City Council - Regular Meeting

I think that would work well.

I think that would work well. Thank you very much. There are programs. There you go. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It's been a blast. Sorry. Hi, how are you? So, how are you? So, how are you? So, how are you? um Oh, great. um okay oh yeah Oh my goodness. I like to get... Thank you so much.

All righty. Well, I'm going to call this meeting to order. Welcome, everybody. It's great to have you here this evening. We start our meeting with an invocation, which we observe by a moment of silence, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance.

All right. Clerk, will you please call the roll? Horlice. Here. Halliburton. Here. Morales. Here. Nash. Here. Stead. Here. Willits. Here. All present.

Madam Mayor, I move approval of the council meeting minutes from the June 23rd, 2026 budget workshop and regular day meeting.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. Clerk?

Nash?

Yes.

Stead? Yes. Willett? Yes. Corliss? Yes. Halliburton? Yes. Morales?

Yes.

All in favor, motion carries.

All right, we've got quite a bit of special business tonight. First off, we have the reappointment of Bill Vasconcellos to the Airport Commission for a three-year term that would expire June 30th, 2029. Bill is with us this evening. I so appreciate your service. Every time Bill's asked to serve, he says yes so heartily, and you've been a great member. of the Airport Commission. And with that, I'd request unanimous consent.

Madam Mayor, I move for unanimous consent to reappoint Bill Vasconcellos to the Airport Commission for a three-year term expiring June 30th, 2029.

Without objection. Thank you. And Bill, you're welcome to say something if you'd like, since you're here. Don't feel as though you have to. And you're also excused once, because I don't think you want to wait for all these folks to finish talking tonight.

Well, I'd just like to thank you and the council for the opportunity to serve. I think I represent the average air traveler and no vested interest, so I enjoy it. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much. And have a lovely evening. We really appreciate you. And next, I'll take a motion for the appointment of Melissa Christian to the Boise City Ada County Housing Authority for the remainder of a term that expires October 31st, 2029.

Madam Mayor, I move to appoint Melissa Christian to the Boise City Ada County Housing Authority for the remainder of a five-year term expiring October 31st, 2029. Second.

We have a motion and a second. Is there discussion?

Madam Mayor. Yes, i'd like to request that we the roll call tonight on this one, I will not be supporting this motion, this is the second. nomination that we've had from county commission in my short time here on council where yeah they're district 19 legislative candidate i think that looking at their platform looked at some more information i couldn't quite see the maybe the value that could be brought to this commission and i would like to see if we can get more geographic representation on the commission as it is now thank you clerk

Nash.

Yes.

Dead. Yes. Willis. Yes. Corliss. Yes. Holly Burton. Yes. Morales.

No.

Five in favor, one opposed. Motion carries.

And next up, we have two appointments that I'll do at once. They're both reappointments, Matt Cryer and Catherine Dallas-Elliott for terms on the Open Space and Clean Water Advisory Committee that expire July 1st, 2029.

Madam Mayor, I ask for unanimous consent in the reappointment of Matt Cryer and Catherine Dallas-Elliott for the Open Space and Clean Water Advisory Committee for three-year terms ending July 1st, 2029.

Without objection. I really appreciate that Catherine and Matt were both willing to continue to serve. And next up, we'll have the reappointment of Brian Walker to the Parks and Rec Commission for a term that expires July 17th, 2029.

Madam Mayor, I ask unanimous consent for the reappointment of Brian Walker to the Parks and Recreation Committee for a three-year term expiring July 17th, 2029.

Without objection. Thank you, Brian, for continuing to serve. And is Andrew Peterson here? All right, I have before you the reappointment of Andrew Peterson to the Plumbing Mechanical Fuel Gas Code Board for a term that expires July 1, 2030.

Madam Mayor, I ask for unanimous consent for the reappointment of Andrew Peterson for the Plumbing Mechanical Fuel Gas Code Board for a four-year term expiring July 1, 2030.

Without objection. And thank you, Andrew, as well. You know, we were seeing quite a few of these tonight, which I think really shows how much we rely on and look to residents to help inform our processes. So really appreciate the service of all these folks.

Madam Mayor, I just wanted to add, I think this is a great example. First of all, there are a lot of seats up here in the front, if anybody still is looking for a seat. But there's so many opportunities to get involved with the city and the work that we do. So I'm so grateful for the folks that have done this. I served on the Planning and Zoning Commission before I was on council. It was a really great way to better understand how decisions are made here. And it's a huge time commitment. So I really appreciate these folks turning out and encourage others to get involved in the various ways if they're interested in learning more.

Madam Mayor, if I could just add one more. Bill, thank you for continuing to serve our city. As it's been noted, these are all community members. They're volunteers. They're volunteering their own expertise, whether it's professional expertise or lived experience. And it makes our decisions on council easier. A lot of times you're making a decision at an airport level, commission level, or a parks and rec level that are filtering all the way up. or even people who have specialty in plumbing and mechanical stuff, that we aren't going to have that same level of technical expertise. And that makes the decisions better throughout the process. So Bill and all the other folks, thank you. It's a huge service to the community, and it's truly appreciated.

And with that, I move to approve the consent agenda.

Second.

We have a motion and second discussion. Clerk? Clerk?

Nash.

Yes.

Stead. Yes. Willis. Yes. Horlitz. Yes. Allie Burton. Yes. Morales. Yes.

All in favor, motion carries. And then Madam Mayor, it looks like we have one reading on the second reading calendar. I ask unanimous consent that all ordinances on the second reading calendar be read by number and title only and filed for the third reading calendar. Without objection.

Authority-27-26, an ordinance, PR-25-00025, for property located at 3099 West Moore Street, amending zoning classifications of the City of Boise City to change the classification of real property, particularly described in Section 1 of this ordinance and adjacent rights-of-way from R-2, residential compact, Timex-1, mixed-use neighborhood, setting forth a reasoned statement in support of such zone change and providing an effective date.

Then it looks like we have one on third reading calendar. So Madam Mayor, I move that for the reading of ORD 26-26 be dispensed with. And the record reflected has been read the third time in full.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. Clark? Nash?

Yes.

Dunn? Yes. Willis? Yes. Corliss? Yes.

Halliburton? Yes. Morales? Yes. All in favor of motion carries. ORD-26-26. An ordinance amending Boise City Code by striking Chapter 1, Article C, entitled Excessive Price Increases During Emergency from Title III, enacting a new Chapter 16 to Title I, Boise City Code, entitled Excessive Price Increases During Emergency, which contains the same provisions as the struck Boise City Code, Title III, Chapter 1, Article C, approving a summary of the ordinance and providing an effective date.

Madam Mayor, I move that ORD 26-26 be approved. Second.

We have a motion and a second. Discussion?

Clerk? Nash?

Yes.

Dead? Yes. Willis? Yes. Corliss? Yes. Halliburton? Yes. Morales? Yes.

All in favor, motion carries. And now just before you do these, we've got three ordinances on third reading. And I just want to share a little bit of why we're doing this. The first two, both the emergency drought ordinance and the EMOTA ordinance were reviewed in work session today in great detail. And we're taking three reading action on these because we're entering into the hottest and driest part of the summer related to the emergency drought ordinance. And we need a system in place in case there's a drought. And then we're reaching peak emotive season. And then the final one are changes that were necessary before the legislative changes go into effect tomorrow.

Great. With that, Madam Mayor, I move that all rules of the council interfering with the immediate consideration of ORD 28-26, ORD 29-26, ORD 30-26, and ORD 31-26 be suspended, that the portions of Idaho Code Section 50-902 requiring an ordinance to be read on three different days twice by title and once in full be dispensed with, that the records show it has been read the third time in full.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. Clerk?

Nash?

Yes.

Stead? Yes. Willett? Yes. Corliss? Yes. Halliburton? Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

All in favor, motion carries. ORD-28-26, an ordinance adopting a new Chapter 17 to Boise City Code, BCC Title I, entitled Emergency Drought Response, setting forth the legal authority, Section 1-17-1, establishing the purpose and intent, BCC Section 1-17-2, providing the scope, BCC 1-17-3, establishing the applicability, BCC Section 1-17-4, providing the definitions, BCC Section 1-17-5, establishing the conditions to declare a drought emergency, BCC Section 1-17-6, to define and describe emergency drought response orders, BCC Section 1-17-7, establishing the process for enacting emergency drought response orders, BCC Section 1-17-8, Providing for exemptions, BCC Section 1-17-9. Providing for suspense and waiver of certain city activities, BCC Section 1-17-10. Providing for force majeure, BCC Section 1-17-11. Providing for reconsideration, BCC Section 1-17-12. Providing for enforcement, BCC Section 1-17-13. And setting forth the penalty, BCC Section 1-17-14. approving a summary of the ordinance, providing for a waiver of the reading rules, and providing effective date. RID-29-26, ordinance striking Chapter 3, entitled Restaurants, Title IV of Boise City Code, BCC, enacting a new Chapter 5 to Title III of BCC, entitled Food and Beverage Establishment, which is an amended and moved version of the struck BCC Title IV, Chapter 3. Under such new chapter providing the legal authority, purpose, and scope of food and beverage establishment licenses, previously referred to as eating and drinking licenses, setting forth that the general licensing provisions are applicable, providing definitions, setting forth license required, licensing exemptions, application requirements, and license term, providing license standards and requirements, setting forth license denial, suspension, and revocation review procedures, providing a penalty provision, amending BCC Title III, Chapter 2, entitled Vendors, Solicitors, Temporary Merchants, to align with new state code and with new BCC Title III, Chapter 5, and amending BCC Title III, Chapter 1, Article A, Sections 3, 4, and 6, and BCC Title III, Chapter 4, Section 7, to align with new BCC Title III, Chapter 5, providing for a waiver of the reading rules, approving a summary of the ordinance, and providing an effective date. 40-30-26, an ordinance amending Boise City Code Title VI, Chapter 13, Section 1, to update the definition of the term e-bike and to provide a new term e-moto definition. amending Boise City Code Title VI, Chapter 13, Section 3, to add requirements and restrictions on e-motos and other electric motorized vehicles that do not fall within the definition of an e-bike, e-scooter, or e-moto, providing for a waiver of the reading rules, approving a summary of the ordinance, and providing an effective date. Order D-31-26, an ordinance amending Boise City Code Title I, Chapter 7, Section 2, Appointment of Officers, amending Boise City Code Title II, Chapter 7, Library Board, providing for a waiver of the reading rules, approving a summary of the ordinance, and providing effective date.

Madam Mayor, I move that ORD 28-26 be approved. Second.

We have a motion and a second. Is there a discussion?

Yeah, Madam Mayor, just to be clear on this one, we're not declaring a drought emergency with this ordinance. But really what we're doing is acknowledging the challenges that we have with water in Boise, especially with years like we saw this year where we have low snowpack and not as much water. and making sure that going forward that we have the ability to declare an emergency and go through measures if we need to. And really those measures come in a phased approach that we talked about during our work session today, starting with education and outreach, moving to voluntary action, and then in an extreme scenario, moving to that mandatory conservation order. So again, no emergency related to drought to be concerned about today, but something that we need to make sure that we're always thinking about steps that we can do today to you know, make sure that we're using water wisely and that we have something in place if an emergency were to occur.

Um, oh, that's back to you.

Oh, you're not saying anything about this? All right. Clerk?

Nash?

Yes.

Dead? Yes. Willis? Yes. Corliss? Yes. Halliburton? Yes. Morales? Yes. All in favor? Motion carries.

Madam Mayor, I move approval of ORD 29-26. Second.

We have a motion and a second. Discussion? Burke?

Nash? Yes. Bed? Yes. Willits? Yes. Corliss? Yes. Halliburton? Yes. Morales? Yes. All in favor, motion carries.

Metamir, I move approval of ORD 30-26. Second.

We have a motion and a second. Discussion?

Matt, maybe I can kick us off here. I imagine that there'll be a couple of other comments from other council members and perhaps you as well. This is an ordinance that some of our staff, and I'd like to recognize Emily Brie, our legal team, has put a lot of work into helping navigate what is sort of a situation where technology has evolved faster than regulations. and really what this ordinance is doing is defining what an e-moto is and what an e-moto isn't so a lot of times we see these new devices that are on the road and maybe it's an e-bike maybe it's an e-scooter a skateboard a one-wheeler that we don't even know what to call and now we've seen this emergence of e-motos and what e-motos are are an electric vehicle that falls beyond the class of any of your standard e-bikes that we see and really defined by having a motor capacity over 750 watts or a speed capacity that has the ability to go over 28 miles per hour. And really, you know, vehicles that have more speed and power capacity than what we see with some of our mopeds and other smaller bicycles. smaller motorcycles and so really what this is making sure that we're defining it as is an e-moto as a motorcycle and therefore having to follow the same rules that we would have for motorcycles and you can think of licensing registration you can think of insurance making sure that you have a driver's license making sure that you have a motorcycle endorsement and really trying to clear up any confusion of, is this an e-bike? Is this not an e-bike? It's not. It's not a bicycle. It's not an e-bike. By code, it's defined as a motorcycle and therefore has to follow some of those same rules. I want to dive into this just a little bit more. I think that the impetus behind this ordinance is really an outcry from the public about safety concerns that we see primarily with younger people using vehicles that are marketed to them as a lifestyle brand. Um, that have been designed specifically to avoid some of the regulations that go with typical. E-bikes and what you see are younger folks, oftentimes riding around on vehicles that are just as powerful as a motorcycle in really, really dangerous situations. And I think what none of us want to see and none of what the community members who've been reaching out want to see is one of these kids going home, connecting with their community, exploring, doing all the things that we want them to do in the summertime, but because they're on something that's so dangerous, not coming home at the end of the day. And, you know, we've dealt with so many heartbreaking losses with kids on bikes, walking, skateboards, across the board. This is an area where we do see it as an emergency and something that we need to address, you know, as soon as we possibly can by providing those clear definitions, both for parents, both for the users and for our law enforcement agencies to clearly be able to enforce them. The last thing that I want to say, I had the opportunity to talk with a variety of different folks from the press today to explain what our goals were with this. And a couple of them are here today. Thank you for the coverage and getting the word out there. Motorcycles by themselves are one of our most dangerous forms of transportation. When there are crashes, they usually result in severe injury and sometimes fatalities. And if you got really into data and you looked at Per million miles traveled, what is the most dangerous form of transportation out there? Motorcycles are always gonna be at the very top of the list. So here we already have a vehicle that's very dangerous to use. It takes a lot of training, takes special licensing, and you're putting them in the hands of eight, 10, 14 year olds who haven't gone through any of this training. And really what we see is a ticking time bomb. We see fatalities across the entire country. We've seen issues and crashes right here in the Treasure Valley. Everybody is trying to figure out how to navigate what to do with this emerging technology. And so I appreciate all the hard work that's gone into clearly defining this and making it very specific that these e-motos are motorcycles and will be treated as such. I know that our police department is going to be out there doing enforcement And I would want people to take that enforcement seriously, because if we're treating them the same as motorcycles, riding an unlicensed vehicle, riding an unregistered vehicle, riding something recklessly can result in up to a misdemeanor. So this is no joke. And this isn't an effort to stop kids from having fun over the summer. We want them out there having fun. We want them connecting with the community. And personally, I want them getting into a a decent amount of trouble that's okay, that we want our teams to be able to do. But I don't want them getting killed riding a motorcycle down a busy street, riding wheelies, doing all these different types of things. So we encourage folks to continue having them ride their bicycles, ride their e-bikes, the class 1s, class 2s, and class 3s. And for parents and folks, know to be aware that these are now treated as motorcycles and therefore fall under these jurisdictions. So again, thank you to all the folks who've been reaching out and the folks who put in the work on this one. I do think that this is something that will save lives in our community, and I'm glad we were able to get to it. now in an emergency ordinance rather than waiting till the end of the summer.

