2005 12-01Meridian Planning and Zoning Meeting December 1, 2005
The regularly scheduled meeting of the Meridian Planning and Zoning Commission was
called to order at 7:00 p.m. by Chairman David Zaremba.
Members Present: Chairman David Zaremba, Commissioner Keith Borup,
Commissioner Michael Rohm, Commissioner David Moe, and Commissioner Wendy
Newton-Huckabay.
Others Present: Bill Nary, Jessica Johnson, Craig Hood, Mike Cole, and Dean Willis.
Item 1: Roll-Call Attendance:
Roll-call
___X___ Keith Borup ___X___ David Moe
___X___ Wendy Newton-Huckabay ___X___ Michael Rohm
____X__Chairman David Zaremba
Zaremba: Good evening, everybody. Welcome to this regularly scheduled meeting of
the Planning and Zoning Commission for Thursday, December 1st, 2005. We will begin
with a roll call of Commissioners.
Item 2: Adoption of the Agenda:
Zaremba: Item 2 is adoption of the agenda. And I won't make a lengthy explanation,
because there doesn't appear to be anybody here to discuss them, but every one of the
items in our agenda that involves a Public Hearing will need to be delayed for one
reason or another, some failure to post proper notice, ACHD report not in, but the only
things we will actually do, other than to continue a lot of these, is have the presentation
from Karen Doherty and elections at the end of the meeting. Everybody who might like
to leave has been notified, so we will consider the agenda adopted and we will discuss
the continuing dates when we get to each one of them, no objection heard.
Item 3: Consent Agenda:
A. Approve Minutes of November 3, 2005 Planning and Zoning
Commission Meeting:
Zaremba: Next item is the Consent Agenda, consisting of the minutes of the meeting of
November 3rd, 2005. I have one comment to make, but while I'm looking for it, if
anybody else has any comment? Commissioners?
Rohm: No, sir.
Zaremba: Okay. On page 21, the very first grouping I am speaking, about the fourth
line down, begins: Since this will be the building on this project. I believe the word first
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December 1, 2005
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was or should be in there. Since this will be the first building on this project. That's the
only change I have on the entire thing. The chair would entertain a motion to accept the
Consent Agenda as amended.
Borup: So moved.
Zaremba: Commissioner Newton-Huckabay?
Newton-Huckabay: So moved.
Rohm: Second.
Moe: Second.
Zaremba: We have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Any opposed?
Thank you.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Item 4: Presentation: Blue Print for Good Growth by Karen Doherty:
Zaremba: Good. Now we come to the meat of this evening. We are pleased to have a
presentation on the subject of Blueprint for Good Growth. Karen Doherty has
consented to come out on this cold and blustery evening to give us a presentation and
talk a little bit more about it and I appreciate that. Welcome, Karen.
Doherty: Thank you. Again, my name is Karen Doherty with Doherty and Associates
and I'm at 575 East Park Center Boulevard, Suite 200, Boise. 83706. And I'm here
today to talk about Blueprint for Good Growth and I am the local project coordinator. To
give you a little bit of background about the way the Blueprint is set up, we have
consultants coming from both Los Angeles and Kansas City, Missouri, to provide
expertise on the project and when our jurisdiction set up the Blueprint, one of the things
that they wanted to do was to make sure that we had a local coordinator, and so I was
hired for the position, along with my firm. So I, actually, have an engineering
background and practice, specializing in transportation engineering in Boise, Meridian,
and Ada County. So, that's my background. Looking at why we are here --
Zaremba: There is a hand-held microphone if that would be more convenient.
Doherty: Yeah. That would. Looking at why we are here, the jurisdiction, about spring
of 2004, looked at a trend and figured that we would have a large consumption of land,
along with the fact that the growth doesn't pay for itself. So, they decided that we need
to look into the future and try to find a blueprint for the way that Ada County and the
jurisdictions within Ada County are going to grow and, thus, Blueprint was started.
Again, the population in the six county region, which Communities in Motion, our
partner project, is focusing on, looks like it's about going to double, a regional
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December 1, 2005
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population from 502 to almost a million people and employment doing the same thing.
So, that's another reason why Blueprint was started. And what does that anticipated
growth mean for the jurisdiction? One is that you all see, I'm sure, on a daily basis, is
the increased demand for utilities and services. With the projects that come to you for
approval, they have a lot of new demand for utilities and services, which are a limited
commodity. Plus, the fact that we have needs for public schools, increased land use
conflicts, and increased traffic, which we have all seen over the past couple of days.
