that makes sense. If it's either denial or it's just waiting a little bit longer to be heard in -- in -- in mid June or something that would be okay, too. But I think my preference would be to be heard concurrently with Durango, if not approved with working with staff with conditions, because, frankly, Bill's great to work with. Smith: Any Commissioners have any -- I guess questions specifically? Because we can discuss those in deliberation, but any questions before we close public hearing? Stoll: I have a question for Bill. Smith: Commissioner Stoll. Stoll: Thank you. So, Bill, you said you do have draft conditions if we were to recommend approval and so those could be added to the packet for the May 28th meeting to be held currently with Durango. There would be no other additional delays that would be necessary because of the hearing process if we continued? Parsons: Commissioners, that's -- that's one possibility to do it, yes. But just understand that as these other two applications go forward, depending on the outcome of tonight, then, we would have to play catch up at City Council sometime. But, again, I -- I still think we could probably get there. The other thing that I would also mention to the Commission is, you know, you also have the ability to tell us what you want to see as part of some of those conditions. So, I don't want you to think -- I know you don't have them in front of you, but, for example, if you didn't like two drive-throughs on this site you can say we want no more than one drive-through on the site or if there is something you want added to the site plan or better circulation or more buffering or landscaping, those are certainly things you can direct staff to add or incorporate as part of a recommendation, if that's -- if that's what you want. So, I don't -- I don't want you to just circumvent the process and think you don't have any input. You have a lot of input here. So, if that's something that you want -- you may want to think about, too. Again, I -- I don't know all the draft conditions off the top of my head and what they say. So, I can tell you something along the lines of no use -- no access to Ustick will definitely be one requirement and, then, the buffering, cross-access with adjacent properties, you know, our -- our typical conditions of approval. Put in the required landscaping and there is plat conditions that they have to record the plat. So, again, I don't know if the F23] Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 21 of 52 applicant intends on getting a building permit before the plat records. I mean there is a lot of different things here that would probably behoove us to discuss at a -- at another hearing. So, again, I know we don't try to -- to dictate that or have that discussion as we are doing the public hearing, we try to buy ourselves some time and come back. But certainly happy to -- possibly -- if -- if you want to continue this to the 28th certainly could put together a memo with some draft conditions for you guys' consideration. Stoll: Okay. Thank you. Smith: Thank you. Commissioners, any other questions? Great. Can I get a hearing to -- or can I get a motion to close the public hearing? Stoll: So moved. Gelsomino: Second. Smith: It's been moved and seconded. All those in favor say aye. Any opposed? MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. ONE RECUSE. ONE ABSENT. Smith: All right. I guess I have kind of made my thoughts clear and you -- any other thoughts from other commissioners? Stoll: I -- Smith: Commissioner Stoll. Stoll: I lean towards continuing to the 28th -- I recommend -- I -- I lean towards continuing so that we can see what the conditions are for the approval to the 28th. Gelsomino: Mr. Vice-Chair? Smith: Commissioner Gelsomino. Gelsomino: I will concur with my colleague Commissioner Stoll. It's always important to have the full context, the full picture. Can't finish a puzzle without all the pieces. So, I would be in favor of a continuance to get a little additional more context on the picture. Smith: Thank you. Commissioner Perreault. Perreault: I feel like I have enough information to make the decision this evening, but I am not opposed to continuing it to a later date. Smith: Yeah. I think -- I think I have kind of fallen with the -- the -- the consensus this evening I think. Really my main concern -- again, it's -- it's one I appreciate, Mr. Mansfield. I -- I feel like you asked for some -- maybe some easier projects, but I also F24] Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 22 of 52 appreciate the -- the Thackers and -- and -- and I -- you know, I sympathize with what -- what you have gone through. It's always our hope and -- and sometimes we can get it right when development can -- you know, a rising tide can lift all boats and there is not a zero sum game and it's mutually beneficial. But sometimes, you know, the -- the mark isn't -- isn't hit and sometimes -- sometimes their -- you know, development can -- can have a positive and also could have a negative impact. So, I do -- I do feel for you. I -- I also don't necessarily think that this is a bad fit for -- for the location. I just really -- I wouldn't feel comfortable without it being heard specifically after Durango. So, can be on the 28th, but I would still prefer to hear Durango first. Just knowing that, you know, CPAM, we do it twice a year, there is just an extra care I want to make sure we give to kind of getting it right and having all the context we can -- we can. So, if someone wants to make a motion you can. Or I can make the motion. I will leave it as -- Starman: Mr. Vice-Chair, before -- you may be doing this, but we need to have a motion to open the public hearing again, number one, and, then, we can have a second motion to continue. Smith: Oh, I -- no, I thought -- I thought I did it right, but I didn't. Yeah, I guess we would need a motion to reopen the public hearing that I was trying to avoid. Stoll: Move to reopen the public hearing. Gelsomino: Seconded. Smith: Moved and seconded. All those in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. ONE RECUSE. ONE ABSENT. Stoll: Mr. Vice-Chair. Smith: Commissioner Stoll. Stoll: I move to continue File Nos. H-2025-0059 and H-2026-0007 to the hearing date of May 28th for the following -- do I have to give -- nope. Okay. Gelsomino: Seconded. Smith: Moved and seconded. All those in favor say aye. Any opposed? All right. The motion carries. Thank you. MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. ONE RECUSE. ONE ABSENT. Smith: I guess we can go get Chairman Lorcher and I can hand back over the packet. I guess in my last act as chair for the moment we will take a quick bathroom break for a few minutes if you want to get up and stretch your legs. F25] Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 23 of 52 (Recess: 7:16 p.m. to 7:21 p.m.) 3. Public Hearing for 2026 City Initiated Future Land Use Map Amendment (H-2026-0006) by City of Meridian Planning Division, located City Wide A. Request: Comprehensive Plan Map Amendment (CPAM) to redesignate four (4) West Ada School District properties from Mixed-Use Community, Industrial, Old Town, and Medium Density Residential to Civic and three (3) City of Meridian properties from Low and Medium Density Residential to Civic for the purpose of reflecting existing and anticipated uses. Lorcher: All right. We would like to open the next application, please. The next item on the agenda is Item No. 3, H-2026-0006, Citywide Comprehensive Plan Map Amendments, and we will begin with staff report. Anderson: Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair, Members of the Commission. My name is Carl Anderson, long range associate planner here with the City of Meridian. Tonight you have before you a city initiated Comprehensive Plan future land use map amendment, Case File H-2026-0006. The request before you contains two separate sections to it for a total of separate seven -- seven different areas. So, the first is to reflect existing anticipated land use -- uses for West Ada School District from their existing future land use map designations to a designation of civic and redesignate multiple City of Meridian owned properties also to civic. There are some minor amendments adjacent to some of these sites, which I will cover during my presentation and the total area for -- that's include -- included within this is approximately 77 acres, including right of way. So, the first site here is located on Locust Grove just south of Franklin. The property address is 33 -- 335 South Locust Grove. This is West Ada School District property covered by the area of change here that you see here going from an industrial and mixed-use community designation to a designation of civic. Staff are anticipating that the Commission will hear an application in the future for the West Ada School District CTE Center at this location at some point in the future. Of note as well, the industrial component of this was amended -- I believe sometime between 2020 and 2022 from the mixed-use community to industrial. Just would like to note that for the Commission as well. The next location we have here is at Meridian Elementary here in Old Town. From the existing designation for Old Town to designation of civic. Still Old Town there on the right. It's -- it would just be civic and not an Old Town civic for clarification. And, again, to reflect the existing land use here. Next we have the site at 1752 West American Fork Drive. The West Ada School District property. Two designations. A high density residential and high -- medium high density residential to civic as well. This area is 2.41 acres of the total parcel area of 11 and 50 -- .51 acres The next location here is south of Chinden, West of Black Cat, another West Ada School District site from medium high density to civic land use. You will note the school icon here reflecting the anticipated planned school site location in this area. This is to reflect the future anticipated use of the property. We are getting into the City of F26] Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 24 of 52 Meridian portions of this application. Bear Creek Park. You will notice on the left kind of have the square reflecting the park here. That square does encompass a few private residential parcels on the northern portion and where the corner of the square moves to the northeast those sections would be redesignated from their existing designations from civic to low density residential to match the full property. You can't really see it well here at scale as it's covered up in the area of change boundary, but that's a little bit of clean up that we are doing here. The little pathways you will note connecting to the residential neighborhood are all owned by the City of Meridian as well with low density residential designations and designated as civic. So, essentially, a clean up to reflect what's there currently. The -- the next application we have here is Fire Station No. 8 and North Meridian Police Station off of Owyhee Storm. This is cited as medium density residential, as well as a parcel owned by the HOA for their landscaping. This would be redesignating the site for mixed -- medium density residential to civic, again, reflecting what's there currently. And, finally, Fire Station No. 7 south of Lake Hazel. Medium density residential to civic as well. All notification requirements for this application have been met. It's being citywide. Courtesy notice has been sent to property owners whose parcels were included in the application for the cleanup as well. No public comments have been received on this application and we did receive four agency comments, which are included in the staff report packet. Staff recommends approval of the Comprehensive Plan Future Land Use Map amendment and happy to answer any questions Commission may have. Lorcher: Okay. So, since the city is the applicant here is there any else -- anyone else from the city that would like to make comments before we open anything else? We are good? Madam Clerk, do we have anybody signed up for any public testimony? Lomeli: Thank you, Madam Chair. No one has signed up. Lorcher: Commissioners, do we have any questions for staff before we close the public hearing? Okay. I will take a motion to close the public hearing. Stoll: Move to close the public hearing. Smith: Second. Lorcher: It's been moved and seconded to close the public hearing on H-2026-0006, Citywide Comprehensive Plan map amendments. All those in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. ONE ABSENT. Lorcher: This seems pretty straightforward and logical since it is the time that we are reviewing the Comprehensive Plan and any changes. I don't see anything that's out of line, especially considering a lot of these are administrative adjustments of things that needed to be done. Commissioners, do you have any other comments in regard to this? F27] Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 25 of 52 Perreault: Madam Chair? Lorcher: Commissioner Perreault. Perreault: I just want to say I appreciate the staffs diligence to stay on top of these things. Obviously, as folks are moving into our community, the more accurate our map is the better for them, decisions they are making, especially regarding where schools are going to be. So, appreciate the diligence in doing that. Lorcher: All right. With that in mind, after considering all staff, who is the applicant, and public testimony, I move to recommend File No. H-2026-006 as presented during the hearing date of May 7th, 2026. Stoll: Second. Lorcher: It's been moved and seconded to approve H-2026-006. All those in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you very much. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. 4. Public Hearing for The Fields (H-2025-0057) by Idaho Holdings, located South of McMillan Rd, north of Ustick and between Can Ada Rd. and Owyhee Storm Ave. A. Request: Annexation and Zoning of approximately 480.26 acres from RUT in Ada County to the proposed zoning districts of Community Business (C-C) (42.87 acres), Neighborhood Business (C-N) (45.63 acres), Medium Density Residential (R-8) (194.44 acres), Medium High Density Residential (R-15) (100.63 acres), Traditional Neighborhood Residential (TN-R) (45.05 acres) and Light Industrial (I-L) (51.64 acres). B. Request: Preliminary Plat consisting of 985 total lots on approximately 200.06 acres. This includes 899 residential lots (602 single-family detached units and 297 single-family attached units) and 72 common lots and 14 common drive lots. The development is proposed within the R-8 (157.48 acres) and R-15 (44 acres) zoning districts. C. Request: Comprehensive Plan Map Amendment for approximately +/-45.63 acres of land in the Southeast part of the development to be designated as Commercial (29.09 acres) from Mixed-Use Community and Medium High Density Residential (16.54 acres) from Medium Density residential and designate +/-45.63 acres of land to Civic from General Industrial for a future City Park. 28 Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 26 of 52 Lorcher: The next application before you is Item 2025-0057, The Fields, for annexation, zoning, preliminary plat and Comprehensive Plan Map Amendment. Again, I would like to state my address is 6330 West Ustick, which is on the east side of Highway 16. This proposed development of The Fields doesn't start until the west side of Highway 16. After consulting with the city attorney we feel that the distance, especially since the highway is in between the beginning of The Fields, which continues to go west and our small parcel would not be a conflict of interest. So, I am going to go ahead and participate in this application and we will begin with the staff report when you are ready. Ritter: Good evening, Commission. Linda Ritter. So, tonight we are talking about the -- The Fields project. It is an application for annexation, a Comprehensive Plan map amendment and a preliminary plat. So, this site consists of 480.26 acres of land. Is currently zoned RUT and it's located south of McMillan and north of Ustick between Can-Ada Road and Owyhee Storm Avenue. So, just to give a little bit of history on this. So, this property is located within The Fields Sub Area Plan, which is bound by Ustick Road, McDermott Road, Chinden Boulevard and Can-Ada Road. The Fields Sub Area Plan was adopted on December 21 st, 2021, by Resolution No. 21-2302. The Fields Sub Area encompasses approximately four square miles in the northwest portion of Meridian and represents one of the city's final major growth areas. The plan provides a framework to guide development in a manner that is consistent with the vision of the -- of the Meridian Comprehensive Plan by supporting expansion of the employment base, while integrating high quality neighborhoods, parks, pathways and schools. So, this area is adjacent to the city of Star's impact area to the north and the city of Nampa's impact area to the south and the west. The vision for The Fields Sub Area is to create a series of interconnected community-oriented neighborhoods, organized around a central mixed-use activity center. The center is planned at the intersection of Star Road and McMillan Road and the -- is envisioned as a pedestrian oriented main street. The center is -- excuse me. And this environmental feature in the central green integrated civic and commercial uses and direct connections to the Five Mile Creek pathway, a variety of residential types, including -- which include vertically integrated live-work and medium high density housing will support and activate the core area. The plan emphasized -- emphasizes connectivity through the enhanced greenway and pathway system. There are several waterways, including the Five Mile Creek and its feeder, and the Sky Pilot Drain and are anticipated to include pathways along their corridors. These improvements will allow The Fields Sub Area to connect to the broader Meridian pathway network, work with regional linkage -- linkage, extending west into Nampa and north to Star and the Boise River system. So, in this Fields area we have the Intermountain Gas building and there is a buffer around it, which means that there is -- no residential stuff can be here and this area right here is our park location. The City of Meridian has purchased this property and, again, no residential stuff can be built on it. So, that's why it's perfect for the park. You have the Williams pipeline going through here. There are restrictions for building along the Williams pipeline. They do have a development manual that will have to be adhered to for this development. The applicant submitted a conceptual site plan for this area. So, at this time the conceptual plan is for illustrative purposes only as presented. We have -- we have not approved the conceptual plan. We are looking at planning areas two, three, four, six, seven, eight 29 Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 27 of 52 and nine, which is the preliminary plat for Westvale. All other planning areas within here and this conceptual plan will be reviewed with development applications and at that time with the development application the applicant will be required to submit for a development agreement modification to create a new development agreement for the development that they are proposing and they will also be submitting new conceptual plans that adhere to the sub area -- Fields Sub Area Plan. The applicant also created design guidelines to go with their application for development that happens within the annexed area -- annexation area. So, all development within that annexation area within The Fields area will be required to adhere to these development guidelines. The design guidelines as long -- as well as The Fields Sub Area Plan, the city's UDC code and any ASM standards that we have for design review. Sorry. Something clicked on here that wasn't supposed to. Okay. So, you had designed for commercial industrial, for residential. Signage. Pathways. So, this is like an overall development program that is part of The Fields plan and what we have here shows how this area is supposed to be developed with square footage residential units with The Fields Area Plan submission there was -- for the commercial area -- this does not include any residential. There is like 322,447 square feet of mixed-use area within here. This area was intended -- anticipated for a range of 610,000 square feet of mixed area over the full build out of this plan. So, based on what we have that's kind of half of the mixed-use community development for this area. We did not -- again we did not include the residential portion for this. It's just this is just kind of a snapshot of what is happening there. Again, a lot of the stuff that was proposed within this mixed-use area at -- currently does not adhere to The Fields Sub Area Plan, so some changes will need to be made prior to them coming in to submit for their development. And, again, I just wanted to call out the things that we are looking at tonight. We are looking at the annexation, comp plan map amendment. These two blue areas are for the comp plan map amendments and, then, the preliminary plat. A traffic impact study was done over this whole annexation area. The traffic impact study evaluated development impacts on the study area intersections and roadways for the build out year 2040. The traffic impact study provided an evaluation of what improvements may be needed beyond those plans and ACHD's capital improvement plan. So, the tables that you are looking at include the intersections and roadway segments in the traffic impact study and noted existing travel lanes and intersection configurations. What improvements are planned in their capital improvement plan and the master street map and what improvements would be needed beyond those in the capital improvement plan and the master street plan to mitigate the total traffic impacts of The Fields in 2024. So, as you can see there are areas that will have -- intersections are needed and all the improvements that ACHD is looking at for this area. Okay. So, let's talk about annexation. So, again, it's 480.26 acres going from RUT in the county to -- these are the zoning districts that they are looking at. We have 42.87 acres that they want to bring in for community business, which is the C-C zone. Neighborhood business, which is the C-N zone, that's 45.64 acres. Medium density residential, which is the R-8. They want to do 194.44 acres. Medium High Density residential, which is the R-15. They want to do 100.63 acres. And Traditional Neighborhood Residential, which is the TN-R, 45.05 acres and light industrial 51.64. This is the annexation and these are the zoning that they are requesting. So, staff did look at their annexation and what they are requesting and has F30] Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 28 of 52 no opposition to what they are proposing. So, now we will look at the Comprehensive Plan map amendment that they are proposing. So, they are proposing for this area, which is in the southwest corner of their annexation area adjacent to Owyhee Storm Avenue and Ustick Road. Currently it's medium density residential and mixed-use community. They would like to change it to high density residential and commercial. They are proposing the Owyhee Center in this location and in this location they want to do multi-family. This area is bisected by -- I think that is a Sky Pilot Drain that goes through there and as -- as it is currently they could build residential there and would not have to have it interact with the mixed-use community that is below it, because they are in two separate zones they have provided in their concept plan, but, again, there is still work to do. They are showing where there are connections from the residential to get to the commercial area. So, even though there is not a crossing on the Sky Pilot Drain, they are -- they have avenues that come along the roadway, sidewalks, pathways that come along the roadway that connect in to this area and, then, there are ten foot multi- use pathways that are along Owyhee Storm and they have access to this area also and there will be a ten foot multi-use pathway along the road along here, so there are lots of pedestrian connections along here. And the next one is the city's property that is currently general industrial, but because it will be a park we are requesting civic for that -- for the park. In reviewing the findings for this staff had no objection to this request to make these changes, because you are -- you have residential already, the medium -- I mean the high density residential will be there to support the commercial portion for the Owyhee Center. Now, we move on to the subdivision. This is the legal description for the preliminary plat. So, the preliminary plat and future development, again, that will be required to comply with our code for R-8 and R-15, they are -- the plan includes minimum lot sizes of 2,000 feet to 4,000 and they require -- sorry. So, the minimum lot size they are proposing is 3,984 square feet. The maximum lot size is 10,610 square feet and the average lot size is 5,725 square feet. They are proposing 14 common driveways with this subdivision. They provided common driveway exhibits that demonstrated that there were no more than three units served from a common driveway. So, based on what they are proposing here all the lots within this subdivision currently are vacant, except for the property that is located in the southwest portion. There is a -- it has existing structures on it that will need to be removed and meet the current standards for the city. They are taking access to this preliminary plat. There are several access points they are taking. They don't have direct access to Ustick Road, but there will be a road that is coming through here, which will allow them access into the subdivision. There is an access point off of Star Road. Currently the way -- this is Achievement