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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2012-01-17~~E IDIAN~-- CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING AGENDA Tuesday, January 17, 2012 at 7:00 PM 1. Roll-Call Attendance X_ David Zaremba X Brad Hoaglun O Charlie Rountree X_ Keith Bird O Mayor Tammy de Weerd 2. Pledge of Allegiance 3. Community Invocation by Pastor Gordon Slyter with Treasure Valley Worship Center 4. Adoption of the Agenda Adopted 5. Consent Agenda Approved A. Approval of ACHD Bid amount for the Pine/Cinder Intersection Project for the Not-To-Exceed amount of $137,608.00 B. Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Sub-Recipient Agreement between Joint School District #2 and the City of Meridian (Pg 3-6) moved to item 6, Approved C. Acceptance Agreement: Display of Artwork of Helen Grainger Wilson in Initial Point Gallery from August 31 to September 28, 2012 D. Acceptance Agreement: Display of Artwork of William Gardoski in Initial Point Gallery from March 30 to April 27, 2012 E. Acceptance Agreement: Display of Artwork of Dean Estes in Initial Point Gallery from August 3 to August 31, 2012 F. Acceptance Agreement: Display of Artwork of Elizabeth Meyer in Initial Point Gallery from June 1 to June 29, 2012 6. Items Moved From Consent Agenda Item 5B moved to Item 6 Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda -Tuesday, January 17, 2012 Page 1 of 2 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. 7. Action Items A. FP 11-013 Oakcreek No. 2 by Norpac, LLC Located at Northwest Corner of N. Black Cat Road and W. McMillan Road Request: Final Plat Approval Consisting of 41 Residential Building Lots and Six (6) Common Lots on 9.58 Acres in an R- 8Zoning District (Pg 6-10) Approved B. Public Hearing Continued from December 20, 2011: AZ 11-001 Ten Mile Annexation by Janicek Properties, LLC; Fedrizzi Ten Mile, LLC; and SJJV, LLC Located West of S. Ten Mile Road and North of I-84 Request: Annexation and Zoning of 116.25 Acres of Land From RUT in Ada County to C-G Zone (Pg 10-26) Approved 8. Department Reports A. Public Works: Discussion of Public Works Inspection Services (Pg 26-33) B. Legal Department: Ada County Highway District Cost Share Permit - Ustick & Ten Mile Intersection (Pg. 33-40) 9. Future Meeting Topics Adjourned at 9:06 p.m. Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda -Tuesday, January 17, 2012 Page 2 of 2 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. Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 A meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 7:00 p.m., Tuesday, January 17, 2012, by Mayor Tammy de Weerd. Members Present: David Zaremba, Keith Bird, and Brad Hoaglun. Members Absent: Mayor Tammy de Weerd and Charlie Rountree. Others Present: Bill Nary, Jaycee Holman, Caleb Hood, Sonya Watters, Warren Stewart, Perry Palmer, Scott Colaianni, Tom Barry, and Dean Willis. Item 1: Roll-call Attendance: Roll call. X David Zaremba X Brad Hoaglun Charlie Rountree X Keith Bird Mayor Tammy de Weerd Hoaglun: Okay. It is Tuesday, January 17th. It's about two minutes after 7:00. Thank you all for being here today. Mayor de Weerd is out of town, so as Council President I get to preside over the meeting and we will have lots of fuh. We will start with roll call. City Clerk. Item 2: Pledge of Allegiance Hoaglun: Great. With that we will have our Pledge of Allegiance. Please join me in the pledge. (Pledge of Allegiance recited.) Item 3: Community Invocation by Pastor Gordon Slyter with Treasure Valley Worship Center Hoaglun: Next we will have our community invocation led by Pastor Gordon Slyter of Treasure Valley Worship Center. Pastor Slyter, glad to have you hear tonight and for those in the audience join us in the community invocation or take this as a time of personal reflection. Pastor, thank you. Slyter: Thank you. Our Father in Heaven, we come before you tonight with thanksgiving. So much to be thankful for. This wonderful community in which we live. The civility of our citizens. The provisions that you daily bestow upon us. We pray that tonight you would guide the Council as they deliberate, as they consider matters that come before our city. Give them wisdom. We pray for unity of heart, even when there might be disagreement of understanding, and we pray, Lord, that your hand will continue to be upon us. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Meridian City Council January 17,2012 Page 2 of 40 Item 4: Adoption of the Agenda Hoaglun: Thank you. Item 4, adoption of the agenda is before us. Zaremba: Mr. President? Hoaglun: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: I move we adopt the agenda as published. Hoaglun: Is there a -- Bird: Second. Hoaglun: We have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda. All those in favor say aye. No opposed. We have adopted the agenda. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Item 5: Consent Agenda A. Approval of ACHD Bid amount for the Pine/Cinder Intersection Project for the Not-To-Exceed amount of $137,608.00 C. Acceptance Agreement: Display of Artwork of Helen Grainger Wilson in Initial Point Gallery from August 31 to September 28, 2012 D. Acceptance Agreement: Display of Artwork of William Gardoski in Initial Point Gallery from March 30 to April 27, 2012 E. Acceptance Agreement: Display of Artwork of Dean Estes in Initial Point Gallery from August 3 to August 31, 2012 F. Acceptance Agreement: Display of Artwork of Elizabeth Meyer in Initial Point Gallery from June 1 to June 29, 2012 Hoaglun: Item 5 is the Consent Agenda. Bird: Mr. President? Hoaglun: Councilman Bird. Bird: Did we want to move -- Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 3 of 40 Hoaglun: We do have someone -- on 5-B we have the Principal of Meridian Elementary. So, if we pass this, he does want to take a minute to talk to us briefly about this project. So, I don't think we have to move it unless you want to. Bird: No. You move it to six. Okay? Hoaglun: If you want to do that, Council Member Bird, we can do that, so -- Bird: On the Consent Agenda, I move that we approve the Consent Agenda as published and for the President to sign and the Clerk to attest. Hoaglun: And does that include moving 5-B to Item 6, so we can handle that separately? Bird: Yes. 5-B gets moved to Item 6-B. Hoaglun: Okay. Zaremba: Second is seconding all but 5-B. Bird: Yeah. Hoaglun: Yes. Okay. We have a motion and a second. We will move 5-B to Item 6 for a separate discussion and with that we have a motion and second. So, Madam Clerk, roll call vote. Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, absent; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Item 6: Items Moved From Consent Agenda Item 5B moved to Item 6 Hoaglun: And so under Item 6, Items moved from the Consent Agenda, we have before us what was 5-B. It's the Community Development Block Grant subrecipient agreement between Joint School District No. 2 and the City of Meridian and if you recall -- Caleb, do you want to just briefly go over that project again or do you want me to talk about it? Do you have that? Hood: Council President, I will. Members of the Council, the item on your agenda tonight is the subrecipient agreement. I am Lori den Hartog for the next -- another month or so. So, I am overseeing the CDBG program. One of those projects that we had in this program year is the playground equipment that's going in next to Meridian Elementary. Part of that was up to 75,000 dollars for that playground equipment. This is the subrecipient agreement that lays out all the terms of that and what the money is for and Dr. Clark signed that at the school board meeting I believe last week and we Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 4 of 40 have that. So, as you mentioned, the principal at Meridian Elementary Marcus Myers is here this evening and just has a few words, so -- Hoaglun: Great. Mr. Myers, do you want to address the Council? Name and address for the record, please. Myers: Yes, sir. Councilmen, my name is Marcus Myers at 1854 South Blacksmith Place in Meridian. I -- President and Members of the Council and members of the community who are here with us tonight, I am one representative of a team who is also with me here tonight who represents the All Abilities Access Playground in partnership with Meridian School District and with Meridian Elementary and we just wish to extend our sincerest thank you and appreciation for the support of that playground project and continued support of Joint School District No. 2. It is as a -- as this project becomes underway I do want you to know that we are in -- are in full cooperation with the city and are in full cooperation with the district, making sure that we just did the best thing for the community and I do want you to know that that money is in good hands. We are partnering with -- with many businesses and with many of our community partners here in the area and in Meridian, making sure that we could just pool our resources and put that money to good use. And so with that we just wish to say thank you and if at anytime any members of the Council -- anybody has any questions, please, don't hesitate to contact me and to let me know if you have any questions about how. that money is being spent, that partnership, or just making sure that we hold true to the goal that we set up to provide the All Abilities Playground for children with special needs in the area and making sure that we are in partnership with the city and really opening it up to making sure that that section of town is something that's an esteemed area, absolutely, for all kids. So, thank you. Hoaglun: Well, thank you and this is a project certainly very worthwhile and just a question, Mr. Myers. Where are you in your timeline of the process, fundraising, getting that thing moving forward, how is that looking? Myers: Well, thank you for the question, President Hoaglun. We are currently in the process of looking at vendors for bidding and with that process also pooling our resources and getting commitment from community agencies and from business agencies for donated -- not only materials, but labor and equipment to be able to start that process. Timelinewise, we are looking at putting it out for a bid in the month of February and in that month of February also looking at pooling those resources together. We are just going to bid the playground itself, the equipment itself, and the installation of that playground. That 75,000 dollars will go directly to that equipment. Other pieces like design, other contracting pieces, the community garden, a lot of the landscaping, much of that is being donated and, then, some of the money that the All Abilities Playground project of about 22,000 dollars is going to directly to that as well. So, we are looking at starting the project right about the beginning of summer, right when school gets out, if not very close to that. Once we start digging we will have an open pit there and we are trying to avoid that with elementary kids as much as possible. Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 5 of 40 Hoaglun: Sounds like fun in their minds. Zaremba: Mr. President? Hoaglun: Councilman Zaremba. Zaremba: Refresh my memory. Is this also -- my recollection is that this is a project that you have also offered to the Boys and Girls Club people to use when you're not using it. Is -- am I remembering that correctly? Myers: Absolutely, Councilman Zaremba. It is -- Zaremba: Well, I wanted to credit you for that and -- Myers: No. Zaremba: -- thank you for that. That's a big plus as well Myers: No. Absolutely. We are in a partnership and continue that with the Boys and Girls Club. Robin, the director over at Boys and Girls Club, we are dedicated to making sure that not only the project -- we are in partnership with it that way, but also .our grant writing fundraising and those community partnerships are together. We recently submitted a couple of grants for the community garden. Basically that is adjacent to the Boys and Girls Club. It's in between the two of us and we received word that that is coming our way. And so, again, we are pooling our resources, pooling our funds, knowing that a significant number of those students who will be using -- who can use the playground, can also attend the club, which also allows the club to open themselves up to a more varied population and to include more types of students with disabilities. Absolutely. Zaremba: That's cool. Thank you Hoaglun: Any further questions? Bird: I have none. Hoaglun: Great. Mr. Myers, thank you and we wish you well on the project. Myers: Thank you, Councilmen. Thank you. Hoaglun: Glad we could help. We have before us the former Item 5-B, now in Item 6. Do we have a motion? Bird: Mr. President? Hoaglun: Mr. Bird. Meridian Cily Council January 17, 2012 Page 6 of 40 Bird: I would move that we approve the Community Block Grant subrecipient agreement between Joint School District No. 2 and City of Meridian. Zaremba: Second. Hoaglun: We have a motion and a second to approve Item 5-B. Roll call vote. Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, absent; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Zaremba: Mr. President? Hoaglun: Councilman Zaremba. Zaremba: I know the motion has been completed, but I would add to that that we are authorizing the President to sign and the Clerk to attest. Bird: Yeah. Item 7: Action Items A. FP 11-013 Oakcreek No. 2 by Norpac, LLC Located at Northwest Corner of N. Black Cat Road and W. McMillan Road Request: Final Plat Approval Consisting of 41 Residential Building Lots and Six (8) Common Lots on 9.58 Acres in an R-8 Zoning District Hoaglun: Okay. Appreciate that. Thank you. Moving onto Item 7. Action Items. 