HomeMy WebLinkAbout2007-11-20 pre
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MERIDIAN CITY COUNCIL
PRE-COUNCIL MEETING
AGENDA
Tuesday, November 20, 2007 at 5:00 p.m.
City Council Chambers
33 East Idaho Avenue, Meridian, Idaho
`Although the City of Meridian no longer requires sworn testimony,
all presentations before the Mayor and City Council are expected
to be truthful and honest to best of the ability of the presenter."
1. Roll-call Attendance:
David Zaremba ~ Joe Borton
Charlie Rountree ~ Keith Bird
Mayor Tammy de Weerd
2. Adoption of the Agenda: a~h9 v~C,
3. Review of City Council Questions Regarding Downtown
Development:
4. Executive Session per Idaho State Code 67-2345(1)(a) - (to consider
hiring a public officer, employee, staff member or individual agent, not to
include. This paragraph does not apply to filling a vacancy in an elective
office) & (f) - (to consider and advise its legal representatives in pending
litigation):
* Approximate allowable time set for agenda item may change depending
on the discussion. Please use the designated minutes as a guideline only.
Meridian City Council Pre-Council Meeting Agenda -November 20, 2007 Page 1 of 1
All materials presented at public meetings shall become property of the City of Meridian.
Anyone desiring accommodation for disabilities related to documents and/or hearing,
please contact the City Clerk's Office at 888-4433 at least 48 hours prior to the public meeting.
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NOTICE OF PRE-COUNCIL MEETING
MERIDIAN CITY COUNCIL
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the City Council of the City of
Meridian will hold aPre-Council Meeting at City Council Chambers,
Meridian City Hall, 33 East Idaho Avenue, Meridian, Idaho, on
Tuesday, November 20, 2007 at 5:00 P.M. The Meridian City Council
will be discussing the following agenda items:
MayorTammy de Weerd
City Council Members:
Keith Bird
Joe Gorton
Charles Rountree
David Zaremba
Review of City Council Questions Regarding Downtown
Development
Executive Session per Idaho State Code 67-2345(1)(a}&(f}:
The public is welcome to attend the meeting.
DATED this 16th day of November,
WILLIAM G. BERG, J
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Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting Agenda -November 20, 2007 Page 1 of 1
All materials presented at public meetings shall become property of the City of Meridian.
Anyone desiring accommodation for disabilities related to documents and/or hearings,
please contact the City Clerk's Office at 888-4433 at least 48 hours prior to the public meeting.
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MayorTammy de Weerd
City Council Members:
Keith Bird
Joe Borton
Charles Rountree
David Zaremba
NOTICE OF PRE-COWVCIL MEETING
MERIDIAN CITY COUNCIL
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the City Council of the City of
Meridian will hold aPre-Council Meeting at City Council Chambers,
Meridian City Hall, 33 East Idaho Avenue, Meridian, Idaho, on
Tuesday, November 20, 2007 at 5:00 P.M. The Meridian City Council
will be discussing the following agenda items:
Review of City Council Questions Regarding Downtown
Development
Executive Session per Idaho State Code 67-2345(9)(a)&(f):
The public is welcome to attend the meeting.
DATED this 16th day of November,
WILLIAM G.
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Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting Agenda -November 20, 2007 Page 1 of 1
All materials presented at public meetings shall become properly of the City of Meridian.
Anyone desiring accommodation for disabilities related to documents and/or hearings,
please contact the City Clerk's Office at 888-4433 at least 48 hours prior to the public meeting.
Meridian Citv Pre-Council Meeting November 20, 2007
The Meridian City Pre-Council meeting was called to order at 5:00 P.M. on
Tuesday, November 20, 2007 by President Councilman Joe Borton.
Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Keith Bird, David Zaremba, Charlie
Rountree and Joe Borton.
Staff Present: Ron Anderson, Elroy Huff, Anna Canning, Pete Friedman, Len
Grady, Stacy Kilchenmann, Bob Stowe, Ted Baird, Shaun Wardle and Will Berg.
Item 1. Roll-call Attendance:
Roll call.
X David Zaremba X Joe Borton
X Charlie Rountree X Keith Bird
X Mayor Tammy de Weerd
Item 2. Adoption of the Agenda:
Bird: Mr. President.
Borton: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move we adopt the agenda as published.
Zaremba: Second.
Borton: I have a motion and second to adopt the agenda as published. All those
in favor say aye.
ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED.
Item 3. Review of City Council Questions Regarding Downtown
Development:
Borton: -- policy decisions - my understanding then is there is going to be then
follow up meetings, with I believe, MDC and really flush out and make sure we
are all on the same page. I will tum it over to Mayor De Weerd to get that
discussion started.
De Weerd: Thank you. Council I guess what we wanted to do is get some of the
questions that were identified by each of the departments in front of you so you
had an opportunity to look and consider them before we had the workshop. So,
hopefully you had an opportunity to look them over and have some thoughts so
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we can have a meaningful dialogue. We wanted to do this with you all first
before we had a joint meeting with MDC so we could better flush out some of the
areas based on maybe what this discussion leads us to. So with that being said,
I will - I will turn it over to Anna. Is Len on first?
Grady: Madame Mayor and Members of the Council I am first, but I guess we
just go right into the questions. I don't have too much more to -
De Weerd: Anna did you perhaps bring that map that you had created for the
growth? Len, I think you have one as well.
Grady: I can certainly show the downtown sewer if that is of interest. I brought it
on a thumb drive.
De Weerd: I will give a copy of mine to the Clerk and he can make copies for
Council. Do you want this land use one too?
Berg: Sure.
De Weerd: And get one for Shaun as well. I think Shaun you have already seen
those. Len if you want to go ahead and start while he is getting that?
Grady: I can certainly give an update from the Public Works perspective of
where we are to date. We have done a rough assessment of the sewer
downtown and needless to say it was designed for residential uses. It is not
going to be adequate for large buildings, large condos or that type of stuff. In an
effort to try and understand how we should move forward with upgrading that
system, we met with Shaun and got an idea of where he thought our first phase
of development would begin downtown and Anna can you zoom in on that black
box there?
Rountree: Len, before we lose that image can you define what you are calling
downtown?
Grady: Basically the yellow outside area, the yellow shading is what I am calling
downtown. Understanding early on that we provide all of the sewer for all of the
future development up front, we have to figure out how to prioritize where we
spend our future money. Again, we met with Shaun from MDC and decided that
that black box there would be a good start for what a phase one would look like
and it just so happens that we have just run an 18 inch sewer line right through
the gut of that. We believe we have capacity to feed that or to serve that phase
one and again I am talking sewer -water is not nearly as big of an issue as
sewer. That is what brought me to the first couple of questions is where do we
go from here? Where do we figure our next development is going to be so that
Public Works can anticipate and get sewer and water services ahead of time?
Probably as important is realizing that we are going to be spending a lot of
•
money downtown and how do we fund those future upgrades? Probably
considerably more expensive to come in and replace a sewer than to put it in
green field; you know it is virtually double the cost of being able to just go in and
provide sewer. You have got to go in and take the old sewer out; a lot of times
we are finding it is in alleys and even in some cases in an area where we don't
have an easement. So that is where we are looking for guidance is those types
of questions.
Bird: Mr. President.
Borton: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Len, haven't we in the past put a sleeve in downtown sewer lines? Has
that been - is that sufficient or -
Grady: Madame Mayor and Council Members we had a test project that was a
pipe bursting project where they basically burst the existing pipe and drug a new
one through. That technology has come a long way and recently we believe that
that could be quite successful. In fact, we are in the process of putting together
sort of a pilot program to do one of the lines downtown. One of the lines that we
know would be leaking a lot of water, a lot of these are gushing groundwater so
we are actually going to go in and do a test project to see if we can do it
successfully and at the same time fix the problem.
Bird: Mr. President, follow up. Len in that process we don't disrupt the areas
much, do we? I mean, we have got a beginning and ending hole. Isn't that it?
We don't have to dig between or anything?
Grady: You are exactly correct. As far as lack of being able to do stuff
downtown, it is about as un-intrusive as you can get.
Bird: Is it double the cost of laying the new sewer in?
Grady: In that particular case if you can successfully pipe burst or sleeve line,
slip line it wouldn't be double the cost.
Bird: Thanks, Len.
De Weerd: Mr. President.
Borton: Madame Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess the bottom line comes down to the reason why some of
these questions are in front of you today is we realize that as the downtown
redevelops there is going to be a huge need for rebuilding the downtown
infrastructure. We want to be proactive so that it is not the first one in doesn't do
anything and the last one in or from midpoint on makes up for everything we lost
in the meantime. It is either that or it's having the dialogue now saying because
redevelopment in Old Town is a priority that perhaps the cost is also applied out
to the Green Field areas and that differential and that disincentive to redevelop
downtown is equally applied so that it turns out that it is a shared cost. Those
are some of the fundamentals. Then what we came up to in the Planning
Department is does the vision that it is in the design standards capture the vision
in the marketing plan and what MDC is doing and the vision of the Council or has
things changed that is going to impact them, the infrastructure that if you develop
one block at some of the heights and densities we have heard might be possible,
that one project might take the entire infrastructure or sewer capacity just in one
or two projects and so those are kind of the bottom line questions that probably
both Len and Anna are going to be focusing on so that as we get a vision for that
downtown, we can better anticipate the services that are going to be needed,
capacity, demands and how we can pay for the needed infrastructure. I guess
that is kind of a lot of it in a nutshell.
Zaremba: Mr. President.
Borton: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I think a comment for the sense of how I feel, I am very much in favor
of always thinking bigger and based on more than 50 years of traveling around
the country and seeing the transition that happens in a lot of cities as they have
gone from smaller to bigger and bigger - as I say, I am old enough that I can
recognize what it looked like 50 years ago and what it looks like now in a lot of
places around the country and those that were thinking bigger 50 years ago are
in much better shape now than those that thought they weren't going to have
large buildings or just assumed that it would stay similar to the way it is now. My
feeling is that if we want to be the economic center of the Treasure Valley there
are some places in the city where we need to think and this partially goes to one
of the Fire Department questions, too, and you may not like my answer, but you
begin with standing say in a forth floor room at St. Luke's Hospital and looking at
the view that they see from there, developers are going to realize that in spite of
the cost of building up, they are going to realize that the view that you get from
the higher floors they can sell or lease for more than it cost them to build up and I
see the area around St. Luke's; I see much of our downtown area as having the
possibility of having those taller buildings and it would be my hope that we enable
that. I particularly would like to see many of the vertical integrations that they call
it where you have retail first floor, office or parking second floor and residential
above that. I know the one project that I am familiar with that has come to us on
this Shell property was very well received. Nothing has happened with it since it
was approved, but I could see a lot of those things happening and much more
than that three story. I could see some tall buildings and I personally would like
to enable them and therefore, we need to build the infrastructure for them.