Madam Mayor, I think that Councilmember Halliburton mostly covered it all. I just wanted to add that I expect this will be the first step in some additional review that we'll have on these policies surrounding e-bikes and safety. And the e-moto ordinance, I think, is a great first step in that. It gives our police officers the tools they need to better implement what is really already outlined in state code. So I appreciate their partnership in this. And this has been a long time coming with tremendous community support along the way. So look forward to seeing it enacted as soon as tomorrow, I think we heard. And the additional community outreach that will go into the additional steps that we'll see come online, hopefully in the next year or

Well, before the vote, I typically don't vote on items and only vote when there's a tie. So just that's the case for the whole evening. I want to thank Councilmember Halliburton for your leadership and expertise in this area. And you really have said it best. But I think about this from... like the perspective of a mom who just wants to make sure that their kid's safe and doesn't know that the bike that they thought they were buying is an Emoto. And now there will be more clearly, a whole bunch clearer education on that piece. The enforcement will help get the news out there more quickly. It will keep kiddos safe. In my own neighborhood, and I'm sure many of us experience this, you see them out there going really fast and they're doing wheelies and everything else. They don't have a driver's license. And that just is not OK now that we're clearly defining that these are motorcycles and not e-bikes that can go super high speeds with a whole bunch of wattage. So appreciate Councilmember Halliburton's work on this. And both Bree Brush and Emily Allen were called out. And moving forward separately from this designation and clear delineation that these are motorcycles, we will be looking at how we make sure that we can keep kids and other residents on bikes and e-bikes moving safely through this community, but safely is key. So we have created a task force where we'll take recommendations on what needs to be done so that both we can keep people moving in ways that are not cars while keeping them safe and keeping other users on the roads and our pathways safe and comfortable too. And also, we'll be continuing to encourage but really amping up our education encouragement related to responsible movement on the Green Belt and other cases. So all of that is to come for residents that are asking us what more and what next. But tonight's emergency ordinance is really important because it's summertime and we want to make sure that we're out ahead of time. and preventing terrible crashes that could occur and will occur. And we don't want to have that happen in our community. And so are really looking to residents to both acknowledge and follow this law and then to our officers who now have the tools they need to enforce a law to keep our community members safe. Clerk.

Nash. Yes. Dunn. Yes. Willis. Yes. Corliss. Yes. Halliburton? Yes. Morales? Yes. All in favor, motion carries.

Metamir, I move approval of ORD 31-26. Second.

Good move, no second. Gustin?

Nash? Yes. Dunn? Yes. Willard? Yes. Corliss? Yes. Halliburton? Yes. Morales? Yes. All in favor, motion carries.

Kathy had her hand up. Do you know what that was about?

Madam Mayor, yes, I was going to make a comment on the emotes, but I will.

I'm so sorry. Go ahead. I'm sorry. It's been so long since we've had a full meeting remote that I'm not looking at the screen. Go ahead, Council Member.

Okay, thank you. I will just take a quick minute to kind of put a comment also in for District 3. I hear a lot. I mean, public safety is our most fundamental responsibility, and I feel that's exactly why for me and many of the council voting yes tonight. I want to take a moment to explain why I believe this action is necessary and urgent. Over the past several months, our offices heard from parents, neighbors, and community members across Boise who are alarmed at what they're seeing on our streets. E-motos, these electric motorcycles capable of exceeding 28 miles per hour, are being marketed and sold to children and teenagers as recreational vehicles and devices with little or no guidance on the legal requirements that come with operating them. Unfortunately, the result has been many riders, many of them young, navigating public roads, on vehicles that are by every practical measure a motorcycle without a license registration. More concerning is about any proper training needed to operate them safely alongside cars and trucks and pedestrian. So what tonight's ordinance does is pretty straightforward. It codifies what the Idaho state law already requires for e-motors over 750 watts to be classified as motor to and to recognize that they are classified as motor vehicles under the state law. It means the operator must hold a valid license, as we mentioned, and have a motorcycle endorsement. And that's really critical because that endorsement means that they've gotten the proper training to operate these motor vehicles. So I'm very excited to support this tonight. I'm thankful to our mayor for putting the emphasis behind this, for Councilmember Halliburton for putting his input and time on this, And for our office, Emily Allen and Bree Brush for really spearheading this with our legal team to getting it through tonight in a rush before our summer season. Thank you.

Thanks, Council President Pro Tem. I'm going to move us into subdivisions now. The first item we have is SUB 2616. I don't have anybody signed up for the COI subdivision. Is anybody here for the COI subdivision? All right. Is the applicant here? And so we'll hear what we'll do is we'll hear from staff. I'll see if you're in agreement with terms and conditions. If so, we can move right through.

Good evening, Madam Mayor and council members. Before you tonight is a preliminary and final plot for residential subdivision comprised of four buildable and one common lots on 0.9 acres and an R2-AIO residential compact with airport influence area overlay zone. Summarizing the project report, this is a revised request from last year. The prior application was before you as an appeal of a conditional use permit to exceed the base density of five units per acre, where it was stated that the project would not be feasible to develop at a density that complied with the airport influence area. The proposal has since been redesigned to comply with the requirements of the airport influence area overlay. Detached sidewalk will be provided along Pond Street, and a recommended condition of approval requires a pedestrian connection to be provided for lots three and five. Parks and solid waste submitted comments on the proposal. The parks and recreation team has concurred with the planning team's analysis of a 98-caliber inch deficit in the tree mitigation requirements of section 11.0409, landscaping and screening. Solid waste commented that a redesign of the common drive is needed to comply with the dimensional requirements outlined in the solid waste design guidelines. In conclusion, with the recommended conditions of approval, the Planning and Zoning Commission recommends approval, and I'd be happy to stand for any questions.

Any questions for staff?

Madam Mayor?

Yeah.

Just to reiterate our conversation that we had when this was before us before, so we're getting four home sites, but each of those four homes could have an ADU. So potentially eight units of housing, but four home sites, correct? That is correct. Thanks.

All right. Applicant, are you in agreement with the terms and conditions of the staff report? I'll have the record reflect that the applicant is. I'm going to confirm nobody here is for this. All right. I'm going to close this matter, and it's before counsel.

Madam Mayor, I move approval of COI subdivision SUB 26-19, a preliminary and final plot at 2701 South Ponce Street.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. Discussion? Clerk?

Clerk? Nash.

Yes.

Stead. Yes. Willis. Yes. Corliss. Yes. Halliburton. Yes. Morales. Yes.

All in favor, motion carries. Madam Mayor, for the next public hearing, it looks like we I'm sorry that we didn't do this first off.

Yeah.

Oh, you've got it on your screen. Yeah, but I would like to move to defer CUP 25-16, Al Scott Real Estate Group, 655 West Parkside View Lane to a future date not yet certain.

Second. We have a motion and a second. Clerk?

Nash? Yes.

Yes.

Ted. Yes. Willis. Yes. Corliss. Yes. Holly Burton. Yes. Morales. Yes. All in favor, motion carries.

All right. Thank you. And this next one is CR2519. Matt, welcome back for staff. The applicant is Drew Duspout. Sorry. Is the applicant with us this evening?

Madam Mayor, the applicant is online.

Oh, all righty. The applicant's online.

I have one person signed up for this

2519? I want to make sure that that's correct. Howard Shields? Are you here for the church? Okay, great. All right. So is anybody here intending to speak on Lancaster? All righty. Anybody online intending to speak on Lancaster besides the applicant? Great. I'll check in with the applicant after staff presentation to see if there's new information or requests. Okay, go ahead, Matt.

Thank you and good evening Madam Mayor, members of council. The item before you is a rezone of approximately 0.15 acres from R2 residential compact to R1B residential suburban located at 2607 North Lancaster Drive. The proposal is intended to correct a technical mapping error in which the subject property's western boundary line is positioned in an area that bisects a row of parking. Additionally, the neighboring property to the west is zoned R2 and the subject property is zoned R1B. Thus, this site is currently non-conforming as it is split zoned and its westernmost parking area encroaches onto the neighboring property. According to the applicant's letter of intent, this minor encroachment has been in existence for years and just recently noticed. A property line adjustment was reviewed and approved to relocate the parking area back onto the subject property and to comply with the setbacks of the R1B zone. Similarly, the rezone will realign the zoning to match this new property line. The recordation of that record of survey is contingent upon this rezone being approved and recorded by a condition of approval. As was stated within the project report, all the findings for approval for a zoning map amendment have been met as proposed. In conclusion, the Planning and Zoning Commission recommended approval of the rezone. And I will stand for questions.

Any questions for Matt?

Yeah, Madam Mayor, just one quick question. So I think that this one originally came in front of us at an earlier date and then it was deferred. Any reason for the deferral?

Madam Mayor, Councilmember Halliburton, the applicant failed to post the site leading up to that prior hearing, so it was deferred.

Cool. So technical error caused the deferral, technical error asking for the rezone. That's correct. Hopefully tonight we can fix a couple technical errors. All right.

All right. I'll see if the applicant has anything more to add or if he's in agreement with terms and conditions of the staff report. applicant online, will you just let us know yes or no? Please. All right. We're having some technical issues. I'm going to note that there's a lot of technical issues on top of technical issues, but there's a recommendation for approval. I want to confirm nobody is here for this. And with that, I'll close this and it's before council.

But Amir, I recommend approval of Oh, yeah, 25-19 at 2607 Lancaster Drive, the rezone of approximately 0.15 acres to R2. Second. From R2, sorry, from R2 to R1B. Second. We have a motion and second discussion.

Yeah. Madam mayor, just real quick, you know, usually when there's a rezone, there's a lot bigger discussion, a lot more stuff going on. You know, we've got some really old maps of the city, lots that have been developed a long time ago. And so sometimes we end up seeing these errors on the map where things just don't make sense. And so I think this is pretty straightforward, pretty easy, making sure that we're just getting the line where it needs to be and following all the existing code that we always follow. So, um, yep.

All right, clerk. Nash.

Yes.

Ted. Yes. Willis. Yes. Corliss. Yes. Halliburton. Yes. Morales. Yes. All in favor, motion carries.

All right, thank you. Now we're going to move into the appeal of CUP 26-3. I'll just kind of walk through the process that we have. We'll take some breaks occasionally if everybody's speaking. We'll time it out. um so we're going to start by hearing the presentation from city staff matt dennis and then because this is an appeal we do hear from the appellant first and that's brittany slaughter and there you are welcome uh the southeast neighborhood nha excuse me and then after that we will hear from the applicant lkv architectures all right wonderful And then after that, I don't see Eric Berg. Is the Neighborhood Association with us this evening? Okay. And then after we hear from all those people, then we will hear from the public. So I'll first say that what I'm going to do is I will call through these lists. And Howard Shields, you're going to be first because you signed up on an item before this. You're like way ahead of the line. But I do want to say that we have all read the emails that we've gotten. We've read the record. So I want you to be assured of that. And if you signed up here to share that you're either in a favor of the appeal or opposed to the appeal, but you don't wish to speak, but you wanted it to be recorded, this will be in the record as well and will be shared with council members. And so with that, we'll go ahead and get started. Matt.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. The item before you is an appeal of a Planning and Zoning Commission's approval of a conditional use permit for a major expansion of an existing religious institution and an associated expansion of a legal non-conforming parking lot located at 4750 South Surprise Way on 2.8 acres in an A1 open land, very low density zone. On your screen is a brief and relevant history of the site, which received approval for the religious institution in 2001 and was constructed shortly after. In 2007, an offsite gravel parking lot was approved. Then in 2025, a new driveway approach was approved in the northwest corner of the site to serve a community garden. Then in 2026, the Pining and Zoning Commission approved the CUPS previously stated. This approval was appealed and is now before you. Shown here is a description of the proposal. It includes a 14,000 square foot expansion to the existing structure and 131 new or replacement parking spaces in addition to the 92 existing for a total of 223. As summarized within the project report, the Planning and Zoning Commission is supportive of the CUP modification to expand the existing religious institution, as it meets the dimensional requirements of the development code, as well as the applicable findings. The Planning and Zoning Commission is also supportive of the CUP request to expand the legal non-conforming offsite parking lot to accommodate the religious institution's expansion. As the proposed parking lot meets the dimensional standards of the zone, the applicable findings and the use category for religious institutions do not contain a maximum parking count. Therefore, the amount of spaces proposed by the applicant was intended to accommodate the induced demand for parking from the proposed expansion. Following testimony and deliberation at the previous hearing, the Commission added three conditions of approval that were found by the Commission to mitigate the concerns that were expressed on the record. These are intended to allow rainwater percolation through the ground surface and to improve the safety and driveway entrance points conflicts with the green with the green belt and surprise way in coordination with the various agencies through requirement of a traffic control plan curb ramps wayfinding signage and painting crosswalks. Public comments were received prior to the hearing from nearby neighbors, which generally reflected the comments previously submitted prior to the PNZ hearing. The contents of the testimony were largely split between expressing support and opposition for the proposal with concerns focusing on the anticipated increase in traffic generation on Surprise Way and the potential safety concerns with the two driveway interaction points with the multi-use pathway adjacent to the site. As discussed within the project report, The planning team's recommendation remains unchanged for the reasons previously stated, as well as because Surprise Way is designated as a collector roadway, which is anticipated to accommodate multimodal transportation, and the proposal's additional parking beyond the codified minimum requirement is anticipated by the applicant to reduce traffic congestion onto Surprise Way. Therefore, the planning team finds the proposal to meet the approval criteria for the requested conditional use permit. In conclusion, the planning team recommends council deny the appeal and uphold the planning and zoning commission's approval of the CEP. As a reminder, these hearings are the appeal of a commission level decision is a de novo review and you have the full scope to analyze the proposals compliance with the applicable findings of which I have loaded backup slides if we need to look at those and refer to those later. And with that, I will send for any questions.

