City Council - Regular Meeting

10:14 – 13:01•JHJimmy Hallyburton

Matt and Mary, just a couple of comments. First, I want to say congratulations to all the new folks sitting on this council. It's a really big deal. And I want to say congratulations to our two council leads who finished last year's program and now are kind of leading this way through the second one. It was really interesting to sit through your meeting as a former firefighter and to listen and learn from you all. about what you were working on. And then just a few months later to see our Boise foothills catch on fire and a huge fire in Spokane that burned so many homes. And it was also such a

33:45 – 34:22•JHJimmy Hallyburton

Madam Mayor? I'll kick us off here. See if there's any more. I'm going to see it up first. Thank you for the effort to convert the Utah to access to emergency and pedestrian only. I think that was one of the major consideration or concerns that I had really kind of pushing a lot of that traffic into that neighborhood. But also being able to keep it open for pedestrian activity, I think, is great for everybody in the area. A couple questions about, so the widening Gardner Lane, can you explain to me sort of the addition of that and the reasoning behind it for the project?

35:19 – 35:47•JHJimmy Hallyburton

So for that, we're just essentially widening to create some of that extra capacity. I think it's kind of mentioned on the side column there that there's potentially some vertical deflection devices that are going to be put in there or speed bumps. With the widening of the road, is there addition of sidewalks or is there addition to any sort of, you know, off street pedestrian pathways? What is the widening of the road help solve as far as like safety concerns for some of the folks that are moving around in that area?

38:09•JHJimmy Hallyburton

Okay. Thank you for that answer. That's very helpful.

38:17 – 38:36•KCKathy Corless

Madam Mayor, Becky, I'm sorry you just sat down, but I think maybe I just want to make sure that I'm clear on what this adding in that I heard you correctly. So with this widening on Gardner, this is a five foot lane that will have delineators on what would be the east side of Gardner from state.

39:00 – 39:13•KCKathy Corless

Great. Thank you. One other question too, in regards to the speed bumps or humps for Gardner and Utahna, is this, can you describe where they're going to be at on Utahna?

40:17•KCKathy Corless

Great. So those will be coming, but they're not selected at this time and they'll be in coordination.

51:58 – 52:38•JHJimmy Hallyburton

All right, Ann. Thank you. I will have them bring up the, again, why they aren't going straight out. They brought that up in the last meeting, but I'll ask that you bring that up again so that we can make sure that we have that conversation. I'm guessing since you live there and you've done this quite a few times, you've driven up Gardner and then turned on to Utahna left or right? Yes. So when you're driving up there and you're turning left or right, is there a stop sign at that intersection or is there no stop sign? It's kind of one of those kind of old country roads where, yeah, take your chance. Have you ran into any issues with people with that being a problem?

52:41 – 53:20•JHJimmy Hallyburton

Not recently. Do you think that when there's additional traffic that's coming out that you'll see increased issues with that? Okay. Um, any other specific issues that you're worried about with, um, with Utah, knowing that we've got, um, potentially some, actually, let me rephrase that. So a couple of the things that they're trying to do to address some of the speeding issues would be to put on the speed bumps, um, on the street. Is that something that you think would be helpful? Okay, you think that would be helpful right now? Yes. Okay.

53:21 – 53:36•JHJimmy Hallyburton

Okay, great. All right. Any other thing that you've seen that you think would be helpful as far as if it did go through and there was going to be folks living there and using these streets that you would help address, that would help address some of those safety concerns?

59:13 – 1:00:05•JHJimmy Hallyburton

I do have a question. Not for our stuff, but I don't know if we have ACHD online on this one or not. All right. Maybe we'll shoot for a question for staff. So You may not be able to answer this, but I'm just going to throw it out there anyway. So we've got an intersection up there at Gardner and Utahna that certainly is going to have more traffic. Somebody is going to be going that direction. We don't know how many, but we can assume that there's going to be people that are going that direction. Right now, there's no stop sign at that intersection. So if people are leaving, they could just be

1:00:38•JHJimmy Hallyburton

Madam Mayor, I'd ask that the applicant, if they know anything about conversations with that stop sign, that they address it or lack thereof.

1:05:01•LWLuci Willits

Thank you. Deb, did I hear you answer the question about why there wasn't more traffic being diverted to State Street? I just want to make sure that one of those concerns was directly answered.

