HomeMy WebLinkAboutAugust 7, 2008 P&Z MinutesMeridian Planning & Zoning
August 7, 2008
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Moe: It has been moved and second to approve the Consent Agenda. All those in
favor say aye. Opposed. That motion carries.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Moe: Now, if we could just keep going with that speed we would be in good shape
tonight, but I don't think that's going to happen. As a matter of fact, before I open the
hearings, number one, I would like to let you know as far as on the record this evening
we will not open any hearings beyond 11:00 p.m. tonight. When we get to that point we
will probably hear the one we are at and, then, we will call it a night, basically, and staff
is going to explain a little bit more about tonight when we get over there, but I just want
to make that known right now, so we are not all here until the a.m. hours. Okay. The
next thing on the -- what I'd like to do is just kind of give you a description format how
tonight will go. I will open the public hearing and, then, the staff will give an overview of
the hearing. After which they are done, the applicant will have 15 minutes to review the
project as well, giving additional testimony in regard to some of the findings of the staff
report. After that time there are sign-up sheets in the back for any of the public that
would like to speak tonight. Each person will be given three minutes to, basically, give
their testimony. After all the signatures have been taken care of, I will ask, then, one
more time if there is anyone else that would like to speak. If there is anyone else, just
raise your hand and you will be more than welcome to come up and have your three
minutes. After that the applicant will, then, be given an opportunity to come back up
and rebut any testimony and give further explanation from the public comments.
Item 4: Public Hearing: CPA 08-005 Request to amend the Comprehensive
Plan Future Land Use Map to change the land use designation on 33.59
acres of land from Industrial to Commercial for Kennedy Commercial
Genter /Western Electronics by DBSI Meridian 184 LLC and Herman-
Treasure Valley Business Park ILLC - 1250 W. Overland Road:
Item 5: Public Hearing: RZ 08-003 Request for Rezone of 27.17 acres from I-L
to C-G zone for Kennedy Commercial Center by DBSI Meridian 184 LLC
- 1250 W. Overland Road:
Moe: Having said that, then, I would like to open the public hearing on CPA 08-005 for
the Kennedy Commercial Center /Western Electronics and for the staff report.
Hood: Thank you, Mr. Chair, Members of the Commission. Before I get into the details
on the subject applications, I did just want to remind you it's in all the staff reports for
this evening, but just a quick refresher on state code and these Comp Plan map
amendments. You are only able to forward on a recommendation to the City Council
once every six months. So, if you're ready to forward one on tonight, you need to be
ready to forward on a recommendation for them all on to -- at the end of tonight. We
just received two late letters from folks that are later on in the agenda, Items 13 and 15
just asking to be continued to the 14th. So, if you accept those letters, there is no way
we are going to make it through all of the items on the agenda this evening. So, I guess
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August 7, 2008
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we will go ahead and have the hearings, you can certainly deliberate, ask questions. I
would just ask you to not make a final recommendation on the projects, you can even
close the public hearings if you don't need anymore information, but, please, don't make
a final recommendation, because if we do, again, we have to be prepared to make
recommendations on them all, so --
Moe: Caleb, before you start, should I go ahead, then, and open the other RZ 08-003
as well?
Hood: Sure.
Moe: In that case, then, I will open the public hearing for RZ 08-003 as well. Thank
you.
Hood: So, the subject property is -- contains 33.5 acres of land. The property does not
include all of the area proposed for rezoning. I'll get to that in a second. The subject
property is everything in gray here, with the 45 slashes through it. The area that's in this
area is proposed for rezone as well. It's all currently zoned I-L, but there is an existing
Western Electronics building on this site, which no rezone is proposed for at this time.
It's located, as you can see, on the north side of Overland Road between
-84, Meridian Road -- Meridian Road would be here. Linder Road is here. So,
approximately halfway between those two arterials. To the north of the subject
property, again, is the interstate. To the east, as I mentioned, Western Electronics and,
then, Mountain View Equipment also has the property further to the east. To the south
Overland Road and there are existing rural residential properties. You can also see the
Freedom Storage facility located south of the subject site. To the west are vacant
properties, zoned industrial at this time. .The large property there is zoned industrial.
