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HomeMy WebLinkAboutJune 24, 2008 C/C MinutesMeridian City Council June 24, 2008 Page 45 of 60 Zaremba: Second. De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to continue this Public Hearing to July 8th. All those in favor say aye. Any opposed? All ayes. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. De Weerd: Okay. Item 10 is a Public Hearing -- Council, we are going to call a five minute break. (Recess.) Item 10: Public Hearing: Draft 2008 Annual Action Plan, Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program: De Weerd: Okay. Let's go. I'll go ahead and call this meeting to order again. Item No. 10 is a Public Hearing on the draft 2008 Annual Action Plan Community Development Block Grant program. Canning: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I would like to formally introduce you to Mrs. Sarah Wheeler. Some of you met her at the bowling alley. This is her first time before Council. Nary: As part of a fundraiser. Canning: Yeah. De Weerd: They were an awesome fundraising team. Canning: Yeah. Yes, we were. And I'm going to tum it over to Sarah. I just wanted to introduce her and point her out as our shining new star in the planning department. De Weerd: Thank you. Wheeler: Thank you, Anna. De Weerd: And welcome, Sarah. Wheeler: Thank you, Mayor and Members of the Council. I'm going to keep this short, sweet, and simple and fast, so if I'm speaking too fast, please, slow me down. Just a brief background of why we are -- oh. The City of Meridian, as you know, was designated an entitlement community by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and as such it can directly receive entitlement grants that a Community Development Block Grant program or CDBG as I'll just refer to it for the rest of the presentation, basically allocates some of that to cities to develop viable communities. Now, they are somewhat limited in scope due to federal restrictions, obviously, Meridian City Council June 24, 2008 Page 46 of 60 complexity of administration and, of course, activity costs, but it is a good program that can help the city. In January of 2008 Meridian's first consolidated plan and action plan was approved thanks to the hard work Emily Kane and, basically, the consolidated plan functions as a framework for -- and dictates how the city's actions should continue for the next five years. So, why are we here? Well, according to the CDBG regulations, entitlement communities must develop an action plan each year in order to receive funding. The plan, obviously, must go through a public hearing process and, then, obtain Council approval before it can be submitted to HUD. In February of this year HUD informed the city that they would be receiving approximately 237,000 dollars for the program year '08 action plan, which runs from October 1 st, 2008, until September 30th, 2009. So, it's kind of a little bit off from Meridian's fiscal year. So, in order to receive CDBG funding, the City of Meridian must submit this annual action plan by August 15th, 2008. This is just a public hearing. It will go before City Council approval hopefully on July 29th for the official approval. We held a town hall meeting on April 30th to go through kind of our ideas, send out fliers, press release, and whatnot. On June 11 th we published a notice in the Statesman and the Valley Times just to bring attention to this meeting. And the draft plan is available online on the Meridian Planning Department main page and, then, hard copies are at Meridian City Hall, at Meridian senior center, the public library and the Meridian Planning Department for the public to view. Before we open to public comment, just kind of what can the funds be used for. The funds are limited to address three of HUD's national objectives, which the first being decent housing. The second suitable living environment. And the third economic development. Now, 70 percent of these funds have to address the needs of low and moderate income persons. We have spent a lot of the 2007 ~ well, allocated a lot of the 2007 funds for the development of - well, the renewing of slum and blight, basically, within Meridian. So, that wasn't part of that 70 percent, so we really need a target that -- with this action plan and that's what we have tried to do. So, Meridian LMI districts are kind of up above right there. We have -- Meridian is an exceptional criteria community in the fact that we do not have a lot of low to moderate income consensus blocks and so as an exceptional criteria we were able to drop the standard to 45 percent LMI, instead of the 51 required by federal regulations. So, that entitled us to three different census blocks, which are seen on the screen. Just to put that in context, these are the three census blocks in relationship to the urban renewal district and the City of Meridian, which includes the downtown area. All right. So, just briefly, these are the allocations that we feel would be appropriate for the program year '08 action plan. First, the housing component was the main goal of the Meridian CDBG consolidated plan. Housing itself is creating it. New housing is kind of problematic, because the city is not allowed to build new housing units. Because of this barrier, we felt that joining with other agencies would be our most valuable asset. So, we contacted the habitat for humanity and they were on board with us purchasing a potential lot for them to build on, kind of like we did I believe last year with the school district. So, that would be a great partnership there. So, that was 60,000 dollars. Another 50,000 dollars -- we talked to Boise city, Ada County Housing Authority, and they have programs where they help low, moderate income families buy down mortgages, help with down payment assistance, so we could have more home ownership within the Meridian city limits, which would be a great program. The second component of the CDBG, basically, revolves around Meridian Ciry Council June 24, 2008 Page 47 of 60 creating a suitable living environment and we have kind of outlined and we kind of allocated 80,000 dollars towards those goals. We propose 40,000 dollars going towards the Meridian Boys and Girls Club to help in the new, new gymnasium design, because we all know they are growing and they are a