Questions for Matt? Madam Mayor? Yes.

I have pointers of clarification for Matt. So as I understand, the square footage today is roughly 8,400 square feet. And they're moving to 14,000 plus square feet. Is that correct? Or are they adding 14,000 more?

Madam Mayor, members of council, the addition itself is 14,000 square feet.

Okay. Thank you.

Madam Mayor, a couple of questions. One, I think more just sort of on the process side. So this is coming up to us as an appeal today. Had it not been appealed, it still would have come to council as a CUP or a variance request, or would it not have?

Madam Mayor, Council Member Halliburton, the Planning and Zoning Commission recommends the, sorry, they provide the final decision on conditional use permits. So the only time that council would decide our conditional use permit is if it was through an appeal like this process.

Then what about the variance part? I guess if the applicant agrees to the variance or agrees to the conditions that are put in the P&Z meeting, it doesn't necessarily come. But typically, if there was a variance, for some reason, I thought that that would have come up through us as well, had they been asking for that variance.

Madam Mayor, Council Member Halliburton, again, the Planning and Zoning Commission renders the final decision on variances. The only time that City Council would decide a variance as if it was appealed. The appeal was denied at City Council and that appeal is not before you. So the appeal is just for the expansion of the existing religious institution and the expansion of the parking lot.

Great. Got another question. I think it falls outside of the grounds of the appeal. I've never seen us put in a condition to require permeable pavers before. And I'm wondering if that is somewhere in our comprehensive plan or our code. I definitely understand the intention with groundwater retention, but I also understand how expensive permeable pavers are. So I know that that might be a little bit on the edge of what we're discussing tonight, but could you speak to that a little bit?

That condition was not originally included within the planning team's recommended conditions of approval. That was added from the dais by the planning and zoning commission. I think that it was largely in response to a lot of the concerns that were heard at PNZ with potential runoff or urban heat island effects.

I guess, you know, maybe I would just add in if you have a comment, I'd love to hear it. We love permeable pavers, right? Like, they're great. We've got them in our alleyways. We've done a lot of work to do there for that groundwater retention. But there's also some other ways that people can do a parking lot as far as the way that the water runs off and recharges into different drainage areas to do some recirculation. Do we require any, that separate one where we use like a pave areas and swales and stuff to recharge or is that not within our code either?

That is within the code. And that would be handled by Basically, there's a maximum parking count of 10 spaces in a row before you're required to put a tree island, a landscape island. So there would not be more than two rows of 10, 20 total parking spaces without caps of trees with landscape buffers, if that makes sense.

Yep, that are capturing some of that drainage and going back into the groundwater system.

That's right, and providing shade as well. Okay, great. Thank you.

Madam Mayor. Hey Matt, thank you for being here. As you mentioned, this is on a roadway that's a collector street. I know this is ECHD's purview, but do you have kind of a basic definition that you could give of collector street? And just kind of confirm that I would say that all collector streets aren't equal in terms of how much they're handling in terms of traffic throughout the city, right?

Madam Mayor, Council Member Morales, thank you for the question. I do agree that the The scope of collector roadways can vary in their ability to accommodate traffic, although through the development code, there's three roadway classifications, which is local, you know, the typical inner neighborhood type of street. The collector which kind of ties together the larger streets with the aforementioned local streets and then the arterial streets which are the big ones that we know kind of more so by by name and by the grid layout. So within the scope and the review of this permit right this was reviewed through a As obviously being adjacent to a collector street collector streets are required to be improved with landscape buffer, minimum eight foot wide landscape buffer, 10 foot wide sidewalk. So with the greenbelt on its frontage there, it was fully improved. No additional requirements were met because we've already fully in compliance with the

street improvements that would be required if it if those improvements weren't existing yeah thank you madam mayor and then follow up kind of good segue into greenbelt i think there was a little bit of confusion during planning and zoning on this pathway being greenbelt because maybe it's not what you'd expect the green belt along the river right that doesn't have road crossings or curb cuts but we have a few spots throughout the city that are like this where they tend to go briefly through a neighborhood or whatnot have curb cuts and i'm correct

Council Member Morales, that's correct. Yes. Thanks.

All right. Thank you. First, we'll hear from the appellant, Brittany Slaughter.

Is it Slaughter? Welcome.

And as you're coming up, we tend to have you here and there's a clicker if you've got a slideshow. And I just want to acknowledge that I read your email on process in general and really appreciate the thoughts that you shared.

Thank you. I don't have a slideshow, so.

Okay. That keeps it simple.

Yeah. Can you tell me how long I have?

Yes. It'll go up there in just a minute. So you've got 15 minutes. Okay, perfect. And we pause it if we interrupt you for questions and things like that. Great. Yeah, you can take a minute. That's fine. Perhaps you want to start with sharing with us your name and your address.

Yes. Mayor McLean, President Stead, and council members, my name is Brittany Slaughter. I live at 6111 South Settlement Way. My husband and I have lived in our home for 28 and a half years. And although I know that I filed extensive written testimony in support of our appeal, I just had some additional thoughts that I wanted to share tonight. I never really thought I would see my name up there.

I just, and we'll pause for a second. I mean, we're all just people.

Yeah.

And you are here because you love your neighborhood and you want to talk about that. And other people are here because they love their neighborhood and their church and they want to talk about it. Yes. We are all just people and really welcome you.

Thank you.

Yeah.

So leading up to this hearing, the church sent an email to their congregation targeting the one person who they claim is solely responsible for the opposition to their expansion, who I assume is me. As a result, you've also received written testimony stating that one neighbor who has a personal vendetta has been sharing misinformation. I'm sorry, I don't know why I'm so emotional. I just want to assure you that neither I nor anyone who opposes this project has a personal vendetta against the church. I also can assure you that everything that I have shared with neighbors over the past few months has been either straight from the church's website or the city planning website. I've attended East Wind on occasion and my kids have participated in their youth programs, attended summer camps and VBSs through the years. I have dear friends and neighbors who attend East Wind and I've never spoken out against them before ever. And I don't have any plans to do it again in the future. Being at odds with my friends and neighbors has been difficult on all of us. I will get it together, I promise. My involvement with this project started last fall after the church applied for a new driveway approach across the Greenbelt path into what had previously been a community garden space. After reaching out to the city with some questions, I was concerned that the church had lied on their permit application, stating multiple times that the use of the land would not change from the current use, in spite of the fact that they had planned for years to convert the garden space to parking, and they were in fact already parking there. I wasn't really ever able to get an answer about the misinformation on their application or why that didn't impact the approval of the permit related to the approach. That approach has now been installed with no opportunity for neighborhood input in spite of the church's misrepresentation of the issue and its use. I was also very concerned because of the limited notification requirements. Very few neighbors knew or understood what the church was planning. So I started talking to people. Most of the neighbors I spoke with were under the impression that East Wind was just planning a parking lot expansion. But as they came to understand the scope of the building expansion, their concern about the impact on our neighborhood grew. I don't have a cadre of city planners like Matt Dennis or architects or lawyers or board members or a captive audience of a thousand people to plead our case to. or a bank account to draw from. And so maybe it does appear to people that I'm just one person with a vendetta. But as a church's application is signed by one person, so was the appeal and it has my name and signature on it. So yes, I have been a spokesperson for my neighbors. But the appeal wasn't filed just for me. It was filed on behalf of a large group of neighbors, many of whom submitted comments and testified tonight and in the past about their concerns. As I'm sure that you know, it costs hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours to work to get to this point to file an appeal. Neighbors opposing the appeal met on multiple occasions, collaborated on the appeal, hand delivered flyers to 600 homes to inform their neighbors about what was happening, contributed their time, their energy, their money to ensure that their voices were heard. So even though it's felt like I've had a little bit of a target on my back, I'm here again. not with a personal vendetta, but on behalf of a group of neighbors who are worried about what's happening to our neighborhood. We're concerned about our personal safety and the impact to our community that this expansion represents. I don't think there's anybody in this room that would tell you that East Wind isn't an asset to the community. East Wind is an asset to the community and everything that they contribute to this community has all been done in the building that they currently have. They can and likely will continue all of their good work, whether this expansion is approved or not. Our goal in opposing the expansion is not for East Wind to close their doors. None of us want that. No one's asking East Wind to stop their work in the community or even to stop the growth of their church. many churches grow my husband and i started attending calvary chapel when it was on longmont because like east wind it was a nice small southeast boise neighborhood church the issue is that most churches when facing growth don't try to squeeze an oversized building a parking lot onto a lot that's too small and on land that's not zoned for a commercial building of this size East Wind will tell you that they've considered all the options and that this plan is the only solution. But actually, there are other options for East Wind that would accommodate their growth without negatively impacting our neighborhood. They could move to a new location. They could open satellite campuses, one or more of those. They could add services, service times. Any of these options would accommodate their needs and reduce or eliminate the impact to their neighbors. I don't get to know what their decision criteria were. For them, maybe this expansion is the easiest or the cheapest or the most desirable for a number of reasons. It might be the closest to where the pastor lives, or it might have the least impact to them. It might just be what got the most votes from the board or the congregation. But none of those things make it the only option or even the right option. This is what we're asking of East Wind. That they have the faith to wait for the right solution to present itself. That they not compromise at the expense of the safety of their neighbors. That they act as good neighbors not only to the people who attend their church and benefit from their services, but also to the rest of us who don't. Eastwind doesn't plan to stop with this current expansion. They already have plans for the next expansion up on their website, which would bring the total size of their building to 35,000 square feet. I went looking for buildings, like, what does that mean? That's about the size of the new Boise Aquatic Center. It's the size of the Scandinavian Design Building on Broadway. And it's the size of the footprint of Axiom Gym on Park Center. In addition to all these things and all the things that I've submitted in my written testimony and in our appeal, I also just want to take a moment to ask you to understand who has spoken out in support and in opposition to this project. There were 63 people up to this point. That includes all of the comments that were in Matt Dennis' summary. So not anybody who's going to testify after me, but everything else up to this moment. 63 people submitted comments or testified in support of the church expansion. Of those people, 16 of them live in Surprise Valley. That's 25% of the comments. submitted up to this point that have been in support of the church expansion and are coming from people who are actually going to be impacted by it. On the other hand, there were 50 people who submitted comments in opposition to the expansion. 100 of those people live in surprise 100% of those people live in surprise valley every single person who has testified or submitted comments in opposition to the expansion lives in one of the neighborhoods that will be affected by the expansion if it's approved. In addition, several in the most recent written testimony submitted, there were several businesses that indicate that they used East Winds facilities for their meetings, and they also submitted comments supporting the expansion. This expansion will likely increase the number of organizations who want to use their building, the number of days the building's in use, and the associated traffic into our neighborhood and across our greenbelt path. I am so glad to hear the comments that you all have made with relation to the other projects that were up for discussion tonight about the importance of public safety. And that is one of the most important things to us. There's lots of issues in our appeal, but safety is paramount because every car that goes into this church parking lot crosses the green belt and now there are two access points where double the cars will be crossing or triple the cars will be crossing the green belt path for sunday services for weddings for funerals for midweek services for other organizations that use the building It could be any day of the week, any number of cars up to the maximum parking spaces. You've heard or received testimony from 63 people in support from the church telling you about their great work. You've also received testimony from 50 people who oppose the project but also agree that the church is doing good work. They've largely been a good neighbor. All 113 people who testified in support support of continuation of Eastwind's good work, the work that they've been able to do in the building where they are right now for the last 20 years. For this reason, along with my written testimony previously submitted, I and all of the people who have worked so hard with me to get to this point ask that you deny the conditional use permit 26.3 Eastwinds application for a major expansion at 4750 South Surprise Way. Thank you.

I'm happy to answer any questions. Yeah, Brittany, thank you. I was going to ask that you say there might be questions.

Yeah, Madam Mayor. Brittany, first of all, thanks for being here. And I just say I've been on a lot of your communications and never came across like there's a personal vendetta. And I think I did see that comment and other public feedback. And I think that we all are, you know, deserve dignity and noble intent in what we're presenting here. And I appreciate you laying out, you know, exactly what your issues are so that hopefully we can find a solution. Right. Um, what, I guess my one question for you is regarding the green belt and the curb cuts. Um, one curb, I don't even like saying green belt and curb cuts, curb cuts in the same sentence. Right. That's a seems opposite of each other, but, um, Did you or any of those that you were organizing with on this, trying to work on this project, consider an opportunity for pathway around the site? Did that ever come up or consideration in terms of kind of going around behind the building essentially with a pathway?

