Planning and Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right, good evening everybody. Just going to pause and wait a couple minutes so we can get those chairs out and uh everyone seated before we get started. So, just a moment or two and we'll get get going. There are three seats up here and some in the middle. Don't be shy. We're all in the same community. Okay, so welcome again to the Boisee City Planning and Zoning Commission public hearing. A few things to start out with for tonight's proceedings. Everyone from the public entering the hearing virtually has been automatically muted and cannot speak. As the item you're interested in comes up for discussion, you'll be called upon and unmuted. There is a chat function in Zoom. However, this is not part of the record and should only be used if technical difficulties arise. Our procedures for public hearings begins with a presentation from the planning team. Then we'll go to the applicant and then the representative of the registered neighborhood association followed by a questions from the commission. After that, we proceed to public testimony starting with those who are in person, then who signed up on the signup sheet in advance, and then anyone else who raises their hand virtually. If you're attending through your telephone, you can type in star9 to raise your hand. Each member of the public is allowed up to three minutes for testimony and we are strict with this time as it is limited in code. Finally, the applicant is allowed five minutes for rebuttal after which the hearing will be closed and the commission will deliberate and render a decision. Mr. Chair, you have the floor.

Thank you, Crystal. Happy New Year, everybody. First day and you're here with us. We got to have better things to do. Okay. Um, we have obviously some items in front of us tonight that um, we know are going to be a hot topic and so bear with me. I'm going to read something and hopefully we can kind of get ourselves off to the right foot. Before we start tonight, I would like to remind all of us of why we are here and what it mean what that means and how we behave. Our main goal tonight is to have a fair hearing. A hearing where all voices are heard with courtesy and respect. And so we have a couple of simple rules for tonight's hearing. First, please do not call out, cheer, clap, or heckle anybody from the audience. Uh please do not interrupt the speakers. Everyone will have a chance to speak. And second, when speaking, please address your comments to us, the commissioners, and not to the other audience members or the applicant or city staff. If you receive comments with raised voices or profanities, we will stop your time and push you to the end of the line for public comments. Uh if you if you ask a question, the applicant may choose to answer your question during their rebuttal time, but the commission cannot answer questions during testimony. We are here to listen to all the evidence and to make a decision. We have a lot of interest in particularly one item tonight. And so I want to outline a few things. Uh if you've submitted written comments ahead of this hearing and we've read them, trust me, we've got several hundreds of pages of of material that we went through. Uh we want to make it clear that the commissioner has read them and we do not need to repeat your comments verbally tonight. We'd like to make sure we hear from everyone who wants to speak, but do not need uh to hear from those who have already submitted written comments or the same comments over and over. We plan to close the hearing around 10 or 10:30 this evening. If we get much later, it makes for tough

deliberation for us up here and none of us and none of us, the commission staff and you want to be here into the morning hours. Uh this is why we ask for new comments this evening or to hear from anyone who hasn't submitted written comments in advance. For those who have submitted comments or speak tonight, you'll be considered a party of record, which means you'll be able to speak at a future hearing if the decision is appealed to city council. for the order of the the evening. We'll start with Boise City staff, then the applicant, then the neighborhood associations. Um, tonight the Let me give you real quick. The staff usually has about 20 minutes. The applicant has up to 20 minutes and the neighborhood association has 20 minutes. Not HOA, neighborhood association. There's a difference. Many of you know what that is. Um, then the commissioner will ask questions of all of these parties. After that, we'll go into public testimony portion of the evening. Everyone has up to three minutes to speak. Again, this is where we'd like to hear from those who haven't submitted comments in advance and any new comments that we uh that we haven't read in our packet. Finally, we'll fi we'll finish with the applicant's rebuttal. And if we make it, the commissioner will deliberate and make a decision. Uh for testimony, we'll start with in-person testimony first. So, if you're in these chambers, you'll be first up to speak later on when that time comes. Everyone is required to keep their that is not that's an old thing from COVID. Unless you want to wear your mask, you're welcome to do that. Um we have limited seating. I think we're accommodating everybody for this. I'm just going to skip through this Crystal. Um after we go through everybody who's been in chambers, we'll move into comments from the folks who are attending virtually. So, there's a Zoom meeting and those folks will have the

opportunity to speak as well. So, uh once we get through that, we'll come back one last time. If you haven't signed up or you haven't had a chance to speak, we'll we'll be sure to ask one more time and do that again. Um hopefully this helped everyone realize uh we have a full night ahead of us. Again, we'd like to hear new comments or from anyone who hasn't submitted written comments uh because I think everyone would like to have a decision this evening. Uh but we don't want to rush this either. Uh we might not get through everything this evening, but we'll plan on stopping around 10 to 10:30. Thank you again for coming tonight. Your participation is important and equally uh is that to treat each other with kindness and respect regarding their opinion. So with that, would the clerk please call the role?

Danley I more I are here. Schaefer. Deha I Torres here. Dome. Stallings here. Stefansic here. Six present, two absent.

Very good. Okay. We have three items in front of us this evening, but none of them are going to be up for consent. So, our consent agenda is going to only consist of the work session meeting minutes and the meeting minutes from both December 1st and December 8th. Hopefully, everybody's had a chance to review all of those. If there's any if there's not any discussion, we'll go ahead and put the work session minutes from December 1st, meeting minutes from December 1st, work session from the 8th, and meeting minutes uh also from the 8th on the consent agenda. Is there any discussion? Okay. Hearing none, have a motion. Commissioner Moore, I move that we approve the consent agenda as constructed.

Okay. Very good. Have a commissioner more approve the consent agenda. Second. I second. And a second by Commissioner Stallings. Any discussion? Hearing none. The clerk please call the role. Danley. I. Moore. I. Deha. I. Perez I Stallings I Deonic I. All in favor? Motion carries.

Okay, very good. This takes us into item number one, CUP25-38. This is Idaho Power Company. This is a modification to a conditional use permit for a major expansion of an existing electric substation located at 3155 North Maple Grove Road. Uh Matt, take it away.

Thank you, Mr. Mr. Chair, members of the commission, good evening. As you said, the item before you is a conditional use permit for the expansion of an electric substation and confirmation of legal non-conforming status uh site features located at 3155 North Maple Grove Road on 1.25 acres in an A1 open land, very low density and R1C residential traditional zones. And just to clarify, the script was originally printed with an associated variance request which is CVA25-72 uh which is to deviate from the access and connectivity and streetscape standards for the sidewalk adjacent to Maple Grove. Uh that was determined that application was determined not to be applicable to the request and has been voided. Uh so the existing substation is located on the A1 zoned parcel to the north and is requesting to expand onto the R1c zoned parcel which borders it to the south. As described within the project report, the substation has been in operation since the 1950s and was annexed into the cities in the 1980s. Electric substations are conditionally allowed in both zones and the development code grants cup entitlement to previously allowed uses which now require a cup when that use is annexed after its construction or operation. Typically the planning team would recommend a consolidation of these parcels and zones into one. However, given the nature of the use being conditional in both zones and since the proposed work is related to the the power grid as infrastructure and does not require a a building permit with the city, given these circumstances, the proposal is supportable across these two properties and zones. Although unlikely given its infrastructural use, if the site ever redevelops, both of these would need to be consolidated into one property and one zone. The planning team supports the expansion of the electric substation as its

infrastructure is essential to urban lifestyle and approving it will allow Idaho Power to meet current and future energy demands for residents of the West Bench. The operation will continue to operate as a passive use and will not increase the amount of noise or trips to support the expansion. It's adequately screened from adjacent properties and rightway with existing and proposed trees and shrubs as you can see here. The planning team also rec recognizes with the cup the non-conformity non-conformities associated with the site being the parcel size itself which is less than 1 acre and the minimum lot size for A1 is 1 acre. the street side uh and rear setbacks and street improvements along East Road to the north which is uh which is a 7 foot wide attached sidewalk rather than the typically required 10 foot wide detached sidewalk with street trees. The main discussion tonight for this application will be regarding the planning team's recommended condition of approval to install a 10 foot wide detached sidewalk along the eastern street frontage on Maple Grove Road which the applicant has expressed opposition toward. The planning team is recommending this condition as all new development within both the A1 and R1C zones trigger the requirement for detached sidewalk and the Maple Grove. Unlike the Eustic Road street frontage, the Maple Grove frontage has adequate space for that detached sidewalk to fit without affecting the existing use. This condition of approval enhances pedestrian safety and comfort by providing shade and street trees with extra separation from the vehicular travel lane, which provides greater connectivity along an arterial that's surrounded by residential reuses. It will also match the sidewalk that was recently approved as part of an infill redevelopment uh application, a DR application that was recently approved to the south. Further, the location of the existing buildings on the east uh east side of the street can meet the

setback of the A1 zone which are unchanged by this recommended condition as setbacks are measured from the back of future detached sidewalk. Meaning this condition when it if imposed would not reduce the measurement of the front setback. In conclusion, the pine recommends approval and I will stand for any questions. Thank you, Mr. Dennis. Okay, we'll hear from the applicant. I I think it's KM Engineering or maybe it's Idaho Power themselves. Go ahead. Come on up. Um, please state your name and address for the record. And I'm guessing you'll have 10 minutes probably adequate. Yeah. Okay. Great.

Thank you, commissioners. Uh, chair and commissioners. My name is Jeff Mafuio, 1221 West Idaho Street, Boise, Idaho. And with me is,

uh, good evening. Stephanie Hopkins, KM Engineering, 5725 North Discovery Way in Boisee. So, we'll we'll split this up a little bit. We'll try to stay at 10 minutes. Uh, let's see. Um, I'd like to focus on the need and the purpose of the substation, and I appreciate staff's uh um presentation and report. Um, as you're well aware, Idaho Power has been serving this community for over 100 years. Uh we work hand inand on a lot of products together and um you know we we served a lot of customers across southern Idaho as well and stations like this substation are are imperative and integral to serving our communities uh serving this community and this one has been for many decades. Uh if you look at aerial photography going back into the early 60s, it's it's kind of out there on its own. And so the area has grown up around it and as a substation has um operated infrastructure inside of it ages and needs to be replaced. And so when we look at the grid in its entirety, this is kind of the last major piece of apparatus or infrastructure before electricity is delivered to homes, uh businesses, and um outside of the city limits, farms, and other uses. Uh this Ustix substation uh serves about a five square mile area. Um it's right here in the middle and then this is approximately the the service area. Beyond this yellow boundary are other substations that you know uh they kind of connect together but this is uh where you stick serves. So the objectives of this project were to upgrade existing infrastructure, utilize property that ID power owned uh for a long time and uh replace old equipment and um with a more secure um you know newer facility or infrastructure uh within the station.

the it's what we call a metalclad and um that includes uh switches, breakers, fuses, uh computer controls that bring electricity from the substation out to those customers on on our feeder lines. Um so this is a main piece of equipment that we're replacing and then above this that connects these pieces of equipment or what we call bus work and that's like the hard metal pipes at the top. The total height is probably about 15 to 16 feet depending on foundations. So as you look at a substation, this one's from north to south uh at Ustick Road or transmission lines. It comes in through switches, breakers, uh all connected with the bus work. You can kind of see the aerial imagery there on your right. We'll be replacing some breakers as well. Um and then the transformers, fuses, and then the metal plaid. Again, kind of looking at both images here. The existing metalclad is on the south edge of the existing substation and we had to put the new metalclad south of that because uh you know if you swap it out we'd be with an outage in that five square mile area for like a few weeks and we really can't do that. So we have to put the new one in connect it and then we'll take the old one out. And so that's really what's driving this expansion. At the same time, um, we we can do the breakers, uh, again, with with maybe a a very minimal outage, like a an hour or so if we if we need it, but we can do a lot of this energized. We'll upgrade um the fencing, landscaping, as we'll get into here in a second, as well as um re revise the existing approaches. So, I'll hand that over to Stephanie. Thank you. Yeah. So, as uh Jeff mentioned, we'll be doing several upgrades to the site and enhancing existing landscaping and the existing buffers that are along Maple

Grove and Ustick. Um, as shown, this is the uh Maple Grove frontage. It's the eastern frontage. There are several mature trees and uh our goal is to retain as many of those as possible and utilize um the existing vegetation where where we can to make it a secure and um attractive buffer. And then uh this is just a a schematic image to show you the UTIC frontage. So uh it's pretty constrained against Ustick. There's not a whole lot of space. So we worked with staff ahead of submitting this application to um to determine that arborita and some other vegetative uh covering was appropriate for this frontage as well as uh the western frontage where there's some limited space. Uh so I'm you know overall this expansion will provide a more attractive buffer though than what exists now. Uh staff is recommending that we include a 10-ft detached sidewalk and 10-ft landscape buffer adjacent between the detached sidewalk and Maple Grove along the entire frontage of the site. So we uh the expansion is about 70 ft uh that'll be expanding linear feet on the on the south side and 175 ft north of that expansion. Um and they are recommending that we include detached sidewalk along the entire frontage. Uh we're requesting that condition three, which is associated with that recommendation, be omitted from the requirements uh for several reasons. So there are we understand the intent of um when when applications come into the city, it's uh the city's goal to make sure that pedestrian connectivity as well as any other code requirements and comprehensive plan goals are upheld. and um they try to make sure they're consistent with um requiring improvements that coincide with those things. But we believe that uh the existing pedestrian connections and um existing buffers that are here meet the intent of code in a comprehensive plan while fulfilling Idaho P's goal to

provide an expansion in a secure and safe way uh for the public and their their users. So um utilizing the existing landscaping uh with the enhanced buffer that we've planned with the um additional eight trees class one trees that'll be within the buffer we have uh proposed as well as the existing uh screening from fencing will be a better buffer and a more attractive buffer than removing or requiring that we remove the sidewalk and place a landscape buffer against the road. um because not only would we lose mature trees uh but it would separate it would add a separation from the substation to pedestrian connection. Um we would also need to relocate several existing facilities that would inflict, you know, extra cost on this project that really seem unnecessary. Um we'd have to remove an existing mature tree. Um it's the white oak that's shown in the middle here. And uh this would be costly. It would also cause uh some service outages for folks in the area. And as Jeff showed, that's a really large uh customer base in this this five uh mile radius that would be impacted by potential outages related to um requiring sidewalk here or detached sidewalk. There's an existing 7-foot sidewalk as you can see shown in some of these images with the the red brick um that that provides a a nice pedestrian connection and enough of a separation from Maple Grove as well as a 5-ft bike lane that exists between uh the existing the existing sidewalk and Maple Grove. Uh so our proposal is to admit condition three and we do have some solutions that we feel would help to meet the intent to code which are shown on the the slide right now. So um we've agreed with staff and this was prior to learning about the

requirement for the 10-ft detached sidewalk. We've agreed to remove the northernmost approach. So there's an existing approach that's kind of right about where that existing irrigation box is shown on the north side. Uh we're agreeing to remove that approach. that would be landscaped where we are planning on doing the the landscape buffer um and would help eliminate some of the conflict that's you know potential conflict for pedestrians and vehicles. Um this site isn't serviced by trucks often but um it would be nice obviously to have less in-n-out traffic from the site. So let's see what else. Um, we're also we could also replace the red papers if um that would help to to improve the look of the pedestrian connection um along the existing pedestrian uh facilities here. And then um by by using our existing sidewalk that would avoid some costly tree removal and as I mentioned utility relocation and some potential service outages and some other things that would happen as a result of requiring relocation of all these things. Um those several facilities are shown up on the site. So there are some guideline wires, there's a power pole, there's the existing tree, the um utility the existing utility vault is circled in yellow there and that's a a really large facility that has some some big uh stuff inside basically that would create sounds too technical but it would it would uh create some a big detriment to the project. Um overall in looking at this and just trying to determine you know the impacts to the project it would increase their budget you know 10 to 20% which just seems like an unnecessary increase for um a project that's meant to serve the public and in Boisee in this area. So I think I hope I covered all of that. We really appreciate your consideration and we're obviously happy to have a conversation about it to try

to find maybe a nice middle ground where we can provide what Boyisey wants to see but also utilize existing facilities that are in good shape and and and serve the public well. Now, thank you.

Okay, thank you very much. Uh hang tight. Probably have questions in just a second. Next, we'll turn to the neighborhood association. Um this is the West Valley Neighborhood Association. Is there anybody here from uh particularly maybe Judy Herman or anybody else but specific to West Valley? Nobody in chambers. Looks like nobody online. Going once, going twice. Okay. All right. We'll go ahead and turn it over to the commission for any questions. Be a long night. Y'all better get going. Mr. Chair, question. Mr. SA,

uh, question for staff. Um, the reason for detached sidewalk, does that have anything to do with safety, too? Mr. Chair, Commissioner Seha, thank you for the question. Uh, part of the intent of detached sidewalks is to provide that extra separation. So, that would immediately increase safety. um safety and comfort are really the main um driving points and the the intent of detached sidewalk. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Oh, Commissioner Moore to follow up on Commissioner Sal's question. So, that's safety from traffic, not safety from things happening internal to the site, but it's safety from traffic. Mr. Chair, Commissioner Moore, that's correct. Yes.

Chair, Mr. Stefanic. Um, yeah, this is a question for Idaho Power. So, in in the in the report you talked about there being potential conflicts with your vehicles coming in, having to unlock the gate, blocking the sidewalk. Um, is there an alternative design or option using um any of the the current uh driveway access points that would minimize blocking of the sidewalk?

Uh, that's a great question. I I don't know if we can bring up this uh this slide. um essentially essentially know uh where we keep our existing fence line and the existing control building uh kind of sets that eastern boundary and and uh where those where those gates are, where those approaches are. Um, so moving moving the sidewalk further in, there's an image where a pickup truck is parked and if if a truck pulled in a little bit longer than that that pickup truck, it would block the entirety of the sidewalk as as a gates being unlocked, opened, vehicles were going through.

Um, I I don't believe so. Uh, we we want to maintain our existing footprint as much as possible in the substation.

Okay. So, in the the southern entry that we see there down at the bottom, that that couldn't be a way for a truck to drive in and then have access to this since there seems like there's not uh the transformers or the the boxed areas in that lower section. Um, you know, it's one of those engineering decisions where they want to keep it as consistent as possible with the with the fence line and keep those and keep that space in the event. I mean, this again, this substation is um what over 60 years old and so we we want to have this the ability in the future to not have to expand it. So, I think we'd like to keep that space reserved within the fence yard.

Cool. Thank you. Any other questions? Mr. Chair, Mr. Mark, I got one more. Um, so for that um fencing, how how often is the site accessed? Would you I I'd say typically uh during operation probably um probably two to three times a week. Okay. And Mr. Cherry, go ahead. Uh, and so related to the outages, uh, to replace to re relocate the equipment, I think I'm seeing there's one pole and then one vault that would need to be relocated. Is that

Yeah, in in the in that big vault is the is a lot of the electrical the distribution feeders that come out of the station. Uh, one goes up to that pole right there, but those those feeders would have to be relocated. They they could be relocated inside the fence. Um, but basically you'd have to disconnect everything and take outages associated with that. And Mr. Chair, and so similar to kind of some of this new equipment that's not something that could be installed and then redone kind of like the the new equipment that outage would be minimal.

Um, I asked that same question to our engineers and and sorry they were not available tonight. um we might have been here a lot longer but um there would be a cut over period and because you're you're dealing with line work I guess it it takes a while longer than like having the bus work on the metalclad you know be overhead and being like switching off the old one switching on the new one. This would be essentially um you could you could cut the old lines but at some point you'd have to take like an extended outage. could be a overnight eight hour outage or something like that. Okay. And then Mr. Chair, Commissioner,

uh, so for I think in the staff report there was a little blurb about maybe the vault doesn't necessarily need to be relocated. It but it sort of conflicts with the sidewalk. Is that kind of accurate that the vault might be exempt from some of those requirements? Mr. Chair, Commissioner Moore, that's correct. um the kind of intersection and and um competition between required improvements and infrastructure entries are things that we discuss all the time. So it's it's not uncommon for um for that to happen. Thank you. M

uh question for applicant. Either way we go on, you know, the condition number three of the sidewalk, there's the bus stop that's towards the what south side of the property, right? There was a recommendation to make it more ADA compatible with adding that extended pad on the backside. Would that be something that you guys would be willing? Yes. If there was a compromise there. Yes. Yeah. I think um we we looked at it, you know, we could redo the the red papers with, you know, new concrete flat work. this I think on the back side in that additional I want to say it was another two or three feet um for the length of uh 10 foot

I believe. Yeah. Yes, we we we're more than willing to do that. Mr. Chair, sorry, Commissioner Torres. Um, my question is for the applicant. With the question about the trucks possibly uh blocking the sidewalk when they're trying to enter the code or enter the enter the site, is there any way to automate that entry where like for lack of a for a non-technical example like something like a garage door opener but more secure where they could just push a button before they actually turn onto the site? Is that an option to avoid that issue? Um, or does it have to be something where they actually have to enter in a code and someone has to someone has to buzz in.

I think I think it's an option, but you just, you know, you don't want to be uh we'd have to we want to have the truck like physically be in front of the gate before you open it before you open the gate. You don't want to be driving down Maple Grove and, you know, hitting the button like you do on your garage door and then hoping someone doesn't get in. I um there's so many there's so many rules that are governed and regulations by like federal and um industry standards, FK and NERK. And so I I don't know if I can be agreeable to to something like that where you wouldn't have to be on site to open it. Mr. Chair, follow up to Oh, Commissioner Stone,

follow up to that question. Are we talking about eights of minutes here? Are we talking about maybe 30 seconds that they're waiting for the gate to

It's probably a few minutes. Okay. I mean, it's enough time. It's it's not the that's not the sticking point, but um it's really the Yeah, it' be the time to get out of your vehicle, open the gate, get back in, close it. I think that this the the challenge is with the relocation of the utilities and the cost that would be incurred to to move that vault. Um you know, that would be a major cost. And we kind of collectively looked at all these um to make the detached sidewalk work. is like, you know, it's a higher estimate, but it's about 400,000. The total product estimate is 2.2 million. So, it's it's it's a pretty big percentage of the project cost.

Thank you. I got a couple questions for you. So, first of all, freaking nerks sound like muppets. That's all right. Um, few things. One, uh, Ustic Arbida. We're good with Arbida. Ourbivide have a really bad habit of growing well into public rights of way because they're not always maintained very well. So are we good with that? Uh Mr. Chair, as um Mr. Mafukio Mafuio said, the our provider was was chosen and coordinated with uh parks and recck because of the limited space there adjacent to.

