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2002 06-06Meridian Planning and Zoning Meeting __ June 6, 2002. 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 David Zaremba, Commissioner Jerry Centers, Commissioner Leslie Mathes. Members Absent: Commissioner Keven Shreeve. Others Present: Bruce Freckleton, Dave McKinnon, Nicholas Wollen, Sharon Smith, and Dean Willis. Item 1: Roll-Call Attendance Roll-Call: ___X___ David Zaremba ___X___ Jerry Centers ___X___ Leslie Mathes ___O __ Keven Shreeve ___X___Chairman Keith Borup Borup: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We'd like to begin our regularly scheduled Planning and Zoning meeting for the City of Meridian for Thursday, June 6th. I'd like to begin with roll-call attendance of the Commission. Item 2: Adoption of the Agenda: Item 3: Consent Agenda: A. Approve minutes from May 16, 2002 Planning and Zoning Commission Regular Meeting: Borup: The first item on the Agenda would be on Minutes from the May 16th meeting. Zaremba: Mr. Chairman? Borup: Commissioner Zaremba. Zaremba: I have one comment to make on these comments. On page nine at the top I made a motion and Commissioner Mathes seconded it and I believe the next statement was made by the Chairman, not by me, asking for a vote. Borup: Okay. Zaremba: Instead of saying Zaremba, it should say Borup. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 2 of 87 Borup: I think that sounds like that should be that way. Any other corrections or comments? Zaremba: That's the only comment I have. Borup: Do we have a motion? Zaremba: I move we accept the minutes of the May 16th meeting as amended. Mathes: I will second that. Borup: Motion and second. All in favor? Any opposed? Thank you. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES, ONE ABSENT. Item 4: Public Hearing: AZ 02-008 Request for annexation and zoning of 5 acres from RUT to L-O zones for the proposed LDS Stake Center by Lombard Conrad Architects – 2515 West Ustick Road: Borup: The first regular Agenda item, Item No. 4, Public Hearing AZ 02-008, request for annexation and zoning of 5 acres from RUT to L-O zones for the proposed LDS Stake Center by Lombard Conrad Architects, at 2515 West Ustick Road. I'd like to open this hearing at this time and start with the staff report. McKinnon: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission. Sorry about the way the overhead turned out tonight. It's a little blurry for you, but I will try to explain where that's at as we go through. The site's actually located on Ustick, approximately at the center line between Ten Mile and Linder Roads. It's that five acre parcel that's highlighted on the overhead. It's a little easier to see where it's at right here. It's just south of the Bridgetower Crossing and Bridgetower Subdivision that was recently approved, the construction going on right now. The property is not vacant right now. It's being used for storage and for these outbuildings right now. The applicant has stated in his letter of application that all of the storage items and the outbuildings and other buildings on the parcel will be removed for this project. The applicant has requested the project be zoned L-O at this time. The Comprehensive Plan shows that that property should be zoned residential. However, based on the fact that in a residential zone churches are a Conditional Use Permit, in an L-O zone they are a permitted use, rather than force them to annex the property residential, then get a Conditional Use Permit, and then build the building, we felt it would be appropriate to eliminate a little bureaucracy and allow it to be zoned L-O now, instead of forcing them through additional hearings. We did a similar type of zoning for the LDS Stake Center that exists on Black Cat Road approximately a quarter mile north of the Black Cat and Cherry Lane intersection. As previously stated, the LDS Church is interested in building a 26,000 square foot church on this site and with that I'd end my presentation and ask if there is any questions of myself or Bruce. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 3 of 87 Borup: Okay. One question -- any questions from any of the Commissioners? Zaremba: You may be about to ask the same question. Borup: The property right across the street, is that the office commercial? McKinnon: It is. Primeland -- it's Primeland Development. Borup: Commissioner Zaremba. Zaremba: I am interpreting from annexing and zoning comments that there is not sewer services available to this site at the moment. Is that being resolved or what's happening? Freckleton: Mr. Chairman, Commissioner Zaremba, there are some options for sewer. At this point in time we do not have any sewer on the frontage of Ustick Road -- on across the frontage of this property. We have sewer in the adjacent subdivision at this location, which is right adjacent to a common lot in the development. We also have sewer here, which is adjacent to another common lot. There is sewer -- we have a major trunk line that crosses Ustick Road right down here. So there are some options available to them. Zaremba: So it's not an insurmountable problem? Freckleton: No. And I did make up some copies of our facility plans and I did not get the gentleman's name, but he was a representative of the applicant, I believe it was the day before yesterday, and gave those to him, so -- Centers: Mr. Chairman? Borup: Commissioner Centers. Centers: Bruce, they wouldn't be able to get a certificate of occupancy until that was resolved; correct? Freckleton: They wouldn't get a building permit until it was resolved. Centers: Correct. No building permit. Right. Borup: Any other questions from the Commission? Zaremba: No. Borup: Is the applicant's representative here and would like to come forward? Anything else that you'd like to add? Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 4 of 87 Simmons: Chairman Borup, Commissioners, my name is Steve Simmons, I'm with Lombard Conrad Architects, representing the applicant and we take no exception to the staff's conclusions and recommendations and do understand that the sewer is going to be probably the highest hurdle we have on this project, but, like was said, the design is just in its infancy, so we haven't even jumped there yet, but we understand where we need to go and one of my staff members did pick up that information, so we will get on with that. Borup: Okay. Any questions from the Commissioners? Commissioner Centers? Thank you, sir. Do we have anyone else here to testify on this application? Seeing none, Commissioners? Centers: Mr. Chairman, I would move that we close the Public Hearing. Zaremba: Second. Borup: Motion and second to close the Public Hearing. All in favor? Any opposed? MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES, ONE ABSENT. Zaremba: I would just get a clarification probably from staff of the -- I believe I saw somewhere in the notes that in an L-O zone they would be allowed to build a church. If we annex it and zone it L-O, they do need to go for a Conditional Use Permit if they change their mind and want to building anything besides a church? At the moment any L-O is okay. We assume it's going to be a church. McKinnon: Actually, Commissioner Zaremba, Mr. Chairman, the annexation and zoning comments found on page four, item number seven, states that only a church would be allowed if it's in compliance -- Zaremba: As long as they -- McKinnon: It is a condition, item number seven, that all uses other than a church in an L-O zone, would require a Conditional Use Permit. Borup: It looks like that would be the protection there that you're looking for. Any other questions? Zaremba: Is a motion in order? Borup: I think so. Zaremba: Mr. Chairman, I would like to move that we forward to the City Council recommending approval of Item 4 on our Agenda, AZ 02-008, request for annexation and zoning of five acres from RUT to L-O zones for the proposed LDS Stake Center by Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 5 of 87 Lombard Conrad Architects, to be located at 2515 West Ustick Road, and to include all staff comments. Mathes: I'll second that. Centers: I would also like, if you don't mind, to include the comments by the Meridian Fire Department in their letter dated April 5th, which is not part of the staff comments. Zaremba: The maker of the motion accepts that, but I had always assumed that staff included not only our staff, but ACHD and police and fire and everybody that responds. I hope that's true for other motions I have made in the past, but I do -- Borup: Okay. Zaremba: -- agree with that. Borup: That's been my assumption, too, because in the past when we have had a different opinion, we have usually tried to point those out. We may miss that once in awhile, but -- Zaremba: Certainly this time it's included by reference. Borup: Will you want to add that -- Zaremba: I'm accepting that as an amendment. Borup: Okay. Yes. Mathes: And I will second that. Borup: And second. Okay. Motion and second. All in favor? Any opposed? MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES, ONE ABSENT. Item 5: Public Hearing: CUP 02-011 Request for a Conditional Use Permit for a sports bar with pool tables and big screen TV’s in an O-T zone for Blumacs Sports Bar by Michael McGuinness – 706 East First Street: Borup: Thank you. Item No. 5 is Public Hearing CUP 02-011, request for a Conditional Use Permit for a sports bar with pool tables and big screen TV's in Old Town zone for Blumacs Sports Bar by Michael McGuinness, at 706 East 1st Street. I'd like to open this Public Hearing at this time and, again, start with the staff report. McKinnon: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission. There is a map on the overhead in front you, but just to orient you, if you were to go out the front door of this building and go down to Main Street, take a right, Harry's Bar is just a block down. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 6 of 87 This bar would be immediately adjacent to Harry's Bar that I'm showing with the highlighter right now. The name of the bar is Blumacs. The name may be familiar to you. There is a Blumacs Bar in Boise at 610 Vista. It's a bikini bar. This is not a bikini bar. This project will not be allowed to have any bikini dancing or any sexually oriented type of dancing or entertainment at this location. The Meridian city adult entertainment ordinance would prohibit that in this zoning and it's specifically listed in our staff report as being something that would be prohibited. This is a sports bar, a sports bar bent with TV's, large screen TV's and pool tables, serving alcohol and beer and wine, that type of establishment. On the block right now there is currently three other bars. There is one right here, Harry's, this is Motown and the 127 Club. So within a one city block that would be four bars -- well, three that are now and one proposed. Within 300 feet of this project there are two churches or areas of -- or areas of worship, as listed by the state code. According to Idaho State code, if there is a church or a place of worship within 300 feet of a proposed bar, the city has to approve that. That would be the City Council's approval. You should have in your packets a letter from the Valley Shepherd Nazarene Church, a letter in opposition of this project. Additionally, you should have in your packets a letter that came in today from the owner of the property stating that she, the owner, would not allow Harry's Bar -- not Harry's, but Blumacs to do any bikini dancing or any sexually oriented entertainment. Staff is not in support of this project. There is already three bars on the city block. I talked with the police department. The police department is not in opposition of this project. The police department would rather have all the bars centrally located, that way it's easier to maintain that. With that I'd end my presentation, ask the Commission if there are any questions of myself or staff. Borup: Questions from the Commission? Centers: Not at this time. Zaremba: I have a question about the parking. There are notes that the owner of the building has said there are 12 parking stalls that would be available for this location? McKinnon: That's correct. Zaremba: Does that mean that all 12 parking stalls that exist are dedicated to this one? What happens to the parking for Harry's Bar? McKinnon: I actually went right before the meeting, I came a little bit early and took a walk around the block to orient myself with the project. In the rear of the building there are signs posted saying this is only for parking for 706 East 1st Street. That is the address of the site. They are actually posted in the rear of the building for that site use only. The letter from the owner of the building has stated that there are those signs that are there and I can verify that, those signs are in place and she states that she will use those. She has in the past allowed Harry's to use those and allowed the lawyer's office to use those spaces. Those are specifically for the Blumacs Bar once it is leased. So as far as parking goes there is going to be a parking problem. That's part of the reason we Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 7 of 87 are in opposition to this. We have a parking problem in downtown and this doesn't necessarily help it. Zaremba: Is the owner of the building of Harry's Bar different than the owner of this one? McKinnon: I believe it's the same building, the same owner. A Voice: No. McKinnon: No? A Voice: No. McKinnon: Okay. Zaremba: Okay. So the parking spaces -- McKinnon: I would defer to the owner. Zaremba: But the parking spaces that this owner controls, what happens to the people that go to Harry's Bar? Where are they going to park if this owner recovers them for this use? McKinnon: Any type of use that is to go into that site would cause Harry's Bar to lose some spaces. There is not enough parking in downtown, Commissioner Zaremba, regardless of the use. There is not enough park, there is not enough parking for the uses that are there now. We have had to, in the past, for other applications in downtown, require variances to the parking ordinance. Zaremba: Well, your response supports the letter that we also got from the bank, which is right behind us, saying that most of the bar patrons park in their parking lot and, unfortunately, leave it a mess, apparently. McKinnon: That's correct. Zaremba: Okay. No further questions. Centers: Mr. Chairman, since we are talking to staff, if you want to refer in your staff report to page two and getting back to the parking, item A -- Borup: Okay. Centers: -- you are saying they have enough parking. McKinnon: They do. They meet the minimum number of parking stalls. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 8 of 87 Centers: Item B. We are okay? McKinnon: Correct. Centers: Item C, we are okay? However, the staff questions -- has a question mark. McKinnon: Uh-huh. Centers: But Item C we are okay. McKinnon: Yeah. Centers: Item D, we are okay? McKinnon: Yeah. Centers: E, F, G, H and I? Borup: Yes. Centers: Why are you recommending denial? McKinnon: Parking. Centers: In all of your comments we were okay. McKinnon: They are okay as far as -- the intent of the question I thought was are you -- do you agree with what is written. Staff questions whether or not that the downtown area can support the four bars. There is not enough parking for the four bars in that area right now. The existing character of that block right now is heavily influenced by bars. There is no way that we can say that that's not the existing character of that. Adding more to what is perceived as a problem already is not something staff is in support of at this time. Centers: Really, what it comes down to, then, is opinions? McKinnon: That's correct. There is nothing in the ordinance that -- Centers: Because this site has enough parking for that project, that occupant. McKinnon: Yes. Per the ordinance it has enough, 12 spaces, if they are used for that use only. Centers: Okay. That's all I have. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 9 of 87 McKinnon: Okay. Borup: One quick question on 23-913, the State Statute. As that statute reads right now this would not be allowed at this location; is that correct? McKinnon: It would not be allowed at this location without the approval of the City Council. Borup: So that's one of the reasons it's here is to try to gain that approval? McKinnon: That and this type of use in the Old Town is a Conditional Use Permit. Borup: Right. So both. McKinnon: Correct. Centers: One other item, then, along that same line. Correct me if I'm wrong. I think I read in the paper two or three months back that this church is moving and the city has shown interest in the property or -- McKinnon: The church -- Centers: Or am I off base here? McKinnon: You're not off base. It has been on the market and is no longer on the market. It has not sold and is no longer on the market. Centers: Okay. Borup: Okay. Is the applicant or his representative here and would like to come forward? McGuinness: Chairman, Commissioners, Michael McGuinness from the Blumacs and as far as the parking goes, I don't see that as that much a problem, because I probably wouldn't even open until 3:00 and most of the businesses, the bank, etc., would be closed whenever patrons come to that part of town. So I think there would be adequate parking. And as far as the church goes, it seems to be the only two problems. It seems that most of the establishments have come up around the church. The pizza place came in not long ago. The Italian restaurant just across the street acquired a liquor license a few years back. So I don't know where that really seems to be a problem. And I don't plan on it being more of a problem than it already is. I'd like to put in an upscale sports bar and I think it's something the city needs and we would tear the carpet out of there, redo the hardwood floors, and make it a nice, reputable place. I don't drink. I'm here to be a businessman and I'm not here to raise Cain with anyone. I want to be a good neighbor. That's about all I have to say. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 10 of 87 Borup: Okay. Questions from the Commission? Zaremba: Are your bar attendants intended to be well dressed? McGuinness: I doubt that. I doubt that, but I take care of business, I spend a lot of time there, I'm not an absentee owner, and all the employees are trained to keep an eye on people that do drink, not to get out of control and we don't let people drive. I mean every now and then somebody is going to slip through the cracks, but we are there to -- I want to be a good neighbor and I want to run a reputable business. I don't know what the -- the place has been empty for a couple of years and I don't know what else would go in there. A laundromat or -- I mean it would make some people happy, but I think this would make a lot of people happy. I plan to put a place in there that's unlike anyplace else in town. Like I say, I'm a reputable business owner. Centers: I really didn't see it for sure. Will you have a liquor license or just beer and wine? McGuinness: I have a liquor license. As a matter of fact, there were seven liquor licenses made available this year alone and I just happened to be one of them. Centers: Okay. So you do have a liquor license? McGuinness: Yes. Centers: And is the owner of the property here tonight? McGuinness: Yes, she is. A Voice: Yes. Centers: Okay. That's all I have. Borup: I had a question on -- did you have an estimate on how many patrons would be able to accommodate here? I don't know if that would be by number of chairs and tables or -- McGuinness: I don't know what the occupancy load limit is going to be. I think David referred to around 100, 120, and he wasn't quite sure. McKinnon: I would to look at the Uniform Building Code to determine occupancy. I don't believe it's an A type occupancy, I think it would be a B, but I would have to refer to Daunt Whitman, our building official, to determine the occupancy load. Borup: So you don't have any type of design at this point, then? Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 11 of 87 McGuinness: In my head. I have a heck of a design in my head, but from what I understand it will probably be somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred. It's 2,400 square feet on the top level and that's the only thing I would be using. And it's pretty much zoned for what I need to do right now. It needs to be brought up to date to code, to fire code and stuff. Borup: So then -- and the 12 -- the parking space is by the square foot of the building, not by the number of occupants -- number of patrons? McKinnon: It's by square foot. Correct. Borup: Thank you. McGuinness: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Borup: I -- well, maybe back to that again. A hundred people -- I'm assuming you're not going to be at full occupancy most of the time. McGuinness: One can only hope so, but it's quite doubtful. Borup: So even at 50 percent, that would be 50 people, I don't know how many of them would car pool, but even if 50 percent of them car pooled, that's at least 25 cars. That would be 25 percent of the capacity. And you would -- McGuinness: Like I said, I think that would only be weekends anyway. I don't think you could get that many more people down there during the week. But it seems to me that -- I have driven up and down the street and they seem to be pretty empty. There is available parking. They may have to walk about a block or so, but it seems to me that at night there is plenty of parking. I don't think that's going to be a problem. Borup: Any other questions from any of the Commissioners? Zaremba: Maybe this would help me. Would you be willing or able to offer any help to Farms and Merchants in kind of policing their parking lot? McGuinness: I'd do it on a daily basis. Zaremba: Sending somebody around to pick stuff up or something? McGuinness: I would have no problem with that whatsoever. Zaremba: Certainly they would consider that as a good neighbor kind of a thing. McGuinness: That's what I'm here to do, to be a good neighbor and run a reputable business. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 12 of 87 Zaremba: That's my worry that they may have to end up fencing off their lot or something if it's available to you and if you could -- McGuinness: Sure. Zaremba: -- send somebody around to pick up -- McGuinness: I have no problem with that whatsoever. Zaremba: Okay. Centers: Would you also be willing to -- if stipulated, regarding the hours of operation? McGuinness: You wouldn't want me opening until 3:00, is that it? On the weekends -- on the weekends I would have to open earlier, just for the mere fact that football season -- Centers: But during the week -- McGuinness: During the week I could go with that. I mean I have no problem working -- not opening before 3:00 during the week. Centers: Uh-huh. Okay. Borup: Okay. Anything else from the Commission? Thank you, sir. McGuinness: Thank you, Chairman, Commissioners. Borup: Do we have anyone else to testify on this application? Come forward, please. Lisby: I'm Dolores Lisby, I'm the owner of the building. I received a letter from the ACHD saying that they didn't feel that this business would generate more than ten vehicles a day, more than what is already there, and everybody seems to think that they own that parking lot and I'm the owner of it and it's always jammed packed. Sometimes I don't even have a parking place when I go. I put the signs up and some of my signs disappeared and I know who did it, just so the people could park. So I don't want to be penalized because I have a parking lot that somebody else is using, if you follow what I'm saying. And it has always been a problem. I have not been able to lease it because of this problem. So I feel if Mr. McGuinness would be allowed to be here, like he said -- well, that's fine, let them park there, because that would help generate his business. So that would help me, too, of course. And I have definitely had lots of concerns, but when they find out that there is no parking back there, it is a problem for me to lease it or even rent it. So I'd like you to take into consideration that, access of it. And I also would write into the contract by an attorney that he would have to, on a daily basis, keep things picked up from the exterior, the front and the back, and if need be hose it down to Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 13 of 87 keep it clean and neat at all times and I'm a stickler at that, so I would be on him if it wasn't being taken care of. Is there any questions? Borup: Any questions? Centers: Yes, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Lisby, how long have you owned that property? Lisby: Well, my grandfather built it. Centers: We are not under oath here, but I will take you for your word. Over the last ten years how much has it been vacant? What percentage? Lisby: It's been vacant two years. Centers: The last two years. Prior to that a hundred percent occupied for eight years or -- Lisby: You know, I can't remember, because I was out of town at that time, so I -- Centers: Okay. But it's been vacant the last two years? Lisby: Yes. Uh-huh. Centers: In your letter you -- you state that other people had been parking there in the parking lot and you mentioned attorneys and you mentioned bank personnel. Lisby: Uh-huh. Centers: Are you guessing or -- Lisby: No. I have asked. I have asked. Centers: Okay. You haven't leased it or rented it any of those people, they just park there? Lisby: They just park there, yes. Centers: How can we be sure that that parking will be just for this establishment, then? Lisby: Because the signs that have been put up -- and I would put up two more signs that have been taken down, brand new signs. I would put up two more and then we would police it. I mean it would -- Centers: Tow away at owner's expense signs that -- Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 14 of 87 Lisby: Yes. That's the sign that is up there, that -- to contact such and such number if your car has been towed. Zaremba: I think if you actually did that a couple of times word probably would get around pretty quick. Lisby: Well, it was done before and it didn't and it was strictly the bar next door that was doing this and that's where it would help Mr. McGuinness with Blumacs, with his business. He's already said, well, hey, that's great, let them park there, let them go from one door to the next door, you know. Mathes: You would have a hard time policing that. They could go into his bar and then go -- Lisby: Well, that's up to him to do, you see, so -- whatever. But like he said, he wants to be a good neighbor and he doesn't want to raise any Cain, you know, except to stand for his own rights if need be. Borup: Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you, ma'am. Do we have anyone else. Come on up. Jones: Mr. Chairman and Members of the Commission, I'm Lori Jones and I'm a resident and a business owner here in Meridian and I'm also -- I'm not on the board of the Meridian Development Corporation, but I am very active in attending their sessions, and as I have talked to other members of the Meridian Development Corporation and other businesses in town, we are attempting to pull together an urban renewal situation with this downtown area. Concerns expressed by some business owners is that this does not fit into what we are attempting to attract to revitalize downtown. There is some businesses very concerned to have another bar placed downtown. So I would state those as my comments. Thank you. Borup: Any questions for Ms. Jones? Thank you, Lori. Anyone else, additional comments on this? Come on up, sir. Amos: Chairman Borup and Commissioners, I wanted to make sure -- Borup: Go ahead and state your name. Amos: I'm Terry Amos and I manage the Farmers and Merchant's State Bank branch here in Meridian. I wanted to make sure that my letter was entered in the record and I assume from the reference earlier that it is. But we have some serious concerns about the parking and we also have a sizable future improvement project scheduled for that parking lot that we currently own behind City Hall and we feel that based on the occupancy -- potential occupancy of the bar, the employees who will have to staff it, that it just adds an undue burden to the parking problems that we have down here now. So we are opposed primarily due to that, but also because we are supporters of the Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 15 of 87 economic development program that's -- that we have laid out for the city. That's all I have to say. Borup: Any questions for Mr. Amos from any Commissioners? Thank you. Amos: Thank you. Ortman: I am Art Ortman. I represent a third ownership in 720 East 1st Street, which is two doors down, Sun America Securities and the Sherer and Wynkoop attorney office. We own the old Intermountain Arms building, which we now call the Bon Aires. We stand in opposition to this for the reasons that have been identified. The parking is a problem not just during the daytime -- it's actually not as much a problem during the daytime as I have seen as when I'm leaving to go home is where I see more parking along the streets and around the bar locations and so I think that's even more a potential problem in the evening than it is during the daytime. Also the policing idea is an easy thing to say, but I have found as I have lived a third of my life in that building going to and from home, that I find bottles broken quite often, there have been times that we have found people passed out in the back of our building next to our dumpster, and so it's easy to say that we will police this, but we have not found that to be the case with the other three bars very efficiently and really struggle with that. From the standpoint of just the overall look of our town, I really have to struggle with the idea of creating a fourth bar in the Old Town District and it becoming bar row or however it's associated and all the disadvantages that are associated with that. From the proximity of the bar in terms of two and a half blocks for all the bars from an elementary school, a couple of blocks from the library, just a block or so from here, four blocks from the proposed high school, it just -- the whole area just doesn't seem to ring true for me in terms of a good location for these kinds of entities to be in. We have found problems occurring because of the bars related to our businesses. For example, fights that have occurred in the streets or in the back parking lots, some of the physical abuse that we have seen, not only the broken glass that I have talked to you about, also you walk in the back and people are on their cell phones screaming at whomever they are screaming at for whatever reason. So from my standpoint, when in doubt you don't and in my mind this is in doubt. Borup: Any questions from any Commissioners? Thank you, sir. Do we have anyone else to testify on this application? Any final comment by the applicant? McGuinness: Mr. Chairman and Commissioners, it just seems that the main problem is the parking and whether I'm there or someone else comes there, there is still going to be dealing with the parking. So I feel it's irrelevant whether it's a sports bar or it's a laundromat or whatever they put in, there is going to be a problem downtown and I imagine that they'll correct that at some point, we'll just have to buy some land to put a parking lot in. But, like I say, it just seems like a lot of people are crying wolf when I really don't see where we will even notice them being there, maybe come in and have a casual drink and enjoy yourself. That's all I have to add. