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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2003 02-20 SpecialMeridian Planning and Zoning Special Meeting February 20, 2003 The special meeting of the Meridian Planning and Zoning Commission was called to order at 5:30 P.M. by Chairman Keith Borup. Members Present: Chairman Keith Borup, Commissioner Jerry Centers, Commissioner Leslie Mathes, Commissioner David Zaremba and Commissioner Michael Rohm. Others Present: Dave McKinnon, Bruce Freckleton, Wendy Kirkpatrick, Nick Wollen, and Jessica Johnson. Item 1: Roll-Call Attendance: Roll-call ___X___ David Zaremba ___X___ Jerry Centers ___X___ Leslie Mathes ___X___ Michael Rohm ___X___ Chairman Keith Borup Borup: Good evening Ladies and Gentleman. I’d like to call to order special Planning and Zoning Commission meeting for Thursday February 20. This meeting is to consider and hear a report on the North Meridian Area Plan. I’d like to start with roll call of Commissioners. As I mentioned tonight is discussion of the North Meridian Area Plan, which would entail a Comprehensive Plan Amendment. So I would like to start the discussion, do we have an initial staff report or right in with the presentation with Mr. Wardle? If so John. Item 2: Discussion of North Meridian Area Plan Comprehensive Plan Amendment: Wardle: Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentleman my name is Mike Wardle. Involved with this process for the last 18 months. Wanted to point out that I provided at your place of business and to staff and to many of the folks in the audience some additional handouts tonight that are simply first of all the slides that we are going to go through and there are areas there if you want to jot down questions you can do so as we go through that, that’s on the buff sheets. The second sheet is one that we will look at on a board that I have on the easel that is a combination of COMPASS and ACHD projections. The third piece of information is actually an article in two different forms written by one of the founders of the new urbanism process. And then the last item a fold out sheet is an example that is very simple to the TND ordinance provision that has been included in the plan that’s just to show you the simplicity of that effort. My intent is to go through a discussion that involves both power point and some boards that will be obviously a little bit distant but they will show some pieces of information that probably would need to be articulated a little bit more. And then at the end of that my expectation is that we’ll probably have a fairly lengthy Meridian Planning and Zoning Special Meeting February 20, 2003 Page 2 of 21 discussion. It was whatever the Commission desires to do. Let me just point out at the outset that my roll in this was as a facilitator and we will look at the stakeholders and all the people involved in this but we commence the effort in June of 2001 as the City Council and the Mayor and the other elected officials from the Ada County Highway District, Ada County and Development interests for the north Meridian area got together and talked about some of the issues that were of concern. So lets go over to the second slide. The area specifically addressed in the plan is that ten square miles from Ustick to Chinden between McDermott and Locust Grove and for the purpose of a plan that area was designated by the action of the sponsor stakeholders on July of 2001. Somewhat with the acknowledgement that the area east of Locust Grove, a portion of that was already in the City of Boise and a fair amount of the area in Meridian had already been planned and was proposed for development. I think the last major piece has recently come into the process. The plan really is intended to be an effort focused on issues that are not necessarily unique to north Meridian but they felt ought to be addressed. We did not undertake any additional background information. We assumed that the Comprehensive Plan effort that the city was involved with at that point would serve as the basis that all of the projections for the future growth of the community has a whole would be valid and so we don’t repeat any of that. And so we don’t repeat any of that but the plan itself actually provided what we called a foundation report and in the document that you had that was section A. Section A just deals with the background information that had been generated largely through the planning efforts and initial discussions with the elected officials. The sponsors as I noted a moment ago included the Mayor and City Council we had actually four specific discussions with the Mayor and Council as independent from the effort. The Ada County Highway District, the third body identified we had four specific discussions with them again outside of the joint meetings. We met twice with the Ada County the commission and the Ada County Planning Commission. We held a public open house and met eight times with the development community that was involved in north Meridian. As a whole group for the sponsors we actually held six sessions, one at the old Ada County office on Main Street in Boise the other five were held at the COMPASS office in Meridian. So we had many many meetings with the elected officials both independent and collectively to assess the direction of the effort. The cooperating agencies included virtually all of the city staff, we went trough a number of taskforce and workshop efforts in fact 17 specific discussions when we brought virtually all of the agencies that are identified on that slide together. Outside of those 17 workshops and taskforce groups we had many independent meetings with the staff of the city and the other agencies involved. There were a total of 80 sessions that where official efforts both with the elected and staff officials of various agencies involved in the effort. There was also a group that worked with us, the Idaho Smart Growth Organization, The Idaho Urban Research Design Center that is associated with the University of Idaho and then all of the private sector consultants. Now the milestones that were involved in this came about well just over a year ago in December of 2001 was the first draft of a foundation report and a policy Meridian Planning and Zoning Special Meeting February 20, 2003 Page 3 of 21 formulation document that was submitted to and reviewed by these sponsor groups in January and revised for a public open house on the 30th of January 2002 and largely the issues identified at that point other then just some refinement have essentially remained in tact during the subsequent reviews and discussion. There was a draft plan presented to all of the sponsor organizations in June of 2002 and in that particular draft there was actually a totally new zoning process proposed and we came to the conclusion in subsequent workshops that we didn’t want to go that route and totally change what the city had in place. In a moment I will explain what we did to deal with that. We started with a discussion of vision and goals the direction was first reviewed by the City Council and others in August and then in October of 2001 they actually adopted the vision statement that really is talking about – not probably radical at all but to assure that the effort of north Meridian would bring about a community with all of its diverse elements that it would be done in an orderly and serviceable manner a concern of the Council and certainly within the context of the City’s approved plans. The goals that follow along again not radical but kind of tried to focus the effort toward