And do you have any thoughts on it? I guess I don't really. It's not something that's been discussed or considered. I'm not, I guess I don't even know like how that would happen. Is that something the city would initiate or can the neighbors initiate that?

Well, feedback potentially, then the applicant could be prepared to talk about if they thought about it. Potentially that could be feedback for the applicant council that we can consider, but just wanted to know. So that's the answer to that question. That's good. Thank you.

Thank you for your question.

Yeah, Madam Mayor, again, thank you for being here. It's never easy to stand down there. Even when I go and testify sometimes at the state, it's a lot easier to sit up here than it is to be standing and presenting. So thanks for being here. You know, one of the challenges I think that we sometimes face on city council is that when we hear public testimony, you may hear somebody who's entirely for something or an audience who's entirely against something.

Right.

And we don't necessarily stand up here tallying who's in favor, who wins that way. And it really ends up being based on city code. And I know that you've outlined some of those in your letter. And I'm wondering if you could just refresh us a little bit on if there's any specific areas of the code that you have concern. I know that you brought up some notification summaries. And if you don't have that technical language for that, that's OK as well. But really, I'm just trying to figure out with your opposition, I've heard your concerns, but trying to tie those to code that might be out of compliance with their application.

Sure. Well, as I indicated in the appeal document, we did believe that there are materially negative impacts to the neighbors in terms of safety. safety and the impact to the feel of our neighborhood, having a gigantic commercial building right near the entrance of our neighborhood. I'm not sure if it's a code issue, but another serious concern that we have is egress in the event of an emergency because the analysis by the fire department in putting together their application really only address the safety of the people on their lot during services and whether they have ways to get out or ways to get a fire engine in if the building catches on fire. But there wasn't really any analysis done about whether the neighbors could get out in an emergency because Surprise Way is the only road for 600 homes with a stop sign on each end. And so, you know, we have the Homestead Fire Association, I'm not sure how many years ago that was, that closed the Amity end of Surprise Way. And we had the fires out near the Columbia area near Micron across Highway 21 from us last summer that closed the Highway 21 end of Surprise Way. And if there are hundreds of extra cars in the neighborhood, will we be able to get out? I don't know. how to make that analysis, but it's something that we're concerned about and feel like should be addressed before this project is approved.

Yep, thank you. And then any others? So you've kind of cited, I think, some safety concerns, some compatibility concerns, some fire access concerns. I was on that fire, by the way, when I was on the Idaho City Hot Shots back in the day. Any other ones that you wanted to highlight?

I do want to highlight that this, I know that they're asking for conditional use permit, but a commercial building of this size on a neighborhood road is incompatible with the zoning, with the A1 zoning.

Okay.

And so that's also a concern that we have without just reading through my whole appeal.

Okay.

Those are some of our most serious concerns.

Awesome. Thank you.

Yeah.

All right, Brittany, thank you.

And so now we'll hear from the applicant and then at the end, we'll have you back up. Okay. All right. Thank you. So Brooke Thornton. Welcome. And so it looks like there's several of you, which is great. You'll share the time. That's also 15 minutes. And then they might expect questions and we'll open up the public. Go ahead.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor and members of the council. My name is Brooke Thornton. I'm with the LKV Architects on behalf of the East Wind Community Church. My address for work is 2400 East Riverwalk Drive, Boise, Idaho. And honestly, that's all I'm going to say. I'm going to let Pastor DeVitas and Ms. Kremple talk a little bit about this. And if there are questions, I'm happy to answer.

Madam Mayor, Council Members, good evening. My name is Alexis Kremple. I'm on the board of East Wing Community Church. The address is 4750 South Surprise Way in Boise. The Planning and Zoning Commission approved Eastwind's conditional use permit modification following review by six separate agencies and departments. We are asking this council to uphold that decision and under the law, I submit to you that you must. The law requires approval of a conditional use permit when all criteria are met. This is not a discretionary legislative decision. It is a quasi-judicial one. Boise City Code provides six criteria for approval of a conditional use permit. Where all criteria are met, approval is mandatory. The record before you establishes that every criterion is met. The appellant has not identified a legal error, a factual gap, or any deficiency in how the commission applied the code. She has simply expressed disagreement with the outcome, and disagreement is not a legal basis for a reversal. Rather, the evidence compels approval of the CUP and upholding the commission's unanimous decision Eastwind has operated at this site since approximately 2005. This is not a new use. This is not an intrusion into a neighborhood. It is a 20-year-old institution, fully legal under A1 zoning, and located on a collector roadway, exactly where a community institution belongs. The heart of the appeal is is the claim that the project will create material negative impact, primarily through an assumption that increased traffic and harm to cyclists and pedestrians is possible.

The record, however, does not support this claim.

This council should analyze whether any negative impact is material by comparing the current use to the proposed use, not by comparing the proposed use to a vacant lot. Today, the church operates with one driveway and approximately 155 parking spaces. You can find that reference to parking spaces on pages 2787 and 2915 of your council packet. After the expansion, it will operate with two driveways and approximately 223 parking spaces. That reference is pages 3100 and 3062. The existing building is about 11,100 square feet. And the total square footage with the proposed expansion will be a little more than double that at 25,300 square feet approximately. Those references are page 2883 of the packet. The use of this site, which is Sunday services, midweek activities and community meeting space does not change with the expansion. The character of the site does not change. It remains a neighborhood church serving the same neighborhood it has served for two decades. The appellant has repeatedly characterized the parking increase as a five-fold expansion, but this is simply false. A five-fold increase would be 775 spaces. The proposal adds about 68 spaces. The appellant's figures are not in the record. They are a misrepresentation of it. More fundamentally, parking spaces do not generate their own traffic. The church's congregation is the same congregation. If anything, adequate parking reduces the traffic impact on Surprise Way by moving vehicles off the road and into the lot efficiently. The photograph submitted with the application showing the cars queuing on Surprise Way is because there's not enough parking today. More parking is the solution, not the problem. Any negative impact alleged by the appellant are not material as would be required for denial under the city code. even if there were a material negative impact. The commission imposed specific enforceable conditions that mitigate any genuine concerns. For example, condition six requires a full traffic control plan coordinated with ACHD and the city of Boise, which is specifically designed to minimize conflicts at each driveway crossing of the bike path. To our knowledge, this is above and beyond what has been done for other crossings across this path on Surprise Way, such as the two driveways into the condos next door to the church and the two driveways into the Surprise Valley HOAs clubhouse further down the road. Condition seven requires wayfinding signage, painted crosswalks, curb ramps, and truncated domes at both access points, which again is above and beyond what exists at other crossings. The Boise Fire Department reviewed this project and raised no concerns about service delivery. It recommended conditions which were included by the commission in their approval. Contrary to the appellant's claim, the code does not require a neighborhood-wide egress analysis. Much of the appeal actually concerns and is motivated by a community garden that occupied land the church leases from Idaho Power. This is a private leasehold property. The church has paid the lease and the irrigation costs and offered the garden as a voluntary community benefit. The appellant has no legal rights to continued access to this private property. And the loss of a voluntarily provided amenity is not a material negative impact under the code, nor does it touch on any of the code's approval criteria. The commission applied the correct legal standard. It relied on a thorough multi-agency record. It imposed targeted conditions of approval The appellant has not shown a lawful reason for this council to find otherwise. East Wind Community Church is not becoming a regional destination. It is a neighborhood church that wants to serve more of its neighbors, the same neighbors it has served for 20 years. The code requires you to uphold this approval and the evidence supports it. We respectfully ask that the council deny the appeal and affirm the commission's decision. I'll turn the remainder of our time over to our lead pastor and then we'll be happy to answer any questions.

Carlos DeVitas, 6150 South Settlement Way. Resident of Surprise Valley and then pastor of the church. I have some prepared remarks, which I'd like to read, but I hadn't heard Brittany's testimony coming into this. And I'm a little nervous speaking before a council because I talk to a church all the time, but this is really different.

That's because we're sinners.

I was going to say the opposite. That's also the issue with us, too. But I just... I think I want to, I know this isn't like mediation, but the church has not officially said, singled out Brittany and my public comments are all available on live stream and YouTube. Our congregation could speak to that. We've said that we're excited to live in a city that has a process like this, where everybody gets a voice. We haven't asked people to come in force. We haven't asked for letter writing campaigns. We've even said, if you want to come, because not all of our church wants this expansion. We've even said, if you want to come speak against it, you can. I don't have it tonight because I didn't know that. I think it was. a letter submitted that Brittany was referencing, but that's not the voice of the church. And that has not been our public voice. By public, I mean expressed and recorded and available. Citing a single person or saying that you have a vendetta in that. And I start with that because this whole process since January, I haven't figured out the forum where the conversation happens. I've reached out to those opposed. I've tried to have conversation. The And the interesting thing is I hear our conversation expressed in letters and conversations, you know, that we brag about our noise like a badge of honor. When what I said was the police have been called three times in six years about noise complaints with our youth, and we've made adjustments to that. And so then I hear represented in the public as bragging about noise like a badge of honor. So I haven't figured out where we navigate all that. But I can see that like my neighbor, Brittany, lives just a few houses down from me. This has been hard for her. This park for me is my neighborhood as well. It's my neighbor. It's different for all of us. But I want to go on the record, I guess, if that matters for city council, that we have not publicly or in a church letter in any way singled out Brittany or as a single neighbor who has a vendetta. We have publicly said that we love our city and its process and that one person can have a voice or multiple people can have a voice. So that's not my prepared remarks. But I guess I just wanted to share that. But I will start with my prepared remarks. I think I missed the boat on that. But Mayor McLean and council members, I do thank you for your time tonight. I've already mentioned my name is Carlos DeVitas. I'm a pastor at East Wind Community Church. There's a few things I want to share that you already know. Our church has been in southeast Boise, and we think this conversation is more than a Surprise Valley conversation. It's a Southeast Boise conversation, the neighborhood communities, the neighborhood HOAs, the neighborhood schools. And the growth that we have experienced isn't because we have like a campaign or we've been reaching out across the city, trying to draw folks over to our community. It's happened because right where we live, our community is growing and people want to be part of what's happening at our church. And so a few details. In our database of the households we serve, 85% live within five miles of the church. We have folks who come from Meridian. They sometimes complain about how much I talk about us being a Southeast Boise church. Some of them are here tonight. But additionally, 149 of Surprise Valley's households participate in the life of our church, mostly through kids, adult participation, kids and student programs. And I just say that because I think we are a neighborhood church. We're not a regional church. We're not a destination church. We're a commuter church. Some of the concerns about size in the plans that we've outlined before the city for approval, we've tried to work through the city process as best we can. When we worked with ACHD for the cut-in, at that time, we had no plans for parking conversations for two years. So when we submitted the application, we thought it'd continue to be Idaho Power Space. Idaho Power is in favor of that cut-in for access to their power lines. So we mutually agreed in that symbiotic relationship, let's do it either way. that's kind of been a big talking point that we were trying to leverage our garden to get access. And if I could do that over, I would have just said onto Idaho power land. I didn't realize at the time what that would be for us. So I visited the Surprise Valley HOA board. I went with Sina, tried to set the record straight on size, on parking spots, on location. And each time What I hear afterwards is the initial information and none of the conversation we had. So the journey's been interesting for me publicly. I've learned how SENA works, which has been a great journey. I'm learning a bit how city council and planning and zoning work. Right now, you've heard there's different numbers, but they're all in this ballpark. We have about 154 parking stalls. Our plan calls for 230. So about 70, 76 different numbers, but about 76, let's say that new parking spot. So not 250, zero sum to 250 new parking stalls. Additionally, our square footage for a parking area is increasing by 54% to accommodate that. Currently, our facility seats 330. Our new facility would seat 690. So we're looking at a doubling in size. We currently offer three services. That is impact. That's people crossing that green belt across a longer period of time. But we have adapted every way we can in the process. Our existing building is 11,000 square feet, and the proposed phase one is 25,315. So that is an increase of 14,000, over doubling our current footprint, largely with a sanctuary space and a lobby to accommodate the folks who are there. Through the whole thing, I think we tried to share openly with the city, with HOAs, When we realized that so few folks would get information about the expansion, we had Surprise Valley send it out in October, the plan, the letter we sent to the church. So the whole HOA received, I got it as well, received in their newsletter that information. And it's been said we are kind of trying to shelf this and keep it under the radar. So I feel like we've gone above and beyond. We've asked the HOA offices to communicate our neighborhood meeting to folks who are outside the required range. We didn't demand. We just said, here's our information. Send it out if you'd like. So we've tried to work openly, share our process. We've tried to work with the city for a requirement. We're actually... I shouldn't say this. Our architect might disagree, but I was kind of excited to see the permeable, uh, conversation because I think we like those ideas and we really don't want a concrete parking lot. And I apologize on the record to our owner's rep and our architect for saying that. But, um, I think our bottom line, you'll hear it here tonight. I do want to say there's a lot of folks from the church who are here tonight and, uh, I just want to ask them to be thoughtful about their testimony and decide if it's necessary, um, uh, throughout this conversation.

Advice from a pastor.

Yeah. So, um, But yeah, I just think Southeast Boise is growing. We're a vital, I mean, our schools are Timberline, East, LeBois, Liberty, Adams, Riverside. This is our home. And this is where we own land. And it's where we have a 30-year lease with Idaho Power. And we're just trying to adapt and adjust to what's happening. So thank you.

Any questions for the applicants?

Adamir, thanks for being here, Pastor. Appreciate your comments as well. Thank you for sharing those ahead of your remarks. Kind of brought this up with Brittany. So curious if throughout the iteration process for this development, I mean, considering the pathway and it is frequently used, especially on beautiful Sundays in Boise, has there been thought to routing a pathway behind the building and potentially helping solve a lot of these other problems, you know, instead of training flaggers, all that kind of stuff.

Thank you, Council Member Morales. I don't have like a golden gavel, but when you said that, I love the idea. I still feel like we're early in that there's things where, you know, we got in this appeal and it's kind of held us steady at this period. But we have a great property for that. And it could be a beautiful solution. I don't know what that would look like. I'm not a builder, designer, a civil engineer. I just like the idea.