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De Weerd: I think that the Chief is glad to hear that because his guys want a
ladder truck.
Rountree: Mr. President.
Borton: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: Based on what the Mayor was saying in terms of how we got to the
questions, I have nothing in the way of information that would make me want to
stray from where we already have been and the plans that we have in place. I
haven't heard anything from MDC that the market has changed and wants to go
a different direction in downtown and haven't been appraised of anything else
locally that -other some issues with one way streets and those sorts of things,
but the downtown itself and the goals that identified in the planning that was
done, the marketing information that was put together, the current zoning that we
have for Old Town and downtown. I don't have any information to make me say
this is not the direction we need to go and we need to change it. As far as
infrastructure and the sewer, I think we all knew that there were problems with
infrastructure. The difficulty I have is okay, we have problems, but - I don't need
to engineer a solution. What I need is okay, here are the things that solve our
problems in the various areas of the city and in terms of the question of where
are we going to phase this or whose crystal ball are we going to look into to see
where the development is going to go, I would have to just mirror that back to say
well, we have got two choices in the city. We can guess and invest some money
and hope we guess right or we can let the market tell us where that development
is going to be and try to put some incentives together in terms of policy to make
that happen, so we are going to accommodate the growth that is accommodated
by our plan. I can't tell from the sewer map up there how much it is going to cost
to go where, which way we are going to take it whether it is all new line or
whether we pull pipe to fix what we have got or any of those things. So I am
hesitant to say well, in my mind we are going to grow from the railroad track to
Pine. That is where we need -that is some in and some out of the little black
box there. I guess the (inaudible) with the black box goes on the other side of
the railroad track -well let's say from Franklin to Pine. With the first phase it is
your little black box, now what do we need and what does that cost? In knowing
that then we can figure out a strategy to establish an incentive for development to
occur there. We will put it in place first. We will co-venture it. We will reduce
your hook up fees, whatever it takes to get that to happen or do we wait for
somebody to come down in that area and say we want to develop, we are a year
out. We are talking to MDC. Is the city willing to invest in that part of the city to
make it happen? I wish I had a crystal ball. I would say yeah, we are going to
grow right there and that is where we need to extend or redo the trunk and invest
several million dollars and low and behold the development comes. I guess the
bottom line is I don't see anything wrong with the plan we have in place. I think
we ought to do whatever we can to move to try and implement that plan and if
implementation is a plan is pushed back by what we are hearing from the
Economic Development people then that is when we take a look at maybe we
need to rethink the plan. That is kind of a lot of a round-a-bout way saying I don't
know.
Bird: Mr. President.
Borton: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Charlie hit upon a lot of good deals and I wish we all had a crystal ball that
we could look into and figure out what is going to go where and how it is going to
go and how soon it is going to go. I believe we do need a plan, but I think it has
got to be flexible enough to meet the market place too. I for one, like you David,
that is why I would have liked to seen the City Hall go one more story, but it
didn't. I want to see some five, six story buildings down here. So I think we do
need to work on a plan, but I don't think we lay it in concrete and I know that is
tough with an empty infrastructure, but I think you can be flexible at that point too
and I guess, I am like Charlie if we have to put money up front to get people
down here, it won't be the first time we have put money up front. I think the
market is going to tell us what get down here and what we don't.
Grady: Mr. President and Members of Council both of those comments are
eluding to how complicating the problem is. If you look at it as an entire project
and try to solve it all, you can't. So you have to break it into smaller pieces like
we have done. If Council would like us to expand that area and, for example,
come up with another priority area then we can begin looking at what it takes to
supply the services for that. Again, reminding Council that our cash flow is not
quite what it used to be. If we had the money we had five years ago, we
probably could go in and do a mass program and put some large trunks in certain
areas, but I think at this point and time we really have to be frugal and make sure
that the money that we are investing is where it needs to be and probably sized.
Rountree: Mr. President.
Borton: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: Len, maybe I didn't hear you right, but on the first phase you talked
about we have a new 18 inch in there and we are going to take care of that.
Grady: You are correct that we have an 18 inch; unfortunately it is in yellow and
right through the gut of that - so we are okay.
Rountree: We are okay in that area and I am okay with that as being a priority
area. In answering your question in terms of me and priority, my next priority
would be to go to Franklin from that point, personally. I would like to see that part
of town fixed up. In terms of your first question, do we implore the additional fee
for downtown to increase capacity? I think we structure the fee maybe in that
area different than we have fee structures in other places to pay for the capacity
that is used up and the cost of replacing that capacity. If it is twice a hook up fee
for downtown verses what it is out of town then that is the hook up fee. Then we
have got to figure out how to make people come downtown some other way,
maybe speed up the process, maybe have them reimbursed over time as we
gather funds in that area. I don't know, but we have to generate funds from the
development in order to advance the improvements in the other parts of
downtown and I am not opposed to putting some of the city's money there if we
have it as an incentive to get the development to occur. If the first development
takes up all of the capacity, which it doesn't sound like it will at least in this phase
one; at least we have an area where we can raise some funds.
Grady: Correct.
Rountree: Now if somebody wants to come down and do a multi-story building
south of the railroad tracks, then they probably can't anyway because we don't
have the infrastructure even for them to use up, let alone - so if you want to do it
there you are going to have to provide the infrastructure and we will have to
compensate you as the development occurs. Anna is about ready to pop.
Canning: And Stacy after me. President Borton thank you and Members of the
Council and Mayor. I think one of the questions that we have had - we have had
this hint of having an adequate public facilities ordinance coming out of Blue Print
for Good Growth for what, three years now? It seems to be getting closer, but
one of the things that we could look at as part of that adequate public facilities is
structuring rates such that Green Field development because it is new lines and
new services capacity added to the existing system would pay an increase fee
over stuff that is already there and that would help to support some of the
financing needed to replace the infrastructure within the Old Town. Is that even a
route that Council is willing to consider? It has been done successfully in other
communities. It is a little different mind set than you are used to though. That
was one of the big questions with regard to that financing that we had.
Rountree: Mr. President.
Borton: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: I guess my comment on that is it is no different than the School
District's bonding for maintenance for old schools that were built 75 years ago or
50 years ago or 20 years ago. Somehow we have to get a revenue stream to
maintain some of that old system where there was never any revenue stream
built into our fees to accommodate them and it was never thought of. Essentially,
I believe Old Town, other than it is in our city limits is probably no different than
Kentucky Ridge the place south of us, other than we own them; and we need to
figure out how to -even if it doesn't develop it is going to have to be improved
and it saves us money if we do improve it in terms of -you know, if we have got
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groundwater flooding into the sewer system, it costs as much to treat that as it
does wastewater from someplace else. We eliminate that, it is going to save us
money in the long run. I am not opposed to that approach. I suspect some
others might be.
Zaremba: Mr. President.
Borton: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: It is a tough question. We need to adequately fund what we need to
build and we don't want that adequate funding to chase away development. I
don't know the answer to that. What I actually was going to do was throw
another monkey wrench in by asking another question. Later in our questions
and I think it is in the planning area there is a question of the Council's sense of
whether we are willing to give up alleys and it applies here. My first instinct is
yes, in my opinion we need to attract bigger buildings then there are some alleys
that have to go. That brings me to the question that I had never thought of
before. Are there sewer and water lines in the alleys and is that not going to
work? If we are redesigning the system and we get rid of some of the alleys
what happens?
Grady: Councilman Zaremba we would then have to move it out to the street.
Expensive, but doable. The types of projects that Councilman Bird was talking
about where you go in and basically replace in place, don't apply so you know
you are probably talking the door to magnitude double what a green field line
would cost. It is expensive but certainly doable.
Rountree: Mr. President.
Borton: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: I have a question for Len or Anna, either one or maybe you can take
the question and run with it someplace else. But, are there any grants available
for wastewater - oh, Stacy has got the answer -for wastewater system
improvements?
Kilchenmann: What I did as my part of the project was to look at funding
possibilities. The reason I think this is also crucial is because we don't have the
money available. Right now we have maybe $4 million in enterprise fund that is
not committed. So we really are going to have to look at outside funding, most
likely. There is - it is the State Drinking Water Revolving Fund and they have
both a loan fund and a grant program. I think the grant programs tend to go
more to small, really impoverished kind of - we probably wouldn't be able to do
that, but we probably could get something through that loan fund. They are
small, they only have like $38 million available overall and the repayment is at a
low interest rate, so I think we could probably qualify for that. The other main
vehicle available to us is the revenue bond and that we would have to have a
vote of simple majority and we would have to definitely change our fee base so
that we -because we have to show that we can repay the bonds through our
operating income. The other vehicle and there is a couple of things that I -once
we issue the bonds the State has a program that you probably know about that
they open to cities and then the other vehicle is MDC financing and MDC's are
really the way that you can do the financing without doing the vote.
Rountree: One other possibility, I suppose in that scenario would be an LID.
Kilchenmann: Yes.
Rountree: And again that is based on a vote, but at least -
Kilchenmann: It is a smaller area.
Rountree: It is a smaller area and it could be staged in such a way as that the
LID covers the cost of fixing the infrastructure and some other funding
mechanism comes into place to increase the capacity.
Kilchenmann: I think you have to make sure everybody knows and has a chance
to come to a public hearing, but I think the Council can actually impose that
without a vote. Bill can correct me if I am wrong on that, but I think you can from
what I read in the state statute.
Rountree: Once anyway.
Kilchenmann: Yeah and the downside, of course, is the collection and then
impact fees and like Anna and you were talking about.
Rountree: Are there any programs through, say EPA or some foundations that
are geared towards public - I mean private? Like a developer could or a group
of developers could go forth and get funding from the American Friends for - or
whatever, you know?
Kilchenmann: I didn't look at how private corporations would do it. The problem
with the government is almost every kind of debt comes back down to having to
vote on it, having a public vote. I am sure they do. I am sure if you look at all of
the cities that have infrastructure that has to be redeveloped there have to
mechanisms out there where private enterprise some how goes in and does that.
De Weerd: Mr. President.
Borton: Madame Mayor.
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De Weerd: Why don't we have each of the departments walk through these
questions and then have the general dialogue after they have had a chance to
maybe explain each of their questions and some of the -maybe what they are
seeking. Sound like a plan?
Borton: Sounds good. Chief Anderson?