The applicant is requesting approval to amend the Comprehensive Plan future land use
map, to change the land use designation on 33.5 acres of land from industrial to
commercial. So, as you can see on this slide, it's currently all shown as industrial. This
is, if approved, what that same area would look like, the red commercial. A rezone is
also requested to amend the zoning designation on a portion of that area. 27.17 is the
area contained, again, on the undeveloped area around Western Electronics. And that
request is, again, to C-G. So, general retail and service commercial. The rezone, of
course, is contingent upon the Comp Plan amendment being approved as the zoning is
-- hinges on the change on the future land use map to the new designation. The
applicant states in their application letter that if approved they intend to develop a
portion of the property with a 35,000 square foot adult education and office facility and
rent it to the University of Phoenix. The current I-L zoning of the property and industrial
land use designations do not allow for education institutions in the UDC. Just a real
quick history, too. This site was approved for Western Electronics and other future uses
in 2001. It did allow some non-industrial uses with that approval, such as day cares and
offices, but did not specify education facilities. A preliminary plat was mostly recently
approved by the City Council and this Planning and Zoning Commission forwarded on a
recommendation for that in 2007 for 11 commercial lots. So, this site plan should look
real familiar. You all looked at this preliminary plat here less than a year ago now. The
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site plan that the applicant has submitted shows one access point to Overland Road at
the east -- at the east property boundary. So, there is an access to the existing Western
Electronics business. And there is another access proposed with the subdivision near
the west property boundary. Also, there is a private street -- I think it's Tech Lane --
that, basically, is in the middle of this property that was approved previously by the city.
The conceptual site plan shows how the property proposed to be rezoned may develop
in the future. Two three story office buildings, consisting of 66,000 square feet each,
along with a two story office building, consisting of 45,000 square feet, and a two story
education facility consisting of 35,000 square feet for the University of Phoenix are
depicted along the frontage of Interstate 84. Four office buildings, consisting 39,475
square feet. One bank building, one restaurant building, and one retail building are also
depicted internally adjacent to Overland Road. Total square footage of commercial
uses shown on the site plan is 270,475 square feet. The total number of structures
shown is 11. The applicant has submitted conceptual building elevations for the north
proposed two story education facility. One, two and three story office buildings. Single
story restaurant buildings. Retail buildings. And the single story bank. All the building
materials depicted on structures consist of brick and stucco, with a variety of accent
materials, such as stone, CMU, timber and metal. Staff has reviewed the proposed
elevations and building materials and believes they represent high quality design and
materials. Staff is supportive of the building elevations as proposed and has included
that as a DA provision, which I will touch on here in just a second. Staff believes that a
development agreement is necessary for this project to insure that the site is developed
substantially in accordance with the proposed conceptual site plan and building
elevations. A couple of the DA provisions proposed by staff in the staff report include --
and Iwill just read this. This is provision number two that currently says: The detailed
site plan and building elevations submitted with any CUP and/or CZC application for the
site shall substantially comply with the conceptual site plan and building elevations
submitted to the city and with a requirement of a subject development agreement.