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 16 of 87 Borup: Okay. McGuinness: Thank you. Borup: Thank you, sir. Commissioners? Centers: I move we close the Public Hearing. Zaremba: I will second. Borup: Motion and second to close the Public Hearing. All in favor? Any opposed? MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES, ONE ABSENT. Borup: Thank you. Would we like a little discussion first? Centers: Well, you know me, I'm not bashful, Mr. Chairman. This is really really a tough one. The staff admittedly said they are okay with everything and it is a personal or -- personal opinion. McKinnon: Staff opinion. Centers: On the staff's part, because -- and they have their own parking and adequate for the city. The owner of the property has seen it sit vacant for two years. I hate to penalize the owner. The police department -- you know, if you want to laugh about it, that's fine, but I guess they would like to seem them concentrated. If we had an application for a bar a block or two away, then what? I guess Meridian is big enough for another bar. It's just that certain people don't want the bar right there. But it complies zoning wise and in every other way. Of course, pass or rejected tonight, it goes to the City Council there, again, but I'm not prepared to say that I want to use my personal opinion and not have a bar there, if everything else complies. They have the parking, where the bar next door doesn't have the parking, and we can't kick them out. So that's my opinion. And I'm not saying whether I'm for or against the project or the occupant there, it's in compliance and my personal opinion should not play in the end. Borup: It's in compliance, except for the state statute. Centers: And that's City Council's decision. Borup: Right. And maybe I need -- we all probably need some more clarification there, but in my interpretation it does not comply unless there is a compelling reason why it should be allowed. Is that what the City Councilmen need to say, if they go into a good reason to allow it? Centers: Because of the church? Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 17 of 87 Borup: Right. Centers: Yeah. Well, I think that's up to the Council to approve or deny it and the P&Z doesn't have the authority -- Borup: No. Centers: -- to deny it based on that. Of course, if we deny it, they can go to the Council anyway. Borup: But I'm assuming that what they are going to be looking at is any compelling reason to allow it. The City Council needs to be correct that this is a good thing to add. Centers: I would agree. Borup: And I agree with your statement that it complies with the -- with the other requirements for a business, but I don't know if I have heard anything that makes me think it's absolutely necessary or a good thing to have one more. I don't know if we heard that much either way. Centers: I wouldn't disagree with that. Borup: I'm a little confused on the parking on why -- I mean it complies with the square footage of a retail building, but 30 to 50 people in 12 parking spaces, it doesn't really -- Centers: But that's our code right now. Borup: Right. Centers: My main concern, whether it's passed or denied, is the property owner having that property sit vacant for two years and she has a tenant that she can sign to a ten year lease and it meets the code in every way with their own parking, I don't want my personal opinion to come into play, whether I like bars or don't like them. Zaremba: I agree with Commissioner Centers that it's a tough decision and I agree on the one hand here is a property owner who has a possible tenant, who would be contributing taxes to the City of Meridian, Mr. McGunniness has decided that it would be worth investing his money to have another business there. He doesn't seem to be bothered by the fact that it's the fourth bar in the neighborhood. Most businesses do their business plan depending on how many competitors they have near by when they make their decision about whether they are going to invest in that location or not. I also agreed with some of the thinking, as a city do we need a fourth bar or, on the other hand, is it better to have them all in one place. And, again, my personal opinion about whether we need bars at all is not important. So I guess I would have a question. Do we have the possibility of forwarding this to the City Council making no recommendation? Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 18 of 87 Borup: As a clarification I'm trying to remember from reading the -- Zaremba: That's kind of passing the buck -- not even kind of, it's really passing the buck. McKinnon: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission, I think that the Council wants you to make a decision as to what you would like to see happen there. This is not a permitted use, this is a conditional use, and so even though it does meet all the minimum requirements of the code, we still have to look to see if it fits in with everything that we want to see down there. I would prefer to be able to take something to council saying this is what the Planning and Zoning Commission felt, this is how they voted. Zaremba: Well, my additional sympathy is with the people who are trying to make the Old Town area into something that's attractive for everybody, including families and people patronizing other businesses. The difficulty is how much can we help the property owner find another person to go in there. Centers: David, in your site specific requirements, item three, will that hold up? Are we confident that that will hold up? McKinnon: Item number three? Absolutely. Centers: Okay. McKinnon: The adult entertainment ordinance limits any type of bikini dancing and other entertainment of that type to be in the industrial zone only with a Conditional Use Permit. Centers: Well, in regard to -- and I have a lot of agreement with Ms. Jones and the redevelopment of the Old Town area. Will this impede that? I don't think so. Will it enhance it? Probably not. But it won't impede it, I don't think. If they are going to do something, they have got to do something with the paintball factory right behind us, do something with that building, and whether a store front in downtown Meridian is a bar or a laundromat, I don't think will impede or enhance the development of downtown Meridian. Borup: Any other information we need? Centers: I'll do it. I'm not bashful. Mr. Chairman? Borup: Commissioner Centers. Centers: I would move that we recommend approval of Item No. 5, CUP 02-011, request for a CUP for a sports bar with pool tables and big screen TV's in an O-T zone for Blumacs Sports Bar by Michael McGuinness at 606 East 1st Street, including -- Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 19 of 87 Zaremba: 706. Centers: What did I say? 706 East 1st. Including all staff comments, with the additional limitation that weekday hours be limited to 3:00 to the normal closing time for those establishments, 3:00 p.m., and weekends I guess we would not set any time limits. End of motion. Mathes: I second that. Borup: Motion and second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? Hearing none. Thank you. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES, ONE ABSENT. Item 6: Public Hearing: CUP 02-013 Request for a Conditional Use Permit for four 4-plex units on 1.08 acres in an R-15 zone on Lots 4 and 5, Block 2 of Scottsdale Subdivision by C.W. Construction, Inc. – West Alden Drive, at the southwest corner of West Franklin Road and SW 7th Avenue: Borup: The next item, Item No. 6, CUP 02-013, request for Conditional Use Permit for four four-plex units on 1.08 acres in an R-15 zone on Lots 4 and 5 of Block 2 of Scottsdale Subdivision by C.W. Construction, Incorporated. This is at West Alden Drive, West Franklin Road, and Southwest 7th Avenue. I'd like to open this Public Hearing at this time and start with the staff report. McKinnon: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission. I'll try to use the overhead this time. On the overhead that you have in front of you right now shows the location. The highlighted area is the location of the project. Just to orient you, give you an idea what surrounds the area, you all probably will recognize the day-care, you can see right here what looks like the castle, that's the property that's just to the north, the darker yellow color. There is two vacant lots that separate that from this project here. The other lots across the street are vacant. These lots here are four-plexes and apartments. Directly behind this project is a single family residential subdivision. Farm Bureau Insurance is actually right there on the corner. Sorry for excluding them. This is the site plan. You can see it's vacant. Right now you can see single family dwellings surrounding the property along the south and along the western edges of this property. Across the street from the site -- this is up in the southern corner of it, are some four- plexes immediately across the street from this project and to the north you can see the day-care center. When I took this picture you can see that I was standing on some asphalt right here. This is a sewer easement that runs the length of the property. If I can go back to this one. You can see a small common lot that's immediately right here. There is a sewer easement in favor of the city on that site. The applicant would like to use that sewer easement, that is a common lot, for parking. It doesn't come out really dark enough on this site plan, but if you will follow with me, the far north property -- actually, it's access to this parking lot is right here. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 20 of 87 Borup: Clarification. They want to use it for access, not for parking. McKinnon: For access and not for parking. In the staff report I think I clarify that a little bit more and I will open that up right now, so that I can kind of go over a couple of highlights for you. The project is a planned development. The reason why this project is a planned development with a Conditional Use Permit, is because they are asking to put two four-plexes on each lot. When you put more than one building on a single lot, you are required to get a planned development and get a Conditional Use Permit. The use itself, the multi-family use in an L-O zone, is a conditional use, which would require them to get a Conditional Use Permit. They are required to have ten percent open space for their multiple family dwelling. They do exceed the ten percent requirement for that. They have provided two amenities in accordance with the planned development ordinance. The two amenities that they have provided are two picnic tables, one here and one here. Staff doesn't believe that the picnic tables provided are enough amenities for essentially what will be 16 families. Staff would prefer to see some additional amenities other than two picnic tables provided on the site, such as a half court -- an active amenity, such as a basketball area or a playground, small playground for the children. The project has proposed to have essentially three access points off of the main road, one to this parking area, one here, and then one where we talked about where we have the existing common lot with an easement. The applicant has secured approval from the business owners association to use the common lot for access to their parking. Because the access itself has already been paved, they will be responsible -- the applicant and the business owners association, to maintain that pavement there. Staff has no idea as to how deep the depth of the pavement is on that access point, so there may need to be some additional maintenance take place on that lot. I don't think that it's thick enough -- I don't believe the base is thick enough to support heavy use in and out. They meet the requirements for parking. And I have got another picture. There is a picture of the buildings that they are proposing. They are four-plex units, two on the top, two on the bottom, and that's the Scottsdale project. Ada County Highway District has approved this project. There currently exists one access point that runs in the middle of the property. They have approved them for the two access points, the two new ones. There is a requirement for five foot sidewalks be placed back. They are eliminating the one curb cut and they will match everything to the existing improvements on site. When this project was approved it was approved with the specific site plan -- with a specific landscape plan for the buffer adjacent to the single family dwellings. They would need to continue to go along with the development agreement's required landscape buffer, which is a 20 foot buffer. That concludes -- evergreen trees that are already planted and deciduous trees, they still need to be planted. With that I would ask if there is any questions of myself or other members of the staff? Borup: Questions from the Commission? Commissioner Zaremba? Zaremba: I have one. Just a clarification. McKinnon: Okay. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 21 of 87 Zaremba: In the notice of Public Hearing it identifies this as an R-15 zone and your comments are directed to an L-O zone and I see by ACHD that it has been both or one or the other at some time or another. McKinnon: Mr. Chairman, Commissioner Zaremba, that's correct. At one time this property was zoned R-15. It has subsequently been rezoned to -- Zaremba: That's the old zoning? McKinnon: It has been rezoned to the L-O zone. In the L-O zone it is a Conditional Use Permit and that's why it's in front of you tonight. Sorry about the confusion. Borup: But in R-15 that it was a permitted use, if it wasn't on -- McKinnon: The fact that there is two buildings -- Borup: On the same lot. McKinnon: On the same lot, it may have been -- Borup: Other than that -- McKinnon: That's correct. If they had planned one building, an apartment building with eight units, it would have been a permitted use. As long as it didn't exceed the density of the R-15 zone. Centers: One other quick question, Dave. Without me looking it up in the book, in the L-O zone what other types of property? Would it be general offices? I think for the public's info. McKinnon: Most generally you consider the professional offices, dentist, doctor, those are always the ones that most people think of at first. There are a number of other uses that would be allowed in the L-O zone that are a little -- Centers: Another day-care with steeples? McKinnon: Yeah. The towers are different -- actually, the owner of that project was just recently approved for another day care just off of Eagle Road and they actually have a parapet wall just like the old castles this time around, but in the L-O zone I believe that's a conditional use -- I can look it up. Centers: No. That's okay. McKinnon: Okay. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 22 of 87 Centers: Thank you. McKinnon: Day-care is a possibility, I believe. Centers: Thanks. Borup: Commissioners Centers, I do have the list here and it's fairly extensive. I mean it includes -- I mean conditional use -- you mean permitted uses without a permit or just -- Centers: I thought for the public's benefit. Borup: Right. Banks, accounting services, broadcasting, TV, radio stations, churches, clinics, bars with a conditional use. But medical laboratories, libraries, mortuaries, offices, public buildings, all those are straight permitted uses without conditional use. And the list I just read was -- there was more than that. Any other questions from any other Commissioners for staff? Is the applicant or his representative here this evening? Breinholt: Commissioners, my name is Richard Breinholt, my residence since 1976, Star Lane in Meridian. We feel like that we have presented a very good project here. The use of it is within the zoning use of the lots that we are discussing. We feel like that under the situation we left as much as absolutely possible in open space with the conditions of the lot. As you know, there is a 20 foot landscape buffer at the back of the lot, which goes the entire length along the back of the -- both properties and then an additional buffer zone on the right side and then the easement for the sewer on the left side and on the front side is also a sewer easement and so between that and the requirements for parking lots, there really is a very small window of placement of any buildings on this lot and I think that we have done a pretty good job of placing those and meeting the requirements which are set forth. We feel like that the project is in close location to the arterial streets and the freeway and so on and the amenities of the community and so that also provides good use of this land. The day care in close proximity is also a nice amenity to the project. And then also the fact that it's also in close proximity to other like uses of four-plexes and multiple dwellings in the same neighborhood. In fact, the street actually connects onto streets, which is -- a majority are four-plexes. We have made great efforts to follow the subdivision requirements to leave the buffers in place and the easements and would continue to do so as we develop the project. That includes, of course, the landscaping buffers and developing them beyond what has already been developed. That would allow the privacy of the neighbors as much as possible and then with the trash enclosures and so on. We also feel like the project is a good project from a quality standpoint. The construction type that we have proposed for this is a stucco with decorative stucco on it and then stone veneer on the front of it and this is a higher quality than the types of construction which are found around it and, therefore, would increase the property values of the area and so we feel like that's a nice asset to the community. That's all I really have to say about the project, unless there are any questions from the -- Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 23 of 87 Mathes: I have a question. Would you be willing to change the amenities? Breinholt: Change the amenities? Mathes: Yeah. Like adding playground equipment or -- Breinholt: I certainly would. I'm very interested in the quality of life in the community. I have been a 27 year resident of Meridian and involved in the development of the community. There are some pretty narrow windows of what we can do with that property after all the buffers and so on and in my opinion, the reason that I have left it this way, is that we had such a small open space already in relation to what I would like to see, that to develop a playground or something like that would make it more like LA than it would Meridian, Idaho. But I am willing to be flexible, certainly. Borup: Commissioner Centers. Centers: Yes. Mr. Breinholt, I have the plat that's identical to that and I -- where is your blacktop going to be? Obviously, in this area. Breinholt: Yes. Centers: And that area. Breinholt: Yes. Centers: Is everything else going to be lawn and landscaping? Breinholt: Yes. Centers: And back in here? Breinholt: That is lawn up on the right side there. Centers: So all this is landscaping, other than the parking is going to be blacktop? Breinholt: That's correct. Centers: So you do have plenty of room for like a swing set and a jungle gym and a slide and -- Breinholt: No. If you scale that out there is a 20 foot landscape buffer to protect the privacy of the residents behind there and that, with the problem to the easement to the front and to the sides, there is almost no room between those buildings and the 20 foot buffer is all in trees and bushes and so even though that looks open on that, that's mostly a plot plan there. I do have the subdivision plat here and maybe you'd like to look at that. Would you like to see that? Right there. And if you look at that in placement Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 24 of 87 to the buildings, you have lost 20 feet off the back property lines of those and then on the upper side there there is an additional radius taken out of that corner for a buffer also and so when you do that, the open lawn space is not as large as it appears to be. Centers: Well, how many feet? How many feet from the building to that back lot? Breinholt: Actually, the building on that -- that building right there sits right on -- or, no, the parking lot sits right on that 20 foot buffer and we had to do it that way in order to meet the parking requirements. Centers: Well, the parking is right here. Breinholt: Yes. But the back line of that parking lot sits on the 20 foot buffer. It sits right against that 20 foot buffer. Centers: How many feet from there to the back property? Breinholt: I don't have that figure in my head. I couldn't answer that. McKinnon: Mr. Chairman, Commissioner Centers, I can get that for you if you want real quick. Centers: Well, I mean if we are going to require a second amenity, what are some of the other amenities that we can require? McKinnon: We can require anything that you'd like. The ordinance actually lists playground equipment, basketball courts, sports activity court, and then says et cetera dot dot dot. So it leaves it open for us. There is some pathways, but a pathway at this site wouldn't connect to anything, so that wouldn't be an option. If you will think back to the Cooper Canyon project, the City Council required -- after it was approved, the City Council required additional amenities to be placed and they did some pretty innovative things with that. They had a retention pond area that was sloped down and they actually put a slide down the slope and then down in that slope area they put in some swing sets. Adjacent to that open area they put in a basketball court in the open area and it's got a full court, but it's got an eight foot on one side and a ten foot on the other side. It was a much more dense project with 88 units, but there is different options that are available. Zaremba: Can you put the site plan back up again? McKinnon: One second. Borup: Well, maybe while they are doing that -- Zaremba: I'm still working on Commissioner Centers' question. Even though down in this area would there room for a half court basketball court or something like that? Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 25 of 87 Breinholt: That would take up almost the entire area. Zaremba: So it would be a court instead of grass? Breinholt: Yeah. I feel like I already paved the one acre that we have. And I'm not saying no if that's what you are going to require, but I would really like to see some green around there. Zaremba: Yeah. I'm thinking of a basketball half court that would not be lit, so it wouldn't attract all night games. Breinholt: I also have concerns that where we have so much pavement already draining, that if we pave more of it we have a drainage problem in those areas. We will be -- with the slight berm on that 20 foot buffer along the back there, to retain the water within the property, but it's pretty -- Centers: Did you read the Planned Unit Development Ordinance? Breinholt: I'm sorry, I didn't hear that. Centers: Did you read the city's Planned Development Ordinance? Breinholt: Yes, I did. Centers: Two amenities, require ten percent open space, which you -- then, you know, I think you can see where the city is coming from. Throwing in two picnic tables and we are done, you know, I don't think that's going to cut it with us or the Council, to be very blunt. Breinholt: Okay. Centers: But that's what we have to look at, because you're putting two buildings on one lot. If you want to scale back and put one building on each lot, we don't have to talk about the Planned Development Ordinance. Of course, you know, you don't want to do that and I don't blame you, you want to get full value, but -- Borup: Do a larger building, an eight-plex. Centers: Yeah. Zaremba: Have to go back to R-15. Borup: Mr. Breinholt, did you -- is there anything else in the staff report you had any comment or question on? Did you have a chance to read their -- Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 26 of 87 Breinholt: Not that comes to my mind. Borup: You're fine with everything on that? It sounds like -- I think that was the only item was that they questioned maybe another amenity. Breinholt: That's correct. Borup: What is happening on the -- on that paved easement? Do you know what the distance is or what -- after you leave the parking lot on back to the back of the property, that looks like that's probably 60 feet or so. Breinholt: Let's see. I'm trying to remember that -- Borup: Right. Breinholt: -- plat I gave you, is that easement on there? Borup: Oh, 133 feet. I was trying to determine the distance after you left the parking lot. It looks like it would be essentially the depth of the building, plus another 35 feet or so. Breinholt: From -- I'm not sure of your question. Borup: Well, I wonder if something could be done in that area, perhaps a basketball court at the end -- at the end of that paved area. Breinholt: In the easement? Borup: Right. Breinholt: That's very possible. Borup: It takes it all the way back to the fence now? Breinholt: Yes, it is. Centers: The city just doesn't want you to park there. Breinholt: Yeah. Good idea. Because on that plat I gave you, does that easement continue through that -- Borup: Well, it shows 133 feet of depth along that property line. Breinholt: But that 20 foot buffer easement would possibly continue through there. Does that show on here? Zaremba: It shows it all the way to the back. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 27 of 87 Borup: It shows it goes clear to the fence line. Breinholt: If that were possible that would be an nice solution to that. However, we would have to encroach in that 20 foot landscape buffer. Of course, that easement is already paved. I don't know if we can really go with that. Borup: Well, it may not need to go back that far either. That's why I was wondering how much -- David, did you determine that -- what that distance is from the parking lot back, approximately? McKinnon: We did at one point. Borup: I saw the scale up there, but I didn't -- Centers: Well, it was the back building, wasn't it? Borup: It looks like it's about 70 feet. No. You got the wrong scale. McKinnon: It's a 1-to-50 scale that we are working with. Breinholt: We could even turn it towards the building and stay out away from that buffer or something like that and that certainly would work, too. Borup: A question on the landscaping. I assume that this is -- Breinholt: That is the subdivision -- Borup: So that's the same landscaping detail you're going with? Breinholt: Yes. Uh-huh. We are just following that. Some of the evergreen trees -- the taller evergreen trees are already in and then it's a requirement of the lot owners to finish the landscaping. Borup: So the trees -- the items indicated on here are bushes you said or is it other type of trees? Breinholt: I think they are mostly bushes. Borup: Talking about the additional ones that they are going to be adding. Breinholt: Right. Borup: They will be adding some -- Breinholt: The pine trees are in. The addition is the bushes. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 28 of 87 Borup: You will be more adding more bushes? Breinholt: Right. Borup: I think the way this goes, when they are grown -- it looks like it's almost -- well, it's not almost, it is solid. That's what I was questioning. Zaremba: Yeah. Are these things that will have enough height that a two story building won't be looking into a one story building. Borup: Well, Mr. McKinnon just clarified that those are trees, not bushes, that are indicated on the landscaping plan. Breinholt: Well, are you talking about the front side or the back? Borup: The back. Breinholt: Yeah. I have to amend my statement. They are trees. Zaremba: So my question on the trees, are they trees that are to going to be fairly tall and solid and substantial? Breinholt: Well, it doesn't stipulate, but I -- that's in everybody's interest. Centers: Well, unless they are miniature, they are going to be tall. Zaremba: Trying to make sure they weren't miniatures or lacy looking trees. Borup: Well, this -- I mean it looks -- from looking at your landscaping plan, the number of trees along there is varying from 23 to 26, which looks like it's -- Centers: That's not the landscaping plan, I don't believe. Correct me if I'm wrong. Breinholt: This is the subdivision's landscape plan and that's -- Centers: The way it's laid right now. Breinholt: Right. And that has to be followed. It's required by the subdivision -- Centers: The staff has said a detailed site plan will be required when applying for certificate of zoning compliance. McKinnon: Chairman Borup, Commissioner Centers, the project is required to meet the requirements of the preliminary plat and the final plat for that project. The landscape plan that was approved at that time around the back side was part of the requirements. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 29 of 87 Centers: This one? McKinnon: That's the one that Chairman Borup has in his hands right now. It shows the trees in back. Part of the development agreement stated that the additional trees would be placed by the owner of the lots when developed. Centers: And that's the detailed site plan that you're referring to in your comments. McKinnon: We would like to see something with more detail than that, including the shrubbery, rather than just trees. Centers: Right. Borup: I'm just going by our -- I mean kind of the standard design was one tree every 35 feet. This looks like it more than doubles -- I mean it looks like it about doubles that standard placement, which -- that's why I was looking to see what the screening would be and it looks like, you know, the growth according to this plan is pretty solid. Any other questions from the Commission? Zaremba: Are we ready for a different subject? Borup: Sure. Zaremba: Okay. Referring to the pictures of what the buildings would look like, two, at least, of these buildings will have the sides facing the street and those look pretty plain to me. Is there any way that can be -- Breinholt: That's just a preliminary plan and we have had them finished since and, unfortunately, I didn't bring them with me. But the general shape of that is probably the same. We have -- well, I can show you -- Borup: You can grab that mike there. Breinholt: This is stone across here and we have put coin corners up all of these pop outs here and at these corners here on the entryway and then on the outside corners also and then the outside corners on the back side also and dressed it up. Zaremba: I was actually talking about the side views. It looks like there is enough visual variety on the front and rear views, but the side views look pretty boring. Borup: That would be on buildings three and four. Breinholt: Could we go back to the plot plan and let me -- okay. So you're referring to this site view here or which ones are you -- Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 30 of 87 Zaremba: Buildings three and four have -- each of them have a side facing the street. Breinholt: No. Oh, yeah. I see what you're saying. Well -- Zaremba: And my question was can that be dressed up a little bit. Breinholt: You're really not going to see those, because you have also a density of shade trees along the front side of that also. Zaremba: Staff did not call that out as an issue, but are the trees sufficient? Borup: Did you say you're going to have some corner coins on -- Breinholt: Yes. There will be corner coins on both. Borup: So you're going to wrap the corner, so it will be seen from both corners -- by both -- Breinholt: Both these ends are in coins and -- you know, here. McKinnon: Chairman Borup, Commissioner Zaremba, I think you make a really good point by bringing that up, that these sides aren't dressed up very much. We do have two of them addressing the street. Looking back to the site plan real quick, there is a stormwater drainage easement that runs from the point of access to the parking lot, running up this direction. I guess it would be up on the site plan in front of you. I don't see a directional arrow on that. But you come up, there is no trees that will be able to be planted in this area, so that will look rather bare. I would agree that some sort of wainscoting across the front would be very appropriate and, in addition to that, the subdivision that's immediately to the east -- or, actually, to the west of this project would have these sides facing on those same buildings, to go back real quick. The subdivision would have that side view of those buildings. I don't know if that's preferable or not, because now that I think about it, the balconies would not be directed towards the subdivision in this orientation. I don't know if there would be some windows that pointed that direction. Zaremba: Well, that's the thing about dressing up that side, because I'm hoping there is enough trees -- McKinnon: There should be. Zaremba: -- that the people won't see the sides of the building. McKinnon: Right. I would agree with you that some sort of coining or a wainscot or architectural feature on those sides would -- Zaremba: A vertical stripe or wainscoting or -- Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 31 of 87 Breinholt: A vertical -- say that again. Zaremba: A vertical stripe or, you know, a wainscoting or something that just breaks up that big massive side, more than a few windows. Breinholt: That's a good point. We hadn't thought of that. That would really enhance the whole project. Certainly is worth looking at and we would be willing to do that. Zaremba: Thank you. Borup: Any other comments? Breinholt: Let's see. I had one other -- I wanted to clarify when staff started talking about the project, there is just one curb cut into the project right on the property lines between the two lots. In order to accommodate the parking lots we are going to eliminate that curb cut and replace it with sidewalk and then put the curb cuts into the places shown here. Zaremba: Is there an existing curb cut for the easement that you need to use for an access? The sewer easement. Breinholt: There is an existing one on it also. Zaremba: It isn't just paved, it's paved so that a car can come up -- Breinholt: Right. Right. Now there was some concern about that easement holding up. The only traffic that will be going -- can we go back to the plot plan again? The only traffic that will be going on that easement is going immediately into the parking stalls there. There was a suggestion that we put a no parking sign along that area into the easement and I think that's a very reasonable thing to do. Originally we had the trash receptacle on that side and we have moved that over next to Building Two, so that the heavy vehicles and trash trucks and stuff would not be going across that easement and then, of course, I assume that we would maintain that easement. Borup: Any other questions from the Commissioners? Okay. Thank you, Mr. Breinholt. Breinholt: Also -- did you have something you wanted to say or -- Borup: Did you have your -- someone else that wanted to -- Breinholt: I think we have covered it. Borup: Okay. Do we have anyone else that would like to testify on this application? If so, now is the time to come on up. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 32 of 87 McCarthy: I will be first. Mike McCarthy, 250 South Outfield. My property backs up to this proposed situation. I'm in Fenway Park. I'm going to start by addressing three things that were talking about here and one is the buffer. The buffer currently consists of fir trees -- you can see them in the colored picture. They are not hardly taller than the fence now. Thirty years from now they night provide something from a second story situation. Also you were talking about drainage. This property is at least two feet higher at the curb than the backyard of our house and the rest of the property along the fence. And our property value as far we get to that -- I'll talk about that in a second, because I did contact a realtor to find out what it does to our property value. Our number one concern is the privacy and situation of people looking down in our backyard from a second story. I understand the setback for buffer distance to be 20 feet from the back fence and I do have a question as to why all of a sudden two story are going in there. When our house was built our subdivision is strictly one story houses, two stories were not allowed for a privacy situation. Now we are talking about going from a light commercial situation to two story residential. Borup: Two stories are not allowed anywhere in your subdivision? McCarthy: They are not. They are all single story houses. Borup: Well, I mean that's in the covenants that it prohibits two story? McCarthy: Yes. That's correct. Borup: Okay. McCarthy: If you drive down the road there is not two story house. Borup: Well, that's may be, but -- I was just questioning prohibiting two story. McCarthy: When we did purchase our home we noticed that the ground was bare behind us. We have lived there for just a little over two years. We made a quick call down to the Meridian city and we were told that it is a C-0 zoning, which is light commercial use -- I'm quoting now from the best that I can remember. Light commercial use, such as a professional office. That's exactly what we were told. And this was used in our decision as to whether or not we wanted to purchase our house. We do enjoy our backyard. We are both active gardeners and we are out in the yard quite a bit of the time. We certainly don't wish to have someone living behind us looking down into backyard from just 20 feet away. It also would make it very tough to entertain in the backyard in the evenings. We also are a bit concerned as we do have a day sleeper as far as kids and dogs and stuff coming into the area, which you are going to get with, you know, any kind of a residential situation. I'm not opposed to a single story situation of any kind. The two story is my main issue on privacy. Let's see. The property value. I contacted a realtor at ERA realty to find out the real story on property value. He informed me that the property will be much harder to sell, people just don't want to have two story apartments in their backyard. The second situation that he informed me of is Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 33 of 87 the price value will probably go down and we probably will have to accept a lessor price if we are to sell. Borup: Less than what you bought it for? McCarthy: No. Borup: Okay. McCarthy: The market value. Same house four blocks away. Borup: Okay. McCarthy: Okay. Also we have talked to many of the neighbors, we have canvassed down seven streets on Outfield Way, Crestwood, Penwood, and Pennate Street. We have obtain over 50 signatures in a petition, which we have with us tonight, who are all opposed to the zone change. We also feel that this situation with traffic behind us for noise and so forth would not be beneficial to the subdivision. In closing I would just like to say that we own a home, not a house. We enjoy living in Meridian and have worked hard to maintain and keep our property up. We enjoy the lifestyle and our neighbors do the same. So we are putting our faith in the city fathers and we ask that this zone change not be done. We don't feel that it's the right thing to do. Thanks for your time. Borup: Any questions for Mr. McCarthy? Centers: Mr. Chairman. Mr. McCarthy, it's not a zone change. Is that what your petition said? McCarthy: No. The petition? Centers: Yeah. Because it's not a zone change. McCarthy: No. I understand it's not a zone change. When I called down there -- it is currently zone C-0. What's interesting -- Centers: Did you call before you bought your house? McCarthy: Two years ago it was C-0. McKinnon: Chairman Borup, Members of the Commission, there is no such thing as a C-0 -- Centers: Yeah. I had never heard of it. McKinnon: -- in Meridian. It's an L-O zone. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 34 of 87 Borup: L-O is -- Centers: And before -- I think earlier we gave you a rundown of what could go in there. McCarthy: Yes. I heard that. Centers: Specifically for that reason. Mortuaries, offices, on and on and on. McCarthy: I understand. Centers: A number of different things. The only reason that they need -- well, the staff has addressed it. They need a Conditional Use Permit for residential in an L-O zone. It's allowed with a CUP. That's the bottom line. So you could have two story buildings there, but a different type. You could have a two or a three story office building. McCarthy: That's correct. But it would very likely be a daytime use only situation. Centers: You could have a day care there. McCarthy: Yeah. The day care is another issue that when that got passed we don't even know how, because there was a petition circulated there, too. Centers: What I'm saying -- you understand where I'm coming from. You could have a number of different uses there that -- McCarthy: I understand. Centers: -- would be more detrimental than residential where they have a basketball court and their own little situation. McCarthy: I think you will agree with me that all those would be daytime situations, for the most part. Centers: I would agree. You bet. McCarthy: Our evenings would not be interrupted, for the most part. Centers: You're right. But I wanted to make sure you knew that it's not a zone change. McCarthy: No. I understand. However, R-15 is for 15 units per acre and that's why they are trying to acquire 1.8, if I understand R-15. Centers: It's not zoned R-15. It's zoned L-O. McCarthy: I understand that, but they are asking for a conditional use for R-15. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 35 of 87 Centers: No. McCarthy: Excuse me just a minute. Borup: That was clarified earlier. That was a -- Zaremba: That was a typo. McCarthy: Oh, it is a typo? Centers: Yeah. The R-15. It was originally zoned R-15 years back. McCarthy: I understand. Centers: Then it was rezoned L-O. Jump in if I'm wrong here. And the present applicant wants to put residential use, which requires a Conditional Use Permit. And then they have to go with a planned development, because they are going to put two buildings on one lot. There is only two lots. McCarthy: I see. Centers: So -- and that's the reason we required ten percent open space and some swing sets. But you get my point, that you could have a number of different businesses there that you might dislike even more than residential. McCarthy: Doubtful. Centers: Well, yeah, that could be, but -- Borup: A bar. McCarthy: Well, yeah. Centers: A bar on the corner would -- McCarthy: I understand that is a possibility when you said that earlier, Mr. Borup. Any other questions? Borup: Thank you, sir. Who's next? Dougherty: Joseph Dougherty. Okay. When we purchased our home just like he did, we were told that there were going to be single dwelling -- or single story office buildings and it didn't turn out that way, I guess. Our property taxes just went up, now our property values are going to go down. The two story buildings, they will increase the noise. More garbage out in the street park. Apartments being in crime and left. Junk cars parked out in the street. Traffic more. Unsupervised kids playing in the street, Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 36 of 87 which is very prevalent on 7th Street. You can go down there and find kids darting in and out of cars and it's only a matter of time until someone gets hit. The renters that are going to use these are going to be here and gone, six months, five months, they are gone, leaving back all their -- what they have brought, they don't want to take with them. Or privacy. We take pride in our backyards. We barbecue almost every night, which we probably won't be able to do anymore, because they will still be able to look into our backyards. I don't know what trees or shrubs they are going to put there. They are going to take years to grow. We can't entertain anymore. Can't use our hot tub. Working in the backyard you probably will pretty much have to cover up, because you don't know who you are going to rent to up here, any peeping toms or anything else. Let's see. We do have a little bit of wildlife that's there, squirrels, birds, that come into our yard. They will probably be obliviated from that. And that's pretty much about what I can come up to, except for are there any fire sprinklers in these buildings? Because I remember when the ones at Stubblefield went up in flames back in '95, the siding on the apartments across the street, which is more 50, 60 feet away, melted. What's that going to happen to our places if something like that goes up and our trees and our vegetation? I don't know what the ruling is on that. And -- let's see here. On the news this morning they said that the City of Meridian wants a neatly clean and woven neighborhood. We currently have this. We don't need no two story buildings in back of us with people that are going to be looking at our backyards and it will not be a balanced neighborhood, it will become slums. Thank you. Borup: Thank you. Any questions, Commission? Thank you, sir. Did we have anyone else? Epperson: Daren Epperson. Can you show me the site map again? Welcome to my backyard. There is a balcony here. There is a balcony here. And this is where I am. And, honestly, the idea of putting a black dot here with basketball courts makes me shutter. The reason why I say that is my wife and I entertain, we spent in the range of about -- well, after this year is done close to 2,500 to 3,000 dollars to put in a deck, put in a new yard, so we can have a nice area in the back to entertain. And my experience with basketball courts, night games, boom boxes, no peace, no quiet, who do you call? The only person you can call is the police. And in that situation I will be doing that quit often. I did speak to a Number One realtor, Keller Williams. My property values will go down quite substantially. And it's not so much the property value itself, it's what the curb appeal is. The curb appeal -- I'm not sure if you are familiar with it, but the curb appeal works this way: My neighbor sells his house, he can't sell it for very much, because there is a monstrosity behind him. When my property value or my curb appeal is estimated, they look at the houses in the surrounding area, what it sold for, that pretty much leaves me for what this guy sold his house for. So in the six years I have been there I just lost money. I'm trapped in a house I cannot sell and I want to move out of the area and I can't -- and nobody in their right mind is going to come and buy there. The trees are less than the size of the fence. In 20 years they may be the size, you know, that we are talking about. Shrubs aren't going to grow -- I don't know any shrubs that grow, 20, 25 feet, 30 feet tall and 20 feet is right there and that's my backyard. So that's my concern. And the issue of who is looking down on you. I mean I don't think a Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 37 of 87 renter would like to really look at an issue as far as, well, I don't know these people, I don't know what they are doing. My neighbor, who,unfortunately, is not here at the moment, across the way on 7th, the four-plexes that are there, he's a run-ins with the children. Two years ago -- actually, it was last year. The owner of the property decided to put a nice big mound behind my yard and my neighbor's yard, which attracted every kid from the four-plexes during the winter, during the summer, and it's very impossible to have a nice evening with friends when you have got seven or eight kids up on the mound making lewd comments. You can't call the police. They will be scattered by the time that's over and how am I supposed to know where these kids live? It's a vandalism issue. It's just plain and simple. And that's all I have. Borup: Any questions for Mr. Epperson? Thank you, sir. Do we have anyone else? Beamon: My name is Dave Beamon. My wife, my three-year-old daughter, and I live at 226 South Outfield Way. Like my neighbors have said, when we bought our house one of the main questions that we were concerned about was what the land behind us was going to be used for. We found that it was going to be used for light office space is what we were told, which we were fine with. The thing that we are concerned with the most is the -- our privacy, it being two story and the balconies looking right into our backyard. We live on the -- right next door to Daren and his wife, so building two will have balconies facing right into our backyard and that was one of the main reasons we bought our house was the backyard for our three-year-old daughter to have an area to play. We got -- we have a little puppy that is in our backyard most of the day. So having these complexes built, I would really feel uneasy letting my daughter run around in the backyard. Who knows who's up there, you know, people are going to move in and out, they are going to be renting. We bought this house to get away from apartments and that's basically what this is going to be, an apartment complex. Borup: Questions for Mr. Beamon? Thank, you sir. Does that conclude the public testimony? Okay. Does the applicant have any final comments? Breinholt: Chairman and Commissioners, I have looked at the petition that they have signed and submitted. I'd just like to re-issue -- readdress a couple of the things that we have already discussed and point out some things and that is that the landscaping that is provided in the subdivision and that we intend to follow, is as good as I know how we could do it to provide privacy for those lots there and for the people who will be living in our project. We would like to point out that these duplexes are all two bedroom. There are no three or four bedroom units in the project. And the reason we did that was because in a rental situation that I want to be in, I want to have adult couples in those and young families, if they have young families, that when they get to the age where the kids are out and about, that it's going to be too small for them and they will probably move on and that's been my experience in rentals. So we are looking at that. Centers: How many square feet are they each? Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 38 of 87 Breinholt: Approximately 950 square feet, two bedrooms, mostly a great room area. As far as the crime goes, actually, I'd like to point out that we have better control on the rentals than the residents of the single families do on who comes into their neighborhood. When a person applies to rent one of our units, the first thing we do is look at a one year lease with them, which has a lot of constraints that we can put on them that you can't put on a neighbor when they are guying a house. We go through a credit check with these people to make sure that they are financially able to rent the units, which eliminates the less desirable residents that they were discussing. We do a background check on those people to make sure that there are no legal or other types of problems with these people, because we don't want them in our project either. Not only is that a bad thing for all of the renters, but it's also a bad thing for our investment. We check with the previous landlord to see if they have taken good care of the properties. And then the rental agreement has constraints on that and if they don't abide by them, then we can eliminate them and have them evicted and that's something that they can't do in a single family dwelling. I live in Meridian here on the north side on a subdivision with acreage, which are very nice houses in the 200,000 plus area, and in our neighborhood we have had two major drug busts in our neighborhood in the time that I have lived there and there is no way that we could control that, where we can in these rentals. As far as the noise and the day sleeper issues, a commercial office type use would be a heavy use during the day, more traffic, and parking right close to their areas and so as far as a noise issue, I don't feel like that that's a real issue. It's just a question of what type of things go on on that property. We have also addressed the trash issues. I have already met with the sanitation people and talked with them about the new and progressive ways to build enclosures and how to deal with that and I personally am going to be involved in this project, taking care of it, because it's my investment and I assure you that it's not going to be a trash issue. So I feel like it's a great project. I think that we have met all of the conditions that we possibly can and our willing to bend further with increasing the amenities to the side of the buildings and we will wait to hear what suggestions you have as far as the amenities to the project itself, that we are certainly interested in increasing the amenities and the draw to this project. Thank you. Borup: Any other questions from the Commission? Centers: Yes. I have one. And maybe the other gentleman -- I don't know. About how many square feet of the project was utilized for parking? Do you know? Breinholt: I couldn't answer -- Centers: What percentage of the land. Breinholt: I couldn't answer that. Centers: Okay. Is the buffer included in the open space, ten percent open space, staff? McKinnon: The buffer is included. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 39 of 87 Centers: Right. Okay. All right. Borup: Any other questions from the Commissioners? Thank you. Commissioners, where would we like to go with this? Centers: Well, I think that we have heard from everyone. I would move that we close the Public Hearing. Zaremba: Second. Borup: Motion and second to close the Public Hearing. All in favor? Any opposed? MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES, ONE ABSENT. Borup: Comments or discussion? Centers: Mr. Chairman. We had one, two, three, four people -- in a nutshell, I think it was privacy from the adjoining neighbors. Privacy. Privacy. Privacy. As far as crime and that type of thing, that's going to happen anyplace, as the applicant said, whether it's a 500,000 dollar neighborhood or rentals. But I see the issue. Even though that the neighbors will admit that there could be offices go in there, I think that I would agree it would be daytime use, primarily. So I did some quick math and I think if the applicant came with single story dwellings, two eight-plexes, as Mr. Chairman pointed out, it would fly through in a heartbeat. You've got about 46,700 square feet of land, 1.8 acres. The units, 950 square feet take 15,200 feet, 5,000 square feet of open space, which is over ten percent, that leaves 20,000 -- or that's a subtotal of 20,000, that leaves about 26,000 square feet for parking, if the applicant wanted to go with single level eight- plexes. Two eight-plexes. Borup: So you're saying do an eight-plex on each lot and not even require a Conditional Use Permit, just come in and -- it would still need to be -- Centers: Right. But he would have 26,000 square feet left for parking, which I think would be more than adequate. Personally -- and this is my personal opinion, I think single level units rent better than two level and I think they are more attractive when they are done and they are landscaped, they look -- they just look better. That's a personal opinion. That's my speech. Borup: Staff, with one building on -- the two amenities would still be required, though? McKinnon: With a Conditional Use Permit for one building on each individual lot, the two amenities would not come into play. However, we do have to look at a Conditional Use Permit and would the city be interested in allowing an eight-plex without amenities. Borup: Well, that's -- Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 40 of 87 McKinnon: Building them without amenities is not something that I believe that we as staff could support. Borup: That was my concern if they become eight-plex -- I mean if they become single level, you have lost the open space. McKinnon: Lost a heck of a lot of open space. And, in addition to that, you have also increased your construction cost, which is going to, in turn, force the higher rent. Centers: I understand that. Borup: I'm looking at your proposal, Commissioner Centers, and I could see some layouts, but I also see just a long motel like building and with parking in front of each, you know, a big row of parking right along there. Centers: I'm not proposing it, I'm just saying that it's probably possible. Borup: Well, it looks like it would be possible. It would be not near as attractive of a project. Centers: I guess it depends on who has to look at it, though. That's what the neighbors are saying. I guess I got to concur with the neighbors, personally. Zaremba: One of the other purposes for an L-O zone is as a transition between uses, usually one of them residential and the other something a little heavier, and I suspect that's the reason why the residential use in L-O requires a Conditional Use Permit. It's not automatic, like some other uses would be, just because these kinds of things need to be considered. And I agree, to make this residential it would probably need this kind of density to pay themselves back, but I also think there would be other things that fit within limited office that might be more appropriate here. That's my opinion. Borup: Any other comments? Commissioner Mathes? Mathes: Well, I would like to see a single level something. I certainly wouldn't want to live behind all that. Borup: Do we have any discussion on a proposed motion? Centers: Mr. Chairman, I will jump out. I would make a motion that we recommend denial to the City Council for Item 6, CUP, 02-013, request for a Conditional Use Permit for four-plexes on 1.08 acres in an L-O zone on Lots 4 and 5, Block 2, of Scottsdale Sub, by C.W. Construction, at West Allen Drive at the southwest corner of West Franklin Road and southwest 7th Avenue. Zaremba: Second that. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 41 of 87 Borup: Discussion? I mean another option may be if the applicant was -- it could go to City Council with this recommendation or back to what you were saying, could be continued with a redesign, I suppose. Or a redesign would need all new submittals and everything, though? McKinnon: We would require new submittals. Borup: So wouldn't be able to continue it. McKinnon: Well, it would be at your option. You could continue it and make a request for them to do that, or you could say let's start over with a new site plan. Centers: Why don't we ask the applicant -- Borup: That's what I was just -- Centers: -- to address staff and see if they would even consider a redesign with single level and then we will hold our motion at bay. Borup: Do you understand the question as whether a redesign or submit it to City Council? Wollen: If I may address the Commission? Borup: Yes, please. Wollen: I have spoken to city attorney Bill Nichols about the single story limitation that the Commission has been placing on some projects. It's the city attorney's office's opinion that certain heights limitations work better than limiting development to a single story or a certain story. The reason is that I know in some Idaho case law upstairs bonus rooms have been found not to constitute a second story and other cases properties have been -- dirt had been brought in, basically, to bring up the level and so, yes, single story, but it's much higher than what was perceived originally. So it would just be our recommendation that height limitations can be used instead of story limitation. Borup: Presently the L-O zone height limitation is 35 feet. Centers: How high is a duplex, Mr. Chairman? Borup: A two story? Centers: Yes. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 42 of 87 Borup: Well, from ceiling plate line from -- I mean the building has got to be close to 17 feet, eight feet per floor, with ten or 12 inches between. That would be close to 17 feet. Plus another eight inches. That's attached to the plate line and then the peek height, again, would be determined by the pitch of the roof. Centers: So it's probably a good eight feet? Borup: Yeah. McKinnon: Chairman Borup, Members of the Commission, before we get mired down too far into the discussion of height, I did talk with the applicant just now concerning whether or not that would be a viable option for them to decrease the -- well, eliminating second stories from the site. In terms of cost analysis, it doesn't appear that the applicant would be able to do a similar style development and be able to recoup his cost if he were only to go single level. In addition to that, if I could add just a couple comments concerning the height of the buildings. I think the issue at play right now is the second story and the privacy issue from the people being in that second story. The height of the buildings -- if the building was higher, I don't think that's in question, it's the point of view from the person inside the building is the major concern at this time. If we have a one story building with a 17 foot pitched roof on the interior and you had a 17 foot cathedral ceiling, very seldom would you find yourself at the very peak of that looking into someone's else yard, you're typically on the ground floor of that. So before we get mired down too much in that, the applicant does not favor -- is not in favor of reducing his height to a single story structure. Zaremba: In that case I call the motion. Centers: Well, the motion stands. Borup: Did we have a second? Zaremba: Yes. Borup: Okay. Motion and second. Any other discussion? Breinholt: Commissioner, before you do that -- I don't want to close that door. Borup: Well, I'll tell you, we've closed the Public Hearing, so if you do have some additional comments, we either need to reopen it or we could address staff. And maybe a clarification. This is just a recommendation from this Commission, but City Council is the one that makes the decision and there is another Public Hearing there. McKinnon: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commissions, in talking with the applicant he stated that he would like to have the opportunity to review whether or not it would be cost effective for him to eliminate the second story and at this time he would request that his project be continued until the second meeting in July and have the opportunity Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 43 of 87 to review whether or not it would be cost feasible for him to reduce the height. You could go to the second meeting -- whichever meeting you like, but I believe the second meeting in July. I'd have to refer to the Clerk's office, because I think we are pretty full on that agenda. Borup: Yes, it is. McKinnon: So the first open Agenda that we truly have would be the second meeting in July. However, it would be at your discretion as to which meeting you would like to continue that to. Centers: Well, I would be in favor of that, Mr. Chairman, to give the applicant the opportunity to see if he can make something cost effective with a single level and I think -- I don't think we will have near the participating at that kind of situation, where -- because I think it's 99 percent privacy. So I would be inclined to withdraw my motion and make the motion that we continue this to our second hearing in July. Borup: Okay. I might -- yeah, the second hearing in July is completely open. Our first hearing in July -- we can be surprised, but I only see one heavy application. There is another apartment complex. Centers: The first meeting? Borup: Yes. Our first meeting in July. Other than that -- Centers: That would be fine with me. Borup: Other than that they are pretty -- probably not going to be a lot of time on the other -- on the other applications. Centers: But would -- the applicant is going to have to submit drawings and show us they are going to do if they go a single level, so would that give them enough time to get that done in the first meeting in July? Okay. That would be fine with me. Breinholt: What is the date? Borup: The 11th of July. You would be last on the agenda. Clarification. If we are going to continue it, we need to reopen the Public Hearing. Centers: I was just talking to our legal man down here. We could do a new Public Hearing and then we'd have to readvertise though; correct. Borup: Yes. Centers: So, yeah, I would move that we open the -- reopen the Public Hearing for Item 6. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 44 of 87 Zaremba: We have a motion on the floor that needs to be undone first. Centers: I withdrew my motion. Zaremba: Then I will withdraw the second to it. Centers: And then we want to open the Public Hearing -- reopen the Public Hearing for Item 6, CUP 02,013. And I would move that we continue said Public Hearing until the first meeting in July. Correct? Borup: Unless we need two separate motions. Can we do that in one motion? Okay. We have a motion to open -- to reopen the Public Hearing and to continue it to July 11th. Zaremba: I will second Borup: Motion and second. Any other discussion? All in favor? MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES, ONE ABSENT. Borup: Okay. Thank you. I might just say here if that meeting did go extra long that night, you would be last on the Agenda and if we are past midnight we may not hear it, but if you're willing to take that chance and leave it at that date. Okay. Thank you, everyone, for being here. We are going to move on to our next item. Commissioners, this may be a good opportunity for a break and I think staff also has some additional information that they'd like to give us -- present to us during the break, because of some last minute items. Zaremba: We were given some last minute material, so I'd like to ask for kind of a substantial break so I can go over it. Borup: That's what I was thinking. Zaremba: Okay. Borup: So we will take a break at this time. (Recess.) RECONVENED AT 9:00 P.M. Item 7: Public Hearing: AZ 02-010 Request for annexation and zoning of 354.38 acres from RUT to R-4 zones for proposed Lochsa Falls Subdivision by Farwest, LLC and Daniel Gibson – south of West Chinden Boulevard and west of North Linder Road: Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 45 of 87 Item 8: Public Hearing: PP 02-009 Request for Preliminary Plat approval of 876 building lots and 59 other lots on 354.38 acres in a proposed R-4 zone for proposed Lochsa Falls Subdivision by Farwest, LLC and Daniel Gibson – south of West Chinden Boulevard and west of North Linder Road: Item 9: Public Hearing: CUP 02-012 Request for a Conditional Use Permit for a PUD for 862 single family dwellings, 171 multi-family dwellings, 11 office buildings, one commercial building, one fire station lot, one city park and one private park for the proposed Lochsa Falls Subdivision by Farwest, LLC and Daniel Gibson – south of West Chinden Boulevard and west of North Linder Road: Borup: We'd like to reconvene our hearing this evening. The next three hearings all are pertaining to the same project, Items 7, 8 and 9, Public Hearing AZ 02-010, request for annexation and zoning, 354 acres; Item No. 8, PP 02-009, request for preliminary plat approval, and Item No. 9 is a Conditional Use Permit, CUP 02-012, request for Conditional Use Permit for a Planned Unit Development. I would like to open all three Public Hearings at this time and start with the staff report. McKinnon: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission. Just to let you know, this is the largest single project that you have seen. This is the largest project that's been proposed in the City of Meridian. Before you you can see the aerial photo of the square mile that we are going to be dealing with tonight. The project, just to give you a little bit of reference, Chinden Boulevard is on the north, McMillan on the south, Ten Mile on the west side, Linder on the east. The project lies essentially in this area. As you can see, it's all being used for farm right now. It is essentially one big flat piece of farmland at this time. Very large. As a point of reference, this is the site that we are dealing with. It's not the full square mile, but it's about two-thirds of the square mile. I'll show you an overall site plan that's been presented to us. You can see it's on the tripod here as well. The project is going to have an entrance on the south, an entrance on the west, and an entrance on the north. Actually, it's the east. Excuse me. There is no proposed collector on the eastern side. We will talk a little bit more about that. The collector streets, as you can see on this, are lined with trees coming in from the three major residential collectors. In the center where they come together there is a traffic roundabout. You don't see those very often in Idaho. Very seldom do you see those in Ada county. I believe it's the only one that we will have in the City of Meridian. On the interior of the roundabout will be a water type park amenity, it's passive, it's not an active play area, but it's something that you can look at. Immediately to the north of that and a little bit to the east is a proposed six acre park, which would be private, not owned by the city, but maintained by the homeowners association of the subdivision. There are 862 single family homes in this project. There is 171 proposed -- 171 proposed apartment dwellings in this ten acre parcel, 10.8 parcel on the south side. There are 11 office lots, some on McMillan, some on Chinden Boulevard. There is one commercial lot located on the farthest lot to the west on Chinden -- to the east on Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 46 of 87 Chinden. There is a fire station lot that's being proposed and dedicated to the city for a future fire station. In addition to that, there is a 24 or a 26 acre park, that's going to be dedicated to the city. Five acres of such park is going to be donated by the developer to the city. The rest would be for the city's purchase. The other acres that we have that are outstanding -- there is a house that exists right here. I'll show you a picture of that in a moment. A church that's right here. Of special interest is a parcel right here, it's just a lost parcel. It's a large house that's surrounded on all four sides by this new proposed subdivision. There is an existing 25 foot wide easement that runs up to here to their property. The proposed preliminary plat you have in front of you tonight would show that easement being relinquished and being used for some property and possibly having a road come in here to get access to the Moss property, but we will talk about that a little bit more. Throughout the subdivision you can see there is some small park areas that just, you know, as a point of reference, that small park that you see right there is about one acre in size, so there is some other smaller parks throughout. The entire subdivision does have detached sidewalks and you can see what the detached sidewalks look like over here. If you have been over to Thousand Springs you know essentially what the detached sidewalk would look like. The entire subdivision would have detached sidewalks within all collector streets and all local streets. On this east- west collector it runs right to the middle of the project, they are proposing a seven to ten foot wide bicycle type pathway, asphalt pathway for bikers, runners, joggers, walking, and we as staff would like to see that continued. Our Comprehensive Plan shows there is a path that continues all the way through this mile section, so we would propose that somehow that pathway be continued through to the park and carry it through the park, just so it complies with our Comprehensive Plan. But we can get to that in a little bit in the future as well. As far as a school site, we are talking about a whole lot of people going in here. You don't see a school site on here. There are some -- there is some discussion about possibly locating a school in this location. That is not part of this project at this time. I'll let the applicant address a little bit about what's going on at this time with that. I'm going to switch back to the Power Point real quick. As you can see, this is essentially a pretty flat piece of land. The easement that I talked about is the existing 25 foot wide easement that goes to the parcel that's completely surrounded on all four sides is the photo you see on your left. The photo on the right essentially just shows Chinden Boulevard looking to the west from what would be the commercial property. Talked about two parcels of ground that are surrounded by the park, one that's a church and one that is an existing home. The home is proposed to stay, surrounded on three sides by the park. In addition to that, the church is not being removed, it is going to be surrounded by the park as well. From Ten Mile Road you can see a picture that goes across the ditch there, the land on the other side of the ditch is the area that is proposed for the park land. The second picture there is the -- it looks the same as everything else. It's park land, but it's very indicative of what the rest of the property looks like. And that's what it looks like right now. Being farmed. I have got the entire subdivision broken down for all the different map sheets, so I can go just a little bit into detail to show you what we have proposed and some of the changes that you will see in the staff report. I'd like to at this point apologize for the tardiness of the staff report. Because this is such a large project, we wanted to make sure that we get everything the first time through, so bear with me. The existing easement we talked about and showed Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 47 of 87 pictures of the Moss property. It's right here. This is the Moss property. As you can see, it's surrounded on the south, east, and north by homes. This is a landscape buffer adjacent to the street that comes through this property. These properties to the south are all for office use. This ten acre parcel right here is proposed for up to 171 apartment units. That's in two and three story apartments. This will be a private road that runs to here and stubs to the property to the west. You'll find that in the staff report as well. As you continue north you go up to the little turnaround, but I think when we go to the next slide it actually brings us to the east. We have essentially what are two residential collectors coming off of Linder Road right now. There is some-discussion in the staff report about requiring a possible third entrance onto Linder in the norther location, north of the two existing a parcels. The one acre park area that I talked about, the open space, is located right here. The applicant has stated that there will be essentially three playground areas, a larger playground area in the six acre park adjacent to the turnaround. This would be a location of other playground equipment, smaller in scale than the large six acre park equipment. There would be some park equipment at this location. You will notice there is no front-on housing coming on the collectors. The collector status ends at this point, which would allow front-on housing. There is no front- on housing on any of these collectors. Those are landscape buffers adjacent to that entrance area. These two parcels are not part of the project. Together they are just a little over five acres in size. I will move forward. Now the north -- the northeast portion of the property. This is the proposed fire station right here. Just where my marker is at right now is where the large entrance into the subdivision is off of Linder. In the staff report there is some discussion about possibly punching through another connection at this point to give additional connection to Linder Road. The reason for that is that the homes in this area, in order to make it to this intersection, we are talking about over a mile of travel before they can even get to this intersection. So a possibility of punching this through is a possibility. Of a little bit of concern is that this is a fire station right here, so rather than have people exiting in the same area as the fire station, there is no exit there right now and that's something that we'd like to discuss tonight, find out the Commission's opinion on what you want to do there. The lots up in this northern area are typically going to be smaller adjacent to the office on Chinden Boulevard. In looking at the overall site plan that was submitted to us, we noticed that there was a lack of drainage areas or open space in the northern area. We'd like to see some of these lots be used for drainage, which would provide more open space and if they do provide more open space in that northern area, we'd like to see those drainage areas the open space or -- yeah, open space are brought together, instead of having four or five small one, we'd rather see two or three larger lots that would be more usable. Of course, all the drainage lots, in order to be usable, it is required that they meet a minimum -- or a maximum of three to one slope coming down into the drainage. Those open spaces are dual purpose and if you get the slope higher than that, all you have got is a deep embankment that goes down into essentially a grassy area. Let me go back. The one commercial lot is this parcel right here and another point of interest is Idaho Transportation Department has denied the applicant the use of this access road to Chinden Boulevard. Idaho Transportation Department only allows a half mile access on the state highway. Chinden Boulevard is State Highway 20-26. There will be some significant redesign in this area. These lots will be become a little bit larger. Staff would Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 48 of 87 still like to see this entrance into this private street maintained. I talked a little bit about the school area. Staff's understanding is that possibly this area would be a school in the future. At this point we don't know whether or not there is any acquisition of the land. It's our hope that there is a school on this site, whether here or in another location, because this project will put a big impact on the school system. Again, the smaller lots in this area. There is a lack of any of the smaller open spaces or drainage. We'd like to see that improved. As you come down, the turnaround is right here. The six acre park again in the central area. As you come to the west you run into the park and where my marker is. This particular parcel right here -- I'm going to switch back to the overall site plan. It stubs right to the north of the park. You can see a really -- Bruce is going to zoom in real quick. This road is going to extend -- the parcel essentially runs parallel with the rear of these houses. It's a long, narrow parcel. They are stubbing to this. The parks department is not in favor of allowing houses to back up to the parks, so the parks department, you will find in your notes, they have asked for these lots that I'm highlighting right now that are on the eastern side of the park, to have those lot removed, so that it's more open, so when the people drive by they can actually see in the park area. In addition to that, the police department would like to have open visibility into those park areas just to prevent crime. Part of the -- one of the questions that you will have in front of you tonight that