for instance much of the concern expressed at the initial outset that there had been a great deal of repetitive poorly connected development over the last decade or so and so we were looking more at a master plan neighborhood process that would bring together a full range of housing and densities within close proximity to employment services and other public facilities. Probably the biggest concern dealt with the question of infrastructure including the major roadways which is the arterial grid. Also however questions about the schools and we found that in most cases there are mechanisms in place already in the provision for instance of the sewer and the water police. Fire was one that we identified as having a challenge to meet the growth because of the cost of their facilities. But we also concluded in our discussions with the fire department and with the city financial staff that the solution was not necessarily that there be a totally unique way found to do it except to adopt a capital improvements plan that they had already identified has a necessity. And by doing that could formulate a funding program to accomplish the needed facilities and there are two such projected for north Meridian. And our last conversation with the fire department indicated that they actually had a funding mechanism that would provide those facilities in due course. We are aware also that the parks plan – perhaps I need to rephrase that to say that ‘m not aware of the status of the park plan at this point although the comp plan that was adopted by the city last summer did incorporate a change that I think reflected the discussions we had in this planning effort of keeping the community park size at 20 acres and providing more of them. So instead of three that were on the original draft plan there were six designated in the revised and adopted Comprehensive Plan. We also found in terms of the last item on that sheet, the public transportation is one of the challenges that faces this entire region and quite frankly it is dependent upon density and density as a result was really a focus of a lot of our discussions on land use and it came down to some fairly blunt discussions that we had with staff on the original proposed plan that actually had some very low density and low density and I don’t remember what the very low designation called for because that dropped out of the adopted plan. Meridian Planning and Zoning Special Meeting February 20, 2003 Page 4 of 21 But I know the low density was actually identified at less then three units per acre and then a medium density and so the concern was whether we could accomplish the urban objectives of potentially providing enough density for public transportation so that became an issue that was a great concern. Now the whole thing as I mentioned very briefly started with transportation questions. I’ve got kind of the war map over here on the easel and this is a map that we put together at the very beginning of the process and was really the reason that Ada County Highway District did first a six square mile study and then eventually they did a 12 square mile study, two separate study efforts. But probably put a scare into everyone. The scare I think was unwarranted because development occurs at a fairly orderly pace but when you looked at the magnitude of these projects. In this particular case, Bridgetower which is approved and developing. Lochsa, which has been approved, and will soon develop. Paramount which is the old Keltic Heights application that’s in the process and I think you will see that application a month from today. Plus then some other projects that are underway in Meridian including one that was approved last year, Heritage Commons. So the effort came down because of the studies that ACHD did through Washington Group and the sheet behind those slides and I’m going to go take down this one to go to the second. This is a composite sheet that came out of the Washington Group study the 12 square mile study. And then we added some information to it and let me explain what it is. If you look at again this is to far away to see but this is the same information that is in front of you in a fairly small form. There is a C and a D number in each of those square sections. The C number is the projected COMPASS growth over a 20 year period, that is the forecast that comes out of the models that COMPASS has used. And you will see for instance the northwest section COMAPSS projected only 41 units over the 20 year period. If you went to the southeast section you would see that there were 520 that they projected. Washington Group on the other hand did a build out scenario and whether it builds out in 20 years or not it will largely be well along. But the D wasn’t actually devised by the developers. That D is a development number that – well going back to that war map when they looked at those first applications they extrapolated that information across the landscape to come up with numbers and so the D number on each of those sections is the projected additional housing units that ACHD through Washington Group projected would occur in the next 20 years. At the bottom of each of those the lower middle of each of those sections is a set of numbers in parenthesis that’s actually density and what we did was we took the number we deducted out all of the projected schools, park sites both known and anticipated and all of the existing commercial properties and took the balance of that and said okay if we used the Washington Group number the density in that section for instance again on the northwest section would be 2.4 units per acre at build out. In the southeast early section 2.97 units per acre at build out and again this is only for the residential land. If you took that section as a total gross area it would be substantially less. Based on the numbers that Washington Group came up with they actually have an overall density of north Meridian of 2.75 units per acre which is probably not far fetched from the numbers if you took the Meridian Planning and Zoning Special Meeting February 20, 2003 Page 5 of 21 developed Meridian and west Boise sections that are essentially all complete. You take out the fact that there are schools and parks and commercial uses and so forth I know that the Ada County folks did some analysis that projected about 2.8 acres per acre is the norm. So the question of population was really a fundamental issue not from just the perspective of what the impact would be on traffic and transportation but literally how do we get to a community that has diversity and typically if you are going lower density you are not going to see a lot of diversity its going to be pretty much the same single family standard throughout. Borup: Mike do you know whether the Washington Group’s numbers, how do they treat existing residential sites such as one and five acre lots were they considering a redevelopment of some of those? Wardle: Mr. Chairman I think – Borup: It looks like they did almost by some of these numbers but I’m – Wardle: I don’t think they talked about redeveloping the one acre parcels but I think anything (inaudible) because one acre subdivisions are essentially fully developed and there is very little opportunity to do any additional. Borup: That’s what I was seeing there. Wardle: I think it was anything above one acre that they assumed would have some development potential. Borup: That could put there numbers a little on the high side depending on what those – Wardle: Actually I hope their numbers are on the low side. Borup: Really? Wardle: I do