Construct a minimum of eight and a maximum of 14 buildings on the site. No footprint
for a building shall exceed 20 percent of the square footage shown on the conceptual
site plan. Further, no building shall exceed three stories in height. The applicant shall
comply -- and onto number five. It is a pretty standard one. It says the applicant shall
comply with all applicable provisions -- previous conditions of approval for the site for
the CUP from '01, the preliminary plat from 2007, and the final plat from 2007. The
reason I read that DA provision is on Tuesday, August 5th, the applicant submitted a
written response to the staff report. The applicant is proposing to change the language
in DA item number two regarding the site plan and elevations. I want to just pause real
quick and make sure that everyone did receive a copy of that a-mail. Okay. Basically,
the applicant is requesting greater flexibility in the number of buildings. Where the DA
talks about a maximum of 14 buildings, they have proposed up to 35 and a maximum of
total square footage allowed. They put in a number where staff didn't have one before at
324,570 square feet total for the development. And they have also added a restriction
that no -- no single building exceed 80,000 square feet. So, those are changes to that --
that DA provision number two. Staff is generally supportive of the applicant's proposal
to modify that DA provision. I do want to make the Commission aware, though, that the
-- the 35 building request is substantially different than the site plan that was submitted
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and reviewed. So, if there is up to 35 buildings on the site, it certainly isn't going to look
like the site plan you see in front of you. So, it's hard for me to envision that. Generally,
our main concern is that it's not a bunch of big boxes. So, I'm not overly concerned that
they may all be 5,000 square foot buildings, but I did want that -- to call that out to your
attention that it's a pretty substantial change from what they have shown to what they
are requesting in the develop agreement modification. The highly visible location of this
property on Interstate 84 makes this property a good candidate for commercial use,
rather than industrial uses as currently shown on the Comp Plan future land use map.
Staff believes that the location of the property is optimal for commercial and not
industrial uses and as such will provide a more attractive building facade adjacent to a
major transportation corridor into the city than buildings likely would. Additionally, the
commercial use and zoning that already exists on several of the properties to the east,
would help provide for a contiguous string of commercial uses along this section of
Overland Road along the interstate. So, let me go back to that map real quick and .just
show you -- again, we are here with the industrial. It really does group together some
more commercial properties that currently exist farther to the east. So, staff is
recommending approval of the Conditional Use Permit -- excuse me -- the
Comprehensive Plan map amendment and rezone as presented in the staff report with
the changes proposed by the applicant in the a-mail dated August 5th. However, staff is
recommending that these applications be continued to the hearing date of August 14th,
as we discussed earlier, so we can forward on a recommendation on all of these at the
same time. That is the end of staffs presentation. I'll stand for any questions you may
have.
Moe: Any questions of staff at this time? Okay. Would the applicant like to come
forward, please. And, please, come up and state your name and address for us,
please.
Andrus: Richard Andrus at 251 East Front, Boise, Idaho. I'm also here with a couple of
the representatives from DBSI, the applicant in this matter, Russ Merrill and Allen
Durrant and we will also have some representatives from Metro Commercial Properties
and the University of Phoenix if there is questions that could be directed at them.
That's, really, the element of the project that kind of got the ball rolling on this
application. Oh. And just so you're aware, I'm not going to take the 15 minutes.
agree whole heartedly with what staff has said up to this point. I think they did a great
job on it. And just a couple points of clarification if I could. The property here was -- as
Caleb had mentioned, was Comp Plan for -- zoned for industrial and there is a unique
set of circumstances with a Conditional Use Permit that didn't allow the University of
Phoenix to come in in the industrial zone and looking at what kind of Comp Plan
changes have occurred within the past six, seven years, in addition to what Caleb had
mentioned to the east -- to the west of this project the Ten Mile plan was just completed
and there is a significant portion of commercial just to the west also that was included
within that area plan. So, it just makes sense for this entire area through here to be
changed to commercial. Just to highly -- quickly highlight those changes that we
discussed in that a-mail, DBSI doesn't have a problem with design review. We support
that. As far as the development agreement, we are fine with that. We understand the
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city's looking for high quality development here and that would allow the city to make
sure that that interest is protected. We would ask that we -- that the Commission
consider those -- those changes and recommend them to the Council. If I could just
explain a little bit kind of what's envisioned here and why the 35 buildings was used.
