HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008 09-30 Joint Planning & ZoningCity Council -Planning Bz Zoning Joint Meeting /Workshop September 30, 2008
A meeting of the Meridian City Council and Planning & Zoning Commission was called
to order at 4:30 p.m., Tuesday, September 30, 2008, by Mayor Tammy de Weerd.
Council Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Keith Bird, Brad Hoaglun, and
David Zaremba.
Council Members Absent: Charlie Rountree.
Commission Members Present: David Moe, Wendy Newton-Huckabay, Joe Marshall
and Tom O'Brien.
Commission Members Absent: Michael Rohm.
Others Present: Ted Baird, Jaycee Holman, Anna Canning, Bill Parsons, Sonya
Wafters, Matt Ellsworth, Sarah Wheeler, Jenney Veatch, Will Thornton, Pete Friedman,
Mark Niemeyer, Keith Watts, and Dean Willis.
Item 1: Roll-call Attendance:
Roll call.
X David Zaremba X Brad Hoaglun
Charlie Rountree X Keith Bird
X Mayor Tammy de Weerd
X Tom O'Brien X Wendy Newton-Huckabay
Michael Rohm X Joe Marshall
X David Moe -Chairman
De Weerd: Well, I'll go ahead and call this meeting to order. It is a joint planning
meeting between the Planning and Zoning Commission and the Meridian City Council.
Moe: Between.
De Weerd: Between. Among. Did I pick the wrong word? It is, for the record,
Tuesday, September 30th. It is a little bit after 4:30 and we'd like to welcome everyone
that is in attendance and we will start tonight's meeting with roll call attendance for both
City Council and the Meridian Planning and Zoning. Madam Clerk.
Item 2: Adoption of the Agenda:
De Weerd: Thank you. Item No. 2 is adoption of the agenda. Do I have a motion for
that?
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
City Council -Planning 8~ Zoning Joint Meeting /Workshop
September 30, 2008
Page 2 of 28
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I move we adopt the agenda as published, with a notation that Item 3 will be
a vote from the City Council members only.
Bird: Second.
De Weerd: Okay. I have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda. All those in
favor say aye.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Item 3: Aaprove RFP # CH-08-005 for City Hall Move to Merchants Moving 8<
Storage for $67,823.70:
De Weerd: Okay. Item 3, approval of our RFP CH-08-005.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I move that the City Council members approve Item 3, CH-08-005.
Bird: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve Item 3.
Bird: The amount?
Zaremba: I'm sorry, I didn't complete the motion. I should read into the minutes that
that's for the City Hall move to Merchants Moving & Storage for the amount of
$67,823.70.
Watts: Mr. Zaremba, could I also add -- and authorize the Mayor to sign the standard
fee agreement?
Zaremba: I'm sorry. Yes. And authorize the Mayor to sign and the Clerk to attest.
Bird: Second agrees.
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. I'm so glad you're all agreeable today. If there is no
discussion, Madam Clerk, will you call roll.
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, absent; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
City Council -Planning & Zoning Joint Meeting /Workshop
September 30, 2008
Page 3 of 28
MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. ONE ABSENT.
Item 4: Discussion of Design Review Process:
De Weerd: Okay. Item 4 is a discussion of the Design Review Process. It's been
months and years in the making, but we are excited to see the product and we will tum
this over to our planning department.
Friedman: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Commissioners, Mr. Chairman, Commissioners
and the Council Members. Thank you very much. In fact, last time we had a discussion
about this was last joint meeting between the Planning and Zoning Commission and the
City Council. That was in January of 2007 and that night we talked about embarking on
a design review process city wide for the City of Meridian and we were seeking your
input and direction that night. You were very generous with your direction. You
directed us to go ahead and embark on developing city wide design review process and
guidelines and so that was not quite two years ago and what you're going to see tonight
is the culmination of that direction on the work that we were preparing. As you know,
design review is not new to the city. We currently have design review for Old Town.
We have it along our entryway corridors, and we have it for commercial buildings over a
certain size and certain zoning districts. But the proposal that we have or will be seeing
over the next few months will apply to city wide and so with your direction there were a
couple of things that you pointed out to us. One is that intent was that we not create
another committee or a commission, with all due respect to our Planning Commission,
we really wanted to fold into our existing development review process as much as
possible and that is what we have done. Secondly, the direction we received was that
they were not to be strict guidelines, not having thou shalt or thou shants, they should
be general guiding principles from which our design professionals can release their
creativity and still meet with some principles that, hopefully, will be adopted by the city.
So, with that direction we went and we hired Will Thornton. Will has the academic
background in architecture. He has two degrees in architecture. He's also worked in
the industry, so he adds that perspective to it. And when Will came to work for us Anna
and I gave him a couple of mountains of paper to start reviewing and researching and
one of the things we talked about was the Council's input and direction, but we also
talked about how design review should fit into our current development process.
Because the one thing we tried to instill in him, which I think we did, was that the
Comprehensive Plan really is our guiding document and our zoning ordinances
implements the Comprehensive Plan. Well, I -- you know, I have been around design
review, which I kind of expected we would have guidelines for commercial and multi-
family residential and institutional and so forth, and Will came up with a whole approach
to this, building upon the Comprehensive Plan that absolutely floored Anna and I and
we have touched base with the Mayor and Council President as we have been going
through this process and we wanted to make sure that we weren't wandering off in
some direction that they didn't want to go and with their positive reinforcement we kept
working at it. Part of the development of the guidelines involved putting together a
steering committee of design professionals, architects and developers that are currently
our customers and we have been working with them for -- since January of this year,
City Council -Planning 8 Zoning Joint Meeting /Workshop
September 30, 2008
Page 4 of 28
meeting quite regularly, a couple times a month for a couple hours meeting and it has
been a long very deliberative process, a very valuable one and one that I think we now
have a lot of value for. Milt Earhart is on the steering committee. And we were hoping
to have a couple of members and we were going to put them on the spot just to kind of
give you their perspective on the process before Will launches into his presentation.
De Weerd: That's why they are not here, uh?
Friedman: But, anyway, we were expecting a couple of other members here, but it's
been a real valuable experience for everyone involved and I think we do have quite a bit
of buy off in the steering committee. Since they have completed their work we have
made presentations to Meridian Chamber of Commerce, Economic Development
Committee, the developers council, the billing -- builders council, and the local chapter
of the AIA. And those have been received fairly favorable. In fact, at AIA we had over
70 practicing architects in the room. We had very few questions. Quite a bit of interest
in it. So, many of those folks are used to doing this type of design review in some of our
neighboring cities and I think this is going to be a process that will be a little bit different
for them and, hopefully, will be a little bit easier for them. So, with that I think I will let
Milt say a few words, if he's so inclined. Other than that, I'm going to tum it over to Will
and there is a couple of questions I have for you in terms of direction of where we want
to go, but I will save that until after you have finished your questions.
De Weerd: Thank you, Pete. Any questions from Pete before he gets out of this?
Okay. Milt, thank you for helping out with this. We appreciate it.
Earhart: Oh, my pleasure. Well, I was just thinking as I was sitting here, we are pretty
critical at a national level right now as far as our government is concerned with all the
chaos and how privileged we are here in Meridian to have competency that you have in
your planning staff and I just want to express my appreciation for being associated with
them for the last eight months. It's been a long and arduous task, there was a lot of give
and take has gone into it and I represent the chamber in this process and we had some
developers and architects that were also on the committee. They, of course, felt some
of the nuances, but for me it was a good experience. In my opinion, Will has done an
absolutely fabulous job, almost borderline genius -- although I don't want to praise him
too much. You never want to elevate someone too far -- and I'm sure the boss will
make sure that that doesn't happen. But you are very privileged to have this kind of
staff with the effort that was put in that they have to bring this kind of important topic up
here. So, I thank you for the privilege of serving with you.
De Weerd: Thank you. Okay.