Street. The way that it is designed the -- ACHD has asked them to -- instead of connecting it to stopping it at this parcel that is in the county, they have asked them to bring it around and connect directly to Star Road. So, that is the collector or -- that will be coming through here to access into the subdivision and, then, you have several access points off of Owyhee Storm Avenue to access the property and, then, they will be stubbing this road up here to the Five Mile Creek and they will be paying their portion to do a crossing along Five Mile Creek to get to the other side of this for development that is being proposed on that side. So, these are the street layouts they are proposing for Star Road, Ustick and Owyhee Storm. Owyhee Storm will be widened to three lanes. Ustick Road currently is in the process of being widened to five lanes. F31 Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 29 of 52 Currently it runs at a level of service of F, but once the widening has been completed it will perform at a acceptable level for ACHD and, then, Star Road they are required to provide additional right of way along Star Road for future widening. And these are just the streets within the subdivision as far as how they will be developed. Most of the streets will have a five foot sidewalk and an eight foot planter behind -- landscape planter behind them. Several of the streets will have the ten foot multi-use pathway along them with the planter behind them and most of the -- they are proposing lots of parkways along this development. There are several streets that extend the 750 block face length, but I'm reviewing it it says that the streets cannot be longer than a thousand feet in length. You have several roadways, as I have listed here, that don't quite meet the one thousand feet, but they are past the 750. Staff has no objection to these proposed streets being this length. Then you have several that exceed the one thousand foot -- feet, but they are not supposed to go past 1,200 without Council waiver. So, these don't quite meet that, so staff has no objection to these roads. They are working with ACHD to do some traffic calming along these streets, so that they don't become a raceway within the neighborhood. But there is one street, which is West Achievement, that does exceed that that they are requesting a Council waiver for. They exceed their open space requirements. They are well past the 15 percent that is required. These are the amenities that they are proposing for their preliminary plat and their -- the DA requires them to provide these amenities. They have 40 amenity points, which is -- yeah. They have 40 amenity points for this. So, tons of amenity, tons of pathways along here that will provide lots of entertainment for everyone there. You have the clubhouse, picnic areas, fitness court, common open space -- common open space with shelters, a dog park, dog waste station, outdoor fire rings, swimming pool, changing facilities and restrooms. A paved sports court. Pedestrian and bicycle circulation. Multi-use pathways and a bicycle repair station. This is the pedestrian connection. As you can see they are providing plenty of pathways along here as per The Fields Sub Area Plan. They are providing a multi-use pathway along the Five Mile Creek, along the Sky Pilot Drain. They were asked to continue this up to Star Road and they will also be providing a ten foot multi-use pathway along the Williams pipeline. It's not shown here, but that is a requirement that they have. As you can see there is lots of interconnectivity for people to walk through this area. These are the building elevations that were presented for this -- for the single family detached and attached three, four units and staff has put a provision that any houses that are along a collector or the arterial will need some articulation and different designs like bump outs and things to kind of provide better -- so -- so, it gives a little bit more design to it along those heavy traveled ways. This is their conceptual phasing plan. So, currently there is not sewer in the area. The city is building a lift station at the corner of Can-Ada Road and McMillan with -- and the trunk line goes all the way to Star Road and with that Star Road -- I mean McMillan Road has been -- is being widened to three lanes. At this point the applicant cannot submit for a final plat until sewer has been brought down to this area and that is a condition of their development agreement. Even though there is no sewer in this area there was a determination made by the Community Development director and the Public Works director that even though sewer is not there, but it is coming, that we could annex properties in, but they are not allowed to receive any kind of permits or anything until sewer is readily available at their site. So, that's why they are starting on 32 Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 30 of 52 this side, because they will have to bring sewer down from McMillan on Star Road to their project. So, we did not receive anything from the school district, but the city put together this table based on information from the school district site. So, it was generated -- so, in looking at this you can see that the elementary school is past its program capacity. The middle school is over capacity and so is the high school -- Owyhee High School. We hope to have something from the school district before we go to City Council. But these are the numbers. And, then, we did add in a section -- even though we didn't get a number of units in the other areas that will have multi-family in them, we did put together something estimating low and high dwelling units outside the preliminary plat and you can see that the maximum count is about 645 multi-family units. So, what, 12 -- 1,210 single family units and 645 multi-family units, which would result in approximately 722 school age children of all grade levels. So, even though we didn't have anything we use our estimates based on dwelling units per acre to come up with these numbers. Again, this is the property that has the existing home and outbuildings on it. So, I just wanted to point out a few of our development agreement provisions on this. Again, it's one of those -- all other areas that are part of the annexation and comprehensive plan map amendment shall, priority any future development and once sewer service is readily available at the site, submit the following for review and approval. A development agreement modification to create a new development agreement. A preliminary plat to further subdivide the property if required and amend the concept plan to be consistent with The Fields Sub Area Plans, the Fields development guidelines, our Comprehensive Plan and the UDC. Again, no development shall commence on the property until sewer service is readily available at the site and it meets the following: The connection to the city sewer collection is actively being installed by the applicant or sewer has already been stubbed to the site. The future development shall comply with the Williams pipeline handbook and ACHD may require a TIS with development applications if they feel that there is a change to The Fields master planning -- master plan planning area, they may alter traffic impact projections, so that will be at the sole discretion of ACHD. So, the final plat for this application shall be recorded prior to submittal of any building permit applications for the commercial or residential portion of development and prior to the issue -- issuance of any certificate of occupancies within the commercial portion of the development. And, again, we talked about the road trust that they will need to provide for the crossing of Five Mile Creek. And they have to install a -- a signal kind of like a HAWK signal at the intersection of Owyhee Storm and Achievement intersection. ACHD is requiring that and they need to meet ACHD requirements. And that is my presentation for tonight. I tried to break it up, because there was a lot to talk about and so that we wouldn't get confused, but I confused myself. It's been a long process and we are here tonight and so at this point I will stand for any questions you may have. Oh, my apologies. We did receive several public comments on this. There was about eight that we received and they -- the gist of the public comments hit on traffic -- the infrastructure not sufficient to handle all the traffic that will be generated in this area with this development. Schools being over maxed out, not having enough capacity for this development. Talked about individuals moving into this area to get away from what is now being proposed in this area. They moved to this area so they would not be around all the traffic and now all of a sudden it's coming to where they are and the traffic from Owyhee High School and, 33 Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 31 of 52 then, the -- with the development of Baratza at the Intersection of McMillan and Black Cat Road with the traffic from that development and, then, what's being proposed here, how McMillan doesn't have the capacity to handle all this traffic that is being generated. And, then, that our emergency services are not sufficient for what is being proposed, then, that there may not be enough of fire or police to service these areas. So, the -- I tried to provide you with the information from the comments in your handout there. So, those were the gist of the comments and so, again, at this time I will take any questions that you may have. Lorcher: Okay. Thank you very much. Would the applicant like to come forward? Mueller: Good evening, Madam Chair and Commissioners. Emily Mueller, 839 South Bridgeway Place with Mark Bottles Real Estate and we represent the applicant team tonight. There are eight different owners that make up this 480 acres and so it has been a long process with everyone. I want to thank staff. Our first pre-application meeting on this -- or pre-pre-application meeting was about two years ago. So, we have been collaborating with the city, both current planning staff -- I want to thank and long term planning staff -- really everyone. We have had multiple meetings with ACHD, with ITD, with the West Ada School District. So, this has been two years, but even before that I was here testifying when the specific area plan was adopted. So, we have been stakeholders in this area for a long time and are really excited to be here. And as -- I want to also start off by saying is that we agree with all of staffs conditions. We agree with all of ACHD's conditions. And have met with ITD. They didn't provide a letter for today, but we agree with all of their conditions as well. So, I want to start off by saying that. As staff mentioned, our applications tonight are for annexation and initial zoning with this DA for the full 480 acres, a Comprehensive Plan map amendment and, finally, a preliminary platform for Westvale Subdivision, which is about 200 acres of the project and before getting into the project I also briefly wanted to touch on the benefits of master planning. It allows for comprehensive public planning, enabling coordinated long range planning for transportation, parks, which we are excited to have donated half of the value of that park, schools, utilities, emergency services and other public infrastructure. It provides for an integrated community design, which is what the specific area plan envisions for this area. Providing cohesive land uses, coordinated access, shared design principles, pedestrian pathways and everything that really provides a sense of place. We provided design guidelines that we worked on as a group and with our agents to provide -- to make sure that this develops out with a sense of place and we are really proud of those design guidelines. Finally, it allows for future planning and predictable private investment. So, that is private investment. Those are employers coming in, retailers and also even on the individual level -- individual property owners who come in buying a home knowing what's going to be developed down the street. And so it really provides a predictable private investment at all of those levels and we can really look at other master planned communities in Meridian and around the area to see how once these goals are aligned early -- again this is a big project, 480 acres, but once goals are aligned early the city can absorb that project in a really seamless, well transitioned way. So, we have seen that proof of concept and those success stories. This is part of The Fields Sub Area Plan and as I mentioned I was here in 2021 F34] Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 32 of 52 testifying for that plan and we are really excited to see this vision come to life. The Fields Sub Area Plan is prefaced by saying that the measure of a comprehensive plan success is to see its vision implemented and to take actions to implement that vision. So, we are very excited to be here implementing that vision for this