That's a good maintenance need. They come up all the time as we know, right? They grow fast, but it's going to happen a lot. Matt, can you pick up can you put up the picture of the sidewalk on Maple Grove? There's a little point of clarity on that, the actual image that shows the sidewalk. That's good enough. So, a little point of clarity on this that that two feet is not sidewalk. That's stamped concrete. That was an agreement between ACD and all the cities of Ada County when they put in their transportation and land use integration plan 20 years ago. And that that two feet is what ACD is willing to pay for in order to provide a buffer because the cities didn't want to put in landscape buffers. So that's why that stamp concrete is all over Ada County, but it is not supposed to be functional space. So the sidewalk width of this on Maple Grove is actually five feet. So I want to make sure we're clear on that. Now to to Matt, another followup here for you is ACD's policy and I think our own policies has really morphed over the last particularly over the last 5 years where on our arterials and our mobility corridors as they would call it, we're graduating towards 10 feet wide. We're calling them sidewalks, but they ain't sidewalks. They're multi-use pathways and they're intended for bicycle traffic as well as pedestrians, joggers, and so forth with the intent that eventually bike lanes are going to go away and we're going to end up using those 10-ft pathways instead. Can you confirm that,

Mr. Chair? That's correct. Which is why we're doing this. Right. the multi-use pathway um is is called well in the development code it's called uh sidewalk just for simplicity but it is a multi-use pathway right okay so to the applicant and Matt if you can pull up the I guess it' be the site plan

it looks like the biggest contention that you have is mostly consolidated down to about a 20 foot length of frontage on Maple Grove. I understand some of the other trees. I get that. But we have this one tree and then we have this vault that's really close in proximity that you're saying can cause issues. Here's my question. So, we have the ability we can do a couple of things with regard to meandering and tapering. So, we have the ability if we want to. You're proposing to keep 5T. We're saying 10. We have a landscape buffer of another 10 ft. Can we figure out how and be amenable to narrowing up some of the landscape buffer to work with the tree to make sure it's healthy and stays strong with the root ball and all that, but also on the on the uh the sidewalk, we'll call it side. Get that down maybe to eight feet or sevenish. and and use the proper meandering approach that works to solve both of those two issues. Would you be able to do that? And would we as a city potentially staff be open to that for that 20ish feet? I don't know if it's 20, maybe it's 25 ft, whatever it is, but would that help us move this forward?

Uh Mr. chair. Um, since there is enough room for the entire street improvement to fit, the planning team would be recommending that the entire improvement be installed. The other part of that is because uh, as I mentioned in my staff report, the uh, front setbacks are measured from the back of a detached sidewalk or future detached sidewalk. So in instances where the although the commission does have the the discretion to modify conditions in instances of adjusting street improvements it also adjusts the front property line. So for those two reasons the planning team would retain the recommend recommendation of the full 10 foot and 10 foot.

Okay. Appreciate that answer. Anything to add on that? I I guess I was just a point of clarification where the sidewalk would be and it would be uh behind the behind that tree between the substation and the tree or in front between the road and the

as I'm looking at it from north to south I see the vault first and I see the tree second. So in my mind, but I'm also hearing what what Mr. Dennis just said loud and clear is the ability to taper. You keep it straight but taper it around that vault. And then you're because of this tree, you kind of need to take the landscape buffer and you can taper it outward towards the street a little bit to create that space that it's needed in order to maintain that, you know, with this between the sidewalk and that. But that's that's the general thought, but I hear what you're saying loud and clear, too.

Mr. Mr. Chair, I would just add um you know to retain the multi-use pathway, the the planning team also tends to reduce the landscape buffer in instances where there's conflict uh before we reduce the width of the sidewalk, if that makes sense.

Yeah. Okay, fair enough. I know that the green belt has sections that get narrower and so forth, but I I hear what you're saying. So, okay. Appreciate I don't even think I need your to your have your answer. I think I've got enough. Okay. Any other questions? once. It's going twice. Okay, we'll go ahead and open it up. I don't have anybody signed up on this item um on our signup sheet and I don't know if there's anybody online who wish Oh, we do have someone I think. Well, no, this the hand just went away. I love technology. We're back. We have the hand up again. Okay. Uh is it Darien Burovto? Yep. Well, well pronounced.

Thank you. I tried. Okay. You wish to testify on this item? Well, I was just kind of hoping to have a say in whether or not I think the meeting already occurred. That was like we're taking out the park right there. Correct. That's my the whole park is going away. Yeah. Let me let me just back up. So, in terms of our agenda, we're hearing item number one, and this is an application for Idaho Power, and they're they're asking for an expansion of an existing site. And so, the the main issue is this sidewalk uh and landscape buffer on Maple Grove primarily. There's no park that's being taken out.

Well, it's that green space that is the easement is what they I guess you guys are calling it. That's right there. like it's that green spot of land with a tree in it that I go to with my dogs every day and I was just wondering I thought maybe there was a community say in that part of it. Yeah. Okay. Right. So, so just to clarify this is going to be that's actually private property. Um so you and your dog and Idaho Power are going to have to have a conversation about that. But and for in in in in in in for this evening u no that's not going to be gerine to the the the discussion at hand though ma'am. Okay. I apologize. Thank you for your time.

Okay. No problem. Thank you though. All right. Anybody else? I don't see anybody else online. Anybody else in chambers who wants to testify? You do wish. Okay. Come on up. Please state your name and your address for the record and you'll have three minutes.

David Ruby, 499 Main Street. It's kind of a coincidence I'm here. for another item, but I actually I guess I'm going to speak real quickly uh three three-fold. Um just as a citizen who happened to be here, um I'm a design professional, so I I do this, but I also own land about 200 feet south of here, so it caught my attention. And one thing I just wanted to make sure that isn't getting lost in the discussion is I believe there's a a current project that's under construction today about 200 feet two 300 feet south of here and I believe they're putting in a detached sidewalk. I I'd ask staff to confirm that but I I think they probably are. I'm not necessarily a fan of detached sidewalks. Um I love the the ability to discuss where they're appropriate and where they're not. I think that is a bit lacking sometimes. Um, so I'm not just jumping up and saying, "Hey, it was shown." But in this in this situation, especially when it looks like there's going to be one built just a few hundred feet south of here, and it looks like there's plenty of room, it seems to me that somebody should probably be advocating for that sidewalk to be detached because it doesn't kind of seems like things are shifting in the other direction. Um, so that's I just wanted to say that real quick. Nobody was really coming to the detent detached sidewalks defense here. still

and I do own land, so I'm not just up here trying to say do it, but I'm I have a reason. Great. Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. All right. Anybody else wish to testify?

Okay. I don't see anybody else. So, uh, you'll have opportunity for rebuttal. Where'd they go? Yeah. Oh, there they are. If you have you want to rebut what you just heard or anything else you need to add, you have five minutes to do so. Otherwise, the item is before us for decision. Okay. The item is officially in front of the commission for decision. This is item number one, CUP25-38. Reminder, is a conditional use permit. So, we do have the decision here uh located 3155 North Maple Grove Road. Mr. Chair,

Commissioner Sehawk. Um, I make a motion to approve the CUP or CUP25-38 um with all terms and conditions as outlined by the staff report. Okay. I have a motion by Commissioner Seahhoff for approval with all of the terms and conditions in the staff report. Is there a second? Second. I have a com I have a second by Commissioner Stallings. Is there any discussion?

Mr. Chair, I was reminded of another application that came before before us last year and it was on State Street. um where there were some utility concerns as well and I do believe that we did not make an exception. Um they were or are going to construct that 10 foot detached sidewalk. If you spend any time on Maple Grove, uh whether that's walking or driving your car, it is it's a busy roadway. Um, so having that separation I think as a pedestrian um would be I mean as a pedestrian I I completely support that detached sidewalk and I I do also to the commenter on the detached sidewalk I do think that our staff report did mention a development nearby that had detached sidewalks so it's like a continuum.

Absolutely. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Seha. Any other discussion? Mr. Commissioner Stallings.

Yeah, just a second Commissioner Sea's comments um and what you were noting about the the long-term plan on these um arterial roadways. Riding your bike on these, you know, six lane roads is very intimidating and very um risky. and any kind of additional buffer either whether on bike or on foot or wheeling, how walking, however you do um just adds one, it adds to the community feel and how these, you know, major roadways and how we interact with them and how they are adjacent to our communities or, you know, our literal homes. But then just in the use of them that extra buffer is such a different it would make me use that that that route instead of trying to find an arterial route. So yeah, just a second.

Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Stallings. Any other discussion? Mr. Chair Commissioner uh Forest,

I would just add also um if you've ever to to follow up with that riding a bike on one of these uh very large multi-lane roads, a lot of cyclists will ride on the sidewalk anyway. And if you have an interaction between a pedestrian and a cyclist on a five or seven foot sidewalk, whatever we want to describe it as, there's not a lot of room there and it creates its own conflicts that can potentially be dangerous. um especially when traffic is flying by right next to it. So um I appreciate the concerns about the additional cost and the disruption of moving to the detached 10ft sidewalk versus the end landscape buffer versus the um keeping the existing 5ft or 7 foot sidewalk. Um, but I really think that if we're trying to create options for people that are safe and that don't require them to be in their car, we really should encourage this 10-ft um, multi-use pathway network that's that we're trying to build in a city. And I really think we've discussed many times before on past projects, whether they are an Idaho power substation, you know, a a house. Um regardless that the time to build these sidewalks is when these projects are being worked on. Um they're not going to get built otherwise and and if we want to have a network for the future for future generations of Boyceians, we need to we need to do it at the time of these things are are before us.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Torres. I think we're pretty good. We ready to go ahead and take a vote. Okay. With the clerk, please call the role. Danley. I. Moore. I Dehoff I Norris I Stallings I Stonic I. All in favor? Motion carries. Okay, let's take a quick five minutes. The chairman drank way too much water.

Okay, let's go ahead and get started. We got a lot of work to do. So, we'll move on. I think everybody's here. Yeah. Okay. Um we'll move on to item number two. This is C25-3 engineering solutions. This is a reszone of approximately 8.65 acres located at 90 9744 West State Street as well as a preliminary plat for a residential subdivision which is SUB25-12 uh Bony Brook subdivision with the same address and it looks like Jesse Lyle.

Uh good evening, Mr. Chair and commissioners. Uh the item before you today is C253 and SUB 2512. As you said, this is request to reszone approximately 8.65 acres located at 9744 State Street from R1A to R2 and a preliminary plat for residential subdivision comprised of 78 buildable and 14 common lots on 18.9 acres. The full subject property is shown in red on the screen and the hatched area on the screen is um the reszone requests area. The subject property is designated compact on the future land use map as are the surrounding parcels to the north, east, and west with one area having a high density land use to the southeast. The surrounding parcels are zoned R1C to the northeast and west with R2, R3, and MX3 zoning near State Street. The applicant is proposing to reszone the property to R2 for consistent zoning throughout the subdivision. The requested R2 zoning is compatible with the comprehensive plan and appropriate for the location as the property is along an arterial roadway and near commercial uses. There's also a planned multi-use pathway along State Street and there's been a significant planning and investment along State Street with a long range vision to provide to hubs and extend the existing best-in-class transit route as proposed. All lots will meet the dimensional standards of the R2 zone. The applicant is proposing multifamily near uh State Street and town homes and detached single family to the north. The applicant has included preliminary site plans and renderings for the proposal which will be further refined during design review. The applicant is proposing no direct access to State Street, rather access from Garner Lane, Utana Road to the north, Leighton Street, and Sloan Street. Sloan Street is currently a deadend road from Duncan Lane east of the subject property. However, there's approval for the West Lock Village subdivision to the east that would extend Sloan Street from the

eastern property line and provide that connection. Part of the proposal includes realigning Mer Lane to the site to connect to Duncan Lane, which is included as a condition to signalize Mer Lane and State Street uh prior to building occupancy. Um, a condition of approval for the current proposal will mirror that condition from Westlock Village subdivision and also require the intersection to be signalized prior to building occupancy. The OMR and state intersection will provide access to the subdivision and the uh traffic impact study submitted with the proposal states that the subdivision will exceed level of service thresholds at that intersection. Additionally, ITD and ACD conditions will require a righthand turn lane onto Gardener Lane and traffic calming via vertical deflection on Gardener Lane and Utana Road, respectively. Internal to the subdivision, most roadways will be the standard 33 foot wide street section apart from a small reduced street section area in yellow. The applicant has also proposed a public alley and a condition of approval will require all access from block four and block five to be taken from the alley. Another condition of approval will require block six to meet all standards of the development code. Finally, conditions will require detached sidewalk throughout the subdivision and that the pathway shown in blue must be located within a public access easement. While further design review will be required for the town homes, residential small lots and multif family developments, the general subdivision and streetscape standards are under review with the current proposal. As proposed, all town home lots will have individual driveways from the local streets. However, these driveways are very close together and do not allow for the typical amount of space within the landscape buffer. A condition of approval will require town homes to combine access points in order to provide a landscape buffer that can accommodate class two or three street trees. Consolidated access points also provide safer pedestrian environment and are encouraged where possible.

Additionally, the applicant has proposed a pickle ball court and uh the applicant has been advised to replace the pickle ball court with a different type of open space as pickle ball is fairly loud and may impact some of the adjacent homes. Public comment was received with general concerns outlined on the slide, including concerns with density, traffic impacts, and privacy as well as skyline impacts. The current design focuses density along State Street. However, no direct access to State Street is allowed. Conditions of approval from ACD and ITD require traffic calming and mitigation measures. As said, a recommended condition of approval to install the signalized intersection at State. Additionally, the development code does not require fencing for subdivisions, nor does it regulate view sheds aside from height limits in the zone. In conclusion, the planning team recommends approval, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Okay, thank you, Jesse. Uh, we're going to hear next from the applicant. This is Engineering Solutions. I think it's going to be Becky McKay. Yeah. All right, great. If you could just state your name and address for the record. Appreciate it.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm Becky McKay with Engineering Solutions, 1029 North Rosario, Meridian, uh, business address. I'm here representing the applicant on the Bonnie Brook development that's before you this evening. Okay. How does it move forward? I'm having technical difficulties already. Oh, there it is. I didn't see the arrows wore off. Not my bad. Plus, I don't see that. Well, um, so I'm representing Chen Challenger Development uh on this particular property. As you can see, the parcel is located on the north side of State Street. Um, the majority of this property was the Fron Witty Nursery. Um, for many, many years. Um, when my clients bought it, um, originally Mark Bottles and his group, uh, they bought a parcel that went out to UANA and a parcel that went out to Gardener. Um obviously knowing that uh restrictions for any a direct access to State Street uh would be required by ITD. Um as uh Jesse indicated, we're asking for a reszone. The property is already within the city limits of Boisee. It has two zoning designations, R1A in the northern portion and R2A in the southern portion. Um it was annexed I think in 2015. So we're asking that the 8.65 acres of R1A uh be reszoned to R2. Uh the total acreage within the preliminary plat is

18.85 acres. Um we have a preliminary plat that has 52 town homes, 24 alley loaded single family lots and three multifamily uh lots with 216 apartments. Um this is this shows you the um phasing plan for the preliminary plat. As you can see the phasing plan phase one um consists of the northern portion which would be the alley loaded detach single family dwellings um and then the we have um 24 rear loaded town homes and then we have the remainder on front load town homes. The town homes are in pods of two, three and four. Um, as indicated, this was a nursery since 1978 until France Witty decided to relocate to along Chinden in the Nampa area. Um, on the Boisee City comprehensive plan, this property's designated compact. Um, the compact allows for detached single family dwellings. It allows for duplexes, triplexes, town homes, and multifamily. Residential uh densities within that designation are typically six to 15 dwelling units per acre. Um it also encourages pedestrianoriented uh streetscapes um along State Street. Um this is kind of the northern half. Um, so what what we did is in our meetings with the neighbors, we had about 30 to 35 neighbors at our neighborhood meeting. We had the Northwest Neighborhood Association president there. Um the comments that we

received were they wanted kind of a transitioning of our density and based on the comprehensive plan and the fact that State Street is a uh mass transit corridor um we were to put our our higher densities along State and then transition that densities as we went north. Um the overall density of the project um is 15.49 dwelling units per acre. Uh that's significantly less than the West Lock Village project that was approved by the city of Boisee a couple years ago that is on our eastern boundary. Uh they were well into the 20s. Um let me switch over here. Sorry, after two weeks off, I'm a little rusty. And I did appreciate the five minute break. I glad

my bladder could

I too drank a lot of water. I didn't want to get dehydrated. Um in reviewing the findings for reszones, um one of the things it talks about is are there changing conditions in this area? Yes, this whole State Street corridor is redeveloping. We're seeing a transition to uh town homes, multifamily, single family, uh new commercial, new office. Uh we're obviously seeing a significant ACD rebuild of State Street. Um so this corridor um can be a major transit corridor as intended. Um and this particular property has all essential services available to it. Boyisey City Sewer is in Gardener. Boyisey City Sewer is in UNANA. Um we have Viola Water that's located in all the streets adjacent to the project. One of the other things uh in the resoning is this in the best interest obviously in the general welfare of the city. Um we feel that obviously this project will provide diversity in housing types for different families, different incomes. Um obviously essential housing needs are are very prominent in our community throughout the Treasure Valley. Um like I said, we we've incorporated the higher density apartments adjacent to the principal arterial and then transitioning uh to our lower densities. Um the 52 town homes we have switch over to this one. So the the 52 town homes you can see um are located in the northern portion. We have approximately 14 that

are rear loaded. So they are not double fronted. They are on Leighton Street. However, we do have a 10-ft landscape buffer that is a separate lot and then we have uh a additional buffer for the dwelling units. They are all rear loaded. So that Leighton Street um when it will this point there we go. So we have a stub street here called Leighton that we have to connect. This is existing and so ACD kind of wanted this to be kind of a little bit of a collector street. So I have no front housing on this street. This is Sloan Street which will connect to Westlock Village. We're required by ACD and based on uh staff comments to extend Sloan Street as a public street and then tee it in to Leighton. So Leighton will come in here and then intersect with Gardener. Uh we have a basically all of our streets are public. the year 33 uh backto back with the exception of a 24 foot street where we've single loaded these town homes. All of these town homes are rear loading. So obviously um aesthetically this is going to be a nice corridor with a significant landscaping. Entrance into the multifamily would be here and then we have a secondary access here and then these units take access internally and I have one building kind of a stray here that its parking lot is located along adjacent to the public street. We have two common drives where we do meet the standards for width

access and uh pedestrian connections. Along State Street, we have the required buffer for the major arterial. A 12 foot uh mixeduse pathway will be built detached along our frontage and then we have pathways that interconnect throughout the development to that mixeduse pathway and then we have pedestrian crossings. This is a little plaza area with a pedestrianfriendly crossing. ACD is required where we have these pedestrian crossings on the public street that we have some something where we raise the raise up the asphalt whether we put pavers something that will obviously indicate that that's a pedestrian crossing. The multifamily is 216 units. There will be a clubhouse, a pool facility. Um and then we have a little pocket park here. We proposed a pickle ball uh court. Um staff is indicating that they're getting um comments from adjoining residents that it's a noisy type of activity. So, uh they've asked us to pick another amenity. So, I will go back to my client. Maybe we'll do a playground or something that's uh that's obviously uh will benefit the project, but won't be as noisy. Uh we do have a public alley here. All of our detached single family dwellings uh will access this uh public alley located here. What you see here is there's an existing pipe comes through this development adjacent to us and then it's piped and goes north. That's a major drainage facility. Uh there's a 40 foot easement that is already piped. We

intend to um put rod iron fencing along the back of these town homes and then we'll put decorative rock here. Um I made these lots deeper so we'd have like 20 to 30 foot rear setbacks just to give us a little bit se more separation. Uh the multifamily component within this project um is uh approximately 44% of the overall project. We have a total of 292 dwelling units within this development. Uh the apartments will be threetory. They're not fourstory like um in Westlock Village. That was a concern of the neighbors. They didn't want anything over threetory. All of our uh town homes and our cottages will be limited to twostory. Um all the drive aisles will be 26 ft in width. Um there was a concern by the staff when we met at our preapp about this parking lot and its exposure to Sloan Street and then Tree Mountain and then Leighton. Um I don't I don't have a choice on where these public streets have to originate. So I the only option I had was what you see here. So what we proposed with the staff is to do alternative uh compliance for this parking lot. So we increased our landscape setbacks. Um on Tree Mountain we have Sorry. On on Tree Mountain, we have 15 feet of landscaping and then I think we have 25 ft here. So, what we're going to

do is do heavy landscaping, taller grasses and stuff to kind of hide this uh parking lot here. Um, as far as the 216 multifamily units, we'll have 72 onebedroom, one bath, 12 two-bedroom, one bath, and then 132 twobedroom, two bath. These units will vary from 688 square ft to 984 square feet. We'll have 24 ft of uh storage uh within each unit and then 72 square feet of deck area. Um, our on-site parking will be about 334 spaces or 1.55 spaces per dwelling unit. Um, required is 278 and our maximum allowable parking is 348. If we include our parking on like the street that uh is located, the public street that's located there, we'd have about 382. So, uh, we want to make sure that this was parked and we also have allocated the bicycle parking as per the code. We understand the code may change. I guess they're reooking at that. Um, so we did add a note to our site plan for the multifamily that at the time of issuance the building permit, we will comply whatever the bicycle parking code is at that time. Our total open space in that multifamily section is 2.24 acres or about 28%. We have 1.1 acres of open space within uh the northern portion. Um as far as transportation, we have 510

ft of frontage along State Street. Um we will be dedicating additional um I think additional 13 or 15 feet of rightway for expansion of State Street. Um building our 12T multi-use pathway. Um and then okay yeah 15t sorry. Um one of the things that staff brought up um we did do a traffic impact study. That traffic impact study was reviewed by ITDACD. ITD came back and said, "What we want you to do for mitigation is we want you to build a turn lane at Gardener with transitioning and then we also want you to put in a median at Gardener so that uh it's a right in, right out, left in only." ACD came in and said, "We meet all of their thresholds and we basically only constitute 2% of the traffic that will be at that future State Street intersection that is in uh Westlock Village. So therefore, no mitigation is required. However, they did request that we do traffic calming on Utana and on Gardener Street."

Yeah, Miss McCay. So, we tried to give you to 10 minutes. You have by code up to 20. Just FYI. So, that still allows you about four and a half, but also recall that the neighborhood association, should they testify, is given the exact amount of time that you end up taking. So, just so that you're aware. Okay. Please go ahead and continue. Go ahead and try to wrap it up, sir. Great. Thank you. Thank you. I know you got a long evening. Yeah.

Um, so we do have a recommendation for approval from staff. We do have a recommendation for approval from HCHD and ITD. The only things that I was concerned about in the staff report that I received um was condition three. Condition three requires construction and signalization of the State Street Mer intersection prior to the issuance of any occupancy permit within my project. That is an offsite improvement within the Westlock Village project. I my client nor I have any control or any ability to install those improvements. And reviewing the ACD staff report, they have indicated that we are within ACD's level of service uh planning thresholds and that adequate um no mitigation is required and that adequate uh capacity does exist. Um, off-site pro off off-site improvements of intersections are required under ACD's policy manual if you are at 10% or greater impact on that intersection. And I've had many projects, I've been a planner in the Treasure Valley for 35 years now. And if I'm at 10% or over, I may have to go to a intersections and make improvements, install signals. This project constitutes 2% and so I don't believe that this condition number three is appropriate when capacity exists. The transportation authorities have indicated to me that I meet all the requirements and I I I feel that that requirement unfairly burdens me because I don't control that improvement. that improvement is within

that Westlock Village project. Secondly, condition six, staff has indicated that they want me to combine my driveways for the town homes and they had a little little exhibit. That is just not practical. We're going to have people running over trees. We're going to have guests pulling in because people don't normally back out at an angle. Um staff was concerned that we can't get class two or class three trees in there. I believe that we can. We do town home projects throughout the Treasure Valley in multiple municipalities. We obviously landscape and I don't want a sea of concrete that tapers down to a little 20 feet. We're going to have people running over the mailboxes, people running into the trees. It just seems like a really really bad idea. So I object object to condition six. Um condition eight um is the parking lot within block six which I indicated right here. Uh we'll be requesting alternative compliance for that. I'm not sure if that's done through the design review. Obviously with the small lot and the size of the project we will be required to go through design review. So I'm not sure if this is the body that needs to discuss it or not. Condition nine, um, it indicated that we needed to pipe the Boisee Valley Canal. Uh, just for your information, just for your information, the Boisee Valley Canal terminates and goes across State Street before it reaches our property. There's a 72 inch pipe right here. So, I think that that was from the comment by the Boisee Valley irrigation ditch that if they have any facilities, we're required to pipe them. But I just want the commission to know that that that canal is not on my property.