Great. When I'm looking at it, it looks like you said, your property seems conducive to it. It's got that rear setback along the eastern edge. Would there be, and I guess this is something maybe for you guys to discuss, but an opportunity to propose having a, you know, if you would be willing to to grant some sort of kind of pathway easement along that setback that you're not using anyways, that could potentially, we could have more conversations with staff in terms of pathway alignment back there.

I love the idea. I mean, I think the heartbeat of our church is like neighborhood partnership. We don't rent our building to businesses. We let nonprofits, small groups, HOAs that need to use it, young men's charity leagues, we let them use it free of cost. We plan on doing that if we're approved as well. We think Southeast Boise needs more meeting spaces. And it's not an income generator for us. That's not our intention. But so we see that in like great more space. If we could partner with the city on using that setback on this conversation, I think we'd like to have.

Madam Mayor, Pastor, no offense. These questions are probably for the two other representatives there.

None to take, you know.

I think that pastors and maybe city council members are good at saying yes to a lot of really good ideas when sometimes the reality might be a little bit different. So with the pathway and easements and a variety of other things that go in there, certainly I think something to look at. My question is more related to specific conversations with the fire department. And if you could kind of expand a little bit more on any questions, concerns that they've had, or if that actually isn't a reality, you can speak to that as well. But just wanting to note that that was one of the concerns that was brought up to us. I can see, you know, theoretically how if everybody was trying to leave at one time, maybe there's an issue there. So just any sort of conversations you could expand with the fire department.

Sure. And Council Member Halliburton, thank you. The only real conversations that we've had with the fire department is through the process of the CUP so that the entire submittal was put before them and we did not get comments back. There was no concerns. We're always happy to have further conversations if that is something that we need to do. But being a collector roadway, there wasn't anything that had come up from them specifically.

Great. That's kind of what I figured. Usually they're flagging stuff for us. I'll follow up with staff on a similar question related to conversations with fire. Generally, I think I would disagree that more parking is the solution and not the problem on a lot of things. I can see how that's probably the case with a church when you've got that many people coming in and out. Do you think that this will reduce the amount of people that are parking on the street? Do you think that there will still be some on-street parking? Can you talk a little bit about the impact that you may have? you know, with the expanded parking lot.

I apologize for returning.

No, go for it.

Councilmember Halliburton, right now our parking lot can accommodate all the parking we need. The street doesn't have parking. We'd have to overflow into the neighborhoods that are a distance away, and we haven't had to do that. Christmas and Easter, we've had to overflow into a, I don't know what you call it, long driveway into a neighborhood, but not into the actual streets, but that's the only time in the year. So this parking would keep us on our property, giving us two egresses and allowing us to park for our services.

Yeah, I would imagine even with that max capacity in your church, hopefully people are carpooling or coming with family. So it probably operates a little bit different than you might see in a regular household. Thank you. I guess the only other thing that I would note is that while, again, I'm going to say I love the idea of these permeable pavers, whoever your architect, but mainly the fundraiser. I think was my concern, you know, when I, when I brought that up, because I know how much potentially that cost. But I appreciate your willingness to look into these things and willingness to look into some other things as well. That's all I got.

Any further questions? Okay. So now I will open this up to public testimony. And so I will. Oh, yes. Yes. I'm going to ask, typically we don't take comments outside the name, but since you've got a question about procedurally, but I'm going to ask that you come up here to say it into the microphone so that it's part of the record.

Madam Mayor, we also have Eric Berg online.

Oh, Eric is online. Okay.

Oh, that's what you're asking about. Great. Okay. Eric Berg is the Neighborhood Association leader. Eric, I'm going to ask you to keep it to 10 minutes.

Thank you very much. I can surely do that. Eric Berg, 1301 South Grant Ave. Testifying on behalf of the Southeast Neighborhood Association. I want to thank everybody for for the attention that's been brought to this project. I've been with Sina for nigh on 10 years now and I don't think I've seen as many comments on any singular project than this one. And part of that is because of all the different places this touches and also part of it is because the community bonds that have been created by both the neighborhood and the church are so strong. And so I, it's been really interesting to see the dozens of emails come in and, and, and realize that, you know, this is the sign of a healthy, a very healthy community that I'm certainly proud to be a part of. There's nothing more important to our community when it comes to transportation than to keep people safe. And whether that's traveling on bike or car or foot, The safety of our community is vital to our transportation system. And that's why Southeast Neighborhood Association voted previously to oppose the project and then voted in May to join the appeal on the following grounds. To oppose the consideration and approval of CUP 26 on Surprise Way until a traffic study and better understanding of the increased use can be made available to the public. The applicants gone over. This is a 14,000 square foot. Addition that will probably double the size. I'm not going to get into details on that. The reason to go to. A kind of a previous point that Councilmember Halliburton hit on this application because it is a 20% major expansion. Of a CUP is why it went to planning and zoning instead of being a staff level decision under the new code. Because it's such a step change in size and scope. That means that we have to decide that not only is the parcel large enough to suffice for the expansion, but the question has not been answered is whether the infrastructure surrounding the proposal is and what that would even look like. Neighbors and other users of the area have expressed concern regarding traffic, especially at service times, creating difficulty turning onto or off of or otherwise utilizing a surprise way. Local condo owners sit just to the northwest of the project have noted difficulty getting out of their development during events at the church. This would only be exacerbated due to the expansion. However, the problem is there have been no traffic studies data or any other guidance to the severity of the effect on the Surpriseware corridor of the expansion, nor what would be necessary to mitigate any such effect. We're very appreciative of some of the conditions that the planning and zoning required for traffic mitigation. But the fact of the matter still remains is that this is a corridor that, to what we could find, has not had a traffic study done in around 20 years. And Whereas a traffic study done at five o'clock on and and 9am on on a work day, which is fantastic in almost every place in the city. But it is a question whether that's really reflecting the use of that area. especially when you have institutions that both have their strongest and hardest use at identical times. The big problem with this is that surprise way is a unique route. It only has connections on each way, no other way in and out of the development. And so it's imperative and vital to have egress on both ends. Without understanding how this expansion would work and whether we need to be doing left hand and only right hand outs etc it's really hard for us to be able to look at this and take away forward. In addition, surprise ways both a collector and a level three bike way which will only exacerbate the set safety concerns for all users. having said that, I would completely welcome Council Member Morales and Pastor DeVitas' idea and would be happy to work on any project to make it so we have less issues with pedestrian, bike, and traffic issues on the Greenbelt. This issue that This was an issue that the commissioners wrestled with, but we just don't feel like it was adequately addressed. And the reason why and the primary reason why we decided to go forward with appeal instead or joining the appeal is because there simply wasn't the information available to the commissioners to make that decision. Again, no traffic study was done by ACHD. No... analysis of how this affects the different modes of transportation was made and when that's the case there simply isn't enough information to go on to approve or for that fact deny the application until we know the extent and manner of the problem we simply can't solve it and flying blind into pedestrian bicyclist and motorist conflict is not a great answer SurpriseWay is really unique because of its lack of access, because it's the sole pathway for vehicles, bikes, and pedestrians. It's important for the safety of all users that mitigations be understood and what we're dealing with be understood before assessing the proposal and approval. For these reasons, Sina has asked at the planning and zoning and will again ask here, for this to be put on hold till we can figure out exactly what kind of mitigation, what type of traffic issues we're gonna have, and in failing of that, be rejected until such time as we can make those assessments based on the proper data or any data for that matter, so that we can make sure that this is a safe, good corridor for all users. I stand for any questions.

Questions for Eric? All right. Thanks for joining us tonight, Eric. It was good to hear your voice.

Thanks. I appreciate it.

Have a great night.

You too.

All right. And with that, I'll start going through this list. And if you want to testify, come on up. If you just want to affirm your position, that works as well. Howard Shields. And then after Howard Shields, we'll have Joan Stevens and Mary Tate and then Jason Friend.

Madam Mayor, City Council, my name is Howard Shields. I live at 1068 North Spirea Avenue in Boise. And I really wasn't planning on coming up here and talking tonight. I wasn't really prepared. I thought I was just signing in. And I did notice that Carlos was nervous and I've never seen him nervous before. He's a great pastor. I want to say that the church and him have turned my life around. And whatever we can do to keep this church healthy and growing, I mean, it is growing. It's inevitable. And I just want to support the expansion. I think it's well thought out. And that's really all I had to say.

Great. Thank you, Howard. A couple of things for folks tonight. If you've signed in, I don't need your address because I've already got it. And I'm going to ask that you, if you choose to testify tonight, both follow the pastor's guidance, but also stick to the case, not the pastor or other individuals or the content of the church. With that, go ahead.

Good evening, Mayor McLean and members of the City Council. My name is Joan Stevens, and I have attended East Wind Community Church for over 20 years.

And I am Mary Tate. I live in Southeast Boise in Spring Meadow.

We are here tonight to speak in strong favor of the East Wind Community Church expansion and to urge the council to uphold the Planning and Zoning Commission's well-vetted decision. Boise is growing rapidly and our community infrastructure needs to grow alongside it. East Wind is an essential community hub that provides vital youth programming, family services, and meeting spaces that benefit our entire neighborhood. I understand the neighborhood's concern regarding traffic and parking. However, this expansion directly solves those issues rather than worsening them. By establishing proper designated on-site parking spaces and two ways to get into the parking spaces, the church will successfully pull vehicles off the neighborhood shoulders and contain traffic safety on its own property. The Planning and Zoning Commission thoroughly evaluated this conditional use permit modification against city zoning guidelines and found it to be a responsible, compatible project. This expansion isn't just about a building, it's about making room for our neighbors and the next generation. And I know our goal at the church is to be a good neighbor and whatever we can do to make this palatable for the neighborhood is what we want to do. Thank you for your time tonight. And I respectfully ask that you deny this appeal and allow East wind to move forward. Thank you. Thank you both.

Okay. Jason. Okay. Thank you. Um, How about you, Greg? Greg Kavlevic? And then after Greg will be Carolyn Edwards. So if you plan to talk, come on up. And then Ed and Donna Dahlberg.

Madam Mayor, council members, Mayor, I am a sinner. I just want to go on record and say that. So that's why I work with this guy a lot. That one's going to come back on you. Just joking. I think one of the things that got missed a little bit in the conversation is more capacity discussion, less about the infrastructure, the feeder roads and the pathway. Southeast Boise roughly has about 60,000 residents. I have a degree in urban planning, very familiar with this study. They have roughly 60,000 residents. We have less than six Christian churches. If you divide that in half and assume half of those people might attend church, not one church in that region has the capacity to actually service that level of congregation, even if we divided them equally. So what we are looking at doing is using our own land that we properly own. doing expansion we're not asking for divine amenity you know eminent domain here just simply expanding our capacity in order to service more members we're out our organic growth is outpacing the capacity of our congregation and we're only looking to ask that we have the ability to do more good right i i understand uh what the uh appellate said and i appreciate and respect that The challenge is we actually need to be able to continue to grow and sustain that capacity responsibly and sustainably in order to do more good. And I just don't see a city as sophisticated, you know, emotionally as this one to say that in any circumstance, growing to do more good is a bad thing. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Okay. I'm Carolyn. Ed and Donna.

Thank you, Mayor McLean. Welcome. Council. I simply reflect to you, I've lived in Boise for 41 years. I've seen a lot of growth and a lot of impact from that growth. I simply remind us all that there are solutions, there are ways to deal with it. I strongly support the church and its growth and respectfully request that and a rejection of the appeal. Thank you.

Thank you. Becky Crum. And then Lori Dahlberg. All right. How about Malcolm Edwards? Okay. I did see two people leave. Shelley Tutt. All right. I think it's Sean Riley. Okay. You're good? Okay. Welcome, Sean. Good to see you. Brett Robinson? You're going to brave the dais? Yes. Welcome.

Good evening, Madam Mayor and council members. My name is Brett Robinson, and my wife and kids and I live at 5963 South Schooner Place in Surprise Valley. I wanted to start by just saying I happen to live in Surprise Valley and attend East Wind Community Church. So certainly my wife and I understand both sides of the issues. I want to make two quick points this evening. The first one, from a thoughtfulness standpoint, I was on the East Wind board for four years. My term ended about almost exactly a year ago. So starting five years ago, I was on the board for four years and concurrently at that time led the East Winds Futures Committee, which the whole goal set forth by the board was to determine what the heck are we gonna do from an expansion standpoint, because we're growing at 15 to 20% per year. And all of the issues that have been highlighted were very real. That committee, which had seven or eight people on it, just really thoughtful individuals. We looked at a multitude of options from buying land elsewhere, which in the southeast side, when you look at Federal Way and you look at Gowan Road and you look at Amity, there's like almost nothing available. I mean, literally nothing available. And we're also a southeast church. So to think of like buying land in the west side of town does not make sense. So We ultimately determined that it was best to whatever the expansion looks like to do that in our current space that we occupy. So we developed a really great collaborative relationship with Idaho Power and were able to extend the lease to a 30-year lease that was previously just extended on an annual basis. we tried to buy land and even do a church swap with the church across from us to do a parking lot across the way. I mean, we looked at every option we could. And ultimately, and we also, by the way, chose an architect, LKV, that is in the southeast side. Their offices are in the Bound Center. So, I mean, we really tried to make this a neighborhood effort and did everything we could to be thoughtful and considerate The other point that I want to make is this, and this is not news to anyone, but Boise is growing like crazy. I took a look at just some recent articles, Idaho News 6 article, new businesses and homes continue to flood Southeast Boise, BoiseDevelopment.com, Harris Ranch is working on a town center. boise development.com uh included your group a 30-year plus play boise planning for development of far southeast boise near microsoft and the airport just in the last few years micron plan expansion airport capital improvement plan new school uh in harris ranch dallas harris elementary a new park right across the street from our church bowler park barber park ecker bridge roundabout project and new alta harris park that's right across uh from um the Barber Park, and they're adding soccer fields. So there is massive expansion. We are just trying to keep pace with that and continue to offer a fabulous, be a fabulous part of our community to engage in church. And we have to grow.