area. Again with the park, with the pathways, with the design principles and everything that we get to present this evening. In alignment with the future land use map we are requesting a total of six different zones across the 480 acres. This mix of zones provides a truly comprehensive master plan, including commercial, industrial, single family, multi-family and public facilities. As staff mentioned we -- for the entire annexed area -- for the 480 acres have a concept plan that we put together to envision future uses, densities and all of those things that make this comprehensive planning process worthwhile. We will be referencing that a lot and it's designated into planning areas and because we will be referencing it we printed out copies. I also for anyone in the room we have copies on the back table. So, people as we reference that tonight can follow along. Importantly -- a very important part that staff mentioned and I want to stress again is that a DA modification will be required for the majority of this project at future dates. That gives the city, this body, the City Council certainty and staff certainty that you will be able to approve exactly what gets developed. The -- the build out for this will be long. So, it makes sense to say, you know, in foresight this is probably going to need a development agreement in the future anyway and we agree with that. So, we want to have that certainty there that you will get another chance to look at this and approve exactly what is built. So, starting with the first area being annexed is the industrial area. It consists of 51 acres on the far western portion of the application on the southeast corner of Can-Ada and McMillan. The Blue Star indicated there is where we have donated area for the city lift station that is being constructed. This is really going to be a valuable industrial and employment asset within the city. It's small scale. It's set away from Highway 16, so it really lends itself to smaller scale industrial. It's going to be a great employment base for growing businesses within the city. Moving east is the park. Again, we were excited to donate -- I think the appraised value on that came about -- to be about 3.6 million dollars of land donation to the city for this park and it's large enough to accommodate a lot of community events. So, while the amenities are not planned for it yet, they envision that there will be sports fields, destination playgrounds, sports courts, restrooms, pathways that will all be connected. There is a little, you know, pedestrian pathway as well to be able to allow people to, you know, bike-walk to the park. Moving further east PA-12 is the McMillan center that staff touched on earlier. This is an important area of The Fields Sub Area Plan and is envisioned to be a -- kind of a mini main street of the area. When we were here five years ago we shared similar graphics here. This is a to scale picture of Bown Crossing in East Boise and we have designed it with the same street sections with oversized sidewalks, with pavers to really create a pedestrian feel, providing ample landscaping, bicycles, on-street parking, so, again, you get that mini main street feel where you are pulling in and pulling out as you grab a cup of coffee. This is an important area of The Fields Sub Area Plan that I know staff would like to work with us further as we refine the concept and we are excited to do that and in the meantime staff has requested that moving forward we don't have any drive-through shown. So, while in our design guidelines we provided a lot of information about how you can design drive-throughs to still create a pedestrian feel, we will 35 Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 33 of 52 acknowledge and accept and agree with staffs condition that we will not have any drive- throughs along this main street area going north-south or east-west. Moving, then, to the Owyhee Center. This area is referenced as PA-1 on Ustick and Owyhee Storm and this area, which is also a part of our Comprehensive Plan map amendment, is located near Ustick and the Highway 6 interchange -- Highway 16 interchange and is walking distance from Owyhee High School. So, this is a really important area of commercial use and I will talk about it with the -- the Comprehensive Plan map amendment, but the intention in this Comprehensive Plan map amendment really was to increase the amount of commercial. So, in a -- in a MUC designated area you would have needed by code to include 30 to 50 percent residential and we said we want this full 27 acres just to be commercial. We think that there is a need there. We were talking with West Ada School District last week and they said what tenants do you have lined up that we want -- we need some commercial in this area. So, we agree and we envision this area transitioning on the western side, which is where single family homes back up -- would be single story multi-tenant buildings. Perfect for an orthodontist or medical user and, then, as you transition further to the east -- and, again, along Ustick would be where we would have some drive-throughs, fast casual restaurants and things of that nature. The entire annexation includes three multi-family areas, PA's 5, 11 and 13 with R-15 and TN-R zoning. Future applications for these areas would include a CUP would be required for the R-15 zone, again, a DA mod and preliminary plat applications, if necessary there. So, we have provided design guidelines for these multi-family developments, along with pools and amenities and everything in this area and have been cited in areas that are near transportation corridors, pathways and will be integrated into the commercial throughout the rest of the project. The last part of what is just included in the annexation and part of the conceptual planning are the single family portions that are not yet platted. So, that includes PA 16, 15, 14 and 10 and these areas will be platted in the future with a development agreement modification again. These areas will include detached single family homes and townhomes, with densities that are consistent with the specific area plan. They will be developed subject to the proposed design standards and further important pedestrian pathways and connectivity throughout the area. Now, moving to the next portion of our application is the comp plan amendment. As I discussed earlier the main onus behind the Comprehensive Plan map amendment is that we wanted a larger commercial space in this Ustick Owyhee Center. We think that commercial is needed here and would be supported here. New commercial in this area will be important for internal trip capture, so to allow people to access some, you know, the drive-throughs that aren't really allowed anywhere else in The Fields area without getting on the highway or without getting on Chinden. So, it's really important for internal trip capture, for the high school and -- and so, again, we think that this area really lends itself to commercial. I do want to note that our application requested that, then, the MDR be changed to MHDR. I believe staff said at high density residential, but we are requesting medium high density residential and, again, the -- the original part of this was to still integrate some of the higher density residential next to the commercial as was originally intended with the mixed-use concept. The second Comprehensive Plan area, as staff mentioned, is the industrial area that we are requesting be redesignated to civic to support the park. Now, moving on to the third application is the Westvale preliminary plat, which consists of 200 F36] Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 34 of 52 acres, zoning of R-8 and R-15, with a gross density of 4.49 dwelling units to the acre. It consists of 899 homes in total with 602 single family -- single family detached, 297 townhomes. The average lot size in the R-8 is 5,741 and the average lot size in the R- 15 is 2,400. Including throughout this project we will be having roadway improvements, including expanding the pavement along Star Road and pedestrian facilities there, turn lanes, as well as widening Owyhee Road to a three lane road, installing a pedestrian crossing near Owyhee High School and constructing the new east-west collector through the middle of the site, which will also help reduce traffic off of McMillan. We are excited to be providing 43, 44 acres of open space within this plat, which constitutes 21.81 percent total open space, which is significantly above the 15 percent that's required. Westvale will provide an array of desirable amenities, including pool, clubhouse, extensive pathway system, amenitized -- the pathway system will be amenitized with pet waste stations, pollinator gardens, seating and outdoor fitness stations. The home renderings for the preliminary plat were included and comply with The Fields Sub Area Plan modern farmhouse aesthetic and sense of place that is designated in the specific area plan, including gabled roofs and slanted roofs, board and batten siding with neutral color palettes and natural accents. Finally, with Westvale we are proposing to develop the subdivision over seven phases with 167 homes in the first phase. If construction is able to start in 2027, the first home sale -- the earliest it would be would be, you know, July, late summer of 2028. So, this will not develop all out at once and really from, you know, now to the last home sale would probably be in 2035 at the earliest. So, a long -- a long lead time there. We are excited for this application for all of the reasons discussed in and of itself, but in addition to that we are proud of the contributions that the project is making to the community, including donating the one acre sewer lift station property, a portion it was a part sale part donation of that park with the donation valued at 3.6 million dollars, as well as a well lot on one of the sites. Westvale alone, just the subdivision, before the rest of it comes in, alone impact fees will be 16.4 million dollars an estimate. So, that contributes a significant amount towards city plans, fire, police, water, sewer and really significant contributions towards ACHD's improvements. So, as mentioned we are really grateful to staff for their recommendation of approval, are proud of this project, the community it's going to bring to north Meridian and would stand for any questions. Lorcher: Do the Commissioners have any questions for Emily before we ask for public testimony? Perreault: Madam Chair? Lorcher: Commissioner Perreault. Perreault: Thank you. So, is the -- is the park -- is the city park intended to replace the -- the park that was planned for Cherry Lane -- Cherry Lane or is that -- do you -- do you have any idea -- is that a conversation that you had with staff? Mueller: Madam Chair, Commissioner Perreault, I'm not aware of a Cherry Lane park. The -- the park that -- when we were discussing with staff, if I can go back to -- as F37] Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 35 of 52 shown on The Fields Sub Area Plan was on Star. There was a park along Star. If you can see here we controlled a small amount of that park and to get it to a larger size park -- and, actually, there is a lot of waterways and -- and kind of funky stuff going through where that park was planned. So, to get it on a contiguous piece of ground that's not all cut up -- so, that is the park. I don't know -- so, that -- I'm not aware of a Cherry Park. But this was the park in our discussions with staff that we talked about. Perreault: Thanks. Mueller: Yes. Smith: Madam Chair? Lorcher: Commissioner Smith. Smith: Kind of as a continuation of that. Kind of because of this kind of shifting westward of the park, I'm wondering what -- or, yeah, westward. I see in the -- in the rendering there is a kind of a connector to the north across -- I think it's Nine Mile Creek. What about connections -- are there any planned connect -- like pedestrian connections to what eventually I assume now will be housing going eastward? Mueller: Yeah. Smith: I know -- I saw there was a pedestrian map I think when -- in staff's report. I was looking for that in the -- Mueller: Madam Chair and Commissioner, I think I exited out of this. I wanted to bring up that pathways -- I don't know if you can help on there. Lorcher: Try the arrows. Mueller: Yes. I'm trying that. There we go. And so, Madam Chair and Commissioner Smith, there will be pathways all -- there will be a pathway all along connecting the park in -- in really multiple areas. It's going to be hard not to be able to access. Along the south portion of subdivisions all the way over to Star Road that path will, then, continue along Five Mile Creek and also jot down on the Teeter Drain and so there will be a lot of ways to access the park from pedestrian facilities. Did I answer that question? Smith: Yeah. Mueller: Okay. Thank you. Smith: I do have one more question, Madam Chair, on a different topic. Some -- you know, if anyone -- anyone the Commission