and I will explain why as we go through this. For instance if we used again looking on that sheet kind of a summary of numbers and there are projected office space and commercial space and they only had 5400 square feet which was really short because there will be a few more churches then that out there but schools. But they had projected for instance to comparison. COMPASS had over 20 years 4,214 housing units in north Meridian. Washington Groups projection 15,912 and roughly again some variance that’s less then three units per acre. If you went taking the net residential areas and went three and a half units per acre you would increase that to 18,850 up to four units per acre 21,550. So you’d see a range and this is actually on page A 3 in the foundation report of the plan itself. So these are not new numbers they are just kind of bringing them back to the four. So the point of this discussion was Meridian Planning and Zoning Special Meeting February 20, 2003 Page 6 of 21 that we were looking at what the future population number would be and trying to determine how the area would grow out. Would it grow out as a urbanized area or would it be semi urban slash rural and to a certain extent some of the land use designations that were adopted in the Comprehensive Plan last summer suggests that it would be a urban slash semi rural with some lower density elements. That quite frankly is a decision that the city is going to have to make on whether it will be an urbanized community and I’ll probably get into that a little bit more in our discussion. The third item that I wanted to – that deals with transportation system. I think you can see this but basically Ustick Road, see if I can steady this thing here, Ustick Road, Chinden, Locust Grove is right here and McDermott. Among the concerns that we had in dealing with the questions of how the area would develop out was what can we do to make some decisions now in the transportation system. Obviously Eagle Road over here a real firm line on the east side. We’ve got Linder Road that already connects across the river to Highway 44. And then the discussion has been on going for a long time about obviously the Ten Mile Interchange and the question of whether Ten Mile would be the designated route or Black Cat Road. We proposed Black Cat Road because it creates more of an opportunity instead of having two north south roads just one mile apart that make the connections to off the freeway on the south and Highway 44 on the north and really separate it out. It creates some four square mile elements that have a much more discreet neighborhood potential and quite frankly our concern was if the roadway was on Ten Mile that there may never be any funding to construct that river crossing because it really would be quite close to Linder and quite a ways away from the Star Road access. So in taking with COMPASS and others, the conclusion was that certainly consideration can and ought to be given to Black Cat. It is the recommendation from the plan itself and it still makes the function of the Ten Mile Interchange does not detract from the function of that interchange because if the traffic really wants to get to the western part of Meridian it can do so straight north. It can go this direction if there is a desire to get up to Highway 16. And actually could function in the future if there was ever a Robinson Road Interchange that has been talked about somewhat. So among the recommendations that we have made or that obviously Chinden Boulevard functions has a through way. Black Cat we recommend for the north south element and that the concentrated densities and uses along McMillan be the place that we can work on the public transportation side of the question. I want to take just a moment to point out one of the challenges that we have, even though this started with transportation and ACHD was aware that questions of transportation were going to be the key focus. It is somewhat frustrating to know that ACHD adopted a capital improvements plan recently that suggests over the next 20 years that only this section of McMillan Road and this is the piece between Locust Grove and Meridian Road only that piece within the planning area the intersection of McMillan and Linder are going to be expanded to their full capacity through and eligible for impact fees. In essence traffic build up on that one mile section and that intersection suggests that there would be impact fee eligible enhancements. They did however in that plan suggest that Ten Mile Meridian Planning and Zoning Special Meeting February 20, 2003 Page 7 of 21 Road would need to be widened out over the period but if you look at that capital improvements plan it says that there will only be 5800 trips per day. There is not enough traffic projected in 20 years in north Meridian to warrant the use of impact fees on any other piece of this north Meridian system. This is a real frustrating part of the process because they essentially ignored their own publicly funded studies and came out with a capital improvements plan that says we don’t have a traffic problem in north Meridian in the next 20 years. I don’t think that’s probably accurate and we had in fact the plan itself we went to publication in the 15th of November and three days later received an updated report that we will analyze and submit back to ACHD on the 5th of March when we meet with them but we had included in a section of the plan, and that was section D, an analysis based on the old projections that ACHD that showed that there maybe a cash flow problem but that there are sufficient resources to actually construct the infrastructure whether its within the 20 years or beyond. So that section D deals with that question and know they have given us some updated information we will go back and run the numbers again but it still comes to a necessity that COMPASS revised the projected growth numbers and ACHD respond with the modified capital improvements plan. Now my apologies for getting a little bit hung up there but I thought we had to really stop and look at that question. Now the other item related to the transportation system is the third piece of information that I gave to you in your handout this evening and this is not for review and discussion tonight but there are two articles by Peter Calthorp is one of the founding members of the congress for the new urbanism and he has come up with some concepts that deal with the realities of the grid and I’m simply providing that so that we may talk about it a little bit later as we discuss the location of the mixed use areas but Mr. Calthorp has identified the realities that you can’t necessarily go back and recreate the world, you have to work with what you have but he’s come up with some solutions on intersection design for both the local arterial system as well as kind of a through way system and I wanted to at least let you have that so that over the next month you can certainly read that and get an idea of how I believe the plan that we projected will function in the provision of the commercial and other services. Let’s go onto the next slide the plan itself is really focused more toward the land use issues and it’s the attempt to come up with a more diverse neighborhood both in density and housing types and it really has come up with a completely flexible program for the location of services and that’s the mixed use components that we have identified in the plan and I guess you know I commend the city for including the neighborhood community and regional mixed use designations in the Comprehensive Plan