Great. Thank you. Madam Mayor, quick question for Brett before you get back there. Yes. Awesome. Answer brief, please. Yeah. It's just a yes or no. Does a pathway around the back of the property get you as hyped as the pastor?

No.

All right. Next up, Brett Sifford and then Maureen Wrighton.

Is Maureen here?

Nope. Okay. And then it'll be Jodi Cheehee. Great.

Good evening. Bob Seffert is the name, just for the record. But thank you. Is that the right one? Were you ready for me?

Yep.

I don't have a lot to add, so I'll try to be quick. It's really just from the perspective of a paving guy. I've got 20 years in the asphalt industry, and I'm actually pretty comfortable in this space where there's strong opposition and strong support of a given topic. And At the end of the day, it's trusted officials like you that have to weigh the social cost and the social benefit of something like this. And so for me, in the paving business, the cost is often traffic. And it can be as simple as that. People don't like traffic. orange barrels. They don't like to have delays during construction. But the social benefit is there. We need to build roads. And so that just has to move forward sometimes. And this is the same situation, but we're building better humans. And so... I understand the opposition. I get it. But what's at stake here is what we're building and what happens inside these walls at this church. What I've seen in terms of transformation for myself and for my family and for people in this community that I respect, the cost is a little bit of traffic for sure. but the benefit is, is, is, is the human, um, benefit, like we're making better people. And so I just implore you guys to stick with the, the decision that has already been made and, and do the right thing for this community and help us get past a little bit of traffic and, and move forward with making better humans.

Okay. Thank you.

Questions. I'd love to give some input.

Doesn't look like it. So I'm going to move on to the next person. Um, Kim, is it Rath Spencer? Cass Spencer. All right. And then Ms. Engelbrecht.

All right.

Thank you. Patty Cole. Same. Eric Taylor. Thanks, Eric. Carla Draper. Pastor, I need you in my next busy hearing, just sitting here giving some remarks at the beginning and some advice. Is it Sean, I'm sorry, at Ferguson's on Ferguson Street?

Sean, Scott, Marcy?

Okay, I'm going to, whoever signed in after Carla Draper. Yes. Yes. I'm going to, I'll go through, I'm going to go through this list. These are folks in the room that signed in. This is all, and so I haven't gone all the way through the list yet. And once I finish reading these, I'll see if anybody else wants to testify. Oh, okay. I always go through these first. So I'll correct that online. Let's see, Robert Lachance. Yes. Okay, I'm sorry, sir. If you have something to say, I'm going to need you to come up here.

Good evening.

I think two things strike me about the parking number, or rather the traffic situation. I think we can find traffic control measures that are being used in other very large churches in town to help alleviate the concern, which I think is a very legitimate concern And the only way the traffic coming into the church poses a big challenge is when it's coming in east from Amity Road into the church. Otherwise, traffic coming from Surprise Valley is very light, and traffic leaving the church when the church is over has to wait for the traffic coming on Surprise Way. So I think there are ways to deal with this traffic challenge very easily, and it has been done in other big churches in this valley. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Gentry Walsh Matt Boots Jane Ballard Mary Beyer Patricia Comstock and then after Patricia if you want to testify come on up Emily DeVito and Damaris Shuler Welcome.

Thank you, Mayor McLean and council members. I'm a resident of Surprise Valley, have been living there for 26 years. Brittany is not the sole person in Surprise Valley opposed to this church expansion. I also have nothing against the church. The two issues that I felt were remiss in the planning and zoning assessment were the fire access through all of Surprise Valley, which has been brought up already by SENA, and also the HCAD did not do a traffic study. I've done my own traffic studies. I've gone down to the church at 1030, which is between the two services. They have a 930 and a 11 or a 9 and 1030. And I think one of the issues that the ACHD needs to look at is all of those people are leaving the church and entering the church within about 10 minutes. when we were at the Planning and Zoning Commission, they talked about, they observed that that was like a car leaving every three seconds for 10 minutes or 15 minutes. I've observed myself many near misses, people turning out of the church across Surprise Way because 95% of those cars leave through Amity, the Amity entrance. That does not support that there's a lot of Surprise Valley residents going to church there because they would be turning the other way on Surprise Way. And then there's a church across the street and their services are concurrent, even though East Wind has said, no, we work with them and try to you know, stagger, they're not, they're at the same time. And so people are turning out of that also towards Amity. And there's been near misses with those vehicles. There's been near misses with pedestrians, near misses with bicyclists. I've probably gone down there five different Sundays and done my own little assessment and it's frightening. And that's at their current level of attendance. There's also a little stop sign, which I know isn't like a official stop sign, 1% of cars actually stop. Most of them are just trying to get out. I don't know if they're eager for lunch or what, but they're flying out of there without looking. I've thought of bringing an air horn because if you're crossing on the green belt, nobody's looking to see who's on the green belt. So you have to kind of get their attention before someone will stop and let you cross. So those are concerns I have. I think that really supports having a traffic study and making sure that it's safely done. And the new exit is only going to make the traffic pile up because, again, they're all turning towards Amity. So now we're going to have exit one. Those cars are going to pile up. Exit two is going to be trying to exit as well. They're all going towards Amity. They're all going back into Boise.

Thank you for that. Thank you. All right, Emily, and then, are you Emily? Yes. Great, welcome.

Emily DeVitas, even when he tells me not to talk, we've been married 27 years, so, 28 years, sorry. Thanks. I did just want to address the real quickly. This wasn't in what I was going to say, but sight lines, one of the ways that Eastwood has responded and how we do try to attempt to improve exiting on the church property. We've removed bushes to increase sight lines since the planning and zoning meeting. It wasn't part of the conditions of approval, but That was a proactive thing based on some of the conversations about the trees at the new exit that we removed and improved sight lines at the existing exit. As far as traffic, I also did an informal study and I counted every single pedestrian and bicyclist in all the transition times on Sunday. It was a beautiful study. Saturday morning, our service starts at 9am so from 850 to 908 so the 10 minutes basically before service starts, and after it has started and people are coming late in those 20 minutes there were seven total pedestrians. including one group of two and two bikers biking together on the bike path. And I'm just saying this, it is a used space, but I'm just trying to give a framework for how used is this part of the green belt. In the surface transition, so from the time the service got out at 11.10 until the next service into the next one, so a 30 minute window between and into the next service, there were 10, I mean, sorry, 16 total pedestrians, 10 groups total of those pedestrians and one bike on the bike lane during that period of time. It is, it's the green belt and it is beautiful, but just a framework for the density at that part of the street. Again, that's informal, but that was the experience on Sunday. If you want to know every single person, I will show you that detail later.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And Damaris. Okay. Olivia. Tara Baxter. Okay. All right. That's who I had that signed up in person. Now I'm going to go to, I did get a list of folks that signed up in advance. Are you Suzanne? Suzanne Ennis. Okay. I've got Suzanne, Brittany, the appellant, and then Stacy. Great. Okay.

Can I skip ahead? I have a slideshow and there are problems with that. Can I go after somebody?

Sure.

Yeah.

Come on up. And we've got, we should have a chair if you'd prefer. Okay.

I'm just getting used to a new knee.

Oh yeah.

Um, and before I start, I would just like to say that my dad was a member of the ACHD and a member of the city council back in the day.

What's your last name? Silva.

Oh. Mike Silva. Yeah. Was his name. Oh, that's great. Um, My name is Stacy Silva-Saint-Amand. My husband and I built our home in Surprise Valley in 1998. I am now a resident of the condos immediately adjacent to the church. If this expansion is approved, East Wind Community Church will draw their capacity, if I remember correctly, will be about 800 people per service. for three services that means a little over 2 000 people every sunday um they will be drawing into our neighborhood. And then in addition, weekday ministries, support groups, social activities, et cetera. And what a previous speaker just mentioned was that there's already another church right across the street from East Wind, also with multiple Sunday services and weekday activities and a large parking lot. This isn't just a little bit of traffic. And that speaker obviously doesn't live in Surprise Valley, who has to deal with this traffic every single day. East Wind is trying to squeeze their ultimately 35,000 square foot building onto just 2.8 acres, requiring the bulldozing of a beloved community garden that has existed there for years to accommodate a 223 car parking lot with two egress points onto Surprise Way, creating a substantial vehicular, pedestrian, and bicycle safety issues and significantly changing the character of our neighborhood. Blueprint Boise emphasizes preserving neighborhood character and protecting the quality of life valued by Boise residents. Are those just words on a page? Because this major expansion clearly violates those principles. as do the safety issues created by the increase in vehicle trips along Surprise Way, the destruction of open space, and the monotonous flat walls of the new building design that fail to minimize the impacts on the residential zone. uh district i'm asking that you overturn the pnz commission's approval because it fails to meet the requirements of boise city code is inconsistent with blueprint boise policies and clearly violates the character of the a1 very low density zoning district um As I understand it, the commission's approval was based on assumptions, not facts, that clearly defy even the most basic common sense. Finally, I would like the council...

You're at time, so if you'll wrap up with one sentence. Okay.

I would like the council to know that the members testifying in favor of the expansion tonight, their opinions, many of them live outside of Surprise Valley, and their opinions are valid, but I believe the opinions of Surprise Valley residents should... hold greater weight because we are the people who will have to live with the consequences of this 35,000 square foot building in our midst.

Right. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Is Suzanne's slideshow ready? I don't see Suzanne anymore. Okay. I'm going to go to the two people that are online. Jenny and It looks like Jenny H. And then Keith Tuttle, if you're hearing me. I mean, you're on deck. Two people online.

Okay. I think I got unmuted.

Yes, you did.

I'm just, I don't need to repeat.

Can you hear me? Yes. Yep.

Okay. I don't want to repeat what everybody said, but I'm still. Sorry. Sorry. I hold my stance on holding up the appeal, denying the CU peak. I also live in the condos and I am also concerned about the safety, the noise. I love the church and I think it's doing great work as it is. And I'd like to see it remain as is.

Thank you.

That is all.

Thank you, Jenny.

Thank you.

Keith Tuttle. Is there anybody else online?

Okay.

Do we know what happened to Suzanne? All right. If we can't get this resolved, I'm just going to ask Suzanne to proceed with her testimony. Anybody else that plan to testify this evening?

Come on up.

Yeah, you're good. Yeah, if you weren't on the list, but you'd like to testify now is a good time to let me know that and come on up. You can go ahead.

I don't want to speak, but in the interest of having a few more opposing voices here. Welcome. My name is Amara Mitchell. I live on Basalt Avenue in Surprise Valley. And I just want to iterate that I think it's really irresponsible to move forward with this without having done... the traffic and the fires. I mean, I've lived in this area for all three of the major fires we've had in the recent past, and they've all been very scary. And to know that there could be an issue where we can't get out quickly enough is a little terrifying. Um, I'm not in any way an expert, but it is an interest of mine in urban development. And it's been proven over and over again that more parking and larger roads only ever increase the use of those. They never mitigate the issues, which is why so many of our streets are going through... reductions and to slow traffic down and to reduce the number of people who use them by thinking twice about it. I appreciate this. Eastman wants to grow. I think that's great. It says they want to reach thousands of new people in Southeast Boise. And it's also been said that they are not trying to become a regional destination. But I would suggest that a destination does not need to be regional in any way. And bringing thousands of people into our neighborhoods, my home, on a weekly basis does, in fact, make it a destination. And at what point is an institution no longer considered a neighborhood service? And based on how far their reach is attempting to be. Southeast Boise is in fact growing. Our direct neighborhood has been the same size for a long time. Most attendees that actually live in our neighborhood could walk to the church within 20 minutes and don't need an additional parking. So that makes me feel like the people that they're trying to bring in are not from our neighborhood and therefore the traffic increase is affecting us more than anyone else. I don't attend the church, but due to my schedule, I am leaving the neighborhood every Sunday morning at about the same time. And I would just also, it hasn't been mentioned, but a lot of cars are turning onto the Amity. We also share from Barber Park, and the rafting season and all of that, it can be incredibly difficult to turn out of the neighborhood for the church attendees, for us. So it just backs up. And something I think that should be studied before proceeding any further on it. And that's it. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, Suzanne, you ready?

Well, I don't know. Are they ready?

We're going to see.

We've tried to make it work, so. OK.

Are we ready? Yeah. Go ahead.

Let's go. Okay. And then you're going to click. Oh, I am. No, because it's not a slideshow. They couldn't get it for it. Oh, okay. So it's just video. Okay. Good evening. My name is Suzanne Ennis, and I have lived in Surprise Valley very close to East Wind for 21 years. The video playing is footage from a few weeks ago, which I'll explain shortly. First off, I want to say how difficult it is for me to come up here and speak in opposition of East Wind's large addition. Many churchgoers are neighbors and dear friends, so it's really hard to be up here to oppose it. As it stands, Eastwood is a perfect fit both aesthetically and proportionally in our neighborhood. It is a neighborhood church by definition. The large addition proposed will negatively change the makeup surprise valley and the church will no longer share attributes as described by neighborhood church. I would really like to hear a definition of what a neighborhood church entails because I keep hearing that. Since ACHD refuses to do a traffic study on a Sunday, I conducted my own on Sunday, June 21st from 10 a.m. to 10.33 a.m., I recognize a possible margin of error in my findings, but this gives us a rough estimate. During this 33-minute period, approximately 368 cars drove to, from, and past East Wind. Of those cars, about 240 were East Wind traffic, probably about half and half going to and from the services. 83% came and went from the west, from Amity. The blatant disregard for Idaho law that I witnessed on this footage was troublesome. Idaho law requires vehicles entering a street from an alley, building, driveway, or private road to stop to yield to pedestrians in marked or unmarked crosswalks. So many cars simply rolled through without a stop. At the PNZ meeting, Eastwood representatives claimed they had a stop sign at the exit of their property. To my knowledge, this was untrue. This signage was installed. Will you show the next one? There. So they have this one now. So it's tiny, but it was not showed to. Okay. I observed 21 groups of walkers, groups. So there was some biker groups up to 10 people. and bike riders passed it along the same corridor, both on the street and Greenbelt. A second driveway doubles the risk to pedestrians and bike riders. I urge you to do everything in your power to ensure proper studies are done in accordance with city code and state law with a high regard for public safety. And here are a few instances of pedestrian vehicle interactions I'd like to share. So slide three, please. So these are self-explanatory. That's not slide three. I'm sorry, slide four. So I don't know if you can see the person in the distance is running. The cars are in the driveway or in the crosswalk and she has to stop. I don't have to narrate this. It's self-explanatory. She has to get across. Everybody's whispering, talking. And then she continued her jog again. Okay, can you do the next one, please? We had to make it work. Again, somebody's walking, cars are sitting in the crosswalk, both unmarked or marked crosswalks are supposed to be clear for pedestrians. I'm not. Madam Mayor, that's time.