I hope that you can discuss is that if we allow the stub street at this location, the only feasible way to develop this would be a double loaded street, basically put houses on the north side of it and houses on the south side of it, which creates the same situation we were hoping to avoid -- that the parks department is hoping to avoid to keep houses from backing up to the park. But this is a long narrow piece of property and we would like to see the connectivity. They are going to need some creativity concerning what we do with the parcel of ground. As you will notice there is no collector street that comes from Ten Mile into the subdivision. There is nothing from the subdivision that can get out to Ten Mile. In the future we would like to see a collector possibly to align with the road right here. I think it's -- I forget the name of this little street right now, but in the future we'd like to see that connected with a collector. You will notice in the staff report that there is a couple comments -- and I go to these in the staff report where these are at, but in the staff report we talk about requiring the collector to come through here, because that would be the most appropriate location for it. The houses would not be able to back up to that. The park would be able to get additional land from the property owner down here, which would be what the parks department would really like to see from this park is some additional acreage. The acreage that's provided is not the size they'd like. They'd like about five more acres to that park and they can pick that up if there was some additional land here that had no houses backing onto it with a collector that came across. The two houses and the church -- the house and the church that we talked about would be surrounded by the park. The one house sits right here surrounded on three sides. It's a nice house. And there is a smaller church that's going to be surrounded as well. Access to the park is limited in this area and it's very limited in this area, from these two points at Ten Mile Road. Back to my Power Point real quick. Okay. This is the area that we were just talking about and the stub street comes right to here and it's going to have to extend to Ten Mile and if we hope to not have any of the double loading on that street it's going to be very hard to develop that piece of property. This is just an overview. It just basically Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 49 of 87 says what lot size. It's very a large -- it's 862 single family dwellings, 171 multifamily dwellings, and office buildings, commercial, fire station, city park, and a private park and that includes all the different other lots that are there. I know the applicant is here tonight. They also have a Power Point presentation. I'm done with my presentation. I'll turn over the computer to them, so there will be some additional overheads for you to look at tonight. If I could ask the Commissioners to go ahead and grab your staff report, there is a few things I would like to talk about shortly. If you could turn to page three of the staff report. I talked a little bit about -- I'm going to go to the current owners of record. This is a list of all the current owners of record. The piece of property that we talked about that was surrounded on all four sides is not part of this subdivision. If they agree to become part of the subdivision, be annexed into this subdivision, they would be listed as one of the current owners of this and they would need to submit to us a letter that -- an affidavit of legal interest saying that they are okay to include themselves in this. In addition to that, they will have to be listed on the final plat on the signature page as being one of the owners of that property. I just wanted to point that out. There has been some discussion between the developer and the Mosses to go ahead and be annexed with part of this project. If I could turn your attention to page four of the staff report, item number D -- letter D. It talks about the change in the area and what's happened. There is -- the final sentence in that talks about the four arterial streets that wrap around this project. Chinden Boulevard is not truly an arterial street, it's a state highway, but the other two streets -- the other three streets that surround it -- and that would be Ten Mile, Linder, and McMillan, are not well improved roads. They are rural two lane roads at this time and we are putting a whole lot of vehicle trips, over 10,000 vehicle trips -- I think it's about 12,000 vehicle trips per day onto those roads and they are not improved. If you will refer to statement that the police department made regarding that, the police department is not in support of adding that many vehicles to this project. That's their major reason for requesting denial of this project. ACHD is behind the -- behind the curve. Those improvements are not going to be made as the project is developed. The project will be developed before those changes happen. I don't know if you have had a chance to review the ACHD requirements -- the many requirements they have for the improvements concerning deceleration lanes and center turn lanes, but they are behind the curve. So the police department is in opposition of this. If you could turn to the next page, page five, item G, the first sentence -- the first sentence of staff -- staff's recommendation on this finding. There is a letter dated April 19th from the Idaho Power Company stating that they are unable to serve Lochsa Falls without significant system upgrades. I talked to the developer, the developer's representative, concerning this. It sounds like they have a handle on this. Hopefully it won't be a major concern. It sounds like it's a money issue and it will be a requirement for the developer to put that in. The Public Works Department has some comments before I turn the microphone over to the -- to you again. I will make sure Bruce addresses the issues concerning public works. Page 6, Item J. I just want to highlight that Idaho Transportation Department did require the elimination of proposed access roads to Chinden Boulevard. That's one of the things I covered with the Power Point presentation. Page seven, top paragraph. At build out all four of the intersections will be at a level of service of F. And that's what the L-O-S stands for. The F stands for gridlock. Without this project we are still looking a level of service of F. We are looking at with this Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 50 of 87 project a much higher period of time to wait at those intersections. You will notice the final sentence says the Chinden and Ten Mile intersection, they approved the lighting at the northbound approach. That's the only one that's -- that's the only intersection that's scheduled for improvement in the five year work program. So we are talking about putting a great deal of traffic on these nonimproved roads or -- shouldn't say nonimproved, but under-improved roads. Page eight, item number eight. The Lochsa Falls annexation concerning the enclave parcels, it's staff recommendation that the Moss property be included with this, rather than allow an enclave to remain in the center. That's essentially what we are looking at with that. Item number nine on page eight talks about how we would like to see a collector put out to Ten Mile, but the location of that collector is not on the applicant's property, it's on Mr. Ed Bews' property, and we would like to see the applicant and Mr. Bews work together. However, we are not sure what the arrangements would be and hopefully we might be able to get some ideas with that. The demand is going to be there from this project. The park is going to demand a collector there and the number of houses in there, the majority -- not the majority, but a lot of the traffic that would use that would use that would be for the project that we are looking at tonight. Now I'm going to get really busy. Page ten, item B. Phasing. This project is proposing to bring the sewer line in from Ten Mile, bring it all the way over to Linder Road, making Linder Road the primary access, the immediate access for phase one. Phase one, being on Linder Road, makes that about a half a mile away from any other part of the City of Meridian that's being developed at this time. That would be Baldwin Park, which was just recently approved for the annexation and for the preliminary plat. We have in the past -- I know the Commission's opinion has not been that -- allowing people to develop from the outside in has been bad, but the Council has in the past denied projects for starting from the outside and moving back in. C, the potential elimination of the stub street to the future school site. Should a future school site -- go back again to the -- if there is a future school site -- could you move that down, Bruce? If there is a future school site, this stub street -- staff would be okay with eliminating the stub street if the school district does not want a stub street here. It doesn't make sense to provide a stub street into the school, if there was some changes with that, we wouldn't require them to come back to change their plat. Item number two on page ten of the site specific comments, preliminary plat, this is where we talk about the additional -- the additional access to Linder Road. Bruce, if I could get you to move that over to the -- a little bit further the opposite direction. Providing that access out to Linder Road right here provides some relief for these people to be able to access the road without having to wind serpentine throughout the subdivision to get to their homes and to backtrack. That would be something that would be preferable to allow for additional accesses to that project. Item number three. Staff is going to recommend that -- the wording on item number three in the site specific comments is going to have to change. The way it reads right now is the applicant shall submit a relinquishment letter to the 25 foot easement to the Moss out parcel prior to the City Council Public Hearing on the preliminary plat. We as staff can't force relinquishment, we can't force the developer to obtain that relinquishment at that time. It would be great to have an agreement in place, but we can't force the relinquishment of that easement at this time and it's not our ability to do that, we don't want to hold the developer over a barrel saying we won't put your preliminary plat before the Council unless you have that. That Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 51 of 87 puts an enormous amount of weight on what the Mosses do with that property. There is going to have to be some wording changes on that. I would appreciate your attempts at word smithing that to another wording. Page 11, item four. That's the elimination of the - - of the site to Chinden Boulevard again. Item number five, the 25 foot wide driveways are showing to the commercial property up on the north as a private drive. If you could move that down just a little, Bruce. They are proposing this to be a private drive. The applicant's proposal is to have a 25 foot wide private road. Our Planned Development Ordinance would go forward to say that that should be a 29 foot road with a sidewalk on one side. It can remain private, but should be built to ACHD standards and our Planned Development Ordinance supports that. Additionally, the easement that's shown on the site plan -- well, the plat that was presented by the applicant -- if you could move down here to the apartments. The applicant has proposed a 25 foot wide easement through here. That would also have to be a 29 foot private road that runs through those projects. All of the commercial, all of the apartments, and all of the office uses will be required to go through an additional Conditional Use Permit for a planned development that's going to be detailed at that time. We will see what the architectural features and how they are going to relate to each other with full control standards. Item number seven on page eleven, site specific, underneath the preliminary plat, that's the -- we are asking for a pedestrian pathway be placed through here, so that the people that live in the apartment complex, in order to get in to see people in this part of the area would have pedestrian access. Do that just to increase the connectivity, which is what we are hoping for with a planned development such as this. Item number eight. This is mostly for the applicant. You will notice that we restrict the tree planting and the parkways to either class one or class two trees as approved by the P&Z department. I know that the applicant was looking for that in writing. Item number nine, again, to the applicant. They received this just as late as the rest of the Commission. So looking at asking for the pathway to continue to the park. I hope that they have the opportunity to address that tonight. Item number ten on page 12, again, this is the discussion about how the applicant would work with Ed Bews concerning shared cost and effort on that collector. Staff has some concerns about how that's worded and would hope for some legal opinion concerning whether or not we can force the applicant to share in the cost of off- site improvement. I have some hesitancy on that. Item number 11, street buffer and open landscaping. The landscaping buffer that they showed up on Chinden need to be modified. All the way down to item number 14, other plat requirements. I talked a little bit about the park. The parks department is requesting that the lots that are immediately surrounding the park be eliminated. The parks department is asking us to eliminate that and we have made that a recommendation of the plat. Okay. If I could get you to turn to page 16. Standards for Conditional Use Permits. This is going to be under item A, that the site is large enough to accommodate all the yards and open space requirements. Because this project is a planned development, commercial and office uses that are on site should be the types of uses that the people in the subdivision use. If you'll look at the traffic impact study that was submitted by the applicant, they project that ten percent of the vehicle trips within the subdivision would be captured by people going to use the commercial and office uses that are provided on site, so rather than have to make it all the way out to arterials, they will go to just those office areas. Because of their location, the amount of parking spaces should be reduced. So we want to limit the amount of Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 52 of 87 parking to just over 20 percent of the minimal. Typically in commercial and office people don't shoot for the minimum, market standards request a higher than city ordinance standards. So we are requesting that they be limited to only 20 percent of -- their maximum parking should be 20 percent over the minimum required. Kind of a backwards way of saying it. We couldn't figure out another way of wording it. Page 18. Additional considerations. There is some open space configurations. The majority of the larger lots are the lots that are closest to the open spaces. The larger lots that are closest to the park are -- they tend to be the larger lots. People that have larger lots don't have as much of a need to go to a park, because they have a larger backyard, they have more open space of their own that's private. We'd like to see some modification with putting smaller homes, such as these on the south and those on the north that are adjacent to the office uses, have more access to the open space. They are the ones that are the furthest point away from all the open space within the project. Site specific comments. I already addressed the fact that all of the commercial, multi- family, and office uses will require separate Conditional Use Permits. Item number five on page 19. It gives you some wording concerning the 20 percent of the minimum ratios for the zoning ordinance for parking. Item number six is going to be a special concern I know to the applicant and to hopefully you as the Commission. With the site improvements that we are talking about, the park, the six acre park that's private for the use of those people that live within the subdivision, it's not part of the first phases of the project and so in order to have the open space amenities for those people that are the first people to buy into the project, rather than have to wait years until -- well, the park conditions, hopefully it won't be years and years, but it would be a specific time before they develop it, but until that park is developed, the people that are developing the first phases won't have a recreation area that would be provided to those people that come in at a later time, so the comment was that prior to the issuance of the 101st occupancy permit -- not building permit, occupancy permit for homes in the subdivision, the park should not completed, so those people have a place to recreate. One of the reasons that we said -- that staff recommends this is because this project, as you go from Linder Road, there -- the closest point to any other amenities within this area is to go all the way down to Tulley Park, which is miles away, and there is nothing in that four square miles in this area that provides the open space for those people to recreate in. So we felt it would be appropriate to require that park area to be developed for those people in that area, so that they wouldn't have to travel. The reason why that's occupancy, occupancy is so that we don't limit the number of building permits. Oftentimes people come in with larger projects, they get their building permits, they can build and they can be in the middle of building all the rest of the homes while these other ones are receiving occupancy. So if they reach their 101st occupancy, they can still continue to build homes, but they wouldn't be able to be occupied. That's the reason why we tie it to occupancy. And that brings me to the end. It's a big farm -- piece of farmland right now, with a huge project. Hopefully I was able to hit most of the highlights. Bruce I know has a couple comments that he would like to make. I would entertain questions, I know you probably have a few, but they will probably come as we go through the rest of the project. It's big and, like I said, we are going to recommend that this be continued tonight. There is still a few outstanding issues. We would like to see a few changes to the plat and we would like to be able to take to the Council a plat that you have Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 53 of 87 approved and you have seen. We are going to ask for it to be continued, so that the modifications that we have asked for can be made, in addition to whatever modifications you make or you may recommend be to done tonight. So you will have a change to look at it before it goes to Council. I'll turn my time over the Bruce really quick, let him have the floor for a second to address his issues concerning the Public Works Department, then we will both be open for questions. Freckleton: Thanks, Dave. Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission, I will try and be real brief here. As you're aware, the City of Meridian has just this week gone -- broke ground on the White Drain trunk sewer extension. It's one that we have been trying for a couple years to get going. This project will be yet another trunk line that serves this area. Basically the -- we call it the North Slough Trunk and it serves the mile between McMillan Road and Chinden Boulevard from Ten Mile to almost Eagle. This project -- this developer would be constructing the first -- basically getting this trunk line off the ground and constructing it through to Linder Road. Some of the concerns that we have with the project in regards to that trunk is the phasing pattern, first phase being Linder Road. That means that this trunk line needs to be built through proposed roadway alignments to serve the first phases over on Linder Road. The problems that this can create are -- basically it locks the developer into a roadway alignment. If these sewer lines are put into these future alignments, he's locked in, it doesn't give him any room for adjustments. Basically we wouldn't allow additional services to be placed on that off- site area for those future lots. As those phases developed from east to west, we would anticipate that they would basically have to dig down and install the services at that point in time. Similarly, the water would be brought into the subdivision. There is -- it's a little bit up in the air right now as far as the timing of water extension to this area. The Baldwin Park Subdivision would be bringing a trunk line -- or excuse me. Back up. They would be bringing a 12 inch water main up Linder Road to their north boundary, which is approximately three quarters of a mile from Ustick. This project plans on bringing water north on Ten Mile -- or, yeah, north on Ten Mile and then east on McMillan and into the development. I anticipate that both of those mains would need to be extended into this area to provide the loop, to provide the service for this area. But it's the same type of situation with bringing mains in an off-site area through a future development, it kind of locks in -- locks in roadway alignments. We don't want to be stuck in the future with having a main that goes across the front of somebody's lot or something like that. So those are some concerns we have. It's been done before. We are not totally against it, but I just want to make sure that the developer understands those concerns and the risks that are associated with them. In those off-site areas where the services would -- or the main would be brought through the future phases, we would require access roads be built over the top of those mains so that we had 24-hour, seven-days-a-week, 365-days-a-year access to those facilities in case we had problems. That about wraps that up. I'll stand for questions. McKinnon: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission, if I might add one more thing before you go to questions. I just wanted to get down to the recommendation and let you know that we, as staff, do support this project. We support the shorter block lengths that have been provided. We support the fact that they are including a city park with this Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 54 of 87 and a fire station. The issues we have got in front of us are essentially issues that we can work out in concept if it's something that we aren't in great support of, and I just wanted to make sure that that was related to -- I wasn't sure if my presentation brought that point across. Ask if there is any questions. Borup: Any questions from the Commissioners? Centers: Mr. Chairman. I had one question, Dave. The park that fronts on Ten Mile that you previously showed? McKinnon: Yeah. Let me go back to that. Centers: What is the actual size on the map there of that park? McKinnon: 24.6 acres. Centers: And the developer is deeding to the city five acres? McKinnon: Five acres. Centers: So the balance would be purchased at favorable terms, the way I read it? McKinnon: Or off-set by park impact fees. Centers: Where are the people going to park for that city park? McKinnon: Great question. That's part of the reason we'd like to see a collector on the south side of the park. Centers: Does it have to be a city park? McKinnon: Something of that size -- Centers: Something of that size -- excuse me -- that size of development, it could be a developer's park for their development. McKinnon: Yeah. It's -- Centers: Does the city really want it? McKinnon: The city would like to have that as one of our parks. It complies with the parks department park plan. Tom Kuntz, the park director, has been working with the developer in securing that land for a city park. With a private park the use limitations can be put in place, but with a city park there is open ability -- Centers: That may be -- Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 55 of 87 McKinnon: And the city parks department wants it and they would like to maintain it. Right now the City of Meridian does not have what the City Council believes to be enough park space and this is an opportunity for us to get that. Centers: I think I've read that someplace. Like every other week. Borup: Any other questions? Mr. Freckleton, just to -- did you say that the trunk line going through the project would not have any stubs -- any connections to any -- at the time that it's put in? Did I understand you right on that? Freckleton: Mr. Chairman, what I was referring to is as it -- as it takes the route through the development in the proposed roadway alignments, we would not allow future lot services to be installed at that point in time -- Borup: Oh, I see. Allow services -- Freckleton: Right. Borup: But it would include any major trunk line extensions -- Freckleton: If the routing took it by one of the stub streets, for instance, that goes through an adjacent parcel, that would definitely be a good time to put those in. Borup: Okay. That's what I was wondering. That's what I felt that it would make a lot of sense to do it at that time. Okay. Would the developer like to do their presentation? Bowcutt: Becky Bowcutt, 1405 West Chance Court, Eagle. I'm representing the applicant in this matter. I'd like to thank the staff, they have done an excellent job in their analysis and review. We are in agreement with your staff that due to the size and complexity of this project we, obviously, want to introduce you to the project this evening, but we are in agreement that it should be deferred for any decision. Just to kind of give you a little bit of history of how we came about the design that's before you this evening, my clients were with another firm and they submitted a formal application with the planning department. At that time it could not be processed, because it was not contiguous to the city limits until Bridgetower crossing was officially annexed. That particular design was not a planned development, it did not incorporate the ideas that have come about from many meetings with the North Meridian Planning Group. It was just a very large residential subdivision, with no diversity, pretty much single product type lots. Mr. Goldsmith came to me and asked my opinion of that project and I indicated to him that that was not what I believe the City of Meridian was looking for, nor was that in line with what the North Planning Group was trying to plan in this particular area for the future. He withdrew that application and we redesigned the project and this is what we came up with. One of the things that was discussed in length was the issue of continuous collectors versus non-continuous collectors and as you can see, this project has a continuous collector. This is the half mile and in our -- Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 56 of 87 Borup: Maybe for the audience, the one on the board is the same one that we are looking at. Is that correct? Bowcutt: Yes. Out of those meetings what was discussed was that we should, one, limit our access points, including public street accesses, to arterials, so that we have better functioning arterials in the future, because that's what chokes them is all the ingress and egress points. The recommendation was that collectors be placed at the half mile. That's exactly what we have done. At Chinden Boulevard this is at the half mile. It is a continuos collector, it comes down and terminates -- Borup: Becky, the recorder is having a little bit trouble hearing. Is this cord long enough to -- Bowcutt: At Chinden Boulevard we have an intersection at the half mile. That continuous collector comes in and then terminates into this rotary. The size