Anderson: Well this is a complicated issue and I know that it is something that
the city has been struggling with for a long time and having sat in your seats and
being on the MDC for a while and then as a staff member it kind of gives me a
different perspective, but I know that it is a strong desire on the part of the city to
see our downtown core area redevelop. Now having said that, we all need to
understand too that typically to redevelop something or to even refurbish an older
building typically cost more money than going out and building a building from
scratch or going out to Green Field because you have to tear out old and then
you have got to try and make the new fit into that. We have some lofty goals that
we have talked about. You know we talked about having a downtown core that
has entertainment and restaurants and is pedestrian friendly and all those kinds
of things, so we have put a lot of fluffy language in there that makes us feel good
and now we are getting to the point where we are actually starting to hear
different projects that may be proposed. I think when we look at them now and
we start to see some of the nuts and bolts, the staff was saying, wait a minute
does that really fit in with what everybody is talking about? I know that the Mayor
and Council probably have one vision of what downtown is. The MDC probably
has another vision and staff has a completely entire different vision and I guess
what we would like to try to find out as staff is how well all of those visions mesh
together. I have heard, just listening to the comments already tonight,
Councilman Zaremba talking about he wouldn't mind seeing a tall building like
you have out by St. Luke's and they are talking about 112 story building and then
I heard Councilman Bird -
De Weerd: A 112 story?
Rountree: A 112 feet.
Anderson: Oh, 112 feet, not story. Then I heard Councilman Bird talk about he
wouldn't mind seeing buildings in the four and five story range and some of the
staff are thinking three and four stories, so when we really start to talk nuts and
bolts, I am not sure how well we actually mesh. I remember several times when I
sat on the MDC Board and somebody came before us and said what is your
vision for Meridian and we would say go talk to the Mayor. So it was the Mayor's
vision and so -
De Weerd: And that is the right one.
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Anderson: I am not sure what everybody's vision is and how well that fits. So I
guess what we are trying to figure out is when we say that we want to do all of
these wonderful things downtown and we want to protect our heritage and all of
those kinds of things, staff is saying okay so if somebody walks in the door
tomorrow and presents a ten story building that is all glass, Keith would like that;
but does that fit with what everybody's vision is? Does that respect our heritage?
Does it trample on the other businesses or the homes that are going to be in that
downtown area? For the Fire Department some of the questions we are asking
is do you want to have a maximum height? We don't personally care whether
you have a maximum height or not, but we want to know so that when those
developers come to us with their projects, we can tell them here is what we have
all sat down and agreed to. The elected officials, the MDC and the staff and we
are going to be the first people that they hit with those projects, typically, so we
want to know what answers we ought to be able to give them. So is there a
building height? Do we want to vacate alleys? Some of the visions say no, we
want to keep the alleys, keep the water and sewer in the alleys. Well, we have
already been talked to on a couple of projects because they want a bigger
footprint on the building and they want to vacate that because that is valuable
land. The other thing to keep in mind is as we vacate some of those alleys, we
are going to give up access points to some of those buildings. So we may have
to be a little bit stricter in our code. We may have to require the fire sprinkling of
some buildings that normally would not be required to be sprinkled just because
we don't have the access and those same developers are going to be the first
people that run to you as the elected officials and say they are making me
sprinkle this building and it is not in the code and we need to know are you going
to support us on those kinds of issues. So there are a lot of complicated issues.
When people really start to bring the projects forward to us that we need your
guidance and your direction on so that we can provide those answers to the
people as they come. As has been pointed out already by Stacy, Len, Anna and
others that we have got a limited capacity in the downtown area right now, so if
some of those projects that come forward eat up all of that capacity we can
develop a couple of blocks right now, what do you want us to tell the guy who
walks in here next month and is at the other end of the road and we have no
capacity? That he has to pay for whatever has to be done? Those are the
questions that we are asking of you guys and they are tough questions and I
realize nobody has a crystal ball, nobody knows what projects are going to walk
into the door next month. But, I think if we could, I guess, put our heads together
and come up with some collective guidelines that you would like us to follow, that
would be helpful forme and my staff.
De Weerd: I think he has covered all the questions.
Rountree: Mr. President.
Borton: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: Some of the guidelines you are seeking I see in front of me on August
2007 in terms of what do we want in downtown? What we have agreed to for
building heights and stories? So that seems to me that at least you have a basis
for looking at that, right wrong or different it is on paper. In terms of the alleys, it
seems to me that if somebody wants to vacate an alley to get a footprint for it
then they pick up the tab to relocate whatever utilities are in it and if that causes
an issue with the Fire Department part of that vacation is they agree to do
whatever fire sprinkling or access as required. Hopefully we can get on top these
things with the help of staff when the final decisions are made and not just babble
around on these things and get ourselves in a mess. If the standards that we
have set, the design guides that we have, if the number of stories that we have
that are in the plans now and somebody wants to deviate from them, it seems to
me that that is a variant situation with some discretion that is given the staff they
can make decisions based on the discretion that they have. If they are not
comfortable with that they bring it to Council. I guess if we get tired of seeing
stuff week after week after week, we will either change policy or we will start
saying no or yes or whatever it is to take to remedy it. But, I am hoping that we
are not that unclear as to where we want to go and again I go back to my first
comment, I think I am perfectly comfortable with what we have on the books now
as far as Old Town and downtown redevelopment. How we accomplish it, how
we pay for it, how we use up to capacity are all challenging problems. Ron if
somebody comes in and puts in two buildings downtown and uses up the
capacity and there is a guy a week later that says I want to do this wiz bang deal,
we have to say we would love to have you, but we have no capacity and we
won't have any capacity until this date? Can you wait that long? No? Well, then
you are going to have to provide that capacity. But, the people that used up the
capacity, I believe are going to have to of compensated the city appropriately for
their portion of what that infrastructure is going to cost for that whole area.
Again, that gets to the comment that Anna made about maybe the incentive is
that a little higher fee in the Green Fields development goes towards that. But,
nobody said this was easy.
Anderson: Councilman Rountree, you bring up some good points and I can't
speak for Len, but I guess the direction that we are trying to hopefully get from
you guys is we have thrown out a lot of options about raising the fee in that area,
LID's and all those kinds of things. I guess we need to at some point decide
what direction we are going to go on those kinds of things so that we can have
an answer for those people other than we used up the capacity, we have got no
additional funding or no remedy so you are just out of luck.
Rountree: Well, hopefully when we are in that situation, our response is we have
no more capacity and we don't know how we are going to get more. You are
right we need a plan in place and we need to be on the same verse.
Zaremba: Mr. President.
Borton: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: Maybe this is a philosophy comment. I don't consider myself to be an
expert on any of these subjects. I am vaguely familiar with some of them. I have
been around the country and seen the results, but not the nuts and bolts. I am
much more comfortable believing that our Department Directors and their staffs
are the experts on these things. Frankly, I would rather have you tell us or at
least me. I am not speaking for everybody -tell me what we ought to be doing
and if at some point you bring something that say well, "a" and "b" are equal then
okay I will express my opinion on whether I like "a" or "b" better, but I would
rather depend on our professional experts, which is not me, to steer us. I don't
know if that is a popular opinion or not, but if I am going to be a judgment in, it
would be between equal choices that you can't decide on, but I still would like to
be guided. Just a philosophy.
Rountree: Mr. President.
Borton: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: This is fun. Dave's point - I am more than confident in our city staff.
They are knowledgeable. They know what needs to be done and it is not that
they don't take everything as a holistic view, but they are saying what needs to
be done for their particular charge and I do not believe that the people who
elected us, the few that came out to vote, expect us to raise their taxes to
accommodate all of the needs the city has that are brought forth by our staff. I
hope the staff doesn't feel that they have got to cheap down what it is we need.
They need to tell us what their professional opinion is and say this is what we
need. It is our job to balance our revenues against that need. So I don't think we
can shirk that duty and yeah we probably going to upset a staff person or two
occasionally because they feel strongly that they need something. But, we feel
strongly that there is only so many dollars coming to the city. Now that is no
different than trying to balance your checkbook around Christmas time.
De Weerd: Mr. President.
Borton: Madame Mayor.
De Weerd: Since Elroy is not here why don't we jump to Anna.
Canning: Thank you, Mr. President, Madame Mayor and I am still waiting for my
electric vehicle by the way with regard to budget cuts. Oh, Mr. Bird is not even
listening to my jab.
De Weerd: You know I was at a conference and we saw several communities
policing their downtown with Segways. Policemen on Segways. It was funny.
•
Canning: I had a number of just observations. I think some of these are a little
easier, I think, than the larger concepts we have been talking about. With regard
to the - I think when the downtown design guidelines were developed and when
the marketing strategy was going forward, I think we all anticipated Main Street to
kind of be the focus of that downtown core and from the conversations that the
MDC Directors have had, there seems to be a desire to kind of shift that focus to
2"d Street instead of Main Street just because of lower traffic volumes, you can
get it to be a little more pedestrian friendly. I think that - a little bit easier to buy
up those properties is probably a part of it as well. So it begs the question if that
emphasis is going to shift over a block, do you want to do something in the block
between Main and Meridian and I think that one of the big questions is do you
maybe want to see heights a little higher there? What had been anticipated that
that block is in the downtown historic core and those were always anticipated at
three to four stories; close to the rail line, we are anticipated to be higher,
perhaps five or six. Now the Old Town designation would allow five to six
because it does have a 75 foot height limit, so some of these questions I am
asking you we can fold into the design guidelines as we refine them. That was
one question that I had and then the other one is with regard to these existing
homes along Main Street, in particular; also to some extent on Meridian. Some
of the developers, are picking up those homes and converting them into the
offices that have that old home look to them. Others are removing the houses
from them; just raising them and building new structures. There was some
concern expressed by Council Members about that happening, but I can't find
anything in the plan that talks about trying to save those houses. But, again we
can write that into the design guidelines, if that is something we are trying to
achieve is to have those houses stay there for the time being as converted to
offices, where possible.
(Tape turned over)
Canning: -- and then I have a question about the parking issues associated with
City Hall, but I think that Mr. Baird and Mr. Wardle are working hard on that so
perhaps that is not a question for tonight. I am just glad that they are doing it
because I wrote that I can't give occupancy until the issue is addressed and I
don't want to be the one holding up occupancy for City Hall. Then just the
general questions -are six and seven foot tall story buildings along the rail
corridor desirable? They would probably require a Conditional Use Permit for a
higher building. It is not a variance any longer, so it is not your decision; it is
Planning and Zoning's decision to allow the taller buildings. So I need some
guidance so that I can provide the Planning and Zoning Commission guidance on
that as well. The area bounded by the McFadden piece up to Fairview and from
3~d to Meridian, in particular has some unusual transportation and sewer
problems. One of the questions we had is that something we should look at
trying to get funding for a specific plan that really tries to address all of those
issues at one time, tie them all together? I agree that sometimes I think we have
studied this area to death, but it would be to facilitate development in trying to get
those issues resolved, but in particular that seems to be a tricky one and perhaps
would be better to wait until we have the results of the 3~d Street extension, but all
of those issues clearly tie together with one another. Then I think that the answer
to alleys has already been put forth if you all agree to it. It sounds like it is okay
to vacate alleys, but it is up to the developer to work on it. We are not going to
go pre-vacate them for them. They can propose it on their own is what I heard.