can confirm that -- mixed-use is kind of a pet area of mine and so I see kind of a distinction between the -- the sub plan and kind of having two key mixed-use areas and I see here that one of them I think is already -- it's 38 Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 36 of 52 -- it's still listed -- it's not listed as mixed-use in the actual comp plan -- or in the -- in the actual FLUM, but I'm noticing this -- this bottom right one that's -- that borders Hawaii -- Hawaii -- Owyhee High School, the south -- southeast section. You are trying to change that from mixed-use to residential neighborhood commercial. Can you kind of go over the decision process? It seems like there is a little -- there is -- mixed-use is already kind of dwindling in the city and it seems like we are kind of a -- maybe excising a little bit of that here. So, could you speak to that concern? Mueller: Yes, Madam Chair and Commissioner Smith. Our original application left this as mixed-use community and really just floated the designation. So, it was mixed-use community and under code you can float a designation 50 percent before you require a comp plan amendment. I think we were within an acre of that float to where we -- again, we were trying to expand the mixed-use community area, saying here is the residential, here is how it connects. We are going to have these wayfinding elements and there is a Sky Pilot Drain in between it, which makes it -- the connection a little bit harder, but focusing on -- and -- and it's cut off of this screen, but some of the connectivity points. So, the original request was really just to expand that mixed-use commercial. After we submitted -- and so our original narrative actually had that as mixed-use -- mixed-use community, it was recommended that we just go ahead and designate them as -- as the two different future land use map designations that they are actually going to develop out as, which would be a medium high density residential and, then, just really a purely commercial product and that was the desire from the beginning was to have a more intensive commercial product on this, not live-work homes here. We think that this is a perfect place for commercial. Smith: Okay. And, then, that -- that kind of -- first half of that I -- is the Star-McMillan Center in this sub plan as is listed as kind of this northern little red spot. In the FLUM it's listed as medium high density residential, but I'm curious about that development as well, if you could expand on that. Mueller: Madam Chair and Commissioner Smith, to confirm this is the area on McMillan that you are discussing? Smith: Yes. Mueller: Yes. So, again, we have been able to manage this property since about 2019 1 want to say. So, we have been involved in the -- the specific area planning for this area and at the time we actually -- one of the bubble plans that our consultant had was put into the specific area plan. So, it's focusing on commercial on the hard corner, which we have here, with -- really our concept shows a neighborhood grocer we think would be perfect in this area. So, a smaller scale neighborhood grocer, not a big one. And, then, transitioning into that mini main street. And, again, our focus there was to really emulate Bown Crossing. It doesn't need to be huge, you know, really big, but it just needs to be designed right to attract the kind of use that you want and also I will go back, then, we have this really does need a little bit further revision again for the DA modification, because the area -- the green area in the south is designated on The 39 Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 37 of 52 Fields Specific Area Plan for maybe a type of civic use and we have brought that up in all of our pre-application meetings of, you know, this area is available if -- if the library needs something and we really haven't had any takers. So, we think that this is going to fill in or it could be park space or could be used to develop a little bit more of a east- west main street. But, again, we were leaving that open for us -- you know, some type of civic use where that can be developed. But from the beginning we really -- I mean almost the same slide was presented five years ago of showing a Bown Crossing and, then, transitioning over to the medium high density residential. I think in the specific area plan it shows urban housing is what it says. So, apartments, urban housing. Some of that got pushed over because the portion of the property on the far northwest corner was sold to Idaho Power for the development of their power station. So, we think it really meets the intent of the specific area plan and will be further refined, taking away the drive throughs, some of those things moving forward. Smith: That's helpful. Thank you. Mueller: Thanks. Okay. Lorcher: Thank you very much. Madam Clerk, do we have anybody signed up to testify? Lomeli: Thank you, Madam Chair. We have Carrie Hovey. She has a presentation. She's also indicated that she is representing an HOA. Lorcher: Carrie's not here? Okay. All right. Thank you. Lomeli: The next person is Eric Small. Small: There. That's good. Lorcher: Now, are you taking over for her to represent the HOA or are you just as a citizen? Small: No. We tried to get more people here. There probably is. But, no, I'm not representing the HOA itself. She is the HOA. Lorcher: Okay. So, if you can state your name and address for the record that would be great. Small: Eric Small. 5314 West Avila, Meridian, Idaho. 83646. Lorcher: Okay. Thank you. Small: So, I already went through that, but my name is Eric Small and I live at that address. But my wife and I are residents of The Oaks neighborhood, which is part of that HOA, which is the -- which is north of McMillan and east of Rustic Oak and west of F40 Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 38 of 52 Black Cat. We have lived there for three years now in the Toll community. But before I get started I want to ask by a show of hands, if you guys will do it, how many of you guys live in this area that they are proposing? And I think -- you are one of them. Lorcher: I'm -- I'm one of them and as a Commission we represent all parts of the city. Small: Right. Lorcher: So, I disclosed mine, but be rest assured that we -- we try to broaden that so that we all have some kind of input throughout the city. Small: That works. So, what is concerning to my wife and I and many of the neighbors is a lot that was brought up in the a-mails that she mentioned -- and I will probably be going through it again and what -- and the Mark -- the Mark Bottles plan of adding 899 homes to what they are calling The Fields. This is a situation I'm going to say you are putting the cart before the horse, because there is no infrastructure put into place whatsoever. Let's look at the new planned community. These homes will be built west of Owyhee High School or Owyhee Road, north of Ustick, south of McMillan. It will feed into Ustick, which currently is only a two lane road, but is getting expanded. I understand that, too. Whatever it is. To five. Then there is also Owyhee right now, which is only two, and to the north it's McMillan and it's only two and in her presentation she mentioned the widening of the -- the two streets, never once brought up McMillan Road at all. I know there is work on McMillan going east of Star Road to Can-Ada Road and it's currently being -- doing some piping and infrastructure that's going on down that road. So, let's put this project into some numbers. They say there is going to be 899 homes, but on her other presentation there was 985 on the agenda. But, anyway, let's just go with the 885. Let's add two cars average per household. That's 1,800 more cars on McMillan, the two lane road. This needs to be four lanes before any construction has started. I mean any construction. At last night's Highway 16 meeting they brought up the roundabout at Black Cat and McMillan, which was also mentioned here earlier, which will help move traffic in the future, but the budget constraints say that roundabout won't be built until 2028. So, much for infrastructure. You also brought up Ustick within the -- the proposal. I can't remember the number of cars that the guy said they were going to have, but I think you said something like 30,000. So, now we are going to add another, you know, bunch there and also the other homes that are -- that are planned in number ten, four and three. So, there is going to be a lot more homes being done in the future. What's going to happen when these 900 homes go in and the traffic gets backed up on McMillan even more than it already is? I mean you can probably look at the impact that it's already having at the intersection of Black Cat and McMillan right now. It's already backing up, because of the people at school. McDermott might be an option for people to go home, but if you go up McMillan you can't get to Chin -- you can't -- it's McDermott, you can't get to Chinden now. If it gets backed up anymore they are going to go up Rustic Oak and they already go up Rustic Oak -- speeding up Rustic Oak. If they don't like that method of transportation they are going to make a right-hand turn down going -- 41 Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 39 of 52 Lorcher: Your mic shut off, so -- I'm not sure what happened. If you could just wrap up and if you could check the bottom of your mic there should be a green light on it. No? At the bottom of the base of your microphone. Lomeli: The microphone. Lorcher: Microphone. Lomeli: There is a button on the other side. Small: Okay. There we go. Lorcher: Okay. If you would wrap up your comments. Small: All right. I will kind of-- Lorcher: Thank you. Small: Okay. Also probably about the state, but I -- I propose that this project not be approved at all until the -- if you want to approve it go ahead, but I think all the roads need to be in first no matter what. Lorcher: All right. Thank you very much. Madam Clerk. Lomeli: Madam Chair, the next person is Garrett Post. Post: Hello. Hello. Sorry about that. I do represent my local HOA. I live at 6600 West Windsor Street. Lorcher: Okay. And your name again. Post: Garrett Post. Lorcher: Garrett? Post: Yes. Lorcher: Okay. Thank you. Post: So, this is my first time speaking at this, so if I start rambling -- Lorcher: That's okay. Post: -- at a million miles an hour just throw a shoe at me. Lorcher: And which -- and which HOA do you represent? F42 Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 40 of 52 Post: Aviator Springs. Lorcher: Aviator Springs. Post: Yes. So, I have some of the similar concerns as the gentleman who spoke before me. Those roads already in the morning are a nightmare to deal with. Ustick gets backed up for a couple blocks. McMillan from -- all the way from Chinden gets backed up. Gets backed up down Star. There is -- it's already an absolute nightmare. And, then, when I see this plan I look at that and go, wow, that looks a lot like California, which, you know, unfortunately, is where I fled from to get away from this exact stuff. I understand there is a lot of money involved in this. We were kind of looking forward to some of the industrial stuff coming in like we are looking forward to maybe getting like, you know, coverage -- indoor-outdoor shopping mall, whatever was going to be put there, but there is not nearly enough commercial space in this. Like I understand they are going to put houses in, it is what it is, but 900 residents when all the schools, especially the high school are already full is not conducive to, you know, healthy community in my opinion. I have seen this happen so many times. But here is some questions that my HOA and I were talking about during the meeting, so if it's a little disorganized I do apologize. I did throw it together rather quickly. I wasn't anticipating speaking. Lorcher: Okay. Post: Would have worn a less political shirt, so I do apologize for that if that's against decorum. But, you know, we talked about the West Ada School District, they reviewed it and does nearby schools have the capacity for this many new residents, which considering already all full, hazard to guess no, and are they going -- they are rezoning all the schools, are they going to continue doing that? Have the police, fire and EMS been expanded to support this development? I don't know if you guys know, the police station that's across the street from the high school, they don't have any full-time officers there. It's basically just a satellite station. Excuse me. With this many new residents and commercial stuff coming in we are going to have a -- like -- you know, we are just going to get more crime stuff. It's -- it's going to happen. It's, you know, just reality and we need the services to deal with that. We have nine firefighters stationed at that fire station. There is three there at a time, which is one truck. That's not nearly enough to support what's being proposed here as well. You know, which I understand this