Thomton: Thank you, Council, Members of the Commission. As you know, my name is
Will Thomton, I am an associate city planner and for today's presentation I would like to
briefly run through the approach that we came up with for the design review. I would
like to explain this thing that we are calling the development matrix. That's sort of the
keystone to the Comprehensive Plan and leads off into design review. I'd like to
City Council -Planning 8 Zoning Joint Meeting /Workshop
September 30, 2008
Page 5 of 28
demonstrate how that works and, then, I will introduce the guidelines that we have
produced. So, these are our current planning tools in the city. We have our
Comprehensive Plan, we have our zoning ordinance, and we have a little bit of design
guidelines or design review. And so this presentation will focus on that design review
and design guidelines. So, if we take the planning tools that we currently have, zoning
and comprehensive planning, and we try to implement design review, we find that there
is this disconnect, there is a gap between the two. Where zoning tends to be rigid and
qualitative and a comprehensive plan tends to be more generalized in laying out the
community values in an overall context, so if we use design guidelines to try to bridge
the gap, they tend to be as a filler, they -- they are more for esthetic controls, they tend
to be narrowly focused, they tend to be prescriptive, telling them what -- designers what
they can and can't do, and often they are used as screening tools or beautification tools.
So, another approach is this idea of an integrated approach where the design guidelines
are written so that there are -- they apply to a broader range, they convey the preferred
level of quality or character, and they are performance driven, which this allows both the
city and the development side the flexibility to create innovative solutions. So, when I
started I had this question of, well, how are we going to apply these guidelines to the
City of Meridian and as Pete mentioned, we wanted to start with the Comprehensive
Plan, which is our land use designation, and we have our zoning ordinances, so we are
introducing this idea of this development character, development pattern, which the
guidelines will direct development towards. So, the question is, well, what's the process
or how can we incorporate all three of these into development review. So, our solution
would have to establish development hierarchy. We have to distinguish between
different areas of the city, between urban and suburban. We have to link those
developments to an appropriate context, meaning we don't have suburban development
occurring in our downtown, we don't have overly intense developments occurring where
we want suburban development and, finally, we need to define the expectations for
development, both on the side of the city, we need expectations from the city and for the
city, so that we can analyze and judge whether the developments that are coming in
meet the guidelines and also on the development side they meet expectations so they
know what to expect, so -- now, this is a familiar organizing concept. This was -- comes
out of the Ten Mile specific area plan and it's based on the land uses and their intensity.
Well, I took that a little bit further and -- to organize this matrix concept. So, it's just a
five by five matrix. It also uses an intensity scale and it also incorporates the character
scale and together the intensity and character help us determine context. You will
notice on the left-hand side you see typical characteristics of development urban-
suburban and, then, across the top we have high density, medium density, and low
density. So, starting with the Comprehensive Plan -- and I have also included the
designations from the Ten Mile area plan. I have organized those designations -- land
use designations and grouped them based on those two scales, both intensity and
character scale and assigned each group a number and put them on the matrix.
Something similar for the zoning. I took all the designations in the Unified Development
Code and put them in groups according to the two scales and assigned them a letter
and, then, we get to this development category and this encompasses the best
practices and the patterns and the architectural design that we want to see in the city
and which the guidelines were written for and so I also organized these into groups, as
City Council -Planning 8 Zoning Joint Meetlng /Workshop
September 30, 2008
Page 6 of 28
basically, they are categories based on the two scales. They are assigned great value
and, then, placed on the matrix according to the intensity. So, you take all three of
these and we get this thing called development matrix. So, the general process of how
to use the matrix and the design of a development would be we take our three starting
points, the land use, the zoning, and the development category, and we use the matrix
to narrow it down to one result, one letter and number combination, with an associated
color or a gray scale. That gives us the general context. And I'll get into that more later.
But that general context refers to a set of guidelines in the design manual and, then,
development uses the standards we use in the Unified Development Code and they use
the guidelines to create their development. And this accomplishes two things. It
establishes the appropriate context for development and it determines how the
guidelines apply. So, how does it work? Now we get into the nuts and bolts a little bit
here. So, I created this development context worksheet and contains the matrix you
can see in the upper left. It has the land use designations with their group numbers, the
zoning districts with their group numbers - or letter numbers, excuse me, and our
development category. And, then, here is our general concept. So, you will notice that
each letter-number combination on the matrix is assigned to one of these general
concepts. We have urban, urban-suburban, which is this area in between our suburban
development and our urban development. Think of them as a transitional area. And we
have our suburban concept. So, I'll run through this example. Now, this is not a specific
example, it's just a general example to show you how the process of using the matrix
works. So, we need to start with a site, we need a piece of land to develop. So, we
need to gather some information about that -- that site. We need to know if it annexed
in the city, what's it's designated land use. We need to know if it is annexed what it's
zoned. We need to start thinking about its context, what surrounds this piece of land.
Are there low intensity developments? Are there high intensity developments? Is this in
the center of downtown? Is it out on the edge of our city? And, then, finally, we need to
start incorporating the developer's idea or possibly the vision that the city has for this
area. So, back to our worksheet. We have identified in this example the land use of
mixed use community and the zone -- the requested zoning is our general commercial
zoning. So, we identify which groups the land use occurs in, which is group number
two, and group number three and, then, we identify our zoning group or -- which is
group number -- group letter C and, then, we don't really have a development category,
maybe this is our first time doing this project or running through the process. Either
case the process of using the matrix will identify that category for us. So, here is the
matrix all by itself and we have identified those two land use groups, group number two
and group number three, and this gives us six possibilities on the matrix and we include
our zoning group and we narrow that -- those possibilities down to two, 2-C and 3-C.
Now, at this point we need to stop and take a step aside and we need to evaluate those
two results. We want to narrow it down to -- ultimately we need one result to tie it to the
project and so at this point this is also an opportunity to initiate conversations between
the applicant and the city, if there is any discrepancy or how the context or a
development idea might apply. So, we evaluate these matrix results based on our
Comprehensive Plan. Here is where our community goals are expressed and our land
use descriptions are explained. We use the Unified Development Code to tell us what
uses are allowed. We also use -- the matrix sends the results and their positions on the
City Council -Planning 8 Zoning Joint Meeting /Workshop
September 30, 2008
Page 7 of 28
matrix relative to the intensity and character scale and with one another. I developed
these organizational sheets, which are contained in the design manual, which explain
each group. So, if you're not sure how -- how a certain group fits, you can always turn
to these pages and read a short explanation. And, then, finally, we need to incorporate
the development vision, what the developer has in mind for this piece of land and also
what the city may have planned. So, after we have evaluated the project and we come
back to these two results and we will notice that if we single them out, we find that 2-C --
its position on the matrix is a little more urban. So, we would expect a context that has
more urban elements. Likewise, on the suburban side, 3-C, we would expect to see a
little more suburban development. Now, the nature of the matrix is that it's pretty much
-- you can approach it from any direction. As from the city's standpoint we would
encourage you to start with your land use, your designated land use. But ultimately you
could start with this zoning category or zoning group, you could start with the
development category, and ultimately you would end up with a set of results to evaluate
and eventually choose one. But from the city and the planning department, we would
encourage you to start with the land use. So, for example, we will do an alternative
approach using this similar thing. We gather information, we think about the
surrounding uses in the context of the site and incorporate some ideas for the
development. We can use the worksheet -- this time you will notice that all we have is
the land use. Say we don't know what the zoning is, maybe we are annexing into the
city and we haven't chosen azone -- but in either way we are going to use the matrix to
help us determine what's an appropriate zoning and develop a category. So, we have
located our land use groups. They end up being the same in this example groups two
and three. So, we go to the matrix and we identify the same six groups and so at this
point we can evaluate all six or we can think a little more about our development and
say we determine that an urban environment really isn't to our liking, maybe we are in
south Meridian and we are away from the city center or the Ten Mile area, so we
automatically can reduce it to these three. And so we see that it's - we still are able to
choose group C, which would give us the zoning districts in that group, but the matrix
also identifies two other zoning groups. Our group D, which is a little less intense and
group E, which is leaning more towards an urban or medium high intensity. So, we see
that group 3-C or matrix result group 3-C is also a possibility and it's up there near the
medium density and also 3-D is a possibility, which is a little more less intense, more --
we would expect a more suburban environment. So, ultimately, as I said before, we
need to choose one matrix result. So, for this example we will choose 3-C and it -- we
have our designation, our land use designation is mixed use community. Our zoning
group, which is group C. And we have identified this development category as a
transitional development. So, we would expect a little bit of urban and a little bit of
suburban in this development. And an important note is that just because a designated
-- a zoning district is listed in a group doesn't automatically make it an appropriate
choice. And so -- but -- so, now we have our matrix result identified. We need to
choose -- or determine its general context. So, if you look on the upper right of the
worksheet, we see that we have our general context category and 3-C falls in its urban-
suburban context. So, we use this -- this urban-suburban context and its corresponding
section in the design manual for our guidelines. So, here is a brief summary. We have
our matrix result, our land use designation. Here we see that C-G may not be an
City Council - Planning ~ Zoning Joint Meeting /Workshop
September 30, 2008
Page 8 of 28
appropriate zoning district, so the worksheet identifies the other possibilities to choose
from. Which takes us to the design manual. So, the design manual is divided into five
sections. Section eight deals mainly with the development matrix and the development
hierarchy. Pretty much what we just ran through, how to use the matrix, how it's
applied, and its organization. So, here we have a page out of that section that
describes the applicability of the matrix and, then, we have how it was organized and
you can see that those zoning groups and designations are included in that explanation.
