2022-02-21 Caryn Bitler
Charlene Way
From:John Bitler <cjbitler@att.net>
Sent:Monday, February 21, 2022 5:19 PM
To:Chris Johnson; Robert Simison; Liz Strader; Brad Hoaglun; Treg Bernt; Jessica
Perreault; Luke Cavener; City Clerk; Adrienne Weatherly
Subject:RE: Subject Line of Email: Proposed Lennon Pointe Community, 1515 W. Ustick Rd.,
Meridian, ID 83646
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Dear Mayor Simison, City Council & City Clerk, & Adrienne Weatherly,
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My name is Caryn Bitler. I reside @ 3055 NW 13 St, Meridian, ID in the Creason Creek Sub
Division on the eastern side of the proposed Lennon Pointe Community.
My concerns with suggestions are as follows:
1. Instead of Townhomes for the eastern side of the Development, we suggest Single
Family Detached Homes or Patio Homes which Commissioners’ Cassinelli & Yearsly also
suggested on Dec 2, 2021 meeting, thereby alleviating density & commit to 10-12 Ft.
mature trees & foliage that won’t uproot our existing Fences, to reduce noise, & protect
our privacy.
2. Mixed Use will increase Traffic, noise, congestion, pollution, & crime, we suggest you
limit the residential portion to detached single family home & patio homes for the
entire development, thereby increasing home values.
3. Initially, the Builder purchased the entire 8 acres & it has been revealed the Developer
decided to sell the Commercial portion, thereby bringing to our attention their lack of
confidence to fulfill the commercial portion of their initial contract with the City of
Meridian & thus showing us their ineptness to find suitable commercial businesses &
abandoning their commitment, which leads to the question “will it stay vacant & should
the mixed use be changed to residential, single family detached homes, thus adding
more value to the area”.
4. A mixed use community on the NE corner of Linder & Ustick is being built, as well as
several townhomes being built presently on Ustick less than a mile away.
5. The proposed Lennon Pointe community being built in a Flood Zone, as evidenced by
the FEEMA Map provided by Jason Korn from the City’s Public Works Dept. All homes
built on Farmland already have a high water table even though GEO TECH gave their
authorization to build. Creason Creek had GEO TECH authorization to build & we are
NOT in a Flood Plain as evidenced by the FEEMA Map & we still had flooding in our
crawl spaces for which our Builder had to remedy, which cost them $1,000’s of dollars &
these neighbors are north of us & had worse flooding. Just because GEO TECH gives
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Lennon Pointe the go ahead, should not make it truly a go ahead. Coupled with the
proposed development being in a Flood Zone & an extreme Flood Zone can make the
odds potentially worse & costly for the Builder ultimately. Also the proposal to pipe the
Kellogg Drain doesn’t seem to be effective, since the water has to go
somewhere….Leaving it undisturbed can be the best course of action.
6. It is my understanding that there is currently a Meridian Historical Council in place,
unfortunately there are no Regulations or Codes regarding how to treat Historical
Locations such as, The 1515 West Ustick Barn & Creason NW Lateral as listed in The
Idaho Historic Sites Inventory, which was prepared for Your Meridian Historic
Preservation Council by TAG Historical Research & Consulting, dated April 2014 and this
report is on the meridiancity.org website. Historical Preservation usually attempts to
keep, recognize, value and preserve heritage properties throughout regions, as is
evidenced by the process used by the City of Boise to evaluate historical preservation.
In summary, we are asking for your consideration, to rethink building the Lennon Pointe on
existing Farmland, which is in various Flood Zones while manipulating existing Drains as well as
consideration for the historical preservation of the Barn & the Creason NW Lateral.
If you feel the need to proceed, please consider the existing Homes to the east & build Single
Family detached or Patio Homes to preserve the home owner’s privacy with large mature 12
Ft. Trees that won’t uproot existing fences. We ask that you take the best course of action in
order to least impact our community, this generation, and those that follow.
Thank you,
Caryn Bitler
CC: Creason Creek Neighbors
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From: Robert Simison
Sent: Monday, January 24, 2022 9:30 AM
To: John Bitler; Liz Strader; Brad Hoaglun; Treg Bernt; Jessica Perreault; Luke Cavener
Cc: Chris Johnson
Subject: RE: Subject Line of Email: Proposed Lennon Pointe Community, 1515 W. Ustick Rd., Meridian, ID 83646
John,
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Thank you for reaching out and sharing your thoughts on the proposed Lennon Point application. As this application is
open, myself and City Council are prohibited from discussing the item except on the public record. I have copied the City
Clerk and they will make sure that your email and this response is placed into the public record.
Respectfully,
Mayor Robert Simison
City of Meridian
All e-mail messages sent to or received by City of Meridian e-mail accounts are subject to the Idaho law,
in regards to both release and retention, and may be released upon request, unless exempt from disclosure by law.
From: John Bitler <cjbitler@att.net>
Sent: Friday, January 21, 2022 7:14 PM
To: Robert Simison <rsimison@meridiancity.org>; Liz Strader <lstrader@meridiancity.org>; Brad Hoaglun
<bhoaglun@meridiancity.org>; Treg Bernt <tbernt@meridiancity.org>; Jessica Perreault <jperreault@meridiancity.org>;
Luke Cavener <lcavener@meridiancity.org>
Cc: John Bitler <cjbitler@att.net>
Subject: FW: Subject Line of Email: Proposed Lennon Pointe Community, 1515 W. Ustick Rd., Meridian, ID 83646
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Dear Mayor Simison & City Council,
These are some of the issues I chose to approach the Planning Commission and they chose not to consider any of these
suggested changes.
