HomeMy WebLinkAboutOctober 7, 2003 PreCouncil MinsMeridian City Pre-Council Meeting
October 7, 2003
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Hudson: Thank you. Madam Chairman and Members of the Council we'll work
hard for you I promise. We will be accountable. Let us know if you have
concerns along the way. We want to try to adjust and accommodate all of your
thoughts, guidance, and good ideas. We're saying that to every person that
we're working with. We're leaving our cards. We're saying please get to us tell
us what you're thinking so that this is a collaboration that ultimately ends up with
what Councilman Bird shared with us earlier and that is people in the know who
have an understanding and a sense of ownership for the ultimate
recommendations that are to be made. That will be the difference between
another plan on the shelf and implementation. Thank you very much for your
time.
De Weerd: Thank you. Thank you Tom and Jerry we appreciate -Tom and
Jerry isn't that fun. We appreciate you joining us.
Item 5. Discussion of Design Standards in Downtown Core:
De Weerd: Now Council we do have other agenda items. Steve I guess I would
ask you. We wanted to take advantage of having the consultants and extending
that conversation. Is this something that we can do next week? Is it a timely
issue can we put this on our Regular Agenda or the Park's discussion?
Siddoway: We certainly could do it next week. I also feel like why don't we let
them go first and see what time they take. I had down 20 to 30 minutes or
something but given the discussion that we just had, I think we can pair that
down to about 10 minutes. We may be able to get through everything yet. Let's
go ahead and let's Park's go first.
De Weerd: Is that okay with the rest of the Council?
Bird: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I would move then that we take Agenda Item Number 6 and move it in front
of Item Number 5.
Nary: Second.
De Weerd: Okay it's been moved and seconded to hear 6 before 5. All those in
favor say aye.
MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES, ONE ABSENT.
Item 6. Presentation of New Park Impact Fees -Doug Strong:
Meridian Ciry Pre-Council Meeting
October 7, 2003
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De Weerd: Okay Doug you're up. ,Presentation of new park impact fees.
Strong: Thank you Madam President Members of the Council. Actually, this
item shouldn't take very long. This is information that when you passed the
recent Park Action Plan the Comprehensive Plan update there's information
about impact fees in that in that chapter. What we're looking for is just your basic
understanding of what we're asking for in the impact fees and the changes to the
impact fees so that we can move it to a public meeting date so it can become
effective.
De Weerd: Doug this went through the commission I believe a number of times
is that correct? Have they looked at this and acted on it?
Strong: Yes it's been through the Park Commission .it's also we had an impact
fee committee that's had a final meeting on it and it's passed out of that
committee. We have one letter of support from the Builder's Association I
believe. I don't have that letter with me. It looks like we have general consensus
that this is where it needs to go. I guess the place to start is that the impact fee
hasn't been changed since 1996, which it was first, put into effect of April - I think
April 1, 1996. Did all of you get the same PowerPoint presentation with this
week's agenda? It mentioned the current impact fees were passed. They were
established in 1996. They have not changed since that time. Those fees by the
way but they're not shown here for single-family dwelling were $481.65 and for
multi-family $370.50, that's what we're currently collecting. The proposed
changes to the fees we've changed those amounts to $667 for single-family and
$607 for multi-family. That's the important information. That change or that
difference for single-family is an additional $185 more or less and for multi-family
$236 change in the amount collected from previous. The calculations are shown
here how we go through calculating the amounts for community parks. I'm not
going to spend time on that. Then the neighborhood park share and then
proportionate share is calculated. Then less a general fund share to come up
with the $667 and the $607. We've also added an administrative fee of $20,
which will be collected and used to update the Park Comprehensive Plan and the
capital improvement portion of that plan into the basic impact fee. That's how we
arrived at it without a lot of discussion about all the parts that go into that. That's
what we would like to move forward with so that we can begin collecting those
fees.
De Weerd: Well I think we just need to get this on the agenda and move forward.
It's been long time coming. I know there's been a lot of work and sure appreciate
the committee that was put together and all the users that -the partners that
came to the table and helped make sure that this was realistic, defendable and
someone they could all buy into.
Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting
October 7, 2003
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Strong: I've been involved in this process a relatively short period of time and
understand there has been quite a lot of discussion in the past. The last impact
fee committee that we had lasted and Bill Nichols was there and can confirm this
it lasted and I think you even left early. It lasted less than an hour and there was
general consensus when we completed the meeting. It looks like an acceptable
amount and something that we should be able to move forward on.
De Weerd: Thank you Doug
Strong: Thank you.
De Weerd: Just work with Will and get that on the agenda
Strong: Thank you.
Bird: Notice for a Public Hearing and let's get her going.
Item 5. Discussion of Design Standards in Downtown Core:
De Weerd: Steve we'll go ahead and go to Item 5 the discussion of design
standards in the downtown core.
Siddoway: Thank you. The (inaudible) of where I was going with this discussion
was just discussed with the market strategy and how those two processes
overlap. How the market strategy can really provide some validity, background,
and rationale for the types of design standards that we would do to implement
the vision and the strategy that this process does. I would like to just use a
couple of minutes to report back to the Council on where we are with the design
standards process and then make a proposal related to the current effort. First, a
reminder to us all as to why we even jumped into design standards in the first
place. We identified a couple of years ago that a real barrier to development in
Old Town when it's competing with the fringe is the fact that everything in Old
Town has a Conditional Use Permit. Where if they were to go out in the fringe
and get commercial zoning they could be a permitted use and be through P&Z in
a week versus a four month Conditional Use Permit. That said, we decided that
we did not - we weren't ready to just jump in and make. everything permitted
uses in downtown because we didn't have any guidelines to say how those
buildings would look. At staff level, we're doing staff level reviews we have to
have some criteria to apply. Therefore, we went ahead with the design
standards and we started this process a year ago. We hired Sherry McKibben as
the consultant, worked up a set of draft design standards. That draft was brought
before the MDC Board and they said well have you taken this to the developers,
to the property owners who are going to be affected by this. Have you tested it
with the architects that have to design buildings? Have you done these things?
We said no, but we will and we did. We set up a meeting in February of this
year. We emailed out the draft standards that we had come up with to over 50