And now we tum to the other sections. Now, these -- the following four sections contain
the guidelines. Section D contains the urban guidelines. Section C contains the urban-
suburban or the transitional guidelines. And Section D contains the suburban
guidelines. Section E we created a residential section for -- for its own, because
residential developments can occur in all three of those other sections. So, what we
intend is that Section E be used with the corresponding section, urban, urban-suburban,
and suburban, to apply those guidelines for a residential development. And so if go
back to our worksheet, we will see how we -- how we find our guidelines. We chose 3-
C, which gave us a general context of urban-suburban. So, that takes us to Section C
of the manual, the design manual, and here is where we find our guidelines and those
guidelines are arranged according to site character and architectural character. And
these have subsections that include things for guidelines for parking, guidelines for
building scale, materials, open space, but each section -- each section has an objective,
some have notes, some don't have notes, but they all contain guidelines and they are
numbered correspondingly. And, then, we have included traffic in these illustrations to
emphasize certain points and aspects of the guidelines that we would encourage
developments to include in their proposal. Now just because the guidelines -- or the
images show up on the manual doesn't necessairily mean we want to see exactly that
same, but it's just more of an illustration of direction from the development. And so with
that, that's how we arranged the process and the guidelines and now we will have some
questions.
De Weerd: Okay. Questions from Council or the Commission?
Hoaglun: I have got a question.
De Weerd: Yes.
Hoaglun: Early in the process you said when you had selected 2-C and 3-C, it looked
like that was where it was going to fall, you said you would sit down with the developer
and make sure everyone's in agreement. What's the process -- let's say we think it
should be more suburban or rural and it should be 3-C, 4-C, how does that process
work? Where has that decision been made of where you ultimately get that. Does that
go through -- does that go through the Planning and Zoning Commission to decide, do
you guys decide that at a staff level or just -- when you sit down with that developer and
they slightly disagree and say, well, we think instead of urban-suburban, we think it's
goes down one more. What's the process?
City Council -Planning 8 Zoning Joint Meeting /Workshop
September 30, 2008
Page 9 of 28
Friedman: Mayor and Council Members, that's a good question, one that we wrestled
with while we were working on this process, just what is sort of the next step of the
decision making, and in the spirit of not wanting to send it all to Council immediately, of
course, the Planning and Zoning Commission can keep it at sort of the staff level to
begin with, what we have developed is a process whereby if there was a difference of
opinion or a question of interpretation of the guidelines, it would start out as a request
for a direction and determination, so they could request a determination from Anna that
-- that their belief is along the guidelines and staff interpretation. What we are working
on is putting together what we would refer to as a design professionals committee and it
would include landscape architects and architects that would volunteer their time that
Anna can call on to review the request and, then, provide her with a recommendation
and, then, she would issue a director's determination as to which way it should be
disposed of and, then, if there was still a disagreement, then, it would ultimately be a
review by the City Council.
Canning: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes.
Canning: That would be the formal process. The informal process would be a pre-
application meeting where we would discussion it and what we would, basically, go
back to is the Comprehensive Plan and if the Comprehensive Plan specifically identifies
it as an urban area, which we do, all our urban areas -- there is Old Town, there is Ten
Mile, there is our neighborhood centers. So, if it's not specifically identified, it would be
difficult for them to make that argument. But that would be the kind of conversations we
would have at the pre-application meeting orpre-design stage.
Thomton: Madam Mayor, Members of Council and Commission, also if you notice on
the matrix and through this there is -- on the matrix itself there is 13 possibilities, but
they are grouped according to those development categories. So, ultimately, you're
using only three sets - it includes the residential. You're using four sets of guidelines.
So, the guidelines remain the same and it's up to the developer and the planning
department to work out those nuances, those small things to -- and in your example
where the 3-C becomes a 3-D, we are still using the urban-suburban guidelines, but
maybe -- maybe the application of those guidelines changes slightly. So, if that --
De Weerd: Okay. Other questions?
Newton-Huckabay: Madam Mayor, I have a question. Where are the guidelines from?
How do you change the guidelines -- how do you determine if it's urban, urban-
suburban, or cross over --
Thomton: Are you asking where the guidelines came from?
City Council -Planning & Zoning Joint Meeting /Workshop
September 30, 2008
Page 10 of 28
Newton-Huckabay: Yeah. Was it from a committee or -- that you had together or -- and
how -- and how fluid and organic are those guidelines and how are the guidelines
changed?
Thornton: Council, Commission Member Newton-Huckabay, for the first part where the
guidelines came from, through my research and meeting with the committee, the
steering committee, what I did was -- the guidelines are very similar to other
jurisdictions. They address similar concepts and what I did was took those concepts out
of there, where ever I took them from, their current context, and thought about how they
could be applied to Meridian and rewrote them and through the process of the steering
committee, the language was changed, ideas were modified to meet what we
anticipated the needs of the city and as far as changing the guidelines, Pete would be
able to help me, but the way we have it organized is there is a design manual and it
becomes part of the Comprehensive Plan. So, in theory it is a Comprehensive Plan text
amendment.
Friedman: That's correct. Madam Mayor, Council Members, Commissioners, what we
will be bringing in the next few weeks are a series of amendments that we are trying to
align all the stars at the same time, so that we will be bringing you the design manual of
the amendment to the Comprehensive Plan. We will be bringing you a series of UDC
amendments that either further clarify the relationship with the design manual to the
UDC or actually in some cases are repealing certain UDC standards that we have now
covered in the design manual and we have a couple of Comprehensive Plan text
amendments that also bridge -- make the bridge from the Comprehensive Plan to the
design manual. Those are coming forward to you, asking for your consideration in
November, and upon your action we will, then, take them forward to City Council for
final action and adoption following that. So, if those -- and I anticipate we will, over time,
as we work with it that there will need some course corrections or, you know, maybe
other ideas will come up and so forth that we may have to go back and amend the
manual and, of course, those will come to you again for amendment.
Moe: And those will be available to change every six months as well, then?
Friedman: Well, they are a text amendment. It could be anytime. Also that once
adopted we have sort of portrayed it that we will put it online and it will be available
online. We will not only offer the predesigned pre-application process, we will offer a
sort of design review 101 where some of our customers could come in and sit down with
staff and walk through this design manual. Of course, the work we do now, you know,
pre-design, pre-application meetings we will be talking about all those details prior to the
applications being made.
Hood: Were you guys going to talk about the process how this integrated into other
application reviews currently or kind of run through a scenario of something like a
Conditional Use or CZC, to kind of explain how the design review aspect of that is rolled
into our review process?
City Council -Planning & Zoning Joint Meeting /Workshop
September 30, 2008
Page 11 of 28
Friedman: Be happy to. Again, our intent is to make this as seamless as possible with
regard to development and review process, recognizing there will probably be just a
little bit of deviation, but on a CZC, which is purely an administrative application, the
application will come into our office, it will be reviewed by planning staff in compliance
with the UDC and, then, we will sit down and also do a design review analysis of it.