Great. Do you have any questions? We will. Lots of them, but we got to get uh moving a little bit more. We got to go to the neighborhood association first and see if they're here and give them an opportunity to testify. You are here. Okay. Neighborhood association, right? Not HOA. Okay. All right. All right. Go ahead and come on up. Mr. Mr. Chair, though, we need the authorized representative. Okay. Are are you an authorized representative? I am. I have a letter here from the president of the Northwest Neighborhood Investigation.

You want to show that to I don't know that I need it. Crystal can handle that. She's the muscle in the operation. Okay. So, if you would state your name and address.

My name is Kim Strauss. I live at 10348 Utana Road, Boisee, Idaho. I thank you for the opportunity to represent Northwest Neighborhood Association. um this evening. Traffic is already an issue on Utana Road and speed is an issue there. Numerous requests have been made to ACD to install speed bumps to slow the traffic. Currently, the speed limit that is on our street is not enforced. When we first moved there, Utana was a dead end to the east and then they punched it through, built subdivisions and apartments to the east and big businesses to the west. So, a lot of people come from those subdivisions from into our street to get to the other to the businesses or to turn up Horseshoe Bend Road or Highway 55 and avoid the traffic lights on State Street that back up. Um, no speed bumps have been installed. When the when I first started having concerns and reaching out to ACD, the speed limit on our street was 25. They've lowered it to 20. But if people weren't abiding by the 25, what makes them think that they will slow down the 20? Um, so some concerns from the members of the Northwest uh neighborhood association. A heavy

increase in commuting traffic on Utana. This is especially pro problematic because Utana is an unimproved neighborhood street without sidewalks. The designated ACD bicycle route through our neighborhood. The bicycle pathway goes on our street. Already difficult to cross Horseshoe Bend Road to those stores for pedestrians. And there is a senior living apartment, the Vineyard East or Eagle Prominade at 10482 Utana Road. Many of those residents no longer drive and must walk to WCO and other stores there. And there is no crosswalk. Um, let's see. So, and with the potential of the traffic for Costco that is being built on Hill Road, the traffic will increase. And again, people cutting through off of State through State Street up Gardener and up Utana and north on Horseshoe Bend Road will come up our street. So that's another issue for traffic on Utana Road. And as I stated, ACD doesn't consider concurrent applications for traffic analysis and traffic control. when I've contacted them, they've said, um, contact the police department. So, I have I've invited them to come and sit

sit in my driveway and patrol traffic. They have done that on one occasion. Otherwise, even the school buses fly up our street. The traffic people come in and drive on Utana as though they were on State Street. It's not it's not safe now and it will be even worse then. the common sense solution to route traffic to the planned signalized intersection immediately to the east on Mer and Duncan realignment instead of um changing the um zoning and allowing residential areas to be turned into streets that will come out onto to Utana and Gardener. I don't understand a lot about traffic and so on. I know traffic is crazy compared to when we first came to Idaho 36 years ago, but the silo projects that have not been built that long ago exit directly onto State Street. And I think something along that line might even be an option. But it's not fair to the residents who have lived on our street, which is somewhat rural. We were just annexed in the last within the last seven or eight years to have to contend with the traffic that is going to be on our streets. And as a reszone application, it's the city's responsibility, as far as I understand, to ensure the necessary infrastructure, including traffic infrastructure, is in place. And for all

that traffic to come up road, it's not safe. Therefore, we request that zoning not change to be allowed for the residential properties to be access roads onto our streets. Thank you for your time. Appreciate you coming out. Thank you very much. Okay, that takes us to the question and answer portion of the hearing and so we'll turn it over to the commission for that. Any questions of staff, the applicant, or the neighborhood association? Mr. Chair,

Commissioner Stfans. Thank you. I have a question for the uh city and staff here. Um can you give us an update on the uh Westlock subdivision? What's the current status of that project since it is part of one of the conditions here?

U Mr. Chair, commissioners, uh the Westlock subdivision project is still working to move forward. they received a time extension. Um, and part of the reason they haven't um been gotten further than they have is due to uh some complications with the light that needs to be installed. I think there was some property acquisition and then also trying to figure out funding. I do know that ACD has agreed to pay a quarter of the cost of that project. Um, but that is the last update I've heard. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Commissioner Stins,

uh, question for staff. Miley, can you help clarify just with um so much to this project between the improvements that are required as conditions of approval and those that are recommended or planned by staff or ACD just to have some clarity on what is a condition of approval and what is a recommendation here.

U Mr. chair and commissioners. So, the recommendations for um the conditions for approval was the signalization of the Utana and state intersection um to have detached sidewalks throughout the internal of the subdivision to uh combine the town home driveway access points. Um and then as far as the ACHD and ITD um conditions, one was to have the uh required turn lane from State Street onto Gardner and that was an ITD condition. And then ACD um is requiring traffic calming on Gardener and Utana. Um most likely speed bumps or something similar. Mr. Chair,

Commissioner Torres, um my question is for staff, kind of piggybacking on Commissioner Stalling's question. Can you address the applicant's contention about the signalization um that that is not their property? And I I'm curious what your response is to that. Thank you.

U Mr. chair and commissioners. So, there's quite a lot of information that came from the TIS report that was included in the ACD project uh report and uh one of the TIS findings as you see on the screen is that the mer lane and state street intersection is anticipated to exceed both the ACD and ITD's operational thresholds and the PM peak hour and shoulder hour if that intersection is unsalized. Um, and so the traffic impact study did recommend signalizing that intersection. Um, as the applicant stated, ACD's threshold is different than what the traffic impact study requires. Uh, the ACD threshold is 10% and the TIS um estimated it was I think just over 2%. Um so generally uh staff's position is that um if this project is going to put the intersection above the uh level of service threshold for ITD and ACD at any point in time. They should work with uh ACD and the adjacent project to signalize this intersection because that is one of the main access points in and out of the subdivision.

Mr. to share. Another one. Um, this question is for for the applicant. Um, 290ome units of housing. Um, that's a lot. Um, I'm curious, do you know, and I realize that these factors can change, but do you know roughly what these units will go for, particularly the multif family and the town homes? You know, I assume I guess will they be market rate? Are they going to be priced at certain AMI to be affordable at certain AMIs? Can you address that? M Thank you,

Mr. Chairman. Councilman or Commission Torres. Um these would be at market rate, but we're trying to with the smaller units obviously hit that more affordable. And then with the um the cottages, they've been successful over on Overland Road. Um they've been their rentals over there. Um, they can also be a product that's sold that also provides those are a onecar garage with a parking pad. So, they still park two cars, but it obviously, you know, is trying to hit that more affordable product to give to give the marketplace, you know, options. So, not everybody's spending $534,000 for a house in the Treasure Valley. So that that is our intent um to to keep this as affordable as possible.

Thank you. Okay, other questions, Commissioner Moore.

So just to clarify about the about the um light is the deal. So the proposal here, ACD is committed to paying for a quarter of it. Is it whichever development goes first pays for the other three quarter or is the proposal to split it? Mr. Chair and commissioners. Um, so the reason that the condition was left a little open-ended about who pays for what and was that we were tying it to building occupancy for either subdivision. Um, what that entails is that the applicants would have to work together to find some kind of way to fund and construct this light in accordance with ACD as well.

Okay. And Mr. Chair, Mr. So, what if they can't work? I guess do just neither of them get built or whoever's willing to pay the whole thing? Um, Mr. Chair Commissioners, um this is something that again we are trying to leave for the applicants to figure out um with ACD and that uh funding agreement that they already have in place. Um and you know, we do see applicants and private developers work together a lot of the time in order to get projects constructed in the valley.

Sure, that's fair enough. And then commission or Mr. Chair, right? Um, so the other question, you know, it seems like most of the recommendations for traffic calming mitigation are kind of focused on the connections to State Street, which means that maybe the the traffic analysis wasn't kind of anticipating a major major increase in traffic to kind of some of those more northern roads. Is that kind of a correct interpretation?

Mr. chair commissioners. Um I believe that the you know because this has two different traffic entities with ITD um having jurisdiction over State Street and ACD having jurisdiction over the local roadways, they kind of focused on different things. Um I do know that ACD did include traffic calming on Utana and Gardener uh to mitigate some of the traffic impacts internal to those existing neighborhoods.

Okay. And then um just a couple more questions. So for the um so I'm going to go back to maybe condition number eight about that the lie with the with the parking that's on the rightway. Um the applicant mentioned alternative compliance that's something that gets handled in DR right Mr. Chair commissioners. So any of the uh development of those lots would have to go through design review. At that point in time, the applicant could either find a way to comply with the standards or request a variance. Okay. Thank you,

Mr. Chairman. If I could address

Please go ahead. Um, this particular project will pay $712,000 in ACD impact fees. Those impact fees, there is no ability to have any credit for us to participate in the realignment or the light. I can't force that property owner to dedicate the right away to ACD. I can't force that property owner to cooperate with me. Our traffic study only mentioned that the long range plan of ACD, it's not in the CIP, that's why they're only allocating 25% of the funding, was that realignment, Duncan would terminate and then there'd be a new signal. That is a long-term plan to hinge that happening on my project. when our traffic study analyzed it, ACD analyzed it, ITD analyzed it as a standalone. That's why I'm building turn lanes. That's why I'm building right in, right out, left in restrictions on state. That's why I'm doing traffic calming on UNA and on Gardener Street as requested by the neighborhood association because they have communicated that to ACD. I am doing everything I can and to put the burden of me on on me, my client. I mean, I've ne I've never experienced this in 35 years on an offsite when I'm 2% of the traffic ever. I mean, to me, that is over the top when we're trying to build quality, diverse housing for the city of Boisey.

I mean, it just it's I'm dead in the water. I can't do anything. I can't do anything. They may sit there for 20 years. I don't know. Okay, other questions. I have a minor question, just not super significant, but Jesse, if you wouldn't mind just pulling up the overall site plan, but be able to see the clubhouse in particular, like barely zoomed in. And this is going to be a question of the applicant. Oh, this as good as we're getting. Oh, man. All right. Well, if it's on yours, that would be helpful. It It's fairly minor, but

if she just switches over um Yeah, there you go. Okay, that works. Thank you. Yes. So, just go ahead and keep going. I hope that's as good. I'm kidding. our our staff report has the details, but anyway, um yeah, I don't know if you're going to be able to answer this then off the top of your head, but so where the clubhouse is, your clubhouse is to the north and the pools to the south, right? Yes, sir.

Okay. You have building D is to the east and you have a breezeway. There's two breezeways that go run east to west. And so what I'm looking at is human nature and that is people want to walk in straight lines, but the proposed sidewalk does not have a straight line that goes to the clubhouse. They go off and then an ind in an indirect route. So my question is going to be is it looks to me that uh that clubhouse there's like a concrete area and then you have the pool to the south. What I cannot tell is if that's fenced in or off, I should say. Because if it's not, then I can see people wanting to walk straight across your, you know, the general lawn space to get to the clubhouse rather than what you think they're going to do, which is take the secudous sidewalk route, but I don't know if you can tell that detail of this image.

Yeah. Let me So there's the rear load town houses. front load. There's the cottages. So, there's the clubhouse. So, we do have direct on the opposite side. So, we do have direct Yeah. Let me try to go back to the I don't think that we're that level of detail. So, I I believe that would be probably more addressed at design review.

That's fair. Because we did we did work with staff on creating these as like you said these direct paths as straight as possible to make these interconnections with the multi-use pathway and then safe crossing uh to the clubhouse and then the pool facility there. Right. Um I think we do have a pathway that go north and south. We've tried to have as much interconnection as possible. Okay. I appreciate that. Uh, quick followup to staff, Jesse. So, there's a the applicant's making a pretty strong contention about this, uh, shared driveway in the town home

and and so there's a there's a lot of things that you're not happy about with that, thinking it might not be functional um, as staff is is is suggesting. What are what are your thoughts on that? Can you walk us through a little bit more detail on why we're making that a requirement?

Mr. share commissioners. Um, combined driveways and combined access points is not uncommon. We do see it in town home developments frequently, especially if they share a garage wall. Um, and the combined access points allows for a better, more functional landscape buffer and also consolidated access points reduces the um amount of a number of vehicle and pedestrian conflict points, especially on local streets with a lot of driveway. Okay, Mr. Chairman, if I could comment. Sure.

Where those town homes are located, where her exhibit is. I don't have any driveways on the other side of the street. The driveways are only on one side of the street because the cottages are alley loaded. Mhm. So, if she's concerned about conflict across the street, there would be none. I think you made points that were different than just that, but anything to add? You don't have to. Mr. Chair, commissioners, I mean, people will be living on both sides of the street, so I feel pedestrians should have um safer access on both sides of the roadway.

Okay. Any other questions of the from the commission? All right. Thank you for your time. Appreciate it.

Yeah, our pleasure. Okay. Well, if there are no other questions, then we'll go ahead and open this up to public testimony. And I've got two people signed up in chambers and then I'll check online. But let's see. So, first off, uh I believe it's is it Patty Ron? Oh, great. Come on up and if you would just uh state your name and address for the record and you'll have three minutes. And let me before you do this real quick, let me just I didn't I didn't explain something. So, a lot of folks in this chambers have never testified or been part of this process, and I just want to make sure you're clear on something that happened a second ago, and you might have had a question about it. So, when the applicant I I we talked about 10 minutes, right? And she went over the 10 minutes. The reason I'm permitting that is because our code allows the applicant and the neighborhood association to have up to 20 minutes. We try to go with 10 just to try to keep things moving. Okay? But just so that you're clear, so she didn't do anything wrong. Everything was fine. And so just so that you know, and in terms of public testimony, everybody will have the exact same three minutes to provide their testimony. Okay. So go ahead. Sorry. Name, address, and letter.

My name is Patricia Ron. Last spelling. The name is R A HN as in Nancy. And I'm at 10403 West M Road in the Randall Acres Subdivision, which is adjacent to the proposed land. Um, I appreciate your time and uh your willingness to hear all of our comments. Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to participate in the reference neighborhood meeting because I didn't know anything about it. Um, we didn't see anything until we saw the sign go up. Um, while the proposed uh subdivision is beautiful and aesthetically it's awesome, it does absolutely nothing for the surrounding subdivisions. um the increased traffic that was referred to by the Northwest Association representative um talked mainly about Utana, but there's two other roads that are immediately coming out of that area and that's West Claudia and West M Road. The traffic has been um horrible in that whole section there since the development started with the Windco and the Home Co um Home Depot and all of those u different businesses. Um, we've had a problem as indicated with speeding, um, with lack of law enforcement. Uh, it's undeveloped. So, there's no sidewalks to speak of. There's no lights. We have a lot of people that walk. We have a lot of people, the kids in the area. Um, and without all of those things, we're potentially putting harm all of our children and all of our pedestrians in harm's way. Um the discussion about the signal um on I'm not sure why it's being pushed so far down when the access points are off of Utana and Gardener. Um, I don't understand why State Street

access has been taken off the the carpet because according to ACD, it the the whole goal is to use the main arter arterial roadways rather than subdivisions and diverting the traffic into the subdivisions. And I know that we're thrown around 2% as far as the impact goes, but my observation as a person who's lived in that neighborhood for 40 years is it's greater than 2%. Absolutely greater than 2%. And it's just going to get worse as people are trying to get into that subdivision off of State Street. Gardener, it's a nightmare getting off of Gardener onto State Street. It's a nightmare getting off of Jenny Lane onto State Street. I mean, literally, you have to go to Horseshoe Bin Road and try to get across Horseshoe Bin Road to get back to State Street to be able to get on to State Street as it sits right now. So, you know, I guess the concern that I have is the biggest concern is safety issues, the traffic flow. Um, speed bumps are Yeah, you know, they're going to slow some people down, but only if we do it if we only do it on two roads, it's not going to make a difference because they're going to dance right way around it. I mean, on Gardener, Gardener comes out, I mean, I'm sorry, the subdivision comes out on Gardener, but then it goes straight across onto West Claudia. So, people are going to go straight across to go to the stinker station and all those businesses that are over there

and to the north of that is my road. Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate you coming out. No, you're okay. Thank you very much. Um, go ahead and we'll have the next person coming up. Next person I see signed up is Jose Lopez. and then I will have there's somebody online. I believe it's going to be Amber McVey and then we'll come back to Chambers if there's anybody else. Hi. Your name and address and you have three minutes.

Uh my name is Jose Lopez. Uh and I live at 7282 North Doden Avenue. Uh my front door actually opens up uh to this uh uh proposed subdivision uh on Leighton Street. Um, so, uh, I think one of, uh, my my wife's main concerns is just that, uh, sticking to condition three as, uh, set forth by the staff is that, uh, that's one of the big things, uh, just as far as, uh, safety and everything just because of, uh, uh, what the the previous speaker had had mentioned is that, uh, you know, it just living there and the feeling that this would be much more than just 2% additional traffic uh in in any road whether it's north to Utana, west to Gardener, or uh east to Leighton Street. Um, so then any sort of way to try to mitigate that or try to play nice with the other area around it would be uh uh as good as possible because um without condition three and uh the uh building of the light prior to uh occupancy of this area, uh you'd be dumping out all of that traffic onto what those three main streets on uh because I'm assuming that uh that would also be uh if condition three is not enforced then I would assume that uh the building uh through Sloan would also not uh would not happen as well. Um, so those are some of our our main concerns, especially with with the safety. Um, you know, we talked about uh traffic calming on Utana and Gardener, but then uh on Leighton Street as soon as it uh leaves the the proposed subdivision into the the existing there's a green space right there uh that's uh maintained by the Matlock Place subdivision and every day there are kids running around. There are uh people uh throwing the ball for their dog and everything like that. And it's

just one of those things that uh if uh putting, you know, 200 residencies worth of uh traffic additional to go right by that is something that that we're uh concerned about for sure. Um and then especially, you know, up on on Utana where there isn't sidewalks, it's just a a lot of uh issues that that we are uh concerned about. Um and uh as far as just traffic in general, uh we are also uh uh concerned about uh if we um if something would be able to be done on that east side because if you're trying to go eastward towards downtown Boisey um currently there is no traffic calming measure aside from just building the light and just hoping that people go down through Sloan in the proposed future. So if a traffic caling measure could also be implemented uh essentially where the new and old latent streets essentially meet right where that uh green space would be that would be ideal. But uh really just want to reinforce that we do stand behind uh u much of staff's recommendations as far as uh making sure that that traffic can be safely uh handled

around around everything. Awesome. Thank you so much for coming out. Appreciate it. Of course. Okay, I'm going to turn it over to online folks. I have one name uh who has a raised hand and that person is Amber McVey. Are you with us? I am. Can you hear me? Uh we can. Would you mind just stating your name and address for the record and you will have three minutes to testify?

My name is Amber McVey. I am at 7741 North Dodden Avenue in the Matlock Place subdivision. Um, I'm speaking today to raise concerns regarding sight specific transportation and pedestrian safety impacts associated with the proposed subdivision near my home. My comments focus on the operational safety, pedestrian exposure and mitigation, not necessarily opposition to growth. Um, the applicant has stated that this proposal would result in only a 2% uh change in traffic and that the traffic impacts um should not necessarily be a consideration when putting this through. Um while 2% might appear minor in isolation, percentage-based increases do not adequately reflect safety risk when existing roadway roadway conditions already lack basic pedestrian infrastructure. From a planning perspective, traffic impacts are evaluated not only by volume, but by context, including existing roadway design, presence or absence of sidewalks, lighting conditions, pedestrian generators such as school bus stops in common areas, and vulnerable users, including children and individuals with disabilities. In this case, the roadway serving the proposed subdivision currently has no sidewalks. Not, I'm sorry. The subdivision um streetways has no sidewalks, limited lighting, and children waiting for school buses along the travel way. Introducing additional vehicle trips, even at the 2% increase, creates new conflict points, particularly during peak morning and afternoon periods when traffic overlaps with pedestrian activity. It is also important to note that traffic impacts are typically measured as average daily trips which can mask peak hour concentrations. Even a small increase in this average daily traffic can result into disproportional safety impacts during peak hours when school transportation commuter traffic and neighborhood activity coincide. One of my primary concerns is that a deaf and

heart of hearing child as well as several special needs children reside in this immediate area. Not only do they get served by special needs bus um but they are at direct impact from increased traffic volume from ADA and complete streets uh standpoint. This is a population that requires additional consideration and roadway design particularly where audible cues are limited or unavailable. Safe pedestrian infrastructure, traffic calming and visual safety measures become even more critical under these circumstances. Additionally, the proposed layout places a common area directly adjacent to the roadway entering into one of the subdiv one of the subdivision areas. In planning terms, common areas function as pedestrian activity nodes. Locating a pedestrian generator next to an active vehicular access point without adequate setbacks, buffers, or traffic caling measures, introduces a foreseeable safety risk that is amplified by increased traffic volume. Um the applicant has suggested that traffic concerns um should not necessarily be addressed at this magnitude for this subdivision. However, standing standard planning practice recognizes that developments are responsible for mitigating impacts they generate even when those impacts are incremental. This includes addressing pedestrian safety when a development introduces new vehicle trips to an area with existing deficiencies.

Finally, thank you for your Emmer. I'm going to have to pause you there, but well done. Holy cow, that was great. Good job. Appreciate you participating, but I you are up against the three minutes, so I'm going to have to move forward. Um, was there anybody else online? I thought I saw a second hand. I don't see that hand. Oh, I do now. Well, okay. So, I have uh Melinda Rex. Yes, thank you, Melinda. Yep. Can you hear me? Uh, barely, but we can hear you. So, if you can just get close to that mic and state your name and address for the record, you'll have three minutes. We'll do. Thank you. Um, can you I I'm hoping you can hear me well enough, but

I think we can get you.

Great. Um, I am a resident in Eagle, but a property owner in uh city of Boisee both on my as well as on Utana. I have several properties there that um are, you know, that I'm working to redevelop and create into affordable housing. And I just wanted to um sort of join the ranks of the the neighborhood comments in relation to the safety of the streets um that are right there between this proposed subdivision and think of it as and WCO because we know that there's already a lot of traffic and there's already a a an uncomfortable amount of um of risk being taken by uh residents that rely on the open street for um for wheelchair and and scooter access down the street because there's no sidewalk etc. that that exists both on my Utana. And while I am a houser and I want to see this development happen, in fact, I think it's wonderful because I know that um this particular uh development team does produce some of the more affordable housing in in the region. I want to see that happen. But I I do agree that it is really really um unoured to see that much additional traffic even if it's just a little bit of additional traffic going down Utana maybe or Claudia um and passing through there. So, I don't know if there is a way to potentially um open up a call it a State Street uh opportunity until such time as there's sidewalks and proper, you know,

infrastructure in that neighborhood. And I and I I accept that they've bought those parcels to make that interior sort of access and and logistics makes sense, but it only makes sense once the sidewalk and the safety exists for those local residents. They're already vulnerable enough. So, that was my comment. And um and you know, I want to see this approved, but we've got to do something about the practicality of it.