Something similar to what's been done with the EI Dorado business park where we
have these small individual units with -- with ownership within the --within each of those
small units. That's kind of what's envisioned here. We realize that's a departure from
what was done with the earlier subdivision and in dealing with the square footage, in
talking with staff it was indicated that, really, the city's concern is that there would be a
large format building that would come in and there wouldn't be any oversight and so we
actually proposed this square footage language. I believe the prior language had tied it
to each individual building and the reason why we have proposed a total is because
even with the numbers of the buildings that staff had proposed, the eight to 14, if there
is any change in -- between eight to 14, we could quickly run askew of that 20 percent
change that staff was recommending. So, we went with a total number and, then, a limit
on the largest size of each building and that's really an explanation for why we felt that
language could work for both DBSI and the city. With that I think I'll stand for any
questions, but --
Moe: Well, I guess I do have a question for you. In fact, before the 14th or at the 14th, I
guess, I would like to see -- can you give us a site plan showing us 35 buildings of what
that would look like? We are going to want to have some idea of kind of what you guys
were thinking to put 35 buildings on that site. I would at least, anyway.
Andrus: Maybe that's a question I could actually direct it to one of the representatives
for DBSI and maybe we could discuss the number, why 35 was used.
Merrill: Regarding the --
Moe: Name and address also.
Merrill: My name is Russ Merrill. I'm with DBSI. And my address is 8330 Dorado --
Emerald Drive, Boise, Idaho.
Moe: Thank you.
Merrill: And the general thought on that -- we are -- currently want to have the flexibility
on this plan to address market conditions. This was a preliminary site plan we had
drawn up and we have been in discussions with a partner here in Boise about
developing more of an EI Dorado type site where we have the small 2,500, 5,000
square foot individually owned office buildings that you see being used by professional
firms and such and what we envision on that is where you see the four central buildings
lined up in the center is reconfiguring that with those smaller buildings. The 35 is
somewhat of an arbitrary number, because we haven't drawn up the site plan that would
show that. I imagine it's going to be considerably less than that. Probably somewhere
in the range of maybe 12 to 15 of the smaller office buildings in that location -- in that
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area, while maintaining the larger, more high profile office buildings along the frontage
of I-84. So, that's what we envision with that change.
Moe: Thank you. Any other questions? Okay. Thank you very much. Well, at this
time there is no one signed up to speak. Is there anyone in the audience that would like
to come forward? No takers. Okay. Any comments, Commissioners?
Newton-Huckabay: Mr. Chair, I have one.
Moe: Commissioner Newton-Huckabay.
Newton-Huckabay: In the proposed language that the developer has here it says that
the developer shall apply for a Conditional Use Permit to construct less than eight and
greater than 35 buildings on the site. I would rather see that since they don't have a site
plan and they have even said it's an arbitrary number, you're talking about a
substantially large amount of buildings on there. I'd rather see that, that they would
have to apply for a Conditional Use Permit similar -- I'd feel comfortable maybe up to 15
to 20 buildings going that route and anything other than that I'd like see a Conditional
Use Permit, because I think you're going to start to have traffic flow issues. I mean EI
Dorado has public streets running all through it. So, I'm a little concerned about this as
we don't have any public streets running through this property to what there is and such
to move people between that many buildings. And so I'd like to see that at -- comprised
at 20 or under.
Moe: I think that's a fair compromise, as opposed to trying to have a moving site plan
and whatnot. I think as long as we can regulate it a little bit, that would probably be the
way to go.
Newton-Huckabay: Generally supportive of the idea of the total square footage for the
entire development, though. I think that's probably a more appropriate way to address
that. Any other comments, Commissioners?
O'Brien: I agree with what you say. I was going to mention that, too. I think that 35 is --
is abig number I think to go into without really seeing any kind of a site plan. I don't
know if they mentioned what type of businesses would be going in there -- in that. Is
that important to consider?
Newton-Huckabay: Well, you're going to see anything that would be approved -- it's a
C-G.
Moe: Yeah.
O'Brien: Okay.
Newton-Huckabay: So, you could see any kind of commercial.
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O'Brien: Okay. Thank you. I don't have anything further.
Moe: Okay. If there is no other comments, can we get a motion to continue?
Newton-Huckabay: Mr. Chair, shall we state our changes as if we were making a
motion and continue? It's -- it's been six months.
