2020-04-07 Barbara Valdez
April 7, 2020
City of Meridian Mayor and Council
To Whom It May Concern,
It is springtime in Locust View Heights Subdivision: dew on newly greening grass, delicate leafing out
on willow trees, a mat of ground cover spreading with tiny berries and blossoms, blooming fruit trees,
patches of shadow and light on driveways curving out to a quiet road, tulip, iris and hyacinth leaves
standing, a leftover leaf compost underfoot. This is the fifty-year old fifty acres still hanging on after
one and one-half years of siege by the City of Meridian, its planners, elected representatives,
developers and adjacent subdivision.
Since February of 2019 when we were suddenly asked which of three routes we would choose to have
run through and cut up our quiet, unified neighborhood, we have employed every means available in a
democracy to express our opposition—letters, meetings, requests, inquiries attendance at hearings,
legal representation, appeal to related agencies, individual appeals. At the time, various reasons were
given for the road—medical buildings, diversion of traffic, “blight,” “conductivity,” “urbanization,”
someone's “vision.” ( Medical students mainly go out of state for residencies, no traffic studies were
done to show heavy traffic through a neighboring subdivision; testing showed waste treatment systems
after fifty years of use to rate half of the l0 required for action by EPA. ) Now, pestilence and tremors
remind us of the value of estates which have open space, self-reliance, peacefulness, and heritage,
values expressed in early comprehensive planning surveys but eclipsed by pressures toward
urbanization and profit.
Before Christmas, our spirits bolstered by empty assurances, we faced yet another hearing, at which our
lawyer pointed out a lack of transparency and an attitude ofcondescension toward us. In spite of our
protests to the contrary, our subdivision was scheduled in the Future Land Use Map for rezoning from
R-l to Mixed Use. We were repeatedly told that we had “40 or 50” years in which to sell to
developers—if we wanted to do so. However, at the same time behind the scenes, a planner's memo
rated our neighborhood as #4 on a priority list, with the change to occur within a “12-month” time
frame. We were considered a “wild card.” Even prior to that, national ads for development of an
Opportunity Zone, unknown to us ,solicited developers to look at our area.
Now, a senior living community has come before the City, one which would incorporate a protected
waterway and protect itself and Woodbridge Subdivision from congestion. We benefitted from that
planning and supported it; however, again, unknown to us, an action vacating a cul-de-sac at the
southern end of the proposed development would, in a planner's word, constitute a “stub road” because
the City wanted to “connect Eagle and Locust Grove roads. Our supporting letters made inadvertently
false claims of the three diverse neighborhoods being kept separate and unique.
Homeowners affected by such a projected road—not to mention the effects on the quality and therefore
value of all the other homes and the community as a whole—include not only an immigrant family in
which a member had terminal cancer, a longtime builder who had invested thousands in his home, a
family with two young grandchildren and a beautifully landscaped yard, a log home built by a former
resident, a new designer custom built home, not to mention homes supporting veterinary-related
businesses. At least ten neighbors faced dissolution this time along a route which had only been shown
as a faintly perceived white dotted line at the bottom of a FLUM map: .A divide and conquer strategy
appears to characterize the process.
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At the center of this embattled neighborhood are vestiges of the original farm—a silo and a farmhouse.
Scattered through the fifty acres are gardens, some nurtured by skilled organic practitioners, whose
efforts include chickens and bees. Goats and horses eat down weeded areas. There is a foundation for
preservation and restoration of a way of life that complements those more urbanized around it, and
which documents a recent mayor's national role in preservation.. We have a grant opportunity, models,
partners, enthusiasts the richness of people whose cultural and religious background has given them
agrarian traditions.
We can rethink the advisability and wisdom of confining seniors in storied buildings where contagion
can be rife, even as more individual housing is provided. Several of us believe that we can to greatest
advantage for us and others retain our configuration and enhance its sustainability and productivity
within existing boundaries. At least one state agency also believes that our land is not conducive to
commercial development and further roadbuilding. A path would be sufficient to link but keep
naturally healthy distanced area distinct. An environmental safety valve, as one Indiana congressman
has said, is a “critical” isolated pocketl” environmentally, socially and economically. No broad
desructive swath duplicating three other roadways—Overland, Franklin and Woodbridge-- to
accomplish the same outdated purpose. This is the alternative, grassroots vision which coulc catch up
to and surpass some other more restrictive, narrow lenses in vogue.
Thank you,
Barbara Valdez
2220 E. Continental Drive
Meridian ID 83642