Excellent. Okay. Thank you, Miss Rex. Appreciate it. Um is there anybody else online? Oh, I'm sorry. Melinda, did we get your address? Oh, she left. She's gone. She's got plant. I'm sorry. I'm here. My Can I get some form of an official address? Yes. I own 10167 in that neighborhood if that's helpful. and that I own 199 Dawn Street in Eagle as my home address.

Perfect. That works. Thank you so much. Appreciate you hanging out. Okay, anybody else online who wishes to testify? All right, I'm seeing no hands. I'll check again in just a second. Is there anybody in chambers who did not testify? You can go ahead and come on up and then I'll have you come up. You can sit right here, sir, and then pop up in just a second. Same rule. Just throw the mic close to you. name and address and uh

Terry Bartlett, 10649 North Sage Crest Place, Boise, Idaho. I'm actually here to speak on the next one, but didn't know about this particular agenda item, but I have some information that may or may not be of value. So, I live up the street on North Horseshoe Ben Road up behind the cemetery, uh, veteran cemetery. So, I've been communicating with ACD over the years on North Horseshoe Bend Road. As you all know, there's a lot of uh growth out that way. Um there is no sidewalk. Well, I take that back. There's a short sidewalk from State Street up past a little ways past Windo and there's a very small section up near Optimus Park to State Street and then there's no side there's no sidewalks. Um up until recently there's been like 6 in for bike lane um on both sides of the road. I think the speed limit was 45. I think it might have gone down now to 40 miles an hour. Um, last year when ACD was doing a resurfacing, I reached out to them and said, "Can you just put, you know, when you're putting the white lines, oh, they have a a huge, I don't know what it is, 25 ft center turn lane all the way up. There's really not much to turn except for just the Windco place there." Said, "Can you shrink that by a little bit and put bike lanes?" I I ride back and forth to try to get to the green belt. um they declined and said that they're proposing a pathway. Oh, also as we know there's a high school up the street in Optimus Park and so people that walk back and forth on there, they're walking in the in the gutter essentially kind of a thing around the side of the road. It's very dangerous along there cuz cars are going what 50 cuz it's what 40 45 kind of a thing. Anyway, I reached out to them. Um they said they were going to put a uh pathway in for bikes and stuff

in 2026. So they declined to move the white lines in cuz they thought that would create I don't know some kind of public feed backlash I guess those anti anti- pedestrian bikers. But anyway um and then I recognized here um in December 5th of last year uh they changed that. I don't know why. Um from 2026 to 2028 for the pathway. So um there's no sidewalks. There's not going to be a bike lane on North Horseshoe Ben Road as people already stated and that's what got my attention where Utana connects into North Horseshoe Ben Road. It's a busy place. There's people trying to cross there. Um I try to I see them and even though there's not a pedestrian crossing to stop, but that's not common place. people are on in a hurry to get home, get to work. So anyway, that's my comment. So

great. Thank you very much. Appreciate you having them. Okay, come on up. And anybody else who wants to testify, you can go ahead and bring a seat or have a seat up front and we'll be at you in a second. If you can just pull that mic down just a little bit and your name and address and you have three minutes. My name is Tim Strauss. I live at 10348 Utana Road. Um, I just got a couple of little comments with this subdivision going in and there's nearly 300 units. Uh, everybody's got two cars. That's potentially close to 600 vehicles that's going to funnel onto UNA Road and Gardener and Claudia and my to get out to Horseshoe Bend. Some of them may go out to State Street on Gardener, but only if they're going to go west. If the proposal has only right-hand turn for that, no lefthand turn. So to get out, they're either going to have to go through the West Lock subdivision, which also, it's my understanding that this this uh subdivision can't go forward until the uh Westlock has been totally approved. And it's my understanding that that has not been totally approved yet. And uh I have an RV that I have to back into my beside my house. Uh and it's already difficult with how narrow Utana is to back the RV in. It's a 39 ft RV. And uh and then my other comment is how many other businesses are along State Street there? I don't understand why they can't exit that subdiv new

subdivision onto State Street because there's businesses all along State Street there and there is a center turn lane already. So, I just don't understand that. And then to the applicant, I don't understand what she means by coned traffic uh on Utana. Okay. should have maybe get back to you, but we'll see. Okay. Okay. Thank you so much, Mr. Strauss. Appreciate it. Is anybody else in chambers who wishes to testify? Yep. Go ahead and come on up. Same thing you've heard me say. I bet you can predict it. Name and address.

My name is Tabitha Scott and I live at 10435 Road. Um I'm with everybody else on the the traffic mitigation for our neighborhood. It's it's already so bad. Um I with the other gentlemen with our camper situation. We're we're aligned with Jenny Lane and my road. The traffic going up and down that road trying to get our 35 ft camper in and out of that area right there is already impeding traffic. Um when we're when we're trying to do that and just utilizing our property as it sits. Um, my concern mostly is we are paying for street lights. We're paying for sidewalks on our street or on our taxes every year. We have none of those, but we're going to add additional traffic to those and additional pieces that our children in the neighborhood are going to be getting hit. We have plenty of elderly people that are running around on their little scooters. My grandfather is a 92-year-old male who lives with my mother and he is walking his dog out there with a flashlight on his head and around his neck to avoid being hit by a car because there's no lights. We're going to add what did you say? 600 more vehicles to that neighborhood on a potential average. That's our concern. I want to see the the development of our our neighborhood. It's been like this. I've lived in this neighborhood for 40 years. I want to see it happen, but it needs there needs to be other steps that happen before we get to that point. Right.

So, okay. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Okay. Anybody else in the chambers who wish to testify? Looks like nobody anybody else online. One last call online. Okay. And nobody else in chambers. Last chance. Okay. With that, we'll go ahead and the applicant will have five minutes for rebuttal and then the item will be before the commissioner commission for uh recommendations.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the commission. Becky McCay. Um obviously this area is in transition. Um some of those subdivisions were platted in 1910. So, you know, it's kind of an area that's redeveloping um over time. Um this was a major article I saved from January of 2020, so six years ago, and it said plan would turn State Street into hub for transit and housing. And it was a major article on the city of Boisee, ACD, ITD, and their commitment to create this mobility corridor where tra public transit can provide access from these neighborhoods to downtown um where we can have diversity in housing, diversity in densities. Um, obviously it's always difficult when we see an area that's transitioning. Um, but in your comprehensive plan, it designates this particular area as a transition area. It's also a capital improvement district. Um, so so for many years, everyone has seen that the potential for the redevelopment of this area. I am sympathetic to the neighbors. I always try to work with the neighbors to do what I can to mitigate my impact on them. Um, one of the things that I pushed back on was the density within this project. My first pre-application meeting with the city staff said, "We want you to be at 25 dwelling units per acre." And I'm like, I really don't

think that is a good idea from a traffic standpoint, from a transitional standpoint because in my career, we have always when we're up against single family, we transition. We transition with other single family or town homes. We don't put fourstory or threestory multifamily buildings. So, I did fight with the staff about that and I said, you know, 15 that's that's as good as it gets. I think that is that is providing the the transition. It's not overpopulating this area. It's still meeting the goals of diversity. Um, one of the uh speakers talked about traffic calming is necessary. We are required under our ACD uh conditions of approval to meet with ACD staff, provide their recommended traffic calming along Utana and Gardener at the locations that they want. So obviously that is a hot button and we are willing to work with ACD on that. One of the things that this project does have that obviously it's it's a blessing and a curse is we are creating interconnectivity by having an a public street outlet to UANA, a public street outlet to Gardener, a connection to Leighton, uh then a future connection into Sloan, and then interconnectivity into Westlock Village. This project is going to have a lot of interconnectivity which is typically very difficult to do when we have a developed area and we come in. This is an infill parcel. It may be 18 acres but nonetheless it is infill and and transportation interconnectivity

is good when we provide different options for residents as far as their transportation needs. And we're also depending on the fact that this is a major transit corridor where bus service will be extended further west to this development. This development has I think we have three phases in this project. The first phase is the lowest density. That's where we're at. I think we're only at uh five five to seven dwelling units per acre. Um, so it's a it is a incremental steps in building this development. Um, there was a comment about our connection to Leighton and I did mention this at my neighborhood meeting. What I what I like to do and ACD has allowed me is to put traffic calming. We do an island where we match up to that stub street so that the traffic slows down. They do have a common lot that is just around the corner and so I'd be glad to incorporate um an island and traffic calming kind of squeeze that down a little bit of a choker so that we don't have uh excessive speeds. Um this this is a good project. We did initially on our first site plan

I'm going to have to pause you there. We had an access to State Street and ITD denied. Got it. Okay, great. Thank you so much. That's it. Appreciate it. Uh the item is now going to be before the commission. We have the two applications are reszone and a preliminary preliminary plat. So we are recommending bodies rather than decision-making bodies. So this is an item that will both of these uh will go to council one way or the other. And so uh with that I think the best way to do this is how about we just start with the rezone and then we'll get into the preliminary plat. So rezone first. uh 8.65 acres from R1A to R2. Anybody want to make a motion?

Mr. Chair, Commissioner Moore, I move that we recommend approval of uh C25-3 U with all the terms and conditions in the staff report for the reason stated in the staff report. Okay. I've got a motion by Commissioner Moore on the reszone to recommend to council approval. Is there a second? Second. Is that Commissioner Sehaw? Okay. Any discussion, Mr. Chair? Miss Commissioner Moore.

So, I think from the reszone standpoint alone, I'm looking at, you know, state a property along State Street or, you know, behind State the property on State Street. um a pretty significant lot that connects to a fe a network of roads that feed out to State Street. I have R2 just to the south of me and I'm just up the so I can talk my directions correctly. Um so I have R2 just to the south of me. I've got R1C on either side, but a sizable lot. There's R3 DA just adjacent to that. And you know to the east there's some smaller size lots. They kind of vary but they're generally you know modest in size. Um you know obviously to the west they're a little bit larger and to the north they're a little bit larger. you just from the R2 reszone standpoint, you know, I feel like it's compatible based on the density kind of anticipated the types of uses that would be anticipated and its adjacency to the R2. Um, I feel like it's a compatible use for this particular location.

Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Moore. Any other conversation uh on the motion to approve or recommend approval? Mr. Mr. Chair, I have I seconded it, but I have nothing to add to it, Commissioner. Okay, fair enough. Any other discussion?

Just in the res. I'll echo those sentiments. I'll be in favor. I think that the other part of this I would just add is our comprehensive plan would would back this up. The State Street master plan that's been discussed. Millions of dollars has been studied on State Street and this is I I think in line to reszone particularly um with what has been envisioned as things have transitioned over time. um case in point friends when he moved to Napa and it tells you a lot tells you a lot about uh what they are thinking and and and what we're seeing now. So I'll be in favor of it. Any discussion hearing? None will the clerk please call the role. Danley I Moore I Seha I Torres I

Ding I Deonic I. All in favor? Motion carries. Okay. on to the preliminary plat. So again, we are recommending body. This is a lot more complicated. It's got a lot more moving parts and conditions of approval um that are are in our staff report and as we all heard specifics that the applicant uh was hoping that we would consider or reconsider. So with that, is there a motion before we have any discussion? Mr. Chairman,

Commissioner Moore. this one as well. I move that we recommend approval of SUV 25-12 with all the terms and conditions in the staff report for the reasons stated in the staff report. And just to clarify that is with uh condition three the requirement for the signal construction that was part of the discussion just to be just to be clear. Yes. Yes. Are you sure? I I'm sure I've got some discussion. Fair enough. Okay. For now that's good. Okay. Okay. I have a motion by Commissioner Moore uh for recommendation to council for the preliminary plat as uh conditioned in the staff report. Is there a second? Second. I think that's Commissioner Stallings. Yep. Yeah.

All right. Discussion, Mr. Commissioner Moore

for the signal. I think that's kind of one of the larger topics. Um I went back and forth over that. On the one hand, I want there to be a clear and direct metric to when requirements or when improvements off-site improvements will be required and that is very neat and tidy in my mind um that that would happen. However, I also look at, you know, you're two and some change percent of traffic. Sure. But that's a State Street traffic, too, which is a really high volume. So, two and some change percentage of traffic on State Street is way different than two and some change than that same number of vehicles on a different road. So, in my mind, I grappled with it back and forth, you know, do I key? Do I want this tidy metric or am I really looking at, you know, a lot of cars going on a busy street? And to me, staff's kind of discussion about including that light requirement for this particular project makes sense and can sway me into agreeing with their decision to uh require that signal at Mer. Okay,

Mr. Chair, Commissioner Stallings.

Yeah, I just want to um second that Commissioner Morse points. Um I'm I love I like this project a lot. I love the diversity of housing. I love I appreciate how, you know, you've worked with the neighborhood association to move the more dense uh multifamily to the State Street side. It it is, you know, it's a lot of traffic to add to a neighborhood without a solution. And yeah, I I think it it is it's the other side of the equation that also has to be solved for when we build this amount of housing in an area. Um, yeah, I just appreciate the staff's work and their considerations on this and I agree with the motion.

Okay, further discussion. Mr. Chair, Commissioner Taurus.

I uh also um will be in support of the motion. I um I think overall this is a great project. It's 300 almost 300 new homes. Um it's looks like there's an attempt here even though they are market rate to try to have a diversity of housing types and a diversity of pricing of housing types. So I think that's great as well. as far as the traffic and the traffic calming and and the impacts of traffic from this development. Um, you know, that's that's always the conflict we have. We have to weigh the two sides of this. Building more housing, building, you know, addressing the growth and trying to to grow in a smart way, but also realizing there are going to be impacts of it. Um, the applicant mentioned the amount of impact fees that are going to be paid by them for this project. I would just encourage, you know, the neighborhood to talk to your ACD commissioner, talk to ACD, try to get more traffic calming in this neighborhood. I know plans are made years out, but you know, there is an opportunity for feedback with them and I would just encourage you to keep shaking that tree until you get some of what you're asking for. Um, you know, we have to weigh all that up here, but but ultimately, I think I come down on the side of this is a good project and I'll be supporting it. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Torres and Commissioner Stout. Um,

I too will be supporting the project. I think it's a really good infill. I mean, it's right on State Street. We want higher density on State Street and then it's lower density as you move over. Um, I know that the developer or the applicant had indicated that they're going to strive for affordable housing. The city of Boise cannot require affordable housing, but I really wish that the developer would have considered a even a small amount of the um housing stock to be affordable. Um and then one last item and that would be Leighton. So, the applicant did say that they are amendable to working with the neighbors on um creating a trafficcoming uh proposal at Leighton and I don't believe that that is in the um that's not in our conditions for the staff report. So, I'm just wondering if we might want to consider adding something to the um existing staff report conditions. Okay, that might be a question that Commissioner Moore and Mr. Stallings grapple with in a momentic.

Hi, thank you. Uh, you know, once again, thanks for all of the community members that came out. Uh, it's so important to come out to these and testify on uh on these matters. Um, I think it's a great great project that we really need more housing and this is a good example. Um, but what I'm really struggling with is this condition three. Um, I think it puts the applicant in a really tough situation and it potent potentially prolongs the ability to build this house or you can build it but you can't have people move into it unless you have this uh this se or this intersection and signal created. Um and right now with the other project and I would say well if the other project was moving ahead but they've already asked for an extension um they're already trying to negotiate the cost because that's a big cost to change that whole direction of that road. all of that. It's a it's a huge cost and I think that's uh it's it seems unfair for the applicant to try to have to figure out and negotiate that the housing that we really need isn't going to is potentially going to sit there and same with these other developments. Um and so I am not going to be in support of this um because I think more discussion needs to happen. We need to figure out a better plan to be able to move forward with this. Um, and I don't think we can just kind of keep approving things without um, a clear kind of next step for how to how to resolve that. Um, and and I don't think if if you take that off the table, I think it's going to create even more traffic. Um, and so it would maybe even be unfortunately potentially redesigning um, uh, that neighborhood to address how folks are going to get in and out of that if that lot doesn't get developed. um unless you all decide to purchase

that lot from those individuals and design around that. So you

Okay. Um man, there's a lot to unpack and I got to be quick because I pull my own string here. There's a few things you all need to understand and and I think we don't hear it enough. First and foremost, off-site improvements in the pedestrian realm. Totally would love to do that. ACD does not allow it. you wrote a check or you're going to write a check for $750,000, they won't use one red penny because of policy to implement sidewalks in your neighborhood. They only will do vehicular improvements. That's their policy. That's straight up fact. Last legislative session, our state was recipient of a bill that also then said any entity, city, highway district or county can no longer dedicate traffic improvements specifically for bike ped only. It has to be for the benefit of motorists first and foremost. That happened last legislative session. So, for every neighborhood that's surrounding this site who wants these things, those two things are really against us in this in this particular instance. Um, I'm with Commissioner Stfons because the 2% what that what that actually is saying is that their traffic impact study is saying that 2% of peak hour traffic, which is a forecast year into the future, is coming from their site. That's within the margin of error. There's no accuracy that gets to that degree of detail. that's that gets us to the point where I believe um having this requirement for a signal should should occur. So that's that's a very big frustration. I think that this application is really strong. One of the one of the things I heard is what are we going to get out of it? Well, I think there's some great public streets. There are sidewalks. There's going to be we hear a lot about property values in these chambers there. That's something that's going to happen because

we have a dirt lot that's here. And so that application is going to do that. There's one thing I would like for the applicant to to do though. This site was a cultural site for the better part of 70 years. And I think that everybody knows the pink flamingo, right? Franzi was known for it. I think that it would be smart to have something on the entrance of your site that honors that that has a plaque and commemorates the history there somehow. not just the flamingo, but the the history part of it, you know, and celebrate it in some modest way, you know, but recognize what was there before. Um, anyway, I I'm struggling with this signal because I don't think I I think we are in desperate need for housing and I think we have a good application that addresses it. um and to hold up because of what I believe is a a marginal uh accuracy at best is is a challenge to me. So, is there any other discussion or I think I don't know uh Commissioner Sea, you had a a discussion on Leah. That's up to the makers of the motion if they want to amend their motion in somehow, but otherwise we can

I guess I I I don't think I can ask staff, but the condition that the city staff have identified as a result of the traffic impact study is is not of the city's that was a

that was ACD that is that is not the city. So the city can choose to um you know adhere to the information that came out of that staff report or we or the city can choose to ignore it. But if you spend any time and I'm not a traffic expert, I will say that. But I spend a lot of time on State Street, folks, like most of you do. And it is crazy. Specifically around peak hours in the morning and in the afternoon. Seems like from 3:30 to about maybe 6:30. So I I understand where um Mr. Chair, you're coming from and where Mr. I can never say your name correctly. Stefan said um are coming from. But traffic is an existing issue there and it will continue to be there. And the hope at least my hope is that by having this condition um and constructing this intersection, it will alleviate some of the challenges on to State Street.

Mr. Chair, Mr. Stallings. Um yeah, I just want to say I'm I'm willing to amend if you are um our motion to have some traffic calming measures. And the only other thing I'd say is this is another time where I wish we had representation from ITD and ACD that could help shine more light on these applications in these in this room. Mr. Chair, Commissioner Moore. Um do we want to amend I'm amenable to amending the motion. I think that's a great idea. Can I just the condition?

Yeah, I think we can do that. We don't have to. We can amend. We might We need an approval from the the second and then we can vote on the amendment which usurpers the original motion. So I think and correct me if this is wrong. Um, I think the proposed condition would be the applicant shall work with ACD for traffic calming measures at the connection to what's the street name again? I'm blanking on it. Leighton. Thank you. To Leighton Street to the site. Is that specific enough?

And the rest of the conditions. Yep. Perfect. Okay. So, hopefully staff caught that. We have an amended motion that also includes a term or a condition I should say that the applicant and ACD work together to address additional traffic calming at the entrance with Leighton and uh that is going to be to be determined on how that is potentially done. Um but otherwise and then we have a second otherwise all other terms and conditions continue forward. Okay. staff has that. Any other discussion? Okay. Would the clerk please call the role? Danley. Thank you. Booting Danley.

Oh, I heard you. No. No. More. Yes. Deha. Yes. Torres. Yes. Darlings. Yes. Japons. No. More in favor, two opposed. Motion carries.

Okay, that item closes up. That concludes tonight. Oh, I'm just kidding. We have five minutes. You know the drill. We'll be back. We'll hit up item number three. Thank you. All right. Thank you, everybody. So, we're going to move on to our final item of the evening. And so, we have a CUP24-46, Strategic and Operational Solutions, Inc., a conditional use permit application located at 2823 North Cole Road, and a reszone of approximately 2.03 acres from R1C to R2. And this is item C24-18 before I open this real quick. Um I think it's important real fast if you would just indulge me. The person that's that is presenting right now, Jesse Lyall has been a staff member here and worked in the development services department and with us the this riff raff for several years now and she just received a promotion but is no longer going to be a part of this body. And I think it's important just to say thank you for your service. We appreciate it and wish you all the best luck in design review. You're gonna need it. So,

thank you, Mr. Chair. With that, Jesse, please take it away.

Uh, well, thank you for that, Mr. Chair and Commissioners. The item before you is C 2418 and CUP 2446. As you said, this is a request to reszone approximately 2.03 03 acres located at 2823 North Cole Road from R1C to R2 and a conditional use permit for a co-ousing use. The subject property is designated mixed use on the future land use map as are the surrounding properties to the north, south, and west with suburban land use to the east. The surrounding parcels are zoned R1C to the south and east with R2 to the west and MX1 to the north along New Road. The requested R2 zoning is compatible with a comprehensive plan and appropriate for the location as the property is along an arterial roadway near commercial and institutional uses and located within an area of change and an activity center. There's also an existing bus line adjacent to the property along Cole Road with a bus stop planned at the corner of Settler's Avenue and Cole Road. The comprehensive plan encourages density in these areas to reduce vehicle miles traveled, utilize existing infrastructure, and locate housing near employment areas. Additionally, Blueprint Boyisey encourages the construction of affordable and non-traditional housing options. The applicant is proposing to construct a co-ousing use on the site which includes individually leased bedrooms with shared cooking and sanitary facilities. It is important to note that this request is not for a shelter house which is not allowed in the R2 zoning or for a recovery resident which excuse me recovery residence which is defined as a single dwelling where individuals live together as one housing unit where staff provides care, supervision, and treatment for persons requiring medical, correctional, or other mandated supervision. The applicant is proposing a three-story apartment with 33 three-bedroom units where each bedroom is individually rented along with three two-bedroom

units for staff as well as an accessory building containing a garage classroom area, laundry facility, and long-term bike parking. Rooms will be rented for approximately $500 a month and residents must be enrolled in the associated program which offers supportive services for vulnerable individuals, some of which are listed on the screen. The site layout shows the proposed co-ousing structure located near the RTO roadway and office uses away from the adjacent single family homes. The proposal will be approximately 36 ft tall under the allowed 45 ft of the R2 zone. The applicant will install the 10-ft wide sidewalk along Cole Road and retain as much existing landscaping on the site as possible. There are 104 parking spaces between the proposed co-ousing use and the existing church and a condition of approval will require a shared parking agreement. Additionally, the proposal must receive further design review approval. Public comment was received mostly in opposition to the proposal with general concerns listed on the screen. Many comments expressed opposition to the use specifically and cited lack of program details as well as many safety concerns about the intended population and the proximity to schools, parks, libraries, and halfway homes. Other concerns focus on traffic density and economic impacts. The letter of support cited the location of the subject property, how the proposed use was supported by the comprehensive plan and uh was a better use than vacant land, and how alternative housing types should not require conditional use permit. As previously discussed, the proposal is not for a shelter house or recovery residents. Residents would be living independently within each unit while meeting program requirements to maintain their ability to live on the site. All relevant state and local ordinances must be met, including those for any uh individuals with criminal backgrounds. Subject property is located in an area

that can support the proposal and all commoning agencies indicated the proposal can be served. Finally, the proposal will be subject to further design review to ensure all zoning requirements are met. In conclusion, the planning team recommends approval, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Okay, thank you, Jesse. Um, we're going to turn it over to the applicant. This is uh David Ruby andor Steve Neighbors, the architect's office of Idaho. Hi, welcome. If you would just state your name and address for the record.