that was adopted last year. We have however proposed a village component to be added to that that would put the most local and discreet types of services at the mid section points in future development programs. The Comprehensive Plan has those standards on pages 95 and 98 of the plan that was adopted. The sections that we provided in the north Meridian Plan on pages B three and four get into the same details and there is going to have to be some reconciliation. We have proposed two methods of residential development in north Meridian. One would be through the planned development process using the existing Meridian Planning and Zoning Special Meeting February 20, 2003 Page 8 of 21 zones and I have a parenthetical modified and the modified simply means that we need to look at minimum density standards and eliminate the dwelling size standards from the ordinances. Simply because what we have done is we’ve created the condition where we repeat the same thing in the neighborhoods and we’re actually proposing a minimum density to encourage something that gets away from the question of - well not get away but it makes the reality for public transportation a possibility in the future. So we would propose that there would be no zone that would allow less then three units per acre, even among the existing zones, if there are zones that are one acre or whatever those ought not to be allowed and even Ada County would need to cooperate with this if there is development that would occur so that the north Meridian plan adopted by the city and endorsed by Ada County would not approve any project that had a less then three unit per gross acre density. The next option is a TND or Traditional Neighborhood Development scenario. This came about because we were trying to find a way to create an incentive for developers to do something different and unique. Not to say that they can’t use the existing Planned development process but through the Traditional Neighborhood Development ordinance the actual process would be simply to do the platting but you wouldn’t be going through the conditional use permit planned development process. You would essentially pass that step and go through a standard spaced design to come up with a project that met the criteria of that ordinance and then simply went forward to platting and not conditional use permit. We could not find or conceive any other incentive to developers because quite frankly density isn’t really the incentive because largely there will be a single family community in north Meridian not dissimilar but hopefully a little bit more diverse then what has happened in the past. So the TND process, that is section C in the plan, is a proposed new ordinance. Now I gave to you in the packet that we handed out tonight a sheet that essentially is the same type of thing but this is an ordinance. It sets up all of the standards and all of the criteria for development and this comes out of Florida its not necessarily intended to say that we use Florida standards but we come up with the same new urbanist concepts of connectivity, open space, short blocks, provisions (inaudible) and so forth. So the intent was just to show you that we can deal with a simple process through a unique type of an ordinance and that was the result of our discussion on how to provide incentives to get a better level of development design. So in summary on that issue alone we really only have two options for development. You either go through a planned development process or you go through the TND. Now the plan itself and you have copies of that in your document and there is also one on the board. It scares people when they see this because they assume that that’s a commercial location or designation but in reality it is not, it’s a mixed-use designation. It allows the consideration of commercial but it has to come through a process in a mixed-use application. Let me take them in order from the most local and discreet which would be the village scale and these items are detailed in the plan as to the standards but the village the next level would be neighborhood or three such locations established there and these again are were you would typically find your grocery stores and the like that would serve these four square miles in Meridian Planning and Zoning Special Meeting February 20, 2003 Page 9 of 21 both situations. Then because Linder Road is a major north south roadway we have the community scale and this is where you could see larger elements but again if you had commercial there you would also have to have other uses associated with that it could not just be commercial it has to be a mixed use project and there are some elements that deal with how those are accessible and how they would relate to the neighborhoods as well. The fourth category this is using Black Cat Road and Chinden Boulevard are the regional scale mixed use standards. Again mixed use with the possibility of employment and commercial as long as they come in in a program that includes other uses as well. Now I wanted to show you using the slightly earlier version of this that it also in those same designations and its spelled out in the plan. Densities for instance if you had a mixed use project in the village area your densities of a minimum would be four units per acre and up to eight units per acre within the neighborhood scale a minimum of four units per acre up to 12 units per acre. Community scale six units minimum up to 18 and then in the regional six to 24. So again the intent is to increase the densities closes to the transportation system and hopefully in a way that would provide potential for not only the service access but also for future public transportation. I have basically two concluding slides and then just one that shows the actions. The next slide shows one of the projects that was submitted and approved last summer and the first phase has been developed. This incorporated kind of the concept of and this is just schematic it’s not a firm layout but the concept of the midsection line location of smaller uses that could relate to a neighborhood. But also a totally connected neighborhood highly amenitized with greens and open space available and facilities, this is all of course private. The next one is the project that is coming forward – okay we won’t talk about that one, that’s fine. But let me get a little exhibit here that shows – one of the factors that really was an important question was how the internal elements of the residential neighborhoods related to the facilities that would be available to them. Among the issues ACHD had actually done a study that had proposed a continuous collector system that would basically further subdivide these one mile sections and quite often collectors end up being backed streets with fences that don’t bring the neighborhoods together they further divide them. So we suggested that the concept ought to be that only where the traffic build up got to a point that it required a collector status roadway that that would occur leaving the neighborhoods fairly in tack and unseperated from each other. The other important thing was that limited access so that you could only for instance on Chinden Boulevard the Idaho Transportation Department is talking about one access point in each mile and they’ll have to deal with how to administer that. On the arterials potentially you know you could have more but in terms of full points of access three, roughly at the quarter mile points. But in all cases all of the mixed-use areas with the potential services have to be accessible from