Pretty much we will develop a form so when we do that design review analysis now with
the design review standards in concurrence is the body of the UDC. It will cover under
the same design review fee that we currently have and, then, once we complete the
review -- design review with the issues of the CZC. So, we are trying to many those
two. In the case of a hearing level application, what will happen is the design review
application will come in with this, whether it's a conditional use, annexation, rezone, it
will come in with that and, then, internally we will separate the design review application
from the hearing level application. The hearing level application, of course, has the
statutory time lines that we have to comply with, so while that's being analyzed, at that
point the design review will continue on with our goal to have the design review
completed and approved and can come back together by the time the application
comes before P&Z Commission. Again, we are trying to build these processes in
wherein if we have a question of interpretation or so forth, then, we can have that
resolved presumably before the Planning and Zoning Commission gets the full
application.
De Weerd: Well, Pete, when you have a CZC, it says any new changes how is that
dealt with? Is there an old approval and they just step up to the -- is there anew -- are
there code differences that need to be bridged?
Friedman: If it's a new application on an old project, then, we would want to apply the
standards as quickly as we can. But it would be a new application.
Canning: And, Mayor, are you referring to what an older project --
De Weerd: Yeah.
Canning: -- where specifically the design was approved? If it's part of the DA, we will
have to stand by whatever is in the development agreement. Most of the last
applications for the last two years have referenced any design review in place at the
time they submit for a building permit, but I think a lot of them we will have under the
new process.
De Weerd: And how many -- how many projects out there would this affect in that way?
Canning: How many new projects or old projects?
De Weerd: No. Old ones.
Canning: I think there is --
City Council -Planning & Zoning Joint Meeting /Workshop
September 30, 2008
Page 12 of 28
De Weerd: We may want to look at how we can notify some of those projects just to
bring them into this process as they go through the Commission and Council.
Canning: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Members of the Commission, they
have -- Pete and Will have taken it to the developers council and so that was a number
of them and we may have missed some of the commercial developers that aren't
heavily involved in the PBA, but we intentionally added those architects on this as well.
So, I think there shouldn't be a whole lot for the advisory committee. For the residential
guidelines that we have attached to some of the projects like South Ridge and ones like
that, where they haven't yet developed their design manual, I would imagine they may
want to look into some of what will be developed in the design manual for some of the
specific residential where we cited them to elevations that would apply. But I don't think
we should have any surprises. Now, of course, there will be a few, but if it's spelled out
in the DA, then, we will be able to work with them.
Marshall: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes.
Marshall: In an attempt to try to grasp this, if I may, what the matrix is becoming is a
way to target what code and guidelines apply; is that correct? It's not truly a wholly set
of code and guidelines, although in those -- there will be some changes there you're
saying, but it appears to me that the matrix is being used to specifically target certain
codes and guidelines for a given area; right?
Thomton: Commission Member, the matrix is set up and it's part of that -- determining a
hierarchy of development. So, it doesn't necessarily target -- the UDC will still apply.
The zoning codes will still apply. But what it does is it helps break up the guideline, so
that we are not developing guidelines for specific uses. That may be appropriate later
down the road or -- and the design manual will have a mechanism to apply specific
design criteria for specific uses in the future. But what it does is it takes a development
and it helps identify an appropriate context and, then, it -- by using the Comprehensive
Plan and available zoning and its idea of development character, it takes all three of
those and it positions it within that hierarchy and -- to help the developers identify some
certain design elements that would help create a more urban -- or an urban
environment, as opposed to just standard suburban models in the wrong context. So, if
you think of the matrix as just determining where a project fits on that hierarchy and,
then, determining its associated guidelines. If that helps.
Marshall: I guess my question is that I didn't see any change in any guidelines at this
point, simply a reordering of them and a new method of selecting which ones should
apply to each individual project.
Thomton: We have a whole manual -- we have 150 page design guideline manual that
we wrote for those sections that contain guidelines. They are all new. We have written
them. We worked with the steering committee and those are what's being applied.
City Council -Planning & Zoning Joint Meeting /Workshop
September 30, 2008
Page 13 of 28
Now, 150 pages sound like a lot, but if you take one project, you're only dealing with
one or two sections at a time, not the whole manual.
Canning: Madam Mayor, if I could maybe give an example of what -- what we mean by
the context of the development, maybe that might help. We had instances where the
Comprehensive Plan might call out let's say a mixed use community, using the example
he gave, where the developer might have a vision that much be more intense than
perhaps what we see at staff or what the thought process was in developing that mixed
use community, given its proximity to low density residential and schools and things like
that, that they are -- they are choosing a development context that's more intense than
what we think is envisioned by the plan. So, that's where the matrix will hopefully guide
you towards that less intense -- that, you know, guideline. So, that was one of the
intents of the matrix, to kind of -- it's not really bridging the gap, but providing that extra
bit of information. If you have this land use designation you need to look around you
and see what's appropriate. You don't get to just look at that one piece, you have got to
look at the whole plan and think about the context of that development.
Friedman: Another way of thinking about it is we have the UDC and strict practice is
that if you're located in certain locations and you have to be so many feet from the
property line and so many parking spaces. What our guidelines do is add another
qualitative layer to that, so it's not only how we address the uses, but how we organize
the uses and, then, have the uses relate to the surrounding area. So, it does -- and,
again, going back to the original direction, it's not that we need to raise the bar in the
city, but there are a few projects that probably come up to the bar that we have and to
maintain that, because good quality design enhances not only the quality of our living
environment, but enhances property values also.
Hood: Madam Mayor, if I may, too, the way that we kind of envision this document
working is we can work, as Will mentioned, with developers before they put all that ink
on paper and review for compliance with codes -- it kind of gives them that background
information of what we are looking for in certain areas and certain context. We can
work with the developers and use those more on the front end to get what we want on
the back end. So, again, right now with the UDC is do they do this, is it set back ten
feet, do they do that. Here we can give them a little more context on what we would like
to see and they kind of know, okay, this is what the city is going to be looking for and if I
submit the project to them, how many of the guidelines do I comply with, am I within
their vision for this area, too. So, I think that's going to be a great help to the
development community is not having us grade their plats as they come in, but help
them explain what we are looking for before they get too far in design, because they are
already invested so much by the time it gets to us, that we work with them upfront more
and explain to them -- again, to bridge that gap or whatever you want to call it -- giving
them more details on what we'd like to see. So, I think that will really help overall with
the development community that we won't maybe have to arm wrestle over some of
these things, that we can let them know upfront more what we are looking for.
De Weerd: I'll bet you have wanted to grade them.
City Council -Planning 8~ Zoning Joint Meeting /Workshop
September 30, 2008
Page 14 of 28
Newton-Huckabay: Madam Mayor, this question is a little bit in a vacuum being that I
haven't seen the design guidelines. How does it encourage innovation versus
homogeny in development if -- well, that passed the guidelines, that looks good, so I'll
be able to go through that -- I mean how does -- how does 150 page of suggestions
spur innovation in development?
Thornton: That's a good question, Commissioner, and one way that -- as I tried to
incorporate and I wrote this was the steering committee definitely agreed that they
should be guidelines, instead of standards. So, in one way we won't have all the
functional ability with the same dimensions. And I wrote the guidelines to allow for that
flexibility, so, for example, if it says modulate, didn't say how to modulate. So, there is
that flexibility for the designers to provide that modulation how they see fit.
Canning: Madam Mayor, Commissioner Newton-Huckabay, you will have a full chance
to look at all of them. We are not trying to keep them a secret from you tonight, it's just
that we wanted to kind of set the stage for them in a group setting and they will come
before you for your review individually.
Newton-Huckabay: When do we get those?
De Weerd: Pete?
Friedman: Probably one of the two hearings in November.
De Weerd: Well, you'll get it before November.
Hood: Well, I think the transmittal -- we will get an application into the clerk that will,
then, transmit it to you, so that will be October sometime to review.
Newton-Huckabay: Can I request that it not be the first meeting in November, since we
only have --there will only be three Commissioners at that hearing.