Welcome. Uh um my name is Steve Neighbors. Uh I'm the president of strategic and operational solutions. I'm the administrative pastor for Mountain View uh Church of the Brethren and I'm the president of safety uh the Christian safety net program. Um, my address at Strategic is 5598 North Eagle Road. Uh, the church is at 2823 South Cole Road and that's also um I guess uh safety net is also at 5598 North Eagle Road. So, first one uh I want to thank you guys for giving me this time to explain. We tried to do it in a neighborhood meeting and it just turned into chaos. So, um, we did try to meet with a neighborhood association, but we have none that we know of. At least we've never met with one, at least in the 18 years I've been there. Um, so what I'm going to do is uh kind of walk through some slides to help keep me on time.

Great. Um, I think this works. Would you also just step into the mic just a little bit more? There we go. Great. Thank you.

Um really there's two entities. Mountain View Church of the Brethren. They've been there uh 70 years. Uh they were ne annexed into the city 60 years ago. Um the property was bought from the uh White family in the mid50s. Church was built in 1957. We were incorporated 1968. Since then the congregation has undergone uh tremendous changes over the years. uh including from a neighborhood of rural farmers to our present neighborhood. The church has decided to review its mission to its neighborhood and congregation given all the changes. To jump ahead a bit, the Christian Safety net program was set up as a 501c3 educational nonprofit over two years ago. The safety net board is solely volunteer and comprises Ray Casey and myself, Steve Neighbors. future board members will be included um or major donors that desire to sit on the voluntary board. What follows is how the church settled on a partnership with safety uh net and to determine the highest and best use of its god-given resources. Um I'll I'll also address the two parties roles and the elements of the combined offerings. See if I get the right one here. Whoops. So, I know you already know the property. Um, the red line highlights the property that Safety Net is requesting a zone change. A significant neighbor is the large Flying H mobile home park that has been there most of our history. And that's this one here. and that um our other neighbors include apartments all around the proposed development that

have tenants that include a substantial number of paroleles, refugees, and those socially and economically disadvantaged. The most controversial set of neighbors are nine or more halfway houses in the area. Um probably uh the one that everybody um complains to us about is the halfway house here, Iron Sharpens Iron. Uh we found them to be very good neighbors and they're doing a good job. That's not appreciated. We think

this um the statement that the church and safety net is not um is not wanting a halfway house or a direct prisoner release program that has continued to be brought up. Uh we keep saying that's not what we're trying to do has fallen on deaf ears with some continuing to stir up emotion against the project. And what I believe the thrust of the opposition against the uh safety net program is that the church allows some of the people from existing halfway houses from the flying age mobile home parkies and refugees who wish to to do so to attend our church service. I say some as the church does have some sex offenders who have paid their duty to society which are allowed to attend but only after discussion with their parole officer and knowing the details of the judge's ruling and conditions of their parole. Given the neighborhood, the church has implemented strong safety measures, making it one of the valley's safest public places. The church also allows Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous to use its building for their meetings. the pro the program these programs have proven their value and there is a need for them in the neighborhood. They will continue to operate within this the overall safety net program. The church also recognizes that its congregation represents one of the lowest social economic group in the valley. Given the church's open door policy to all, including those sinners in need um and that is uh that have already paid their price um of justice. And the church has been publicly painted by many throughout this city as the church of the homeless, the church of the felons. and even the church of the pedophiles. Nonetheless, the church feels it must maintain its open door policy for those it legally and safely and let attend.

So, to kind of give an overview, um let me start with the church's role. Like most churches, Mountain View Church of the Brethren does not use its building full-time, but approximately 12 hours a week. And most of the time, even then, it's only a partial use. Has a church uh reviewed how it best could use its resources to meet its declining neighborhood and it's its declining congregational demographics. It first established some general guidelines as noted on this slide. Whoops, wrong way. I think I did that. Oh, so th those are the general guidelines that the church set up for us to uh kind of decide how we were going to use our resources. Um the the next thought was um is this just our neighborhood? So what we found out was that the entire country is dealing with the same issues we see in our neighborhood and congregation. The safety net is a term used by the US government for its social programs. We didn't make up that term. The US government has spent nearly uh no has spent uh $1.3 trillion in fiscal 225 funding various safety net programs. This does not include the massive amounts of funds spent by states, counties, cities, and private charities. uh this has had about a 40% sex success rate and is slipping. There still remains 60% of the people in the United States that fall in under the poverty level which is really um excuse me uh I misstated that. Um that's only addressed 40% of the people in the poverty level.

Let me restate that. uh the official pro uh so I thought it'd be interesting to look at the official poverty level. So the official poverty level the OPL is based on the cost in 1963 of the minimum required food level. Over time they simply added a multiplying factor to that 1963 cost of food. Today, the OPPL is set at three times that 1963 food cost. This amounts to $15,650 for a single person. The government set up a supplemental poverty measure, the SPM, which is much higher as it includes recent food expenditures as well as clothing, shelter, utilities, phone, and internet. The SPM level varies per geographic area. Boisey's housing and rents pushing our area upward from the regional area, even doubling the OPL. As part of our overall due diligence, I attended the 2024 US Housing and Community Development Conference in Dallas as well as the US Housing and Dor uh dorm conference in Los Angeles in 2025. In summary, the past recession created a housing demand that still exceeds the supply side. Contractors have made record profits for the past decade as they must in good times, knowing there's coming hard times. However, the long-term material demands and the the lack of skilled workforce um has forced higher labor costs. This will continue to create housing costs outside the reach of much of the population for the foreseeable future. the consensus of those two different

seminars or conferences but that that the US will see a further growing housing crisis. There are a myriad of issues that impact life skills and the economic earnings of a person. Education happens to be one of the more critical components. Those without a high school diploma, diploma or a trade skill pre presently struggle to have a sustainable life now without social support from the federal government or state or whomever. In the future, people without college degrees or trade skills may struggle to maintain a sustainable lifestyle particularly during an economic downturn. The impact of AI on the workforce employment and employer needed skill sets is another concern that came out of those conferences. Beyond the 1.3 trillion paid by the US government for their safety net programs, the amount paid by states and other entities also amounts into the trillions.

Mr. Neighbors, you can continue, but you have no more than 10 minutes left. We have a maximum of 20. I should be about 16 minutes.

Okay. Um, let's see. At the other end of the spectrum, oh, let me uh see where I'm at. I stopped sore. Oh, the federal student loan balance alone is also another 1.6 trillion. Today, we have about a 38 trillion national debt. A lot of it caused most of it caused by efforts to help education and safety net programs. And the future forecast is it's going to get worse. The median usual weekly earnings by age and sex. Um we looked at that to see how we could help. Statistics show that those most impacted are the young under 30. Many families find their children cannot afford to move out of their parents' houses even in their mid20s. At the other end of the spectrum, there are those who are senior and retired and are finding it increasingly difficult to meet in make ends meet and they they they're having to see their homes sell their homes with a lease payback system at a high interest discount rate to live off their home equity. Thus, thus uh the church will work with safety net based on its commitment to address these issues. Safety net's goal is that the student who can pay market rent for a single bedroom and a shared three-bedroom apartment or home will have the opportunity to rent a single dorm and receive work and life skill trainings at no additional cost. All the education they want and need will be included in that dorm rent. Safety net does not compete with other educational facilities, but rather utilizes those educational uh facilities, their supplied free resources to get students ready for a more formal certification or degree if

the student so desires. As a dorm resident, Safety Net's target will be mostly young students, but with a mix of experienced older dorm managers or mentors. There are seniors who are retired with proven life skills and would be willing to mentor those hungry to learn from their experience. There are those that uh find that after retirement they feel like they you know they still want to add back and that's what we're finding. We find a good mix of these is what we want to put into the safety net dorm. Then those those seniors instead of selling their homes at a high discount rate to live off of it can sell their home and they can pay a dorm fee and have a home and in some cases have somebody there to help them in case they fall, slip, whatever. We can't help them medically, those that need medical help at the time, but if there's somebody living in the door with them, we think that'll help. Let's see. By removing financial barriers to education with the students incurring no addition educational debt from student loans, it is supplementing the local area with the C country's efforts in its safety net programs. The safety net site will be a campus atmosphere that encourages work and life skills within a Christian world view of world view again at no additional costs. Safety net does not compete, like I said, with other educational facilities, but rather utilizes their their skills, their knowledge. Um, oh, I think I already said that. Sorry. There will also be career counselor involved in helping the students think through their passion and training desires. There will be full-time on the on-site property manager. As to the more experienced dorm managers, some young

students will need a firmer hand to learn some of life's discipline, such as maintaining a clean house, having a good relationship with others, while others will need a gentle, affirming manager mentor. These experienced seniors will help us maintain the dorm's culture. Safety net. Oops. So, so who can we help? Safety net can only help those already employed and committed to self-improvement within a faith-based environment. The candidates must pass a robust interview process which includes reviewing the candidates's existing circumstances, their commitment to life and work skill improvements. It will include input from that career counselor, their family, and where appropriate their employers. The candidate must be willing to uh at least listen to a Christian holistic worldview, give back to society through four hours of community services a week, and participate in the social and character building programs built within the safety net programs, the importance of the dorms. If it is a dorm rents that makes the inclusion of free preparatory education, trade skill training, transportation maintenance and other work and life skills possible. It is a campus culture with its peer accountability, career counseling, and dorm mentor managers that will optimize the success of the program. The dorm rent pays the cost of the entire program. Experts had advised us not to mix genders, at least at first. So the plan is to begin the dorm to be exclusively for men as we perfect the culture and policy. The dorm has a break in the middle to accommodate a change in this uh policy in the future. Um the educational elements however are open to

all genders as space permits. We have to give priority to the dorm residents. This is a sampling of some of the thousands of educational classes online. Plus, there's couple hundred nonprofits in the valley that will also help with classes. We aren't doing the instructing. There's already it's like I said, it's online and or it's already built within other nonprofits. All we're doing is facilitating these other nonprofits and all the online um universities and uh PON Academy u all the uh there just tons of them out there. Harvard alone has offered 163 classes for a audit. So has MIT so has I think most colleges. There are also online specialized certification programs. The church will also ha also has an open door robust free uh food pantry that is used by the neighborhood but can also be used by dorm residents if needed. As safety nets role, it provides the um facility for trade and service providers who would love to have an opportunity to highlight their profession. So within the dorm unit, there is a trade training um building where uh so far I've almost I've had a 100% of the service and trade contractors that I've talked to would love to come and say this is what working in this trade's like. Um and uh I'd love to be able to find uh people that would be interested in joining in that uh trade hopefully. Hopefully some of the students will join

some of the trade training organizations beyond safety nets basic introduction. We're not trying to we're not trying to be the electrical union training or we're just doing an introduction to them. Uh safety net will also uh address transportation issues. We have an basic auto maintenance shop. Uh we'll supply uh career counseling with month monthly follow-up and we provide that disciplined learning environment all the social programs the comm uh the character building programs and the dorm facility. Our intent is to create plan metrics of what works and what does not work and we'll do that through 360deree assessments. goal is to create a nationwide goal. If if our church can do that, there are 330,000 other churches. There are two million nonprofit organizations to help with a safety net program nationwide. Each church could target their specific demographics in their area that they feel they can help. The premise is that every person should have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We've had a lot of complaints that there's too many men going to be there. And we believe even men have a right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. If we tried to be a halfway house or a direct release from prison ministry, we destroy our basic roles. We eliminate any interest from other churches or charities. And we will also find financing difficult. We're not interested in either one of those even though we keep being painted that. We're not affordable housing or I don't know what to call us or dorm.

Final comments. Um on behalf of the church, I'd like to invite the neighborhood association to meet with us to meet with the halfway houses and you'll find that they paid their price to society. Thank you, Mr. Neighbors. We're going to have to wrap up. It's been your 20 minutes. Appreciate it. We'll be asking you lots of questions in a moment, I'm sure. All right.

But in this point, I need to turn our attention over to the Westbench Neighborhood Association. And uh at this point anyway, Jonathan Melby, is Jonathan here or anybody? You are here. Okay, come on up. I think you know the drill perhaps. State your name and address for the record. And you two have up to 20 minutes should you need it. Uh yeah, before I uh before I start testimony, um we received notice for this over the Christmas holiday and I wasn't able to schedule a board meeting until this Thursday. So I do not have authorization to speak on behalf of the neighborhood association. So I am prepared to give personal testimony uh if

Okay. So we need to hold a second. Mr. Sher uh Jesse has confirmed that John Melby is the designated person to speak. Are you John Melby? Yes. Then that is who we have listed as the person who can speak. Okay. So you have up to 20 minutes. Very good. Thank you. Sure. Thank

So good evening. I'm Jonathan Melby. Uh my address is 2924 North Maywood Avenue. I serve as president of the Westbench Neighborhood Association, but this evening I'm testifying personally. Um, I last testified before this commission uh for the King of Glory uh Lutheran Church's partnership with Leap Housing. Um, they created incomequalified affordable housing units. That project represented true affordable housing, open access, incomequalified, no religious requirements, or no mandatory uh programming. What we have here with the Mountain View Church of the Brethren Safety net project um is a very interesting project, but it's also very odd. Uh there's a lot going on here. Um the safety net project isn't open access affordable housing. It's program conditioned housing uh which has mandatory counseling community uh community services and supervision requirements. Uh, ahead of this evening's hearing, I submitted written testimony concerning the puzzling change from MX1 to R2 in their resoning application, which was uh first submitted as R2, then withdrawn and then resubmitted as MX1. Uh, that uh the future land use map for this parcel shows MX. It's at the heart of our neighborhood activity center for the West Bench and Winstead Park neighborhoods. You can literally walk from the corner of Cole and Eustic down

to this parcel without crossing any public roads. There are driveways and a private lane, but this is right there at the center of our neighborhood activity center. This should be MX1 or some other MX. Now, tonight I'm raising a code interpretation question uh that I think needs resolution before approval. Um given all that's tied up with this, this is not a simple straightup co-housing thing. It's co-housing plus uh mandatory services and and uh many other aspects uh which perhaps might in kind might actually make it something that is different than straight up co-ousing. Um, the applicant says it's co-housing, general populations in housing. But if you read through the Q&A and the neighborhood meeting transcript, they also said you can't live here unless you're in the program. We accept anyone, even those on parole. They accept parole board recommendations. They provide 24-hour coordination with parole officers. Uh, a lot going on here. So, here's the the problem. Even though the staff report asserts that this should be perhaps classified as co-housing. Um, I went through the other documents, the original, it started with the interdep departmental review. it just seemed to kind of slide into that as a this appears to be a co-ousing thing and I don't know that that actually had a careful in-depth review by the um uh director of planning and zoning development. Um what I'm asking for is for the

planning director to provide an interpretation to determine this uh appropriate zoning classification. um is this a situation where the use cannot be included in any existing classification? And you know, as I puzzled looking over the the different categories of uh co-ousing versus recovery residents, they're both kind of awkward fit. This seems to kind of be somewhere in the middle of all that. Um it has all of these conditions and the supervision. it is open. Um uh um when you look at the how the zoning code defines co-ousing, it's really centers around is this an individual lease for a space, a shared space that has community attributes connected to it. Um, but it also specifically says it doesn't include any facility meeting the definition of recovery residents. Now, this one co-housing, it's all about are we leasing it by the room? Then you switch over to recovery residents, it's defined as people who are under correctional or mandated supervision with staff uh providing care and supervision. That's more about the what's going on there. If you take the what's going on there and instead of handling it in a more traditional way, say we're going to lease it by the room, does that magically turn what's going on there into co-ousing? I don't know. Um, can you avoid recovery residence classification by using individual leases while serving the same population with the same staffing structure? If you look around the valley, there seems to be a very common land use

pattern that doesn't have a name on it. You take a building and you take all of the rooms and you rent them out, maybe not even by the room, but by the bed. And uh um there are quite a few places that uh attract a lot of folks to places like that. Um, and if you look on things like the registered sex offenders registry and so forth, there's a there's a large concentration of stuff that goes on there. I'm not saying that this is that, but what I'm saying is there's a use out there that's kind of strange. It doesn't fit recovery house. Um, it sort of is like co-housing, but it sort of is like recovery house. And uh it's it's a pattern that's out there, but we don't have a very clear way in our code to to assess what needs to be done to implement it safely. We don't have a very clear uh way in our our code to um ensure that it has uh satisfactory staffing and oversight like we do with the recovery residences. So it's kind of a confusing situation. So I have spent hours many many hours in addition to my regular work and family commitments just trying to sort out you know what is this space in the middle originally I thought maybe a new category is it or maybe you can go with the existing co-housing if you put some sort of um what do you call it um uh you look at it at different levels co-housing for 10 units that's pretty straightforward co-housing for a 100 units or 500 units. Those can be very different animals. So, we might need some sort of graduated maybe they're just handled through conditions on the acceptance, but some sort of graduate graduated analysis or

requirements for what things of higher scales need because it's clear that this type of vehicle can be used for those type of things. I'm not saying this project does that, but without some sort of guard rails either through a specific zoning um use or perhaps conditional uses placed on the on the thing. It's not clear that uh we're ensuring that the potential um uh uh the potential difficulties are are fully mitigated because there's a lot of unknowns here. So maybe one last thing here in closing. Um I keep hearing that this is not a halfway house. This is not something that's going to be accepting uh people coming out of prison. Um perhaps one thing that we could do then is is uh limit community supervised res residents to perhaps 5% of the total population. Statewide the general population rate is under 1%. So that could be something like that could be a guard rail that just says that yeah this is even though we might approve this under co-ousing we're not going to let it slide into this mysterious middle ground or something that actually is more like recovery housing. So

could you repeat that the 5% of what? Um, so, uh, 5% of community supervised residents. So, that I might might include people who are on parole, probation, or registered sex offenders. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Melby. Okay. The item is uh up for questions among the commission. Mr. Neighbors, I'm assuming you're going to have a lot of answers. There are a lot of questions you're going to be asked, so you might want to pop up here a little bit. Okay. Commissioner Seha, I think um I have a handful of questions and I'm not gonna ask them all. I'll just ask a couple.

You know what? Um actually, now that you say that, let me let me do this. I think we should structure these questions a little bit. And so I'd like to do is let's start with the reszone and then we'll get into the cup. Okay. But is let's start with our question any questions that we might have since we have two items before us with the reszone and sort of organize our train of thoughts a bit and then we'll get into the cup component of it after that. So with any questions with that I I have no questions on the rezone. I have my questions are all specific to the conditional use permit. Okay. We'll come back to Commissioner St. Mr. Stefons.

Uh I have a clarifying question uh just to because we heard a couple different things in in testimony. I'm wondering if staff can clarify. Um, we heard from uh the neighborhood association that there was potential for this to be an MX um reszone, but in all my documentation it's um R2. Can you clarify that so we're clear?

Mr. Chair, commissioners, um that's a great point of clarification. When this application was originally submitted, it was submitting as a request of uh to reszone to MX1. However, based on some of the feedback um of from the neighborhood um the applicant decided to adjust that request to uh ask to go to M R2 instead of the next one. So, the request is to go from R1C to R2. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Commissioner Moore. So for reszoning and I always this transition between R1 to R2 is still getting used to that one. So when you reszone from R1C to R2 being an R2 zone that's adjacent to an R1 C zone, you're actually more restricted in terms of height and transitional setbacks than you would be if you were just an R1 C zone. Right. There's more transition height requirements and things like that. Is that correct, Mr. Chair, commissioners? That's correct. So, um any R2 or R3 adjacent to R1C has additional uh neighborhood transition setback or requirements which have um extended setbacks and then step downs on height. Thank you,

Mr. Chair. Commissioner Torres, my question could apply to both the RESON and the CUP, but I will ask it just to break things up a little bit because we're going to I think we're going to have a lot of questions about Cups if that's okay with you. So, my question is for staff. Um, if the reason and the C were denied, the applicant could proceed with the same demographic for for these but just as apartments. Is that correct, Mr. Chair? Uh, commissioners. So the applicant could come back with a request for just a multif family building, but there are um different limitations on multif family and R1C zone. Thank you.

Okay, other questions on the reszone. All right. So, this is where it gets muddy because we have zoning and we have land use. And the land use map is definitely tied to the comprehensive plan, but so too is is the zoning. So, we have a property that according to our comp plan and our future land use map is intended to be a mixeduse area and is specifically called out with an additional element which is the neighborhood activity center. And is that correct, Mr. Chair? That's correct. Okay. So, this application is purely residential. Correct. That's correct.

Okay. However, high density is permitted under the the general mixed use future land use. And so, I think that this gets to the high density were in there. So, it does, as far as I can tell, I think uh satisfy that. Fair, Mr. Chair. Um the R2 zone does not have a density limit, right? And the comprehensive plan does um encourage density near and within mixed use areas in order to support some of those other commercial and mix of uses.

Okay. So to the applicant, I know that you're new to the development game. I understand this, but this is a complexity in terms of what the spirit of the comprehensive plan, the west neighborhood or the west neighborhood bench plan says and that this area, Cole and Ustick is to be activated and have a mixture of uses. And so I I guess the question that I would ask you, have you given any thought at all in in this discussion in the leadup to offer anything even if it's a very modest commercial space that is uh next to Cole Road as an example. I know it's an overused use, but like a small coffee shop, for example, that maybe some of your tenants could actually be employed by, but does offer the neighborhood a mixture of uses, which is exactly what the land use map is trying to do.

So, we're okay with MX1. We're okay. We're we want to do whatever you guys think we should do. Uh we're willing to live within the rules of either one of them. Um, I think we originally filed as MX1 and I think uh because our concern was we had an auto shop in the back, you know, we had a um a trade and and service training room. Uh we have a kind of a big barbecue area out front. Um yeah, so uh you know we have the pastor's office at the very front of Cole. Um, so we're we're open. We Okay.

It was It's outside my pay grade to be honest. And and and respectfully of that, the things that you listed, however, are privately to be used. It's not an auto dealersh. That's my point. And it's it's intended for your residents. Totally fair. Understand it. But the what I'm getting at is that the intent and spirit of our comp plan and the future land use map is to try to bring in a mixture of uses that are open to the other residents around it. So that that's what I'm getting at. Yeah. I I don't want to throw a ink in everything, but there's four hours of community service required by every one of the students.

Mhm. And um the Flying H mobile home park and that which leads and they're already really fragile into homelessness. That which leads to homelessness is not taking care of their vehicle. Yeah. Nope. That's fair. I understand. So, we'll be, you know, we might be taking in neighbors vehicles and helping them with in the shop, you know, through the community service program. Okay. All right. All right. Any other questions on the reszone portion of things? Okay. Mr. Chair, can I just clarify? Yeah, please.