7-A. Who has that? Sonya? Watters: Thank you, President Hoaglun, Councilmen. The next application before you is a final plat for Oak Creek Subdivision No. 2. This site consists of 9.58 acres of land. Is currently zoned R-8 and is located near the southwest corner of McMillan Road and Black Cat Road. The subject property was annexed and preliminary platted in 2008. The applicant has completed phase one, which consists of 38 single family residential lots and eight common lots on 11.63 acres of land. The applicant is seeking approval of the second phase consisting of 41 residential lots and six common lots on approximately 9.58 acres of land. The gross density proposed with this phase is 4.28 dwelling units per acre, with an average lot size of 6,400 square feet. Amenities within this phrase include a Bocce Ball court and horseshoe pit. Staff finds the proposed final plat to be in substantial compliance with the approved preliminary plat and recommends approval of the final plat application. The applicant has provided written testimony in accord with the staff report, except -- they are in agreement with the staff report, except for the requirements of two street knuckle planter islands. The proposed planter islands Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 7 of 40 are a requirement of the Unified Development Code, Title 11, Chapter 2A, 3B-2. The applicant requests Council strike the first bullet on condition number five, which requires internal planter islands to separate the knuckles from the through traffic, as shown on the landscape plan due to changes in ACHD policy standards, which now require the landscape islands to be included as part of the public right of way. ACHD has commented that they would prefer elimination of the islands due to increased maintenance. Staff will stand for any question Council may have. Hoaglun: Any questions for Sonya at this time? Bird: I have none at this time. Hoaglun: Sonya, do we have an understanding -- according to ACHD policy on this, they require the landscape islands be included in the right of way, but yet they don't want to landscape them -- our policy says we want these landscaping islands and that was it up to the homeowners association in most cases to maintain -- if the landscape islands are going to be required, then, why aren't they maintaining or making it that the homeowners association would be responsible for the maintenance as we would require. Have we heard from them on this or is this just the policy that they have? Watters:. Councilman Hoaglun, Councilmen, I believe this is a new .policy of ACHD In the past it has been the HOA's responsibility to maintain those, but from what I understand this is a new policy. So, we may have to amend our code to coincide with that. I don't know. Hoaglun: Okay. Watters: Haven't really talked about it yet. Hoaglun: Okay. Watters: The first it's come up. Hoaglun: Do we have anyone representing the applicant here? Becky McKay: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Council. Becky McKay, Engineering Solutions, 1029 North Rosario, business address, Meridian. I'm representing Coleman Homes on this final plat application. We are in agreement with all the conditions. We are asking for a change to bullet. point number one under Section 5. And kind of to give you an idea what has changed. Since the UDC -- when the UDC was adopted I was on that committee and one of the thoughts was if you do a great big knuckle we would delineate the travel lane and separate it with kind of a little eyebrow landscape island and -- and it was part of the UDC and at the time we would plat those as a separate lot that was turned over to the HOA, just like any of the other common lots. Well, when ACHD did their policy manual update now these landscape islands are part of the right of way. So, when we plat them they go to ACHD and ACRD -- they Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 6 of 40 don't have a problem with the medians, because, then, we turn around and we get what we call a license agreement to -- for HOA to maintain them. They understand the benefit of the islands. The problem are these little -- these little landscape knuckle things, because for maintenance purposes, sweeping --.when go through and they will do their seal, they are a pain. So, when we turned our construction plans into Ada County District, they said under plan profile, islands, approaches, and planter strips under number sixteen, ACHD would prefer elimination of the islands due to the increased maintenance costs on their part. Like I said, chip sealing --they just don't see the benefit in them and I guess, you know, in looking at these particular knuckles -- we need the knuckle in order to meet your frontage requirement. The knuckles were proposed on the preliminary plat. We don't need the little island, because we have a -- what we call a valley gutter, which is a concrete kind of gutter that separates the travel lane, it's very visible, it's a -- you know, very depressed. It separates the travel lane from this knuckle. So, in reading ACHD's comments and in looking at it, we have got a very shallow depth. These little knuckles are so tiny that we could probably only put shrubs in them, not a tree, because we just don't have the width on them. And so we feel that with -- with the shallowness of the knuckle, the small size of the -- the little landscape island, the travel lane being delineated by the valley gutter, and the fact that we have detached walks in here, which also soften the hard surface look we have -- behind the gutter is an eight foot landscape strip and, then, our five foot walk. We are asking the Council if we could eliminate these little knuckles. Along with my letter I did provide like a couple of exhibits. I don't --are those in your packet? Hoaglun: Yes McKay: Where I did delineate the valley gutter, so you could see that it -- that it is -- it is visible on both of those. I delineated it in yellow. I'm not sure if it came out on what -- the packet that you guys get. And, then, I did provide copies to show you how small those little landscape areas are. Obviously, from here on out I won't use the knuckles. You know, we will -- we will look at -- to see if there are other options or just avoid them and -- if ACHD is not happy with these. Now, as far as -- if you guys have to revise your UDC, that's probably between the staff and ACHD, to kind of talk about what are their thoughts in the future on how to deal with these little knuckles. Like I said, the issue is not with the nice big medians on the collectors, it's these little tiny eyebrows. So, I guess I'm asking you to just kind of -- to simplify this let's just get rid of that little eyebrow. Can I answer any questions? Hoaglun: Any questions for -- Bird: I have none. Zaremba: Mr. President? Hoaglun: Yes, Councilman Zaremba. Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 9 of 40 Zaremba: I can see the esthetic value of having them, but understand where ACHD is coming from and I might even believe that both the fire department and sanitary services, our trash collectors with their big trucks, might prefer that we don't have these little eyebrows every here and there. I don't know if we need a comment from the fire department or just a nod. Would it be easier to get fire trucks through there if we didn't have these little -- Palmer: It would. Zaremba: -- confounding curb things in the middle of it? So, I would say in -- in regard to the knuckles -- and I agree we are still going to want these on big islands, other places, like as you say, collectors and stuff. But I could see, one, waiving that requirement and work towards changing UDC to take that one little piece out. Makes sense to me. Hoaglun: Okay. Bird: I agree. Hoaglun: I have a question for staff, then. Are we dealing basically, then, with this application? Future ones -- as Becky. inferred that future .applications. that will be coming in will likely not be having this type of design, so we aren't going to be having to deal with this every time it sounds like in my mind. Any -- any thought on that? Hood: Council President, Members of the Council, I can look at that section of the code. I'm not overly familiar with it. I'm not sure if there is a minimum square footage or not for those islands. You might look at tweaking that to require them to be of substantial size where you can get a tree into that area. I understand where ACHD is coming from. It's going to be harder to run the street sweeper around there. Afire truck. SSC they are designed to -- so that garbage trucks can still make it without having to do five point turns and all that. Same with fire trucks. They should be able to just pull in, they do have to turn around and pull back out, but we are not talking about backing up a large length like that too far, but we can look at the code. There are options. We have shared driveways, common driveways, some other design things that can kind of take that flare out. Or, again, looking at a minimum size for those, so it can be a substantial size so it really is an esthetic feature at that point, not just a little thing to delineate your, you know, directional traffic. So, I can't guarantee we -- you won't see these again, but we will definitely look at the code to make sure it's not an ongoing problem. You know, there may be already a project or two that's in the queue. The queue run is the same thing. I will note, though, that when Becky was reading off her plan review comments, it was a preference of ACHD and not a requirement, so we still could apply our code and the project can go forward sort of as designed without having to grant an exception to our UDC. I'm not necessarily saying you have to do that, they do seem kind of small in this instance, but I don't think there is that conflict necessarily with what ACRD -- the new policy manual that was adopted in our city code, that it's a direct conflict. They bring up a poirit and they chip seal every eight -- eight or nine Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 10 of 40 years and it is a little bit more cost, but if we get the value of that up, there may be -- it may override it. But we will look at it, I guess, is the long way to -- to sort of answer your question. Hoaglun: Okay. Thank you, Caleb. Anything else, Becky? Done? McKay: That's it. Thank you very much. Hoaglun: Okay. Thank you. And this is a final plat, so I guess we have that before us. Zaremba: Mr. President? Hoaglun: Councilman Zaremba. Zaremba: Let's see. We don't need to close the public hearing. It's not a public hearing. So, I will move that we approve FP 11-013 with all staff comments, including striking the first bullet on condition five. Bird: Second. Hoaglun: We have a motion and a second on FP 11-013. Madam Clerk, could you, please, call the roll. Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, absent; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea. Hoaglun: Thank you. All ayes. Motion carries. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. B. Public Hearing Continued from December 20, 2011: AZ 11-001 Ten Mile Annexation by Janicek Properties, LLC; Fedrizzi Ten Mile, LLC; and SJJV, LLC Located West of S. Ten Mile Road and North of I-84 Request: Annexation and Zoning of 116.25 Acres of Land From RUT in Ada County to C-G Zone Hoaglun: Next item. 7-B. We have a public hearing that's been continued from December 20th. This is on AZ 11-001. And staff comment. I guess, Sonya, you're bringing us back up to speed again. Wafters: Yeah. Thank you, President Hoaglun, Councilmen. I will just go ahead and give you, like you said, a little up to speed on this. The property consists of three individually owned parcels, totaling 116.25 acres of land. It's zoned RUT in Ada county and located at the northwest corner of I-84 and South Ten Mile Road. The original request was to annex and zone all of the subject property with a C-G zoning district, with only a layout for collector streets within the site based on the transportation plan contained in the Ten Mile interchange specific area plan. A conceptual development -- Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 11 of 40 excuse me -- development plan was not submitted. Staff recommended denial of the request, which the Commission upheld, based on inconsistency of the proposed C-G zoning with the future land use designations of medium high density residential, mixed use residential, mixed use commercial, high density employment and park for the overall property contained in the plan. As an alternative to denial, staff proposed zoning consistent with the future land use map that could be supported. The owners of the SJJV and the Fedrizzi properties were in agreement with staff's recommended zoning shown on the left. However, the owners of the Janicek property were not in agreement with staff's recommended zoning. After the Commission hearing the applicant's representative Becky McKay worked on -- worked with the owners of the Janicek property to determine a zoning for the property that would be acceptable to them and also consistent with the plan. The Janicek's conceded to staffs of TN-C zoning on the western 30 acres, but propose C-C zoning for the eastern 44 and a half acres. At the hearing on December 6th the new zoning request was presented to Council as shown on the right. As the staff report recommended denial based on the original request, no DA provisions were included in the report. Council directed staff to prepare potential development agreement provisions for consideration at a subsequent hearing based on the applicant's proposed zoning. Because there are three separate properties and property owners involved in the annexation request, staff recommends three separate development agreements if Council approves the annexation. Staff has prepared potential development agreement provisions for Council's consideration. based on the proposed zoning and future land use map designations for the subject properties. These provisions are included in the memo to the Mayor and Council, dated January 12th, 2012. Staff will stand for any questions Council may have. Hoaglun: Any questions to Sonya? Bird: Not at this time. Hoaglun: Okay. This is a public hearing and do we have comments from the applicant? Or applicants? McKay: Thank you, Council President, Members of the Council. Becky McKay. Engineering Solutions. Business address 1029 North Rosario, Meridian, representing the applicants. I'd like to thank the staff. They -- we provided some basic conditions after we reviewed five or six different development agreements that Mr. Nary had recommended we take a look at. We kind of did just a rough of those conditions and provided that to the staff and, then, they elaborated on that and we are quite pleased. I provided you a letter this evening that I just kind of wanted to go through. There is one DA provision that I do want to discuss. All other provisions, based on my meetings and conversations with the applicants, they are in agreement with. So -- so, we are pleased. When we began this journey it's almost funny that it was on January 18th, 2011, one day -- almost a full year and so what I did is I went back and I looked at those -- those minutes when we came before the Council as a discussion item. I fully understand that's not binding or anything, I just wanted to remind the Council that -- that -- how we started down this path and, you know, Anna -- Anna wanted to talk to Council about Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 12 of 40 basically looking at this annexation and rezone without a development plan and she said I want to talk to you, because your -- typically you get an annex -- along with your annexation a concept plan or a preliminary plat and that's usually the way it