Another thing is a strain on the fiscal resources. A lot of times the growth that we are
seeing does not pay for itself, so we are seeing a drain on our energy resources, as
well as a loss on some of the habitat and some of the hillside resources, which is the
reason why people like to live in Ada County. So, the Blueprint organization was
started. We have three levels of participation. The first -- the top level being the
consortium and that is made up of nine entities, so it's the jurisdictions within Ada
County, Ada County itself, the Ada County Highway District, and the Idaho
Transportation Department, the mayors and the county commissioners sit on that, as
well as various council members from each of the jurisdictions. So, Mayor de Weerd
and Councilmember Rountree are very active in our consortium. Our steering
committee is a staff level committee. Members from the Meridian area, including Anna
Canning, Steve Siddoway, Tracy Vance, who is a member of your Chamber of
Commerce, and Dr. Linda Clark from the Meridian School District. Then, the last
committee that we have is a technical committee and that's a staff level, but more of a
technical staff level, to provide technical expertise as we are developing the Blueprint
plan. So, one of the first things that our committee did was to set up the guiding
principles and why are we here. So, let's highlight a couple of those. One was to
distribute growth to all of the communities, to make sure that all of the communities
flourish. Another one was to manage growth with fiscal responsibility. And you will see
this fiscal responsibility being something that is an outlying -- or, excuse me, which is an
underlying theme through most of the presentation. Another one that I could highlight
here is a way to protect the valley's natural resources. That's another thing that
Blueprint was set up to do. And each of those guiding principles are available on our
website at blueprintforgoodgrowth.com. So, I talked to -- I mentioned briefly about our
partner project Communities in Motion and that's on the right side. So, what we have
here is the first time that Ada County has really embarked upon a project that looks both
at land use and transportation and how they were integrated. So, what we have is on
the right side transportation and that's Communities in Motion, which is Compass and
Compass is looking at a six area -- six county area for the transportation network and
we are looking solely at Ada County, but at the land use, and we work together, so that
the land use and the transportation corridors are linked. So, one of the things that we
will do is to coordinate the comp plans and the land use ordinances within Ada County,
so that we all have the same type of goals, but yet retain individual and unique
characteristics of each of our cities. So, the products of Blueprint. Let's talk about that
a moment. The first is land use scenarios and that was our phase one and we are
finished with that phase. It was analysis of the nontransportation issues of the land use
scenarios that were put forth by Communities in Motion and Blueprint for Good Growth.
So, basically, we had some public hearings, along with information from our technical
staff that came up with different scenarios, and the scenario that was chosen is,
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December 1, 2005
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basically, a satellite city scenario. And what that means is that we each maintain our
individual unique characteristics and we have business, commercial, and residents
within each of the individual cities and that was chosen over the trend map, where the
trend is, basically, where we continue on the way that we are going, but, yet, we have
the residences and the commercial being very spread out and not maintaining the
unique characteristics of each city. So, we -- the committee decided upon that satellite
city scenario. So, again, individual unique cities within Ada County. Blueprint's part in
that was to analyze the non-transportation issues in each of the scenarios. So, we
came up with infrastructure costs, for instance, how much was it going to cost to serve -
- for fire districts to serve the trend scenario versus a five district to serve the satellite
city scenario. Same thing with other infrastructures, water, sewer, school districts, those
type of things. So, that was the first thing that we did in the phase one. Now, we are
into phase two and phase two is the regulations portion of it. So, we are helping each
city develop regulations, to modify your comp plans, and to modify your land use -- your
zoning ordinances, so that you can, basically, visualize that satellite city scenario. It's a
regulatory tool also to assist in having growth pay for itself. So, we are looking at a way
to finance our future. So, again, the phase one we looked at housing impacts, the
future population, and we looked at the infrastructure costs of each of the scenarios.
This was another thing that we developed during phase one and it's just a brief visual
analysis of what could be done on different transportation corridors and this is
something that came from our partner project Communities in Motion. So, here is an
existing corridor and this shows through a series of slides what could this corridor look
like with some improvements. And, again, this is major transportation corridors, but
shows how transportation and land use can come together in harmony. So, we have
got street trees added. Then, we look at buildings, moving those buildings up to the
sidewalk edge to make it more transit and more pedestrian friendly. And this is one
where we added light rail. So, here is another existing condition of a four lane arterial.
Street trees were added. Then, we had the sidewalks widened and we put in diagonal
parking. And, again, now we have sidewalks added again, widened to 12 feet, and we
put in a two-way left turn lane. So, you can see that it's a bit more vibrant community.