De Weerd: Mr. President.
Borton: Madame Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess with that, though and maybe this is definitely one of the
questions to specifically identify in our joint meeting with MDC is where would
they consider the vacation of the alley ways, so Len's department knows you
have to go down the road and where they would want the alleys preserved
because you can't put a sewer line down one alley and then take it to the road
and then move it back to the alley and we just have to make firm decisions now
on where those need to be in the road verses where they can stay in the alleys.
That definitely is going to be one of those discussion points. You can't zigzag
can you?
Zaremba: Mr. President.
Borton: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: On some of these questions I think I have already tipped my hand. I
have a question on the six and seven story buildings and I think there is going to
be a point where the developers - I think that that would be profitable for them to
do and I am in support of that if the market drives it. The one comment I would
have on that and I remember the discussion, while we were writing the Unified
Development Code, but I don't remember what the result was. At the time I had
just been to San Diego, where they have a requirement that above three stories
the building can't be square and it can't match the building next to it in shape so
that there is variety and during the discussion I proposed that any building that
was taller than two stories that those sections had to have a design review and
there would be some rules to it and I don't remember. I don't think that got into
the MDC that was just my opinion at the time, but I would like to propose that
again that if the majority of the buildings are not that tall and particularly as we go
through transitioning, if they are ever that tall. Right now they are not that tall
and as we go through transition, even though I am in favor of taller buildings they
will stick out like a sore thumb and be very unattractive from miles and miles
away, if we don't have some design guidelines for at least the upper floors,
where they would be visible and I say from the second floor up, third floor up not
counting the second floor. Any tall buildings now are going to be very noticeable
and I think we should have some pretty strict design guidelines. Obviously, we
have to have strict fire guidelines and Public Works guidelines, but I think there
~ !
should be some strict design guidelines and with that being said, I am in favor of
them being tall.
Anderson: Mr. Chairman I would be remiss if I didn't bring to your attention and I
forgot it was in my questions, but one of the things that I did want to make sure
that you guys made a conscious decision that you want to do this is locating the
greater densities, the higher buildings right next to the railroad tracks and the
reason I bring that to your attention is a lot of bigger cities they are centered near
transportation corridors, meaning subways and railroads and things like that, but
in this case and at some point in the future that may change and it may have a
commuter type of transportation, but there are still a lot of commodities that are
shipped up and down that railroad, including propane tanks and everything else;
so when you locate seven story buildings next to those types of things and they
ever have a problem and believe me I have been on a few train derailments in
my time being right next to high rise buildings is going to significantly tax, not only
our Police and Fire Departments, but every Police and Fire Department in this
Valley trying to get people away from those. I think it is important that you have
the population densities near transportation corridors, but do you need to put
them right on top of it? I mean, literally a hundred feet from that? Could they be
a block or two away and still have good access to those transportation comdors?
So I wanted to bring that issue up too.
De Weerd: Because we need to design by the Fire Department. Just kidding
Ron.
Borton: Madame Mayor, Elroy is here from Parks. Come on up and give us your
questions and input.
Rountree: We didn't answer Anna's.
De Weerd: Let's get through our questions and then have the full discussion.
Huff: President Borton and Members of the Council and Mayor, Steve and I
bounced these questions around quite a bit about the downtown vision and the
variety of parks and open space that should be down in there as this starts to
develop. Steve is very concerned and I am too about how do we make sure that
all of this -that there is some green space and open space down in here and
where is that going to be and some things like that. We don't know how you
guys feel about that, but we feel very strongly about it. Also that Christmas tree
lighting thing, which we helped change that a little bit this year and we are going
to gain some open space or gain some ground on that. We are going to try and
make that a little bit bigger. Do we keep having it there at that venue or do we
have to move somewhere else? Just some things like that. There is some
property in the downtown -the McFadden property is down there and we have
been kind of looking at that. I have been looking at that ever since I got here and
it is just off that side, but it could be part of that comdor or green area or bicycling
things coming down that side of the Main Street. So that has a possibility over
there as some destination open space. Then there is long term maintenance of
streetscape and we have talked at pretty good length about that and what kind of
costs that might be involved in that; but I know one thing and that is that as that
develops downtown there has to be a consistent strategy of maintenance and a
certain look that needs to come from that maintenance and in with the theme of
what the downtown is and I really believe that the city needs to be in control of
how that downtown works to maintain that so it is always the way that it should
look, whether the Parks Department does it or whether we hire it out is a whole
different thing that can be addressed. There is a concern about how to pay for
that because when you get all of that infrastructure built in, you look at all of
those trees and all of those tree wells and all of those tree wells drinking
fountains and all of those pots that need to have the flowers in them and all of
those kinds of things in the downtown is really pretty, but it is a higher level of
maintenance than even we have out in our other system. It is worth we feel
every penny of it to look right and that is what makes it so inviting and pleasing to
be in the downtown. I have seen other downtowns in the western U.S. and the
northwest and those that have it together and have the right plan working on that
and did that right is always inviting and always a good place to be and it develops
its own little culture and the soul of downtown Meridian like the north end of
Boise. It will develop a culture by the way it looks and by what businesses come
there and all of those have to do with how we maintain how it looks on a daily
basis throughout the year. So, Steve is really on bicycle deal and how do we
make sure that the pedestrian corridor and bicycle corridor goes kind of north
and south and how friendly can we make that into the downtown and it has got to
be incorporated in there somewhere. So I am sure open to any discussion on
this and I still think it is interesting and I think that in the next coming years, we
are going to have something really nice as long as we keep having these
meetings that we are having now and keeping moving forward. It will shake out.
We just have to keep constant at it and I know that the guys are looking at sewer
and all of those things and I am just confident that what we have going in
Meridian is a good thing. In the parks system I feel like we have probably the
best built park system in the State of Idaho and certainly some of the best
structures and I see no reason not to continue that to the best of our ability. I
would entertain any questions.
Borton: Council any questions?
Rountree: I don't have any questions.
Bird: I don't.
De Weerd: Mr. President.
Borton: Madame Mayor.
•
De Weerd: I guess one of the questions down here is -well several of them is
does Council see a place for the green space, the kind of small neighborhood
parks or are you looking for plazas like Generation's Plaza, green spots like
Centennial, they do have a question as to acquisition of an area such as the
McFadden property if that would ever become available, like someone passes
away or something - I guess just trying to get some general guidelines to
Planning long term to find those opportunities in working with the MDC in looking
for the hard scape or the green scape that would be the desire and vision of the
city and how would that work in relationship with the Arts Commission and public
art and giving those public gathering spots.
Bird: Madame Mayor. My thoughts on Parks that you just asked, I think
something like Centennial Park in downtown and because of the size of our lots
and only being able to change so many of them at a time -that gives us green
space and you know it is large enough that we could put a little playground
equipment in there also. You also have the chance of having your arts displayed
and I would think that instead of one large one, which I don't know where we are
going to find a large one to be truthful with you, I would sooner see a couple,
three or four of them strung throughout the downtown area as the development
goes. I think they are very nice, Generations Plaza. We are putting up a very,
very nice plaza at the new City Hall, which would be tree lighting and stuff in the
future might not have to go to Generations Plaza. I think for downtown and stuff
and parks like that is -personally I would rather see the young kids that are going
to play in the venture lands and stuff be outside of downtown. I think the small
ones and like I said, Centennial is big enough you could put a little playground in
there and I mean as far as small that is three lots, three downtown Meridian lots.
I think that is beautiful little park to scatter within downtown Meridian myself.
Rountree: Are we answering questions now or can I do that now or --?
Zaremba: I got reprimanded for asking my question earlier.
Borton: I mean it is good to have that (inaudible) as we go along, but it is helpful
as we hear because each of these components tie in together and try to gather
them all together. So, fire away and if staff has questions after us.
Rountree: The last one is parks and I guess I would second what Keith said
about parks for downtown. I think the open space pauses are probably more
appropriate. As I walk around bigger cities that have the cities have grown
around them and when they were small had large green spaces in their
downtowns, with no exceptions that I can think of those large green spaces
become an amenity to the city as they city grows, they seem to become the spot
where your less than desirable population migrates to every afternoon and
spends the evening there and it is major enforcement problem. Seattle, Portland,
Salt Lake, just the ones right around here and Philadelphia and Washington,
D.C.; you walk down to the mall early in the morning and every bench has got a
resident. I think those small open spaces are real conducive to strolling,
stopping, visiting, exchange of hellos and goodbyes with people in the core. You
asked the question about is Generations Plaza the right spot for the Christmas
tree lighting? Probably for a few more years, but maybe when we get Settler's
Square built that might become the right place. As the city grows, you can get
more people parked in there and whatever and have a smaller type thing at
Generations Plaza, I don't know. As far as maintaining parks in downtown and /
or green space in downtown I don't think we have any choice. If we are going to
want it, we are going to have to maintain it. We can't expect the developers to
maintain it all to the same standard and we need to set the standard and
maintain it if we are going to require it to be put it. The bicycle priority for
downtown, if and fact it comes as planned the bicycles are going to find the
priority needs. I don't think we really need to necessarily accommodate them on
the routes; you need to accommodate them in the open spaces, if there are a few
alleys in the alleys, some place where they can hang them up, park them and get
them out of the way. They will find the least travel routes. Probably have to have
ordinances that relate to riding bicycles and using skateboards and rollerblades
and zip sticks or whatever they are riding now on the sidewalks. I think our vision
for downtown in terms of park and open space ought to be a shared vision with a
development that occurs down and that is how we have to approach it.
Zaremba: Mr. President.
Borton: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I absolutely agree with everything that Councilman Rountree said. I
would just add one thing, there is an opportunity if we find at some point building
for bigger footprints to also include in the requirements that they have plaza
areas and that's not a park that has to be maintained by the city, but it does
provide an open space of some sort that the building owner maintains, but
pauses or if the building is on the comer instead of building the comer of the
building square they have to have a cutoff to it and it gives them a more open
feeling to the pedestrians, but there are a few things like that that we can't
probably require on small buildings, but if we start getting bigger buildings,
pauses and cutoffs and things that look like more open space that we don't
maintain are possible. Just a thought.
De Weerd: Mr. President.
Borton: Madame Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess then that that would go to Anna in the design guidelines that
if you have a certain percentage that has to be up against the sidewalk and you
create that plaza as well, you know does our design guideline have that
flexibility? Doesn't a certain amount of the building have to be up against the - I
guess, the question is does it allow for the plazas or courtyards or those kinds of
things?
Canning: The can-ent design guidelines do accommodate plazas. There is not
much direction on when or where they are appropriate. It is kind of more
development driven, but I know that one of the things that Will is trying to
incorporate is the appropriate place for the public's realm as well. So he is
looking at ways to incorporate that discussion into the design guidelines. Where
is it appropriate to have a public meeting space, a plaza or something like that?
