Woodbridge HOA Letter 11/16~N'pO~BRIiDGE
MERI~~IAN ~ IOAHO
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November 16, 2010
Meridian Planning and Zoning Commission,
Mayor de Weerd, Meridian City Council
33 East Broadway Avenue
Meridian, ID 83642
Re: File No: CPAM 10-001, RZ 10-004 8~ PP 10-003
2510 E. Magic View Drive-Waverly Place
Dear Members of the Meridian Planning and Zoning Commission,
On behalf of the Woodbridge Home Owners Association we are submitting this letter to
you to request that action on this development be delayed by the Commission until the
developer provides the city and the developments' neighbors with greater design detail
for all expected elevations, floor plans, exterior finishes, and design guidelines.
We recognize that this is a "quasi-judicial" proceeding, and not a "judicial" hearing;
however the rules of evidence should still be applied and all parties in the process should
have a chance and sufficient time to review the information upon which a decision is
made. We agree with staff that additional elevations should be submitted for review prior
to approval, and we too would like the opportunity to review them and make comment on
them prior to approval.
The current application has changed significantly from the time it was originally
presented at the neighborhood meeting of September 8, 2010. At that time only vague
concepts and amorphous design ideas were presented to the neighbors, indicating to us
as neighbors that the developer was going through the motions (checking the
neighborhood meeting requirement off the list of requirements) rather than presenting a
fully formed development idea to a group of stake holders.
The applications that were submitted to the City after the neighborhood meeting
confirmed those thoughts, as it became very obvious to us as neighbors that the
elevations submitted to the city project were thoughtlessly taken directly from
www.coolhouseplans.com and all but one of the elevations would not fit on the proposed
lots, most were smaller than 1100 sq ft and all but one had single car garages. The floor
plans for each of the submitted elevations were easy to obtain from the aforementioned
www.coolhouseplans.com.
The revised staff report that includes a single home elevation and a clubhouse elevation
was made available for public review by the Woodbridge HOA on Monday afternoon,
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November 15, just three days prior to the P&Z meeting. This coupled with the previous
attempts to "just get by" with the minimum does not help to assuage our concerns that
the developer does not intend to develop this project with high standards of design or
building materials.
Some of our concerns are as follows:
• The application only shows one elevation. This does not provide adequate
information as to what this development will look like. There are no elevations for
the center units. It is the developer's intention for an all single story development
as indicated by his single submitted elevation.
• The elevation provided does not include detailed dimensions.
• Exterior finishes are not provided.
• Has the living area above the "clubhouse" been eliminated?
• Little or no on-street parking is available due to driveway locations (troublesome
for parties or families with three cars).
• No proposed design guidelines were submitted with this application detailing
exterior finishes, roofing materials, roof pitch, wainscoting requirements etc... (we
believe the minimum design standards should be included in a Development
Agreement associated with the re-zone request)
• The minimum house size is now being reduced to the code minimum for the R-8
zone (1,100 sq ft) whereas, before under the prior approval, the minimum house
size was set at 1,600 sq. ft. What is the projection for size range & distribution?
Will they all be 1,100 sq ft?
• Lack of adequate landscape buffer between the lower density developments to
the north and west.
Woodbridge previously supported the Waverly Place application as submitted by Alston
Jones. Mr. Jones met with Woodbridge homeowners on numerous occasions to insure
that complete transparency of intentions and project details were understood. This is not
the case with the current application. We respectfully request that an additional
neighborhood meeting be held prior to the P&Z Commissions action on this project.
When a project is built in Meridian it will be a part of our City, and our neighborhood for a
very long time; it will be here after the current economic low and during whatever the
next several decades brings. Good design should be important regardless of the size or
price of the homes to be constructed. As we have yet to see what it is that the City has
been asked to approve, we ask that the commission not approve the applications at this
time.
Thank you for your consideration.
Woodbridge Homeowners Association
Board of Directors
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