internal neighborhoods. You can’t force the neighborhoods out to the arterial to have to go somewhere to get to services they have to be accessible from the interior. And so these are points that are going to be critical to actual design not only of projects but in your consideration of them in the future. This last slide Meridian Planning and Zoning Special Meeting February 20, 2003 Page 10 of 21 simply says that there are three actions that need to take place. First is the amendment of the Comprehensive Plan to incorporate the land use components. We did in fact the blue packet in your handout this evening includes three letters. The last sheet was a memo that was provided to this commission in August of 2001 was dated august so I think that maybe your hearing was early September. But it suggested that even though you were in the process of updating the Comprehensive Plan we all had to work with the knowledge that we were going to see a concept come forward that would need to be reviewed, considered and hopefully adopted in north Meridian. The last letter attached here is a letter to Mr. Hawkins-Clark that identified these same issues, the fact that there would be an amendment proposed for the Comprehensive Plan that would basically the land use map. The second action item is to add those two modify and reconcile the mixed-use standards and to include the village mixed use concept in that Comprehensive Plan text. That’s the one that did not make it into the final adopted document and then finally consideration of the TND ordinance that would be the incentive required for developers to bypass the conditional use permit process based on design standards that would be in place and if they met those they would have the ability to proceed. Mr. Chairman members of the Commission I think that’s all of my prepared information be more then happy now to get into discussions with you and see what your issues are. Borup: Okay I think we’ll like to do that but one thing I’d like to mention I neglected to do at the beginning for those in the audience this meeting was publized but this was a discussion meeting. A chance for the commission to have an opportunity to gain some information on this and have a back and forth discussion but there is a public hearing scheduled which would have an opportunity for questions and answers from – any testimony from the public. I might mention that right now before we proceed that is scheduled for March 26 at 7:00 here – did I get that right? Right there was some conflicts on the 27th this 26th is Wednesday, correct? It was moved to Wednesday rather then our Thursday meeting. That still work with your schedule Mr. Wardle? Wardle: I will put it on my schedule. Borup: Okay so that information for those here. So Commissioners have some questions or comments at this point or then we would also like to give staff an opportunity I think also. Centers: Mr. Chairman. Borup: Commissioner Centers. Centers: No one’s speaking up here I am. I had noted some questions Mr. Wardle. As our Chairman stated it’s really an information process for us so I wanted to jest as much as I can. This was started in June of 01 and – correct? Meridian Planning and Zoning Special Meeting February 20, 2003 Page 11 of 21 Wardle: Correct? Centers: And if I recall we were in the middle of our Comprehensive Plan hearings at that time. Borup: And it was decided that the study would not be done in time. Centers: Yeah because you started about the time we were in the middle of our hearings. What prompted that, I’m just curious? Wardle: Let me go back to – Centers: We are over at the high school doing our thing and then you start this. Wardle: Well in fact I came to that hearing that night and – Centers: I saw you. Wardle: And I said I had an epiphany sitting there that evening that we ought to do an total mixed use overlay for all of north Meridian that would solve your problems but they concluded differently. Going back to those development proposals in early 2001 that prompted ACHD to do those two traffic studies. That was the genesis of the Mayor and City Council sitting down with representatives of the development community and the Ada County Highway District to talk about this looks overwhelming what can we do about it and so they decided to go into a focus program. So we actually got our marching orders on about the 18th of June of 2001. Had the first major discussion with all of the elected officials including the Mayor and City Council in July and laid out a program including a schedule, now we didn’t keep the schedule because there were some things that occurred along the way but it had a schedule it had all of the – in fact it started the process of talking about vision and goals and what the results will be. So it really started as a result of the Council and ACHD’s concern over development applications in early 2001 and granted everybody was aware that you were involved in this process and that’s why in August we gave you that document to suggest that we need to keep the door open knowing that when this process north Meridian was done that you would have to consider how that would play in. Obviously the city – (End of Side One 6:24 p.m.) Wardle: -- decision that is chooses on what to do with this. Centers: I see and correct me if I’m wrong. I see the big change as being no zone no less then three units per acre. So I see density as the big change, more density. And I see the planned development and the TND development as the big, wouldn’t that be the major focus of this? Meridian Planning and Zoning Special Meeting February 20, 2003 Page 12 of 21 Wardle: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Centers. That is the major focus this doesn’t take a 180 degree turn it simply says that if the concern was more diverse neighborhoods that we can only do that if we increase the density and require more of a mixed use type community and so correct. Just trying to get the neighborhoods a little bit more diverse and a little bit more dense. Centers: My last comment or question and I totally agree with that last map you had there where the communities drive to the retail centers and don’t go out onto the arterials. They have a focus road. Was there or is there thought about frontage roads? As access, I know in other states they use a lot of frontage roads for that purpose. Wardle: There was a lot of discussion about that more on Chinden Boulevard then any other because the state is saying that they are only going to allow one access point in that one square mile or that one mile long section. If that is the case you know frontage roads could be however there’s also – frontage roads create some additional problems and challenges create some difficult intersections where you are going to try to get that traffic out onto the major roadway. So a lot of the discussion that if somebody came in with a design that provide frontage roads that’s fine but there may be other solutions and that would be to have roadway on the (inaudible) for instance if you had some of the uses that you see along Chinden Boulevard now. You got some apartments you got some business park you got neighborhoods but more the higher density and business park where the transportation system is internal and gives it kind of a back load rather then duplicate the asphalt up front. Whether that happens or not I think is going to be an individual development design decision. Centers: Right. It was just my thought that frontage roads might take up less land. Wardle: That’s hard to assess but the other let me just build on to your