There is some now and there will be more in the future.
De Weerd: Or maybe even - when I was in New Orleans they have a lot of the
alleys that then lead to more of a courtyard type of open space that goes behind
the building, so to have a mixture of those things.
Borton: Madame Mayor it is helpful for me to hear the different ideas bounce off
of each other and as I go through the questions before today and then hearing
remarks, I am in agreement with a lot of what Council and Mayor have said. I
look at it more from a macro perspective trying to find out at this region as a
whole, how really our role to set the general framework from the public
infrastructure and some open spaces and then get out of the way. I am overly
sensitive to try and utilize ability to master plan where every single thing has to
be assuming we control what the market is. It will be helpful for me and I might
be the only one who doesn't know it is by way of example with our guys with the
Public Works issue and when we look at this area, first off it would be helpful to
look at in the planning meetings with Phase 2 Split Corridor, overlay to
(inaudible). One of the big thongs and I agree with Councilman Rountree service
of the Core Area and the Priority 1 which has been accomplished makes the
most sense. South to Franklin which is the split right through there and the ability
to plan for that in development and public works needs is drastically altered by
what will happen when phase 2 occurs. It cuts right through that and whether
we're going to see development between Main and Meridian in that area I highly
doubt it. I mean, the property is not even all acquired by ACHD. Whether or not
we can utilize that opportunity to do some of those infrastructure improvements
at the same time I presume we can't. I'm also curious to know what the - if
there's a way to -maybe it's a study I don't know if there's a way to determine
what those infrastructure improvements what the cost would be. You know if we
tell you that the downtown design guidelines are sufficient in the density and
height restrictions with the exception of - and I don't disagree allowing the six or
seven stories or five or six stories along the corridor understanding that the
densities that those uses at full build out would create what are the water and
sewer requirements for entire region. Then we will know the costs and then
maybe with Stacy's help we can sort of function out which different financing
mechanisms provide which -how much resources and how much time before we
decide on that. I'm really hesitant to try and impose the additional expense on
developers coming in with these first ones that have been most critical. It's tough
•
enough with sewer and water capacity parking challenges it's tough enough to
encourage some of these private developers to take the risk to come downtown.
Some of them other than small retail shops have to really jump off the cliff then to
get that done. So I don't know if that's just - I'm asking more questions than I'm
answering. If we knew what those numbers were and the priority area for me is
the same as Councilman Rountree said assuming split corridors function into our
thoughts. That was a remark down here although there's some discussion at
times about split corridor issues I think the Council's without hesitation except to
the consensus that was decided that's the unquestioned direction I think we're
going to give to ACHD so we always strive forward with that understanding which
also directs how Meridian Road in particular is addressed. Again, we've got to
plan this as soon as the split comdor goes forward. With regards to the Fire
Department I don't have an issue with vacating the allies to the extent that some
development -additional development options are encouraged by that. If the
more restrictive fire sprinkler requirements are necessary to alleviate the public
safety concerns that makes sense to me. I understand there's and additional
expense but that's again a developer might have an opportunity to choose a
larger footprint or not. The parks - I'm just going to brainstorm here or brain
dump all this stuff out. The parks and open spaces, hard scape plazas I would
love to see all of that maintenance obviously should be continued with the Parks
Department. Elroy your comments are right on the money. I think Generations
Plaza is the perfect place for the tree lighting ceremony indefinitely. Because
more challenging with the parking issues and access issues until those are
solved but I think it's an important part of downtown. As far as the McFadden
property you know I -it's always my opinion on parks and open spaces to try and
chip in obtaining as much information as you can whether it's through
incorporating plazas in private development through obtaining parcels when
available. I would never encourage us to have you look away from an option or
not to pursue something it's next to impossible, extremely expensive but I think it
is an important part of the downtown development. I think what's happened -
Anna I don't think there`s a shift in priorities at least the way I see it from Main
Street to East 2"d. I think that's kind of market driven. That was where the first
available opportunity was you know the parking challenges that you mentioned is
imminent no question about it to the extent that East 2" Street provided not only
some ability to help some commercial development but also to solve some
parking. I don't think it's changed the priorities just the first available opportunity.
Maybe Stacy I need to sit down with you and talk some more. I'm really hesitant
in - once we figure out all these additional expenses to make these
improvements to put them all in the back of the first or some of the first
developers that come in. Maybe there is a more level way of distributing those
expenses. I don't think it's more our obligation than any developers that come in
just because there's such a hurdle in trying to get this thing jump started. I would
probably have to sit down and learn more about some of the options you've laid
out. Those are my initial notes.
Bird: President are you done?
Borton: Mr. Bird yes.
Bird: In their general condition they want to know if we were -downtown is true
center and heart of the community I think every one of us elected officials up
here have definitely shown that as priority. I know Charlie, Tammy and I have
forever since we've been involved on the City Council and the Mayor. I also am
like Joe; I hate to put a lot of restrictions on these guys you want to get down.
Because the simple fact is they're paying five times the amount of money that
they can go right across Franklin Road and buy clean dirt for that's already got
sewer and everything right there. If we were sitting here throwing businesses out
of here that would be one thing but we've got to some how entice them down
here. I know infrastructure is an expensive way but I'm sure we can figure out
ways to finance it when we're together. We always -Meridian always has and
they've been in a lot of tighter deals like this. We've had to have private step up
and put sewer and water in for us in the past and then they got paid back when
we got the money. So, I think we need to tread lightly down here. We need to
make sure that people understand that we do consider this the true center and
heart of Meridian, Idaho and get something going down here. I don't think it's too
soon to get started on anything but I would caution us on getting too restrictive on
everything. Like I said, they can go four blocks to the south and buy property for
a fifth of what they're paying here.
Kilchenmann: President Borton if I could just add one more thing on the funding
that we didn't talk about.
Borton: Yes.
Kilchenmann: If we're going to have to bond that's a long planning purpose so
that's kind of -one thing I didn't write in my presentation but any of these
financing alternatives are long term. If we're going to bond we're going to have
to start increasing our fee structure to repay that and so forth. It's going to be an
important up front part of our planning process I think that we decide which
direction we're going to go with the financing. I think it's important that we
include MDC in that conversation too in that part of it.
Borton: Stacy, it's important to include MDC in all of it. I know that's the next
meeting we're going to have is to get their board's vision of what they want to
have happen. Is the revenue bond spread throughout the territory or the city?
Kilchenmann: It would be the city. I don't think we could repay it with just the
people -too small.
Bird: You're too small of an area.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Borton: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess I still want to go back to a question that's been asked and I
think it's been reiterated by several of the Council Members that we do have to
look at the cost incurred in downtown because if we pass on the true cost it
would continue the green field development. There is an opportunity at this point
to spread those costs to green field and narrow the gap of developing green field
or developing infill because you would pass some of the cost off to your green
field development. That probably is first the most important question that we
need answered is are you amenable to that and shall we bring something back to
you that you can chew on and consider to a greater degree. Before we expend
the staff time to flush some of that out we want to make sure that that's
something you would even consider. If it is, that's something we can bring back.
If we waive the cost of the first several projects this is an enterprise fund we have
to absorb that cost then some how. Those are the questions that are really key
at this point is we know that we want to attract development. We know that the
cost the true cost would be a disincentive so whether we waive it and then pass
that cost on to something else or if we start balancing our fees out making them
more for green field and less of the true cost for infill we need to know that too.
We just need to know what direction to go so we can get better information back
to you without wasting staff time.
Bird: Mr. President.
Borton: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Mayor Idon't - I agree 100 percent with you but I do believe that what -
the only concern I had was we're talking about double hook up fees and stuff like
that. I don't think any developer coming down here would have any problems
with our normal hookup fees. Basically under normal conditions that pays its
way. We need to figure out a way to subsidize it I guess. I'm open to any
suggestions. I'll be the first to tell you I'm not for any bonds or any added taxes
or anything like that. I think the people pay enough. I think - I have no problem
with the standard fees and stuff being charged down here Mayor, but -and then
figure out what we can do. I'm like I think Joe was the one that said we need to
have some ideas of what the actual - if we can sleeve it how much is it going to
cost above regular putting in ground sewer or if we have to move it or what. Kind
of give us an idea. If we have to raise the fees 10 percent they're not going to
say anything down here but if you start raising them a lot because they've
already paid premium for the ground. We've got to get -we've got to figure a
way in my opinion to get somebody started down here some taxpayers. I mean
word, our city hall is beautiful but you know what it don't raise one penny tax
right? We need to get some tax roll down here.
•
Grady: Mr. President. Probably appropriate I comment on some of this stuff. I
think it's an excellent idea that we take the next phase of development that we
anticipate and we do a cost analysis on that. Certainly as we're doing these
types of things the more information we have the more decisions we get out of
Council the tighter we can make those types of estimates. For example if we're
going to go ahead with the plan sort of three story buildings we size everything
appropriately. If we're going allow six, eight, nine story buildings it's basically
tripled the flows now and so our cost estimates mean nothing. Until we get to a
point where we can start refining these decisions it's really tough to get a good
estimate to you. If we accept the plan and if we accept your next phase we can
come back with some pretty good estimates on what it's going to cost to sewer
that.
Borton: Len do you feel comfortable with the direction we're giving you tonight
about at least the size of the buildings? Do you need a more specific response?
Grady: I think what I'll do is I'll accept the plan. We always put a little bit of a
safety factor in there but if in the end you're going to come back and say well
we're going to allow across the board six, eight, ten story buildings and we've
already started with sewer we have to throw that sewer away, go back to the
trunk and start again. We really need to go ahead of time where we're going
before we start.
Borton: Len is it - my understanding of the incremental increase in the size of
the sewer capacity cost is nowhere cost to -three stories to six stories don't
double the expense.
Grady: That's con-ect so as long as you make that decision ahead of time. we
do we typically put in quite a safety factor but if it's the type of thing where
Council is pretty comfortable that you know there's a good chance we're going to
have six, eight nine story buiidings we'll go ahead and design for that up front.
We may be throwing a little bit of money away but that's better than having to go
back and redo a sewer line.
Borton: It sounds like you've incurred for sixish in certain locations. I don't know
if there's any one that's discussed or given any direction that they desire eight or
nine story.
Grady: Okay so allow up to a certain percentage up to six stories go ahead and
come back with a cost estimate I think we can do that.
Borton: Okay.
Zaremba: Mr. Chairman.