That the R2 zone is allowed within the mixeduse land use designation within the comprehensive plan. Right. This is where it gets spirit of letter of law of um also if I could say we actually tried to we tried to abide by both when we so we tried to say so we went ahead and did the setback for 8 feet and we went ahead and did the uh sidewalk wide and we're trying to figure out how how we can make sure no matter where we end up. Yeah. Okay. Appreciate it. Thank you. Okay. Let's go ahead and move forward then to uh it sounds like where we have a lot more questions which is the uh conditional use permit. Commissioner Sehal.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um first question um is for staff. How do you define um recovery residents just to make sure that we're all on the same page?

Mr. Chair and commissioners. So the recovery residence is um individuals living within um one housing unit. So um individuals not renting out like each separate bedroom. They're living together as a housing unit um together and there is staff that's providing uh services uh and care for the people in that recovery residence.

Okay. Um, so we've had a couple of developments um, west of Capitol, south of the Boise River in the old don't know what that area was called. It's where the old Pizza Hut was near near Boise State. Lusk. Lusk. The Lusk district. Now, I apologize. Um, so you know, I know a lot of those, at least two of those apartment complexes, I would consider co-housing because students rent a bedroom in an apartment and then they share the, um, kitchen and living room,

Mr. Chair, uh, commissioners, uh, is that like a clarification question? Well, I guess that to me I you know, we just had some the West um the neighborhood association person come up and talk about how this is kind of it seems like it's kind of somewhere in the middle. So clearly the con the proposal um is not a recovery residence but it's not just a standard co-housing because there are other requirements um that the developer or the applicant is proposing and so to me it appears as though it's transitional housing.

Mr. Chair, commissioners, thank you for clarifying. Um so a co-housing use is you know defined in code and um it can be something more of like a traditional dorm uh or it can be something more like what the applicant is proposing. It's new within the uh current development code from December of 2023. So anything approved prior to that wouldn't fall under the specific use. Um and you know just another point of clarification. So when a use comes forward, it is a director determination to uh determine what that use most closely aligns with within the development code and um they found that the co-housing use most closely fit what is being proposed.

Thank you. So as someone who sat on the modern zoning code advisory or the committee um this particular scenario was never to my recollection discussed. So it's for me personally it's um there's a lot of questions I have um there's a lot of questions I have based on what's been provided and and in large part because it there there are monitoring requirements and and so like for example the application speaks about um wraparound services and this is really more of a question um for you Mr. neighbors. Uh, you talked about different online um, opportunities for the residents. Um, but you know, when I think of wraparound services, I think of like having licensed counselors and social workers that can assist. I It's very clear to me this is not a homeless shelter. And that was reiterated by our staffing. Um but but there you know like providing housing providing you mentioned like maybe providing housing for parolees. Well, Department of Corrections and and the parole commission does have certain requirements like there's you have to have a a you have to have a plan in place that they have to approve. And so there's just a lot of questions that I have um regarding your your proposal.

So maybe maybe let me address that. We're we're not trying to be a release place from the prison.

Uh the concept of transitional housing is what's created a lot of the emotion because it we're an educ we're a midstep education storm. So, we're using free education to help those guys that don't have a high school education get a GED. We want to help those that want to get some college classes or get get some kind of skill or trade skill that want to improve their work skills and at the same time life skills, how to get along with people, some disciplines, character development, all that kind of stuff. So we see ourselves as a um bridging the gap between you know uh the expense of education um for those that can't afford it. And so we think of ourselves as a dorm and a we're going to use all the free things made by the professional educators and say we want to help you get ready for that if you want to do it. So, if you want to become an electrician, we want to have someone come in and show you what it's like, what the lifestyle is like, all that kind of stuff. And then here's the electrical unit. Um, or if you want to have a college education, you can't afford it. Here's all the classes. You can get all the classes free, you can audit it, you can get college uh ready, and then here's the universities that focus on your career, your degree that you want to go after.

Okay? So we think we're a midstep that's missing for those that want to improve their economic and life sky life skills. So I just have one more question and then I will

um so in the application that was submitted it talks about you know um providing developing a program. So this the the residents would work with a counselor and they develop a program and then once they've completed their program then they can go on to do something else. And so my question to you because you talked about in the application about like a you know a a certain vacancy rate I maybe it was 15% I don't remember the specifics um but I was just wondering like what is the estimated time it will take to complete the program per the application once the student completes the program then appears they have to vacate the apartment and I just want to make sure that that's correct

so we don't have a set time frame. It's just that one there there's some constraints that force them to decide whether they want to stay there or not. So, it's really up to them. So, if they can go get an apartment or live in a house with some of their buddies that they've they have out there or that they gle gleaned um on campus on our campus. We think of it as campus. if if they want to move out somewhere else, they freed themselves from monthly accountability to the career counselor to their program. They freed themselves from 4 hours worth of uh community service and they may, you know, they may have been fed up with the faith-based uh instruction. So, we see people getting tired in a month. We see people that wants to stay there a year and a half. You know, we don't know. Um we're open. We're open to whatever it takes for them to meet what they want to do to improve their life skills, life and work skills.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Torres,

um I have several questions, some of which kind of follow up on Commissioner Commissioner Sea's questions. Um so my first question is to staff. Um, has the city allowed dormatory style housing um, style of housing development in the past, particularly under the modern zoning code, um, that wasn't part of university housing, a halfway house, the term recovery residence that we used a few minutes ago or a shelter. Um, I can't recall any during my time. I know we're trying to encourage, you know, a diversity of housing types and unconventional housing types in some cases, but I I don't recall any during my time on commission. I just figured I wanted to see if you could address that. Thank you,

Mr. Chair, commissioners. Uh to my recollection, we haven't had anything come forward quite like this. Um, but I would liken this to kind of like you said, you know, if this was a traditional university campus, um, they would have rules and things that you had to follow in order to continue to stay in that program and living in that housing. This would just be operated by a private entity on their private property.

Another question followup um, for the applicant. Um, so as far as the residents go, will they have a lease they sign? Will it be a And if so, will it be like a month-to-month lease? Would it be a three-month lease? How how do you plan to to manage?

Um, they will go through an interview process, pretty robust that I explained. They will they will um work with a career counselor. They will say, "This is the program that I want to pursue." And so that's the program they want to pursue. We want to retain the right that if they're um they're not performing, you know, after whatever and or they're a resident that's creating troubles or they're violent or we find that they're schizophrenic or it's something we can't handle. We want to be able to say, "Hey, or you've got to go to the mission or whatever." Um, we can handle people. My son works with people that uh are vulnerable vulnerable. Um, and there's no place for a lot of them. So, but there's a lot of them we can't work with. We We're not going to have on staff nurses or we're not we're an educational we're a we're a you don't have a you don't have a high school diploma or you don't have enough college, you don't have a degree. How can we help you get acclimated so you can get that um uh trade skill, that certification, that educa? We're kind of in the middle. We're trying to bridge that middle gap that we see is missing. And we see that amongst our congregation. We see that amongst all the flying age. We we see that amongst the homeless. But we're also trying to say that a lot of times these people at risk, we think more and more pressure is going to come on our society. And one of the things that leads to homelessness is they don't take care of their vehicle. Um, and pretty soon they don't have a vehicle, they don't have credit, and the next thing I know they're they can't get to work and they become homeless. And uh, so that's why we included basic auto mechanics. And we also find people out on the streets without insurance.

That's one of the first thing that they don't have. Um, so we want to make sure they are good citizens. you will have insurance. You know, you're going to if you're going to use the auto mechanic shop and have a car in our parking lot, it's got to have insurance. You know, we got to check the tires. I mean, some really basic things. So, we're trying to help people with basic life skills that they may not have learned. And a lot of kids are in schools, I mean, at home, and they can't move out because they can't afford to. And how many people went to high school and didn't pay attention? How many kids went to college and decided it was a place to party? Yeah.

So, this is a second chance mid gap to say, "We're going to help you um to where you want to go, and here's a career counselor to help you see what your passions, your aptitude, your your skills are, and help you get going." We think most of the employers, they have to have a job. So, we think most the employers will work with them. I'm a business consultant. been in the valley 60 years in business. Um, and I've been a turnaround guy and I have been in about 200 businesses in the valley and I would say 80 to 90% of employers would work with somebody who wants to improve their life skills and would even help the person say here's what you can do for a raise or for different. So I think employers by and large will work with them and that's going to be part of our interview process. But there's a few that once they know they're not going to be there forever, fire them. So I can't say the employer will always be involved. But uh this is about just

Okay, I'm going to pause you there because I need to make sure we keep going here that want to testify. I would love our answers and questions to be a little more succinct and a little more specific to the application. I totally understand your mission. I think you've made that very very clear. Appreciate that out of complete respect to you. But I want to make sure we move this along.

Mr. Chair, I'm going to ask a followup actually to press them for a little bit more clarification on one part of that. Um, so can you elaborate how you will handle residents who commit crimes or who otherw who are otherwise disruptive? Um, I'm not an expert on dorm style living in under Idaho law, but I do know in my day job I work in a nonprofit that deals with housing related issues. And I do know that there are laws, they tend to be, you know, more skewed in favor of a landlord versus a tenant. But you do have to meet certain criteria under those laws to kick someone out. You can't just say you broke my rules, you're out. You you know that a little bit.

That's a little bit of a long answer. Um but we're going to have very we so here's kind of our concept at this point in time is there will be a review. So if a house manager or mentor says this guy is disruptive and he's not working well, he will have the right to have a review that'll be com that be that'll be a composite of of a different mentor or manager and three or four other dorm residents uh students. Um and he will be able to pick out of a out of say five he'll be able to eliminate maybe two of them. And so that's going to that's his appeal process in the residence. But it's a dorm and if he doesn't abide by all the rules, then we have the right to evict him eventually. Only after we see that, you know, it's not a problem we he's exhibiting a problem we can't handle. And if he commits a crime, we call the police. You know, I I don't know what

Okay. Thank you. Um I just have a couple more, Mr. Chair. All right. Go ahead. Um, this one's for uh staff. Um, Jesse, did BPD provide any feedback about this application and are they or are they available to answer any questions we have?

Uh, Mr. Chair and commissioners, no, we did not get any comments from them. Um, as a followup, excuse me, there were a lot of concerns in the feed, uh, the testimony we got or the written testimony we received about the potential for sex offenders being housed at this property. Um, I believe the number, and I'm not an expert on this, but I believe the number is they can't be be within 500 ft of a school. Is this property located within 500 ft of any schools?

Mr. chair and commissioners. So, if anybody who who wants to live on this property would still have to follow all state and local laws uh which includes any uh location um restrictions on where they could live. Um I don't know the exact distance to the nearest school, but I believe it's more than 500. Okay. As a followup for the applicant. Well, go ahead. Go ahead. I'll let you answer.

Um I think people keep getting confused because we we're using the term transitional and recovery and that's not what this is. We're not interested in being um a direct release from prisons. That's outside our skill set. That's what halfway houses are for. We we are not a halfway house. We're looking for our our, you know, our target is those that already have a job. They're already in society, but they want to improve their life skills in their workforce, and they want to get ready for a trade skill, a service skill, or uh college education. and we want to help them get ready for that.

So, we don't like the term transitional or recovery. We like the term dorm encampments. So, just to clarify on that because I believe when the neighborhood association uh gentleman spoke, he mentioned um people who are on probation or parole, but also people who are on the sex offender registry. Obviously, people who are on probation or parole are are directly under supervision as a condition of that parole or pro or probation. But people who have who are on the sex offender registry, that's something they have for pretty much the rest of their lives. So they may be working, they may be in the community. Um, assuming this property isn't within 500 ft of a school. Do you plan to accept sex offenders as

No, we we plan to abide by any any and all laws.

Okay. And and um we're going to be I got to be careful here uh because I'm I'm being a little utilitarian here. If we help a student that's 25 years old and single um and we help him, we have helped somebody for the next 50 years. We have helped them in their marriage with their spouse of the future. We have helped their children. If we help somebody, if we give up a room for somebody who isn't really interested in education, have some issues that um really don't allow us to help them uh with work skills, hiring skills, we've wasted a room for someone that we could impact for 50 years. And so that's part of the screening process. our position because people wanted to say, "Well, you're not going to take somebody with a felony in their past." And I'm thinking, look, they've already paid their price and they pass all muster and we think we can help them. Why are you putting a second form of punishment on them above and beyond the justice system, the law, the people that know the de the de the details? And so if there is a sex offender, the first thing the first thing we do is um what stage what phase I mean what class uh we visit with a parole officer. Uh before we even let them attend church and this this is a open door church. It's not an open door dorm. They have to they have to convince the interview team with their with their employer, with their family, um the career counselor that they're serious about improving their life skills. And we don't want to put constraints that the legislature or the justice

system has already established. We want to abide by them, but we want anybody to feel like they could apply. but we will discern or screen out those that we think we're going to help the most and going to most impact our society. Okay. Thank you. That answers my question. Mr. Chair, I have one last question. Um if you'll indulge me and it's for the neighborhood association. Um I guess can I ask the question? I guess he is the designated neighborhood. Yeah. They they're they're a game. Um if he's still here.

Mr. Melby, if you wouldn't mind real quick. I'll go ahead and ask it while you're walking up if that's okay to save some time. Um, this is in no way prejudging how I'm going to vote on this, but we've had concerns in the past um in planning and zoning hearings and other hearings at city council hearings about neighborhood associations uh representatives speaking on behalf of the neighborhood without accurately pulling the neighborhood. Now, there are a lot of people here in your neighborhood. I can see that. I am not speaking on behalf of the neighborhood and I know you said that. I just wanted to reiterate that and get that confirmed on the record again. Thank you. Okay, Commissioner Stallings, I think you had some questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, just really quick and kind of like the house managers that you're speaking of that kind of help mentor um, you know, the residents that might live in this dormatory. Um do they have any official do you have a you know a requirement that they have a prerequisite or any certifications by any official agency or or any training in any do you have any program on what that role needs to be defined as?

I mean we will develop our own basic training but no this is not a recovery a transitional home. These are these are young kids or uh students that uh could go to BSU if they had the money and if they had the background to do it. Um, so we just in my due diligence, there are a lot of mature people that have retired that feel like they now don't have something to offer or would themselves like company because they're a widow or um and so we think they have mature life experiences that will help younger ones. And so we believe there will be some dorms that you know one manager guy can be over three separate dorm units maybe nine student I mean uh yeah nine students uh but we think there will be some that just don't have enough social skills and get along skills that they may need to have a more rigid um you know marine sergeant. Um so we will try to fit based on who the students are uh what kind of mentor manager and what kind of concentration um so there'll be an there will be a career manager counselor um there will be an on-site manager and an assistant site manager and then there will be an on-site u pastor and then there's a board the uh safety net board so we'll deal with whatever issues that come up Um, but the dorm allows us to deal with them immediately.

One quick followup. The counselor, would that be a certified counselor then on site?

So, there's Yeah, we we'll find a career counselor and it's built into the rent. Um, we'll find a uh career counselor. The other board member is Ray Casey for Safety Net. She's a PhD and develops programs already for George Fox University. So along with her skills uh and her uh and all of our connections, we'll find somebody that or multiple people part-time and assign assign them out, but we'll we'll have people that specialize in career counseling. We also know the Department of Labor wants to be able to help us. So, okay, other questions, Mr. Moore,

Mr. Chair, um I got pretty quick. I think this is pretty extensively covered. Um so I'm just trying to understand a couple of aspects related to use. So the supportive services piece is that covered by so in the in the kind of use bucket all the supportive services the garage classroom deal and all that good stuff is that covered by the use um in our uh use table called uses related to and operated by a religious institution. And is that kind of how that buck what bucket that's going into? I'm sorry. Uh, Mr. Chair, Commissioner Moore, could you repeat that cl that question?

So, there's that shop building on the south that has kind of the garage deal with and you know some classroom style rooms there. Is that used because that wouldn't be covered by kind of the co-housing piece. Is that covered by or classified as uses related to and operated by a religious institution then?

Uh Mr. Chair, Commissioner Moore. So the co-housing use does allow for some shared facilities u for the program. So we would classify this as accessory to the dorm use because they'd be used by that program and those students. Okay, understood. And then um so the the other piece that I'm struggling with a little bit is the bike parking. I think it's it's calculated as um it's calculated like multif family but kind of the whole structure of this particular use is individually leased rooms. So, you potentially have, you know, many, many people who do have bikes that they want parked in long-term parking or, you know, protected and secured and and away from the weather. Um, is there any consideration for more bike parking spaces given kind of the individual leasing style of this particular application?

Mr. Chair, commissioners. So the parking for co-housing is a director determination. Uh so it's not set in code. Um we had asked the applicant to provide um what they thought was appropriate and why and staff agreed with their proposal that it was most close to multif family and you know people can have multiple bikes per apartment building or per unit um within multif family. So, we found that ratio to be appropriate for the proposal.

Okay. And the way that this one was calculated, I think, is probably what's confusing me because if there's I think there's 33 units and 33 bike parking spaces. So, maybe that's just missing a couple spaces or something like that for four. Is this what is it? It's one bike space per one bedroom and then half one per each additional bedroom or something like that. Mr. Chair, Commissioner Mort, um the bike parking that was provided uh staff found that to be appropriate. If that is something that you would like the condition that they add more of, I think the applicant may be um amendable to that.

Okay. And then um just to kind of circle back and let me just double check because I've heard the difference between the various uses said several different ways and I think I understand the city's logic for going co-housing, but I want to make sure that that's exactly right. So, uh recovery re residents um kind of includes the definition. I'm just looking at the def definition section of code includes an and statement. It says and treatment for the exclusive use of persons requiring medical, correctional, and other mandated supervision. That's not exclusive here. Part of the program that we understand. So that doesn't apply. So recovery residents wouldn't apply. And then I'm going to boarding house. That seems towards the end of the boarding house definition says for 6 to 12 res for 6 to 12 guests who are not members of the householders family. So the non members is applicable but more guests. So then as part of that that's kind of where we start to fall into the co-housing because under the definition of co-housing it kind of lists what we're requiring here that doesn't apply to recovery or boarding houses. Is that kind of the general logic to kind of narrow down where this use is falling in terms of the code as it stands right now?

Mr. Chair, Commissioner Moore. Yeah, that's correct. That's um kind of the logic that we got to uh call this a co-housing use. And then just the general definition of co-housing being the individually rented rooms with some shared facilities and then some accessory uses that could be shared um throughout everybody in that um building or structure. And then the other key piece of that is there's a minimum lease term that's required in that use too. The 28 day kind of minimum stay is also the the other key piece of that too. Okay, Mr. Chair, um Commissioner Mo, that's correct. Awesome. Thank you,

Jesse. I in our code, there's a lot of ambiguity in certain place. Well, actually, let me back up. Crystal, did you have something you wanted to add? I thought you might have. You're okay. Okay, I will if it comes back up. I'm sorry.

I will if it comes back up. Okay. So, um, our code has some ambiguity to it. I I I think and I would say I want one of the areas I wanted to ask about is we've talked a lot about halfway houses. I don't see in our code a capacity of residents under one roof that is permitted under a halfway house uh use. Do do am I missing that or is there something else that I'm missing altogether? Like I I think that it's usually like from my my experience it's been 8 to 10 somewhere in there has typically been that number.

U Mr. Chair um are you referring to like so halfway house is more of a colloquial term. Um I think our code refers to that more closely as a recovery residence which is again just like one individual house hold living together. So that um naturally limits how many people would be able to live in that one unit,

right? But we never have I mean Okay, so it would be fair. I think the vast majority of homes in this city are going to be somewhere in that three or four bedroom range. You might have a five, you may have a six, kind of an outlier, but typically in that vicinity. So, if we're renting out or someone's there and um we have a home that has four bedrooms, we're probably going to have four folks occupying this recovery site. Is that I'm trying to get some metric here.

Uh Mr. Chair, I think that would be a reasonable assumption that it would be, you know, if it's a fourbedroom home, probably four to eight people. Okay. Fair. Fair. Okay. So, Mr. neighbors. You have up to a hundred bedrooms. And in your um in the open house that you held and in the application letter, you've been pretty forthright to your credit about, hey, we're not going to necessarily turn away somebody who's who's coming from a background that might be on parole, fair, has to go through this process. What is your ceiling? What is my ceiling?

What is the number? Is there a number that you're capping out on for say the number of folks who are on parole in the overall number of bedrooms that you have? Um my I guess we haven't capped that. We thought if they paid their price to society according to a judge and probation and and we've interviewed them and we understand the circumstances and we feel like it's something we can help them with and it's safe and then we would consider that. Okay. If uh if we find the conditions of their release and their parole is something that we're concerned about, then we wouldn't consider them. Okay.

Jesse, did you have something you wanted to add? look like you were going to say something. No. Okay. Sorry. I think I think first to put some condition above the law is all of a sudden just seems weird to me. Um but we we do want to we do want to select those that we think we can help. um after if they're on parole after reviewing the reason and the conditions that the judge said and what the parole officer said and what their employee employer says and what their family says and that kind of thing. So I don't want to say we're going to reject all people with a felony because sure kind of people.

Okay, understandable. So, let me I'll I'll go to another another group of folks because we re received an overwhelming amount of letters, right? And we read again the transcripts and heard the communication. I know that that was a tumultuous night. It's obvious when you read that transcript. So, we have another group of folks who have have been risen up by by a lot of the letters and that's folks who have to register as a sex offender, right? We know oftent times that that is a person who registers is under one home or one apartment or whatever. So living solo what as opposed to under one roof three four five folks under one roof. So I ask you that question. We have a 100 bedrooms. you've been on the record saying as long as someone who passes our application process again totally understandable right and legal

but there again do you have any kind of a number of like we're we're we're not going to go more than say 10 20 30 five two I don't know what do you think is reasonable I don't know I don't know the we're not focused on that we're not focused on that group right my job our job with a conditional use permit is to look at public health safety and general welfare That's all I'm trying to get to is to understand the operations of your facility because as you said a moment ago, I don't know what to call us a dorm. I that's what I call I think or transitional is wrong. Mr.

Chair, I'd like to interject here. So, as Jesse had stated earlier, the director has determined that this use is classified as co-housing because it doesn't meet the definition of the other uses that have been discussed tonight. And I will just like to remind everybody that tenant and landlord relations are not something that we typically include in the purview of PNZ. So, just as we continue questioning, I just want everybody to keep that in mind. Right. Understandable. I'm not sure what that meant, but what's that? I said, I'm not sure what that meant.

No problem. Okay. Um, I'm going to change subjects. Uh, I know that if Jesse, would you mind pulling up the the images of the building? I know that this is an um application that would go to design review, but I also know that PNZ has some limitations on a bit of the aesthetics. Not a ton, but we do have some. and specifically the opposite view of that. Can you show the rear of the building? Because the images that are in our in our particular um staff report have a pretty clear image of what the back of the building looks like. And I think it's the from the north Well, she's looking for that. I I have no pro we have no problem changing the building however we need to at design review. I I didn't spend a whole lot of money setting this up. I thought I'd do that if this gets approved.