And so this is something that some of the smaller communities could utilize these
different development tools to maybe enhance their downtowns and to try to make
those downtowns a bit more friendly and a bit more business oriented and pedestrian
oriented, to keep people living and working in the same area in Ada County. And,
finally, since mass transit was something that Communities in Motion is working on, this
was an addition of a trolly line and how that would fit in. We have got a lot of these type
of developments, the several malls, if you will. Adding a different facade. And, then,
bringing those into a pedestrian oriented village, where instead of having a lot of
parking lot space, you can actually utilize that parking space for other businesses.
Then, you can add second levels for residences and other businesses. Then, this is a
fully built-out scenario. So, this was just a way to visualize some of the things that we
were talking about during the phase one portion. Some of the different things that we
are looking at, too, is different varieties of housing stock. Maybe allowing or suggesting
different varieties of housing stock, so that we don't have the single same type of
housing stock within each community. So, we allow for a variety of communities -- of
housing stocks, so that a person could stay in the same community as they have
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December 1, 2005
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different housing needs. For instance, when you're younger you have a different
housing need than when you're raising a family, than when you're a senior citizen. And
so these are some of the different types of housing scenarios that could be seen in
some of the valley. Now, into space two. And, again, this is the regulatory phase and
the portion that we are looking at using the building blocks to help you help
development finance itself. And we are looking, again, at the fiscal analysis of a lot of
the infrastructure costs that we see for the cost of development. So, our water, our
wastewater, our sewer. School impacts are a major one that we are looking at. So,
what are some of the regulatory tools that you might see as a Blueprint as planning and
zoning commissioners. One of them is utility service standards. And so when you have
a new development coming in, we can help provide some utility service standards that
you might want to apply to that development before that development is approved.
Another one is to fast track the review and approval process for a development that
does fit within the Blueprint process. So, if it does fit within the Blueprint for Meridian,
let's fast track it and let's get it on the ground and get it built. Right of way preservation
ordinances. And this is one that is dear to both ACHD and ITD's heart, where instead
of having to spend a lot of money in the right of way acquisition process for the new
transportation needs that we have, why not really jump on the band wagon at first and
do right of way preservation for those major corridors that we need for transportation
here in the valley. Of course, enhancing for transit and, then, some in-fill compatibility
standards. And you have been hearing me repeat again and again growth paying for
itself. So, there is some of the way that -- some of the tools that you could use for
having growth pay for itself and one of it is adequate public facilities, making sure that
when a development is considered, that there are those adequate public facilities in
place prior to that development being put onto the ground. Another one is making sure
that the capital improvement plans are followed and that their developments fit within
those capital improvement plans. And, finally, the public and private economic
development strategies, that's something that we are looking at and ways to assist the
cities, so that they can have some of those -- rely on some of the private sources for
some of those fiscal resources that they need. So, one of our deliverables -- the major
deliverable will be the guide plan, which establishes the policies and the strategies for
coordinated growth management. And what this will be is a plan that each one of the
cities has bought in through the blueprint process. So, Mayor de Weerd and
Councilmember Rountree are instrumental, as well as a staff member, in creating the
Blueprint and, then, it can come back and be used as a tool within each of the cities
through Ada County. You will still maintain your unique comp plans, your unique
ordinances, but this is an overlying set of standards that you could chose to apply, so
that we all are working towards the same goal within Ada County, but still have the
unique characteristics of each one of our cities. So, some of the plans -- some of the
edits, excuse me, that you might consider to your comp plan would be the adequate
public facilities requirement that I have talked about before. Level of service standards,
for instance, for the police and the fire, some of those standards that you may want to
apply for development. Another one is a transit corridor overlay, so that you do have
the density that's necessary along some of the transit corridors that are so vital in the
City of Meridian. Then another deliverable that we will have is intergovernmental
agreement, so that, for instance, you can have an intergovernmental agreement with
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December 1, 2005
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the Meridian School District to address the school adequacy requirements before a
development goes in and that school requirement has been a big topic with the
consortium and at their last meeting they did affirm the steering committee's
recommendation that schools are a necessary public facility and so they are a part of
that public facility need that should be established on the ground before a development
goes in. Another one which you're working with right now is ACHD. Of course, working
with them to make sure that there is the transportation elements and the modification
and adoption of different -- for instance, capital improvement plans, if something doesn't
follow a capital improvement plan, could ACHD modify their capital improvement plan.