of this rotary is extremely large. It's not small at all. It's about 1.85 acres in the interior of that rotary. This is the half mile mark out on Linder and we have a continuous collector that comes in here. This is the half mile mark out on McMillan and that is a continuous collector coming in here. One of the things that was discussed with the city staff and the Highway District and some of the other developers in this North Meridian area is should we provide these continuous collectors. The argument is they take a lot of the burden off of our arterials, because they allow interconnectivity within the section and that's one of the problems we've had in the past with subdivisions 40 acres, 80 acres, that we have fragmented developments with poor interconnectivity and lacking collectors. We went the extra mile, even though this was not mandated by the district, the traffic volumes could have been modified so that we did not need these, but we wanted to do that, because we felt it was important. It cuts the traffic down by ten percent because of all the interconnection between the varying uses and the varying mile arterials. The other thing that was discussed was the fact that we don't want the collectors to become what we call a de facto arterial. A defacto arterial would be like North View, for example, it functions even though it's at the half mile, it's a de facto arterial. So in talking with your staff and kicking out some ideas, I came up with this rotary and I thought that -- you know, then it's just not a straight through connection between these mile arterials. The parks department on their comprehensive plan has indicated that they want a community park along Ten Mile Road. There are three parks in the north area, C1, C2, and C3. C1 and C3 are designated 25 acres. This is C2. It was designated as 30 acres as being the preference. In my conversations with Mr. Kuntz, we have met multiple times, and I told Tom, you know, I will allocate as much area as I possibly can. The size of this is 24.69 acres, I believe. He also wanted access -- in his comp plan he asked -- it states that there will be access on an arterial collector or -- and two -- two of the sides should have frontage on a public street and so that's what we provided here. He did disagree with these lots being placed here. My client, obviously, thought that it was reasonable. As far as the park is concerned, we want to do our part for the community and a lot of the people in the City of Meridian and a lot of the Council members have been asking what is this project going to do for our community, what are you going to Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 57 of 87 provide the City of Meridian. What we are providing is five acres will be donated to the city. The remainder will be reimbursed at cost, not any inflated cost to compensate for the five acres, but at -- what the raw ground costs was, approximately, and it would paid with future impact fees from this area. So there is money out of the city pocket whatsoever. The other thing that was asked of us was the fire station lot along this Linder Road corridor was needed. We have provided that here. We pulled it back from the intersection, so that we have good accessibility to that arterial. In your comment from your fire department they stated that the size and location was acceptable. This -- we decided to put a private park in here. Obviously, we had to allocate open space, the five percent. We have exceeded that. This is about roughly six acres. All of this open space here around that rotary adds up to about eleven acres. So we have a real nice interior landscaped core and that's what we tried to provide is make that open space as accessible as possible and centrally locate -- central location is the best. There will be a full basketball court, a gazebo, and some playground equipment in there. We will show you some pictures of that -- those amenities that we are going to provide. We want to provide other playground equipment in some of these pocket parks, which they will double for storm drainage. Under ACHD requirements they have to be sloped at no greater than four to one. Shari's staff has been working with us on other projects to make sure that these are usable areas. Otherwise, they can't be counted as open space. So we -- this particular one is about I think 39,000 square feet, approximately. We will be placing another one up in this area where we will put some playground equipment also. What I told your staff is we had some issues in the past where I showed some open -- open space was shown at one location and when the engineers go into their hard design, sometimes that's not necessarily the best place for that open space to be located, so we moved it to another location and then, obviously, made that lot. But we didn't increase the number of lots. But the staff has taken a pretty hard line that, you know, when the preliminary plat's approved, that is what is approved. You can't move open space around. So I told your staff since I exceed the required open space, we know we are going to add open space here, but I'm just not sure where I'm going to place it. Their comment is consolidate that area, make it usable, and put some type of play equipment provided for these lots. We have five different types of residential product here. This is what we call a bubble area and it's ten acres. We have a number of -- 171 multi-family units designated for that. They will have to come back through before this body as a Conditional Use Permit, which you guys will evaluate, obviously, style and site plan landscaping, etc. But the number of units is fixed. Along these minor -- the minor arterial here at McMillan, these are office lots, we go -- so office lots, then we transition to a multi-family and then it transitions to about 6,500, 7,000 square foot lots here. As we move north into the interior the lots get larger and larger and larger. These lots here range from about 90 wide to 150 in depth. All of our lots have excellent depth. I think we are about 108, 109 is our shallowest depth. Most of them are 110 and 115 and 120 and on up. We have office along Chinden Boulevard, because it is a principal arterial. ITD has indicated to me that they are going to start planning and going into design for five lanes all the way to Caldwell. They don't know when they will build it or when funds will be available to construct it, but they are making those plans at this time. We placed this intersection here at the quarter mile, because their policy plan allows for it. In my conversations with them, they said go ahead and put it on your plan, Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 58 of 87 we can't guarantee that you will get it, but show it anyway. Obviously, as your staff indicated, their comment is they do not want this access. It does not -- it's not detrimental to the project if we eliminate that, because we have this huge collector here to gather that traffic. These are office lots, which do not take any direct lot access to Chinden, but will take access off of a private road that comes across here. We have really evaluated the adjoining properties to determine where the best locations for stubs streets should be. We have 13 stub streets on this project and we stub to parcels in multiple locations to give them maximum flexibility. We also, with the interconnection to the office, this is not a park, so if that were to be commercial they would have interconnection with us. I have a public street connection here and then a private connection here. Your staff has indicated they want one here. We showed it as an easement, they wanted a separate lot. This is a 15 acre commercial corner that I got approved with Bridgetower Crossing. Adjoining that 15 acres is an additional 65 acres that my other client, Mr. Bews, owns, which we will start sketching a design here shortly, but he doesn't have any intentions on submitting applications quite yet. The lots up here range from 6,500 and then as you -- like I said, as you go into the interior they get larger and larger. Across the street here a high school is proposed. Wendel Bigham of Meridian School District is in negotiations with Mr. Johnson and Mr. Turnbull, who have a partnership on the property east of Linder to make this a high school site. One of the things that they are working on was there was a long, skinny parcel here, they were working on trying to acquire that house parcel, so that they can line up with this -- this intersection at the half mile. With that high school there, signalization will have to be installed and being at the half mile, that's, obviously, the optimum place for it. I'll go over some of the facts that we have here. We do -- we are under the Planned Unit Development asking for the 20 percent exception. We are asking for an R-4 zone and annexation. We are contiguous to the city limits at McMillan Road. Bridgetower Crossing has annexed clear to this point here, which is the intersection of McMillan and Linder. So, really, where the city limits lie right now here to where our first phase is located would be one quarter of a mile and then you have Baldwin Park further south on the east side of Linder. Under the planned development, even though it's an R-4 zone designation, we are allowed 20 percent nonconforming use. What we are proposing here is approximately a little over nine percent nonconforming use, so we are not pushing the envelop by any means. That's allowing us to have the diversity that you see here, which is the direction which we have been going in that north Meridian plan. Open space, excluding -- not including the park at all, we have 32.42 acres of open space. So, like I said, we do exceed the five percent minimum requirements. For the -- I'd like to go into Power Point, so I can show you the products on that. Okay. We'll go through this first. What we wanted to show you was what would be generated as far as this project is concerned, because everyone always says, you know, who is providing these services, where are these dollars going to come from. These are funds that would be paid from ACHD through impact fees by the builders of the residential and the office and commercial lots. 1.648 million dollars, approximately, would be generated. We don't have any projects where we see ACHD go in and build five lanes or a developer go in and build five lanes and then the first subdivision starts developing. You have to keep in mind that with our system of impact fees those dollars aren't generated until these projects start coming on line. This is, approximately, a seven to ten year project. It's Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 59 of 87 large, yes. It's massive. It's the biggest you have ever seen. That's true. But it's no different than any other project that's come before you where there is an 80 and then maybe you see the 60 next door to it a month later or a couple months later and then another 40. In fact, that's the most difficult type of planning when you're dealing with fragmented parcels. Here we have an opportunity to take a large parcel and do it what I call right, not make the mistakes that we have made in the past. And we have been -- in the North Meridian Planning Group, we have been working with the highway district to come up with some system of accelerating the improvements on these roadways through -- extraordinary impact fees have been discussed, LID's have been discussed, developers going in and bringing the road say at the three lanes, ACHD reimbursing them, but it's going to take some policy changes on ACHD's part and it's going to take a different outlook from the development community, because this is kind of a new area. We are blazing a new trail here. However, this turns out, ACHD has place a condition upon me that if any extraordinary impact fees or any agreement is made on this north Meridian area, that this project will be subject to it. So it does not get under the door or anything like that and my clients are fully aware of that. If we go to the next one. This shows you the off-site sewer and water. The White Drain Trunk was taken north on Ten Mile at a little over half a mile to the north -- or the White Drain Trunk goes to the east and that's what Bruce referred to as under construction at this time. The Bridgetower project took -- has taken the sewer within approximately 400 feet south of McMillan Road. This project will have to pick up that -- that is a 27 inch sewer main and extend it up Ten Mile Road and then it will have to be extended across to Linder. In a perfect world we would be developing right over there at Ten Mile, but the city parks department has this designated for a park, so we have to look at an alternative. Secondly, we have got to look at the fact that there is going to be a high school there. Keltic -- Keltic Heights Subdivision, they are in a design right with Mr. Turnbull and Mr. Johnson, and they are going to be requiring sewer. I think that coming from Linder for the first phase makes the most sense. Bruce is right, when you go down future streets it -- the burden is upon us to make sure that it's right. Some of the water main and sewer main will be running in the collector. But we will have some of it running down a future residential street. That's something we will have to workout with your staff. But it is on our dime and not on the city's. Water is approximately right at about 50 feet south of McMillan and Ten Mile intersection. That will have to be extended. As Bruce indicated, we will have to loop that system. The timing of that will be contingent on, obviously, the water model and the number of dwellings that come on line. If we go to the next one. The hookups fees provided by the builders is 1.896 million dollars. So that kind of gives you an idea of those funds that will be generated that will be able to be obligated for additional capacity to your sewer plant or other projects that the city has in the works. As far as water is concerned, 844,800 dollars in hookup fees would be paid, which would go into your fund for wells and tanks and so forth. We went through and did some approximate medium home values -- or I believe at around 200,000 dollars, then we factored in the homeowners exemption of 50,000, using the current levy, that's the yearly taxes that would be generated by this project at build out and, obviously, that -- those tax revenues could be allocated for additional police and other emergency staff. The same holds true for the fire station. We are providing a fire station site and we are within two miles of the new fire station just north of Cherry Lane on the west side of Ten Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 60 of 87 Mile and that's one factor that a lot of municipalities, including the City of Boise, look at when annexing property, are you within approximately two miles of an existing fire station and that's important and, yes, we are. As far as a city park, the park impact fees under your current fees will generate approximately 526,395 dollars. If we go to the next one. There is a breakdown based on the 80 acres that the parks department has planned in this north corridor that they want to acquire and the projection is -- it says population, but it's number of dwellings, 15,912 estimated dwellings and that was done by Washington Group and ACHD on their estimates. If we take your current impact fees and we calculate that by that 15,912 single family dwellings, as you can see it's generating about 8,417,000 dollars. So as far as in excess of what it will take to build those parks and acquire that land -- and those numbers came from your parks department -- you would have in excess of 417,448. Your parks department is currently in the process of raising that impact fee and I think they have gotten support from the development community that if that's what it takes to get these parks built, so be it, and I haven't heard anybody say anything negative about that fee being increased. It will yield approximately 729,000 dollars and then, as you can see, that jumps to 11,599,000, or in excess of 2,799,000. That just gives you a breakdown on what we are doing with the park, on the five acres of park, the raw ground cost estimated 30,000 dollars. So 150,000 dollars is what the developer's contribution would be in allocation of the five acres towards the park. They are not asking for any monies, they are not adding any interest on the remainder, they just sit tight and wait for some impact -- future impact fees to be credited to them. In talking with Tom, we have been trying to come up with some areas where we could be assured that those dollars would be used for the parks that adjoin them. Right now north Meridian dollars could be allocated to south Meridian. So we tried through C1 and C2 come up with kind of a bubble when you look at a radius, a radius really didn't work and so we kind of came up with this idea that for this C2 that could be potentially an area for reimbursement where those dollars would be allocated to that C2 park and not going somewhere else. Also in the park's plan it states that a community park should be developed when approximately 50 percent of its service area is developed. And that's right out of the plan. As far as the school district is concerned, Wendel Bigham and Tom Kuntz got together and they discussed how they would deal with some of these projects in this north Meridian area and in other areas. One thing that they talked about was that they would not both demand a site within the same project, it would be too much, and so they said, well, if you need a park on that particular property or in that particular area, then I will pass on the school and I will get the next project that comes in or try to find an alternative site. Yes, they want a school site in this section. But we did get a letter from Wendel that they were not requiring an elementary site in this particular project. When I talked to Wendel a couple of weeks ago, Wendel indicated that he was in negotiations with this parcel here to try to put an elementary right back here and he was asking how much flexibility he had on this collector road and my comment to him was you have maximum flexibility as far as where your access points would go and that would be perfect for a school, because you have the collector built right there for you and it would be very cost effective for the district. As far as taxes, that's what the homeowners would be paying in taxes that would be allocated to the school district, 2,530,000. This is just a breakdown based on the current levy and the information from the tax assessor, the different tax Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 61 of 87 categories that this particular project would be under and the number of dollars based on our units that would be generated. Obviously, you see that the biggest one is the school district at 2.5 million and we have got the City of Meridian at 1.1, ACHD, Ada county, and etc. So we have a total 5,490,000 in tax revenue generated by the project. These are the fees that would be paid by the builders. What we did is got the current impact fees and hookup fees. As you can see, the park impact fee of 526,395, ACHD's impact fees 1,6 million, approximately. Sewer hookups to the city would be 1.896. Water hookup 844,000. Building permits would generate around 750,000. Water meter is 177. And then the IRES, which is an energy study, some nominal fee that they tack onto the building permits. It gives you a total of 5,868,000 dollars in hookup fees and impact fees. This is one of the amenities. This is a waterfall feature that would be located in the entryway island. They plan to have two of them, one up on the Chinden main entrance from the collection and then on the main collector entrance off of Linder here at the half mile. That's just kind of a blowup of that area. As I indicated to you, there is approximately 11 acres in open space there. The park on that north side is six acres. We intend to make that usable. We will have a water feature in the rotary, plus landscaping. This gives you an idea. There is an example of the type of gazebo that we want to put in that private park. The play equipment that we are talking about is not just the play equipment that you pick up at ShopKo for your backyard, we are talking, we are talking heavy duty play equipment like parks departments purchase. They cost from 20 to 30 thousand dollars and we will be putting one around that dollar value in the six acre park and then the pocket parks, the two areas we want to put the playground equipment, it will be about 12 to 15 thousand dollars. And then you saw the water feature as a fountain. As far as the landscaping, we would be putting trees in the landscape offset or five foot of landscaping with a four foot detached sidewalk to give it a nice community feel. Also it gives the appearance that the roadway is narrower than it seems. Flowers would be planted around the trees. It just really adds to the open space look and just a nice warm feel. Our street sections that we are proposing in this project are not 36 back to back, but are 33 back to back. ACHD is allowing us some flexibility, less pavement, less asphalt, and allowing us to have more landscaping and we are excited about that. It's -- the cross-section was provided to your staff for their review. This is a stone retaining wall at the entrance and you can see -- that just kind of gives you an idea of where they build with some type of stone layered look at that entrance and then the waterfall, obviously, at the median . As far as fencing is concerned, we will have stained wood fence along the berms, collector streets, so it would be sight obscuring. Where ever we have pedestrian pathways or pocket parks, anyplace that in order to have -- for safety purposes we need visibility, we will have that wrought iron fence with the wood posts. I think in the staff report staff indicated four foot maximum height for non-sight obscuring fencing. In discussion with your staff prior to the meeting, they said if -- since we are doing a PUD, we could request that that be five feet, because we are allowed some flexibility from the standards of the ordinance and we would like that to be on the record that we would like to five feet for the non-sight obscuring fencing. One of the things, like I said, was connectivity and diversity. That's what we have tried to provide with this development. It's just not another subdivision. We are providing efficient access to the different areas and we are exceeding requirements of the highway district and the city. We have got 1.5 miles of collectors, Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 62 of 87 plus we are proposing pathways that will connect to some of these detached sidewalks. The highway district has given us some flexibility to work with their staff to try to do an enlarged pathway on the south side of the collector that runs east and west. We do need the flexibility that if we can't come to an agreement with the highway district on the pedestrian crossings, then it would, obviously, default to four foot sidewalks, both sides, detached, versus eight or ten feet just on one side. This gives you an idea with the colored chart on the diversity of the lots. As you can see, the different colors represent the different types of lot sizes and dwelling sizes, also would be related to that. And there are five. And that gives you the frontages. Like I said, the lots I believe range from -- we have about 6,500 all the way up to 20,000 square feet. As far as Lochsa Falls and how it benefits this community, we are providing a fire station, donating the five acres, carrying the park, and accepting impact fee credits on that and future funds. We are providing an over-size sewer trunk line that will extend eastward, as Bruce indicated, all almost to Eagle Road, eventually, and we will be putting that in, obviously, at our expense and funding the cost for design. We have a good development here. We have an opportunity to take this section of land and do something unique and very impressive and make a real community and not just another development or subdivision out of this property. This is complex. Like I indicated to your staff earlier, I do want the opportunity to respond to each of staff's comments individually in writing and have that available to you prior to the next meeting. We are in agreement on most areas. There is just a couple of issues that we are not in agreement on and a couple that we could probably work with the staff and come to some middle ground. But your staff has been great, we have worked closely with them and the highway district and I'd like to say I'd like to thank them for all their work on this. Do you have any questions? Borup: Any questions for Ms. Bowcutt? Very thorough. Any additional comments from staff before we go to public testimony? Okay. It looks like we have got about a half hour left for -- and maybe -- and hopefully it won't take that long. We had four people that signed up for testimony. Do those four still want to come forward. Kathy Nelson, did you still wish to testify? Tony Moss? Moss: Tony Moss, 2400 West McMillan. I'm the infamous easement. Just thought I would tell you that up front, so you could understand where I'm coming from here. I really hadn't heard about this development too much before about I think two or three weeks ago Becky got ahold of me and we started to discuss what was going on and give some preliminary information about it. I'm opposed to it. I'm opposed to it for a number of reasons, but I want to get them on record to tonight and just be able to possibly explain in a little bit of detail what I'm talking about here. As I look at the development right now, it looks a little lopsided and Commissioner Centers made that comment earlier, why is the park, such a large park, located next to Ten Mile Road, when the entire community does not have the benefit -- cannot benefit from the park, because it isn't located in the center of the whole development. That is one major issue that kind of keyed me off about the whole project to start with, but let me give you my laundry list here and I will -- Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 63 of 87 Borup: Maybe just to clarify that, I think that was where the parks department wanted access, from Ten Mile. Moss: But I look at the Comprehensive Plan and the location of the little star here as far as where the parks are possibly located, it's closer to my house and I kind of like that, instead of closer to the developer's house, which is right next to the developer's house on Ten Mile Road. Centers: Those little stars are approximates. Moss: I realize that. It just looked a lot better when I looked at it from this map, as opposed to this map here. But to make a long story short, what I'd like to do is just recount my objections to the project or the things I'd like to change to it and get a little bit of discussion along those lines. The apartment building on Ten Mile Road -- or, excuse me, on McMillan Road, I don't think that's a very wise decision and I would be against that right off the bat. Two lane road, a lot of congestion, plus the fact that it's such a long distance away from Chinden, which is the natural way of getting in and out of the area, whether it be to Garden City or whether it be to Caldwell. The proposed apartment lots -- excuse me -- the proposed lots near my house are half the size of the lots next to the park, next to the developer's house. Now my house is as big as the developer's house and the lot is the same size and I would like to see the same kind of consideration as far as property values that the developer has. There is only about five people left in the whole section out here, so I'm little bit -- how would say -- a lame duck, but there is a lot of ducks around and I wouldn't like to see him get all the ducks, as opposed to me, being a park is surrounding his house and I have in my area, which is the large square at the lower -- Centers: You're right here? Moss: Right there. I have got nine houses around my one house on the proposal. I don't like that. The next thing. I would like to see around my house -- and I don't think I'm being selfish here, I would like to see on the north side one house and on the south side two houses and I also would like to see on the east side, the caddy corner lot, Lots 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14, to be a park. I don't think that's too much of a sacrifice from the standpoint of there is other parks in the area, why can't I get the benefit of that, considering my house is the same size as the developer's house. Borup: Do you own five acres, sir? Moss: I'm on an acre and a half. Borup: Acre and a half? Moss: Uh-huh. Mr. Borup, the house is the same size, I don't know if his lot is the same size as mine is. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 64 of 87 Borup: Right. Moss: Also the -- I'd like to see a berm between the housing -- the houses that are built around my house and also the area around where the proposed park that I'm proposing is, if at all possible, to be able to have some kind of buffer between my property line and the rest of the houses involved there. I have lived out here for 11 years -- Borup: Did you say you want a buffer between your place and the park? Moss: No. My place and the houses on both sides -- of the north side and the south side. I've lived there for 11 years and the particular section is down to just about four or five families and this is a major development here and I would have thought that I would have some consideration from the developer, because of simply I live in that section and I have about the same property size and the same house size as the developer does, but I haven't heard about this whole development until about, oh, I would say a month and a half ago. So I don't really have a good taste in my mouth about the whole thing, because we talk about quality of life here with other developments and we had a great quality of life and I just am amazed that a development of this size would be put to the test in this particular section. I can't believe this is my bad luck, but it does happen and I understand progress and I understand things have to happen. I guess the last thing that I would want to want to see is if I have to give up my easement for one reason or another, a certain amount of conditions would have to apply to that and I have spoken with Becky today and in the past and we are working on some details, but I'm still a ways away from being able to make a firm judgment on what I want to do. I'm not trying to hold up progress, I'm not trying to hold up the development, I'm just saying that I think I deserve some consideration with very little contact with the developer, it kind of came at me a little bit blindsided. The only other -- last thing is I just wonder how the entryway on McMillan doesn't have a waterfall, doesn't have that nice landscaping that the one on Linder and the one Chinden do. Why is that? And also the entryway at Chinden on this development doesn't match with the entrance to Spur Wing, so if they are going to put a light there, how is that going to work? The whole plan is very complicated, very complex, but I sure wish that I had the size of lots by my house that he has by his house and a park in this development. Centers: He lives right there? Moss: Right. That's all I got. I hope to have more later. Borup: Any questions for Mr. Moss? Centers: Well, you understand that the hearing will be continued? Moss: Oh, I will be back. Yeah. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 65 of 87 Borup: Mr. Moss, I did have a question and I am surprised that you hadn't been contacted before now, especially surrounded as you are. How are you presently gaining access to your property? Moss: The easement that goes up from McMillan Road along right through there. Borup: So that's just an easement on someone else's property? Moss: Yes. I didn't realize that Dan Gibson was a part of this. I knew he was probably part of it, but I didn't know he was part of the development. Dan Gibson and I have not gotten along very well, so I can understand why this is happening to me like this, over the years when we have had problems, because of the turf farm or one reason or another, water rights, Settler's Irrigation District, access, this and that, and I can understand that, but that's my ingress and egress to my property. Borup: But that's not a permanent easement? Moss: It's a permanent easement. Borup: It is a permanent easement? Moss: Recorded. Borup: And that is on this parcel or on the other parcel next to it? Moss: The parcel that the easement is on is from McMillan Road and that's Dan Gibson's property to my property line and then it stops there and then on the other side -- I gave him an easement across my property line that goes all the way to about where the edge of the park is. Borup: That far north? Moss: Yeah. It's 80 acres of turf farm and trees. Borup: So you haven't been approached about changing your access to the property or are they saying just leave that existing easement as one option? Moss: That's an option and then if the terms we agree to or possibly agree to changes as far as not having nine houses around my house and having a park there and a few things I discussed with Becky, yeah, I would probably be willing to do something here, but I just feel cheated, because the size of the lots are so densely packed right around my house -- Borup: Did you look at the size? Do you realize they are 16,000 square feet? Moss: Uh-huh. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 66 of 87 Borup: Okay. Moss: And I don't mean to be -- I don't want you to feel sorry for me, but I have a big lot and they are putting some around me like this, it's just that I just, for the life of me, can't figure out why there is 20 acres of park up here and the people on their side of the subdivision are going to have to drive to get to this part, why wasn't it located in the middle? It seems lopsided to me. Borup: How did you -- I'm still confused how you ended up with an acre and a half with no public street access that far off the road. Moss: First of all, it's a miracle. I bought the house and then it just -- Centers: You bought it with the easement at the time. Moss: Yes. The guy that owned the house before me, he had the 80 acres around it and -- Borup: Okay. He sold off the -- Moss: Yeah. He sold it off to Dan Gibson is the way it worked. Borup: Then when the house was built they owned the 80 acres and the house was built in the middle of it or something? Okay. Moss: That's all I had. Any other questions? Centers: Well, just a comment. They really can't put the park in the subdivision and call it a city park. It's got to be -- I don't necessarily agree with that, you know, but if it were within the subdivision, you know, and not accessed by a major street -- that was my contention. I would like to see parking on Ten Mile for the park and then they don't have to do the arterial or another street, but they have got to have street frontage. Moss: If this is a planned community with access to parks and for families and everything else, I don't see that. Centers: Personally, I'd love to see it in the subdivision and they can have it and they can maintain it and -- but that's another tune. Moss: Anymore questions? Thank you. Borup: Thank you, sir. Sheridan Kooyers, did you still wish to testify? Kooyers: My name is Sheridan Kooyers and I live across the road from the development on Linder Road, across Linder, and my major concern is the -- as your Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 67 of 87 staff had pointed out earlier, the congestion in the area. Right now, in my opinion, the traffic at Linder and Chinden right now in the mornings at 7:30 is almost unbearable, but that's an opinion. If you live in L.A. you'd think it was very very light. But it's backed up to my neighbor's house, that light, in the morning, and it takes you three cycles to get through to make a right on Chinden. So right now the traffic is already bad there, in my opinion, and add this amount of traffic without there being any major improvements to the roads, would really irate -- you would have -- the accident levels would increase, we would have a lot of irate drivers and things, I would -- I'm not opposed to this development per se, any development. It's a beautiful development. I don't like the R-4 proposal. I'd rather see it as an R-2. You've got Spur Wing to the north, which is much larger lots, 700 to a million dollar homes, million dollar homes, and you have got maybe a high density as you go towards Meridian. I would like to see maybe a transition zone here, like half acre lots or -- to give more of a transition from a lower density, which is north of Chinden, which has larger lots and the transition to higher density lots as you move down towards Meridian. But I understand you have got a major artery at Chinden, but it's not designed to handle the traffic. And then you have got this subdivision that's behind me, which is going to come to you in the next few months, which is over 900 homes and that's another huge subdivision and I'm not sure what's happening to the south, but I know when I drive out towards Caldwell there are things going on out there, so the traffic along that corridor -- it just ought to be a freeway with interchanges and overpasses. I mean you get my point. That's my major concern. Thank you. Borup: Thank you. Centers: Thank you. Borup: Diane Richter, did you still wish to testify? Richter: My name is Diane Richter and I own property at 5710 North Linder. I have a little parcel that Mr. Johnson and Mr. Turnbull are going to connect with this, which I have under contract with them. I just wanted to let you know. My problem is having a large frontage and I have owned it for about 15 years. Usually I would say average of two roll overs or wrecks in my yard and I have three acres, so I have got a long frontage and right now, as was said before, the traffic is backed up almost a good half a mile in the mornings and in the evenings and when I came back down just recently it was closed and it was wonderful. There was hardly any traffic. So I do really like the way the concept is. I'm kind of a country girl, don't really like congestion, but so I have a problem with congestion with small lots and the density of the property, but it's a beautiful plan, but I think as far as the highway department is, it's always after the fact, after the need presents itself and if anyone of us can get enough pressure for widening it and producing a good plan to be able to support this definitely. That's what I needed to say. Borup: Do you have any suggestions for a good plan? Richter: Huh-uh. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 68 of 87 Borup: I think we would like to see it, too, but I'm not sure how you get the money first. Zaremba: For both of those last two speakers, I was trying to find out in our notes, I'm pretty sure that the ACHD has already designated that intersection as operating at a level of service F, which is their worst -- it's like school, A through F, F is failure, and they were saying that the waits there will increase -- I'm not finding it right now. The current wait at that intersection I think is 110 seconds and they are saying this will pick up to 220, but they are not saying that they are going to fix the road. ACHD has to do that. Borup: Do we have anyone else that would like to testify? Final comments from the applicant? You already mentioned earlier on continuing it. Bowcutt: Yes. I'd just like to address, you know, some of the comments made by some of the adjoining residents. We did have a neighborhood meeting on this project because of its size, even though the city does not require it. We did have pretty good attendance. I made sure that we gave everyone information -- as much information as possible, so that they could come here this evening and know what was before this body. I have worked with Mr. Moss, I have spent a lot of time, you know, trying to educate him on what the process is and I did take his parcel into consideration, the size of his home, the size of his parcel being an acre and a half in my design. It's always tough when you have got something like that and he's got -- he's got this easement that comes back to him and so the only thing that I could do, with this being at the half mile, was swing this collector over here. He has the option of -- he could take access at that collector. My recommendation to him, because his driveway is already oriented this way, would be that this -- when this develops, that this lot be given to him and this be paved into his parcel, therefore, giving him public street frontage. I swung this street up to try and make these deeper. These lots are bigger here. I can even push it down a little bit more and give it more depth and separation. Here to the east I have only got one lot that adjoins him. So I did -- I was sensitive to the fact that that parcel is there and what could be done. He asks why is the park not in the center of the development? Because this is a community park and not a neighborhood park. There will be soccer games and baseball games and you're going to have people coming from two miles or even more and these parks generate a lot of traffic and they need visibility and access to the arterials and that's where they are supposed to be. That's why within the interior we have our own private park for the smaller kids where parents can watch their kids in a more intimate type setting. As far as the Spur Wing entrance, the Spur Wing entrance is not at the half mile mark. It leads to a very low density residential development. Those homes are over 1,500 feet away from us. That entrance is non-negotiable. That's where ITD says it's going to go. If we are going to improve our roadway networks, we are going to have to start limiting the accesses, having signals at the half mile, try to get more interconnectivity and that's exactly what we are showing here. I think that's all I have to say. I'm running out of steam. Centers: Let me ask you, Becky, you're going to work with staff and -- first, let me ask what was your preference on the next meeting, the second meeting in the July or -- Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 69 of 87 Bowcutt: I guess we -- I think, you know, we will be ready whenever we can get on the next available hearing. I know your schedules are -- get pretty busy. Centers: I guess we will be thinking about that, but you're going to try and put something together for that park to be on a dedicated street? Bowcutt: Well, I guess, you know, you asked where are people going to park. We just show this as green. There is no -- you know, there is no park design from your parks department. What I envisioned here is -- Centers: Well, the staff and recommended the street. Bowcutt: Right. And what staff is saying is since this is the half mile, they envision some type of collector coming in here and then coming back. I have got three stub streets that will go to the west and interconnect and link up with this collector. Tom says he'd like to get another four or five acres. This is a real narrow parcel, this gentleman, he was at hour neighborhood meeting, his home is there, that's one opportunity. But the other opportunity is this collector is here, then he could potentially negotiate with my client Mr. Bews to try to get some additional land. I have already informed them that they can't back lots up to it, so that gives them two choices, either they single load like this street is where there is no lots on one side or you do a collector. A collector would be the best alternative. That would then give access to the park off a collector. Centers: And he's talking parking, isn't he? Bowcutt: As far as -- Centers: Public parking. Bowcutt: No. I think -- Mr. Kuntz? Centers: Yes. Bowcutt: No. What Mr. Kuntz is saying is he wants a collector to get into the park. Centers: Okay. But where are the people going to park? When they come from my house they have to park. Bowcutt: They have to have a parking space. Centers: I know. Is he talking a parking lot? Bowcutt: Yeah. It will be a parking lot. Centers: It will be here? Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 70 of 87 Bowcutt: Exactly. Centers: Okay. Okay. Thank you. Bowcutt: Yes, sir. Centers: Good. Borup: The 18th is our second -- is the second meeting in July. I think we have already filled up the 11th, of course, but -- Centers: You have that earlier one. Borup: Yeah. Centers: Oh. Okay. On the 11th and the 18th. Borup: Because of the Fourth of July. Centers: Right. Borup: Yeah. Our first -- Zaremba: First and third. Borup: Our first meeting moved one week because of the holiday. I think, Becky, is the 18th enough time? Bowcutt: Yes. Borup: You don't want to go to August? Bowcutt: No, sir. Borup: Did we have a motion to that effect? Any other discussion we need before -- Centers: I would move that we continue this Public Hearing for Items 7, 8, and 9, Item 7, AZ 02-010, Item 8, PP 02-009, and Item 9, CUP 02-012, continue all three Public Hearings to July 18th. Mathes: I would second that. Borup: Motion and second. All in favor? Any opposed? Okay. Thank you. That is continued to July 18th. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 71 of 87 MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES, ONE ABSENT. Item 10: Public Hearing: CUP 02-015 Request for a Conditional Use Permit to renovate existing office and Convention Center into a private Jr./Sr. High School for Cole Valley Christian Church by Jeffrey L. King – 200 East Carlton: Borup: The next item is our last item, Item No. 10, Public Hearing CUP 02-015, a request for a Conditional Use Permit to renovate an existing office and convention center to a private junior/senior high school for Cole Valley Christian Church by Jeffrey L. King at 200 East Carlton. We'd like to open this Public Hearing and start with the staff report. McKinnon: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission, I have Lochsa on the brain still. It will take me just one second to orient myself. Okay. Cole Valley Christian Church is asking to renovate the existing former Meridian High School. Get the site picture there. Up on the overhead you will notice a picture of the building that we are talking about. Some of you may know, the Planning and Zoning Department and the Public Works Department for the City of Meridian at one time were in this building using it as an office. At this time they have requested to use 29,640 square feet of the building to be used for classrooms. The high school was completely renovated about three or four years ago and at that time they started taking on clientele. Currently the Department of Motor Vehicles is inside the building and so is Alliance Title. The rest of the building is taken up by other offices at this time. The major issues that we need to deal with, if you turn on your staff report to page two, item number A, under standards for conditional use, there is some concern concerning the number of parking spaces on the site. Parking is limited. According to our standards they are short by 23 spaces and that is an inclusion -- that's counting spaces that are part of the church property that's just property that surrounds. They have a cross-access agreement with the Apostolic Bible Church, but they still are 23 spaces short. They will have to apply for a variance for having less parking than they are required to have. I'll just try to hit a couple of the highlights. Item No. G on page three just talks about the number of classrooms. Right now they are proposing only seven classrooms for both the junior high and seven classrooms for the high school. Under special considerations, page four, item number two, gymnasium designs. Part of phase two of the project includes the construction of a gymnasium. On these site photos you can see there is the open area that they'd like to build a gymnasium. And I will go back to the site plan showing where the gymnasium would like to be built. That's the darker area up on the north. That property is -- just to orient you, is two and a half streets, it runs north and south. This is north of the existing building. That would be part of phase two. The elevation on the overhead right now are the elevations of the proposed gymnasium. Under item number two on page four is the gymnasium design. We as staff are a little concerned that we will one large wall immediately aligning 2nd Street. We'd like to see some sort of architectural feature, whether that's windows or some other type of wainscoting on the bottom that would differentiate, some split faced block, something to make the construction of it more than just a straight wall. That's just for your consideration. We are not asking for denial Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 72 of 87 because it's not pretty. We'd like to see something with a little bit of design to it. Site specific requirements. There has been some discussion we had with the developer as to whether or not there would be a need for garbage containers at the gymnasium site. They are still working that out. The site plan that was submitted to the staff here does not show any garbage containers for the gymnasium site. If there is a requirement for them to provide garbage in that location that may further impact on the parking spaces that they have. As far as signs on the building, there is currently some signs on the building for Alliance Title, but any signs that are put up for the high school should -- they should be specific as to the type of architecture that we are dealing with. They shouldn't be something that doesn't match the type of building design. The landscaping that exists on site needs to be protected and retained. There is one tree that will have to be removed for the construction of the gymnasium and that tree will have to be mitigated for according to our ordinance, one inch caliper tree per caliper inch of those removed. The existing trees that are on site are surrounded by weeds and other type of brush. They will have to be replaced with some greenery and possibly other types of vegetation or organic material, such as bark or mulch. The existing structures are -- I have got pictures most of the existing structures. This is the existing structure. This is a very prominent feature in the downtown area. As far as handicapped parking that's being provided to the gymnasium, I'd ask the applicant to come forward, there is only two handicapped parking spaces that were provided for the gymnasium parking and seating area. We asked them to come forward to make sure according to ADA that would meet all the requirements. Staff is in support of this. We think that high schools and buildings built for schools should be used for schools. We think it's a great idea to bring another school in there. There is some concerns, as I already touched on, about the parking. They are short. The Department of Motor Vehicles does not intend to move out. That is a high traffic volume creator, especially toward the end of the month when people need to get vehicles re-registered and drivers licenses renewed. So -- and, in addition, Alliance Title is not planning on moving out of the building, so we do have some office uses there that are remaining in the building. Other than that, we are in support of the project. We think it's a good idea. We think that the gymnasium will add quite a bit to downtown area. It will bring more people into the area and redevelopment of the older area of town such as this is a great idea and we wholeheartedly support that. And I'd ask if there is any questions of myself or Bruce. Borup: Any questions from the Commission? Centers: Your parking calculations, did they include the existing offices? McKinnon: They did include the -- they did, but it's the issue that you talked about earlier with Blumacs. Chairman Borup brought it up that the use isn't necessarily the same as the parking spaces that are required. Sometimes the city requirements don't meet the demand that is there. Borup: An additional question on the parking, then. The existing building now, did it -- the calculations would require 215 spaces also or did the amount of parking change because of the school use? Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 73 of 87 McKinnon: The school use is -- would change the amount of parking that was required Office use is one to 400 square feet gross and so you can take the gross square footage of the building, divide it by 400 to come up with your parking spaces. When we are dealing schools at least two per classroom, so the volume goes way down. Borup: So the 215 -- McKinnon: That includes all of the office uses as well. Borup: Two per classroom? McKinnon: Let me double-check that. Borup: So, theoretically, the use should have gone down with the school, then? McKinnon: Let me verify that, Mr. Borup. Borup: My recollection when the office went in it was not meeting the parking requirement, it seems like. Centers: I think you said that the 215 included the present office -- McKinnon: The 215 does include the present office, but if we were just talking about what Commissioner Borup was saying, if we took the full square footage of the building, being approximately 42,000, just round out, divided by 400, talking about 105 spaces that would be required. A number of the parking spaces that we are talking about needing are those parking spaces that are required for the additional gymnasium construction. Approximately 100 of those spaces would be for the new gymnasium. So if you take out the spaces that are provided right now, they probably meet that with 100 space and when you add the gymnasium it doesn't meet it. Borup: Okay. Because we are losing space with the gymnasium. McKinnon: Correct. Borup: Thank you. Any other questions from any of the Commissioners? Zaremba: Also on the subject of parking, you're suggesting that they share some of the Apostolic Bible Church spaces. By my count they have exactly the 33 that you're asking that they share. How many are they required to have? I don't think it's fair to count them twice. McKinnon: I don't have the square footage of the church site, so I'm unable to answer that question completely. I'd have to know the square footage of the building in order to calculate the number of parking spaces required for the church. One thing to keep in Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 74 of 87 mind, though, is typically the church use is going to be on one weekend night -- one week night and typically during the Sunday services. That's when the majority of your parking is going to be there. That's when the school is not going to be there, so if it required parking for the 33, if it exceeds that, they could use the parking spaces provided for the high school, gymnasium, or the office uses. It would be a time of use -- Zaremba: So it would be fair to count them twice. McKinnon: Sure. Zaremba: Okay. Borup: Anything else? Would the applicant like to make their presentation? King: Thank you, staff, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission. My name is Jeffrey King. With me is Mark Wood, the administrator for Cole Valley Christian School. On the parking, I guess we'll start off there, just a clarification. Junior high schools -- there will be seven proposed classrooms. The requirement is two stalls per class, which equates to 14 parking stalls. The high school, again, there is proposed seven classrooms. That calculation is ten stalls per classroom, which equates to 70. The gymnasium at this point in time would be proposed to have 982 seats. The parking requirements for that are ten seats -- one stall per ten seats, which equates to 98. The office space, again, the 400 square feet -- one stall per 400 square feet. There is 13,150 square feet of office space. That equates to 33 parking stalls. So the total required stalls are 215. The second issue -- Borup: Well, while you're on that, the gym -- would the activities take place during the daytime in the gym? King: No, they do not. Any activity, ball games, in the gym would take place after the schools hours. Borup: Okay. So I guess what I'm looking at -- and looking at it practically, the parking spaces for the school rooms would be used by the gym in the evening and vice-versa in the daytime. King: Exactly. That is correct. Zaremba: Which mitigates the parking even more. It's the same question as the Bible Church not being there at the same time. You really could count some of the spaces three times. King: That is correct. Borup: But, again, those are minimums. I mean the real activity in the gym I don't think is going to be 10 people in one car. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 75 of 87 King: I guess to continue on the parking, last year there were 26 seniors at Cole Valley Christian School. All 26 of those students did drive. This next school year right now there is 18 senior high students enrolled, so that would actually drop down. There would be 25 faculty and staff. So with the senior high students and the faculty and staff, that includes the 51 parking stalls that they would actually be utilizing. Borup: I assume you are anticipating increasing the enrollment, though? King: That is correct. But just moving into the facility next year, that's what they are anticipating using for parking. The other issue was pertaining to the exterior elevation fronting 2nd Street, which is labeled the right elevation on the display board right here. The owner has agreed that they could add some windows, which would be up high in the middle panel area there. Down below where the cinder block is, that's where the bleachers abut on the inside of the building. So it wouldn't be feasible to put windows down on the seating level, although we could put some up high. That is an east facing elevation, so there would not be problems with sunlight coming into the gym when they are playing basketball. Borup: And I don't know that staff limits it just to windows. It could be projections or a change of material or something, just to break it up a little bit. Zaremba: Well, that's what I was going to suggest. The bottom half, even though the bleachers are on the other side, use one kind of brick for 20 feet and then a different kind of brick for 30 feet, something -- King: You bet. Zaremba: It's visual variety. King: What we are proposing on elevation, what you're seeing there, is the bottom wainscot would be just regular gray cinder block and there is some materials -- Borup: I think you're getting away from the microphone again. King: So what we are proposing, the top block there on the right-hand side, that is just regular smooth face CMU that we would seal. That would be on the bottom band there. Right above that would be a band, a split face integral colored CMU, which is kind of a tannish color. Then you would revert back the gray standard color, on top of that again would be a band of split face, then you would go to the cream colored metal panels, which is the -- would be this tone right here. The metal roof over the entry canopy would be the blue standard sheet metal roof. There is some wood canopies along the front elevation that project out. They would have a corrugated metal roof, which would be the galvanized metal that you're seeing there. The windows would also be a galvanized color. We are proposing for the windows would be a glass block there, so they would not be optical windows. Any questions on the elevation? Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 76 of 87 Borup: Any questions from the Commission? Okay. King: Okay. As far as the trash enclosure, right now the Cole Valley Christian School does not feel the need for a trash enclosure for the gym. Again, they will just be using it for basketball games and special events. Their intent is any refuge from those events they would just use the dumpster which is behind the proposed school building there. The owner is willing, though, if the city does feel that a trash dumpster is needed there, they will be willing to put one in and screen it. Zaremba: On the floor plan, I think it shows concessions right inside the entrance? King: That is correct. Zaremba: I assume that's food and candy concessions? King: It would be candy, yes. Candy and pop. Stuff like that. Zaremba: Which would generate enough trash that I would think you might want to have an enclosed dumpster. King: Sure. Zaremba: Just an opinion. King: Sure. Signage. There is an existing monument sign fronting Carlton. That sign -- you can kind of see it in the middle of the picture right there. Yes. Thank you. Cole Valley Christian School would utilize that existing sign there. We would just remove the letters that are currently on that sign and put up some new letters to match. The Alliance Title sign on the side of the building would remain, but at this point in time there is no proposed additional signs on the building. Landscaping. There was a comment regarding the existing landscape strips needing to be cleaned. Cole Valley Christian School will clean those existing landscape strips. They will repair an existing sprinkler system and maintain both the sprinkler system and the landscaping on a regular basis. The existing structures behind the building, there is an existing bus barn that's back there and a small storage shed. Those will be demolished as a part of the phase two when the gymnasium is constructed, but until then they will just remain. Borup: Okay. Does that conclude your -- King: Yes. Zaremba: I have one further question, Mr. Chairman. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 77 of 87 Borup: As far as that, it looks like you addressed everything on the staff comments. Any other additional comments you had on the staff report? The only thing -- maybe just on the building height clarification. King: Oh, yes. Thank you. The building height is 33 feet, six inches. Borup: Okay. Zaremba: And I had one more question. I have got two. Again, on the floor plan of the gymnasium -- King: Okay. Zaremba: -- it's been a long time since I was in high school, so maybe things have changed. Do your teams compete? Will other people be coming -- King: Yes. Zaremba: What I noticed is there is no visiting team locker room. Is that something that should be a necessity or -- that's not something that we would require, but I would -- King: There actually are two separate locker rooms, there is a boys and girls, so when they do have a competing team -- Zaremba: They would use the alternate locker room -- King: That is correct. Zaremba: -- that is not being used? King: That is correct. Borup: Any other questions from the Commissioners? Mathes: Where will they play sports before the gym is built? King: They will utilize outside facilities. Meridian High School. You know, just kind of where ever they can. Borup: Okay. Thank you. King: You bet. Borup: I notice that everyone that has signed up was all in favor of this item. I think in the -- hopefully, in the interest of time, I don't know that we need all those testimonies, unless it will hurt someone's heart, unless -- is there anybody that's against this Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 78 of 87 proposal that would like to testify? We have received one letter that is on record. So seeing none others -- unless somebody feels there is something that they really want to say. We do want to be out of here by 11:30. Come on up, sir, then. Ashcroft: I'm John Ashcroft, Apostolic Bible Church. I'm the pastor there. We are in favor of the Cole Community School going in there, but we do have some concerns. Number one is the parking. As of right now there is no agreement, there is no cross- access agreement. We are willing to work one out -- willing to work these things out with legal advisors on that issue and, like I say, we are for it, as along as everybody can work together. If it can't, then we'll proceed from there whatever, you know, legally we need to have to do. But, you know, we are concerned about our investment and everything working out fine. We will work with the school, but if they really don't work out, we do want our investment protected and taken care of and, you know, kids do have problems, we realize that, because when we have tried to work with others there was not a good working relationship there. We tried. In talking with Mike Woods, which is the one I believe that's in charge, I believe we can work the things out, but we would like to be on record that we are willing to work, as long as it works out. Borup: Any questions, Commissioners? I -- go ahead. Zaremba: Well, I was just going to comment, I would hope that one of the results of the cross-access agreement was that you could use their parking at times when you needed to, too. It's not supposed to be one way, it's a trade. Ashcroft: Right. We do -- the legal amount of spaces is not 33, it is 35. We do have two in the front that were approved by the city, but, like I say, we are willing to -- Borup: So at this point, sir, you do not have a parking agreement with the present owners? Ashcroft: No. We attempted with the present owners, but the present owners would not do it. Yes. Borup: Are you needing more than 35 spaces on some of your meetings? Ashcroft: Sunday mornings we have had the Sweetwater Church there that has some two hours on our property, which is taken, but, like I said, if it can all be worked out -- there is a lot of parking places there and a lot of times when we are there, they are not there. We are there at least a minimum of four times a week, sometimes as many as six times. Borup: But in the evenings -- Ashcroft: Evenings, Yes. The main thing is Sunday mornings. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 79 of 87 Borup: It looks like it would be beneficial to both parties where the uses are different hours. Ashcroft: Our concern there is basically the ware and tear on the parking lot, stuff like that. That's where we are concerned about. Borup: Right. Ashcroft: If that can be handled and everything taken care of, like I say -- Borup: That's on the maintenance that you -- okay. Thank you. Someone else had their hand up, too? Wood: Mark Wood, 3567 North Cole Road, Boise. I'm the superintendent for Cole Christian Schools and if I can make a correction, it's Cole Valley Christian Schools, that's the official name of the school and we are part of Cole Community Church. Kind of a mixture, I think, in the literature. I talked to John at the Apostolic Bible Church. The school has worked with churches for almost 30 years now. We won a state championship in another gymnasium and in working with a bigger church in Garden City, so we are very used to working and being good neighbors with churches and will be happy to work something out. My senior pastor is here. The school board president is here. I think we can assure John and you all that we are willing to do that. We want to be a good neighbor, we want to be an asset, and it's exciting to entertain the prospect of becoming a part of the Meridian community on that particular piece of historic property as well. So I think that covers it. If you have any questions for that, Mr. Chairman or Commissioners. Borup: The only question I had, don't you wish they were here four years ago? Okay. Thank you. Was there anyone else that had -- Vannegan: Jerry Vannegan and I represent the school and church in the purchase as the buyer's agent. I'd like to reiterate what I think could be the three time counting of the parking in this deal. As the current facility as an office, I think it's filled. A new use or the reuse as a school I think is proper application. It is an excellent addition to what is being worked on right now as the redevelopment plan for downtown Meridian. It's going to bring people to businesses there and I think that the consideration, the fact that I would almost have to beg to differ with you, there are actually vehicles that bring, you know, 40 or 50 people to this basketball game, they are called buses and they use a lot of them. One other thing that was not brought up that we discussed this afternoon is that there is a shuttle bus service between the elementary school and the junior and senior high that will continue and there is junior and senior high kids that get bused back to the elementary school, because the parents don't want to, you know, go to two or three locations and that will mitigate some of the parking pressures that probably the zoning code took into account as far as junior and senior high school -- or junior and senior kids in the high school driving their one cars. That's all. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 80 of 87 Borup: Any questions? At this present time is it Alliance Title and DMV, Mr. Vannegan? Alliance Title and DMV, are they the only two that are staying in the building? Vannegan: And the Clearwater Church. Borup: That's in there now? Vannegan: Yes. Borup: Okay. Vannegan: And some of the others either have moved out just lately or will move out in the future. I guess one more thing I might add is that time is of the essence. School starts in September, the renovation is very small as far as getting it going in the first place. We are removing some of the walls that were put in to make classrooms into offices. They are non-load bearing walls, so that -- and then during the first semester the school would like to construct two labs, that would be more extensive, because youare talking about plumbing and fire issues and that sort of thing. Borup: Okay. Thank you. Commissioners? Zaremba: I think it's a good addition and I don't see that parking is going to be a problem. Borup: Did the staff have any final comments? McKinnon: Sure. I'll keep it short, Chairman Borup and Members of the Commission, audience. I'm glad that Mr. Vannegan brought up the idea of the shuttle. We did talk with the applicant's architect this afternoon, Steve Siddoway and I, and we did talk about the busing, the possibility of doing the shuttle. I'm glad that was brought up. As far as the trash enclosures, if you guys can make a specific motion tonight to tell us whether or not you would like to see that trash enclosure go with the gymnasium and that's item number one on the site specific comments, that was something that the applicant really wasn't at issue with. Before you close the Public Hearing I'd just like to get something from the church concerning the Americans with Disabilities Act concerning the handicapped parking spaces required for the gymnasium. I do believe it's a higher number than projected. In talking with the applicant's architect this afternoon he said he would come prepared with that information, so if we can get that, I would appreciate that. Other than that, I have no other comments. Borup: Okay. Is the architect here and would like to comment on that? King: Handicapped parking, per the federal register between 151 and 200 parking stalls. They recommend six handicapped parking stalls. The proposed site, including the adjacent church, would provide a total of nine. Again, per the federal register, one in eight should be van accessible. There would be I think a total of three that would Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 81 of 87 actually be van accessible also. So per -- again, per the federal register recommendations it's more than enough handicapped parking. Borup: That's assuming you have an agreement with -- King: That is correct. Right now at the gymnasium there would be two handicapped parking stalls right out front the door there and then the adjacent church there to are just down below -- right about right there. Yes. So they would be in close proximity to the gymnasium as well. McKinnon: Mr. Chairman, point of clarification, if I could ask the applicant. How many does the -- how many handicapped parking stall does the church have in front? King: There are two. McKinnon: There are two? Where are the other handicapped parking stalls? You said there were nine total for the site. If you bring the parking -- handicapped parking on the other side down in this area, it's really hard to park a handicapped person here and tell them they have to roll all the way to here. King: That is correct. There would be four for the gymnasium and then the other five would be utilized for the school. McKinnon: And the ADA would require six total is what you said between the 150 and 200 -- King: That is what the -- McKinnon: -- that would be required to be van accessible? King: That is correct. That's total site. McKinnon: So the 98 required for the top is 125, one has to be van accessible, and it would be these four right here? King:Correct. McKinnon: And that would be contingent upon getting approval from the Baptist Church? King: That is correct. McKinnon: Okay. I'm sorry. The Apostolic Church. It's late. Borup: Any other comments on the trash enclosure? Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 82 of 87 King: Again, the school is more than willing to add the additional trash enclosure there and properly screened. Borup: Okay. Thank you. Commissioners, it sounds like staff would like us to maybe address the trash enclosure and I'm not sure -- is there anything else that hasn't been answered? Maybe -- Zaremba: I think if the applicant is willing to put it there it would be a good idea to have it. I just visualize the concession stand growing and growing into more things that need to be cleaned up and thrown away close. Borup: What is the minimum size that they can -- I don't know if that needs to be a large one, but I guess they are all the same size anyway, though, aren't they? McKinnon: Chairman Borup, Members of the Commission, it may help for them to talk with SSC and determine the size that they would need. They may not need a three yard dumpster. They might be able to get by with some smaller commercial containers. Borup: That's what I was -- McKinnon: And they don't necessarily have to be a specific size, just according to need. It would, of course, have to meet our standards. Borup: It would just be saying something there on site, size to be determined. McKinnon: A revised site plan, that would be helpful, and a copy of the agreement at some point prior to Council approval. Borup: The agreement -- McKinnon: For the parking. Right. If we could get both of those added to the staff comments, that would be great. Because if we are -- if we don't have the church parking and there is not an agreement at some point, then we are really short parking on this site. Centers: And I guess I missed that, Dave. I had my mind going on the cross-parking agreement. I think we are forced to have that in place before a building permit is issued. McKinnon: We have to have that in place before a building permit is issued, but we -- Centers: I think that would be the -- Borup: What he's saying is he'd like to have it before City Council. McKinnon: I'd like to have it -- Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 83 of 87 Centers: I was thinking that, too. McKinnon: I would like to have it before City Council. Centers: That's a lot of pressure on the two negotiating parties. McKinnon: It is a lot of pressure, but we would have to change our recommendation. You take -- that's 20 percent of the parking that they are -- Centers: I agree. I agree. Well, so be it. McKinnon: In addition to that, we were talking about the gymnasium being part of phase two and that's a lot of the parking there. Centers: Yeah. That's what I was thinking. McKinnon: Yeah. So I think that we need to worry about the number of parking, because we are approving this and we are approving it contingent upon that, it's the same pressure. They are not going to be able to get building permits unless they had that. So the leverage is already there. Centers: The leverage is there, but the time frame would be longer. McKinnon: That's correct. Borup: So you're saying now maybe just before phase two? McKinnon: We need to have it before the building permit is issued for that. Borup: For the gymnasium? McKinnon: Yeah. Absolutely. Borup: Okay. McKinnon: Whether that's before Council or later. This is the kind of issue like Commissioner Centers said. Borup: Until the gymnasium is built there is plenty of parking. McKinnon: Uh-huh. Borup: Will that handle it? Does the agreement need to be in place prior to the building permit? McKinnon: Yeah. For the gym. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 84 of 87 Borup: Okay. So it sounds like just the three items and maybe the other -- the parking agreement, trash, and I don't know if you want to add something on there the architectural facade or not. Centers: Well, the trash enclosure we are going to leave as is for staff comments. Borup: Yes. That's to be determined by -- Centers: Yeah. Right. McKinnon: Chairman Borup, Members of the Commission, if we could get a site plan that shows a revised location of the garbage, that would be helpful, a revised site plan, and maybe the time frame as to what they project phase two -- when they project that to happen. I mean that's a lot of parking just for phase two, but if the school continues to grow and grow before the gymnasium is built, the parking demands that are left for the parking before the gymnasium is built is going to become more and more. If phase two is not developed at the same rate of growth as the high school, there is not going to be enough parking. Do you follow that? If phase two -- Centers: Are you saying to make the parking agreement prior to the building permit or are you switching? McKinnon: I'm thinking. I'm thinking out loud. Sorry. Zaremba: How long does it take an item approved by this Commission to get on the City Council's agenda? McKinnon: About a month. Zaremba: About a month? So they have a month to work it out if we said City Council. McKinnon: Unless they could work it out before -- I wish they had it worked out already at this point. They are going to be required to go for a variance for the parking regardless. That's one of the conditions of approval is for the variance. Centers: Even with it? McKinnon: Even with it they are having to go for a variance. So without it they have to go for a variance. We think that might be best addressed with the variance issue. Maybe the time frame could be addressed by the Council at the time of the variance hearing. That might be a way that we could actually skirt through to Council and let them make that decision. And maybe in the meantime, prior to the variance hearing, they will have it all signed and it won't be an issue anymore. Centers: So we can -- Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 85 of 87 McKinnon: That would be my hope. Centers: You had the cross-access -- or cross-parking agreement in place -- well, that they just have a cross-parking agreement, but no time frame on it. Let the Council put it on. McKinnon: That's fine with me. Borup: That makes sense. Centers: Right. Borup: It makes sense to word it that way. Centers: Okay. I think we ought to close the Public Hearing. I would move that we do that. Zaremba: Second. Borup: Motion and second. All in favor? MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES, ONE ABSENT. Borup: Okay. Do we know what we need to put in, in addition to the staff comments on the parking agreement, and I guess the trash was already answered, the revised site plan and then staff also requested maybe an approximate time line on phase two. Prior to City Council is what you meant; right? McKinnon: That's correct. Zaremba: Does staff need a revised elevation on the gymnasium? Borup: And whether we put that in there. McKinnon: That's up to you guys. If you like what they presented, you can forward that on to the Council. That's fine. We'd like to see windows definitely on the site plan, so when Council looks at it there is windows. Zaremba: Except the windows make an issue with sunlight coming in from that direction. I think there could be other decorative details that -- Borup: Even a one foot projection spaced through there would break it up more than windows would. Windows are still a flat surface. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 86 of 87 McKinnon: I agree with that. It doesn't have to be windows. But if you do go the windows route -- you remember that this is an east facing wall and once the sun goes up in the morning time, it's not going to be an impact as far as glare into the court. Centers: There, again, we could have them have something that the City Council could view. McKinnon: Absolutely. Centers: To change that dull appearance, then see what they come up with. It wouldn't necessarily have to be windows, just something to break it up. McKinnon: Are you guys comfortable with that? Centers: Yeah. McKinnon: Okay. Zaremba: Mr. Chairman? Borup: Commissioner Zaremba. Zaremba: Let's see. I would like to move that we recommend approval to the City Council of CUP 02-015, request for a Conditional Use Permit to renovated existing office and convention center into a private junior/senior high school for Cole Valley Christian Church, located at 200 East Carlton, to include all staff comments and including that a trash enclosure in the area of the new gymnasium would be agreed upon between the applicant and SSC as to size, that there be a cross-parking agreement made with Apostolic Bible Church and presented before this goes -- available before this goes to the City Council -- McKinnon: No. No. No. Borup: We talked about just saying they needed to have one without a date. Zaremba: Okay. Withdraw the date. Just that there needs to be one made. And acknowledging that even with that there still needs to be -- I lost the word -- a variance. And that before going to City Council they will present an elevation that shows a little bit more variety on the street side. That's for the gymnasium. Borup: A revised site plan showing the -- McKinnon: Revised elevations. Borup: A revised site plan that you had mentioned. Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 87 of 87 McKinnon: Showing the trash enclosure. Borup: Yeah. Okay. I guess that would be included in with that. Sorry. I think that's it. Zaremba: Okay. Mathes: I'll second that. Borup: Second. Did you include the phasing -- the approximately phasing time line? Zaremba: I did not. Borup: Okay. Did you still want that? McKinnon: It doesn't have to be a part of your motion. Borup: Okay. They will just do it automatically; right? Okay. Okay. Let's leave the motion as it stands. We got a second. All in favor? Any opposed? MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES, ONE ABSENT. Borup: Thank you. That concludes our -- except for one item as far we are concerned. We have one more motion. Centers: Oh, yeah. Borup: We have one more motion. Centers: I would move that we adjourn. Mathes: I'll second. Borup: Motion and second to adjourn. All in favor. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES, ONE ABSENT. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 11:41 P.M. (TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS.) APPROVED ____________________________ _____|_____|_____ KEITH BORUP - CHAIRMAN DATE APPROVED ATTEST:________________________________ Meridian Planning & Zoning Meeting June 6, 2002 Page 88 of 87 SHARON SMITH, DEPUTY CITY CLERK