Okay, there you go. So that bottom image, what what I see on the top images is I see uh several things that are called out architectural details, but on the back side there there are no call outs of of any architectural details. So I'm just trying to ask the question of would you be open to making some changes in the back of the building? Absolutely. That that Okay. Because I think that's an important thing. You do have neighbors to your north who are looking directly at this. I want it to be a really nice building. Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. Okay. Other questions regarding well, anything at this point, but Mr. Chair, Commissioner Moore,

and just to clarify, when we're looking at these elevations, if you scroll down to the bottom right corner, yeah, I'm assuming that DR will also handle any sort of entryway off the street. I think that's required for DR typically. Uh, Mr. sharing and commissioners. Yes. Uh DR will take a look at the elevations and make sure that they are meeting all of the design review guidelines and code requirements. Thank you.

If I could add the pastor's office is off the street so they can walk in. It faces Cole Road. Okay. Any other questions of the commission? Any down there? Mike, you're good. Okay. Um, if that's the case, then I think what we'll do is let's take five minutes. We'll kind of regroup and then we'll open it up to public testimony. So, sit tight. There'll be some folks who want to say some things and then we'll come back for rebuttal if we have hopefully have time to make a determination. Okay.

Okay. If we can reconvene. Yeah. I'm sorry. You have a guy here calling you an idiot. That's that's not going to be tolerated.

Okay. So, before we get started, this is an appropriate place to rein restate what was stated at the outset of this meeting and that is that this is a chamber of respect. You can disagree. We can all disagree. We can agree. Whatever the case may be, however, that's not going to be tolerated. Okay? We have a process. We have procedures. You've seen how we've tried to conduct business as as much as we can and listen to one another. And that's what this city is. It's what I love, right? I know it's what everybody in this chamber loves. And so, I ask and I'll restate as I said at the beginning as we get into this, everybody will have their three minutes. Okay? What we ask you to not do is please refrain from clapping, cheering. All of that's due process in the constitution. That's that's cauterizing what this country and what this city and state are all about. So all I'm asking for is for the next bit of time for all of us to please try our best to be respectful. Make your point. Bring your passion. That's there's nothing wrong with that, right? But please do it in a constructive way. Okay. All right. Yeah. All right. So, I have a list of folks who have signed up. If your name is not on this, don't worry. You'll have every opportunity to come in and and testify, as well as the folks who are still with us online. Um, one last reminder is that if you have submitted written testimony, we've read it. We read it over the weekend. We had another 99 pages that was dropped on Friday and we we've read this material. You have every right to testify, however, okay? So, don't don't

think you don't. Um, but if you get down the line and you think that point's been made, I don't think I need to make it. There's no harm in saying I don't need to testify. I'm good. Okay. All right. Let's get rocking. So, Maria Barrett Riley, followed by Terry Bartlett, then followed by Jackie Davidson. Hello. Hello. How are you? Great. If you wouldn't mind stating your name and address for the record, that'd be wonderful. Thank you.

Absolutely. My name is Maria Barrett Riley and I live at 3998 North Bernstead Place. Uh, good evening, chair and commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I'm here to respectfully request denial of the proposed reszone and conditional use permit. My concern tonight is not philosophical or emotional. It's about how many critical questions remain unanswered and how those unknowns create real foreseeable risk in a location that functions daily as a child- centered corridor. Based on the applicant's own materials, this proposal is a large transitional congregate living campus serving up to approximately 100 residents with significant turnover, discretionary screening, anticipated bus stop use, and on-site programmatic activities that go well beyond housing. Yet, the record does not answer some very basic questions. First, there's no meaningful analysis of how this population will interact with nearby schools, child care facilities, and student travel routes. Fairmont Junior High, which I have a student that goes there, Morley Nelson Elementary, St. Mark School, Community Center Rec facilities, as well as the Fairmont pool, and multiple licensed daycareers are all less than a mile, some less than half a mile from this this um proposed site. Children are present here predictably before school, after school, and throughout the day. The applicant anticipates residents using nearby bus stops, but there's no mapping of school bus stops, no analysis of congregation points, and no mitigation plan for overlapping use by adults and minors. This is not a minor omission. It's a core compatibility issue. Second, there are significant unknowns about resident screening and supervision. The materials acknowledge openness to individuals with criminal histories and parole referrals, but the city has not been provided enforceable eligibility standards, verification protocols, or monitoring mechanisms. Tonight, we've heard Mr. Neighbors say that they were going to

interview and get a feel for people. They were going to, if something didn't work out, they were going to um remove the person without a lease, which was brought up as well. The commission is being asked to assume that all of this will work out magically somehow. That's great liability for the city, for the commission, and for the neighborhood. Third, the proposal includes industrial type uses, including a maintenance and light mechanic shop with oil change and tool use scaled not to a single household, but to a high occupancy dormatory population. There's no analysis of hazardous material handling, waste oil, and fluid disposal volumes, spill risk, traffic, and equipment movement, or how these activities intersect with nearby pedestrian and child activities. Again, a big liability. What may be manageable for one household is material different when scaled to dozens, let alone a hundred residents. Finally, and importantly, this application raises a property rights balancing issue that is central to the conditional use process. The city is being asked to significantly expand and use rights of one property owner while potentially diminishing the quiet use, safety expectations, and enjoyment of property held by dozens of surrounding homeowners, schools, and child care operators. Conditional use approval is not about whether one entity had a right to pursue.

Thank you, ma'am. I needed to pause there. Thank you so much for your testimony. Thanks for hanging out. Okay. Uh Terry Bartlett, followed by Jackie Davidson, then April Lanningham.

My name is Terry Bartlett. My address is 10649 North Stage Crest Place, Boise, Idaho. And um I'm here today as sort of a different uh scenario here. Uh my wife and I um are small business owners and have been small business owners in Boise since 1999 about 27 years. Were the owner of the two commercial buildings that are within 20 ft of this proposed um complex uh 40ft complex. Ours are singlestory buildings. We're the only commercial buildings that are directly affected by this particular um piece of property. Um, we purchased our buildings uh 2915 and 2939 or 2915 in 2010 2011. We've owned it for quite a few times, for quite a few years. We've been good neighbors with the church all those years. No complaints uh uh per se. Um these two buildings um in those two in these two buildings we were owner occupied for a number of years for many years. Um we just sold a couple years ago our business and uh we still um um we've we uh we've kept the two office buildings and it's our key retirement income now and in the future. So I think the chair mentioned um in one of the earlier discussions about uh property values and the effect on property values and um we're deeply concerned about the proposed 40 foot three story uh complex will affect the property our property values and um the uh both now and the future sale value as well as trying to secure quality tenants uh for our commercial buildings. Um I mean who's going to compensate us for

the loss um the value loss in future means of our buildings? Um there's a proposed 100 uh men coming and going maybe a month at a time in this particular building within 20 ft or 30 feet of our building. Um, so we have uh deep concerns about the value of our property and and our tenants. Um, that I don't think has been addressed. Uh, it was said that this compatible this proposed building is compatible or or zoning change. Uh, we don't believe that's true with our commercial buildings that are uh right next door. So, we're not sure who's going to compensate us. Mr. neighbors is more than welcome to buy each one of our buildings for a million dollars each and then he can uh make use those as housing and he would probably save himself four or $5 million from building this complex if he wants to. Um uh the 40 foot 40 foot potentially 40 foot threetory complex um uh doesn't fit with our commercial buildings. You can see the picture of it, you know, 20 or 30 feet away. We'll be looking at this skyscraper thing. There is no other three threestory apartment complexes. The apartment complexes behind us are twotory across the street or two stories.

Thank you, Miss Bartlett. I have to cut you off. I apologize. Three minutes goes fast, but thank you. Appreciate it. It's okay. Uh Jackie Davidson, followed by April Lingham, followed by Timothy Terry. Hi.

Hi. Hi. Uh, my name is Jackie Davidson. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair and commissioners for all the work you do. My name is Jackie Davidson. Um, I live at 8107 West Canterbury Court in Boisee. Um, and um, I'm here in opposition to the resoning and conditional use of this facility. And I I I'm not really against what they're doing. Um, it's the location and it, you know, it all sounds really great. Um, that they're doing such a great job for the people, but it's the location. And, um, we have a 100 people, 100 men that will be in that neighborhood next to all of these, uh, children. And my real concern is for the children. um walking next door. You know, these people might be all good, but in a hundred people, all it does is take one person to, you know, grab one of those kids or follow them, try to follow them home. And that that's just not right. And so um you know we we've they've already stated that these are vulnerable people that they could be paroleies ex you know pedophiles etc. Um it's you know I'm I'm getting this picture that it's all you know nicey nicy but we're talking about a hundred men. And so, um, that is very dangerous for these people, these kids that are walking, you know, to and for from school. Those schools are right next to those they're they're probably not within 500 ft. So, they're

legal. It's legal, but they're um there's a lot of kids in that area. There's three schools right there, and there's another one uh down the block. So I I I'm hoping that you would consider the children in this situation. You know, one of one of the things that I noticed that thought about when you were work when you were talking about the Idaho Power thing is you were so concerned about the safety of those bikes, those people's riding the bikes down um um uh Maple Grove down Maple Grove. And so I am just asking you to have that same consideration for these children that will be walking right by that building with a hundred men. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. Appreciate it. Okay. Next up is April Landingham, followed by Timothy Terry, followed by Well, we'll get to Steve Neighbors because you're listed as a citizen. I was assigned. Okay.

Good evening. Thank you for your time. Um I apologize. I brought um images to share, but I didn't submit them in advance. So, I think this might go a little bit faster, as well as some of my testimony is related to the design review process and the facility. So, I'm just going to read verbatim because this is nerve-wracking to be in front of you all. Um again, I'm April Lanningham. I live at 7103 uh Pomona Road um in the Grandandy subdivision directly across from the proposed project site. Um, our neighborhood already hosts two men's uh co-housing, if we want to call it that, within 700 feet of our residents. Our direct experience with living near these facilities includes a long list of uh interactions and some of them are just too graphic to even discuss in a public forum. However, that's not my main point of what I'd like to talk about today. It's more of the land use issue. Um, the project is architecturally incompatible with the surrounding area. There are serious issues with this the infrastructure in regards to safety and the project's lack of financial viability are my primary concerns. Um, the current resident um rendering is a carbon copy of a Motel 6. It's trying to fit a commercial um project in a a neighborhood footprint. Um, a good example of a project would be the apartments across the street. Um, they demonstrate that the highdensity housing can be designed thoughtfully with varied roof lines, trim, and textures that respect the neighborhood's character. And then, uh, my second concern is that the infrastructure and is and the suitability of the site. Um, this stretch of Cole Road is narrow. It has four lanes, no center turn lane, and no

bike lanes. There's also no detached sidewalks, so it's also extremely dark um based on the age of the neighborhood. It's heavily trafficked with, as McPel mentioned, students walking at all hours of the day. And this proposed building site is one big monolith. It's too bulky for the site. It will create a cramped feeling in the corridor um in an already congested area. One image was a screenshot of the street view and you can see if you're at the street level how tight the corridor already is. Lastly, the applicant has grossly underestimated the project cost that has been stated in um at $7 million. I think based a lot of people know based on current market trends that um the project will far exceed that at 33 units. That's approximately a 40,000 square foot building and the market rate costs I would value that more at the $14 million level. The applicant has said that they will be relying on donations and work in kind to fund the project, but that is not a prudent or realistic strategy for a project of this magnitude. So again, the lack of realistic funding plan, documented safety concerns, and the infrastructure, and the architectural incompatibility demonstrate why this project is not well thought out.

Appreciate it. Despite the nerves, you did well. Thank you. All right. Uh Timothy Terry, followed by Carol Gross, followed by I think it's Brian Anderson. Ander Ton.

Hello, sir. Hello, thank you. My name is Timothy Terry. I live at 660 West Target Street here in Boisee. I've been a member of Church of the Brethren at Mountain View since 2006. Seen a lot of changes in our church and we have that property in the back for quite a while with just weeds. Sometimes people would come in there with a four-wheel drive and have a good old time. Then we changed it over to having a a community garden, which worked really well. We put up a fence, but we were only helping 12 people. So, we thought there's got to be a better way that we can help more people with the land that God has given us. And so right now in our current economic climate, it's become more and more difficult for men like myself to afford an apartment. I make $18 an hour, which equates to about $2,400 a month. Apartments rent 1,400, 18, 2,000 depending on where you're at, right? I mean, it just gets Yeah. I could not do it. But I'm married and so I have two incomes. So I can afford where I live. But there's a lot of guys like me that simply can't afford it. They don't have the money. And I'm really thankful that we can maybe provide housing for somebody like me that's working but just barely making it. I mean, there's a lot of month left. You pay half your paycheck, half your monthly paycheck for rent or more. How you going to pay for gas, food, you still got to pay for electricity? You

see what I'm saying? That's what we're trying to do. We just want to help guys that are trying to make a living, get ahead. And if I was 20 years old and had an opportunity to learn a a good craft, maybe an HVAC or electrician or something like that and set them in manufacturing, that's all I can do. But if I was 20 years old and I can learn a skill set that would give me a trade and therefore be able to earn more money, then I can afford a better apartment or maybe someday buy my own house. That's what we're trying to do. That's the basics. Thank you all.

Thanks, sir. Appreciate you being here. Okay. Uh, Carol Gross, followed by Brian, I think it's Anderton, and Kimber Green. Hi. Hello.

My name is Carol Gross, 21108 West Albury, Nampa, and I am also a member of the Mountain View uh, congregation. So, to me, the question really become, am I my brother's keeper? Am I? As a Christian woman, the answer is yes. I have compassion for many young men who have in the past made poor choices and want them be able to have a new start. I'm going to be supportive of a program that offers educational opportunities, job skills training, Christian mentoring in addition to housing. These men do need addition don't need additional justice. They need compassion. They need opportunities to make progress towards their individual goals and become productive community members. I would ask that you support the Christian Safety net academy.

Thank you, Mr. Gross. Appreciate it. Okay, Brian, I think Anderton, hopefully we can confirm that. Is it Anderton? Well done. Okay. And then Kimber Green.

Uh, hi, I'm Brian Anderson. I live at 2619 North Grande Street. Uh it's a stones throw away from the proposed project. Uh I've lived in the neighborhood. I've raised three sons there. Two are with me this evening. Um I own my home. Uh we've been there for well over a decade now. Um I have a vested interest in the neighborhood and in the value of my home. I even intend to uh possibly list the home this this spring. So know that I am as vested as as maybe anybody else. Uh I stand fully behind this project and I'd like to to give you all a reason to think about why uh I happen to be of the worldview that the cosmos, the the universe, the world, it's not made out of stuff. It's not made out of atoms. It's actually made out of love. And we can take that all the way down to the fundamental level. um uh a community, a neighborhood, a city, a state, the country, they're also made of love. Love itself is a risky business. And if we are not taking the disaffected youth u uh especially men and we are not providing them taking the risk to provide them with opportunities that they don't have elsewhere, uh then we're not taking the right kind of risks. Um, I've certainly heard and I can acknowledge uh some of the concern in the room with some of the risk. Uh, at the same time, um, I've had experience as a volunteer mentor for uh, youth at risk with the Idaho Youth Challenge Program. And I can tell you u that there is a very real reward in giving oneself to the risk of loving

those who seem the least likely deserving. And if that is not what uh the world at large needs right now, uh then it is at the very least what a neighborhood needs, what men uh disaffected young men in the neighborhood need. This is a great opportunity to provide it uh not at the taxpayer expense uh but uh by people who are willing to venture uh their own resources into into paying for this project. We're not asking for the government to fund this. We're not asking for anything except for people to get behind hope, faith in the future, and to to take the the risk that is necessary to take men who could possibly be a danger and to give them something else to see and something else to do so that they become the right kind of dangerous men. I'll ask you all to please consider that and and support this project. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Okay. Uh, Kimber Green.

Hello, commissioners and Mr. Chair. I think I got that right. I'm Kimber Green. I live at 4140 North Mountain View Drive. And I've been making some changes and cutting things out, so I'm just going to read them here, trying to shorten it up. Um, I have some observations and concerns that I haven't seen clearly addressed in the record or reflected in the proposed conditions. One thing I struggled with is understanding the enforcable limit on how many men would live in the dorm. I've heard up to 100 referenced and tonight it was described as rooms being individually rented, but I'm not clear how or whether those details are actually locked in as conditions. Other group homes in the area um house multiple men per room, some up to four per room. um it's just difficult to understand the true scale and intensity of what's being approved or how it could function over time. Another concern I have is about how the compliance would be monitored over time. I understand that intentions are good but I don't see clarity around reporting audits what would happen if the operation doesn't function as described. My concern is really isn't really about today. It's about what happens if circumstances leadership or the resources change. Related to that, it feels hard to evaluate potential impacts because key operational details aren't yet defined. Things like staffing levels, length of stay, turnover, supervision, and how residents exit the program are all directly affect neighborhood impacts. Without the information, I personally struggle to understand how those impacts can realistically be anticipated or addressed. I also have concern about how much responsibility would rest on this nonprofit organization that doesn't yet have any operating track record. From the outside, it feels like both the city and the surrounding neighborhood would have limited ability to respond if things don't go as planned. Lastly, the descriptions of what this project is, what is being what is being called, and how it would operate have varied over time. I don't think that it's intentional, but it does make it difficult for residents to clearly understand what is being approved and

what elements would actually be locked in long term. For me, it feels like there's still too much uncertainty to fully understand the long-term impacts of this proposal. My hope is simply that no decision is made until the operational details are clear enough that everyone, residents, the city, and future occupants know exactly what to expect. And then I do have one question that I was asked um and we may have missed this, but we're wondering if there is any documentation on record explaining how this project was determined to qualify as co-housing for the purposes of the conditional use review. So I don't know if that's a staff question or something we need to know.

So that was a question that was asked earlier that staff tried to address. Um I can't go backward and look at that, but perhaps and this is up to totally up to the applicant. Um, he's gonna have five minutes of rebuttal time. So maybe he touches on that. I don't know. But it is it is a determination by the director though or no. Do you want to confirm that? I don't know if we can do that at this point. But the short answer is yes. I think there were some of the other things we saw that were documented and that this one this process wasn't and that's why we were asking.

Gotcha. Okay. Thank you so much. Okay. I don't have anybody else on the signup sheet. I know. Here it comes. So here's what I'd like to do is you're more than welcome. you had your hand up first. You can come on up. If you intend to come up and testify, great. There's three seats over here and there's three seats over here. I would just ask that you kind of stage and then uh we'll come up one on by one and we'll get through it. So, same drill if you can. Just your name and address for the record and same thing. Three minutes.

Mr. Chair and commissioners, thank you for uh allowing us to testify tonight. I appreciate that. My name is Crystal Smith. I live at 7724 West Bay Hill Street. And I think now that I I wasn't going to speak, but after listening to what's been going on tonight, I think you can all now see why as neighbors, we have a lot of concern about this project because we've not been able to pin anything down. Like Kimber said, there's no nothing concrete. We don't see anything any plan, any safety plan. Um there are actually 3,200 children in the schools around that this area. And we really do have a disproportionate amount of uh sex offenders in that area. Mr. Neighbors mentioned Iron Sharpens Iron and the halfway house that's behind the church. They're affiliated with Iron Sharpens Iron. If you go out to their website, you'll see that that is listed on their website. That is a home that does have sex offenders in it and it is managed by a sex offender. It's owned and managed by a sex offender. So you can see where our concern has kind of come from in that respect. Um I also, you know, being where I'm at, I live very close to the Rising Sun Sober Living, they have 34 rooms there. And of four men and uh of the 34 men that are there, six 26 of those men are sex offenders. I just checked the registry this last week. Um and that's not all of them. I mean there you'll just have to look at the zip code. Um so my question would be um to you guys has the planning and zoning staff assess the mitigation necessary in a scenario where nearly all of the 100 residents are either on parole or registered sex offenders. Thank you for your time.

Thank you Miss Smith. Okay. Uh let me go this way and then I'll go over to the two gentlemen this way. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, commissioners, for your attention. Um, I've been listening. Can you your name and address?

Yes, sir. My name is Mike Hennessy. I live at 8061 West San Franando Court. And I just am not getting the answers that I think are really required for a project of this magnitude and impact. And uh that's not to say that I have anything but the utmost respect and agreement with with the goals and the aims of this project. Um but what it basically boils down to is as we had one supporter say, "Let's take a chance on these people." Well, yes, we have to take a chance at some point, but basically what we're being asked to do here is take a gamble based on all the questions that we have about the design, the administration, the funding, is it there? I just am not getting the the answers that really make me comfortable with this project. and I respectfully ask you to decline this application as it stands. I would hope that uh the Church of the Brever and the uh people behind this project would be able to come back with a with a more fleshed out solid plan and perhaps we can take another look at it. As it stands now, I would urge you uh to vote no.

Okay. Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Wle. Mr. Chairman, commissioners, my name is Jeff Wle. My address is 3735 Haystack, number 202 here in Boisey. And I'm here in support of this application today. Many of you may remember three years ago I stood in front of you at PNZ as we were going through the modern zoning code and due to the work that I had done on certain other applications reiterated the fact that we have to adopt standards that allow housing of all types to be constructed of right. Just tell property owners what they can do. But we cannot we cannot delegate the social safety net to the nonprofits and then criticize the nonprofits when they come forward with the solutions that we as a society are not willing to undertake. Diversity of housing requires all types of housing. It requires SRO. It requires boarding houses. It requires co-housing. And the Church of the Brethren should be commended for the fact that they have observed what has transpired in this community and they're attempting to come forward with a solution that is more than just housing. I wish that every church in this community would come forward with housing solutions on their properties because as Church of the Brethren pointed out, there is high utilization at certain times, but these are properties that can and should be redeveloped and intensified. And to claim that this use is inconsistent with the neighborhood and overly intensive ignores the fact that immediately to the north on Tottenham, you have a series of forplexes that are all three bedrooms. You have 120 bedrooms immediately on the parcel to the north.

So yeah, there are concerns about design and we have the mechanisms to address those and and we know what has to be done. But to require and condition housing the way we do is not right because it causes a bunch of well-meaning people to come to public hearings and say some of the most obscene things that we will all hear from time to time out of fear. And what are they afraid of? They're afraid of people. Now, I guarantee you, we have this vision of what people were afraid of, but when we look at the wealthy single family residential neighborhoods, it shocks people to find out how many white collar criminals actually live in their neighborhoods, people who've engaged in mortgage fraud, who've had DUIs and things like that. So, we should not be judging housing based upon who lives in it because each and every one of us need shelter. Each and every one of us need a place to be there. And we should be making it easier to do all types of housing, especially housing for those that most critically need it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Schwarle. Okay. And anybody else who wants to come up, please occupy these first seats. Thank you. Come on. Thanks.

My name is Steve Mason. I live at 2414 North Mckin Street, um, which is just right around the corner from this proposed site. Um, I'm not going to repeat all the other things people have repeated. I agree with a lot of the concerns around uh, child safety, a lot of schools in the neighborhood, all that. Um, instead, I'm just going to focus on the lack of, excuse me, lack of planning. Um, I think that it is not a well-formed plan yet. And what I would like to propose to the folks who are trying to propose this plan is try it out, test it, prove your plan at your church. Hire the people that you feel that you can fulfill these tasks, whether it's the um counselors, the mechanics, you know, the other folks that would be needed to support these this type of um complex. and come back in a year and show us the folks that you've rehabilitated and that you have shown success with and show that you've got a proven plan that actually works and not just some hypothetical daydream. I feel that this is not wellformed enough to put any of the children at this community at risk. Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Mason. Okay, anybody else in chambers who wishes to testify? Okay, it's a little bit of a surprise. Um, I have one person online. Uh, that person is Elizabeth Marshall. Hello. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you if you wouldn't mind. Just your officially name and and address for the record and you'll have three minutes.