So, something very similar to what you have been following, but maybe a bit different,
plus some the other cities don't have some of the sophistication that you have yet and
so we are working to make sure that all of the cities are working together towards a
unique goal for Ada County. So, looking at what's next. The steering committee has
just received the draft blueprint and they are going to be working on that for probably a
good three to four months. It's certainly in the draft stage, but they have passed out
many of the policies in the general policy level, now they are looking at the language
and how that actually is implemented. Then, one of the things that our consultants will
be doing is inviting you all to a planning and zoning summit in late January, early July, to
start to get your views on the blueprint after it's been reviewed a couple of times by the
steering committee. We are looking at having the whole Blueprint process, along with
Communities in Motion, finished up in April time frame, April of 2006. So, my roll was,
today, to provide to you some information and background about Blueprint and, then, to
answer any questions that you may have. I know it's a lot of material in a very short
time, but I would certainly entertain any questions that you would have about our
process. And this won't be the last time that you will hear about Blueprint, your
planning and zoning staff is very involved with the process and they will be working with
you to hammer out some of the details. So, with that I will turn it over to questions.
Zaremba: Excellent. Commissioners, any questions?
Moe: A couple slides back you had the notation of impact fees under ITD.
Doherty: Yes. Let's talk about that one. Right now, of course, ACHD collects impact
fees as one of the ways to help them develop our transportation system. Well, ITD
does not do that and one of the things that we are looking at is having ITD collect
impacts -- or having impact fees collected on ITD's behalf. So, of course, that would be
a legislative activity that will come out of this process, but ITD has been very active in
the process in letting us know that they are behind the curve and continue to be behind
the curve, because of lack of funding, even though we have the GARVEE funds that
has -- GARVEE bonding that has just come through, that's one of the things that they
would like to see on our wish list.
Moe: Thank you.
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December 1, 2005
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Zaremba: One of the figures you gave was that the population of the valley would grow
from about 500,000 to I think it was something like 900 or 940 thousand. In what time
frame?
Doherty: That's in a 20 year time frame.
Zaremba: Within 20 years?
Doherty: Yeah.
Zaremba: Okay. My bugaboo is that growth will continue after that --
Doherty: Yes.
Zaremba: -- and that's not the top build out number, but --
Doherty: Yes.
Zaremba: -- that's a 20 year estimate. Okay.
Doherty: Yeah. And where that estimate came from is that's a Compass estimate and
the Communities in Motion, the long range transportation plan, is mandated at a 20
year cycle and so that's where the 20 year time frame comes in.
Newton-Huckabay: What's their history of accuracy for forecasting those numbers?
Doherty: You know, this information was based on the census and the population
growth and the amount of land that we have available, as well as the amount of
business that we could generate. So, it's like looking into a crystal ball and trying to
figure out where the population is going to be. It's very difficult to do, but that's the best
that they have come up with and it's a number that Compass and the Compass board
has become familiar with and has adopted. But it is a moving target.
Zaremba: And sometimes conservative, it proves to be.
Doherty: Yes.
Zaremba: Other questions? Does staff have any questions? Well, thank you very
much.
Newton-Huckabay: Could I ask one more?
Zaremba: Oh, good.
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December 1, 2005
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Newton-Huckabay: There was -- on Tuesday they were discussing what is the
adequate public facility standards and ordinances. That would be ordinances we would
add to our UDC? Is that how that --
Zaremba: Uniform Development Code.
Newton-Huckabay: Yeah. Okay. I just wanted to marry up the concepts in my head, so
-- thank you.
Zaremba: For the record there was nodding yes.
Rohm: I guess my only comment is each of these bullets has a whole lot of meat
behind it. How does a person get a hold of some of that to digest the plan in its entirety,
rather than just see, well, here is some of the things we are looking at. When do we get
to look at it? Can we -- is there a draft of anything that can be circulated?
Doherty: Yes. In fact, each of our meetings are open public meetings and on the
Blueprint for Good Growth website we regularly post our agenda and attachments, just
as you would for your meetings, and so our agenda and attachments for the upcoming
December 8th steering committee meeting will have the draft of the Blueprint, which is a
pretty thick agenda packet, but they are all available on our website and Anna Canning,
as well as Steve Siddoway sit on our steering committee, so you can ask them for that
information or you can visit our website.
Rohm: Well, if it's on your website, I find a lot of those things very interesting and to
kind of dig down a little deeper. But thank you.
Doherty: You're welcome. Well, I appreciate the opportunity to come this evening and
provide some information that was a quick -- like you said, there is a lot of meat behind
the bullets and behind the information that I provided you, so if you have any questions
that are not satisfied by the website, please, feel free to give me a call or give staff a call
and we will be happy to help you.