works. And I'm paraphrasing, but -- but she is quoted per your minutes. In this instance we are going to annex, which will allow us to establish these right of way easements. We will get a development agreement at the time of annexation, but you may not get a concept plan at first and she said -- and if you don't get a concept plan at first, the DA for this property would, obviously, include that prior to any development -- any development that a -- that a development agreement modification would have to come forward and bring us a concept plan. And she said this is a little out of sequence, but I'm comfortable that we can get -- still get development that's in the best interest of the city and consistent with the Ten Mile interchange specific plan. The Council kind of had a discussion. I quoted a couple of the councilmen from those minutes that they were encouraged that they were getting an effort here by the property owners, ACHD, the city, ITD, to come together as a group and try to solve the transportation issues here. Through this whole process we have spent a significant amount of time and unlike other projects, a lot of time has been spent convincing some of the key property owners that the needs of the multiple property owners in the Ten Mile area as a community outweigh the needs of that individual and that it is in everyone's best interest to step up and to do their part and provide what's necessary, whether that be right of way or whether that be annexing, zoning, provide what's necessary to make this a success and it's -- the success is dependent on the ability of these property owners to work together on this transportation network and this is so unusual, because, typically, what we find in a development is our focus is on a particular piece of property with one client, with a certain number of desires, development vision. We provide stub streets. We may -- we may stub a collector. We may interconnect with pathways and open space. But nothing to the extent that we will see out here at this Ten Mile area. I mean everything is so interconnected. I think, you know, Councilman Zaremba said, you know, what's -- what's our chance of getting a site plan at this -- at this point and I thought about that and I do apologize that I was not here on December 20th. It was my understanding that it was going to be automatically deferred and I didn't have my Christmas shopping done, to be honest with you. So, I said, okay, I didn't know a discussion would take place, so I do apologize and want the Council to know that I was not shrugging my duties here. I was under the wrong impression. I could provide a site plan, I guess, if that was the desire of the Council. But in my opinion this is beyond a site plan, because if I provided a site plan it would, obviously, in my opinion, my professional opinion, be a shallow representation of what's going to go on there, because the bigger picture is all laid out in the Ten Mile specific plan, that it is architecture, open space, transportation, site planning and the architecture is really really key to this area. I mean that's -- that is one of the big parts of this vision and I can't provide that architectural component, only at the point of time when the property is purchased by a professional developer will they be able to take that step and, then, they take site planning and pathways and take the transportation network that's set up and bring in that architecture. I guess to be honest with you, you know, that is very complex. I can't do that alone. I just feel it's beyond, to be honest with you, my capability, because it takes a whole group of planners and architects and developers to sit down and come up with a plan this elaborate and this Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 13 of 40 complex. The Ten Mile specific area has a vision. That vision is more specific than your general Comprehensive Plan and that's why you called it the specific area plan. It sets up a blueprint for development. If you get a zoning designation you don't just go out and just do it, there is a blueprint and part of that Ten Mile specific plan says in addition to this blueprint that this development will embrace, we also want to have design guidelines. Well, 2009 you guys came up with very detailed design guidelines. They talk about architecture. They talk about interfacing with the roadways and the pathways and pedestrian interconnectivity and it talks about size of the buildings and bulk and it affects more than just a zone. I guess I don't want the Council to get hung up on the zoning. The C-C zoning, the T-N zoning -- TN-C zoning, it's setting up a framework. That's all it's doing is setting up a framework. But the development is going to have to come through with the architecture and the site plan and at that time that's when this Council will judge this project on the quality, the ingenuity, the creativity, how everything interfaces, how this whole area is going to look. I thought about this -- about zoning and I will give you an example. Valley Video on Main Street, if -- Keith probably remembers -- I don't know -- I don't think it's even there now. When it went in years ago I was around and everyone was so upset. It was a cinder block building, boxy, plain, just down right ugly. Bird: But practical. McKay: But practical. A different commercial zone wouldn't have changed the way Valley Video looked, but design guidelines would have. Architectural standards, your downtown plan, wouldn't have allowed that. So, I guess what I'm telling you is it's beyond zoning now. We have all these plans that come together to make these projects what you guys want to see and the old standard used to be -- and I think Keith can attest to this -- I can't really define what a bad development looks like, but I know it when I see it. Well, now you guys have defined what is a good development. What we want to see. What characteristics. What architect style. Some of the things that were done in the past won't happen again and these communities have evolved, they have grown, they have gotten smaller and it's been to everyone's benefit and I commend you. The guesswork has kind of gone out. The old adage that, well, if they get that zone, then, they can just do whatever they want. Those days are long long gone, because it's far more complex than that and you guys have taken the effort to make sure that there is design -- there are design guidelines and a specific plan that lays down the foundation and will be the guiding document for this development. Your plan even talks about that it provides a set of directions for the architect and the developers for the future projects and, like I said, it's beyond what we typically look at. It is far more complex than that and this the C-C zone -- I am convinced that is the right zone for that portion, which is up at Ten Mile and along that major half mile collector that will carry up to 30,000 vehicle trips a day. It will be another Pine, but a lot prettier, because it will have the landscape medians that are down the middle. So, I feel that -- that this is the right zone for this property. I have gone through the conditions and I like them. The only thing that we object to is 5-H under the Janicek property. 4-B under the Fedrizzi provisions, and 4-C under the SJJV provisions. And that is that even with the C-C zone we are limited to 20,000 square feet maximum and that was one of the reasons that we Meridian Cily Council January 17, 2012 Page 14 of 40 found the C-C zone superior to the TN-C up there next to Ten Mile, was the fact that we had the latitude to go over the 20,000 square feet and we think that if you limit C-C to the 20,000, it just becomes TN-C. That was the most objectionable restriction that we found. I also looked at Meridian 118. Sonya, do you have that in there? Oh, now when I want it to change it won't. Wafters: Which slide would you like, Becky? McKay: The last slide. Thank you. This is a zoning map of what the existing zones are out there right now and as you can see on the Meridian 118 property they have got that C-C right there in their core that is south of the Janiceks, east of the Janiceks. The condition that was provided in their development agreement said that the C-C district shall be consistent with the design standards contained in the Ten Mile interchange plan for mixed use commercial designated areas and uses within this C-C district will be comprised of a mix of office, retail, recreational, employment, other uses, including residential, as defined in the Ten Mile plan. So, basically, they get -- they were given the C-C zone in the middle of the section and, then, that -- or that provision was provided in their development agreement and I guess what we are asking for is just the same. Nothing different. All the other restrictions that the staff thought were appropriate we are in agreement. Just this one. Can I answer your questions? Hoaglun: Any questions of Becky? Any questions? Bird: I have none for Becky. Hoaglun: Any questions for Becky at this time? Zaremba: Mr. President? Hoaglun: Councilman Zaremba. Zaremba: If I may. I'm agreeing with you that the question of the moment seems to be the size of buildings and as the public and the staff and the Council were working through and creating the Ten Mile specific area plan, my recollection serves me that one of the ideas was that along the actual Ten Mile roadway, as a Meridian entryway corridor, it was not attractive to have large buildings, which is why it was sort of designated TN-C in the area that we are talking about specifically. I will have to admit it is not jumping to mind to picture what a 20,000 square foot building is. Can you off the top of your head suggest a couple of stores around Meridian that you think are 20,000 square feet or so? McKay: It is hard, isn't it? What's this building? Bird: It's a hundred, but -- Zaremba: But we are three stories. Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 15 of 40 Bird: I think if you -- those two buildings where the eye doctors are in off of Eagle across from St. Luke's that's got the slopped glass on top, I would say those are probably 20,000 square feet buildings. They are two stories. That's where they do the eye surgery and stuff -- Zaremba: Yeah. McKay: Oh, on the west side? Bird: On the west side. Right across from St. Luke's. I think those are probably pretty close to 20,000 square feet buildings. I'll let you finish and, then, I'll -- Zaremba: Well, I'm not visualizing those as being terribly large buildings. They are not. Bird: Mr. President? Go ahead. Go ahead, David. Zaremba: So, I think I can understand the request. I think the only -- only subject is this has been through public hearings and discussion before and I realize we need to be somewhat flexible, but for whatever it's worth, the decision was made before they didn't want bigger buildings there, but I'm willing to listen to a disagreement with that.. Hoaglun: And, Councilman Zaremba, I was trying to think -- the city attorney was mentioning our footprint on this building might be a 20,000 square foot footprint, which would be a 200 by 100, 250 by -- you know, you could do it. So, this would be a footprint and, of course, then, you can change the configurations, whether it's square, rectangle like this one, or whatever we are. So, that -- Zaremba: I think what I'm remembering from the original discussions is that the thought was it would not be attractive to have a big box store, but those are, what, in the sixty thousands, eighty thousands square feet? I mean what's -- McKay: Oh, I think -- Bird: Sixty, eighty, one hundred. McKay: They are up over a hundred I believe now. Bird: Yeah. Some of them are 140. McKay: The super stores. Zaremba: Yeah. Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 16 of 40 McKay: -- are ahundred -- would somebody tell me -- a commercial realtor told me. They used to run -- I think a grocery store was around 60,000, like an Albertson's, but these super stores I believe are up over a hundred now and that's all one footprint? Zaremba: Well, for what one person's opinion is worth, I'm not so sure I would be thrilled about that, but I'm not so stuck on exactly 20,000 either. Watters: President Hoaglun? If I may clarify Hoaglun: Yes, Sonya. Watters: That only applies to retail. All other uses may allow a footprint of greater than 20,000 square feet through the Conditional Use Permit process. Hoaglun: So, Sonya, that means if it was a service provider, optometrist shop, what have you, that would -- that would be allowed. Watters: Exactly. With a Conditional Use Permit. They would have to go through that process to be approved, but it's a possibility, yes. Hoaglun: Okay. Thank you. Bird: Mr. President? Hoaglun: Councilman Bird. Bird: You know, we are starting -- we are starting new out there and I really don't have any problems with the way Overland and Eagle -- all down Eagle -- and there is a lot of buildings, retail buildings larger than 20,000 square feet and I have no -- and we are -- we are zoning these people so that they can, hopefully, once the economy starts, they can get some development going out there. Why do we want to limit what jobs can come to our area? There is not very many jobs that's going to work less than 20,000 square feet, if you want jobs. Under 20,000 isn't a very big office building or retail building or not. You can have -- you can have little strip malls, which I'd prefer one big building over a strip mall. But my way of thinking on this project -- these projects is they want some zoning that they can go sell customers to come in and develop and create jobs within our city and start making the Ten Mile corridor look like a -- and Idon't -- I don't want to see a bunch of box stores there, but I have no problem with a grocery store, retail store. It's nice to have one out in that area. I think we got to look at the areas, too. We don't need all our grocery stores in one area. That's my two cents worth. Hoaglun: Okay. Quick question for Caleb or Sonya. On that C-C, their request to -- request deletion of the 20,000 square foot building restriction for the C-C zone. If they have aproposal -- they have a tenant who wants to have a 30,000 square foot building Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 17 of 40 and if we were to approve this do they need to come back to Council with a Conditional Use Permit? Wafters: If it were a retail use, President Hoaglun, it would not be allowed with a footprint over --greater than 20,000 square feet. Does that answer your question? Hoaglun: Yes, but if we -- if we approve their request to delete that 20,000 square feet, if we said, okay, we will give it to you, but what protection does that afford us in terms of the control aspect -- I guess we need to see aconcept -- conceptual plan, but would they have to come forward with -- let's say they have a 30,000 square foot building they want to put out there in the concept, would that be -- would that be a conditional use requirement, then, for that approval or was that just part of the concept plan? Watters: You can make it whatever you want it. Hoaglun: Okay. Watters: If there were a conceptual development plan we could tie them to that. So, that would be your safeguard. Right now you really don't have a safeguard until there is aconcept plan. Hoaglun: Okay. Caleb, do you want to weigh in? Hood: If I may. Yeah. Not to -- I think Sonya is right on with that answer. I mean just maybe another -- understanding Councilman Bird's comments and I totally agree, we shouldn't have every -- all the grocery stores in one part of town and maybe 20,000 isn't the right number. But maybe there is something -- somewhere in the middle between a hundred and twenty where we are approving those at the staff level or requiring a Conditional Use Permit for anything above 40,000 or something. I don't know what that number is, but maybe there is some checks and balances there so we can still see it. If it's a grocery store, we are not opposed to a grocery store, but some of the design elements -- maybe we just want to make sure it's going to fit with that vision and to make sure --just to check in and make sure it's okay through that CUP process. I mean that process is fairly streamlined and I think we -- you know, we are not here to slow things up or -- but it does give us some of those -- the checks again on -- you know, just to make sure it's the right fit, the right feel. So, that would be my kind of on-the-spot proposal back would be if you bump the square footage up a little bit and said anything over this number, then, requires -- regardless if it's retail or nonretail, that anything above whatever square footage comes back for a CU or in just deleting the whole condition. I don't know. Hoaglun: Thank you, Caleb. That does articulate my thinking a little bit on, okay, if we go with this, Becky -- and I'd like your thoughts on this -- what are the appropriate checks that we could, as a Council, make sure that, okay, this still fits the vision, this -- this plan -- we like what's proposed or, oh, that doesn't fit. I mean we have got to have something on our end to make sure we have -- we can keep the parameters in place, I Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 18 of 40 guess, without trying to limit you to say, oh, no, here it is and this is it, absolutely, and live and die by that. So, what are your thoughts on -- McKay: Council President Hoaglun, Members of the Council, I -- I see your point exactly and I have the same thoughts and that item five says that no development takes place on here without a development plan coming in. So, the Janiceks can't sell off 40 acres and have somebody come in tomorrow and say I'm going to build me a Walmart here or whatever. Somebody has got to bring in a development plan on the whole property. Somebody has got to come in and do a site plan within all of these guidelines and design standards. I just don't want to scare off a -- say a -- you know, a large developer from out of state that may come in and say, you know, I have a great idea for this area and I'd like to buy these properties up, but, gosh, they got this 20,000 square foot maximum on retail and that's -- that's just going to kill -- you know, it's not doable. So, I'm looking at it from the perspective that we got to protect the city. I agree with you a hundred percent, but we have also got to make it so that this property does look attractive to somebody and the C-C, the TN-C, I think that's a great compromise. I think Caleb has a good idea. If the Council is looking for some middle ground, we -- we see this in other -- other municipalities where certain areas -- things come in as a Conditional Use Permit. In fact, the old comp plan had mixed use plan development areas that everything we did commercial component in those areas came in as a Conditional Use Permit. So, obviously, that's a possibility, that, you know, maybe you set a square footage and say, you know, anything over this would come in as a Conditional Use Permit. You're still requiring that they come in with a site plan. With that site plan and the development agreement modification -- they got to bring in what type of buildings they are going to build, what type of architecture -- you know, architectural style. We always -- those are tied to these DAs. It's one thing that this Council has established. So, I guess to answer your question, nothing can happen on this until somebody comes in with a specific plan and a development concept with their building, their architecture -- I mean a lot of work has got to be done before they can ever get to this point and at that time if they had a big box right smack on Ten Mile, the Council would go, you know, why don't you move within the interior, we don't want it on that corridor. Your staff -- I mean they are committed to that plan. I don't think that that idea would get past the staff and to the Council, because they would probably say, you know, read this, you know, this is what we want to see. This is our vision. Go back to the drawing board, come back, design something within this vision and this blueprint. Make -- you know, this is what we want to see. So, you know, I -- I think there are protections within this document, because nothing happens out here. This is going to sit ag until that point. Bird: Mr. President? Hoaglun: Councilman Bird. Bird: Caleb, I got a question. Don't -- don't you think we are protected through our design and review regardless of the square footage? I mean if somebody comes in with a 150,000 square foot building, if -- if it's designed right and everything, the staff might Meridian Ciiy Council January 17, 2012 Page 19 of 40 pass it. But if you don't, you turn it down or they have to go through for a Conditional Use Permit, a CUP. Don't you think we are protected enough in our design review and stuff out there? Hood: Council President, Councilman Bird, I do think there are a lot of provisions already in current code. In this draft development agreement I think there are quite a few coverages. I think where I'm saying maybe an option is not necessarily being protected, but just like Becky is saying, as this gets marketed so that they understand sort of the vision -- you know, we are protected still, but the vision isn't necessarily for a 150,000 square foot building. That's really not the vision. Would it be allowed? Maybe if it's designed. But, really, it's hard -- it's going to be hard to design a 150,000 square foot building that really meets the vision of the plan. So, I think that's where -- where you can -- we can have not those protections, but just as it gets marketed we don't want to be talking to a grocer, say, and they are like, well, it didn't say in the DA that 100,000 square feet is a problem and now I'm just hearing that. Generally we would like to see things that are in the 40,000 square foot range. Generally. Not prohibiting them from coming, but -- but having them understand before they get too far along that does that fit the intent. Is it really what the city is after, because if you just strike it, 100,000 square feet may be fine, because there is nothing that talks about square footage. So, that's kind of a slight tweak on that protection angle. Bird: Follow up, Mr. President? Hoaglun: Councilman Bird, follow up. Bird: My biggest fear is if we -- if we put a limit on it is what if somebody comes out and wants to build a two or three story, 70, 80 thousand square foot, first floor is retail, second and third floor office. I mean -- and they design it nice and everything, it comes before you. If you don't like it or -- you know, they have to come back and get a CUP or -- they come before the Commission and us, I just think that our ordinances and stuff and our zoning covers us and, you know. But we are tying these people's hands to try to sell and let's face the facts, every one of them is either going to develop it or they are going to try to sell it to a developer to develop it. Well, if we have their hands tied -- I mean a year from now something might be real strong in development, five years from now it might not be and if -- you know, if we tie their hands -- I don't know, it's -- the way I look at it it's their money out there, they are not going to do anything to lose money on, they are not going to build something out there that's ugly if they want to sell it or lease it and we have the design of it. Your staff has got the design of it. Review. I just don't want to encumber them with a square footage. Zaremba: Mr. President? Hoaglun: Councilman Zaremba. Zaremba: I'm working on this and I'm listening to Mr. Bird very carefully. The issue, as I'm sure everybody is aware, that we have in the past removed a requirement and the Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 20 of 40 people that we were talking to that came before us we believe and we trust and, then, they sold it to somebody else who had this huge entitlement and read it differently than we did and it's rarely the people that are here making the application, it's somebody down the line that bought the property and thought they could do something that they didn't. I -- I think I'm more inclined to go with Caleb's suggestion and that is to, one, bump it up, let's say 40,000 and, then, say bigger than that is possible with a CUP. I think that leaves the door open -- it gives them our vision and if they don't want to building bigger than that, they go through the process, it's already permitted and staff can approve it, assuming it meets the design guidelines and the other rules that are in place. And if they want to fight the battle of making it a bigger one, at least the door is open by a CUP process and I -- I would have to say at the moment I am falling down on that side. Let's leave the door open, but still put a -- put a number on it, 40,000 and if you need it bigger, CUP would be the suggestion I would be happy with. Hoaglun: Councilman Zaremba, just to comment on your idea. I was thinking along the same lines. I was just thinking that anything above 20,000 would require a CUP, Conditional Use Permit type of thing. I didn't have a particular number in mind, I was just thinking they wanted to delete the 20,000 square foot, we just say anything above that here is the process to come back and do it and that way the rules are known. It's not that we prohibit it, it's just they have to go through a process and we say, hey, that looks great. I think of United Heritage Insurance.. That freeway visibility is.a big deal. If you talk to the CEO that's a big deal. And I suspect that's at lease a 20,000 square foot building footprint and they have a couple stories and I'm sure there is going to be some folks on that Ten Mile corridor near the freeway will want that same visibility and I really don't want to stop that -- stop them from coming to Meridian, we want them here, it's just that, okay, how do we put in place protections to make sure it fits what we are -- what the plan is for there, it looks good, and I think those types of folks want something that looks good, too. They want a quality development to represent whoever they are, which I'm sure you're going to bring, right, Becky? McKay: Working on it. Hoaglun: Anyway. This is a public hearing. Madam -- City Council -- no. City Clerk. Yeah. Down there. Did we have anybody else sign up to testify tonight on this issue? Holman: President Hoaglun, no, we did not. Hoaglun: Okay. Is there anybody out there in the audience who wants to comment on this issue? Come on up. State your name and addresses for the record, please. Janicek: I'm Louann Janicek. 270 East Connemara in Eagle. I am half owner of Janicek Properties. And I want to publicly thank you, Mr. Bird, for having the vision and knowing that if we cannot market this we cannot sell it. And I just don't see how that benefits the City of Meridian. If you put a limit on a building -- I'm not asking you to build a 100,000 square foot building. But if you limit that building, I can tell you nobody is knocking down our doors to build anything or develop anything out there. I believe you Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 21 of 40 have covered it in all of your contingency plans. It seems to me like it's taken care of. If I have a real bone to pick it would be that you would allow Meridian 118, who is behind us, to not have any of that condition of square footage. They have a C-C zone, same as we are requesting, and no contingencies. I might also add that our property is encumbered the most by interior roads. I feel like we have given quite a bit and I'm just asking in return the availability to be able to develop that piece of property, to market it to someone who wants to come in and make Meridian better. Thank you. Hoaglun: Okay. Any questions for Mrs. Janicek while she's here? Bird: I have none. Hoaglun: Okay. Thank you. And question for staff. I did want to double-check that and I wasn't able to go back in the record and look. For the 118 property is that correct that C-C -- there was no restrictions on building size -- square footage? Wafters: Councilman Hoaglun, I don't believe there are any restrictions. However, I might note that there are different future land use map designations on that property. There is no, for instance, mixed use residential on the area that is zoned C-C and there was a concept plan that development is tied through that development agreement. So, a little different situation. Hoaglun: Okay. Good point. Thank you. Wafters: And also just to clarify something that you noted earlier on the 20,000 square foot footprint, .that only applies to the C-C zoned property. The HE that's next to I-84 it does not apply to. Hoaglun: Okay. Thank you. Bird: Mr. President? Hoaglun: Councilman Bird. Bird: In reference to bringing anything -- setting a limit on it and anything above that going through a CUP, just think to yourself if you -- if you were a purchaser and was going to spend millions of dollars on some land and you get down to it and they say, oh, yeah, you got a C-C. Well, you look what C-C says and it says all this and, then, you look at the development agreement and it says, oh, anything over 20,000 square foot you got to go through a CUP. While I realize 99 percent of the CUPS go through, there is always that chance that one percent is not is going to go through. I think we are covered and Caleb basically said it, in our own design and ordinances and stuff I can't see putting any kind of limit on