very valuable asset to the youth in Meridian. Secondly, 20,000 dollars to Meridian Senior Center. They could definitely use some floor renovations and, then, updating their phone systems, so they have modem capabilities, such as voicemail. We definitely believe that would a great asset to enhancing services to our seniors and so would really like to see that go forward. Third, obviously, code enforcement. We'd like to continue some funding code enforcement for specifically those low, moderate income areas, so they can help decrease the deterioration going on in those areas. And, then, economic development -- we don't have anything allocated towards that this year. The 2007 were kind of -- was kind of focused on that and so we felt that it would be a good idea to focus on the housing component and the suitable living environment. We feel that these projects will not only bring multiple agencies together and kind of create a good working relationship, but they do provide great opportunities for Meridian to enhance housing and create a better environmeht for its residents. With that I'd like to open for any questions or comments by Council. De Weerd: Thank you, Sarah. Council, any questions? Bird: I have none. Rountree: I missed the math here, but this shows 190,000 and you were talking we were eligible for 234,000 -- or something like that. Wheeler: Correct. What's not on there -- I guess I should have put on there -- is the administrative funding. That equals the rest of the portion and that's to administer the grant. Rountree: Okay. Okay. Thank you. Canning: And, Madam Mayor, along those lines, Mrs. Wheeler is spending about finro- thirds of her time getting up to speed on the Community Development Block Grant entitlement process, so she -- the other one-third of the time is spent trying to leam how to be a planner in the office as well. So, we are keeping her very busy. But in - she was afraid you would ask how she came about selecting these particular projects and I did want to focus on the fact that we had tried to pick ones that are -- require as little administration as possible and that we feel we can leam how to administer these projects and get them done. We may come to you with more complicated projects as time goes by, but we are trying to stick to the simplest, easiest ones to administer that we can come up with. And so that was a huge criteria in how we selected these programs. De Weerd: I think maybe better said is the low hanging fruit. Meridian City Council June 24, 2008 Page 48 of 60 Canning: Yes. Exactly. Rountree: And all very deserving. De Weerd: Very much so. Canning: Yes. De Weerd: Very much so. Yes. Thank you. This is a Public Hearing. Is there anyone who would like to provide testimony on this item? You know how to pack a room. So do we. We know how to clear a room. Rountree: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Rountree. Rountree: I move that we close the Public Hearing on Item No. 10. Bird: Second. De Weerd: Okay. I have -- Rountree: Or do we leave it open until the public hearing's done? Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I-- Sarah would know, but I think we -- I don't think we can close the Public Hearing. Don't we have to leave it open, because we are going to receive comment between now and the closing period. So, I think we have to continue it to -- De Weerd: So, we are not meeting July 29th? Is that what I understand? Bird: That's right. De Weerd: So -- Nary: Isn't that correct? Don't we have to do it that way? Wheeler: Oh. Correct. Yes. Nary: Okay. Rountree: So, we -- De Weerd: So, we can -- we can continue this Public Hearing on a week-by-week basis or until August 5th? Meridian City Council June 24, 2008 Page 49 of 60 Nary: I think we can do it until August 5th. I don't think we have to hold it weekly, because they can accept comment befinreen now and then. De Weerd: Yes. It can be written. Wheeler: Precisely. They just need 31 days from tonight. De Weerd: Thank you. Rountree: Madam Mayor, with all that help, I moved that we continue this Public Hearing until August 5th. Bird: I second that. De Weerd: Okay. I have a motion and a second to continue this Public Hearing until August 5th. All those in favor say aye. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Item 11: Public Hearing: MI 08-005 Request for a Miscellaneous application to amend the existing Development Agreement to allow the construction of the four eight-plexes prior to the construction of the Pine/Ten Mile Intersection for Sommersbv Subdivision by Liberty Partners, Inc. - Northeast Comer of West Pine Avenue and North Ten Mile Road: De Weerd: Okay. Item 11 is a Public Hearing on MI 08-005. I will open this Public Hearing with staff comments. Canning: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council -- let me get the right slide show up for you. Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, this is the Sommersby Subdivision project. It's located at the northeast comer of Pine Avenue and Ten Mile Road. The application before you tonight is a development agreement modification and that modification is shown in your staff report. They are, basically, requesting that they be allowed to construct the four eight-plexes that were originally proposed prior to the widening of the Ten Mile and the construction of the Pine - Ten Mile intersection. And one of the main concems regarding this project in 2004 was the traffic that would be contributing to the already congested Pine - Ten Mile intersection. ACHD is in the process of completing the interim changes and that's a temporary signal and left tum lanes to the Franklin - Ten Mile intersection scheduled for completion in mid July. ACHD also added two left tum lanes, one from Ten Mile to Pine and the other from Pine to Ten Mile to help alleviate congestion at that intersection. Staff contacted ACHD for traffic count information and was informed the last traffic count, which was conducted in 2006, for Pine Avenue east of Ten Mile, generated approximately 4,000 trips and is currently operating at an acceptable level of service. Do have elevations tonight. This is the location of the four eight-plex lots and this is the elevation of the unit. And this is, actually, a four-plex, so the eight-plex would just be two of these put together. So, staff