Hood: Mr. Chair, Commissioner Newton-Huckabay, Commissioners, you have some
options here as I see them. I mean I'm not quite sure if you totally want to pull back off
the table the applicant coming with a site plan that showed 35 and if you guys bought off
on that saying, okay, this is how it could happen and we are satisfied that traffic flows
aren't impeded by 35 buildings or if you just want to change it now, you certainly could
close the public hearing, make -- you know, make it clear that's where you're going with
your motion, but you can't make that motion until we are ready to move all these
forward. So, I hope that made sense. So, you could leave it open and have them come
back and address that. The only thing you could come back and anyone could testify
again -- you do have options.
Newton-Huckabay: Mr. Chair, my preference would be to agree on the number of 20 or
less and close the public hearing and continue it.
Rohm: If we just close the public hearing, you can put that in your motion at such time
that we move all of them forward. That works for me.
Marshall: Agree to that.
Newton-Huckabay: Yeah. I recommend we close the public hearing on CUP 08-005
and RZ 08-003.
Rohm: Second.
Moe: It's been moved and seconded to close the public hearing on CPA 08-005 and RZ
08-003. All those in favor say aye. Opposed? That motion carries.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Newton-Huckabay: Mr. Chair?
Moe: Yes.
Newton-Huckabay: I recommend we continue CPA 08-005 and RZ 08-003 for the
Kennedy Commercial Center to the regularly scheduled meeting of August 14th,
2000 --
Moe: That will, actually, be a special meeting on August 14th.
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Newton-Huckabay: Oh. A specially scheduled meeting for August 14th, 2008.
Rohm: Second.
Moe: It's been moved and seconded to continue CPA 08-00 and RZ 08-003 to the
special meeting of the Planning and Zoning on August 14th. All those in favor say aye.
Opposed? That motion carries.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Item 6: Public Hearing: CPA 08-006 Request to amend the Comprehensive
Plan Future Land Use Map to change the future land use designation on
11 acres of land from Mixed Use -Waste Water Treatment Plan to Office
(2+/- acres) and Low Density Residential (9+/- acres) for Kartchner by
Richard Kartchner - 4325 and 4315 N. Ten Mile Road:
Moe: At this time I'd like to open the public hearing on CPA 08-006 for Kartchner and
ask the staff report.
Hood: Thank you, Mr. Chair, Members of the Commission. I should have mentioned
last time, these first three agenda items -- I'm, actually, filling in for Sonya tonight, so I
particularly wanted to mention that with this one, because there is a pretty in-depth
noise and odor study that was analyzed by Sonya when she wrote the staff report and I
did not have the time to -- I read through her analysis in the staff report, but I didn't go
through that document and try to make heads or tails of it. So, Scott Steckline, I
believe, is a little more familiar with that, so any questions you may have regarding that
study, I think he's more prepared to tackle those than I am. But I did just want to put
that disclaimer out there that I'm familiar with these, but not as intimately as Sonya is, so
-- Kartchner -- this application varies from the last application in that it is only a Comp
Plan map amendment. There are no annexation, preliminary plats, development
applications submitted concurrently. So, it is only a change to the -- a proposed change
to the Comp Plan map. The subject property consists of two tax parcels located at 4315
and 4325 North Ten Mile Road on the west side of Ten Mile, approximately a third of a
mile south of McMillan. The parcels contain approximately 11 acres and are currently
zoned RUT in Ada county. To the north of the subject site are some single family
residential properties zoned RUT and R-2. The R-2 is city subdivision, Drawbridge
Subdivision. To the east is Ten Mile Road and commercial offices and Bridgetower
Crossing Subdivision. They are kind of cut off that area. You really can't see them.
Zoned L-O and some R-4. To the south are rural residential properties, zoned RUT in
Ada county. To the west are -- is agricultural property zoned RUT also in Ada county.
The applicant is requesting approval to amend the Comprehensive Plan future land use
map by changing the land use designation on the subject 11 acres of land from mixed
use wastewater treatment plant to office and low density residential. The office request
is for approximately two acres along the frontage of the property and the low density
residential would be, then, the remaining approximately nine acres behind the proposed
office. This property, as I mentioned, is currently designated mixed use wastewater