Borton: Mr. Zaremba.
e e
Zaremba: Since I don't think I've made a comment about that financing it seems
to me that we aren't going to get the financing out of any single thing whether its
bonds, grants, a tax increment or LID's. We can't load all the cost into any single
one of them. Other jurisdictions that have been talking about their funding are
beginning to realize that they need to do little bites probably from several of those
things and propose a whole bunch of different things that are smaller and
therefore hit different people less in different areas. I do agree with spreading
the cost over the whole city. If you -there are things that are amenities to the city
like parks and even though we don't run the schools and the libraries and stuff
the costs are spread over the whole area that benefits by it. As we go forward
saying that we want our downtown to maintain being our heart and sole and even
become more of our heart and sole that's a benefit to the whole city. It's a sense
of place. We want people to go there we want people to want to go there. We
want them to feel good about it even if they don't go there and I don't have any
problem saying that we are not just going to charge the people that build
downtown for the costs of that. I'm perfectly comfortable saying that's a benefit
to the whole city and that payment to make them be spread out over a much
bigger area. I'll mention again something I've mentioned in some circles that
doesn't have any wings but you encourage things by your fee structure and
discourage things by your fee structure and I've thrown out this suggestion in the
past but if we took our building permit policy and said what we want is to make it
easy for people to build downtown. For instance Councilman Bird and others
have pointed out they are already paying more for the land and in addition to that
probably have to take a building off of it which is not true other places. Our
encouragement could be for instance we have a standard building permit fee but
we set up concentric circles and we say okay. If you build within a half mile of
city hall let's call that the center. If you build that within a half mile of city hall you
take the mileage as point five and you multiply that by the building fee so
anybody that builds within a half mile of city hall pays only half the building permit
fee. Anybody that builds a mile from the city hall pays the building fee. If they
build two miles they pay double the building permit fee. Three miles they pay
triple. Like I say nobody has risen that flag up but me and nobody seems to like
that idea but that certainly focuses in rewards where you want the reward and
penalizes where it's more expensive for us to provide services.
Borton: I guess to -the Mayors first comments about getting more information
out of green field potential I would say yes. That's from my perspective. Let's
get more information and bring that back on that option. There are some other
questions that I don't think we gave you specific answers so I'll throw one out.
There's probably a lot of them probably dozens of them.
Canning: There's on in particular. Well the one in particular that I haven't heard
anybody comment on is do you want me to try and structure the design
guidelines to encourage the restoration of the existing homes? I haven't heard
anything yet.
i •
De Weerd: Yes. Mr. President.
Borton: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess you know I participated in the public visioning of that area
north of the post office along Main in particular. It was a desire to keep that look.
It was unique. It was our only Warm Springs or whatever Harrison Boulevard.
You can rebuild those houses and still maintain that integrity. I guess if it does
go to a different direction we do need to have that discussion with MDC and we
have to discuss with them how to tie Meridian to 3~d and those kind of things.
These are good discussion points to have with them. I guess to regress for a
minute with Len and Stacy if we could take the Phase 1 as Len has it on his
sewer plan I guess it's from Pine to Bower is it Pine to Bower? Use that as an
average of a three story average, give us the cost of what the infrastructure
would be in that, what it is compared to green field and what it would be if you
averaged the cost between that and what it would add to the green field so that
you would have a better balance. I guess that's what would be helpful to Council
to know what those true costs are. I think that's probably a reasonable height in
particular for that area then we may want to go further south to Franklin at a
higher level and see maybe what that difference would be too. Yes four an
average of four Shaun? Yes. At least then we could see what we're dealing with.
It is important on that area north of the post office to get an idea. Do you want to
look at restoring those? I'm sure the Historical Preservation Commission is very
interested in and what the vision for that is because they have expressed also
continued desire to have some of the community fill to what our community once
looked like. That's going to be an important discussion here but it will be an
important discussion with the MDC. We are already getting it on State Street
where some want to renovate and keep the homes and in our design guidelines
they're saying well you really can't do that you need to pull the homes close to
the sidewalk. Then you're going to get a home back here and then a modem
building up to the sidewalk and you have an inconsistent look. Those things are
going to be key to even sharing the expectations for those people that are buying
in those areas and we've already found that. That's what you're trying to get
clarification on aren't you Anna?
Canning: Madam Mayor Members of the Council yes and a little bit no. The
main question that I had was in the ones that are zoned C-C right now because
they are not subject to design review so we don't have much to say about these
right now when they happen. The ones in the Old Town our code basically does
say you either take the house as it is and convert it as it is without doing much to
the exterior of it or you basically take the whole thing down and start building a
new. The Old Town does not -
(End of Tape)
• •
Canning: -- Meridian Road. Are they something you want to try to keep or
maybe we have them relocated you know picked up and moved somewhere. We
can look at a bunch of different options but I just needed some directions there.
De Weerd: Mr. President.
Borton: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: Because she's probably getting a different direction from the Mayor
Borton: We feel they're like okay (inaudible). Right?
De Weerd: No. Because those particular areas that are on this code C-C are
the houses that are in question and certainly I know that the Historical
Preservation Commission is interested in that as was some of the public
comment during that marketing study in keeping that look up there. Today if we
follow this those are not preserved.
Bird: Mr. President.
Borton: Mr. Bird.
Bird: While I would like to see a few of them preserved there are a few I couldn't
care less whether they were preserved or not. We've already lost a whole bunch
of the nice ones there along the way. I don't know whether they removed -Art
Wells was moved out or what they were. I am like the Mayor, while I hate to put
design guidelines on anything I would like to see some of those old houses -and
they are the type of homes I think you could structure really nice into an office
building. But there's probably a majority that is office buildings -been rebuilt
now along that street than there is old ones left. If we can save some of them I'm
like the Mayor I'm for it believe it or not.
De Weerd: Believe it or not. Wow, it's on public record.
Canning: Madam Mayor Members of the Council I think what I'll do is I'll have
the Comp Planning Staff work with HPC to identify which structures would be
appropriate to save and then maybe we could look for a transfer of some
development rights. Maybe that could help to preserve them. We could look into
that kind of program. It's pretty complicated. There might be something a little
simpler that we could do as far as maybe just some parking -allowing shared
parking or something like that. We could look at some different options before
the MDC administrator bursts into flames.
Borton: Anna your question is is there a desire to adopt standards that
encourage converting homes. Do you mean encourage or permit?
•
Canning: Oh I think I meant encourage. Adaptive reuse is what I was going to
try to encourage.
Borton: To allow the continued use of the home which otherwise wouldn't be
permitted. You would have to scrape it.
Canning: Yes to try to get them to -right now they can scrape it. There's
nothing one way or the other. There seems to be an incentive to scrape it and
maximize the building footprint. I can either look at ways to stop that from going
on, I can look at ways to encourage the restoration or I can look at both.
Gorton: I don't think you would want to look at stopping restoration necessarily
but -
Canning: Stopping raising is what I meant.
Wardle: Mr. President.
Gorton: Mr. Wardle.
Wardle: Shaun Wardle Administrator for the Meridian Development Corporation.
On this specific issue I brought (inaudible) Adam Smith and give you an
economics 101 on this particular corridor. If the city or some agency would like
to see some of those homes saved you are going to need government regulatory
intervention because the highest and best use of that property within the next five
potentially 10 years will not be that small office with limited parking. So, if you
would be encouraging that then you would really need some sort of a regulatory
act to remove the C-C zoning and to dis-incentivize people to maximize their
property because just based on all, of the information that I have at such a time in
the future that will not be again the highest and best use.
Borton: Anna was there another question we missed?
Canning: No I have notes on all the other ones I think so I think Council has
done a good job of haphazardly hitting all of our various questions.
De Weerd: It was very specific Anna.
Bird: You guys asked -your department in my opinion brought up some
wonderful questions. It's something that definitely needs to be kept in the
forefront as we go through here because in my opinion downtown is our number
1 priority right now.
Gorton: Councilman Bird I don't disagree and it's got to be like herding cats to try
to get clear direction from us on some of these issues. It probably still is. This is
a great forum to try and get some of those answers hopefully done. I'm curious
when we break what the structure is going forward so we leave this process
accomplishing our goal. Is it we're going to get feedback from some of our
responses and then set up a joint meeting with MDC? I know their input is
important and before there are really any decisions made we want to make sure
that our vision aligns with theirs.
Canning: I think the Mayor can best answer that question.
Borton: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: Yes. I would like to see if we can bring back some of the examples
that we already suggested. Perhaps, we can work with Shaun on refining a
question list to have with the joint session with the MDC and City Council to
further flush out some of those areas like building height on Main Street, how to
tie Meridian to 3~d and consistency. They don't have to necessarily talk about the
cost issue. Those are decisions that are solely yours you lucky guys. As far as
getting first the information to you and then carrying that on at least for
information sharing and for commenting but I think that between probably Len
and Anna and Shaun in listening to a lot of this discussion they could come up
with the questions that are best discussed in a joint forum.
Borton: Shaun do you have suggestions?
Wardle: Yes. Thank you Mr. President and Madam Mayor. My first comment is
downtown Meridian my new phrase is it may be difficult but anything is possible.
One of the things that we have a uniqueness with MDC is when MDC was
crafted it really didn't take into if you think about when it was crafted it didn't take
into the large commercial developments that were going to happen near the
freeway. There's only one parcel which had some access issues. So we don't
have a steady flow of cash from quote unquote Greenfield development that
incorporate our tax increment financing so everything that's generated really is
generated internally. That creates some challenges and the first is a funding
issue. The development corporation this fiscal year has a 1.5 million dollar
budget. We've also allocated some indebtedness and we've taken a loan out.
We currently have a 500,000 line of credit. The development corporation spent
that in less than 24 hours after the loan was closed so these are traditionally -
when we talk about infrastructure one of the things that urban renewal agencies
do in Idaho is typically they do infrastructure but the difficulty with this agency is
right now we're focused primarily nearly 100 percent on parking and solving
parking issues to generate some of that activity. So, five or 10 years down the
road we may not be having these conversations but one of the things that Len's
talked about from infrastructure is if we don't do something today we may not get
five to 10 years down the road. I would be happy to set up a joint meeting. We
have our strategic planning workshop in February for the development
corporation. If we could do a joint meeting before then I know the holidays are
coming up to get our board of directors together just to talk about synergies and
financing and all the hard work that staff is doing and how we can support those
efforts. I would be happy to set that up.
Borton: In January you think then?
Wardle: I would certainly - we could realistically do that. I don't know how full
your agendas are. I heard they dropped off and you get out a little earlier but
that's not always true. January?
De Weerd: I guess - Mr. President.
Borton: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: Shaun would your board be okay maybe hitting the second week of
January that workshop? Jointing us that evening or is that swearing in?
Berg: Madam Mayor we've kind of switched them around since the first Tuesday
is a holiday the second Tuesday is going to be really our first Tuesday and our
workshop will be the 3`~ Tuesday.
De Weerd: Would that be convenient where they could join us in the evening?
Borton: Sure.
De Weerd: Or we already have two members that are there in the morning
maybe the rest of us could join you early.