Zaremba: Great. Thank you so much.
Doherty: Thank you.
Zaremba: Been very helpful. Appreciate that.
Newton-Huckabay: Unfortunately, it's not one of those nights that we have a hundred
and fifty public here.
Zaremba: Yeah. It would have been nice to have a bigger audience to hear. I mean
we appreciate it for us, but sometimes we have a captive audience of about 100 people
anyhow.
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December 1, 2005
Page 9 of 18
Moe: That doesn't take away from you, sir, from being in our audience tonight.
Zaremba: Thank you. I did announce earlier that every item, essentially, on the rest of
our agenda is being continued for one reason or another, either a failure to post or
ACHD reports not in. We will proceed through them in order and you're welcome to
listen to that, but we will not actually discuss any subject tonight. If you want to learn --
Okay. Let me give you -- that one we anticipate continuing to our meeting of January 5,
2006. That's when we will talk about it. January 5, 2006. Okay. Thank you. All right.
Item 5: Continued Public Hearing from October 6, 2005: AZ 05-042 Request
for Annexation and Zoning of 9.63 acres from RUT to R-8 zone for
Medford Place Subdivision by Dyver Development, LLC – 3335 South
Eagle Road:
Item 6: Continued Public Hearing from October 6, 2005: PP 05-043 Request for
Preliminary Plat approval of 29 single-family residential building lots and 8
common area lots on 8.57 acres in a proposed R-8 zone for Medford
Place Subdivision by Dyver Development, LLC – 3335 South Eagle
Road:
Item 7: Continued Public Hearing from October 6, 2005: CUP 05-044 Request
for approval of a Conditional Use Permit for a Planned Development for
Medford Place Subdivision that includes reductions to the minimum
requirements for lot size and street frontage by Dyver Development, LLC –
3335 South Eagle Road:
Zaremba: So, let me proceed with -- let me open the Public Hearing AZ 05-042, PP 05-
043, and CUP 05-044, and I would entertain a motion to continue those items to our
meeting of December 15th, 2005.
Moe: So moved.
Borup: Second.
Zaremba: We have a motion and a second. All in favor, please, say aye. Any
opposed? That motion carries.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Item 8: Public Hearing: AZ 05-053 Request for Annexation and Zoning of 5.87
acres from RUT to R-8 zone for Windham Place Subdivision by Eagle
Springs Investments, LLC – 2640 North Meridian Road:
Item 9: Public Hearing: PP 05-055 Request for Preliminary Plat approval of 24
building lots and 3 common lots on 5.87 acres in a proposed R-8 zone for
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December 1, 2005
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Windham Place Subdivision by Eagle Springs Investments, LLC – 2640
North Meridian Road:
Zaremba: Okay. I will open the Public Hearing for AZ 05-053 and PP 05-055. These
relate to Windham Place Subdivision. And entertain a motion to continue them to our
meeting of January 5, 2006.
Moe: So moved.
Rohm: Second.
Zaremba: We have a motion and a second. All in favor, please, say aye. Any
opposed? That motion carries.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Borup: I assume you reviewed the agenda for January and we are --
Zaremba: Our December 15th meeting is going to be pretty heavy, but --
Borup: Right. No.
Zaremba: -- there may be one or two drop out of that and a couple of them are things
that we have, actually, talked about before, so I hope they will go quick.
Borup: Well, I know the rest of this month is full.
Zaremba: The January 5th meeting is, actually -- I believe not quite as full as the
January 19th meeting.
Borup: Okay.
Zaremba: So, just a quick scan of those. So, January 5th seems to be a reasonable
time to move them. Let's see. Did we complete Windham Place? We took a vote and
it was all ayes, I believe.
Item 10: Public Hearing: AZ 05-054 Request for Annexation and Zoning of 94.05
acres of which 49.27 acres is RUT proposed R-8 and 46.30 acres is RUT
proposed TN-R for Bryce Canyon Subdivision by Centennial
Development, LLC – 3935 West Franklin Road:
Item 11: Public Hearing: PP 05-056 Request for Preliminary Plat approval of 475
single-family residential building lots and 62 other/common area lots on
94.05 acres in proposed R-8 and TN-R zones for Bryce Canyon
Subdivision by Centennial Development, LLC – 3935 West Franklin
Road:
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December 1, 2005
Page 11 of 18
Zaremba: I will open the Public Hearing for AZ 05-054 and PP 05-056, relating to Bryce
Canyon Subdivision and entertain a motion to continue them to our meeting of
December 15th, 2005.
