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2001 12-06Meridian Planning and Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 The regularly scheduled meeting of the Meridian Planning and Zoning Commission was called to order at 7:00 P.M. by Chairman Keith Borup. Members Present: Chairman Keith Borup, Commissioner Sally Norton, Commissioner Bill Nary, Commissioner Jerry Centers and Commissioner Keven Shreeve. Others Present: Bruce Freckleton, Larry Moore, Brad Hawkins-Clark, Will Berg, David McKinnon, Sharon Smith and Dean Willis. Item 1. Roll-call Attendance: X Sally Norton X Jerry Centers X Bill Nary X Keven Shreeve X Chairman Keith Borup Borup: Okay. We'd like to begin our regular planned Meridian Planning and Zoning Commission meeting for Thursday, December 6, and begin with roll call of attendance. Item 2. Adoption of the Agenda: Item 3. Consent Agenda: A. Approve minutes of October 18, 2001 Planning and Zoning Commission Regular Meeting: B. Approve minutes of November 1, 2001 Planning and Zoning Commission Special Comprehensive Plan Meeting: C. Approve minutes of November 15, 2001 Planning and Zoning Commission Special Comprehensive Plan Meeting: D. Approve minutes of November 15, 2001 Planning and Zoning Commission Regular Meeting Borup: The first item will be the Consent Agenda, which consists of minutes of four previous meetings. Norton: Mr. Chairman? Borup: Commissioner Norton. Norton: I move to adopt the -- or move to adopt the Consent Agenda. Nary: Second. Borup: Motion and second. All in favor? Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 2 MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Item 15. Executive Session: Borup: Okay. I would like to, before we proceed with the rest of the agenda, recognize Executive Session. Nary: Mr. Chairman? Borup: Commissioner Nary. Nary: I'd move pursuant to Idaho Code 67-2345, Subsection E, that we move to Executive Session to discuss matters of potential litigation of public concern with our counsel. Norton: If I could add to that ten minutes? Nary: I would say no longer than 10 to 15 minutes at the most. I don't think we need much time, but -- Norton: I second. Borup: Would that be consistent with the Commission and the City Attorney? Nary: Yes. Borup: All right. All in favor? Nary: We need a roll-call vote. Borup: Oh. I'm sorry. We need a roll-call vote on that motion. Roll Call: Norton, aye; Centers, aye; Shreeve, aye; Nary, aye; Borup, aye. Borup: We will recess for approximately ten minutes. RECONVENED AT 7:20 P.M. Nary: Mr. Chairman? Borup: Commissioner Nary. Nary: I'd move we leave Executive Session. Centers: Second. Borup: Do we need a roll-call vote on that, too? Okay. Roll Call: Norton, aye; Centers, aye; Shreeve, aye; Nary, aye; Borup, aye. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 3 Borup: Okay. We'd like to continue with the agenda items and I would like to open item -- oh, I'm sorry. Before we get into that, we do want to mention a couple things that are on the agenda and that is Items 10, 11, and 12, Eldorado Business Campus. The applicant has had more information they did want to bring on that and I'm not seeing Mr. Steele here, but he was here earlier. Well, we haven't opened this. I'm just making mention that the applicant was talking about it requested to be continued, so I want to make that information known, that we will be continuing that to the 20th per request of the developer. If there was anybody here at that time, we -- Norton: Excuse me, Mr. Chairman. Are you saying December 20th ? Because I think they asked to be continued to January. Borup: Oh. I'm sorry. Okay. Yes. Thank you. Norton: Until January? Borup: That is information for anybody that was waiting for that application, then, that there would not be a presentation. If anyone did have any testimony and we had time left on the agenda, we would hear that, but the applicant would not be doing -- that would be continued and we will make that motion when we come to that. Nary: Shall we do that now? Borup: Well, why don't we do it now. January -- January 17th ? Nary: I'm all in favor of moving it to January. Borup: Okay. Do you want to do a motion now as someone suggested? Nary: I can, Mr. Chairman. Borup: We haven't opened yet. When the time comes we will do it to January 17th . So anybody that wants to know the date, that would be the date. The other item is Item No. 14, street change of name. Because of where it came on the agenda and some others that desired to testify and not knowing if we will even get to that item, that will be continued to our December 20th meeting. If time allowed we would still open it and take any testimony that was here. But the intention being that we would also continue that item. So those are just some informational items. Item 4. Continued Public Hearing from October 18, 2001: AZ 01-015 Request for annexation and zoning of 34.60 acres from RUT to I-L zones for proposed Utility Subdivision by Falcon Creek, LLC – 3365 North Ten Mile Road: Item 5. Continued Public Hearing from October 18, 2001: PP 01-017 Request for Preliminary Plat approval of 7 building lots and 1 other lot on 34.60 acres in a proposed I-L zone for proposed Utility Subdivision by Falcon Creek, LLC – 3365 North Ten Mile Road: Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 4 Item 6. Public Hearing: CPA 01-001 Request to amend 1993 Comprehensive Plan Generalized Land Use Map to re-designate 34.60 acres as industrial, along with associated text amendments for Utility Business Park Subdivision by Falcon Creek, LLC –northwest corner of North Ten Mile Road and West Ustick Road: Borup: Having said that, we would like to start by opening Item No. 6, Public Hearing CPA 01-001, request to amend the 1993 Comprehensive Plan Generalized Land Use Map and with some text changes, but also accompanying those two items I would like to also open the continued Public Hearing AZ 01-015 and PP 01-017. So opening those to Public Hearings, we'd like start with the staff report, Mr. McKinnon. McKinnon: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission. I think I will start with the Comprehensive Plan Amendment first, which is the Item No. 6 on your agenda and I guess we'll start there, because that's the first thing we need to take care of tonight. As you will notice up on the tripod right there -- my fingers aren't very stable, but you see that little green dot right there, that's the piece of property we are talking about. It's on the northwest corner. The northwest -- thank you, Bruce. The northwest corner of Ustick and Ten Mile Road. It's a 34 -- 34-acre parcel of land. It has requested a Comprehensive Plan Amendment in order to change the designation from agriculture; it now exists as, to light industrial. The reason for the request is so that the property can be annexed into the city. Those are the other two hearings in the form of a preliminary plat approval tonight for a seven-lot subdivision on that parcel of ground. To the direct north of that parcel of ground there is an industrial zone already designated on our zoning map. On that site there is a wastewater treatment plant that the city owns. The wastewater treatment plant is exactly what it sounds like, the place where sewer is treated. The Public Works Department is opposed to allowing any residential uses adjacent to the public -- adjacent to the wastewater treatment plant for obvious reasons. There is, you note on the Comprehensive Plan up on the -- up on the tripod, there is a green dot that would designate that land as an area for a regional park. You can't read the wording on that, but that's one of the only green dots that says regional park. A quick explanation of why those parks are where they are at. You can see that they are somewhat scattered throughout the Comprehensive Plan. The idea behind putting those dots in various locations is that we want to have a public park in those areas, not necessarily on the specific landmass upon which it sits. Typically you don't see a park that's developed in a circle shape. It's just meant that in area there is to be a regional park. The city has secured land within two miles of this project on Linder and Ustick and designated it as a 56-acre park for the public. That will be the regional park in the area. Borup: Meridian and Ustick? McKinnon: Meridian and Ustick. Thank you. There is no reason for us to continue to have that dot on the location. The regional park is being provided for within that region. Planning and Zoning -- you, as the Planning and Zoning Commission are well aware -- give a little bit of background testimony concerning the Comprehensive Plan that we talked about earlier tonight. This subject piece of property on our new Comprehensive Plan that we are trying to get adopted has been -- we are hoping to designate it Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 5 industrial. The reason for that is the types of uses that would be appropriate adjacent to a wastewater treatment plant are not residential, they are typically not retail, and they are typically not a park use. Those types of uses that would be appropriate next to a wastewater treatment plant should be discussed in determining whether or not it is an appropriate location for an industrial site. That basically covers the Comprehensive Plan. We are in support -- staff is in support of the industrial zoning and change to the Comprehensive Plan for this site. However, keep in mind that not all industrial uses are equal. Many industrial uses are much heavier than other industrial uses and that should be taken into consideration when we get to the next two applications we have before us, the annexation, rezone, and the preliminary plat and I will get to those right now. The annexation is, again, a request for that property to be zoned industrial. Upon the industrial zoning there are a number of uses that would be permitted uses. Staff has made a recommendation that if the city makes a recommendation to annex this property, that the annexation include a development agreement that states that all zoning -- any development within that area should go through a Conditional Use Permit. The reason that staff has made that recommendation is so that we can have a meeting such as this where the public would have input to determine whether or not the industrial uses that are placed on that site would be appropriate for that site. Again, not all industrial uses are created equal. There are four uses that have been brought forward by the applicant that we should consider with this annexation. One is the school bus facility for the Joint School District No. 2. The second is the Sanitary Services Corporation's parking lot and storage and maintenance facility for their trucks. That would be directly adjacent to the northern part of this property and directly across the creek from the wastewater treatment plant. They have also requested that a use that would -- a use for a waste transfer station and for a recycling center. Those are the requested uses. It is a seven-lot subdivision. That leaves three lots available. On those three lots they have not come forward with any desire to develop those at this time, nor have they come forward with any plan to develop those at this time. You've spent -- you as Commissioners have spent a great deal of time with this at the last meeting, the November 18th meeting. You decided you could not change -- that you could not annex it until we had the Comprehensive Plan Amendment adopted. We have that in front of you tonight and with that I'd turn it back over to you guys and ask if there is any questions. Centers: Mr. Chairman? Borup: Commissioner Centers. Centers: I have one question -- or maybe more than one. Let's look at, hypothetically, that Items 6, 4 and 5 are passed by the Commission. McKinnon: Okay. Centers: I read the proposal from staff earlier. It would be subject to a development agreement, which would require a CUP for each lot? McKinnon: Each lot. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 6 Centers: Then that would be the time for most of these people to appear, then; wouldn't it? McKinnon: That would be a time for most of these to appear. Let me -- Centers: Because the -- we would just be annexing and approving a plat with no approved uses. McKinnon: Let me address that in two ways. One, you are correct, tonight there is no development request, no application for the development for the four uses that I explained. Centers: Let me interrupt again. If we approve with your recommendations that any approval requires a development agreement and a CUP for each lot, we are just annexing and we are approving a plat and that's it. McKinnon: Annexing a preliminary plat. That is correct. However, there is people here tonight that do not wish to see this become industrial. Centers: Regardless of the use. McKinnon: I regardless of the use. Centers: There probably are a few of them -- or some of them in that category, but I think -- I shouldn't speak for you, but I think a lot of them are maybe opposed to the proposed uses and those uses would be addressed later; correct? McKinnon: You are correct. Centers: Okay. Borup: Thank you, Commissioner. I think that was a good point. Do you have anything else? McKinnon: There were a few items that -- if you guys -- at your last meeting on October 18th, I don't know if you came to a consensus on. I don't know if the applicant has worked with the parks department -- had talked with Tom Kuntz from the parks department concerning the pathway along the Eight Mile and Five Mile. I know that there has been no talk determined as to what type of improvements would be required along those lines. In addition to that, there were some issues of landscaping that they had to come back with a new plan that -- I think that was discussed and came to a resolution on that at the 18th meeting. So if we take any action on these applications tonight, the staff comments, plus the three items that needed to be resolved, should be resolved tonight before we make a recommendation to Council. Just for the public that's in the audience tonight what the three unresolved items were that staff was uncomfortable with before we forwarded this on to the Council. One was the pathway -- the pathway improvements, the roadway improvements, and compliance with the Comprehensive Plan. ACHD is working with them on the roadways. I think that's been resolved. So we have some path issues, in addition to that, that we are dealing with Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 7 tonight in the Comprehensive Plan Amendment and I think all the unresolved issues will be handled tonight, if we are able to determine whether or not the Comprehensive Plan Amendment should take place. Borup: Any other questions from the Commissioners? Okay. Is the applicant here tonight and would like to make a presentation? Forey: Good evening, Commissioners. My name is Wayne Forey, Urban Planning Consultant. My address is 701 South Allen Street in Meridian, 83642. I'm working with the Meridian School District, the Sanitary Services, Western Recycling, Falcon Creek, Larry Petersen, and Lynn Brown. Lynn Brown's an architect. There is a team of us working together on this project. I know you have got a very full agenda tonight, there is 14 items, and it sounds like a few of you we are going to get to first. So knowing that you have a full meeting and, you know, there is quite a few people here, so I will be very concise and allow some time for the public testimony and -- Norton: Excuse me, Mr. Forey. Could you talk into your microphone so the people in the back can hear you and so our court reporter can hear you, too, for the minutes? Forey: Is that better? Norton: Thank you. Forey: Up like this? Okay. Want me to start over? Okay. Anyway, I can be very concise with our presentation tonight. You have a staff recommendation and we support that staff recommendation, with one exception. In the third page in the third paragraph staff states that you cannot make a recommendation on amending the comp plan without triggering the six-month prohibition in Idaho Code and I'd like to clarify that. You can, in fact, make a text amendment to the Comprehensive Plan at anytime. It's the map amendment that triggers that six-month requirement. What we are planning for and our testimony tonight will be for a text amendment. In our application we applied for an either/or, a map or a text amendment, and so we are asking tonight for a text amendment, because we do not want to cause any confusion in the city's own processing of your current Comprehensive Plan Amendment. That's gives you some flexibility. Now I have a handout that I'd like to give you and we can walk through that very quickly. Would that be all right? Centers: Same one you gave last time? Forey: That one and I have one that pertains just to the Comprehensive Plan Amendment, Item No. 6 on the agenda. Okay. Well, let's just go to the first page. It is a copy of the 1993 Comprehensive Plan and eight years ago the thinking was that next to the waste treatment plant there needed to be a buffer and Meridian was looking for a regional park. The city has since determined and has stated -- and it's memorialized in writing now -- that that's not the appropriate location for a regional park. Also the city has stated and in writing, city officials, that they do not want residential uses in that area. So there has been significant change in this area. If you turn to the next page, you will see that we are requesting a text amendment for the 1993 Comprehensive Plan, Land Use Goal Statements, Element No. 3, under the city's industrial policies, and Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 8 we are proposing that you would add this sentence to the current Comprehensive Plan. Industrial development should be encouraged to locate adjacent to or near the city's waste treatment plant. If that amendment were approved and forwarded on to City Council, we feel that that gives the city enough latitude to look at industrial uses like what we are proposing at that location. It doesn't necessarily require a map amendment, so if we take the text amendment approach, that gives the city flexibility in terms of running these concurrently through your approval process and that's why we have done this, to maximize flexibility for the city. On the next page you will see a layout of a subdivision that was prepared by Collins Engineering during 1999. That was presented to the city and the city said, no, we are not looking at that type of development at that location. This is the exact property that we have been talking about with the Commission during October at the October 18th hearing and the same property we are talking about tonight in the amendment process. In the city staff report, page two, in the middle of that staff report it says the city does not support residential use on that property. In September of 2000 we met with some city staff members and talked about -- well, I met with David Collins and he said this isn't going to work. So I met with the city and said we have got a possibility of an employment center -- a user -- a high technology user that may be interested in that business park location in this area and the city said we are not interested in an employment center, because it would put too many people near the waste treatment plant and because of fumes, etc., we are going to discourage that. So we went through a process of residential is not going to work, an employment center is not going to work, the landowners do not want to farm the ground -- continue -- to farm the ground -- Centers: Could I interrupt you? Forey: Yes. Centers: Those comments that you got from the city at that time, do you have them in writing? Forey: I do. Centers: Okay. Forey: Go to the last page. Or second to the last page. Centers: I'm sorry to interrupt you then. Go ahead with your planned agenda there. Forey: Okay. There is a -- there is major sewer lines running through this property to get to the waste treatment plant. It's inside your urban service planning area boundary. So they don't want to continue to farm this ground and so we began this search for a possible use. No to residential. No to an unemployment Center. So we began looking for a low impact, light industrial type use that wouldn't have a high concentration of people or a living environment and that led up to the Meridian School District and Sanitary Services and then that led to Western Recycling. Basically what we are hoping is that this Comprehensive Plan could be amended that would allow a large industrial parking lot for school buses and trucks and related equipment to those uses. Low impact in terms of the amount of land area is really oriented here to parking of Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 9 vehicles and not to the employment and certainly no housing. Okay. Go to the next page and you will see a map from the Meridian School District and you see the dark arrow there, that's the location we are talking about, the northwest corner of Ustick and Ten Mile Road and the school bus personnel and bus management people performed a computer analysis to determine if this location would work in terms of a computer model with route miles and fuel savings, distance to the students and this came out positive, his actually saved the district over the current location in terms of miles traveled and time savings. So it has a very good location for the school district. On the next page let's look at the layout here. This is a schematic drawing prepared by Lynn Brown, the architect, working with the school district. This site plan that you see for the school district includes 245 parking spaces for our staff, school district staff, and the bus drivers, 230 buses would be parked at this location and it would include a 12 bay maintenance shop for the school district. Now if you look up in the top you see 400 feet. That's the distance from the east side of Ten Mile right of way to the very front of the proposed shop that would be built by Sanitary Services and the question I think on October 18th someone asked, well, from that shop to the road what's the distance. Well, it's 400 feet. Just coming down now you see the 500-foot mark in the middle there. From the back of the homes that will be built at Hartford Estates to the nose of the nearest bus is 500 feet. Now look at the next location. Borup: Mr. Forey, I want to maybe interrupt just a little bit and that's back to Commissioner Center's comment. I'm not sure how far -- and which direction we want to go on this, but the application is just strictly for annexation, zoning, and a plat -- preliminary plat. Forey: Yes. Borup: Which doesn't address any of the uses, buildings, any of that. This may be a time to bring that up with the Commissioners. How much time do we want to spend on items that if this is passed with a Conditional Use Permit they are going to have to come before us again anyway. Centers: Well, I agree, Mr. Chairman. I think what the gentleman is trying to lead up to here is to induce us to eliminate the staff requirement for a development agreement and CUP accordingly. Forey: Not necessarily. Centers: Well, you don't need to sell us on the use. I mean there is -- I mean whether it's school buses or garbage trucks or whatever, because that -- if we agree with staff, that would have to be approved later. Forey: Okay. I understand. McKinnon: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission, may I address the applicant? Borup: Pardon? McKinnon: May I address the applicant? Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 10 Borup: Yes. McKinnon: I have a question. Wayne, I'm confused. We do have an application from you dated October 22, 2001, where you do request a change to the map. Are you now rescinding that request to change the map? Forey: Our application was either/or. So we acknowledge that we applied for a map amendment and also a text amendment. McKinnon: Okay. It's both, actually. Forey: Yes, it is. Borup: It states that we request to amend the 1993 Comprehensive Plan and change the generalized future land use map designation from agricultural/residential to an industrial land use designation for our property. Forey: That's correct. McKinnon: Okay. Forey: And if you read on more we are also requesting a text change. McKinnon: Nowhere in this paragraph does it say or. I'm just trying to get the idea. Are we dealing with just the text amendment now or are we dealing with a land use map amendment or to the text amendment? Forey: We applied for both and we are asking the Commission and indicating to the Commission that we are comfortable with a text-only amendment. Borup: Are you making that as a formal request tonight? Forey: Yes. Borup: To eliminate the map and just the text only? Forey: Yes. Borup: Does that answer your question, David? McKinnon: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Borup: Okay. Forey: I have provided that map with those distances to show that we have been sensitive to separating this project, the uses that may happen, to the adjacent properties, four to five hundred feet in some cases, 200 feet in others. Okay. Let's go to the next photograph, this page, in the document and let me summarize. We have Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 11 requested a text amendment to your Comprehensive Plan, the 1993 plan, to allow the city some flexibility in the way I think to let these run concurrent. We do not want to hold up your -- all this work we have done for 16 months and that would be -- we would not feel good about that. At the same time, we have some critical public services that need to occur in this community. We need a place to park buses and our waste collection trucks and they have certain schedules and so we are asking for some flexibility and we are hopefully giving a way here for the Commission to see that a text amendment could accomplish it as well. The city doesn't want residential on the site, they don't want an employment center, and they don't want a park. We feel this is a very good way through this Comprehensive Plan Amendment to encourage this type of use. The industrial zone is compatible with the current treatment plant. The uses we have talked about are essential community services, they are in our neighborhood everyday, school buses and the waste trucks. ACHD has approved the project. The traffic can be manageable. We are in favor of a development agreement and we stated that on October 18th . We have provided additional room over and above the city's requirement for landscaping because of the sensitivity to buffering. There is room for a pathway, a berm, and landscaping, and definitely there can be modifications made through this hearing process, when we get to those specific site plans, to accommodate neighborhood concerns. We are not opposed to the Conditional Use Permit, as long as it does not restrict some of the uses on the site and let me give you an example. Sanitary Services right now -- Centers: Some of the proposed uses. Forey: Proposed uses. Centers: There are no uses right now. Forey: Correct. Centers: Okay. Forey: Proposed uses. May I give you an example? In your zoning ordinance a waste transfer facility is an allowed use in an industrial zone. Sanitary Services needs to construct a waste transfer facility in this community. They don't want to get in the position where they invest in this land, build a facility, and then through the Conditional Use process find out that they are denied a waste transfer facility, when, in fact, it's an allowed use in an industrial zone. What we would like to see is a conditional use process that would work with the neighbors and ourselves on the way it's designed, not limiting uses, but maybe the way we design the project, the buffers, the heights, the separation, those types of issues. That's very reasonable. But to say to a business you can't do this, even though it's allowed in the zoning ordinance, that creates stress for that business and they have got a contract to provide those services in this city. I think that's about it. We hope you will approve the amendment process and it would be perfectly fine with us to continue the hearings on Items 4 and 5 if -- and our feeling was if we got through the amendment process, that, then, would allow us the opportunity of knowing that this thing might happen, that then we can sit down with the parks department and finalize the pathway discussions and any other things that the Commission directed us to do, the buffers you mentioned, and those types of things. So Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 12 we are trying to put first things first with the amendment process tonight and then if that does happen, we will be back to the Commission on Items 4 and 5 when it can happen on your agenda. There was a sense of urgency in July when we made this application. The Meridian School District had ordered school buses in July -- July, August. They are now parked in Canyon county, because they do not physically have the room to park them here in Meridian, so our thinking was when we applied in July we would be in front of the Commission in October and in front of the Council perhaps in November and if it was approved in December of this year, they would have a place to park their buses. That's not going to happen, so they have made long-term arrangements in Canyon County for this winter, so if we are on a January agenda that's fine or maybe even February, it's not the end of the world. But by spring we have got to have those buses and the waste treatment facility in this community working and expanding. I appreciate having this hearing tonight on the amendment process. Hopefully you can see the wisdom of a text amendment to give some flexibility. Be happy to answer questions. Borup: May be just one clarification -- our table is not big enough for all the paperwork we have here. But do we have exact wordings of your proposed text amendment? Forey: Yes. It's at the very -- first colored photo in the booklet. Borup: Okay. We have got it in the booklet, too. Forey: In white text. Second colored photo. This one right here. The white text at the bottom of the page. Borup: Okay. So that one sentence is the proposed -- Forey: Yes. Borup: Yes. And the sentence says that industrial development should be encouraged to locate adjacent to or near the city's waste treatment plant. So that's the extent of Item No. 6. You're proposing that text change? Forey: Yes, Mr. Chairman. Borup: Any questions, Commissioners? Commissioner Norton. Norton: Mr. Chairman, I just have a real quick question for Mr. Forey. Now my understanding is that your whole group is willing to work with the neighbors that are here tonight -- look behind you. You have a lot of them to work with. Or the neighborhood associations -- in perhaps the landscape, the buffers, the berms -- Forey: Yes. Norton: -- that sort of thing and let them help with some input into whatever this is going to end up being. Forey: Yes. Absolutely. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 13 Norton: It can't be someplace for people and it can't be a park, because the city says no to those. Forey: Or housing. Norton: Or -- and it cannot be housing. Forey: Correct. Norton: The farmers don't want to farm it. Forey: That's correct. Norton: Okay. Thank you. Nary: Mr. Chairman? Borup: Commissioner Nary. Nary: I think I have a question for staff. Dave, I'm looking at the 1993 Comprehensive Plan map, the same one that's up there, and I count approximately 19 green dots on the map. Is there text in this that I just can't seem to find that says that those were the floating dot things that they weren't fixed in those in those locations, they were conceptual for the immediate area? McKinnon: Mr. Chairman, Commissioner Nary, on the fly I don't think I can come up with an exact location of where that is. Typically comprehensive plans are not meant to be interpreted as this is exactly how it shall be. It's a land use plan. We would like to see this type of development take place within this area and that's the '93 Comprehensive Plan. If you'd like, I do have a copy of the Comprehensive Plan with me tonight and I could take some time -- Nary: When I looked through the park section -- and the reason I asked that, I mean it seems obvious to me that the City of Meridian in 1993 didn't really think we would have 19 regional parks. I mean that would be ridiculous. But -- so it seems obvious to me that that was the intent. I just -- I looked through the section on parks and I couldn't find any language that says that that was a conceptual idea, so that people would understand when they looked at this map it wasn't intended to mean that dot is a park. It was meant to say in this immediate area, somewhere within a mile or two of this area, we'd like to see a park there. That's what you have been saying and I agree with that, I just didn't see it in the text. McKinnon: It may not be represented in the text, but typically how comprehensive plans are generated, though. Borup: Isn't that generally almost by definition the purpose of a comprehensive plan, that it's not specific and it's generalized? Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 14 Nary: Well, we seemed to have a lot of debate on that when we talked about the current comprehensive plan, general or specific, and -- I mean -- so I was just a little curious. But I just didn't see that type of language. But I just -- I mean, like you said, there was 19 of them. I don't think anybody thought we were going to have 19 parks in 1993, but I was just curious on that, so -- Borup: I don't know that -- I mean the size of the parks is -- we have got the one big regional park and the others would be smaller and maybe end up with 19, which we will be hearing to see what they do proposed in a new park. Did we have any other questions for Mr. Forey? Okay. Thank you. Forey: Thank you. Borup: Okay. Commissioners, as we know, we have a number of people here this evening and I would like to maybe get some input and direction from the Commissioners to the direction that we want to go. As has been stated and reiterated by staff, that the items before us are, one, the text change in the Comprehensive Plan and then also annexation and zoning and the preliminary plat. The preliminary plat consists of the parcel in question and dividing that into specific lots. That does not go into any designation or use or anything on those lots. In this case we usually encourage the applicants to -- in most situations to let us know what they have planned on it, so that we may have some indication in the future when those uses come before us. That's what they have done in this case. I guess the other thing that would be pertinent how we handle this is that everyone's in agreement that, along with the staff comments, that it only be approved on a Conditional Use Permit, along with a development agreement, which would mean that they would need to come back before us with that conditional use application on the specific uses. We also have the testimony of Mr. Forey that they would not have a problem with the Conditional Use Permit and would not like to see the uses restricted, so I don't know if that's what we had in mind also. Shreeve: Mr. Chairman, if I could ask another question of Mr. Forey just along that same line. Borup: Okay. Shreeve: Hypothetically speaking, say this is approved, it goes through and you come back with a Conditional Use Permit for the bus barn and it's voted down, hypothetically speaking. Now you've conformed a lot and you're ready for it to be a bus barn. Would you potentially -- and, of course, the garbage folk as well. Of course, you know, you've got that drive in and you have tried to accommodate for that particular use. Hypothetically speaking if those are voted down and you don't obtain those uses, are your lots still going to be configured such that you can put something else there? Forey: Mr. Chairman, Commissioner Shreeve, we would have to probably replat. We would -- because it has been designed for no housing, no employment center, no park - - it came together with those specific uses. I might add, I have been in these meetings many times when someone has come to you with a plat and the Commission has said what are the uses. Well, go back and find your users and then come back to the Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 15 Commission. Knowing that, we spent months and months trying to put a business plan together and it has come together. The school district is ready to sign. The Sanitary Services is under contract and ready to sign. Same with Western Recycling. So it's been designed around those specific users. If this was to go forward and then someone said on a conditional use that you can't park buses there, boy, we would have a big problem and we'd have to replat, we'd have to redesign with whole new users. Shreeve: Okay. Nary: Mr. Chairman? Borup: Commissioner Nary. Nary: Mr. Forey, if we were to -- if we were to agree with what you're seeking, would you have a problem limiting other types of industrial uses? I guess I'm probably thinking of manufacturing -- Forey: No we would not have a problem. Nary: Okay. Forey: Absolutely not. That's an appropriate development agreement. Absolutely. Totally agree with that. Nary: Okay. Centers: Commissioner Nary, I think back to earlier. I think I would like to see all their uses. I mean we could judge that at the time. You know, why put a limit? Nary: Well, I guess, Commissioner Centers, my thought is that if we look at the table for industrial uses it's fairly extensive and we are still having to consider this is near residential. Centers: Right. Right. I understand that. Nary: So manufacturing and things that cause a tremendous amount of noise, dust, you know, vehicle trips, those types of things, would be my thought is that if this is something that's reasonable and feasible in this area. Certainly it isn't going to be feasible to have a manufacturing plant there, it's going to be -- Centers: Right. Nary: I guess that's been my thought all along is that off of Franklin Road where there is light industrial and it has manufacturing, there aren't any residences in there or very close to it and it's, therefore, more compatible. It would just make sense to me that if we are going to be considering this, we certainly would want to eliminate uses that we could easily see is not compatible with the rest of the area. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 16 Forey: We have done so much research that we are prepared to limit them right with you. The uses that we have brought to you, those are the uses. Borup: You have got three other lots. Forey: Yes. But those should be conditional use. I stated that on October 18th . I totally agree with staff that that's a pure speculative -- Borup: Is it at this point limited to those four uses? Forey: Yes. With conditional use on the -- Borup: On the remaining -- Forey: On the balance -- Borup: On the remaining lots. Forey: Yes. Shreeve: Well, I guess my thought is -- of course, you recall the lady that came in with the day-care wanting ultimately 15 kids or something like that. Of course the application was for five and there was no reason proceeding, because ultimately they wanted 15. I think this is the same situation. Although a CUP may come back individually relating to berms or heights of fences, whatever, but the ultimate goal or the ultimate purpose of this plat is to do the bus barn, to have the garbage collector there. So I think either we approve this application, frankly, with the -- with the foresight, if certain conditions are met, certainly, but that ultimately a bus barn would go there, that a garbage facility would go there. Otherwise, we don't approve the plat, because we don't approve of the bus barn potential. Centers: Well, you could approve the plat with a development agreement and a CUP required on every lot in the plat, as the staff has recommended. I'd like to go on -- put on record a letter that -- an e-mail, actually, that was sent to the city clerk from Linda DeHarold, a resident. In an effort to understand what this meeting was about -- in other words, she couldn't make the meeting tonight -- I discussed it with Planning and Zoning David McKinnon who educated me on this subject. I was glad I went this route, as I did not understand what this was all about. When I received the flyer the other day indicating that the property on the corner of Ten Mile and Ustick was looking to house an industrial park, I had thoughts about selling my home. After talking to Mr. McKinnon I now understand that it would be appropriate to zone it as industrial, especially due to the wastewater plant. Of course a park or school would not be appropriate next to a creek or wastewater plant. My interest now lies with what type of business will be developed inside this industrial area. I understand there is no application for these companies at this time to develop the garbage truck, Sanitary company, or the recycling company. But please take into consideration the area surrounding this property. And then she goes on to talk about her objections. So her indication from staff was that we would be approving a plat and an annexation with no specific uses at this time. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 17 Shreeve: Commissioner Centers, I absolutely agree with that, but the point is that there is no reason proceeding when clearly the designs were to house these businesses. So, yes, we are not proving the bus barn, we are not approving the garbage collector. However, the plat has been designed as such. So I don't know if it's legally or if it's appropriate, but in fairness to the developer we need to anticipate potentially approving those when they do come with the CUP. Otherwise -- Centers: I think it's presumptive to pay an architect to do a plat based on uses that haven't been approved and if that's an expense that has been gone to by the applicant and the developer, based on the fact that they feel that the neighbors are going to accept the buses, the garbage trucks and the recycling business, then that's an expense that you should have thought of beforehand. That's my point. Borup: I don't think it's presumptive to design something to fit a specific use and specific need for a potential buyer or use. I mean that's only good sense to design it around what the use would be, rather than have a -- Centers: Take Winston Moore's park, it's a business park, it's not industrial, but he didn't design it around a specific use. He's getting users in one at a time and he's selling his lots and we have one -- we have one on our agenda tonight for a CUP. McKinnon: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission, if I may, part of the concern that we as staff had with the -- when we sent our radius notices for this meeting tonight and for the meeting that we had on October 18th , we sent out a letter that said we were working on an annexation and rezone and a preliminary plat for seven lots. Nowhere in the letter that we sent out did it say here are the proposed uses, it will be a school bus facility. The concern we had was that the word would not get out to the public that the uses that the application came forward to us with, the school bus, the sanitation services, the waste transfer station and the recycling center, because the information would not be out to the public. Obviously, the public's here tonight -- Centers: Because the meeting was postponed? McKinnon: Because the meeting was postponed. They are here tonight. We have four uses that the applicant would like to see tonight. I can see where Mr. Shreeve is going and Mr. Centers. I respect both of your opinions. I think we are -- you guys are right on the same lines with each other. We do have uses that the application was designed for, we have some that are left out in the open, and they should be taken care of. However, we do have a lot of public here tonight to talk about what those uses are and I can understand that if we want to talk those uses tonight, that's part of the plat, the public is here. Our main concern is that the public would not be aware that those were the uses that would be coming in and that was the reason for that, so the public would receive notification that these intended uses would be taking place after this property was annexed without any further zoning approval, because these uses are, as Mr. Forey stated, these are permitted uses in an industrial zone. Every one of these uses could be approved on a staff level -- on a staff level approval basis. The reason for the development agreement with the Conditional Use Permit was so that the public would know that these are the types of uses. I think the public's here tonight and they know Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 18 what the uses are now. I don't know if we could have gotten any larger response even if we had sent out for a Conditional Use Permit saying that these are the different uses. Nary: Mr. Chairman? Borup: Commission Nary. Nary: Mr. McKinnon, I have a different question and I don't recall, Mr. Forey, if you attended the Comprehensive Plan public hearings or not, but on the Comprehensive Plan that we were discussing, to amend and send it forward to the City Council, this particular site is designated light industrial; isn't that right? McKinnon: It is. In fact, if I could get -- Nary: Did you attend some of those, Mr. Forey? Forey: Yes, I did. Nary: David, I don't recall one person coming to those meetings – and we had numerous meetings -- to say that's not an appropriate zone for that particular location. McKinnon: You're absolutely correct. (inaudible discussion from audience) Borup: Wait a minute. We are not opened up for testimony now. But I might state that that information was out for a two-year period -- I mean notifications and -- the city couldn't have done any more than they did to get that word out. If we are going to have comments like this I'm going to have to ask you to leave. This not free-for-all meeting. I just made a statement of fact and I'm sorry if someone does not pay attention to what's going on around them for that kind of stuff, but that's the facts. Thank you. Commissioner Nary. Nary: Mr. Forey, did you attend those meetings as well? I mean I don't recall -- I don't recall if you spoke at those meetings or if you talked about this particular site -- Forey: I did, at this particular site, testify about the Urban Service Planning Area and the fact that the proposed Urban Service Planning Area splits right through the middle of the property and we asked that it be moved a little bit to the west because there is sewer on our property here that is outside your Urban Service Planning Area boundary and the intend was to get everything that had sewer or could be immediately sewered, to get it inside the area -- or the Urban Service Planning Area boundary. So we pointed out it was just a drafting error and I think everyone agreed. Centers: Mr. Forey, you know, obviously, I'm concerned and a number of residents are here tonight and they are concerned. I guess what concerns me the most is to force a use on a neighborhood if it -- the zone allows it without talking to the neighborhood first and maybe the representative from the school district can address this, but when they -- if I recall in our first meeting a hundred and some buses -- Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 19 Forey: 230. Centers: 230. Okay. All of them are going to be started in the morning. Forey: The district doesn't own that many now, but we are thinking of the future. Centers: Well, let's call it 230 then. They are all going to be started in the morning. Has there been any tests made as to the noise level of 230 buses at one time? I think that test is regarding -- do they use the term decibels? Yes. Decibels. That's it. The noise level and how high that would be and how far that would travel? Have they done that test? Forey: That I'm not aware of. Centers: Have they conveyed anything like that to the neighborhood? I don't think so. Forey: I don't know. Centers: That's what's most upsetting to me. Forey: Wendell Bigham is here tonight, a representative of the Meridian School District. Maybe you could ask Mr. Bigham that question. I'm just not – Centers: He's coming forward now. Forey: Okay. Bigham: Mr. Chairman, Commissioner Centers, I think specifically to answer your question, my little spiel here is going to sound exactly like it did several weeks ago. If the school district cannot depend upon the zoning and land uses and permitted the use and everything is going to go conditional use, it puts kind of an interesting hardship on the school district. If we are a permitted use why should we have to seek community approval for every single permitted use? Centers: So that's the way you feel about it? Bigham: No. Centers: Why should be -- wait a minute. Why should we talk to the neighbors, is that what you're saying, if it's a permitted use? Bigham: Mr. Chairman, Commissioner Centers, I think it's important to deal with the neighborhood in an appropriate fashion through the zoning ordinances, but if the extremes we are talking about here is treating this setting like the co-generation facility proposed by Idaho Power, it begs the question what facilities can be placed at what locations with the degree of confidence to proceed with planning and that's my simple dilemma. We are willing to comply with the requirements of the Planning and Zoning Commission and staff level approvals in a fashion that would allow us to continue Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 20 negotiations on the property and culminate a long-term plan. The approving of it as an industrial zone and simply turning a deaf ear to the fact that the school district wishes to locate a bus facility in there, to me is not appropriate. We are interested in this site, we want to move forward diligently towards acquiring this site, and constructing the facility probably in the next two year period of time. We want to be a good neighbor, but, again, we are looking for property that allows us to be a permitted use and we view that as the highest and best chance of success. Absolutely. Centers: Zones and their uses -- and I think that staff and anyone would agree with this -- were not put in place to deteriorate neighborhoods. So the answer to my first question was not -- you didn't take a test on the noise level. Bigham: Mr. Chairman, Commissioner Centers, no, we have not done any decibel testing on that, nor a light contamination study. Centers: You don't intend to? Bigham: Mr. Chairman, Commissioner Centers, at this juncture we have done a traffic study, that is all that we have been required to do. However, I think if we are wanting to hang our hats collectively on some type of a decibel study, there is simply no way to cost effectively do what the neighborhood would like and what the Commission would ultimately like to do. The sound walls on the freeway simply move the sound from on the edge of the freeway to a quarter of a mile inland. If that is a requirement, then we would, probably, quite frankly, simply walk away from it, because it would be financially unobtainable for the school district to meet those needs of the neighborhood. That's our basic dilemma. You know, why did we choose 17 acres? We took the best layout we could possibly come up with, provided more than the required landscaping mitigation and said, okay, this is how much land we need. If we come back through a CUP process and additional landscaping and something is required, that will place a hardship on us, because it may, quite frankly, reduce our ability to utilize that property for the number of buses we think, we would need to buy more land today. We are kind of in a collective dilemma here, simply because we are a known user. Nary: Mr. Chairman? Borup: Commissioner Nary. Nary: Mr. Bigham, have you read the Meridian City Code on what a light industrial district is? Bigham: Mr. Chairman, Commissioner Nary, I have skimmed through it, but I certainly would not claim to be familiar with it. Nary: Because as I read 11-7-2 N, it says that a light industrial district is to provide for light industrial development and an opportunity for employment for Meridian citizens and area residents, to encourage the development of manufacturing and wholesale business, a clean, quiet, and free of objectionable elements, such as noise, odors, dust, smoke, or glare and that are operated entirely or almost entirely within enclosed structure. Now there, obviously, are exceptions and certainly parking buses and the like Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 21 is a reasonable use in a light industrial district, but I'm not sure how you're going to convince anybody that 230 buses don't make some noise and you're going to have to have something to show that you're not going to disturb those neighbors 500 feet away, because the code requires it. So if you're telling me tonight that you're not interested in doing that and you're going to walk away from this, then it sounds to me like we are done. You're going to have to -- Bigham: Mr. Chairman, Commissioner Nary, if you wish to place that upon us as a requirement, please do so and we will evaluate the options for a noise study. However, it is a very interesting requirement in that it is applied I think probably in a bit of an arbitrary fashion, because we come back to the simple fundamental question where can we look within the Meridian Comp Plan or land uses to successfully site this facility with a degree of certainty? We are simply raising a large cloud of uncertainty. We hope to be a good neighbor. Is it 250 buses, yes, it is. Will it be noisy? Possibly. Will it be noisier than the ultimate widening of Ten Mile and Ustick Road, I can't say, but that noise pollution will be substantially closer. Nary: Well, I guess, Mr. Bigham, I'm not going to let you off the hook with an arbitrary statement like that, that that's being arbitrary to the school district, because I think that's a bunch of baloney. That's what the ordinance says, that's not arbitrary, and in 11-12-2 A, Sub 3, it says objectionable noises due to volume frequency shall be muffled and otherwise controlled. Four. Vibration. No vibration will be permitted which is discernable on the adjoining lot or property. That's not arbitrary, that's what it says. So it isn't arbitrary to me to say how are you going to deal with that. So I guess before you throw that word out maybe you need to think about what you're saying, because that's not what this code is about. It's says that's what you're required in an industrial zone if you want to have a use there that is going to have noise, vibration, and the like and what I heard you say was you're not interested in studying that and if you want -- if we are going to require it, then you'll think about it and maybe you'll walk away and you think that us requiring that is arbitrary and I don't think that's right. Bigham: Mr. Chairman, Commissioner Nary, we will evaluate whether or not a sound study is worthwhile, we would simply ask that in the Commission's findings if you wish that to be a requirement -- I'm not familiar with whether it is. If it is a requirement, we will certainly look into it if you can tell us the standards by which we must comply. I am familiar with those decibel ratings and FCC reductions in sound in the airport impact area, I'm not sure what they are here in the City of Meridian, but if know what that baseline is, we would certainly take a look at it. Nary: I just wanted to be clear that it's not arbitrary on our part as what you said. That's what our code says. Bigham: Fine. Borup: Any other questions for Mr. Bigham? Thank you, sir. That was it on the applicant's presentation? Forey: Yes. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 22 Borup: Okay. We'd like to move into some public testimony. With numbers like this it's been oftentimes the practice to have a representative speaking for a good number of the group. I don't know if that is the case here tonight. Do we have a spokesman for a certain neighborhood or a certain group of neighborhoods? Could we have the spokesmen stand up so everyone can see who they are? Step forward a little bit, ma'am. Okay. Then can I see by a show of hands how many people here do those two individuals represent? Not a very high percentage. Okay. What I want to know is these two individuals standing said they were speaking for a group of people and I wanted to see who that group of people was that they were speaking on behalf of. Could I see those hands again? So maybe 20 percent. Okay. Okay. Well, the reason I ask that, if we have someone that's speaking for a majority of a group, we do allow some extra time, but this does not appear to be the case here this evening. Centers: Mr. Chairman, I guess maybe a show of hands of others that want to speak besides those. Borup: Okay. I have got them -- I have got a list and maybe everybody on the list does not wish to speak. I don't know. It looks like there were not as many raise their hands as signed up, which may give us time to get through the entire -- okay. Maybe for us to get through as many testimonies as we can, we do have a time limit that we need to do for us to be able to get through that. The thing that I would encourage is -- I don't know if all of you have had a chance to read the -- some of the suggestions on the back table on how to give testimony. Of course we are looking for things that are pertinent that apply to what we are talking about. Even though the application is not for specific uses, it's felt that -- that these are an integral part of this application and as I read what other Commissioners felt, that it would be appropriate to have testimony in this case on these uses. Would also ask that as others get up that -- not to repeat after we have heard it -- and oftentimes others have stood up and made a statement and asked how many agree with it and that says it for those here. It doesn't really serve a purpose to repeat the same thing over and over. You get tired and we get annoyed. Okay. I'm trying to decide whether we want to go down the sign-up list or if we'd like to maybe start with the -- I'd like to start with the two individuals that said they were speaking for a small group and then we will take it from there. You need to state your name and address for the record. Hennings: My name is Cheryl Hennings. I live at 2696 North Morello here in Meridian. I'm going to venture out just a little bit and I promise I won't get too far off, but I'm going to stand here and represent also the Meridian School District. I have been teaching in this district for 25 years. In this last year I just moved from Boise to Meridian with my new husband and we have really enjoyed becoming a part of this community, because my life has been in this community for my entire teaching career. My concern is for the children, because going out onto Ten Mile to drive to my own building every single day, I pass and wave to all of my students who are getting on buses that are right along Ten Mile and that's just from their designated route where the buses are coming from now. I am frightened to think of what would happen in this neighborhood and the danger to the children to actually have buses coming through that residential area and routing out to all of the other areas in our school district. I also have a real concern because of the impact on the residential area. I have listened tonight about what you as a Commission has deemed is either appropriate or not appropriate for this area and sometimes those Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 23 decisions put us into a corner. I do not want, for the fact that we happened to, a long time ago, put a waste treatment plant into that particular area, to make a situation that's already a little bit tenuous worse than I can possibly imagine. I know that there is a need for people to make money and to develop property for profit, but I don't think that you do it at the sacrifice of the community and for the safety of the area. My husband and I when we go out onto our back patio we giggle because we smell cows occasionally and feel like we are in the country. That's a whole lot different than smelling diesel fumes or smelling trash or smelling an accelerated odor which would be, obviously, in the air if we put a transfer station there. I guess I do need to do some homework on my own and find out if our whole wastewater treatment plant is just going to go down the tubes if we don't have a transfer station there, I didn't check that out, but -- and I really do believe that this is not the place for those things to take place. I'm sorry. Meridian in a growing district. I am more aware of that than anybody. It's hard for all of us. I'm sorry that they don't have a place to park their buses right now. Well, I don't have enough chairs in my classroom, because I have 50 6th grade students in every single one of my classes. But I'm not going to make my students suffer and become a bad teacher. I'm not going to make the parents suffer because I'm complaining that I have too many children in my classroom. I believe that there is a better location for this and it is not in the middle of our neighborhood and, again, I speak for our children. I do not want to see them endangered with this proposal and the high density that this is going to create. Thank you. Borup: Thank you. Freckleton: Mr. Chairman? Borup: Mr. Freckleton. Freckleton: I'd like to make a couple points of clarification. Borup: About the transfer station? Freckleton: Just for the public. Borup: Yes. Freckleton: I just wanted to point out that the waste transfer station and the wastewater treatment plant are totally unrelated uses. They don't have anything to do with one another and the waste transfer station wouldn't degrade or have any affect on the wastewater plant. The waste transfer station is a solid waste temporary location that basically operates as a mini dump where they make hauls from it to the main landfill. Borup: Do we have any other individuals --? Freckleton: The other point -- excuse me, Mr. Chairman. The transformer -- the transformers that are proposed on the northeast corner up by Nine Mile Drain for Idaho Power, that is -- that's an application that's being held through the county. It doesn't have anything to do with this project at all. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 24 Borup: Thank you. Bean: Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, my name is Angela Bean. I live at 2669 North Leann Way. I am here tonight primarily representing Fieldstone Homeowners Association. I'm a member of their board. I also represent many friends in the audience. Our main concern, along with the safety of our school age children, is the traffic concerns. The Falcon Creek property is within walking distance for the school age children. Most of the school age children that live along the border of Falcon Creek would be walking, they would not be bused, so they would be going down this road and covering heavy traffic. On page nine of Earth Tech's Traffic Impact Study, they assume a 20-truck facility with average daily trips of 150 trips. The school bus facility at currently 133 buses, not the proposed 230, would add an average daily trip of 1,110 trips and 221 peek hour trips, which would between 4:00 and 6:00 P.M. Excuse me. Western Recycling, they average 256 daily trips, along with 23 peek hour trips. The basic concern of our neighborhood is the traffic that's involved, along with the air pollution. In our neighborhood we have a lot asthmatics and elderly people. My husband and I, ourselves, moved to this area. We lived in a light industrial area in Nampa and our daughter almost died due to asthma problems and we moved here on doctor recommendation that we either move or we lose her. So this is a very personal matter to me. I would like not to have to resell my home and relocate to another area. Another concern would be the noise pollution. According to Sanitary Services trip data and the Meridian School District bus count, they'd have 19 sanitation trucks leaving between 6:00 A.M. and 7:30 A.M. and the Meridian School District would have 133 buses leaving between 6:00 A.M. and 7:30 A.M., again, bringing it back to those decibel levels. That's awfully early to be aroused by 152 vehicles. That does not include, again, the extra 100 buses -- approximately 100 buses that will be allowed with the 230 proposed lot. On page 12 of the Earth Tech Traffic Impact Study, the background traffic projected with using existing counted traffic assumed a two percent growth per year, not 200 percent in less than one year. Our traffic would increase from a little over 1,400 cars per day to 3,006 six cars per day. We are talking about a lot of traffic, a lot of fumes; a lot of this traffic coming through would be larger vehicles. We have already talked about the proposed buses, the proposed sanitation services, not to mention the waste transfer information. There are site locations currently closer to I-84 that are not currently developed that have no residential subdivisions in this area and we propose that perhaps one of those lots would be a better use than to putting an industrial subdivision, if you will, in a residential area. Borup: Any questions from any of the Commissioners? Norton: Mr. Chairman? Borup: Commissioner Norton. Norton: Mrs. Bean, how long have you resided at your current location? Bean: Since 1997. Norton: Thank you. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 25 Nary: Mr. Chairman? Borup: Commissioner Nary. Nary: Mrs. Bean, have you read the Ada County Highway District report? Bean: I do not have a copy of that. I have not read that. Nary: I guess I want you to understand, as well as the rest of the people in this room, I mean the traffic concerns you raise I think are very legitimate. They are also not within the purview of what we are here to evaluate. That is the highway district's responsibility to deal with the traffic and that's what their report tries to do is widening lanes, creating driveways, so that's their responsibility, it isn't our responsibility, it isn't within the purview of our ordinance. But I appreciate what you said about the property that's near the freeway and I understand that three corners of this intersection are residential, but this corner is not, this is not a residential corner, and I think what I heard Mr. Forey say was the problem that this developer has and this owner has is what else can you put on this property, except to farm and they said they don't want to farm it for the rest of their life, they want to do something else with it and the city has turned down other types of uses. Do you have any suggestions of how else to use the property? It doesn't appear to me to be a good place for a park, nor does it appear to be a good place to have apartments, nor does it appear to be a good place to have offices. So I think where we are at is kind of what was left in their minds. What do you think? Bean: I have no suggestions. I do have other concerns, though, about issues that you brought up talking about the code. You spoke a moment ago about light industrial needs to be almost entirely in enclosed structures. Does that include the parking of the buses or just the main facility? Nary: I think the wording of that is predominately for manufacturing types of businesses, but certainly parking -- and this is a big parking lot. I mean that's really the majority of what this is is a big parking lot and there isn't any manufacturing -- you heard us earlier talking about limiting that so there wouldn't be manufacturing on this, so as to limit the noise and dust and odor and all those other things. So, you know, this is really just a big parking lot. I mean that's all it is. It doesn't say you can't have a big parking lot in an industrial zone and it doesn't say it has to be in a building, just because it's a parking lot. It if was a manufacturing facility I guess it would be. Bean: Well, it's also a parking lot where extreme amounts of traffic are coming in and out during peek hours, school children, again, are out and about. There is a park right off of Chateau right off of Ten Mile and during summer months they looking at children biking, scootering, rollerblading, walking. So, again, any industrial plot you put in -- Nary: You live -- I take it from what you said you live in one of those three subdivisions; correct? Bean: I live in Fieldstone. It's just out of Candlelight. Borup: Is this Fieldstone over here? Next one over? Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 26 Nary: Do you drive down Ten Mile fairly often? Bean: Yes. Nary: It's pretty busy now. Bean: It is. Nary: It's a very busy street now. Bean: Correct. Nary: Buses only come twice a day. I mean they are not driving up and down the street all day long. Bean: Correct. Nary: They are going out and they are coming back. Bean: But, again, we are talking about a large number coming and going at very specific times of the day when children are out and about. Nary: Okay. Thank you. Borup: Any other questions, Commissioners? You talked a lot about traffic. I'm not sure where you're concerned on. All the roads or any one specifically or -- Bean: Specifically that intersection at Ten Mile and Ustick where they are proposing the subdivision, mainly because, again, that's where the school children will be walking, the children within that area. Borup: I think the -- both reports, the Earth Tech and the ACHD, have probably made reference to that. It says that will function at a level of service B, which is a very big level of service of traffic. I guess that isn't to say that the traffic can't -- Bean: And also this area the level are at -- Borup: Pardon? Bean: On page 21. Borup: At Ten Mile and Ustick, that intersection you made reference to? I'm just going by your words. Bean: You're correct. I'm sorry. I had the wrong -- Borup: Thank you. Do we have any -- maybe I'll give the audience a choice here. Would you rather I call the names on the list or do you want to just get a chance to Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 27 come on up when -- do we have another representative? Right here? Okay. Come on up here, sir. I'm sorry. Brown: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission, my name is Jeff Brown. I live at 3057 West Pebblestone. I live in Candlelight Subdivision. Borup: I assume you're speaking for that subdivision then? Brown: I'm not sure that I'm speaking for the subdivision, I'm sure I'm speaking for a certain number of them. I take a certain amount of exception to the idea that -- that having this as an industrial subdivision is chiseled in stone. I am a maintenance supervisor for the Lander Street treatment plant for the city of Boise. We are living proof that a park and a wastewater treatment plant can co-exist. We have been doing it for 30 years. We are right on the greenbelt. We have picnickers, we have kids playing soccer, we have -- we have enormous uses. We are a plant that sits on about ten acres and roughly four of that is involved in the buildings and the -- four or five, possibly, is involved in the buildings and the process and the treatment. The rest of it is park and it gets a huge amount of use. One of the things that we deal with as far as this wastewater treatment plant goes is that we are making some assumptions that I'm not sure are true. Number one is that odors are going to be so pervasive that they are going to drive people away. I don't think that that's true, particularly since the prevailing winds are such that it carries it to the north anyway. We are talking about putting something in the south. So I have got a problem with chiseling this whole thing in stone that we can't do something else there. Another issue that we come up with when we talk about the wind is that when you're talking about putting a mini dump, when you’re talking about putting trash-related things there, we are talking blowing trash, we have lived in a neighborhood that was next to a dump and, believe me, unless you want to spend a good deal of your life pulling trash out of your landscape -- we were called the subdivision with the rubbish trees, because, frankly, that's what we had. Borup: This is a proposal that was to have it inside a building. Brown: Having a waste transfer station inside of a building. Borup: Yes. Isn't that correct? That was what the application was proposing. Brown: Okay. Well -- Borup: So not a large one, but it was enclosed. Brown: Okay. Borup: But still the same -- Brown: Yes. There is still the issue of where there is trash trucks there is trash. It's just the way it is. And so with the wind you're going to have blowing trash. It's something that we will have to deal with, provided you agree to allow these folks to do what they want to do. But I just want to address the issue that -- that a park truly can co-exist with a wastewater treatment plan. That's plan number one. Number two is that when you Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 28 ask Mr. McKinnon did we ever plan on having 19 regional parks up there, I can't speak for regional parks, but I bet you that I can go to the phone book and I could rip out the Boise city map and I'll bet you I could show you close to 19 parks in an area the size of that. The fact is that to say that we can't have a park because we have got one two miles away, two miles away is a pretty stout walk and what we are saying is that we would much rather have something we can use, than something we have to hate to have to live with for the rest of our lives. Borup: Thank you. Questions from Commissioners? Mr. Brown, I just have one quick question. On the Lander Street plant, do you know about how many -- the size of that -- how many homes that treats or -- Brown: We do 18 million gallons a day. We do an even split of the entire wastewater effluent for the entire city of Boise. Borup: That is for the entire city? Brown: We do half. Borup: Half. Brown: We do half. We do 18 million gallons a day. Borup: Okay. So that's half of -- Brown: Half of the total. Borup: A hundred and -- what's the -- Brown: Well, half of basically 36 to 40 million gallons a day. That is the total. But that includes Garden City and that includes the unincorporated areas as well. Borup: Okay. Thank you. Nary: Mr. Chairman? Borup: Commissioner Nary. Nary: Mr. Brown? Brown: Yes. Nary: If we were to agree with you that a park can be next to a wastewater treatment plant, would you think residences are very compatible with a wastewater treatment plant? Brown: Well, they have to provide a buffer. There are odors and I am -- and I am going to concur that what happens is that when you allow residences near a wastewater treatment plant you tend to -- the newness wears off, people move and somebody else Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 29 comes in and they say, well, how come they built -- and then they start to complain. It's real similar to what happens near an airport. You have to provide a buffer and that's why I'm suggesting some sort of an open space is perfect, because it provides -- it provides that buffer between the existing neighborhoods and the existing plant. Nary: Okay. Thank you. Borup: Okay. Come on up. Crane: My name is Charles Crane. I live at 3610 West Ustick Road. I have talked to the Commission before. I had a procedure question. My wife got up at 5:00 Tuesday morning and went over and took three minutes of the buses taking off. Would that be permissible to play that after I talk for a couple minutes? Nary: You can submit anything you want. Borup: Would the Commission like to see the tape or -- Nary: How long is it? Crane: It's three minutes. It's ten buses. Borup: Yes. If you want to include that as part of your testimony time I think that would be fine. I mean do we need the whole three minutes to get an idea of what's going on? Crane: No. Half of it would be fine. Norton: Mr. Crane, we allow three minutes for individuals to speak, so if you want to do your tape for part and speak for part, that would be fine. But we are usually here until 2:00 A.M. and we all have jobs at 8:00 in the morning. This is a volunteer position for us. Crane: This is at 6:40 A.M. Borup: Where again? Crane: This is the existing City of Meridian school bus -- at their lot in the morning. Borup: Are those the buses coming? Crane: Yes. In three minutes there was ten buses. I believe that would be a good way to multiply 23 times this many buses. Nary: How far away is this? Crane: It's at the building across the street. It's about 100 feet, maybe. So this would be in the middle of our residential neighborhood every morning. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 30 Nary: My question, because I don't think you were able to get that, my question of Mr. Crane was how far away was that microphone and camera from that entrance where the buses were leaving? You said it was 100 feet, approximately. Crane: Approximately 100 feet. She was next to the building across the street -- in the parking lot across the street. For my testimony I just wanted to mention a couple of things from the Meridian city ordinance. In the city ordinance on page two -- I believe this is the city ordinance book. It's 2-402. It talks about the intent or the purpose of the city ordinances. Item number -- or A, number three, it says to improve the character and quality of Meridian man-made environment, while maintaining its identity as a self- sufficient community. Then also one of the other ones, number five, says -- and this is the intent of, I guess, the Planning and Zoning Commission and the ordinances: To protect residential, commercial, industrial and civic areas from the intrusion of incompatible uses and to provide opportunities for establishments to concentrate for efficient operation and so forth. So it talks about protecting industrial and residential from incompatible uses. Then I wanted to go down to the definition for the city ordinance. On page seven of the book it talks about two types of zoning that haven't been talked too much about tonight. We have talked about residential zoning. We have talked about industrial zoning. This definition is called a buffer stripper zone. It says an area established to protect one type of land use from possible undesirable characteristics of another as between industrial and residential zones. So by definition the city code is saying this is an incompatible use and that there should be a buffer zone between these two. It should not be, according to city code, which I believe is law, they are not supposed to be next to each other. Nary: Well, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Crane, unless there is a buffer. Crane: Unless there is a buffer. Nary: Right. Crane: Right. Borup: I don't think it said a buffer zone, did it? Crane: A buffer strip or zone. Borup: Okay. A buffer strip. Crane: Another definition that goes along with that on page 25 is a transitional use zone and it also speaks of designed to be a buffer between single family residential uses and commercial or industrial uses. So I just wanted to bring that out. By city code there needs to be something done other than just having an industrial section right next to a residential section and what I was asking the Commission to consider is don't change the Comprehensive Plan -- I believe it was a mistake for whoever designed the plan to put that as an industrial right next to residential. Five years ago, you know, that was all farmland. When I moved in two and a half years ago it was a 300-acre farm field. But we need to consider what the reality is now. This Commission and the City Council and Mayor has approved housing development there. We base our lives on the existing Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 31 Comprehensive Plan. We have built there, we have moved there, we live there, don't put an industrial park next to it, please. Thank you. Borup: Thank you. Do we have anyone else that would like to come forward? Nary: I have a question. Borup: Commissioner Nary. Nary: Mr. Crane, my recollection from your prior testimony on October 18 is I think you were the closest house to this; right? Crane: I'm right on the other side by Millcreek. Nary: Mr. Forey has provided us with a neighborhood vicinity map that indicates that the closest vehicles that park from your residence are approximately 200 feet west. Would you say that's about correct? I mean if that map is correct. Crane: The land divider between their property and my property is 60 feet. Nary: I understand. Have you seen the proposed site plan? The proposed site plan indicates that the closest park to your residence is 200 feet. Do you disagree with that? Crane: That might be close to the current residence. I did come before the board and have my land split. I was preparing to build a new house, which would be maybe 100 feet. Nary: Okay. Crane: About the distance of the video. Nary: Okay. You made a statement during that video that you said this is what would be driving by your neighborhood everyday. Crane: Correct. Nary: You said that was 100 feet. It appears in the drawing that I have that the closest -- the next closest residences are 400 feet away, more than a football field away. Crane: I wouldn't agree with that. And where the entrance -- Nary: But where the parking of the buses and the trucks are, not from the corner, but from where the buses are taken, for that represented -- what you're trying to represent in that video is that's what -- when you look out your front door -- or out your back window and see. But according to this site map of where this is supposed to be, it's 500 feet from somebody's house from where they are coming out from. Crane: That's only where they are parking. Once they are starting to make noise and fumes and moving they are right next to the houses. They come -- the entrances come Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 32 right on Ustick Road and right out onto Ten Mile Road, those people in those houses in that subdivision at Englewood Creek are -- Nary: But they are going out on that road anyway; right? I mean they can drive on that road anyway? That's a public road. Crane: I don't think there would be any reason for them -- Borup: No reason for them to drive down Ten Mile? Crane: Not 230 of them. Borup: Oh. I don't think that's what the Commissioner is saying. Nary: Have to live with whatever drives down that road. I mean it doesn't make any difference what this site is, whatever drives down that road you have to live with. Crane: But reasonably -- Nary: Any vehicle could drive down that -- Crane; -- 230 vehicles won't be coming down in front of my house if it isn't put there. Nary: Where is the exit for these vehicles? Borup: Isn't it on Ten Mile? Crane: There is two of them. There is one on Ustick Road right -- kind of where that little dog leg is on that side of it and then the other one up there. Mr. Forey indicated at the last meeting that about one-third of the buses would be coming out onto Ustick Road. Nary: Okay. Thank you. Borup: Thank you. Do we have anyone else that would like to come forward? I think we can move it along a little further without the applause. Come on up, sir. We need to move these along. Bonner: My name is Colin Bonner and I live at 3030 West Mirage in Meridian. I have lived here in Meridian for about the last eight years. I don't think any of us here that are coming out against this project, you know, again, speaking up, that as far as -- you guys have a tough job trying to put something there, because if I was going to build a house I wouldn't want it with those big huge power lines, I wouldn't want a house next to the treatment plant. I think we can all agree with that. I think what the problem we have, like was brought up by Mr. Centers and Mr. Shreeve, of what -- the use of that and then it was brought up that the plat for presenting is designed specifically for that use. I have a problem with the plat. Okay. So I think that's what we are addressing here. Borup: You have a problem with the use? Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 33 Bonner: Okay. Borup: That's fine. We said we'd take testimony on that. Bonner: I was just kind of setting it up here. I think that the problem you have got, like I say, the waste center there, and you were talking about being good neighbors, I used to have -- I used to work out of an office on Century Way, which is right behind Western Recycling off of Cole Road and I would invite a few folks to go down there and look at them right now, because as was brought up earlier, every time a wind storm would come along we'd have garbage in our office area and we had complained to these people. I would invite you to go down to the one off Chinden and look at their situation. You know, they have got the same thing. I have dropped off material out there myself. Same thing. They have got garbage in the bushes, they have got stuff that's coming up the hill and down on the end of the road. You know, I understand that you're saying that it's inside, but a portion of the ones on Cole Road and off of Chinden down there are inside as well. I don't think that we are going to get away from that. Also in talking about blowing garbage, we are going to have -- you have got Nine Mile Creek running right there, you might run into problems with the EPA Clean Water Act with a violation. You've got a lot of problems there. I think that, you know, I mean the buses, there is going to be a fueling station, you will have diesel leaching down in the ground. What provisions do they have for that? I think it's just a potential for a lot problems. That creek runs water 24-7 year around and, you know, it's not like it dries up in the winter. I'm not sure where it comes from or where it goes to, to be honest with you, but, you know, that's a vital ditch there. You know, the farmers that irrigate their property, you know, the food that we eat comes from that -- from that creek and I think that, you know, you're putting the potential of polluting that creek to where, you know, you might have some kind of, you know, violation or something like that. I'm not -- Borup: You need to wrap it up. Crane: Okay. I'm not totally opposed to having something other than residential. A park would be great. As a matter of fact, when we moved in that's what they told us would be there, but I think something along the lines of what -- if you wanted to put businesses there, something along the lines of what's at -- the name escapes me, but on Cherry Lane and Linder you got the gas station, you got the fuel there, next to a creek again, but you got Domino's Pizza -- you know, businesses that aren't going to attract tons of people, people are in and out, you know, you got a Moxie Java sitting in there, stuff like that. I'm personally not opposed to those. So that's about it for what I have. Borup: Thank you. Come on up. Booth. My name is David Booth. I live at 3744 West Neimann Drive. That's in the Dakota Ridge Subdivision, which is a little bit south and west of this proposed industrial park. I just want to take a little bit of an objection to your claim that traffic is not an issue that needs to be addressed here. We have heard a lot of talk about smart planning and so forth, but if we continue to compartmentalize things amongst the various agencies and governments and whatnot, we are never going to get there. Traffic is very much an issue here. These are two lane, rural roads. No shoulders or anything. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 34 Borup: I don't think the Commissioner meant that traffic wasn't an issue, it's just something that we don't control. We are not the ones that are building the roads. Nary: ACHD has that control. We don't. Booth: I understand that and I appreciate that. I'm a transportation engineer myself. But I just also want to point out that unless -- I have not seen the city or county highway district study on what they are proposing for the improvements associated with this, but I think two things have to take place. One, any improvements have to be made in conjunction with such a development, not something that's going to happen five, ten, 15 years later. The county's Destination 20/20 Plan does not show any recommended improvements for Ustick or Ten Mile in this area. There was on the Ada County Highway District five year program a project to widen out Ten Mile between Cherry Lane and Ustick to four lanes, including curb, gutter, and sidewalk right at the intersection of Ten Mile and Ustick. However, the City of Meridian requested that that project be put on hold so they could redo the Locust Grove overpass. So there is no money available for that. Who knows when new money will be appropriated to that project? Borup: Let me clarify that. The city didn't recommend it be put on hold, it just felt that -- they just prioritized it. Booth: Exactly. That's what I meant. So it's a different priority and we don't know when that's going to happen. But so far as the industrial park goes, I'm not necessarily against or for that, but I do feel strongly that if it is zoned industrial use that there does need to be development agreements attached to that and Conditional Use Permits attached to that as well. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Borup: Thank you. Forey: I'm Ken Beckwith. I live at 2866 West Park Stone Street. That's in the Candlelight Subdivision. Everything that's been said here tonight I have to agree with. I even agree with the Commissioners here on I think we need to do something, but a light industrial area as defined by your city code would be adequate, as far as the code. I also am concerned about the traffic. I do represent -- I am a member of the board of directors for Candlelight Subdivision and if there is any developer that wants to go through the association or get any input from the association, please give them my name and I will be happy to do whatever I can and if there is anything I can do for the Commission I would happy to help them also. Thank you. Borup: Thank you, sir. Come on up. Who's coming next? Blumenschien: My name is George Blumenschien. I live at 2911 West Ravenhurst. I own two small businesses in the city of Boise. I am currently in the Candlelight Subdivision. I moved there with the intentions of dying there, hopefully later than earlier. We have no objections to the treatment plant or a bus facility, but not in our residential. We've built houses -- and I speak for the group -- knowing that this would always be a residential. If I built my home on Chinden Blvd. and they were going to do this next to me, I don't have any business being up here. But I built my home and I might want to Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 35 be -- and all my businesses with that plan of living there, not with any consideration that they were ever going to put an industrial situation two blocks from my home. We can debate traffic, we can debate noise, we can debate widening of roads. There is so many things we could be here until next year debating why it shouldn't be. But, hey, we are in a residential neighborhood. We have three corners that are residential. How are you going to put a mini dump and a bus parking lot on the one corner. And if we can't figure out something to do with that piece of land, then we are a sorry group of people, whether it's Planning and Zoning, whether it's the citizens of the community. But, hey, let's figure out something to put on the corner instead of a bus park and a dump. Simple. Thank you. Borup: Thank you. Any questions? Nary: Mr. Blumenschien? Blumenschien: Yes, sir. Nary: You said when you built your house you built it with the expectation that it was residential. Did you ever look at the land use map --? Blumenschien: Yes. Nary: -- when you built your house? Blumenschien: We had even conferred with the Aspen Realty as to what was going to happen in the area. We had looked at other subdivisions that had plans in their map and in their zoning for light industrial, for roads to be widened that would come through by our home. When we built this lot we just said, hey, we love the area, let's build. We did research as to what was coming before. Now if I built my lot -- if I built mine on Franklin and knowing how wide it was and knowing that there was already industrial by me, I would have a good idea that somewhere down the road they were going to -- you know, Meridian is growing, they were going to expand the industrial situation. I put my home in a subdivision area. It's just like if they tore down the houses right next to me and put a mobile home park in there. Nary: I understand that. How close is the wastewater treatment plant from your house? Blumenschien: The wastewater treatment plant is, what, maybe a half a mile from my home. Nary: Now you notice on that plat, that first piece that's north of -- north of the piece on that property is next to the wastewater treatment plant is my understanding. Blumenschien: Yes, sir. Nary: That's where the garbage truck parking is. How far is that from your house? Blumenschien: Rather than how far is it from my house, it doesn't matter my individual living room, it means that I live in a quarter mile of 230 buses, how many more garbage Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 36 trucks are we going to have if Meridian expands? We have such a short amount of garbage and, you know what, they have the same problem the school district has, they have no way to expand, but you can bet your biscuits that when they put it in there they may even incur those other plats and find ways to expand and you will have another BFI right over there. Again, I have no objections with them doing it, but, you know what, let's find a space. I mean, gosh, you don't have to stick it right here. I have no objection of, you know, communities growing, we have to grow, we have to create infrastructure, we have to accommodate our children, but let's be aware of what we are doing and where we are doing it. If we just start dropping things in residential neighborhoods where are we? Nary: Okay. Thank you. Borup: Anyone else? You need to hurry. Have someone else ready after him be ready to come on up. Grant: I will try to make this fast, ladies and gentlemen. I do appreciate that there is a lady on the council, that's good for the citizens. My name is David Grant and I live at 11968 Orchard Avenue in Nampa. I hope you won't hold that against me. I'm just trying to get home before it gets too dark. The reason I'm here, I just want to make a couple of quick points. One, the M-1 zone is something that is not clearly understood by many citizens. I would recommend that you review the definition of M-1 and document the various uses that you will allow in an M-1 zone. The reason I say that is that M-I actually allows power plants, generating facilities, in M-1. The power plant that will be built in Middleton is on M-1 zoned property and it will be potentially -- it has the potential of having four power generating plants there close to -- Borup: I'm not sure what this has to do with this application. Grant: Well, I'm just talking about the zoning. Borup: Well, are not talking about an M-1 zone. That's why I asked. Grant: Oh. Borup: That's not even an issue. Grant: Okay. If the zoning is not issue then -- Borup: Well, it's not M-1. The proposed zone was I-L, light industrial. Grant: Okay. M-1 is light industrial. Sir? Borup: In our code? In our code? Grant: Well, it is in Canyon County, it's light industrial. Borup: No. That's a different county. Sorry. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 37 Grant: Okay. Sorry. I'm sorry. In any case, I just wanted to say, secondly, that it's important to update the Comp Plan, because the citizens oftentimes refer to that Comp Plan or the map and if it's not up to date they make decisions -- personal decisions on that map that they would not otherwise make and if it's not kept up to date they have a problem. Thirdly, I apologize for the air pollution that will flow this way from the power plant and to the citizens of Meridian. It's coming your way. That's all I have. Thank you. Borup: How about the sugar factory? Grant: The sugar factory? Actually, the sugar factory is coming this way, too. The power plant has the potential of being four times that large. Thank you. Borup: Any questions? Do we have anyone else? Come on up, sir. Rasmussen: Brent Rasmussen and I live at 4315 North Ten Mile, so I'm a half a mile north of where the proposal is. What I'd like to say is that I don't think the industrial park is compatible with the school zone and the residents that are living in that area. All the kids on the street walking to school and with all the traffic -- we have talked about traffic, but I want to combine it with the school, because the kids going to school there will be the traffic there. It's hard to see the kids. Now, obviously, school buses pick up kids, but there will be a lot of school buses right in that area where kids will be walking to school and I think that a park would be a better use for it. I know it's been proposed, but I still think things could be done to make that a good park that would be compatible with the residential neighborhood that has been built already around that area and that the buses could be parked someplace else that could be built up around that area with that intent in mind, a place that's not residential already that could be industrial and people could decide where they wanted to build. In this case people have built there with the intent that this wouldn't happen. Thank you. Borup: Thank you. Any questions? You mentioned kids walking to school. What time do they usually go? What time does school start? Rasmussen: It varies, but for generally – Borup: Are you talking about the schools in Dakota Ridge or which school are you referring to the kids are walking to? Rasmussen: The new one that's being built by Dakota Ridge and I'm not -- it hasn't been built, so we don't know when that will be, but usually it's around 8:30, 9:00. Centers: Mr. Chairman? Borup: That was what I was wondering. Mr. Crane's picture was buses leaving at 6:00, so I was wondering how many buses are still around at 8:30. Rasmussen: Yes. They would still be going in and out, so they would be around there, and then other uses for it, too. It's not only school buses, but there are other lots that -- Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 38 Borup: You had a question? Centers: Yes. I think you should understand that an industrial zone, depending on the use, would be less traffic than the comparable size acreage residential zone. Depending on the use. Rasmussen: Right. And that -- Centers: Just because that's an industrial zone I didn't want you to think that it's -- Rasmussen: Right. But there is also varied uses, too, because it's not really defined. So it could be worse, it could be better. Centers: Right. Rasmussen: Right. Borup: Thank you. Do we have anyone else or are we finished? Come on up, sir. Coop: Yes. I'm Richard Coop and I live at 3018 West Fieldstream Drive in Parkwood Meadows Subdivision, which is just south and west of that site, just below Candlelight Subdivision. Who owns that property presently? Does the city own that or -- Borup: This property here? Coop: Yes. In question. Borup: Falcon Creek, LLC, I believe. Coop: That's a development company? Borup: Yes. Coop: They want to develop this; is that right? I'm an asthmatic and very bad. I will live southeast of that location and what you're doing tonight determines if I can live there or not, so it's very serious. You not only have me, but you have just due south of that, less than a quarter of a mile, a senior citizens community and I don't know if that's been taken into consideration at all. I'm sure that there is quite a few people in my same situation. I cannot tolerate diesel -- strong smells like that. I have lived in that house for six years and I can tell you that I can smell that sewer treatment facility not on occasion, okay, say 30, 45 days a year. Okay. And that's not unbearable, because, let me tell you, my son is a -- with the city of Seattle and he's a sanitation engineer and he was partially raised there in that house and he tells me that we have got to be out of our mind to allow one there, a little Dutch community, when they have got -- Borup: To allow what there? Coop: Pardon me? Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 39 Borup: To allow the sewer plant there? Coop: Well, not to allow the sewer, but the sanitation portion of it. You can control the paper blowing and the trucks driving and all that, but you cannot control the smell. The smell has not been mentioned yet tonight. Borup: I believe it has. Coop: It's going to be intolerable. Now you have mentioned, you know, smell from the sewage, smell from the -- Borup: Well, a lot of people -- Coop: But not the trash and there is an aroma, you cannot get away from that. That's a fact. Okay. I'm not going to take up anymore of your time, but if this is approved I have to move and I have $150,000 investment that I have got to eliminate, so please take that into consideration. Borup: So would you differ with the previous testimony that said that the prevailing winds were to the north? Coop: No, it is not. I wouldn't say the prevailing wind is from the north. The prevailing winds are from the south -- or the northwest. Blowing from what direction? Southeast is where I live. Borup: But that's what I thought it was, too. They said earlier it was to the north. They might have meant from the north. Coop: -- live right around me, every one of them. So I can assure you they feel really the same way. Borup: Thank you. Coop: I appreciate it. Thank you. Borup: Okay. I assume that concludes those who wish to testify. You need to come on up, as I said earlier. We need to move this along. Jensen: I just wanted to mention one thing -- Borup: Name? Jensen: Thayne Jensen. I live at 2606 Pebblestone Court. That's in Fieldstone Meadows Subdivision and that's southeast of this lot. Personally, myself, I'm concerned about property value and particularly salability of my home. I purchased this home as a starter home with the intention on moving out in a few years and hopefully being able to take with me some equity from that home as well. Now personally if I moved into an area or I was looking into an area where this type of a structure was -- or these facilities were put into place, I would not look at that area very much, especially me Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 40 being a younger individual, I have a young family, a three-and-a-half-year-old daughter that will be starting kindergarten soon, I would not look at this area, which a lot of young couples do, I would not look at this area as a plausible area for me to live in, unless the property value or the price was low enough for me to be willing to do that and so what I want to bring to the table is the fact that property values, salability -- I don't how much the property value would drop. My home backs up to Ustick and -- Borup: Are you concerned about it dropping or just not increasing as much as you'd like? Jensen: Dropping, for one, and I don't how much that will go down. I'm also concerned about the property taxes. Since I back up to Ustick, obviously, there is going to be a need for expansion on Ustick and there is also the possibility of -- I know that there is not a whole lot of room for expansion behind my home. There is some common area along our side and there is some common area on the opposite side and I'm concerned about losing that common area, possibly losing part my backyard, since I set up against Ustick and my primary concerns are the fact that -- I don't know how much the property value would depreciate due to this or if it would be affected that much, I'm more concerned about the salability, because even if the property value is the same, nobody is going to want to pay the value of the house that's beyond what they feel they want to do. If they want to move into an area that has 230 buses leaving, coming and going constantly in the morning hours and coming and going in the afternoon hours, then, fine, but they are not going to pay what I feel the value of the house is right now, so that's all wanted to say. Borup: Thank you. Any questions? Thank you, sir. Horoma: My name is Angela Horoma. I live at 3136 North Burley Way and that is in Englewood Creek Estates. I don't know if there is anybody else here from that subdivision, but I just wanted to say that I'm here and I reiterate everybody's thoughts and I just want to let you know that I back up to Ustick and I do care what goes in that neighborhood and I agree with the gentleman that spoke earlier that we have got to come up with something better than an industrial park in a residential community. Thank you. Borup: Thank you. Lindsay: I'm John Lindsay, I'm the president of the Parkwood Meadows Committee. I moved here in '98 and I asked the real estate people there what was going to be built in this area and they came back and told me that it was going to be a park proposed in this area. I was all for it. I was thinking great. I said is there anything else to be built and they said, no, it's a family development project. It's a family housing area. So, okay, fine. So my question to you guys is would you want something like this to be built in your backyard? Thank you. Borup: Thank you. Centers: Sir? Who told you that there was going to be a park there? A realtor or -- Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 41 Lindsay: Yes. It was my real estate lady. There was another guy that just moved in right up the street from me, he was told the same thing, that's why he moved here, he said because I didn't -- he moved from California and he was in a development area and he just got tired of the traffic and the smell and the -- Borup: How many years ago was that? Lindsay: Me or him? Borup: Both. Lindsay: I moved here in '98 and he just moved here. The real estate person told us the same thing, that there was going to be a park built in this area. They didn't say where, just there was a park that was going to be built. Borup: The reason I ask is that there is 56-acre park they referred to that was purchased by that time and so the location had been decided on. Lindsay: But they told me it was going to be where your -- the area we are talking about now. They said it was going to be a big park, baseball, and all this. Okay. Great. Norton: Mr. Chairman? Mr. Chairman? Borup: Commissioner Norton. Norton: I wanted to answer Mr. Lindsay's question if I wanted to have this built in my backyard. I want you to know in my backyard is a leaking gas station that's leaking gas in the groundwater and EPA has put wells on all of our houses in all of our lawns and they are trying to clean up this mess, but I have gas under my house. Borup: Okay. Mr. Forey, have you got some concluding comments? . Forey: Yes. Thank you very much, Commissioners. For the record, again, Wayne Forey. Let me go through and -- not necessarily rebuttal, but just maybe clarify a little bit for each of the comments. From Mrs. Henning, we have looked at many sites. We have been working on this since late 1999 trying to evaluate the growth in the Meridian School District and Sanitary Services and looked at lots of sites and, quite frankly, we couldn't find very many that would work or that were available. Even those that we looked at early on are still not available on the market. We have approached people trying to buy at key locations and they just were not available. They were more suited to residential development. You know, it's kind of difficult to buy and develop a whole land in Meridian. So this wasn't just something that kind of fell in our lap one night, we had studied this extensively. Ten Mile provides an overpass over the interstate to get to the south portion of the Meridian School District. That's another key component of getting that traffic to disperse efficiently east and west on Ustick Road for the school buses. To Mrs. Bean's comment, ACHD approved that traffic study. It did look at a ten year forecast and it did have an acceptable level of service and, you know, ACHD has spent a lot of time with the City of Meridian on this 12 square mile North Meridian Corridor study, a lot of background traffic and land use function plugged into that traffic model Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 42 and even with that it was an acceptable level of service. Yes, we can take steps and we will take steps through this design review process or a conditional use process, if that's the way we have to do it, to make this work for the neighborhood. Mr. Brown's comment of the city is, in fact, concerned about odors and fumes and the Lander treatment plant I believe is a tertiary treatment. There is primary, secondary, and tertiary. Bruce Freckleton, is the Meridian still a secondary treatment level? Okay. So you're not comparing apples and apples. The Meridian plant doesn't operate as efficiently or to a high permit standard that the Lander Street plant does. The Meridian plant does, in fact, generate odors. And there is a greenbelt next to the Lander Plant, but that's a very expensive Cadillac of waste treatment plants. Meridian is moving towards that with their waste treatment plant, but it's not there yet. And in time -- and I compliment the city, you're spending money on that, but right now we have to deal with the reality and it does generate odors and fumes. To Mr. Crane, those buses are in our neighborhood every day and the home that he currently lives in is 300 feet to the nearest bus. I measured for 200 feet, because he did tell me, and he's correct, that he had plans to build a new home. So in consideration of that I measured from generally where his new home would be, which is closer to the drain, and so it's about 200 feet from where I think his new home would be to the bus, but at the October 18th hearing I did state and I'll state it again, we want to make some modifications to that whole area right there. Knowing that he may want to build a new home that's potentially a bit closer, we met with the school district and the architect and they said, of course, let's change it or let's widen the buffer there, more landscaping, let's reconfigure that parking area, let's orient this building a little bit. I have got a list of I think 14 items when I met with Mr. Crane at his home, things that he would like to see happen. I think we can accommodate all or most of them. So that's something we need to -- and we will work on it. Mr. Bonner's comments, Western Recycling in Meridian would not have any outdoor storage. They do at Cole Road. That's kind of a regional processing facility for them. This is not. This is a collection facility, it's all indoor, 10,000 square feet. To Mr. Booth's comments, again, that's the North Meridian Traffic Study, ostensibly studied by ACHD and we do have to make a roadway improvement as part of our permit with ACHD. To Mr. Beckwith's comments, yes, we will work with you. He volunteered through his homeowner's association. I wrote his name down, I will try and get a phone number before the night is over. Anyway, we certainly will work with you. To Mr. Blumenschien's comments, the school and Sanitary Services, the only reason this is happening is because the community is growing and that's positive. I have children -- most of us have children, we want them to stay and live in this community, in this valley, and have work. Well, we are attracting young families and that's bringing more children, so the school district has to order buses. Of course, the next question is where do we park them. We know when we approve a subdivision and we get new residents, they have to buy buses and we have to sanitation services. Everyday those trucks are in our neighborhood. Go a couple of weeks without the trash and we would all be in a mess. Well, as the city grows we need more waste trucks. We have got to have a place to park them and grow and so this site was designed to grow as the community grows. Not all the buses will be parked there overnight, not all the new waste trucks will be there overnight, but five, ten years from now we won't be back in front of you asking for an alternative site, because we have done some good planning back in the year 2000 and the year 2001 or 2002, maybe. It's just around the corner. To Mr. Grant's comment, yes, the Meridian Comprehensive Plan is being updated and it's been a long, drawn-out process. We don't want to complicate that. I hope this text amendment gives you some Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 43 flexibility. To Mr. Rasmussen's comment, the city has determined that that is not an appropriate location for a park and that's been memorialized in city comments. To Mr. Coop's comment, Sanitary Services, before they get their operating permits, they have got a lot of leg work and design and environmental issues with DEQ, the Department of Environmental Quality of the state, a lot of state permits involved. So it's -- even though we are talking land use and the Comp Plan tonight, they have a thick book of regulations that deal with all those issues and many of -- most of that area will all be indoors. I mean it's a parking lot, but what -- dealing with the waste part is indoors. There is no outdoor effort there. To Mr. Jensen's comments, Hubble Homes is building homes now, developing and building homes in Hartford Estates immediately east -- on the east side of Ten Mile Road east of this development. Hubble Homes people were evaluating whether to buy that project from Glen Johnson, former developer, and they looked at these site plans, talked to the school district, became acquainted with what Sanitary Services and Western Recycling were doing, went into the land deal with their eyes totally wide open and said we can live with that, that's not going to be a deterrent to our marketing. They bought the land with that full knowledge and are now proceeding to build homes. Mr. -- excuse me -- Mrs. Horoma's comment, arterials do tend to define and separate neighborhoods, because of the right of way, the traffic speed, and so when homes back up to an arterial, like Ustick Road, in the land use theory in comprehensive planning and in ordinances, that tends to be a place where you make land use breaks at those arterials. So here is a good place to make a break, to isolate the industrial area within Ten Mile, Ustick, and the drains, and then we have got the other land uses on the other side of the arterial where there tends to be neighborhood boundaries and the school attendance zones are often defined by collectors and arterials, so -- and then Mr. Lindsay's comment, the city has acquired a regional park, they determined that this was not the location for that park, and so we are left with residential didn't work, the employment center didn't work, the park's not going to happen, don't want to farm it anymore, yet we have essential public services that need a site today and room to grow and we think this is the best site and hope you help get community services planning and moving in that direction. Be happy to answer any other questions. Thank you. Borup: Any questions from the Commission? Commissioner Shreeve. Shreeve: Just one question. You indicated that you had looked at many sites. Yet, of course, this particular site has a package, there is -- you know, you have got the buses, you have got the garbage, you have got some potential other sites. Has the school individually said let's just go out on our own and just get a bus site, let's go get a garbage site, not try for the whole package, because, you're right, maybe there is only two places, if any, that could accomplish the whole package. Have you looked at individual components? Forey: Yes. We absolutely have. In fact, the Sanitary Services, independently of our effort now as a team and the Meridian School District independently of our team, have looked for years to find a suitable site and have come up empty-handed time after time until this site was put together. Just as a thought is what defines a suitable site? Accessibility to the roadway system. You wouldn't want to get pinned in where you couldn't get across the interstate very easy. It needs to be centrally located to serve the patrons of the district. It's got to be large enough to accommodate the growth and we Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 44 know Meridian is growing, so you want the treatment -- or the site they have right now on Lanark, there is no room to park any extra buses, but they have to buy buses in their budget. So a site criteria. Then probably -- and also an important consideration is the ability to grow, because the district's mission can change. In other words, they may need to put additional office staff at one location and so sometimes you need to have a land bank, you know, the ability to not just plan for today, but ten, 15 years from now you need to be able to land bank and so that's pretty good planning to buy more than you need at this time. So that's what goes into that. Of course, utility services and approval by ACHD and traffic and those types of things. That all works at this site. Norton: Mr. Chairman? Borup: Commissioner Norton. Norton: Mr. Forey -- and I don't know if you can answer this question, but we both have Cheryl Henning and Mr. Bigham say that they both represented the school district, although one was for this project and one was against the project. Now do you -- Borup: I think she was speaking for the patrons of -- Norton: Okay. You're not speaking for the school district then? I thought you said you were speaking for the -- Borup: She did say she -- Norton: Okay. Thank you. Centers: I have one other question, Mr. Forey. Did you receive and read staff comments? Forey: Yes, I did. Centers: You didn't address any portion of them tonight. Forey: I did. Centers: Correct me if I'm wrong, but you -- you handed us your booklet and went through that. Forey: Yes. Let me grab my note. I talked about that we reviewed the staff report, that we accepted the city staff report, with the exception of page three, third paragraph. Centers: What I'm talking about is issues that they raised that weren't addressed. Borup: Are you talking like on Items 4 and 5 on the previous --? Centers: Yes. Borup: The previous hearing? Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 45 Centers: Yes. Borup: Okay. Forey: On October 18th I did. Borup: Right. Centers: Right. Borup: Commissioner, you're saying he didn't bring those up again tonight? Centers: Right. But I'm just talking about -- that's fine. Excuse me. Borup: Okay. Well, we are addressing all three of them, so I think this would be an appropriate time to ask if you have any questions on that. Centers: Well, that's what I thought we were doing, was doing all three of them. Borup: Right. But I think Mr. Forey just addressed items six, basically, in your presentation tonight. Centers: Do you have the staff comments dated October 12th? Forey: Yes, I do. Let me -- Centers: Refer to page two, annexation and zoning analysis. Forey: Let me grab that. Centers: Okay. Forey: Okay. I have the October 18th . Centers: October 12th . Forey: Okay. Annexation or plat? Centers: Annexation. Forey: Annexation. Centers: Well, the annexation and the plat are combined, Mr. Forey. Borup: The paragraphs are separate, though. Centers: No. But the staff comments are combined. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 46 Forey: Okay. Yes. Okay. On the October 12th I have that. Which page? Centers: Page two. Forey: Okay. Centers: Middle paragraph, annexation and zoning analysis. Forey: Yes. Centers: The ordinance 11-15-11. I think Commissioner Nary referred to that specific ordinance. Is that -- I don't know if that was the number? That's what they are addressing with general standards applicable. Okay. Forey: Yes. Centers: That the Commission and the City Council must address. Then turn to page -- it would actually be page three. Excuse me. Page four; Item G. That's where I'm torn. I mean that's what we are supposed to address and how do we address that? Will the proposed uses, not involve uses, activities, processes, materials, equipment and conditions of operations that will be detrimental to any persons, property, or the general welfare by reason of excessive production, of traffic, noise, smoke, fumes, glare, or odors? The staff says: The proposed uses will bring in more noise, traffic, and smoke into the area by means of diesel engines idling in the early morning hours, increases in employees and work-related vehicles, odors from garbage trucks, and noise from motor vehicle service bays. Staff finds that the listed uses will be detrimental to the persons and property in the surrounding residential areas. The aforementioned Comprehensive Plan Policy 3.4 of the land use chapter requires industrial uses adjacent to residential uses to have noise, odor, and smoke generation equivalent to the surrounding residential areas. The proposed uses will generate more noise, smoke, and odor than any of the surrounding residential development. Underlined. Last sentence. Forey: Right. Centers: How do you propose that we can address that? Forey: Through a design review process to make sure that we have, in fact, addressed that very issue. Not the use per se, but that how we design and develop and implement that use. Because we have adequate room here at this site to accomplish that and we can exceed the current buffer that you have. We can exceed your landscape standards. We can go above and beyond. We have enough room to do that. We have taken that into consideration. Centers: I don't think there any problem with that, Mr. Forey, in that regard, but the noise and the odor that is specified, I don't know how you can overcome that. I really don't. Staff tells me that our ordinance requires us to look at that and that if it is next to a residential neighborhood, we have a problem. Forey: Understand. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 47 Centers: That's where I -- that's where I come from. Forey: It's my understanding, though, that the intent of that section pertains to the uses that they identify in the list and they reference the list, the allowed uses in an industrial zone. Centers: Right. Forey: There is not such uses in that list. Centers: It's an ordinance. Forey: Yes. I understand. Centers: Industrial zone doesn't mean any use whatsoever and that's why we have talked about it earlier, a CUP for each applicant to address it and for those reasons. Forey: I understand. Centers: That's where I'm coming from. Forey: If we have to go through the conditional use process, then we may have to address it that way. We are hoping that the uses -- we identify three uses, that we could say yes to an industrial area that's appropriate to these uses and -- Centers: Oh, I think it should be an industrial zone. Forey: Now we'll have to decide the locations, the buffers, the distances, the heights, the amenities that need to make it compatible. We can do that through the Conditional Use Permit process. Most of the facilities are indoors. The parking I think is the issue here and that's outdoor. It's a parking lot. Centers: It's the noise and the odor. That's tough to overcome. Borup: Commissioner Nary. Nary: Mr. Forey, you may have answered this from last time, but I don't know. How many places does the Boise School District park their bus? If you know. Forey: Two that I know of and there may be additional that I'm not aware of, too. Nary: Where are they located? Forey: Near the airport and near the West Boise Treatment Plant. Nary: Okay. Where does BFI park the majority of their vehicles? Forey: That I don't know. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 48 Nary: Don't even know if they are in a residential or something else? Forey: I don't. I think out by the airport, but it's been several years since I've seen -- and I know at one time they were, but I don't think they are now and I honestly don't know where BFI is parking their -- McKinnon: Mr. Chairman? Commissioner Nary, BFI moved out of Garden City into Executive Drive. They are on Executive Drive now. Nary: Now they are on Executive Drive? Borup: Between Five Mile and Cloverdale? McKinnon: I believe that's correct. Nary: Probably not a lot of homes in the area. McKinnon: That's a business area. Forey: You know, with all the comments we have heard tonight on noise and I -- that's something we can do. We can do a noise analysis. It's something that's doable, if that's a condition from the city. It sounds like that's something we need to do to be a good neighbor. Borup: Any other questions for Mr. Forey? Any final comments? Forey: No. Borup: Thank you. Forey: Hope this works. Borup: Commissioners? (Commissioner Centers left) Moore: Chairman Borup? Borup: Mr. Moore. Moore: If I may comment? Borup: Please do. Moore: The language which is suggested here is not going to work for text only, because the language itself suggests a different zoning than that dictated by the 1993 Comprehensive Plan and, therefore, the language in and of itself asks you to change Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 49 the map and to do so is going to put you right back in the position we discussed earlier where you have a six month delay if you do it now. Borup: You're saying if there was a zoning change -- I mean if the text language is adopted, we would also need to adopt the Comp Plan and the land use amendment at the same time. (Commissioner Centers returned.) Moore: Because that text language asks you to change the zoning from the 1993 Comprehensive plan. Nary: Mr. Chairman? Borup: Commissioner Nary. Nary: Mr. Moore, let me ask your opinion on this. What I heard Mr. Forey say initially was that they would be comfortable to live with just the text amendment change tonight and to delay the others, the annexation and zoning and the preliminary plat until a later time. Now my assumption is that -- and I'm no brain surgeon, but it seems to me that his intent was that we change the text. We have a Comprehensive Plan that is going forward to the City Council that that's what this zone is is light industrial and that we will text that is consistent with the zoning change that the new Comprehensive Plan is contemplating at this time. If we don't move this annexation and preliminary plat forward and all we do is text, I don't know that it matters. Moore: Chairman Borup, Commissioner Nary, my comment is the same now as it was before, that your new plan is not in place and cannot be in place until the City Council approves it. Nary: I understand that. Moore: What you're asking for here is language that asks for a different zoning than what is in the 1993 Comprehensive Plan, which is what we have to go by and because of that language you're asking for a map change whether it says that you're asking for one or not, because it's a different zoning than what the map says. Nary: Well, I was going to say, maybe, Mr. Moore, maybe we just will have to agree to disagree. At least it appears to me that all Mr. Forey is saying is he's willing to live with a text change and nothing else and no land use map change. Any annexation and zoning has to contemplate if the zoning is appropriate specific to the land use map. He's not asking -- he's not asking if they have to consider his annexation in the application tonight, he's just asking that we consider the text and what his hope is is that if that text is approved and when the Comprehensive Plan gets approved, then you're looking at it completely different and then ask – Moore: I understand it won't make any difference, but the text in of itself asks for an industrial zoning and that's not what -- Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 50 Borup: No. Nary: It just says it should be encouraged to be adjacent near the city wastewater treatment plant, so I don't think we have to do anything, other than we can encourage it and if we weren't looking at the -- at the Comprehensive Plan time period, all we would be doing -- if we were looking at this without that consideration, we would look at this like anything else, that's a land use change in the area, is that an appropriate land use change, when we annex it should we rezone it to what's on the map or should we change the map and we wouldn't have -- it wouldn't be as complicated as -- Moore: So are we eliminating Item 6 from the -- Nary. No. We are only talking about Item 6, maybe, is what I thought I heard Mr. Forey say. All we have talked about is we'd like to change text only, which in the Idaho Code can be changed at any time that it won't impact -- Moore: So we are not asking for a Comprehensive Plan Amendment, we are simply asking for a text change, which is entirely different. Centers: Yes. You're changing No. 6. Borup: The way it's worded obviously -- Nary: The amended is requested. Moore: Okay. We are changing the way it's worded on the agenda. Nary: Correct. Borup: As Commissioner Nary said, the text proposal doesn't specify a specific location even or area. It's just generalized. Commissioners, I'm assuming on this we'd probably like to have some discussion first before we are even ready for any type of motion. Well, and that's maybe another thing we need to look at, whether we want to make a full motion at this point at the end of the meeting. I would suggest if we do it at the end of the meeting it would be appropriate to give those in attendance an indication of the direction that we feel we want to go also. Nary: Then do we want to close the Public Hearing? Borup: That's up – Centers: I'd like to move that we close the Public Hearing. Shreeve: Second. Borup: Motion and second. Any discussion? All in favor? MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Borup: Okay. Public Hearing is closed. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 51 Shreeve: Mr. Chairman? Borup: Commissioner Shreeve. Shreeve: I have a question just to pose to my fellow constituents, beings I'm the youngest one on the Commissioner here, but when there is an area that is zoned -- I'm very young. Well, youngest in terms of tenure. When a zone -- an area, for example, taking this, is zoned light industrial and, of course, as has been mentioned by the applicant that there is some assurance there that certain things can be done and, of course, there is a whole list of all kinds of things that can be done and I was looking through that list and there is quite a few that would be noisy, have odors, that -- and there is quite a few and so my question is to you how can as a public come to our Comprehensive Plan map and say, oh, this is light industrial. Certainly there is something there that could work. Centers: Commissioner Shreeve, if I might answer that. Staff comments were related to the fact that it was near a residential area. We have industrial zones, parks. You know, their comments were related to the fact that it was adjacent to a residential area. Shreeve: What would be a separation? A quarter mile? Mile? Ten miles? Where do you kind of get out of the residential classification? Centers: Normally industrial zones are grouped together and I can totally agree with along the railroad track, you know, we all know there is numerous industrial parks. Normally industrial zones are grouped together in an industrial park along a railroad track and the reason for the verbiage that staff put in their comments was because it was next to a residential zone. Borup: Maybe, to answer Commissioner Shreeve a little bit, that's why there are buffers designated, different -- and different zoning requires different buffer distances, different degrees of buffering with the adjacent uses, depending on what the adjacent use is. We are talking anywhere from five feet on up to the 35 feet – Shreeve: Right. Which sounds like, then, from what Commissioner Nary read earlier, this may not be an appropriate transitional buffer zone. Centers: Another buffer could be a commercial zone adjacent to an industrial zone or an M-1, a heavier use industrial zone, if you want to use M-1. Shreeve: But, there again, it gets -- and forgive me if this is a little bit off the subject, but on the same token how would somebody just off the street come and say, oh, that's industrial, let's go with the plan. Well, chances are we are going to require a buffer zone. Borup: Well, it's not that we are, that's in the ordinance that there is going to be a buffer. Nary: Mr. Chairman, maybe to answer Commissioner Shreeve, I think one of the things that we have heard from these people tonight and actually heard from planning is that Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 52 you should never put these dots on the map, because it is confusing to people. It does make people believe -- I mean I truly believe that the gentleman said that his realtor said that's going to be a park, that's what it looks like to me, it looks like it's supposed to be a park. That's what they look at. So using this floating conceptual idea on a land use map makes no sense and we went through that in the Comprehensive Plan analysis and we decided not to do that for that very reason, it confuses people. That's exactly what we have here. I guess my quandary in what we are talking about tonight -- and I really don't know what to do at this juncture, but what this developer has asked for is they have asked for us to amend our Comprehensive -- existing Comprehensive Plan in text. That can be done at anytime. It doesn't delay anything. He can ask for that and that's not a big deal. What he's asked for, as an amendment is that industrial development should be encouraged to locate adjacent to or near the city's waste treatment plant. If we were here five years ago and somebody asked for that after we had the waste treatment plant there, most people would think that's not that far out of line next to the treatment plant. How far away from that plant is the issue that I think most of the residents here are concerned with. If we were only looking at parcel one, which is right next to the plant, it's probably -- that's a significant distance from every one of those residences. I live about a half a mile from that corner. I'll tell you, if you started up a bus on that corner I can't hear it at my house. That's a long way away. A hundred yards away is a long way from your house. That is the significant buffer. But if we were only concerned with one thing it probably wouldn't be an issue. So legally what he’s asked for is not really unreasonable. That makes some sense. The annexation and zoning is the hard part, because this should be annexed into the city, I don't think there is any reason that it shouldn't be. Should the zoning be light industrial? Well, in comparison to all the potential uses for this property, with the significant limitations, that's not, again, a very unreasonable type of use. But, again, with significant limitations upon it because of the concerns about noises, odor, compatibility with the neighborhood. You know, when you're talking about basically a large parking lot, you know, large parking lots that are basically not used about ten hours a day is a lot better than a large parking lot in front of ShopKo that's used 18 hours a day. You know, those things do make a difference in your quality of life. I certainly don't disagree with the testimony that having a number of buses there has a significant impact on the people. That is absolutely true. I agree with that. I agree having those garbage trucks there is a significant impact as well. So what we have to balance is what's better, what's going to happen otherwise if we don't do this. What else could we put there besides this. The city is not going to build a park there. There is a park two miles down the road. They are not going to build a park there in the near future. So what else is left? Offices, which the city has discouraged previously. Residences, which I don't believe are compatible. Or some sort of commercial development. Both commercial development will have higher trip counts and higher traffic counts than this does. They all do. I mean you could find any commercial development in this city, whether it's Albertsons, Save- On, Rite-Aid, all of them have more traffic than this does. It's the size of the vehicle. I mean I understand that. But just looking at those things, it's not the easiest thing to try to figure out what's better than what we have. We are not obligated and no one's obligated to make these people have a blank piece of ground forever. They are allowed to be able to do something with it. What they have asked to do in the scheme of things is not wholly unreasonable to do. It is a big parking lot. You can condition and make conditions that restrict some of the impacts that it will have. Is it perfect? No, it isn't perfect. But if they would have made that into a residential subdivision and put 200 Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 53 homes there instead, is that going to make that less traffic on that corner? No. It's going to have more people driving there, more cars -- it's not necessarily better just because you put something different there. So I guess I'm just a little stuck, because they are not asking for things that are really wholly unreasonable, but I do recognize the impact that these folks have. The zone itself, with restrictions, is probably not an unreasonable zone. The plat they propose is not unreasonable in itself. The uses that they propose are a concern, a really legitimate concern and that's for another day. That's -- we talked about it tonight, but that's really not our issue tonight. Tonight our only issue is do we amend our Comp Plan in text to let this go forward the way it is? The one thing -- and I heard everybody answer yes when we said this earlier, but this piece is zoned light industrial in our new Comp Plan and not one person came to any of our meetings and said don't do that and lots of people came and I didn't hear everybody in this room, but lots of people came, because they read the paper, they went to planning, they found out what was going to be near their house and came and said don't put that by my house. I don't want a mixed use, I don't want a commercial zone, I don't want high-density residents -- lots of people did that. No one came and said that was not the appropriate zone for that place. So if we just look at the text tonight and we don't do anything else, unless the City Council in the Comprehensive Plan doesn't change it, that's going to be a light industrial zone and unless we limit the uses it will have more significant impact in your life than a big parking lot. Borup: Maybe just a little clarification and that's on the hearing that we just closed. Was it the intent of the motion and second to close Item No. 6 or all three? Centers: All three. Borup: All three. Okay. Norton: Mr. Chairman, when Tom is finished I'd like to have my thoughts. Borup: Who was it that spoke up? Mr. Kuntz? Kuntz: I guess I would be amiss as your parks director by not saying something tonight and I will put a pitch in for the park Planning and Zoning Commission, the Public Hearing on the 20th of this month of our parks comprehensive plan. The statements that staff has made tonight are correct in that a green dot on the map adjacent to the wall does not necessarily mean that a park was to be built at that specific site, but I believe it's intended to be built within a mile radius of that site, of that green dot. Our comprehensive plan that would be reviewed on the 20th shows nine future community parks to be built over the next ten years in Meridian. Those park sites range in size from 20 to 30 acres. If the community feels strongly enough that this needs to be a future park site, then it's up to those citizens to come to the planning and zoning hearing and voice their opinion as far as this being a potential future site. So I guess I just don't want to make the citizens think that we are -- the parks department or Planning and Zoning, hopefully, is not closing the door on any discussions as far as future park sites, but we do need to know how the citizens feel about this site and how it would be funded and how would it impact the rest of the nine identified future park sites. Thank you. Borup: Thank you. Commissioner Norton. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 54 Norton: Mr. Chairman, it's very difficult to sit here and listen to two sides of the story, because you can see both sides of the story. I became -- I was appointed to this Commission in December of 1999 and at that time there were groups that had been formed for a year that the City of Meridian had asked to help put together this Comprehensive Plan and they worked two years to get this Comprehensive Plan and it's dated June of 2000. We are now December 2001 and we are just about ready to make a recommendation to the City Council. We had three Public Hearings, they each went from 6:30 to 10:30, so we've heard from many, many people and we have been here extra hours trying to make -- put a recommendation together from what these people had said. When I went to some of these planning meetings, they had experts in every field with recommendations from the City of Meridian. These experts -- you just listen to them and listen to the statistics that they have already run and they put this together with a lot of knowledge and a lot of input from the city. So I can see why, you know, they – Borup: Just a minute. Was it just experts that was in those meetings? Was there any residents that -- Norton: Yes, any resident – Borup: -- that also -- Norton: It was all over the newspapers, they asked people to come for their input, there was lots of people there. When I go out to the site -- and I have been to the waste treatment plant. I've actually had a tour of the waste treatment plant, the Planning and Zoning Commission at the time was able to tour that -- it's a gorgeous drive. If you drive from Ten Mile to the plant you drive along a tree line creek -- it's right beside a creek, it's just beautiful, and you look across the farmland as you're at the treatment plant and it is absolutely gorgeous. So I can see a park and I can see a path along that Nine Mile and then I can also look at the permitted uses that's in the comprehensive -- or in our zoning ordinances and you can have a mobile home manufacturing plant, you can have a car wrecking place -- I mean there is other things besides buses being parked -- and this available from Planning and Zoning or from the city clerk's office, so anybody can have this. Anybody can get a copy of the Comprehensive Plan. The Comprehensive Plan will go to the City Council and they will have Public Hearings, so if you want to get involved, you go to the City Council. So at this point I don't know what I'm going to do. But it is a quandary and we have to make a decision tonight. Shreeve: Well, if we are suggesting of where to lean, I'll voice up. I guess I'm willing to approve this. However, of course, the battle is for another day of what actually goes on those lots. It frankly makes sense we need a decision. I mean if we can get off the approved plat -- or I guess there is the situation of the rezone or the EPA, the -- it slips my mind, but, otherwise, I guess the battle is for another day for the bus barns, for the garbage collector. Issues have been raised on noise, of odor. Certainly when they come forward with the CUP they better come prepared with those types of -- that type of information. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 55 Centers: Let me clarify, Commissioner Shreeve, what are you prepared to approve? The Comprehensive Plan text change or -- Shreeve: Well, that part I don't know from the standpoint of what legally – Centers: Or Items 4 and 5 with a CUP required for the entire plat? Shreeve: I guess I'm requesting a CUP for the entire plat, recommending 4, 5, 6 -- again, I'm not quite sure what the legal ability would be there. Centers: Yes. Borup: I don't know that we are going the applicant any favors if we don't give them a strong indication or even more so to make our decision on the basis on the proposed uses. Shreeve: That was my comment earlier. Borup: I realize that's not what's before us -- Nary: Mr. Chairman, I don't think we can -- and I really don't. I mean in looking at the conditional use requirement -- and I'm not -- Borup: I realize that's not what we would be voting on. Nary: I understand that. But what I'm saying is I think we have heard before -- and this not a criticism of Mr. Forey, we have heard before lots of people say we want to be good neighbors, I have heard it from a lot of people even that have made presentation tonight, and, you know what, they didn't do anything to be good neighbors, they just told us they'd like to be good neighbors and they didn't do anything. Understand for all of the folks that are in this room that to have a conditional use, what they are willing to live with today, is the risk that we would amend our Comprehensive Plan to allow a text change, the risk that the City Council may change its mind and not make that zone light industrial, they have nothing. They don't have anything they could do there with what they'd like to do. If the City Council wants to make it light industrial with the requirement that they have a conditional use, they have to meet certain conditions and some of those are that they won't be hazardous or disturbing to existing or future neighboring uses. Right now, without a whole lot of homework and a whole lot of neighborhood meetings -- remember this not a not-in-my-backyard issue, this is how can we make these work together some way and if they can't, they can't. But you have to try. You have to bring good faith to the table to do that. I think the neighbors would be ready to do that and the other parties, Sanitation Services and the school district are going to have to do that, too, and not just tell us they want to be good neighbors, but really try to do that. That's what buffering is. That's what creating those buffer zones between homes and these type of uses, having it inside, having berms, having trees, having walls if you need to, those types of things. These things can work together, but they take a lot of work. But all that they are asking tonight from this developer is we'll live with the text change, we will go sell it to all these people in this room, because if they don't, I don't see how we will ever get a conditional use to put anything there, unless Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 56 they can sell it to people and make it clear that this can work and be subject to the fact that it can be revoked if they don't comply. That's what they are willing to live with. That's not wholly unreasonable in itself. That's what growth does, that's what development does, is that you have to figure out how to make things work together for the better good of the whole community. That's what we are looking at and what we are faced with, that's what the City Council has to be faced with. But that's all they are willing to do. They are willing to live with the fact that they are going to sell this to you folks and make you feel like you can live with this and work together. I know for some of you in listening to your testimony, that probably isn't ever going to happen, but for a lot of you I think -- and I think -- I truly appreciate it -- and I wrote your name -- Mr. Beckwith, that's exactly the attitude that you have to have to make this kind of a thing work. You have to say what can we do. Let's sit down and figure this out. I was going to tell Mr. Beckwith we have two openings on this Commission, so if you're interested that would be great. But, anyway, I just want you folks to understand, all we are willing to live with tonight is change the text and we will deal with the rest of this tomorrow and we will come back here and argue about whether or not any of those uses could ever work on this property at some point in the future. I don't think that's -- I don't think that's bad. I just don't. Borup: All right. Centers: A question for counsel. We can't act on 4 and 5 without acting on 6; correct? Moore: Correct. Centers: Okay. Six is going to be taken care of possibly down the road. I'm prepared to make a motion that we deny Item 6. In fact, I'll just do it. If I don't a second, so be it. Mr. Chairman. Borup: Mr. Centers. Centers: I would move that we deny Item 6, CPA 01-001 request to amend 1993 Comprehensive Plan generalized land use map to re-designate 34.60 acres as industrial, along with the associated text amendments for Utility Business Park Subdivision by Falcon Creek, LLC, northwest corner of North Ten Mile and West Ustick Road. Borup: We have a motion. Dies from lack of second. Let me ask if -- I guess I have got a little concern if we move on and then take a look at these other issues later with not much intention of approving them, is that not really being fair to the applicant? I don't think the applicant would want us to proceed on that basis either. I guess I'm saying if we are going to proceed with the one, I'd hope the Commissioners are going to have -- would need to have an open mind to the others. Nary: Well -- Borup: But we have heard the testimony tonight, so then we have got most of the information that we are going to have. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 57 Nary: I guess I'll just explain, Mr. Chairman, the reason -- I guess the reason I wouldn't support that particular motion is the request they are making to amend the 1993 Comprehensive Plan, in and of itself, isn't wrong. There isn't anything wrong with this request. There is no reason that we wouldn't amend this text to reflect that we would prefer some sort of industrial development near the waste treatment plant. So I can't vote to deny it, because there is no reason not to have that. I understand exactly what you're saying, I truly do, but I guess I look at this in compartments. Mr. Forey has to take the risk that nothing else besides this text change may happen and this doesn't benefit him by itself. They need that Comprehensive Plan map amendment in the new Comprehensive Plan by the City Council and that's the battle that's not here today, that's the battle for another day in front of the City Council. So I just -- I wouldn't support the motion, because there is no reason not to do this. I have no problem with setting over 4 and 5, because we can't do 4 and 5 until we change that map. That map is not going to get changed until the City Council changes it. He may have to wait. Centers: But Item 6 didn't call for any text change, it called for a Comprehensive Plan change. Borup: Well, he changed that verbally. Centers: That wasn't on the agenda either, if you want to look at it that way. Nary: Commissioner Centers, I mean many times people say, well, fine, I can live with this. I mean we advertise the Public Hearing on an official basis. People then come in and amend it and change it, redesign it all the time and we don't re-advertise the hearing, it's just a change there. He said we made a request for two things. I'm willing to live with one of them. So I mean I don't think that in and of itself means that we have to set another hearing. I think we can make the decision on whether or not that request is reasonable and approve it or deny it. Shreeve: Mr. Chairman? Borup: Commissioner Shreeve. Shreeve: I brought up earlier as far as the lady who wanted the day-care and I think this is very similar. When it got right to it, we looked at her and said, hey, you know, we would approve this for five children, but we just don't think in the future we are going to approve it for 15, so we won't even bother approving it and we went ahead and denied, because that was, of course, her intention. I think we could equally look at Mr. Forey and say, look, we plan on approving this if you're willing to do whatever research needs to be done for a CUP, otherwise, you say, no, we want to back out of it completely, then, again, there is no reason to even approve it. Centers: That's the way I look at it. Shreeve: So it's just kind of almost his decision to approve and advance to the next step, which would be the CUP step, but if he says, for example, no, we just -- either all or nothing kind of a thing, then there is no reason to even approve it. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 58 Borup: Well, I'm not sure it causes anything either way to approve Item 6. I think it's -- the concern I would have is if they go with the understanding that they are going to get approval on the other two items. Nary: Mr. Chairman, Commissioner Shreeve, you're absolutely right, that's exactly how we handled that other one. I didn't hear Mr. Forey say we don't want -- if you're not going to approve the whole shebang, then don't -- I mean I heard him say we will do it, we will do everything we need to, we will put in -- if he didn't hear these 80 people in this room say we don't want this, you're going to have to convince a whole lot of people that this is a reasonable way to use this property, then that's his problem. Shreeve: Well, and that's where when he comes forward for the CUP he is going to probably need to come forward with some noise detection, some motor things -- he's going to have to come prepared with some homework, absolutely, and that's exactly what I heard, Commissioner Nary, is go ahead approve this and that he's taking on that responsibility himself. Nary: If I had to look at my crystal ball today and say based on the testimony tonight, if we were looking at a CUP would we approve it, my answer would be no, not based on the information that the developer brought, but what he said was I will get more. I'll get more and maybe these people won't be here the next time, because they can live with whatever they come up with and it's reasonable to them. If it isn't, they are going to come back here and they are going to tell us that and the city -- this Commission or the City Council can decide whether to allow it or not. That's the developer's risk he's taking. If he's willing to take that risk, I can't vote against just amending or not amending the plan to reflect this one sentence. Borup: Are there any other Commissioners willing to -- Centers: I said that earlier. I said it when the hearing started. I questioned the staff regarding a development agreement and CUP for each lot within the sub and I would support that wholeheartedly. Borup: I mean Commissioner Nary's statement that based on the information he had tonight that -- that he probably -- that he would not be in favor of approving -- Centers: Approving the use. Borup: Yes. Centers: The noise and odor. You know, Commissioner Nary alluded to traffic earlier -- Borup: The reason I'm asking that -- Centers: But the noise and odor -- Borup: Just to give some information to the applicant probably the way that we would be -- Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 59 Nary: I think, bluntly said, there is some homework that needs to be done. Norton: From his history he does his homework. Shreeve: Yes. So we look forward to a -- Nary: Mr. Chairman, my statement is based on -- for example, the school district said we don't know if we want to do anything. Well, you know what, I wouldn't approve a CUP if somebody said that to me. I wouldn't -- Centers: That's what he said. Nary: That's what he said. If he comes back here in six months and says we are not interested in doing that, I'm telling you that is going to be a pretty easy thing to do. Centers: His only comment was it's an industrial zone and we want to use it for that, but I want to be a good neighbor, but he didn't show how he wants to be a good neighbor. Borup: I guess the other thing I might mention, I wouldn't be opposed to some other zone in there, maybe a mixed zone, but some commercial on that site somewhere, too. I don't know that it needs to be -- I don't know if it needs to be 100 percent industrial. A lot of those uses work in both zones. I mean a lot of the normal commercial type uses can work in an industrial zone. Okay. It sounds like the Commission is leaning towards continuing Items 4 and 5. Nary: Well, I guess, Mr. Chairman, I'll see if I get a second. What I would do is I would recommend approval of Item 6 -- Borup: Okay. I would -- Nary: -- CPA 01-001 of only a textual change to the 1993 Comprehensive Plan, the generalized -- not to the generalized language, just to the Comprehensive Plan to reflect under industrial -- or under policies for land use goals, element three, industrial policies, that we add the sentence in text only that industrial developments should be encouraged to locate adjacent or near the city waste treatment plant. That no change in the land use map, that's only text, and that's all. That's submitted by Falcon Creek in the northwest corner of North Ten Mile Road and West Ustick Road. Centers: Commissioner Nary, I don't want to get too technical and I would probably second that, but, you know, on the agenda, Item 6, CPA stands for Comprehensive Plan Amendment and we are -- you know, I guess our attorney should get involved, I don't know, but we are not amending the Comprehensive Plan, we are just changing some verbiage in the text. Nary: Pursuant to the Idaho Code, Comprehensive Plan, text only, can be amended at anytime. Centers: Okay. Well, I -- Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 60 Borup: As long as it's not to the land use map -- the way I read the code and it's pretty straight forward -- I think you can always make a text change. That's all we are doing. We are adding one sentence and -- Borup: Does that still need to be done simultaneous with our other -- Moore: If you change the text only it doesn't -- Borup: It does not -- Moore: But I would sure feel better if you changed the wording to Item 6 before you vote on it so that it reflects the text change only and not the CPA. Nary: Would we change what we need to change to a designated number? I mean I would think CPA would still be the same. McKinnon: I would agree with that, Commissioner Nary, that a Comprehensive Plan Amendment, because we are changing the text, it would still just change text only. I do have a suggestion on your motion. We do make the motion to address that motion to be specifically what number we'd like that to be under. Right now we currently go to 3.12. We could make that Item 3.13 and the text change reading the way you stated it earlier, that industrial development should be encouraged to locate adjacent to or near the city’s wastewater treatment plant. That would be on page 24 of the existing Comprehensive Plan. Nary: Yes. Looking at page 20 that's where I had marked as well. I'm sorry. Yes. It would be 3.13 and I don't think the designated number would change, because I don't think we have a number for a Comprehensive Plan text amendment, so I think it would just be CPA -- still be the same number. McKinnon: Right. It would just eliminate the land use map. Correct. Borup: I think Mr. Moore asked that the amendment reflect the verbal application that the applicant gave tonight, so that would address just the text change only? Nary: Just to reflect the -- I guess to reflect the information that was received tonight, both in the staff report and Mr. Forey's statement to amending his application to only reflect a text amendment to the Comprehensive Plan and no amendments to the land use map. Borup: So that amendment would apply to more than just this parcel -- Norton: Certainly. It would apply to anyone, because we've only got one wastewater treatment plant. Borup: Right. But I mean it would apply to the other two on the other side of the -- Nary: True. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 61 Borup: So we do have a motion. Shreeve: I will second. Borup: A second. Any discussion? Did we get the discussion out before the motion was seconded? Okay. All in favor? Any opposed? MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Nary: Okay. The other two items. Was it decided that those needed to be continued until -- Nary: It would appear to me until the land use map is changed, I can't see how we can annex and zone this property. So it would appear to me the only option we have at this juncture, without the land use map being changed, is to continue it and I don't know how long that's going to take to change the language. But Mr. Forey was willing to live with that, but that's -- I don't know how long that will take. Borup: Any other opinion from Mr. Moore or Mr. McKinnon? Moore: I agree that you do need to continue this and I would suggest that you continue it to a date to be determined. Borup: Well, we are going to need to do it to a date certain, but you're saying it needs to be continued to the land use map is changed? Moore: That's correct. Because we can't change the land use map without throwing your Comprehensive Plan out the window for six months. Borup: Well, no, I think we all agree on that. Moore: Okay. Then you're going to have to continue 4 and 5. Nary: I think to a date certain, maybe 90 days. At least we'd have an idea within 90 days whether or not -- where the Comprehensive Plan was at the City Council, where their hearings were, how quickly that's going to happen, at least that's something reasonable. I don't think you want to set it out too far, because I think that's not fair to the applicant. I think they have to have some reasonable expectation to be able to come back here. Borup: That would give the applicant time to evaluate the project and I guess let the city know if they want to continue also. McKinnon: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission, the Public Hearing is closed at this time; is that correct? Borup: Correct. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 62 McKinnon: So you're going to reopen the Public Hearing and then continue it to a specific date? Nary: If we do it. Borup: Okay. I think that's the way it should be handled. Centers: How come we can't make a specific date? Borup: Well, the other choice is -- right. We can't continue it, but we can table it, can't we? Nary: Well, if you continue it to some indefinite period of time I don't know that it's reasonable. Borup: No. But the continuation would be of the Public Hearing. We have already closed the Public Hearing. Nary: Well, I guess what I would prefer -- Borup: So what is -- where's the Robert's Rule of Order that -- Nary: What I would suggest is -- and maybe the Commission would like to consider it -- that we did reopen the Public Hearing and then continue it, because between now and then -- Borup: Oh, that's true. We already stated we are going to want additional testimony. Nary: We are going to want some information and it may not be appropriate at that time to annex and zone this property, what they are requesting. It may not be appropriate to have the plat set up the way now, because they may not think they can make it viable for seven. So to me it just leaves it up pretty flexible for anybody to provide any other information. Borup: We are looking at a motion to reopen the Public Hearing on 4 and 5 and continue it for 90 days. Norton: Mr. Chairman? Borup: Commissioner Norton. Norton: I move to reopen the Public Hearing 4 and 5 -- just to reopen Items 4 and 5. Borup: And then continue -- Centers: Second. Borup: Okay. Motion and second. All in favor? Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 63 MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Borup: Okay. Those two items are reopened. So we are looking for another motion to continue it to -- can we look at that again? Mr. Forey, have you got a preference on a date? Norton: March 7th or March 21st for -- Borup: Or February. I mean it's – Forey: Let's look at March. Late February. For February. Late February. Borup: Depending on how fast City Council moves. They expected us to do it in one month, so let's see if they do it in one month. Norton: The City Clerk says 90 days would be the 1st of March. March 7th . Mr. Chairman, I'd move to continue this Public Hearing to March -- for 90 days, which would be to March 7th . Centers: For Items 4 and 5. Norton: For Items 4 and 5. Centers: I second that. Borup: Okay. Any discussion. Motion and second. All in favor? Any opposed? MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Borup: Thank you. Okay. Thanks everyone for being here this evening. I think we heard the reactions. Commissioners, do we need about five minutes break and then see what we can get done in an hour and a half. (Recess.) RECONVENED AT 10:36 P.M. Item 7. Public Hearing: AZ 01-019 Request for annexation and zoning of 4.25 acres from RUT to C-N zones for LDS Church by Larry Maurer – south of East Franklin Road and east of South Locust Grove: Item 8. Public Hearing: CUP 01-038 Request for a Conditional Use Permit for the development of an LDS Church in a C-N zone for LDS Church by Larry Maurer – south of East Franklin Road and east of South Locust Grove Road: Borup: Okay. We'd like to reconvene our Public Hearing this evening and start with item -- continue with Item No. 7, AZ 01-019, request for annexation and zoning of 4.25 acres from RUT to C-N zones for LDS Church by Larry Maurer. This is south of Franklin Road Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 64 and east of the South Locust Grove and then also accompanying that is Item No. 8, CUP 01-038, request for a Conditional Use Permit on the same project. We'd like to open both hearings at this time and start with the staff report. McKinnon: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission. Before you tonight on the overhead we show a piece of property that's not exactly correct. The piece of property that we are dealing with tonight is not truly in existence right now. I handed out a piece of paper that was handed to me by the applicant. If you guys all that, if you could refer to that. I'll have the applicant address this. Right now the property is currently going through a lot line adjustment in the county and because the lot adjustment isn't truly complete yet, I'll have the applicant address to you what's going on. We might not be able to annex the property in the shape that they have presented to us tonight, but I will go ahead and let her address that. The piece of property that we are dealing with is an LDS church. It looks very similar to all the other LDS churches that you have approved on Locust Grove. It has an elevation that looks just like this. It looks just like the one on Black Cat and the other new one that's on Locust Grove and the other new one on Locust Grove. The church building actually fronts onto Locust Grove. The property does not extend all the way to Franklin. The parking lot would be in the rear of the property. There is some interesting topography that is involved with this project. There is a -- we are talking these pictures looking northeast from about the centerline of Locust Grove. There is -- they are going to put the church in the area where the trees are. If you will notice in the picture in the upper right-hand side -- excuse me -- wrong side. This side right here. The left-hand side -- you will notice that there is an elevation change that drops rather rapidly from this site and the trees are where the church building would be. So the actual impact on the property alone would be somewhat diminished because of the fact that there is quite an elevation change right there. Also I'd direct your attention to this picture. There is a whole lot of trees on this site where they'd like to put this church. As you're aware in our new landscape ordinance we do require that everybody who removes a tree that's larger than four inches in caliper replace that tree with a one inch -- I mean equal caliper inches of trees. In 1998 I believe it was survey of the property showed that there was 1,400 inches of caliper inch trees. This had been brought up to me by the applicant and I'll go ahead and let her address that and maybe we can figure way to mitigate for that. To give you a little quick figuring, that would be 700 two-inch caliper trees. This site is not quite big enough to accommodate that. The applicant has requested some reduced buffers on the north side on the -- well, the east side and on the south side. They have provided letters that state that the applicant -- not the applicant, but that the neighbors are okay with the reduced setbacks. I would like to draw your attention to two letters that have been submitted. One in opposition from the Arthur Berry Company who is concerned that if the church is placed in its location, state code would prohibit them from marketing their piece of property, which is located on Nola and Franklin, from being able to serve any alcohol or sell alcohol if they were a convenience store. I would temper that by saying the city has issued variances in the past to allow alcohol and beer sales from a location that is closer than that to a church. However, that is state code and there is some issues that may need to be discussed with that. The second letter has to deal a little bit with the platting and I'll let the applicant address that, because that should be taken care of in the lot line adjustment and it should take place in the county prior to us annexing this. So right now there is no property that looks exactly like they have on their site plan. Go back to their site plan. There is no property that truly exists Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 65 like this with property lines like that. They are working with the county right now to make it look like that. Once it looks like that we should be able to annex it and with that I'd ask if there is any questions. Borup: Questions from the Commission? Centers: I have one question. If it looks like that we should be able to annex it, so are you saying that we have to wait until they get the lot line situation done? McKinnon: Well, let me go back to an overview of what the site looks like right now. Right now that's what the property looks like and that actually goes all the way to Franklin Road. Their submitted site plan looks like this. Borup: So the Kowallis and Mackey is on that same parcel? McKinnon: That's correct. So they are actually doing a lot line adjustment to make the parcel look like this. Currently it does not look like this and if we annexed it right now the only legal there is the one that looks like that. Borup: So has the parcel been sold at this time or have they just been optioned? McKinnon: I would defer to the applicant. Borup: Okay. We will ask them that. I mean if they have been optioned it looks like they have broken the parcel without doing any -- McKinnon: Mr. Chairman, that is correct, they have done an illegal lot split and they have recorded at record survey, but it wasn't with authority from the county. Borup: Previously or just this year? McKinnon: I believe it was just this year; is that correct? Powell: We resolved it. McKinnon: The applicant says it's been resolved, so -- Borup: Okay. Anything else, David? McKinnon: I have nothing further. Borup: Do we have some questions and -- Nary: Dave? McKinnon: Yes. Nary: In general how long does this process with the county take; do you know? Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 66 McKinnon: I believe the applicant says that they have had it corrected today, so the situation may not exist right now. But typically it takes -- a lot line adjustment does not take a whole lot of time to review. I don't know what the county's staff review process time is. When I would process lot line adjustments you're typically making sure that all of the zoning ordinances regarding minimum street frontage and lot size, making sure that all those match, making sure we don't have any easements that need to be vacated, once that's been done the county or city can typically say this is okay for approval if that's in their ordinance to allow for a lot line adjustment. I have done a number of lot line adjustments, some take a little bit more time than others, but they can be handled very rapidly. Nary: Do they have to be approved by the Commission? McKinnon: In some -- in some jurisdictions they may be. I do not believe the county requires the Commission approve those. I believe that is a staff level or administrative review. Nary: Okay. Borup: Anyone else? Maybe the applicant would like to come forward. Just a second. We are changing the tape. Okay. Thank you. Could you state your name and -- Powell: Auna Powell, BNA Engineers, speaking on behalf of -- well, I guess Larry Maurer for the LDS church. Okay. Let's resolve this lot line issue. Sorry about that. The Kowallis and Mackey purchased the property that's highlighted in the brown there. Originally we came in and they had -- the church wanted to buy a piece of property, the one that's outlined right there and we knew that the property was not eligible for a one- time division. The sale agreement included a legal description that should not have been recorded, it was recorded, and that's why that line shows up right there. Originally the church had intended to come in as a co-applicant on a subdivision application with Kowallis and Mackey. The church subsequently decided, because of their standard layout, that the -- a better option was to purchase the West property -- and that's the last name, not an orientation -- so it's the West property right there. I could get really mixed up sometimes. But once they did that, then the need for a subdivision went away. So I went to the county and I said I wanted a lot line adjustment that kind of went like that and down. It did cut across that corner and that was to accommodate some -- to better accommodate some drainage features. The county was a little annoyed that we took out a piece of the Kowallis property without asking them, so what they said was that they would approve a lot line adjustment that went like that. So it's basically correct it was an illegal division, because both parcels are in common ownership and the county has a piece of code that says two contiguous parcels with common ownership shall be deemed as one parcel for the purposes of this development. So those two basically count as one right now. To the matter of how long does it take to accomplish a lot line adjustment, we have got the tentative approval that should be with your packet today. All that's required is that we submit a record of survey. At this point staff's recommendation was for approval with some modifications that needed to be made prior to getting to the City Council. I think what we would ask is that -- there is a couple of issues I wanted to go into, but regarding the lot line issue I think we are just going to stick with the lot line that the county approved. It doesn't affect the location of the Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 67 building or any setbacks or even the parking design, it was just some drainage areas on the side and we can accommodate those in a different way and we could make that modification before it went to City Council, but it shouldn't affect anything else. Does that resolve all the questions regarding the lot line? Centers: Well, Ms. Powell, so if we approved it we could tell the City Council to look for the zoning certificate? Powell: Yes. Centers: If this meets the requirement that a zoning certificate will be issued Powell: Yes. You could look for that or certainly look for a revised site plan and then prior to releasing any building permits that zoning certificate needs to be done. But there is no reason we can't get that zoning certificate done within a month. The only question would be on -- I resolved all this at about 3:00 this afternoon and I haven't gotten a chance to talk with Mr. Maurer much, but other than reconfiguring the site a little bit, I don't see that there is a problem and even that shouldn't hold of us up. That is the property the church owns and that's probably what we are going to go with, rather than trying to modify it. Borup: You said the blue line was what you were going with? Powell: Well, the green line across the top. That is what the church owns. Borup: Right. I understood that. But the proposed -- you said the requested property line would be the blue line? But that's not what the county -- Powell: That's what the county approved. Borup: I see. I assume that blue line -- was that the -- was that basically the rim? Is that why you went along that? Powell: Yes. We just kind of smoothed it out a little bit. Borup: But you're going to follow -- you follow that rim along there with the proposed lot line? Powell: It's not right at the rim, it's actually down below, but we thought it made for a little bit better parcel for Kowallis and Mackey that was left over, but, you know – Borup: It looks like it would -- Powell: -- fighting the bureaucracy of Ada County is not something that I -- I don't know if the church is going to be willing to take it on either. We could get the one lot line approved -- lot line approved and there is nothing to prevent us from doing a second lot line -- Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 68 Borup: But now you have got some property down below the hill to do something with that's on your property that you can't use. Powell: That was always the case, although -- Borup: Okay. Does anyone else have -- okay. Go ahead. Continue. Powell: There was just two other issues I wanted to discuss and they are not -- one was the trees, the 1,400 diameter caliper something or other of the trees. I guess at this point I would just ask that you waive that standard. Staff has asked for additional trees along the front in addition to the landscaping plan. We don't have any problems with the suggestion staff has made -- or the modifications to the landscape plan that staff has asked us to do. And the other -- Nary: Mr. Chairman -- let me stop you there. Would they need a variance, Steve? McKinnon: This is a planned development. Kind of an odd planned development. This is a one use on a mixed-use zone, but it's under a planned unit development and under our landscape ordinance you can ask for reduced landscaping standards. Nary: Okay. McKinnon: But I would like to add -- Nary: So that would be part of this. So that would be part of our recommendation would be that there would be some other trade off on landscaping so that they wouldn't have to comply with – McKinnon: That's correct. When I wrote the staff report I wasn't aware there was 1,400 caliper inches of trees, so Item No. 6 I would suggest when making the motion to either alter Item No. 6 under Site Specific Comments on page No. 9 on the staff report, that's where we talk about the trees, and I would propose or request a modification on that to do some additional trees. The staff report that I wrote with regards to the landscaping on site was to bring the proposed landscaping plan into compliance with our landscape ordinance. It was not to bring the proposed landscaping plan above and beyond the landscaping ordinance's minimum requirements, but just rather bring it to the minimum level. The intent of the ordinance with the one-to-one ratio is to put additional trees -- or to request some additional trees in addition to the requests that have been made by staff, myself, to include maybe -- I don't know -- I don't know how you would place 1,400 caliper inches of trees with some two inch caliper trees, but I think some additional trees would be justified and I think I'd leave that up to you guys to determine how many more trees they should put in. Borup: How does the site compare with -- you said it meets the minimal. Is it right at the minimal? McKinnon: It's actually below the minimum of the landscape ordinance, so there is concerns -- the landscape plan is on the overhead. The other requirement on the landscape ordinance that we have one two inch caliper tree for every 35 lineal feet. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 69 There is some locations -- obviously, you can see from here to here it's much more than 35 feet. From this tree to this tree there is no other landscape buffer along the north boundary fence line. Part of our requirements was that they put in some additional trees here just to meet minimum landscape ordinance requirements. Down here we have some additional requirements. These trees here are actually about 45 feet apart, so additional trees are required down here to bring it to the minimum. I suggest that we maybe add some additional trees in this area in the open green space here. This is not typically an area that's used for active recreation; it's mostly a passive type of use for the open space. This area here has been requested to be used for drainage, so it may be hard to do something here, in addition to that there is the hillside that's right here. So there may be some additional trees that should be placed, then, beyond the minimum that has been requested in the staff comments. Borup: So you're saying maybe get trees on the other -- similar to what you have on the eastern border, perhaps? As far as numbers. McKinnon: Yes, I think -- Borup: Something similar to that. McKinnon: I think if we got something similar to that that would satisfy -- I think that there should be more than the minimum, though. Right now there is a lot more to the minimum. They are talking out almost everything to put this church in and they should be replaced by more than just the minimum. So instead of maybe going with the minimum landscape ordinance requirement of one tree for every 35 lineal feet, we could go to something like one to 25 and that would accommodate additional trees without completely overwhelming the site with 1,400 caliper inches of trees. Borup: Any comments? Powell: I guess I would prefer to put more out here, rather than back here. Borup: No. I was saying back there on the east side was adequate. Powell: Yes. Remember, you got -- you have got a big grade that's going to drop here and then you have got your neighbors over there that are going to be a store unit, so there is not much -- I mean as far as adding some back here, I don't see much use in adding it then here to equal that, certainly seems fine, and then what would seem to make sense to me is to add some to the open space here. This is like our only place to put water, so I would ask that we not have to put a whole lot of trees right in there. Borup: I would assume you probably benefit to have some on Locust Grove. That's going to widened here sometime in the future and it would be a little buffer. Powell: I just didn't know how many to suggest. When you're looking at 1,400 -- I mean, you know, I didn't -- I had no idea what to suggest. Borup: David, are we saying that needs to recalculated -- that the applicant should come back with a recalculation to add more trees on the west and south? Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 70 Powell: Well, these that -- Borup: Well, right. Northwest and south. A little bit on the north, on the parking area, I guess. McKinnon: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission, you actually nailed it right on the head. If you got a scale and looked at it on the east side, those trees are spaced about one for every 25 lineal feet. So if we went to the same spacing for all the perimeter, like you suggested earlier, that would put the trees at one to 25. You nailed it right on the head. That would be -- that's what I suggested as well, be one to 25, rather than one to 35. Borup: Does that sound -- Powell: That's okay. That's fine. Thank you. Borup: Okay. What was the other items? Powell: The only other item is the request to work with ACHD regarding the detached sidewalk. It's in ACHD's work program. They are asking us to put money into a fund. So I'm not sure how much influence we are going to have over the -- where that sidewalk is constructed. I did not have a chance to chase down the construction plans for Locust Grove, if they have them. What my fear is that they have already completed construction plans and it may not be a detached sidewalk. I would just ask to give a little more leeway in there if the construction plans have already been developed by ACHD. Borup: I thought that ACHD when they had a project very near that they just asked for the -- to go into a fund, rather than to build it, isn't that what they have -- McKinnon: That's correct. Powell: Okay. So the change is because they are asking for the fund, because they have already got the construction plans done. Nary: Mr. Chairman, what I'm reading on -- are you on page eight of the staff report? Sidewalks? All it says is you have to go over the required work for ACHD to make sure that the park will be able to be irrigated. So I mean it's not requiring you to do anything with the sidewalk. Borup: Well, the sentence before that. Centers: Number four, the first sentence. Powell: The detached sidewalk -- Nary: Oh, I'm looking at -- okay. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 71 Borup: So you -- Nary: I'm still confused by it. I don't see in four -- all it's saying is that you have to put in grass between the sidewalk and the property and that you have to irrigate that. Borup: Well, they are asking them to trust for the sidewalk. Nary: Well, they are already doing -- Powell: It's the word detached that I'm concerned with. It may be an attached sidewalk that they have drawn construction plans for. Nary: Oh. Okay. Borup: So you're saying it should just say sidewalk as required by ACHD? Powell: Or if we can take that detached for now. I mean if we can work with them to get detached, that's fine, but if they have already drawn the construction plans, they are not going to probably budge. Borup: David, will you -- when you said detached, were you assuming that it would be a temporary sidewalk like has been done or were you assuming that ACHD wanted it detached? McKinnon: No. Actually, ACHD does a lot of detached sidewalks, but part of the problem is that when they did the engineering for Locust Grove they may have already done the engineering based on attached sidewalks and that's where the concern comes into play. There is some precedent set to the north on Locust Grove in front of Woodbridge. Woodbridge is actually -- I'm sorry. To the south. To the south. They do have an attached soft path sidewalk. When you approved it you approved Woodbridge with an asphalt meandering sidewalk along Locust Grove. It is not an attached sidewalk, it's actually a pathway adjacent to Locust Grove and the applicant was able to work with ACHD and make that accommodation. Borup: I don't know if we intend that to be a permanent sidewalk, though. McKinnon: Well, it wasn't permanent. I think that I would be fine with modifying that Item No. 4, I believe it is, to say that the applicant shall be responsible for working with ACHD to have a detached sidewalk, even if it had a comma at that point, and say that if detached sidewalks are not available, that the landscaping shall be provided, something to that effect. If we are taking out that parkway area -- the site plan that we have got submitted that you have got in front of you on the overhead right now shows no sidewalk. Right now we have got trees where the sidewalk would be, if it was an attached sidewalk. If we had a detached sidewalk it would actually be interior of that lot on the inside of those trees and we would have the street trees with a sidewalk interior to that. I think that's preferable, you know, getting people off of the street and having a separation. I believe it's preferable and ACHD agrees that that's preferable. However, if the engineering was done -- has been done already, we wouldn't force the applicant to Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 72 have to fight ACHD to make sure that happened. So that we would prefer to see a -- excuse me -- we would prefer to see a detached sidewalk if at all possible. Borup: I think the reason there is the safety concerns, you have a busy highway and kids on bicycle or maybe just walking along there, that's the purpose of having it detached. Powell: Yes. I don't have a problem providing it if it's possible or -- Nary: Mr. Chairman, would it be easier to -- I guess sort of turn around from what this says, Dave, and just say that the applicant shall trust with ACHD for the installation of a five foot wide attached sidewalk, if available, rather than just not available, then do something else. So that would be clear that what our intention is that we prefer just to have a sidewalk. I recognize the applicant can't control what ACHD wants and if they won't allow it, they won't allow it. Would that make it clear enough? McKinnon: I think it would make it clear enough. The language if available sounds almost permissive that if it's not available then no sidewalk, so I think that if we word smith it we need to make sure that it's done. Say if not available -- if this option is not available, an attached sidewalk shall be installed or shall be trusted with ACHD. Powell: Chairman Borup, you could put a simple statement at the end of four that says if ACHD has already done the engineering and construction drawing, then an attached sidewalk would be acceptable, but the city's preference is for a detached sidewalk. Borup: This doesn't seem to me like that extensive of a change to move the sidewalk over five feet. Powell: You've never tried to get plans approved. Yes, you have. Borup: I have. I mean with a Cat and you just move it over. Okay. I think we understand the intent and certainly prefer the -- and I noticed when they finished Locust Grove they left the separated sidewalks there and then they put new ones in again, because, yes, they just moved the sidewalks back and forth to tie in and I had always assume they were going to tear some of those others out that were temporary, but they have left them. Powell: They left it attached and then they added another -- Borup: They left it detached. Powell: They left it detached. Borup: They added attached, but they tied into the detached. They didn't take the detached out, so -- Powell: I will resolve the -- I mean I will make sure I find out how -- what's up with ACHD before we get to that issue. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 73 Borup: Okay. So did we address the issues? Powell: Yes. That was all I had. Thank you. Freckleton: Mr. Chairman, I did have one item that I'd like to add. Site Specific Requirements, page nine, Item 9, under sanitary sewer service, I'd like to add to the bottom of that, if I could, that late-comer fees shall be assessed against this parcel and that fees will be collected at the time of issuing the building permit. Latecomer fees shall assess against this parcel. Fees will be collected at time of building permit. Borup: Okay. Mr. Plant wrote a letter concerning irrigation water. Is that --? Powell: Yes. I can address that issue. There is an irrigation line that comes -- it comes in about like that and then goes kind of like that and then goes straight down like that and the Larry Maurer has talked to Mr. Plant and had already agreed to relocate that irrigation -- to relocate that irrigation line on the other side of the property boundary. What we will do is just provide a service line -- one service line coming into our property and we will relocate the pipe on the other side. Borup: That's what Mr. Plant -- Powell: That was what Mr. Plant wanted. Borup: What he preferred? Powell: Or so I have been told. Yes. Borup: Okay. Any other questions from any of the Commissioners? Anything else, Ms. Powell? Powell: No. Borup: Do we have anyone else here to testify on this application? You do on this one? Pardon? Smith: Yes. Borup: Okay. Smith: I'm Robert R. Smith. I live at 335 South Locust Grove Road, which is approximately almost straight across from this and I have some real concerns of the height of this building that's going to be constructed that we are going to lose our total view of the mountains, which we have enjoyed for almost 40 years. I know that we are not supposed to try to stop these developments, but it kind of looks like that's not really an ideal location for a church. There are a lot of things going to happen there now and have already happened. We are bordered on our west side with a light industrial development, which, Commissioner Nary, I heard you address and one of my worst concerns is that statement you made about those people being good neighbors is absolutely right. We've had a terrible time with the developers and we now have to look Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 74 at this. I hope that you will discourage putting this in, in this location. I'm also speaking for Robertsons, which can't be here tonight, he's in the hospital, but he lives straight across the road from it and he didn't want this to happen either. We are not very many people, but we are affected and we really feel that there are better places for those, rather than this area now. Thank you. Nary: Mr. Chairman? Borup: Commissioner Nary. Nary: Mr. Smith, did the developers for this, did they ever come and talk to you about this plan or -- Smith: No. This is -- we received it from the city and today is the first time I saw the elevation of this church. Nary: Your house is directly across the street on Locust Grove on the west side; would that be correct? Smith: Right back there. Right there. Okay. If I had a pointer I could show you. Nary: You're right in here? Smith: I'm the large one. Go back to the south. Right there. Right there. Then Mr. Robertson is the other one. Go right up against the green. Right there. Nary: The church is supposed to be built somewhere in here? Smith: Right. Borup: The big one -- Smith: There is a real excessive fall off there. There is about eight to nine feet where you get to the level of the Five Mile Drain. That other line is the Five Mile Drain. Where you show it over here on the far left, that fall off is about nine feet from the elevation there, plus on Locust Grove there at the old Bear place, which that was an old homestead that was there, that's actually an upgrade. They are going to have to take a lot down to get it to the elevation of the road. Another thing that we were concerned about, my wife and I and the rest of us, the way the traffic is is getting to be really bad. I know that we have been fighting this for a long time and we have been told that we are in the five year plan for Locust Grove to be widened, but I wouldn't hold my breath until that happens or that overpass gets put in and they are not going to finish that and when they dead end we are concerned -- the map at the Ada County Highway, when the dead end that up against Franklin Road and that's what's going to happen, because there is no proposal yet, to take Locust Grove across the railroad tracks and connect it to Fairview, there is going to be a massive amount of traffic. They say that -- Ada county says that in five years there will be 100,000 vehicle access, Locust Grove and Overland, and in five years we are supposed to have that piece of road built to come down our way and we have to make -- we will get 50,000 vehicles a day down our road. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 75 Borup: A day? Smith: That's what the Ada County Highway says and I'm just going on their figures, Mr. Borup, you know, and -- I don't know. Thank you very much. Borup: Thank you. Do we have anyone else? You need to come on up if you want to give testimony. J. Smith: I'm Jeri Smith at 335 South Locust Grove. There is going to be construction -- they didn't say when they were planning on starting construction on this church. We are talking about Locust Grove construction. We are talking about an overpass. We are talking about a high school. We are talking about the city police. We were talking all those roads haven't been opened up. Where is the traffic going to go and if this opens out onto Locust Grove, it's a little two-lane road, what are we going to do? I'd like you to take that into consideration, please. Borup: Anyone else? Thank you. Any final comments from the applicant, Ms. Powell? Centers: Mr. Chairman? Borup: Commissioner Centers. Centers: I would move that we close the Public Hearing for Item 7 -- excuse me -- 7 and 8 on our agenda. Borup: Okay. Excuse me. It's getting late. We have a motion, waiting for a second. Norton: Second. Borup: Motion and second. All in favor? MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Borup: Okay. Any discussion? We have two items here. One is a request for annexation and zoning is the first one. The second is a Conditional Use Permit. Item 7 is annexation and zoning. Freckleton: Mr. Chairman? Borup: Mr. Freckleton. Freckleton: I'd like to just make one small point just for you to consider when you're making a motion on the annexation and zoning particularly, the fact that we are still going through this boundary line adjustment and new legal descriptions and maps are going to have to be submitted for the annexation and zoning that will have to be reviewed. As long as we do that before it hits City Council. Borup: Yes. Definitely. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 76 Freckleton: You might want to talk to legal counsel and see if he has any thoughts on that. Borup: Well, maybe we should have asked the time frame from them on that. Why don't you go talk to David and we won't have to open the Public Hearing back up -- because aren't we required -- I mean it needs to get to City Council in 45 days or -- Nary: Your concern is the -- McKinnon: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission, the applicant has informed me that all that's left for them to get this approved is for them to submit a record of survey and have that recorded. It's a very quick process. They can absolutely have this project approved by the county -- the property approved by the county by the time this reaches Council. Then, of course, we would have to make sure that Bruce Freckleton receives a copy of that for verification of the lot lines and it would require a legal description with the metes and bounds bearing the distances and the maps to follow the legal description and Bruce would need that at least a week ahead of time, so we may want to make that an additional condition. I guess that would make it Condition Number 12 with the addition of Bruce's condition, the last number being 11, the latecomer’s agreement. That a new legal description shall be submitted to the city at least one week prior to the Public Hearing in front of the City Council for verification by the Public Works Department or something of that matter. Borup: You said one week prior to? McKinnon: At least one week. I would be happier with a minimum of at least one week. Borup: I would say that's not unreasonable. Nary: Mr. Chairman? David, wouldn't we want it sooner than that? I mean if we are going to notice a Public Hearing 15 days prior to the hearing date, that means -- McKinnon: We typically -- Nary: -- in theory somebody could come in and look at it and it's not there, then I think that's a problem. McKinnon: Let me address the applicant. Auna, can you guys get that to us by next week? Powell: Okay. McKinnon: The applicant has informed me that, yes, they can have that to us by next week. That would give us enough time to get this done. We could maybe even go for - - except for there is a -- we are at least two weeks out; is that correct? Borup: More than that, aren't you? Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 77 McKinnon: Before we will be able to be in front of City Council? Borup: That would be in January. McKinnon: That's going to be in January? If we go ahead and put the item and set it at least two weeks prior. Borup: That would -- McKinnon: Fifteen days. Borup: Well, two weeks would do it. By the time they get the letter they -- it wouldn't be the next day. McKinnon: Auna, you're okay with that? Powell: Yes. McKinnon: The applicant is okay with that, 15 days or two weeks. Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission, I have taken just a moment to determine maybe some language -- some proposed language for you on Item No. 4 concerning the sidewalk. I think the easiest way to maybe address that would be to add an additional sentence on Item No. 4. It would read as follows: If a detached sidewalk is not an option ACHD will permit at this location, the city will allow an attached sidewalk. I think that covers that. Nary: Mr. Chairman? Borup: Commissioner Nary. Nary: If we need to reopen the Public Hearing on this particular point -- because I guess sitting here thinking about it, Mr. Smith did raise a concern that this is a 24,000 square foot building -- I guess I didn't see what the height of this building is. Just picture -- McKinnon: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission, if you will note in the -- where is my code -- in the Meridian code book there is an allowance for the steeples to actually exceed the maximum height requirement in that zone. The maximum height restriction in that zone is 35 feet, the building height is a height of 31 feet. The steeple would not be included in that. I'll go ahead and reference that, if that's okay with you. I will find that very quickly. Borup: This is a single story building, though, isn't it? McKinnon: This is a single story building. It's in Meridian City Code 11-9-2, Item No. E. Exceptions to the height regulation. The height limitation contained in the zoning schedule and control do not apply to spires or antennas, water tanks, public utility power poles, ventilators, and other apparatus usually required to be placed above the level not intended for human occupancy, except where the height of such structures will constitute a hazard to the steep landing and takeoff of aircraft in established airports. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 78 So the actual steeple is an exception to that and Auna's just handed this to us on the height. Nary: Dave, before you really tax our reporter anymore, how tall is the building? I didn't hear you. McKinnon: 31 feet. Nary: How many? McKinnon: 31 feet. Nary: 31 feet. Thank you. McKinnon: I was stalling. The height of the building itself is 31 feet and then the tower is actually an additional 38 feet, for a total of 69 feet. Shreeve: From the steeple to the ground is 69? McKinnon: Correct. Shreeve: How tall are the trees there now? McKinnon: Tall. Probably around 40 feet. That would be a good approximation. Borup: At least on a couple of those -- McKinnon: The poles look a little taller. Shreeve: The steeple would be higher than the trees, but the trees are still pretty good size, though. McKinnon: Okay. One of the people who gave previous testimony knows that the power poles happen to be 50 feet in height and the trees do not exceed the power poles, the power pole height and the trees do not exceed 50 feet, so we are talking about -- Borup: Close to the road it does. McKinnon: There is actually a hill right there. When I took the picture I was actually about nine or ten feet below that, so you're going to have a skew to that picture, where I'm actually looking up at that and it actually levels off on Locust Grove, because the tree is actually closer to the power pole the perception is actually off. The steeple is going to be taller than the trees. Borup: So it sounds like the trees are about ten feet -- could be 10 feet above the building? Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 79 McKinnon: That's correct. The trees are taller than the building. However, the steeple would be the only projection that is taller than the trees. Borup: Any other Commissioners have any other questions? Any discussion? Ready for a motion? Nary: Mr. Chairman. Borup: Commissioner Nary. Nary: I do appreciate what Mrs. Smith raised in her concern. I certainly would -- I think with the topography of the ground it certainly would have been nicer if the building were a little further away from the street and it wasn't quite so large, but I mean in comparison to what could be there and in relation to the trees, it's probably not the worst thing. I did read Mr. Berry's letter, just that someday he might build a convenience store there, but it doesn't sound like a good reason to me to deny this particular use that they are requesting. I guess, you know, unfortunately, I think for the Smiths it's the same thing that we hear from lots and lots of folks is that we are all getting a little closer to everyone and that's probably hard, but we can't protect their view and this is a building of reasonable height in relation to what our code would allow, the type of use of this is probably not as significant as other uses that could be there in that particular area. I think if we all say that it's just growth and some things aren't as nice and calm as they used to be, but I don't know that there any other reason we would have to really not annex this property or allow this use, so -- Centers: I would agree with that. Nary: I'll go ahead and make a motion, Mr. Chairman. I would move that we approve Item 7, AZ 01-019, recommend approval for the request for annexation and zoning of 4.25 acres from RUT to C-N zone for the LDS Church by Larry Maurer, south of East Franklin Road and east of South Locust Grove, to include all staff comments in the staff report of November 17th , with the following amendments -- I might have missed one, but don't -- on the annexation requirement I don't think I have any -- oh, yes. Prior to -- prior to the City Council hearing that the applicant will provide a zoning certificate showing that they have accomplished the lot line adjustment. I don't think for the annexation -- McKinnon: Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, I think that we should actually add that that's the place where Bruce needs to receive a copy. Nary: Oh. Okay. McKinnon: I think that would be more appropriate in the annexation than in the Conditional Use Permit. Nary: That at least 15 days prior to the City Council hearing a new legal description of the property would be submitted for review by city staff. McKinnon: Public Works Department. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 80 Nary: By the Public Works Department. I think on the annexation that's the only thing I saw. Centers: I second that. Borup: Motion and second. Any discussion? All in favor? MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Nary: Mr. Chairman, I'd move that we recommend approval of CUP 01-038, request for a Conditional Use Permit for the development of an LDS Church in a C-N zone for Larry Maurer, south of East Franklin Road and east of South Locust Grove Road, to include all staff comments of November 27th and the following amendments -- if I wrote them down adequately -- Site Specific Requirement No. 4 on page eight. That's a -- the first sentence would now read: The applicant shall trust with ACHD for the installation of a five foot wide detached sidewalk, if available, period. An attached sidewalk can be done if required as an alternative. Is that okay? Borup: Yes. David also had -- Nary: What I wrote? McKinnon: It's similar wording. Nary: That number six -- that number six that the applicant work with the staff pursuant to the landscape ordinance, but would not be required to mitigate the removal of trees on a one-to-one ratio, but can plant trees on a one-to-25 lineal feet ratio around the entire property perimeter and would work with staff to satisfy the staff requirements. Number nine, that a sentence be added that late-comers fees shall be assessed against this parcel and that fees will be collected at the time of the building permit. That an additional site specific requirement be added here as well, that a new legal description will be submitted at least 15 days prior to -- the new legal description site plan will be submitted at least 15 days prior to the hearing for the City Council. Have I missed any -- was there another one? McKinnon: Mr. Chairman, Commissioner Nary, I think we can eliminate the requirement for them to submit a legal description for the Conditional Use Permit portion. Nary: How about a site plan? McKinnon: A new site plan would be very -- we actually do cover that in the landscaping requirements, that ten copies of the detailed fencing plan -- Nary: Let's just make sure. We can eliminate the legal description from Item 11, but we definitely want a site plan prior to the City Council review. McKinnon: Commissioner Nary, Item No. 5, if you will refer to that. It says that 10 copies of the revised site plan and landscaping plan shall be submitted to Planning and Zoning staff at least 10 days prior to Public Hearing by Council. I think that covers it. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 81 Nary: Well, then let's make it -- okay. Instead of adding Item 11, let's amend Item 5 to say 15 days prior, so it's consistent with the public notice requirement. McKinnon: Okay. Nary: So we will amend 5 and we don't need to add another provision. That's all of the notes I have of the amendment. Centers: I'll second that. Borup: Motion and second. Any discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Item 9. Public Hearing: CUP 01-028 Request for a Conditional Use Permit for a fast food restaurant with drive-thru in a C-G zone for proposed Wendy’s by Wenco, Inc. – northwest intersection of Corporate Drive and East First Street: Borup: Thank you. Item No. 9, Public Hearing, CUP 01-028, request for Conditional Use Permit for a fast food restaurant drive-thru, C-G zone, for Wendy's by Wenco. This was -- this was withdrawn at the last meeting, is that what it was? McKinnon: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission, they actually requested that it be tabled. In addition to that there was not a correct property noticing, which took place at the last hearing. Borup: Okay. That's why we haven't heard it yet. So this is a new Public Hearing. I'd like to open it at this point and start with the staff report. McKinnon: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission. Tonight before you we have an application for a Wendy's restaurant in the approximate location of Corporate Drive -- as you will notice on the overhead it's in the northern -- it will be north of Corporate Drive between Meridian Road and East 1st Street. Just to the north of the property is a Bulimia’s and then actually further north -- further to the south there is a Taco Bell and a Bolo's and a Kentucky Fried Chicken. So there is quite a bit of fast food in this location right now. There are a number of items that I would like to bring forward to you at this time. The applicant has gone to ACHD and he has received permission for a universal access on Corporate Drive. Originally the staff report said that they could only have a right in, right out. They now have a universal access to their property. The property itself looks -- on the site plan that we have got on the overhead is in two parcels. There was actually an illegal lot split sometime in the past. It truly only exists as one parcel right now with the record of survey that has been recorded. The applicant has already submitted an application for a preliminary plat to actually legally split those parcels and that will be before you in the near future. A couple items that we'd like to address just before I hand it over to you with regard to the landscaping. They have acquired some landscape buffer reductions and staff agrees with some of those. As you remember the landscape plans do require that all gateway corridors require a 35 wide landscape Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 82 buffer and unfortunately for this piece of property it is between two gateway corridors or entryway streets and it would be, in staff's opinion, burdensome to require a 35 landscape buffer on this side of 1st Street and then require a 35 foot wide buffer on this side. The applicant has provided additional landscaping in this area to the north adjacent to the Blimpie’s right here. They have added some additional landscaping that was not required to go ahead and offset the landscaping buffer that they have requested right here and staff supports that. However, staff does have some concern with their request to have no landscape buffer between the driveway, the Blimpie’s, and the driveway and pickup window for Blimpie’s and the Wendy's driveway window would be this direction, so they would have a driveway for Blimpie’s and a Wendy's with no landscaping between it. We would have an extruded curb between the two with nothing else. Currently there are three crab apple trees and some landscaping. The applicant has requested that those be removed. Staff supports leaving those trees there and providing the required minimum landscape buffer. One final thing before I turn the Public Hearing back to you and ask if there is any questions. The applicant has provided parking spaces that are below the minimum standard the city requires. We do have a 19-foot long parking standard. The ones on the site plan are 17 feet in length. They are compact stalls, the low is 15 required, they are at 13 feet. Staff has made a requirement that they should resubmit a plan showing the actual parking width. We are at a time now where there are longer bed vehicles that people drive in Idaho, there are a lot of trucks, which makes it very hard for people to park in a smaller location without making the driveway width wider or the sidewalk wider so that we can have overhang of vehicles in the walking path without actually blocking the walking path. So one of two things should happen with that, either to increase the amount of space that's provided or to increase the amount of space provided on the sidewalk, so that could allow for an overhang without completely destroying the usability of the sidewalk. With that I'd ask if there is any questions. Borup: Has there been discussion with the applicant on any of those recommendations? McKinnon: There has been. I spent some time with them. We have talked about that. The applicant believes that the shorter parking stalls are appropriate and we agree to disagree and allow you as the Commission to determine whether or not you believe that that's appropriate. We have in the past allowed some overhang -- some reduced parking if the overhang -- if the sidewalk is actually wider than the minimum width of the sidewalk. For example, if the sidewalk was only four feet and you have a vehicle that parks with an overhang of two feet, all of a sudden you're left with a two-foot wide sidewalk that doesn't do anybody any good. If you have a six-foot sidewalk with a two- foot overhang you have a four-foot wide walking path, which two people can actually walk on. We have allowed it that way in the past. What could be a concern, though, is that they only have a minimal landscaping right here next to the sidewalk and in order to make that sidewalk wider you would be losing landscaping and I don't know if that's an option that we would either prefer or support, it's just an option. The land -- I think the landscaping over here -- you will hear from the applicant tonight that there are crab apple trees, crab apple trees don't typically don't grow in a columnar manner, they actually kind of spread out, and if we have two driveways with crab apple trees between them, they will interfere and they will have to be pruned out and maintained and they are a tree that does need maintenance in order to keep from growing into that area. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 83 There has also been some discussion that those trees may be diseased or not heat tolerable to the extent that those would die upon development of this in further time. But I will go ahead and let the applicant address those issues in further depth. Shreeve: Dave? McKinnon: Yes? Shreeve: The parking stalls, if he put it per the normal requirement, would he still be able to get the number of stalls that's required for this development? McKinnon: Yes. He could. Actually, there is enough room right here between the building and the sidewalk, this little area that's right by the sidewalk, he could eliminate that and pick up some additional feet to make these all meet the minimum requirement. Right now we do have a buffer between the driveway into the restaurant, the ordering lane right here. We do have a small buffer that runs adjacent to that. We could reduce that in order to allow the required parking. They do meet the required parking. In fact, they exceed, I believe, by a small amount, the number of required parking spaces, but it's not just this area right here, the entire parking area would have to have some adjustment, so that's why staff has requested a new site plan showing that this site could accommodate that. Shreeve: So it wouldn't pose a hardship, per se, to go back to that – the regular required stall size. Hardship from the standpoint of number of stalls I should say. McKinnon: That's correct. It would be a hardship to have to go back and redraft it. Shreeve: Redraft it. McKinnon: But as far as the hardship in the true sense of a hardship, no. Shreeve: Right. Borup: The problem on the stalls is just on the depth at 17? McKinnon: It's just on the depth. The width is actually appropriate. Nary: Mr. Chairman? Borup: Commissioner Nary. Nary: Dave, is there an escape avenue out of that lane? McKinnon: There isn't an escape avenue in this lane. I believe that I did address this with the applicant and I'd like the applicant to address why they don't have the escape lane. Further, if they put in an escape lane right here, it does allow the ability for someone to cut in the lane and I believe that's what the applicant and I discussed, that they did not want to allow people to come in and cut through right here into this lane. So I would ask the applicant to address that. He does have some thoughts on that. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 84 Borup: Okay. Would the applicant like to come forward? Strite: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission, Billy Ray Strite, 1010 Alante in Boise. I have had the opportunity to go over the staff report with our client Wenco. Unfortunately, Mr. Nagy is not here this evening. However, I have had conversations with him regarding the staff report, as I had with Dave and also with Brad. I think that we find the staff report primarily -- I think it's acceptable. There are two items, which Dave has already mentioned to you, which I'd like to first say that the first one I think is a matter of practicality. The second one is a matter of -- I would suggest hardship and certainly unusual circumstance. I'll start with the first one and that has to do with the parking. I thought I'd bring this and I'm not going to record this and I'm not going to read the whole thing to you tonight, but I think you have been here long enough, but this is the ULI, Urban Land Institute Parking Study, Fourth Edition, they put them out every four or five years and what it does is it tracks automobile sizes, automobile widths, automobile parking dimensional standards throughout the United States, so that we can get better handles as designers and land planners and what I thought I might do to make it real simple, is if you think about your own parking lot out here, you have a concrete curb that contains the landscaping and three feet further to the parking inside you have a concrete bumper, that bumper is used as the wheel stop. Well, the ULI, number one, regarding size of trucks, I thought it was kind of interesting. Automobiles have not gotten larger since 1987, as a matter of fact. But the largest one on the market today bumper to bumper is 18 foot nine inches. It's the Dodge Ram long bed, long cab something 200 something, but it's quite long, but it's only 18 foot, nine inches. But, more importantly, wheel stops -- actually, if you go from the wheel to the bumper you have an average of two foot eight inches, so if you put the wheel stop at 17 feet, you're still getting the automobile -- or the truck in this case off the aisle way by creating the overhang. This does one of two things. First of all, it allows regular maintenance. I think we are probably all familiar with a parking bumper, which are fairly distasteful visually, but, more importantly, from the standpoint of snow removal and any standard kind of maintenance, they are very difficult to deal with. So what we are proposing here and have proposed in many communities -- in fact, this is the first time I have actually had to deal with it to this extent. We are providing eight-foot walks, as a matter of fact, and three-foot car overhangs. That leaves you five feet of walkway adjacent to the building there and still can accommodate the length of the automobile and maneuvering in and out of the parking space. This does another thing, it increases the amount of landscaping and it also decreases the amount of paving. As I say, we work about 20 states, we are presently in 10 or 15 of them, this is the first time I have ever had to argue this. But it's fairly standard. It's very typical practice throughout the United States. So I would hope that simple explanation will do and I would be happy to answer some questions. Let me get to my second one if I can and that has to do with a hardship or unusual circumstance. I'd like, if I could, to pass out a couple of -- I think a very pertinent piece of material here and I'm going to do this kind of in a semi-orderly fashion, if you will. I think I made sure there was enough of them. All I do is color them up. I think the first thing that you want to look at is the first drawing that shows the landscaping that's presently on the northwest corner of this -- northeast side of this site. That's the neighbor's landscaping. 100 percent of that neighbor's landscaping is on our parcel, so what we tried to do is we sat down with the neighbor and said, you know, we'd like to salvage these trees. We could remove them, obviously, since they are on Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 85 our parcel. The neighbor said that would be fine. I'd just as soon not have that landscaping there. So we made an agreement with him to take those three trees, move them into the westerly half of our landscape buffer. I think the other important thing is that -- and I think the staff has already alluded to it and I think positively, if you look at this -- the green area on that sketch that I just handed out to you, that represents better than 15 percent of the site and we haven't even touched the interior landscaping yet. If you take only the north boundary and you said I have a five-foot buffer, that boundary is 417 feet, that's approximately 2,100 square feet of landscaping if you took a five-foot strip, as you would normally do on a normal interior lot that would be 2,100 square feet. They are at 2,500 square foot of landscaping just in the westerly -- northwest corner of the landscape strip from the 12 parking spaces that are on the northwest side. Similarly -- and I think probably more importantly, a past Commission, as well as Council -- your staff and the Ada County Highway District, has insisted -- and we have had to agree -- that we had cross-access with the neighbor above. The neighbor above was also, in fact, required to provide us access, so what in effect happened is you had single lots up there, the center lots, none of which have landscaping between them, because of the PUD, and that happens to be the single that has the driveway separating. What you have done now is you have taken those four lots and added two more lots, so now we have a combination of six lots, although not, quote, a PUD, you had the same effect and you have now taken that northerly boundary, which would have been a standard side yard setback, more or less, and made it in common to the planned development, which would normally not require any landscaping. So I guess, you know, that's a simple way of looking at it, but I have one other exhibit here, which I, unfortunately, did not print enough of, but what I was to going to suggest to you is that's the amount of curbing, out of the 415 feet, we are asking for 75 feet of curb in that northern boundary and that's all. So I think if you take into consideration the site itself, there is definitely not only a hardship in the fact that it has three street corners, but it has a problem now, because we have all the neighbor's landscaping on our side. So I would hope that those circumstances would allow you to take that variance and I think under the ultimate landscaping, as I read the ordinance, this would certainly be acceptable and, quite frankly, I thought that we had agreed to that early on, but as I read the staff report I can see that that wasn't the case and I would ask for your support in both issues, that the parking site remain as submitted, as well as the landscape plan as submitted. I would be happy to answer any questions. Norton: Mr. Chairman? Borup: Commissioner Norton. Norton: I just have a comment. We really appreciate where people put their drive-up window. We like where you put your drive-up window. We did vote on a particular drive- up window that we didn't realize was in the wrong place, you had to cross in front of the traffic to actually get in the front door of this restaurant and so here you can see you don't have to cross in front of any of those cars waiting in line. So we like where you have your drive-up window. Nary: Mr. Chairman? Borup: Commissioner Nary. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 86 Nary: Mr. Strite, why no exit lane? Strite: Mr. Chair, Commissioner Nary, number one, it's not necessary. It's not required by ordinance. Boise city is the only one who done that and has delayed. I think the reason was in the late '70s that was done because of pollution problems. Quite frankly, I can only think of one other place and that's in the Roseville, California, where we have had to provide a secondary access. 90 percent of the places we work wouldn't even request an exit lane. What happens here is that Wendy's, like most fast foods, is something like 65 percent of the business is the drive-thru, so they have not found it necessary in any of their locations to provide that. If, in fact, one was required here, we could conceivably put that in, an intermediate between the two parking lots aisles. However, what happens, then, as you might expect, is somebody is going to try to sneak in line in front of those who have been waiting going around the big loop and we get into -- as I told David, there is a thing in the Wendy's -- I think it was last year's bulletin where they actually had a shoot out, because somebody pulled in front of the other, maybe a little road rage. So Wendy's prefers not having any ability for a car to sneak one in front of another. Nary: But can't -- don't they -- well, what I have heard you say, Mr. Strite, is you don't have them and you're not required to, but not that's not really much of an answer. Strite: Well, that is an answer and that is absolutely correct, but that's not the only reason. Nary: Okay. But couldn't you design an escape route that isn't accessible for a person to get in the line, but simply to get out of the line? Strite: Mr. Chairman, we could, but not on this site. That's correct. Nary: You couldn't design in the middle of that line an escape that a car could exit, but not enter? Strite: That's correct. This site is so tight that the landscape requirements -- everything is forced to the bare minimums here. There is no way that you're going to get -- first of all, we can't get access out onto First Street, so we can't do any kind of an escape lane either to the east or to the north. We can't have another escape lane -- the only way you could do that, as I just mentioned, would be to force traffic -- the northbound traffic after you make the first curve from the south, back into the parking area. Borup: I could design it for you in a couple minutes. Nary: I guess I just find that incredible, Mr. Strite. You're telling me you can't make an exit -- Strite: I'm not telling you, you can't make an exit -- anybody can make an exist. Nary: That's what you said. All I'm saying is -- Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 87 Strite: Let me recant that, because I never say can't, so -- I don't usually use that word, because can't doesn't do anything. We would not want to have to have to do that type of thing. There is really no need for an escape lane. I guess I don't quite understand the reasoning, but, as I say, in this particular locale and the way that this thing sets up, it would be exceptionally difficult for us to make this thing function with the accepted landscaping and we are not certainly crying about the landscaping. Obviously, Wendy's wants to be in Meridian and we hope Meridian would like to have Wendy's, but there are certain limitations that Wendy's International puts on us and we are dealing with that as we speak. Nary: Well, then let me just ask this again, Mr. Strite. If we were to require that there be an escape out of that lane, would you go ahead and do that? Strite: I would have to suggest we may have to come back. I would have to go to Wendy's International. We can't do that on a local level. Borup: I have a question pertaining to that, then. Are most of their stacking lengths that long? That looks quite a bit longer than I'm used to seeing. Strite: Mr. Chair, this is what they call their Conventional 2000 store. This is a freeway- oriented facility and they are anticipating better than 65 percent -- the average is 65 percent. They will be clearing 51 to 65 percent of this facility because of its location to the freeway and that's why they -- Borup: Well, you're showing 13 cars there and I have never see a drive-thru with anywhere close to that. Strite: No. As a matter of fact, Wendy's normal standard store is a minimum of six and this is almost double. Borup: Double that. Strite: That's because of its location. When we get a freeway location we generally try to increase the size of the drive-thru, because the drive-thru traffic is considerably higher than the sit-down traffic. Borup: In my mind that's probably the only reason for an escape is because -- I mean someone turning in could conceivably turn into the drive-thru, because they can't even see the building from there. You know, they may not know where they are going until they get halfway down and realize that they wanted to go in and sit down. Nary: Mr. Chairman, I think that that was exactly my point. If I'm this car and I'm in this lane with 13 other cars waiting to get through there, by the time I get to here I might change my mind and I can't possibly see that you could not create an escape route that a vehicle could exit out of here without having a vehicle enter into it. Strite: Well, at that particular location we can. Nary: That's all I was asking. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 88 Strite: No. That's exactly right. That will work. I don't have any problem with that. Borup: And people wouldn't -- Strite: I thought you were suggesting one that would be coming in from that lane. That's when I suggested that we have had a little shoot out here, because of something like -- Nary: I just think that common sense would say that -- Strite: No. I would have no problem with putting – Nary: Right here in this particular area an escape route would allow a vehicle that's stuck through here not to wait a half an hour through this to get out. Strite: My apologies. We could put an angle on this and they would have to drive over the curb to get back into the lane if somebody wanted to do that. Is that -- I apologize. I was not reading you at all. Nary: Would that meet the corporate approval? Strite: That would not be a problem. Nary: Okay. Strite: It's the incoming that we have a concern with. Nary: I agree with that. I apologize, I didn't -- Borup: Is that -- McKinnon: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission, if I could get some clarification on what you're doing. If somebody could show me what – Nary: What I was going to suggest, Dave, is that in this area, approximately in the middle of this drive lane, that they construct an escape route so that a vehicle could exit to escape this drive-thru lane, so that a vehicle can't enter it -- Strite: One way out. Nary: Yes. One way out only. This pull out -- this is twice as long as a regular drive- thru. That would allow vehicles in this second half of it to exit if necessary, they could get out of this lane without having to go all the way through there. But it wouldn't allow a vehicle to enter it at all. I mean it would truly only be an exit for motor vehicles. McKinnon: So the escape lane would be heading northeast from the center of the -- Nary: They would be heading northwest if you're talking about -- Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 89 McKinnon: Okay. Nary: Not to enter -- not to exit into the roadway, just to exit out of the lane. They would have to go through this parking lot, so -- McKinnon: Okay. I just wanted to put that for the record. Strite: No. That's a very good point. I apologize. I was going the other direction. Borup: Are those the only two issues? Strite: Well, again, if you will notice that the entire landscaping to the northerly parcel is not on their ground. Borup: Right. Why did they do that? Strite: I don't know. That's been there for eight years. We just purchased the parcel, so I -- Borup: But when they put that in the survey -- I mean the property lines were established? Strite: Well, Mr. Chair, my guess is that they didn't survey it; they just went out and landscaped it. Borup: Well, but they put the drive-thru in. They had to know -- Strite: Well, the actual drive-thru curb is right on our property line. The fact is at the west end it encroaches a little bit. But Mr. Thomas and Mr. Beatty got together and as long as we were prepared to save the trees he was prepared to save -- he didn't know that, that his landscaping was on our parcel. When we brought the survey to him he was a little more accommodating. But it created quite a -- you know, quite a stir for us, so, you know, again, not being redundant, there is landscape on the north side in all locations, with the exception of the 75 feet wide -- Borup: I agree that there is plenty of landscaping there. I think the staff's concern is - the part you don't have landscaping happens to be directly parallel to the other drive way, so you have got two driveways side by side with no -- Strite: There is a separate there of about two feet of concrete. Borup: That's what I mean. Strite: That would force those automobiles into that space. Borup: I think it's more -- I assume for staff it's probably more of a visual thing with the two -- with the two driveways next to each other, more so than just a landscaping requirement, wasn't it? Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 90 McKinnon: That's part of it. Aesthetically I agree with Billy that there is plenty of landscaping on this site and the only people that are truly going to be affected by not having landscaping there are going to the people in the drive-thru lane. Smith: You would have to be Dr. Livingston to get in through the landscaping and find the curb. McKinnon: One point, Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, one thing I think should be addressed is that I believe Blimpie’s traffic will be headed the opposite direction from Wendy's. Wendy's will be this way, Blimpie’s will be going this way. The only thing separating the two would be the extruded curb at that location. So at night, then, we would have headlights to headlights. Strite: Except at the west end, Dave. That goes out to six feet and there is landscaping in that area. McKinnon: Just right there? Strite: Yes. McKinnon: Okay. That works for me. Strite: That was the idea -- I think you will see that on that plan that I handed out. The idea was create a buffer there so that it's very obvious for incoming and outgoing cars. Borup: And you said that the sidewalks are all eight feet? Strite: Those are eight feet sidewalks up against the building. Borup: What's the size of the handicapped? Are they, what, 15 feet, then, or -- Strite: No. Those are 17 feet. Borup: These are 17? Strite: No. Those are the handi -- excuse me. Borup: Not handicapped. I mean compact. Strite: Those are 13 feet. Borup: Those are 13? Strite: Yes. Borup: And then all the rest are 17? Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 91 Strite: That's correct. And that's true throughout the entire site. So as staff has already mentioned, we are not asking for approval passed the west. However, the parking will go in, so we have approved the parking with the reduced sizes throughout the entire parcel, because we are going to go ahead and complete all except the pad under phase one. Borup: Any other questions for Mr. Strite? McKinnon: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission, is it okay if I address the applicant? Mr. Strite? Strite: Yes, sir. McKinnon: With the vehicles that are parked right here waiting for the -- making the corner coming around, aren't those lights going to be directly into the vehicles that are heading -- I guess it would be eastbound in the Blimpie’s lane? Strite: Yes. I would -- yes. That's correct. McKinnon: Is there any way that we could put some sort of shrubbery or low lying type of landscaping to eliminate at least partial glare for this extruded curb? Strite: I think I would be more inclined to put up a small barrier wall or fence type thing, as opposed to plant material, because you're going to have two hard surfaces of asphalt. I don't think you're going to get anything in there to grow but cactus and that’s pretty difficult. McKinnon: Okay. Cactus is a bad idea. But I like your wall right there. Strite: I mean I think if we put in a low wall of sorts that would catch it at the height of the automobile headlights, that might be more appropriate than trying to force some plant material in there. McKinnon: I think that's a good idea. Strite: And we are prepared to do that. McKinnon: Thank you. Borup: Okay. Any other questions for Mr. Strite? Do we have anyone else here to testify on this application? Seeing none, have we got -- essentially we are asking for two variations from the staff report, one on the parking depth and, Mr. McKinnon, it sounds like you said with the overhang and the wider sidewalks that -- McKinnon: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission, in the past we have allowed a reduction in the length of the parking stalls with the overhang. Shreeve: Well, we are a Suburban family and we like Wendy's, so make sure we can put our Suburban in there. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 92 Strite: My wife is a Suburban driver and we frequent Wendy's quite frequently and if she can get it in and out of there I'm sure you will be able to. Shreeve: All right. Nary: Mr. Chairman? Borup: Commissioner Nary. Nary: Dave, which one of these requirements would we need to look at or remand if we were going to go with Mr. Strite? Strite: I believe it was item one under the specific landscape -- specific requirement. Landscaping shall be installed with one exception, a five-foot wide landscape buffer to be installed on the northern property line adjacent to the Blimpie’s drive-thru lane. I would suggest would be omitted. As a matter of fact, it could be omitted in its entirety, it appears to me -- yeah. I mean certainly that's your call, but it appears that that could be -- McKinnon: Mr. Chairman -- Borup: Is that where we were talking about the wall? McKinnon: We could strike that and replace that with some walling, but -- Strite: That's a very good point. That would be fine. Nary: You did say that three crab apple trees would just be moved to another location? Strite: Yes. We were going to relocate those. That's correct. Nary: But I was looking for the parking one where -- is that number two? McKinnon: That is number two. Nary: Okay. Centers: Didn't you say you were fine with the -- the applicant, the parking situation? Do you subscribe to this book that he had, by the way? Strite: I'm sure they do. McKinnon: Actually, we don't have a subscription to that book. I -- Mr. Chairman or the Commission, there are some differences between -- Nary: It makes a lot of sense. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 93 McKinnon: There are some differences between the national averages of vehicles that are talked about in that book and the types of vehicles that are driven in Idaho. If I could address – Strite: I ought to quote you something in here, David. McKinnon: Okay. Borup: Well, I have measured a few in designing garages and there is a lot of 19-foot cars out there. Strite: There is something in here that says that this -- sports utility vehicles -- it's also pointed out that the vehicle sizes no longer vary by region and/or locality. Sport utility vehicles are just as popular in California and Hawaii as they are in rural areas and in snow country. I thought that was kind of interesting. McKinnon: Mr. Chairman -- Strite: I have to do this all over the country, so I get to read this a lot. McKinnon: I don't get to read that a lot. If I could just address a couple things. We have a parking lot at our own office where we have vehicles that are actually in excess of 20 feet in length and that's when you take an extended cab or a crew with a long bed, put a brush bar on top of that, which is another eight inches in front, that provides a overhang of over two and a half feet. That's a 21-foot along vehicle. In order to park one of those in these locations they would have to park someplace other than this area in order to have some sort of way to back up and get around. There are larger vehicles that are on the street. We have went out and measured them -- Steve Siddoway and I spent a day actually in our own parking lot trying to figure out how come the vehicles don't fit -- Centers: The only way I would address that, the applicant's not going to have them for a customer. McKinnon: That works. Centers: Because he's not going to park there and if the applicant's happy with that, then I'm happy with that. Strite: I might also note that the parking accessibility is not based on the depth, it's based on the width and the aisle width. Nary: Well, and I guess I would add the opposite of what Commissioner Centers said, that what happens in my experience is that they just park there and you can't get around that -- Strite: Or they take up two parking spaces. They do it diagonally. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 94 Nary: You can't get around these vehicles and they just park there anyway, so they don't not frequent the place, they just park it there anyway. McKinnon: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Council, Staff has no strong objection to that. We have allowed it to pass. Borup: Okay. Are those the only three items? This might have gone better if you would have brought some samples. Strite: Mr. Nagy probably would have done that had he been here. Borup: Commissioners, are we ready to move on here? Centers: Yes. I think we ought to close the Public Hearing. I would so move. Nary: Second. Borup: Motion and second. All in favor. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Borup: Okay. We had three -- or two main things, the parking and the landscaping on the north, which has been replaced with a wall. Centers: I wouldn't call it a wall, it's just a site barrier, probably made out of plastic or fiberglass or something just to eliminate the light of the cars. We are not going to hold up -- Nary: Mr. Chairman. Borup: Commissioner Nary. Nary: We can move discussion, I just thought it would -- I guess we could move this along. Borup: I'd like a motion and then have discussion -- Nary: I was going to make a motion that we recommend approval of CUP 01-038, request for Conditional Use Permit for a fast food restaurant with a drive-thru in a C-G zone for the proposed Wendy's by Wenco at the northwest intersection of Corporate Drive and East First Street, to incorporate all staff comments from the September 18, 2001, staff report, including the following amendments and additions: That Site Specific Requirement No. 1 now reads in the first sentence that landscaping shall be installed and submitted on the site plan with one exception, a screening buffer shall installed on the northern property line adjacent to Blimpie’s drive-thru lane to be approved by the staff so that it can be a wall, it could be a barrier, it could be something, it doesn't have to be plant material, but it simply be a screen for headlights; that item number -- or Site Specific Requirement No. 2, that they can resubmit a parking plan with reduced parking stalls length for staff's approval -- Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 95 Centers: What they have submitted. Nary: What they have submitted, that the -- approve the submitted parking plan as submitted by the applicant; that one additional requirement be added as number 15, that an exit only lane exiting to the northwest of the drive-thru lane for escape for vehicles and no entry by vehicles, be installed -- and I don't know what the location would be, approximately the middle of the drive-thru, as proposed on the site plan. Shreeve: Second. Borup: Motion and second. Any discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Item 10. Public Hearing: AZ 01-018 Request for annexation and zoning of 85.36 acres from RUT to C-C and C-G zones for proposed El Dorado Business Campus by W.H. Moore Company – southwest corner of East Overland Road and South Eagle Road: Item 11. Public Hearing: PP 01-020 Request for Preliminary Plat approval of 32 building lots and 17 other lots +/- on 85.36 acres in a proposed C-C and C-G zone for proposed El Dorado Business Campus by W.H. Moore Company – southwest corner of East Overland Road and South Eagle Road: Item 12. Public Hearing: CUP 01-037 Request for a Conditional Use Permit for mixed use with office, retail, restaurant and hotel/motel for proposed El Dorado Business Campus by W.H. Moore Company – southwest corner of East Overland Road and South Eagle Road: Borup: Thank you. Item number -- well, we need to go ahead and open 10, 11, and 12, so I'd like to open Public Hearing AZ 01-018 and PP 01-020 and CUP 01-037. Open those three Public Hearings. I don't know if we have anybody here to testify on that. We do. Okay. The applicant is not here this evening, but we can go ahead and take your testimony. Were you here earlier when I -- Hornbaker: Pardon? Borup: Were you here earlier when I announced that? Hornbaker: Yes. Borup: Okay. That's fine. I just hope you didn't wait all night for -- Hornbaker: Just standing there listening. Borup: We need your name and -- Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 96 Hornbaker: My name is Loren Hornbaker, 2918 East Green Canyon Drive. Prior to the coming tonight we met with Mr. Moore's -- his -- I don't know his name. But, anyway, he is going to have a meeting with the people adjacent to the canal there and anybody else that may be interested in the subdivision and go over what he plans on doing, which will, you know, eliminate a lot of my questions here and -- but what I wanted to make sure is that we would have the possible -- or have the public testimony on the 17th of January when it was tabled. Borup: Oh, yes. Hornbaker: Public testimony for the -- Borup: Yes. Hornbaker: Okay. That's all I need, because he will probably change my questions -- or answer a lot of them. Thank you. Borup: Thank you. Open for a motion to continue this to January 17th . I think we just announced that we would do that, but we didn't really do it. Norton: Mr. Chairman, I'd move to -- move? Continue? Continue Items 10, 11 and 12 to January 17th , as requested by the applicant. Centers: I second that. Borup: Motion and second. All in favor? MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Item 13. Public Hearing: CUP 01-035 Request for a Conditional Use Permit for the construction of a building to be used for wholesale building material distribution in an I-L zone for Intermountain Wood Products by The Banks Group, LLC – south of East Franklin Road and west of South Locust Grove: Borup: Thank you. Okay. We are at the last item, Item No. 13, Public Hearing CUP 01-035, request for Conditional Use Permit for a building to be used for wholesale building material distribution in an I-L zone for Intermountain Wood Products by the Banks Group. I'd like to open the Public Hearing and start with the staff report. McKinnon: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission. On the overhead we have got the highlighted area that we are looking at tonight. This is off of Franklin Road in the Metamont Subdivision, also known as Stoneridge Subdivision or Stoneridge Business Park. The property is required to go through a Conditional Use Permit tonight, because when this property was annexed it was realized that the property to the east was residential and because it's an industrial use we placed a requirement on it that all development adjacent to residential uses would require a Conditional Use Permit, so we have the Conditional Use Permit tonight. Typically this type of application would be a permitted use, because this is a permitted use in an Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 97 industrial zone. When this project was approved originally with the entire subdivision a development agreement was signed into effect and the submitted site plan has a few minor changes that need to take place in order to be in conformance with the development agreement that was signed at that time. I'll just go ahead and point those out to you. A three-foot tall berm would be along the street buffer for the northern landscape buffer adjacent to the areas of parking circulation, there has to be one tree every 35 feet on center. There shall is no cobbles in the required one foot landscape buffer and the final one is that there is a requirement for the size of trees and shrubs to be planted and listed on the landscape plan. They are all to be Washington Hawthorne Street Trees, at least three inches caliper, which is a variation from what our landscape ordinance is. Our landscape ordinance requires a two-inch caliper and because of the development they are required to have a two-inch caliper tree. Other than that there are some parking issues that need to be addressed. They have requested some parking up on the northern area behind the office. This is the office right here and the covered parking here and this is the warehouse. The covered parking and loading area is open and asphalted. However, this parking in the back right here is accessible behind the office portion of the building right here, you can access it through this line and this area along the north side behind the office into this area is parking and that is all gravel and it shall be asphalted, according to city ordinances. With that I'd ask if there is any questions. Borup: Any questions? Is the applicant here this evening. Like to come forward and make a presentation? Banks: Good morning. Borup: We did make it. Banks: We have read the staff report, essentially agree with it. We have no argument. Borup: Oh, I'm sorry. We need your name. Banks: Oh. My name is Ben Banks. 1948 Southwest Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah. Centers: Have you read the staff report? Banks: I have. Centers: And no arguments? Banks: No. Centers: All right. That's good. I just wanted you to repeat that. We'll go forward. Borup: A couple of questions. On the paragraph to pave the gravel area for parking and -- Banks: Yes. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 98 Borup: I'm looking at your plan, the loading area looks like it has a solid wall on the east side; is that correct? Banks: Which is east? Borup: Go back to the elevation. Banks: The loading area has a solid wall that hooks to the warehouse and to the office and this is open. Borup: It's open from the front, but closed on the back. Banks: It's open in the back as well. Borup: Okay. This is the east site here. I don't see a spot that's open. Banks: You're right. I guess it is closed. That's probably -- Borup: I assume this is it right here, isn't it? Banks: That's correct. That is. Borup: So that is closed to the -- Banks: It is. Borup: -- to the residential area then. Banks: Yes. Borup: Okay. That's what it appeared and that's what I was wanting to verify. Any other questions from the Commissioners? Norton: I do. Mr. Banks, did you receive a letter from Jim Wetherell? Banks: I did. Norton: Have you talked with him about his concerns? Banks: I just received that letter yesterday. It was faxed to me from -- I didn't get the letter directly, it came through your staff with your staff report. I can respond to this letter to you if you would like. Norton: If you would, please. Banks: You bet. Norton: Is he in the audience? Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 99 Borup: No. Banks: No. He indicated in his letter he would not be here. In the first paragraph. His concerns really are on the second page. He indicates the city's definition of light industry is business or manufacturing where most of the work is done inside a building, all sales may be conducted inside the building. For this yard a vast majority of the work will be done outside, although the lumber storage is shown as covered, it is not otherwise enclosed and not a building. Actually, most of our work is done inside. All of the material is stored inside. All of the orders are pulled, packaged, organized inside, they are strapped. The only thing that is done outside is they are placed on truck prior to departure and they leave. So that is all we do outside. Of course, that will be in the loading area, which is closed to the residential anyway. So from the residential side it really is closed. Borup: What type of lumber products is it? Banks: It's hardwood lumber. The stuff that's your podium is built out of. It's industrial wood products. It's not wood to build houses. It's to finish them. Hardwood lumber. Hardwood plywood, melamine, particleboard, that type of thing. Borup: It's got to be stored inside. Banks: It's got to be inside. Norton: When you put them on the truck, do you put them in the trailers? Banks: We put them on the flatbed. Norton: A flatbed truck. Banks: Yes. Norton: Okay. So when a truck backs up with the beep, I can understand -- Banks: Our trucks don't beep. Norton: Your trucks -- Banks: Neither do our forklifts. It's not -- it is not an OSHA requirement and even though they come peeping, we disconnect them, because we don't want to hear them either. Norton: Okay. Banks: Some locations may not have disconnected them, but we are not -- we can disconnect them and we typically do. Borup: You show no lights on the back of the building. It does show -- Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 100 Banks: I think there are over there on the office side, it looks like there may be a light, but if there are they would be -- your staff indicates that they would have to be down drafted and that's fine. The other issue is the third paragraph down on number two. It says no lumberyard can comply with such requirements. To operate any lumberyard, equipment must operate with those who require backup alarms and we have addressed that. It says trucks must be free to roam throughout the premises. That is not true. We don't want our trucks roaming throughout the premises. In fact -- and it says the lighting must be elevated and unhooded and the majority of the surfaces must be gravel. We don't allow our trucks onto the gravel. They would simply sink. So on the -- I guess it would be this side of the building would be on the gravel. Whatever side that is is gravel, but our trucks will not be there. Borup: There is only 10 feet and that's just your -- Banks: Yes. That's not enough room anyway. So -- and they will not be driving in the front. The only place our trucks go will be in and out of that loading dock area. Borup: I think Mr. Wetherell assumed that where the building is was a storage area. Banks: Yes. It just isn't. Borup: Your buildings pretty much cover the whole site it looks like. Norton: It sounds like you have done this. Banks: Yes. It's what we do. Norton: Okay. Banks: Yes. I own Intermountain Wood Products and we just build the buildings for the company as well and so through time we have found out what kind of buildings work the best, so -- in fact, we have a building in Boise already. This is -- we have just outgrown it and that's why we are building this one. Borup: Okay. Any other questions from any Commissioners? Anything else that -- Banks: No. Thanks very much. Borup: Anyone else like to testify on this application? Mr. Smith. Smith: Robert R. Smith, 335 South Locust Grove Road. This complex completely borders the west property line of my property and, again, as I addressed to you before, that this good fellowship of your neighbor, we run into problems all along like this. We still have a problem going. The Planning and Zoning Department won't even answer our phone calls now with the development that we came before you last year that was a light office, they haven't complied with their zoning requirements in the landscaping work and I have got so many weeds that blowed into my place since this wind that -- Mr. Centers said I didn't need a fence to border me to stop that, but I certainly do. So I regret that you people really impact the way we live and you have really impacted our Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 101 lives in the last five years where we are out there. I am concerned about the noise, of which he says is pretty well going to be stabilized with the back-up alarms. The back- up alarms that are going on right now at the police department's building is going on is unreal in the mornings and the evenings and we go on through this all the time and we have got so doggone much dust out there where we are that we never had that much dust ever when that was farmed and there is no requirements in the City of Meridian to take care of any these dust problems and I don't know why you people haven't helped this and I just saw where the Mayor won't even address it himself and I hope that some day someone around here will require this, because it's getting to be where you can't even get into my shop that the dust and dirt is so bad. But I hope that these people are a good neighbor and they will do what they say and that this building is -- when they said that that -- which is the north side where the office will be is going to be totally closed, he also showed on the other plat that there was parking right there and that will be up against the property. I think it shows six slots. One, two, three, four. Four slots. So they'll have to access that somehow. So -- and that concerns me. I just wanted to let you -- so I guess that's all. Borup: Your concern was how are they going to access that? Smith: Yes. If they will be up against -- they will be up against the property line there, that will get real close to that. There is a buffer there, but there isn't a screen in that buffer and the noise and the dirt -- when they built Schwan's over there we weren't even involved in that and Schwan's has got their trucks running there all night long and they have got horns honking all night and they run a -- they have also got about a five or a ten thousand gallon propane storage tank that backed up against there, which is a pretty good concern that we were never notified that would happen. So when a lot of these things happen we get involved and we don't get any help from anyone, including the Planning and Zoning Department. They won't even answer our phone calls, so how do you address this? If you make a ruling and you can't enforce it, what good does a rule do? Centers: Mr. Smith? Smith: Yes, sir. Centers: You live in an industrial zone, I take it, and -- Smith: I got involved it. Yes. Centers: You live in an area that's developing, I take it. Because, you're right, I remember your face. We have had -- Smith: Yes. I also got involved just like these people did here about that -- Centers: Well, wait a minute. Smith: -- light industrial and I know what they are talking about when they are talking. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 102 Centers: But you do live in a developing area and it gets frustrating and I can understand that, but -- Smith: Where there is no controls. You have control. Centers: Where do you live in relationship to this -- let's go back to the aerial map. Borup: I believe his -- Smith: See the large white one right behind it? Right there is my home. Centers: Right here? Smith: Yes, sir. Centers: Okay. Smith: That light blue one is the light office you did for O’Neils, which has never complied with the Planning and Zoning ordinances, which is a mess. If you'd like to come out and I'll show you what that looks like. Centers: Where is Schwan's? Smith: Schwan's is right across on Kalispell. Right there. Down. Down one. No. Down. Right there. Then we have to listen all night to them pumping hydrogen over at J-Belt. They really get involved in it. Centers: Well, it's not a residential zone was my point, Mr. Smith. Smith: It was originally, sir. Centers: Well -- Smith: Until you changed it. Centers: I guess -- I didn't change it, but -- Smith: Well, your Commission. That's what I say, you really do affect our lives. Borup: I can answer one of your questions, Mr. Smith. I think Mr. Banks -- you asked about the parking. Their site plan shows parking up against the building and that doesn't go beyond the building. Smith: Well, it does. It goes out to the east. Borup: No. Right here is a parking stall and this is a building right here. Smith: Right. But it goes to the -- those were -- Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 103 Borup: Well, the property goes to the east, but there aren't any stalls, though, that they have got marked. Smith: Well, they are east of the office is what I'm saying. The office is there on the -- Borup: Right. But this is -- but this is the other part of the building and -- Smith: Right. But the office is just more to the north. Right there. Yes. Borup: Yes. This is the office here and the parking stalls are up against this building here. Smith: Thank you. Borup: Thank you. Anyone else before Mr. Banks comes up? J. Smith: Jeri Smith on Locust Grove. I'd like to ask a question. In the letter that you sent out you said that sometimes I open early and sometimes they stay late, in the letter that we got from him, and I was interested in the noise that they make and -- when they load and unload and I understand that these are trucks that they load and the diesel fumes are terrible over there, because we have -- it goes right into the house and I'm interested in that part of it, because it builds up considerably over there and it's – Borup: Over where? J. Smith: At our house. Borup: Okay. J. Smith: If they -- we had neighbors that lived next door before and he started his truck early in the morning and it was just -- it would just saturate the whole area. So I'm very concerned about the noise all day long and then not knowing what time they are going to open and not knowing for sure what time they are going to close and the fumes, especially. Thank you. Borup: Anyone else? Okay. Mr. Banks, answer those questions and any other finals comments you might have. Banks: Mr. Smith, in answer to those parking lots on the east, our original plan didn't have them. The only reason they are there is they were required by the planning people. I doubt we will ever use them. The parking spots up front more than take care of all of our associates in that business. Your concern on the diesel fumes and our operating hours, typically the earliest we are there is 7:00 in the morning and the trucks have been loaded the night before and we will just be there to start the trucks and leave and I don't know that you will ever see the fumes, because where the -- or smell the fumes, because where the trucks are located they are enclosed. So if that back was open I would agree they would flow right to you, but with that wall there they will stop. J. Smith: Do you do any cutting or any -- Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 104 Banks: No. No. Strictly distribution. J. Smith: Is it all paved or -- Banks: She wanted to know if we do any cutting and then she wants to know if it was paved. It is paved -- if you can go back to that parking slide. It will be paved all the way to the parking and a little around. The only unpaved portion will be that gap between the building and your fence and there will be no traffic back there. I think there is some landscape requirements back there, isn't there? McKinnon: There is. Banks: Yes. So you will have landscaping between our building and your fence, but there will be no business activity back there at all. Nary: Mr. Banks? Banks: Yes. Nary: You said the earliest that you start operation is 7:00 and that you load the trucks the night before. How late does the operation go? Banks: You know, I would think a late night would be 6:00 or 7:00. Nary: Okay. Banks: Am I close? Nary: So if we were to -- at least at this junction place a limit from 7:00 to 7:00 that wouldn't be -- Banks: I don't think that's going to be a problem. I mean there could be a rare occasion where we are there late, but -- Nary: At least for the loading and unloading trucks was what I would think would be the noise and traffic problem. That's been my experience. If you're there operating and selling out of your business, I don't know that that matters. Banks: No. We don't -- we don't sell out of that location. It's not a high traffic location and, actually, I'm not sure you're going to hear those forklifts with that wall there. They are really quite quiet. They are propane operated. McKinnon: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission, is the Public Hearing closed? Borup: No. McKinnon: Mrs. Smith, if you'd like to use my microphone to ask your question. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 105 J. Smith: We had trouble with the computer business just down the -- just over a lot from that and we could hear -- we could hear noises there. They run saws and they run -- there was some kind of compressor, that type of thing. I think it's because of the wind current that we hear very clearly. So I'm sure that we probably can hear a hyster running in there. Banks: I'll tell you what, if you hear those forklifts, I would be happy to insulate that wall between our properties, our fences, and our loading dock, if you can hear it. I would certainly be willing to do that and I would be willing to do any sound reduction devices on the forklifts. I'm not anxious to make your life miserable. J. Smith: I can understand that and the reason I was talking about the -- everything being paved is because over on the south of us on the O'Neil office, we have quite a problem with -- that they were only going to have three or four cars there. Well, they ended up with 15 or 20 cars there and here it isn't all paved and the sand and everything floats down to our shrubbery and it's running oil drippings and whatever there. Sometimes there is only two or three cars there and sometimes there is 15 or 20 and this is what I'm interested in, to clear it up before it gets any further so we don't have problems down the road. Borup: They said there would be no cars or -- even traveling back there in that area. Banks: No. There will be no traffic back there at all. Borup: In fact, the plan shows the retention pond back there, so you couldn't drive back there. Banks: That's right. Nary: Mr. Chairman? Borup: Commissioner Nary. Nary: I guess it's more of a comment. We do have to listen to a lot of folks here and they always want to be good neighbors and I have no reason to think -- and, Mr. Banks, I would think that you would want to be a good neighbor. It sounds to me like the Smiths have had some very bad neighbors and a very bad experience with people not being very good neighbors. I think for the Smith's sake this particular project probably doesn't have the same impact that some of these other bad neighbors they have had and that they still have. If the Planning Department isn't being responsive with the code enforcement people or their planning director, that's their responsibility to do that. If they aren't being responsible to you, that's what the Mayor and Council are there for. Smith: It doesn't work that way. Nary: It works that way to me. Smith: It doesn't our way. We have been there and done that. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 106 Nary: Well, that's what the Mayor and Council are supposed to be there to be responsible for. Banks: That's right. Nary: That matters to me. So I guess that's the best I can tell you. I think it really does matter and those are the -- and that's the way you get redress. Borup: This project may be a nice buffer to buffer the noise from some of the others you were talking about and I don't remember specifically from someone else, but one of the neighbors on there had asked for a 20 or 30 foot wall and it worked for them. Banks: Anything else? Borup: Any other questions for Mr. Banks? Banks: Thank you. Borup: Thank you, sir. Borup: Commissioners, any questions? Shreeve: Mr. Chairman, I move that we close the Public Hearing of CUP 01-035. Nary: Second. Nary: Motion and second. All in favor? MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Shreeve: Mr. Chairman? Borup: Commissioner Shreeve. Shreeve: I'd move to approve CUP 01-035, request for Conditional Use Permit for the construction of a building to be used for wholesale building material distribution in an I-L zone for Intermountain Wood Products by the Banks Group, LLC, south of East Franklin Road and west of South Locust Grove, with all the conditions listed -- yeah, the conditions and staff comments listed in the memorandum dated November 27th, 2001. I don't believe there was anything else, was there? Centers: I second that. Borup: Motion and second. Any discussion? Norton: Well, we kind of discussed hours of operation, on page four, the hours of operation between 6:00 A.M. and 10:00 P.M. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 107 Borup: Right. Good point. That was part of the development agreement. That was part of the development agreement when the subdivision first went in, the hours would be limited to those. Centers: 6:00 to 10:00. Norton: So -- Centers: The applicant mentioned 7:00 to 7:00, but once in awhile later. I -- you know, I don't want to restrict them forever, but -- Norton: I realize that maybe, you know, not loading those trucks after 7:00. Shreeve: Do you want to make that part of the motion then? Norton: I think maybe it's an understanding. Shreeve: Okay. Borup: That would essentially be changing the development agreement, wouldn't it? Centers: I continue to second that motion. Borup: Okay. All in favor? Any opposed? Thank you. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Item 14. Public Hearing: MI 01-001 Request for a Street Name Change from East First Street to Main Street from Cherry Lane / Fairview Avenue south to East Central Drive or Overland: Borup: The last item -- I guess we ought to open that and continue it. Public Hearing MI 01-001, request for street name change from East 1st to Main Street from Cherry Lane to Fairview. I don't know if all of you have had a chance to read that. I think we will wait for some more input from -- unless there is someone else here, we only have one statement or even show up. I don't think there is a lot of interest. I think the thing we need to decide is where to end it. The City Council did not give specific things. ACHD would like to end it at Corporate Drive. From Cherry Lane to Corporate Drive. We will discuss that next time. One final thing that I did want to mention. Mr. Kuntz -- Nary: We need to make a motion to -- Borup: Oh. I'm sorry. Yes. Please. Nary: Mr. Chairman, move that we continue Public Hearing 14, MI-01-001, request for street name change from East First Street to Main Street to the December 20th Planning and Zoning meeting. Borup: I might make one other thing. I talked to Mr. Kuntz -- I'm sorry. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting December 6, 2001 Page 108 Norton: Second. Borup: Motion and second. All in favor? MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Borup: Oh, we're not done. We still have to go back to the other meeting. Let's adjourn this meeting. Norton: Mr. Chairman, I move to adjourn this meeting. Nary: Second. Borup: Motion and second. All in favor? MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Borup: Okay. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 12:37 P.M. (TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) APPROVED: / / KEITH BORUP, CHAIRMAN DATE APPROVED ATTESTED: WILLIAM G. BERG, JR., CITY CLERK