Oh, yeah, you're at time.

Yes. OK, well, maybe once the rest of that video, I'm happy to share it.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Is there anybody else that would like to testify? Come on up.

Do I have to be in opposition or support?

No. Okay. You have to talk about this item. You can't talk about other stuff. Okay.

I'm here talking about the beautiful community garden at Surprise Valley. I'm not a resident of the area. I'm with Treasure Valley Community Gardens Cooperative and Brittany reached out. I just wanted to say that with the food situation, with food access, there's a recent article in NPR at the end of May that notes that food access for some Americans, just maybe statistically, there's a higher increase in hunger than there was at the height of COVID right now. There's a As you were saying, there's a serious lack of available church space and expansion space in the area in southeast Boise, but there's also a serious lack of food garden space. And I just wanted to speak to the hard work that the gardeners there do and have done over the years. It's a beautiful garden. It's going to be a big loss, actually. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else?

Hi, I'm Eric Taylor. I was on the list, but I was just hoping I could just speak for a moment. I'm an attorney by trade, but I'm just going to stick to the fact that I'm a congregant of the church and have been for about three years. It's made a remarkable impact on my life. I was missing something. I love Boise. I've lived here for almost 13 years. And for anybody who's lived outside of Boise, we understand how special it is. And being in Southeast Boise for 13 years has really shown me that. And the church is really a reflection of how special the community is and how thoughtful that I've seen everybody in the church be towards our neighbors and going about a thoughtful approach to a solution that works for everybody has really been remarkable for me. And that's why I walked here from my office. I worked on 11th and Main. That's not a plug. But that's why I made time out of my schedule to come down here. It's just been a home away from home, a great community. So I just wanted to speak on this behalf.

Thank you. Okay, so now we will move into closing remarks. And so first we will hear from the applicant and it's five minutes and then we'll hear from the appellant. And so come on up.

I'll take the lead. I think I will just close by urging the council to actually look at what information you have in the council packet with actual numbers. We've got a lot of numbers that are thrown out that don't match the plans that have been submitted to planning. For example, the total size of the building is not 30-some thousand, it's 25,000. The parking spaces, there's been a lot of back and forth over that. The plans in your packet are very clear on what the number actually is. But if there are any other questions from council, I'm happy to answer them if there's lingering issues.

Yeah, Madam Mayor, a couple of quick questions. Sometimes when we have a development come in front of us, whether it's a CP, rezone, subdivision, sometimes they're required to do street improvements. So when there's additional traffic that's coming in, that they're adding additional safety measures. I'm wondering if you know in the history, you know, when the church was built, if it had to do any modifications to the green belt, you know, that section, if it was responsible for paying for any of those costs or if it's been involved in any of the, you know, kind of bike pad improvements that are bordering the church there in its history.

I don't believe in the past. The current approval from the Planning and Zoning Commission does include some increased safety at those pedestrian crossings. I would be We're nervous as an attorney of whether those would be lawful if we impose too many conditions, but we're certainly in support of these extra safety conditions.

What are those extra safety conditions?

So the truncated domes, the crosswalks, I think there's four that are in the Planning and Zoning Commission conditions. I haven't

The crosswalks, where there's going to be the new intersection, there's going to be painted crosswalks and kind of signage that says there's a crosswalk there?

Yes. So we have one existing entrance, right? And we have a second one that was a separate approval process than the CUP. So planning and zoning's approval includes painted crosswalks, signage, curb ramps, and truncated domes at both of those entrances.

What's the truncated domes? Can you explain that for the casual person?

Do you know what that means? Mike, please. Mike, please.

those ADA, you'll see them at the end of most crossings that are usually yellow. They're bumped so that for anyone that has a disability, they can feel that crosswalk or just kind of a, it's a very large and very noticeable, here's a crosswalk situation.

Awesome. Thank you.

Yeah.

Further questions for the applicant? All right. Thank you. Thank you. And now we'll hear from the appellant.

I've been taking notes as everybody's been talking. I don't know if that's what you expect at this point.

This is your opportunity to wrap things up. So if there are particular things that you would like to respond to that you've heard tonight, you can do that. You can leave us with your closing argument, overall thoughts, whatever you'd like us to leave with.

Okay, that's great. Yeah, I guess the biggest thing is just to reiterate at the end of my previous comments that there's no one who disagrees that East Wind does good work. But the attorney talked about, or maybe it was Matt Dennis or both of them, about that there aren't actual negative material impacts. But There are material impacts for us who are gonna have to deal with this. There's the material impact of losing access to the community garden with fresh produce that you can grow yourself. There's a material impact because we don't feel safe walking through our neighborhood. That's a material impact to all of the people who have testified in opposition to this today. So I would really just ask you to consider what you would want your neighborhood to look like and seriously consider our testimony tonight. Any questions?

Thank you.

Okay, I'm gonna close the public portion of this and then there are questions for staff that I'll now open the council up to. Before discussion occurs, I'll ask for a motion.

Yeah, Madam Mayor, a couple of questions here. I'll start with, I don't think we have anyone from ACHD here, right?

We do? Madam Mayor, Council Member Halliburton-Edinson with ACHD is online.

Oh, wonderful. If ACHD could just speak to a little bit as far as their requirements for when they have to do a traffic study or the requirements that they would have on an application like this as far as weighing what sort of changes may or may not need to happen.

Edison. And I just want to say thanks for sitting online and waiting, just in case we had questions for you. I really appreciate it. Good to see you. Yeah, thank you.

Thank you, Mayor and Council Member. Sorry, while you were asking the question, I was loading into the Zoom, so I wasn't able to capture it.

Yep, no worries at all. Now I can actually see you while I'm asking the question. So the question is, there was quite a few folks who had some questions related to why wasn't there a traffic study required for this and that they believe that there should be. I'm wondering if you can speak to when ACHD determines whether or not a traffic study needs to happen with the development. And then also, what are the requirements and what are you weighing in as far as when you look at these, as far as any other sort of traffic concerns and how you sort of made your recommendations?

Absolutely. Certainly, I spoke with our development technical services as we were preparing for today's meeting, and we follow what is established.

I might interrupt. I'm a little hard of hearing. See if you can talk maybe just a little bit louder.

Oh, sorry. Yeah, get closer to the mic. Edison will help us.

Oh, my apologies. Can you hear me better now?

That's a little better.

Okay. As we were, the development technical services explained to me that.

Edison, I'm going to pause you. And because I'm wondering if our technical people can raise the mic for us internal to City Hall. Because Edison, it looks like he needs to look at maps or documents. And when he does that, then we can't hear him as well.

Oh, yeah.

Let me try this. Can you hear me better? Yes. I think it's all the microphones that are coming from my system. I apologize about that.

That's all right.

Can you hear me better now? And maybe I can attempt to answer.

Yep, let's try.

Okay. So as part of the ACAC policy manual, we have established criterias that we use to determine whether a development application needs to submit a traffic impact study as part of their applications. Some of those includes that it depends on the amount of trips that are generated through the PMP hour of a new proposal, as well as another criteria that we use to determine if the total volume equals to, for example, 1,000 vehicles per day. So based on those factors, staff determines if an application is required to submit a traffic impact risk study. In this case, for this application, since it's an existing use, which is an existing church, and the application consists of an expansion of the church, staff evaluated the application and deemed that it was not necessary at this point to require the applicant for a development application, a traffic impact study. With respect to the other items under consideration and traffic considerations, certainly staff looks at what projects have been identified through either the five-year plan or neighborhood plans and through those determine if there's any additional needs to be improved along the roadway. Certainly, our staff evaluated the Super Priceway, determined that the roadway and the improvements that the development could do in the adjacent to their property was for the most part completed and at this point of time. So based on that, there was no additional requirements, no additional improvements required through this development just based on that analysis that our staff made.

Great, thank you. That was really helpful. And again, I appreciate you hanging in here all night with us. It's almost 8.30 and you're still here. So you might probably start it at 9 a.m. in the morning. So thank you.

Are there further questions for staff?

Yeah, Madam Mayor, not related to ACHD. So the other question I think that we've heard a little bit is related to fire. And I was wondering if you could just talk a little bit about that process, the conversations that we have with fire, how they weigh whether or not they approve. And did they, in fact, you know, look at this application and let us know that there wasn't concerns on their end related to fire access?

Madam Mayor, Council Member Halliburton, thank you for the question. So the fire department provided agency comments. They basically, it wasn't anything out of the ordinary, very standard conditions of approval. That was based on their finding of the serviceability of the site, so whether the truck could maneuver within the site and And then the conversation has kind of evolved to the broader serviceability of the neighborhood. I'll just note that when subdivisions are developed, each chunk of subdivision, regardless of the size of it, is reviewed by the fire department for serviceability. So in tandem, the fire department is reviewing not only serviceability of what's existing, but what is proposed, right? If there was a serviceability, you know, lack of serviceability due to this proposed development, then the fire department would have provided agency comments or recommended some type of condition to either mitigate that or would express opposition. So obviously none of those had happened within their agency comments.

Great.

Thank you.

Matt, so just looking at conditions six and seven, looking at those mitigation, trying to get more safety. I think the videos are presented were really insightful. I think. Is there an opportunity for this applicant to consider, you know, new. new methods of safety and security, such as, you know, we're talking about this, you know, public pathway easement along the back, which would take Idaho Power, you know, connection on the other side. So it's not something that could necessarily be wrapped up here tonight, even if they wanted to. But, you know, that would kind of be wrapped into those discussions that staff is going to be having, right, in this overall kind of traffic safety plan.

Council Member Morales, that's correct. The traffic safety plan will be submitted with the Building permit the Commission requested that. Excuse me, that he parks and REC and the pathways program be involved in the review of that traffic control plan prior to the submission of that building permit.

All right. It looks like no further questions for staff. So with that, I'd ask that before council begins discussion and deliberation, that a motion be made around which discussions will occur.

And Mayor, I'll go ahead.

Oh, goodness. I'm sorry.

All right.

I'm so sorry.

I totally forgot.

I'm sorry, Council Member, I can't see your little yellow hand raised. I'm so sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Madam Mayor, I do have a question for staff. We heard a lot tonight about the loss of the community garden in the area. And I understand that this is, as I read through this, I believe that this is actually private, on private property with Idaho Power. And I wondered if you could explain just explain how that does or does not impact what we're calling for our city's goal for food production and local food production.

Madam Mayor, Council Member Corliss, thank you for the question. You're correct that this subject property is private property, and so some of the goals regarding access to food networks and those type of goals that we can find in Blueprint Boise in the comprehensive plan would not apply since those are generally applicable to city run programs or city run property. So the existence of the community garden from my understanding is that it's a volunteer opportunity from the religious institution. They're sharing their leased land through the community That is not a condition of approval of previous approvals. It's not required for a religious institution, generally, to install community gardens. And the zone, A1, does not require any type of inclusion of community gardens. So it is solely volunteer work. lending uh sharing leased property so um as far as the review of the condition use permits the existence and what is proposed with the community gardens was not reflected in the decision okay yeah thank you very much you good council member corliss all right um and with that um i'll ask for a motion before any deliberation

Madam Mayor, I'm going to give a motion to shot here. It's a little bit new to us with these de novo appeals and making sure that we're doing it correctly. So I'm going to move that we partially deny the appeal and partially grant the CUP with changes to condition 5.0. related to the permeable pavers, just making sure that they're meeting the requirements that we already have for paving runoff and groundwater recharge, and then modifying condition six to include on both intersections when evaluating safety to consider the use of a raised crosswalk so that when they're going across the greenbelt, there's actually a raised crosswalk continuing that greenbelt safety.

Second.

And Madam Mayor, I'll speak to a couple of things here. One, I think that, again, I mentioned this earlier, but when we make these decisions, it's not a popularity contest. It's not who has the best testimony. But what the testimony does is make sure that we are looking through things through a variety of different lenses and hopefully helping us make a better decision in the end. in some cases it's a straight up approval or denial a black and white response but in the best cases at least in my opinion it's an exploration of a third way or a gray area to at least address some of the concerns that were brought up uh during the public testimony so i want to appreciate everybody for coming here tonight but in the end we're really looking at does this fit city code did the developer meet the requirements are they following all the um all the uses of code the comprehensive plan and making sure that they're working to get the public notification out there that they're meeting with fire making sure that fire signed off on the project achd all those things have been done all those things have been met and it's been a pretty long process i think of doing a variety of those different things um i do see concerns with a greenbelt access point kind of going across the major parking lot and the videos that i think were shown today we can see some of those issues And some of them are behavioral issues that, quite frankly, we see across the city with not always coming to a stop at stop signs. It's really frustrating. But things that we're working on. I do think that there's design concerns with a raised crosswalk at a greenbelt, which in some cases we wouldn't necessarily require this from a city point of view because these would be sidewalks. But here we're really talking about the greenbelt. um which we maintain as a city so i think that there's an opportunity for us to improve that process as far as race crosswalks there of course it's going to cost a little bit more money but there's also an opportunity here as you're looking at these pavers if that's something that you want to do great also you need to meet the city code as far as the groundwater recharge and using that runoff there's lots of great ways to do that that we already have spilled out spilled out in code so potentially there's you know money savings there as well so to me this fits all the requirement but by being able to hear this do novo which is relatively new for our code. We are able to make some changes here, I think, in the long run. So those are by the code stuff. And I'm just going to say a couple of other comments. I apologize, Pastor, not a churchgoer, but I do appreciate what churches do in building community I'm a firm believer though, that churches have a responsibility to make sure that their congregation extends beyond their property lines and beyond their walls. And that really means involvement with the community, figuring out ways that you can improve the area, whether that's sending folks to pick up trash, getting involved in the neighborhood association, addressing the needs of the neighbors and making sure that you are a neighbor, just like one of the houses down the street and that you're working with those neighbors to do those types of things. If I were running that church, which I'm not, I would be sending volunteers out there just like you would help people park, but I would have them at that crosswalk during those peak times, especially during the summertime where people are coming and going. And you could solve a lot of that by having a great volunteer out there, quite frankly, congregating with the people that are using the sidewalk and making sure that you're welcoming the folks that are coming in. I think there's lots of solutions for you all to be working with and lots of conversations you can have. and I would encourage you to be active with your neighborhood association and your neighbors to do it. Last thing I would say is I really do appreciate the idea and the thought of potentially getting a pathway around the backside. I think that there's some property line issues and some parking lot issues related to that as well as some easement things with New York Canal. It doesn't appear in our Pathways Master Plan because the Greenbelt is right there. And if we can keep that direct access, you know, straight as possibly for people who are going through, but adding those safety measures like a raised crosswalk, I think that that will make a world of difference.