question is really how you can. One of the points and this is in your document probably in section B we just had some very small concepts, figure B2, of what the arterial system could like both in a three and five lane. One of the things that we talked about is if we can keep the number of access point limited within the square mile or within a one mile section. Then instead of having like an Eagle Road where you have a center turn lane the entire length of the road you get that asphalt area back to the minimum two lanes if it’s a three lane facility because your third lane is only at the intersections. Or if it has to be a five lane facility again that five lanes occurs only at the intersections. So you create some space along the roadway. It does cover the length. It articulates the line of site so that you don’t have three miles of open view. It moves the system back and forth somewhat. It creates space along the outside edge for drainage instead of huge large 40 acre detention facilities. Yet some of the facilities right at the location so that basically Meridian Planning and Zoning Special Meeting February 20, 2003 Page 13 of 21 you break it up into smaller components and separates the pedestrian facilities away from the road. Borup: And that’s assuming no access points along those stretches. Wardle: And that is limiting your access points to roughly a quarter mile for instance and so it does a number of things. It creates a slightly better roadway at – a little bit more focus on pedestrian and drainage then just moving the automobiles at super speeds. Long answers but I appreciate the question. Centers: Thank you. Borup: Questions from any of the other Commissioners? You had talked about the increased – essentially as Commissioner Centers referred to that one of the major changes was the density. Has there been a projection based on those new figures? Wardle: Mr. Chairman if you go to your plan page A3. We – on one of these boards. Borup: Yeah you have referred – Wardle: On the backside of this board we did an analysis that just showed again increments the Washington Group study of the 2.95 units per acre and that’s a gross number that’s not the net taking out all of the other uses but there 15,900 just a slight tweak up to three and then if you went three and a half and then four it starts to – and these are not dramatic actually. Four units per acre is a fairly easy thing to achieve in a single family subdivision if you have a variety of lots you know some fifties and some maybe alley loaded that gets you down to a narrower lot. These are not dramatic numbers. In them of themselves its hopeful however that if you look at the mixed use areas that we can see a lot more density occurring toward those transportation notes the minimum of six the minimums of four or whatever and hopefully they can use the higher ends of the density range as well so that you start to get other uses instead of just single family subdivisions. But that’s all that we did but we have encouraged COMPASS to actually and this goes back to the very beginning of your document. We had an executive summary and the items that were noted for COMPASS and this is page ES3 in that document. COMPASS is encouraged to revise the north Meridian growth projections. The numbers that they had before are the ones that Washington Group well that we compared with Washington Group and suggested that only 4,200 housing units over the next 20 years. Well that might be nice that’s not really what’s going to happen. So then the second thing and this is a political question. If they change the growth projections and add more units to north Meridian, they either have to say that’s new growth beyond what they had originally projected or they have to reallocate those growth numbers from other areas. And if you reallocate then it also reallocates Meridian Planning and Zoning Special Meeting February 20, 2003 Page 14 of 21 transportation resources, which I think has to happen. And then of course the last one is a fairly basic question of designating Black Cat Road has a connection from I-84 the Ten Mile interchange to Highway 16. Borup: I noticed the other thing that I don’t think you really touched on and that is transportation funding. The document had an area in there for developer contributions I believe, was that how that was worded? Wardle: And you are talking about section D in the plan where we had done an analysis of the various costs for the facilities that were projected at that point of about 75 million dollars for improvements of existing roadways and capacity expansion. Borup: Now the developer contributions, is that something that is feasible and liable now or are we talking needing to have some new legislation that would accommodate that? Wardle: Actually these are items that the development community would put into the mix regardless. And we were talking about sidewalks, drainage and so forth that would occur along the way. So you’ve got the sidewalks auxiliary lanes essentially if they had to be – Borup: I think I understand and I believe it was when the new impact fee ordinance came in that the developer contributions were eliminated and part of that ordinance required them to be compensated for out of impact fees. Wardle: Mr. Chairman that is only for capacity expansion. That’s not for the pieces that we are talking about here. For instance some of the auxiliary recomponents of the transportation system that ACHD does not pay for out of impact fees. Borup: So this would be new roads inside the developments? Wardle: No not inside. These are arterial improvements that would be required and some of the adjunked facilities such as the sidewalks and so forth and could even include because ACHD under the impact fee ordinance does not pay for sidewalks doesn’t pay for bike lanes doesn’t pay for the right of way for those features or right of way for drainage out of impact fees. So the question of developer participation frankly really hasn’t been totally explored because they didn’t end up giving us in a timely manner the information that we needed to assess what the real costs were. This was an old number they have now revised those numbers down from the 75 million because they took to heart the concept of having as small of a facility as we can build instead of planning lets make everything five lanes and they have gone a long way in that regard to recognize that we can move the traffic well if we do our intersections and that’s probably the first step in the whole process. Not capacity of the lanes themselves but the Meridian Planning and Zoning Special Meeting February 20, 2003 Page 15 of 21 intersections, that’s where we kill our traffic flow, is at the intersection. And so we had actually laid out and we’ll come back to ACHD with it kind of a staging area based on the development applications that have already been approved in Meridian essentially identifying the corridors and the intersections that would be the first priority. The lane capacity would be the second priority. Now we would focus first on intersection improvements and then the lane expansions and that could be done in a – that’s where a developer quite frankly could front end those costs if he’s assured that he’s going to get reimbursed but right now under the capital improvements plan that ACHD has adopted a developer would not have any allowable reimbursements from impact fees except on that one section of McMillan Road between Meridian and Locust Grove within the next 20 years. And that is one of the fundamental policy statements that was made was that