Borton: I'm sure they want to come at night and join us.
Wardle: Again, it seems like plenty of time to give them notice so it would be
certainly no problem for - I just could get a quorum count and we'll be fine.
De Weerd: Good and in the interim Shaun maybe you, Len and Anna and I can
get together and list out some of the discussion pieces.
Zaremba: Mr. President.
Borton: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: Before we leave this subject entirely I would ask maybe one question
for research. Chief Anderson's comment about hazardous traffic on the rail
comdor is an excellent point. As I said earlier, I want the experts to tell us what
to do and here and expert did tell us what to do or what not to do. It certainly
throws water on my enthusiasm for tall buildings along the rail comdor. No pun
intended of course. I think before we go up entirely though if - I don't know if
there's any way to explore this whether it would do any good but could we put a
speed limit on that rail line that anything hauling hazardous waste has a 10 mile
an hour speed limit through our city. I mean they don't go racing through there
anyhow. Is there any way anybody can find an answer to that question before I
give up on the tall buildings along there entirely?
Bird: The derailing and stuff comes -
Zaremba: Perhaps the expert already has that answer.
Bird: Most of the derailing comes from switching and stuff.
Anderson: Yes Councilman Zaremba it is not uncommon for cities to place
speed restrictions on the train as it travels through their cities. That is very
common. It can be done.
Zaremba: In your opinion would that help?
Anderson: It certainly would help.
Zaremba: It would make a derailment less serious even if it happened I would
think. I would like to explore that.
De Weerd: So don't give up on your dream.
Rountree: Well I think something else as far as the railroad goes I mean it's a
class 3 railroad operating there now as opposed to a class 1. the rail standards
are much less for that kind of a railroad and you look at the kind of development
that could occur and may occur then I think the city could probably go to the
railroad and say you need to maintain that facility at a higher level.
Anderson: Yes and I have some real concerns. I had the opportunity after we
had a fire that burned up 14 cars along the railroad tracks earlier this summer. I
had the opportunity to write the rail for the entire length of our fire district and
there are some very serious fire hazards where we've got five and six foot tall
weeds with all kinds of trash and rubble that are really five foot from warehouses
and storage buildings. The rail yard they're trying to address it but their annual
budget for maintenance of that right of way is a fraction of what it would really
take to maintain that.
Rountree: They operate on a shoestring.
Bird: I could tell them how they could have a nice budget and wouldn't have to
maintain it. Give it to us.
Borton: Do you think you have suggestions or details of other regions that have
imposed some specifics on what type of speed requirements that might address
Councilman Zaremba's concerns that's a trade off. You could have higher
building the safety risk posed by them or alleviated by (inaudible) to x amount.
Anderson: Yes I can talk to some folks. I know some folks in the railroad
industry and get some of that language maybe from other ordinances and those
types of things. Obviously, you know I don't know that we have ability to restrict
the commodities that go up and down that rail yard. It is not a main rail yard as
Councilman Rountree points out. It's not one of the main lines it's a spur line so
it gets little traffic as compared to the main line but obviously as Boise and
Meridian continue to grow then the commodities will increase too and currently
we don't have a commuter rail along there. I would think too, that shifting maybe
some of the higher density a little further away. If you think about if you're going
to go buy one of these apartments that would be on top of this do you want to live
right next to a railroad it's going to make a lot of noise too. Just something to
think about as we plan that area out.
Gorton: Okay that's a good plan. Council that brings us to the end of our Pre-
Council Meeting. I entertain a motion to adjourn.
Rountree: So moved.
Bird: Second.
Gorton: It's been moved and seconded to adjourn. All of those in favor say aye.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 7:04 P.M.
(TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
APPROVED:
~~
TAMMY D EERD, MAYOR
ATTESTED•
/~~ / ~
DATE APP~ROe[~~oo~~~d4,d®d
~ ~~~
i - ~~~
WILLIAM G. BERG, J ., CITY C 12K ¢.3~ ~ e
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•
November 16, 2007
MERIDIAN CITY COUNCIL MEETING November 20, 2007
APPLICANT ITEM NO. 3
REQUEST Review of City Council Questions Regarding Downtown Development
AGENCY COMMENTS
CITY CLERK:
CITY ENGINEER:
CITY PLANNING DIRECTOR:
CITY ATTORNEY
CITY POLICE DEPT:
CITY FIRE DEPT:
CITY BUILDING DEPT:
CITY WATER DEPT:
CITY SEWER DEPT:
CITY PARKS DEPT:
MERIDIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT:
ADA COUNTY HIGHWAY DISTRICT:
SANITARY SERVICE COMPANY
CENTRAL DISTRICT HEALTH:
NAMPA MERIDIAN IRRIGATION:
SETTLERS IRRIGATION:
IDAHO POWER:
US WEST:
INTERMOUNTAIN GAS:
MERIDIAN POST OFFICE:
OTHER:
Contacted:
Emailed:
See gffached
Date: Phone: _
Staff Initials:
Materials presented at public meetings shall become properly of the City of Meridian.
•
,~,~ 2 ~ 2007
ems
CITY COUNCIL QUESTIONS REGARD ~~ ~viE.RIDIAP~
DOWNTOWN DEVELOPMENT
In an effort to seek guidance from City Council on the redevelopment of downtown, staff
seeks answers to the following questions to ensure that we all understand the vision for
downtown and how it is to be paid for.
PUBLIC WORKS
Due to the differing costs associated with redevelopment of downtown versus greenfields
development, there is a larger question about should one type of development help pay
for another. This is a fundamental policy decision that will likely affect the entire
development of Meridian's future. As a city, if a decision is made to bring development
downtown, there must be policy decisions made to support or enhance that position. In
that effort the following questions are proposed:
• Do we impose an additional fee for downtown to increase capacity in the area?
• What are the priority areas for downtown development?
• The first developments coming in will likely take up the remaining capacity. Is
that OK?
FIRE DEPARTMENT
• Will the Council support more restrictive fire sprinkler requirements in the
downtown area if water supply is limited?
• What restrictions if any are to be placed on building heights?
PARKS AND RECREATION
• Does the vision for downtown still include a variety of parks and open spaces,
including hardscape plazas, street trees, and, and green open spaces?
• As the City grows and downtown events like the Christmas Tree lighting grow,
should the Parks & Rec Dept. seek out new, larger venues for such events, or do
you envision it always being held at Generations Plaza due to its central location?
The Downtown Marketing Strategy identifies the McFadden property near the
north end of E 3rd Street as a possible future downtown park. Does the Council
•
share this vision? Should the Parks Dept keep the future acquisition of this
property on its radar?
• Should the Parks Dept. plan to continue maintaining the downtown streetscape
long term?
• Does the Council have specific ideas to share regarding the location and function
of future downtown parks and open spaces?
• How should bicycles be accommodated in and around downtown? Should Main/
E 3rd be the priority routes for bikes to get through the downtown area?
• What role will the Parks & Rec Dept have in the pedestrian-priority street
improvements being discussed for E 2nd?
PLANNING
The block between Main and Meridian does not appear to be attracting pedestrian-
oriented development (compared to the east side of Main Street). 2nd Street seems to be
pulling more interest at this time. Given that nothing is actually being built yet, this
maybe overstated.
• Does Council want to consider different design requirements for the
Main/Meridian block?
Some developers are converting homes along Main and Meridian Streets north of Carlton
south of Fairview/Cherry to offices while others are razing the existing home to build
new office uses. The latter has raised some concerns that such development is
inconsistent with the comprehensive plan.
• Is there a desire to adopt standards that encourage converting homes to offices
and discourage razing them for new construction?
City Hall construction is pressing forward without a clear plan on how to address parking
issues.
• Does Council have any guidance or thoughts on how they would like staff to
move forward on the parking needs of City Hall?
The Downtown Design Guidelines call for two to four story structures in the Downtown
Core. The Marketing Strategy suggests that the taller buildings (four stories) are
appropriate and/or desirable along the rail corridor to support future transit. We are
hearing rumors of buildings as tall as six or seven stories being designed for the rail
corridor. The Fire Department and Police Department have not anticipated taller
buildings in this area and question if higher densities next to the rail corridor used to
• •
transport industrial products including hazardous materials to and through Boise and
Meridian are appropriate. Buildings of such size may consume much of the available
sewer and/or water capacity for the area.
• Are six and seven story buildings desirable within the Downtown Core and/or the
Rail Corridor?
The area generally bounded by the McFadden piece up to Fairview and from 3rd street to
Meridian has some unusual transportation and sewer constraints.
Does Council desire a specific plan for this area? Should the boundaries be
extended for the whole Old Town area?
The Downtown Design Guidelines generally treat alleys as utilitarian areas.
• Is there a desire on the part of Council to make alleys less utilitarian and more
attractive, well-lit, etc? Is there a desire on the part of Council to vacate some of
the alleys within Downtown, similar to what was done for the City Hall site?
GENERAL DOWNTOWN QUESTIONS
• Does Council share the overall vision that downtown is to be the true center and
heart of the community?
The Marketing Strategy emphasizes that downtown development will emphasize
7 key strengths, as follows:
o Social retail at street level;
o Cultural, continuing education and recreational ("livability") facilities;
o Offices for businesses that serve Meridian residents and economic strengths;
o Highly livable urban homes;
o A Treasure Valley business/ transit village along the rail corridor;
o A strong, highly visible civic presence;
o A circulation system for cars, bikes and pedestrians that makes Downtown a
great place to be and to visit.
Does Council still share this vision?
With Meridian's demographics, including a high percentage of young families
with children, should downtown continue to emphasize family-oriented public
spaces that are managed to host a wide range of social, cultural and civic
activities?
• Will sidewalks/streetscape and street-level businesses be fostered that create an
atmosphere strongly attractive to pedestrians?
• Will downtown policies foster a variety of urban housing opportunities to provide
a built-in residential community that attracts and uses city center business?
FINANCE
The following are different funding options for funding enterprise infrastructure. Is there
a preferred mechanism to be used for downtown redevelopment, or should all finance
tools be used?
I -Revenue Bonds -Bonds issued using a pledge of revenue from the project for the
payback. Interest rates are generally low. Revenue bonds require a simple majority
vote or judicial confirmation. Judicial confirmation is not considered to be an option
in Idaho. Funding of a debt service fund is required.
PYOCess
To do revenue bonds, you need to retain bond counsel, investment underwriter, and
trustee. You must also be willing to raise rates to cover bond payments. In addition,
you need to plan and hold an election.
Be assigned rating by bond rating agency -rating is based on criteria like; pledged
revenues, flow of funds, economic growth prospects, employment stability, debt
service ratios, system capacity to meet demand, operations, ability to compel usage,
financial planning and leadership, willingness to raise rates.