Rohm: So moved.
Borup: Second.
Moe: That was the 15th?
Zaremba: To December 15th. Yes. I believe we have a motion and a second. All in
favor say aye. Any opposed? That motion carries.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Newton-Huckabay: How many items are on our agenda for the 15th?
Moe: Quite a few.
Zaremba: Quite a few. Let's see. My recollection is that there may be one or two of
those that are going to drop out and one or two of them that are being warned that if
they are the last item on the agenda they may be continued.
Moe: Oh.
Item 12: Public Hearing: AZ 05-056 Request for Annexation and Zoning of 6.08
acres from RUT to TN-R and 4.07 acres from RUT to C-C zone for Harks
Canyon Creek Subdivision by JBS Enterprises, LLC – 1845 West
Franklin Road:
Item 13: Public Hearing: PP 05-058 Request for Preliminary Plat approval of 29
residential lots, 7 commercial lots and 7 common lots on 10.15 acres in
proposed TN-R and C-C zones for Harks Canyon Creek Subdivision
JBS Enterprises, LLC – 1845 West Franklin Road:
Item 14: Public Hearing: CUP 05-051 Request for a Conditional Use Permit for a
mixed-use development within 300’ of a residence for Harks Canyon
Creek Subdivision JBS Enterprises, LLC – 1845 West Franklin Road:
Zaremba: All right. I'll open the Public Hearing for AZ 05-056, PP 05-058, and CUP 05-
059, all relating to Harks Canyon Creek Subdivision, and entertain a motion to continue
those to January 5, 2006.
Rohm: So moved.
Meridian Planning & Zoning
December 1, 2005
Page 12 of 18
Borup: Second.
Zaremba: We have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Any opposed? That
motion carries.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Item 15: Election of 2006 Officers:
Zaremba: Okay. Well, the final item on our agenda is the Election of Officers for 2006,
which will begin their duty on our first meeting January 5th, 2006. We have two officers
to elect, a chairman and a vice-chairman, and before I open it for nominations, I would
like to make the comment that I have thoroughly enjoyed being chairman for this year
and sometime during my tenure I hope it comes around to me again, but in the spirit of
the Mayor's request to circulate the leadership of our commissions, I am withdrawing
my name for a second term at this time and I will now open nominations for anybody
but me to be chairman.
Newton-Huckabay: Can we have a little discussion?
Rohm: Yeah, let's have a little discussion.
Moe: Let's have a lot of discussion. We have time.
Rohm: I was thinking that we were going to do this on a two year rotation, was the
thought process, and there has only been, actually, 24 meetings of regularly scheduled
meetings that you have had the opportunity to chair and, you know, that's just barely
getting your feet wet.
Zaremba: We did put in our procedures that two terms in a row was the maximum.
Borup: Right.
Zaremba: We did not necessarily anticipate that you had to serve two terms.
Rohm: Oh, I guess I just assumed that.
Zaremba: We elect one year at a time. And on the one hand I would be perfectly
happy to do another year. However, I expect to be on the commission long enough for
it to be my turn again sometime and I like the idea of circulating it around. I'm not the
only person that can be chairman, as Keith has proved, he did an excellent job before
me, and certainly --
Borup: And the vice-chairman is presently --
Zaremba: Presently Commissioner Rohm is our vice-chairman.
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December 1, 2005
Page 13 of 18
Newton-Huckabay: So I second Commissioner Borup's nomination.
Borup: No. I didn't do that. I was asking for Commissioner Rohm's input.
Rohm: I would just love to be the chairman of the --
Zaremba: I think every one of us would make an excellent chairman and I feel it's
helpful to rotate it around and my term will come again, as much as I have enjoyed it
and appreciate your discussion of it sounding like you would enjoy having me do it
again, but for the moment I would like it circulated.
Borup: Was one year enough for you? Do you feel like you got up to speed and
moving or --
Zaremba: I kind of felt up to speed after about two or three months.
Rohm: I guess the only comment that I would make is on chairman's absence I sat in
on a couple of the staff meetings and, actually, there is quite a bit of additional
information that you do learn by being put in that position and each one of us will,
ultimately, have an opportunity to benefit from that exposure.
Zaremba: That, actually, was a new thing that Anna Canning implemented just about
the time that I was elected chairman. It was not available to Keith.