those roadways have to be impact fee eligible so that if the developers do take the step that they’ve got the recourse of getting reimbursed for those facilities that under state law ACHD is required to do. Borup: Well I was little disappointed that there wasn’t more input from ACHD. I understood a year and a half ago that that was going to be a major part of it was the transportation because that was one of the concerns. Wardle: That’s what created the original effort anyway – Borup: And it looks like ACHD didn’t step up as well as they could of on – Wardle: Well I guess I would give ACHD one out and that would be that they were using in their capital improvements planning aside from the fact that they already had knowledge from their own publicly funding studies that there was going to be more then what the COMPASS numbers. But they used the COMPASS model to project those traffic impacts and that should of not been done. They should of used some new numbers but that again as I said a few moments ago is a political issue. If you allocate new growth numbers to north Meridian you either take them away from some other source or you say that there is going to be more then anticipated. Not sure when some of the local economic actions of recent days may suggest that we won’t accelerate some of these things. Borup: You had mentioned that some of the like the intersections and such could be – that the developers could contribute to that. My concern is we are seeing these projects right now and aren’t we to late on a lot of them for some of that to happen? Wardle: Mr. Chairman. No. And that’s a point that I had a fairly lengthy discussion with the ACHD Commission on November 18th . This is not all out of the bag. Even though these projects are on going there’s still just incremental phase by phase development program. They are still going to be faced with what to do in in fact ACHD and all of those applications has put a caviat condition Meridian Planning and Zoning Special Meeting February 20, 2003 Page 16 of 21 in there that says something to the effect that when all of the north Meridian issues are resolved you may be stuck with some additional requirements. Not sure what they can do legally on that but nevertheless but that is something that they have anticipated that there is going to be a revisit. But as I pointed out to the Commission, they have the ability ever six months to modify their capital improvements plan and that they need to do that, that there is enough information already in the public realm that they can make some decisions and modify that capital improvements plan and make these roadways if its even on a phase by phase basis. Make those impact fee eligible so the collected impact fees will help off set those costs. Borup: So they can implement that has subsequent phases come on line? Do they have that ability? Wardle: Mr. Chairman they do have that ability. Borup: To deny the project if its – Wardle: I’m not sure, the attorneys would probably have a lot of fun with the issues down the line but again they have and I didn’t think to bring it with me but they have a stock statement in all of those approvals that leaves the door open for discussion of how to deal with the transportation system once the information was all complete. It’s not quite complete. Borup: I just have never seen them do anything. I mean once a multi phase project is approved that – well we haven’t had much comment on subsequent phases. Wardle: However most of what has been approved and actually for development are the residential components and are not the intersection areas and virtually all of those cases I think every project that is going to be coming forward with anything that is commercial or mixed use is going to have to come through a detailed approval process that puts them back in front of the commission. This commission and ACHD. Borup: Any other questions from the Commissioners? Zaremba: Yes. Help us understand a little bit how we can enforce and create transit friendly developments by which I mean is there a way that we can force a developer to leave a wide spot in the road where a bus can stop and not be in the middle of traffic. Those kinds of things. Wardle: There is because if you go through the planned development process a developer puts himself at your mercy and discretion on what to do with those areas. And the focus probably would go back to the locations at either the intersections or the midsections where these village areas are proposed. Likely Meridian Planning and Zoning Special Meeting February 20, 2003 Page 17 of 21 those would be the spots because that’s where the focus of activity is and on the one for instance that was approved last year on the first phase constructed of Heritage Commons. That little village area that was projected actually has a bus turnout that if there is a system in the future that provision has been made to allow that. I wouldn’t stand here and in all honesty say that there is a lot of hope for a large public transportation system in the future that is why the limited resources need to focus on where best they can be applied. That’s one of the reasons in our discussion of the plan that we would like to see McMillan Road considered because we got the components here that allow that to be kind of the focal point for at least north Meridian getting away from the high speed regional traffic on Chinden Boulevard and gets to the neighborhoods. Valleyride has been working on some plans for a long time and we’ve talked a lot with them but I don’t know if they have actually formulated where they are going with the potential in these areas. I have not seen anything from them as yet. But all we can do is make provision and be aware that you have that discretion through the planned development process as they are identified in a system plan. So yes you do have the ability. Zaremba: Pull up your display number three if you would. I realize your major focus is purely this ten or twelve square mile area. Wardle: Can you see this from this distance? Borup: Yes. Zaremba: I can. I can understand the logic of making Black Cat a major north south connector to highway 16 and eventually to the interstate. Thinking of the whole city as a whole which has not necessarily been your charter but I know you consider what’s going on beyond the area you are focusing. There is a lot of discussion of how to move traffic off of what used to be east first and is now Main Street. That does not have a destination along that street and this is going to be a long question. Wardle: Okay. Zaremba: And there is talk about the future Ten Mile interchange to the freeway. The logic to me in support of what you have already stated about how the north Meridian area ought to work with Linder being a river crossing with Highway 16 eventually needing a river crossing and like your suggestion of connecting to Black Cat instead of Ten Mile. Wouldn’t it make sense to advocate that instead of a Ten Mile interchange we have one at Linder which would take, Linder has it goes north has a river crossing and much of Eagle has developed or is developing toward Linder, if you go south on Linder it goes dead straight into the center of Kuna and has a north south street in the valley it makes sense to me there should be an interchange there. With the beginning of your scenario it then makes sense that the next interchange actually be at Black Cat. I guess what Meridian Planning and Zoning Special Meeting February 20, 2003 Page 18 of 21 I’m asking is for you to begin to advocate that as opposed to just leaving it