Madam Mayor, um... Okay, as you know, we've received extensive correspondence on both sides of this issue, and I'm really grateful for the engagement. I wondered how many people were brought to City Hall for the first time because of this project. Anybody here? That's awesome. Yeah. Welcome. I'm glad that you came. Thank you for getting involved and Ms. Slaughter to you directly. I really want to commend your efforts in bringing your neighbors together, giving them a voice and a platform and navigating this process. It's not always easy. So I'm glad that you were here and I'm brave of you to lead the charge. I respect and value each voice in the room, but we make our decisions based on the city code and the law and and I have an obligation to apply those standards consistently and fairly, regardless of which direction public opinion goes. This is the land use application, and we look at our code that specifies land use. After my review of the record, I'm planning on supporting the motion. I wouldn't have objected to the pavers condition. I think that it was flexible enough. I think the condition was the applicant shall explore improving proposed parking area with permeable pavers, it sounds like that's part of our code requirement. And so that could be an option for you and maybe some other mitigation efforts, but I appreciate your willingness to accept the conditions that the commission applied. The reasons that I'm supporting the motion is that I think that the commission didn't take the safety concerns lightly. We saw them add conditions that specifically addressed that with the painted crosswalks, the curb ramps, the truncated dome, the traffic plan. We have more towards that safety effort made tonight in the motion. I saw that ACHD and the fire department and every other commenting agency reviewed this proposal and raised no opposition. And that kind of multi-agency review matters to me and carries weight. The development code allows religious institutions conditionally in this zone, in the A1 zone. It sets a minimum parking requirement rather than a maximum. So they have met the minimum requirement. And the code doesn't condition this approval on the continuation of the community garden, which sits on privately leased land. I understand why the loss of that garden feels significant to many of you. And that's not something that I would minimize. but it isn't something that the law allows us to base a denial on. Ultimately, my role tonight is to determine whether the commission's decision was supported by substantial evidence and applied the correct standards. Based on everything on this record, I believe that it was. I want to thank both the applicant and the appellant for the thoughtfulness of their submissions, and I want to thank the neighbors and let them know that this kind of civic engagement genuinely does shape how these processes work. even when the outcome wasn't exactly what you hoped. But I really do appreciate you being here.

Madam Mayor. Thank you. I want to thank Brittany. I want to thank all the neighbors that came out. I think President Berg of the Southeast Neighborhood Association really hit it on the head about how this, the differing, as we said, multiple viewpoints that came out. But I want to specifically call out, especially tonight, the way that that was shared. Council Pro Tem Corliss and I attended a conference last November. We learned about the Dignity Index. And you should all look it up, the Dignity Index. This was all five plus on the index, which is good. That's where we want to be. So I want to thank you all for being involved. I think, and Brittany shared some really good comments with us. I look forward to following up with you about just the process, right, as navigating this. And I think that, you know, you have done a very excellent job, right? And there's maybe some things that we can do better with the process. But throughout this process, we do have to consider, you know, private property rights, what our code says, trust, you know, some of the expertise that we get from ACHD since we don't control our own streets, that kind of thing. I will say I, you know, I appreciate the motion. Raised crossings are good. They help elevate folks to be able to be seen a little bit better, but I still have a lot of heartburn about that. And I think the videos, you know, kind of confirm that, right? You saw that here tonight. At the, you know, in a good, better, best situation, you know, that's better. But I just really feel like there's an opportunity here to go a step further. And I trust our staff working with the applicant on the traffic plan. I would love to see a copy of that traffic plan once it's approved, once it's done, because there are a lot of mitigation measures that have already been talked about in planning and zoning. But I truly think that that's probably if we can seek for the best. And, you know, Idaho Power's got a lot of great land. We've got the Oregon Trail Historic Reserve over there with them that they've got pathways in. So I think there's an opportunity for partnership there. In terms of traffic, traffic comes up a lot here. And Boise has grown a lot. I've lived in this area since 2005 and totally can, you know, I'm actually part of the problem for Surprise Valley residents. I'm sorry, because I live in Columbia Village and it's a collector. So it's the way that I get to Amity or to Harris Ranch. And, you know, it is when we think about collectors, I mean, that's like Linden, that's like Bergeson. If you've been there during commutes, there's schools, school traffic, lots of high flows. And, you know, it's kind of a reality of the great area that we have. Right. There's a lot of growth. There's a lot of people here. And in terms of driving convenience, it may be an inconvenience. But I do believe if we can do the best that we can for our pedestrians and bicyclists, I think that would really help. Also appreciated the comments about community garden. Appreciate you being out here to talk about that. And I think, you know, this shows what a private organization can do. um when they're creative and want to to work on something like this i know surprise valley homeowners association has a small community garden plot as well but i think um you know if there's anything that can be shared from this this church community on how to start one how to lease some more land there's a lot of idaho power land out there that's just a bunch of weeds and dry grass that would look a lot better as community garden, I'd go for that. So I really, really appreciate the feedback, I think, in planning and zoning. And hopefully tonight you've seen the impact that comes from being engaged and continuing to be engaged. And so I hope that this relationship continues to grow. I'll be supporting the motion.

Madam Mayor. First of all, thank you for spending your summer evening with us. I know there's so many other great places in Boise that you could be. It's a much better experience for everyone when people are here. What I love about people coming to the meetings is that it's not just lip service about loving your community. I had a friend tell me once, you can... How did he say it? I got to get it right. He said, you can... You can tell people how much you care. Oh, let's see. I should have practiced this. See, I'm nervous too, Brittany. And basically, you can tell people that you care about them, but you can pretend to care, but you can't pretend to show up.

There we go.

There we go. Took me a bit. So thanks for showing up. Because I know it wasn't just tonight. It was hours and hours and thinking through all of these different things. I want to speak to Brittany, to you, and I'm a sympathy crier, so we can cry together if you want. I know a thing or two about speaking up and feeling outnumbered. And it's scary and it's emotional. And sometimes it feels like you're raising your hand against the tsunami and you're going to drown. And it's so hard, especially when it's with people that you like, appreciate, respect, and that are your neighbors. That's the hardest part. It'd be easy if they weren't your friends and neighbors and people that you genuinely like and care about. But a couple of people have touched on this, and I'm having a moment up here. You know, what you all did tonight was the best example of what I've seen that makes our community so special, but really our country so special. So in a couple of days, we're going to celebrate the 4th of July. And I hope you all stay in Boise. I hope you go to the parade. I hope you go to the fireworks. I mean, this city has put a lot of effort into being a showstopper because we're the capital and we want to be the showstopper. So stay with us. Don't go to Star. Please don't go to Star or Melba. Okay. Sorry, Melba. But, you know, the point of the Fourth of July is that we live in a country where you can have different opinions. I mean, that is the central piece of it. And it's good because it tests the system. And every time somebody says, I don't I don't know about that, it makes us flex that democracy muscle that otherwise would atrophy. And when we flex that muscle, it forces people on this side to really evaluate the facts. It makes us look at the merits of something and not just say, okay, move this right along. And when you stand up and do that, it is painful. because it's not easy and it can feel like you're drowning. But what you did today was, I think, the best example I've seen of what makes our country great and our community so special is that you showed us the system can work, that you can come, you can disagree, you can leave here, you can shake hands, you can hug, and you can continue to try to make your little pocket of paradise all that you want it to be. So thank you.

Kathy, I'm not going to not call on you.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I want to echo Council Willett's statement by saying I really appreciate everyone coming out tonight. You have a lot of choices with your time and what you can do. And I think helping to talk about these projects, whether you're for it, against it, or want to see some modifications, again, our voices together make a better outcome for these type of projects. I will be supporting this motion tonight. I read through the record. I listened to PNZ. I read through all the comments from the original and new ones that we received. And while I may have personal opinions on the project and what maybe should or could happen with this space, what I know is that we follow what's in our code. And we look at it as how does this fit within our code and how does this look with what our PNC determined. And I'm taking a look at this and I see that everything in here meets the criteria for a conditional use permit. Religious institutions are allowed within the A1 zone. It's uniquely suited for the location. It does have a network for pedestrians, not the optimal network. And we've made some tweaks. PNZ has made some additions to that. And we've had some comments here tonight on how to make that better, which I greatly appreciate. On a personal note, I do think I'm overwhelmed to see the expansion of the church and what they're doing to grow 20% year on year. I think it's great to see that within a community. I do think it's a good fit in the neighborhood. And I greatly appreciate Brittany coming out and being able to organize her neighborhoods in a really tough situation. It's difficult to be at odds with neighbors on even on large things and small things. And I hope over time you'll be able to come together because I can tell you one thing, you have a fantastic neighborhood. You're all out together to try to make it a really great place to live and to continuing to make it even better.

um so again thank you everyone for coming out this evening appreciate everyone's comments and i will be supporting this motion this evening um thank you for everybody coming out and probably all comments we've had i just had one brief comment um i didn't see anything in the video that i think would warrant this but uh where i grew up there's a pretty strong culture of larger churches hiring police services to help direct traffic. And I would just encourage all the parties, if this expansion does begin to generate the amount of traffic that would warrant something like that, to explore some type of public or private arrangement that would help with an influx of traffic at specific times, specific parts of the week. As I said, I didn't say anything in the video that I think would warrant that kind of intervention. But I know that is commonly used in other parts of the country. And I haven't really seen that as part of Boise's culture. But if it's needed at some point, I would encourage all the parties to work together towards something like that.

All right. Well, I just want to say a couple of things. I won't I won't be voting tonight. Just overall on the process that all of you have gone through and what I hope things will look like once this is completed. But I want to start with Brittany. And, you know, you did a great job. And I know, too. how it feels to be standing in a room when everybody behind you, and it feels like everybody behind you is on another side. And you spoke your truth and you shared your concerns and it rung true. And I want to acknowledge that, how hard that is to do. And thank you for that because it takes a lot to do that. And you're with your neighbors. Yes. All of you are neighbors in here. I'm going to remind you of that, even those of you. And I heard that, you know, yes, there are many in the neighborhood that go to the church, but there are many that aren't. But recognize that the place where your church is located is also a community with whom you have and for whom you have responsibility. And I want to thank Suzanne for those pictures because what we saw in there, and I hope that you saw it, Pastor, and you can talk to your community about this, is what too many of us do in this city. When we're turning, et cetera, we're blocking that space for people. We have to put people first. Have to put people first. And so there are expectations that I would have on each and every one of you that we hold ourselves accountable to as well to make sure that we're treating this neighborhood in which you find your church as our neighbors, recognizing that they're people and you've got to keep them safe and protected and acknowledge the hardship that is occurring at different times of the day when you're gathering in community to the larger community in which you're a part of. And I wanna address a couple topics that came up. I'd really encourage you to figure out how, hearing about how important the gardens have been to the neighborhood at large. I've seen them myself, they're beautiful. Think about how you can do that and how you can still offer that to welcome people in. I just encourage you to do that. It's not a requirement, I'd encourage you to do it. I too would encourage you to continue moving forward with pavers, permeable pavers. Because I think that it is on governments, on churches, on schools to hold ourselves to a higher standard and demonstrate to the community the things that can be done that are taking responsibility for downhill, downwind issues. And as we think about drought in the summer and the need to have water, the more that can be done above and beyond the code, by those of us that are looked to as examples, the better off we are because we're demonstrating how it can be done. So I'd encourage you not to walk away from that and to educate around that and the steps that you're taking to take care of the place where you worship. Overall, I'd ask that when you leave this room, the friends on either side that were pointed out, All of you together, remember that you're Boiseans, that you love this place fiercely, that different reasons brought you to this room, but at the core of it all is because we cherish each other, we cherish community, and that is what holds us together in really tough times. And so please, there are those of you that could take more responsibility in this space than others. But as you walk out of here, remember that. That we are all coming from a place of deep care and commitment to Boise. And that it's on each of us to repair what's been really... probably felt pretty fraught for some people as you've navigated through this process. So I thank all of you for being here, for taking care and offering respect in your testimony and in hearing other people's testimonies. And I do hope to see you on Saturday at the Fourth of July, first ever free concert by the Boise Phil. They'll play 1812 Overture and a whole bunch of other songs. It'll be really lovely, as well as a drone and fireworks show to celebrate a really, really, really important holiday and milestone for our country. And to reflect on the opportunity that we've all had in this last six months to tell the story of who we are as Boiseans, so that together... We can come back together after times in our neighborhoods like this or community in general and together create the story of who we are next in the next 50, 100, 250 years. So thank you all for your part in this and for the care that you'll provide each other when this is over and you go back into neighborhood and community. And with that, clerk, will you please call the roll?

Nash.

Yes.

Yes. Willard? Yes. Corliss? Yes. Holly Burton? Yes. Ross? Yes. All in favor, motion carries.

Madam Mayor, I move to adjourn.

Second.

We have a motion.

We have a motion and a second. All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

And with that, we are adjourned. Have a wonderful evening, everybody.