Friedman: Yeah. Sure.
Canning: And, Madam Mayor, I wanted to express my other hope with regard to these
design guidelines, is that as of over time as we all become more familiar with them, my
hope is that this will be a tool for developers to request annexation without necessarily
having a concept plan and a preliminary plat in hand, because that is extremely
frustrating to them. They never end up doing what they originally said they were going
to do, on the commercial side anyway, and I know that it would be a huge benefit to the
community if we could go into the annexation application knowing that we would get a
quality project out of it without having to make them make all those commitments up
front. I think it will be a win-win for the city, as well as for the development community.
So, that as we get more comfortable with these -- hopefully relatively short times, then,
you know, I see that as a huge benefit.
City Council -Planning & Zoning Joint Meeting /Workshop
September 30, 2008
Page 15 of 28
De Weerd: Any other questions?
Friedman: Madam Mayor, if I may, I have one question for the Council.
De Weerd: I didn't ask you for questions, but go for it.
Friedman: Well, that was one of my first meetings -- when we met with you before, the
direction we had was that these would apply to multi-family residential, commercial,
industrial, and at the time of a CZC there is two uses that fall out from under CZC and
that's duplexes and single family attached. We are not going to require it for single
family detached. We are requiring it for multi-family, if they are building townhouses to
anything above that. But our question for Council is -- and Mayor is shall we also
require it for duplexes and single family detached.
De Weerd: It seems like Council's been wanting to see elevations on anything other
than single family detached. Council, what are your thoughts?
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor, I have a question and you need to give me some context
here. Why were those initially excluded?
Friedman: Well, initially --
De Weerd: Initially we didn't get elevations until we started getting really ugly stuff and
we got a lot complaints by ourselves and so we started asking for elevations, so we
knew what to expect and that as those projects were approved by staff in the field, that
expectations were met and we didn't have to drive down the road in horror thinking
that's not what we approved, so -- was that too much context?
Hoaglun: No. I guess, then, having those apply would probably be a good thing.
De Weerd: That would be my opinion.
Hoaglun: It would prevent the other way, I guess.
De Weerd: Well, everyone's definition might be different on ugly, but I could show you
some ugly. Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: Would these design guidelines, if you follow through Matrix -- and if I'm
understanding the current question is I'm assuming they would apply to a large
development, but the current question if somebody came in with one duplex or one
single family attached or something like that, do we want them to apply. I think my
question is that the reason that I'm interested in design guidelines is that we avoid
having some avant-garde architect decide that this building ought to be made out of
stainless steel with neon borders around all the windows. I think I would have it apply to
individual buildings and that's kind of extra work, but the objective is that -- unless we
City Council -Planning & Zoning Joint Meeting /Workshop
September 30, 2008
Page 16 of 28
just -- unless for single projects like that, we just had a blanket thing that said you need
to match the look of the rest of the neighborhood, which I suppose we could do. But
that's the objective, so that one architect, with his wonderful new idea about some wild
orange polka dot cantilever special thing right in a regular neighborhood, we can help
avoid that. And I guess there is two ways to go, either make it apply to everybody,
whether it's one thing to say if it's a single thing you just need to match the rest of that.
De Weerd: Any thought on the Commission?
Moe: I would say the long and the short of it is if you're going to bring something it all
should be reviewed and approved in design.
Canning: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, we don't -- I believe don't process all
that many requests for single family attached and duplexes. We'll just have to work with
the building department to make sure that they take them upstairs -- yeah, it will be
upstairs -- kick them upstairs to do a zoning compliance.
De Weerd: Yeah. I think more where you're going to find. that is in Old Town and I think
much of that is addressed in the design standards.
Friedman: Madam Mayor, those standards have now been folded into our design
guidelines, so that was another objective of this exercise, that we have a number of
different guidelines out there, so that the downtown design guidelines would be folded
into these guidelines.
De Weerd: Mr. Wardle.
Wardle: Madam Mayor, just to give a scenario that -- I know that you and staff sort of
struggle with is we talk about matching existing. We have a number of smaller lots in
the Old Town area, specifically on the peripheral, West 1st Street, West 2nd Street, a
developer or more likely a builder comes in with one or two lots and wants to do a two
unit duplex. To match the existing in that current area of town is not necessarily what
the Urban Renewal District would like to see. The character of those things, such as
windows and setbacks and those codes are all part of that, but I think the struggle is the
-- is the downtown design guidelines call for specifically buildings and property lines,
taking things two stories and I know Will is addressing that in the transitional zone, but
the question would be do you want to see that one individual project on that one lot
going from single family dwellings to a one duplex dwelling, does that need to go
through the level of design review at the staff level, if I'm hearing your policy question
right.
De Weerd: I think I'm hearing yes and I think as they apply to this standard as outlined.
Newton-Huckabay: I think this is a good example of something to error on the side of
caution and if it isn't -- if it's working out to be a burden or you may be going thank
goodness we did that, then, you know, it's a good thing to keep in the guidelines. But --
City Council -Planning & Zoning Joint Meeting /Workshop
September 30, 2008
Page 17 of 28
I mean as far as in Old Town, I think a lot could go wrong with redevelopment in Old
Town without somebody watching over that, in my opinion.
De Weerd: And I don't think it necessarily means another layer per se, It's still is at the
staff level, as I understand.
Hood: Madam Mayor, if I just expand on that just a minute. Like Pete mentioned, right
now for duplexes or attached single family, they don't require specific zoning; they just
go to the building department and pull those permits. So, those two instances -- if you
go to the residential side, those -- there will be a change to the development community
for duplexes and attached single family. Now --
De Weerd: Well, with a time element.
Hood: Now, in this process -- I mean Will is going to be -- have to get us all
accustomed to using the matrix and things, so there will be a little bit of ~ teaming curve.
I would think within a couple of days that we would probably -- for things two years ago
it may be a little bit more time. I don't think we can just do this over the counter and
issue it that way. But certainly we are going to try to get this so it isn't a time crunch,
because they are used to coming in and getting permits and going out for construction
shortly thereafter. We are not trying to drag that out by any means. But I do think that
the cost benefits cost us a little bit of time, but it will benefit the community overall if you
go that direction. But this will in context, if you want to go that way, it will be slightly
different than what the development community is used to now.
De Weerd: Yes, Anna.
Canning: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Members of the Commission,
actually in Old Town we do have design guidelines already, so I really don't think it will
slow it down.
Friedman: So, they still will have time on this, so, you know, our challenge will be to
make sure that we are working with the building department, so it may be well to
structure the plan review that is going on as we are doing the design review.
De Weerd: Okay. Any other comments? Mr. Bird? No?
Canning: Madam Mayor, I did want to mention one other thing and Will and I worked on
for the urban-suburban. We did develop some guidelines specifically for residential and
commercial to acknowledge the fact that the site is kind of semi-developed or has
constraints as far as getting to some of the site that they we were looking at and trying
to maintain some of that residential look to that converted facility, rather than having it
go to some hybrid, unattractive version that's not quite residential and not quite
commercial. So, we did have hope in some of those things in the design guidelines that
you will see.
City Council - Planning 8~ Zoning Joint Meeting /Workshop
September 30, 2008
Page 18 of 28
De Weerd: Okay. Well, good. Anything else, Pete?
Friedman: No. That's all we need. Thank you very much.
De Weerd: Thank you, Will. We appreciate your diligence and tenacity with this
project. We look forward to seeing it unfold. Okay. Next item on the agenda is the
break for dinner. We will break for ten minutes and eat while we finish the meeting.
(Recess.)
Item 5: Discussion of Planning Department Structure /Staffing:
De Weerd: I'll go ahead and get the meeting started again. Our next item on our
agenda is discussion of the Planning Department's structure and staffing. I'll turn this
over to Anna.
Canning: Thank you. Madam Mayor, Members of the Council and Members of the
Commission: I just wanted to get you up to date on some of the things we are doing in
the Planning Department. We are using this somewhat slow time to afford us the ability
to cross-train and so we are kind of jumbling things up a bit and the primary jumble is
that Pete and Caleb will be, essentially, swapping responsibilities as far as
comprehensive planning and current planning. So, that's the biggest change up there.