somebody in a C-C zone -- and I realize 118 is a little different, it don't -- none of it fronts Ten Mile, but it's still a C-C zone right next to it. I just can't -- I just don't think it's fair to the people to put a restriction on the square Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 22 of 40 footage. I think we are already protected myself. That's my personal opinion, Mr. President. Hoaglun: Okay. So, I guess, Councilman Bird, if Niki headquarters wanted to move to Meridian, Idaho, and they wanted to purchase a spot you would be okay with that? Bird: Who? Hoaglun: Niki. Bird: Man, I would be up there -- and so would you. Hoaglun: I would be very happy, yes. That is an inside joke. Brenda Sherwood, our economic development director, I told her I said all I want is one thing, you land Niki and you can have a job as long as you want. Bird: Yeah. Zaremba: Mr. President? Hoaglun:. Councilman Zaremba. Zaremba: Again, there was a great deal of study that went into the original Ten Mile area plan and I just -- I need to be refreshed on what -- the properties that we are not talking about around this were designated. The property to the north of it, the property to the east across the street -- the snowball effect of saying, okay, we are going to ignore the Ten Mile area plan in this instance, what impact is that going to have on the rest of the plan across the street and up and down this street. Are there other TN-Cs and C-Cs and -- Hood: Council President, Councilman Zaremba, I can remember directly north of the subject property is a high density residential. Bird: It's R-40. Hood: Yeah. Across the street, though, I can't remember what that designation is off the top of my head. It is some mixed use planning commercial -- as far as the snowball effect, I mean, who knows, we haven't seen the concept plan yet, so we don't really know what the trickle down may be, you know, especially when we are talking square footages. I don't really foresee anything that the Council does tonight would necessarily affect across the street so much. I mean there are different -- you know, going to work and coming home sides that you want to be on I think that will factor into that. But, again, I don't know that your decision tonight will affect any of that. The lifestyle center is directly across the street at the -- Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 23 of 40 Zaremba: What you're showing now helps. Thank you. And also your assessment that this may not have an impact across the street also helps. All right. Thank you. Hoaglun: Question for Sonya. The pipeline where it shows the green, that is the Williams pipeline through there or is that the -- is that the drain? Bird: That's the drain. Zaremba: Yeah. The green is a waterway. The canal. Watters: Councilman Hoaglun, that is a drain. Zaremba: The pipeline is -- Watters: Further to the south. Hoaglun: Okay. Zaremba: -- a little farther to -- Hoaglun: I knew it was in that property somewhere, but I couldn't recall where Watters: The gray you see here on this map is where the pipeline is located. Hoaglun: Okay. Thank you. A question for legal counsel, Bill. Any motions made on this, they have to be -- there has to be three different motions, one for each property related to this? I read that somewhere, but it didn't -- I think that was asomething -- or it can one --since it's one zoning or annexation application -- Nary: Yeah. Council President Hoaglun, Members of the Council, yeah, it's one application. So, it's one approval. So, you don't have to make a separate one for each property. Because it's been -- it's been all one whole application, one development agreement with all the different signatory -- it's all -- it's all been one project. Hoaglun: Okay. Thank you. Watters: There are three separate development agreements, though. Just wanted to make sure I didn't miss something there. Hoaglun: I think, Sonya, that's what I was thinking, there is three separate development agreements and that's why I was curious, we don't have to approve three -- all three agreements separately, Bill? Nary: No. Hoaglun: Okay Meridian Cily Council January 17, 2012 Page 24 of 40 Wafters: It's only one application, one file member, but -- yeah Hoaglun: Okay. Great. Thank you. Hood: I would request, though, Council, that any changes you make, make sure you're in the right DA or you make it in all the DAs or whatever property -- you know, it's applicable to that development agreement. So, any motion you may make to amend that, if you could make it clear that it's an amendment to all three or two out of the three or one out of three or whatever the case may be, so -- Hoaglun: Okay. Thank you, Caleb. And, of course, I might mention when we are talking about options, you can always take this and say, yeah, we like this, this is a whole new deal. We can send it back down to Planning and Zoning Commission and have them kick it around some more and bring it back. I mean that's just an option. It doesn't mean it's something we have to do, but it is an option. So, with that, Becky, do you want to wrap up? McKay: Thank you, Council President Hoaglun and Members of the Council. I guess I just wanted to -- to make a couple of final comments. On Meridian 118 they are .medium -- they .had. medium high density residential, mixed use residential. But they didn't have any TN-C component. They were given ME and the C-C. I think Councilman Zaremba talked about deviating from the plan. That matrix says what zones are appropriate for these designations and it gives a menu for the Council to choose from. The C-C is one of those designated zones that is allowed for the mixed use commercial, mixed use residential that are on the Janicek property. So, it's not a deviation of the plan, it is a choice of which zone is appropriate based on the Council's best determination. I think Louann had a good point, in Meridian 118 they are not saddled with any max -- or, you know, maximum square footage of 20,000 and so, you know, that property is for sale. We looked -- we saw it in Thornton Oliver. They came through with a plat. They are trying to sell it. I will bet five dollars that somebody will come back with a new site plan and architectural designs and you guys will be re- looking at that one, too. So, I don't -- I really don't see this one as any different. As far as -- you talked about projects changing hands. They didn't have the Ten Mile specific plan as their blueprint either, the ones that we have seen that have changed hands. They had a designation in your comp plan, they got annexed, they got zoned, they may have had a concept at the time. The project went back to a bank or was sold to someone else, changed hands, now they are back before you. The beauty of this one is that you have that blueprint of the Ten Mile specific plan. It's a specific plan for a reason and that sets those parameters and I guess that's what I'd like the Council to realize, that it is not cart blanche out here, it never will be, not with your design guidelines and architectural standards, not with this Ten Mile specific plan and I can guarantee you if someone comes in and they are proposing something that doesn't fit with that vision, I know the staff would recommend denial. I know the Council would say, you know what, I think that building is just too large right there next to Ten Mile. Staff, you're right. And what happens? You deny the develop -- the DA mod and the Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 25 of 40 concept plan and you send them back to the drawing board again. We have done it before. I just want to make all this come together. It's been one of the longest hauls I have ever been on, one of the most complex projects I have ever been on and I guess if the restrictions are such that I can't get everybody to agree that -- to sign off on these DAs, then, my little pyramid that we have built over the past year trying to get every one board kind of starts falling apart and I think Louann Janicek, that's her primary concern. She's got a partner in this who happens to be her ex-husband and, obviously, with 50- 50 -- you got to come to a consensus, so -- so, I think, you know, her fear is that -- that if it is so severely restricted that -- that this whole plan may fall apart and we have got a great opportunity here and this transportation plan, getting these right of way easements, getting that trust fund from ITD -- 458,000 dollars in a trust fund to ACHD to build this -- start this collector, get that line in, get the intersection established, is going to benefit this area. It really is. We just need to take the first step and get this done, get the right of way easements established and I guarantee you guys will have the final say in whatever goes on out there and this is going to be a beautiful area and that plan is going to make sure of it. And I guess I would ask you to, please, consider elimination of that 20,000. I guess it's just -- it's just too low. Thank you. Hoaglun: Okay. Thank you, Becky. This is a public hearing. So, a motion to close the public hearing would be in order. Bird: Mr. President? Hoaglun: Yes. Bird: I move we close the public hearing on AZ 11-001. Zaremba: Second. Hoaglun: There is a motion and a second to close the public hearing on AZ 11-001. All those in favor say aye. Motion carries. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Hoaglun: The item is before you. Bird: Mr. President? Hoaglun: Councilman Bird. Bird: I would move that we approve AZ 11-001 with removing from all three DAs the restriction of any square footage on buildings and also to include all staff and applicant comments. Hoaglun: I'll second that. We have a motion and a second. Any comments? Meridian City Council January 17, 2072 Page 26 of 40 Bird: I have none. Hoaglun: Okay. Madam Clerk, please, call the roll. Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, absent; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea. Hoaglun: Thank you. Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Hoaglun: Long and winding journey, Becky. Item 8: Department Reports A. Public Works: Discussion of Public Works Inspection Services Bird: Nice job, Beck. We are on Item 8-A, Department Reports, Public Works. Warren, are you doing that or Tom? Tom, you're up. Bird: Mr. President, before Tom starts, can lask -- Tom, what's the new do? Barry: The new do? Bird: I mean I don't hardly recognize you. I know you're not getting any younger. Barry: That's true. But I'm trying to hang onto every second I have got, so -- that's right. No. I appreciate you noticing that and embarrassing me. Bird: When you get my age you start backwards. Barry: Yeah. Bird: You know, I'm 70 now. Next birthday is 69. We start back down. Barry: I like that. Hoaglun: Tom, what do you have for us tonight? Barry: Thank you, Mr. President, Members of the City Council. I wanted to speak to you tonight about the Public Works inspection services that we provide. This would be underground utility inspections for both water and sewer, related to both capital projects, those are projects that we build as a city, expansions of water lines, infrastructure, sewer lines, well and facility improvements, like wastewater treatment plant improvements, wells, those type of things and similar services provided for the private development project that we have in the city as well, things like residential subdivisions or, you know, apartment complexes or those sorts of things as well. We currently have Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 27 of 40 three inspectors in Public Works and up until 2010 we had four inspectors in Public Works. I'm here to talk to you tonight about restoring the one position that we let go in the budget last year and Councilman Hoaglun was our liaison last year, Councilman Zaremba is our liaison this year, both of them briefed on this. Up until 2010 we had run with four inspectors, as I mentioned, and when the -- one of those inspectors had been terminated for cause from the city I had held that position open in an attempt -- because at the time we wanted to evaluate whether or not we really, in fact, needed that position refilled. So, we kind of bumped along for some time. As you know we had a change in our chief inspector position during that same time period and I asked for an analysis to be done after we got our chief inspector position refilled with Joe Meusch, who is actually -- I don't know if you have met him or not in the audience here. And he's done just that. And, essentially, what we were sort of hoping for, which was a continuance of the same quality inspection services we have been providing for some time with three staff is no longer possible for us. We wanted to talk with you tonight about sort of why the need for restoring this position, which was once in Public Works for many years and let go in the budget last year is now needed again. So, that's the reason I'm before tonight. So, I wanted to just brief you -- see if I can get the --great. Thank you. Talk a little bit about the type of inspection services we provide very quickly. You're familiar with most of these. We do reviewing of plans and specifications and also document construction activity through various inspections and other sorts of services for capital projects, .as well as -for private development projects and the construction activity documents develop -- we develop reports, inspection reports, which include a variety of different types of assessment as to what's going on in the field and this is done, again, mostly for water and sewer projects, although it includes infrastructure projects as well. The -- I guess we have got problems with the machine tonight. Thank you, Caleb. All right. So, what staff did in our analysis -- because we wanted to bring that to you this evening for discussion -- is we looked back at two years worth of data and we tried to analyze, okay, what are our typical base load projects? What's our typical workload. And so we have been -- as we have heightened our ability for record keeping we were able to go back to the last two years and evaluate, essentially, what kind of projects -- what kind of time frames, how much staff were required to, essentially, inspect these various projects and we came up with what's called a typical base load. And these are some projects here on the screen that coincide with these types of projects we have been working on recently for private development. A couple things have been -- you know, the bright side is there has been a bit of an up tick in development and we are seeing that around Meridian. If you look at kind of what's going on recently with the Center Cal development, Center Cal itself includes, essentially, 28 commercial buildings and a variety of