I am still concerned about these issues and I’d like to make you aware of them for your consideration.
I sent these issues to the Planning commission and nothing was done.
It’s come to my attention that the commercial portion of the property is up for sale and this sends a strong message of
their lack of confidence to fulfill their portion of this Development with the City.
January 21, 2022
Subject Line of Email: Proposed Lennon Pointe Community, 1515 W. Ustick Rd., Meridian, ID 83646
Dear City Council and City Staff,
We appreciate the consideration you made on December 2, 2021 to table/postpone your decision regarding Lennon
Pointe Community Development. I am a concerned resident of Creason Creek which is in the vicinity of the proposed
development. My concerns with suggestions are as follows:
1. Townhome proposed for east side of development; we suggest building single-family detached homes or patio
homes to alleviate density.
2. Mixed-use plan will Increase traffic, noise, congestion, pollution, crime; instead we suggest you limit to
residential (detached homes and patio homes)
3. Mixed Use should only be considered for 40-acre parcels of which this is not. One commissioner mentioned this
8-acre parcel should not be considered for this project. That means 8-acres will not and should not support this
Mixed-Use development. Please do what is right and only consider residential detached homes and patio homes
for this 8-acre parcel.
4. Both Commissioners Yearsly and Cassell stated their support for detached homes and patio homes on 8-acre
parcel at Dec. 2, 2021 meeting; we support developing these types of homes
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5. Patio Homes could attract another type of Demographic which would be attractive to the Lennon Pointe
Community.
6. Negative impacts to community will be in perpetuity; therefore we suggest single-family detached homes or
patio homes. We also noticed townhomes are already being built on Ustick Rd. a few blocks away.
7. Concern about building close to flood zone
With so many of our neighbors feeling concerned and voicing the same opinions that we have made, we know we are
speaking on behalf of them. John and I wanted to make it clear that we communicate our concerns again to you all, as
we had done at the December 2021 public hearing you held on this matter.
As a matter of fact, the neighbor on Pebblestone who owns property next to the farm is concerned his comments were
misconstrued by staff and consultants. He told us he never said he was “ok” with the proposed Lennon Pointe
Community. He was falsely accused of being ok after meeting with the builder’s architect, and, in fact he mentioned he
is not happy with the proposed community.
Lastly, we are concerned about the development being building in a flood zone as evidenced on map provided by public
works staff. As our Creason Creek Community was built on existing Farmland, it was expected that all our homes would
receive high ground water that then affected our crawl spaces of our entire community. We have come to realize all
communities that are built or will be built on existing Farm Land will have the problem of high ground water. Although
the corner of the upper edge of my lot sits in a flood zone, yet my entire home isn’t in a Flood Zone per se, we still
experienced flooding and mold in our crawl space a few years ago. Our neighbors to the north are not in the flood zone
(please see attached map) experienced worse flooding in their crawl spaces.
With the proposed Lennon Pointe Community architect’s proposal to pipe the Kellogg Drain, which is in the Flood Zone,
raises extreme concern for any and all buildings, detached homes, etc. adversely affecting their proposed Lennon Pointe
Community. Not only is there a problem with the effects of high ground water, but also the fact that anything being built
there will have flooding, especially being directly in the flood zone.
It makes no sense to chance any type of construction in a flood zone; as a matter of fact suggestions are made to leave
and utilize the flood zone area as open space; therefore, no building should be constructed. We have also discovered
that just because everything was signed off on the Geo Technical Report, it doesn’t mean that approval to build makes
all correct. .
Please see the attached Flood Plain Map of Creason Creek which was supplied by Jason Korn, City of Meridian Flood
Plain Coordinator, and a copy of our correspondence too.
Please let us know if you have any questions. I and my neighbors would be happy to schedule a personal tour of our
neighborhood in the near future for you to get a sense of perspective about our concerns.
Caryn & John Bitler
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3055 NW 13 St., Meridian, ID 83646
Email from :
Jason Kornjkorn@meridiancity.org 3:19 PM 1/12/2022
Caryn
Here is a screenshot of the Fivemile Creek floodplain in the area of Ustick and Linder. The orange is .2% annual chance
flood and is not regulated, the blue is 1% annual chance flood and is regulated with development elevating with fill to a
flood protection level, the red hatched area is the floodway and is reserved for flood flows. Development within the
floodway requires a no-rise certification making it very difficult for anything other than open space amenities.
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1 Email from Jason Korn, Followed by Flood Plain Map Creason Creek:
Cc: Creason Creek Neighbors
From: Jason Korn
Sent: Wednesday, July 10, 2019 2:23 PM
To: 'cjbitler@att.net' <cjbitler@att.net>
Subject: Floodplain Map Creason Creek
Below is a map depicting the floodplain in the area of Creason Creek Sub. The blue is the 1% annual chance flood,
orange .1% annual chance flood and the red hatched is the floodway where development is prohibited.
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Jason Korn I Environmental Programs Coordinator
City of Meridian | Public Works Department
33 E. Broadway Ave., Meridian, Idaho 83642
Office: 208.489.0364 Cell: 208.513.4048
Built for Business, Designed for Living
All e-mail messages sent to or received by City of Meridian e-mail accounts are subject to the Idaho law,
in regards to both release and retention, and may be released upon request, unless exempt from disclosure by law
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