What I have provided you -- and I will go through this in detail -- is the blue one kind of
lists our titles and our names on it and, then, the green one below is the same thing, but
it gives you an idea of just the responsibilities that we will all be taking over. So,
currently, as you know, Caleb is managing the current planning. He will move over to
Comprehensive Planning to be the manager over there and he will primarily take on the
transportation duties. And, then, Matt, who is -- will work for Caleb, will be focusing on
the community development block grant, which is currently Sarah Wheeler, who some
of you may not know. Sarah, you want to stand up. This is our assistant planner Sarah
Wheeler and so she's going to be doing the development block grant for about two-
thirds of her time and about one-third of her time as an assistant planner. So, Matt will
take over the community development block grant program from her and she will be a
full-time assistant planner. And, then, on the current planning side, Pete will take over
those management responsibilities. Will will kind of move over with him, so they will
stay together, and as Will finishes up the design guidelines, he will start doing some of
the design review and also training staff on how to implement the design guidelines. Bill
and Sonya pretty much stay in their current positions, as does Jenny Veatch, who as
most of you probably know Jenny by now, who is one of our assistant planners. The
switch -- you will notice that I moved Kristy up under -- you might not know Kristy either.
Not all of you do.
De Weerd: Why don't you have everyone introduce themselves.
Canning: I think I have gone through almost everybody at this point.
City Council -Planning & Zoning Joint Meeting /Workshop
September 30, 2008
Page 19 of 28
De Weerd: And Bill. Caleb has talked, but you might just officially --
Canning: Will do. This is Pete Friedman, currently comprehensive planning manager.
He will take on the new title of deputy director. Matt Ellsworth in the back, currently
transportation guy. Will Thornton, the design review guy. He's one of our associate city
planners. Jenny Veatch, assistant city planner. Jenny works the front counter and also
does certificate of zoning compliance. Caleb Hood you all know, current planning and
zoning, he will move over as the comprehensive manager and also will be doing
transportation. Some of you may or may not know, Caleb came to us from Ada County
Highway District, so he's had some background in transportation issues and he will pick
that up again. Bill Parsons, associate city planner. The Commissioners know you.
Some of the Council -- you will start seeing more of the associates. I'm going to have
them on the more complex projects I'm going to go ahead and have them attend City
Council in the interest of providing better service on our applicants on complex projects.
So, I can't get up to speed in a hour sometimes, so you will be -- you will be seeing
them more often. Along with Sonya Wafters, who is the other associate that you will
start seeing more of. Sarah Wheeler I have introduced previously. And I think that's it.
The ones that couldn't be here tonight -- Kristy Vigil couldn't be here, she had a class
that she had to go to. The important person is Barb Shiffer. So, back to Kristy's
position. Right now I have shown her as kind of -- as moving up and being one of my
reports. This issue will be coming back later to Council. I'm not implementing this one
right away, but I did want to talk to you about it. What we want to do with that position is
two fold. She will help Pete out with -and this part will start immediately, but she will
help Pete out with making assignments and scheduling things, making sure they get to
the clerk, kind of those administrative duties associated with that current planning
position. That will afford Pete more time to address some of the governmental affairs
things. Addressing Robert's calls. So, we didn't want to lose that ability, so we are kind
of shifting some of those managerial tasks over to Kristy Vigil. And, then, the other
thing that we want to start having her do is kind of be -- we haven't come up with a great
title yet, but sort of a liaison to the developing community for the large projects, making
sure that they have got all their ducks in a line to get through the process smoothly.
Some projects just naturally have a hard time getting through the project -- process. So,
we want to have her available to kind of assist with those and to also assist with those
residential to commercial conversions for the one-time applications where it's -- the only
type of person that's ever going to walk into the planning department office and they are
absolutely overwhelmed. So, we are kind of trying to transition her out of some of the
day-to-day assistant duties, so she can focus on that liaison to those folks coming in the
door.
De Weerd: And that will be Kristy?
Canning: That will be Kristy. And what -- Kristy is developing the job description. She
will bring that to the Council in November. So, she's working on her job description.
She's working on a path for her position specifically and all of that will come to Council
in November. It's part of a one unit course that she's taking at NNU, she's developing
all this for an office administration course that she's taking. So, you will see that later
City Council -Planning & Zoning Joint Meeting /Workshop
September 30, 2008
Page 20 of 28
and we will implement that in January once she is done with her course work at NNU.
That's all I had, Mayor.
Item 6: Other Matters of Mutual Interest:
De Weerd: Okay. Any questions? Thank you, Anna. Okay. Other matters of mutual
interest. Boy, talk about an open slate here. Council or Commission, any items you
wish to discuss of joint interest, questions, further workshops, interests that you might
have? Any comments?
Newton-Huckabay: I have one item that I have some concems with that I think we are
going to start seeing more and more of and I'd kind of like maybe to suggest some -- I
have some suggestions. I have noticed that with the down tum in the market and those
type of things that have been going on, is that developments that have come through
are starting to come back through again with changes and in some cases very, very
substantial changes and it's certainly on the heels of the comprehensive planning --
Comprehensive Plan changes like we have done and I -- I just have some concems
with some of these and seeing them come through and I'm just wondering, has anyone
else seen this where -- you know, I mean I'm sure it's not new in the world of planning,
market down turns and up turns and that type of thing, but sometimes I feel like maybe
we are reacting when we need to be staying the course, so to speak. Or at the very
least, when those are coming before us, what you had in comparison to changes that
you made and calling out those specific changes and the reasoning -- the reasoning for
them --does that make sense what I'm --
De Weerd: Well, yeah, I think that -- you know, that's a fair question and certainly the
reason you have the public process is to vet those changes through. You know, I guess
what I have learned over time is these plans are not static and, you know, they do shift
and turn as a community continues to define themselves to -- to not only what's
happening within our city limits, but also what's happening in and around us as well.
Being the center of the Treasure Valley I think it probably makes Meridian more apt to
look at our plan in a more timely fashion, because of the constant transportation comdor
influences, the influences that we can have even with the M3 in Eagle. It's just now
changing the intersection of Linder and Chinden in a -- in my opinion, a detrimental way.
So, you know, I guess I understand what you're talking about, but I also see that as we
continue to develop and define ourselves and prioritize where our attentions need to lie,
these things will happen and there is probably even going to be some projects you wish
would come through again, so that you could change them.
Newton-Huckabay: Well, each time they appear to be getting denser and denser and
I'm not so sure that that's always the appropriate way that we should --
De Weerd: I agree with you and, you know, that's -- that's certainly why the process is
like it is, is -- and maybe that's even a workshop opportunity is why we have time to
really evaluate. But, then, you get into property rights, if you want to down zone
City Council -Planning 8~ Zoning Joint Meeting /Workshop
September 30, 2008
Page 21 of 28
someone's property on our map and say, well, we don't think you should be commercial
anymore, you should be one acre estates, they may not really be thrilled about that.
Newton-Huckabay: And I agree with that. I guess I'm thinking more along the lines a bit
with every six months being able to come in and ask for a different Comprehensive Plan
designation. That's, in my mind, very reactionary timing and I think it's -- but they
obviously, can go through the public process and we will deal with that, it's just one
thing that I have been seeing and it does -- it does give me some concems, because,
then, I wont' about, well, what exactly did we have all around it before, what's planned,
but not developed and I think it creates some challenges that we haven't had in the
past, that we have platted, undeveloped land coming in for a redo, so to speak, and we
haven't seen anything come out around it. So, it just seems far more complicated and
less straight forward than say redevelopment or that type of thing.
O'Brien: Madam Mayor, I see that -- I'm hoping that this matrix process might be part of
the solution on some of those things. Not all of it, but I think there is certain things that -
- and you have done a wonderful job, by the way, of putting the thing together. It's a lot
of work. But I agree with Commissioner Huckabay that these issues come up before us
all too often and it is difficult to address them to make sure that we don't go overboard,
but yet still try to satisfy the community, you know, and the people, which is why we are
here. So, it's been interesting how they put it all together and how the thing works and
we will walk the talk. So many times we are not, because of these issues that we see.