different townhomes, lifestyle center for us. The Zebulon Four residential subdivision, Spurwing Heights residential subdivision, the Scentsy campus, which is in full swing, that includes a distribution center, a power center, two warehouse facilities, IT building. Also the Meadow Lake Village expansion, Rosarias supermarket and Regency apartments, which will be about 700 units as well. On the capital improvement side we have been, of course, very busy and we are seeing an up tick in capital construction again. We have had a lull over the last two to three years. Right now we are running about 50 to 60 capital projects on the city's improvement project plan over the year's time. So, essentially, we are still very busy and so -- one other Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 28 of 40 thing that we are doing as well is warranty inspections. We talked with you about that and we have done about three to four warranty inspections over the last four months alone. So, it's not really a big time commitment at the moment, but certainly is something that is important for us. So, what are some differences in our inspection services today than say as opposed to 2008 and 2009? We have made quite a bit of improvements and we have been sharing these improvements department wide with you in our strategic plan updates over the last several years. One of the major improvements that we have been focusing on are process improvements and this is, then, certainly the case in our inspection arena as well. As it relates to the kinds of improvements we have been making in inspection, we have been doing a much better job of improving our CIP pay application verification process. This is where we have engineers and inspectors working together to make sure that capital project work has been done before the work's been paid. It keeps us out of a situation where a project engineer on the city will issue payment for work that may not have been done, so that's certainly a benefit to us to insure that we have coordination between inspection and project management side. We have also increased our coordination with -- of construction meetings for both water and wastewater personnel, insuring that we have appropriate conversations prior to the design and construction of various facilities to make sure that those facilities, once installed, meet the needs of the city. And this helps, of course -- it benefits the city in many ways. One is to minimize change orders and .also reduce. costs over the .long term. We. have also enhanced -- .and. this is probably one of our biggest benefits over what our process improvements have been in the last couple of years -- is that we have enhanced markedly the inspection documentation process. Our recordkeeping is lots better now than it used to be and for good reason and you are familiar with some cases recently where the documentation has come in pretty handily for us. It's important to make sure that we have the appropriate documentation on capital projects, even private development projects, to insure that we can defend ourselves in certain positions and also make sure that the right thing is being done at the right time by the right people. As well we have increased our coordination with project managers, insuring, again, that the expectations of the design engineers and project managers are met in the field during time of construction. And, then, I mentioned also constructability reviews. These constructability reviews, again, are an attempt in advance, similarly as I have mentioned, to coordinate all the logistics of the construction prior to the construction, so that the inspectors are clear before the first dirt -- first shovel is turned on what exactly the project is going to be and what to expect on that. We have also improved as well our preconstruction meetings. We have been recording those, as you all know. That was in improvement we have made and been doing a lot better on documentation that way. And, then, warranty inspections I mentioned also. So, there is lots of improvements going on. Now, these improvements come with an enhanced or required increase in time for the staff. You can't make these kind of improvements on the same number of hours that the staff were committing to inspections and administration back before these improvements were made. But we all agree that these improvements are the right improvements and are necessary to insure that we have a quality inspection program. Moving forward I want to talk about personnel availability, because the staff and I worked together to evaluate, essentially, what kind of capacity do we have with our existing three inspectors and a Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 29 of 40 capacity analysis has to include, essentially, what kind of time do the inspectors have for the inspection related work. If you look at the typical work year you end up with about 2,008 hours of work time. Now, a good portion of that, as you know, is consumed by holidays, sick leave, vacation and, then, a whole bunch of other administrative duties and going back two years, we have been able to evaluate what those components are and we have put them here for you on the screen. Essentially any particular FTE or inspection staff member is only able to spend anywhere between 70 and 72 percent of their time in the field doing inspections, because either they are meetings or they have these other areas that are consumed by personal time or vacation or those kinds of things. That's significant, because what that does is takes a 40 hour work week and it reduces it around 29 to 30 hours, because the other time is consumed by these other areas, as I have mentioned. So, that's one thing to keep in mind as well. And this is -- this is the case with not just inspection, but it's the case with every staff position. I mean you can't say that you're going to get a full 20-80 hours out of any position if that person is taking time off for holidays, if they are taking time off for vacation or sick leave and, then, certainly there is a variety of different types of administrative components to every job, which are varied by that job. So, then, after we look at what's available, really, then, we say, okay, what do we have with regard to our base need? What -- what are we able to spend on projects? So, we went through this two years of data and we, essentially, established that over the past two years we have been able to put together a baseline and that baseline shows that on average we are able to.accomplish about 15. projects a day per year. Now, that is an entire inspection team. That means, essentially, currently we are spending approximately one hour currently on these projects per staff person per day, when, in fact, we really need to be spending one and a half hours. So, we need to bump up the time by simply a half an hour per project per day in order to meet the need that we have for the inspection program. But that doesn't seem like a lot, but it actually ends up being considerable and that's what I wanted to share with you this evening. So, our ability currently is one hour per day per job or per project and that gives us a combined work group hourly load, if you will, of 75 hours per week. Again, as I mentioned, we need one and a half hours per day per job, which means that the need is about 112.5 hours per week as an inspection group. So, you can see we are short just about 37 and a half hours here per week and that's, essentially, of course, equivalent to about one FTE. Considering, again, based upon the workload allocation graph I showed to you earlier, we are not going to get that full 37 hours or 40 hours with an FTE, we are going to get something like 30. So, we will still be a little bit short, but we feel like we should be able, with continued improvements, to make adjustment and be fine with that particular FTE. What we did also is we benchmarked ourselves against other communities in the Treasure Valley and beyond and based on our population and the comparisons of other populations, what we have noticed is that, essentially, there is an average of about four FTEs for a population of around 80,000. And that's looking at, of course, Medford, Oregon, Caldwell, Bend, Lewiston, Twin Falls, Nampa, and city of Boise is certainly on the larger side here. So, that was in alignment with where we were up until 2010 as well, with four inspectors, and certainly is something we have come to realize through a little bit more robust analysis as well with regard to our needs with -- for inspection time. So, if we look forward -- because one thing we don't want to do is we don't want to hire somebody Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 30 of 40 and, then, three to four months or six months or eight months or a year or two realize, well, we don't need that person anymore and end up in a situation we may have to let them go. So, part of the analysis included, as you know, one thing we are big in in Public Works is modeling and projecting. So, we looked at our capital improvement plan and we looked at --and talked with the folks in development services and projected out what would be sort of the typical base load going forward with regard to projects and what we realized is, essentially, that for the next five years certainly -- and that's as far out as our capital planning goes, that's as far as our strategic planning goes and it's as far out as our model goes, the base demands continued to justify an inspection team of four FTEs or this additional person. So, one other point that I wanted to mention is that we have not, as I said before, been able to meet the inspection needs today. So, you might be asking, well, how are you getting by and the answer is we have been getting by by consulting our service -- consulting that service out. For example, we spent 75,000 dollars recently to inspect or have inspection services provided by consultants for three separate projects. Seventy-five thousand dollars bought us a combined total of one hundred hours of inspection. Now, keep in mind that, essentially, we need, you know, on the order of -- or, excuse me, one hundred days. I said one hundred hours. I'm sorry, that's way off. It bought us one hundred days of inspection time. And keep in mind that there is 250 working days in a year. So, in order to get that same level of service we would be spending on the order of 180,000 or more for that same service, which we think we can do for far less, with the addition of one.staff member and still get an additional 50 hours per -- or 50 days -- work days per year. So, that's important to keep in mind as well, that right now the way that we are getting by is we are consulting these services out and that doesn't seem like a good use of funds, particularly if you look at the next five year period and you say, okay, what would it cost us over this five year period. Well, if we had an in-house inspector three position that would cost us around 72,000 dollars a year for a combined five year total of about 432,000 dollars or we could continue to consult these services out and get a lessor amount of working days each year, which -- at a cost of 150,000 dollars per year, which would equate to 900,000 dollars over that same five year period. So, we think that the timing is right. We have done the analysis and the analysis suggests what we -- what we have as a recommendation for you this evening, which is to allow us to move forward in bringing about the inspector three position back to the city, allow us to fill that position. I will mention again it's a position that we have had, you know, since 2010 and in an effort to see if we could get by without it we went for a year and a half or so and the Mayor and Councilman Hoaglun and myself agreed last year to pull it out of the budget, because we thought maybe we could get by and at least not tax the Enterprise Fund with a vacant position that's going to be held on for some time. We discuss at that point in time if the position needed to come back we needed to come to the City Council and present our case, which is what we are doing this evening. So, with that I will stop for questions and we have inspection staff here tonight and certainly our chief inspector and myself ready to answer any questions you might have. Hoaglun: Thank you, Tom. Any questions? Bird: Mr. President? Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 31 of 40 Hoaglun: Councilman Bird. Bird: Tom, I got a couple things. That 72,000, does that include benefits and everything? Barry: Yes, sir, it does. Bird: Okay. Have you considered -- and I'm just throwing this out -- like we do with our building inspectors, subcontracting? Barry: Yes, Mr. Bird, we did and I -- as I mentioned the contracting out of these services is pretty pricey. The recent example is those three projects for a hundred working days at 75,000 dollars. Bird: Yeah, but you're hiring a consultant at that time. I take it it's probably a professional engineering firm or something? Barry: That's correct. Bird: .Yeah. .Well, you don't -- do you have to have -- do you have to have a professional engineer or -- is all our inspectors professional engineers? Barry: No, sir. Bird: Okay. Barry: And they not -- Bird: Why -- I mean why don't we -- like we do with electrical and stuff like that. Have we ever considered that, Tom? I'm just throwing this out. Barry: Sure. Bird: The 28 workable hours -- 29, 30 hours -- workable hours a week is not acceptable to me. You -- you don't live in the real world if you only get that. I realize that just with vacation and holidays you only get 1,912 hours out of your employees, but 72 percent of it is work? I -- I have a hard time with that. Barry: Council Member, you bring up some good points. So, let me just clarify that statistic as well, which we verified internally as well. The number of hours that we have calculated just for the record and for your benefit, for vacations are 96 hours per year. That's if everybody accrued the eight days per -- or, excuse me, eight hours per month or the 12 months. That's 96 hours. Holidays you take off another 80 hours. Sick leave, if somebody uses their sick leave as they accrue it, which many of our staff do, you have to take off another 96. So, those -- those three components I think we could all Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 32 of 40 agree that's just --that's just the way it is. Some staff aren't as sick as much, some staff are sick more. But the other percentage that I was talking about, the remaining 374 hours, is meetings. Now, Councilman Zaremba has sat for the last four months with my inspection team and my construction manager on a focus group just about every week for two hours. One meeting alone. Not to mention