will bring in a lot more money to support the growing, you know, police and fire stations. Just the other day we had to wait about two hours for an officer to come take a trespassing report at our pool at the HOA. So, I can't imagine how much worse that's going to be when you have 900 more residents and, I don't know, like six, seven, eight more HOAs individually that is being proposed here that we are going to have to deal with. So, I also -- I don't know if the boundaries are -- this is all proposed to be in Meridian or if it -- part of this is going to be in Nampa. If that's the case I don't know if you guys have talked to them and worked out how inner city cooperation would work with the emergency responses. That's something that I have thought of, too. And we also just kind of want to know what buffers, landscaping, fencing, setbacks will separate F43] Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 41 of 52 existing homeowners from the commercial and industrial. What protections are being put in place to reduce noise, lighting and late night commercial activity affecting the nearby homes and, then, we want to know how the traffic study was conducted and what does it -- and does it account for the future growth already approved nearby. Let's see. There is -- what specific road improvements are planned to handle, again, nearly 900 residential units and the commercial and industrial traffic. We already -- like I mentioned, the high school traffic is horrific as it is. I -- I do think there needs to be a light put in at Achievement and Owyhee Storm. That's something that would definitely benefit us, because we have one way in and one way out. I know you guys are putting in the second way. It looks like it's about to be finished. That road is definitely going to need some speed bumps on it, because teenagers are going to love to drive down a nice kind of little windy straight road. Can't blame them. Looks fun. But my house is right at the end of that road and I would prefer to not have some new holes in my house from cars coming flying around the curb. One of the other things is we already have to deal with a lot of parking issues in our community from high school kids parking in there and we need to know if we are allowed to put signs up or if we have to go through the city to do that for like residential parking only. I know that's not quite related to this, but it is something that does affect the community. We are also, you know, concerned about negative effect of our home property values if there is too much stuff that detracts from it. What's -- what do we also have? Yeah. We also need the ability to restrict our parking. Mention that. The other concerns are school, traffic and property value. I'm also curious in this development where the school zone is going to be -- if it's going to be expanded or just left where it is or if any of the new things are going to be considered part of the school zone. But, you know, that's just my opinion of this, which I know doesn't really mean a lot. You know, some of this looks nice, like having some industrial would be nice in the area; right? Currently if we want to go shopping we need to go to the Walmart on Ten Mile, five minute drive, not a big deal, but it is nice to have stuff close, it's just -- it will not be able to support 900 homes and figure an average of 1,800 people are going to be added into this area. It's just not enough infrastructure to support it. And like the gentleman said before me, these roads probably need to be doubled in terms of their size, especially with adding the freeway off ramp and the development from the first meeting today going in, like there is going to be 110,000 cars in 20 years coming through there daily. We -- we do not have the infrastructure for this unfortunately. It's just not in place and I get it. It was a rural area. Developments happen very rapidly in the last six years in the valley. Totally understand that, but that's just something that we as a community really need to consider in order to not get buried in traffic, because I have been buried in traffic. I can promise you it's not fun. But I won't take any more time. That's -- that's all I had to say and I -- I shared more time than I thought. So, thank you so much. Lorcher: All right. Well, thank you so much for coming to testify. Having your voice heard is very important. Post: And thank you so much for having us. Lorcher: Thanks. F44] Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 42 of 52 Lomeli: Madam Chair, the next person is Greg Thrust. Lorcher: Oh. Okay. Do you -- you are good? Okay. All right. Lomeli: Okay. We have Irina Hristov. Just work our way down the list. Diane Graham is here. Awesome. Thank you. Lorcher: Come on. You are good. Hristov: Good evening, Commissioners. My name is Irina Hristov and we own the property at 4190 North Star Road and how everybody was comment -- we are not against the growth or development, we just have the concern how that's going to change around us. The gentleman already mentioned the traffic. Right now it is -- it is bad. We take a time to take a left turn and we don't have anyone around us. And, again, we are not against the growth and development, will -- we support it. My family support it. We having concern also how transition between our existing RUT property and the new high density residential development plan around us, we would like to understand that type of buffer it is going to happen or the houses they are proposing exactly and the property line. That is one of the concern. The other one is the drainage plan and the irrigation. We have irrigation canal, which come into the upper property. We having concern about that. With that construction and how that's going to be -- bring that to us. We -- I did not -- maybe that's a detail in the development, but I just want to share that few concern and that's what it is. Lorcher: Okay. Thank you very much. Hristov: Thank you. Thank you again. Lorcher: Okay. Lomeli: The next person is Diane Graham. Lisa Brittane. Okay. John Lengval. Madam Chair, there is one person online. Their hand is not raised at this time. But no one else has signed up. Lorcher: Is there anybody else in Chambers that would like to make a comment to the Commission before we ask the applicant to come back up? Emily, would you like to come back up, please. Mueller: Madam Chair, thank you. And, yeah, thank you to the neighbors who come and testify. We have met with them -- several of them before on our neighborhood meetings and -- and really appreciate that collaborative process. Again when you do it for two years it's been great. So, I do want to pull my PowerPoint back up if that's possible. I will start with -- as it's loading talking about schools. We did talk with West Ada School District last week and we have spoken with them a couple times and I did want to make one correction to the record. They have said -- they didn't submit a letter, but they said that instead of going to Pleasant View Elementary School, West Ada, they F45] Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 43 of 52 -- they will be going to Ponderosa Elementary School. So, that was part of their recent redistricting proposal and we understand that schools experience strain, you know, we absolutely understand that and West Ada -- I did want to highlight a couple things that actually their CFO and COO highlighted. COO on the phone with us and, then, their recent Board of Trustees hearing -- was about House Bill 636 and if this Commission isn't already familiar with it, it's a really important piece of legislation that gives the school districts a lot of hope for the funding of future development and maintenance and how -- how schools will develop in the future. So, Owyhee High School, as we know, is -- is already -- was really built for this area. Owyhee High School has a lot of students coming in from Star and the next high school that West Ada School District plans to build is in Star. They already have the property for it. They don't have the funding for it. So, House Bill 636 amends the Idaho school district facilities fund. It allows eligible state dollars to be used towards lease purchase payments, which are a different mechanism than bonds. They are actually underwritten kind of like a bond is, but it's just a different mechanism for funding and this creates a path forward for capital projects without relying solely on voter approved bonds and, actually, when I was watching and listening to the school district hearing, the CFO stated, you know, he said maybe -- and it's a big maybe, but maybe we will never have to go back to voters again for bonds to fund these projects, which is just really exciting. So, that doesn't change, you know, when students might be enrolling from this application in 2028. This district has been able to do some redistricting, which we understand is not ideal to send kids further than what the closest school is to them, but the district does it really intentionally and really carefully and we just have a lot of respect for them. So, while certain areas of Meridian are experiencing surges and certain schools are experiencing capacity strains, overall the district actually has been decreasing in student enrollment, so there is capacity available, maybe just not at the closest school. So, again, in this instance kids would be going -- I think the bottom table here shows that students would be going to Ponderosa Elementary School, not Pleasant View Elementary School. So, that's just one example of how -- how the school district is being creative, lobbying the legislator to make sure that the West Ada School District continues to operate, you know, in the same manner this has always -- always happened is -- is growth happens and schools get a little strained and, then, a new school is opened. So, I did want to touch on that. I would love to talk about traffic. We -- as mentioned Owyhee and Star will be widened by our project by this first phase and I know that this Commission understands how traffic impact studies work, but for the gentleman that was up here testifying, our traffic engineer collaborates with ACHD on which intersections to study. They count the a.m. and p.m. peaks and the total traffic throughout the day. In our case the traffic engineer was instructed to study over eight intersections and eight roadway segments, expanding all the way up to Highway 20-26 and, then, all the way down to Franklin and the -- the good news here is that there are so many improvements coming. If you read ACHD's report it says that, you know, a lot of the needed mitigation is -- is coming -- is already planned for in our -- in either the city of Nampa's work plan with Ustick, up on Chinden and, then, with State Highway 16. So, with -- ACHD really provided us with two traffic impact study reports or two reviews of our traffic impact study. One was for the preliminary plat and those were the comments that I mentioned earlier, which is widening Owyhee, adding turn lanes -- I think two turn lanes additional on Owyhee, an F46] Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 44 of 52 addition to a through lane. Star Road adding widening pavement to 17 feet, adding a shoulder, sidewalk and turn lanes there. And, then, this -- this map here in the blue shows what is part of ACHD's CIP funding. So, I -- I understand and I, you know, live -- I live with traffic, too, and I understand that it is frustrating to see development approved ahead of when you think roads should be improved, but, again, as part of our --just this one plat that's -- that's how you fund those improvements. That's how the CIP -- ACHD's CIP funding is set up. So, as part of our mitigation and improvements -- this is a slide we prepared to show -- we will be providing our proportionate share of ITD improvement. So, those include improving or adding signals to -- along Highway 20-26, northbound-southbound ramps on State Highway 16, and additional improvements here. So, that's for our Westvale preliminary plat. We then -- the ACHD and our TIS also analyzed what traffic would be out -- would be with our full build out and that's not just our traffic, that includes background traffic, that includes all of the other COMPASS modeling for density and projected growth moving into -- into 2040. So, that does start to address and start to trigger those other improvements. So, that's when -- as our future plans come in -- so, if we come in with the commercial we will do another traffic impact study updating it. ACHD will review it and see if any of these highlighted items are triggered at that time. This is a really -- we had a project recently in Nampa and I just loved one of the commissioners comments of this is the way traffic impact studies should be done. Again, the comprehensive planning, because nothing slips through the cracks. If you just look at a preliminary plat and it accounts for four percent of traffic and, therefore, doesn't trigger mitigation, here our -- that