De Weerd: You're not walking the talk, Tom?
O'Brien: I hope I am. But they present problems, Madam Mayor, that make this
sometimes difficult to say no when they want to make a change, more so than what we
would like to. Changes to the Comprehensive Plan that leave some of these things --
and Ican't -- I don't have any specifics, but the time I have been here I have seen that
more often than not, I think, just to make sure that we are satisfying the needs of
consumer and citizens and also meet our needs as a city to make sure it grows
properly.
De Weerd: I guess that concems me if you feel uncomfortable saying no when you feel
that you should and I -- is that because you don't know if it's within your authority to do
so? Can we provide maybe better training and developing better tools to -- you know,
when I was on Planning and Zoning and certainly today, I mean if I want to say no I -- I
beg them to split the tie, so I can. But, obviously, if you don't feel you're voting for the
right reason -- you know, if it's because you don't feel you have the authority to do so,
we can work in helping to delineate that, but as a citizen commission, you know, you're
the citizen voice on what is right for our community and you have to weigh how it fits
with the UDC and the Comprehensive Plan, but also doing what's right.
O'Brien: I think you're correct there, Madam Mayor. I think -- I think a small example is
just consistency with -- within what we are trying to establish. There was a -- I forget the
Christian church on -- I think on Meridian Road between Overland and Victory, they
City Council -Planning & Zoning Joint Meeting /Workshop
September 30, 2008
Page 22 of 28
wanted to put electronic signage up there to announce when their services were going
to be and we at the Commission turned it down, because it wasn't consistent what we
had done in other places and so when it went through Council I noticed that they had to
change it, because now the electronic sign is up there. It's on the other --opposite side
of where we thought it was going to be and so those changes were made by Council.
So, that tells me that -- that either we are inconsistent or there is some other reason
why we allowed that particular thing to happen. ~ It's just an example, I think, of what I
have seen in the short time I have been a commissioner and that's kind of hard to say
what's the right thing to do and what's the wrong thing to do. I don't know. It's just a
place where I saw it happen, so --
Zaremba: I think along those lines -- and I struggled with some of those same things
when I was on the Commission. You're thinking, okay, here is somebody coming before
us that has property rights and they have followed -- what their bringing to us complies
with the Comprehensive Plan, they have followed the planning and zoning rules, now
the Unified Development Code, and I can think of a couple of times that I held my nose
and recommended yes to the Council. I thought the project stinked, but I said I e to
some extent thought it's up to the Council to make the decision is this the best interest
of the community, even if it meets all the rules. And I did feel that as a commissioner
that my priority was to see where it met the rules or not and, I don't know, maybe we
should get some input from Mr. Baird. If the Commission were faced with a project that
clearly stinks, but met all the rules, what liability does the city have for the property
owner to sue the city for not following our process or something like that?
Baird: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Members of the Commission, I'd hate to
give an opinion on a hypothetical, but what you have described is I think the way the
process should work, is that if somebody meets all the requirements, if there is a staff
recommendation for approval, and it is appropriate for the Commission to pass on it,
recommend it to you and when it gets to the City Council -- there are projects that are -
particularly with regard to annexation, we have seen that a lot, where it's not really up to
the Commission to say we are not ready to see this come into the city, to say this is
packaged up, everything is in order, and we are recommending it to you and, then, you
can make your decision. So, I don't see anything wrong with that. I don't think the
Commission should feel bad that their recommendations are sometimes overturned,
because a lot of times the applicant will make a change between Commission and
Council that makes it more palatable to you. So, we see those all the time. With
regards -- with regards to denial, staff is always good about pointing out when they
recommend denial and why and if there are some issues that are on the fence, those
are usually pointed out to the Commission, so if there is a desire to deny you have the
factors in front of you and I guess to get back to your original question, I wouldn't
recommend just denial without having any rationale for it. You have got to have a
reason, because we have got to make findings.
De Weerd: Well -- and, really, those, as you stated, are Council's purview to determine
those conditions or points of denial. But, you know, I know that the Council does take
into consideration what the Planning and Zoning Commission does and certainly if you
City Council -Planning & Zoning Joint Meeting /Workshop
September 30, 2008
Page 23 of 28 .
feel that it meets all the requirements, you have staff's recommendation for approval,
you still just don't feel good about it, even if you vote for it, you know, say -- you know,
one of the considerations I'd really like Council to discuss is this. You know, this -- this
does have me concerned and I would hope in the Council discussion that that can be
part of their consideration and, then, it gives us the heads up on what might not feel
right, but you don't feel it's enough to have a no vote on. It gives us that opportunity to
vet that and consider it in their consideration.
O'Brien: So, Madam Mayor, should it be part of the motion, then, is what you're saying,
these kinds of suggestions as well or -- I don't know how much it's read of the minutes
of the P&Z by the time it -- I'm not sure. So, sometimes maybe we don't put it in
specifically.
De Weerd: We like it at the end of your discussion, you know, that is really where I go
for the meat and to see what -- what all is there. But also staff does a really good job
when they -- when they bring the report to us, they talk about any concerns they had,
they talk about what -- what were the items that were of utmost discussion at the
Planning and Zoning Commission by the Commissioners and, then, they will say
outstanding issues still wanting to discuss. Mr. Moe.
Moe: Madam Mayor, I would say that I think that we -- overall that we have done a
great job, quite frankly, in working it in for voting purposes, we all give explanation as to,
you know, the opinions of the hearing and in more than one instance there have been
people that have not been real supportive of the project, but at the same time it does
meet conditions of the Comp Plan and, therefore, it's been put on record that although
they are not really there, but it does meet conditions, so, therefore, I am going to vote
yes and we do go through all Commissioners making comments and we go from there.
And just another point on denial, when we have set denial, one of the main things we
have been told many times by staff is that we are to give reasons as to why we are
denying and possibly solutions that they could do in order to overturn that before it
would come before you if, in fact, that's what they want and we have had a few
occasions like that.
De Weerd: And I will say those -- those comments are passed on. Anna.
Canning: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Members of the Commission, if you
do make a motion that's -- or if you add in your testimony: Staff, please, raise this as an
outstanding issue to Council, we certainly will get that up there. I wanted to not
overemphasize the staff report recommendation. We do those recommendations
without the benefit of any public hearing. You all need to remember that that's why
you're there to have that public hearing input. So, if there is something that comes up in
the public hearing that is really influencing your decision, then, that's fine, don't feel like
because it wasn't in the staff report you can't discuss that. I mean that's why you're
there. So, I just wanted to remind you all of the public testimony received and I know
you do, but it's just -- we don't know everything when we write the staff reports.
City Council -Planning & Zoning Joint Meeting /Workshop
September 30, 2008
Page 24 of 28
Zaremba: What?
De Weerd: It's really, truly, what I love about the public process. What you originally
see is much different by the time we see it and I think that says the process really
works.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor, on the sign issue with that church, I think I know that one very
well. That was -- you guys were dealing with an issue on Overland where a
development wanted to change a zoning to the highest -- what's the highest zoning you
can do for commercial? C-G. And the neighborhood was up in arms about that. To get
the sign for that property for the church it had to be rezoned C-G. It still had open space
and the neighborhood was just up in arms about that and that all got lumped together in
one meeting and you guys were faced with a difficult situation. By the time it got to
Council, completely turned around, because the church was willing to say, well,
anything that we do on this property we will come back and have approval and the
neighborhood said, oh, you just wanted a sign. Well, we aren't opposed to that. So, it
was acomplete -- complete turnabout what you had before you and what came before
the Council. So, that's one -- a good example of where those things changed -- those
dynamics change from your meeting to the council meeting, so --
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: That's the beauty of -- oh, speaking of beauty, Mr. Bird.
Bird: Thank you. Now you made me forget what I was going to say.
De Weerd: Oh, it's that easy?
Bird: Seriously, you guys -- I don't think you understand how important you are,
because when you give developers some suggestions, normally by the time they get to
us they have made those changes and I assure you that your minutes are read by this
Councilman very thoroughly. And I read from the start, unless David gets on a wild
tangent and gets talking too long, then, I might skip over some, but --
De Weerd: Now, this David --
Bird: I'm talking about this David over here.