the subcommittee work that goes on behind the scenes, which you're well aware of, Councilman Zaremba. Those kinds of activities, including things like revising the standard specifications for the city or doing time cards and filing and answering phone calls and correspondence and all -- that's noninspection work and that's what we are talking about, Mr. Bird. That kind of work is work that has to get done, but it takes our inspectors out of the field and puts them in the office doing that kind of work and I know it seems like a large number and that's the reason I bring it up, because it is a large number, but the reality is it's a real number and, like it or not, the difference is that we only end up with 70 percent of the time in an average work year to devote to inspections and that's one of the areas that's been difficult for us to overcome. Hoaglun: Just a comment on what Tom said earlier about the vacancy -- creating the vacancy. My recollection of the conversation was Tom wanted to hang onto it. It says I foresee a time that you're carrying it -- he says, you know, I foresee a time we are going to need it. I don't know when, but we will need it. I prefer to carry it. Well, the Mayor and I and, of course, Finance .said, well, you know, let's just get rid.of it and when you need it come to us and I'm sure everything will work out. So, that's the only difference I have in that recollection, Tom, but -- Barry: Thank you, Mr. Hoaglun. Hoaglun: But it was discussed that, you know, if it's going to be vacant for some time let's just get rid of it and the need -- when the need comes we can -- we can look at filling it again, which -- which it looks like, thankfully, the time is now that has come and it's certainly good if we have got inspectors and you need more inspectors, then, we have got activity out there in the community and we appreciate that and we want to make sure we provide good customer service to get things done on that, so -- anyway, any other questions, comments? Zaremba: Mr. President, I would just comment that I think it's a good thing if we need to refill that position. It speaks well for what's going on in the city and the need for it. That's a good position to need to fill. Hoaglun: Tom, did you want us to take any action on this or was this just a discussion? Barry: Thank you, Mr. Hoaglun. I wanted to just have the discussion with you this evening and get sort of your temperature on how to move forward. My recommendation is to bring a budget amendment forward at the next Council meeting and ask for your approval of that budget amendment, so that we can fill the position before the construction season really picks up and this is what we are trying to get ahead of, because we don't think we are going to be able to make it through the summer. Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 33 of 40 Otherwise, I would have just put that position in the budget for the fiscal year 2013. I will say that the budget amendment is ready to go pending your favorable consideration tonight and I want to point out to you that it does include a vehicle, because we have reappropriated all the vehicles we have in Public Works and so we do need a vehicle as well. So, that's going to be a one time expense. I will talk to you more about the fiscal component of this, if you allow me, next week, but, essentially, the Enterprise Fund can accommodate this. We have modeled for it and we can include it without disruption to -- or compromising of our base budget and certainly our ending fund balance, so -- Hoaglun: Okay. Appreciate the information, Tom, and we look forward to dealing with that probably next week then. Barry: Great. Thank you, sir. Thank you all. Appreciate your time. B. Legal Department: Ada County Highway District Cost Share Permit -Ustick & Ten Mile Intersection Hoaglun: Okay. Now, next up 8-B. Legal Department. ACHD cost share permit. Nary: Thank you, Mr. President, Members of the Council. This is really a joint presentation .both from the legal department, as well.as Planning. Caleb is here to speak to the planning component. What you have on your agenda is the cost share permits. ACHD, as you well know, passed an ordinance last year in relation to cost share and what that means in relation to various road projects that occur. This particular permit is the first one, so I think there is a couple of things that we at least want to point out to you if those are issues or concerns. Mr. Lucas is here as the highway district's representative and if that's the direction the Council wishes to take to provide some feedback to the highway district, but Ithink -- I think a couple of things before Mr. Hood takes over, but there are a couple of issues of concern. Basically this is a roadway project at the area of Ten Mile and Ustick. There are some parcels that are -- belong -- that have been purchased as part of the right of way take for the intersection improvement by the highway district that are on the southwest corner of that. The map is up there in front of you. They are parcel eight, nine and ten, but this permit goes beyond just that particular section. It deals with the right of way improvement or detached sidewalks, both for that section, as well as the property to the north, as well as the improvements both to the south of the --parcels eight, nine and ten along Ten Mile, as well as the improvements that are done to the parcels that are attached to the subdivision on the east side of Ten Mile, both on the south side and the north side. There are some -- some things in the permit that we can discuss, but that's, basically, what we are here for. The highway district is looking for either consent from the city or feedback from the city in regards to the permit. Their target date to get either a final decision from the city yea or nay on this particular permit is approximately the first week or the first full week of February they would like to get this project out to bid and get this constructed here in the early spring, late spring, whatever. Ithink I'm going to let Caleb take it from this point. He's got kind of bullet pointed out to you folks, just Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 34 of 40 kind of the issues and concern that we want to raise to you and see whether they are concerns to you as well. Hood: Thank you, Mr. Nary. Council President, Members of the Council, Ihope -- usually I go to the podium, but I've got some things here that I want to have easy access to. If you don't mind I'm going to just stay put here -- Hoaglun: You're good to go, Caleb. Hood: -- for this presentation. Just a little bit more background before I get into some of those bullet points regarding the cost share permit. Bill and I did go over the ACHD two Fridays ago now -- a couple Fridays ago and we met with the project manager AI Bush and their legal counsel Steve Price, at which time they outlined the terms, essentially, of this cost share permit. Bill mentioned this is the first cost share permit for the city and ACRD and together. So, we are -- we are it. This is the first known one in Ada county and so we are taking this to you and I have went through it a few times now. Our legal department has as well and I do want to just go through the terms with you. I think the easiest way, probably, to do that is to break it up, essentially, into three different sections, the way I see it. There is really three different components to this permit and the diagram I think does a good job of explaining them. So, the group -- the first section .for parcels 12, 14, 16, 18 and 19, which is on the northeast side -- so it will run north-. south along Ten Mile there, that would be -- see if my pointer shows up. I don't know if you can see that. It's these parcels basically on the east side of Ten Mile, north and south. The draft permit says the maintenance of these -- the interim treatments in the form of existing weed barrier and two inch minus drain rock, along with conduit for future irrigation is the responsibility of the city. So, the maintenance and interim treatment in the form of existing weed barrier. That might be okay. There is already drain rock out there, so that's probably not that big of a deal. If you read on, though, it says: After a ten year period the interim treatments must be replaced with developed landscaping in the form of irrigated grass. And now that, in my honest opinion, is a difficult one. There may be -- whatever gets put down with this project is probably going to be there maybe forever. We are talking about an existing developed subdivision where back in the day our codes may have not applied, but there is existing drain rock out there today and I know of no forum for the city to go back on that homeowners association in ten years or whenever and say, hey, times due now, you need to landscape this. I just don't -- we don't have that mechanism in place today. So, I am concerned of that particular language. And, again, just to call your attention whatever goes down there with this project is probably what's going to be there for a long time. It may not meet code. It may be nonconforming, but we usually don't spend our code enforcement efforts on things like this. As long as the weeds are kept down by the adjacent HOA we usually don't make a big deal out of it. So, I do want to call that -- that's -- that's one situation of the three that I will point out. The second one, then, applies to parcels eight, nine, ten, which Mr. Nary called out as the ones that are on the southwest corner that ACHD currently owns. Thirteen, 15 and 21, which are the ones just directly across Ustick Road. Part of the McNellis Subdivision. And the permit says ACHD authorizes and requires the design, construction, and maintenance of interim treatments within the six Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 35 of 40 foot wide pedestrian safety buffers present in front of those parcels. So, ACHD is requiring the city, because the plans have detached sidewalks to design, construct, and, then, maintain the interim treatments or if you want to put permanent in that would be okay, too -- the interim treatments in front of those parcels. It, then, goes on to say, similar to the section that I read you: After a ten year period the interim treatments must be replaced with permanent landscaping. Now, for this one the interim treatments I don't think they are going to last ten years. I think those properties I just called out there will develop within a ten year period and I think probably, hopefully, within the next couple of years. So, I'm not too worried about it being there long term. I really do think that would be an interim treatment in that case. But I am questioning a little bit of why the onus to put in the weed barrier and rock is on the city. That -- for a couple of reasons. One, as mentioned the one on the southwest side is an ACHD owned property. The other one would be --and, again, I think it's just -- it's sort of incidental to this roadway project. I mean it is -- it's between the sidewalk and the curb. So, to me that's something that the highway district wouldn't be violating their own cost share ordinance if they were to install some interim rock. They could even recycle that if they sell that surplus property off and it developed, but we don't currently have any money budgeted to install any interim treatments and weed barrier. I did get some cost estimates from AI Bush, the project manager. We are talking about 7 ,000 dollars to improve that frontage with this project. Now, that would be a cost that ACHD would have to incur, too, to be fair about it. But it would be a cost that the city wasn't planning on incurring, especially in this fiscal year. And, then, again, the second part is that if by chance it doesn't -- one of those properties -- or all of them don't develop, we are still on the hook to -- after ten years potentially install it with permanent landscaping and to me that's just -- it becomes a nightmare ten years from now to say, oh, that -- that one house didn't redevelop and now the city is on the hook to -- to put the irrigation and landscaping down. I'm not overly concerned about that, but did just want to call that out. And, then, the third situation here is in front of parcels seven and 12. So, seven is on the far south end on the west side here and, then, 12 is actually east-west along the north side of Ustick in this general location. And the terms state: ACRD authorizes and requires the design, construction, and perpetual maintenance of the permanent landscaping in front of parcel seven and 12. This one to me is probably the one that causes the most concern and I think, hopefully, we can -- after talking with ACHD can sort of talk them out of this, but there is existing landscaping in those areas. ACHD's project is removing some of that landscaping and have compensated the HOAs to place back some landscaping. Well, in the terms of this they are putting the onus to make sure it gets put in on the city. To me that's directly in relation to that project. Even if the sidewalks are attached ACHD would have to go in and patch back in the sod and the trees and everything else that they are taking out with the project. So, to me, whether it's attached or detached, the landscaping needs to get put back in and I don't understand how that can be put on the city to patch back in landscaping, essentially, there. That's something that's typical with an ACHD project. If it's landscape and their project goes in and puts a sidewalk in and they take out some of that landscaping, they will match it back in. And, again, just kind of an incidental cost. So, to have that say that the city is on the hook to making sure that the HOAs patch that back in -- again, similar to my first concern. One, we don't have a mechanism to do that. Now, we have Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 36 of 40 city code, but we really don't have any protocols to say because of that roadway project your subdivision is no longer in conformance, you have so many days to improve this landscaping. Or the alternate would be the city budgets for -- for it and puts in and -- and Idon't think that that may be is an appropriate use of city funds either, so -- so, those are kind of the high level -- I guess I should point out the other -- the southeast corner of this intersection has attached sidewalks. So, really, there is no issue. It's not addressed in this permit. It doesn't meet our city code and it's not consistent with TLIP, as are the other three sides of the intersection, because they have detached sidewalk. But there really just isn't an opportunity to do detached sidewalk. Those homes are so close, the backyards are so close, and with the additional planter areas it