at Ten Mile and having some odd way to connect across Franklin or however way it would be. It would make sense to me to have an interchange at Linder, Black Cat then it would make sense – Borup: Commissioner the one problem I think is the fed policy of interchange no closer then two miles of each other. Zaremba: Well that is of course very flexible. I spent some time in Los Angeles and there are interchanges every quarter mile. It depends on what your solving and again of course the federal government says we are dealing with through traffic not local traffic so they don’t listen to some of these arguments. But to me the logic would be extending it one farther to also have the interchange at Star Robinson Road and that would mean it would make more sense to have it at Black Cat, which reinforces your argument that Black Cat would be the 16. I don’t know any thoughts on that? Wardle: Mr. Chairman, yes. But the reality is there has been so much time and effort and commitment made in the past to the subject of where these interchanges would be that we wouldn’t even want to suggest that they consider changing the Ten Mile location to Black Cat Road because we think that frankly if the traffic wants to go into just the west Meridian neighborhoods they can do that easily on Ten Mile but a lot of that traffic probably would end up going even back up this direction to those neighborhoods but if the desire is to get to those neighborhoods and access then that jog really is not a problem. But I know that COMPASS said that they can consider and they may well consider a Black Cat location but I wasn’t at all suggesting and still refuse to suggest that they need to completely redo all of their thought and effort on the issue. I think it can function just as its shown here for that north south connection and the interchange. I think there’s just to much history and commitment already in the process and I think you are probably aware that there is a study that’s ongoing now on the specific timing of that interchange. Zaremba: I know that there is a lot of motion in that direction already happening. Wardle: Yes. Borup: Do we have any comments from any of the staff at this time? Hawkins-Clark: Thank you chairman Borup members of the commission. I guess the one thing, I’m sorry I missed the first part so I may be repeating something but I guess just for the clarification in Mr. Wardle’s February 4th letter to the city which is kind of clarifying this whole process. We really have two things going on we sort of have this Comprehensive Plan amendment process, which I think Mike addressed well. And then there’s this TND Traditional Neighborhood Design which is actually a zoning amendment and I guess the one Meridian Planning and Zoning Special Meeting February 20, 2003 Page 19 of 21 thing that may be Mike can speak to some of that that I have a little bit of concern on is should – since the TND ordinance only deals with the residential portions right now it doesn’t deal with any of the mixed use areas. Should the commission move ahead with the Comprehensive Plan amendment I think there is some concern on our part on the types of development that we might get in these non-residential areas without a TND ordinance to get us the kind of product we want. If you understand where I’m going. We really don’t have the zoning ordinance right now or the subdivision ordinance that will help to support the kind of quality mixed-use developments that I think this plan envisions. So I guess mainly just a reminder as we move on into the March 26th meeting and subsequent hearings that they really are tandem and to have the Comprehensive Plan should it be adopted with this amendment without the accompanying ordinance would be a concern. Borup: Okay. You would like to see the TND to accompany – is what you are saying? Hawkins-Clark: Yeah and not just the TND presented in this plan in the November plan but you know other mixed use elements in there for how we – Borup: To also encompass the commercial. Hawkins-Clark: Right. Zaremba: I think, excuse me, a process that we are almost forced to do anyhow. The new Comprehensive Plan incorporates I believe they call them neighborhood centers which are very much similar to some of the concepts here and you know much of this could be interpreted as being very compatible with the existing Comprehensive Plan. But even to have the neighborhood centers that are in the current Comprehensive Plan, we need to change some of our ordinances right? Hawkins-Clark: That’s true. Zaremba: So this is a process we need to do anyhow. I see this has being a very good step that’s certainly compatible with the overall thrust of the existing Comprehensive Plan. Like Mr. Wardle said, we are not talking about 180 degree change we are talking about a little adjustment. Borup: One of the purpose of TND would eliminate the necessity of a planned unit development or a conditional use is what you are getting at also? Hawkins-Clark: Right I think that is a great incentive. I think there has been a lot of excellent work done on that side. And I don’t think its just going to apply to this north Meridian area. You know certainly we would envision having that applied to the whole city. Meridian Planning and Zoning Special Meeting February 20, 2003 Page 20 of 21 Borup: Okay. Wardle: Mr. Chairman. Let me jump on this because I don’t think this has to be impartial and we do need to spend some time Brad getting into the details of the TND ordinance of how its codified and so forth. But you are correct if you look at your own Comprehensive Plan it has on pages 95 and then it spans over the neighborhood schematic concept on to page 98 and it actually has standards for the neighborhood community and regional scale mixed use developments. All we are suggesting is lets add if we adopt this concept lets add a village component and then lets reconcile these standards and lets get them into an ordinance form because if we simply adopted the Comprehensive Plan all we would be adding to your document would be the village mixed use and making sure all of these standards are reconciled between what you proposed and what we had proposed in that plan. We could do that and the TND could actually come along as an adjunk because you are already in the trench. You’ve got the concept established so we can deal with this separately. And I think the TND probably needs a little bit of additional work. Brad and I have talked about this of how you actually in a TND project build in the commercial and service elements and we did not specifically get into that. We talk about the mixed-use components but we didn’t really get into the details of what your set backs would be for your commercial uses along the streets and so forth if you had commercial in the TND. So I think there are two steps and the first if we just deal with the land use and the mixed use village question can be dealt with and then follow along with all of the ordinances necessary to get to your already defined Comprehensive Plan designations codified. More then willing to work with staff on that along the way. Borup: Thank you Mr. Wardle. Wardle: Thank you. Borup: And we will plan on seeing you on the 26th . That concludes discussion on the north Meridian area. This meeting will be adjourned at this time. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 6:54 P.M. (TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) APPROVED: / / KEITH BORUP, CHAIRMAN DATE ATTESTED: Meridian Planning and Zoning Special Meeting February 20, 2003 Page 21 of 21 WILLIAM G. BERG, JR., CITY CLERK