Moe: I have seen his, too.
Zaremba: Shall we see who talks longer?
Bird: Anyway, it's very -- and, Wendy, I get frustrated, too, and I have seen this -- in 11
years I have seen this so often. A guy will come in, they want an R-8 or an R-40 or R-
15, but we are only going to put R-4s in. The next day Joe Blow Development has sold
it to Joe Blow, Junior, and next thing we know we got an R-40 in there and that's my
City Council -Planning & Zoning Joint Meeting /Workshop
September 30, 2008
Page 25 of 28
biggest frustration is -- and we caught a couple of them out.here on the south and the
Council has turned it down because of that. But you got -- you know, I don't think
density personally makes a community myself. That's my feeling. But you guys do a
good job, really appreciate it. You help us out.
Newton-Huckabay: Having thought my complaint or comment full circle through the
course of the conversation, I guess, ultimately, what I would be asking for from planning
staff is with so much influx in some of these areas, like north Meridian and, you know,
the Comprehensive Plan amendments coming through and -- I mean just like David was
saying, we have one coming up that the amendment isn't even -even signed off and
the redevelopment is coming through I think this week -- is maybe just some focus and
some reminder of what is going on around there in that undeveloped area. I know staff
in recent years has done a really good job of adding the plat, if it is platted -- you know,
that type of thing. That helps immensely in getting context, because a step up may be
appropriate or in the context it may not be appropriate, and you could very quickly -- if
changing one, then, changes the context of the whole area, potentially. And that's e
that's what I don't want to screw up, I guess, is making sure that at the end of the day it
still makes sense and it -- and the worst -- the worst thing about this for me as a
commissioner has been sometimes feeling like you're in this vacuum of information or a
bubble, because you are dealing with unknowns by design and you're in that -- you can't
change that and that's fine, but I think it -- it's been a lot of times I want to proceed with
caution and especially with what I feel is going to be a wave of development coming
through. I don't want to go --drive by something and go --
De Weerd: They will say that Planning and Zoning Commission approved that.
Zaremba: Yeah. We are starting to make them put your names on the signs out --
De Weerd: And your phone number.
Newton-Huckabay: That was Commissioner Newton-Huckabay. And so that's what I'm
looking at.
De Weerd: I know what you're saying and I think that, you know, the Council and staff
have even come to, you know, looking at having expiration dates on some of our
developments -- on our development applications, because they can -- recent
experiences probably Selway Apartments would be one of those examples that when it
came through as a planned community, we saw an entire picture. It made sense. We
didn't know how it would phased in, we didn't know how it would be communicated, we
didn't know it would be broken off and sold off and -- and that historical data and the
whole plan would not be known and does it make sense today? Well, maybe and
maybe not, but at some point things do change and I guess that's the greatest example
of what I can show is things do change and you have to apply them with what is built on
the ground and see will that benefit our community and will it be an asset to those
around it.
City Council -Planning 8 Zoning Joint Meetlng /Workshop
September 30, 2008
Page 26 of 28
Newton-Huckabay: I would think the expiration date is brilliant. That would solve,
actually, a lot of that, because if it expires, you're not coming in with your old
development and amending it, you're coming in with a whole new development based
on the land use designations of that property or annexation of the property and you
don't end up with situations like Selway, because the communities also, once buildings
are on the ground, it takes on a different aura and feel and energy and something that
makes sense on paper, may not make sense five years on down the road once that's
taken on that -- that people living in it. So, I think that would be - I think that would be
excellent, especially given the fact that we are looking at long range build outs now.
When you're building out in 24 months, pretty quick turn around to find out what it's
going to look like at the end.
De Weerd: And I can say it's just going to get more fun, Wendy, because you will have
in fill, you have .more people that surround the green fields and there is going to be
more eyes on it saying I don't know if I really like what the plan says and so you will
have more opportunities, I would imagine. Anything you want to add, Anna?
Canning: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Members of the Commission, plats
expire, CUs expire, DAs expire, so -- CUPs are 18 months, plats are two years, and
they get one time extension through for 18 months, but the time extensions go through
the City Council. I met with City Council a few months back to say I have got ten time
extensions in my office, what do you want me to do with these and they gave me some
guidelines on which ones to give a thumbs up on that and others to deny. So, some of
those plats that you have seen will die. Sometimes you're seeing one, Reflection Ridge
is coming back in and Cavenaugh Ridge, which they have already done a lot of the grub
work, they have put in curb, gutter and sidewalk for their first couple phases, so those --
portions of those are going to be pretty hard for them to change, because there is
already all the utilities in the ground. But other portions of it where they have just done
some grub work, you know, don't feel that that's anything to stop them from changing
that area, I guess, but -- you know.
De Weerd: It's a constant evolution of learning and I can say I'm very honored to serve
with a Commission like yourselves and this Council, because we admit we make
mistakes and we try not to make them twice. There is a value to lessons learned and
we have had plenty of lessons and I think the community gets better all the time
because of those. Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: Well, I probably could ask this later, but I was going to ask Director Canning
what is it that doesn't make an expiration? In other words, how much does somebody
have to do for a CUP not -- if they plant grass and mow it are they doing something on
the property that --
Canning: If it's under a Conditional Use Permit they are supposed to get their CZC and
obtain a building permit and get the foundation in the ground.
Zaremba: Okay. Within the 18 months.
City Council -Planning & Zoning Joint Meeting /Workshop
September 30, 2008
Page 27 of 28
Canning: We had one that they put all the site work in, you know, they put in a curb,
gutter, and all that kind of stuff, roads, but they didn't actually pick up their building
permits or put the foundation in. They certainly met the intent of proceeding on that
Conditional Use Permit, so that's what was intended. For conditional use permits they
do have to do a fair amount of work. For plats they have to get signed. So, you could
conceivably bond for everything and get signatures, but it has to be signed.
Zaremba: Thank you.
Hood: I will let everyone know when we look at those time extensions, even at the staff
level we have an opportunity at that point, if our codes have changed -- and it has been
a year and a half or three years or whatnot, we can have them bring that development
up to current code. That's one of our options. Case in point the multi-family
development here two years ago we required they cover their parking areas. That
development was approved in 2004 or '5 under a previous code and so we had them
make that change as part of their -- through the time extension and we even cover
some of that as a staff level sometimes to make sure we aren't vesting someone with
.some outdated code at the time to the UDC code, so we try to -- try to bring those up to
our current standards.
Canning: And we will be able to fold in the design review as well.
De Weerd: Any other comments? Well, thank you.
Newton-Huckabay: I'd get lynched if I made another comment, I think.
De Weerd: I don't know by who. By your fellow Commissioners?
Newton-Huckabay: Yeah. By Dave.
De Weerd: Mr. Chairman, you're a tough act, uh?
Moe: Man.
De Weerd: Well, thank you, Pete and Will and staff and we appreciate the
Commission's time. You get paid well for it I know. But thank you so much for
everything you do. You do a great job of getting a better product in front of this Council
and that's greatly appreciated. So, Council, if there is no further comments, I would
entertain a motion.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
City Council - Planning ~ Zoning Joint Meeting /Workshop
September 30, 2008
Page 28 of 28
Bird: I would echo your thoughts. I appreciate everything that you guys do, staff,
reorganization, Anna and I discussed this. I like it. And with that I'd move we adjoum
our special meeting.
Zaremba: Second.
De Weerd: Okay. I have a motion and a second to adjoum. All those in favor say aye.
And that was all ayes on behalf of the Commission as well.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
De Weerd: Thank you.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 6:28 P.M.
(AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
~ to /~/ D~ `,,,,,,,,,~-,,,,.,,,,,,,,,,,.
MAYOR TAMM De WEERD DATE APPROVED ,~•~ ~~ OF '%,
Fo
ATTEST:
JAYCEE . HOLMAN ~I ERK ~a~
,~
'% Q T ~s~ ~ ~~`
,,~~~,9~UAITY `~Q,\`~~~.
''',~~~4~nn n~~~N~~`,```