just doesn't -- it doesn't make sense and the impact would be too great. So, that one is kind of out of the picture for this permit. So, just a little more -- and I mentioned it a couple of times, but I do like that ACHD has designed into their project detached sidewalks on three corners. It's consistent with city code. It's consistent with TLIP. It's been something that's been in this plan set for about seven years now. I guess that's another sub point is this project has been 99 percent designed since 2006. This isn't something new and to retrofit -- and I hate to use the term grandfathered, because we get called on it all the time, but -- but to ask the city to retrofit it for something that's been in ACHD's design all along just doesn't -- it doesn't seem right anyway. So, that's something I'd like to explore a little bit more with ACHD and I guess that's my recommendation at this point is .would ask for some .direction from the Council to negotiate to try to understand the terms of this permit. I don't recommend that the city sign this permit as currently drafted. I hate to see this project delayed. It's a very important project. This intersection has seen tremendous growth in traffic counts since the interchange opened. It needs to be improved. At the same time I think we need to understand where ACHD is coming from and the implications to signing, to not signing, to maybe working something out with them to come to some other understanding than the terms that are currently in this agreement, because, again, just to be frank, Idon't -- I don't necessarily think it's -- it's equitable at this point. So, I guess that's where I'm at at this point. I know it's a very high level of the permit, but I think those are, essentially, the -- what the -- the draft permit calls for. I did speak with Justin just briefly before -- before the meeting and -- and asked him that -- you know, I would be talking to the Council and ask that we have some more time to consider this, to understand this, with -- with whoever, if it's the director or the commission or legal staff over there or what, but just to understand exactly where we are at and if this is their final and best, if it's a take it or leave it type thing or if there is some room for negotiations. So, I think it would be appropriate. Justin is our newly appointed liaison -- to break him in and see if he can help us out with at least exploring that avenue a little bit better, so we can understand where ACHD is coming from. Again, I'm not trying to be overly difficult, but I don't want the city to get into something that by signing we are setting ourselves up for failure in the end, so -- and I think we just maybe need to explain some of that to ACHD to see if they -- Hoaglun: Caleb, my recollection is the city has paid for interim treatment, but my recollection on Ustick Road, it was still in the county, there is going to be future development. We would, then, require the next -- the new land owner to put in the Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 37 of 40 landscaping and the different things. I mean we -- we have never paid for -- within the city limits any -- like you said, this is the first one, but the only agreements we have had with them to do this where we have paid was because it was outside in the area of impact. Is there any other thing that we have done? Has there been other cases? Hood: I can't think of -- and that's a great point. I didn't initially point that out to you. All -- all the properties that are on the screen are currently annexed into the city and that is a little bit different than the Ustick project where we agreed to pay for the weed barrier and some roto mill material to put down interim, because it's in front of county parcels. And those will redevelop. We are pretty certain. Some of these homes that are there, particularly parcel 14, I think that's going to be there forever. I mean I don't know when -- you know, at least there will be a single family home and we won't be able to apply some of our current code to that. So, again, we are setting ourselves up to where if we can't require the adjacent property owner to improve those things, we are going to be on the hook for. So, I know of no other instance where we, the city, has paid for interim improvements such as the weed barrier and rock, other than on front of county parcels. Hoaglun: And the other point I guess I want to make is the fact that the weed barrier and rock is an interim item and I have never seen that as -- I have never considered that landscaping. It is a way to transition to landscaping down the road when -- like in the county parcel, it's just a low cost way to get the. improvements in, have .everything designated in place, they have the weed barrier just so we don't have weeds exploding everywhere. Weed barrier and rock. And, then, in the future when that property -- that corner develops we require that landowner to put in place irrigation, landscaping, trees, what have you, whatever works best for that particular area and, then, we considered it landscape. I mean this to me is part of the -- the construction process. We have the detached sidewalk, which is -- which is a safety issue, among other things, and, then, just the interim treatment is rocks. So, I know ACHD may disagree with us on that, but to me it is interim, it's not landscaping, and I can understand why they don't want to pay for landscaping, because we could be over the top in our requirements for them and they want to put the money towards construction. I truly understand that. So, this is a low cost alternative in the interim before we get to that point. But as you point out on that northeast side, for example, that's all that's going to be, because we really have no mechanism to go back and do that and redo. That's -- and some of the places we will be stuck. But on the northwest side we can even probably talk to that property owner now to say, okay, let's go ahead and get that landscape now and see what can be done. And, then, on the southwest corner, that's a whole new dilemma where the property owner themselves is ACHD. Now, if they said no, we are not going to landscape, because we are going to sell and they put in a sidewalk up next to the road, if they want to sell that and we tell a potential buyer, oh, by the way, to meet code you're going to have to rip out the sidewalk and put in a detached and they go back to the seller and say, oh, before we buy the property we want you to do that, we are wasting taxpayer money. That just doesn't make any sense to -- if we are going to require that as a property owner, what we are going to -- that just makes my head spin. Meridian Cily Council January 17, 2012 Page 36 of 40 Hood: And I do -- that's a good point and I do want to make a couple of clarifications along those lines. So, if by chance the city doesn't end up signing a cost share permit on this, ACHD could go and redesign the project and put in the attached sidewalks as you just mentioned. And you have explained how that would play out and the city could say, well, those are attached sidewalks, don't meet our code, we need them to be detached sidewalks. That -- that is a possibility and I did talk to AI a little bit about that. He did mention that if -- if that were the case and it needed to be redesigned, ACHD decided that was the prudent thing to do, it would take about two months and so it would delay this process about two months to get the intersection reconfigured, so the cons to that are it delays the project another two months and we end up with the attached sidewalks for however long it takes for those properties to develop. The northwest side -- I don't think we are in -- you know, as this aerial shows, it's -- it's ready for development. It's -- it's ready to go. I don't think we are going to be too far off. In fact, the city is holding a bond for landscaping in front of that property. So, if -- I'm trying to work with that property owner currently, set up a meeting to figure out how we can -- he can work with his landscape architects and maybe even hire ACHD's landscape folks that they are going to have out here on site to do the work needed in front of their -- in front of that development. So, that's a little bit different where I think that one is more imminent, maybe, than the surplus property that ACHD currently has. But good points and I -- there are -- there are repercussions or pros and cons to different options here. And, like you said, you know, that potentially is a waste of resources regardless if_it's ACHD's or the city's or a private -- and Ijust -- it makes some sense as you were pointing out to put in some low cost interim treatments there that could look okay for five, six, seven, ten years, you know. The rock was kind of a compromise. I don't know if you all recall, but the first time we talked about doing that for any county parcels, we actually proposed dirt. We said we will keep the weeds down and the highway district said we don't do projects that have dirt as a treatment. We need at least some roto mill or some type of gravel rock in there and you agreed to at least do that to those county parcels. So --but that's just how far it's come is we -- our first proposal was dirt and we went from landscaping to dirt and now we are kind of somewhere in the middle with interim treatments, but -- so, anyways, I just wanted to propose this, to get this in front of you, since we have had it now at staff for about ten days. Share it with you, get some of your initial thoughts on that. Again, ask for some direction. Maybe you're fine with all that and you're comfortable in -- we will make it happen. If it doesn't happen within ten years we are fine with committing to landscaping all four corners or three corners within ten years anyways and see no issue. But that's not my assessment to this point and I will toss the baton back to Mr. Nary and see if he has any final say -- any final comments or -- or where do we go from here. But, again, I would seek your direction and try to work with ACHD staff a little bit more on this. Hoaglun: Mr. Nary. Nary: Mr. President, Members of the Council, I think Caleb has really covered it all. I think really we are seeking your direction on our next step. I can certainly communicate to Mr. Price. Mr. Lucas is here, so he can certainly carry that back to the powers that be. Caleb can certainly talk to Mr. Bush, who is the project manager, and, then, we can Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 39 of 40 bring back whatever responses we get. I guess if that's the direction you would like us to take. I don't know if all of the issues that -- that Caleb has raised are such that it could be resolved at the staff level. So, I guess that's something we could come back to you with to let you know if this is something really that is going to take commission action or at least the director's action or both -- I don't know. Hoaglun: Okay. Thank you. Comments, Council Members? Zaremba: Mr. President? Hoaglun: Councilman Zaremba. Zaremba: I may be repeating or may be hopefully summarizing some of what's already been said, but to me there is a big distinction between the city's past and current willingness to pay for treatment of properties that are not annexed into the city. Ustick has been mentioned and South Ten Mile I think is another instance where properties that were not in the city, but we assume will be sometime in the near future -- Meridian wants -- when those are eventually annexed for them to meet our codes and we were willing to kick something in to pay the difference to help them meet our code, even though they are in county at the moment. Here we are talking about city properties that .must meet our code anyhow and .it's up to the owner to meet our code.. As Mr. Hoaglun pointed out, even on the southwest corner our code says that needs to be a detached sidewalk. If it got put in as an attached sidewalk, there would never be any building permits issued for that property and I would think that would make it difficult to sell. So, I think it's in the owner of the property's best interest to meet the codes. It would certainly be cheaper. As Mr. Hoaglun said it's a better use of taxpayer funds to meet the code in the first place and that's something the property owner pays for. The city doesn't pay for that on any properties. There are even right on this intersection exceptions. You have the southeast corner that is not going to meet our code, but it doesn't meet our code now. It met the code at the time that it was put in. We have not typically gone back and required owners to retrofit when the code has changed. Old construction tends to stay that way. But certainly the two western legs of this are new construction and I would say they aren't subject to cost share. That's the owner needing to meet the code that exists that applies to everybody. So, I would ask that that be passed along. It would be difficult for them to make future use of their property if they don't meet the code. I guess that's my comment. Hoaglun: Thank you. And, Caleb, I did want to comment on that southwest corner on the Ustick side. I'm sorry. The northeast corner on the south side -- Ustick side, parcel 12 you had mentioned. And this is a learning curve for everybody, since this is our first one, but that did seem odd, pay the homeowner the money, they removed it, now we are suppose to go in and enforce our standards, I -- I hope Mr. Lucas takes back that -- that needs to be worked on and tweaked a bit for future things. That just kind of -- that puts us in a difficult situation on that, so -- and so that's just one of those that -- and I'm just glad we could give Mr. Lucas a really easy one his first time, having something to Meridian City Council January 17, 2012 Page 40 of 40 go back to his folks with, so -- any further comments on this? Staff, anything else to prod us on? Hood: No. Thank you. And I will be back -- if not next Tuesday, in a couple weeks, because, as Mr. Nary pointed out, we would like to get some response by the first part of February anyways, so -- Hoaglun: Okay. Hood: Thank you. Item 9: Future Meeting Topics Hoaglun: Great. Thank you. Well, we are to Item 9, future meeting topics. Anybody have anything that we need to bring up -- bring to our attention? Bird: I have nothing. Hoaglun: Okay. Then we are at the very end of the meeting.. Bird: I move we adjourn. Zaremba: Second. Hoaglun: Motion and second to adjourn. All those in favor say aye. All ayes. Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 9:06 P.M. (AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) MAYOR T MY DE WEER ~s° °bST, DATE APPROVED ..~ r~,.. """' EF~1. HOLMAN, CITY C ~, mpu Sa'.f1S, y A ~y tiA~~ °~ Ida TR! Rl~pe,