four percent, which is just for our first plat, gets to 12 percent and, then, it triggers the mitigation. So, you don't count development that we do as background traffic if that makes sense. So, we end up probably doing more than we would if we came in with individual plats. This is a great way to do traffic planning and, again, those ACHD CIP funds are just going to continue to increase as we come in with more preliminary plats. For our neighbor to -- around us on Star Road, the Hristovs, we are -- we will be doing -- she commented about drainage. We will be doing that with our engineering plan. So, we don't do full engineering plans at this point, so -- but we will be coordinating with them as we start to develop and making sure those engineering plans are consistent with what their site needs. She talked about the transitioning. Right now they operate a storage facility that pretty much spans almost -- I think it's expanding, so I apologize if I'm misspeaking, but just got expanded to continue to run an outdoor storage facility. So, that's really operating as a commercial use and our densities and our -- you know, our -- our zoning around there is consistent with the Comprehensive Plan. So, that's what we have planned there. It's a big parcel. There is a big parcel it's going eventually to redevelop and so to -- to plan around that and is currently operating as a commercial use in the county. With that I think I hopefully covered most of the questions. Would stand for any other questions. Lorcher: Commissioners? Gelsomino: Madam Chair? Lorcher: Commissioner Gelsomino. F47] Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 45 of 52 Gelsomino: Just a quick clarification point. You showed in your presentation one of the -- sort of a timeline of phase by phase, you know, especially with the residential that starts, you know, in 2027, first home sale could be -- so, is this phase latter -- let's, for lack of better words, is this going to include the entire project or just residential? The -- the residential homes that will be -- will be built? Mueller: Madam Chair and Commissioner, this just includes residential. So -- but if I can maybe guess also at what you are wondering. Somewhere in here, probably sooner than later, once sewer gets a little bit closer, I'm guessing our next time before you will be bringing in that Owyhee commercial center. So, that will more -- more than likely than not develop somewhere in this timeline and potentially also the McMillan Commercial Center. So, this -- you know, we are not going to wait to do the other commercial only when this ends, it will be mixed in the middle. Gelsomino: Understood. Thank you. And, Madam Chair, just as a follow-up question. You -- we touched on West Ada a lot throughout the presentations and you mentioned that you recognize that -- there is the recognition of a strain on the enrollment and -- and the capacity of the schools. Have -- to the extent that we can, has there been any feedback -- any comments from teachers, because West Ada, yes, it's a body that represents the -- the school district, but it's our educators that also -- I -- I grew up in the California school system in southern California. I went to one of the -- the best high schools in southern California up until high school. Our capacity was always full. I went to a high school where there were 4,000 kids. My graduating class was a thousand kids. One of my government classes was over 80 students for one teacher. Have we had any feedback from teachers on this -- on this project? Mueller: Madam Chair, Commissioner, I have not talked with any teachers that these students -- that this -- the subdivision would filter to. So, no, I do not -- we haven't received any feedback from them. Gelsomino: Thank you. Lorcher: I will make one comment on that, Commissioner Gelsomino. Our high schools are designed only to hold 1,800 kids. They are not going to be the super mega big schools, because what happens is is that once our neighborhoods grow up not everybody leaves and so if you end up with a high school that has, you know, capacity for 4,000, yet you have parents and empty nesters and grandparents, you sit with a very large building that's very empty and West Ada has recognized that for a long time and the reason I have some authority on this is that I worked for the state Idaho PTA for about 16 years and have been in the school and I have also been substitute teaching for the last four or five months. So, I'm in the schools, including Owyhee High School. So, one of her maps showed that there is a future elementary school site adjacent to Owyhee High School. I also know that they own land at Black Cat and Ustick as a possible additional site and once those capacities start getting to a point where it starts getting really uncomfortable, then, that's when West Ada says, okay, it's time to build a new school and they work with developers to get, you know, land donated and if there is 48 Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 46 of 52 new mechanisms through the legislature to be able to fund that, then, it happens quicker, because it takes about -- it takes about three years to build a high school and a little over a year to build the middle school and -- and within a year for an elementary school. So, they can move fairly quickly, but I will make the comment now that I'm not really worried about enrollment, because their phase outs not until 2040 and a lot can happen with their development plans the way the market kind of shifts and how things go, that I think that assimilation will happen relatively naturally. So, we are never going to -- West Ada School District -- I can't speak of any other school districts, but will never have those kind of super schools. They are always designed just to have about 1,800, definitely under 2,000 people. Gelsomino: Thank you, Madam Chair. That brings a lot of ease to my mind. Lorcher: Yeah. Any other questions for -- I did have one. So, your phase one you are at McMillan and Star, but your preliminary plat that you are suggesting is that Owyhee and Ustick; is that correct? Mueller: Madam Chair -- no. So, our -- and just so I'm following, we are not quite touching McMillan here. So, we are just south of the drain. We are on Star Road where that first preliminary plat yellow is Star and McMillan. Sewer will be at Star and McMillan, so we will be pulling it down from there. Lorcher: Right. But I mean the preliminary plat that you are suggesting that we include in our applicant -- in your application tonight is it for phase one or was I looking at it upside down or was that more at Ustick? Mueller: This is the -- this is the entire preliminary plat. Lorcher: Oh. Okay. Mueller: So, the last phase would be down on Ustick. Lorcher: Got you. I got you. All right. So, it's the whole thing, not necessarily just one of-- one through seven; is that what you are saying? Mueller: Correct. Yes. The -- the application for the preliminary plat -- the 21.8 percent open space, that covers all one through seven here. Our TIS was done for all one through seven. It's all one preliminary plat just different phases. Lorcher: Okay. Very good. All right. Any other questions? All right. Thank you very much. Mueller: Thank you. Ritter: Madam Chair, wanted to address something that Commissioner Smith said. When you were talking about the Star-McMillan Center and the FLUM for that area and F49 Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 47 of 52 the zoning, so that is currently -- the future land use map shows it as mixed-use community. So, they are not changing anything there. They are just zoning a portion of it TN-R, which is allowed in that area. Smith: Thank you. I don't have it up anymore, but I must have just been looking at the wrong spot, which -- Ritter: Just wanted to make that clarification. Smith: Thank you. I appreciate that. Lorcher: May I get a motion to close the public hearing? Gelsomino: So moved. Stoll: Seconded. Lorcher: It's been moved and seconded to close the public hearing on The Fields. All those in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Lorcher: As somebody who lives in this general vicinity area, knowing that The Fields has been coming for, what, the last 20 years, it got approved as -- as a sub area in 2021. Owyhee Storm was built at the same time. When you build a school they come. And for those who live in the area that were unfamiliar with these growth plans, I'm sorry that you didn't hear about it. I have been in this area for about 15 years and I have always known about it. It's just a matter of time. So, the most important thing is can a developer come in and do something that's thoughtful, that can work with our agencies, not only our city, but our county and our state highway district. Infrastructure comes when rooftops come. It kind of all comes together. And, of course, during construction is just a mismatch and it's very uncomfortable. McMillan is restrained because of those high power utility lines. Those big power poles are not moving. I guarantee you that. So, McMillan is always going to be small. Ustick has always been planned for -- to parallel Highway 84 as a -- as an alternative road, including Overland, so that people can move east-west without necessarily being on the freeway. That's always been part of the plan and to have a developer come in and being able to, you know, phase houses in over the next, what, 20 years or so, working with our school districts, working with our municipalities and being able to do that, the most important thing is to collaborate with a developer who is going to do it in a thoughtful way. In my opinion -- and this obviously impacts, you know, the area of Owyhee Storm and everything else, this is a thoughtful development plan. It's overwhelming, because we are so used to just open farmland and, of course, we would love nothing to change and everything to just be wide open spaces, but these farmers have -- have sold their land many years ago and have retired and they have a right to be able to sell their land to a developer and a developer has a right to develop those lands. So, I think this -- for this portion of The Fields -- remember 50 Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 48 of 52 this is just one section of a four mile bigger thing, so there is going to be more coming -- is a good way to be able to do this. We know that Toll Brothers is doing the -- the Ustick portion of the sewer in 2027, along with those other road improvements and starting at the lift station at McMillan where that water already comes is -- is probably a smart way to go. Commissioner Smith. Smith: Madam Chair. Yeah. If-- try not to go on too long, but if -- if I'm -- if I'm allowed to soapbox a little bit. I also grew up in southern California. I don't know that I went to such a snazzy high school as Commissioner Gelsomino. I actually spent probably half of K through eight in -- in portable containers. I still remember that -- the sound stepping of -- walking up them. It's kind of burned into my brain. There are kind of two things -- two sayings that I think really stick with me a lot in life and -- and also in planning and one of them is you are not in traffic, you are traffic. And, two, there is no such thing as a free lunch. I think, yeah, someone who moved here to also kind of escape high costs and to be able to afford a house and to have a family, you know, the acknowledgement that I am someone who drills up housing prices for someone else and that's how the market works of supply and demand. I think it's important to understand that this -- you know, this is a plan to insure that Meridian can grow responsibility, to be, you know built for business and designed for living for native Idahoans, for people who move here in two years, in five years, in ten and 20 years and I think that this plan -- this -- this proposal accomplishes that. Regarding school funding and infrastructure funding, I -- I fully agree that we -- our -- our schools and our roadways are underfunded. I'm glad to see some movement in the legislature, but, you know, when we each ran a levy in 2023 to pay for two new schools in West Ada and to expand existing schools it failed. You know, we have some money getting caught back from ITD and from schools to help cover, you know, shortfalls due to tax cuts and none of this is to say that's good or bad, but this is just the reality that our school districts are -- are facing, you know, an increased demand, but not enough in our roadways as well or increased demand, but not enough funding to cover, you know, increased costs, increased student attendance and so I understand the need -- need for -- for funding these things and I think this actually -- while it can't solve every problem that are -- you know, that we are facing with growth and with our infrastructure, I think this could be part of the solution. I think the impact fees can help go to, you know -- we have seen ACHD pushback a number of projects due to