1:06:14 – 1:06:45•JHJimmy Hallyburton

I think that we've talked about this before, but I'm just going to see if you can remind me of the timeline a little bit. So in 2020, I had the conversation with ITD, had currently proposed to have everybody exit out onto the street, and they said, nope, it doesn't meet the standards. At that point, I think afterward is when the developer then purchased the two additional lots so that there could be some other access points. So you ended up purchasing those after ITD said, no, you can't go down onto State Street. Is that correct?

1:06:50 – 1:07:11•JHJimmy Hallyburton

So for that period of time between when you built or before, Between when you went to ITD and then you purchased those lots, was it just an undeveloped lot? ITD says there's no way to access this lot if it changes from anything from a nursery. I'm trying to figure out how you wouldn't have access to your lot if at that point it was essentially landlocked.

1:09:28•JHJimmy Hallyburton

Great. Yep. I appreciate the extra context.

1:09:34•JHJimmy Hallyburton

Oh, I'm sure that you tried pretty hard to get it to have a direct access onto State Street there.

1:09:45 – 1:10:20•JHJimmy Hallyburton

A couple of other questions that might be able to answer them, but feel free to stay up. So just a little bit on some of the phasing. So when phase one goes in, the widening project will have already taken place, including sort of that, what we're calling a protected pedestrian and bicycle sort of walkway. So that'll be done in phase one. And then some of the other traffic palming that you have on here, the speed humps on Gardner and Utahna, what phase for those ones do we know?

1:10:30•JHJimmy Hallyburton

Okay, great. I think those are all the questions I got.

1:10:53•KCKathy Corless

Madam Mayor, do we need a motion on the table before discussion?

1:11:08 – 1:11:26•KCKathy Corless

Okay, I'll go ahead. Well, I struggle with this one. I'd rather have the discussion first, but I guess I'll go ahead and put this forward is that Madam Mayor, I vote, make a motion to approve CAR 2500003 at 9744 State Street, a rezone of approximately 8.65 acres from R1A to R2. Second. Second.

1:11:50•JHJimmy Hallyburton

Madam Mayor, just before that discussion begins, since there's two different things here, maybe we just include the discussion for both. Oh, that's fine.

1:11:57 – 1:13:41•KCKathy Corless

Yeah. Mayor Mrakas, A man mayor Council, thank you, I appreciate this coming back before us as we mentioned last time, and I recall this in April. Mayor Mrakas, The design of the subdivision is it's a great design and we provide some single family homes, which we need some multifamily. Mayor Mrakas, For me, the struggle has always been on the utahna being such an unapproved road. and the traffic that it would create there. No sidewalks, no lanes, and the width is very narrow. With this new design, we're removing that access from Utana Road and making that an emergency access, and I think a bik

1:13:44 – 1:18:01•JHJimmy Hallyburton

Madam Mayor, I appreciate the motion. I appreciate the things that the developer has done to address some of the traffic safety issues. I still have some concerns there, but I think a lot of the primary concerns I think that you've addressed to the best of your ability and a lot of that really driven by input that we've heard from folks who've come and testified and who emailed before the meetings. I do think that the closure of the exit straight onto Utahna will be a major improvement and will also provide some greater access for folks who are walking or riding through the area. I do think th

1:18:06 – 1:19:25•LWLuci Willits

Madam Mayor, first of all, thank you for coming. you know, we actually have blue skies, so you could be outside. So I appreciate you coming inside to give your testimony. And I'm sure that some of the detective work that you did was in the smoke. So thank you. It's always amazing to me to see how much Boiseans love their city. It is inspiring to me. It's my most favorite part of being on council is just seeing folks that will take their time to talk about the place they love and things that they want changed, things that they like and things that they want to improve. I am gonna support the mo

1:19:28 – 1:19:49•LWLuci Willits

They're doing the best they can, but this system is, At most inefficient and at worst Kafkaesque, it has got to change. And I'm really tired of telling people to go talk to somebody else when they're coming to us with their concerns.

1:23:04 – 1:23:18•KCKathy Corless

Madam Mayor, I make a motion to approve the Bonnie Brooks subdivision, SUB 2500012, subdivision 00012 at 9744 State Street.