Borup: Well, it wasn't a formal meeting. I would stop in on some months to review stuff,
but it wasn't a scheduled --
Zaremba: Yeah. About the time that I was elected they formalized it to be a 3:00
o'clock meeting every day and Mr. Nary, our attorney, and each of the staff
representatives and the Public Works people are at the meeting and Commissioner
Rohm is correct, there is some knowledge gained. I would clarify that, that it,
eventually, all becomes public record, because it all comes up at our open commission
meeting. There are no secret discussions or no decisions made, but, I agree, I have felt
that I was more intelligent in running the meeting, because I had the background and in
cases where I come knowing that it hasn't been posted or that we are not going to do it,
it helps me talk about the agenda and so they are helpful meetings, but they are -- just
for the public record, there are no private agreements or decisions made during those
meetings.
Rohm: Not implied.
Zaremba: Okay. So, back to the subject at hand, excluding me, I would open it for
nominations --
Borup: Commissioner Rohm, did you say you would be willing?
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December 1, 2005
Page 14 of 18
Rohm: I would be happy to.
Zaremba: Okay. We have Commissioner Rohm nominated for chairman. Are there
alternate nominations? Would anybody care to close the nominations?
Moe: I'd like to close the nominations for chairman.
Zaremba: Is there a second to that?
Newton-Huckabay: Second.
Zaremba: We have a motion and a second to close the nominations for chairman. All
in favor say aye. Any opposed? That motion carries unanimously, which means we
don't need to make a vote. Commissioner Rohm, you will become chairman on
January 5th. Congratulations.
Borup: The meeting that all these things are being continued to.
Rohm: Yeah.
Zaremba: I planned that pretty well, didn't I. That leaves us needing to elect a vice-
chairman and that subject is open to everybody. The chair would accept nominations.
Rohm: First of all, I think the question is who would like to have that opportunity.
Zaremba: Anybody ready to step up?
Borup: We are down to two people here.
Newton-Huckabay: We are still working on our car pool.
Rohm: Do you have most of your traveling classes out of the way and you will probably
be available this next year?
Newton-Huckabay: I probably have four to six weeks, hopefully, of travel next year.
Rohm: Okay. I guess we are looking to see which one of you would like to have this
opportunity.
Borup: Seniority? Length of time? Where are we at here? Commissioner Moe?
Moe: We are together.
Borup: Well, it wasn't the same day.
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December 1, 2005
Page 15 of 18
Moe: Well, I guess the point you have made in regards to meeting with staff and
whatnot at a 3:00 o'clock hour on different days or whatever, that puts a real kink in my
schedule, because that would not ever happen.
Zaremba: The vice-chairman so far has not attended that. We do need to be careful
that that meeting doesn't constitute a quorum, which one person doesn't, but the vice-
chairman typically does not go to that. Although if you know ahead of time that the
chairman is not going to make a meeting, you certainly would be invited.
Newton-Huckabay: Is that an expectation? I guess would be the -- it's not all -- I kind
of agree with you, I mean it's not always easy for us to get into Meridian at 3:00 o'clock
in the afternoon.
Zaremba: I would say other than my comfort with -- as Commissioner Rohm said, the
bit of knowledge that I gain, attendance at that meeting probably shaves about 20
minutes off of the actual commission Public Hearing meeting, because the chairman
can be a little more efficient. If you were not able to attend that meeting, the
Commission public hearings would still -- there would be very little noticeable difference.
It may not be quite as efficient, because there would be some discussion about why
something wasn't posted or when ACHD was going to get to it, that you come already
knowing if you have been to the meeting, but --
Borup: Did you say that's every day? Is that what I heard you say? Or every week?
Zaremba: 3:00 o'clock every time there is a meeting. It was 3:00 o'clock --
Moe: Okay. I heard it every day.
Zaremba: Oh, I'm sorry.
Borup: You meant the day of the Commission meeting.
Zaremba: It's, actually, a pre-commission meeting.
Borup: Okay.
Zaremba: And it's only on days when there is a Commission meeting.
Borup: So, it was 3:00 o'clock this afternoon.
Zaremba: At 3:00 o'clock.
Moe: Got you.
Hood: Mr. Chair?
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December 1, 2005
Page 16 of 18
Borup: That sounds more reasonable.
Zaremba: Mr. Hood.
Hood: If I may, just to let everyone know that that -- that 3:00 o'clock is not necessarily
set in stone. That's what we have decided works best for now. We don't have to have
that meeting, if the chair is out and it's to the vice-chair and it doesn't work into the
schedule, we could even do it over the phone or not do it that week or whatever. I
agree with you, I think it does help save some time for everyone, if we can just sit down
even for 20 minutes and say, you know, here is, you know, who didn't post or this is
what we are looking at for this item or where we are at. Basically, it's kind of an update
of what we have learned sometimes that day, sometimes since the staff report went to
print, and just kind of go over the applications that are before you. So, that 3:00 o'clock
on Thursday is not set in stone and it is sort of optional, so we can talk with the new
chair and see if that works in the new schedule or some other time or not at all.