rising construction costs, due to material and labor. These kinds of projects and the impact fees that come from them go a long way to make sure that we can continue to improve our transit corridor. While -- while we can't push impact fees to schools in Idaho, this can hopefully help, you know, move -- move the needle on the transit network and, again, like I said, I'm excited to see some of the impacts of the legislation coming out that allows maybe some -- some better funding for schools with those leases. But I'm in support of this. Mueller: Thank you. Gelsomino: Madam Chair? Lorcher: Commissioner Gelsomino. F51 Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 49 of 52 Gelsomino: My -- my colleague Commissioner Smith took a lot of the words right out of my mouth and I do remember those portable rooms as well and, then, walking up the ramp. I will say I -- I do sympathize and -- and understand the concerns of the public around the -- the discussion and the funding of -- funding for both infrastructure, the lack thereof, as well as for the school -- school districts. I will say that as I have been here for the last 16 years and I have had experience from -- at the state level and at the city level and I will preface this that this is not a statement to, you know, be on a political soapbox whatsoever, but it is an observation as someone who has studied, you know, governance and -- and public policy, it is my hope that the public will be as sympathetic to us as a city, as a body, as we are to their concerns, because we are also members of this city, we are also citizens. We are your neighbors. We are your friends. That we as a city have also been put in a difficult position by a legislature who tends to punt their responsibility off onto the lower municipalities, because they may not deem it a priority for their body, but it, then, ends up on our lap and whether -- and so it is my hope that the public will continue to be sympathetic that we are doing the best we can with the mindset that we are doing the best for their interest in holding their best interest and the city -- the city's best interest at heart and mind in the decisions that we take and in the votes that we -- we place in this Commission and City Council does in their body, but that we are also doing what we can under the -- under the unfortunate circumstance that -- circumstance that a higher legislative body tends to choose to not address or prioritize projects that they could have a greater influence on, but for this project I -- I do agree with my colleague Commissioner Smith that it is my hope that this project will be a part of that solution. Lorcher: Okay. Thank you very much. Perreault: Madam Chair? Lorcher: Commissioner Perreault. Perreault: Thank you. Unfortunately, I am not in agreement with my fellow commissioners. Lorcher: That's why we have these conversations. Perreault: Yep. So, we learned from -- as some of you know I have been making decisions with the city on land use for -- for about ten years now and just seeing this entire area grow -- grow from -- from The Fields out probably starting at Meridian Road, actually, and I -- I have lived out in this area for that time and one thing we learned with the Ten Mile Area Plan was that what was originally envisioned didn't -- did not come to be. So, that has changed significantly and, unfortunately, the addition of the district at Ten Mile is straining the -- the transportation and the resources significantly and so we have to learn from those things and do something different next time when we have a specific area plan and so, hopefully, we will -- we will learn from that and -- and bring in those lessons in -- in this situation. Yes, it does make planning easier. The larger project that you have, the -- the -- the earlier you have a concept plan, the earlier you F52] Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 50 of 52 have your plats, in that sense it's easier to kind of control the outcome. However, what we also learned in Ten Mile is that things significantly change over 15 years' time and -- or ten years' time and so for that reason I'm not in favor of approving a preliminary plat that is going to take ten years to build out. I also know that the city has 40 acres that it's owned -- and it's public information. They own approximately 40 acres near McDermott and Cherry Lane that's intended to be a regional park and the city doesn't have funding to build that out. So, I don't know how the city would, then, be able to build out another 45 acre park not quite two miles away and generate the funding for that. Yes, there will be impact fees, but those impact fees aren't going to cover -- even close to cover the -- the cost of those two parks and those impact -- impact fees, obviously, don't get collected until all these homes are sold and so we are a long time out from getting funding for -- for that park that's in this plan and, then, our other park that is planned there on Cherry Lane. So, I -- I'm hesitant to agree to comprehensive map amendment for that park, because we already are hearing so much that we are short on industrial in the City of Meridian and so I don't take lightly losing industrial for a park area when we have a regional park that's close enough to -- to access from this area. As far as the -- The Fields Sub Area Plan, I -- I had the opportunity to be a part of that development. Lots and lots of hearings, lots of meetings and conversations, and just really excited to see how that was going to play out, because it's been in conversation for so long and the whole idea -- and what I believe is -- is stated in our Comprehensive Plan is for this to look and feel different than the rest of Meridian and I don't think this looks or feels different than any of the rest of Meridian and the -- the element of placemaking that's really unique to The Fields Area Plan, I just don't see it here. I -- I don't see a Bown Crossing. I don't see a Harris Ranch. You know, Section 12 that has the -- the little main street, that's -- that's 12 acres. It's a very small part of this. That -- that isn't being replicated throughout and they are -- they are really to me -- and what -- what I see are not centralized areas in the residences -- in the residential area there is not centralized sort of community areas where people are meeting. There is not centralized sort of parks and plazas. I think there is a lot of reliance on this larger park instead of implementing those spaces in -- into the residential area. Yes, the -- the percentages look great, 20 percent open space, that looks fine, but that's all broken up in a bunch of different areas and it's not sort of centralized and having sort of this -- this main street feel that The Fields Area Plan is intended for. There is supposed to be somewhat of a main street on the north side, but a majority of the residential can't even access that by foot. It's just too far away. And so all -- the three different sort of projected concepts that are in the Comprehensive Plan for what The Fields area was intended to look like, I don't -- I don't really see that here. I see parts of it. I see sections of it. But given this significant amount of space, significant amount of residential, I'm not getting that this is meeting the intention of what The Fields Area Plan has and so that's my opinion as a Commissioner, having been involved as a decision maker in our Comprehensive Plan, having been involved as a decision maker in our Fields Area Plan, I just don't see this meeting the intent of that. I just see this being additional subdivisions just like we already have. We already have a regional park that we have land for. We will be losing industrial that -- that so many developers are saying that we need. So, for me this -- I'm not in agreement with this as it stands. I do want to say that I understand and -- I don't say any of the lightly, because I understand and appreciate the incredible amount of F53] Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 51 of 52 time and man hours and money and coordination with our staff and ACHD staff and ITD that goes into this, so I don't say any of those things lightly and I'm not -- I'm not saying that I don't think that there are parts of this that look -- that look really great. I'm just super hesitant to bite off this amount of -- of annexation and this amount of -- of homes and -- and 200 acres of-- of residential development at one time. I just would really like to see this come in a little bit slower, a little bit more phases, so that we have that opportunity to adjust over ten years' time and so we don't have a project that looks entirely different than it was originally intended to be. Lorcher: Thank you. Stoll: Madam Chair? Lorcher: Commissioner Stoll. Stoll: Join into the comparison of graduating classes and stuff. I proudly say I graduated in a class of 175 people and I was very happy with that. No portables. I also moved into this area in 1993 when the City of Meridian was a little over 10,000 people and my real estate agent at the time told me you don't want to move into Meridian, because the property value is not going to increase like it will in Boise. We held off and we actually bought in west Boise at the time. Lived there for nine years and, then, we quickly moved into east Meridian in an area that we said we weren't going to move into because we didn't want to see farmland being developed and we -- we enjoyed running along the roadway and -- but we quickly recalculated our decision and bought a house that we have lived there for over 26 years and have watched Meridian grow and blossom. During that time period I also witnessed the development community coming to Ada Planning Association, ACHD and the City of Meridian, with a north Meridian growth plan of how they would develop and put in the adequate infrastructure needed for north Meridian and all the bodies said no, because they didn't have a desire to grow in that area and what we ended up with was a lack of comprehensive planning and investment into the north Meridian area, because we didn't agree with what was coming our way and yet we knew what was coming our way and, then, so we ended up with smaller developments that -- it's kind of like plaque in the artery, it just starts building up in your arteries and eventually you are going to have a heart attack. This is not ideal, but it is a fairly large piece of property where we know what investments are going to be made in the transportation system and I have grave concerns if we say no that it's going to be bite sized developments that will be worse for the traffic that we have, because our revenue system for transportation is reactive to growth and that's an artifact of state law and how our system is set up. We can't -- we are not going to put in the roadway system before the development comes in. Some people would argue that the impact fees are too high. I would argue that they are too low and they need to be higher, but that's not going to change at the legislature and until we get additional revenue we are going to be much more reactive to the transportation needs of the region and of the state. But I think this is a good proposal that we have adequate -- it will be phased over time, it will be adequate infrastructure coming into place. What we do see with ACHD and their impact fees program is that they do use it judiciously, it's just not enough 54 Meridian Planning&Zoning Commission May 7,2026 Page 52 of 52 money coming into them and they will get the improvements to the targeted spots that are most crucial as soon as they can and with that I will stop. Lorcher: Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Smith: Madam Chair? Lorcher: Commissioner Smith. Smith: After hearing all applicant, staff and public testimony, I move to recommend approval to the City Council of File No. H-2025-0057 as presented in the staff report for the hearing date of May 7th, 2026, with no modifications. Gelsomino: Seconded. Lorcher: It's been moved and seconded to approve The Fields for annexation, zoning and preliminary plat. All those in favor say aye. Any opposed? Perreault: Opposed nay. Lorcher: So, it's three yes and one no. Motion carries. Stoll: Four. Lorcher: Oh. Excuse me. Four ayes, one nay, motion carries. MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. ONE NAY. ONE ABSENT. Lorcher: That's it. Okay. All right. Motion carries. Period. Just a reminder for this month, Commissioners, we have a meeting on the 21 st and the 28th, not June 2nd. So, please make sure that's in your calendars and I will take one more motion. Stoll: Move to adjourn. Smith: Second. Lorcher: It's been moved and seconded to adjourn. All those in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you very much everyone. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 9:16 P.M. (AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS. ) APPROVED 5 121 12026 MARIA LORCHER - CHAIRMAN DATE APPROVED ATTEST: CHRIS JOHNSON - CITY CLERK F55]