Elizabeth Marshall, 10649 North Sage Crest Place. Um, so I happily grew my business, Marshall GIS, just north of the subject property and we kept those buildings when we sold our company as an investment. You know, the apartments to the west that were just mentioned, they did have a lower income residents. We picked up a ton of garbage, drug, paraphernelia, alcohol, cans, and bottles, and we had a fair amount of vandalism. Um, and over the last few years, the apartment residents have become moderate income and the neighborhood has felt significantly safer. From what I'm seeing as a business uh owner for 30 years, this is a very illconceived project with virtually no business plan. Um, it will not solve the broadscale social issues that were represented tonight. It looks like and sounds like an experiment. Um, and so I'm asking the city to um, please let this neighborhood continue its upward trajectory and please deny this poorly thoughtout project that for their own words could house 100 sex offenders or 100 paroleies or 100 addicts. And it even was mentioned that they're going to house the right kind of dangerous men. And I I'm thankful that I don't live right in this area. It's scary enough being a business owner owning the buildings just to the north. Um and it's interesting too that this neighborhood has a lot of potential. For some reason, um you know, we weren't allowed to even put up a little sign that let our tenants more clearly identify where to come to find their um Edward Jones, for example. um that was denied. But that they're considering this sort of development

with this sort of planning is amazing to me. I think there's a very nice neighborhood all around of this property um that's going to be damaged for a long time. I I really asking the city to reconsider um this poorly planned project. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, M. Marshall. All right. I have a few other people online. One of them named iPad. Anybody else online? No. Okay. Anybody else in chambers that wishes to testify? Mr. Chair, we have someone online. Oh. Oh, Pam Ror.

Hi, Pam. Good evening. I did.

Wouldn't mind just uh name and address for the record. And you have three minutes. Pam Romer, 7458 West Tottenham Lane, right next to the proposed building. Um, I do understand the need to provide more affordable housing, though I think it should be for all, not just one limited type. I am opposed to this project as it is presented. I would prefer a smaller footprint, especially since it is a large, restricted, supervised, short-term housing development. There are so many questions and the lack of transparency which does not help with trust or solving issues. My question was, is this a school campus or multif family residence restricted to men only development? Well, that got answered. It is a non-traditional dorm with a campus and educational opportunities. At the neighborhood meeting on September 23rd, 2024, Mr. Neighbors stated they wanted this project to include both men and women, but were told it would not be safe. If it is not safe to include women, then how is it safe to place up to 100 men in a neighborhood that includes women and children? Who we would be more comfortable if there are safety considerations in place? Who will be liable for or responsible for possible incidents? Is it possible for insurance to require to be required for a structure such as this that claims to be a school campus to cover student related incidents in the neighborhoods? Addressing property damage or injuries from student actions? Maybe some kind of on-site security or placing those blue light emergency phones throughout the neighborhoods just like on campuses. Will the on-site managers be paid staff, church members? Is this the permanent residence for the managers or will they rotate in and out? One student in each of the three-bedroom dorm units will be a keeper of the peace. How how is that determined? The project comes across as a plan in progress that changes constantly. What happened to the Christian safety net program he was talking about? I have not

found it anywhere online. I only heard about it when he spoke about it in his presentation. What experience do they have with this program? Successes. Will there be data tracking? Will this be shared? Perhaps Boise City Council and the church could work together to address these concerns and encourage community engagement by drafting something similar to what was developed with interface sanctuary. Some possibilities to help with transparency and safety concerns. Developing policies with input from the program board members, neighbors, and agencies such as law enforcement for security and pedestrian safety plans. Providing a point person for issues or situations for resolution or growth. conducting monthly meetings between the dorm management board members and neighbors or the west neighborhood association for community engagement. Sharing operation plans for transparency. Making monthly reports to the city along with actions taken for resolution. It really sounds like a a good program, but it just seems so vague and changing all the time. So, thank you for listening to our concerns, suggestions, and thoughts that will have an impact in our neighborhood.

Okay. Thank you very much. Anybody else online? There's only a couple more folks there. Uh, I don't see any other hands going up. Okay, one last call for anybody in chambers. Everybody's ready to go home. Got it. Okay. Well, with that, we'll go ahead and bring the public testimony to a close. And the item is now before the commission. So, we have a couple options. We could I in my opinion, I think we should kind of do what we did before, which is handle the reszone first and then the conditional use permit.

Mr. Chair, I think the applicant gets to rebutt. Oh, yes. Thank you, Commissioner Torres. I need to go home or I need to eat one of those espresso balls over there. Sorry. Let's open it back up. I'll race through this in five minutes. Yeah, you got five minutes. Thank you, sir. Um, first, uh, I'm at a, uh, I'm a business and income property appraiser and I'm an A bar. Can you pull that a little bit closer?

And an A bar, your property will not go down in value wherever you are. Um, and I'm happy to, uh, prove that. Uh, two, um, I didn't put a whole lot of stuff into a lot of design. I didn't pay the architect more than $2 million. No, I didn't pay him. I didn't because I know that goes through design review and we're going to build a nice building and I I know design review will tell us what to do. Um, I was a contractor for 30 years. I understand costs are now two years old. I know I have to update those, but um I've worked with over how many of the probably 45 different contractors. I I know I have helped contractors with over the I guess the highest one was get out of $50 million in debt. I have a lot of contractor connections along along with my own experience and I can pull this in in the budget I set for someone to tell me I don't know what I'm doing. That's not right. uh there is metrics we have told you metrics um uh within the proforma that I I I've already developed there is full-time there's full-time career um counselor it's probably going to be three different ones at part-time uh I've got their rates already built in the proforma I've got an on-site manager not a distant property manager and uh I have an assistant uh property manager in Uh I don't think my proforma is really the this isn't the place for me to go through all my cost and proforma. Um that's for the bank, that's for the investors, that kind of stuff. Um this is not a h halfway house. I keep saying that. Um answers. I don't know what more they need at this stage. I'm trying to get approval before I go into more detail. Um

let's see. men and women. We just thought we'd start if we, you know, we'd love to have men and women. We'd love to have we'd have love to have uh uh single parent families. We just thought let's start where we know what we can start with. And then uh this is I re I reached out and I I haven't found anything like this anywhere. Um but I'm trying to set a standard for the churches to come to the table. Um, I don't know how to deal, what is it? Misogynist, anthroynist, is that the term? And I don't know how to deal with people that have a fear for men. You know, uh, all of a sudden, if you get 20 men together, 50 men, well, where is the limit of fear? All of a sudden, the fear level should go up. Uh, I I can't I don't know how to deal with fear. uh other than these are we're not looking we I keep saying we're not looking to be a prison release place or uh or a halfway house or we're trying to help young kids with an a senior to help them um just learn life and work skills. Um there is paid staff and there is metrics and I even had a slide on some of the metrics we proposed and with that I don't know what else is there. Was there any other questions?

I think we're in good shape Mr. Neighbors and sincerely thank you. I know that this hasn't been easy and appreciate you being here tonight and going through this process.

Okay, Commissioner Torres, am I going to mess up again? Probably. All right. Um, with that now we'll bring this to a close and the item is officially in front of the commission and so we have two specific actions. One, we are a recommending body to city council and that is for the reszone. Then the second is we are the decision-making body for the conditional use permit. Um, so C24-18 the reszone. Why don't we start with that? Mr. Chair,

Mr. Seahhob, I would like to make a motion that we propose a Oh, I might get this wrong. That that we recommend approval to um city council on C24-18, which is the reason with the terms based on the terms and conditions. Perfect. Thank you, Commissioner. See how do I have a second? Not all at once. Mr. Chair, I'll second. Commissioner Stallings, thank you for the second. Okay, now we get to have a discussion. Is there a discussion? Mr. Chair,

Commissioner Se, I think the reason is appropriate. I mean, if you spend any time or have spent any time on coal, we see higher density um in that area. And so, I am in support of the reszone change, hence my motion. Okay. Any other discussion? I don't have anything to add, but I agree with Commissioner Sea. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Stallings. Mr. Chair, Commissioner Moore,

agree with the motion. I think for this for similar reasons to the previous application, it's an appropriate location. You've got R2 directly to the west, MX1 directly to the north. You're near a um activity center or neighborhood activity center. I think for all of those reasons, R2 makes a ton of sense. And it serves as a transitional zone between the R2 and the MX1 and the R1C. that's to the south and the south west as well. So I think it's an appropriate use for this location in addition to all the transit facilities and things like that. The availability of a greater density makes sense in this particular location as well.

Thank you, Commissioner Moore. Okay. Uh any other discussion? Are we good to go? Roll. Anything to add? Okay. I don't know that I have much to add either. I think I'm in support of the Reszone. I I would love to have seen the MX. I would love to have seen a little commercial because I think that that neighborhood activity center thing matters is what we're trying to make happen in our comprehensive plan. U but I understand the logic and I also know that hey R2 is permitted and so there's and high under specifically higher density which is what you're applying for. So not much I can do there. Okay. Um, will the clerk please call the role?

Danley, I. Moore, I. Deha. I. Torres. I. Stalling. Hi, Stefanskick. Hi. All in favor? Motion carries.

Okay. Thank you. Um, moving on to the CUP. So this is specifically re referencing the co-housing application component of this and we are the deciding body and we have to satisfy if you're just as a reminder the uh the specific requirements of our code and state law which are specifically defined um in the six items. Mr. Chair, Commissioner Sehawk,

I'm on a roll tonight. So, I am going to uh I I'm going to make a motion that we deny CUP24-46. Okay. I have a motion to deny by Commissioner Seahawk. Do I have a second? Second. I have a second by Commissioner Torres. Is there discussion?

Yes, Mr. Chair. Um I struggled with the EU as I don't think that we have sufficient information on the co-housing services provided and associated program to fully address the following criteria under the CUP and that specifically is the proposed use will not create any material negative impacts to uses in the surrounding area or any material negative impacts will be mitigated to them maximum extent practable and the public benefits the proposed use outweigh any material negative impacts of the proposed use that cannot be mitigated. I would be in full support of such a proposal if we had more information. It is I had a lot of questions that weren't answered and you know we all read through um the packet which included lots of comments um and recordings of the neighborhood meeting as well as the transcript. Um, but really at the end of the day, this is what's really troubled me is I personally don't feel like we have sufficient or at least under my lens, I don't feel like there's sufficient information to fully address this particular DUP criteria.

Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Se. Further discussion.

Mr. Chair, Commissioner, sorry. Um, I've struggled with this one all week. I agree with everything Commissioner Sea said. I have spent a lot of time thinking about this one since we got our packets last week and since we got the late correspondence. You know, I want to love this project. Um I'm a big fan of Yigby or Yes and God back God's backyard projects. I work every day trying to find housing for people who are um at lower incomes and I'm very well aware that there is a very large lack of um felon friendly housing in the state of Idaho. And Idaho, if you're not aware, incarcerates a per capita a larger share of its population than anywhere else in the world. Um, but as I've thought about this throughout the week, throughout this hearing today, listening to the testimony, listening to the applicant, listening to staff, there's a voice in my in the back of my head that's just getting louder and louder and louder. And I just I have concerns about it very much along the lines of what Commissioner Sea said that we just don't have enough details for me to feel comfortable approving this. I can't believe I'm saying this. I'm Mr. Housing up here. I I very rarely meet a mixeduse uh you know housing project that I don't like but I think we are tasked at this dis with using our judgment to interpret the code and determine whether things are are are good uses of that code and follow the goals of that code. And while I want to love this project, if you came back to us with a similar project that was more fleshed out, I I I might vote for it. I have to listen to that that that voice in the back of my head. And so I will not be supporting the uh the c. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Torres. Further discussion? Uh Chair Commissioner Stfansk.

Um yeah, this this is a complicated one and I want to thank everyone who came to testified. um all the letters that were written. Um and I I want to echo some of the testimony that that that was uh stated here and most of the ones that were around the aspects of compassion for our fellow uh citizens, the folks that um are living in our communities. Um there is a need for this housing and this type of housing is unique and it's something that we need to experiment with and we need to figure out how we can fill some of the niches in the housing gap that we have in our communities. Um and there is still things a lot of things that need to be figured out in in this. um the things that are listed in the decisions that we're making here um are are clearer to me maybe than other uh commissioners here. Um and the co-housing piece as I read in um uh in our planning documents and things like that. That seems clear to me. I'm familiar with university housing and it seems very similar to that. maybe different individuals would maybe fall into that category, but um a college student would probably fall within this category too. So I think of right many folks here as we're talking about we're thinking of folks that have a criminal record in this and I would encourage you to think of folks that maybe don't have a criminal record in this that might use this housing. Right? So I'd open open our minds to that and because it is unique. Yes, there will probably be some challenges and things but I think we have to make some um some steps forward and we need to try some things. Um, and you know, and I and I know how challenging it can be for an

individual, um, you know, who is struggling and that they potentially experience homelessness and the challenge of getting rehoused after not having housing is so so challenging. and to offer this and this opportunity for an individual who, you know, has a job right there. They do pay for this housing in according to the plan. Um, and try to find and give them opportunities for next steps. Um, uh, I I I think we need more types of housing like this. So, I will not support this motion to deny it. Um, I would be in support of this if that was the motion.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Stalin.

Um, I just, you know, this is a remark. It hits close to home. Uh, the intent and using a worship space in this way is remarkable. I do have concerns that it's a doesn't have proof of concept yet. By your own testimony, you couldn't find a similar concept that's had success. Um, I'm on both sides of this. This one's probably the hardest one I've seen. I love the food pantry. I like that it's housing for men. I think housing for men that are in that in a risky situation is so almost impossible. Um, and I like that it was adapt the thought it's adaptable. Like we could move into something else, but we want to start here and move towards something. I apologize for getting emotional. Uh, I would love to see this proof of concept come to fruition and have more worship agencies follow this lead and follow this model, but I really hear the neighborhood concerns and yeah, I unfortunately I am I'm going to support the motion to deny. Um, but I really appreciate this publication and I think with a little bit more um organization and transparency, uh, this would be a really remarkable project. Apologize.

Don't apologize. It's not always easy. Commissioner Moore,

Mr. Mr. Chair. Um, so I am not going to be in support of the motion and I think the the main reason I'm struggling to find a requirement specifically for us to delve so deeply into the operations of this facility and I I know there's there's a certain level of health safety health safety and welfare um that I think is generally governed by um just kind of state and federal laws um just like any multif family development would be you know a multif family development would not be under such scrutiny and I don't see you know a a requirement for you know under the definition of co-housing under some of the specific standards a requirement for such scrutiny um in fact I mean the definition itself is is pretty is pretty reigned in to to a great extent once you kind of remove recovery residence is not applicable remove boarding house is not applicable which I think we can agree that that's the case it sort of it does fall into this co-housing piece and while co-housing is you know also kind of that four bedroomedroom four bath style deal that you you see around BSU um it can also fall into, you know, so for example, this use includes but is not limited to single room occupancy facilities, student housing, and both nonprofit and for-profit housing cooperatives. So it can fall into this use specifically. And so I for this reason, you know, it it's on the transit corridor. It's for all the reasons that I think the R2 zone is applicable here. I think that this use is applicable as

well. So you're you're you have access to transit. You have access to, you know, to retail, you have access within walking distance to all of these things. And I think that that's what what makes me in support of this particular motion for this particular use here.

Commissioner Stfans, can I I don't know that I was clear on where you are on this. I think I heard you say that you were against the motion and the motion is to deny. Is that what I heard you say? So, you're in favor. So, you and Commissioner Moore are aligned. Okay. Just making sure. Tough, right?

Sometimes our free taco that we get for dinner doesn't always get us there in the emotions like this. Okay. Um, this is a doozy of an application because you're not a halfway house. They're not a recovery center. You require rent. So, you are very much like an apartment complex. But you've also gone on record courageously to say that we're not going to deny folks as long as they pass our standards, right? Who might be on parole, who might be coming off and being in recovery, or who might even be a registered sex offender. From my vantage point, the problem I have is you have up to a hundred bedrooms. And if 10% of the units fall in any one of those categories, in my opinion, we're we have a de facto separate use that is also similar to other parts of our code. And now you're a different animal and we have different requirements. And because I don't have that written anywhere on a cap, a maximum, something like that, I don't have the determination on if there's if things are being mitigated in the right way, which is the fundamental question that we have to ask about a conditional use permit. However, I don't think we should deny you. What I do think we should do is defer you if you are up for it. But what I would ask of you if you are up for it and assuming the commission is up for it, if we do did defer you, the problem I have is this has a fair amount of work to do still to get over the finish line. Okay? I can't just tell you one thing. And Lord help me, I can't believe I'm going to say this again, but

I'm going to. security plan, operation plan because of what you are admitting again courageously what you're allowing to do which is great and necessary. One of my personal right now cultural heroes is Scott Galloway. I guarantee you you know that name because he is fighting for what you are that men are being left behind and lost in this country. I commend you up and down for that. I would point to you in our late correspondent's direction and it was from our very first person who testified tonight because in her letter she gives very specific recommendations on what it would take for this application to be approved specifically. I'm not going to read all of them but there's about 11 or 12 or whatever it is a firm maximum cap occupancy cap and prohibition on exceeding it. Right. List that. What does that look like? 247 on-site management when residents are present. That's a question I would have you know you list that you're going to have on-site presence there, but what does that look like? You know, over time, multiple people. And part of my concern is like you even said this and I I wrote this as a quote that sometimes people need to be handed a firmer hand. What does that mean? That's security, right? I think that's an admission that, you know, there's going to be times when a firmer hand is needed, understandably so. What does it look like? Because this isn't the same as an apartment complex by your own admission. So, from my vantage point, I don't think we should deny it. I don't want to deny it, but I also think we're far enough away from approving it that I'm I'm I'm leaning that way. But I also would love to give you the opportunity to get some of those

report type things done. Demonstrate to not only us but the folks in this room, this is how we're going to handle it. And I'll last thing is because in our applica staff report, the letter from your TAO, I think it is, right? There are specific things about mitigation in there. None of it has to do with the majority of what we heard from the letters, which has to do with this notion of security and neighborhood and exactly what Commissioner Seha pointed out with respect to the conditional use permit. So that's where I would encourage you to go again, but that's if you're willing. I don't know if that's something that you want to do or again, we have to allow that. That's a lot. I apologize, but I also know I can see that that you I could be a tying vote here. So,

Mr. Chair, question. Um, so the the motion before us um is is to uh deny the cup. We can deny the CU. They can make revisions and come back to us again, right? They would they would likely appeal. I mean there's that there's there's other they can appeal Mr. Chair. Let's let's let Crystal weigh in here. Yes, they could appeal but it would be one year before they could come back because of the project. Right. So there's a minimum one year wait time before coming back.

If they don't if they're awarded the appeal if they wanted to come back under different circumstances but under the same application, right? but in front of us for CUP. Mr. Chair, if the commission denies this this evening, it would be one year before they could come back in and apply. There you go.

So, Mr. Chair and um Crystal, I apologize. I have not been lucky enough to be part of a hearing, an application where we have deferred and given them as long as they need to make necessary um changes, improvements um on an application. It's not something that we do very often because we we're trying to ensure that we get applicants through the process and we make the progress that that that we want to. But it is an option or we can deny it. So those are those are the things and and for my man right now it's just a discussion on are we too far away? You two made the motions, I think, right? Or Taurus. Um, are we too far away? Is there can we come back in a month and say, "Hey, this is the progress we have. Here's some of the things that are codified." That's that's where I'm throwing a huge grenade into this. I know,

Mr. Chair. I think that would be my question is if we defer it, is there flexibility as far as when it comes back before us or do they still have to wait the year? Um,

no, they could we can we can pick a time, an agreeable time, right? And they could come back um as soon as that time affords it and there's an opening on our docket and present uh the changes that are made between now and then. And it would be no different than where we are right now. We would just have more information to weigh in on. We would have to open up the hearing. we'd have to allow the public to weigh in on what is being proposed. Um, you know, but nevertheless, that's where we would be.

Mr. Chair, I'm not opposed to deferring, but I will say to the applicant, like there is, in my opinion, a lot of work to do. Um, and as uh Mr. or our chairman indicated like you know operations wise or like the safety whatever we need we need a little more detail at least I feel like we need a little more detail in order to answer one of those main criteria points under the conditional use permit according to our modern zoning code um and working with the neighborhood right so Mr. Chair M Trist

I'm also open to deferring um I don't know if the best way forward here is for commissioner sea and I to withdraw the motion or if it's for you to vote to deny it and we deadlock and then we discuss the next step. I don't know what the best procedure is here but I'm open to whichever direction we need to go. Staff have a preference one way or the other. Um then in that case I I I guess I would suggest to the p the motioner to withdraw if if you're open to deferral. Before you do that though, I want to make sure and ask again, are you open to a deferral?

I I am open to a deferral. I I want to do this right. Um, I haven't found anything that I can mirror out there in the country. I I I think I think the church is trying to pave new ground. Um, I when I on the quote that you quoted me, uh, there are just some young men that don't know discipline. I wasn't saying they were safety hazard and I'm open to a limit on anybody. Um, you know, I'm I'm open to the limit. I think the other one that spoke, "Am I open to that?" And I said, "Yeah, I'm open to that." That's not our target, right?

Our our target isn't those out of prison or whatever. So, that's fair. At this point, I think you've answered my question, which is the answer, I think, is yes. So, do we need to pick a particular date, Crystal, or we do you want to make it indefinite and the applicant can come back when they're ready to go? Okay. So, then we can do that. So, my only suggestion on the deferral, whoever wants to make it, if you come on and make it, Commissioner say, you just have to pull back. Why don't we go ahead and do that? Mr. Chair, I I'm going to retract my motion to deny um CU24-46.

Okay. And the seconders I will second if it's necessary. Okay. Just to make sure. Um I just to add particular topics that they should focus on, particular areas. That's what I think the direction would be helpful. And I know that I'm confident too that that staff will be able to help guide that as well. So, Mr. Chair, there is a section of code that requires that this body take action within 60 days from the from today unless applicant agrees to a deferral for a longer period of time.

Okay. I So, do what do we need? Just a 60-day a declaration in the deferral that we take this item up within 60 days. No, that the decision is made within 60 days. So I might explore with the applicant if they are willing to agree to the fact that this might take longer than 60 days. Right. Okay. That fair. You you understand that? Okay. Okay. Oh, good. You want to take a crap? Come on.

I can't make the motion. I get to cover I get to cover the Yeah. Okay. I make a motion to defer C24-46 for no less than 60 days. I don't even think that. Yeah. Oh, extend it. Sorry. Sorry. Uh for at least 60 days. Crystal, Mr. Chair, I make a motion to defer defer the item. Okay, fine. I might recommend making a motion to defer understanding that the applicant has agreed that that next hearing may be longer than 60 days. Okay. Something along those lines. Want to try it again?

Yeah. All right. Mr. Chair, I'd like to make a motion to defer CP24-46. As long as the applicant agrees or understands understands that 60 they It might take longer. It might take longer than 60 days, I think. There we go. Okay, that works. So, we have a second. Commissioner Torres. All right. Any discussion? Hearing none, would the clerk please call the role? Yes. Yes. Commissioner, I'm sorry. Did you say Yeah. Yes. Yes. Moore? Yes. Seha? Yes. Torres? Yes. Stallings?

Yes. Stfans? Yes. All in favor? Motion carries. Thank you all. Appreciate your patience.