Rohm: Okay. Thank you.
Zaremba: Thank you. Mr. Nary appears to want to add something.
Nary: Mr. Chairman, just -- I guess maybe to reiterate what you have put on the
record. The purpose of the meeting is a staff meeting. It's a staff meeting between the
legal department, Public Works, and planning, to make sure that whatever issues may
exist, to make a more efficient meeting for all of you, that we be able to answer that.
Part of the reason we picked 3:00 o'clock is that if there are issues, whether it's
contacting an applicant, verifying a report has arrived or not arrived, a legal issue that
may require some time to research or prepare for your evening's meeting, it gives us
adequate time to do that. That's the purpose of it. We began this year, after
Commissioner Zaremba was elected chair, and invited him to participate. You're not
obligated to be there. The only reason the chair attends is to, again, as he stated, to,
hopefully, efficiently manage the meeting. If you're not there, we are going to meet
anyway. The purpose of the meeting is for our purposes. It's to help -- if the chair
wishes to attend to assist them in managing the meeting and knowing what's going to
happen and where sort of the land mines are that may come up that evening, that's
sometimes helpful. But, again, there is not a requirement that they be there. If they
want to be there over the phone, that's certainly easy to do, that's not going to be
problematic to do, if you'd rather do that. Generally, the meetings last -- well, the meat
of the meeting lasts about a half an hour. Sometimes we talk for about an hour, but,
generally, a half hour, 40 minutes, of just going through each item and making sure that
we have all the information that's necessary, we have addressed all the questions that
might come up, those types of things. So, just to clarify what it's about and your
attendance is certainly never mandatory. I would prefer, from a legal perspective, that
no more than the chairman attend, because I don't want to give the impression this is
somehow a pre-meeting that's separate or needs to be noticed or has some other
purpose than, really, just preparation for the evening's meeting and, again, it's a staff
meeting that the chairman just participates with.
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December 1, 2005
Page 17 of 18
Zaremba: Well put. Thank you.
Rohm: Mr. Chairman?
Zaremba: Commissioner Rohm.
Rohm: I'd like to nominate David Moe as our vice-chairman.
Zaremba: Okay.
Borup: Second.
Zaremba: We have a motion and a second on that. Do we have any alternate
nominations? Anybody care to move that nominations cease?
Rohm: So moved.
Zaremba: Is there a second to that? Did I hear a second to that motion?
Newton-Huckabay: Yes.
Zaremba: Okay. Thank you. We have a motion and a second that nominations cease.
All in favor say aye. Any opposed? That carries unanimously, which means without
further vote, David Moe, Commissioner Moe, becomes our vice-chairman for 2006.
And I thank you all very much.
Newton-Huckabay: Could I make a --
Zaremba: Commissioner Newton-Huckabay.
Newton-Huckabay: -- request, though, if I could be so presumptuous. I would ask that
even though you will be no longer acting as chairman, if you would be so kind as to
continue with setting up the monthly educational presentations. You seem to have a lot
of contacts and we have learned a lot of interesting stuff and I would --
Zaremba: I had three or four of them in mind that I haven't gotten to. There seemed to
be more important ones came first. And I would be happy to make those suggestions
to the chairman or work them out with staff or somehow assist in that.
Rohm: I'm sure we can work that out.
Zaremba: I'm happy to hear that it's favorable to have those educational meetings and I
would be glad to help find a way to help them continue. Are we agreed that the second
meeting of the month is the best choice, usually?
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December 1, 2005
Page 18 of 18
Rohm: Usually that's the case.
Zaremba: Yeah. Once in awhile it's not, but --
Moe: It sounds like the January meeting may not be a good one. That seems already
full.
Zaremba: Maybe we will skip January and start in -- but, yes, I would be happy to
participate in helping them continue.
Moe: Mr. Chairman?
Zaremba: Commissioner Moe.
Moe: I move we adjourn.
Rohm: Second.
Zaremba: We have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Any opposed?
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Zaremba: We are adjourned. Thank you all.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 7:45 P.M.
(TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS.)
APPROVED:
______________________________ _____|_____|_____
DAVID ZAREMBA - CHAIRMAN DATE APPROVED
ATTESTED:_____________________________
WILLIAM G. BERG JR., CITY CLERK