II -Idaho Department of Environmental Quality -Loans and Grants
Idaho State Drinking Fund Revolving_ Fund -Purpose is to assist public water
systems finance the cost of infrastructure needed to achieve or maintain compliance
with the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1996. Projects are ranked based on certain
criteria with the most points be assigned to an unsafe or failed water issue and the
least points assigned to issues such as storage, pumping, and distribution issues.
Projects must be completed with 28 months of the loan closing. For FY08 the fund
loaned $38 million to several small cities in Idaho.
Planning Grant for Public Water S,, s
To develop engineering reports identifying how to upgrade a public water system to
meet state and federal standards. These grants will pay up to 50% of the eligible
expenses for planning costs.
III -Tax Increment Financing -Economic Development Agency -Bonds issued
by an urban renewal agency repaid with. incremental tax revenues. Incremental tax
value increases should be created by the project that the bonds financed. There is a
risk that the incremental increase will not lower then anticipated and some political
fallout because the additional taxes are not available to other taxing districts.
However the urban renewal agency can bond without a vote.
N. -Local Improvement Districts -Allows an assessment of fees for particular
improvements within a defined area. It requires 60% of property owners to be
assessed within the area to sign a petition of approval. After required signatures are
obtained, it can be approved by Council after following hearing requirements etc.
V.- Idaho Bond Fund -The bond bank combines the bonds issued by multiple cities
into one large tax exempt bond and then sells that bond in the municipal bond market.
The bonds have a high credit rating because they have a pledge of the State's sale tax.
IV -Impact Fees -Contributed Capital
• •
CITY COUNCIL QUESTIONS REGARDING
DOWNTOWN DEVELOPMENT
In an effort to seek guidance from City Council on the redevelopment of downtown, staff
seeks answers to the following questions to ensure that we all understand the vision for
downtown and how it is to be paid for.
PUBLIC WORKS
Due to the differing costs associated with redevelopment of downtown versus greenfields
development, there is a larger question about should one type of development help pay
for another. This is a fundamental policy decision that will likely affect the entire
development of Meridian's future. As a city, if a decision is made to bring development
downtown, there must be policy decisions made to support or enhance that position. In
that effort the following questions are proposed:
• Do we impose an additional fee for downtown to increase capacity in the area?
• What are the priority areas for downtown development?
• The first developments coming in will likely take up the remaining capacity. Is
that OK?
FIRE DEPARTMENT
• Will the Council support more restrictive fire sprinkler requirements in the
downtown area if water supply is limited?
• What restrictions if any are to be placed on building heights?
PARKS AND RECREATION
• Does the vision for downtown still include a variety of parks and open spaces,
including hardscape plazas, street trees, and, and green open spaces?
• As the City grows and downtown events like the Christmas Tree lighting grow,
should the Parks & Rec Dept. seek out new, larger venues for such events, or do
you envision it always being held at Generations Plaza due to its central location?
• The Downtown Marketing Strategy identifies the McFadden property near the
north end of E 3rd Street as a possible future downtown park. Does the Council
Page 1 of 5
•
C~
J
share this vision? Should the Parks Dept keep the future acquisition of this
property on its radar?
• Should the Parks Dept. plan to continue maintaining the downtown streetscape
long term?
• Does the Council have specific ideas to share regarding the location and function
of future downtown parks and open spaces?
• How should bicycles be accommodated in and around downtown? Meridian
Road will be unfriendly to bicycles due to its high volumes and constrained right-
of-way. Should Main/ E 3rd be the priority routes for bikes to get through the
downtown area?
• What role will the Parks & Rec Dept have in the pedestrian-priority street
improvements being discussed for E 2nd?
PLANNING
The block between Main and Meridian does not appear to be attracting pedestrian-
oriented development (compared to the east side of Main Street). 2nd Street seems to be
pulling more interest at this time. Given that nothing is actually being built yet, this
maybe overstated.
• Does Council want to consider different design requirements for the
Main/Meridian block?
Some developers are converting homes along Main and Meridian Streets north of Carlton
south of Fairview/Cherry to offices while others are razing the existing home to build
new office uses. The latter has raised some concerns that such development is
inconsistent with the comprehensive plan.
• Is there a desire to adopt standards that encourage converting homes to offices
and discourage razing them for new construction?
City Hall construction is pressing forward without a clear plan on how to address parking
issues.
• Does Council have any guidance or thoughts on how they would like staff to
move forward on the parking needs of City Hall?
The Downtown Design Guidelines call for two to four story structures in the Downtown
Core. The Marketing Strategy suggests that the taller buildings (four stories) are
appropriate and/or desirable along the rail corridor to support future transit. We are
hearing rumors of buildings as tall as six or seven stories being designed for the rail
Page 2 of 5
corridor. The Fire Department and Police Department have not anticipated taller
buildings in this area and question if higher densities next to the rail corridor used to
transport industrial products including hazardous materials to and through Boise and
Meridian are appropriate. Buildings of such size may consume much of the available
sewer and/or water capacity for the area.
• Are six and seven story buildings desirable within the Downtown Core and/or the
Rail Corridor?
The area generally bounded by the McFadden piece up to Fairview and from 3'~ street to
Meridian has some unusual transportation and sewer constraints.
• Does Council desire a specific plan for this area? Should the boundaries be
extended for the whole Old Town area?
The Downtown Design Guidelines generally treat alleys as utilitarian areas.
• Is there a desire on the part of Council to make alleys less utilitarian and more
attractive, well-lit, etc? Is there a desire on the part of Council to vacate some of
the alleys within Downtown, similar to what was done for the City Hall site?
GENERAL DOWNTOWN QUESTIONS
• Does Council share the overall vision that downtown is to be the true center and
heart of the community?
• The Marketing Strategy emphasizes that downtown development will emphasize
7 key strengths, as follows:
o Social retail at street level;
o Cultural, continuing education and recreational ("livability") facilities;
o Offices for businesses that serve Meridian residents and economic strengths;
o Highly livable urban homes;
o A Treasure Valley business/ transit village along the rail corridor;
o A strong, highly visible civic presence;
o A circulation system for cars, bikes and pedestrians that makes Downtown a
great place to be and to visit.
Does Council still share this vision?
• Will Council continue to champion the Split Corridor for downtown streets so that
the circulation and parking systems encourage people to come "to" Downtown,
while facilitating "through" traffic around Downtown?
• With Meridian's demographics, including a high percentage of young families
with children, should downtown continue to emphasize family-oriented public
Page 3 of 5
~- i
spaces that are managed to host a wide range of social, cultural and civic
activities?
Will sidewalks/streetscape and street-level businesses be fostered that create an
atmosphere strongly attractive to pedestrians?
• Will downtown policies foster a variety of urban housing opportunities to provide
a built-in residential community that attracts and uses city center business?
FINANCE
The following are different funding options for funding enterprise infrastructure. Is there
a preferred mechanism to be used for downtown redevelopment, or should all finance
tools be used?
I -Revenue Bonds -Bonds issued using a pledge of revenue from the project for the
payback. Interest rates are generally low. Revenue bonds require a simple majority
vote or judicial confirmation. Judicial confirmation is not considered to be an option
in Idaho. Funding of a debt service fund is required.
Process
To do revenue bonds, you need to retain bond counsel, investment underwriter, and
trustee. You must also be willing to raise rates to cover bond payments. In addition,
you need to plan and hold an election.
Be assigned rating by bond rating agency -rating is based on criteria like; pledged
revenues, flow of funds, economic growth prospects, employment stability, debt
service ratios, system capacity to meet demand, operations, ability to compel usage,
financial planning and leadership, willingness to raise rates.
II -Idaho Department of Environmental Quality -Loans and Grants
Idaho State Drinking Fund Revolving Fund -Purpose is to assist public water
systems finance the cost of infrastructure needed to achieve or maintain compliance
with the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1996. Projects are ranked based on certain
criteria with the most points be assigned to an unsafe or failed water issue and the
least points assigned to issues such as storage, pumping, and distribution issues.
Projects must be completed with 28 months of the loan closing. For FY08 the fund
loaned $38 million to several small cities in Idaho.
Planning Grant for Public Water Svstems
To develop engineering reports identifying how to upgrade a public water system to
meet state and federal standards. These grants will pay up to 50% of the eligible
expenses for planning costs.
Page 4 of 5
III - Taz Increment Financing -Economic Development Agency -Bonds issued
by an urban renewal agency repaid with incremental tax revenues. Incremental tax
value increases should be created by the project that the bonds financed. There is a
risk that the incremental increase will not lower then anticipated and some political
fallout because the additional taxes are not available to other taxing districts.
However the urban renewal agency can bond without a vote.
IV. -Local Improvement Districts - Allows an assessment of fees for particular
improvements within a defined area. It requires 60% of property owners to be
assessed within the area to sign a petition of approval. After required signatures are
obtained, it can be approved by Council after following hearing requirements etc.
V.- Idaho Bond Fund -The bond bank combines the bonds issued by multiple cities
into one large tax exempt bond and then sells that bond in the municipal bond market.
The bonds have a high credit rating because they have a pledge of the State's sale tax.
IV -Impact Fees -Contributed Capital
Page 5 of 5
Page 1 of 1
Will Berg
From: Robert Simison
Sent: Friday, November 02, 2007 3:30 PM
To: Will Berg
Subject: Mayor Gone and Workshop questions
Attachments: Downtown Development Questions.doc
The Mayor will not be at the City Council meetings on the 13th of November and the 11 ~' of December. For the
20th pre-council workshop she can do it as early as 4, and it will probably need to be 1 % to 2 hours. I have
attached the questions that are being posed to Council for guidance at the workshop.
Robert Simison
Executive Assistant to
Mayor Tammy de Weerd
City of Meridian
(208) 888-4433
11 /2/2007
November 16, 2007
MERIDIAN CITY COUNCIL MEETING
APPLICANT
November 20, 2007
ITEM NO. 4
REQUEST Executive Session per Idaho State Code 67-2345(1) (a) 8~(f)
AGENCY
CITY CLERK:
CITY ENGINEER:
CITY PLANNING DIRECTOR:
CITY ATTORNEY
CITY POLICE DEPT:
CITY FIRE DEPT:
CITY BUILDING DEPT:
CITY WATER DEPT:
CITY SEWER DEPT:
CITY PARKS DEPT:
MERIDIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT:
ADA COUNTY HIGHWAY DISTRICT:
SANITARY SERVICE COMPANY
CENTRAL DISTRICT HEALTH:
NAMPA MERIDIAN IRRIGATION:
SETTLERS IRRIGATION:
IDAHO POWER:
US WEST:
INTERMOUNTAIN GAS:
MERIDIAN POST OFFICE:
OTHER:
Contacted: Date: Phone:
Emailed: Staff Initials-
Materfals presented at public meetings shall become properly of the City of Meridian.
COMMENTS